Ann's Mega Dub

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Hypocrisy

Al Gore.

What a weakling and an embarrassment.

Those 'happy endings' that weren't so happy for the women he was harassing.

I just never found Al Gore to be honest or believable.

To me this is perfectly in keeping with everything Al Gore-ish:

‏ @hale_razor

Al Gore wishes you a happy #EarthDay from his $9 million mansion with no solar panels and 6 fireplaces bought with money from Qatari oil.

635 replies10,222 retweets11,653 likes

What a hypocrite.

Or what an Al Gore.

It's basically the same thing at this point.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, April 25, 2017. Chaos and violence continue, tensions simmer between Iraq and Turkey, Chelsea Clinton toys with a political run, and much more.

Let's start with politics.

‏ @ladyhawkerfinds

Donald Trump doesn't know where Crimea, Syria, Iraq or the White House is. 
This is his World Map 
#100DaysOfShame

2 replies14 retweets27 likes

She knows where Iraq is.

She knows.

So clearly she must be Tweeting about it, right?

Wrong.

Scroll through day after day and find nothing.

But she thinks she's better than Donald Trump because she knows where Iraq is.

She knows where Iraq is and yet she chooses to ignore it.

March for science, march against Donald Trump, et al -- she can do that.

She just can't object to the ongoing Iraq War.

But don't worry, when she feels the need to use Iraq as a political football again, she will.

Otherwise, she doesn't give a damn.

Day after day, she doesn't give a damn.

Turkey has again bombed Iraq.

‏Verified account @TelegraphNews

Turkey says it bombed Kurdish terrorists in Syria and Iraq but US Kurdish allies say they were hit telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/2…

10 retweets6 likes

The Turkish government always says that -- that it killed terrorists.

Then reality comes along.

And it turns out to be, for example, farmers and sheep.

But for a news cycle or two, the Turkish government gets to pretend otherwise.

And this bombing?

‏Verified account @AFP

#BREAKING Turkish strike in Iraq kills six Kurdish security forces: official

13 replies139 retweets55 likes

AL JAZEERA notes the Turkish government's official statement:

The targets were hit to prevent the PKK from sending "terrorists, arms, ammunition and explosives to Turkey," the statement said, adding that the operation was conducted "within the scope of the international law".

AFP adds:

Zardasht Shingali, a spokesman for the YBS [Yazidi Protection Units], said the strikes lasted three hours and hit five of his group's positions in the area.
He told AFP that the targets included a radio station, a position in the strategic Shilo Valley west of the mountain and another in the town of Sinuni, which lies at the foot of the mountain's northern flank.

‏Verified account @Reuters

Five Iraqi Peshmerga fighters killed by mistake in raid on PKK: Kurdish sources 

9 replies63 retweets34 likes

By mistake?

There have been a lot of 'mistakes.' And the Iraqi government has objected repeatedly to Turkey bombing Iraq.

NRT reports:

The Iraqi Parliament’s deputy speaker denounced the Turkish air raids in Sinjar saying the airstrikes have no “justification.”

“I call upon the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to summon the Turkish ambassador to condemn the attacks,” Deputy Speaker Aram Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement on Tuesday (April 25).

The deputy speaker added that air raids by the Turkish government are a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, international agreements, as well as an agreement between neighboring countries.

That's only one statement from a government official.

Do the statements mean anything?

Some don't think so.

#BREAKING
#Iraqi MFA: #Turkish airstrikes in #Sinjar mountain is violations of Iraq's sovereignty. #Shingal

3 replies12 retweets3 likes

#Iraqi MFA: #Turkish airstrikes will not bring "Peace", will complicate and destabilize the area.

1 reply2 retweets

Replying to @BarzanSadiq

is that all he has to say?
how about sending their (few) jets to defend Iraqi airspace?

LIKE1

5:18 AM - 25 Apr 2017

1 reply1 like

Replying to @Tommy_Gisi @BarzanSadiq

It's all lip service, Iraq won't do anything to stop 

Meanwhile, the same political problems remain in Iraq, the ones that led Barack Obama to insist June 19, 2014 that the only solution to the crises was a political solution.

Iraq will be holding elections soon.

‏ @iraqi_day

The vote for the IHEC came down to the wire. 
#Iraqi parliament members attended.
not convinced 
convinced
didnt voted 

Iraqi Day @iraqi_day

#BREAKING
#Iraq parliament voted "not convinced" on the chairman of Independent High Electoral Commission answers.
Next step is sacking them 

On the political front in the US, Chelsea Clinton is toying with running for public office.

‏ @liberalism_txt

Your father starved 576 thousand children in Iraq to death 

Chelsea ClintonVerified account @ChelseaClinton

Replying to @TeriJoDowns

I'm so sorry. I miss my grandma every day and so wish she could have met her great-grandchildren.

25 replies535 retweets1,331 likes

‏Verified account @AbbyMartin

It's not "anti-American" to be opposed to AUMF & Afghanistan war. Should've protested mom's Iraq war vote & dad's sanctions that killed 500k

Chelsea ClintonVerified account @ChelseaClinton

Replying to @BernPress

Actually, it was more of an anti-American protest less than a month after 9/11. I joined real anti-war protests in 2003.

26 replies338 retweets806 likes

New content at THIRD:

The following community sites updated:

Ruth's Report

And now we know

SICKOFITRADLZ

No standards

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Ugh, Bruce

Trina's Kitchen

The empty suit returns briefly to Chicago

Mikey Likes It!

The corruption

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

ha ha

Like Maria Said Paz

She's a joke

Sunday, April 23, 2017

That family is criminal

T.A. Frank (Vanity Fair) weighs in on the entitlement child Chelsea Clinton:

Perhaps the best way to start is by revisiting some of Chelsea’s major post-2008 forays into the public eye. Starting in 2012, she began to allow glossy magazines to profile her, and she picked up speed in the years that followed. The results were all friendly in aim, and yet the picture that kept emerging from the growing pile of Chelsea quotations was that of a person accustomed to courtiers nodding their heads raptly. Here are Chelsea’s thoughts on returning to red meat in her diet: “I’m a big believer in listening to my body’s cravings.” On her time in the “fiercely meritocratic” workplace of Wall Street: “I was curious if I could care about [money] on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t.” On her precocity: “They told me that my father had learned to read when he was three. So, of course, I thought I had to too. The first thing I learned to read was the newspaper.” Take that, Click, Clack, Moo.

What do we have to do to be done with the Clintons?

Bill, Hillary and Chelsea, just go away already.

The parents have inflicted enough harm on America.

Bill 'proved' he was presidential by executing an African-American man Ricky Ray Rector who was mentally disabled.

Hillary 'proved' she as presidential by supporting the Iraq War.

The Clintons are bullies whose actions threaten the well being of so many.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, April 21, 2017.

We're going to have to deal nonsense right off the bat.

‏Verified account @mtracey

118 replies161 retweets446 likes

So some balding, pasty bitch is going to tell us all what to do based on her vaginal hiccups and anal seizures?

No f**king way.

Feminism is not Leah Balding McElrath's personal toy.

Feminism is a movement.

Feminism is about equality.

It's not about specialism.

I'm sick to f**k of trash like that bald idiot insisting Hillary was the most qualified candidate for president ever.

In 2007 and 2008 (long before I supported her), I would hear people scoff at the idea that she even had qualifications.

I would defend her.

And you can say she was qualified.

But you can't lie that she was the most qualified.

And I'm sorry Baldy McElrath if that bit of truth ripped off a butterfly's wing in some alternate universe. (Where your oversized forehead is, no doubt, worshiped).

As Ann noted earlier this week ("Hillary was not more qualified than Al Gore, JFK or LBJ"), we already imploded that myth at THIRD with "Hillary was not 'the most qualified candidate ever..." where we noted how LBJ, JFK and Al Gore were all more qualified than Hillary.

Maybe were she running for talk show host, she'd be the most qualified?

Maybe not.

But for President of the United States?

I struggled to list meaningful credits she possessed in 2008 in exchanges with cab drivers.

Because she really doesn't have any.

She had one complete term as a senator and two years of a second one when she became Secretary of State. Without even evaluating those two positions in terms of any accomplishments, that's really not that impressive.

First Lady doesn't count.

Now I counted it in 2008.

But I go by how people treat things.

Hillary doesn't think First Lady matters as evidenced by her sexist announcement that, were she elected, Bill would be over the economy.

He wouldn't, she assured us in this last run, be planning state dinners or picking out china.

Because it's too much to expect a male spouse of a president to do what we'd expect a woman to do?

Hillary's always been a troubling sort of feminist.

No, 2016 Hillary insisted, she, as president, would do that herself.

That's not feminism.

Nor is it practical.

Hillary was not the most qualified.

She was probably somewhere in the middle.

But that may be generous.

It's interesting that no one can criticize Hillary according to the balding "human rights activist" (means she supports LGBT rights, she doesn't speak out in favor of those destroyed by US wars), but she can -- and has -- slammed Jill Stein.

Slamming Jill Stein is okay?

That's a funny sort of feminism.

Again, as with Hillary, I judge people by the standards they apply to others.

Hillary Clinton was a lousy candidate.

Matthew Yglesias -- who I have no reason to defend now or ever -- calling Hillary "a weak candidate" does not, as Balding Leah McElrath insists, "commit psychological violence against women/girls."

To allow this bitch to get away with this is to destroy free speech.

She's a liar and she's a loon.

Hillary was an awful candidate, not weak, awful.

And feminism is about telling the truth.

Telling the truth about men, about women, about the whole system.

If Hillary's a lousy candidate -- and she was -- then you say so.

And it's not violence against anyone.

But a hagged old balding bitch wants to tell us that we can't speak freely and wants to presume that women and girls can't handle truth?

That we're too delicate for public discourse?

A presidential election is not a cover of 16 MAGAZINE.

Drop the hysteria.

But if she did, people could speak honestly and that's what Leah really fears.

Hillary was a lousy candidate.

In 2008, she did know how to campaign.

She lost it.

In 2016, she lost it.

And she was not the most qualified ever.

She wasn't even the most qualified in the Democratic primary.

"She persisted" is what Leah calls her Twitter feed.

Having read it, I think Leah should retitle it "She farted."

Or, possibly, she'd prefer "She quifed."

She's trying to blackmail people into silence. That's not feminism.

Let's reset with Tori.

‏Verified account @cnni

This four-year-old girl doesn't even flinch at gunfire -- trapped in Mosul, Iraq, she's never known anything but war cnn.it/2pLFW9H

3 replies67 retweets44 likes

That's a reality.

It's a reality that 'human rights activists' (especially those who are Temple Love Slaves for War Hawk Hillary) will never face.

14 years and still going.

The Iraq War.

When does it end?

Molly Hennessy-Fiske and W.J. Hennigan (LOS ANGELES TIMES) report:

It also appears that the number of civilian casualties has risen in recent months as combat has shifted to densely populated west Mosul and the coalition has undertaken the heaviest bombing since the war began almost three years ago.
[. . .]
Raed Mohammed Hasan, 30, said he lost neighbors and relatives, including his 11-month-old daughter, Rania, in an airstrike in east Mosul on Jan. 21. He and other residents say 11 civilians died in that strike, which occurred during the months-long battle to oust Islamic State from Iraq’s second-largest city. Coalition records show a strike was carried out in Mosul that day, but officials say it is not being investigated for civilian deaths.

The report also contains numerous photos by Marcus Yam.

Day 185 of The Mosul Slog.

It never ends.

And it never ends because solutions are not sought.

Nouri al-Maliki was the mid-wife to the Islamic State.

His actions allowed them to rise.

That's on Bully Boy Bush and the Congress of the United States who all agreed to benchmarks for Iraq, remember that?

Congress was going to cut off support if Iraq did not show progress.

Congress was as full of it as was Bully Boy Bush (Democrats controlled both houses them).

But so was Nouri. He agreed to those 2007 benchmarks.

One of which was political reconciliation.

But he never pursued it, he never enacted it.

And then Barack comes along.

He doesn't make Nouri stop persecuting the Sunnis.

He doesn't demand that Nouri keep the reconciliation promise.

In fact, when Nouri loses the 2010 election (to Ayad Allawi), Barack goes out of his way to overturn the elections results (via the US-brokered Erbil Agreement) and give Nouri a second term that the Iraqi voters did not want.

And Nouri only got worse.

There is still no political reconciliation in Iraq.

And stop pretending that the US government has no power.

They've always had power.

And that has nothing to do with troops or war.

It has to do with Iraq's needs.

Currently, the Iraqi government defines needs as: More weapons.

And the US government's response: To whip it out on request, no conditions.

IANS reports, "The US State Department has approved arms sales worth $295 million to Iraq, the Pentagon confirmed."

There's a thing called "the diplomatic toolbox."

John Kerry couldn't find it because he was too busy, as Secretary of State, playing toy solider.

But now Donald Trump is in the White House and yet another administration will fork over everything to the Iraqi government (that the US installed and keeps in power) without any conditions.

Let's stop pretending that the never-ending Iraq War is seen as 'tragic' or even 'problematic' by the US government.

It doesn't want it to end.

If it did, it would follow textbook examples of diplomacy.

Three administration, over 14 years, and the war continues?

That's obviously the intent and the plan.

We're going to have to wrap up. Sorry so much was spent on an idiot but we cannot allow anyone to dictate what we can and cannot say.

The following community sites updated:

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

beyond stupid

11 hours ago

Like Maria Said Paz

A Maddow can't change her spots

11 hours ago