Ann's Mega Dub

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

O'Shae Sibley -- just another African-American killed for the 'crime' of living

From an hour or so ago, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Alito Does Not Work For Ma Bell"

Update to yesterday's "Sorry, I'm ok with the death penality for this one," The New York Post reports on the victim O’Shae Sibley:

Sibley, who moved to New York City three years ago to pursue a career in the arts, was a dancer and choreographer who took part in the Ailey Extension program, the studio said.

“The Ailey organization mourns the tragic death of O’Shae Sibley, who was a cherished and devoted participant in our Ailey Extension program of dance classes,” the studio said in a statement.

“O’Shae had incredible energy in the studio and was loved by instructors and fellow students. He recently shone during a special demonstration of West African dance at The Ailey Spirit Gala,” the statement said. “We are shocked and heartbroken that O’Shae’s life has been taken by senseless violence, and extend our sincere condolences to his family and loved ones.”

His aunt Tondra Sibley told Gothamist that her nephew was a “gentle spirit” who relocated to the Big Apple from his native Philadelphia in 2019 and was close to his family, including his mother and brother.

He had been looking forward to go on a trip to Disney World with his father this week, she said.

“Everyone that knew him knew that he was always smiling…he loved people, he loved dancing, he loved teaching dance,” she said.

The aunt called her nephew’s murder “senseless” and demanded justice for him.

“Why would a person feel they have the right [to kill] just because they disagree with them?” she wondered.

His life is over, destroyed. I don't care if the killer is 17 or 71, I'm for execution in this case. It has been open season on African-Americans and it is time to make clear that this is not acceptable. New York state doesn't have the death penalty currently, as an e-mailer informed me last night. Then throw the full weight of the law at the killer. I am tired of it being open season on African-Americans.

The killer is apparently on the run. If you missed it, the killer 'had' to kill O’Shae Sibley for religious reasons. Yes, I know that's hogwash. So does the killer. If the killer really did it for religious reasons, he would have turned himself in. Instead, he ran like the coward he is.

My prayers go out to O'Shae's family and friends. His life did matter. The killer has no excuse or justification for murdering O'Shae.

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

Tuesday, August 1, 2023. What's the current state of US-Iraq relations, Turkey continues to assault Iraq, Ron DeSantis continues to burn through (other people's) money, Robert F. Kennedy Jr thinks it's "historic" to lie to Congress, and much more.

Atr OIL PRICE, Simon Watkins offers an analysis of the US and Iraq:

Ever since the U.S. officially ended its ‘combat mission’ in Iraq on 31 December 2021, it has been looking for a way back into the huge but still relatively untapped oil and gas regions of the country, as analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order. Iraq knows this perfectly well and has sought since then to exploit this need for money from the U.S. whilst having no intention of allowing it to return in any meaningful way. Many analysts trace this reluctance back to the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 or to its continued military presence there until 2011, but although neither of these factors helped the U.S.’s ambitions in Iraq, neither of them put the final nail in their coffin either. This came with its unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – or colloquially, ‘the nuclear deal’ – with Iran in May 2018. Iran has wielded enormous power over Iraq for a very long time indeed through its various political, economic, and military proxies and the death knell of the deal with Iraq meant the same for any ambitions the U.S. had in Iraq. The game plays from Iraq and the U.S. around this starting position were seen again last week but, as in the end of Macbeth’s fleeting moment of glory, these threats and counter-threats are ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’: the game is already over, and the U.S. lost.

The last week or so has seen a series of statements from both the U.S. and Iraq surrounding Baghdad’s staggeringly omni-toxic idea that Iraq will pay with its own oil supplies for the gas and electricity that it has long been importing from Iran.

This is less of a slap in the face for Washington than a baseball bat in the crotch, as the U.S. has for years been giving Iraq tens of billions of dollars to help with its finances on the specific condition that the country reduces its imports of gas and electricity from Iran eventually to zero. For the U.S., the ending of Iraq’s reliance on Iran for around 40 percent of its power grid needs (through gas and electricity imports) would have provided an excellent starting point for American companies to move back into Iraq to begin a new commercially-based chapter in the two countries’ history. To encourage Iraq towards this end, the U.S. has granted waivers to it to continue to import gas and electricity from Iran to manage this transition away from dependence on its neighbour. Accompanying these waivers have been massive injections of U.S. funding into Iraq, usually following a visit to Washington in August or September each year by whoever was Iraq prime minister at the time to ask for money to bail out the Iraq budget. The principal reason why the Iraq budget needs bailing out every year is because of the industrial-scale corruption that lies at the heart of its oil sector administration, as also analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order. This offensive manoeuvre from the Iraqi playbook is such a regular annual feature in Washington that for a long time, a very senior U.S. legal source closely connected to such discussions exclusively told OilPrice.com some years ago, it has been known as ‘the Baghdad Ballet’.

Up until now, the most shocking betrayal of the U.S.’s optimistic trust in Iraq in this context came from the ultra-smooth Mustafa al-Kadhimi. He had danced the usual dance with the U.S. so well that in May 2020 Washington gave him even more money than before and the longest waiver ever given – 120 days – to keep importing gas and electricity from Iran, on the standard condition that Iraq stopped doing it soon. However, once the money had been banked and al-Kadhimi was safely back on home territory, Iraq signed a two-year contract – the longest period ever – with Iran to keep importing gas and electricity from it. Washington let the formidable then-State Department spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, out of her room, and she let fly. Not only was the next waiver to Iraq the shortest ever – 30 days – but also at the press conference in which it was announced, Ortagus let it be known that the U.S. was hitting 20 Iran- and Iraq-based entities with swingeing new sanctions. She cited them as being instruments in the funnelling of money to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, which was entirely true. She added that the 20 entities were continuing to exploit Iraq’s dependence on Iran as an electricity and gas source by smuggling Iranian petroleum through the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr and money laundering through Iraqi front companies, which was also true. She also said that Washington was extremely concerned that Iraq was continuing to act as a conduit for Iranian oil and gas supplies to make their way out into the world’s major export markets. This was true as well, as additionally analysed in my new book on the new global oil market order.

On the topic of oil, IRAQI NEWS notes:

Iraq’s economy continued its oil-driven recovery after the sharp pandemic-induced recession in 2020, but non-oil sectors have stagnated, and growth constraints have reemerged. Despite a record oil windfall and a long-awaited new budget, Iraq nevertheless remains at risk of missing the opportunity to push ahead overdue reforms that are critical to boost private sector growth and create the millions of jobs needed in the next decade.

The Spring/Summer 2023 edition of the Iraq Economic Monitor, titled “Reemerging Pressures: Iraq’s Recovery at Risk “, finds that real gross domestic product (GDP) growth accelerated to 7.0 percent in 2022 driven by the oil sector, but fell to 2.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023. Consumer price inflation, which had moderated in 2022, ticked up in early 2023, fueled by the depreciation of the Iraqi dinar in the parallel market.

Meanwhile Turkey continues to bomb and attack northern Iraq -- home to Iraq's Kurdish population. They say this is to combat terrorism but combatting terrorism does not allow Turkey to go into Iraq on the ground, conduct attacks and set up military bases -- which it has done repeatedly while the world has looked the other way. The Stockholm Center for Freedom notes:

The UN Human Rights Council has received a formal complaint regarding Turkish airstrikes in Iraq, allegedly targeting a civilian hospital and resulting in the death of eight people, Turkish Minute reported on Monday, citing The Guardian.

The attack, which occurred on Aug. 17, 2021, destroyed the Sikeniye medical clinic in Sinjar and left more than 20 people injured.

This is the first case concerning Turkish airstrikes against the Yazidi people to be brought before the council.

The four claimants, comprising survivors and witnesses to the airstrikes, argue that the attack violated their right to life under international law, as guaranteed by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Every now and then, an attack on a medical facility, a refugee camp or a resort will garner a bit of international press attention but that's about it. Quickly, it's time for the press to move on and to ignore all the attacks on farms and villages that wound and kill so many every month. And then we get garbate like this from ANTIWAR.COM, "Violence between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) left 17 guerrillas and four Turkish soldiers dead." Did the press report that 17 'PKK were dead? No. That would mean an outlet verified the number and verified that the people killed were PKK. From the beginning of Turkey's assault on Iraq -- that dates back to the days when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House -- we've had this same problem with ANTIWAR.COM -- Turkey issues a press release and that's treated as fact. It's treated as fact by ANTIWAR.COM even when actual reporting reveals it was a farmer or a child. For an outlet that calls itself "ANTIWAR," they sure are eager to identify with the aggressor. Amberin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) reports:

Turkey’s military campaign against alleged Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in Syria and Iraq is continuing full blast with at least four fighters of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and four others from the outlawed PKK killed in drone strikes in northeast Syria and Kurdish-administered northern Iraq, Kurdish-led armed groups and Iraqi Kurdish security officials said. The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in North and Northeast Syria on Sunday denounced Russia and the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (IS) in a statement over their silence in the face of the attacks.

The assaults continued throughout the weekend when three civilians were injured as a result of Turkish shelling that targeted a village located south of Tell Tamar in northeast Syria, Kurdish media reported. That attack came after Turkish forces carried out 40 artillery strikes against the Kurdish majority enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, which was occupied by Turkey in 2018, Kurdish media said. The claims could not be independently verified; however, a low-intensity conflict between the SDF and Turkish-allied groups has been bubbling since Turkey’s wresting of Afrin from the Syrian Kurds. Dozens of civilians, including women and children, have perished in Turkish drone and air strikes, as previously documented by Al-Monitor.

The United States and Russia are guarantors of separate cease-fire agreements struck in the wake of Turkey’s 2019 Operation Peace Spring in which it occupied large chunks of SDF-controlled territory and permanently displaced over 200,000 civilians who continue to languish in ramshackle camps. Both wish to pull Turkey to their side as Russia’s war on Ukraine rages on. They have, in turn, grown even more hesitant to rebuke Ankara over its aggression toward PKK-linked Kurdish groups, least of all as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to weigh granting final approval to Sweden’s accession to NATO and despite the fact that Washington rejects Turkey’s characterization of the SDF as “terrorists."

Salih Muslim, co-chair of the Democratic Unity Party that shares power in the Autonomous Administration, said they had no contact with either Russia or the Syrian regime and that “our allies in the coalition say there is nothing they can do to stop Turkey’s attacks.”

“Their silence is nothing new, and we do not know what is going on behind closed doors,” Muslim told Al-Monitor.

Turning to the US, John Gallagher (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Just weeks after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) promised a reset on his campaign, it definitely has entered a new phase: the death watch.

DeSantis apparently learned nothing from the humiliation of having to lay off staff this early in the campaign season. A large part of the $8 million he burned through in just six weeks was on travel, thanks to DeSantis and his wife, Casey, believing that they only deserve to fly on private jets. (Most candidates – other than Trump, who has his own plane – fly commercial to save money.)

So are Ron and Casey traveling with the masses to save money? As if you have to ask.

After debuting his “leaner” campaign, Ron hopped on a private jet to make multiple stops around Tennessee for fundraising. He broke out into CEO-speak to justify the expense.

“We do things based on R.O.I. [return on investment] and that’s on everything you do,” DeSantis said. “If it’s not a good R.O.I., then we try something else.”

The problem that DeSantis is having is that donors are looking at their R.O.I. and deciding that DeSantis is not a good investment. A lot of big donors are sitting on the sidelines, and they don’t mind whispering to reporters about their concerns. Chief among them is whether DeSantis has told the entire truth about his campaign’s finances. A lot of big expenses seem to be missing from the first report, which suggests that things may be even worse than they already appear.

Then there is the other problem with the DeSantis campaign: DeSantis.

DeSantis (along with Casey, who is his primary adviser) seems to believe that the best way to defeat Trump for the nomination is to run as far to his right as possible. But Trump is selling a vibe, not ideas. He traffics in discontent, but he’s intentionally light on details.

DeSantis, on the other hand, is trying to prove himself with details, like his anti-woke curriculum, which describes how African Americans “benefited” from the trades they learned under slavery. When DeSantis was criticized for the sheer offensiveness of the curriculum, he doubled down to the point where he began to attack Black Republicans who dared to suggest in the mildest terms that perhaps the language was a bit off.

I went to COUNTERPUNCH hoping for some real criticism like the above. But unless it's Jeffrey St. Clair, no one seems aware that campaigning is going on at COUNTERPUNCH. I see they have made time for yet another attack on BARBIE -- the doll and the film.

That confuses me.

There have been three GI JOE films since 2009 and COUNTERPUNCH didn't feel the need to weigh in on one. I don't remember Barbie promoting empire. I don't remember Barbie killing people. I don't remember Barbie treating war as a game.

I must have missed that. Surely, if the great men of COUNTERPUNCH feel the need to near daily attack Barbie, surely she must be a war toy, right?

No, this is sexism as usual.

Barbie is a doll and as such she's identified with females. Now everyone plays with Barbie, it's not just little girls. And some of the boys that play with Barbie are straight. But when middle aged men can't get it up anymore and are frustrated they try to tear apart anything identified with the female.

Again, three GI JOE films since 2009 and not one damn word from COUNTERPUNCH. But Barbie requires their male gaze -- their incessant -- and unwelcome -- male gaze?

At THE NATION, Jeet Heer observes:

Even as his bid to become the Republican presidential nominee circles the drain, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can take pride in the fact that he is almost keeping pace with his chief rival in having embarrassing Nazi scandals. Earlier this week, in response to continuing lackluster polling, DeSantis fired 38 staffers. Axios noted that one of those staffers was Nate Hochman, a speechwriter who “secretly created and shared a pro-DeSantis video that featured the candidate at the center of a Sonnenrad, an ancient symbol appropriated by the Nazis and still used by some white supremacists.” Earlier, Hochman and other staffers stirred controversy by sharing a bizarre homophobic and transphobic pro-DeSantis ad (presented as a fan creation, even though evidence points to its being another in-house production). This follows hot on the heels of a June scandal when it turned out that Pedro Gonzalez, a pro-DeSantis influencer whose social media voice was being promoted by the Florida governor’s staff, had a record of anti-Semitic, racist, and fascist private direct messages.

Although he’s trying hard, DeSantis still lags behind front-runner Donald Trump—not just in the polls but also in shameless pandering to white nationalists. Trump of course has the advantage of a head start in this competition. His extensive record (crisply catalogued in a 2017 Slate article) includes his numerous sly uses of alt-right memes, his promotion of extremists like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, and his infamous “very fine people” response to the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. More recently, Trump dined last year with Adolf Hitler aficionado and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

But the GOP’s white nationalist problem extends beyond the Trump/DeSantis race. On Wednesday, Media Matters reported that Matteo Cina, a Fox News staffer and former writer for Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, repeatedly posted anti-Semitic messages on TikTok. One Cina post argued that “it is hard to talk about the Holocaust and rising anti semitism [sic] without discussing Jewish presence in banking.” Arizona Representative Paul Gosar has extensive ties to the racist far right. In 2021, he spoke at a white nationalist rally hosted by Fuentes. Earlier this year, Hunter Walker of Talking Points Memo reported that Gosar’s digital director, Wade Searle, can be linked to an “extensive digital trail” on white supremacist websites, including those that support Fuentes.

The mounting evidence that many prominent Republican politicians, including a former president, either have Nazi ties or are courting the Nazi vote is unsettling. Frequently, this fact leads to some form of denial or excuse-making—such as the claim that young Republicans are “too online” or just engaging in the familiar puerile prank of adopting rhetoric designed to shock liberals.

There is a smidgen of truth to this argument. Shock Jock mockery and malicious frat boy bigotry are familiar styles of right-wing comedy—a tradition that runs from The American Spectator to Rush Limbaugh to Donald Trump.

As pathetic as Ron DeSantis? Little Junior. Little Robbie Jr. The latest Team Kennedy missive insists it's found "RFK, Jr.'s Road to the White House 2024" -- and that's how they spelled it -- RFK-- comma-- Jr. What year are they living in? 1993 or earlier -- that is when the style guidelines said to drop the comma. Thirty years out of date, that's our Little Junior.

In the e-mail they insist:

Last week the censorship and attacks on RFK, Jr. reached a new low following his historic testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on the weaponization of the federal government.

If you didn’t think things could get any worse than Democrat members of Congress trying to censor a presidential candidate, consider the fact that last week the Biden administration refused a routine request to provide Secret Service protection for RFK, Jr, whose father was assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign.

While the Democratic Party is stirring up hate against Mr. Kennedy for running against President Biden, the Biden administration denied Mr. Kennedy's Secret Service protection. Yet, the Secret Service provides his own son, Hunter Biden, with protection.

Despite this bad faith from Democrats, Mr. Kennedy’s popularity keeps rising, as a new Harvard-Harris poll found that RFK, Jr. has the highest favorability rating of any candidate, including President Biden and former President Trump.

So it was "historic," was it? The lies to Congress were historic. Because the campaign says so?

Michelle R. Smith and Ali Swenson (THE INDEPENDENT) report:

Kennedy’s run is also getting plenty of financial support from the right. A super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential run, called Heal the Divide PAC, has deep ties to Republicans, F ederal Election Commission records show.

The committee’s address is listed in the care of RTA Strategy, a campaign consulting firm that has been paid for its work to help elect Republicans including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the former Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

The PAC’s treasurer, who works for RTA Strategy, is Jason Boles, a past donor to Trump and many other Republicans who includes “MAGA” and “AmericaFirst” in his bio on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Kennedy denied knowing Boles or the Heal the Divide PAC when it came up at the congressional hearing, saying, “I’ve never heard of Mr. Boles, and I’ve never heard of that super PAC.”

But video available online shows he was a guest speaker at a Heal the Divide event just two days earlier. The video features a “Heal the Divide 2024” logo with clips of him speaking at length about plans to back the U.S. dollar with bitcoin and precious metals.

Kennedy says that as president, he would fight for government honesty and transparency, heal the political divide, reverse economic decline, end war and preserve civil liberties. He has made freedom of speech a major part of his platform, arguing that the government’s communication with social media companies unfairly censors protected speech.

Kennedy's press office did not respond to several messages asking about his support from the far right.

It also did not respond to questions about whether his stance on bitcoin was at odds with being an environmentalist.

Kennedy lists the environment as one of six top priorities on his campaign website and has spent many years speaking against pollution and climate change as an environmental lawyer. Yet he has made supporting the energy-intensive cryptocurrency bitcoin a key part of his platform.

Bitcoin mining, the process of generating new coins, uses massive amounts of electricity — more than some entire countries use, said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group.

That’s because it works by tasking a network of supercomputers with solving complex mathematical puzzles — even as some other cryptocurrencies have adopted far more energy efficient mining methods.

“No one who claims to be an environmentalist could support a digital asset that needlessly consumes more electricity than all Americans use to power the lights in our homes,” Faber said. “In fact, bitcoin produces more climate pollution than any other digital asset.”

Oh, Little Junior. Such a disappointment to everyone. In her "Isaiah on the boomers and RFK Jr. lies so more," Elaine includes this:

“He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, said of his cousin in an Instagram video earlier this month. “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is, his candidacy is an embarrassment.”

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pride of the Boomers, Pride of the Senate" went up last night. The following sites updated:

Monday, July 31, 2023

Sorry, I'm ok with the death penality for this one

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pride of the Boomers, Pride of the Senate" from earlier tonight.

Execute him. And I'm not a person who believes in executions. But I'm damn sick of every freak and crazy hiding behind religion to break the law. The New York Daily News reports:

A shirtless man whose friend was dancing exuberantly as they pumped gas at a Brooklyn Mobil station was stabbed to death by a stranger who said the men’s antics were offensive to the killer’s Muslim faith, a witness told the Daily News.

The NYPD is investigating the caught-on-video killing as a possible hate crime.

The mayhem started when the victim pulled up the the Mobil gas station on Coney Island Ave. near Avenue P in Midwood about 11:15 p.m. Saturday, cops said. He and his four friends, all shirtless in swim trunks on one of the hottest days of the year, got out of their white sedan to pump gas.

A friend of the victim in small tight trunks a witness described as “underwear” began dancing.

That’s when a group of men exiting the Mobil station started harassing the 28-year-old victim, clad in pink swim trunks, and his pals, according to Summy Ullah, 32, who witnessed the argument and slaying.

Put him in the electric chair. I'm fine with it. He needs to be made an example of so that everyone grasps this is not allowed in the United States. We are not some fundamentalist country and we do not accept this behavior as normal or excusable. It is outrageous that he thought he could stab a man. The killer needs to be found and needs to be executed. And we all need to grasp that your religion is not a pass for murder.

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

Monday, July 31, 2023. Antony Blinken speaks of Julian Assange and gets pushback for his lies, a US convoy comes under attack in Iraq, the United Nations is concerned by at least one of Turkey's attacks on Iraq, creeps target libraries in the US, and much more.

Starting with the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. REPUBLIC WORLD reports, "In a meeting focused on military cooperation in Brisbane, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, pushed back against the Australian government's calls to end the pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Blinken insisted that Assange is alleged to have "risked very serious harm to our national security" through his actions."

Julian is being persecuted for the 'crime' of journalism. Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist." Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs. And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own. For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:

A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat

Eric Lichtblau (GUARDIAN) observes:

The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.

Bernard Keane (CRIKEY) responds to Antony Blinken's claim:

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, is a liar.

To be specific, his statement at the weekend that Julian Assange’s actions in publishing US cables and defence material “risk[ed] very serious harm to our national security” is a clear, indeed blatant, lie.

Let’s cite the authorities who over the years have confirmed that WikiLeaks’ publication of the Chelsea Manning material, including the Iraq and Afghan war logs, did little or no harm to national security:

Barack Obama’s defence secretary at the time of the releases, Robert M Gates: “I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think — I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets … Other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for US foreign policy? I think fairly modest”;
The US Department of Defense in a secret report obtained by Buzzfeed in 2017: no “significant impact”; “disclosure of the Iraq data set will have no direct personal impact on current and former US leadership in Iraq”;
Officials of Blinken’s department briefing Congress in 2010: “We were told [the impact of WikiLeaks revelations] was embarrassing but not damaging”;
US military officials at the trial of Chelsea Manning: “I don’t have a specific example,” when asked to confirm the much-vaunted claim that the releases had placed the lives of US sources in danger.

Blinken knows all this. He worked as an adviser to Joe Biden when the latter was vice president under Obama. Yet he continues to peddle the lie that the Manning material damaged national security.

Also disputing Blinken, PRENSA LATINA notes, is the president of Mexico:

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has denied several times this lie, as Assange neither did espionage activities, violated laws, nor any of the 18 charges by the US government.

The Mexican leader insisted that the major problem is that Assange told the truth about what really happened in Iraq and other places, uncovered corruption and violation of rights and laws in the United States, so that´s why they want to silence him and punish him for using his right to freedom of speech.

Blinken was in Australia over the weekend. Why? Oh, that's why the Australian government won't stand up to the US government, there's a deal involved:

The move is expected to strengthen a central Australian Defence Force framework – Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) – which underpins fundamental assets of the nation’s military including manufacturing, storage and distribution, disposal, and research and development.

By signing the monumental agreement, Australia will be able to both carve its place as a major player in weapons export and also grow domestic stockpiles through on-shore production.

The deal was finalised in a bilateral meet between Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday.

That's why Australia won't stand up and demand that Julian be released, a weapons deal is more important to them.

If only there were an Australian blogger who was outrage by what is being done to Julian and who could blog to hold Australia accountable . . . If there is one, they're unknown in the US. All that captures our attention or little cry babies who can't call out their own government.

In other news, MEHR NEWS AGENCY notes:

Turkey renewed its air strikes on PKK positions in northern Iraq on Sunday.

Issuing a statement, the Turkish Ministry of Defense declared that PKK positions were targeted during these airstrikes.

News sources also announced that 2 terrorists were killed in the attacks.

Turkish ministry's statement also said that the armed forces of this country continue to fight effectively and decisively against terrorists to eradicate terrorism.

Under the pretext of fighting PKK terrorists, Turkey has deployed its troops in areas of northern Iraq and Syria and is conducting aerial attacks on parts of the northern areas of these countries.

Under the pretext of combatting terrorism, the government of Turkey is carrying out a genocide. The Kurdish people are under assault in the same way the Armenians were under assault 100 years earlier. The Turkish government denies the ongoing genocide but they also deny the Armenian genocide so they really don't have a lot of credibility. Patrick Wintour (GUARDIAN) reports:

Turkish airstrikes that allegedly targeted a civilian hospital and killed eight people in Iraq have been made the subject of a formal complaint to the UN human rights council.

It is the first case to be brought on the issue of Turkish airstrikes against the Yazidi people. The attack on 17 August 2021 destroyed the Sikeniye medical clinic in Sinjar and left more than 20 people injured.

The four claimants, either survivors or witnesses to the airstrikes, say they violated their right to life under international law, as guaranteed by article 6 of the international covenant on civil and political rights.

Further, the claimants allege that Turkey failed to investigate the killing of civilians resulting from the airstrikes and provide victims with effective remedies, constituting a violation of their rights to a prompt, independent and effective investigation under the same covenant.

In other violence, MEHR NEWS AGENCY reports, " A logistics convoy belonging to the US Army was targeted in Iraq's al-Diwaniyah, local sources reported on Monday morning." This follows, see Friday's snapshot, the news that a US helicopter crashed in Iraq.

Let's turn to the US.

And, sadly, that's not humor from Paul. It's a true story and QUEER NEWS TONIGHT covered it last week.

Last week, Derrick Van Orden was in the news (see Rebecca's "derrick van orden is a menace") for yelling at teenagers in the halls of Congress. Derrick was reportedly drunk. That doesn't excuse him, nothing does. We bring his vile and disgusting name up because he's done something similar:

On June 17, 2021, Van Orden confronted a teenaged library page at Prairie du Chien Memorial Library in indignation over a display of books with LGBT themes assembled for Pride Month.^[16] Van Orden was particularly upset by the book A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, about a fictional day in the life of Marlon Bundo, the real-life pet rabbit of former Vice President of the United States Mike Pence, and the rabbit's subsequent same-sex romance. Van Orden submitted a written complaint to the library that the book was "skewing young people to think that Republicans are not inclusive. This book is not informational, it is propaganda".^[17] A staff member described Van Orden as "very uncomfortable, threatening" with "full-on shouting" and "aggressively shoving the books around". He wanted to know who had established the display so he could "teach them a lesson".^[16] Van Orden subsequently withdrew all the books on display out of the library and then returned them within a week.^[16]

And you can be sure he's masturbated to each one because that's what perverts like him do, masturbate to children's books.

Speaking of closet cases, Randy Moore. Daniel Villareal (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

A North Carolina school board censured one of its Christian members for posting an anti-LGBTQ+ image on social media that showed an American figure assaulting an LGBTQ+ figure. The Christian man defended posting the image, saying he had free speech rights to oppose “woke” cultural issues.

The Mount Airy Board of Education held a special meeting on July 10 to censure board member Randy Moore, a U.S. Army veteran who was appointed to the board in January 2021. Moore had posted a Facebook image of a figure in red, white, and blue colors kicking the midsection of another rainbow-colored figure symbolizing the LGBTQ+ community, The Mount Airy News reported.

I think I've seen that image. I believe it was a Tweet on a flash drive left at my agent's. It was supposed to contain Glenneth Greenwald's browser history. I have no idea if it was Glenneth's history or not. This was noted in "TV: The fork is stuck in her ass and, yes, she's done:"

Sidebar, we were sent what is supposedly Glenneth's browser history. If it is accurate, he's even more disgusting than we thought. If it hadn't been sent this morning, we'd be working on that as a story. Not on the Glenneth aspect -- we don't know whether it's really his browser history or not -- but on the issue that Twitter is platforming hate speech. This is much worse than what people usually complain about with regards to Twitter. This is "White power" accounts promoting Donald Trump while ripping African-Americans, gays, trans, Jewish and pretty much everyone. And to be clear, they're not using terms like African-American or gay.

It is disgusting and it is appalling and there's no way in the world that Elon Musk is doing his job yet is unaware of these accounts.

There is a movement to target any group that's a minority.

Whether it's Glenneth's browser history or not, he is part of that movement. His statements and his actions make him part of that movement and it's only surprising to you if you haven't been paying attention (we weren't paying attention).

The drive was filled with all sorts of disgusting images. People like Randy Moore don't see themselves as gay because they're degrading the "f**got" -- that is the term they use in illustrations and Tweets. Yes, they're sexually engaged with another man in their Tweets and fantasies but that doesn't make the Randy Moore's gay -- in their minds. Their hatred for gays (and women who sleep with them) is why there is so much violence in their Tweets and in their imagery. They're convinced that the road to Donald Trump's re-election in 2024 is finding gay men who are self-loathing and want to serve 'straight' men. It's disgusting -- and perfectly in keeping with the sort of thing Glenneth would be sexually interested in. It's also all over Twitter and there's no way in the world Elon Musk is unaware of it. It's vile and violent and these men attack gay men and attack women. They're disgusting and Randy Moore being a part of that would make 100% sense.

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