Friday, February 18, 2022

Celebrity is the answer? (Get a clue, Sabby)

So this.



Sabby Sabs.  


Is this the kind of Green coverage we need?


She thinks that Jesse Ventura should have been gifted with the nomination of the Green Party, the presidential nomination.


He wasn't  a Green.  Some people wanted him to run for the 2020 nomination and, thinking he might, doesn't make him a Green.  I'm a lifelong Green raised by two parents who are Green.


But for Sabby it's all about celebrity.


You need someone with a name, she says, like a Cornel West or a Chris Hedges.


I'm sorry what public office have those two held?  


And I believe the ultimate celebrity running for president was Donald Trump.  Before that it was Ronald Reagan.  I haven't been impressed wieth either's accomplishments.  


As for gifting Jesse with the nomination?  


We are a political party.  We don't gift it to anyone.  And someone who doesn't even want to run but expects us to gift it to him?  F**K YOU.  Talk about disrespecting us.  

I'm sick of this nonsense.  


As for Howie being a bad candidate?


I've seen a lot worse.  And where is the credit he gets for not disappearing after the election?



It's 2022.  Howie ran in 2020.  Yet every week since the election he has done videos raising Green issues.  He's put out more content than the national Green Party which sometimes goes a whole month without a press release.


As a party, our biggest problem internally has been the inability to be year-round and non-presidential cycles, just to be present during those times.


Howie has raised Green issues on YOUTUBE every week.


So how about you stop whining that he didn't wrestle in his underwear and start being grateful for what he has done?


And stop disrespecting my political party by saying that Greens should gift anyone with their nomination just because the person is a celebrity?

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

 Friday, February 18, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, Iraq's still in a political stalemate, Iraqi children are targeted, Iraq's LGBTQ community continues to flee the country for safety and much more.


Starting with Joe Biden's ongoing persecution of Julian Assange.  Is it cofusing to some?  Julian is being persecuted for telling the truth.  The US President is going after Julian for telling the truth.  


Apparently, Jo ewishes Julian were more like his son Hunter -- a non-stop liar.  A lair who who lies about everything, his money, how he leeched it, whether or not he's the father of a child -- In fact, that last one?  The woman who had to go to court to get him to admit the baby was his and to get him to pay child support?  As Ruth notes in "Hunter's baby mama testifies before the grand jury,"Lunden Roberts testified before a grand jury this week in the ongoing criminal probe of Hunter.


Criminal.


We all know how Hillary and a whorish media tried to dupe the American pbulic in 2-16 insisting she wasn't part of a criminal investigation -- cirminal investigations are all the FBI does.  By the same token, grtand juries do not do civil cases.  This is an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's activites.  


Cracik whore Hunter, apparetnly laying off drugs at present (though rumors have him partying this week at a strip joint -- they claim he again went to a private room and had a stripper use a dildo on him -- unlike the previous reported time, this go round he is said to have not insisted upon a brand new dildo and just let the stripper use one that was already on hand).


Seems like Joe should try getting his own house in order.


But it seems like Joe should have long ago dropped the efforts to extradite Julian to the US to face charges for shining some sunlight onto government crimes.


The whole world is watching.  Joe Biden is a loser and will go down as such in history.  His continued persecution of Julian goes against everything the US government pretends to be.  And the whole world watches.  They realize it's not "Bad Donald Trump."  That's not hte problem.  Donald's gone.  Joe's the president now.  And the persecution continues.  


The world sees Joe trying to destroy Julian aand the First Amendement.  This assault is scuccessful.  Already you have a craven US media cowed even more.  Imagine how much worse it woul dbe if Joe succeeds in kidnapping -- let's call it what it is -- Julian and forcing him to stand trial in some US kangaroo court.  Joe is attacking the freedom of the press when he attacks Julian.


WSWS notes the statement from the Action Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Art and Expression::


The Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression (ACDAE) in Sri Lanka will hold an online public meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday February 24 Sri Lankan (Indian Standard) time, as part of the global campaign to release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is in danger of being extradited the US on bogus charges.

Assange’s alleged crime was to publish documents exposing the war crimes, mass surveillance and diplomatic intrigues of the US and its allies. The Australian citizen has been the victim of a vicious decade-long witch hunt by the US, UK, Swedish and Australian governments.

Although Assange in January won the right to a UK Supreme Court appeal against his extradition case, the experiences of the past three years of the award-winning journalist’s detention by the British state, demonstrate that no faith can be placed in the judiciary.

The World Socialist Web Site condemned the UK December 10 court ruling against Assange as a pseudo-legal travesty to justify his ongoing persecution. If Assange is extradited to the US, he will face espionage charges that carry an effective life sentence and possibly the death penalty.


The world is watching.  And it's Joe Biden and the US's reputation sinking.  Around the world, support for Julian grows and strengthens.  And Joe gets his way and puts Julian on trial in the US?  You have a martyr the world will never foget.  Julian becomes JFK and Joe Biden is left to play Lee Harvey Oswald.  


Mike Dalton (BITRATES) notes:


The cryptocurrency community has set up a DAO to raise funds for Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who is currently imprisoned on various charges in London.

Assange was arrested in 2019; he was charged with conspiracy after helping former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access U.S. government secrets and publish that data on Wikileaks beginning in 2010. He currently is imprisoned in London and is fighting extradition to the United States.

Now, members of the crypto community have formed a fundraising group called AssangeDAO to raise money for Assange's freedom. Because the group is structured as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), those who donate money will receive a governance token and gain input on the DAO's future direction.


Here's RT reporting more on that story.



Phil Miller (DECLASSIFIED UK) has noted:

New figures show Britain’s public prosecutor, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), splashed £151,000 on barristers who failed to convince a judge in January that the US has the right to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher.

The CPS acts on behalf of the US Department of Justice in transatlantic extradition cases.

Another £22,000 of British public money was spent on expert witnesses, as well as £5,000 on transcripts. The bill will rise further next month when an appeal by the CPS, at the behest of the US government, reaches the High Court in London.

A district judge ruled in January that Assange cannot be extradited on health grounds but the US subsequently won the right to appeal the ruling. The appeal was granted despite mounting concerns about the extradition attempt and its wider implications for press freedom.

A key FBI witness for the US government is a convicted paedophile who admits to fabricating testimony about Assange’s activities. Assange and his defence lawyers were previously spied on by the CIA after he had been granted asylum in the Ecuadorian 


That's the UK.  How many US tax dollars and tax hours is Joe Biden wasting on persecuting Julian Assange?  And doing so without any real  outcry from the American people for persecution.  Look around, there's noo mob trying to round up Julian, insisting he be thrown in a US prison.  It's the US government standing all by itself.


The world sees this.


That's a protest outside a town hall in Australia.


Again, around the world, people are watching.  Poor Joe Biden.  No one cares engouh about him, no one loves him enough, to explain to him how he is destroying any legacy he might have, how he is ensuring that he will go down in history as a loser and will become one of the most hated persons in future history books.  All around the world.


PEOPLE'S DISPATCH notes:


The Progressive International (PI), in collaboration with several like minded organizations, will organize the second Belmarsh Tribunal in New York on February 25. It announced the decision in a press release on February 14.  The Tribunal seeks to hold the US government accountable for its war crimes in the two decades of the so-called war on terror and also push for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release.  

The first Belmarsh Tribunal was organized in London during Assange’s extradition hearings in October last year. It is named after the infamous prison in London where Assange has been kept for almost three years.

The upcoming Belmarsh Tribunal in New York coincides with with the date of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by the US in occupied parts of Cuba 20 years ago. Hundreds of people were imprisoned and systematically tortured in the name of fighting terrorism. Most of them have never been charged with any crime. 


Julian exposed the truth about the US war on Iraq.  Joe Biden voted to support that war.  Why is he not asked about that?  Not "Do you regret your vote."  Why isn't he asked about what was his foundation for supporting the war?  What was his thinking?  


Because it goes to why he's such a lousy president now.  He knows what needs to be done, he just won't do it.


Nouri al-Maliki could become the next prime minister in Iraq.  Joe's fear of that is whispered to be why he forced the US government into bed with  Shi'ite cleric and cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr -- Moqtada, a man responsible for the deaths of how many American troops?  Moqtada responsible for attacks on Iraq's LGBTQ community (and people suspected of being part of that community who were not).  Moqtada who loathes women and tries to strip them of their rights -- most recently during The October Movement when he threw his hissy fit that women were participating and started issuing edicts andf fatwas, caftan a-flapping as he screeched howled that women should not be allowed to protest with men.  


Moqtada has no redeaming qualities.  But Joe's in bed with him.  Who knew Joe was a chubby chaser? In August, he approved the payment (bribe) to Moqtada to get Moqtada to announce he was now supporting the elections scheduled for two months later.  US tax dollars sent to the killer of US troops.  


What did the US get in exchange?  Not a damn thing.


Again, Joe knows right from wrong -- didn't manage to teach it to Hunter, but Joe does know.  


And Joe knows Nouri's a thug.  Joe was saying in April of 2008 -- we covered that hearing -- that Nouri was a thug and that Iraq had no real government.  He knew that then.  Now maybe he's so senile that he's forgotten it.  But, more likely, this is just another example of Joe knowing the facts but refusing to act appropriately in response to them.  That has been the story of Joe's political life and him getting to put the title "president" in front of his name didn't change that one bit.


Let's stay on the LFBTQ community in Iraq for a moment.  Azhar al-Rubaie (MIDDLE EAST EYE) reports:


It was a long and arduous journey for 23-year-old Samir Hassan, but in December 2021 he and his boyfriend finally received asylum status in Lithuania after fleeing from Iraq to Belarus with his boyfriend in July of that year.

Thousands of Iraqis poured into Belarus last year following a change in the country's visa rules, attempting to find a better life in Europe.

Among those were many LGBTQ+ people who left difficult lives filled with repression, violence, and loneliness in their home country.

“After a long story of hardship at home, I succeeded in arriving in Lithuania from Belarus. Such a horrible journey I experienced but nothing comes easily, I and my boyfriend cashed lots of money to settle in a safe place," said Hassan.

He said that due to his sexual orientation he was regularly facing problems with his family and received abuse on the streets of Iraq.


Meanwhile, Iraq remains without a president or a prime minister.  Not having a president yet is a vlation of Iraq's Constitution which clearly outlines the steps that must be taken and when.  


Strange, isn't it?


The whorish pwestern press told us Moqtada was a "king maker."  The moment Joe Biden slipped into bed with Moqtada, he didn't give Moqtada just the tip, he slammed in balls deep and the media was there to go along with him.  


All hail king maker Moqtda!


But here we are, the middle of February and nothing.  Elections took place Ocgtober 10th.


No president.  No prime minister.



The king maker appears not to have been as royal 


Here's the beginning og a critique ASHARQ AL-Awsat has published on the current stalemate:

Head of the Sadrist movement, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is carefully wading through the Iraqi political ring against his rivals in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework.


Iraq has witnessed a turbulent past two weeks with former minister Hoshyar Zebari being barred from running for president and the Supreme Court's surprise ruling on the Kurdistan Region's oil policy.


The ruling by the court on Tuesday cast doubt on the legal foundations of the independent oil policy of Iraq's Kurdish-run region and threatened to drive a political wedge between the two governments. The Supreme Court struck down the legal justifications for the semi-autonomous region's oil policy, effectively calling into question the future of the region's oil contracts, exports and revenues.


Amid these two developments, it appeared as though Sadr has been luring his rivals into revealing their cards as they grapple with the fallout of these rulings, their impact on the country and the formation of the new government.


However, the current tussle in Iraq goes beyond these rulings and the formation of a government, but extends to the very heart of the political process that has been in place since 2003.


The Coordination Framework is meanwhile, trying to exploit the rulings, warning Sadr against forming a government that excludes former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki or of joining the opposition.


Over the past two days, members of the Framework have mulled what the coming weeks will bring. They believe the rulings have dealt a blow to Sadr, who has been seeking the formation of a "national majority" government. The Framework has been opposed to this and believes the country cannot support the fallout from such a move.


And Karwan Faidhi Dri (RUDAW) reports:


The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr spoke on the phone on Thursday, reiterating their commitment to their tripartite alliance with Sunnis in Iraq’s parliament. The alliance will meet in the coming days, according to a statement by both figures. 

“During the phone call, they talked about taking necessary steps and [having] coordination in the positions of the strategic tripartite alliance during the current stage in order to form a national majority government,” a joint statement from the political leaders read.

Barzani and Sadr agreed that the members of the alliance will meet “in the coming days,” it added. Arafat Karam, head of the Iraqi dossier at Barzani's office, told Rudaw later in the day that the "important" meeting will be held in Erbil without specifying the date.


Children are persecuted around the world.  This is true in Iraq.  Jo Becker notes at Human Rights Watch:


Iraqi authorities detained over 1,000 children, some as young as nine years old, last year on national security charges, primarily for suspected links with the Islamic State (ISIS), according to a new United Nations report. Although ISIS attacks have dropped considerably since the group lost most of its territory four years ago, the report finds that the detention of children has significantly increased.

Many of these children were arrested on dubious evidence and tortured into confessions of ISIS involvement.

In late 2018, I interviewed boys detained as ISIS suspects in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Some said they had been recruited to fight with ISIS, while others said that they worked as cooks, drivers, or simply participated in a few days of training. One 17-year-old said he believed he was arrested for working at a restaurant in Mosul that served ISIS members. A few said that they had no links to ISIS, other family members had. Regardless of the extent of their involvement, they were all charged with terrorism.

The majority of the boys said their interrogators tortured them to secure confessions. They described beatings with plastic pipes, electric cables, or rods, sometimes for hours. Nearly all said they eventually confessed to ISIS association, believing they had no other choice.

International law prohibits the recruitment or use of children by armed groups, yet Iraq is treating these children as criminals, even if there is no evidence they participated in violent crimes. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Iraq to release the children.

Instead of detaining and prosecuting children suspected of ISIS affiliation, Iraq should work with the UN to set up reintegration programs so that these children can rejoin their communities, get back into school, and resume their lives.


RUDAW reports:


A recent United Nations report on children and armed conflict in Iraq shows a “sharp increase” in the total number of children detained in the country on national security charges and alleged links to the Islamic State group (ISIS), although it finds that the number of grave violations committed directly against children has decreased significantly between the summers of 2019 and 2021 as compared to previous years.

The fourth report of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in Iraq, shared on Wednesday, outlines the progress made in the country so far in addressing crimes against children, highlighting key violations committed between the period of August 2019 to June 2021 and - crucially - naming the main perpetrators: ISIS, Iraq’s security forces, the Turkish Armed Forces’ “Operation Claw,” and the Iran-backed militia, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi).

During the time frame, the report finds, at least 317 grave violations were committed against 254 children;  four of whom were abducted, 98 of whom killed, and 151 maimed; the explosive remnants of war (121) and improvised explosive devices (46) being the leading causes of these casualties. It notes that the actual number of violations is likely to be far higher than the report can accurately show, but is nonetheless a dramatic decrease on the previous report’s total of 2,114, and the lowest number verified in the country since the UN began monitoring grave violations against children in 2009.


Lat night, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Coquette Campaigners" went up.
campaigncoquettes



This is in response to the four above and one more deciding that in February of 2022 the most important to cover is . . . horse races.  They're not covering candidates.  They're offering the same superficial coverage that the mainstream media gets slammed for.  And they're boring us all and trying to boss around -- vote for ___! Send money to ____!'  It's outrageous.  


As Jimmy Dore notes repeatedly, we're in a pnadmeic, and people are struggling.  But not only do the women above beg you for money for their programs, they now want to reach into your pockets and take out more moeny so you'll fund the candidates they love.


It's outrageous.  It's a misuse of fame.  Yes, there fame is limited, but they're misusing it.  I have never, ever been anything but respectful to a fan (unless they got intentionally agrressive -- I'm not talking about the one who grabbed my hand and broke my finger because he squeezed so hard, he was excited and didn't realize it was that tight).  I would have nothing without them.  I've never refused an autograph request or said, "Get that camera/phone away from me!"  I don't hit them up for money.  


But the ladies above not only want you to support them, now they need you to also support their candidates.


Talk about a goldigger.


Isaiah wants to be sure everyone has a chance to catch REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT's three reports on this nonsense.







The following sites updated:



Thursday, February 17, 2022

Call Me Kat

This is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Coquette Campaigners" from earlier tonight.

campaigncoquettes

 

A new episode of Call Me Kat aired on Fox tonight.


It was a little more scattered than most episodes.


The two main stories were: A) Sheila after her breakup with Preston and B) Kat and company have to bake cupcake cookies.


Last episode, Randi and Kat found out Preston was cheating on Sheila.  Kat told her mother who acted at first like it was nothing but then, at the end of the episode, announced she'd broken up with Preston.


She was now sad this episode, really sad.  And she and Preston had planned a get away but now she had no one to go with.  Phil was going crazy to go and Sheila noticed it.  He went and pretended he was Preston -- with a British accent because if she was going to need him to play straight, Phil needed a British accent, he said.


They found out that Preston was footing the bill.  Sylvia upgraded the suite.  Then they upgraded one thing after another.


But it didn't make Sheila feel better and she thought she'd never be happy again.  Phile told her happy would come in little bits and then grow.


Oscar filled in for Phil at the cat cafe while Phil was off with Sheila.  It put a strain on his relationship with Kat.  He would make suggestions -- real suggestions -- and Kat would go along with them no matter what.  Randi told her she was afraid of saying no because she was looking at Oscar with rose colored glasses.


Finally, she exploded as they were attempting to make over 400 cupcakes in one night.  Kat ended up smashing a cupcake on his face which led to a cupcake fight with her, Oscar, Randi, Carter and Max.


 

 

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

 

 Thrusday, February 17, 2022.  The older I ge (and the more years online I rack up), the tireder I get of dumb bitches -- especially ones who distract from real issues and think we need them to tell us how to vote.


Liza Minnelli won her Academy Award for the film CABARET.  In the film, she sings "Maybe This Time."


Maybe this time, I'll be lucky
Maybe this time, he'll stay
Maybe this time, for the first time
Love won't hurry away

He will hold me fast
I'll be home at last
Not a loser anymore
Like the last time
And the time before

-- "Maybe This Time," written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, first recorded by Liza eight years before CABARET on her deubt album LIZA! LIZA!


It's a song about a fool for love and most of us have been there at one time or another but most of us learn from an expeirence and don't repeat it over and over again.


As it's pointed out in the video below, how we tell ourselves that this time will be different, there's something more pathetic than being a fool for love: Being a fool for a political party.




There are some people we're not currently noting -- some of whom we're not noting because of REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT's previous video on this topic.


I'm a grown up.  I don't need to be told what to do.  That includes being told who to vote for.  I've endorsed very few candidates here.  I endorsed Kevin De Leon in 2018.  We had people sticking their noses in our business, which is bad enough.  I don't endorse in any race I can't vote in.  But, for example, Amy SUskind decided we need her bitchery.  We didn't.  I hope she didn't think we needed her intelligence because she declared that supporting Kevin in the primary would mean that we'd have a Republican running against newbie Kevin  and that Republican might end up the seantor!


Uh, no, tich.  No.


Stay the f**k out of races you can't vote in.  Why?  For one thing, you don't what the hell you're talking about.


Amy's not voting in California so she wanted to share ''knowledge.'' 


Stupid idiot.


In California, party id does not determine who gets on the general election ballot for US senate.  


Amy and other idiots were insisting that it was also age-ist to oppose Dianne.  How did the Brett Kavanaugh hearings go again?


Was Dianne up for them?


No, she wasn't.  And many of us were raising that point in 2018 when there was a clear choice and a strong candidate.


Instead, we now have 88-year-old Dianne in the US Senate.  A dottering fool who the Senate Dems have to manuever out of this decision and that decision because she's not up for the job.  


I'm really opposed to people thinking their job is to tell other adults how to vote.


So Katie's bulls**t with Marianne Williamson and others has led to them being  largely ignored and we post other people's videos.


I'm also not interested in Danny Haiphong currently.  We posted him from Richard Medhurst's show and if that had been other show, we wouldn't have.

Danny can cool his heels for about a month.

Logically, I do have to ask why a non-African-American is the focus and host of the podcast/YOUTUBE program from BLACK AGENDA REPORT.


Sorry, I thought the whole point -- and I believe this was the point of Glen Ford's career long before he co-founded BAR -- was to give African-Americans a seat at the table.


Since Glen's death, Danny stepped into the spotlight and taken over.  If he has that much energy, maybe he should start his own outlet?  Let BAR be led by African-Americans?  Keep the "Black"  in BLACK AGENDA REPORT?  


Or is that too much to ask for?


At any rate.  Susan Sarandon made a comment -- I didn't see it or read it -- and ended up deleting her Tweet.  It offended some people.


Danny called her out for it.  


That was last week.


This week, he blasted her for it again.


I'm not in the mood, you dumb idiot piece of trash.


That's what you are if you're going after Susan.


The impression by the idiots in Danny's crowd appears to be that Susan is a coward -- I'd love to see them stand publicly , even once, just as strongly as Susan has.


She delted the Tweet that people took offense to.  He assumeds it's because she's a coward.


As I've noted here many times -- and we did call Susan out over something here publicly -- Susan is not rigid.  If she feels she's wronged soemeone or taken the wrong position, she will give it a lot of thought.  Sometiems, she will realize that it was wrong and she'll make it better.  Sometimes, she'll realize that it really did hurt someone deeply and that, in terms of humanity, it's just not worth it so she'll be the bigger person and move to put it behind her.


So, first off, Danny, there is a simple and non-trashing her option on why she did what she did.


Now maybe she did it for 'cowardly' reasons as Danny just knows because he knows everything right.  I eman, I speak to Susan often but I'm sure Danny speaks her to daily, right?  I'm sure Danny's been friends with her for years, right?  I''m sure Danny's shared many a laugh with her -- as I have -- over what an idiot Jay Bernstein was, right?

but Danny just knows he knows her and just knows that he can peer in her heart and that cowardice made her back off from her Tweet.


If it did, so damn what?


How much scorn is she supposed to take?  How much abuse is she supposed to endure?


She's a highly talented actress, one of her best of her generation, and she doesn't work near as much as she should because she's taken positions that outrage the simpletons.  


Do you want her to kill her career over a Tweet?


You know, Danny, maybe she could do like you and cozy up to a man and wait for him to die and then seize control of the empire the man built.


Is that what she should do?  


I don't like dDanny.  I said he was an opportunist before Glen died.  When Glen died and Danny had hisTwitter-bitch storm aimed at Jared Ball, I tried to be fair and just note nicely that Jared had every right to share whatever memory of Glen Ford that he wanted to.


But as Danny gets more and more extreme in his mistaken belief that he knows everything and that he has the power to peer into people's hearts and souls, I think that was a mistake.  I think I really should have called him out.


And I will stand by my comment that any program from BLACK AGENDA REPORT needs to be centered on an African-American host.  If you're not doing that, then the whole point of Glen Ford's lifetime work in the media is being undermined.


I'll make that point and I'll be very sad that I'm the one that has to do so because that point should be rather obvious to everyone without anyone having to say it outloud.


So for four years of Doanld in the White House, we couldn't deal with real issues.  We dealt with partisanship and gossip and nonsense.


And we wasted, as humans, four damn years.   Maybe you've got more years to waste, I sure don't.  And I'm damn tired of being online as it is.


I am not in the mood for a bunch of White women with one token person of color showing up to tell us how we need to vote and how we need to be excited about this candidate or get behind that one.


F**K YOU.


Honestly and truly, F**K YOU.


Not one of you wmen bother to cover Iraq.  You can't even do one show a month on Iraq.  For Marianne, that might be a good thing because when she covered Afghanistan she thought the way to do tht was to bring on someone who invaded that country.  Not a woman from Afghanistan.  No, we must not let them speak for themselves, apparently.  So let's instead bring on American to filter all of our knowledge through.  The stupidity and, yes, racisim of that action still appalls me.  And you can read that snapshot -- I'm laughing right now as I dictate this, just from remembering dictating that -- and grasp that the more I go on, the angrier I got about it.


There are wars that you are not even covering.  There are issues issuges that you are falt out ignoring.  And you bitches think you're time is best used telling adults how to vote?


Best used for whom?


For Marianne?  She got an MSNBC appearance out of it so I can see how she benefited.


I don't see how the public did.


REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT is raising serious issues on this and how we move forward, how we learn from the past, how we own our power.    You can also stream this clip.



There are real issues to address and the whoring Katie and the other women involved are doing is embarrassing.


Now an e-mail wanted t o whine about Tuesday's snapshot and how I said we should have been focused on issues and we should have been fighting issues -- not spreading rumos about false pee-tapes and the other nonsense.  I noted we managed to push back on Ronald REagan -- a very frightening Republican who was popular with a number of Americans as well as strongly embraced by the media.  But we still managed to push back and fight on issues during that.


The e-mailer took offense to it and wanted me to know that Richard Nixon -- whom I didn't even mention -- was a more educated Rpeublican than what we have today.


Richard was a crook.  Who should have been in prison.


John Dean and other whores -- some like John are convicted felons --  have worked overtime to try to lie and reshape Tricky Dick.


He was vile and evil.  He didn't give a damn about the ecology, for example.


The reason some can cite his record on that is becaus epeople were in the streets.  People were fighting on issues and Tricky DIck had to find something to satisfy them.  


Real issues and real opposition does matter.  Faux 'resistance' doesn't and we have four years to demonstrate that.


WE accomplished nothing to save our planet -- and haven't under Joe.  


I'm tired of people who keep whoring their time out and pretending that this time will be different, this time, this time.


We're back to Liza. 




The world is in danger and idiots waste their time whoring for politicians.  If you're going to get screwed, at least get some satisfcation it -- but, as anyone can tell you, any politician is only focused on their own Big O.  It's no suprise tht the US government -- Dems and Republicans -- set up a government in Iraq that does nothing to protect the Iraqi people.  Nicole Di Ilio (AL-MONITOR) reports:


Peering beyond the towering reedbeds, Abbas Al-Mousawi watches his buffaloes drink from the putrid waters of the Chibayish marsh. Each sip his animals take raises his anxiety. “It’s almost impossible to find a clean pool here,” says the 45-year-old breeder as he paddles his mashouf – a traditional boat similar to a canoe. “The water is just bad. It gushes out of waste pipes into the swamp. It’s disgusting.” 

Mousawi and his animals live in the Mesopotamian Marshes, a fabled corner of Iraq known throughout the ages as a waterway that could sustain man and beast and populations across the country’s southern deserts. Until recent decades, it offered a vast and reliable supply of water, the end of the line for Iraq’s two great rivers after their epic journeys through Turkey, Syria and Iraq’s deserts.

But, perhaps more than any other time in history, the marshes are in peril. Prolonged drought, regional standoffs, political negligence and climate change are combining to create intolerable stress on one of the region’s most important ecosystems.

What was once a pristine waterway is now a toxic wasteland. Whatever water reaches the marshes is considered a public health risk. The United Nations has classified Iraq as the fifth-most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. The effects have been clear over the past 15 years, with lower rainfalls, and longer and hotter heat waves. In some years, water has barely covered 30 percent of the original wetlands, which were replaced by dry cracking earth that locals had never seen before.

The shortage was in part caused by dams blocking the flow of the Euphrates before it continued its journey south. Sporadic rains also played a part. But more concerning for farmers like Mousawi was the state of the water when it reached him. “All around the sewerage pipes, most of the fish die,” he says, pointing to the rotting fish floating near the surface. “What are we going to see in the future?” 

 

A group of American bitches want to waste their own time whoring -- and your time streaming -- about a bunc hof candidates but they don't say a word about the women being murdered in Iraq.  Layal Shakir (RUDAW) reports:


A woman was shot dead by her husband in Sulaimani province late Wednesday night, a security official told Rudaw as the Kurdistan Region adds another brutal murder of a woman to its never-ending list of honor killings and gender-based violence deaths.

Maryam Yacoob, 40, was gunned down by her husband, Sulaimani police spokesperson Sarkawt Ahmad told Rudaw.

The husband was also reported dead after he shot himself shortly afterwards, the official added.

The details of the incident and the reason behind the murder remain unknown for the public, but crimes of this kind are very common in the Kurdistan Region.

This week alone, four women were killed in different circumstances in a series of gender-based killings across the Kurdistan Region. 

Yacoob was a lecturer at Sulaimani’s Komar University of Science and Technology and a postgraduate student at the University of Sulaimani.

Social media in the Kurdistan Region has been overcome with anger and grief as a result of the recent increase in female killings. 


The following sites updated:






Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Perv Prince Andrew should not be allowed in the US

If you missed it, the royal family is paying off one of Prince Andrew's victims.   CNN notes:


And just like that it's all over. Britain's Prince Andrew, the Queen's second son, has reached a deal with Virginia Giuffre to settle her civil sex abuse lawsuit against him.

Giuffre alleges she was trafficked by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and forced to perform sex acts with his friends, including the senior royal. She also said the Duke of York had been aware she was underage in the US at the time.
Giuffre brought the case last August under the Child Victims Act, a state law enacted in New York in 2019 which temporarily extended the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases, giving survivors more time to seek justice. 


As part of the pay off, he cannot claim he did not assault her.


So he shouldn't be allowed in this country.  Ever again.



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


Wednesday, February 16, 2022.  Iraq remains in ruins.


Yesterday, we noted that Jimmy Dore addressed Hillary Clinton's latest scandal Monday night on a live stream but that it was not up in his archives yet.  It went up yesterday evening.




Jonathan Turley offers a legal perspective on the latest:


Durham added details showing how Perkins Coie used its attorney-client relationships to further the Russian conspiracy operation for the campaign. He alleges that Elias and Sussmann hired an Internet executive, Rodney Joffe, to help build the foundation for the claims. Joffe alerted Sussmann about the Alfa Bank claims by July 2016, and “over the ensuing weeks, and as part of their lawyer-client relationship,” Sussmann and Joffe “engaged in efforts with Campaign Lawyer-1 .”

The use of lawyers to shield such work is nothing new in Washington. During the Nixon Administration, lawyers were used extensively to maintain slush funds and enable “dirty trick” operations.

What is striking about the Durham filings is the audacity of the Perkins Coie operation. While the funding was buried away, the lawyers were seemingly unconcerned about approving such efforts or personally reaching out to sympathetic government and media figures. They were, to some degree, justified in their sense of immunity.

Indeed, to this day, many refuse to cover extensive evidence of how the Clinton campaign manufactured this story that largely occupied the entire term of President Donald Trump.  Before the Steele dossier was given to the FBI and the press, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” That operation appears to have been launched through Elias and Perkins Coie.





Ericsson is a Swedish company founded in 1876/  Today, the corporation specializes in networking and telecommunications.  The company is in the enws for reasons it would prefer not to be.  Supantha Mukherjee (REUTERS) reports:


Shares of Ericsson fell 9% on Wednesday after the Swedish telecom gear maker disclosed results of an internal investigation that detailed suspect payments and misconduct in Iraq.

The company's investigation had identified payments made to use alternate transport routes in connection with circumventing Iraqi Customs, at a time when militant organisations, including Islamic State, controlled some transport routes.

While Ericsson said it could not determine if any employee was directly involved in financing such organisations, it noted that as a result of the investigation several employees had left the company.


Ericson issued a statement which includes the following:


We are committed to transparency and continuously improving our compliance performance. Therefore, we are updating our earlier statement on this matter.

We continue to invest significantly to understand these matters fully. As in all investigations we cannot exclude the possibility that we may not have found all the underlying facts.

Ericsson takes any allegation of impropriety extremely seriously and welcomes any new facts brought to light as a result. This allows us to sharpen our processes further and target any wrongdoing.


Dominic Chopping (MARKET WATCH) notes:


Ericsson last week said it will review a probe from 2019 after receiving fresh questions on its operations in Iraq, adding on Tuesday that the original investigation had found "serious breaches of compliance rules" in Iraq between 2011 and 2019.

Questions were presented by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and partners, including Swedish Television's investigative Assignment Review show, according to a statement from the ICIJ.

The 2019 probe was triggered by unusual expense claims and Ericsson said it then uncovered compliance concerns, including payments made to intermediaries and the use of alternate transport routes to circumvent Iraqi Customs, at a time when terrorist organizations including ISIS, controlled some transport routes.

"Despite the statement from Ericsson, the company has not addressed specific questions put to it by our journalists in relation to a wide range of corrupt behavior in connection to its business in Iraq and elsewhere," the ICIJ said, adding that it will publish its findings soon.


Alexander Martin (SKY NEWS) observes, "Shares in Ericsson have tumbled after the chief executive admitted that the Swedish company may have given money to Islamic State terrorists."  Also noting the tumble is Lina Saigol (BARRON'S), "Shares of Ericsson  ERIC+2.47%   plunged on Wednesday after the Swedish telecom equipment maker said an internal investigation identified that it may have made payments to the terror organization ISIS in Iraq."


In the US-led destruction of Iraq, little is ever accomplished.  There's still no government.  No President, no prime minister no cabinet.  Nothing.  They're in violation of the country's Constitution right now regrding when a president must be in place.  October 10th was when they held elections.  All this time later, nothing.


MEMO notes:


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The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) announced, on Monday, the nomination of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Interior Minister, Reber Ahmed, for Iraq's presidency, Mahmoud Mohammed, KDP spokesperson said in a statement.

The KDP announcement comes after Iraq's Federal Supreme Court temporarily suspended the candidacy of KDP's Hoshyar Zebari for Iraq's presidency last week following a lawsuit against him.

The Court ruled, on Sunday, to ban Zebari from running for the position "for failing to meet the conditions."

The Sadrist bloc, the Sunni component and the Kurdistan Democratic Party agreed to choose Muhammad Al-Halbousi as Parliament Speaker and to nominate Zebari for the presidency of the Republic.


Who is the new nominee?  ASHARQ AL-AWSAT offers:

Kurdish media that is close to the party identified the new candidate as Reber Ahmed Barzani, the interior minister of the Kurdistan Region government. Barzani, 55, served in important security posts, including the Kurdish intelligence agency.


He is not related to head of the KDP, Masoud Barzani.


Kurdish sources said Reber Ahmed was the sole survivor from his family from an attack, known as the al-Anfal operations, carried out by Iraqi forces in the 1980s


Ahead of declaring his nomination, senior KDP sources condemned the Supreme Court's ruling to bar Zebari from running for president, dismissing the move as "purely political".



The KDP won the )ctober 10th elections in Kurdistan.  Jalal Talabani's PUK barely scraped up votes (GORRAN imploded -- after they stupidly formed an alliance with the PUK).  That is why the KDP and others argue that, no, the PUK shouldn't just be given the post of the president every four years.  And they shouldn't be.  That's not democracy.  More to the point, that's no change at all.  The Speaker remains the same.  The prime minister has not been named but many insist that it should be the current failed prime minister.  And you're going to also keep Barham Saleh as the president?  If nothing changes, why even vote?


And after the October election with the lowest turnout ever, sending would be voters the message that nothing changes is not going to encourage people to participate in future elections.


Bafel Talabani, it's noted, is in Baghdad.  I hope he's not missing that US home.  How sad for little Bafal that his family has so screwed up the PUK that he has to leave his home and go back to Iraq.  They called him back when they were trying to bury the referendum on Kurdistan independence as well.  Bafel and his family were on the wrong side of history, yes, but also the wrong side of political opinion.


Bafel's been a busy little boy.  Winthrop Rodgers Tweets:

@pukmedia reports that PUK co-president Bafel Talabani is meeting with Nouri al-Maliki, Hadi al-Mari, and Qais Khazali in Baghdad, as talks continue over the Iraqi presidency and government formation.


Nojuri.  He's there, working his own angle even as the western media repeatedly ignores him, even as he leads the push against Moqtada al-Sadr.


Rebar is not the only one seeking the office of President of Iraq.  MEMO reports:

A total of 60 people have submitted applications to run for Iraq's presidency, the country's parliament said on Monday.

Parliamentary secretary Baydaa Khidir said the deadline for new applications was extended following parliament's failure to elect a president on 7 February.

The legal committee of parliament will scrutinise the applications before forwarding them to the Board of Integrity and, then, to the Supreme Judicial Council, Khidir explained.

Parliament has not yet scheduled another session for electing the president, she said.


2010 is on the minds of many who have been observing Iraq for some time now.  For example, Arnaud Aron has a Twitter thread which includes:


In 2010, parliamentary elections were held in Iraq. The majority of votes were won by Iyad Alawi, a moderate Shiite politician who miraculously elevated national unity, reconciliation and multi-ethnic Iraqi nationalism. Yet Vice President Joe Biden personally stepped 


in and endorsed Alawi's opponent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, because "we know him better," contrary to the explicit advice of professionals. This event is not well known to the general public, but personally, it says a lot about Biden. An incompetent who refuses to listen



The following sites updated: