Monday, July 19, 2021

Charmed?

If you missed it, the homophobia has led me to walk away the rest of the season for Charmed.  Homophobia?  Yes.  It is homophobic to have three sisters and two of them get adult romantic relationships but one doesn't and that one is the lesbian.  That's homophobia.  It's like when ABC didn't want Ellen to kiss a woman on her sitcom 


Well there's another reason to walk away from Charmed:

 

It honestly wouldn't be Charmed without the actress playing the telekinetic older sister being written out of the show. In a major shocker for CW's new Charmed show that also serves as an unnerving mirror to the original, history is repeating itself.

Madeleine Mantock, who plays one of the three sister witches on the Charmed reboot, will be exiting the series after the season 3 finale. The actress called it a "difficult decision" in a statement released on Monday.

 

I can't imagine the show without Macy.  I can't stand the youngest -- you know, the fat one who tries to act like she's a sex symbol -- who only looks fatter after she went and got that bad perm this season?

 

When Shannen left after the third series of the original Charmed, that's when Alyssa Milano was shoved down our throats.

 

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

 Monday, July 19, 2021.  Protesters turn out in Baghdad, David Ignatius plays dummy for his ventriloquists at the CIA, Mustafa al-Kadhimi and (most of) the press pretend he wants US forces out of Iraq, and much more.



THE ECONOMIC TIMES notes, "The White House announced that US President Joe Biden would be meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi this month. The White House announced Friday that Biden would be hosting Kadhemi at the White House on July 26 in an effort to reaffirm the strategic partnership between both countries."  Khalid Al Ansary and Zaid Sabah (BLOOMBERG NEWS) add that Mjustafa plans to discuss US troop withdrawal with the White House."  TASNIM NEWS AGENCY explains, "In an interview with Saudi-owned al-Hadath television news network on Sunday, al-Kadhim said that his upcoming visit to Washington is aimed at regulating Iraq’s relations with the United States and pushing for the withdrawal of foreign combat forces from the Arab country."


That probably sounds good . . . to the very stupid. If Mustafa wants foreign troops out, he can do that without a meet-up  If he wants them out (he doesn't).  He can exercise the exit clause in Iraq's agreement with the US.  But he's refused to do that.  He makes statements -- which he knows wil be popular but he never backs them up.


Even now, he's not backing them up.  But a whorish press pretends that he is.  


Even now, he's not calling for US troops out, despite reports otherwise.  Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi claimed that his upcoming visit to Washington will put an end to the presence of US combat troops in Iraq in an interview on Sunday, but stressed the need for continued training, air force, and intelligence support.

“We are visiting Washington to set out our relationship with America. The Iraqi army still needs their forces for training. We need their support to our air force, and we need their intelligence support in the fight against ISIS (Islamic State),” Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said in an interview with the Saudi owned al-Hadath TV on Sunday. 

“The visit will be to set out this relationship, and to put an end to the presence of combat forces, because the Iraqi army can now fight for itself on behalf of Iraqis and the world against these terrorist groups in Iraq,” Kadhimi added. “There is no need for combat troops.”


Get it yet?


He's not attempting to eject US troops out of Iraq.  It's a lie.  He's trying for a second term as prime minister.  Glenn Greenwald, before you Tweet nonsense again about Mustafa, grasp how empty his damn words truly are.


"Combat troops" -- the ultimate weasel word.  


As for the claim that Iraqi forces still need US forces to help them train?  Seriously?


They've been training Iraqi forces since 2003.


I think I had more respect for the Iraqi government in the fall of 2011 when they began making clear that they didn't want any help training from the US.  Remember the millions spent on the secure training facility in Baghdad?  Built just for this purpose.


And never ever used.


The Iraqi forces refused to show up for training from Americans.


Remember that?


Oh, wait, many probably don't because you had 'news' outlets refusing to report the truth if they thought it might hurt Barack Obama's re-election choices.


The current state of the media?


We didn't get here overnight.  The media shielded Barack.  Which is why most Americans don't know about the training facility or the millions -- of US tax dollars -- spent on it or that Barack ended up just handing the building over to the Iraqi government.  Most never heard about poor Brook Darby, sent by the US State Dept to Congress to try to spin this huge failure.  They don't realize that the Inspector General -- whose office was allowed to elapse for telling truths -- noted in reports and testimony that the Iraqis did not want training from the Americans.  


Lying whore Jill Abramson is now exposed for the serial plagiarist that she is.  And, in related news, her son's rock band dreams were crushed (you're welcome, Jill).  At THE NEW YORK TIMES, she whored over and over.  She repeatedly tailored what appeared in the paper based on whether ir would help Barack Obama or not.  Tim Arango was the reporter covering Iraq.  He learned that Barack was sending US troops back into Iraq.  Jill wouldn't let the story run.  She finally allowed it to appear dead center in a long article on Syria.


Here's what Tim Arango reported:


 
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.        


That should have been a front page, stand-alone report.  Instead, it appeared in the middle of a report on Syria.


And while we're here . . .


I take reporters to account.  If you don't like that, oh well.  But grasp that sometimes my sources are reporters.  Meaning?  After Anthony Shadid died, I got a ton of e-mails about how rude I was.


I was rude?


For saying he needed to keep covering Iraq and not Syria?


You do know that Anthony felt that way himself, right?  You may not know that he asked us to hit the paper on that.  You may not realize that he participate in multiple roundtables for the gina & krista round-robin as my guest.


And I bring that up because of whore Jill Abramson.


Let's all be very clear that she's why he's dead.


He didn't want to report on Syria.  He did not think (a) that it was safe and (b) that Iraq needed to lose focus.  

Jill wanted war.  More war.  And she was willing to risk the lives of others to get it.


She's a lying two-bit whore who has Tony's blood on her hands.  She knows it.  Most of us know it.  It's past time she was called out because she is not a journalist.  


She's a plagiarist.  She's a whore.


Anyone counting on her to deliver the news is as big a fool as those who counted on Gail Collins to deliver opinions worth reading.  


If you're late to the party on Gail, this is the piece of trash who oversaw the op-ed pages when the paper had multiple columnists and only one was a woman.  Confronted on hiring a man to fill in for Maureen Dowd when Dowd was on vacation, Gail insisted that it didn't matter.  Representation, didn't matter.  That's the whore trash who tries to pose as a feminist.  Grasp that.  That's the whore who refused to run any of the submissions on Coretta Scott King.  Coretta, a historical woman, had just passed away.  Gail, herself, did an unsigned editorial on her playwright friend -- a woman whose work is not all that important, sorry -- and had multiple article in the paper -- including on the front page -- about her death.  But Gail wouldn't draft an outside writer to write about Coretta or take any of the submissions on the topic offered to the paper.  Tired of my nagging, Bob Herbert finally pulled Coretta into a column -- the first (and only) time her death was noted on the op-ed pages.  Grasp that we could write a book about all the whore trash at THE NEW YORK TIMES alone. Oh, the stories we could tell.

The bulk of the press exists as p.r. agents.  They don't deliver news, ,they run through publicity copy.  


Saturday, we noted David Ignatius' latest nonsense column which argues -- on behalf of the CIA -- that Mustafa needs a second term because . . . well, there might be worse.


Worse for whom, David?  For whom?


The Iraqi people are suffering.  But he doesn't care about them.  


What's really sad about old whores like David?  They don't realize that they have a long history.  They don't realize that their past arguments re already known.  They don't grasp just how whorish they look.  Papers should probably begin to impose a ten year limit on columnists since, by that point, they ha e a history that betrays them as an idiot who has repeatedly gotten it wrong.


Uli Tweets:


Iraqis have protested in Baghdad to demand that authorities hold accountable the killers of dozens of activists associated with a long-running protest movement. More than 70 activists have been targeted in assassinations, attempted murders and abductions


Deji Sadiq Tweets about it as well:


Iraq protesters demand accountability after killings of activists Hundreds protest in Baghdad demanding the end of impunity after the killings of dozens of pro-democracy activists.


Also noting it is Linda Hemby:


#Iraq: Hundreds protested on Sunday in central Baghdad to demand that authorities hold accountable the killers of dozens of activists associated with a long-running protest movement


TRT WORLD NOW Tweets:


In pictures: Iraqis protest in central Baghdad to demand authorities hold accountable the killers of dozens of activists associated with a protest movement against government corruption
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Golly, Jane Arraf, that doesn't look like a "small" protest -- the one you noted in your Tweet.  At least you managed to include that the Iraqi police was stopping reporters from taking pictures.

Farid Y. Farid Tweets: 


In #Baghdad, hundreds have taken to the streets today to call for an end to assassinations & abductions targeting activists & revolutionaries of the #October2019 uprising. More than 70 have been killed in the last 2yrs #إنهاء_الإفلات_من_العقاب #Iraq
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More poignant scenes from the #Baghdad protest where many youth feel power let down that their friends have been killed without any semblance of justice meted out by authorities #Iraq #إنهاء_الإفلات_من_العقاب
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“We're here to say that we want to end impunity in #Iraq,” ., an 18-yr-old student told #AFP from Firdous Square in #Baghdad. “We want freedom! This revolution started because of this & we won't stop until we win” france24.com/en/live-news/2

2:07 PM · Jul 18, 2021

ALJAZEERA carries AFP's report:


Hundreds of Iraqis have protested in central Baghdad to demand that authorities hold accountable the killers of dozens of activists associated with a long-running protest movement.

More than 70 activists have been targeted in assassinations, attempted murders and abductions since a pro-democracy protest movement erupted against government corruption and incompetence in 2019.

“We’re here to say that we want to end impunity in Iraq,” Hussein Al-Faili, an 18-year old student, told AFP news agency on Sunday from Firdos Square, a key protest site.

“We want freedom! This revolution started because of this and we won’t stop until we win.”

Dozens also turned out in the southern city of Nasiriya, where tensions have been running high following a hospital fire that killed at least 60 people on Monday.


The October Revolution started in the fall of 2019 to call out corruption and to demand a better Iraq.  The protests continue.  They continue despite the attacks on protesters at demonstrations -- attacks carried out by security forces.  Remember when, I do, Jane Arraf went on NPR to dismiss the force being shown towards protesters and instead she justified the use of tear gas cannisters and less than 30 minutes after her 'report' social media was abuzz with photos of the protester killed by a tear cannister -- lodged in his head.


Oh, Jane, it's been a very interesting career.  It could make a film.  Not a serious film, mind you, but it would be hilarious if it focused on the oblivious American reporter who forever gets it wrong -- think an update of Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour's THEY GOT ME COVERED.


The following sites updated:







Sunday, July 18, 2021

2 videos about criminal pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

 



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


 Friday, July 16, 2021.  We look at the upcoming elections in Iraq (another group announced today that they won't be participating) and the difference between public statements and what officials really want.



THE NATIONAL offers a nonsense clip -- did the US State Dept hold their hands while they made it? -- entitled "Why are US troops in Iraq?"





Why are US troops in Iraq?  As you watch the garbage above, you quickly realize it won't provide you with an answer.  


2,500 US troops in Iraq?  You mean 2,500 admitted to, right? 


Then they call the drawdown at the end of 2011 a "withdrawal" -- which not even the Pentagon called it in real time.  And then they insist that after the "withdrawal," three years later, US troops were sent back into Iraq.  


How's your math?


I never claim it to be my strong suit but when I ad 2011 plus 3, I get 2014.  Is that what you get?


I ask because 2014 isn't 2012.  I'm right no that, right?


 

Tim Arango's September 25, 2012 NEW YORK TIMES report which noted, "Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions.  At the request of the Iraqi government, according to [US] General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."


2012.  A year after 2011.  Not even a full year after the drawdown (not withdrawal, all US troops did not leave Iraq -- refer to Ted Koppel's real time reporting for NBC and NPR).


THE NATIONAL wants to ask "Why are US troops in Iraq?"  They don't want to answer it.


Not even in a geopolitical manner.  But they also don't want to be honest about the basics.


This is a propaganda video made by people who want the US in Iraq forever.  As the video moves from getting basic facts wrong, it then presents arguments as facts.  ISIS.  Iran.  Blah, blah, blah.


Iran?  The US has to stay in Iraq because of Iran?  


Hate to break it to THE NATIONAL but ISIS may some day be gone but Iran's going to be Iraq's neighbor forever.  


They share a border.  They'll fight, they'll get along, they'll have a relationship that will last as long as the earth does.


It's all a bunch of nonsense from THE NATIONAL.


Let's drop back to yesterday's snapshot:  After it went up, there was some confusion.  We were talking about Mustafa al-Kadhimi and his notorious inability to provide leadership.  We were noting that elections were supposed to take place this October and that Mustafa wanted a second term as prime minister of Iraq.  We were noting that otuside factors were the only thing benefitting him because his own actions certainly were not.  We explained that one of the biggest political parties in Iraq, the PUK, was in disarray.  It's the second largest party in the Kurdistan Region.  (Clearing up for one e-mail, the person appointed prime minister-designate will most likely have to cobble together support from various parties and slates because no one will win enough support from the direct election -- or that's been the case in every national election in Iraq since 2005.)  And now Moqtada al-Sadr -- Shi'ite cleric and attention whore -- is issuing a dramatic statement.  Those seem to come weekly now, don't they?  Last week, he was declaring that he was about to be killed and "Don't Cry For Me Sadr City" in his best Evita manner.  Yesterday's announcement was he wouldn't see office, be part of the process and blah blah blah.  Then we noted a sentence about Mustafa that I'll include in just a second.  Mustafa is making agreements with political leaders and has been doing that for months -- these are regarding the upcoming elections because he wants their support to get a second term.  The PUK and KDP have been in talks but have made no agreement thus far.  Moqtada had made an agreement with Mustafa.  (Nouri al-Maliki is rather infamous right now for his -- and State of Law's stance -- which is against a second term for Mustafa.  Even Moqtada wouldn't go that far.)


So after that, the following:



At the end of the month, Mustafa al-Kadhimi  is supposed to visit the US and meet with President Joe Biden.  ADDED: ARAB NEWS reports:


Iraq and the US discussed Thursday “the mechanisms for the withdrawal of combat forces” during a meeting of senior officials. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi met with US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk to discuss these mechanism and the “transition to a new phase of strategic cooperation that develops the relationship between the two countries and enhances Iraq’s security and sovereignty,” a statement released by Kadhimi’s office said. 


That first sentence created some confusion -- did I mean Mustafa or Moqtada?  I meant Mustafa.  So I asked Shirley to add what appears after "ADDED" hoping that cleared it up.  


On that topic, if the US government wants Mustafa for a second term, look for the visit to produce statements about a "withdrawal."  It'll be meaningless but they'll offer them.


Mustafa is grand standing about wanting US troops out.  He doesn't.  His government would fall without them -- and that's the reason, pay attention THE NATIONAL, that US troops are still in Iraq: To prop up the US created government that refuses to gain traction or popularity with the Iraqi people.  All this time later, it has still not taken root and Iraqis do not feel their government represents them.  For good reason.  Here's a video report on the most recent protests (over the hospital fire earlier this week and the corruption.)





Mustafa is not popular.  He was supposed to be a one term prime minister that would get sworn in, schedule early elections and then step aside quickly.  Then he got into office.  The addiciton to power -- and possibly the lure of corruption -- have him determined to be a life long politician.  And, really, who can blame him?  What's he going to do?  Go back to 'reporting' (writing opinion pieces passed off as reporting) for outlets like ARAB NEWS?


When he made his recent statements after the bombing the US carried out at the end of June, some who don't pay attention to Iraq were hailing him.  That would include Glenn Greenwald.  Glenn, you're too smart to act so foolishly.


First, if Mustafa wanted US troops out of Iraq, he would have exercised the exist clause which he can trigger as prime minister -- the exit clause to the agreement the US government and the Iraqi government entered into.


It doesn't require any input from the Iraqi Parliament.  Why is that?


Know the damn history.  So many idiots are betrayed by not knowing it.


Nouri al-Maliki couldn't sell the Parliament on an agreement.  The US grasped it and so did Nouri.  The UN mandate for the occupation of Iraq was running out.  The US needed its own mandate to stay -- a legal agreement between it and the Iraqi government.  Like the UK, they got one.  But they were idiots and got a yearly agreement.  Nouri rammed it through without Parliament the first year but suffered huge blowback and promised that he would get their permission for the next year.  He didn't.


That's why the SOFA was a three year agreement.  It was too much for Nouri politically -- and the US government wanted him as prime minister -- to keep going back yearly.


This applies to the current situation as well and why people need to know the history.


Mustafa's lying the same way Nouri did.  He needs US troops to stay in Iraq to protect him -- now from the militias, on top of everything else.  Especially true after they openly rejected him and circled his compound a few weeks ago.  


Nouri lied.  The US government lied.  To the Iraqi people, to the US citizens, to the world.


The 'withdrawal.'


It wasn't planned.


Nouri wanted US troops in Iraq.  To remain in Iraq.  He did not want to expend a lot of time and effort on selling 3,000 or less.  He told Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman -- as they both noted and as Lieberman testified before Congress -- in the summer of 2011 that he wanted approximately 20,000 at a minimum.  


And then the 'withdrawal' took place.


And then?


I was at the hearing where Leon Panetta testified as Secretary of Defense and explained that negotiations were ongoing.  Even while the 'withdrawal' was being sold by both governments and by the press, both sides thought an agreement would be reached by January.  Didn't happen in the end.  Because Barack Obama wouldn't guarantee the number of US troops Nouri wanted.


But while that went on, the discussions, you really didn't hear about it.  You were lied to and told that a "withdrawal" was taking place.  (Ted Koppel tried to get the real information out.)  


So you need to stop mistaking posturing statements from politicians as they seek re-election for truth.  


If Mustafa wanted US troops out of Iraq, the steps would have already been initiated for that to happen.


The upcoming meeting is taking place in an attempt to lift Mustafa's profile in Iraq.  It's part of his recent (and ongoing) meet leaders tour.  So far, that hasn't helped at all and he's openly mocked (even by ARAB NEWS) for his interaction with the leader of Egypt.  


The US government is assessing Mustafa's popularity currently and they are also assessing how well he might be able to deliver what the US government wants.  If they decide to bet on him, look for him to stand beside Joe Biden and issue some statement about US troops leaving.  


Such an announcement doesn't have to be true.  Believe it when US troops actually leave.  


But it will be an attempt by the US government to inflate Mustafa's standing in Iraq.


Tara Copp and Jaqueline Feldscher (DEFENSE ONE) report:

Officials shot down a report out of Baghdad on Thursday that the United States is preparing to withdraw its approximately 2,500 troops from Iraq. 

The push back follows a tweet from a BBC reporter saying that Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s top official for the Middle East and North Africa, told Iraqi officials that American troops would leave the country. 

“This report is totally false,” a senior Biden administration official told Defense One. The BBC reporter later deleted her original tweet and said in a new post that U.S. officials said it was “not true,” denying the information she received from Iraqi sources.  

McGurk met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi on Thursday to discuss preparations for the next strategic talks between the United States and Iraq, which first happened in April, as well as “the mechanisms for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq and the transition to a new phase of strategic cooperation,” according to a translation of a tweet from Al-Kadhimi’s office. 

Al-Kadhimi is expected to meet with Biden in Washington later this month.  


On the planned elections, Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:

Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako said on Friday that Christians will not vote in Iraqi parliamentary elections because of concerns over militias and possible fraud, the latest boycott that could cast doubts on the legitimacy of the election. 

“I doubt that there will be transparent and fair elections as the ground is not prepared for that. There are militias and political money, so fraud will occur,” Sako said in an interview with Rudaw, adding that he expects the same people will stay in power. 

In this environment, he said Christians will not participate in the elections because they are “tired of it.”

“The Christian quota will be hijacked again,” he added.

Iraq will hold parliamentary elections in October, a year ahead of schedule. An early vote was one of the demands of anti-government protesters who took to the streets in 2019. But after assassinations of leading activists, the government’s failure to hold the murderers responsible, and rampant corruption, there have been numerous calls for boycotts. 

Some activists and journalists have called for a boycott campaign, saying the elections will be open to fraud and overtaken by militias that operate out of the control of the state. 


In Iraq, the people are still reeling from a fire that appears to be caused due to a lack of government oversight and regulation probably due to corruption.  Ruth Sherlock (NPR) notes, ''Flames swept through outbuildings of the al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in the southern city of Nasiryah on Monday that had been set up to isolate those sick with COVID-19. Patients became trapped inside, with rescue teams struggling to reach them in time."  This morning, Abdulrahman Zeyad and Samya Kullab (AP) report:

 

No beds, medicines running low and hospital wards prone to fire — Iraq’s doctors say they are losing the battle against the coronavirus. And they say that was true even before a devastating blaze killed scores of people in a COVID-19 isolation unit this week.

Infections in Iraq have surged to record highs in a third wave spurred by the more aggressive delta variant, and long-neglected hospitals suffering the effects of decades of war are overwhelmed with severely ill patients, many of them this time young people.

Doctors are going online to plea for donations of medicine and bottled oxygen, and relatives are taking to social media to find hospital beds for their stricken loved ones.

“Every morning, it’s the same chaos repeated, wards overwhelmed with patients,” said Sarmed Ahmed, a doctor at Baghdad’s Al-Kindi Hospital.

Widespread distrust of Iraq’s crumbling health care system only intensified after Monday’s blaze at the Al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in the southern city of Nasiriyah, the country’s second catastrophic fire at a coronavirus ward in less than three months.


The following sites updated: