Friday, July 01, 2022

The sixth of nothing

 Jonathan Turley:


What is even more notable is the alleged failure of the Committee to reach out to them or the Secret Service to confirm that account before making it the highlight of a national hearing. Indeed, the hearing was suddenly called with little prior warning to highlight the new and explosive allegations.

This is the peril of an investigation that occurs in an echo chamber. Such “gotcha” moments are powerful in the moment but can also be equally damaging if later challenged.

This is the type of problem that arises when the focus of a hearing is persuasive rather than investigative. The account fit the narrative and the underlying fact seemed simply too good to check.


Agreed.  C.I. said it in "January 6th," "The biggest cautionary note remains: Stop wanting to see something so badly that you create a mirage."  I think she did a better job than anyone commenting on the hearing and the so called 'revelations' this week.    

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, June 30, 2022.  A new video makes clear how other countries take orders from the US to continue the persecution of Julian Assange, Iraq's record year of sandstorms continues and increases, a victory for veterans from the Supreme Court, we've found Jimmy Dore's presidential campaign slogan, and much more.  (Too much more, if you're Sy Hersh.)


Starting with this to-the-point video posted by Abbas Abdulmalik.


And it's not just funny, it's true.

US President Joe Biden persecutes Julian Assange.  His 'crime' doing journalism and telling the truth.  Exposing the US government's War Crimes.  Joe Biden could end the persecution at any point but he refuses to do so.

This persecution of Julian is about silencing the press.  Monday April 5, 2010, WIKILEAKS released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh.  That is when the persecution begins.  It was an intimidation carried out by multiple presidents starting with Barack Obama, continuing with Donald Trump and now the baton for killing the press has been handed off to Joe Biden.  



US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public.
Assange, an Australian citizen, is remanded and in ill health in London’s Belmarsh prison while the US tries to extradite him to face 18 charges – 17 under its Espionage Act – for conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified information.
The charges relate largely to the US conduct of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Assange’s publication of the US rules of engagement in Iraq.

The prosecution case alleges Assange risked American lives by releasing hundreds of thousands of US intelligence documents.


Dean Yates was the head of REUTERS' Baghdad beureau when the July 12, 2007 attack took place killing REUTERS journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh -- the attack carried out by the US government.  Daley quotes Yates stating, "What he did was 100% an act of truth-telling, exposing to the world what the war in Iraq looks like and how the US military lied … The US knows how embarrassing Collateral Murder is, how shameful it is to the military – they know that there’s potential war crimes on that tape."


In another article, Daley focused on Dean Yates:

Yates, shaking his head, says: “The US assertions that Namir and Saeed were killed during a firefight was all lies. But I didn’t know that at the time, so I updated my story to take in the US military’s statement.”
[. . .]

Reuters staff had by now spoken to 14 witnesses in al-Amin. All of them said they were unaware of any firefight that might have prompted the helicopter strike.

 Yates recalls: “The words that kept forming on my lips were ‘cold-blooded murder’.”

The Iraqi staff at Reuters, meanwhile, were concerned that the bureau was too soft on the US military. “But I could only write what we could establish and the US military was insisting Saeed and Namir were killed during a clash,” Yates says.

The meeting that put him on a path of destructive, paralysing – eventually suicidal – guilt and blame “that basically f**ked me up for the next 10 years”, leaving him in a state of “moral injury”, happened at US military headquarters in the Green Zone on 25 July.


July 3rd, the day before the US celebrates its independence, Julian will turn 51 -- and he will have been detained for 12 of those years per the United Nations' Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which made that ruling February 5, 2016.  He was only 39 when this persecution led to arbitrary detention.  

Twelve years.  I don't think Joe Biden can even picture 12 years into the future and I'm sure, with his onset of senility, that he can't picture 12 years into the past.

This is Joe's legacy and why the world will hate him.  It will be the linchpin of his legacy.  Persecuting someone who told the truth.  He will be seen as rotten to the core by the history books.  They will note the corruption of Hunter Biden and how Joe knew and he was so rotten that he covered up for his son -- breaking federal laws by obtaining a gun, breaking laws by paying prostitutes, breaking laws by using crack -- and all the time Joe had the Secret Service cleaning up after Hunter -- even when Joe was out of office.  They'll explore the way his daughter physically attacked a police officer and got away with it, how she illegally obtained drugs at a pharmacy, they'll go into his brother as well.

All of this will just glom on him and his family because of what he's doing to Julian.  

It's nothing heroic and it's nothing admirable.

And history will try to assess why he was so determined to destroy a free press.  And the easiest answer -- and the one that society wants to be told -- will be that Joe was "a bad apple."  And so they'll document at length all the scandals and crimes of Joe and his family to reassure everyone that what Joe did can't happen again.  It's how we lull ourselves to sleep and pretend the world isn't as bad as it really is.

Joe persecuting Julian guarantees that the Biden family name will be dirt for years and years to come.  

In the post-presidency, Joe's going to make LBJ look beloved.

(When Bill Moyers dies, will anyone defend LBJ?  Probably not.)

LBJ was on the wrong side of history with regard to Vietnam.  He persecuted a lot of people -- including Eartha Kitt -- but in the end Eartha's heroic and even his own party runs to avoid him.  He had The Great Society, a wonderful program.  But Vietnam overshadowed everything.

And that's how it's going to be with Joe Biden if he continues to persecute Julian Assange.  That will be Joe's legacy and he will bring eternal shame to the Biden family as a result.


Let's turn to Little Jackie Hinkle:

Ghislaine Maxwell was just sentenced to 20 years for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit and sexually abuse underage girls. She will likely get out earlier on good behavior. Julian Assange faces 175 years in prison for exposing US war crimes. Let that sink in.

Oh, so Little Jackie's opposed to pedophiles.

Sorry, my bad.  I guess I misunderstood when he brought on Scott Ritter to his YOUTUBE program and played footsie with him.  I guess seeing three times arrested and convicted and registered sex offenderr Scott Ritter on Little Jackie's program confused me.

Or maybe it's just that he's opposed to Ghislaine, is that it?

Certainly, he doesn't care about the safety of young females after bringing on Scott Ritter and raving over his 'credits' while failing to inform anyone streaming that Ritter was a convicted and registered sex offender.

Little Jackie while you were still waiting for hairs to grow in down there, we'd already staked our ground here on Scott Ritter and we made it clear that what happened next would be the hands of the people promoting Ritter.  That's back when Amy Goodman was promoting the filth.

You've got a lot of nerve pretending to look down on Ghislaine when you are just as bad as her and should Scott continue his pedophile ways, you are responsible because you have glorified and lied for him.  How is that any different than what Maxwell did for Jeffrey Epstein?

It's not and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

SCOTT RITTER CALLS OUT THE WAR ON RUSSIA!!!

Oh, okay, then.  Hell, let's go to the playground and grab him a five-year-old girl to thank him.  (That's sarcasm.)

Scott Ritter is not on my side and he not on the side of women and girls.  The psychologist that testified at his criminal trial spoke of how his patterns would continue (no surprise).  

And I repeatedly call out the war on Russia and don't need to use or hide behind Scott Ritter.

How pathetic is your opposition to the war, how weak are your arguments, that you have to bring on Scott Ritter to back up your case?

Little Jackie Hinkle, why don't you stick to bringing drunk girls home, booting up your YOUTUBE channel and doing a live broadcast to try to get into their pants.  I know it didn't work for you that time but that just makes it even sadder and more pathetic.  No wonder you suck at Scott Ritter's tits.

Remember gang, the new 'political party' entitled The People's Party is actually The Pedophile's Party since  all the members with YOUTUBE programs sees it as their responsibility to promote convicted pedophile Scott Ritter and grasp that you're going to have a hell of time trying to wash that stench off you.

They had the nerve to criticize the Green Party by wrongly insisting that the Greens do not focus on local and state elections.  But now this 'political party' plans to run a person for president in 2024 -- Jimmy Dore, no less.   Well as the republic topples, at least we'll go out with a good laugh.

Remember folks, The People's Party means a chicken in every pot and a pedophile in every playground!

It's amazing that these idiots didn't grasp that cozying up to and promoting Scott Ritter would harm their political chances.  Where were they when Sy Hersh's career went into the toilet because he was ass-to-ass linked with Ritter?  When no US media outlet would publish him?  He was warned.  He was told that he was harming his own reputation doing that media tour with Ritter (warned stronger than when  he wrote that outrageous garbage about JFK).  But he didn't listen.  Being a snitch for the CIA all those years led him to think he was invincible.  (He was a snitch.  He knows he was.  I know he was.  Oliver Stone knows he was.  I observed first hand him pumping activists for information that suddenly the government knew.  He thought he was charmer that night -- Joan Baez certainly found him charming.  I turned and left because it was obvious what he was doing.  Coretta Scott King and I discussed it at length.  Sorry, Sy, guess I won't hold your secret until your in the grave.)

And then there's Veterans for Sanity.  Once upon a time, they could turn up on ABC's NIGHTLINE.  Now the media avoids them because they have . . . Scott Ritter for a member.  

You make your choices.

I actually feel sorry for Jackson Hinkle because he is too young and too stupid to know better.  He hero worships Jimmy Dore and tries desperately to get Jimmy to note him (I'm assuming there are some real Daddy issues there and I'm not making a joke).  So if Jimmy has Scott Ritter on then Jackson has to have him on.  Poor Jackson, he'll probably live decades longer than Jimmy Dore and have to defend his past promoting Ritter while Jimmy's in the grave -- or while Jimmy's alive and using his all time favorite cop-out: I'm just a pothead comedian.

Can we make that the t-shirt for Jimmy's presidential campaign?

Own it, Jimmy, you can't run from it, so you may as well put it out front.

So what's happening in Iraq?

REUTERS headlines (no, not captions, the headline) their photo "Sandstoms shroud Iraq in orange haze."  REUTERS Tweets:


About one sandstorm a week has hit Iraq in the past few weeks in what residents say is the worst such spate in living memory reut.rs/3a4brF2
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Visiting Baghdad, Iraq, during a trip to the region in May of 2022, I got to see and experience various aspects of the city, including several historical sites, such as the famous al-Mutanabbi street where one of Baghdad’s oldest cafes, Shahbandar, is located. Together with Kawa Hassan, director of the Stimson Center’s Middle East and North Africa Program, I talked to political activists and political science students about the aspirations they have for Iraq and the role of the international community in the country. In this field note, I will summarize some of my observations.

Security: Perception and Reality

Entering Iraq was not difficult, as the country has since March 2021 made visas on arrival possible for 37 countries. Transport from the airport to the hotel was with an unarmored vehicle, and my colleagues and I were able to move through parts of the city by foot.

This seemed in contradiction to the fact that many employees of international organizations and embassies based in the Iraqi capital are confined to their housing compound, offices, and some green-lighted areas in the city. Embassies are in the fortified Green Zone, to which citizens have limited access, and diplomats follow a strict security protocol when they leave this International Zone (IZ). The Green Zone is also home to many Iraqi political leaders and the country’s parliament.

In five days, I was able to see parts of Baghdad that some international colleagues who have been in the country for months can’t visit.

Strangely, this meant that in five days I was able to see parts of Baghdad that some international colleagues who have been in the country for months can’t visit. Not for a moment did I feel unsafe. Nevertheless, the improvements made in security should not be taken for granted. Private security companies still surround hotels and some neighborhoods in Baghdad remain off-limits, as the threat of attacks and kidnappings remains.

Apocalyptic Baghdad: the Threat of Sand and Dust Storms

While Iraq has become safer when it comes to conventional security threats, the unconventional or indirect security threat of environmental degradation has increased. During the visit, a sand and dust storm (SDS) blanketed Baghdad, the eighth storm since April. Due to climate change and decades of poor agricultural and water-management, including a lack of cross-border cooperation, the number of sand and dust storms has heavily increased. Climate change and water mismanagement is also reflected in the low level of the Tigris river, which runs through Baghdad.

While Iraq has become safer when it comes to conventional security threats, the unconventional or indirect security threat of environmental degradation has increased

Environmental degradation has a major impact on agriculture and public health. The May 16 sandstorm, for example, put some 4000 people in the hospital. In addition, it can exacerbate social tensions, such as tribal and communal conflict. Government corruption and weak governance have formed an obstacle to dealing with the environmental issues at hand. And although there are a number of Iraqi environmental civil society organizations, they have been threatened by militias and certain elements of the security services, not in the least because of their association with the 2018-2019 Tishreen protest movement.












The Canadian government announced on Wednesday, its support for a catalyst climate action project in Iraq with $3.3 billion to solve the problem of climate change, indicating that the project provides an opportunity to alleviate water scarcity.
 
The Canadian government is working in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, the government of Iraq and the United Kingdom to support climate change initiatives as Canada contributes to this program within the Trans-boundary Water Program to increase Iraq's capacity, according to the Canadian Ambassador to Iraq Gregory Galligan in a speech during the launching ceremony of the project to catalyst climate action in Iraq, attended the Iraqi News Agency – INA.


We'll wind down with this from THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS:

In a ruling expected to have widespread impact on veterans nationwide, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a former state trooper to sue Texas over his claim that he was forced out of his job when he returned from Army service in Iraq.

The justices ruled for Army veteran Le Roy Torres under a federal law that was enacted in 1994 in the wake of the Persian Gulf war to strengthen job protections for returning service members.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court rejected Texas’ claim that it is shielded from such lawsuits. “Text, history, and precedent show that the States, in coming together to form a Union, agreed to sacrifice their sovereign immunity for the good of the common defense,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court.

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by three other conservative justices, dissented, arguing that “when the States ratified the Constitution, they did not implicitly consent to private damages actions filed in their own courts — whether authorized by Congress’ war powers or any other Article I power.” Article I refers to the part of the Constitution that spells out Congress’ power.

Torres says he suffered lung damage from exposure to open burn pits on his base in Iraq.


Of course, Clarence Thomas dissented -- impeach him already.  And then Glenn Greenwald can go back on FOX NEWS and tell the world again just how wonderful a person Clarence really is.


Le Roy Torres and his wife Rosie Torres are the founders of Burn Pits 360 -- an advocacy group for those who served and were harmed by burn pits.  Le Roy served in the Iraq War and he served in the US military for a total of 23 years -- we often note Burn Pits 360 here and run any newsletter or press release that is passed on.


Dan Abrams' LAW AND CRIME notes:


Le Roy Torres worked for the Texas Department of Public Safety prior to his assignment in the so-called “burn pits” of Iraq – where U.S. troops toxically disposed of garbage by burning, as the court puts it, “all manner of trash, human waste, and military equipment.”

Returning home, the onetime military reservist received an honorable discharge and a lifetime ailment: constrictive bronchitis. The diagnosis includes what medical journals have described as “irreversible airflow obstruction.” Symptoms associated with the disease have been observed as statistically significant among veterans of U.S. military activity in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“These ailments, Torres alleges, changed his life and left him unable to work at his old job as a state trooper,” Justice Stephen Breyer writes for the majority. “Torres asked his former employer, respondent Texas Department of Public Safety, to accommodate his condition by reemploying him in a different role. Texas refused to do so.”

Torres sued the Lone Star State in its capacity as a state under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, which, relevant here, provides that U.S. states must use “reasonable efforts” to accommodate service-related disabilities or find an “equivalent” position or “nearest approximation” for veterans who return from foreign deployments with a disability that prevents the veteran from working in their former job. The Act in question applies to many employment scenarios; Torres’s state government employment was the key to this case.

Texas moved to dismiss the lawsuit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Each side won a victory in lower courts. Torres filed a writ for petition of certiorari. The justices ruled 5-4 in the veteran’s favor.

Ruling against Texas, Breyer’s relatively brief opinion spends considerable time reflecting on the history of the federal government raising armies for the national defense. Such efforts, the high court held, mean that states gave away some of their sovereign immunity when they ratified the U.S. Constitution and joined the union.


The following sites updated:


  • Thursday, June 30, 2022

    Gilbert Doctorow, Ava and C.I.

    Interesting column from Gilbert Doctorow (ANTIWAR.COM):


     The elites of the European Union who are running the show seem to have a contemptuous view of their fellow citizens. Russian media must be banned from the air waves lest the poor simpletons who call themselves Europeans be led astray by the Kremlin!

    I submit that the people could not care less about the entire fuss over Ukraine at the ideological level of democracy versus autocracy, or civilization over barbarism. They care about their fuel bills, about rising costs at the supermarket check-out. Full stop.

    This indifference to the military and economic warfare being led from Brussels is sad, though it may yet be reversed and shift towards street protests in the coming months. Not because of Russian propaganda, which is surely now nipped in the bud, but because the pain being inflicted on the population by the economic kamikaze political leadership through sanctions on Russia becomes unbearable here.

    Meanwhile, I offer some further thoughts bearing on my essay of two days ago about the New Iron Curtain.

    First, to anyone with half a brain and a bit of mental concentration, the contradictions in Kiev-Collective West news (read propaganda) are glaring and self-defeating without an adversary in the ring. 


    From that, let's go into Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Self-love doesn't help the vain get honest" which is about many things but mainly the comedy special Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda hosted for NETFLIX:

    Watching the nonsense from Lily and Jane, we were reminded of Jane's film CAT BALLOU, specifically when Cat comes face to face with her former heroes, "Some gang of cutthroats and murderers. We used to whisper your names when we were kids - scared to say them out loud. How sad - you got old."

    Indeed.

    Gloria Steinem  posited decades ago that, unlike men, women get more radical with age. Are Lily and Jane not really women?

    Lily's a lesbian so it was surprising that she didn't name any lesbians as a hero.

    She was mainly attempting to act addle-brained. That was her comic bit.

    It was a sad bit, a tired bit, but it was one more bit than Jane had.

    Reality, Jane wants desperately to be seen as funny. She's wanted that for most of her adult life.

    Why? When she truly was radical -- yes, as hard as it is to believe today, Jane was once radical -- some put her down by stating she was humorless.

    That wasn't fair. Jane always had a sense of humor.

    But she can't tell a joke. That is reality.

    Give her a script and a character to hide behind and she can be delightful.

    Let her play herself and . . .

    Her most embarrassing industry moment remains the Academy Awards. She was delivering an intro about nominated scripts. She bore down on what she said were the two most scary words "Fade in."

    She looked around at the somber audience quizzically, pondering where the laugh was?

    She never found it.

    She's just not funny. In fairness, this was the same night she chose to unveil ("sport," her detractors said) her breast implants and, for the woman who couldn't stop about telling people to make friends with their wrinkles, those huge fake boos were upstaging anything coming out of her mouth.

    Except for the fake boobs, her hosting of the stand up program really called that former embarrassment to mind.


    How very sad.

    "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

    Wednesday, June 29, 2022.  Glenn Greenwald sports his sexism and puts on his sub collar as he rushes to defend his dom Clarence Thomas, Iraq continues to suffer with no leadership, Alec Baldwin interviews Woody Allen and much more.


    Let's start with some stupidity.



    Glenn Greenwald.  You know I try to bite my tongue because he has been under attack.


    But Glenn is a sexist and I say that over and over and people come along in drive-by e-mails insisting that's not the case.  He's a sexist pig.


    Everything Hillary Clinton said about Clarence Thomas is no doubt true of herself -- she's one of the great projectionists.  That however does not make Clarence Thomas a nice person.


    Glenn is supposedly concerned about something more than the elites.  I don't give two s**ts what Clarence's peers on the Court say about how nice he is.  The reality is that he's an abuser and a piece of garbage.  Ask Anita Hill and the other women who ready to testify before the Senate however then-Senator Joe Biden would not allow their testimony.


    Glenn and his buddies all kicked Felicia Somnez because their buddy -- though they never reveal their circle jerk -- remember it was the circle jerk that brought Glenn to prominence as a blogger back in the day -- got suspended.  For making a joke.  Making a sexist joke in an office environment already reeling from sexism and doing so after he had already received multiple warnings this year alone.  Instead of defending the person who was fighting an institution, they made it about Pig Davey -- noted liar who got fired for lying earlier.  It was only after trash like Jeff Bezos -- who has no concept of importance of a functioning press -- bought THE WASHINGTON POST that Pig David was allowed back to the paper.  And Pig David has no self-respect so he tucked his tail between his legs and went running back.  Felicia is not the only woman at THE POST who has complained to HR about David this year.


    But Glenn and the Michael Traceys and the Jimmy Dores and all the rest didn't care.


    To them sexism in the work place is something they're all for.  Witness Jimmy's behavior towards Ana when they were on THE YOUNG TURKS together and witness his rage at Ana in the years since versus the way he talks about Cenk.  He just calls out Cenk.  He wants to obliterate Ana.


    It's going to be funny if Jimmy does try to run for president.  (No party is electing him.  No one apparently would vote for him so he has to be 'drafted' in what they're calling a new political party but most parties have chapters and hold primaries.)


    Glenn dismisses what happened to Anita Hill and other women.  He also dismisses Clarence's known record at the EEOC which further goes to the harm Little Clary did to women in the workplace.


    No, Glenn rushes to insist, Clary Thomas is a good guy.


    What a load of garbage and what a knee jerk response from a sexist pig.


    These little boys need to take a look at themselves.  


    They're trying to raise awareness on Julian Assange and all they're doing is pissing off people.  A friend at THE NEW YORK TIMES has a bet with me.  He's convinced I'm going to blow their pathetic defense out of the water.  He's referring to the fact that there is a good reason that the press -- corporate -- is not rushing to defend Julian.


    We covered it here years and years ago.  And they just lied -- that includes John Pilger.  They lied because a truth was uncomfortable.  


    The press does have a reason to ignore him.  And it's not a novel reason that they've just invented.  It's a longstanding reason.  I've tabled that until after Julian's free.  I've bit my tongue on it for several years now.  A friend at THE TIMES is convinced that I'm going to explode with it at any minute.  He's been convinced of that for over two years.  

    I don't think I am -- I could be wrong.  But I don't think I am.  If I were going to, I'd probably refer to the court record on this right now.  

    To be clear, the person I'm dictating this too just said some are going to think I'm referring to the two women who brought complaints against Julian.  I am not referring to those women or to their complaint.  I'm referring to something else that came up in the case and is a matter of public record and sworn testimony.  


    Anyway,  Glenn lying for Clarence like this?


    Glenn's a pig and shouldn't be fathering a daughter if he's not willing to address his sexism.  He's aging poorly -- the skin is falling off his face as though his face is a boiled chicken -- so I'm not sure how old he is.   55.  I was just told he was 55..  He looks 60 at least.  He needs to grow the hell up.


    He's also wrong about Hillary in this case.  He wants you to know -- because he has a penis so he is the norm, right?  He wants you to know that Hillary couldn't have known much about Clarence at all.  


    Really, you're so eager to trash her that you're going to make that stupid comment?


    Hillary knows everything about the people around her.  She always has.  Not to help them, not to assist them.  But like The Terminator, she scans the room.  Everyone is a potential competitor for Hillary and that's why she's always made it a point to know as much as she could about everyone around her.  And certainly Clary stood out.  He graduated in 1974.  The first African-American to get a JSD from Yale Law School was Pauli Murray and she did that in 1965 -- not even ten years before Thomas graduated from Yale with his JDS.  


    Glenn always does what he calls thinking by reflecting on himself.  He has no idea what Yale was like in the early 1970s and he doesn't have the common sense to grasp that his class of 1994 (not at Yale, of course) wasn't reflective on 1974.  


    Our point today was to open with Julian Assange.  US President Joe Biden is persecuting Julian.  Not the head of the Justice Dept.  The decisions are not made on that level and you really do have to be a broken down, failed musician like David Rovics to think otherwise.  Of course, you can also be a coward to scared to call out Joe Biden.


    But calling out Joe Biden is the only thing that might get the US to drop the efforts to extradite Julian to the US.  So why aren't people doing it?  


    And Glenn goes on FOX NEWS and tosses out Hillary hatred (which is fine, hatred of Hillary is not sexism) and then goes on to offer this ridiculous defense of Clarence Thomas.


    Glenn, are you hoping that Clarence gets his way and strips you of the right to marry, strips you of certain legal rights regarding sexual relations?


    Are you?


    Is that what's going on?


    Miles Striker is an Iraq War veteran and we try to be understanding about veterans.  We also call out the loons who deserve to be called out.  Miles is one.


    Little Miley came across our radar back in May of last year when Ava and I had to critique the world of fetish porn.  From "Media: Gay Rights and Gay Wrongs:"


    He's an Iraq War veteran who makes fetish porn.  He started out in femdom porn (female dominant).  He's done plenty of straight porn.  Sadly, he decided to move over to gay porn.  Even worse, some gay men have embraced him.


    They shouldn't have.


    Now domination may or may not be your fetish.  If it is, enjoy -- whether as a fantasy or in reality.  And humiliation and shame may be your kink as well.


    That's your thing.

     

    We have no problem with that.


    Where we have a problem is with the garbage he does for the gay community.  Ty brought a particular video to our attention: GAY RIGHTS REVOKED. 

     

    This is a POV -- point of view -- video.  He speaks to someone unseen.  


    He announces at the beginning, to the f**got (his term), that the US government has revoked gay rights -- something he always knew would happen, he says -- and this was either by the Courts or the Congress -- don't expect to follow his storyline because he never thought it out -- he's a dumb ass -- in real life and in the video.  


    And now he is going to burn the brow of this f**got neighbor, someone he burned before.  Back then, Miles had the police knock on his door for the hate crime.  That's over because, as Miles asks, "How can you hate a thing?"  Miles announces that the house is now his house and that he'll be pissing down the throat of the 'thing.'  Won't be screwing him or getting oral sex from him, but he'll piss down the throat of the 'thing' and puts the ash from his cigarette on the tongue of the 'thing' repeatedly.


    This performer, Miles Striker, won an award from the porn industry.

     

    The LGBTQ community should not be encouraging this, they should be calling him out and they should be joined by many other voices.


    Maybe Glenn's one of Miles Striker's biggest fans and has been longing for the day when GAY RIGHTS REVOKED could become true?  I don't know.


    I do know that a normal person doesn't go out of their way to defend someone like Clarence Thomas who has put in writing that he wants to overturn marriage equality and to make sodomy illegal again.

    That's who Glenn Greenwald wants to defend as a good guy.  

    There's nothing to defend there and Glenn comes off like a sub when he does so.  I really would have thought Glenn were the top in that relationship.  But apparently he's a sub (and that's not a bottom for those who don't know -- a sub is more along the lines of the person Striker is speaking to in the video we described above).  


    We noted in yesterday's snapshot that a former college student shot two professors in Iraq.  AFP reports:


    Two Iraqi university professors were gunned down in the Kurdish regional capital Irbil on Tuesday prompting the arrest of a disgruntled former student, authorities said.
    Shootings as a means of settling scores are far from rare in Iraq — its legacy of war and sectarian conflict mean the country’s 40 million people count some 7.6 million firearms, according to figures from the Small Arms Survey.
    A Soran University engineering professor was shot dead in his home in the early hours, and the dean of the Salaheddin University law faculty, Kawan Ismail, was killed on campus shortly afterwards, provincial governor Omed Khoshnaw told reporters.
    Police believe the shooter did not originally intend to kill the engineering professor, but rather his wife, who is a law professor at the same university and was away from home at the time, Khosnaw said.


    On the political front there is . . . no new news.  The political stalemate continues.  AHRAM reports:


    “The Iraqi people were waiting for steps to be announced by the strong and popular Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr to form a national and reformist government and not a consensual government,” Jinan Ali, an activist who participated in the Tishreen (October) protests in Iraq in 2019, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

    The protests forced changes in the Iraqi elections law and Independent Higher Electoral Commission and obliged the government of former prime minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi to resign in December 2019.

    “One of the demands of the Tishreen protests was to put an end to the policy of muhasasa [power sharing by sectarian quota] or what they call ‘consensual government’ that has achieved nothing since the first general elections in 2006,” Ali said.

    “This policy has led to chaos and corruption and increased the percentage of Iraqis living under the poverty line,” she added.

    Ali is not optimistic that the kind of government the protesters wanted to see will now be formed after the resignation of the Sadrist Bloc, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament after last year’s elections, and the formation of the Save the Nation Alliance with the Siyada (sovereignty) Alliance of Parliamentary Speaker Mohamed Al-Halbousi, a Sunni Muslim, and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.

    The Coordination Framework (CF) led by former prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki includes all Iraq’s Shia political parties and movements except the Sadrist Bloc, and the Sunni Al-Azm Alliance and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of late Iraqi president Jalal Talbani wants to form a consensual government with it.


    We're ten days away from nine months since the October 10th elections.

    Iraq is still facing the pandemic (as we all are around the world).  In addition, they're facing cholera -- and the country's had their first cholera confirmed death this year.  In addition, there are the issues of climate change -- drought especially.  And there's no leadership at the top.

    In this climate, MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:


    On the morning of 25 June, three men claiming to be from National Security Service forces, stormed a training workshop on gender-based violence in Iraq’s southern city of Basra.

    The men, who were wearing civilian clothes and had arrived in a tinted GXR vehicle, told the organisers of the Advocacy Campaigns Against Gender-Based Violence workshop, set up by al-Firdaws Society, that training on such topics is not allowed, both now and in the future.

    Fatima Bahadly, founder of al-Firdaws, condemned the attack on the workshop and demanded that the authorities in Basra release a public statement regarding the incident.

    “[They need to] clearly explain the circumstances to the media outlets, or we will otherwise go to the judiciary and follow up all the legal means to secure our rights,” Bahadly told Middle East Eye. 

    Bahadly, a prominent Iraqi rights activist whose 26-year-old son was found shot dead last year, has received death threats over the years for her work on human rights issues in Iraq and has faced severe social pressure from her own tribe.


    In yesterday's snapshot, this appeared:

    Two quick notes.  Everyone in the community is depressed regarding ROE.  I don't think there's going to be an edition of THIRD so if that proves to be the case as today unfolds, Ava and I'll post our TV piece late this afternoon (PST).  I believe it's 10:00 am EST that, on INSTAGRAM, Alec Baldwin is going to be interviewing Woody Allen live.  I consider Alec a friend.  I know Woody but we're not friends and weren't when he was with Mia (who was a friend).  I'm sure it'll be an interesting interview and if it makes it up on YOUTUBE we'll gladly repost it.  

    The public account got over 60 e-mails insisting I had trashed Woody Allen in the comments above.  As Keesha says, this is a private conversation in a public square.  If you're going to make judgments, try to do a little research.


    I don't like Woody as a person.  I never have.  That is up here and at THIRD.  He's a great artist.  We don't connect.  That doesn't make him a bad person.  My comments yesterday was "quick notes" -- I do consider Alec a friend (he's nuts when it comes to Ukraine but, in fairness, he's not as nuts as Jane is -- I am well remember a smarter Jane Fonda than the one we've got today).  Woody and I never got along.  Sometimes people don't.  It doesn't mean that we fought.  It doesn't even mean that we hate each other.  It just means there's never been a connection there.  He is a great artist.  


    I have defended him regarding Mia's allegations which I believe are lies and I say that as a former friend of Mia's (I dropped her).  Dylan has doubts about what she's saying.  She should. I believe Woody's innocent -- and that has been the findings in the investigations that have taken place.  Dylan's comments at 7?  You mean when Mia was taping her own daughter nude?  You mean when Mia dropped that tape off at TV news station hoping they would air -- but they didn't want to air kiddie porn?


    The HBO documentary was a bunch of lies from a bunch of liars.


    Ava and I covered it in "TV: Back into the cesspool" and at the end of that you can see these links:


    "The award for best self-created drama goes to Mia Farrow (Ava and C.I.)"


    "TV: Another idiot for the idiot box"


    "Mia and the meanings for America"


    "Mia and her brood drag whatever's left of the name through the mud"


    "TV: The gifted?"


    "Dylan whines to Maureen Orth who passes it on to Janet Maslin"


    "Media: "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!""


    "He's a criminal (Ava and C.I.)"


    "Saint Maria de Lourdes"


    "Natalie Wood: The lies that remain repeated (C.I.)"


    "Deep Thoughts From Roh-Roh Farrow"


    "MEDIA: Hannah Gadsby is the 21st century's Jimmy Swaggart"


    Those are only some of the pieces I've written and co-written regarding this issue.


    Here's Alec's interview with Woody Allen.





    The following sites updated: