I'm confused. Can someone help me out? Senator Ted Cruz
gets a beer can thrown at him in Texas and the press says it's proof of how
unpopular he is. Paul Pelosi gets attacked in what they saw was an
attempt to attack Nancy Pelosi and we're told that "misinformation" is
responsible for the assault.
Anyone else see a problem with these MSM narratives?
Ted
is assumed to be guilty and the person tossing the beer is assumed to
be well within their rights. Nancy? She's as innocent and pure as the
Colorado snow while her attacker is motivated by "misinformation."
I
believe the misinformation is within the press itself which treats one
attacks as a response to unpopular actions by the senator and treats
another attack as a response to "misinformation."
It's
kind of hard to misinform on Nancy since she's been in leadership for
20 years -- ever since she blackmailed her opponent in the House
Minority Leadership race to drop out -- she had photos of a party after
block walking where some of the underage males were holding beers.
(C.I. reported on this long ago.) That's how she got her competitor to
drop out and then she made sure he was redistricted out of office.
Are
we really surprised people think ill of Nancy? That's before you add
in all the ways she's failed to provide leadership. Such as after the
2006 midterms when Dems controlled both houses of Congress and she had
promised, ahead of the midterms, that if the party got control of one
house they would be able to end the Iraq War. Then what happened? She
had a big meeting with the editors and journalists of THE SAN FRANCISCO
CHRONICLE and when asked about that promise, she stated it was Harry
Reid's fault. He was now in charge of the Senate and he didn't want to
end the war. Again, C.I. reported on it -- in real time. She linked to
the audio that THE CHRONICLE posted.
Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Today we note the murder of Stephen Troell
in Baghdad, the death of Canadian military member Eric Cheung and the
conviction of a United Nations worker who drugged and raped women.
Violence
never ends in Iraq. Most of the time, however, the US media ignores
it. Today, they're interested because one of the dead is an American
citizen, Stephen Troell. Morgan Winsor (ABC NEWS) reports:
An American aid worker was gunned down in Baghdad on Monday, officials said.
Millennium
Relief and Development Services, a Texas-based international aid group,
confirmed in a statement that one of its workers was "shot and killed
by armed attackers as he returned to this home on Monday evening." His
name has not yet been released.
"We
are greatly saddened by the tragedy that took the life of our
colleague, near his home in Baghdad, Iraq," Millennium said. "An
investigation is ongoing and details on the assailants and the
motivation for the attack are not known at this time."
ALJAZEERA notes,
"Police sources also said that the man’s wife and child were in the car
with him but were not hurt. The attack occurred after the man was cut
off while driving in the
streets by one car, while assailants in another car shot him dead."
Along with the Tweets above, RUDAW also identifies the man murdered as Stephen Troell. I have no idea why the American press continues to go with "unidentified."
The murder came up in yesterday afternoon's press briefing at the US State Dept:
[Spokesperson Ned] PRICE: Happy Monday.
QUESTION: Before I get to a question on Russia, I
just want to ask real quick – because I don’t think you’ll have a lot on
this, but I just want to make sure – and that is the murder of a USAID
worker in Baghdad. Have you –
MR PRICE: You’re right.
We don’t have much to offer on this publicly just yet. We’re of course
aware of these reports. We’re looking into these reports. There is a
process that we would need to undertake, if and when we are in a
position to confirm that an American has been killed. We would of course
first notify the next of kin before making any public comment. So,
we’re still looking into these reports to determine what we can
regarding these allegations.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, does that mean that you’re –
that you don’t even know if someone has been – has been killed in the
circumstances that were described?
MR PRICE: There is no reason to doubt that someone
has been killed, as the reports indicate. But we want to be thorough in
determining that the victim in this case was in fact a U.S. citizen, and
of course then undertaking any necessary efforts to notify next of kin.
As
that took place, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre held a 58
minute press briefing and the murder never came up. "Now, let that sink
in for a second. Let that sink in for just a second." 58 minutes and
she never raised the issue nor did the press. An aid worker had been
murdered, an American citizen and she wanted to play cutesy about MEET
THE PRESS and other garbage. Does she understand her job? She offered
nothing but garbage and she violated The Hatch Act repeatedly while
repeatedly shouting out "Hatch Act" -- like it was "Tag, your it!" --
but she couldn't be bothered with the murder of an American citizen in
Iraq.
It's that kind of garbage that's resulted in the very bad image this administration has -- a bad image that crosses party lines.
When
Joe Biden is talking about his son -- who died in Maryland, not Iraq --
he tears up and cries and we're all supposed to be so touched. But
this administration can't even make a moment's time in White House press
briefing to note an American aid worker who actually did get killed in
Iraq?
An Iraqi police major (unnamed) tells REUTERS, "Our initial investigation and eyewitnesses showed that armed men were
trying to kidnap the American citizen." THE INDEPENDENT adds, "Iraq’s
prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that a committee will be
formed to 'investigate the circumstances of the killing of an American
citizen in the capital'." And AP notes, "The streets
of the middle class, mixed Christian and Muslim neighborhood where the
victim reportedly lived were empty of residents but heavily patrolled by
police Monday night. Such
attacks against individuals in the Iraqi capital have been rare since
the defeat of the Islamic State group in the country in 2017 but rockets
are sometimes fired toward the U.S. Embassy."
A little known group calling itself the Ahl al-Kahf Brigades issued a
claim of responsibility on Tuesday for the murder of the American man,
according to Iraqi media reports. The group was said to have claimed the
attack as retaliation for the killing of senior Iranian military
commander General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the deputy head of a pro-Iran group, who were both killed in the same U.S. airstrike at the beginning of 2020.
The American is not the only foreign national killed in Iraq in the last days. THE CANADIAN PRESS reports,
"Capt. Eric Cheung, 38, died Saturday under what the military is
calling 'non-operational related circumstances,' though the exact
details are
now under investigation."
Cheung had been a member of the Canadian Armed Forces since 2009,
most recently as an operations officer with 38 Canadian Brigade Group
headquarters, based in Winnipeg.
He was in Baghdad as part of the
U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, a militant group fighting to establish
an Islamist state, when he died.
Canada has had troops in Iraq since 2014, when ISIS first captured a large swath of territory and declared an Islamic caliphate.
Let's drop back a week for Karim Elkorany because at least one of his rape victims was an Iraqi woman. AP reported last week:
The sentencing of a former United Nations communications specialist
to 15 years in prison Thursday was punctuated by the tears and eloquence
of some of his 13 sexual assault victims who said being drugged and
raped by a man who first befriended them left them shattered and hopeful
that justice might help them heal.
When they were finished speaking, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice
Buchwald told Karim Elkorany that it was particularly heinous that he
engaged in the “raping of women who believed he was their friend” as she
sentenced him to the maximum he could face after he pleaded guilty to
three charges in May.
The UN opened an investigation into Elkorany after a victim
reported being sexually assaulted in 2016 in Iraq, according to the SDNY
statement.
Nearly a year later, special agents with the New York FBI field
office interviewed Elkorany in November of 2017 outside his New Jersey
residence where he denied the allegations, according to the statement.
Prosecutors say investigators found that Elkorany “engaged in a
pattern of similar conduct involving many other women,” including
sexually assaulting a UN contractor in the United States and Iraq, among
other locations, on multiple occasions.
From around 2009 to around 2016, Elkorany sexually assaulted or
attempted to sexually assault at least five victims after the women were
rendered unconscious from consuming alcoholic drinks he had prepared
for them, according to the statement.
The US Justice Dept issued the following statement:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Former United Nations Employee Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison For Drugging And Sexually Assaulting Victims
Throughout Nearly Two Decades, Karim Elkorany Drugged 20 Victims and Sexually Assaulted at Least 13 of Those Victims
Damian
Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, announced today that KARIM ELKORANY, a former communications
specialist with the United Nations (“UN”) in Iraq, was sentenced today
in Manhattan federal court by United States District Judge Naomi Reice
Buchwald to 15 years in prison for drugging and/or sexually assaulting
20 victims. ELKORANY previously pled guilty on May 24, 2022, to
sexually assaulting an internationally protected person and making false
statements to cover up another sexual assault. In connection with the
plea, ELKORANY also admitted that he drugged and/or sexually assaulted
17 additional victims.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Karim Elkorany perpetrated
monstrous acts against multiple women over nearly two decades. At
today’s proceeding, Elkorany was held accountable by the Court and also
by his victims, a number of whom confronted him with powerful statements
about the grievous harm he caused through his horrific conduct. We
express deep gratitude to all of the victims for their bravery in coming
forward and remain committed to doing all we can to bring perpetrators
like Elkorany to justice.”
According to the Superseding Indictment, public court filings, and statements during court proceedings:
Since at least in or about 2005 up to at least in or about April
2018, ELKORANY worked in international aid, development, and/or foreign
relations. From in or about October 2013 up to in or about April 2016,
ELKORANY worked for the UN Children’s Fund (commonly known as UNICEF) in
Iraq. From in or about July 2016 up to in or about April 2018,
ELKORANY worked as a Communications Specialist for the UN in Iraq.
In or about November 2016, ELKORANY drugged and sexually assaulted a
woman (“Victim-1”) in Iraq, where he was stationed while working for the
UN. ELKORANY drugged Victim-1 and brought Victim-1 to his apartment.
While at ELKORANY’s apartment, ELKORANY sexually assaulted Victim-1
while she was unconscious. In or around December 2016, Victim-1
reported the sexual assault to the UN. The UN initiated an
investigation, through which ELKORANY was notified of the substance of
Victim-1’s allegations against him.
On or about November 3, 2017, special agents with the New York Field
Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) conducted a
voluntary interview of ELKORANY outside of his residence in New Jersey.
During that interview, ELKORANY expressed familiarity with the nature
and substance of the allegations made by Victim-1 to the UN but falsely
stated that the drugging and sexual assault by ELKORANY that Victim-1
had reported to the UN did not occur.
ELKORANY also engaged in a pattern of similar conduct involving many
other women. Between in or around 2014 and in or around 2019, ELKORANY
drugged and sexually assaulted a woman (“Victim-2”), who was a
contractor for a UN organization at relevant times, in the United States
and Iraq, among other locations, on multiple occasions.
In addition to Victim-1 and Victim‑2, ELKORANY drugged and/or
sexually assaulted 18 additional victims between in or around 2002 and
in or around 2016.
* * *
In addition to the prison sentence, ELKORANY, 39, of West Orange, New
Jersey, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered
to pay restitution in amounts to be determined.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the FBI.
The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lara Pomerantz, Amanda L. Houle, Daniel C.
Richenthal, and Robert B. Sobelman are in charge of the prosecution.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is
urging Big Tech platforms to censor election-related content ahead of
the Tuesday midterms, saying uncontrolled speech on social media was
fueling violent incidents like the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and the
attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband.
"In
advance of the upcoming November 2022 midterm election, social media
platforms must take critical steps to stop the spread of disinformation and misinformation that
attack the integrity of our electoral process," Bonta wrote Thursday in
a 16-page letter to the heads of the of Meta, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit,
and Twitter.
Bonta
said more efforts were needed to stem the flow of "fake news" that he
said has played a role in some political violence seen over the last few
years. He partly blamed social media for the Jan. 6 riot at the
Capitol, and said the event was "derived from and deeply connected to
hoaxes and conspiracy theories amplified on social media."
Oh,
shut up. You don't support free speech or you wouldn't be whining.
Free speech had nothing to do with whatever went down between that man
and Paul Pelosi.
There
is no such thing as "controlled free speech." How stupid do you have
to be to not get that? I guess when you live in California where
there's a plastic surgeon on every street corner and you never go in to
get your pig face fixed, you're pretty stupid. He really does have a
face like a pig. How sad.
How sad that Don Lemon refuses to adapt to being a morning talk show host. First off, click on the link so you can see how bad Don looks in the photo. Second, from the article:
“I think it’s important to have Kevin McCarthy on, but it needs to be fact-checked,” Lemon said to his CNN This Morning co-hosts. “A lot of what he said in the interview was not factual.”
The
newly minted morning host’s comments followed CNN congressional
reporter Melanie Zamona’s sit-down interview with McCarthy, in which he
claimed fentanyl was the top killer of Americans between the ages of 18
to 45. The wide-ranging interview touched on McCarthy’s plans should he
become the next Speaker of the House, including his plans to install
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on House committees if the GOP takes
back the House majority.
No
one watching a morning talk show is watching for Don to get prissy
about the work of a CNN reporter. He really doesn't understand his
job. If he can't grasp it, he needs to be fired.
Monday, November 7, 2022. THE INTERCEPT attacks veterans, a fire in
Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament moves towards registration for a military
draft, and much more.
Midterms are tomorrow
and, if you forgot, there's always the money grubbing INTERCEPT to
remind you. Now THE INTERCEPT doesn't want to report on anything that
would influence a US election . . . if it has to do with Democrats.
That's why Glenn Greenwald is no longer there, remember?
He wanted to write about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election
and despite his contract and the legal promises made within it Bitsy
Reed said "No." It must have felt so good for Bitsy, the untrained
journalist, to finally say no after 16 years of fetching coffee and
conducting other personal errands for Katrina vanden Heuvel. She must
have finally felt like she was important. Did she take that mistaken
belief with her when she joined THE GUARDIAN months ago? Let's hope she
manages to work out there -- she hasn't at any other publication and
goodness knows her personal life is a nightmare.
THE
INTERCEPT wouldn't report on the laptop and money whores like Naomi
Klein rushed to attack Glenn. Did Glenn burp in public? No, he
offended them by shining a spotlight on Democrats and doing so ahead of
an election.
It's election time so it's time
for THE INTERCEPT to whore as they are so eager to do. So they run
Peter Maas' alarmist attacks on veterans.
On veterans?
Oh, excuse me. On right-wing veterans.
That's what they've done.
It's
an election so the trash at THE INTERCEPT wants to resurrect the crazed
veteran lie and paint any veteran to the right of AOC as crazed,
psychotic and a threat to freedom and democracy.
THE INTERCEPT is disgusting.
We
have made clear at this site that if a veteran or active duty rapes or
kills, we hold them accountable. We hold that person accountable We
don't use that crime or any other to indict all veterans or all veterans
of a political class.
THE INTERCEPT does.
It
needs to be called out for its garbage that's intended to frighten
American voters. That's all the propaganda that Peter Maas produced is
about.
It's disgusting.
And who's spitting on veterans? THE INTERCEPT is.
I
wish I were better able to cover this. I'm not. I'm limited in my
word choice because we have to be work safe. I'm also so angry that my
hands are shaking. "Shame on THE INTERCEPT for publishing garbage"
went up last night and just stops, I know. I had hoped I'd be calmer
in the morning. I'm not. That they could use people who have already
suffered by being sent into war and use them for propaganda to turn out a
vote? It's disgusting. They are disgusting.
The
mid-terms will be over Tuesday. And once upon a time in this country,
that meant relief. That meant that real activists could return to work
and that real issues could get spotlighted. But in part due to garbage
like THE NATION magazine, this cycle never ends, not even when the
election is over. THE NATION spent the '00s trying to scare people into
voting. And now it's been taken up by the larger media and we never
get to accomplish anything.
Any electoral success for the Republicans is due entirely to the
reactionary and bankrupt policies of the Democratic Party and the
impasse for the working class created by the two-party monopoly.
What
have been the main “achievements” of the Democratic Party during the
past two years, when it controlled the White House and both houses of
Congress?
The central preoccupation of the Biden administration
has been the prosecution of the war against Russia in Ukraine, which has
the full support of the entire Democratic Party. This was reinforced
two weeks ago when 30 liberal Democrats sent a letter to the White House
pleading for a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than continuing
to escalate the risk of nuclear war.
Within 24 hours, after a
massive backlash within the political establishment, the letter was
withdrawn and the leader of the “Progressive Caucus” issued a
humiliating apology, reaffirming the group’s support for prosecuting the
war until “victory.”
Inflation is skyrocketing and working class
living standards are being slashed. The Federal Reserve is pursuing a
deliberate policy of increasing unemployment through the raising of
interest rates in an effort to use social misery as a bludgeon against
demands for wage increases.
In two years in office, the Democrats
have done nothing to improve the conditions of the vast majority of the
population. The White House dropped any push for voting rights
legislation. It did nothing to protect the rights of immigrants, instead
stepping up the deportation and exclusion of asylum seekers to record
levels, beyond even the level of the Trump administration. It regards
women’s right to abortion as a means of motivating people to vote, while
refusing to defend it in practice.
And, confronted with a party
that sought to overturn the 2020 election and block Biden’s own
inauguration through the methods of coup and political assassination,
the Democrats have shielded the Republican Party.
Nearly two years
after the coup attempt, neither Trump nor any of his top
co-conspirators has been prosecuted. There has been no serious
investigation into the January 6 conspiracy or the social and political
forces behind it.
Since Biden’s speech last Wednesday, warning
that Trump and his allies represent a dire threat to democracy, he and
other leading Democrats have turned the declaration that “democracy is
on the ballot” into a hollow sound bite.
The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, however bitter and intense, are entirely tactical.
In
domestic policy, the Democrats seek to use the trade union apparatus to
suppress the working class, while employing the demagogues of identity
politics to split the working class along race and gender lines. The
Republicans wish to dispense with the unions, which are rapidly losing
their ability to hold back the class struggle, and proceed directly to
the deployment of the police and military violence.
On the
fundamental question of which class they serve, the Democrats and
Republicans are united. They are different components of a two-party
system of capitalist-imperialist reaction.
An
entire generation has come of age thinking that Barack Obama was a
great president because he . . . ? Failed to get impeached?
He
broke every promise he made to get votes and he accomplished nothing.
ObamaCare was Mitt Romney Care. All he did was take the pathetic
proposal --- everyone must purchase health care -- and pretend that was
universal health care. Now we're a long way from Boston in the Bay
Area. But KPFA couldn't stop covering RomneyCare and what a fraud it
was . . . until Barack passed it off as ObamaCare and then they got on
board like whores eager to leave town before their pimp beat them up.
Standing in place or falling behind are not political objectives. They do not help the people.
Both
sides of the duopoly have failed the American people and the liars who
cover for them should be ashamed. But whores don't have shame so we all
suffer.
The people of Iraq continue to suffer
thanks to the whoring on the part of certain Americans. The big story
in Iraq today? A fire in Baghdad.
At least 20 people were injured, including seven firefighters, after a
three-story commercial building in Baghdad went up in flames and
subsequently collapsed on Sunday.
Among the wounded is Major General Kadhim Bohan, head of the Iraqi civil
defense directorate, while twelve other people who were trapped inside
the building remain unaccounted for. Search parties continue in their
search for the missing, according to Brigadier General Qusai Younis,
head of Baghdad's al-Rusafa Civil Defense
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
The building houses large stores of perfumes and household items.
The huge blaze required the deployment of sixty civil defense teams and
more than 50 firefighting vehicles, in an operation that took up to 10
hours according to Younis.
After a year-long crisis in Iraq triggered by contested elections, Iraq finally has a government headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
While this ends the political impasse, it’s unclear whether his new
cabinet will bring about change or usher in more of the same.
Al-Sudani is backed by the Coordination Framework,
an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shi’a factions that holds 138 out of
329 seats in parliament. The Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist
movement that won a plurality of parliamentary seats in the October 2021
elections played no part in picking either the prime minister or the
new president — a first since Iraq’s democratic transition, which does
not bode well for a government that now effectively lacks legitimacy.
Given the longtime political wrangling and endemic political instability
that has plagued their country, the Iraqi people are justifiably
skeptical about this government’s ability to tackle the many problems
facing Iraq. Many are also suspicious of al-Sudani’s close affiliation
with former prime minister Nouri-Al Maliki, given the latter’s deeply sectarian and pro-Iran stance.
[. . .]
The new government will also need to fend off the sporadic but persistent protests
that have swayed the country since October 2019 and are likely to
regain momentum. These demonstrations, which forced the resignation of
the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in 2019 and prompted
an early election, reflect public frustration with long-unaddressed
demands. Over the past three years, a coalition of protestors, activists
and youth-led entities has since formed to push the government to
address the country’s dysfunction through changes in the political
system.
Outrage over corruption continues to be the major driver for the
demand for reform of a power-sharing system that divides government
posts among Iraq’s communities and fuels patronage-based abuse. It has
not gone unnoticed that the new government has formed using the same
methods and tactics and the same parties that have dominated Iraqi
politics since 2005. Citizens may well ask, why should corruption change
if the system that produces it has not? The latest corruption scandal
at the Ministry of Finance involving the theft
of $2.5 billion from the tax authority could implicate many who enjoy
the support of powerful political parties in Iraq, including those
backing the prime minister.
The Iraqi parliament is set to conduct the first reading for a draft
proposing the restoration of compulsory military service during Sunday’s
parliamentary session, amidst mixed reactions from the Iraqi people on
social media.
The new bill, titled Serving the Flag, has been drafted by the Iraqi
parliament’s security and defense committee and proposes assigning all
Iraqi men between the ages of 18 to 35, with limited exceptions, to
mandatory military duty, according to the deputy-chairman of the parliamentary committee Sagvan Sindi.
The length of the service differs based on the academic level of the
recruited, Sindi added. The draft compels secondary school graduates to
18 months of military service, preparatory school graduates to 12
months, university and institute graduates to 9 months, master’s
graduates to 6 months, and doctorate graduates to 3 months.
That is what the Parliament is electing to pursue. Clearly, the needs of the Iraqi people are not a concern of the Parliament.
BROS.
It's a comedy classic. A number of e-mails are asking when it comes
out on DVD and BLURAY? I'm not the spokesperson for the movie but my
understanding is that the US release will be on December 31st. I
wouldn't be surprised if that got pushed up.
The
State Department is giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies
unrestricted access to the personal data of more than 145 million
Americans, through information from passport applications that is shared
without legal process or any apparent oversight, according to a letter
sent from Sen. Ron Wyden to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
obtained by Yahoo News.
The information was uncovered by Wyden during his ongoing probe into reporting by Yahoo News about Operation Whistle Pig,
a wide-ranging leak investigation launched by a Border Patrol agent and
his supervisors at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National
Targeting Center.
On
Wednesday, Wyden sent a letter to Blinken requesting detailed
information on which federal agencies are provided access to State
Department passport information on U.S. citizens.
“I
write to express serious concern that the Department of State is
providing law enforcement and intelligence agencies with unfettered
access to personal data, originally collected through passport
applications, of the more than 145 million Americans with a passport,”
states the letter sent to Blinken, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo
News.
Wyden,
D-Ore., wrote that “the breadth of this access highlights the potential
for other abuses. In a July 13, 2022, briefing for my office, State
Department officials confirmed that 25 other federal agencies have
access to the Department’s database of passport applications.”
That
really is outrageous and a huge violation of our rights to liberty and
security. Kat noted this week ("Jennifer-Ruth Green") how a woman running for office who
was assaulted while serving in Iraq had her records given to POLITICO
despite the law forbidding this. The employee was apparently a partisan
who did not want the woman in office and thought that made it okay to
break the law. POLITICO can publish whatever it wants. I'm a free
speech person. But it shouldn't lie about it. They said they were
given the records legally and through a FOIA request. Those were lies.
Ingrid Jaques (USA TODAY) writes
about a topic we covered earlier this week -- book censoring. Supreme
Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a book coming out next year and
people are calling for the publisher to drop her. I am a free speech
defender. I do not like Amy and don't plan to read the book. That is
how those of us who believe in free speech respond to books we don't
want to read -- we don't read them. But some fools are calling for the book to be dropped.
A list of mainly nobodies -- "leah" who must be Madonna's daughter
because Cher has two sons (that was a joke since the woman only supplies
"leah" on a petition she chose to sign) and "avid book readers" -- are
pushing for the book to be dropped. Very sad to see Sara Paretsky's
name on the list. She writes the V.I. Warshaski novels.
Q: In
your memoir, you seem to want to do more than just write and at times
suggest that the writing act is insufficient. Do you still feel that
way?
Paretsky: It’s
hard for me to believe that just my words on the page are enough. I
ought to be out physically keeping abortion safe and legal, restoring
the Fourth Amendment, getting clean water back into Kentucky since the
Bush Administration has allowed strip miners to fill it all up with
slag. The list is endless. Bring it down. Make it small. Make it one
thing that you can do. It’s very hard for me to remember that.
Sara used to stand for so much. Now she can't even stand for free speech. How sad.
Friday, November 4, 2022. Julian Assange continues to be persecuted,
Iraqis continue to suffer, Chris Hedges has a new book, and much more.
John Malkovich is speaking out on behalf of journalist Julian Assange.
Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden and a
host of people who should be supporting him stay silent or heap scorn on
him.
Julian's 'crime' was revealing the
realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the
information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.
And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.
For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War
Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war. The new logs detail how: •
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender. • More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical
evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or
ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric
shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
Another video of interest?
A
video has allegedly shown former CIA Director and Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit brought by American lawyers and
reporters who visited Julian Assange.
Footage tweeted by Wikileaks being handed the papers as he stands in
front of a greenscreen.
Wikileaks tweeted on Wednesday (2 November) morning: "Michael Richard
Pompeo: You’ve been served!
“Mike Pompeo has been served with a lawsuit brought by US lawyers and
journalists who visited Assange. Spanish court documents show violations
of their US constitutional rights. Plaintiffs are represented by NY
attorney Richard Roth.”
Reuters reported in August that attorneys and reporters sued the CIA and
Mr Pompeo, who left his job as a Kansas congressman to become the CIA
Director in January 2017, just days after Donald Trump was inaugurated.
A video appearing to show former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit has gone viral on social media.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of American lawyers and journalists who have alleged that the CIA, while Pompeo was director of the agency, spied on them during meetings with Wikileaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange while he was sheltering at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in an effort to avoid extradition to the U.S.
Pompeo is one of the defendants in the case, which also names the
CIA, security firm UC Global and UC Global director David R. Morales
Guillen. They are accused of spying on WikiLeaks publisher and founder
Julian Assange and his visitors while he took refuge in the embassy.
A statement from the Assange Defence Committee said the suit was
served on the former CIA head as he was posing for photographs at the
John Ashbrook Memorial Dinner in Ohio on 29 October.
The plaintiffs, who include renowned civil rights activist and human
rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, attorney Deborah Hrbek and
journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, visited Assange while he was
in the embassy.
The suit
alleges violations of the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights and
documents how UC Global provided the CIA with information about
Assange’s visitors and forced visitors to surrender their electronic
devices to enter the embassy – digitally copying and transmitting
information on those devices to the CIA.
Joe Biden continues the persecution of Julian Assange while his administration makes hypocritical statements.
The
world watches as Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, as the
world watches, it registers just how hollow the 'big' statements the US
government makes actually are.
It’s impossible,
under international law, to defend Russia’s war
in Ukraine, as it is impossible to defend the
U.S. invasion of Iraq. Preemptive war is a war
crime, a criminal war of aggression.
Still, putting the
invasion of Ukraine in context was out of the
question. Explaining —
as Soviet specialists (includingfamed
Cold War diplomat George F. Kennan) had — that
expanding NATO into Central and Eastern Europe
was a provocation to Russia was forbidden.
Kennan had called it
“the most fateful error of American policy in
the entire post-Cold War era” that would “send
Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly
not to our liking.”
In 1989, I had
covered the revolutions in East Germany,
Czechoslovakia and Romania that signaled the
coming collapse of the Soviet Union. I was
acutely aware of the “cascade of assurances” given to
Moscow that NATO, founded in 1949 to prevent
Soviet expansion in Eastern and Central Europe,
would not spread beyond the borders of a unified
Germany. In fact, with the end of the Cold War,
NATO should have been rendered obsolete.
I naively thought
we would see the promised “peace dividend,”
especially with the last Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev reaching out to form security and
economic alliances with the West. In the early
years of Vladimir Putin’s rule, even he lent the
U.S. military a hand in its war on terror,
seeing in it Russia’s own struggle to contain
Islamic extremists spawned by its wars in
Chechnya.
He provided
logistical support and resupply routes for
American forces fighting in Afghanistan. But
the pimps
of war
were having none of it. Washington would turn
Russia into the enemy, with or without Moscow’s
cooperation.
The newest holy
crusade between angels and demons was launched.
War unleashes the
poison of nationalism, with its twin evils of
self-exaltation and bigotry. It creates an
illusory sense of unity and purpose. The
shameless cheerleaderswho
sold us the war in Iraq are once again on the
airwaves beating the drums of war for Ukraine.
“Every single
empire in its official discourse has said
that it is not like all the others, that its
circumstances are special, that it has a
mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order
and democracy, and that it uses force only
as a last resort. And, sadder still, there
always is a chorus of willing intellectuals
to say calming words about benign or
altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t
trust the evidence of one’s own eyes
watching the destruction and the misery and
death brought by the latest mission
civilizatrice.”
I was pulled back
into the morass. I found myself writing for Scheerpost and my
Substack site,
columns condemning the bloodlusts Ukraine
unleashed. The provision of more than $50
billion in weapons and aid to Ukraine not only
means the Ukrainian government has no incentive
to negotiate, but that it condemns hundreds of
thousands of innocents to suffering and death.
For perhaps the
first time in my life, I found myself agreeing
with Henry
Kissinger,
who at least understands realpolitik,
including the danger of pushing Russia and China
into an alliance against the U.S., while
provoking a major nuclear power.
Greg Ruggiero, who
runs City
Lights Publishers,
urged me to write a book on this new conflict.
At first, I refused, not wanting to resurrect
the ghosts of war. But looking back at my
columns, articles, and talks since the
publication of War is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning in 2002, I was surprised at how
often I had circled back to war.
I rarely wrote
about myself or my experiences. I sought out
those discarded as the human detritus of war,
the physically and psychologically maimed like Tomas
Young, a
quadriplegic wounded in Iraq, whom I visited
recently in Kansas City after he declared that
he was ready to disconnect his feeding tube and
die.
It made sense to
put those pieces together to denounce the newest
intoxication with industrial slaughter. I
stripped the chapters down to war’s essence with
titles like “The Act of Killing,” “Corpses” or
“When the Bodies Come Home.”
It’s been more than three years since the Islamic State appeared to be
defeated after the terror group lost all the territory it had once
controlled, and yet ISIS continues to wage an insurgency in both Iraq
and Syria, according to the most recent quarterly report from the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve.
“Overall, compared with the same period in 2021, the frequency and
severity of ISIS-claimed attacks decreased dramatically in Iraq, while
attacks in Syria increased significantly, marking a rebound from
historically low levels the previous year,” the report says.
Between July and September, ISIS carried out 74 attacks in Syria and
73 attacks in Iraq, the report says. Small cells based in rural areas
mostly conducted hit-and-run attacks against local security forces along
with occasional high-profile attacks in cities.
While roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and another 900 service members are in Syria to
help prevent ISIS from mounting a comeback, the report cites several
factors beyond the U.S. military’s control that have made their mission
more difficult, including third-party actors, such as Iran; political
instability, especially Iraq’s problems forming a government; and
social-economic instability.
The Arab League held their summit this week -- not that it got a great deal of press attention. ANF reports:
Speaking at the 31st Arab League Summit in Algeria on Wednesday,
Iraqi President Latif Rashid said that the dams built by Iran and Turkey
on the rivers in Iraq threaten the country's water security and cause
water levels to drop.
“I hope that the water resources in Iraq will improve. Dialogue
should be established with Turkey and Iran for a solution to the water
problem,” the Iraqi President said.
This as Turkey continues to bomb and drone attack Iraq. RUDAW notes, "At least one person was killed in Shingal on Thursday after a suspected
Turkish drone targeted a pickup vehicle, Kurdish counterterrorism forces
and media affiliated to the local forces reported. " AFP adds, "Turkish military operations complicate relations between Baghdad and Ankara, one of Iraq's leading trading partners." Ambrin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) offers:
Iraqi
Kurdistan is gripped by turbulence as it comes under mounting
aggression from Iran and Turkey, and as Baghdad seeks to wrest full
control of its oil and gas industry. Rampant corruption and a lack of
economic opportunity are prompting a rising number of young Iraqi Kurds
to flee the country. As if things were not bad enough, the two largest
political parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Massoud
Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that was founded by
Iraq’s first post-war president, the late Jalal Talabani — are
quarreling again over power and money, prompting worries of a resurgence
of the civil conflict that convulsed the region in the mid-1990s.
The difference today is that not only are the parties at odds with each other, they are also mired in internal rivalries. Lahur Talabany,
former co-chair of the PUK who led the Sulaimaniyah region’s
intelligence services and the US-trained Counter Terrorism Group, was
ousted by his cousins Bafel and Qubad Talabani last summer in a
Byzantine power grab. It was the most overt manifestation yet of the
intra-family feuds simmering in the Talabani and Barzani dynasties.
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Thursday spoke on the phone
with Iraq’s new prime minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, stressing that
Washington is “eager” to work with his cabinet, according to a tweet by
Blinken.
“The U.S. is eager to work with the Iraqi government to confront Iraq’s
challenges and deliver results for the people of Iraq,” Blinken said in
his tweet, reaffirming the US “partnership” with the Iraqi government.
Sudani was tasked with forming Iraq’s next government on October 13,
after more than a year of political bickering since the parliamentary
elections in October 2021. Iraq’s parliament convened late last month,
approving Sudani’s cabinet.
There was immediately no statement from Sudani’s office regarding the phone call.
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