Like Maria Said Paz

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

YOUTUBE offers more censorship

From last night, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "YOUTUBE Loves Hosting Registered Sex Offenders"

We have previously discussed the increasing censorship at YouTube where conservative and dissenting viewpoints are now increasingly blocked, including U.S. senators and physicians with opposing views of Covid. It has also banned videotapes of former President Don Trump. Other social media companies have banned others from posting the voice of Trump. The problem with censorship is that it becomes an insatiable appetite. As you censor opposing views, it demands more and more censorship. It becomes increasingly ridiculous as was the case this week. According to a New York Post report YouTube censored the Democratic-controlled Select Committee for a video that included a clip of Trump. It was being posted to implicate Trump in the January 6th riot but YouTube has continued to blindly follow its “he-who-must-not-be-heard” policy.

The clip also featured testimony from former Attorney General William Barr, which the company suggests violated its terms of service relating to misinformation. YouTube has no problem with posting proven false allegations against Barr like the claim that he cleared Lafayette Park for a photo op.

That is outrageous and it's really past time for YOUTUBE to face sanctions of some form.

I'm not watching the nonsense of the January 6th hearings. If you are, good for you. But whether it interests me or not, it is the US government holding a hearing. YOUTUBE has no right to censor that. None at all.

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

Tuesday, June 21, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, Hillary Clinton continues to be annoying, climate change hits Iraq hard, and much more.

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.

In the video above, from Australia's ABC, Julian's brother Gabriel implores Joe to end the persecution.

Though the prime minister of Australia has stated previously that this persecution is wrong and needs to end, he shrinks on the world stage unable to defend one of his country's own citizens now that he's prime minister. Aden-Jay Wood (GBN) notes:

But the brother of Mr Assange, Gabriel Shipton, believes the case has “gone on too long” and “could be ended so easily.”

He added in an interview on GB News’ Mark Steyn: “Joe Biden could just drop these charges, move on, just let it go and Julian could walk free.”

AP notes, "The Australian government has been under mounting pressure to intervene since the British government last week ordered Assange's extradition to the United States on spying charges. [. . .] Albanese, who came to power at elections a month ago, declined to say whether he had spoken to President Joe Biden about the case."

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. This has had the effect of scaring off many traditional news outlets. They once partnered with Julian to report and now they act as though they've never heard of him. Saving their own asses? They may think that. If they do, they're dead wrong. An attack on Julian is an attack on all. And if the attack on Julian is not loudly and publicly rebuked, you can be sure that next up will be THE WASHINGTON POST or THE MIAMI HERALD or some other institution -- despite the US Constitution -- the same one that's being ignored in this attack on Julian. Branko Marcetik (JACOBIN) offers this exercise:

In the authoritarian political system that exists in Russia, it can be very hard to learn the truth about what the government is up to, let alone force it to change its behavior or obtain any sort of justice for its crimes. This makes government leaks, the whistleblowers who leak them, and the journalists and press outlets that publish them, all the more vital.

It also means all of those entities have a big target on their backs. So let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say Moscow has engaged in a years-long attempt to catch and imprison the man responsible for publishing a series of massive leaks that proved deeply embarrassing to the Kremlin.

Though he’s not a Russian national, has never lived in the country, nor was he there when he committed his supposed “crime,” the Russian government has taken the radical step of trying to have him extradited to its soil, so it can put him through a trial that’s a foregone conclusion and imprison him for god knows how long — effectively asserting the right to prosecute and jail any journalist anywhere in the world if they happen to publish something that displeases Russia’s ruling elite.

What was it that displeased them? One was the several tranches of secret documents he released about the various wars Moscow has fought in the twenty-first century, revealing war crimes we never knew about, a civilian death toll higher than we thought, and various cover-ups and behind-the-scenes subterfuge. Another was the decades worth of diplomatic cables that gave us unprecedented insight into the workings of Russian and other nations’ foreign policy.

But maybe his greatest crime in the minds of the country’s ruling class was publishing scandalous information about the corruption and political manipulation of one section of the political elite, embarrassing revelations almost certainly fed to him by an adversarial foreign power with its own particular motivations.

The Kremlin has gone to extraordinary lengths to punish these acts of truth-telling, and to deter any future ones. It pressured PayPal to cut off payments to him, gave immunity to a criminal and sex offender if he helped them catch him, and used its assets in the hacker world to attack a foreign government’s websites and create the pretext for its security services to enter the country he was staying in. It eventually forced him to spend seven years in a foreign embassy to avoid capture by Russian authorities, leading to the partial unravelling of his sanity. Once they finally caught him, they promptly imprisoned him without charge for the next three years, some of it spent in solitary confinement, a vicious form of torture. As a result of Moscow’s actions, when he finally showed up to his extradition trial, he struggled to say his name and age, and the extreme stress ultimately caused him to have a stroke.

All for the crime of exposing war crimes and corruption.

If you haven't caught on yet, the evil Russia above? It's not Russia. That's what the US government is doing to Julian.

The editorial board of THE HINDU observes:

Yet, the dogged pursuit of Mr. Assange has been renewed by the Biden administration. The only guarantee that it has provided is that it will not hold him in a maximum security prison, which has strict confinement rules, and that if convicted, he could serve his sentence in his native Australia if he requested it. Its position runs counter to its stated aim of bringing the U.S. back to the forefront of world democracies that promote values enshrined in the West as pivotal, such as freedom of expression accorded to the press. Subjecting Mr. Assange to trial will be a blow against media freedom in the U.S. and will also criminalise investigative journalism, particularly one that is pointed at the inner workings of the deep state. Mr. Assange’s representatives have filed an appeal before the British High Court. With the present Labor party-led Australian government — Mr. Assange remains an Australian citizen — also expressing its displeasure at the continued pursuit, the onus is on the British judiciary to do right by him.

Amnesty International has called out the move to extradite Julian:

Responding to the news that the UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has certified Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act, Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International Secretary General said:

“Allowing Julian Assange to be extradited to the US would put him at great risk and sends a chilling message to journalists the world over.”

“If the extradition proceeds, Amnesty International is extremely concerned that Assange faces a high risk of prolonged solitary confinement, which would violate the prohibition on torture or other ill treatment. Diplomatic assurances provided by the US that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history.”

“We call on the UK to refrain from extraditing Julian Assange, for the US to drop the charges, and for Assange to be freed.”

Julian Assange is likely to further appeal the extradition on separate grounds that it violates his right to freedom of expression.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:       

+44 20 7413 5566       

email: press@amnesty.org        

twitter: @amnestypress 

The world is watching, Joe Biden, as you terrorize Julian and as you try to burn the US Constitution.

The world is watching.

As people converse about Joe's advanced age and whether he would be up for the job of a second term, while Joy Behar hisses and stamps her feet and calls for the conversation to end because she doesn't like it, a really important point is being missed.

Joe can't run for office again.

Not unless we're going to have another pandemic.

That's the only reason he won last time.

When he was forced to be onstage, either his eye exploded, his dentures slipped loose, he made one stupid remark after another, he got angry and looked crazy? Are people forgetting the debates?

Are they forgetting that he had to hide in his basement?

Joe can't run, he can't campaign. He's too old. He's too cranky. And people don't like him. The polls make that clear right now, yes. But it's also true that on the campaign trail, people didn't like him He was constantly getting into fights with potential voters. And he couldn't draw crowds. People have better things to do then go see someone in mental decline offer excuses for why the working people of America are constantly being screwed over.

If 2024 demanded real campaigning, the type we've had for every campaign except 2020, Joe's not up to it. Before the pandemic hit, it was obvious he wasn't up for campaigning. Four years older, and he's going to be this time? All the 'energy shots' in the world won't manage to keep him up. They will keep him cranky, as they did in 2020. And someday that will be the big news. Historians will talk about it, how the campaign insisted upon 'energy shots' to keep Joe awake. It's like the shots JFK got for 'his back' that the press ignored in real time.

On elections, maybe it's time the press said enough to Hillary Clinton, told her to sit that fat ass down and maybe focus on that marriage with that husband who continues to stray?

Hillary wants you to vote. She wants the transgender community to disappear.

We've wanted Hillary to disappear for years but she's never taken a hint.

She wants to say that elections are important.

The press should hold her feet to the fire.

The obvious should be pointed out. She wants to whine about CNN or this person or that person promoting Donald Trump in 2016. We all know she and her campaign wanted that to happen and they promoted Donald. Underestimating just how much the American public loathed her, they were convinced she could win against Donald.

She was wrong.

If she wants to give advice now about how important elections are, the press should shoot back that maybe she should have realized that before she attempted to elevate who she perceived as the worst candidate in the bunch because she thought it would be an easy win.

Donald Trump got the nomination. Maybe he would have anyway. But let's not deny the reality that she and her campaign worked to get him that nomination.

Instead of begging the country's forgiveness, she wants to pretend like it didn't happen.

And she wants to tell others that they are harming elections.

Neither the transgender community nor anyone who advocates for their rights is harming the Democratic Party's chances in the next election. That's reality.

Hillary Clinton harmed the party's chances when she and her team came up with the strategy to get the media to elevate Donald so she could have an easy win.

Last night, "Editorial: Iraq and climate change" went up at THIRD and we'll note this section:

CNN gushed today over the finds in a newly emerged city. Not to rain on the parade but the reason we're seeing the ancient city is that the Tigris River has dried up so much that the city was visible again for the first time in centuries -- plural. That's not a good thing.

This is also the first year that Iraq's seen Lake Sawa dry up.

These are not good things for the Iraqi people.

And this is only going to get worse in the immediate future.

Another major sandstorm is predicted in the next few days. Iraq's seen these repeatedly this year. People have to go inside. Some that don't make it in time end up hospitalized. Iraq's always had sandstorms but they haven't been as frequent and as massive as the ones this year.

Temperatures are rising and the water is disappearing.

Back in March, Jason Beaubien (NPR) noted:

A report from the European Union Institute of Security Studies projects that the number of days when temperatures in Baghdad hit 120 degrees will go from roughly 14 per year to more than 40 over the next two decades.

The study forecasts that the Iraqi capital, which is already seeing longer heat waves each summer and higher peak temperatures, will be one of the places hardest hit by global warming.

Baghdad set a new record high of 125.2 degrees on July 28, 2020. The next day it cooled down to 124.

This morning, Aland Qaradaxi (RUDAW) reports, "The water flowing into the Alwan dam in Khanaqin has decreased sharply due to the presence of mud and silt, as well as Iran’s building of dams which has restricted the water flow, leading to only two cubic meters of water entering the dam daily." RUDAW also notes, "The level of Erbil’s underground water has decreased around 500 meters over the past two decades, the Kurdistan Region’s ministry of municipalities and tourism warned on Friday."

There are all these issues and yet Iraq, eight months after the October 10th elections, still can't name a prime minister or president.

Maybe it wouldn't matter if they could?

It's not like the previous governments in Iraq have ever done a damn thing.

AFP notes, "A cholera outbreak in Iraq has infected at least 13 people and scores more suspected cases have been sent for analysis, most from the northern Kurdistan region, health officials said on Sunday."

TELUGUSTOP.COM reminds, "Cholera is an extremely virulent disease, whose symptoms in its most severe form include a rapid onset of watery diarrhoea and dehydration that can lead to death.The disease is acquired by consuming food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae."

Today is June 21st. The first official day of summer in the US. What happens every summer at this site? We note the cholera outbreaks in Iraq. Sometimes it's a 'minor' summer. Sometimes, like 2015, it's major. But why are they happening? Why are they still happening?

Because one failed government after another has refused to ensure that the Iraqi people have potable water. The 13 diagnosed -- and the nearly 4,000 in the same province who have sought medical care at hospitals already this month -- have resulted in what? An ambitious project to finally bring Iraq's infrastructure up to date? No. The same public reminder to boil water and that you, the individual, not the government, are responsible for ensuring that your water is safe to drink -- by boiling it first.

It's not like Iraq's not dealing with other health crisis. IRAQI NEWS AGENCY reports 305 new cases of COVID in Iraq.

New content at THIRD:

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "YOUTUBE Loves Hosting Registered Sex Offenders" went up last night and the following sites updated:

Monday, June 20, 2022

What we're allowed to say

I love Joe Biden, don't you? Just love him. Isn't he doing a marvelous job? Bang up, right?

That is what I'm permitted to say, right?

We really don't have free speech anymore. THE ATLANTIC and Joy Behar insist that we cannot criticize Joe. Doing so would hurt the precious election.

This election, for the record, is going to see the House flip if history holds.

But let's sacrifice everything we believe in for the good of Joe Biden -- not the country, mind you. He's too senile and feeble to carry out the job of the presidency. But we must not ever say that.

Julian Assange needs our help right now. But being a good Democrat means ignoring Julian, right? We can't publicly demand that Joe stop persecuting Julian because the upcoming election. Sure Julian will be tortured if turned over to the US government but, hey, we want to focus on the election.

We've also gotten marching orders from Hillary Clinton. I forget when she was president. Oh right, she wasn't. But doesn't this former First Lady keep popping up to tell us what to do. She very helpfully explained over the weekend that the rights of transgendered people do not matter. Advocating for their rights, she explained, might cost votes in . . . the upcoming election.

Does anyone get how stupid this is? How we have coddled these people like Hillary Clinton? That the point of being a public servant is to serve the people and that it is their job to provide oversight of what you do and to make demands?

It seems like a lot of people have suddenly joined The Church of Paul Begala. Instead of offering honesty, they carry out the party's talking points. That's supposed to pass for wisdom and insight.

It doesn't.

Julian Assange needs our support right now. Joe needs to be pressured to stop the persecution. The transgender community does not need to put their rights on hold. What a ridiculous and outrageous thing for Hillary to say.

I'm not a good Democrat, clearly. I refuse to march along in silence. Hope others join me. High praise to C.I. for the snapshot below. She is correct that this is all interrelated and you'll note that only she has the guts to make these comments -- not Jimmy Dore, not Sabby Sabs, not Richard Medhurst, not Krystal Ball, not Jackson Hinkle, not THE CONVO COUCH, not . . .

She's lived her life in a useful and honest matter. I cannot say the same about various YOUTUBERS who pretend to be of the left.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, June 20, 2022. They don't stand up for Julian, they don't stand up for anyone. They're just Democratic Party organs to churn out the vote.

The persecution of Julian Assange continues. Oscar Grenfell (WSWS) reports:

On Friday, British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that she has approved WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States. Assange’s family, including his wife, Stella Moris, immediately declared that they would fight the decision, including through a further British legal appeal.

If Assange is extradited, he faces 18 charges under the Espionage Act and 175 years imprisonment for publishing what the American government and the British courts acknowledge was true information exposing US foreign policy.

When it comes to Ukraine, the US and its allies continuously claim that they are defending democracy against Russian “authoritarianism.” On the basis of these assertions, the Biden administration has funneled tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to the Ukrainian government, in what has become a US-NATO proxy war against Russia.

In the Asia-Pacific, Washington and its allies similarly assert that they are defending “freedom” in opposition to Chinese “autocracy.”

The persecution of Assange exposes all of these statements as complete lies used to justify a program of aggressive militarism and war.

In the heart of Britain, Assange, a journalist, is imprisoned in a maximum-security prison without charge, while the US seeks his extradition for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange’s legal and democratic rights have been continuously attacked. There is clear evidence that the US oversaw a massive spying operation against Assange, while he was a political refugee in Ecuador London’s embassy. This included illegal surveillance of his privileged communications with lawyers.

Last September, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017, the Trump administration and the CIA discussed kidnapping or assassinating Assange in London. The article was based on the statements of 30 former US officials.

Outgoing United Nations Rapporteur Nils Melzer has repeatedly branded the US and British treatment of Assange as torture. Hundreds of doctors have demanded Assange’s freedom and warned of his deteriorating health.

Despite all of this, the Biden administration has continued the prosecution and the British courts have facilitated it. The contradiction between the supposed US-led campaign for “freedom” in Ukraine, and its determination to lock Assange away, is a staggering display of imperialist hypocrisy.

Kevin Gosztola (SHADOWPROOF) explains that Patel and the Home Office made the decision that press freedom is "an act capable of 'far more serious damage' than traditional espionage." Max Blumenthal Tweeted:

Mainstream US reporters could have led a drum beat for freeing Assange but most kept silent or defamed him as a digital terrorist and/or Russian asset. The US msm has thus colluded in one the worst assaults on a free press of our time and share responsibility for his extradition.

12:00 PM · Jun 17, 2022

Glenn Greenwald (SUBSTACK) notes, "An extremely unusual unanimity among press freedom and civil liberties groups was formed in early 2021 to urge the Biden administration to cease its prosecution of Assange, but Biden officials — despite spending the Trump years masquerading as press freedom advocates — ignored them (an interview conducted last week with Stella Assange by my husband, the Brazilian Congressman David Miranda, on Brazil's Press Freedom Day, regarding the latest developments and toll this has taken on the Assange family, can be seen here)." Saturday, Oscar Grenfell (WSWS) reported:

Meanwhile, El Pais reported last week that Britain is obstructing the Spanish National High Court from examining other allegations of illegal spying on Assange’s legal team.

Taken together, the various abuses to which Assange has been subjected, and the protracted character of his persecution, brand it as one of the political crimes of the century.

Speaking at yesterday’s press conference, Assange’s wife Stella Moris said the British legal process was being “used to prolong Julian’s suffering.” Britain, she said, “should not be engaging in persecution on behalf of a foreign power that is out for revenge… that foreign power committed crimes which Julian put into the sunlight.”

Moris vowed, “we’re going to fight this,” including through a final appeal within the British set-up. Robinson explained that this would focus on the political nature of the prosecution, its contravention of the British-US extradition treaty and the various abuses, including the CIA plots against Assange.

Together with Moris and WikiLeaks, press groups, journalists’ associations and international rights groups warned that Patel’s decision represents a frontal onslaught on core rights that will be deployed against others.

American whistleblower, Edward Snowden, who exposed mass NSA spying, tweeted: “Hard to believe, but it looks real. Every serious press freedom group in the world has protested this. It is an appalling symbol of how far the British and American governments’ commitment to human rights has declined.”

Well-known Australian investigative journalist John Pilger posted: “Home Secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of Julian #Assange to an American hellhole. A new appeal will now challenge the political rottenness of British ‘justice.’ Either we raise our voices as never before, or our silence colludes in the death of an heroic man.”

I want to take this somewhere else, it'll make a lot of male and male-identifying women angry but stick around for the journey even if you don't like our first stop. Issac J. Bailey writes at NIEMEN REPORTS:

Felicia Sonmez demanded that The Washington Post live up to the highest standard — zero tolerance for sexism. She wouldn’t allow the organization to tiptoe around an issue our industry has tiptoed around for far too long. That’s why she’s no longer a reporter there. Or at least, that’s how it looks from afar.

In fairness, it’s exceedingly difficult to get the full story on a personnel issue. Privacy concerns make it difficult for an employer to be fully transparent. The Post told those who reached out last week it wouldn’t comment. I reached out to Sonmez but haven’t heard back.

According to a leaked termination letter, Sonmez was fired for, among other things, “maligning your coworkers online and violating the Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and inclusivity.” That came after several days after an internal dispute spilled out onto Twitter when another reporter, David Weigel, retweeted a sexist joke, and Sonmez called him out for it. The termination letter also cited Sonmez’s “insubordination.” Sonmez kept tweeting about newsroom culture after executive editor Sally Buzbee sent an email trying to squash the public back-and-forth.

But insubordination is a tool of necessity, used by every trailblazing journalist or activist working to change an unjust system. Sonmez was an activist trying to improve an industry long saddled by sexism. Her sin was trying to raise the bar on how sexism is treated inside newsrooms and covered by the media.

She was relentless, uncomfortably so. It’s why she stood out on the day NBA superstar Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. While other journalists were praising his basketball legacy, she reminded people about the complexity of Byrant’s life, including a sexual assault charge. For that, she was briefly suspended by The Post and pilloried by many inside the industry and out, for daring to speak an uncomfortable truth — precisely what journalists are supposed to do. For that, and because she spoke openly about her status as a survivor, The Post prevented Sonmez from covering sexual assault cases. It was an egregious decision that spoke volumes about just how deep the roots of sexism remain.

Felicia's an object of ridicule. Manly Krystal Ball was laughing at her with Ryan Grim in segment of BREAKING POINTS posted yesterday. There was no reason to bring up Felicia except that Krystal needed a cheap laugh and needed to make sure all the boys in the room weren't nervous.

Felicia was in a hostile work environment. And the bully boys of YOUTUBE decided to attack her and defended noted liar David Weigel. They may not know that he has HR issues or that he's already been called in by HR multiple times this year. Doesn't matter. They know who Dave is -- some have been part of the circle jerk that previous got him fired from THE WASHINGTON POST -- only Jeff Bezos would invite that liar back and do so while claiming 'democracy dies in darkness.' That truly was the story that should have had comments from Krystal instead of her scracting her phantom balls.

This is related to Julian.

Oh, look. It's Hillary whore. We knew she'd be arriving.

Winning the election is the most important thing, says Hillary, rushing to sacrifice the rights of the transgender community. What does this remind you of?

If you were paying attention, it would remind you of when she sold abortion rights.

The Democratic Party loves to pretend they care about women. But in 2004, they had no woman to speak at night at the DNC in Boston until people -- largely women -- called that out and Hillary got added. Her thanks to other women. January 2005, she pushed publicly to sell out abortion rights. Even THE NEW YORK TIMES called her out while some go-alongs -- that ridiculous Chris of INTERESTING TIMES, for example -- rushed to applaud the move. They and the 'bullmoose' community were eager to cut abortion from the conversation.

Do you see where that took us? To a bunch of feckless Democrats in the Senate who went on to approve Alito and others with no real fight because, hey, Hillary says we can ease off abortion rights.

Now the fat old woman shows up, having whored everything to earn millions, and from her comfy ass, she sees no reason to support the transgender community.

Cut them loose, cries the Whore Queen, they don't matter, the next election does.

It's all related and too many YOUTUBERS are personally connected to the liars and therefore can't call them out. Those are friends of little Spency Ackerman, for example. This is all JOURNOLIST. The secret cable where a group of largely lefties -- and David Weigel -- met online to share truth that they wouldn't share with their readers. Katha Pollitt, for example, watched the GOP convention in 2008 and rushed to share her horror that Sarah Palin was, in her opinion, relatable and well spoken. But, of course, Katha didn't share at THE NATION where she ripped Sarah apart. But let's focus on the disgusting Keith Olbermann and his sexism.

From THE DAILY CALLER:

The feelings against MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, then, must run deep.

“He’s become O’Reilly on the left– completely predictable, unfunny, and arrogant,” said Georgetown University Professor Michael Kazin in May 2009. “To my mind, what they do is no different form Hannity and O’Reilly,” said the New America Foundation’s Michael Cohen, “At least Hannity and O’Reilly engage with the other side (if mainly just to yell at them). Olbermann is just an echo chamber.”

(Cohen later elaborated he was arguing that both MSNBC and Fox News play to political extremes).

Okay, no link to that story. It pops up as 'infected.' I doubt it is, GOOGLE used to do that all the time to sites they didn't want you to look at. Justin Raimondo and I used to exchange e-mails about how that would happen constantly to ANTIWAR.COM.

This is from memory so I may be wrong but what I wanted to get at with the excerpt was all these journalists privately agreeing that Keith was sexist on air and then HARPER'S Luke Mitchell shows up to insist, "Olberman is irritating and his obvious sexism is reprehensible. But yes, someone going on TV and saying that torture is bad is a net positive."

I believe that's word for word, if it's not, my apologies. That's how I remember it.

We noted this news item last week and called it out. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi held 15 years and enters a plea. And we're supposed to believe it had nothing to do with torture.

We noted it. Where were the brave Luke Mitchells?

They insist that sexism doesn't matter because there are more important things.

But they don't deal with torture, do they.

Like Hillary, they're all about the next election and it matters so much that we must put everything on hold that a straight, White, male who is well off in today's society does not feel he is effected by personally.

That's why the Whore Queen is calling for transgender rights to be dropped. It's why people aren't rushing to defend Julian.

Calling out the Democratic Party!!! No, there's an election!!!!

There's always going to be an election.

If you can't stand up for what matters ahead of an election or during an election, you're just not going to stand up for it.

That's reality.

Kat's ''Kat's Korner: George Ezra and Rod Stewart prove the British are still invading" went up Saturday. The following sites updated:

Music

An Arab American singer reframes music about the Crusades

1 hour ago

Antiwar.com Original

Free Assange? Yes, But That’s Not Nearly Enough.

8 hours ago

Dissident Voice

Coming Clean on the So-called Great Reset

23 hours ago

Ruth's Report

Mark Shields

1 day ago

Mikey Likes It!

Idiot of the week

1 day ago

The World Today Just Nuts

Kat's Korner

1 day ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends

LIGHTYEAR

1 day ago

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NEW Upload Jody Watley LIVE – Catch The Love Feel The Wattage

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Tuna Nachos in the Kitchen

1 day ago

Like Maria Said Paz

Rod Stewart's new vinyl album on sale at AMAZON for around ten bucks

1 day ago

Ann's Mega Dub

Are you a Rod Stewart fan?

1 day ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Rod Stewart's new album on sale for $10.67 (vinyl version) right now!

1 day ago

Saturday, June 18, 2022

Rod Stewart's new vinyl album on sale at AMAZON for around ten bucks

Kat's ''Kat's Korner: George Ezra and Rod Stewart prove the British are still invading" just went up a little while ago and I love George Ezra's GOLD RUSH KID. I can't stop listening to it. It's wonderful and I hope you'll stream or buy it because I think you'll like it.

But we're in the midst of inflation so let me give an economic tip. Rod Stewart's THE TEARS OF HERCULE came out in November. AMAZON has the vinyl version on sale:

The Tears Of Hercules

by Rod Stewart | Nov 12, 2021

Vinyl

-57%

FREE Delivery Tue, Jun 21

Audio CD

Currently unavailable.

The price keeps going up and down -- see Kat's "Rod Stewart's new album on sale for $10.67 (vinyl version) right now!" and Ann's "Are you a Rod Stewart fan?" -- but even at $10.67, that's a great price for a new vinyl album.

It is a great album.

C.I. played it today, as Kat notes in her review, and I really was blown away. It's about loss and celebrating life and passion. It's a really great album. He even does a good cover of Grand Funk Railroad's "Some Kind Of Wonderful." He also does a great cover of Johnny Cash's "These Are My People." But my favorites are the nine he wrote or co-wrote including "Kookooaramabama,"

I love George's album but I'm stressing Rod's because the economy is in the tank and Rod has a great album that AMAZON has on sale making it a very important bargain.

I'll tell you one more thing. It's about Kat's review. I've been asking her for over a month, "Are you going to review George's album?" Over and over because I love George. When I got it Friday of last week ("George Ezra's GOLD RUSH KID") I started asking even more. You know why she reviewed it? Because she told C.I. she had to make time to review it for me. C.I. told her, "Oh, yeah, you better. Jack Johnson's new album comes out next week." "Oh, s**t," Kat replied. Yeah, I do love Jack too. :D

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, June 17, 2022. Is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stuck in an eternal senior moment, Iraq remains without a government when it really needs one and look what political figure emerges to speak out against Turkey's continued attacks on Iraq?

ADDED: Charley Adams (BBC NEWS) reports, "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US has been approved by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. Mr Assange has 14 days to appeal over the decision, the Home Office said."

Maybe it should have been: Nancy, are you okay? Are you okay, Nancy?

Talk about a smooth criminal. The Speaker of the House is attempting to pin inflation on COVID 19 and the Iraq War.

Maybe Nancy's trying to live out a Bee Gees' song? "I started a joke, which started the whole world crying . . ."

La megera Dem Nancy Pelosi, affiliata ai Satanisti, ha trovato il motivo dell'inflazione record in USA:
Non delle “sanzioni”. La colpa è del Covid e della guerra in Iraq. 
Perché non metterci anche quella del Vietnam?

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5:30 AM · Jun 17, 2022

Dinosaurs of analytics. In the US, they finally found the reason for record inflation.

Covid and the war in Iraq are to blame, says 82-year-old Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.

4:43 AM · Jun 17, 2022

 -  #USA La presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, explicó los problemas de #EEUU con la "guerra en #Irak". 

“Tenemos una #guerra en Irak, tenemos #COVID”, dijo Pelosi. 

#Ukraine #Russia #Iraq #Biden

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3:57 AM · Jun 17, 2022

At a certain age, people should retire. Nancy passed her expiration date.

THE ECONO TIMES notes, "This week, Shia leader and leader of the Sadrist Movement in the Iraqi parliament, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced that he would be stepping down from the political process. Al-Sadr cited that he does not intend on getting involved with politicians deemed 'corrupt'."

Oh, Moqtada's such a sweet little boy, far too pure for politics. Murder? Murder he's down with. Politics are too dirty for Moqtada. (Maybe he knows Nancy Pelosi?) ANHA offers:

After 8 months of political wrangling and failures to form a new government and choose a president for the country, Iraq today stands at a foggy crossroads with the resignation of the Sadrist bloc’s deputies from parliament, in a move that raised several questions about the immediate political future of Iraq and the expected changes in alliances between parties and blocs.

Last Sunday, the representatives of the Sadrist movement submitted their resignation to the Speaker of Parliament after they received an order from the leader of the movement, Muqtada al-Sadr.

As soon as the resignation took place, speculations and expectations about future scenarios for Iraq surfaced, after many outstanding crises without solutions, exacerbated by the political stalemate as a result of the sectarian quota system and failure of the Iraqi parliament three times in choosing a president and forming a government.

On this, the Iraqi researcher and political historian, Dr. Jawad Al-Baydani, spoke about the repercussions of this step, saying: "I believe that the political blockage will end with this resignation. It seems that there are hidden threads which occurred previously, with evidence that Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi signed the resignation as soon as it came to him, Perhaps there were negotiations taking place behind the scenes between the political blocs in light of the alliances made by the Sadrist movement with the al-Halbousi bloc, as well as the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

This context he said, "In light of the Iraqi elections law, any member of the Iraqi parliament when he submits his resignation, the member close to the votes is the one who ascends or replaces him, and this is what will happen. Most of these will be from the coordinating framework as well as the independents, and thus will facilitate formation of the government.

The inability to form a government eight months after the October 10th elections? That's major unless we're in the US. The US has no interest in Iraq -- unless it can start an illegal war or, as Nancy demonstrates, use it as an excuse for inflation under President Joe Biden. Scapegoating? Iraq will rush to the tongue of Nancy for that.

Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) explains:

The Iraqi Ministry of Environment, on Thursday, called for developing a national strategy supported by an annual budget to combat climate change and desertification in the country, according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).

“The climate change and its negative impacts on Iraq are clearly visible,” The Iraqi Minister of Environment, Jasesim Al-Falahi, said in a statement cited by INA.

Falahi explained that United Nations reports confirm that Iraq is one of the five countries in the world most affected by climate change, according to INA.

The Minister of Environment also elaborated that the country is facing an unprecedented scarcity of rainfall and water leading to an increase in desertification rates and decrease in available fertile land.

But he's not really the Minister of Environment. He's a hold over from the previous government and the highest court in Iraq has already ruled that the holdover government is highly limited in what they can and cannot do. Which is a shame because Iraq is facing serious consequences from climate change. THE JERUSALEM POST observes:

Environmental experts have warned that the drying up of Lake Sawa in southern Iraq is a sign of more to come, with climate change and a lack of cooperation defining water distribution in the Middle East.

In April, the lake, which changes level seasonally and is the only one in Iraq to draw its water from underground aquifers, dried up completely for the first time in thousands of years.

For the inhabitants of nearby Samawa, the environmental concerns were trumped by the existential threat of losing access to the lake, which provides the only reachable water source in the region. Droughts resulting from climate change are thought to be partially responsible for the drying up of the lake.

Iraq could really use some leadership right now -- especially as the water issue is resulting in conflicts with neighbors. One of those neighbors? Turkey.

And there's a lot for Iraq to have conflict with Turkey over.

The Turkish government has been bombing northern Iraq with War Planes and drones, it's sent Turkish foot soldiers into the country and established military bases in Iraq. These are legally defined acts of war. These are violations of Iraq's sovereignty.

And yet they continue. Will any politician outside the Middle East call them out? Or will Jeremy Corbyn be the only one to do so?

In yesterday's snapshot, we noted that the Turkish government had killed yet another child. Mirza Dinnayi names the child:

A dirty war crime and a planned elimination of Yezidi minority. An air strike killed a 12 y Yezidi child in Sinjar. Salah was working in a small shop of his father in Sinuni. 
Such a shame for the international community generally and iraqi political powers to keep silent

1:07 AM · Jun 16, 2022

Amberin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) reports:

The government of Iraq has yet to comment on a Turkish drone strike that killed a 12-year-old boy in the town of Sinune yesterday, the latest in a string of attacks in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, adding to fury among Yazidis, a marginalized community that was subjected to genocide by the Islamic State.

Nobel laureate Nadia Murad, a Yazidi genocide survivor who was enslaved by IS, called Turkey’s attack “an act of terrorism.”

“Iraq has the ultimate responsibility to stop Turkey from attacking Sinjar,” said Murad Ismael, a prominent Yazidi activist. “The international community also has a moral responsibility towards Yazidis and the people of Sinjar. It is both painful and illogical that these attacks go [unaddressed] as if they are legitimate. It seems Turkey can get away with anything,” Ismael told Al-Monitor.

The UN condemned the attack without mentioning Turkey by name. “UNICEF is shocked at the killing of a 12-year-boy in an attack in Sinjar area,” the international body’s arm that deals with children said in a statement yesterday. “UNICEF calls on all parties to fulfill their obligation, under international law, to protect children at all times and without delay,” it added.

Would a functioning government make any difference?

Who knows?

But there is rightful outrage.

The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) called on NATO and the international community to speak out against Turkey's drone strike in Northern Iraq's Sinjar region that killed a father and a small child on Wednesday. https://medyanews.net/nato-and-the-international-community-should-react-to-turkeys-attacks-on-sinjar-says-knk/

 #Turkey #Sinjar

medyanews.net

NATO and the international community should react to Turkey’s attacks on Sinjar says KNK

NATO officials and the international community should react to Wednesday's Turkish drone strike that killed a father and small child

3:32 AM · Jun 17, 2022

Today Turkey murdered Salah Nassir, a Yazidi child and a shopkeeper in town of Sinuni while he was attending his shop. Salah was murdered as Turkey conducted an airstrike inside a populated civilian area. We condemn this act of terrorism & call on Iraq & intl community to act.

7:12 AM · Jun 15, 2022

Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:

Violation of Iraq’s sovereignty by any state is rejected and the continuous Turkish incursions in the Kurdistan Region will harm relations between Baghdad and Ankara, influential Iraqi politician and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Thursday.

“The violation of Iraq’s sovereignty from any state is rejected and the government needs to take necessary measures to stop it,” Maliki who is a prominent figure of the Coordination Framework, Iraq’s largest Iran-backed alliance, said in a statement.

“The continuation of Turkish incursions on Iraqi land in the Kurdistan Region and the death and injury of a number of people will result in major harm to the relations between Iraq and Turkey,” he said, adding that such continuous attacks would require Iraq to review its stance and work on stopping them.

Former prime minister and forever thug Nouri. He never stops running for office. And his words are going to resonate with a public that's tired of seeing their government roll over and ignore these constant attacks from Turkey.

The following sites updated: