Like Maria Said Paz

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Jonathan Turley on misusing the FBI, Ava and C.I. on domestic abuse

The Sussmann trial yesterday had another surprising disclosure when an agent revealed that FBI leadership, including then-Director James Comey, was “fired up” about the alleged secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The question is why Comey and others were so reportedly eager given the lack of foundation for the false claim — a record that even the researchers told the Clinton campaign could be mocked as utterly unsupported. Yet, as with the Steele dossier claims (funded and spread by the Clinton campaign) there was a strikingly receptive audience for such claims at the top of the FBI.

The new disclosure came with the testimony of the supervisory agent for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe (“Crossfire Hurricane”) Joe Pientka. He sent a note to FBI Special Agent Curtis Heide that stated “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server,” Pientka messaged Heide. “Did you guys open a case? Reach out and put tools on?”

The description of the eagerness of Comey and others only magnified concerns over the alleged bias or the predisposition of the agency on the investigation of Trump and his campaign. It is particularly striking in an allegation that was viewed as unsupported even by the researchers and quickly dismissed by the government as baseless.

The FBI was fully politicized and Hillary Clinton needs to be held accountable. The damage she did should permanently put her presidential dreams to sleep. It's over and she doesn't need to be treated as some elder spokesperson whose thoughts we need to hear.

When she's ready to apologize for deceiving the country, I want to see her on TV. Not until then. Never until then.

"Media: We wonder, We wa wa wa wa wonder " (Ava and C.I., THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW):

Conrad e-mailed this site to say too much was being made of the trial.

Too much of this trial? We're assuming Conrad is too young to remember the OJ trial.

We don't believe too much is being made of the trial. A woman has accused a man of abuse. We don't believe her. Her charges have hurt his ability to work. We think people need to be asking about Amber and why she gets with men. She used to hide the women she was involved with. She had a lot of physical altercations with those women.

One of us asked her when she married Johnny what was she after? She was going to be faithful to Johnny for the rest of her life? As expected, she couldn't even be faithful to him for the first year of marriage -- many men and many more women were involved with Amber.

She's an abuser and society struggles to grasp that men can be the victims of domestic abuse. They have the power -- some idiots insist -- some female idiots insist.

They mean the strength. And, yes, in many cases a man in a relationship with a woman is physically stronger.

For that reason, many men, when hit do not strike back.

There are many forms of power -- including Amber's gift of manipulation.

In a society that struggles -- sometimes refuses -- to see that men can be abused by women, we'd argue this is an important case.

C.I.'s going to touch on that topic in tomorrow's snapshot because of a very bad NPR 'report' that was brought to her attention. So look for that.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, May 25, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, possible plot against Bully Boy Bush, the stalemate continues in Iraq . . .

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for Julian's 'crime' of reporting the truth. The world watches as Joe targets Julian and declares war on a free press. At SCHEERPOST, Joe Lauria notes:

At some point during the next nine days, British Home Secretary Priti Patel will decide whether or not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges for publishing accurate information revealing U.S. war crimes.

Pressure is building from both sides on the home secretary. Press freedom and human rights organizations, a Nobel laureate, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, journalists and Assange supporters have appealed to Patel to let Assange go.

While it would be deemed improper for outside influence to be brought on judges, it would not be fanciful to imagine that behind the scenes Patel is getting the message from the U.S. Department of Justice and possibly from U.S. and U.K. intelligence services about what is expected of her.

The home secretary should know without prodding what the U.S. and British governments want her to do. Patel is a highly-ambitious politician who no doubt will calculate how her decision will impact her career.

“Politicians think about their next election, they think about their voters … that’s what makes them tick,” Kristinn Hrafnnson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, told Consortium News at a protest outside the Home Office in London last Wednesday. “For the first time it’s in the hands of a politician, and Priti Patel, if she wants to think about her legacy … she should do the right thing.”

Really, Joe? Then maybe we should all be applying pressure to Joe Biden who faces a huge upset in the mid-terms. Joe Biden is the one who can end it. Joe can drop the charges immediately. The left -- faux and real -- has been so pathetic for years now. With few exceptions, they refuse to make demands. Joe L wants yu to scare a British politician. But Joe L is Americn. And Joe Biden is American. We're getting as pathetic as that blogger Luke back in 2005 and 2005, remember him? An Australian citizen blogging from Australia who spent every day railing against Bully Boy Bush and Tony Blair for the Iraq War yet never calling out John Howard. He was the ruler of Australia. But Luke was too pathetic to call out the politician in his own coutry.

That's how Joe L is looking right now.

Joe Biden can end this. Joe Biden should end this. But when you're doing everything but demanding Joe Biden end it, you're not really doing anything except looking pathetic.

do we want to game this thing out?

Let's say Joe L gets what he wants and the British politician refuses to hand Julian over to the US. That becomes the official position. So they release Julian and allow him to book a flight to Australia. Do you think the US government grabs him at tHeathrow Airport or do you think they wait until he lands in Austraia and they grab him there?

Because that it what would likely happen.

Both the UK and the Australian government would likely be very cooperative with the US government and possibly even assist.

And Julian would be disappeared.

Joe L is trying to plug holes on the sinking boat Julian's trapped on instead of rescuing him.

Joe Biden has got to be pressured to stop this persecution.

And that means some of the timid on the left need to find their voices and use them.

Their voices.

Some idiot e-mailed the public account about how happy I must be that ISIS went after Bully Boy Bush. First off, did they?

I think they have more on their plate and this was probably some wanna-be. I could be wrong.

But, no, I don't want Bully Boou Bush murdered. That's too easy for him. I want him to be shunned, I want him -- and his family -- to know that blood is on his hands and will be forever more. I want him to be haunted by the ghosts of dead Iraqis to the point that he fears sleep.

I wouldn't mind seeing him in prison but I don't want him murdered.

You murder him and you create sympathy and the revisionary nonsense that's already taken place with regards to that War Criminal gets even more intense.

He is an awful man. If you use violence on him, you are helping him. All we need to combat Bully Boy Bush is our voices. We need to boo him when he tries to go out in public. We need to remind him over one million Iraqis are dead because of him. And we need to make it clear to an idiot like him, even him, that it is not a joking matter and we are not laughing.

Killing him is too easy.

And it's also the weakest move you can make. He needs to be Glenn Close t the end of DANGEROS LIASONS.

Alina Romanowski was finally sworn in as US Ambassador to Iraq yesterday. US Vice President Kamala Harris swore her in. Hopefully, she can now leave DC and head to Iraq.

Iraq where the political stalemate continues. Elections were held October 10th and still no prime minister, still no president. Only the foolish observers were shocked by the Iraqi court ruling tht the holdover prime minister does not have the power to implement long range plans for Iraq. Maybe now, observers will start to take the stalemate seriously?

We're 16 days away from eight months since the election and the rulers can't pull it together still. Will every US reporter who hailed Moqtada back in October as a "kingmaker" step forward so we can mock them?

There was never a reason to make that claim. He had no pattern of being a kingmaker. He was an ineffective cleric who ran in and out of Iraq anytime he thought the bench warrant against him was going to be issued.

His hold on his cult has grown less and less. There are very real complaints against him coming out of even Sadr City -- the slum he holds sway over that has seen no improvements despite his so-called rise to power. His voters showed up in lower numbers in the October election.

He's at his weakest. The young Shi'ites mock him publicly.

But ignoring all of this, US observers kept insisting that he was a kingmaker. Still want to pimp that claim today?

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Chase Rice on KFC Radio Radio Live in Nashville

Not much tonight but a headache so I'm just going to note this interview with Chase Rice.

If you haven't streamed Chase's THE ALBUM yet, please do. It's a really great album.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, May 24, 2022. An Iraqi refugee reflects on the current US government propaganda and much more.

Democrats are limited in what they can do regarding the Supreme Court and ROE V WADE -- SEVERAL DRIVE-BY E-MAILS TO THE PUBLIC ACCOUNT MAKE THAT CLAIM.

FALSE.

They can codify ROE. They can get the votes. You horse trade, you do whatever you have to but you secure 51 votes. It isn't that difficult and when you look at great Congressional leaders -- in the past, of course, there hasn't been a great leader in Congress in decades -- you see that they did that. by impeaching Clarence Thomas.

That's one option.

Another is eliminate five votes.

Supposedly, to hear Democrats in Congress on MSNBC, his wife was involved in January 6th, was involved in trying to sway electors, was this and was that. Are thy just flapping their jaws or are they serious?

Her actions reflect upon her husband because he's got a lifetime post and he's clearly failed to recuse himself on cases where he should have.

So if they're just flapping their gums then they need to shut up. But if they mean what they're saying, they need to move forward with impeachment.

My guess? If they're forced to put up or shut up, they'll shut up.

The answer is to make it law and they can do that. It doesn't appear that they want to.

Moving over to Iraq . . .

At WSWS, Barry Grey speaks with an Iraqi refugee about the current US attack on Russia:

Barry Grey: I would first like to get your response to the present war being waged in Ukraine and the attempt by the US and NATO to present it as a war for freedom, democracy and national sovereignty.

Adila: As a refugee from Iraq, having been born at the dawn of the Iraq War and my parents, my family having lived through the 13-year sanctions imposed by NATO and the US, we are not foreigners to the propaganda surrounding war.

In recordings of President Bush’s old speeches we hear repeatedly how the US invasion and occupation was a war against terrorism, a war to protect the people of Iraq and the Middle East from the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein supposedly had.

President Bush at a Washington D.C. event made a joke about the weapons of mass destruction, saying, “We’re still looking for them.” It was kind of like him making a mockery of the propaganda he upheld for so many years and then later retracted in a laughing statement, after having essentially murdered over 625,000 children between 2003 and 2006.

The propaganda that is being pumped out today in support of the war against Russia in Ukraine feels like a repeated episode. The same emotions are being evoked—that the war is being fought to preserve freedom. Images of children running away or in bomb shelters are used to insinuate that we need to act fast. The propaganda is being used to push the largest corporate enterprises to place sanctions and holds on their businesses in Russia.

Even my university—I go to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor—has basically divested from Russia. We as Arab and Muslim students have been fighting for the divestment movement since 2002 on this campus, to divest against the apartheid in Palestine. We were always told this is complicated, it cannot happen, you cannot place sanctions on a place because of political views.

But this is exactly what is happening now and you see how it is happening so quickly and easily. All of the corporations and the politicians who are funded by these corporations are showing us how easy it is to divest resources from that region.

BG: The remarks by Bush to which you referred were at the White House Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner in 2004 and ironically you just had the one the other night where Biden congratulated the press for lining up 100 percent behind the government propaganda and refusing to allow the slightest dissenting view on the war against Russia. And in the name of press freedom, they are sanctioning the banning of Russian artists, musicians, media outlets and even cultural treasures.

What is the reality, from your own experience in Iraq and that of your family and since then, of American militarism and imperialism?

Adila: I was born in 2002 in Raffah Hospital, central city Baghdad. It’s where my mother was born and her mother before that. It is a really old hospital and one of the really well known hospitals in Iraq.

But after 1990, when the US and NATO placed sanctions against Iraq, essential food, water and medication was not able to reach Iraq for some 13 years. The medical devices were not updated. No medications, including epidural anesthetics, were allowed to be imported into the country.

When my mother gave birth to me, it was her first birth and she had complications during birth. She was in a very bad condition. She had an emergency C-section. I was born in breech, she was in labor for 12 hours without medication and during the procedure she was also unmedicated. So she felt every single cut of the scalpel, every single pain that came with childbirth through a C-section.

My mother is one of hundreds of thousands of women who had to undergo the same ordeal. The death toll we have for the sanctions, before the violent occupation that began in 2003, circles around 623,000. But Iraqi data analysts and physicians expect this number to be around a million.

There was an immense death toll. I think it is referred to as the essential death toll, which means the death toll that we know can be attributed to the violent deaths that occurred. It does not include the slow death from famine, it does not include all the children and mothers who died in childbirth as a result of the ban on medications and imported devices.

One day in 2003, when I was a couple months old, US soldiers barged into my family home and took seven of my uncles and my father and my grandfather to Abu Ghraib prison. They were held there for some time. They were tortured, electrocuted, sexually assaulted, whipped. My father lost an eye.

My father and my uncles were released after several years and pardoned. They were told, “Oops! Sorry, wrong name.”

Bully Boy /bush came out from under his rock last week.

AP offers, "The 75-year-old former president jokingly blamed the mistake on his age, shaking his head and correcting himself, drawing laughter from the crowd." It's not a laughing matter. Arwa Mahdawi (GUARDIAN) notes:

Tell you what, I’m not laughing. Nor are a lot of Arabs. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the depravity and horror of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iraqi prisoners of war – many of whom were innocent people who were arrested by mistake – were violently tortured by US and UK troops. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died. The entire country was left in ruins. And the suffering continued long after the occupying forces left. The US military’s frequent use of munitions containing depleted uranium in Iraq, along with military hardware abandoned by troops, poisoned the environment and the population. Even now babies are being born with severe birth defects linked to the invasion. “Doctors are regularly encountering anomalies in babies that are so gruesome they cannot even find precedents for them,” the lead researcher of a 2019 study said. “The war has spread so much radiation here that, unless it is cleaned up, generations of Iraqis will continue to be affected.” So, yeah, please excuse me if I don’t find Bush’s slip-up particularly funny.

You know what’s even less funny? The fact there has been zero accountability for any of the architects of the Iraq war. Sure, some of the military personnel were convicted of crimes relating to torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners, but the people who were really in charge have faced no consequences whatsoever. Bush himself has had his reputation whitewashed in recent years; he has transformed himself into a cuddly grandpa figure who paints and pontificates about “unity”. As for his coterie of enablers, most of them went on to high-paying jobs and prestigious positions.

Before anyone starts making excuses for the architects of the Iraq war (“how could they have known?”), let me remind you that it was clear from the start that the war – and the flimsy weapons of mass destruction excuse used to justify it – was a sham. In February 2003 millions of people, including myself, in at least 650 cities around the world took to the streets to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq. It was the largest one-day global protest in history. Ordinary people could see the war was immoral and probably illegal – and yet there is a concerted effort in some quarters to rewrite the war as a deeply regrettable lapse in judgment that nobody at the time could really have been expected to get right.

Tamara Qiblawi (CNN) adds, "To add insult to injury, the US has not yet issued an apology to Iraqis, and almost two decades after the invasion, some — at least those in Bush's audience on Wednesday — are still laughing about it." Chip Gibbons (JACOBIN) advises, "If Bush is not going to stand trial for war crimes, he should at the very least have the decency to avoid appearing in public as a moral authority on unjustified invasions. Instead, as Bush’s recent gaffe and his audience’s clear amusement at his misstatement demonstrate, neither Bush nor US society has ever really reckoned with the consequences of his imperialist crusade." I remember bumping into Chip all over the country back when he was helping to push back against the hideous PATRIOT ACT. Just tossing that out there because when I saw the byline, I smiled remembering many interesting conversations over the years. I look forward to reading his upcoming book on the FBI. At WSWS, Patrick Martin notes:

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party opposed the Iraq war from the very beginning, condemning the support for the war, not only by the Bush administration and the Republican right, but by the bulk of the Democratic Party. It was the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then-Senator Joe Biden, who played a central role in pushing through the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that provided a congressional rubber stamp for the illegal invasion.

In a series of articles in May 2007, the WSWS summed up the devastation inflicted by the US conquest and occupation of Iraq, branding it “sociocide,” the deliberate destruction of an entire society, and pointing out that under both Bush and his father, American imperialism had carried out crimes of the type previously associated only with fascist regimes. We wrote:

Iraq, once among the most advanced countries of the region, has been reduced, in terms of basic economic and social indices, to the level of the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
What is involved is the systematic destruction of an entire society through the unleashing of violence and criminality on a scale not seen since Hitler’s armies ravaged Europe in the Second World War.
Less than a third of the population nationwide has access to clean drinking water, and just 19 percent have a functioning sewage system. Both the water and sewage systems were damaged heavily by US bombardments in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion…
On average, Iraqis receive only eight hours of electricity a day, with even worse conditions in Baghdad, where most of the capital’s seven million people get only six hours or less of service daily.

We noted the 150 percent increase in the infant mortality rate from 1990 to 2005. Half of all Iraq’s children were suffering from malnutrition; only one-third were attending school. Half of Iraq’s doctors had fled the country. Per capita GDP was half that of 1980, and Iraq’s state-owned industries had been privatized and shut down, with the loss of half a million jobs, by an ideologically motivated campaign of the Iraq occupation authority set up by the US in Baghdad. The WSWS concluded:

The premeditated destruction of an entire society carried out on the basis of lies and in pursuit of the financial and geo-strategic interests of America’s ruling elite constitutes a war crime of historic proportions, punishable under the same statutes and on the basis of the same principles as those used to condemn leading figures of Germany’s Third Reich at Nuremberg.
Those responsible for launching the war in Iraq consist not merely of the right-wing Republican cabal grouped around Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. They include also the Democrats who enabled this war, the heads of US energy conglomerates and finance houses that hoped to profit from it and the chiefs of the media monopolies that promoted it. All of these layers, constituting the political establishment and financial aristocracy of the United States, are guilty of the same fundamental crime for which the Nazis were prosecuted nearly 60 years ago: the plotting and waging of a war of aggression. It is from this principal crime that all the multiple crimes and horrors inflicted upon the Iraqi people have flowed.

It is not a matter of justifying Putin’s reactionary attack on Ukraine to point out that the war he launched has produced nothing like the level of destruction inflicted by the US in Iraq.

The Iraqi people suffered and continue to suffer and their country remains occupied. Millions of dollars, billions, have gone to destruction. The country is no betr off but the real point of war is never to make lives better. Chris Hedges (SCHEERPOST) explains how there's always money for war:

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d’état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.” The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Hillary exposed

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hollywood V. Reality" went up Saturday.

Now for Jonathan Turley:

While most media ignored the testimony of Clinton’s former campaign manager in the Sussmann trial, it adds to a damning record on how the Clinton campaign was behind arguably the most successful disinformation campaign in American political history with both the Steele dossier and the Alfa bank claims. Ironically, despite Sussmann efforts to conceal his connections to Clinton in the FBI meeting, it was his counsel who effectively outed Clinton in the scandal. Former Clinton Campaign manager Robby Mook then violated the Eleventh Commandment of Democrats: Thou shalt not name a Clinton in a scandal.

Here is the column:

The trial of former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann crossed a critical threshold Friday when a key witness uttered the name “Hillary Clinton” in conjunction with a plan to spread the false Alfa Bank Russian collusion claim before the 2016 presidential election.

For Democrats and many in the media, Hillary Clinton has long held a Voldemort-like status as “She who must not be named” in scandals. Yet, there was her former campaign manager, Robby Mook, telling a jury that Clinton personally approved a plan to spread the false claim of covert communications between the Trump organization and the Russian bank. It was one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in American politics, and Mook implicated Clinton as green-lighting the gas-lighting of the electorate.

The mere mention of Clinton’s name sent shockwaves through Washington. In past scandals, the Clintons have always evaded direct responsibility as aides were investigated or convicted, from the Whitewater land dealings to cattle futures. Even when long-sought documents in Whitewater were discovered outside of the family quarters and bearing Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints, Washington quickly moved on.

Clinton was presumed to be untouchable in the Sussmann trial after Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, issued a series of orders limiting the scope of the trial and its evidence. The orders were viewed as “spar[ing] the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee … potential embarrassment.”

Ironically, after successfully excluding such areas from the trial, it was the defense that called Mook to the stand — and he proceeded to confirm that Clinton herself approved of the collusion disinformation tactic.

It was Washington’s worst-kept but least-acknowledged secret.

The response has been crickets.

The US wasted how many months on Russia-gate? Hillary Clinton made how many accusations while pretending to be just a casual observer? This should be huge news and it goes to how Hillary misled the country. Liar.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):"

Monday, May 23, 2022. Another massive sandstorm hits Iraq . . .

On SCHEER INTELLIGENCE, Robert Scheer is joined by Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou

Robert Scheer (02:16):
But nonetheless, here you have Ray McGovern who gave back his Intelligence Commendation Medal in response really to the revelations that came from you. What I want to do, you are two guys who tried to serve your country, did so, were honored for that … you, John, and promoted after the capture of what was supposed to be the highest known captured Al-Qaeda member. What happened was that you have run into a really … I don’t know, I think of Lillian Hellman when she wrote about the McCarthy period. She had a book called Scoundrel Time. And really, you’re in a period now where you guys are in danger of being considered fake news, making up news. You’re going to be made non-person. In fact, just doing this discussion with you, and I’ve interviewed you both before, the whole program could be dismissed as fake news. We haven’t lived in a time like this where suddenly people who really know a great deal and are speaking honestly … in John Kiriakou’s case, he served two years in jail for having revealed aspects of the torture program. But the fact of the matter is, you’re being made into non-persons. In fact, you now can only get a forum if you go on something … well, we don’t have RT anymore.

Yet another sandstorm has hit Iraq, once again sending people indoors and to hospitals. IRAQ OIL REPORT's Lizze Porter Tweets:

The colour of the sky in #Baghdad this morning. #Iraq has been hit with another sandstorm - there’ve been 8 or 9 since mid-April. This time there is a fairly strong wind, too, making the dust-filled air even more unpleasant. Officials say the storms are linked to climate change.

3:10 AM · May 23, 2022

AFP reports:

Air traffic was suspended in airports across Iraq as the ninth sandstorm since mid-April hit the country. International airports in Baghdad, Erbil and Najaf issued conforming statements.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi ordered all work to cease temporarily in public institutions, with the exception of health facilities and security agencies, according to AFP.

Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) adds, "Almost all of Iraq will be hit by the latest storm which could last until Tuesday afternoon and is expected to cross to the Gulf States, it added." Raul Tweets:

 Another sandstorm has hit Iraq, injuring hundreds of locals. All airports have halted operations, and state institutions declared a day off. 
Over 5,000 citizens in one day went to hospitals with complaints of suffocation.

#Iraq #Sandstorm

6:36 AM · May 23, 2022

Zahraa al-Janabi Tweets:

Another sand storm hits #Iraq, warning us that this has become the norm more than the exception. So what happens when armed conflicts collide w/ climate risks? and what should we do to strengthen the climate action? #ICRC report

Australia's WEEKLY TIMES notes:

Iraq's Lake Hamrin, a once-vast reservoir northeast of Baghdad that is the sole source of water for irrigation across Diyala province, has nearly dried out, a senior official said Friday.

"There are no other sources of water in the province -- the volume arriving in Lake Hamrin is the volume used in the province."

In related news, RUDAW reports:

A shepherd in a village in Kirkuk was forced to sell most of his sheep because of poor pasture conditions for his animals and out of 300 sheep, only 27 of them are left.

Ahmad Khorshid has had a difficult year because of the drought.

“Everything is expensive now. If fodders were available and cheap like before, I could have survived. No one shepherds because of the lack of pasture,” he told Rudaw’s Hardi Muhammad Ali on Friday.

Khorshid has spent most of his life working as a shepherd in Jabal Bawr village, Kirkuk, but this is the first time he experiences such a lack in adequate pasture for his herd.

Friday, Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawab passed away.

World-renowned Iraqi Arab communist poet Muzaffar al-Nawab died on May 20. He was beloved by Arab masses for language that spoke to peasants & workers, and for brilliant takedowns of corrupt Arab regimes, U.S. imperialism, and Israeli colonization & occupation.

#مظفر_النواب

arlos Latuff and 9 others

7:13 PM · May 22, 2022

WIKIPEDIA notes:

Al-Nawab was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1934 into an aristocratic Shi'ite family of Indian origin that appreciated art, poetry and music.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6] He showed a talent for poetry from an early age. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Baghdad and became a teacher, but was expelled for political reasons in 1955 and remained unemployed for three years, at a difficult time for his family who was suffering financial hardship.^[7]

He joined the Iraqi Communist Party while still at college, and was tortured by the Hashemite Government. After the Iraqi revolution in 1958 which overthrew the monarchy, he was appointed an inspector at the Ministry of Education. In 1963 he was forced to leave Iraq to neighbouring Iran, after the intensification of competition between the nationalists and the communists who were exposed to prosecution and strict observation by the ruling regime. He was arrested and tortured by the Iranian secret police, before being forcibly repatriated to the Iraqi government. An Iraqi court handed down a death sentence against him for one of his poems, later commuted to life imprisonment. He escaped prison by digging a tunnel and fled to the marshlands, where he joined a communist faction that sought to overthrow the government.^[8]

Known for his powerful revolutionary poems and scathing invectives against Arab dictators,^[9] he lived in exile in many countries, including Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Eritrea, where he stayed with the Eritrean rebels, before returning to Iraq in 2011.^[1] Before he returned to Iraq, he had been essentially stateless being able to travel only on Libyan travel documents. The first complete Arabic language edition of his works was published in London in 1996 by "Dar Qanbar"^[10] He died on 20 May 2022 in the University Hospital Sharjah in the UAE.^[11]

JYforeal Tweets:

Muzaffar Al-Nawab was imprisoned and tortured by the Iraqi monarchy for associating with the growing Iraqi Communsit Party. Muzaffar always stood firm in his revolutionary ideals

We mourn the loss of a great Iraqi poet.

5:10 AM · May 21, 2022

GRADE SAVER notes:

Muzaffar Al-Nawab is a celebrated Iraqi poet. He was born in 1934 to a wealthy family in Baghdad. After studying literature and becoming a teacher, he began to associate with the Communist movement in Iraq. For this he was imprisoned and tortured by the oppressive Hashemite regime; however, following, the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, Al-Nawab was offered a position at the Iraqi Ministry of Education. As political tensions continued between nationalists and communists, Al-Nawab was forced to flee Iraq because of his communist allegiances in 1963. He was arrested again, this time for writing poetry critical of the Iraqi Republic. He was able to escape prison and continued writing dissident poetry.

Despite, or perhaps because of his political troubles, Al-Nawab's reputation grew steadily in the 1960s. His work spread across the Arab world and was as inspiration to those standing against political regimes. As he writes in "v-Letter-Word," his work was seen as a rallying call to all those that wished to "speak out frankly of your reality." Further expanding his notoriety, many musicians set music to Al-Nawab's work. After his exile from Iraq he continued to move around Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon. Due to the controversial nature of his work, it was not published officially until 1996, however much of has become available on the internet. Still, it is incredibly difficult to find in printed form and many bootlegged copies circulate, though an official poetry collection was again released in 2010. Al-Nawab returned to Iraq in 2011 where he has been reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.

He was buried Saturday. Sebastian Usher Tweets:

#Iraq : Funeral of renowned poet Muzaffar al-Nawab in Baghdad - famed for his revolutionary ideals & revolutionary use of language #مظفر_النواب #الْعِرَاق

4:00 AM · May 21, 2022

AFP adds:

He last visited Iraq in 2011, when he was received in grand pomp by the presidency. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi called Friday for his body to be repatriated by ministerial aircraft.

The poems of Nawab, who was unmarried and had no children, were often evoked during the autumn 2019 wave of youth-led anti-corruption protests that swept Iraq.

"Why did Muzaffar al-Nawab die in the Emirates?... Because you've governed Iraq for 19 years, because Baghdad hospitals do not treat patients, because the country is not livable," Iraqi journalist Omar al-Janabi tweeted.

Yes, his work and life spoke to The October Revolution. So what happened was no surprised except for people who don't have time to pay attetnion. Desperate to hold onto his post as Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi tried to turn the day into a photo op for himself and the youth weren't having it. MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:

Iraqi Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kadhimi was forced to leave the funeral of the country's renowned communist poet Muzaffar al-Nawab on Saturday after a section of mourners began chanting slogans of contempt at his delegation.

Sinan Mahmoud and Amr Mostafa (THE NATIONAL) explain:

The funeral procession started peacefully at the Association of the Iraqi Writers in Baghdad’s Karrada neighbourhood after the wooden casket containing the poet's body arrived from the airport.

A few minutes later, some of the mourners started shouting slogans against the prime minister and Iraq's political elite.

Waving Iraqi flags and pumping their fists in the air, they shouted "The people want to bring down the regime," and "Oil is for the people not for the thieves."

The chaos forced the pallbearers to return Al Nawab's casket to the hearse and speed away with Mr Al Kadhimi's convoy.

Some of the mourners pelted the convoy with stones, bottles of water and shoes as it left.

We'll wind down with this from Nancy Hanover (WSWS):

The children of Flint, Michigan have been doubly ravaged—by lead poisoning and more than two years of SARS-CoV-2 infections and deaths. Now in the sixth wave, COVID cases in Flint’s Genesee County are rising by 69 percent, and despite ongoing outbreaks, schools remain open face-to-face. At the same time, a lawsuit now alleges that the city’s young people “acquired brain injuries” due to ingestion of lead.

The contamination of Flint’s water at the hands of General Motors, Governor Rick Snyder, and the entire city, state and national Democratic and Republican establishment exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to lead, a neurotoxin that attacks developing brains and nervous systems.

The current class action lawsuit, one of many, targets engineering consultants contracted by the city (Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam) during the 2014 switch to Flint River water. It has brought to light some of the devastating and widespread educational and mental health challenges the city’s children and their teachers face.

Testifying on May 10 and 12, neuropsychologist Mira Krishnan provided evidence that Flint children are suffering brain injuries due to being subjected to lead-in-water.

Dr. Krishnan, a specialist in neurodevelopmental disorders and impacts of complex trauma, examined four children, who she said exhibited hyperactivity, impulsivity and weaknesses in various subject matters in the classroom. Such problems can amplify over a lifetime. One of the children, she said, showed impairments that “very rarely would be seen in a random sampling of children from the community ... who didn’t have some sort of brain injury.”

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hollywood V. Reality" went up Saturday. The followng sites updated: