Monday, August 3, 2020. Joe Biden continues to dither and postpone
selecting a running mate, government criminals are caught on tape in
Iraq torturing a teenage boy, and more.
It's
Monday August 3rd and Monday August 17th -- 14 days from now -- the
Democratic Party's national convention is supposed to kick off. If all
goes as planned, Joe Biden will be declared the Democratic Party's
presidential candidate at the convention.
Matt Purple (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE) took a moment to note Joe's accomplishments:
Imagine being a progressive forced to vote for Joe Biden. There aren’t
enough clothespins in the world to hold your nose. Biden has lately
tried to make inroads with the left, jumping onboard the post-George
Floyd campaign for racial justice and releasing an economic plan that
encompasses many progressive priorities. But even that can’t mask the
smell of his support for the Iraq war, his authoring of the 1994 crime
bill, his backing of 1996 welfare reform legislation.
Oh, and he
essentially wrote the Patriot Act too. Here he is bragging about that
during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2002, featuring, natch, a
smirking Robert Mueller:
Video is in article and
here at CSPAN site.
The corporate press is trying hard to sell Joe but there's not a lot of
interest. Or a lot interesting. So they keep returning to the topic
of who he might pick for vice president.
Joe Lockhart pops up at CNN with a lot of nonsense of epic proportion.
White
House spokesman Joe Lockhart was dismissive of the story, which
appeared in a Wall Street Journal interview. She also spoke to The
Post’s Steve Dunleavy.
“I
spend very little time reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page,”
Lockhart said. “They lost me after they accused the president of being a
drug smuggler and a murderer.”
Broaddrick
said she chose to tell her story now because rumors were rampant after
NBC reporter Lisa Myers taped an interview with her in January that the
network has not yet aired.
Broaddrick said she is speaking out because NBC News “threw me to the wolves.”
This is the man to write about women in 2020? Oh, CNN, you are so hopelessly f**ked up beyond repair.
Joe throws words out but none of them make sense -- is he going senile?
Here's
the reality that he ignores and everyone else does as they build up
this contest for vice president: Kamala does not control her hive.
I
pity the poor soul who gets on the wrong side of the K-Hive. Kamala
Harris has been on Joe's short list for months and months -- as the
press has endlessly repeated. If Joe picks someone other than Kamala,
the K-Hive will go nuts.
I've already shared
that, if it were me, I'd go with Karen Bass. She brings the most to the
ticket -- including energy. But the press has played this out over and
over -- again because it's cheap to produce this 'coverage' and because
there's nothing remotely interesting or newsworthy about Joe or his
campaign. And when the running mate is announced, there will be hurt
feelings.
Sally Field, for example, is pulling
for Elizabeth Warren to be the running mate. A lot of people are
pulling for Elizabeth. She got a lot of primary votes. If it's not
Elizabeth, some will be mad. If it's not Susan Rice? No one's going to
give a damn because she was never a popular nominee, she was someone the
press worked to promote.
And why? Because
she wants the slot. I called out an idiot here for a piece he wrote on
Susan. You probably know who I mean. A pathetic e-mail followed where
he whined I was mean and rude and didn't I realize he was asked by Susan
supporters to write that piece?
I'm not so
mean that I'm naming him right here (but I believe we all know who I'm
talking about). If I were to name him, I think he'd lose his job
because he's paid by a newspaper and if he's writing pieces because
people outside the paper are asking him to, that's something he needs to
disclose to readers and to his newspaper. If he fails to disclose it,
that's ground for termination.
I'm not
surprised by the e-mail. Susan Rice was said to be pulling in every
favor she had to create enthusiasm for her selection. It never took
place. America's never loved Susan Rice and they still don't.
A
number of Americans passionately love Kamala Harris. Not picking her
would create a backlash. Not picking Susan Rice would create a yawn.
Joe Biden
is dithering. He was supposed to tap his running mate the first week
of August, but has now postponed the announcement to Aug. 10. It’s the
first consequential decision of his campaign, one that could determine
whether he wins or loses in November, and he’s blowing it. The extension, and the ongoing uncertainty it suggests, casts Biden as wobbly.
It also reduces any zip that the eventual announcement might have. It’s not a great beginning for a candidate constantly tweeting that the country needs “strong leadership.”
Peek
notes, "The first and most important job of Biden’s VP pick will be to
boost
turnout on Nov. 3. No presidential candidate has engendered less
excitement among members of his own party than Biden; he desperately
needs his VP pick to provide some sizzle." It's a reality that Joe
Lockhart not only ignores, he outright dismisses. Why, he thunders on
in 1992, Bill Clinton was urged not to pick someone from the south or
someone like him but by golly Bill picked Al Gore and look what
happened!
What happened? Two White men won in a
different electorate in a three-way race -- Bill, incumbent George H.W.
Bush and H. Ross Perot.
Joe Lockhart is desperately out of touch.
Anything's possible.
That
said, Texas last went for a Democrat in a presidential election in
1976. That was Georgia's Jimmy Carter. Barack Obama, at he height of
his popularity, did not carry Texas in 2008. But Joe's going to?
Anything's possible.
Should,
however, Joe lose the election, the decision to commit big resources to
Texas is a decision that many will point to as a mistake.
Back to the other Joe, Lockhart. Last week,
he wrote another worthless opinion piece for CNN
in which he argued Joe Biden should not debate Donald Trump -- it was
also a column that three times mentioned Austin Powers -- are you
getting yet just how out of touch Joe Lockhart is?
What is the point of CNN paying Joe Lockhart?
Is
it to educate people about democracy? If so, he doesn't need to be
advocating for no debates. We had debates during the Civil War. At a
time when campaigning face to face has been curtailed, we especially
need to see candidates on the debate stage. What Lockhart is proposing
is not democracy and shame on him and shame on CNN.
We
already don't have fair debates because we've allowed the Democrats and
the Republicans to control the debates. Now Joe's proposing an
election -- a presidential election -- with no debates. These things
have a way of snowballing and Joe's proposal needs to be rebuked.
Turning to Iraq. Last night's "
Even when the criminals are caught on tape, no one gets punished in Iraq"
noted that even when criminals -- government forces -- are caught on
tape kidnapping and torturing Iraqi civilians, the worst new prime
minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi can offer is to put the man over those
forces, General Saad Khalaf on house arrest. He didn't arrest anyone.
He just put one supervisor on house arrest. Not real arrest, mind you.
Real arrest would be taking him down to a jail. Instead, he's at home
where his servants wait on him and where he plays on the internet and
watches TV and -- that's not an arrest. It's certainly not an arrest
for torture.
Despite the violations, kidnappings and assassinations that have
targeted activists throughout the years by Iraq’s security forces and
unknown militias, the country was still shocked by a video that showed a
teen being tortured by Interior Ministry forces.
The video, which emerged on Saturday and was recorded some three
months ago, showed Hamed Saeed Abed, 16, being beaten and insulted by
the Ministry’s Law Preservation Forces for allegedly throwing Molotov
cocktails at them during a protest. Abed was stripped naked, while one
of the security forces shaved his head. Others asked him about his
mother’s skin color, insulted her and his family.
The shocking video and the ensuing uproar prompted Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to order an investigation into the assault.
His spokesman said: “The prime minister and supreme commander of the
armed forces ordered an immediate probe into the unethical and
unprofessional treatment of a citizen.”
Iraqi
Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi met with a teen protester abused by
security officers on Monday and told him the men were in custody and
would face trial.
Hamid Saeed, 16, was reportedly assaulted by three members of the
Interior Ministry’s Law Preservation Forces and stripped naked, with
videos of the abuse shared online.
He and his mother were threatened with sexual assault, he was also beaten and had his hair cut with a blade.
Videos of the incident and of the boy explaining what happened have
gone viral in Iraq, sparking a backlash against security forces accused
of heavy-handed tactics that have caused over 500 deaths in the months
of anti-government street protests.
Mr Al Khadimi's Twitter account shared photographs of the prime minister meeting Mr Hamid.
“The prime minister received Hamid Saeed, who was subjected to an
immoral and unlawful attack. The perpetrators were arrested and relieved
from their positions after an investigation,” a statement from his
office said.
It said the officers in question had been referred to the judiciary.
رئيس مجلس الوزراء : أن ما حدث من اعتداء على هذا المواطن يجب أن لا يعامل وكأنه يمثل السلوك العام للأجهزة الأمنية،فقواتنا البطلة سبق أن ضحّت ومازالت تضحّي وتقاتل من أجل العراق،أمّا من يستغل وجوده داخل القوات الأمنية لغرض الاعتداء فلن يواجه سوى العقوبة والملاحقة القانونية. Translate Tweet
رئيس مجلس الوزراء : أشعر بالألم والحزن لما حدث، وإن ثقافة استمراء الإعتداء على المواطن من قبل بعض ممن يستغل موقعه، هي أمر يتوجب المعالجة الحازمة، وان ماحدث يمثل مشهدا للاعتداء على كرامة المواطن ينتمي الى كل ماحاربناه خلال كل السنوات الماضية، وسنحاربه لنمنع تكراره. Translate Tweet
رئيس مجلس الوزراء يستقبل الحدث حامد سعيد بعد اطلاق سراحه والذي تعرض الى اعتداء غير أخلاقي وغير قانوني وشكل على اثرها القائد العام للقوات المسلحة لجنة تحقيقية قامت بتشخيص اسماء المتجاوزين من قوات حفظ القانون وفسخ عقودهم واحالتهم للقضاء . Translate Tweet
Video evidence of the assault. This is where the world sees if the criminals will truly be punished or not.
