Important column from Jonathan Turley:
Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech in 1902, “The Control of Corporations,” which warned of the danger of corporate power over citizens’ lives. Calling corporations “creatures of the state,” he said they must be controlled by “the representatives of the public.” Roosevelt was a Republican, but his distrust of corporations (and his later faith in big government) would become a touchstone of Democratic politics for generations, from the Great Depression to the Great Society.
Like the reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, American politics now seems suddenly to have flipped: Democratic leaders increasingly advocate for corporate governance while Republicans voice populist themes. From supporting the largest censorship programs in history to privately mandated vaccine “passports,” liberals are looking to companies like Apple or American Airlines to carry out social programs free from constitutional and political limits imposed on the government.
This new model of governance was evident when White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about a mandated vaccine passport system. She responded that it is “not currently the role of the federal government” but noted that the administration hopes to see such a mandate from “private-sector entities, universities, institutions that are starting to mandate, and that’s an innovative step that they will take and they should take.”
This use of corporations is born out of political and legal convenience. Despite the rising call for mandatory vaccinations, the Biden administration clearly is not willing to face the political costs of a government mandate. As of July 11, 159,266,536 Americans were fully vaccinated — 48 percent of the country’s population. When you consider the extremely high rate of vaccination for those over 65 (an estimated 85 percent), the percentage of adults under 65 is even smaller. That is a lot of voters who would not take well to a government mandate before the 2022 election. Moreover, the Supreme Court upheld a mandatory state vaccine in 1905, but any federal mandate could face constitutional challenges.
I don't think we've seen Communism -- true Communism -- because I don't believe that the USSR or China were examples of true Communism. By the same token, we don't have true democracy. All of the threats we were warned of? We looked the other way. If democracy ever existed in this country, it doesn't now.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, July 19, 2021. Protesters turn out in Baghdad, David Ignatius plays dummy for his ventriloquists at the CIA, Mustafa al-Kadhimi and (most of) the press pretend he wants US forces out of Iraq, and much more.
THE ECONOMIC TIMES notes, "The White House announced that US President Joe Biden would be meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi this month. The White House announced Friday that Biden would be hosting Kadhemi at the White House on July 26 in an effort to reaffirm the strategic partnership between both countries." Khalid Al Ansary and Zaid Sabah (BLOOMBERG NEWS) add that Mjustafa plans to discuss US troop withdrawal with the White House." TASNIM NEWS AGENCY explains, "In an interview with Saudi-owned al-Hadath television news network on Sunday, al-Kadhim said that his upcoming visit to Washington is aimed at regulating Iraq’s relations with the United States and pushing for the withdrawal of foreign combat forces from the Arab country."
That probably sounds good . . . to the very stupid. If Mustafa wants foreign troops out, he can do that without a meet-up If he wants them out (he doesn't). He can exercise the exit clause in Iraq's agreement with the US. But he's refused to do that. He makes statements -- which he knows wil be popular but he never backs them up.
Even now, he's not backing them up. But a whorish press pretends that he is.
Even now, he's not calling for US troops out, despite reports otherwise. Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/iraq-to-discuss-withdrawal-of-american-troops-with-u-s
Copyright © BloombergQuint
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi claimed that his upcoming visit
to Washington will put an end to the presence of US combat troops in
Iraq in an interview on Sunday, but stressed the need for continued
training, air force, and intelligence support.
“We are visiting Washington to set out our relationship with America.
The Iraqi army still needs their forces for training. We need their
support to our air force, and we need their intelligence support in the
fight against ISIS (Islamic State),” Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi
said in an interview with the Saudi owned al-Hadath TV on Sunday.
“The visit will be to set out this relationship, and to put an end to
the presence of combat forces, because the Iraqi army can now fight for
itself on behalf of Iraqis and the world against these terrorist groups
in Iraq,” Kadhimi added. “There is no need for combat troops.”
Get it yet?
He's not attempting to eject US troops out of Iraq. It's a lie. He's trying for a second term as prime minister. Glenn Greenwald, before you Tweet nonsense again about Mustafa, grasp how empty his damn words truly are.
"Combat troops" -- the ultimate weasel word.
As for the claim that Iraqi forces still need US forces to help them train? Seriously?
They've been training Iraqi forces since 2003.
I think I had more respect for the Iraqi government in the fall of 2011 when they began making clear that they didn't want any help training from the US. Remember the millions spent on the secure training facility in Baghdad? Built just for this purpose.
And never ever used.
The Iraqi forces refused to show up for training from Americans.
Remember that?
Oh, wait, many probably don't because you had 'news' outlets refusing to report the truth if they thought it might hurt Barack Obama's re-election choices.
The current state of the media?
We didn't get here overnight. The media shielded Barack. Which is why most Americans don't know about the training facility or the millions -- of US tax dollars -- spent on it or that Barack ended up just handing the building over to the Iraqi government. Most never heard about poor Brook Darby, sent by the US State Dept to Congress to try to spin this huge failure. They don't realize that the Inspector General -- whose office was allowed to elapse for telling truths -- noted in reports and testimony that the Iraqis did not want training from the Americans.
Lying whore Jill Abramson is now exposed for the serial plagiarist that she is. And, in related news, her son's rock band dreams were crushed (you're welcome, Jill). At THE NEW YORK TIMES, she whored over and over. She repeatedly tailored what appeared in the paper based on whether ir would help Barack Obama or not. Tim Arango was the reporter covering Iraq. He learned that Barack was sending US troops back into Iraq. Jill wouldn't let the story run. She finally allowed it to appear dead center in a long article on Syria.
Here's what Tim Arango reported:
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.
That should have been a front page, stand-alone report. Instead, it appeared in the middle of a report on Syria.
And while we're here . . .
I take reporters to account. If you don't like that, oh well. But grasp that sometimes my sources are reporters. Meaning? After Anthony Shadid died, I got a ton of e-mails about how rude I was.
I was rude?
For saying he needed to keep covering Iraq and not Syria?
You do know that Anthony felt that way himself, right? You may not know that he asked us to hit the paper on that. You may not realize that he participate in multiple roundtables for the gina & krista round-robin as my guest.
And I bring that up because of whore Jill Abramson.
Let's all be very clear that she's why he's dead.
He didn't want to report on Syria. He did not think (a) that it was safe and (b) that Iraq needed to lose focus.
Jill wanted war. More war. And she was willing to risk the lives of others to get it.
She's a lying two-bit whore who has Tony's blood on her hands. She knows it. Most of us know it. It's past time she was called out because she is not a journalist.
She's a plagiarist. She's a whore.
Anyone counting on her to deliver the news is as big a fool as those who counted on Gail Collins to deliver opinions worth reading.
If you're late to the party on Gail, this is the piece of trash who oversaw the op-ed pages when the paper had multiple columnists and only one was a woman. Confronted on hiring a man to fill in for Maureen Dowd when Dowd was on vacation, Gail insisted that it didn't matter. Representation, didn't matter. That's the whore trash who tries to pose as a feminist. Grasp that. That's the whore who refused to run any of the submissions on Coretta Scott King. Coretta, a historical woman, had just passed away. Gail, herself, did an unsigned editorial on her playwright friend -- a woman whose work is not all that important, sorry -- and had multiple article in the paper -- including on the front page -- about her death. But Gail wouldn't draft an outside writer to write about Coretta or take any of the submissions on the topic offered to the paper. Tired of my nagging, Bob Herbert finally pulled Coretta into a column -- the first (and only) time her death was noted on the op-ed pages. Grasp that we could write a book about all the whore trash at THE NEW YORK TIMES alone. Oh, the stories we could tell.
The bulk of the press exists as p.r. agents. They don't deliver news, ,they run through publicity copy.
Saturday, we noted David Ignatius' latest nonsense column which argues -- on behalf of the CIA -- that Mustafa needs a second term because . . . well, there might be worse.
Worse for whom, David? For whom?
The Iraqi people are suffering. But he doesn't care about them.
What's really sad about old whores like David? They don't realize that they have a long history. They don't realize that their past arguments re already known. They don't grasp just how whorish they look. Papers should probably begin to impose a ten year limit on columnists since, by that point, they ha e a history that betrays them as an idiot who has repeatedly gotten it wrong.
Deji Sadiq Tweets about it as well:
Also noting it is Linda Hemby:
TRT WORLD NOW Tweets:
Golly, Jane Arraf, that doesn't look like a "small" protest -- the one you noted in your Tweet. At least you managed to include that the Iraqi police was stopping reporters from taking pictures.
Farid Y. Farid Tweets:
ALJAZEERA carries AFP's report:
Hundreds of Iraqis have protested in central Baghdad to demand that authorities hold accountable the killers of dozens of activists associated with a long-running protest movement.
More than 70 activists have been targeted in assassinations, attempted murders and abductions since a pro-democracy protest movement erupted against government corruption and incompetence in 2019.
“We’re here to say that we want to end impunity in Iraq,” Hussein Al-Faili, an 18-year old student, told AFP news agency on Sunday from Firdos Square, a key protest site.
“We want freedom! This revolution started because of this and we won’t stop until we win.”
Dozens also turned out in the southern city of Nasiriya, where tensions have been running high following a hospital fire that killed at least 60 people on Monday.
The October Revolution started in the fall of 2019 to call out corruption and to demand a better Iraq. The protests continue. They continue despite the attacks on protesters at demonstrations -- attacks carried out by security forces. Remember when, I do, Jane Arraf went on NPR to dismiss the force being shown towards protesters and instead she justified the use of tear gas cannisters and less than 30 minutes after her 'report' social media was abuzz with photos of the protester killed by a tear cannister -- lodged in his head.
Oh, Jane, it's been a very interesting career. It could make a film. Not a serious film, mind you, but it would be hilarious if it focused on the oblivious American reporter who forever gets it wrong -- think an update of Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour's THEY GOT ME COVERED.
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