Like Maria Said Paz: 2021-11-28

Thursday, December 02, 2021

NBC lied

NBC lied. Are we surprised? No, not really. This is from Jonathan Turley:

In the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, proceedings were disrupted by what Judge Bruce Schroeder considered a major breach of security after NBC was found to be following the van of jurors. Given the threats in the case and the concern over jury intimidation, Schroeder was irate. In response, NBC released a statement that some of us found vague and misleading. Now a police video at the scene with NBC freelancer James Morrison confirms that the statement was intentionally misleading on the critical question of whether Morrison was ordered to follow jurors.

In the hearing, Schroeder announced that Morrison was pulled over after he sped through a red light to continue to follow the van. He said that Morrison confirmed that a NBC producer (later identified as Irene Byon) told him to follow the jurors. The incident led to MSNBC being banned from the entire courthouse for the duration of the case.

After the incident, NBC released the following statement:

“Last night, a freelancer received a traffic citation. While the traffic violation took place near the jury van, the freelancer never contacted or intended to contact the jurors during deliberations, and never photographed or intended to photograph them. We regret the incident and will fully cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.”

At the time, I wrote the statement was notably ambiguous and possibly misleading:

NBC’s statement is confusing in one respect in starting with “while the traffic violation took place near the jury van.” That suggests that it was a coincidence that the traffic accident occurred near the jury van. The question is whether the freelancer was instructed by NBC to follow the jury bus. That should be easy to deny if it is untrue.

Finally, the fact that he is a freelancer is immaterial. News organizations commonly use freelancers for a host of different positions. When they are working for a network, they are agents of that network. Again, NBC is ambiguous. It goes out of its way to note that this person is a freelancer but not whether he was working freelance for NBC at the time.

Now, the video seems to confirm that NBC was intentionally misleading on the key fact of whether it ordered Morrison to follow the jurors.

Read the whole thing and find out that NBC lied and that the lies are caught on tape. Lied.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, December 2, 2021. The electoral commission releasing their final tally (their final tally) does not mean the results are official and far too many idiots at media outlets are revealing yet again that journalism degrees these days are nothing but glorified studies majors. We'll deal with the reality of what happens next, the need for Anthony Fauci to clear his desk and much more.

So now the election count is released by the electoral commission (barring any rulings by the judiciary). And it's all happiness in Iraq, right?

MEMO reports:

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling party in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, yesterday said it was objecting to the final results of the parliamentary elections which were held on 10 October.

"After the announcement of the final election results, it became clear to us that two deserved seats legally entitled to two candidates from our party were taken away in Erbil and Nineveh provinces," said KDP Spokesperson Mahmood Mohammed in a statement.

Mohammed noted that the KDP's political bureau would hold a meeting to "discuss this illegal act."

Okay, so the KDP in Kurdistan is unhappy but others are fine, right? IRAN INATNERATIONAL reports:

Protesters in Baghdad on Wednesday rejected the final results of Iraq's parliamentary elections, which were announced by the electoral commission a day earlier.

The protesters, mainly supporters of Shiite factions backed by Iran, continued to level unsubstantiated claims that the vote had been rigged.

"We will continue our protest until they change the results and bow to our demands," said protester Ali Jawad.

The electoral commission confirmed Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as the biggest winner in last month's poll, securing 73 out of Parliament's 329 seats.

There are other examples but the point is that tensions continue and nothing has been resolved. These also aren't the final results. Not yet. These are the official results released by the electoral commission. These are not final until the federal judiciary looks at them and certifies them. After that, per the Constitution, the Parliament has tend days to convene their first assembly and to declare someone prime minister-designate. That person, per the Constitution, then has 30 days to form a Cabinet.

A month wasted on counting and there is still no prime minister.

But, hey, Iraq has all the time in the world, right?

It's not like they're facing any upcoming obstacles, right?

Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:

Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers could run dry by 2040 because of declining water levels and climate change, a government report said on Thursday.

Over the years, the construction of dams in upstream Turkey, Syria and Iran has choked off some of the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates on which Iraq depends.

Climate change is contributing to temperatures increases and erratic rainfall, pushing the fear of water shortages in Iraq to new levels, it said.

The country made $7 billion in oil sales in November alone. That generates a lot of money, it also harms their own environment (and the world's). You can trumpet the 'increase' in date trees all you want but that's meaningless -- especially when they don't have enough water for their farming industry, but it you'd not noting the reality that's coming and if you're not addressing it, you're faling your people. (Iraq's not alone in that. The US government has falied its people with regards to climate change.)

Sinan Mahmoud writes like an idiot at THE NATIONAL. Again, the results are not final. They do not become final until the judiciary reviews them and confirms them. That's the process. One of the few that has been consistently followed in Iraq's post-invasion elections. He doesn't understand a great deal. For example:

The Shiite Co-ordination Framework, made up of Al Fatah, State of Law and other parties renewed their rejection of the results, accusing the IHEC of manipulation, despite the EU and UN saying the poll was well-managed.

“We categorically reject the current election results,” the group said. “It is clear now and without any doubt that the Elections Commission had prepared these results before against the will of the Iraqi people,” it added.

Their demands are now beyond recounting the votes.

“We reiterate our firm stance, which is based on documents and proof that there has been widespread manipulation in the elections results,” it said.

“We are committed to continue our lawsuit, which we have filed at the Federal Court to annul the elections,” the group added.

"Despite the EU and the UN saying the poll was well-managed."

Huh?

What lunatic writes that about Iraq? Iraq sturggles right now, in war, the whole country is suffering, because of the EU and the UN. Where the hell do you get off with the 'despite' as though Iraq's supposed to trust bodies that helped destroy their country. The UN can 'at least' note that they didn't sign off on the invasion (which the Secretary-General of the UN at the time said was illegal) but they immediately signed off on the occupation that came from the illegal invasion. They did so yearly.

No Iraqi person owes trust to either the EU or the UN.

You don't build trust by destroying a country.

You don't build trust by sticking with people who put your agenda at risk. I can remember people within Bill Clinton's first presidential administration believing he waited too long to ditch both Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood as Attorney General nominees. But nearly a year into his term as president, Joe Biden's still sticking by Donald Trump's Anthony Fauci. He -- Joe -- has no political captal to expend. He is diverting it into maintainging Fauci who is a lost cause. Fauci's numbers are only going to get worse because he's a liar. Do this, no do that, no do this, no do that. They didn't have a real plan from the start so some fumbling was always going to be an issue. But it's gone beyond that now. And it's time for a clean slate. Fauci needs to go. If Republicans take over the House in next year's mid-terms, look for a number of peopl ein the administration to leave and to begin explaining to the press that they told Joe that it was time for Fauci to go, that every week defending a political appointee meant the appointee wasn't helpful to the adminisration.

Pepe Escobar (ASIA TIMES) has a book review worth reading -- RFK Jr. on Fauci. I know and like Robert. I'm providing a link and may do an excerpt in another snapshot but I'm feeling sick -- fever -- this morning. I was hoping the workout would break it but it didn't. So I'm winding down. We were going to end on Fauci by noting an article Glenn Greenwald's published at his SUBSTACK page (is it page, I don't know and I'm not being sarcastic.) At SUBSTACK, Leighton Woodhouse writes:

By now you’ve surely heard about Anthony Fauci and his laboratory beagles, but in case you haven’t, it goes like this: For forty years, Fauci, as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has funded gruesome experiments on animals. Beagles in particular are one of the favored species for these experiments, because of their docile and people-pleasing nature, which makes for less hassle for the humans who subject them to pain and suffering. In one of these NIAID-funded experiments, in Tunisia, sedated beagles’ heads were put into mesh bags with swarms of starved sand flies, who fed on the live dogs.

The other thing you may have heard is that the story is just another right-wing conspiracy theory. You may have heard this from The Washington Post, from any of a number of self-proclaimed “fact checkers,” or maybe even from the globally renowned Beacon of Honesty David Frum of The Atlantic.

I’ve been reporting on this story for the past few weeks. In fact, I’ve been reporting it as closely as anyone, if not more so. It’s been an extremely educational experience for me, but not because I was unfamiliar with the industry of animal experimentation, or NIAID’s leading role within it. What’s been educational is seeing up close and first-hand how the mainstream media constructs and deploys a brazen misinformation campaign.

First of all, just to get this detail out of the way: the story is true. As head of NIAID, the second biggest institute within the National Institutes of Health, Anthony Fauci has spent billions of dollars over four decades funding scientific experiments on animals, many of them stomach-turning. NIAID does not deny this. In fact, the published scientific papers that describe these heinous experiments routinely credit NIAID and NIH as their funders, and sometimes as direct collaborators. You can look them up yourself: here are just a few of them.

Of the numerous horrific experiments on dogs funded by agencies and budgets controlled by Fauci, there’s only one that is in dispute: the one in Tunisia. That is the experiment which involved placing sedated beagles’ heads in mesh bags with swarms of starved sand flies, which feasted on the live dogs in order to transmit to them a parasite that carries a disease called “leishmaniasis.” The scientific paper that described the results of that experiment, published on July 15, originally credited NIAID as a funder.

But after this ethical monstrosity was publicized and denounced by an anti-animal testing group specializing in a building left/right coalitions — the White Coat Waste Project, which, as Glenn Greenwald reported in this space two weeks ago, became the target of a Washington Post hit piece as punishment for denouncing Fauci — this particular experiment created a minor media sensation and a major headache for NIH. In the wake of that recent controversy, the paper’s authors — just three weeks ago, on November 11 — suddenly retracted their statement about NIAID funding. In wooden language that reads like a hostage note, they now claim that when they said that NIAID had paid for this experiment, it was by accident.

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Our Outrageous Congress

Jonathan Turley:

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., joined the growing ranks of members of Congress in issuing a warning to the Supreme Court: reaffirm Roe v. Wade or else. The “else” varies from promises to pack the Court to personal accountability for justices. For Shaheen, it is a promise of “revolution.” It is the latest demand that the justices yield to popular demand or any countervailing interpretation of the Constitution. Or else.

“So you say you want a revolution.” However, these threats are an attack on the very concept of impartial judicial review. “When you talk about destruction” of our traditions of judicial review, as the Beatles declared in 1968, “you can count me out.”

I understand that Sen. Shaneen is speaking of a political rather than actual revolution but the implication is that there would be consequences for the Court.

Threatening the Supreme Court has become something of a required public exhibition of faith for Democrats, a demonstration that abstract notions like judicial independence will not distract from achieving political results. Sen. Richard Blumenthal previously warned the Supreme Court that, if it continued to issue conservative rulings or “chipped away at Roe v Wade” it would trigger “a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

The message is clear and unambiguous: vote “correctly” or you will face personal or institutional repercussions.

I think it is outrageous that elected members of Congress abuse their position -- and betray the oath that they took to the Constitution -- to threaten the Supreme Court. It's just outrageous.

If Congress wants to pass some laws regarding abortion -- and keeping it legal -- by all means go for it. But you've got no right to threaten or intimidate sitting justices in order to get a verdict that you like. It's outrageous.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

December 1, 2021. A final election tally is finally announced in Iraq and we look at the corrupt media system which devours its own in order to protect itself.

Starting with the media. This site has not called for Chris Cuomo to be fired. Rebecca's made that call and it's a solid call (see "it's time for cnn to fire chris cuomo" and :"suspended isn't fired"). There are also solid reasons to argue against it. But those e-mailing the public account -- and noting that it was this site -- need to check their eye sight. (I can give you the numbers of several wonderful doctors.) I have not made that call nor am I closely following that story. It takes a lot to get me to call for someone to lose their livelihood. I have no idea what's going to happen to Chris.

He is now expendable. To CNN, he is now expendable. They're trying to rebrand. He is the face of so much that people do not like about CNN -- and CNN executives made him that face and encouraged him to be it -- so it is very likely that he will be fired. I'm not saying he should be. I'm not sying he shouldn't. But I have not made the call for him to be fired.

But, and this brings us to our second topic of e-mails to the public account, Lara Logan.

Lara appeared on some FOX NEWS program. She did not -- as the people e-mailing claim -- say Anthony Fauci was Josef Mengel.

She stated that she had encountered many people who saw him as that. So get your facts straight. Second, if that was shocking to you -- the way a number of people see Fauci -- you really are in a bubble. He is inept and he is hated. The White House wasted too much time and energy on him. Had they done what they wree supposed to do -- push Joe Biden's administration wish list -- they'd be more successful -- and Joe would be higher in the polls. Months ago, I pointed out here that they were expending too much enery on protecting Fauci. That was their first clue that he had to go.

And he should go. What's the difference between a Trump administration and a Biden administration? Not a whole lot apparently. He has cost the administration a great deal -- both in terms of defining itself in opposition to Donald's policies and in terms of being able to stay on message and focused.

Does no one have a brain in the administration?

He should have been told long ago, "Thank you for your work, we're going to be making some changes so we'd like your resignation." And that Fauci didn't grasp that he was an anchor for the administration, dragging them down, and leave on his own goes to Fauci's stupidity and his vanity.

Stupidity? Lara Logna was stupid and foolish. For what she said regarding Fauci? No. It is a view that many hold of Fauci. Her job isn't to censor what someone -- Ruth Bader Ginsberg? -- says, her jon is to address what is being said. If you're that offended by her, I don't understand how you watch television. Does a nanny come in and watch it with you, hug you after each broadcast?

Lara was stupid with regards to CBS.

'Lara Logan lied and CBS fired her!'

She didn't get fired. She got put on a suspension and, when it was up, CBS eased her out by making it clear that there would be no real duties again. That's probably the road that CNN will try to tke. Get them to express their desire to leave and you don't have to honor the contract. Lara was made the face of problems and Chris will likely be as well.

Chris did not take an axe to the wall of professional boundaries while CNN execs objected and told him to stop. He did what he did in full view of everyone. He should not have been covering his own brother. Things like that happen but they shouldn't. When Chris Hayes was with THE NATION, he shouldn't have been allowed to cover the Obama administration since his wife was an attorney for that administration.

Whether Chris gets terminated or not, he did not create the problem. Nor is he, honestly, the problem. The problem is the culture at CNN that allowed it to happen.

Lara Logan? I went to CRAPAPEDIA when Martha told me about the e-mails because there was so much stupidity in the e-mails, I knew it had to be coming from somewhere besides outrage junkies. Sure enough, the lies are intact at CRAPAPEDIA.

To hear CRAPAPEDIA tell it, Lara Logn did a 60 MINUTES segement that had backlash and she apologized for the inacuracies and was suspended.

Really? That's what we're going to pretend happened?

Dylan Davies' name is in the entry, but that's about all. Here are three significant words that are missing: THE EMBASSY HOUSE.

That's the 2013 book that Dylan Davies wrote, the book that THRESHOLD EDITIONS published -- THRESHOLD is a CBS imprint.

Claims were made -- I didn't watch the segment. Lara apologized for them. That was part of her stupidity.

Lara did end up losing a promising career. Who else, though?

Louise Burke was the publisher at THRESHOLD. Did she lose her job? Well, kind of. She got promoted.They moved her up the chaing to publisher of Gallery Books Group. And she stayed there, part of the CBS corporate family, until 2017. She went on to co-found another outlet (ALL SEASONS PRESS).

Set aside what was true or fale about the book for a moment (we'll come back to that) but CBS published a book. Publishers are supposed to employ fact checkers. CBS published a book that made claims that, when repeated on TV, cost Lara Logan a promising career. But no one involved in publishing the book suffered.

Lara was stupid to have promoted the book. She should have said that an on air disclosure was needed regarding CBS' involvement in the publishing of the book. She also should have said that this feels like book promotion and not reporting. She didn't. If she had, she might have been ignored, but she should have said that.

Her stupidity continued after the segment aired. "We're going to let this blow over." She was told that -- I know from the man who told her those words that she was told that. I shook my head in real time and said, "You're going to hang her out to dry." No, no, no, he insisted.

Yes, yes, yes.

And any reporter is an idiot when they believe that garbage.

No matter what you think your value is -- again, think Chris Cuomo today -- it isn't. You're product and the minute you threaten the brand, you're on your way out.

Karmicallyt Dan Rather got what he deserved when Bully Biy Bush's AWOL story blew up in his face. It was a long time coming for Dan who was a professional liar and it's sad to watch some uninformed lefties rush to defend him to this day. Or worse, celebrate him as a hero.

Dan lied for CBS over and over. And he was rewarded for that. And he thought he was untouchable and certainly indisposable. Nope. When there was embarrassment and CBS could protect itself by cutting him out, they did so. They removed him like a tumor.

Mary Mapes? I feel sorry for her. But she was stupid as well because she bought the b.s. that CBS was handing her. Don't. They have no loyalty to anything but their brand. She should have learned from what CNN did to April Oliver. You do not matter to them, their corporate bottom line does. The dumbest mistake you can make is to go silent. You need to be talking to the media and your employers needs to see the coverage. It's the only thing that can save you. When CBS wanted to dump Daniel Schorr, it was the publicity he was taking part in that kept them from doing so. Because Schorr was a liar, the attitude was, "Let him keep talking, he'll trip himself up." And he did. (Yet when he died, many tried to rewrite history and pretend that he was brave and wonderful.)

If youre silent, you're an idiot. Because they're using your silence by filling the void with whispers about you and they're damaging your credibility to protect their brand.

CBS airs a questionable report based on a CBS book that is also questionable. And Lara's the only one punished? No one at the publishing house is punished. Just Lara.

Was the book true or false?

I'd argue we don't know. I know the argument that THRESHOLD made -- which had CBS back off from punishing them. Davies was a contractor. Not a merc, but an intellignece conttractor. Benghazi was a CIA outpost (the embassy -- that came out in the first hearing we attended, US House Rep Jason Chaffetz was having a meltdown in the hearing as different thing were being said and his mike caught enough comments (asides he was making) to make clear that he felt too much was being aired publicly.

So Davies was contracted by the US government as some form of intelligence. Probably, he was to carry out activities that are crimes for the CIA to carry out. Probably he, like many others, was just there in case the whole thing blew up -- a patsy.

Daveis was 'exposed' by journalists with CIA ties as having stated that he was not present in an FBI interview. And? Did he say it? You have no idea, I don't either. If he said it, was he ordered to say it because of the nature of the mission? Ibid. They also trotted out an incident report which Davies denied having completed.

THRESHOLD didn't say, "Sure, thanks, guys, I know we can work this out." Lara Logan did. THRESHOLD said, "If you come for us, we're coming for you."

And if you don't get how many work to brand these contractors as liars, you missed Senator Idiot Supreme Dianne Feinstein in her attacks on Ed Snowden which included her claims -- presented as facts -- that he was never employed by the CIA or the NSA. "High school drop out" was her line of ridicule, for those who missed it.

The outrage junkies are after Lara Logan again.

Are they lying or just so addicted to their outrage high that they can't make sense of what was said? Lara did not say she considered Fauci to be a Nazi War Criminal. She said she encounted many people who did. If that's a shock to you, as Demi Moore says in THE BUTCHER'S WIFE, "Well you ought to get out more."

October 10th, Iraq held elecgtions. They finally have official results. ALJAZEERA notes:

The political bloc led by Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr was confirmed the winner of the October parliamentary election.

Iraq’s independent election commission announced the final results on Tuesday following weeks of recounting and intensified rejection from the losing parties.

Five seats changed as a result of the appeals and recounting process in the capital; Baghdad, Nineveh, Erbil, Kirkuk and Basra.

[. . .]

The number for the Taqadum, or Progress Party-led by current Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, a Sunni – remained the same, 37 seats. Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law party lost two seats and will have 33 in parliament.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) captured 31 seats, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) received 18.

Some issues have been turned over to the judiciary so there may be changes to come (or not) but those are the 'final' results as issued by the electoral commission.

I love some of the spin, by the way, like this Tweet:

The manual recount of contested ballot boxes in Iraq's parliamentary elections held in October have only affected five seats in five provinces, Iraq's IHEC said.

Really? Just five seats. Just? If five seats flipped in the House, Democrats would not be the majority party.

Those announced results do not build trust in the system -- nor does the laughable claim of 44% participating -- but as we noted repeatedly ahead of the election, anticipating an extremely low turnout, they changed the way they counted participation.

The following sites updated:

George Ezra

TOP OF THE POPS is a British TV show. It's sort of like AMERICAN BANDSTAND in this country -- only AMERICAN BANDSTAND ended. They take music a little more seriously in the UK. George Ezra is a favorite of mine and I'm highlighting two clips of him performing on TOP OF THE POPS.

Now just a comment or two on blogging. If I have time, I blog. If I don't have time, I don't blog.

I'm not C.I. She breaks her neck to post. Yesterday, she got four shots from doctors and she went to the dentist and had a root canal. She got home at two something and was going up to her room to nap because she was in pain but Ava dropped by because of an emergency and asked if C.I. could watch her daughter -- who wasn't feeling well. C.I. posted how much yesterday? Let me just copy and paste:

Bernie Sanders, in 2015, on why "open borders" is ...

Hillary BLAMES VOTERS For Biden's Falling Approval...

Matt Taibbi & Katie Halper: Monday Mourning Sunday...

Fauci OPENS DOOR For Omicron Lockdown | Breaking P...

Election update from Honduras.

Rand Paul BLASTS Fauci “I Represent Science” Comme...

Iraq snapshot

Ava's daughter ended up getting a fever and C.I. was taking care of that and still posting. She was poked and prodded all morning and got shots and was tired but she still posted.

She worries about people and is very considerate. I am not her. I love her. She's one of my best friends. I admire what she does and what she accomplishes. But I don't have that zeal or desire. So it is what it is at this site.

(By the way, before someone e-mails wondering why I didn't take care of Ava's daughter, it wouldn't happen. She was feeling bad -- because she was getting sick. Ava lives next to C.I. and, until the pandemic, Ava and C.I. were on the road every week from before Ava had a daughter. Ava's daughter considers C.I. family. She wouldn't have stayed with anyone else, not even Kat.)

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Still no final voce count released in Iraq, still no one arrested for the assassination attempt or 'attempt' on Mustafa al-Kahdimi, don't call it progress.

Hassan Ali Ahmed (AL-MONITOR) emerges from the steno pool to type:

Iraqi national security adviser Qasim al-Araji appeared at a press conference on Nov. 29 to unveil the first report prepared by a special committee tasked with investigating a drone attack on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's residence earlier this month.

The committee, headed by Araji, was formed a day after the Nov. 7 drone attack to investigate and find the party behind the attack that was widely condemned by the international community.

The members of the committee consist of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, deputy commander of the Joint Operations Command Gen. Abdul Amir al-Shammari, head of the National Security Service Hamid al-Shatri, deputy of the intelligence service Majid al-Dulaimi and Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.

The report revealed new details on the attack.

Araji disclosed that two explosive-laden drones packed with Composition C-4 targeted the prime minister's residence in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad in the early hours of Nov. 7. Initially, the first drone aimed its explosives at the flat roof, only to be followed by the second drone immediately targeting the entry of the courtyard.

This style of attack was intended to strike Kadhimi with the second drone while he was fleeing the scene through the entry, the report noted.

Generally, the only ones who can tell you what was intended are the culprits themselves. What's Araji confessing to?

This garbage that AL-MONITOR has run is exactly why Iraqis have never bought into the notion that this was a real attack. Per AL-MONITOR, the investigating body can mind read but they can't figure out who pulled it off?

It's more garbage. That's all it is. It's not making the attack or 'attack' look real. Everyone's fully aware that this is the last day of November and that the alleged attack took place at the start of the month. They want high drama and yet the reality is that if an attempt was made on Mustafa's life, ther should have been arrests long ago. The fact that this didn't happen backs up the beliefs of many that the whole 'assault' was staged and staged to create sympathy for Mustafa.

Was the 'attack' real? I have no idea, I wasn't there. But I do understand people in Iraq rolling their eyes over this nonsense. Were the attack real, that would mean an assassination attempt took place. And yet approximately one month later no arrests?? If there was an assassination attempt, that's not the normal response.

The whole thing has felt suspicious from the start and it's now, as one Shi'ite noted on Arabic social media this morning, just looking desperate.

Where are those election results? Still not in. Can't count ballots, can't catch killers, what can Mustafa's government do?

The electoral Committee is handing complaints over to the judiciary. That's where it stands now.

Jeanine Antoinette Hennis-Plasschaert heads the United Nations' mission in Iraq. She's done a miserable job. Last week, she spoke to the UN Security Council and lied. SHe lied. The October 10th election -- that we still don't have a final tally on -- was free and fair.

She deserves the bad reputation has in Iraq. We've ignored a lot of her problems because, with that position, we largely cover what they 'testitfy' to while appearing before the United Nations. But, to recap some of her greatest hits, she oversees a staff who told a man 'just don't burn yourself in front of our mission.' He walks in and explains his problems and how the UN is not addressing them and that he's going to set himself ablaze. And the UN response -- her staff -- is fine, just don't do it in front of our building.

Then there was the man who was assassinated in public and Jeanine's refusal to meet with the mother. The mother had to protest and more before the press on this got so bad that Jeanine had to get off her lazy ass and meet with the mother.

Now there's all the issues regarding Israel that would take multiple snapshots to cover but we'll just note that she's seen as a supplicant to the government of Israel and not a represetnative of Iraq.

With that baggage and so much more, she shows up to the UN Security Council and lies that these were free and fair elections.

No.

When you disenfranchise, they aren't free elections. And many groups were disenfranchised but let's just note the most obvious one. A week before the election, on Mustafa's orders, the electoral commssion announced that a segment of the militias -- those publicly opposed to Mustafa -- would not be allowed to vote the Friday before the election. They couldn't vote on Sunday. They were being deployed around the country to protect polling stations. That was the entire reason for the early vote. And most of the security forces got to early vote. But not all.

That is discrimination and that is disenfranchisement. In addition, Layal Shakir (RUDAW) notes, "Qais al-Khazali, secretary-general of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the pro-Iranian PMF militias, met with the head of the United Nations mission in Iraq earlier this month and said he presented her with evidence of electoral fraud."

Jeanine's a liar. She's not an honest broker.

Back to the assassination attempt or 'attempt,' ALJAZEERA reports:

Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, an Iran-backed armed group under the Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella, had long denounced the blame as well as the election results.

In a televised speech on Sunday, al-Khazali said the investigation committee must “provide tangible and real evidence” instead of “allegations from the media and Facebook”.

Telegram channels affiliated with pro-Iran armed groups charged ahead with their campaign against al-Kadhimi, spreading unsubstantiated claims that the prime minister staged the attack to blame it on the armed groups.

Well when you fail to do the most rudimentary of forensics on the alleged crime scene, apparently all you have for 'evidence' is social media.

In other news, the PUK did poorly in the election. Hiro Talabani is upping her game after the election and has begun deploying her son Bafel to make public statements calling out 'the government' for the way protesters in Sulaymaniyah are being treated. Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:

The head of Sulaimani’s ruling party on Tuesday apologized to students for a violent crackdown on last week’s protests, two days day after he met with a group of students.

“I am deeply saddened by the unjust violence that has been executed against a number of students. I sincerely ask for pardon from my sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers who walk towards a glimmering future with hope,” read the statement from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) co-chair Bafel Talabani on Tuesday.

He pledged to make “immense changes” and “resolve the shortcomings,” adding that they “will work closer with the youth and students.”

Student protests began a week ago at the University of Sulaimani and were met with a crackdown as police used electric batons to disperse the crowd. But the protests continued, growing in size every day and spreading to other cities and towns across the Kurdistan Region over the week and security forces used tear gas and water cannons to quell the demonstrations. There were also reports that forces used live ammunition.

We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:

Black Alliance for Peace Statement on Venezuelan Elections

The news out of Venezuela related to the elections is that there is no news. All attempts to attack and delegitimize the process failed and the people of that beleaguered nation once again chose independence and dignity over surrendering to the imperialist gangsterism of the United States and their white supremacist, European colonial allies.

For the first time in four years elements of the political opposition participated in elections that saw nearly 70,000 candidates representing 37 national political parties and 43 regional organizations for 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 lawmakers, and 2,471 councilors.

Demonstrating once again that it is committed to open, fair, and clean elections, the Consejo National Electoral (CNE), the governmental body responsible for organizing elections in the country, issued credentials to over 300 international observers from 55 countries and institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the Carter Center.

The result?

The “Great Patriotic Pole” (GPP), a coalition of parties and social movements organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), won overwhelmingly including 20 out of 23 key governorships in the sub-national election.

According to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, “The support of the Venezuelan people for their process demonstrates once again, like what we just saw in the Nicaraguan elections and the failed revolt in Cuba on the 15th, that the white supremacists do not understand that when a people have tasted freedom, reconnected with their pre-colonial cultural traditions of knowledge production and independence, they become immune to the political, ideological and material attempts to drive them back into subordination.”

The elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the abandonment of reactionary forces in Cuba by the Cuban people, and the solidarity from progressive forces globally in support of the struggles for national liberation and self-determination in the Americas, represent the upsurge of popular opposition and the growing weakness and fragility of U.S. and European imperialism.

They all forcefully affirm that the colonial realities are being reversed. It is a victory for all oppressed, colonized, and working-class peoples when a people, working to build a new society for themselves freed from the dehumanizing effects of the colonial/capitalist system, are able to withstand the systematic assaults on their democratic process and national sovereignty. BAP stands firmly with all of these attempts and proudly salutes the people of Venezuela.

No compromise, no retreat!

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