Saturday, February 19, 2022

A new book on Washington

Jeffrey St. Claire's weekly "Roaming Charges" at COUNTERPUNCH this week started off with a book review:

+ I’m excavating my way through Ron Chernow’s bulging, semi-woke (by the standards of the Texas Schoolbook Commission)  biography of George Washington. I say, “semi-woke,” because while it discreetly admits that Washington was a patrician dandy of no exceptional military or administrative genius, who abused his troops, committed war crimes, bought his first election to public office with booze, and held 100s of slaves, often treating them cruelly in response to his own ineptitudes as a gentleman planter, it is quick to balance any evidence of fault in the character of the founding father with a statement to the effect that “while this may sound extreme to our ears, it was fairly typical for the time.” Which is, of course, exactly the point.

+ While Chernow’s text is rather elliptical on these decisive episodes in Washington’s life (there’s little risk of it being pulled from libraries in most of the states, at this point), the book is generously foot-noted with primary sources, many of them in Washington’s own hand (he was a prolific self-promoter of his own exalted life), which fill-in the more tenebrous aspects of his character.

+ The first member of the Washington clan to step foot in Virginia was John, who came ashore in the Tidewater area in 1676. George’s great-grandfather wasn’t much of a farmer (after all, he only owned three slaves and some Irish “servants”), but he did amass thousands of acres of land along the Potomac and received a military commission to kill Indians in Maryland, where he earned a reputation for treachery and slaughter. In one notorious incident, Washington murdered five Indian leaders who had come to negotiate a treaty, then claimed their land. He was known by the Potomac tribes as Conotocarious, “destroyer of villages, devourer of homes.”

+ It turns out George Washington could have easily run a CIA black site or the Gitmo torture camp. As an officer of the VA Regiment in the French & Indian wars, he proved a sadistic disciplinarian inflicting as many as 1500 lashes a day for relatively minor offenses: “drinking in and informed another officer he “was determined to hang two or three at a time as an example to the others. (ie., his soldiers).” He kept his condemned prisoners in iron chains in total darkness. In a letter to Robert Dimwiddie, the Lt Governor of VA, with whom he would later clash in the revolutionary war, Washington wrote coldly: Your honor will, I hope, excuse my hanging instead of shooting them. It conveyed much more terror to others and was for example’s sake we did it.”

+”To live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible.”

Rev. Peter Fontaine, 1757

+ Though they can’t be blamed for its pompous and derivative neo-classical design, seven master black carpenters built most of the plantation house at Mount Vernon. They were all enslaved by Washington. The overseer of the construction, Humphrey Knight, wrote Washington, assuring the young land baron that he wasn’t light with the whip when he spotted a loose board or crooked plank: “As to the carpenters, I have minded ’em all I posably could and has whipt ’em when I could see a fault.”

+ Martha Washington kept her own sister, Ann Dandridge, as a slave. Ann was the daughter of Martha’s father John Dandridge and a young, enslaved woman, who was half-black, half-Cherokee. Ann lived as a slave at Mount Vernon until 1802, after first George, then Martha died.

+ In reading about Washington, I’ve become increasingly distracted by Peggy Shippen, wife of Benedict Arnold. Washington was so entranced by her even after evidence of her complicity in Benedict’s treason came to light he refused to believe it. Shippen was reportedly the highest paid British spy of the Revolutionary period. Aaron Burr was almost certainly right in charging that Shippen was not only central to the conspiracy but enticed Arnold into becoming a British agent and surrendering West Point. This image of Shippen, whose coif would have shamed Madame Pompadour, gives you some idea of what charged the erotic fantasies of the nation’s first president, who called himself “a votary to love.” He remained in the thrall of a similar “Georgian era” English beauty, Sally Fairfax who fled the nearby Belvoir plantation at the start of the Revolution for Bath, England, for most of his life…


Sounds like a very interesting book.  




"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Friday, February 18, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, Iraq's still in a political stalemate, Iraqi children are targeted, Iraq's LGBTQ community continues to flee the country for safety and much more.


Starting with Joe Biden's ongoing persecution of Julian Assange.  Is it cofusing to some?  Julian is being persecuted for telling the truth.  The US President is going after Julian for telling the truth.  


Apparently, Jo ewishes Julian were more like his son Hunter -- a non-stop liar.  A lair who who lies about everything, his money, how he leeched it, whether or not he's the father of a child -- In fact, that last one?  The woman who had to go to court to get him to admit the baby was his and to get him to pay child support?  As Ruth notes in "Hunter's baby mama testifies before the grand jury,"Lunden Roberts testified before a grand jury this week in the ongoing criminal probe of Hunter.


Criminal.


We all know how Hillary and a whorish media tried to dupe the American pbulic in 2-16 insisting she wasn't part of a criminal investigation -- cirminal investigations are all the FBI does.  By the same token, grtand juries do not do civil cases.  This is an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's activites.  


Cracik whore Hunter, apparetnly laying off drugs at present (though rumors have him partying this week at a strip joint -- they claim he again went to a private room and had a stripper use a dildo on him -- unlike the previous reported time, this go round he is said to have not insisted upon a brand new dildo and just let the stripper use one that was already on hand).


Seems like Joe should try getting his own house in order.


But it seems like Joe should have long ago dropped the efforts to extradite Julian to the US to face charges for shining some sunlight onto government crimes.


The whole world is watching.  Joe Biden is a loser and will go down as such in history.  His continued persecution of Julian goes against everything the US government pretends to be.  And the whole world watches.  They realize it's not "Bad Donald Trump."  That's not hte problem.  Donald's gone.  Joe's the president now.  And the persecution continues.  


The world sees Joe trying to destroy Julian aand the First Amendement.  This assault is scuccessful.  Already you have a craven US media cowed even more.  Imagine how much worse it woul dbe if Joe succeeds in kidnapping -- let's call it what it is -- Julian and forcing him to stand trial in some US kangaroo court.  Joe is attacking the freedom of the press when he attacks Julian.


WSWS notes the statement from the Action Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Art and Expression::


The Action Committee for the Defence of Freedom of Art and Expression (ACDAE) in Sri Lanka will hold an online public meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday February 24 Sri Lankan (Indian Standard) time, as part of the global campaign to release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is in danger of being extradited the US on bogus charges.

Assange’s alleged crime was to publish documents exposing the war crimes, mass surveillance and diplomatic intrigues of the US and its allies. The Australian citizen has been the victim of a vicious decade-long witch hunt by the US, UK, Swedish and Australian governments.

Although Assange in January won the right to a UK Supreme Court appeal against his extradition case, the experiences of the past three years of the award-winning journalist’s detention by the British state, demonstrate that no faith can be placed in the judiciary.

The World Socialist Web Site condemned the UK December 10 court ruling against Assange as a pseudo-legal travesty to justify his ongoing persecution. If Assange is extradited to the US, he will face espionage charges that carry an effective life sentence and possibly the death penalty.


The world is watching.  And it's Joe Biden and the US's reputation sinking.  Around the world, support for Julian grows and strengthens.  And Joe gets his way and puts Julian on trial in the US?  You have a martyr the world will never foget.  Julian becomes JFK and Joe Biden is left to play Lee Harvey Oswald.  


Mike Dalton (BITRATES) notes:


The cryptocurrency community has set up a DAO to raise funds for Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who is currently imprisoned on various charges in London.

Assange was arrested in 2019; he was charged with conspiracy after helping former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning access U.S. government secrets and publish that data on Wikileaks beginning in 2010. He currently is imprisoned in London and is fighting extradition to the United States.

Now, members of the crypto community have formed a fundraising group called AssangeDAO to raise money for Assange's freedom. Because the group is structured as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), those who donate money will receive a governance token and gain input on the DAO's future direction.


Here's RT reporting more on that story.



Phil Miller (DECLASSIFIED UK) has noted:

New figures show Britain’s public prosecutor, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), splashed £151,000 on barristers who failed to convince a judge in January that the US has the right to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher.

The CPS acts on behalf of the US Department of Justice in transatlantic extradition cases.

Another £22,000 of British public money was spent on expert witnesses, as well as £5,000 on transcripts. The bill will rise further next month when an appeal by the CPS, at the behest of the US government, reaches the High Court in London.

A district judge ruled in January that Assange cannot be extradited on health grounds but the US subsequently won the right to appeal the ruling. The appeal was granted despite mounting concerns about the extradition attempt and its wider implications for press freedom.

A key FBI witness for the US government is a convicted paedophile who admits to fabricating testimony about Assange’s activities. Assange and his defence lawyers were previously spied on by the CIA after he had been granted asylum in the Ecuadorian 


That's the UK.  How many US tax dollars and tax hours is Joe Biden wasting on persecuting Julian Assange?  And doing so without any real  outcry from the American people for persecution.  Look around, there's noo mob trying to round up Julian, insisting he be thrown in a US prison.  It's the US government standing all by itself.


The world sees this.


That's a protest outside a town hall in Australia.


Again, around the world, people are watching.  Poor Joe Biden.  No one cares engouh about him, no one loves him enough, to explain to him how he is destroying any legacy he might have, how he is ensuring that he will go down in history as a loser and will become one of the most hated persons in future history books.  All around the world.


PEOPLE'S DISPATCH notes:


The Progressive International (PI), in collaboration with several like minded organizations, will organize the second Belmarsh Tribunal in New York on February 25. It announced the decision in a press release on February 14.  The Tribunal seeks to hold the US government accountable for its war crimes in the two decades of the so-called war on terror and also push for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s release.  

The first Belmarsh Tribunal was organized in London during Assange’s extradition hearings in October last year. It is named after the infamous prison in London where Assange has been kept for almost three years.

The upcoming Belmarsh Tribunal in New York coincides with with the date of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by the US in occupied parts of Cuba 20 years ago. Hundreds of people were imprisoned and systematically tortured in the name of fighting terrorism. Most of them have never been charged with any crime. 


Julian exposed the truth about the US war on Iraq.  Joe Biden voted to support that war.  Why is he not asked about that?  Not "Do you regret your vote."  Why isn't he asked about what was his foundation for supporting the war?  What was his thinking?  


Because it goes to why he's such a lousy president now.  He knows what needs to be done, he just won't do it.


Nouri al-Maliki could become the next prime minister in Iraq.  Joe's fear of that is whispered to be why he forced the US government into bed with  Shi'ite cleric and cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr -- Moqtada, a man responsible for the deaths of how many American troops?  Moqtada responsible for attacks on Iraq's LGBTQ community (and people suspected of being part of that community who were not).  Moqtada who loathes women and tries to strip them of their rights -- most recently during The October Movement when he threw his hissy fit that women were participating and started issuing edicts andf fatwas, caftan a-flapping as he screeched howled that women should not be allowed to protest with men.  


Moqtada has no redeaming qualities.  But Joe's in bed with him.  Who knew Joe was a chubby chaser? In August, he approved the payment (bribe) to Moqtada to get Moqtada to announce he was now supporting the elections scheduled for two months later.  US tax dollars sent to the killer of US troops.  


What did the US get in exchange?  Not a damn thing.


Again, Joe knows right from wrong -- didn't manage to teach it to Hunter, but Joe does know.  


And Joe knows Nouri's a thug.  Joe was saying in April of 2008 -- we covered that hearing -- that Nouri was a thug and that Iraq had no real government.  He knew that then.  Now maybe he's so senile that he's forgotten it.  But, more likely, this is just another example of Joe knowing the facts but refusing to act appropriately in response to them.  That has been the story of Joe's political life and him getting to put the title "president" in front of his name didn't change that one bit.


Let's stay on the LFBTQ community in Iraq for a moment.  Azhar al-Rubaie (MIDDLE EAST EYE) reports:


It was a long and arduous journey for 23-year-old Samir Hassan, but in December 2021 he and his boyfriend finally received asylum status in Lithuania after fleeing from Iraq to Belarus with his boyfriend in July of that year.

Thousands of Iraqis poured into Belarus last year following a change in the country's visa rules, attempting to find a better life in Europe.

Among those were many LGBTQ+ people who left difficult lives filled with repression, violence, and loneliness in their home country.

“After a long story of hardship at home, I succeeded in arriving in Lithuania from Belarus. Such a horrible journey I experienced but nothing comes easily, I and my boyfriend cashed lots of money to settle in a safe place," said Hassan.

He said that due to his sexual orientation he was regularly facing problems with his family and received abuse on the streets of Iraq.


Meanwhile, Iraq remains without a president or a prime minister.  Not having a president yet is a vlation of Iraq's Constitution which clearly outlines the steps that must be taken and when.  


Strange, isn't it?


The whorish pwestern press told us Moqtada was a "king maker."  The moment Joe Biden slipped into bed with Moqtada, he didn't give Moqtada just the tip, he slammed in balls deep and the media was there to go along with him.  


All hail king maker Moqtda!


But here we are, the middle of February and nothing.  Elections took place Ocgtober 10th.


No president.  No prime minister.



The king maker appears not to have been as royal 


Here's the beginning og a critique ASHARQ AL-Awsat has published on the current stalemate:

Head of the Sadrist movement, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is carefully wading through the Iraqi political ring against his rivals in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework.


Iraq has witnessed a turbulent past two weeks with former minister Hoshyar Zebari being barred from running for president and the Supreme Court's surprise ruling on the Kurdistan Region's oil policy.


The ruling by the court on Tuesday cast doubt on the legal foundations of the independent oil policy of Iraq's Kurdish-run region and threatened to drive a political wedge between the two governments. The Supreme Court struck down the legal justifications for the semi-autonomous region's oil policy, effectively calling into question the future of the region's oil contracts, exports and revenues.


Amid these two developments, it appeared as though Sadr has been luring his rivals into revealing their cards as they grapple with the fallout of these rulings, their impact on the country and the formation of the new government.


However, the current tussle in Iraq goes beyond these rulings and the formation of a government, but extends to the very heart of the political process that has been in place since 2003.


The Coordination Framework is meanwhile, trying to exploit the rulings, warning Sadr against forming a government that excludes former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki or of joining the opposition.


Over the past two days, members of the Framework have mulled what the coming weeks will bring. They believe the rulings have dealt a blow to Sadr, who has been seeking the formation of a "national majority" government. The Framework has been opposed to this and believes the country cannot support the fallout from such a move.


And Karwan Faidhi Dri (RUDAW) reports:


The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr spoke on the phone on Thursday, reiterating their commitment to their tripartite alliance with Sunnis in Iraq’s parliament. The alliance will meet in the coming days, according to a statement by both figures. 

“During the phone call, they talked about taking necessary steps and [having] coordination in the positions of the strategic tripartite alliance during the current stage in order to form a national majority government,” a joint statement from the political leaders read.

Barzani and Sadr agreed that the members of the alliance will meet “in the coming days,” it added. Arafat Karam, head of the Iraqi dossier at Barzani's office, told Rudaw later in the day that the "important" meeting will be held in Erbil without specifying the date.


Children are persecuted around the world.  This is true in Iraq.  Jo Becker notes at Human Rights Watch:


Iraqi authorities detained over 1,000 children, some as young as nine years old, last year on national security charges, primarily for suspected links with the Islamic State (ISIS), according to a new United Nations report. Although ISIS attacks have dropped considerably since the group lost most of its territory four years ago, the report finds that the detention of children has significantly increased.

Many of these children were arrested on dubious evidence and tortured into confessions of ISIS involvement.

In late 2018, I interviewed boys detained as ISIS suspects in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Some said they had been recruited to fight with ISIS, while others said that they worked as cooks, drivers, or simply participated in a few days of training. One 17-year-old said he believed he was arrested for working at a restaurant in Mosul that served ISIS members. A few said that they had no links to ISIS, other family members had. Regardless of the extent of their involvement, they were all charged with terrorism.

The majority of the boys said their interrogators tortured them to secure confessions. They described beatings with plastic pipes, electric cables, or rods, sometimes for hours. Nearly all said they eventually confessed to ISIS association, believing they had no other choice.

International law prohibits the recruitment or use of children by armed groups, yet Iraq is treating these children as criminals, even if there is no evidence they participated in violent crimes. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Iraq to release the children.

Instead of detaining and prosecuting children suspected of ISIS affiliation, Iraq should work with the UN to set up reintegration programs so that these children can rejoin their communities, get back into school, and resume their lives.


RUDAW reports:


A recent United Nations report on children and armed conflict in Iraq shows a “sharp increase” in the total number of children detained in the country on national security charges and alleged links to the Islamic State group (ISIS), although it finds that the number of grave violations committed directly against children has decreased significantly between the summers of 2019 and 2021 as compared to previous years.

The fourth report of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in Iraq, shared on Wednesday, outlines the progress made in the country so far in addressing crimes against children, highlighting key violations committed between the period of August 2019 to June 2021 and - crucially - naming the main perpetrators: ISIS, Iraq’s security forces, the Turkish Armed Forces’ “Operation Claw,” and the Iran-backed militia, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi).

During the time frame, the report finds, at least 317 grave violations were committed against 254 children;  four of whom were abducted, 98 of whom killed, and 151 maimed; the explosive remnants of war (121) and improvised explosive devices (46) being the leading causes of these casualties. It notes that the actual number of violations is likely to be far higher than the report can accurately show, but is nonetheless a dramatic decrease on the previous report’s total of 2,114, and the lowest number verified in the country since the UN began monitoring grave violations against children in 2009.


Lat night, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Coquette Campaigners" went up.
campaigncoquettes



This is in response to the four above and one more deciding that in February of 2022 the most important to cover is . . . horse races.  They're not covering candidates.  They're offering the same superficial coverage that the mainstream media gets slammed for.  And they're boring us all and trying to boss around -- vote for ___! Send money to ____!'  It's outrageous.  


As Jimmy Dore notes repeatedly, we're in a pnadmeic, and people are struggling.  But not only do the women above beg you for money for their programs, they now want to reach into your pockets and take out more moeny so you'll fund the candidates they love.


It's outrageous.  It's a misuse of fame.  Yes, there fame is limited, but they're misusing it.  I have never, ever been anything but respectful to a fan (unless they got intentionally agrressive -- I'm not talking about the one who grabbed my hand and broke my finger because he squeezed so hard, he was excited and didn't realize it was that tight).  I would have nothing without them.  I've never refused an autograph request or said, "Get that camera/phone away from me!"  I don't hit them up for money.  


But the ladies above not only want you to support them, now they need you to also support their candidates.


Talk about a goldigger.


Isaiah wants to be sure everyone has a chance to catch REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT's three reports on this nonsense.







The following sites updated:



Thursday, February 17, 2022

Isaiah and Jonathan Turley

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Coquette Campaigners" went up tonight.


campaigncoquettes



That's what Katie and her crew want to waste our time on: Pimping Democratic Party candidates and screaming that we donate to them.


Meanwhile, Jonathan Turley covers the latest in the Palin versus NYT case where Judge Jed Rakoff told the court, after the jury went off to deliberate, that he was going to toss the verdict regardless:


Some jurors learned that Rakoff had already determined that, in his view, Palin did not meet the standard set by the Supreme Court for public figures. They were deliberating that very question and now had the view of the court that the “actual malice” standard was not satisfied in the case. While the jurors insisted that it did not effect their judgment, I cannot imagine how it did not.

Lawyers are often barred from juries because of the fear that they would have too much influence on a jury. In this case, the judge effectively parachuted into the middle of the jury room with his own conclusion.

The judge had just given them instructions on the actual malice standard and was now giving them the proper conclusion to reach on that question: how could that not render the verdict invalid?

Palin should move for the verdict to be set aside and allow the appeal to go forward on the judge’s ruling alone. That is a much better appellate posture for the plaintiffs. It would also make the case a serious potential challenge to the application of the actual malice standard to public figures. That is the subject of my USA Today column this week.


I think it should be appealed.  I think NYT overstepped its boundaries.


""Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

 Thrusday, February 17, 2022.  The older I ge (and the more years online I rack up), the tireder I get of dumb bitches -- especially ones who distract from real issues and think we need them to tell us how to vote.


Liza Minnelli won her Academy Award for the film CABARET.  In the film, she sings "Maybe This Time."


Maybe this time, I'll be lucky
Maybe this time, he'll stay
Maybe this time, for the first time
Love won't hurry away

He will hold me fast
I'll be home at last
Not a loser anymore
Like the last time
And the time before

-- "Maybe This Time," written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, first recorded by Liza eight years before CABARET on her deubt album LIZA! LIZA!


It's a song about a fool for love and most of us have been there at one time or another but most of us learn from an expeirence and don't repeat it over and over again.


As it's pointed out in the video below, how we tell ourselves that this time will be different, there's something more pathetic than being a fool for love: Being a fool for a political party.




There are some people we're not currently noting -- some of whom we're not noting because of REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT's previous video on this topic.


I'm a grown up.  I don't need to be told what to do.  That includes being told who to vote for.  I've endorsed very few candidates here.  I endorsed Kevin De Leon in 2018.  We had people sticking their noses in our business, which is bad enough.  I don't endorse in any race I can't vote in.  But, for example, Amy SUskind decided we need her bitchery.  We didn't.  I hope she didn't think we needed her intelligence because she declared that supporting Kevin in the primary would mean that we'd have a Republican running against newbie Kevin  and that Republican might end up the seantor!


Uh, no, tich.  No.


Stay the f**k out of races you can't vote in.  Why?  For one thing, you don't what the hell you're talking about.


Amy's not voting in California so she wanted to share ''knowledge.'' 


Stupid idiot.


In California, party id does not determine who gets on the general election ballot for US senate.  


Amy and other idiots were insisting that it was also age-ist to oppose Dianne.  How did the Brett Kavanaugh hearings go again?


Was Dianne up for them?


No, she wasn't.  And many of us were raising that point in 2018 when there was a clear choice and a strong candidate.


Instead, we now have 88-year-old Dianne in the US Senate.  A dottering fool who the Senate Dems have to manuever out of this decision and that decision because she's not up for the job.  


I'm really opposed to people thinking their job is to tell other adults how to vote.


So Katie's bulls**t with Marianne Williamson and others has led to them being  largely ignored and we post other people's videos.


I'm also not interested in Danny Haiphong currently.  We posted him from Richard Medhurst's show and if that had been other show, we wouldn't have.

Danny can cool his heels for about a month.

Logically, I do have to ask why a non-African-American is the focus and host of the podcast/YOUTUBE program from BLACK AGENDA REPORT.


Sorry, I thought the whole point -- and I believe this was the point of Glen Ford's career long before he co-founded BAR -- was to give African-Americans a seat at the table.


Since Glen's death, Danny stepped into the spotlight and taken over.  If he has that much energy, maybe he should start his own outlet?  Let BAR be led by African-Americans?  Keep the "Black"  in BLACK AGENDA REPORT?  


Or is that too much to ask for?


At any rate.  Susan Sarandon made a comment -- I didn't see it or read it -- and ended up deleting her Tweet.  It offended some people.


Danny called her out for it.  


That was last week.


This week, he blasted her for it again.


I'm not in the mood, you dumb idiot piece of trash.


That's what you are if you're going after Susan.


The impression by the idiots in Danny's crowd appears to be that Susan is a coward -- I'd love to see them stand publicly , even once, just as strongly as Susan has.


She delted the Tweet that people took offense to.  He assumeds it's because she's a coward.


As I've noted here many times -- and we did call Susan out over something here publicly -- Susan is not rigid.  If she feels she's wronged soemeone or taken the wrong position, she will give it a lot of thought.  Sometiems, she will realize that it was wrong and she'll make it better.  Sometimes, she'll realize that it really did hurt someone deeply and that, in terms of humanity, it's just not worth it so she'll be the bigger person and move to put it behind her.


So, first off, Danny, there is a simple and non-trashing her option on why she did what she did.


Now maybe she did it for 'cowardly' reasons as Danny just knows because he knows everything right.  I eman, I speak to Susan often but I'm sure Danny speaks her to daily, right?  I'm sure Danny's been friends with her for years, right?  I''m sure Danny's shared many a laugh with her -- as I have -- over what an idiot Jay Bernstein was, right?

but Danny just knows he knows her and just knows that he can peer in her heart and that cowardice made her back off from her Tweet.


If it did, so damn what?


How much scorn is she supposed to take?  How much abuse is she supposed to endure?


She's a highly talented actress, one of her best of her generation, and she doesn't work near as much as she should because she's taken positions that outrage the simpletons.  


Do you want her to kill her career over a Tweet?


You know, Danny, maybe she could do like you and cozy up to a man and wait for him to die and then seize control of the empire the man built.


Is that what she should do?  


I don't like dDanny.  I said he was an opportunist before Glen died.  When Glen died and Danny had hisTwitter-bitch storm aimed at Jared Ball, I tried to be fair and just note nicely that Jared had every right to share whatever memory of Glen Ford that he wanted to.


But as Danny gets more and more extreme in his mistaken belief that he knows everything and that he has the power to peer into people's hearts and souls, I think that was a mistake.  I think I really should have called him out.


And I will stand by my comment that any program from BLACK AGENDA REPORT needs to be centered on an African-American host.  If you're not doing that, then the whole point of Glen Ford's lifetime work in the media is being undermined.


I'll make that point and I'll be very sad that I'm the one that has to do so because that point should be rather obvious to everyone without anyone having to say it outloud.


So for four years of Doanld in the White House, we couldn't deal with real issues.  We dealt with partisanship and gossip and nonsense.


And we wasted, as humans, four damn years.   Maybe you've got more years to waste, I sure don't.  And I'm damn tired of being online as it is.


I am not in the mood for a bunch of White women with one token person of color showing up to tell us how we need to vote and how we need to be excited about this candidate or get behind that one.


F**K YOU.


Honestly and truly, F**K YOU.


Not one of you wmen bother to cover Iraq.  You can't even do one show a month on Iraq.  For Marianne, that might be a good thing because when she covered Afghanistan she thought the way to do tht was to bring on someone who invaded that country.  Not a woman from Afghanistan.  No, we must not let them speak for themselves, apparently.  So let's instead bring on American to filter all of our knowledge through.  The stupidity and, yes, racisim of that action still appalls me.  And you can read that snapshot -- I'm laughing right now as I dictate this, just from remembering dictating that -- and grasp that the more I go on, the angrier I got about it.


There are wars that you are not even covering.  There are issues issuges that you are falt out ignoring.  And you bitches think you're time is best used telling adults how to vote?


Best used for whom?


For Marianne?  She got an MSNBC appearance out of it so I can see how she benefited.


I don't see how the public did.


REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT is raising serious issues on this and how we move forward, how we learn from the past, how we own our power.    You can also stream this clip.



There are real issues to address and the whoring Katie and the other women involved are doing is embarrassing.


Now an e-mail wanted t o whine about Tuesday's snapshot and how I said we should have been focused on issues and we should have been fighting issues -- not spreading rumos about false pee-tapes and the other nonsense.  I noted we managed to push back on Ronald REagan -- a very frightening Republican who was popular with a number of Americans as well as strongly embraced by the media.  But we still managed to push back and fight on issues during that.


The e-mailer took offense to it and wanted me to know that Richard Nixon -- whom I didn't even mention -- was a more educated Rpeublican than what we have today.


Richard was a crook.  Who should have been in prison.


John Dean and other whores -- some like John are convicted felons --  have worked overtime to try to lie and reshape Tricky Dick.


He was vile and evil.  He didn't give a damn about the ecology, for example.


The reason some can cite his record on that is becaus epeople were in the streets.  People were fighting on issues and Tricky DIck had to find something to satisfy them.  


Real issues and real opposition does matter.  Faux 'resistance' doesn't and we have four years to demonstrate that.


WE accomplished nothing to save our planet -- and haven't under Joe.  


I'm tired of people who keep whoring their time out and pretending that this time will be different, this time, this time.


We're back to Liza. 




The world is in danger and idiots waste their time whoring for politicians.  If you're going to get screwed, at least get some satisfcation it -- but, as anyone can tell you, any politician is only focused on their own Big O.  It's no suprise tht the US government -- Dems and Republicans -- set up a government in Iraq that does nothing to protect the Iraqi people.  Nicole Di Ilio (AL-MONITOR) reports:


Peering beyond the towering reedbeds, Abbas Al-Mousawi watches his buffaloes drink from the putrid waters of the Chibayish marsh. Each sip his animals take raises his anxiety. “It’s almost impossible to find a clean pool here,” says the 45-year-old breeder as he paddles his mashouf – a traditional boat similar to a canoe. “The water is just bad. It gushes out of waste pipes into the swamp. It’s disgusting.” 

Mousawi and his animals live in the Mesopotamian Marshes, a fabled corner of Iraq known throughout the ages as a waterway that could sustain man and beast and populations across the country’s southern deserts. Until recent decades, it offered a vast and reliable supply of water, the end of the line for Iraq’s two great rivers after their epic journeys through Turkey, Syria and Iraq’s deserts.

But, perhaps more than any other time in history, the marshes are in peril. Prolonged drought, regional standoffs, political negligence and climate change are combining to create intolerable stress on one of the region’s most important ecosystems.

What was once a pristine waterway is now a toxic wasteland. Whatever water reaches the marshes is considered a public health risk. The United Nations has classified Iraq as the fifth-most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. The effects have been clear over the past 15 years, with lower rainfalls, and longer and hotter heat waves. In some years, water has barely covered 30 percent of the original wetlands, which were replaced by dry cracking earth that locals had never seen before.

The shortage was in part caused by dams blocking the flow of the Euphrates before it continued its journey south. Sporadic rains also played a part. But more concerning for farmers like Mousawi was the state of the water when it reached him. “All around the sewerage pipes, most of the fish die,” he says, pointing to the rotting fish floating near the surface. “What are we going to see in the future?” 

 

A group of American bitches want to waste their own time whoring -- and your time streaming -- about a bunc hof candidates but they don't say a word about the women being murdered in Iraq.  Layal Shakir (RUDAW) reports:


A woman was shot dead by her husband in Sulaimani province late Wednesday night, a security official told Rudaw as the Kurdistan Region adds another brutal murder of a woman to its never-ending list of honor killings and gender-based violence deaths.

Maryam Yacoob, 40, was gunned down by her husband, Sulaimani police spokesperson Sarkawt Ahmad told Rudaw.

The husband was also reported dead after he shot himself shortly afterwards, the official added.

The details of the incident and the reason behind the murder remain unknown for the public, but crimes of this kind are very common in the Kurdistan Region.

This week alone, four women were killed in different circumstances in a series of gender-based killings across the Kurdistan Region. 

Yacoob was a lecturer at Sulaimani’s Komar University of Science and Technology and a postgraduate student at the University of Sulaimani.

Social media in the Kurdistan Region has been overcome with anger and grief as a result of the recent increase in female killings. 


The following sites updated:







Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Turley weighs in on Hillary's latest scandal

Jonathan Turley:

Now, Durham has told a court that he has evidence that Clinton operatives  “exploited” access to systems at the Trump Tower, Trump’s apartment building, and “the Executive Office of the President of the United States.” The operation allegedly not only targeted the campaign and the Trump Tower but continued after the election.

We are now in the second syncopal phrase: loss of media consciousness.

There is no way to cover this story without many admitting that it facilitated a false narrative created by the Clinton campaign, including attacking those who suggested that the Clinton campaign would ever engage in such disreputable conduct.

The case itself remains a single false statement (much like some of the charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller). It is not an easy case to prove. However, the details emerging in the case are filling in gaps on how the Clinton Campaign’s funded and directed the development of the now debunked narrative of a conspiracy between Russian and the Trump campaign. What is also notable in the filing is the extent to which the Clinton campaign used lawyers to carry out this work, including hiding its funding while denying connections to the work of figures like Christopher Steele.

The new information was revealed in a filing raising conflicts of interest in the law firm of Latham Watkins, which is representing indicted former Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann. The firm has represented other Clinton related figures. It was a fitting objection in a case where a circle of Democratic lawyers and law firms have featured prominently as well as the liberal think tank, Brookings Institution.  The cross pollination of these law firms is one of the least discussed elements in the scandal.

The Durham filings repeatedly return to the work of Perkins Coie, a firm with a long and deep connection to the Democratic Party. The Clinton campaign reportedly used a screen of lawyers to hide that it was behind the Russian conspiracy claims.


The Goldwater Girl has always played fast and loose with the truth and felt that rules didn't apply to her.


She's created her own mess so its' a shame to watch so many rush to fix things for her.


I don't want to see her dead, by the way, but I wouldn't mind if she were crated.  


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, February 15, 2022.  One of the reasons the US started the war on Iraq is back in the news and we examine her latest scandal below.



In the video above, Krystal and Saagar discuss the latest in the Durham probe.  Hillary Clinton's c 2016 campaign is accused of spying on Donald Trump when he was a candidate and then went on to spy on him after he was president.


It's the Russia hoax that Hillary started.  It was the thing that derailed the nation's emdia and kept us from moving forward as a people.  Now there's some other distraction that could have been used because the government doesn't serve the people and, no, Nancy Pelosi, you don't even feed the people.  The US government leaches off the people and misues all tax dollars as they do everything but serve the American people.  That's when it's Democratically controlled, that's when it's Republican controlled.  That's the reality that explains why any other western nation offers universal healthcare but the US doesn't.   Anything needed is pushed aside and the money ends up going to billionaires and to weapons and to wars.


Hillary, as then-President Barack Obama was informed in the summer of 2016, created the whole Russia hoax because she was trying to distract from her e-mails which she continues to lie about to this day.  Someone needs to tell the hag to get off social media.  Just last week, Hillary and her cult were trying to say that if Donald Trump destroyed documents it was the same as what Hillary was accused of doing.


No, you stupid f**king idiots, it's not.


If Donald destroyed documents, it may very well be a crime.  I'd have to burrow into the documents .  It's most likely a civil crime based on existing law, if  Donal did it.  It may even be a felony.


But Hillary's destruction of property -- after an investigation began -- is not the same thing.  There was no ongoing investigation regarding Donald.  Hillary destroyed property while she was the subect of a criminal investigation.


Next, Hillary's e-mails were not so outrageous because she destroyed evidence.  It was because she was putting people at risk.


The nonsense lie about WIKILEAKS putting people at risk -- a lie Hillary herself has repeated?  Didn't take place.


But Hillary refusing to follow security protocols did put people at risk.  That's why she wasn't supposed to be using any device that wasn't secured by the US government.  


That's why you see members of the US military being charged and imprisoned if they do the same in terms of their e-mails.


I'm just not in the mood for a love cult around an ugly hag who has brought more shame to the US than any other woman.  That is the reality.


I like Bill Clinton but I have told him to his face that his childhood has resulted in him needing to create drama that outrages Amreica to prove that he's loved despite whatever he does.  That is his childhood and that is his story as a public servant.


Hillary has lied repeatedly about how she's a victim.  No, she cuts corners and she does ethically questionable things.  She can't seem to help herself.  And when she's in trouble for this or that, she's screaming that she's the victim.  

The revelations from the probe should be covered and they're not being covered.  Jimmy Dore did a segment live last night that is not yet available for streaming in his archives.  But notice that Krystal and Saagar are about the only ones covering it.  And they do a rather weak coverage and Saagar says that it's 2022 and we've got other things to focus on.


Oh, hell no.  This derailed a presidency.  This was a massive lie told to the American people.  And Hillary pimped it and promoted it and refused to go away.  The hag needs to go.


She's a former First Lady who is 74 years old.  Go away.  She's a one term Cabinet member and a two term US senator.  She has no accomplishments to speak of and, honestly, I'm sick of her ever changing hair dos and how none of them work -- nothing can, her ugly insides are now reflected in her face.  She's a hag responsible for the deaths of Iraqis.  She's a hag who refused to help the Iraqi women.  She's a hag who when giving a major speech about women and the way they are treated refused everyone -- even one of her five best friends -- that begged her to include the country of Iraq and help shine a light of the suffering of women there.  She's a useless hag who cries 'I'm a feminist vicitm.'  No, you're not.  You're someone whose actions repeatedly require that you be scrutinized.  And feminism is about women.  Feminism is not about Hillary Clinton.  If your focus is yourself, please stop pretending to be a feminist.  Please stop using every tiny criticism aimed at you to try to prove that you're the victim and you're a feminist.  


If you're not helping other women, you're not a feminist.


Who does Hillary help?  Cheating men.  Men who cheat on women.  Brett McGurk, Philippe, her own husband, all the men around her are dirty cheats and it's behavior she likes, that she's attracted to.  It's why we can all list, easily, five women Bill had sex with -- not attempted to, but had sex with -- and let's make it six because his rape of Juanita Broadrick did happen.  I believe her.  (I also believe that Bill thought it was just some 'good, rough sex' because he can be a bit of a pig.)  I believe Juanita said no and I believe that no was chuckled at by the vanity of Bill which was so great that he couldn't believe the no was serious.


But when a man cheats on you and does so publicly and does so repeatedly, don't tell me you're a feminist.  You're a doormat, you're not a feminist.  


(Now if you're into some deep sexual humiliation in public, if that turns you on, you could still be a feminist -- male or female, you could be.  But Hillary's never been a sexual creature which is why the efforts to paint her as a lesbian never worked.)


She's a doormat and she's titilated by these men who cheat on their wives, she surrounds herself with them.


Did someone say "straying dick"?  Oh, look, it's Anthony Weiner.


As MEDIATE notes, he went on Sean Hannity's program as he tries to rehab his reputation.  He's a convicted felon and a registered sex offender. WABC radio is giving him a co-hosting job.  Apparently radio needs to be hiring registered sex offenders who went to prison for sending pornography to minors?  He sent it, plrease remember, while he was attempting to  pursue a physical relationship with a minor.

 As THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER via THE DENVER GAZETTE reminds, "An investigation into Weiner revealed evidence concerning Clinton's private email server, reopening an FBI investigation into Clinton just weeks before Election Day."


It's always a rampant and a vile sewer around Hillary.  After awhile, you have to acknowledge that she's responbile for this because she actively seeks these type of men out.


Why do we have to go into this and more?  Because others won't.  Right-wing media critic NEWSBUSTERS notes in a Kevin Tober piece:


Just like their broadcast network counterparts, the primetime hours of both CNN and MSNBC completely ignored the bombshell court filings from Special Counsel John Durham showing that Hillary Clinton’s campaign allegedly spied on then-President Donald Trump both at Trump Tower in New York and the White House. In fact, with the exception of a brief segment on Jake Tapper's show in the 5 pm hour on CNN, the leftist media spent the entire day ignoring the revelations. 

In the primetime cable news block which is generally defined as running from 8-11 pm EST, CNN and MSNBC decided it was more important to obsess over topics like former President Trump's finances, attacking Texas' voter integrity legislation, and the Democrat's January 6 committee. 

Credit where it's due, CNN's The Lead host Jake Tapper did cover the Durham news but he only devoted a measly two minutes and forty-seven seconds to it over halfway through the second hour of his show.

"In our politics lead now, new revelations about the 2016 presidential race by the Special Counsel appointed by former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr," Tapper announced. "In 2019, as you might remember, Barr first assigned U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. And then before Barr left office in 2020, he made Durham a Special Counsel."

"Durham has since indicted Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman as well as a Russian analyst, both of them for allegedly lying to the FBI. Both of them are pleading not guilty," Tapper said, giving viewers the background information before updating them on the latest developments. 


NEWSBUSTERS also offers a podcast on the developments here.  Where's FAIR?


Oh, that's right, it's Hillary Clinton.


They have no ethics with regards to Hillary.  They want to loathe her -- and did so in 2008 openly when she ran for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination.  The corporate media offered the most vile and sexist commentary and FAIR was . . . silent.  Yes, there was one sentence, I know.  Ava and I covered it repeatedly at THIRD over and over.  (Here's one example.)  One sentence noting the sexism.  And they call themselves a critic of the media.  They're a bunch of whores who get contributions to whore.  And they're silent now because their donor base will not allow them to call out Hillary at this time.  They've never had a standard for Hillary.  They've gone with whatever donors wanted at that moment.


Tom Winter (NBC NEWS) is one of the few at a corporate outlet who has covered it:


A tech executive “exploited” his access to computer data at the Trump White House to find “derogatory information” about President Donald Trump, a special counsel appointed during the Trump administration said in a court filing Friday.

John Durham, appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2020 to probe the origins of the FBI’s investigation of Russian election interference, said “Tech Executive-1,” not named in the filing but first identified by The New York Times as Rodney Joffe, used his access to domain name system, or DNS, data to compile information about which computers and servers the White House servers were communicating with.


By the way, where's AP;s article.  I called a friend with AP and he insisted that they must have covered it.  He searched while I worked out -- the snapshots are dictated -- I'm on the treadmill right now.  All he could find was repeated articles on how A-rod was one of the people purchasing a hotel owned by Donald Trump.  And that was an AP reporter who is a defender of his own outlet.  That's all he could find.


MEDIAITE has a video of Howard Kurtz offering a critique of coverage.  Howard Kurts began his media critique role at THE WASHINGTON POST.  He's a centrist and was always to the center of me but we noted him for the Iraq War while he was at THE POST and he did his series on how THE POST miscovered Iraq in the lead up.  He's now at FOX NEWS.  We'd post the video here but it's FOX NEWS.  They don't know a damn thing about videos.  They need to get a younger staff and they need to free them from whatever burdens they're putting on them.  They think streaming their programs live online is the height of the modern age.  They still don't understand a la cart, streaming on demand, all of the changes have passed themm by.  If they could get their act together, we'd post the video fo Kurtz discussing this.  He's making solid points.


Let's note this list of bulleting points and the headline from THE DAILY MAIL:


Ex-Director of National Intelligence claims Biden and Obama KNEW ABOUT Hillary campaign plot to hack Trump servers: 'Enough evidence in Durham's Russia probe to indict MULTIPLE people'

  • John Ratcliffe told Special Counsel John Durham that there is 'enough evidence' to indict 'multiple people' connected to the origins of the Trump-Russia probe 
  • The former Director of National Intelligence met with Durham more than once
  • Ratcliffe's pointed Durham to a declassified CIA memo of Clinton approving looking into Trump's Russia ties as a way of distracting from her email scandal
  • The report was sent directly to then FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok
  • New bombshell reports now reveal Clinton paid people to hack servers at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign and White House servers following the election
  • A poll taken before those reports came out show that now even Democrats want Clinton questioned over her role in the Russian secret server scandal   
  • 44% of party loyalists believed she should be interrogated last October, but the number jumped to 66% in a January polling


I'm sorry that this is minor to Saagar but it's not minor to the country.  Year after year, we couldn't focus on issues on the left because whores on television were telling this or that whispered lie about Russia and Donald Trump.  Climate change didn't get addressed.  The infrastructure didn't get addressed.


Donald Trump was not the worst president in the world for leftists and much could have been accomplished.  We fought back under Ronald Reagan, for example.  We could have done the same under Trump.  But we weren't about polciies.  We couldn't focus on issues.  We were about lies and rumors regarding Donald Trump.  We were about an alleged pee tape (that never existed), we were about everything that didnt' matter.


And it hurt us and it put us back and it hurt the world.


To this day, there are idiots who believe the lies that were spread by Rachel Maddow and others.  To this day.  This is not something, Saagar, that we can just say, "Oh well" and roll our eyes over.  Maybe you can because you're a right-winger.  But we pointed out in real time that we were abdicating our power and we were betraying out beliefs by embracing this nonsense.


There were real reasons to object to Donald Trump and to actually resist his policies.  But we couldn't do that because we were too busy and too deep into personal smears about Donald and pretending that was somehow about politics.  It was about partisianship.  It wasn't about issues.  It wasn't about fighting for a better way.


Hillary Cliton voted for the Iraq War. Senator Bob Graham begged her to go read the actual evidence before her vote.  She refused to.  And she voted for the war.  It's what the bean counters ('experts') told spineless Democratic members of Congress to do.  And Hillary did it.  (The same way, in early 2004, when 'the experts' told Dems to step away from abortion rights, Hillary stepped away -- so much so that even NYT covered it).  She voted for the war.  She knew it was wrong?  I don't think so.   I think she didn't care to know one way or the other.  She just wanted to do what 'the experts' said would make her look presidential.  by 2004, she knew the war was a disaster.  


She didn't come forward with that and explained to people (including me) that she couldn't admit it was a disaster or that her vote was wrong because if she ended up running for president in 2008 (yes, she was considering it that far bafck), it might make her appear weak or soft -- accodring to 'the experts.'


So as a sitting US senator, she refused to acknowledge the disaster and demand accountability.  Year after year.  In 2007, as she begn her presidential campaign, she got a little more vocal and threw her lot in with MOVEON.ORG -- another entitty whose ethical stand takes place on quick sand.  They were the perfect fit.  She did everything they wanted.  So it was hilarious that they then endorsed Barack Obama -- Barack who had repeatedly called them out and shamed them.


Hillary had some good moments regarding Iraq in Congressional hearings in 2007 and 2008 (though you can't ask Spencer Ackerman -- don't worry he knows his lies and he knows what I'm talking about and you do as well if you read back them when we covered it in real time).  


But she wouldn't apologize for her vote.  


And I saw idiots I knew like Rob Reiner twist themselves into pretzels to try to defend her.  Idiots who I wanted to say to them, "She's not the quack that 'cured' you of homosexuality.  She's a politician.  A little less worship."


And to some of them, I did say that.


She never would honestly address Iraq.  She would get testy.  She would snap.


But she never acknowledged what her vote and her actions did to the Iraqi people.


And, as Secretary of State, she betrayed Iraqi women over and over.  It was her chance to make up for her vote.  It was far too late to change the vote.  But she could atone for her actions, she coud make amends.  But she chose not to do that.  She spent four years as Secretary of State and did nothing but become good friends with Hoshyar Zebari who was the Foreign Affairs Minister of Iraq.


That's the same Zebari, please note, whom Iraq's Supreme Court rules on Sunday could not even run for the presidency because of the corruption charges against thim that they saw as valid and worthy of a trial.

Again, there's a certain type of man that Hillary stands with.


The following sites updated: