Tuesday, January 10, 2023

That ridiculous Patti Davis

Most ridiculous moment of the week?  Patti Davis.

Who?

Yeah, I know.

She's the daughter of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis Reagan.  She tried to have a career several times and failed at everything.  Then she decided that money was to be made in attacking her parents.  And, of course, she needed a co-writer.  Paul Rudnick had a very funny stinger about that.  

But over the weekend, Patti Davis who dragged her family through the mud, felt the need to speak to Harry Windsor.  Of course, this being Patti Davis, she couldn't pull him aside.  No, she had to write about it.  Put him on blast in a desperate attempt to get some publicity.  That's all she's ever wanted.

He's going to regret this book, she insists.  She insists that she cares and that's why she's writing.  If you cared, you call him, you send him a letter, you don't do this in front of everyone in the world.

Patti Davis is an idiot.  

 

As for Harry?  I'm limited in what I can say.  (C.I.'s been friends with Meghan for years.)  I will allow that I don't think the couple has behaved in the best light.  But I will also state -- I have never treated Harry -- that there is something to be said for clearing the air.  He appears to have suppressed a number of issues -- serious ones.  I laughed at Patti Davis' column because it was her usual insipid nonsense.  She's supposedly worried about Harry's health yet she never acknowledges that clearing the air can be good for the soul.  Nor does she appear to grasp that both he and Meghan feel that the Palace is running to the press with things that will hurt them.  (I believe that they are right about that.) Patti Davis really has nothing to share and, if she has any friends, one of them should convey it to her.  (I have met Patti many times and, yes, she is as disappointing as you pictured her to be.)


"Little Christy Toto -- Stupid and Hateful (Ava and C.I.)" (Ava and C.I., THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW):

Building his writing career around the likes of non-entities like Kirk Cameron goes a long way towards explaining why Toto has a niche following at best.  And from this tiny corner, he rails against the world.  DISNEY's LIGHTYEAR?  It was a movie trying to 'groom' kids, according to Christian Toto.  That is an insane take and brought to you by a demented mind.  Two same-sex characters have a kiss and that has blown whatever was left of Toto's mind.  


He doesn't want the world reflected.  He wants to shut out what he doesn't believe in and what he refuses to acknowledge.  That's why he lives in his crazy world of hate and wastes his time trying to resurrect the career of Kirk Cameron.  It's funny how these hate merchants so often claim to be Christians when the teachings of Jesus Christ are never their focus.


It really needs to be noted that these hate merchants are not acting in Christian ways.  

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, January 10, 2023.  The persecution of Julian Assange continues, a 'beloved' American male  conservative appears to have forgotten his wife when he was groping a man, Iraqis celebrate a strong performance in the Gulf Cup, and much more.


Starting with Julian Assange.



US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, for those who've forgotten, Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat



The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.


In the video below, Kevin Gosztola speaks with Lee Camp discuss the spying on Julian Assange.




In 2010, Chelsea Manning used her position as a United States Army intelligence analyst to copy hundreds of thousands of documents related to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving them on a CD labelled “Lady Gaga” as a disguise. Manning then sent the files to WikiLeaks, including the famous Collateral Murder video showing US troops laughing after shooting dead a group of Iraqi men, including two journalists. (All the men were civilians but some were armed.) Manning was later sentenced to 35 years in jail for America’s largest-ever leak of classified information.

Today, Manning is a free woman and celebrated transgender icon who recently published a memoir and spins tracks ranging from Britney Spears to a remix of the Succession theme song for Brooklyn ravers in her spare time. Barack Obama commuted Manning’s remaining jail time on compassionate grounds in one of his last acts in office, allowing her to return to civilian life in 2017.

Meanwhile, the man who published Manning’s leaked documents, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is languishing in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, surrounded by notorious murderers and rapists. For the past four years, the US Justice Department has been attempting to extradite the Australian to face trial on 17 counts of breaching the Espionage Act plus a separate hacking-related charge. It’s the first time the act has ever been used against someone who received and published classified information, as opposed to leaking it.

Julian Assange needs to be free.

Did Matt Schlapp free himself?

Who?

WIKIPEDIA tells you that he's "an American political activist and lobbyist who is chairman of the American Conservative Union.[1] He leads the lobbying firm Cove Strategies, which had strong ties to the Donald Trump administration.[2] He is also a Fox News political contributor.  Schlapp was President George W. Bush’s deputy assistant and political director during Bush's first term.[3] He is married to Mercedes Schlapp, who was President Donald Trump's Director of Strategic Communications."  Those are the credits Schlapp wants the world to know about.  Is he also a groper?


Christian Walker, the gay son of failed GOP Senate candidate and retired NFL player Herschel Walker, has called on influential Republican Matt Schlapp to resign as the lead organizer for the far-right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after Schlapp’s alleged sexual misconduct with a male staffer who worked for Herschel Walker’s campaign.

In a video rant posted to Twitter, Christian Walker said, “Matt Schlapp — head of CPAC, big ‘family values’ conservative guy, married to a woman, they have five children together — Took one of my dad’s campaign staffers out for drinks … and when the staffer was dropping Matt off at his hotel, Matt reached over, inappropriately grabbed the staffer, but here’s the kicker: The staffer is a man married to a woman… and then, when they get to the hotel, Matt Schlapp invites the staffer up to his hotel room.”

Walker notes that the staffer reported Schlapp’s alleged behavior to other officials in Herschel Walker’s campaign.

“Matt pulls a typical predator move,” Walker continues. “Texts the guy back when the guy is not answering his calls. He texts him, ‘If you can find it in your heart to, give me a call,’ because Matt knows he’s been caught now. So when he’s on campaign trips away from his wife and children, he’s trying to hook up with men??!”



The bombshell allegation, first reported by The Daily Beast, focused on Schlapp allegedly making “sustained and unwanted and unsolicited” sexual contact with the staffer while the staffer drove Schlapp back from a bar in October. The staffer alleged Schlapp “groped” and “fondled” his crotch without consent in the car.

An attorney for Schlapp called the claims an “attack” and said Schlapp “denies any improper behavior.” It is unclear if Herschel Walker was made aware of the allegations at the time.

But his son is adamant that action must be taken.

“Honestly, it’s just disgusting that someone as powerful as Matt Schlapp is [preying] on campaign staffers,” Walker said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “I feel terrible for his wife and children.”



"He reached in between my legs and fondled me," the former Walker staffer told NBC News in a telephone interview Thursday night. "To my shame, I didn’t say anything" to stop Schlapp. NBC News is withholding the staffer’s name at his request because he fears the allegations against a powerful Republican could harm his own career in GOP politics.

Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, is married to former Trump White House aide Mercedes Schlapp. His organization hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference, a crucial proving ground for Republican presidential hopefuls.

Schlapp did not respond to text messages seeking comment, including one detailing each point of his accuser’s story. His lawyer, Charlie Spies, did not immediately return a call from NBC News seeking comment on the allegations. But Spies did tell The Daily Beast, which first reported on the staffer’s story, that Schlapp had denied them.


It appears Schlapp, a fifty-plus year old man, assaulted a young man.  That is very likely to take place when you live your life in a closet.  It's not that shocking to most of us.  It is shocking to the homophobes.  Maybe if they'd address their own issues, they'd stop hurting others and stop persecuting the LGBTQ+ youth of this country.

That is what they are doing.


 In our recent analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey, we found that the odds of being a violent hate crime victim for LGBTQ people was nine times greater than it was for cisgender and straight people from 2017 to 2019.

There were an average annual 6.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 LGBTQ people during this three year period.

In contrast, there were 0.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 cisgender and straight people.

A hate crime is an attack or threat of an attack that’s motivated by the victim’s perceived race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender or religion. Or it could include someone’s association with any of the previous categories, such as an anti-Muslim hate crime committed against someone who is Sikh.

The National Crime Victimization Survey is a nationally representative survey that asks over 200,000 people about non-fatal crimes that happened to them in the past year.


 Andres Gutierrez (Detroit's CBS NEWS) adds:

A recent survey reveals almost half of young people in Michigan's LGBTQ community have considered taking their own lives. 

The data comes from the Trevor Project, which is calling for increased support and resources.

To Brenden Bell, the care manager at Affirmations, an LGBTQ center in Ferndale, it's not surprising to hear of a staggering statistic: 45% of kids and teens in Michigan's queer community have seriously considered suicide in the past year.

"The LGBTQ+ community, especially the youth, are not feeling safe right now," Bell said. 

The study shows another 15% have attempted suicide.

It's time to stop pretending.  Like the people who work with Schlapp who keep coming forward insisting "Matt would never do this."  You should consider the assault a possible cry for help.  If you're really his friends you might make it clear that it's okay for him to come out.

But how could homophobes do that?  They'd have to be caring people.  And caring people are not people who go out of their way to make children's lives more difficult.  They pretend that they want to 'save' the children.  That's not what they're trying to do and that's not what they're doing.  They're hurting LGBTQ+ youth across the country and they need to be called out for what they're doing.


Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) will lead the Congressional Equality Caucus — formerly known as the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus — in the 118th Congress, the group announced Monday. He will succeed outgoing Chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who will continue to serve as one of the caucus’s six openly LGBTQ co-chairs.

Pocan, who as chairman of the Equality Caucus is responsible for setting the group’s agenda for the next two years, wrote in a statement on Monday that one of the caucus’s top priorities will be combating anti-LGBTQ policies and rhetoric that have perpetuated a cycle of violence against LGBTQ people.

“We are witnessing a dangerous increase in anti-LGBTQI+ hate, legislation, and violence that we must forcibly push back against and defeat,” he said. “The Equality Caucus will do everything in our power to defeat anti-LGBTQI+ bills and amendments proposed by extremist anti-LGBTQI+ politicians this Congress, especially those targeting our transgender and nonbinary community members.”



Moving over to Iraq, they have been hosting the Gulf Cup in Basra.  Julian Bechocha (RUDAW) reports:

The Iraqi national team prevailed over Saudi Arabia during a Monday contest at the 25th Gulf Cup held in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, with the Lions of Mesopotamia winning 2-0. 

A first-half goal by midfielder Ibrahim Bayesh and another by Kurdish forward Aso Rostam during the dying moments of the fixture ensured Iraq a much-needed win in Group A of the tournament. 

“We wish our Iraqi national team more victories in the Gulf Championship 25, which bears a special character, as it is held on the lands of Basra,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani said following the victory. 

“Congratulations to the Lions of Mesopotamia,” Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi tweeted, using the moniker referring to the Iraqi national football team. 



Iraq defeated Saudi Arabia 2-0 on Monday evening at a near-waterlogged Basra International Stadium to go top of Group A after two games in the Arabian Gulf Cup.

 Despite conditions that bordered on the farcical, Ibrahim Bayesh’s first-half goal put the hosts in control before Aso Rostam sealed the win just before the end.

It means that in the final round of games in the group on Thursday, a point for Iraq against Yemen will be enough, while Saudi Arabia will probably have to beat Oman to progress.










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Monday, January 09, 2023

A show to watch

With all the efforts to destroy the rights of trans persons in this country and their right to free speech, please note that homophobe Jonathan Turley has elected to write about . . . how one person signed to Random House for  a book doesn't get the outcry that someone else did.


Jonathan Turley has become a joke and he's made himself that.  I get it, FOX NEWS writes his checks.  That does not excuse his tilt to the right nor does it excuse his ignoring the attacks on the free speech rights of the trans community.  

Ava and C.I.'s "TV: WIll TRENT?" just went up.  WILL TRENT airs Tuesday nights on ABC during the last hour of prime time.  I really enjoyed the show and recommend it.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, January 9, 2023.  Poverty increases in Iraq as oil revenues reach new records highs, in the US a joint-investigation between QUEER NEWS TONIGHT and BUSINESS INSIDER notes the rise of attacks against transgender persons and the lack of follow through by police officers and district attorneys. 


Starting in the US where a war is being carried out against the LGBTQ+ community.  Ari Paul (FAIR) explains:

Last summer, while waiting for coffee at a diner in what I’ll just call a small town, I overheard three older men complaining about how schools are forcing children to swap genders. A server responded, “You’re not even allowed to talk about this anymore.” I thought to myself, “A, you’re talking about it right now, and B, where’s my coffee?”

The exchange has stayed on my mind: How on earth are so many people convinced that children’s lives are being turned upside down by the acceptance of LGBTQ rights in America? And why do they believe they are the ones being silenced, when they clearly aren’t?

The main reason is that hostility against LGBTQ “grooming”—the false idea that schoolteachers and drag queen story hours at libraries are attempting to train children to be gay and trans, rather than simply acknowledging the existence of gay and trans people, and discouraging hatred and bigoted violence against them—has become a big feature of the social conservative movement. One notable player in that is Chaya Raichik, who runs an anti-trans Twitter account called “Libs of TikTok,” which boasts 1.7 million followers.

Fox News—arguably the most influential purveyor of the “grooming” narrative—has shown Libs of TikTok consistent support in the past (e.g., 4/20/22, 6/9/22, 6/27/22, 11/21/22), frequently airing clips from the account (Media Matters, 4/1/22). While Raichik’s identity had been revealed by the Washington Post (4/19/22) months ago, she has recently chosen to come out from behind her self-imposed Twitter anonymity—and Fox was happy to offer a platform.

Raichik recently appeared on Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson Tonight (12/27/22). using her face and name for the first time, to crank up hateful rhetoric that the LGBTQ community was “evil” and a “cult.”  (Video of the interview was made available on the subscription-only Fox Nation streaming service—12/28/22.)

Raichik is clear about spreading a message designed to stir fear about LGBTQ people coming for your children. Her goal, she told the New York Post (12/31/22), is “dismantling and destroying gender ideology [sic] in America.”

[. . .]

Tucker Carlson remains one of the top-viewed cable pundits in the United States (Forbes, 12/15/22); as his obsession with demonizing trans people increases, he elevates more fringe transphobes and normalizes their bald bigotry. Many transphobes try to smuggle their hatred through customs by attacking gender fluidity as a threat to women (FAIR.org, 12/16/22), a sort of pseudo-feminism for the right. But Raichik attacks all LGBTQ people in her statement—in the same forum that has invoked white supremacist ideas like the “great replacement theory” (Washington Post, 7/20/22) and “white genocide” (Hatewatch, 10/2/18), suggesting that she wants LGBTQ people to be added to the long list of very bad people.

 

This hate speech does have an effect.  QUEER NEWS TONIGHT and BUSINESS INSIDER examined the 175 known murders of transgender persons.


Their investigation found that only 16% of trans homicides lead to murder convictions and that out of 175 murders only 1 led to a hate crime conviction.  And there is the fact that 50% of transgender persons experience domestic violence in their relationship. 


Remember the Club Q shooting?  Remember how fools like Glenn Greenwald insisted it had nothing to do with homophobia because the shooter claims to be non-binary?  That claim may or may not be true.  But as we pointed out, the homophobia from Tucker Carlson, members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis clearly put a target on the backs of the LGBTQ+ community and sent the message that it's okay to harm them.  That's what the shooter could have picked up on.  And that's what partners of transgender persons are picking up on.  In the report above, DJ Nena notes, "Experts suggest that the general discourse towards the trans community has increased the partner of a trans person to feel empowered to feel more free to express verbal and physical abuse in the relationship."

Click here for BUSINESS INSIDER's print article on the investigation and, from that, we'll note this:


The criminologist Rayna Momen told Insider that from judges to attorneys to jurors, key players in the criminal legal system "do not value trans lives, do not care to understand them, do not have any interest in humanizing these individuals as victims, and instead often really view them as blameworthy."



Moving over to Iraq, and starting with confusion, REUTERS reports:

Defence systems at Iraq's Ain al-Asad air base, which hosts U.S. forces, shot down a drone near the base on Sunday, with Iraqi military sources and the U.S.-led international military offering confliciting accounts of the incident.

The U.S.-led international military coalition said in a statement that it had conducted "an operational exercise..that involved engaging an Unmanned Aerial System" at Ain al-Asad base as part of a training exercise.

However, the Iraqi military sources suggested the drone may have had hostile intent, saying it was not clear whether it was on a surveillance mission or if it was carrying any explosives.


Two different stories.  PRESS TV offers:

Iraq’s al-Maalouma news agency, citing an unknown military source, said on Sunday that the unmanned aircraft had managed to pass through the entire security rings and enter the “off-limits and inaccessible” areas of Ain al-Asad base.

“At the last stage, American soldiers were able to shut it down with electronic systems,” the source said, adding, “The drone reached very important parts of the Ain al-Asad base and this was the first time that it happened.”


Moving to economics, last week, John Lee (OZ ARAB MEDIA) noted:


The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, has announced revenues of more than $115 billion from exporting crude oil for the year 2022.

More than 1,209 billion barrels of crude oil were exported, giving a daily export rate is approximately 3.320 million barrels per day (bpd).


ARABIAN BUSINESS noted, "This is a four-year high following a collapse in prices during the Covid-19 pandemic."  But it means nothing for the Iraqi people because the US-installed government in Iraq has never attempted to better the lives of the Iraqi people.  Nouri al-Maliki and his family got rich after the 2003 invasion, it was the Iraqi people who struggled.  Jobs are nowhere to be found and politicians and officials steal the public monies.  There's no investment in infrastructure.  There's no investment in the people.  That's what The October Revolution was protesting against: corruption that destroyed not just the chances of the young people but the entire country.  Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as ranked by Transparency International.  Today, RUDAW reports:


Over a thousand people held a demonstration before the Iraqi finance ministry on Sunday demanding permanent employment at the Shiite Endowment Office and their inclusion in the 2023 Iraqi national fiscal budget.

The protesters, some of whom have been working with the Shiite endowment by contract for the past 15 years, called on the government to make their employment permanent.

“We ask for permanent employment. Three generations of the rest of the directorates have been granted permanent employment, but we have not been until now,” Ahmad Abdulrahman, who has been working with the office for the past 13 years, told Rudaw’s Mustafa Goran, calling on Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to address their concerns, saying “we are tired, and we have had enough.”

The total number of those who are contract-based with the Shiite Endowment Office is around 7,000, working a variety of jobs including guarding holy shrines, doing media work, cooking, and running administrative affairs.  
This is the third protest of its kind that they have held in the course of the past two months, but they have not yet received any answer from the government.

At least three.  Last week, RUDAW noted:


At least five people were wounded in Kirkuk on Monday as police applied force to disperse hundreds of angry demonstrators who protested the lack of employment by the North Oil Company (NOC) and tried to storm its headquarters.

A total of 1350 college graduates received a six-month-long training course by the state-run NOC four years ago, but have not yet been employed. Of this number, Over 450 of them staged an angry protest on Monday.

A protester told Rudaw that Baghdad already consented to employ 458 of the trained graduates, but they were not true to their words and that they employed other people instead of them.


And Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reported:

Hundreds of recently graduated teachers who have been working without receiving payments for years gathered in Kirkuk on Wednesday to protest their lack of contractual employment, calling on the Iraqi government to address their concerns. 

Iraq’s Education Minister Ibrahim Namis al-Jubouri announced on Tuesday that the council of ministers has agreed to include teachers of the graduating class of 2020 in the 2023 budget, granting them employment by contract. The decision does not include graduates from any other year, many of whom have been teaching free of charge and without contracts for years.

“We teach at schools without any privileges… Yesterday evening, a decision was issued to employ graduates of 2020, we are graduates of 2019, 2021, 2022 and we are still waiting… We have been teaching for free for two years,” one of the protesters told Rudaw’s Hiwa Hussamadin.

Most graduates resort to teaching for free hoping it would lead to full-time employment.


The protests come as IANS notes, "The Iraqi Ministry of Planning has said that the poverty rate in the country was 25 per cent in 2022, the Iraqi official news agency reported."  So oil income is at a four year high for Iraq, the highest since the pandemic started, in fact.  More money than in the last four years has come into Iraq from oil revenues.  And at the same time poverty has increased -- and they're blaming COVID for the poverty increase?


None of the links about want to talk about it but those living in poverty were estimated, two years ago, to be at 20%.  There's been a five-percent increase in the number living in poverty and this has taken place at the same time that oil revenues have hit record highs.


This isn't about COVID, this is about corruption within the government.  

Meanwhile Sheri Laizer (EKURD DAILY) explains:

In October 2022, some US$2.5 billion went missing from the General Commission of Taxes (GCT) – one of the accounts of the Finance Ministry. The money was withdrawn in several enormous cheques for approx. $1 million each but with at least one written for as large a sum as $62 million. Finance Minister, Ali Allawi, resigned citing corruption as the cause. The largest financial heist so far in Iraq’s history, government officials colluded with the Rafidain state–owned bank and five private companies three of which were newly set up and can have been shell companies. The massive theft became public knowledge just one week into the new premiership of Mohamed al-Sudani.

The Guardian appears to have first headlined how the scheme was devised but did not name the key protagonist. He has since been exposed or scapegoated by numerous Arabic media outlets and social media as Noor Zuhair Jassim al-Mudather. But officials from the Badr militia organization under Hadi al-Ameri ‘s leadership in the Ministry of Finance are also said to have been complicit. On this subject the Guardian also noted:

“Accomplices inside the tax commission had signing authority for the cheques that were then cashed. The network was put in place by its former director, Shaker Mahmoud, according to four sources inside the finance ministry. Based on the letter from the prime minister’s office and a phone call with the audit chamber, Mahmoud ordered the removal of the audit, according to a document seen by the Guardian.”…Shaker Mahmoud and the executors of the plot were supported by the Badr Organisation that controls senior appointments to the tax and customs commissions, according to seven sources.

In addition, directors had to be approved by the prime minister, as per a 2020 decree…While the then finance minister, Ali Allawi, signed the paperwork for appointments, sources in the finance ministry said he had little authority over staffing. Two of his nominees turned down director positions after they received threats from Badr. “Allawi couldn’t remove anyone because Badr wouldn’t accept. And he didn’t get support from the prime minister’s office,” said one official.”


In other news, cult leader and all around psycho Moqtada al-Sadr continues to strive to put some meaning into his pathetic life.



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