From the response of the Democrats and the media, one might think that Trump’s son set up the meeting to turn over the US nuclear codes to the Kremlin. In reality, it seems that Trump Jr., then a campaign adviser to his father, met Natalia Veselnitskaya to get information damaging to Hillary Clinton.
This sort of “digging for dirt” is not exactly unusual in American politics. Individuals associated with the Clinton campaign reportedly met with Ukrainian government officials in March 2016 in search of material that might discredit Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Clinton herself has connections with governments and intelligence agencies all over the world, which she no doubt sought to leverage in her contest with Trump.
In any event, Trump Jr.’s clumsy contact with a Russian lawyer doesn’t quite measure up to Nixon’s efforts, during the 1968 presidential campaign, to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks, lest the sudden end of the Vietnam War cost him votes; or Reagan’s efforts to persuade the Iranian regime not to release American hostages before Election Day in 1980.
The Trump Tower meeting, however, has acquired explosive significance in the context of the ferocious political battle that is being waged in Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans have said that the meeting with the Russian lawyer amounts to a “smoking gun” in the Trump-Russia investigations. Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s former running mate, said that with the meeting “we are now moving beyond obstruction of justice” into “perjury, false statements and even potentially treason.”
Treason—defined in US law as levying war against the United States or supporting and giving “aid and comfort” to its “enemies”—is a capital offense. If Kaine’s words are taken literally, the 2016 Democratic vice-presidential candidate is suggesting that the son of the current president—and, by implication, the president himself—is potentially guilty of a crime that could lead to execution.
It is worth considering the issue that has generated this staggering level of political infighting. Neither the Democrats nor their media allies are working themselves into a frenzy over the horrific destruction and loss of life in the Iraqi city of Mosul, or the ongoing plans to deny health care to millions of Americans, or the rounding up and deportation of thousands of immigrants, or the staggering level of wealth concentration and social inequality in the United States.
The conflict, rather, is entirely centered on issues of foreign policy. Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party and the most influential sections of the capitalist media (such as the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN) are being uncharacteristically aggressive because they are being supported by large sections of the military-intelligence apparatus.
Tim Kaine is a hack who really needs to find a rock to crawl under.
Treason?
What a moron.
I get now why C.I. would say "No!" at THIRD when we'd be working on a piece and one of us wanted to toss in "treason."
She'd say, "No, no, that is a serious charge. It can result in execution. You don't play with that charge."
And she was right.
It's a damn shame Tim Kaine is too damn stupid to grasp that.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, July 13, 2017.
Let's start with the world of misinformation. What's wrong with this Tweet?
Yes, a lot of neoliberals were on board as well. Dems who supported the attack on Iraq included John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman . . . The list is a long one. Dems who supported the war after it started is even longer.
So there's that.
But for me, the most striking aspect of this Tweet about Iraq showing the destruction of Iraq?
The photo is Syria.
It's photo 41 of 68 on this CNN page. When you click on it, the caption reads:
A Kurdish marksman looks over a destroyed area of Kobani on Friday, January 30, after the city has been liberated from the ISIS militant group. The Syrian city also known as Ayn al-Arab, had been under assault by ISIS since mid-September.
If you read Arabic, you can find it on this CNN page.
And then there's this one:
There are multiples here again.
Let's start with the original Tweet.
FEMINIST FREQUENCY -- a pop culture site -- Tweets the above.
WAFFLE responds by noting Iraq.
Don't know anything about WAFFLE.
But the response is not inaccurate.
Abortion is moving beyond their pop culture scope.
That's fine.
But when you move beyond it, you better be prepared for the things you ignore to be raised.
FEMINIST FREQUENCY's Tweet does not exist in a vacuum..
And if you know feminists from the Middle East or women activists from the ME, you know this is not a minor issue. It's given feminism a very bad name.
What WAFFLE Tweets about?
These are post-invasion conditions.
So western feminists have no excuse for ignoring these conditions. (FEMINIST FREQUENCY is Canadian-American.)
Yes, it is outrageous that rape victims would have to notify their rapists before getting an abortion.
What's more outrageous on that story is the selective outrage by VICE and by FEMINIST FREQUENCY.
Forget rape for one minute, the law requires a woman getting an abortion to notify the sperm injector.
Quit whining about rape -- and, yes, it is whining.
The larger part of that law -- any notification -- is what's objectionable.
No woman has to explain -- including women who do not want to use the term rape but were raped.
She certainly shouldn't have to get permission.
Yes, the rape aspect is appalling.
But stop ceding our rights by running to the inflammatory when the whole thing is objectionable on its face.
Having addressed that.
The next thing that's wrong?
WAFFLE's Tweet is correct.
And if you're going to stop Tweeting about gaming and TV for abortion you better eat your vegetables and take accountability for what the west did to Iraq.
Don't ignore it.
It is a feminist issue.
But so many ignored it.
Even Abeer.
In fact, that story was illuminating for women around the world about just how myopic the navel gazing feminists of the west could be.
(I am a feminist of the west.)
Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is the 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was gang-raped and murdered March 12, 2006.
The way that tragedy and War Crime was ignored by western feminists was appalling.
And it was ignored.
We covered it here, Jane Fonda covered it in a speech, but if you look at the bulk of women who identify as feminists in North America, you will see very little content produced.
A 14-year-old girl was observed by US troops. They plotted how to break into her home and to gang rape her and then to pin the violence on 'militants.' They gang-raped her while her parents and her younger sister were shot dead in the next room.
They almost got away with it.
This was a War Crime and it's appalling how little the issue mattered -- how little Abeer mattered -- to western feminists.
So that Tweet by WAFFLE doesn't exist in a vaccum.
The third thing wrong: Cultural appropriation.
TakeDownMRAs @TakedownMRAs
The men insert themselves into the poster of Rosie the Riveter.
They can't use an iconic image to celebrate women, they have to impose themselves on it.
Which makes the "We can do it" slogan offensive.
Because, apparently, when it was a woman -- Rosie -- it couldn't be done and therefore they had to change the image.
This is beyond offensive.
And their nonsense Tweet is offensive:
Again, this is an ongoing, global conversation among feminists. TakeDownMRAs is not a feminist group. A group of men who are feminists wouldn't doctor a Rosie image to advance themselves. And it takes the War Hawk lovers to get offended about Iraq being raised.
They didn't care about Iraq in real time and they don't care about the destruction the west has caused to Iraq today.
Moving on to other topics . . .
Reminds me that Luke Mitchell (HARPER'S) reported in 2007:
I was making that same journey from well to terminal, and yet in all my time in Iraq I would see the oil itself only once. This was in a particularly empty patch of desert, beyond even the lonely cinder-block houses and the rock-throwing kids. We had sped past dry concrete canals and abandoned oil drums and rocket-charred tanks, past mile upon mile of flat dirt and rust, and then we found ourselves driving between a series of mirror-black ponds. These pools crept along both sides of the highway, and through the scratchy ballistic glass of our SUV it was hard to tell at first if the liquid within was oil or water. There were no ripples, though—the pools were thick—and the hot asphalt smell was strong enough that it had become a taste. Sam said the oil came from leaky pipes, that there is no EPA watching over Rumaila. “You have to give the devil his due here,” he said, meaning Iraq. “On a good day, they export 60,000 to 70,000 barrels an hour. If 500 barrels of crude spill on the ground here, what is that? Not more than a half minute of export.”
Photojournalist David Bacon has had many exhibits and written many books, including the highly praised The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration.
LIVING IN THE SHADOWS is his new book. We'll note the following:
The following community sites -- plus GORILLA RADIO, Jody Watley, THE GUARDIAN and LATINO USA -- updated:
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
Let's start with the world of misinformation. What's wrong with this Tweet?
This is what victory in Iraq and nation building looks like. Well done Dick Cheney and the Neocon establishment. John McCain is proud.
Yes, a lot of neoliberals were on board as well. Dems who supported the attack on Iraq included John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman . . . The list is a long one. Dems who supported the war after it started is even longer.
So there's that.
But for me, the most striking aspect of this Tweet about Iraq showing the destruction of Iraq?
The photo is Syria.
It's photo 41 of 68 on this CNN page. When you click on it, the caption reads:
A Kurdish marksman looks over a destroyed area of Kobani on Friday, January 30, after the city has been liberated from the ISIS militant group. The Syrian city also known as Ayn al-Arab, had been under assault by ISIS since mid-September.
If you read Arabic, you can find it on this CNN page.
And then there's this one:
MRAs: "Sure women can't abort their rapists babies, BUT IRAQ!!"
There are multiples here again.
Let's start with the original Tweet.
This is an absolute outrage.
FEMINIST FREQUENCY -- a pop culture site -- Tweets the above.
WAFFLE responds by noting Iraq.
Don't know anything about WAFFLE.
But the response is not inaccurate.
Abortion is moving beyond their pop culture scope.
That's fine.
But when you move beyond it, you better be prepared for the things you ignore to be raised.
FEMINIST FREQUENCY's Tweet does not exist in a vacuum..
And if you know feminists from the Middle East or women activists from the ME, you know this is not a minor issue. It's given feminism a very bad name.
What WAFFLE Tweets about?
These are post-invasion conditions.
So western feminists have no excuse for ignoring these conditions. (FEMINIST FREQUENCY is Canadian-American.)
Yes, it is outrageous that rape victims would have to notify their rapists before getting an abortion.
What's more outrageous on that story is the selective outrage by VICE and by FEMINIST FREQUENCY.
Forget rape for one minute, the law requires a woman getting an abortion to notify the sperm injector.
Quit whining about rape -- and, yes, it is whining.
The larger part of that law -- any notification -- is what's objectionable.
No woman has to explain -- including women who do not want to use the term rape but were raped.
She certainly shouldn't have to get permission.
Yes, the rape aspect is appalling.
But stop ceding our rights by running to the inflammatory when the whole thing is objectionable on its face.
Having addressed that.
The next thing that's wrong?
WAFFLE's Tweet is correct.
And if you're going to stop Tweeting about gaming and TV for abortion you better eat your vegetables and take accountability for what the west did to Iraq.
Don't ignore it.
It is a feminist issue.
But so many ignored it.
Even Abeer.
In fact, that story was illuminating for women around the world about just how myopic the navel gazing feminists of the west could be.
(I am a feminist of the west.)
Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi is the 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was gang-raped and murdered March 12, 2006.
The way that tragedy and War Crime was ignored by western feminists was appalling.
And it was ignored.
We covered it here, Jane Fonda covered it in a speech, but if you look at the bulk of women who identify as feminists in North America, you will see very little content produced.
A 14-year-old girl was observed by US troops. They plotted how to break into her home and to gang rape her and then to pin the violence on 'militants.' They gang-raped her while her parents and her younger sister were shot dead in the next room.
They almost got away with it.
This was a War Crime and it's appalling how little the issue mattered -- how little Abeer mattered -- to western feminists.
So that Tweet by WAFFLE doesn't exist in a vaccum.
The third thing wrong: Cultural appropriation.
TakeDownMRAs @TakedownMRAs
TakeDownMRAs
@TakedownMRAs
As men, we say MRAs are the worst. They spread misinformation about feminism, while hurting men's real issues. And yes, they just flat out hate women.
The men insert themselves into the poster of Rosie the Riveter.
They can't use an iconic image to celebrate women, they have to impose themselves on it.
Which makes the "We can do it" slogan offensive.
Because, apparently, when it was a woman -- Rosie -- it couldn't be done and therefore they had to change the image.
This is beyond offensive.
And their nonsense Tweet is offensive:
MRAs: "Sure women can't abort their rapists babies, BUT IRAQ!!"
Again, this is an ongoing, global conversation among feminists. TakeDownMRAs is not a feminist group. A group of men who are feminists wouldn't doctor a Rosie image to advance themselves. And it takes the War Hawk lovers to get offended about Iraq being raised.
They didn't care about Iraq in real time and they don't care about the destruction the west has caused to Iraq today.
Moving on to other topics . . .
Watch: The environmental & health impacts from oil wells set on fire by ISIS will affect the Iraqi people for years to come. #Mosul
Reminds me that Luke Mitchell (HARPER'S) reported in 2007:
I was making that same journey from well to terminal, and yet in all my time in Iraq I would see the oil itself only once. This was in a particularly empty patch of desert, beyond even the lonely cinder-block houses and the rock-throwing kids. We had sped past dry concrete canals and abandoned oil drums and rocket-charred tanks, past mile upon mile of flat dirt and rust, and then we found ourselves driving between a series of mirror-black ponds. These pools crept along both sides of the highway, and through the scratchy ballistic glass of our SUV it was hard to tell at first if the liquid within was oil or water. There were no ripples, though—the pools were thick—and the hot asphalt smell was strong enough that it had become a taste. Sam said the oil came from leaky pipes, that there is no EPA watching over Rumaila. “You have to give the devil his due here,” he said, meaning Iraq. “On a good day, they export 60,000 to 70,000 barrels an hour. If 500 barrels of crude spill on the ground here, what is that? Not more than a half minute of export.”
Photojournalist David Bacon has had many exhibits and written many books, including the highly praised The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration.
LIVING IN THE SHADOWS is his new book. We'll note the following:
LIVING IN THE SHADOWS
Book Review By Paul Von Blum Truthdig, Posted on Jun 30, 2017 http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/en_los_campos_del_norte_20170630 https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/07/living-in-shadows-los-fotografos_9.html  "In the Fields of the North/ En los Campos del Norte" A book by David Bacon "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. . . They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." -Donald Trump, June 16, 2015 We live in a despicable era of racism and xenophobia, fueled by the anti-immigrant fervor of the Trump regime and abetted by right-wing media forces. Mexican immigrants have borne the brunt of much of this public animus, including countless verbal assaults and some egregious examples of physical violence. Few perpetrators of this hostility recognize the long historical origins of their nativist outpourings. Even fewer realize the deep humanity and the powerful suffering of the Latino farmworkers who have come north to the United States to escape grinding poverty and hunger and try to eke out marginal livings for themselves and their families. A new bilingual book by David Bacon offers both a dramatic antidote to the deplorable reality of racism and a majestic life-affirming view of these hidden women, men and children. "In the Fields of the North" is a landmark fusion of journalism and documentary photography. Bacon is an accomplished writer and photographer, with a long record of union organizing for the United Farm Workers, the United Electrical Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and others. He has effectively documented the impact of globalization, the degrading conditions of workplaces for many immigrants, the human consequences of migration, the political struggles for workers' and human rights, and many related topics in his books and commentary. But above all, Bacon is a documentary photographer of extraordinary power, insight and skill. In his introductory comments to the book, he is modest-too modest-about contributing to the long history of socially conscious photography: "I hope my work contributes to this tradition today." I have had the privilege and pleasure of teaching and writing for many years about some of the giant American figures of this tradition, including Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Roy DeCarava and Gordon Parks. |
The following community sites -- plus GORILLA RADIO, Jody Watley, THE GUARDIAN and LATINO USA -- updated:
Who's not paying taxes?
11 hours ago
Prediction
11 hours ago
Yea for Cass and Justin!
12 hours ago
What have we done to the rain?
13 hours ago
Media burnout
13 hours ago
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
