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- .@JulianCastro You’ve made your family and community proud. Look at this picture — the weeds in our backyard in a neighborhood that outsiders called the bad side of town, no car, no money, but big dreams and the feeling of nothing to lose. You started life from scratch.1/
Julian was one of the better candidates.
He brought real issues to the debates and I will miss him.
I am supporting Bernie Sanders but I will be happy to vote for Elizabeth Warren should she get the nomination.
I want a better future for my daughter and for all of our children. Joe Biden cannot deliver that.
- Biden has a record breaking with Dems to help the GOP boost stuff like the bankruptcy bill, the Iraq War & Social Security cuts. Bernie has a record doing the opposite. The primary is the time to spotlight that contrast so voters have a clear choice. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-says-he-would-consider-republican-running-mate-but-i-cant-think-of-one-now/2019/12/31/0c6002e2-2bfb-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html …
- If you think this is ancient history, think again: Biden just released a list of donors bundling money for his campaign, and one of them is Erskine Bowles -- the guy who led the fight to slash Social Security. You can't make this stuff up: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/27/joe-biden-campaign-bundlers-089918 …
- Biden's record: - Helped the GOP authorize the Iraq War: http://inthesetimes.com/features/joe-biden-iraq-war-vote-democratic-primary-2020.html … - Helped the GOP try to cut Social Security: https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019/05/17/joe-biden-has-called-for-social-security-cuts-3-ti.aspx … - Helped the GOP make it harder for Americans reduce student debt: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/biden-bankruptcy-president/ … Bernie opposed all of this.
- David Sirota Retweeted
Joe Biden is a threat to everyone's future.
Arundhati Roy has a new column at IHC:
While protest reverberates on the streets of Chile, Catalonia, Bolivia, Britain, France, Iraq, Lebanon, and Hong Kong, and a new generation rages against what has been done to their planet, I hope you will forgive me for speaking about a place where the street has been taken over by something quite different. There was a time when dissent was India’s best export. But now, even as protest swells in the West, our great anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements for social and environmental justice—the marches against big dams, against the privatization and plunder of our rivers and forests, against mass displacement and the alienation of indigenous peoples’ homelands—have largely fallen silent. On September 17 this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted himself the filled-to-the-brim reservoir of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River for his 69th birthday, while thousands of villagers who had fought that dam for more than 30 years watched their homes disappear under the rising water. It was a moment of great symbolism.
In India today, a shadow world is creeping up on us in broad daylight. It is becoming more and more difficult to communicate the scale of the crisis even to ourselves. An accurate description runs the risk of sounding like hyperbole. And so, for the sake of credibility and good manners, we groom the creature that has sunk its teeth into us—we comb out its hair and wipe its dripping jaw to make it more personable in polite company. India isn’t by any means the worst, or most dangerous, place in the world—at least not yet—but perhaps the divergence between what it could have been and what it has become makes it the most tragic.
Right now, 7 million people in the valley of Kashmir, overwhelming numbers of whom do not wish to be citizens of India and have fought for decades for their right to self-determination, are locked down under a digital siege and the densest military occupation in the world. Simultaneously, in the eastern state of Assam, almost two million people who long to belong to India have found their names missing from the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and risk being declared stateless. The Indian government has announced its intention of extending the NRC to the rest of India. Legislation is on its way. This could lead to the manufacture of statelessness on a scale previously unknown.
The rich in Western countries are making their own arrangements for the coming climate calamity. They’re building bunkers and stocking reservoirs of food and clean water. In poor countries—India, despite being the fifth-largest economy in the world, is, shamefully, still a poor and hungry country—different kinds of arrangements are being made. The Indian government’s August 5, 2019, annexation of Kashmir has as much to do with the Indian government’s urgency to secure access to the five rivers that run through the state of Jammu and Kashmir as it does with anything else. And the NRC, which will create a system of tiered citizenship in which some citizens have more rights than others, is also a preparation for a time when resources become scarce. Citizenship, as Hannah Arendt famously said, is the right to have rights.
The dismantling of the idea of liberty, fraternity, and equality will be—in fact already is—the first casualty of the climate crisis. I’m going to try to explain in some detail how this is happening. And how, in India, the modern management system that emerged to handle this very modern crisis has its roots in an odious, dangerous filament of our history.
Interesting article by Paul Craig Roberts at IHC and this is the opening:
In 2014 Progressive Press published a book by a French author, Laurent Guyenot, titled JFK-9/11: 50 Years of Deep State. The book contains much interesting reporting that shows that the official explanations we are given about even major events, such as the assassination of a President and 9/11, are transparently false. Yet, these transparently false explanations are hard to challenge despite all available evidence being against the explanations.
Reviewing such a book is a challenge that I avoided by securing permission to reprint two chapters from the book. One chapter, “Ghost planes,” deals with the mystery of the four allegedly hijacked airliners. No trace of the one that allegedly hit the Pentagon has ever been found, and the many videos of the event remain under lock and key. No trace of the one that allegedly crashed in Pennsylvania has ever been found. Neither has any trace of the two that allegedly hit the two World Trade Center towers ever been found, although an unburnt passpost was allegedly found in the ruins of two massive buildings.
Readers might remember that I raised the question why we did not hear demands for explanations from the families of the victims of the four destroyed airliners like we did from the families whose relatives were in the twin towers. Guyenot reports that of the alleged casualties of AA77 “only five of these have relatives who received the 9-11 Compensation Fund offered by the State. . . . no family of the victims of Flight UA93 requested compensation.”
How can this be?
The other chapter, “The Art of the Patsy,” shows that the key to the ability of the authorities to control the explanation is to have an explanation of the event ready at hand. No one expected President Kennedy’s assassination or he wouldn’t have been riding in a convertible. Yet it was instantly known that Oswald was the assassin. The explanation for 9/11 was also instantaneous. It was CIA-asset Osama bin Laden, who was dying from renal failure and no longer useful to the CIA.
If you find Guyenot interesting, you might want to read his book. What Guyenot shows us is that what the CIA has schooled the dumbshit presstitute media to ridicule as “conspiracy theory” is indeed a conspiracy, a real one usually involving the CIA.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, January 2, 2019. A distraction from a flunky?
Two days after the US Embassy in Baghdad is stormed, Queen Useless slithers out from her rock to the pages of USA TODAY. Yes, Wendy Sherman who has never had anything to say about Iraq is now an expert because she was part of the people working on the Iran deal in the Obama administration. Queen Piss Wendy wants you to know:
Noticing a lot of Iran in the above? It only gets worse as you read along. Wendy can't talk Iraq because she's just too stupid so she talks Iran over and over and pretends she's writing about Iraq. Some will be fooled by the whore. Hopefully, some will catch how she's distracting.
One problem in Iraq, right now, goes to the militias (plural, Wendy) being folded into the Iraqi army. That's got nothing to do with Donald Trump. It does have everything to do with Barack Obama but you'll never tell that truth will you?
Another problem, the popular unrest? It also goes to Barack.
The Iraqi people are not represented by the government. This is not a new issue.
Iraq has been ruled by US appointed exiles who fled Iraq and only returned after the US-led invasion. They have destroyed the country and that probably was why the US backed them to begin with -- keep the Iraqi people off balance, they can't object to the theft of their treasures.
In 2010, despite violence, despite threats, the Iraqi people went to the polls in March and voted. They voted thug Nouri out of office. Bully Boy Bush had installed thug Nouri in the spring of 2006 and he was installed over others because the CIA assessment was that with Nouri's paranoia issues, he'd be easy to manipulate.
The Iraqi people voted him out in March of 2010. How'd he end up with a second term in November of 2010, Wendy?
Nouri refused to step down creating the political stalemate that lasted over eight months.
Instead of standing for democracy as many (including Gen Ray Odierno) advised, Barack and Joe decided to overturn the Iraqi people's vote and give Nouri a second term.
Election interference? Not Barack and Joe!
They were behind the US-negotiated Erbil Agreement that gave the loser Nouri a second term. And Joe then went to Iraq to sell it and in his usual stupidity Joe tried to lecture the Iraqi leaders about the IRA -- Irish Republican Army -- because, well, of course Joe would have a long winded story that had nothing to do with the topic.
Maybe he just should have told them about Cornpop?
The protests today stem from the fact that Iraq has been denied self-rule -- even when they vote their leaders out of office, the US government overrules them.
Want to talk about that, Wendy? Of course, you don't. Whores don't deal in honesty.
"Iran nuclear deal was solid progress," Wendy wants to insist as though that has anything to do with the conversation at hand. Whores.
She's a whore stroking her War On and bound and determined that no US troops will leave Iraq.
Kata'ib Hezbollah, she tells us, "want the 5,000 American troops out of the country. But perhaps even Pompeo understands that a longer term challenge remains, and thus his change of travel plans. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to withdraw American troops from just about everywhere. However, a withdrawal from Iraq at this moment only serves Iran’s desire to exert greater control over Iraq. To much of the world, it would signal U.S. disengagement and weakness -- not strength."
If whores were forced to tell the truth, the world would be better off. If the garbage that is USA TODAY would fact check their opinion columnists, the world would be better off.
Kata'ib Hezbollah wants US troops out of Iraq? Yes, and the Iraqi people do as well.
The Iraqi people? As usual, a whore like Wendy leaves them and their needs out of the picture.
She can whine for paragraphs about her Iran deal -- and she does -- but heaven forbid she use a paragraph to address the needs of the Iraqi people. They'll do what she tells them to, apparently.
And that, after all, is how we've arrived at this point. Whores like Wendy who are going to tell another country what to do. Whores like Wendy who will risk the lives of the children of America so that the Iraqi people can be bossed around.
And whores like Wendy will then pass off the terror they inflict as 'liberation' and 'democracy.'
There's no reason for US troops to be in Iraq.
Wendy Whore wants to blame Donald Trump. His crime, as she notes, is that he "has repeatedly said he wants to withdraw American troops from just about everywhere."
Bullies like Wendy Whore use the presence of US troops to intimidate, to blackmail, to coerce.
How fitting that Wendy Whore served under 'reporting for duty' John Kerry. The toy soldier of the State Dept who never believed in diplomacy and thought he was actually Secretary of Defense.
Grasp that the US Embassy in Baghdad is the most fortified US embassy in the world. Grasp that it was supposedly impenetrable. Turns out, not really. That's why the US Ambassador was evacuated from it this week.
This reality should lead people to ponder the mission -- forever undefined -- and the continued presence of US troops.
Wendy Whore doesn't want anyone to ask questions. She certainly doesn't want anyone to say, "Hey, Wendy Whore, you were part of the State Dept so why aren't you writing a column about diplomacy instead of insisting that US troops must be on the ground in Iraq?"
Wendy Whore really hopes you don't make that connection.
She's a tiny-minded 'warrior' who wants to send our children to physically fight battles that her soft, cushy ass will never take part in.
Wendy Whore is a cancer on democracy.
Kata'ib Hezbollah was defined as a terrorist organization by the Obama administration July 2, 2009 so, Wendy Whore, where were the objections when they were made a part of the Iraqi military? That happened under Barack. Many objected -- we objected here -- and it wasn't an issue to Barack or any of his underlings -- not even Wendy Whore. Now the chickens come home to roost, to quote Barack's one-time pastor, and Wendy Whore thinks she can show up and pretend like this whole bloody history didn't take place.
Wendy Whore, your bravado is embarrassing.
Two days after the US Embassy in Baghdad is stormed, Queen Useless slithers out from her rock to the pages of USA TODAY. Yes, Wendy Sherman who has never had anything to say about Iraq is now an expert because she was part of the people working on the Iran deal in the Obama administration. Queen Piss Wendy wants you to know:
It is President Donald Trump’s failed policy toward Iran that has brought us to this combustible moment.
Iraq
is a tough country under any circumstances, made more so after the 2003
U.S. invasion that upended the Middle East and cost so much in U.S.
lives and treasure. But Iraq also created strange bedfellows. The U.S.
troops worked alongside Iraqi and Iranian militia to destroy a common
enemy, the Islamic State group. And even as the United States was
confronting Iran over its nuclear program and malign behavior elsewhere,
we maintained an uneasy coexistence in Iraq, where Tehran holds
considerable sway.
Noticing a lot of Iran in the above? It only gets worse as you read along. Wendy can't talk Iraq because she's just too stupid so she talks Iran over and over and pretends she's writing about Iraq. Some will be fooled by the whore. Hopefully, some will catch how she's distracting.
One problem in Iraq, right now, goes to the militias (plural, Wendy) being folded into the Iraqi army. That's got nothing to do with Donald Trump. It does have everything to do with Barack Obama but you'll never tell that truth will you?
Another problem, the popular unrest? It also goes to Barack.
The Iraqi people are not represented by the government. This is not a new issue.
Iraq has been ruled by US appointed exiles who fled Iraq and only returned after the US-led invasion. They have destroyed the country and that probably was why the US backed them to begin with -- keep the Iraqi people off balance, they can't object to the theft of their treasures.
In 2010, despite violence, despite threats, the Iraqi people went to the polls in March and voted. They voted thug Nouri out of office. Bully Boy Bush had installed thug Nouri in the spring of 2006 and he was installed over others because the CIA assessment was that with Nouri's paranoia issues, he'd be easy to manipulate.
The Iraqi people voted him out in March of 2010. How'd he end up with a second term in November of 2010, Wendy?
Nouri refused to step down creating the political stalemate that lasted over eight months.
Instead of standing for democracy as many (including Gen Ray Odierno) advised, Barack and Joe decided to overturn the Iraqi people's vote and give Nouri a second term.
Election interference? Not Barack and Joe!
They were behind the US-negotiated Erbil Agreement that gave the loser Nouri a second term. And Joe then went to Iraq to sell it and in his usual stupidity Joe tried to lecture the Iraqi leaders about the IRA -- Irish Republican Army -- because, well, of course Joe would have a long winded story that had nothing to do with the topic.
Maybe he just should have told them about Cornpop?
The protests today stem from the fact that Iraq has been denied self-rule -- even when they vote their leaders out of office, the US government overrules them.
Want to talk about that, Wendy? Of course, you don't. Whores don't deal in honesty.
"Iran nuclear deal was solid progress," Wendy wants to insist as though that has anything to do with the conversation at hand. Whores.
She's a whore stroking her War On and bound and determined that no US troops will leave Iraq.
Kata'ib Hezbollah, she tells us, "want the 5,000 American troops out of the country. But perhaps even Pompeo understands that a longer term challenge remains, and thus his change of travel plans. Trump has repeatedly said he wants to withdraw American troops from just about everywhere. However, a withdrawal from Iraq at this moment only serves Iran’s desire to exert greater control over Iraq. To much of the world, it would signal U.S. disengagement and weakness -- not strength."
If whores were forced to tell the truth, the world would be better off. If the garbage that is USA TODAY would fact check their opinion columnists, the world would be better off.
Kata'ib Hezbollah wants US troops out of Iraq? Yes, and the Iraqi people do as well.
The Iraqi people? As usual, a whore like Wendy leaves them and their needs out of the picture.
She can whine for paragraphs about her Iran deal -- and she does -- but heaven forbid she use a paragraph to address the needs of the Iraqi people. They'll do what she tells them to, apparently.
And that, after all, is how we've arrived at this point. Whores like Wendy who are going to tell another country what to do. Whores like Wendy who will risk the lives of the children of America so that the Iraqi people can be bossed around.
And whores like Wendy will then pass off the terror they inflict as 'liberation' and 'democracy.'
There's no reason for US troops to be in Iraq.
Wendy Whore wants to blame Donald Trump. His crime, as she notes, is that he "has repeatedly said he wants to withdraw American troops from just about everywhere."
Bullies like Wendy Whore use the presence of US troops to intimidate, to blackmail, to coerce.
How fitting that Wendy Whore served under 'reporting for duty' John Kerry. The toy soldier of the State Dept who never believed in diplomacy and thought he was actually Secretary of Defense.
Grasp that the US Embassy in Baghdad is the most fortified US embassy in the world. Grasp that it was supposedly impenetrable. Turns out, not really. That's why the US Ambassador was evacuated from it this week.
This reality should lead people to ponder the mission -- forever undefined -- and the continued presence of US troops.
Wendy Whore doesn't want anyone to ask questions. She certainly doesn't want anyone to say, "Hey, Wendy Whore, you were part of the State Dept so why aren't you writing a column about diplomacy instead of insisting that US troops must be on the ground in Iraq?"
Wendy Whore really hopes you don't make that connection.
She's a tiny-minded 'warrior' who wants to send our children to physically fight battles that her soft, cushy ass will never take part in.
Wendy Whore is a cancer on democracy.
Kata'ib Hezbollah was defined as a terrorist organization by the Obama administration July 2, 2009 so, Wendy Whore, where were the objections when they were made a part of the Iraqi military? That happened under Barack. Many objected -- we objected here -- and it wasn't an issue to Barack or any of his underlings -- not even Wendy Whore. Now the chickens come home to roost, to quote Barack's one-time pastor, and Wendy Whore thinks she can show up and pretend like this whole bloody history didn't take place.
Wendy Whore, your bravado is embarrassing.
US Embassy in Baghdad fire damage seen in new photos following militants' attack
- Iraqi Badr Corps Chief Who Led Today’s Raid On US Embassy In Baghdad — Was Once Invited To White House By Barack Obama statedepartmentwatch.org/2020/01/01/ira… via @State Department Watch
US embassy in Baghdad
The United States authorized the deployment of an infantry battalion
from the Immediate Response Force (IRF) of the 82nd Airborne Division to
the US Central Command area of operations in response to recent events
near the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, announced Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper.
In a statement, Esper indicated that approximately 750 soldiers will deploy to the region immediately and additional forces from the IRF are prepared to deploy over the next several days.
In a statement, Esper indicated that approximately 750 soldiers will deploy to the region immediately and additional forces from the IRF are prepared to deploy over the next several days.
Greg Myre and Larry Kaplow (NPR) offer:
Since early October, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been protesting against their government. Many are young citizens seeking real representation in a political system dominated by sectarian parties with corrupt leaders. They decry the stagnant economy. And they rally against foreign influence — namely Iran. Some demonstrators burned down an Iranian Consulate in southern Iraq in November.
Those protesters are not the same as the militia members and supporters who attacked the U.S. Embassy. In fact, the Iranian-backed militias have opposed and even opened fire on the popular protests. Hundreds have been killed since October.
Iraqi security forces appeared to go easier on the militias on Tuesday, letting them into the Green Zone. The Iraqi government forces have opened fired on the other protesters attempting the same thing.
One result of last week’s U.S. airstrikes against the militia was this: Whereas many Iraqis had focused their anger on Iran, the airstrikes helped shift that anger back at the U.S. The airstrikes were widely condemned throughout Iraqi politics and made America look like it was once again a foreign power meddling in their affairs.
That last paragraph? Yeah, the Condi Rice effect. When you don't know how to leave well enough alone so you end up blowing your advantage. Zoe Drewett (UK MIRROR) notes:
Clashes continued on Wednesday when demonstrators hurled stones while US forces fired tear gas. But the demonstrators finally ended their siege after commanders of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), of which Kataeb Hezbollah is a member, asked its supporters to stand down. It said in a statement: ‘You delivered your message.’
Emma Sky (THE NATIONAL) observes:
So far, over 521 Iraqi protesters have been killed by sniper shots to the heart and gas canisters to the head fired by Iraqi security forces and pro-Iranian Shia militias. Around 21,000 have been wounded.
The outcome of this confrontation will have consequences not only for the Iraqi people but also for the region.
To date, the protests, now in their fourth month, have brought about the resignation of the prime minister, the passing by parliament of a new election law, and the torching of Iranian consulates and buildings of pro-Iranian groups.
The contest between Iraq’s people and its politicians is likely to come to a head in 2020. And while the first round may have been won by the people – there is no guarantee that they will triumph in the end.
In the largest grassroots mobilisation since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, young Iraqis have taken to the streets of Baghdad and southern cities to express their frustration at government corruption, poor public services, unemployment and Iranian interference. The protesters were initially young men from the deprived Baghdad neighbourhood of Sadr City. However, following the violent response of the Iraqi government and Iranian-backed militias, they were joined by students, civil society groups and middle-class professionals. Through the organisation of food, security, media, music and murals – and with the participation of women – the protesters are creating the sort of society they wish to live in, and building a new sense of citizenship and belonging from the bottom up.
The demonstrators are calling for not only a change of politicians but also for the replacement of the political system which they hold responsible for keeping the country in a cycle of repression and insurgency. Introduced by the US-led coalition, the post-2003 order was supposed to ensure pluralism but instead institutionalised sectarianism with positions allocated according to quotas, muhassassa. The system evolved into a kleptocracy in which Iraq’s political elites divide up the country’s oil wealth between them, with ministries serving as fiefdoms to provide patronage to those connected to parties and militias. Large contracts are awarded to companies that are close to the politicians – and fraud results in poor delivery of basic services.
Search in vain for Wendy Whore addressing any of the above issues. But USA TODAY serves her up as a valid voice.
Doug Silliman is a former US Ambassador to Iraq and he spoke with Mary Louise Kelly on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED yesterday. And he notes that it was the host country's duty to protect the embassy and that they failed to do so.
Some rush in with stupidity. We once had such high hopes for Chris Murphy. Once. The Senator's stupidity knows no bounds.
Really hard to overstate how badly Trump has bungled things in the Middle East. One of the only good things going - anti-Iran street protests in Iraq - have now morphed into anti-U.S. protests thanks to Trump's mishandling of Iran policy.
These are two different sets of protesters. It's really stupid to condense them into one group. It's also insulting to those real protesters who have risked their lives for months to demand freedom.
Chris Murphy should really try to inform himself before speaking.
The following year end pieces went up in the community:
2019 in film -- Ann and Stan
1 day ago
And the following sites updated:
New Year Reads
17 hours ago
Happy New Year
1 day ago
I believe it
1 day ago
Iraq
1 day ago
We need Bernie
1 day ago
