Thursday, May 26, 2022

Rock Me On The Water

Scary video from Graham Elwood.



Reminds me of the song "Rock Me On The Water."

Here's Linda Ronstadt doing an amazing  version of the song.




Now here's Jackson Browne serving up his own version of the song (he wrote the song).



One good news, Joe Biden's Disinformation Board is no more.  For now anyway. Kit Klarenberg (MPN) reports:

 

The Washington Post revealed Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s highly controversial “Disinformation Governance Board,” launched with much fanfare just three weeks earlier, was to close, and that its director, Nina Jankowicz — former fellow at the quasi-state Wilson Center think tank, and Ukrainian foreign ministry communications adviser – had resigned.

The exclusive report, authored by Taylor Lorenz, went to enormous efforts to frame the Board’s dissolution as resulting from egregious sabotage by right-wing activists, who engaged in “coordinated online attacks” on its “well-known,” “well-regarded” chief, subjecting her to an “unrelenting barrage of harassment,” which served to “derail” the Biden administration’s benevolent efforts to tackle the “urgent and important issue” of disinformation.

In reality, public backlash against the Board, which erupted immediately following its official launch on April 27, was wide-ranging, and anything but partisan or personal. Prominent rights groups and lawmakers expressed grave concerns about its constitutionality and the obvious risk of its serving as a state censorship mechanism, with many comparisons drawn to the infamous Ministry of Truth conjured by George Orwell in “1984.”

Many legitimate, vital criticisms of Jankowicz were also raised, including her history of slandering independent news outlets, such as The Grayzone, as “Russian disinformation”; frenzied attacks on WikiLeaks and its imprisoned founder, Julian Assange; and enthusiastic advocacy on behalf of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, author of the utterly discredited “Trump-Russia” dossier that produced countless wholly fictitious stories in the mainstream media, many of which have since been significantly rowed back or retracted outright.

While in Kiev, Jankowicz hosted the YouTube channel of U.K. and U.S. government-funded “fact checker” StopFake, which has endlessly whitewashed the issue of widespread fascism in Ukraine. Jankowicz herself is directly implicated in this shameful, misleading output. In January 2017, she presented an on-camera report extolling the virtues of four national paramilitary units, including the openly neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, linked to serious human rights abuses and brutal war crimes.

Lorenz’s friendship with Jankowicz notwithstanding, it’s rather extraordinary that one of America’s leading newspapers – which in 2017 adopted the slogan “democracy dies in darkness,” inspired by famous quotes in defense of the First Amendment, and condemning official secrecy – is lamenting the demise of a shadowy government unit concerned with determining what constitutes “fake news,” let alone was so enthusiastically supportive of such an entity’s existence in the first place.

 

 

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

 Thursday, May 25, 2022.  Another attack in Iraq, Jonathan Cook takes on the war propaganda, I take on NPR's hit job against male survivors, and more.


Starting with an attack in Iraq, MEHR NEWS notes:

 Local media in Iraq have reported an attack on the US troops in Saladin province in central Iraq on Thursday.

Sources in Iraq told Sabereen News telegram channel that a US military logistics convoy was targeted in Iraq.

The report said that a US Army logistics convoy was targeted in Saladin.


Aren't we all glad that the Iraq War ended?  Aren't we all thrilled all US troops left Iraq?


Oh . . .  Wait.  That didn't happen.  Just because CODESTINK and the others walked out on efforts to end the war, the war didn't end.  It's not just the hollow words from Barack Obama, it's the hollow words from self-appointed 'leaders' like CODESTINK.  


Now we're going to move to something else . . .



I've kept Johnny Depp and Amber Heard largely out of the snapshots. Largely because I've had a blind item or two or three or four since the marriage began. The last was noting what a cold fish she was on screen. No, the WB reaction was not a surprise to me and I actually provided feedback regarding that. I know Johnny and I've known him for years. I do not like her. The marriage was a huge mistake and I said in real time to both of them. To him that it would destroy him. To her that she wasn't fooling me and she was clearly in it for herself (after she responded to my question about how she could promise to stay faithful to Johnny). I don't like her. I don't believe her.

I don't know any woman who believes her that knows Johnny. Ellen Barkin's an honorary man, after all, Ava and I have long noted her toxic masculinity.

But we get to comment on Johnny today because NPR doesn't know how to play by the rules.

 

I'm not doing news reports. I don't have to play fair. I also don't take money for this site -- let alone get government money -- US taxpayer money.

Anastasia Tsioulcas doesn't seem to grasp the area of public trust and the responsibility that being a journalist for NP requires.

She has written a piece of garbage that should honestly have her fired. But firing her would implicate those immediately above her so watch them pretend not to notice.

A trial is ongoing currently, is there a reason that she's taking sides?

And I'm sorry but her 'expert' is as ugly in the mind as she is and it's just one expert.

There is no blance, read her garbage because it's as ugly as her face is.

Johnny is an abuser to read the article. Amber is a victim to read the article.

I'm not impartial. I don't pretend to be. Anytime I've written about this -- usually at THIRD -- I've noted that I am a friend of Johnny's.

Why is NPR airing a report that argues Johnny is not a victim of domestic abuse, that this is some nonsense offered by men's right activists?

What a load of garbage.

She needs to be fired. She won't be because that this garbage got posted goes to what a cesspool she's standing in.

I am not in the mood for these people. Those of us who spend out lives raising awareness of abuse know damn well that men can be victims. We've encountered them our whole lives. I've detailed here many times that there are days when I just don't want to open a vein because someone in the room's going to have a trauma and need to talk about it and I just can't do that over and over and over and over . . .

But I do it as often as I can. And with male victims, it is so difficult to get them to open up -- prior to me, apparently, I'm the can opener -- because there are so many judgments and so much shame based on societal expectations. We need to stop it. We are short changing survivors and we are short changing equality.

Anyone can be an absuer. I loved Bob Filner tremendously but when women came forward, I said that they needed to be heard. And they did need to be heard and he issued an apology and stepped down.

We never know everything that goes on and I would never have guessed that Bob would assault and harass.

Could I be wrong about Johnny?

Nope.

Because I'm not just basing it on Johnny. I'm also basing it on Amber. I'm basing it on how she used women and had physical altercations with them. I'm basing it on how she forced women to hide in the shadows when she couldn't cop to bi. I'm basing it on the rather infamous 2018 fight she had with a female lover that no one's talking about to the press.

Sorry, Amber is the profile of an abuser. And she has abused women and she's abused men. She's a malignant narcissist. After years of fuming over Lindsay Lohan and Blake Lively (she was especially obsessed with Blake), she thought she found a way to have the fame that they had. Johnny was going to be her meal ticket to fame and prestige. And she wasn't happy because people like that are never happy.

Let me stop a second. Johnny was stupid to marry her and I am on the record, to his face, before it imploded stating that. I told him that sometimes you honestly do meet someone who agrees with you about everything but, more often than not, what you've actually met is someone who's going to kiss your ass to get their grip on you and they don't really agree with you. (And I don't believe that happiness is found in a relationship where you agree on everything in most cases) He was blindly in love and if you want to fault him for something then fault him for that.

In the NPR piece, the 'expert' whines and whines and perfect victim and blah blah blah. If you're a known liar, you're a known liar. Now I've stated here before about the woman who thinks rape is sexy, the loon who told that to Anderson Cooper on air on CNN, even loons can be raped, even lairs can be.

I find it hilarious that the NPR reporter and NPR think they can high horse it on Johnny Depp's back when no one has ever had more supporting facts than Tara Reade and yet she didn't get defended, did she?

It wasn't politically smart to stick up for her. (We did -- community wide. And she told the truth.)

Amber isn't Tara. Amber hasn't told the truth.

And she's lied. Doesn't mean she can't be a victim. Ambition's not a crime either. Some can even justify using someone to get their dreams.

But we have a total portrait of who she is and who she is is someone who is not sympathetic, someone who is on a recording -- that I noted here over two years ago, before it was public and before it was ever brought up in a court -- gloating that no one will believe Johnny was abused.

Amber didn't want the life Johnny offered. She thought she could marry him and make her do this and that and her career would get promoted and this would happen and that would happen. Sorry, boys and girls, only Freddie Prinze Jr is more of a homebody than Johnny. When Amber realized what her life was and that she couldn't nag Johnny into making her into Blake Lively, she turned nasty. And she wanted out and she began to plot how she could exist to maximum effect.



After getting around it and having some people start to call her brave and express sympathy for her, she thought she was enough of an actress to pretend to be a domestic violence survivor and she wrote that absurd column.

Johnny gets falling down drunk. I've seen it with my own eyes. And because of that and his drug use, she knew she could paint him as an abuse and some would believe anything.

What she didn't count on was how this wasn't going to work. Johnny is a weepy drunk. He can be a loud drunk, but he's a weepy drunk. He wants to hug you when he's drunk. He does not want to hit you when he's drunk. I've been around him when he was drunk (or worse) more times than Amber ever has. I know his behavior. This is not Johnny. He is not an abuser in his best moments, he is not an abuser in his worst moments.

I try not to use this as a platform to protect my friends. But Johnny's being accused of things he did not do and I'm not going to stand for it.

It's only going to get worse for Amber.

And she's lying and we know she is -- 'we' being the industry.

He's not Kirk Douglas (who raped Natalie Wood, Dorothy Dandridge and so many other women). He's not James Caan who has a long list of 'explosive' relationships. He's not a predator.

As Kate Moss testified, what Amber claimed -- and what many wrongly repeated -- never happened. That's true of so much that comes out of her mouth so it's a shock to read NPR's disgusting and one-sided piece of garbage.

Does Johnny have benefits on his side?

Yes, he's someone the public feels they know. That is a plus in the court of public opinion. Amber's made herself well known though she's not exactly a civilian.

We live in a sexist society, so gender gives Johnny some benefits. We live in a sexist society, so gender gives Johnny some minuses. Like NPR refusing to see that he can be a victim of domestic abuse because he's a male.

Johnny's movie roles have made him well liked. That's a plus. Amber onscreen is a message to the movie goers to run to the lobby and get some popcorn since nothing's going to happen for awhile. That's a minus.

They both have pluses and minuses.

I'm not NPR. US tax payers are not supporting what I write. Nor am I presenting myself as objective in this case. Nor should I since I know both participants. But NPR does have to be objective and there is nothing objective in their so-called report. It is a hatchet job, a smear and it is not journalism to be proud of.

I think I've now weighed in more on the case here than I have previously combined here or at THIRD (and Ava and I noted the case in this week's "Media: We wonder, We wa wa wa wa wonder").

I am offended by NPR for what they did for so many reasons.  One, it's not fair to a friend of mine.  Two, it's not journalism worth praising and it's not journalism that tax dollars should be paying for.  Third, this is a slap in the face to male survivors. 


There were many men with real METOO moments and they got ignored.  Some were victims as children.  Watch as the bitches at the Academy Awards try to turn it into a wage issue and a this issue and erase all the children -- male and female -- that suffered abuse was appalling.  The media went along with it.  A friend of mine told a very brave story, came forward and talked about how he was abused as a child actor and instead we're focusing on other issues or pretending that, honestly, Harvey came onto a  a sleep around  -- verbally -- and didn't get his way and she wants to whine when we all know who she slept with to get her break.   No one wants to take responsibility  and everyone wants to celebrate the female victim.  

(The sleep around slept with a friend of mine for a part.  That wasn't the deal.  The deal was she pretended to be in love with my friend -- who is a woman -- and slept with her and then, when the contract was signed, dumped my friend.  And I think we pretty much know who I'm talking about but if you're not sure, Seth worked a visual joke about this into AMERICAN DAD.  She has used sex to build the career she once had and that's why people don't take her seriously -- people outside of the press.  But  a woman like that gets attention while true survivors do not.  That's the press.)


Amber played into that and the NPR article -- which is not journalism -- shows why Amber has been able to get away with it.  


If NPR doesn't want to recognize male victims of abuse, I want NPR to return all taxpayer funds.  And if NPR thinks one-sides hit pieces qualify as journalism, then they need the plug pulled permanently.  


Let's note Cynthia McKinney.  





There's the conversation that she and Sabby are having and there's the way you can apply it to almost every other topic.  We'll discuss it later this week  -- tomorrow or Saturday.


We're going to wind down with this from Jonathan Cook (DISSIDENT VOICE):


It was apparently a “gaffe” of the kind we had forgotten since George W Bush stepped down from the US presidency in early 2009. During a speech in Dallas last week, he momentarily confused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s current war of aggression against Ukraine and his own war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.

Bush observed that a lack of checks and balances in Russia had allowed “one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq… I mean, Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway… I’m 75.”

It sounded like another “Bushism” – a verbal slip-up – for which the 43rd president was famous. Just like the time he boasted that people “misunderestimated” him, or when he warned that America’s enemies “never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people – and neither do we”.

Maybe that explains why his audience laughed. Or maybe not, given how uncomfortable the laughter sounded.

Bush certainly wanted his mistake to be seen as yet another slip-up, which is why he hurriedly blamed it on his age. The senility defence doubtless sounds a lot more plausible at a time when the incumbent president, Joe Biden, regularly loses track of what he is saying and even where he is.

The western media, in so far as it has bothered to report Bush’s speech, has laughed along nervously too. It has milked the incident largely for comic effect: “Look, we can laugh at ourselves – unlike that narcissist Russian monster, Putin.”

The BBC accorded Bush’s comment status as a down-page brief news item. Those that gave it more attention preferred to term it a “gaffe” or an amusing “Freudian slip”.

‘Putin apologists’

But the focus on the humour of the moment is actually part of the media’s continuing war on our understanding of recent history. It is intended to deflect us, the audience, from thinking about the real significance of Bush’s “gaffe”.

The only reason the media is now so belatedly connecting – if very indirectly – “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” of Ukraine and what happened in Iraq is because of Bush’s mistake.

Had it not happened, the establishment media would have continued to ignore any such comparison. And those trying to raise it would continue to be dismissed as conspiracy theorists or as apologists for Putin.

The implication of what Bush said – even for those mockingly characterising it in Freudian terms – is that he and his co-conspirator, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are war criminals and that they should be on trial at the Hague for invading and occupying Iraq.

Everything the current US administration is saying against Putin, and every punishment meted out on Russia and ordinary Russians, can be turned around and directed at the United States and Britain.



The following sites updated:


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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Elon Musk, SUPERMAN AND LOIS

Starting out with a video from BLACK AGENDA REPORT.



That explains how we ended up where we are today.  And it explains how. little by little, we have destroyed out present and our future by allowing politicians to break their promises and refuse to represent us.   We allowed it to happen and we kept making excuses for them and supporting them.  They must really laugh at us, brag about what stupid dupes we are.


Courtney e-mailed to note a CNBC article and here are the bullet points:



  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk blasted Joe Biden on Monday, saying the president is someone who just reads off a teleprompter and that his administration has failed to get much done.
  • “It’s hard to tell what Biden is doing to be totally frank,” Musk said on a podcast recorded during the All-In Summit.
  • Musk, who says he has overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, has repeatedly criticized the president.



Not a Musk fan but he's not saying anything I disagree with.


There was no SUPERMAN AND LOIS Tuesday, no new episode.  Look at the ratings and you'll see that's really hurting the show -- all these starts and stops.  They came back January 11th with new episodes to kick off season two.  They have aired 11 episodes.  And the first week of May was the last new one.  The'll air one next week.  Three weeks in between new episodes.


They don't know what they're doing.  THE CW seems to think it's 1989 or something.  People binge watch these days and you can't even get four new episodes in four weeks from THE CW when it comes to SUPERMAN AND LOIS.


And, again, look at the ratings and you'll see it's hurting the show.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


 Wednesday, May 25, 2022.  Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange,  possible plot against Bully Boy Bush, the stalemate continues in Iraq . . . 


US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for Julian's 'crime' of reporting the truth.  The world watches as Joe targets Julian and declares war on a free press.  At SCHEERPOST, Joe Lauria notes:


At some point during the next nine days, British Home Secretary Priti Patel will decide whether or not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges for publishing accurate information revealing U.S. war crimes.

Pressure is building from both sides on the home secretary.  Press freedom and human rights organizations, a Nobel laureate, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, journalists and Assange supporters have appealed to Patel to let Assange go.  

While it would be deemed improper for outside influence to be brought on judges, it would not be fanciful to imagine that behind the scenes Patel is getting the message from the U.S. Department of Justice and possibly from U.S. and U.K. intelligence services about what is expected of her.

The home secretary should know without prodding what the U.S. and British governments want her to do. Patel is a highly-ambitious politician who no doubt will calculate how her decision will impact her career. 

“Politicians think about their next election, they think about their voters … that’s what makes them tick,” Kristinn Hrafnnson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, told Consortium News at a protest outside the Home Office in London last Wednesday. “For the first time it’s in the hands of a politician, and Priti Patel, if she wants to think about her legacy … she should do the right thing.” 


Really, Joe?  Then maybe we should all be applying pressure to Joe Biden who faces a huge upset in the mid-terms.  Joe Biden is the one who can end it.  Joe can drop the charges immediately.  The left -- faux and real -- has been so pathetic for years now.  With few exceptions, they refuse to make demands.  Joe L wants yu to scare a British politician.  But Joe L is Americn.  And Joe Biden is American.  We're getting as pathetic as  that blogger Luke back in 2005 and 2005, remember him?  An Australian citizen blogging from Australia who spent every day railing against Bully Boy Bush and Tony Blair for the Iraq War yet never calling out John Howard.  He was the ruler of Australia.  But Luke was too pathetic to call out the politician in his own coutry.


That's how Joe L is looking right now.


Joe Biden can end this.  Joe Biden should end this.  But when you're doing everything but demanding Joe Biden end it, you're not really doing anything except looking pathetic.


do we want to game this thing out?


Let's say Joe L gets what he wants and the British politician refuses to hand Julian over to the US.  That becomes the official position.  So they release Julian and allow him to book a flight to Australia.  Do you think the US government grabs him at tHeathrow Airport or do you think they wait until he lands in Austraia and they grab him there?


Because that it what would likely happen.  


Both the UK and the Australian government would likely be very cooperative with the US government and possibly even assist.

And Julian would be disappeared.  


Joe L is trying to plug holes on the sinking boat Julian's trapped on instead of rescuing him.


Joe Biden has got to be pressured to stop this persecution.  


And that means some of the timid on the left need to find their voices and use them.


Their voices.


Some idiot e-mailed the public account about how happy I must be that ISIS went after Bully Boy Bush.  First off, did they?


I think they have more on their plate and this was probably some wanna-be.  I could be wrong.


But, no, I don't want Bully Boou Bush murdered.  That's too easy for him.  I want him to be shunned, I want him -- and his family -- to know that blood is on his hands and will be forever more.  I want him to be haunted by the ghosts of dead Iraqis to the point that he fears sleep.


I wouldn't mind seeing him in prison but I don't want him murdered.


You murder him and you create sympathy and the revisionary nonsense that's already taken place with regards to that War Criminal gets even more intense.


He is an awful man.  If you use violence on him, you are helping him.  All we need to combat Bully Boy Bush is our voices.  We need to boo him when he tries to go out in public.  We need to remind him over one million Iraqis are dead because of him.  And we need to make it clear to an idiot like him, even him, that it is not a joking matter and we are not laughing.


Killing him is too easy.  


And it's also the weakest move you can make.  He needs to be Glenn Close t the end of DANGEROS LIASONS.



Alina Romanowski was finally sworn in as US Ambassador to Iraq yesterday.  US Vice President Kamala Harris swore her in.  Hopefully, she can now leave DC and head to Iraq.


Iraq where the political stalemate continues.  Elections were held October 10th and still no prime minister, still no president.  Only the foolish observers were shocked by the Iraqi court ruling  tht the holdover prime minister does not have the power to implement long range plans for Iraq.  Maybe now, observers will start to take the stalemate seriously?  

We're 16 days away from eight months since the election and the rulers can't pull it together still.  Will every US reporter who hailed Moqtada back in October as a "kingmaker" step forward so we can mock them?


There was never a reason to make that claim.  He had no pattern of being a kingmaker.  He was an ineffective cleric who ran in and out of Iraq anytime he thought the bench warrant against him was going to be issued.  


His hold on his cult has grown less and less.  There are very real complaints against him coming out of even Sadr City -- the slum he holds sway over that has seen no improvements despite his so-called rise to power.  His voters showed up in lower numbers in the October election.


He's at his weakest.  The young Shi'ites mock him publicly.  


But ignoring all of this, US observers kept insisting that he was a kingmaker.  Still want to pimp that claim today?


New content at THIRD:



The following sites updated:


 





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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Look who got richer

Starting with  Isaiah's   THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hollywood V. Reality" which went up Saturday. 


hollywood



So much is wrong in this world and so many are getting rich while many more struggle and starve.  Nick Beams (WSWS) reports:


The food crisis, resulting from total subordination of the means of life to capitalist profit, forms a centrepiece of the latest update on global inequality prepared by the UK-based aid agency Oxfam. This is in advance of the World Economic Forum meeting, the gathering of the world’s economic and financial elites, being held in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

The inflationary food crisis, set off as a result of the refusal of capitalist governments to take action to eliminate the COVID-19 pandemic, has been intensified by the US-led NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Last week UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said global hunger levels were at a new high, with the number of food insecure people doubling from 135 million to 276 million in the past two years.

With the supplies of fertilisers and other agricultural inputs severely disrupted, the crisis has no end in sight.

The latest Oxfam report details how global agribusinesses, as well as the energy companies, are profiting out of this human misery.


My mom said it over and over, we were not all in this together.  It was just a bit of propaganda intended to lull us while corporations used the pnademic to get even richer.


No one cared about the suffering not Nancy Pelosi, not anyone.  They were all okay with the average person being ripped off because they were working their own con.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


 Monday, May 23, 2022.  Another massive sandstorm hits Iraq . . .



On SCHEER INTELLIGENCE, Robert Scheer is joined by Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou




Robert Scheer (02:16):
But nonetheless, here you have Ray McGovern who gave back his Intelligence Commendation Medal in response really to the revelations that came from you. What I want to do, you are two guys who tried to serve your country, did so, were honored for that … you, John, and promoted after the capture of what was supposed to be the highest known captured Al-Qaeda member. What happened was that you have run into a really … I don’t know, I think of Lillian Hellman when she wrote about the McCarthy period. She had a book called Scoundrel Time. And really, you’re in a period now where you guys are in danger of being considered fake news, making up news. You’re going to be made non-person. In fact, just doing this discussion with you, and I’ve interviewed you both before, the whole program could be dismissed as fake news. We haven’t lived in a time like this where suddenly people who really know a great deal and are speaking honestly … in John Kiriakou’s case, he served two years in jail for having revealed aspects of the torture program. But the fact of the matter is, you’re being made into non-persons. In fact, you now can only get a forum if you go on something … well, we don’t have RT anymore.




Yet another sandstorm has hit Iraq, once again sending people indoors and to hospitals.  IRAQ OIL REPORT's Lizze Porter Tweets:

The colour of the sky in #Baghdad this morning. #Iraq has been hit with another sandstorm - there’ve been 8 or 9 since mid-April. This time there is a fairly strong wind, too, making the dust-filled air even more unpleasant. Officials say the storms are linked to climate change.
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3:10 AM · May 23, 2022


 AFP reports:


Air traffic was suspended in airports across Iraq as the ninth sandstorm since mid-April hit the country. International airports in Baghdad, Erbil and Najaf issued conforming statements. 

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi ordered all work to cease temporarily in public institutions, with the exception of health facilities and security agencies, according to AFP. 


Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) adds, "Almost all of Iraq will be hit by the latest storm which could last until Tuesday afternoon and is expected to cross to the Gulf States, it added."  Raul Tweets:



🇮🇶 Another sandstorm has hit Iraq, injuring hundreds of locals. All airports have halted operations, and state institutions declared a day off. Over 5,000 citizens in one day went to hospitals with complaints of suffocation. #Iraq #Sandstorm
6:36 AM · May 23, 2022


Zahraa al-Janabi Tweets:


Another sand storm hits #Iraq, warning us that this has become the norm more than the exception. So what happens when armed conflicts collide w/ climate risks? and what should we do to strengthen the climate action? #ICRC report👇



Australia's WEEKLY TIMES notes:


Iraq's Lake Hamrin, a once-vast reservoir northeast of Baghdad that is the sole source of water for irrigation across Diyala province, has nearly dried out, a senior official said Friday.

"There are no other sources of water in the province -- the volume arriving in Lake Hamrin is the volume used in the province."


In related news, RUDAW reports:


A shepherd in a village in Kirkuk was forced to sell most of his sheep because of poor pasture conditions for his animals and out of 300 sheep, only 27 of them are left. 

Ahmad Khorshid has had a difficult year because of the drought. 

“Everything is expensive now. If fodders were available and cheap like before, I could have survived. No one shepherds because of the lack of pasture,” he told Rudaw’s Hardi Muhammad Ali on Friday. 

Khorshid has spent most of his life working as a shepherd in Jabal Bawr village, Kirkuk, but this is the first time he experiences such a lack in adequate pasture for his herd. 


Friday, Iraqi poet Muzaffar al-Nawab passed away.  


World-renowned Iraqi Arab communist poet Muzaffar al-Nawab died on May 20. He was beloved by Arab masses for language that spoke to peasants & workers, and for brilliant takedowns of corrupt Arab regimes, U.S. imperialism, and Israeli colonization & occupation. #مظفر_النواب
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arlos Latuff and 9 others
7:13 PM · May 22, 2022



WIKIPEDIA notes:

Al-Nawab was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1934 into an aristocratic Shi'ite family of Indian origin that appreciated art, poetry and music.[3][4][5][6] He showed a talent for poetry from an early age. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Baghdad and became a teacher, but was expelled for political reasons in 1955 and remained unemployed for three years, at a difficult time for his family who was suffering financial hardship.[7]

He joined the Iraqi Communist Party while still at college, and was tortured by the Hashemite Government. After the Iraqi revolution in 1958 which overthrew the monarchy, he was appointed an inspector at the Ministry of Education. In 1963 he was forced to leave Iraq to neighbouring Iran, after the intensification of competition between the nationalists and the communists who were exposed to prosecution and strict observation by the ruling regime. He was arrested and tortured by the Iranian secret police, before being forcibly repatriated to the Iraqi government. An Iraqi court handed down a death sentence against him for one of his poems, later commuted to life imprisonment. He escaped prison by digging a tunnel and fled to the marshlands, where he joined a communist faction that sought to overthrow the government.[8]

Known for his powerful revolutionary poems and scathing invectives against Arab dictators,[9] he lived in exile in many countries, including Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Eritrea, where he stayed with the Eritrean rebels, before returning to Iraq in 2011.[1] Before he returned to Iraq, he had been essentially stateless being able to travel only on Libyan travel documents. The first complete Arabic language edition of his works was published in London in 1996 by "Dar Qanbar"[10] He died on 20 May 2022 in the University Hospital Sharjah in the UAE.[11]


JYforeal Tweets:

Muzaffar Al-Nawab was imprisoned and tortured by the Iraqi monarchy for associating with the growing Iraqi Communsit Party. Muzaffar always stood firm in his revolutionary ideals We mourn the loss of a great Iraqi poet.
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5:10 AM · May 21, 2022


GRADE SAVER notes:


Muzaffar Al-Nawab is a celebrated Iraqi poet. He was born in 1934 to a wealthy family in Baghdad. After studying literature and becoming a teacher, he began to associate with the Communist movement in Iraq. For this he was imprisoned and tortured by the oppressive Hashemite regime; however, following, the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, Al-Nawab was offered a position at the Iraqi Ministry of Education. As political tensions continued between nationalists and communists, Al-Nawab was forced to flee Iraq because of his communist allegiances in 1963. He was arrested again, this time for writing poetry critical of the Iraqi Republic. He was able to escape prison and continued writing dissident poetry.

Despite, or perhaps because of his political troubles, Al-Nawab's reputation grew steadily in the 1960s. His work spread across the Arab world and was as inspiration to those standing against political regimes. As he writes in "v-Letter-Word," his work was seen as a rallying call to all those that wished to "speak out frankly of your reality." Further expanding his notoriety, many musicians set music to Al-Nawab's work. After his exile from Iraq he continued to move around Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon. Due to the controversial nature of his work, it was not published officially until 1996, however much of has become available on the internet. Still, it is incredibly difficult to find in printed form and many bootlegged copies circulate, though an official poetry collection was again released in 2010. Al-Nawab returned to Iraq in 2011 where he has been reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.


He was buried Saturday.  Sebastian Usher Tweets:

#Iraq : Funeral of renowned poet Muzaffar al-Nawab in Baghdad - famed for his revolutionary ideals & revolutionary use of language #مظفر_النواب #الْعِرَاق
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4:00 AM · May 21, 2022


AFP adds:


He last visited Iraq in 2011, when he was received in grand pomp by the presidency. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi called Friday for his body to be repatriated by ministerial aircraft.

The poems of Nawab, who was unmarried and had no children, were often evoked during the autumn 2019 wave of youth-led anti-corruption protests that swept Iraq.

"Why did Muzaffar al-Nawab die in the Emirates?... Because you've governed Iraq for 19 years, because Baghdad hospitals do not treat patients, because the country is not livable," Iraqi journalist Omar al-Janabi tweeted.


Yes, his work and life spoke to The October Revolution.  So what happened was no surprised except for people who don't have time to pay attetnion.  Desperate to hold onto his post as Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi tried to turn the day into a photo op for himself and the youth weren't having it.   MIDDLE EAST EYE reports:



Iraqi Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kadhimi was forced to leave the funeral of the country's renowned communist poet Muzaffar al-Nawab on Saturday after a section of mourners began chanting slogans of contempt at his delegation. 


Sinan Mahmoud and Amr Mostafa (THE NATIONAL) explain:

The funeral procession started peacefully at the Association of the Iraqi Writers in Baghdad’s Karrada neighbourhood after the wooden casket containing the poet's body arrived from the airport.

A few minutes later, some of the mourners started shouting slogans against the prime minister and Iraq's political elite.

Waving Iraqi flags and pumping their fists in the air, they shouted "The people want to bring down the regime," and "Oil is for the people not for the thieves."

The chaos forced the pallbearers to return Al Nawab's casket to the hearse and speed away with Mr Al Kadhimi's convoy.

Some of the mourners pelted the convoy with stones, bottles of water and shoes as it left.


We'll wind down with this from Nancy Hanover (WSWS):


The children of Flint, Michigan have been doubly ravaged—by lead poisoning and more than two years of SARS-CoV-2 infections and deaths. Now in the sixth wave, COVID cases in Flint’s Genesee County are rising by 69 percent, and despite ongoing outbreaks, schools remain open face-to-face. At the same time, a lawsuit now alleges that the city’s young people “acquired brain injuries” due to ingestion of lead.

The contamination of Flint’s water at the hands of General Motors, Governor Rick Snyder, and the entire city, state and national Democratic and Republican establishment exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to lead, a neurotoxin that attacks developing brains and nervous systems.

The current class action lawsuit, one of many, targets engineering consultants contracted by the city (Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam) during the 2014 switch to Flint River water. It has brought to light some of the devastating and widespread educational and mental health challenges the city’s children and their teachers face.

Testifying on May 10 and 12, neuropsychologist Mira Krishnan provided evidence that Flint children are suffering brain injuries due to being subjected to lead-in-water.

Dr. Krishnan, a specialist in neurodevelopmental disorders and impacts of complex trauma, examined four children, who she said exhibited hyperactivity, impulsivity and weaknesses in various subject matters in the classroom. Such problems can amplify over a lifetime. One of the children, she said, showed impairments that “very rarely would be seen in a random sampling of children from the community ... who didn’t have some sort of brain injury.”



 Isaiah's   THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Hollywood V. Reality" went up Saturday.  The followng sites updated:


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