Thursday, February 09, 2023

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK, THE GOLDBERGS, WOLF PACK, and more

No post last night. Sorry. We were doing family stuff -- the whole point of going to my folks for the week. It's Thursday and usually I write about THE GOLDBERGS. I didn't last Thursday and I won't today. Louie e-mailed asking if last week's episode was so bad that I was ignoring the show? Nope. There was no episode last week. They did a 50 year anniversary salute program for SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK. I didn't watch. Not because I didn't like it as a kid but because I just had other things to do. We had it on videotape. I don't know that it even aired by the time I was a kid. But at some point, my folks got the VHS for us.

"I'm just a bill, oh, I'm only a bill . . ." I knew all of those back in the day. Figure 8? Where they woman would skate on ice into the number 8. "We the people in order to form a more perfect union . . ." They were little spots -- about the length of a commercial -- that would provide education via animation and music. I don't think they do anything like that today. They did it back then because the government required X number of hours of children's programming to be educational.

I never understood how educational the how-to-make-popsicles with fruit juice, toothpicks, saran wrap and an ice tray qualified as eductional, but whatever.

As for last night? Remember that awful show JANE THE VIRGIN? Well the woman for that thought she was going to be a big movie star and someone was stupid enough to hire her for a lead in a film. It bombed. She's back to television. Film's benefit is our torment. She's now in a very bad sitcom. ABC aired two episodes of that Wednesday night -- no GOLDBERGS.

My older brother (I have three older brothers -- my brother who's gay) and I hung out this afternoon. He had a dentist appointment and came over after that. (Over, in case anyone needs to know, means my folks' home in Boston. We're here for at least a week.) We popped some pop corn and watched WOLF PACK because he'd read Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Now the hate mongers come for WOLF PACK." WOLF PACK airs on PARAMOUNT PLUS. There are three episodes so far -- a new episode goes up on Thursdays. We really loved it. Last time Sarah Michelle Geller did a horro/sy-fy show, she took on vampires (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) but this go round, she's surrounded by werewolves.

I like the werewolf theme. I haven't seen a show with a werewolf in it since BEING HUMAN. I loved the British version and I loved the Canadian version.

Back to WOLF PACK, it's so far looking a lot like KILL BILL. The part where Uma Thurman's in the hospital. It's got that kind of lighting.

And I like the stunts and the acting. And the script keeps rolling with surprises. When we finished up, we'd just learned that two of the teenagers (Harlan and Luna) -- how to put it? Their father had them go to the shed -- risking an attack from a wolf -- to get a rifle. They get it and then they use it but they also find it holds silver bullets. They later ask their dad (adopted) about it and he admits he made the bullets. They then ask the obvious question: To use on them? Yep. And that's the episode ends.

Anyway, we loved it.

On the political front, what C.I. says in the snapshot -- every word -- I gladly cosign.

I expect Democrats to conduct themselves better than Republicans and that's why I identified as a Democrat. They were appalling in yesterday's hearing. And if I hear the pre-agreed upon term 'weaponized' again, I'm going to lose it. I think the House was weaponized twice with the nonsense of impeachment. Talk about time wasters. Two impeachments in the House but the Senate didn't vote to remove from office? Maybe take responsibility for that 'weaponization.'

I'm sick of it and I agree with C.I. that we don't need this garbage from Democrats in office or from the media.

Most people are not going to fall for it and you look petty and unwilling to do your job which does require -- demand -- oversight.

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

Thursday, February 9, 2023. Today we look at truth, partisanship, lies and more.

I'm not a fan of the Twitter dumps. I don't see them as reporting. They're Tweets. They're not reporting. I've also noted that if a deal is made with Elon Musk to have access to the Tweets in the first place, that deal can't be private. Basic journalism has always made that clear.

With that in mind, let me now call out the embarrassing AOC at yesterday's House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing entitled Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter's Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Sotry. Republicans are now in control of the House so the chair of the Committee is James Comer -- a man who needs to buy a comb. (Although, scary, I was told yesterday that he's actually going for that look. You're a fifty-year-old man in Congress, you're not playing Amanda Woodward on MELROSE PLACE, lose you're very bad attempt at 'bed hair.') Jamie Raskin is the Ranking Member. As the Republicans on the Committee noted in a press release, "Under the leadership of former Twitter employees Vijaya Gadde, James Baker, and Yoel Roth, Twitter coordinated extensively with the FBI to disproportionately target Republican leaders, conservative activists, and certain media outlets. In October 2020, Twitter censored the NEW YORK POST's story about the Biden family’s business schemes based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, despite the article not violating any Twitter policies." That sentence is probably the least controversial -- and truest -- of any remarks made about or during the hearing.

But we can't deal with reality. I'm about to call out a number of Democrats and before someone whines that the Republicans also obscure and spin, yes, they do. They do it very often and if I was a fan of that, I would be a Republican.

I'm not a fan of it and I do not like organized attempts to lie. I don't like organized attempts to trick people.

Something truly disgusting happened when THE NEW YORK POST was censored. But instead of working for We The People, Democrats on the Committee and the White House tried to turn it into a football match. I'm so sorry to break it to you but democracy is much more important than any Superbowl ring. The only 'side' that anyone should aspire to is truth. But instead, Democrats worked from a playbook to attack the hearing itself and to avoid the reality of what was done.

For example, AOC idiotically huffed, "A whole hearing about a 24 hiccup in a right-wing political operation! We could be talking about health care, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, abortion rights, voting rights, civil rights, but instead we're talking about Hunter Biden's half-baked laptop story."

Cool your jets, Entitlement Barbie.

First off, all you do -- all you have ever done -- is talk. You're all talk. You take no stands. You not only wouldn't take part in Force The Vote, you then claimed that calling you out for that was a physical attack, a threat. When you wonder why more young people aren't in Congress, look no further than AOC whose vast immaturity does no one a favor.

The hearing is not a waste of time. The oldest daily paper in the United States was censored. That's worth looking into.

I'm not a fan of THE NEW YORK POST. It's slightly above garbage. But it was only slightly above garbage when Dorothy Schiff owned and mis-ran it all those years, serving those stupid roast beef sandwiches to various leaders -- the ones who were Democrats would get raves in her paper. Rupert Murdoch did not destroy the paper, he just had it do more of the same.

THE NEW YORK POST, ahead of the 2020 election, broke the story on the laptop. And it was censored for that. And it was attacked for that. THE NEW YORK TIMES, for example, invested no money, no resources, no reporters into investigating the laptop. They did put resources and money into the hit job they did on THE POST where multiple anonymice were given space to attack THE POST and we were told that the newsroom was in an uproar over the publication of the story.

Lies.

It was never true.

The article was suppressed. Some are insisting that another report is being suppressed and that we are part of a group suppressing it.

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW has an article about how Russia-gate was lies and how THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST. Why, oh, why, are we ignoring it, e-mails ask.

First off, we never spread the lies, we called them out in real time. So we don't need to do a corrective.

Secondly, those hailing the article are idiots with no knowledge at all.

I don't scapegoat Asian-Americans.

If that doesn't explain why we're not highlighting the article, how about this: Jeff Gerth wrote it.

The liar Jeff who destroyed Wen Ho Lee's life. I'm sorry that you don't know history. I'm sorry you are so stupid that you glorify a presstitute like Gerth who not only nearly got Wen Ho Lee tossed into prison with his lies and bad reporting but it could have led to Wen Ho Lee being executed.

No, this is not a site that's ever going to praise Jeff Gerth. And, no, I'm never going to offer an apology for not highlighting the writing of a man who trafficked in lies and stereotypes to convict an innocent person in the press. Were Wen Ho Lee not Taiwanese-American, he wouldn't have been the target.

So, no, not interested in promoting The Garbage That Is Gerth.

We didn't spread lies about Russia, so there is no reason for us to offer Gerth's article. And it's not being banned on FACEBOOK and Twitter. People are sharing it -- people who want to. It is not the same thing as the government working to suppress a newspaper article. And the government did work to suppress it.

It should be remembered that the article didn't just emerge out of nowhere. Already questions were being raised about Hunter's dealings. Sarah Chayes had rightly called out the unethical nature of Hunter's business dealings. Joe was going around saying A) His son did nothing wrong and B) His son did nothing illegal. His son clearly did something wrong. Legality is a matter for the courts. Into this world, THE POST broke their story. And it was a valid story. But instead of exploring the facts, it became attack and silence THE NEW YORK POST.

In September of 2020, at THE ATLANTIC, Sarah Chayes wrote:

Let’s start with Hunter Biden. In April 2014, he became a director of Burisma, the largest natural-gas producer in Ukraine. He had no prior experience in the gas industry, nor with Ukrainian regulatory affairs, his ostensible purview at Burisma. He did have one priceless qualification: his unique position as the son of the vice president of the United States, newborn Ukraine’s most crucial ally. Weeks before Biden came on, Ukraine’s government had collapsed amid a popular revolution, giving its gas a newly strategic importance as an alternative to Russia’s, housed in a potentially democratic country. Hunter’s father was comfortably into his second term as vice president—and was a prospective future president himself.

There was already a template, in those days, for how insiders in a gas-rich kleptocracy could exploit such a crisis using Western “advisers” to facilitate and legitimize their plunder—and how those Westerners could profit handsomely from it. A dozen-plus years earlier, amid the collapse of the U.S.S.R. of which Ukraine was a part, a clutch of oligarchs rifled the crown jewels of a vast nation. We know some of their names, in some cases because of the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office: Oleg Deripaska, Viktor Vekselberg, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Leonard Blavatnik. That heist also was assisted by U.S. consultants, many of whom had posts at Harvard and at least one of whom was a protégé of future Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

Burisma’s story is of that stripe. The company had been founded by Mykola Zlochevsky, who, as Yanukovych’s minister of ecology and natural resources, had overseen Ukraine’s fossil-fuel deposits. When Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board, $23 million of Zlochevsky’s riches were being frozen by the British government in a corruption probe. Zlochevsky fled Ukraine. The younger Biden enlisted his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, to provide what The New Yorker describes as “advice on how to improve the company’s corporate governance.” Eventually, the asset freeze on Zlochevsky was lifted. Deripaska defeated U.S. sanctions with similar help from other high-profile Americans.

Recently, Hunter Biden told The New Yorker that “the decisions that I made were the right decisions for my family and for me” and suggested Trump was merely using him as the “tip of the spear” to undermine Joe Biden politically. There are no indications that Hunter’s activities swayed any decision his father made as vice president. Joe Biden did pressure Ukraine’s fledgling post-Yanukovych president to remove a public prosecutor—as part of concerted U.S. policy. So did every other Western government and dozens of Ukrainian and international pro-democracy activists. The problem was not that the prosecutor was too aggressive with corrupt businessman-politicians like Hunter Biden’s boss; it was that he was too lenient.

Attention had been on how Hunter had used his father's influence -- without Joe's knowledge or participation, Joe insisted back then -- and here was Hunter's abandoned laptop with various details on it.

The response was to attack.

Why?

They didn't want Donald Trump re-elected. I didn't want that to happen either but we covered the laptop here because it was news. And because I trust people to be mature enough to vote for who they want to vote. The only wasted vote is a vote you don't believe in. I don't mean years later, I don't think we're a nation of psychics. That's the only wasted vote. And not voting is also a vote. Sorry, poli sci major as an undergrad (double majored as an under grad, triple majored in grad school). We are not the USSR so I'd never be proud of a 100% voter turnout or even a 90%. We're a democracy where we have the right to vote. And if someone earns your vote, you'll vote for them -- provided you can jump through all the hurdles which include registration, changing locations, understaffed locations, etc, etc. I'm all for a voting holiday -- a national holiday. Even then, I wouldn't expect 100% voter turnout or see that as a good thing. 100% of the people aren't following the issues and shouldn't be voting. Again, the USSR had huge voter turnout. I never thought that was a good thing or actually reflective of the people's belief in that system.

'Oh, no, you critiqued the USSR!' I critique all governments.

A major story emerges immediately before an election and the corporate press -- and the trashy beggar media like THE NATION, et al -- work to silence the story.

If that doesn't bother AOC then she is even more stupid than I thought she was.

This was an attack on the freedom of the press. It was also the press picking who they wanted to spin for. And Donald Trump supporters aren't the only ones bothered by it. But, yes, Donald's supporters are bothered by it -- as is Donald himself -- and he and his supporters have every reason to be upset. AOC wants the press to treat her like a national celebrity but she doesn't want to be a national politician. If she did, she'd stop offering lies and grasp that whole groups of people will never listen to her or trust her because of garbage like ""

"A whole hearing about a 24 hiccup in a right-wing political operation! We could be talking about health care, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, abortion rights, voting rights, civil rights, but instead we're talking about Hunter Biden's half-baked laptop story" -- she declared. It's not an either/or. You can talk about those things and pursue what took place with regards to the laptop. Is she afraid it might make her late to The Met. Does she have another trashy outfit to put on? Exactly what is the hearing keeping her from that's so important?

Nothing.

She's lying and dismissing because she doesn't like the reality of the laptop. By attacking and dismissing, she can distract others and possibly avoid dealing with it.

Corruption needs to be called out. And if she doesn't get that Congress is obligated to provide oversight with regards to potential corruption, that bad hair dye she's been using must be leaking through her scalp onto her brain. I'm always amazed by someone who will spend a fortune on an outfit but, when it comes to her hair, goes for something out of the box that she can do at home. Not knocking anyone who has no choice in the matter due to economics but AOC doesn't have budget issues.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the dishonesty.

I don't like members of Congress who mistake our lives as their partisan fight. I'm tired of all the spinning. Again, if Liked spinning and lying and partisan fights, I'd be a Republican.

Hunter Biden used his father -- his father's name and, yes, access to his father -- to make money. That's unethical. It's a real issue. And since we now know Joe knew about it, it also goes to corruption above Hunter.

US House Rep Barbara Lee is a constant embarrassment and this continued today as she insisted -- offering no proof -- that this hearing was going to allow people to get a pass on using speech that incites. I'm not sure that 76 year old Barbara understands, first off, the internet and, second off, how Twitter works. Everything on there is basically inciting something. That is how Twitter works -- or doesn't work. We've always had laws on the books -- laws that still exist today -- to address any truly inciting speech. And I'm not sure that Americans want to turn over the censoring tools to the likes of Barbie Lee.

She's bothered, she insisted, by the treatment of the poor Twitter employees.

Why doesn't she deal with their actions. I don't give a damn about Yoel Roth's 'hard times.' He did actions at Twitter that he shouldn't have. Does that mean he should have been smeared as a pedophile? No and we called that out here in real time. But don't confuse two responses: Harsh critique and response from the people over his role in the censorship and then a response from people who always run crazy on every topic.

Eleanor Holmes Norton. Is there a reason that stupid and elderly woman (85) is still in Congress. I know she's got no real power, she's the DC delegte, but she's an idiot and she's a liar. In late 2009, I lost all use for her. She'd been lying to the press for months about something that on the face of it was obviously a lie. And then a Barack appointee comes before the Committee and Eleanor goes into the lie and thee man stops her and correct her. Later that day, she's back before reporters repeating the lie as though the expert witness from Barack's administration hadn't just corrected her on the claim she's been falsely making. (It was a lie that Matthew Rothschild pimped at THE PROGRESSIVE as well. They were heavily invested in the lie.)

Eleanor decried that the hearing was about partisanship while . . . making the hearing about partisanship.

It was "a match to a powder keg," she insited looking like the senile, old fool she's always been.

The playbook the Democrats were working from was to distract from reality and to try to get a 'win' for the new gipper Joe Biden.

They weren't working for the people -- despite the House long being seen as the people's House.

And it's disgusting.

THE NEW YORK POST was censored. The laptop has been 'vetted' by THE NEW YORK TIMES, POLITICO and THE WASHINGTON POST. Yes, they and other outlets waited years to do so but we all know -- unless we're liars like AOC -- that the laptop is for real.

Who did AOC, Eleanor and others think they were reaching?

They sat there raving about Joe Biden's snazzy wardrobe while most of the country already knew the emperor had no clothes on.

They just lied. And the lie had already been exposed as a lie long before the hearing. So they worked from a playbook that made a large part of the country yesterday see them as liars -- see them as they really were, I guess.

I don't see how that is good for the Democratic Party but I know it's not good for democracy.

Donald Trump, while president, asked Twitter to censor. That emerged in the hearing.

Good, call that out. It needs to be called out. It needs to be expanded on.

We need to know all the censorship that has taken place.

Which is why more hearings are necessary.

But grasp that when you sit through a hearing attacking a known fact repeatedly and then your ears perk up over Donald also doing something wrong -- no one sees you as trustworthy or fair. And, thing is, you're not a star in a reality show, you're a member of Congress and, as such, you need to have some integrity. When you demonstrate -- when you sport -- your whorish side in front of the people, don't expect anyone to show you any respect. Whores get money, whores get gifts, but they don't get respect.

"There's a peace action coming up and you're not promoting it!"

No, I'm not promoting that 'peace' action. THE VANGUARD did a great job in the video below covering the problems with that action.

At the end of last month, we wrote "David Swanson finds his Maddie Albright moment" at THIRD:

With 935 words, you'd think David Swanson could make a point. You'd think.

"How Dare I Oppose War with Libertarians" is how you find the column but, grasp, even if you find the column, you'll never find the point.

He's getting complaints, he writes, for announcing he'll be speaking at an anti-war rally with Libertarians.

Which Libertarians is the obvious question.

This isn't just about the government's war, a fact that escapes David.

A lot changed on June 24, 2022. Prior to that, we could easily speak with non-leftists against the war. There were rights and legal protections.

Then DOBBS was handed down and ROE V WADE was struck down while Justico Clarry Thomas made clear in his concurring opinion that he now wanted to take on birth control rights (do away with them), to take on marriage equality (do away with it) and to take on what two adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom. Justico Thomas -- a huge consumer of porn -- suddenly sees himself monitoring every bed room.

No, we're not going to stand next to anti-abortion crazies, homophobes or people who want to terrorize trans persons.

Is that who David is going to be standing with? We have no idea because, despite using 935 words, he never names any speaker he'll be appearing with on stage.

That does make us wonder: Is he doing that intentionally? Does he grasp that he has to cover these people up or he won't get support?

We have no idea but without knowing who he is standing with, in the climate we now live in, he's on his own and he made it that way.

We found out who he is standing with and it's homophobes and it's registered sex offender Scott Ritter and so many other disasters.

Aaron Mate, did you read the comments to THE VANGUARD segment? One of your fan bois is hoping you would never stand with Scott Ritter. They missed the part where you already had stood with him, had brought the convicted sex offender on your program THE GREY ZONE and promoted him (and never noted his conviction).

THE VANGUARD didn't really go into that. I think they were being kind. But a lot of people on the left who were participating and have now dropped out because of the backlash? They've been embracing Scott Ritter for the last year. We've been calling them out for that right here.

THE VANGUARD wrongly praised BLACK AGENDA REPORT for calling the faux-test out. One article that didn't mention names called the faux-test out . . . for being White. The reality is that BAR's Danny had Scott Ritter as a guest on the LEFT LENS over five times in the last six months of 2022 and that BAR published Scott Ritter as 2022 was winding down. Margaret Kimberley reTweeted him.

Too many people have decided to get into bed with a pedophile. That's on them. But don't make the mistake that THE VANGUARD did of thinking people have called Ritter out when they haven't, when instead they've promoted him.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, February 07, 2023

Low Joe

Graham Elwood.

I'm not sure if I've highlighted that one before. But last week there were a number of videos posted (and none this week so far) and I think I missed that one.

Now for Joe Biden -- NYT published an article late this afternoon with the headline "Biden's Approval Ratings Among The Worst For A President's Second Year." Google it if you want to read the article. The headline says it all though. What a loser.

And that's clear in the AP poll that MEDIAITE reports on:

The latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, out Sunday, offered nothing but bad news for President Joe Biden, who pundits would think would still be riding high after his party’s far-better-than-expected midterm election results.

However, the latest AP-NORC poll shows that only 1 in 5 U.S. adults want Biden to seek reelection and, even worse for the president, only 37 percent of his own party voters are included in that number.

Biden’s support among Democrats for reelection dropped a whopping 15 points from the weeks after the midterms last November, at which time 52 percent of Democrats supported Biden running again.

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

Tuesday, February 7, 2023. Julian Assange remains persecuted, Colin Powell roams the earth with no consequences, James Zogby remembers trying to get elected Democrats to stop the Iraq War, and much more

Starting with Julian Assange. Paul Dougan (TIMES-CALL) notes:

As Americans, we should be angry and disgusted that our government, and now the Biden administration, has been engaged in the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange is a political prisoner. He has never endangered the lives of Americans, and there is no evidence otherwise. “He went to extraordinary lengths to anonymize the sources and protect the sources at the same time. He was extremely responsible in his journalistic approach to this,” says Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of UK’s Labor Party. When WikiLeaks source Chelsey Manning was tried, she was acquitted of “Aiding the enemy.” If she’s not guilty of it, how can Assange be?

Yet, the U.S. security-state crowd vengefully want him punished — silenced. His “crime” has been to embarrass the powers that be by publishing accounts — confessions, really — voluntarily given him by former U.S. military personnel (whistleblowers), who have committed war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. By the way, you can’t rape someone in self-defense, and you can’t rationalize it as “collateral damage.” You don’t promote democracy, human rights and U.S. national security by using Black Ops death squads against innocent civilians. You don’t protect America by recklessly killing dozens of civilians in mistargeted and then covered-up drone strikes that make the locals hate us.

We the people, in whose name and with whose tax dollars these wars are waged, have the right to know, the need to know.

Julian remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist." 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

Eric Lichtblau (GUARDIAN) observes:

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.

We highlight Julian's plight here, we call for his freedom. That doesn't mean we note all the crazies are all the bulls**t from macho idiots. Papsmear? We're not interested. You don't know how to make an argument, not one that wins people over. If you're not the worst person online making an argument 'for' Julian, it's just because Andrea de Luca Valerie Myers exists. For those not aware of that crazy, she regularly attacks Stella Morris as a fake -- a deep state fake -- because, she tells us, she (Andrea) is actually Julian's fiancee. Also someone who needs to take a look at their work? The Twitter account entitled Free The Truth: Free Assange Documentary. You're not helping anyone, you're just pissing people off with your garbage. Taking a Julian quote and then Tweeting that same quote four times in a row, then taking another quote and Tweeting it four times in a row over and over all day does not help Julian Assange, it just makes everyone want to look at something else because they're looking for news about Julian and all they're getting your useless crap in their Twitter threads. This account is the reason the block feature exists exactly for those type of accounts. But do check out Andrea de Luca Valerie Myers if you want to marvel over just how insane some people are. She's preserved his CD Walkman, baby, she's keeping it for you until you return to her!!!! The Walkman, baby, she saved the Walkman!!!!

Instead, let's note journalist Chris Hedges.

THE REAL NEWS NETWORK offers a transcript of the above interview:

Chris Hedges:

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have carried out the most important investigative journalism of our generation, revealing to the public the inner workings of power through the release of luminous documents. No other news organization has come close. This information has exposed the crimes, lies, and fraud of the powerful, sparking the judicial lynching of Assange who awaits extradition to the US in a high security prison in London. It allowed people across the globe to understand what their governments are doing behind their backs. In this show, we will speak with the Italian investigative journalist, Stefania Maurizi, author of Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies, about some of the most important information provided to the public by WikiLeaks. These include the US War logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, a cash of 250,000 diplomatic cables and 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, along with the 2007 collateral murder video in which US helicopter pilots banter as they gunned down civilians, including children and two Reuters journalists in a Baghdad street.

They include the 70,000 hacked emails copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, that exposed the sleazy and corrupt world of the Clintons, including the donation of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the $657,000 that Goldman Sachs paid to Hillary Clinton to give talks, a sum so large, it can only be considered a bribe and her dishonesty, telling the public she would work for financial reform while privately assuring Wall Street she would protect their interests. The cash of leaked emails showed that the Clinton campaign interfered in the Republican primaries to ensure that Donald Trump was the Republican nominee, assuming he would be the easiest candidate to defeat. They exposed Clinton’s advanced knowledge of questions in a primary debate and a role as the principal architect of the war in Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate.

Joining me to discuss these and other revelations and their importance is Stefania Maurizi, who is an investigative journalist. She is the only international reporter who has worked on the entirety of the WikiLeaks secret trove of leaked documents. So why don’t we begin actually with a phone call you get in the middle of the night. It’s in the book. And I’ll let you take it from there. And you have one hour. So they call you, what, at two in the morning or something? Go ahead.

Stefania Maurizi:

Yes, yes. So first of all, thank you for having me, Chris. And I like your idea to discuss the very first time I work as a media partner with WikiLeaks. It was back in 2009 and WikiLeaks was not as famous as after the release of bombshells like the collateral murder video. And it was a tiny little known media organization. And I was looking at them at least since 2008 when one of my sources, journalistic sources, suddenly stopped talking to me. And it was at the point that I realized I needed better source protection because the old-fashioned techniques that basically are still at work in these days in newsroom, the use of mobile phones, emails, are no longer suitable in these days where heavy surveillance is the rule. So it was at that point that I realized that I needed good source protection. And since I’m a mathematician, for me, it was natural to look at cryptography as a tool to protect sources.

And at that time, there was only one media organization in the world using cryptography systematically. And that media organization was not the New York Times. It was not The Guardian. It was not the Washington Post. It was a tiny media organization founded by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks. And so I started looking at this work, but I had no contacts. I was just looking at them and the kind of documents they were publishing and I was deeply, deeply impressed. And I was deeply impressed, first of all, for the kind of very sensitive document they were able to get. But also, because of the courage. They were very courageous people because, for example, when they published the Guantanamo Manual and the Pentagon asked them to remove the document from their website, they said no. And in those days, it was not really common to have a media organization saying no to the Pentagon. Quite the opposite. After the 9/11, we had media reporting whatever the intelligence organizations were telling them with very few exception, of course.

And so I looked at them, but I didn’t know them. I was deeply interested in them in the work and learning from them. So it was that night in July 2009, that suddenly, they contacted me. They had my contacts because I had approached them and it was in the middle of the night and I was sleeping. And it was very sticky and hot. And the last thing I wanted to do was to wake up and answering my phone. But my phone kept ringing. So at the end, I woke up and I was told, “This is WikiLeaks.” And I could barely understand what was going on. I mean, I was sleeping. And I understood that I had to rush to my computer and download the file because I had an hour, just an hour, to download the file. And after an hour, they would remove it because others could download it.

So I went to the computer, I downloaded the file, and I started listening. It was an audio file. And it was very interesting audio file about the garbage crisis in Naples in 2009. Basically, Naples was drowning into garbage, into trash. And we had these images of Naples drowning in trash, which basically hit the headlines all around the world. So it was a conversation, a secretly recorded conversation by some people who had a conversation with a counselor discussing the alleged role of the Italian Secret Services in this garbage crisis. As many people don’t realize that garbage is a really important resource for mafia for the mafias. They are trafficking this trash. So this counselor was discussing the alleged state mafia deals behind this crisis. And without WikiLeaks, this information would’ve probably never surfaced.

I remember the morning after I called the counselor and I verified the files. WikiLeaks had done its own verification process, which, for me, was really important, because it confirmed that WikiLeaks was working as a media organization. It didn’t just put online whatever it received. It did its own verification process. And then, of course, it was trying to do its verification process in parallel with other journalists, because of course, no newsroom has the technical and journalistic skills to verify whatever it receives. And even traditional media often partner to verify and publish information with an impact. So for me, it was really important that they wanted to verify this information to establish whether it was genuine and to understand the local context. They didn’t just put on the internet whatever they received.

And I verified in parallel with them. And there was no doubts. The file was genuine. And at the time, I was working for the Italian leading news magazine, L’Espresso, which had done important work on the garbage crisis and the role of the mafias and so on. So I was even able to put in the context of this information. And that was the first time I work as a media partner with WikiLeaks before the collateral murder. And after that, basically after something like six months, WikiLeaks published the collateral murder video. And they, of course, became so famous, so well known all around the world. And since then, I basically never stopped working on the WikiLeaks secret documents. I have worked on the full documentation and I have worked on this case for the last 13 years.

But you have to realize that while I had no problems, I had some intimidation. And if you want, we can discuss what kind of intimidation. I was physically attacked in Rome, stolen important documentation. I was physically [inaudible 00:10:46] inside the Ecuadorian Embassy and I had several intimidation, but I was never put in prison. I was never arrested. Whereas for Julian, he has never gained known freedom. This is also one of the reason I’m so focused on this case because it’s like your editors tell you to go out with a colleague and your colleague falls out of a cliff. And you don’t abandon it. You don’t abandon him. You try to call people for help. You try to make people realize that this person is in danger. His life hangs in balance. And this is what also I’m trying to do. In addition to this, I have been litigating my FOI case to obtain the full documentation on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for the last seven years, which has been very, very intense.

Chris Hedges:

So this leak essentially tied the intelligence services, the Italian intelligence services, to the mafia in Naples. Would that be a summation of what you found out?

Stefania Maurizi:

Yeah. I mean, there was a kind of negotiation according to the source, according to the counselor discussing this crisis. There was a kind of negotiation between the state and the mafia about this crisis.

Chris Hedges:

I think this is something lost on many US viewers and readers, and that is the impact that WikiLeaks has had in countries, not just Italy, but Tunisia and Haiti. Maybe you can talk about the impact in Tunisia, the impact in Haiti. Because suddenly, countries around the globe were able to see not only what their governments were doing, but the interference, especially in Haiti, of the US embassy in attempt to crush a drive to raise the minimum wage, which, I can’t remember what it is, $2 an hour or something. But talk a little bit about the global impact these revelations had.

Stefania Maurizi:

Well, of course, for the first time, if you are referring to the Afghan war logs, Iraq war logs, or the cables, all these files allowed for the first time to access to this information which was secret. So I mean, there was no way to obtain this information unless you got a copy after 25 years, 30 years, maybe 40 years when no one care anymore. Maybe the historians, the professional historians, care at that point, but it was no longer relevant for the public opinion to take informed decisions, of course.

So that was the explosive part of this secret documentation. For the first time, we got access to secret information about how the Afghan war work, about the Iraq war, about the US diplomacy and their deals, their pressure, the political pressure, their crimes behind the scene. And we could get access as facts were still very relevant, not after 20 or 30 years or 40 years. And we could get access without the reductions. Because when you require request these documents using freedom of information. You often got completely redacted documents to an extent that they are useless. As a journalist or as a citizen, they have are of little use. So this information was really game changing, really allowed to take the public opinion, the decision they need. The information they need to take informed decision as citizens.

Julian Assange is held prisoner yet Colin Powell walks free. What a world.

James Zogby's column is being published by Pakistan's THE NATION (we highlighted it already once before from another publication):

Twenty years ago this month, the U.S. was rushing headlong into war with Iraq—one of the most consequential travesties in modern American history. Here’s how one congressman and I tried and failed to get the Democratic Party on record opposing that war. After 9/11, neoconservatives began their campaign to invade Iraq. Their arguments included: that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 terrorists; that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was secretly buying components to build a nuclear bomb; that the U.S. was attacked because our enemies saw us as weak, and demonstrated our strength and resolve we needed a decisive victory somewhere (anywhere); and that a complete victory in Iraq would be quick, easy, require few troops, be welcomed by the Iraqi people, and result in the establishment of a friendly stable democracy. 

These outright fabrications or, at the very least, matters that demanded vigorous debate were not challenged. The mainstream media largely served as an echo chamber for the war hawks, and most leading politicians were shy to criticize. 

In advance of the February 2003 meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and I submitted a resolution to encourage debate on the impending war. Using temperate and respectful language, it called on our party to urge the Bush administration “to pursue diplomatic efforts to achieve the disarmament of Iraq, to clearly define for the American people and Congress the objectives, costs, consequences, terms and length of commitment envisioned by any U.S. engagement or action in Iraq, and to continue to operate in the context of and seek the full support of the United Nations in any effort to resolve the current crisis in Iraq.”

Polling indicated that the majority of Americans and a supermajority of Democrats supported these positions. And we knew that if Democrats failed to challenge the rush to war, we would not only risk losing the support of voters but also shirk our responsibility to avert a war that would prove devastating to our country and the Middle East region. 

We'll wind down with this from GLAAD:

Since 2015, GLAAD’s annual Accelerating Acceptance study has measured Americans’ attitudes and comfortability towards LGBTQ Americans, highlighting the progress we’ve made and the challenges that still need to be addressed in pursuit of full acceptance for the LGBTQ community.

Since the study’s inception we have recorded a steady increase in many key figures of acceptance, but this year we found key changes of note: Non-LGBTQ Americans feel increased confusion around the letters and terms used to describe the community, with a majority inaccurately associating the term LGBTQ with being mostly about sexual orientation. Most alarmingly, LGBTQ people are reporting an increased incidence of discrimination, falling in particular on LGBTQ people of color, and transgender and nonbinary people. These disconcerting results prompted us to go further to explore LGBTQ Americans’ sense of being unsafe in America.

A significant majority of the LGBTQ community—a startling 70%—says that discrimination has increased over the past two years. It is taking place not in distant, seldom-visited corners of their experience, but in their daily lives—with family, in the workplace, on social media, in public accommodations, and in interactions with people at their children’s schools.

We found that more than half (54%) of transgender and nonbinary people feel unsafe walking in their own neighborhoods, compared to 36% of all LGBTQ adults, as well as less safe in various environments, from work, to social media, or in a typical store. More Gen Z Americans as well are out as LGBTQ than any other generation, yet a majority (56%) are more fearful for their personal safety in 2022 than in the prior two years.

These findings are distressing, but not unforeseen. Legislation targeting LGBTQ people and youth, including censorship in classrooms, book bans, bans on evidence-based healthcare and access to school sports, has ballooned since 2020 to nearly 250 bills introduced in statehouses across the nation. Eight in ten LGBTQ people strongly agree they wish there was more legislative action at the federal level to protect them as an LGBTQ person.

The good news is that the LGBTQ community is aligned, activated, and united. Three out of four LGBTQ adults strongly agree that visibility in society is essential to gaining increased equality and acceptance. A significant majority are committed to maintaining their visibility and supporting everyone in the community. Representation in the media is more important than ever, and 64% strongly agree to feeling proud and supported when there is accurate LGBTQ inclusion in the media, a core mission of GLAAD’s work.

The 2022 Accelerating Acceptance study clearly shows the destructive repercussions of inaccurate rhetoric and baseless legislation, and underscores the necessity of GLAAD’s crucial role in the ongoing fight for full LGBTQ equality and acceptance. The rise in discrimination in public, political, and private spheres makes it very clear that passing the Equality Act, legislation which will secure federal protections for the LGBTQ community in areas of life that have long remained vulnerable, has never been more critical.

GLAAD remains committed to amplifying stories that present audiences everywhere with the richness and humanity of our communities, that challenge harmful narratives, and educate audiences, voters, journalists, and politicians about our everyday lives. This report is more information regarding what’s at stake for LGBTQ people and what all voters need to know.

—Sarah Kate Ellis, President & CEO, GLAAD

Read the report

The following sites updated:

Idiot of this week? Me, for letting AMAZON and HULU clown me

I'm just not in the mood tonight. We went back to Boston, my daughter and I, today and why?

To visit with my family. Which is good. But, damn. It's so damn cold here.

I did not realize that.

And we went on Monday because she was supposed to get an album from AMAZON on Sunday. A package did get delivered. Wasn't Sam Smith. It's some stupid rap album by a group no one has ever heard of. She was so crushed when she opened it and saw it wasn't Sam Smith.

They sent the wrong damn thing. Now we had to make time in our busy day to return it via UPS. Then we get on the plane and fly here. No sooner are we here then she wants to watch something on DISNEY+ with her cousins. Mom and Dad don't have DISNEY+. No problem. Just go log in with our account. We've got the DISNEY-ESPN-HULU bundle. But it won't play on the TV.

I spend 30 minutes online with a HULU tech named Maria who can't even find my account for 28 minutes and keeps asking me for the zip code -- which I keep giving her. Finally, she asks me for my date of birth and she couldn't have asked that 28 minutes ago? Now it's 32 minutes ago and can she call me back? Back? We're not on the phone talking right now. She needs blah blah blah.

Screw this nonsense. I just go and change my plan to no ads -- which doubles the price -- and then it plays fine on Mom and Dad's TV.

I'm just sick of all the hassles. And don't get me started on the hassle at the airport.

A day shouldn't be that difficult.

And on AMAZON shipping the wrong thing. No. We should be able to trash it. Not have to go to UPS and send it back to them. We still don't have the album she ordered -- the one promised on Sunday. We won't be there for at least two weeks.

And my dad's fuming at AMAZON as well.

He ordered Diana Ross' SURRENDER from them on pre-order. They still don't know when they'll be sending it. They say they don't have it in stock. But if he pulls the item up, you see this:

$3.99 delivery February 15 - 21. Details

Or fastest delivery February 9 - 16.

So they're e-mailing him that it's out of stock but on the page where you can order it, they say they have it and they can deliver it as soon as 2/15.

It's nonsense.

He's mad, I'm mad, my daughter's mad. If we'd gotten here earlier, we'd all be happy. We'll be happy tomorrow. Dad's taking us to his favorite vinyl shop so she'll pick something out and she'll be happy -- maybe they'll even have the Sam Smith there that she wants.

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

Monday, February 6, 2023. Colin Powell gets remembered for the liar that he is, an Iraqi woman is murdered by her father (he's confessed, don't know why the press keeps saying 'alleged') in an 'honor' killing after her brother rapes her, and an Iraqi activist has been kidnapped.

It's the 20th anniversary of Colin Powell lying to the United Nations. How will you celebrate? Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reports:

The Speaker of the Russian Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, called for re-discussing the matter of ‘Colin Powell’s test tube’ that led to the invasion of Iraq in the United Nations, noting that this crime does not fall under the statute of limitations.
“I think it would be correct to bring up the outrageous lie that led to a terrible catastrophe for discussion very soon in the United Nations, where these events began to develop 20 years ago,” Matvienko wrote via Telegram.
“This crime has no statute of limitations. Therefore, it should remain in the memory of mankind. Our task is to do everything we can to prevent the erasure of truth about those events and those responsible for this tragedy,” Matvienko said.
“We should not allow those who made these decisions to escape the court of history,” Matvienko explained.
Matvienko indicated that the deliberate lie destroyed an independent state, and its ancient monuments, and caused the outbreak of a terrible humanitarian crisis in the region.

Australia's ABC also focuses on Colin's lies:

In February 2003, former US Secretary of State General Colin Powell falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

As his Chief of Staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson helped write the speech, but has since renounced it and America's war in Iraq.

In that same year, Greg Thielmann was a state department weapons expert, who publicly accused Colin Powell of misleading America by exaggerating the threat in Iraq.

Colin is a liar and he's long been a liar. In 2005, he sat down with Barbara Walters and only made it even more clear that he was liar who learned nothing from lying to the world. Ava and I covered that September 2005 appearance in "TV Review: Barbara and Colin remake The Way We Were" for THIRD:

Powell, like Robert Redford, is shown early on military drag. He models well, he just lacks Redford's ability to convincingly play a man torn between doing what others want and what he knows is right. They did keep the plot point of Hubbell's betrayal. Probably had to because without the testimony that destroys Hubbell, you have no story.

They've updated the testimony. Instead of naming names during the McCarthy period, Powell lies to the United Nations and the world. What they miss is the heart breaking scene when Streisand explains to Redford that people are their beliefs. Probably too much a laugh getter if it came out of Walters' mouth. But if they were worried about unintended laughs, someone should have spoken to Walters about the three strands of red, worry beads she's wearing.

Walters says, unable to look at him while she does -- oh the drama!, "However, you gave the world false, groundless reasons for going to war. You've said, and I quote, 'I will forever be known as the one who made the case for war.' Do you think this blot on your record will stay with you for the rest of your life?"

Powell: Well it's a, it's a, of course it will. It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United Nations, uh, United States, to the world. And it will always be uh, part of my, uh, my record.
Walters: How painful is it?
Powell: (shrugs) It was -- it *was* painful. (shifts, shrugs) It's painful now.

Has a less convincing scene ever been performed?

Possibly. Such as when Powell informs Walters that the fault lies with the intelligence community -- with those who knew but didn't come forward. Unfortunately for Powell, FAIR's advisory steered everyone to a Los Angeles Times' article from July 15, 2004:

Days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was to present the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations, State Department analysts found dozens of factual problems in drafts of his speech, according to new documents contained in the Senate report on intelligence failures released last week.
Two memos included with the Senate report listed objections that State Department experts lodged as they reviewed successive drafts of the Powell speech. Although many of the claims considered inflated or unsupported were removed through painstaking debate by Powell and intelligence officials, the speech he ultimately presented contained material that was in dispute among State Department experts.

Well movies always rewrite some details to make the characters more sympathetic and, presumably, that happened in this remake as well.

Having dismissed the need for facts, the "reluctant warrior" Powell now wants to weigh in on the invasion/occupation. Powell explains that we can't "cut and run" with regards to Iraq. We have to stay. He offers that "I'm not a quitter" himself -- amidst his stay the course nonsense. All this from the former Secretrary of State.

If it's so damn important that we "accomplish" over there, that we "stay the course," are the words really convincing coming out the mouth of the cut and run Secretary of State? Seems to us if you believe in this war as much as you say you do, and believe in staying the course, you . . . stay the course in your job. Powell didn't. There are the Rules for Powell and there are the rules for the rest of us.

Take Cindy Sheehan. She's a grieving parent and he feels sorry for her. Walters actually wakes up for this moment. And, in one of the few times prior to Powell's wife being brought on, she actually looks him in the eye while delivering her line.

Walters: But if you feel the war is just -- that's a different feeling than if you feel the war is is not.
Powell: Well, of course, for the person that is effected, it is. If they don't feel the war is just, they will always feel it as a deep personal loss.

Unlike Powell, we'd argue that regardless of beliefs on this war, the loss is a "deep, personal loss" for most, possibly all, who've lost family members. Maybe if he sent fat-boy Michael over there, he could find out for himself what it feels like? Till then, by his remarks, he's not anyone effected. How nice that must be.

But is the war just?

It's not a moral issue for Powell. He's already informed Walters of that. He lied. Well if he had to lie, forget the pre-emptive war debate for a moment, if he had to lie, what does that say about the war? Seems to us that a just war wouldn't be a war that required you pulling one over on the public to get support for.

It wasn't a moral issue, Powell states, going to war. Then what does it matter that he lied?
If it's not a moral issue, then what does it matter?

Powell's mea culpa is not only unconvincing, it's illogical. He's glad Saddam Hussein's gone. So why's he concerned with his "blot?" He's completely unconcerned that we're in a war that's based on lies. "I'm glad" he says. Sure he admits that he lied (by proxy -- it's others faults, you understand, nameless people in the intel community), but there's no moral concern. He's only worried about the slug line that now accompanies his name. The "blot." The tag 'liar, liar.'

Colin Powell lied to the United Nations. Not by proxy, he lied. His testimony. A testimony he made the decision to give. Despite objections from people in the department he headed. His accountability pose is hollow and unconvincing. Shrugs? "What are you going to do?" shrugs? That and the shiftiness during the exchange (he can't sit still during the exchange) back up his words. This isn't any big deal to him, that he lied and we went to war. He's just concerned that he's a known liar. For the rest of his life.

This is how he wants to be remembered:

"A good public servant somebody who truly believes in his country. . . . Somebody who cared, somebody who served."

Yeah well, Nixon wanted to be remembered a certain way as well. Liar's the way many remember him now. Liar's the way many will remember Colin Powell. Belief in your country doesn't allow you to lie to your country. Belief in your Bully Boy does. That's something this adminstration fails to grasp. They all think they're working for the Bully Boy. Powell makes statements to that effect. He's full of many things including his "service" to the Bully Boy.
The administration is supposed to be working for the country. Presidents come and go. The nation is what is supposed to matter. Belief in your country would mean you tell the people
the truth.

Somebody who served?

He didn't serve the country. He betrayed it. He didn't live up to his office. He didn't live up to the public trust. He didn't live up to the principles of democracy. He lied. He lied. He lied.

-----------

David North (WSWS) notes:

February 5, 2023, marks the 20th anniversary of US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s 2003 speech at the Security Council of the United Nations. In front of a worldwide audience, Powell told lies to justify the Bush administration’s criminal decision to invade Iraq.

Among the lying statements made by Powell were:

“We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.”
“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.”
“He [Saddam Hussein] remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons. … He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries.”
“What I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network … Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible.”

A murder in Iraq has sparked global attention. ALJAZEERA carries AFP's report:

The death of a young YouTube star at the hands of her father has sparked outrage in Iraq, where so-called “honour killings” continue to take place.

Tiba al-Ali, 22, was killed by her father on January 31 in the southern province of Diwaniya, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan said on Twitter on Friday.

Her murder is prompting numerous Tweets. Here's a sample.

The European Union's Ambassador to Iraq Tweets:

And some more Tweets.

Julian Bechocha (RUDAW) notes:

Unverified recordings of conversations between Ali and her father appeared to indicate that he was unhappy about her decision to remain in Turkey, according to AFP. In the recording, Ali also revealed to her parents that she was raped by her brother in 2017. Her parents acknowledged the assault but told her to forget about the incident.

After strangling his daughter to death, Ali's father surrendered to the authorities, according to Maan.

So her brother rapes her, her parents know and the response of the father -- for 'honor' -- is to kill her and not her brother who raped her?

There is no such thing as 'honor' killings and if that was never clear to you before, it should be now. He raped his own sister but the one to be killed was the woman?

Amnesty International issued the following:

Iraq: Action must be taken on gender-based violence after murder of Tiba Ali by her father

Reacting to the horrific murder of blogger Tiba Ali, who was murdered by her father in a family dispute, Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“Until the Iraqi authorities adopt robust legislation to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, we will inevitably continue to witness horrific murders such as that suffered by Tiba Ali, apparently at the hands of her own father.

“Iraq has failed to criminalize domestic violence despite an increase in reporting of incidents of domestic violence by national NGOs. Shockingly, the Iraqi penal code still treats leniently so called “honour crimes’ comprising violent acts such as assault and even murder. There is also no effective system in place for reporting domestic violence nor adequate shelters to protect women and girls.

“The murder of Tiba Ali must be investigated, the perpetrator brought to justice and the sentence must be commensurate with the gravity of this terrible crime, without recourse to the death penalty.”

Background

Tiba Ali had, local media reported, been living in Turkey and was under threat by her family but she had returned to Iraq for a visit, only to be killed on 1 February 2023. Her father has reportedly surrendered to the authorities. News of her murder broke on Wednesday night and social media users began to condemn the killing and call for accountability under the hashtag ‘We Demand Tiba’s Rights.’

A draft law on domestic violence was tabled and debated in the Iraqi Parliament in 2019 and 2020 but has stalled since then. In 2020, UN agencies in Iraq expressed their concern at the rising number of domestic violence cases during the Covid-19 pandemic.

SANGRI TODAY notes:

According to local media, Tiba was sleeping in her room when her father strangled her to death. After this, he himself went to the police and confessed his crime. Everyone is surprised about this incident.
According to media reports, Tiba had travelled to Turkey with his family in 2017, after which he refused to return to Iraq. Some purported recordings of Tiba going viral on social media suggest that Tiba left her home after she was sexually abused by her brother.

The United Nations issued the following:

UN in Iraq condemns the killing of Tiba al-Ali and calls on all parties to protect women and girls from violence

05 February 2023

The United Nations in Iraq condemns the abhorrent killing of Tiba al-Ali, a 22-year-old woman.

The avoidable death of Tiba is a regretful reminder of the violence and injustice that still exists against women and girls in Iraq today. So-called honour killing and other forms of gender-based violence violate human rights and cannot be tolerated. While some efforts have been taken by state institutions to combat these acts of violence against women, more needs to be done towards prevention, protection and accountability. We urge the Council of Representatives to strengthen the institutional framework, including repealing Articles 41 and Article 409 of Iraq’s penal code, and call for the enactment of a law that explicitly criminalizes gender-based violence, in accordance with international human rights standards, together with improved services for survivors and those at risk.

The United Nations calls on the Government of Iraq to support laws and policies to prevent violence against women and girls, take all necessary measures to address impunity by ensuring that all perpetrators of such crimes are brought to justice and the rights of women and girls are protected, so that they can live a life free from violence and discrimination.

Meanwhile Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:

A prominent Iraqi environmentalist was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on the way to the capital Baghdad, his brother told Rudaw English on Sunday, as his whereabouts remains unclear.

Jassim al-Assadi has been a prominent voice of Iraq’s environmental civil society for years, raising awareness of the threats facing the country’s southern wetlands. He is the head of Nature Iraq, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) accredited environmental group, working to preserve Iraq’s endangered marshes.

His brother, Nadhim al-Assadi, told Rudaw English that the activist was driving from Babil province towards Baghdad, accompanied by one of his cousins, on Wednesday when they were surrounded by two vehicles carrying a group of armed men wearing civilian clothing.