Thursday, February 10, 2022

Joe Biden keeps drooping

Starting off with Jimmy Dore.

Brian Stelter is a hideous personality and does not belong on TV because he's so vile and disgusting.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's approval ratings continue to drop. MEDIAITE notes:

President Joe Biden’s approval rating in the RealClearPolitics poll dropped below 40 percent for the first time.

The RCP Average – which includes the Economist/YouGov, Rasmussen Reports, Politico/Morning Consult, IBD/TIPP, Reuters/Ipsos, Monmouth, Insider Advantage and Harvard-Harris polls – shows Biden with a 39.8 percent approval rating and a 54.4 percent disapproval rating.

He's awful and the DNC deserves ill will for pimping that whore to begin with. He assaulted Tara Reade, he repeatedly sided with corporations over We The People, he loves war . . . The list never ends.

He never should have been the nominee let alone the president.

And you can watch the mind slipping away with every appearance. Notice how he's snapping the way the elderly does when they start losing awareness of their surroundings and current events.

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

Wednesday, February 9, 2022. The western press continues to make time to sell new wars while ignoring the ongoing war in Iraq as well as the strings being pulled by Nouri al-Maliki.

Cheap, tacky whores like Meryl Streep need to be held accountable for covering for predator Harvey Weinstein all those years. If you were stupid enough to trust Meryl when Rose McGowan rightly called her out, you're pretty damn stupid. Since Ronana Farrow's book came out, you're even more stupid. When he told Meryl what he was working on -- documented in his book -- she had a meltdown and told him to focus on something else because Harvey contributed so much to Democratic Party campaigns. Whore.

That's all she is. And Rose told the truth and Meryl thought it was over, then Ronan's book came out and the industry paid attention. Whore hasn't gotten any nominations of late for films, has she. She was overly petted at one time but that appears to be over. She's lost her support that she once had. That's what happens when whores get exposed.

It's a shame it took so long. It allowed the nit-wit (she's not a smart person and calling her "educated" is a gross stretch of the term) to preen in public and lecture. For example, when she had a film to promote she wanted us all to know how THE NEW YORK TIMES and THE WASHINGTON POST were our only hope and they were the God's truth and they were . . .

As the saying goes, bitch, please.

Right now, the outlets she praised are trying to sell a war. The same outlets, please remember, that sold the Iraq War just a little while back. They're back to doing what they do best.

Alan Macleod (MINTPRESS NEWS) explains:

Amid tough talk from European and American leaders, a new MintPress study of our nation’s most influential media outlets reveals that it is the press that is driving the charge towards war with Russia over Ukraine. Ninety percent of recent opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have taken a hawkish view on conflict, with anti-war voices few and far between. Opinion columns have overwhelmingly expressed support for sending U.S. weapons and troops to the region. Russia has universally been presented as the aggressor in this dispute, with media glossing over NATO’s role in amping tensions while barely mentioning the U.S. collaboration with Neo-Nazi elements within the Ukrainian ruling coalition.

Western media and governments have expressed alarm over a suspected buildup of Russian military forces close to its over-1200-mile border with Ukraine. There are reportedly almost 100,000 troops in that vicinity, causing President Joe Biden to warn that this is “the most consequential thing that’s happened in the world in terms of war and peace since World War II.”

Yet this is far from the first media panic over a supposedly imminent Russian invasion. In fact, warning of a hot war in Europe is a near yearly occurrence at this point. In 2015, outlets such as Reuters and The New York Times claimed that Russia was massing troops and heavy firepower, including tanks, artillery and rocket launchers right on the border, while normally sleepy frontier towns were abuzz with activity.

In 2016 there was an even bigger meltdown, with media across the board predicting that war was around the corner. Indeed, The Guardian reported that Russia would soon have 330,000 soldiers on the border. Yet nothing came to pass and the story was quietly dropped.

With the next spring came renewed warnings of conflict. The Wall Street Journal claimed that “tens of thousands” of soldiers were being deployed to the border. The New York Times upped that figure to “as many as 100,000.” A few months later, U.S. News said that thousands of tanks were joining them.

In late 2018, The New York Times and other media outlets were again up in arms over a fresh Russian buildup, this time of 80,000 military units. And in the spring of last year, it was widely reported (for instance, by Reuters and The New York Times) that Russia had amassed armies totaling well over 100,000 units on Ukraine’s border, signaling that war was imminent.

Therefore, there are actually considerably fewer Russian units on Ukraine’s border than there were even 11 months ago, according to Western numbers. Furthermore, they are matched by a force of a quarter-million Ukrainian troops on the other side.

Thus, many readers will be forgiven for thinking it is Groundhog Day again. Yet there is something different about this time: coverage over the conflict has been enormous and has come to dominate the news cycle for weeks now, in a way it simply did not previously. The possibility of war has scared Americans and provoked calls for a far higher military budget and a redesign of American foreign policy to counter this supposed threat.

Kyle Anzalone (ANTIWAR.COM) notes:

The Biden Administration is pressing the idea that Russia will invade Ukraine within the next two months, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan asserting that an attack could now come “any day.” The statement came shortly after the State Department announced that US intelligence believes Russia is preparing a video of a fake attack to create a pretext for war.

The Washington Postamplified the White House’s warning, citing several unnamed sources who said the US military and intelligence community believes Russia has 70% of its troops in place for President Vladimir Putin to exercise his maximum option. Should Moscow opt for a full-scale invasion, the assessment says, it will result in 50,000 civilian casualties, up to 25,000 military casualties, and 5 million refugees.

The assault is expected to come “after the ground freezes” sometime in mid-February and the window will remain open until late-March, sources told the Post.

Despite the anticipated humanitarian toll, Sullivan indicated that the Biden administration believes arming and training Ukrainians is working and could present an opportunity to land a blow on Russia. “If war breaks out, it will come at an enormous human cost to Ukraine, but we believe that based on our preparations and our response, it will come at a strategic cost to Russia as well,” he said.

However, the Europeans do not seem to match the Americans’ more bellicose attitude, with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba dismissing US forecasts of imminent war as “apocalyptic predictions.” That followed similar remarks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Washington’s breathless rhetoric was creating a crisis and that he doesn’t believe the threat of a Russian invasion has increased since last April.

Eager to start new wars while the previously new ones continue to drag on. XINHUA reports, "Three Iraqi soldiers and a civilian were killed on Wednesday in a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq's western province of Anbar, a security source said." The violence never ended in Iraq. Equally true, US service members remain on the ground in Iraq. But it's time to pimp the new wars, right? Don't worry, America, Meryl will be on board. There's a Democrat in the White House, after all.

For those of us who care about actual lives more than some political party -- especially some corrupt political party -- the political party of the war monger in chief really don't matter.

And we're aware that Iraq remains a US_created disaster. We're also aware that there is no government. SAWAH PRESS hopes there ia a break in the political stalemate and that the following will get things moving:

Today (Wednesday), for a period of 3 days, the Iraqi parliament opened the door for candidacy for the post of the country’s president after it failed to secure a quorum in its first session. Political observers suggested that this step would open the door to consultations again, which could lead to resolving the political stalemate after the Sadrist movement froze the negotiations to form a government and the continuation of the division between the two main Kurdish parties “the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Kurdistan Union”, against the background of each of them sticking to their presidential candidate.

The Kurdistan Union insists on supporting the current president, Barham Salih, while the Democratic Party adheres to its candidate, Hoshyar Zebari, whose candidacy procedures have been suspended by the Federal Supreme Court, accusing him of corruption cases. However, an informed source from the Democratic Party revealed that the party intends to present Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein as a reserve candidate for the presidency, pending the Federal Court’s decision regarding Zebari.

I don't think it iwll. I'd be thrilled to be wrong about that. I see why SAHWA believes that. They see a roadblock that went up and they hope this will address that.

I don't see one road block. I see organized opposition. Nouri al-Maliki has been leading it from the start. The former prime minister and forever thug is largely recycling the actions he took in previous election cycles.

For example? The road blocks didn't start with Zebari's nomination. They started pubicly when the Speaker of Parliament's election was challenged in court last month. What was the point of that? It wasn't about who was the Speaker despite being portrayed as such by many western outlets when they bothered to note the matter going before the courts. What was at stake was who is recognized as the winning power. Nouri used the courts to win on that issue in 2010 -- actually got the veredict in 2010 prior to the March elections that year and pulled it out when his State of Law did not get the most votes.

Time and again, we're seeing moves opposing Moqtada al-Sadr and his band and these moves are ones Nouri has used in the past. The Iraqi press has no problem speculating -- they're on strong ground there -- that Nouri is the one leading this. But the western press can't even utter his name. The challenge of Hoshyar? Doesn't it echo the way Nouri brought up old claims against then-political rival Saleh al-Mutlaq? (Yeah, it does.)

Over and over, we're seeing the same plays executed again.

And Nouri does fight that way, he will throw out anything to win. But don't think he's short term. He plans out. He goes long term. And my guess would be all of these battles are about frustrating the alliance that Moqtada's formed. If he could chip off the KDP, for example, that would be a victory. But he really just needs to chip off a few MPs. He's built his own coalition and has promises from MPs not yet officially with him to move towards him if Moqtada suffers more bruises.

Moqtada al-Sadr was never ready for thsi fight and clearly didn't expect it. A novice when it comes to the political game, Moqtada's been out played repeatedly.

And that's why the elections took place October 7th and yet there is still no president or prime minister. Tim Borlay (TURNED NEWS) observes, "After four months of quarrels, the Iraqi barons have still not succeeded in forming a majority parliamentary coalition, which is crucial for subsequently designating a new prime minister."

ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports on help that someone in Iran is attempting to offer the floundering Moqtada:

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has joined efforts to address the crisis between Iraq's Sadrist movement leader, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the pro-Tehran Coordination Framework as they grapple to form a new government.

Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Khamenei has forced the Coordination Framework to remain united, barring its members, specifically Hadi al-Ameri's Fatah alliance, from joining the rival Sadrist camp.

It was revealed that late last month leaders of the Framework had drafted a letter asking Khamenei to allow members of the alliance to join Sadr's coalition in spite of the reservations against him.

The letter was supposed to be sent by head of the State of Law coalition, led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but the decision to send it was never taken.

Maliki, however, "leaked it from behind their backs" because he knew that Khamenei's response would put an end to any chance of striking an alliance between the Sadrists and the Fatah alliance.

Poor Moqtada, so many are struggling to pull him across the finish line. And, you caught it right, who's pulling the actual strings? You saw who knows what he's doing and is playing longterm strategy? Nouri al-Maliki.

Maybe the western press just doesn't get it. Certainly, when he was in power, we spent years here noting how much damage he was doing and, in 2012, we were predicting the rise of ISIS because of Nouri. We've always taken him seriously. It's a shame the western press hasn't and that they're still missing the point with regards to him. ASHARQ AL-AWSAT notes remains "adamant on the exclusion of the State of Law coalition, specifically its leader former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki."

Meanwhile, Ali Hussein (ALARABIYA NEWS) notes:

Does the United States of America ever feel guilty? Do its politicians know that they were behind dragging Iraq into the labyrinth of sectarianism and were partners and witnesses of the big lie?

For a while I used to assume that the actual events on the ground are outside the control of the decision-makers at the White House, but it turned out these events are a daily testimony that those decision-makers were fully aware and conscious when they enabled particular politicians in Iraq to run the affairs of this country.

In utter frankness, we are continuously at extreme danger, and the flames raging in our country are expanding further and further so that they will reach everything. To sum up, the entire destiny of Iraq is hanging by a thin thread, and no one can predict when this thread will snap, or what will happen next?

Every day the Iraqis feel that they are going through the most difficult and dangerous era in the entire history of their land, an era that started with the major transition that took place back in 2003, when those same Iraqis who had lived for decades under dictatorship and tyranny became hopeful of new horizons and perspectives of a bright future. However, the new politicians erupted with their ugly faces, disintegrating the country, and turning it into an arena for warring sects and parties. We should be so grateful to those wise and skillful politicians who never fell short of advocating all kinds of fallacies and fabrications and of spreading rumors that promote a culture of violence and cruelty.

Again, the war never ended. Aziz Al-Rubaye (AMWAJ) reminds:

Mass abductions have become a widespread and harrowing phenomenon in Iraq over the past two decades. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Iraq has one of the highest numbers of missing people in the world, with hundreds of thousands reportedly abducted over the years.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq set off the kidnapping sprees, as various armed groups took advantage of the chaos to settle scores and collect ransoms. Not even government institutions have been spared from being stormed by kidnapping assailants who act without fear of legal repercussions.

Indeed, many kidnapping operations are sophisticated and have been tied to government officials, security forces, and armed groups. The victims include civil society and human rights activists, journalists, and members of religious minorities. In this context, a review of kidnapping cases and the testimonials of survivors underscores the failure of Iraqi authorities to address this issue...

We'll wind down with this from Ann Garrison's latest for BLACK AGENDA REPORT:

Frank Sterling is a KPFA Radio reporter, a KPFA First Voice Radio Apprentice Instructor, a Native American, and an advocate for the homeless and victims of police brutality. He lives in Antioch, California on the northern edge of the San Francisco Bay Area, in far eastern Contra Costa County. As an activist journalist he first began covering high profile police brutality cases that had already received wide media attention, like those of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and locally, Oscar Grant. Eventually he began to realize that similar cases were happening around him in Antioch, but that without media coverage, they were going largely unnoticed.

In September 2021, Frank was arrested protesting on the edge of a going away party for Tammany Brooks, Antioch’s first Black police chief . I spoke to Frank after his pre-trial hearing last week, which I also attended to support him. While I was outside court, a Black woman who had also come to support Frank told me that police had shot and killed her son, once in the head and twice in the back, in the parking lot of a nearby Nation’s Hamburgers, where they alleged he had been trying to buy some drugs.

Ann Garrison: Frank Sterling, tell us what you’re doing out here at Contra Costa County Superior Court in Pittsburgh, California.

Frank Sterling; I'm out here because they're trying to charge me with resisting arrest during a protest against the last Antioch Police Chief.

AG: That would be Chief Tammany Brooks, Antioch’s first Black police chief, now the deputy police chief in Boise, Idaho . Right?

FS: That’s him.

AG: Antioch is a city of roughly 111,000 on the northern outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area, and Boise, the capital and largest city in Idaho, is a city of roughly 226,000. So this was an upward career move for Tammany Brooks even though he’s not chief there yet.

FS: I think that’s fair to say.

AG: So what were you protesting?

FS: It was a going away party for Brooks as he was leaving for his new job in Boise. He was being celebrated by a group called Antioch Backs the Blue and a couple other community organizations. And a small group of activists, including myself, came to say that he should not be celebrated because of the crimes, we felt, he had committed against our community.

AG: This was September 21 last year, 2021, in an Antioch public park, right?

FS: That’s right.

AG: And what happened?

FS: Well, basically, the people that “back the back the blue” and the other people that were there to celebrate the chief—not everybody, but a couple of instigators—wanted to rip our signs out of our hands, and urged others to join in blocking us from getting near their party.

Basically, they were doing goodbye photo ops with the chief. There was a lot of handshaking and taking their pictures with the chief. They gave him a plaque and told him how much they loved him.

While that was going on, we were in the background trying to hold up our protest signs and get them into their photo ops, so that, unless they cropped us out, we’d be there.

So they started trying to block us out of their photos. Some of them started trying to take our signs and blocked us physically. Then the band started playing some music and they all started dancing in our direction until it turned into a melee. People tried to take our signs and our bullhorn from us. I wasn't in a physical altercation, but other members of my group were being physically attacked, especially by one angry woman.

AG: Was she a police officer?

FS: No, but she was one of the organizers of the event. Eventually the police sort of pushed them aside and arrested us.

AG: In the pictures there are three or four officers holding you down on the ground. It looked a lot like the George Floyd arrest.

FS: Yeah, one of them tackled me, then they surrounded me on the ground, zapped me twice with a taser, and cuffed me.

AG: What was it you were protesting about Tammany Brooks history as Antioch Police Chief?

FS: There were a few things. First, he had been celebrated when he first got there as someone who was going to make serious change. And he was our first African American police chief. The outgoing chief hailed him as a team player, and he had this great story about growing up poor in San Francisco’s Bay View Hunter’s Point neighborhood, having a troubled childhood, and rising up to be this chief of police in spite of it.

But one of the things that he did was to authorize surveillance of our activists by tracking their phones and their cars through data tracking apps and other surveillance technologies.

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, February 09, 2022

Jimmy Dore and Maximillian Alvarez

Here's Jimmy Dore.

Cohen is a creep. And he's the new Moby. Remember when idiots worshipped Moby only to find out many years after the fact what a ridiculous piece of nonsense Moby was?

Moby revealed himself to be trash and now Cohen's been revealed to be the same.

I also want to note Maximillian Alvarez (IN THESE TIMES):

A crucial labor battle is currently unfolding between railroad workers and BNSF Railway, the largest freight railroad network in North America. Earlier in January, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART-TD), which together represent roughly 17,000 railroad workers, initiated steps to prepare for a strike that would have begun on the Feb. 1. This would comprise the largest railway strike in recent memory, and the unions have cited as the main point of contention a new BNSF scheduling and availability policy that workers say will separate them from their families and make it next to impossible to live and reasonably plan their lives. BLET National President Dennis Pierce and SMART-TD President Jeremy Ferguson called BNSF’s so-called “Hi-Viz” policy “the worst and most egregious attendance policy ever adopted by any rail carrier.”

However, on Tuesday, Jan. 25, a U.S. District Court judge granted BNSF a temporary restraining order blocking the two unions from striking, saying that a strike would cause the rail company “substantial, immediate and irreparable harm.” In this interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with retired railroad worker and union leader Jeff Kurtz about BNSF’s “Hi-Viz” policy and why workers in the railroad industry are prepared to strike.

Jeff Kurtz was a railway engineer and union member for 40 years. He served as a union officer most of his career, including eight years as president of BLET Local 391 and chairman of the BLET Iowa State Legislative Board, where he oversaw safety and legislative matters for the union in the state for four railroads for 10 years. He retired in 2014 and served as state representative for one term in the Iowa House after winning the 2018 election in his House district. He now works in a volunteer capacity with Railroad Workers United and the local labor chapter of the Iowa Federation of Labor.

By the way, SUPERMAN & LOIS was a repeat tonight. I guess because of the Olympics.

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

Tuesday, February 8, 2022. As the faux left enlists supposedly independent podcasters, we look at some realities on who did what.

Starting with Patrick Murphy. "Taking the Hill Event today (Tuesday)!" went up this morning and, sure enough, some are complaining. It's an action that Patrick Murphy is taking part in and I'm supposed to be embarrassed for highlighting it.

I'm not.

We're on the left. We highlight many things on the left that are to the right of me.

If you feel Patrick's action is to the right, ignore it. But I'll highlight his stuff when I see it at the public account. It's the same with Beto and his run for governor. I can't endorse him and won't. I only endorse in elections I can vote in. No one needs a bunch of outsiders telling them how to vote or telling a candidate how to act. Remember how poorly that worked out ofr the woman Ronan Farrow called "Abortion Barbie"? But Beto and Patrick both did things in Congress to fight for causes I believed in -- ending the Iraq War, veterans benefits. And if I'm sent something about them, I will highlight it.

Unlike other people, Ive been very clear about conflicts of interests and I've been very clear that I will not call out some people. I avoid calling out Chris Hayes. I believe Ava and I have called him out twice at THIRD. Other than that, I don't. And even if you're not a community member, you should, if you've read this site for long, know why that is. Iraq Veterans Against the War saged a sereis of public testimony about the reality of war in Iraq.

And one worthless bit of nonsense that was supposed to be about assualt in the ranks. However, they had no one to speak of it and what we got instead was some useless woman explaining that, at a bar, she danced with her commanding officer. And that ended upb eing so bad for her -- that dancing on the dance floor. We called that garbage out in real time. Please note that this site and every community site noted those public hearings. We covered them. And that edition of THIRD was focused on it. We criticized negatively that nonsense "Oh, I danced -- by my own choice -- with my commanding officer" and how that wasn't assault and it wasn't rape and it was embarrassing.

We got slammed by about 20 IVAW members. Now I had promoted the winter soldier events for over a month and a half. And the minute it started, we were covering it here.

There was no thanks for that. There was no, "I'm so glad you paid attention to it." No, it was just ten whiners complaining that a bimbo conference wasn't treated with kid gloves by us.

Not only did I cover it, I worked behind the scenes to get coverage for it.

People say I'm too mean to Phil Donahue's friend Jeff. I'm not too mean to him. He's an idiot who never nails down his facts. After the event -- after -- he finally writes about it. He had promised he would write a pieace about it beforehand or during to steer attention to the proceedings --. I believe the event opened on a Thursday, had its first hearing/panel on Friday, had some on Saturday and some on Sunday -- concluding on Sunday.

I argued with my lcal PACIFICA that this was more important than dee jay tunes. None of their weekend garbage needed to be heard. This was historic and it needed to be covered live. Fortunately, others were making that point with KPFA as well and every moment was broadcast live on KPFA.

After the event wraps up, here comes Jeffy Pop Cohen to name check WBAI (another PACIFICA station) and to give PACIFICA credit for airing it live on all of its stations.

That. Did. Not. Happen.

And that's why I still can't stand Jeff Cohen.

Only KPFA did it. If you were a WBAI listener? On Saturday, along with bad music programs, you got to hear a repeat of Al Lewis -- Grand Pa Munster. I don't remember now how long Al had been in the ground.-- I believe it was two years at that point -- but it was more important for WBAI to broadcast garbage like that than it was for them to offer live coverage of the Winter Soldier event.

So Jeff Cohen lying or showing how little he knew I didn't have time for it. Or any of the other liars. Matthew Rotschild swore he was going to note it ahead of the vent so that people would know that they could stream all of it on KPFA which was covering it live.

I guess he ended up having other things to do because he never kept his word. I gave him one more chance before I wrote him off. Cindy Sheehan was being persecuted by the US government. And he swore he was going to write one of his columns on it. And then he never did.

A lot of people make promises and a lot of people promised that they would cover Winter Soldier and then they didn't.

Chris Hayes was at THE NATION at the time. He kept his word. He made a promise and he kept it. So that's why I avoid inegative criticism of him. You can think I'm right or wrong on that. Btu I've been very clear for years and years why this is.

This will all loop together in a moment or two, stay with me. FRED HAMPTON LEFTISTS was a YOUTUBE program and channel. It is now REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT. Thursday night, I streamed the video below.

I'd planned to address that in the Friday snapshot but then we focused on Doski Azad who was murdered by her brother in a so-called 'honor' killing an there wasn't room. For any who missed that news, this is a Tweet from Salman Mustafa:

Doski Azad, a 23-year old transgender woman from the Kurdistan Region in Iraq was brutally murdered by her brother in an "honour" killing. Ask the authorities to bring the murderer to justice, and keep #LGBT+ people safe. #JusticeForDoskiAzad

action.allout.org

Justice for Doski Azad

Doski Azad, a 23-year old trans woman from the Kurdistan / Iraq was brutally murdered by her brother in an "honor" killing. Ask the authorities to bring the murderer to justice, and keep #LGBT+...

6:18 AM · Feb 8, 2022

Back to REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT, the issues they are reaising in that video are important ones. I like Marianne Williamson. But she's not above criticism. I've called her out here for choosing to 'discuss' the plight of Afghan women by bringing on . . . a member of the US military who fought in Afghanistan. Apparently, there are no Afghanistan women who can speak for themselves.

I know that's a lie, by the way. My disenchantment with Gloria STeinem (and the end of our friendship) began when I started speaking out against the Iraq War and came across an activist from Afghanistan -- who'd also been a beauty queen in her country -- and she told me all the promises Gloria made her and how quickly Gloria walked away from the issue. Gloria had a nasty habit of doing that -- ask Sondra Locke -- but here she was doing it to a woman whose country was at war, a country the US had invaded and Gloria thought empty promises were the answer.

Marianne could have and should have brought on an Afghanistan woman to speak to that topic. To allow someone who wasn't from that country, someone who had picked up a weapon and deployed to that country, to speak on behalf of that country was outrageous.

I called her out a time before. And I'd forgotten about it until I watched the video above.

Joe Biden had yet to be elected president.

Marianne went on RISING with Krystal and Saagar as hosts. And Marianne had some truts to tell about the primary . . . and she would, she explained, after the election. But not now. It might hurt voter turnout.

I don't believe that you hold onto truths and only dole them out when no one will be embarrassed.

So we noted it that day, here, in a snapshot.

All this time later, Marianne has still not shared those stories. Is she working for the people of this country or for the Democratic Party? DOn't pretend it's the same thing. It's not.

Krystal was on the panel being called out. Ans ehs should be called out. She's had Marianne on her program since -- both RISING and now BREAKING POINT -- and never raised that issue. She needs to be called out. Brie-Brie? I don't take her seriously. I know some of you think she's a brave voice. Whatever. Then there's Katie Halper.

Katie's partner on USEFUL IDIOTS is off for a year working on a book. And the idiot move was made to bring on Aaron Mate as her co-host during that peirod. To his credit, Aaron has gotten less stiff and might actually end up being good on air.

But that doesn't justify his bringing on Katty Van Van. Katrina vanden Huevel was on last week. We didn't note it. She's a traitor to women. I shouldn't have had to spend months and months calling her out for publishing a man arrested multipe times -- and convicted for it and put in prison for it -- for atempting to have sex with underae girls. I shouldn't have had to go over that for months and months and to point out that if it were her daughter at risk, she'd care. Ava and I shouldn't have had to compile statistics on how a Katrina-led NATION magazine published less women then men. We started charting it on a weekly baiss. About six months in, THE NATION is in a tizzy and we're offered our own column and links and this and that if we will kill the story. Excuse me, we already have our own forum -- I have this site and Ava and I have THIRD. And that bribery was insulting. We're not whores who can be bought off.

At the end of the year we wrote "The Nation featured 491 male bylines in 2007 -- how many female ones?" Here's how that piece kicked off:

In one of her "I just remembered I'm a woman!" posts at The Nation's Editor's Cut, Katrina vanden Heuvel felt the need to weigh in that 20 million women (she labels them "unmarried," we'll just note that none are recognized as married by federal law) didn't vote in the 2004 elections and that, in 2006, the number rose to 30 million.

Oh, the humanity!

Of course, one could argue that anyone truly concerned about the number of women who vote would realizae it might be larger (and this is numbers, not proportions -- there are more adult women in the US than adult men) if women were actually invited to the table.

vanden Heuvel is both editor and publisher of The Nation magazine. So who's she had over for dinner?

For those late to our own party, in the summer of 2006, a number of women -- established and emerging writers -- brought to our attention that The Nation wasn't publishing women, that solid articles by women could be easily snapped up elsewhere but The Nation was consistently sending out a message of "Men Only." We hadn't noticed. We'd been focused on Iraq and hadn't noticed the imbalance (which did exist). They wanted the issue addressed at The Common Ills but (a) the site had already switched over to the Iraq focus (at the request of members) and (b) the year was half-over. Would it be okay if we monitored the imbalance at The Third Estate Sunday Review? It was. So we agreed that we would monitor 2007.

For those who want the quick version: 149 female bylines. 491 male bylines only 149 female.

Thatnks for the 'sisterhood,' Katty Van Van.

Then there was her refusal to cover War Resisters -- she was afraid that THE NATION's print subscription might be impacted, penalties might be imposed through the mail.

She was -- and remains -- a failure in every way.

But there she was chatting with Katie. And that just reminds me that well known liar John Nichols -- we've documented him at THIRD, Google -- is also someone Katie's had on her programs. But not John Stauber. Unlike Katty and Nichols, John Stauber's the real deal, he's not a partisan hack. If you want to talk politicis, our system, wars, etc, you go to John Stauber, not to John Nichols.

The ladies in the video cleary don't want to talk reality. They want to be partisan hacks. And that's why they are telling you to support this or that candidate. To pimp their lies, you have to believe that The Squad actually delivere4d -- or that they even tried.

They didn't.

There are real issues that need to be addressed.

How shameful that Katie, Bri-Bri, Krystal and Marianne would rather offer partisan hackery than reality.

And let me offer REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT a tip if they ever want to cover Katty van van. Her family sued to avoid paying inherentance taxes. Her grandfather made his millions off the backs of entertainers of color and Katty van van occupies a mansion in Harlem. While giving nothing back to the community.

I'm not surprised that Aaron Mate wants to promote her. This is the man who used to worship at the crotch of Amy Goodman. But I'm appalled that Katie Halper went along with. Skin color is how White Katty van van got to where she is. And she's done nothing to help people of color.

On Iraq, ALJAZEERA notes that no president was elected yesterday:

Monday’s session reflects the deep divisions among Iraq’s political factions that have only grown since the October 10 parliamentary elections, the results of which have been rejected by political groups supported by neighbouring Iran.

Iraqi politicians have not been able to agree on a compromise candidate for the country’s top post, and the delay raises concerns of a presidential vacuum that would also prevent the appointment of a prime minister.

According to Iraq’s post-war convention, the largely ceremonial post of the president should be held by a member of the country’s Kurdish minority, the prime minister must be a Shia and the parliament speaker a Sunni.

Iraq normally enters months of political deadlock after each general election as the political elite jockey for spots in the new government.

Iraqis are increasingly disillusioned with the political process, accusing nearly all their politicians of corruption.

Political analyst Ihsan al-Shammari said the failure to elect a president is a prelude to political crises that will continue to rage in Iraq until a consensus can be reached.

“Continuing to violate the constitution is an indication of the depth of the political differences between the political blocs and political forces in Iraq,” he said.

It's a political stalemate. We were the first to use the term in 2010 and I'll guess we'll be the first this go round as well. October 10th elections were held. In two days, it will be February 10th. There is no president. There is no prime minister.

But, goodness, didn't the US press pimp Moqtada as a king maker. That is why Joe Biden's administration gave him US tax payer dollars -- tax payer dollars to a man responsible for the deaths of so many US service members. As usual, the US government didn't know what they were doing.

And now it's political stalemate time. As interesting as it is to watch things unfold, it's equally interesting to watch how certain people make it their purpose to ignore what's happening or to just lie about what's happening.

Every obstacle post-election has been planned and most of them were deivsed by former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki but the western press can't even seem to find his name.

It's a strange sort of world they're pretending to portray. And doing so, please remember, when they're accusing this comedian and that comedian of not telling the truth of not being able to pass fact checks. It's so very interesting what they accuse others of.

The following sites updated:

Monday, February 07, 2022

Jimmy Dore, Alan Macleod

First up, Jimmy Dore.

Over at MINT PRESS NEWS, Alan Macleod writes:

Periodic hysteria

My legs and shins are killing me today. I get that way from time to time. Do you remember HEROES? I used to write about that show here. Remember Daphane? When her superpowers failed her, she'd have to use canes to walk. I always feel like something like that's going to happen when my shins and legs feel as painful and stiff as they do today.

I wanted to like HEROES REBORN -- and I did like the new characters on that show. But bringing back Noah and not Claire? I didn't need that crap and HEROES' biggest problem was always its sexism so they really couldn't afford to not bring back any female character who had powers and qualified as a good guy.

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

Monday, February 7, 2022. No president in Iraq -- despite the October 10th elections, despite the Iraqi Constitution, despite everything.

One minute, Shi;ite cleric and plus-size model Moqtada al-Sadr was screaming, "You should be dancing!'' and rushing to the floor. The next, former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Mliki done f**ked up Moqtada's cabbage patch.

Toeday, the Parliament was supposed to elect Iraq's president. Seemed not all that difficult. Moqtada's alliance, the KDP and the alliance of Speaker of Parliament Mohamed al-Halbousi was solid and had delivered what appeared to be control over the next government in Iraq. The western press certainly thought that was the case.

So how did it fall apart?

MIDDLE EAST ONLINE notes, "Iraq's parliament failed on Monday to elect a president as it lacked the quorum to hold a voting session, lawmakers said." Sinana Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

By late afternoon, quorum had not been reached to hold the vote with less than 60 MPs out of 329 in attendance.

The meeting in the Council of Representatives was then turned into a deliberative session where MPs discussed several issues such as agriculture and forming parliamentary committees.

The position for a new president will likely remain vacant until quorum can be made.

What passes for the government is in violation of the country's Constitution but they've been in violation for months with no one noticing. The elections were back in October. October 10th. The time to name a president is now passing but they didn't convent the Parliament on time -- not per the schedule outlined in the Constitution -- either.

MEMO notes:

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) candidate for the presidential election in Iraq said on Sunday that he "respects" the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily suspend his candidacy, Anadolu has reported. Hoshyar Zebari's campaign was suspended due to "corruption claims" against him, a day before the Iraqi parliament was due to vote on the position.

The Supreme Court said it had received a complaint from MPs that Zebari's candidacy was "unconstitutional" because of the corruption claims dating back to 2016. It added that the suspension is "temporary" while the court considers the case.

In 2016, 68-year-old Zebari was removed from his position as finance minister after financial and administrative corruption allegations. He is one of two main contenders for the presidency. The other favoured candidate is the incumbent, Barham Saleh.

"We are confident the court will insist on implementing the rules and conditions for the position of the Iraqi presidency," said Zebari on Twitter, "otherwise this will be just a case of using power."

That's what happened. How did it happen is another story.

Moqtada is not a king maker. He nows how to pick out an extra large caftan, he doesn't know how to be a political player.

The US government gave him a large sum of money (a bribe) last fall. And the thinking there was that they'd try something different. Soemthing wise? No, something different. Nothing else had worked and they'd been opposed to Moqtada this whole time so what if they tried bringing him into the fold?

What did he have to offer? The many scalps of dead US service members. He had that. Which is why some people didn't want to work with him but others in Joe Biden's administration -- egged on by Antony Blinken -- insisted that doing the same thing over and over was the defintion of insanity.

They abosrbed the AA mantra very well. Common sense? They had none.

Common sense would have required an honest evaluation of Moqtada. Such an evlatuation would have noted that he was out of step and out of touch with Iraq's young people. That's not a minor point in a country when the median age is 21-years-old. He's out of step and out of touch and represents yesterday, not today and certainly not tomorrow.

Common sense would have led them to understand that there even among Moqtada's own cult, members were unsatisfied. That tends to happen when, for example, Moqtada presents himself as a leader for nearly 20 years and yet Sadr City remains a slum. Forget fixing the country, he can't even improve the conditions in the slum where the bulk of his cult lives.

Yes, wasting money on Moqtada was different than wasting money on other officials. But different isn't always smarter and it certainly isn't sane.

The US government -- and its security state known as the corporate press -- highly miscalculated.

They all got on board with Moqtada -- a man responsible for the deaths of so many American men and women. They spat on the veterans. Now, at some point, you have to make your peace with your enemies and rivals. That's part of a war ending. But worshiping at the feet of Moqtada was never a common sense position for the US government.

It's failed and we're not seeing any reflection of that among the press (the security state) that pimped him and hailed him as a king maker.

He was never a king maker.

He's just a fat whore who leads a cult (and a militia) and who has seen his power rapidly decrease.

'He won the elction!' He really didn't. His political party did well. He built an alliance that did better. But there was no winner in the election. You could argue that the KDP was the winner in Kurdistan because they so overwhelmingly defeated their rivals (Gorran is no more and the PUK is on the ropes at present). But throughout Iraq?

The majority position of Iraqi adults was that the process does not work. That shouldn't have surprised anyone, certainly not Joe Biden. Belief in elections in Iraq have steadily decreased since 2010. Joe Biden was vice president back then. The mind is weak and frail -- and was even then -- but surely he remembers his trip to Iraq where he pushed The Erbil Agreement and insisted everyone had to sign on and ridiculously compared the whole thing to Ireland. What the hell was he talking about? No one knew. Not even the non-Iraqis present. They all thought it was a senior moment.

Emma Sky has written about it many times, including in her book The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

If you're late to the party, you might try reading it. The Erbil Agreement overturned the votes of the Iraqi people who showed up at the polls to vote Nouri al-Maliki out as prime minister. The Erbil Agreement was a contract overseen by the US government which overturned the votes and was signed off on by leaders of the various Iraqi political parties. It gave Nour a second term.

Iraqis risked their lives to vote in 2010 amidst violence. Their reward was to have the US government overturn their votes.

It's no suprrise that this resulted in a lower turnout in subsequent elections.

Not a surprise at all, we warned about it in real time.

And then we came to October 10th of last year and the Iraqi people stayed home. The lowest turnout since the elections started post-2003 invasion.

Failed leader Moqtada benefitted from the lowest turnout in an Iraq election since the 2003-US-led invasion. Even with Moqtada telling his cult to vote -- ordering them to -- his candidates still got less votes -- the lowest number that they've ever gotten. A detail the soft-on-Sadr western press loved to ignore. He doesn't even have the hold on hs followers hat he once had.

REUTERS reported yesterday:

Iraq's Supreme Court on Sunday suspended a former foreign minister's presidential bid over graft allegations and many lawmakers said they would boycott a Monday vote for a new head of state, prolonging a political standoff.

The court said the candidacy of Hoshyar Zebari, a Western-friendly veteran Iraqi Kurdish statesman, could not proceed until corruption charges from a separate 2016 stint as finance minister were dealt with.

The decision was a blow to populist Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who was the biggest winner in an October election and has vowed to quickly push through a government that could exclude Iranian allies.

Sadr, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of which Zebari is a member and an alliance of Sunni Muslim lawmakers had supported Zebari's bid for president.

Hoshayr Zebari is, of course, Hillary Cinton's good friend. He's many other things as well but, right now, he's an example of corruption in Iraq.

Is Hoshyar himself corrupt? I have no idea. At the time the charges were made, it was said by many that these were smears being used to derail his political career. True? If not true, Iraq is incredibly corrupt in every way because they never, in six years, moved forward on the legal charges. Instead, they just sat them aside.

Now Hoshyar is attempting to run for another office and the charges are brought back up.

Either they were smears -- and this is a smear as well -- or the Iraqi government from 2016 forward has been so corrupt that they've let a guilty person go free.

Tim Borlay (TURNED NEWS) adds:

On Saturday, the first force in parliament, the current of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, announced that its 73 deputies would not participate.

Sunday evening, the sovereignty coalition, ie 51 deputies led by the speaker of parliament Mohamed al-Halboussi, a Sadrist ally, also revealed its absence.

Later in the evening, the third pillar of this informal alliance, the influential Democratic Party of Kurdistan (PDK, 31 deputies), in turn announced its absence, with the aim of continuing consultations and dialogue between the political blocs.

Moqtada's deal making depends upon him holding the players -- that would be the KDP and an al-Halboussi's coalition. Without them, he has no hold and Nouri al-Maliki is the one in control.

Former prime minister and forever thug Nouri? His hands are all over this. Well played, Nouri. It's highly treminiscent of how he used the electoral commission and the Justice and Accountability Commission (remember them? If you don't sit down because you have no analysis to share) and the Supreme Court throughout 2006 and 2010. He's yet again attempting to derail a candidacy by using a supposedly impartial body.

And if he succeeds, it brings him ever closer to control of Iraq.

Thursday, the Atlantic Council's Abbas Kadhim observed:

Sadr would like to increase his coalition by adding a number of his Shia competitors, but he is vehemently opposed to allying with former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose State of Law coalition currently has thirty-eight seats in the COR. Maliki just managed to secure a renewal of his term as chairman of the Da’wa Party on January 15, and seems to have been able to keep his large non-Sadrist alliance together (until now), despite Sadr’s multiple attempts to court some of Maliki’s allies.

Ahead of the election, we repeaedly warned Nouri was still a player. The western press ignored him. Since the election, we've repeatedly warned Nouri is a player and the western press has ignored that reality. More and more people are starting to realize that they can't cover the politial climate currently without covering Nouri.

Nouri used to be the US government's pet. Bully Boy Bush backed him in 2006 because the CIA's analysis found Nouri to be incredibly paranoid and it was felt that the US government could use thta paranoia to control him. In 2010, Barack and Joe backed Nouri -- despite it being already known that he had torture chambers and secret prisons -- because Samantha Power argued convincingly (to them anyway) that Nouri could be manipualted to keep US troops in Iraq. In 2012, the US government worked against bascially everyone not in Nouri's State of Law by derailing a no-confidence vote against Nouri supported by Amir al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr, the KDP, Iraqiya . . . When Nouri wanted his third term, as Mosul and other parts of Iraq had fallent o ISIS (an organization created in opposition to Nouri), Barack Obama was telling Nouri it was over and step aside.

Nouri still wants that third term, still wants to be prime minister. And he was trained to fight dirty by the uS government and he was encouraged to fight dirty by the US government.

Why is anyone surprised to discover Nouri doing just that today?

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Thursday, February 10, 2022

Joe Biden keeps drooping

Wednesday, February 09, 2022

Jimmy Dore and Maximillian Alvarez

Monday, February 07, 2022

Jimmy Dore, Alan Macleod

Periodic hysteria

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