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Wednesday, June 01, 2022

That awful Jankowicz

Interesting video.

The Ministry of Disinformation is dead for now. Ruth covered it in our community. But the woman who was tasked to lead it keeps going around lying to friendly media types who treat her as someone with honesty and character. She has none. Kit Klarenberg (MPN) reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a piece of work.

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

Wednesday, June 1, 2022. US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange though some hope a new government in Australia may mean the end of that, Iraq continues to be hit hard by climate change and much more.

US President Joe Biden continues to tank in the polls leading to the chatter that, after the mid0terms, he'll be getting a new chief of staff and making other changes. After. In the meantime, while over 50% of Americans think he;s doing a bad job, he continues to persecute Julian Assange in his never-ending war on the First Amendment. Julian's 'crime' remains reporting the truth. It's a sad country that goes after someone for telling the truth. Joe needs to drop his demand that the UK turn Julian over to US authorities.

Julian did not commit treason -- as an Australian citizen, he cant carry out treason against the United States. Australia's recent election has some hoping that Julian's ordeal might come to an end. Last week, Brendan Mounter and Adam Stephen (Australia's ABC) reported:

The family of Julian Assange is hopeful the election of a federal Labor government will pave the way for the WikiLeaks founder's eventual release and a return to Australia.

It has been almost a decade since Mr Assange, who originally hails from Townsville in north Queensland, has been a free man.

For the past three years, he has been in high security detention at Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom, after seven years of asylum within London's Ecuadorian embassy in a bid to avoid arrest.

United States authorities have sought Mr Assange's extradition from the UK so he can stand trial on charges of espionage and computer misuse relating to hundreds of thousands of leaked cables from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His brother, film producer Gabriel Shipton, said Mr Assange had been persecuted for publishing the ugly truths of war.

"Julian is accused of what investigative journalists do all the time, which is sourcing and publishing materials from a source, Chelsea Manning," Mr Shipton said.

Rachel Evans (GREEN LEFT) adds:

Free Julian Assange activists took action outside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Marrickville office on May 26 and asked him to “Make Julian Assange’s freedom top priority”.

While in opposition, Albanese told a Labor caucus meeting in February last year that “enough was enough” and “I don't have sympathy for many of his actions but essentially I can't see what is served by keeping him incarcerated”.

Latika Bourke (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD) reports:

Government MP Julian Hill has urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to stick to his principles and encourage the United States to drop its extradition of Julian Assange.

When opposition leader, Albanese declared Assange’s incarceration in the United Kingdom – pending his extradition to the United States, where he faces spying charges – had gone on long enough and he wanted him freed.

Asked during Tuesday night’s press conference if he would match his rhetoric as opposition leader now he is prime minister and encourage the United States to drop the charges, Albanese said “my position is that not all foreign affairs is best done with the loud hailer”.

Government backbencher Julian Hill, a member of the bipartisan Bring Julian Assange Home parliamentary group, on Twitter attacked the use of “weasel words”.

“I hope one of the first acts of our new cabinet will be to speak up for our fellow citizen and demand the US government drop the shameful prosecution of Julian Assange,” he wrote.

Guy Rundle (CRIKEY) argues:

The US charges are thus an attack on journalism, done by a non-US citizen, not on US soil, and published, after months of cooperative work, on US soil by The New York Times, whose editors and publishers have not been charged with anything.

The Morrison government made no objection at all to extradition, trusting in “the British justice system”, and implicitly supporting US prosecution through silence. Albanese Labor looks like it will be little better.

“As an Australian citizen, he is entitled to consular assistance,” Penny Wong stated in April. “We also expect the government to keep seeking assurances from both the UK and US that he’s treated fairly and humanely … Consular matters are regularly raised with counterparts, they are regularly raised and this one would be no different.”

This is pathetic and gutless. Labor should honour the basic commitment to free speech and the investigation of hidden power that was an essential task of the labour movement in establishing its right to exist, and its capacity to succeed. The government is not required to stand with every citizen in trouble abroad, but this case is clear: an Australian citizen is being threatened with decades of prison for activities that are essential to the sort of journalism that is constitutive of a pluralist and open society, built on free speech and free inquiry.

Labor is being completely hypocritical in its silence on Assange. In 2018 and 2019, it was very happy to use the leaks-based story by Annika Smethurst on the increased surveillance of Australian citizens by reorganised spy agencies to attack the Coalition government, and then to attack them for the federal police raid on, and threatened prosecution of, Smethurst, calling it the mark of a “tin pot autocracy”.

Will Australia continue to be the lapdog of the US and UK or will it find the courage to stand up for one of its own citizens? Looks like the new prime minister will have his defining moment early in his term.

In Iraq, still no new government. Elections were held October 10th. In nine days, it will be eight months since those elections took place. Trevor Filseth (THE NATIONL INTEREST) states:

Although Sadr’s faction, the Sadrist Movement, won 73 out of 329 seats, making it the largest party in parliament, it has been unable to expand its coalition to include two-thirds of the parliament, the number required to elect a president and therefore to form a government. Sadr’s bloc, the Saving the Homeland alliance, now includes the Sadrist Movement, the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance, and the Kurdish Kurdistan Democratic Party; its cross-sectarian nature has given it significant support in each of Iraq’s regions and a majority of 180 seats in parliament, but it remains well short of the 220 needed for a presidential election. Most legislators not in the Sadrist camp or the pro-Iran camp have boycotted legislative sessions, waiting for concessions from either Sadr or the CFA in exchange for their support.

Under Iraq’s post-2003 governing system, the country’s ceremonial presidency is typically given to a Kurd, while the prime minister is normally a Shia and the speaker of parliament a Sunni. Sadr’s alliance has placed its support behind Rebar Ahmed, the current interior minister of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, for the presidency, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the main competing Kurdish party, has supported the re-election of current president Barham Salih. Outside commentators have suggested that Sadr’s alliance might partner with the PUK, which has not aligned with the pro-Iran bloc, if the question of the presidential nomination could be resolved.

Although the parliament should have been dissolved after the initial failure to elect a president, some legislators have opposed the dissolution out of concern that they could lose their seats in a rematch, and have raised concerns that a second election with similar results would simply lead to a recurring failure to form a government.

Last fall, the western press (espeically the US press) insisted Moqtada was a "king maker." Oops.

Mustafa Shilani (KURDISTAN 24) reports:

A "new initiative" to end the political impasse in Iraq will be announced in June, said Arafat Karam, the official in charge of the government and parliamentary file at Barzani Headquarters, on Tuesday.

In an interview with Kurdistan 24, Karam revealed that a new initiative is expected to be announced on June 11 to end the political deadlock in Iraq.

He added that the Iraqi situation is "very complicated" without a president. Iraq has failed to select a new president and prime minister even though it has been seven months since the last parliamentary elections.

DW notes:

In a few days, Iraq will probably break a record. But it's not necessarily something for the country to be proud of. Iraq has now been without an official government for just over 200 days.

Although the Middle Eastern nation isn't close to breaking the world record for the longest period without an elected government — that's held by Belgium, with well over 500 days — the last time this happened in Baghdad was in 2010, and the record for Iraq back then was 208 days.

The outlet, apparently in the midst of a nasty bender, then goes on to speculate that this might be a good thing. In essence, it states, "Don't think of the car as totaled, think of it as just pulled out of the race."

Salah Nasrawi (AHRAM) explains:

On 5 May, a powerful desert storm passed through most of Iraq, with the dust turning skies orange over many of the country’s major cities. By the end of the following day, it had sent 4,000 people to hospital with breathing problems.

Government offices and schools were shut, and airports in Baghdad and several other cities suspended flights for hours as a thick sandstorm blanketed the country.

It was the fifth powerful sandstorm to engulf Iraq within a month, with the storms occurring on an almost weekly basis and totalling ten by the end of May with more expected.

Sandstorms usually hit Iraq in the spring and scour large swathes of the country, flood the streets of major cities with sand, hamper visibility, blow down electricity poles, uproot trees, and reduce air quality.

But a typical spring would see only about one to three storms per month.

This year, as well as their frequency, their impact has also been more severe, particularly in health terms, with more casualties caused by plummeting air quality generated by wind thick with sand and other particles.

While sandstorms are common at this time of year in Iraq, they are now more powerful, sweep across larger areas, and occur with unprecedented frequency.

Iraq’s Environment Ministry has warned that over the next two decades the country could endure an average of 272 days of sandstorms a year, rising to above 300 by 2050.

Oh, c/an't we all be like DW and ignore the suffering and look for that silver lining (that really doesn't exist)

Sure, people are suffering in the drought but, hey, ancient city revealed, right? :

Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

An Iraqi-German archaeological team raced against time to excavate and document a Bronze Age city in northern Iraq before it disappeared underwater.

As drought caused water levels to recede in the Mosul Dam's reservoir last winter, the remains of a 3,400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city once located on the Tigris emerged, an Iraqi official told The National on Tuesday.

The Mittani Empire was a kingdom that ruled parts of Syria and northern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, from the 15th century to the 14th century BC. The city, known as Zakhiku, is at Kemune in the northern Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The team started excavating the city in 2018, when they revealed what was probably a palace with large walls, Dr Hasan Qasim, chairman of the Kurdistan Archaeology Organisation, said.

Fifteen clay tablets with cuneiform writing were also unearthed at the time, Dr Qasim said.

Let's all be DW and ignored the suffering from the drought and just focus on the lost city. Not on Salam Zidane's report for AL-MONITOR:

On May 8, the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture warned that 90 percent of Iraqi agricultural land has been desertified or is at risk of desertification in the near future, due to climate change and water disputes with Iran and Turkey.

In 2020, the ministry had warned that the rate of desertification in Iraq had risen to 53%. This poses a great danger not only to the environment, but also to food security, which has become threatened after the harvest of strategic crops such as wheat, barley, and rice has dropped.

The ministry has also stated that Iraq ranks fifth in the world in severity of climate change effects.

Rawya Mazal, the official in charge of the desertification dossier at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Al-Monitor that issues contributing to the problem include global warming, drought, excessive use of water by farmers and citizens, in addition to wars and military operations.

“Iraq urgently needs to negotiate with Turkey and Iran to release water, reduce water consumption and eliminate excessive use, and establish a canal to harvest rainwater, with desert oases,” she explained. Also, reducing air pollution would mitigate the rise in temperatures.

Mazal stressed that if urgent measures are not taken, the Iraq scenario will be the worst in the region. She said that 92% of Iraq suffers from desertification or is at risk, and that Sawa Lake in Samawah has completely dried out.

Adel al-Mokhtar, Adviser to Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, told Al-Monitor that Iraq’s water reserves amount to 20 billion cubic meters, and the country may consume all of it this year. Turkey, Iran, and Syria are also suffering from a water crisis, which will require cooperation to overcome.

Next Wednesday, there may not be a snapshot. Or it might go up earlier or later than usual. Just giving a heads up.

The following sites updated:

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

SUPERMAN AND LOIS

AMAZON is teasing out season three of THE BOYS. I will be watching but the promo leaves me cold, sorry. There are certain things that interest me -- a battle between two heroes over who will be the face of the team doesn't interest me. If that's the best that season three has to offer, that's not much. We finally got a new SUPERMAN AND LOIS tonight. I wonder how many people bothered to tune in? The last new episode was four weeks ago. That's ridiculous. It's as though they are trying to run off viewers.

How was the episode?

I'll praise Lana. Remember, the last new episode ended with Clark revealing to her that he was Superman.

She had it out with Lois this episode. Clark was still a boy when he realized what his life was going to be and that the world rested on his shoulders. (Lana and Clark were high school sweethearts.) She is not going to be mad at Clark or hold this against him. But Lois just moved into town and Lana thought they were friends but Lois was lying to her about everything. She didn't see how they could continue to be friends.

Lois later visited her and told her she was sorry and that Lana was right. She also shared some more details with her. Eventually, that would include that Jordan had super powers.

Kyle notices Lana id distracted and never has time these days. He thinks Lana's got a new boyfriend and has moved on beyond him.

Clark came up with a plan to confront Bizarro World and it involved getting his brother out of the prison and using him. Lois was the only one who stood up for Clark. Clark was right -- although his brother did escape after he had helped Clark destroy the amulet.

At the end, Lana explained she needed time away from Clark and Lois because she needed to sort things out and still wasn't sure what to tell her girls.

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

Tuesday, May 31, 2022. No accountability from the press, no vision from the politicians.

Azhar Al-Rubaie (ALJAZEERA) reports:

raqis are still waiting for the country’s politicians to form a government, almost eight months since parliamentary elections took place in the country, with political elites unable to find an agreement.

Popular Shia religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Sadrist Movement emerged as the biggest party in the October elections with 73 out of 329 seats, has been working to try to put together a coalition, but is still unable to do so.

In al-Sadr’s way is a rival Iranian-backed bloc, the Coordination Framework Alliance (CFA), which is the political umbrella for the largely Shia Popular Mobilisation Forces militia.

The CFA has boycotted parliamentary votes for a new president a number of times, on the basis that an agreement with the Sadrists that ensures the CFA will have a say in who is nominated for the presidency was needed first.

To be clear, it's not just that group standing in Moqtada's way. The Shi;ite cleri has managed to pull together only 180 MPs. He needs 220 to form a government.

That clause was included in Iraq's Constitution because it was thought that if you weren't able to pull together enough MPs to form a government, if you weren't able to cajole, horse trade, swap, make deals, etc, how would you ever be able to govern if your slate claimed the post of prime minister.

October 10th elections were held. The western press quickly rushed to hail Moqtada as a "king maker" when he was no such thing, when nothing in his past indicated he could be any such thing and when all events have demonstrated that he's not any such thing.

Some day the western press might admit they were wrong. More likely not. Accountability is a feature of a functioning press and we don't have that.

THE DAILY BEAST, for example, has apologized to a store owner. They said they made a mistake.

No, they didn't make a mistake. They lied. In October and November of 2020, we repeatedly pointed out ("Harped on" -- one or two e-mails claimed), that Hunter Biden's laptop was not stolen.

We repeatedly went over how a repair shop was not a storage business. How if you did not pick up your item -- let alone pay for it -- it became the property of the store. We cited case law and we went over this repeatedly.

Didn't appear that anyone else wanted to touch it. Not even Glann Greenwald who cvered the laptop repeatedly wanted to cover it. I have no idea why.

Yes, I do, Glenn's not trained in journalism.

That's his excuse.

Anyone who knew journalism knew how important this detail was.

The laptop needed to be covered.

If it was stolen property -- it wasn't -- then outlets would refrain from covering it. They can't cover it.

THE DAILY BEAST underrstood that point. So they intentionally lied and did so repeatedly to confuse the issue and to keep the laptop from being covered.

There was never anything in case law that made the laptop stolen. I don't believe THE DAILY BEAST respects the law but I do know they understand it.

It was not a mistake, it was a lie.

And now that they're being sued, they want to, all this time later, amend a two-year-old report to claim that they were mistaken.

No.

They lied.

They made unfounded charges against the repair shop owner and they should be punished in a court of law. They have attorneys on retainer and they knew what they were doing.

Another attack took place yesterday on a base in Iraq with US troops.

US President Joe Biden knows it took place and he knows what he is doing -- putting the lives of US troops in danger by keeping them on the ground in Iraq while pretending the Iraq War is over.

How much is the country willing to pay to keep Joe in office? At present, it appears he's leading the nation into a recession with some economic experts fearing it might be the equivalent of the Great Depression.

Are we willing to go along with that?

He was never fit for the presidency. Even if you ignored (or more likely wrongly slimed) Tara Reade, he was never fit. And now his mental dceline is taking the entire country down with him.

Maybe Nancy Pelosi can help us? Oh wait, she's busy with her drunkard husband who was so stupid that he thought he could still drive at 82 and that he could drive drunk.

As Iraqi politicians dither about forming a government, that country suffers. The Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) has been showing up in Iraq for weeks now -- in southern Iraq and the Kurdistan. NDTV notes:

This year Iraq has recorded 19 deaths among 111 CCHF cases in humans, according to the Word Health Organization.

The virus has no vaccine and onset can be swift, causing severe bleeding both internally and externally and especially from the nose. It causes death in as many as two-fifths of cases, according to medics.

"The number of cases recorded is unprecedented," said Haidar Hantouche, a health official in Dhi Qar province.

A poor farming region in southern Iraq, the province accounts for nearly half of Iraq's cases.

In previous years, cases could be counted "on the fingers of one hand", he added.

Transmitted by ticks, hosts of the virus include both wild and farmed animals such as buffalo, cattle, goats and sheep, all of which are common in Dhi Qar.

WION adds, "According to medics, the virus causes severe bleeding both internally and externally and especially from the nose. As many as two-fifths of the cases die." Gillian Duncan (THE NATIONAL) notes the virus first spread to Iraq in 1979 and "There is currently no approved vaccine for this disease." Jay Hilotin (GULF NEWS) notes that the World Health Organizations has identified the most likely people to get infected as "farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians — people mainly get infected via ticks on livestock" and quotes WHO stating, "Human-to-human transmission can occur resulting from close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons." AFP states that death will be the outcome in two-fifth of all cases. RUDAW notes that the Iraqi government allocated 1 billion Iraqi dinars on Saturday to address the virus -- that's approximately $683,000 in US dollars. No, that's not a lot of money. Regarding northern Iraq, RUDAW reports, "Health committees were formed in three Kurdish cities to combat the Congo fever, officials from the areas told Rudaw on Sunday amid an outbreak of the virus in Iraq’s southern provinces. Formed in Sulaimani, Duhok, and Halabja, the committees are advised to quarantine suspects of the virus and to send their blood samples to Baghdad to confirm their infection."

Congo Fever is not the only problem facing Iraq. NEWS.AM reports:

At a time when global wheat prices have risen sharply because of the conflict in Ukraine, Iraqi farmers say they are paying the price for the government's decision to cut irrigation of farmland by 50 percent, AP reported.

The government took this step amid severe water shortages caused by high temperatures and drought, as well as continued water withdrawals by neighboring countries from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. All of these factors have resulted in severe water shortages for wheat production.

The roblems come as desertification is a major problem in Iraq. Dler S. Mohammed (KURDISTAN 24) reports:

Iraq is losing a staggering 100,000 donums (about 10,000 hectares) of agricultural land per year, the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture announced on Saturday.

The Director-General of Forests and Desertification Directorate of the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture Rawiya Al-Azawi announced on Saturday that Iraq has been losing approximately 100,000 donums of agricultural lands per year to desertification for the past decade.

She warned that this phenomenon would hugely impact the ministry's agricultural plan and revealed that the ministry has proposed establishing a special fund for combating desertification.

Al-Azawi pointed out that increased desertification is due to global warming and climate change, which has reduced rainfall. She added that Iraq's geography makes it more vulnerable to global warming.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Rock Me On The Water

Scary video from Graham Elwood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starting with an attack in Iraq, MEHR NEWS notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a load of garbage.

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

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

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

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

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

Could I be wrong about Johnny?

Nope.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's only going to get worse for Amber.

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

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

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

Does Johnny have benefits on his side?

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

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

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

They both have pluses and minuses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's note Cynthia McKinney.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Putin apologists’

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

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

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

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

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

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