Former
Obama White House Secretary Robert Gibbs said that the current
inflation problems were a more pressing problem to voters than future
threats of what could happen if Republicans takeover.
"It's
just tough to make the argument of, 'If these guys get into power,
here's the things they'll end up doing' versus, 'Hey, bread was really
expensive in Aisle 4,'" he told David Axelrod.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also fretted his party was getting "destroyed" on messaging heading into the midterms.
Democratsare
hemorrhaging support from just about every demographic in the final
stretch of the midterm elections. Suburban women, Hispanics, and even
black voters are running into the arms of the GOP, making it likely that
Republicans will win back the House, Senate, and several important
governorships.
But
Democrats don’t seem to care. With the exception of a few vulnerable
Democratic candidates running in tough swing states, like Ohio Senate
candidate Tim Ryan, much of the party has chosen to laugh off the issues
of the day and concerns about their policies and chide those who take
them seriously.
Take,
for example, former President Bill Clinton, who was brought in to
campaign for Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul over the weekend.
Apparently he thinks it’s hilarious that so many New Yorkers are
concerned about crime. It’s not like Hochul “gets up every morning, goes
to the nearest subway stop, and hands out billy clubs and baseball bats
and everybody gets on the subway,” he quipped.
Maybe
not, but that doesn’t change the fact that violent crime in New York is
on the rise and no one in the Democratic Party seems willing to do
anything about it. Even worse, Hochul has dismissed the issue herself,
claiming increased crime rates are just a Republican “hoax.”
President Joe Biden gave
a chaotic rally in New York over the weekend where he nearly fell off
the event’s stage and also sparred back and forth with a heckler in the
audience, RadarOnline.com has learned.
The
sensational incident took place on Sunday as Biden made an appearance
in Yonkers, New York to help endorse gubernational candidate and current
NY Governor Kathy Hochul.
[. . .]
But
Sunday’s event started off poorly, and only grew worse as it went on,
because President Biden almost fell off the stage just moments after
walking up to speak.
“Oops, stepping on a – hmm – it's black,” the 79-year-old president, who turns 80 later this month, said after regaining his balance. “Anyway…”
Then, shortly thereafter, President Biden was heckled by a protestor in the crowd at the event at Sarah Lawrence College.
If my grandfather was acting like that, we'd pull him aside and speak to him. And my grandfather is younger than Joe Biden. Much younger.
Monday, November 7, 2022. THE INTERCEPT attacks veterans, a fire in
Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament moves towards registration for a military
draft, and much more.
Midterms are tomorrow
and, if you forgot, there's always the money grubbing INTERCEPT to
remind you. Now THE INTERCEPT doesn't want to report on anything that
would influence a US election . . . if it has to do with Democrats.
That's why Glenn Greenwald is no longer there, remember?
He wanted to write about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election
and despite his contract and the legal promises made within it Bitsy
Reed said "No." It must have felt so good for Bitsy, the untrained
journalist, to finally say no after 16 years of fetching coffee and
conducting other personal errands for Katrina vanden Heuvel. She must
have finally felt like she was important. Did she take that mistaken
belief with her when she joined THE GUARDIAN months ago? Let's hope she
manages to work out there -- she hasn't at any other publication and
goodness knows her personal life is a nightmare.
THE
INTERCEPT wouldn't report on the laptop and money whores like Naomi
Klein rushed to attack Glenn. Did Glenn burp in public? No, he
offended them by shining a spotlight on Democrats and doing so ahead of
an election.
It's election time so it's time
for THE INTERCEPT to whore as they are so eager to do. So they run
Peter Maas' alarmist attacks on veterans.
On veterans?
Oh, excuse me. On right-wing veterans.
That's what they've done.
It's
an election so the trash at THE INTERCEPT wants to resurrect the crazed
veteran lie and paint any veteran to the right of AOC as crazed,
psychotic and a threat to freedom and democracy.
THE INTERCEPT is disgusting.
We
have made clear at this site that if a veteran or active duty rapes or
kills, we hold them accountable. We hold that person accountable We
don't use that crime or any other to indict all veterans or all veterans
of a political class.
THE INTERCEPT does.
It
needs to be called out for its garbage that's intended to frighten
American voters. That's all the propaganda that Peter Maas produced is
about.
It's disgusting.
And who's spitting on veterans? THE INTERCEPT is.
I
wish I were better able to cover this. I'm not. I'm limited in my
word choice because we have to be work safe. I'm also so angry that my
hands are shaking. "Shame on THE INTERCEPT for publishing garbage"
went up last night and just stops, I know. I had hoped I'd be calmer
in the morning. I'm not. That they could use people who have already
suffered by being sent into war and use them for propaganda to turn out a
vote? It's disgusting. They are disgusting.
The
mid-terms will be over Tuesday. And once upon a time in this country,
that meant relief. That meant that real activists could return to work
and that real issues could get spotlighted. But in part due to garbage
like THE NATION magazine, this cycle never ends, not even when the
election is over. THE NATION spent the '00s trying to scare people into
voting. And now it's been taken up by the larger media and we never
get to accomplish anything.
Any electoral success for the Republicans is due entirely to the
reactionary and bankrupt policies of the Democratic Party and the
impasse for the working class created by the two-party monopoly.
What
have been the main “achievements” of the Democratic Party during the
past two years, when it controlled the White House and both houses of
Congress?
The central preoccupation of the Biden administration
has been the prosecution of the war against Russia in Ukraine, which has
the full support of the entire Democratic Party. This was reinforced
two weeks ago when 30 liberal Democrats sent a letter to the White House
pleading for a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than continuing
to escalate the risk of nuclear war.
Within 24 hours, after a
massive backlash within the political establishment, the letter was
withdrawn and the leader of the “Progressive Caucus” issued a
humiliating apology, reaffirming the group’s support for prosecuting the
war until “victory.”
Inflation is skyrocketing and working class
living standards are being slashed. The Federal Reserve is pursuing a
deliberate policy of increasing unemployment through the raising of
interest rates in an effort to use social misery as a bludgeon against
demands for wage increases.
In two years in office, the Democrats
have done nothing to improve the conditions of the vast majority of the
population. The White House dropped any push for voting rights
legislation. It did nothing to protect the rights of immigrants, instead
stepping up the deportation and exclusion of asylum seekers to record
levels, beyond even the level of the Trump administration. It regards
women’s right to abortion as a means of motivating people to vote, while
refusing to defend it in practice.
And, confronted with a party
that sought to overturn the 2020 election and block Biden’s own
inauguration through the methods of coup and political assassination,
the Democrats have shielded the Republican Party.
Nearly two years
after the coup attempt, neither Trump nor any of his top
co-conspirators has been prosecuted. There has been no serious
investigation into the January 6 conspiracy or the social and political
forces behind it.
Since Biden’s speech last Wednesday, warning
that Trump and his allies represent a dire threat to democracy, he and
other leading Democrats have turned the declaration that “democracy is
on the ballot” into a hollow sound bite.
The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, however bitter and intense, are entirely tactical.
In
domestic policy, the Democrats seek to use the trade union apparatus to
suppress the working class, while employing the demagogues of identity
politics to split the working class along race and gender lines. The
Republicans wish to dispense with the unions, which are rapidly losing
their ability to hold back the class struggle, and proceed directly to
the deployment of the police and military violence.
On the
fundamental question of which class they serve, the Democrats and
Republicans are united. They are different components of a two-party
system of capitalist-imperialist reaction.
An
entire generation has come of age thinking that Barack Obama was a
great president because he . . . ? Failed to get impeached?
He
broke every promise he made to get votes and he accomplished nothing.
ObamaCare was Mitt Romney Care. All he did was take the pathetic
proposal --- everyone must purchase health care -- and pretend that was
universal health care. Now we're a long way from Boston in the Bay
Area. But KPFA couldn't stop covering RomneyCare and what a fraud it
was . . . until Barack passed it off as ObamaCare and then they got on
board like whores eager to leave town before their pimp beat them up.
Standing in place or falling behind are not political objectives. They do not help the people.
Both
sides of the duopoly have failed the American people and the liars who
cover for them should be ashamed. But whores don't have shame so we all
suffer.
The people of Iraq continue to suffer
thanks to the whoring on the part of certain Americans. The big story
in Iraq today? A fire in Baghdad.
At least 20 people were injured, including seven firefighters, after a
three-story commercial building in Baghdad went up in flames and
subsequently collapsed on Sunday.
Among the wounded is Major General Kadhim Bohan, head of the Iraqi civil
defense directorate, while twelve other people who were trapped inside
the building remain unaccounted for. Search parties continue in their
search for the missing, according to Brigadier General Qusai Younis,
head of Baghdad's al-Rusafa Civil Defense
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
The building houses large stores of perfumes and household items.
The huge blaze required the deployment of sixty civil defense teams and
more than 50 firefighting vehicles, in an operation that took up to 10
hours according to Younis.
After a year-long crisis in Iraq triggered by contested elections, Iraq finally has a government headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
While this ends the political impasse, it’s unclear whether his new
cabinet will bring about change or usher in more of the same.
Al-Sudani is backed by the Coordination Framework,
an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shi’a factions that holds 138 out of
329 seats in parliament. The Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist
movement that won a plurality of parliamentary seats in the October 2021
elections played no part in picking either the prime minister or the
new president — a first since Iraq’s democratic transition, which does
not bode well for a government that now effectively lacks legitimacy.
Given the longtime political wrangling and endemic political instability
that has plagued their country, the Iraqi people are justifiably
skeptical about this government’s ability to tackle the many problems
facing Iraq. Many are also suspicious of al-Sudani’s close affiliation
with former prime minister Nouri-Al Maliki, given the latter’s deeply sectarian and pro-Iran stance.
[. . .]
The new government will also need to fend off the sporadic but persistent protests
that have swayed the country since October 2019 and are likely to
regain momentum. These demonstrations, which forced the resignation of
the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in 2019 and prompted
an early election, reflect public frustration with long-unaddressed
demands. Over the past three years, a coalition of protestors, activists
and youth-led entities has since formed to push the government to
address the country’s dysfunction through changes in the political
system.
Outrage over corruption continues to be the major driver for the
demand for reform of a power-sharing system that divides government
posts among Iraq’s communities and fuels patronage-based abuse. It has
not gone unnoticed that the new government has formed using the same
methods and tactics and the same parties that have dominated Iraqi
politics since 2005. Citizens may well ask, why should corruption change
if the system that produces it has not? The latest corruption scandal
at the Ministry of Finance involving the theft
of $2.5 billion from the tax authority could implicate many who enjoy
the support of powerful political parties in Iraq, including those
backing the prime minister.
The Iraqi parliament is set to conduct the first reading for a draft
proposing the restoration of compulsory military service during Sunday’s
parliamentary session, amidst mixed reactions from the Iraqi people on
social media.
The new bill, titled Serving the Flag, has been drafted by the Iraqi
parliament’s security and defense committee and proposes assigning all
Iraqi men between the ages of 18 to 35, with limited exceptions, to
mandatory military duty, according to the deputy-chairman of the parliamentary committee Sagvan Sindi.
The length of the service differs based on the academic level of the
recruited, Sindi added. The draft compels secondary school graduates to
18 months of military service, preparatory school graduates to 12
months, university and institute graduates to 9 months, master’s
graduates to 6 months, and doctorate graduates to 3 months.
That is what the Parliament is electing to pursue. Clearly, the needs of the Iraqi people are not a concern of the Parliament.
BROS.
It's a comedy classic. A number of e-mails are asking when it comes
out on DVD and BLURAY? I'm not the spokesperson for the movie but my
understanding is that the US release will be on December 31st. I
wouldn't be surprised if that got pushed up.
So Hakeem Jeffries may end up being the next House
Minority Leader or Speak of the House -- depending upon how next week's
election goes. Good. I don't know much about him. I do know he's 52
and that's decades younger than Nancy Pelosi. We need young blood in
leadership. I'd prefer younger than Jeffries but I'll gladly celebrate
Hakeem Jeffries victory. Here's the report on that:
Jeffries,
the fifth-ranking House Democrat who aspires to be the first-ranking
House Democrat in the next Congress, was picking up heightened chatter
from colleagues about California Rep. Adam Schiff’s outreach expressing
his own interest in the top caucus job.
The
52-year-old Jeffries was concerned enough that he offered to fly to
South Carolina to seek the counsel of the 82-year-old Clyburn. The
younger lawmaker wanted to gently make sure his elder in the
Congressional Black Caucus knew of Schiff’s quiet campaign — and to even
more gently warn Clyburn about the risk of splitting votes between them
and opening a path for the ambitious Californian.
Jeffries need not have been alarmed.
“There’s
nothing I would ever do to impede the progress of our up-and-coming
young Democrats and I see him as an up-and-coming young Democrat,”
Clyburn said in an interview about Jeffries. “He knows that, I didn’t
have to tell him that — but I did.”
From his Congressional bio, this is who Jeffries is:
Hakeem
Jeffries represents the diverse Eighth Congressional District of New
York, an area that encompasses large parts of Brooklyn and a section of
Queens. Serving his fifth term in the United States Congress, Rep.
Jeffries is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Budget
Committee.
Rep.
Jeffries is Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, having been
elected to that position by his colleagues in November 2018. In that
capacity, he is the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the House of
Representatives. He is also the former Whip of the Congressional Black
Caucus and previously co-chaired the Democratic Policy and
Communications Committee where he helped develop the For The People
agenda.
In
Congress, Rep. Jeffries is a tireless advocate for social and economic
justice. He has worked hard to help residents recover from the
devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, reform our criminal justice
system, improve the economy for everyday Americans and protect our
healthcare from right-wing attacks.
Since
President Biden took office in January 2021, Rep. Jeffries has been
instrumental in House Democratic efforts to put people over politics by
lowering costs, creating better-paying jobs and fighting for safer
communities. Over the past two years Democrats have passed the American
Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Bipartisan
Safer Communities Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation
Reduction Act.
This
year, Rep. Jeffries was able to secure $21.9 million for projects in
Brooklyn to provide food for the hungry, fund overdue improvements to
medical centers, support organizations working to uplift our
neighborhoods, deepen our cultural understanding and more through the
2022 Community Project Funding process. In the spring of 2022, he
successfully fought against the splitting of Bedford Stuyvesant into
multiple Congressional Districts during the broken and gravely flawed
redistricting process unleashed by partisan Republicans and their
judicial co-conspirators in New York.
During
the 117th Congress, Rep. Jeffries was one of the most effective
legislators, passing multiple bills through the House of Representatives
and into law with substantial bipartisan and stakeholder support.
These measures touched on diverse subject matters and were drafted with
the intention of making meaningful improvements to our federal laws and
programs. Such bills included measures to ensure veterans and their
families have access to benefits information (H.R. 2093, Public Law No.
117-62), to measure the progress of recovery and efforts to address
corruption, rule of law and media freedoms in Haiti (H.R. 2471, Public
Law No. 117-103), to protect attorney-client privilege for incarcerated
individuals corresponding electronically with their legal
representatives (H.R. 546) and to eliminate the federal sentencing
disparity between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder
cocaine once and for all (H.R. 1693).
Last
Congress, Rep. Jeffries was similarly active in the legislative
process, with many of his bills passing the House of Representatives and
becoming law. They included bills to create a copyright small claims
board allowing the creative middle class to protect their works (H.R.
2426, Public Law No. 116-260), to expand scholarship opportunities
available to Pakistani women (H.R. 4508, Public Law No. 116-338) and to
provide entrepreneurship counseling and training services to formerly
incarcerated individuals (H.R. 5065).
In
January 2020, Rep. Jeffries was selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
serve as one of seven House Impeachment Managers in the Senate trial of
President Donald Trump, becoming the first African American man to serve
in that role. During the nearly three-week trial, Congressman Jeffries
argued that President Trump should be removed from office for abusing
his power by pressuring a foreign government, Ukraine, to target an
American citizen as part of a corrupt scheme to interfere in the 2020
election. The House Impeachment Managers established with a mountain of
evidence that crimes against the Constitution were committed.
Nevertheless, the Senate failed to remove the President without hearing
from a single witness during the trial.
On
March 9, 2021, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1280, the
“George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” for the second time through the
House. During both pushes, Rep. Jeffries helped lead the charge with
respect to passage of this historic police reform bill, which included
legislation authored by the Congressman to criminalize the chokehold and
other inherently dangerous tactics such as a knee to the neck. Rep.
Jeffries remains dedicated to working with his colleagues to make
transformational police reform a reality and breathe life into the
principle of liberty and justice for all.
Rep.
Jeffries has played a major role in shaping the Congressional response
to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has fought hard to assist state and local
governments whose budgets have been devastated by the virus, pushed for
an extension of the emergency unemployment benefit and supported efforts
to keep everyday Americans in their homes. Rep. Jeffries also worked
across the aisle with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to secure billions of
dollars in funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the
CARES Act (H.R. 748, Public Law No. 116-136), which became law in March
2020. At home, Rep. Jeffries partnered the Governor to expand testing in
hard-hit communities of color by establishing walk-in sites at houses
of worship throughout New York City. He denounced discriminatory social
distance policing that targeted communities of color and helped bring
about a change in policy. In the community, Rep. Jeffries continues to
personally distribute food, masks, gloves and hand sanitizer to
residents in need.
In
the 115th Congress, Rep. Jeffries worked across the aisle as the lead
Democratic sponsor of the FIRST STEP Act (S. 756, Public Law No.
115-391), a strong, bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that the
President signed into law in December 2018. Rep. Jeffries partnered
with Congressman Doug Collins, a conservative Republican from rural
Georgia, on the legislation, which is widely viewed as the most
meaningful criminal justice reform effort in a generation.
The
FIRST STEP Act provides retroactive relief for the shameful crack
cocaine sentencing disparity that unfairly destroyed lives, families and
communities. The law shortens sentences by ensuring inmates can earn
the 54 days of good time credit per year Congress intended and applies
the change retroactively, to the benefit of thousands of currently
incarcerated mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. It provides $375
million over five years to expand re-entry programming, including
education and vocational training, which is proven to dramatically
reduce recidivism and help prepare for a successful transition back into
society. In order to strengthen and preserve family relationships, the
bill requires the Bureau of Prisons to house incarcerated individuals
within 500 driving miles of their relatives and permits the transfer of
lower-risk inmates to home confinement. In addition, the FIRST STEP Act
bans the immoral practice of shackling women throughout the duration of
their pregnancy, during childbirth and for three months postpartum.
Rep.
Jeffries also played a key role in the House passage of the historic
Music Modernization Act (MMA) (H.R. 5447, Public Law No. 115-264), which
became law in 2018. Heralded as a sweeping update to our copyright
laws, the MMA will improve the licensing process so that songwriters,
artists and musicians can continue to share their creativity with the
world. Because of the MMA, songwriters are more likely to get paid a
fair price for their work, and digital music providers like Spotify and
Pandora will be able to operate more efficiently. In an era of crisis
and dysfunction in Washington, the power of music brought Democrats and
Republicans in Congress together to collaborate on groundbreaking
legislation, ushering our music copyright system into the 21st Century.
In
April of 2018, the President signed the Rep. Jeffries-authored Keep
America’s Refuges Operational Act (H.R. 3979, Public Law No. 115-1689)
into law. Each year, 47 million Americans visit wildlife refuges,
generating almost $2 billion in local economic activity. This law will
keep America’s refuges operational by supporting the volunteers who
dedicate thousands of hours to maintain our public lands. Passage of
this bill was part of a bipartisan, bicameral effort to ensure Americans
can visit, explore and study wildlife and experience our nation’s vast
natural beauty for generations to come.
Several
other pieces of Rep. Jeffries-authored legislation passed the House of
Representatives in the 115th Congress, including bills to investigate
the public health impact of synthetic drug use by teenagers (H.R. 449,
Public Law No. 115-271) and updating federal regulations to remove
racially offensive terminology from use (H.R. 995). Rep. Jeffries’ H.R.
3229 (Public Law No. 95-521), which helps protect judicial officers from
threats, harm and harassment by those who would seek to compromise the
integrity of our judicial branch, also passed the House in 2017, and was
signed into law in March 2018. Additionally, Rep. Jeffries authored
H.R. 3370 (Public Law No. 95-921), the Fry Scholarship Enhancement Act,
which became law as part of the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational
Assistance Act of 2017. It will expand the availability of education
benefits to the children and spouses of service members killed in the
line of duty.
In
the 114th Congress, Rep. Jeffries teamed up with Congressman Peter King
to pass the Slain Officer Family Support Act of 2015 (H.R. 1508, Public
Law No. 113-227), which President Obama signed into law. That law
extended the tax deadline so that individuals making charitable
donations to organizations supporting the families of assassinated New
York Police Department (NYPD) Detectives Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos,
could apply such tax deductions to the prior year’s tax return.
In
the 113th Congress, Rep. Jeffries successfully passed H.R. 5108 (Public
Law No. 113-227), legislation that established the Law School Clinic
Certification Program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) into law. This program had been operating in a pilot capacity
since 2008 and enabled students at participating law schools to gain
experience in patent and trademark law while providing legal assistance
to inventors, tech entrepreneurs and small businesses. The bipartisan
bill, which was signed by President Obama, expanded the program by
removing its “pilot” status, making it available to all accredited law
schools in the country that meet the program’s eligibility requirements.
Rep.
Jeffries has been actively involved in the passage of a number of other
key pieces of legislation, including the Disaster Relief Appropriations
Act of 2013 (H.R. 152), a bill that provides billions of dollars in
Superstorm Sandy recovery to the Eighth District and other affected
areas. The Congressman also sponsored — and passed as part of the
National Defense Authorization package — the Prison Ship Martyrs’
Monument Preservation Act, which directs the U.S. Secretary of the
Interior to study the feasibility of designating the Prison Ship
Martyrs’ mausoleum in Brooklyn as a national monument. Consisting of a
100-foot-wide granite staircase and a central Doric column 149 feet in
height, the monument in Fort Greene Park houses the remains of 11,500
Revolutionary War soldiers who were kept as prisoners of war by the
British.
While
he remains committed to working diligently in Washington on behalf of
New York’s Eighth Congressional District, Rep. Jeffries also works
tirelessly to keep in close contact with constituents. In January, the
Congressman begins each year with a well-attended State of the District
Address. During the spring and summer, he holds “Congress on Your
Corner” outdoor office hours throughout the district. At each stop, the
Congressman sets up a table in front of a local post office or on
neighborhood corners where constituents are able to meet with him
one-on-one. He also hosts regularly-scheduled telephone town hall
meetings that provide an opportunity for constituents to speak directly
with the Congressman about local and national issues.
Prior
to his election to the Congress, Rep. Jeffries served for six years in
the New York State Assembly. In that capacity, he authored laws to
protect the civil liberties of law-abiding New Yorkers during police
encounters, encourage the transformation of vacant luxury condominiums
into affordable homes for working families and improve the quality of
justice in the civil court system.
In
2010, Rep. Jeffries successfully led the first meaningful legislative
reform of the NYPD’s aggressive and controversial stop-and-frisk
program. His legislation prohibits the NYPD from maintaining an
electronic database with the personal information of individuals who
were stopped, questioned and frisked during a police encounter but not
charged with a crime or violation.
In
the same year, Rep. Jeffries sponsored and championed groundbreaking
civil rights legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York
State. This archaic practice of counting incarcerated individuals at the
location of their imprisonment, rather than their homes, undermined the
fundamental democratic principle of one person, one vote. After passage
of Jeffries’ legislation, New York became the second state to count
incarcerated individuals in their home districts in census calculations.
Congressman
Jeffries obtained his bachelor’s degree in political science from the
State University of New York at Binghamton, where he graduated with
honors for outstanding academic achievement. He then received his
master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. Thereafter,
Rep. Jeffries attended New York University School of Law, where he
graduated magna cum laude and served on Law Review.
After
completing law school, Rep. Jeffries clerked for the Honorable Harold
Baer Jr. of the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York. He then practiced law for several years at Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, an internationally renowned law
firm and served as counsel in the litigation department of Viacom Inc.
and CBS. He also worked as of-counsel at Godosky & Gentile, a
well-regarded litigation firm in New York City.
Rep.
Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights and is a
product New York City’s public school system, having graduated from
Midwood High School. He lives in Prospect Heights with his family.
He has opposed the Keystone XL pipeline,
but also voted against an amendment that would have restricted sales of
oil transported on the pipeline to within the United States.[61]
He
is pro-Israel, saying at a rally in July 2014, "Israel should not be
made to apologize for its strength." Citing his own childhood growing up
in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Jeffries added that he knew from experience
that "the only thing that neighbors respect in a tough neighborhood is
strength."[62] In December 2016, Jeffries condemned the Obama Administration for not vetoing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 concerning Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.[63]
Since taking federal office, Jeffries has been called "a rising star".[64] He has been appointed to the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Over Criminalization[65] as well as appointed the whip of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)[66].[67] He also plays in the infield on the Congressional Baseball Team.[68]
As a member of Congress, he called for a Department of Justice investigation into the circumstances of Eric Garner's death.[69] On
a visit to the Staten Island site where Garner was killed, recorded by a
CNN news crew in December 2014, Jeffries encountered Gwen Carr,
Garner's mother.[70] In April 2015, he stood with Carr to announce the introduction of the Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act of 2015[71] that would make the use of a chokehold illegal under federal law.[72]
As
the Congress member with among the highest number of public housing
residents, Jeffries focused on being attentive to their needs. He
introduced P.J.'s Act[73] in
response to the death of six-year-old P.J. Avitto of East New York, who
was stabbed in an elevator inside the Boulevard Houses, a NYCHA apartment complex. The legislation would increase federal funding for enhanced security in public housing developments.[74]
Jeffries has also called on the New York City Police Department Commissioner to reform its marijuana arrest policy[75] after reports showed that low-level marijuana arrests, which had increased dramatically under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration's application of stop-and-frisk, were still rising in New York City under Bloomberg's successor, Bill de Blasio. Jeffries has become a high-profile critic of de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner William Bratton,
questioning whether the reduction in stop-and-frisk has been a product
of mayoral administration changes or the results of a movement that
brought a successful federal lawsuit, and criticizing Garner's chokehold
death.[76]
In
Congress, as the Congressional Black Caucus whip, he has been actively
involved in maintaining the CBC's historic role as "the conscience of
the Congress".[77] In
his CBC role, he has hosted Special Orders on the House floor,
including regarding voting rights (after the Supreme Court decision on
the 1965 Voting Rights Act)[78] and in December 2014, leading CBC members in a "hands up, don't shoot" protest to protest the killings of African-Americans by police.[79] After
the shootings in Charleston in June 2015 by a white supremacist
inspired by the Confederate flag, Jeffries led the effort to have the
flag removed for sale or display on National Park Service land, an
amendment eventually killed by the Republican House leadership after its
initial support and inclusion on voice vote. During dramatic debate on
the House floor, Jeffries stood next to the Confederate battle flag,
said he "got chills" and lamented that the "Ghosts of the Confederacy
have invaded the GOP".[80]
With
a high concentration of public housing and high unemployment in his
district, Jeffries has also made an issue of HUD's failure to adequately
enforce Section 3 of its initial creating statute from 1968, which
explicitly required that federally funded capital and rehabilitation
projects in public housing developments had to employ residents of those
developments. Jeffries said, "we can download the power of the federal
government into neighborhoods that are struggling the most, without
legislative action. The most promising area is Section 3."[81]
Looks
like he's got some good and some not so good. We're all a mixture. My
ideal candidate has never made it into Congress. I say that because,
on the face of the above, I would be more than happy to see Hakim
Jeffries replace Nancy Pelosi. I would not be happy to see 62 year old
Adam Schiff replace Pelosi. He is not honest, he makes big claims on TV
shows and then they never pan out. I could support Hakim but I would
never, ever support Adam Schiff. We need youth and we need excitement.
Hakim could bring both -- look at photos of him smiling -- where as
Adam Schiff is drab and old beyond his years.
Friday, November 4, 2022. Julian Assange continues to be persecuted,
Iraqis continue to suffer, Chris Hedges has a new book, and much more.
John Malkovich is speaking out on behalf of journalist Julian Assange.
Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden and a
host of people who should be supporting him stay silent or heap scorn on
him.
Julian's 'crime' was revealing the
realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the
information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.
And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.
For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War
Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war. The new logs detail how: •
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender. • More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical
evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or
ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric
shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
Another video of interest?
A
video has allegedly shown former CIA Director and Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit brought by American lawyers and
reporters who visited Julian Assange.
Footage tweeted by Wikileaks being handed the papers as he stands in
front of a greenscreen.
Wikileaks tweeted on Wednesday (2 November) morning: "Michael Richard
Pompeo: You’ve been served!
“Mike Pompeo has been served with a lawsuit brought by US lawyers and
journalists who visited Assange. Spanish court documents show violations
of their US constitutional rights. Plaintiffs are represented by NY
attorney Richard Roth.”
Reuters reported in August that attorneys and reporters sued the CIA and
Mr Pompeo, who left his job as a Kansas congressman to become the CIA
Director in January 2017, just days after Donald Trump was inaugurated.
A video appearing to show former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo being served with a lawsuit has gone viral on social media.
The lawsuit was brought by a group of American lawyers and journalists who have alleged that the CIA, while Pompeo was director of the agency, spied on them during meetings with Wikileaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange while he was sheltering at the Ecuadoran embassy in London in an effort to avoid extradition to the U.S.
Pompeo is one of the defendants in the case, which also names the
CIA, security firm UC Global and UC Global director David R. Morales
Guillen. They are accused of spying on WikiLeaks publisher and founder
Julian Assange and his visitors while he took refuge in the embassy.
A statement from the Assange Defence Committee said the suit was
served on the former CIA head as he was posing for photographs at the
John Ashbrook Memorial Dinner in Ohio on 29 October.
The plaintiffs, who include renowned civil rights activist and human
rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, attorney Deborah Hrbek and
journalists Charles Glass and John Goetz, visited Assange while he was
in the embassy.
The suit
alleges violations of the plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights and
documents how UC Global provided the CIA with information about
Assange’s visitors and forced visitors to surrender their electronic
devices to enter the embassy – digitally copying and transmitting
information on those devices to the CIA.
Joe Biden continues the persecution of Julian Assange while his administration makes hypocritical statements.
The
world watches as Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, as the
world watches, it registers just how hollow the 'big' statements the US
government makes actually are.
It’s impossible,
under international law, to defend Russia’s war
in Ukraine, as it is impossible to defend the
U.S. invasion of Iraq. Preemptive war is a war
crime, a criminal war of aggression.
Still, putting the
invasion of Ukraine in context was out of the
question. Explaining —
as Soviet specialists (includingfamed
Cold War diplomat George F. Kennan) had — that
expanding NATO into Central and Eastern Europe
was a provocation to Russia was forbidden.
Kennan had called it
“the most fateful error of American policy in
the entire post-Cold War era” that would “send
Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly
not to our liking.”
In 1989, I had
covered the revolutions in East Germany,
Czechoslovakia and Romania that signaled the
coming collapse of the Soviet Union. I was
acutely aware of the “cascade of assurances” given to
Moscow that NATO, founded in 1949 to prevent
Soviet expansion in Eastern and Central Europe,
would not spread beyond the borders of a unified
Germany. In fact, with the end of the Cold War,
NATO should have been rendered obsolete.
I naively thought
we would see the promised “peace dividend,”
especially with the last Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev reaching out to form security and
economic alliances with the West. In the early
years of Vladimir Putin’s rule, even he lent the
U.S. military a hand in its war on terror,
seeing in it Russia’s own struggle to contain
Islamic extremists spawned by its wars in
Chechnya.
He provided
logistical support and resupply routes for
American forces fighting in Afghanistan. But
the pimps
of war
were having none of it. Washington would turn
Russia into the enemy, with or without Moscow’s
cooperation.
The newest holy
crusade between angels and demons was launched.
War unleashes the
poison of nationalism, with its twin evils of
self-exaltation and bigotry. It creates an
illusory sense of unity and purpose. The
shameless cheerleaderswho
sold us the war in Iraq are once again on the
airwaves beating the drums of war for Ukraine.
“Every single
empire in its official discourse has said
that it is not like all the others, that its
circumstances are special, that it has a
mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order
and democracy, and that it uses force only
as a last resort. And, sadder still, there
always is a chorus of willing intellectuals
to say calming words about benign or
altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t
trust the evidence of one’s own eyes
watching the destruction and the misery and
death brought by the latest mission
civilizatrice.”
I was pulled back
into the morass. I found myself writing for Scheerpost and my
Substack site,
columns condemning the bloodlusts Ukraine
unleashed. The provision of more than $50
billion in weapons and aid to Ukraine not only
means the Ukrainian government has no incentive
to negotiate, but that it condemns hundreds of
thousands of innocents to suffering and death.
For perhaps the
first time in my life, I found myself agreeing
with Henry
Kissinger,
who at least understands realpolitik,
including the danger of pushing Russia and China
into an alliance against the U.S., while
provoking a major nuclear power.
Greg Ruggiero, who
runs City
Lights Publishers,
urged me to write a book on this new conflict.
At first, I refused, not wanting to resurrect
the ghosts of war. But looking back at my
columns, articles, and talks since the
publication of War is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning in 2002, I was surprised at how
often I had circled back to war.
I rarely wrote
about myself or my experiences. I sought out
those discarded as the human detritus of war,
the physically and psychologically maimed like Tomas
Young, a
quadriplegic wounded in Iraq, whom I visited
recently in Kansas City after he declared that
he was ready to disconnect his feeding tube and
die.
It made sense to
put those pieces together to denounce the newest
intoxication with industrial slaughter. I
stripped the chapters down to war’s essence with
titles like “The Act of Killing,” “Corpses” or
“When the Bodies Come Home.”
It’s been more than three years since the Islamic State appeared to be
defeated after the terror group lost all the territory it had once
controlled, and yet ISIS continues to wage an insurgency in both Iraq
and Syria, according to the most recent quarterly report from the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve.
“Overall, compared with the same period in 2021, the frequency and
severity of ISIS-claimed attacks decreased dramatically in Iraq, while
attacks in Syria increased significantly, marking a rebound from
historically low levels the previous year,” the report says.
Between July and September, ISIS carried out 74 attacks in Syria and
73 attacks in Iraq, the report says. Small cells based in rural areas
mostly conducted hit-and-run attacks against local security forces along
with occasional high-profile attacks in cities.
While roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and another 900 service members are in Syria to
help prevent ISIS from mounting a comeback, the report cites several
factors beyond the U.S. military’s control that have made their mission
more difficult, including third-party actors, such as Iran; political
instability, especially Iraq’s problems forming a government; and
social-economic instability.
The Arab League held their summit this week -- not that it got a great deal of press attention. ANF reports:
Speaking at the 31st Arab League Summit in Algeria on Wednesday,
Iraqi President Latif Rashid said that the dams built by Iran and Turkey
on the rivers in Iraq threaten the country's water security and cause
water levels to drop.
“I hope that the water resources in Iraq will improve. Dialogue
should be established with Turkey and Iran for a solution to the water
problem,” the Iraqi President said.
This as Turkey continues to bomb and drone attack Iraq. RUDAW notes, "At least one person was killed in Shingal on Thursday after a suspected
Turkish drone targeted a pickup vehicle, Kurdish counterterrorism forces
and media affiliated to the local forces reported. " AFP adds, "Turkish military operations complicate relations between Baghdad and Ankara, one of Iraq's leading trading partners." Ambrin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) offers:
Iraqi
Kurdistan is gripped by turbulence as it comes under mounting
aggression from Iran and Turkey, and as Baghdad seeks to wrest full
control of its oil and gas industry. Rampant corruption and a lack of
economic opportunity are prompting a rising number of young Iraqi Kurds
to flee the country. As if things were not bad enough, the two largest
political parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Massoud
Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that was founded by
Iraq’s first post-war president, the late Jalal Talabani — are
quarreling again over power and money, prompting worries of a resurgence
of the civil conflict that convulsed the region in the mid-1990s.
The difference today is that not only are the parties at odds with each other, they are also mired in internal rivalries. Lahur Talabany,
former co-chair of the PUK who led the Sulaimaniyah region’s
intelligence services and the US-trained Counter Terrorism Group, was
ousted by his cousins Bafel and Qubad Talabani last summer in a
Byzantine power grab. It was the most overt manifestation yet of the
intra-family feuds simmering in the Talabani and Barzani dynasties.
US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Thursday spoke on the phone
with Iraq’s new prime minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani, stressing that
Washington is “eager” to work with his cabinet, according to a tweet by
Blinken.
“The U.S. is eager to work with the Iraqi government to confront Iraq’s
challenges and deliver results for the people of Iraq,” Blinken said in
his tweet, reaffirming the US “partnership” with the Iraqi government.
Sudani was tasked with forming Iraq’s next government on October 13,
after more than a year of political bickering since the parliamentary
elections in October 2021. Iraq’s parliament convened late last month,
approving Sudani’s cabinet.
There was immediately no statement from Sudani’s office regarding the phone call.
Looking for something to do this weekend? BROS is playing around the world and streaming in the US.
