Thursday, January 05, 2023

Graham Elwood, David Stockman

Graham Elwood's talking about TIK TOK.


 

You know, I'm just not in to TIK TOK.  Never been interested in it.  The closest thing would be  those "short" videos on YOUTUBE -- labeled short -- that are stand up videos that last 15 to 30 seconds.


I just don't feel that most video content creators shouldn't.  They create visually dull videos.  They've got nothing to say or sing and I'm just not interested.  I was in high school when MYSPACE was the biggest be all of them all.  Now no one even knows MYSPACE.  It just faded away.


I wish the war would fade away -- all of them.  At ANTIWAR.COM, David Stockman writes:


The present disaster in Ukraine incepted in the Washington-sponsored Maidan coup of February 2014. Among other things it was a "revenge intervention" designed to punish Russia for being so bold as to thwart the neocon regime change adventure in Syria; and especially to haze Putin for persuading Assad to give up his chemical weapons, thereby removing any pretext for Washington military intervention.

As it happened, the Russian-friendly president of Ukraine at the time, Vicktor Janukovych, had at the last minute in late 2013 ditched a long-pending EU affiliation agreement and IMF stabilization plan in favor of a more attractive deal with Moscow. Under the so-called rule of law, that reversal would hardly seem outside the realm of sovereign prerogative.

But not by the lights of Washington, red-hot from being check-mated in Syria. Accordingly, the neocon operatives in the Obama national security apparatus, spear-headed by the horrid Victoria Nuland, insisted that the Russian deal not be allowed to stand and that Ukraine’s accession to NATO should be fast-tracked.

So doing, they demonstrated an immense ignorance about the 800-year history of the various territories which had been cobbled together in the artificial state of Ukraine, and the long-history of these pieces and parts as vassals and appendages of both Greater Russia and various eastern European kingdoms and empires that had marched back and forth across the pages of history.

In a word, they dove into a rabbit hole that has made Washington’s misadventures in the middle east small potatoes by comparison. But the War Party would be be stopped, encouraged to believe that its vast conventional military armada and the reach of its global economic sanctions could bring Putin to heel, as well.

Is this war going to drag out forever like the Iraq War?  I get the feeling that I'll be dead and gone and my daughter will be a grandma before this war ends.  

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


Thursday, January 5, 2023.   THE NEW YORK TIMES hires another homophobic columnist, NYPD lets Proud Boys ride the subways for free (some sort of take-your-thug-to-work event, apparently), Iraqi teachers tired of two years without pay take to the streets as corruption becomes more embedded in Iraq.


Trudy Ring (THE ADVOCATE) reports:

The New York Times has brought on an anti-LGBTQ+ columnist, David French, a former National Review editor who was once an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The Times announced French’s hiring Tuesday, calling him “an expert on the law, faith and politics.” But GLAAD is pointing to his “deep history of anti-LGBTQ activism.” GLAAD also notes that he joins the Times after the paper ended its relationship with acclaimed trans writer Jenny Boylan last year and brought on another anti-LGBTQ+ columnist, Pamela Paul.


And here is the statement from GLAAD:


January 4, 2023

Today, GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, is responding to the New York Times’ recent announcement of their hiring of anti-LGBTQ attorney and writer David French as a columnist.

GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis responded on Twitter and below:

“It is appalling that The New York Times hired and is now boasting about bringing on David French, a writer and attorney with a deep history of anti-LGBTQ activism. After more than a year of inaccurate, misleading LGBTQ coverage in the Times opinion and news pages, the Times started 2023 by announcing a second anti-transgender opinion columnist, without a single known trans voice represented on staff. A cursory search for French turns up numerous anti-LGBTQ articles and his record as an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group that actively spreads misinformation about LGBTQ people and pushes baseless legislation and lawsuits to legalize discrimination, including just last month at the Supreme Court. The Times left out these facts in its glowing announcement of French’s hiring, and also forgot to mention his work as a co-signer on the 2017 Nashville Statement, which erased LGBTQ voices of faith and falsely stated ‘that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism.’ The Times had the gall to claim French as a ‘faith’ expert despite this known history.

The Times’ opinion section continues to platform non-LGBTQ voices speaking up inaccurately and harmfully about LGBTQ people and issues. This is damaging to the paper’s credibility. The Times opinion section editors’ love letter to French yesterday shows a willful disregard of LGBTQ community voices and the concerns so many have shared about their inaccurate, exclusionary, often ridiculous pieces. Last year, the Times ended popular trans writer Jenny Boylan’s column, leaving the opinion section with no trans columnists and a known lack of transgender representation on its overall staff. Who was brought on after Boylan? Pamela Paul, who has devoted columns to anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ disinformation, and David French. This reflects a growing trend on the news and opinion pages of misguided, inaccurate, and disingenuous ‘both sides’ fearmongering and bad faith ‘just asking questions’ coverage. The Times started 2023 by bragging about hiring another anti-trans writer, so LGBTQ leaders, organizations, and allies should make a 2023 resolution not to stay silent as the Times platforms lies, bias, fringe theories, and dangerous inaccuracies.”

Examples of French’s anti-LGBTQ activism:

Examples of NYT Columnist Pamela Paul’s anti-LGBTQ work:

Recent examples of inaccurate news coverage of LGBTQ people and youth, and their consequences:

  • The state of Texas used Emily Bazelon’s June 15 report in The New York Times Magazine to further target families of trans youth in court documents over their private, evidence-based healthcare decisions. Every major medical association supports gender affirming care as best practices care that is safe and lifesaving and has widespread consensus of the medical and scientific communities.
  • The World Professional Association of Transgender Healthcare (WPATH), the world’s leading medical and research authority on transgender healthcare, criticized the Times’ November 2022 article “They Paused Puberty, But Is There a Cost?” as “furthering the atmosphere of misinformation” about healthcare for trans youth, noting its inaccurate narratives, interpretations and non-expert voices. WPATH noted the Times elevated false and inflammatory notions about medications that have been used safely in non-LGBTQ populations for decades without an explicit statement about how the benefits of the treatment far outweigh potential risks.
  • Writer Michael Powell elevated anti-transgender voices to falsely assert, in a piece about one successful transgender athlete, that transgender athletes are a threat to women’s sports. Powell’s other pieces have been used to support Pamela Paul’s inaccurate opinion essays falsely claiming “women” are being erased by the inclusion of trans people in discussions about abortion access.

###

About GLAAD: GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change. GLAAD protects all that has been accomplished and creates a world where everyone can live the life they love. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org or connect with GLAAD on Facebook and Twitter.


THE NEW YORK TIMES itself has a lengthy history of homophobia.  Most recently, they ran their factually incorrect piece on transgender persons.  It's amazing that the staff managed to clutch the pearls over the publication of a column by a US senator and get an editor fired over it but they never feel the need to question the repeated and ongoing homophobia of the paper.  More to the point, NYT, in the digital age, goes out of its way to market itself as some sort of left outpost left fighting in the wilderness and so many idiots believe it and think NYT is anything but an elitist, corporatist paper.  This goes to the reality of what a cesspool it actually is.


It's 2023, there is a war going on against LGBTQ+ people and THE NEW YORK TIMES' response?  To hire yet another homophobe columnist.  They are pouring gasoline on top of a raging fire.  Mary Harris (SLATE) notes:

In the past year, there’s been a sharp uptick in anti-LGBTQ incidents around the country. One group estimates that there’s been a 12-fold increase in demonstrations and political violence targeted at the queer community, just since 2000. In fact, the very same people in the audience watching the Respect for Marriage Act get signed? They were fighting off harassment the moment they got home.

“I spoke to a drag artist by the name of Marti G. Cummings. They’re a nonbinary performer here in New York City, and they were invited to the White House ceremony. And the night after the signing, Tucker Carlson ran a segment about this and included references to Marti Cummings, saying that they have an unusual interest in children,” Mack says. “Marti Cummings told me that to them, Tucker Carlson knows what he’s doing. To frame drag artists as this predatory threat to children is something that felt very shocking to me in March. But now, I’m not shocked at all. That focus on children is not a coincidence. It is entirely related to the events that we saw in the pandemic and the political strategy that sections of the right developed.”

On Wednesday’s episode of What Next, we try to make sense of this bifurcated moment for the queer community by examining the common thread linking conservative activism around COVID to anti-gay demonstrations in the street. My conversation with David Mack has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Mary Harris: Back when a shooter opened fire in a Colorado Springs gay nightclub, in November, BuzzFeed’s David Mack wrote an article lamenting the fact that this kind of violence seemed inevitable. Mack was hurting as he wrote this—he’s gay himself; he felt at risk. But he also felt like he should have seen this violence coming. 

To him, it didn’t begin with gay people at all. Instead, it began with concerns around COVID and schools. Because protecting children seemed to resonate. Over the past year, he says he’s watched this political message metastasize. 

David Mack: It’s funny. In November 2021, I was in Grand Junction, Colorado, for a school board race, of all things. I’d chosen to go there for a few reasons. It’s a bit of a hotbed for election denialism. It was having this school board race that was suddenly very partisan. And it’s also an overwhelmingly white area where suddenly “critical race theory” was this big subject of debate. One of the candidates told me that she’d knocked on a door and someone had told her that they blamed “critical race theory” for turning their child bisexual.


Whoa. Quite a leap there.

It certainly was. But it spoke perfectly to this wonderful boogeyman that the right had created. Most people I spoke to, even the candidates themselves, couldn’t really define what CRT was. It became this wonderful catchall for anything that could possibly influence young minds to hate America or to make them less American. And to make them less conservative is where it naturally led.

Protecting the presumed innocence of children is what connects all this. Whether conservative parents were talking about “critical race theory” or LGBTQ issues, the idea was the same: to avoid “corrupting the minds of young people.”

And to be clear, I’m not the one marrying these things. In Ohio, one of the bills that was put forward to legislate against “critical race theory” also included, in the very same bill, language that mirrored restrictions on sexual teachings, on sexual orientation, and on gender identity that you saw famously in the “don’t say gay” bill in Florida.

Do you think it is a top-down strategy? Or do you think it’s more like something was successful and then it spread and morphed?

Certainly people at the highest levels of the Republican Party are aware of this strategy and are using this strategy. You saw Glenn Youngkin in Virginia run in 2021 on a campaign about giving parents more control over the curriculum and listening to parents when it comes to schools. And they’re clearly recognizing schools and classrooms are a winning issue. Steve Bannon famously said last year the path to retake the country runs through school board elections.


These attacks are not happening by chance.  It is an organized effort and it needs to be stopped.  Silence isn't going to stop it.  Playing footsie with that Mother Tucker Carlson -- the way Glenn Greenwald does -- is not an answer.  This nonsense needs to be called out and called out loudly.  


Jesse Thomas (WSWS) reports:

A video showing New York City (NYPD) policemen holding the metro transit fare gates open for several members of the Proud Boys has surfaced on social media, garnering millions of views in the 48-hour period since its posting.

The individual filming the video can be heard questioning the officers’ actions in disbelief, demanding to know if the militia members were being allowed to evade the subway fare by the police.

The video was posted on TikTok on Sunday, and by Tuesday evening it had upwards of a third of a million individual user “likes,” 18,000 comments and 13,000 “shares.” A reposting of the video on Twitter showed 3.4 million more views, along with 13.9 million views of the thread to which it had been attached.

In an example of popular disgust with the collaboration between the police and the political far-right, one commenter wrote, “I’ve literally seen the NYPD chase people [for] fair evasion, this is insane.” Another user added, “cops let their own in.”

The video was filmed after the Proud Boys, along with the ultra-religious, anti-vaccine, anti-LGBTQ Guardians of Divinity, threatened a Drag Queen Story Hour (DSH) event at the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights on December 29.

Between the two extreme-right organizations, over two dozen members were present at the event, while about 150 counter-demonstrators showed up in protest against the far-right provocateurs. Guardians of Divinity members and Proud Boys hurled slanderous epithets and attempted to intimidate supporters of the event.

NYPD made a choice and that choice needs to be investigated and called out.  Silence is not the answer in these attacks, looking the other way is not a solution.  Ibtisam Mara'ana (HAARETZ) notes:

 

Two days ago, while in Abed’s supermarket in Jaffa, I noticed the tahini shelf was full of Al Arz Tahini. The brand is owned by Julia Zaher, who joined in aiding The Aguda – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel and promised to fund the LGBT hotline for Arabs. Her support, both on the ideological and financial levels, stirred up a storm. Calls were heard to boycott the company’s products, and supermarket owners in Arab communities removed the products from their shelves.

The storm spread to all of Israeli society and for a few days the tahini was one of the hottest and most talked about topics in the country. The support from the liberal Jewish Israeli community on behalf of the Arab community was amazing and heartwarming. People specifically bought Al Arz Tahini to support and express solidarity with the Arab LGBT community, in support of equality and against silencing people.

The tahini controversy penetrated almost every Arab home in Israel. The company did not lose money and did not go out of business. Zaher did receive threats and shocking responses, but in the end everyone was still alive, the tahini was still on the shelves as a fact on the ground, and the same goes for the LGBT community.

Recently and to my great regret, the efforts that succeeded in forming a new government of incitement and hatred against the LGBT community, Arabs and other minorities require us to take a very brave step and create a civil political coalition for full equality for everyone, men and women. It is impossible to demand civil equality for the Arab community without demanding equality for the LGBT community and other minority groups that live among us, like refugees and those without residency status. Impossible, period.


These issues are interrelated and we can take them on working together.  We do nothing by staying silent or pretending that Mother Tucker is just joking and really a good guy because he brings on Glenn Greenwald and Jimmy Dore -- who never call out his homophobia and spend forever defending him.  They're choosing sides and it's not being on the side of the people.


The people in Iraq are protesting.  Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:

Hundreds of recently graduated teachers who have been working without receiving payments for years gathered in Kirkuk on Wednesday to protest their lack of contractual employment, calling on the Iraqi government to address their concerns. 

Iraq’s Education Minister Ibrahim Namis al-Jubouri announced on Tuesday that the council of ministers has agreed to include teachers of the graduating class of 2020 in the 2023 budget, granting them employment by contract. The decision does not include graduates from any other year, many of whom have been teaching free of charge and without contracts for years.

“We teach at schools without any privileges… Yesterday evening, a decision was issued to employ graduates of 2020, we are graduates of 2019, 2021, 2022 and we are still waiting… We have been teaching for free for two years,” one of the protesters told Rudaw’s Hiwa Hussamadin.

Most graduates resort to teaching for free hoping it would lead to full-time employment.


This takes place as Iraq sees record income from oil.  John Lee (OZ ARAB MEDIA) notes:


The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, has announced revenues of more than $115 billion from exporting crude oil for the year 2022.

More than 1,209 billion barrels of crude oil were exported, giving a daily export rate is approximately 3.320 million barrels per day (bpd).


ARABIAN BUSINESS notes, "This is a four-year high following a collapse in prices during the Covid-19 pandemic."  But it means nothing for the Iraqi people because the US-installed government in Iraq has never attempted to better the lives of the Iraqi people.  Nouri al-Maliki and his family got rich after the 2003 invasion, it was the Iraqi people who struggled.  Jobs are nowhere to be found and politicians and officials steal the public monies.  There's no investment in infrastructure.  There's no investment in the people.  That's what The October Revolution was protesting against: corruption that destroyed not just the chances of the young people but the entire country.  Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as ranked by Transperency International.  RUDAW notes:


At least five people were wounded in Kirkuk on Monday as police applied force to disperse hundreds of angry demonstrators who protested the lack of employment by the North Oil Company (NOC) and tried to storm its headquarters.

A total of 1350 college graduates received a six-month-long training course by the state-run NOC four years ago, but have not yet been employed. Of this number, Over 450 of them staged an angry protest on Monday.

A protester told Rudaw that Baghdad already consented to employ 458 of the trained graduates, but they were not true to their words and that they employed other people instead of them.


$115 billion from oil last year and they still can't provide job opportunites.  It's the result of the corruption that is now embedded in the government the US installed, created and formented.  ASHARQ AL-AWSAT notes:

The Federal Supreme Court in Iraq recognized the lack of real will of the political class to combat corruption. This came in the wake of the Iraqi National Security Agency announcing that it had uncovered the largest crude oil smuggling network.  

“Iraqis have lost their confidence in public offices due to widespread financial and administrative corruption among employees at a time when the administrative system in Iraq was one of the most prominent systems in the Middle East,” said head of the Federal Supreme Court Judge Jassim Mohammed Abboud.  

While the parties behind the oil smuggling network remain unknown, defendants accused of embezzling $2.5 billion from a government taxpayer account are still at large. Nour Zuhair, the only defendant arrested in the case, was released on bail with authorities hoping to recover stolen funds.  

As for Abboud, he told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that corruption in Iraq is divided into two types. 

“Petty corruption is what is committed by junior employees, and this leads to the Iraqi citizen losing confidence in the public office,” he said. 

“Grand corruption is what is committed by senior officials or by some political parties. This corruption is what impedes the building of the state,” he explained.  



The following sites updated:




Posted by at

Wednesday, January 04, 2023

Graham Elwood, White House visitor Sam Bankman-Fried

Graham Elwood.


I'd honestly forgotten to check for anything new after over a week of nothing new.  That happens.  But there's some new stuff up now so be sure to check out Graham's YOUTUBE channel.

Other news?





FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried held several meetings with high-ranking White House officials earlier this year, prior to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange.

These meetings were part of an effort to influence cryptocurrency policy and establish connections in Washington before the collapse of Bankman-Fried's FTX empire, Bloomberg reports. 


According to White House officials cited in the report, Bankman-Fried met with Steve Ricchetti, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, on Sept. 8, 2022.

This meeting was not previously disclosed and was one of several sessions that took place over the course of the year.



These meetings were part of an effort to influence cryptocurrency policy and establish connections in Washington before the collapse of Bankman-Fried's FTX empire, Bloomberg reports. 

According to White House officials cited in the report, Bankman-Fried met with Steve Ricchetti, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, on Sept. 8, 2022.

This meeting was not previously disclosed and was one of several sessions that took place over the course of the year.




Well that doesn't sound very good, does it?  How much corruption is old man Joe pulling off right now?


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

 Wednesday, January 4, 2023.  That Mother Tucker Carlson pretends he didn't cheer on the Iraq War, there is talk that Julian Assange might be set free in the next two months, corruption is destroying Iraq, and much more.


MEDIA MATTERS notes that Mother Tucker Carlson has a new homophobic roll dog -- don't cry Glenn Greenwald, I'm sure Mother Tucker still loves you best.  His name is Charlie Kirk and Charlie doesn't like drag queens -- so why did he marry a woman who looks like one?  At any rate, Mother Tucker and wee little Charlie got together and stupidity ensued:

CHARLIE KIRK: (HOST): The same people that wanted to bomb Baghdad now want to blitzkrieg a female's body to change their nature from female to male.

CARLSON: [GIGGLES] Right!

KIRK: It's the same thing. We are going to impose our will on what is to what we think ought to be. 

CARLSON: One hundred percent. We're in charge of nature. 


Mother Tucker was giggling, was he?


Of course.  It's all a game to him and stupid Charlie Kirk doesn't seem to grasp that the people wanting to bomb Baghdad?  Mother Tucker's on that list.  He was on CNN then and he was all on board with pimping the Iraq War.  See wee Charlie, you were only ten then but you're an adult now and you're required to do some learning before opening your stupid mouth.


The ones who wanted to bomb Iraq are pretty much the same ones attacking the LGBTQ+ community today.  It's a fact.

 

Turning to Iraq where corruption is impacting the cost of housing.  FORBES provides the following video report.



And AFP notes:

Iraqi telecommunications worker Youssef Ahmed is married with a five-year-old son, but lives with his parents because he is unable to afford his own home amid soaring property prices. "Even if your income increases, it will never be up to the exorbitant prices of houses or land", said 29-year-old Ahmed, who earns a "comfortable" monthly salary of $1,000, double the national average.
 Real estate in Iraq has become a popular way to launder money, including stolen public funds Real estate in Iraq has become a popular way to launder money, including stolen public funds. 
 Compounded by housing planning failures and an increasing demand, it has pushed prices in the capital Baghdad rapidly out of reach for many ordinary Iraqis.  

AL-MONITOR's Shelly Kittleson Tweets:

It shouldn't be that way.  Iraq is oil rich.  There should be more than enough to go around.  John Lee (OZ ARAB MEDIA) notes:

The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, has announced revenues of more than $115 billion from exporting crude oil for the year 2022.

More than 1,209 billion barrels of crude oil were exported, giving a daily export rate is approximately 3.320 million barrels per day (bpd).


ARABIAN BUSINESS notes, "This is a four-year high following a collapse in prices during the Covid-19 pandemic."  But it means nothing for the Iraqi people because the US-installed government in Iraq has never attempted to better the lives of the Iraqi people.  Nouri al-Maliki and his family got rich after the 2003 invasion, it was the Iraqi people who struggled.  Jobs are nowhere to be found and politicians and officials steal the public monies.  There's no investment in infrastructure.  There's no investment in the people.  That's what The October Revolution was protesting against: corruption that destroyed not just the chances of the young people but the entire country.  Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as ranked by Transperency International.  


Ismaeel Naar (THE NATIONAL) reports:


Iraq's anti-corruption agency said it has recovered another $2.6 million fraudulently withdrawn from a government bank account.

But this is just a fraction of the $2.5 billion allegedly stolen from a number of state enterprises in a series of cheque transactions over the past two years.

The scandal has led to outrage in the country where many Iraqis live in poverty amid widespread corruption.

Judge Haider Hanoun, who heads the Federal Authority of Integrity, said that the suspect in this recovery is alleged to have stolen more than $11 million.

“The money that was recovered today amounted to 4 billion Iraqi dinars ($2.6 million), which is part of a total of more than 17 billion ($11 million),” Judge Hanoun, who heads the Federal Authority of Integrity, said on Tuesday.



US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, for those who've forgotten, Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat



The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.


At SCHEER POST, Kevin Gosztola writes:


As the new year began, ABC Global Affairs Editor John Lyons stated during a broadcast segment that he expected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would be released “within the next two months or so.”

“I know [Australia Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese. He’s working strongly behind the scenes,” Lyons added. “He has said as much, but enough is enough.”

Lyons is sympathetic to Assange’s plight, making him one of the few correspondents in the world working for establishment news media who is willing to endorse calls to end the United States case against him.

But the key question is whether Lyons knows about some shift in the so-called “quiet diplomacy” between the US and Australia that may result in Assange being released from Belmarsh prison and returned home to Australia.



Karl Dickey writes:

But the U.S. government seems to disagree. They've been gunning for Assange since the Obama years, and now they've finally got him in their sights. They're trying to extradite him and throw him in prison for the rest of his life. And all because he dared to tell the truth.

This is an outrage, friends. The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our constitutional republic, and prosecuting Assange for doing his job as a journalist would set a dangerous precedent that could have far-reaching implications for press freedom. It's time for the U.S. government to drop the charges against Julian Assange and let him go free.

But before we dive too deep into the topic at hand, let's take a step back and get some context. Who is Julian Assange, exactly, and what is WikiLeaks all about?

Well, Julian Assange is an Australian journalist and computer programmer who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. From the beginning, the organization has been focused on publishing classified, secret, and otherwise restricted information from governments and other powerful institutions. WikiLeaks has made a name for itself by releasing everything from diplomatic cables to military reports to emails from high-ranking officials. They've even published leaked audio recordings and video footage. In short, WikiLeaks is all about shining a light on the things that powerful people don't want the public to see.

But it's not just about exposing wrongdoing. WikiLeaks has always maintained that its goal is to bring about transparency and accountability in government and other institutions. They believe that by publishing this information, they can help to create a more informed and engaged citizenry, which is essential for a healthy democracy.

So how does WikiLeaks go about getting this information? Well, they use a variety of methods. Sometimes they receive leaked documents directly from whistleblowers who are fed up with the status quo. Other times they use sophisticated hacking techniques to access restricted information. But no matter how they get the information, their goal is always the same: to publish it and let the public decide for themselves what to make of it.

That's the background, friends. Now let's get back to the main topic: the U.S. government's attempt to silence Julian Assange and his work with WikiLeaks. First and foremost, the revelations by Assange about our U.S. Government never put anyone in harm’s way and certainly did not kill any of our people; no, what really happened was our government was embarrassed by what Wikileaks revealed about what our government was doing with other government leaders around the globe (more on that later).

So, what's all this got to do with the First Amendment, you might be wondering? Well, everything, my friends. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is all about protecting freedom of expression, and that includes freedom of the press. It's why we're able to sit here and have this little chat without the government coming down on us like a ton of bricks. And it's why Julian Assange should be protected, too.


The followng sites updated:




Posted by at

Tuesday, January 03, 2023

Why isn't Piatt fired?

First up,  Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "THE PEW loses it."


another pew2


I love THE PEW but I loathe their real life characters.  They're a bunch of homophobice wack job.  

Now this is Jacob Cross (WSWS):

A new book written by former US Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, and obtained in advance by the Washington Post, claims that while high-level generals and civilian officials at the Pentagon were denying his urgent requests to deploy National Guard soldiers to the Capitol as it was under siege by Trump’s right-wing mob on January 6, 2021, the Department of Defense ordered that security forces be sent to protect the homes and offices of high-level department officials.

In the book, Courage Under Fire, according to the Post account, Sund wrote that during the attack on Congress, “the Pentagon fully understands the urgency and danger of the situation even as it does nothing to support us on the Hill.”

Sund resigned from his post at the urging of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi one day after the attack on Congress.

In the book, the former top cop of the US Capitol Police confirmed that his requests for National Guard support to the Capitol were denied by Lt. General Walter Piatt during a 2:35 p.m. conference call on January 6.

Sund wrote that Piatt told him and others on the mid-afternoon call, including Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and then-D.C. National Guard commander Major General William Walker, that he did not like the “optics” of sending soldiers to help Congress. He said this as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other fascists were storming the building, seeking to capture and/or kill politicians who refused to unconstitutionally declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election.


So why isn't Piatt either charged with a crime or fired?  It makes no sense.

Go read "2022: The year of bad 'documentaries' (Ava and C.I.)" -- it does make sense.

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


Tuesday, January 3, 2023.  2023 is just starting and so much already to cover.



Barbara Walters passed away as the year was winding down.  I've put up videos about that and that's about all I planned to do.



Needs a hair cut has the nerve to say of the women on THE VIEW -- and I'd assume past and present because they're talking about the past and the present, ""First of all, no one on THE VIEW is really all that qualified to be talking about politics."


I believe what he means to say is that women aren't qualified to speak of politics.


THE VIEW was created by Barbara Walters.  She is a famous journalist.  She even interviewed Bashar al-Assad in 2011 and did so because of the war drums pounding -- not to encourage war but to  give Americans a look at who Assad was.  And she did it over the initial objections of ABC brass.  That was one of Barbra's last power moves as a journalist.  


Meredith Viera -- whom I loathe -- may be a game show host to the little weiner boys of THE VANGUARD, but Vieira was a professional journalist. She joined THE VIEW in 1997.  She began her professional journalism career in 1975 -- along the way, that includes being a correspondent for 60 MINUTES and WEST 57TH.

Lisa Ling was one of the best hosts THE VIEW ever had and Lisa was and is a journalist. 


Rosie O'Donnell ran MCCALLS (into the ground, some might argue, but the magazine was already struggling before she came on board) from 2000 to 2003. 


Joy Behar is a comedian who has long been a talk show host. 


We could go through the list all day.


But many of the women have journalism backgrounds.  


And they're not required to have that.  "All different backgrounds" -- that's what Barbra introduction to each show would note, she wanted to bring together women to discuss the news of the day.


I'm not claiming THE VIEW was ever epic breaking TV.  But it was a step forward and I need to note something before Barbra Walters passes so she can get the credit she deserves.  Today, there's THE CHEW and so much else outright copying THE VIEW.  And we've had, for example, a news/public affairs program (CBS MORNING NEWS) that featured Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King at the same time.  When THE VIEW came on, women weren't on.  They were the smiling wifey that a Jane Pauley (I've never been impressed with that ___) or a Joan Lunden (who was at least a sweet person) portrayed next to the male host -- and female guests weren't really on that often -- not on the Sunday chat & chews, not on the public affairs programs.


Barbra wanted a program that was made up of women -- plural -- who would conduct interviews and comment on the events of the day.  She wanted to take the TV cameras to the majority of the world -- women.  It was successful and it's been so copied that it's very easy, all these years later, to not give her credit for what she did and what she accomplished because it seems so natural and so obvious.  But what she did was groundbreaking for commercial, broadcast television.  (Bonnie Erbe did something similar for public television with TO THE CONTRARY WITH BONNIE ERBE starting in 1992, five years earlier.)  Barbara deserves credit for that.


When she passes, her obits should note the ground she broke as interviewer and how she went on to break more ground with THE VIEW.  I'm not a friend of Barbara's and I'm not a big fan of her work but I do give her credit for what she did on TV.  And, to her credit, she never shied away from reactions.  I haven't watched THE VIEW in years and that's probably because Barbara's no longer a part of it.  When she was, I could call her after the broadcast and she'd take the call even though she knew if I was calling, I was calling to gripe.  My calls usually didn't even open with a hello.  They usually opened with an "I'm enraged."  Such as when Meredith proved to be the ultimate bitch on air and, no, I will never forgive her for that.  Joy has stated to me that she went too far that episode (yes, you did, Joy) but was caught up in the times.  Caught up in the times?


This was when THE VIEW went right wing -- shocking for viewers of today's show.  They didn't just go right wing, they spent 'hot topics' trashing Jane Fonda.  Excuse me.  Lisa didn't trash Jane.  Lisa watched with discomfort as the others trashed Jane.  Lisa tried to speak up but was talked over (yelled over) by Joy and Meredith.  Which I also pointed out to Barbara who wasn't on that day's show but was on the next day's show and made a point to sit next to Lisa for support.  It was outrageous..  It was the biggest nonsense you'd ever seen in the world and there are people in their 20s who probably would never believe it happened, certainly not on the 'lefty' VIEW.  It happened.  And I will never, ever forgive Meredith for it. The venom and hate that she snarled and unleashed?  I will never forgive her.  They were so eager to appear to be Republican that they went to town on Jane in the most disgusting way.  It was out of bounds.  And that point was made, to Barbara's credit, by Barbara on the next day's show.  


So don't think I'm some devotee of the show who catches every episode.  


But I do appreciate what Barbara did and how she changed television.  


So let's give her credit for that.


And that's 2021.  It's 2023 now.  I don't have much to say.  I didn't like her that much.  I had reasons for that -- solid reasons -- that went to her professional career.  

I really don't need Megyn Kelly offering her thoughts on Barbara as a mother.  I really don't.  I don't know anyone who thought Barbara was a good mother.  I don't know anyone who didn't see the adoption as a desperate measure to save a failing marriage.

Marriage.

I would only comment on one of Barbara's marriages, and I have over the years.  That would be Merv Anderson.  The first time she married him, I have no comment on him.  The second time?  Barbara destroyed that marriage and she did it to be political to her friends.  She chose her friendship with certain Republicans -- and I can name them -- over her marriage to her husband.  She did an interview where she went after someone and that someone was a big moneymaker for her husband's business.  Now I've gong into that in the past at THIRD and I think it's pertinent today because that does go to her work.  

But this nonsense that she was a bad mother?  She was born in 1929 and she was a driven as any male and I'm not recalling Megyn holding any man accountable for his fathering.

She was a bad mother.  

It's a single sentence.

It's not a nine minute plus segment.

Nor is your own parenting, Megyn, which I'm told would make an entire book.  So maybe lay off a dead woman who was not your mother and who did as well as any of us expected she would as a mother.  It's strange because I didn't think one way or the other of Megyn until this morning when I got on the stair master and looked for something to stream.  I saw Megyn's nonsense and thought it might be about something worthwhile.  It wasn't.

I then called around to ask, "What's the deal with her?"  I got one horror story after another about Megyn as a parent and was also formed that she works with an anti-LGBTQ+ organization.  

Another friend of Glenn Greenwald's who is anti-LGBTQ+?  Marcia was right to name him "The Most Disgusting Person of 2022."  He's making self-loathing a lifestyle choice.


Moving onto another story in the news, the Hunter Biden laptop.  Josh Boswell (DAILY MAIL) reports:

The Department of Justice is trying to prevent disclosure of 400 pages of sensitive documents on Hunter and Jim Biden's dealings with China, Russia and Ukraine – by pretending they don't exist.

Colorado lawyer Kevin Evans sued the department in March after it failed to comply with his request for records on the Bidens' dealings under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Evans, a FOIA expert, asked for documents pertaining to 'any relationship, communication, gift(s), and/or remuneration in any form' between the president's son Hunter or brother Jim, and China, Russia or Ukraine.

He said government lawyers first admitted in court to having at least 400 pages of 'potentially relevant' documents – but are now trying to get away with saying they can 'neither confirm nor deny' the existence of any records that match his request.

A Justice Department prosecutor, David Weiss, is currently considering a criminal case against Hunter with potential allegations of money laundering, illegal foreign lobbying and tax crimes in relation to the First Son's overseas business dealings.

The 400 pages are not the only cache of Biden records being sought from the government.

The National Archives and Records Administration is preparing to release hundreds of Obama White House internal documents containing information about Hunter's relationship with controversial Ukrainian gas company Burisma, Business Insider reported this month.




 Over the weekend, a story of violence emerged from Iraq: a mass arrest following an assault.  Nik Martin (DW) reports:


Sixteen young men were arrested Saturday in Iraq's automonmous Kurdistan region after a viral video showed a teenage girl being attacked by a group of youths.

The incident took place a day earlier at a motorbike rally in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the region's second city.

Footage of the attack was shared on social media, sparking widespread condemnation.

It shows dozens of young men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted her, kicking her against a car.

AFP notes that the woman attacked was 17 and "The incident took place in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the Kurdistan region´s second city, where footage shared online showed dozens of young men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted her, kicking her against a car."  Holly Johnstone (THE NATIONAL) adds:'


She was reported to have been attacked after arriving at a motorcycle race where men asked that women be excluded.

While the Kurdistan Region has laws against domestic violence and is often upheld as an example of more progressive attitudes towards women, gender-based violence remains a problem.

At least 24 women were killed in such circumstances in the first half of 2022, according to a local anti-trafficking and women's rights foundation.

The “senseless assault” is the result “of a barbaric narrative used systematically against our women”, said Rewaz Faeq, the speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, said in a post on Twitter accompanied by video of the attack.




 

In Baghdad today, the militias remember Qassem Soleimani a thug who the United States murdered with a drone.  Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) notes:

Candles were lit by mourners as others waved Iraqi and Iranian flags near the airport.

Although the Iraqi parliament denied that Tuesday is an official holiday, the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Wasit, Dhi Qar, Muthanna and Diwaniyah in the south announced an official day off to mark the occasion.

It is expected that other Shiite majority provinces will join in and suspend official working hours. However, northern provinces with a Sunni majority have ignored the anniversary.

Iraqi militia leaders such as Iranian-backed militia chief Hadi Al Amiri and Asaib Ahl Al Haq’s Qais Khazali called for an end to the US presence in the country.

In his own country of Iran, the dead man's facing more of a pushback.



Let's wind down with this from Kyle C. Velte's piece at TRUTHOUT regarding the attacks on LGBTQ+ persons:

Anti-LGBTQ Court Decisions

While some anti-LGBTQ legislation was temporarily blocked in the courts, judges also joined legislatures in diminishing LGBTQ rights this year. In September, a judge in Texas held that a mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to provide insurance coverage of a drug that prevents the transmission of HIV could not be applied to a company that had a religious objection to such coverage. The company argued that compliance with the mandate made it “complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior,” which in turn violated its sincerely held religious belief that the “Bible condemns sexual activity outside marriage between one man and one woman, including homosexual conduct.”

This religious exemption from complying with the Affordable Care Act tracks efforts by wedding vendors seeking similar religious exemptions from state public accommodations laws so that they may refuse goods and services to same-sex couples. In fact, on December 5, 2022, the U.S Supreme Court heard oral argument on one such case: 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a case in which a Christian wedding website designer is seeking a religious exemption from Colorado’s anti-discrimination law so that she may turn away same-sex couples. She argued that application of the Colorado law violates her First Amendment free speech rights because it forces her to express a message about marriage that conflicts with her religious beliefs.

Notably, this case could further expand the ability of vendors to receive religious exemptions and thus gain the right to discriminate against LGBTQ customers. That is because the court’s previous anti-LGBTQ religious exemption case involved the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, as opposed to the Free Speech Clause that is at issue in 303 Creative. In its 2015 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court granted a religious exemption to Colorado’s law to a baker who wanted to refuse to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. The court held that the adjudication process was tainted with religious hostility and thus violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. Although the baker in Masterpiece Cakeshop also asserted a free speech claim, the court did not address that claim.

The free speech claim is now teed up in the 303 Creative case. If the court finds in favor of the web designer, going forward vendors will have two legs to stand on when claiming the right to discriminate — the Free Speech Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Stay tuned: The court’s ruling in this case is expected by June 2023, although many suspect that a decision in favor of the website designer is likely, based on the court’s decisions in its last term.

The Hidden Threat to LGBTQ Rights

Likely more elusive to even those most attentive to LGBTQ civil rights are a series of dangerous doctrine-shifting decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court this year that, on their surface, had nothing to do with LGBTQ civil rights. So why include such cases in a year-end wrap up of the LGBTQ legal landscape? Because these cases set the stage for significant retrenchment in the area of LGBTQ civil rights moving forward.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

One of 2022’s blockbuster Supreme Court cases, the Dobbs decision struck down 50 years of precedent when it overruled Roe v. Wade and proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to abortion. Although Dobbs didn’t present any questions about LGBTQ civil rights, its holding imperils those rights, including the right to gender-affirming health care and the right to same-sex marriage declared in the 2015 case of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Why does a case overruling a constitutional right to abortion threaten same-sex marriage? Because the reasoning on which the right to abortion was based in Roe is the same reasoning on which the right to same-sex marriage was based in Obergefell. In fact, Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs explicitly invited the court to revisit — and reverse — Obergefell.

Thus, even what looks like good legislative news — the recent passage of the Respect for Marriage Act and its pending signature into law by President Biden — isn’t all that good. The passage of that act was lauded by many as a victory for LGBTQ civil rights. But it does not — and cannot — prevent the right to marriage from being taken away, as only the Supreme Court has the power to declare what constitutes a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution. And after Dobbs, the Obergefell holding is up for grabs.

Should that occur, the question of same-sex marriage would return to the states, just as the question of the right to abortion has returned to the states after Dobbs. The Respect for Marriage Act would provide no protection against states banning same-sex marriage. In fact, it is likely that over 30 states would ban same-sex marriage and the Respect for Marriage Act would be powerless to stop them.

[. . .]


The court’s shift to the right has been marked by a willingness to take its opinions “in radically different directions.” Professor Mark Lemley describes today’s court as the “Imperial Supreme Court” because its recent decisions have “taken significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts” in a manner that leads to the conclusion that it seeks to consolidate power in one place: itself.

Its recent LGBTQ cases reveal that the court has its sights set on further dismantling LGBTQ rights in the name of Christian nationalism. The non-LGBTQ cases of Bremerton, Makin, West Virginia and Dobbs set the stage for the ongoing retrenchment of LGBTQ rights when cases like the 303 Creative reach the court.

In sum, 2022 saw a tripartite attack on LGBTQ rights, although only two of those might be on the radar of most LGBTQ people and their allies — anti-LGBTQ legislation and anti-LGBTQ decisions by lower courts. These expressly anti-LGBTQ attacks are, of course, dangerous and cause for concern. But their explicitness means that they can be targeted by LGBTQ activists and allies; LGBTQ people can organize, rally, lobby, run for office and litigate to push back against these express attacks.

It is the third prong of the tripartite attack, the Supreme Court’s insidious shift to the right in the constitutional and regulatory spheres in non-LGBTQ cases, that is especially nefarious and troubling because these decisions hide their destructive power to undermine LGBTQ rights. The hidden quality of the threats makes it more difficult to rally, organize and set an agenda for the LGBTQ rights movement that can tackle head-on the downstream threats to LGBTQ rights posed by these cases. LGBTQ rights activists and allies will need to build more powerful coalitions in 2023 with other progressive causes, such as environmental justice advocates and '.First Amendment activists, to anticipate these downstream threats and organize to meet and defeat them.



 

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