Wednesday, February 22, 2017

MARVEL AGENTS OF SHIELD surprises

So Tony calls me last night and he's all, "It was a good episode! It was actually a good episode."

He was talking about MARVEL AGENTS OF SHIELD.

He watches too. He was disappointed too.

I think we both would have bailed on it long ago if it weren't for the fact that it's one of the things we talk about on the phone. And now that I'm in Hawaii (he's still in Boston), we really just talk on the phone except for holidays.

So he says it was a good episode and that means I take to HULU.

It was a good episode.

Fitz and Gemma weren't human -- only Gemma was.

Turns out Fitz was a robot.

And turned out Daisy wasn't.

So Daisy and Gemma had to team up which was a good mix up for a change.

And it was a lot of fun to watch (robot) Colson get beat up -- just wish it could have been the real thing. :D

The episode was only good because Daisy and Gemma worked together.

And robot Mae turned out to have a sense of responsibility.

But Ava and the whole nonsense going on there?

Just out right sick of it.

It's time to stop the suspended animation for humans plot.

By the way, next fall we're supposed to see another MARVEL show on ABC.

Not happy.

They can barely manage this show.

I'm really not in the mood for this show to go further down the tubes.

This week's episode was the first one worth watching since Ghost Rider last appeared all that time ago.

Now for political . . .

‏@sahouraxo

Tulsi Gabbard: Many of you protested the wars on Vietnam, Iraq & Libya. Now I ask you to do the same: Stand with me to end the war on Syria. 

107 replies1,802 retweets2,406 likes

Agree.

In fact, Tulsi Gabbard for president!!!!

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

Wednesday, February 22, 2017. Chaos and violence continue, the western media covers one death while largely ignoring another, and much more.

Another US death in Iraq. Yesterday, it was announced that "Pfc. Brian Patrick Odiorne" died in Iraq.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: February 21, 2017 12:13:25 PM CST

Death of a Fort Hood Soldier

Pfc. Brian Patrick Odiorne

FORT HOOD, Texas -- The Department of Defense announced Feb. 21 the death of a Fort Hood Soldier who died Feb. 20, in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, from a non-combat related incident while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
Pfc. Brian Patrick Odiorne, 21, whose home of record is listed as Ware, Massachusetts, entered active-duty military service in October 2015 as a cannon crewmember.
He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, since May 2016.
Odiorne's awards and decorations include the National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and Army Service Medal. He will be posthumously awarded the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal and Overseas Service Ribbon.
Circumstances surrounding the incident are currently under investigation by Special Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.
No further information will be released at this time to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigative process.

For more information contact:

Fort Hood Public Affairs Office
(254) 287-9993
(254) 287-0106
1001 761st Tank Battalion Ave
Suite W105
Fort Hood, TX 76544
usarmy.hood.imcom-central.list.pao-mr@mail.mil

Betty observed:

It's "under investigation."

Which usually means, "Let's stall until the press loses interest."

Reality: The press lost interest long ago.

Another American who should have been somewhere else, not being used to continue the never-ending Iraq War -- a war that his 14 years next month.

14 years.

And Barack swore he would end it.

Liar.

He's a War Criminal and so is Bully Boy Bush.

Mike Glenn (HOUSTON CHRONICLE) notes, "Odiorne was originally from Ware, Mass. - about 80 miles west of Boston. He joined the Army in October 2015 and had been at Ford Hood since May 2016." Anthony Fay and Hayley Crombleholme (WWLP) report, "Since May, Odiorone had been assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. He entered active-duty service as a cannon crewmember in 2015."

‏@stevewightman1

Honoring #USArmy PFC Brian P Odiorne, died Feb 20, 2017 in Iraq. Honor him so he is not forgotten. 

11 replies147 retweets165 likes

Brandon Gray (KCEN) reports on the passing, Samara Abramson (WESTERN MASS NEWS) speaks with those who knes Odiorne:

Odiorne's loved ones said that he stayed in touch with them even when he was busy.
"Even if we didn't get to talk until the next day, we'll make sure that we at least keep in touch, like 'Hey, I'm okay, I'm letting you know I'm safe'," [Kelsie] Delisle added.
Delisle spoke to Odiorne on the phone every night, including Sunday - the night before he died.
"We'd always tell each other every night, when we hung up, that we missed each other and we loved each other and I'll talk to you tomorrow," Delisle explained.
That's what they told each other Sunday night, but Delisle found out about her close friend's death Monday morning after reading a post on Facebook.
"I don't know what to do and I have not stopped crying since then because it feels like I lost a part of me," Delisle said.

Patrick Johnson (MASS LIVE) notes rememberances of Brian Odiorone on social media including this from Brianna Woodman:

I can't believe what I'm hearing... I had just received a message from you the other day asking to check up on your grandmother for you every now and then since you can't always talk to her. I promise I will visit her. This is just so surreal. You were such a kind, gentle, caring person who's heart was as big as your smile. Thank you for serving our country, RIP Brian Odiorne, you'll be missed and never forgotten.

Comment

And he notes Molly Przybyla:

I lost the most incredible man I have ever met. Brian made me who I am today, he broke me out of my shell, and helped me be more confident and out going and I didn't get the chance to tell him that he is the love of my love, the one I was supposed to end up with. We were supposed to get back together but at least I know how he felt about me, told me he never stoped loving me, and I told him I loved him too. I will never forget him, I will always hold him in my heart forever... and noone can ever replace that he's my soul mate and his family will always be my family. I am so sorry, you guys always where there for me and I love you guys and I love you

That's about all from the western press.

They are noting another death, however.

Reports: ISIS suicide bomber was ex-Gitmo detainee usat.ly/2luojqi via @usatoday #smh

British Militant Carried Out Suicide Attack in Iraq, ISIS Says dlvr.it/NRnrGj #news #worldnews

AP notes, "British news media say a suicide bomber who attacked a military base in Iraq this week was a former Guantanamo Bay detainee freed in 2004 after Britain lobbied for his release." Guy Faulconbridge and Ali Abdelaty (REUTERS) report:

Islamic State militants said Abu-Zakariya al-Britani, a British citizen who was originally known as Ronald Fiddler and then cast himself as Jamal Udeen al-Harith, detonated a car bomb at an Iraqi army base southwest of Mosul this week.
The militants also published a photograph of the smiling bomber surrounded by wires in the seat of what appeared to be the car in which he blew himself up.

The Islamic State statements could not be independently verified by Reuters but three Western security sources said it was highly likely that Britani was the bomber and now dead.

Jane Onyanga-Omara (USA TODAY) adds, "Harith, 50, traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in 2014, raising fears that the money given to him had been passed on to ISIS. He was known to fellow militants as Abu-Zakariya al-Britani." That same report notes that War Criminal Tony Blair is offended by these reports.

He insists that the government he led did not pay the man one million dollars . . . Blair only secured the man's release in 2004.

Really?

Of the two, I think I'd go with the payment. Would you rather be known as the one who demanded the release of a killer or the one who paid him compensation?

Tony Blair's never been smart -- few petty criminals are.

Day 128 of The Mosul Slog.

Maybe Tony Blair can take pride in that too?

The World Health Organization notes:

1.2 -1.5 MILLION PEOPLE AFFECTED
152,448 # DISPLACED FROM MOSUL
2.7 MILLION PEOPLE IN NEED OF HEALTH SERVICES
462,922 PEOPLE REACHED
3,972 # INJURED

And to think, Iraq's prime minister Hayder al-Abadi had over two years to plan this operation.

The following community sites update:

Cedric's Big Mix

Well if an anonymous source said it . . .

10 hours ago

The Daily Jot

THIS JUST IN! THAT'S OUR KRUGMAN!

10 hours ago

Ann's Mega Dub

Does anyone like Mother Jones?

10 hours ago

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man

Another US death in Iraq

10 hours ago

Like Maria Said Paz

Milo the pedophile?

10 hours ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends

TIMELESS and the propaganda of THE WHITE HELMETS

11 hours ago

SICKOFITRADLZ

Shameful Joy Reid

12 hours ago

Ruth's Report

2016's astroturf

12 hours ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

i can't stand npr

12 hours ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Tori Amos

13 hours ago

Trina's Kitchen

The Cold War, CIA and hating Trump

13 hours ago

Mikey Likes It!

I'm sick of the impeachment talk

13 hours ago

iraq

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

I'm sick of the impeachment talk

This is really distressing.

At INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, The Saker has posted a video from RT where a former Mossad agent (Israeli intelligence) is talking about Donald Trump. The Saker notes:

What is most interesting is that what we see is one of two things happening:
Option 1: Aviv is echoing something that he has heard from well-informed sources
Option 2: Aviv is part of a campaign to gradually prepare the narrative about Trump being impeached for treason.

A combination of option 1 and 2 is also possible, of course. Either way, this is most interesting.

I'm really getting upset about all this talk of getting rid of Donald Trump.

He is the president.

Did I vote for him?

No.

Do I plan to vote for him in 2020 if he runs for re-election?

No.

(But maybe he'll surprise me and be a wonderful president and I will end up voting for him.)

But he is the president of the United States.

That doesn't mean we don't criticize him.

Doesn't mean we don't protest him.

But these daily efforts to impeach?

I'm sick of it.

He's the president.

That's Tori Amos doing "Siren" and I'm sharing because my daughter just came over and she was all, "Daddy, Daddy, put in that video. I like her hair."

She likes Tori period.

But she does like her hair in that video.

Anyway, Donald Trump is the president.

The election is over.

Get over it.

Protest him, support him, call him out, whatever.

But this nonsense of impeachment?

He's barely been in office.

And I'm sick of all the efforts by the intel community to take him down.

They should be ashamed by their actions -- that go against the Constitution -- and we should be outraged.

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

Tuesday, February 21, 2017. Illusions fall away.

Let's start with useless.

‏@Alyssa_Milano

Those that tell me not to tweet politics because I'm an uninformed celebrity are the same people that voted for... an uninformed celebrity.

3,196 replies35,631 retweets107,594 likes

Actually, no.

Alyssa, I'm telling you not to Tweet politics. And I didn't vote for Donald Trump.

I'm telling you it because you have (a) a herd mentality and (b) you are so woefully uninformed.

Calling you "ignorant" would be generous.

You've never done the work required. And, Alyssa, I know you.

You have every right to Tweet about anything you want -- we all can weigh in.

But for your own image, I'd urge you to find something else to Tweet about.

You're a misguided and misinformed stooge whose Tweets are reactionary and back up war while you're not even aware of it.

From a professional point of view, it's not smart to take money from Atkins and to offer Tweets that insult a good portion of the American people but your people have already told you that. (Atkins is also considering parting ways with you at the end of your current arangement.) They hired you to popularize their product. That's why a lot of us don't do advertising -- it's whoring.

But you wanted to keep you name out in front of your public -- such as it is -- and so you agreed. But you're not living up to the bargain, are you?

However, my concern is your deep stupidity and lack of curiosity which leads you to accept simplistic pronouncements that encourage violence and war.

Simplistic pronouncements.

I was having a debate with a friend last night on the phone that turned into an argument.

She's an actress who can't stop her nonsense Tweets about Donald Trump being evil and the Democrats being salvation.

Is Donald Trump evil?

He may or may not be. Time will tell.

Are Democrats the salvation?

No.

And she was raised in a Socialist family.

And we both used to listen to Gore Vidal go on (constantly) about the boiled frog.

Gore was right.

The Democrats are not the answer.

Could they be?

Maybe if they were pushed.

Susan Sarandon's pushing them. Which is why hacks like Debra Messing get so angry.

Everyone should be pushing them.

No, you don't have a right to our votes.

You earn them.

And if the Democratic Party wants our votes, it damn well better try to earn those votes.

The country doesn't need pretty words, it needs action.

It needs jobs.

Real jobs.

If all your money goes to rent and food, you're not making a living and we need to stop kidding otherwise.

Alyssa, my friend and I live very fortunate lives.

We need to be aware that many others are not so fortunate.

These are the people the Democratic Party has abandoned -- a party that can't even publicly mention the poor, a party that should have declared one of their so-called wars on the issue of the homeless long ago. If 10% of what's been spent on the 'war on drugs' in any year was spent on addressing the homeless, the people would be better off.

The Democratic Party has joined the corporations in fleecing the American people.

That's not going to turn out any votes.

And Alyssa and others can tell themselves they're so damn superior to Trump or whomever because they say the right things but words don't keep a roof over your head or food on your table (unless you're a paid writer).

The Democrats need to be pressed to earn votes.

They don't need to be defended.

They have lined their pockets with corporate donations. Nancy Pelosi is a lousy leader but gets to hold on (for now) because she brings in so much corporate cash to each election cycle.

The party's entirely about greed.

I doubt that will change.

But you can pressure them to make concessions to We The People.

And you don't do that by castigating Susan Sarandon.

You do that by saying more people are going to walk -- like Susan -- if you don't start addressing the basic needs, the reason political parties exist, which is jobs. You're going to keep losing if you can't defend the safety net -- which needs to be increased, not gutted.

Alyssa's very good at fingering pointing at others. She's just not very good at introspection -- true of far too many.

From Danny Haiphong's "Trump's Foreign Policy: Continuity or Break?" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):

Some on the left political spectrum in the US are suspicious of Trump's foreign policy, and for good reason. US imperialism's war agenda is non-negotiable. Trump's status as a billionaire champion of American (white) exceptionalism does not necessarily breed confidence in Trump’s rhetorical gestures to scale back key points in US foreign policy. His Administration should be resisted at every turn for current and future war provocations against Iran and China. His Administration should be held accountable for the deaths of thirty people in Yemen during the late January Commando raid just as Obama's Administration should have been held accountable for killing thousands of people in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan by drone strike over the course of eight years.
But the anti-war movement died the day Obama was elected, leaving the contradictions that were brought to the fore throughout the Presidential electoral cycle unaddressed. One does not have to support Trump or refrain from struggle against the GOP to recognize that Trump's rhetorical gestures against regime change in the Middle East and Russia came from somewhere. These statements are the product of a rapidly changing world. In this world, the US can no longer call itself the only most influential or dominant global power. Russia's geopolitical significance, China's unprecedented economic growth, and the stagnation of the US economy have forever changed the international order of things.

How's that Iraq War that Saint Barack didn't end going?

W.J. Hennigan and Nabih Bulos (LOS ANGELES TIMES) report:

U.S. military advisors are now fighting alongside Iraqi forces near the front lines against Islamic State, a sign of President Trump's willingness to grant more latitude to American commanders than they've had since Iraq’s ground war against the militants was launched more than two years ago.
The Trump administration has not yet granted new authorities, but has loosened the reins for U.S. generals running the war, allowing hundreds of U.S. troops to join advancing Iraqi forces as they embark on their most complex mission to date: liberating Mosul, their second largest city.

Thank you, Cult of St. Barack.

When he sent US troops in back in 2012, you said nothing.

Let me spoon feed you:

There's the fact that Barack sent a brigade of Special-Ops in during the fall of 2012. Tim Arango (New York Times) reported, "Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence."

That was reported right before the 2012 presidential debates.

But no one 'moderator' brought it up.

And in 2014, when Barack sent in 'advisors' and 'trainers,' people were only slightly more vocal.

Where were you, Alyssa?

This didn't happen overnight.

And those of us who have been covering it have long noted that US troops have been in combat from day one.

As the then-Secretary of Defense noted, dropping bombs from planes is also combat.

And the US government had bombed Iraq daily since August 2014.

Again, where have you been?

Off with The Cult of St. Barack?

Hands off the man, flim flam man
His mind is up his sleeve and his talk is make believe
Oh, Lord, the man's a fraud,
He's a flim flam man
He's so cage, he's a flim flam man
Hands off the man, flim flam man
He's the one in the Trojan horse making out like he's Santa Claus

"Hands Off The Man" (also known as "The Flim Flam Man") was written by Laura Nyro and she performed it on her debut album MORE THAN A NEW DISCOVERY (now known as THE FIRST SONGS). It was covered by many including Peggy Lipton.

Peggy covered many of Laura's songs (they were friends from before Peggy did THE MOD SQUAD) and let's note "Stoney End" because no one did a better cover of that than Peggy.

"Now I don't believe I want to see the morning" -- indeed.

Of the US troops fighting in Iraq, Dan Lamothe (WASHINGTON POST) notes:

Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said that the advisers, numbering about 450, are “operating closer and deeper into Iraqi formations” as a new assault on western Mosul gets underway. U.S. commanders made the adjustment during the fight for the eastern side of the city, which began in October and ended last month, and the deployment has continued with the attempt, beginning Sunday, to capture western Mosul, Townsend said.

It marks the first time the U.S. military has acknowledged how close American service members are to the front lines as it assists what Townsend characterized as a force of more than 40,000 Iraqi police officers and soldiers fighting to retake Mosul. The battle for the western half of the northern Iraqi city is likely to stretch for months in urban neighborhoods where up to 1,000 militants are believed to be entrenched, U.S. military officials said.

It's day 127 of The Mosul Slog, the operation to liberate or 'liberate' Mosul from the Islamic State -- the operation that only began in October (despite the Islamic State seizing Mosul in June of 2014).

Only 180 more days, the Defense Dept has insisted. Apparently they have based that judgment on the fact that deploying US troops into combat (officially) can accomplish that. (Of course, they've been wrong before.

Making official what's been happening all along may be one of the reason for US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis' trip to Baghdad.