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Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Young right-wingers go with Trump

This is BLACK POWER MEDIA.

Cop City needs to be called out. It is a waste of money and it is an attack on the rights of the people.

Speaking of things that are an attack on the people, Ron DeSantis. Colby Hall (MEDIAITE) reports:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis received a standing ovation as he yelled at a protestor holding a pride flag while he was being physically removed from a campaign speech.

On Monday, the GOP presidential candidate was addressing supporters in Tega Cay, South Carolina, when an LGBT+ activist unfurled a Pride flag and reportedly began shouting slogans from behind where DeSantis was speaking.

[. . .] a security detail had the protestor removed, and while he was being escorted out, DeSantis pivoted to ostensibly condemn what the flag represented, saying, “And they shouldn’t be worrying about our children either. We don’t want you indoctrinating our children. Leave our kids alone.”

Doo-Doo Ron Ron is 100% garbage. And so is CODESTINK. They never represented anything but Medea's ego. And now, when they should be birddogging DeSantis and calling his homophobia out, they do nothing. The Bay Area is so sick of CODESTINK.

Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis just continues to stink up the joint. Like a pile of you know what left out in the sun, he just stinks it up. And the right-wing young voters are not falling for his games:

When student activists assembled in Florida last year for Turning Point Action’s annual summit, many were torn, wrestling with whether former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the Republican Party’s best hope for 2024.

One year later, there is no more doubt. Attendees at this year's meeting booed at even the suggestion of a contested GOP primary. Trump, they overwhelmingly said, is their pick.

The kids say no-no Doo-Doo Ron Ron. In other bad news for short-stuff, Brett Samuels (NEWS NATION) reports:

Two former top officials on former President Trump’s 2020 White House campaign said on a new podcast that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has a “candidate problem” he needs to address in the 2024 primary.

Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien and deputy campaign chief and attorney Justin Clark launched a new podcast through their consulting firm, National Public Affairs, on which they opined about DeSantis’s struggles trying to cut into Trump’s polling lead.

“Campaigns take a lot of blame, you know, during times like this. But I got to say … candidates matter,” Stepien said.

“And I think, at this point, at this stage in the primary, the candidate matters more now than at any point over the next year and a half. Because right now it is hand-to-hand combat on the ground,” he continued. “It is shaking hands at county fairs in Iowa, it is sitting in living rooms in New Hampshire. The candidate matters. And I think there’s a candidate problem for Ron DeSantis.”

“There’s a major candidate problem,” Clark said. “He’s got to fix that. He’s got to do something to engage with people. And I’m talking about policies.”

Clark and Stepien suggested DeSantis needs to “lean into policy” more to engage with voters on issues they care about. They also pointed to the first GOP primary debate in August as a pivotal moment for DeSantis to connect with the electorate.

While tiny boy Ron struggles, Cork Gaines (BUSINESS INSIDER) reports:

In the second quarter of 2023, Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised $72 million for his reelection campaign. That was more than twice the amount of top Republican candidate Donald Trump and nearly as much as the entire GOP field combined ($75 million).

Life is hard for little Ronnie.

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

Tuesday, July 18, 2023. The PUK goes after Cardinal Louis Sako, hate merchant Ron DeSantis laying off campaign staff, RFK Junior a continued embarrassment, Trump plots acts of revenge should he become president again, and much more.

Starting with Iraq, Peter Pinedo (CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY) reports:

Cardinal Louis Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, announced Saturday that he is withdrawing from his seat in Baghdad after Iraqi President Abdul Rashid revoked a decree recognizing him as head of the Christian Church in Iraq.

Sako said he will be taking up residence in a monastery in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq, where he will continue to lead the Chaldean Church.

In a statement issued July 15, Sako called the president’s action — which calls into question his ability to control Church assets in the country — “unprecedented” and “unfair.”

“It is unfortunate that we in Iraq live in the midst of a wide network of self-interest, narrow factionalism, and hypocrisy that has produced an unprecedented political, national, and moral chaos, which is rooted by now more and more,” Sako wrote. “Therefore, I have decided to withdraw from the patriarchal headquarters in Baghdad.”

What's going on? A number of things, actually. AFP noted a few days ago a political conflict:

Sako said he will be taking up residence in a monastery in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq, where he will continue to lead the Chaldean Church.

In a statement issued July 15, Sako called the president’s action — which calls into question his ability to control Church assets in the country — “unprecedented” and “unfair.”

Abdul Latif Rashid is the president of Iraq . . . somehow. Mainly because rules aren't followed in Iraq. He's PUK which came in second to the KDP -- came in second, yet again. The PUK insisted that they would have the presidency -- which always goes to a Kurd, regardless -- and so Abdul became president. He's got a long of history of running in and out of Iraq though not quite the coward former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki is. He was a minister in Nouri's cabinet (Minister of Water Resources for seven years -- look around Iraq today and you can see what an awful job he did) and, his really big credit, he's the brother-in-law of Iraq's late fat ass Jalal Talabani.

He's married to Hero Talabani's sister Shanaz. Hero is of course infamous for posing her husband -- post-stroke -- for photos when he couldn't talk and couldn't move his body. Iraqis compared it to WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S on social media in real time.

Let's drop back to May 30, 2013:

Last December, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17th (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20th, he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently. At the start of the month, there were new rumors swirling about his health and, this past week, Nouri al-Maliki attempted to have Jalal stripped of his post this month. (Parliament rejected the notion.) Following that, Al Mada ran a photo of Jalal Talabani seated outdoors with his medical team and noted the team states the Iraqi President's health has continued to improve and he will return to Iraq shortly.

Arabic social media has been referring to the photos and the video as having a Weekend At Bernie's type feel to it. (In Weekend At Bernie's, two young men prop up the corpse of dead Bernie to trick people into believing he's alive.) The fact that Jalal's only seen in the video and the photos from his right side have people speculating about what the left side shows -- the after-effects of a stroke? Salah Nasrawi (Al-Ahram) notes:

Rumours have been abundant about Talabani’s health condition as his convalescence coincides with one of Iraq’s most serious political crises and its deadliest period of ethno-sectarian strife since the United States pullout in 2011.
Some reports have suggested that Talabani is clinically dead in the Berlin hospital where he is treated, others said the enfeebled president has handed his will to one of the leaders of his party.
Regardless of the furious speculations among Iraqis about Talabani’s health conditions, his prolonged absence has sparked a debate about whether he will be physically able to resume official duties.
According to various medical studies, persons who had strokes mostly develop serious physical and emotional problems occurring after recovery and they will need prolonged treatment.

Dropping back to the October 18, 2021 snapshot:

In 2012, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany. He remained there for a year and a half. He was incapacitated. But the Talabani family lied to everyone so that, as the Iraqi Constitution requires, Jalal wouldn't be removed from office.

They lied to the country. They deceived the Iraqi people. They propped him up and posed him for pictures -- leading Arabic media to mock it as WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S -- but they couldn't offer video because he couldn't speak.

The first time was in May. Jalal was posed for a series of photos that appear to indicate his body was present but that was all.

The second set, months later, also showed Jalal posed with his right side to the camera.

[. . .]

Over 18 months later Jalal would return. They wouldn't be able to use the return to pump up his party in elections because he couldn't speak.

In other words, the Talabani family lied to the Iraqi people, deceived them. Iraq had a non-functioning president who should have been removed from office. But the Talabanis lied to keep Jalal in a post he could not serve.

[. . .]

They lied to the country. They deceived the Iraqi people. They propped him up and posed him for pictures -- leading Arabic media to mock it as WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S -- but they couldn't offer video because he couldn't speak.

He never spoke in public again. Not even when he returned to Iraq 18 months after his stroke.

He was not able to do any duties and he was not able to speak but the Talabani family lied to the press and to the people so that they could hold onto the position and the prestige. They harmed Iraq in the process. Iraq needed a real president. It had none.

The next election showed how much damage the Talabanis had done to the PUK and that's been true ever since. In addition, you've got Jalal's sons showing up to try to tell the Kurds what to do. They love that -- and who wouldn't? One of Jalal's pampered sons who lives in the US and is married to an American woman returning to the Kurdistan to lecture them on how they shouldn't want independence for Kurdistan, lecturing them on how they shouldn't vote for it in a non-binding referendum.

Now comes Abdul to further disgrace the Talabani family and the PUK. FARS MEDIA CORPORATION notes:

A source at Asianews points out that the whole affair turns on this point: “Someone wants to take control over the assets and properties held by Christians and the Church.” President Abdul Latif Rashid has intervened in recent days with the intention of “clarifying” his decision.

His office issues a statement saying: “Withdrawing the republican decree does not prejudice the religious or legal status of Cardinal Louis Sako, as he is appointed by the Apostolic See.” According to the Kurdish Muslim leader, “the abolition of the Presidential Decree is intended to correct the situation,” while the patriarch continues to enjoy “the respect and appreciation of the presidency of the Republic as Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the world.”

“However, the president’s decision strips the Chaldean leader – the Patriarch – of the right to administer church assets, which are the target of Ryan 'the Chaldean' and his Babylonian Brigades. ‘It’s no coincidence that the president’s decision came a few days after he met with Ryan,’” a source told AsiaNews.

“For over 100 years, the patriarch, after his papal appointment, had his office recognized by decree by the king and then the president, upholding his status as head of the Church and custodian of its properties.” With the withdrawal of the decree, the primate “will likely lose control over the [Church’s] assets and properties,” the source concludes, but Cardinal Sako “is determined to fight and is already studying ways to appeal in court so that law prevails and justice is done.”

The controversy surrounding the withdrawal of the presidential decree is the latest chapter in a series of attacks that have affected the most respected figure of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, to the point that in recent weeks there has arisen a backlash among Christians in response to the “lies”: an attack against the patriarch and the leadership of the Church by the leader of the Babylonian Movement, Rayan.

Let's move over to bad American dinner theater or 'politics,' if you like.

Ron DeSantis is creating more unemployment and, this time, not just in Florida:

NBC News reported this weekend that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had to fire some staff after realizing he hired too many people before securing the fundraising. The report detailed some critical missteps in the DeSantis money machine that predicts a difficult path forward.

Candidates have donors that give them the maximum amount per election, meaning both the primary and general elections. They can't spend the money in the general election. So, of DeSantis' $12 million cash on hand, he can only spend $9 million of it.

To add to his problems, "about $14 million of his second-quarter haul came from donors who gave the maximum legal amount," NBC News explained. "In other words, roughly two-thirds of his early donors will not be able to give directly to his campaign for the duration of the race."

It means DeSantis has already burned through the big donors closest to him, and he's got to figure out how to find more or ramp up a heavy fundraising effort for tons of low-dollar donors. The problem with the latter strategy is that Donald Trump spent the past eight years building an extensive GOP donor list. They hammer the donors through emails and text messages until they stop giving money or unsubscribe.

So, DeSantis would have to find donors that aren't Trump's. Those people are generally more moderate, the so-called "NeverTrumpers" or "RINOS" (Republicans In Name Only). But DeSantis has run to the right of Trump, so he's not going to appeal to those two groups.

Moderate Republicans? They're not going to go with Doo-Doo Ron Ron. They're usually of the opinion that the focus needs to be on the economy and on business. Doo-Doo Ron Ron's war on DISNEY isn't a good look for them nor are his attacks on gay people and on abortion. How does he plan to get money? I don't see Donald Trump supporters moving to him. Wouldn't it be funny if he had to drop out due to lack of campaign donations?

At THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, Amy Glassman writes of how Ron is damaging the lives of so many:

The first time I visited the LGBTQ Center at the University of North Florida as a 20-something undergraduate student, I cried on the shoulder of a complete stranger. That stranger looked like me, loved like me and — as an LGBTQ+ person — understood my anguish. All my walls finally crumbled.

I was only a few short years into my young adult life. I was already struggling to balance working multiple part-time jobs, attending full-time classes, navigating a toxic romantic relationship, dealing with family rejection and facing a serious identity crisis.

Most of the people I had known my entire life wrote me off when I was outed as gay, but when this stranger at the LGBTQ Center told me I was not alone and it would all be OK, I believed them. That single interaction restored my strength to keep going.

[. . .]

But Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, thinks diversity, equity and inclusion programs are just window dressings.

In fact, Gov. DeSantis feels so strongly about centering the Florida education system around his own white Christian values and culture, he has cut funding for all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Florida colleges and universities, a law that took effect July 1.

Under the new law, colleges and universities are not allowed to use federal or state funding for DEI initiatives on campus, which undercuts their ability to replace these resources through other funding opportunities.

One of many problems with his plan is that colleges and universities are not just schools, they are homes. Students live on campus, often without transportation; they rely on the school’s on-campus offerings to help them build community and feel comfortable in their new home.

I have never lived on campus and was not even a UNF student. I attended Florida State College at Jacksonville, but I had access to resources and clubs on both campuses through my participation in the UNF Army ROTC program. The programs I found there were literally lifesaving to me.

If I needed these things living off-campus in my hometown, the students who left their entire lives behind to attend college in a new city definitely need them.

Places like the Interfaith Center offer people from all faiths a community while they are away from their own. It offers them an opportunity to talk about their culture with others and find consensus on how we are all the same, no matter our differences. Diverse programs like these are powerful for bringing people together, which we could all use a little more of these days.

In my experience with the Interfaith Center, I have led discussions with students about the intersection of religion and sexual orientation, shared my journey to finding myself in Judaism and learned about other’s experiences too, which also helped me heal. This space gave me the opportunity to help those who were once like me — lost and trying to figure out if I could fit into my religion while still loving who I loved.

Religious spaces have not been historically welcoming places for me, but that has never been the case at the Interfaith Center. Instead of seeing only my own identity reflected in the people there, I saw a beautiful mosaic of people from all walks of life. It exposed me to different cultures and religions. Even better, I have always been welcomed and fully accepted, no caveat.

Connectivity to people like you and exposure to people different from you are both necessary to growing into a well-rounded member of society. When these two components of life are balanced, you become more empathetic toward others and you feel more empowered with a community around you. According to researchers, social support builds resilience and lowers stress, allowing individuals to tackle adversity while maintaining good physical and mental health.

Ron is fueled by hate. Speaking of, Moms For Liberty. Jen Psaki reported on them Sunday.

John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) notes:

Anyone who has been paying attention to the frequent chaos and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric at school board meetings nationwide and efforts to ban books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, you’re already well aware of what Moms for Liberty stands for.

But as Psaki noted on the July 16 episode of Inside with Jen Psaki, the organization claims to be non-partisan. That, along with the group’s misleading and innocuous-sounding name, has left many people confused about Moms for Liberty’s agenda — even after they themselves get involved with the group.

“Moms: great, sounds good. Liberty: awesome, who doesn’t like liberty? ‘Moms for Liberty.’ As the mom of two young kids, that even sounds good to me,” Psaki said. “But it’s vague enough, that even some of its own members are pretty unclear as to what the group is really all about, what they’re a part of.”

“Well, I’m here to help,” she continued. “Because as benign as Moms for Liberty may sound, its agenda is unmistakably extreme.”

She went on to catalog the group’s tactics and causes, including leading the movement to ban books, turning school board meetings into screaming matches, and intimidating both local officials and others in their communities.

“Chapters and members across the country have led campaigns targeting community advocates, school board members, and opposing groups,” Psaki explained. “They’ve repeatedly sent intimidating messages, openly threatened officials, and even baselessly leveled charges of child abuse and sympathizing with pedophilia.”

She also noted that one Indiana chapter infamously included an Adolph Hitler quote in a newsletter. The group apologized but later defended the inclusion of the quote.

Psaki also demolished Moms for Liberty’s claim that it is a nonpartisan organization. “Consider this,” she said. “One of the founders, whose name is notably omitted from its website, is a current Republican school board member who is married to the now-chairman of the Florida Republican Party. In 2021, he told the Washington Post, ‘I have been trying for a dozen years to get 20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican Party. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me.’”

She also noted early in the segment that the group recently hosted five Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, at its annual summit in Philadelphia.

Yes, they did host five. It was supposed to be six that they were platforming but Democratic Party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided to back out at the last minute for reasons we've covered in real time. In last night's "RFK Jr. is disgusting," Trina covered reactions to Junio's vile and racist statements. I will add that one of his defenses is that, he says, it was supposed to be off the record. Goatha. It's okay to be racist if you're off the record? Thanks for clarifying that.

Patrick Martin (WSWS) observes:

Kennedy’s ravings shed light as well on the bankrupt and reactionary character of the campaign for a “left-right alliance” launched by various figures aligned with the pseudo-left, including author Chris Hedges and journalist Glenn Greenwald. They might personally abhor Kennedy’s remarks about Jews and Chinese, but Greenwald conducted a sympathetic interview with Kennedy after he launched his presidential campaign, which gave considerable attention to his opposition to vaccine mandates and other COVID mitigation measures.

Yes, rounding out the crazy, there is always Donald. Ken Meyer (MEDIAITE) reports:

Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly warned that if Donald Trump is re-elected to the White House, the government will be thrown into chaos by his reported plan to expand his presidential powers.

The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman reported that Trump and his allies seek to consolidate more power and authority into the Oval Office if they can get him re-elected in 2024. The plan would reportedly consist of Trump assuming direct control over independent government entities, easing the process through which he can fire bureaucrats he doesn’t like, and reviving the power to “impound” Congressional funding for programs he may not approve of.

“The two driving forces of this effort to reshape the executive branch are Mr. Trump’s own campaign policy shop and a well-funded network of conservative groups, many of which are populated by former senior Trump administration officials who would most likely play key roles in any second term,” the Times reported. “Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks.”

Kelly was among the Trump veterans with whom the Times spoke, and he said that Trump trying to seize power this way would instigate pandemonium across the three branches of government. This follows the sworn statement Kelly previously gave, claiming Trump wanted to weaponize the IRS against his political foes.

The following sites updated:

Monday, July 17, 2023

SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND

SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND is a book written by Yuval Noah Harari. I enjoyed Elizabeth Kolbert's THE SIXTH EXTINCTION: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY which C.I. had recommended so I asked her if there was another science book she could suggest and she steered me to this one.

There's a photo, right at the front of the book, that stands out. The caption reads, "A human handprint made about 30,000 years ago, on the wall of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France. Somebody tried to say, 'I was here!'"

And isn't that what we're trying to do? Like Joni Mitchell sang and wrote in "Hejira:"

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tribute to finality to eternity
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality

Life is fleeting and we want to feel we made a difference, that we did something that will be remembered and live on after us.

How did we get here?

From the first chapter:

About 14 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.

About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of atmos, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry.

About 4 billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology.

About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures. The subsequent development of these human cultures is called history.

Doesn't that make you marvel over how much has come before you yourself ever set foot on the planet? It does me. And it was such an interesting book. It really made me think about everything -- little things, overall meanings, etc.

From WIKIPEDIA, here's a sketch of the author:

Yuval Noah Harari (Hebrew: יובל נח הררי [juˈval ˈnoaχ haˈʁaʁi]; born 1976) is an Israeli public intellectual,^[1]^[2]^[3] historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^[4] He is the author of the popular science bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018). His writings examine free will, consciousness, intelligence, happiness, and suffering.

Harari writes about a "cognitive revolution" that supposedly occurred roughly 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens supplanted the rival Neanderthals and other species of the genus Homo, developed language skills and structured societies, and ascended as apex predators, aided by the agricultural revolution and accelerated by the scientific revolution, which have allowed humans to approach near mastery over their environment. His books also examine the possible consequences of a futuristic biotechnological world in which intelligent biological organisms are surpassed by their own creations; he has said, "Homo sapiens as we know them will disappear in a century or so".^[5]

In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari surveys human history from the evolutionary emergence of Homo sapiens to 21st-century political and technological revolutions. The book is based on his lectures to an undergraduate world history class.

I liked this part:

One of the most common uses of early stone tools was to crack open bones in order to get to the marrow. Some researchers believe this was our original niche. Just as woodpeckers specialise in extracting insects from the trunks of trees, the first humans specialised in extracting marrow from bones. Why marrow? Well, suppose you observe a pride of lions take down and devour a giraffe. You wait patiently until they're done. But it's still not your turn because first the hyenas and jackals -- and you don't dare interfere with them -- scavenge the leftovers. Only then would you and your band dare approach the carcass, look cautiously left and right -- and dig into the edible tissue that remained. This is a key to understanding our history and psychology. Genus Homo's position in the food chain was, until quite recently, solidly in the middle. For millions of years, humans hunted smaller creatures and gathered what they could, all the while being hunted by larger predators. It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular basis and only in the last 100,000 years -- with the rise of Homo sapiens -- that man jumped to the top of the food chain.

That spectacular leap from the middle to the top had enormous consequences.

And it was good consequences. But it was also bad consequences. By leaping so much, we didn't have to learn what others on the planet had, we over did everything and have almost destroyed the planet completely.

The book details how racism gave way to culturalism as people needed to mask racism -- it was no longer, 'it's in their blood,' and instead became 'it's their culture.'

Let me quote one more time from the book:

In 1818, Mary Shelley published FRANKENSTEIN, the story of a scientist who tries to create a superior being and instead creates a monster. In the last two centuries, this story has been told over and over again in countless variations. It has become a central pillar of our new scientific mythology. At first sight, the Frankenstein story appears to warn us that if we try to play God and engineer life we will be punished severely. Yet the story has deeper meaning.

The Frankenstein myth confronts Homo sapiens with the fact that the last days are fast approaching. Unless some nuclear or ecological catastrophe destroys us first, the pace of technological development will soon lead to the replacement of Homo sapiens by completely different beings who possess not only different physiques, but also very different cognitive and emotional worlds. This is something most Sapiens find extremely disconcerting. We like to believe that in the future people just like us will travel from plane to planet in fast spaceships. We don't like to contemplate the possibility that in the future, being with emotions and identifies like ours will no longer exist, and our place will be taken by alien life forms whose abilities dwarf our own.

I really loved the book and I strongly recommend it. I also recommend Wally, Cedric, Ann and Betty's joint-post tonight:

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man

The hateful Jason Aldean and the ugly Brittany Kerr

56 minutes ago

Cedric's Big Mix

Cry baby Jason and ball busting Brittany

56 minutes ago

Ann's Mega Dub

Two pieces of crap that truly deserve each other

56 minutes ago

The Daily Jot

THIS JUST IN! JASON ALDEAN AND HIS CUR WIFE THROW DOWN!

57 minutes ago

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

Monday, July 17, 2023. The persecution of Julian Assange continues, Max Blumenthal may die on his lonely hill as he alone among The Twitter Brigade attempts to rescue RFK Junior, Junio's mouth has got him into trouble again so all the GOP money in the world may not be able to save him this time, and much more.

At THE MORNING STAR, Helen Mercer writes:

Julian Assange has suffered still worse. He endured seven years of “arbitrary detention” in the Ecuadorean Embassy, deliberately trapped there through the machinations of British, Swedish and US authorities.

He continues to be arbitrarily detained in Belmarsh, on remand for over four years, some of that time spent in near solitary confinement. Together with a media campaign of vilification the whole process amounts, according to Nils Melzer, a former UN rapporteur, to psychological torture.

He faces charges in the US which carry a sentence of up to 175 years and he is likely to suffer prison conditions in the form of Special Administrative Measures that amount to torture.

Julian is being persecuted for the 'crime' of journalism. Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist." 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

Eric Lichtblau (GUARDIAN) observes:

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.

Marjorie Cohn (TRUTH OUT) notes:

In 2010, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided WikiLeaks with documents containing evidence of U.S. war crimes. They included the “Iraq War Logs,” which were 400,000 field reports describing 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians, as well as systematic rape, torture and murder after U.S. forces “handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad.” They contained the “Afghan War Diary,” 90,000 reports of more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had reported. And they also included the “Guantánamo Files” — 779 secret reports with evidence that 150 innocent people had been held at Guantánamo Bay for years, and 800 men and boys had been tortured and abused, which violated the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Manning also furnished WikiLeaks with the notorious 2007 “Collateral Murder Video,” which shows a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter targeting and killing 11 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, as well as a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. The video reveals evidence of three violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.

This is the first time a publisher has been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for disclosing government secrets. In December 2022, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel signed a joint open letter calling on the U.S. government to dismiss the Espionage Act charges against Assange for publishing classified military and diplomatic secrets. “Publishing is not a crime,” the letter says. “This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”

Let's turn to US . . .

Oh, Maxi-pads. You want to die on the hill, don't you?

What's going on? While Robert F. Kennedy's bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination ended with a bullet in 1968, Junior appears to be ending his with own mouth.

Junior's denied saying what he said -- THE VANGUARD has the footage in the video above. Are we supposed to pretend it's a deep fake AI by the CIA?

Before we go further, let's note how bad it is. Tara Reade has her head down and is Tweeting non-stop about the debate her buddy Mother Tucker Carlson did with GOP candidates. John Stauber has changed his handle to "RFKjr spring, Cornel fall24." And John's really in a panic over Junior's racism as evidenced by all the reTweets as he struggles to find voices of color saying something, anything he can agree with so he looks less racist than Junior.

Here's a person of color Stauber didn't reTweet.

Lauren Koenig and Shania Shelton (CNN ) report:

A number of high-profile Jewish groups are denouncing Democratic presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s false remarks that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19.

Speaking at a dinner in New York City earlier this week, Kennedy said “there’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted,” according to video shared by the New York Post on Saturday.

“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” Kennedy said, adding that “we don’t know whether it’s deliberately targeted that or not.”

Ashkenazi Jews trace their roots to Central and Eastern Europe and represent a majority of the US Jewish population.

The American Jewish Committee told CNN in a statement Saturday that Kennedy’s “assertion that Covid was genetically engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people is deeply offensive and incredibly dangerous.”

How bad is this? Even crazy Naomi Wolf is sitting this one out. That's right. The woman who "as a Jewish woman" took to Twitter to defend the hate group Moms For Liberty (which was using Adolf Hitler's playbook and quoting him in their newsletter) will not touch this. Moms For Liberty? Crazy Naomi vouched for them -- vouched for them (her words) "as a Jewish woman." But she's not stepping in this crazy -- it's too insane for even her.

Emily Mae Czachor (CBS NEWS) notes:

His latest remarks prompted a range of leading Democrats to speak out.

"These are deeply troubling comments and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic Party," Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted on Saturday.

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said Kennedy's claims boiled down to "vile antisemitic tropes and Sinophobia" and "insulted countless families who lost loved ones to the virus," while Rep. Ted Lieu of California pointed out, "Millions and millions of people died from COVID-19 worldwide, including Americans who were Jewish or of Chinese descent."

"If you still support the wacky, narcissistic, racist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., then that says more about you than it does about him," Lieu said.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey called Kennedy "a disgrace to the Kennedy name and the Democratic Party" in a tweet responding to the video.

"For the record, my whole family, who is Jewish, got Covid," Gottheimer wrote. "Speaker McCarthy and Jim Jordan should disinvite this antisemite from testifying before Congress and spewing his misinformation and hate."

Ken Frydman was at the table when Junior made the remarks and recounts what took place at THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:

Twenty five journalists sat at the large, square banquet table. Call me paranoid, but Bobby was looking directly at me when he made his wrong-headed assertion that the coronavirus had passed over the homes of Ashkenazi Jews.

The stunning moment was surreal and incomprehensible. But I’ve seen the video and heard the audio, so I know it’s true.

“COVID 19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” said Kennedy. “The races that are most immune to COVID-19 are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Sitting next to Kennedy at that moment was an Ashkenazi Jew, New York Post reporter Jon Levine. Check out his baffled expression on the video.

Contrary to Bobby’s hair-brained theory, I got the coronavirus. My son, brother, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, nephews, niece, cousins and friends also got COVID. My neurologist’s medical partner got COVID and died. Ashkenazi Jews all.

Bobby knows who I am. My wife, Liz, and I donated to his Riverkeeper nonprofit organization and watched him fly falcons at the Hudson River home of then-Gov. George Pataki. Bobby should also know that Frydman is a Jewish name of European ancestry. I’m not Sephardic. I’m fair-haired and light-skinned. That makes me Ashkenazi.

You’d think his campaign manager, former Ohio congressman and Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich, and staff would’ve prepped Bobby about the probability of Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese journalists being in attendance. In fact, there was a Chinese reporter from the Epoch Times at the table.

That prep session wouldn’t have helped. Bobby knew what he was saying. He has clearly made a political calculation to forsake liberal Jews and, instead, play on the conservative side to Orthodox Jews like Mort Klein, president of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America.

But even Klein, a prominent anti-vaxxer and good friend of RFK Jr. who’s advised him on Israel, is reportedly “worried” about Bobby’s kooky COVID comments.

This is exactly why the Republicans are funding Junior's run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, by the way. And make no mistake, at this point, they are the ones footing the bill. Jessica Piper (POLITICO) reports:

Some of that money came from donors who have more recently supported Republicans. Kennedy’s campaign raked in at least $100,000 from donors who previously gave to committees associated with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former President Donald Trump, according to a POLITICO analysis of federal and state campaign finance filings. The analysis is based solely on Kennedy’s itemized donations, although he also raised more than $2 million from small-dollar donors, whose names the campaign does not have to disclose.

Such crossover giving is unusual, but Kennedy is running on a platform that includes opposition to efforts to vaccinate against Covid-19, which is increasingly resonating with the Republican base. Though there has been an uptick in vaccine skepticism in recent years, the biggest increases tend to be among voters who identify as Republican.

[. . .]

Among the donors who maxed out donating to Kennedy despite having recent histories of giving to Republicans is banking executive Omeed Malik, who Axios reported is hosting separate fundraisers for DeSantis and Kennedy in the Hamptons this summer.

Let's wind down with this from Alyssa J. Rubin (NEW YORK TIMES):

In one social media clip, a young Iraqi woman dances at a national soccer tournament. In another, she dances at her son’s birthday party.

A different post shows a Baghdad fashionista modeling clothes, including an outfit based on the Iraqi Army uniform.

A fourth features a young man in a black sweatshirt and pants interviewing a young woman, also clad in black, about her private life. It is one of several clips he has made of young people dressed in close-fitting clothes that strike conservative Iraqis as provocative.

A few months ago, the people featured in these clips were stars of Iraq’s booming social media scene. No longer.

They have been largely silenced by being tried, convicted and sentenced to time in Iraq’s overcrowded prison system because of new Interior Ministry rules against “indecent” or “immoral” content on social media.

This crackdown on social media is relatively new, but is of a piece with a broader campaign to silence, sideline or co-opt those who publicly question or criticize the government.

That wider effort traces its roots to the months of demonstrations in 2019 and 2020, when young Iraqis poured into the streets demanding an end to corruption, a reduction in Iranian influence in Iraq and a new era of openness. Those demonstrations eventually forced the resignation of the prime minister, who was supported by Iranian-linked parties in the government.

The following sites updated: