Mikey Likes It!

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

HULU and Patrick Martin

So, if you missed it, PEACOCK is pulling NBC programming from HULU.. PEACOCK will be the next day go-to for NBC airing programs. At the end of the '00s, you could watch HULU for FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC and THE CW. Those days are going, going gone. Would you subscribe to PEACOCK to see NBC? I won't. There's not enough worth watching on NBC. I don't care for the Chicago shows or law stories so that's basically their entire programming. The only thing I've enjoyed on NBC in the last 12 months was THE TRUTH ABOUT PAM.

HULU used to mean so much to me. I can remember when it was brand news. You'd watch something like DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE or Doris Day in CAPRICE.

Then shows were on like MODERN FAMILY and FRINGE. I loved both. MODERN FAMILY I would stream while I ate breakfast on Thursday morning. FRINGE? I wouldn't have been a fan if it wasn't for HULU. I'd stream it on HULU and avoid the gross. Meaning, I wouldn't see them and could keep watching. I'd be doing classwork or something on my main screen but having it streaming. And I'd listen and check out what was going on visually from time to time. But if I had watched that on a TV, I would have bailed near immediately. That outbreak on the plane in season one, for example, would have sent me packing.

I really loved HULU. For years, it was my go-to. Then they did that annoying make over and ignored us subscribers when we complained which showed how little they now valued us. When it started, it was free. And they wanted your input and used it. Now? It's obvious that they don't want our thoughts at all.

So I use YOUTUBE TV and I really enjoy it. But when HULU started, it was magical. NETFLIX wasn't even streaming then. When they first started streaming, NETFLIX just streamed STARZ -- and it was live. You were streaming what was on the channel at the time. (I think there was more than one STARZ channel.) So HULU was just so incredible.

I remember the first time I streamed it on a tablet and not my laptop!!! That was fun. Back then, the '00s, every thing was a new discovery with HULU.

Changing topics, Patrick Martin (WSWS) reports:

Democratic candidates coming from the CIA and military, and Republican candidates espousing openly fascist and racist views won numerous primary contests Tuesday, the last major day of candidate selection for the two capitalist parties before the general election in November.

The further rightward shift by both of the officially recognized parties of the financial aristocracy has been the overriding feature of this year’s election campaign, although it has been largely concealed by the media. Their coverage has instead focused on candidate personalities, the ups and downs in the influence of Republican ex-President Donald Trump and horse race projections of likely outcomes in November.

The August 23 primaries in New York and Florida were no different, with most attention given to the member-on-member contest in New York’s 12th Congressional District between two longtime Democratic Party representatives, Gerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, thrown together by redistricting, and on the outcome of a special election for an open seat in New York’s 19th Congressional District, won narrowly by Democrat Pat Ryan over Republican Marc Maldonado, who had been favored.

The first contest had little significance, although Nadler adopted a slightly more liberal posture than Maloney. He was also far better known through his role as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which handled some of the preliminaries of the first effort to impeach then-President Trump in the fall of 2019.

The second contest was for the Hudson Valley seat left vacant when two-term Representative Antonio Delgado resigned in order to accept the position of New York’s lieutenant governor, chosen by Governor Kathy Hochul to replace her initial choice, Brian Benjamin, who quit in a bribery scandal. Delgado only narrowly won the district in 2018, and given the presumed shift towards the Republicans in the 2022 midterms, the Republican candidate Maldonado was expected to win.

Democrat Pat Ryan, however, won by a 52-48 percent margin in a heavier turnout than usual for a mid-August special election. The result was an indication of the political impact of the Supreme Court’s reactionary decision two months ago in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization to repeal Roe v. Wade.

Ryan focused on the issue of abortion rights, declaring repeatedly that “choice is on the ballot,” one of the main slogans floated by the Democrats for the general election. While abortion is a democratic right of fundamental importance to the working class, the Democratic Party’s professions of devotion to it are duplicitous in the extreme.

Democrats did nothing to strengthen right to abortion

In the 50 years since Roe v. Wade, no Democratic president or Democratic-controlled Congress, including the current ones, has made the slightest effort to strengthen the legal position of abortion rights or push back against state efforts to encroach on it. Rather, the Democrats have themselves collaborated in chipping away at abortion rights, particularly through acceptance of the Hyde Amendment, which bars most federal funding for the medical procedure.

Viewing the special election as a “referendum on Dobbs,” as Ryan put it, allowed the media to ignore a more significant and sinister aspect of Ryan’s own primary contest and of many others, particularly in New York state: the continuing transformation of the Democratic Party into a direct political instrument of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon.

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

Wednesday, August 24 2022. US President Joe Biden sends more billions of US tax dollars to Ukraine as he continues to make time to persecute Julian Assange, Cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr continues his tantrums, and much more.

Last night, Mike noted:

Joe's done nothing to help us -- by "us," I mean citizens of the United States. If I meant the nazi regime in Ukraine, well, he's done a great deal for them.

Joe destroyed our country and that's reality. As C.I. noted repeatedly, the price of milk may or may not go down. But when Campbell's soup increases its price, it doesn't knock it back down. So thanks for destroying people's lives, Joe Biden. People are already dealing with job insecurity and food insecurity and fears over COVID and monkeypox. Joe's inflation -- while he gives billions to Ukraine -- helped no one in the US.

Americans suffer and Joe sends the taxpayer money to Ukraine.

The dead but still disgusting Zbigniew Brzezinski, noted coward and hate monger ("Castro's sent exploding cigars that will kill us all! Get that box out of the White House!"), used to brag about how he destroyed the USSR's economy by dragging them into Afghanistan where all their money went for that endless war.

From a 1998 interview Brzezinski gave to LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the national securty advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention [emphasis added throughout].

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?

B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them . However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Now it's the US getting trapped. Thanks, Joe Biden, you blustering fool.

Doing his best to deprive generations of any future, Joe's now sending more money to Ukraine. Clara Weiss (WSWS) explains:

One day before the six-month anniversary of the imperialist-provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, US officials told the Associated Press that the White House is about to announce another $3 billion in spending to aid and train Ukraine’s military. This comes on top of $10.6 billion in direct military funding provided by the Pentagon since the beginning of the war, as well as over $17 billion for US weapons manufacturing for Ukraine.

Based on anonymous US officials, the AP reported Tuesday that the new package is intended to provide weapons and ammunitions that may not arrive in Ukraine for a year or two. In other words, it is designed to fund the new “forever war” by US imperialism in Ukraine, which has already killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and thousands of civilians, while displacing over a fourth of the country’s population.

Speaking in a similar vain, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated on Tuesday, “Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term.”

Another three billion in US tax dollars. When not destroying the US income, President Joe Biden works on destroying the US Constitution as he continues to persecute Julian Assange. Stella Assange Tweets:

Julian #Assange won the Sydney Peace Foundation's prestigious Gold Medal for his work exposing crimes against humanity committed by our governments in wars we were lied into. The US government wants him in prison for the rest of his life because he exposed US crimes.
#FreeAssange

1:54 PM · Aug 22, 2022

Yesterday, Tariq Ali appeared on DEMOCRACY NOW!.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, before we go, we have 30 seconds, and I wanted to ask you about the situation of Julian Assange. We just did a segment on the Julian Assange lawyers and journalists suing the CIA and Mike Pompeo personally, the former CIA director, for working with a Spanish company in bugging the embassy, videoing, audioing, taking visitors’ computers and phones, downloading them, interfering with client-attorney privilege. Could this stop the extradition of Julian Assange, who faces espionage charges in the United States?

TARIQ ALI: Well, it should, Amy — that’s the first answer — because this has been a political case from the beginning. The fact that senior officials discussed whether to kill Assange or not, and that’s the country to which the British government and judiciary, acting in collusion, are sending him back, claiming this isn’t a political trial, this isn’t a political victimization, it’s deeply shocking.

Well, I hope that this trial brings some more facts forward and some action is taken, because this extradition really should be stopped. We are all trying, but the politicians, by and large, and mainly of both parties — and the Australian new prime minister in the election campaign pledged he’d do something. The minute he becomes prime minister, he just completely caves in to the United States — barely a surprise. But in the meantime, Julian’s health is bad. We are extremely worried about how he’s being treated in prison. He shouldn’t be in prison, even if he is going to be extradited. So, I hope for the best but fear the worst, because one shouldn’t have any illusions about this judiciary.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, historian, activist, filmmaker, author of Uprising in Pakistan: How to Bring Down a Dictatorship. His latest book, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes.

Around the world people are watching as Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden. Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs. And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own. For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:

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

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

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

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

Yesterday, VICE TV posted this video about the Iraq War.

Meanwhile, the political stalemate continues in Iraq. Cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr continues to fail in public. He failed for months at forming a government. Then he threatened to pull his MPs out of the Parliament thinking that would get him his way. He pulled them, no one cared. He sent his cult followers into the Parliament to occupy it and demand that the judiciary dissolve the Parliament. The judiciary responded that they had no power to do such a thing. So he sent his cult to the judiciary to protest. How's that working out?

Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:

Iraq's security forces will not be dragged into the political conflict the country is facing, Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi said as the Supreme Judiciary Council resumed work on Wednesday.

Supporters of Moqtada Al Sadr continued to hold their sit-in outside the judiciary's headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday, forcing the institution to close and stoking tension between the populist cleric and his rivals, the Co-ordination Framework.

Mr Al Sadr's supporters demanded the dissolution of Parliament and an to end corruption.

Late on Tuesday, the cleric called on his followers to withdraw from the gate of the Supreme Judicial Council. However, they continued with their sit-in, which began on July 30.

On August 10, Mr Al Sadr gave the country's top court a week to dissolve Parliament to end the political standoff. However, the court said it lacked the authority to do so.

The sit-in in front of the judiciary coincided with a move by supporters of the Co-ordination Framework to hold a protest against Mr Al Sadr's followers and call for the formation a new government after the October legislative elections.

They want a transitional government before new elections are held.

AL-MONITOR adds:

The US Embassy in Baghdad expressed concern over the "unrest in Baghdad today at the Supreme Judicial Council" and urged "all parties to remain calm, abstain from violence and resolve any political differences through a peaceful process guided by the Iraqi Constitution.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq also criticized the move against the Judiciary and told protesters that the “state institutions must operate unimpeded in service of the Iraqi people, including the SJC.”

Upon his arrival, Kadhimi met head of the Badr Organization and prominent leader of the Coordination Framework Hadi al-Amiri.

They discussed the prime minister's initiative for national dialogue and how to revive it under the recent escalation.

Following the abovementioned statements and positions by national and international figures and parties, Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from the Judiciary building; some tents were left behind as a sign of protest against the politicization of the Judiciary.

Soon after, the Judiciary Council said it was returning to its normal work schedule.

The Coordination Framework, which is the rival Shiite group against Sadr, also issued a strong statement calling for the protection of state institutions and rejecting any kind of assault against them.

What raised more concerns, however, was a statement issued by the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) — which has some some political parties affiliated with the Coordination Framework — accusing the government of not taking responsibility in protecting state institutions and expressing readiness to protect the state.

“As the Popular Mobilization Authority declares its readiness to defend state institutions that guarantee the interests of the people, foremost of which is the judicial and legislative authority, the political system and the constitution, it calls on the caretaker government to take responsibility, and seriously, in protecting the constitutional state institutions,” the statement read.

Since Moqtada's string of tantrums began a few weeks back, it's been noted repeatedly that The October Revolution protesters were targeted, were beaten, were stalked and were killed. However, 'caretaker' prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is clearing waving these protests through. The security forces do nothing over and over.

And this is part of the reason that Iraqi Shi'ites are growing so tired of Moqtada and his antics.

As has all elements of Iraq. Gina Lennox Tweets:

The political shenanigans in #Iraq is getting worse. #Sadrists, #CoordinationFramework & #judiciary - they're all MAD.

amwaj.media

Iraq’s judiciary shuts down as Sadrists escalate street power

The story: Iraq’s supreme judicial council has announced the suspension of the operation of courts. This comes as the Shiite Coordination Framework says it will end the Sadrist blocking of parliame...

12:55 AM · Aug 24, 2022

Lastly, on Kurdistan and Turkey, Amberin Zaman (AL-MONITOR) reports:

As Turkey escalates its campaign against Kurdish militants in the north of Syria and Iraq and Kurdish politicians within its borders, Masoud Barzani, the preeminent leader of Iraq’s Kurds, recalls a time when Ankara’s policy toward his people was distinctly different.

In the fifth volume of his memoirs published on Aug. 16 and titled “Barzani and the Kurdish Freedom Movement,” Barzani describes how Turgut Ozal, the iconoclastic liberal who governed Turkey first as prime minister and then president from 1983 until his sudden death in 1993, floated the idea of “annexing” Iraqi Kurdistan and the oil-rich province of Kirkuk as well as Mosul, which had been “unjustly” taken from Turkey and made part of Iraq by the League of Nations in 1924. It’s the first time Barzani has publicly shared this information.

Barzani says he was “puzzled” by Ozal’s frankness and decided to raise the matter with the Americans. The Americans said they would get back to him on “this great subject that is worthy of further research” but then never did.

The conversation between Barzani and Ozal took place after the first Persian Gulf War. The United States had kicked the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain out of Kuwait and declared no-fly zones over the Shiite-majority south and the Kurdish-majority north of Iraq while crippling Baghdad with sanctions. US jets shielding the Kurds and the Shiites from further attack would fly out of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey. The first seeds of the American- and Turkish-midwifed Kurdish statelet in Iraq were thus sown.

Today, with thousands of Turkish forces deployed across northern Iraq and Turkish spies sprouting from every corner, a growing number of Iraqis, including their leaders, believe that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan harbors similar ambitions. That’s unlikely.

We'll wind down with this from The Feminist Majority:

Common Ills, Friday is Women’s Equality Day.

Women’s Equality Day in years past has been a celebration of winning women’s right to vote. But this year does not feel like a celebration. 2022 will be the first time in United States history in which women have had a basic right taken away, that was previously awarded.

Give now to Vote Equality ’22

Let’s face it, the US Supreme Court Dobbs decision reversed Roe v. Wade and took away a basic right to privacy for women and pregnant people to make decisions about whether or not to have an abortion Rather, it gives to states the right to ban legal abortions or severely restrict access to abortions. This decision also threatens future access to contraceptives and same-sex marriages which are currently permitted in all 50 states by US Supreme Court decisions using the right to privacy.

That is why the Feminist Majority is not celebrating but working very hard to help get out the vote to elect a majority in both the House and Senate, that will stand up for women’s rights and gender equality.

With your generous contribution, we can do this. Keep scrolling to read more about our campaign Vote Equality '22.feminist.org/voteequality22

-Ellie, Kathy, and all of us fighting for the ERA

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Grab a towel, we're headed for a blood bath

CNN has an opinion column which opens:

Recent Democratic rhetoric and the longer history of Congress and midterm elections remind us that parties on their way to losing congressional majorities often talk the following way about their legislative agendas:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared last week that the party-line passage of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act “will endure as one of the greatest legislative feats in decades” and that the current Congress has had “one of the most productive stretches in recent Senate history.” President Joe Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone, told Politico that “we’re on the offensive” and that the Democrats’ spending bills would boost them in the midterm elections.

But experience suggests that these kinds of congressional activities do little to change the trajectory of midterm elections. In 2017 and 2018, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they enacted a string of legislative victories – despite Democratic resistance.

Included were Department of Veterans Affairs personnel reform, a farm bill, a water infrastructure bill, an aviation bill, a NASA modernization bill, an opioid treatment bill, music digital copyright reform, the First Step Act criminal sentences reform and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reconciliation bill. Two new Supreme Court justices were also confirmed during that time.

But neither those legislative achievements nor the strong economy was sufficient to enable Republicans to hold the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. They did maintain a narrow majority in the Senate.

Joe's done nothing to help us -- by "us," I mean citizens of the United States. If I meant the nazi regime in Ukraine, well, he's done a great deal for them.

And I do believe that this will be reflected in the mid-terms.

That's before you factor in that historically there is a flip during a mid-term election when the White House and the House of Representatives are controlled by the same party.

He's done a miserable job and that alone is enough. Then there's the historical trend. Then there's how they've angered Donald Trump's supporters with that raid. So that faction is going to turn out for sure. They stirred up a hornet's nest, as my grandpa would say. :D

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

Tuesday, August 23, 2022. A war hawk dies (don't praise him), Julian Assange remains persecuted by Joe Biden and Moqtada al-Sadr throws another public tantrum when he doesn't get his way.

That's Dr. Céline Gounder, Infectious Disease Specialist and Epidemiologist addressing monkeypox. "It is not limited to that population." When you hear someone, say a YOUTUBER, who can barely conceal their disgust and anger at gay people, remember not what the YOUTUBER 'learned' but what a medical professional is telling you. Changing topics . . .

In other news, the persecution of Julian Assange continues. Julian came up during Kevin Gosztola's discussion with journalist William Arkin on SHADOW PROOF.

GOSZTOLA: Finally I want to put to you the issue of the Espionage Act being part of the conversation. A lot of my work has been watching and monitoring and covering the developments in individual Espionage Act prosecutions over the last decade-plus. Those individuals and their attorneys would also say that they were charged for materials that would not cause exceptionally grave damage, and yet the book was thrown thrown at them and they had their lives ruined and their careers ended. So why shouldn’t the same be true for Donald Trump?

I think it presents a crisis. I think it’s part of this crisis of the liberals and the Democratic Party establishment really feeling strongly about pushing forward with whatever the Justice Department is about to do. What’s your sense of the risk if Donald Trump were to be charged with violating the Espionage Act?

You’re talking to people about the potential charges that could be brought. Is this even a distinct possibility? You said unlawful possession, which can be within that law. But there are other laws. Do you think it would be a more minor law to keep the Espionage Act out of the conversation?

ARKIN: We now know that the Espionage Act was only being referenced because of section 793(d) of the Espionage Act, which is an area of the Espionage Act that deals with if you are in possession of classified documents and the federal government asks you to return them, and you don’t return them, you’re in violation of 793(d) of the Espionage Act.

It’s called the Espionage Act, what it’s been called since 1917, but it also happens to be just one of a handful of laws that deal with security classification. The rest of the security classification system exists under executive order. That’s why Donald Trump and his people are arguing that he declassified everything. But it’s not altogether true. Some elements of classified information do fall under statute, such as atomic energy information or information about the identities of CIA sources, etc. Those fall under statute.

So it’s unfortunate that the Espionage Act is the place where this is contained, this provision about returning classified material in your possession, because it’s abused in a way because we don’t have modern legislation. Perhaps one of the solutions will be that we will finally have a law passed, which will specify what is classified and unclassified information and what is the modern security classification system and where are the authorities and what’s against the law and what’s not against the law.

That does influence Julian Assange’s problems in the courts. It influences other whistleblowers who have been charged with the Espionage Act, and even if they were not guilty of espionage, as we think of it, they are charged under the Espionage Act. So we need to clean this up because I don’t think that we have a law in a proper way that really specifies what the true state of play is here.

If I support Julian Assange, I want Donald Trump to spur along a better articulation of what is the actual purpose of the Espionage Act. To have say for instance Julian Assange, a foreign national charged under the Espionage Act—espionage against who? If he committed espionage against Australia, then he should be charged in his own country of his nationality.

In some ways, if I’m a supporter of Julian Assange, I want to see that Donald Trump helps to clarify what is this law and what it can really be used for. Because in the cases of [Chelsea] Manning, in the cases of Tom Drake, in the case of Julian Assange, I think it’s been misapplied. And in the case of journalism, there have been attempts at various times within our recent past going back to the Reagan administration, where the federal government has sought to use the Espionage Act as a way of suppressing a free press.

Again, if I’m really interested in the future, I would want to see Congress step in finally and establish an omnibus law that deals with security classification in this country. That’s more important than Donald Trump.

For a full transcript of the interview, click here. The world watches as Joe Biden persecutes Julian Assagne. Jeff Mackler (LA PROGRESSIVE) notes:

Of the estimated 1.4 million top security clearance U.S. personnel employed by one or another of the government’s 18 branches of its $81 billion annually budgeted “U.S. Intelligence Community,” perhaps one or two individuals each year are designated as “whistleblowers” and persecuted to the high heavens.

Today WikiLeaks founder and journalist/publisher Julian Assange stands at the top of the list, currently imprisoned in London’s Belmarsh Prison and fighting against the Biden administration’s – and Trump’s before him – heinous efforts to extradite him to the U.S. on spurious charges under the witchhunt era Espionage Act. Revealing the truth about U.S. war crimes around the world, not to mention exercising a journalist’s right to free speech and a free press, is unacceptable to the U.S. imperialist beast that daily wages wars against poor and oppressed nations around the world. That the single dissident voice of a far off non-U.S. citizen must be silenced forever, informs us of the disgusting arrogance of those who command the seats of U.S. power.

Similarly, heroes like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning today, and Daniel Ellsberg, the renowned Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers defendant of yesteryear – whose revelations educated millions about the U.S. horrors committed against the Vietnamese people – are unacceptable to today’s modern day thought police.

And we'll quote again from Eve Ottenberg's column, now at CITY WATCH:

For a good while one could blame Trump for the prosecutorial monstrosity perpetrated on journalist Julian Assange.

But now it’s time for Trump to move over. The single worst assault on the first amendment and a free press in recent centuries is no longer solely his. Biden owns it. Biden could end this state persecution of a journalist today, if he felt like it. A persecution that a U.N. expert has called torture. A persecution that could easily lead to Assange’s death.

But maybe that’s the point. Indeed, if killing Assange isn’t the point, Biden should prove it, by pardoning him now. Biden doesn’t feel like it. Unlike Jamal Khashoggi, whose murder he deplored before he didn’t, Biden never censured the years of abuse heaped on Assange by the U.S. government. He enabled it. Unlike Trump, who may very well have been threatened with impeachment by senators like Mitch “Democracy’s Gravedigger” McConnell, if Trump dared dream of pardoning Assange, Biden was never vulnerable to such a hypothetical menace. In fact, he’s in McConnell’s corner. By his inaction, it’s clear that Biden approves of the criminal state attack on Assange.

Both Biden and Trump look like moral midgets compared to Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who last month handed a letter to Biden about the besieged journalist. In this epistle, according to Reuters July 18, Lopez Obrador “defended Julian Assange’s innocence and renewed a previous offer of asylum to the Wikileaks founder,” in Mexico. This offer came in the month after the U.K. approved Assange’s extradition to the U.S., where he faces up to 175 years in prison on what everybody knows are trumped up charges under a law that shouldn’t even exist, the Espionage Act.

This law served solely as a bludgeon against political enemies and their speech since it was enacted in 1917. It battered socialists and communists like Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden. According to the PEN American Center, this edict “had been used inappropriately in leak cases that have a public interest component.” That’s putting it mildly. One year after enactment, by 1918, 74 newspapers had been denied mailing privileges under the Espionage Act. This law was birthed to harass and jail opponents of what nowadays many knowledgeable people regard as a catastrophe that should never have happened, namely Woodrow Wilson’s blood-drenched folly, World War I. This law exists for one purpose: chilling freedom of speech.

Indeed, that’s why the Espionage Act shouldn’t exist. Lopez Obrador said that arresting Assange “would mean a permanent affront to freedom of expression.” He sure got that right. But nothing other than sour silence about his latest offer has emanated from the white house. In fact, Lopez Obrador never got a response to his first letter to Biden over a year ago. When faced with a gracious gesture to do the humane, moral, civilized thing and end this grotesque perversion of justice, Biden just acts like he hopes this opportunity for compassion will go away and everyone will forget that he’s doing something unspeakable.

Joe Biden stands as a hypocrite on the world stage and everyone is watching.

Meanwhile, David Kay is dead. Lydia O'Connor (HUFFINGTON POST) writes:

David Kay, the weapons inspector who disproved the United States’ main rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, died earlier this month, his wife told The Washington Post and New York Times.

He died from cancer on Aug. 13 at the age of 82, said his wife, Anita Kay.

Kay was a prominent figure in the early 2000s for his role searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He ultimately resigned when he concluded the weapons stockpiles simply did not exist.

“We were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here,” Kay said in bombshell testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2004. “It turns out we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.”

The CIA tapped Kay, who’d already surveyed Iraq for weapons in the 1990s, to lead the search for WMDs there after President George W. Bush’s administration said it had evidence the country was stockpiling weapons. That supposed stockpile was Bush’s main justification for invading Iraq following the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda Islamist militants.

By 2004, Kay concluded that CIA intelligence about the weapons had been faulty and that it was extremely unlikely any WMDs would be found in Iraq.

David Kay is dead. No tears should be shed. Not for him. For the Iraqis whose deaths he's responsible for? Sure. Cry for those innocents. But not only did he believe a lie (and offer cover for it when he admitted it was a lie), he also approved of the illegal war on Iraq even after he knew it was a lie.

He was no hero.

He was just a killer and a crook who had little more honesty than most in the Cheney-Bush dynasty.

He died at 82. He did a lot of damage in his lifetime. PBS was among his enablers.

In Iraq today, cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr has his followers targeting the judiciary.

Shiite cleric Sadr's supporters launch sit-in outside top Iraq judicial body https://f24.my/8qVt.t

6:29 AM · Aug 23, 2022

His attackers occupied the Parliament. That didn't work for him. He demanded the judiciary dissolve the Parliament, they explained that they did not have that power. Now the obsese Moqtada sends his followers to target the judiciary.

Iraqis watch this and they're not impressed. They weren't impressed when Moqtada failed over and over for months at organizing a government. Or when he made his MPs resign.

When he had MPs in Parliament, he could have a move to dissolve the body.

But tubby never knows what he's doing, he's just throws one tantrum after another.

And though the western press laps it up, the Iraqi people see him as the logjam that has created and maintained the political stalemate. His failures and his tantrums are seen as the biggest reason for a ten month political stalemate. October 10th, Iraq held elections. Tubby Moqtada has prevented any prime minister from being named and any president from being named. It's getting to the point where Iraqis are really suffering -- there's lost wages, for example, sky rocketing food costs, etc, etc.

They're not enthralled with the cult leader -- despite the press pimping him over and over -- the western press, let's be clear.

The following sites updated:

Monday, August 22, 2022

Graham Norton, Lee Camp, immigration, Jordan Elsass

Starting with this video of Graham Elwood and Lee Camp discussing our government.

And, another topic, AP reports:

The Pentagon on Monday once again denied a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in dealing with thousands of migrants being bused to the city from Texas and Arizona.

According to a copy of a letter to the city reviewed by The Associated Press, the Defense Department said use of the D.C. National Guard would be inappropriate and would hurt the overall readiness of the troops, forcing some to cancel or disrupt military training.

The letter said the department also is concerned about putting uniformed military members in direct contact with migrants to provide food, sanitation or other support, saying the troops have no real experience or training for that mission.

Good. The US borders and the US immigration policies are a national issue. For far too long, those of us who didn't live on the borders have said this is what needs to be done and that is what needs to be done. And most places aren't dealing with an influx of migrants. I don't have sympathy for DC or NYC. The border states have been forced to deal with this issue.

To be clear, I am for open borders and I say "undocumented immigrant" and not the other term. But this is not just a problem for those living on the border to live with. We all need to grasp what it means and work towards solutions. I agree with Ann who wrote about this awhile back and stated that immigrants from the south of the US should be re-settled in Iowa. She's right, it's the most Anglo White of any state. It's past time that they opened their arms to migrants.

Lastly, I'm a big fan of SUPERMAN AND LOIS and I'm going to miss the original Jonathan Kent now that the actor is leaving. Here the actor explains his decision to leave.

Via

@jordanelsass1

Cameo (1/2) #SupermanAndLois

1:29 PM · Aug 22, 2022

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

Monday, August 22, 2022. The persecution of Julian Assange continues as the world watches the hypocrisy of Joe Biden, a landslide hits Iraq, Moqtada makes a new demand and much more.

Starting in Italy, Olivier Turquet (PRESSENZA) interviews Lorena Corrias who is staging a street theater act where she 'lives' in a space as tiny as the one that Julian Assange is being held in:

-Lorena, how did you get the idea to do this?

-For months I wanted to do something that would have a strong impact on people; then on Instagram, I saw a girl from Berlin – Raja Valeska – who went down to crowded places in the city every day to protest with a sign indicating how many days Julian had been detained in Belmarsh and drew a rectangle on the ground with the dimensions of Assange’s cell (2 by 3 metres). I thought it was a great idea, very impressive, and so I tried to apply it in my city as well. I also contacted her and today we are still looking for new projects together. She has been my muse. I was deeply moved by her idea and her courage.

-What particularly moved you about Julian?

-I can’t list just one aspect.

I was moved by the injustice he has been subjected to, but also by his immense courage and loyalty to us: he risked everything to let us know what was really going on in the world. He challenged an unjust and corrupt system.

He is undoubtedly a great hero, a unique, tenacious man of enormous intelligence, an example to us all.

Then, of course, it struck me that he had such an out-of-the-ordinary, super-innovative and revolutionary idea (WikiLeaks) and that he managed to put it into practice. It would probably have seemed to all of us to be an almost impossible undertaking, but he did it! For a few years he was the protagonist of the news to which only he, the whistleblowers and his collaborators had access; he was the inventor of a new world, a just world where the weakest were no longer hidden by secrecy and where we all had access to the information that mattered to us. He told us what the states wanted to hide from us.

I was shocked to learn the story of the detainees in Guantánamo, many of them innocent; to see how US soldiers enjoyed shooting from helicopters at unarmed civilians who were simply walking down the street… It was like watching children playing Play Station (I refer to the video called Collateral Murder). I was shocked to see states like the US, Australia, Sweden and England breaking numerous laws to teach a lesson to an innocent person, who was just doing his job for free in the interest of the population.

The persecution has resulted in spying on reporters and attorneys as was revealed last week. Marjorie Cohn (TRUTHOUT) notes:

Attorneys and journalists whom the CIA spied on when they visited WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London have filed a lawsuit against the CIA, its former director Mike Pompeo, UC Global and its director, David Morales, in U.S. District Court.

Assange is in a London prison fighting extradition to the United States. He is charged with violating the Espionage Act for exposing U.S. war crimes and faces 175 years imprisonment. During the seven years he lived in the Ecuadorian Embassy under a grant of asylum, Assange was visited by more than 100 attorneys, journalists and doctors. They included Assange’s criminal defense attorneys in the United States, international human rights lawyers, national security journalists whose sources could be jeopardized if exposed, and physicians and medical professionals.

The CIA commissioned Undercover Global (UC Global), a private Spanish security company, to send images from Assange’s visitors’ cellphones and laptops as well as video streamed from their meetings to the CIA.

“Unbeknownst to anyone there, they actually put recording devices and cameras in the rooms where Mr. Assange was, which essentially live streamed what he was doing and saying back to Washington,” attorney Richard Roth, who filed the lawsuit, told me and my co-host Michael Smith on Law and Disorder radio. “I think that there was clearly a desire to bring down Julian Assange any way possible.”

Defendant Morales announced to his employees that UC Global would be operating “in the big league” and on the “dark side” with the CIA, the complaint says. Former employees of UC Global said the deal included selling information gathered as a result of the illegal surveillance.

For the LAW AND DISORDER RADIO episode Marjorie is writing about, click here. It will air later this morning on WBAI but it already up at the program's website.

The world is watching as Joe Biden trashes the freedom of the press, the Constitution, human rights and so much more. The hypocrisy is on full display. DEVDISCOURSE notes:

China on Friday said that if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had disclosed the "dirty secrets" of a country other than the US, Assange would not have been put him behind bars and he might have received honor from the CIA. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made these remarks in response to reports that lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, along with two journalists, have recently sued the Central Investigation Agency for unlawfully obtaining information from their electronic devices and recordings of their conversations with Julian Assange, violating their privacy.

"We can all imagine, had Assange disclosed the dirty secrets of not the US, perhaps he would not have been put behind bars and might even receive a medal or some kind of rewards and immense honor from the CIA," Wenbin said during a media presser. "What has happened to Assange and his lawyers has again made one thing clear: in the US, the sanctity of human rights and press freedom comes with strings attached. The exercise of such rights and freedom must not come into conflict with the interests of the US. For if it does, they will surely come under high-handed restriction and ruthless suppression," he added.

If you missed it last week, here's the press conference -- moderated by attorney Heidi Boghosian who also co-hosts LAW AND DISORDER RADIO.

The death toll has risen from a landslide that took place Saturday in Iraq. BBC NEWS reports:

On Saturday, an earth mound adjacent to the Qattarat al-Imam Ali shrine gave way as a result of moisture saturation.

The landslide hit the ceiling of the shrine, which then collapsed on to visitors.

"Any mistake could lead to further collapses," said Abdelrahman Jawdat, a civil defence spokesman.

ALJAZEERA adds:

Between six and eight pilgrims are trapped in the shrine, civil defence spokesman Nawas Sabah Shaker said.

Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from the capital Baghdad, said many worshippers had gathered at the shrine during the Shia Muslim holy month of Muharram.

“Heavy machinery was brought to the scene including bulldozers and diggers,” he said. “Family members are standing by, waiting for any news about their loved ones.”

REUTERS notes that six people have now been rescued from the the collapse. AP notes that the death toll has now risen to seven. Sinana Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) offers this background, "For Shiites, the site is a revered one. They say that when the fourth Caliph Imam Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, was on his way to the Battle of Siffin in 657 AD (37 Hijri) against Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, the rebellious governor of Syria, his army was thirsty so he removed a huge and heavy rock to reveal a water spring."

In other news?

October 10th, Iraq held elections. All these months later, they have failed to name a prime minister or a president. MEMO notes:

Sabreen Khalil lost her husband to COVID last year, leaving her to raise seven children alone, but Iraqi government funding to help her and hundreds of thousands of families in poverty is blocked by political stalemate, Reuters reports.

With politicians deadlocked over forming a new government since an election in October, rival Shia Muslim factions in Baghdad, on Friday, continued their weeks-long protests which have prevented Parliament from meeting.

The standoff has raised fears of renewed unrest in a country where militias wield significant power and is already taking a toll on the most vulnerable.

"I am a woman and, all of a sudden, I had to take the responsibility of seven children alone … it broke my back," Khalil said, speaking of the impact of her husband's death.

Sitting on the floor in her one-bedroom brick house in the village of Saada on the outskirts of Baghdad, she said she cannot afford treatment for her chronic illness and that her children have to skip some meals as food prices soar.

People are suffering and many are blaming cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr who took months and months to form a government and failed over and over. He then stomped his feet and had all of his MPs resign from Parliament. They have been replaced with the second runners up in the October vote. Now he wants the Parliament dissolved by the judiciary who has responded that only Parliament has the power to dissolve itself. The United Nations has called for dialogue. Iraq's caretake prime minister echoed that call and organized a meet up this past week.

Guess who chose not to participate?

That's right, cry baby Moqtada.

And yet, he now tries to issue another demand. PRESS TV notes:

Prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr says he has submitted a proposal to the United Nations to hold a public debate with all political factions in Iraq, as the country’s political crisis continues to deepen.

In a post on his Twitter account on Saturday, Sadr wrote that he has not received a tangible response from the Iraqi political parties in this regard, adding that their response did not address the demands of the people or the revolutionaries.

No dialogue unless he controls it? Yes, he's blocking movement again while the Iraqi people suffer. And why does he want to be in charge of a dialogue anyway? Mid-week he explained he boycotted the meeting of various political heads because "I will not sit with the corrupt and those who want evil." Unless, of course, he can be in charge.

We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:

The U.S. plan to draw Russia into a proxy war in the Ukraine has turned out to be a monumental debacle, exposing the United States’ cynical plans as well as the limits of U.S. imperial power.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has consistently analyzed the conflict as manufactured, one that could have been avoided with a real commitment to peace in that part of the world.

But the Biden administration decided war was the method. It needed to suppress Germany and disconnect the Russian economy from the Western European economy.

In May, we called for states to boycott the Summit of the Americas, an event through which the United States has attempted to maintain hegemony through manipulation. The people of our region declared opposition to it, saying one cannot be a partner and a hegemon at the same time. As long as the United States sees our region as its backyard—or its front yard—we will struggle against it.

All of these are indications we are witnessing the development of a new world, in which the possibility of equality, peace, development and stability can be achieved. But it’s quite clear it can only be achieved with collective humanity putting a break on the U.S./EU/NATO axis of domination.

We are proud that BAP has become an integral force in dismantling the U.S. empire. In this issue of our newsletter, you will see some of the political work BAP has been involved in, both in the media and on the ground.

We hope to continue with your support to bring about peace and justice in this world.

RECENT WORK

BAP issued a statement on African Liberation Day. We pulled off a webinar in May to introduce our SOUTHCOM campaign. Then we did another webinar in June about the connection between health and People(s)-Centered Human Rights. Meanwhile, the Ukraine resources page has been updated. Check out the latest AFRICOM Watch Bulletin, featuring an interview with BAP member organization All-African People’s Revolutionary Party member Ahjamu Umi. Plus, keep up with what’s happening in Afghanistan with the Afghanistan News Update.

The following sites updated: