Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Jimmy Dore, Fiorella Isabel

Do you like music?  Be sure to check out Kat's "Kat's Korner: What does Barbra's RELEASE ME 2 tell us?" where she's explaining the significance of Barbra Streisand's RELEASE ME 2.


Also check out Jimmy Dore.


 

Bernie really is an embarrassment. He better have the brains not to seek the presidential nomination again.  He's not up to the job.  He can't stand up for anything.


No wonder he let them steal the nomination from him two races in a row.


Just a tired old man who needs to sit the f**k down.


I'm not part of the crazed Cuomo! Cuomo! crowd.  I think Fiorella Isabel nails it in this Tweet:

It’s very clear the establishment’s chess move was to “punish” Cuomo via resignation, so he’s clear of murder for his actions during the pandemic & he’ll likely escape any real punishment bc he’s a rich & powerful man. There’s a reason Trump & Biden reached the Oval Office.
6:52 PM · Aug 10, 2021



And, by the way, Cuomo started unraveling -- same with Gavin Newsom -- the minute people started saying the DNC should give them the presidential nomination and not Joe Biden.


Or did we all forget that?


That's not a defense of Cuomo -- there's no defense for what he did -- but that is noting that there's a lot more going down than actually being discussed.

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


Tuesday, August 10, 2021.  More on the damage done by the party's girl's big bash.


Picking up from yesterday's topic of Barack Obama's stupid and outrageous birthday party.  Liza Featherstone (JACOBIN) observes:


ll summer, millions of Americans this year worried about being evicted from their homes, catching the Delta variant, persuading recalcitrant loved ones to get vaccinated, or whether a COVID resurgence might keep schools closed in the fall. Former president Barack Obama was apparently loftily unbothered by any of these plebeian concerns.

The distinguished memoirist was too busy planning a ginormous sixtieth birthday party for himself on his vast and vulgar Martha’s Vineyard estate, a sprawling 6,892-foot tumor on a beautifully spare coastal landscape, which the Obamas bought in 2019 for $11.75 million. The 475 guests were to include George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey. Even people close to him argued for weeks that as the White House was urging caution, given the recent COVID resurgence, the optics of this shindig were not good. Last week he appeared, for a moment, to be conceding to internal Democratic Party pressure by disinviting most of the guests, limiting the celebration to family and close friends. But that soon turned out to be some kind of head fake.

While Obama’s party might not have caused a deadly outbreak — it was outdoors and the Obamas were requiring guests to be vaccinated — the former president’s birthday bash showed, at a minimum, a cavalier insensitivity to the fears and needs of his neighbors, as well as a general indifference to the political fortunes of his fellow Democrats and the sufferings of Americans. But the kerfuffle shouldn’t surprise close observers of Obama’s ex-presidency, which has been strikingly bereft of public-spiritedness.

He’s distinguished himself as an enemy of labor and friend of racist cops. NBA players began to go on strike last August after Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by police seven times in front of his kids, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Amid a national uprising over the shooting and many other acts of racist police brutality, Obama called LeBron James and players’ union leader Chris Paul and urged them to get back on the court and finish the playoffs, which they did.

Obama was also instrumental in shutting down Bernie Sanders’s bid for the presidency, a huge setback to the movement for social democracy in the United States. When Sanders was leading in the primaries, Obama worked to organize the other rival candidates to drop out and back Biden, making it impossible for Sanders to win. He then persuaded the democratic socialist senator to drop out of the race.

And let’s not forget Obama’s awful museum in Chicago. The three-memoir author is erecting a garish monument to himself on Jackson Park, which community activists argue will wreak havoc on cherished green space and a fragile ecosystem, as well as upon the legal scaffolding for the very idea of the public interest (we wrote about this late last year).

In addition to his appalling Vineyard manse, Obama is also planning to live in an additional ecological monstrosity in Hawaii — owned by close crony Marty Nesbitt, chair of the Obama Foundation board — and developed for the Obamas. ProPublica reported last year that the Obama’s planned beach house has a controversial sea wall, which protects the estate in storms but is illegal because such structures disrupt the flow of the ocean and contribute to beach loss throughout the state.



That's the little princess who, please remember, entered the White House complaining of student loan debt.  Talk about someone cashing in -- whoring -- a public position.  It's unseemly and it goes to the fact that he's trash.  The country should be outraged.


And it's past time for the press to try a little honesty.


Photos weren't banned for security reasons.  Photos were banned because Barack didn't want the American people to see how a whore really lives.  Shame on him.  Shame on all who attended.  It was outrageous.  It sent the wrong message.  It wasn't safe -- not for the planet, not for the people.  


Barack has become the queen of excess.  It's appalling.  He does nothing for anyone but himself.  He never served the American people so I guess we shouldn't be surprised this is how he behaves.


Are all the 'Progressives for Obama' dead yet?  I know Tom Hayden is.  I think the repulsive Carl Davidson is still around.  They whored for Barack in 2008.  Remember those crazy times when David Lindorff would whore for Barack insisting that "as a Black person who has done drugs" Barack deserved our vote?  Remember Laura The Family Whore Flanders insisting that they would hold Barack's feet to the fire after the primary and the primary ended and then she was insisting she would hold his feet to the fire after the general election and then . . . .  A bunch of trashy whores birthed Barack, don't pretend he just turned up yesterday.  



COVID 19 is a global pandemic.  And one of the most well known people on the face of the earth sent the wrong message.  Intentionally sent the wrong message.  Because it was more important to little girl Barack that he gets to wear his party dress than that he be on message.  


UNHCR Tweets:

This COVID vaccination center in a refugee camp is the first of its kind in Iraq.  Everyone, including refugees, should have fair and equal access to the #CovidVaccine because no one is safe until everyone is safe. Syringe
From
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency
4:30 PM · Aug 8, 2021



5%.  That's the number of people in Iraq said to be vaccinated.


Is it serious?  Does COVID matter or not??  This is disgusting.  As Betty pointed out, the smartest thing US President Joe Biden's done is not attend that birthday party.


Online some are trying to pretend the party wasn't outrageous and are invoking Malcolm Forbes' birthday party years ago.


I'm sorry, are they saying that Barack, like Malcolm, is a closeted gay man?


They certainly aren't trashing Malcolm Forbes for whoring his public service because Forbes held no public office.  He was a greedy business person.  And he spent his own money that he earned.


No one believes for a minute that Barack 'earned' $60 million for writing a book -- that didn't sell all that well.  


He has used the office he held to enrich himself and he has done nothing for the people.


THE NEW ARAB notes:


Iraqis are not turning out to receive their Covid vaccines despite the jab's availability, a member of Iraqi parliament's health committee told The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site on Monday.

Vaccination rates in Iraq are "very low",  committee member Jawad Al-Moussawi told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, because of a lack of confidence in government actions and misinformation about the vaccine.

Al-Moussawi told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that some health centres do not have the vaccine doses they need – despite doses now pouring into Iraq.

Public health director Riyad Al-Halfi told state newspaper Al-Sabaah that Iraq had received two million new doses of the Sinopharm and Pfizer vaccines on Monday, to be distributed throughout the country.


The Atlantic Council notes:


The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in Iraq are devastating. With a population of over thirty-nine million, Iraq has totaled at least 1.5 million infections and over eighteen thousand deaths since the start of the pandemic. Like much of the Middle East, the vaccination effort in Iraq is progressing at an alarmingly slow rate—only 0.99 percent of Iraq’s population is fully vaccinated. Globally, the conversation surrounding COVID-19 is, understandably, focused on the death toll, number of infections, and vaccination rates. Yet, similarly grave statistics can be found in the countless untold stories in countries like war-ravaged Iraq, where the devastating social impacts of COVID-19 receive little global attention, particularly youth education.

Throughout the pandemic, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq’s federal government mandated school closures nationwide, affecting eleven million Iraqi children, ranging from pre-primary students to post-secondary students. The devastating impacts of COVID-19, coupled with years of spillover effects of violent conflict and extremism, have already proved to be detrimental to students whose education and future career ambitions already receive limited attention. Now, compounded with the effects of the pandemic, Iraq faces a perilous prospect: the potential for an entire illiterate generation. 

COVID-19 and education in Iraq

The pandemic has negatively impacted education in Iraq in two main ways: (1) Iraqi youths’ lack of access to education and (2) inconsistent school re-openings. A lack of access to education in Iraq is unfortunately not a new obstacle. This phenomenon has plagued the country for decades as a third-order consequence of multiple violent conflicts starting in 2003. Adding COVID-19 into the equation only exacerbates an already dire situation in the Iraqi education system.

In 2018, ACAPS, an independent humanitarian information provider, reported that only 20 percent of children in Iraq had access to computers at home, which made the transition to online learning during the pandemic virtually impossible for the majority of students. In a series of interviews with Iraqi parents, mothers and fathers conveyed that their children had received no education since school closures in February 2020. During the same series of interviews, a teacher from the Kurdistan region of Iraq cited the lack of internet access among students as a driving factor for why students could not attend school virtually. In terms of internet connectivity, Iraq ranks well below international averages of internet quality. Among the small number of Iraqi children who were fortunate enough to access both a computer and internet, connectivity is constantly interrupted by prolonged power outages. As a result, students could not attend virtual classes, complete required assignments, and study properly.

When looking at inconsistent school re-openings during the pandemic, both the KRG and the government of Iraq have constantly closed and re-opened schools due to fluctuations in COVID-19 case counts. Within these fluctuated closings and re-openings, overcrowded schools without proper personal protective equipment (PPE) have led to high rates of infections among children in Iraq. The country is also ranked amongst the highest in the world in terms of total duration of school closures during the pandemic, lasting sixty-two weeks. During this time, even children who could access schooling received low-quality education, with some instructors only able to teach 50 percent of their curriculum. Dr. Abbas Kadhim, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, described it as “a year to be forgotten for the kids” and total “chaos.”

COVID messaging has to be consistent or there's no point.  Barack's nonsense has defeated every effort Joe Biden has made since May when his administration has worked hard to improve messaging.  


On the topic of Joe, ABNA 24 offers this take on Joe's recent meet-up with Iraq's prime Minister Mustafa al-Kahdimi:


Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s state visit to the White House last week was a textbook case of face-saving obfuscation, for himself as well as for US president Joe Biden. For the US president, it represented the symbolic but illusory transformation of his country’s military footprint in Iraq into an “advisory role”. For Mr. Kadhimi, it was not only meant to placate the many voices within Iraq calling for complete US withdrawal, but an attempt to present the future US-Iraq relationship as being one of equals, between two totally sovereign states.

Were that in fact the case, then president Biden, a dyed-in-the-wool foreign interventionist would not have acceded so meekly.

Iraq and the institutions built there since the 2003 invasion remain of central importance to the US and wider Western ambitions for the region. The American hesitancy in initially withdrawing at the start of the 2010s was due in large part to the fact it had created a power vacuum in the heart of the region.

Without Saddam Hussein and his largely Western-armed military machine hemming in the Iranians, complete US withdrawal would have seen Tehran fill the void, solidifying its arc of influence stretching to the Syrian and Lebanese coasts.

Needless to say, this ‘new’ US-Iraqi strategic dialogue will involve continuing support to the post-invasion political and military elite, which Washington has tasked with subduing the Popular Mobilization Forces and blocking Iranian aid and material to its allies in Syria and Lebanon. The expected demand of the conventional armed forces for weapons and material no doubt has defence companies on both sides of the Atlantic salivating. 

Kat's "Kat's Korner: What does Barbra's RELEASE ME 2 tell us?" went up last night and the following sites updated:




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Monday, August 09, 2021

Idiot of the week

Here's Jimmy Dore.



Joe Biden, in the joke above, says FACEBOOK is killing people?  FACEBOOK?


Try Barack Obama and that's no joke.  The example he set is appalling.  


He overcrowded Martha's Vineyard -- he and his pals overloaded the airport.  They destroyed their environment flying in on their private jets.  They then, hundreds of them, unattended Barack's birthday party unmasked.


What message does that send?


Barack is an idiot.


All he's done is given Republicans images and talking points to run with because Barack's actions were outrageous.  Shame on anyone who tries to defend what Barack did.


I know it's early in the week but Barack's already won Idiot of the Week.





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


 Monday, August 9, 2021.  Barack Obama is a super spreader and, for a change, we aren't talking about his legs, Iraq continues to suffer electricity issues during the midst of an exceedingly hot summer, Joe Biden's word tricks have misled a Shi'ite militia in Iraq who is promising violence if Joe's words do not bear out, and much more.


Starting with Glenn Greenwald:


A NYT reporter on CNN justifying Obama's huge maskless birthday bash because he only invited "a sophisticated, vaccinated crowd" is about as emblematic of liberal discourse as it gets. What happened to all the concerns about vaccinated people passing Delta to the unvaccinated?


Annie Karni embarrasses herself by insisting it was "a sophisticated, vaccinated crowd."


Either we are taking measures or we are not. The US needs higher rates of COVID 19 vaccinations per the current administration.  


For Princess Barack -- the original Princess Tiny Meat -- to occupy Martha's Vineyard for his maskless birthday party is outrageous.   How dare he put the workers on Martha's Vineyard at risk.  We do get that, right?  That most who own property (including me) do not live there.  We visit, usually in the summer.  But the island isn't empty.  There are workers who make it their life.  And the people of Martha's Vineyard have done a very good job of following the government's ever-changing recommendations and getting vaccinated.  It is outrageous for this group of entitled elites to go to this island -- to descend upon it like a plague of locust -- and put them at risk.


Barack is not of Martha's Vineyard and never will be.  The residents do not like him -- you have to be willing to mingle and to spend to be liked by the residents.  Otherwise, you're not helping their community.  


Princess held a large event that shouldn't have been held anywhere but how typical of Princess Barack to risk the lives of the working class -- that is the bulk of the year-round inhabitants of Martha's Vineyard.  It is outrageous.  It is perfectly in keeping with his grand ego but (a) it wasn't safe and (b) it shouldn't have taken place.


Don't whine -- US media -- about people not masking up in a grocery store or wherever while you're applauding this outrageous -- and excessive -- event.


In the midst of a pandemic, a former so-called public servant holds that outrageous event?

Oh look, there's Erykah Badu embarrassing herself as part of the party.


Erykah's used to embarrassing herself, right?  Didn't think I'd tell this story, Erykah?  Oh, how wrong you were.


What does Erykah really think about the government?


She thinks that the people wo work for the government are to be screamed and screeched at.  She thinks they are to bend to her will and hop in a time traveling machine to meet her demands.


Erykah loves to live large . . . but on the cheap.  See, she really doesn't have a lot of money.  That's how she ended up purchasing a grand but dilapidated mansion in Oak Cliff in a notorious run-down, drug infested neighborhood.  She paid pennies on the dollar because no one, driving by the home was interested in it -- unless they had a shotgun aimed out the car window.


This run down home was decades old.  But Erykah goes on to terrorize the city workers.  Where are the original building plans!  She laughs about how they get red faced at her tantrum and start talking about how Oak Cliff wasn't always part of Dallas and when it was incorporated   Not good enough for Bitch Erykah who throws a screaming fit.


She then finally has plans drawn up -- for a remodel.  And starts the process of taking out permits.  But she doesn't finish the process -- which, ys, would include paying the fees.  After several months, the city tosses the plans.  As they do on all residential projects.  Erykah now has a holy fit because she finally scrapped up enough change to be able to pay the fees and schedule the inspections.


She brags about how she shouted and bullied and screamed to get her way.


That's Erykah Badu.


And reality, the only thing above she's really going to be offended about me repeating?  The reality that she doesn't have money.  "Tyrone" is years ago.  And though it was an "airplay" hit, it really didn't sale.  And she hasn't done an album in over ten years.  Glad she gathered enough scratch to fly to Martha's Vineyard but don't loan her money, she's not good for it.  She still, over a decade later, hasn't finished the 'improvements' to that dilapidated place she calls "home."


I could do this all day long, by the way.  Go through each of the guests at Barack's party and tell you some truths about them.  I went with Erykah because she was the first one I saw and also because she borrowed several thousand dollars from a mutual friend only three months ago (a record producer) and still hasn't paid him back.  Again, don't loan her money -- she has none to pay you back with.  The gravy train dried up for her.  Which is probably why she wore that old outfit that we'd all seen her in before about twenty to thirty times over.


Life is hard, Erykah -- especially when you try to pass for the elite and you're only keeping your head above water with personal loans.


We could talk about, for example, Bruce Springsteen who explained to me that he had to go back on Broadway because his albums no longer sale and, in today's streaming and radio market, he really doesn't get 'plays' because he's over 60 and his core audience apparently abandoned music for talk.  His label has already made clear that with every album stiffing of late, there will be concessions when they discuss the next contract -- concessions on his part.  He long ago stopped being Bruce Of The People and to live the high life that he and Patty now expect, he's got to go on Broadway where a bunch of out of touch people think they'll look cool seeing a washed up 71-year-old musician.


Again, I could do this all day.  I could tell you about the actor whose marriage is over but they keep it up for appearances and also because the only thing worse than only have X amount of dollars would be having to split X amount of dollars in a divorce settlement.  So she continues to see her singer-songwriter lover every Tuesday and Thursday and he amuses himself on those days and others with hired escorts.


What a crowd that flocks to Barack -- the depressed, deprived and depraved.


And then there's Barack himself.  He depends on others whoring.  His book didn't sell.  Not enough to justify that outlandish advance.  And his other big deal, the one with NETFLIX?  Well the Barack-ers NETFLIX installed are not working out.  Some like Channing have already been fired -- others soon will be.  And Barack himself is a liability.  The US market is saturated with NETFLIX subscribers.  They're dependent upon foreign markets.  What they didn't stop to consider was partnering up with Barack doesn't endear them overseas where people are much more likely to note that he murdered thousands with his drone war, that he never ended any wars, that he was a tool of corporatists and that he delivered nothing for the people.


By the way, with all his money, he better not have stuck the American people with the security price tag for that outrageous birthday party.  Seriously, the American people have a right to know (a) whether we had to pay for that event that shouldn't have taken place and (b) how much it is costing us.


It's easy for Barack to live large on our dime but it's neither fair nor ethical.


 


 
Funniest part of the party?  That Trap Beckham -- if you don't know him, you're not missing anything -- performed his awful "Birthday Bitch" at the party.  

Sample lyric:

I'm trying to get you to the birthday bed
You can even get the birthday head
That's what you call birthday sex
You don't need no love from ya birthday ex


Trap, did you tap?  You get you some of that Princess Barack coochie?  Oh, don't tell.  It's better that we all wonder.


Doesn't appear he scaled his 'super spreader' party back much at all.


How outrageous.  What a poor example he continues to be.  And sympathies to the residents of Martha's Vineyard, the people who actually live there, that their health is now at risk because of Barack's preening ego and his idiotic guests.


This morning, Morgan Chalfant and Amie Parnes (THE HILL) report:  "The White House is grappling with a resurgence of coronavirus cases that Democrats see as a real political threat given the central role getting the pandemic under control plays for President Biden. "  And there's supporter Barack hosting his super spreader event.  Think of how that played to the country.  Or around the world?  In Iraq, which the CIA estimates has a population of 40 million (no census has been done in Iraq in decades), only 5% of the people have been vaccinated.


But, hey, Princess got her big birthday party and isn't that all that matters . . . to Barack?


As I dictate this snapshot, the temperature in Baghdad is 113 degrees F.  This in a country that does not have dependable electricity, where the residents have to rely -- if they're lucky enough -- on generators.  The government fails them and does so as the out of date electrical grid is also being attacked.  AHRAM ONLINE reports:

A power transmission line in Iraq's Nineveh has been stopped due to a sabotage act, INA reported Monday.

A statement by the General Company for Northern Electricity Transmission stated that the line east of Mosul - Mosul Dam with a voltage of 400 kV was stopped due to an act of sabotage, by detonating the tower numbered (23) type (XYB) with IED; which led to its fall and a cut in the wires in Salamiyah area near the village of Al-Kasr, Nineveh province.


HAARETZ Tweets:


Experts are warning of a "severe medium-term existential crisis" in Iraq as government corruption, neglect, heat waves and a resurgent ISIS leave Baghdad with too many challenges all at once
As Biden 



And we'll note this Tweet from Ameera Baadia:


#Iraq has urged #Syria to increase water releases to compensate for a lack of rain and scorching heat, which have resulted in a revenue shortage.
GIF
5:34 AM · Aug 4, 2021


At MIDDLE EAST MONITOR, Haifa Zangana offers:


Despite spending more than $50 billion since 2003 in Iraq, official Iraqi, British and American statements, as well as specialised reports, justify power outages by citing technical reasons, some of which date back to the 1990s. They also cite the destruction inflicted on the country after the US-British invasion, followed by the emergence of Daesh. The increase in population, air conditioning, a rise in consumption and the non-payment of electricity and gas bills are also given as reasons for power cuts. These point to a deteriorating political and economic reality, at all levels, that requires immediate and strategic solutions to ensure the preservation of the life and dignity of Iraqi citizens rather than blaming them. This will not be achieved unless there is independent political action on the part of the government in Baghdad, which in turn requires Iraq to have control over its own sovereignty and be free of corruption.

The latter is a major factor in the lack of projects being implemented in Iraq. Fraud is commonplace in government contracts with external parties on the one hand, and the generator mafia at a local level on the other. This mafia controls everything related to electricity, including its price and distribution; politicians and militias alike have stakes in it. As a result, the rate of meeting per capita electricity needs in Iraq is still one of the lowest in the Middle East.

As for foreign contracts, a recent Chatham House report — "Politically sanctioned corruption and barriers to reform in Iraq" — provides examples of fraud in government contracts by using shell companies. One of these is the contract signed by the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity with the British company Power Engines to build 29 power stations in the city of Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq. The government paid a total of $21 million only to find that the company was fraudulent. Nobody was dismissed or punished for this, and nor was legal action taken. Another official document revealed a loss of $8 million from the General Directorate of North Energy Production.

Anyone watching the television interviews of Iraqi politicians will find that accusations of corruption related to foreign contracts pass without question or accountability. The lack of accountability for corrupt Iraqis is not limited to those within their country; it extends to the US and Britain if the official involved holds dual nationality or a residency permit.


As we wind down, let's turn to the non-withdrawal.  US President Joe Biden is not withdrawing troops from Iraq.  He's pretending to.  He's changing their label but they will remain in Iraq.  His stunts aren't appealing in the US.  They also do not play well overseas.  His words were taken at face value by some who don't speak English.  Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:


The recent agreement between the US and Iraq to withdraw American combat troops is insufficient, the spokesperson of an Iran-backed militia group told Rudaw, promising an “appropriate response” should all US forces not withdraw. 

“The talks that took place between Baghdad and Washington, and the outcomes they produced, did not achieve the Iraqi ambition, which is the exit of all US forces,” Sheikh Kadhim al-Fartousi, spokesperson for Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, a militia part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) told Rudaw on Sunday.

“Changing clothes and appearance is not a withdrawal … the US and foreign forces withdrawal from Iraq has to be in full,” Fartousi said, adding that if that is not achieved there will be an “appropriate response.”

US President Joe Biden received Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi late last month, and announced that the US combat mission in Iraq will be over by the end of the year. “The delegations decided, following recent technical talks, that the security relationship will fully transition to a training, advising, assisting, and intelligence-sharing role, and that there will be no U.S. forces with a combat role in Iraq by December 31, 2021,” read a joint statement.

There are currently 2,500 US troops in Iraq, including in the Kurdistan Region. As the US formally shifts to an advisory role, it is not immediately clear if this will change the number of American soldiers in the country.



Uh, thanks, Joe Biden?  He's created this situation with his own lies.

The following sites updated:







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