Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lazy Dog Joe" went up earlier tonight. That's right. America sent Joe Biden to the White House and he has no plan to bring us anything -- not the $2000 stimulus checks, not the $15 an hour minimum wage. Joe Biden truly is worthless.
Oh, and it gets worse.
Alicia Adamczyk (CNBC) reports:
Though she has kept her job as an executive assistant throughout the pandemic, Marie, who asked to be identified by her middle name to protect her privacy, says her budget has still been stretched thin.
The mother-of-two’s employer reduced her salary by 15%, she no longer picks up extra income as a part-time Uber driver due to safety concerns, and she had to pay for her son’s daycare to keep his spot despite the fact that he was at home with her at the beginning of the pandemic. She’s accrued around $4,000 in debt over the course of the pandemic and is currently two months late on daycare payments.
Now, with the news that Congress is considering lowering the income eligibility threshold for the third round of stimulus payments from $75,000 to $50,000 for individuals and from $150,000 for married couples to $100,000, Marie’s money worries are compounding. She is “terrified” that she will no longer qualify because she earned around $60,000 in 2019. (The Washington Post reported that heads of household earning up to $75,000 would still qualify for the full $1,400 payments under the new thresholds.)
“I was banking on that money,” says Marie, who lives in Maryland. “The fact that they’re changing it and setting this strict cutoff is totally unreasonable for anybody who lives in a high-cost-of-living area. It’s wrong.”
She is one of dozens of people who reached out to CNBC Make It to express frustration about the possible change to eligibility for the $1,400 payment. Many, like Marie, say Democrats would be reneging on their campaign promise to provide $2,000 in direct relief payments to struggling Americans if they send them to fewer people.
“Taking money away from people after you’ve promised it to them is not the way to start,” says Marie, referring to the fact that Democrats now control the White House, House of Representatives and Senate. “I think this is a horrible plan that threatens security to many people.”
What a disappointment Joe Biden already is. He promises so very little and he can't even deliver that.
Closing with C.I.'s ''Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, February 8, 20201. More US troops leave today for Iraq while Joe Biden has no policy to offer on that country but does continue to lie about his own Iraq experience.
The war never ends. Ben Rodgers (KTSP) reported on Friday:
Sixty soldiers from the Minnesota National Guard will be deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.
The soldiers from B Company, First General Support Aviation Battalion, 171st Aviation Regiment based in St. Cloud will deploy Monday.
Those troops are leaving today. Iraq? It's a country that continues to fail to serve its own citizens. Sura Ali (RUDAW) reports:
Fresh protests broke out in several provinces across central and southern Iraq over the weekend, with several protesters wounded, activists told Rudaw English on Sunday.
Demonstrations broke out in the southern city of Nasiriyah on Friday. Clashes took place between demonstrators and riot police where three protesters were wounded, local activist Muhammad Khayat, told Rudaw on Sunday.
Protesters blocked the Hadarat Bridge in the city centre before returning to Habboubi Square, the city’s protest hotspot that has witnessed some of the bloodiest crackdowns on demonstrators since popular protests began in October 2019, calling for basic services and an end to corruption.
"We receive threats almost daily on social media, but this will not prevent us from continuing to sit-in in Haboubi until our demands are met." Khayat said.
Activist Maytham al-Mufadhal, also from Nasiriyah, told Rudaw English that they demand authorities reveal the fate of the activist Sajjad al-Iraqi, who was kidnapped by an unknown party in September.
"We received many government promises to reveal Sajjad's fate, but several months passed and the results of the investigation were not released. The sit-in continues until the fate of Sajjad is revealed," Mufadhal said.
Activists are often threatened, kidnapped and killed for their involvement in the protest movement. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi sent counter-terror forces to Nasiriyah to find Iraqi in September, claiming to know of his location, but he is yet to be found.
IRAQ AND MIDDLE EAST UPDATES Tweets:
US troops are being sent to Iraq and kept in Iraq to prop up a US-created government there that does not recognize the rights of the Iraqi people and does not serve the Iraqi people.
Najaf saw other actions on Saturday. The cult of Moqtada al-Sadr attacked the people of Najaf on Saturday. RUDAW reports:
Militia forces affiliated with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raided a
number of activists' houses in Iraq’s Najaf province on Saturday night,
activists told Rudaw English. The raids came a day after a group of
activists chanted slogans criticizing the cleric on the one year
anniversary of the killing of tens of people by Sadr supporters.
Activists on Friday held a ceremony to mark the one year anniversary of a
massacre in Najaf’s Sadrayn square where Sadr supporters known as the
"Blue Caps" stormed an anti-government protest camp. Twenty-three people
were killed and more than 182 wounded, according to AFP.
Live rounds and petrol bombs were used against protesters during
clashes, and their tents were burned or removed. Days later, Sadr
announced the dissolution of the "Blue Caps" militia.
Video from the anniversary ceremony on Friday showed dozens of people
gathered in the Writers Union Hall in Najaf, chanting slogans against
the Sadrist movement and its leader. "No god but Allah. Muqtada is the
enemy of Allah,” they shouted in clips that went viral on social media.
The day after the ceremony, forces from the pro-Sadr Saraya al-Salam
(the Peace Brigades) militia stormed the homes of four activists,
terrorizing them and their families, according to Najaf activist Saif
al-Mansoori.
This follows Friday's action in Najaf. Fadhel al-Nashmi (ASHARQ AL-AWSAT) reported, "Unidentified assailants attacked the headquarters of the Iraqi Communist Party in Najaf with Molotov cocktails, burning the offices despite causing no causalities." It's related. In the past the Communist Party partnered with Moqtada. That partnership broke and last week they announced an alliance with the demonstrators. Then their headquarters were bombed.
What's the plan, Joe, what's the plan?
There is none. So he just avoids the topic.
He gave his 'big' speech on foreign relations last week. Sheldon Richman (ANTIWAR.COM) observes:
Also among the no-mentions was Afghanistan. How can Biden give his first speech on foreign policy without discussing the country’s longest war? That is really remarkable. The names Iraq and Syria also do not appear in the speech. Amazing.
The 20 minute speech contained no mention of Iraq, as Dr. Abbas Kadhim pointed out in a Tweet:
In 2002, Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War.
All these years later he has to 'familiarize' himself on Iraq before he can figure out a policy? He has nothing to offer because he chooses to have nothing to offer. And if he truly had any regret over his Iraq War vote, he would be compelled to make up for it now. He's doing nothing because he doesn't now -- and never did -- give a damn. That's why, when he threw out the Iraqi votes of 2010 via The Erbil Agreement, he went to Baghdad and gave puzzled Iraqis a lecture about Ireland -- a lecture that had nothing to do with them.
It's not like Joe can't talk about Iraq at all. He can lie about it. And he's been lying yet again. Rudy Takala (MEDIAITE) explains:
President Joe Biden on Thursday repeated a claim to a gathering of State Department employees that he once came under fire abroad.
“You have great personal courage. I’ve been with some of you when we’ve been shot at,” Biden told staff, without detailing the incident in question.
It’s unclear what specific incident Biden was referring to in his remarks, but in the past he has faced scrutiny for similar comments. Biden previously made the claim at a Democratic presidential primary debate in July 2007. “Number one, you take all the troops out,” he said. “You better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die.”
He later clarified those remarks to say he was inside a building in Iraq’s Green Zone with a contingent of visiting senators that “rattled” as a result from a blast in 2005, and suggested the “shot” that had been fired was akin to mortar fire. “I was near where a shot landed,” he said. “No one got up and ran from the room — it wasn’t that kind of thing. It’s not like I had someone holding a gun to my head.”
Patrick Campbell, then legislative director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told The Hill at the time, “Veterans don’t like it when people mischaracterize their service, people who overstate what happens to them. We have names for them.”
George Washington University professor Stephen Hess said in 2007 that the claim “fits into [Biden’s] profile, and that’s exactly why he should be terribly careful about statements that may not quite parse out or deconstruct under scrutiny.”
Biden has a reputation for gaffes and stretching the truth. He said incorrectly in 2008 “I am a hard coal miner,” and was forced to drop out of the 1988 Democratic presidential primary for plagiarism of speeches and a law school paper.
So he can talk about Iraq, he just can't tell any truths about that country. Then again, Joe has an estranged relationship with the truth:
Caitlin Johnstone (ICH) observes:
When you oppose the horror that is western imperialism people try to paint you as a radical extremist who can’t just be reasonable and pragmatic about things, but really nothing could be further from the truth. There’s nothing “radical” or “extreme” about opposing the domination of the entire planet with relentless acts of mass slaughter to the detriment of the world’s most vulnerable populations, all because some sociopaths in DC decided that it is good and reasonable to inflict any amount of terror upon our world to preserve unipolar US hegemony. Opposing this is just basic human sanity.
People will act like you’re unreasonable and impossible if there’s not a single US politician you support.
“Not even Bernie?” they’ll ask. “Not even AOC?? What’s wrong with you?!”
If you are an anti-imperialist, being asked to choose a US politician you support is like being asked to pick a favorite Nazi. The US empire is the single most evil and destructive power on our planet right now and everyone on Capitol Hill is an imperialist facilitator of mass murder, yet you’ll be treated like an extremist moonbat if you don’t like any of them. The problem isn’t that an anti-imperialist has strange, impossible standards, it’s that they oppose an insane and murderous status quo which only elevates leaders who will advance that status quo.
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: Hey, Joe, where you going with that gun...
- TV: Exclusion empowered by The Water Cooler Set
- Don't fall for The Fraud Squad
- Roundtable
- KINDLE UNLIMITED (Trina, Ava and C.I.)
- Tweet of the week
- Books
- TV Talk (Stan, Ava and C.I.)
- This edition's playlist
- Highlights
- #NoCompromiseNoRetreat #ShutDownAFRICOM #Abolish10...
- AOC pushes censorship as indie media is under atta...
- How Biden Ended Racism With Justin Jackson & Marga...
- #TheJimmyDoreShow Biden Breaks Deal To Withdraw Tr...
- Dr. Michael Knox: Is More Peace Possible?
