Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Depeche Mode, Lauryn Hill, The Fugees, Norah Jones, Cut Worms

 That's Depeche Mode.  Lisa Bailey e-mailed to say she loves the group, has love Dave Gahan since she was 13 and would I note the CBS SUNDAY MORNING segment.  Absolutely.  She says these are her top five most loved Depeche Mode songs:

1) "Blasphemous Rumours"

2) "Strangelove"

3) "Personal Jesus"

4) "Everything Counts"

5) "Enjoy The Silence"


In other music news, CNN reports:


Lauryn Hill is set to reunite with The Fugees to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her smash 1998 debut solo album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” with an international tour.

According to a news release sent to CNN on Tuesday, Hill will perform the iconic album on the tour, “revisiting the musical sentiment and nostalgia that caused it to resonate with so many fans.”

The tour will kick off on September 8 in Minneapolis before heading to New York later that month to perform at the Global Citizen Festival. From there, Hill will make stops in Australia, Canada and various cities throughout the United States, culminating with a final show in November in Seattle.    


Lastly, here's Norah Jones jamming with Cut Worms.



Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Tuesday, August 22, 2023.  Iraq's prime minister said only last week that Iraq didn't need foreign troops anymore, this week he signs a Memo of Understanding with the UK for . . . foreign troops, hate merchants in the US have blood on their hands, Jonathan Turley demonstrates his idea of 'balanced' and much more.



As the world grows hotter and blistering summer days become routine, the task of supplying electricity is becoming an increasingly intractable problem across the Middle East. Soaring demand for cooling — fans, air conditioners, fridges and freezers — is overtaxing electrical grids long beset by war damage, mismanagement or corruption.

And it’s set to get worse. Already, the heat index, which measures the combined effect of temperature and humidity, has reached 152 degrees in some parts of the region, near the limits of human tolerance. Scientists predict that by 2050 much of the Middle East will suffer extreme heat — defined as an average annual temperature of around 84 degrees. A recent study in the journal Lancet Planet Health looking four decades into the future found that for every 100,000 people in the region, 123 will suffer heat-related deaths each year — more than 60 times the current rate.

“People are hiding inside their homes from the heat,” said Saleh Ubaidi, a Baghdad-based chef who recently shut down his restaurant for the season because people were not venturing outside.

Even nations with the capacity to provide more power balk at the higher costs or have to contend with infrastructure that’s simply not designed to cope with the increased stress of working harder for longer under hotter conditions. But failing to supply electricity carries economic and political risks, especially for nations whose authoritarian regimes have governed according to a simple rule: cheap basic services in exchange for public quiescence. In recent years, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria have all seen protests ignite over issues of power provision.

“Part of the social contract with the government was services for the people, to silence them,” said Ahmed Tabaqchali, an Iraqi economic expert.

In this summer’s extraordinary heat, many Middle Eastern countries have instead resorted to mandatory work furloughs or power cuts, cannibalizing parts of their economies to save power — and money.


It's not going to be pretty and they are not getting the truth from their leaders -- especially not from Mohammed Shia al-Suandi who seems to specialize in lying to the Iraqi people these days.  Let's drop back to the August 15th snapshot:

Starting with Iraq, ASHARQ AL-ASWAT reports:


Iraq no longer required the presence of "foreign combat forces" on its territories to combat ISIS, announced Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Monday.

Sudani was speaking during a meeting with commanders of the Armed Forces and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), members of the Ministries of Interior and Defense, and the military forces that took part in the war against the ISIS terrorist organization.


PRESS TV quotes him saying:

"Today, Iraq does not need foreign combat forces, and we are conducting advanced dialogues in order to determine the form of future relationship and cooperation with the international coalition," he said.

“The Iraqis have become, after the liberation battles, more united than ever before… All Iraqis fought in one trench from all nationalities, religions, sects and components."


What a load of garbage.  His remarks, the prime minister himself. 

Do they need foreign troops?  No, they don't.  But he's not calling for them to leave.  And it was just last week that Iraq's Minister of Defense Thabit Muhammad al-Abassi was in DC meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to discuss the new agreement as the DoD press release noted:


This meeting looks beyond the defeat of the Islamic State and is an outgrowth of a visit Austin made to Baghdad in March. "We are interested in an enduring defense relationship within a strategic partnership," said Dana Stroul, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, during an interview last week.

Many officials are calling this an agreement on establishing a "360-degree relationship" -- meaning it would be a whole-of-government strategic partnership for years.


For years.

Years.


Foreign troops not needed but US troops to continue "for years."

Iraq's prime minister was lying to the Iraqi people.


He said foreign troops weren't needed -- said to the Iraqi people -- and yet signs on with the US troops.  That was last week.  This week?  KURDISTAN 24 reports:

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani on Monday received United Kingdom Minister of State for Security Affairs Tom Tugendhat and his accompanying delegation.

At the meeting, the two sides discussed bilateral relations between the two countries, improving cooperation in security and defense, as well as combating terrorism and corruption.

Al-Sudani thanked the United Kingdom for supporting Iraq in the fight against ISIS.

Moreover, al-Sudani stressed the importance of partnering with the UK to combat cross-border crimes, particularly those related to smuggling, human trafficking, and the illegal drug trade.


Still on Iraq, Sunday we noted:

In other news, look who US Ambassador to Iraq Alina L Romanowski met with last week.





Yes, former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki.  


He's also still powerful.  A fact that the US media seemed woefully unaware of in 2021 and in 2022.  It's 2023 now and she's meeting with the thug.  Would seem to indicate that the US media might need to pay a little more attention to Nouri -- but then, so would the defeat of Moqtada al-Sadr.



Indicators from within the coalition led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggest that he is poised to engage in a pivotal battle in this year's end-of-year elections for the provincial councils.
His objective is to secure five governors in central and southern Iraq. Additionally, he plans to capture the Shiite voters’ support in Baghdad, which is anticipated to be a fiercely contested electoral battleground, as described by members of the State of Law Coalition.

For months, al-Maliki’s coalition has set two goals concerning provincial council elections.

Firstly, they adamantly oppose any postponement of the scheduled December deadline.

Secondly, they are shutting the door on forming alliances with other Shiite factions in Iraq’s Coordination Framework.


Let's turn to the US, Tom McLauglin (USA TODAY) reports on Ronald DeSantis' destruction of Florida:




Jean Siebenaler moved to Florida following her retirement to bask in the warmth of the Sunshine State.

"I finally thought I'd be sitting on the water with an umbrella drink in my hand," she said.

The Milton resident, a military veteran and retired physician, now says she wonders if Florida was where she needed to relocate after all. Having been politically active in her home state of Ohio, she finds beach time consumed by "steaming and stewing" over the state of the state and local politics.



"It's very upsetting, the direction we see Florida heading," she said. "Every day I wonder why I am living here."

For many, Florida has changed. What was once a proudly purple state has turned an angry red, they say. Gov. Ron DeSantis, with the dedicated backing of a Republican supermajority in the state legislature, is waging war on what he calls "wokeism" — a term he has loosely defined as "a form of cultural Marxism." But many — people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, non-Christians, teachers, union members, students — feel it is a war against themselves, as they face ridicule, discrimination, and, potentially, violence.

The NAACP, Equity Florida and the League of United Latin American Citizens each issued travel advisories for Florida. The NAACP advisory states, in part, "Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ individuals."

"Under the leadership of Gov. DeSantis, the state has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the Democratic ideals that our union was founded upon," the advisory states.

There exist widespread reports of people abandoning the state because they no longer feel welcome here. Following her family's exodus to Pennsylvania in May, former Brevard County resident and Democratic Party activist Stacey Patel told FLORIDA TODAY, "It's like breathing, you know? After holding your breath for a really long time."

Nikki Fried, the state's former commissioner of agriculture and current Florida Democratic Party chair, predicted 800,000 immigrants had left the state after DeSantis signed SB 1718 into law. It imposes strict restrictions and penalties to deter the employment of undocumented workers in the state.

Democrats also count themselves among the groups feeling persecuted. Patel's family was vilified, she said, for its party affiliation.

Siebenaler, who has stepped into the position of legislative chair for the Democratic Women's Club of Florida, attended an early June meeting of the Santa Rosa County Commission to call out Commissioner James Calkins for labeling the Democratic Party as evil.

"I took an oath to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic," she told the governing board. "And I must speak out against the hate speech that is emanating from the Santa Rosa County Commission dais."


Ronald wants to do to the US what he's done to Florida.  What's even scarier is that some -- fewer and fewer each week -- are all on board with letting him.
In her post last night, Ann noted Lauri Carleton's murder.  Lauri is survived by her husband of 28 years and their nine children.  She apparently was killed for flying a Pride flag.  This is the world the hate merchants have fostered.  And all of you pieces of garbage who've stayed silent should take your slice from the blame pie as well.  Katie Halper that includes you -- the 'lefty' who undiscovered the LGBTQ+ community just when they needed you.  Saleen Martin (USA TODAY) reports:
Mountain Provisions, a local food cooperative, honored Carleton in a Facebook post, calling her a “dear friend, mom to many, ally, organizer, entrepreneur, founding member and soul of our co-op.”

"If you knew Lauri you know she loved hard, laughed often, and nurtured and protected those she cared about," the post said. "She was a force, she loved to crack jokes and wanted to live as joyful of a life as possible."

The group said that Carleton and her husband organized the co-op, which offered free food and supplies for four months after a blizzard swept through the area.

“Lauri put her whole heart into keeping it going as long as we could,” the group said.

The group urged people to "pay an act of kindness forward in her honor" and encouraged people to fly Pride flags in her honor.

"Love will prevail," the post said. "We will continue to stand for the values she so selflessly stood for. Her death will not be in vain.”

 

















“It was only a matter of time.”

That was my first thought upon hearing of the callous and hateful murder of Laura Carleton, the owner of Mag Pi Clothing in Cedar Glen, California. A straight woman, Carleton was fatally shot by a man who confronted her over an LGBTQ+ Pride flag which was displayed at her shop. Her assailant was later killed by police.

This was not the first time someone had taken issue with Carleton’s Pride flag. As The Independent has previously reported, friends of Carleton say that the flag has been ripped down multiple times. Every time, she simply replaced the flag with another, refusing to cave in to the hateful bigots who vandalized her shop.

The inevitability of something like this happening was apparent to anyone paying attention. Following last year’s deadly homophobic shooting at a Colorado gay club, Scientific Americanreported on the link between rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on the right and violence against LGBTQ people. Around the same time, the UCLA Williams Institute released a startling statistic: LGBT people are nine times more likely to be a victim of a hate-crime than non-LGBT people. This was followed by a document from the Department of Homeland Security in May warning that violent threats against the LGBTQ community are increasing in both number and intensity.

In June, a joint report by the Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD found more than 350 anti-LGBTQ incidents across 46 states and the District of Columbia. These included acts of online harassment and vandalism, which Carleton’s murder – after multiple incidents of vandalism – shows can and do escalate into incidents of physical violence.

These incidents also do not exist in a vacuum. This year has seen a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures; more than 500 were introduced, with over 75 of them becoming law. While we can and should debate public policy on its merits, what cannot be denied is that with these bills has come the normalization of some truly disgusting and hateful rhetoric.

For example, in April, a spokeswoman for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted that anyone who opposed the state’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” law is “probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.” This, after the Human Rights Campaign found that the anti-LGBTQ grooming narrative had increased on social media by 400% following the passage of the law, which prohibits teaching Florida students about sexual orientation or gender identity. This harassment is not limited to the internet, though; in April, The Independent interviewed three people who “had been harassed or attacked in public over the past two weeks by strangers who accused them, with no provocation or evidence, of ‘grooming’ children or being a ‘groomer.’”

This is not the first time the American right has been swept up in a moral panic over LGBTQ people and children. Nearly 50 years ago, Anita Bryant (the singer and orange juice spokeswoman) famously led the so-called Save Our Children campaign which sought to allow teachers in Florida – and later California, when she campaigned for the Briggs Initiative – to be fired for being gay. This led gay rights activists Jean O’Leary and Bruce Voeller to write in a 1977 New York Times op-ed that “gay women and men in this country have been required to join a conspiracy to pretend we don’t exist, so that other people can lie to their children.”

Make no mistake, that is what is happening: people are lying to their children, to themselves, and to the public. As the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact reported last year, most child molesters are straight, “school employees who perpetrate child sexual abuse are most likely to be white, heterosexual, male adults…” and that actually, “gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people are less likely than people who do not claim those labels to commit child sexual abuse in school settings.” There is also no evidence that teaching about LGBTQ people, sexual orientation, or gender identity leads to children becoming LGBTQ or increases incidents of child sexual abuse.



How's it feel Katie Halper, Aaron Mate, Max Blumenthal and your vile and disgusting (and physically repugnant) wife Mrs. Blumenthal?  How's it feel to know you are part of these attacks and that the blood is on your hands as well.  In fact, let's note that transphobe Anya Parampil -- aka fat gut and no breasts hateful wife of Maxi Blumenthal has an upcoming speaking gig . . . at . . . The Ron Paul Institute.  That's mighty Karen of her, isn't it.  She'll be there with other hate merchants such as Jonathan Turley.  

Here's a 2011 piece from THE NEW REPUBLIC about the racism Ron Paul promoted.  He's a long term racist and it's not in the past.  He always tries to lie his way out though, doesn't he?  Like in 2017, that racist cartoon, it wasn't him, it ended up on his Twitter feed, but it wasn't him!

This is who Georgetown wants to promote?  They're comfortable with their faculty interacting with The Ron Paul Institute?

 
We'll come back to Turley in a moment, Crystal wonders in an e-mail why "someone like Naomi Wolf would support Moms For Liberty -- she used to at least have common sense."  I don't know.  If you're needing me to guess, having failed at the opportunity to raise her own children (fortunately, they had a great dad and a wonderful step-mom), Naomi sees the hateful gals of Moms For Bigotry as her second chance to at least pretend she's a concerned parent.  



Meanwhile, let's return to the homophobic and transphobic, Federalist Society mascot Jonathan Turley (and no link to trash):


In the last few weeks, we have seen a disturbing uptick of reported threats against public figures, grand jurors, and judges. One of the most disturbing and disgraceful are threats against Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who will be presiding in the trial of former president Donald Trump. Abigail Jo Shry, 43, of Alvin, Tex., allegedly left an Aug. 5 voice mail at Chutkan’s chambers in which she called her a racial slur and threatened her, saying, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b—-.” That same week, there was also a sentencing in a prior case where the threat led to an attempt on the life of Trump. Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, 56, has been sentenced to 262 months or roughly 22 years for mailing ricin to Trump. What makes her case even more striking is the defense raised by her lawyer.

Ferrier is a dual citizen of Canada and France. She pleaded guilty to sending  a letter containing ricin in 2020 to then-President Trump and others.


It goes on but that's more than enough.  



Nine paragraphs on non-US citizen Ferrier.  Shry?  You get that single sentence.  That's how Turley does 'balanced' when not castigating the media for their failure to be . . . balanced.

He doesn't even get the facts right.  Bob D'Angelo (COX MEDIA) reported:



A Texas woman is accused of threatening Tanya Chutkan, the federal district judge overseeing the criminal case in Washington, D.C., against former President Donald Trump, according to court records.

According to a filing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on Friday, Abigail Jo Shry, of Alvin, Texas, left a voicemail on Aug. 5 threatening to kill Chutkan and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.


Wait.  It gets even worse.  Remember Turley's a raging homophobe (as  his students have picked up on).  


The woman allegedly threatened to kill “anyone who went after Trump,” the filing stated. The list of potential victims also allegedly included “all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community,” investigators wrote.

“You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” Shry allegedly said in the message, according to Bloomberg. “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, (expletive).

“You will be targeted personally, publically, your family, all of it.”



She needs to be locked away for a very long time.  Turley?  As I explain when asked, when I knew him I always wondered.  You know, how you wonder about a man a little too vested in other men.  You know the type, right?  Like Jules (Demi Moore) says in ST. ELMO'S FIRE, "He's just not ready to deal."  So I'll always assume -- right or wrongly -- he was struggling internally with same-sex attraction and just write off his most recent hatred of LGBTQ+ to his desperate attempts to run from who he truly is.  Probably a smart thing because gay men can be very image focused and . . .  well . . . look at Turley.  Especially the bags under those sliding eyes


At any rate, a woman threatens to kill a federal judge, a member of Congress, all the Democrats in DC and all LGBTQ+ people and Turley reduces her to a single sentence and her threats to just against a judge.

Typical Turley.  



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