The judge in Louisville who signed the no-knock search warrant on Breonna Taylor's home was ousted from office on Election Day.
Mary Shaw lost to Tracy Davis in the race for the position of Circuit Court Judge, District 30, 5th Division.
Shaw
was the judge who signed the falsified warrant in March 2020 that led
to the raid on Taylor's apartment and her subsequent death.
In
August, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced federal charges
against four Louisville Metro Police officers in connection with
Taylor's death.
Wednesday, November 9, 2022. Did you live through all the alarmist nonsense?
Are
you okay? Where's Joe? Where is Joe!!! Oh, he's safe. Thank
goodness. Can someone now check on Marianne Williamson? Please tell me
she didn't choke on her own ego.
Katie Halper did a solid live broadcast last night.
That said, I took a lengthy break when Marianne and unhinged crazy came on.
She's become demented. Truly.
I wish Beto had won and was governor of Texas. He didn't, Marianne, and it was his own fault.
I
offered advice during that campaign but ended up washing my hands
because no one -- well one person -- was smart enough to listen. Once
they had their campaign bus out on the road, no one wanted to turn, no
one wanted to self-correct.
By October, it
was obvious they needed to rethink the campaign ads and to respond to
what Gregg Abbott's campaign was airing -- obvious to anyone with a
brain. Instead of being dismayed by the ads, they thought the ads were
funny.
I guess they were.
If you wanted Beto to be the butt of the joke.
At
the start of the month, I wrote about it in the gina & krista
roundrobin and said ignore the chatter, the race is over and Gregg
Abbott will win. Kat wrote about, at her site, what I'd said here.
They
made fun of him in these ads. Sometimes they used his own words to
turn him into a joke. Sometimes, they just made sure to show him
frozen, arm extended out, pit stain on full display. Sometimes they
called him "beet-O" and sometimes they called him "Bet-O" and sometimes I
couldn't tell what they were calling him -- but the point being that
they were saying his name was nonsense and made up -- they especially
got that across when they used Latinas to speak on camera.
They
hit hard on crime and broadcast him making apparent anti-police remarks
-- and this was in a climate where the whole state was seeing ads about
crime over and over. Like the widow of the border patrol agent who
spoke of a female Democrats who had disparaged border patrol agents and
the widow defended her late husband on camera. Or the crying
African-American mother who spoke of how the man who killed her son
should never have been released.
Beto's
campaign didn't know what the hell they were doing. Those remarks about
the police that Beto made -- they played them word for word in the
anti-Beto commercials -- were being heard in an environment that had
heard from families and survivors in one commercial after another.
I like Beto. I know him from his time in Congress. But is he honestly that vain?
Where is his family?
I was asking that in August. Where was his family in the commercials?
They never showed up.
And
the Abbott campaign finally noted this and started, in the last two
weeks of October, putting Gregg's family front and center. "They've
just released a commercial with a niece, I think she's Hispanic!"
That's how one phone call of panic from someone with the campaign
began.
Yeah, because he's not an idiot.
Did they think Gregg Abbott got to be governor by luck? He knows politics. And Beto should have known that about his opponent.
Beto
looked like a sweaty fraud with a funny name that everyone mocked him
for who was deeply out of touch with Texas -- they played a lot of
soundbites. And deeply out of touch with the world.
That's
why you put the family in the ads. You want the viewers to see that
the candidate has connections to the world we live in.
This is the conclusion of what Kat wrote:
Beto needs to be talking about crime in
some form, C.I. pointed out, and he needs to bring his family into the
ads and talk about the future of Texas and what that means to him as the
father of three children. And she offered concrete examples including
footage of the ice storm that hit Texas awhile back and how close they
came to losing power across the state. "We deserve better."
Maybe Beto doesn't want to really be governor?
By
the time October rolled around, I was done with a campaign that didn't
listen and was constantly saying, "Hey, remember what you said last
week, maybe you were right?" Maybe? I was right but even then the
campaign didn't self-correct.
It was a lousy
campaign that wasted a lot of money. There were other races that could
have used that money, races where people wanted to fight for the
office.
Marianne's nonsense is exactly why
Beto lost. And she is the problem. And how dare she whine about being
in Texas and trying to turn out the vote for him and being appalled
because someone dared to ask her why they should vote for Beto instead
of Abbott.
Idiot, that's why you were there.
And every chance you got was not something to whine about, it was an
opportunity to communicate. Marianne's an idiot.
There
are a lot of idiots out there. They think what works national will
work in a state and that's really not true. That especially don't know
Texas. When Ann Richards was governor, a friend of Ann's put us
together because Ann had just been elected and was riding a high wave. I
was asked to talk to her about pitfalls. Specifically, if she ran for
re-election down the line, who would be up against her, blah blah blah.
It sounded like a fun game. So I went to Texas (I'd been there
before) and spent a few weeks and came up with George W. Bush.
I
didn't know it was Bully Boy Bush. I just identified several scenarios
and the one that she lost to was Bush. It was a man who had been in
the military, he had a connection to a popular Texas sports team, he was
married to teacher or a librarian (I did have the wife, in the
illustrations I drew, as blond, so I was wrong on that), he would have
daughters so they wouldn't worry he would be like Ann's previous
opponent (who made an infamous rape remark). I also identified some of
the issues that could be a problem for Ann in an effort to be
re-elected.
I was right there too.
The
advice wasn't heeded -- my presentation actually got a laugh from Ann
-- not a kind one -- when I was sketching in the man who could beat
her. There's no one like that, I was told. And that's fine and dandy
but I wasn't casting, I was saying this is the opponent who would
destroy her. He might not have been around that year, and he might
never come around. But who would destroy her chances? A person fitting
that description. Too bad for Ann, Bully Boy Bush did emerge. (Too
bad for the world, he emerged.)
She could have
beaten him but when it was time for her re-election, she was a national
figure and national people came around who just knew best. They knew
nothing. And Ann on a Harley was just flat out ridiculous. They knew
nothing and they steered her campaign into the ditch.
If
I'm asked advice about a campaign, I don't have a cookie-cutter
response because each campaign is different. There are some universal
trueisms, yes, but it is a mistake to think that something that worked
in Iowa can be transplanted to Florida. At best, adjustments will have
to be made, at worst, the whole thing will need to be scrapped.
I have no idea what state Beto pictured himself campaigning in but it wasn't the Texas of 2020.
As for Marianne's nonsense, it's the day after, most of us are still alive. Calm the f**k down.
As of late Tuesday evening Eastern Time, the Republican Party
appeared to be within reach of winning the House of Representatives in
the first nationwide election held since it supported Trump’s January 6,
2021 coup attempt.
The results in many House races remain very
close, however, and control over the Senate will likely not be known for
days. The narrowness of the margins and the length of time required to
count all votes set the stage for a protracted period of crisis, with a
potential for violence. Trump is falsely claiming that the Democratic
Party is engaged in fraud in states like Arizona, where a technical
glitch caused a delay in vote tabulation.
Though Republicans will
win seats from the Democrats, results do not indicate a substantial
increase in support for the Republicans, whose hopes for a 30+ seat
shift in the House do not seem to be materializing.
On the
contrary, the national picture that emerges from the results so far is
one of popular disinterest in what both parties have to offer.
Republicans are performing well in Ohio and Florida but poorly in the
Northeast, where they had expected to make gains.
Beyond Ohio and
Florida, Democrats are also underperforming in Wisconsin and have been
unable to deliver clear victories in Georgia and Pennsylvania, though
the Senate races there remain undecided. Democratic Campaign Committee
Chair Sean Maloney is presently losing his election for Congress in New
York’s 17th District in what would be a substantial defeat for a
Democratic leader.
The election also shows that Trump is not
having success at expanding his base of support beyond a relatively
narrow core. Many of the candidates most closely associated with Trump
appear headed for defeat, including in gubernatorial races in Arizona,
Michigan and Pennsylvania, three battleground states, though these
results could still change as more votes are counted.
The
results of a number of state ballot referendums also make clear the
election does not reflect a shift to the right in popular consciousness.
In Vermont, Kentucky and Michigan voters appear likely to enshrine the
right to abortion in the state constitution, and a similar measure will
be voted on in California. Referendums in favor of legalizing marijuana
are also passing in Maryland and Missouri, and voters in heavily
Republican South Dakota are voting by a substantial margin to expand
Medicaid for the state’s impoverished residents.
A
U.S. citizen who worked at a local English-language institute was shot
dead in Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy there announced Tuesday, in a rare
attack on a foreign visitor to the country.
Stephen
Troell lived and worked in Baghdad at the Global English Institute
together with his wife and four children, all of whom were involved in
the running of the facility.
[. . .]
Iraqi officials said Troell’s vehicle was attacked by “unknown” gunmen
as he drove through central Baghdad on Monday. The weapon that killed
him was fitted with a suppressor, they said, but they provided no
further information. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive case.
In "Stephen Troell was murdered in Baghdad,"
Trina pointed out that we named Stephen in yesterday's snapshot and
that US press outlets weren't doing that. I have no idea why they
didn't. RUDAW had already named Stephen and multiple Twitter accounts
in Iraq had named him and published his photo. I have no idea why the
US press didn't name him when it was not something hidden. Maybe it was
sloppy reporting on their part? I have no idea. Maybe they didn't
know his name was already out there and had been for a few hours.
Meanwhile,
failed and disgraced cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr has struggled in
recent months for relevancy. He wasn't able to put together a
government despite repeated attempts. He's not a kingmaker. He's not
much of anything. But he's finally found an issue he can dedicate
himself to. THE ARAB WEEKLY reports:
The leader of the Sadrist movement, Moqtada al-Sadr, has recently
kept a low profile, demonstrating that he has accepted the new political
realties in Iraq, foremost of which is the control by his rivals in
the Coordination Framework of both the government and parliament.
But the Sadrist leader has reemerged to express fears that Iraqi youth could borrow a page from Iran's anti-clerical protests.
What concerns Sadr in particular is the practice by young Iranian
teenagers of knocking off turbans of mullahs in the streets in defiance
of the ruling theocracy.
The new "street game" comes as part of ongoing popular protests over
the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in the hands of the morality policy
for not being "properly veiled".
Sadr did not hide his anguish over the possible spread of the
symbolic movement to Iraq where clerics, blamed for many of Iraq's ills
since 2003, could be the target of street's anger.
I guess the plight of tipping cows was already taken. But Moqtada has found his issue, has found his cause.
Yesterday, I noted "Carly Simon" was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. That was very significant and long overdue. Now Carly
just lost two sisters -- Lucy and Joanna -- that week and she didn't
attend the ceremony -- and that is so understandable.
However, another person not attending is not understandable to me. ROLLING STONE reports:
While Variety reported
that Morissette was at rehearsals on Friday and was listed on all the
in-house schedules for the show, it wasn’t immediately clear why she did
not make the night’s ceremony; Rodrigo performed Simon’s hit solo.
On
Monday, the singer posted to her Instagram stories to address her “not
performing at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.” Morissette
began her statement by recognizing her fellow artists, writing: “I adore
Carly Simon and Olivia Rodrigo and Dolly Parton and Janet Jackson and
Pat Benatar and Sheryl Crow and Pink and Brandi Carlile and Sara
Bareilles — and all the amazing people and artists who were there.”
Afterwards,
she pointed to spending “decades in an industry that is rife with an
overarching anti-woman sentiment” and having “tolerated a lot of
condescension and disrespectfulness, reduction, dismissiveness,
contract-breaching, unsupportiveness, exploitation and psychological
violence” throughout her career. The singer-songwriter also added that
“Hollywood has been notorious for its disrespect of the feminine in all
of us.”
Blah
blah fake fake. Go read Ava and C.I.'s "TV: You can learn a lot from documentaries -- more than they intend to teach" and grasp how Alanis
basically groomed young girls for the men in her band back when she was
capable of making hits. She's never apologized for that. And now she
wants to grand stand on refusing to honor Carly? What an awful, awful
person.
Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Today we note the murder of Stephen Troell
in Baghdad, the death of Canadian military member Eric Cheung and the
conviction of a United Nations worker who drugged and raped women.
Violence
never ends in Iraq. Most of the time, however, the US media ignores
it. Today, they're interested because one of the dead is an American
citizen, Stephen Troell. Morgan Winsor (ABC NEWS) reports:
An American aid worker was gunned down in Baghdad on Monday, officials said.
Millennium
Relief and Development Services, a Texas-based international aid group,
confirmed in a statement that one of its workers was "shot and killed
by armed attackers as he returned to this home on Monday evening." His
name has not yet been released.
"We
are greatly saddened by the tragedy that took the life of our
colleague, near his home in Baghdad, Iraq," Millennium said. "An
investigation is ongoing and details on the assailants and the
motivation for the attack are not known at this time."
ALJAZEERA notes,
"Police sources also said that the man’s wife and child were in the car
with him but were not hurt. The attack occurred after the man was cut
off while driving in the
streets by one car, while assailants in another car shot him dead."
Along with the Tweets above, RUDAW also identifies the man murdered as Stephen Troell. I have no idea why the American press continues to go with "unidentified."
The murder came up in yesterday afternoon's press briefing at the US State Dept:
[Spokesperson Ned] PRICE: Happy Monday.
QUESTION: Before I get to a question on Russia, I
just want to ask real quick – because I don’t think you’ll have a lot on
this, but I just want to make sure – and that is the murder of a USAID
worker in Baghdad. Have you –
MR PRICE: You’re right.
We don’t have much to offer on this publicly just yet. We’re of course
aware of these reports. We’re looking into these reports. There is a
process that we would need to undertake, if and when we are in a
position to confirm that an American has been killed. We would of course
first notify the next of kin before making any public comment. So,
we’re still looking into these reports to determine what we can
regarding these allegations.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, does that mean that you’re –
that you don’t even know if someone has been – has been killed in the
circumstances that were described?
MR PRICE: There is no reason to doubt that someone
has been killed, as the reports indicate. But we want to be thorough in
determining that the victim in this case was in fact a U.S. citizen, and
of course then undertaking any necessary efforts to notify next of kin.
As
that took place, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre held a 58
minute press briefing and the murder never came up. "Now, let that sink
in for a second. Let that sink in for just a second." 58 minutes and
she never raised the issue nor did the press. An aid worker had been
murdered, an American citizen and she wanted to play cutesy about MEET
THE PRESS and other garbage. Does she understand her job? She offered
nothing but garbage and she violated The Hatch Act repeatedly while
repeatedly shouting out "Hatch Act" -- like it was "Tag, your it!" --
but she couldn't be bothered with the murder of an American citizen in
Iraq.
It's that kind of garbage that's resulted in the very bad image this administration has -- a bad image that crosses party lines.
When
Joe Biden is talking about his son -- who died in Maryland, not Iraq --
he tears up and cries and we're all supposed to be so touched. But
this administration can't even make a moment's time in White House press
briefing to note an American aid worker who actually did get killed in
Iraq?
An Iraqi police major (unnamed) tells REUTERS, "Our initial investigation and eyewitnesses showed that armed men were
trying to kidnap the American citizen." THE INDEPENDENT adds, "Iraq’s
prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said that a committee will be
formed to 'investigate the circumstances of the killing of an American
citizen in the capital'." And AP notes, "The streets
of the middle class, mixed Christian and Muslim neighborhood where the
victim reportedly lived were empty of residents but heavily patrolled by
police Monday night. Such
attacks against individuals in the Iraqi capital have been rare since
the defeat of the Islamic State group in the country in 2017 but rockets
are sometimes fired toward the U.S. Embassy."
A little known group calling itself the Ahl al-Kahf Brigades issued a
claim of responsibility on Tuesday for the murder of the American man,
according to Iraqi media reports. The group was said to have claimed the
attack as retaliation for the killing of senior Iranian military
commander General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the deputy head of a pro-Iran group, who were both killed in the same U.S. airstrike at the beginning of 2020.
The American is not the only foreign national killed in Iraq in the last days. THE CANADIAN PRESS reports,
"Capt. Eric Cheung, 38, died Saturday under what the military is
calling 'non-operational related circumstances,' though the exact
details are
now under investigation."
Cheung had been a member of the Canadian Armed Forces since 2009,
most recently as an operations officer with 38 Canadian Brigade Group
headquarters, based in Winnipeg.
He was in Baghdad as part of the
U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, a militant group fighting to establish
an Islamist state, when he died.
Canada has had troops in Iraq since 2014, when ISIS first captured a large swath of territory and declared an Islamic caliphate.
Let's drop back a week for Karim Elkorany because at least one of his rape victims was an Iraqi woman. AP reported last week:
The sentencing of a former United Nations communications specialist
to 15 years in prison Thursday was punctuated by the tears and eloquence
of some of his 13 sexual assault victims who said being drugged and
raped by a man who first befriended them left them shattered and hopeful
that justice might help them heal.
When they were finished speaking, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice
Buchwald told Karim Elkorany that it was particularly heinous that he
engaged in the “raping of women who believed he was their friend” as she
sentenced him to the maximum he could face after he pleaded guilty to
three charges in May.
The UN opened an investigation into Elkorany after a victim
reported being sexually assaulted in 2016 in Iraq, according to the SDNY
statement.
Nearly a year later, special agents with the New York FBI field
office interviewed Elkorany in November of 2017 outside his New Jersey
residence where he denied the allegations, according to the statement.
Prosecutors say investigators found that Elkorany “engaged in a
pattern of similar conduct involving many other women,” including
sexually assaulting a UN contractor in the United States and Iraq, among
other locations, on multiple occasions.
From around 2009 to around 2016, Elkorany sexually assaulted or
attempted to sexually assault at least five victims after the women were
rendered unconscious from consuming alcoholic drinks he had prepared
for them, according to the statement.
The US Justice Dept issued the following statement:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Former United Nations Employee Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison For Drugging And Sexually Assaulting Victims
Throughout Nearly Two Decades, Karim Elkorany Drugged 20 Victims and Sexually Assaulted at Least 13 of Those Victims
Damian
Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New
York, announced today that KARIM ELKORANY, a former communications
specialist with the United Nations (“UN”) in Iraq, was sentenced today
in Manhattan federal court by United States District Judge Naomi Reice
Buchwald to 15 years in prison for drugging and/or sexually assaulting
20 victims. ELKORANY previously pled guilty on May 24, 2022, to
sexually assaulting an internationally protected person and making false
statements to cover up another sexual assault. In connection with the
plea, ELKORANY also admitted that he drugged and/or sexually assaulted
17 additional victims.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Karim Elkorany perpetrated
monstrous acts against multiple women over nearly two decades. At
today’s proceeding, Elkorany was held accountable by the Court and also
by his victims, a number of whom confronted him with powerful statements
about the grievous harm he caused through his horrific conduct. We
express deep gratitude to all of the victims for their bravery in coming
forward and remain committed to doing all we can to bring perpetrators
like Elkorany to justice.”
According to the Superseding Indictment, public court filings, and statements during court proceedings:
Since at least in or about 2005 up to at least in or about April
2018, ELKORANY worked in international aid, development, and/or foreign
relations. From in or about October 2013 up to in or about April 2016,
ELKORANY worked for the UN Children’s Fund (commonly known as UNICEF) in
Iraq. From in or about July 2016 up to in or about April 2018,
ELKORANY worked as a Communications Specialist for the UN in Iraq.
In or about November 2016, ELKORANY drugged and sexually assaulted a
woman (“Victim-1”) in Iraq, where he was stationed while working for the
UN. ELKORANY drugged Victim-1 and brought Victim-1 to his apartment.
While at ELKORANY’s apartment, ELKORANY sexually assaulted Victim-1
while she was unconscious. In or around December 2016, Victim-1
reported the sexual assault to the UN. The UN initiated an
investigation, through which ELKORANY was notified of the substance of
Victim-1’s allegations against him.
On or about November 3, 2017, special agents with the New York Field
Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) conducted a
voluntary interview of ELKORANY outside of his residence in New Jersey.
During that interview, ELKORANY expressed familiarity with the nature
and substance of the allegations made by Victim-1 to the UN but falsely
stated that the drugging and sexual assault by ELKORANY that Victim-1
had reported to the UN did not occur.
ELKORANY also engaged in a pattern of similar conduct involving many
other women. Between in or around 2014 and in or around 2019, ELKORANY
drugged and sexually assaulted a woman (“Victim-2”), who was a
contractor for a UN organization at relevant times, in the United States
and Iraq, among other locations, on multiple occasions.
In addition to Victim-1 and Victim‑2, ELKORANY drugged and/or
sexually assaulted 18 additional victims between in or around 2002 and
in or around 2016.
* * *
In addition to the prison sentence, ELKORANY, 39, of West Orange, New
Jersey, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered
to pay restitution in amounts to be determined.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of the FBI.
The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lara Pomerantz, Amanda L. Houle, Daniel C.
Richenthal, and Robert B. Sobelman are in charge of the prosecution.
Polly told me about an album I hadn't heard of. I don't know that it was released in the US. But I am eager to review it so there may end up being two more reviews before I do my Year in Review on December 31st or Jan 1st.
I am eating cream cheese won tons, by the way. I'd be asleep otherwise. I've been so tired today. Time change? I don't think it's that. But I knew I had to post so I ordered some cream cheese won tons and hope that's enough to get me through it.
Olivia Rodrigo made her debut at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by honoring inductee Carly Simon
with a rendition of “You’re So Vain.” Simon’s ubiquitous classic from
1972 was a fitting choice for Rodrigo, who also kickstarted her own
career with deeply vulnerable songs.
Before Rodrigo took the stage, Sara Bareilles performed another tribute to Simon, singing the famed ballad and James Bond theme
“Nobody Does It Better” from 1977. Bareilles also accepted the
induction honor on behalf of Simon, who did not attend the ceremony
following the deaths of two sisters to cancer just days apart at the end of October.
Carly was inducted!!! It's been a long time coming. She fully deserves it. I am so sorry she wasn't able to attend but I'm sure everyone understands.
“When I heard ‘You’re So Vain,’ I just thought, that is the best song that has ever been written. That is the most direct way anyone has ever addressed a breakup, it’s amazing.” - @taylorswift13 was featured in Carly Simon’s #RockAndRollHallOfFame induction video pic.twitter.com/WcqNb4d88w
That's January 27th. And vinyl will be one of the options!!! I can't wait. I thought that concert was better than the one she did for HBO -- that became GREATEST HITS LIVE. She's got "Jesse" on there for one and she just seemed to have more fun -- like on "We Have No Secrets." I am so glad it's going to be released on vinyl and CD.
Monday, November 7, 2022. THE INTERCEPT attacks veterans, a fire in
Baghdad, the Iraqi parliament moves towards registration for a military
draft, and much more.
Midterms are tomorrow
and, if you forgot, there's always the money grubbing INTERCEPT to
remind you. Now THE INTERCEPT doesn't want to report on anything that
would influence a US election . . . if it has to do with Democrats.
That's why Glenn Greenwald is no longer there, remember?
He wanted to write about Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election
and despite his contract and the legal promises made within it Bitsy
Reed said "No." It must have felt so good for Bitsy, the untrained
journalist, to finally say no after 16 years of fetching coffee and
conducting other personal errands for Katrina vanden Heuvel. She must
have finally felt like she was important. Did she take that mistaken
belief with her when she joined THE GUARDIAN months ago? Let's hope she
manages to work out there -- she hasn't at any other publication and
goodness knows her personal life is a nightmare.
THE
INTERCEPT wouldn't report on the laptop and money whores like Naomi
Klein rushed to attack Glenn. Did Glenn burp in public? No, he
offended them by shining a spotlight on Democrats and doing so ahead of
an election.
It's election time so it's time
for THE INTERCEPT to whore as they are so eager to do. So they run
Peter Maas' alarmist attacks on veterans.
On veterans?
Oh, excuse me. On right-wing veterans.
That's what they've done.
It's
an election so the trash at THE INTERCEPT wants to resurrect the crazed
veteran lie and paint any veteran to the right of AOC as crazed,
psychotic and a threat to freedom and democracy.
THE INTERCEPT is disgusting.
We
have made clear at this site that if a veteran or active duty rapes or
kills, we hold them accountable. We hold that person accountable We
don't use that crime or any other to indict all veterans or all veterans
of a political class.
THE INTERCEPT does.
It
needs to be called out for its garbage that's intended to frighten
American voters. That's all the propaganda that Peter Maas produced is
about.
It's disgusting.
And who's spitting on veterans? THE INTERCEPT is.
I
wish I were better able to cover this. I'm not. I'm limited in my
word choice because we have to be work safe. I'm also so angry that my
hands are shaking. "Shame on THE INTERCEPT for publishing garbage"
went up last night and just stops, I know. I had hoped I'd be calmer
in the morning. I'm not. That they could use people who have already
suffered by being sent into war and use them for propaganda to turn out a
vote? It's disgusting. They are disgusting.
The
mid-terms will be over Tuesday. And once upon a time in this country,
that meant relief. That meant that real activists could return to work
and that real issues could get spotlighted. But in part due to garbage
like THE NATION magazine, this cycle never ends, not even when the
election is over. THE NATION spent the '00s trying to scare people into
voting. And now it's been taken up by the larger media and we never
get to accomplish anything.
Any electoral success for the Republicans is due entirely to the
reactionary and bankrupt policies of the Democratic Party and the
impasse for the working class created by the two-party monopoly.
What
have been the main “achievements” of the Democratic Party during the
past two years, when it controlled the White House and both houses of
Congress?
The central preoccupation of the Biden administration
has been the prosecution of the war against Russia in Ukraine, which has
the full support of the entire Democratic Party. This was reinforced
two weeks ago when 30 liberal Democrats sent a letter to the White House
pleading for a negotiated settlement with Russia rather than continuing
to escalate the risk of nuclear war.
Within 24 hours, after a
massive backlash within the political establishment, the letter was
withdrawn and the leader of the “Progressive Caucus” issued a
humiliating apology, reaffirming the group’s support for prosecuting the
war until “victory.”
Inflation is skyrocketing and working class
living standards are being slashed. The Federal Reserve is pursuing a
deliberate policy of increasing unemployment through the raising of
interest rates in an effort to use social misery as a bludgeon against
demands for wage increases.
In two years in office, the Democrats
have done nothing to improve the conditions of the vast majority of the
population. The White House dropped any push for voting rights
legislation. It did nothing to protect the rights of immigrants, instead
stepping up the deportation and exclusion of asylum seekers to record
levels, beyond even the level of the Trump administration. It regards
women’s right to abortion as a means of motivating people to vote, while
refusing to defend it in practice.
And, confronted with a party
that sought to overturn the 2020 election and block Biden’s own
inauguration through the methods of coup and political assassination,
the Democrats have shielded the Republican Party.
Nearly two years
after the coup attempt, neither Trump nor any of his top
co-conspirators has been prosecuted. There has been no serious
investigation into the January 6 conspiracy or the social and political
forces behind it.
Since Biden’s speech last Wednesday, warning
that Trump and his allies represent a dire threat to democracy, he and
other leading Democrats have turned the declaration that “democracy is
on the ballot” into a hollow sound bite.
The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans, however bitter and intense, are entirely tactical.
In
domestic policy, the Democrats seek to use the trade union apparatus to
suppress the working class, while employing the demagogues of identity
politics to split the working class along race and gender lines. The
Republicans wish to dispense with the unions, which are rapidly losing
their ability to hold back the class struggle, and proceed directly to
the deployment of the police and military violence.
On the
fundamental question of which class they serve, the Democrats and
Republicans are united. They are different components of a two-party
system of capitalist-imperialist reaction.
An
entire generation has come of age thinking that Barack Obama was a
great president because he . . . ? Failed to get impeached?
He
broke every promise he made to get votes and he accomplished nothing.
ObamaCare was Mitt Romney Care. All he did was take the pathetic
proposal --- everyone must purchase health care -- and pretend that was
universal health care. Now we're a long way from Boston in the Bay
Area. But KPFA couldn't stop covering RomneyCare and what a fraud it
was . . . until Barack passed it off as ObamaCare and then they got on
board like whores eager to leave town before their pimp beat them up.
Standing in place or falling behind are not political objectives. They do not help the people.
Both
sides of the duopoly have failed the American people and the liars who
cover for them should be ashamed. But whores don't have shame so we all
suffer.
The people of Iraq continue to suffer
thanks to the whoring on the part of certain Americans. The big story
in Iraq today? A fire in Baghdad.
At least 20 people were injured, including seven firefighters, after a
three-story commercial building in Baghdad went up in flames and
subsequently collapsed on Sunday.
Among the wounded is Major General Kadhim Bohan, head of the Iraqi civil
defense directorate, while twelve other people who were trapped inside
the building remain unaccounted for. Search parties continue in their
search for the missing, according to Brigadier General Qusai Younis,
head of Baghdad's al-Rusafa Civil Defense
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
The building houses large stores of perfumes and household items.
The huge blaze required the deployment of sixty civil defense teams and
more than 50 firefighting vehicles, in an operation that took up to 10
hours according to Younis.
After a year-long crisis in Iraq triggered by contested elections, Iraq finally has a government headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
While this ends the political impasse, it’s unclear whether his new
cabinet will bring about change or usher in more of the same.
Al-Sudani is backed by the Coordination Framework,
an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shi’a factions that holds 138 out of
329 seats in parliament. The Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist
movement that won a plurality of parliamentary seats in the October 2021
elections played no part in picking either the prime minister or the
new president — a first since Iraq’s democratic transition, which does
not bode well for a government that now effectively lacks legitimacy.
Given the longtime political wrangling and endemic political instability
that has plagued their country, the Iraqi people are justifiably
skeptical about this government’s ability to tackle the many problems
facing Iraq. Many are also suspicious of al-Sudani’s close affiliation
with former prime minister Nouri-Al Maliki, given the latter’s deeply sectarian and pro-Iran stance.
[. . .]
The new government will also need to fend off the sporadic but persistent protests
that have swayed the country since October 2019 and are likely to
regain momentum. These demonstrations, which forced the resignation of
the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in 2019 and prompted
an early election, reflect public frustration with long-unaddressed
demands. Over the past three years, a coalition of protestors, activists
and youth-led entities has since formed to push the government to
address the country’s dysfunction through changes in the political
system.
Outrage over corruption continues to be the major driver for the
demand for reform of a power-sharing system that divides government
posts among Iraq’s communities and fuels patronage-based abuse. It has
not gone unnoticed that the new government has formed using the same
methods and tactics and the same parties that have dominated Iraqi
politics since 2005. Citizens may well ask, why should corruption change
if the system that produces it has not? The latest corruption scandal
at the Ministry of Finance involving the theft
of $2.5 billion from the tax authority could implicate many who enjoy
the support of powerful political parties in Iraq, including those
backing the prime minister.
The Iraqi parliament is set to conduct the first reading for a draft
proposing the restoration of compulsory military service during Sunday’s
parliamentary session, amidst mixed reactions from the Iraqi people on
social media.
The new bill, titled Serving the Flag, has been drafted by the Iraqi
parliament’s security and defense committee and proposes assigning all
Iraqi men between the ages of 18 to 35, with limited exceptions, to
mandatory military duty, according to the deputy-chairman of the parliamentary committee Sagvan Sindi.
The length of the service differs based on the academic level of the
recruited, Sindi added. The draft compels secondary school graduates to
18 months of military service, preparatory school graduates to 12
months, university and institute graduates to 9 months, master’s
graduates to 6 months, and doctorate graduates to 3 months.
That is what the Parliament is electing to pursue. Clearly, the needs of the Iraqi people are not a concern of the Parliament.
BROS.
It's a comedy classic. A number of e-mails are asking when it comes
out on DVD and BLURAY? I'm not the spokesperson for the movie but my
understanding is that the US release will be on December 31st. I
wouldn't be surprised if that got pushed up.
