Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Blogger creeps and creeps who break privacy at the VA

Was getting ready to leave Blogger. A little whiny liar (David Swanson?) complained about Monday's post to Blogger and got it censored. They said my language was foul.

!!!!!!!!!!

Liars. I do have foul language offline. But we're worksafe -- community wide -- online.

So David Swanson got his way, at least here.

But it was only for a moment. First, I copied my post and that was banned and took it over to the backup site -- oh, yeah, we got that David -- and then posted it there. I also told Blogger to review their action and their complaint and was prepared to rip them a new one in this post tonight.

But?

Within six minutes of asking for a review, they reinstated the post.

Lonnie e-mailed asking me to note this:

Several House Republicans are calling for an investigation and prosecution for the "unauthorized release" of their personal military records to a third party during the 2020 campaign season.

Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, were both notified by the Air Force that their military records were released improperly as they were campaigning in the 2022 midterm elections, and they believe it was part of political effort to hurt their campaigns.

"Knowing that this third party paid by the Dem Campaign Congressional Committee was able to obtain my social security number and fraudulently use it to obtain my military records is concerning not only for myself and the other ten affected, but to every single veteran," Bacon told Fox News Digital. "Veterans deserve peace of mind knowing their information is safe and will be protected from political dirty tricksters."

[. . .]

Midterm candidate Jennifer Ruth-Green faced a similar situation during her midterm campaign, after records of a sexual assault that occurred during her time in the Air Force were released to the public without her knowledge.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the committee's chairman, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a joint letter to Austin demanding he provide a list of all improperly released records of congressional candidates over the past two years and a list of actions taken against those responsible for the leak.

On the face of it, it's outrageous and it should lead to a Congressional investigation and whomever was making the requests should be compelled to testify in an open hearing. I say "on the face of it" because I don't know about the men. I do know about Jennifer Ruth-Green and I did cover what was done to her and how inappropriate that was and how your political party should not matter when it comes to denouncing the illegal release of her records. When that story emerged, I weighed in and I feel just as strongly as I did then. It's not right, it's illegal and I don't believe it 'just happened.' My own belief is that the person requesting the info knew someone and got it from that person who knew they were illegally releasing records. I think there should be a hearing and I think the person or persons involved should be fired. It was illegal. It was a huge betrayal of everything the country's supposed to stand for and I think violating Jennifer's records was violating the record of every veteran. There is no excuse.

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

Tuesday, February 21, 2023. A look back at how we fool ourselves.

Starting with this from David Rosen (COMMON DREAMS):

On February 2, U.S. prisoner and former al-Qaeda courier Majid Khan was released from the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba after more than 16 years of imprisonment. "We are very pleased with Majid's release," says J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

"Majid's transfer to Belize is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work by the CCR and the law firm Jenner & Block," Dixon tells The Progressive. "Our only regret is that he was not released sooner."

On October 7, 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United States, together with Great Britain, launched "Operation Enduring Freedom," the war in Afghanistan and the beginning of the "global war on terror." It was followed, in March 2003, by the U.S. invasion of Iraq ostensibly to end Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and to destroy his alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

On January 11, 2002, the first 20 detainees were delivered from CIA black sites to the Guantánamo military prison, known as Camp X-Ray, on the island of Cuba. Over the following two decades, approximately 780 detainees would be held there. Today, 34 detainees remain imprisoned in the detention facility. Most troubling, this prison held more than 150 innocent men for years. The Guantánamo prison and associated military courts currently cost U.S. taxpayers about $540 million a year (with about $13.5 million being spent on each detainee).

That has got to be a typo. There is no way that $540 million a year is being spent. I remember Barack Obama running for president and promising that if he was elected he would close Guantanamo. And he was elected to two terms as president. I remember. I remember he said he would codify ROE V WAD -- his first thing he'd do as president -- to ensure that a conservative Supreme Court could never, ever rob women of their reproductive rights. He said that. And he said he'd bring all US troops home from Iraq and that he'd close Guantanamo and, heck, I even remember him promising he would end veterans' homelessness.

Surely Saint Barack kept everyone of his promises. I mean, don't you think he would left office in shame after eight years if he didn't do a damn thing he promised?

People would have to be pretty pathetic to glorify him -- to this day -- while he and Bruce Springsteen kickback on David Geffen's yacht and Barack sucks up all that money from NETFLIX while failing produce anything anyone wants to watch if Barack didn't keep his promises.

Sadly, that is the reality.

We didn't get action and we didn't get accountability. We did get The Cult of St Barack and those losers did ensure that he didn't do a damn thing, he didn't keep any promises, and the results are all around us: Guantanamo remains open, ROE has been overturned, US troops are still on the ground in Iraq and many US veterans continue to be homeless.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh he said you think you're immune
Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies

-- "The Last Time I Saw Richard," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her BLUE.

Remember that song? While Ann Wright and others did nothing of value and refused to hold Barack accountable, we'd trot out that song and not the "You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies, pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're only pretty lies, only pretty lies, just pretty lies." Did any other song capture both the lies of Barack and the pathetic cult that surrounded him?

From August 3, 2008, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels." Barack's with Cult of St. Barack members Katrina vanden Heuvel, Matthew Rothschild and Betsy Reed. They -- and many others -- were there to whore for him and get him to office, they just weren't there to hold him accountable. After he became president, they were like Marilyn Monroe trying to potty train a puppy (she would 'strike' the puppy with a Kleenex).

They were so inept and they brought us to this point.

Instead of holding these people accountable -- the Medea Benjamins who, after Barack got elected, started talking about how it was okay for US to remain in Afghanistan -- today's YOUTUBERS treat them like royalty -- and I don't mean they're publishing memoirs calling them out, I mean they lap at their feet and pretend that these people haven't spent forever and a day whoring.

I just shake my head at the stupidity. Like I do at the former soap opera actress and her filthy church that hates gays and lesbians -- honey, we all know what you did -- and who you did -- in the 80s and 90s. Maybe your church doesn't, but we do. And what I'm really waiting for is for your fans from those days to find out what you're doing now.

The stupidity of it all just gets to me.

Tonight, I believe, TCM will be airing two Carole Lombard films -- one of which, NOTHING SACRED, it an all time favorite of mine. WIKIPEDIA notes of the film:

Nothing Sacred is a 1937 American Technicolor screwball comedy film directed by William A. Wellman, produced by David O. Selznick, and starring Carole Lombard and Fredric March with a supporting cast featuring Charles Winninger and Walter Connolly. Ben Hecht was credited with the screenplay based on the 1937 story "Letter to the Editor" by James H. Street, and an array of additional writers, including Ring Lardner Jr., Budd Schulberg, Dorothy Parker, Sidney Howard, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman and Robert Carson made uncredited contributions.

The lush, Gershwinesque music score was by Oscar Levant, with additional music by Alfred Newman and Max Steiner and a swing number by Raymond Scott's Quintette. The film was shot in Technicolor by W. Howard Greene and edited by James E. Newcom, and was a Selznick International Pictures production distributed by United Artists. The film's opening credits feature distinctive caricatures of the leading actors, as 3d-figurines, and creative artists, as 2d-cartoons, by Sam Berman.^[3]

This was Lombard's only Technicolor film. She stated that this film was one of her personal favorites.

Plot

New York newspaper reporter Wally Cook is blamed for reporting a Harlem bootblack Ernest Walker as an African nobleman hosting a charity event. Cook claims he was unaware, but he is demoted to writing obituaries. He begs his boss Oliver Stone for another chance, and points out a story about a woman, Hazel Flagg, reportedly dying of radium poisoning. Cook is sent to the (fictional) town of Warsaw, Vermont, to interview Hazel. Cook finally locates Hazel, who is crying both because her doctor has told her that she is not dying and because she realizes she might be stuck in Vermont for her whole life. Unaware of this, Cook invites Hazel and her doctor to New York as guests of the Morning Star newspaper.

The newspaper uses her story to increase its circulation. She receives a ticker tape parade and the key to the city, and becomes an inspiration to many. She and Wally fall in love, and he asks her to marry him even though he still thinks she's dying. After a medical exam by three independent doctors, it is finally discovered that Hazel is not really dying, and city officials and Stone decide that it would be better to avoid embarrassment by having it seem that she went off to die, "like an elephant". Hazel and Wally get married and quietly set sail for the tropics.

1937. The film addresses the way the press lies, the way it spins, the way it deceives.

What we too often think we're discovering today is a system that's been decried for decades.

And we're unaware of it. The same we're unaware that CODEPINK was used to clear the field in 2008 to get Barack Obama the nomination and that CODEPINK then did nothing. There was a time when you could find reality on that at DISSIDENT VOICE before CODESTINK cried crocodile tears and got the comments closed. Various people -- including several prominent writers now featured at INFORMATION CLEAING HOUSE -- would show up in the comments to note the reality of CODEPINK.

Now days, we just ignore reality and YOUTUBERS tells us how wonderful CODEPINK is. They don't even know that men were in CODEPINK pulling the strings. They know nothing. They take everything at surface value. They don't examine, they don't do anything but they want to host their YOUTUBE programs and for what reason?

Because if things are ever going to change, it's going to require honest criticism. If we can't even hold the pathetic I-Need-Attention Medea Benjamin (Susan, let's be honest) accountable, how are we ever going to hold politicians accountable?

The knowledge is out there, if we'd only embrace it and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

We're going to note this action from WSWS:

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary weekend of the criminal U.S.-invasion of Iraq, a major set of actions, including a demonstration at the White House in Washington, D.C., will take place Saturday, March 18, demanding “Peace in Ukraine — Say NO to Endless U.S. Wars” and “Fund People’s Needs, Not the War Machine.”

Since 2003, the U.S. has engaged in sanctions (economic war) on more than 40 countries. These targets of U.S. economic warfare include the people of Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and many other nations. Even in the wake of the worst disasters, like the recent deadly earthquake, Washington keeps its cruel sanctions in place against Syria.

U.S. bases and “commands” blanket most of the world. It is a global empire.

The Biden administration is determined to escalate the Ukraine war. The real goal of the massive arming and training of Ukrainian forces has nothing to do with the interests of Ukrainian, Russian or U.S. people. The aim instead is to “weaken Russia,” as stated by the U.S. Secretary of Defense himself, even at the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war that could end life on Earth.

A U.S. general commanding 50,000 troops in the Pacific also issued a letter to his sub-commanders in recent days, informing them that he believes that the United States will be at war with China within two years. The danger of global war is growing! The people must act!

The demonstration will make connections between the human and financial toll of U.S. militarism at home and abroad. Key demands include:

Peace in Ukraine — No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War!
Abolish NATO — End U.S. militarism and sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism and bigotry at home, not other peoples!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM!

Click here to help build this action

Click here to endorse the action

Endorsers:

United National AntiWar Coalition; ANSWER Coalition; Black Alliance for Peace; The People’s Forum; CodePink; World BEYOND War; Popular Resistance; Veterans for Peace; International Action Center; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Al-Awda; The Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Labor Against Racism and War; Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Universal African Peoples Organization; Workers World Party; East Bay Democratic Socialists of America; Socialist Action; Nevada Green Party; Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Ohio Peace Council; Green Party of Connecticut; Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee; Environmentalists Against War; Pacific Green Party (Oregon); Linn-Benton Chapter, Lauren Faith Smith Ministry for Nonviolence; Maine Cumberland County Greens; Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace; San Jose Peace and Justice Center; Servicio Particular Alacran; Minnesota Peace Action Coalition; PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick; UPWARD (Uniting Peace With Actions Respect and Dignity); Socialist Party of America; North Country Peace Group; . . . and more.

I can remember when certain groups ran from ANSWER. We never did here. But I can remember certain groups and individuals -- some of whom were at the recent fake action in DC -- felt ANSWER was just . . . I don't know. I guess the term would be "too left." Well they certainly found the antidote last weekend, didn't they? The antidote to ANSWER and trying to work with the left was, for them, to stand the extreme right.

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

BAP-Baltimore Statement on New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

Recently, Maryland swore in its first Black governor, Wes Moore, in a “historic” ceremony cemented with a tearful introduction by Oprah Winfrey and a hand on Frederick Douglass’ Bible. The Black elite flocked to fill the rooms of the inauguration to witness the third elected Black governor in U.S. history. Yet, this “first Black” gubernatorial win is history repeating itself.

African/Black communities have witnessed “first Blacks” consistently continuing over-policing, surveillance, criminalization and austerity policies.

As Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party understands,

“The Black middle-class’ allegiance to capitalism, and not Black liberation, has largely led the Black political leadership class to function as a comprador misleadership class over the Black majority of working peoples on behalf of the capitalist parties, and political machines they are members of.”

For nearly a century, radical African/Black people have criticized elements of the African/Black community as being designed to serve as buffers to ruling class elements. Whether discerned as “neocolonial,” “the comprador class,” or “the Black Misleadership Class,” this sector has evaded accountability to the masses of African/Black people, while using their Black identity as cover for self-serving opportunism.

Moore first became famous for his 2010 bestselling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore City. In interviews, Moore is depicted as a Black boy from an economically struggling background who became formally educated, rising to become a U.S. military veteran, and thus a socioeconomically developed Black man. The framing of his “life story,” as told through the book, not only helps manufacture an Obama-like image, politically. But in juxtaposition to the “other Wes Moore,” it leaves room to question how this narrative will affect his policies.

It remains unclear if Moore had been raised in Baltimore City. Yet, as the backdrop of Moore’s life story, the city has been central to his platform on crime. The Public Safety and Criminal Justice page on wesmoore.com states, “Violent crime is on the rise across Maryland and people are dying in our streets.” The solutions presented, however, will be nothing short of a plan to continue what former Governor Larry Hogan started in his campaign to “refund the police,” which increased resources for state law enforcement agencies following the 2020 uprisings.

Citing an “ineffectiveness of leadership,” Moore ignores that not only is Baltimore City already occupied with an array of federally funded police directives, it has just received an additional $7.9 million in federal funds to “fight crime.” This funding is a part of the Biden administration’s $350 million American Rescue plan to “fund the police,” as he enthusiastically announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Unsurprisingly, in 2022, 1,192 people were killed by police, exceeding any other year in U.S. history. Also, Moore has ignored the existing consent decree issued in 2017, acknowledging the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and specific provisions of federal statutory law.

“The BPD has access to the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program budget. They also train with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) through the ‘deadly exchange program’ and continue to receive federal agents through Trump’s 2020 Operation Relentless Pursuit policy,” says Petros Bein, member of the Baltimore City Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance For Peace (BAP-Baltimore). “This is in addition to the approved privatized policing for universities, like Johns Hopkins, engulfing Black communities.”

These continued failed approaches to “crime” have only proven that added resources, as well as changes in policy or the law, will not contribute to public safety. Moore cannot “rebuild and strengthen relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies” by “increasing accountability and transparency” in a city in which the police department constantly violates its consent decree. Nor should funding community-policing initiatives that “recruit diverse officers that reflect the diversity of communities they serve” be taken seriously. The recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (a city also operating under Operation Relentless Pursuit) has been the most illuminating example of the fallacy of Black faces occupying these spaces to the benefit of the African/Black community.

Policies that address crime in an over-policed city cannot be presented in the abstract. As the country celebrates a “first Black” governor, Maryland continues to imprison more African/Black people, per capita, than any other state. Moore needs to provide more specifics to explain what will be done and how this builds or departs from existing efforts to return control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the federal government to Baltimore City.

“Wes Moore’s connections with Mayor [Brandon] Scott’s office and the city design/city planning committee will shape or harm what’s happening in Baltimore. With no control over the city's policing, Moore's decisions directly affect the most marginalized of us,” acknowledges BAP-Baltimore core member, Kimya Nuru Dennis.

The Democratic Party has been able to depict Moore as a trusting solution for Maryland, in general, and for African/Black people, specifically. His socioeconomic status, as well as that of his donors, indicates to BAP-Baltimore what will undoubtedly shape whose voices matter most in prioritizing health, education, and safety-based policies and laws.

The lack of equitable housing that causes displacement, as well as food deserts, and low wages, have been pressing issues in Maryland. African/Black elected officials have not resolved the economic and social crisis facing the African/Black working class of Baltimore City. Instead, their lack of solutions have resulted in the overt criminalization and over-policing of African/Black communities. Police are constantly and consistently well-funded and well-resourced. BAP-Baltimore understands police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of African/Black and other oppressed nations of people. This comes as the city has increasingly privatized and priced out our people. More police funding, while ignoring the causes of crime, cannot resolve the ongoing dilemma facing the African/Black working class in Baltimore City.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Monday, February 20, 2023

Chase Rice, NETFLIX

Sunday, "Kat's Korner: Chase Rice delivers and then some" went up -- my latest review.

Chase is promoting the new album.

Okay, that's my third review in three weeks. And? The Diana Ross album is finally being sent by AMAZON so I'll be reviewing it this coming weekend.

NETFLIX is moving around the world cracking down on share subscriptions. That's rather surprising when you think about how they used to encourage people to share subscriptions. That's when they were doing good. Now they're not. Here's a story about the crackdown in Canada -- it hasn't yet hit the US (but it will).

Is NETFLIX worth having now? Nate Bargatze took his last special to AMAZON. He's got two already on NETFLIX (and I have the first one on vinyl). NETFLIX had some great music specials . . . for awhile. I remember when they got the Taylor Swift special and I loved that and when they got Barbra Streisand's special. Imagine that, NETFLIX got her special. That was really something to be proud of. That would be like getting a Bob Dylan concert. And I thought, "Alright, they're going to really cook." They didn't. They haven't had another Barbra special. Most of the musicians of Taylor's age go to DISNEY+. I really wish they'd worked harder at pursuing musical acts.

I could honestly do without NETFLIX at this point. If they'd gone exclusive with Nate, that would be one thing. But they didn't. And their music is nothing. The shows I do like end up cancelled -- SENSE8, FIREFLY LANE, etc. I can't find out the status on IN FROM THE COLD -- the spy show starring Margarita Levieva. There deal with THE CW is winding down and I don't think they have the rights to NIKITA anymore. NIKITA is streaming on TUBI.

And TUBI is free. You don't even have to sign in, if you don't want to. It's got commercials. There's also PLUTO which is free and CRACKLE and a lot of content on ROKU.

It used to offer a lot of promise but that's not the case anymore.

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

Monday, February 20, 2022. The 'big' 'event' in DC turns out to be a big flop, they brought together the center, the right and the extreme right, THE GUARDIAN continues to sell war, Iraq needs to get serious about preventing domestic abuse, and much more.

They had their Sunday non-action. Not a big turnout. At times it seemed more speakers showed up than 'activists.' Was it an issue of lack of star power?

Look! It's Ron Paul! And Tulsi Gabbard!!!! With Mindy Cohn!

You take the good, you take the bad

You take them both and there you have

The facts of life

Poor Sabby Sabs. On TV, behind a desk, she can pretend she's slender. Look at her next to Jimmy Dore. He's thinner than she is.

Fortunately, she's not a complete idiot. She knew the next best thing to FACETUNE was the original slenderizing ap: StandNextToTara. Yep, stand next to her and the pounds just seem to melt away.

Looking at the small turnout, I'm starting to think they shouldn't have banned convicted pedophile Scott Ritter-- they truly did need every person that they could scrounge up.

Such a small turnout and it is surprising. I mean they had all the losers on their side. Even Ryan Dawson used his Twitter feed to promote it -- ahead of the 'event' and after. You know Dawson, right? No? SPL describes him for you:

Another Mises Caucus-linked speaker, Clint Russell, is a host of the “Liberty Lockdown” podcast. Russell started the podcast in May 2020 to push against COVID-19 lockdowns meant to stop the spread of the virus.

Russell has appeared alongside Ryan Dawson, a Holocaust denier and self-described journalist who combines criticism of Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with antisemitic tropes.

In one video that garnered widespread criticism, Dawson claimed Jewish people are responsible for communism, pedophilia, wars and more. He then said, “And for no reason at all, they elected Adolf Hitler,” referencing the Nazi government that oversaw the Holocaust.

The video originally featured a thumbnail image of Zyklon-B, the gas Nazis used in death camps to kill millions of Jews in the Holocaust.

Sound like a fun bunch?

A smattering of people attended thereby ensuring that Tucker Carlson stayed true to form -- lying. He'd declared it would be a "massive turnout." Well if by now you don't know that FOX NEWS is where you tune in to hear lies, I guess you never will.

Maybe the 'action' fed Jimmy Dore's ego -- wasn't that always the point?

Let's note a portion of this Tweet from Jimmy.

@jimmy_dore

13h

I’m killing it in this clip, thanks for posting!

Even when dealing with a supposed massive 'action,' it's all about Jimmy for Jimmy: "I'm killing it in this clip." When he makes love to his wife, do you think he scream his own name? Yeah, I think so too.

At WSWS, Jacob Crosse and Joseph Kishore observe:

The “Rage Against the War Machine” rally held yesterday in Washington, D.C., was a political freak show attended by a motley crowd of several hundred Libertarian Party supporters, neo-fascists, and disoriented and demoralized middle-class individuals without an independent program or perspective. The speeches, many of which were obscenity-laced rants, were pitched to the lowest political level. By the time the event finally dribbled to an end, it had left nothing behind but confusion and a bad smell.

That is so perfect, I just want to stop there. Read that again.

Okay, let's continue with their report:

The rally, which was moderated by Angela McArdle of the Libertarian Party and Nick Brana of the “People’s Party,” was sold as an opportunity by the organizers and the speakers to “bring together” the “left and the right” to oppose war. In fact, there was no left-wing perspective; the political direction was provided entirely by the right.

Even on its own terms, the event was an organizational fiasco, with a turnout of approximately 750 to 1,000 people, at most, despite being promoted on Fox News by Tucker Carlson and other right-wing outlets.

The rally featured no less than three speakers from organizations affiliated with the late fascist and anti-Semitic cult-leader, Lyndon LaRouche, including his wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche. A platform was also provided for Jackson Hinkle, a fascist proponent of “MAGA communism,” and Jordan Page, who wrote the Oath Keepers anthem. Page gave an extended “musical” interlude with far-right anti-vaccine advocate and “bitcoin” enthusiast, Tatiana Moroz.

[. . .]

To the extent there was a political perspective, it was provided by Paul, the former Texas congressman. In his headline speech, Paul falsely claimed that by eliminating the Federal Reserve, the US government would be forced to pay its debts and therefore could not fund military expenditures.

In reality, Paul’s program of austerity and debt elimination, if put into practice, would result in the evisceration of every single social welfare program in the United States, which is in fact the aim of the most right-wing sections of the ruling class and the program of the Libertarian Party.

Paul ended his speech with a call for an end to all “regulations,” i.e., minimum wage, social security, medicare and medicaid, child labor and work place safety laws, that “bankrupt the country.”

Individuals linked to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and who participated in former President Donald Trump’s failed coup were in attendance.

Local journalist Molly Conger photographed Matthew Heimbach, the leading neo-Nazi who helped organize the 2017 rally in Charlottesville. In a podcast prior to the Unite the Right rally, Heimbach called for the extermination of the “international Jew and the local Jew, I don’t care if he runs a f**king bagel shop, he’s got to go.”

Conger also photographed Proud Boy Randy Ireland, wearing a shirt with the phrase “Justice 4 J6,” a reference to the small number of individuals who were imprisoned for participating in Trump’s failed coup.

Perhaps the biggest fraud of all was that the rally was an “antiwar” event. Whatever the denunciations of the “military-industrial complex” and the “war machine,” the main impact of the rally was to politically legitimize and elevate far-right forces that are utilized by sections of the ruling class itself.

Because we have a large international audience, let me be clear, I was being sarcastic at the top when I said Mindy Cohn attended. That was a man who looked like her, Mindy has too much intelligence to ever show up at a dumpster rally with those people.

Turning to Iraq, the Iraq War is being used again. By THE GUARDIAN, no surprise. I guess we're not done with the idiots at the rally just yet. But at THE GUARDIAN, columnist John Kampfner wants to insist "Iraq was a terrible war but it cannot excuse our failure to confront the tyranny today."

No link to trash.

I don't know how much time you have, but mine is limited. So once I got 2015 and saw that John hasn't written on Iraq in the last seven years, I knew he was a useless whore. Today, to sell continued war, he wants to pretend that he sees the Iraq War as terrible. But the reality is he didn't.

Of course he didn't. He wrote for THE GUARDIAN.

Which brings us to Idiot Swanson.

David Swanson was at the DC 'event.' Of course he was. He's to be found where ever non-action occurs. He's the original WalkOn, WalkOn.org.

He cared briefly about Iraq. Or pretended to.

He was especially vocal -- for months and months -- about The Downing Street Memo that exposed Bully Boy Bush's plan for war and the decision to go to war being made at a meeting between Bully Boy and Tony Blair at the former's Crawford Ranch.

He called out a lot of press for ignoring that memo.

He had a real hard time calling out THE GUARDIAN.

THE GUARDIAN did ignore it. They were a pro-war publication. In the UK, Tony Blair was the 'left.' As a result, it was the right-wing TIMES OF LONDON that published the memo. THE GUARDIAN never covered it. Not one write up. David was so sweet on them that he never called them out. That's how you know you're dealing with a fake ass, they don't have the guts to tell you the truth.

Moving on, Shelly Kittleson (AL-MONITOR) reports:

A number of high-profile cases of women and girls killed by family members across Iraq in recent months are attracting attention once again, leading to a resurgence of calls for Iraq to enact laws against domestic violence.

Last month, the case of a young woman in a “family dispute” in which the community police had been asked to mediate ended badly when a 22-year-old Youtuber was killed by her father. He has reportedly admitted to strangling her in her sleep.

An outcry on social media followed, with many calling for the case to be treated as premeditated murder and not as a so-called honor crime.

“Iraq has failed to criminalize domestic violence despite an increase in reporting of incidents of domestic violence by national NGOs. Shockingly, the Iraqi penal code still treats leniently so-called 'honor crimes’ comprising violent acts such as assault and even murder. There is also no effective system in place for reporting domestic violence nor adequate shelters to protect women and girls,” Amnesty International noted earlier this month.

Iraq’s community police answer to the Interior Ministry and operate only in central government areas and not the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). They are tasked with alleviating problems plaguing Iraqi society, such as domestic abuse, electronic blackmail, drug use and runaways, and they claim to be seen as more approachable by the population than other parts of the country’s security forces.

The case of Tiba al-Ali

The young woman killed on Jan. 31, Tiba al-Ali, had returned to Iraq for a visit but had been living independently in Turkey for years. She reportedly had complained of being sexually assaulted by her brother in previous years, which her family allegedly told her to “forget about.”

She appeared happy and carefree in several videos posted online from Turkey with her Syrian-born fiancé.

In a December interview in Baghdad prior to her killing, Brig. Gen. Ghalib Atiyah, who has been at the helm of the community police for the last three years, told Al-Monitor that none of the women and girls whose cases the community police had been involved in, had been killed. He stressed that this should be seen as an accomplishment, given the influence that tribal norms continue to have on the country.

Of the 153 cases that Iraq’s community police dealt with regarding runaways in 2022, “not a single [woman or girl] was killed,” Atiyah said.

During our visit to his office, a printout was provided with the number of “family violence” cases the community police had dealt with in the previous year. It listed the number of “child runaways” as 32 and “young women runaways” as 153.

Al-Monitor was told that the “child” category refers to males under age 18, while “young women” refers to women and girls both under and over 18 but that “most of them are very young.” When this difference in categorization was pointed out, Brig. Gen. Atiyah stressed that many Westerners do not understand that “most Iraqi women live with their families until they are married.” Many of the runaway cases are related to young women who are “tricked” by men they meet online, he said, adding that the runaways “fall in love,” but they are then lied to by these men and want to go home but are too afraid to do so.

He said that through mediation with the families and regularly checking up on the young women who return to their homes, his force plays a key role in ensuring many of them do not end up doing desperate things to survive and that their families agree to let them come home without harming them.

A 2018 study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that, at the global level, their homes are “the most dangerous place for women, with the majority of female homicide victims worldwide killed by partners or family.”

One female hotel employee in Baghdad claimed to Al-Monitor in a conversation in early February that, from what she has seen, it is often the families of young women who push them into prostitution in the Iraqi capital.

Hey, remember when THE NEW YORK TIMES used to tell us there was no prostitution in Iraq? Remember it was while their own Go-Go Boys in the Green Zone were paying prostitutes -- which meant THE TIMES was paying them. Remember how only a few of us bothered to tell the truth on that? OFF OUR BACKS is sorely missed. They were one of the few feminist outlets that was actually interested in reporting, not in being a glossy, lifestyle magazine.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: Chase Rice delivers and then some" went up Sunday. The following sites updated: