Stallone

I'm not a Sylvester Stallone fan.

But every now and then, I'll see a movie, an early one . . .

I'm watching Robert Mitchum's Farewell My Lovely, for example, from 1975 or 1976.

Johnny's sleeping with the lesbian bordello owner's girl and the woman busts in on them and Johnny shoots her dead.

It's not a big part.

But if you've seen the movie, you remember Johnny.

Stallone played Johnny.

And it's parts like those that remind me he could have been a real actor.

Rocky may have destroyed him but Rambo for sure did.

It allowed him to become a star but any chance of becoming an actor was gone.

Worse, any chance of being a sex symbol was gone.

Those bangs he sported?

Did he steal his 80s hair dos from Linda Hamilton?

It certainly appeared so.

I wish he'd turned into a TV dad on a sitcom or something.  I think he would have ended up a much better actor.


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

Saturday, August 15, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, protests continue, protesters get attacked, Moqtada al-Sadr is among those calling out the attacks, the US government is offended by a bombing but not by the bombing of a maternity hospital, Hillary Clinton finally responds to Jeb Bush's charges, and much more.



Protests continued Friday in Iraq.

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 9h9 hours ago

Iraqi protesters tore Khamenei pic in Baghdad yesterday and said Iran get out from Iraq Down Iran muhalls #Iraq                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

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Among those protesting?

NINA reports:

Hundreds of Iraqi journalists took part in the grand mass march that took place on Friday afternoon in al-Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, departing from the headquarters of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate.
[. . .]
The correspondent pointed out that among the slogans filed by demonstrators are slogans calling for the dissolution of parliament and the prosecute of the corrupt.



Alsumaria notes thousands turned out to protest in Najaf on Friday. Alsumaria also notes hundreds turned out to protest in Wasit.  As protests swept Iraq for the third consecutive week, those too young to protest mirrored the action of the adults around them.

1. Rusul Al-Hasani ‏@rusul_ Aug 14

   Too young to protest with the crowds so they built up their own freedom monument :D #Iraq #مظاهرات_14_اب                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

   

   

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And Iraqi protests were not limited to Iraq on Friday.

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 9h9 hours ago

#Iraqi protesters in #Sweden yesterday Against the corruption of the Iraqi Goverment                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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Protests also continued today.  Alsumaria reports in Basra, protests protested outside a Korean company Daewoo calling for jobs and 1 demonstrator was shot dead and another left injured apparently by employees of the Korean company.


As it turns out, that attack was not the first attack on protesters.


Dar Addustour notes that Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr decried the attacks on protesters.  Iraq Times reports that protesters in Karbala on Friday were attacked by riot police.  And today the Governor of Baghdad, Ali al-Tamimi, called out the Friday attack on protesters.  Dar Addustour reports that the attacks occurred by a Turkish restaurant near Tahrir Square and that the attackers wore anti-riot gear

In his latest column, As Sheik (Dar Addustur) calls out the "thug actions" of those attacking the protesers and decries the efforts of the state to use its resources to attack peaceful protesters who are only demanding their rights and an end to the continued theft of public money.







Today, former US Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, finally responded herself to Jeb Bush's Tuesday charges that she and US President Barack Obama lost Iraq.  BBC News reports:


On Saturday Ms Clinton responded by saying Mr Bush "should present the entire picture. [That]... includes the agreement George W Bush made with the Maliki government in Iraq that set the end of 2011 as the date to withdraw American troops."


Reuters has video of  Hillary speaking:


I think that, uh, what, uh, is being done with ISIS, uh, is very, uh, significant in terms of  the support that the United States is now providing to the Iraqi army to retrain because of what Maliki did to, uh, really start to erode its abilities, to support the Kurds, to try to get the Sunnis back into, uh, the fight against ISIS.  But this has to be an Iraqi-led mission and like anybody who has followed the horrific, barbaric behavior of ISIS, I, uh-uh, I am very committed to supporting the efforts within the region to take on the threat --

And we'll stop her there.

She never speaks of the need for political reconciliation.  She never notes any grievances.

She just wants bombs and more bombs.

She's also either grossly uninformed or determined to be a liar.

We will again notes this week's attack on the Falluja maternity hospital.

1. #IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 Aug 13

   #Iraqi army crimes yesterday bombed Hospital by barrels in Fallujah killed 25 child & woman #Iraq @hrw @KenRoth                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

   

   

   

   

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We covered the hospital bombing in Thursday's "Iraq snapshot" and "US outraged by possible chemical attack, not so bothered by the actual bombing of a maternity hospital" and if you think we were overstating the silence of the US government, the day the maternity hospital was bombed, this is what the US State Dept released:

Press Statement

John Kirby

Washington, DC

August 13, 2015

The United States condemns in the strongest terms both the ISIL attack this morning at a crowded market place in Baghdad, and the car bomb attacks in Diyala Province on Monday, as well as other recent terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people. We express our deep condolences to family and friends of the victims. These atrocities show once again the utter disregard ISIL has for innocent civilians, including women and children.
As Iraqis unite against ISIL and turn the tide on the battlefield, ISIL will try to maintain its campaign of terror to sow discord among the Iraqi people. The United States continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Iraqi people as they confront ISIL and the violence it represents. We remain committed to working with Prime Minister Al-Abadi, the Iraqi Security Forces, and our partners in the international community to support the Government of Iraq in defeating ISIL and holding this terrorist organization accountable for the atrocities it has committed.

Not one word about the maternity hospital bombing -- bombed by the Iraqi military.


Apparently, they were concerned infants would grow up to be terrorists?

1. #IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 5h5 hours ago

   #Iraqi army crimes yesterday bombed Hospital by barrels in Fallujah killed 25 child & woman #Iraq @hrw @KenRoth                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

   

   

   

   

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1. LEWIS ‏@khq2221UAS 2h2 hours ago

   #Iraqi army crimes killed yesterday 25 Sunni child in fallujah @1957_Tintin_ @NasserIbnHamad @nashid44482 @hrw                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

   

   

   

   

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When the US government cannot call out the bombing of a maternity hospital, they don't look like an honest or fair broker. They look like cheap liars that will embrace murder.

And more.

Stephanie Nebehay (Reuters) reported yesterday:

A U.N. human rights watchdog called on Iraq on Friday to close what it described as secret detention centres where militant suspects, including minors, are "severely tortured".
The panel of 18 independent experts, who reviewed Iraq's record in preventing torture and ill-treatment last month, had challenged Iraqi officials to name a single person the country had jailed for torture in a justice system that had "gone astray".

In its findings issued on Friday, the watchdog voiced concern at information pointing to a pattern whereby militant and other high-security suspects, including minors, were arrested without warrants and detained in facilities - especially those run by the defence and interior ministries.


There's a lot of pretending for Barack Obama to continue his support of the murderous regime governing Iraq today.


There's a lot of nonsense on Hillary's part when she can't call it out either.


But Hillary's all about the nonsense these days.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush launched his 'attack' on Hillary earlier this week and she 'responded' by having Jake Sullivan speak for her because she's too much of an idiot to speak for herself apparently.  She needed four days to respond to a Bush?

How stupid do you have to be to need more than five minutes to respond to a Bush?


In the long gap between Jeb's charge and Hillary's response, many weighed in.


The centrist FactCheck.org offered:


So, President Bush reluctantly agreed to a withdrawal deadline without leaving behind a residual force because of Maliki’s strong objections. Jeb Bush ignores those facts.
Still, Obama had three years to negotiate a new agreement prior to the Dec. 31, 2011, withdrawal date to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq. In fact, a day before Bush signed the agreement, Gen. Ray Odierno — the former commander of the U.S. troops in Iraq and current Army chief of staff — said the agreement might be renegotiated depending on conditions on the ground. “Three years is a very long time,” Odierno told the New York Times.
Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s defense secretary from July 2011 to February 2013, wrote in his 2014 book, “Worthy Fights,” that as the deadline neared “it was clear to me — and many others — that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability” in Iraq. As a result, the Obama administration sought to keep 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. combat troops in Iraq, as Sullivan said in his statement.
But negotiations with Iraq broke down in October 2011 over the issue of whether U.S. troops would be shielded from criminal prosecution by Iraqi authorities. Panetta wrote that Maliki insisted that a new agreement providing immunity to U.S. forces “would have to be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for its approval,” which Panetta said “made reaching agreement very difficult.”
Very difficult, but Panetta wrote it was not impossible.



At the right wing Weekly Standard, Derek Harvey offered:

The Obama/Clinton defense rests on a thin reed of claiming President George W. Bush agreed to an end date for America’s presence in Iraq. This is misleading. The plan was to renegotiate an extension based on the conditions on the ground. U.S. military advisors believed a continued presence was necessary, and our Iraqi partners desired such a presence even if their own politics complicated negotiations to secure it.  Our senior military leaders said that Iraqi security forces were not prepared to succeed without continued U.S. forces as the ISF needed continued enabling support and U.S. higher-end intelligence for counter-terrorism targeting.  Importantly, in October 2011 all but 40 members of Iraqi parliament voted in favor of a continued U.S. military presence, but only the Kurds would openly support the immunity requirements as framed by the administration. Clearly this was a failure to engage early enough and with a commitment to achieving a longer-term presence secure the hard fought gains made by our military. Unfortunately, the Obama strategic team saw this only through a domestic political lens, thinking that if Iraq spun out of control they were immune politically and would just blame George Bush.

Securing this agreement was a task for diplomacy, but the fact that Secretary Clinton visited Iraq exactly once during her tenure suggests securing this agreement was not terribly high on her agenda.   

The right wing website Powerline offers excerpts  from an interview Senator Lindsey Graham (vying for the Republican nomination for president in 2016) gave where he makes a point to put the blame on Barack and not Hillary:

Lindsey Graham: I think it was our fault. The president got the answer he wanted when it comes to troop levels. He wanted zero. He got zero. He promised to end the War in Iraq. He actually lost the War in Iraq.
But this is something that most people don’t know. I want to make sure you understand. Secretary Clinton called me to go over to Iraq to talk to all the parties to see if we can find a way to achieve a residual force to be left behind. I went with Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman. We met with Mr. Allawi who’s is the Aratia party leader, the former prime minister. He is a Shia, but it was a Sunni coalition. We flew up to meet with President Barzani – not president – but Barzani, the head of the Kurds. … Then we met with Maliki.
So we had Ambassador Jeffrey – U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Gen. Austin, the commander of Iraq forces at the time in the meeting with me, Maliki, and McCain. I asked Prime Minister Maliki, “Would you accept troops?” He says, “If other will, I will.” Then he turned to me and said, “How many troops are you talking about?” I turned to Gen. Austin and then Ambassador Jeffrey – “What’s the answer to the prime minister’s question?” Gen. Dreyfuss says, “We’re still working on the number.” The number went from 18,000 recommended by Austin down to 3,000 coming out of the White House.
General Dempsey answered Senator McCain’s question and my question as to how the numbers went down – “What is because the Iraqis suggest too many?” He said, “No, the cascading numbers came from the White House.” I was there. They were all ready to accept a residual force. But when you get below 3,000, it was a joke. And we got the answer we wanted. I was on the ground. I asked the question. I heard the answer from Gen. Austin – the White House hasn’t made up their mind, yet.

Hugh Hewitt: Jeb Bush is right. This is truly at the feet of Obama-Clinton.


Lindsey Graham: You know, Maliki has got a lot of blame for Iraq falling apart, but I lay this at the foot of the President of the United States solely. The Iraqis to a person would’ve accepted a residual force, but he wanted to get to zero. He would never come forth with a number. They never had a number.



Hillary was not over Iraq.  That's the point Graham's making.  She also wasn't on board with what Barack wanted to do regarding Barack (that's why she asked Graham and others to visit Iraq and speak to the politicians).

But in terms of the failures in Iraq, the most truth regarding the charges made by Jeb Bush comes from Dexter Filkins at The New Yorker:

Moreover, I think the Republican argument that a handful of American troops could have saved Iraq misses a larger point. The fundamental problem was American policy—in particular, the American policy of supporting and strengthening Maliki at all costs. Maliki was a militant sectarian his whole life, and the United States should not have been surprised when he continued to act that way once he became Prime Minister. As Emma Sky, who served as a senior adviser to the American military during the war in Iraq, put it, “The problem was the policy, and the policy was to give unconditional support to Nuri al-Maliki.” (Sky’s book, “The Unraveling,” is the essential text on how everything fell apart.) When the Americans helped install him, in 2006, he was a colorless mediocrity with deeply sectarian views. By 2011, he was an unrivalled strongman with control over a vast military and security apparatus. Who enabled that?

First, it was the Bush White House. Then the Obama White House—Clinton was a part of that team, of course, but the official with primary responsibility for Iraq was Vice-President Joe Biden. Biden was a firm backer of Maliki, because it was through Maliki that the Americans seemed sure of an easy exit.

The real turning point in Iraq came not in 2011, when the last American troops departed, but in 2010, following national elections there. In the long deadlock that followed the voting, American diplomats backed away, acquiescing to an Iranian-brokered deal to allow Maliki to continue as Prime Minister. The constitutionality of the deal was deeply suspect, but the Americans averted their eyes. The Iranian price for backing Maliki was clear: he would throw out the American troops. “We were so focussed on getting out that we let the Iranians form the government,” Sky said.

Hillary took forever to respond to Jeb's charges which does not speak well of the campaign she's running.  More importantly, she's gotten a pass for Sullivan's statement that Hillary believes the problem with the Iraq War includes that Bully Boy Bush did not send enough troops in.

War Hawk Hillary was not an action figure the American public wanted to buy in 2008 and it's doubtful they will in 2016.  Willing to repeatedly remind the American voters that Hillary supported the war and voted for it in 2002 is Lincoln Chafee.  William Petroski (Des Moines Register) reports:


Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee told Iowa State Fair goers Saturday the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a mistake based on false information and he’s proud he rejected the arguments of the nation’s pro-war leaders.
Chafee, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, was a Republican serving in the U.S. Senate at the time. He was the only Republican senator to vote against the use of military force against Iraq. Advocates of the war argued force was needed to protect the United States from further terrorist attacks after Sept. 11, 2001.
“I did my homework and I went down to CIA and I found there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. It was all a hoax,” Chafee said in remarks at The Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox.


Meanwhile in the ongoing Iraq War, the violence never ends.  Murtada Farag (AP) counts 22 dead from bombs in Baghdad and immediately around Baghdad today.  Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 99 dead from violence on Friday.








iraq
antiwar.com
margaret griffis

Media manipulation

At IHC, James Tracy writes:


Can this merely be dismissed as “conspiracy theory”? It is well established that CNN and NPR have collaborated with US military psychological warfare experts in recent years. “CNN had hosted a total of five interns from U.S. Army Psyops, two in television, two in radio, and one in satellite operations,” Project Censored noted in the early 2000s, citing coverage of the phenomenon in both alternative and mainstream outlets.

The military/CNN personnel belonged to the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the main tasks of this group of almost 1,200 soldiers and officers is to spread “selected information.” The propaganda group was involved in the Gulf War, the war in Bosnia, and the crisis in Kosovo.
The military personnel stayed with CNN for at least two weeks “to get to know the company and to broaden their horizons.” Collins maintains that “they didn’t work under the control of the army.” The temporary outplacement of U.S. Army Psyops personnel in various sectors of society began a couple of years ago. Contract periods vary from weeks to one year.

In light of the Sandy Hook and Aurora events, in addition to other sensationalized mass shootings like those referenced above, it is not unreasonable to question whether CNN and other major news outlets are again carrying out such exercises. Given the corporate news media and federal government’s accelerating arrogance and lack of accountability, would the public ever be privy to such a scheme?


I really wish Bonnie Faulkner (Guns & Butter) would have Tracy on to discuss this article.

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

Thursday, August 13, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Haider al-Abadi is in a tizzy over remarks by US General Ray Odierno, Haider's military bombed a maternity hospital killing dozens including infants, media criticism is not partisan whoring, Hillary Clinton's bloodlust appears to be never ending, and much more.




Haider al-Abadi can't stop shooting his stupid mouth off.

He's always declaring war on someone -- mainly logic and intelligence are the targets whenever Haider opens that stupid mouth of his.

Reuters notes Abadi's "media office said it was surprised at the comments attributed to Odierno, which it considered 'irresponsible and reflecting ignorance of the Iraqi situation'."


There was nothing irresponsible or ignorant about Odierno's remarks.

There was something grossly irresponsible about someone threatening to kill Americans over what Congress might do and the person making those threats publicly was a member of Haider's cabinet and yet the grossly obese Haider had no comment on that.  (See May 4th's "Barzani visits the US and did the Badr militia just threaten the US?" about the remarks of the Transport Minister Hadi al-Amiri.)


Public threats of violence made by a member of his Cabinet and Haider didn't open his yap for one second.


Here's the actual exchange that has Haider soiling his underwear and screaming his head off.



[Q:] General, given your experience in Iraq, and you talked earlier about the growing conflict between Shia and Sunni, and the increased influence now of Iran inside Iraq, even militarily, do you see any possibility that there can be any reconciliation in Iraq between the Sunni and Shia?



GEN. ODIERNO: I think it's becoming more difficult by the day. And I think there might be some alternative solutions that might have to come into this sometime in the future, where Iraq might not look like it did in the past. But we have to wait and see how that plays out.
I think we have to deal with ISIL first, and then we have to decide what it will look like afterwards.


Q: Are you talking about the possibility of partitioning?



 GEN. ODIERNO: Well, I mean, I think that is for the region and politicians to kind of figure out, diplomats to figure out how we want to work this, but that is something that could happen. It might be the only solution, but I'm not ready to say that yet.



He was asked his opinion and he answered.

And now Haider wants to whine like the little bitch that he is.

Haider doesn't want to stop bombing civilians in Falluja.

The fat ass liar pretended he did on September 13, 2014 when he opened his big mouth and announced that those bombings were wrong (they are wrong, they're War Crimes) and that he had ordered the Iraqi military to stop the bombings.

And how the press rushed to prop the puppet up.

But 24 hours later it was September 14, 2014 and the bombings continued.

Continued, never stopped.

Continue to this day.

And honestly, is the US government unable to find one thin Iraqi politician to put in power?

What is this obsession with one grossly obese figure after another being put in power?

Maybe the White House needs to start shipping treadmills to Iraq?

And if  Florida's Cabana Bay Beach Resort hotel can open a Jack LaLanne fitness center, maybe it's time to open one in the Green Zone as well?

If I were one of the millions of struggling Iraqis, I don't think I'd be looking at the likes of never-miss-a-meal Haider or Jalal Talabani or Nouri al-Maliki or . . . favorably.


Odierno did not bring up the topic, he was asked about it and he offered an opinion.

In that opinion, he did not call for Iraq to be partitioned and noted that if the day came for that it would be a decision for the region.

The US is not in the region.

Does Haider not get that?

I get that some outlets -- such as Iraq Times -- went with screaming headlines proclaiming that Odierno had just called for Iraq to be partitioned.  But even those outlets in their actual reports went beyond the hysterical headlines.

Of course, Haider al-Abadi is a fake ass and his latest public tantrum is a distraction -- one that Reuters plays along with -- which allows the press to avoid addressing what took place in Falluja today.

These bombings by the Iraqi military that began in January 2014 and target the civilians are War Crimes.  Kitabat reports that today 70 civilians were wounded or killed by the warplane bombings which targeted a maternity hospital in western Falluja -- at least 23 children were killed.  Dr. Fadel Ahmed states that premature infants in incubators were "charred beyond recognition."

B-b-b-ut I don't read Arabic!  I have to take your word for it.

Russia Today notes:

Iraq’s Air Force has bombed a maternity hospital in Fallujah, located west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province. Over 20 people died in the blast, including women, children and medical personnel, according to local media. Another 30 were injured. “Iraqi army planes dropped three barrel bombs on the city’s maternity hospital, killing 31 people, including 23 women and children, and injuring 39 others,” al-Araby quoted Dr. Fadil Ahmad from the hospital as saying. “Some of the bodies are so badly burnt it is difficult to identify them, especially the babies. The maternity hospital is far from the fighting and it’s an old building and known by everyone.”


Where is the outcry?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Where is the outrage?          

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27

#Iraqi army crimes today bombed Hospital by barrels in Falluja killed 25 child & woman #Iraq @hrw @KenRoth

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

1. #IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27 15h15 hours ago

   #Iraqi army crimes today bombed Hospital by barrels in Falluja killed 25 child & woman #Iraq @hrw @KenRoth

   
   

   

   
   

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When I hear American idiots and asses rush to prop up this politician they drool over or that one they want to finger them, I think their hypocrisy is revealed by their inability, after 20 months and counting, to speak out against the bombings of civilians in Falluja.

They can't be bothered.

They can jerk off in public to everything else.

They can waste our time on their erotic fantasies of Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton (or Barack Obama or Bully Boy Bush), they just can't move beyond faux outrage to real outrage over the killing of innocent civilians by the Iraqi military which is intentionally targeting the Sunni civilians.

So spare me all your pretense that you are an ethical or caring person because you're just another whore in the main room of a bordello looking to turn tricks for the night.


Case in point: Elderly Prostitute Bob Somerby.


Here's Bob showing his wares, a hint of nipple on display, as he attempts to entice you (he just repulses me):

---------------------------------------------

First, a minor puzzlement. Early on, in paragraph 7, the two reporters offered the highlighted statement:

SHANE AND SCHMIDT (8/9/15): Mrs. Clinton, who has said she now regrets her unorthodox decision to keep private control of her official messages, is not a target in the F.B.I.’s investigation, which is focused on assessing security breaches. Against the backdrop of other current government computer security lapses, notably the large-scale theft of files from the Office of Personnel Management, most specialists believe the occasional appearance of classified information in the Clinton account was probably of marginal consequence.

Say what? Most specialists believe the matter is probably of marginal consequence?


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This thrills Bob.

He's thrilled.  He's happy.

Let's be clear what has him thrilled and happy: The newspaper just made a claim it does not back up and uses unnamed and unidentified sources ("most specialists").

So in other words, unnamed sources are allowed to speculate and the paper presents it as fact.

And Bob's thrilled.

But, at the end of last month, when the newspaper did the same thing but what got repeated wasn't pro-Hillary, Bob had a hissy fit.

How do you reconcile the two?

You don't.

He's not a media critic.

He hates unnamed sources when they don't back his beloved but when they do back his beloved Bob's jerking off and moaning in public.

One reason nothing changes for the better in terms of American media is because of this whoring.

When Bob puts his Clinton crack pipe down and is actually semi-functional, there's nothing he does that hasn't already been done by someone else -- and done better.

Take Nora Ephron.

The late film maker left journalism -- left media criticism -- specifically because of this crap.

Daniel Schorr was a damn liar.

But the left wanted to build him up into a hero.

He had a Congressional report, as a CBS News employee, entitled The Pike Report.  The Congressional committee decided not to release it.

He took it to The Village Voice which published it.

No problem there and you could even hale him as a whistle-blower.

Except the story didn't end there.

CBS News wanted to know who leaked it.

Schorr could have remained silent and that would have been fine.

What was not fine was for him to lie that Lesley Stahl was the one who gave the report to The Village Voice, to use as 'proof' that she was dating Village Voice reporter Aaron Latham (he and Lesley have been married since 1977, at the time they were not married).

The person responsible was going to be fired.

Daniel Schorr knew that.

And he deliberately lied.

His not confessing it was him?

Fine.

Stay silent.

But when you lie to cover your own ass?

That's not a whistle-blower and his actions were outrageous.

Nora wrote about them in the essay "Daniel Schorr."

She was then the media critic for Esquire magazine -- which paid her to be provocative and initiate debate.

But Esquire refused to run that column and she had to take it to More magazine to get it published (that was a 70s journalism review magazine and not the Cosmo wanna be that's published today under that same title).

Nora named names and the press acted as though she didn't.

Not only did Esquire refuse to print it, but as Ava and I noted in April 2014, the 557 paged The Most of Nora Ephron (published after her death) refused to include the June 1976  essay.

This despite the fact that it was something Nora was very proud of.

It led her to leave media criticism -- the reaction to this essay -- and turn to screen writing and directing, so she saw it as important for that reason.  But she was also glad, in the face of all the how-could-yous, that she had the courage to write the piece in the first place.

And she should have been proud -- it's a strongly written piece, it's a truth telling piece.

It did more than Bob Somerby could accomplish in 20 years.

You may be aware that he's always whining that the press won't name each other's names.

But when one does name, he ignores it.

He is completely ignorant of Nora Ephron's career as a media critic or why it ended.

But he wants to drone on endlessly about his college roommate Al Gore and pretend like that makes him a media critic.

He's just a partisan whore.

And he's far from alone.

I thought, for example, we were seeing something important in the Bully Boy Bush years as there was a revival of interest in the work of the late I.F. Stone.

But, you'll notice, we on the left lost interest in the truth teller once Barack Obama was sworn in as president.

When a Republican's in the White House, Pacifica Radio and The Nation feel the need to 'educate' the country (indoctrinate?) about how an I.F. Stone stood up to government, said not to trust any politician (not just don't trust Republicans) and how his work mattered.

But when Barack -- whom they rush to cover and excuse -- is in the White House, they're not so eager to 'educate' their listeners and readers about the importance of speaking out.

In "Oh, Obama," Elaine noted Glenn Greenwald's latest:

As everyone knows, “closing Guantánamo” was a centerpiece of the 2008 Obama campaign. In the Senate and then in the presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly and eloquently railed against the core, defining evil of Guantánamo: indefinite detention.
On the Senate floor, Obama passionately intoned in 2006: “As a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantánamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence.” During the 2008 campaign, he repeatedly denounced “the Bush Administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo.”
In the seventh year of Obama’s presidency, Guantánamo notoriously remains open, leaving one of his central vows unfulfilled. That, in turn, means that Democratic partisans have to scrounge around for excuses to justify this failure, to cast blame on someone other than the president, lest his legacy be besmirched. They long ago settled on the claim that blame (as always) lies not with Obama but with Congressional Republicans, who imposed a series of legal restrictions that impeded the camp’s closing.


Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum planning on writing those truths?


Of course not.

Truth doesn't matter to partisan whores.

For a prostitute like Somerby or Drum, words are things you twist and use against your enemy.

Which is why, as Rebecca noted in "mother jones and other fakes,"  Tuesday's 'battle' was reduced to 'idiot Jeb!'


Jeb Bush attacked Hillary for the current crises in Iraq maintaining she had responsibility for them due to having been US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2014 -- to be clear, Jeb was not blaming her for her 2002 vote backing war on Iraq.

That is a stupid charge -- and we went over that in Tuesday's snapshot.

That's not all we went over because, honestly, the 'news' that a Bush says something stupid really isn't news at this late date.  It's expected, to be sure.  It's common place.  But it's not breaking news that's going to shock the world.

But Mother Jones based their only report on the exchange or 'battle' on how stupid Jeb was.

I'm not debating or questioning Jeb's stupidity.

But the news factor in the 'battle' was Hillary dispatching Jake Sullivan to speak for her and Sullivan declaring not that Hillary believed her 2002 vote was a mistake but that the problem with the Iraq War was that Bully Boy Bush did not send enough troops in.

This claim was made despite the fact that as Senator Hillary Clinton, she opposed Bully Boy Bush's 2007 'surge' (sending more US troops into Iraq).

Hillary's position has changed repeatedly and twists and turns and coils against itself.

There is no consistency, there is no logic and she's looking more and more like a politician who will say anything to be elected and never sticks to her word.

That was the big story of the 'battle.'

But partisan whores didn't want to tell their readers, listeners, et al that Vote-for-me-Hillary-because-I-realize-finally-that-my-2002-vote-was-a-mistake was now insisting that the real problem was not the war and the lies told about it but instead the real problem was now that Bully Boy Bush didn't send enough US troops in.

How many exactly did or does Hillary want to have died in Iraq?

What number of kills will satisfy her blood lust?

Those were questions to ask.

Especially after Leo Shane III (Military Times) reported last week, "About 3,500 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, and seven have lost their lives in connection to the new military operations there."

How many more deaths does the Vampire Clinton need to feed on before she's satisfied her blood lust?

The media will never get better in this country because too many supposed media critics are nothing but partisan whores who only call out the media to advance their special gal or fella.

None of that whoring has ever helped Iraq and it never will.


Maybe sometime after January 2017, when Barack is finally and thankfully out of the White House, we can discuss how President ____ [whomever] is backing an Iraqi prime minister whose army is bombing civilians?

Maybe we can discuss how international treaties the US government has signed on to and how US law (including but not limited the Leahy Amendment) requires that the US government immediately stop supplying the government of Iraq with weapons and military aid as a result of these weapons being used to attack Iraqi civilians?

Maybe.

Or as Cat Power sang, "Maybe Not."

Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 282 violent deaths across Iraq today.







iraq
 leo shane iii

nora ephron
antiwar.com
margaret griffis