Monday, April 30, 2018

QUANTICO, THE ORIGINALS and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR


First off, QUANTICO came back last week.  Ava and C.I. cover it in “TV: QUANTICO gets retooled one more time” and I think they did a wonderful job.  I agree with them 100% including about Shelby looking like a kewpie doll for the episode as she was strapped to a chair.   QUANTICO airs on ABC on Thursday nights.  Also returning?  “The Originals” on THE CW and that link goes to my cousin Marcia’s post – she covers THE ORIGINALS.  Remember this is the final season of that show because THE CW is an idiot.  This really has become the finest show the network has and they’re trashing it.  Why?  Do they have another putrid DC comic to put on the schedule?  They really have gone to excess.  The only show I watch – superhero on THE CW – at this point is THE FLASH.  That show hasn’t ‘held up,’ it’s gotten better.  It’s the best superhero show – on THE CW or any other network.  It’s got a great cast and really utilizes everyone.  
 
 
 
 
On superheroes . . .
 
 
I saw the latest Avengers film on Friday.  Huge disappointment.  I didn’t want to post on Saturday and by Sunday just didn’t have the time.  AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is a big rip off.  We’re supposed to be shocked and saddened by the deaths (I won’t tell you who dies, I’ll try not to do any spoilers).  But they’re not dead.  They’ll all pretty much be alive next go round.  So what was the point?  A huge jerk off that we paid to see?
 
The sexism in the film just gets worse.
 
Scarlet Witch is hugely powerful but apparently the only one who knows that is Vision.  This was especially obvious when she was teamed up with two other women for her big fight scene.  It’s really bad, the sexism.
 
But the whole film’s bad.  At least BATMAN V. SUPERMAN only left one person ‘dead.’  There are so many deaths and, again, these will be overturned and the heroes brought back to life.  So it’s just nonsense.  Do something like that – deaths – at the start of a film and then show the return in the same film. 
 
To make it the ending is just b.s. because we know that they’re coming back to life.  It’s also not good for the kids.  I remember two crying at BATMAN V. SUPERMAN when Superman died. 
 
Stop jerking us around.


Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 
Monday, April 30, 2018.  THE WASHINGTON POST announces that US major combat operations have ended in Iraq . . . seemingly forgetting that they never announced that US major combat operations had begun in Iraq.


Tamer El-Ghobashy (WASHINGTON POST) types, "The headquarters coordinating the activities of American ground forces in Iraq closed down on Monday, marking the end of major combat operations against the Islamic State, said U.S. officials." Huh?  Why are those laughable words so strangely familiar?




Hmm.  A bulls**t reporter for a bulls**t outlet 'reports' a laughable claim that, in fact, echos Bully Boy Bush's own words from 2003.

Is it a story?

Yes, it is.  Because following the strikes on Syria, US President Donald Trump Tweeted "Mission accomplished" and the press felt there was a need to compare it to Bully Boy Bush's speech above -- even though Bully Boy Bush did not say "Mission accomplished" in his speech (he did stand under a banner sporting those two words).  The press was highly critical of Donald, in fact, here's the opening of one piece:

If there was a new employee handbook for people who’d just obtained the position of “leader of the free world,” there would be some surefire entries in the section about presidential phrases to avoid:
I am not a crook,” would be an easy one, for reasons both obvious and historical.
New hires would also be discouraged from summing up economic policy stances with the phrase: “Read my lips. No new taxes.”
And then there is “Mission Accomplished,” the historically loaded phrase President Trump tweeted Saturday after U.S.-led airstrikes in coordination with British and French forces that struck the “heart” of Syria’s chemical weapons network.


Does Tamer recognize those words?  Does THE POST?  Because they are from THE WASHINGTON POST, specifically Cleve R. Wootsen Jr.'s "Trump's 'Mission Accomplished' tweet, and the premature declaration that haunted George W. Bush."  In fact, five years after Bully Boy Bush declared the end of major combat operations, CBS NEWS noted:


Now in its sixth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of at least 4,058 members of the U.S. military - 3,924 of whom have died since Mr. Bush landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed (the true number may never be known, since the Iraqi government does not record tallies of the dead), and millions have been displaced from their homes. And there are currently more U.S. troops in Iraq than there were when the U.S. invaded with a contingent of other coalition forces.


 Major combat operations had not ended when the government said they had in 2003 but the lazy and lapdog press repeated the claim as if it was true.  All these years later, THE WASHINGTON POST does so again.  Without questioning, please note, and after they've slammed and ridiculed Trump for using the term "Mission accomplished."

Does the press ever get that they are the problem?

Nope.  They just mindlessly finger point while never going for even a minute of self-examination -- even when it's THE WASHINGTON POST -- second only to THE NEW YORK TIMES in selling the Iraq War.

What's really going on?  Seth J. Frantzman (JERUSALEM POST) speaks with US Brigadier General Andrew Croft and offers, "THE COALITION is now focusing on transitioning from the anti-ISIS combat operations of last year to securing and stabilizing Iraq 'as the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] become more capable,' says Croft."

Not only does THE POST miss that, it misses so damn much.

It repeats what the Pentagon tells it to type, major combat operations have ended.

But, golly, gee, it doesn't question at all.

Meaning, not just that it doesn't question the so-called end, but also that it ignores what just took place. Major combat operations.  The US troops involved in major combat operations in Iraq.

This despite two presidents -- Barack Obama and Donald Trump -- denying that US troops sent into Iraq in 2014 and after were involved in combat operations.

Dropping back to October 26, 2014 for Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Barack Prepares."



"






Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Barack Prepares."  A confused Josh Earnest asks, "What's he doing?"  Valerie Jarrett explains, "Ballet slippers on the ground are not boots on the ground."   Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.


The press let two presidents lie about what was taking place in Iraq.  Today, when the press whispers in their ears that major combat operations have ended, THE WASHINGTON POST can't even grasp what a revelation that claim is.  It's an admission that the troops were involved in combat operations despite repeated assurances and lies otherwise from two sitting presidents.  It was always combat operations, despite the press denials.  When you are bombing from planes, as the US was, that is a combat mission.  Yet the press has repeatedly let two presidents lie and, even now, cannot get honest about what the words actually mean.

They do not mean combat operations have really ended anymore than they meant that when Bully Boy Bush made the claim in 2003.

But they do mean that the American people were repeatedly lied to and that, once again, the press did not do its job.

it's wild that the media is more self-critical about the white house correspondents dinner than its coverage of the the iraq war
 
 


It is wild but it is also very telling and goes to the fact that nothing in the press has really changed.  No lessons were learned from their Iraq War coverage, from their cheering on a war with dubious claims that they presented as facts.

Moving over to a different topic . . .

Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani will issue words of guidance next Friday in regards to the upcoming May 12 parliamentary elections.
 
 


May 12th, elections are supposed to take place in Iraq.  Ali Jawad (ANADOLU AGENCY) notes, "A total of 24 million Iraqis are eligible to cast their ballots to elect members of parliament, who will in turn elect the Iraqi president and prime minister."  RUDAW adds, "Around 7,000 candidates have registered to stand in the May 12 poll, with 329 parliamentary seats up for grabs."  AFP explains that the nearly 7,000 candidates includes 2014 women.   RUDAW also notes that 60 Christian candidates are competing for the five allotted minority seats.  The chief issues?  Mustapha Karkouti (GULF NEWS) identifies them as follows, "Like in previous elections, the main concerns of ordinary Iraqis continue to be the lack of security and the rampant corruption."

As noted in the April 3rd snapshot, pollster Dr. Munqith Dagher has utilized data on likely voters and predicts that Hayder al-Abadi's Al-Nasr will win 72 seats in the Parliament, al-Fath (the militias) will get 37 seats, Sa'eroon (Moqtada al-Sadr's new grouping) will get 27 seats, Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law will get 19 seats, al-Salam will get 18 seats (KDP and PUK parties for the Kurds), Ayad Allawi's Wataniya will get 15 seats. There are others but Dagher did not predict double digits for any of the other seats. The number are similar for the group of those who are extremely likely to vote (Hayder's seats would jump from 72 to 79 seats).  Other predictions?  The Middle East Insstitute's Fanar Haddad insists to Sammy Ketz (AFP) that the post of prime minister will come down to one of three people: Hayder al-Abadi (current prime minister), Nouri al-Maliki (two time prime minister and forever thug) or Hadi al-Ameria "a leader of Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary network that played a pivotal role in defeating IS. Ameri comes from Diyala province and is a statistics graduate from Baghdad University. He fled to Iran in 1980 after Saddam executed top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr. The 64-year old is widely viewed as Tehran's favoured candidate."

Women running for office in Iraq this go round have been targeted with rumors and smears.  This is not a good thing.  Unless you're a sick f**k.  Zvi Bar'el (HAARETZ) offers:

But if in the past, harassment of women candidates was rare, this time it’s clear that Iraqi women are perceived as a political threat that makes them a target for harassment. This is a major headliner in the Iraqi media and is stirring public debate. Some Iraqi pundits have said they consider the harassment a positive sign that women are gaining more power in Iraqi politics.                                                   


Again, what a sick f**k.  This is not progress.  It is not as if Iraqi male politicians have been accused of having affairs during campaign seasons and now this is being applied to women as well.

This is not progress.  It is another attempt to run women out of politics in Iraq.

To see this attack as progress is to voice your extreme stupidity in public.


Cindy Sheehan and Jody Watley have updated at their sites:



  • New content at THIRD:

    Thursday, April 26, 2018

    It may be time to wrap up EMPIRE


    EMPIRE just wasn't worth it this season.  Leave out Demi Moore and you had nothing.

    Sweet Cookie was boring as hell and not helped by the lack of a sure footed storyline.

    We need Cookie who does real damage.  Sweet Cookie is a yawn.

    Anika is missed so when she showed up at the end, teaming with Forest Whittaker to take down Lucious (provided she gets to be CEO of Empire Records) it was good.

    Until I realized that I'd seen this before.

    Over and over.

    Which was true of the whole episode.  Crazy Dre.  Jamal doesn't want anything to do with him.  Hakim forgives him the minute Dre can promote his career.

    We've seen it all before.

    The show just repeats season after season.

    It needs to move forward and we need storylines that are planned out not put together on the fly.

    Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    Thursday, April 26, 2018.  The war continues as does the disinformation campaign.


    The people attacking Kanye West aren't very smart.




    Obama was in office for eight years and nothing in Chicago changed.





    Replying to 


    Obama Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last troops left on December 18, 2011.





    No, they didn't.



    Vivek, I'm sorry that you're such a dumb piece of s**t who, all these years later, still can't learn a thing.  Clearly, you have some desire to be deceived if, at this late date, you're still repeating these falsehoods.



    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 BLUE


    All those pretty lies, Vivek needs to hear all those pretty lies.


    There was no withdrawal, Vivek.  It was a "drawdown."  Even the US Defense Dept called it that.  A drawdown is not a withdrawal and DoD does understand the difference.

    Had you paid attention in real time, you might have caught what was actually taking place.  In the December 12, 2011 snapshot we noted this:



    MR. KOPPEL:  I realize you can't go into it in any detail, but I would assume that there is a healthy CIA mission here.  I would assume that JSOC may still be active in this country, the joint special operations.  You've got FBI here. You've got DEA here.  Can, can you give me sort of a, a menu of, of who all falls under your control?

     

     


    AMB.  JAMES JEFFREY:  You're actually doing pretty well, were I authorized to talk about half of this stuff.



    JSOC -- Joint Special Operations Command.  That's US military, Vivek.

    Or from the December 13, 2011 snapshot:



     


     

    CONAN: Though the president cheers his accomplishment, you say not so fast.

     

     


    KOPPEL: I do say not so fast, and I think he knows better. But he's right, he did make the campaign promise to get all the troops out, and all the troops will be out, save 157 who will be guarding the embassy, and a few hundred U.S. military trainers. But as you pointed out, 16 to 17 thousand others will be remaining behind, and the extraordinary thing, Neal, is we're hearing echoes now of what we heard nine years ago. You know, we can't have that smoking gun be a mushroom cloud. No one is actually using that particular formulation anymore, but the fear of nuclear weapons. The danger of a nation that is supporting terrorism. Oil, which was the great unspoken issue in 2002 and 2003, very much a part of this. The difference, of course, now is that the target is Iran, not Iraq. But the two are very close to one another, and the fact of the matter is that Iran is exercising an enormous influence throughout Iraq. And the oil fields, which have under the surface, they have something - I believe it's the second-largest reserves of any country in the world. That's all very close to Iran, and if Iran were to exercise significant political, let alone military, control in that region, together with their own oil and gas, they would have the capacity to wreak havoc on Western economies.



    You missed that, Vivek?  What a great brag for you.  No, US forces did not all leave Iraq.  And the fact that the CIA remained in Iraq tells you even more.  Private contractors remained as well.  The way the US occupies a country was changing before your eyes but you chose not to see.  And now you show up to attack Kanye who, please note, didn't even mention Iraq in the Tweet you 'responded' to.  Vivek is both uninformed and unable to debate.

    Vivek just likes pretty men who tell him pretty lies.


    Meanwhile, Jeff Schogol (TASK AND PURPOSE) reports:


    ISIS may have lost most of its self-declared caliphate, but a new jihadist group is trying to rise from ISIS’ ashes in northern Iraq.


    The group, whose name is translated from Arabic as “the White Banner” or “the White Flags,” is an ISIS-offshoot that is located primarily around Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, said Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.


    “Whether they or not they call themselves a different name, they still have ISIS elements and they are still targets for the coalition and for the Iraqi security forces,” Dillon said during a Tuesday news conference. “I know that the Iraqi security forces recognize this group and have aggressively pursued them.”



    The violence continues in Iraq.  Nehal Mostafa (IRAQI NEWS) reports, "Five police personnel were killed, injured in an attack launched by Islamic State members, south of Kirkuk, an informed security source said on Thursday."



    Kurd Election Official Assassinated; 10 Killed in Iraq At least 10 people were killed, and nine were wounded in other violence: In Erbil, four gunmen attacked and assassinated Fars Mohammed, the general-director of administration for the electoral comm...




    In other news . . .



    . delegation to Washington of , , met with DAS for Iran and Iraq to discuss outlook for Iraqi elections and developments in the region







    May 12th, elections are supposed to take place in Iraq.  Ali Jawad (ANADOLU AGENCY) notes, "A total of 24 million Iraqis are eligible to cast their ballots to elect members of parliament, who will in turn elect the Iraqi president and prime minister."  RUDAW adds, "Around 7,000 candidates have registered to stand in the May 12 poll, with 329 parliamentary seats up for grabs."  AFP explains that the nearly 7,000 candidates includes 2014 women.   RUDAW also notes that 60 Christian candidates are competing for the five allotted minority seats.  The chief issues?  Mustapha Karkouti (GULF NEWS) identifies them as follows, "Like in previous elections, the main concerns of ordinary Iraqis continue to be the lack of security and the rampant corruption."




    Candidates across Iraq’s Anbar province are campaigning for the upcoming elections.


    0:58

    718 views








    As noted in the April 3rd snapshot, pollster Dr. Munqith Dagher has utilized data on likely voters and predicts that Hayder al-Abadi's Al-Nasr will win 72 seats in the Parliament, al-Fath (the militias) will get 37 seats, Sa'eroon (Moqtada al-Sadr's new grouping) will get 27 seats, Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law will get 19 seats, al-Salam will get 18 seats (KDP and PUK parties for the Kurds), Ayad Allawi's Wataniya will get 15 seats. There are others but Dagher did not predict double digits for any of the other seats. The number are similar for the group of those who are extremely likely to vote (Hayder's seats would jump from 72 to 79 seats).  Other predictions?  The Middle East Insstitute's Fanar Haddad insists to Sammy Ketz (AFP) that the post of prime minister will come down to one of three people: Hayder al-Abadi (current prime minister), Nouri al-Maliki (two time prime minister and forever thug) or Hadi al-Ameria "a leader of Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary network that played a pivotal role in defeating IS. Ameri comes from Diyala province and is a statistics graduate from Baghdad University. He fled to Iran in 1980 after Saddam executed top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr. The 64-year old is widely viewed as Tehran's favoured candidate."



    One of the new elements this election cycle has been the efforts to smear female candidates.  This week,  Seth J. Frantzman (JERUSALEM POST) reported:
     

    IRAQ’S 2005 constitution reserves a quarter of the seats in parliament for women, but in practice, women hold only about 17%. In this election women candidates, who feature prominently on many electoral posters, have been targeted by misogynistic attacks. A purported sex video circulated online ended the candidacy of Prof. Intidhar Ahmed Jassim, a member of Abadi’s party. Another video of Dr. Heshu Rebwar Ali, a KDP candidate, was circulated allegedly showing her in a short dress.



    In another bizarre episode, two tribes in Najaf came into conflict after a video showed a 20-year old male from one tribe kissing the campaign poster of a female candidate from the other. In the end, $84,000 was paid to satisfy the “honor” of the woman’s tribe. The instances of targeting women illustrates the use of salacious rumors to harm candidates and tends to target successful women, reducing their chances of running and of other women’s willingness to do so.

    And, last Friday, we noted:

    RUDAW reports:

    The Victory (Nasr) Coalition of Haider al-Abadi has withdrawn the candidacy of one of its members after an alleged sex tape of her was circulated online. The candidate said the video is a fake and a plot against her, but has submitted her resignation.

    “Every faction and coalition reserves the right to revoke the [membership] of any candidate who does not meet the laws and conditions. This female candidate has worked contrary to the laws of the Nasr Coalition,” Hussein al-A’dily, spokesperson for the list told Rudaw.

    The candidate, Intidhar Ahmed Jassim, is a professor of economy and administration at al-Muntansaryah University in Baghdad and has a PhD in the same field. She is married and has three children.

    She said the video shared online allegedly showing her having sex with another man is a fake.

    “Some fake pages, supported by some parties, talked about a fabricated and photo-shopped video to ruin my reputation. I don’t ever fall. Iraq progresses forward,” she posted on Facebook.

    She reminded her followers that she has served Iraq as a professor for a long time and has held other positions as well.



    In response to these attacks and smears, one government issued a statement.





    The Embassy of Canada condemns the public defamation campaigns that have been specifically targeting women candidates in the parliamentary elections, Please check the link:








    The following community sites -- plus BLACK AGENDA REPORT, PACIFICA EVENING NEWS and DISSIDENT VOICE -- updated:




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