Monday, October 8, 2018

Grab bag

avenatti


Above is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Avenatti" from Sunday and  Kat's "Kat's Korner: WANDERER proves Cat Power is still the greatest" also went up Sunday.

Need to note Marcia and Ruth's guy Aaron Mate.

  Retweeted
We have created a liberal political culture wherein it's fashionable, let alone acceptable, to blame Susan Sarandon or Russian trolls for Donald Trump. If that isn't rock bottom denial -- for the purpose of absolving failed liberal elites -- I don't know what is.





Exactly.  This hissing at Susan Sarandon is really ticking me off.  And I'm a Democrat.  I'm getting tired of it.  It's ugly and it's not even correct.


On movies, I saw A STAR IS BORN with my girlfriend and was so not impressed.  Was going to write about it but saw my cousing Marcia's "An Audience Is Bored" which basically said everything.


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


Who’s the terrorist??? Kurdish people life in Iraq. Iran.Turkey. . Syria In their own home. No justice no peace. Do the Kurds have any rights? No. So what’s the solution? 50 million in their Owen land. Are they going to kill all of them? Is UNHCR and whole world see that?


That's in response to the latest threats from Turkey's government.  REUTERS notes, "Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday vowed to 'finish' Kurdish militants in Iraq’s Sinjar and Qandil regions to avenge eight Turkish soldiers killed in a bomb attack in southeastern Turkey earlier this week."  He's referring to the PKK.  Aaron Hess (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW) described the PKK in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk."   Erdogan has gone a holy tear against the PKK -- despite a cease-fire at one point -- in the last ten years or so.  While pretending that he's striking only the PKK, the reality is that the populated mountains in northern Iraq contain many villagers and farmers who have been killed.  The western press isn't very interested in noting these deaths because they're eager to court the despot that is Erdogan.  When his bodyguards attacked American citizens in DC, his ass should have been ejected from the country immediately and informed that the next time his bodyguards violently attacked American citizens on American soil, there would be no 'diplomatic immunity' to get out of the country with.  Instead, the May 17, 2017 attack in DC resulted in 'charges' that magically vanished the day before then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was due to meet with Recep Tayyip Erdogan.





"Who attacked you?" the man with the bloodied face is asked.  "The Turks," he replies, "the Turks attacked me."  This took place in DC.

Bethan McKernan (INDEPENDENT) reported:







Shocking video filmed by eyewitnesses show several men in dark suits - later identified as members of the visiting Turkish delegation - rushing at the protesters, punching and knocking several of them to the ground. 
An elderly man holding a megaphone was kicked in the face, and several women were also hit.  [. . .]
“All of the sudden they just ran towards us,” demonstrator Lucy Usoyan told ABC News.
“Someone was beating me in the head nonstop, and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m on the ground already, what is the purpose to beat me?’”

The US State Dept issued the following in response to the assault on the protesters:


Press Statement

Heather Nauert
Department Spokesperson
Washington, DC
May 17, 2017




We are concerned by the violent incidents involving protestors and Turkish security personnel Tuesday evening. Violence is never an appropriate response to free speech, and we support the rights of people everywhere to free expression and peaceful protest.
We are communicating our concern to the Turkish government in the strongest possible terms.



They were 'concerned.'  Not concerned enough.  Almost a year later, in March 2018,  Keith L. Alexander (WASHINGTON POST) reported:


Prosecutors in recent months have dropped assault charges against several security guards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who were allegedly involved in a melee last May outside the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington.
Video of the incident, which showed guards for the visiting Turkish president charging and beating protesters who had gathered outside the Sheridan Circle residence, sparked international condemnation.
Fifteen guards were indicted in July, but federal prosecutors in the District dismissed charges against four members of Erdogan’s security detail in November. Last month, they dropped the cases against seven others.
Charges against four guards remain active, though the men left the country soon after the incident and experts have said it is unlikely they will ever be put on trial.

That's what happens when you let trash in the country and Recep is trash.  There was no apology from him.  It was an international incident that his people caused on US soil and yet no apology.  Because he's trash.  Just as he thought it was fine for his thugs to attack peaceful protesters in DC, he thinks it's fine for his war planes to drop bombs on Iraq and for his Turkish forces to go into Iraq and terrorize northern Iraq.

Turkey out of Iraq - Kurdistan ..






Asked to leave by the government of Iraq, Recep just ignores the request.

He's trash and Turkey's not going to progress until they get rid of him.  They will remain a blight on the world as long as Recep remains in charge.  [He's been President of Turkey since 2014; prior to that he was prime minister from 2003 to 2014.]

Near the end of Bully Boy Bush's occupation of the US White House, Erdogan agreed to give up land near Turkey's southern border (the one they share with northern Iraq) for a CIA installation and, ever since, the US government has been kissing Recep's ass.

But the US government hasn't been noble -- or even honest -- in the region, so what do we expect?


Reunion of war criminals who starved 500,000 children to death with unjust sanctions, started a war against Iraq on a pack of lies, killing and displacing millions and giving rise ISIS, and turned Libya, a once prosperous country, into a safe haven for slave-selling terrorists.






Instead of the condemning those three deserve, they're celebrated by a hacktress who finally found success late in life by playing imperial tool on CBS' low rated MADAM SECRETARY.  She was more believable as a bimbo model playing a detective on the CHARLIE'S ANGEL reboot that never came to pass.




Replying to 
For the record - Arundhati's eloquent statement on Iraq's experience






Arundhati Roy called it correctly.


Turning to the topic of women in Iraq, Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) notes, "In Basra, gunmen killed a woman who owned a beauty shop."  The murder continues the series of murders targeting Iraqi women of late.  Robin Smith (NEWS.COM) reported Friday:


“I’M not afraid of the one who denies the existence of God, but I’m really afraid of the one who kills and chops off heads to prove the existence of God.”
That’s what Tara Fares wrote on Instagram to her 2.8 million followers in July. Two months later she was murdered in a brazen, daylight attack.
The model known for her risque posts was shot several times by a man who leaned in to the window of her white Porsche as she drove through Baghdad last week.
Her death is the latest in a string of attacks on popular women and activists who dare to speak up for change in Muslim-majority Iraq.
It follows the death of a woman known as “Iraq’s Barbie”, plastic surgeon Dr Rafeef al-Yassiri, who many believe was poisoned over her work offering cosmetic surgery victims of war.
Soad al-Ali, another prominent female activist, was gunned down in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in what police described as a “purely personal” attack.



“All women entering public life are targets,” Hanaa Edwar, a women’s rights activist based in Baghdad, told BuzzFeed News. “Fares had more than 2 million followers. All of the women killed were courageous, ambitious women with strong personalities.”
As a consequence, Edwar said, many Iraqi women are withdrawing from public life.
“We have seen so many businesswomen in Basra stop their activities; young women in media have gone into hiding; women are deactivating or changing their social media profiles. Some of them have changed homes, are living low-key and under the radar. These killings are spreading fear and terrifying young women and feminists.”







interviewed by the German DW about the killings of women in Iraq while in the airport - leaving for safety. This is not about a conservative society, it is about a misogynist Islamic militia rule supported by Iran.

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In the US, IAVA issued the following Friday:

New York, NY (October 5, 2018) — Today, as the world watches the Kavanaugh vote, and continues to debate issues relating to women and survivors of sexual assault, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the leading advocacy voice for post-9/11 veterans, after a week of generating headlines for our Big 6 Advocacy Priorities, ended a historic “Storm the Hill” grassroots advocacy activation week in Washington with a focus on women veterans and the groundbreaking #SheWhoBorneTheBattle campaign.
The bipartisan Deborah Sampson Act, sponsored in the House by Representatives Elizabeth Esty (D-CT) and veterans Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Martha McSally (R-AZ), and in the Senate by Senators Jon Tester (D-MT) and John Boozman (R-AR), is named for a Revolutionary War soldier who disguised herself as a man to fight in the war. The historic bill now has 75 House cosponsors, plus 29 in the Senate.
“After the last few weeks of a national discussion focused on sexual assault, the Deborah Sampson Act for women veterans is more urgent than ever. Plenty of politicians say they support women veterans. If they really support women veterans, they should show it now by signing on to this critical legislation. And any candidate running for office should show they are committed to our community by focusing on the critical moral, social and national security imperatives of this campaign,” said Paul Rieckhoff, IAVA’s Founder and CEO. He continued, delivering a message directly to Members of Congress: “Many of you are stuck in Washington right now waiting for a possible Kavanaugh vote. While you’re still there, waiting, please stop talking and show women troops and vets that you are committed to their health, safety and well-being by signing on to support the Deborah Sampson Act now.”
Over 345,000 women have deployed since 9/11. While the number of male veterans is expected to decline in the next decades, the population of women veterans will increase. Women continue to take on new roles and responsibilities throughout the services. Yet, their service and sacrifice is often overlooked, to their peril. New suicide numbers released last week by the Department of Veterans Affairs showed that in 2016, the suicide rate for women vets was 1.8 higher than for civilians.
Though the quality of care and services provided by the VA for all veterans needs to dramatically improve, this is particularly critical for women veterans. From 2003 through 2012, women’s use of VA health care services increased 80 percent, with women veterans proportionately using mental health services more intensively than men. Not only do women veterans encounter barriers to care and benefits, they do so in a culture that often does not accept them or fully recognize them as veterans. They also face stunningly high rates of sexual assault.
Despite calls from IAVA and dozens of leading allied veterans and military organizations, President Trump has remained silent on calls for the VA to change its motto and support the Deborah Sampson Act.
The time to act is now. Improving access to care and benefits while changing the underlying culture to one inclusive of women is imperative to the success of the VA. This glaring problem is best exemplified in the gendered and outdated motto that greets every person, male and female, who walk into the VA: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
IAVA’s She Who Borne the Battle campaign is focused on righting this wrong and transforming the landscape for women veterans in our country forever. We need to take the American people to a place where women vets are envisioned just as readily as men. Congress must act to not only bring equality to VA healthcare for women, but also resource-sensible services like childcare. “Access to Quality Care for Our Veterans” should be gender blind, which in the case of supporting single parents, can impact men just as much as women.
OUR GOALS INCLUDE:
  1. Foster Culture and Leadership Change in the VA
  2. Strengthen Data and Transparency Through Research
  3. Support Women’s Peer Programs
  4. Increase Initiatives to Better Inform on Existing Programs
  5. Require High Level of Community Care Cooperation
Time Magazine has called IAVA “…the most important organization representing the new generation of veterans.”

Note to media: Email press@iava.org or call 212-982-9699 to speak with IAVA CEO and Founder Paul Rieckhoff or IAVA leadership.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (www.IAVA.org) is the leading post-9/11 veteran empowerment organization (VEO) with the most diverse and rapidly growing membership in America. As a non-profit founded in 2004, IAVA’s mission is to connect, unite and empower post-9/11 veterans. Celebrating its 12th year anniversary, IAVA has connected more than 1.2 million veterans with resources and community, and provided more than 7,300 veterans with personalized support from IAVA’s Master’s level social workers.


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Avenatti" and Kat's "Kat's Korner: WANDERER proves Cat Power is still the greatest" went up yesterday.



Thursday, October 4, 2018

Getting damn tired of the nutso


Alyssa Milano, Bette Midler, all the nuts.  All going crazy and all self-obsessed with their own celebrity and their own sense of entitlement.

The US government is at war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen . . .  The government also carries out The Drone War.  None of that bothered Alyssa or Bette or any of these spoiled ass idiots.

But that they might have a Supreme Court justice they don't like?

Oh, let's scream about women's rights!

Where are you 365 days of the year?  Where are you when women are under attack in Iraq?

You are self-obsessed and you act like nuts. 

Amy Schumer hasn't been funny in forever.  But she did manage to get a 'record' today.  Not a comedy album but an arrest for protesting. 

Your hysteria is outrageous.

You don't give a damn about anything except what?  Your own damn self?

Kavanaugh has enough reasons not to support him if you're on the left like me.  But Alyssa and the Democratic Party didn't want to do the 'heavy' lifting because lazy asses never do.

They didn't want to educate the American people on his record.  So they just went with assault.

Maybe Dr. Blasey was assaulted maybe she wasn't.  She didn't make her case to me.  The second and the third women are not to be believed and I don't say maybe on them.  Second one was asking friends if it was Kavanaugh that exposed himself to her.  If she has to ask, she doesn't know, so shut up.  The third woman claims there was this ritual and repeated rape weekends going on forever.  Where are the victims?  An ongoing rape weekend, why didn't this get reported to the police?

Dr. Blasey may be telling the truth.  I don't know, she didn't make her case for me.  I'm not going to say she was lying because she may be telling the truth.  The others are liars by the nature of their narratives.

But a real case could have been made against Kavanaugh -- such as his failure to follow grand jury rules which show a lack of faith in the rules and a desire to break the law -- but they didn't want to get into his record, they just wanted to scream and scream.

And that's what Amy did today. 

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

 
Thursday, October 4, 2018.  Let's look at Iraq's new prime minister today.


Iraq finally has a president and an prime minister-designate.  Possibly the long delay (elections were held May 12th, Tuesday they finally named a president) has left some confused?  Martin Chulov, for example, wrote at THE GUARDIAN:


Under Iraq’s postwar constitution, the president must be a Kurd, the prime minister a Shia, and the speaker of parliament a Sunni. The divisions of authority give the three dominant sects a stake in the country’s affairs. However, power is often bitterly contested along sectarian lines leading to regular governance breakdowns and a long list of grievances – including complaints of rampant corruption, sclerotic services and a bloated, inefficient public sector.


That's wrong.  That's just flat out wrong.

When I saw it yesterday afternoon, I almost posted about it but thought, "Oh, they'll correct it in an hour or two."  They still haven't.  That doesn't speak well for THE GUARDIAN.

The Constitution of Iraq calls for the president to be an Iraqi by birth.

That's it.

There is nothing in the Constitution saying they must be a Kurd.

The president a Kurd, the Speaker of Parliament a Sunni and the prime minister a Shi'ite is something that has been worked out from outside of the Constitution.  It can be argued it is now custom; however, it can not be argued that it is law and you certainly cannot state that it is written into the Constitution when it is not.

Chulov notes that Adel Abdul-Mahdi has been named prime minister-designate and that "Abdul Mahdi, 76, a former oil minister, has been given 30 days to assemble a cabinet to be approved by Iraq’s parliament."


Balsam Mustafa has some issued with Mina Aldroubi's latest for THE NATIONAL:


Balsam Mustafa Retweeted Mina Aldroubi
Some issues in this article: 1st: He was not elected but tapped Second:why there isn't any reference to his previous political alignments as a communist, and most importantly, as a member in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq? (1)
Balsam Mustafa added,





Third: there is no reference to claims of his association with a bank robbery a few years ago. Fourth: I don't think, and this is just my opinion, that Kurds from KDP will be satisfied w 'leftover scraps' from ministries distribution as notes




I can only think of the word 'hypocrisy' to describe someone who spent plenty of time over the past few months criticising the whole political system in to then become key part of it through a deal brokered by many actors





As noted in yesterday's snapshot, since 2006, CIA analysts have argued that Mahdi was the best equipped Iraqi to be prime minister.  It's taken a long time for him to get there.  A long time.  76 years old right now.  A long time.  The Bully Boy Bush White House saw the analysis but they preferred Nouri al-Maliki in 2006 because the CIA write up on him argued that his immense paranoia would make him easy to handle and manipulate.

76 years old.



What lesson do learn of political events yesterday? When things get complicated, don’t be part of it, leave politics for a while, don’t run for election, take off formal suits, enjoy with tourism tour, write morning articles with a cup of coffee, then you will get PM post






Ages of Iraq's post-2003 prime minister when they assumed their functions: Ayad Allawi: 60 Ibrahim Jaafari: 58 Nouri al-Maliki: 56 Haider al-Abadi: 62 Adel Abdel Mehdi: 76 AAM is the oldest by 14 years.




Like the previous prime minister Hayder al-Abadi, Mahdi is a very short man.  Like all the previous prime ministers post-invasion, Mahdi is a flee-er.  He fled Iraq and only returned years later after the US-led invasion.


Mustafa Habib reflects on Hayder in two Tweets:

Which disappointed PM , not political class, Iran, US, or bad luck, but his party "Dawa" which gave up him over 4 hard years, the man forced to based on support of other parties, while he keep loyal to his party even when asked him to leave it to become their hero


When Maliki (leader of the party) lost PM post in 2014 he insisted on take that in personally against Abadi over 4 years!, while Dawa leaders ignored Abadi's achievements & the nice impress of people for him, which could have bring good popularity for Dawa in the future





At NIQASH, Mustafa Habib shares:


There are many challenges in Iraq: a stagnating economy, recovery and reconstruction after the security crisis caused by the extremist group known as the Islamic State, drought, corruption and mismanagement. But to the optimists among Iraqis, all these challenges could also be a historic opportunity to improve the situation, especially as Turkey and Iran, the two neighbours of Iraq, are busy with their own internal problems.

For the first time in years, there is a rare state of national unity brought about because locals had to unite during the security crisis. The sectarian discourse and the exchange of insults between Sunnis and Shiites are not as common any more and it is not strange these days to read friendly and respectful comments, exchanged by residents of Anbar, Basra, Mosul, Dhi Qar, Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan. The ongoing demonstrations have revealed the growing awareness of Iraqis, who now know that the country’s problem is not its people, but its politicians.

Iraqi politicians must respond to these developments before it is too late. There are more protests on the way. And they will be bigger and lead to more chaos, Iraq’s highest Shiite Muslim religious authority, Ali al-Sistani, warned Iraqi politicians last week.

Since the federal elections held in May this year, Iraqi parties have been living in a state of anxiety. Negotiations to form a government are happening under pressure as demonstrators seem to be watching closely. Politicians appear to be afraid of going with Iraq’s long-used quota system to form the government, as it would go against the reform the protestors are calling for.



THE NEW ARAB offers:

Mahdi becomes the first elected prime minister in post-Saddam Iraq not to hail from the Shia Islamist Dawa party.
With a burly physique and a face framed by spectacles and a thin moustache, Abdul Mahdi is an economist by training who has served as oil minister.
He will be able to call on years of experience as a regular on Iraq's diplomatic scene for the balancing acts he is expected for perform.
Abdul Mahdi has the blessing of both Iran and the United States, a required consensus in the country caught between its two major allies who are foes.



Per the Constitution, Mahdi has 30 days to form a government (Cabinet) but this provision has never been enforced.  For all intents and purposes (unless the Parliament suddenly decides the Constitution must be followed), Mahdi is now prime minister of Iraq.





The United Nations Special Representative for , Ján KubiÅ¡, on Wednesday, welcomed the designation of a new Prime Minister, Adel Abdel-Mahdi, and urged political leaders to promote women’s meaningful representation in politics.








In Iraq, UN welcomes new President, and Prime Minister-designate, calls for ‘truly representative’ new cabinet







Here's Cat Power's "Woman" with Lana del Rey.



Cat's album WANDERER is released tomorrow.



The following community sites updated: