Showing posts with label jill abramson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jill abramson. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Thank God for Jussie

thank god for jussie


From February 17, 2019, that's "Thank God for Jussie."  C.I. noted:

Isaiah's the latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Thank God for Jussie."  Jill Abramson, wearing a "Jayson Blair died for my sins" t-shirt, explains, "I say thank God for Jussie Smollett.  Thank God.  For weeks, I've had to defend stealing the work of others and passing it off as my own.  Or, as I call it, citation errors.  Thanks to Jussie, I can now go back to lecturing everyone about ethics."  For those late to the Jill issue, Isaiah recommends: "Jill Abramson 'truth' talker,"THIS JUST IN! COPY CAT JILL TALKS!,"Jill's latest excuse," "THIS JUST IN! THE CITATION ERROR DEFENSE!," "Karma bites Jill Abramson on her fat ass" and "The miserables." Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS


Jill Abramson is a bitch.  

Right before she got fired from THE NEW YORK TIMES, a week or two, C.I. brought three friends from THE TIMES into a roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin to explain what was going on and had been going on.


Jill didn't want journalism -- and she didn't provide it to readers -- she wanted buzz.  Her attitude was that all stories must portray Barack in a positive light.  She killed anything critical of Barack.  Why?  She said it wouldn't get buzz.  Right wingers, she maintained, hated the paper and wouldn't promote stories critical of Barack.  Democratic bloggers wouldn't promote stories critical of Barack because they loved him.  So since right wingers would ignore the paper regardless, the paper had to court the Democratic bloggers to get traction and buzz.

Now I don't agree with her take on buzz, first off.  And we brought that up in that roundtable.  I think it was Kat who said that there were probably hundreds of right wing bloggers and news sources that would grab an anti-Barack article at THE TIMES and promote it with "even THE NEW YORK TIMES sees . . ."  I think Kat's right.

But I also agreed on the point that the paper should be in the news business and not the 'buzz' business.  It really destroyed morale at the paper and a number of reporters would leave as a result because this wasn't about doing journalism, it was about doing p.r.

That's why the paper suffered so badly under Jill.  At one point, she was killing every Iraq story offered which was ticking off the money men because THE TIMES was still spending a fortune to keep an Iraq desk active with staff but there was nothing to show for it. 

The three explained a number of people at the paper blamed Jill for the death of Anthony Shadid.  She didn't want Iraq coverage because Iraq was doing so badly and Barack was in charge now.  So she really pushed for Anthony to go to Syria and to do it on the cheap -- she ignored and denied requests for things Anthony thought were necessary for his safety.  She didn't give a damn about him covering Iraq (he'd won awards for his Iraq coverage), she wanted him to cover Syria (because the White House wanted troops on the ground in Syria and she wanted to serve Barack) and she didn't give a damn about Anthony's safety.

She never gave a s**t about journalism, it was all about creating 'buzz.'  So she risked Anthony's life and he died.

Her entire time at THE TIMES as executive-editor was about her killing any story critical of Barack.  She was a whore.  She still is.

There's your backstory on Jill.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 Friday, August 28, 2020. A look at some of the liars trying to bully voters and some of the campaigns  beyond the duopoly.  

Last night, at the Republican's national convention, President Donald Trump spoke and formally became the GOP's presidential nominee.  At VOX, Little Ezzie Klein squirts in tighty whiteys as he masturbates to his fantasy of a direct link between Bully Boy Bush and Donald Trump.  "From the Iraq War to the coronavirus: why Republicans fail at governance" is how the little priss subtitles his article.  We don't link to garbage -- that's the article and that's Ezzie.

Ezra Klein got name-checked, shouted-out on RISING this week which makes me question whether or not we'll continue to note RISING here.  I am not joking.

There's the Journo-list scandal.  That's where Ezra and others worked overtime to craft media narratives, worked overtime to figure out what to lie about.  For example, Katha Pollitt watches the 2008 GOP convention and feels Sarah Palin was strong in her speech.  She shares that 'horror' with her friends on the list.  At THE NATION, she writes a column slamming Palin and never notes that Palin was an effective speaker.  Or there's all the work they did on how to call anyone questioning St. Barack's sainthood or maidenhood as a racist.  Spencer Ackerman came up with that delightful technique.

Ezra did all of this behind the curtain, deceiving the world.

And it wasn't his first time.  If you're unhappy with the way the internet turned out, lay it at Ezra Klein.  For years, he cultivated an online circle-jerk which involved other bloggers and young interns and reporters at various sites -- including the supposed journalistic watchdog CJR.  In fact, CJR did a daily blogger roundup that was nothing but a circle-jerk of Ezra and the other friends -- and they never explained that to the readers -- did they tell their editors?  

His whole career is built on lies.  

He wants to trace a line between Bully Boy Bush to Donald Trump -- a line that leaves out Saint Barack, of course.  Even though Barack promised to bring US troops home from Iraq but left the White House, after two terms, with troops still stationed in Iraq.

Ezra's a known liar.  If that's who RISING is going to reference then I will judge by the company that they keep and I will stop noting them here. 

Ezra's career is based on astroturf.  He's the left's version of Jeff Gannon -- or how about the center-left's version.

Ezra is a whore and he's shading reality to let Barack off the hook.  I have no use for it.

He never cared about the Iraq War -- except how it could be used for partisan gain.  Anyone who gave a damn about the Iraq War wouldn't have gone into business with Matthew Yglesias who screamed for the war and demonized whole countries and their people.  

The Democratic Party is going to have to get honest at some point about their own history.  The Iraq War was one of the greatest crimes of this century.  The refusal of the party to be honest is why, in 2020, they've got another ticket with someone who voted for the Iraq War.

Grasp that.  The Iraq War started in 2003.  In 2004, the ticket was John Kerry and John Edwards -- both voted for the Iraq War.  In 2008 the ticket was Barack Obama -- who despite the lies of Patricia J. Williams on KPFA -- was not in the Senate and did not vote against the Iraq War (he even stated that he would probably have voted for it if he'd been in the Senate at that time) and his running mate was Joe Biden who voted for the Iraq War.  In 2012, Joe was on the ticket again.  In 2016, Hillary headed the ticket and she voted for the Iraq War.  In 2016, Joe heads the ticket and he voted for it.

B-b-b-but C.I., the running mates haven't voted for the war!!!!

No one on the ticket since the war began has voted against the Iraq War.  The ticket has always been someone who voted for the war and someone who wasn't in Congress to vote against it.

If Bernie Sanders had gotten the nomination this year -- a rigged system and backroom deals kept him from getting the nomination -- he would have been the first one on a Democratic Party presidential ticket since the war began back in 2003 who had actually voted against the war.

The Iraq War is the biggest crime of the 21st century, it is a global crime that destroyed the lives of many.  But somehow not only is there no accountability, but the people responsible for it keep getting rewarded.

That's Joe Biden.  That's Matthew Yglesias, that's the hideous Kevin Drum.  Grasp that.  MOTHER JONES could hire anyone.  But instead of hiring a blogger who went up against the press and called out the Iraq War, they use their 'left' money to support Kevin Drum who did everything he could to ensure that the Iraq War started.

People are dead because of him.

But MOTHER JONES employs him and not someone who rightly railed against the Iraq War.  They go with a Kevin Drum and not a David Lindorff.  There was no accountability at all for bringing on the Iraq War.  Politicians, journalists, bloggers, all of them -- if you were for the Iraq War, your career was made.

It was made from the blood of dead and wounded Iraqis, Americans, British, Australians (Jake Kovco), etc. People are dead and injured because of the actions of Joe Biden, Kevin Drum, Matthew Yglesias and others.  They shouldn't be applauded, they should be shunned.

There have been no demands for accountability because . . . Well who would make them?  Corporate media hides behind Judith Miller but she wasn't the only one egging on the Iraq War as a 'journalist.'  So what about media watchdogs?  CJR proved that they were just whores long, long ago -- long before they got their own little Harvey Weinstein who can't keep his hands off women.  FAIR?  There's nothing fair about FAIR and that includes their blatant hypocrisy.  They once called out PBS for having a limited number of women on THE NEWSHOUR.  Ava and I responded at THIRD with a series on how FAIR's own program, COUNTERSPIN, had an even smaller number of female guests during the same time period.  On Iraq?  FAIR loved to hector the corporate media about hiring this or that pro-Iraq War pundit.  But somehow, it wasn't their job to note that MOTHER JONES and other 'left' outlets were doing the same.

Barack Obama failed America but, let's be honest, he never would have gotten to fail America in the first place if FAIR and others hadn't already failed the county.

We almost noted RISING's segment yesterday on a 'people's convention' yesterday.  Then, after I'd copied and pasted, I listened to the segment and Cornel was telling people to vote for Joe Biden.  That's not an independent organization.  I didn't post that segment.  We did post a thing on it that did not promote a candidate.  But John Stauber is exactly right in the following Tweet:

Stop pretending that #PeoplesConvention is something radical and outside the oligarchy’s 2 parties. The overwhelming majority of participants are advocating for #BidenHarris2020. #ColorRevolution in America, #cooptation on behalf of

, that’s what this s**t is.


Exactly.

If they're anything but a get-out-the-vote org for Biden, they'll surely be noting other candidates for president.

Candidates like the Green Party's Howie Hawkins whose campaign issued the following this week:

August 23, 2020

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Kevin Zeese, Press Secretary
KZeese@HowieHawkins.us

Robert Smith, Media Coordinator
Robert@HowieHawkins.us

Hawkins Releases 12 Years of Tax Returns and Asks, Where Are Trump’s?

Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins released the last 12 years of his tax returns today.“It’s easy, Donald Trump. What are you hiding?,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins also asked why the Democratic Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal (D-MA), refuses to take advantage of a law passed by New York a year ago that enables Congress to access Trump’s New York State tax returns, which closely follow the federal income tax forms in what they report.

“What are the Democrats hiding?” Hawkins asked. “They could get Trump on tax fraud like the Feds got Capone. The New York law means his tax returns are there for the taking. The Democrats are not standing up to Trump, they’re sitting on their hands.”

Journalists and law enforcement investigators are interested in Trump’s tax returns because they suspect they will reveal, when checked against bank and insurance records, that Trump is guilty of bank fraud, insurance fraud, and tax fraud. Trump may not want to show his returns because they may show he is not as rich as he claims to be, he didn’t pay taxes he owed, he donates little or nothing to charity, and he has extensive financial ties to Russians.

The sources of the cash that Trump obtained for property investments in the early 2000s, after decades of borrowing to purchase properties, has also raised suspicions that Trump raised his cash by laundering money through his properties from corrupt oligarchs in Russia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Trump is the only major party presidential nominee since Watergate to refuse to release any past tax returns. A series of rulings by federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, have rejected Trump’s claims that his tax records cannot be subpoenaed by congressional committees or Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. But appeals by Trump and further proceedings in lower courts mean Trump’s taxes are unlikely to be revealed before the November election.

Hawkins said, “It is not hard to figure why Trump is hiding his tax returns. But why are the Democrats not getting Trump’s New York tax returns out to the public before the election?”

Hawkins own tax returns are not so interesting. They show a modest income from wages as a UPS Teamster truck unloader and, since he retired 2018, from pensions, as well as investment income from mutual funds.

Hawkins disclosed that in 2019 he received $1,480 in wages, $116 in interest, $12,697 in dividends, $15,201 in pensions, and $12,053 in capital gains for a total income of $41,547. He paid a federal income tax of $578.

In his last full year of work in 2017, his tax returns show that he earned $28,443 in wages, $83 in interest, $9,332 in dividends, and $43,438 in capital gains for a total income of $81,438. The capital gains came from Hawkins selling shares in a stock index mutual fund to buy shares in a bond index mutual fund in order to balance his retirement savings as he approached retirement. He paid $3,382 in federal income taxes.

Hawkins tax forms for 2009 through 2013 can be found here.

###


Whores like Missey Comley Beattie are working the street, out in full force, to tell you not to vote for Hawkins.  Remember when Missey used to pretend she gave a damn about the Iraq War.  Well whores age and they get uglier, Missey sure has.  She needs to take her disease ridden body out of the public square.  She's whored for far too long.  For those who wrongly assume Missy's syph posing as writing at COUNTERPUNCH this morning is her first attempt at whoring, let's drop back to Ruth's comments in 2009:


I laugh elsewhere at CounterPunch.

Like when I read Missy Comley Beattie. What an idiot. I used to support her, bad writing and all, then 2008 revealed who the real War Hawks were. In her latest useless scribbles, "The Placebo President," Ms. Beattie insists:



Some of us knew. We just knew. We knew because we’d arrived at the truth of politics in American--that anyone who really might deliver change would never receive the Democratic or Republican nomination. Because there is a rule, larger than the will of the people, mandating the survival of the status quo, U.S. corporatocracy and U.S. imperialism/Zionism. Some of us cast our vote for a Green or Independent, those who are considered “spoilers.” Our candidates lost and so did the world.

Some of us knew? Yes, Ms. Beattie. Some of us did know. I knew. I spoke out all during 2008 when it mattered. I spoke out against Barack Obama throughout 2008, from start to end. I spoke out, after the Democratic Party primaries ended, in favor of Ralph Nader and I voted for him.

Ms. Beattie would have you believe she needs to be included with me. The woman is lying.

Ms. Beattie spent the first half of 2008 lying that Hillary Clinton was a racist because Ms. Beattie, like so many of her crowd, cannot stand for a woman to be successful. Ms. Beattie promoted Barack Obama and lied about Hillary not stop.

You can Google her name and "White Heaven" if you need an example. She did not call out Barack Obama. But she could not. She is a third-rate, minor player, a supporting cast to CODESTINK and Jodi Evans was banking it all on Barry O. Ms. Beattie could not insult her mistress' candidate of choice. Poor relations, crust of bread and such. That is Missy Beattie.


She's a tacky whore riddled with disease. 

Howie Tweeted:

@JoeBiden

has a terrible 47-year record of being wrong, but Trump has a terrible 4-year record as president -- pandemic, economic collapse, racial uprising, climate crisis, growing inequality. Two failed candidates for a failing nation. #RNC2020


At RING OF FIRE, pig boy Farron Cousins tries to act like he's not trying to vote shame:


If you want to vote for the green party, because you say the Democrats done nothing to earn your party fine. Although I am curious to know what the green party has done to earn your vote other than not being the Democrats. I do think that’s a valid question. Not necessarily shaming, but you know, if you’re gonna offer one explanation, offer an explanation for that. I like the green party. I think Howie Hawkins is a loser candidate because the guy has run for office so many times and he’s lost every single time. Cause that’s the problem with the green party, great platform, decent enough party. They pick the worst candidates ever. And that’s why they’ve lost so much power over the last decade. Like they’re almost nonexistent now because they pick the dumbest candidates possible. But if that’s your candidate, you do your thing. You vote for that.


Oh, stop pretending, you ugly eye sore.  It's Green Party, first of all and you know that.  Equally true, "the Democrats done nothing to earn your party"?  WTF?  I know you're an idiot but how stupid are you?

People can vote for whomever they want.  In a democracy you own your vote.  And bullies like Farron are disgusting.  

Farron feels that the Greens have picked the worst candidates.

Help me out.  When did Farron cover the candidates vying for the nomination of the Green Party this year?  Or how about in 2016?  Or 2012?

He's just an ugly eye sore.  Where's Lady Bird Johnson with a beautification program when we really need one?

(He's trash.  They got their link only because of RFK Jr.)

Farron insists that the Green Party has been harmed by its candidates.  That's a cute little lie, isn't it?  Jacob Crosse (WSWS):  

In a series of blatantly undemocratic actions, Democratic Party state election commission members have kicked Green Party candidates off of the ballots in several states within the last week. The moves express the fear within the ruling class over the growth of social opposition and display the political gangsterism of the Democratic Party.

The moves come as Democratic state governors in Michigan and California and bourgeois courts have blocked the Socialist Equality Party’s candidates from the ballot, forcing them to gather signatures despite the coronavirus pandemic. While the SEP opposes the politics of the pro-capitalist Green Party, we defend the democratic right of its presidential nominee, Howie Hawkins, to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.

With regards to the Greens, the Democratic Party’s immediate concern is that any left-wing choice in the November election will subtract votes from the right-wing Biden/Harris ticket. Several last minute decisions have effectively barred Green Party candidates up and down the ballot from appearing in Texas, Montana and Wisconsin.

On Wednesday, three separate rulings in Texas courts blocked Green Party candidates from appearing on the November ballot, including US Senate candidate David Collins, 21st congressional district candidate Tom Wakely and candidate for railroad commissioner Katija Gruene.

Collins, Wakely and Gruene were all ruled ineligible for failing to pay filing fees, newly passed by the state legislature last year, which required candidates to pay as much as $5,000 to appear on the ballot. The ruling was made two days after a deadline for write-in candidates to file.

Green Party lawyers are challenging the filing fees in court as an unconstitutional burden, however, a ruling will likely not be handed down before the ballot certification deadline.


Voter suppression?  Don't whine about it if you aren't going to call out efforts to rig the system by keeping candidates off the ballot.




That's Howie's response to Donald Trump's speech last night.

Joseph Kishore is the Socialist Equality Party's presidential candidate.



Joseph Tweeted about the RNC convention here.


Gloria La Riva is the presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.  She Tweeted:

Trump's talk of the people "who built America" is a picture of "Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill," not a word of the gigantic wealth, building by millions of enslaved African people & descendants, not a word of massive land theft & genocide of Native people. Total white supremacy.


Here she is discussing her campaign.



And here's a supporter of Gloria's discussing why she's supporting Gloria and the first point of Gloria's ten-point plan.



Jo Jorgensen is running for president on the Libertarian Party's ticket.





The following sites updated:






Read on ...

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Scandal


 
scandal

 


From June 3, 2013, that's "Scandal."  C.I. notes:


A glum Barack says, "57% of independent voters disapprove of the job I'm doing -- the scandals are hurting me."  The New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson insists, "Scandals?  What scandals?  At The New York Times, we don't see any scandals.  We don't even see my mustache!" Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.


I think that's the perfect drawing of Jill Abramson.

What a fake.

She lost her job and then wanted to pretend she had integrity.

After she killed one NYT report after another on Barack to protect him.

She deserved to lose her job.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Saturday, January 23, 2016.  Chaos and violence continue, Barack gives more weapons to Iraq, still no move towards national reconciliation or a national guard, persecution of the Sunnis continue, Haider's Iraq is going bankrupt (financially, this time) and much more.



Today, the US Defense Dept announced:



Strikes in Iraq
Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
-- Near Kisik, six strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units, destroying 11 ISIL rockets, three ISIL vehicles and five ISIL assembly areas and suppressing an ISIL mortar position.
-- Near Makhmur, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Mosul, one strike struck an ISIL improvised explosive device factory.
-- Near Ramadi, six strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units, and destroying an ISIL front end loader, two ISIL vehicle-borne IEDs, an ISIL staging area, three ISIL fighting positions, three ISIL heavy machine gun positions, an ISIL building and an ISIL vehicle and denying ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Sinjar, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed five ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL mortar tube and two ISIL light machine gun positions.
-- Near Sultan Abdallah, one strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Tal Afar, one strike suppressed an ISIL light machine gun position.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.

News?  Mustafa Habib (NIQASH) addresses news in Iraq:

This kind of “news” is common on Iraqi social media. And it’s dangerous because for many Iraqis, social media websites, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to a lesser degree, have become a major source of political and security-related news. They do not trust mainstream media in Iraq, which is mostly considered to be partisan with much of it funded by political parties, religious bodies or other organizations pushing their own agenda. Many Iraqis say their most trusted source is word-of-mouth – relatives, friends, neighbours – so it makes sense that they would turn to social media, basically an expanded network of the latter, to get information they believe they can trust.



The media is highly partisan in Iraq -- and elsewhere -- but on Iraq, if this is news to you, refer to Deborah Amos' paper "Confusion, Contradiction and Irony: The Iraqi Media in 2010" which documented the way so much of the media is controlled in Iraq.

Mustafa Habib examines several stories that became popular on social media and influenced events in Iraq.

We'll note one:

Once a certain story gets picked up on Iraqi social media it is often rapidly disseminated further. The story about Sheikh Nimr’s execution was a prime example of this. It’s hard to know who posted the videos originally but it seems clear that the original user had an agenda.
Under the guidance of advisors from open source verification experts at the investigative network, Bellingcat, a team of bloggers from the Iraqi Network for Social Media who are also the founders of a Facebook page called Fake Posts, as well as journalists from NIQASH, took a closer look at some of these falsified reports on social media.
Using open source verification techniques like geolocation and reverse image search, the team quickly found that the first video, the one allegedly showing al-Nimr’s execution, had nothing to do with the Saudi cleric. The clip, watched by thousands of Iraqis, was actually the video of the execution of an Indonesian maid in Saudi Arabia and it was four years old.
The other video that supposedly showed al-Nimr’s body being thrown out of a helicopter after his execution was also something else: It was a video showing a member of Saudi police force falling out of a helicopter, most likely to his death, in 2013.


The original user had an agenda?

True.

But let's not confine coverage to Iraq.

FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS and other ridiculous outlets -- front groups posing as news outlets -- certainly had an agenda as they suddenly discovered executions.

As was noted on Arabic media, FPIF was silent when the Iraqi government was killing the LGBT community members, when the Interior Ministry went into schools calling for violence against LGBTs, but suddenly it was interested in fairness.

It was noted that FPIF was silent when Sunni women and girls were wrongly imprisoned in Iraq and then beaten and/or raped in prison.

It was silent as Iraqi forces terrorized and killed Sunnis.

But FPIF and others were wetting their panties in public and beating themselves with chains over the execution of one Shi'ite cleric -- while ignoring the others executed in the same batch of executions.

Let's never pretend that some elements of the Iraqi media are the only ones with an agenda.


Tuesday, the United Nations issued a report on violence in Iraq. As we documented in that day's snapshot, many news outlets and 'news' outlets were pushing an agenda and not actually reporting.  As we pointed out:



The Islamic State is a terrorist organization.
Documenting their abuses should be easy and something anyone can do without any great ethical challenge.
The United Nations report notes consistent patterns of abuse by the Iraqi government.
That needs to be spotlighted, it needs to be front and center.
You do not excuse away a government committing crimes against its own civilians.
You do not act as though that's nothing or that it's a sidebar.
It is the prime story.
Again, the Islamic State is a terrorist organization.
As such it commits crimes against people -- that's what makes it a terrorist organization.
The Iraqi government is supposed to serve (and protect) all the Iraqi people.
When it instead targets its own people, that is news.
The failure to properly report this goes a long way towards the growing divide between Arabs and others.  Arabs watched from 2010 on forward as the Iraqi government openly targeted Sunnis.  They saw little to no objection to this persecution.
The United Nations puts out a report that documents crimes by a terrorist organization (ISIS) and crimes against Sunnis by the Iraqi government and the western media again ignores the crimes of the Iraqi government or offers a brief sotto voice aside.
This is not acceptable.
It is silencing those suffering at the hands of the Iraqi government.
It is saying that Arabs are disposable and crimes against them can be ignored.




Friday, Aisha Maniar covered the report at TRUTHOUT:


The assault on the Iraqi people comes from all sides: ISIS, the Iraqi government and its security forces and related militias, coalition airstrikes and armed gangs cashing in on the prevailing state of anarchy. The UN report concedes that "The violence suffered by civilians in Iraq remains staggering," but with more than half of the report dedicated to atrocities carried out by ISIS, the Iraqi government gets off lightly.
A number of the human rights abuses ascribed to ISIS could equally be attributed to government security forces or related militias. For example, both ISIS and the government's popular mobilization units - mainly Shiite militias drafted into the fight against ISIS - have been open about their recruitment and use of child soldiers. In the latter case, not mentioned in the report, the use of child combatants could have serious implications for the United States, as these militias fall under the umbrella of an army that is trained and supported by the US. UNICEF expressed its concerns in June 2015, and called for "urgent measures" to be taken by the Iraqi government to protect children, including criminalizing the recruitment of children, and "the association of children with the Popular Mobilization Forces."

The report states that "systematic and widespread violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law" committed by ISIS could amount to "war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide." Others, including Human Rights Watch, have suggested that Iraqi government-backed militias in the fight against ISIS may have also committed war crimes. Kurds too have been accused of potential war crimes. Indeed, all parties to the conflict have committed crimes against humanity against the Iraqi people, and there must be no impunity for any of them. A report focused on human rights and the protection of civilians should not be politically biased toward any party.


Good for TRUTHOUT but let's not pretend that this is the dominant view the press is taking.  Even now, the UN reports is covered as 'agenda reporting' with outlets using it for war propaganda.

Again, calling out the Islamic State requires no bravery.

Noting that the latest prime minister that the US has installed in Iraq -- Haider al-Abadi -- continues to preside over a government that persecutes its only civilians?

That's apparently too much even for the supposedly strong and brave American media.


It does help keep so many news consumers uniformed.

Dina al-Shibeeb (AL ARABIYA ENGLISH) reports:


Mohammed Karbouli, a member of the Iraqi Security and Defense parliamentary committee, dismissed a recent report saying that 40,000 Sunnis were given the green light to join PMU, describing Sunnis as feeling continuously excluded.
Instead, the lawmaker said the reality is a far cry from the reported figure, putting the current total number of Sunni volunteers at merely 16,000 whereas Shiites in the PMU account for as much as 120,000 fighters.
“What we have – those who are receiving salaries – is a number that does not exceed 16,000 for all of the Sunni provinces,” Karbouli told Al Arabiya News.
Of the 16,000 figure, the western province of Anbar takes the lion’s share of 9,000 volunteer fighters, he said.



Anbar Province field and security commander is quoted discussing the promise of adding 50,000 Sunni fighters (never added) and the promise that the Parliament would create a National Guard (never created).

National Guard?

You  may remember US President Barack Obama was insistent on that back in June of 2014 on through August of that year.

It never happened.

He never forced it to happen.

This week the US State Dept signed off on another huge weapons deal/gift to the Iraqi government.  This one is for $2 billion.  Yet in the failed administration of Barack Obama, where everyone is diplomatically challenged, no one thought to pin any conditions on the deal.

There was no, "Haider, you promised a national guard, that's why we made you prime minister.  So you've got to create the national guard now to get this $2 billion deal."

Haider never has to keep any promises or actually bring about reconciliation in Iraq.



He's a failure across the board.







  • has $2b USD left of its budget! We are in January. 2016 is a game-changer.




  • It's January and the rich country of Iraq has $2 billion left in its budget.

    Haider doesn't appear to have ended corruption in Iraq, just accelerated it.


    He's also not protected the Iraqi people.









  • That's Haider's Iraq.







    Lastly, David Bacon's latest book is The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration.  This is from Bacon's new photo essay "THE WORKERS OF SAN QUINTIN VALLEY ARE NO LONGER WILLING TO BE INVISIBLE" (EQUAL TIMES and David's website):



    On 29 March 2015, US photographer and labour activist David Bacon followed a group of farm workers in the San Quintín Valley in the Mexican state of Baja California as they marched to the US border.

    Thousands of workers - who pick strawberries and tomatoes for the US market - went on a two-week strike in protest over their poverty wages. These farm workers, who mainly come from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and make up the bulk of the agricultural workforce in Baja, are paid about US$9 a day; they were demanding wages of about 300 pesos, or US$24.

    Growers bring over whole families, particularly Mixtec and Triqui indigenous peoples, to live in labour camps and housing notorious for poor conditions. The whole operation is reminiscent of the maquiladora [export assembly plants] industry, transplanted into agriculture.

    The big companies walked out of negotiations with the workers March, and signed contracts with government-affiliated unions that were not on strike. They promised 15 per cent pay rises for the workers, which is much less than what they were asking for.

    The biggest US distributor, Driscoll's, claimed its main grower, BerryMex, pays higher rates of US$5 to US$9 per hour - a highly dubious claim, according to activists. The growers want to move towards a code of conduct that avoids any negotiation or contracts with the striking union, the Alianza. At the same time, growers brought more workers up from southern Mexico to break the strike.

    In a final negotiation session between the workers' organisation, the Alianza, and the government on 4 June 2015, authorities announced a new minimum wage in San Quintín of 150 (approximately US$8.40), 165 (US$9.20) or 180 pesos (US$10) a day, depending on the size of the employer.

    But at the top daily wage of 180 pesos, a Baja field worker has to work for almost three hours to buy a gallon of milk. Workers also say the companies are not abiding by the agreement, and have announced their support for a boycott of Driscoll's berries.

    Fidel Sanchez, leader of the strike told Bacon:  "Consumers eat the fruits and the vegetables that these workers are producing, but know next to nothing about the workers themselves. This march, and the strike itself, show that workers are no longer willing to be invisible."
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