The World Today Just Nuts

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Are They Scared Of Joe Biden

From April 19, 2020, that's "Are They Scared Of Joe Biden." C.I. noted:

Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Are They Scared Of Joe Biden?" As Joe snaps and snarls, a group of reporters run for cover with one noting, "I ain't asking him about Tara Reade. You ask him." Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.

So now that the media is finally admitting that the laptop is Hunter Biden's, you think they could finally admit that Tara Reade told the truth?

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

Friday, March 24, 2022. About the only good world news today, Mad Maddie Albright remains dead.

Apparently something needs clarification. It's up here before -- many times over. But some whiners to the public e-mail account insist that 'poor' Mad Maddie Albright was done wrong by me yesterday in the snapshot. If so, I'm fine with that. I don't give a damn about her. But I'm not sure that she was done wrong. 18 years this iste has been up. 16 years, I've wanted to wind it donw.

Can't.

Because pretty much everyone walked away from the Iraq War -- the western press certainly did. The same whores who helped sell the Iraq War.

Bloggers pretended to care. Panhandle Media -- send money! send money! -- pretended to care. Congress pretended to care. All those people were apparently pretending.

I think they were suprised, politicians -- for example, by how strong the mood was against the Iraq War. But they saw it as a way to win eletions so they pretended to give a damn. When REupblicancs controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, the illegal war was wrong and must end immediately.

Then Democrats were put in charge of Congress (both houses in the November 2006 elections) and then the Congress and the White House (November 2008 elections) and wtihdrawing all US forces became a forgotten cry.

All the fake asses went away. Someone -- maybe Fiorella Isabel on THE CONVO COUCH -- this wee,k made the point that certain Republicans look ridiculous when they start saying that these generic centerist Democratsin Congress are "Communists." And I agree and get that point 100% but it's also true that Leslie Cagan is a Communist and she did everything she could to elect Democrats. She wasn't, it turned out, at all concerned about the Iraq War. She just grandstanded on that to drum up votes for the Democratic Party. That's why she and her group United For Peace and Justice immediately folded up their tent days after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. The war hadn't ended. The media wasn't even pretending that it had at that point. But there was Leslie shutting down her cong game. While it's ridiculous to think Nancy Pelosi, for exmaple, might be a Communist, as some Republicans do, it's equally ridiculous that some Communists in American dedicate their lives to whoring and diverting for the Democratic Party.

If Leslie dies while this site is active? We'll probably remember her about as 'nicely' as we did Mad Maddie.

Because this iste isn't about Amerrican crooks and con artists. From the start, we've tried to highlight the Iraqi people. And you, an American (idiot/) might feel that Mad Maddie got treated unfairly with words I offered yesterday. However, the Iraqi children who suffered under sanctions -- many of whom died -- had to endure a lot more than mere words and for a lot longer than one day.

Children suffered because of Mad Maddie Albright. Some died. Some started off life with a struggle that she imposed.

We weren't the only ones noting the truth about Mad Maddie. But because enough people in the US were telling the truth, western media wasn't able to do their usual photo-shopping of the truth. Mad Maddie will probably still get her week of tributes that all crooks in the US political class get but NEWSWEEK and others are being forced to note that she was very proud of her part in the murder of Iraqi children via crippling sanctions.

As for your prayers you'll offer for my soul? I think we can probably all use some prayers, thank you. But I also think if you're torn and upset over the death of an 84-year-old woman who bragged that the death of at least 500,000 children was "worth it," someone whom even Colin Powell had to admonish (the US military is not a toy), someone who partenred with The Baker Group in 2004 to skim off millions from Iraq, then you're either a saint who cries for the death of each and every person or else you're priorities are incredibly screwed.

Here's Mad Maddie.

The Iraqi people suffered and continue to suffer. Mad Maddie is noted by Patrick Martin (WSWS) but he notes it's impossible to review her entire rap sheet:

Even more significantly, Albright became chair of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in 2001 and held that position until her death. The NDI is an arm of the capitalist state, CIA-financed to promote pro-imperialist political forces and to subvert any radical or oppositionist trend that might threaten US corporate interests in countries around the world.

In that capacity, Albright was deeply involved in every crime of the US military-intelligence apparatus in the first two decades of the 21st century, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Ukraine. The celebration of her life and work by the corporate media, and by Democratic and Republican politicians alike, is a demonstration of the bipartisan consensus that anything goes, no matter how undemocratic and bloody, in the defense of the profits and worldwide global interests of the American financial aristocracy.

Let's stay with garbage for a moment more. From Albright to another American who needs to buy a damn clue: Little Sammy P.N. Cook who is 'ceo' of his own sandbox entitled SanityDesk. He's surfaced online to inform the world that Urkaine, which he just left, is worse than it was in Iraq.

Really?

Little Sammy Junior, you were with the US military in Iraq. It was probably a lot easier for you -- for anyone -- in Iraq with the US military than it is for anyone in Ukraine. But don't confuse you entering that contury armed and with other people who were also armed with what it was like -- what it still is like -- for an Iraqi in Iraq. You reek of entitlement and of stupditiy. You really should learn to measure your remarks when you're trying to create yourself as someone smart enough to offer analysis. The Iraq war didnt make you an expert on anything and you're the one who is constantly proving that fact.

You need the press and 'experts' like Little Sammy to sell your wars. At BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Jacqueline Luqman explains:

A “newspaper of record” is a major newspaper with a large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative. In this country, that newspaper has been the New York Times. It is believed that librarians began to refer to The New York Times (NYT) as the “newspaper of record” in 1913 when it became the first U.S. newspaper to publish an index of the subjects covered in its pages. Regardless of how it became known as the authoritative source for editorial and news content, it is time that we stop calling the NYT the “newspaper of record” now, especially during this conflict in Ukraine.

The NYT’s March 18th digital headline reads: “130 Rescued from Mariupol Theater, Official Says.” Beyond the headline and under the section, “Here are the latest developments in Ukraine,” more details are provided:

“At least 130 survivors have escaped the ruins of a theater that was nearly leveled in a Russian attack in the embattled southern city of Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said on Friday, but hundreds remained unaccounted for in the wreckage. The city was one of the many under withering missile bombardment across Ukraine as Ukrainian forces continued to frustrate Russian troop advances.”

There is more in this section about the millions escaping Ukraine and the “withering Russian attacks” on the theater. But there is not one word about the neo-Nazis which, in the case of the city of Mariupol and that theater, is a very important part of the story. In fact, the Azov Batallion , an openly Nazi paramilitary group that was consolidated in 2014 to fight against “pro-Russian separatists,” captured the city of Mariupol in 2014. To be clear, those designated “pro-Russian separatists” are the people who, in protest of the US-backed fascist coup in 2014 and in demand of their democratic rights, voted to secede from Ukraine and rejoin the Russian Federation.

It is true that we focus a lot on the neo-Nazis in this conflict. It is not because they are the only and major problem in the conflict. But the lack of reporting on them in US media is disturbing. Aren’t Nazis supposed to be the bad guys? You would think it would be easy for journalists of such a “reputable” publication such as the New York Times to report on the neo-Nazis who took over and now control the city of Mariupol. But no.

Even The Guardian - the British newspaper of note, with at least some standing - reported on the fascists controlling Mariupol back in September 2014 . The reporter focused the article on individual members of the battalion, particularly one man named Dmitry ( not his real name) who is quoted at the beginning of the article saying, “I have nothing against Russian nationalists or a great Russia, But Putin's not even a Russian. Putin's a Jew." The article continues:

“...there is an increasing worry that while the Azov and other volunteer battalions might be Ukraine's most potent and reliable force on the battlefield against the separatists, they also pose the most serious threat to the Ukrainian government, and perhaps even the state, when the conflict in the east is over. The Azov causes particular concern due to the far right, even neo-Nazi, leanings of many of its members.”

Actually, the good ol’ USA Today reported on the neoNazi problem in Ukraine, too, back in 2015. They didn’t even use the term “neo-Nazis;” They used “Nazis.” In the article, a drill sergeant named Alex is interviewed. The accompanying picture shows Alex laughing with an Azov Battalion patch on his jacket. Alex, according to the article,

“...admitted that he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis. He said he supports strong leadership for Ukraine, like Germany during World War II, but opposes the Nazis' genocide against Jews. Minorities should be tolerated as long as they are peaceful and don't demand special privileges, he said, and the property of wealthy oligarchs should be taken away and nationalized. He vowed that when the war ends, his comrades will march on the capital, Kiev, to oust a government they consider corrupt.”

The article, however, goes on to dismiss Russia’s concerns about these Nazis at their border in eastern Ukraine, claiming: Russian media exploit such statements to describe the brigade in this port city in eastern Ukraine as a bunch of thugs who menace the population yet are embraced by Ukraine's national government.” But it is these same Nazis who would go on to wage war against and kill mostly ethnic Russian people for the next 8 years.

It takes a lot of lies to encourage hatred and promote war. You have to promote hate -- all repressive governments grasp that and work towards it. If they can make someone hateful enough -- some outsider -- then they can justify the failures of their own -- the failures to improve the lives of their own citizens. Remember that as US President Joe Biden keeps trying to normalize food shortages. The only response to food shortages in the US is "Vote the bums out." That's reality. We pay millions in tax dollars each year and food shortages? Joe Biden was never up to being president. BAck to the latest war of choice . . . The edtiroial board of WSWS notes:

In a meeting with the US Business Roundtable ahead of the summit, Biden pointed to the long-running plans that are being put into practice.

“You know, we are at an inflection point,” Biden said. “It occurs every three or four generations. As one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946.”

He added that “now is a time when things are shifting... There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it.”

The phrase “New World Order” has a long and bloody provenance.

On September 11, 1990, US President George H.W. Bush gave a speech entitled “Toward a New World Order.” He declared, “The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period.”

As in the present crisis in Ukraine, the United States maneuvered to have Iraq invade a neighboring country to provide a pretext for war plans long in the making. The Gulf War triggered an eruption of US militarism that continued through the wars in Yugoslavia, the “war on terror” and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US overthrow of the Libyan government, and the years-long destabilization campaign against Syria.

Biden’s “New World Order” involves the transition from 30 years of wars and interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, which have killed more than 1 million people, into a conflict targeting Russia and China, which raises the specter of a Third World War waged with nuclear weapons.

The headlines in the capitalist press expose the reckless war mania that has swept over the ruling class, bringing behind it the affluent middle class. “NATO Plans to Ramp Up Forces on Eastern Flank,” blared the New York Times. Another article in the Times stated that “both Russia and the United States have nuclear arms that are much less destructive—their power just fractions of the Hiroshima bomb’s force, their use perhaps less frightening and more thinkable.”

David C. Gompert, a former acting director of national intelligence under the Obama administration, wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the US “has more survivable, accurate and reliable offensive nuclear forces that could further decimate Russia’s strategic deterrent on the ground. Whatever Russian missiles survive such disarming strikes would be picked off by US missile defense systems.”

The Putin regime, confronted with the failure of its plan for a limited war in Ukraine that was aimed at pressuring NATO to negotiate on its security concerns, is trying to escape the trap into which it was lured by resorting to nuclear saber rattling. The world could face a dystopian crisis that ends in a “big nuclear explosion,” former Russian president and Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

The interaction of NATO’s recklessness, fueled by a series of intersecting domestic crises, and Russia’s desperation has created an extraordinarily explosive situation.

This dangerous escalation must be opposed through the development of a mass anti-war movement, based on the international working class.

There is a growing movement of workers throughout the world against social inequality and exploitation. The consequences of the war drive are fueling protests and strikes over soaring inflation and mass poverty.

Moving to Iraq . . .

Let's again note this from ARAB WEEKLY:

Partisan and personal loyalties have decided the fate of Iraq's presidency and premiership, despite all previous vows by populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr to base his nominations for leadership posts on the national interest only.

Instead, Iraq seems to be moving away from a system of political quotas to one based on the accommodation of various players, if not indeed, plain nepotism.

Sadr chose to nominate Riber Ahmed, the Kurdistan region’s interior minister and director of the office of party leader Massoud Barzani, for the position of president of the republic. He has also nominated Mohammad Jaafar al-Sadr, one of his cousins, to serve as the country’s prime minister.

Iraqi political analysts said that Sadr, who had claimed to be motivated by a desire to free himself from the yoke of the pro-Iranian Shia Coordination Framework, has fallen under the control of Massoud Barzani and accepted his conditions. These included endorsing the latter’s nominee for the presidency of Iraq, despite the fact that the candidate is virtually unknown to most Iraqis. Moreover, Ahmed will have a hard time filling the shoes of a figure of the stature, connections and overall record of the incumbent Barham Salih.

Analysts said that by agreeing to be swayed by the game of political accommodation and by choosing a relative with no political record nor experience as nominee for prime minister, Sadr has shown he is no different from the rest of the political players who have assumed leadership positions in the country since the 2003 US invasion. His opposition to quotas, nepotism and his advocacy of the “national majority” now ring hollow, they add.

Three days before the appointment of a new president for Iraq, the tripartite alliance (the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Sadrists) announced the formation of the largest bloc in parliament under the banner of “Saving the Country”. The new alliance officially announced the nomination of Riber Ahmed for president and Mohammad Jaafar al-Sadr as prime minister.

To be fair to Moqtdaq, he is backing a choice for prime minister that is different -- since it's hiw own cousin. But nepotisim really wasn't what the Iraqi people were wanting. He could argue back that without nepotism, he'd still be a cleark at an Iranian hotel, hiding out from his many enemies in Iraq.

Today, right now, these events are unfolding. And the western press is too busy selling war on Ukraine to take the time to notice just how awful life is for the Iraqi people and how they have a government that doesn't represent them and doesn't even offer the pretense that it does.

Let's wind down with this from Ajamu Baraka (BLACK AGENDA REPORT)::

Images of burnt flesh from napalm bombs, wounded and dead soldiers, scenes of U.S. soldiers burning the simple huts of Vietnamese villages, eventually turned the public against the war in Vietnam and produced the dreaded affliction, from the ruling class point of view, known as the “Vietnam syndrome.” This collective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder made it impossible for the public to support any foreign military involvement for years.

It took the rulers almost three decades to finally cure the public of this affliction. But the rulers were careful.

The brutal reality of what the U.S. was doing in Afghanistan and Iraq was whitewashed. That is why the images now being brought to the public by the corporate media are so shocking. It has been more than two generations since the U.S. public was exposed to the horrific images of war.

In the 1960s the rulers inadvertently allowed themselves to be undermined by the new television technology that brought the awful reality of imperialist war into the homes of the public. Now, the ruling class operating through its corporate media propaganda arms has been effectively using Ukraine war propaganda, not to increase Anti-war sentiment but to stimulate support for more war!

Incredibly also, the propagandists are pushing a line that essentially says that in the name of “freedom” and supporting Ukraine, the U.S. public should shoulder the sacrifice of higher fuel and food prices. This is on top of the inflation that workers and consumers were already being subjected to coming out of the capitalist covid scandal that devastated millions of workers and the lower stratums of the petit bourgeoisie.

But the war, and now the unfair shouldering of all of the costs of the capitalist crisis of 2008 - 2009, and the impact of covid by the working classes in the U.S., amounts to a capitalist tax. It is levied by the oligarchy on workers to subsidize the defense of the interests of big capital and the conditions that have produced obscene profits, even in the midst of the covid crisis and now, the Ukraine war.

These policies are criminal. While the U.S. continues to pretend that it champions human rights around the world, the failure of the state to protect the fundamental human rights of the citizens and residents in the U.S. is obvious to all, but spoken about by the few, except the Chinese government .

For those who might think that the Chinese criticism of the U.S. is only being driven by politics, and it might be, just a cursory, objective examination of the U.S. state policies over just the last few years reveals a shocking record of systematic human rights abuses that promise to become even more acute as a consequence of the manufactured U.S./NATO war in Ukraine.

The following sites updated:

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Monday, March 21, 2022

Lyin' With Biden

From March 8, 2020, that's "Lyin' With Biden." C.I. noted:

Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lyin' With Biden." Caught in another lie, Joe Biden howls again. A child asks, "What's that boy? You were arrested on the streets of Soweto? Trying to meet with Nelson Mandela? And you wrote that law?" A woman asks of the child, "Is that Pete Buttigeieg?" Another woman replies, "I think it's Timmy -- like in Lassie and Timmy." Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.

Joe Biden is a disaster. You see that in the grocery store and you see it at the gas pumps. He's destroying our lives.

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

Monday, March 21, 2022. JACOBIN whores for the IRaq War.

Over the weekend, the Iraq War hit the 19th mark, 19 years and still going. Will US troops ever leave Iraq? At this rate, no. And we know how the corporate media in the US did their part to start the illegal war and to keep it going. We address that fact constatly. We've also noted, over the years, how Pandhandle Media -- the beggar media -- send money, send money -- also keeps the illegal war going. This anniversary?

Silence from the beggar media for the most part.

To be clear, when we don't get silence from them on Iraq, we don't get much of anything. They do af, "It's 19 years old" statement and then rush to offer what everone knew back when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. Nothing as recent as two years prior is ever offered because they don't pay attention to Iraq. They can show up to do their useless segments and writing that would be the same if they wrote it ten years ago but they can't talk about Iraq today -- the political stalemate, the protests (more and more over rising costs), the large number of women being murdered (Juare is apparently the furthest US 'feminists' will allow their minds to wonder when women are being targeted), etc.

Enter JACOBIN and Saif Ansari -- the latter of whom bill shimself as "Philosopher, lawyer and writer. Indian American/Muslim atheist." SOmeone break it to the idiot that Muslim isn't a race, it's a religion so, if you bill yourself as an aehist, you're not a Mulsim. Basics are hard for Saif as he makes clear when writing about Iraq for Jacobin -- a place he doesn't normally cover but apparently someone at JACOBIN felt that the piece was needed and theyf armed it out to Saif as one of the non-White guys they actually have working at JACOBIN. Isn't that just another form of colinialism?

At any rate, Saif starts out his piece slamming US President Joe Biden which is more than fair. Joe is president and the war continues under his watch. Joe supported the war in the US Senate. And then, the whole thing quickly falls apart. The first section with huge pro lems:

And yet not even during the heated final debate of the primaries in 2020 did Bernie Sanders (who had voted against the invasion in 2002 as a representative of Vermont) make the case — which he had alluded to on the campaign trail more than once — that Biden was unfit to serve as president because of what was, in Sanders’s view, “the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of the United States.”

Elizabeth Warren, another candidate who had called the Iraq War a mistake, also failed to challenge Biden’s historical defense of the invasion — from denying that he had ever believed Hussein possessed WMDs to lamenting that the only mistake he had made was to trust the Bush administration. When asked whether Biden was to blame, Warren — a legal academic who had begun her political career taking on the president over the 2005 bankruptcy bill — demurred.

In fact, the most strenuous criticism against Biden’s role in the Iraq War was leveled in March 2020 by an air force veteran who accused Biden of having the blood of fellow service members on his hands. But despite his overtures that he had come to regret his support for the war — which became increasingly unpopular in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party in subsequent years — Biden never learned from his mistake.

Eleven years after the intervention in Libya’s [. . .]

Tulsi Gabbard? Isn't that the name that belongs in the above? Yes, it is. Caling Tulsi out for fake assery isn't a popular move. We don't worry about popularity here. We worry about the truth. SO we won't just be Abby Martin saying her name on a JaACOBIN podcast and then laughing. No, we'll actually go there as we did in real time. In the final debate that candidate Tulsi made the stage for, we were all expecting the big showdown. This was anti-war Tulsi. She'd played that anti-war arm chair zealot over and over. And the war, she'd tell voters over and over, was her biggest issue. It effected everything -- including how much money we had to spend on other issues -- needed issues.

Bill de Blasio and others had confronted Joe during the debqtes of the candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Tulsi hadn't. And she had an excuse, she wasn't on the stage with him. The field was so crowded back then that they had to divide them up into groups.

So she'd go on MSNBC, for example, on June 26, 2019 and slam Joe for his actions regarding Iraq but she wasn't on stage with him.

But Wednesay, July 31st, she was finally on stage with Joe Biden. And big talking Tulsi, whose big issue was the war, was on stage with Joe Biden who voted for the IRaq, War, who did a pre-war hearing that was stakced with war supporters though Joe tried to pretend it was fair and balanced, the man who voted over and over to keep funding the war, the man whod efended it over and over (despite his 2019 lie that he had turned on the wr the minute bombs started ropping). Here was Tulsi's chance to finally take the fight to Joe.

It was going to be an epic throwdown, right?

Wrong.

We recounted it at lenght and repeatedly over and over. For example, see the next day's snapshot.

Joe Biden was on the ropes. He was struggling and he could have been eliminated that night. If Tulsi had done the job she should have, he could have been out of the primary.

But instead, she decided to take out Kamala Harris. Jimmy Dore rightly points out that Kamala ended up without any support at all. Throughout the entire thing, the long process, no one was flacking to her. He's right. But he is someone who has some allegience to Tulsi that is greater than his allegiance to the truth. Now I'll overlook that on Jimmy. He speaks out on many important topics. And I'll defend her from the lunatic attacks from WHoopi Goldberg and others.

But I'm not going to pretend that we saw Tulsi was a whore at the debates.

Read the transcript -- or read the snapshot -- because Tulsi went after Kamala and Kamala was no threat. She was never going to get the nomination. She had no large base of support. Most women did not rally to her. African-Americans in the south did not relate to her.

But Tulsi used her time and her ammo on Kamala. Not on Joe.

Her defenders -- and, sadly, that included BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- would make excuses for her. There was no excuse. Joe Biden was the choice of the establishment and he was being carried by the corporate meid and covered and pimped by them.

She should have taken out Joe.

Sher refused to do so.

If you missed that debate, you may join the liars and insist that she was making statements and -- B.S. That's a damn lie. Jake Tapper was a moderator. He specifically called on her regarding Joe Biden and he was puzzled -- watch his face -- by her remarks which were rescuing Joe and excusing his actions.

He looks like he's wondering if she understood the question. SO he then goes back to her for a second time and is more specific. And Tulsi again takes a pass.

That night, the next day and through the weekend, Tulsi shows up where ever she could on TV and repeatedly insisted that Joe said his vote was wrong and that was good enough for her.

His actions wnet far beyond just his initial vote but Tulsi buried that in hre comments and buried Joe's Iraq issues for the press. When the self-promoted anti-war candidate told the American people and the press that Joe had nothing to apologize for or make amends for that everything was fine? There was no longer a story there. The media wants conflict. And it wants conflict is can hide behind to pretend to be objective. Had Tulsi held Joe accountable on the stage, the issue of the Iraq War would have been forced itno the conversation by the national press.

My allegiance is not to any politician.

Tulsi is one of the reasons Joe Biden is in the White House. She had the chance to tak ehim out and instead aimed her fire at Kamala. People like pig Michael Tracey were overjoyed.

What they refuse to admit now is that Tulsi gave the nomination to Joe on that night in July of 2019. They refuse to also admit that the woman Tulsi 'destroyed' on stage is now Vice President of the United States. So exactly how badly did Tulsi destroy Kamala?

It was pure fake assery.

Dennis Kucinich left people in tears in Boston back in 2004 at the DNC convention. I didn't defend him. I told the young teenagers who were crying in the open -- especially one young woman -- that Dennis didn't deserve them. That they had more integrity and more ethics than he ever would.

I don't whore for a politician. I hold them accountable.

It's a shame that no one wants to hold Tulsi accountable. It's how we will get another Bernie Fake Ass SAnders to divert us all and we will pour energies into him and risk our own health to try to deliver the nomination to him and he will sell us out and try to use us as his fan clubm.

JACOBIN trets Tulsi as an aside because they get vicious feedback. I don't care what the e-mails to the public account are like. I will defend her right to speak. I will defend her from vicious attacks on her patritoism. I will not, however, pretend that she's anti-war or that she will speak with an anti-war voice.

She betrayed everyone and she needs to be held accountable.

Saif writes:

American voters used to give a damn about the Iraq War. In 2008, Barack Obama leveraged widespread discontent with the war to secure the Democratic nomination, courting progressives and young people alike. In fact, it’s widely believed that Hillary Clinton lost to the senator from Illinois not just because she had voted for the war — and was instrumental in rallying ambivalent Democrats to the cause — but because Obama had decried the invasion from the start.

Where do you start with that garbage.

American voters used to give a damn about the Iraq War?

The voters are the ones who walked away?

I don't remember the voters issuing a statement the week after the November 2008 election stating that they were shutting down. No, that was United for Peace and Justice which made a ton of money off the war. But they then used their organization to shelter elected Democrats and theywhore to get Barack into the White House. Leslie Cagan is a grown ass woman and then some -- the whiskers on her chin prove that. But the woman who's too cowardly to tell a board meeting that she's a Community -- she is one -- is the same woman who whored for Barack and didn't want to be around to hold him accoutnable.

They lied. They lied to the voters and told them Barack was an anti-war candidate.

He wasn't. He never was.

The media stuck in on Iraq just a little bit longer. As 2008 drew to a close, newspapers and networks in the US announced that they were closing BAghdad desks ABC announced that anything that happened in Iraq could be covered by their using BBC coverage of the war.

So the 'leaders' deserted and then the US news deserted all before Janaury 2009 and yet the person JACOBIN blames is voters?

When we do our Zooms there are always students who will say they showed up thinking this was going to be historical, a look at what had been done to Iraq. They didn't realize that it was still being done. I don't them blame them or attack them. I understand why they don't know about Iraq, the corporate media doesn't cover it and the so-calleldl politicians who care (Barbara Lee) won't mention it.

Saif writes tht ''some believe'' Barack used Iraq to destroy Hillary's chances. Some believe that? It was his whole argument advanced by his suppoters. as well as by himself. It demonstrated his supposed superior judgment.

We heard tht over and over. And we saw CODESTINK bird dog Hillary while avoid him despite the fact that hew as voting for the Iraq War once he was in office.

No, he did not vote for the 2002 authorization of the war. He was not in the US Senate at the time so he could not vote for it.

Patricia J. Williamson was a typical whore for Barack. Despite being a law professor, and presumably understanding what ethics are, she wnet on KPFA and lied on THE MORNING SHOW about how Barack, in 2002, had voted against the Iraq War. When confronted with her lie by a caller, Patty refused to admit the truth.

They all lied, they all whored. THey used poor Kimberlé Crenshaw. I told her they were using her so I don't feel sorry for her. She was warned. They wanted to attack Hillary and promote Barck so White women teamed up with Kimberle to use her skin color in the byline. They didn't give a damn about her or her observations. She thought she was breaking through. HUFF POST, THE PROGERESSIVE,e veryone was noting some column she had co-written and the importance of it and . . . . By 2009, when she was no longer needed as cover to hide behind, she went back to being unwanted in the circle jerk that ignores most people of color. But for awhile there, she was convicnced that everyone was interested in her and she'd finally broken through.

Saif wants you to know that Barack was agains the war from the start.

But he wasn't.

He was against it enough to give a tiny speech. It was so smallt hat iwas insignificant. Footage existed of it -- I'm still friends with the person who asked Barack tp speak in Chicago that day. But the turnout was small. So 2008 campaign decided to 'recrete' it and the press let them do that. I've seen the original. It's not inspiring, the voice doesn't soar. Hes not impressive in his remarks or in his delivery. So they shot it several years later and the press let him get away with it.

Why dods it matter?

I mentioned Boston 2004, remember. I was there. I was there when he gave that lousy speech at the convention. Matthew Rothschild called it out in THE PROGRESSIVE. It was a war speech. And then, three years later, Matty wants to whore for Barack and begins praising the speech. That's what a whore does, erase the past.

And that's what JACOBIN's doing.

It was in Boston that THE NEW YORK TIMES asked Barack -- anti-war Barack -- about he Iraq War and noted that the top of the ticket, John Kerry had voted for it. Barack pointed out that he wasn't in Congress and said he didn't know how he would have voted if he had been in Congress.

When Bill Clinton raised this point, he was smeared as a racist. We've repeatedly noted Bill's criticue over the years

But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "
"First it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Senator that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn't co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other Senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way."
"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004* and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break."This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen...

I dictate the snapshots. I am not looking at the above. I mention that because as we repeatedly returned to that quote, we would add more links to it to back up what Bill was saying. My friend's pulled that from a piece I did with Ava back in 2011. I steered him to that because I'm hopning it has all the links in it. If it doesn't do the research yourself. I'd also recommend the piece for THIRD entitled "The Temple Prostitutes in the Cult of St. Barack."

JACOBIN fits in that same temple with the other prostitues when they publish garbage like this.

And I'm not even at the half-way mark on that awful article.

How does the Iraq War continue? Be cause of whoring like what JAOCBIN posted that never hodls anyone acountable.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "We Feed Them" went up Saturday night.

And you can pair that with this video from Jimmy Dore.

New content at THIRD:

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Saturday, February 12, 2022

Cher's Ridin' With Biden

That's "Cher's Ridin' With Biden" from March 8, 2020. C.I. noted:

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cher's Ridin' With Biden." Cher explains, "When I'm all taped back and wigged out, it's easy to forget I'm a 73 year old elderly woman scared of the world around me. Electing Bernie means RED DAWN becomes a true story." Cher t-shirt reads: "Trust me on this I picked Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman. Now I'm ridin' with Biden." Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.

I think Cher and others need to be held accountable.

Joe Biden was the worst choice in the primary. They need to be held accountable and they either apologize or they shut the f*ck up.

I'm serious.

We needed Medicare For All. We need student loan debt forgiveness. We need a UBI. We need a higher minimum wage.

Let's stop pretending Cher understands any of that s**t. This is the woman Sonny had to shield from financial responsibilities. They were bankrupt, they were in debt and Sonny had to hide it from her -- he borrowed money to buy her jewelry to hide it from her. And she was so dumb that she didn't catch on. Then she moved on to David Geffen who showered her with gifts and money and was her attorney and manager without charging her a dime. After that? Do a few weeks in Vegas whenever she needed money -- which morphed into her never-ending farewell tour.

She doesn't know a damn thing about the way people suffer today to pay bills. She truly needs to apologize for the support she gave to Joe Biden.

And let's never forget that Joe assaulted Tara Reade.

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

Friday, February 11, 2022. NYT decides 19 years of an illegal war is enough. (It's a position many of us reached before the war started and that many more recahced in the first few years of the illegal war, but, hey, NYT is n't noted for its courage or keen intelligence.)

In this morning's NEW YORK TIMES, Trita Parsi and Adam N. Weinstein argue that it's time for US troops to leave Iraq and for US President Joe Biden to set a timetable for that departure:

U.S. troops in Iraq quietly thwarted two separate drone attacks on bases hosting American soldiers in the first week of 2022. The attacks, attributed to Iraqi Shiite militias, are no surprise: America’s presence in Iraq is increasingly unwelcome. More attacks are bound to come as long as the Biden administration decides to keep forces there. With each passing day, the risk of a deadly attack increases.

And for what?

The presence of U.S. troops won’t stop terrorist attacks from happening and they can’t contain Iran, which has cemented its hold on some Iraqi military institutions since 2003. American soldiers are likely to die in vain because, just as in Afghanistan, they have been given the impossible task of acting as an ephemeral thumb on the scale of a foreign country’s politics.

Americans must ask themselves: Is this worth it? The United States withdrew from Afghanistan last year because its presence there no longer served its interests. Neither does staying in Iraq.

The U.S. experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq made painfully clear that there is no magic number of American troops that can eradicate terrorism. The roughly 2,500 in Iraq certainly cannot. While Washington’s foreign policy establishment wrings its hands about the risks of leaving, it appears to be ignoring the clear costs of staying.

An argument for ending the illegal war and occupation -- ongoing war, ongoing occupation --- from the belly of the beast. THE NEW YORK TIMES pimped the Iraq War, they cheerleaded it on. They ran with false links between al Qaeda and Iraq. They did stenography on what turned out to be non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction. Bill Keller, Judith Miller, Thomas Friedman, Michael Gordon, those are only some of the names of people who did war proaganda. Don't forget serial plagiarist Jill Abramson who, after the illegal war started and was obviously not the cake walk so many had promised, suddenly had 'objections' to pieces that had been long ago published. Jill, whose grip on reality has always been tenuous, was in a position where she could hae halted the publication of those type of storeis or demanded more background be included as well as more skepitiscm but she waived them through and then pretended to be powerless when it was obvious that the Iraq War would go down as one of the paper's all time worst moments.

They sold the war. Over and over. And as we noted repeatedly during the early years of the illegal war, is was their Go-Go Boys and their lying 'coverage' that kept the Iraq War going. Burnsie and Dexy. A special place in hell for those two? A table for three with Mad Maddy Albright?

The paper sold the illegal war. They sold it and over a million Iraqis are dead as are Americans, British, Australians, . . . They sold the war and its the American taxpayer that is footing the bill. And not just this generation's taxpayer, but many generations to come.

It was cute, when Doanld Trump was in the White House, to watch outlets like NYT -- outlets who had lied the country into war -- get peevish over when exactly Donald Trump turned against the war -- before it started or in the early days after it started?

They wanted to lecture and to fact check. To lecture and fact check Donald Trump, you understand. Not themselves.

Forced into finally issuing some sort of statement after (a) Howard Kurtz had written a major piece on THE WASHINGTON POST's pre-war coverage and (b) NYT public editor Daniel Okrent had done a review on his own (the paper was opposed to that review -- Daniel did it because of The Tonys, I'm not joking, we can give that sotry at another time, we're already lost in parenthetical and we've told it here before), the paper issued a brief statement and insisted that there would be more to come as they looked at that pre-war coverage.

Bill Keller was always a liar. There was no more coverage examining the paper's lies.

So what we learn today is the time line. And it matters. It matters because they're trying to sell war on Russia right now. So, should they get their desire and that war start, we now know at what point they'll allow calls for US troops to leave -- 19 years later. We're one month shy of the 20th anniversary.

So 19 years is their level of 'endurance.'

A hellish amount of damage and destruction has been done in Iraq in those 19 years.

Even now, 19 years later, the column can't be honest. It's sections on the Iraqi government are laughable at best. (We didn't quote them above.) It's not a functioning government. The corrpution index issued annually by Tranparency International makes that clear. Or should. The inability to defend its own citizens make that clear.

Could democracy have taken root in Iraq -- democracy as the US swdinwa ir? I don't know. Anything can happen. But the steps they took esnured that it wouldn't.

And one of the biggest hallmarks of democracy? Voting. One person, one vote.

Iraq's election turnout? It's faltered and decreased steadily since the March 2010 election.

The western press pretends not to notice -- even after the debacle that was the October 2021 elections.

But it was US actions that ensured that Iraqis would not have faith in the ballot box. They went into 2010 with Nouri al-Maliki seeking a second term as prime minister. He claimed he would win -- and he instituted a series of actions (bribes) to try to ensure that -- not limited to his ice giveaway that was mocked by most Iraqis on social media. "We're despearte for potable water," the response went, "and he has a big block of ice transported to our area that qucikly melts. Water for a day! Yea!"

He worked overtime to eliminate his rivals. He'd sought a secret ruling ahead of the elections from Iraq's Supreme Court that he kept in his back pocket in case he lost (he did lose).

Alone among the US government watchers, Gen Ray Odierno could see (a) that Nouri might lose and (b) that if he did lose, he might refuse to step down.

The late general looks like a psychic in retrospect.

His concerns were ignored because Barack Obama nd Joe Biden were appeasing spoiled brat Chrissy Hill, the US Ambassador to Iraq. Little Chrissy was upset that the Sundy chat and chews had Ray on. Chrissy felt it should be him. And the press didn't note him, they went after Ray. Jealous, he had a snit-fit and Ray's role was scaled back.

But Ray was right.

Iraqis didn't want a second term of Nouri -- his secret prisons and torture chambers were already known. They went with Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.

This was a major moment -- as we noted here repeatedly in real time.

A) It could show the Iraqi people the importance of the ballot box. It could. It could strengthen their belief in voting and in the power of voting. B) Iraqiys was the step forward that both Iraq and the US needed.

Iraq needed it because Iraqiys was about healing. It had Shias and Sunnis and everyone. It wasn't a fundamentalist party. At a time when women were largely invisible, IRaqiya had a female spokesperson. It was about a national identity. It was about coming together, not about divisions.

This really could have helped heal the country and allow it to move forward.

And that would have been good for the US because it would have argued for the departure of US troops.

So much could have been accomplished.

But reality flew out the window. It did so after the election, the day after, in fact. Quil Lawrence showed up on NPR to declare Nouri the winner. He wasn't. There were no tallies ore stimates. But, hey, Quil's a whore and whore's gotta make bank. Deborah Amos was on sabatical from NPR at that time and she used that time to write one of the best studies of the 2010 voting -- including the corruption -- corruption NPR and so many other outlets ignored.

But, hey, Quil called it so it must be true.

Originally, the approach of Joe (tasked with overseeing Iraq by Barack) was that the US stood with the winner. Tht would be Allawi and Iraqiya.

But then Samantha Power and Susan Davis got very vocal and insisted that Allawi would mean US troops had to leave when the current SOFA expired. A second term of Nouri al-Maliki? The insisted Nouri would go for renewing the SOFA. (The SOFA gave US troops the legal right to be on Iraqi soil and carrying out combat missions.)

Nouri refused to step down. Eight months after the election. He refused to step down. The government ground to standstill.

Joe and Brett McGurk were at the top of overseeing The Erbil Agreement. This was the legal contract that gve loser Nouri a second term. Parick Cockburn, the laughable US transplant who needs to go home, loves to play expert on Iraq but he never once, to this day, covered The Erbil Agreement.

This US overseen contract gave Nouri a second term. The heads of the various political blocs signed off on it. Why? They got something in the contract in exchange. So, for the Kurds, Article 140 would finally be put to a vote. Now that was supposed to happen during Nouri's first term. Remember that, we'll be back to it.

Everyone was promised something.

The day after the agreement was signed, Parliament met and finally named Nouri prime minister-designate. It was obvious there were huge problems from that moment, that very moment. Iraqiya walked out. Barac personally called Ayad Allawi and begged him to bring Iraqiya back into the Parliament. He told Allawi that The Erbil Agreement had the full backing of the US government.

He said it.

He lied.

Allawi believed him and Iraqiya returned.

Article 140 would need to be pushed back a bit. That's what the prime minister-designate said. There were announcements of an end of December referendum. Didn't happen. And never would. To this day.

We mocked the Kurdish leaders over this.

Nouri took an oath to uphold the Iraqi Constitution. It specifically called for Article 140 to be implemented before his first term ended. He didn't implement it. Why the hell did they believe his promise that 'this time' he'd implement it?

It was a big mistake.

And not just for the Kurds, for everyone invovled.

Within seven or so weeks, Nouri was announcing -- through his psokesperson (the one who later had to flee the country when Nouri turned on him) -- that the contrtact wasn't legal. Of course, he'd already become prime minister by that point.

He said he wasn't bound by it.

And he never honored it.

And Barack with his promise that the US government was behind it 100%? He refused to take Allawi's calls.

Iraq voted for a national identity, that's why the brand new Iraqiya managed to defeat the incumbent Nouri in the 2010 elections. And the US spat on that choice. And they overturned the votes.

And since that election, you've seen voter turnout in Iraq decrease steadily.

If you're surprised by that, you weren't paying attention.

Cause and effect.

In other news, Amnesty Interantional notes:

Amnesty International and Fat Rat Films have today released a new documentary that highlights the ongoing struggles faced by Yezidi former child soldiers who survived abduction by the Islamic State (IS) armed group.

The 12-minute film, Captives on the Frontlines: Yezidi former child soldiers who survived ISIS, explores the friendship between Vian and Barzan, two young men who were abducted as boys by IS in 2014, indoctrinated into the armed group, and forced to fight. Both escaped and are now living in northern Iraq, where the documentary was filmed last year.

“This film captures the challenges still faced by Yezidi former child soldiers, and also the friendships that have flourished in the most difficult of circumstances,” said Nicolette Waldman, Researcher on Children and Armed Conflict on Amnesty International’s Crisis Response team.

“Former child soldiers are routinely stigmatized, which means their harrowing experiences are frequently kept in the shadows. By bravely sharing their own stories so openly, Vian and Barzan have helped shine a light on the struggles that remain for Yezidi former child soldiers today. Many of these young men, having endured unimaginable trauma, continue to have serious physical and mental health conditions.

“To date, many Yezidi survivors have still not received adequate support for their physical health, mental health or education. Indeed, many have not received support of any kind since they returned to their communities.

“The Iraqi authorities, their international partners, and the United Nations must ensure that Yezidi former child soldiers have full access to the reparations and assistance to which they are entitled under Iraq’s Yazidi Survivors Law (2021).

“They must also work together to establish a National Action Plan mandating that all current and former child soldiers in Iraq, including Yezidi boys and young men, are reintegrated into society and provided with coordinated, specialized and long-term support.”

The documentary was made in collaboration with award-winning documentary production company Fat Rat Films, and will be available here ahead of the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers on Saturday 12 February.

Captives on the frontlines: Yezidi child soldiers who survived ISIS – the new documentary from Amnesty International and Fat Rat Films.

Between 2014 and 2017, IS committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and what the UN describes as genocide against the Yezidi community in Iraq.

In July 2020, Amnesty International published a report that documented how Yezidi children who had returned to their families after being held captive by IS were facing a physical and mental health crisis. The report, Legacy of Terror: The Plight of Yezidi Child Survivors of ISIS, also addresses the urgent need to end the enforced separation of Yezidi women and their children born of sexual violence by IS members.

In November 2021, Amnesty International welcomed new regulations passed by Iraq’s parliament to implement the Yazidi Survivors Law, but warned that more work was still required in order to fully assist survivors of atrocities committed by IS.

We'll wind down with this from Restore The Fourth:

Friend,

We did it—with your help! This week the IRS announced that it had abandoned its plans to partner with ID.me to force some taxpayers to use facial recognition technology in order to access their tax documents. You helped us put the pressure on the IRS and roll back their plans before tax season really took off—preventing potentially millions of Americans from having their biometric data recorded and stored in ID.me's private database.

Let’s keep that momentum up! The IRS is not the only government agency that has contracted with ID.me—other federal agencies that have contracts with this infamous FRT company include Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration as well as 30 state unemployment offices. This is unacceptable. Let’s demand ALL government agencies drop ID.me. We cannot continue to sit idly by while ID.me builds a huge, private database of our personal biometric information.

It's time to dump ID.me!

Consider supporting the work we do by making a donation here.

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