Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel)

Tuesday, June 02, 2020

Racism in RIVERDALE?

I was going to do a science post but my daughter watches RIVERDALE and she brought this to me. I think the actress is brave to speak out and I want to do my part to make sure people see what she's saying. This is from Pamela Avila's report for E!:

Actress Vanessa Morgan Kopech is speaking out about being "tired of how black people are portrayed in media."
Morgan, who currently plays Toni Topaz in The CW's Riverdale, took to Twitter on Sunday, May, 31 to share that she was not going to be "quiet anymore." In a statement posted on the social media platform, she wrote, "Tired of how black people are portrayed in media, tired of us being portrayed as thugs, dangerous or angry scary people. Tired of us also being used as side kick non dimensional characters to our white leads."
"Or only used in the ads for diversity but not actually in the show," she continued. "It starts with the media. I'm not being quiet anymore."
On Tuesday, the 28-year-old actress stated that her role on Riverdale "has nothing to do with my fellow classmates/friends. They don't write the show. So no need to attack them, they don't call the shots & I know they have my back."

I will watch RIVERDALE when my daughter asks me to, I'll watch it with her. I did wonder, because I'm more familiar with the commercials for it than the show itself, why Toni never seemed as prominent in the episodes I caught compared to the ads for the show on THE CW where they show the cast.

Good for her for refusing to be window dressing.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, June 2, 2020. Covid and ISIS continue in Iraq.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder at the stupidity. For example, Rafael Noboa Y Rivera shows up at THE DAILY BEAST to tell you "I'm an Iraq Veteran. The Cops Are Treating Citizens Like They're Under Occupation." I'm not questioning the police violence. It's taking place. It's documented in video after video of the protests. I am asking what the hell Rafael is thinking? This is how you acted in your tour in Iraq? Or this is what you saw? You already sold out everyone in 2008, veterans, remember? You sold out your fellow veterans who, sadly, were willing to be sold out. Barack Obama didn't want the big protest that veterans were threatening. He was going to meet with veterans. Rivera was part of that 'deal' that wasn't. Barack never met with them, he just strung them along to avoid the headlines of ''Veterans Protest Barack."

Now Rafael shows up, as Americans are disgusted to see the way protesters are being attacked by the police, to tell us this is what he, the Iraq Veteran, saw under occupation?

If so, you really need to apologize to the Iraqi people. And you need to stop acting like what took place there was in any way okay because it wasn't. Your use of it to make an analogy demonstrates that it was not okay.

On the protests, here's Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) speaking to Australia's SKY NEWS.

Violence continues in Iraq. MENAFM notes, "According to the Iraqi military, two soldiers and two Islamic State (IS) militants were murdered on Monday, June 1st in an airstrike and a bomb attack in the Iraqi provinces of Nineveh and Diyala." And, KURDISTAN 24 notes, "on Sunday, terrorists killed two members of the Iraqi federal police and the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and wounded six others, according to local media reports and a PMF statement."

You may remember that it was just last week when we were laughing at the Iraqi military spokesperson who was insisting ISIS had been "vanquished" and was no longer a problem in Iraq.

There are many problems in Iraq. That includes the coronavirus.

AL-MONITOR reports:

Iraq reimposed total lockdowns over the weekend following a surge in COVID-19 cases.

After meeting with his COVID-19 task force on Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s government decided to institute a nationwide curfew until June 6, 2020.

“The joint meeting underscored the importance of all citizens continuing to follow official health advice and physical distancing guidelines, and to comply with the curfew to keep themselves, their families and communities safe,” the government said in a press release announcing the restrictions.

Under the latest guidelines, only supermarkets, bakeries and pharmacies are allowed to remain open. These businesses cannot have more than five people in them at a time, and both employees and customers must wear masks. Some ministries will be closed, people must wear masks when outside and the closure of Iraq’s airports to commercial flights will continue until June 6. Restaurants will be allowed to deliver, according to the release.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraqi-Kurdistan also began a full lockdown today with similar restrictions until June 6, according to a KRG Department of Foreign Relations tweet.

MEED notes Iraq has 6,868 confirmed cases of Covid-19, there have been 215 deaths and there have been 3,275 who have recovered. On the recovered, we'll note this report.

On Covid and Iraq, Caitlin Cawley (COMMON DREAMS) offers:

One way Americans can inhabit this crossroads in the weeks and months to come is by reading Iraqi occupation literature — that is, literature by Iraqis about life between 2003 to 2011, when the U.S.-led Coalition Forces occupied the country. Over the last decade, a number of brilliant fiction and nonfiction books about the occupation have become available in English. Two that stand out among this emerging subgenre are “The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq” by the award-winning Arabic writer and filmmaker Hassan Blasim and “Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq” by the anonymous Iraqi software engineer-turned-blogger Riverbend. Others include “The Corpse Washer” by Sinan Antoon, “Frankenstein in Baghdad” by Ahmed Saadaw, “The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq” by Dunya Mikhail, and “Baghdad Noir” edited by Samuel Shimon.
These works challenge readers to share in the experience of being occupied. Just three months ago, this experience might have been considered a subject for only niche academic audiences or, worse, written off as the plight of an unlucky pocket of the globe. But the demanding isolation of social distancing, deepening precarity caused by the shutdown of all “nonessential” sectors, and seemingly imminent threat of infection and illness have made these narratives relatable to a wider American public. The idea of being confined, indefinitely, to one shelter was inconceivable for many of us prior to the coronavirus. During the first two weeks of the shutdown, my students, who were forcibly dispersed across four continents in a matter of days, began each virtual meeting by noting how surreal and dystopian it all felt. As one New Jersey-native put it, “It’s like we’re in a ‘Black Mirror’ episode, right?”
It’s also the first time since the Vietnam War that the U.S. public has been confronted with so many dead bodies, and so many lives that cannot be fully grieved. The drone footage from New York’s Hart Island, where hundreds of unclaimed corpses are being buried in mass graves, crystallizes this phenomenon. It’s also a dilemma shaping our daily lives in less spectacular ways: health care workers broadcasting a patient’s final moments via FaceTime, essential employees beginning their shift after a brief announcement about a coworker passing, reporters updating listeners and viewers with the latest death toll.
While this is new ground for many Americans, it’s old ground for many Iraqis. The mortality rate in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion was about 5.5 people per 1,000 per year and rose to 19.8 deaths per 1,000 in the year 2006. That same year, the rate of violence rose by 51 percent in just three months, with an estimated 5,000 deaths per month. The country’s medical facilities struggled to cope with the influx of bodies and the lack of capacity in their morgues, and families hired civilians to search dumps, river banks and morgues for the bodies of missing relatives.

[. . .]

One of those features is the trope of Iraq’s occupied civilians as ghosts, jinnis (supernatural spirits in Arabic mythology), or divided subjects — liminal figures existing at the threshold between life and death, waking and dreaming, human and non-human, here and there. “Baghdad Burning” opens about five months after the American invasion with the pseudonymous author resolving to blog about daily life under the occupation because, as she writes, “I guess I’ve got nothing to lose.” She quickly distinguishes herself from the “third world” Muslim women of the Western imagination. A university-educated engineer with a music collection ranging from Britney Spears to Nirvana, the 24-year-old had a budding career and busy social life prior to May 2003. She was free to move — solo and hijabless — around the city as she pleased. All that changed with the occupation.
Riverbend chronicles the shift from her pre- to post-invasion life in details that are equal parts humorous and harrowing, raw and cerebral. She notes how the American troops carry out conventional forms of combat: killing, wounding and torturing Iraqi people. (Abu Ghraib, she affirms, was a watershed moment). But more often, she attends to the military’s more abstract and indirect engagement with those living in Baghdad. The occupying troops ravage the country’s infrastructure — electricity, water, gas and other basic services are constant problems — and they spread themselves everywhere in order to control and reconstruct the city. They also conduct patrols and raids that operate along the same logic as terrorism: surprise, chaos, asymmetry and mistrust. These strategies seem to facilitate the Islamic State’s domination and violence, a phenomenon that Riverbend highlights in her interrogative about the sounds that wake her at night: “What can it be? A burglar? A gang of looters? An attack? A bomb? Or maybe just an American midnight raid.”
“Baghdad Burning” also gives readers a window into the psychological and social effects of the occupation. This form of militarism makes Riverbend and other Iraqis feel like they exist in an alternate reality, outside recognizable social and structural forms, like politics and time. When Donald Rumsfeld visits the country in September 2003, Riverbend observes how he moves through Baghdad “safe in the middle of all his bodyguards.” Rumsfeld’s movement is a particularly cruel and distressing element of the occupation for Riverbend, whose own mobility had become radically restricted (by that point, she couldn’t leave home without a head covering and male relative). “It’s awful to see him strutting all over the place … like he’s here to add insult to injury … you know, just in case anyone forgets we’re in an occupied country.” The young Baghdadi woman’s experience of the perverse and unassailable distance between herself and the U.S. Secretary of Defense typifies the occupier-occupied relationship in “Baghdad Burning,” a dynamic that leads Riverbend to the hopeless feeling that “everything now belongs to someone else … I can’t see the future at this point.”

Last month, UNAMI noted a survey:

This month the Government of Iraq with the support of UNFPA and UNICEF, unveiled the results of its National Adolescent and Youth Survey.

The survey was the first of its kind in over a decade, with the last survey taking place in 2009. Its aim is to enable the Iraq Federal Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government to develop adolescent and youth-centered policies based on what adolescents and youth see as priorities.
The launch took place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the participation of the Minister of Planning, Dr Nouri Al-Dulaimi, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Ahmed Taleb, the Deputy UN Special Representative for Iraq and Humanitarian Coordinator, Ms Marta Ruedas, along with UNFPA Representative, Dr Oluremi Sogunro and UNICEF Representative, Ms Hamida Lasseko.
“Young people are the innovators, creators, builders and leaders of the future. But they can only live out their full potential if they have skills, health and choices in life and most importantly, an adequate system that meets their inspirations,” explained Ms Marta Ruedas.
Iraqis between the ages of 10 and 30 were asked about a range of key thematic issues affecting their lives, including health, education and civic engagement. According to the survey, 39% expressed worry about their future financial security and employment prospects. With over a quarter of Iraqis between the ages of 15 and 30 jobless, Iraq is one of the countries with the highest youth unemployment rates in the region.
“The results show that young people have a clear understanding of citizenship, political and social life and livelihoods as well as their rights and obligations. The survey will be the basis for a clear and transparent process to put together youth-based policies,” said the Minister Taleb.

Iraq is a country with a young population. The median age is 20. By contrast, in the United States it's 38 years-old. The youth have taken to the streets because of the corruption, because of the lack of jobs, because of issues with diplomas (including hiring issue), because of a government that does not serve the people.

Mustafa al-Kadhim only became the prime minister on May 7th. But this is not supposed to be a four year term. That's the point Ayad Allawi was making when he Tweeted the following on May 26th:

No public tribunal has yet been formed to try protestors’ killers; and neither have martyrs’ families, those wounded and made handicapped been compensated. In addition, there must be a fixed date for fair and early elections; a new electoral law; and an independent commission.

The following sites updated:

Monday, June 01, 2020

Curiosity on Mars

In August, my favorite land rover, Curiosity, will have been on Mars for eight years. Can you believe it's been that long?

Here's a NASA video about Curiosity landing on Mars.

I also liked the video below.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, June 1, 2020. THE NEW YORK TIMES rushes to trash Tara Reade again, many people aren't having it, in Iraq the water issues continue in Basra and much more.

THE NEW YORK TIMES drags Tara Reade through the mud again. You can read it at THE WALLA WALLA UNION BULLETIN. That way, you're not giving clicks to THE TIMES or it's putrid Jim Root-Toot-en-berg, Stephanie Saul and Lisa Lerer. The bulk of the long, long article is trash. Here are the parts that matter. First:

Only two people know what did or did not happen between Reade and Biden in the spring of 1993. Still, like other significant chapters of the #MeToo moment, Reade’s comes with the statements of confidants who say they heard her account long before it became public.

But while five people have said Reade shared all or part of her account of sexual harassment with them around the time she says it happened, corroboration of the assault charge is shakier.

The two people who say she told them of it contemporaneously — her brother and a longtime friend — initially offered accounts of harassment, not assault. The friend told The Times in 2019 that Biden’s behavior was “a little bit just over the line, but nothing like, ‘Oh, my God, call 911.’”

The friend says she had withheld the full story because Reade was not ready to share it, and two other people have said she told them of an assault a few years later. Professionals who counsel sexual abuse victims say it is not uncommon for them to reveal what happened piecemeal, over time.

Nothing Michael Tracey and other pig boys have written or Tweeted about Tara changes or disproves the allegation of assault she has made against Joe Biden.

There's this:

There is some contemporaneous evidence that she complained of mistreatment while in Biden’s office.

As The Intercept reported in April, a woman living in California called in to “Larry King Live” in August 1993 to say her daughter had been working “for a prominent senator and could not get through with her problems at all.” She did not say what that trouble was. Reade has previously said her mother, who has since died, called into the program after she told her about her experience.

Three years later, in divorce proceedings, her husband, Ted Dronen, said Reade had “related a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office.” He did not say Biden had himself harassed her.

And this:

"By coming forward about Joe Biden,” she wrote Friday, “I have lost everything again, my job, my housing and my reputation. I have been called every vile name imaginable and presented as a monster by the media for daring to speak about Joe Biden and what happened. But I am free.”

That is all that matters.

Oh, my goodness, some people didn't get repaid when they helped her with an electric payment!!!!!

Who the hell cares?

That has nothing to do with the assault she alleges.

I loan money all the time and I never do it with the expectation that I'm going to be paid back. I'm not seeing any story -- and it wouldn't matter if I did -- where someone's saying, "I had an overdraft on my account and I told Tara I could loan her X but I needed the money by noon the next day or I would bounce checks." You had the money, you gifted the money. In a perfect world, you'd get it back. In the real world, you know someone supporting herself and her daughter that is already struggling with bills is probably never going to pay you back.

None of it has anything to do with the charge of assault.

And no where in the article does THE TIMES take accountability for their smearing of Tara or for being in the tank for Joe Biden.

He claimed in an interview two weeks ago that he has been endorsed by the NAACP every time he's run for office. The NAACP has never endorsed him. They even issued a statement noting that fact. We covered it at THIRD ("Does Joe Biden ever stop lying?"). Where's THE NEW YORK TIMES' article? Where's their report noting all the lies he's told and all the character flaws he has -- including refusing to acknowledge a grandchild even after DNA tests made clear the child's father was Hunter Biden?

Joe Biden dropped out of the 1988 race for president why? Because he got caught lying. And he clearly didn't learn from it because he continues to lie -- over and over.

Why is he getting a pass on that from the press?

Oh, right. Bully Boy Bush had the media's help selling the Iraq War because the corporate media wanted certain things. Joe's already met with Comcast and others and promised them their shopping lists would be checked off.

Left-wing corporate Democratic media and politicians not only proved me wrong, they betrayed my trust and respect as a student journalist and moral citizen. Regardless of whether you believe Tara Reade’s allegation against Joe Biden or not, no human and survivor who speaks up deserves death threats and harassment, interrogation, trauma-ignorant journalists, disrespect, vilified characterization, and media blackout.

Tara Reade is certainly not the first survivor to withstand such treatment nor will she be the last, but as readers and as voters, we need to start holding our institutions and representatives accountable for the messages of silence they send.

The New York Timeswas one of many left-leaning newspapers to exemplify this treatment against Reade. This was shown by their taking 19 days to report on her allegation, and by including interviews from extraneous staff members, using Trump as a strawman, and editing the article after publication to say "The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden'' and excluding "beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable" — without notifying readers of the update. Between all of it, this article and many others like it, politically trivalize sexual violence in a way that encourages silence for the sake of political convenience.

Many #MeToo leaders and liberal feminists, including Alyssa Milano, fell into this trap of political hypocrisy as well. The double standard reactions towards Reade's case as compared to Ford and other survivors was made clear as many went out of their way to criticize Reade, once more begging the question of trading in any actual conversation of Reade and her story for political convenience.

[. . .]

As we see survivors on national television scrutinized and politically targeted by journalists, politicians, #MeToo leaders, and anyone with an opinion, there's a dangerous message that the burden is on the survivor and that the world is against them. Consider another reason many don't report: the length and difficulty of the reporting process and any following criminal case.

"I've spoken to a lot of people about this and that was why the case being so long felt even longer because they have to go through the trauma over and over again," Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Activists (SARVA) Director Nicole Sullivan said.

Last week, Regina Munch (COMMONWEAL) noted:

[. . .] a proper DNC inquiry is just what’s needed to give Reade’s allegation the full attention it deserves. Why be so afraid to carry one out? If the evidence is compelling enough on either side, then voters will know whether or not they have a candidate they can be confident in. As Representative Ayanna Pressley recently said: “I reject the false choice that my party and our nominee can’t address the allegations at hand and defeat the occupant of the White House.”

This is not going away. Even after the 2020 election is over, this is not going away. The Michael Traceys can savage Tara as much as they want. It's not going to silence her or the people who are outraged over the trashing of a woman for stepping forward. This is not a minor issue. This is one of those issues that will never go away.

The attacks on Tara have been outrageous. What's passed for 'reporting' has been outrageous.

She's been held to a higher standard than an elected official has. Joe's entire life has been as a public servant. But he's not held to any real standard by the media. A woman came forward and was savaged for her resume, for her rent payments, etc. Joe has repeatedly lied to the American people. He's easily told a thousand lies in public in interviews and appearances in the last 12 months.

Where's the lengthy article examining his character?

The corporate media has never held Joe Biden accountable for anything -- including his part in the destruction of Iraq. Miguel Gonzalez (EL PAIS) reports:

At the end of July, Spanish troops will be withdrawn from the Gran Capitán base in Bismayah, which is Spain’s most important base in Iraq. Before the coronavirus pandemic, 350 out of Spain’s 530 soldiers in Iraq were stationed at the Gran Capitán base. The base is one of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) centers run by the US-led international coalition in Iraq, which is tasked with training Iraqi security forces. According to military sources, troops are being withdrawn because the base has completed this mission.
The Spanish Defense Ministry is also preparing to withdraw soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of this year or the beginning of 2021, before the 14-month deadline for complete withdrawal of US and allied forces comes to an end, as set out in the deal struck between the United States and the Taliban.

At ANTIWAR.COM, Margaret Griffis offers her roundup of May's violence: "At least 262 people were killed, and 149 were wounded across Iraq during May. During April, at least 208 people were killed, and 185 were wounded. Although the new coronavirus kept many civilians in their homes, security operations against the Islamic State increased violence between those two groups."

The Iraq War has not ended. And the government of Turkey continues to terrorize the Iraqi people. For years now, they have been ignoring Iraq's sovereignty and bombing the country of Iraq. These bombings have resulted in many dead. Seth J. Frantzman (JERUSALEM POST) reports:

Turkish airstrikes killed civilians on Saturday, days after another set of airstrikes killed members of a far-left Iranian dissident group in the mountains of the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The attacks appear to represent an increase in Ankara’s use of drones and airstrikes against Kurdish groups. Ankara claims these groups, linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are “terrorists” but presents no evidence that any of them are involved in “terror.”

The PKK is one of many Kurdish groups which supports and fights for a Kurdish homeland. Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described them in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk." The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has been a concern to Turkey because they fear that if it ever moves from semi-autonomous to fully independent -- such as if Iraq was to break up into three regions -- then that would encourage the Kurdish population in Turkey. For that reason, Turkey is overly interested in all things Iraq. So much so that they signed an agreement with the US government in 2007 to share intelligence which the Turkish military has been using when launching bomb raids. However, this has not prevented the loss of civilian life in northern Iraq. Aaron Hess noted, "The Turkish establishment sees growing Kurdish power in Iraq as one step down the road to a mass separatist movement of Kurds within Turkey itself, fighting to unify a greater Kurdistan. In late October 2007, Turkey's daily newspaper Hurriyet accused the prime minister of the KRG, Massoud Barzani, of turning the 'Kurdish dream' into a 'Turkish nightmare'."

Frantzman notes, "Iraq has complained to Ankara about the airstrikes but Ankara acts with impunity and international organizations that usually monitor human rights refuse to critique Turkey or visit the areas of the drone strikes."

The new prime minister, like the previous ones, can't protect Iraq from the continued Turkish attacks. What can he do? Corruption now threatens to topple Iraq's long standing food rations program. ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports:

Iraq has only 190,000 tons of rice available in its coffers for its food rationing program, the trade ministry said in a statement late on Saturday.

The country needs around 1-1.25 million tons of rice a year to support the program.

In March, the trade ministry pleaded for money from the state's budget to build three months' supply of strategic wheat and rice stockpiles as Iraq grappled with the spread of the new coronavirus.

The corruption has long been noted. A decade ago, some pretended to be interested in it and in eliminating it -- the US Congress, for example, and the US State Dept to name but two. These days? No one really seems to care except for the Iraqi protesters. A few days ago, Khaled Yacoub Oweis (THE NATIONAL) reported:

A veteran Iraqi economist who is advising the country's new Prime Minister, Mustafa Al Kadhimi, has revealed astounding figures on government waste in the resource-rich but impoverished nation.
Mudher Salih told of a state obsessed with generating money from its oil sector without acting to develop the country or plug holes in the budget that have been sucking liquidity out of public finances for years.
The electricity sector costs the government about $10 billion (Dh36.73bn) a year to run but generates only 7 per cent of its operating costs in revenue, Mr Salih told the official Iraqi news agency on Tuesday.
Iraq also suffers crippling power cuts and imports electricity and gas from Iran to boost production.
Official datas show its generation capacity at 16,000 megawatts, compared with the 24,000 to 30,000 megawatts needed to satisfy demand.

Mr Salih, a former central bank official, is one of the few senior independent experts in Iraq who survived purges under Saddam Hussein.
He retained a senior position in the state after the consolidation of the Shiite political ascendency in 2005, the year Iraq had its first democratic poll post-Saddam.
Mr Salih said Iraq imported $50bn worth of fuel in the past 10 years, although it is one of the top five members of Opec.
"This amount could have been used to build 10 large oil refineries," he said.

The rice shortage comes as other things take place. Ayad Allawi Tweeted Saturday about the burning of farms that is taking place in Iraq.

Fuel and electricity issues are not the only ones corruption has caused. There remains the issue of Iraq having a lack of potable water. This should have been seriously addressed in 2003. Instead, 'addressing' it was handing out tablets to purify water and blaming women -- the United Nations blaming women, let's be clear. That allowed the corrupt government of Iraq to continue to ignore the water issue. Basra's water was so outrageous that it's part of what fueled the protests. ALSUMARIA reports that the Water Ministry declared today that it 'plans' to address the issue of the lack of drinking water in Basra. Corruption would also include the report that, as vice president, Nouri al-Maliki to four billion dinars (3,349,396 in US dollars) from the government to decorate his home.

Last July, as people in Basra were suffering, Human Rights Watch noted:

The situation culminated in an acute water crisis that sent at least 118,000 people to hospital in 2018 and led to violent protests.

The 128-page report, “Basra is Thirsty: Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis,” found that the crisis is a result of complex factors that if left unaddressed will most likely result in future water-borne disease outbreaks and continued economic hardship. The authorities at the local and federal level have done little to address the underlying conditions causing the situation.

“Shortsighted politicians are citing increased rainfall as the reason they do not need to urgently deal with Basra’s persistent crisis,” said Lama Fakih, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “But Basra will continue to face acute water shortages and pollution crises in the coming years, with serious consequences, if the government doesn’t invest now in targeted, long-term, and badly needed improvements.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 58 Basra residents, workers at private and public water facilities, and healthcare professionals, and reviewed water sample tests from the Shatt al-Arab river, treatment plants, and taps in homes. Human Rights Watch also interviewed representatives from Basra’s provincial council, governor’s office, and the Ministries of Water Resources, Municipalities and Public Works’ water and sewage departments, Health and Environment, and Agriculture, and analyzed academic and public health data and over 20 years of scientific and commercial satellite imagery of the region to substantiate many of the findings.
Basra’s primary water sources are the Shatt al-Arab river and its freshwater canals. Human Rights Watch found that Iraqi authorities have failed to properly manage and regulate Iraq’s water resources, depriving people in southern Iraq’s Basra governorate – four million people – of their right to safe drinking water for decades, including during the period of occupation by the US- and UK-led Coalition Provisional Authority. But multiple government failures since the 1980s, including poor management of upstream water sources, inadequate regulation of pollution and sewage, and chronic neglect and mismanagement of water infrastructure, have caused the quality of these waterways to deteriorate.

To cope with water pollution and shortages, Basra residents have had to rely on purchasing water. The high cost, especially during the crisis, falls hardest on poorer residents, and makes them particularly vulnerable to exposure to unsafe tap water.

Some will argue that Mustafa al-Kadhim only became Iraq's latest prime minister on May 7th, give him time. Really? Back to Ayad Allawi who Tweeted May 26th:

This is not supposed to be a four year term as prime minister. al-Kahim is supposed to be sorting things out and planning new elections. We're not seeing that happen. We're not even seeing him offer a full Cabinet yet.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: Ricky Martin re-emerges" went up Saturday. New content at THIRD:

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Who you gonna get to do the dirty work when all the slaves are free

Laquisha e-mailed me the following video.

As she noted, "It's funny to watch until you realize we're going to need a miracle to get him replaced between now and the DNC convention."

I hear you, Laquisha, I hear you.

Joe Biden is the 1950s. We don't need him. American needs better, America needs more. That's what people are saying across the country as they protest the police murdering George Floyd.

That's what our planet is saying as it begs us to stop killing it and to end our addiction to fossil fuels.

The world my kids are going to have to live in -- that their children will have to live in -- is going to be so tragic if we don't take real and serious measures now.

Joe Biden's not up to that task nor does he believe it's necessary.

We need a real leader. Not some senile idiot who gropes women and rapes at least one.

"Less rapes."

Vote for the man with less rapes.

Have you seen that video?

YOUTUBE keeps re-setting the count on its views. Last Saturday morning it was up to 236 and then it dropped to 44 views on Sunday. They think no one notices this.

Here's the video and it's hilarious.

It's up to 54 views. Let's see what YOUTUBE drops it too next. On Tuesday, alone, it should have lept in views because I had everyone at the office who streamed it e-mail me after so we could watch to see if the number changed. 33 streamed it. And one co-worker said, "Well maybe it takes a day to update." So we call checked on Wednesday. None of our streams were noted.

That video is hilarious. It's also sad because it's not parodying something that doesn't exist. That's the Joan Walshes, Katha Pollitts, Michelle Goldbergs and all the other Karens.

They'll sell out women in an instant to back some war mongering man.

They're whores, that's all they'll ever be.

They and their sell-out whoring are the reason our country is so screwed up.

They never demand better from those in power, they only attack citizens who won't whore their beliefs and vote for corruption.

We need a better world and we can have it. We probably need to start fighting back against the Karens -- Katha Pollitt, for example, should be retired from THE NATION, her writing doesn't warrant a column let along a column for forty years -- retire the fool. This is from WSWS:

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality welcome and support the multiracial, multiethnic demonstrations of thousands of working people and youth that have swept the country in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These demonstrations—which are taking place in the midst of the pandemic despite the serious risks involved—are a powerful and inspiring manifestation of a deep-rooted commitment to the defense of democratic rights, hatred of fascistic police and the Trump administration, and a profound commitment to the unity of all sections of the working class.
On Friday night, thousands continued their protest in Minneapolis, in defiance of a curfew imposed by the state government. Outside of Minneapolis there were significant protests Friday in Houston, Texas, Floyd’s hometown; Atlanta, Georgia, where protesters forced their way into the headquarters of CNN; New York City, where dozens were arrested after being attacked by police, and protesters have reportedly overrun police precincts in Brooklyn; Lexington and Louisville in Kentucky, where protesters also demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, who had been killed by police in March; Washington, D.C., outside the White House, which temporarily went into lockdown; Fort Wayne, Indiana, where police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd; and Las Vegas, Nevada, where protesters shut down traffic on the Las Vegas Strip.
There have been demonstrations of hundreds and in many cases thousands of people in San Jose, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Omaha, Nebraska; Detroit, Michigan; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City and St. Louis in Missouri; and many other cities throughout the country.
This expanding movement has been triggered by the brutal murder of George Floyd, but it gives expression to mounting anger over social inequality, poverty, mass unemployment, the destruction of the social safety net, and wars without end. The desperate situation confronting the working class has been intensified by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
State and local governments have responded with a massive police mobilization. In Minneapolis, the Democratic Party governor of Minnesota has mobilized hundreds of National Guard troops, which began to deploy throughout the city yesterday. In Georgia, the National Guard was deployed to Atlanta late Friday night after the governor declared a state of emergency. Police in other cities have attempted unsuccessfully to suppress demonstrations with tear gas and rubber bullets.
On Friday, in an attempt to contain protests, Minnesota state officials announced that they had arrested and charged, on the lower-level offense of third-degree murder, Derek Chauvin, the cop who kneeled on Floyd’s neck until he was strangled to death. The other three cops involved, however, still remain at large. Already, malicious justifications for the actions of Chauvin are being advanced, including the claim that Floyd’s death was not the product his brutal arrest but “underlying health conditions” and “potential intoxicants.”
Trump took to Twitter late Thursday to denounce protesters as “THUGS” and threaten a violent military intervention. “Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
This quote repeated the infamous phrase used by the racist Miami police chief Walter Headley in 1967 to signal a violent crackdown of the mass protests of blacks against racist police violence. Trump’s threat is not idle. Late Friday night, the Associated Press reported that the Pentagon has ordered the Army to ready several active-duty military police units to deploy to Minneapolis.

That Chauvin’s brutal crime occurred in Minneapolis is no accident. Last October, Trump delivered a speech at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis dedicated to praising cops and denouncing socialists and the “radical left.” Police officers donned shirts with the slogan, “Cops for Trump” at the rally and waved banners reading, “Law & Order vote Trump.”

I was going to stop there but I just remembered there's a Joni Mitchell song that C.I. always highlights.

"Passion Play (When All The Slaves Are Free)" is from NIGHT RIDE HOME. It's a Joni album I do enjoy but this song didn't really stand out to me as a favorite until the last few years when C.I. started including it in the "Iraq snapshots." The title track, "Come In From The Cold" and "Cherokee Louise" were the immediate stand outs to me. But "Passion Play" is a great song and it's a song for our times.

Who you gonna get to do the dirty work, when all the slaves are free? Exactly.

Again, we deserve a better world and we can have it.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, May 29, 2020. ISIS remains active in Iraq (don't tell the Iraqi government spokesperson), Tara Reade's allegation remains credible, Michelle Goldberg sports classism and racism as though they are the new colors for the summer, and much more.

In the US, attacks on Tara Reade continue. She is the woman who came forward to accuse Joe Biden of assault. It's no longer just that the assault is not the issue the corporate whores won't address, it's no longer just the embrace of rape culture, it is now the stereotypes that they are re-enforcing.

Meet the Ultimate Karen: Michelle Goldberg.

The whore for THE NEW YORK TIMES participated in a podcast for the paper this week and we don't link to rape culture. In that podcast, she put out a thought -- if you can call it that -- that is especially illuminating.

She's trying to run with pig boy Michael Tracey's attack which is that Tara Reade never should have been covered in the first place. Michelle wants you to know that the press didn't do their job when the covered her without vetting her.

This really isn't an avenue that she or anyone else should pursue.

First, their goal is to elect Joe Biden. All this argument does it remind everyone that blessed Beau Biden wasn't a saint either -- not even compared to hustler bro Hunter. All it reminds people of is Larry Sinclair. Larry claimed he did cocaine with Barack Obama, he claims they had sessions in limo where they performed oral sex. He even wrote about it in a book entitled LARRY SINCLAIR AND BARACK OBAMA: COCAINE, SEX, LIES AND MURDER?

Whether you believed Sinclair or not, he was suddenly becoming interesting to the press when all the sudden he got arrested. Why? Trumped up charges by Beau Biden, who was the Attorney General of Delaware at the time.

The charges fell apart but not before Sinclair was arrested in DC for charges in Delaware and the press ran away from the story.

I have no idea whether Sinclair was telling the truth or not. I didn't follow the story, it wasn't about assault or rape -- he was claiming a consensual relationship. But even not following it, it was clear that Beau was abusing his powers of office to stop the press from covering the story.

So it's probably not a good idea to remind the American voters that the only member of the Biden family whose hands are considered clean are, in fact, probably dirty.

But for the media itself?

If you're a person of color and/or anyone who cares about fairness with regards to the treatment of all human people, then you do remember The Days Of The Missing Blonds. Matt Lauer was one of those who made a career out of that genre. To a lot of the country, it looked like every time a blond girl or woman went missing, the whole news industry came to a stop. It was the sole focus day after day after damn day. Now let a child of color go missing and it wouldn't make THE TODAY SHOW or GOOD MORNING AMERICA or . . .

The media has never owned up to what they did. They have never taken accountability for it or made a pledge to pursue fairness.

So it's telling that Michelle Goldberg is re-enforcing that classist and racist standard.

Tara Reade, she insists, was allowed to speak without being vetted.

Why does she need to be vetted? Because Joe Biden says so? When does he get vetted? His behaviors are well known -- even if Michelle's paper edits out a sentence on the Biden's campaign's behalf noting his history of harassing women. Yes, boys and girls, sniffing hair, groping from behind, kissing women you don't know -- all of that is harassment.

Tara Reade doesn't deserve to tell her story -- Michelle Goldberg wants you to know.

That is the mentality of the press that led to the never-ending Days Of The Missing Blonds coverage. Again, while they covered blond women and blond girls, they ignored children of color that went missing, African-American women that were killed. It was only a certain group that the media felt had a right to tell their story.

Tara Reade has made a credible accusation and has what we have always considered corroborating evidence (her mother's 1993 call to LARRY KING LIVE, the 1996 court documents where her husband notes her harassment, people who remember her telling them about it in real time when it happened as well as years and years ago). No one who has come forward to the people and the press has ever had that amount of corroborating evidence for a rape.

Those are the issues. And those are the issues that the media runs from because they want to protect Joe Biden. Good little whores, that's all they are.

Imagine that every awful thing that has been said about Tara is true. For one minute, let's pretend that's true.

So what?

She can't be raped because a landlord doesn't like her or someone who claims to have been her friend didn't get back a set of law books?

Michelle Goldberg is not a feminist. She's not about truth or journalism either. She's just a little whore who is going to smear a woman because it's the thing the Joe Biden campaign needs her to do. Twenty years from now, when she whispers, "I believe Tara Reade," people should throw food at her. She's useless and she's a whore.

If she truly believed the lies she repeats, that would only be more reason for her to defend Tara Reade and to try to educate people on how there is no perfect victim.

Michelle is not about feminism and never will be. She is the Ultimate Karen -- a white woman of a certain class (not a high class, mind you, she's still got dirty face pressed against the glass hoping to get in) looking down on everyone else as she pretends to be superior.

Fred Tippett (NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN) wonders if Joe Biden really wants to be elected president:

First of all, he gave voters a direct reason not to vote for him. Last week, in an MSNBC interview, Biden again denied Tara Reade’s, a Senate staffer for him in the 90s, allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, maintaining the stance his campaign has held since Reade’s accusation. But then, Biden kept talking.
The former Vice President said, “If they [voters] believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” and even went as far as to say, “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.” Now, first of all, I believe it was very honorable of Biden to acknowledge and state his understanding of the seriousness of this allegation to some voters. But from a political standpoint, this was a very strange choice. Reade’s allegation had already shaken Biden’s support from women and young people and Biden, rather than trying to win them back, opened the door for them to walk away. Not to say it would’ve been better for Biden to do the opposite and completely discredit Reade and those who believe her but … I don’t know — he just really put himself into a proper Catch 22 situation.
Secondly, there is, of course, the story of the week: Joe Biden’s interview with Charlamagne tha God on “The Breakfast Club.” On the show, as I’m sure you all know, Biden said, “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black." The quote spread quickly, becoming the most viral comment from a bizarrely casual interview. Critique was swift but light. Most notably, Representative Clyburn of South Carolina said he cringed at Biden’s comment, while simultaneously reiterating his support of the former Vice President. It’s unclear how the comment will affect Biden’s support among Black voters, but I think it’s safe to say Biden will not get away with it without ruffling a few feathers.

The editorial board of AMERICAN MAGAZINE: THE JESUIT REVIEW argues:

Yet even if American voters do not have sufficient evidence to determine what Mr. Biden did or did not do in the past, there are standards by which the public can judge his present conduct. One such standard is whether Mr. Biden has made every effort to be transparent and to provide access to potentially relevant archival materials. Unlike in the hearings for Justice Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, when Senate Republicans chose to press ahead to a vote as close as possible to their original schedule, there is still sufficient time to resolve the question of whether any documents relevant to the present case exist and to do so well in advance of the election.
The former vice president has asked the National Archives to search for any relevant documents or other evidence, and he has made a similar request of the U.S. Senate. But he has thus far not allowed access to his personal papers at the University of Delaware, saying that those archives do not contain personnel records.
That may be true, but Mr. Biden should open those archives anyway. He could commission an impartial, professional archivist or archival firm to conduct a narrow search for any material related to Ms. Reade’s allegations. This would go a long way toward proving to a wary electorate that he is taking every possible step to be transparent.

In other Biden news, Jacob Crosse (WSWS) reports:

In an attempt to reassure the Democratic Party establishment, the Biden campaign, and the corporate bosses they represent that she is a “team player,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Biden rival, ended any pretense last week of championing reform to the US health care system should she become vice president in a Joe Biden administration.
During a May 19 Zoom meeting hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Warren fielded softball questions from students and the host for nearly an hour. Responding to a query regarding the “receptivity” of a “universal or hybrid” health care system posed by David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic Party consultant and former senior adviser to Barack Obama, Warren replied, “I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act.”

In dropping any mention of her signature campaign proposal known as “Medicare for All,” Warren is demonstrating that there is no “pushing” the Democratic party, the oldest capitalist party in the world, to the left, nor is there a constituency in the ruling class for any “reforms” that might impact the profits of insurance companies or drug manufacturers.
Warren’s campaign pledge, which was a copy of the legislation she had previously cosponsored with Bernie Sanders, had already been dialed back by the senator last year in the face of open hostility from corporate America. Within three weeks after the release of her “bold” plan during the fall primary, Warren released a “backup” plan that still preserved the private insurance market, while offering the “option” of Medicare for people under 65.
In dropping her (by now largely rhetorical) support for universal health care coverage, Warren showed impeccable timing, since nearly 40 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits in the US as a result of coronavirus-related layoffs, and millions of those have lost, or are on the verge of losing, their employer-based health care coverage. The objective necessity for a universal health care system could not be posed more clearly, yet according to Warren, “people” aren’t yet “comfortable” with that.
The opposition to providing health care to all as a basic right is not, of course, the reluctance of the “people” to embrace such a plan, as Warren suggests. It is the ferocious, last-ditch opposition of the insurance companies, drug monopolies and for-profit hospital and health care corporations, which would lose billions, and the overall opposition of Wall Street, which reviles all forms of social spending as a deduction from profit.
Warren went on to articulate the kind of proposal one can expect from a self-proclaimed “capitalist to the bone.” Remarking that the pandemic had revealed who is “essential” in society, Warren floated legislation for an “essential workers bill of rights,” so limited that it would guarantee “hand sanitizer” and “if they get sick, full health care coverage.”

This is an insult to workers and their families that would do nothing to protect them from COVID-19. What good is hand sanitizer to a meatpacker forced to work with a contaminated mask or without personal protective equipment? Warren declined to elaborate what “full health care coverage” entailed, or what workers would be expected to pay for it but, given her full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act, one can expect that the cost for workers will not be cheap.

Elizabeth Warren? Supposedly, she's the only thing that can save Joe now. Mike addressed that last night:

No, Joe's not getting the votes or providing any excitement. This is hilarious. The top of the ticket is not generating enough excitement and we're not screaming to replace him? Instead, we're trying to find the running mate that would provide 'excitement'? Tell me again about how electable Joe is. What a joke. Joe is a joke. He needs to be dumped before he takes down the whole ticket.

Give us anyone but Joe. Let us be excited and passionate. We can't get excited as we wait to see if his dentures are going to slip out again like they did in one debate or if a blood vessel in one eye is going to pop like happened in one debate. What exactly is Joe's slogan going to be? "I'm at death's door, vote for me"?

Dump him. He's not helping anyone but Donald Trump. We need a nominee that can serve a full term. One that could even run for a second term would be even better. We don't need Joe and we don't want Joe.

Can the DNC not buy a clue? He's a loser. We need better. If you want to stop Donald Trump from having a second term, you need to be calling for Biden to step aside.

He's not up to the job. He's senile. He's a habitual liar. He's a war monger. He's a rapist.

This is our alternative to Donald Trump?

Even more ridiculous? The press reports that Joe plans to drag this out -- vp choice -- until August 1st. He has nothing else of interest to the press. This is the most embarrassing campaign in our lifetime.

Let's turn to Iraq . . .

Last yesterday, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon offered an essay at NBC NEWS regarding the coronavirus and the Islamic State:

"What you are witnessing these days are only signs of big changes in the region that’ll offer greater opportunities than we had previously in the past decade” read an online message on Thursday from new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, translated by Hassan Hassan, director of the Non-State Actors in Fragile Environments Program at the Center for Global Policy and a co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

The message comes as those who have been fighting ISIS for more than a half-decade have spoken publicly and in plain terms about the group‘s increasing strength.

“The Islamic State group has been moving the fighting from Syria to Iraq ... (and) is strengthening, both financially and militarily,” said Lt. Col. Stein Grongstad, head of Norway’s forces in Iraq, there to advise and assist the Iraqi military. He called it a “paradox” that just as COVID-19 was weakening nations, ISIS was regaining strength.

And that's why, in yesterday's snapshot, we were calling out the Iraqi military spokesperson Yahya Rasoul who was insisting that ISIS was "vanquished" and "no longer poses a threat to Iraq." The biggest security threat to Iraq right now might just be the stupidity of Yahya Rasoul.

The following sites updated: