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

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

The albums in my Diana Ross collection

Marcia's "Diana Ross vinyl" is a list of the Diana Ross vinyl in Marcia's collection. I'm going to list my vinyl and CD collection of Diana's.

1) THANK YOU

2) DIANA ROSS (1970)

3) ROSS (RCA)

4) ROSS (MOTOWN)

5) SURRENDER

6) LAST TIME I SAW HIM

10) DIANA ROSS (1976)

11) EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING

12) WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE?

13) SILK ELECTRIC

14) SWEPT AWAY

15) RED HOT RHYTHM AND BLUES

16) EATEN ALIVE

17) WORKIN' OVERTIME

18) FORCE BEHIND THE POWER

19( TAKE ME HIGHER

20) BABY IT'S ME

21) EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY

22) THE BOSS

23) diana

24) AN EVENING WITH DIANA ROSS

25) BLUE

26) I LOVE YOU

27) GREATEST HITS LIVE

28) THE LADY SINGS: LIVE THE LADY SINGS , , , JAZZ AND BLUES

29) ALL THE GREAT HITS

30) REFLECTIONS

31) LET THE SUNSHINE IN

32) DIANA: EXTENDED THE REMIXES.

33) SUPERTONIC MIXES

34) ANTHOLOGY.

35) SING HOLLAND-DOZIER-HOLLAND

36) LOVE CHILD

37) I HEAR A SYMPHONY

I hope I didn't miss one.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, November 17, 2021. Seems like we cover a bit of everything today.

Starting with a video.

Complaints came in to both the public e-mail account and the two private ones (the private ones are for community members, the public one is common_ills@yahoo.com). Community members at least knew I probably hadn't watched the video. I didn't. As I've noted in community news letters and here at this site, I go through what is sent into the public e-mails (or something that I get a phone call to note) and that goes up as is possible. Most of it I never look at. David Swanson goes up without reading because I know he's not going to drop the f-word unless he censors it like "f**k" -- we have to be work safe. So if I am putting stuff up and see David, he goes up if I've got space that day. I do stream Richard Medhurst and CONVO COUCH -- but sometimes it's after they're posted here. The bulk, I don't.

This was Aaron Mate and I didn't look at it, I just posted it. Then the avalanche of e-mails came in.

Elaine and I looked at a few as we were stretching and warming up before getting on the treadmills and Shirley was actually already up and called to ask if I'd looked at the e-mails in the public account? (No, I was only looking at the community members e-mails at that point.)

In "Media: Save us from the know-it-alls," Ava and I noted that Aaron had an article on how the media amplified Russia-gate and that we read it with the intent to praise him. But we read it. It wasn't worthy of praise. It was promoted as a rebuke to Rachel Maddow and the piece had a photo of Rachel at the top. As we noted:

"Russia-gate has no rock bottom" is the title and right below the title there's a photo of Rachel Maddow.

Good, he's going to get to the point and document and explain her various deceptions, right?

Wrong. Not counting pull quotes (even his own from previous articles) or Tweets, just the new words he typed for this article, he's at 1387 words before he gets to a sentence with Rachel Maddow's name in it.

1387.

By way of comparison, we're not even at 1000 words yet and we've already established Rachel's shady character -- something we've been doing for years

1387. Does Aaron have a point to make about Rachel because we really don't have that kind of time. More to the point, we don't need to make that kind of time.

The video is Aaron on the topic of Russia-gate and it's another epic fail on his part. I don't get that, by the way.

I think Amy Goodman is a sell out and much worse. She's truly a gate keeper. She rose to national attention posing as anti-war but as we all saw repeatedly once Barack Obama was president, she promoted pro-war lies and for the war on Libya alone, she should have been rebuked. She's also, I firmly believe, the biggest reason PACIFICA RADIO has the financial problems that it has.

No one at PACIFICA should be making a million or more dollars a year. The fact that she and cronies used lies and blackmail -- I'm referring to the chin whisker queen Leslie Cagen among others -- to steal ownership of DEMOCRACY NOW from PACIFICA is bad enough. That they then rammed through a contract that provides Amy with millions and also the ownership of every episode of DEMOCRACY NOW is appalling. That type of money should never have been given to a public affairs program. Never. Having done so, however, the least PACIFICA should have gotten from it is ownership of the episodes. She and her crew of liars used real problems and created new ones as they conspired to steal the program from PACIFICA -- Amy didn't even create the program and it's funny how in her telling of the show, over and over, she leaves out people like Salim Muwakkil who were there at the beginning and created the show but are not profit participants in any of the riches the shows managed to scarf up.

Then there's her insistence that all PACIFICA stations -- actual ones and satellites -- carry her program which morphed into them airing it twice a day, which then morphed into the program being given the best slots on the schedule, etc, etc.

As an activist and as a 'journalist,' I can't stand her. What's gone on with Rittenhouse -- the media pimping lies -- is something I've seen Amy do repeatedly and life is too short to continue with that nonsense so I don't watch the show anymore or listen to it. BIG NOISE or some group like that? We walked away from those 'documentary' film makers as well because they lied to. I'm referring to how an African-American woman, a mother of a child involved in the story both Amy and that awful documentary outlet were covering, they interviewed her, shared her comments briefly and then dropped her and her eye witness statements because they didn't fit into the White Faux Left narrative that they were trying to promote. The mother felt abandoned and betrayed. I know because I've spoken to her. It was huge, how they removed her eye witness statements and changed the story into something else completely. I hit on it here repeatedly in real time because I knew the woman was very upset about it. And she had every right to be. Three White people distorting what was going on in her community and disappearing what she had offered because it didn't fit the changing narrative that was so important to Amy and boyz.

After that? It was probably full on war. On my part, I know it was. And I ensured that those clip jobs passed off as books wouldn't have the publishers' interest anymore. When you do something like that to a person, what she did to that African-American mother, you prove how hideous the press is. And that woman was really destroyed by that. She was fighting for her son's life and the way she was betrayed was disgusting.

So, no fan of Amy Goodman here.

But Aaron worked at DEMOCRACY NOW! for years and I marvel over that in his writing and in videos like the one above. Not a fan of Amy's, but she does know how to communicate. She will tell a guest during a break -- and has -- that they're going into the weeds and losing the audience. She will also re-direct them in the middle of an interview.

Aaron loses everyone in that video above beyond his own small core of devotees.

And they could be a large group of devotees if only he'd learn to communicate.

As Brandon e-mailed, "I can't keep my head up while streaming this. I'll be yawning, I'll almost fall asleep, then I'll hear 'piss tape' and think they're actually going to talk about something but they're back to boring in ten seconds."

Agreed. Whether foreign or not, the names of the players they invoke are foreign. The bulk of America doesn't know the people being spoken of. The 'resistance' does. They were obsessed with glorifying these liars.

Aaron's 'expert' guest at one point talks about Aaron's ''listeners." He's an idiot who doesn't grasp that this is on video. What's Aaron's excuse.

Bobble Head TV?

Is that what we have? I did a comic in high school and people rightly noted that I really just drew heads in panels and had them talking. I didn't do bodies, I was trying to tell a point with words. It was wrong and I laugh about my stupidity even now. But what's Aaron's excuse? He's not a kid in school.

He's got a video program and he could be emphasizing these unknown people by playing clips and showing who they are and doing any number of things. Now maybe he suffers from Streisand Syndrome and can't give up his many close ups?

I have no idea.

But this is a complex story -- Russia-gate. Making it more complex and more difficult to follow is not going to inform or educate. The people e-mailing me are not e-mailing because they hate Aaron Mate. They took the time to try to get through that video.

Aaron worked with Amy Goodman all those years and he never learned how to communicate? How to simplify complex events?

Some people are e-mailing asking if Aaron is trying to bury the exposures about Russia-gate? They're asking that because they can't believe anyone would take this issue and make it so damn boring and hard to follow.

He needs to simplify. He also needs to choose guests better. The subject needed an expert. Hint to Aaron, THE NEW YORK TIMES rarely employees experts. Bringing on a former writer for that paper was always going to be a mistake. Bringing on one who published a book on Russia-gate months before the recent revelations was also going to be a mistake.

That 'expert' did the typical TIMES move -- argue brief points in the book while accepting the overall lie. That's why some of you were shocked by the efforts the man made to blame Russia over and over in Aaron's interview and your disbelief that Aaron didn't correct the guest.

It was a mind numbing segment.

Presumably, Aaron cares about the topic and about setting the record straight. If that is indeed the case, he needs to do a better job.

And for any of his devotees who want to e-mail, it's not my job to do his job for him. I've offered a media critique above. We do that here and Ava and I do it at THIRD. We also cover Iraq and veterans issues and music. And things that come up in the e-mails.

I don't have to disprove Russia-gate.

First, it's not my scope. Second, I have nothing to make amends for. Even before I knew how to properly pronounce Aaron's last name (muh-tay was how it was pronounced on every episode of DEMOCRACY NOW when he was with that show -- Amy does the credits at the end of the show) somewhere in 2018, we already called out Russia-gate.

Aaron thinks he's the last word on that topic (and corporate journalists are noting to me the smirk he's developed when he's a guest on programs, FYI). He's not that important. The work I've seen him do is so unimpressive. Apparently, he did good work at one point and maybe will again.

But he was not a leading voice on Russia-gate and he was not a needed voice. We never needed him.

We only needed common sense. We never pimped the lies of Russia-gate and that was even before I'd spoken to Stephen F. Cohen about it the first time. I knew Stephen. As did Elaine. Elaine called out Katrina for not standing up firmly for her husband -- on a DEMCORACY NOW appearance, among other things. (Elaine says to add that she has a scar on her shin from when Katrina, as a young girl, kicked her. I was there, I love that story. We were fundraising for a cause and meeting with her father and Katrina reeked of urine so Elaine asked her if she'd had an accident and needed to change and she hauled off and kicked Elaine in the shin.) Stephen was a hero on refuting Russia-gate and he did so in a way that people could follow.

But even before we'd talked to Stephen the first of many times about Russia-gate, I was refuting it and calling it out. We were on campuses Monday through Friday every week and people were raising this. All it required was common sense.

All this time later if Aaron wants to hold people accountable, he needs to do so in a way that people can follow. His coverage is in the weeds and it's all too foreign. He needs to focus on key actors and connect them (he does briefly in the video above try to note a Clinton chain of connection but he blows even that).

He's failing. If that's the best he can do, then I am appalled by him. I hope it's not. I hope I'll still e able to praise him before this site goes dark. (And I wish that could happen tomorrow -- the praise and this site going dark.)

Before we move away from this topic, let's note two Tweets by a real expert -- and excellent communicator -- Jonathan Turley:

While even the Washington Post admitted that it got the Russian collusion story wrong, Schiff insists that he was absolutely right to promote the debunked Steele dossier. Schiff’s interview may be the final proof of the death of shame in American politics.

jonathanturley.org

Adam Schiff and the End of Shame In American Politics

The famous philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal once declared that “the only shame is to have none.” The problem with shame is it assumes a sense of guilt over one’s action…

7:06 AM · Nov 17, 2021

...We now live in a post-shame era where the only shame is yielding to the impulses of decency or decorum. The Russian collusion scandal served its purpose and Adam Schiff would be the first say that there is no shame in that.

7:09 AM · Nov 17, 2021

(Disclosure, I've known Jonathan for many, many years.)

Common sense can do so much for you. It can let you grasp early on that a story is just too good to be true. It allows me to ignore a whore in Arabic media who is praising Mustafa al-Kahdimi and failing to note his long friendship with Mustafa. Without hsi friends in the press, Mustafa's real image would be known. Mustafa worked as a journalist and is able to round up his usual press posse to cover for him whenever he's in trouble. There are apparetnly no standards or ethics at many Arabic outlets which refuse to disclose in their flattering coverage of the inept Mustafa that Mustafa used to write for their rags and that he is friends with the 'reporter' offering 'objective' praise of Mustafa.

Common sense will carry you far. It seems, for example, that the fact checker at THE WASHINGTON POST is now being seen as a whore. Glenn Kessler is one, yes. And that's been obvious for years and he was infamous in 2019 and 2020 for going after any serious rival to Joe Biden for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He twisted their words, he cut off the sentences he was 'fact checking' and much worse -- he flat out lied to go after Beto. But with Joe Biden? Where were you, Aaron Mate? With Joe it wasn't fact check his statement. It was fact check his intent which Glenn magically knew. So Joe made very few mistakes according to Glenn.

Glenns aren't uncommon. But who knew Arabic media was filled with them?

Mustafa remains determined to be prime minister for a second term. None of those attempting to build coalitions presently share that desire and the Iraqi people are fed up with him.

If he was almost assassinated -- if he was -- it really hasn't registered as a major issue to the Iraqi people. They sort of shrugged and went on with their lives. The other reaction was that it was all a p.r. move by the US government to try to sway sympathy to Mustafa. That group is growing. And this week's move on Arabic social media regarding this is to argue that when the story was first being told, to make it seem real, the public was told that certain bodyguards were injured in the 'attack.' And then thse bodyguards were disappeared and never heard from again in order to sell 'brave' Mustafa.

The whole story has appeared managed (because it was) and that's only increased the belief of some that it was not a real attack.

If indeed it was a US move, it was a dumb one.

Husam Gazalee Tweets:

I'm afraid the @UNAMI
 chief @JeanineHennis
 owes the Iraqi people an explanation. 
Instead of the losers in the elections asking to meet her to explain their “worries”, she meets them in their places. There must be something missing here? #Iraq #MustafaAlKadhimi

1:43 PM · Nov 16, 202

For those who don't recognize him, that's Iraq's disgraced former prime minister. He's the one who helped make some Iraqis fond of thug Nouri al-Maliki. We documented that here and we were apparently the only ones to register Nouri's rise -- which is reflected in the initial ballot count. One 'expert' felt the need to e-mail the public account his 'observations' which were that Nouri was old and forgotten. Hmm. Ballot count didn't bear that out and maybe if you actually paid attention you would have seen Nouri's popularity grow as Adel Abdul Mahdi (the man in the photo above) stumbled, fumbled and failed repeatedly up until he was forced to resign. In fact, he even failed at his resignation. He announced he was resigning, after all, and then took forever to actually leave office.

Forced out of office for rank incompetence and, yes, that did make people fond of thug Nouri. Not all people. But enough to allow him and his State of Law to do very well in the October 10th election.

I'm about to be nice -- or what passes for nice from me -- and not name someone. But I will note that they are on Iraq's electoral commission -- I verified that with a friend at CNN who I forwarded the e-mail to. He insists that I'm wrong about the vote counting continuing and maintains it was finished around November 9th.

My response? Fine. If I was wrong, I was wrong. I'm wrong all the time. But, help me out ___, if the count has been completed for over a week now, why hasn't it been released?

And to me, the fact that it hasn't been released is far more appalling than if the count were still ongoing.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Taking unpopular stands

New content at THIRD:

Ava and C.I. co-wrote all three. The middle one? Marcia and I joined Ava and C.I. for.

I just want to talk a little about THIRD.

It seems the gang has more and more trouble pulling together an edition. I think most people grasp that Ava and C.I. do the TV piece every week by going off on their own to write it. And we're supposed to get something done while they're doing that.

Sometimes that doesn't happen -- like a week ago when I refused to do a roundtable about Diana Ross' new album without C.I. as part of it. We were supposed to do a roundtable while Ava and C.I. wrote. But then, afterwards, it became a Diana Ross roundtable. If C.I. was there, sure. But after 2006 when another Diana Ross piece went the other way, nope, not doing one without her.

So that's one way things don't go as they should.

Another?

People want to argue about whether or not to do a piece.

This week, Marcia and some others -- including me -- wanted to do a piece on Kyle Rittenhouse because we felt a child had become the victim of corporate media (and sewer trash like WSWS). Others didn't feel like they had enough knowledge to write about it. That happened on a COVID piece. Most of the points C.I. made ended up at THE COMMON ILLS. There are legal issue pieces that some of us want to do and they get rejected.

Now on the Kyle piece, Marcia and I had brought that to the group. And some were for and some were against. When there was no edition? I thought Ava and C.I. would post and their media piece would be it for the week. Instead, Monday night, they called Marcia to see if she still wanted that piece. She did. They asked me when I got home from work (I live at C.I.'s). Marcia and I both wanted that piece so we joined Ava and C.I. in writing it Monday night.

Too often, things fall apart because someone didn't want to do this or was concerned about saying that.

Ava and C.I. produce week after week and do so because they're not afraid to take tough stands. They're not afraid to be unpopular or make someone mad.

With Kyle Rittenhouse? I see a kid who was in horrible position and who was scapegoated for something other than his own actions.

And I'm not afraid to stand up for any child, of any race, against some angry mob. I was raised to believe in something bigger than this world. I believe in God and I don't fear what happens when you stand up to defend someone.

I also want to note that there were times when Marcia and I or Marcia or me would come up with a line for the article and then we'd be say, "Oh, wait --'' And Ava and C.I. would back us and say, "No, that's got to stay in. It flows perfectly."

I would also strongly recommend that you read this column by Jonathan Turley.

And I'd like to note Carly Simon's "Safe and Sound."

I know that each of us is alone in the end
But the trip still feels less dangerous when you've got a friend
If we stick together
You and me forever
We're safe and sound
The world's just turned inside out and upside down
The world's just turned insode out and upside down

That's from Carly's HOTCAKES album. And it kept roaming around my head today when I'd thin about the Rittenhouse piece. I am glad I stood up for the kid. I'm especially glad that Marcia, Ava and C.I. stood with me. It did make it "feel less dangerous." :D

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, November 16, 2021. Joe Biden continues to fail and to blunder, the western press continues to lie about the Iraqi election.

In yesterday's snapshot, we noted that the media was determined to lie and that the American people were not going to buy it. Their lives are being hurt by inflation.

On yesterday's BREAKING POINTS, Krystal and Saagar dealt with the realities that are impacting Americans and how MSNBC can't get honest.

Joe Biden clearly isn't up for the job of president -- and that's only a surprise if you're brain dead. He couldn't handle himself in the debates. He had to be hidden away to keep the country from laughing at him and grasping how out of it he truly is. President George HW Bush gets sick and throws up on an overseas trip and the US press can't stop covering it (and shouldn't have stopped covering it) but Joe farts in from Prince Charles and Camila ("It was looooong and it was foul," is the quote I got) and the US press doesn't even want to go there. They continue to whore for him and lie for him -- they're Samantha Bees, not reporters. That failed wanna be 'comic' announced to Dan Rather that she wasn't going to do jokes about Joe. She needed to 'support' him. Because that's what a propagandist does, not what a comic does. TBS needs to pull the plug on her awful show -- no one is watching anymore, the bad ratings have only gotten worse.

We're not even a full year in and Joe's a failure. The press tries to distract with features on Kamala Harris. Kamala isn't the president of the United States. She's the vice president. But they think going after her makes it look like they're a functioning press. No, it only makes them more pathetic. We all know the vice presidency is a ceremonial office.

Yesterday, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following:

Washington, D.C., November 15, 2021 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern about the harmful precedent set by recent Federal Bureau of Investigation raids on the homes of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and his associates.

According to media reports, the FBI seized O’Keefe’s cellphones during a November 6 raid on his home in Mamaroneck, New York, as part of a court-ordered investigation into the theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, U.S. President Joe Biden’s daughter. In a statement, Project Veritas wrote that authorities also raided the apartments and homes of other current and former members of the organization, and confiscated unspecified materials.

Project Veritas acquired the diary in 2020 but turned it over to law enforcement, those media reports said.

Founded by O’Keefe in 2011, Project Veritas is a nonprofit group that conducts exposés on groups it perceives as left-leaning, and has amplified disinformation on topics including COVID-19 vaccines and alleged election fraud, according to the independent nonprofit fact-checking group First Draft.

“While we do not endorse some of the tactics Project Veritas employs, the FBI’s recent raids on the organization’s founder and his associates represent a concerning overreach by law enforcement,” said CPJ U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The government must provide a clear link between members of Project Veritas and alleged criminal activity before searching their homes for information about source material. Conducting raids without this kind of link sets a dangerous precedent that could allow law enforcement to search and confiscate reporters’ unpublished source material in vague attempts to identify whistleblowers.”

Some pages of the diary were published on a right-wing blog during the 2020 U.S. presidential election campaign, according to those news reports, which said that the Justice Department under the Trump administration first opened an investigation into the theft.

On a November 10 letter to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in New York, lawyers representing Project Veritas stated that the outlet had received the diary lawfully, the New York Times reported. On November 11, Torres ordered prosecutors to pause their “extraction and review of the contents” of O’Keefe’s phones, according to Politico.

When CPJ called the FBI for comment, a representative who answered requested that CPJ submit questions via email. CPJ emailed questions to the bureau’s New York office but did not immediately receive any reply.

A representative from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York told CPJ via phone that the office could not comment on the case.

Your tax dollars at waste. Ashley Biden is just a little girl -- a little 40-year-old girl.

Is it a sex diary? That's what DC speculates. Filled with nasty, dirty secrets -- written by a grown woman. The family gets trashier and trashier, yes.

But the reality is that we have clear evidence of Joe Biden's abuse of power.

The diary may or may not have been stolen. That family isn't exactly known for thinking clearly and gathering all their items when doing drugs.

But even if it was stolen? That's not an FBI matter.

That Joe Biden is abusing the FBI right now is alarming. It shows that he does not respect boundaries. It demonstrates that, with regards to his children, he will dictate to the FBI what they will and will not do.

Anyone see the problem there? Or have we all forgotten that son Hunter is under criminal investigation by the FBI. So if Joe's going to misuse the FBI for his daughter's diary are we really supposed to believe that he's not misusing them with regards to the criminal investigation of his son? It really seems like it's time for a special counsel. Joe should probably try to get ahead of that and announce one now instead of waiting for the mid-terms. If current polling holds, there may be a shift of power -- and even without the polling, remember, that is the historical pattern.

Joe Biden is not new to the federal government. He damn well knows that the FBI is not to be misused to find your oversexed daughter's embarrassing diary that she probably lost herself while on a cocktail of various chemicals.

It's an abuse of power. It's a huge overreach. And the use of the FBI to raid a journalist's home qualifies as an impeachable offense.

It is a gross abuse of power.

A high crime.

Maybe it's time for Joe to resign and let Kamala assume the presidency?

Margaret Kimberley Tweets:

"I’m going to eliminate your student debt if you come from a family [making less] than $125,000 and went to a public university.” 

Has this happened or was it just a campaign lie?

forbes.com

Biden Affirms: “I Will Eliminate Your Student Debt”

Biden reaffirmed his commitment to broad student loan forgiveness at a town hall in Miami on Tuesday.

9:14 PM · Nov 15, 2021

Yep, Joe did promise that. Of course, career politician, Joe Biden's promises have always been meaningless.

The American people are in need and Joe Biden refuses to deliver. He had a lot of promises to make before he took the presidential oath. He just doesn't keep his word. Unlike most presidents, there should have been no surprises for Joe who spent decades in the US Senate and eight years as vice president of the United States. Yet he can't accomplish anything to help the people. All the lairs who whored for Joe are as responsible as is Joe himself.

And the press, so quick to 'examine' (discredit) Tara Reade continues to apply that intrusive and biased eye to Joe himself . They refuse to do their job.

They are far from alone.

ARAB NEWS carries embarrassing garbage:

The UN Security Council on Monday praised Iraqis for their commitment to democracy in the face of “dynamic security challenges,” and congratulated the Iraqi government and Independent High Electoral Commission for what it termed “a technically well-managed and generally peaceful election” in early October.

The council’s statement came in the wake of a report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Iraq’s electoral process and the role played by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq. The UN mission was praised by the council for its “objectivity” in supporting the government and IHEC in pursuit of “genuinely free and fair Iraqi-led, Iraqi-owned elections.”

Iraqis went to the polls last month to elect members of parliament amid protesters’ calls to stop endemic corruption and improve living conditions.

Is that what the US government said?

"The UN security council said it!" No, don't be an idiot. The US controls the Security Council. If the UN General Assembly issued a statement, I'd love to hear that. It's an independent body. The SEcuirty Council is not independent and it is a joke.

It's cute how they feel the need -- over a month after the October 10th election -- to issue a statement. Were they working the street corners all this time? Too busy with tricks to issue a statement until now?

THE NATIONAL also embarrasses itself but good for whichevber reporter refused to put their name to the piece (it carries no byline).

The elections were not successful. A vast number of people -- security forces -- were prevented from voting. Shame on media whores who can't tell the damn truth.

I don't like the militias. I never have. But I'm not going to lie and pretend like they weren't disenfranchised. You either tell the truth or you don't. The decision the weekend before the elections to refuse to allow most militia members to vote with the rest of the security forces was disenfranchisement. They are part of the security forces. That's not my judgment call. The Iraqi government made them part of the security forces (a move I strongly objected to). That settled it. But they didn't like the prime minister and so the electoral commission barred them form the day of early voting knowing that meant that they couldn't vote. (On October 10th, they would be deployed around the country to protect polling stations. You can't do that and also vote in your own district.)

By lying about this, the western press is just convincing Iraqis that the press is lying about other things.

The disenfranchisement is not in question. It happened. It happened in public. Most Americans probably don't know about it -- such is the US media -- but the Iraqi people do know. And those outlets that are dishonest about this basic fact are not going to be believed about other things.

They know you're lying and you're just sinking deeper into lies. It's no wonder the number of Iraqis who eel the election was fraudulent has grown in the last few weeks.

Instead of reality, we get The Whore of Baghdad herself, Jane Arraf, writing whorish prose about how Afghans have it good in Iraq. You know who has it good in Iraq? A fat American who's managed to whore for decades from Iraq. CNN encouraged her to do so in the 90s -- as Eason Jordan admitted on the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES, that is how CNN maintained its presence in Iraq throughout the 90s and early '00s. Jane Arraf is in a country on fire and instead of 'reporting' on that, she's writing garbage that no one asked for and that no one needs. She's truly a whore.