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

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

The Rise of Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and Violence in the United States

Stream this live broadcast if you can.

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Big pass on I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY

Normally, I'd be interested in seeing a film about Whitney Houston. Normally.

But the actress.

Naomi Ackie doesn't look a damn thing like Whitney and those bug eyes the woman has are not Whitney's eyes.

Most importantly? Ackie is British.

I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of all these British people showing up in the US to play MLK or Barack Obama or Whitney or . . . There are African-American actors and these roles need to go to them.

I'm not going to see the movie, I'm not going to support this disrespect of African-Americans.

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Not in the mood for those trying to bridge build with homophobes and racists.

On a good day, I'm not in the mood for your crap ass bulls**t. On a good day.

Shut up, Krystal and Saagar, honestly just shut the f**k up.

It's not that you're trying to allude to what I had the guts to state last week. I get it your chicken s**t. But I don't care about that. I'd rather you allude then ignore. The only issue that the Twitter dumps have offered of value is that the FBI which had possession of Hunter Biden's laptop since December 2019, went to social media companies and lied in the fall of 2020 that there was talk of disinformation from Russia, maybe in the form of a hard drive and blah blah blah.

It would be great Saagar if you were strong enough to make the case I did and not just allude to it.

It is what will piss America off and what will force answers.

But you and your candy ass can't do that.

And, Krystal, honestly, stop your nonsense.

I just can't.

No one gives a damn that Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and they don't care why.

Elon Musk is controlloing the narrative and a bunch of 'reporters' are letting him.

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Nor do they.

Donald Trump should not have been banned from Twitter. NYT should not have apologized for running a column by a US senator. We took those stands here. I didn't back off. I do believe in free speech.

I also know those were unpopular stands and they're not going to rally anyone at this point but a bunch of kooks -- a small bunch that's already rioted in DC, to be honest.

You and the losers doing the dumping seem to think that you can cobble here and cobble there and you'll have an outraged coalition.

No, you won't.

And, Saagar, if you really think that the next dump needs to be about Fauci, you're much more stupid than I've ever thought you were.

I think Fauci's a liar. And I've said it here before. And that's how I know this is a losing story currently. People bought into, they made arguments about those, they chose to persecute people for it. You're not going to sway them in 2022. It's going to take a long time. Not because they can't be honest about Fauci but because they can't be honest about their own actions. They need time and distance so they can rewrite what they themselves did to their neighbors, to their family members and to their friends.

Russia-gate was a lie, a huge lie.

We were decrying it the moment it started -- and doing so on campuses.

It was January of 2017 when my mouth dropped open over Russia-gate. I had been hearing that nonsense from college students being misled by the media. I was not prepared for someone my own age, someone that we all think is so smart and has tons of fan boys, to tell me to my face that it was true. With college students, I can talk through the issue and debate it.

With a 'voice of the left,' I shouldn't have to. And after 30 minutes of debunking his nonsense, I was done and I was done with him.

We didn't talk again until the 2019 Democratic Party debates.

He was now publicly decrying Russia-gate and acting like he always had because that is the narrative that fits his reputation -- 'brave truth teller.' He came up to me and I brushed him off. I wasn't in the mood. Then, in a roomful of people, he whispered that he had been wrong and that he was sorry.

Whispered.

I don't think anyone was listening to our conversation. But his ego was such that he feared they might. And now that Russia-gate was exposed as crap, he didn't want to be caught holding the bag.

I don't know what they teach communications majors -- if anything. But it's not just about getting information. It's also about egos.

And the Twitter dumps were always going to be a hard sell. The middle and the left are not on your side and haven't been since the dumping began. You're putting together nothing but a wall that's keeping out the people you need to effect change.

Did you not read Jeffrey St. Clair's opinions at COUNTERPUNCH?

The left is not running with the dumps. You are losing the left. Legacy media has turned the story -- and its 'reporters' -- into a joke. Your only way to shape public opinion is to go after the FBI because its actions are appalling and your amplification of what they did could move public opinion.

This garbage of 'poor Donald.' It's not going to play. You turn off more people with that garbage. Krystal saying, "Pretend it's someone you hate . . ." A) It's not going to work. And (B) this isn't a personal story. This is not about personalities. This is about government abuse. This is about the FBI trying to influence an election and trying to control what the American people have access to from the media. Both of those things are illegal for the FBI to do.

If you think you can grow up and address the FBI, by all means do. But cut the crap and stop trying to spit polish those dumps. No one gives a damn about Donald Trump being off Twitter. And as Jeffrey rightly pointed out at COUNTERPUNCH, the left was 'shadow banned' and worse. WSWS could also write about that because it happened to them as well.

Krystal, get it through your head that you aren't coming off impartial. You're coming off a hand maiden to the right-wing. That's Saagar's job on BREAKING POINTS. He doesn't need your help. You need to be shining the light on how COUNTERPUNCH and WSWS and BLACK AGENDA REPORT and so many others were harmed on social media and you need to be asking where are the Tweets on that?

It's a niche story at present for the right wing. It caters to them, it seeks them out and there have been what, four -- five -- six -- dumps already.

Everyone's yawning and going home on this story.

Because you know the 'reporter' who took the first dump, you keep pimping each one. But no one gives a s**t beyond Donald's most radical fans -- an increasingly small base.

And the left likes it that way -- I like Donald being over and done. So when you stop focusing on the FBI and start talking about what was done to Donald, boo-hoo, you're losing people.

Now I don't think the 'reporters' taking the dumps are smart at all. But they are hampered by some unknown agreement that they have with Musk. BREAKING POINTS isn't. It should be decrying what the FBI did every day and making that the focus. That's the only way you're going to reach the number of people you need to reach to make this matter.

Stop trying to promote the latest dump from your friend and start zooming in and repeatedly hitting what the FBI did. We don't need to hear Donald Trump. The world has heard enough about him, thank you very much.

I may soon walk from this story because I see how it's playing and we don't need Krystal and Saagar feeding that crowd. One of the idiots we rightly ripped apart for her stupidity and homophobia at THIRD is a big fan of Glenn Greenwalds and all over these dumps . . . when she's not trashing Brittney Griner for being African-American and gay.

You're not going to build a coalition with the left. We're not going to be paired with racists and homophobes. And that's not 'identity politics.' That's self-respect and a belief in equality.

Get out of your damn bubble where you talk to those 'reporters' and plan what you're going to say. You need to take a real look at who these dumps currently appeal to. It's not anyone I'd care to associate with. One minute they're Tweeting "Great job, Bari" or whomever, the next they're Tweeting that "homosexuality is Satanic behavior."

No, I will not coalition build with those people and shame on you if you're rejecting the left, if you're not trying to appeal to the left, but you're catering your coverage to appeal to the homophobes and racists.

ALJAZEERA notes:

Amid a spate of recent attacks targeting LGBTQ communities in the United States, advocates say the government must do more to protect vulnerable citizens.

Late last month, a man opened fire at a gay and lesbian nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and injuring at least 17 others. The suspect has been charged with hate crimes, murder and assault.

Right-wing demonstrators have also increasingly targeted drag shows during a year in which President Joe Biden has warned of rising violence against LGBTQ communities.

Days after the Colorado shooting, the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin highlighting the risk of terrorism against LGBTQ citizens and other marginalised groups, noting that “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat”.

But while this acknowledgement is a step in the right direction, rights groups say, it is not enough.

“We are living in a time where there is this rising threat of violence from extreme far-right groups across the spectrum of marginalised communities. It’s frightening, but it’s not surprising, unfortunately,” Laurel Powell, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based LGBTQ+ advocacy group, told Al Jazeera.

Charles R. Davis (INSIDER):

Across the country, right-wing extremists with guns have been showing up at libraries and churches to intimidate parents and children attending drag queen story hours. Groups such as the Proud Boys conflate the reading of books by members of the LGBTQ community with the predatory "grooming" of kids.

Hospitals that provide gender-affirming care have received death threats after being targeted by social media influencers like Chaya Raichik, the former real estate agent who runs the "Libs of TikTok" account on Twitter, and featured in prime-time diatribes by Fox News's Tucker Carlson.

Other soft targets for the hard right have included gay pride parades. Over the summer, 31 members of the neo-Nazi Patriot Front were arrested in Idaho after a concerned citizen reported seeing them loading up a U-Haul with what looked to be a "little army" of men in riot gear.

By the end of November, far-right activists took part in at least 55 public actions targeting members of the LGBT+ community — up from 16 the year before, an increase of some 340% — with a corresponding rise in violent attacks on people perceived to be gay or transgender, according to a report released this week by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.

Brooke Migdon (THE HILL) reports:

A House committee this week in a first of its kind hearing will hear testimony from LGBTQ people and policy experts to examine how a surge in anti-LGBTQ policies and rhetoric has fueled increasing violence against the community.

“Make no mistake, the rise in anti-LGBTQI+ extremism and the despicable policies that Republicans at every level of government are advancing to attack the health and safety of LGBTQI+ people are harming the LGBTQI+ community and contributing to tragedies like what we saw at Club Q,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said Monday in a statement announcing Wednesday’s hearing.

The panel will hear firsthand testimony from individuals impacted by anti-LGBTQ attacks, including survivors of last month’s Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs that claimed the lives of five people and a survivor of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando – the deadliest attack on LGBTQ people in U.S. history.

If BREAKING POINTS wants to stand with homophobes, it'll be a lonely group. But, hey, what is silence but standing with homophobes, right? Unless Saagar's felt the need to attack gay men, BREAKING POINTS has ignored LGBTQ issues. That's reality. Saager and Krystal may think they come off caring, but to a lot of people, the reality has been that they're bigots. They'll cover any topic in the world -- especially about the 'poor' right-wingers -- as long as they don't have to talk about 'the gays.'

We'll close with this from ARAB WEEKLY:

Sanctions-hit Iran is consolidating its hold over neighbouring Iraq, an economic lifeline where pro-Tehran parties dominate politics, all to the chagrin of the United States, experts say.

For years, Iraq has been caught in a delicate balancing act between its two main allies Tehran and Washington.

After a 2003 US-led invasion toppled Iraqi long-time ruler Saddam Hussein, Iran's influence has grown through political proxies.

Pro-Iran parties now dominate Iraq's parliament and in October they named a new prime minister following a year-long tussle with their Shia rivals, the followers of populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraq has become an "economic lifeline" for Iran, said Ihsan al-Shammari, a political scientist at the University of Baghdad.

This is "even more so with sharpening Western economic sanctions and nuclear negotiations that do not seem to be leading to a favourable deal for Iran", Shammari said.

"Iran's role will be even more important than during previous (Iraqi) governments"

During a visit to Tehran late last month, Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani and Iranian officials urged greater bilateral cooperation in all fields.

He thanked Iran which provides gas and electricity,around one-third of Iraq's needs, adding this would continue until Iraq was self-sufficient.

New content at THIRD:

The following sites updated:

Monday, December 12, 2022

Janet Jackson to tour next year!!!!

Great news from BILLBOARD:

Janet Jackson took to Instagram on Monday morning (Dec. 12) to make a live announcement about her 2023 North American tour. “I’m going back on tour and, yes, we will be together again,” said the singer with a smile, noting that the name of the outing is Together Again. “I miss you guys so much and I cannot wait to see you,” she added.

The other big news was that rapper Ludacris will serve as the opening act. And, and in even bigger news, Jackson confirmed that she’s been back in the studio. “There will be new music,” the singer promised, without revealing any details about when it will drop or any titles.

I can't wait!!!!

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Monday, December 12, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, another Twitter dump, a fresh call for all US forces out of Iraq, and much more.

PROJECT CENSORED has released it's annual look at the press, STATE OF THE FREE PRESS 2023. At RANDOM LENTH NEWS, Paul Rosenberg notes the 10 most censored stories and we'll zoom in on number eight:

8) CIA Discussed Plans to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange

The CIA seriously considered plans to kidnap or assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in late 2017, according to a September 2021 Yahoo News investigation, based on interviews with more than 30 former U.S. officials, eight of whom detailed U.S. plans to abduct Assange and three of whom described the development of plans to kill him. If it had been up to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, they almost certainly would have been acted on, after WikiLeaks announced it had obtained a massive tranche of files — dubbed “Vault 7” — from the CIA’s ultra-secret hacking division, and posted some of them online.

In his first public remarks as Donald Trump’s CIA director, “Pompeo devoted much of his speech to the threat posed by WikiLeaks” Yahoo News noted, “Rather than use the platform to give an overview of global challenges or to lay out any bureaucratic changes he was planning to make at the agency.” He even called it “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” a designation intended to grant the CIA wide latitude in what actions it took, while shielding it from congressional oversight.

“Potential scenarios proposed by the CIA and Trump administration officials included crashing into a Russian vehicle carrying Assange in order to grab him, shooting the tires of an airplane carrying Assange in order to prevent its takeoff, and engaging in a gun battle through the streets of London,” Project Censored summarized. “Senior CIA officials went so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ detailing methods to kill Assange.”

“WikiLeaks was a complete obsession of Pompeo’s,” a former Trump administration national security official told Yahoo News. “After Vault 7, Pompeo and [Deputy CIA Director Gina] Haspel wanted vengeance on Assange.” It went so far that “Pompeo and others at the agency proposed abducting Assange from the embassy and surreptitiously bringing him back to the United States via a third country — a process known as rendition,” they reported. (Assassination entered the picture later on.) Since it would take place in Britain, there had to be agreement from them. “But the British said, ‘No way, you’re not doing that on our territory, that ain’t happening,’” a former senior counterintelligence official told Yahoo News.

There was also push-back from National Security Council, or NSC lawyers and the Department of Justice, which wanted to put Assange on trial. But the CIA continued to push for capturing or killing Assange. Trump’s “NSC lawyers were bulwarks against the CIA’s potentially illegal proposals, according to former officials,” Yahoo News reported, but the CIA’s own lawyers may have been kept in the dark. “When Pompeo took over, he cut the lawyers out of a lot of things,” a former senior intelligence community attorney told them. “Pompeo’s ready access to the Oval Office, where he would meet with Trump alone, exacerbated the lawyers’ fears. [The NSC’s top lawyer John] Eisenberg fretted that the CIA director was leaving those meetings with authorities or approvals signed by the president that Eisenberg knew nothing about, according to former officials.”

“US plans to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange have received little to no establishment news coverage in the United States, other than scant summaries by Business Insider and The Verge, and tangential coverage by Reuters, each based on the original Yahoo News report,” Project Censored notes. “Among US independent news outlets, Democracy Now! featured an interview with Michael Isikoff, one of the Yahoo News reporters who broke the story, and Jennifer Robinson, a human rights attorney who has been advising Julian Assange and WikiLeaks since 2010. Rolling Stone and The Hill also published articles based on the original Yahoo News report.”

Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden. Last week, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) reported:

Press freedom and rights organizations on Thursday expressed "grave concern" about the Biden administration's "relentless pursuit" of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, an Australian who is jailed in London while he fights against extradition to the United States.

"It is more than a year since our coalition sent a joint letter calling for the charges against Assange to be dropped," 21 groups wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. "Today, we repeat those concerns, and urge you to heed our request. We believe that the prosecution of Assange in the U.S. would set a harmful legal precedent and deliver a damaging blow to press freedom by opening the way for journalists to be tried under the Espionage Act if they receive classified material from whistleblowers."

For those who've forgotten, Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs. And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own. For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:

A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat

Eric Lichtblau (GUARDIAN) observes:

The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.

Turning to the topic of Twitter -- where Tweets are supposed to pass for reporting -- Jeffrey St. Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) weighed in Friday:

+ I’d like to see someone leak the Bari Weiss Files on Matt Taibbi’s new partner’s ceaseless campaign to get Joseph Massad fired from Columbia University.

+ According to Business Insider, Musk has provided the anti-Palestinian zealot Bari Weiss access to Twitter’s employee systems, added to its Slack, and given a company laptop, a level of access to Twitter systems typically reserved only for staff…

+ CounterPunch wasn’t just “shadow banned” on Twitter, we went into total eclipse. For more than a year our followers remained static or declined. We couldn’t even attract bots, Russian or porn. Its editor’s Twitter account (mine) was permanently locked. But there’s never been a single inquiry about this or any other suppressed Leftwing, animal rights, radical green, Occupy Wall Street or pro-Palestinian Twitter account. Why? Because it doesn’t fit the narrative Musk, Taibbi and Weiss want to project. This isn’t about free speech–how could it possibly be when an apex blacklister is in charge of determining what is & isn’t a blacklist?

+ Bari may not know much, but she knows blacklists…

+ Amid the hundreds of rightwing (and neo-Nazi) accounts being
restored, I don’t know of any accounts associated with the Left or pro-Palestinian accounts, like Stanley Cohen’s, having been resurrected or are likely to be with Weiss calling the shots. Yet, the account of Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, is back up and running.

+ Looking forward to two-plus years of Congressional hearings over Hunter Biden dick picks, with expert commentary from men’s shower monitor Jim Jordan and Lauren Boebert (spouse of a convicted flasher). Brace yourself, CSPAN!

+ MAGA accusing Sebastian Gorka of being part of a Deep State cover up is the best thing to come out of Laptopgate. Well done, Matt Taibbi!

+ Taibbi, who once blamed the excesses of his own satirical writings in The eXile on his heroin usage, rummaging around in the pilfered files of a drug addict and claiming a major exposé, doesn’t demonstrate much addict-to-addict solidarity…

+ The eXile was one of the best magazines to emerge in the 90s. The problem wasn’t the satirical pieces–worthy of Paul Krassner–but Taibbi’s cowardly renouncement of them–and blaming his partner Mark Ames, all to curry favor with people he once rightly despised and ridiculed.

+ Instead of Hunter Thompson, Taibbi’s morphed into David Horowitz…

+ Taibbi likes to think of himself as a “muckraker,” but I can’t think of a single “muckraker” agreeing to secret conditions set by the richest tech mogul in the world to run a story based solely on documents given to him by the same tech lord to be run on that very tech lord’s site. It sure ain’t the way IF Stone did it.

+ Over to you, Dr. Jung…

+ When the principle condition of the conditions constraining your reporting is that you don’t name the conditions, you’ve got a problem. You don’t know what the full story is if you’re only printing what your clearly biased source has given you. This is exactly what Judith Miller did with Curveball. Except it’s worse because in this case your source owns the means of publication and requires it to be published there.

+ Mark Ames: “All Musk’s fanboys on this wretched site want nothing more than to cancel their s**tlib-enemies’ accounts, you constantly see them snitching and tagging their Hero, just as libs did to them. No principle here, just a buncha snitches riding the oligarchy’s dopamine rollercoaster…”

The first reporter to take a Twitter dump still hasn't managed to write a report but, last Friday, he took another Twitter dump. This time on how Donald Trump was banned from Twitter.

An editor at TIME pointed out to me why the reporter keeps taking dumps on Twitter and avoiding writing an actual report -- the minute he writes a report he either gets honest or stops being seen as a journalist. To write an actual report requires explaining exactly what terms you agreed to. Failure to do so would make it clear you were no longer practicing journalism. (Yes, Virginia, there is a line between journalism and public relations.)

Iraq?

We like to point out here that Bully Boy Bush was in the White House when Brookings identified the disputed areas as one of the hotspots for future violence. And that nothing was ever done even though Article 140 of Iraq's Constitution mandated that the disputed areas be resolved by the end of 2007. For those who don't get it, RUDAW reports:

Dozens of resettled Arabs on Wednesday attacked Kurdish farmers in Daquq district of Kirkuk province after ploughing on their land. Two farmers were injured. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called on the Iraqi government to put an end such attacks.

Disputes over land ownership between Arabs, resettled to areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad by the Baathist regime, and Kurdish farmers have existed for years, often causing violence.

Abdulqadir Mohammed, a Kurdish farmer in Daquq, told Rudaw’s Hardi Mohammed on Wednesday that dozens of resettled Arabs had been ploughing on his land for three days with the alleged support of the Iraqi army. He said that when they tried to stop them, the resettled Arabs attacked with stones and guns.

Mohammed said he has all necessary documents to prove the ownership of the land.

DEUTSCHE WELLE interviews Salam Omer about covering the disputed areas:

#mediadev spoke to Salam Omer, editor-in-chief of KirkukNow, a news outlet based in Kirkuk in Northern Iraq. Launched in 2011, it is the only specialised media platform for citizens in Iraq's disputed territories.

#mediadev: Mr. Omer, your media outlet works in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious context. Who is your audience?

Salam Omer: We cover the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, located north of a line dividing the whole country from Syria to Iran. Our primary audience is the population of these areas: Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Christians, Yezidis etc.

In addition to news in these areas, what do you focus on in your reporting?

Our priorities are topics across the country related to freedom of expression, press freedom and groups like women, internally displaced people (IDPs), or the LGBT community. We reach around two million people across all platforms.

What are the main challenges in your work?

I have to look at three things on a daily basis: Are we secure? Do we have enough money? Do we have access to information? And all that depends on the ruling party, the ruling militia. That's the biggest challenge for us. Other media organizations, the mainstream media, belong to a political party. They have access to information, access to public oil money and they are safe. We don't have anything. We believe in the rule of law, that's the starting point for us.

You must face a lot of criticism for your work. How do you deal with it?

It is a challenge. At the beginning, we were attacked by almost all sides. For example, we published an article on the Kurds, and the next day, people suggested that we were financed by Arabs and Turkmens. The week after, someone else got upset. We built relationships with everyone to always have a channel of dialogue. We needed a lot of time to prove that an independent, impartial media platform can function. That needs work. And dedication.

In other news, MEHR NEWS AGENCY reports on a fresh call for US forces to leave Iraq:

Following the withdrawal of American forces, there would be no trace of ISIL in Iraq, Qasim al-Kariti, commander of the PMU's 41st Brigade said.

Criticizing the sabotage and obstruction of the Americans in the fight against terrorism in Iraq, Al-kariti noted that the American forces influence the process of security operations in this country.

Therefore, they should be expelled from the country, he stressed.

If the American forces leave the country, in a few days, there will be no trace of ISIL terrorists, he said, adding that the war against ISIL strengthened the determination of Iraqi youth.

Kat's "Kat's Korner: The 1975's BEING FUNNY IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE" went up Sunday.

The following sites updated:

Thursday, December 08, 2022

Fraud Squad

When will the Fraud Squad stand up for anything they supposedly believe in?

That's an important question that they need to answer and their supporters need to ask.

''Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, December 8, 2022. A lot to cover, mainly Joe Biden's dereliction of duty and how he better take action immediately or face a deserved impeachment. And I don't say that with glee or happiness. We've held the snapshot for an hour as I tried to think of any justification for his inaction -- legal justification. There is none. Here we go.

Katelyn Caralle (DAILY MAL) reports:

Joe Biden's top spokesperson won't comment on whether the president's 2020 campaign communicated with Twitter after it was revealed there was at least some correspondence with the social media giant.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continues to deflect questions related to the bombshell 'Twitter Files' after calling it 'old news' during her briefing on Tuesday.

She declined to comment on Wednesday when asked if Biden's team ever formally or informally communicated to the Twitter team that Hunter Biden's laptop was hacked.

It's not old news that the FBI visited social media execs and lied that a laptop might emerge shortly before the election and that it was Russian disinformation. The FBI knew about the laptop because they'd had the hard drive in their possession for nearly a year. They knew it was real.

Why did they lie to social media execs?

That's not old news and it never will be. They lied to influence the outcome of an election.

That's not their role. That's now why they exist. Heads should roll over their behavior.

And let's return to yesterday's main point: the spokesperson declaring that releasing information about what took place is "unhealthy" for the country.

No, it is not unhealthy.

Sunlight is never unhealthy to democracy.

And anyone who claims it is? That's who needs to be rebuked.

And now? It's Joe Biden who needs to be rebuked.

The White House has taken no action at all. Information dumped last Friday has the FBI lying to cover up a story. Yes, the story involves Crack Head Hunter Biden.

Now, let's put everything on pause for just one moment.

A number of idiots -- including on the left -- wanted to insist oh, Hunter's just a drug addict who has problems, stop looking, turn your heads, blah blah blah.

That was bulls**t then and it's bulls**t now.

There's a reason you probe these stories and it's not to learn how many dildos Hunter took up the ass.

It's because his father could end up president and you need to determine whether or not Hunter is going to compromise him.

We don't need to figure that out anymore.

In fact, we now have grounds for impeachment.

I'm not calling for Joe Biden to be impeached.

But the events of the last few days are stronger than any reason we had to impeach Bill Clinton or, yes, even Donald Trump.

On Friday, information was released that showed a federal law enforcement agency went around lying and intimidating the media to influence the outcome of an election.

Where is the president?

Where the hell is the US president?

Joe has previously insisted Hunter did nothing wrong.

Okay, well, let that rest for a moment.

Joe is President of the United States. The information released demands accountability ASAP.

Where's his support for a Congressional investigation? Where's his public demand for answers? Where is his statement to the American people that this never should have happened?

Or, for that matter, that he wasn't a part of it?

Because we need to know that, as a citizen when he ran for president, he wasn't trading on favors to break the law. The FBI's actions are not just appalling, they're also illegal.

Joe is the President of the United States. He is the head of the executive branch of the US government. The FBI falls under that branch.

I don't need to hear the uneducated Karine Jean-Pierre make another joke or issue another threat.

This is a serious matter and it should be treated as such.

The FBI acted in a criminal manner. That has been exposed. It is time for the President of the United State to stop hiding and to make a statement on what has happened.

Joe hasn't made it yet. He should have made one on Saturday.

But he's compromised.

At best, the only reason he's only compromised is because it's his son. At worst? He might have been knowingly profiting from Hunter's actions and the pay-to-play scheme. Or, for that matter, he might have been involved in the FBI's actions -- calling in favors from his earlier political career, for example.

But, for right now, let's just take the best option for his dithering: It's a story involving his son.

I don't give a damn about your son. You had the crack head before you became president. You're now president.

If you can't handle the job, step down.

And this is why those of you on the left -- and please note, I'm not talking about the liars who dismissed the laptop as nothing back in October of 2020. I'm talking about people who had podcasts and people who 'covered' it by telling us, "Oh, he has a drug problem, poor Hunter."

F**K POOR HUNTER. The country is more important, democracy is more important, than the deserved and earned shame Hunter has brought down upon himself and his family.

Sorry, Katie Halper, I'm looking at you. I'll name you because you're the only one I can name without going into a holy tear. If I name anyone else who had too much sympathy for Hunter Biden and too little for the American people if a compromised person became president, we'll be spending the whole snapshot on their many errors and lies. With Katie, I can say she was too sensitive to Hunter and that's all I have to say because she's got a strong record otherwise.

I'll go further, in fact, I'll even praise Jimmy Dore for not falling into that trap that so many others did. He treated it as a serious story from the start. Good for Jimmy. Thank you, Jimmy.

I don't care that Hunter had strippers shove dildos up his ass.

I do care that he could compromise a presidency.

And that's why you don't pretend like a grown and middle aged man is a child and offer excuses for looking the other way as his father runs to become president.

Drug addict?

Well then he needs to get accountable. He needs to work his program. He doesn't need the press covering for him or excusing him. Or pretending -- and we pointed this out in real time -- that a woman rescued him -- with love, of course. That's not how recovery works.

And all you idiots did was excuse it.

And you created the moment for this.

Joe Biden should have acted immediately. As soon as that information dropped last Friday, he should have met with the White House attorneys to craft a response. Not just a statement but a plan of action to let the American people know that FBI was being reigned in and that this would never, ever happen again. That he was appalled and outraged by what was exposed last Friday.

He's paralyzed because he's compromised and you can thank all the people who whored for him, you brought us to this point.

The FBI acted illegally and this became public seven days ago. SEVEN DAYS AGO. And yet the president has nothing to say. There's has been no statement decrying what took place, no statement to assure the American people that this is not going to be ignored -- despite the White House spokesperson asking for it to be ignored.

I'm real sorry that Joe Biden's having to choose between Daddy and President -- but here's reality, it is no choice. He's the president and he wanted to be it so he needs to act as the President.

His refusal to do so? In the face of what has been exposed, his sinking his head in the sand and not saying a word, his taking no action and his spokesperson trying to Twitter and the press what to do? That is the very definition of high crimes and misdemeanors.

He is failing a president, he is demonstrating dereliction of duty.

These are grounds for impeachment.

I have tried to avoid this issue since Friday in part because there's no report from the one who did the dump and in part because I knew when I got pissed enough I'd say what no one has the guts to say: These are grounds for impeachment.

He needs to take action immediately.

As President of the United States.

He's failed to do so.

It's outrageous.

His failure makes it clear that he is now compromised by Hunter.

Had the press done their job, we wouldn't be at this point. Joe now has to decide if he is going to honor his Constitutional oath and to serve the American people or if he's going to step down immediately as President.

That is what is called for right now.

The American people know that a federal law agency interfered in an election and did so to impact the outcome. That's illegal. Heads to need to be rolling at the FBI. But the American people need to hear from the President that this is unacceptable, that it doesn't matter that he benefited from it, it was wrong for the FBI to act in this manner.

This is Politics 101.

And yet we have no grown ups in the room apparently.

No one wants to state the obvious.

His actions are grounds for impeachment. His actions right now are saying "I can't act as president and demand accountability because it might hurt my son."

He wanted to be president and now he is. It's time to act as a president.

If he delays any longer, then let him face the impeachment he now deserves.

New topic . . .

Josephine Harvey (HUFFINGTON POST) reports:

The California home of state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) was searched by police on Tuesday after he was targeted with a bomb threat parroting false, right-wing “groomer” rhetoric over his fight for LGBTQ rights.

The threat was emailed to the San Francisco Standard and reported to the San Francisco Police Department, which began searching Wiener’s home at around 6 a.m. Police found no explosives at the property.

The subject line read: “Scott Wiener will die today,” according to the Standard. The author, who used the name Zamina Tataro, called Wiener a pedophile and accused him of grooming children.

The name Zamina Tataro was also used in a different bomb threat last month against a school in Ontario over the attire of a trans teacher.

Wiener, who is gay, said it was one of many death threats he had received this year.

“This latest wave of death threats against me relates to my work to end discrimination against LGBTQ people in the criminal justice system and my work to ensure the safety of transgender children and their families,” Wiener tweeted, noting that extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk had recently tweeted homophobic lies about him.

The media needs to start calling out those people -- especially politicians -- accusing others of grooming. "What is your proof?" is the question they should be asked. They have none so it should be reported as: "US House Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene made another wild and baseless accusation today . . ." That might not be right. Is she keeping "Greene" now that she's divorcing her husband? At any rate, "US House Rep Lauren Boebert made another wild and baseless accusation today . . ." And when Boebert shares her 'informed' opinion that adult men and women should have to wait until they are 21 before coming out as gay? The media should report, "US House Rep Lauren Boebert, who dropped out of high school when she got pregnant outside of marriage, felt the need to share that all gay adults should be forced to stay in closets until the age of 21 because . . . well, her crazy brain hadn't reached a conclusion just yet but she swears Jesus is about to whisper the reason in her ear."

We need to reduce the climate of crazy and violence that these hate merchants are creating.

The shooter in the Colorado Springs attack? ABC NEWS reports:

The suspect accused of killing five people in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is facing 305 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and bias-motivated crimes.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, wore yellow prison attire for Tuesday's court appearance, which was to hear the charges against them. Aldrich did not speak.

Public defenders assigned to Aldrich said in a court filing that the suspect identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them.

An e-mail to the public account insists this was not a hate crime.

Based on?

If the shooter is nonbinary -- if -- that doesn't mean a damn thing. Transphobia has not been limited to straight people. The shooter can be binary and still hate gays, lesbians, trans, etc.

The shooter can also be -- far more likely -- consumed with self-hatred.

The porn acting father gave interviews about how his son wasn't gay and better not be gay. The mother has made similar statements.

That both parents refuse to their child as their "son" and use "he" and "him" suggests that either the shooter is not non-binary or that the shooter did not feel the parents would recognize that reality.

A climate of hate was created by Marjorie Taylor-Greene and her ilk and that climate painted a bullseye on a gay club for a disturbed individual who knew their parents loathed gays. Wanting to go out -- it's doubtful the shooter really thought they would emerge from the massacre alive -- in a blaze of glory, the shooter looked around for a socially 'acceptable' target and, thanks to the climate of hate, the gay club seemed the way to go.

The most likely explanation is that the shooter wanted to go out in 'glory' and have the approval of parents -- father left, mother was in and out of life -- who were abhorrent and withheld approval on even the most basic things. In fact, it's probably not even approval, it's just recognition from parents who never made the time for the shooter. The parents have lived enough for several soap operas but there's no role for a child in those storylines. The shooter appears to have drifted through his 22 years with little connection, supervision or love. That's very tragic. It does not excuse attempting to kill people, but it is tragic.

Tragic is also that the Laurens and Marjories create this climate of hate. Remember, boys and girls, that GOP supports life -- unless the child is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It's a sad and depraved pro-life point of view, but they're happy with it.

Ten days ago, Human Rights Watch released the following:

The Iraqi government under former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi failed to deliver on promises of legal accountability for state security personnel and state-backed armed groups responsible for killing, maiming, and disappearing hundreds of demonstrators and activists since 2019, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 40-page report, “To Sleep the Law: Violence Against Protesters and Unaccountable Perpetrators in Iraq,” details specific cases of killing, injury, and disappearance of protesters during and after the 2019-2020 popular uprising in central and southern Iraq. Al-Kadhimi took power in May 2020 promising justice for the murders and disappearances, but when he left office in October 2022, his government had made no concrete progress on holding those responsible to account.

“After two and a half years with al-Khadimi in power, his promises of justice for vicious violence against peaceful protesters turned out to be empty, and killers are walking free,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Protesters sacrificed so much to improve conditions in the country, even giving their lives, but their government couldn’t even provide them the bare minimum of justice in return.”

Nearly 500 demonstrators were killed in just the first few weeks of the uprising by Iraqi security forces and state-backed armed groups, according to the United Nations. Violence against protesters persisted even after protests ended, through a targeted assassination campaign against prominent activists, most of whom were perceived as influential voices in the protest movement.

Six months after taking office, former Prime Minister al-Kadhimi established a Fact-Finding Committee to investigate the violence carried out by state security personnel and armed groups against protesters and activists. But the committee has yet to release any substantial information about its findings, not even disclosing the cases it examined, much less the results of investigations it carried out.

Human Rights Watch examined the cases of 11 Iraqis subjected to violence because of political protest and activism. Five of them were killed, including two women. Another five were injured, and one was kidnapped and disappeared.

The victims and the families of those killed or disappeared filed legal cases with police and judicial authorities, but after initial interest from the authorities, such as police collecting details of these cases, the legal complaints went nowhere. There was virtually no follow up from the authorities about the status of their investigations or attempts to identify and hold those responsible to account.

As some interviewees insisted, their cases were simply “put to sleep.”

Emjad al-Dehemat, 56, was a prominent activist in Amara, the capital of Maysan province in southeast Iraq. On November 6, 2019, weeks into the protests, al-Dehemat was assassinated after leaving a meeting with a senior police commander in Amara’s main police station, said other activists who also attended the meeting. The killing occurred only a few hundred meters from police headquarters.

His brother Ali al-Dehemat, 52, filed a legal case with the authorities with little result. No arrests have been made in the case. Fighting for justice for his brother, Ali received death threats and was forced to flee Amara, moving from city to city for fear that he, too, would be killed.

Despite the lack of progress in investigations and legal accountability, the Iraqi government has financially compensated most of the families of those killed. According to the UN, most of the families of protesters killed have received financial compensation from Iraq’s Martyrs Foundation, a state entity.

The government also promised to compensate the thousands of protesters maimed or injured during the protests. But only a small number of victims have received compensation for their injuries, and they have only done so after long waits – in some cases up to two-and-a-half years – and at great financial cost. Many have hired lawyers to help with their claims, and some said they had to pay bribes to officials to resolve their claims.

The new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani should release information about the Fact-Finding Committee’s investigations into the killings, injuries, and disappearances of demonstrators during and after the uprising. The government should also urge judicial authorities to release information about the status of ongoing investigations and cases.

Al-Sudani’s government should also redouble efforts to compensate victims of the violence, including by establishing a clear and concise compensation policy for those injured, and laying out straightforward steps that minimize bureaucratic hurdles to receiving compensation.

“The 2019-2020 uprising brought down a government and instigated early elections, and the protesters demanded accountability for perpetrators of the violence they suffered,” Coogle said. “The new prime minister can and should work to deliver the justice his predecessor did not.”

The following sites updated: