“Outraged by President Trump’s 2 hr meeting w/Putin, the man who orchestrated attacks on our democracy. Where do his loyalties lie?”-- Barbara Lee
“Trump’s denial of the demonstrated fact that Russia attacked American democracy in 2016 is beyond disgraceful.”-- James E. Clyburn
“Instead, he legitimized Putin and disrespected the clear findings of our law enforcement and intelligence officials here at home.”-- Elijah Cummings
Black people should be first in line when it comes to casting doubt on the work of intelligence agencies and federal prosecutors. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) ought to uphold the proud tradition of defying corrupt law enforcement. Instead they prove themselves to be happy tools of the neoliberal war party, a bipartisan construct that includes the Democrats. They join with the rest of the democratic party in flogging the Russiagate story and hope that their constituents won’t ask them about anything else.
Robert Mueller is no different from his prosecutor colleagues across the country. They lie. They over charge and force innocent people to plead guilty. They “squeeze” defendants with threats of draconian sentences and get them to turn on other people or even to tell lies themselves.
Mueller’s indictments of Russian officials is akin to the shady doings that he and the rest of his profession always engage in. After more than one year of investigation Mueller succeeded only in proving that Paul Manafort is a crook and that Donald Trump, Jr. is stupid. The charges against Manafort and Trump attorney Michael Cohen have nothing to do with the Russian collusion story at all. The indictments make a political rather than a criminal case and are a weak effort to prove that the year-long charade was worth carrying out at all.
The allegations made in the indictment are a rehash of claims that the Russian government hacked Democratic National Committee emails and used Wikileaks to release them and discredit Hillary Clinton. The indictment relies on the word of the DNC’s CrowdStrike firm who self-diagnosed a Russian hack without corroboration from anyone else.
Russia does not extradite its citizens so the indicted individuals will never appear in an American courtroom. Of course the last thing Mueller wants is to provide evidence in court. The real purpose of the investigation has succeeded. The goal is to make excuses for the Democratic Party elite, explain away their failures which led to Donald Trump’s election, protect the real electoral colluders in U.S. intelligence agencies, and prevent any normalization of relations between the United States and Russia.
exactly!
margaret can tell the truth and look she didn't die for telling the truth.
but katrina vanden heuvel is just a damn liar. i agree with everything c.i. said yesterday in 'For Katrina vanden Heuvel and other idiots' and i'm damn glad she said it.
katrina's husband should leave her. her little stunts on the program yesterday stabbed him in the back and undermined all the work he did explaining there was no there ... there.
margaret told the truth, katty van van scurried around like a snake on her belly.
she thinks she can trick us. she's a damn liar.
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
“I liked Assad. I thought he improved a lot as I met him. He never did enough on human rights but he was moving. He was getting better. He was much more confident every year. You could speak out against him a little bit.”
Seymour Hersh.
Yesterday, I noted Bill Moyer's reporting. I'm not a Bill Moyers fan (and dislike him as a person). But I do believe in giving people credit for what they did.
Sy is not above criticism and I've offered criticism here. I've also offered it to his face. In the early 70s, for example, I left a protest -- a day before it -- because the government was getting updates on the protest and it could have only come from four people -- one of which was Hersh.
Did I think he was a snitch? I thought he was someone who used sources for his stories and might share with his sources information they didn't have to get better stories.
Journalists have no ethics as a group.
I know Seymour. I criticized him to his face on that and have on other things. He's not an angel. He's not a saint.
(He also maintained he was innocent on the issue addressed above. And he may have been. But everything was being leaked by someone.)
He is a journalist and his reporting has stood up and he's been there for some of the most important stories for about fifty years now.
Borzou? He writes a good e-mail -- don't worry, Borzou, I plan to leave it at that.
He doesn't write good stories. He doesn't write informed stories. He doesn't do anything to break stories even when he knows about them.
He's useless.
He's not the only one attacking Sy presently.
Let's deal with the 'quote Borzou doesn't offer in full.
I don't know Bashar Assad. I've never met him. I wouldn't stake my reputation on him. Sy's met him. If he thinks Bashar isn't the pure evil that so many have painted him as? He could be right. There are many Syrians who support Bashar and the US government has spent decades trying to discredit Bashar. But the quote is not a blanket endorsement of Bashar.
Why is Borzou rushing in on this?
Because he's a failure. Life didn't turn out the way he wanted. (It rarely does.)
So he has to run with the herd.
THE AMERICAN PROSPECT is and always will be a joke. And their little pissy war with Sy has nothing to do with Syria or Bashar. It has to do with a 90s book Sy published and, no, no, JFK didn't ever choke a woman during sex!!!! Oh, no!!! Oh, how awful!!!!
Tiny cocks have long memories and they're still grudge f**king Sy over that.
So I'm not surprised by their nonsense nor do I feel it needs to be called out. It is petty and their usual garbage. But the attacks on Sy, check out so-called 'journalists' on Twitter, are worrisome. It reminds me of the gang-pile on Gary Webb among others. And that needs to stop. They are trying to defame and destroy a journalist.
Sy may have been leaking to the government (Coretta Scott King had the same concerns I did -- she did not finger Sy or anyone but she also was aware that there was someone leaking and she also walked away from the action). He may not. He denied it. I have no idea whether it was him or not. But I can -- and always have -- set that aside and addressed the work he produced.
These people, these Borzous, cannot do that. And they're trying to shut Sy down and destroy his reputation.
Finally, a someone questions Seymour Hersh about falling off the deep end with his Syria stories.
Shane Bauer works for the embarrassing rag MOTHER JONES. Shane Bauer has no standing. He is the David Corn of this century (Corn also works at the rag MOTHER JONES). This is not acceptable. This is an attempt to destroy the work and we've seen it before.
The pack destroys and it's trying to destroy Seymour Hersh. That's outrageous. I'll try to read his new book and write about it here shortly. I support his work -- regardless of any disagreements we've had over the years (and we've had serious disagreements). I do not support the Shanes and Borzous who have never accomplished anything and never will.
Check out Borzou's lousy Twitter feed. He takes time to join in the public stoning of Sy Hersh but this 'reporter' paid to cover Iraq for over 15 years can't offer anything serious on the protests in Iraq and the violent response the government's offering.
That tells you everything you need to know about Borzou.
Iraq's SWAT forces clamping down on protests in the southern city of Samawa:
#IraqProtests
BREAKING ALERT: Internet and cell service has been shut down in southern and central Iraq, including Baghdad, as protests continue to spread throughout the country.
Yesterday, former US President Barack Obama gave a speech.
#Iraq #Samawah
Hashd_ Al_Shabi militant's Hummers supported by #Iran's regime, run over protesters #العراق_ينتفض
Mark Mericle. Tired, dried up s**t draining public radio. KPFA needs to sweep the moldy oldies out the door. Mark's been around since at least the 90s. Public radio needs new life. He's not on the Supreme Court. This isn't a lifetime assignment. One of the reason KPFA looks so, so White is that it has refused to update with the times. They have all these useless people who should have been swept aside long ago.
Mark made it clear that he's part of that trash that needs to be taken to the curb yesterday on PACIFICA EVENING NEWS.
Please note, the weekday show has refused to address what's taking place in Iraq.
Mark's been on hysterical binge of late and continued it yesterday. In the first 10 minutes, for example, trashing Trump was so important that Mark used a significant amount of time to play an interview with the laughable Luke Harding -- he replayed an interview with that hack from a broadcast earlier that morning on KPFA. At length. That's not news. It's certainly not how you lead off an alleged news program.
In his rush to trash Donald Trump -- and be the tiny poodle running with the herd -- keep yapping, Mark, he declared that Barack "took aim at what he called strong man politics" in his speech.
Hmm.
He said Barack was "urging people around the world to respect human rights."
Hmm.
Dear @hrw
I hope you’ve seen what’s happening in #iraq nowadays..
There is No Rights, Humanity, and no one is watching..
#IraqProtests
If you don't spend every night beating off while staring at your poster of Donald Trump, you might stop a moment and ask, who is a threat to human rights currently?
Maybe you'd notice that Hayder al-Abadi is using the Iraqi military to attack protesters right now in Iraq. Has been for days now.
Very sad picture
This picture is real in #Iraq and not in action films. #IraqiProtests #BasraProtests #احتجاجات_البصرة
I have no idea what Barack Obama was speaking of. Mainly because this speech -- which was news -- wasn't broadcast. We got the ridiculous Luke Harding talking about the liar Christopher Steel and rumors of a tape that never existed and blah blah blah. We didn't get Barack, a former US president, speaking out about human rights abuses.
Barack may have been trashing Donald Trump. I don't know. Mark couldn't do his job.
But Barack is the reason Hayder al-Abadi became prime minister of Iraq. After Barack gave Nouri al-Maliki a second term as prime minister (over ruling the Iraqi people), thug Nouri went to town becoming a tyrant. Barack was disgusted. Not disgusted enough to ease him out or publicly object, but disgusted enough not to take his post-election day November 2012 phone call -- Barack had it sent to Joe Biden. Finally in June 2014, Barack had to walk away from thug Nouri and replaced him with Hayder.
Was Barack speaking of Hayder? He may have been, he may not have been. But KPFA is supposed to provide the insight that Mark ignored. And Mark ignored what's going on in Iraq.
Iraq didn't walk up to the US with a 2x4 and hit it. The US government attacked Iraq. It still occupies Iraq and determines its government (or tries to). All of that is the reason Lew Hill created PACIFICA to begin with -- so that those stories would be covered, so that those points of view would be presented.
Instead, Mark wants to run with the herd mentality.
(For a better take on Donald, check out FLASHPOINTS -- including yesterday's show when Kevin Pena interviewed Joe Lauria of CONSORTIUM NEWS.)
ANADOLU AGENCY reports:
According to Hussein Allawi, an Iraqi
political analyst and academician, the demonstrators are articulating
“legitimate grievances”.
“But the
timing of the demonstrations happens to coincide with the final days of
Iraq’s outgoing government,” he told Anadolu Agency.
He
added: “Planned reforms and solutions will depend entirely on the
country’s next government, the features of which remain unclear until
now.”
“The political groups that won the [May 12] parliamentary poll must be involved in the solution process,” he said.
Allawi went on to warn: “Any delay in forming the next government will only serve to exacerbate the demonstrations.”
ARAB WEEKLY notes, "Police in Iraq wielded batons and rubber hoses to disperse about 250 protesters gathered at the main entrance to the Zubair oilfield near Basra on Tuesday as unrest across southern cities over poor basic services gathered pace." Though Mark Mericle can't grasp it, this is a news story. STRATFOR offers:
The future looks bleak for Iraq's water supply. Long-term pressures are conspiring with an acute drought and a tricky transition in the political system to make for a full-blown crisis. Water shortages have added to public dissatisfaction over economic issues such as high unemployment, fueling mass protests in southern Iraq. Bans on crop planting and the impending filling of a reservoir in Turkey will further rile up the populace, some of whom will be forced out of rural areas and into cities because of the drought. The problem, however, is only likely to worsen. Given its lingering security challenges and political instability, Iraq won't be able to solve the current water crisis on its own, and its neighbors will do more to hurt than help the situation.
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