BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O FOUND OUT JUST HOW QUICKLY FAME FADES ON HIS TRIP TO GERMANY.
CROWDS FAILED TO GATHER, THE SEAS FAILED TO PART. HE WAS JUST ANOTHER CROOKED POLITICIAN IN A COUNTRY THAT KNOWS WHAT ONE LOOKS LIKE AND THEY REFUSED TO EXTEND HIM A WELCOME.
REACHED FOR COMMENT TODAY, WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE SPOKESMODEL JAY CARNEY DECLARED, "THAT WAS A BAD TRIP. AND I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT BAD TRIPS. I ONCE ROAMED THE GROUNDS OF YALE IN A PAIR OF WET, BAGGY TIGHTY WHITIES WHILE HOPPED UP ON TWO TABLETS OF FLINTSTONES CHEWABLES AND A SWIGGING FROM A BOTTLE OF ROBITUSSIN. AND THAT WAS JUST LAST YEAR!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Proving that War Hawks need lots of (ego) feeding to survive, Andy Bowers of Slate (a War Hawk who got in the faux antiwar club as a result of the circle jerk) gushes today, "George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer known for his brilliant coverage of the Iraq War, turns his attention to problems here at home in his new book The Unwinding. " No, no one who gave a damn about Iraq would ever note Packer's "brilliant coverage of the Iraq War" because it just wasn't there. George Packer is a War Hawk. Oh, he wrote a (bad) play. Who the hell cares? He cheerleaded the Iraq War whined in a book that there wasn't enough military on the ground because, hey, the war's not wrong, it was just fought wrong, we can fight it better next time! That's what these people sell over and over. There is no awareness, there is no awakening, there is only attempts to defend war and insist any mistakes must result not from the decision to start a war but from the way it was fought. In his awful 2006 'book,' he wanted to argue that , even though the Iraq War was a war of choice, "this didn't make the war immoral by definition."
From the classic comedy sketch (about the quiz show scandal) . . .
Mike Nichols: It's a moral issue.
Elaine May: Yes!
Mike Nichols: A moral issue.
Elaine May: Yes! Yes! Yes! It is a moral issue.
Mike Nichols: A moral issue.
Elaine May: And to me that's always so much more interesting than a real issue
Always be skeptical of those who talk 'morality' but ignore the law.
The War Hawks love to conceal their true natures. Norman Solomon (Huffington Post) calls War Hawk Thomas Friedman out and when Friedman attempts to spin, Norman quotes Friedman.
National Iraqi News Agency reports 1 person was killed by a mortar attack on an Anbar Province polling station and another was left injured. and that, according to the Nineveh Province Police Brigadier General Khaled al-Hamdani, bombings are taking place in various areas of that province in order to prevent voting.
Iraq has 18 provinces. 3 of the 18 are the KRG -- a semi-autonomous region that will hold provincial elections in September. Being semi-autonomous it votes on its own schedule (and did during the 2009 provincial elections as well). The exception being the parliamentary elections when all Iraqi provinces that are voting vote at the same time.
So the 3 KRG provinces didn't vote in the April 20th provincial elections.
In addition, Kirkuk (again) did not get to vote. This is because, long story short, Kirkuk is disputed territory -- claimed by the central government in Baghdad and by the KRG.
The United Nations was pressing the case for allowing Kirkuk to vote. Even so, that was unlikely to happen. It's even more unlikely now that the UN Secretary-General Special Representative to Iraq is an empty seat. Next month, Martin Kobler is placed over the Congo. No one has been named (still) as Kobler's replacement.
That adds up to four provinces. There are 18. So 14 should have voted, right?
Only 12 voted. Nouri decided to penalize the two provinces where he is most unpopular -- Anbar and Nineveh -- by refusing to allow them to vote in April. Kirk H. Sowell (Foreign Policy) rightly observed, "Iraq's April 20 provincial elections were like two elections in one country. They included all provinces outside the Kurdistan region except Kirkuk, due to a long-standing dispute over election law, and the predominately Sunni provinces of Anbar and Ninawa, where the cabinet postponed elections under the pretext of security following a series of candidate assassinations."
Today, they were finally allowed to vote. The US Embassy in Baghdad issued the following statement:
The United States congratulates Iraq for conducting successful provincial elections in Anbar and Ninewa today, ensuring that the citizens of these two provinces have the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights at the ballot box. This was an important step toward solidifying Iraq’s democratic future.
We also congratulate Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), which managed and organized the elections in the face of a challenging security environment. Iraqi police and military forces should be commended for their work in securing polling sites and protecting voters as they cast their ballots at over 1,000 polling centers in Anbar and Ninewa.
This day did not pass without violence, however. We condemn the attacks that occurred at polling stations in both provinces that wounded a number of Iraqis.
Wang Yuanyuan (Xinhua) reports, "The state-run television Iraqia showed Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi entered a polling station to cast his vote in his hometown city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. Iraqi security forces spread into the cities of the two provinces, cordoned off polling centers and imposed a traffic ban on vehicles."
AFP notes that the two provinces have nearly 3 million registered voters and that there are at least 1185 politicians competing for 69 seats. Alsumaria reports that there were over 1107 polling stations in the two provinces. In the two provinces. You catch that right? Apparently there was no concern over refugees who fled the provinces being able to vote. When the 12 provinces were allowed to vote in April, there were polling stations set up in Anbar and Nineveh -- but just for refugees from the 12 provinces who had moved in to Anbar and Nineveh to vote. The Independent High Electoral Commission announced that there were "special polling centers" set up for displaced persons from Nineveh and Anbar . . . if they were in the KRG. Only, if they were in the KRG. Now if you were a member of the armed services and resided in Anbar or Nineveh in your downtime but were deployed to other provinces, IHED had 266 polling stations in 15 of the other provinces for you to vote. But if you were a resident of Anbar or Nineveh who had been displaced and went to any province other than the three in the KRG, you were out of luck on voting.
As Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi told BBC World Service's Sarah Montague interviewed yesterday, only 30% of registered voters voted in the April 20th elections. Safety concerns and disillusionment may be the reason for the low turnout in April.
Today, AFP quotes Mosul college student Fahd Ismail stating, "I have come to the polling centre not to vote, but just to destroy my ballot. I saw that students who graduated before me got nothing from the government, and now we are in the same situation." Last week, Mustafa Habib (Niqash) quoted voters in the two provinces with reasons why people might not vote. Candidate Imad Zakariya stated, "The hot weather at this time of year will make people reluctant to vote. In spring, when it is cooler, people are more inclined to get out and vote." It was 105 degrees (F) in Ramadi this afternoon and 'dropped' to 100 degrees at nightfall. Ramadi is a major city in Anbar Province. Mosul is a major city in Nineveh Province. The high in Mosul today was 104 degrees (F). Anbar Province resident Harith al-Ani told Niqash last week, "The changes in the election dates and in voter registration centres has also caused confusion."
The Journal of Turkish Weekly notes, "A vehicle ban was imposed in major cities in the two provinces and thousands of policemen have been deployed" and "The United Nations reported 17 candidates were assassinated ahead of this year's election, more than half of them in Anbar and Nineveh. Adam Schreck and Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) also note, "A total of 17 candidates have been assassinated ahead of this year's election, with the bulk of them from Ninevah, according to Jose Maria Aranaz, the chief electoral adviser at the United Nations mission to Iraq."
Despite all of that and much more, it appears the voting in Anbar and Nineveh was successful today. Alsumaria reports that the Independent High Electoral Commission states 37.5% of registered voters turned out in Nineveh and that 49.5% turned out in Anbar. Alsumaria notes that UNHCR assisted with the elections and were at polling places. At five o'clock, when voting was scheduled to end, UNHCR checked to make sure that all voters were out of the polling stations and then locked the doors and, with IHEC, secured the ballot boxes. All Iraq News notes that IHEC's Electoral Office head Muqdad al-Shiriefi declared in a Baghdad press conference this evening, "There are no violations in the PCs elections of the provinces." NINA reports that the Mottahidoon Coalition issued a statement declaring the high rate of turnout in the two provinces was an indication that the protesters, who "have suffered various severe conditions in order to get their demands and recover their usurped rights," believe in their democratic rights.
The United Nations notes:
20 June 2013 – The United Nations envoy in Iraq today congratulated the men and women of the Anbar and Ninewa governorates on casting their votes on local elections that were delayed two months ago over mounting concerns about security.
“The people of Anbar and Ninewa overcame threats to cast their vote today, and violence failed to disrupt the democratic process,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler.
Most Iraqi governorates held their local elections two months ago. However, voting was delayed by officials in Anbar and Ninewa because of security concerns.
The past couple of months have been some of the deadliest on record for Iraq, with a series of bombings killing hundreds and injuring many more across the country. Candidates have been regularly targeted, and on Wednesday a suicide bomber reportedly blew himself up as he embraced a political leader in northern Iraq, killing the candidate and four of his relatives.
In addition, a roadside bomb targeted a bus carrying five officials from the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) in the town of Baiji in Ninewa today, killing one of them.
“Despite the best efforts of the security forces, it is very sad that lives were also lost in this process,” Mr. Kobler said. “Several candidates were targeted in the lead-up to today’s vote, while an IHEC staff member was tragically killed in an attack on a bus today and several IHEC colleagues were wounded.”
Delegations from the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) visited a number of polling centres, and Mr. Kobler commended the professionalism and commitment of the IHEC in carrying out the elections. He also welcomed the efforts of Iraqi Security Forces under the command of the High Electoral Security Committee in assuring safe conditions for voting.
Mr. Kobler extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded.
The violence didn't end when the voting was completed. Reuters reports, "A[Ramadi] suicide bomber killed seven people at an Iraqi vote counting centre on Thursday evening, police said, hours after polls closed in two Sunni Muslim-dominated provinces." 4 of the 7 "were members of Iraq's electoral commission." Alsumaria notes the death toll rose to 9 and that twelve people were also injured. They also explain the bombing occurred directly outside the polling station. In addition, Alsumaria reports a Kirkuk bombing targeting a military convoy left 1 military officer dead and another injured. Through yesterday, Iraq Body Count counts 333 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month.
On the topic of the ongoing violence, Rudaw reports:
An upsurge of violence and deadly car bombs in Iraq in the past few months appear to have served as a wake up call to some Iraqi leaders, among them former Vice President Adil Abd Al-Mahdi.
“Terrorism is clear in its message, but we are not clear in our plans and reactions,” Abd Al-Mahdi wrote last week on his personal Facebook page.
Abd Al-Mahdi is from the Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) and is considered one of Iraq’s most influential Shiite leaders.
His party controls many important security and army posts. But Abd Al-Mahdi believes that the government does not quite know how to deal with the problem of terrorist attacks.
“We either react to it on a sectarian basis or only give it more popular support and space, which it doesn’t deserve,” he wrote, “Or we deal with it haphazardly and kill the innocent instead of the culprit.”
Abd Al-Mahdi served from 2006 to 2010 as vice president -- alongside Tareq al-Hashemi -- and was named for a second term in November 2010. He left the post in the summer of 2011 after Nouri had asked the Iraqi people to give him 100 days to clear up corruption and after Nouri had let the 100 days expire without ever addressing the corruption.
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Friday, June 21, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Eric Holder loves wasting your tax dollars
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
AFTER THREE DAYS OF A MASSIVE MISUSE OF F.B.I. RESOURCES AND MANPOWER, THE HUNT FOR THE CORPSE OF JIMMY HOFFA HAS ENDED.
AND IT ENDED WITHOUT IT BEING FOUND.
SUPPOSEDLY, OUR GOVERNMENT IS IN THE MIDST OF A FISCAL CRISIS.
BUT THE JUSTICE DEPT., HEADED BY ERIC HOLDER, DECIDED WE COULD WASTE THE MONEY TO LOOK FOR A CORPSE THAT'S BEEN A CORPSE FOR OVER FOUR DECADES.
AND NOT THE CORPSE OF MOTHER TERESA OR JONAS SALK, BUT THE CORPSE OF A CONVICT AND MOBSTER.
THANK YOU, ERIC HOLDER, FOR YET AGAIN WASTING OUR TAX DOLLARS.
REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING, ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER INSISTED THE F.B.I. WOULD CONTINUE TO WASTE TAX PAYER MONEY, "I'VE GOT A TIP THAT SANTA ISN'T REALLY LIVING IN THE NORTH POLE! SOMEONE SPOTTED HIM IN MEMPHIS -- NEAR GRACELAND! -- I'M ORGANIZAING A MASSIVE MANHUNT AS WE SPEAK!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Some people leave Iraq, some people come in. There's very little discussion of either departures or arrivals -- especially when they take place for for less than humane reasons. Today, US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the issue of human trafficking.
Secretary John Kerry: Thank you very much, and welcome, all of you, to this remarkable room, a room named after a Founding Father who was a lonely voice against slavery long before there was a United States of America. And it is called the Franklin Room, and you can see Ben Franklin looking over us from the wall over there above the fireplace. It’s fitting that we gather here today in this room in order to mark the importance of our country remaining committed to this message that we send to all of the world today.
Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you, Lou, for your kind words. Thank you most importantly, I think everybody here would join me in agreeing, you are a TIP hero and we thank you for everything you’ve done these past years. (Applause.) And I want to thank you and your team and everybody who works in the Trafficking in Persons Office. Thank you, all of you who are part of this effort today and those of you around the world who helped produce this report. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into this. This is a year-long effort. We’re already working on the next one and we will make measurements that are based in fact and common sense.
To our TIP Report heroes who have made a very long journey on very short notice, we welcome you here and we’re very grateful for your efforts. And everybody here will get to share in the remarkable individual, personal journeys that they represent.
When we think of the scale of modern-day slavery – literally tens of millions who live in exploitation – this whole effort can seem daunting. But it’s the right effort. And there are countless voiceless people, countless nameless people except to their families or perhaps a phony name by which they are being exploited, who look to us for their freedom and for the possibility of life itself. It’s no understatement to say that we are working to tackle an issue that millions of people assumed had been dealt with a long time ago.
But the problem unfortunately persists, and I hate to say in some places can grow, and the challenge continues. And that is why the inspiring examples that are here today remind us not just that we have work to do, but that the actions of a single person can make all the difference in the world and they can actually bring so many lives out of bondage, out of the shadows, out of darkness. So I thank our TIP heroes for their very personal individual commitment, for the example that they set. And I thank all of you, those here and millions of others who are out there waging this battle. I thank them all for their commitment.
I want to acknowledge Somaly Mam, who is a survivor, who was a TIP Report hero in 2005, and who is a hero every single day in helping women and girls who have been abused to try to get their lives back.
I’m also particularly happy to be joined here today by Congressman Chris Smith. I’ve worked with Chris on this stuff. There’s nobody more committed or dedicated. So thank you, Chris, for your strong voice and leadership in these efforts. (Applause.) Trafficking in persons is one of those rare issues that can bring people together across the aisles without regard to ideology and without regard to politics, and that’s the way it ought to be. I appreciate Chris’s advocacy on this issue. For years together in Congress, we were able to work on this and some other issues. And it’s no understatement to say that he was banging the drum on this long before many in Congress even knew the term “trafficking in persons” or understood what it really meant.
Lou mentioned a number of great American diplomats, but he left one out, and that was one of our first African-American ambassadors, Frederick Douglass. A century later, the Douglass family continues to fight against all forms of slavery. And his direct descendant, Kenneth Morris, who is the head of the family’s foundation, is here with us today. He just came from the Capitol, where today Douglass was honored at long last in our National Statuary Collection. And we welcome Ken here. Thank you for being here with us today. Appreciate it. (Applause).
I know that's a long excerpt but if the issue is important -- and it is -- it's important to recognize those who work on it. Feminist Majority Foundation has noted, "The three most common forms of trafficking are labor trafficking, including child labor, child soldiering and sweatshop work; sex trafficking, including child sex tourism and 'mail order' brides; and domestic servitude."
The State Dept's report is entitled "Trafficking in Persons Report 2013" [available at the link in PDF or HTML]. Human trafficking is a global problem. It's not limited to Iraq. It takes place in the United States, it takes place everywhere. In fact, from the report, here's a US horror story:
For over 20 years, the owners and staff of a turkey-processing plant subjected 32 men with intellectual disabilities to severe verbal and physical abuse. The company housed the workers in a “bunkhouse” with inadequate heating, dirty mattresses, and a roof in such disrepair that buckets were put out to catch rainwater; the infestation of insects was so serious the men swatted cockroaches away as they ate. Although the men were as productive as other workers, the company paid them only $15 a week (41 cents an hour) for labor that legally should have been compensated at $11-12 an hour. The employers hit, kicked, and generally subjected the men to abuse, forcing some of the men to carry heavy weights as punishment and in at least one case handcuffed a man to a bed. Supervisors dismissed complaints of injuries or pain, denied the men recreation, cellphones, and health care. The U.S. government filed an abuse and discrimination case against the company for damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act. During the trial, the attorney representing the men said: “The evidence is these men were treated like property…these men are people. They are individuals.” A jury awarded the men a total of approximately $3,000,000, the largest jury verdict in the history of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
That company is Hill County Farms (aka Henry's Turkey Service) and Yuki Noguchi reported on the horrors for All Things Considered (NPR -- report is audio, text and transcript) May 16th:
YUKI NOGUCHI: During the day, the men worked at a nearby processing plant, gutting turkeys under the watchful eye of a contractor called Hill County Farms, which was paid to oversee the men's work and living arrangements. Those supervisors hit, kicked, handcuffed and verbally abused the men, who were paid $2 a day. This went on for three decades, affecting 32 men. [Susan] Seehase (director of a support center) says medical exams later revealed the men suffered diabetes, hypertension, malnutrition, and festering fungal infections that had gone untreated.
SUSAN SEEHASE: Roots of teeth were exposed.
NOGUCHI: She says it went on and on because the men knew nothing better, and no one reported the abuse.
SEEHASE: Their life experiences didn't tell them that there was really another option for them. It's incredibly difficult to try to understand. And I have no explanation. And I don't know who can explain how this really happened.
Again, human trafficking is a global horror. One of the most common misconceptions? As the State Dept report notes:
"Trafficking doesn’t happen here." Approaching human trafficking as a crime that occurs only in far off places ignores situations of forced labor or sex trafficking that may be happening closer to home. Human trafficking is not a problem that involves only foreigners or migrants, but one faced in nearly every corner of the world involving citizens who may be exploited without ever leaving their hometown.
The US Ambassador at Large to Monitor Combat Trafficking in Person, Luis CdeBaca, notes in the State Dept report's introduction that an estimated 27 million people are trafficked worldwide but that, using data provided by the governments of various countries, "only around 40,000 victims have been identified in the last year." The actual number, from the report, is 46,570 which is an increase from 2011 (41,210) but still lower than the high of 2009 (49,105) (please note these numbers begin with 2008). Of the 46,570 identified in 2012, only 7,705 resulted in trials and a little over half of those trials resulted in convictions (4,746). From those numbers on trafficking, it's broken down further for trafficking in prostitution alone, 1,153 went to trial and only 518 -- less than half -- resulted in convictions. Again this is a global horror.
We do focus on Iraq here, so that's what we'll zoom in on. The report notes, "Iraq is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor." Let's start with the trafficking of Iraqis:
Iraqi women and girls are subjected to sex and labor trafficking within the country and in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. An international organization reported cases of forced prostitution in the city of Tikrit; sex traffickers sell girls and women from Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Syria for the approximate equivalent of $1,000-5,000. Criminal gangs reportedly prostitute girls from outside of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) in the provinces of Erbil, Dahuk, and Sulaymaniyah. An Iraqi official revealed that criminal networks have been involved in sex trafficking of boys and girls. An NGO reported that sex traffickers rape women and girls on film and blackmail them into prostitution or recruit them in prisons by posting bail and then forcing them into prostitution via debt bondage. An international organization alleged that police officers and other members of the security forces kidnapped women and girls and forced them into prostitution in Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din Provinces. Some women and children are pressured into prostitution by family members to escape desperate economic circumstances. NGOs report that women are prostituted in private residences, brothels, restaurants, and places of entertainment. Some women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking within Iraq through the use of temporary marriages (muta’a), by which the family of the victim receives money in the form of a dowry in exchange for permission for the woman or girl to be married for a limited period of time, during which she is subjected to labor and sex trafficking. Women are also subjected to forced domestic service through forced marriages and the threat of forced divorce, and women who flee such marriages or whose husbands divorce them are often vulnerable to further forced labor or sexual servitude. Criminal gangs reportedly subject children to forced begging and other types of forced labor.
The large population of internally displaced persons and refugees in Iraq are particularly at risk of being subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. An international organization observed that Syrian refugees in the Domiz refugee camp in Dahuk, Iraq, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Specifically, women may begin commercially dependent relationships with Iraqi men, men enter into employment without contracts, and children are increasingly pressured to engage in begging. In previous years, some Iraqi refugees in Syria reportedly contracted their daughters to work as maids in Syrian households, where some of them were reportedly raped, forced into prostitution, or subjected to forced labor. In other instances, Iraqi refugees’ children remained in Syria while their parents departed the country in search of improved economic circumstances, leaving the children vulnerable to trafficking. Previously, Iraqi sex trafficking victims deported from Syria on prostitution charges were vulnerable to re-trafficking by criminal gangs operating along the border. Iraqi refugees who involuntarily return to Iraq from Syria are highly vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking, due in part to the fact that female and child returnees typically do not have a support network or community to which they return.
Some Iraqis are trafficked within the borders of Iraq, some are trafficked outside the border to another country. What of those non-Iraqis who come to Iraq hoping for work or fleeing violence in their own countries?
Iraq is also a destination for men and women who migrate from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Pakistan, Georgia, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Uganda and are subsequently subjected to involuntary servitude as construction workers, security guards, cleaners, handymen, and domestic workers. Women from Iran, China, and the Philippines reportedly are subjected to forced prostitution in Iraq. Some foreign migrants are recruited for work in other countries such as Jordan or the Gulf States, but are forced, coerced, or deceived into traveling to Iraq, where their passports are confiscated and their wages withheld, ostensibly to repay labor brokers for the costs of recruitment, transport, food, and lodging. Other foreign migrants are aware they are destined for Iraq, but once in the country, find the terms of employment are not what they expected or the jobs they were promised do not exist, and they are forced to live in work camps with substandard conditions. The Government of Nepal continues to ban its citizens from migrating to Iraq for work.
The report classifies Iraq as a "Tier 2" country and explains, "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards." TVPA stands for "Trafficking Victims Protection Act." How did it garner that rating? From the report:
The Government of Iraq does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it is making significant efforts to do so. The government conducted some investigations and at least one prosecution under the 2012 anti-trafficking law. The government also established an anti-trafficking department in the interior ministry, which collected human trafficking law enforcement data and operated the newly established anti-trafficking hotline. The inter-ministerial Central Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons was active in furthering the government’s anti-trafficking efforts throughout the reporting period. The committee met multiple times, publicized its meetings to raise awareness about trafficking, and included participants from international organizations, foreign governments, and NGOs. Despite modest improvements in law enforcement efforts, the government failed to investigate or punish government officials complicit in trafficking-related offenses. Moreover, the government demonstrated minimal efforts to identify and assist victims of forced labor and sex trafficking, including those incarcerated for prostitution violations. The government continued to arrest, detain, and prosecute victims of forced prostitution and prohibit NGOs from operating shelters to protect sex trafficking victims. Nonetheless, law enforcement officials worked, on a limited basis, with NGOs and international organizations to refer some victims to protection services. The government also established a location for a temporary and permanent shelter for trafficking victims and drafted shelter guidelines.
Last January, Iraq's Deputy at the Ministry of Interior, Adnan al-Assadi, was quick to proclaim to Alsumaria that he was on the job and was letting the European Union know, adding, "These workers enter the country either legally or illegally and some companies oppress them, hurt them or ridicule them in an inhumane way."
Does anyone else see a problem?
How about the fact that he's only focusing on the trafficking of non-Iraqis and his statements ignore the fact that Iraqis are being trafficked (in and out of Iraq).
He might need to refer to the State Dept's remarks on common misconceptions.
If he seemed defensive at the start of the year, he had every reason to be. For years now, Iraq's government has claimed it was addressing (and solving!) the issue. In 2009, Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine) reported on the efforts of the Iraqi government to respond to State Dept condemnation on this issue. Abouzeid also noted:
As a TIME.com story detailed, trafficking in Iraq is a shadowy underworld where nefarious female pimps hold sway and impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters on the sex market. (See pictures of a women's prison in Baghdad.)
Do we need to repeat that in bold a few more times?
The reason I ask is, for years now, starting with the New York Times 'reporting' that women who had died were "prostitutes," through the more recent attempt this year of AFP to pimp that lie, we have noted it is nonsense. If a group of women die, why would you besmirch their names?
Can a woman in Iraq be called anything worse than a prostitute? Had she been branded that and lived, she would have risked being murdered in a so-called 'honor' crime. The New York Times, to its credit, backed off from that nonsense. It seemed to be long gone. And then? Dropping back to the May 22nd snapshot:
Alsumaria adds that an attack on a Baghdad home left 10 women and 4 men dead, an armed clash in Mosul left 1 rebel dead and two Iraqi soldiers injured, and they update the toll on the Kia mini-bus bombing noting 1 dead and seven injured. Fars News Agency reports 1 corpse was discovered by Camp Ashraf. AFP insists that the Baghdad home was a brothel. They provide no quotes from neighbors maintaining that and, after the attack, they weren't allowed to enter the home so apparently AFP's confessing to visiting it before the attack? They note, "Soldiers and police mainly armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols cordoned off the site, which was visited by high-ranking officers." Considering the stigma attached to prostitution in Iraq, I'm always amazed at how glibly some outlets are when it comes to making that charge about the just murdered. They don't even wait a day. They can't ever prove it, but it's apparently the thing to say when women die: "Prostitute." Since they're so comfortable with it, maybe the need get off their little asses and start reporting on who is visiting these alleged brothels? Or would that take all the fun out of their smearing dead women? And note, it's not an even an 'allegation,' it's presented as fact. Because smearing Iraqis -- especially dead Iraqis -- has always been a favorite hobby of the western press.
Can AFP explain how, the day the women died, the 'news' agency is able to say they were prostitutes? Were their johns AFP correspondents?
If not, what are they basing it on? Hearsay. Imagine that, Iraq might be just like every other country on the face of the earth in that it has nosy and judgmental neighbors.
The neighbors don't know anything, they've just formed judgments. Like the Iraqis who attacked the LGBT community formed judgments. No one deserves to be harmed or attacked for the 'crime' of falling in love. But not only did it happen, some of the targeted men and women weren't even gay or lesbian. But they got targeted because of small minded, nosy neighbors.
Why AFP would want to help that along is beyond me.
But let's assume for just one second that the women in that house 'entertained' men. That still doesn't mean they were prostitutes. They might not have been willing sex-workers, they may have been the victims of human trafficking.
If that is the case, then AFP not only besmirched their reputations, AFP also allowed these women to be defined by the very criminals who trafficked them. Maybe in light of the State Dept's report today, AFP can take a look at that? And among the misconceptions mentioned in the report that AFP might want to consider in light of their 'reporting'? Try this one:
“She’s free to come and go.” Popular images of human trafficking include dramatic kidnappings and people held under lock and key. More common, but less visible, methods of control include psychological coercion, debt bondage, withholding of documents and wages, and threats of harm. As in domestic abuse cases, observing a person out in public or taking public transportation does not mean that she is free from the effective control of her trafficker.
(By the way, we were being kind May 22nd. Since we're addressing it again, the author of that report was W.G. Dunlop.)
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"The government's disarm con"
"The thrill is gone"
"THIS JUST IN! BETTER TO LOOK AT THE SKY!"
AFTER THREE DAYS OF A MASSIVE MISUSE OF F.B.I. RESOURCES AND MANPOWER, THE HUNT FOR THE CORPSE OF JIMMY HOFFA HAS ENDED.
AND IT ENDED WITHOUT IT BEING FOUND.
SUPPOSEDLY, OUR GOVERNMENT IS IN THE MIDST OF A FISCAL CRISIS.
BUT THE JUSTICE DEPT., HEADED BY ERIC HOLDER, DECIDED WE COULD WASTE THE MONEY TO LOOK FOR A CORPSE THAT'S BEEN A CORPSE FOR OVER FOUR DECADES.
AND NOT THE CORPSE OF MOTHER TERESA OR JONAS SALK, BUT THE CORPSE OF A CONVICT AND MOBSTER.
THANK YOU, ERIC HOLDER, FOR YET AGAIN WASTING OUR TAX DOLLARS.
REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS THIS MORNING, ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER INSISTED THE F.B.I. WOULD CONTINUE TO WASTE TAX PAYER MONEY, "I'VE GOT A TIP THAT SANTA ISN'T REALLY LIVING IN THE NORTH POLE! SOMEONE SPOTTED HIM IN MEMPHIS -- NEAR GRACELAND! -- I'M ORGANIZAING A MASSIVE MANHUNT AS WE SPEAK!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Some people leave Iraq, some people come in. There's very little discussion of either departures or arrivals -- especially when they take place for for less than humane reasons. Today, US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the issue of human trafficking.
Secretary John Kerry: Thank you very much, and welcome, all of you, to this remarkable room, a room named after a Founding Father who was a lonely voice against slavery long before there was a United States of America. And it is called the Franklin Room, and you can see Ben Franklin looking over us from the wall over there above the fireplace. It’s fitting that we gather here today in this room in order to mark the importance of our country remaining committed to this message that we send to all of the world today.
Thank you, Ambassador. Thank you, Lou, for your kind words. Thank you most importantly, I think everybody here would join me in agreeing, you are a TIP hero and we thank you for everything you’ve done these past years. (Applause.) And I want to thank you and your team and everybody who works in the Trafficking in Persons Office. Thank you, all of you who are part of this effort today and those of you around the world who helped produce this report. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into this. This is a year-long effort. We’re already working on the next one and we will make measurements that are based in fact and common sense.
To our TIP Report heroes who have made a very long journey on very short notice, we welcome you here and we’re very grateful for your efforts. And everybody here will get to share in the remarkable individual, personal journeys that they represent.
When we think of the scale of modern-day slavery – literally tens of millions who live in exploitation – this whole effort can seem daunting. But it’s the right effort. And there are countless voiceless people, countless nameless people except to their families or perhaps a phony name by which they are being exploited, who look to us for their freedom and for the possibility of life itself. It’s no understatement to say that we are working to tackle an issue that millions of people assumed had been dealt with a long time ago.
But the problem unfortunately persists, and I hate to say in some places can grow, and the challenge continues. And that is why the inspiring examples that are here today remind us not just that we have work to do, but that the actions of a single person can make all the difference in the world and they can actually bring so many lives out of bondage, out of the shadows, out of darkness. So I thank our TIP heroes for their very personal individual commitment, for the example that they set. And I thank all of you, those here and millions of others who are out there waging this battle. I thank them all for their commitment.
I want to acknowledge Somaly Mam, who is a survivor, who was a TIP Report hero in 2005, and who is a hero every single day in helping women and girls who have been abused to try to get their lives back.
I’m also particularly happy to be joined here today by Congressman Chris Smith. I’ve worked with Chris on this stuff. There’s nobody more committed or dedicated. So thank you, Chris, for your strong voice and leadership in these efforts. (Applause.) Trafficking in persons is one of those rare issues that can bring people together across the aisles without regard to ideology and without regard to politics, and that’s the way it ought to be. I appreciate Chris’s advocacy on this issue. For years together in Congress, we were able to work on this and some other issues. And it’s no understatement to say that he was banging the drum on this long before many in Congress even knew the term “trafficking in persons” or understood what it really meant.
Lou mentioned a number of great American diplomats, but he left one out, and that was one of our first African-American ambassadors, Frederick Douglass. A century later, the Douglass family continues to fight against all forms of slavery. And his direct descendant, Kenneth Morris, who is the head of the family’s foundation, is here with us today. He just came from the Capitol, where today Douglass was honored at long last in our National Statuary Collection. And we welcome Ken here. Thank you for being here with us today. Appreciate it. (Applause).
I know that's a long excerpt but if the issue is important -- and it is -- it's important to recognize those who work on it. Feminist Majority Foundation has noted, "The three most common forms of trafficking are labor trafficking, including child labor, child soldiering and sweatshop work; sex trafficking, including child sex tourism and 'mail order' brides; and domestic servitude."
The State Dept's report is entitled "Trafficking in Persons Report 2013" [available at the link in PDF or HTML]. Human trafficking is a global problem. It's not limited to Iraq. It takes place in the United States, it takes place everywhere. In fact, from the report, here's a US horror story:
For over 20 years, the owners and staff of a turkey-processing plant subjected 32 men with intellectual disabilities to severe verbal and physical abuse. The company housed the workers in a “bunkhouse” with inadequate heating, dirty mattresses, and a roof in such disrepair that buckets were put out to catch rainwater; the infestation of insects was so serious the men swatted cockroaches away as they ate. Although the men were as productive as other workers, the company paid them only $15 a week (41 cents an hour) for labor that legally should have been compensated at $11-12 an hour. The employers hit, kicked, and generally subjected the men to abuse, forcing some of the men to carry heavy weights as punishment and in at least one case handcuffed a man to a bed. Supervisors dismissed complaints of injuries or pain, denied the men recreation, cellphones, and health care. The U.S. government filed an abuse and discrimination case against the company for damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act. During the trial, the attorney representing the men said: “The evidence is these men were treated like property…these men are people. They are individuals.” A jury awarded the men a total of approximately $3,000,000, the largest jury verdict in the history of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
That company is Hill County Farms (aka Henry's Turkey Service) and Yuki Noguchi reported on the horrors for All Things Considered (NPR -- report is audio, text and transcript) May 16th:
YUKI NOGUCHI: During the day, the men worked at a nearby processing plant, gutting turkeys under the watchful eye of a contractor called Hill County Farms, which was paid to oversee the men's work and living arrangements. Those supervisors hit, kicked, handcuffed and verbally abused the men, who were paid $2 a day. This went on for three decades, affecting 32 men. [Susan] Seehase (director of a support center) says medical exams later revealed the men suffered diabetes, hypertension, malnutrition, and festering fungal infections that had gone untreated.
SUSAN SEEHASE: Roots of teeth were exposed.
NOGUCHI: She says it went on and on because the men knew nothing better, and no one reported the abuse.
SEEHASE: Their life experiences didn't tell them that there was really another option for them. It's incredibly difficult to try to understand. And I have no explanation. And I don't know who can explain how this really happened.
Again, human trafficking is a global horror. One of the most common misconceptions? As the State Dept report notes:
"Trafficking doesn’t happen here." Approaching human trafficking as a crime that occurs only in far off places ignores situations of forced labor or sex trafficking that may be happening closer to home. Human trafficking is not a problem that involves only foreigners or migrants, but one faced in nearly every corner of the world involving citizens who may be exploited without ever leaving their hometown.
The US Ambassador at Large to Monitor Combat Trafficking in Person, Luis CdeBaca, notes in the State Dept report's introduction that an estimated 27 million people are trafficked worldwide but that, using data provided by the governments of various countries, "only around 40,000 victims have been identified in the last year." The actual number, from the report, is 46,570 which is an increase from 2011 (41,210) but still lower than the high of 2009 (49,105) (please note these numbers begin with 2008). Of the 46,570 identified in 2012, only 7,705 resulted in trials and a little over half of those trials resulted in convictions (4,746). From those numbers on trafficking, it's broken down further for trafficking in prostitution alone, 1,153 went to trial and only 518 -- less than half -- resulted in convictions. Again this is a global horror.
We do focus on Iraq here, so that's what we'll zoom in on. The report notes, "Iraq is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor." Let's start with the trafficking of Iraqis:
Iraqi women and girls are subjected to sex and labor trafficking within the country and in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. An international organization reported cases of forced prostitution in the city of Tikrit; sex traffickers sell girls and women from Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Syria for the approximate equivalent of $1,000-5,000. Criminal gangs reportedly prostitute girls from outside of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) in the provinces of Erbil, Dahuk, and Sulaymaniyah. An Iraqi official revealed that criminal networks have been involved in sex trafficking of boys and girls. An NGO reported that sex traffickers rape women and girls on film and blackmail them into prostitution or recruit them in prisons by posting bail and then forcing them into prostitution via debt bondage. An international organization alleged that police officers and other members of the security forces kidnapped women and girls and forced them into prostitution in Kirkuk and Salah ad-Din Provinces. Some women and children are pressured into prostitution by family members to escape desperate economic circumstances. NGOs report that women are prostituted in private residences, brothels, restaurants, and places of entertainment. Some women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking within Iraq through the use of temporary marriages (muta’a), by which the family of the victim receives money in the form of a dowry in exchange for permission for the woman or girl to be married for a limited period of time, during which she is subjected to labor and sex trafficking. Women are also subjected to forced domestic service through forced marriages and the threat of forced divorce, and women who flee such marriages or whose husbands divorce them are often vulnerable to further forced labor or sexual servitude. Criminal gangs reportedly subject children to forced begging and other types of forced labor.
The large population of internally displaced persons and refugees in Iraq are particularly at risk of being subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. An international organization observed that Syrian refugees in the Domiz refugee camp in Dahuk, Iraq, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Specifically, women may begin commercially dependent relationships with Iraqi men, men enter into employment without contracts, and children are increasingly pressured to engage in begging. In previous years, some Iraqi refugees in Syria reportedly contracted their daughters to work as maids in Syrian households, where some of them were reportedly raped, forced into prostitution, or subjected to forced labor. In other instances, Iraqi refugees’ children remained in Syria while their parents departed the country in search of improved economic circumstances, leaving the children vulnerable to trafficking. Previously, Iraqi sex trafficking victims deported from Syria on prostitution charges were vulnerable to re-trafficking by criminal gangs operating along the border. Iraqi refugees who involuntarily return to Iraq from Syria are highly vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking, due in part to the fact that female and child returnees typically do not have a support network or community to which they return.
Some Iraqis are trafficked within the borders of Iraq, some are trafficked outside the border to another country. What of those non-Iraqis who come to Iraq hoping for work or fleeing violence in their own countries?
Iraq is also a destination for men and women who migrate from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Pakistan, Georgia, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Uganda and are subsequently subjected to involuntary servitude as construction workers, security guards, cleaners, handymen, and domestic workers. Women from Iran, China, and the Philippines reportedly are subjected to forced prostitution in Iraq. Some foreign migrants are recruited for work in other countries such as Jordan or the Gulf States, but are forced, coerced, or deceived into traveling to Iraq, where their passports are confiscated and their wages withheld, ostensibly to repay labor brokers for the costs of recruitment, transport, food, and lodging. Other foreign migrants are aware they are destined for Iraq, but once in the country, find the terms of employment are not what they expected or the jobs they were promised do not exist, and they are forced to live in work camps with substandard conditions. The Government of Nepal continues to ban its citizens from migrating to Iraq for work.
The report classifies Iraq as a "Tier 2" country and explains, "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards." TVPA stands for "Trafficking Victims Protection Act." How did it garner that rating? From the report:
The Government of Iraq does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it is making significant efforts to do so. The government conducted some investigations and at least one prosecution under the 2012 anti-trafficking law. The government also established an anti-trafficking department in the interior ministry, which collected human trafficking law enforcement data and operated the newly established anti-trafficking hotline. The inter-ministerial Central Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons was active in furthering the government’s anti-trafficking efforts throughout the reporting period. The committee met multiple times, publicized its meetings to raise awareness about trafficking, and included participants from international organizations, foreign governments, and NGOs. Despite modest improvements in law enforcement efforts, the government failed to investigate or punish government officials complicit in trafficking-related offenses. Moreover, the government demonstrated minimal efforts to identify and assist victims of forced labor and sex trafficking, including those incarcerated for prostitution violations. The government continued to arrest, detain, and prosecute victims of forced prostitution and prohibit NGOs from operating shelters to protect sex trafficking victims. Nonetheless, law enforcement officials worked, on a limited basis, with NGOs and international organizations to refer some victims to protection services. The government also established a location for a temporary and permanent shelter for trafficking victims and drafted shelter guidelines.
Last January, Iraq's Deputy at the Ministry of Interior, Adnan al-Assadi, was quick to proclaim to Alsumaria that he was on the job and was letting the European Union know, adding, "These workers enter the country either legally or illegally and some companies oppress them, hurt them or ridicule them in an inhumane way."
Does anyone else see a problem?
How about the fact that he's only focusing on the trafficking of non-Iraqis and his statements ignore the fact that Iraqis are being trafficked (in and out of Iraq).
He might need to refer to the State Dept's remarks on common misconceptions.
If he seemed defensive at the start of the year, he had every reason to be. For years now, Iraq's government has claimed it was addressing (and solving!) the issue. In 2009, Rania Abouzeid (Time magazine) reported on the efforts of the Iraqi government to respond to State Dept condemnation on this issue. Abouzeid also noted:
As a TIME.com story detailed, trafficking in Iraq is a shadowy underworld where nefarious female pimps hold sway and impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters on the sex market. (See pictures of a women's prison in Baghdad.)
Do we need to repeat that in bold a few more times?
The reason I ask is, for years now, starting with the New York Times 'reporting' that women who had died were "prostitutes," through the more recent attempt this year of AFP to pimp that lie, we have noted it is nonsense. If a group of women die, why would you besmirch their names?
Can a woman in Iraq be called anything worse than a prostitute? Had she been branded that and lived, she would have risked being murdered in a so-called 'honor' crime. The New York Times, to its credit, backed off from that nonsense. It seemed to be long gone. And then? Dropping back to the May 22nd snapshot:
Alsumaria adds that an attack on a Baghdad home left 10 women and 4 men dead, an armed clash in Mosul left 1 rebel dead and two Iraqi soldiers injured, and they update the toll on the Kia mini-bus bombing noting 1 dead and seven injured. Fars News Agency reports 1 corpse was discovered by Camp Ashraf. AFP insists that the Baghdad home was a brothel. They provide no quotes from neighbors maintaining that and, after the attack, they weren't allowed to enter the home so apparently AFP's confessing to visiting it before the attack? They note, "Soldiers and police mainly armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols cordoned off the site, which was visited by high-ranking officers." Considering the stigma attached to prostitution in Iraq, I'm always amazed at how glibly some outlets are when it comes to making that charge about the just murdered. They don't even wait a day. They can't ever prove it, but it's apparently the thing to say when women die: "Prostitute." Since they're so comfortable with it, maybe the need get off their little asses and start reporting on who is visiting these alleged brothels? Or would that take all the fun out of their smearing dead women? And note, it's not an even an 'allegation,' it's presented as fact. Because smearing Iraqis -- especially dead Iraqis -- has always been a favorite hobby of the western press.
Can AFP explain how, the day the women died, the 'news' agency is able to say they were prostitutes? Were their johns AFP correspondents?
If not, what are they basing it on? Hearsay. Imagine that, Iraq might be just like every other country on the face of the earth in that it has nosy and judgmental neighbors.
The neighbors don't know anything, they've just formed judgments. Like the Iraqis who attacked the LGBT community formed judgments. No one deserves to be harmed or attacked for the 'crime' of falling in love. But not only did it happen, some of the targeted men and women weren't even gay or lesbian. But they got targeted because of small minded, nosy neighbors.
Why AFP would want to help that along is beyond me.
But let's assume for just one second that the women in that house 'entertained' men. That still doesn't mean they were prostitutes. They might not have been willing sex-workers, they may have been the victims of human trafficking.
If that is the case, then AFP not only besmirched their reputations, AFP also allowed these women to be defined by the very criminals who trafficked them. Maybe in light of the State Dept's report today, AFP can take a look at that? And among the misconceptions mentioned in the report that AFP might want to consider in light of their 'reporting'? Try this one:
“She’s free to come and go.” Popular images of human trafficking include dramatic kidnappings and people held under lock and key. More common, but less visible, methods of control include psychological coercion, debt bondage, withholding of documents and wages, and threats of harm. As in domestic abuse cases, observing a person out in public or taking public transportation does not mean that she is free from the effective control of her trafficker.
(By the way, we were being kind May 22nd. Since we're addressing it again, the author of that report was W.G. Dunlop.)
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Allawi calls out the US"
"Barack's unconstitutional and undemocratic spying"
"James Gandolfini"
"On my infant son and on the community"
"Everything old is new again"
"go matthew"
"Praise for the San Diego Union-Tribune and Mark Walker"
"Joy"
"Chicago Pride can't stop fawning over Barack"
"Movies you can watch over and over"
"Carly Simon, Janis Ian, Cher and Tina Turner (and the sexism of the music world)"
"The government's disarm con"
"The thrill is gone"
"THIS JUST IN! BETTER TO LOOK AT THE SKY!"
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The thrill is gone
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S PUBLIC MELTDOWN HAS BEEN ON THE LEVEL OF AMANDA BYNES, DANA PLATO AND, YES, TODD BRIDGES.
IN GERMANY TODAY, THE 2008 ENTHUSIASM AND THE 2008 CROWDS ARE GONE.
DABBING HIS EYES OVER ALL HE'S LOST, BARRY O TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "IT'S BETTER TO LOOK AT THE SKY THAN LIVE THERE. SUCH AN EMPTY PLACE; SO VAGUE. JUST A COUNTRY WHERE AT THE THUNDER GOES AND THINGS DISAPPEAR."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with NPR which has been All Quiet on the Iraqi Front for some time now, having failed to file a report from Iraq in forever. That may have actually been a good thing if the damaging lies that Kelly McEvers filed today are an indication of what happens when NPR 'helps' and tries to 'report.'
Here for audio and transcript of McEvers Morning Edition report.
She opened with this garbage:
It took a while for Iraq to have a protest movement, like the protest movement next door in Syria. But when it started, it was almost immediately sectarian. The protests in Iraq were in mostly Sunni areas against a Shiite-dominated government. And as many predicted, it eventually got ugly.
It's really hard not to just scream curse words right now. McEvers is aware of the 2011 protests or should be, she reported on them.
Is she senile?
February 28, 2011, McEvers reported for Morning Edition about protesters in Iraq and how Nouri had sicked his goons on them. Among those targeted were journalist Hadi al-Mahdi. Here's what McEvers had to say then, "A few days ago, he was eating lunch with other journalists when soldiers pulled up, blindfolded them, and whisked them away. Mahdi was beaten in the leg, eyes, and head. A soldier tried to get him to admit he was being paid to topple the regime."
What happened to Hadi? I don't think NPR ever bothered to report but it sure as hell should knock Kelly McEvers off her damn high horse.
Thursday, September 8, 2011, Hadi was assassinated. In his own apartment. Earlier he'd been beaten, McEvers had reported, by Nouri's forces. As far as I'm concerned, Nouri ordered the assassination of Hadi. Regardless, that's what happened to protesters in the 'democratic' Iraq, they were rounded up by Nouri's soldiers and tortured, they were harassed and followed, they were targeted repeatedly.
I'm sorry, does Kelly think that the Iraqi activists can just pack and leave and forget Iraq the way she did for two years? Because they can't. And they risked their lives in 2011 to protest. When this wave of protests started December 21, 2012, they were still risking their lives.
And some have died. McEvers ignores all the deaths except for the Hawija massacre. Considering how she 'reports' on it, we probably would have been better off if she'd ignored it as well. She puts the deaths at 'dozens.'
The April 23rd massacre of a sit-in in Hawija resulted from Nouri's federal forces storming in. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP later reported the number had risen to 53 dead. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
But all we get from Hells Kells McEvers is "dozens." 8 children.
Really? That's how trashy NPR is today? UNICEF reports 8 children were killed in that massacre and NPR can't mention that on air when they finally 'report' on the massacre? Seriously?
And you wonder why Ava and I write pieces like Sunday's "Media: The Continued Self-destruction of NPR"? Cooking segments, now boozing segments ("the Booze Round. We want to see the strange mystery bottles that are hanging out in your liquor cabinet, so head on over to npr.org/cupboard, shoot a picture and submit it."). They're too damn busy having fun to act like grown ups and get the facts and report them to the American people.
Kelly then stars smearing. After the massacre, "Sunni protesters and tribesmen across the country took up arms in revenge." Did they? You weren't there, you were busy lying about Syria during all this, but that's your perception, your keen insight, is it, dear?
Reality, Nouri sents his forces into the provinces. That's why tribes started arming themselves to protect the protesters. The protesters did not take up arms, that's a lie. And let's not forget the Governor of Kirkuk said no to Nouri. He's on record with that. He wouldn't let the forces trek through Kirkuk. So Nouri helicoptered them in. Another detail Kelly McEvers doesn't know about.
She also doesn't appear to grasp that Nouri's plans to terrorize Iraqis aren't playing well with his own military. Dropping back to the June 13th snapshot:
Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) notes:
The Iraqi military’s violent attacks on Sunni Arab protesters weren’t the panacea that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was expecting them to be, but it also cost the army 1,070 troops, according to officials.
The troops, ethnic Kurds, mutinied when they were ordered to attack a Sunni Arab town where protests were taking place, and then refused to attend “disciplinary re-training” meant to ensure that they wouldn’t hesitate to attack Iraqi towns if ordered in the future.
AFP reports that Tuz Khurmatu Mayor Shallal Abdul explains the troops are still in their same positions, they're just now working for and paid by the Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.
That was just last week, a key detail, and one that naturally escapes Kelly McEvers.
"And the number of attacks around Iraq skyrocketed," panted Kelly McEvers. Thing is numbers are a little bit trick, Kells, little bit harder for you to lie about.
For example, before the massacre, on April 22, 24 hours before the massacre, Iraq Body Count had already counted 341 deaths: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/recent/7/ -- change the "7" at the end to an 8 if you go to check after tonight. It'll be on page at IBC. After 7 days, you're going to have to hunt it yourself. Here's the copy and paste:
Anbar: 2 road workers by gunfire.
April casualties so far: 341 civilians killed.
The violence had already started. It's a cute little con job to pretend otherwise. And lazy asses who don't know their facts probably think they can cut corners. Reality, by the 22nd of April, Iraq's deaths were averaging 15.5 a day.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"We got hacked"
"CODEPINK and other whores who lie about Iraq"
"Can someone tell Macho Melissa to shut up?"
"The argument for term limits"
"CODEPINK is nothing but a Democratic Party front group"
"marilyn"
"The Client List"
"Cher"
"The racism of White Momma Jacquie Soohen"
"Mistresses"
"DiFi is the problem"
"How stupid is Barack?"
"The US government has money to waste on nonsense"
"THIS JUST IN! MORE TAX DOLLARS WASTED!"
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O'S PUBLIC MELTDOWN HAS BEEN ON THE LEVEL OF AMANDA BYNES, DANA PLATO AND, YES, TODD BRIDGES.
IN GERMANY TODAY, THE 2008 ENTHUSIASM AND THE 2008 CROWDS ARE GONE.
DABBING HIS EYES OVER ALL HE'S LOST, BARRY O TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "IT'S BETTER TO LOOK AT THE SKY THAN LIVE THERE. SUCH AN EMPTY PLACE; SO VAGUE. JUST A COUNTRY WHERE AT THE THUNDER GOES AND THINGS DISAPPEAR."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with NPR which has been All Quiet on the Iraqi Front for some time now, having failed to file a report from Iraq in forever. That may have actually been a good thing if the damaging lies that Kelly McEvers filed today are an indication of what happens when NPR 'helps' and tries to 'report.'
Here for audio and transcript of McEvers Morning Edition report.
She opened with this garbage:
It took a while for Iraq to have a protest movement, like the protest movement next door in Syria. But when it started, it was almost immediately sectarian. The protests in Iraq were in mostly Sunni areas against a Shiite-dominated government. And as many predicted, it eventually got ugly.
It's really hard not to just scream curse words right now. McEvers is aware of the 2011 protests or should be, she reported on them.
Is she senile?
February 28, 2011, McEvers reported for Morning Edition about protesters in Iraq and how Nouri had sicked his goons on them. Among those targeted were journalist Hadi al-Mahdi. Here's what McEvers had to say then, "A few days ago, he was eating lunch with other journalists when soldiers pulled up, blindfolded them, and whisked them away. Mahdi was beaten in the leg, eyes, and head. A soldier tried to get him to admit he was being paid to topple the regime."
What happened to Hadi? I don't think NPR ever bothered to report but it sure as hell should knock Kelly McEvers off her damn high horse.
Thursday, September 8, 2011, Hadi was assassinated. In his own apartment. Earlier he'd been beaten, McEvers had reported, by Nouri's forces. As far as I'm concerned, Nouri ordered the assassination of Hadi. Regardless, that's what happened to protesters in the 'democratic' Iraq, they were rounded up by Nouri's soldiers and tortured, they were harassed and followed, they were targeted repeatedly.
I'm sorry, does Kelly think that the Iraqi activists can just pack and leave and forget Iraq the way she did for two years? Because they can't. And they risked their lives in 2011 to protest. When this wave of protests started December 21, 2012, they were still risking their lives.
And some have died. McEvers ignores all the deaths except for the Hawija massacre. Considering how she 'reports' on it, we probably would have been better off if she'd ignored it as well. She puts the deaths at 'dozens.'
The April 23rd massacre of a sit-in in Hawija resulted from Nouri's federal forces storming in. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP later reported the number had risen to 53 dead. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
But all we get from Hells Kells McEvers is "dozens." 8 children.
Really? That's how trashy NPR is today? UNICEF reports 8 children were killed in that massacre and NPR can't mention that on air when they finally 'report' on the massacre? Seriously?
And you wonder why Ava and I write pieces like Sunday's "Media: The Continued Self-destruction of NPR"? Cooking segments, now boozing segments ("the Booze Round. We want to see the strange mystery bottles that are hanging out in your liquor cabinet, so head on over to npr.org/cupboard, shoot a picture and submit it."). They're too damn busy having fun to act like grown ups and get the facts and report them to the American people.
Kelly then stars smearing. After the massacre, "Sunni protesters and tribesmen across the country took up arms in revenge." Did they? You weren't there, you were busy lying about Syria during all this, but that's your perception, your keen insight, is it, dear?
Reality, Nouri sents his forces into the provinces. That's why tribes started arming themselves to protect the protesters. The protesters did not take up arms, that's a lie. And let's not forget the Governor of Kirkuk said no to Nouri. He's on record with that. He wouldn't let the forces trek through Kirkuk. So Nouri helicoptered them in. Another detail Kelly McEvers doesn't know about.
She also doesn't appear to grasp that Nouri's plans to terrorize Iraqis aren't playing well with his own military. Dropping back to the June 13th snapshot:
Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) notes:
The Iraqi military’s violent attacks on Sunni Arab protesters weren’t the panacea that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was expecting them to be, but it also cost the army 1,070 troops, according to officials.
The troops, ethnic Kurds, mutinied when they were ordered to attack a Sunni Arab town where protests were taking place, and then refused to attend “disciplinary re-training” meant to ensure that they wouldn’t hesitate to attack Iraqi towns if ordered in the future.
AFP reports that Tuz Khurmatu Mayor Shallal Abdul explains the troops are still in their same positions, they're just now working for and paid by the Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.
That was just last week, a key detail, and one that naturally escapes Kelly McEvers.
"And the number of attacks around Iraq skyrocketed," panted Kelly McEvers. Thing is numbers are a little bit trick, Kells, little bit harder for you to lie about.
For example, before the massacre, on April 22, 24 hours before the massacre, Iraq Body Count had already counted 341 deaths: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/recent/7/ -- change the "7" at the end to an 8 if you go to check after tonight. It'll be on page at IBC. After 7 days, you're going to have to hunt it yourself. Here's the copy and paste:
Monday 22 April: 3 killed
Mosul: 1 policeman by AED.Anbar: 2 road workers by gunfire.
April casualties so far: 341 civilians killed.
The violence had already started. It's a cute little con job to pretend otherwise. And lazy asses who don't know their facts probably think they can cut corners. Reality, by the 22nd of April, Iraq's deaths were averaging 15.5 a day.
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The US government has money to waste on nonsense
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
NEED ANOTHER REASON TO FIRE ERIC HOLDER?
TODAY THE FBI CONTINUES DIGGING AROUND MICHIGAN LOOKING FOR THE CORPSE OF JIMMY HOFFA.
THIS WILL BE DAY TWO.
DOES THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT REALLY HAVE THE MONEY TO WASTE ON THIS CRAP?
38 YEARS AGO, HOFFA DISAPPEARED. HE WAS A CROOK, HE WAS SENT TO PRISON, HE WAS IN BED WITH THE MAFIA, WHY IS THIS A CONCERN WORTH WASTING AGENTS AND TIME OVER?
TURN THE MATTER OVER TO GERALDO A POSSE OF VOLUNTEER DEPUTIES.
HOW DOES THE GOVERNMENT HAVE TIME OR MONEY TO WASTE ON THIS?
ISN'T THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE ILLEGAL SPYING ON AMERICANS THAT WE COULD BE HIT BY A TERRORIST ATTACK AT ANY MINUTE?
SO HOW IS THERE TIME TO WASTE OBSESSING OVER A CROOK WHO DISAPPEARED 38 YEARS AGO?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) broke the news: two weeks ago about the NSA collecting metadata on all Americans phone calls and then the news that the NSA and FBI were using PRISM, a program collecting data from the internet -- video, photos, e-mails, you name it. Ed Snowden is the whistle-blower who exposed the programs. Today, at the Guardian, he participated in an online discussion. Among those asking questions were AP's Kimberly Dozier:
Kimberly Dozier @KimberlyDozier
Answer:
Kimberly Dozier's AP report on Snowden's chat is here. Asked by Ryan Latvaitis about his advice to other potential whistle-blowers, Snowden replied, "This country is worth dying for." That's not the talk of a Benedict Arnold, those are the words of someone concerned about democracy and the Constitution. In response to a question from the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman, Snowden denied supplying the Chinese government with classified information.
On CBS This Morning today, Senate weakling Dick Durbin showed up to try to pretend he was finally on the job.
Charlie Rose: Britain's Guardian reports [. . .] the NSA spied on Russia's president and other foreign leaders at a G20 summit in London in 2009.
Norah O'Donnell: Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is here, he's the number two Democrat in the Senate and Chairman of the Subcommittee that overseas funding for intelligence. Senator, good morning.
Dick Durbin: Good morning.
Norah O'Donnell: The news today is that the head of the NSA is going to release new details where more than a dozen plots, terrorist plots were foiled in the US and other countries. Is that enough to quiet some of the privacy concerns?
Little Dick Durbin: I think it's an important development and I'm glad they're doing it. And this is an issue I've been on for years, I've offered admnents on the floor of the Senate and in the Judiciary Committee to try to narrow the gathering of information to what we need and not more. Uh, and now we're going to take a closer look. What I need to know on these cases, if we had known the suspect and gone after those phone records after some suspicion could we have come up with the same information? Rathter than the approach that's being used -- gather everything, hold everything, wait to see if maybe Charlie Rose's name is going to pop up at some point in the future so you can go back in phone records of four or five years ago? Can you gather that information as needed with suspects? Or do you have to gather all of that in advance? That's the key question.
Charlie Rose: You say you've been working on this for a long time --
Little Dick Durbin: I sure have.
Charlie Rose: Has there been push back and resistance on security grounds and therfore no changes have been made?
Little Dick Durbin: That's right. Initially, under the PATRIOT Act, the provision I supported was there and it protected --
Charlie Rose: Do you expect anything to change now?
Little Dick Durbin: It can. It depends on the appetite of the American people for privacy. It's an interesting thing because you get different things in these polls --
And we'll stop mincing Dick Durbin there because he's not cute and for a man his age and girth to act that way is really disgusting. When Durbin was 18, The Four Seasons had a number on hit with "Walk Like A Man" -- at what point will Durbin? Polls, he said.
He doesn't know a poll any better than the bulk of the press. CNN has a new poll out. It's shocking. If you don't know how to read a poll. The findings of this poll? They were there weeks ago if you're educated in the social sciences, if you're actually educated, you knew to look at the independents when the press started polling. That is always your clue. This is not anything I invented with any alleged wisdom. These are the basics of polling. We've explained it and explained it -- most recently June 13th. The press needs to learn how to interpret polls. There's really no point in an 'insta poll' of asking people the weekend of revelations what they think. Most haven't decided and most are attached to their partisanship. The only value of those 'insta polls' is the numbers for the independent voters. We're not going to review it again today, I'm getting tired of spoon feeding.
Regardless of Barack's very bad polling numbers, Little Dick Durbin did not take an oath to uphold a poll, he took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Is that confusing to him? If it's confusing, he needs to resign because he's clearly not qualified to hold office. "I sure have" been working on this for a long time, he boasts. Then he's done an awful job. It shouldn't be that difficult. As Senator Mark Udall Tweeted yesterday:
A comment left to the CBS News report is worth noting (and thanks to the CBS News friend who passed it on):
Go figure indeed. Last week, I sat in a House Judiciary Committee hearing listening to FBI Director Robert Mueller lie that if they had the NSA spying program prior to 9-11, it would have prevented 9-11. And people accepted this as fact on the Committee. Despite the fact that the recent bombing in Boston stands out most infamously for the fact that the FBI never shared details with Boston authorities. As Scott Shane and Michael S. Schmidt (New York Times) reported last month, "The F.B.I. did not tell the Boston police about the 2011 warning from Russia about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, the city's police chief said Thursday during the first public Congressional hearing on the terrorist attack." That had the program but nothing got shared then so stop lying to the American people, Robert Mueller.
Yesterday, Peter Eisler and Susan Page (USA Today) hosted a video chat with NSA whistle-blowers Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe and with Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project. Excerpt.
Susan Page: All of you raised your objections to NSA programs in the extent of the surveillance that they involved for months or years before they erupted publicly. With Edward Snowden, he went directly to the news media with his story. Based on your experience, did he have another effective option?
William Binney: Well, I mean, we tried to stay, for the better part of seven years, inside the government. Trying to get the government to recognize the unconstitutional, illegal activity that they were doing, openly admit that, and define ways that would be legal and Constitutionally acceptable to achieve the ends that they were after. And that just failed totally because no one in Congress, we couldn't get anybody in the courts and certainly no one in the Inspector General's Justice Dept didn't pay any attention to it. And so all of the efforts we made just produced no change whatsoever. All it did was continue to get worse and expand.
Susan Page: So he did the right thing?
William Binney: Yes. Yes. I think he did.
[. . .]
Thomas Drake: There is a bottom line though. The government unchained itself from the Constitution as a result of 9-11 and in the absolute darkest of secrecy, at the highest levels of government, approved by the White House, NSA became the executive agent for a surveillance program, extraordinarily broad surveillance program that turned the United States of America effectively into a foreign nation for electronic dragnet surveillance and it started with phone numbers.
Ed Snowden is the reason this conversation -- this overdue conversation is taking place. Not Dick Durbin. Ed Snowden risked a great deal to raise this issue. The editorial board of the Guardian noted last night:
In unmasking himself as the leaker of the files showing the uses and abuses of western intelligence, Edward Snowden called for a wider public debate. He suggested that the public was sleepwalking into a surveillance society through a lack of knowledge about what was being done in their name. President Obama, reacting in a measured way to the fact of the leak, also welcomed the opportunity to have such a debate.
A meaningful debate cannot be held without information. Snowden's case is that almost no one – not ordinary citizens, not the press, not the courts, not even congress – is in a position to discuss the reasonable balance between security, privacy and openness because they are denied the full and true facts. From Snowden's vantage point – reading a great deal of source material – he believes the US National Security Agency "routinely" lies to congress.
Let's move over to the IRS scandal where apparently everyone's competing for Idiot of the Day. Let's start with US House Rep Elijah Cummings. He is the Ranking Member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Chair is Darrell Issa. Cummings and Issa are in conflict. Cummings feels that since Issa is releasing transcripts to the press -- transcripts of interviews with IRS employees -- that the transcripts should be public and should be public right now. That part actually makes sense -- and would even if the press wasn't seeing them. The government needs to stop sitting on information and start informing the citizens what is going on.
Where Cummings is being stupid? Josh Hicks (Washington Post) reports that Cummings is releasing his own excerpts "The Cummings release revealed that a self-described 'conservative Republican' in the agency’s Cincinnati office elevated the first tea party case to Washington, seeking guidance." If tomorrow, which could happen, a Democrat in the Cincinnati office is found to have done something untoward, the "Demcorat" does not matter, the "Republican" does not matter. The IRS is not supposed to be politicized nor are low level officials capable of carrying off political targeting. Cummings is attempting to politicize the scandal and he needs to stop doing that. It undercuts his overall argument and it sets him up to look very foolish if a minor member in the scandal turns out to be a Democrat or someone who donated or campaigned for Democrats. It's not smart. He also looks stupid when he makes statements about the White House not being involved. A) Why is he reinforcing that possibility to begin with? B) It makes it appear that his only interest is whether or not the White House was involved when the American people have made clear in polls that they find the targeting of political groups outrageous. Is he serving the American people or the White House? Since every member of the House who chooses to remain in Congress is up for re-election next year, he might want to concentrate a little more on how he is seen?
Was Cummings responding to Fox News reporting? I have no idea but for him to make such a stupid move (and it's gravely stupid, you don't stake out a position like that until all the interviews are done), it seemed possible. So I went to Fox News and found more stupidity in this article. They bill it as a Fox News report and, at the end, offer that "The Associated Press contributed to this report." If it's not entirely AP, Fox News needs to do some firings because of the errors in the article that repeatedly downplay the actual events. Take Lois Lerner who pleaded the Fifth and refused to testify before Congress. That alone makes your character in question. Lerner was not going to be asked whom she slept with or if she was a member of the Communist Party or the mob. She was going to be asked about how she did her job. A government employee who pleads the Fifth rather than answer those type of questions is questionable for that reason alone. The press has no problem dragging whistle blowers' names through the mud but a government employee -- whose entire career is public as a result of being a government employee -- that takes the Fifth is off limits?
Apparently so, "Lerner is the IRS official who first disclosed the targeting at a legal conference May 10." Is that how we tell the story now? She lied in her disclosure at the ABA conference and, as we know now, she also planted the question with a friend. That too goes to the character of Lois Lerner. It's amazing the mud Ed Snowden's dragged through while the joke that is Lois Lerner gets a pass."
A version of the AP article with Stephen Ohlemacher's name attached to it can be found here. It's the height of stupidity. And pair it with Tamara Keith's nonsense for NPR that we called out last week. The key takeway of Tamara's article is that she found a connection to DC. This is a major detail because IRS officials testifying to Congress have repeatedly blamed it on lower level officials in Cincinati. At one point, the idiot states, "There's a second employee, Elizabeth Hofacre who, for six months, worked on these Tea Party cases. And she was actually working with a tax law specialist in Washington, D.C., and she talks about being frustrated about how long it took him to respond." Who is the tax law specialist? She never mentions his name. Nailing down the specifics was apparently too much reporting for Tamara. If Tamara was referring to IRS official Holly Paz (the IRS's director of rulings and agreements), that's especially sad because Paz's attorney told USA Today's Gregory Korte that Paz has been placed on administrative leave. Korte has the best report on the IRS scandal. He notes Paz insists that "tea party" was, she thought, just short hand and that it could require to any number of groups -- even liberal ones. Is that true?
It's not hard to prove it true or false. Paz states she personally worked on 30 cases. So examine Holly Paz's cases -- are they a split (to any degree) of liberal groups and conservative ones (and are the liberal groups not liberal ones that called out Barack)? If not, Holly Paz lied. Regarding Paz's claims, Korte points out:
But Elizabeth Hofacre, the agency's emerging issues coordinator in Cincinnati when the targeting began, has told investigators that she kicked out any progressive groups that other agents tried to put in with the Tea Party cases. She said she understood the term to mean conservative or Republican groups. "I was tasked to do Tea Parties, and I wasn't — I wasn't equipped or set up to do anything else."
(To AP's Stephen Ohlemacher's credit, he does note that Paz's testimony contradicts what IRS officials have claimed and he leads with that unlike Tamara Keith last week.)
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NEED ANOTHER REASON TO FIRE ERIC HOLDER?
TODAY THE FBI CONTINUES DIGGING AROUND MICHIGAN LOOKING FOR THE CORPSE OF JIMMY HOFFA.
THIS WILL BE DAY TWO.
DOES THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT REALLY HAVE THE MONEY TO WASTE ON THIS CRAP?
38 YEARS AGO, HOFFA DISAPPEARED. HE WAS A CROOK, HE WAS SENT TO PRISON, HE WAS IN BED WITH THE MAFIA, WHY IS THIS A CONCERN WORTH WASTING AGENTS AND TIME OVER?
TURN THE MATTER OVER TO GERALDO A POSSE OF VOLUNTEER DEPUTIES.
HOW DOES THE GOVERNMENT HAVE TIME OR MONEY TO WASTE ON THIS?
ISN'T THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE ILLEGAL SPYING ON AMERICANS THAT WE COULD BE HIT BY A TERRORIST ATTACK AT ANY MINUTE?
SO HOW IS THERE TIME TO WASTE OBSESSING OVER A CROOK WHO DISAPPEARED 38 YEARS AGO?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) broke the news: two weeks ago about the NSA collecting metadata on all Americans phone calls and then the news that the NSA and FBI were using PRISM, a program collecting data from the internet -- video, photos, e-mails, you name it. Ed Snowden is the whistle-blower who exposed the programs. Today, at the Guardian, he participated in an online discussion. Among those asking questions were AP's Kimberly Dozier:
Kimberly Dozier @KimberlyDozier
US officials say terrorists already altering TTPs because of your leaks, & calling you traitor. Respond? http://www.guardiannews.com #AskSnowden
Answer:
US officials say this every time there's a public discussion that could limit their authority. US officials also provide misleading or directly false assertions about the value of these programs, as they did just recently with the Zazi case, which court documents clearly show was not unveiled by PRISM.
Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.
Further, it's important to bear in mind I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.
Kimberly Dozier's AP report on Snowden's chat is here. Asked by Ryan Latvaitis about his advice to other potential whistle-blowers, Snowden replied, "This country is worth dying for." That's not the talk of a Benedict Arnold, those are the words of someone concerned about democracy and the Constitution. In response to a question from the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman, Snowden denied supplying the Chinese government with classified information.
On CBS This Morning today, Senate weakling Dick Durbin showed up to try to pretend he was finally on the job.
Charlie Rose: Britain's Guardian reports [. . .] the NSA spied on Russia's president and other foreign leaders at a G20 summit in London in 2009.
Norah O'Donnell: Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is here, he's the number two Democrat in the Senate and Chairman of the Subcommittee that overseas funding for intelligence. Senator, good morning.
Dick Durbin: Good morning.
Norah O'Donnell: The news today is that the head of the NSA is going to release new details where more than a dozen plots, terrorist plots were foiled in the US and other countries. Is that enough to quiet some of the privacy concerns?
Little Dick Durbin: I think it's an important development and I'm glad they're doing it. And this is an issue I've been on for years, I've offered admnents on the floor of the Senate and in the Judiciary Committee to try to narrow the gathering of information to what we need and not more. Uh, and now we're going to take a closer look. What I need to know on these cases, if we had known the suspect and gone after those phone records after some suspicion could we have come up with the same information? Rathter than the approach that's being used -- gather everything, hold everything, wait to see if maybe Charlie Rose's name is going to pop up at some point in the future so you can go back in phone records of four or five years ago? Can you gather that information as needed with suspects? Or do you have to gather all of that in advance? That's the key question.
Charlie Rose: You say you've been working on this for a long time --
Little Dick Durbin: I sure have.
Charlie Rose: Has there been push back and resistance on security grounds and therfore no changes have been made?
Little Dick Durbin: That's right. Initially, under the PATRIOT Act, the provision I supported was there and it protected --
Charlie Rose: Do you expect anything to change now?
Little Dick Durbin: It can. It depends on the appetite of the American people for privacy. It's an interesting thing because you get different things in these polls --
And we'll stop mincing Dick Durbin there because he's not cute and for a man his age and girth to act that way is really disgusting. When Durbin was 18, The Four Seasons had a number on hit with "Walk Like A Man" -- at what point will Durbin? Polls, he said.
He doesn't know a poll any better than the bulk of the press. CNN has a new poll out. It's shocking. If you don't know how to read a poll. The findings of this poll? They were there weeks ago if you're educated in the social sciences, if you're actually educated, you knew to look at the independents when the press started polling. That is always your clue. This is not anything I invented with any alleged wisdom. These are the basics of polling. We've explained it and explained it -- most recently June 13th. The press needs to learn how to interpret polls. There's really no point in an 'insta poll' of asking people the weekend of revelations what they think. Most haven't decided and most are attached to their partisanship. The only value of those 'insta polls' is the numbers for the independent voters. We're not going to review it again today, I'm getting tired of spoon feeding.
Regardless of Barack's very bad polling numbers, Little Dick Durbin did not take an oath to uphold a poll, he took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Is that confusing to him? If it's confusing, he needs to resign because he's clearly not qualified to hold office. "I sure have" been working on this for a long time, he boasts. Then he's done an awful job. It shouldn't be that difficult. As Senator Mark Udall Tweeted yesterday:
Mark Udall
Americans deserve to know govt's secret interpretation of US #surveillance laws. Govt overreach is never good. #COpolitcs
A comment left to the CBS News report is worth noting (and thanks to the CBS News friend who passed it on):
- linkicon reporticon emailicon
- This country won't spend a few million to build a simple computer system to manage the VA claims to care for and compensate our wounded veterans of two illegal and totally unnecessary wars, yet it will spend untold billions building a top secret system to spy on, collect, store and peruse information on every person in this country. And yet many out here call Snowden and Bradley traitors. Go figure.
Go figure indeed. Last week, I sat in a House Judiciary Committee hearing listening to FBI Director Robert Mueller lie that if they had the NSA spying program prior to 9-11, it would have prevented 9-11. And people accepted this as fact on the Committee. Despite the fact that the recent bombing in Boston stands out most infamously for the fact that the FBI never shared details with Boston authorities. As Scott Shane and Michael S. Schmidt (New York Times) reported last month, "The F.B.I. did not tell the Boston police about the 2011 warning from Russia about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, the city's police chief said Thursday during the first public Congressional hearing on the terrorist attack." That had the program but nothing got shared then so stop lying to the American people, Robert Mueller.
Yesterday, Peter Eisler and Susan Page (USA Today) hosted a video chat with NSA whistle-blowers Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe and with Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project. Excerpt.
Susan Page: All of you raised your objections to NSA programs in the extent of the surveillance that they involved for months or years before they erupted publicly. With Edward Snowden, he went directly to the news media with his story. Based on your experience, did he have another effective option?
William Binney: Well, I mean, we tried to stay, for the better part of seven years, inside the government. Trying to get the government to recognize the unconstitutional, illegal activity that they were doing, openly admit that, and define ways that would be legal and Constitutionally acceptable to achieve the ends that they were after. And that just failed totally because no one in Congress, we couldn't get anybody in the courts and certainly no one in the Inspector General's Justice Dept didn't pay any attention to it. And so all of the efforts we made just produced no change whatsoever. All it did was continue to get worse and expand.
Susan Page: So he did the right thing?
William Binney: Yes. Yes. I think he did.
[. . .]
Thomas Drake: There is a bottom line though. The government unchained itself from the Constitution as a result of 9-11 and in the absolute darkest of secrecy, at the highest levels of government, approved by the White House, NSA became the executive agent for a surveillance program, extraordinarily broad surveillance program that turned the United States of America effectively into a foreign nation for electronic dragnet surveillance and it started with phone numbers.
Ed Snowden is the reason this conversation -- this overdue conversation is taking place. Not Dick Durbin. Ed Snowden risked a great deal to raise this issue. The editorial board of the Guardian noted last night:
In unmasking himself as the leaker of the files showing the uses and abuses of western intelligence, Edward Snowden called for a wider public debate. He suggested that the public was sleepwalking into a surveillance society through a lack of knowledge about what was being done in their name. President Obama, reacting in a measured way to the fact of the leak, also welcomed the opportunity to have such a debate.
A meaningful debate cannot be held without information. Snowden's case is that almost no one – not ordinary citizens, not the press, not the courts, not even congress – is in a position to discuss the reasonable balance between security, privacy and openness because they are denied the full and true facts. From Snowden's vantage point – reading a great deal of source material – he believes the US National Security Agency "routinely" lies to congress.
Let's move over to the IRS scandal where apparently everyone's competing for Idiot of the Day. Let's start with US House Rep Elijah Cummings. He is the Ranking Member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Chair is Darrell Issa. Cummings and Issa are in conflict. Cummings feels that since Issa is releasing transcripts to the press -- transcripts of interviews with IRS employees -- that the transcripts should be public and should be public right now. That part actually makes sense -- and would even if the press wasn't seeing them. The government needs to stop sitting on information and start informing the citizens what is going on.
Where Cummings is being stupid? Josh Hicks (Washington Post) reports that Cummings is releasing his own excerpts "The Cummings release revealed that a self-described 'conservative Republican' in the agency’s Cincinnati office elevated the first tea party case to Washington, seeking guidance." If tomorrow, which could happen, a Democrat in the Cincinnati office is found to have done something untoward, the "Demcorat" does not matter, the "Republican" does not matter. The IRS is not supposed to be politicized nor are low level officials capable of carrying off political targeting. Cummings is attempting to politicize the scandal and he needs to stop doing that. It undercuts his overall argument and it sets him up to look very foolish if a minor member in the scandal turns out to be a Democrat or someone who donated or campaigned for Democrats. It's not smart. He also looks stupid when he makes statements about the White House not being involved. A) Why is he reinforcing that possibility to begin with? B) It makes it appear that his only interest is whether or not the White House was involved when the American people have made clear in polls that they find the targeting of political groups outrageous. Is he serving the American people or the White House? Since every member of the House who chooses to remain in Congress is up for re-election next year, he might want to concentrate a little more on how he is seen?
Was Cummings responding to Fox News reporting? I have no idea but for him to make such a stupid move (and it's gravely stupid, you don't stake out a position like that until all the interviews are done), it seemed possible. So I went to Fox News and found more stupidity in this article. They bill it as a Fox News report and, at the end, offer that "The Associated Press contributed to this report." If it's not entirely AP, Fox News needs to do some firings because of the errors in the article that repeatedly downplay the actual events. Take Lois Lerner who pleaded the Fifth and refused to testify before Congress. That alone makes your character in question. Lerner was not going to be asked whom she slept with or if she was a member of the Communist Party or the mob. She was going to be asked about how she did her job. A government employee who pleads the Fifth rather than answer those type of questions is questionable for that reason alone. The press has no problem dragging whistle blowers' names through the mud but a government employee -- whose entire career is public as a result of being a government employee -- that takes the Fifth is off limits?
Apparently so, "Lerner is the IRS official who first disclosed the targeting at a legal conference May 10." Is that how we tell the story now? She lied in her disclosure at the ABA conference and, as we know now, she also planted the question with a friend. That too goes to the character of Lois Lerner. It's amazing the mud Ed Snowden's dragged through while the joke that is Lois Lerner gets a pass."
A version of the AP article with Stephen Ohlemacher's name attached to it can be found here. It's the height of stupidity. And pair it with Tamara Keith's nonsense for NPR that we called out last week. The key takeway of Tamara's article is that she found a connection to DC. This is a major detail because IRS officials testifying to Congress have repeatedly blamed it on lower level officials in Cincinati. At one point, the idiot states, "There's a second employee, Elizabeth Hofacre who, for six months, worked on these Tea Party cases. And she was actually working with a tax law specialist in Washington, D.C., and she talks about being frustrated about how long it took him to respond." Who is the tax law specialist? She never mentions his name. Nailing down the specifics was apparently too much reporting for Tamara. If Tamara was referring to IRS official Holly Paz (the IRS's director of rulings and agreements), that's especially sad because Paz's attorney told USA Today's Gregory Korte that Paz has been placed on administrative leave. Korte has the best report on the IRS scandal. He notes Paz insists that "tea party" was, she thought, just short hand and that it could require to any number of groups -- even liberal ones. Is that true?
It's not hard to prove it true or false. Paz states she personally worked on 30 cases. So examine Holly Paz's cases -- are they a split (to any degree) of liberal groups and conservative ones (and are the liberal groups not liberal ones that called out Barack)? If not, Holly Paz lied. Regarding Paz's claims, Korte points out:
But Elizabeth Hofacre, the agency's emerging issues coordinator in Cincinnati when the targeting began, has told investigators that she kicked out any progressive groups that other agents tried to put in with the Tea Party cases. She said she understood the term to mean conservative or Republican groups. "I was tasked to do Tea Parties, and I wasn't — I wasn't equipped or set up to do anything else."
(To AP's Stephen Ohlemacher's credit, he does note that Paz's testimony contradicts what IRS officials have claimed and he leads with that unlike Tamara Keith last week.)
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- Editorial: Barack's unconstitutional spying on Ame...
- Media: The Continued Self-destruction of NPR
- The Iraq Dialogue
- Stupid Punk Ass Clown of the Week
- Report on Congress
- Tweet of the Week
- Roundtable
- So many scandals
- Super Bomb: Man of Steel is awful
- The Syrian pretext (Workers World).
- Will this bill survive?
- Highlights
"Does he ever stop lying?"
"His decision's not a popular one"
"Americans say he's doing a lousy job"
"naomi wolf, the self-liar"
"Another Benghazi hearing -- but a catch"
"The disgusting Ani DiFranco and her useless peers"
"The spying scandal continues"
"Spying on Americans and covering it up"
"Syria, NPR"
"Syria"
"To know, know, know him is to really not like him"
"THIS JUST IN! THE WORLD TURNS AGAINST HIM!"
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