Paul Krugman loves a pj party

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MEDIA HACK AND JUDITH MILLER'S OVERNIGHT P.J. PARTY BUDDY PAUL KRUGMAN TOOK TIME TODAY TO EXPLAIN TO THESE REPORTERS WHY HE BELIEVES THAT RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION.

"BECAUSE THEY WANTED DONALD TRUMP TO WIN," HE REPLIED.

NO, WE ASKED, WHY DOES HE BELIEVE THAT A HACK OCCURRED AND THAT THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT IS RESPONSIBLE.

"BECAUSE PEOPLE WHISPER THAT'S TRUE.  AND LIKE IN HIGH SCHOOL, I AVOIDED GYM CLASS BECAUSE I WAS -- WELL -- ME -- AND SO LIKE ONE TIME THIS GYM TEACHER WHO WAS BIG AND BURLY AND HAIRY AND WHO I WAS PERVERSELY ATTRACTED TO FORCED ME TO SUIT UP AND PARTICIPATE AND WHEN I DID I HAD TO PUT ON A JOCK AND EVERYONE SAW WHAT MY MOTHER CALLED MY TEENY WEENY BEANIE KRUGMAN AND IT GOT OUT ALL OVER THE SCHOOL THAT MY PENIS WAS ONLY 1/2 INCH WHEN HARD AND SO I KNOW WHISPERS ARE ALWAYS TRUE."

BUT, WE ASKED, DOES HE HAVE ANY PROOF?

"PROOF?  WHO NEEDS PROOF?"

AND WITH THAT, THE MAN WITH THE NYT COLUMN WHO NEVER SPOKE OUT AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR IN THE LONG, LONG LEAD UP TO THE START OF IT, WAS DONE AS HE RUSHED TO DECIDE BETWEEN A PINK NIGHTIE OR A BLUE NIGHTIE FOR HIS LATEST P.J. PARTY WITH JUDITH MILLER AS HE GIGGLED ABOUT HOW "BIG BILL KRISTOL'S SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.  I WONDER WHAT HE'LL WEAR?''



FROM THE TCI WIRE:

The liberation or 'liberation' of Mosul continues.

Another press briefing by the US State Dept took place yesterday and Iraq was ignored as usual while the obsession over Syria continued.

☬ AHMED HUSSAIN ☬ ‏@AHA1R  3m3 minutes ago

Iraq: Two Months into Mosul Operations, Over 96,800 Iraqis Displaced

0 replies0 retweets0 likes

1. #IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27  7h7 hours ago

   Iraqi Sunnis refugees استمرار #تهجير العوائل السنيه العراقيه من الموصل بخطه الحشد الشيعي #الارهابي تحت امرة #لارهاب الصفوي بصمت عالمي

   

   
   

   

   

   

   16 replies299 retweets111 likes

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27  7h7 hours ago

Iraqi Sunnis civilians fled from #Mosul due war #MosulOffensive #MosulOperation #MosulOps

3 replies114 retweets47 likes

ICRCVerified account ‏@ICRC  53m53 minutes ago

Over 3 million people are displaced in #Iraq. We're reaching hundreds of thousands with food, water & essential aid, but we want to do more.

1 reply35 retweets30 likes

Bill Van Auken (WSWS) notes the US government's outrage over Syria contrasted with the US-led mission in Iraq:


The hypocrisy of the US denunciations of the brutal methods employed by the Syrian government and its allies in eastern Aleppo has been underscored by the unfolding of a similarly savage siege being directed by the Pentagon against the far larger urban population of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. As many as 1.5 million people still live in that metropolitan area, which the Iraqi army surrendered to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in June 2014.
With the US-backed offensive against Mosul now nearly two months old, conditions for the city’s residents are growing increasingly desperate, while the number of civilians killed continues to mount.
Scattered reports from media in the region provide a glimpse of the carnage unfolding in Mosul. Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported that an entire family of nine was wiped out on Tuesday in a US drone missile strike against a house in Mosul’s al-Falah district. “Nine family members were killed in the attack,” an Iraqi police officer told the agency.
And The New Arab (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed) reported Thursday: “At least 40 civilians have been killed including women and children and dozens of others injured in air raids and artillery fire in the east of the Islamic State group [IS] bastion of Mosul, local and medical sources have said. The civilians were killed early on Wednesday with many of the injured still trapped under rubble...”

While similar accounts of human suffering in Aleppo have received non-stop coverage in the Western media amid official denunciations of Syria and Russia, reports of the slaughter in Mosul have been effectively blacked out.

1. #IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27  7h7 hours ago

   Iraqi army crimes عاجل ستشهاد الطفله العراقيه السنيه شمس عمر بقصف الحشد الشيعي الارهابي على الموصل ودفنت مع عائلتها بحديقه منزلهم

   

   16 replies286 retweets121 likes

#IRAQ شمرية العراق ‏@moonnor27  7h7 hours ago

Little Angel Shams Omar Iraqi Sunni child killed by Iraqi army Airstrikes on #Mosul #Warcrimes #MosulOffensive #MosulOps #BREAKING

0 replies73 retweets34 likes

And Mosul's not winding down.



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She's the door mat

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HUMAN DOORMAT HUMA ABEDIN HAS LOOKED THE OTHER WAY AS HER HUSBAND CHEATED ON HER, SEXTED ON HER, SEXTED ON HER AFTER SAYING NEVER AGAIN, THEN SEXTED ON HER WITH A BONE IN HIS UNDERWEAR AND THEIR CHILD ON THE BED BESIDE HIM.

TODAY, WE LEARN WHERE SHE DRAWS THE LINE: 'I WANT TO SEE WARRANT FOR THE SEARCH OF MY PERVY HUSBAND'S LAPTOP!'

REACHED FOR COMMENT, HUMA DOORMAT BEGGED, "PLEASE DON'T STEP ON ME."



FROM THE TCI WIRE:

2h2 hours ago

Mohammed Tawfeeq ‏@mtawfeeqCNN

Today marks the end of second month since the #Iraqi-led coalition launched the operation to retake #Mosul from #ISIS on Oct 17,2016.

It's day 59 of the Mosul operation and the slog continues.


It's produced War Crimes, this operation.  It's killed civilians.  It's destroyed homes.  The US government has bombed hospitals (War Crime).  But they're not really able to do much more, are they?


Oh, wait, they have created something: Refugees.

The Baghdad Post ‏@TheBaghdadPostE  19m19 minutes ago

The number of displaced people from #Mosul has reached 110,000 civilians, mostly women and children. #iraq thebaghdadpost.com/en/story/4149/…

0 replies0 retweets0 likes

CNN gathers a number of Iraqi voices in a piece by Moni Basu.  This is from the section on Bashir Mohammed Khadir who, along with his wife and their eight children, is now a refugee:

Khadir gulps his glass of syrupy tea before he launches into a tirade. He blames the 2003 invasion for creating a power vacuum in Iraq that gave rise to extremism. He says the United States abandoned Iraq in its hour of need when it withdrew its troops in 2011.

But mostly, Khadir resents the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad for playing to sectarian tensions.

"Iraq can only be one again if we remove the people in power," he says. "The government does not care about the people."

He mentions a law that bans alcohol. The parliament passed it in October, just days after the Mosul offensive launched. Khadir considers himself a Muslim, but says: "Not everyone in Iraq is a Muslim. Why should there be a ban on alcohol?"

These are the kinds of things Khadir believes will continue to stoke differences among Iraqis.

"It's impossible," he says, "for life to go back to normal, for us to live in peace."

Let's also note Sherzad Mamsari, a Jewish Iraqi:

"ISIS is not a new phenomenon. There has always been an ISIS for us," he says, referring to years of persecution of minorities in Iraq.

At one time, there was a thriving Jewish community in Iraq. The New York Times cited a 1917 Ottoman census that counted 80,000 Jews among the 220,000 residents of Baghdad.

But the community has largely been extinguished through discrimination, persecution and exodus to Israel.

Mamsani grew up in the Kurdish city of Irbil, the son of a Jewish mother and Muslim father, and recalls his own experience of being forced to study Islam in school and pray in the Muslim fashion.

He says only 10 Jews are left in Baghdad. Another 50 families are said to be living in the Kurdish areas, but Mamsani believes the real number is higher. He says many Jews practice their faith clandestinely because they are scared.

"ISIS is not a new phenomenon.  There has always been an ISIS for us."

It's a reality that many in the west do not want to admit.

Jake TapperVerified account ‏@jaketapper  15h15 hours ago

U.S. officials: 75% of ISIS terrorists killed in Iraq, Syria cnn.it/2h1JKMs - @barbarastarrcnn reports #TheLead

32 replies43 retweets53 likes

Thing is though, they don't know how many members of the Islamic State there are -- let alone how many in states with porous borders.


Thing is, they can and do make up numbers.

I'm sure the estimates exist.

They always do.

And they're always shaped, as they move up the chain to the White House to convince whichever president is in the White House at that time that things are going wonderfully.


These aren't facts.

These are happy thoughts collected.


And when that's all they have to offer -- 59 days in -- then their mission is going very poorly.


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Hillary won't be bound by facts

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A DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN INSIDER LEAKED THE PODESTA E-MAILS TO WIKILEAKS AND THE HANDOVER TOOK PLACE IN THE U.S.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, CRANKY CLINTON TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "IT DOESN'T MATTER.  YOU THINK FACTS CAN EVER BOG ME DOWN?  MY HUSBAND SLEPT WITH 100S OF WOMEN -- 100S! -- AND I DIDN'T LET THOSE FACTS EFFECT ME.  I WON'T LET THESE FACTS EFFECT ME. ONLY MY OPINION MATTERS."


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


RUDAW reports:


After ISIS, Kurds are Iraq’s biggest problem, said a Shiite militia leader.

In an interview with a local Iraqi TV station, Qais Al-Khazali, leader of the Shiite Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia, made the inflammatory statement against the Kurdish region saying, “After ISIS, Kurds are the greatest problem, especially Mr. Masoud Barzani. And solving the problems or peace with them is impossible.”

Khazali noted that “it is very unlikely that a decisive peaceful project with the Kurds will happen.”



The sects never die when someone's always pimping a grudge to trash 'the other.'


There is no peace in Iraq because the government doesn't represent all and because it persecutes pretty much everyone who's not an official or a militia member.


US President Barack Obama has been daily bombing Iraq for over two years now.

And he's seriously surprised that these bombings didn't result in peace?

It was Barack himself who stated on June 19, 2014 that the only answer to all of Iraq's crises was a political solution.

While time was spent bombing the country and training the military, no time was spent on diplomacy to get Iraq closer to a true political solution.


So whatever happens in Mosul doesn't really matter in four or five months.

The Islamic State took hold in Iraq because the government persecuted the people.

This has not been addressed.

And the people who already felt persecuted are only going to grow more angry as the 'austerity' measures of the 2017 budget go into effect.


With those measures in mind, it might be good to recall what the INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP said in "Fight or Flight: The Desperate Plight of Iraq's 'Generation 2000':"

The leadership’s inability to forge a future for “Generation 2000”, which grew up after Saddam Hussein’s fall, has turned it into easy quarry for predators, be they IS, Shiite militias or populists preaching Iraqi nationalism. The potential for mobilising large numbers of young men at loose ends as pawns in violent conflicts has enabled both IS and Shiite militias to gain recruits. In the process, it has compounded sectarian polarisation and widened the divide between street and elites. Fed by fresh pools of fighting-age men, local tensions and conflicts proliferate and escalate, destabilising the country and the surrounding region. The most powerful Shiite militias receive training and advice from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, have an ideological orientation consistent with Tehran’s and can be deployed as proxies outside Iraq as well.
 The familiar expression “youth radicalisation” distorts the reality that an entire generation is adrift, in need of a dramatically new state-led approach. Young Iraqis whose formative years were in the post-2003 turmoil have much more in common than they suspect, whatever side of local conflicts they are on, but they have been increasingly socialised within communal confines and left to the mercy of radical groups that promote dehumanised, even demonised perceptions of one another.
 Before violence engulfed Iraq again, with the rise of IS, youth had attempted to peacefully hold the political class accountable for years of dismal governance. Sunni Arabs staged sit-ins in several towns in 2013, questioning national leaders, including senior Sunnis. They met with repression, leaving scores dead, many more in prison. These events paved the way for IS, which seized Falluja, the Sunni town nearest Baghdad, Mosul and other majority-Sunni towns in June 2014.
  The collapse of the Iraqi army triggered a Shiite call to arms. Militia commanders quickly tapped into youthful disappointment with the Shiite political establishment, turning it into sectarian mobilisation against IS. By summer 2015, IS’s battlefield fortunes had turned, even as it continued to control territory and population. The absence of services, especially electricity shortages in the searing summer, stimulated a popular movement in Baghdad and other majority-Shiite areas reflecting a general sense of frustration with the political establishment.
Youths flocking to either side of the sectarian divide faulted ruling elites on the same grounds but ended up fighting each other. The political class’ response has been to protect its interests by divide and rule, redirecting anger into fratricidal tensions. Iraq’s external supporters compound the problem by boxing a rudderless generation into distinct categories – fighters, protesters or emigrants – and taking a different approach with each: a military campaign to defeat IS, pressure on the government to institute reforms to undercut demands and an effort to strengthen border controls to keep out migrants. Putting the emphasis on fighting IS, in particular, translates into tolerance of the Shiite militias, whose rise has contributed to sectarian polarisation and empowered a militia culture that compels young professionals to emigrate while boosting commanders’ political ambitions.


Iraq's immediate future does not look pretty.  Nothing's been done to address the issues and now a people already suffering will suffer more -- while wondering, with all the oil Iraq produces, why is the government unable to provide for them.



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She's not throwing in the towel

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CRANKY CLINTON ISN'T THROWING THE TOWEL IN.

HIKING THROUGH THE WOODS FOR SOME SOLITUDE -- JUST ACCOMPANIED BY SIX SECRET SERVICE AGENTS -- CRANKY TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I SPENT 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS ON THIS ELECTION, I DAMN WELL OWN IT!  THIS IS MY ELECTION AND IT'S GOING TO BE MY WHITE HOUSE."

ASKED ABOUT RESPECTING THE RULES AND THE PROCESS, CRANKY LAUGHED, "RULES?  SINCE WHEN DO THE RULES APPLY TO ME!  THIS IS MY TIME.  I WILL BE KING OF THE UNITED STATES, I WILL!"

AT THAT MOMENT, CRANKY SPOTTED A BABY DEER THAT HAD WANDERED OFF FROM HIS MOTHER.  WITH THE SPEED OF SOMEONE FAR LESS CHUNKY THAN SHE, CRANKY LUMBERED OVER AND BIT ITS HEAD OFF.

BLOOD FLOWING FROM HER MOUTH DOWN HER CHIN, CRANKY GROWLED, "I WILL BE IN THE WHITE HOUSE!"



FROM THE TCI WIRE:

 Like the US media.  Last week, news consumers learned 3 Americans were being held prisoner in Iraq.  Excuse me, last week Canadian news consumers learned that.  The US media never covered it and still hasn't.

The State Dept has said nothing and no one's asked them about the 3 Americans at any of the daily State Dept press briefings.

But the State Dept did have time to start a campaign. 

The Problem From Hell Samantha Power gets to author the self-congratulatory pose press release which includes:

This holiday season, as families in the United States gather, we are reminded of all the missed holidays, bittersweet birthdays, and family occasions where a mother, brother, friend, or neighbor was missing because a government chose to muzzle their voices and lock them up.
So throughout this holiday season, the United States government will be profiling the cases of prisoners unjustly held around the world and the families they leave behind. The stories of these individuals will highlight the broader struggle faced by so many families of political prisoners, who have to commemorate countless family occasions with loved ones behind bars.

By the way, on the disgusting Sammy Power, I don't have time to do all the heavy lifting.  

I've made a few points on the 'fake news' circus.  I'm against it, it's nothing more than censorship.  But those of you who pretend like you own the story?  Please grow up.

That means use your brains. 

This isn't new.

This an effort that Samantha Power's husband attempted.  

You'd do well to connect the two.  When Papa Cass started his nonsense, there was pushback on the left.  You'd do well to connect the two.

You could do really well by bringing in Rosa Brooks -- while part of the administration -- arguing that journalists needed to be licensed by the government.

This latest attack is only part of a larger wave and connecting it all together would prove illuminating for many.

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