BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS TAKEN HIS TANTRUM BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AND THE RHETORIC BETWEEN THE U.S. AND RUSSIA HAS LOWERED.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE SPOKESMODEL JAY CARNEY TOLD THESE REPORTERS THAT BARRY O "STILL CONSIDERS ED SNOWDEN HIS. AS FAR AS HE'S CONCERNED, HE'S GOT DIBS ON ED. BUT HE'S WILLING TO LET PUTIN HAVE SOME FUN WITH HIM FIRST. BARRY O IS CONFIDENT THAT SNOWDEN WILL RETURN AND INSISTS, 'NO MAN HAS EVER WALKED OUT ON ME'."
AND YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT EPISODE OF DEVIOUS MAIDS TO CATCH SUSAN LUCCI.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Also appearing before the Oversight Committee were IRS Deputy Commissioner Beth Tucker, Office of Entrepreneurial Development with the US Small Business Administration's Michael Chodos, VBA's Brad Flohr and the General Services Administration's William A. Sisk.
US House Rep Scott Desjarlais Ms. Tucker, at the beginning of the hearing this morning, Gregory Roseman invoked his Fifth Amendment right against incrimination and did not testify. As the Deputy Commissioner of the IRS, is it your expectation that an IRS employee will appear before the Committee to testify about official action taken within the scopes of his duties at the IRS?
Beth Tucker: Sir, we expect all IRS employees to cooperate with members of Congress.
US House Rep Scott Desjarlais: But he didn't.
Beth Tucker: He did not.
US House Rep Scott Desjarlais: Ms. Lerner didn't.
Beth Tucker: Each of these individuals -- as Mr. [US House Rep Elijah] Cummings said -- invoked their Constitutional rights.
Lerner took the Fifth before the House Oversight Committee on May 22nd. That hearing was covered in that day's "Iraq snapshot," Ava's"Sir, I gave you the wrong information (Ava)," Wally's "Time for a special prosecutor (Wally)," Kat's "It was like Steel Magnolias at one point during the hearing" and the discussion Dona moderated at Third "Report on Congress." It was also spoofed in Cedric's "Future employment opportunities for Lois Lerner" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! A WHOLE NEW WORLD FOR LOIS LERNER!" Issa has announced that they will be voting on Lerner's Fifth Amendment this Friday. When you plead the Fifth, you plead the Fifth.
Your answer is that you are not going to speak to avoid self-incrimination. What Lerner did was deliver a lengthy statement maintaining her innocence and then invoke the Fifth. On its most basic and pure level, that's not the Fifth Amendment. The Committee is scheduled to vote Friday to determine what happens there. In the meantime, they have a second IRS official who is refusing to testify about their job duties and how they carried out their job.
We're going to do one more excerpt from the hearing, I think an overall impression was created in the hearing and I think most people missed it.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Ms. Tucker, you've been at the IRS 29 years?
Beth Tucker: Yes, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: And you're Deputy Commissioner, is that correct?
Beth Tucker: Deputy Commissioner.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: How many Deputy Commissioners are there?
Beth Tucker: Two.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Is there anyone between the Deputy Commissioner and the Commissioner?
Beth Tucker: No.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: So you're right near the top?
Beth Tucker: Yes, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: One month ago, Inspector General Russell George gave the Committee information that he informed the IRS on May 30, 2012 that targeting of conservative political groups was taking place. In fact, if we can put that up on the screen, this is from the TIGTA timeline he gave this Committee. And he says in that meeting, these terms were used: "tea party," "patriots," "9-12," And he says that there were three people in that Committee -- in that meeting. Mr. [Doug] Shulman who's no longer with the IRS, Steve Miller who has been fired and you. Now Mr. Shulman testified a month ago in this Committee that that was the first time he knew targeting was taking place. Was that the first time you knew about the targeting at the IRS?
Beth Tucker: That was the first time I was aware of the situation, yes.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Now Mr. Miller has also, uh, -- We've also been informed through the Committee talking with Nan Marks, an employee of the IRS, that there was an internal investigation launched by Mr. Miller in March of 2012. Did you know about that internal investigation?
Beth Tucker: No, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: And the results of that were Mr. Miller knew about what was going on May 3, 2012. Did you know the results on May 3rd?
Beth Tucker: No, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: So the earliest you knew about it was the same time Mr. Shulman testified and what you're testifying to today was May 30th of last year?
Beth Tucker: Yes, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: And you're familiar with the fact that Mr. Schulman testified in front of the [House] Ways and Means Committee in March of last year where he said this. First, Mr. [US House Rep Charles] Boustany asked him, "Can you give us assurances that the IRS is not targeting political groups?" Mr. Shulman said, "Yes, I can give you assurances, we pride ourselves on being a non-political, non-partisan organization." So just two months prior to learning that targeting was going on, he gave assurances. Now there's usually, when you give assurances, some basis for assurances. Were you part of the basis for assurances that Mr. Shulman gave the Ways and Means Committee in March of 2012?
Beth Tucker: No, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: You did not have any conversations with Mr. Shulman before he went and testified before the Ways and Means Committee?
Beth Tucker: No, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: In the meeting that took place on May 30th, the meeting that's highlighted there on the TIGTA timeline, when you learned that the targeting was taking place, what was the reaction in that meeting? Was it, "Oh, sh-sugar, we got to do something here."? Was it, "We got to correct the record"? What was the reaction when the three top people at the IRS learned that this was going on?
Beth Tucker: So, if I might, uh, TIGTA, the Treasury Inspector General comes in once a month to meet with --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Cut to the chase, what was the reaction? You find out that there's targeting of political groups, six months before an election, what was the reaction of the top three people at the IRS?
Beth Tucker: TIGTA reported the information that they were looking into the audit and then at that point and time IRS waits for TIGTA to complete their investigation.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: That's not what they told you. They told you "tea party," "patriot" "9-12" were identifying terms used to put groups on a list who were never given the tax-exempt status they sought and, in some cases, they'd been trying to get it for three years. You learned that May 30, 2012. And your reaction was, 'Oh, okay, we'll just let it keep going on and see what TIGTA comes up with'?
Beth Tucker: No, sir.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: I mean, earlier in your testimony to the Chairman, you said, 'You know it would be helpful if this Committee would share information with us at the IRS about the issue that's in front of the Committee today." Well it would have been helpful if, once you got that information, you'd have shared it with this Committee. We would have liked to have -- In fact, we're the Committee that asked for the audit in the first place. We would have liked to have known, six months before an election, May 30th of last year, that targeting was going on. Did you instruct Russell George to share this information with the House Ways and Means Committee and with the House Oversight Committee?
Beth Tucker: Sir, my --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: No, that's a question. Did you tell Mr. George, 'You know this is pretty important information. We just learned today,' according to your testimony 'this is going on.' Did you tell Mr. George, 'You know, you might want to share that with the Oversight Committee, specifically since Mr. Issa's the one who requested the audit?"
Beth Tucker: No, sir. That was not my responsibility. I have responsibility at IRS --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Let me ask you this --
Beth Tucker: -- for our operations.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: But the point is, you were in the meeting. The other two guys are gone. Mr. Shulman's gone, Mr. Miller's been fired. You're the highest ranking official at IRS in that meeting. You knew about it a year ago. Didn't you think it was incumbent upon you to set the record straight? Your boss, Mr. Shulman, had just testified two months earlier and told Congress nothing was going on and he finds out two months later it is going on. You're the highest ranking official still at the IRS. You didn't think it was incumbent to come tell Congress what was -- what was taking place?
Beth Tucker: The TG organization does not report to me.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Why didn't you correct the record? Why didn't you just -- Why didn't you just come to Mr. Issa and say, 'You know what? What Mr. Shulman ' -- Did you tell Mr. Shulman he should correct the record?
Beth Tucker: No, sir. I did not.
US House Jim Jordan: Well let me ask you this. Have you been disciplined by Mr. [Danny] Werfel for not correcting the record?
Beth Tucker: No, sir. It's not in my purview.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Well you're Deputy Commissioner. You're in the meeting. You learned about it that day. Right?
Beth Tucker: Mr. George told us in his routine monthly meeting that they were doing an investigation of TEGE.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: We understand that. All I'm asking is there's got to be some reason you didn't feel any obligation, any reason that you should come forward and set the record straight? The Inspector General told the IRS what was going on. You didn't feel like you should tell us or you didn't feel that it was incumbent upon you to tell the Committee?
Beth Tucker: Sir, at the Internal Revenue Service, we have two Deputy Commissioners that have very clearly delineated responsibilities.
Darrell Issa: The gentleman's time has expired. The gentle lady may finish.
Beth Tucker: At the Internal Revenue Service, we have two Deputy Commissioners with very clearly delineated responsibilities. I do not have responsibility for the service and enforcement program as --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Well, Ms. Tucker, Ms. Tucker, why were you in the meeting? If it has nothing to do with you, why did -- why did Mr. Russell George think it was important to tell us that you were in the meeting?
Beth Tucker: Mr. George and his deputies come into Internal Revenue Service every month and brief on all of their investigations --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Mr. Chairman, if I could --
Beth Tucker: Some of which are service enforcement.
A discussion then ensues about giving Jordan thirty more seconds. He's granted it.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: So what you're saying is Mr. Miller -- that was his area of jurisdiction.
Beth Tucker: That is correct.
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Did you tell Mr. Miller he should come forward and tell Congress what was going on?
Beth Tucker: No, sir. At this meeting --
US House Rep Jim Jordan: Was that discussed?
Beth Tucker: If I could please. The meeting. TIGDA comes in once a month to the Internal Revenue Service to brief the Commissioner and the two Deputies about their audits, their open audits. On any given meeting that they come into, they could be talking -- I mean there are lots of oversight investigations that happen at Internal Revenue Service. Those meetings are typically TIGDA coming in and saying, "We've opened an investigation on X program. We've opened an investigation on another program." If it is an investigation that is under my jurisdiction -- like procurement, like the IRS budget, like our real estate portfolio, then I am the responsible party. What I am trying to convey to you is that I do not have oversight responsibility for the TEGE programs.
Unless and until someone proves otherwise, I'm going to assume Beth Tucker is telling the truth. IF you disagree, that's fine. But that's not even the issue right now, her being truthful at this point and time.
Tucker is obligated -- as is anyone employed by the federal government -- to report certain things. What she was told in the meeting with George is something she had an ethical responsibility to report. Shulman and Miller are responsible for what they did. Tucker is responsible for what she did and for what she didn't do.
Why did no one inform? Why did no one sound off?
More to the point, why did no one blow a whistle?
I'd argue that the problems at the IRS -- which are very serious -- and the VA (ditto) go to the climate that's been created where whistle-blowers are punished and, as with Ed Snowden, hunted. Good government can't exist without oversight. It requires the supervision of the American people. If everything is hush-hush and classified, don't pretend an 'informed voter' exists. We need sunlight but the current administration has demonized those who have stepped forward.
Last month's attack on the AP was about an old story that involved a leak by someone in the administration. It had nothing to do with a crime. But didn't the White House and those under it respond as if it was the biggest crime in the world?
You may not like Ed Snowden, you may not like what he did. But when he blew this whistle on Barack's spying on the American people, he informed the American people.
I don't know that the IRS scandals would exist right now if the White House hadn't -- in violation of every core belief of democracy -- signaled that this was a period of secrecy despite all the lip service to openess. A culture of secrecy does not encourage democracy or fairness. That's why the US was founded on the belief that an informed citizenry was among the most important elements to the country.
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
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Anita Bryant can't stop screaming
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS JUST RULED THAT THE SO-CALLED DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT (DOMA) OUTLAWING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
SEEKING A REACTION FROM NOTED HATE MONGER AND FADED BEAUTY CONTESTANT ANITA BRYANT, THESE REPORTERS TELEPHONED HER (TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE ON REQUEST FROM THE NSA) TO ASK, "HOW DO YOU LIKE THOSE ORANGES!"
SPUTTERING AND SWEARING, BRYANT CURSED THESE REPORTERS WHILE SWEARING SHE WAS ASKING GOD TO CURSE THE PROPOSED UMA THURMAN STARRING FILM BIOGRAPHY OF HER LIFE.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
While Iraq struggles politically, with violence and everything else, the biggest interest the country seems to generate from the world outside is this June 12th YouTube video of a dog in Iraq burying a dead puppy. Perhaps that makes some larger sense? Around the world popular videos of pets have them bouncing or whatever, but in violence scarred Iraq a dog buries a dead puppy. And gets about half-a-million views when the video gets posted online.
Yes, the violence continues in Iraq, the death toll for the month mounts. Iraq Body Count. reports 466 deaths for the month of June through yesterday.
The death toll continued to mount today. Shannon Young (Free Speech Radio News -- link is audio and text) explains, "Three bombing attacks killed more than 30 people across Iraq Tuesday as the security situation in the country descends into another cycle of sectarian violence. The New York Times reports the deadliest attack killed 16 people and wounded more than 50 as Shiites protested insecurity with a highway blockade in the Salahuddin province." National Iraqi News Agency notes that protesters at a Tuz Khurmatu sit-in were attacked by 1 suicide bomber with "an explosive belt" who took his own life and left many demonstrators dead or injured. World Bulletin counts 2 suicide bombers and 71 injured. This evening, NINA reported the final toll from medical and security sources: 27 dead and 80 injured. All Iraq News states it was one suicide bomber combined with a mortar attack. AFP informs, "Among the dead were a former deputy provincial governor and his two sons, as well as a former provincial councillor." Alsumaria identifies the former deputy manager as Ahmed Abdul Wahid and note that the vice president of the Turkmen Front, Ali Hashem Mukhtar Oglu, is the other official who died. Yasir Ghazi (New York Times) explains, "Security forces imposed a curfew in Tuz Khurmatu and ordered people to close their shops." Of the demonstration, Xinhua explains:
The Shiite Turkomans were holding a sit-in on a main road outside Tuz-Khurmato protesting the attacks by al-Qaida militants on their Shiite community in the city, which is part of the disputed areas claimed by the Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans.
The Kurds want to incorporate areas at the edges of their current Kurdistan region into their domain, a move fiercely opposed by the Baghdad government.
The Shiite Turkomans also demand the government to help form a special force to protect their minority from the attacks that they believe to be aimed at displacing them from their homes.
DPA adds, "The demonstrators were protesting recent attacks in the city, which has a majority ethnic Turkmen population."
There was other violence as well. NINA notes an assassination attempt on Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi: "Police told NINA that an improvised explosive device, emplaced on the side of a street in Dawaseh area, downtown Mosul, went off when the Governor's motorcade was passing, wounding four of his guardsmen; but the Governor was not hurt." In addition to being the Governor of Nineveh, he is also the brother of the Speaker of Iraq's Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi. This wasn't the first attempt on al-Nujaifi's life by a long shot, it wasn't even the first one this year. From the April 16th snapshot:
Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi is a prominent critic of Nouri al-Maliki. al-Nujaifi is Sunni, a member of Iraqiya and the brother of Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.
Among the politicians targeted by Nouri in the last three years? Atheel al-Nujaifi. It wasn't all that long ago that Nouri was demanding that al-Nujaifi resign. (al-Nujaifi refused.)
And it wasn't even the first attempted assassination of Atheel al-Nujaifi this month. Prior to today, there had been at least two reported attempts. June 1st, he was targeted yet again (also a Mosul bombing). From the June 13th snapshot, "Mainly, they report a Mosul car bombing attack on Nineveh Province Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) adds that the assassination attempt claimed the lives of 2 by-standers."
In addition to that assassination attempt, National Iraqi News Agency notes a bombing hit a bus of pilgrims outside Hilla as they were heading to Karbala leaving 3 dead and fifteen injured, a Baghdad bombing "near an outdoor playground" [sports field] left 4 people dead and fifteen more injured, a Tikrit roadside bombing left 2 Iraqi soldiers dead and a third injured, and 2 Baquba bombings left 6 people dead and twelve injured. All Iraq News quotes a security source stating, "Unidentified gunmen attack this morning the Mari Church in Ameen neighborhood of southeast Baghdad and injured three policemen in charge of securing the Church." And Yasir Ghazi (New York Times) reports, "In Mosul, in the north, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up inside a popular cafe, killing 10 people and wounding 18." Iraqi Spring MC reports that clashes took place in Ramadi between rebels and Nouri's forces. That's 52 reported deaths and 150 injured.
At their Facebook page, Iraqi Spring MC noted the attack on the protesters. They've also noted an increase in the mass arrests in the last 48 hours such as in Abu Ghraib -- which was carried out by SWAT forces and the Army's 17th Division. On the US-trained and equipped SWAT forces, NINA notes: that Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya has issued a demand for the dissolution of the SWAT forces as a result of their repeated and barbaric attack on the Iraqi civilians:
The statement said, "Such actions by these force which supposed to keep security and lives of the people, brings to mind a number of questions about the legitimacy of the so-called / SWAT / forces also about the legal and constitutional of these forces , as well as about its link with the government or just a militia and mob," stressing that / Swat / are the same forces that recently committed Hawija massacre without any brought to accountability or to justice or just deterred , according to the statement.
The coalition, held the commander in chief of the armed forces, Nouri al-Maliki full responsibility for what the coalition called a disregard for the lives of citizens, asking al-Maliki to dissolve these forces "unknown origin and legitimacy."
The April 23rd massacre referred to above is what happened when Nouri al-Maliki's federal forces stormed a peaceful sit-in in Hawija. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll rose to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
Among the demands of the protesters? Release the many detained in prisons and jails who've never been charged with a crime. Aswat al-Iraq reported today:
Those are Nouri's figures. They've refused the requests of governors to release lists with names. So the figures may be accurate or they may be false. But any country that imprisons people without charges has a government that needs to be replaced.
Let's note another of Nouri's problems, Camp Ashraf residents now in Camp Hurriya. Saturday, June 15th, the refugees now at Camp Liberty were attacked. It's past time to get them moved. Nouri is not protecting them and has no interest in it. The State Dept issued the following yesterday:
Press Statement
Yes, it does read a lot like last week's UN statement (that we noted June 22nd). One key difference?
The United Nations pointed out that there were over 3,000 still needing asylum outside of Iraq. 71 isn't zero but it certainly seems like a larger number than it is when you forget or 'forget' to include that over 3,000 residents are still Camp Liberty waiting for countries to agree to host them.
This does matter. As the United Nations noted over a year ago:
Since then, the US has taken the MEK off the terrorist list (September 28th). What hasn't changed is that there's no great rush to welcome the refugees, there appears to be very little work being done on the issue at all outside of the UN. How many more attacks on Camp Hurriya will it take before the world -- especially the United States government -- pays attention?
The world can look away, most governments have no obligations in this matter. It's a little different for the US government.
Approximately 3,400 people were at Camp Ashraf when the US invaded Iraq in 2003. They were Iranian dissidents who were given asylum by Saddam Hussein decades ago. The US government authorized the US military to negotiate with the residents. The US military was able to get the residents to agree to disarm and they became protected persons under Geneva and under international law. As Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) has observed that "since 2004, the United States has considered the residents of Camp Ashraf 'noncombatants' and 'protected persons' under the Geneva Conventions."
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FROM THE TCI WIRE:
While Iraq struggles politically, with violence and everything else, the biggest interest the country seems to generate from the world outside is this June 12th YouTube video of a dog in Iraq burying a dead puppy. Perhaps that makes some larger sense? Around the world popular videos of pets have them bouncing or whatever, but in violence scarred Iraq a dog buries a dead puppy. And gets about half-a-million views when the video gets posted online.
Yes, the violence continues in Iraq, the death toll for the month mounts. Iraq Body Count. reports 466 deaths for the month of June through yesterday.
The death toll continued to mount today. Shannon Young (Free Speech Radio News -- link is audio and text) explains, "Three bombing attacks killed more than 30 people across Iraq Tuesday as the security situation in the country descends into another cycle of sectarian violence. The New York Times reports the deadliest attack killed 16 people and wounded more than 50 as Shiites protested insecurity with a highway blockade in the Salahuddin province." National Iraqi News Agency notes that protesters at a Tuz Khurmatu sit-in were attacked by 1 suicide bomber with "an explosive belt" who took his own life and left many demonstrators dead or injured. World Bulletin counts 2 suicide bombers and 71 injured. This evening, NINA reported the final toll from medical and security sources: 27 dead and 80 injured. All Iraq News states it was one suicide bomber combined with a mortar attack. AFP informs, "Among the dead were a former deputy provincial governor and his two sons, as well as a former provincial councillor." Alsumaria identifies the former deputy manager as Ahmed Abdul Wahid and note that the vice president of the Turkmen Front, Ali Hashem Mukhtar Oglu, is the other official who died. Yasir Ghazi (New York Times) explains, "Security forces imposed a curfew in Tuz Khurmatu and ordered people to close their shops." Of the demonstration, Xinhua explains:
The Shiite Turkomans were holding a sit-in on a main road outside Tuz-Khurmato protesting the attacks by al-Qaida militants on their Shiite community in the city, which is part of the disputed areas claimed by the Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans.
The Kurds want to incorporate areas at the edges of their current Kurdistan region into their domain, a move fiercely opposed by the Baghdad government.
The Shiite Turkomans also demand the government to help form a special force to protect their minority from the attacks that they believe to be aimed at displacing them from their homes.
DPA adds, "The demonstrators were protesting recent attacks in the city, which has a majority ethnic Turkmen population."
There was other violence as well. NINA notes an assassination attempt on Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi: "Police told NINA that an improvised explosive device, emplaced on the side of a street in Dawaseh area, downtown Mosul, went off when the Governor's motorcade was passing, wounding four of his guardsmen; but the Governor was not hurt." In addition to being the Governor of Nineveh, he is also the brother of the Speaker of Iraq's Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi. This wasn't the first attempt on al-Nujaifi's life by a long shot, it wasn't even the first one this year. From the April 16th snapshot:
Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi is a prominent critic of Nouri al-Maliki. al-Nujaifi is Sunni, a member of Iraqiya and the brother of Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.
Among the politicians targeted by Nouri in the last three years? Atheel al-Nujaifi. It wasn't all that long ago that Nouri was demanding that al-Nujaifi resign. (al-Nujaifi refused.)
And it wasn't even the first attempted assassination of Atheel al-Nujaifi this month. Prior to today, there had been at least two reported attempts. June 1st, he was targeted yet again (also a Mosul bombing). From the June 13th snapshot, "Mainly, they report a Mosul car bombing attack on Nineveh Province Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) adds that the assassination attempt claimed the lives of 2 by-standers."
In addition to that assassination attempt, National Iraqi News Agency notes a bombing hit a bus of pilgrims outside Hilla as they were heading to Karbala leaving 3 dead and fifteen injured, a Baghdad bombing "near an outdoor playground" [sports field] left 4 people dead and fifteen more injured, a Tikrit roadside bombing left 2 Iraqi soldiers dead and a third injured, and 2 Baquba bombings left 6 people dead and twelve injured. All Iraq News quotes a security source stating, "Unidentified gunmen attack this morning the Mari Church in Ameen neighborhood of southeast Baghdad and injured three policemen in charge of securing the Church." And Yasir Ghazi (New York Times) reports, "In Mosul, in the north, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up inside a popular cafe, killing 10 people and wounding 18." Iraqi Spring MC reports that clashes took place in Ramadi between rebels and Nouri's forces. That's 52 reported deaths and 150 injured.
At their Facebook page, Iraqi Spring MC noted the attack on the protesters. They've also noted an increase in the mass arrests in the last 48 hours such as in Abu Ghraib -- which was carried out by SWAT forces and the Army's 17th Division. On the US-trained and equipped SWAT forces, NINA notes: that Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya has issued a demand for the dissolution of the SWAT forces as a result of their repeated and barbaric attack on the Iraqi civilians:
The statement said, "Such actions by these force which supposed to keep security and lives of the people, brings to mind a number of questions about the legitimacy of the so-called / SWAT / forces also about the legal and constitutional of these forces , as well as about its link with the government or just a militia and mob," stressing that / Swat / are the same forces that recently committed Hawija massacre without any brought to accountability or to justice or just deterred , according to the statement.
The coalition, held the commander in chief of the armed forces, Nouri al-Maliki full responsibility for what the coalition called a disregard for the lives of citizens, asking al-Maliki to dissolve these forces "unknown origin and legitimacy."
The April 23rd massacre referred to above is what happened when Nouri al-Maliki's federal forces stormed a peaceful sit-in in Hawija. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll rose to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
Among the demands of the protesters? Release the many detained in prisons and jails who've never been charged with a crime. Aswat al-Iraq reported today:
The Committee formed to tackle the demonstrators' demands announced here today that more than 7000 detainees were released, including 200 women.
The Committee, headed by deputy premier Hussein Shahristani, added that more than 14.000 residences were acquitted, which were covered with the regulations of Questioning and Justice formalities, as reported in a statement, copy received by Aswat al-Iraq today.
Those are Nouri's figures. They've refused the requests of governors to release lists with names. So the figures may be accurate or they may be false. But any country that imprisons people without charges has a government that needs to be replaced.
Let's note another of Nouri's problems, Camp Ashraf residents now in Camp Hurriya. Saturday, June 15th, the refugees now at Camp Liberty were attacked. It's past time to get them moved. Nouri is not protecting them and has no interest in it. The State Dept issued the following yesterday:
Press Statement
Jen Psaki
Washington, DC
June 24, 2013
On June 19 and June 21, two groups of Camp Hurriya residents, 27 in total, were permanently relocated to Albania. This was the third of a series of movements planned under the terms of a generous humanitarian offer by the Government of Albania to accept 210 individuals from Camp Hurriya. The United States thanks Albania for its compassion in this humanitarian endeavor. So far, 71 individuals have relocated to Albania as part of this agreement, and we look forward to additional individuals relocating as soon as possible.
The United States strongly supports the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), and the tireless efforts of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General Martin Kobler to relocate remaining camp residents outside Iraq. We urge the Mujahedin-e Khalq leadership, and all responsible parties, to ensure full cooperation with the UNHCR relocation process so that future movements occur as expeditiously as possible.
The relocation of Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq is a humanitarian mission and vital to their safety and security. The United States renews its call on the Government of Iraq to help ensure the security of the camp in accordance with its December 25, 2011 Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations. This is a matter of extreme urgency given ongoing threats to the camp. We further renew our call on the Government of Iraq to investigate and bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the June 15 rocket attack against the camp.
The United States strongly supports the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), and the tireless efforts of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General Martin Kobler to relocate remaining camp residents outside Iraq. We urge the Mujahedin-e Khalq leadership, and all responsible parties, to ensure full cooperation with the UNHCR relocation process so that future movements occur as expeditiously as possible.
The relocation of Camp Hurriya residents outside of Iraq is a humanitarian mission and vital to their safety and security. The United States renews its call on the Government of Iraq to help ensure the security of the camp in accordance with its December 25, 2011 Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations. This is a matter of extreme urgency given ongoing threats to the camp. We further renew our call on the Government of Iraq to investigate and bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the June 15 rocket attack against the camp.
Yes, it does read a lot like last week's UN statement (that we noted June 22nd). One key difference?
The United Nations pointed out that there were over 3,000 still needing asylum outside of Iraq. 71 isn't zero but it certainly seems like a larger number than it is when you forget or 'forget' to include that over 3,000 residents are still Camp Liberty waiting for countries to agree to host them.
This does matter. As the United Nations noted over a year ago:
The current Iraqi government has made it clear that it wants Camp Ashraf shut down and the MeK – which once fought alongside Hussein and is designated by the United States as a terrorist organization – to leave Iraq. Baghdad sees its presence, in a place which is off-limits to the government, as an affront to national sovereignty.
When the Government announced late last-year that it would be closing the camp by 31 December, many feared a repeat of the violence of April 2011, when dozens of Ashraf residents were killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces at the camp. An earlier incident in 2009 cost the lives of at least 10 residents.
Diplomatic Marathon
To prevent a similar outcome, the United Nations initiated intensive diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to extend the deadline for the camp’s closure, which he agreed to do. This provided time and space for a marathon exercise in preventive diplomacy led by Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, who has mediated between the Iraqi government and the group.
“As an impartial actor the United Nations could interact with both parties,” Kobler said.
With support from other governments, including the United States, Kobler was able to bridge the gaps between the two actors and find an agreement that both respects Iraq’s sovereignty and provides the people of Camp Ashraf with a safe and voluntary path to a more hopeful life outside of Iraq.
Since then, the US has taken the MEK off the terrorist list (September 28th). What hasn't changed is that there's no great rush to welcome the refugees, there appears to be very little work being done on the issue at all outside of the UN. How many more attacks on Camp Hurriya will it take before the world -- especially the United States government -- pays attention?
The world can look away, most governments have no obligations in this matter. It's a little different for the US government.
Approximately 3,400 people were at Camp Ashraf when the US invaded Iraq in 2003. They were Iranian dissidents who were given asylum by Saddam Hussein decades ago. The US government authorized the US military to negotiate with the residents. The US military was able to get the residents to agree to disarm and they became protected persons under Geneva and under international law. As Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) has observed that "since 2004, the United States has considered the residents of Camp Ashraf 'noncombatants' and 'protected persons' under the Geneva Conventions."
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
BARRY O'S ON ANOTHER MANHUNT
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN, WET BEHIND THE EARS, OR IMMATURE. POOR CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O.
AS HE STOMPS HIS FEET ON THE WORLD STAGE, NOT EVERYONE FEELS LIKE PLAYING THE ROLE OF INDULGENT PARENT.
TAKE SERGEI LAVROV, FOREIGN MINISTER OF RUSSIA, WHO REPLIES TO THE VARIOUS CHARGES LODGED AT RUSSIA OVER WHISTLE-BLOWER ED SNOWDEN, "WE DEEM ABSOLUTELY UNGROUNDED AND UNACCEPTABLE THE ATTEMPTS WE ARE WITNESSING TO ACCUSE THE RUSSIAN SIDE OF VIOLATION OF U.S. LAWS AND ALMOST A CONSPIRACY, WHICH ABOVE ALL, ARE ACCOMPANIED WITH THREATS."
LAVROV WENT FURTHER, OUTLINING THE DETAILS AND THE LAW, BEFORE EXPLAINING, "THERE ARE NO LEGAL GROUNDS WHATSOEVER."
THINGS ARE SO TENSE THAT, AS THIS PHOTO DEMONSTRATES, WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE SPOKESMODEL JAY CARNEY NO LONGER LOOKS LIKE A LPGA PLAYER, HE NOW LOOKS LIKE A LONG RETIRED LPGA PLAYER.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with Barack Obama's War on the First Amendment. Last month, The War on the First Amendment's big revelations were, first, that the Justice Dept had secretly seized the phone records of a 167-year-old news institution, the Associated Press. Then came the revelation that the Justice Dept targeted Fox News reporter James Rosen. Clark S. Judge (US News and World Reports) observed, "It has been a bad few weeks for the First Amendment. The sinister commonality to the Internal Revenue Service and AP scandals and the James Rosen affair is that each appears to have been (strike "appears ": each was) an attempt to suppress a core American right." And that was only the beginning.
This month found the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald breaking the news about Barack's orders to monitor the phone calls of every American -- the details of the call -- who called who, length of time, etc. These used to be called "toll slips" in the pre-digital age and the government was required to get a warrant each time it wanted the "toll slips" for one phone line. Now it's blanket spying on everyone. Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) noted Senator Bernie Sanders calling out the program:
"The United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans," Sanders said. "That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about. Congress must address this issue and protect the constitutional rights of the American people."
And, as with AP in May, it was only the first shoe to drop. AP probably summed up the second shoe better than any other outlet reporting, "Separately, The Washington Post and The Guardian reported Thursday the existence of another program used by the NSA and FBI that scours the nation's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans."
And even more details have come out over the last few days. Tom Burghartdt (Dissident Voice) provides a thorough primer on those developments:
It now seems likely that NSA is hoovering up far more than the “telephony metadata” revealed by The Guardian’s publication of the secret FISA Court Order to Verizon Business Services.
Following-up on PRISM program reporting, The Washington Post disclosed June 15 that the Bush administration’s “warrantless wiretapping” program STELLAR WIND “was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.”
“Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet,” Barton Gellman reported, “process trillions of ‘metadata’ records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively.”
According to the Post, “Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.”
Dropping a bombshell, although withholding supporting documents, Gellman reports that the “other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called NUCLEON.”
The PRISM targeting and the spying on every American phone call were both exposed by whistle-blower Ed Snowden. And Ed Snowden was all over the news over the weekend.
Many people couldn't stop talking about him. Like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (here for video) who openly courted boos (and got them) as the Netroots Nation conference (largely a group of Democrats) as she called Ed Snowden a criminal. Nancy was there courting votes (something she doesn't bother to do in district 8 of California where she doesn't even hold town halls) and, Seema Mehta (Los Angeles Times) reports, things got a little sticky when Mark Perkel responded to her claims, "It's not a balance. It makes us less safe." For that, he was escorted out of this supposed meet-up. As he was pulled away by guards, he shouted, "It's unconstitutional! No secret courts! No secret law!"
I think the mistake Mark Perkel made was in not picking up a phone. These days, if you want to speak your mind or sound off, you have a better chance of being heard in full by the government via a private phone call the government listens in on than through public remarks at an open forum.
AP notes that there was vocal objection to Perkel being tossed out and quotes attendee Jana Thrift stating, "We're listening to our progressive leaders who are supposed to be on our side of the team saying it's OK for us to get targeted. It's crazy. I don' t know who Nancy Pelosi really is."
CNN quoted Nancy insisting of Snowden's whistle-blowing, "I know that some of you attribute heroic status to that action. But, again, you don't have the responsibility for the security of the United States. Those of us who do have to strike a different balance."
First off, it's not Nancy's country. The US belongs to all of its citizens and I know being a greedy huckster for money didn't allow Nancy the education she needed of the democratic experience but just because you bought a seat at the main table doesn't mean you're in charge of the event. All Americans are responsible for the country's security. What a stupid remark from Nancy. Remember it the next time she's trying to build support for some pet item. Tell her, "You have the responsibility for ___." Second, this is just about her covering her ass. She was briefed on all of this, she knew about the spying. She's culpable -- legally culpable -- so of course she's going to claim it was necessary -- what crook wouldn't?
She was culpable in 2009 as well. That's when waterboarding as a CIA practice had been taking place. As David Espo (AP) reported, Nancy's claim for 'innocence' that time was that the CIA lied to her. Bill Van Auken (WSWS) called out her lying as the words were flying out her mouth:
While Pelosi had given the impression that she knew nothing about this torture because the CIA failed to inform her in the 2002 briefing, it then emerged that she had been told about the active use of waterboarding in February 2003—just five months later—by her senior aide based on a subsequent briefing.
In her press conference, the House speaker claimed that at the 2002 briefing, the CIA reported that the Justice Department had issued memos arguing that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal, but were “not being employed.”
Pelosi went on to acknowledge that after she was informed that the CIA was torturing suspects in February 2003, she did nothing, leaving it to her successor as the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Congresswoman Jane Harman, to write a letter to the agency “raising concerns.”
Her entire story strains credulity. Even if what she says is true and the CIA did not inform her in 2002 that it was torturing Zubaydah, did she really believe that the agency’s briefers were describing methods of torture and Justice Department memos justifying them because the Bush administration did not intend to use them?
Pelosi advanced another alibi. “Like all members of Congress who are briefed on classified information,” she said. “I have signed oaths pledging not to disclose any of that information. This is an oath I have taken very seriously, and I’ve always abided by it.”
Like all members of Congress, she also took an oath of office “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” but clearly that pledge took a back seat to defending the secrets of an agency known throughout the world as Murder Inc. Her oath would not have stopped her from denouncing torture in 2003, if she had really opposed it.
Nancy didn't claim she was lied to this time. Which is a shame because she would have had a better chance of making that claim stick. Dropping back to yesterday's Meet The Press (NBC) where the first segment featured journalist Glenn Greenwald.
GREENWALD: Sure. I think the-- the key definition of a whistleblower is somebody who brings to light what political officials do in the dark that is either deceitful or illegal. And in this case, there is a New York Times article just this morning that describes that one of the revelations that he-- he-- he enabled that we reported is that the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, went before the U.S. Congress and lied outright when asked whether or not the NSA is collecting any form of data on millions of Americans. His response-- Director Clapper’s response was, “No, sir." As The New York Times said today, even Clapper has had to say that that statement was absolutely false. And the very first conversation I ever had with Mister Snowden, he showed me the folder in which he had placed the documents and labeled it, “NSA Lying to Congress,” that proved as we reported that the NSA is bulk collecting the phone records of millions of Americans indiscriminately, exactly what Clapper denied to the Congress was being done. As for illegality, The New York Times also said today that the bulk spying program exceeds the Patriot Act and there’s a FISA court opinion that says that the U.S. government, that the NSA engaged in unconstitutional and illegal spying on American citizens. That court opinion is secret, but he showed me documents discussing internally in the NSA what that court ruling is, and that should absolutely be public.
GREGORY: With regard to that specific FISA opinion, isn’t the case, based on people that I’ve talked to, that the FISA opinion based on the government’s request is that they said, well, you can get this but you can’t get that. That would actually go beyond the scope of what you’re allowed to do, which means that the request was changed or denied, which is the whole point the government makes, which is that there is actual judicial review here and not abuse. Isn’t this the kind of review and opinion that you would want to keep these programs in line?
MR. GREENWALD: I don’t know what government officials are-- are whispering to you, David, but I know that the documents that I have in my possession and that I have read from the NSA tell a much different story which is that there was an 80-page opinion from the FISA court that said that what the NSA is doing in spying on American citizens is a violation of both the Fourth Amendment and the bounds of the statute. And it specifically said that they are collecting bulk transmissions, multiple conversations from millions of Americans, not just people that are believed to be involved in terrorist organizations or working for a foreign agent, and that this is illegal. And the NSA then planned to try and accommodate that ruling. But I think the real issue, as journalists and as citizens is, why should we have to guess, how can we have a democracy in which a secret court rules that what the government is doing in spying on us is a violation of the constitution and the law and yet we sit here and don’t know what that ruling is because it’s all been concealed and all been secret. I think we need to have transparency and disclosure, and that’s why Mister Snowden stepped forward so that we could have that.
And then came, what was for some, a shocking moment. Toby Harnden (Times of London) Tweeted the following about the televised moment.
From NBC News' official transcript:
GREGORY: Final question before-- for you, but I’d like you to hang around. I just want to get Pete Williams in here as well. To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mister Greenwald, be charged with a crime?
MR. GREENWALD: I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies. The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in anyway. The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the-- the e-mails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced, being a co-conspirator with felony-- in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. That’s why the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, her word, as a result of the theories that you just referenced.
GREGORY: Well, the question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you’re doing and of course anybody who’s watching this understands I was asking a question.
I've shared this story here before. I'll do it again now because it goes to an accurate point David Gregory made above: The question of who's a journalist may be up to a debate.
I agree. For example, I wouldn't have spent a very long time on the phone January 12, 2004 if a journalist had been doing the 'White House beat' on NBC's Today. But a journalist wasn't, David Gregory was. It was the day before Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. And what did we learn that day from David Gregory?
What he hoped we would learn was that O'Neill was a thief who'd stolen government documents. And we would be outraged.
But no documents were stolen. And what we learned was that David Gregory will report on a book without even reading it's opening pages -- its there that its revealed that O'Neill requested and received from the White House his memos and writings on discs and that's what reproduced in the book. And we learned that David Gregory wasn't really a journalist. He was a dummy. A ventriloquist's dummy. He moved his lips and said what the White House wanted him to say. As America saw yesterday, that's still what David Gregory does and he's well paid for it. January 14, 2004, Today cleaned up David's mess by noting that O'Neill was given copies of the documents in the book -- given copies by the White House. David always thinks that story will be forgotten. Not while I'm around. (I had an advanced copy that I'd already read of Suskind's book and my mouth dropped watching Gregory lie. I was on the phone talking to everyone I knew at Today about how outrageous David's false charges were.)
Sunday was also when Ed Snowden left Hong Kong. Any GPS attempts other than that have failed for the press. Matt Berman (National Journal) offered, this morning, "If the Edward Snowden saga is a Michael Bay movie that we are all just living in, on Sunday morning it would have passed over the believability abyss. That's when Snowden, the NSA leaker turned America's Most Wanted poster-boy, took a plane out of Hong Kong, en route to Russia, where he landed around 9:15 a.m. EST. Snowden is reportedly headed from there to Havana, Cuba on Monday. Originally, it looked like he was going from there to Caracas, Venezuela. Now, it appears he's off to Ecuador."
Is he on a flight to Cuba? Reuters says no.
Hong Kong's Standard probably gets its right when they point out that he appears to have given the press the slip. And maybe that was the whole point?
A magician doesn't disappear by saying, "Look right here and you'll see how I pull off this trick." He or she misdirects and redirects. It was a point that arose last week on PRI's The World (link is audio and text):
Marco Werman: Frank Ahearn knows a thing or two about privacy. He’s made a career of finding people, collecting debts, serving papers, locating spouses who’ve skipped town. Reverse-engineered, this has also made Ahearn something of an expert on disappearing, and led him to a new career helping people drop off the grid. In fact, he’s written a book on it called, not surprisingly, How to Disappear. We tracked Frank Ahearn down in Portugal. It wasn’t too hard finding you, Frank. I’m sure you could make it hard if you wanted to. Give us first your disappearing act rating for Edward Snowden, the man who leaked the NSA surveillance business. How’s he done so far?
Frank Ahearn: Zero. He’s put–first, thanks for having me–he had a, he didn’t have a plan. He just picked up and split. And the problem is he’s looking to depend on a country to take him in, and you can’t always trust that country. I think if I was him, I would have just gone totally off the grid, disappeared for good.
Werman: So how do you actually make somebody disappear? How do you help them?
Ahearn: Well, the first question you always have to [answer] is how you going to make a living where you’re going, and once we can figure that part out. The best example is like the victim of a stalker who needs to leave because her ex is going to kill her or something like that. When you’re looking for somebody or looking to find someone you always look for the information they left behind so I kind of take that information and manipulate it, change her, deviate her name maybe on the utility company, you know, different forwarding addresses, different contact information, and then using online information for disinformation. You need to make sure that the person looking for them is looking in the wrong places. So they’re looking for the information you left behind, so for example I would have them open up a bank account and give me the debit card, and I would take that debit card, send it to a friend of mine in Toronto, and every Tuesday they’d go and buy stuff at the supermarket. Plus, I’ll have you apply for an apartment at a location online. It’s important to keep the predator looking.
In Hong Kong, James Pomfret and Greg Torode (Reuters) explain, Ed Snowden contemplated various actions:
But even as he worked with his team of lawyers, Snowden also was working another angle. He had made contact with the team from WikiLeaks, the loose-knit global group committed to disclosing secrets.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters Monday that his organization paid for Snowden's lodging in Hong Kong and his flight out. Assange said that Snowden was "bound for Ecuador," via Russia and perhaps other countries as well.
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AS HE STOMPS HIS FEET ON THE WORLD STAGE, NOT EVERYONE FEELS LIKE PLAYING THE ROLE OF INDULGENT PARENT.
TAKE SERGEI LAVROV, FOREIGN MINISTER OF RUSSIA, WHO REPLIES TO THE VARIOUS CHARGES LODGED AT RUSSIA OVER WHISTLE-BLOWER ED SNOWDEN, "WE DEEM ABSOLUTELY UNGROUNDED AND UNACCEPTABLE THE ATTEMPTS WE ARE WITNESSING TO ACCUSE THE RUSSIAN SIDE OF VIOLATION OF U.S. LAWS AND ALMOST A CONSPIRACY, WHICH ABOVE ALL, ARE ACCOMPANIED WITH THREATS."
LAVROV WENT FURTHER, OUTLINING THE DETAILS AND THE LAW, BEFORE EXPLAINING, "THERE ARE NO LEGAL GROUNDS WHATSOEVER."
THINGS ARE SO TENSE THAT, AS THIS PHOTO DEMONSTRATES, WHITE HOUSE PLUS-SIZE SPOKESMODEL JAY CARNEY NO LONGER LOOKS LIKE A LPGA PLAYER, HE NOW LOOKS LIKE A LONG RETIRED LPGA PLAYER.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Starting with Barack Obama's War on the First Amendment. Last month, The War on the First Amendment's big revelations were, first, that the Justice Dept had secretly seized the phone records of a 167-year-old news institution, the Associated Press. Then came the revelation that the Justice Dept targeted Fox News reporter James Rosen. Clark S. Judge (US News and World Reports) observed, "It has been a bad few weeks for the First Amendment. The sinister commonality to the Internal Revenue Service and AP scandals and the James Rosen affair is that each appears to have been (strike "appears ": each was) an attempt to suppress a core American right." And that was only the beginning.
This month found the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald breaking the news about Barack's orders to monitor the phone calls of every American -- the details of the call -- who called who, length of time, etc. These used to be called "toll slips" in the pre-digital age and the government was required to get a warrant each time it wanted the "toll slips" for one phone line. Now it's blanket spying on everyone. Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) noted Senator Bernie Sanders calling out the program:
"The United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans," Sanders said. "That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about. Congress must address this issue and protect the constitutional rights of the American people."
And, as with AP in May, it was only the first shoe to drop. AP probably summed up the second shoe better than any other outlet reporting, "Separately, The Washington Post and The Guardian reported Thursday the existence of another program used by the NSA and FBI that scours the nation's main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts. It was not clear whether the program, called PRISM, targets known suspects or broadly collects data from other Americans."
And even more details have come out over the last few days. Tom Burghartdt (Dissident Voice) provides a thorough primer on those developments:
It now seems likely that NSA is hoovering up far more than the “telephony metadata” revealed by The Guardian’s publication of the secret FISA Court Order to Verizon Business Services.
Following-up on PRISM program reporting, The Washington Post disclosed June 15 that the Bush administration’s “warrantless wiretapping” program STELLAR WIND “was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.”
“Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet,” Barton Gellman reported, “process trillions of ‘metadata’ records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively.”
According to the Post, “Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.”
Dropping a bombshell, although withholding supporting documents, Gellman reports that the “other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called NUCLEON.”
The PRISM targeting and the spying on every American phone call were both exposed by whistle-blower Ed Snowden. And Ed Snowden was all over the news over the weekend.
Many people couldn't stop talking about him. Like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (here for video) who openly courted boos (and got them) as the Netroots Nation conference (largely a group of Democrats) as she called Ed Snowden a criminal. Nancy was there courting votes (something she doesn't bother to do in district 8 of California where she doesn't even hold town halls) and, Seema Mehta (Los Angeles Times) reports, things got a little sticky when Mark Perkel responded to her claims, "It's not a balance. It makes us less safe." For that, he was escorted out of this supposed meet-up. As he was pulled away by guards, he shouted, "It's unconstitutional! No secret courts! No secret law!"
I think the mistake Mark Perkel made was in not picking up a phone. These days, if you want to speak your mind or sound off, you have a better chance of being heard in full by the government via a private phone call the government listens in on than through public remarks at an open forum.
AP notes that there was vocal objection to Perkel being tossed out and quotes attendee Jana Thrift stating, "We're listening to our progressive leaders who are supposed to be on our side of the team saying it's OK for us to get targeted. It's crazy. I don' t know who Nancy Pelosi really is."
CNN quoted Nancy insisting of Snowden's whistle-blowing, "I know that some of you attribute heroic status to that action. But, again, you don't have the responsibility for the security of the United States. Those of us who do have to strike a different balance."
First off, it's not Nancy's country. The US belongs to all of its citizens and I know being a greedy huckster for money didn't allow Nancy the education she needed of the democratic experience but just because you bought a seat at the main table doesn't mean you're in charge of the event. All Americans are responsible for the country's security. What a stupid remark from Nancy. Remember it the next time she's trying to build support for some pet item. Tell her, "You have the responsibility for ___." Second, this is just about her covering her ass. She was briefed on all of this, she knew about the spying. She's culpable -- legally culpable -- so of course she's going to claim it was necessary -- what crook wouldn't?
She was culpable in 2009 as well. That's when waterboarding as a CIA practice had been taking place. As David Espo (AP) reported, Nancy's claim for 'innocence' that time was that the CIA lied to her. Bill Van Auken (WSWS) called out her lying as the words were flying out her mouth:
While Pelosi had given the impression that she knew nothing about this torture because the CIA failed to inform her in the 2002 briefing, it then emerged that she had been told about the active use of waterboarding in February 2003—just five months later—by her senior aide based on a subsequent briefing.
In her press conference, the House speaker claimed that at the 2002 briefing, the CIA reported that the Justice Department had issued memos arguing that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal, but were “not being employed.”
Pelosi went on to acknowledge that after she was informed that the CIA was torturing suspects in February 2003, she did nothing, leaving it to her successor as the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Congresswoman Jane Harman, to write a letter to the agency “raising concerns.”
Her entire story strains credulity. Even if what she says is true and the CIA did not inform her in 2002 that it was torturing Zubaydah, did she really believe that the agency’s briefers were describing methods of torture and Justice Department memos justifying them because the Bush administration did not intend to use them?
Pelosi advanced another alibi. “Like all members of Congress who are briefed on classified information,” she said. “I have signed oaths pledging not to disclose any of that information. This is an oath I have taken very seriously, and I’ve always abided by it.”
Like all members of Congress, she also took an oath of office “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” but clearly that pledge took a back seat to defending the secrets of an agency known throughout the world as Murder Inc. Her oath would not have stopped her from denouncing torture in 2003, if she had really opposed it.
Nancy didn't claim she was lied to this time. Which is a shame because she would have had a better chance of making that claim stick. Dropping back to yesterday's Meet The Press (NBC) where the first segment featured journalist Glenn Greenwald.
GREENWALD: Sure. I think the-- the key definition of a whistleblower is somebody who brings to light what political officials do in the dark that is either deceitful or illegal. And in this case, there is a New York Times article just this morning that describes that one of the revelations that he-- he-- he enabled that we reported is that the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, went before the U.S. Congress and lied outright when asked whether or not the NSA is collecting any form of data on millions of Americans. His response-- Director Clapper’s response was, “No, sir." As The New York Times said today, even Clapper has had to say that that statement was absolutely false. And the very first conversation I ever had with Mister Snowden, he showed me the folder in which he had placed the documents and labeled it, “NSA Lying to Congress,” that proved as we reported that the NSA is bulk collecting the phone records of millions of Americans indiscriminately, exactly what Clapper denied to the Congress was being done. As for illegality, The New York Times also said today that the bulk spying program exceeds the Patriot Act and there’s a FISA court opinion that says that the U.S. government, that the NSA engaged in unconstitutional and illegal spying on American citizens. That court opinion is secret, but he showed me documents discussing internally in the NSA what that court ruling is, and that should absolutely be public.
GREGORY: With regard to that specific FISA opinion, isn’t the case, based on people that I’ve talked to, that the FISA opinion based on the government’s request is that they said, well, you can get this but you can’t get that. That would actually go beyond the scope of what you’re allowed to do, which means that the request was changed or denied, which is the whole point the government makes, which is that there is actual judicial review here and not abuse. Isn’t this the kind of review and opinion that you would want to keep these programs in line?
MR. GREENWALD: I don’t know what government officials are-- are whispering to you, David, but I know that the documents that I have in my possession and that I have read from the NSA tell a much different story which is that there was an 80-page opinion from the FISA court that said that what the NSA is doing in spying on American citizens is a violation of both the Fourth Amendment and the bounds of the statute. And it specifically said that they are collecting bulk transmissions, multiple conversations from millions of Americans, not just people that are believed to be involved in terrorist organizations or working for a foreign agent, and that this is illegal. And the NSA then planned to try and accommodate that ruling. But I think the real issue, as journalists and as citizens is, why should we have to guess, how can we have a democracy in which a secret court rules that what the government is doing in spying on us is a violation of the constitution and the law and yet we sit here and don’t know what that ruling is because it’s all been concealed and all been secret. I think we need to have transparency and disclosure, and that’s why Mister Snowden stepped forward so that we could have that.
And then came, what was for some, a shocking moment. Toby Harnden (Times of London) Tweeted the following about the televised moment.
- I was jailed by Mugabe's Zimbabwe for "practicing journalism". Is David Gregory saying Obama's America should do the same to
@ggreenwald?
Toby Harnden From NBC News' official transcript:
GREGORY: Final question before-- for you, but I’d like you to hang around. I just want to get Pete Williams in here as well. To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mister Greenwald, be charged with a crime?
MR. GREENWALD: I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies. The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in anyway. The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the-- the e-mails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced, being a co-conspirator with felony-- in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. That’s why the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, her word, as a result of the theories that you just referenced.
GREGORY: Well, the question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you’re doing and of course anybody who’s watching this understands I was asking a question.
I've shared this story here before. I'll do it again now because it goes to an accurate point David Gregory made above: The question of who's a journalist may be up to a debate.
I agree. For example, I wouldn't have spent a very long time on the phone January 12, 2004 if a journalist had been doing the 'White House beat' on NBC's Today. But a journalist wasn't, David Gregory was. It was the day before Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. And what did we learn that day from David Gregory?
What he hoped we would learn was that O'Neill was a thief who'd stolen government documents. And we would be outraged.
But no documents were stolen. And what we learned was that David Gregory will report on a book without even reading it's opening pages -- its there that its revealed that O'Neill requested and received from the White House his memos and writings on discs and that's what reproduced in the book. And we learned that David Gregory wasn't really a journalist. He was a dummy. A ventriloquist's dummy. He moved his lips and said what the White House wanted him to say. As America saw yesterday, that's still what David Gregory does and he's well paid for it. January 14, 2004, Today cleaned up David's mess by noting that O'Neill was given copies of the documents in the book -- given copies by the White House. David always thinks that story will be forgotten. Not while I'm around. (I had an advanced copy that I'd already read of Suskind's book and my mouth dropped watching Gregory lie. I was on the phone talking to everyone I knew at Today about how outrageous David's false charges were.)
Sunday was also when Ed Snowden left Hong Kong. Any GPS attempts other than that have failed for the press. Matt Berman (National Journal) offered, this morning, "If the Edward Snowden saga is a Michael Bay movie that we are all just living in, on Sunday morning it would have passed over the believability abyss. That's when Snowden, the NSA leaker turned America's Most Wanted poster-boy, took a plane out of Hong Kong, en route to Russia, where he landed around 9:15 a.m. EST. Snowden is reportedly headed from there to Havana, Cuba on Monday. Originally, it looked like he was going from there to Caracas, Venezuela. Now, it appears he's off to Ecuador."
Is he on a flight to Cuba? Reuters says no.
Hong Kong's Standard probably gets its right when they point out that he appears to have given the press the slip. And maybe that was the whole point?
A magician doesn't disappear by saying, "Look right here and you'll see how I pull off this trick." He or she misdirects and redirects. It was a point that arose last week on PRI's The World (link is audio and text):
Marco Werman: Frank Ahearn knows a thing or two about privacy. He’s made a career of finding people, collecting debts, serving papers, locating spouses who’ve skipped town. Reverse-engineered, this has also made Ahearn something of an expert on disappearing, and led him to a new career helping people drop off the grid. In fact, he’s written a book on it called, not surprisingly, How to Disappear. We tracked Frank Ahearn down in Portugal. It wasn’t too hard finding you, Frank. I’m sure you could make it hard if you wanted to. Give us first your disappearing act rating for Edward Snowden, the man who leaked the NSA surveillance business. How’s he done so far?
Frank Ahearn: Zero. He’s put–first, thanks for having me–he had a, he didn’t have a plan. He just picked up and split. And the problem is he’s looking to depend on a country to take him in, and you can’t always trust that country. I think if I was him, I would have just gone totally off the grid, disappeared for good.
Werman: So how do you actually make somebody disappear? How do you help them?
Ahearn: Well, the first question you always have to [answer] is how you going to make a living where you’re going, and once we can figure that part out. The best example is like the victim of a stalker who needs to leave because her ex is going to kill her or something like that. When you’re looking for somebody or looking to find someone you always look for the information they left behind so I kind of take that information and manipulate it, change her, deviate her name maybe on the utility company, you know, different forwarding addresses, different contact information, and then using online information for disinformation. You need to make sure that the person looking for them is looking in the wrong places. So they’re looking for the information you left behind, so for example I would have them open up a bank account and give me the debit card, and I would take that debit card, send it to a friend of mine in Toronto, and every Tuesday they’d go and buy stuff at the supermarket. Plus, I’ll have you apply for an apartment at a location online. It’s important to keep the predator looking.
In Hong Kong, James Pomfret and Greg Torode (Reuters) explain, Ed Snowden contemplated various actions:
But even as he worked with his team of lawyers, Snowden also was working another angle. He had made contact with the team from WikiLeaks, the loose-knit global group committed to disclosing secrets.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told reporters Monday that his organization paid for Snowden's lodging in Hong Kong and his flight out. Assange said that Snowden was "bound for Ecuador," via Russia and perhaps other countries as well.
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Nut Roots, Crazy Limit
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
NUTROOTS NATION YET AGAIN LIVED UP TO ITS NAME THIS GO ROUND.
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O SHOWED UP (ON VIDEO) TO AGAIN INSIST, "I NEED YOU."
BUT THE CLEAR WINNER WAS ELDERLY FOOL NANCY PELOSI WHOSE BOTHCED PLASTIC SURGERY LEAVES HER LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE WINK MARTINDALE.
AFTER BEING BOOED FOR CALLING WHISTLE BLOWER EDWARD SNOWDEN A CRIMINAL, PELOSI POMPOUSLY INSISTED THAT "YOU DON'T HAVE THE RESPONSBILITY FOR THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES. THOSE OF US WHO DO HAVE TO STRIKE A DIFFERENT BALANCE."
THEN, TO GET THE PARTY STARTED, PEOLSI RIPPED A LOUD ONE AND HOLLERED "SPRING BREAK FOREVER!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Yesterday, Anbar Province and Diyala province were finally allowed to vote (after being prevented by Nouri al-Maliki from voting in April). Today we get outlets telling us that 'good for Anbar' but Nineveh's below the national average. No, no, no. Quit being a liar, quit making false comparisons. Baghdad is the only comparison due to levels of violence. From yesterday's snapshot:
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.
No violations, no accusations. How different it is in Anbar and Nineveh -- another detail the 'working' press forgot to note. Now what was the turnout in the province of Baghdad -- the only comparable province in terms of violence? After the elections in April, Matt Bradley (Wall St. Journal) reported:
Only slightly more than 50% of eligible Iraqi voters participated in provincial elections on Saturday, a far cry from the 72% turnout for the latest such elections, in 2009, according to Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission. In Iraq's capital, turnout slipped to 33%, the commission said.
Only 33% of voters turned out in Baghdad. I don't know -- problem with the official numbers -- what's going on but just FYI, we're sticking to percentages and will stay with that. What's the problem? IHEC's statements don't add up. Not when they're dealing with solid numbers of voters. Run the numbers, I just did after I stopped and thought about what IHEC said of the 12 provinces total for the April 20th election. (That was 50% so double it.) When you add that, the KRG population (I'm using CIA population figures -- which are estimates and I'm even using the 2012 which is lower than this year's) and include the numbers for Anbar and Nineveh and then add estimates for Kirkuk (CIA), the CIA population in Iraq is not matching IHEC numbers, IHEC is grossly undercounting or the CIA has been wildly off the mark for years now. So we're sticking to percentages but if someone ever adds the numbers (supplied by IHEC) and tries to figure out the population, don't complain to me, I just ran the numbers and I see the problem too.
So Baghdad had 33% turnout. But let's explain that further because the press didn't use Baghad or bother to explain April 20th turnout. Again, from yesterday's snapshot:
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.
So, for example, Sunni refugees who fled Baghdad (due to violence) and went to Anbar were able to vote April 20th at an Anbar polling center and their voted counted -- because they are IDPs -- as being a Baghdad vote. By the same token, Iraqi Christians who fled to the KRG due to violence were able to vote April 20th at polling stations as residents of Baghdad.
Baghdad's April vote includes all Baghdad Province residents in Iraq -- anywhere in Iraq. On April 20th, they even had polling centers in Kirkuk which was real middle finger if you think about since official residents of Kirkuk never get to vote in provincial elections. But in April, Baghdad residents -- whether in Baghdad, deployed outside of Baghdad in the security forces or IDPs who fled Baghdad Province due to violence -- were all able to vote if they wanted to. And only 33% wanted to.
Anbar and Nineveh didn't get that. Their residents who are in the security forces and out of Anbar and Nineveh were able to vote. In addition, their IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) were able to vote . . . if they were in the KRG (three provinces). If they were anywhere else, they weren't allowed to vote. While Anbar's 95% Sunni, Nineveh is more mixed demographically. Why would you assume, for example, that Turkmen would choose to go to the KRG?
Baghdad had better weather in April while Anbar and Nineveh were both over 100 degrees yesterday when voting took place. Baghdad residents (in Baghdad or IDPs) could vote across Iraq. That wasn't the case for Anbar and Nineveh. But a larger percentage of voters in Anbar turned out than in Baghdad and a larger percentage of voters in Nineveh turned out than in Baghdad.
This isn't noted in the nonsense that's being passed off today as 'reporting.'
As an Iraqi community member who voted in yesterday's elections notes of today's western media coverage, "They will not give us credit for anything." No, they certainly will not.
Since December 21st, Anbar and Nineveh have been the leading provinces when it came to protests. But if the press can't portray the protesters as 'out of control,' they're just not interested in them. Some reporters need it so badly that they lie about it -- as one US outlet did today: "Often violent protests in the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Ninevah are motivated as much by low unemployment and spotty electricity during the sweltering summer months as they are by sectarian grievances." Want to explain that one?
Didn't think so.
No, the protests have not been violent in Anbar and Nineveh and to suggest that they have really makes you a questionable reporter. If protests -- which have taken place since December 21st -- were violent, we'd be seeing mass deaths and destroyed property and all these things that just don't exist. Seems like the reporter feel for Kelly McEvers' propaganda that we called out earlier this week (here). That's too bad because the rest of the article (which is on another topic) looks very strong. But how can anyone trust you when you falsely characterize six months of peaceful protests as "violent." If they were violent -- even in just those two provinces -- I'd assume they'd have a body count of 30 dead per month. They don't even have a body count of 1 dead per month by protesters.
Now Nouri's forces have killed protesters during this time. Most infamously, the April 23rd massacre of a sit-in in Hawija when Nouri's federal forces stormed it. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll increased to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
It is the six months today, by the way, six months since the ongoing protests started. Another detail the media 'forgot.'
Today is the sixth month anniversary of the ongoing, peaceful protests that kicked off December 21st. In February, Layla Anwar (An Arab Woman Blues) wrote:
Protests are raging throughout Iraq...thousands upon thousands are demanding the following :
- End of Sectarian Shia rule
- the re-writing of the Iraqi constitution (drafted by the Americans and Iranians)
- the end to arbitrary killings and detention, rape and torture of all detainees on basis of sect alone and their release
- the end of discriminatory policies in employment, education, etc based on sect
- the provision of government services to all
- the end of corruption
- no division between Shias and Sunnis, a one Islam for all Iraqi Muslims and a one Iraq for all Iraqis.
The protests in Anbar, Fallujah, Sammara, Baquba, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul...and in different parts of Baghdad stress over and over 1) the spontaneous nature of the "popular revolution against oppression and injustice" 2) its peaceful nature i.e unarmed 3) the welcoming of ALL to join the protests regardless of sect or ethnicity as ONE Iraqi people and 4) and the March to Baghdad.
In six months of ongoing protests, most western outlets have never offered as much on it as Layla Anwar did that day (and the above's an excerpt, click on the link to read her full post). And when the western media has bothered to note it, they've ignored so much.
With the exception of the Guardian, no one's wanted to touch the issue of women and girls raped and tortured in Iraqi prisons. When Jane Arraf 'touched' on it, she did so by nothing that this was happening -- per Amnesty International [see this March 11th entry aptly titled "Iraqi women and girls (and the silence on this topic)" and snapshots for March 11th, March 12th, and March 13th] -- and then went on to share a report about the abuse of . . . a male prisoner.
Only the Guardian -- among western media -- has shown any bravery. AFP won't even acknowledge that this is the underpinning of the protests. Haifa Zangana (Guardian) was one of the people covering reality:
The plight of women detainees was the starting point for the mass protests that have spread through many Iraqi provinces since 25 December 2012. Their treatment by the security forces has been a bleeding wound – and one shrouded in secrecy, especially since 2003. Women have been routinely detained as hostages – a tactic to force their male loved ones to surrender to security forces, or confess to crimes ascribed to them. Banners and placards carried by hundreds of thousands of protesters portray images of women behind bars pleading for justice.
[. . .]
No wonder, ten years after the invasion, the Iraqi authorities are accused by US-based Human Rights Watch of "violating with impunity the rights of Iraq's most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees". HRW's account is echoed by a report by the Iraqi parliament's own human rights and women, family and children's committees, which found that there are 1,030 women detainees suffering from widespread abuse, including threats of rape.
Responding to these findings, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki threatened to "arrest those members of parliament who had discussed the violence against women detainees". Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani has acknowledged that there are 13,000 prisoners in custody accused of terror offences, but he only mentioned women detainees in passing [. . .]
Another person able to cover reality was Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera) who reported:
Heba al-Shamary (name changed for security reasons) was released last week from an Iraqi prison where she spent the last four years.
“I was tortured and raped repeatedly by the Iraqi security forces,” she told Al Jazeera. “I want to tell the world what I and other Iraqi women in prison have had to go through these last years. It has been a hell.”
Heba was charged with terrorism, as so many Iraqis who are detained by the Iraqi security apparatus are charged.
“I now want to explain to people what is occurring in the prisons that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki and his gangs are running,” Heba added. “I was raped over and over again, I was kicked and beaten and insulted and spit upon.”
Heba’s story, horrific as it is, unfortunately is but one example of what a recent report from Amnesty International refers to as “a grim cycle of human rights abuses” in Iraq today.
Six months worth of protests and what has the bulk of the western media done with it? Nothing.
Protests continued today. Demonstrators turned out in Jalawla, in Falluja, in Ramadi, in Kirkuk and in Baghdad. They're declaring Monday "The Day of the Detainee." In the Iraq 'legal' system, people charged with crimes but not convicted disappear for years in jail as do people who have never been charged with a crime but were rounded up and tossed in a prison. National Iraqi News Agency notes that the security was beefed up throughout Anbar Province around sit-in areas. They did this in Diyala Province as well and "Shahab-Badri, Vice-Chairman of the Committee of Religious Scholars of Iraq, demanded security forces to take responsibility by ensuring access to worshipers to prayers yards , calling on the Iraqi government to meet the constitutional and legitimate usurped rights that the demonstrators claimed since more than six months."
NINA also reports, "A security source in Kirkuk province, said that rapid intervention special forces of Dijlah Operations Command arrested the coordinator of the Popular Committees for the mass movement in the province Sheikh Khaled Mafraji." Alsumaria notes that the Kurdish movement -- both in Kirkuk and nationally -- is calling for the Sheikh's immediate release.
He was not the only one arrested. Al Mada reports that "SWAT" forces arrested him and that activists were also arrested in Ramadi and Kirkuk. Rafie al-Issawi declares that Nouri al-Maliki is underestimating the strength and the will of the protesters. al-Issawi is identified as that outgoing Minister of Finance. (December 20th, his staff and bodyguards were seized by Nouri's force. One of the things that has prompted the ongoing protests. He announced he was resigning. I have no idea where that stands. Where it stands with Ayad Allawi is that al-Issawi has resigned. Both are members of Iraqiya -- Allawi is the head of Iraqiya -- and Allawi considers al-Issawi out of the Cabinet.)
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NUTROOTS NATION YET AGAIN LIVED UP TO ITS NAME THIS GO ROUND.
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O SHOWED UP (ON VIDEO) TO AGAIN INSIST, "I NEED YOU."
BUT THE CLEAR WINNER WAS ELDERLY FOOL NANCY PELOSI WHOSE BOTHCED PLASTIC SURGERY LEAVES HER LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE WINK MARTINDALE.
AFTER BEING BOOED FOR CALLING WHISTLE BLOWER EDWARD SNOWDEN A CRIMINAL, PELOSI POMPOUSLY INSISTED THAT "YOU DON'T HAVE THE RESPONSBILITY FOR THE SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES. THOSE OF US WHO DO HAVE TO STRIKE A DIFFERENT BALANCE."
THEN, TO GET THE PARTY STARTED, PEOLSI RIPPED A LOUD ONE AND HOLLERED "SPRING BREAK FOREVER!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Yesterday, Anbar Province and Diyala province were finally allowed to vote (after being prevented by Nouri al-Maliki from voting in April). Today we get outlets telling us that 'good for Anbar' but Nineveh's below the national average. No, no, no. Quit being a liar, quit making false comparisons. Baghdad is the only comparison due to levels of violence. From yesterday's snapshot:
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.
No violations, no accusations. How different it is in Anbar and Nineveh -- another detail the 'working' press forgot to note. Now what was the turnout in the province of Baghdad -- the only comparable province in terms of violence? After the elections in April, Matt Bradley (Wall St. Journal) reported:
Only slightly more than 50% of eligible Iraqi voters participated in provincial elections on Saturday, a far cry from the 72% turnout for the latest such elections, in 2009, according to Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission. In Iraq's capital, turnout slipped to 33%, the commission said.
Only 33% of voters turned out in Baghdad. I don't know -- problem with the official numbers -- what's going on but just FYI, we're sticking to percentages and will stay with that. What's the problem? IHEC's statements don't add up. Not when they're dealing with solid numbers of voters. Run the numbers, I just did after I stopped and thought about what IHEC said of the 12 provinces total for the April 20th election. (That was 50% so double it.) When you add that, the KRG population (I'm using CIA population figures -- which are estimates and I'm even using the 2012 which is lower than this year's) and include the numbers for Anbar and Nineveh and then add estimates for Kirkuk (CIA), the CIA population in Iraq is not matching IHEC numbers, IHEC is grossly undercounting or the CIA has been wildly off the mark for years now. So we're sticking to percentages but if someone ever adds the numbers (supplied by IHEC) and tries to figure out the population, don't complain to me, I just ran the numbers and I see the problem too.
So Baghdad had 33% turnout. But let's explain that further because the press didn't use Baghad or bother to explain April 20th turnout. Again, from yesterday's snapshot:
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.
So, for example, Sunni refugees who fled Baghdad (due to violence) and went to Anbar were able to vote April 20th at an Anbar polling center and their voted counted -- because they are IDPs -- as being a Baghdad vote. By the same token, Iraqi Christians who fled to the KRG due to violence were able to vote April 20th at polling stations as residents of Baghdad.
Baghdad's April vote includes all Baghdad Province residents in Iraq -- anywhere in Iraq. On April 20th, they even had polling centers in Kirkuk which was real middle finger if you think about since official residents of Kirkuk never get to vote in provincial elections. But in April, Baghdad residents -- whether in Baghdad, deployed outside of Baghdad in the security forces or IDPs who fled Baghdad Province due to violence -- were all able to vote if they wanted to. And only 33% wanted to.
Anbar and Nineveh didn't get that. Their residents who are in the security forces and out of Anbar and Nineveh were able to vote. In addition, their IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) were able to vote . . . if they were in the KRG (three provinces). If they were anywhere else, they weren't allowed to vote. While Anbar's 95% Sunni, Nineveh is more mixed demographically. Why would you assume, for example, that Turkmen would choose to go to the KRG?
Baghdad had better weather in April while Anbar and Nineveh were both over 100 degrees yesterday when voting took place. Baghdad residents (in Baghdad or IDPs) could vote across Iraq. That wasn't the case for Anbar and Nineveh. But a larger percentage of voters in Anbar turned out than in Baghdad and a larger percentage of voters in Nineveh turned out than in Baghdad.
This isn't noted in the nonsense that's being passed off today as 'reporting.'
As an Iraqi community member who voted in yesterday's elections notes of today's western media coverage, "They will not give us credit for anything." No, they certainly will not.
Since December 21st, Anbar and Nineveh have been the leading provinces when it came to protests. But if the press can't portray the protesters as 'out of control,' they're just not interested in them. Some reporters need it so badly that they lie about it -- as one US outlet did today: "Often violent protests in the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Ninevah are motivated as much by low unemployment and spotty electricity during the sweltering summer months as they are by sectarian grievances." Want to explain that one?
Didn't think so.
No, the protests have not been violent in Anbar and Nineveh and to suggest that they have really makes you a questionable reporter. If protests -- which have taken place since December 21st -- were violent, we'd be seeing mass deaths and destroyed property and all these things that just don't exist. Seems like the reporter feel for Kelly McEvers' propaganda that we called out earlier this week (here). That's too bad because the rest of the article (which is on another topic) looks very strong. But how can anyone trust you when you falsely characterize six months of peaceful protests as "violent." If they were violent -- even in just those two provinces -- I'd assume they'd have a body count of 30 dead per month. They don't even have a body count of 1 dead per month by protesters.
Now Nouri's forces have killed protesters during this time. Most infamously, the April 23rd massacre of a sit-in in Hawija when Nouri's federal forces stormed it. Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault. AFP reported the death toll increased to 53. UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).
It is the six months today, by the way, six months since the ongoing protests started. Another detail the media 'forgot.'
Today is the sixth month anniversary of the ongoing, peaceful protests that kicked off December 21st. In February, Layla Anwar (An Arab Woman Blues) wrote:
Protests are raging throughout Iraq...thousands upon thousands are demanding the following :
- End of Sectarian Shia rule
- the re-writing of the Iraqi constitution (drafted by the Americans and Iranians)
- the end to arbitrary killings and detention, rape and torture of all detainees on basis of sect alone and their release
- the end of discriminatory policies in employment, education, etc based on sect
- the provision of government services to all
- the end of corruption
- no division between Shias and Sunnis, a one Islam for all Iraqi Muslims and a one Iraq for all Iraqis.
The protests in Anbar, Fallujah, Sammara, Baquba, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul...and in different parts of Baghdad stress over and over 1) the spontaneous nature of the "popular revolution against oppression and injustice" 2) its peaceful nature i.e unarmed 3) the welcoming of ALL to join the protests regardless of sect or ethnicity as ONE Iraqi people and 4) and the March to Baghdad.
In six months of ongoing protests, most western outlets have never offered as much on it as Layla Anwar did that day (and the above's an excerpt, click on the link to read her full post). And when the western media has bothered to note it, they've ignored so much.
With the exception of the Guardian, no one's wanted to touch the issue of women and girls raped and tortured in Iraqi prisons. When Jane Arraf 'touched' on it, she did so by nothing that this was happening -- per Amnesty International [see this March 11th entry aptly titled "Iraqi women and girls (and the silence on this topic)" and snapshots for March 11th, March 12th, and March 13th] -- and then went on to share a report about the abuse of . . . a male prisoner.
Only the Guardian -- among western media -- has shown any bravery. AFP won't even acknowledge that this is the underpinning of the protests. Haifa Zangana (Guardian) was one of the people covering reality:
The plight of women detainees was the starting point for the mass protests that have spread through many Iraqi provinces since 25 December 2012. Their treatment by the security forces has been a bleeding wound – and one shrouded in secrecy, especially since 2003. Women have been routinely detained as hostages – a tactic to force their male loved ones to surrender to security forces, or confess to crimes ascribed to them. Banners and placards carried by hundreds of thousands of protesters portray images of women behind bars pleading for justice.
[. . .]
No wonder, ten years after the invasion, the Iraqi authorities are accused by US-based Human Rights Watch of "violating with impunity the rights of Iraq's most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees". HRW's account is echoed by a report by the Iraqi parliament's own human rights and women, family and children's committees, which found that there are 1,030 women detainees suffering from widespread abuse, including threats of rape.
Responding to these findings, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki threatened to "arrest those members of parliament who had discussed the violence against women detainees". Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani has acknowledged that there are 13,000 prisoners in custody accused of terror offences, but he only mentioned women detainees in passing [. . .]
Another person able to cover reality was Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera) who reported:
Heba al-Shamary (name changed for security reasons) was released last week from an Iraqi prison where she spent the last four years.
“I was tortured and raped repeatedly by the Iraqi security forces,” she told Al Jazeera. “I want to tell the world what I and other Iraqi women in prison have had to go through these last years. It has been a hell.”
Heba was charged with terrorism, as so many Iraqis who are detained by the Iraqi security apparatus are charged.
“I now want to explain to people what is occurring in the prisons that [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki and his gangs are running,” Heba added. “I was raped over and over again, I was kicked and beaten and insulted and spit upon.”
Heba’s story, horrific as it is, unfortunately is but one example of what a recent report from Amnesty International refers to as “a grim cycle of human rights abuses” in Iraq today.
Six months worth of protests and what has the bulk of the western media done with it? Nothing.
Protests continued today. Demonstrators turned out in Jalawla, in Falluja, in Ramadi, in Kirkuk and in Baghdad. They're declaring Monday "The Day of the Detainee." In the Iraq 'legal' system, people charged with crimes but not convicted disappear for years in jail as do people who have never been charged with a crime but were rounded up and tossed in a prison. National Iraqi News Agency notes that the security was beefed up throughout Anbar Province around sit-in areas. They did this in Diyala Province as well and "Shahab-Badri, Vice-Chairman of the Committee of Religious Scholars of Iraq, demanded security forces to take responsibility by ensuring access to worshipers to prayers yards , calling on the Iraqi government to meet the constitutional and legitimate usurped rights that the demonstrators claimed since more than six months."
NINA also reports, "A security source in Kirkuk province, said that rapid intervention special forces of Dijlah Operations Command arrested the coordinator of the Popular Committees for the mass movement in the province Sheikh Khaled Mafraji." Alsumaria notes that the Kurdish movement -- both in Kirkuk and nationally -- is calling for the Sheikh's immediate release.
He was not the only one arrested. Al Mada reports that "SWAT" forces arrested him and that activists were also arrested in Ramadi and Kirkuk. Rafie al-Issawi declares that Nouri al-Maliki is underestimating the strength and the will of the protesters. al-Issawi is identified as that outgoing Minister of Finance. (December 20th, his staff and bodyguards were seized by Nouri's force. One of the things that has prompted the ongoing protests. He announced he was resigning. I have no idea where that stands. Where it stands with Ayad Allawi is that al-Issawi has resigned. Both are members of Iraqiya -- Allawi is the head of Iraqiya -- and Allawi considers al-Issawi out of the Cabinet.)
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