SICKOFITRADLZ: Will they pay attention to John Stauber's warnings?

Despite fantasy books by @NicholsUprising & others, @TheDemocrats' ballyhooed #WisconsinUprising was crushed.

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From Ava and C.I.'s "Media: Fantasies and Fancies in place of Facts" from 2013:

Facts are needed for an honest debate. 400,000 votes were not needed. Walker received 1,335,585 votes while Tom Barrett received 1,164,480 votes. 171,106 was the amount of additional votes needed to defeat Walker. Does Rothschild struggle with basic addition and subtraction? That would explain a great deal.

(For any wondering, 939,266 registered voters did not vote in the recall. Had Rothschild and company worked harder, they wouldn't have had to pull from Walker's support, only motivate 1/4 of the registered non-voters to vote and vote for Barrett. All figures from the Government Accountability Board of the State of Wisconsin.)

Rothschild clearly struggles with other realities. Despite the (small) ongoing protests against Walker, his approval rate was 48% with 46% disapproval. Rothschild may want to portray Walker as hugely out of step with Wisconsin but the polling does not suggest that's the opinion of the state's citizens.

That doesn't mean Walker's good or great. It does mean that despite running off national readers with their near exclusive focus on Wisconsin, The Progressive has failed to communicate effectively to the people of Wisconsin on what they see as Walker's faults.

But what does that matter when (Californian) Kris Welch is noting her outrage over Walker? Does the idiot not grasp that one thing that can force the public to support a politician is attacks from outsiders?

As we listened to Matt whine and whine, we were reminded that Little Media only mirrors Big Media.

I see more problems coming.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, May 25, 2017. As The Mosul Slog continues, we're going to underscore that the new Judith Miller is a danger -- and the stooges who support her are dangers as well.

Day 218 of The Mosul Slog.

‏ @iraqi_day

#PMU advancing toward Baaj west #Mosul on the 3 fronts, multiple villages have been stormed. #Iraq

1 reply23 retweets47 likes

Day 218 and still it continues.

BBC NEWS reports:

Iraq has opened an inquiry into claims that its forces abused and killed civilians in the battle for Mosul against so-called Islamic State (IS).

An interior ministry statement said it would take legal measures against anyone proven to have been "negligent".
It comes after Der Spiegel published an article by a photojournalist who was embedded with the ministry's troops.
Ali Arkady says he took pictures of detainees suspended from ceilings and that others were tortured and raped.

Wait, wait! Abuses? And it wasn't reported by Rukmini Callimachi?

Of course, it wasn't reported by her. She's THE NEW YORK TIMES' new Judith Miller -- as we pointed out February 10th.

Rukmini is very popular with Glenn Greenwald but then so was the Iraq War once upon a time.

Rukmini poured propaganda out her blow hole and the usual saps lapped it up like it was 2002 all over again.

Rukmini Callimachi fans should be suspect.

Especially if, like Glenn Greenwald, they got it wrong in real time (he supported the Iraq War).

There's a barrier between those people and critical thought.

REUTERS notes:

Iraq's interior minister on Wednesday ordered an investigation into allegations that members of the security forces had tortured, killed and abused civilians in the campaign to oust Islamic State militants from Mosul.
The inquiry was in response to a report by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel last week that included images of apparent torture taken by a freelance photographer embedded with the Interior Ministry's elite Emergency Response Division (ERD).

Photographs showed detainees accused of affiliation with Islamic State hanging from the ceiling with their arms bent behind them, and the journalist wrote of prisoners being tortured to death, raped and stabbed with knives.

‏ @doamuslims

#Iraq - SPIEGEL photographer Ali Arkady documents Iraqi security forces abducting, torturing, raping, & killing Sunnis around #Mosul.

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Rukmini was too busy socializing to get the job done. But, hey, she got a lot of free meals, didn't she?

Chad Garland (STARS AND STRIPES) notes:

Under a law known as the Leahy law, the U.S. is prohibited from supporting units accused of human rights abuses for which “credible” evidence exists. Officials with the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition could not confirm the allegations against the Iraqi forces but said the United States does not currently train or equip the Emergency Response Division.
“Any violation of the law of armed conflict would be unacceptable and should be investigated in a transparent manner,” the U.S.-led international coalition in Iraq said in a statement. “Prime Minister (Haider al-Abadi) has stated that he has a zero-tolerance policy for any improper action by the Iraqi Security Forces and would thoroughly investigate any such allegations.”

RT adds:

In the article, which was in stark contrast to Western reporting from Mosul, the photographer claimed that the ERD persecuted numerous civilians on “vague” suspicions of links with IS.
The piece included photos by Arkady of people hanging from the ceiling with their arms tied up behind their backs, as well as other torture scenes.
The victims were picked up during night raids, which included rape and looting, and taken to villages outside Mosul where there were no foreign journalists, he said.

Oh, Rukmini.

If only someone could have warned us in real time that Rukmini was reporting lies . . .

Oh, wait.

I did.

But don't worry, Rukmini will be fine. (A) THE NEW YORK TIMES has lied about Iraq repeatedly and (B) Glenn Greenwald will continue to support her.

At some point, the world's going to notice that except for the Ed Snowden dumped in his lap, Glenn's not accomplished anything.

As Rebecca asked earlier this week "remember when 'the intercept' was supposed to be an important outlet? "

No start-ups had more money and no start-up has done less.

At this point, he's making Tina Brown's TALK look like an investigative journal.

The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS -- updated: