SICKOFITRADLZ

Monday, March 26, 2018

What were they thinking?

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Reality Show" from Sunday.

What were the idiots thinking when they nominated Hillary in 2016? That was pure stupidity. I knew, in 2008, when Hillary didn’t get the nomination, that she’d never be president. I knew because of the way she was trashed. Keith Olbermann, Bill Moyers, Kimberly Krenshaw, Eve Enser, Lie Face Melissa Harris Lacewell Perry and so many more tore her apart in 2008.

Marjorie Cohn, of the National Lawyer’s Guild, wrote a piece that was all over the internet insisting that Hillary was calling for Barack to be assassinated. Congress member Clyburne was calling Bill (and Hillary) racist.

I cried in 2008 because I knew she’d never be able to recover.

And she couldn’t.

Leave aside that she was a War Hawk as Secretary of State, she still couldn’t have recovered from that.

Her image was mud. And that was with Democrats.

So this idea that eight years later she could coast to the presidency? That was always stupidity.

I think she was as wounded as LBJ in 2008 – as wounded as he was in 1968. This is from WSWS:

“I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” So concluded a nationally-televised speech by US President Lyndon Johnson largely given over to the crisis engulfing American imperialism in Vietnam, delivered March 31, 1968.

In his speech, Johnson outlined a plan to “unilaterally” cease major military operations against North Vietnam in exchange for a cessation of hostilities in South Vietnam, where, he conceded, the Tet Offensive had weakened the American hold on rural areas. But Johnson still refused to admit that the US was not only engaged in war against North Vietnam—which his administration had provoked by seizing on the bogus Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964—but a revolt waged by the oppressed Vietnamese masses against the American stooge regime in Saigon.

Johnson pleaded for a tax bill to fund the war—he made no new promises of social spending—and warned gravely of “the sharpest financial threat in the postwar era, a threat to the dollar’s role as the keystone of international trade and finance in the world.” He ended his speech by warning of the growth “of division in the American house,” an allusion to fears over the emergence of a militant working class as well as the shattering of the Democratic Party, whose liberal wing had abandoned him over Vietnam and whose reactionary southern wing, of which Johnson himself was a product, was coalescing behind the far-right demagogue George Wallace of Alabama.

FAIR? Where were you in 2008 when FAIR was pimping and attacking Hillary?

I know where Ava and C.I. were. They were calling it out. They documented everything. Go look at THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW. They even called out Howard Dean and THE NEW YORK TIMES with their “was there sexism? We didn’t see any.” Ava and C.I. went to the matt for all the women running in 2008. They did a great job.

But I remember the way she was seen and I knew, after the DNC convention, that she’d never be president. They poisoned the well. And the Democratic Party should have known that.

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

Monday, March 26, 2018. The Iraq War continues but the United States works hard to pretend otherwise.

Read this nonsense very carefully.

Marcie Mills‏ @MMTakeAction Mar 24

Replying to @NashvilleResist @annkillion and

1,400,000 Americans have been killed by gun violence since John Lennon was killed in 1980 -

101,303 Service men and women have been killed fighting on foreign soil.

Korean War - 36,914
Vietnam War - 58,220
Afghanistan War - 1,695
Iraq War - 4,474

#Imagine
#GunReformNow

8 retweets18 likes

You get what it says, right? Only American lives matter.

In a war, it only matters to the faux resistance when American lives are taken.

Nicholas J.S. Davis (NEW MINT PRESS) notes the death toll in Iraq is easily 2.38 million killed since the start of the 2003 US-led invasion.

But Marcie Mills doesn't give two s**ts about those people. 2.38 million dead? Oh, they're not Americans. Most killed by American violence? Oh, they don't matter.

How dare that blond bitch try to grandstand on John Lennon. "Give Peace a Chance"? Not only is it a song she's unfamiliar with, it's a thought that never entered her xenophobic head.

She and others want to scream about the NRA while failing to grasp that to the people in the Middle East, we are the NRA. We are arming and killing. And the useless Marcie Mills pretends she's a member of the 'resistance' and accomplishing something. By yet again? Doing not one damn thing.

Check Marcie Mills' non-stop Twitter feed. Note that she said not one word about the Iraq War. Guess you can't go down on Hillary and still find the voice to call out the ongoing Iraq War, huh? A bunch of trashy fools trying to act like John Lennon is their spiritual guide when John Lennon would pull it out and piss on them. Hey, Marcie, unlike your pressed against the glass face, I knew John Lennon.

It's cute the way Hillary and Her Vaginal Secretions lie and re-write history. Take this jerk off.

‏ @josephripken

Replying to @RonaldITrump @sukatra and

Hillary Clinton represented the city of New York, where 80% of voters supported the Iraq war. 

It's called democracy.

Derp.

2 replies

Bradley Duke, I'm sorry to have to school your lazy, uneducated ass but Hillary was in the US Senate. She didn't represent the city of New York, she represented the state of New York. And where did they stand on war on Iraq? Uh oh, Bradley Dukey Head, you're full of s**t on that one too.

Leslie Eaton (NEW YORK TIMES), February 21, 2003:

The prospect of invading Iraq is significantly less popular in New York State than in the nation as a whole, and New Yorkers are more critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to a survey released yesterday by the Siena Research Institute in Loudonville, N.Y.
[. . .]
Residents of the New York City metropolitan area were less likely to favor an invasion than people upstate, and more likely to think that the United States has not done all it could to solve its problems with Iraq through diplomatic means.

Wow, Bradley Duke, you were wrong about everything. Your punk ass just got served in public. Maybe you'll stop lying about Iraq now?

Probably not. Whores like you never learn.

‏Verified account @votevets

Both @POTUS and @ambjohnbolton worked to avoid serving in #Vietnam. Yet they’re chomping at the bit to start new wars with #NorthKorea and #Iran and sending another generation — someone else’s loved ones — off to fight for them. #chickenhawk

101 replies1,437 retweets2,404 likes

They do reTweet Vote Vets.

Vote Vets, you're welcome. Speaking on behalf of myself and my friends who protested the war on Vietnam, you're welcome. Do you ever wonder what we gave up? Some of us -- Elaine and I did -- put our lives and our education on hold to make ending the Vietnam War our top priority. And we're left to do the hard work again with Iraq while you sit on your fat ass doing nothing but electing War Hawks of the Democratic Party. Do you ever get how many people are dead because you support War Hawks?

Probably not.

Jane Fonda did more to end the Iraq War than Hillary Clinton ever did. Jane Fonda saved the lives of many Vietnamese civilians by exposing Nixon's bombings of the dikes.

Here's an effort from Joan Baez. One of her efforts to get the word out and end the war.

Vote Vets has it's face firmly planted on its nuts and has confused the smell of their junk with the smell of liberty.

I'm really getting tired of the lying and the whoring that helps the wars continue.

Here's some truth about today's ongoing wars:

‏Verified account @RT_com

Iraq War 15 years on: How America brought chaos & bloodshed to a nation on.rt.com/91go

1:43

8,524 views

37 replies227 retweets202 likes

Need more truths? Sunday's WEEKEND EDITION (NPR):

[Lulu] GARCIA-NAVARRO: At the height of the war, there were almost 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq trying to quell an insurgency and stabilize a country in the grips of a vicious civil conflict. And the U.S. is still involved in Iraq. Azmat Khan is a future of war fellow at the New America Foundation and a New York Times Magazine contributing writer. She joins us from New York to talk about Iraq, past and present. Welcome to the program.

AZMAT KHAN: Good morning.

[. . .]

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You touched on it there that the country fractured during the war in so many ways. But certainly, sectarianism was one of the big ways. There was Sunni, Shiite, Kurds, Christians. Is this even a country that still holds together?

KHAN: When the Americans arrived in Iraq, they often strategically worked with particular tribal groups on the ground - ones that had been disenfranchised under Saddam - and then found wealth and contracts and jobs under the Americans. And they played some of these groups against one another in an effort to sort of quell the insurgency that was spawned by this invasion. And what wound up happening is that you had these rivalries and rifts that have now become sectarian in nature, that perhaps weren't so sectarian to begin with but really became so with time.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The U.S. is still involved in Iraq, fighting ISIS, even though Iraq declared victory over ISIS late last year.

Sinan Antoon (NYT via QUARTZ for those who don't want to give a click to the outlet that sold the illegal war):

No one knows for certain how many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago. Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again. The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a "blunder", or even a "colossal mistake". It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large.

Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago, I watched Mr. Bush on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", dancing and talking about his paintings.) The pundits and "experts" who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.

I never thought that Iraq could ever be worse than it was during Saddamʹs reign, but that is what Americaʹs war achieved and bequeathed to Iraqis.

The Iraq War is a crime and a travesty and how shameful that Americans refuse to face up to what their government did and continues to do. At a certain point, you have to accept that you either speak out regularly or you are giving your consent. On Saturday, in many areas of the country, people gave their consent by navel gazing. I'm really glad that MLK's granddaughter was able to be used as a prop -- keep them dream alive, right! She's not mature enough to have any real thoughts but, hey, prop her up at a gun demonstration and let's pretend like that made a difference. Let's even pretend that it makes up for the US government killing her grandfather while we're being delusional.

The Children's March risked much and made a difference. Saturday's b.s. was corporate sponsored and corporate embraced. The US government has always been thrilled when the spotlight was on anything but their own actions. David Hogg doesn't know that because what does he know? How to get highlights in his hair? Well, that and how to get publicity for himself. We saw that during Vietnam as well. Various men like Tom Hayden who stepped forward to stand on the work of women and men of color.

David Hogg is the corporate and media's lovechild because he's not doing anything that really matters. They pet him on the head like they did Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Let David find the guts to take on the true killers -- the weapons makers, the 'defense' (assault) industry and suddenly the media stops fawning on him.

Then we start throwing you in prison. That's what happened with nuns, remember? Think I'm talking about the days of Bully Boy Bush? Nope.

AP from February 2014:

An 84-year-old nun was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison for breaking into a U.S. nuclear weapons complex and defacing a bunker holding bomb-grade uranium, a demonstration that exposed serious security flaws.

Two other activists who broke into the facility with Megan Rice were sentenced to more than five years in prison, in part because they had much longer criminal histories.

That was during Barack Obama's second term as president. Nearly three years in prison for 'defacing a bunker.'

Again, David Hogg, color in your lines, be a good soldier, don't question the government or anything that really matters. Keep reducing social issues to a narrative of personal irresponsibility and not a systemic issue and you will be applauded because you are doing nothing and are no real threat to the status quo.

You're a self-applauding piece of propaganda who makes no real change and who tackles no real issue. Your being weak and ineffective is the very thing that allows the war makers to let the corporate media cover and embrace you. In other words, you're a tool -- in every sense of the term.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Reality Show" went up yesterday. New content at THIRD:

Saturday, March 24, 2018

We should all ask where the money is going

Thank you to Elaine for her sweet words (“News? ”). And thank you to rapper Cardi B. Some appear to be laughing at her but I think she’s exactly right. We should all be asking the government, “What you doing with my f**king money?” Newsweek notes:

Of course, all those accomplishments equated to an influx of income for Cardi. But she wasn't too thrilled with the massive cut the government took, especially since she doesn’t have proof the money is going to where the IRS claims. “When you donate to a kid from a foreign country, they give you updates on what they’re doing with your donation,” Cardi said.

“I want to know what you’re doing with my tax money because I’m from New York and the streets is always dirty. We was voted the dirtiest city in America. What is y'all doing?” she continued, citing New York’s filthy Metropolitan Transportation Authority service, which has rats on the tracks, as her proof that the city isn’t doing everything they could be doing with tax money. About $5.3 billion worth of taxes goes to New York's MTA, according to New York Daily News.

We should all be demanding to know exactly where our tax money goes. And the media should be covering the $1.3 trillion spending bill every night on the nightly news for a week now that it’s passed, reporting on specific sections.

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

Friday, March 23, 2018.

Let's start with another whore in David Brock's bordello.

‏ @RVAwonk

Just so we're all clear: Trump's new national security adviser John Bolton didn't just lie about WMD's to promote the Iraq war. He stated, in 2015, that the Iraq war — which cost thousands of lives, wasted trillions of dollars, and ultimately spawned ISIS — was "worth it."

141 replies2,709 retweets4,549 likes

Sit your tired ass down. Just stop. The anniversary of the Iraq War was this week and you didn't Tweet about that, did you, whore? No, you are one of those wack jobs with conspiracy theories about Russia. You are so embarrassing. You're worse than the flat earthers. But that's fine, crazy, just don't try to grand stand on Iraq.

David Brock's whores always think they can pretend to care about Iraq and that the world won't notice they only mention Iraq when they can trash Republicans -- and only Republicans, they never use it to trust Democrats but, hey, what cunning whore goes out of their way to trash one of the johns?

Bolton thinks it's "worth it." Like Mad Maddie Albright thought killing half a million Iraqi kids was "worth it"?

Clearly, Caroline O, you think it was "worth it" too because you've can't say a damn word about an ongoing war that's still resulting in the deaths of Iraqis and the deaths of US service members (7 last week alone -- 59 since August of 2014). How are you any different from John Bolton? Because I'm not seeing a bit of difference between you and Bolton. Both of you, through your actions and deeds, normalize and condone an illegal war. Why don't you go to David and say, "Hey, be a good pimp and don't send me out in the rain tonight?" Then you can use that time to contemplate how whorish someone has to be to only bring up an ongoing war when it's too her political advantage?

Scurry off now, no one wants to contract a social disease from you. No one needs to hear from you. As Jhene Aiko sings, "Yes, your mama did, she raised a fool wow" ("Never Call Me," from her album TRIP).

Or maybe Caroline O can scurry off to John Bolton?

As Isaiah noted May 12, 2005, he is "The Swingin' John Bolton."

Yes, Bolton was a menace and remains one. But we'll cite those who speak out against war, war, war and not silly tricks like Caroline O.

Tulsi Gabbard‏Verified account @TulsiGabbard 12h12 hours ago

I can’t think of anyone more dangerous than John Bolton to be the National Security Adviser. Pompeo and Bolton are standard bearers for the interventionist neocon foreign policy establishment, addicted to regime change wars, without any thought of the deathly cost or consequence

116 replies799 retweets1,551 likes

McMaster is out. Trump’s choice of John Bolton to replace him, following his pick of Pompeo, continues the extreme warhawk neocon takeover of the White House. Bolton helped build the case of WMD lies that was used to invade Iraq. Bolton still champions that war today.

51 replies613 retweets1,135 likes

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Eric London (WSWS) observes:

Bolton’s reemergence within the inner circle of American imperialist decision-making exposes the role played by the Democratic Party since the run-up to the Iraq War, launched 15 years ago this week. At each stage in the preparation, launching, and expansion of the war, the Democratic Party sought to divert mass opposition to war behind its own electoral campaigns, including that of John Kerry in 2004, the 2006 midterm elections, the Barack Obama campaign in 2008, and those of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries and general election of 2016.

Despite the fact that the Democratic Party controlled the presidency from 2009 to 2017, not a single leading figure responsible for war crimes, including the CIA officials responsible for torture, have been punished or even fired.

Instead, Obama escalated imperialist war around the world. Just this week, the Democratic Party voted for a $1.3 trillion federal budget which includes massive increases in military spending. As a result of the imperialist character of both parties, a detestable figure like John Bolton is able to return to the Oval Office.

The budget?

Early this morning, the US Senate followed the House's lead and passed the $1.3 trillion spending bill that now awaits the signature of the President. Senator Rand Paul's raised some serious questions about the bill (we posted those here) but for the snapshot we'll note this one.

Senator Rand Paul‏Verified account @RandPaul 14h14 hours ago

Page 357.  Sec. 8116 no funds can be used in Iraq in contravention of the War Powers Act

sounds good but . . .  haven’t we been back in Iraq at war against new foes without any new congressional authorization?

28 replies1,007 retweets2,222 likes

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There hasn't been a congressional authorization. Yet the war continues, day after day, and apparently just so it can be a political prop for posers like Caroline O.

May 12th, Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections and no one's been bothered by the fact that Ramadan takes place from May 15th to June 14th. Past elections in Iraq have required many deyas -- in the case of the 2010 parliamentary elections, many months -- to settle.

Hayder al-Abadi staked his future on the premature claim that he vanquished ISIS in Iraq. That, of course, hasn't proven to be the case. He hasn't been very effective eliminating corruption either. MEM reports, "Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi yesterday ordered an immediate investigation into allegations that fake jobs in the public sector were being offered to citizens by political parties in order to win votes in the country’s upcoming general elections."

Christopher M. Blanchard (CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE) notes:

Prime Minister Abadi has announced his plan to lead a coalition of mostly Shia parties and independent Sunni figures under the framework of his Victory (Nasr) Alliance. In launching his own coalition, Abadi is competing with Vice President and former prime minister Nouri al Maliki, who, like Abadi, is a leading member of the Dawa Party. Maliki’s State of Law alliance has been critical of Abadi’s leadership, and some State of Law members are vocal opponents of Iraq’s security partnership with the United States. Several former leaders of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) militias organized to help fight the Islamic State are participating in the elections as candidates under the rubric of the Fatah Alliance (see textbox below).
Other prominent Iraqi figures have organized coalitions and lists to contest the election, including a largely Sunni list led by Vice President Osama al Nujayfi and the National Alliance jointly led by Vice President Iyad Allawi, COR Speaker Salim al Juburi, and former deputy Prime Minister Salih al Mutlaq. Among Shia leaders, Ammar al Hakim’s Wisdom (Hikma) movement has formally withdrawn from the Prime Minister’s coalition, but Hakim reportedly intends to coordinate with Abadi during government formation negotiations after the election. Shia cleric Muqtada al Sadr is directing his followers to support the multiparty, anti-corruption oriented Sa’irun coalition. Sadr has criticized the participation of PMF leaders in the election and is campaigning on a populist reform and anti-corruption platform.

Barack Obama ousted Nouri al-Maliki in the fall of 2014 to make Hayder prime minister. Former prime minister and forever thug Nouri wants to be prime minister again despite his flunkies repeatedly insisting that is not the case. ALSUMARIA reported yesterday that Nouri has insisted Iraq is passing through a serious, make-it-or-break-it period. Naturally, Nouri believes he's the one who can save the country -- despite nearly destroying it in 2014.. Today, ALSUMARIA notes that he's saying Iraq needs someone who can lead the country in construction and progress. Others who would like to become prime minister include Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr who has teamed up with five other groups -- including the Iraqi Communist Party -- for this election cycle. Two others who'd like to become prime minister, Ammar al-Hakim and Ayad Allawi, have done joint photo-ops. Ayad Allawi should have been prime minister per the 2010 elections. But Nouri refused to step down for eight months and brought the country to a stalemate. Barack Obama, then president, refused to back the winner of the election and instead brokered The Erbil Agreement which, in November of 2010, gave Nouri a second term as prime minister -- in effect, nullifying the election results and overturning the will of the Iraqi people.

March 7, 2010, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted in August 2010, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality."

November 10, 2010, The Erbil Agreement is signed. November 11, 2010, the Iraqi Parliament has their first real session in over eight months and finally declares a president, a Speaker of Parliament and Nouri as prime minister-designate -- all the things that were supposed to happen in April of 2010 but didn't.

If the post-election process goes even 1/4 as poorly as it did in 2010, Ramadan will only compound that. Holding the election three days before Ramadan was very poor planning.

‏ @aliraqi9993

#Iraqi_Elections
All want to reform, but few are sinceres.
The reformation in Iraq must be started right now via a set of Procedures are:
Cancel privileges and pensions retailed; work on rehabilitating infrastructure and balanced external relations;

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