Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Paul Krugman the online bully


Norman Solomon (ICH) writes:

Four weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote that “nothing he has done since the inauguration allays fears that he is in effect a Putin puppet.” The liberal pundit concluded with a matter-of-fact reference to “the Trump-Putin axis.”

Such lines of attack have become routine, citing and stoking fears that the president of the United States is a Kremlin stooge. The meme is on the march — and where it will end, nobody knows. Actually, it could end with a global nuclear holocaust.

The incessant goading and denunciations of Trump as a Kremlin flunky are escalating massive pressure on him to prove otherwise. Exculpatory behavior would involve setting aside possibilities for detente and, instead, confronting Russia — rhetorically and militarily.

Hostile behavior toward Russia is what much of the U.S. media and political establishment have been fervently seeking. It’s also the kind of behavior that could drag us all over the brink into thermonuclear destruction. But c’mon, why worry about that?


I agree.  This is a very important issue.

So is bullying.

And why is the New York Times allowing Paul Krugman to be an online bully?

A person golfs with the president and Krugman thinks it's okay to demand that the person be shunned?

Krugman is disgusting.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Tuesday:


Tuesday, February 28, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue as some on the left rush to embrace a War Criminal.


As so many losers, whiners and cry babies stroke their little hate machines, we see where all this stupidity leads.

FOX NEWS reports:

Former President George W. Bush has told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he was "frustrated" when the U.S. pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011, clearing the way for ISIS to be formed from the remains of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"I think what people have got to realize is this bunch of thugs can be defeated, because we did so with the surge," Bush said in a portion of the interview broadcast Monday. "And we can win again."



Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.

Who cares what the hell he thinks?

We were very lucky in the last 8 years because the scum hid under a rock and stayed there.

We didn't have to hear from him.

What changed?


He saw an opening.


The media kissed his ass -- long before 9/11.

They stroked his ego.

They lapped at his crotch.

Only after the public had solidly turned against Bully Boy Bush and the Iraq War did the media begin to treat him the way they should have all along.

Even then, they didn't go far enough.

They couldn't.

Because indicting Bully Boy Bush was indicting themselves.


Former President George W. Bush levels tacit criticism at Trump







Does THE NEW YORK TIMES like that?


The same NEW YORK TIMES that swallowed every lie Bully Boy Bush told -- right down to the hairy root?

The paper was on board with war much more than most of the public realizes.

They were selling war on Iraq in October of 2001.  With a front page story.

Featuring anonymice (as always).  Two unnamed Iraqi 'defectors' who explained Saddam Hussein had this (no) and was planning that (no).

Guess what?

That story had nothing to do with Judith Miller.

It was written by two men.

The paper eventually kicked Miller to the curb.

But as we've long noted, Judith didn't edit her own copy, didn't decide where on the front page it went, didn't assign herself stories or even deliver the papers.

But the paper pretended she did.

Pretended Judith Miller was the problem.

The worst of her actions, the absolute worst, indicted the paper far more than it did her.  If the paper had behaved as a journalistic outlet, there would have been checks.

Judith wasn't the problem.

She was, instead, a sign of how deep the problems were at the paper.

The problems were never fixed.

Which is why the paper could and did (and does) go after Donald Trump.

And some love it because they don't like Donald.

So we applaud lies if they're about someone we don't like?

Is that how it works?





Watching the media redeem Bush's image in order to use him against Trump is fake news historical revisionism in action.






Yes, they rush to redeem him.

Even worse?

Those on the left slobbering over Bully Boy Bush.

I don't let Barack Obama off for his part in the Iraq War (it's still continuing, if you didn't notice) but I never forget who it started under.

And as long as that War Criminal was hiding his filthy soul under a rock, he was the least of my worries.

But everyone needs to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror before they start applauding this piece of trash who's responsible for the deaths of millions.


Here are two idiots who need to take a look at themselves.





George W. Bush’s criticisms of Trump illustrate the president’s threat to fundamental freedoms








When Liberals are citing George W Bush as a voice of moderation and sanity, you understand how extreme the right has become under Trump...







What it illustrates is how far you will go to stroke your hate and what you understand is how far the so-called left has fallen that they will cite Bully Boy Bush.

The children of Iraq did not deserve what Bully Boy Bush unleashed and a big f**k you to any American who cites the War Criminal as though anything he says -- ever -- is anything less than pandering.

Shame on you all.


Let's look at it again:

Former President George W. Bush has told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he was "frustrated" when the U.S. pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011, clearing the way for ISIS to be formed from the remains of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"I think what people have got to realize is this bunch of thugs can be defeated, because we did so with the surge," Bush said in a portion of the interview broadcast Monday. "And we can win again."


The surge was a failure.

Just like Bully Boy Bush, the surge was a failure.

No one ever doubted that the violence would go down if you flooded Iraq with US troops.

(Though some argue that the actions Bully Boy Bush took had the effect of protecting Iraqis carrying out genocide.)

But that wasn't the point of the surge.


Alex Kingsbury (BOSTON GLOBE) explained in 2014:

The goals of the Iraq surge were spelled out explicitly by the White House in Jan. 2007: Stop the raging sectarian bloodletting and reconcile Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in the government. “A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations,” then-President George W. Bush said.
In light of all that has happened since that announcement, it is jaw-dropping to still hear the surge described as a success. Yet the myth of its success is as alive as it is dangerous. It’s a myth that prevents us from grappling with the realities of the last effort in Iraq, even as we embark on another.
To believe in the myth of the surge is to absolve Iraqis of their responsibility to resolve their differences. It gives the US government an unrealistic sense of its own capabilities. And it ignores the roots of the conflict now stretching from Damascus to Baghdad.

The US military did what they were tasked with.

That's not in question.

But they were doing that to provide "space," remember, for the government of Iraq (installed by the US government) to work on reconciliation.

Didn't happen.

Never happened.

And that's why we repeatedly pointed that out in the last two years -- as Barack did a similar thing -- bombing and sending in US forces would 'fix' the problem.  No, the problem was a hostile government.

Back to Kinsbury:


Which brings us to the second and equally important goal of the surge: political reconciliation. This also failed — and in spectacular fashion.
The corrupt, viciously sectarian government of Nouri al-Malaki was prone to terrible abuses of any and all opponents. And Muslims weren’t the only ones in the crosshairs. “Christians are finished in Iraq,” wrote one former Human Rights Watch worker this fall, after an exodus of some 750,000 people that predated the rise of the Islamic State.



 The surge was a failure.

So were the "benchmarks."

Anyone remember those?

Bully Boy Bush proposed a series of benchmarks that the Iraqi government would have to meet in order to continue receiving tons of US taxpayer dollars.

They never met them.

But Congress continued to fund Iraq.

A Congress controlled by the Democrats -- both houses -- by the way, so let's not pretend the Iraq War is only Republicans.

One of the benchmarks was reconciliation.

Never met.

And Barack, with the operation he started in August of 2014, never put any conditions on US forces and US money.

So there's been no reconciliation.

How stupid do you have to be to not grasp that even if you eliminate the Islamic State, something else will pop up?

How dumb do you have to be to not grasp that until the root causes are addressed, nothing will change?

Pretty dumb.

And as many idiots have proved this week, America is full of dumb people -- look at the ones rushing to embrace Bully Boy Bush because he criticized Donald Trump.

The Debra Messings of the world (she slobbered with two reTweets on BBB) are always with us.  You walk past them without making eye contact.  But a lot of people who are actually intelligent and actually care are acting just as crazy as that psycho.

Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal.

You do not cite him and look credible.



Yglesias on Bush reveals one thing. Those who feel embarrassed that they supported the Iraq War have extra incentive to normalise Bush.





They are 'normalizing' him and his actions.

I seem to remember stories about the KKK in the election.

I ignored them, I have real issues to address and you don't give publicity to hate groups.

But some people were bent out of shape because the KKK supported Donald Trump (or so the press/rumors went).

Who cares?

They're going to support someone in an election.

It's not like Donald Trump was meeting with them.

But The Debra Messings . . .

Donald Trump ignored the hate group -- as he should have done.

The Debra Messings embrace Bully Boy Bush today.

Can he breathe life back into Iraq and bring back all the dead?

Can he breathe life into all the US troops who died there?



Please stop ignoring that George W Bush is responsible for unnecessary deaths of over 4,000 Americans in Iraq and countless Iraqis.







There is no redemption.

He could (and should) be on trial at the Hague but even that wouldn't provide him with redemption -- it would only allow justice to be served.

This is who the Debra Messings are embracing.

They're whores.

They have no ethics.

(Well that explains how they could support Hillary last year.)

In fairness to Debra, she didn't oppose the Iraq War.  She was on TV back then, remember?

Susan Sarandon opposed it.

Debbie was okay with it.

Let the Arab world note that Debra Messing supported the Iraq War.  Maybe she's a neocon.  I don't know.  Maybe she's part of the Jewish right-wing intellectual movement that pushed for the war.  Who knows?  But she was okay with the Iraq War.  Before it started.  After it started.


If that's you, dance along with Bully Boy Bush -- let him lead you through the gates of hell and may you suffer every moment as you should.


And when you get in bed with him, not only will you be sleeping in the wet spot, here's what you'll be endorsing.




 From Justice for the Babies of Fallujah:


Another male born in FGH 2 days ago with multiple gross congenital anomalies in addition to CHD , he is the 1st baby to 2 young healthy couples with no previous history of any anomaly
Another male born in FGH with multiple gross congenital anomalies in addition to CHD , he is the 1st baby to 2 young healthy couples with no previous history of any anomaly






The birth defects are a result of the weapons Bully Boy Bush authorized.

So that's what you're endorsing.

Not just death, not just a country of orphans, you're embracing inflicting birth defects on the Iraqi people.

Don't pretend you're rational or ethical if you're clutching Bully Boy Bush to your chest now.




We need to know the full magnitude of devastation caused by the US in Iraq; thanks








Meanwhile . . .




flag flying high on top of 4th bridge from the western part of the city for the first time in nearly 3 years.







Day 134 of The Mosul Slog and they got a bridge.

How impressive (sarcasm).  Why do I feel like the mom Lily Tomlin played in the skit that so upset CBS?  "Leg or no leg, supper's on the table."








Tori Amos performing "In The Springtime Of His Voodoo" live (song first appears on her BOYS FROM PELE album).


Tori appreciation was the theme for the latest rounds of community posts:

























Monday, February 27, 2017

1000 Oceans



That's Tori Amos and her video for "1000 Oceans."

It's a ballad.

I enjoy it because I love to listen and glide on her vocals. 

She really is an amazing singer.

Meanwhile, the war on Russia continues.

Patrick Martin (WSWS) notes:

Congressional Democrats and the bulk of the corporate media have intensified their anti-Russian campaign against the Trump White House, with renewed demands this weekend for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The new stage of the campaign has been fueled by reports that the Trump White House asked FBI officials to make public statements condemning as unfounded allegations of contacts between Trump election campaign officials and Russian intelligence operatives. It has also been bolstered by the support of one congressional Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, who said a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate.
The supposed Russian connection to the Trump campaign—for which no evidence has been presented, only unsupported leaks from anonymous intelligence agency officials—was the main topic of all of the Sunday television interview programs except the adamantly pro-Trump Fox News.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, appearing on the ABC Sunday interview program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from any investigation because of his prominent role in the 2016 Trump campaign.
“Let’s have the investigation and find out the truth,” she said, adding that 100 House Democrats and one Republican had signed a statement in support of legislation to “establish an outside, independent commission to study the personal, political and financial relationship between President Trump and the Russians.”
The ABC program then gave a platform to David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine, which published a lengthy cover story on the alleged Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. The article, headlined “Trump, Putin and the New Cold War,” is remarkable not only for its artwork—depicting the Kremlin firing a Star Wars-style death ray into the White House—but for a complete absence of any factual evidence, despite 13,000 words devoted to the subject.
Remnick began his remarks on ABC by declaring, “We have 17 intelligence agencies all saying, asserting, that there was serious interference in our presidential election.” He then admitted, “Well, here’s the problem. The problem is that intelligence agencies are not giving us the evidence of this.”



I'm so sick of the attacks on Russia.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Monday:


Monday, February 27, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue, the press lying continues, the stupidity continues . . .


Starting with the Academy Awards.  Proving that the whore of the press have no claim to respectability or honesty, Anna Lewis (COSMOPOLITAN) types, "Warren Beatty, who was presenting the award with Faye Dunaway, read out La La Land, [. . .]"

No, he did not.

Warren did not read out any winner.

He gave an exasperated look and handed Faye Dunaway the envelope and she searched what was written and then declared LA LA LAND.

What took place was the Academy's fault.

It was not Faye's fault and it certainly wasn't Warren's.  (As long disclosed here, Warren is a personal friend and I'll be damned if the press is going to get away with lying about him.  Which is why, late last night, I made a point to weigh in on this with "The press lying never ends.")

It is the Academy's fault, it is PricewaterhouseCoopers' fault.

Let's quote the statement from the accounting firm:


The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.

As I said last night, Warren and Faye were handed the wrong envelope.

And PwC is present to prevent this from happening.

Brief history, true or not, Bette Davis always claimed she was supposed to be nominated for OF HUMAN BONDAGE and her name was inadvertently left off the ballot that year and, as a compromise, voters were allowed to write in a nominee for Best Actress in the voting round.

The year after, what is now PwC took over the ballot counting.

She claimed it as a victory.

In the seventies, when Barbra Streisand was up for an Academy Award for composing "Evergreen" her friend Neil Diamond, who was already announced to present the award for Best Song, joked that he'd announce Barbra regardless of who won.

Though he was only joking, a few people got bent out of shape and the Academy had to clarify that the accounting firm's representatives were on hand at the ceremonies to ensure that something like that never happened.

In the 90s, an actress won and Charlie Sheen and others spread lies that she wasn't supposed to win, that her name was called by mistake.  PwC could have stepped forward to end that rumor but they did not.  The actress won the award (and deserved it).  I'm not reprinting her name here because this vicious lie should have ended long ago.

As I said last night, I don't know what made the TV screens.

I do know what happened in the auditorium.

Warren didn't announce the winner.

Faye did.

As people came on stage from LA LA LAND to accept, a friend leaned up (seated on the row behind me) and asked, "What's Warren doing?"

I had no idea.

But he was speaking to everyone on the stage, some of whom dismissed whatever he was saying.

What he was doing was attempting to stop the acceptance speech because he knew the envelope they'd been given wasn't for Best Picture.

Warren did PwC's job.

If anything, he's to be thanked.

The show would have ended without the correction if Warren hadn't stepped up and done the job that the Academy was apparently too cowardly to do itself.

Warren didn't do anything wrong and saved the ceremonies because we'd otherwise be reading this morning, "Day after handing out trophies, Academy announces Best Picture winner didn't really win."

The press needs to get their facts right and they need to quit lying.





FYI , since 1918, The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, a prize awarded for excellence in journalism.












The deeply stupid Alyssa Milano.

Sweetie, a nice rack carries you only so far.

THE NEW YORK TIMES helped start the Iraq War with lies.  That's reality.

That wasn't the first time they lied or the last.

Paul Newman voted Democrat, but he wasn't a partisan.

Paul knew the crap ass NEW YORK TIMES was garbage.

But then, unlike Alyssa, Paul was educated and he was informed.


Alyssa's just an idiot.




You can and should watch this right now on Netflix.















You can and should be aware that this is a propaganda film.



2017: The year Al-Qaeda terrorist organization won an Oscar 😂👏🏻

(Thread)







These are the Oscar-winning : "Life-savers" one minute, Al-Qaeda terrorists the next.








With their victory for "Best Documentary", the become the very first terrorists to ever win an Academy Award
Congrats!










"Congrats" to Al Qaeda and its masterful propaganda front, White Helmets, for winning at the , which must be renamed to the Orwells.










Poor Alyssa Milano, brain starved and fact challenged.












Even the propaganda of attending is problematic.  GUARDIAN says Syria's the reason for the no show and publishes a statement where the filmmakers said the same thing.  Woops.



And a view from Iraq.




The glorious White Helmets whose documentary just won at the .














A documentary legitimising Al-Qaeda's firefighters just won at the isn't that great?








The Iraqis fighting ISIS in Iraq?

They don't support ISIS in Syria.

As AL MANAR reports this morning:


The Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari stated on Monday that his country intends to fight ISIL in Syria on the basis of protecting the Iraqi territories from the threats of the terrorist group, not interfering in the Syrian affairs.
Al-Jaafari told the Russian news agency that the Iraq forces will strike the terrorists within the Syrian territories in case they pose an extended threat against the Iraqi territories.

And it is the same organization.

Day 133 of The Mosul Slog.


 And today there may be a change in US policy but most likely it will be the same.

We'll find out around mid-day.

But for now, it remains the same as it's been since August of 2014:  send in more US troops and bomb the country.

If there was a point to that, it was to create space for political reconciliation.

Only the latter didn't take place.

In that regard, it was like Bully Boy Bush's "surge."

Remember that?

Iraq was in trouble politically and security wise.

It was 2007, Bully Boy Bush sent more US troops in.

The point?

To improve security with US troops allowing the Iraqi politicians to focus on the reconciliation.

The second part never happened.

And judging by what's going on now?

It probably never will with the current players.

The editorial board of THE WASHINGTON POST notes:


The rise of the Islamic State was facilitated by sectarian tensions among Iraq’s majority Shiite and minority Sunni and Kurdish populations, and in particular by the discrimination against Sunnis by a Shiite-led Baghdad government backed by Iran. After the fall of Mosul in 2014 the Obama administration helped to engineer the removal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who fomented the sectarianism, and his replacement by the more moderate Haider al-Abadi, who pledged to build a more inclusive regime. Mr. Abadi’s good intentions have mostly been thwarted by sectarian hard-liners, including Iranian-controlled Shiite militia groups.

Consequently, the military offensive to recapture Mosul has gone ahead without accompanying political steps that might strengthen moderate Sunni leaders against militants who will seek to perpetuate an insurgency against the Baghdad government. A report this month from the Institute for Study of War warned, “Early indicators suggest that a post-ISIS Sunni insurgency may be forming in Iraq and al Qaeda (AQ) is trying to gain traction within it.” It said, “the U.S.-backed Coalition has been focused only on eliminating ISIS, not other insurgent groups or the conditions that grow them.”


At HUFFINGTON POST, Pui Hang Wong tries to tackle similar subjects.

But Wong is hampered by the facts and we see why HUFFINGTON POST can't be seen as a news outlet -- there is no fact check.

CERP funds uses for Sahwa (Sons Of Iraq, Awakenings) was not Saddam's recaptured money.

By the time the efforts towards creating SAHWA were started, that money was exhausted.

Claiming otherwise is outright lying.


Claiming that this was what was being used for Sahwa devalues all the work done by, among others, US House Rep Ike Skelton and US Senator Barbara Boxer.


In fact, it was Boxer who forced Sahwa off the US taxpayer dime. (see the April 8, 2008 snapshot, some of us weren't sleeping).

But apparently Pui Hang Wong doesn't need to know anything to write because at HUFFINGTON POST you can just make up things and get away with it.


Nothing's changed.  Not even the justice system has improved.





criminal justice system continues to rely heavily on "confessions" extracted under . Amnesty video:












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