Sunday, September 30, 2018

Healthy Chicken Casserole in the Kitchen

Lynda e-mails upset because she was knocked by some friends over her scrambled eggs.  What did they knock?  She doesn't use milk.

I'm sorry Lynda got knocked.  But, first off, not everyone uses milk in scrambled eggs.  My father's mother, for example, never did.  She used milk for many things but not for scrambled eggs.  My mother's mother doesn't to this day.  Ask her why?  Eight kids?  That milk needed to be used in other things.  And, Lynda, I don't use milk when I make scrambled eggs either.

Second, we all adapt.

I will use red onions in place of yellow onions always -- and often in place of white onions.

Valerie Bertinelli is my favorite host of a cooking show on The Food Network for many reasons including she shares earlier stories -- by that I mean, she'll talk about how something went wrong the first time she cooked a dish.  She shares what she learned and she makes it about learning.  I love her show.  But even though I love her show?  There are things she does that I don't in making the same recipe.  And if I had a show and she caught an episode and liked a dish, she'd make it her way.

That's what cooking is.  There's no one way.  I'm sorry Lynda got knocked but I'm even sorrier that we live in a world -- at this late date -- where some still think there is only one way to do something.


Keep that in mind with the next recipe:


Ingredients
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for baking dish 
2 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 onion, chopped
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
1 lb. brussels sprouts, trimmed and quartered
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/4 c. low-sodium chicken broth
6 c. cooked wild rice
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. sliced almonds



Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350o and grease a 9"-x-13" baking dish with oil. In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken to skillet and cook until golden and cooked through, 8 minutes per side. Let rest 10 minutes, then cut into 1" pieces. 
  2. Heat remaining tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add onion, sweet potatoes, and Brussels sprouts and season with thyme, paprika, salt, and pepper. Cook until softened, 5 minutes. Add broth, bring to a simmer, and cook, covered, 5 minutes. 
  3. Stir in cooked rice, chicken, and cranberries. Transfer mixture to baking dish, top with almonds, and bake 20 minutes. 
  4. Let cool 5 minutes before serving. 

Do you have a garden.  I do.  It's played out for the most part but I still have carrots and some bell peppers.  Point being, if you have access to vegetables -- garden or grocery -- use those.  I will not use brussels sprouts in the above recipe.  I will probably use regular potatoes as well.  I will add mushrooms and broccoli to it.  Recipes?  They are frameworks.  In the end, you are going to eat what you put on your table so make it what you want.


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


Friday, September 28, 2018.  As the death and dying continues in Iraq, count on the lying of Barbra Streisand to cover up for War Criminals. 



Cher's version of "The Winner Takes It All" from her new album (released today) DANCING QUEEN.   Cher's an important musical voice.  Margaret Kimberley's an important voice for justice.  Kollibri terre Sonnenblume (COUNTERPUNCH) interviews Margaret:


Kollibri terre Sonnenblume: How do you react when people are like – as some political scientists recently said– that Trump is the, quote, “worst president ever.”
Margaret Kimberley: It means they don’t like him. That’s all it means. “Worst” based on what? Did he invade another country? I mean, look at what they’ve done. How they’ve rehabilitated George Bush. Depending on which number you believe, he killed a minimum of half a million people in Iraq. Maybe one million. But Trump is worse? Now maybe before he leaves office he’ll do something equally as horrible, but he’s certainly not worst right now.


It's called perspective and it's lacking when the likes of Barbra Streisand take time out from shopping in their own personal malls and cloning their dogs to try to be 'political.'  They say stupid things that reveal how shallow and pathetic their lives are, stupid things like Colin Powell is "decent people."  Sorry, I'm not in the mood for some ugly bitch like Barbra Streisand -- who has no formal education and no practical education (go back to speaking of Zen Buddhism, Babsie), thinking she can rewrite history.

While she was doing MEET THE FOCKERS or whatever other abortion she called a film, the rest of us were dealing with the liar Colin Powell.  Here's Norman Solomon in 2005:

Powell’s televised U.N. speech exuded great confidence and authoritative judgment. But he owed much of his touted credibility to the fact that he had long functioned inside a media bubble shielding him from direct challenge. It might puzzle an American to read later, in a book compiled by the London-based Guardian, that Powell’s much-ballyhooed speech went over like a lead balloon. “The presentation was long on assertion and muffled taped phone calls, but short on killer facts,” the book said. “It fell flat.”
Fell flat? Well it did in Britain, where a portion of the mainstream press immediately set about engaging in vigorous journalism that ripped apart many of Powell’s assertions within days. But not on the western side of the Atlantic, where Powell’s star turn at the United Nations elicited an outpouring of media adulation. In the process of deference to Powell, many liberals were among the swooners.
In her Washington Post column the morning after Powell spoke, Mary McGrory proclaimed that “he persuaded me.” She wrote: “The cumulative effect was stunning.” And McGrory, a seasoned and dovish political observer, concluded: “I’m not ready for war yet. But Colin Powell has convinced me that it might be the only way to stop a fiend, and that if we do go, there is reason.”
In the same edition, Post columnist Richard Cohen shared his insight that Powell was utterly convincing: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations — some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail — had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without
a doubt still retains them. Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.”
Inches away, Post readers found Jim Hoagland’s column with this lead:
Colin Powell did more than present the world with a convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq’s secret weapons and terrorism programs yesterday. He also exposed the enduring bad faith of several key members of the U.N. Security Council when it comes to Iraq and its “web of lies,” in Powell’s phrase.
Hoagland’s closing words sought to banish doubt: “To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don’t believe that. Today, neither should you.”
On the opposite page the morning after Powell’s momentous U.N. speech, a Washington Post editorial was figuratively on the same page as the Post columnists. Under the headline “Irrefutable,” the newspaper laid down its line for rationality: “After Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s presentation to the United Nations Security
Council yesterday, it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”
Also smitten was the editorial board of the most influential U.S. newspaper leaning against the push for war. Hours after Powell finished his U.N. snow job, the New York Times published an editorial with a mollified tone — declaring that he “presented the United Nations and a global television audience yesterday with the most
powerful case to date that Saddam Hussein stands in defiance of Security Council resolutions and has no intention of revealing or surrendering whatever unconventional weapons he may have.”
By sending Powell to address the Security Council, the Times claimed, President Bush “showed a wise concern for international opinion.” And the paper contended that “Mr. Powell’s presentation was all the more convincing because he dispensed with apocalyptic invocations of a struggle of good and evil and focused on shaping a sober, factual case against Mr. Hussein’s regime.”
Later, in mid-September 2003, straining to justify Washington’s refusal to let go of the occupation of Iraq, Colin Powell used the language of a venture capitalist: “Since the United States and its coalition partners have invested a great deal of political capital, as well as financial resources, as well as the lives of our young men and women — and we have a large force there now — we can’t be expected to suddenly just step aside.”
Now, after so much clear evidence has emerged to discredit the entire U.S. war effort, Colin Powell still can’t bring himself to stand up and account for his crucial role. Instead, he’s leaving it to a former aide to pin blame on those who remain at the top of the Bush administration. But Powell was an integral part of the war propaganda

machinery. And we can hardly expect the same media outlets that puffed him up at crucial times to now scrutinize their mutual history.


It is hilarious that the cross-eyed Barbra is pimping a song about hating lies and liars while she's also insisting that Colin Powell is a decent person.  He's a f**king liar who is responsible for the deaths of millions.  He lied to the United Nations, he knew he was lying.  He lied to get the country into war.  You can also check out Ava and my "TV Review: Barbara and Colin remake The Way We Were" from 2005 and I'd suggest you look into the late Robert Parry's work on this topic as well (there should be at least one link to Parry in Ava and my piece).  There's no need for lies and if Barbra wants to fight lies she can start by stop lying herself.  Cheap whore, that's all she ever was, it's all she's ever been.  She's molested her own talent in such a way that she's produced the most mediocre career anyone could imagine.  That's bad.  But pimping Colin Powell as "decent"?  After that lying speech?  Babs needs to go back to cloning her dead dog and other things that fat-assed, ridiculous and wealthy women do when they've got no real life or connection to one.

Last February, Jon Schwarz (INTERCEPT) examined Colin's selling of the war:

COLIN POWELL DELIVERED his presentation making the case for war with Iraq at the United Nations 15 years ago, on February 5, 2003.
As much criticism as Powell received for this — he’s called it “painful” and something that will “always be a part of my record” — it hasn’t been close to what’s justified. Powell, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush, was much more than just horribly mistaken: He fabricated “evidence” and ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false.
Unfortunately, Congress never investigated Powell’s use of the intelligence he was given, so we don’t know many of the specifics. Even so, what did reach the public record in other ways is extremely damning. While the corporate media has never taken a close look at this record, we can go through Powell’s presentation line by line to demonstrate the chasm between what he knew and what he told the world. As you’ll see, there’s quite a lot to say about it.

Jon goes through the speech point by point.  If you're stupid enough to believe a hagged out fool who is so addicted to fillers that she now has chipmunk cheeks, you really should read through Jon's report.  And you should grasp that Colin Powell is a War Criminal and that pre-dates Iraq.

Replying to 

The Queen knighted US war criminal Colin Powell who covered up the My Lai Massacre.









Colin Powell: This Man is a War Criminal! http://nblo.gs/gnqg2







Barbra doesn't like liars?  She keeps forgetting to note that she has a financial interest in the remake of A STAR IS BORN.  Her ex-lover Jon Peters can't promote the film.  Too many women have come out to talk about how he harassed and raped them.  So Warner Brothers really needs Barbra to talk it up.  She doesn't like liars?  All these interviews praising A STAR IS BORN that never manage to mention that Babs has a financial interest in the project?  That's called deception.  There's no whore like an old whore.


B-b-b-ut Barbra's a defender of women.

She's a defender of herself.  She's a self-promoter.  She practices the same Me-ism as Hillary Clinton and tries to pass it off as feminism.

Real feminists care aren't cloning their pets.  Real feminists speak out for women.  The women in Iraq who have taken part in the protests have risked a great deal.

Barbra doesn't care about them.  They don't buy her bad albums or see her tacky films.

They risk everything and Barbra can't highlight them.




Four Iraqi Women (Activists) killed in less than a month in Iraq!
All were killed in broad daylight.







Four women.  Killed in broad daylight.  For the 'crime' of protesting.  For the 'crime' of demanding drinkable water that doesn't land you in the hospital, electricity (150 degrees Fahrenheit was not uncommon in Basra this summer) and jobs.

Hayder al-Abadi, still prime minister of Iraq at this point, shut down the internet in July to try to keep the world from finding out what was going on.

Why did he even bother?

In a world of cross-eyed Barbras, there's no need.  They will waste our time with tacky and banal topics, distracting us from what matters.





How many lives have been lost since the start of the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria?







The Iraqi people are suffering -- they are suffering in the 15th year of an illegal war.  But 'activist' Barbra Streisand doesn't care.  She's never cared.  She's wasted her talents and she's wasted the world's time.  If the rumors are true that James Brolin is using a 'high class' service to cheat on her are true, no one's going to shed a tear for Barbra.  The world has passed her by.  She's obsolete and soon to be forgotten.  Real issues matter, fat cats like Babs, not so much.



Just in a month show their new national unity. Few days ago political class shocked by protests acts in , yesterday Iraqis are unite against killer & instigator of Iraqi female model Tara Faris, while political class still ignore these developments of society (1)







AL ARABYIA reports:

An Iraqi social media star became the latest woman victim of a spate of murders across the country this week by unknown gunmen.

Tara Fares was shot dead in her car in the capital Baghdad on Thursday, just a day after she was voted one of Iraq's most popular social media stars.

She was murdered by unknown gunmen in the Kam Sara neighbourhood of Baghdad, with the ministry of interior saying they are investigating the killing

The model and journalist had a huge following on Istagram, with over 2 million followers.




The Iraqi people suffer.  In part, they suffer because the US government did not intend to ever provide democracy.  They wanted disorder and chaos.  See Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Year Zero" (HARPER'S):


The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based.

Torturers believe that when electrical shocks are applied to various parts of the body simultaneously subjects are rendered so confused about where the pain is coming from that they become incapable of resistance. A declassified CIA "Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual from 1963 describes how a trauma inflicted on prisoners opens up "an interval – which may be extremely brief - of suspended animation, a kind of psychological shock or paralysis ... At this moment the source is far more open to suggestion, far likelier to comply." A similar theory applies to economic shock therapy, or "shock treatment," the ugly term used to describe the rapid implementation of free-market reforms imposed on Chile in the wake of General Augusto Pinochet's coup. The theory is that if painful economic "adjustments" are brought in rapidly and in the aftermath of a seismic social disruption like a war, a coup, or a government collapse, the population will be so stunned, and so preoccupied with the daily pressures of survival, that it too will go into suspended animation, unable to resist. As Pinochet's finance minister, Admiral Lorenzo Gotuzzo, declared, "The dog's tail must be cut off in one chop."

That, in essence, was the working thesis in Iraq, and in keeping with the belief that private companies are more suited than governments for virtually every task, the White House decided to privatize the task of privatizing Iraq's state-dominated economy. Two months before the war began, USAID began drafting a work order, to be handed out to a private company, to oversee Iraq's "transition to a sustainable market-driven economic system." The document states that the winning company (which turned out to be the KPMG offshoot Bearing Pint) will take "appropriate advantage of the unique opportunity for rapid progress in this area presented by the current configuration of political circumstances." Which is precisely what happened. L. Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. occupation of Iraq from May 2, 2003, until he caught an early flight out of Baghdad on June 28, admits that when he arrived, "Baghdad was on fire, literally, as I drove in from the airport." But before the fires from the "shock and awe" military onslaught were even extinguished, Bremer unleashed his shock therapy, pushing through more wrenching changes in one sweltering summer than the International Monetary Fund has managed to enact over three decades in Latin America. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, describes Bremer's reforms as "an even more radical form of shock therapy than pursued in the former Soviet world."

The tone of Bremer's tenure was set with his first major act on the job: he fired 500,000 state workers, most of them soldiers, but also doctors, nurses, teachers, publishers, and printers. Next, he flung open the country's borders to absolutely unrestricted imports: no tariffs, no duties, no inspections, no taxes. Iraq, Bremer declared two weeks after he arrived, was "open for business."

One month later, Bremer unveiled the centerpiece of his reforms. Before the invasion, Iraq's non-oil-related economy had been dominated by 200 state-owned companies, which produced everything from cement to paper to washing machines. In June, Bremer flew to an economic summit in Jordan and announced that these firms would be privatized immediately. "Getting inefficient state enterprises into private hands," he said, "is essential for Iraq's economic recovery." It would be the largest state liquidation sale since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But Bremer's economic engineering had only just begun. In September, to entice foreign investors to come to Iraq, he enacted a radical set of laws unprecedented in their generosity to multinational corporations. There was Order 37, which lowered Iraq's corporate tax rate from roughly 40 percent to a flat 15 percent. There was Order 39, which allowed foreign companies to own 100 percent of Iraqi assets outside of the natural-resource sector. Even better, investors could take 100 percent of the profits they made in Iraq out of the country; they would not be required to reinvest and they would not be taxed. Under Order 39, they could sign leases and contracts that would last for forty years. Order 40 welcomed foreign banks to Iraq under the same favorable terms. All that remained of Saddam Hussein's economic policies was a law restricting trade unions and collective bargaining.

If these policies sound familiar, it's because they are the same ones multinationals around the world lobby for from national governments and in international trade agreements. But while these reforms are only ever enacted in part, or in fits and starts, Bremer delivered them all, all at once. Overnight, Iraq went from being the most isolated country in the world to being, on paper, its widest-open market.

At first, the shock-therapy theory seemed to hold: Iraqis, reeling from violence both military and economic, were far too busy staying alive to mount a political response to Bremer's campaign. Worrying about the privatization of the sewage system was an unimaginable luxury with half the population lacking access to clean drinking water; the debate over the flat tax would have to wait until the lights were back on. Even in the international press, Bremer's new laws, though radical, were easily upstaged by more dramatic news of political chaos and rising crime.

Some people were paying attention, of course. That autumn was awash in "rebuilding Iraq" trade shows, in Washington, London, Madrid, and Amman. The Economist described Iraq under Bremer as "a capitalist dream," and a flurry of new consulting firms were launched promising to help companies get access to the Iraqi market, their boards of directors stacked with well-connected Republicans. The most prominent was New Bridge Strategies, started by Joe Allbaugh, former Bush-Cheney campaign manager. "Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble products can be a gold mine," one of the company's partners enthused. "One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out thirty Iraqi stores; a Wal-Mart could take over the country."

Soon there were rumors that a McDonald's would be opening up in downtown Baghdad, funding was almost in place for a Starwood luxury hotel, and General Motors was planning to build an auto plant. On the financial side, HSBC would have branches all over the country, Citigroup was preparing to offer substantial loans guaranteed against future sales of Iraqi oil, and the bell was going to ring on a New York-style stock exchange in Baghdad any day.

In only a few months, the postwar plan to turn Iraq into a laboratory for the neocons had been realized. Leo Strauss may have provided the intellectual framework for invading Iraq preemptively, but it was that other University of Chicago professor, Milton Friedman, author of the anti-government manifesto Capitalism and Freedom, who supplied the manual for what to do once the country was safely in America's hands. This represented an enormous victory for the most ideological wing of the Bush Administration. But it was also something more: the culmination of two interlinked power struggles, one among Iraqi exiles advising the White House on its postwar strategy, the other within the White House itself.

As the British historian Dilip Hiro has shown, in Secrets and Lies: Operation 'Iraqi Freedom' and After, the Iraqi exiles pushing for the invasion were divided, broadly, into two camps. On one side were "the pragmatists," who favored getting rid of Saddam and his immediate entourage, securing access to oil, and slowly introducing free-market reforms. Many of these exiles were part of the State Department's Future of Iraq Project, which generated a thirteen-volume report on how to restore basic services and transition to democracy after the war. On the other side was the "Year Zero" camp, those who believed that Iraq was so contaminated that it needed to be rubbed out and remade from scratch. The prime advocate of the pragmatic approach was Iyad Allawi, a former high-level Baathist who fell out with Saddam and started working for the CIA. The prime advocate of the Year Zero approach was Ahmad Chalabi, whose hatred of the Iraqi state for expropriating his family's assets during the 1958 revolution ran so deep he longed to see the entire country burned to the ground - everything, that is, but the Oil Ministry, which would be the nucleus of the new Iraq, the cluster of cells from which an entire nation would grow. He called this process "de-Baathification." 



Goons were put in place by the US government to sew chaos and destruction so that the shocked people couldn't fight back.  Not just by the US.  Basra was fighting back -- and would win concessions.  Around this time, we had what happening?  Oh, those Muslim fanatics, remember?  The ones who attacked on September 19, 2005?

Remember?

Those Mulsim fanatics who were, in fact, British.  They were British citizens, not Iraqis.  British Special Air Service soldiers, remember?  They just dressed up to try to pass themselves off as Arabs when they launched the attack on Basra.

From Sabrina Tavernise's "British Army Storms Basra Jail to Free 2 Soldiers From Arrest" (NEW YORK TIMES):


Two British soldiers working under cover were arrested Monday in the southern city of Basra and then freed as a British armored vehicle blasted through the wall of their jail after an angry crowd began rioting outside, an Interior Ministry official said.
The official said that the soldiers were undercover officers dressed as Iraqis and that Iraqi police officers had arrested them after the men fired at a traffic police officer.
A British military spokesman in Basra confirmed that "two U.K. military personnel" had been detained early on Monday "in a shooting incident" and that troops had used an armored fighting vehicle "to gain entry" to the police station to release them. He said that more than one vehicle had been in the area and that the police inside the station had refused to obey orders from the Interior Ministry to release the men.
The incident came a day after British forces in Basra arrested three members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the rebellious Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, on suspicion of terrorism.



For those who marvel over the fact that THE TIMES covered it -- and that others did as well -- please note that the occupying forces -- including the British -- were whispered to be part of the campaign killing journalists in Basra.  Was it true, was it paranoia?  I have no idea.  But THE NEW YORK TIMES losing one of their own (Fakher Haider) at exactly the same time -- a murder that has never been solved -- was said to have motivated Tavernise's piece making it into print.

Attacking journalists in Iraq was never a minor issue.  Recently, the 'resistance' and its ilk have insisted that journalists risk their lives in Iraq and should be supported.  Huh?  The Debra Messings want you not to call their beloved "fake news."  But here's reality, the US attacked journalists publicly on April 8, 2003 when they attacked the Palestine Hotel.  Enough time -- and enough administrations -- have passed that you'd think the us press could be as honest as the world's press about what actually happened there.

This was never about democracy or liberation.  This was an illegal war that remains illegal.  The US government doesn't want to help Iraq, it wants to control it.  And they're okay -- the US government -- with Iraqis dying and thugs being in charge.

But, look, over there, it's Barbra Streisand's fat ass distracting us all again.

The following community sites -- plus DISSIDENT VOICE --  updated:












  • Friday, September 28, 2018

    Kavanaguh hearing like a Dusty Springfield song

    Did you watch any of the Senate hearing on Thursday?

    I caught about two hours.  About an hour and 45 minutes of that was Dr. Blasey testifying.

    She didn't make her case. 

    Reminded me of the Dusty Springfield song from the British film Scandal, "Nothing Has Been Proved."



    Doesn't mean she lied.  Doesn't mean I loathe or hate her.  But it does mean her accusations did not hold up.  I'm sorry for her on that.

    The hearing was a joke.  That's not necessarily her fault.  I hope she has some comfort in the fact that she got to present her case to the American people.

    Patrick Martin (WSWS) offers a good take on the hearing which includes:



    The day-long, nationally televised hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, devoted to allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, was an exercise in political degradation.


    The Democratic Party has chosen to wage its campaign against the nomination of Kavanaugh on the most right-wing basis possible. Rather than focus public attention on Kavanaugh’s ultra-right political views—his opposition to abortion rights, his rubber-stamping of police violence, his consistent defense of corporate interests against workers and consumers—or on his lengthy record as a partisan legal thug going back to the Clinton impeachment, the Democrats engineered a hearing in which all attention was focused on Kavanaugh’s personal conduct as a teenager.


    Six broadcast and cable networks provided all-day coverage, even pre-empting their own evening news programs when the hearing ran past 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The national television audience was subjected to hour after hour of “grilling” by Democrats on such matters as references to flatulence and vomiting in Kavanaugh’s high school year book, whether Kavanaugh and his high school classmates drank beer on weeknights, and the meaning of obscure entries in a day-to-day calendar kept by a 17-year-old boy.


    Perhaps the low point came when Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer Rachel Mitchell—brought in for the day to serve as an “expert” questioner so that Republican senators wouldn’t be seen as bullies of Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford—took Judge Kavanaugh through a carefully worded denial that he had ever exposed himself or placed his penis next to a Yale woman classmate’s face while they were both drunk at a party.


    What has any of this to do with the social and political issues confronting tens of millions of working people in the United States? How does the obsessive focus on the 36-year-old actions of a teenage boy in any way advance the struggle against the reactionary politics of Judge Kavanaugh and President Trump today?


    Those who defend the #MeToo-style campaign against Kavanaugh will have no second act if they succeed in blocking the nomination. Trump will simply replace the nominee with an equally reactionary jurist—perhaps a woman—or one like his first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, who was easily confirmed last year, with some Democratic votes in the Senate, despite a record of political reaction virtually identical to Kavanaugh’s.


    My son Mike argued in "Kavanaugh" that the Dems needed to focus on whether or not Kavanaugh, as part of the Starr team, had violated grand jury rules.  That would have been a smarter way to go.  Much smarter.


    Cher's new ABBA album's out.



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


    Thursday, September 27, 2018.  Confront the fake asses -- and is there a bigger fake ass than Barbra Streisand?


    Love Cher to death but never felt the urge to emulate her use of the c-word.  That said, if ever someone earned the term, it would be Granny Streisand.  Some of you may not recognize her under that heavy wig and with all those fillers in her face, but that's Barbra Liar Streisand.  The EGOT winner?  No, she didn't win a Tony.  Broadway kissed her ass with a "Star of the Decade" award they made up for her and that they haven't given since.  She didn't win a Tony.  She got a special prize.

    Rita Moreno?  She's an EGOT who won awards.

    But Barbra's used being ugly as an excuse to shut down any criticism almost as much as she's used her gender.

    'If you're a strong woman, they call you a bitch.'

    Well, Barbra, they call you a bitch because you do bitchy things.  You, for exzample, steal Cher's role in A STAR IS BORN.  Or you go out of your way to treat Madeline Kahn like dirt on the set of WHAT'S UP DOC?  You've earned your reputation -- good and bad.  And that's why you're considered a bitch.

    You're also a liar who really needs to stop recording.  Your new album?  Teams of dogs pulling sleds in the iditarod have less husky voices.


    No one was ever nastier about their fans being gay than Babsie.  She called them "f*gs" and much worse.  They're the only ones who supported her career and that was how she rewarded them.  Not only do UP THE SANDBOX and FOR PETE'S SAKE exist -- both are homophobic -- but so does Babs visiting a film set and hissing "f**got" at Harrsion Ford in what she thinks is a funny bit.

    No, it wasn't funny.

    But Jason Gould being gay was karmic.  Nothing wrong with being gay.  But when the Phyllis Schafly of the left ends up with a gay son, that's karma.  And she is Phyllis.  She's such a liar that when she decided feminism was the blanket to cover her bitchy ways, she pretended she was one.  But those of us not born in 1999 are aware that she trashed feminism, that she wasn't a feminist, that UP THE SANDBOX (a huge box office disaster) was her response to feminism.  A huge box office disaster.  American women weren't going to pay to see themselves portrayed a pathetic wife who didn't work outside the home but did fantasize about her husband's lover being jealous.  Poor Barbra, I feel like another 'Streisand effect' is about to take place.

    So, let's get the laughs going.



    That's her new single.

    It's hideous.  And it's so bad, you know she had to have written it.

    Really written it.

    Not just put her name to it so she could get publishing royalties.

    Remember when she wrote her 'first' song.  She kept on and on about how great it was to write a song, "Evergreen."  She was so proud of herself.

    Barbra, like Donald Trump, thinks if she says it, it makes it true.

    Doesn't work that way for either eogmaniac.  And what Barbra forgot was that before "Evergreen," she'd taken songwriting credit.

    But there she is -- check the videos, check the print reports -- promoting A STAR IS BORN -- where the crew hated her so badly, they mixed s**t with the mud so Barbra was rolling around in s**t.  And what's she saying, she just wrote a song!  "Evergreen!"  She felt so inadequate before that because all the other "girls" were writing songs.  But she wasn't able to.  Until "Evergreen."

    So why don't you get honest and admit you didn't write the earlier songs you put your name to?

    How do you sleep, Barbra?

    Like a wealthy whore?

    I don't like Barbra, I never have.  I've defended her from time to time because even monsters like her have a good side or two.

    But she's the epitome of trash.  She always has been.  That she took offense at Madonna is hilarious because she was the worst.  She felt Madonna was trash but no one ever talked about Madonna smelling.  By contrast, she was "B.O. Barbra" -- and, no, Mike Wallace wasn't referring to box office when he would tell that story (over and over).  He meant body odor.  She had bad habits -- refusing to bathe -- before she finally landed on Broadway.  She stunk.

    In her song, she's having a dialogue with Donald Trump.  It's hilarious on many levels and not just the fact that she's relating to him in what can only be described as sexually.  Why not?  They're both damaged goods who never recovered from bad childhoods.

    It's also hilarious because Tire Kingdom long ago shut down but I can't imagine "Don't Lie To Me" over the p.a. system anywhere else.  Yes, it's that dated.

    "How do you sleep?" asks Babs in the song forgetting that ripping off John Lennon deserves its own form of hell.  She really thinks she can get away with anything at this point.

    Piss me off, Babs, I know all your dirt, remember, I had Kay fired from my set because I couldn't take another story about how awful you were.  Didn't disagree with your hair dresser, just didn't need to spend every day hearing about you.

    It's difficult to identify the worst part of  "Don't Lie To Me" -- in part because there are so many awful things about it.  Love the tempo change with these hideous lyrics:


    Kings and Queens
    Cooks and thieves
    You don't see the forest 
    For the trees


    That's like ISHTAR bad songwriting -- only those songs were supposed to be bad.


    Yeah, Babas has been rising on my s**t list since she took to trashing Laura Nyro -- an actual artist, unlike Las Vegas Babs.  Laura, of course, gave Babs her second hit single -- at a time when she needed a hit badly because, as Clive Davis told her, the albums weren't selling and the kids didn't like her.  It was make it or break it time for Babs.  And "Stoney End" provided her with a recording career (had it not hit, she would have been dropped by Columbia -- and that decision was out of Clive's hands).  So how sweet of her, after Laura's died of cancer, to show up on a recent tour mocking the song.

    But I probably wouldn't be writing any of this if she didn't write a song with these lyrics:

    How do you sleep when the world keeps turning
    All that we built has come undone
    How do you sleep when the world is burning
    Everyone answers to someone.

    Did that bitch just say the world is burning?

    Because it is and it has been.

    Now maybe the woman dubbed Jewcifer by her YENTYL crew  (Jewish Lucifer, get it?  I don't but it was about what an ass she was and they came up with it after she made them sign  a statement swearing she was the best boss in the world) doesn't get the problem?

    This is Barbra Streisand, after all, the woman who loathes Palestinians and basically all Arabs.  (Her films were banned in the Arab world starting with FUNNY GIRL.)

    I loathe her but most people don't know it.  I don't make a point to note it.  I do try to give her credit when she deserves it.  THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND album is a classic album.  Otherwise?  Like most Americans, if I want to hear music from that time period, I'm going to go with Diana Ross who doesn't have the anti-Arab nonsense and who also has actual hit songs -- none of which sound like the theme to a Linda Lavin sitcom.  In terms of film, she gave a strong performance in her last comedy and I would've voted for her if she'd gotten an Academy Award nomination.  Other than that?  This is the woman who still trashes WHAT'S UP DOC? -- the funniest film she has ever been in and an American classic.  Maybe when you've made FUNNY LADY, you've confessed that you have no taste.  (And those rooms, they're overdone.  She's never undestood simplicity and all she ever does is do a room in an overstylized version of how it would have been decorated ten to fifteen years prior.  She's a cookie cutter, she's not a designer.)

    Joe Queenan did a very strong essay on how middle of the road and how disappointing all of Barbra's 'artistic' choices have been.


    But, again, I usually bite my tongue. 


    I don't bite it today because she's worried about the world burning.

    "Stranger In A Strange Land."

    That was 2005.  That was Babs trying to sing against war.

    Now the Iraq War didn't end but, damn, didn't Babs' sudden interest end?  Why, yes, it did.  It's almost as though -- say it ain't so! -- Babs was attempting a comeback -- to the top forty (she failed) -- on the back of the Iraq War.

    And I'm sorry to break it to the wealthy woman who hates Arabs but the world's been burning all this time for people in Iraq, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Syria . . .

    And it's been burning with no attempt by her to leave her own private mall.

    Now she wants the world to listen up, to hear her.

    Why?

    So she can demonstrate that she's lost her singing voice?  She could have it back.  I'm sure the man who taught her to sing could rescue it if he's still alive.  A qualified vocal coach could as well and I could explain it to her in one sentence.  Thing is, though, I do care about the Arab world and I'm not here to enable Yionism.


    This album will come and go, yet another unmemorable release in Barbra's pedestrian discography.

    It won't get airplay because she has no voice and she has no audience.

    I don't get why women would support her.  Not today.  Jon Peters' actions were known -- widely known.  And it was full blown by the time Barbra moved in with him.  She was fine with it then and she was fine with it after they broke up.  She's no defender of women despite posing as one for the Kavanaugh press coverage.  When will Babs get honest?

    I don't get the gay men who buy her albums still.  Her screaming "f**got" at Harrison Ford can be seen on YOUTUBE.  Yes, Jason being gay forced a change in her but is that really reason to continue to buy her albums?

    Certainly, her voice isn't.  And I honestly think her Zionism doesn't work with most Americans.  We've matured as a country and aren't so knee jerk today.

    I will not forget -- or forgive -- her use of the Iraq War to try to have a hit single.  If it had meant anything to her, if she'd protested the war or if she'd supported it, I could let it go.  But she just used it to try to make a buck.

    And now she's telling TIME that she's friends with Colin Powell.  Okay, the bitch is worse than the c-word, much, much worse.  "Republicans who are decent people," she tells TIME of Colin Powell and the George H.W. Bush.


    There is nothing decent about Colin Powell.  Even someone as educationally challenged as Barbra Streisand should know better.

    Colin lied to the UN and lied to the world.

    Her being friends with him -- and praising him -- proves her opposition to the Iraq War was a joke.

    But she proves she's a joke.  Did anyone trash her more than Frank Rich?  One critic, yes.  They send him up in WHAT'S UP DOC?  But after that critic, it's Frank Rich.  And yet 'liberal' Babs has made her online life all about linking to and praising Frank Rich.  That's how stupid she truly is.


    The Iraq War continues and that's a-okay with Barbra.  Threaten her beloved Israel and she'll show the fangs but kill Arabs and she's fine with it.

    Government forces forcibly disappeared scores of Arab Sunni men in . That is no way to fight ISIS. A new report says more:


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    HRW:

    Iraqi military and security forces have disappeared dozens of mostly Sunni Arab males since 2014, including children as young as 9, often in the context of counterterrorism operations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
    The 78-page report, “‘Life Without a Father is Meaningless’: Arbitrary Arrests and Enforced Disappearances in Iraq 2014-2017,” draws on research Human Rights Watch has published on enforced disappearances in Iraq since 2014, when Iraqi forces launched anti-ISIS operations, and documents an additional 74 cases of men and four cases of boys detained by Iraqi military and security forces between April 2014 and October 2017 and forcibly disappeared. The enforced disappearances documented are part of a much wider continuing pattern in Iraq. Iraqi officials have failed to respond to inquiries from the families and Human Rights Watch for information about the disappeared.
    “Families across Iraq whose fathers, husbands, and sons disappeared after Iraqi forces detained them are desperate to find their loved ones,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite years of searching, and requests to Iraqi authorities, the government has provided no answers about where they are or if they are even still alive.”




    Infograph
    The International Commission on Missing Persons, which has been working in partnership with the Iraqi government to help recover and identify the missing, estimates that the number of missing people in Iraq could range from 250,000 to one million people, with the International Committee of the Red Cross stating that Iraq has the highest number of missing people in the world.
    Human Rights Watch drew on research it has published on enforced disappearances since 2014, and carried out additional interviews from early 2016 to March 2018 with the family members, lawyers, and community representatives of the 78 currently identified as forcibly disappeared, as well as three who had themselves been disappeared and were subsequently released. Researchers reviewed court and other official documents relating to the disappearance cases.
    Enforced disappearance is defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or by agents of the state or by people or groups acting with the state’s authorization, support, or acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the arrest or to reveal the person’s status or whereabouts. The prohibition also entails a duty to investigate cases of alleged enforced disappearance and prosecute those responsible.
    The enforced disappearances documented were carried out by a range of military and security entities, but the highest number, 36, were by groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), units under the prime minister’s command, at checkpoints across Iraq. Witnesses said at least 28 of these were carried out by the Hezbollah Brigades.



    HRW's Kenneth Roth Tweets:


    Iraq is "disappearing" dozens of mostly Sunni Arab men under the guise of combating ISIS, ignoring the fact that such serious abuse helped give rise to ISIS in the first place and could revive its next incarnation.


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    These abuses were ignored by the western governments -- including the US -- and that also helped give rise to ISIS.


    So let's recap -- Barbra Streisand is all about targeting Arabs.  So skip her latest bad album and instead go with Cher's DANCING QUEEN album which is fun and lacks Babs' heavy pretensions.




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