WHERE THE WORLD GOES CRAZY.
MONDAY, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE JOSHUA BLACK RUNNING FOR THE FLORIDA STATE HOUSE FROM DISTRICT 68 TWEETED THE FOLLOWING:
Joshua Black 2014
"@civilwarcometh: @BrandonMArms @RedNationRising I'm past impeachment. It's time to arrest and hang him high. http://www.commieblaster.com/ " Agreed
THAT IS NOT A THREAT AGAINST BARRY O. IT'S AN OPINION THAT HE SHOULD BE ARRESTED AND THEN HANGED.
BECAUSE JOURNALISTS, POLITICIANS AND SOME TWITS ON TWITTER -- WE'LL GET TO ONE -- ACTED NUTS OVER THE TWEET, THE SECRET SERVICE QUESTIONED AND FOLLOWED UP AND FOUND NO THREAT.
WE CAN REMEMBER WHEN MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD OF THE PROGRESSIVE WROTE A LENGTHY PIECE DEFENDING A GUY WHO MADE A REMARK IN A GYM ABOUT BULLY BOY BUSH AND ROTHSCHILD RUSHING TO DEFEND HIM.
BUT WHEN THE FREE SPEECH COMES FROM A REPUBLICAN, WHERE IS MATTY? LIKE THE REST OF THE FREAKS UNABLE TO SPEAK.
WE WILL NOTE THAT JOSHUA BLACK IS ANTI-CHOICE (BELIEVES ABORTION IS "MURDER") SO HE IS NOT A CANDIDATE WE WOULD VOTE FOR. BUT WE WILL ALSO NOTE HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING CRIMINAL AND IT'S SAD AND TELLING THAT THE SECRET SERVICE QUESTION IT.
WE WILL ALSO PRESENT HIS ARGUMENT WHICH IS THAT BARRY O IS CARRYING OUT A DRONE WAR KILLING MANY INNOCENTS -- HE SPECIFICALLY NOTES THAT THE DRONE WAR KILLED A YOUTH JUST BECAUSE OF WHO THE BOY'S FATHER WAS. HE HAS STATED THAT WAR CRIMES SHOULD BE PUNISHED. HE DID NOT CALL FOR VIGILANTE JUSTICE, HE SAID ARREST AND PUNISHMENT IN HIS TWEET.
WE SUPPORT TRYING WAR CRIMINALS.
AND, IN ALL THE NONSENSE THAT FOLLOWED THE TWEET, WE WERE REMINDED OF THE WISDOM KAT OFFERED EARLIER THIS MONTH WHEN WEIGHING IN ON THE ANI DIFRANCO OUTRAGE:
A lot of the attack was not about the retreat.
A lot of it was certain White people using Ani to try to look better.
In fairness to them, Ani's done the same. Maybe now she'll think twice about painting people in broad strokes?
People had a right to be offended. And not just African-Americans. Slavery is an American experience that stains the entire country. I am sure many White people expressing outrage were sincere.
But there is a group who live to point to others and scream "Racist!" as in -- they are but I'm not!
I don't believe Ani's a racist. And, again, I no longer care for her. I even tossed her CDs in the trash two or three years ago. And up until her Who's Side Are You On?, I had bought everything. It all went in the trash.
AS ANN DEVELOPED KAT'S POINTS FURTHER, SHE OBSERVED:
That is very deep.
What got done to Ani this week is what she had been doing throughout the '00s.
She stopped being a real leftist and became a knee-jerk one.
She stopped caring about real issues and the 'protest' singer did an album glorifying the White House.
She was an embarrassment and then some.
Those who disagreed with Barack?
Racists!
That was her attitude.
Here's reality: Anyone can disagree with Barack. They can even hate him.
Doesn't make them racist.
I loathe him.
I'm Black, doesn't matter, I loathe him.
(Actually, he's bi-racial and not Black. You can always tell a White Ani by how they quickly say, "No one is 100% Black!!!" Yeah well my parents are Black, that makes me Black.)
I loathe him because of The Drone War.
I loathe him because of his illegal spying.
His persecution of whistle-blowers.
His attacks on the press.
In the 90s, any of those topics would have had Ani picking up her guitar to write a song.
But in the '00s and since, she just whores for the Democratic Party.
And what she did got turned around on her.
Maybe this will enlighten her and bring her back to her senses?
So I write all of this because White man Nathan Goodman goes to town on Ani.
Why?
To prove he's The Good Whitey -- coming to the Bounce network from the producers of The Good Wife!
This is what Kat was talking about, White people using Ani to try to prove they're not racists.
He's got nothing to add to the conversation.
He's worthless.
IF YOU CAUGHT THE POINTS THAT ANN AND KAT WERE MAKING, YOU SAW THEM AGAIN WITH SOME OF THE MANY TWEETS ATTACKING JOSHUA BLACK.
WE'LL NOTE ONE.
-
Thank you, .
@FLGovScott, for your condemnation of .@JoshuaBlack2014 for his racist & violent words against our POTUS: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/florida-gop-candidate-obama-execution-secret-service …
UGLY WHITE WOMAN "ANDIE THE OBAMANISTA" FELT LESS WHITE AND LESS RACIST IF SHE COULD CALL JOSHUA BLACK A RACIST. SHE WAS IN SUCH A RUSH TO CALL HIM A RACIST THAT, OOPS, DUMB CRACKER, SHE MISSED THE FACT THAT JOSHUA BLACK IS AFRICAN-AMERICAN.
MAYBE NEXT TIME BE A LITTLE LESS SELF-RIGHTEOUS "GOOD WHITEY" ANDIE THE OBAMISTA -- AND A LOT LESS STUPID.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
UPI reports, "Iraq was the only member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to post a decline in oil production last month, the IEA said Tuesday." Nouri al-Maliki's Iraq stands out -- just never in a good way. Today the prime minister and chief thug of Iraq wanted to take bows again. AP notes that Nouri's government issued a declaration, "The justice ministry carried out the executions of 26 (men) convicted of crimes related to terrorism on Sunday." CNN adds, "One of those executed was Adel al-Mashhadani, a militia leader in Baghdad who was "famous for sectarian crimes," the statement said. He was a member of the Awakening, the Sunni tribal fighting force who fought alongside the United States against al Qaeda militants." The announcement of the executions come one day after UNAMI issued their [PDF format warning] latest human rights report on Iraq which included:
16. Declare a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in accordance with UN General Assembly resolutions 62/149 (2007), 63/168 (2008), 65/206 (2010) and 67/176( 2012) ; revie w the criminal code and the criminal procedure code with a view to abolishing the death penalty; and consider acceding to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR aimed at abolishing the death penalty;
17. Implement international standards that provide safeg uards of the rights of those facing the death penalty , as set out in the annex to Economic and Social Council resolution 1984/50 of 25 May 1984 , until the death penalty is abolished in Iraq.
Clearly, Nouri's not listening to the United Nations.
Today Human Rights Watch issued World Report 2014 which notes 2012 saw Nouri's government execute at least 129 people while 2013 saw the number increase to 151. BBC News notes today's executions come after "m the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for an immediate halt to executions in Iraq. A spokesman for Navi Pillay said in October large-scale killings were 'obscene and inhumane'."
Of course, that's not Nouri's fault. Not in his mind anyway. Nothing is never his fault, in his mind.
Dropping back to the January 16th snapshot:
Meanwhile, Iraq's budget has gone to Parliament. National Iraqi News Agency reports that Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman calls the forwarding of the budget -- which led the Kurds to walk out of the Cabinet -- "unwise." NINA also notes Kurdish MP Ashwaq al-Jaf notes the Kurds plan to use Constitutional steps in Parliament to address the issue. Steve LeVine (Quartz) explains:
The
Iraqi government has raised the stakes yet again in its brinksmanship
with Kurdistan—unable so far to halt the Kurds’s headlong push as an
independent oil exporter, Baghdad has prepared a 2014 budget that entirely cuts off the northern region.
Baghdad’s move on Jan. 15 is a response to Kurdish plans to sell their
first piped oil at the end of this month at Turkey’s Mediterranean port
of Ceyhan, the first stage in an apparent strategy for wholesale
economic independence from Iraq proper. With it, Iraqi prime minister
Nouri al-Maliki raises the temperature not only on the Kurds, but also
the foreign oil companies on which Kurdistan is relying—ExxonMobil,
Chevron, France’s Total, Gazprom and a group of wildcatters.
Maliki
said there will be no restoration of the Kurds’s $12 billion-a-year
budget allocation until they produce 400,000 barrels of oil a day—worth
about $14.6 billion a year at today’s prices. But the oil companies’
current plans do not yield that scale of production until well into next
year. So to stave off economic mayhem this year, the Kurds will be
lobbying both Maliki to see reason and the oil companies to up their
game.
UPI notes, "Genel Energy, led by former BP boss Tony Hayward, said Wednesday it expects oil from a pipeline in the Kurdish north of Iraq to be exported from Turkey soon."
Nouri created that crisis. On Sunday, a Kurdish delegation had to go to Baghdad. Aswat al-Iraq reported they were there to discuss the budget and the oil issue. On the same day, Aswat al-Iraq quoted KRG President Massoud Barzani stating, "Kurds will not recede any of their rights any form." Rudaw reported:
Meetings led by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in Baghdad to resolve oil and budget rows ended inconclusively on Sunday, with a decision to continue the talks at a later date.
Following the closed-door meetings, Maliki softened his stance over threats to cut off the Kurdistan Region from the federal budget, unless there was agreement over revenues from the oil exports to Turkey.
"I have not said I would cut the KRG's share of the budget. I said there should be a language of understanding to solve the issues between Baghdad and Erbil," Maliki told Rudaw.
It wasn't, you understand, Nouri's fault. It's his Cabinet, most Sunnis (all but Saleh al-Mutlaq) long ago began boycotting sessions. He controls the Cabinet, he controls what gets forwarded to Parliament but it wasn't his fault.
It was some Phantom head of the Cabinet -- a head of it that no one knew existed or had ever heard of.
A sure sign of a failure in a leader is someone who can't admit mistakes and has to pretend he or she is perfect.
And Nouri is so far from perfect. Rudaw reports on the conclusions of the British All Parliamentary Group:
The cat and mouse game between Erbil and Baghdad is as old as Iraq itself. The APPG agrees with Kurdish leaders that Baghdad should nurture and celebrate the social and economic achievements of the Region and see it as the future for the whole country. It seems possible that the autonomous region and the federal government can negotiate a revenue sharing law that accompanies the new pipelines between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey.
The rapprochement with Turkey has concerned some in Baghdad and in America who fear that economic independence will become political independence and that Iraq will disintegrate. Members of the APPG accept that a unified Iraq should work for all its component parts through what President Barzani described to us as "partnership and power-sharing."
The Kurds told the APPG that the current revenue-sharing agreement should give them 17% of the national budget but that they usually receive about 10% and not consistently. The crucial need is for a robust and reliable revenue-sharing law.
But Nouri will always have fools and tools who applaud him. Jamie Tarabay has an idiotic article at Al Jazeera America entitled "Will daily bombings bring Iraq to a new tipping point?" I'm sorry, when did daily bombs not take place. What world is Taraby living in where daily bombings are something recent to Iraq? She writes like someone seeking a fatwa and if that seems harsh, read this 2013 piece by Tarabay -- especially this section:
De-Baathification, adopted in 2003 to weed out Saddam Hussein-era officials from positions of power, is still law. It has been employed by the Maliki government to isolate, arrest or oust political threats and opponents.
The security forces remain under the thumb of Shia politicians, including those from Maliki’s Dawa party, but also members of the Badr brigade — the former military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which ran against Maliki's Dawa Party in the last parliamentary election, in 2010. Despite repeated appeals by the U.S. to bring more Sunnis into the ranks, the Interior Ministry, which controls the country's security forces, remains a Shia bastion. Sunnis guarding the few remaining Sunni enclaves in Baghdad in makeshift units called the Sons of Iraq continue to be shut out of joining.
Maliki wants the U.S. to provide Iraq with Apache attack helicopters and drones and recently purchased Korean fighter jets. His critics claim he intends to use them against their communities.
That's just last month. Now read her crap today, her anti-Sunni screed -- "long-suffering Shia majority," "many Sunnis consider them [Shi'ites] to be heretics and apostates," "narrative reinforces the calls by Shia religious leaders for calm and fortitude, but the goal of the Al-Qaeda elements is to provoke the Shia to abandon such restraint and plunge" and it just goes on and on. She calls the Sunnis everything but dogs and largely conflates all Sunnis as fighters and/or al Qaeda. I don't understand how such hateful and ignorant writing can be produced to begin with. But it's especially shocking when compared to her past articles -- recent, like last month, or her work at NPR (or AP before that) -- which had balance and didn't spew hate towards any sect.
As she vents her hate and stupidity, let's return to Human Rights Watch's new report World Report 2014 to note some reality:
The government responded to largely peaceful demonstrations with violence and to worsening security with draconian counterterrorism measures. Borders controlled by Iraq's central government remained closed to Syrians fleeing civil war, while as of November, nearly 206,600 Syrians fled to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)-controlled area.
In December 2012, thousands of Iraqis took part in demonstrations in mostly Sunni areas, demanding reform of the Anti-Terrorism Law and the release of illegaly held detainees. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced in January 2013 that he had created special committees to oversee reforms, including freeing prisoners and limiting courts' use of secret informant testimony. At time of writing, there was little indication that the government had implemented reforms. Security forces instead used violence against protesters, culminating in an attack on a demonstration in Hawija in April, which killed 51 protesters. Authorities failed to hold anyone accountable.
The government responded to increasing unrest with mass arrest campaigns in Sunni regions, targeting ordinary civilians and prominent activists and politicians under the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Law. Security forces and government supporters harassed journalists and media organizations critical of the authorities.
Iraq's security forces abused detainees with impunity. Throughout the year, detainees reported prolonged detentions without a judicial hearing and torture during interrogation. In February, Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told Human Rights Watch that security forces frequently carred out mass arrests without arrest warrants. Courts continued to rely on secret informant testimony and coerced confessions to issue arrest warrants and convictions. On May 11, villagers south of Mosul found the bodies of four men and a 15-year-old boy, which bore multiple gun shot wounds. Witnesses had last seen them alive on May 3 in the custody of the federal police 3rd Division, but at time of writing, the government had not announced any investigation into the deaths.
Jamie Tarabay seems to have missed or forgotten all of that. She and Kirk Sowell both need to hop on a pair of ponies. As Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty, John and Michelle Phillips (the Mamas and the Papas) sing in "Too Late" (first appears on The Papas & the Mamas):
Get on your pony and ride
Get on your pony and ride
No one to catch up to you
If you try.
Get on your pony and ride
Get on your pony and ride
No one to catch up to you
If you try.
No one to catch up to you,
If you try -- 'cause I've tried.
'Cause when the mind that once was open shuts
And you knock on the door, nobody answers anymore
When the love and trust has turned to dust
When the mind that once was open shuts
When you knock on the door, nobody answers anymore
When the love and trust has turned to dust
Recommended: "Iraq snapshot"
"Iraq and the press' double standards"
"FOIA Bully Boy Bush"
"Special screening of Oscar nominated The Square"
"Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit"
"revenge (the good)"
"Illegal spying and Dracula"
"Dear Joan: We're Going To Scare You To Death"
"Benghazi"
"The Mindy Project's winter finale"
"Salinger and Iraq"
"Great photos from Curiosity"
"UK War Crimes (and US and Australia should be added to the docket)"
"Iraq, the internet and music"
"He stoops (because he cannot stand)"
"THIS JUST IN! HE CAN'T STOP BABBLING ABOUT HIMSELF!"
