Saturday, September 22, 2018

Still no prime minister

Iraq still has no prime minister despite elections being held May 12th.  Ismaeel Naar and Hassan al-Saeedi (AL ARABYIA) report:

 Sources with close knowledge of internal political consultations have asserted that among the names being floated by political groups for Iraq’s premiership include that of Mazen al-Eshaiker.
Several observers have said that al-Eshaiker might have better chances in case Adel Abulmahdi is not able to grab the opportunity of becoming Iraq’s next prime minister.
Sources said that the political powers had reached a shortlist of candidates for the prime minister position on two conditons: One who would not belong to any party and two, did not hold any position in the previous governments.
Al-Eshaiker meets both conditions.


As a new person enters the ring, former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki still wants to grab the post one more time.

 16 hours ago
The Islamic Dawa Party held a meeting today, with the presence of Nuri al-Maliki and Haider al-Abadi, to joint efforts and come up with one candidate for Prime Minister position. The party has been ruling the country since 2005.

2 retweets7 likes







Back in 2017, former vice president of Iraq Tariq al-Hashemi had a great deal to say about Nouri:


When I asked Talabani about the fictitious cases Maleki had made up, Talabani said that “following the overthrow of the former Iraqi regime in 2003, Nouri al-Maleki came to visit us in Erbil, saying that ‘al-Dawa party has decided to purge the Iraqi army’s scientists, pilots and high-ranking officers. We want you as Kurds join us in this mobilization.’”
Maleki personally took charge, forming death squads to purge all those figures. Thus the al-Dawa party and Maleki, for that matter, are responsible for the killing of Iraqi scientist, pilots and officers.
Also the WikiLeaks website revealed in this regard that the Iraqi Prime Minister and Commander in Chief ‘Nouri al-Maleki’ had handed over the information to Iran to be used for killing Iraqi pilots and high-ranking officers.
Also a deal was made between the United States and the Iranian regime during the 2010 elections to keep Maleki in power, and there’s no doubt in that. Nouri al-Maleki wanted to complete his unfinished destructive project he had started in 2006.
Mowafaq Rabiei former Iraqi National Security Advisor once asked Maleki ‘why did you target Tariq Hashemi?’ In response, Maleki says that “don’t ask me. Go ask Haji Ghasem. Ask it from Ghasem Soleimani.” (Commander of Iran Terrorist Quds Force) This was Maleki’s response. Thus, it’s quite clear that the decision to hit me was a completely political move initiated by the Iranian regime.


The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley and Cindy Sheehan -- updated:

The Official Jody Watley Website
Welcome Autumn 2018
4 hours ago 

  • Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox
    Maestra: "Each one, teach one" (Soapbox Podcast September 23, 2018)
    5 hours ago
  • Ann's Mega Dub
    Fire Rod Rosenstein
    14 hours ago

  • Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
    alyssa milano has some bad spending habits
    14 hours ago 

  • Cedric's Big Mix
    Alyssa Milano just wants to focus on two things
    23 hours ago
  • The Daily Jot
    THIS JUST IN! ALYSSA'S PRIORITIES!
    23 hours ago

  • SICKOFITRADLZ
    Why?
    1 day ago 















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    The Many Planet-Saving Benefits of Carbon Farming

    Bioneers Pulse – updates from the Bioneers Community
    Greetings fellow Bioneers! 
    Ecological destruction and greenhouse gas emissions have been warming our planet at an alarming rate for decades. Reducing or even eliminating carbon pollution won't fix the whole problem at this point—we need to be rapidly scaling solutions that actively draw down carbon dioxide. That is exactly what the proponents of carbon farming are managing to do, and they're working on taking it to scale. By sequestering carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil, it’s possible to not only repair overworked, neglected farm and range lands and benefit plant life, but to also reverse some of the damage we’ve already inflicted on our climate system. Learn more about the benefits of carbon farming in our special media collection.
    In this week’s newsletter, you’ll hear from the leading researchers and advocates of carbon farming on its many benefits, and will see how it can be used to benefit people and the planet.
    Don’t forget to purchase tickets to Bioneers 2018! Ticket prices will go up on October 1, so snag yours before the end of the month!

    The Big Question: It's Time For An Update

    Climate change is one of the most troubling issues our planet is currently facing. Though the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to our rapidly warming planet, it’s not the only culprit. What modern industry has released 135 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution? Hint: It got its rise in Mesopotamia. (Read to the bottom of this email to find the answer.)

    Wise Words

    “We are working with a carbon-farm plan for a 40,000-acre ranch. This ranch can sequester enough carbon to offset the emissions of the wool production, so every pound of wool represents nine pounds of carbon sunk into the ground. If we implement the practices of the carbon-farm plan, we can have clothing with a net-negative carbon impact producing climate beneficial wool.”
    —Rebecca Burgess, founder and executive director of Fibershed, on using carbon farming practices strategically to sequester carbon and relocalize economies through the production of consumer goods. Read more here.
    Managing the Soil for Carbon is Good for the Climate

    Video to Watch: Curbing Climate Change From the Soil Up

    Dr. Whendee Silver of UC Berkley is researching the bio-geochemical effects of climate change and human impacts on the environment, and the potential for mitigating these effects. Dr. Silver is working with the Marin Carbon Project to establish a scientific basis for carbon farming practices that if implemented globally could have a significant impact on mitigating climate change.

    Take Action: End Industrial Meat

    In an effort to curb the harmful effects of industrially produced meat, the Center for Food Safety is encouraging people to take a stand and sign a pledge to cut personal meat consumption in half. The campaign’s goal is to address “the environmental, social, human health, and economic consequences of intensive animal production.” To do so, it’s raising awareness through the pledge by not only stressing the importance of eating less meat, but also by choosing humanely farmed meat and increasing the consumption of plant-based foods rich in protein. Ready to take the pledge for a greener, healthier diet (and planet!)? Find out more here.

    Affect Change: Bioneers Youth Leadership Program

    Jodie Geddes, a Bioneers youth presenter, is helping shift the focus of justice from punishment to healing. Her work with Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), focuses on tapping into the capacity of fellow community members to hold space for and with each other. RJOY’S work in West Oakland Middle School has eliminated violence and expulsions and reduced suspension rates by 87 percent. Geddes will be leading the Tell Your Story workshop at the 2018 Bioneers Conference during which youth can share strategies aimed at interrupting tragic cycles of violence, incarceration, and wasted lives. Learn more about her work with RJOY in this interview.
    The Youth Leadership Program offers many powerful learning and networking opportunities to young people. We give out more than 400 scholarships to young activists and leaders, prioritizing youth coming from communities on the front lines of climate crises. This is only possible with your support: To contribute to providing youth scholarships to Bioneers click here!

    This Week on Bioneers Radio & Podcast

    How does a virtue become a vice? How does a basic building block of life turn into a threat to life? And how do you turn that vice back into a virtue? In this half-hour we visit with two unlikely pathfinders who are helping to revolutionize farming. Calla Rose Ostrander and John Wick of the Marin Carbon Project are taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it back where it belongs: in the soil. In so doing, they’re also revitalizing the soil, conserving water, and building agricultural resilience. Scaling up these revolutionary regenerative methods can offset the climate destabilization, which that threatens to confound agriculture and endanger our food supply.
    Subscribe to the Bioneers podcast now: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube

    Person to Know: Paul Muller

    A partner at Full Belly Farm in California’s Capay Valley, Paul Muller has been farming organically for 33 years. Full Belly Farm is designed to maximize the layers of life per acre—plant, soil microbes, insects, and animals—while harvesting as much sunlight as possible and growing over 70 different fruit and vegetable crops. Here, Muller explains how Full Belly Farm is working to sequester soil carbon.
    Most landscapes have been degraded by human use. We must now try to keep as much energy in the system as possible. In the last 150 years in this country, the knowledge of managing systems in a way that is scale appropriate to human beings who were intimately tied to a place has been diminished, and that has destroyed rural America. Who is going to manage carbon on the farm? The human component of that kind of management system has to be regenerated.
    In the changing landscape of California agriculture, increasingly there are people who don’t actually farm the land, who are landlords and who hire someone else to farm. Oprah Winfrey owns a good deal of land in the Dixon area where she’s farming almonds. It’s doubtful that she does a lot of almond farming herself. TIAA-CREF is a large institutional retirement fund who is growing 25-30,000 acres of almonds. People like that need to develop the tools and the consciousness of stewardship. But they only see it  as an investment. There are hundreds of thousands of acres being farmed by people who are only trying to maximize their return. Carbon doesn’t fit in that equation. What fits in that equation is how many nuts or how many tons of hay or whatever crop you are harvesting off of that piece of ground.
    Modern farming systems are based on the plough. All the science and tools came from the notion that to turn the soil was the way you made agriculture productive, and that the best way to  manage land is to keep it bare. The opportunity being missed is that bare land does not harvest sunlight. The bare field is not taking CO2 out of the air, the soil micro life is not being fed, life is not being supported in the soil. We have a lot of work to do to convince farmers that they’re losing money if the rainfall that hits bare ground doesn’t infiltrate because of poor soil structure due to lack of microbial life. Agriculture is a fairly violent form of livelihood, if you don’t think about all the life in the farming environment. We have to think about solving for a different pattern. We have to think about how we value carbon, how we measure it, how we begin to put that into the economic equation. Read more here.

    Don’t Miss: SOCAP18

    In San Francisco from October 23 to 26, Social Capital Markets will host its annual conference on impact investing and social enterprise. The multi-day event will bring together innovators in finance, entrepreneurship, business, government, and philanthropy with interests in various social and environmental issues in an effort to merge money with meaning. Want to attend SOCAP18? Use code “MP_Bioneers” or purchase your tickets at this link for a discounted price.

    Get Your Tickets Now: Regenerative Agriculture One-Day Workshop

    Regenerative Agriculture goes far beyond organic standards by also placing a strong emphasis on practices that boost soil health. It enhances the soil’s capacity to capture carbon and thereby helps mitigate climate change. It restores biodiversity above and below the ground, creating resilient farming systems that support ecosystems. Doniga Markegard of Markegard Family Grass-Fed in Pescadero, CA, Tim LaSalle of Chico State’s Regenerative Agriculture program and Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser of Sebastopol, CA’s Singing Frogs Farm, will discuss this important issue at the 2018 Bioneers Conference. Find out more here.

    The Big Question, Answered: It's Time For An Update

    According to Rattan Lal, a soil scientist at Ohio State University, agricultural practices and animal husbandry have released an estimated 135 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Plowing, overgrazing, and clear-cutting have contributed to erosion and degradation of the soil, which in turn releases carbon into the atmosphere. These practices have remained popular since the rise of farming in Mesopotamia, which scientists have been able to track thanks to air samples trapped in ice cores from Greenland thousands of years ago. Read more at the New York Times.
    Do you know people who might enjoy reading this? Please share it with them!
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    Korea Should Reunify Outside the Empire

    By David Swanson
    http://davidswanson.org/korea-should-reunify-outside-the-empire/
    The majority of dictatorships on planet earth — by the U.S. government’s designation of which countries are dictatorships — are sold U.S. weapons. And most of their militaries are trained by the U.S. military.
    If I had to pick a dictatorship to object to the U.S. government’s position on, it would be one of these many, and probably it would be Saudi Arabia. But, then, I’m not a Progressive Senator. If I were, then I would object to anything less than complete hostility toward a country that the U.S. has not armed or trained in war, but rather sits on the edge of going to war against — a country that the U.S. president not long ago threatened to drop nuclear bombs on.
    Imagine if the United States made peace with North Korea. There are perhaps three ways to do it.
    1. The United States deals directly with North Korea and transforms it into another weapons customer, thereby facilitating U.S. weapons sales on both sides of the demilitarized zone. Nobody in Korea is likely to stand for this.
    2. The United States allows Korea to reunify, but keeps all the weaponry and troops in Korea that it now has in the South (as required by current U.S. law) and adds some more weaponry and troops to the northern part of the unified country. This will require at least a few days of telling the U.S. public that the only defense against the evil Chinese or Russians is a well-armed unified Korea. That’s perfectly doable.
    3. The United States allows Korea to reunify, disarm, and promote peace in the world. This would be something new under the sun. It’s what the people of Korea need and struggle for. The resulting firestorm in the U.S. media would be 10 times worse than Russiagate. Trump would be denounced in exactly the terms he ought to be denounced in for his actual offenses.
    For possibility #3 to prevail, millions of people in the United States who are smart enough to oppose lots of horrible things Trump has done would have to strain their brains and find somewhere within them the capacity to make Trump aware that he will receive tons of praise if he does a good thing.
    The most likely outcome and the best outcome are not the same. But the reason we’re considerning any of them at all is because the two Korean governments are already trying to work around the disastrous U.S. presence — so who knows what’s possible?
    --
    David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
    Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.
    Help support DavidSwanson.org, WarIsACrime.org, and TalkNationRadio.org by clicking here: http://davidswanson.org/donate. 

    Sign up for these emails at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/articles-from-david-swanson.
    Posted by at

    Some Tweets from Margaret Kimberley

    1.   Retweeted
       2 hours ago
      Georgi Zhukov, Konstantin Rokossovsky, and other Soviet officers greeting Bernard Montgomery and other British officers at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, on July 12, 1945.
      5 replies31 retweets128 likes
       
       
    2.   Retweeted
       Sep 15
      I just renewed my membership in the National Writers Union It is important to !! You can't believe how much effort goes into chasing the pittance that is usually paid to writers.
      1 reply8 retweets11 likes
       
       
    3.   Retweeted
       Sep 18
      Freelancers: are you currently owed money by Outside? Our members are asking us to help them get paid. Get in touch with us if you are owed, too. DMs are open. And please help signal boost this.
      11 retweets4 likes
       
       
    4.   Retweeted
       5 hours ago
      Replying to  
      Not the only point. "report" is bogus. It's a 2 pages PDF without a single source reference and the word "supposed" in the sentence "2,292 supposed extrajudicial executions from 2015 to 2017" which comes from NOWHERE. Here the PDF:
      2 replies6 retweets2 likes
       
       
    5.  5 hours ago
      lies about Venezuela. As always their goal is to support imperialist intervention.
      Replying to @freedomrideblog @GeorgeMonbiot
      Not the only point. "report" is bogus. It's a 2 pages PDF without a single source reference and the word "supposed" in the sentence "2,292 supposed extrajudicial executions from 2015 to 2017" which comes from…
      1 reply20 retweets32 likes
       
       
    6.   Retweeted
       Sep 3
      On this Labor Day, I can't help but think of and the important work of organizing creatives so we're paid what we're owed. ✊🏾 Solidarity is more than a five syllable word.
      2 retweets5 likes
       
       
    7.   Retweeted
       Sep 21
      CN Radio—Episode 3: Gareth Porter on DHS Deception
      5 retweets4 likes
       
       
    8.   Retweeted
       Sep 18
      Responding to right-wing Israelis attack on him, shut down Richard Silverstein's () twitter account for having condemned settlers for regularly killing . Retweet to join me in complaining to about this outrage.
      8 replies273 retweets167 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    9.   Retweeted
       10 hours ago
      Replying to   
      This article by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti (I couldn't even finish reading it!) was a perfect example of Yellow Journalism---to be studied for decades to come!
      1 retweet1 like
       
       
    10.  10 hours ago
      Russia didn’t hack state election sites
      CN Radio—Episode 3: Gareth Porter on DHS Deception
      7 retweets20 likes
       
       
    11.  10 hours ago
      You could slog through 10,000 words of NY Times nonsense or you could just read in An excellent take down of the Russiagate hoax
      The New York Times as Judge and Jury
      1 reply41 retweets63 likes
       
       
    12.   Retweeted
       16 hours ago
      These are dark times for Iran and the Iranian people. For those in Washington who have been calling for the overthrow of the Iranian Government and the destruction of the Islamic Revolution, Trump represents a once-in-a-lifetime chance to achieve their objective.
      19 replies77 retweets154 likes
       
       
    13.   Retweeted
       Sep 19
      Today's visit to wasn't just a one-off by the way - I'm starting a video series, where I'll be looking at every aspect of the NATO propaganda operation that is . All accurate information, in the public domain for all. First video coming up soon!
      4 replies24 retweets43 likes
       
       
    14.  Sep 21
      had whites only break room. Former black employee's lawsuit charges "extreme race discrimination."
      5 replies31 retweets32 likes
       
       
    15.   Retweeted
       Sep 21
      The level of attention which British and American journalists are giving to Alexei Navalny is farcical. They are presenting a man who has negligible support amongst the Russian people as someone who is on the threshold of power in Russia. Absurdity at its most absurd.
      11 replies62 retweets157 likes
       
       
    16.   Retweeted
       Sep 21
      Hillary and Rachel Maddow Lose Their Minds in Unison!: via
      4 replies29 retweets36 likes
       
       
    17.  Sep 20
      BAP's Ajamu Baraka on Chile's Own 9/11 Check out interview and subscribe to on youtube
      1 reply8 retweets18 likes
       
       
    18.  Sep 20
      Stinky indeed. Democrats were spying on Trump and the declassified documents prove it.
      Regardless of your opinion about Trump, we should be deeply troubled by the strange opposition of democrats to declassifying documents from Russia probe. Why can't the public see the documents and draw their own conclusions? Isn't transparency a democratic value? Something stinks
      5 replies16 retweets38 likes
       
       
    19.   Retweeted
       Sep 19
      While the people are entertained by the Trump saga the "steady state" continues advancing its aggressive agenda in Syria and the world. The decision by the "Trump administration" to remain in Syria forever was completely ignored by corporate press. Why?
      25 replies302 retweets500 likes
       
       
    20.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      New on MoA: NYT Admits That Its "Mountain of Evidence" For Russian Collusion Is Smaller Than A Molehill
      5 replies115 retweets131 likes
       
       
    21.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      While we are being entertained by the antics of Trump, the Senate with almost no opposition passed another record defense bill. Read more 👉🏿
      , ,  and 7 others
      2 replies42 retweets38 likes
       
       
    22.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      As part of the narrative they wanted to build under the guise of "news," NYT needed someone on the left whom they could malign as defending leaks in the past while hypocritically condemning them as part of Trump/Russia. So they blatantly lied about my views to achieve that. 🤞🏻
      14 replies112 retweets420 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    23.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      Despite NYT's false description of my views on Trump-era leaking, it is good to see them acknowledge this key point in their big Trump/Russia piece: that unhinged cable discourse & false media stories are not rare aberrations, but have pervaded coverage:
      16 replies73 retweets199 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    24.   Retweeted
       Aug 17
      International Tribunal on US Colonial Crimes in set for Oct 27 in NYC! How you can help: ✊🏽 Endorse: 🚌 Mobilize to attend 💸 Donate: 📣 Spread the word: 🇵🇷
      19 retweets26 likes
       
       
    25.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      “3,000 people died during , and this government has shown they don’t care about the people...Puerto Rico is a a colony of the US and is employing a member of la junta!”
      12 retweets11 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    26.   Retweeted
       Sep 19
      BAP National Organizer participated for 5 days in the Dominican Republic at the Continental Meeting of the Americas and the Caribbean and the Tricontinental Peace Conference. Delegates discussed the challenges of building a people’s anti-imperialist movement.
      10 retweets12 likes
       
       
    27.   Retweeted
       Jan 24
      Check out our Twitter Moment on the conference! ⚡️ “Why is the United States in Africa?”
      7 replies111 retweets143 likes
       
       
    28.   Retweeted
       Sep 19
      BAP has endorsed the . Get involved in the week of action!
       
       
      Week of Action begins tomorrow! Calls for actions each day, use these graphics to help build and spread the word.…
      1 reply12 retweets12 likes
       
       
    29.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      Here is blatant, deliberate lying from the NYT's big news article on what we supposedly know about Trump/Russia: lying done to advance a narrative. This is why I have zero sympathy when they whine about being criticized: they bring it on themselves. Just judge for yourself:
       
      45 replies381 retweets998 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    30.   Retweeted
       Sep 20
      Buried in this 10k-word NYT piece: "no public evidence has emerged showing that [Trump's] campaign conspired with Russia." This is a pattern: ample words for Trump-Russia innuendo; quiet acknowledgment of no evidence. And 0 words on what has been debunked.
      33 replies307 retweets498 likes
       
       
      Show this thread
    31.  Sep 20
      The Plot to Subvert an Election via Trump’s failure to build a hotel in Moscow (after 30 years of trying) is presented as proof of Russian collusion. I read this trash so you don’t have to.
      9 replies12 retweets42 likes
       
       
    32.   Retweeted
       Sep 19
      Replying to 
      They’re two of the biggest, most dangerous gaslighters in the country, and the fact that Maddow still has a show, and HRC still has a platform, speaks volumes as to what a “sh**hole country” we are living in. I didn’t watch it either; I need my mental health
      8 retweets19 likes
       
       
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