Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Iraq snapshot

Wednesday, November 27, 2019. Protests continue in Iraq while the race continues for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination with questionable candidates -- pro-rape, unethical and racist -- insisting that they are a better choice than either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.


Starting in the US where the race of the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues and starting with pro-rape Deval Patrick.

prorape deval

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pro-rape Deval."  Deval's pro-rape actions are not in the distant past and his statements this week make clear that he's still embracing rape as acceptable and not as the crime it is.

  1.  8 hours ago
    Replying to   
    Wonder what spousal rape does to a woman's mental health? Study THAT
     
     
  2.  12 hours ago
    Deval Patrick Calls His Sister's Rape a 'Relapse' During NH Campaign Stop – InsideSources
     
     



Liza Featherstone (JACOBIN) offers more worrying details about Deval:

The donor classes do not want Bernie Sanders to be president. Most of them don’t want Elizabeth Warren, either. They’d prefer someone who doesn’t have much to say about wealth distribution, whether in the form of taxing the rich, or big programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Their most electable option in this vein — at least as measured by primary and general election polling, as well as occasional, if fleeting, resemblance to a sympathetic human being — is obviously Joe Biden. Unhappily for them, Biden is also a chucklehead. Terrified that the Left might win, the titans of industry have a plan: Deval Patrick.
Like Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, is the extremely disappointing progeny of a radical father. (Pat Patrick, a jazz musician, played with Sun Ra’s band, The Arkestra.) That’s probably the coolest thing about him.
The enthusiasm for Sanders and Warren at the grassroots — as well as for progressive and socialist local and Congressional candidates nationwide — might suggest a sea change, a popular desire to grapple seriously with the problems caused by capitalism. Deval Patrick, until recently an executive at Bain Capital, is a flagrant insult to that popular uprising. He is a cherished asset of the fossil fuel, private equity, and subprime mortgage industries, which are some of the worst phenomena that contemporary capitalism has produced. What’s next, a member of the Sackler family?
Though news coverage insists on characterizing his entry into the primary as “sudden,” it seems that a few members of the ruling class have been working on his campaign for a while. Since 2018, OpenSecrets News reports, big donors, especially in private equity, have been pouring money into Deval Patrick’s PAC, putting his campaign in an advantageous position. Even in October 2018, more than a year ago, the PAC, called Reason to Believe, was far outperforming PACs of other candidates considering a 2020 run. Most of the money came from one private equity mogul: Dan Fireman, a billionaire golf enthusiast.
A couple of hours after Patrick declared his 2020 candidacy on Thursday, his bio disappeared from Bain Capital’s website. Not coincidentally, Mitt Romney’s association with Bain helped him lose to Barack Obama in 2012, when Obama focused on the firm’s role in job losses and bankruptcies. But Obama was just copying the earlier messaging of a Republican PAC supporting GOP primary candidate Newt Gingrich, which made a startlingly powerful ad on the subject called “King of Bain” — the clip could have been made by Michael Moore, except for the silly provincial moment at the end where the guy is mocked for knowing French — with heartbreaking testimony from ordinary people whose lives were ruined when Bain bought and bankrupted their employer. Gingrich, in interviews, correctly called Bain “exploitive” and its business model “indefensible.”
Americans across the political spectrum, then, have known enough to hate Bain Capital for some time. Patrick, who was a cochair of Obama’s campaign, is already facing awkward questions about what exactly he did there. The answers to that are embarrassing: he headed the company’s social enterprise division, an appalling attempt to make private equity look as if it serves a useful social purpose. Its main project is making very rich people much richer, generally by immiserating others, and it would be more honest of them to just say so.



As Deval's background gets explored, so too does Tiny Pete's.  Both Pete Buttigieg and Deval are in place in case the establishment choice Joe Biden continues to falter.  As Rebecca noted this morning, Tiny Pete's got more racism issues.  Michael Harriot (THE ROOT) explained how Pete took basic issues and managed to mangle them because Pete works and sees through a racist prism.


  2.  7 minutes ago
    Replying to   and 
    will not win! This is why. I will never vote for Buttigieg. can try to explain it away but he has a consistent record of racism.
     
     
  3.  19 minutes ago
    Replying to  
    It's hard to pick just one worst candidate when there's so many desperately trying to get that title, but because he's got all the racism of Biden but none of the age, he is probably the worst.

 Nov 25
“It proves men like him are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism.”
184 replies1,403 retweets4,130 likes
 
 



  1.  10 minutes ago
    Buttigieg demoted South Bend’s black police chief - after white officers leveraged his donors to pressure him. Racism and corporatism are related, and they’re a part of Buttigieg.
     
     
  2.  2 hours ago
    Saw the clip of the clarification & apology, . It’s not that WE need to look at systematic racism, YOU need to. Please do that before you ever speak on what minorities go thru in this country in such a disparagingly tone-deaf manner again. Thanks!
    10 replies55 retweets318 likes
     
     


  1.  18 hours ago
    Buttigieg’s comments on black families and education are blind to the resilience of black children under a rigged system. Don’t you dare make these “cultural” arguments, especially if you’re privileged, if you’re not going to talk about systemic racism.
    20 replies158 retweets675 likes
     
     

 Nov 18
Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign website illustrated his “Douglass Plan” to dismantle racism in the U.S. with a stock photo of a Kenyan woman. The campaign has apologized and said it was "selected while a contractor was running our site."
269 replies138 retweets297 likes
 
 



Tiny Pete's plan appears to be to stumble all the way to the finish line.

Meanwhile there's The Original Screw Up, Joe Biden. 

 13 hours ago
An excellent question that took far too long to be asked. Why didn't Joe Biden recuse himself from Ukrainian policy while his son was embroiled with the energy concern there. via
420 replies4,099 retweets9,494 likes
 
 



He should have recused himself.

He was the vice president of the United States.  He was supposed to be part of the most transparent administration ever.  And his dictate was not just to avoid conflict of interest but to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

He failed.

But if Joe had any ethics, he wouldn't lie so much in this run for the nomination.  One example:


  1.  16 hours ago
    Politifact rates Biden’s claim that the vast majority of Democrats oppose Medicare for All as “mostly false.”
    10 replies91 retweets329 likes
     
     





Cher weighs in on the race for the presidential nomination.

 10 hours ago
❤️Obama ( Was Disappointed In SOME Policies)But With Best Friends Like Former Pres.JOE BIDEN Doesn’t Need ANY ENEMIES.From Now On Joe Doesn’t Need Limo’s,He Can Ride The Bus Obama Just Threw Him Under..Bet Bernie Isnt Jumping 4 Joy😡Either. WORDS COME BACK TO BITE U IN THE ASS
65 replies52 retweets428 likes
 
 


She's referring to the same topic Betty is covering here.  The reports that Barack Obama was and remains determined to destroy Bernie Sanders should it appear Bernie is a lock for the nomination.  Barack supposedly also expressed grave disappointment in Joe Biden.

The most disturbing of all is that Barack's reportedly pulling this nonsense.  He's not a king.   He's not a king maker.  And he wasn't too pleased when Bill Clinton tried to pull similar strings in 2008.

Turning to Iraq, Alissa J. Rubin and Christina Anderson (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
Sweden has opened three investigations into Iraq’s defense minister, including looking into the possible commission of crimes against humanity.
The defense minister, Najah al-Shammari, a major general who was an officer under Saddam Hussein, holds dual citizenship in Iraq and Sweden, and the other investigations involve possible benefits fraud in Sweden and the breaking of Sweden’s registration laws, which require people to register where they live.
“The accusations leveled at him are serious, and now the Swedish authorities are trying to bring clarity to them,” said Annika Soder, Sweden’s state secretary for foreign affairs.
Mr. al-Shammari, 52, who has been serving in his current job since June, denied the allegations in a statement released earlier this week. 

This story has been brewing all week.  We're noting Rubin and Anderson because they've done a good job but, like everyone else, they're still missing the main issue.  They write about how he can't be deported to Sweden but if he were he'd face . . .

Stop.

He holds dual citizenship.  Iraqis are protesting a corrupt and ineffective government.  He's proof of that.  Rabih Nader (AL-MONITOR) reported two years ago:

Many officials with dual nationality accused by the Iraqi authorities of corruption have fled the country in order to escape prosecution. Basra Gov. Majid al-Nasrawi is a case in point; he left Iraq on an Australian passport Aug. 18 in defiance of an arrest warrant over suspected corruption. Several other officials have also left the country, including former Ministers Abdul Falah al-Sudani (trade), Hazim Shaalan (defense) and Ayham al-Samarrai (electricity).
For two years, the Iraqi parliament has not been able to pass a bill bringing an end to officials holding dual citizenship, despite its inclusion in a list of parliamentary reforms announced by speaker Salim al-Jabouri in August 2015, as part of a package of government measures following widespread demonstrations in Baghdad to demand reform.
The bill, which has been suspended since the last parliamentary term, deals with the rules on Iraqi officials holding two nationalities. It is based on Article 18 of the Iraqi Constitution, which demands that holders of senior and “sovereign” offices give up their “acquired citizenship.” However, the constitution charges the legislature with the task of working out the details and drawing up a law on the issue, something the Iraqi parliament has so far failed to do.


Parliament refuses to put the Constitution into effect.  That's an indictment of the system.  Article 18 of the Constitution is very clear and yet he holds a Cabinet position?  That's an indictment of the system and of the prime minister who put him in the post.

The protests continue in Iraq.  REUTERS reports, "Protesters blocked roads with burning tyres in southern Iraq and clashed with police in Baghdad on Wednesday, aiming to disrupt the economy and jolt complacent authorities into meeting their demands for an overhaul of corrupt governance. "





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