Saturday, June 26, 2021

Iraq's upcoming elections

First up, last Sunday, Kat's "Kat's Korner: Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo still make beautiful art together" went up and so did Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "MSNBC FABRICATOR JOY REID" and I'm noting that for Isaiah when he archives.

At one point, you could click on the week and see all the posts that went up that week so it was easy for him to find his comic when he archives them at his site. However, due to the pandemic, we've upped content here -- mainly through posting videos. As a result, we now have more content each week than will show up on the sidebar even when you click on that week.

So Sunday's posts don't show up on that week's listing.

The plan we attempted was that Isaiah would post on Saturday nights. And that worked about once.

He has other things to do and has just finished his comics for the newsletters and often has no concept for a comic by Saturday night. So we'll be going back to other plans and when he does post, to make sure he can find it a year or so from now when it gets reposted at his site, I'll include it in the last entry here for Saturday night. So he'll be able to click on the week and it will be right at the top.

Second, I'm asked about THIRD? I have no idea when this week's edition will go up. After this goes up, Ava and I will begin working on our piece. The theme right now is "From Dumb Bitch To Helpless Victim -- or is that redundant?" Guess which TV show we're addressing. At any rate, it's assumed we posted "TV: Pride?" and we didn't. Rebecca did. I have no problem with that. We wrote it on Sunday and it could have gone up then. THIRD's other content wasn't ready.

Rebecca heard it on Sunday -- Jim usually reads it out loud to everyone. On Wednesday night, she posted "dynasty - the 80s" which was mainly about DYNASTY (the original series) and Steven. She'd heard NPR on that topic and she thought it was similar to what we were addressing in the piece we'd written. She called to ask if we planned to work in the NPR story that we hadn't heard yet and our attitude was, "We are done with that piece. It should have already been up." She said, "It is now" and hit publish. That was fine, and we told her so. We said we need to go in and add two links:

It's as though DISNEY+ is still stuck in the 90s -- when they went around slapping a MATURE label warning on ELLEN because the lead character was gay. A lot of things strike us as stuck in the nineties. Move over to THE CW and you'll find CHARMED -- the reboot. It's hard to watch it and not be repulsed.

The latest stunt to keep the lesbian character from having sex? She's pregnant with a fetus from the future.

It's about as 'aware' as a very special episode of the original 90210.

Her sisters have sex lives and then there's Mel, the Will Truman of CHARMED.

What we might have applauded decades ago on an episode of PARTY OF FIVE is now woefully behind the times.

That's the section with the links -- they go to Ann and Marcia who've covered the homophobia in this season of CHARMED. They've put Mel, the lesbian sister, on ice yet again while working overtime to turn 'lil'' Maggie into a sexpot. That's never going to fly and only make viewers hate Maggie and the actress who plays her. But more to the point, if THE CW's DYNASTY can, and did, show Steven in bed with Fletcher last night while Steven's already involved with and in love with Ryan, CHARMED can get over their nervousness and find a way to do a love scene for Mel. This is no longer nonsense, it is now homophobia. They wanted credit for making one of the sisters gay and they got that credit. But it's past time, with all the 'hot' action the other two sisters get, for Mel to be portrayed as a woman who has done more than hold hands with someone she loves. CHARMED needs to grow the hell up.

Okay, moving to Iraq, Danielle Pletka and Kenneth M. Pollack penned an opinion piece for FOREIGN POLICY this week arguing Joe Biden would be the midwife of the next Iraq:

On June 17, after almost a decade of trying, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by a substantial bipartisan margin to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which permitted the invasion of Iraq, the ouster of Saddam Hussein, and subsequent multiyear operations to stabilize the country. For some, the repeal (which still requires Senate action) will fulfill a long-sought desire to reduce commitments to an Iraq that they see as a lost cause. For others, it will be the final nail in the coffin of a feckless effort to transform Iraq into a functional and prosperous democracy.

Common as these beliefs may be, they do not reflect the reality on the ground. Repealing the AUMF is little more than a symbolic step—but Americans should be careful not to misinterpret its practical meaning. Iraq is not lost. At least not yet.
Neither the bravery of Iraq’s protesters seeking political and economic reform nor the gambits of the country’s handful of well-meaning leaders have righted Iraq’s course. Corruption is too pervasive. Iraq’s nominal allies are too capricious. And as always, Iran’s minions are too powerful, so much so that even the best of Iraq’s leaders, judges, soldiers, and police officers are frightened of personal retribution for merely doing their jobs. Outside actors—mostly in Iran, some in Turkey—are intent on ensuring that Iraqis always walk a tightrope, afraid a misstep will be their last, doubtful that even the promised safety nets will be there. The only entity that might conceivably turn Iraq around is the United States, but both the costs of COVID-19 and the pervasiveness of an Iraq-as-latter-day-Vietnam narrative seem likely to drain any appetite in the Biden administration to reinforce Iraq’s foundations.

What may be most interesting about the column? That the two are AEI residents. You can't know the Iraq War without knowing Kenny Pollack and knowing that he spent the '00s and after pretending he was a centrist and maybe a little left. That's how he spoke to people when trying to sell the war. The former CIA analyst now works for the conservative think tank AEI. How's it feel to be out of the closet finally, Ken?

Over at Brookings, where Kenny used to pose from, Marsin Alshamary offers a think piece on Iraq's upcoming elections which are supposed to take place in October in which she observes, "Iraq’s current security environment presents one of the greatest obstacles to political participation." Alshamary also notes that the candidates may drop out due to fear that something make take place such as "candidates are killed ahead of elections with impunity." Her conclusions?

In a scenario where the public and protest-parties both boycott, the likely outcome is a division between the two major Shia parties — the Sadrists and Fateh — and their respective Kurdish party allies. This will lead to familiar negotiations on a compromise candidate as prime minister, which can result in either a weak independent (like Adil Abd al-Mahdi or Mustafa al-Kadhimi) or a politically-backed one who is viewed as being too implicated in the political order.

[. . .]

If there are no boycotts, the pieces of the pie for these established parties will be smaller and the negotiations for the premiership may take longer. The results, unfortunately, will not likely be different for the three high offices. Where things will change will be in parliament, where new parties may be able to negotiate more. But the most we can hope for in such a scenario is incremental change, over years, through parliament.

While over 150 candidates have seen their campaigns rejected and been kicked out from running, there are also candidates electing to drop out. ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports:

The Iraqi Independent High Electoral Commission said dozens of candidates decided to drop out of the country's parliamentary elections scheduled for October 10, raising doubts over the poll's credibility.

This came as hundreds of candidates had their candidacy withdrawn over their ties to the Baath party.

The Commission's spokesman, Hasan Salman, said the withdrawal requests are under review, noting that some might be rejected.

According to Salman, the electoral commission was not concerned if the decisions to drop out were personal choices or came under pressure, but rather cares if the candidates's requests met certain criteria.

Along with Ruth's "The shamesful way the U.S. government treats immigrants," Kat's "Chase Rice, Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Tate McRae, Nelly, Florida Georgia Line, Khalid, Ed Sheeran, Noel Gallagher" and Betty's "Science post: Yellow crazy ants and the ocean," the following sites updated: