Friday, June 02, 2023

Iraq snapshot

Friday, June 2, 2023.  The hate merchants continue their push to destroy democracy in the United States, the UN renews the mandate to occupy Iraq, Tara Reade's Congressional friends had already turned on her, and much more.

 

The White House issued the following statement:

 

     In June 1969, a courageous group of Americans rose up to protest the violence and marginalization they faced in what became known as the Stonewall Uprising.  Police had raided the Stonewall Inn — a gay bar located in New York City — and for the next six days they clashed with LGBTQI+ protestors, who bravely stood their ground.  Their courage sparked a civil rights movement for the liberation of the LGBTQI+ community and changed our Nation forever.  

     During Pride Month, we honor a movement that has grown stronger, more vibrant, and more inclusive with every passing year.  Pride is a celebration of generations of LGBTQI+ people, who have fought bravely to live openly and authentically.  And it is a reminder that we still have generational work to do to ensure that everyone enjoys the full promise of equity, dignity, protection, and freedom.

     Today, our Nation faces another inflection point.  In 2023 alone, State and local legislatures have already introduced over 600 hateful laws targeting the LGBTQI+ community.  Books about LGBTQI+ people are being banned from libraries.  Transgender youth in over a dozen States have had their medically necessary health care banned.  Homophobic and transphobic vitriol spewed online has spilled over into real life, as armed hate groups intimidate people at Pride marches and drag performances, and threaten doctors’ offices and children’s hospitals that offer care to the LGBTQI+ community.  Our hearts are heavy with grief for the loved ones we have lost to anti-LGBTQI+ violence. 

     Despite these attacks, the LGBTQI+ community remains resilient.  LGBTQI+ Americans are defiantly and unapologetically proud.  Youth leaders are organizing walkouts at high schools and colleges across the country to protest discriminatory laws.  LGBTQI+ young people and their parents are demonstrating unimaginable courage by testifying in State capitols in defense of their basic rights.

     They are not alone:  My entire Administration stands proudly with the LGBTQI+ community in the enduring struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.  And we are making strides.  On my first day in office, I signed a historic Executive Order charging the entire Federal Government with protecting LGBTQI+ people from discrimination — from health care to housing, education, employment, banking, and the criminal justice system.  Last December, surrounded by dozens of couples who have fought for marriage equality in the courts for decades, I had the great honor of signing into law the landmark Respect for Marriage Act.  This bipartisan law protects the rights of same-sex and interracial couples — like caring for one’s sick partner and receiving spousal benefits.  Deciding who to marry is one of life’s most profound decisions, so we etched a simple truth into law:  Love is love.

     Meanwhile, I have taken unprecedented steps to support LGBTQI+ youth.  During Pride Month last year, I signed an Executive Order charging Federal agencies with combating the dangerous and discredited practice of so-called “conversion therapy.”  I also directed agencies to help end the crisis of homelessness among LGBTQI+ youth and adults and to address discrimination that LGBTQI+ kids face in foster care.  The Department of Justice is combating laws that target transgender children, and the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services have proposed new rules to protect LGBTQI+ Americans from discrimination in health care, at school, and in sports.  I also established the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse to develop concrete actions to prevent and respond to online harassment and abuse, which disproportionately target LGBTQI+ people.  Additionally, my Administration made it easier for LGBTQI+ youth to access vital mental health support.  Now, by calling the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and dialing the number 3, LGBTQI+ youth can speak to counselors who have been specifically trained to support them. 

     This country is stronger and more just when America’s leaders reflect the full diversity of our Nation, so I have appointed a historic number of highly qualified openly LGBTQI+ judges and public servants at all levels of the Federal Government.  Our Armed Forces are most capable when all patriots can serve their country, so I protected the right of transgender people to once again serve openly in the military. 

     But there is more to do, like passing the bipartisan Equality Act, which would strengthen civil rights protections for LGBTQI+ people and families across America.  We must also address the disproportionate levels of homelessness, poverty, and unemployment in the LGBTQI+ community and end the crisis of violence against transgender women and girls of color.  We must support LGBTQI+ activists around the globe who are standing up for basic human rights and LGBTQI+ survivors of gender-based violence.  And we must end the HIV/AIDS epidemic once and for all.  Our collective freedoms are inextricably linked:  when one group’s dignity and equality are threatened, we all suffer.  This month and every month, let us celebrate the pride that powers the movement for LGBTQI+ rights and commit to doing our part to help realize the promise of America, for all Americans.

     NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2023 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month.  I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the achievements of the LGBTQI+ community, to celebrate the great diversity of the American people, and to wave their flags of pride high.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-seventh.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

 

It is Pride Month.  At GLAAD, Kata Sosin notes:

Nine out of 10 heterosexual Americans — 91 percent — think that LGBTQ+ people should live without facing discrimination, according to a newly released survey from GLAAD, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ media advocacy group. 

The “Accelerating Acceptance” report, which the organization released on Thursday, is the latest in a series of polls that suggest that the Republican political strategy of targeting LGBTQ+ Americans may be a losing game with the majority of voters. 

“I think the short-term gains for them right now are financing and public profile, but it won’t get them elected,” Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, told The 19th. “I think the top line is that an overwhelming number of Americans believe that LGBTQ people should live our lives freely.”

The study looked at responses from 2,533 people who self-identified as non-LGBTQ+ ages 18 and older and was conducted online by research technology firm Cint during February 2023. 

Republican lawmakers have filed a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the last three years, with most of the measures aimed at transgender youth. The Equality Federation, a coalition of statewide LGBTQ+ organizations, reports that lawmakers have introduced more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills into state legislatures in the past year alone. A record number of those bills have passed. Eighteen states now ban the recommended medical care for transgender youth, and 21 states bar trans kids from competing in sports that align with their gender. 

While those bills might be soaring through Republican-dominated statehouses, polling suggests that the country has continued to embrace LGBTQ+ people. That translates to backing policy for them, GLAAD says. In 2021, 79 percent of Accelerating Acceptance respondents backed LGBTQ+ equal rights. That number jumped to 84 percent in 2023, a number just shy of the 91 percent who said they felt queer people should not be discriminated against.


It's Pride Month -- time for the hate merchants to panic.  


NEWSWEEK trotted out one.  A self-loathing gay man.  File it under, Dom come get your subby and put him back on the leash.  The creep learned something in the military but it wasn't honesty.  sub may have the right -- when not in the dungeon -- to express his opinions but he doesn't have the right to lie..  No, he doesn't.  No link to the trash, but sub wants the world to know, got to let it show, that the "T" in LGBTQ+ should be removed.  This, sub snaps, is not what Pride is about and if you look at it historically you will see it was gay men and lesbians who started Pride.


Is he just begging for his Dom to beat him?


I don't know but I do know NEWSWEEK is responsible for facts.  subby's column is not accurate factually.   First, Stonewall alone questions subby's assertions.  Take out Stonewall and you have no liberation.  Somewhere Mike Pence is reworking his time travel list and trying to figure whether to go back to Stonewall before or after he rescues Adolf Hitler.  


Second, I don't know where he's looking but subby's not looking at reality.  I didn't live in San Francisco when Pride started but I do live there now and have for most of my adult life.  And "T" and drag queens have always been part of the Pride events because I've seen the archive footage.  The very first Pride march (billed as such) has multiple members of the transgender community and multiple drag queens.  


Third, subby proves the reality: The extreme right are Christian illiterates.  For those confused, I didn't coin that phrase.  It refers to hate merchants and it's from 30 ROCK when the Karen asks Tina Fey's Liz to help her write something and Liz tells her no way, write it yourself.  To which the Karen replies that she can't because she's a Christian illiterate.


So is the self-loathing gay Iraq War veteran subby who wrote the piece NEWSWEEK ran.  He doesn't bother to learn history before trying to write about it.  Hey, he'd be perfect for The Hoover Institute and his own FOX "NEWS" show.  


But he's not fit for publication in respectable periodicals when he doesn't know a damn thing he's writing about.  

 

Oliver Darcy (CNN) notes:

 

Prepare yourself for a Pride Month imbued with callous intolerance.

Fueled by right-wing media personalities and institutions like Fox News, conservatives are waging a ferocious war on companies that express support for the LGBTQ community, with hostilities against the celebration of gay rights swelling to levels not seen in many years. In effect, the supposedly anti-cancel culture crowd is leading the summer’s biggest cancel culture campaign.

In recent weeks, right-wing media has smeared and incited boycotts against Bud Light and Target, two jumbo American brands that have been thrust into the center of the toxic culture wars. Both companies have been relentlessly attacked over their show of public support for the LGBTQ community. In recent days, The North Face, Kohl’s, and Chick-fil-A have also come under assault in the expanding war. And Disney, of course, has been an endless punching bag since it spoke out against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida last year.

 

In the right-wing media universe, in which millions of Americans firmly reside, these companies have been portrayed as “woke” and evil corporations seeking to groom children with radical — even Satantic — gender ideology that will corrupt their brains and ultimately lead to the destruction of society.

The attacks have put companies in the uncomfortable position of standing up for the values of their own employees and the public writ large against a relentless volley of threats of mass boycotts, lost revenue, and ultimately, long-term brand harm. With each offensive — and claimed victories — the activists wielding the pitchforks have become more emboldened and the business atmosphere more chilled.

Written in black and white, the attacks look deranged. But it is precisely what some of the loudest and most influential right-wing media figures are promoting to their large followings, with new self-generated outrage cycles generated daily. It isn’t quite QAnon, but it’s close — and it is being fed to the GOP base in broad daylight. You don’t have to go to the dark corners of the internet to find this style of crazed commentary; it’s available each day via mainstream right-wing outlets.

 

The hate merchant are organized.  These attacks are about destroying rights and freedoms.  As Stan noted in "My grandmother wants me to point out that someone was right," Matt Walsh attacks BROS last fall while claiming it's not him being homophobic but it is and it's part of them attacking and attacking and trying to destroy the LGBTQ+ community.  Margaret Sullivan (GUARDIAN) notes:

And, of course, this is all part of a broad and determined effort to go after these communities as part of what some glibly term “the culture wars,” but which often amounts to the politics of cruelty.

 

There’s an ugly strategy here.

“Here’s what we should do,” instructed the right-wing pundit Matt Walsh recently. “Pick a victim, gang up on it, and make an example of it. We can’t boycott every woke company or even most of them. But we can pick one, it hardly matters which, and target it with a ruthless boycott campaign. Claim one scalp and then move on to the next.”

You heard him: “It hardly matters which.” It’s not so much, in other words, that Anheuser-Busch should get pounded for the supposed sin against decency of working with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney through a Bud Light sponsorship, or that Target stocks a modicum of merchandise that recognizes the gay and trans communities as human beings.

Rather, this crusade is a way to persecute an already vulnerable population. Doubt it? Simply recall Michael Knowles’s infamous pronouncement just months ago at CPAC in which the Daily Wire writer opined that “transgenderism must be eradicated entirely from public life.”

In recent days, one right-wing pundit – apparently following the Walsh playbook – began revving up his followers on social media because (ready for this hideous misdeed?) Chick-Fil-A had hired a vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

“Let’s see how PROUD these brands are after 30 STRAIGHT days of consistent business losses,” Joey Mannarino tweeted, listing 10 companies, and dubiously positing that “this is not homophobia.” Rather, he insisted, “we like natural men and women and don’t want to be forced into your world of liberal depravity.”


Jeffrey St. Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) notes:

 

+ An analysis by Media Matters of FoxNews’ coverage of the protests against Target for offering Pride-themed merchandise revealed that the supposedly chastened network devoted 2 hours, 12 minutes and 32 seconds worth of coverage to the manufactured backlash against Target last week and at total 22 seconds on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Illinois, involving the molestation of 1,900 minors by 450 credibly-accused sexual abusers, including priests and lay religious brothers. So perhaps it’s not about protecting the kids, after all?


Exactly.   The hate merchants are not about protecting children or anything but hate.  They may be about rigging the stock market -- a conspiracy the SEC could charge them with -- but  they should be the subject of a glaring spotlight that exposes them each time.  They're not trying to help, they're trying to destroy.


And that is what average Americans will not support because it goes against everyone we've been taught.  They tried to scare the American people with Monkeypox -- remember Sajaar and the other hate merchants trying to make that a scare?  They do everything they can.  But the country has crossed that mark so they focus on transgender which is 'new' for some people and so it's easier to lie about.  And they do lie.  Over and over.  But, look around, because while some claiming to be of the left -- Max Blumenthal's idiot wife, for example -- join in these attacks, more and more people are standing up and saying "NO!"  We will not slip back into homophobia anymore than we will allow the worst days of racism to return.  We will fight homophobia, we will fight racism, we'll fight for equality because that is what we are supposed to believe in and what we are supposed to stand for. 

 

A couple of months ago, I attended a rousing concert of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles at a theater in downtown Glendale. Glendale is a close suburb of Los Angeles that’s historically lacking in people of color, which made it deeply satisfying to see a chorus as wonderfully diverse as GMCLA.

There was something else. The concert’s celebration of spirited, dance-oriented R&B music as a guiding light of gay culture was musically thrilling, but it was also politically resonant in a way that felt new. Amid the applause and amens, there was almost palpable awareness in the theater that Black and LBGTQ people, because they are being similarly reviled by the right, are aligning not just politically but spiritually. Racism has found its equal.

Which isn’t to say that racism and LBGTQ-phobia are equally made. Racism is the bedrock inequality in America, the institution of slavery providing the stem cells for all other forms of systemic and legalized oppression that came after. By the time slavery was abolished, American tradition was set — the practice of separate-and-unequal picked right up where slavery had left off. The justice movements that emerged fully during the ’60s — a hundred years after slavery — gay rights, women’s rights, environmental justice — all used the Black civil rights struggle as a template, with good reason. No group had been as deliberately disenfranchised as Black folk had been, and no group had been fighting as intensely against that disenfranchisement for as long.

It’s a truth I feel sworn to protect, because America has always been so willing, often eager, to diminish or outright dismiss core truths about itself, especially the core truth about race. Generally, whenever I hear people trying to equate racism with other kinds of oppression, I interject. It’s not that immigrant-bashing or sexism aren’t deplorable or don’t share traits with racism. But the significance of anti-Blackness as a force in shaping our history and culture is enormous, and it needs to be made clear.

And yet, the swiftly escalating campaign against LGBTQ people, notably trans people, feels like racism in that a whole group of people is being openly degraded simply for being who they are. For those who are both Black and LGBTQ, this is hardly a new crisis. But for white LGBTQ people, it must come as an unpleasant shock.

While the gay rights movement was inspired by the civil rights movement, it comprised a whole lot of white, otherwise privileged people, who for a long time had little in common with average Black people and their freedom fight. A fight that wasn’t just economic or political or even cultural, but spiritual; it was total. Accepting Black folks as equals involved nothing less than looking into the depths of America’s soul and fearlessly confronting what was there, and then making a change. That multilayered, frankly demanding process is why attitudes about race are always a reliable Rorschach test of who we really are as a people, and especially of who white people are as a people.

Attitudes about the LBGTQ community are now posing a similar kind of existential test, as the longstanding antipathy toward gay and queer people morphs before our eyes into new laws and restrictions, mainly in but not limited to the South — well over 500 bills this year introduced in statehouses across the country ― that perfectly mirror the energy of Jim Crow.


This is not 'their' fight.  This is our fight.  If you can't grasp that, grasp that Little Ronnie DeSantis insists that he's going to "destroy leftism."  

Little Ronnie is already destroying the state of Florida.  Charles P. Pierce (ESQUIRE) reports:

We huck-a-buck along to Hernando County in Florida — where, it should be noted, they enliven the broadcast of their school board meetings with some cool Latin jazz — to watch some teachers explain that they do not choose to be dragooned into Ron DeSantis' preposterous presidential campaign. From The Washington Post:

At Tuesday’s meeting, local teacher Daniel Scott gave a moving speech, declaring that the climate of rage is driving him out of the profession. “I don’t feel that I can adequately provide a safe environment for my students anymore,” Scott said, denouncing the “draconian working conditions that are causing many such as myself to abandon this honored career.” Meanwhile, Alyssa Marano, a math teacher who has resigned, rejected the oft-heard charge of LGBTQ indoctrination of students. “No one is teaching your kids to be gay,” she told the room.

“Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”

Nearly 50 teachers are reportedly planning to resign in this school district. Lisa Masserio, president of the teachers union in Hernando County, says state laws and directives restricting educators are a key reason. She told us: “There is increased pressure and scrutiny on an already difficult job.”

This meeting, and hundreds of others around the country, are the real battlefields of this stupid, ginned-up culture war. Notice the mindless repetition of the conjuring words, the latest thing in Christo-politico-mumbo-jumbo, and the free-range fanaticism covering the complete zoology of talk-radio bogeymen. But what is equally striking are the voices now being raised in opposition, and through the actions of teachers who, alas, are voting with their feet and leaving a profession that sorely needs them. Won't somebody please think of the children?

 Little Ronnie is wasting Florida taxpayer money for 'protection' as he travels state to state running for president -- instead of being in Florida and, you know, governing.  

 

Daniel Villarreal (LGBTQ NATION) reports on Little Ronnie's 'brain trust':


The pastor who delivered the invocation at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) second inauguration has said that gay people should be put to death.

Tom Ascol — senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida — made his comment on Twitter while criticizing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). On Monday, Cruz issued a tweet criticizing Uganda’s new “Anti-Homosexuality Act,” a law that punishes “aggravated homosexuality” with death.

 Cruz’s tweet called the law “horrific & wrong,” adding, “Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’ is grotesque & an abomination. ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse.”

 

Ascol disagreed, writing on Tuesday, “Tell it to God, Ted.”

The pastor then cited Leviticus 20:13, the Old Testament verse that says, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Ascol asked, “Was this law God gave to His old covenant people ‘horrific and wrong’?”

Leviticus’ ancient Biblical laws also require the death penalty for anyone who practices fortune telling, curses their mother or father, accidentally kills someone else’s animal, or commits blasphemy. Other Old Testament laws demand death for anyone who charges interest on loans or works on Saturdays.

Most contemporary Christians don’t follow these ancient Biblical laws and say that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ made them obsolete. However, conservative Christians tend to cite Leviticus 20:13 as proof that God shares their hatred of LGBTQ+ people.

 

We'll note this Tweet from Paul Rudnick 

 

Hate merchants struggle to celebrate Pride Month. Alex Bollinger (LGBTQ NATION) reports that Marjorie Taylor Greene celebrated with a hate bashing and scientifically incorrect Tweet:


Marjorie?  Guess we need to check in on her gal pal, Tara Reade.  No, she hasn't grazed for a few hours, exploded and taken out half of Russia.  But I did fill in for Kat last night and I'm reposting it here.

In the roundtable we did a little while ago for the gina & krista round-robin, Gina asked me what I thought was the craziest thing about Tara Reade and her drama?  I said I'd need a long second to think on that.  I've got it now -- after the roundtable's ended, sorry, Gina.


The craziest thing?


Well that she believes Matt Gaetz.  She's saying he warned that she was in danger.  Oh, okay, if Matt said it then it must be true, right?


Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Matt needed her out of the picture, could it?


See Matt and Marjorie promised her a Congressional hearing and an investigation and this and that.


That was before they were both informed by House leadership that it wasn't happening, not now, not ever.


So if Tara stays in the US and it doesn't happen, Matt looks like the deliver-nothing guy that he is, the failure he'll always be.


If Tara leaves the country, by contrast, he gets to look like her being out of the country is why he couldn't deliver.


The GOP doesn't not want Tara Reade in Congress for two main reasons -- upcoming elections and scope.


Upcoming elections?  They don't want to overplay their hand the way the GOP did in the 90s with Bill Clinton.  The American people grew so weary of the whole thing that they turned on the GOP and its inquisition.  Juanita Broaddrick's story -- which had nothing to do with impeachment -- never stood a chance of being heard because the press sat on it too long and when it came out finally (and briefly), the attitude was, "No more.  I can't hear any more on this."


So they're hoping to get Joe Biden on something to with corruption.  They don't want a weary nation saying, "Just shut up and get to work."  They need to make sure that they are dealing with real issues that impact the presidency.  


Tara Reade is not a real issue for them.


Scope?


Congress doesn't do trials on rape.  That's your criminal courts.  


This allegation of rape goes back to the early 1990s.  It is a he-said/she-said.  There will be no proof emerging.  It will be one person pitted against the other.  


It wouldn't go Tara's way because she's lied too many times.  As the one bringing the allegation, it's also her allegation to prove and she hasn't done a very good job of that.


But she would need to prove that in court.  


This is a waste of Congress' time and money.  This would be a waste that the American people would be footing the bill for.  And its not Congress' role or duty.


The vanity on Tara is no surprise at this point.  But step back just one moment and think of all the rape survivors in this country who have not received justice.


All of those people are going to be ignored by Congress but Congress is going to break custom and the law to rescue Tara Reade.


That's a lot of vanity on her.


It would not only be beyond their scope, it would also break custom and it would allow for endless garbage for years to come.


Joe Biden is president.  If something happened between him and Tara back in 1993, it has no bearing on his presidency and Congress has no reason to pursue it.  It would be a waste of time and money.


And with elections around the corner and the GOP already struggling, it's been conveyed to Matt that it is not happening and that the House needs to focus on things that might actually be impeachable to avoid America tuning out.


Tara's made herself a joke.  I may put some of this (or all) in the snapshot later this morning at THE COMMON ILLS.

 

I went with all.  

Yesterday, the United Nations Security Council released a statement regarding a resolution they adopted May 30th and here's some of that statement:


Welcoming the confirmation of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed S. Al-Sudani's government by the Council of Representatives,

Encouraging the recently formed government to deliver on reforms, aimed at meeting the Iraqi people's legitimate aspirations, to address corruption, respect and protect the human rights of all individuals in Iraq, promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses, deliver essential services, diversify the economy, create jobs, improve governance, combat climate change and environmental and water-related challenges, and strengthen viable and responsive state institutions, including the security sector,

Recognizing the Government of Iraq's efforts to that effect, and calling for State institutions to redouble efforts to pursue accountability for those responsible for human rights violations and abuses including the killing, serious injury, abduction or disappearance of demonstrators and journalists, including women and to safeguard and respect the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression,

Welcoming the Government of Iraq's efforts to assist internally displaced persons and displaced Iraqis in Syria to return and reintegrate to their areas of origin or resettle elsewhere in Iraq, encouraging again international support for those efforts, and stressing the importance of achieving dignified, safe and durable solutions undertaken on a voluntary and informed basis,

Recognizing the progress the Government of Iraq has made in implementing the Yazidi Survivors Law, establishing the General Directorate for Survivors Affairs and disbursing the first payments to survivors and victims, noting that the lack of inclusion of children born of conflict-related sexual violence needs to be addressed, including all administrative obstacles to obtain registration and documentation for these children, acknowledging the need to ensure a survivor-centered approach in which reparations and redress measures are continued, and evidentiary standards and requirements are not overly burdensome, discriminatory, or risk re-traumatizing and calling on the Government of Iraq to hold perpetrators of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence accountable and provide mental health and psychosocial support to all survivors and victims,

Recognizing that the adverse effects of climate change, ecological changes, and natural disasters, among other factors, can contribute to desertification and drought, sand and dust storms, adversely impact food security, water scarcity, livelihoods, and the humanitarian situation, and aggravate any existing instability, emphasizing the need for comprehensive risk assessments by the Government of Iraq with the support of the United Nations, upon the request of the Government of Iraq, to take meaningful actions to adapt to or mitigate challenges posed by climate change and ecological change, acknowledging the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, and welcoming the Government of Iraq's efforts to that effect, in particular noting the Government of Iraq's accession to the UN Water Convention and the Iraq Climate Conference as well as the third Baghdad International Water Conference in 2023,

Calling on the international community to support durable solutions and development efforts while the Government of Iraq assumes responsibility for the provision of humanitarian services,

Noting the Government of Iraq's support for an Independent Strategic Review shared in the letter dated 18 May 2023 from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq H.E. Fuad Hussein addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,

  1. Decides to extend the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) until 31 May 2024;


We're strop right there because that's all that matters.  That's what all the people speaking to the UN Security Council had called for -- that the mandate would be renewed.  If it hadn't been renewed?  All non-Iraqi forces (such as the US military) would have to leave  Iraq or come up with an individual agreement with the government of Iraq to stay in Iraq.  


The occupation of Iraq will continue for another year.  And probably many more after that.  But they got the mandate allowing them to militarily occupy Iraq for yet another year.


In other news, MEMO reports:


Rising controversy has been surrounding the Iraqi provincial elections, the date of which was approved by Parliament on 6 November. Behind the scenes amongst the youth, especially those who participated in the October 2019 protests, for whom the protest movement became a moral and political reference, there has been talk about the feasibility of participating in these elections or if warrant a boycott.

The division was clear among the youth on the eve of the parliamentary elections in October 2021. Many of them boycotted it, while political currents emanating from the October Protest Movement or the Tishreen Movement participated, and won nearly 20 seats. In general, those who believed in political participation among the "Tishreenites" did not obtain a significant parliamentary bloc, remained on the sidelines and their activity under the dome of decision-making did not have a substantial impact on the paths set by the large partisan blocs controlling the scene.

This clear result presents a convincing argument for those who see the continuation of the boycott as a morally correct choice and that participation will give the large parties greater legitimacy, in contrast with the results of the recent electoral scene, where no one argues that they have the least voter participation. Therefore, the parliament and the government emanating from this weak parliament are less legitimate, and they do not represent the opinion of the majority of those entitled to vote, as this majority chose the path of silent protest and boycott instead.








Isaiah's The WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Tara asks WWPD -- What Would Putin Do?" and "Little Ronnie Gets Spanked Again" went up last night.  The following sites updated:




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