Friday, August 25, 2023

Iraq snapshot

Friday, August 25, 2023.  A rally for Julian Assange takes place tomorrow, RKF Junior continues to disgrace himself, others weigh in on the GOP debate.

Tomorrow there will be a rally online for Julian Assange:


Wistaverse (www.wistaverse.com) the world’s first global platform for protest in the metaverse, announced today that the campaign to stop the extradition of Julian Assange will launch the first ever virtual political rally for Assange this Saturday, August 26th. The rally is part of the effort to prevent the founder of WikiLeaks from being extradited to the US where he could face a 175 year jail sentence for revealing information about the Iraq and Afghan wars. It is being organized by the Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign (https://dontextraditeassange.com), which is the official campaign of the Assange movement, working with Assange and his family. 

John Rees from the Don't Extradite Assange campaign said, “This event in the Wistaverse is a valuable opportunity to unite people across the world who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press to show their support for Julian and set a signal that will be an important precedent for human rights everywhere. No matter where you are in the world, you can virtually join this event.” 
 
The event will include the participation of and speeches by Julian Assange himself (pre-recorded), his wife Stella Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and other high profile guests, including British politician Jeremy Corbyn.

The event will take place in the Wistaverse, the world’s first platform for virtual protest in the metaverse. The Wistaverse is a not-for-profit protocol located in the Sandbox on the Polygon blockchain. Users who organize protests do so on their own initiative, independent of the Wistaverse’s creators. The protocol enables a platform for protest for causes with universal importance and gives access for everyone to participate, regardless of geographical location or possible physical disabilities.

Jules, one of the founders of Wistaverse, said: “We are excited that the Don't Extradite Assange campaign has decided to use the platform to host such a key rally shortly after the launch of the Wistaverse this May. At that time, the inaugural protest was an event organized by Amnesty International in support of abortion rights worldwide. Now, we trust that the event this Saturday will set a signal and focus all eyes on freedom of speech to support that cause. The new Web3 technologies are enabling unprecedented participation and the opportunity for everyone to shape worldwide governance.” 

The rally will take place in a virtual auditorium designed to look like the Royal Courts of Justice in London where Assange is set to face his final appeal in the UK court system. It aims to build for a real life protest at the same venue when the court date is announced.

The speakers at the rally will appear either as characters inside the event or with filmed contributions shown on screens inside the arena created by the event designers. 
The Wistaverse uses metaverse technology to allow each individual attendee to be represented by an avatar that can hear the speeches and watch other material inside the virtual rally and interact with other attendees. It protects users’ identity and enables universal participation. The rally is open to anyone with a computer.

The rally will be on Saturday 26 August at 5pm BST/ British Summer Time, when information about how to participate will go live on the event’s dedicated website on the Sandbox.

For more information contact:

For Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign: media(at)dontextraditeassange.com or
Silvi: email: ps13(at)tuamail.com Tel.: +44-798-480-9125
For the Wistaverse: jules.wistaverse(at)gmail.com & Wistaverse(at)transformgroup.com  

For details, visit: www.wistaverse.com & Dontextraditeassange.com 

About Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign 
The Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign has been established in the UK by WikiLeaks in order to focus campaigning efforts on preventing the extradition of journalist and publisher Julian Assange to the United States where he faces 175 years in jail. Through his publications he has exposed war crimes against humanity, government corruption and mass surveillance.
Visit: Dontextraditeassange.com 


Julian remains imprisoned in England with the threat of deportation to the US for the 'crime' of journalism.  US President Joe Biden could stop this nonsense at any moment but chooses not to.  Of the upcoming protest,   Patrick Reevell (ABC NEWS) spoke with Stella Assange this week -- Stella is Julian's wife and the mother of their two children.   



On tomorrow's online rally,  Brian McGleenon (YAHOO FINANCE) notes:
 

John Rees from the Don't Extradite Assange campaign said the benefit of holding a metaverse mass protest is that, "no matter where you are in the world, you can virtually join this event.”

He told Yahoo Finance UK's The Crypto Mile that this "first of its kind" event would not replace physical protests on the streets of major cities, but would complement the ongoing campaign.

"We have had the metaverse environment designed as a replica of the real Royal Courts of Justice, so that people attending this event will get the idea it would be a good thing to turn up outside the real court on the day that Julian appears," he said.

Rees said he is hopeful they will get thousands of people to virtually attend from across the globe.

"This is a pioneering form of political action, and if it works I'm sure we will not be the only ones to repeat it," he added.



Sceptics have wondered aloud whether a protest in an obscure corner of the internet – it uses a gaming platform called Sandbox – can have the same impact as real-world disruptive action.

“The answer to that is protest is also mainly a social event where people with a common vision get together,” one of the Wistaverse’s co-founders, Jules Alcazar, told The National.

“Having everyone together in one place is also a great opportunity to go fund-raising. It’s about keeping momentum, it’s finding what activism can do.”

He believes the metaverse also has an edge over social media activism, which is “very limited”, “not immersive” and a “very poor way of experiencing it” because its algorithms relentlessly feed back bias.

There are forecasts that the metaverse, championed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a virtual-reality world encompassing education and health care, could one day be worth $5 trillion to $13 trillion.


5:00 pm BST would be noon in EST (London is five hours ahead of NYC).  In other news, Ethan Davis (STAB) notes:


‘He put out information people didn’t want being put out but it was all truthful and I don’t know how you fault a guy for putting out the truth,’ mused Kelly Slater in an Instagram soliloquy one March eve.

Just as seamless as Slater’s transitions are from the tube to the open face, so too are his analyses of complex geopolitical, health and social issues.

Typically one should have domain-specific expertise, some skin in the game, to credibly navigate these deep waters — but 11 surfing World Titles and a few compelling exchanges with high-profile pod bros works fine too in 2023. 

Way less student debt too, this method. And more barrels. 

Slater’s sentiments did not go unnoticed by Kym Staton — director of the forthcoming opus delving into the character assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces a 175 year prison sentence if extradited to the US for the crime of leaking classified information. 

Originally titled Free The Truth: Free Assange has gracefully segued into the more enigmatic appellation, The Trust Fall. While the nomenclature may evolve, the narrative spine remains robust.

“The main aim of this film is to gather more support for Julian’s freedom. At its core, this is a political case and a mass public outcry is needed in order to pressure US, UK, and Australian politicians to do the right thing and release him,” writes Staton — whose endgame is to whip up a chorus of cheers for Assange’s parole. He’s slapping a big ol’ megaphone on this whole political mess, hoping to rile up enough people from the US, UK, and Australia to gang up on their politicians and demand, ‘Hey, do the right thing, guys! Let the man loose!’



Wednesday night, contenders for the GOP's presidential nomination debated (see yesterday's snapshot). Not seeing a lot of written about Nikki Haley.  She is seeking the nomination and she was awful on Wednesday night.  There's a hilarious analysis -- unintentionally funny -- by a centrist-leftist online who tells you how wonderful Nikki was and how her abortion answers would ensure her victory with the general electorate -- yes, it's that divorced from reality which is why you end up laughing at the fool. For a better analysis of Nikki Haley's performance, stream the MORNING JOE segment below and pay attention to Jen Psaki and Symone Sanders.





On the debate,  Patrick Martin (WSWS) offers:

Senator Tim Scott said the solution to the crisis in education was to “break the backs” of the teachers unions, by which he meant crushing the teachers themselves, who have engaged in massive strikes, not the stooge unions run by millionaire bureaucrats and CIA agents.

Former Governor Chris Christie said that the teachers unions were the biggest enemy of America, and boasted that he had slashed public employee pensions during his eight years in office in New Jersey.

Former Vice President Mike Pence declared that he was the only candidate willing to state openly that there had to be major cuts in Social Security and Medicare. None of the others on the stage indicated opposition to this proposal, which would devastate tens of millions of retired and disabled workers.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for shooting migrants “stone cold dead” to stop them crossing the US-Mexico border, and said that he would dispatch US Special Forces into Mexico on his first day as president—in effect, the invasion of Mexico by the US military.

IT multimillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy condemned all measures taken to protect working people during the COVID-19 pandemic—effectively arguing that the current policy of letting the virus run rampant should have been adopted from Day One. And he called climate change a “hoax,” in response to a question that cited record heat waves, wildfires and unprecedented rainfall events.



+ Vivek Ramaswamy, 9/11 Truther: “I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right?”

+ Ramaswamy has been accused of hiring someone to scrub his Wikipedia page of unflattering (to the MAGA base he is so urgently courting) biographical episodes, including his receipt of a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2011, as well as his role on Ohio’s COVID-19 Response Team. But his association with the son of the Dr. Mabuse of the Left hasn’t escaped the attention of the intrepid investigators at FoxNews.

+ American history according to Vivek Ramaswamy: “the US Constitution was what won us the American Revolution.” The Constitution was written in 1787, 6 years after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 11 years after the Declaration of Independence and 12 years after the Revolution started, in 1775.

+ At the debate, DeSantis repeatedly tried to associate himself with the Navy SEAL teams in Iraq, by saying “I was with the SEALS in places like Fallujah and Ramadi.” But DeSantis wasn’t a SEAL, he was a JAG. The role of JAGS in Iraq was advise the SEALS on who they could “legally” capture, torture and kill. Or, in his own tart phrase, whose “throats they could slit.”


Of course one candidate who belonged on the Republican stage Wednesday night wasn't there.  That's right, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Jeffrey notes Junior:


RFK, Jr’s Theory of HIV/AIDS manages to merge medical conspiracy theory with homophobia: “There’s a lot of people that said it is not a virus. The virus is a passenger virus, and these people are dying mainly because of poppers. 100 percent of the people who died in the first thousand [with] AIDS were people who were addicted to poppers, which are known to cause Kaposi sarcoma in rats. And they were people who were part of a gay lifestyle where they were burning the candle at both ends. There were poppers on sale everywhere at the gay bars.”


Truly a fool.  Junior's running as a 'Democrat' at present but THE VANGUARD sees him crossing over to the GOP race because if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Meanwhile, 'big news' for Junior's campaign -- British geriatric Eric Clapton is endorsing Junior and what's says American democracy and patriotism more than that?

Junior can announce that, he just can't explain what draws murders like Travis Ikeguchi are so drawn to his campaign.  Nor can he speak of Lauri Carleton, the woman murdered by Travis Ikeguchi.  Christopher Wiggins (THE ADVOCATE) notes:


After California ally Laura "Lauri" Carleton was killed for displaying an LGBTQ+ Pride flag at her San Bernadino County store, Mag.Pi, the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Flags for Good announced a new banner honoring the Lake Arrowhead community member and shop owner.

“Carleton, an unwavering ally, is one of too many people who have lost their lives due to violence that targets LGBTQ+ people,” said a statement announcing the commemorative flag.

To honor Carleton’s memory and encourage allies to work for a safer community, the Center collaborated with Flags for Good to create a rainbow banner bearing the magpie symbol — after her store's name. The proceeds from sales will benefit the Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ+ Fund. 

“I assure you that the Center won’t be stopping here. Right-wing extremists have brought this fight to our doorstep, and let me promise you this: we are answering their knock at our door—and we will be greeting them with the strength that our community is known for,” said CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center Joe Hollendoner in a press release. “I hope we can rely on you to join us in the fight.”

In light of national retail chains like Target and Starbucks reportedly halting their Pride displays, Carleton, 66, chose to hang the Pride Flag, a symbol of resistance for the community since 1970. 



  Alan Carter approached Mag.Pi in Studio City at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 23, carrying a bouquet of white hydrangeas wrapped in brown paper and polka-dotted cellophane. At 62 years old, Carter had never purchased flowers for someone he’s never met, but he was stunned this week to learn that the owner of the lifestyle boutique, Laura Ann Carleton, or Lauri to friends, was shot to death on Friday during a dispute with a man over a Pride flag outside her second Mag.Pi location near Lake Arrowhead.

“It gutted me, and I heard on the news that Mrs. Carleton also owned a store in Studio City,” said Carter. “I don’t know anyone in her family and I’ve never been in the store, though I’ve driven past it probably a hundred times. I can’t get to Lake Arrowhead, so I came here. I’m on a fixed income and really, I have no money for flowers or an Uber but I said, ‘F**k it. I’ll go without Starbucks for a month.’ I wanted to be here to say, in a very small way, thank you. Thank you for the sacrifice you made for people like me.”   








On the next Tweet, I'm noting Steve Benedict and I don't know how to pull the idiot Modern Papist out of the Tweet below. 






The killer followed Matt Walsh and the killer followed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  Junior's not said a word.  He's complete trash.  And he's trashing his wife's future.  She's already on iffy ground and his silence cost her one of her few defenders left (that was me -- was).  His silence reveals how disgusting he is.  How telling that so many of his fans are dreaming of a Trump-Junior ticket.


Fortunately, other people aren't silent.







The following sites updated:


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