Sunday, November 27, 2011

Truest statement of the week

On Amy Goodman's Democracy Now one was far more likely to hear CIA-consultant Juan Cole issuing fervent support for the entire intervention than rather any vigorous interviewing of informed sources about what was actually happening on the ground in Libya.



-- Alexander Cockburn, "The 'Left' and Libya" (CounterPunch).

Truest statement of the week II

Though Barack Obama announced the end of combat troops in Iraq -- something necessitated by the opposition we in the antiwar movement are responsible for -- the U.S. remains deeply engaged in occupying Iraq, with combat troops over the border in Kuwait ready to return quickly, and tens of thousands of private contractors in the country. Obama, in fact, wanted to scrap Bush’s 2011 date for withdrawal, provided he could get troops immunity from local prosecution. Reportedly the Iraqi government balked at such immunity because they read a U.S. diplomatic cable via Wikileaks which detailed a 2006 U.S. military killing of ten Iraqi civilians and bombings to destroy the evidence in Ishaqi, Iraq. The war on Iraq was illegitimate, immoral, unjust, and based on lies when George Bush began it, and the continued domination remains so. Someone needs to say: Prosecute the criminals who launched this war of aggression. Afghanistan is now fully Obama’s war, with civilian deaths increasing since he sent more troops and continued the “night raids” that so outrage the population there. As we are meeting more veterans of the war, we sense growing anger at the ongoing crimes against the Afghan people. We are proud to have helped initiate the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington on October 6, the 10th anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Afghanistan. Someone needs to say: Ten years is way too long for the richest country to be destroying one of the poorest on the planet.

-- Debra Sweet, "A Relentless Voice Needed Now More Than Ever" (World Can't Wait).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Another late Sunday.


First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.


There's an exception to the credits listed and we'll note it when we get to it. Most people were off for the holidays. We (Ava and C.I.) actually encouraged Kat and Rebecca to take time off but they wanted to work on this edition (and their participation was greatly appreciated).

So what did we come up with?

Marcia had blogged last week noting this and we agreed with her on this. We made it the truest and hope when she sees it, she's pleased. (She called it first at her site in "A truest.")
This is Debra Sweet and we feel it's a truest as well. If you use the link, you can read her thoughts in full and you can also donate to World Can't Wait if you'd like.


Ty is on vacation. He was on vacation last week. Which meant, a rare thing, we worked the site's e-mails. We found the e-mail on Judy Woodruff Saturday morning and printed it out to pin it to a board in the kitchen so we wouldn't forget it while working on this edition. Rebecca, Ann, Elaine, Mike, Cedric, Stan and we worked on this. It was the last thing written and Kat had gone off to sleep before we began it. (We didn't blame her.)
The Sunday after every Thanksgiving has found us covering a holiday special. This is our seventh one and only the second special we've been able to praise whole-heartedly. Original illustration was done quickly and poorly by us.
Stan was outraged by the Van Jones profile and felt we needed to do something on it since this community notes POLITICO very often. (Why? Because most of their articles also include the option of "listen." Therefore they can be enjoyed by those who need text and by those who need audio.) We saw Stan's point and agreed with it. We also felt that his point actually applied to a common practice at POLITICO, where they hype a subject beyond recognition. This was worked on by Rebecca, Kat, Stan, Ann, Cedric, Mike, Elaine and us.

This was the 9th pick. (For any wondering, we already knew what the last two picks were. We -- Ava and C.I. -- didn't stage a pre-emptive move against Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess. We'd already agreed what the last two picks would be.) There is one more to go. Stan, Cedric, Ann, Elaine, Mike, Rebecca, Kat and we worked on this.
Two TV pieces because, again, we read the e-mails. If we hadn't, we wouldn't have written this. If Ty had told us this was in the e-mails, we would have just nodded and focused on something else; however, reading the e-mails and seeing how impassioned 37 of you were on this topic turned it into a feature. As with TV pieces at this site the blame for this goes to us alone (Ava and C.I.)
A repost from Workers World.
A repost from Great Britian's Socialist Worker.

Mike got everybody together on the phone Saturday evening for this and it was written by Mike, Rebecca, Kat, Cedric, Ann, Stan, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. We thank them for their work.

And we thank Kat, Mike, Elaine, Rebecca, Ann, Stan and Cedric for their work with us on the other pieces.

We were lucky to be face-to-face with Mike and Elaine for this edition. Wanting them to get some sleep, we started this writing edition at 5:00 a.m. We knew we'd grab two features and write them ourselves. So we didn't waste time debating or discussing those two. Instead, we started with the fact that we needed one more truest and everyone looked while we discussed what else we could do this edition. We were able to move along quickly and had everything written an hour before we finally began posting. The delay? We wanted to see Mike and Elaine off at the airport.

Is it a perfect edition? Hell no. But it wouldn't be perfect if we'd spent 16 hours on it. It is what it is, as Kat always says. One thing we wanted to do but knew we couldn't? Comics.

Dona's actually got a comics piece planned for next edition. It's the piece she's repeatedly wanted covered here and, if it didn't involve her favorite comics as a very little girl, we might have been tempted to poach it. Instead, the 12 of you who wrote noting that it has been forever since there was a comic piece should look for it next Sunday.



Peace.

-- Ava and C.I.

Editorial: Words have meaning

Oh, Judy.

1 judy

Tuesday on The NewsHour (PBS), Judy Woodruff felt the need to conjure up a list of what she termed "successes." If you too were a whore for empire, you'd have joined her in embracing the lawless and illegal actions. But what we want to zoom in on is one section of her list: "the announcement of a drawdown of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year."

Oh, Judy.

You lie too much
You lie too badly

You want everything for nothing


What's it going to be like for Judy and other liars after January 1, 2012 if a US service member dies in Iraq?

Have they thought about that?

They've repeatedly told their audiences that "ALL" US troops are leaving.

All US troops aren't leaving. The Chair of the Joint-Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made that clear in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this month [see "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," "The costs (Wally)" and "Who wanted what?" ]. And that's even if the ongoing negotiations results in no additional US troops being stationed in Iraq. As it currently stands, not ALL troops are leaving and yet the American media can't stop lying, can't stop whoring.

Judy Woodruff stands out because one reader wrote us to inform us that her brother doesn't leave Iraq December 31st. He remains there. She writes, "I hope to hell he is safe. But if he or any other soldier dies in 2012 [in Iraq], I want that lying WHORE Judy Woodruff on TV apologizing for her WHORING."

It's not just us paying attention. If it were just us, we'd honestly take a pass on Judy who offered a section of one sentence and focus on the big liars like, for example, IPS' Jim Lobe who wrote a whole article insisting that ALL troops were coming home. (Not only are ALL not leaving, ALL are not coming HOME. Kuwait, Jordan, the UAE and other areas, as Dempsey outlined to the Committee, will have US troops as they are used as a staging area should something go wrong in Iraq.)

We're not going to give her a pass when one of our readers specifically calls her out but we are aware that there are many, many people who've done whole radio commentaries and whole columns putting forward the lie that ALL are coming HOME.

So why do they lie?

They had training, most of them. They know what "all" means. They are familiar with other terms like "the majority" and "most" but they've made the decision to use "all" even though it's incorrect. So what's going on?

They're whoring for war. They most likely will end up with blood on their hands. But all whores focus on is what's going in their pockets tonight.


Oh I'm tangled in your lies
Your scam
Your spider web

Spit spun between the trees
Doors slam
You want my head
You'd eat your young alive
For a jaguar in the drive

You lie too much

You lie too badly

You want everything for nothing
-- "The Windfall (Everything For Nothing)," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her Night Ride Home album.

TV: An actual holiday treat

The only thing you want to see less than leftovers Thanksgiving evening, is the over-stuffed ego of an under-talented pop tart who truly thinks they have the talent, vision and power to bring you a holiday special. We've navigated through seven years of rocky network specials that offered plenty of stuffing, plenty of turkey but damn little that qualified as special.

There were the bad performers who taped their concerts. For example, Madonna really thought her faux guitar playing and pretend-singing with a few tossed middle-fingers was just what America was waiting for. Or take divas Kenny Chesney and Beyonce who thought they could round out their bad and clunky stage moves and -- in Beyonce's case -- crotch grabbing with us-just-regular-folks footage and that would be special just because some network insisted it was "a special."

In all this time, only one special has been an unqualified success, Faith Hill's Fireflies. Faith created a program that qualified as special, that was appropriate for the holiday and that contained many nice surprises. It seemed to flow naturally and that's no easy feat.

It's a new decade and ABC thankfully benched big turkey Beyonce sparing America a third year of the diva lumbering around the stage with all the grace of a burly truck driver. Thursday night, ABC instead treated the country to A Very Gaga Christmas.

11gaga

Lady Gaga opened strongly, dueting with Tony Bennett on "The Lady Is A Tramp." And then they went to Tony praising Gaga followed by street footage of Gaga which had us fearing that the testimonials that destroyed Tony's Thanksgiving special in 2006 or the follow-around-footage that brought down Taylor Swift's 2010 special was about to sink the Gaga.

Fortunately, they immediately moved to Gaga at her old school, Manhattan's Convent of the Sacred Heart, with a group of third graders discussing Thanksgiving food while they did arts & crafts. Most unplanned left curve of that non-scripted exchange? When Gaga, probably speaking for many Americans, expressed surprise that they were hesistant when naming favorite Thanksgiving foods but all knew King of Splatter Jackson Pollock.

From there Gaga performed what stands a good chance of being her anthem no matter what else she ever records "Born This Way." It was a standard performance. That's not an insult or surprising. The first solo number on a special is rarely the best, whether the performer is Judy Garland or Dean Martin, artists tend to ease into the performance. "You and I" and "Edge of Glory" quickly followed and relied more on Gaga's voice and piano playing. We've seen Gaga do "You and I" twice in concert and always think she does it better live than on the Born This Way album. Live, she gives it more time to breathe and also plays with it more. That was true of her performance here as well. If you've never seen her perform it live and missed the special, a 4-track EP entitled A Very Gaga Holiday has been released for download and "You and I" and "Edge of Glory" are both on it.

She and chef Art Smith then did some cooking revolving around Gaga family recipes, followed by Gaga performing "White Christmas" and "Orange Colored Sky" with her band (the two performances are also on A Very Gaga Holiday). Gaga then returned to the piano for her composition "Hair" (written with RedOne) which she used to talk about her mother and going to school.

Then Gaga was back with the band performing "Bad Romance." This would probably be a good place to note that Gaga has had 14 charting singles -- all making the top six with the exception of "Marry The Night" which has just been released and will surely be top five before December concludes. In a special that included cooking, crafts, an interview conducted by Katie Couric, a duet of "The Lady Is A Tramp" with Tony Bennett and holiday music like "White Christmas." Yet she still managed to perform five of her hits. Contrast that with Madonna -- who wasn't singing -- in a two hour televised concert where she avoided all the hits she was known for in a bad effort to pimp a poorly selling album -- something NBC felt was just the thing for Thanksgiving night 2006. Part of the reason Madonna's career is struggling (and it is struggling -- what was once the career sales low of American Life seems almost a peak when compared to the sales of the two follow ups) is that she spent the bulk of the last decade unsure of what she or her audience wanted.

Maybe she'll find her way back, maybe William Orbit will be able to help her find that way? Who knows? What is known is that Lady Gaga not only shows her up on the charts these days, she's also now shown Madge how you do a real Thanksgiving special. Though it's only the first year of the decade, Gaga's set a benchmark in much the way Faith Hill did in the '00s.

The press agent's dream outlet

This is the most important article you'll read in this edition. In fact, it's the most important article we've written all year. More to the point, it's the most important article online . . . ever.

politico

We're not sure we'd mean it, but we'd open it that way if we were working for POLITICO, a news outlet that, more and more, appears to have chosen "POLITICO" as its name only because someone mistakenly assumed HYPERBOLE was already taken.

That's how Joseph Williams can write a bad profile about middle of the pack (at best) Van Jones while raving that Jones is "a superstar of the resurgent left." And it's how he can begin a paragraph with "To his supporters, . . ." while never noting any nay-sayers. It's not journalism, kids, it's p.r. copy.

And it's not just Joseph Williams. Pick anyone at random. We went with Jennifer Epstein's hard-gushing "Obama's toughest critics: Obama." The man running the non-transparent administration, the one setting new records for secrecy, is hailed as a truth monger by Epstein who says his (unestablished in the article) pattern of (unestablished in the article) honesty has "establish[ed] the president as an honest, sympathetic figure heading into the 2012 election" -- and on and on she goes without ever once saying to whom Barack Obama's been established as that.

You don't establish, you don't source, not in p.r. copy. In p.r. copy, you just gush and gush endlessly. The lowliest DC hack is elevated to the stratosphere.

The subjects shouldn't feel flattered. Nora Ephron long ago established (in a piece for Esquire) what this sort of writing led to: expecations no profile subject could ever live up to.

And the press shouldn't feel proud. All that time and space used to churn out Rona Barrett's DC People could have instead gone to practicing journalism. Actually, that's not fair to Rona. She showed far more skepticism in one gossip report than POLITICO demonstrates in a full week.

Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected

library



The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have gone on so long that there are books on the two you can consider "old." Peter Laufer's book Mission Rejected, for example, came out five years ago.

pl

Laufer is a journalist of many years and an author of many books. In Mission Rejected, he documented the emerging resistance to the Iraq War. There would be other books, including moving accounts written by Joshua Key and Camilo Mejia, but this was the first for the current wars and, by focusing on individuals and not an individual, it provided a cross-section of resistance and resisters. Here's Laufer writing about Iraq War veteran Joshua Key and his wife Brandi Key's decision to go to Canada instead of have Joshua go back to Iraq:

Joshua and Brandi talked it through and decided to opt for a new life as Canadians. It was a difficult choice. "I know that I'm not going to be able to go back there," he tells me in his Toronto backyard. "I hated leaving my country." He misses his family and he blames the Bush administration. "I blame them because they made me do it," he says flatly. "You can lie to the world; you can't lie to a person who's seen it. They made me have to do things that a man should never have to do, for the purpose of their gain. Not the people's -- their financial gain."
And when Joshua's story is alongside that of Clara Gomez, Clifton Hicks, Darrell Anderson, Aidan Delgado, Robert Zabala and others, it's no longer just his story, the personal story becomes part of a multi-layered movement of resistance.

The stories are often unique but the decision to resist is the common factor:
Camilo Mejia spent six months fighting in Iraq, an experience that convinced him the war was illegal and immoral. During home leave in 2004, he told the Army he refused to return to duty in Iraq and instead filed as a conscientious objector -- the first Iraq War veteran to do so. The sergeant surrendered to the military. He was denied CO status, sentenced to a year in prison for desertion, and given a bad-conduct discharge. "I had to come forward to speak for soldiers who were opposed to the war -- soldiers who are fighting a corporate war," he said over and over during speeches around the country following his release from prison.

Were it only a primer, Mission Rejected would have an important place in the Iraq literature of the last years; however, the book also manages to tie in the current wave of resistance in with the largest most recent wave during the Vietnam era.

We discussed the book in March of 2007 and Kat summed Mission Rejected up this way, "You've got people sharing stories of Iraq, you've got tales of resistance within the military and outside, you've got people working for peace. We've talked about the power of the counter-recruiting chapter, how it assembles various things we mainly already knew in terms of horror stories but it does so in such a way that it grabs you and gives you this sense of perspective that you're not going to get if you hear one day about one and then a week or a month later about another. That's true of that chapter and it's really true of the whole book. I think we all enjoyed this one."


In this series of ten important books of the last ten years. This it the ninth pick. We've also selected "Chris Hedges'Death of the Liberal Class," "Shirley MacLaine's I'm Over All That," "CCR's Articles of Impeachment Against Bush," "Manal M. Omar's Barefoot in Baghdad," "Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream," "Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price's Courting Justice," "Anthony Arnove's Iraq: The Logic Of Withdrawal" and "Tori's Piece by Piece." Due to the Great Recession, your local libraries are both overtaxed (seeing more patrons than ever before) and underfunded. Make a point to check out your local library or local branch of your library and consider letting your local representatives know that you support increasing the budget for the library.

TV: The almost uncensored Seth MacFarlane

Last Sunday, Family Guy aired an episode that left Tom Rose (Gather) upset over the return of the previously assumed dead Kevin Swanson who, it was revealed, *went along with the military staging his own death after he emerged from a coma*:


But there's no explaining away American soldiers blown to bits and a disgruntled warrior using the occasion to defect and go AWOL. It's a definite slam against America's role in the "war" against terrorism and the nearly half a million deaths it caused to Iraqi citizens.



We wouldn't have seen Rose's article or be weighing in now were it not for a debate in e-mails to this site (thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com). Is he wrong to be upset? A number of e-mailers maintained he was "wrong." While there are other things we would personally worry about, there's no "wrong" in terms of the emotion "upset." If you're upset, you're upset. It's a feeling.

111

"Wrong" would be if he misunderstood. He grasps the plot, as evidenced by his recap. So that's accurate. He then goes on to express his belief that the plot was an insult to "American soldiers."

We disagree.

Are a large number of US service members staging their own deaths? We've only heard of the one who staged a hiking death. One in over 10 years of current wars. Is that who's supposed to be upset?

There are a few givens with regards to Family Guy. Such as, with the exception of the visual debt Fringe owes to John Farrow's The Big Clock, we're having a hard time thinking of any other show so indebted to a film for its look. (Family Guy has never paid its huge debt to Fanfare for a Death Scene -- watch the first ten minutes and see if it's not as though you're watching a live action, black and white episode of Seth MacFarlane's show). Another given is that, with only one exception, there's nothing MacFarlane won't mock or ridicule.

AIDs, mentally challenged people, the disabled, you name it, Seth wants to go -- over and over -- where most people wouldn't dare.

There is of course one place he's too chicken s**t to go. It's that off-limits, walled in space that both reveals his own weakness and makes him come across a poser.

Do you know what it is?

Where has Seth refused to go on American Dad, Family Guy or The Cleveland Show?

What is the one sacred cow he will not mock?

Recently, in syndication, we caught the episode where George W. Bush is doing drugs.

Oh, sorry.

The Family Guy episode where he's doing drugs. That narrows it down a bit. Just a bit.

Because George W. Bush and drug use is a constant form of humor for Seth's show.

Good thing Barack never did pot or blow, right?

If Barack Obama had done drugs, you better believe that Seth would be mocking him, right?

What's that?

Barack did do drugs in college.

Yeah, we know that too.

See, Seth likes to play like he will do anything, send up anyone, joke about whatever no matter how shocking. But the truth is, he won't take on Barack.

He's too chicken s**t to do that.

Even while bragging this month that he was sure there were episodes so 'scandalous' that Fox would end up refusing to air them.

So while we disagree with Tom Rose's take, we especially won't call Rose "wrong," not when Seth wants to play like there are no limits and he's an all-around, equal opportunity offender while at the same time declaring someone off-limits.

--------

*Ava and C.I. note added November 28th. Per reader Brandon T., we have reworked the first sentence to note that it was the military, not Kevin Swanson, that first decided to pretend Kevin was dead.

US promotes assassination threats against Iranian scientists (Workers World)

Repost from Workers World:



U.S. promotes assassination threats against Iranian scientists

Published Nov 23, 2011 6:11 PM

The International Atomic Energy Agency made public the names of Iranian nuclear scientists in a new report released this week. Publishing their names makes these scientists targets for assassination.

This unprecedented violation of international guidelines, and of the IAEA’s own Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, is the most menacing proof to date that the agency is not even superficially a neutral U.N. body that monitors nuclear weapons. Showing the agency’s bias, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with the White House before meeting with U.N. officials on this latest report.

Several Iranian scientists have already been killed by bombs and drive-by shootings. The secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, says the U.S. and Israel were behind the murders.

Exposing that these targeted killings are considered acceptable practice, U.S. presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declared that Washington is seeking to stop Iran’s nuclear program through maximum covert operations, including the assassination of scientists.

U.S. CIA or Israeli Mossad agents have also carried out virus attacks on the computers of legal Iranian centrifuges, explosions at Iranian industrial sites and continuing acts of sabotage. All this is part of an ongoing U.S. war that attempts to set back Iran’s development as a modern, self-sufficient country.

A new round of demands that other countries join in sanctions against Iran comes at a time of increasing crisis and upheaval in the region. The impact of an intractable capitalist economic crisis turns Pentagon war planners in an increasingly threatening direction.

The IAEA report was leaked to the press before its official release. Rather than presenting information from the agency’s countless inspections in Iran, it repeated discredited allegations originally made four years ago regarding a laptop computer “found” by U.S. authorities. The laptop supposedly showed Iran’s “intention” to construct atomic warheads.

The leak of the report follows a bourgeois media frenzy over a wild claim that Iran was planning to execute a Saudi ­ambassador in Washington, D.C.

Most ominous are the media reports of a possible Israeli military attack on Iran. Israel is totally dependent on U.S. financial, diplomatic and military aid to survive. Any attack on Iran could occur only with U.S. authorization and overflight clearance of regions where the Pentagon has controlled the sky for decades.

The right to develop nuclear energy

Like every other country, Iran is guaranteed the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology. Iran is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Today, at least 30 countries have nuclear power plants. According to the IAEA’s most recent “International Status and Prospects of Nuclear Power” report, another 65 countries “are expressing interest in, considering, or actively planning for nuclear power.” (iaea.org, March 2011)

But only Iran has faced every form of attack to block development of a nuclear energy program.

Every Iranian nuclear facility is under 24-hour-a-day surveillance by IAEA cameras, and Iran has not one nuclear weapon. Yet the U.S. continues to demand that Iran stop the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, because it could potentially lead to a nuclear weapon sometime in the future.

The IAEA does not criticize, attack or demand inspections of the more than 10,000 nuclear weapons that the U.S. holds, nor of the hundreds of nuclear weapons developed by Israel.

The bogus charges of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq — despite years of total monitoring of every industrial plant in Iraq — confirms that no inspection can satisfy Washington’s demands.

Sanctions on Iran’s oil refineries

The most recent U.S. sanctions are not focused on nuclear research. Instead, they are an attempt to hamper Iran’s petrochemical industry.


Iran nationalized its production of oil after a revolutionary upheaval drove U.S. and British imperialism out of Iran in 1979. Since then, every effort has been made to destabilize Iran and regain the vast wealth that once flowed into Western banks and corporations.

Due to its past unequal relation with imperialism and the years of sanctions since, Iran has had to import large amounts of refined oil and petroleum products, from gasoline to jet fuel, cooking gas and more. In 2008, Iran still had to import nearly 40 percent of its market needs.

However, after completion of seven new refineries and improvements to existing refineries, Iran is now almost self-sufficient in oil refining needs. This is why the U.S. is so determined to again block Iran’s refining capacity by hampering all forms of international investment.

As this entire resource-rich region continues to slip from U.S. imperialism’s control and domination, the danger of a Pentagon-inspired provocation against Iran escalates. All those who oppose imperialist war should be on heightened alert.


Bradley Manning gets court date (GB Socialist Worker)

Repost from Great Britain's Socialist Worker:

Bradley Manning gets court date

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Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking information to the Wikileaks website, will have a first hearing before a military court next month.

Manning, aged 22, has been held and tortured in a US maximum security prison for the past 18 months.

The US wants to force Manning to give evidence to incriminate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

His hearing will take place on 16 December.


© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.


"I Hate The War" -- most requested highlight of the week. And has people eager for C.I.'s year-in-review piece December 31st.

"Kat's Korner: Doris Day, Rob Crow and what's left unsaid" -- hot off the presses, Kat's latest music review.
"Thoughts on blogging"-- C.I., Marcia and Mike posted new content on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) and twelve readers of this site e-mailed to note their thanks for that.


"Good news and someone should have been fired" -- Betty's post on family and accountability.

"Left over green beans" -- Trina offers an easy recipe.


"the muppets," "the muppets," "Dylan Dog: Dead of Night" -- Rebecca and Stan go to the movies.

"More thoughts on blogging" & "Thoughts on blogging" -- a two-parter from Mike.


"NPR cheap whore Andrea Seabrooke" and "That disgusting Steve Inskeep"-- Betty on spinner Andrea Seabrooke and Kat on Steve Inskeep.

"Drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain . . ." -- Ruth weighs in on music.

"NBC needs to fire The Roots" -- Marcia on the sexist crap from The Roots.

"Gravel calls it" -- Elaine notes Gravel's true words.


"Big Tony" -- Ruth notes the way the media rewrote Big Tony's relationships last week.


"Fudge" -- Kat on the holidays, Ann on radio:


"Most people apathetic to OWS," "OWS: A Failure," "Fake Ass Occupy Wall Street" -- Betty, Kat and Stan on OWS.


"The failure of union leadership" -- Trina on the unions.

"our 1st stoner president" -- Rebecca's portrait of Barack.


"Republicans worry about Perry and the gay rumors" -- Marcia weighs in Rick Perry.

"The worst thing about watching films on computer" -- a confession from Elaine.

"Fringe, Third" and "The Good Wife" -- Mike and Stan cover TV.


"Rocky times in the media love affair" and "THIS JUST IN! HE MISSES THE LOVE!" -- Hard times for lovers, indeed.
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