I was too depressed to write last night. I'd gone to see "The Lone
Ranger" and figured I'd be able to write about it for Friday at the
movies. I thought it might be camp, hoped it would be good, but was
left with a mess of a movie that really requires a full refund.
Johnny Depp, as Tonto, is wearing war paint.
That's about all I learned from the film.
I'd wondered about that and thought maybe this was Johnny going for
Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" -- now that I've seen
the film, I know that's the truth.
Johnny Depp is an interesting actor and one of my favorites. But Tonto
was all spectacle the same way Blanche Hudson is all spectacle. Bette
Davis, of course, ended up with both a hit and an Academy Award
nomination for Best Actress. I don't think Johnny will fare even half
as well.
The film's biggest problem is the charisma debt.
I'm certainly not the first to point out that Depp, a star, is playing the sidekick.
The lead role, the Lone Ranger, is played by Armie Hammer. And if you're saying, "Who?" . . .
Then you're like most of the people who paid to see the film.
"Who was that masked man?"
On the fifties TV show, someone would usually ask that question at the end of the film.
As we were getting up to leave (while the credits rolled) someone yelled out, "Who was that masked man?"
A second later, the voice repeated, "No, really, who was that masked man?"
"A human turd!" someone yelled back (I cleaned that up) and people started laughing.
Armie Hammer is in the tradition of Matthew Modine, Jeff Daniels and other charisma free male actors.
In "Mirror, Mirror," his standoffish nature worked for the character
because he seemed to warm up as the film went along. Maybe he didn't.
Maybe we just wanted him to and we armed up to his coldfish nature?
In "The Lone Ranger," he needs to be ready in the first scene, but he never is.
The Lone Ranger was many things in the TV show but he was never bland.
(I can't comment on the radio show but I saw the TV show. My
grandparents loved the westerns and Saturdays at their house was "The
Lone Ranger," ""The Rifleman," "Gunsmoke," "Big Valley" and "Bonanza."
That was everything watched after lunch, in that order.)
Johnny Depp, as Tonto, appears to be attempting to keep audiences awake and channeling Blanche Hudson for that reason.
By the time we're dealing with the stupid train (which is so weak and
nothing like the third act of "Speed"), I was waiting for Johnny to ask,
"You mean we could have been friends this whole time?"
Or serve Lone Ranger a dead parakeet.
That actually would have been better.
And the next remake Johnny Depp does should be Tim Burton directing him
in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" -- they can let him crossdress as
Blanche or change Blanche to Brady Hudson. But that's really the only
place to go after this performance.
Armie Hammer has the whole world in front of him. That's because he
gives a non-performance. Even after he's pronounced a "spirit walker"
and supposedly been to the other side, he's still as stiff and cardboard
as he was before.
I hated the movie. I hated it and so did the three people I saw it with.
This movie is a total waste of time.
Go see "The Heat" or something else that actually delivers.
Going out with C.I.'s "
Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, July 5, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, protesters are
attacked in Iraq, the press largely ignores it, Nouri's control over
Iraqi forces isn't as strong as he would hope, Moqtada and his
parliamentary bloc continue to call out the US, Ed Snowden may have
sanctuary, Venezuela really celebrates its independence, Barack is
revealed as impotent on the world stage in so many ways, and more.
Since
December 21st,
Fridays in Iraq have meant protests. The actions have been going on
now for over six months. The western media has largely ignored the
attacks. That happened again today as many outlets -- including the BBC
-- wrote about 'big violence' that was only two more dead than an
attack on the protesters. But western outlets like the BBC ignored the
bombing targeting the protesters. This happens every week. You'd think
six months of dedication on the part of the Iraqi people would
translate into coverage but the western media's not interested in Iraq.
Today saw protesters stand up yet again.
Iraqi Spring MC notes people turned out in
Falluja, in
Baiji, in
Samarra, and in
Ramadi (
where Nouri's SWAT forces were out in full force and arrested some attempting to protest). Falluja,
Al Mada reports,
is where speakers announced that the government thinks the observation
of the month of Ramadan will disrupt the protests but the protesters and
their will will not be broken.
The protesters were attacked most obviously in Sammara.
Iraqi Spring MC Tweeted about what took place:
That's the remains of a car bombing that targeted Samarra's protest
today and the Tweet notes that eye witnesses saw one of Nouri's forces
in the car.
Pakistan's Daily Times notes, "The bomber wore an army uniform, police said."
Alsumaria reports that the preachers in the province (Salahuddin) are saying that the security failed the protesters.
All Iraq News reports that 12 people are dead from the Samarra bombing and another nineteen are injured.
NINA notes
the Motahidoon Alliance denounced the attack on the sit-in and termed
the attack, "continuation of the attempts to silence the voices opposing
the Government's unjust and forceful trend. [. . . ] The peoples' will
cannot be defeated, and the martyres' blood is a force that keeps the
protestors moving to the end of the road of reform." The Motahidoon
Alliance is part of Iraqiya and it is led by Speaker of Parliament Osama
al-Nujaifi.
Kareem Raheem and Janet Lawrence (Reuters) report :
Protest organiser Adnan Al-Muhanna called on Sunnis to take to the streets daily and follow the example of Egyptians.
Egypt's
first freely elected president Mohamed Mursi was toppled on Wednesday
after the army intervened following mass demonstrations against his
rule, a year after the Islamist was sworn into office.
"Demonstrations
can make the change. Neither elections nor weapons can do that,"
Muhanna said. "Within one year, the Egyptians changed the Mursi regime
through demonstrations because they were well-organized."
In other violence,
NINA notes
police shot 2 suspects dead in Hawija, a
Kut car bombing claimed 1 life and left seventeen injured, an
armed attack to the south of Falluja left two people injured, and
armed attack in Falluja left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and another injured as well as one police officer injured.
Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports, "
The deadliest attack was in the Qurait area in northern
Baghdad, where 14 people were killed and 31 others injured when a
suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shi'ite mosque during the evening
pray, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity."
Reuters states that the suicide bomber was a woman. In addition,
NINA notes a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left nine more people injured.
Yesterday saw at least 14 deaths and at least thirty-four injured. Three of the dead? Doctors killed in Baghdad.
All Iraq News noted
that the Parliament's Health and Environment Committee
"discussed several amendments on Physicians Protection Law preparing for
a vote to be endorsed by Parliament."
Alsumaria added
that Moqtada al-Sadr declared these attacks cannot be allowed, called
for an immediate investigation into the attacks on the three doctors and
declared that Iraq cannot allow the hands of terrorism to target and
impair the medical community." If you missed it, recent violence has
required Iraq to utilize hospitals in other countries. The "brain
drain" in the early years of the war has not been repaired and has left
Iraq without a sufficient number of medical providers. Nouri's been
prime minister for seven years now. Why the hell he didn't implement
fast track programs of training is a question the Iraqi people should be
demanding answers to. Instead, he continues to try to pad out Iraq's
medical community by importing nurses from other countries. At a time
when Iraqis face massive unemployment and with all the billions Iraq
sits on, there was plenty of time, plenty of people to start up a
nursing program that could have turned out LVNs and RNs very quickly and
had them working in the hospitals instead of importing nurses into the
country.
Iraq can't afford more violence aimed at doctors. That's what Moqtada's
smart enough to grasp although it escapes Nouri. A second brain drain
is possible. Violence is again increasing in Iraq. Today, 3 doctors
were killed in Baghdad. This is the sort of thing that can lead to a
panic. If you're a doctor in Iraq and you've told yourself things will
get better, you've said you want to honor the Iraqi people and you've
stayed? The violence has never ended and at some point -- when doctors
are being targeted again -- you have to ask yourself exactly how much
longer you can wait for the violence to end? For some, it won't take
much to push them out of Iraq at this point.
Meanwhile
All Iraq News reports today, "MP, Iqbal al-Ghurabi, of al-Ahrar bloc within the Sadr Trend
called to close the US Embassy in Iraq due to its interference in the
Iraqi internal affairs.
" This is not an isolate remark but part of a series of responses from Moqtada and his Sadr bloc.
Sunday,
All Iraq News reports
cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr issued a response to a
question in which he declared Iraq's next prime minister will not
conduct business with the occupying US. He states, "We will nominate a
Prime Minister who loves Iraq and Iraqis and will not deal with the US
occupiers to let down Iraq and its honor -- and will not let the USA
possess its wealth." This is said to be in response to statements US
Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft recently made. Dropping back to last
Friday's snapshot:
Al Rafidayn reports
that the US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft met with the Iraqi
media and answered questions. Among them, a new Iraqi prime minister?
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2014. Beecroft stated it is
the job and right of the Iraqi people to pick their leaders and the US
is prepared to have a diplomatic relationship with any Iraqi chosen to
represent the people. He refused to speculate on any particular
person. He was asked about the F-16 fighters and stated that they would
not be delivered until September 2014.
Ali Abedl Sadah (Al-Monitor) reported yesterday:
In a statement distributed
to the media, Sadr said, “We will nominate as a candidate a prime
minister who loves Iraqis and whom they love. He will not be hated by
non-believers, and will show modesty in dealing with believers. He will
be one of them.” He continued, “The prime minister ... will not deal
with the unrighteous occupier, in order to give Iraq prestige,
independence, dignity and honor.”
"The Americans," he said, "will not be able to manipulate the fate,
rights, wealth and souls in Iraq again.” Sadr then addressed the US
ambassador, saying, “Your threat will not be useful. Deal with us
however you wish ... We will deal with [the Americans] in ways that you
have never seen before.”
The Mahdi Army,
an armed branch of Sadr's movement, engaged in bloody armed combat with
American forces from 2004 to 2007. However, things changed after Sadr
decided to freeze his fighters’ activity and senior officials close to
the movement confirmed in 2008 that the movement would turn to political
action. Yet Sadr's recent remarks directed at the US ambassador
indicate that he desires to rise to power after the 2014 parliamentary
elections.
Tariq Kikhany, a leading figure of Sadr's movement, said, “Our
political weight grew from 2003 until the April 2013 provincial
elections." In a phone interview with Al-Monitor, Kikhany said,
“For the 2006 to 2010 term, the movement won 30 seats. The number of
seats, however, increased to 41 for the current term.”
Some who dismiss Moqtada will dismiss his statements as idle threats.
They'd do well to remember the rumors that, in the fall of 2010, the
Iranian government stated they would back Moqtada as the next prime
minister of Iraq and that he should just go along with them now on Nouri
al-Maliki.
Nouri can't hold on forever. He can't even hold onto his security forces. Dropping back to the
June 13th snapshot:
Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) notes:
The Iraqi military’s violent attacks on Sunni Arab protesters weren’t
the panacea that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was expecting them to
be, but it also cost the army 1,070 troops, according to officials.
The troops, ethnic Kurds, mutinied when they were ordered to attack a
Sunni Arab town where protests were taking place, and then refused to
attend “disciplinary re-training” meant to ensure that they wouldn’t
hesitate to attack Iraqi towns if ordered in the future.
AFP reports
that Tuz Khurmatu Mayor Shallal Abdul explains the troops are still in
their same positions, they're just now working for and paid by the
Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.
At Niqash yesterday, Shalaw Mohammed elaborated on this development:
Hundreds of Kurdish soldiers recently deserted
from the Iraqi army. Were they responding to government injustice - or
getting on side with others of their own ethnicity? And what does this
mean for the Iraqi army? Can it still be relied upon?
The hundreds of Iraqi Kurdish soldiers who deserted the
Iraqi army recently indicate once again the depth of ethnic and
sectarian divisions in Iraq’s armed forces. According to information
obtained by NIQASH, dozens of Iraqi Kurdish soldiers deserted when the
Iraqi Ministry of Defence ordered members of the Iraqi army’s 16th
Brigade and 12 Iraqi Kurdish officers to move from the disputed town of Tuz Khormato
in the Salahaddin province – currently declared a disaster zone after
multiple bomb blasts - to other duties a little further south, and
mostly to the town of Sulaiman Bek, where Sunni-Arab protestors had
become violent; in fact, gunmen took control of the town for several
days.
“Our mission is to serve in the disputed areas,” Captain
Recot Mohammed, the spokesperson for the 16th Brigade, told NIQASH. “So
when we were given the order to move from Tuz Khormato without any
apparent justification, we threatened to desert.”
And it’s not just the Iraqi Kurdish who have problems with
these kinds of orders. “There are signs that the Iraqi army can no
longer cope with a crisis in which it is confronting large fractions of
the Iraqi population,” wrote a European peace-activist think tank with a
special focus on Iraq, the Brussels Tribunal,
in a roundup of events after anti-government protestors were killed by
the Iraqi army earlier this year. “Many soldiers prefer to desert the
army rather than shoot at protesters. Most deserters are Sunni, but some
are Shia who don’t want to fight in strange places for something they
don’t believe in.”
As Nouri finds the forces less than eager to help him become the new
Saddam Hussein, the US remains in Iraq -- diplomatically and
militarily. Yesterday,
Donna Gorman (Huffington Post) wrote of her husband year long deployment with the State Dept in Iraq which began this morning:
Our youngest child, 5-year-old Ainsley, has taken it the hardest. She
snuck into our bedroom last night, as per usual, threw her arms around
her daddy and said, "I don't want you to die in Baghdad, daddy."
What the what? She's 5. Let me tell you, neither of us was
quite sure how to respond to that small trauma. We didn't think she even
understood that he was leaving, let alone sophisticated enough to
process the fact that we're sending him into harm's way. We knew it was
going to be hard on our sons, who are 13 and almost 10, and who know
exactly what's going on in Iraq and in the region. We figured our
7-year-old daughter might have some questions for us: After all, she's
still traumatized by the duck-and-cover that we lived through here at
the Embassy in Jordan just two years ago. But Ainsley? We didn't even
try to explain it to her.
Explain to the other kids, yes. They all know their daddy is a policeman
of sorts -- a federal agent with the State Department's Diplomatic
Security Service. They usually see him in a suit and tie, but they've
also seen him dressed in his federal agent gear. They've seen his
office, with its cool gadgets and photos of him and his colleagues at
work. They've eavesdropped on many a dinner conversation and phone call,
when riots and shootings and all manner of bad guys are discussed. And
of course they've seen him run out the door in a hurry when some
emergency crops up. So, they know what he does for a living, and they
are proud of his work. But I didn't realize, not until that late night
comment from my baby, that even she understands the risks he is about to
face because of his job.
That's the diplomatic aspect of the ongoing US mission. The military aspect? Dropping back to the
April 30th Iraq snapshot:
December 6, 2012, the Memorandum
of Understanding For Defense Cooperation Between the Ministry of
Defense of the Republic of Iraq and the Department Defense of the United
States of America was signed. We covered it in the December 10th and December 11th
snapshots -- lots of luck finding coverage elsewhere including in media
outlets -- apparently there was some unstated agreement that everyone
would look the other way. It was similar to the silence that greeted Tim Arango's September 25th New York Times report which noted,
"Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
[US] General [Robert L.] Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations
soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and
help with intelligence."
So last fall saw another Special Ops unit go into Iraq and the end of
the year saw a new military agreement allowing for joint US and Iraq
patrols in Iraq. From the
December 11th snapshot:
This shouldn't be surprising. In the November 2, 2007 snapshot
-- five years ago -- we covered the transcript of the interview
Michael R. Gordon and Jeff Zeleny did with then-Senator Barack Obama who
was running in the Democratic Party's primary for the party's
presidential nomination -- the transcript, not the bad article the paper
published, the actual transcript. We used the transcript to write "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'"
at Third. Barack made it clear in the transcript that even after
"troop withdrawal" he would "leave behind a residual force." What did
he say this residual force would do? He said, "I think that we should
have some strike capability. But that is a very narrow mission, that we
get in the business of counter terrorism as opposed to counter
insurgency and even on the training and logistics front, what I have
said is, if we have not seen progress politically, then our training
approach should be greatly circumscribed or eliminated."
This
is not withdrawal. This is not what was sold to the American people.
Barack is very lucky that the media just happened to decide to take that
rather explosive interview -- just by chance, certainly the New York Times
wasn't attempting to shield a candidate to influence an election,
right? -- could best be covered with a plate of lumpy, dull mashed
potatoes passed off as a report. In the transcript, Let-Me-Be-Clear
Barack declares, "I want to be absolutely clear about this, because
this has come up in a series of debates: I will remove all our combat
troops, we will have troops there to protect our embassies and our
civilian forces and we will engage in counter terrorism activities."
So
when the memo announces counterterrorism activies, Barack got what he
wanted, what he always wanted, what the media so helpfully and so
frequently buried to allow War Hawk Barack to come off like a dove of
peace.
For those who struggle with reality, you can refer to the US Congressional Research Service published "
Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights." The report was written by Kenneth Katzman. We'll note the part on the MoU:
Reflecting an acceleration of the Iraqi move to reengage militarily
with the United States, during December 5-6 2012, Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy James Miller and acting Under Secretary of State for
International Security Rose Gottemoeller visited Iraq and a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) was signed with acting Defense Minister Sadoun
Dulaymi. The five year MOU provides for:
* high level U.S.-Iraq military exchanges
* professional military education cooperation
* counter-terrorism cooperation
* the development of defense intelligence capabilities
* joint exercises
The MOU appears to address many of the issues that have hampered OSC-I
from performing its mission to its full potential. The MOU also
reflects some of the more recent ideas put forward, such as joint
exercises.
Hopefully, that's clear to even the most delusional member of the Cult
of St. Barack. And all that was before last week's news about General
Martin Dempsey (Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) declaring that the
US needed to send more troops into Iraq. See:
As
Michael Evans (Times of London) noted
last week, "The Pentagon is to deploy specialist training troops to
help Iraq's military to stop al-Qaeda-aligned forces who are arming
extremist groups over the border. More troops were sent back in last
fall with no objection from the so-called 'left' peace 'leaders' in the
United States. A new military agreement was announced and not one of
our 'brave,' 'left' outlets (The Progressive, The Nation, Democracy
Now!, ZNet, CounterPunch, etc., etc.) could bother to note it. Last
week they were all AWOL as Dempsey spoke publicly at a press conference
in DC explaining that US troops were going back into Iraq.
There's nothing independent about so-called 'independent' media in the United States.
Wednesday, July 3rd was Venequela's Independence Day.
US Secretary of State John Kerry noted the day with the following remarks:
On behalf of President Obama and the people of
the United States, I congratulate the people of Venezuela as you
commemorate the day that Venezuela declared its independence 202 years
ago.
Venezuela and the United States have much in common. For example,
revolutionary leader General Francisco de Miranda also played a part in
our own struggle for independence, participating in the Battle of
Pensacola in 1781. His contribution is forever memorialized in a
monument that stands in the heart of Philadelphia, the original capital
of the United States. When a devastating earthquake struck Venezuela in
1812 the United States sent the Venezuelan people the first humanitarian
assistance it ever provided to a foreign country. These two examples
demonstrate that Venezuela and the United States have shared ties of
friendship and common values since the birth of our two nations, and the
ties between our people endure.
I wish Venezuelans everywhere health, happiness, and hope on the anniversary of your independence.
And their independence includes not being lackeys of the United States.
AP reports
that Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro is offering NSA
whistle-blower Ed Snowden asylum and the President of Nicaragua, Daniel
Ortega, stated that they would be willing to provide sanctuary in
Nicaragua as well "if circumstances allow." The revelations resulting
from Ed Snowden's whistle-blowing have been many.
Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) provided an overview Wednesday night:
The first NSA story to be reported was our June 6 article
which exposed the bulk, indiscriminate collection by the US Government
of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Ever since
then, it has been undeniably clear that James Clapper, the Director of
National Intelligence, outright lied to the US Senate
- specifically to the Intelligence Committee, the body charged with
oversight over surveillance programs - when he said "no, sir" in
response to this question from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA
collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
That Clapper fundamentally misled Congress is beyond dispute. The DNI himself has now been forced by our stories
to admit that his statement was, in his words, "clearly erroneous" and
to apologize. But he did this only once our front-page revelations
forced him to do so: in other words, what he's sorry about is that he
got caught lying to the Senate. And as Salon's David Sirota adeptly documented on Friday, Clapper is still spouting falsehoods as he apologizes and attempts to explain why he did it.
How is this not a huge scandal? Intentionally deceiving Congress is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison for each offense. Reagan administration officials were convicted of misleading Congress as part of the Iran-contra scandal and other controversies, and sports stars have been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ based on allegations they have done so.
Patty Culhane (Al Jazeera) sums up Ed's revelations regarding Barack's spying on Americans as follows:
- Keeps a record of every cell phone call made.
- Keeps a record of all emails sent.
- Takes pictures of all the letters mailed in the US.
- Uses drones for domestic surveillance.
- Reserves the right to detain people (including Americans) indefinitely without trial.
- Can search homes without telling people they were there.
- Can still carry out renditions.
- Can get copies of all of your records (from the library, bank or credit card company) without a warrant.
So
to sum things up, if you become a person of interest, the government
can quickly find out everyone you have ever talked to and written to;
everything you have ever read and bought; and everywhere you have ever
been.
Xan Brooks (Guardian) reports
that film director Oliver Stone spoke out in support of Ed Snowden "at
the Karlovy Vary international film festival in the Czech Republic"
stating, "It's a disgrace that Obama is more concerned with hunting down
Snowden than reforming these George Bush-style eavesdropping
techniques." Earlier this week,
Amnesty International issued the following statement:
The US authorities’ relentless campaign to hunt down and block
whistleblower Edward Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum is deplorable and
amounts to a gross violation of his human rights Amnesty International
said today.
“The US attempts to pressure governments to block
Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum are deplorable,” said Michael
Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International. “It is
his unassailable right, enshrined in international law, to claim asylum
and this should not be impeded.”
The organization also believes
that the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower could be at risk
of ill-treatment if extradited to the USA.
“No country can return a person to another country where there is a serious risk of ill-treatment,” said Bochenek.
“We
know that others who have been prosecuted for similar acts have been
held in conditions that not only Amnesty International but UN officials
considered cruel inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of
international law.”
Senior US officials have already condemned
Snowden without a trial, labelling him both guilty and a traitor,
raising serious questions as to whether he’d receive a fair trial.
Likewise the US authorities move to charge Snowden under the Espionage
Act could leave him with no provision to launch a public interest
whistle-blowing defence under US law.
"It appears he is being
charged by the US government primarily for revealing its - and other
governments’ - unlawful actions that violate human rights,” said
Bochenek.
“No one should be charged under any law for disclosing
information of human rights violations. Such disclosures are protected
under the rights to information and freedom of expression.”
Besides
filing charges against Snowden, the US authorities have revoked his
passport – which interferes with his rights to freedom of movement and
to seek asylum elsewhere.
“Snowden is a whistleblower. He has
disclosed issues of enormous public interest in the US and around the
world. And yet instead of addressing or even owning up to these actions,
the US government is more intent on going after Edward Snowden.”
Ed Snowden has revealed a great deal. The angry reaction of the White
House has less to do with spying specifics and more to do with the fact
that Barack's true nature has been revealed.
Ana Palacio (The Australian) offers, "More than any other incoming American president in recent memory, Obama
raised expectations worldwide. Yet he has proved to be mainly, if not
solely, interested in domestic issues, resulting in a foreign policy of
reaction. The Snowden affair highlights three elements of this:
US-Russia relations, US influence in South America, and US relations
with Europe."
Stephanie Findlay (Macleans) observes
that Barack's (very expensive) trip to Africa has been a bust and
quotes the Wilson Center's Steve McDonald among those expressing
disappointment and pointing out "the visit could have been so much
more." And, as
Frank James (NPR) notes, Barack's been revealed as impotent with regards to Egypt:
The crisis of democracy in that country, specifically the military
coup that overthrew former President Mohammed Morsi, has left Obama
mostly a spectator to events.
Indeed, he is even less free than
the average observer of the events in Egypt since he can't even use the
word "coup" to describe the change in government there.
It's
widely suspected that he and other administration officials have so far
avoided using the word to avoid triggering a law that would require
cutting off $1.3 billion of aid to the Egyptian military. That aid
appears to be one of the few significant levers the U.S. has to
influence events there.
Unable to command any real power on the real stage, Barack resorts to
deceit and trickery to get the upper hand, ignoring the right to privacy
and invading the space of any and all. And when he's not spying on
Americans, he's busy trying to trick them.
Chris Anders (ACLU Blog of Rights) offers the basics on Barack's nominee to be Director of the FBI:
While most of us are enjoying an extra-long July 4th weekend, James Comey, a top Bush lawyer who approved waterboarding and torture,
is getting ready for one of his last hurdles before becoming FBI
director. I'm sure that torture supporters are hoping that we spend more
time at the beach and pool, and don't dig into Comey’s record.
Behind this nomination is a strange and ironic story. Beginning on
Tuesday, President Obama might end up getting done what President Bush
failed to do during nearly all of his last four years in office. All
President Obama needs is for the Senate—and all of us—to look the other
way while rubber-stamping his choice to head the FBI for the next 10
years.
As you may remember, after getting Alberto Gonzales confirmed as
attorney general at the start of his second term, President Bush spent
the next four years trying—and failing—to get the Senate to confirm any
other members of his torture policy team. The Senate, under both
Republican control and Democratic control, stood up to President Bush
and turned away nominee after nominee with a record of approving water
boarding or other torture. It was a principled and bipartisan rejection
of rewarding the Bush administration’s torture policies.
But in a bizarre twist, James Comey—who served as deputy attorney
general under both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, and who twice
gave a thumbs-up to torture—has been nominated to be the FBI director
for the next decade.
Iraq War veteran, talk show hots and activist
Adam Kokesh posted a
23 second video on YouTube yesterday that's getting attention from the clutch the pearls crowd. In the video, he loads a rifle.
DC's Metropolitan Police Department issued this:
Statement from US Park Police and Metropolitan Police Department regarding Adam Kokesh video
The
Metropolitan Police Department and US Park Police are aware that today
Adam Kokesh posted a video that appears to have been taken in Freedom
Plaza in Northwest, DC. We are in the process of determining the
authenticity of the video.
Jessica Huseman (Policy Mic) is offended.
Jessica is convinced that this is not helping his cause. She doesn't
give a damn about his cause, she's against it so why the hell is she
even writing about him?
To ridicule him and make fun of him. You know what, Adam serving in
Iraq didn't make him a saint, nor did his speaking out against the
illegal war make him above criticism or ridicule. He can be targeted
the same as any of the rest of us can be. But maybe Jessica should
look in the mirror?
What Adam supposedly did . . . It doesn't hurt his cause. I hope he's
not arrested but if he is, that's what happens. I personally wish he
wouldn't do these sort of things. That's not because I dislike his
politics or his convictions. I admire his integrity. My personal
problem is there are a lot of crazy people and when Jessica thinks she's
being cute, she's really just handing out torches to the town mob. I
seriously worry that Adam's going to get hurt at some point. That's not
because of the gun issue, it could be the tax issue or any of his other
stands.
I worry about him. But he's an adult so all I can do is just applaud
him for the bravery and wish him the best in his political battles. If
everyone showed even half the fire and integrity Adam repeatedly does,
we wouldn't have NSA spying, we wouldn't have US troops going back into
Iraq, etc. Adam's a brave activist. He takes ethical stands. Jessica
Huseman? She's a blathering idiot who popularizes Adam's cause while
thinking she's taking him down. If she needs additional targets to try
to make herself better, she can refer to Matthew Rothschild's "
Anti-Patriotic Quotes to Ponder on July 4" (
The Progressive)
and find a historical treasure trove of people who stood up for things
they believed in. And, at some point, Jessica Huseman might want to ask
herself why, in an Age of Apathy, she's attacking anyone who's standing
up for what they believe?
Keith Olbermann
Arturo R. Garcia
Jason Page
Betty Aberlin
Candy Jean
اعلام الربيع العراقي
