#Iraqi Court

[dailyworldecho]

[sayruq]

On a misty November morning 21 years ago, I was desperately trying to remain camouflaged. Concealed in the foliage of an orange grove in Israel’s rural Galilee, I hurriedly took photos of a drab concrete building not marked on any map. Even the original road sign identifying the site as Facility 1391 had been removed after a local Haaretz newspaper investigation revealed it housed a secret prison. I was the first foreign journalist to track down Facility 1391, most of it hidden within a heavily fortified complex built in the 1930s to suppress resistance to British rule in Palestine. For decades, Israel had secretly held mostly Arab foreign nationals captive at the site, unknown to the Israeli courts, the Red Cross and human rights groups. Many were Lebanese citizens kidnapped during Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. But there were also Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians and Iranians. This site would soon be known as a “black site”, a term popularised by Washington's invasion of Iraq that year. Drawing on techniques refined by Israel at Facility 1391, the US would, in the coming months and years, torture Iraqis and others at Abu Ghraib and Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo. No one knew how many captives were held in Israel’s Facility 1391, how long they had been there or if there were more such prisons. However, the first testimonies from inmates revealed horrifying conditions. For most of the time, they were kept in a state of sensory deprivation, made to wear blacked-out goggles, except for when being tortured. In one case that later came to court, a Lebanese captive had been sodomised with a baton by “Major George”, the facility’s torturer-in-chief. Major George would go on to become head of Israeli police relations with the Palestinian population of Jerusalem.

If you're going to do one thing today, read this article. Then read the CNN article on Sde Teiman

[reality-detective]

More on JD Vance 👇

There's a connection here and I haven't found it as of yet. 👇

Something else to think about 👇

More dots are being connected 👇

Sidney Austin Law Firm - Specialties:

Artificial Intelligence, Accountants and Professional Liability, Agribusiness and Food, Antitrust and Competition, Aviation and Airlines, Banking and Financial Services, Capital Markets, Commercial Litigation and Disputes, Consumer Class Actions, Corporate Governance, Crisis Management, Entertainment Sports and Media, Environmental Social and Governance, Food Drug and Medical Device, Government Strategies, Healthcare, Hospitals, `National Security, Rails, Real Estate, Supreme Court, Taxes, Telecom and Internet Connection, Transportation

What do they have in common? All things the cabal controls!

Yale Graduate and Wife of JD Vance, Usha Chilukuri?? A marriage made in Freemason Cabal Heaven. She worked in the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. She also worked as Law Clerk for both the Supreme Court and DING DING DING worked for Chief Justice Epstein Island regular customer, John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh. Her voting History shows she has not VOTED in Hamilton County since 2022 and voted Democrat when she lived in Connecticut......I smell a Deep State fake Republican! 👇

Connected to the CIA 👇

CIA Pride👇

Q has even mentioned a JD Vance connection in a post 👇

Feel free to go down some rabbit holes because I am just about done with what appears to be another deep state clown 🤡 👇

Has a deal been made? Was he infiltrating the swamp? Is he going to be exposing more turds floating in the punchbowl? Do you think it is odd to see all these accomplishments at the age of 39?

Trump put ass clowns like this in the spotlight for a reason in the past... Is he doing it again? Trump keeps his friends close but he keeps his enemies closer. Remember we're at war, a mop-up situation... You Decide 🤔

[dougielombax]

So.

Today marks 36 years since the beginning of the Anfal Genocide in Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s regime slaughtered hundreds and thousands of Kurds, Yazidis, Assyrians, Mandaeans and Shabaks.

Around 100,000 people at the least would be killed.

It would last from February to September of 1988. During the late stages of the Iran-Iraq war.

Largely consisting of mass killings, chemical attacks and forced displacement.

Many in Iraq sadly continue to deny it to this day. Predictably. As do Saddam Hussein’s many idiot apologists on the internet.

I’ll leave some sources from this year and the last few years here for additional information.

Some sources also focus on the Assyrian victims too.

Above: A monument dedicated to the memory of the Assyrian victims of the Anfal genocide in the village of Gonda Kosa.

Just to remind any idiots who think Saddam and his cronies were kind to the Assyrians. They were certainly not!

Feel free to reblog.

Reblog the shit out of this!

[gaysails]

"When the first contingents of U.S. troops were being sent to Saudi Arabia, in August of 1990, Corporal Jeff Paterson, a twenty-two-year-old Marine stationed in Hawaii, sat down on the runway of the airfield and refused to board a plane bound for Saudi Arabia. He asked to be discharged from the Marine Corps:

'I have come to believe that there are no justified wars. . . . I began to question exactly what I was doing in the Marine Corps about the time I began to read about history. I began to read up on America's support for the murderous regimes of Guatemala, Iran under the Shah, and El Salvador. . . . I object to the use of military force against any people, anywhere, any time.'

Fourteen Marine Corps reservists at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, filed for conscientious objector status, despite the prospect of a court-martial for desertion. A lance corporal in the Marines, Erik Larsen, issued a statement:

'I declare myself a conscientious objector. Here is my sea bag full of personal gear. Here is my gas mask. I no longer need them. I am no longer a Marine. . . . It, to me, is embarrassing to fight for a way of life in which basic human needs, like a place to sleep, one hot meal a day and some medical attention, cannot even be met in our nation's capital.'

. . . When President Bush attacked Iraq in 1991, claiming that he was acting to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, a group of Native Americans in Oregon distributed a biting and ironic 'open letter':

'Dear President Bush. Please send your assistance in freeing our small nation from occupation. This foreign force occupied our lands to steal our rich resources. They used biological warfare and deceit, killing thousands of elders, children and women in the process. As they overwhelmed our land, they deposed our leaders and people of our own government, and in its place, they installed their own government systems that yet today control our daily lives in many ways. As in your own words, the occupation and overthrow of one small nation . . . is one too many. Sincerely, An American Indian.'"

-Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

[bumblee-stumblee]

By Alex MacDonald

Published date: 6 August 2024 12:27 BST

Last update: 1 day 8 hours ago

Women and children's rights campaigners in Iraq have pushed back at proposals that could enshrine sectarianism in family relationships, hand more power in family matters to clerics and open the door for marriage to be legalised for children as young as nine years old.

The amendments to Law No. 188 of the Personal Status Law of 1959 have been heavily promoted by the Coordination Framework, a coalition of conservative Shia Islamist parties that form the largest bloc in parliament.

The first reading took place on Sunday, following a failed attempt on 24 July that was shelved after some parties objected.

It is only the latest attempt to bring forward amendments to the law, with previous ones being shelved after political outcry.

According to the draft bill, when concluding a marriage contract, a Muslim couple are required to choose either the Sunni or Shia sect to represent in "all matters of personal status".

"When a dispute occurs between the spouses regarding the doctrine according to whose provisions the marriage contract was concluded, the contract is deemed to have been concluded in accordance with the husband’s doctrine unless evidence exists to the contrary," reads the draft, which was circulated by a number of Iraqi politicians on social media.

It would also allow figures from "the offices of the Shiite and Sunni endowments" to finalise marriages rather than the courts.

The draft requires Shia and Sunni endowments to submit a "code of legal rulings" to the parliament six months after ratifying the amendments, stipulating the Shia code would be based on "Jaafari jurisprudence".

Although the question of child marriage is not directly addressed in the amendments, previous versions of the bill have been more explicit and legal experts have warned that it could be allowed based on Jaafari jurisprudence.

Many Iraqi marriages are unregistered and conducted by religious figures, making them illegal under the current Iraqi Personal Status Law.

The proposed amendments could see those marriages - 22 percent of which, according to the UN, involve girls under 14 - legitimised by the state.

The 1959 law was passed under the government of Abdul-Karim Qasim, a leftist nationalist who brought in a number of progressive reforms, including increased rights for women.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, however, rightwing political parties in the country have attempted to roll back these rights.

Previous versions of the bill have included rules preventing Muslim men from marrying non-Muslims, the legalisation of marital rape, and banning women from leaving the house without their husband's permission.

The latest version is considerably less explicit, but campaigners fear its passage will allow religious authorities to introduced the rules through their establishment of the Personal Status code.

"These proposed changes to the Personal Status law would have a profoundly negative impact on the rights and wellbeing of women and children in Iraq," said Tamara Amir, CEO of the Iraqi Women's Rights Platform.

She told MEE that unlike previous attempts at passing the reforms, she believed that the current government - led by Coordination Framework member Mohammed Shia al-Sudani - would manage to get it passed, despite Iraqi society being "divided" on the issue.

"They would further entrench gender inequality and put vulnerable individuals at greater risk," she said.

"We urge policymakers to reject these proposals and instead focus on strengthening protections for women and children."

--

From March 2014

May 2014

"The law is based on the principles of the Jaafari school of Shiite religious jurisprudence. It prohibits Muslim men from marrying non-Muslims and lowers the marriage age to 9 for girls and 15 for boys."

--from the above NPR article

[girlactionfigure]

🔪 TERROR REPORTS - Latest Updates from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

🔪TERROR - STABBING - (conflicting reports - Pardes Hana or Haifa) - Karkur intersection.. 3 people stabbed, 2 seriously wounded.  No other details at this time.

🔪TERROR - THWARTED - TEL AVIV AZRIELI.. Shin Bet thwarted a deadly attack on the Azrieli Towers & Mall in Tel Aviv that was planned by 5 residents of Taiba who established a terrorist infrastructure identified with ISIS.  The plan was to carry out an attack on the towers & shopping mall using a vehicle bomb.  Arrested.

🔪A CIVILIAN HAS DIED.. murdered in the Hadera terror stabbing, passed away from his wounds.  Raphael Mordechai Fischhoff , 35, of Hadera.  May his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may G-d avenge his blood!

▪️HERO CIVILIAN WHO SURVIVED.. Hero of Israel Neria Siboni, the most seriously injured from the bus station shooting attack in Be’er Sheva this week, says: "I heard the terrorist's shots, I shouted ‘Shema Israel’ and ran towards him with bare hands. I knew I was taking him one on one."  The terrorist shot him with a bullet that punctured his lung, but he did not stop until he saw that the terrorist was eliminated. Only after checking that his wife was okay did he allow himself to collapse.

▪️RESCUED IN JUDEA-SAMARIA.. Lt. Col. Hisham Abraham, revealed that since the 7th October, the unit worked to rescue over 200 Israelis, including soldiers, who had entered “Palestinian” Area A and were in danger of their lives.

🔹US factors: Washington proposed to Israel that the US impose new economic sanctions on Iran instead of attacking and damaging economic targets.

▪️ON THE TEL AVIV PRAYER COURT DECISION.. the Rosh Yehudi organization cancels Yom Kippur prayer in the public space of Gan Meir in Tel Aviv, despite the Supreme Court's ruling. Although the court ruled in our favor, due to fear of provocations - Rosh Yehudi will hold Yom Kippur prayers in the synagogue at Bar Kochba 54, and not in Gan Meir.  In times of war, when our soldiers risk themselves in heroic battles, and when the whole nation prays for the return of our hostages in peace, the way to victory and the defeat of the enemy as well as the return of our hostages, is by adding holiness, unity and inner peace. Unfortunately, we heard plans to destroy this legal prayer as well.  We choose a responsible step.

💩ON “URGENT URGENT URGENT” LAUNCH ALERTS.. there is apparently an enemy propaganda campaign, unclear if for internal Arab consumption or to pressure Israel, of reports of missile launches and drone launches, regularly.  Here’s the latest:

.. Suicide Drones launched at Israel from Iraq!  Inbound!  Several hours until arrival.

.. Arab Report: Missiles to be launched from Iraq!

Hints of fake-ness:  Iraqi Shia-Iranian militias have suicide drones and cruise missiles, but in very limited quantity.  They regularly fire at Israel, but so far have never fired more than 3 at a time - and due to the terrain and countries in between, normally fire at either the Golan or Eilat.  Because of this they are minor threat, almost always detected and intercepted by the IDF prior to reaching Israel.  (They did get 1 through which killed 2 soldiers and wounded 20 in the Golan.)

These messages should be ignored by the public unless Home Front Command puts out an alert.

▪️The American-Israeli who was arrested in Lebanon by the Lebanese authorities was released to the US.

▪️AIR TRAVEL.. Air Europa updates will return flights to Israel on Oct. 21.

✡️A word of Torah: The Second Temple was destroyed because of causeless hatred. Perhaps the Third will be rebuilt because of causeless love. - Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, zt”l

[aristotels]

It is really easy. Iraqi Jews go back to Iraq. Croatian Jews go back to Croatia. Polish Jews go back to Poland. Ukrainian and Russian Jews go back to Ukraine and Russia. Iranian Jews go back to Iran. Ugandan Jews go back to Uganda. Algerian Jews go back to Algeria. Yemenite Jews go back to Yemen.

idk if this is bait or not, but like, nobody is even saying they have to go anywhere. croatian jews should absolutely be welcomed back - especially after NDH and nazi ransacking and crimes against them. split has one of the oldest sephardic synagogues, accepting jews when spain and portugal expelled them.

however, nobody is saying they have to leave or "return where they came from" or be banished. they can give up stolen assets and become citiziens of palestine, and be tried in the palestine court for the commited crimes, just like any other person.

most settlers leave anyway, not wanting to be there anymore because its hOrRoRs for them to be succumbed to "LoWeR rAcEs" or whatever.

[eretzyisrael]

by Melanie Phillips

Five days after Britain’s Labour party won an overwhelming parliamentary majority in the general election, we can see the outline of what this is likely to mean for British Jews and their country’s relationship with Israel. That outline is not reassuring.

The new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is said to have purged his party of antisemitism and has persuaded many British Jews that he has made Labour safe again for Jewish voters. On Sunday morning, he told the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas — antisemite, Holocaust denier and fan of Hitler’s wartime ally in the Middle East — that an independent state was the “undeniable right” of the Palestinian people and that “financial support for the Palestinian Authority” was one of his “immediate priorities”. 

He did not tell Abbas that a condition of this financial support was that the PA must stop paying financial rewards to terrorists and their families for murdering Israelis. Nor did he say that a condition of receiving more British taxpayers’ money was that the PA must end its indoctrination of Palestinian Arab children in Nazi-themed demonisation of the Jews, teaching them that their greatest ambition should be to murder Jews and steal all their land. 

Instead, Starmer proceeded to lecture Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin  Netanyahu, that there was a “clear and urgent” need for a ceasefire in Gaza as well as an immediate increase in the volume of humanitarian aid reaching civilians. As for the war being waged by Hezbollah in Lebanon against northern Israel, Starmer warned Netanyahu:

It was crucial all parties acted with caution.

What kind of “caution” does Starmer suggest is appropriate in the face of a threat of genocide by Hezbollah and its patron, Iran? Or to put it another way, with Hezbollah primed to unleash its armoury of 150,000 rockets and other missiles that can reach all of Israel, and with Iran itself along with Iraqi, Syrian and Houthi militias not to mention the terrorist armies of the “West Bank” all primed to attack Israel if it launches all-out war against Hezbollah, does Starmer really believe that Israel actually needs to be told to act “with caution”? 

Can he really not grasp that, given the daily onslaught over the past nine months from dozens of rockets, drones and guided missiles that have destroyed Israeli border towns, left swathes of northern Israel burning, made more than 60,000 Israelis refugees in their own country and kept other residents in the north trapped in their safe rooms (two Israelis were killed today by a Hezbollah rocket strike that hit their car) that if the Israelis abandon that “caution” it’s because they have no other choice?   

Starmer shows absolutely zero understanding that this crisis isn’t about Hamas, Hezbollah or the Palestinian Arabs. They are proxies and pawns in an Iranian war of extermination against Israel, the essential precursor to the destruction and conquest of America, Britain and the west. 

So little does he understand this that the new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is now poring over the government’s legal advice on whether to stop UK arms sales to Israel.

Once upon a time, Lammy was sympathetic to Israel. Now he is a foe. He has repeated what he said before the election, that Labour supports the request by the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant — and that if these Israelis came to the UK after such warrants were issued, Britain would arrest them.

This despite the fact that the claims upon which Khan relied were lies, distortions and blood libels drawn from Hamas-sympathising and Israel-bashing organisations, and were all demonstrably untrue.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

#20yrsago The Grey Video https://random.waxy.org/video/grey_video.mov

#20yrsago Canada’s DMCA: why is it a bad idea? https://web.archive.org/web/20050428093632/http://www.digital-copyright.ca/files/The_Truth__Final__clean__Nov_16_04_DAF.html

#20yrsago Internet Archive pages are admissable into evidence https://web.archive.org/web/20041120050733/https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/packets/vol_2_no_3/002728.shtml/

#15yrsago Demonstrating TSA futility by stabbing dead pigs with pens https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17325460/

#15yrsago Chumby One: handsome successor to the cutest computer ever https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2009/chumby-one

#15yrsago EFF analyzes the legal creepiness of ACTA, the secret copyright treaty https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/stopping-acta-juggernaut

#15yrsago Maricopa deputy steals defender’s paperwork during a court case http://www.heatcity.org/2009/11/judge-orders-officer-to-apologize-or-face-jail-for-taking-attorneys-file.html

#15yrsago SFPD cops from imaginary anti-dance-party squad steal laptops https://web.archive.org/web/20091120193839/https://www.sfweekly.com/2009-11-18/music/s-f-cops-may-have-gone-too-far-in-seizing-dj-gear-at-underground-parties/

#10yrsago Director Lexi Alexander explains why she sides with pirates https://torrentfreak.com/why-hollywood-director-lexi-alexander-sides-with-pirates-141118/

#10yrsago Bumfights creator accused of stealing remains of dead children from Thai hospital museum https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/443837/body-parts-in-dhl-packages-stolen-from-siriraj-museum-hospital-says

#10yrsago New sf story: “Huxleyed into the Full Orwell” https://www.vice.com/en/article/huxleyed-into-the-full-cory-orwell-cory-doctorow/

#10yrsago Whatsapp integrates Moxie Marlinspike’s Textsecure end-to-end crypto https://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/

#5yrsago Podcast: Jeannette Ng Was Right, John W. Campbell Was a Fascist https://ia803108.us.archive.org/19/items/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_315/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_315_-_Jeannette_Ng_Was_Right_John_W_Campbell_Was_a_Fascist.mp3

#5yrsago Coop’s tribute to Randotti Skulls, from the golden age of Haunted Mansion merchandise https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/18/coops-tribute-to-randotti-skulls-from-the-golden-age-of-haunted-mansion-merchandise/

#5yrsago Beyond antitrust: the anti-monopoly movement and what it stands for https://onezero.medium.com/the-utah-statement-reviving-antimonopoly-traditions-for-the-era-of-big-tech-e6be198012d7

#5yrsago Massive leak of Chinese government documents reveal the “no mercy” plan for Muslims in Xinjiang https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html

#5yrsago 900 pages of leaked Iranian spy cables reveal how America’s failures after invasions allowed Iran to seize control of Iraqi politics https://theintercept.com/2019/11/18/iran-iraq-spy-cables/

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

deAdder

* * * *

Former Republican representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming joined Vice President Kamala Harris on a stage hung with red, white, and blue bunting and signs that said “Country Over Party.” As Cheney took the stage, the crowd chanted, “Thank you, Liz!” The two were on the campaign trail today in Ripon, Wisconsin, the town that claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. It was in that then-tiny town in 1852 that Alvan E. Bovay, who had recently emigrated from New York, called for a new political party to stand against slavery.

The idea of a new party took off in 1854 when it became clear the Kansas-Nebraska Act permitting the westward expansion of human enslavement would become law. When they met in February of that year, people in Ripon were early participants in the movement of people across the North to defend democracy. Rather than standing against slavery alone, those organizing in 1854 stood against an entire political system, opposing the small group of elite enslavers who had taken over the U.S. government in order to establish an oligarchy and were quite clear they rejected the self-evident truth in the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal. Instead, they intended to rule over the nation’s majority, whose labor produced the capital that southern leaders believed only elites should control.

In the face of this existential threat to the country, party divisions crumbled.

Pundits have described today’s event as a component of Harris’s ongoing outreach to Republicans, and in part, it is. That outreach, begun under President Joe Biden and continuing even more aggressively under Harris, is bearing fruit as in an open letter today, two dozen Republican former officials and lawmakers in Wisconsin endorsed Harris and her running mate Minnesota governor Tim Walz. “We have plenty of policy disagreements with Vice President Harris,” the Republicans wrote. “But what we do agree upon is more important. We agree that we cannot afford another four years of the broken promises, election denialism, and chaos of Donald Trump’s leadership.”

Lately, there have been indications of what returning Trump to office might mean.

On Tuesday, Trump suggested that the U.S. soldiers who sustained traumatic brain injuries (TBI) when Iran attacked an Iraqi base where they were stationed were not truly injured, but simply had “headaches.” Trump’s statement brought back to light a 2021 CBS report by Catherine Herridge and Michael Kaplan that found the injured soldiers had not been recognized with a Purple Heart, awarded to service members wounded or killed in the line of duty, despite qualifying for it. This slight meant they were denied the medical benefits that come with that military decoration.

The soldiers told Herridge and Kaplan that they were pressured to downplay their injuries to avoid undercutting Trump’s attempt to keep the casualty numbers in that incident low. With the story back in the news, Kaplan posted that after the report, the Army awarded the soldiers the Purple Hearts they deserved.

Journalist Magdi Jacobs recalled the argument of Trump’s lawyers before the Supreme Court that Trump could not prod a SEAL team to assassinate a rival because service members would adhere to the rules of their institutions. The Army officers’ bowing to Trump’s political demands proved that argument was wrong and set off “[m]ajor alarm bells,” Jacobs posted, suggesting that the military would not stand firm against Trump in a second term, especially now that the Supreme Court says a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of official duties.

Scott Waldman and Thomas Frank of Politico’s E&E News covering energy and the environment reported today that two former White House officials said that Trump was “flagrantly partisan” when responding to natural disasters. One said that in 2018 Trump refused to approve disaster aid after wildfires to California, perceiving it as a Democratic state. To get disaster money, the aide showed Trump polling results revealing that Orange County, which had been badly damaged in the fires, “had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.”

Defending the Big Lie that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election, former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters in 2021 gave a security badge to a man associated with MyPillow owner Mike Lindell to enable him to breach the county’s voting systems in an unsuccessful attempt to find evidence of voter fraud. A jury found Peters guilty of four felonies related to the scheme. Today, District Court Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced Peters to nine years in prison.

But there are other stories these days of what the government can accomplish when it is focused on the good of all Americans.

About 45,000 dock workers in the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike Tuesday when the union could not reach an agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group over a new contract. The strike shut down 36 ports from Maine to Texas, affecting about half the country’s shipping just as the areas hammered by Hurricane Helene desperately needed supplies. Dockworkers wanted a pay increase of up to 77% over six years and better benefits, as well as an end to the automation that threatens union jobs.

President Joe Biden reiterated his support for collective bargaining despite the threat to an economic slowdown from the strike. The Wall Street Journal editorial board excoriated Biden and the union, saying: “President Biden wants unions to have extortionary bargaining power, and he’s getting a demonstration of it on election eve. Congratulations.”

But today the International Longshoremen’s Association suspended the strike after USMX agreed to wage increases of 62% over six years. The two sides agreed to extend the current contract until January 15 to address the issues of benefits and automation. Administration officials White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, top White House economic advisor Lael Brainard, Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg helped broker the temporary agreement.

The government’s power to make things better is also on display amid the rubble and ruin left behind by Hurricane Helene. Yesterday evening, after taking an aerial tour of western North Carolina to survey the damage and receiving a briefing in Raleigh, President Biden thanked both “the Republican governor of South Carolina and the Democratic governor of North Carolina and all of the elected officials who’ve focused on the task at hand. In a moment like this, we put politics aside. At least we should put it all aside, and we have here. There are no Democrats or Republicans; there are only Americans. And our job is to help as many people as we can as quickly as we can and as thoroughly as we can.”

Biden explained that the federal government had 1,000 first responders in place before the storms hit, and that he had approved emergency declarations as soon as he received the requests from the governors. Yesterday he directed the Defense Department to move 1,000 soldiers to reinforce North Carolina’s National Guard to speed up the delivery of supplies like food, water, and medicine to isolated communities, some of which are accessible now only by pack mule.

He has already deployed 50 Starlink satellites for communication, and more are coming.

Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are offering free temporary housing, as well as delivering food and water. They are helping people apply for the help that they need.

While Trump and MAGA Republicans insist that Biden is botching the response to Helene, CNN fact checker Daniel Dale noted that the response has gotten bipartisan praise. Republican governors Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia both thanked Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.

So today’s bipartisan event in Ripon suggests far more than Democratic outreach to Republicans. It appears to be a commitment to a government that advances the interests of ordinary people, and protects the right of everyone to be treated equally before the law and to have a say in their government. Republican Abraham Lincoln articulated this worldview for his fledgling party in 1859 as it took a stand against oligarchs. Believing these principles accurately represented the aspirations of the nation’s founders, Lincoln called them “conservative.” People from all parties rallied to the party that promised to defend those principles.

“The president of the United States must not look at our country through the narrow lens of ideology or petty partisanship or self-interest,” Harris said today. “The president of the United States must not look at our country as an instrument for their own ambitions. Our nation is not some spoil to be won. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised: the nation that inspired the world to believe in the possibility of a representative government. And so in the face of those who would endanger our magnificent experiment, people of every party must stand together.”

"In this election, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration. It is our duty,” Cheney said. “I ask all of you here and everyone listening across this great country to join us. I ask you to meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump.

“And I ask you instead to help us elect Kamala Harris for president. I know…that…a president Harris will be able to unite this nation. I know that she will be a president who will defend the rule of law, and I know that she will be a president who can inspire all of our children—and if I might say so, especially our little girls—to do great things. So help us right the ship of our democracy so that history will say of us, when our time of testing came, we did our duty and we prevailed because we loved our country more.”

Letters From An American

Heather Cox Richardson

October 3, 2024

[lady-byleth]

So Israel, in its absolutely ludicrous arrogance, has now managed to:

Get Pakistan and Iran, who attack each other, to somehow...burying the hatchet cuz FUCK ISRAEL I guess??

Piss off the Houthis

Bring in the West and piss off the whole of Yemen MORE

Piss off the Yemeni so much the various government parties and civilians ALSO bury the hatchet cuz FUCK ISRAEL

Bomb Libanon

Piss off Hezbollah

Get Hezbollah chomping at the bit for any excuse to reenact 2006 because FUCK ISRAEL

Teach the world through research into Hezbollah that Israel LOVES the human shields excuse (its your choice to kill them anyway, habibi)

Bomb Syria

Bring in the Iraqi resistance that promptly attacks Haifa and disables the airport because FUCK ISRAEL

Piss off the Saudis who block the airspace to anyone trying to deliver weaponry

Piss off every goddamn civilian in the area because FUCK ISRAEL is apparently a very common sentiment

Give Hamas TONS of good press through dozens of easily seen through lies

Raise support for Palestine MORE through said lies

Turn the whole civilian world against them

Fuck up their own economy

Divide the Jewish into two distinct factions like never before

Expose the corruption and depravity in the world governments for all to see

Make people aware of media bias against Arabic and North African people

Put Islam into a favorable light for the first time in decades because the world actually learns about it now despite Hollywood's best efforts

Improve everyone's legal knowledge cuz we're all following the court proceedings

Improve everyone's understanding of how to get reliable information and spot propaganda

Educate the world about Apartheid

Educate the world about Nelson Mandela specifically

Boost Palestinian solidarity AGAIN because even Nelson Mandela said FUCK ISRAEL

Make FUCK ISRAEL the most common stance on them

Improve understanding of Antisemitism through constantly using it as a defense and annoying people into not being antisemitic in the first place (from what I've seen anyway)

Humiliate Germany on a global level (which I am quite pleased with as a German)

Unite and mobilise people like never before

And all that by being so fucking shitty at military, human rights and PR that no one can deny it unless they're literally doing it on purpose

I don't remember the world ever agreeing so wholeheartedly on something as they agree on FUCK ISRAEL and, more importantly,

From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free

[theoszczepanski]

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed on behalf of former detainees in 2008 against Virginia-based defense company CACI Premier Technology Inc., according to a press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights – the organization representing the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs alleged the company was hired by the US government following the US invasion of Iraq to provide interrogation services at Abu Ghraib, a US Army detention facility where Iraqi detainees were brutally tortured.

The plaintiffs, Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa’ad Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, and Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist, each received $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, according to the release and court documents.

[beardedmrbean]

LONDON — A British court gave Wikileaks founder Julian Assange permission to launch a full appeal against his extradition to the United States on espionage charges Monday, after more than a decade of legal battles. 

Two judges at the High Court in London said the Australian-born Assange could have a full appeal to hear his argument that he might be discriminated against because he is a foreign national.

Assange’s legal avenues in the U.K. would have been exhausted if the High Court had ruled the extradition could go ahead. His legal team said last week that Assange could have been put on a plane to the U.S. within 24 hours if they ruled against him.

Assange's lawyer Edward Fitzgerald had told the judges they should not accept the assurance given by American prosecutors that his client could seek the protections given under the First Amendment, as a U.S court would not be bound by this. “We say this is a blatantly inadequate assurance,” he told the court, Reuters reported.

However, Reuters said that he had accepted a separate assurance that Assange would not face the death penalty, saying the U.S. had provided an “unambiguous promise not to charge any capital offense.”

It could be months before the appeal is heard.

Assange, 52, was not in court to hear his fate being debated. Fitzgerald said he did not attend for health reasons.

But hundreds of protesters cheered outside the court as news of the verdict came through.

Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade, including seven years in self-exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London before he was jailed in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London, where he has been held for five years.

Assange has been indicted in the U.S. on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified documents.

American prosecutors have alleged that he put lives at risk when he helped Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published almost 15 years ago. 

James Lewis, a lawyer for the U.S., argued in written submissions that Assange’s actions “threatened damage to the strategic and national security interests of the United States” and put individuals named in the documents — including Iraqis and Afghans who had helped U.S. forces — at risk of “serious physical harm.”

Assange's attorneys have argued that he engaged in regular journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information and the prosecution is politically motivated retaliation.

They have said he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, although American authorities have said the sentence is likely to be much shorter than that.

Assange’s many global supporters have criticized the prosecution and there have been calls for the case to be dropped from rights groups, some media bodies and political leaders including  Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. 

Document drop site

Wikileaks, which he launched in 2006 as a place for leakers to drop classified documents, rose to prominence four years later when it published a classified video provided by Manning. 

Recorded in 2007, the video showed a U.S. military helicopter killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. When a van arrived to pick up the wounded, it was also shot at. More than 10 people were killed. 

Manning was convicted at a court-martial of espionage and other charges in 2013 for leaking secret military files to WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison but was released in 2017 after President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010, when he was arrested in London at the request of Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual assault made by two women.

Two years later, he jumped bail and sought refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy which put him out of reach of authorities, but effectively trapped him in the building.

After the relationship soured, he was evicted from the embassy in April 2019 and British police immediately arrested him for breaching bail in 2012. He has been in prison ever since although Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in 2019 because of time elapsed.

Although a British district court judge ruled against the extradition request in 2021, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, U.S. authorities won an appeal the following year, after giving a series of assurances about how Assange would be treated if extradited. This included a pledge that he could be transferred to Australia, to serve his sentence. 

Earlier this year, the Australian parliament called for Assange to be allowed to return to his homeland. Officials have tried to lobby the U.S. to drop the extradition efforts or find a diplomatic solution that would allow Assange to return to his homeland.

Australian authorities have said the case has dragged on for too long and officials have tried to lobby the U.S. to drop the extradition efforts or find a diplomatic solution that would allow his return. 

Asked about Australia’s request last month, President Joe Biden his administration was “considering it.”

[tieflingkisser]

Do Kamala Harris’s Neocon Supporters Just Hate Trump, or Is There Something More to Her Appeal?

Personally, I would not accept an endorsement from a world-historic war criminal.

The Iraq war — sold on lies and bungled in its prosecution — has become the embodiment of American hubris in the 21st century. Hundreds of thousands died, allies were alienated, and the U.S. became mired in a decadeslong boondoggle that is still unfolding. By 2007, a few years after the war was launched, all but its most diehard proponents had come to see it as the mistake it was. Today, those same diehard war hawks — the very people who planned and carried out the Iraq invasion — are proudly throwing their full support behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the November presidential election. Chief among them is former Vice President Dick Cheney. Not far behind are a clutch of other Bush-era figures aligned with the neoconservative movement, like Bill Kristol; former officials like former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; and staffers for the late former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

[...]

These hawks say they’re endorsing Harris largely to stop Donald Trump — citing his conduct and “chaotic leadership” — but these prominent conservatives are backing the Democratic nominee because their visions for U.S. foreign policy increasingly appear to be aligned. The Democratic and Republican parties are more unified than ever in their commitment to preserving American hegemony and preventing the multipolar world from emerging. As vice president, Cheney was one of the principal architects not only of the Iraq War, which left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, but also the U.S.’s worldwide torture regime. The aftershocks of America’s eight-year occupation are still being felt in the region and in our domestic politics to this day. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., who inherited her father’s hawkish views, has also pledged to do whatever she can to elect Harris, including launching a PAC that has raised millions of dollars to boost the Democrat’s campaign.

[...]

The Harris campaign isn’t just courting moderates and conservatives as part of a short-term strategy to win the election. Rather, Democrats are actively supporting and spouting neoconservative ideas. During her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Harris vowed: “As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world” — as her party blocked any Palestinian Americans from appearing on the convention stage to speak about Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

[humanrightsupdates]

Broken Promises of Compensation for Sinjaris

Sinjar has been the site of grave war crimes and mass displacement going back a decade, with about 183,000 Sinjaris still displaced today. Yet despite years of waiting, not a single person from Sinjar has received the compensation payments that they are entitled to under Iraqi law for destruction of and damage to their property, we found a year ago.

80 percent of public infrastructure and 70 percent of homes in Sinjar Town were destroyed during the conflict against ISIS between 2014 and 2017. Without this compensation, many displaced Sinjaris lack the financial means to go home and rebuild the homes and businesses lost during the war. A decade on, tens of thousands of Sinjaris are still living in camps across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and largely reliant on humanitarian assistance. As the federal government’s July 30 deadline for closing these camps looms near, delivering these payments becomes even more important.

As of a year ago, 3,500 completed compensation claims were awaiting payment from the Ninewa Governorate’s Finance Department. That number has now risen to 10,000, and still not a single payment has been made, a representative of the Sinjar compensation office told Human Rights Watch.

The office has processed another 26,000 claims that are waiting for final approval from the appeals court before sending them to the Finance Department for payment, the representative said.

“We finished processing all the cases filed between 2021 and 2023, so there is no more backlog,” Judge Ammar Mohammed, head of the Tel Afar Compensation Committee, which oversees the Sinjar sub-office, told me. “We’ve done our job. It’s now the government’s job to pay.”