What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
After a massive procedural mistake and a three-year fight for his freedom, Rene Lima-Marin was set to be released from a Colorado prison this week. Instead, he is now in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, facing deportation.
Judge frees Colorado man from prison, then ICE immediately re-arrests him – BBC News
sigh…
Arkady explains that he was embedded at ERD headquarters in Kajara south of Mosul “not far from a US base.”
…Arkady wrote that on October 22 one of the ERD fighters arrived with two young prisoners “presumed IS supporters.” Arkady claims he was later told they had been tortured for three days and then after a week were killed.
The photos, Arkady says, were taken shortly after they arrived at the facility.
One photo shows a bearded man in a blindfold with black hair with his arms tied behind his back. He appears to be hanging by his wrists with a pack of water bottles placed in the small of this back for extra weight.
A similar photo shows a man suspended by his hands in a similar manner. His neck tied to his feet making it impossible to straighten his back.
Arkady says he was surprised that he was permitted to continue filming.
“No one stopped me,” he wrote.
…On December 16, Arkady says the unit received information about an ISIS informant. Arkady recalls the man being dragged out, while one the Iraqi fighters he was with “announced that he was going to rape the woman.”
In one photo Arkady says was taken that night a woman is clutching a baby in a room as someone opens the door. She appears to be crying out and pointing at the person opening the door.
Arkady claims that the abuse wasn’t only directed at ISIS fighters and informants; Sunni members of the unit also raped Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary fighters.
Arkady works for a US-based photo agency, and said he was surprised when he was asked to participate in the beatings.
“I come from Khanaqin, a small city in the north-east of Iraq, where the Kurdish and Arabic parts meet. With us, it was always normal that Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Arabs live side by side and together,” Arkady wrote.
He wrote that shortly after he went back to Khanaqin to get his wife and daughter, and then fled from Iraq.
Kurdish journalist prompts Iraq to investigate rape, torture, ki
hmmm
A Pentagon investigation has found that more than 100 civilians were killed after the U.S. dropped a bomb on a building in Mosul, Iraq, in March.
U.S. Airstrike Killed Over 100 Civilians in Mosul, Pentagon Says – NBC News
oy…
Statements from people who speak against their apparent interests carry a great deal of power.
…In my experiment, I randomized exposure to corrections from different sources — basically I varied the political identity of the person presenting “the truth.”
…I found that while corrections by authoritative and Democratic sources had some effect on changing minds about the truth concerning death panels, these corrections quickly faded. By contrast, when corrections came from a Republican politician, respondents of both parties — Democrats and Republicans alike — were less likely to accept the death panel rumor, even after a period of time (though the power of the correction did fade somewhat).
My experiment demonstrates that when it comes to matters of fact, it is statements from people who speak against their apparent interests — in this case Republicans talking about policies advanced by a Democratic president and Congress — that are most surprising and have the most power.
…Initial reports on last night’s events may have had something of a “he said, she said” feel, with conflicting accounts from Gianforte’s campaign and Jacobs. But relatively soon a local Fox News crew confirmed Jacobs’s account, stating that Gianforte jumped on top of Jacobs and began punching him.
hmmm
Police said that Papademos, his driver and another passenger were taken to a local hospital but did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Former Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos Injured by Explosion in Car – NBC News
hmmm
Manchester bomber said to have told mom “forgive me” before attack – CBS News
Pro-tip: if you have to ask your mom’s forgiveness beforehand, don’t do it.
There was “not one guy with a bad placard” in Saudi Arabia, Wilbur Ross said with approval.
Because Trump only hangs out with ignorant, incompetent douches.
…And Russians. Don’t forget the Russians.
He joined the 5-3 decision to the surprise of many.
…This ruling upheld a federal district court decision striking down North Carolina’s 1st and 12th congressional districts, finding that legislators drew the lines with the intent of consolidating African American voters into two districts, hence diluting their influence in others.
Republicans have long justified this sort of gerrymandering by claiming it was in the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, which required districts to be drawn to enable African-American voters to elect their own representatives. Yet what Republicans did here was to draw oddly shaped districts with the distinct purpose of packing African-American voters into even fewer districts.
As Justice Kagan wrote in her majority opinion, the 1st district “produced boundaries amplifying divisions between blacks and whites,” while in the 12th, “race, not politics, accounted for the district’s reconfiguration.”
Voting rights advocates hailed the decision as a victory.
Clarence Thomas Just Voted with Liberals, Changed Course of U.S. Politics
hmmmm
when Trump’s budget proposal was released, Schumer condemned the president’s “180-degree turn away from his repeated promise of a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan,” saying the budget contains deep cuts in spending on roads, transit projects, public housing and more.
“The fuzzy math and sleight of hand can’t hide the fact that the President’s $200 billion plan is more than wiped out by other cuts to key infrastructure programs,” Schumer said in a statement.
Usually when someone says, having a yard sale will fix everything, they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.
The move comes after deadly clashes between soldiers and militants linked to so-called Islamic State.
Philippines President Duterte declares martial law on Mindanao island – BBC News
hmmm
The heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee said a corporation can’t invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Senate Subpoenas Records from Mike Flynn’s Companies – NBC News
hmmmm
Former CIA Director John Brennan told House Russia investigators Tuesday that Russia “brazenly interfered” in US elections, including actively contacting members of the President Donald Trump’s campaign.
…”I saw interaction that in my mind raised questions of whether it was collusion,” Brennan told Rep. Trey Gowdy, saying that he supported the FBI digging further.
…Meanwhile, Brennan is also likely to face questions about a split among intelligence leaders last summer over the purpose of Russia’s meddling in the US election — whether it was designed to support Trump or merely spur chaos and confusion in the election. Brennan told senior lawmakers as early as last summer that the Russian operation was squarely designed to support Trump.
Ex-CIA chief John Brennan: Russians contacted Trump campaign – CNNPolitics.com
hmmm
Fox News has retracted a story it published last week that reignited conspiracy theories around the death DNC staffer Seth Rich.
Fox Retracts, Hannity Silenced on Conspiracy About Slain DNC Staffer – NBC News
Speaking incompetent losers…. Hannity sucked on that Cheeto too long and now he can’t tell fact from fiction either.
The isolation that came to Big Sur this year when wet weather closed several roads has deepened with a giant mudslide across Highway 1, just south of the small community of Gorda (Monterey County). A quarter-mile-wide wall of mud and rock barreled over an oceanfront stretch of road Saturday night, fortunately on a section of the highway where there was no traffic because the area was already closed due to smaller slides.
Big Sur hit again as huge landslide covers Highway 1 – SFGate
hmmm
A former US treasury secretary says it is the “most egregious” mistake he has seen in four decades.
…Mr Summers, also formerly chief economist of the World Bank, was one of the first to spot the apparent mistake.
“It appears to be the most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them,” he wrote on his blog.
He said the spending plan was “simply ludicrous”.
The budget forecasts about $2tr in extra federal revenue growth over the next 10 years, which it uses to pay for Mr Trump’s “biggest tax cut in history”.
But that very same $2tr is then used to reduce the budget deficit.
“My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course,” Mr Summers wrote.
White House denies ‘egregious’ budget accounting error – BBC News
This White House is staffed by incompetent morons.
Taiwan’s president has asked the Ministry of Justice to come up with a legal framework for complying with the decision.
Taiwan’s High Court Rules Same-Sex Marriage Is Legal, In A First For Asia : The Two-Way : NPR
good job, Taiwan!
US President Donald Trump told his Philippines’ counterpart that he was doing a good job fighting an illegal drug epidemic in his country, an effort that has led to thousands of deaths and drawn international condemnation from human rights groups.
Trump praises Duterte’s deadly drug war in leaked transcript – CNNPolitics.com
Is the Cheetos that ignorant or that evil? Maybe both?
Either way, what a fycking loser and anyone who supported him at any point should be strung up by their thumbs ans st4ep one for making this shit-river up to their neighbors.
Montana candidate Greg Gianforte faces a misdemeanour charge over a clash with a Guardian journalist.
US Republican Greg Gianforte charged over Guardian reporter ‘body slam’ – BBC News
So being a completely and utterly hateful whackjob is now a prerequisite for running as a republican now?
Reminding everyone at Harvard that free trade is great, Trump is bad, and climate change is real.
John Kerry Slams Trump Administration in Harvard Commencement Speech | Foreign Policy
hmmm
In the first of many strange Trump moments on Thursday, his first meeting with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday led to an awkward handshake that lasted just a little too long. Pictures and video show the two world leaders, who met in Brussels before the Nato summit, gripping each other’s hands while grimacing slightly.
…For a brief moment it seemed neither man wanted to give up, which would have made everything even more awkward, but in the end Trump relented and loosened his fingers.
…Between the infamy of Trump’s strange handshake and Macron’s apparent look of satisfaction, there was a lot for people to make fun of:
…Trump appears to be trying to shake Macron’s arm off after the French president bypassed him to say hello to Germany’s Angela Merkel first.
The US President didn’t stop there.
In another widely circulated video, he appeared to push aside Dusko Markovic, the prime minister of Montenegro.
…Trump’s distinctive handshake has been the source of much mirth on the internet as he meets world leaders in the first year of his presidency. This isn’t even the first instance this week. The president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, was well-prepared for a handshake battle when he met Trump on Tuesday:
There are so many Trump handshake stories by now, it’s hard to know where to begin. There was the bizarre 19-second handshake with a visibly bewildered Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the time the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, seemed to beat his strange handshake style.
It wasn’t a handshake that went viral when Trump met the British prime minister, Theresa May – everyone now remembers the infamous hand-holding picture. And when he met the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, he failed to shake her hand during a photo op.
Trump v Macron: French president appears to win latest handshake battle | US news | The Guardian
What a clueless loser the Cheeto is. Other world leaders now have a running joke to bond over and Trump’s the punchline.
The Department of Justice is perverting a rule to shut down immigrant-rights lawyers.
The Airport Lawyers Who Stood Up to Trump Are Under Attack | The Nation
sigh…
The president says his re-election shows that Iranians want more interaction with the world.
Iran election: Hassan Rouhani says voters rejected extremism – BBC News
hmmm
And this was before the dancing.
Trump mocked Obama for bowing to a Saudi king. And then he … – The Washington Post
heh
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