The White House has Obama’s remarks at the mosque the other day.

Now, a lot of Americans have never visited a mosque.  To the folks watching this today who haven’t — think of your own church, or synagogue, or temple, and a mosque like this will be very familiar.  This is where families come to worship and express their love for God and each other.  There’s a school where teachers open young minds.  Kids play baseball and football and basketball — boys and girls — I hear they’re pretty good.

Um…no. Not exactly; not entirely. According to Asra Nomani and Ify Okoye, the mosque in question is strictly gender segregated:

This past weekend, dozens of girls and boys as young as about 8 years old ran up the stairwell to the main entrance of the musallah, or main prayer hall, of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, where President Obama visits Wednesday in his first presidential visit to a U.S. mosque. As the children rounded the corner, a stern mosque Sunday school teacher stood before them, shouting, “Girls, inside the gym! Boys in the musallah.”

The girls, shrouded in headscarves that, in some cases, draped half their bodies, slipped into a stark gymnasium and found seats on bare red carpet pieces laid out in a corner. They faced a tall industrial cement block wall, in the direction of the qibla, facing Mecca, a basketball hoop above them. Before them a long narrow window poured a small dash of sunlight into the dark gym.

On the other side of the wall, the boys clamored excitedly into the majestic musallah, their feet padded by thick, decorated carpet, the sunlight flooding into the room through spectacular windows engraved with the 99 names of Allah, or God, in Islam. Ornate Korans and Islamic books filled shelves that lined the front walls.

So, no, the mosque will not be “very familiar” to most people, just as a church which confines girls and women to an unadorned annex while boys and men get the church proper will not be “very familiar.” Obama shouldn’t normalize gender separate and unequal that way. I understand why he does it but I think he shouldn’t.

He does it because Muslims face a great deal of hostility and prejudice, and sometimes abuse and violence. He’s right to try to change that.

We’re one American family.  And when any part of our family starts to feel separate or second-class or targeted, it tears at the very fabric of our nation.  (Applause.)

It’s a challenge to our values — and that means we have much work to do.  We’ve got to tackle this head on.  We have to be honest and clear about it.   And we have to speak out.  This is a moment when, as Americans, we have to truly listen to each other and learn from each other.  And I believe it has to begin with a common understanding of some basic facts.  And I express these facts, although they’d be obvious to many of the people in this place, because, unfortunately, it’s not facts that are communicated on a regular basis through our media.

So let’s start with this fact:  For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam’s message of peace.  And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam — peace.  The standard greeting is as-salamu alaykum — peace be upon you.  And like so many faiths, Islam is rooted in a commitment to compassion and mercy and justice and charity.  Whoever wants to enter paradise, the Prophet Muhammad taught, “let him treat people the way he would love to be treated.”  (Applause.)  For Christians like myself, I’m assuming that sounds familiar.  (Laughter.)

And yet Islam didn’t acquire so many followers by peaceful means. And if Islam really is rooted in a commitment to compassion and mercy and justice and charity, then why are countries where Islam is the official religion such horrible places for human beings? Why are they not conspicuous for compassion or justice?

The Vatican has tossed out one of the two abuse survivors on its commission for the protection of children.

UK child sex abuse lobbyist Peter Saunders, who was given a “leave of absence” from his role in the Holy See’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, has said that the “Vatican system” seems “essentially corrupt and unwilling to do the right thing”.

After a commission meeting on Saturday, the Holy See announced “it was decided” that Mr Saunders would take a leave of absence in order to “consider how he might best support the commission’s work”.

Ah that agent-free passive voice. “It was decided” – by whom, exactly? God? The EU? The combined will of humanity? And that butler-like circumlocution – a leave of absence to think hard about how he can be more obedient to the church, is what they mean. Why else would he be singled out for a “leave of absence” i.e. a suspension?

According to Vatican sources, this was prompted by concern among members that Mr Saunders had a conflict-of-interest created by his dual role as a campaigner with the UK child sex abuse lobby Napac and as a policy consultant on the Vatican commission.

Ahhhhhh yes. You know who else has a conflict of interest here? The Vatican. The whole entire Vatican, which has an interest in convincing the world that there was no child abuse and that the Vatican never turned a blind eye to that non-existent child abuse and that the Vatican never concealed that non-existent child abuse and never protected the priests who perpetrated it.

So yeah. Take a leave of absence yourselves why don’t you. Disband. Break up. Go away. Stop telling the whole world what to do. You’re a mafia wrapped in a cloak of goddy respectability. It’s a racket, and you should take an extended leave of absence to think about it, one lasting ten or twenty centuries.

Last week Saunders dared to criticize the pope for not attending the meetings to answer questions, when he’d said he would. Shock-horror among the assembled bishops.

He also criticised the pope’s appointment last summer of controversial Chilean bishop Juan Barros to the Diocese of Osorno. Bishop Barros has been accused of covering up the sex abuse crimes of Fr Fernando Karadima, a Chilean priest.

Yes but he’s Pope Frankie, he has a nice smile, he lives in a little guesthouse instead of the Vatican best bedroom, he drives around in a small car.

Speaking to The Irish Times on Sunday, Mr Saunders said he was “shell-shocked” and disappointed at the manner in which the “inquisition” had expressed a vote of no confidence in him.

As far as he is concerned, he has not taken a leave of absence, while he says the only person who can sack him is Pope Francis.

So “the Holy See” told a big fat lie. Imagine my astonishment.

On Sunday, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke confirmed that Mr Saunders was now on a leave of absence, adding that he had had problems with his fellow commission members.

His departure means Irish survivor Marie Collins is now the only sex abuse victim serving on the 17-member commission, which includes eight women. She confirmed to The Irish Times that commission members had been dismayed by Mr Saunders’s critical remarks, often made to the media and not to the commission itself.

Wow. That really takes the biscuit. Saunders is a survivor of the abuse dished out and concealed by the church, and members of the church commission are “dismayed” by his failure to be deferential enough.

Lindy West doesn’t take much satisfaction from seeing Roosh get a little of the kind of hostile attention he and his fans have forced on her for years. Unlike Roosh, she doesn’t wish that kind of thing on people.

Unlike Roosh, I actually oppose doxxing and death threats, even against people I dislike. So it’s difficult for me to enjoy watching anyone, even someone who’s tormented me with a pathological intensity for years, go through a hell I’ve devoted so much of my professional life to fighting.

And, ethical concerns aside, Roosh facing some karmic retribution for the havoc he’s wreaked on women’s lives doesn’t bring me much satisfaction, because it really doesn’t accomplish much. He was already a buffoon caterwauling on the fringe. That the whole world knows it now doesn’t change that fact. What matters is that we recognize that Roosh and his repellant worldview don’t exist in a vacuum; they’re an extreme crystallization of attitudes with real roots in our real lives.

I don’t want horrible men to be doxxed and threatened online – I want them to be better.

That’s exactly it. Revenge is no use; revenge doesn’t get us anywhere; the thing to want is rehabilitation.

Originally a comment by Nell on Capstone shmapstone.

We had a similar situation in the UK. When Corbyn emerged as the front -runner, feminist commentators used exactly the same arguments to try to get young women behind one of the female candidates. It failed. I think something that many older, more established people can’t seem to intuitively grasp is how much worse prospects for young people today are.

Most of us are thousands of pounds in debt, with no jobs or insecure casual jobs with wages that barely cover the travel costs. The government’s austerity measures have hit young people and women particularly hard. Housing benefits and unemployment benefits are going to be scrapped or curtailed for under 25s, and child benefits are going to be limited, but it only for women starting to have children now. We can’t afford to live once these changes come in. Rates of mental illness are increasing – about a third of my generation now have some form of mental illness, and mental health care is being slashed. and there is no sign of things getting better, no one likes thinking about the future because we can’t see anything good in it.

In the leadership elections both female candidates were pro-austerity, they said they would carry on with what the Tories started. So when commentators start saying you have to vote for the female candidate or that the left wing candidate is unelectable, pick one of the ‘centrists’, no one listens. Being able to vote for a female candidate on the basis that she is a woman is a luxury you can have if you don’t depend on the services she has pledged to cut. And we don’t really care if she was more electable because with her politics it wouldn’t matter, as long as they’re pro austerity we are screwed whether Labour or the Tories get in.

I don’t know what it’s like for young women in the US but if it’s anything like it is here, appeals to feminism and electability aren’t going to work, it will just turn people away from feminism and from mainstream politics. There’s also the danger that you turn people away from the Democrats completely. Over here, among many young people, and all generations in Scotland, the Labour-Right have become as hated as the Tories. If Corbyn gets overthrown and replaced with an ‘electable’ right winger, young people aren’t going to rally around his replacement, they’re just not going to vote. There’s a danger that using these tactics young voters will end up as anti-Clinton or Democrat as they are against the Republicans.

This is just such nonsense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/us/politics/gloria-steinem-madeleine-albright-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html

Hillary Clinton’s older feminist supporters have a message for young women who are not backing her candidacy: Shame on you.

Women were expected to help power Mrs. Clinton to the Democratic nomination, but as she struggles to overcome a tough challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders, her support among them has been surprisingly shaky. Young women, in particular, have been drawn to the septuagenarian socialist from Vermont, and the dynamic has disappointed feminists who dreamed of Mrs. Clinton’s election as a capstone to the movement.

Oh just stop that. It’s complete bullshit. One, just being a woman is not enough, to put it mildly. Two, capstone to the movement my ass. Clinton is the one woman who does not get to treat her political standing as a feminist victory, because of the way her husband’s work helped her get there. I’m sorry but that’s the reality. She’s leveraging her family name to get power; she’s using her husband’s presidency as a jumping-off point. That’s not a feminist act. I’m not saying it’s an anti-feminist act, and I think she’s highly qualified for the job, but it’s just ludicrous to treat her candidacy as an inspiring feminist victory. If she’d done it without the husband-boost it would be, but she didn’t, so it isn’t.

Two feminist icons of Mrs. Clinton’s generation made their frustration known over the weekend, calling on young women who view Mr. Sanders as their candidate to essentially grow up and get with the program.

While introducing Mrs. Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, talked about the importance of electing the first female president. In a dig at the “revolution” that Mr. Sanders often speaks of, she said that the first female commander in chief would be a true revolution. And she scolded any woman who felt otherwise.

But that revolution would be weakened by the fact that she did it as a wife.

I would think that even if I were a passionate fan, which I’m not, because both Clintons are just way too corporate and conservative for me. I would wish someone other than a wife had done it no matter what Clinton was like.

One piece of good news from Algeria, although it’s not really good news so much as finally doing what should have been done long ago.

A new Algerian law came into effect this week punishing violence against women and sexual harassment, in a victory for feminist groups that had fought for years for the legislation.

The law, effective from Monday, had been blocked by the Senate for eight months amid resistance from conservative Muslims who view it as interference in family affairs.

And if a man wants to beat up his wife or daughter, or a brother wants to beat up his sister, how dare the state interfere? She’s their property, and she’s a whore who will soil their honor if they don’t beat the shit out of her whenever the mood strikes them.

It’s the fruit of a long struggle by feminist organizations in the North African country that have been fighting against a spike in attacks against women in recent years.

Anything to do with the spike in Islamism there also in recent years? No no, I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. What connection could there possibly be?

Meghan Murphy at Feminist Current a c0uple of weeks ago:

Pornhub, the biggest pornography site on the entire internet, recently announced they would be launching a clothing line to “support victims of domestic violence.” The company is partnering with porn star, Christy Mack, who went public about the extreme violence she faced at the hands of ex-boyfriend and MMA fighter, War Machine, in 2014.

“The exclusive clothing line will consist of a limited run of gear set to be sold on Pornhub’s newly created Pornhub Apparel e-commerce site, with 100 per cent of the profits to be donated to a yet unnamed domestic abuse charity of Mack’s choosing,” the site announced on Wednesday.

Corey Price, Vice President of Pornhub said, “Domestic violence impacts women, men and children across the United States each and every day. Nearly one in four women and one in seven men have suffered severe physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner. Here at Pornhub, we want to be part of the solution and help stop the cycle of domestic abuse.” He added, “We’re hoping our new partnership will raise necessary awareness around the issue and contribute to sparking meaningful discussions on the subject within our community.”

But…what about the violence in porn? I know the claim is that that’s fantasy, not reality, but I don’t buy the underlying assumption that those two things are sharply distinct and never mess with each other.

So, business as usual, I suppose. I mean, Pornhub quite literally sells violence against women. If you Google, “Pornhub domestic violence,” the first thing that comes up is a link to the endless videos on their site tagged “domestic violence,” the second is a link to their “sexual abuse” videos. The third, ironically, is a link to Pornhub’s announcement that the company “cares about ending domestic violence.” Oh yeah. They care so much they’re willing to sell it to men as masturbatory material.

But it’s fantasy. It’s kink. Anybody who doesn’t agree is a prude. Everybody hates prudes. We all know what they look like, right?

Of course we do. Nobody wants to be that. Bring on the sexual abuse videos!

Liberals and so-called “sex positive feminists” have called the line “an incredible, empowering collection,” apparently mixing up the words, “infinite levels of amazing,” with “disgusting, opportunistic, manipulative effort to capitalize on women’s suffering for their own gain.” The Frisky, renowned for its valiant efforts to sell violence against women as sexy and empowering, has also jumped on board, encouraging women to support this “important cause.”

Empower this.

Peter Walker reports there was a memorial service for LaVoy Finicum today, in the place where he tried to grab his gun while being arrested, and was shot and killed by an Oregon cop. He overheard comments that “This is the shot that will be heard around the country,” and “This isn’t the end it’s only the beginning.”

Peter Walker

Freedom from or to what, one wonders. Freedom to grab a publicly owned wildlife refuge in order to graze cattle on it for free? Freedom to steal public land at gunpoint for personal profit? Freedom to resist arrest by shooting cops and FBI agents? Freedom to make the US into a failed state like Somalia?

Updating to add another photo:

Peter Walker

Peter Walker says there were many guns, openly displayed.

North Korea is playing its funny games again.

North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it has said is a satellite, South Korea’s defense ministry said, in defiance of United Nations sanctions barring it from using ballistic missile technology.

The rocket was launched at 9:30 a.m. Sunday local time (7:30 p.m. ET), and South Korea was tacking it in flight, a South Korean military official said. “We have no information about any missile parts yet,” the official said.

A U.S. Defense official said the rocket was launched on a southern path over the Yellow Sea, and the trajectory indicated the rocket posed no threat to the U.S. or its allies. The launch vehicle appears to have reached space, the official said.

I know someone who’s underneath that path.

North Korea had notified U.N. agencies that it planned to launch a rocket carrying an Earth observation satellite, triggering opposition from governments that see it as a long-range missile test.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads are launched into sub-orbital space to reach distant targets.

North Korea likes to throw things up in the air too you know. It’s totally unfair to tell it not to.

Updating to add the NHK report:

The Japanese government says North Korea launched what’s widely believed to be a long-range ballistic missile on Sunday morning.

Officials said they’ve confirmed that one projectile was fired from the North Korean western coast heading south at around 9:31 AM Japan time.

They said the object split into 5 parts. One part fell into the Yellow Sea, about 150 kilometers west of the Korean Peninsula. Two others landed in the East China Sea, about 250 kilometers southwest of the peninsula.

They estimate another part flew through Japanese airspace over Okinawa and dropped in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,000 kilometers south of Japan.

So that’s just great.

Here’s Shaista Gohir talking about the way Muslim women are shoved aside by men in the Labour party.

The Press Association via the Guardian:

A women’s rights organisation has written to Jeremy Corbyn calling for an inquiry into allegations female Muslims were discriminated against and blocked from seeking office by male Labour councillors.

Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) urged the Labour leader to investigate “systematic misogyny displayed by significant numbers of Muslim male local councillors”.

The organisation claimed that the problem had been an “open secret” within Labour and accused the party of being “complicit at the highest levels”.

The Tories are not great either, but there are more Muslim councillors in Labour.

In her letter to Corbyn, she wrote: “As this is an open secret and has been going on for decades, we can only assume that the Labour party has been complicit at the highest levels.

“How do men who do not want Muslim women to be empowered or have a voice remain in power unless the Labour party allows it?

“It appears that over decades senior Labour politicians have deliberately turned a blind eye to the treatment of Muslim women because votes have been more important to them than women’s rights.”

She claimed that “able, knowledgeable and independent-minded Muslim women have been undermined, sabotaged and blocked from becoming councillors”, with many selection “deals” stitched up behind closed doors.

Women are always expected to defer.

Muslim women told BBC2’s Newsnight of the obstacles they had faced trying to stand for office.

Optician Fozia Parveen claims her efforts to become a Labour councillor in Birmingham in 2007-8 were scuppered by men within the party: “At the time, I was aware of a smear campaign against me, they said that I was having an affair with one of the existing councillors. I was quite taken aback. People were turning up at my family home trying to intimidate my mum.”

She claimed Muslim men who were members of the local Labour party were behind the efforts to prevent her from standing.

No girls allowed.

In Dublin today:

Anti-Islam group Pegida launched its Irish branch at a rally outside the GPO today.

Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) is a broad European network of loosely linked groups opposed to what they call the “Islamisation of Europe”.

Meanwhile, the ‘anti-racist coalition’ also held a counter demonstration outside the GPO in protest of Pegida.

And the gardaí broke up the demonstrations.

Some action pics from a NoPegida participant:

Cllr Michael O’Brien ‏@cllrmobrien4 hours ago
A great crowd turned up for the Anti-racism day of action at the GPO today! #NoPegida

Members of Pegida stopped from marching & then hiding inside a shop on North Earl Street #NoPegida

Crowds gathered around @RuthCoppingerTD @AAA_IRE at Anti-racism day of action at the GPO in Dublin #NoPegida

Why there is such a low reporting rate for rape and other sexual abuse, reason #947,859.

Media outlets do not have the right to publish the bikini-clad photo of one of the complainants in Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial, even with the woman’s face blurred, the judge in the case has ruled.

A lawyer representing seven major news organizations — including the CBC — sought access to a photo that the woman sent to Ghomeshi more than a year after he allegedly assaulted her.

The photo was presented as evidence, but was not shown to spectators in the courtroom. It was described as a shot of the woman in a red bikini on a beach.

Well we want to loooooooooook at it. Let us seeeeeeeeeee it. How can we have our half-assed opinion about the slutty slut in the bikini if we don’t get to see her slutting in it?

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified under cross-examination that she sent the photo as “bait” to get Ghomeshi to contact her so she could ask him to explain why he had been violent with her.

Representing the media organizations, lawyer Iris Fischer argued the photo should be released, but with the woman’s face and any identifying marks blurred to keep her identity secret.

“There is a strong presumption that the public should see what you see,” Fischer told the judge. “It relates to the witness’s credibility.”

There is? Why? The public isn’t on the jury. How would the public’s leering at the photo of her in a bikini do anything to her credibility in court?

She said it would help the public assess the complainant’s testimony that she was trying to bait Ghomeshi.

But the public doesn’t need to do that. The jury does. The public doesn’t.

Crown attorney Michael Callaghan argued the damaging effect of releasing the photo would vastly outweigh the public benefit.

Knowing that a photo like this could be published during a trial would have a “chilling effect” on sexual assault victims, said Callaghan. “In fact, I’d suggest it would be a deep freeze” on the likelihood of complainants in other cases going to the police.

Ya think?

Fortunately the judge agreed.

What’s John Kerry doing bashing IS for being “apostates”?

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, sparked controversy on Tuesday after referring to Daesh as “apostates” while speaking in Rome. His unusual word choice did not go unnoticed, and it was not long before both Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, journalists and political commentators were voicing their opinions on why it was problematic.

“Daesh is in fact nothing more than a mixture of killers, of kidnappers, of criminals, of thugs, of adventurers, of smugglers and thieves,”  Kerry said. “And they are also above all apostates, people who have hijacked a great religion and lie about its real meaning and lie about its purpose and deceive people in order to fight for their purposes.”

Oh really? What are the rulers and clerics of Saudi Arabia then? They must be apostates too.

Charges of apostasy are often used by Daesh—the very group Kerry was referring to in his comments—to justify the killing of those who disagree with them.

Some have argued that Kerry ought to stay away from the word as it is used often by extremists, while others have suggested that he may have called them “apostates” in order to justify US military action against them—so as not to be accused of killing Muslims.

He shouldn’t use the word that way for any reason, because the government he represents is supposed to believe in and support freedom of religion, which of course can’t exist without freedom to leave. The US shouldn’t talk as if apostasy is a meaningful concept.

Former Muslims often face extreme persecution for leaving the Islamic faith, with some suffering ostracization by their family, and even death threats. So perhaps it is understandable that they are not best pleased at being compared to an extremist group such as Daesh.

We reached out to some of those former Muslims to see what they had to say about John Kerry’s controversial word choice.

Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born former Muslim. She is an author, campaigner for human rights and secularism, and spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.

“The use of the term […] legitimises the concept of apostasy that leads to the murder and imprisonment of so many freethinkers (ex-Muslim, Muslim and non-Muslim) not just in Syria and Iraq but also Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere,” she told Al Bawaba, via email.

…

Imad Iddine Habib is the founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco.

“Al-Azhar, the well-known Sunni religious authority, refused to consider them Kuffars/Apostates and for once I agree with them,” he said.

“Calling DEASH (sic) apostates is absurd. We, real apostates, believe in Universal Human Rights, secular democracy and stand up for enlightenment values against the religious-right. Many of us have been jailed and even killed for merely advocating and expressing our views.”

IS are fanatics, not apostates.

ABC did a little rundown of people who get enormous speaking fees in July 2014.

Donald Trump led with $1.5 million.

“The Donald earned a staggering $1.5 million per speech at The Learning Annex’s ‘real estate wealth expos’ in 2006 and 2007,” according to Forbes. “Trump appeared at 17 seminars and collected this fee for each one.”

Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Timothy Geithner all came in at 200k.

W gets 150k.

Since leaving office, the former president has made more than $15 million in speaking fees, apparently charging between $100,000 and $150,000 per speech, according to Yahoo News.

Being president turns out to be a nice little earner.

Condoleezza Rice gets 150k. Larry Summers, 135. Al Gore and Sarah Palin, 100.

Chelsea Clinton gets 75k, which is just weird.

Colin Powell and Madeline Albright get 50k – which sounds modest after the huge fees gobbled up by the big names, but in reality is a hell of a good hourly wage.

Greg Grandin in The Nation takes a look at Hillary Clinton’s admiration for, of all people, Henry Kissinger.

Last night in the New Hampshire debate, Clinton thought to close her argument that she is the true progressive with this: “I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time.”

Henry Kissinger.

Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years, (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos, (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists, (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh, (5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House, (6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan, (7) began the US’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran, (8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead, (9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America, and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level. Read all about it in Kissinger’s Shadow!

A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute three, maybe four million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa. Pull but one string from the current tangle of today’s multiple foreign policy crises, and odds are it will lead back to something Kissinger did between 1968 and 1977. Over-reliance on Saudi oil? That’s Kissinger. Blowback from the instrumental use of radical Islam to destabilize Soviet allies? Again, Kissinger. An unstable arms race in the Middle East? Check, Kissinger. Sunni-Shia rivalry? Yup, Kissinger. The impasse in Israel-Palestine? Kissinger. Radicalization of Iran?  “An act of folly” was how veteran diplomat George Ball described Kissinger’s relationship to the Shah. Militarization of the Persian Gulf? Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger.

Yet Hillary Clinton values his praise.

It goes back to the Clinton presidency, Grandin says, the free trade-banker-loving Clinton presidency.

As First Lady, Hillary Clinton spent the early months of her husband’s administration drafting healthcare reform legislation, only to see it put on the back burner by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Kissinger, in his role as a global consultant, had played a critical role in bringing the various parties who would write that trade treaty together during the previous George HW Bush administration. Kissinger continued his NAFTA advocacy with Bill Clinton. As Jeff Faux writes in his excellent The Global Class War, Kissinger was “the perfect tutor” for Clinton, who was “trying to convince Republicans and their business allies that they could count on him to champion Reagan’s vision.”

By September 1993, Hillary’s healthcare bill was ready to be presented to the public and to congress. But so was NAFTA. All of Kissinger’s allies in the White House, including Mack McLarty, who would soon join Kissinger Associates, pushed Clinton to prioritize NAFTA over health care. Clinton did. It was Kissinger who came up with the idea of having past presidents stand behind Clinton as he signed the treaty.

Health care didn’t get that kind of push. It died. We got free trade, and banker-friendly policies, and Bernie Madoff, and the crash.

Clintonism is largely an extension of Kissingerism, so Clinton’s cozy relationship to Kissinger shouldn’t come as a surprise. Both Clintons have excelled at exactly the kind of fudging of their public-private roles that Kissinger perfected. Kissinger, the private consultant, profited from the catastrophes he created as a public figure. Beyond his role in brokering NAFTA, in Latin America his consulting firm, Kissinger and Associates, was a key player in the orgy of privatization that took place during Clinton’s presidency, enriching itself on the massive sell-off of public utilities and industries, a sell-off that, in many countries, was initiated by Kissinger-supported dictators and military regimes. The Clintons, too, both as private philanthropists and private investors, are neck deep in corruption in Latin America (especially in Colombia and Haiti)–corruption made worse, à laKissinger, by the policies they put into place as public figures, including the free trade treaties and policies that Hillary helped push through, first as Senator and then Secretary of State.

It all worked out very well for them. Not for most of the population, but for them.

A couple of Daily Mail reporters went to visit Roosh V and found him, scruffy and unappetizing, living in his mother’s basement. No not figuratively; literally.

Daryush ‘Roosh’ Valizadeh, 36, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Masculinity’ called police after receiving death threats from around the world and canceled a series of ‘tribal meetings’ in 45 countries set for this weekend.

I love those self-declared kings of something who are actually just dorks who spend too much time on Twitter.

In a highly-criticized blog he said that if a woman was raped on private property, it should be legal.

Today he told police that it was meant to be a satirical article and that he had written it in early 2015 and had since put a disclaimer on the piece saying it was satire.

But asked when he had added the disclaimer he admitted it had been placed only ‘yesterday’.

Also, in what sense is it “satire”? He’s not satirizing himself, so what is he satirizing? Guys exactly like him who talk smack about women exactly the way he does? How is that satire? Or does he take himself to be satirizing women? But saying people should be raped isn’t satirizing them.

Today, dressed in a stained T-shirt and shorts and living in the basement of his mother’s home, he was concerned for his safety.

He said he had received death threats from around the world. He played officers voicemails left on his phone and showed them emails.

But apparently he never had any concern for the safety of women when he talked about how rape on private property should be legalized. His own safety, yes, that of other people, no.

The DM has lots of illustrations. This is one time it’s worth a look.

Once a micrbiologist, Daryush Valizadeh first spread his misogynistic propaganda via a blog called ‘DC Bachelor’. 

By 2007 Valizadeh felt he had established a considerable following and decided to pen his first book, called ‘Bang’.

Inside the book, he described the ‘ruthlessly optimized process’ that ‘enabled me to put my penis inside’ various women.

He later traveled abroad researching a slew of other titles that include Bang Colombia, Bang Iceland, Don’t Bang Denmark, Bang Poland and Bang Lithuania. 

The 36-year-old has 15 self-published books, many of which have been widely condemned as ‘rape guides’ by media, residents and politicians who live in the countries he is writing about.

He once said: ‘My default opinion of any girl I meet is worthless dirty whore until proven otherwise.’  

That’s interesting, isn’t it – his whole “career” is devoted to putting his penis inside as many women as possible, and he considers such women worthless dirty whores, presumably because they let a man put his penis inside them. I know that way of thinking isn’t at all unusual, but it seems like such a horrible way to live in the world.

In October 2012, Valizadeh decided to expand his online presence by creating the website ‘Return of Kings’. 

The website publishes a string of ‘neomasculine’ articles that claims women should not work, women should have their behaviour and decisions ‘controlled by men’ and has even encouraged males to record consensual sex with a hidden camera to ensure they are not ‘falsely accused of rape’.

Other articles claim that one in four women are ‘certifiably mentally ill’ and should not be unable to live autonomously in today’s society.

Satire, no doubt. Misogynist satire, exactly like misogynist non-satire.

And then in October CNN reported that Clinton said she won’t reinstate Glass-Seagall – saying also that she would do something “more comprehensive,” but that sounds to me like jam tomorrow.

Davenport, Iowa (CNN) Hillary Clinton on Tuesday dismissed the idea of reinstating a Depression-era banking law that has found champions in two of her Democratic opponents, setting up what will likely be a flashpoint in next week’s Democratic primary debate.

Asked by a voter in Iowa about reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that separated commercial and investment banks until its repeal under President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton said that her Wall Street plan — which will be unveiled next week — would be “more comprehensive” than reinstating the law.

A couple of days later CNN reported that the banks were much relieved – which tells us how shitty her plan must be.

Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street’s excesses on Thursday. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief.

While Clinton proposes some harsher regulations, she stops far short of what more populist Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to do to Wall Street.

How populist do you really have to be to think the bankers shouldn’t be in charge of the economy?

Sanders and Warren think the big banks should be broken up. Clinton does not. It’s a big divide in the Democratic party.

“We continue to believe Clinton would be one of the better candidates for financial firms,” wrote Jaret Seiberg of Guggenheim Partners in a note to clients analyzing her plan.

And so one of the worse for everyone else.