Monthly Archives: June 2017

Submit a Rant or Rave

Its good to see that the investigation on the Russian interference is moving forward. We need the truth to finally be out about Trump supporters who want back doors and other hidden communications with Russians to avoid legal penalties.

It is clear that the president is attempting to erase all of President Obamas achievements. What he cant erase is what we are all seeing about him. When this investigation is over, he will be remembered, but not with reverence. He and Richard Nixon will stand alone all by themselves. What a sad, vindictive, vicious man.

Why on Earth would someone ex-pect that American military should go after terrorists worldwide? The cowboying into other territories without proper body armor and tank protection and other expensive military equipment needed against IEDs is what cost the lives and limbs and other harms to our military less than two decades ago.

Candidate Trump stated he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Did he give people the incentive to follow suit?

Regarding John Coles cartoon, June 15 enough with the beheading. Cartoons are OK, but we need civility in them also.

Lets see an accounting of all those millions spent so far by the Trump family alone in their various travels, especially during the weekends. They bellyached so much about what was spent by other presidents on so-called vacation times, but Im sure the Trumps have outspent them in these past few months.

I see Ivanka Trump got permission to sell even more things in China. Are they made by Chinese or American companies?

I think comedian Adam Conover summed up our current political situation perfectly last year: There is a huge difference between me and those people. They are wrong, whereas I am right.

Its about our government making a better deal with Cuba: Make a better deal with Cuba so that money does not go to their government, where they control everything including oppression of the Cuban people.

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Rants and raves - The Augusta Chronicle

One resident of the war-torn Iraqi city tells i24NEWS that he longs for the return of dictator Saddam Hussein

Eastern Mosul has come back to life, despite the ongoing battle in the west of the city between so-called Islamic State fighters and Iraqi government forces.

It is a welcome beginning of normality for residents, but it is still far from what was once Iraq's second largest city.

Less than six months after Iraqi forces pushed IS militants out of this part of the city, huge efforts are going into rebuilding it. Municipal workers and builders are laboring day and night, trying to restore electricity and pave the streets.

In the shadow of destruction - buildings riddled with bullets, others flattened to the ground - construction workers are twisting steel and mixing concrete in an attempt to help the city rise again.

The old market is bustling with people, the shops full of goods and the sidewalks are bustling with street vendors and shoppers looking for a bargain.

One Mosul shopkeeper, Haj Ahmad Abu Hakam, told i24NEWS that he reopened his shop soon after the Islamic State left.

It is much better, under the Islamic State the situation was bad but now thank God it's better, there are more work opportunities available, and many people who left are coming back, Abu Hakam said.

But few people in the city are actually carrying bags full of goods. Abu Omar, a displaced person from west Mosul, said that the citizens are living off of handouts and that life is a struggle.

Since we fled, we only received sugar and cooking oil once and we paid for it. We are living on handouts, what people give us," Abu Omar said. "We dont pay rent, the owner lets me and my family live there for free. There is security but life is hard and is expensive.

Despite promises by officials, living conditions are only slowly improving.

Sabah Abu Faisal, who was displaced from the West side of Mosul due to the fighting, stated that he believes he was deceived by the new Iraqi authority.

Im sorry but they are all liars, they have no credibility, they act just in front of the camera, no food supplies, Ive been here for three months and I did not receive anything from them," Abu Faisal said.

Under a huge billboard of Kathem Asaher, the Arab world's most famous singer with the words love has arrived, residents of east Mosul are complaining about their representatives and there is no love for the government. Many have called for the old government to return like Mosul resident Abu Ali, who longs for the days of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Saddam was a dictator and they brought us democracy. We dont want democracy. Take us back to dictatorship. Take us back to the oppression of Saddam - we dont want democracy.

Abu Ali is uncertain about the future as many around him are unhappy with the lack of electricity, the shortage of water and the scarcity of jobs.

Another sensitive issue in the city is the presence of "collaborators" who reportedly helped IS militants as well as ex- IS fighters but Mosul resident Rafee Khoder Elias insisted that that situation is improving

Its good, its getting better ... 100 percent, with cooperation with the citizens its continuing to get better, God willing.

While on the other side of the Tigris River, in west Mosul, the fighting is fierce.

Iraqi government forces backed by a US-led coalition said they will soon be victorious there as well but, for the Iraqi government, the real battle is just beginning, and it's all about winning the hearts and minds of its own people.

Excerpt from:

As IS withdraws, Mosul residents face harsh conditions and seek government aid - i24NEWS (press release) (registration)

A few minutes into our interview at one of Kampalas hotels, Stella Nyanzis lawyer tells us the place is no longer safe for her and she needs to leave. She is constantly monitored by security agents these days, she says, which is perhaps not surprising as the academic and activist is one of the fiercest critics of the Ugandan government. But she is not about to back down.

Not even the 33 days she spent in the countrys maximum security Luzira womens prison for describing the president, Yoweri Museveni, as a pair of buttocks could change her stance.

My language will grow sharper if the government continues to oppress us, says Nyanzi, who was suspended from her job at Makerere University for abusing the first lady and education minister, Janet Museveni. Nyanzi called her a big-thighed cow with an empty brain.

On top of that, she has accused the Musevenis of raping the country and leaving millions of Ugandans in poverty during their three-decade rule.

I am a critic of government and I choose the words to use [carefully], she told the Guardian while out on bail.

If you are going to stand with the powerless against the oppression [by] the powerful, someone will not like it. That person is usually the powerful.

Nyanzi, who usually turns to Facebook to vent her wrath, was arrested in April and charged with cyber harassment for her criticism of the president. Her arrest followed an event for her campaign Pads4girlsUG, which is raising money to buy sanitary towels for girls who cant afford them. She started it after the first lady told parliament earlier this year that the government did not have money to fulfil her husbands election campaign pledge to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls.

At least 30% of teenage girls in Uganda miss school when they start having their periods.

The campaign has proved a success, with donations pouring in. Nyanzi wrote on Facebook that Pads4girls was her most powerful achievement of the past year.

Her arrest elicited widespread condemnation, with Human Rights Watch describing it as the most flagrant attack on free expression in many years and a vengeful use of Ugandas justice system to silence a government critic. She is currently barred from travelling out of the country.

A trained journalist turned researcher, Nyanzi describes herself as a lyricist, poetess, creative writer and analyst on a quest for good governance. Shes unflinching in her criticism of government and is unafraid to tackle taboos around sex and gender and stand up for LGBT rights.

Language is a tool and I refuse to be shut by anybody; we can listen to the rhetoric but also question, says Nyanzi, whose PhD research at the University of London focused on youth sexualities and sexual and reproductive health in the Gambia, a culturally conservative country like many other African states.

Her candid use of sexual innuendos and talk of sex has angered moralists but earned her the support of young people who view old beliefs as having no place in todays world.

Openly using words like penis or vagina is seen as immoral. Nyanzi is breaking those cultural beliefs, in a country where women are expected to be humble.

She stripped down to her underwear in protest when her boss at Makerere tried to evict her from the building. She told journalists then that stripping was the only remaining option for her grievances to be heard.

She likes to be called nalongo (a mother of twins which she is, along with an older daughter), which locally symbolises strength.

She said people pretend that sex is a taboo, but what do men discuss all the time? It is sex. So do the women when they are together, she says.

I stand with queer people and I may not necessarily be a lesbian but I know what it means to be marginalised because of my sexuality. It could be because I dont have sex, or it could be because I am a single mum, or because I just sleep around with so many men, she adds.

Yet such bold statements have led to accusations that she has mental health problems. The state tried to force her to be tested while in prison but she resisted. The state has also asked the court to compel her to be tested under the 1938 Mental Treatment Act. She filed a case against the government, opposing the testing.

They wanted to subject me to involuntary [mental] testing; I told them I have to volunteer myself. They cant just pick me and test, she says. What happens after testing you is that they detain you on the pretext that you are mentally ill. That means they want to kill whatever questioning power I have.

Although her arrest and detention appear designed to break her, she says the things they do to women in prison would not stop her.

Like telling us to undress before other [prisoners]; I laughed about it, she says.

Telling me to undress I undressed with pride and then turned the torture scheme into one of pleasure for other women.

She wrote last month that her prison experience strengthened my resolve to resist the Musevenis 31-year dictatorship.

Oh yes, [prison] purified my passionate disgust for the failed corrupt regime of [Museveni] when I was a prisoner, my brain was sharpened for the long struggle ahead. In prison, I lost all fear of the systems and organs that uphold the gun-based system of patronage that entrench this reign of terror and family rule, she said.

But when she was released on bail she looked frail and there were concerns about her health. I had malaria. Mosquito nets are not allowed into the prison rooms because of fear that women can strangle themselves.

I got a urinary tract infection because the toilets are bad. But also our pit latrine was full the first two weeks I was there. It took a rebellion for it to be emptied, she says.

Nyanzi is due back in court on Tuesday. There have been calls for the charges to be dropped. But whether they are or not, or whether shes returned to jail, it is unlikely the academic will ever willingly give up the fight.

As she wrote on Facebook to mark her 43rd birthday last week: As I start another year of my life, I am looking forward to the prospects there are for me. I am grabbing this apple of my life, taking huge tasty bites out of it.

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Jailed for calling Ugandan president a 'pair of buttocks', activist vows ... - The Guardian