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Dixie Elliot ✊I remember it well.

Why Sinn Fein should hang its head in shame over Scappaticci silence

Adams, McGuinness, and Gerry Kelly - all faces which would demand respect among those still stupid enough to believe that they were solid Republicans.

And there was also Danny 'The Rat in a Hat' Morrison who is a bigger liar than even Gerry himself.
I remember McGuinness using the term, 'Dissident Journalists' at some point and thought, 'ah f*ck off, you're ripping the arse out of it now!'

But it was Morrison who went on to contradict their 2003 defence of Scappaticci in an 2016 interview with the Irish News in which he said that he, Scappaticci, had been stood down in 1990, under a cloud of suspicion, after 'the Sandy Lynch affair.'

If he had been stood down back in 1990 under a 'cloud of suspicion' why were they so forceful in their defence of him in 2003?

It's not that they had taken Scappaticci away to some remote cottage and given him the same treatment as his own victims before him.

This was, after all 1990, and the war was still four years away from the ceasefire. They had no problem doing it to Caroline Mooreland a few weeks before that ceasefire - in the full knowledge it was coming - and dumped her body at the side of the road.

In regards to Scappaticci the so called leadership of Adams, McGuinness, Gerry Kelly and their faithful lackey Danny Morrison have as many questions to answer as British Intelligence do.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Many Questions

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ Mo Salah returned to the Liverpool match squad yesterday after a period of absence extended by a post match outburst in an interview after last week's away fixture at Leeds.

His simmering ego hit boiling point as a result of not making it off the subs bench during the 3-3 draw at Elland Road. Yesterday at Anfield he made an early introduction to the action courtesy of an injury to Joe Gomez. It gave him more playing time than his underwhelming performances this campaign merited. Despite his return to the pitch there was no real sign of a return to the peak that made him such a crucial and popular figure to the Kop. Against Brighton he was unable to outpace defenders, and missed a brace of easy opportunities.  The one noticeable difference was a willingness to pass the ball rather than zero in on goal. Even then his decisions can be called into question. Why pass when a better opportunity exists to score by going it alone?

Salah voraciously demands and devours a lot of money to play for Liverpool, so at the very least can be expected to earn his way. Liverpool has never been the UK government's favourite city. Impoverished, 'one part of Merseyside ranks among England's top ten most deprived.' Many fans, if they can afford the ticket, will see their household budget scream under the strain. Salah should forego his sense of entitlement and instead of taking his exorbitant wage might consider it - given his performances -  'immoral earnings which the food banks and homeless charities throughout the city are more in need of than he is. Apart from Stormont MLAs, well known for giving themselves lucrative pay increases for work they fail to do - 'unfinished business' has acquired a new meaning in that iniquitous club - soccer players are a narcissistic breed in that they expect to be paid for delivery failure.  

Discussing the Salah situation with my son, who also supports Liverpool, I commented that were he to go to college, hand in no projects, put his feet on the desk, his arms behind his head, then tell the tutor he has a right to be top student given his performances in recent years, his class mates would laugh at him and the tutor would tell him where to go. 

No Mo, you no longer deserve your place or your dough. You have fallen asleep at the wheel and are not entitled to be carried as a passenger by your more industrious colleagues. The supporters who ultimately pay a large part of your wages should not have to finance your lavish lifestyle. Soccer should be your passion not your pension.

Play or get off the pitch.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.


No Mo

National Secular Society ★ CPS: unanaesthetised circumcision was "gratuitous infliction of pain" and "deliberate disregard" for child welfare.


The Government has "no plans" to require ritual circumcisers to use anaesthesia, and refuses to say whether unanaesthetised non-therapeutic circumcisions are even legal.

Responding to a series of parliamentary questions from Lib Dem peer Paul Scriven, the Government would only acknowledge that there is no legal requirement for circumcisers to be medically trained or to have "proven expertise".

The National Secular Society campaigns to protect all children from non-therapeutic genital cutting. Male circumcision is performed on babies and children for religious reasons in some Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities.

'Gratuitous infliction of pain'

Earlier this year, ritual circumciser Mohammad Siddiqui was convicted of child cruelty for performing an unanaesthetised circumcision on an infant.

In court, the Crown Prosecution Service described this as "gratuitous infliction of pain" and a "deliberate disregard" for the child's welfare.

The judge in the case called for "safeguards and protections" to be put in place as a "matter of urgency, to ensure that babies and young children are protected."

Despite this, religious groups openly perform unanaesthetised circumcisions. 

Continue @ NSS.

Government Greenlights No Anaesthesia Circumcision Of Boys

Right Wing Watch 👀 Written by Peter Montgomery.


Rep. Nancy Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina in a crowded Republican primary field, sent campaign emails to several right-wing email lists Sunday and Monday with the subject line, “Christ is Lord. Do you agree?”

“Patriot, it’s Nancy Mace,” begins the email. “Today, I’m thanking Jesus—not just for another day, but for the fire in my soul to keep going.”

Mace's email claims that "The Left is trying to erase Christ from every part of American life."

The landing page for her fundraising ask reads:

If you’re a proud Christian who’s sick of the attacks on faith, freedom, and basic biology, I’m asking you to stand with me.
This is your reminder: ✝️ CHRIST IS LORD
I need YOU, Patriot, to help me defend that truth from the Governor’s mansion.

This emphasis appears to be the latest example of Mace’s political malleability as well as evidence of the MAGA movement’s open embrace of Christian nationalism.

In 2022, when journalist Jack Jenkins asked Mace about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green’s assertion that the GOP should become the party of Christian nationalism, Mace said that the separation of church and state “should continue to be a guiding principle of our Republic.”

But when Bill Maher asked her about Christian nationalism this September, she said, “You’re making it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

Rep. Nancy Mace Makes Christian Nationalist Appeal In Bid To Become South Carolina Governor

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Seventeen

 

A Morning Thought @ 2998

Anthony McIntyre    It never eases up in Gaza.

First hit by the Israeli genocide and now Storm Byron storm, each devastating in their own way, leaving in their wake a trail of destruction and human misery. 

The storm at least is impersonal. Blind, it does not see the victims it claims, deaf, it does not hear their anguished cries.  The storm is not cruel, merely nature working itself through the ecosystem. That sixteen Palestinian lives have been lost thus far - including three children from exposure to the cold, one only months old and born during the genocide - is not down to any cruelty on the part of the storm and very much down to Israeli malevolence. Zionist barbarism has left people defenceless and unable to adequately shelter themselves from the harsh elements.

Perhaps some preaching pastord will proclaim it the work of the Lord, sending yet another biblical plague so that the home of the Palestinians can be auctioned off to some Brooklyn Jew who previously never set foot in the territory. A New Yorker with no roots in Palestine can go there but a refugee family has no right to return. There is a callous cruelty about Israel that no storm, regardless of its ferocity, possesses.

At noon, we will gather again in West Street as part of Drogheda Stands With Palestine, probably shuffling from foot to foot and shivering in response to the overnight temperature drop. None of us will hum the cretinous lyric from the Bono-Geldof collaboration of yesteryear, Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you. You probably would need to be a millionaire or an evangelical pastor, to think there is a god worth thanking for having inflicted misery on someone else rather than on you.

As we leave here today to return to warm homes and shelter, the warning of the World Heath  Organisation will help propel us back to the same spot next Saturday; that thousands of Gazan families were:

sheltering in low-lying or debris-filled coastal areas with no drainage or protective barriers . . . Winter conditions, combined with poor water and sanitation, are expected to drive a surge in acute respiratory infections.

Meanwhile, our governing class - that can race with Olympian speed to oppose the renaming of Herzog Park in Dublin - ensures its feet are firmly anchored in quicksand when asked to sort out the Occupied Territories Bill. To get it to move will require a Storm Byron of protest, a tsunami of public anger. It is  deeply shameful that a government of a society forged in the crucible of anti-imperialist struggle can be so deferential to what is a Western imperialist mindset. Irish people more than many have an experiential understanding that Western tolerance for and indeed approval of genocide, is rooted in a long tradition of colonialism, imperialism and racism. UN investigator Francesca Albanese nailed it in her comment:

Palestinians aren’t counted as civilians, doctors, lawyers…they are killable and torturable just because they are Palestinians.

She also went on to lambast the British Labour government which is more determined to prosecute pensioners for opposing genocide than it is to preventing the genocide that is being opposed, capturing in her observations a lineage from Israel all the way back to the British state.

Israel inherited practices from the British mandate to enforce on the Palestinians, such as home demolitions and the systemisation of torture. It was part of a colonial architecture through which the British established their presence in Palestine then gave away a land that was never theirs to give . . . We can’t understand what’s happening today without going back to British colonialism.

And yet, what we get from the Fine Fail/Fine Gael duopoly are thoughts and prayers. 

Just prior to the storm reaching Gaza Israeli settlers made an intrusion into the territory. One invader said on video:

The entire land of Israel is ours, and after the terrible massacre we experienced, we need to understand this and internalise it and treat the enemy accordingly. Take territory, occupy and settle.

Storm Byron will most likely not return anytime soon. The same cannot be said of Storm Zion. It has never gone away.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Gaza Storm

Labour Heartlands ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs.

Graham Linehan’s long, punishing clash with gender-identity activists has taken yet another turn. After years of being hounded, blacklisted, and professionally destroyed for speaking out on what he argued were material, sex-based realities, the Father Ted co-creator has now been cleared of harassing a teenage trans activist online, though Westminster Magistrates’ Court convicted him of damaging her phone.

The case stems from an incident outside a gender-identity conference in London last October, where Graham’s path collided with 18-year-old Sophia Brooks, a trans woman born male. The court heard that Graham “deliberately whacked” her phone from her hand before it landed in the road. Graham denied this was intentional, insisting it was a “reflex response” as Brooks filmed him aggressively at close range.

Prosecutors attempted to paint Graham as a relentless online pursuer, claiming he had posted abusive comments about Brooks across social media platforms. Yet on Tuesday the judge dismissed all harassment allegations, ruling that Graham’s posts, while critical and uncompromising, did not cross the threshold into criminal harassment. It is a rare institutional acknowledgement that criticising gender-identity ideology, or calling out activists’ behaviour, is not in itself a crime.

Continue @ Labour Heartlands.

Graham Linehan’s Years Of Persecution 🪶 Court Clears Him Of Harassment

Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones, never having met Freddie Scap in his professional capacity as interrogator and executioner in chief for the IRA. 

I recall bumping into him in a crowded Emerald Bar, Dundalk, in 1993, and then a few years later in a pub in Belfast. These encounters were social and accidental and on both occasions my company, who would have been widely respected Republicans in their own right, left me in no doubt as to his standing within the movement.

The first happenstance was the more remarkable of the two, because Scap was with another “fallen angel” John Joe Magee. John Joe who was plastered was keen to impress the crowd with a display of his physique which was not that dissimilar to the wrestler Big Daddy. Having dispensed of his shirt and his vest in a packed bar with the arrogance of the untouchable, someone decided that flicking a lit cigarette butt at his obese torso was their idea of fun.

Things started to get out of hand, and it was only the intervention of Alex Maskey that prevented an awkward escalation into fisticuffs or worse for a young republican from Belfast. Order was eventually restored but it was the first occasion that I heard the watchword “ScapMageed”.

Timelines are important when dealing with the past and the truth, and I clearly remember both encounters. The first was on the Sunday night that the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis ended in Dundalk in 1993. The second was 96/97 when a team of people who had been on “interface” standby over July were having some much-needed pints at the end of an arduous few weeks. Scap was already in the bar, and he joined the small group that I was with. Just like our first encounter, I was in the company of people of authority within the movement, people who would have known if Scap had been stood down or been dismissed as alleged in January 1991. Quaffing pints and engaging in “bar talk” with persona non grata or suspected informers would just not have been the done thing for these boys.

The next time Scap entered my radar was the beginning of May 2003, when the cover up into his criminality, war, crimes and collusion was entering overdrive. Contrary to the brazenly absurd commentary by John Finucane MP on Kenova, the cover up at this stage was being instigated and managed by the hierarchy of the IRA. That IRA cover up continues to this day and remains the greatest barrier to the truth being established.

O’Mulleoir and Livingstone, somehow manged to get an exclusive interview with Scap which headlined in what its critics described as the Provo weekly. Their scoop detailed how Scap, the mild-mannered bricklayer and good neighbour had been maligned by the spooks and was aghast at the allegations that he was an informer or a murderer. The detail that Andytown’s Woodward and Bernstein failed to disclose to their readership was that during the stage-managed interview and photoshoot, Scap was in close proximity at all times to senior members of the Republican movement. Likewise, when Scap went public with his solicitor, he was once again shadowed by his IRA handlers.

Perhaps young John, MP, is blissfully unaware that the most widely used photograph of Scap, is the one taken outside the offices of the Andytout News. A photo taken on the day when the Republican Movement approved a Scap interview in the local Pravda, in an attempt to cover up his bestial crimes.

Mary Lou, not to be outdone by the stupidity of her northern comrade, has once again raucously called out the Brits. Kenova, she says, 'confirms that the British state played a central role in the murder of Irish Citizens north and south.'

Displaying a neck like a jockey’s bollocks, the President of Sinn Fein failed to mention that Kenova primarily confirms without a shadow of a doubt that the IRA also murdered and tortured Irish Citizens north and south. Kenova further verifies that the IRA shattered international humanitarian laws and the laws of war (Article 8 of the Rome Statute) by kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians and its own members.

In committing what can legitimately be described as war crimes, the leadership of the IRA - those who unleashed the luciferous Internal Security Unit, those who dispatched young men and women to be “scapmageed” - are more culpable than the foot soldiers who carried out their orders. Scap, as inhuman as he was, could not have committed a single murder or a single act of torture without the imprimatur of the IRA Army Council.

Therin lies the rub; Kenova’s outcome was predetermined by the main protagonists from the start. I have no misgivings about Jon Boutchers sincerity or the lengths that his team went to in furtherance of the investigation. He gives the impression of someone who was genuinely moved by the stories of the families and shocked by the horrors that he heard.

The British establishment was always going to protect itself and likewise the IRA establishment was never going to cooperate with Kenova. The British and the IRA hold enough information to bring much-needed closure to all of the families concerned. That both establishments chose not to share their information with Kenova, says much for the future of legacy investigations in the north and demonstrates a sordid commodification of truth by both in their ongoing legacy wars.

The British authorities and Sinn Fein authorities yet again displayed little concern for the needs of the families, for victims and survivors. Their set piece responses to the publication of Kenova reflect the absence of either contrition for wrongdoing or any sense of guilt for what was essentially a joint enterprise.

The response by Relatives For Justice in particular was partisan and macabre to say the least, and their call to reattribute the murders of the IRA to the British was repulsive as it deliberately overlooked the role of IRA in the killings.

Thus, we see a strategy to protect PIRA’s leadership while simultaneously frustrating its fighters, not necessarily killing them. In the end the Northern Ireland conflict was ended not by the insurgents who were killed, but by those who lived - Colonel Richard Irons

Freddie Scappaticci was Stakeknife. Stakeknife was the IRA establishment and Stakeknife was the British establishment, in equal parts. He served both masters loyally. 

⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.

The Dog That Didn’t Bark 🪶 Operation Kenova

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixteen

 


A Morning Thought @ 2997

Tommy McKearney ☭ Donald Trump remains as unpredictable as ever and never more so than with his latest pronouncement on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.


Just when Europe’s leading advocates of endless war were anticipating increased US participation in the conflict on behalf of the Kiev regime, Trump disappointed them. The Whitehouse issued a statement indicating that it wanted an end to hostilities and according to widely leaked reports, on terms deemed favourable to Russia.


As always, it’s impossible to discern Trump’s reasoning for the surprise announcement. Nevertheless, his call has been issued with sufficient authority to have caused Zelenskyy to react cautiously and agree to participate in ceasefire discussions with the American envoy.

Although the proposed peace terms, if enacted, would seem to favour Moscow, this would in all likelihood, simply be a recognition of current realities on the battlefield. Ukraine is facing enormous recruitment difficulties and is losing ground before a slow but relentless Russian advance. Short of direct outside military intervention on behalf of Kiev, the outcome seems inevitable.

In effect, therefore, the Trump intervention may well be a pragmatic decision to influence the end result while his administration still has the political leverage to do so. Whatever the US thinking behind this latest play, the initiative has not met with the approval of all Europe’s leaders. Within hours of the Washington missive going public the German, French and British leaders; Merz, Macron and Starmer were convening a crisis get-together on the fringes of the G20 conference in South Africa.

While reluctant to confront Trump directly, the three leading members of the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ said the US proposal required more ‘work’ and pledged their ongoing and uncritical support for Ukraine. Along with EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s bellicose, ‘not an inch’ statement, it is clear that maintaining the conflict is firmly on their agenda.

Of note is the fact that the British Prime minister is facing a dire domestic political environment threatening his grip on office. Starmer’s failings are too numerous to list. Consequently, his personal popularity has reached a record low of -45 with many of his MPs talking openly of opting for a different leader. Faced with the real possibility of losing power, might Starmer be tempted to use his role as chair of the coalition to provoke a conflict with Russia in the hope of repeating a Thatcher-like Malvinas career saving manoeuvre?

While Starmer’s thinking remains conjecture there are other, concrete factors to take into account. There is evidence aplenty pointing towards a threatening scenario. There is, for one thing, the increasing expenditure on armaments in many Western European countries.

In 2024, for example, EU member states’ defence expenditure reached €343 billion, rising for the 10th consecutive year. In 2025, it is expected to reach an estimated €381 billion. Defence expenditure in 2024 increased by 19% compared to the previous year and by 37% compared to 2021.

Then we have tension, manufactured or genuine, arising from continuing reports of what we are asked to believe is underhand and or menacing Russian behaviour.

Over recent months many media outlets carried endless accounts of drones flying dangerously over a number of European airports causing major disruption to flight schedules. The Kremlin is routinely blamed, albeit with no evidence to substantiate the claims. Interestingly too, the RAF has offered to assist ‘Gallant little Belgium’ deal with the alleged threat.

Paranoia was further increased last month when Britain’s secretary of defence John Healey created another Russia scare. In a rare, televised press briefing, he claimed that a Russian ship, Yantar, was about to enter British territorial waters with the possible intention of damaging undersea communication cables. Healey finished with a belligerent statement that the UK had, ‘… military options ready should the Yantar change course.'

Reason aplenty, therefore, to be concerned and not only in an academic sense. It has to be recognised that the Republic of Ireland is moving perilously close to becoming embedded in this dangerous exercise. Abandoning any pretext of neutrality, both the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs have accepted the EU’s aggressive position, that of effectively rejecting any compromise to secure peace. Moreover, it is reported that the Irish government has been represented at various ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit meetings.

Taken together with its declared aim of ending the Triple Lock, there is every reason to fear that the current Dublin government is contemplating entering any conflict engineered by the war mongering coalition. We must, however, continue to work to prevent this happening. The recent election of Catherine Connolly points to the fact that there remains large popular support for neutrality.

No to any Dail endorsed coalition of the willing warmongers. No to a 21st century Woodenbridge moment.

Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist.
He is author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament.
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney

Trump’s Ukraine Gambit Exposes Imperialist Rifts And Ireland’s Perilous Path

Friendly Atheist ★ Northglenn officials say the church gatherings aimed at helping the homeless are creating more problems than they solve

Four pastors are suing the city of Northglenn, Colorado (just outside Denver) for passing new rules that prevent them from hosting lunch events for the homeless at a local park. They say the city is targeting them specifically and this prevents them from practicing their faith.

The allegations they make, however, don’t match the realities on the ground.

The pastors—David Baca of The Crossing Church in Westminster, Dustin Mackintosh of Next Step Christian Church in Thornton, and Ronald Brent Denny and David McCamish of Brave Church in Westminster—say in the lawsuit filed by the right-wing American Center for Law and Justice that they’ve been handing out lunches to the homeless and holding prayer sessions for years at E.B. Rains, Jr. Memorial Park, a 28-acre area with multiple sports fields, pavilions, skatepark, and a lake.

The pavilions were always open to anyone who wanted to use them (unless they were reserved in advance), and since mid-2020, the pastors have been meeting twice a week there for Bible study, prayers, and handing out meals. 

Continue @ Friendly Atheist.

Four Christian Pastors Want Their Faith To Override Public Safety Concerns In A Colorado Park

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