CALL HIM "DROOPY." FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O SENDS DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS SCURRYING.
REACHED FOR COMMENT, BARRY O ELECTED TO SING:
CHICKS AND DUCKS AND GEESE BETTER SCURRY
WHEN I TAKE YOU OUT IN THE SURREY
WHEN I TAKE YOU OUT IN THE SURREY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP!
WATCH THAT FRINGE AND SEE HOW IT FLUTTERS
WHEN I DRIVE THEM HIGH STEPPIN' STRUTTERS
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
We've long called out the 'Center' for American Progress and the Podesta boys. For example, let's drop back to the March 28, 2007 snapshot:
Interviewed by Bonnie Faulkner (KPFA's Guns and Butter) today, professor Francis Boyle discussed how a 2003 exploration of impeachment by the Democrats was cut short when John Podesta announced that there would be no introduction of bills of impeachment because it would harm Democrats chances in the 2004 election. Speaking of the measures being applauded by much in the media, big and small, Boyle declared, "It's all baloney. All they had to do was just do nothing and Bush would have run out of money. . . . The DNC fully supports the war, that was made clear to Ramsey [Clark] and me on 13 March 2003 and nothing's changed." John Podesta, former Clintonista, is with the Democratic talking point mill (that attempts to pass itself as a think tank) Center for American Progress -- with an emphasis on "Center" and not "Progress."
Yesterday, Ziad Jilani blew the whistle on his former employers at the 'Center' noting:
Flash forward a couple years, and the Democratic Party’s lawmakers in Congress were in open revolt over the Afghanistan policy. Our writing at ThinkProgress had opened up a lot on the issue, and I was writing really critical stuff. I worked with our art and design team at CAP to put together a chart showing that Obama’s supposed “withdrawal” plan from Afghanistan would leave more troops in the country than when he began his presidency.
The post was one of the most successful things I had ever written to that point. It was featured by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and the Congressional Progressive Caucus used it in their briefings to criticize Obama’s plan. I felt great — like I was actually doing the right thing about Afghanistan for once at an institution that had remained quiet or supportive of Obama’s policy there, which in my view was accomplishing little but more bloodshed.
But then phone calls from the White House started pouring in, berating my bosses for being critical of Obama on this policy. Obama’s advisor Ben Rhodes — speaking of a staffer who follows policy set by others for his career path — even made a post on the White House blog more or less attacking my chart by fudging the numbers and including both the Iraq and Afghan troop levels in a single chart to make it seem as if the surge never happened (the marvels of things you can do in Excel!).
Soon afterwards all of us ThinkProgress national security bloggers were called into a meeting with CAP senior staff and basically berated for opposing the Afghan war and creating daylight between us and Obama. It confused me a lot because on the one hand, CAP was advertising to donors that it opposed the Afghan war — in our “Progressive Party,” the annual fundraising party we do with both Big Name Progressive Donors and corporate lobbyists (in the same room!) we even advertised that we wanted to end the war in Afghanistan.
CAP was begging for money -- as it always does -- and claiming they were trying "to end the war in Afghanistan" but all the little whores were doing was screaming at writers to stop blogging about the Afghanistan War because it was too much for little Barack and his pretty little feelings.
You get how it really operates on the faux left. Any asshole who didn't mention that Barack sent troops back into Iraq in fall 2012 should now be suspect to you. They don't offer the truth, they merely repeat what the White House wants them to. Here, we noted Tim Arango's September 25, 2012 report (in print September 26th):
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.
Where were the whores of Panhandle Media?
Those little bitches who pretend to care, really, really care, about informing you and insist that you give them your hard earned money so they can continue to not report, so they can continue to gas bag while doing the bidding of the White House?
It doesn't matter that it's a Democratic White House.
A kiss ass is just a kiss ass -- regardless of political party or identification.
Yes, US corporate media walked from Iraq.
That didn't mean Panhandle got an excuse to do nothing. Listen to biggest whore of all Amy Goodman self-proclaiming her greatness of going 'where the silences are.' Not on Iraq.
No, the dirty little whore had nothing for Iraq. Nouri attacked protesters. A week before he did, Goody Whore talked 'about' Iraq with a guest and neither was interested in the protesters. This week, she briefly discussed Iraq. But she wanted to focus not on the tragedy that is Anbar right now but what happened there in 2004 and as soon as Dahr Jamail said the words "Barack Obama," the Goody Whore was pissing herself as she rushed to wrap up her bad segment.
This is what the whores have done and this is why you do not let Medea Benjmain get away with her whorish remarks that the peace movement just walked out on leaders like her. No, it was Medea and the others who walked away from Iraq.
And it may just be a topic to them, but to many of us, it's a humanitarian crisis -- ongoing -- created by the US government via an illegal war, continued by Barack Obama who refused to back the Iraqi voters when they went to the poll in March 2010 and voted Nouri out.
Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal who started an illegal war.
Also true, when he ceased his occupation of the White House in January 2009, Iraq was in a much better place than it is currently.
Violence was lower, more women served in Nouri's Cabinet, there was an increase in hope via elections on the part of the Iraqi people, the judiciary was receiving assistance and training, the mass exodus of Iraqis from their country appeared to have slowed, Iraq had two Vice Presidents in the country -- one who spoke out strongly on the human rights abuses, the other who made his key issue the issue of corruption. Jalal Talabani was President.
Today?
Start with violence. It increased and increased until now when it's back to 2007 levels. Nouri named a second cabinet which originally included no women and then found a token -- a woman who said women shouldn't have any rights in Iraq, that's the woman Nouri decided should be in charge of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. (The insufferable Hoshyar Zarbani was holding this position before Nouri could find a gender-traitor.) The Judiciary in Baghdad is a joke, all the western governments look at it in shock. Though the fleeing has yet to reach 2006 levels it has been increasing and increasing -- though only BBC World Services has felt the need to report on this in the last 12 months. Hope in the elections? When the Iraqi people voted Iraqiya over Nouri's State of Law and saw the US insist that Nouri won anyway, they saw how little votes could actually matter.
The Vice Presidents? In 2010, they had three vice presidents -- one more than before. In 2011, the one who'd focused on calling out corruption stepped down, resigned because Nouri failed to keep his Give-Me-100-Days-And-I-Will-End-The-Corruption promise. That was spring of 2011. A the end of 2011, the one who spoke out against human rights abuses, went to the KRG a day before Nouri issued an arrest warrant for him. He remains Vice President but now spends his time in surrounding countries because Nouri's kangaroo courts have sentenced him to the death penalty -- multiple times.
And President Jalal Talabani?
The punchline to every joke in Iraq.
December 2012, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany.
When did Jalal return?
February 2013?
No.
Not even by February 2014.
Jalal remains in Germany, he's never returned.
Yesterday, Hamza Mustafa (Asharq al-Awsat) reported
As the countdown begins for Iraq’s parliamentary elections scheduled to take place on April 30, one of the questions on everyone’s lips is about what will be done to address the failure to appoint an acting president following Jalal Talabani’s stroke at the end of December 2012.
Although the presidency in Iraq is largely ceremonial and divorced from day-to-day government, the president is considered the guardian of the constitution and has exclusive jurisdiction following the vote of 2005. The consensus-based nature of governance in Iraq also renders the role of the president indispensable as a mediator in a system of overlapping powers and authorities, in a country where offices of state are divided among ethnicities and sects.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, prominent Kurdish leader Fuad Masum, head of the Kurdistan Alliance in the Iraqi Parliament and one of the founders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) along with Jalal Talabani in 1975, said Talabani’s absence from the scene left the Iraqi political system unbalanced.
“Despite the fact that, according to the constitution, the vice-president is supposed to replace the president in his absence—and this is what is happening now—from a practical point of view there is a breach of the principle of consensus,” he said. “Talabani has not filled his position for more than a year and there have been no Sunni vice-presidents [since] Tareq Al-Hashemi, who was sentenced to death in absentia. There is now one vice-president, Khodair Al-Khozaei, who belongs to the Islamic Da’wa Party led by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, but from a practical standpoint the position belongs to the Kurds.”Regarding Talabani’s health, Masum said: “What we know, whether we are leaders in the PUK or the Kurdish or Iraqi street, is what is relayed by those close to him. They are receiving information from his family and his personal physician, the Governor of Kirkuk, Dr. Najmiddin Kari . . . We receive assurances about his health even though his stay in Germany has been a long one. His treatment is proceeding slowly and requires time.”
The PUK isn't very smart. That's why Goran was able to seize second place (behind the KDP) in last fall's KRG provincial elections. First off, Tareq is not an ex-Vice President. Parliament can remove him from office. No one else can. Parliament has refused to remove him from office. That means he's still Vice President (and any convictions were inappropriate because he has legal immunity). Second, if I was the PUK and I had stomped my feet and insisted that Jalal hold onto his job for over a year despite not peforming it?
I think I'd down play things too.
But the reality is, Iraq's in a very dangerous spot right now, worse than it's been since the initial invasion.
Try to imagine 2010 without Jalal.
Nouri lost. He demanded a recount. He still lost. He refused to vacate the post. He brought the government to a standstill (with the help of the White House) and this continued for 8 months.
Without Jalal, what would have happened?
For those who've forgotten, in the summer of 2010, in the midst of Nouri's tantrum, Tareq refused to do nothing and went on a diplomatic tour of the neighboring countries leading to outrage from Nouri and his followers who insisted Tareq was not a vice president, that the country had no vice president. Now they didn't say that about prime minister but they did say it about the vice presidents. And it took Jalal speaking up to shut them up.
If Nouri loses this upcoming election and there's no Jalal, what the hell happens?
Jalal was the only thing that held Nouri in semi-check.
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