The Daily Jot: 2014-03-23

Friday, March 28, 2014

THIS JUST IN! THE LOVE NEVER ARRIVED!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

THEY SWORE THAT WHEN PEOPLE GOT TO KNOW OBAMACARE, THEY'D LOVE IT.

THE LOVE'S STILL NOT THERE.

In April of 2010, soon after the law passed, 50 percent of Americans said they were opposed to it, while 39 percent were in favor. Ten percent were on the fence.
Now, just 26 percent say they are in favor, a drop of 13 percentage points. Forty-three percent say they are opposed, a drop of 7 percentage points since that poll four years ago. But the number who neither support nor oppose the law has tripled, to 30 percent.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/28/3556814/poll-obama-health-law-fails-to.html#storylink=cpy

FOUR YEARS LATER AND AMERICANS DON'T LOVE IT. HELL, THEY DON'T EVEN LIKE IT.

THEY DIDN'T ASK FOR IT, THEY DIDN'T WANT IT.

IT DOES NOTHING BUT TAKE YOUR ABILITY TO PURCHASE HEALTH INSURANCE AND MAKE IT A REQUIREMENT THAT YOU DO.

LIKE THE MAN IT'S NAMED FOR, IT'S USELESS AND UNLOVED.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Yesterday, US President Barack Obama made a fool out of himself as he attempted to justify and re-sell the Iraq War. William Rivers Pitt (Truthout) explains, "Truthout does not forget. We were at the forefront of the struggle against that disastrous war, and we will not stand idly by as an alleged "good guy" slaps a coat of paint over it to cover up the blood on the walls. President Obama sounds for all the world like a used car salesman trying to peddle a lemon, and that will not happen on our watch." DS Wright (Firedoglake) notes:

Yesterday President Barack Obama tried to claim that the United States government’s actions in the 2003 Iraq War were legal and different than Russia’s actions in Crimea because the US had “sought to work within the international system.” Apparently merely seeking to work within the international system is some kind of get out of jail free card. If one follows Obama’s logic then Russia need only to have “sought” a doomed UN resolution justifying the annexation of Crimea before doing so, this would have made their actions legitimate under Obama’s standard.

Pravda points out the curious nature of the speech itself, "The key event of Obama's European tour was his speech in the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts in front of 2,000 people. His lengthy discourse on the history and common values with Europeans was very quickly replaced with anti-Russian rhetoric.The speech turned out to be a dispute with Russian authorities, entirely devoted to the situation in Ukraine." Yes, it was a strange speech, both for topic and for tone. In fact, it was more of a spew than a speech. Greg Mitchell (The Nation) notes Barack's foolish remarks. The Voice of Russia notes:

Matt Howard and Ross Caputi, members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, spoke with Common Dreams by phone and said that the president's narrative on the events that led up to the Iraq invasion, inside or outside the context of Ukraine, was simply "not grounded in reality." "We went from one lie, which was weapons of mass destruction, to another lie which was liberation and freedom," said Howard. "This idea that Iraq is somehow better off or that the US waged a so-called 'Good War' is ridiculous."

Let's note some Twitter reactions:

Teju Cole ‏@tejucole 9h

Obama's assertion that Russia's annexation of Crimea is worse than the U.S. invasion of Iraq is simply obscene. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/26/obama-defends-iraq-invasion-a-little/?swe …

Expand

مايا-Maya ‏@Mayyish 10h

Obama said "Iraq invasion not as bad as Crimea"..True, Iraq took 1million+ innocent lives & stole resources.. & well Crimea took 0... #logic

Collapse

Meanwhile, Justyn Dillingham (Salon) writes:

It is disingenuous to say that we “sought to work within the international system” without noting that we subsequently went to war in flagrant violation of international law. Even one of the war’s chief architects admitted that the invasion was not strictly legal. Richard Perle, one of the Pentagon’s most eager advocates of war on Iraq, said in November 2003 that international law “would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone” and that “in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.” Even if the Bush administration would have preferred to go to war with the support of the United Nations, the fact remains that they went to war without it. Saying that the United States “sought to work within the international system” before invading Iraq is like praising a burglar because he checked to see if your door was unlocked before breaking a window.
The consequences of this reckless act go far beyond the awful human cost of the Iraq War. Our invasion of Iraq undermined the authority of the United Nations and created a dangerous precedent for other preemptive wars. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Bush’s war a “fundamental challenge” to the core principles of the United Nations and warned that it “could set precedents that [result] in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification.” Putin himself, in defending his actions in Crimea, cited the record of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

While most focus on the Iraq aspect, Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) chooses to call out Barack's speech for the WWI remarks. John Glaser (Antiwar.com) focuses on Barack's defense of the illegal Iraq War and observes, "This is perhaps the most asinine thing the president has said in the entirety of his presidency. The invasion of Iraq was an illegal, preventive war based on lies. It got hundreds of thousands of people killed and cost trillions of dollars. The U.S.-backed dictator of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is ruling the nation with an iron fist, as the country slips back into civil war. Nothing but chaos, ruin, and rivers of blood resulted from the criminal invasion. For Obama to even dare to compare Crimea to Iraq is a sick joke." And Patrick Martin (WSWS) points out:

The truth is that the war in Iraq was the greatest crime—up to now—committed in the 21st century. More than a million Iraqis lost their lives as a result of the US invasion and occupation, and Iraq was destroyed as a functioning society. The Bush administration openly declared that the Geneva Conventions and international law did not apply either to the war in Iraq or the previous conquest and occupation of Afghanistan, a position that the Obama administration continues to uphold.
Obama seeks to rally the world against the supposed crimes of Russia in Crimea, in which, as of this writing, two people have been killed (one Ukrainian soldier and one Russian), while opposing any prosecution of the American war criminals responsible for the immense bloodbath visited upon the people of Iraq.
Instead, the US president excused the monumental crimes of his own government with the statement, “Of course, neither the United States nor Europe are perfect in adherence to our ideals. Nor do we claim to be the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong in the world.”
Actually, the US government does claim that role. Administration after administration has declared the United States to be “the indispensable nation,” the sole superpower, the country whose military-intelligence apparatus must be the world’s policeman, and whose leaders are immune from any accountability for their actions.

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"THIS JUST IN! MEAN GIRL GOES TO THE VATICAN!"

Thursday, March 27, 2014

THIS JUST IN! MEAN GIRL GOES TO THE VATICAN!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

LEAVE IT TO FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O TO TRY TO BLUFF HIS WAY THROUGH A MEETING.

TRAVELING TO VATICAN CITY, BARRY O MET WITH THE POPE.

"I'M A GREAT ADMIRER," BARRY O B.S.ED BEFORE HAVING TO ADMIT HE HADN'T READ POPE FRANCIS' EVAGNELII GAUDIUM. WHEN THE POPE GAVE HIM A COPY BARRY O INSISTED HE WOULD READ IT "WHEN I AM DEEPLY FRUSTRATED."

"TRANSLATION," HE SNARKED AS HIS MOTORCADE PULLED OFF, "WHEN MONKEYS FLY OUT MY BUTT!"

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Let's start with the big lie from US President Barack Obama today. Speaking in Brussels today, as he attempted to sell war on Russia, Barack declared that what's going on in Ukraine is nothing like the illegal war in Iraq and the illegal war was benign and helpful:

It is true that the Iraq War was a subject of vigorous debate – not just around the world, but in the United States as well. I happened to oppose our military intervention there. But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory, nor did we grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state could make decisions about its own future.

It was not a subject of vigorous debate in the US. Those of who spoke out were told to "shut up." If you wanted to hear an argument against going to war on Iraq, your best chance was catching Janeane Garofalo or Michael Moore on Fox News. Fox would attack the guests, so praise for Janeane and Michael for going into the lion's den -- but they would allow the guests to express their views.

Elsewhere, people were just shut out. And worse. We've noted the journalist who left the Dallas Morning News and is at another daily today but remembers full well that orders went out to attack the anti-war critics. Sheryl Crow was attacked and slandered by the paper, said to be unworthy of her Grammy nomination. Why did the music critic write that? Why did she lie by arguing that instead of Sheryl being nominated a baby pop tart should have been nominated? Pop tart wasn't even eligible for a nomination because she had nothing to be nominated for -- the Grammy rules aren't secret and that includes the eligibility time period. She attacked Sheryl because she was under orders. In the local pieces, others were under orders as well. Which is how the local columnist attacked protesters in Dallas and compared their actions to treason. This was a hippie and a stoner. But he marched to the orders he was given.

I can do that on seven other daily newspapers, we're using the Dallas Morning News because its actions were in part an effort to continue to have the government allow it to skirt FCC regulations over ownership in local markets.

Yeah, Big Business profited from the Iraq War. The FCC was used to help sell the war and that is one of the many things that's buried today.

So Barack's a damn liar. There was no vigorous debate. A month before it started, in fact, the day after liar Colin The Blot Powell lied to the United Nations, "case closed" was the phrase the media began using.

Aaron Blake (Washington Post) reports on Barack's remarks and we'll note two comments to Blake's article:

drray-yup

9:13 PM CST

Then get out, as requested by the puppet governor we installed.

And:

macktan894

7:56 PM CST

Sorry, but this has stunned me into speechlessness. Not one country sanctioned the US for invading a sovereign country on a phony pretext, destabilizing it, occupying it, setting up an American govt....

And not one country ever sanctioned the US for its torture of suspects.

The US doesn't need to annex that which it occupies and then controls through puppet regimes.

This was totally unwise.

Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) is on a streak this week. Yesterday he wrote something (we noted it in the snapshot) that I've already nominated for "Truest statement of the week" at Third and, writing today about Barack's nonsense remarks, Ditz cuts right through the nonsense:

“America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory,” Obama insisted, going on to praise Iraq as a “fully sovereign state” that “could make decisions about its own future.”

Which is to say the US forced a puppet government into power before it left, despite Prime Minister Maliki losing the last election, and put in place an election system so crooked that even the Maliki-appointed election commission resigned en masse yesterday rather than take part in April’s planned vote.

Barack's refusal to note the lies that the US government told to start the Iraq War is understandable when you think of all the lies he and others in the administration (Secretary of State John Kerry, for example) have told to try to sway the public to support a war with Russia.

Everything Barack said above was a lie.

It is true that the Iraq War was a subject of vigorous debate – not just around the world, but in the United States as well. I happened to oppose our military intervention there.

We've noted there was no vigorous debate. Equally true, his claim to oppose the illegal war? Only before it started. Once it started, he was on board. I know because he told Elaine and I that when he was running for the Senate (and we left the fundraiser immediately and didn't give his campaign a dime).

But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system.

Lie. The United Nations provided no approval of starting a war. The statement that a second resolution would be sought was dropped when the US government learned (by illegal spying on UN representatives) that they didn't have the votes necessary, they started the illegal war anyway.

We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory, nor did we grab its resources for our own gain.

Actually, the US government did and does. The illegal war was about markets -- that includes the oil market. The illegal war 'opened' the oil wells in Iraq. The country's being polluted as it tries to pump out as much oil as possible. There are pools, lakes, of oil in Iraq, on the surface, polluting the land, ensuring that less and less of it can be used for farming. Iraq's giving the world cheap oil and, in the process, destroying itself.

Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people and a fully sovereign Iraqi state could make decisions about its own future.

We already quoted Jason Ditz addressing the nonsense of a 'fully sovereign' nation. So let's deal with 'we ended our war and left Iraq to its people' instead.

The US drawdown out of Iraq was completed by the end of December 2011. The US military called it a drawdown, not a "withdrawal." It wasn't a withdrawal. Not only did every US service member not leave Iraq at that time (Ted Koppel was the only one to report this in December 2011), but approximately 15,000 US troops were re-positioned to Kuwait. And, almost a year later, at the end of September 2012, Tim Arango (New York Times) reported:

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.

Barack's such a liar and he gets away with it because so many embrace lies. We'll come back to that at the end of the snapshot. Right now we'll note the immediate effect of Barack's latest nonsense. Julianna Goldman and Mike Dorning (Bloomberg News) report, "As Obama spoke, U.S. stocks fell, erasing earlier gains, on investor concern that the conflict may escalate. The Standard & Poor’s 500 lost 0.3 percent to 1,859.76 at 3:19 p.m. in New York, after earlier climbing to within three points of its record closing level reached March 7. "

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"THIS JUST IN! HE WANTS TO LIVE AS A BLOND!"

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

THIS JUST IN! HE WANTS TO LIVE AS A BLOND!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O WAS CAUGHT EYE BALLING QUEEN MAXIMA OF HOLLAND.

AN INDIGNANT BARRY O DENIED ANY SEXUAL INTEREST IN THE QUEEN WHEN QUESTIONED EARLY THIS MORNING BY THESE REPORTERS.

"EVERYONE KNOWS MY HEART BELONGS TO REGGIE LOVE!" BARRY O INSISTED. "I DID NOTICE THE QUEEN'S BLOND HIGHLIGHTS AND STUDIED THEM BECAUSE I'VE BEEN TOYING WITH SOME STREAKS OF MY OWN."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Anadolu Agency reports a bombing targeted 3 Iraqi MPs. 3 bodyguards were killed in the bombing with another four wounded; however MPs Raad al-Dahlaki, Mohamed al-Khaldi and Abd al-Jabouri all three survived. All are members of Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi's Motahedoum coaltion. All three had planned to run in the upcoming elections; however, in a sign of the state of Iraq, surviving an assassination attempt doesn't mean you've now survived the last obstacle.

They were luckier than others today. National Iraqi News Agency reports Ghaidaa Hussein Khader was shot dead in Mosul (she belonged to the Alfadheelah Party).

But while Iraq is set to hold parliamentary elections on April 30th, that may not happen. Despite the assurances Sarbast Mustafa (head of the Independent High Electoral Commission's board) offered to All Iraq News yesterday that elections would take palce and be held "in every area in Iraq" and that "It is difficult to set a new mechanism to postpone the next elections in any area of Iraq including Anbar," those statements are now in doubt.

Today, AFP reports, "All of Iraq’s election commissioners presented their resignations to parliament Tuesday in a collective protest over political and judicial 'interference' in upcoming legislative polls, sources have said." What sort of interference? An attempt to strip them of their powers via a little noticed clause in a bill Nouri's Cabinet wrote and Parliament passed into law. BBC explains:

A clause approved last year allows for the exclusion of candidates considered not "of good reputation".

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who is seeking a third term, has been accused of using the law to prevent his political enemies from standing.

Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) provides context, "IHEC’s complaints roughly mirror those of the last election, that the Maliki government is trying to use the electoral law’s ban on candidates of “ill repute” to ban potential rivals en masse." AFP's Prashant Rao Tweets:

Indeed.

Al Mada reports that the Dawa Party was specifically accused of exploiting the judiciary to settle scores with political rivals. Dawa, for those who don't know, is Nouri's political party, State of Law is his coalition. Al Mada notes that the commission felt wrongly accused of bowing to Nouri's wishes to dismiss his political opponents, especially when the decisions were coming from the Baghdad judiciary.

In a statement the IHEC posted to their website, they insist the move was due to a need to protect the IHEC's integrity and that they await the approval of their resignations. Raheem Salman and Robin Pomeroy (Reuters) observe, "IHEC's sudden move further complicates the outlook for a vote already clouded by violence across the country where Sunni Islamist militants have regained momentum over the past year."

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"THIS JUST IN! ONCE UPON A TIME . . . !"

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

THIS JUST IN! ONCE UPON A TIME . . . !

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

OVER 12 HOURS AGO, STORIES LIKE THIS BEGAN APPEARING.

THEY ARE "STORIES" AND NOT "REPORTS" BECAUSE THEY ARE FAIRY TALES.

ONCE UPON A TIME, SOME TIME THIS WEEK, FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O WILL CURB N.S.A. ILLEGAL SPYING.

FAIRY TALES.

REPORTING TELLS US WHAT'S HAPPENING.

FOR 12 HOURS, THIS STORY HAS DOMINATED THE 'NEWS' CYCLE DESPITE NO ANNOUNCEMENT FROM BARRY O OR THE WHITE HOUSE.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Nouri's Iraq has another first. As with all his other firsts, it's not good news. Maya Rhodan (Time magazine) reports Iraq has a confirmed polio case, "A six-month old baby near Baghdad was paralyzed as a result of the debilitating virus, which is generally found among children under five years old." IRIN notes it's been 14 years since Ira had a "confirmed case of the virus." And they quote the World Health Organization's Iraq mission head, Syed Jaffar Hussain, declaring:

Knowing that Iraq itself has a lot of security challenges and large amounts of population movement, internally and from outside, this presents a major public health challenge in the country.
We do have a worry that other children may have been infected and that is why we are going door-to-door in the area where this child lives in order to collect samples to see if the virus has spread.

In other news, Robert Scheer's Truthdig runs a piece by CIA contractor Juan Cole where Cole insist:

It just baffles me that failed Neocons like Dan Senor are still given a hearing inside the Beltway. ABC News actually interviewed Senor, the spokesman for the Bush administration’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq on the Crimea crisis!

The necons? The ones who teamed with conservatives (traditional ones) and Democratic Hawks and neoliberals to sell the illegal war? Trash like Juan Cole will never call out neoliberals, et al., but he'll make sure everyone knows the term "neocon."

As for disappointment?

I think it's disappointing that people who cheered on the illegal war continue to be treated as though they're wise or informed.

I mean people like Juan Cole.

He can fool everyone he wants today but even he knows that when push came to shove he was whoring for the Iraq War.

It was over eight years ago that Steve Rendall called him on it during an interview broadcast on the February 9, 2007 of CounterSpin.

Steve Rendall: Professor Juan Cole, you've expressed some reservations about US withdrawal from Iraq. How do you reconcile that with the people poll done by the University of Maryland that finds that strong majorities of Iraqis -- both Shia and Sunni -- want the US out.

Juan Cole: Well, first of all, you're misreading my position. Uh, for a year and a half now I have been maintaining that the US should withdraw from Iraq. I supported [US House] Representative [John] Murtha's position -- and indeed I believe I preceded it -- which is the US should make an orderly withdraw from Iraq and what I oppose -- and I think anybody should oppose -- and something very worrying -- would be for the US to pull precipitously out of Iraq, just pull up stakes and get out in a rush and let the chips fall where they may because this would be a very bad idea.

Juan loves to rewrite the record, he loves to reinvent and spin yarns and do everything except tell the truth.

When the illegal war started 11 years ago, CIA contractor Juan wrote that "the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides" (click here for Wikipedia and his attempts to justify and rewrite what he wrote).

No one was punished or harmed for advocating for the illegal war which is why it's so shameful that Robert Scheer publishes Cole at Truthdig. The MSM protected their own and promoted 'left' bloggers who supported the Iraq War so for an outlet like Truthdig to present the lies of Juan Cole is very upsetting.

Lies?

Juan Cole is a damn liar. He's so very fond of thinking he can intimidate everyone into going along. I'm not cowed by a pudgy bitch like Juan, so sorry.

He writes today:

Senor had the unmitigated gall to blame President Obama for “Iraq unraveling”!!

Let’s see. The American administration of Iraq fired 100,000 Sunni Arabs from their jobs, abruptly abolished the whole Iraqi army, closed all the major state-owned factories, coddled corrupt Shiite politicians, and generally plunged the country into a massive civil war, which at its height was killing 3000 civilians a month and was responsible for 2 million being displaced abroad and 4 million internally, in a country of 26 million.

Not gall, mind you, but unmitigated gall.

That's a strange argument to present but because Dan Senor is correct in the argument. But before we move to facts -- those things that cause Juan to break out in hives -- let's just examine what Dan Senor did that was so wrong.

According to Juan Cole, 'historian,' it is wrong for Senor or anyone to blame Barack for the state of Iraq.

If Barack can't be blamed for it, he also -- pay attention -- can't be praised.

But in January 2010, Uninformed Boob Juan Cole was declaring the Iraq War was over and Barack had won it.

I wouldn't have called the Iraq War ended then (it's ongoing even now) and I wouldn't have declared Barack had won it.

At that point, I'd already called Barack out for entering into negotiations with terrorists (League of Righteous) and agreeing to release their leaders (so that they'd turn over British hostages -- all but one was turned over as a corpse). And I'd called him out for lying about the Status Of Forces Agreement. But, in January 2010, I never said, "He is losing the war!"

In March 2010, it would be different.

That's where Barack ensured the current state of Iraq.

Parliamentary elections took place. Even with the media (western media) in his pocket, Nouri and his State of Law still lost to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya. Nouri screamed voter theft and insisted on a recount which didn't change the results.

So Nouri decided he'd just refuse to step down. He refused for 8 months (this was the political stalemate and Iraq set the world record at the time for the longest duration between an election and the formation of a government).

During this time Barack backed him. More than that, he had US officials broker The Erbil Agreement. The legal contract provided Nouri with a second term as prime minister in exchange for Nouri agreeing to certain demands of the political blocs. For example, the Kurdistan Regional Government demanded that Article 140 be implemented (referendum and census on disputed and oil-rich Kirkuk).

Barack had no business overriding the votes of the Iraqi people or going around the country's constitution to provide Nouri with a second term.

And the man who planned her life
Commanded all that followed
Well they bellowed and they hollered
And they threw each other down
-- "Memorial Day," written by Carly Simon, first appears on her album Spy

Today's problems stem from this. It was Barack's decision (urged on by Samantha Power) and he owns it. It cannot be explained away or wiped away.

The administration got the blocs to sign on by insisting the contract had the full backing of the White House. Vice President Joe Biden gave his word personally to Iraq President Jalal Talabani. And the day after the contract was signed, when, in the session of Parliament, it appeared Nouri was refusing to honor it, Ayad Allawi walked as did many other members of Iraqiya.

At which point -- pay attention, Juan Cole -- Barack personally called Allawi and made promises that led to Allawi returning to Parliament and ending the walk out.

But Nouri refused to honor the contract. He used it to get his second term and then his lawyer and his spokesperson both began announcing the contract was illegal (it probably was -- it was extra-constitutional) and so Nouri didn't have to honor it.

By the summer of 2011, aware that the White House and Barack were not backing the contract they insisted they would, the Kurds, Moqtada al-Sadr and Allawi went public demanding that Nouri follow the contract.

He refused.

In April of 2012, they began publicly exploring a vote of no confidence in the Parliament. Moqtada made clear publicly that Nouri could stop the effort at any point by implementing The Erbil Agreement.

He didn't and, per the Constitution, the groups began gathering the signatures needed for a no confidence vote. They got the needed number and then some.

The vote would take place.

But the White House was pressuring Jalal, insisting the vote could not be allowed to go forward. They offered (empty) promises and made demands. Suddenly, Jalal announced that it was his job (it wasn't) to verify every signature. On top of that, he created another new step not in the Constitution, "Did you mean to sign it?" Clearly, if the signature was their own, they meant to sign it.

But Jalal would insist that several, during the verification process, stated they would not sign it today. So he was striking their signatures.

That's not how it works.

They don't have to vote against Nouri in the vote but if they signed it, they signed it. Change of heart (due to the spread of US money) doesn't let you undo your signature.

The people spoke in 2010, they did not want Nouri. The US re-installed him via a legal contract they swore (in November 2010) that they would back. By 2011, the White House was ignoring it (and also insisting it didn't matter since Nouri had promised publicly not to seek a third term -- Nouri's a whore, his word means nothing). In 2012, Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunni politicians agreed to pull together and use the means provided in the Constitution to recall Nouri. The White House demanded this not happen.

Juan Cole is a liar.

All of the above has brought Iraq to the brink yet again.

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"THIS JUST IN! GRANNY CLAMPETT RUNS FOR PRESIDENT!"

The Daily Jot

Friday, March 28, 2014

THIS JUST IN! THE LOVE NEVER ARRIVED!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

THIS JUST IN! MEAN GIRL GOES TO THE VATICAN!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

THIS JUST IN! HE WANTS TO LIVE AS A BLOND!

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

THIS JUST IN! ONCE UPON A TIME . . . !

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