A faded rose, a toast that went stale

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

IN THE AFTERMATH OF KILLER BARRY O'S LATEST BAD SPEECH, THE CRITICAL RECEPTION IS NOT GOOD.  EVEN LONGTIME SUPPORTER AND ENABLER POLITIFACT HAD TO RATE KILLER'S STATEMENTS ABOUT BEING HONEST AND UPFRONT WITH CONGRESS ABOUT HIS DRONE WAR FALSE. 

ON TOP OF THAT 49% OF AMERICANS ARGUE HE IS MISHANDLING THE ECONOMY.  (NOD TO TRINA'S KITCHEN FOR THAT CATCH.)

AND THE AUDIENCE JUST ISN'T THERE FOR KILLER BARRY O ANYMORE AS THE RATINGS FOR TUESDAY NIGHT'S SPEECH DEMONSTRATE.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Felons rejoice, at his company website, Tony Podesta self-boasts, "Many people in Washington can tell you what just happened to you.  Tony Podesta helps you change outcomes."  The company slogan appears to be -- because it's all over the website -- "we are the podesta group. we deliver." -- "the trash" must have been left off due to a lack of space.  Or maybe with the Podestas, trash is just implied? 

In the second most popular episode of Charlie's Angels, season one's "Consenting Adults" (written by Les Carter), Farrah Fawcett's Jill lays down some basic truth with Laurette Spang's Tracy.


Jill:  Okay, let's both stop playing games.  For starters, you can drop the "Tracy."  It rhymes with Stacy and Macy and all those other jive names hookers like to latch onto.

Hookers and con artists frequently have to change their names -- which one is the Podesta Group?  Wikipedia explains the lobbying group "was founded in 1988 by brothers John Podesta and Tony Podesta and has previously been known as Podesta Associates, podesta.com and PodestaMatton" or, as it's called in DC, "the Podestaphile."  Byron Tau, Anna Palmer and Tarini Parti (POLITICO) reported this afternoon, "The government of Iraq is in the final stages of inking a contract with the Podesta Group as its first D.C. lobbying firm, according to multiple sources."  Really?  One wonders how the Iraqi people will feel about that, their government signing with John Podesta's lobbying firm considering John's Iraq history.


Dropping 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." 


Here's David Swanson (in 2009, at Democrats.com) discussing Podesta's role in the Iraq War:

Boyle and Ramsey Clark presented the case for impeachment to Democratic congress members on March 13, 2003, just days before the bombs hit Baghdad. Impeachment could conceivably have prevented over a million deaths. The congress members present accepted the validity of the case, but John Podesta and others argued that it would be better for Democrats in the next election to let the war happen. We saw this same cold blooded calculation, of course, in 2007 and 2008, as the Democrats controlled the Congress and claimed to "oppose" the war while keeping it going. While Clark argued for the political advantage of pursuing impeachment, Boyle declined to address that point, preferring to stick to the facts. Sadly, electoral arguments are almost the only thing most congress members care about, and human life is not even on the list.


Here's Boyle speaking to Dori Smith (Talk Radio Nation -- link is audio and transcript) from February 7, 2007:


Francis A. Boyle: We just need one person to introduce the bill with courage, integrity, principles, and of course a safe seat. In Gulf War one I worked with the late great Congressman Henry B. Gonzales on his bill of impeachment against Bush Sr. We put that one in. I did the first draft the day after the war started. So in my opinion there is no excuse for these bills not to have been put in already. In fact, on 13 March 2003, Congressman John Conyers convened a meeting of 40 to 50 of his top advisors, most of whom were lawyers, to debate putting in immediate bills of impeachment against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, to head off the war. There were draft bills sitting on the table that had been prepared by me and Ramsey Clark. And the Congressman invited Ramsey and me to come in and state the case for impeachment. It was a two hour debate, very vigorous debate, obviously all of these lawyers there. And most of the lawyers there didn't disagree with us on the merits of impeachment. It was more as they saw it a question of practical politics. Namely, John Podesta was there, Clinton's former White House chief of staff, who said he was appearing on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and they were against putting in immediate bills of impeachment because it might hurt whoever their presidential candidate was going to be in 2004. Well at that time no one even knew who their presidential candidate was going to be in 2004. I didn't argue the point, I'm a political independent. It was not for me to tell Democrats how to elect their candidates. I just continued arguing the merits of impeachment. But Ramsey is a lifelong Democrat and he argued that he felt that putting in these bills of impeachment might help the Democrats and it certainly wasn't going to hurt them in 2004.

So when the right thing could have been done, when the Iraq War could have been stopped before it started, when everything could have been changed, there was John Podesta arguing to destroy Iraq, to destroy the lives of the Iraqi people, so that Democrats could win the 2004 elections?  (For the record, the whore was wrong even when it came to electability: the Dems lost in the 2004 election -- they lost the presidency, the House and the Senate both remained under Republican control with Republicans increasing their seats -- in the single digits, but it's an increase -- in both houses of Congress.)

The Iraqi people are going to see their public monies go to feather the nest of the Podestas?  Oh, thug and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki may have some fresh problems on his hands.

The ongoing political crises continue.  Fresh off meetings this week with Ayad Allawi (head of Iraqiya -- the political slate that came in first in the 2010 elections) and cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr, Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani met with another official today.  Alsumaria reports he met with US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft in Erbil where they discussed the political crises and the issue of the democratic process in Iraq and that Beecroft supports a national meet-up which would be what Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi have been calling for since December 21st -- of 2011. 


Yesterday there was outrage over the arrest of Imam Mohammad Zaidi.  Alsumaria reports today that the he has been released after being held for a little over 24 hours.  His supporters see the arrest as evidence of Nouri's practice of arbitrary arrests targeting those he sees as political rivals.  Mohammed Sabah (Al Mada) reports State of Law (Nouri's political slate) is insisting that Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi is keeping 30 people from being arrested -- that they have warrants and he won't lift immunity (members of Parliament cannot be arrested while serving unless their immunity is lifted).  Iraqiya (political slate Osama al-Nujaifi belongs to) responds that the warrants are an attempt by Nouri to intimidate political opponents.


Moving over to protests, All Iraq News reports a new development in Basra where "hundreds" have staged a sit-in outside a center for the blind.  There are said to be as many as 500 people taking part in the sit-in that's calling for the government to care for the people with special needs (at least 13,000 people in the province are recognized by the federal government as challenged or disabled).  All Iraq News also reports that National Alliance MP Jawad Franck is insisting that protesters elsewhere in Iraq are being supported by 'third parties,' outsiders, foreigners.  More alarmist talk.  The reason?  Saturday, protesters in Anbar Province asked for permission to do a sit-in in Baghdad this Friday.  Nouri's been in a tizzy.  He's held multiple meetings with the National Alliance trying to figure out how to stop the protests.  Al Mada reports Anbar responds today with protesters saying they will go to Baghdad and take part in morning prayers and that Nouri cannot prevent them from entering their country's capital, not these residents and tribes of Anbar who refuse to allow their dignity to be besmirched.

But everything's in a state of flux and Ali Abel Sadah (Al-Monitor) reports that it appears the citizens will not be going to Baghdad to march, attend worship or take part in a sit-in thei Friday:



But the widespread deployment of security personnel at the entrances to Baghdad, alongside security checkpoints near Adhamiya, where the Abu Hanifa Mosque is located, prompted the protest leadership to retract the decision to move to Baghdad.
Rafi Taha Rifai, the Sunni Grand Mufti of Iraq, said in a statement obtained by Al-Monitor that the demonstrators’ decision “to go to Baghdad was rejected by the dictatorial authorities."
Rifai called on demonstrators to “postpone the decision to move to Baghdad to an appropriate time.”
Sources close to the leaders of the Anbar demonstrations expected activists to stay at their traditional place, in the “square of glory and dignity.”

By the way, who's supporting 'Ba'athists'?  Nouri's forever accusing protesters of being 'terrorists' and 'Ba'athists' and having connections to Saddam Hussein's regime.  For an example of that kind of propaganda, you can refer to this Ahlul Bayt News Agency nonsense.But Al Mada reports it's Nouri who's paying for the treatment of a Ba'athist in Turkey.  Sheikh Ali Hussein al-Hamadani's medical expenses are being covered by Nouri (which most likely means the Iraqi people are paying the costs) and the rumor is that he's doing it to curry favor with tribal leaders in Anbar in the hopes that they'll call off the protests.

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