Tuesday, April 15, 2014

DNC Chair breaks it down

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

DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS SEEKING ELECTION THIS YEAR ARE BEGINNING TO GRASP JUST HOW MUCH DAMAGE FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O IS TO THEIR CHANCES.

REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, D.N.C. CHAIR DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ STATED, "DOES MY HAIR LOOK OILY?  IT DOES, DOESN'T IT?  IT ALWAYS DOES?  I DON'T KNOW WHY THAT IS?  OBAMA?  YEAH, WE'RE ALL STARTING TO ENVY BARACK OBAMA SR. AND HOW EASY IT WAS FOR HIM TO WALK AWAY.  IF ONLY, YOU KNOW?  WHY DOES MY HAIR ALWAYS LOOK GREASY?"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Despite OpEd News, today was a notable day for journalism as the Pulitzer Prizes were announced.  Journalism is supposed to serve the public, to inform the public.  This is required in a democracy because the people determine the government and they need to hold their officials accountable.  So the big prize is "PUBLIC SERVICE" and the award there went to the Washington Post and the Guardian US for their coverage of the illegal spying.  NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden issued a statement via the Freedom of the Press Foundation:

I am grateful to the committee for their recognition of the efforts of those involved in the last year's reporting, and join others around the world in congratulating Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, Ewen MacAskill, and all of the others at the Guardian and Washington Post on winning the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance.
This decision reminds us that what no individual conscience can change, a free press can. My efforts would have been meaningless without the dedication, passion, and skill of these newspapers, and they have my gratitude and respect for their extraordinary service to our society. Their work has given us a better future and a more accountable democracy.


 Ed Snowden is an American citizen and whistle-blower who had been employed by the CIA and by the NSA before leaving government employment for the more lucrative world of contracting.  At the time he blew the whistle, he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton doing NSA work.  As he notes in his statement, many reporters at both outlets reported on the very important story.    Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) had the first scoop on Snowden's revelations that the US government was spying on American citizens, keeping the data on every phone call made in the United States (and in Europe as well) while also spying on internet use via PRISM and Tempora.

The other winners in the field of journalism were:

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING - The Boston Globe Staff
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - Chris Hamby of The Center for Public Integrity, Washington, D.C.
EXPLANATORY REPORTING - Eli Saslow of The Washington Post
LOCAL REPORTING - Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia of the Tampa Bay Times
NATIONAL REPORTING - David Philipps of The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO
INTERNATIONAL REPORTING - Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall of Reuters
FEATURE WRITING - No award
COMMENTARY - Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press
CRITICISM - Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer
EDITORIAL WRITING - The Editorial Staff of The Oregonian, Portland
EDITORIAL CARTOONING - Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer
BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY - Tyler Hicks of The New York Times
FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY - Josh Haner of The New York Times
On the award to the Colorado Springs Gazette's David Philipps, Greg Avery (Denver Business Journal) notes:

An investigation into veterans being discharged from the military without benefits after relatively minor offenses won the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper and reporter Dave Philipps a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
[. . .]

Philipps’ three-day series, called “Other Than Honorable,” looked into how soliders’ discharge status after they returned home from overseas tours of duty left them struggling. The stories were published May 19-21, 2013.


The Pulitzers also honor the world of publishing -- fiction and non-fiction -- and the arts.  The winners in the Books, Drama and Music field:



FICTION - "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)

DRAMA - "The Flick" by Annie Baker
HISTORY - "The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832" by Alan Taylor (W.W. Norton)
BIOGRAPHY - "Margaret Fuller: A New American Life" by Megan Marshall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
POETRY - "3 Sections" by Vijay Seshadri (Graywolf Press)
GENERAL NONFICTION - "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" by Dan Fagin (Bantam Books)
MUSIC - "Become Ocean" by John Luther Adams (Taiga Press/Theodore Front Musical Literature)


Norman Solomon used to do the P.U.-litzer awards each year with Jeff Cohen until recently.  In the Age of Barack, there's just too much whoring for two people nail down.  However, Norman does have a piece entitled "Why We Need Media Critics Who Are Fiercely Independent" (Huffington Post).


There's one more award for today.  The Quil Lawrence Award.

You can reference the following  "Iraq snapshot" from March 2010.  March 7, 2010, Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections.  The next morning, Quil was on NPR's Morning Edition where he explained to Steve Inskeep, "He seems to have done very well. I'm talking to people all over Baghdad, as well as hearing reports from friends in the south, but it's probably not possible for him to form a government without a couple of allies."

Votes hadn't even been counting but Quil was selling victory for Nouri.  It would take days to count the votes the first time (and Nouri's loss would lead to Nouri demanding a recount -- which he'd also lose).  But with no votes counted, Quil was whoring for Nouri.

The Quil Lawrence Award recognizes an individual posing as a reporter in order to whore.

The Quil Lawrence Award this years goes to Jane Arraf who has surpassed her Saddam Hussein-era whoring while she was Baghdad Bureau Chief for CNN.  April 11, 2003, the New York Times published Eason Jordan's "The News We Kept To Ourselves." Other who worked for CNN during the Hussein-era have offered their own examples. Jane never has.

But she's outdone herself.  Yesterday, the Christian Science Monitor published an 'analysis'/'report' by Jane which was pure whoring.  As we noted at Third yesterday:

 She takes the sewer that is The Christian Science Monitor deeper into the filth by writing, "In Anbar Province in the west, protests by Sunnis over marginalization and mistreatment flared into violence as what started as a peaceful protest movement became radicalized."
No, they did not flare into violence.
It takes a cheap and tacky whore to turn a year's worth of peaceful protest into violence.
Human Rights Watch has noted, "Government security forces had withdrawn from Anbar province after provoking a tribal uprising when they raided a Sunni protest camp in Ramadi on December 30, killing 17 people."
Jane also overlooks the April 23rd massacre of the sit-in in Hawija which resulted from  Nouri's federal forces storming in.  Alsumaria noted Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk)  announced 50 activists have died and 110 were injured in the assault.   AFP reported the death toll rose to 53.  UNICEF noted that the dead included 8 children (twelve more were injured).

It's actually worse than that -- it usually is with Jane.

She's not just being stupid, she's lying.  Check her Twitter feed.  She knows better than anyone what happened in Hawija.  There was a push to portray it as though Friday April 19, 2013, poor innocent security forces were attacked by protesters.  No, they weren't.  The attack took place near empty houses, not at the protest site.  More importantly, there was a blackout on the fact that prior to that, the protesters were attacked by the security forces -- one was killed.   Jane Tweeted about it -- she never used it in any reporting and she acts as though it didn't take place. But it exists:





Protestor killed in clashes with army in Huwaijah near Kirkuk. Army says it was defending position. Witnesses say soldiers opened fire


5:58 AM - 19 Apr 2013



How do you Tweet it and then forget it, never write about it, never report on it?

How indeed.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that Nouri comes off better in her Christian Science Monitor article if she pins the blame for the violence on the protesters?

And it's also just a coincidence that she also offers 'analysis' that is wrong but helps Nouri:

A surprise move by influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to withdraw from the political process is expected to benefit Maliki. It allows him to go after large numbers of votes from poor, dispossessed Shiites hoping for more jobs and better services.
Maliki might be aided, too, by political disarray among the Kurds. The absence of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who has been undergoing medical treatment, has led to a leadership struggle for his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the three main Kurdish parties. Almost six months after provincial elections, the main Kurdish parties have not been able to agree on their own regional government.


A) Moqtada.  The cleric and movement leader's followers will not be voting for Nouri.  We went into the whys of that in the February 18th snapshot.  You can refer to that.  Since then, Moqtada has twice called for Nouri not to seek a third term (the last time was last week).  In addition, Moqtada's now-ended 'retirement' never meant that candidates from the Sadr bloc weren't going to run.  When Moqtada made the announcement, the Sadr bloc immediately had to decide whether they would field candidates or not and they decided they would.

Jane's just a nasty, dirty liar.  And what's the Christian Science Monitor?  It prints that lie that Moqtada's out of politics when even Dan Murphy has reported for the Monitor that Moqtada got back in?

B) The Kurds.

Jalal Talabani is the head of the PUK.  But he's not in Iraq, is he?

He's in Germany.  He's been there since his stroke.  December 2012,  Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke.   The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 following Jalal's argument with Iraq's prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot).  Jalal was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital.    Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany.  He remains in Germany currently.

Jane may not tell you about that but the PUK can.  They can tell you about the screaming Nouri did at Jalal, about the threats he made to Jalal and about how, as soon as Nouri left Jalal's office, Jalal had his stroke.




The Iraq Times and Kitabat are both reporting that insiders are saying the collapse Monday night followed a verbal altercation with Nouri al-Maliki. According to an unnamed source or unnamed sources with Talabani's office, Nouri arrived last Monday evening at Talabani's office and as the political crisis was discussed, Jalal called for Nouri to lower the rhetoric (as he has done publicly) but he was referring to what Nouri was stating to him at that moment. This call to lower the rhetoric was met by a "violent explosion" from Nouri who called into question whether Jalal was able to be impartial or neutral. Nouri is said to have brought up the effort last spring to seek a no-confidence vote on Nouri in Parliament. Jalal is said to have remained civil, asked that Nouri consider the options for resolving the crisis, Nouri was shown out and as soon as he was out of the office, Jalal complained of ill health.


Even setting aside all that, what do Kurds want?





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