His jokes were as classy as his audience

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

HE CAN'T OR WON'T CREATE JOBS BUT PRINCESS BARRY WAS SHOWCASING HIS QUEEN OF BITCHY ROUTINE TONIGHT AS HE PLAYED STAND UP TO A LACKLUSTER CROWD.

IT WAS A CROWD OF NOBODIES WHERE THE BEST KNOWN PEOPLE INCLUDED ONE OF THE BIG DRAMATIC ACTORS OF THE 70S WHO LOST HIS CACHET SPOOFING HIMSELF IN ONE BAD FILM AFTER ANOTHER (MIDNIGHT RUN THROUGH ANALYZE THIS THROUGH MEET THE FOCKERS): ROBERT DE NIRO AKA THE 21ST CENTURY'S BURT REYNOLDS; AN ACTRESS NO ONE HEARD OF THIS TIME LAST YEAR WHO GOT GIFTED WITH AN OSCAR FOR HER FIRST PERFORMANCE:  LUPITA NYONG'O, YEAH, SHE'LL BE GOING SOMEWHERE NOT!; AND JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS WHO WAS SO FUNNY AND TALENTED WHEN WORKING WITH A WOMAN (KARI LIZER ON THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE) BUT WHO NOW WORKS WITH MALE WRITERS ONLY --  AND DON'T ANYONE THROW THAT UP IN HER FACE OR SUGGEST THAT AS THE STAR OF VEEP SHE COULD DEMAND WOMEN WRITERS.

THESE WERE THE PEOPLE WHO TURNED OUT FOR THE NONSENSE AND THAT SAYS A WHOLE LOT ABOUT THEM.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

On the topic of Iraq and the press, Nina- Iraq launched--  it's a media site geared towards Iraqi women.  In one article, Raya Abu Gulal observes:

Iraqi women have enjoyed fundamental women’s rights since the late 1950s. This made Iraq one of the first nations to uphold modern standards of women’s rights in the Middle East.
In Iraq, women continue to face security threats across the country. These include random attacks by extremist groups and honour crimes. Moreover, various reports show that many Iraqi women who wish to participate in the political process are facing threats and kidnappings. Lack of security and initiatives from extremist groups have proved to be the main obstacles preventing the advancement of women’s rights in the country.

Iraqi women have had to repeatedly fight off attempts to destroy their rights in the time since the illegal war kicked off with the 2003 invasion.  Monday, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote at the Guardian:


When Iraqi voters go to the polls tomorrow they are likely to endorse parties that plan to legalise child marriage at nine years old. Based on Shia Islamic jurisprudence, what is called the Ja'afari personal status law was approved by the current Iraqi cabinet eight weeks ago. It describes girls as reaching puberty at nine, and therefore ready for marriage. The current legal age is 18.

This barbaric and regressive law would grant fathers sole guardianship of their female children from the age of two, as well as legalising marital rape. It has horrified Iraqi women and they publicly declared last month's International Women's Day an Iraqi day of mourning in response to the worrying developments. Hassan al-Shimari, the Iraqi justice minister who proposed the draft law, is a member of the small Islamist Fadhila (Virtue) party, which is allied with the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking a third term in office.

Iraqis voted Wednesday.  On the vote, the White House issued the following:

For Immediate Release

May 01, 2014

Statement by the President on Elections in Iraq

On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the Iraqi people on the completion of yesterday’s parliamentary elections.  Millions of Iraqis embraced their democratic right to vote.  The people of Iraq know better than anyone else the enormous challenges that they face, and yesterday’s turnout demonstrated to the world that they seek to pursue a more stable and peaceful future through the political process.  Once results are finalized, a new parliament will convene and debate the makeup of a new government to serve the Iraqi people.  Whatever the outcome of this process, it should serve to unite the country through the formation of a new government that is supported by all Iraqi communities and that is prepared to advance tangible and implementable programs.  There will be more difficult days ahead, but the United States will continue to stand with the Iraqi people as partners in their pursuit of a peaceful, unified and prosperous future.

Continue to stand with the Iraqi people?

In the last parliamentary elections (March 2010), the Iraqi people made Ayad Allawi and Iraqiya the winner.  Nouri's State of Law lost to them.  But the White House demanded that Nouri get a second term.



Let's again note John Barry's "'The Engame' Is A Well Researched, Highly Critical Look at U.S. Policy in Iraq" (Daily Beast) from 2012:



Washington has little political and no military influence over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame, Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in 2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government, it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."


"Continue to stand with the Iraqi people"?

When has the White House stood with the Iraqi people?

When Nouri's forces were terrorizing and killing gay Iraqis and Iraqis suspected of being gay, the White House never publicly condemned it.

Equally insincere is the US State Dept.  This exchanged took place in Thursday's State Dept press briefing:

QUESTION: Can I ask some questions about Iraq?

MS. HARF: Yeah.

QUESTION: First of all about the elections. Are you happy with the overall election process?

MS. HARF: Well, I think you probably saw the statement from the White House and the Secretary’s statement as well. We absolutely congratulate the people of Iraq. While there were reports of violence, indications are that the progress was organized – process, excuse me – election officials were well prepared, millions of Iraqis turned out to vote. We – their actual own electoral commission reported the turnout was about 60 percent. As you know, yesterday’s vote was just the start of a long government formation process that can – could play out over several months. Obviously, we’ll continue working with the Iraqis over that timeframe.

QUESTION: The Secretary of State in his statement said there will be serious challenges, and as well, President Obama in his statement repeated that.

MS. HARF: Absolutely.

QUESTION: What do you mean by that exactly?

MS. HARF: Iraqi leaders themselves have talked about some of the security challenges they face, particularly from the spillover effect from Syria.

QUESTION: Is it just a security challenge?

MS. HARF: That’s a huge part of it, certainly. Obviously, one thing we’ve been very focused on here. I think that’s probably what they were both referring to.

QUESTION: Mm-hmm.

[. . .]

QUESTION: Can I just go back to the Iraq election?

MS. HARF: Uh-huh.

QUESTION: So that is not your final judgment of the election, just saying that the indications are that it went smoothly, or that --

MS. HARF: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- yeah – that it was organized?

MS. HARF: Was organized, well prepared. Yeah. I mean, we think --

QUESTION: But at this stage, do you still – do you think it’s free and fair, which was the judgment generally – because the Sunni – some Sunni parties have been complaining about voting problems.

MS. HARF: Well, we have seen those and initial indications have been very positive in terms of whether these elections were free and fair, including by the UN special rep for Iraq who had a press conference I think yesterday and talked about this. There will be additional assessments coming from independent observers and observers from international organizations, and I think there were thousands of election – Iraqi election monitors who were deployed through the country. The Iraqi high election commission reviews all grievances from people with complaints, but at this point it looks like there were some problems. But overall it went fairly smoothly.

I didn't realize medical marijuana was legal in the District of Columbia.

A pot induced high is the best explanation for Marie Harf's ridiculous claim of "some problems.  But overall it went fairly smoothly."   Xinhua reported, "The polls kicked off at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) and closed at 6:00 p.m. (1500 GMT), during these hours insurgents attacked many polling centers across the country, leaving a total of 22 people dead and 62 others wounded, mostly security members and voters who defiantly headed to cast their votes with the hope of bringing better life for their families."  

 That's fairly smoothly?

On election day, Aswat al-Iraq reported 39 voting centers didn't even open due to violence.

On the election day,  NINA reported 1 person was arrested in Nineveh Province's al-Shura for being in possession of 511 of the new electronic voting cards.  511.  Last week, Duraid Salman (Alsumaria) reported on allegations that Nouri's SWAT forces are forcing voters in Diyala Province to hand over their election cards so that they can be used for voter fraud.

The electronic voting cards were a new development.  Previously, voters had used ration cards.  Mustafa Habib (Niqash) reports the cards were just an idea nine months ago and that they were poorly implemented:

The electronic voter ID cards contained an electronic chip that held the voter’s full name (all three of them), date of birth, family number in the electoral roll, the name of the polling station where the voter should cast his or her vote, the voter’s serial number once at that station and the voter’s province. 

There were just over 20 million electronic voter ID cards made – around the same number of Iraqis as are eligible to vote - but only 17.27 million were distributed for one reason or another. That means around 16 percent of the cards never made it to their rightful owners.

Iraqi voters had been told they were required to collect the cards and keep them as carefully as any other official document. They were also told that those who did not have a card would not be allowed to vote.

Early on, the cards which were not distributed indicated some of the problems with the new system. Some of them were issued to deceased persons and others were duplicates. Additionally many members of the security forces, army and police, got two voter ID cards – one as a member of the security forces, who voted two days earlier, and another as a civilian.

One police captain NIQASH spoke to confirmed this – but he said he returned the civilian one. It’s hard to know if everybody did this as there was apparently also a lucrative trade, selling voter ID cards.

Marie Harf should also refer to Niqash's "queues, cyber attacks, no singing, lots of walking: niqash editors report from iraqi election frontlines" before making her absurd claims.




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