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.




RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"The prime minister, the president, the violence"
"Mayor From Okinawa to Bring Surprising Message to ..."
"The Art of Satyagraha"
"The Other Woman"
"The Amazing Spider-Man 2"
"Idiot of the week: Lizz Winstead"
"queen george approximately: closet case and plastic surgery victim fires back"
"E-mails in the kitchen"
"Ukraine and alliances"
"Good TV, Bad TV"
"Music"
"David Rovics and Roberta Flack"
"Benghazi"
"Tough times in the court of King Stupid"
"THIS JUST IN! HE THINKS HE'S FUNNY! AT LEAST!"

Tough times in the court of King Stupid

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

POLITICO BREAKS THE NEWS THAT NO ONE LAUGHS HARDER AT FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O'S JOKES THAN BARRY O HIMSELF!

IT'S A TOUGH TIME TO BE IN THE COURT THESE DAYS.

EVER SINCE PORTLY COURT JESTER ROBERT GIBBS RETIRED FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, IT'S BEEN HARD TO FIND A FOOL STUPID OR WILLING ENOUGH TO LAUGH AT ALL OF BARRY O'S LAME JOKES.

SO NOW HE'S LEFT TO LAUGH AT THEM HIMSELF.

TOUGH TIMES FOR THE LITTLE SCAMP.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Senator Bernie Sanders: Within the veterans' community -- and in fact, the nation both in the public sector and the private sector -- we face a very serious problem as a nation of overmedication. The result of that overmedication is that significant numbers of people treated in the Department of Defense facilities, in VA facilities and in the private sector become dependent upon those medications intended to help them and ease their pain. Pain relief is a huge problem in the country and how we treat that pain in the most effective way is really what we're discussing today. Some people who are treated with a whole lot of medication become addicted -- and I think we all know what happens when people become addicted -- and some in fact will end up taking --  losing their lives through overdoses. And in my state and throughout this country this is a huge problem as well. So this is a major issue which has been discussed in this committee during the last year and we're really glad we have such a distinguished panel to discuss this issue.


We're starting in the US and dropping back to yesterday for a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.  Iraq voted in parliamentary elections yesterday, we focused on that, there wasn't room for the Wednesday hearing.  Senator Bernie Sanders is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and Senator Richard Burr is the Ranking Member.

The big news of the hearing?


The big news was about the allegations of deaths.

What allegations of death?

Dropping back to the April 9th snapshot to note this from that day's House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing:


US House Rep Jeff Miller:  I had hoped that during this hearing, we would be discussing the concrete changes VA had made -- changes that would show beyond a doubt that VA had placed the care our veterans receive first and that VA's commitment to holding any employee who did not completely embody a commitment to excellence through actions appropriate to the employee's failure accountable. Instead, today we are faced with even with more questions and ever mounting evidence that despite the myriad of patient safety incidents that have occurred at VA medical facilities in recent memory, the status quo is still firmly entrenched at VA.  On Monday -- shortly before this public hearing --  VA provided evidence that a total of twenty-three veterans have died due to delays in care at VA medical facilities.  Even with this latest disclosure as to where the deaths occurred, our Committee still don't know when they may have happened beyond VA's stated "most likely between 2010 and 2012."  These particular deaths resulted primarily from delays in gastrointestinal care.  Information on other preventable deaths due to consult delays remains unavailable.   Outside of the VA's consult review, this committee has reviewed at least eighteen preventable deaths that occurred because of mismanagement, improper infection control practices and a whole host -- a whole host --  of other maladies plaguing the VA health care system nationwide.  Yet, the department's stonewall has only grown higher and non-responsive. There is no excuse for these incidents to have ever occurred.  Congress has met every resource request that VA has made and I guarantee that if the department would have approached this committee at any time to tell us that help was needed to ensure that veterans received the care they required, every possible action would have been taken to ensure that VA could adequately care for our veterans.  This is the third full committee hearing that I have held on patient safety  and I am going to save our VA witnesses a little bit of time this morning by telling them what I don't want to hear.  I don't want to hear the rote repetition of  -- and I quote --  "the department is committed to providing the highest quality care, which our veterans have earned and that they deserve.  When incidents occur, we identify, mitigate, and prevent additional risks.  Prompt reviews prevent similar events in the future and hold those persons accountable."  Another thing I don’t want to hear is -- and, again, I quote from numerous VA statements, including a recent press statement --  "while any adverse incident for a veteran within our care is one too many," preventable deaths represent a small fraction of the veterans who seek care from VA every year.  What our veterans have truly "earned and deserve" is not more platitudes and, yes, one adverse incident is indeed one too many.  Look, we all recognize that no medical system is infallible no matter how high the quality standards might be.  But I think we all also recognize that the VA health care system is unique because it has a unique, special obligation not only to its patients -- the men and women who honorably serve our nation in uniform -- but also to  the hard-working taxpayers of the United States of America.


Miller is the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.  Like Miller, Sanders takes this issue seriously and noted it in his opening remarks.  He noted, "I just spoke to the VA's Inspector General yesterday.  There is a thorough investigation taking place in Phoenix and Richard Griffin who is the VA's Acting Inspector General told me that he has the resources that he needs to thoroughly investigate that situation."

Keep that in mind.


The big disgrace that is the VA's Dr. Robert Petzel told the Committee, "I need to say that to date, we found no evidence of a secret list.  And we have found no patients who have died because they were on a wait list."


Did you grasp what just happened because the press didn't?

I've heard Jen Psaki, Marie Harf, Victoria Nuland, Jay Carney, Robert Gibbs, Dana Perino and many more explain, when asked, that they couldn't what?

Remember?

Pick any controversial and embarrassing topic and what do they say, "I'm sorry.  I can't comment on an ongoing investigation."

But Petzel didn't say that -- despite it being an ongoing investigation.

So, in fact, we now know that they can comment on an ongoing investigation, they just don't want to.

After denying any guilt, Petzel then declared, "We think it's very important that the Inspector General be allowed to finish their investigation before we rush to judgment as to what has actually happened."  But he rushed to judgment when he denied it.

Today, the Veterans Affairs Dept released the following statement:


  WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki made the following statement on the allegations regarding the Phoenix VA Health Care System:
“We take these allegations very seriously. Based on the request of the independent VA Office of Inspector General, in view of the gravity of the allegations and in the interest of the Inspector General’s ability to conduct a thorough and timely review of the Phoenix VA Health Care System (PVAHCS), I have directed that PVAHCS Director Sharon Helman, PVAHCS Associate Director Lance Robinson, and a third PVAHCS employee be placed on administrative leave until further notice. 
“Providing Veterans the quality care and benefits they have earned through their service is our only mission at the Department of Veterans Affairs. We care deeply for every Veteran we are privileged to serve.
“We believe it is important to allow an independent, objective review to proceed. These allegations, if true, are absolutely unacceptable and if the Inspector General’s investigation substantiates these claims, swift and appropriate action will be taken. 
“Veterans deserve to have full faith in their VA health care. I appreciate the continued hard work and dedication of our employees and of the community stakeholders we work with every day in our service to Veterans.”

#   #   #

The issues were covered on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight on CNN (link is video and text).

We'll move back to the hearing to note the issue of alternative and complimentary medicine.

Chair Bernie Sanders:  (A) Dr. Petzel how serious is the problem that you are addressing and (B) and Dr. Martin might want to join in, tell me the role you think complimentary alternative medicine can play in addressing those problems?

Dr. Robert Petzel: [. . . Microphone not on . . .] First of all in terms of the magnitude of the problem, several have mentioned it, we estimate that 50% of the veterans that are coming to us seeking care have some sort of, uh, pain. Uh, much of it is muscular, skeletal, back pains, etc. associated with the, uh, work that a soldier, sailor, air man, marine, uh, maybe doing.  Uh, we are prescribing opiates for somewhere around 650,000 veterans at this particular present time which includes a large number of people and we recognize the fact that this is an issue that has to be addressed very directly.  Uh, I would like to just take a minute before I turn to the, uh, other panel members to describe the opioid safety program that we're involved in to try and get a grip on and reduce the use of opiates which, by the way, has reduced the number of patients receiving opioids in the last eighteen months by 50,000.  Still a lot of people getting it --

Chair Bernie Sanders: 50,000 fewer veterans are now receiving opiates?

Dr. Robert Petzel:  That's correct. The five things that are, uh, the central part of the pain management program are (1) every medical center has to have a pain management clinic, (2) every medical center has a pain consultation service -- VA requires the use of, uh, integrative, uh, cam approaches.  We, uh -- And we make get into the details of this -- we require the use of a step-care model which was developed in the VA and which I think has been adopted by the Dept of Defense now which begins with -- in the primary care clinic -- self-management and management in primary care of pain, if needed, it moves to a secondary pain clinic.  And then finally there are tertiary pain services available.  The centerpiece of this, though, is the opioid dashboard monthly report to the facilities, to the providers of the facilities and to the pain management point of contact about people who are prescribing outside of the standard and patients that are taking medications outside the standard.  That then is followed by education and discussion and consultations with the providers to bring their use of opioids into uh-uh -- into the standard.

Chair Bernie Sanders: If I can interrupt you, we'll take a little bit more time for everybody because we only have four of us here.  But I wonder, if it's okay with you, Dr. Petzel, I wanted to shift over to  Dr. Gaudet, Dr. Marshall, what are you doing with complimentary and alternative medicine and is it, in fact, working?


Dr. Tracy Gaudet:  Uh, thank you, Chairman Sanders.  I think you're, uh, aware that the, uhm, vision for health care -- and Ranking Member Burr referenced personalized proactive patient driven -- central to that- are strategies that are inclusive of complimentary approaches that empower the veteran to take into their own hands -- whether it's pain issues, of course, this extends far beyond pain to the many, many conditions facing veterans and our public that are complex conditions where a simple fix does not exist.  Uhm, so I think that these areas -- particularly pain -- are phenomenal places where the VA is committed to bringing more holistic approaches to veterans.  The veterans are finding them very, very empowering, very much an asset to their compliment of what they can do to address their issues with pain as well as others.  

Chair Bernie Sanders: In --


Dr. Tracy Gaudet:  Yes, sir? 

Chair Bernie Sanders:  In English --

Dr. Tracy Gaudet:  Yes, sorry.

Chair Bernie Sanders:  What am I -- What are you offering a patient?  So somebody walks in, they have chronic pain, they're concerned about over medication.  You are concerned.  What are the therapies that you are offering?  And are they in fact working?  These are fairly radical ideas in a certain sense, right? Or not?

Dr. Tracy Gaudet:  I don't know how radical they are but I think that the conditions -- that the therapies that are most promising and are most often utilized right now in the VA are very parallel to the DoD and the public so they tend to be mind-body approaches such as meditation, acupuncture movement therapy such as yoga, Tai Chi, spinal manipulation.  These are -- These are the general approaches that seem to have the greatest promise that are relatively, you know, non-invasive and low risk.

Chair Bernie Sanders: Now I have been impressed.  I have been to VA facilities all over the country and I've been to a couple of DoD facilities and I am amazed.  You know, twenty or thirty years ago, I think it's fair to say, that if we were talking about this list of therapies, people would have thought that they may have been a few folks in California or certain places that might be utilizing them -- not the Dept of Defense or the VA.  So, in terms of programs like the acupuncture, is it working?  What can you tell us about your success rates or non-success rates? Does the success work?

Dr. Tracy Gudet: I think the most evidence that actually exists for acupuncture as it relates to pain, our research Office of Evidence Synthesis just finished a comprehensive look at all the evidence related to acupuncture and it's a very useful document because it basically says where is their evidence for the use of acupuncture, do we know and is there evidence of benefits, do we know it's not a benefit or is there a category where we just don't know from the research?  The areas where there is the strongest evidence for acupuncture are pain -- chronic pain, headaches, migraines have the best evidence.  So it's a rational place to start.  


Chair Bernie Sanders:  Alright Dr. Marshall, if I walk into your beautiful facility in Minneapolis -- I was just there a few days ago -- and I am in pain, what are my options other than drugs?

Dr. Marshall: I would say at Minneapolis, we view pain management  as a full spectrum opportunity to engage with a patient and move them towards healthier and a more functional life so we have deployed various complimentary, alternative modalities at different levels of our facility.  For instance, nurses -- we trained 900 nurses in January of this year -- a four hour training in complimentary and alternative medicine and integrative nursing.  Modalities that we trained nurses in specifically that included acupuncture, reflexive breathing, meditation and essential oils and aroma therapy so --

Chair Bernie Sanders: Do your -- Do your patients gravitate -- when you tell them that these therapies are available, do they say, 'Nah, I really don't want that'?  Or do they say, 'Hey, I would like to experience that.'?  What do they say?

Dr. Peter Marshall:  There's a lot of variability.  Uh, some patients, uh, express a strong desire for opioid pain medications.  Many patients, though, are very open, once they learn that these are a standard part of our medical treatment at Minneapolis VA, I think many patients are gravitating towards these kind of services.

Chair Bernie Sanders: And can you tell us some success stories?  Are there people have gone and they are in pain and are heavily medicated, got rid of the medication and then because of complimentary medicine -- Dr. Gaudet, do you have stories that -- or Dr. Marshall?

Dr. Peter Marshall: Yes. I-I would like to talk briefly about a program that we have just started.  This is part of the VA's efforts to have, uhm, our, uh, Council for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, CARF, rehab VISN at each facility.  So we started in January of this year.  We recruited the director of the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehab Center who is now leading our efforts.  So that program, which is just starting at Minneapolis VA, had seven veterans.  Four of them were on opiaids. Three of them were tapered off and one was tapered down. And the cornerstone of that program that's a three week intensive program, the cornerstone of that program is activating patients' innate healing abilities through the use of primarily complimentary and alternative modalities including cognitive behavioral therapies: meditation, relaxation breathing, Tai Chi, yoga and other active -- 

Committee Chair Bernie Sanders:  So you have some specific indications that these therapies are working

Dr. Peter Marshall: Yes.

Committee Chair Bernie Sanders:  Okay.


RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Iraq is not your football and we blew it in the US..."
"Bush Officials Should Be Held Accountable for Post..."
"  Indigenous #WaveOfAction Invokes the Sacred..."
"Michigan Greens to Hold Convention June 7-8"
"Arrow is so-slow and boring"
"Senate Veterans Affairs Committee reviews alternative care (Ava)"
"Elementary"
"Begich tried (Wally)"
"The unseemly obsession"
"Senator Richard Blumenthal"
"Petzel lied to Senate Veterans Affairs Committee"
"Where are the jobs?"
"I'm not mourning"
State of the Union"
"Barry offers some ass"
"THIS JUST IN! JUSTY'S TROUSER SNAKE TAPS SOME PRESIDENTIAL WHAT!"

Barry offers some ass

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

FADED CELEBRITY BITCH BARRY TOOK A PHOTO WITH JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TODAY.

EXPLAINING HIS PANTIES WERE DAMP AND THAT HE NEEDED TIMBERLAKE TO REACH A "DEEP ITCH," BITCH BARRY HEADED TO THE LINCOLN BEDROOM WITH THE SINGER.

REACHED FOR COMMENT LATER, BARRY O ASKED, "WHY CAN'T I F**K AROUND LIKE THE MEDIA DOES?"

LOOKING AT THE PEOPLE TREATING THIS AS SERIOUS NEWS, HE MAY HAVE A POINT:

Justin Timberlake 'May' meme goes presidential

CNN (blog) - ‎19 minutes ago‎

What are the odds that April 30 will one day officially be known as Justin Timberlake Day? Thanks to the singer's drawl on the 'N Sync song "It's Gonna Be Me," he's forever reminding us that "It's Gonna Be May." Obviously, that comes in handy at the end of ...

Obama Gets In on 'It's Gonna Be May' Meme

WPRO - ‎19 minutes ago‎

(WASHINGTON) -- It's May 1, and that means your social feeds are probably stuffed with seemingly endless iterations of the "It's Gonna Be May" meme. Inspired by the way Justin Timberlake pronounced the word "me" in the 'N SYNC hit "It's Gonna Be Me," the ...

Barack Obama Delivers A Special Message To The World Courtesy Of Justin ...

PerezHilton.com - ‎1 hour ago‎

[Image via Barack Obama/Facebook.] Tags: annoying, barack, barack obama, facebook, floods, highlarious, image, internet, joke, jt, justin, justin timberlake, love, love it, pic, president, president obama, pretty. Email this ». « Previous story · Hey, Justin Bieber!

Barack Obama's Facebook Page Joins 'It's Gonna Be May' Meme

TIME - ‎1 hour ago‎

Organizing for Action's Barack Obama Facebook page posted a photo late Wednesday of President Barack Obama looking at Justin Timberlake's phone with the caption “It's gonna be May,” a riff on a popular online meme. The post has racked up more than ...

'It's Gonna Be May' Memes: 9 Funny Pictures To Celebrate This Month With ...

Latin Times - ‎1 hour ago‎

A few days ago, memes featuring Justin Timberlake and the phrase "It's Gonna Be May" started making rounds online. Here are some of the best. Memes. It's Gonna Be May. It's Gonna Be May Memes. It's Gonna Be May. It's Gonna Be May Memes. It's Gonna ...

Obama & Justin Timberlake (*N)Sync Their May Love

Refinery29 - ‎3 hours ago‎

... his people) shared a snap of the prez and JT giggling at something on Timberlake's phone. Never mind Queen Latifah lookin' fly with the first lady in the background, it's Obama's caption — "It's gonna be May" — that wins the day. Post by Barack Obama.

Even Obama gets in on the Justin Timberlake 'It's Gonna Be May' meme

Entertainment Weekly (blog) - ‎3 hours ago‎

But I suppose it has to survive at least through 2014 – because even Barack Obama got in on the action April 30, when he posted the above photo to Facebook. The caption? You guessed it: “It's gonna be May.” So now, it's May. Which means we have 364 ...

Great Thing of the Day: Barack Obama Has Out-Memed Us All

Elle - ‎4 hours ago‎

OF COURSE YOU HAVE. Because undoubtedly every single person you follow on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr has alerted you of the fact by posting the ubiquitous Justin Timberlake meme on your feed. And it's funny. Sure, it was funnier 14 years ago when ...

Obama Shares 'It's Gonna Be May' Meme

Business 2 Community - ‎5 hours ago‎

President Obama, like the rest of us, is pretty excited that it is finally May. The president, like the rest of us, is also a big 'NSync fan. So it's not to surprising that Obama joined the “It's Gonna Be May” meme last night. The President took to Facebook yesterday to ...

President Obama Makes A Classic 'It's Gonna Be May' Joke, And It's Totally ...

Crushable - ‎6 hours ago‎

But I bet you never expected to see that joke coming from President Barack Obama. “Never!” you say. “The President of the United States isn't aware of silly millennial puns related to Justin Timberlake.” Well, the president himself might not be aware (although ...

'Its Gonna Be May' Justin Timberlake Meme Goes Viral [PHOTOS ...

Crossmap - ‎6 hours ago‎

The "Its gonna be May" meme has gone viral... again. The old Justin Timberlake joke resurfaced on April 30 on Twitter to remind users that its literally "gonna be May." Although the funny meme has been around for quite a while, social media users never get ...

President Obama drops an 'N Sync reference, takes us back to 2000

The Week Magazine - ‎12 hours ago‎

Was President Obama a huge TRL fan? All signs point to "yes," after he made an 'N Sync joke on his official Facebook page. The president (OK, let's be honest, it was a member of the White House's social media team) posted a photo of himself with Justin ...

President Obama uses an 'N Sync reference, takes us back to 2000

The Week Magazine - ‎12 hours ago‎

Was President Obama a huge TRL fan? All signs point to "yes," after he made an 'N Sync joke on his official Facebook page. The president (OK, let's be honest, it was a member of the White House's social media team) posted a photo of himself with Justin ... 

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

A lot is at stake in these elections.  For one thing, Iraq will need to find a new president.

That's not open to debate.


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.  He remains in Germany currently.

Obviously, health issues prevent him from continuing as prime minister.  So does the Iraqi Constitution -- Jalal has termed out of office.

So one thing the new Parliament will have to do is pick a president -- a new president.

They may or may not get to select a prime minister.  In 2006, the White House selected (imposed) Nouri al-Maliki for them.  In 2010, the White House demanded Nouri get a second term.

Will this happen again?


It very well could.  Whether it does or not, the White House would be smart not to support Nouri anymore. Tim Arango and Michael R. Gordon (New York Times) report:


American intelligence assessments have found that Mr. Maliki’s re-election could increase sectarian tensions and even raise the odds of a civil war, citing his accumulation of power, his failure to compromise with other Iraqi factions -- Sunni or Kurd -- and his military failures against Islamic extremists. On his watch, Iraq’s American-trained military has been accused by rights groups of serious abuses as it cracks down on militants and opponents of Mr. Maliki’s government, including torture, indiscriminate roundups of Sunnis and demands of bribes to release detainees.

And a new leader could lower tensions.  Not necessarily permanently.  But Nouri is the common bond that has created resistance in Iraq.  A new leader could mean a reset.  We covered this in April 12's "I Hate The War,"


It's also true that a third term for Nouri could result in real recruitment for the armed resistance.  Not within Iraq.  Iraqis who would be part of the armed resistance are pretty much already there.  Four years of Nouri targeting Sunnis, persecuting them and terrorizing them have done the trick and the only new segment from Iraq will be young boys and girls who come to maturity and join the ranks.


But a third term of Nouri in Iraq?  Sunni fighters from outside Iraq might decide Syria's less important and begin targeting Iraq -- in which case Nouri's paranoid rantings might come true.  There's already talk in Arabic social media about the huge number of Iraqi Shi'ites going into Syria to fight.  At some point, a third term of Nouri would mean Sunni fighters from outside Iraq take the battle into Iraq (a) to defend the persecuted Sunni Iraqis and (b) to force Iraqi Shi'ite fighters out of Syria and back into Iraq.  A third term for Nouri likely means the babble of expanding the fight in Syria -- that so many have warned about and quite a few have pretended has already happened -- becomes more than that.

If you're not getting it, even the Tehran Times carries an article today which notes, "But the violence returned, stoked in part by al-Maliki's moves last year to crush protests by Sunnis complaining of discrimination under his government. Militants took over the city of Fallujah in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi."  The persecuted Sunnis in Iraq are becoming well known in the region.

Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) observes, "Fearing that Bashar al-Assad's downfall would allow Syria's Islamist-dominated opposition to intensify its support for Iraq's militants, Iraq's Shia-dominated government has in turn allowed Syria-bound Iranian cargo flights to use Iraqi airspace. It has also turned a blind eye to Iraqi Shia militias entering Syria to support the Syrian regime. These militias have ensured the survival of the Assad regime alongside other Shia actors such as Hezbollah."

If you're a non-Iraqi an armed Sunni group that wants to help Syria, Nouri's actions mean you're going to have to take the battle into Iraq at some point and confront the government which is backing Bashar al-Assad.

Voting had barely ended before Nouri's State of Law began whispering to the press that Nouri had won.  Nouri himself wasn't whispering.  AFP quotes him stating he was "certain" of his own victory. NINA has him insisting that 'he is assured we will win."   These remarks were made and reported despite Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc cautioning against people running with their own non-official totals.  The IHEC itself denounced claims of leaked results and stated those making the claims of how many votes they'd received were wrong.  As for the official results, All Iraq News notes the IHEC has declared, "The results of the elections will be announced within 20 to 30 days from today."  Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) offers this prediction, "The post-vote coalition negotiations are going to be difficult, with no one likely to willingly deal with Maliki after the last time, and no group likely to successfully take power without his permission."  Martin Chulov (Guardian) reminds, "The 2010 election, in which Maliki's state of law list came second to the cross-sectarian grouping of the former prime minister, Iyad Allawi, involved a nine-month period of horse trading, during which decision making was paralysed across Iraq."  Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) reports:

Already, one of Maliki’s main rivals, Ayad Allawi, is indicating he will leave politics before dealing with Maliki – even if the prime minister wins a majority of seats.
Mr. Allawi, Iraq’s first interim prime minister after the war and head of the biggest Sunni bloc, says the prime minister needs to comply with a two-term limit for prime ministers that was approved in parliament but struck down in court. 
“What is happening now is lots of atrocities, lots of violations. The constitution is swept under the carpet. Now he controls part of the judiciary, he controls everything, and not only that, he is embarking on a policy of divide and rule… We can’t accept this after eight years of bloodshed in Iraq and total loss of security,” says Allawi.



On Baghdad's corrupt government, Nadezhda Kevorkova (RT) speaks with the "Head of the Prime Minister office" Muhavad Husam al Dine Al Bayati.  Excerpt.

MB: As you know the corruption in this country is very huge. And there is a lot of money in the hands of some politicians not necessary only from the block of prime minister. There are so many other blocks that stole so much money from the country. They can buy votes and support from IHEC [the Independent High Electoral Commission which approved the voting system and the counting method for 2014 parliamentary elections]. The results will not be very clear.
We do not have foreign observers or people who are watching the elections. 

RT: People say that 65 American observers came to Iraq especially for the elections, is it so?


MB: What can these 65 do? Can they work on the street? Can they go to the governorates? Can they go to the election boxes and see how people vote and how their votes are counted? No, they cannot. 


In addition to US observers, IHEC notes that there were 26 observers from the Arab leagues who were monitoring Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah provinces.  NINA notes Nikolai Mladenov, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Iraq, praised the international observers for their work today.  The IHEC noted by mid-day that 34% of the electronic voting cards they distributed had been used.  Later, Xinhua reports, "the country's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said that a preliminary estimate showed that Iraqi voters made about 60 percent turnout when more than 12 million eligible voters out of over 20 million fanned out to polling centers across the country on Wednesday."



RECOMMENDED:  "Iraq snapshot"
"Iraq votes: Polling stations bombed, shot up and c..."
"ACLU Asks Governor to Suspend Executions Through 2..."
"Iraqi Parliamentary Election"
"Tenn. Governor Singles Out Pregnant Women for Disc..."
"The 100 -- a good episode"
"Revolution"
"The Mindy Project"
"I can't believe what my state is wasting money on"
"Box office, Johnny Depp"
"Lies and The 100"
"Amy Heckerling"
"laura nyro and bob hoskins"
"Benghazi"
"The idiots who can't stop about the idiot Sterling"
"Slowly they turn"
"THIS JUST IN! TWERK THAT THANG!"

Slowly they turn

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

IT'S NOT JUST THAT FADED CELEBRITY BARRY O'S APPROVAL RATING SITS AT A NEW LOW WITH ONLY 41% APPROVING OF HIM AND HIS CONTINUED FAILURES, IT'S ALSO THAT DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SEE THE LITTLE PRISS AS A CAVER AND ARE SEMI-OPENLY WONDERING WHAT COMES NEXT AFTER THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, BARRY O SNAPPED, "THEY'RE JUST JEALOUS! JEALOUS HEFFERS! RICHARD BLUMENTHAL AND MARK BEGICH JUST WISH THEY HAD ALL THIS.  SEE WHAT I'M WORKING WITH?"

AT THIS POINT, BARRY O TURNED HIS BACK TO US, STUCK OUT HIS REAR AND BEGAN TO TWERK.

SLAPPING HISS OWN ASS, BARRY O MOANED, "OH, YEAH! OH, YEAH! WATCH ME BACK THIS THING UP!  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

The most important report today is by Ned Parker, Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman (Reuters).  They explore the attacks on civilians, explain Nouri's use of Shi'ite militias (which Nouri is calling the "Sons Of Iraq" -- the name previously used for Sahwa).  The reporters note that Nouri's operation hasn't had success, not even in the military:

Military personnel and Iraqi officials say several thousand soldiers have deserted; and well over 1,000, if not more, have been killed. The government has yet to release formal numbers.
Soldiers in Anbar speak with desperation. “We are dumped by our military leadership in these deserted houses in the middle of the orchards, without enough ammunition, without night binoculars,” said one soldier from Ramadi.
His battalion has 120 of its original 750 soldiers; most have deserted and he vows to do the same.

One army officer said Iraq’s Special Forces, who have led the fight against the insurgency, are now taking defensive positions to avoid more casualties.

In an executive summary of their report released yesterday, the International Crisis Group notes:

It is too late for steps that might have been taken to reduce tensions before the elections. Any lasting solution requires addressing the deeper roots of Sunni alienation in a country increasingly gripped by sectarian tension. ISIL’s rise is a symptom, not the main cause, of the poor governance that is the principal reason for Iraq’s instability. The government, UN and U.S. should treat ISIL differently from the military council and Falluja as a whole, rather than bundling them together in an indiscriminate “war on terror”.
When in December 2013 Iraq’s central authorities cleared a year-long sit-in in the city that was demanding better treatment from Baghdad, Falluja’s residents took to the streets. ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) took advantage of the ensuing chaos, moved forces into the city and asserted it had seized control. The claim was greatly exaggerated: while it raised its black flag above some administration buildings in the city centre, locals blocked most of their forays and forced them to retreat to the outskirts.
But Baghdad had a casus belli: it besieged the city, ignored local attempts to mediate an ISIL withdrawal and threatened to attack. Falluja residents held no brief for ISIL, but their hatred of the Iraqi army – seen as the instrument of a Shiite, sectarian regime, directed from Tehran, that discriminates against Sunnis in general and Anbar in particular – ran even deeper. The city’s rebels struck a Faustian bargain, forming an alliance of convenience with ISIL. The jihadis’ military might kept the army at bay, but their presence justified the government’s claim that the entire city was under jihadi control. A self-reinforcing cycle has taken root: jihadi activity encourages government truculence that in turn requires greater jihadi protection.

Falluja’s fighters and Baghdad’s central authorities both are posing as the country’s true patriots, deriding their adversary as a foreign enemy. ISIL has benefited by renewing its base of support in Iraq, which had been shrinking ever since the sahwa (awakening) turned against al-Qaeda in 2006. With a high profile from the fighting in Syria and superior weaponry, they once again have become a magnet for the country’s disaffected. 



Look, some grown ups have joined the discussion.  It's a far cry from the garbage Marie Harf and Jen Psaki swill at the State Dept press briefings.

Nouri has gotten away one War Crime against humanity after another and the same US President who demanded Nouri get a second term as prime minister (despite his State of Law losing the 2010 parliamentary elections) has demanded he be provided with more weapons and with intel to kill Iraqis.

The current assault on Anbar began with War Crimes, the slaughter of peaceful protesters in Ramadi.  It has continued the War Crimes.  In the name of combating so-called terrorism, Nouri bombs the homes of Falluja, he bombs residential areas.  Every day in the last months, civilians have died and been wounded from these bombings.  Where is the international outcry?

Doctors Without Borders issue an alert about the Anbar crisis today but can only muster the courage to mention the refugees created by the crisis, they can't say one word about the killing of civilians by the Iraqi military.  Also cowardly is Amnesty International with their little alert today which lacks the guts and spine to note the daily killing of civilians in Falluja by Nouri's military. Though they can't note the killing of civilians in Falluja, the editorial board of England's Independent can at least call the possible re-election of Nouri "a pity" and write, "Mr Maliki may win the election or stay in office, but more and more of Iraq will be outside his control as the country disintegrates." Even the editorial board of The National Newspaper can point out that "Iraqi security forces have begun employing Shiite militias as shock troops." Hassan Karim ("a university graduate from Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City district") tells AP,  "Al-Maliki has had enough chance to prove himself, but he failed. Iraqis lack security, services and housing. The only two things available in the country right now are corruption and checkpoints."



A few citizens of the world can rightly call out Barack's Drone War and call out the killing of people whose 'crime' it was to attend a wedding.  What about calling the slaughter of people whose only 'crime' it was to be in their homes?


Today, Nouri's continued War Crimes in Iraq left 2 civilians dead today and four more injured as a result of his use of collective punishment in the continued bombing of Falluja's residential neighborhoods.   "Collective punishment" is so basic that even Wikipedia can explain it:


The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in August 1949, and defines humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone. There are currently 196 countries party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including this and the other three treaties.^[1]
In 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted a report from the Secretary-General and a Commission of Experts which concluded that the Geneva Conventions had passed into the body of customary international law, thus making them binding on non-signatories to the Conventions whenever they engage in armed conflicts.^[2]
[. . .]
Article 33. No persons may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against persons and their property are prohibited.
Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, collective punishment is a war crime. By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of World War I and World War II. In the First World War, during the Rape of Belgium, the Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity. In World War II, the Germans carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that occurred in them.^[3] The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to "intimidatory measures to terrorize the population" in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices "strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice."

Additional Protocol II of 1977 explicitly forbids collective punishment. But as fewer states have ratified this protocol than GCIV, GCIV Article 33 is the one more commonly quoted.

Claiming terrorists have taken over sections of Falluja and that this justifies bombing residential neighborhoods is collective punishment, is a War Crime and is, in fact, terrorism against a people.

The White House has elected to embrace, arm and fund terrorism in Iraq.

And, no, it hasn't made things better.  It has only worsened the situation.  A typical incident for Sunnis? Camille Bouissou and Tom Little (AFP) report:

Since soldiers arrested and beat Abu Noor, his son and nephew at their modest house in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighbourhood, he and his wife have been too scared to leave home.
"I feel sick when I talk about this... I only go to work and I come back," said the 54-year-old, who was too scared to give his real name, remembering the night six months ago when the soldiers arrived.
Like Abu Noor and his wife, many Sunni Arabs complain they are discriminated against by the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is running for a third term in a parliamentary election on Wednesday.
Umm Noor, a smiling woman in her forties wearing a headscarf, grew angry as she recounted the incident six months ago, when she heard a noise late one night.
Her husband went downstairs to check what was happening, and troops grabbed him, his son and nephew and beat them. 



And when the issue isn't direct abuse, the issue is intimidation.  Jamie Tarabay (Al Jazeera) reports on Falluja:


In that storied city, once again controlled by Al-Qaeda allies, there will be polling centers only in surrounding areas controlled by Iraqi security forces. That means residents like Mustafa Mohammed won’t get the chance to cast ballots.
“I’m not going to vote,” he told Al Jazeera over the phone from Fallujah. “The Iraqi army has closed the roads. There are no negotiations happening [for a truce]. The government wants a military solution, not a political one. We want a political one.”
The United Nations estimates that 400,000 people have fled the violence in Anbar and moved to other parts of the country. Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission says they will still be able to vote for their province, using absentee votes.
That won’t help Mohammed cast a ballot. The Fallujah resident, who said he preferred life under Saddam Hussein, found himself admitting that he longs for the Americans to return.

“If [Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki wins again, it’ll be the end for Sunnis in Anbar, Kirkuk, Samarra and Tikrit,” Mohammed said, ticking off other parts of Iraq that are predominantly home to Sunnis and have also experienced much violence. “The Americans were more merciful than the government. They weren’t sectarian.”


RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Iraq: Overseas voting shows significantly lower tu..."
"Supreme Court to Hear Argument on Warrantless Cell..."
"Talk Nation Radio: Fahad Desmukh: Western PR Firms..."
"Worldwide Wave of Action"
"Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)"

"Lonely Women"

"the confession"

"Poverty Train"

"Lu"

"Timer"

"Eli's Coming"

"Sweet Blindness"

"Emmie"

"Yes, I'm ready"

"Bitchy Barry breaks little girl's heart"

"THIS JUST IN! BARRY O'S TRIP GOES SOUR!"