Family scandals

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

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS PROVEN INCAPABLE OF ACCOMPLISHING MUCH OF ANYTHING.

BUT IN GOOD NEWS FOR CELEBRITIES, TURNS OUT HIS FATHER WAS AN ABUSIVE PSYCHO.

THE PSYCHO ASSHOLE BARACK OBAMA SR. CAME TO THE U.S. ALREADY MARRIED AND, AFTER GETTING STANLEY DUNHAM PREGNANT, BAILED QUICKLY. FOR YEARS BARRY O HAS LIED THAT HIS PARENTS WERE MARRIED -- HA! -- BUT HIS HALF-BROTHER'S REVEALING TO THE WORLD HOW LUCKY BARRY O HAD IT, TURNS OUT BARACK SENIOR BEAT UP CHILDREN AND HIS WIVES.

REAL SHAME BARRY O NEVER FOUND TIME TO OFFER 'DREAMS OF MY MOTHER' BUT AS HIS MOTHER WAS DYING, WASTED EVERYONE'S TIME WRITING ABOUT THE DRUNKEN, DEAD BEAT FATHER WHO ABANDONED BARRY O TO RETURN TO HIS WIFE.

SAID ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMODEL, "THIS IS SO TRASHY, IT'LL PROBABLY GET BARRY ON LENO AND SPRINGER!"

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

While the violence continues, there's still no election law. Today Alsumaria reports, "Iraq High Election Commission gave the parliament a timeline that ends on Thursday in order to enact an elections' law or else it will not be able to hold elections as it is scheduled on January 16. Chief of IHEC Faraj Al Haidari said that the commission and the UN discussed elections' timeline and stressed that if he did not receive the law in the two upcoming days the commission won't be able to hold the elections on the scheduled date." Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) adds, "The election commission said if parliament doesn't approve a law by the end of Thursday, it will be impossible to hold the polls as scheduled on Jan. 16 because there won't be enough time to organize it. In meetings earlier this week, United Nations officials also told lawmakers if a law isn't passed by Thursday, the U.N. would urge postponement of the elections." The Iraqi Constitution mandates that the elections must be held before the end of January 2010; however, the Iraqi Constitution mandates many things -- such as resolving the issue of Kirkuk or appointing a full cabinet by X date or requiring Parliament's approval to extend a United Nations mandate -- and Nouri's always managed to just ignore it. Ernesto Londono and K.I. Ibrahim (Washington Post) report US Ambassador Chris Hill is scrambling on the ground in Iraq attempting to use his 'influence' to push for a vote. The US' own manic depressive ambassador has little-to-no influence especially if the press wants to continue pushing the-hold-up-is-Kirkuk line. Why is that? Hill offended the KRG with his very late first visit to their region. Chris Hill offended them in his remarks which were based on Hill's gross ignorance regarding the issue of Kirkuk -- ignorance on full display when the Senate held his confirmation hearing. Hill came to Iraq with no knowledge of the KRG or Iraq. He has no pull. US Vice President Joe Biden and the top commander US commander in Iraq Gen Ray Odierno have some pull (whether or not it's enough remains to be seen) with the KRG but Hill has none. He also has no influence over non-Kurdish MPs in the Parliament. So what's he's mainly doing is rushing around in an attempt to look busy. He'll no doubt (as has been his pattern throughout his time at the State Dept) find a group to spill the beans to on whatever's hidden and supposed to be hidden. They'll agree to present whatever he wants them to because he shared secrets and then they'll stab him in the back and he'll shrug and finger-point at others. In other words, his Korean 'leadership' all over again.


Biggest idiot of the week? The editorial board of the Boston Globe -- apparently begging for readers to pull the plug on the finacial crater that is their paper. In an appalling uninformed editorial they praise Nouri al-Maliki and conclude, "In their own nihilistic way, Al Qaeda fanatics are showing their true colors not only to Iraqis but to the rest of the Muslim world. They are massacring children and other innocents in the name of a holy war to replace all existing Arab and Muslim governments with the fantasy of a multinational Islamic caliphate. The less Americans are caught up in this war within the Muslim world, the harder it will be for the regressive forces of Al Qaeda to survive." al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is a home grown group and has always been a group of resistance. The Boston Globe was awfully silent when Steven D. Green and others were discovered to have gang-raped and murdered 14-year-old Abeer, murdered both her parents and murdered her five-year-old sister. The Boston Globe voiced no concern about the US soldiers making it appear the War Crimes were done by 'insurgents.' And the Boston Globe was silent as each soldier entered a plea of guilty except for Green who was a civilian when the crimes were exposed and was tried in civilian court. The Boston Globe couldn't be bothered with Steven D. Green's trial and, even after the verdict (or for that matter, the sentencing), couldn't say one damn word, NOT ONE DAMN WORD, about the War Crimes. So their selective efforts at playing editorial bully goes to the fact that they are the most ignorant and uninformed editorial board in the nation. Praise be to the Boston Globe, doing their part to demonstrate that struggling papers sometimes aren't worth the struggle to save them. It should also be noted that while condemning al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for violence that they have not claimed responsibility for (despite headlines, a splinter group claimed responsibility for the August and October Baghdad bombings that shocked so many, al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not claim credit), they've refused to condemn their hero and crush Nouri al-Maliki strange choice of political bedfellows -- the ones who have claimed responsibility for invading the US base and killing 5 US soldiers, the ones who have claimed responsibility for kidnapping 5 British citizens -- 3 of whom are known dead, a fourth is assumed dead and the fifth is hoped to be alive (by the British government -- the fourth assumed dead is hoped to be alive by his friends and family but the British government has stated they assume he is dead). The Boston Globe has nothing to say about that and one wonders exactly when they got in the business of covering for those who murder US troops? Those are Nouri's friends. He got 'em released. He may have provided them with the Iraqi security forces uniforms they used in the attack on the US base and in the kidnapping of the 5 British citizens. He certainly provided the group's leader and the leader's brother with a pass out of a US prison this spring. The Boston Globe wasn't at all worried about and they continue to be a beacon for ignorance around the world. What a proud, proud moment.

While the Boston Globe tongue bathes Nouri (aka the new Saddam), UPI reports Nouri's latest planned assault: doing away with minority representation. The quota system for the cabinet exists because Iraq's a diverse country. But Nouri's never liked diversity, Nouri's a radical, fundamentailist Shi'ite who oversaw the genocide of the Sunni population because he loathes Ba'athists and sees every Sunni as a high ranking Ba'athist or at least as one of the big, scary people that forced coward Nouri to flee Iraq for decades until the US invaded and installed him as a 'leader.' Nouri really hates Ba'athists because they remind him all over again what a meek, little, sniveling coward he is. And that's why oversaw the genocide -- gladly oversaw. UPI notes the announcement by one of Nouri's political party (State of Law) spokespersons "brought a wave of criticism from Kurds, independents and Shiite members of the Iraqi National Alliance who complain Maliki is trying to take greater control of the government." UPI also reminds how Nouri's road to strongman has been littered with attacks on those who are supposed to provide security such as his December 2008 assault on the Interior Ministry whom he accused of plotting a coup -- a plan that never had any evidence to back it up then or since but did allow him to push out a Shi'ite rival -- and how his firings in August for 'security reasons' also can be seen as an attack on one of his rivals, Shi'ite Jawad al-Bolani. UPI notes of Nouri:

He has centralized power for himself to the extent that he has formed two paramilitary forces, the Baghdad Brigade -- also known as "the Dirty Squad" for its nocturnal sweeps arresting Maliki's critics, particularly Sunnis -- and the Counter-Terrorism Force. Both report directly to him.
Maliki has cemented his control over the nation's security forces by recruiting tribal militias funded by his office and seizing the power of appointing or dismissing army officers, bypassing the chief of staff who should have that authority.
In the eyes of many, this has transformed the army into a well-armed prime ministerial militia.

And for what? What is Iraq today? After nearly seven years of war, what is Iraq? The University of Pittsburg's Haider Hamoudi visits and shares impressions at The Daily Star:


Appealing as these examples may be, the role of religion must be greater in the view of the Najaf clerics concerning matters of law than merely as a voice of conscience on behalf of the people against the powerful. Are we truly to believe then that Najaf clerics are indifferent to potential reforms of the Personal Status Law that challenge existing religious doctrine, such as, for example, a ban on polygamy? Why did the Shiite Islamist parties who dominated the Constitutional Committee and who were close to Sistani fight so hard for a constitutional provision banning laws that violate the "certain rulings of Islam," which now appears in Article 2 of the Constitution? Is the fact that every woman within 50 miles of Najaf is covered by a headscarf and then a wide black cloak on top of that really just a matter of personal choice, exercised universally in precisely the same fashion, or does some form of public regulation (state law or otherwise) have something to do with it as well?
I put this point to another of the four grand ayatollahs, Mohammad Said al-Hakim, when the question was raised about the relationship of religion to law. We heard again the Najaf mantra. I asked specifically about Article 2 of the Iraqi Constitution and its requirement that law conform to particular certainties in Islam. He described this as a "separate issue," and when I suggested it might mean the marjaaiyya had a role in the legal apparatus of the state, he replied, "we have a role in the clarification of the religion (bayan al-din), not in the administration of the law."
This clarifies the position to some extent, in that it makes Najaf responsible for indicating what the religious position is, and then leaves to the legislator and the judge the determinations that the state is supposed to then make on the basis of Article 2. Even Najaf's commitment to this separation is fuzzy, in that its political allies in Baghdad have fought long and hard to ensure a place for "religious experts" on the Federal Supreme Court for Article 2 questions. In the Constitutional Review Committee, the Shiite Islamist parties have proposed an amendment that indicates that members of the court would be nominated by the "relevant bodies." It is hard to imagine that they did not imagine the marjaaiyya to be the "relevant body" responsible for nominating the religious experts, or at least that number of them who were going to be Shiite.

And that's what Iraq can offer . . . after non-stop war and the US installed puppets. Elections? The US had a few of them yesterday. For the New Jersey governor's race see Mike's post and also be sure to read Betty's which expands on some of the issues Mike touches on but sets aside the race. And for Iraq related coverage in the MSM? Turns out your best chance of discovering the Iraq War is still ongoing comes via "Hints From Heloise" (Washington Post) and not 'reporting' (which long ago lost interest in Iraq):Dear Heloise: Our church group has decided to start sending baked goods as CARE PACKAGES to military personnel in Iraq. We brainstormed several ideas, such as shoe boxes, etc., but found that the best way to send a cake to anyone overseas is to bake the cake in a small, metal coffee can. After baking, remove the cake to cool. Then repack it in the can, put on the plastic lid the coffee came with and pack the can in a postal box. Soldiers tell us that they love getting cakes this way for two reasons: 1. The cake arrives in one piece 2. The cake can be stored easily, with an airtight lid, if it's not eaten all at once. -- Gwen, via e-mail
How wonderful to hear that your group is sending home-baked goodies to our troops! Nothing beats a treat from the heart and kitchen! Your group deserves a big Heloise hug, and I know the troops who receive the goodies are appreciative, too. I'd love to hear hints from other readers who send treats to troops. -- Heloise

RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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"Service members continue being deployed to Iraq"

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