BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
FORGET BILL COSBY FOR A MOMENT, THE HOTTEST SLEAZE SCANDAL MAY BE THAT OF A CO-FOUNDER OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN WHO JUST GOT NABBED BECAUSE HE AND HIS BOYFRIEND ARE ALLEGED TO HAVE HAD SEX WITH A 15-YEAR-OLD BOY.
TERRY BEAN INSISTS THIS IS ALL A BLACKMAIL SCHEME GONE WRONG -- SOMEONE GOT SCREEN SNAPS OF THE VIDEOS HE KEEPS OF HIMSELF HAVING SEX!
OKAY THAT PROVES HE'S INNOCENT -- NOT!
CNN NOTES:
The Oregonian reported that he helped raise more than half a million dollars for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, and Federal Election Commission records show he's contributed thousands to Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others.
Iraq has a new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi -- or rather their prime minister has a new name. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same in Iraq.
Human Rights Watch issued an alert Friday which includes:
An attack on November 19, 2014, targeting Erbil’s governorate building killed at least 10 civilians and wounded dozens more. Attacks the same day in Baghdad killed or wounded 18 civilians. In early October, at the beginning of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar and especially holy for Shia worshippers, five car bomb attacks in Karbala killed at least 15 people and injured another 48. Since then, other bombings have killed dozens more in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and elsewhere.
“Bombings across Iraq are killing and maiming civilians in attacks so frequent they barely make the local news,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “But a government response that too often includes arbitrary arrests and summary executions will only fuel the cycle of abuses.”
Iraq’s central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government should redouble efforts to protect all civilians – Sunni and Shia, Arab and Kurd, and other minorities – in their fight against the militant group Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks. Iraqi authorities have frequently responded to ISIS attacks with human rights abuses against Sunni civilians, including arbitrary arrests and detentions. In July, Human Rights Watch documented government-backed militias’ summary execution of dozens of Sunni civilians in areas where they are battling ISIS.
Does that sound like a new Iraq?
No. And Robert A. Manning (National Interest) observes:
The strategy, as announced, had a coherent logic to it. But it required some large leaps of faith. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told the House Armed Services Committee last week, “One of our assumptions is that the government of Iraq will be inclusive. One of the assumptions is that the Iraqi security forces will be will to take back al-Anbar province…If those assumptions are rendered invalid, I will have to adjust my recommendations.”
The strategy assumed that once Maliki was removed as Iraqi prime minister, a new leader would form a more inclusive government, one that Sunnis would not reject. Bombing would buy time until Iraqis could be trained to fight ISIS—boots on the ground that would complement our air war.
But so far, Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has done little to change Sunnis’ perceptions of Baghdad. Appointing the head of the Badr Shia militia to the powerful post of minister of the interior hasn’t helped. Will Baghdad fully allow the fostering of Sunni national guard forces? A recent shake-up in Iraq’s defense ministry and senior military leadership may be a step in that direction. But it will be at least six to eight months before it is possible to judge whether Sunnis have any confidence in the new government.
In fairness, Haider al-Abadi can point to one bit of success. AFP reports, "The Iraqi government transferred $500 million to the autonomous Kurdish region on Wednesday as part of a deal aimed at ending long-running oil and budget disputes, the finance minister said." Press TV explains:
Hoshyar Zebari said in Baghdad on Wednesday that his ministry transferred the sum to the account of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) earlier in the day under the deal which requires Iraq to resume funding Kurdish civil servant salaries in return for a share of Kurdish oil exports.
He said the KRG began supplying 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day to State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) storage tanks in the Turkish port city of Ceyhan on Tuesday.
"This mutual implementation means that the two sides are ready to resolve all the other issues and all the issues are up for discussion," Zebari stated.
That isn't minor. For over a year now, the Kurds have been denied their part of the federal budget. Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister and forever thug, attempted to use the federal budget to blackmail the Kurds.
So resolving this isn't minor.
But it's also true that the only resolution Haider al-Abadi can claim thus far also involves oil. Stick a pin in that, we'll come back to it.
I would argue you could even give him credit for a meet-up/photo-op this week. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports that Haider met in Baghdad with Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the two held a joint-press conference at which Haider declared, "There is an agreement on information exchange and security cooperation (with Turkey), and moreover, the Turkish prime minister has offered military cooperation in fighting against the terror of Daash (IS' Arabic acronym), which is not only a threat against Iraq but also against Turkey and the whole region,,"
That's news.
And not because Xuequan reports, "Turkey will train Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq, local Hurriyet Daily News reported on Friday. Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government have been in cooperation for a training program in northern Iraq for a month, according to the daily report." That's an arrangement between the Turkish government and the Kurdish government and the two have been getting along amazingly well for several years now.
The same cannot be said of the Turkish government and the central government out of Baghdad.
And the only person to blame for that is Nouri al-Maliki.
He repeatedly called the government of Turkey (which shares a border with Iraq) terrorists. He insulted them non-stop and did so in a public fashion. Nouri also attacked the governments of Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia -- pretty much every government in the region except for the government of Iran.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Gossip"
