Sunday, February 1, 2015

The Mindy Project (a spoiler)

There hasn't been a new episode of The Mindy Project since January 13th.


When it returns with a new episode on Tuesday, it will be saying goodbye to a character.

You may think, "At last the British doctor is being dumped."

Because he's served no purpose for two seasons now.

But, no, it's Adam Palley.

Peter's leaving the show.

Despite the fact that Adam Palley is one of the things that has given the show new life in seasons two and three.

I can't believe they're dumping him.

I'll assume Palley has another sitcom lined up.

(He previously was Max on Happy Endings.)

But his absence will be a big blow to The Mindy Project.

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"



Saturday, January 31, 2015.  Chaos and violence continue, Shi'ite militias have better weapons than the Iraqi military (guess who provided them), killing journalists continues to go unpunished in Iraq, we remember activist, journalist and martyr Hadi al-Mahdi whose assassin still roams free in Iraq, the White House publicly argues that Barack sending combat troops into Iraq is a private issue between Congressional Democrats and Republicans, the State Dept continues to fail at diplomacy in Iraq, and much more.




Six months into US President Barack Obama's 'plan' for saving Iraq from violence, the violence continues.  Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 197 dead from violence on Friday with another forty-one left injured.  And already today, Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports Baghdad and surrounding areas have been slammed with bombings resulting in 9 deaths and twenty-five people injured.


US President Barack Obama: Good afternoon, everybody.  I just met with my national security team to discuss the situation in Iraq.  We’ve been meeting regularly to review the situation since ISIL, a terrorist organization that operates in Iraq and Syria, made advances inside of Iraq.  As I said last week, ISIL poses a threat to the Iraqi people, to the region, and to U.S. interests.  So today I wanted to provide you an update on how we’re responding to the situation.
First [. . .]
American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq, but we will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region, and American interests as well.
[. . .]
I want to emphasize, though, that the best and most effective response to a threat like ISIL will ultimately involve partnerships where local forces, like Iraqis, take the lead. 
Finally, the United States will lead a diplomatic effort to work with Iraqi leaders and the countries in the region to support stability in Iraq.  At my direction, Secretary Kerry will depart this weekend for meetings in the Middle East and Europe, where he’ll be able to consult with our allies and partners.  And just as all Iraq’s neighbors must respect Iraq’s territorial integrity, all of Iraq’s neighbors have a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq does not descend into civil war or become a safe haven for terrorists.
Above all, Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together around a political plan for Iraq’s future.  Shia, Sunni, Kurds -- all Iraqis -- must have confidence that they can advance their interests and aspirations through the political process rather than through violence.  National unity meetings have to go forward to build consensus across Iraq’s different communities.  Now that the results of Iraq’s recent election has been certified, a new parliament should convene as soon as possible.  The formation of a new government will be an opportunity to begin a genuine dialogue and forge a government that represents the legitimate interests of all Iraqis.

Now, it’s not the place for the United States to choose Iraq’s leaders.  It is clear, though, that only leaders that can govern with an inclusive agenda are going to be able to truly bring the Iraqi people together and help them through this crisis.  Meanwhile, the United States will not pursue military options that support one sect inside of Iraq at the expense of another.  There’s no military solution inside of Iraq, certainly not one that is led by the United States.  But there is an urgent need for an inclusive political process, a more capable Iraqi security force, and counterterrorism efforts that deny groups like ISIL a safe haven.


That's Barack speaking on June 19th.

First off, please note, there's been no serious updates from Barack in the time since.  Starting in August, US tax payers on the hook for over a billion dollars because of Barack's 'response' to the Islamic State.  Despite spending billions of tax payer dollars, the White House hasn't felt the need to seriously address Iraq -- it was but a brief aside, one sentence, in Barack's State of the Union Address last week -- despite the fact that this Constitutionally mandated speech required Barack to address the issue of Iraq.

The State Dept's also failing to address it.  I was asked Friday if I'd organized a veterans lobby?  Huh?  This week, the State Dept's online surveys have resulted in one slam after another from self-identified veterans of the Iraq War noting that the daily press briefings have ignored Iraq repeatedly.  No, I had nothing to do with that.  But how out of touch is the State Dept with American citizens -- including veterans -- that when their own surveys reveal the public is appalled that they're refusing to update daily on Iraq, the State Dept's natural assumption is to assume it must be a conspiracy and not, in fact, a true reflection of public attitudes.


Let's emphasize this from the speech:

Finally, the United States will lead a diplomatic effort to work with Iraqi leaders and the countries in the region to support stability in Iraq.  At my direction, Secretary Kerry will depart this weekend for meetings in the Middle East and Europe, where he’ll be able to consult with our allies and partners.  And just as all Iraq’s neighbors must respect Iraq’s territorial integrity, all of Iraq’s neighbors have a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq does not descend into civil war or become a safe haven for terrorists.




Where's that diplomatic effort?

As noted Friday morning, some feel I should have covered the passage of the Iraqi budget in Thursday's snapshot.


This morning Alsumaria has published it in PDF format and, at some point today, I will try to read it.  Prior to that, it's a sentence: Iraq passed a budget worth $150 billion US dollars. Saif Hameed (Reuters) has that here.
Considering the way programs to rebuild Iraq were being slashed when oil was at a high, I can't imagine that the programs didn't suffer even more as the oil prices dropped.
That's what the story of the budget's about: Where the money is going.
That is passed is meaningless without knowing that.




Reuters has published another piece here -- the last part notes some budget issues.  I'm not talking about the budget, I haven't read it.  I haven't had the time.  I also haven't to sleep since I woke up Friday morning.  I do have a life.  (There may be a piece tonight responding to flack from United Nations' friends over Thursday's snapshot, there may not be.  I listened to their whines repeatedly yesterday.  It's whining.  We may do something here tonight on the UN, the CIA, etc.)

But the budget . . .

I don't work for the US government (or the UN), I don't take orders from them.


I don't work for Reuters either.

Reuters did their job reporting, from Iraq, that the budget had passed and noting that former prime minister (and forever thug) Nouri al-Maliki never was able to pass a 2014 budget.

The news agency spends a lot of money to cover Iraq, they did their job and justified the money spent.


But more money is being spent by the American taxpayer on Iraq right now than by Reuters.

Again, the price tags for just the time since August is over a billion (some of that is Syria-related costs as well).


The American public, footing the bill, is not seeing a return on their dollar for this huge expenditure.

Not in terms of information.


What has been the US government's response to the budget passing?

There's been no statement released by the White House.  There's been no read out of a phone call the president or Vice President Joe Biden had with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulating him on the budget passing.

The State Dept?

They've had three press briefings to address it and have never even noted it.

They've issued no statement on it.

In fact, the administration's entire response to the budget passing is right here:


: Congratulations to Parliament 4 approving 2015 budget. Important in bringing transparency & control over national finances
38 retweets27 favorites




The State Dept's Brett McGurk re-Tweeted UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov's Tweet on the budget.

That's it.

That's everything.



Now maybe, like me, they wanted to read the budget before commenting?  Maybe they've also heard that the budget allegedly slashed, for example, the already small amount of aid the Iraqi government provides to the challenged/disabled communities?


I don't know.

I do know that it's kind of the State Dept's job to spin.  They're not engaged in honesty, they're engaged in deception and spin and that's not a development that arrived when Barack was first  sworn in  as president (January 2009) but a hallmark of the department for decades.



So it's yet again very telling that when the State Dept does have something they could spin, they're more interested in ignoring it.  Brett, for example, confuses missiles with his own cock and can't stop drooling over the ability of these bombs to destroy.


That is what he repeatedly Tweets about.  For example:


CENTCOM confirms death of experienced chemical weapons engineer Abu Maliki in an airstrike near earlier this week.
46 retweets29 favorites

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