(BAGHDAD) In very strong but measured remarks before an audience consisting mostly of Iraqi veterans and their families, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki cautioned that the United States could face civil war if disunity continues among differing factions in the United States Congress.

Speaking gravely to a hushed audience, Maliki stated: “It’s only a matter of time before a civil war breaks out between the red states and the blue states.” He was referring to the recent convention of differentiating between states that have voted predominately Democratic or Republican for the last two Presidential election cycles.

“We get CNN over here,” Maliki said. “And even though it’s a day late, we also get the Arabic edition of The New York Times, so we know what’s going on in the United States.”

“You need to care for your people,” Maliki pleaded to the leaders of Congress. “If you don’t, then you should be ousted from your leadership positions as swiftly as a convicted thief’s left hand is separated from his arm in Saudi Arabia.”

Maliki singled out Senators Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, and Charles Schumer as well as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, calling them “haboobs,” an Arabic slang term which, loosely translated, means “castrated camel rider.”

Maliki suggested that the Democratic Party replace people like Sen. Levin, a Michigan Democrat, with someone less partisan and divisive. “No wonder no progress has been made on Social Security,” he said.

“I believe the tenor of rhetoric in Congress grows so extreme that it will likely lead to a brutal civil war among rival political factions,” Maliki added.

“No effective legislation, no matter how tactically proposed, can succeed without at least some diplomacy,” Mr. Maliki said. “You in the Legislative Branch can’t just keep issuing nonsensical subpoenas to your Executive Branch as if there were no separation of powers, and then blow a gasket in front of your American media in order to manipulate the people.”

“We here in Iraq know a show trial when we see one,” Maliki said, referring specifically to the Senate’s repeated attempts to take down Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez for the purpose of having the Democratically controlled Senate appoint a new attorney general so that impeachment proceedings against President Bush could begin. “Civil wars have started for lesser reasons,” he added.

When asked by a reporter from the International Herald Tribune if Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate should be ousted, Maliki shook his head and put up both hands as if to back down from the remark. “I’m not saying that…,” he said emphatically, but then added, after a long pause, “…at this time.”

“I think that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi certainly deserve a ‘last chance,’” he stated, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “But if the divisive rhetoric doesn’t stop, these leaders should certainly voluntarily step down, and, if not, members of their party, in the interest of unity, should oust them.”

In what Maliki termed a polite and well-meaning push, he has put the US Congress to a timetable, saying that he expects resolution to several important domestic issues before the first Presidential primary in 2008.

Maliki urged Congress to come back immediately from its vacation and solve some of its unresolved issues. When asked what those issues might be, Maliki said, “Permanent tax cuts would be nice.”

Maliki made his remarks before hundreds of veterans and their families at the first national convention of the Veterans of the Iraqi War of Independence held in Baghdad’s newest Holiday Inn. The V.I.W.I. is Iraq’s newest organization of combat veterans.

Maliki apologized in advance for comments that might appear “discourteous,” but added, “It’s about time someone said them.”
Add to Technorati Favorites

(PORTSMOUTH, NH) Dozens of Evangelical groups, meeting for the first time under the umbrella organization Council For New World Evangelicals, have called for John Roberts to step down as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and allow Ruth Bader Ginsburg to assume command.

According to a statement issued today and sent to President George Bush, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be the perfect choice to head a more tolerant and less divisive Supreme Court.”

Pamela R. Falcone, president of Evangelicals For Birth Tolerance, acknowledges Ginsburg’s longstanding support for abortion, but doesn’t find that prohibitive. “I’m getting sick tired of people perceiving us Evangelicals as inflexible,” she said, becoming visibly agitated. “For God’s sake, Christians invented the word ‘tolerance.’ Christ told us to ‘turn the other cheek.’”

Falcone added, “We are in no way pro-abortion, and we’re very committed to children, but we want a solution that doesn’t divide this nation with a sword.”

David Inkster, founder of Evangelicals For The Fairness Doctrine, praised Senator Charles Schumer’s recent announcement that the Senate will not confirm any more of Bush’s nominees for the Supreme Court under any circumstances. “It’s about time,” he said.

Inkster called Bush’s two recent appointments, Roberts and Samuel Alito, “rigid and Roman,” and said that if he could meet with both of them he’d have just one thing to say, “Judge ye not lest ye be judged yourselves.”

Evangelicals For Birth Tolerance and Evangelicals For The Fairness Doctrine are among dozens of groups meeting this weekend for a conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. These organizations include: Evangelicals Against Global Warming, Evangelicals For National Health Care, Evangelicals For The Kyoto Protocol, Evangelicals Against The Border Fence, Evangelicals For Equal Results, Evangelicals Against Faith-Based Initiatives, and The Jesus Group, among others. Their stated goals is to find ways to change Americans’ perceptions of Evangelicals, which Inkster calls “blinkered.”

In recent months, a cross-section of Evangelicals has gone on record for a free Palestinian State and against global warming, which was widely reported by The New York Times. Could this surprising trend indicate that the long-standing affiliation between Evangelicals and conservative politicians is coming to an end?

Amy Allison, spokesperson for Evangelicals For Hillary Clinton, would like to think so. “What once was a tiny fissure is becoming a widening crack,” Allison said. “And we hope it becomes a chasm as great as the one between Lazarus and the rich man,” she added, referring to the Gospel parable. “It’s about time Americans found out that Democrats and not just Republicans believe in God.”

“We all have a similar goal,” noted Thomas Gundy, president of the Council For New World Evangelicals, the event’s sponsor. “We want to disabuse Americans of their entrenched notion that Evangelicals are hidebound and inflexible.”

Gundy, who is also the founder of the Jesus Club, a theatre company out of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, scoffed at charges that these Evangelical groups are comprised of no more than a few members, a fax machine and a paid press secretary, and carry no clout whatsoever with most Evangelicals. “That kind of cynicism is the reason people get turned off of politics.”

Gundy also denied that holding the conference in New Hampshire had anything to do with the upcoming presidential primary. “Our organization is headquartered in Portsmouth,” he emphasized.

Gundy noted that thousands of people in hundreds of churches across the United States are affiliated with the Council for New World Evangelicals. He also stated that every Evangelical pastor in America gets one of their e-mails when an issue of importance is voted on in Congress. “That’s about 80,000 e-mail alerts,” he said.
Add to Technorati Favorites

An overwhelming majority of Americans believes that Fox News delivers news with a conservative bias, according to a New York Times/National Public Radio poll conducted over a one-day period in July.

A whopping 67% of respondents describe Fox News as conservative or very conservative, with 8% describing it as liberal or very liberal, 24% saying it delivers news without bias, and 1% having no opinion.

The same poll reveals that only 17% of Americans perceive ABC, NBC or CBS news as liberal or very liberal, with 42% believing that their news is reported without bias. 36% say that Brian Williams, Charles Gibson and Katie Couric routinely deliver their news with a conservative bias.

This poll seems to contradict the assumptions of recent anecdotal reports that members of the major news media give disproportionately to politically liberal causes. In fact, an overwhelming 88% of respondents believe that giving to a liberal cause is no indication that a reporter will be biased in his or her reporting. However, 67% believe that a reporter giving to a conservative cause will likely or very likely indicate conservative bias.

National telephone survey of 350-400 adults with a margin of sampling error at +/-27 percentage points and a 100% level of confidence.

(DETROIT) Fearing a backlash after a Fox News microphone picked up a private conversation between Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, the Clinton camp has accused Edwards of trying to sandbag her campaign. Officials fear that Hillary’s candid, unscripted remarks about her Democratic rivals might make hear appear cold and nasty.

Donna Tremaine, spokesperson for Urban Women for Hillary, accused Edwards of deliberately standing near the live microphone and goading Hillary into saying the opposite of what she really meant.

“Hillary has been taken totally out of context,” Tremaine argued, alluding to one particular remark whispered by Hillary to Edwards at a forum sponsored by the NAACP in Detroit. “What Hillary was referring to when she said, ‘We’ve got to cut the number,’ is the number of troops we have to cut in Iraq, not the number of people allowed to participate in upcoming debates for the Democratic nomination.”

Tremaine insists that Edwards, aware that the Fox News microphone was on, deliberately changed the topic of conversation from the Iraq war to the barring of second and third tier candidates from upcoming debates. “Edwards always knows when the microphones are on,” she said.

Gloria Gilchrist, an Edwards spokesperson, disagrees. “Hillary’s in panic mode. She knows exactly what she said and what she meant.” However, when asked if Edwards also meant to try to limit the number of participants in upcoming debates, she responded, “Absolutely not. Edwards believes in being inclusive.”

Campaign watchers know how quickly political fortunes can turn in a profession that is 99% perception. For example, Howard Dean’s presidential campaign tanked after his now famous scream in 2004. A more recent example is Edwards himself, whose poll numbers immediately declined after a report disclosing his $400 haircuts.

An anonymous rep from the Hillary camp accused Edwards of embarking on a 12-city poverty tour to undo the damage from the disastrous haircut publicity. “You don’t think that’s what driving his upcoming 12-city poverty tour?” The rep asked, adding, “Now you know why he’s trying to sandbag Hillary.”

Edwards says he will try to find a solution for the 37 million people living in poverty in the United States. He has pledged not to campaign during this tour.

Edwards could not be reached for comment.

(CONEY ISLAND) Joey Chestnut’s world record shattering total of 66 hot dogs consumed in 12 minutes was overshadowed by Senator Hillary Clinton’s first time participation in today’s annual Coney Island hot dog eating contest.

Mrs. Clinton, Democratic Presidential candidate, shoved down a respectable 49 hot dogs, or one for every Republican in the Senate.

Although most fans were rooting for Chestnut or six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi, his Japanese rival, to win, Mrs. Clinton did have at least one fan, a woman carrying a sign that read, “If you become President, we’ll eat hot dogs every day.”

Although the outcome of the two frontrunners did not become clear until the final two minutes, there was never a doubt that Mrs. Clinton could do no better than third. In fact, if it hadn’t been for a last spirited shove and gulp, she might have come in fourth.

“I’ve been devouring hot dogs since my girlhood days in Illinois,” she said immediately following the contest, stunning the crowd into subdued murmurs. Quickly realizing her faux pas, Mrs. Clinton added, “I have continued devouring hot dogs here in New York, the greatest city in the world, and I will continue devouring hot dogs in the White House.”

(STOCKHØLM) The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has acted to rescind Yasser Arafat’s Peace Prize effective immediately, and to give it to Hamas, the Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization currently governing the people of the Palestinian National Authority.

“They have it anyway,” said Jander Skølfin, Third Executive Director to the Vice Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee. Skølfin was referring to Hamas’s acquisition yesterday of Arafat’s 1994 Peace Prize during Hamas’s exploratory sortee of Arafat’s premises.

Although the Committee had heard undocumented charges that Arafat had siphoned billions of dollars of humanitarian aid meant for the Palestinian people, that fact “came home,” as Skølfin phrased it, after the world witnessed the Palestinian people swipe Arafat’s widow’s clothes and shoes. “One day the world will know just how much Hamas really cares,” he added.

In making their decision, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee also cited Nobel Peace Prize winner and former US President Jimmy Carter, who, in January 2006, stated, “There have been no complaints of corruption against Hamas’s elected officials.”

Hamas joins other groups, rather than individuals, who have received the granddaddy of all awards. These include The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Labour Organization (I.L.O.) in Geneva, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War located in Boston.

Making a Palm Sunday splash on the front page of the New York Times, Matthew Dowd, ex-aide to President Bush, says that because he has lost faith in Bush he must “speak out now.”

Dowd, a former Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat, says that Bush’s my-way-or-the-highway style of leadership has failed “not only the American people, but the Iraqi people and the diverse peoples of the world.”

Dowd, a self-described member of Bush’s inner circle, dismisses the suggestion that he has turned on the President because Karl Rove, and not Dowd, remains the president’s most trusted advisor. Rumors have circulated that tensions between the two began in 2004 over differing presidential campaign strategies in Ohio, which have since intensified.

According to one campaign insider who would only speak anonymously, Dowd wanted to pander to what he called the “marshmallow middle,” while Rove thought the best strategy was to rev up the “red-meat base.” Since that day, our source says, Rove has provocatively and repeatedly poked Dowd in the stomach — often in front of the President — and alternately called him “marshmallow man” or “Pillsbury dough boy,” which makes Dowd seethe.

What’s more, Dowd denies ever telling reporter Brandon Kirk of Roll Call that Rove should have been canned with Donald Rumsfeld, insisting that his lunchtime conversation with Kirk last November was “off the record.”

Kirk says otherwise. “I asked him flat out if I could quote [Dowd] on what he said about Rove, and he said ‘sh** yeah.’ I can’t help it if he had four martinis and can’t remember squat.”

Dowd, whose son is preparing for deployment in the Iraq War, has called for America’s immediate withdrawal from Iraq. In addition, the Times revealed today that Dowd penned a never-submitted “Kerry Was Right” op ed, which agreed with John Kerry’s call to unconditionally withdraw from Iraq.

Dowd bristled at his comparison with Judas as raised by Linda Tico, a FoxNews intern, during this morning’s short question-and-answer session at the Washington Press Club. Dowd admitted that “it never even occurred to me that this was Palm Sunday,” angrily adding, “I’m no more a Judas than Bush is a Jesus.”

Offers for interviews have poured in since Dowd’s announcement, jam-packing an already full itinerary. Besides interviews with CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS News, as well as the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, Newsweek, Time, US News and World Report, Harpers, The New Yorker, The Nation and The New Republic, he is scheduled to appear on next Sunday’s Sixty Minutes, as well as having a one-on-one sit-down with Barbara Walters that ABC has scheduled immediately following next Monday’s Dancing with the Stars.

In addition, Paramount Pictures announced yesterday that it has optioned Dowd’s story for a major motion picture in the fall of 2008, with Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. and George Clooney as suggested leads.

It was also announced on Thursday that Dowd has been short-listed for a 2007 Peabody Award in the Public Service category.

A short statement from the President’s office wished Dowd well in all his future endeavors.

(CARACAS) In an effort to stanch the eroding value of Venezuelan currency, President Hugo Chávez has issued a new currency with a new name, the “Bárbara.”

Chávez hopes to stem the steep tide of inflation by lopping off approximately two zeros and turning the 1000 bolivar coin into a coin valued at 12-1/2 “fuerte” or “strong” bolivars.

Chávez has nicknamed the new coin Bárbara because its copper color closely matches Barbara Walters’s henna hair. In addition, Barbara’s recent interview broadcast on ABC’s Good Morning America has “restored my currency as the most important leader of the Western Hemisphere.”

In her March 16th interview with Chávez, Walters called Chávez a “dignified man” and forgave him for calling President Bush a “devil” and a “donkey.”

Barbara added that Chávez “is not the crazy man that we have heard,” referring to Chávez’s famous rant earlier this year at the UN when he compared Bush to Satan.

“[Chávez] cares very much about poverty,” Barbara continued, explaining how he helped bring oil to the poor of the United States this winter. “This is a very intelligent man.”

Chávez dismisses his critics’ assessment that his takeover of oil, electric and phone companies, or his price fixing of commodities, or the exodus of foreign capital from Venezuela has anything to do with this year’s 20% spike in inflation, the highest in Latin America. “What else would you expect capitalists to say?”

Instead, Chávez blames food hoarders and black marketeers, which he called “puercos sucios” or “dirty pigs,” for jacking up prices on a broad range of commodities.

(NEW YORK CITY) The animal rights group PETA has formally petitioned NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to save the KFC rats. In addition, a small but vocal group of protestors keeping a round-the-clock vigil outside of the restaurant in Greenwich Village vows to take necessary action to prevent what PETA calls mass “ratricide.”

Although many locals expressed disgust at seeing rats at KFC, PETA took the opposite tack, calling them “misunderstood rodents, too long maligned.” According to PETA spokesman Jeremy Swayzee, “they carry no more diseases than humans, and probably aren’t half as infectious.”

Bloomberg’s office declined to answer Swayzee’s petition, instead issuing a document reiterating New York City’s ordinance that requires KFC to exterminate the rats immediately or to face stiff fines or closure.

Local News Camera 2, a CBS affiliate, first caught sight of more than a dozen rats scampering on the floor, up and down chairs, and even across dining tables at the eatery. The video has been picked up by news affiliates around the world, even outlets as far away as France.

“Whoever first exposed them is a rat fink,” Swayzee said before self correcting. “No, make that a human fink.”

(HAVANA) — More than a year after Venezuela’s divisive reelection of Hugo Chavez, intelligence sources have confirmed that former President Jimmy Carter chartered a fishing boat from Caracas to Havana to pledge his support for Cuba’s longstanding dictator, Fidel Castro.

Although Carter initially denied the trip, satellite photos proved that he did indeed travel across the Caribbean immediately after declaring Hugo Chavez’s August 15, 2004 election valid.

The meeting between Carter and Fidel, broadcast widely on Cuban television and picked up by receivers at Guantanamo Bay, showed a cordial display of handshaking and backslapping followed by cigar smoking.

Despite the lack of audio, intel lip readers and Spanish translators have confirmed that Carter praised Cuba’s alleged 100% literacy, racial harmony and universal health care. Carter could not be reached for comment.

« go back — keep looking »

Recently Written

• Maple Trees Upset By Warming Winters
• Restless Chris Matthews Leg Syndrome
• Hillary’s Empty Pants Suit Collection Evokes Yawns
• Egypt Seals Gaza Border Using Secret Weapon
• Iowa Man Sues Clintons For Mental Whiplash
• Astronaut Snags Archived Clinton Documents on Spacewalk
• Clinton’s Cat Found Abandoned In Iraq
• Hillary Insures Her Piano Legs for $10 Million
• American Liberals Vie With French For Aroma Prize
• Osama Responds to Hillary’s Coded Message

Categories

• Animals
• Fashion
• Health
• Iraq
• Legal
• Presidential Primaries
• Science
• Sports
• US Politics
• World

Archives

• March 2008
• February 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• September 2005
• July 2005
• November 2004
• October 2004
• August 2004

Blogroll

• About.com
• Bookmark Fit-To-Print News
• - NEVER SAY MURDER "The narrative premise is solid, and the author demonstrates a particular talent for creating a viable set of suspects." --Kirkus Discoveries
• The Butter Stick
• The Drudge Report
• The New York Times
• The People's Cube
• The Spoof!

Admin

• Register
• Login
• Wordpress
• XHTML

Search