Muhanad Seloom
Armed men in civilian clothes inside the Iraqi Parliament ahead of PM Abadi announcement of a reshuffle today. #Iraq
I guess that's especially needed if it's 2016 and you're a 'prime minister' whose term expired in 2014. I guess if you're just an unelected figurehead, you really need men with guns -- even in the Parliament -- so that you can continue the fraud.
Why haven't we been all over this story of how Haider al-Abadi's going to propose a new Cabinet today?
Well maybe he will, maybe he won't.
A few have noted that if he doesn't or doesn't do it in a manner that pleases others, there will be a vote of no confidence.
A vote of no confidence is what should happen.
But the last time Iraq was close to this (closer, actually), the US government (Barack) pressured then-president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, to stop the no confidence vote.
Which he did.
He wasn't supposed to.
The Constitution didn't give him that power.
But he did it.
(And then, claiming urgent health problems, fled to Germany. He had elective knee surgery in Germany. Months later, karma would get him for what he did -- including lying. He'd suffer a stroke in Baghdad and spend over a year in a German hospital.)
So it's not like anyone knows what's going to happen next.
And it's not as if there's been any reporting on this possible move that's pointed out what happened earlier.
It's been a lot of loud, exclamation points.
Headlines passed off as in depth reporting.
Not interested in highlighting it.
Not interested in playing that game.
Sinan Salaheddin (AP) notes today, "Sunni politicians are demanding a complete cabinet reshuffle, Shiite lawmakers are divided in their stance on the new government and Kurdish politicians have insisted that 20 percent of ministers in the new cabinet must be Kurdish. It is not clear if al-Abadi will propose a complete or partial reshuffle."
MIDDLE EAST MONITOR adds, "The Sadrist parliamentary bloc, called Al-Ahrar, announced on Tuesday that it will not participate in the next government formation, calling on Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to submit the names of his new cabinet members on Thursday."
A few e-mails are asking about activist and Academy Award winning actress Susan Sarandon's recent comments regarding if a vote came down between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?
Susan Sarandon's been called out and she's been praised here.
And I want to stress that she's one of the few people who will reconsider a position.
A lot of people get set in stone.
She will reconsider a position.
I also want to stress that when she does make a mistake politically, it's with good intentions.
But in terms of what she said, for a real future, it might be better to vote for Trump than Hillary (my translation)? (She did not say that she would vote for Trump. She won't. I know Susan and we are both in agreement that we'd never vote for Trump. That belief pre-dates his current run. He's vile. Susan would vote Green Party if it came down to Hillary and Trump. Or if Bernie didn't get the nomination, she'd vote Green Party.)
She's not off the reservation in her remarks or critique.
Her remarks are strongly rooted in the tradition of I.F. Stone -- which I'm sure Susan is aware of.
I found nothing controversial about them.
And outside of some loud blow hards who are also fakes like George Clooney (tell the truth, George, you're nearly 60 and it's now embarrassing, tell the truth), no one's really going to slam her for those remarks.
Again, they have a radical tradition that goes back to I.F. Stone.
"Yes, Susan Sarandon is guilty of blind privilege: Why her comments about Trump & “the revolution” are so wrong" -- oh, look, it's SALON -- what closet are they hiding in?
They attack Susan because they're posers. That's why their 'critic' attacked Michael Ware's documentary on Iraq.
When it gets too real, SALON will always panic.
I was going to copy and paste the latest updates. But not everyone's showing up on the sides so I will note them in the snapshot (I'm in too much of a rush to go web page to web page to grab the links, sorry).
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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