Monday, May 11, 2020

Iraq snapshot

Monday, May 11, 2020.  The attacks on Tara Reade continue.

Friday evening, Megyn Kelly posted her interview with Tara Reade on her YOUTUBE channel.




Elise Swain (THE INTERCEPT) notes:


Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, was one of eight women who registered complaints of inappropriate touching in April of last year — before Biden ever jumped into the presidential race. As Biden appeared likely to be the Democratic nominee, Reade came forward in late March and told her story about her former boss. In an interview with podcast host Katie Halper, Reade said Biden penetrated her vagina with his fingers. She alleges the incident occurred in 1993, while she was an aide in his Senate office. What Reade describes is rape, according to the Department of Justice’s own definition. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Reade has called on Biden to end his presidential bid and “step forward and be held accountable.”
[. . .
The name Lucy Flores may be all but forgotten in an exhausting year of political reporting. Flores was the first to come forward and register publicly that an encounter with Biden made her deeply uncomfortable. In a viral essay, Flores described how, in 2015, then-Vice President Biden made her feel “uneasy, gross, and confused” as she campaigned for lieutenant governor in Nevada.
“I feel him come up close behind me, and that’s when he leans in and he lingers around my head,” Flores recounted on Intercepted. “I hear him kind of inhale. And then he proceeds to plant this low kiss on the top of my head.” (Biden denied that he had acted inappropriately toward Flores.)
Seven more women came forward with similar stories of Biden’s manner of unwanted, inappropriate touching. Descriptions told of how his hands intimately lingered on everything from the women’s necks, shoulders, backs, or thighs. Some say his forehead pressed against theirs. Noses so close that they rubbed together. Breathing in the smell of hair. Kissing the back of the head.


 At THE GUARDIAN, Daniel Strauss points out:

A small group of insurgent Democratic congressional candidates have begun to raise concerns that Reade’s allegations are not being taken seriously enough. Rebecca Parson, a liberal Democrat challenging the Washington state congressman Derek Kilmer, said in an interview on Friday that Biden should step down over Reade’s allegations. Parson said she believes Reade and thinks the charges create too much of a vulnerability for Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“I want to defeat Donald Trump in November and yes, I’m a progressive and I’m in the left-wing of the party, but something that really unites the people in the centrist wing and the progressive wing is we all want to defeat Trump,” Parson said. “I don’t think we do that with somebody who has all these allegations against him, especially because Donald Trump has assault allegations against him and unfortunately with Donald Trump, Trump doesn’t care about being a hypocrite.”
Parson added: “I think that Biden should withdraw and any one or more of the candidates who aren’t running should restart their campaign because the Democratic primary isn’t over yet.”
[. . .]
 But Parson is not alone in arguing that at this point Biden should drop out of the race. A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that over a third of Democratic voters surveyed say the party should switch out Biden as their presumptive nominee because of the allegations.

On Friday, Tara Reade was attacked by sexist pig Bill Maher whose own issues with woman go way beyond the trash he tried with Rose McGowan.  

Why did Tara Reade wait so long to come forward!!!!!!

Golly, gee, what woman wouldn't want to be attacked and smeared by one attack dog after another?  Right?  A woman who has been assaulted has to survive the original assault and then the second assault which takes place when she comes forward. 

 Ryan Grim takes on one of the lies being told about Tara here.  Michael Tracey's one of the pigs that's repeated the lie.  ("Media: Pig Boys continue their war on women" is Ava and my latest taking on pig boys Michael, Bob Somerby and Bill Maher.)  Your whole life is gone through by the media when you come forward so why come forward?

The reality is that Joe has a long history of lying.  Joe Biden.  It's what derailed his first presidential run.  And he's continued to lie over and over.  But instead of acknowledging that, people want to smear Tara.

Joe's the one lying in New Hampshire that he graduated top of his law school class when he was 76th out of 85.  In our piece, Ava and I include this:

In August of 2008, Alexander Cockburn (COUNTERPUNCH) wrote:

 Biden  is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of US Senators en bloc , nourished by deferential  acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual  advances to staffers, interns and the like.  On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted  by Biden in the well of the senate  in the weeks immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.


 I guess before he died in 2012, Alex was plotting with Tara Reade and, according to Bill Maher, Putin about how to take down Joe Biden in 2020.  Alex obviously seized on the idea of traveling back in time to 2008 to write the above, right?

Joe Biden's history is ugly and messy.  It's one lie after another.  Does the fact that he's a politician excuse that long pattern of lying?

 Nothing excuses his lying. 

But it's not even acknowledged. 


RISING is set to address the topic of Bill Maher and other things later this morning.



Hopefully it won't be like NBC's MEET THE PRESS which 'ran out' of time for the topic of Tara Reade on Sunday.  

May 7th, Iraq got their latest prime minister.  ALJAZEERA reports:
Iraq's judiciary ordered courts on Sunday to release anti-government protesters, carrying out one of the first decisions of the recently inaugurated prime minister, as dozens of demonstrators burned tyres in renewed protests against the new leadership.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi also promoted a well-respected Iraqi general, who played a key role in the military campaign against the armed group ISIL (ISIS) to lead counter-terrorism operations.

THE NATIONAL adds:

 The new premier also reinstated and promoted General Abdulwahab Al Saadi, a popular military figure whose abrupt dismissal by previous premier Adel Abdul Mahdi in September had been a main catalyst of the first protests.
[. . .]
Protesters turned out overnight in the city of Kut, setting fire to the
headquarters of the Iran-backed Badr Organisation and to the home of an MP affiliated with another Tehran-aligned faction, according to AFP.
Hundreds more hit the streets on Sunday morning.
And Mr Al Kadhimi called on parliament to adopt the new electoral law needed for early polls as demanded by the protesters.
Still, demonstrators remained sceptical.
"We will give him 10 days to prove himself, and if our demands aren't met, then we will escalate," said Mohammad, a student protester returning to Tahrir on Sunday.
"Today is a message."


In related news,  Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:


Police in Basra raided the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia accused of shooting at protesters in the Iraqi city.
In a police statement, cited by the state-run National Iraqi News Agency, said that party members were arrested, weapons and ammunition confiscated and an investigation into the shootings launched.
The militia group, named Thar Allah or God’s Revolution, was establish in 1995 and has been described as a “threat to Iraq’s stability.”
Crowds in the city rallied on Sunday night, days after the formation of a new government last week. People demonstrated outside the militia’s office.

 Last night, I noted "The protesters are watching to see signs of change.  Declaring Ali Allawi (Ahmed Chalabi's nephew) to be Minister of Oil probably doesn't signal any real change."  An e-mail notes that Allawi is the Finance Minister.  Yes, he is that.  That's not all he is.  From S&P GLOBAL this morning:

 Iraq's new prime minister has appointed finance minister Ali Allawi as acting oil minister after parliament last week postponed a vote on the oil ministry post in OPEC's second largest producer, an oil ministry spokesperson told S&P Global Platts on Monday.
Allawi, who had served in previous governments following the US invasion in 2003, was appointed finance minister last week as parliament granted its vote of confidence to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, most members of his cabinet and his government program.
Allawi, a former professor at Oxford University, was appointed by the Interim Iraq Governing Council in 2003 as both minister of trade and minister of defense and remained in his post until 2004. He later served as minister of finance in the Iraqi transitional government from 2005 to 2006.




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