Thursday, February 07, 2019

Madeira Beach City . . . or an episode of DYNASTY?

Okay, we've seen weird a lot in the last few years.  But this is weird:

A Florida city commissioner reportedly resigned after the state ethics commission alleged she licked another city official's face and neck before groping him.
Madeira Beach City Commissioner Nancy Oakley submitted her resignation on Tuesday but insisted she was innocent, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

She licks him and she gropes him -- and to be clear, they weren't a couple, this was assault.  From the report:

According to a report from the ethics commission, Oakley licked City Manager Shane Crawford "up the side of his neck and face" and then groped his crotch and buttocks. When Crawford's executive assistant said Oakley's actions were inappropriate, Oakley allegedly "threw a punch" at the woman.
Crawford told Bay 9 News last month that Oakley had a "habit of licking men that either she was attracted to or thought that she had authority over."

Wait, it gets even more soap opera-ish.

Who is this executive assistant who objected?

I believe it's this woman in the TAMPA BAY TIMES report from a year ago:

Two years ago, Crawford, while still city manager, was officially censured by the International City/County Management Association because of his "highly inappropriate" relationship with McGrady, then his personal assistant. The couple has since married.
Both Crawford and McGrady resigned their jobs with the city last year after three newly elected commissioners moved to fire them.

So the city commissioner's licking and groping the city manager in front of his executive assistant who is in a "highly inappropriate" entanglement with the city manager?

This is more complicated than an episode of DYNASTY!

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, February 7, 2019.  The media can't stop selling war.



From CBS' THIS MORNING earlier today.





There is so much wrong with the above, see Seymour Hersh's LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS reporting for the bulk of what CBS got wrong, but grasp how Norah O'Donnell rushes in to insist the military (US) is doing a great job but not to insist that they come home.  That must never be said, apparently.  Which goes a long way towards explaining how we have endless wars.  She wants to prove she's pro-military by applauding their work, she just isn't pro-military enough to support them coming home.



"We are the cops of the world," Phil Ochs famously sang and the reason that registered in the sixties and the reason it registers today is because the American people don't support this nonsense and never have.  Helping a country is not sending Americans to fight for years and years.  And it is not something that Americans support.

Which is why these eternal wars are marketed and sold on lies.  Which is why killers like Samantha Power take self-righteous stands and poses as helpers when they are anything but ("the cruise missile left," these killers are called)..

Norah O'Donnell does not support the military in the least, not as an anchor of CBS THIS MORNING.  She's poses and preens.  She's the mid-level supervisor who pretends to listen to a complaint but does nothing and has just been dispatched to shut you up.  "Oh, that's so awful that you're sick from overwork.  Well you're doing a great job!"  She's heartless and just there to stand between you and the people above her.  She's the buffer and she's very well to be.

Again, if she truly cared about the US military, she'd be calling for them to come home.

Norah would probably try to pretend -- like she did when she was doing all those attack pieces on John Kerry back in the day -- that she's just 'reporting.'

That's not true.

There is nothing in the clip above about 'reporting.'  It is advocacy journalism and the only point of view they are advocating is continued war.  Do not pretend otherwise and do not accept the lie that this was balanced and fair journalism.

She made matters worse by Tweeting.

Thank you to who is in Syria reporting from the last piece of ISIS-controlled land. This as President Trump predicts ISIS will soon have lost all its territory in Iraq and Syria
1:35
1,734 views
 
 



She apparently is unaware that the Pentagon has maintained that ISIS still has small areas under their control in Iraq.  Poor Norah.

She's always caught unaware -- like when she was sitting at the desk for years with Charlie Rose but somehow unaware that he was harassing women.  For a journalist, Norah doesn't seem to notice much does she?


US President Donald Trump's remarks earlier this week about using al-Asad base in Iraq to spy on Iran continues to make the news.  ALJAZEERA reports:

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Iraq aspires to have "good and balanced relations" with all of its neighbours "based on mutual interests and without intervention in internal affairs".
Iraq "rejects being a launching pad for harming any other country", he said during a meeting with UN Iraq envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert at the Muslim leader's base in Najaf.


AP also notes al-Sistani's remarks.  It's interesting, isn't it, how the supposed mainstream press is noting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on this issue when the ignored his repeated remarks about the Iraqi government accepting foreign loans, ignored his opposition to Iraq accepting IMF loans and his warnings about how this would limit Iraq's independence.

But on this, they rush to quote him.  Some times, apparently, al-Sistani is a newsmaker worth listening to and, some times, he is not.


ALJAZEERA also notes the supposed leader of Iraq:

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, at his weekly news conference late Tuesday, reminded Trump there are no US bases in Iraq and said he does not accept the idea of his country becoming an arena for fighting a neighbouring country. He called on Trump to retract his statements.


Despite traveling with press on Sunday and Monday, Mahdi refused to make any statement on the matter until "late Tuesday."

This allowed the press to rally around the president of Iraq and present the world with the misinterpretation that the presidency was the highest office in Iraq.  (It's not.)

Donald's Sunday remarks have resulted in days of Iraq coverage -- the kind of coverage not even seen when the Iraq War hit the fifteen year mark.  (It hits the sixteen year mark this March.)

If anyone's wondering what's going on, Carlo Munoz (WASHINGTON TIMES) explains:

The U.S. and Iraq opened talks Wednesday on a new agreement to allow U.S. forces to remain in the country, just days after Mr. Trump angered top officials in Baghdad by outlining plans to keep a military footprint in Iraq indefinitely to “watch” neighboring Iran and prevent a resurgence of terror groups such as Islamic State.

The negotiations come amid the meeting this week of the U.S.-organized “Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State,” the 79-nation consortium spearheading the fight against the Islamic State.



Mahdi has still been unable to find a Minister of Defense or Minister of Interior.  Four months (so far) those posts have been empty.

Why are US forces staying in Iraq?  If their own government can't fill the post of Minister of Defense at a time when they are 'at war,' why do US forces need to waste their time on the ground in Iraq?

The Iraqi government remains corrupt.

Informed sources reveals a corruption deal valued at $ 19.5 million concluded by the "Oil Ministry" with the company "ALTA" to buy the machines of examining trucks with a double cost ; after the approval of the Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers to contract with this company directly and exclude it from the conditions of the Implementation of the government contracts.
LikeShow more reactions
Comment


Meanwhile . . .

The US-led global coalition against Islamic State has warned that the terror group is not yet defeated in Iraq and Syria, and is exporting hardened fighters to new battlefields around the world
 
 



Terrorism is a crime and has to be fought as such.  It is not a 'war.'

War only breeds terrorism.




The following sites updated: