Monday, November 28, 2022

Weekend Box Office

groomers

 

Above is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Real Groomers" which went up Saturday night.

 

Now let's look at the box office from over the weekend via THENUMBERS.COM:

 

1


(1) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Walt Disney $45,583,904 -31% 4,258 -138 $10,705 $367,471,452 3
2 N Strange World Walt Disney $12,151,384   4,174   $2,911 $18,855,156 1
3 N Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Netflix $9,200,000   696   $13,218 $13,300,000 1
4 N Devotion Sony Pictures $5,902,803   3,405   $1,734 $9,004,070 1
5 (2) The Menu Searchlight … $5,478,956 -39% 3,228 +17 $1,697 $18,944,605 2
6 (4) Black Adam Warner Bros. $3,255,486 -29% 2,664 -708 $1,222 $162,836,860 6
7 (-) The Fabelmans Universal $2,261,110 +2,420% 638 +634 $3,544 $3,463,236 3
8 (-) Bones and All United Artists $2,258,562 +1,767% 2,727 +2,722 $828 $3,763,099 2
9 (5) Ticket to Paradise Universal $1,863,860 -42% 2,238 -1,030 $833 $65,087,250 6
10 (6) She Said Universal $1,156,610 -48% 2,023 +1 $572 $4,349,740 2

 

TICKET TO PARADISE will not be making $100 million.  Told you Julia Roberts didn't have the staying power of Sandra Bullock.  As I noted last week:

 

"Told you TICKET TO PARADISE didn't have legs.  George Clooney isn't likeable.  Any money the film brought in was thanks to Julia Roberts.  But Julia, especially all these years after PRETTY WOMAN, is not Sandra Bullock.  She's burned too many bridges with the public.  She's the best thing about the movie but it likely won't even see $70 million at the box office.  It could have gone to $100 million but that depended on people like her co-star.  Channing Tatum, Richard Gere. anyone like that and it would have been a blockbuster. "

 

I can't get that paragraph to bold so I'm just putting quotation marks around it -- oh great, now things start bolding. 

 

 SHE SAID is a bomb and deserves to be.  Never got a chance to note the piece we did last week at THIRD:

Box Office Report

Ty: We're doing the box office report.  New feature.  Stan suggested it and wanted to pull in Ann and C.I. for this feature.  2022 will be coming to a close shortly.  Not a lot of hits and not a lot of solid movies, let alone great ones.  Ann, you and Stan cover films at the end of each year, wondering what your general feelings are.

Ann: Disappointed.  A lot of releases, too many of them garbage.  Stan and I don't usually pick a worst film of the year but, if we did this year, I'd go with the most recent HALLOWEEN.  

Stan: That was awful.  Why do you make Jamie Lee Curtis an extra in a HALLOWEEN movie?

Ann: And Jason too.

Stan: Yes.  That was so disappointing.  It didn't live up to what people expected or to what was advertised.  That's why it cratered in week two.  It was awful.  In fact, I'd say HALLOWEEN ENDS is the worst of all the HALLOWEEN films.


Ty: What do you think was the best film of 2022 of the ones that made big money?

Ann: Nothing in the top ten moneymakers domestically impressed me.

Stan: I'd agree with that.  Right now, the films I enjoyed don't pop up until the numbers ten to 20 for the year -- UNCHARTED, THE LOST CITY.  And DOG's in the top 30.

Ann: And that was a good movie -- and it's barely in the top 30.  It'll probably shift to the top 40 in a few weeks.



Ty: C.I.?

C.I.: My pick for best film of the year is BROS.  Right now, it's number 59 on the domestic box office for the year.  It's hilarious and well made, an instant classic.  I'm hopeful that it will be remembered when nominations come out.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ann: I laughed harder at BROS than at any movie this year.  And we bought it on streaming as well as seeing it in the theater.  I thought we had seen it the most and then Stan told me how many times he's seen it.

Stan: My girlfriend and I saw it at the movies four times.  Since we bought the streaming version, I've easily seen it over 20 times.  People will come over and if we talk movies and they haven't seen it, we'll start it up.  It's a great movie.  Like C.l., I think it's the best of 2022.

Ann: I'm not expecting anything coming out to beat it.

Ty: I loved it too.  Anyone reading who hasn't seen it, please make a point to watch it.  Now the reason we're doing this feature is SHE SAID.  Stan told me he mentioned it to C.I. who responded, "No one's going to see it."  And, turns out, no one did.  C.I.?

C.I.: It's not a movie.  If it was one, it was advertised poorly.  You can't just throw events up onscreen and claim, "It's real!"  You have to have a narrative.  You have to have twists.  You have to give people a reason to spend their time and money.  No one was asking for that movie and it never should have been made.  Good intentions do not necessarily translate into box office dollars. There has to be something more.  ERIN BROKAVICH was about a single mother fighting the system and also taking on a huge and evil corporation.  Julia Roberts was our entry way into that film.  They have no star power at all in SHE SAID and they have no likeable Erin-like figure for us to root for.  That film died in casting.  Ann's got another point to make.

Ann: I do.  As a survivor of rape, why do I want to see SHE SAID?  They give nothing for me to be interested in.  A bunch of reporters far removed from what happened?  At least in THE ACCUSED, the attorney played by Kelly McGillis was forced by Jodie Foster's character to address the rape. The trailers didn't highlight the women.  And made me wonder who the audience for what appeared to be a self-congratulatory film was intended for.

Stan: I also question the hiring of a German director.  This is an American story.  Don't know why we're farming it out -- and farming it out to a German who has not had any box office success.  This is her first English language film.  Who thought she could pull this off?  

C.I.: It's an American story and it's being told at a distance -- possibly with British reserve?  The screenwriter is also not American, she's British.

Ann: In the trailer, the film feels cold and lifeless.  It doesn't feel like, for example, a thriller from Alan J. Pakula.

Stan: Or like a thriller Jane Fonda would have produced -- like THE CHINA SYNDROME, for example.  In a film like that, her character starts off at point A and is awakened by events to move further along.  That wasn't this type of film.  SHE SAID isn't a film at all.  


Ann: I saw CALL JANE and wanted to love it but it was so disappointing and I just felt ripped off.  It should have been a lively and exciting film.  Instead, they seemed mired in "It's a true story."  Well it may have been true but it was also very dull and there was no excuse for that.

Ty: Nope.  And we'll wrap up on Ann's points.  This may be a regular feature, if you liked it, let us know.  Rush transcript, our best e-mail address is common_ills@yahoo.com.


I enjoyed doing that roundtable and wish the four of us would do more of them on films.

 

Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Monday, November 28, 2022.  The horror trinity of Tulsi, Tucker and Turley continue to try to destroy lives,  Iraqi Amir Ashour is awarded an honor, Christians in Iraq continue to struggle and much more.


Chasten Buttigieg hit back at Tucker Carlson after the Fox News host bizarrely chastised his husband, out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, for “lying” about his sexuality.

Pete Buttigieg “always wants to talk about identity!” Carlson squawked last week on his show as the chyron blared, “PETE: ANTI-GAY VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVE? COUNT ME IN.”

“And the funny, ironic thing is, until just a few years ago, Buttigieg wouldn’t even admit that he was gay!”

“He hid that! And then lied about it for reasons he has never been asked to explain,” Carlson said excitedly, as if he had never heard of the concept of coming out. Pete Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015 when he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “Why not?”

While talking to CNN’s Don Lemon, Chasten Buttigieg explained using small words that “my husband served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the policy that banned gay and bisexual servicemembers from serving in the military openly.

“This kind of rhetoric is easy,” he said. “It’s so easy to attack people and to go on your talk show and fire people up about something that’s not actually happening.”

“I love my husband deeply. I know he’s a committed public servant, and he has everyone’s best interests at heart.”

“I just think these people, again, with these megaphones… they have to have a big platform and rather than focusing on real issues, people’s lives, making them better, they’ve decided to focus on hate.”


That's trashy Tucker.  Glenn Greenwald's friend.  Glenn let's him hide because what else can a useless man like Glenn do.  He pretends he's a proud father but a proud father wouldn't go on a show like Tucker's.  He's teaching to cower and whore.  What a sad dad.

Tucker and Tulsi, the trash from FOX NEWS.  

REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT addressed these liars.





Tulsi?   I know she's a freak and a member of a cult but why is she saying "Our children"?

Bitch don't have kids.  She's on marriage number two and there are no children.  There's guru Chris, the leader of her cult. But there are no children.

You have to wonder how FOX plans to sell Tulsi to its viewers.  They're not too fond of most traditional religions so Hindu will be difficult to sell and that's before you add on her cult.


With Tulsi,  a few flaunt stupidity.  Tulsi, they insisted is anti-war.  

No, she's not.

She campaigned on that.  She went on Joe Rogan and other shows talking a big game.  She should be president, she insisted, because she was anti-war.  She should be president, not a War Hawk and certainly not a War Hawk like Joe Biden.

Recently, Tulsi's announced she's left the Democratic Party (believe she was kicked to the curb first) and began comparing Joe Biden to Hitler.




Does Tulsi think he's Hitler?  Then who put 'Hitler' in the White House?

We've explained this reality over and over -- including in real time.  And we could redo it again but I'm still feeling sick so we'll just swipe from the last time we covered it in full -- back in March:

Wednesay, July 31st, she was finally on stage with Joe Biden.  And big talking Tulsi, whose big issue was the war, was on stage with Joe Biden who voted for the IRaq, War, who did a pre-war hearing that was stakced with war supporters though Joe tried to pretend it was fair and balanced, the man who voted over and over to keep funding the war, the man whod efended it over and over (despite his 2019 lie that he had turned on the wr the minute bombs started ropping).  Here was Tulsi's chance to finally take the fight to Joe.

It was going to be an epic throwdown, right?

Wrong.

We recounted it at lenght and repeatedly over and over.  For example, see the next day's snapshot.


Joe Biden was on the ropes.  He was struggling and he could have been eliminated that night.  If Tulsi had done the job she should have, he could have been out of the primary.  

But instead, she decided to take out Kamala Harris.  Jimmy Dore rightly points out that Kamala ended up without any support at all.  Throughout the entire thing, the long process, no one was flacking to her.  He's right.  But he is someone who has some allegience to Tulsi that is greater than his allegiance to the truth.  Now I'll overlook that on Jimmy.  He speaks out on many important topics.  And I'll defend her from the lunatic attacks from WHoopi Goldberg and others. 

But I'm not going to pretend that we saw Tulsi was a whore at the debates.

Read the transcript -- or read the snapshot -- because Tulsi went after Kamala and Kamala was no threat.  She was never going to get the nomination.  She had no large base of support.  Most women did not rally to her.  African-Americans in the south did not relate to her.  

But Tulsi used her time and her ammo on Kamala.  Not on Joe.

Her defenders -- and, sadly, that included BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- would make excuses for her.  There was no excuse.  Joe Biden was the choice of the establishment and he was being carried by the corporate meid and covered and pimped by them.  

She should have taken out Joe.

Sher refused to do so.

If you missed that debate, you may join the liars and insist that she was making statements and -- B.S.  That's a damn lie.  Jake Tapper was a moderator.  He specifically called on her regarding Joe Biden and he was puzzled -- watch his face -- by her remarks which were rescuing Joe and excusing his actions.  

He looks like he's wondering if she understood the question.  SO he then goes back to her for a second time and is more specific.  And Tulsi again takes a pass.

That night, the next day and through the weekend, Tulsi shows up where ever she could on TV and repeatedly insisted that Joe said his vote was wrong and that was good enough for her.

His actions wnet far beyond just his initial vote but Tulsi buried that in hre comments and buried Joe's Iraq issues for the press.  When the self-promoted anti-war candidate told the American people and the press that Joe had nothing to apologize for or make amends for that everything was fine?  There was no longer a story there.  The media wants conflict.  And it wants conflict is can hide behind to pretend to be objective.  Had Tulsi held Joe accountable on the stage, the issue of the Iraq War would have been forced itno the conversation by the national press.

My  allegiance is not to any politician. 

Tulsi is one of the reasons Joe Biden is in the White House.  She had the chance to tak ehim out and instead aimed her fire at Kamala.  People like pig Michael Tracey were overjoyed.  

What they refuse to admit now is that Tulsi gave the nomination to Joe on that night in July of 2019.  They refuse to also admit that the woman Tulsi 'destroyed' on stage is now Vice President of the United States.  So exactly how badly did Tulsi destroy Kamala?

It was pure fake assery.

I don't even feel like bolding that but, yeah, we covered it in real time, we covered over and over since, including everything above which ran in March.


She's a fake ass liar.  She talked a big talk about bad Joe Biden but in July of 2020, she was finally onstage with him for a debate -- the first time.  And, turns out, the only time.  Jake Tapper set her up to call Joe out for the Iraq War.  And she gave him a pass.  She lied for him.  If you watched, you might have been as surprised as Jake was.  After others spoke, he teed her up again.  Again, she chose to defend Joe Biden on the Iraq War.

She  proved who she really was that night.  Barack Obama, seeking the 2008 nomination, hit people over their heads with their support for that war and Barack wasn't anti-war.

Weak ass Tulsi couldn't even stand by her comments made on podcasts.

She's a liar and fake and anyone claiming she's anti-war at this point is just deluding themselves.  When push came to shove, spineless Tulsi collapsed onstage.


Now she makes bucks by attacking LGBTQs.

"Grooming."

As Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Real Groomers" pointed out, the real groomers are people like Lauren Boebert and her husband Jayson.  When not beating Lauren (it's true, she had to file for a protective order at one point), Jasyon liked to drag Lauren to a bar to watch as he exposed himself to young women.  She lied in a book that he didn't do it.  A book somebody else probably wrote for her, remember, she dropped out of school and then failed the GED multiple times.  But Jayson admitted it in court and was put on probation.

Those are groomers.  

They're trying to say that the LGBTQs are groomers.  This is not new, know your history.  The argument is that they are grooming children -- it's the one Anita Bryant made all those years ago.  She called it recruitment and argued, as the hate mob does today, that they had to recruit (or groom) because they couldn't reproduce.

They couldn't reproduce?  Like Tulsi?

The community doesn't have to reproduce.  It's always been with us and that's what the liars want to deny.

What's worse is they want to harm children.  That's the reality: Tulsi, Tucker and others want to harm children.

Jonathan Turley, noted homophobe, defends them.

Who defends the children?

In Florida, they have the 'Don't say gay' legislation which Tulsi supports.  She tells you this is about parental choice.

Yet, she's raging in the video REVOLUTIONARY BLACKOUT video about parental choices, you grasp that right?

If you are transgender and under 18, most cases you're not getting surgery without the consent of your parent or legal guardian.

Do we not grasp that?

So in other words, anyone surgically transitioning under 18 would be doing so with parental consent.

Tulsi doesn't trust parents with that decision apparently.  

But when it's banning discussions of same-sex relations or transgendered people or non-binary persons, Tulsi all for that.

School is supposed to prepare you for life.  A second grader needs to know that there are all kinds of families and, yes, that does include children with same-sex parents.

Tulsi and Tucker can't grasp reality: Some children are gay.

There are little boys and girls who already know that they are gay.  

Some people take longer to figure it out.  Tucker will probably be 62, before he figures it out.

But there are kids right now, in second grade, who know they're gay.

And how are they helped or even recognized by the don't say gay nonsense?

They're not.  

Bobby (Billy Eichner's character in BROS) makes that point.  

Do their rights not matter?  Do their feeling recognized in their schools not matter?

Free speech (fake) champion Jonathan Turley doesn't care about their free speech rights.  He doesn't care that a gay child has a higher likelihood of attempting suicide.  

He won't defend their rights at all.

By addressing reality early on -- and I'm not talking sex education, I'm talking the reality of the world we live in -- there's a good chance that certain little boys and girls will not be targeted and harassed in their schools.  

But that doesn't matter to Turley, Tulsi or Tucker.

It's a good thing that at least Tulsi was smart enough to reproduce (unless she's frozen her eggs, her chances at pregnancy are winding down).  

Grasp that Jonathan Turley -- who pretends he's for free speech -- has not once called out the harassment of trans speakers.  

I don't know Alex Jones and I don't want to know him.  If his people and what they did in Denton, Texas recently is truly representative of him then has has no redeeming value.  

So they bully and mob to try to stop Transgender Storytime.

And that was this month.  And yet 'free speech' Jonathan Turley didn't defend them.

That's only surprising if you don't grasp that his history is one of refusing to recognize the LGBTQ community.

Unlike Jonathan, I actually support free speech.

I have a record of doing so.

Jonathan grabs his pearls and gets all nervous if someone heckles or boos.

That's free speech as well.  And I've been on the receiving end many times.  And will continue to be on it.  And that's fine.  In the '00s, near the end, a veteran was somewhere, I believe NYC, speaking on a forum and he was the pro-war voice.  He got booed.  Some were offended in print and how awful.

No.

It's not awful.

It's free speech.

I wrote about that here.  I also noted that I was sympathetic to him because it hurt his feelings but that he needed to grasp that the worst had happened and that any future speaking would include the knowledge that he would live through being booed.  

I support free speech.

Jonathan Turley pees his pants because a Supreme Court opinion is leaked.  It's so offensive!!!

It's free speech.  Turley's become a joke in his old age and a damn hypocrite.

'Children' were not going to the Denton coffeehouse unless they were taken by their parents.

There was a bullying effort by INFOWAR followers to silence and suppress a transgender storyteller and Jonathan wasn't concerned.  It's only free speech for him these days if the person whose free speech rights are threatened is a conservative.

That might be confusing until you grasp that he's now paid by FOX NEWS.  

The LGBTQ community includes children and they have rights.

Tulsi, who's never raised a child, wants to speak of "our children" but apparently she just means straight children.  She knows nothing about the LGBTQ community -- a community she has spent years trashing -- and she wants to decide what children can hear and what they can't.

She has NO children.  She's raised  NO children.  She's NOT an educator and has NO background in childhood education.

So FOX sees her as the perfect person to put on to talk about children's rights.

Children have the right to be smarter than Tulsi Gabbard.  That requires actual education.  Otherwise, like Tulsi, they end up cult members doing whatever Guru Chris tells them to do.

Lauren voted to overturn the Violence Against Women Act.  Like Tulsi, she needs education.  Desperately.  I hope she gets it before Jayson beats her to death.

But in the meantime, let's be really clear that the US doesn't need to hear from a woman married to a man who beats her.  Too many people are passing themselves off as experts.

Lauren, like Tulsi, wants to be an expert on children but most American families -- right, left or what have you -- don't want their children being beaten by a spouse or their children beating their spouse.


Spousal abuse is not a value anyone supports unless they're deeply stupid.  

That's what happens when you're uninformed and uneducated.  Like Tulsi.  Home schooled and two years in her cult's school, she tried community college but couldn't grasp it.  Basic classes were beyond her because she's just not capable of learning.

Instead of recognizing her deficiency, she wants to make all of America as uneducated as her.

The country's children need to be educated.  In reality.  That especially means a greater emphasis on science.  It also means an awareness of the world around us and, sorry, Tucker, Tulsi and Turley, that world around us includes gay males, lesbians, bi-sexuals and transgenders as well as non-binary.  

They have a right to representation as well.

They exist and their rights matter to.

They don't need to grow up being bullied.  They don't need to grow up being rendered invisible.  

Stop pretending you care about children when you're actually working to increase the rates of suicide with your actions.

FOX NEWS is garbage because of what they're doing and how they're harming children.

Idiots like Tulsi will watch those programs and, in the pretense of 'saving' their children, will do great harm.

A trueism throughout the last century and today: Those objecting the loudest to basic recognition and human decency are usually the ones hiding something.  

When Ellen DeGeneres came out, a friend who had loved her comedy, even to the point of begging me to get her into a taping of the sitcom ELLEN (I got her in multiple times) turned on Ellen when she came out.  Refused to even admit that she'd ever been a fan.  Last decade?  The actress came out.  I'll be kind and not name her.  

But that's who I think of when I think of these idiots like Tucker, Tulsi and Turley who are so determined to limit our society instead of expanding it, who would rather throw stones than embrace.  

These people need to be called out.  They're not silly idiots that we can just laugh at, they are people dedicating their lives to destroying others.  
 


Turning to Iraq . . .




 Since founding IraQueer, an organisation which has fought for LGBTQ+ rights in Iraq for the last seven years, Amir has worked tirelessly to help queer people facing persecution in the country. 

“I’m grateful that the team continues to dedicate themselves to the organisation and the queer community,” Amir explained to GAY TIMES Magazine in the December 2022 issue. “But my hope for the organisation is that it will just not need to exist one day. I want to live in a world where we don’t have to advocate for queer people. Where we just exist as people and have our rights because we’re humans.”

Sadly, things have not improved for LGBTQ+ people in Iraq since the inception of IraQueer and members of the community continue to face discrimination in the country. 

The work Amir started is therefore as important as ever and functions across education, advocacy and direct services by sharing multilingual resources, providing safe housing and engaging with international bodies to advance LGBTQ+ rights.

GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta Quest celebrates the individuals and organisations who have had a profound effect on the lives of LGBTQ+ people over the past 12 months.

[. . .]

The new digital edition of GAY TIMES magazine spotlights this year’s winners and is available to read now on the GAY TIMES app, Apple News +, Readly and Flipster.

To follow all of the action from GAY TIMES Honours sponsored by Meta Quest, check out our Instagram @GAYTIMES. For the latest winners, performances and special moments from the night click here.




Meanwhile, it's been called 'the heist of the century' -- the robbery of Iraq's public monies carried out by officials.  Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

Iraq has recovered less than 5 per cent of $2.5 billion embezzled from its tax authority, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said late on Sunday.

“The competent authorities have been able to retrieve a first tranche amounting to 182.6 billion Iraqi dinars,” Mr Al Sudani said in a televised speech, surrounded by piles of Iraqi and US banknotes.

He called on those responsible to hand themselves in.

The scandal — revealed last month and labelled the “heist of the century” — involved 3.7 trillion Iraqi dinars ($2.5 billion) fraudulently paid to five companies by the General Commission of Taxes.

The money was paid through 247 cheques between September 9, 2021, and August 11 from the commission's account at the state-run Rafidain Bank.

Since then, an investigation has been under way. A number of government officials and two businessmen have been arrested and some of the money recovered, although no senior politicians have faced official accusations.


Will they get even half the money back?  Probably not.  They don't seem willing to pursue the corruption up to the top.  They continue to look the other way for various officials.  That's not how you recover the money and it's now how you end corruption.


Iraq also refuses to defend its religious minorities.  The Jewish community is no more.  The Yazidis remain persecuted and victimized.  And the Christians?  LA CROIX INTERNATIONAL reports:

The Chaldean Catholic patriarch in Iraq has criticized the government for its failure to build a real democratic and civil state to keep Christians safe in the Muslim majority country.

"I find it unavoidable to emphasize once again that religion is for God and the homeland is for the nation. Migration is nothing but uprooting us from our land," said Iraqi Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Christians, living mainly in the cities of the Nineveh Plains and other areas of northern Iraq, continue to leave the country. This is happening at a rate of around 20 families a month," said Cardinal Sako in a statement released by the Chaldean Patriarchate. The cardinal spoke of how more than half of Iraqi Christians have emigrated in the last five years and many others are "on the waiting list".

"The tendency to emigrate has increased in the last two decades due to instability. Furthermore, the "bleeding" of emigration to the West still exists due to the following: loss of confidence and future uncertainty; unemployment; poverty; deterioration of basic services; desertification; and the failure of governments to build a real democratic and civil state," he said. 

 

The Christians of Iraq are considered to be one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking ethnic Assyrians who claim descent from ancient Assyria, and follow the Syriac Christian tradition. Some are also known by the name of their religious denomination as well as their ethnic identity, such as Chaldo-Assyrians, Chaldean Catholics or Syriacs (see Terms for Syriac Christians). Non-Assyrian Iraqi Christians are largely Arab Christians and Armenians, and a very small minority of Kurdish, Shabaks and Iraqi Turkmen Christians. Most present-day Iraqi Christians are ethnically, linguistically, historically and genetically distinct from Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Turks and Turkmens (as well as from fellow Syriac Christians in Western Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and South Western Turkey).[citation needed] Regardless of religious affiliation (Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, etc.) the Eastern Aramaic speaking Christians of Iraq and it's surrounds are one genetically homogeneous people. They identify themselves as being a separate people, of different origins and with a distinct history of their own harking back to ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia (see Assyrian continuity and History of the Assyrians).[1] Christian Assyrians also have communities in northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern Iran as well as in the wider worldwide Assyrian diaspora.

Syriac Christianity was first established in Mesopotamia, and certain subsets of that tradition (namely the Church of the East and its successor churches) were established in northern and central-southern Iraq, and would eventually spread to becoming one of the most popular Christian churches in the Middle East and Fertile Crescent Region, and would spread as far as India and China.

Iraq plays a rich and vital contribution to Christian history, and after Israel, Iraq has the most biblical history of any other country in the world.[2] The patriarch Abraham was from Uruk, in southern Iraq, modern day Nasiriya, and Rebecca was from northwestern Iraq, in Assyria. Additionally, Daniel lived in Iraq most of his life. The prophet Ezekiel was from southern Iraq and his shrine is located there. Shrines of the prophet Jonah and Saint George are also located there, and various other biblical prophets and saints are said to have been originally from there as well. Adam and Eve are also widely thought to have hailed from Iraq, as the biblical Garden of Eden is largely attributed to have been located in southern Iraq.[2][3]

Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, Christians numbered one million in Iraq.[4] This may be an undercount by half as seen in the 1987 census numbers. The Ba’athist rule under Saddam Hussein kept anti-Christian violence under control but subjected some to "relocation programmes".[4] Under this regime, the predominantly ethnically and linguistically distinct Assyrian people were pressured to identify as Arabs. The Christian population fell to an estimated 800,000 during the 2003 Iraq War.[4]

During the 2013–2017 Iraq War, with ISIS rapidly sweeping through Iraq's western lands, Christian Assyrians and Armenians fled as they feared persecution by the terrorist organisation, as they were to ‘execute’ any person who did not believe in their Sunni sect. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled to the nation's capital where they found refuge and adequate housing, some of whom have chosen to make Baghdad their new permanent home following the full defeat of ISIS in Iraq.[5] Thousands have also fled to other parts of southern Iraq, such as the Shia-majority city of Najaf which housed thousands of Christians in holy Islamic shrines once they fled from ISIS, which sought to exterminate them.[6] A large population have also returned to their homes en masse following the defeat of ISIS and were able to celebrate Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter in safety with the protection of the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units and its allies.[7][8]

The current number of Christians of Iraq is said to be at around 500,000, according to the EU Research Services on minorities in Iraq,[9] although numbers vary from source to source due to the last Iraqi census having taken place more than 30 years ago. A census is scheduled to take place in 2020 in which the numbers of Christians in Iraq will be clarified.[10][9]



That's St. Joseph's Cathedral in Baghdad (also known as The Latin Cathedral of St. Joseph).


President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Al-Sudani on Monday completely agreed and reiterated that no threat or military action will be allowed from within the borders of Iraq to foreign countries.

"They continue to offer support to refugees and asylum seekers, but no armed groups will be allowed to operate in the Kurdistan Region," the Presidency of the Kurdistan Region said in a statement.

Moreover, Erbil and Baghdad agreed to "work together to protect the security of the borders, and they will also coordinate with neighboring countries and take necessary measures."

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia’ Al-Sudani reportedly on Monday will visit Iran to discuss mutual relations. 

President Nechirvan Barzani ensured that the Kurdistan Region will remain a factor of peace and stability for Iraq, neighboring countries and the region.


That's the President of Kurdistan and the Prime Minister of Iraq.

t Tucker was one of her boys and he's brought over to FOX so that she can return to spewing her homophobia.

Recently, Iran has joined Turkey in bombing, droning and attacking northern Iraq (The Kurdistan).  Julian Bechona (RUDAW) notes that last week Iraq decided "to increase the deployment of troops on its borders with Iran and Turkey in an effort to curb further violations of its sovereignty as attacks by Tehran and Ankara have greatly surged in recent months.'' Last week, Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) explained:

The president of the Kurdistan Region on Tuesday met with the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad, during which both sides emphasized the importance of cooperation in facing repeated violations on Iraq’s sovereignty.

According to a joint statement from Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s and President Nechirvan Barzani, one of the topics of the meeting focused on discussing security on the Iraqi border areas.

“They emphasized cooperation to protect Iraq's sovereignty, reject repeated violations, and work to prevent using Iraqi territory as a platform for attacking any neighboring country,” the statement read.

The meeting comes as the Kurdistan Region’s borders have become an arena of instability with Turkish bombardment in the north and Iranian drone and missile attacks coming from the east.



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