Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Billy Porter, James Baldwin, Michael Jackson, Brooke Shields, Jodie Foster





Billy Porter is preparing to portray the author and civil rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic.

He will also co-write the untitled movie with Dan McCabe, which will be adapted from the 1994 book “James Baldwin: A Biography” by David Leeming. An emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut, Leeming was well versed in Baldwin as his friend of 25 years as well as his assistant.


Porter says it has been a career-long dream to tell the story of Baldwin on film. Born in Harlem in 1924, Baldwin was a Black gay writer whose influential works include “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” “Notes of a Native Son” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.” In addition to writing, Baldwin fought for racial justice in the U.S. civil rights movement. In Leeming’s book, he’s described as a “complex, troubled, driven, and brilliant man” who has a “gift for compassion and love.”





That is really great news.  James Baldwin is a significant literary figure of the 20th century.  You'd think people would be lining up to make films about him.  But while there have been documentaries about him, I'm unaware of a single film (biopic) that focused on his life.

Good for Billy Porter for making it and for using the fame he has to get it made.

Chris Tucker hasn't had any 'heat' in his career in forever.  But he once did and he didn't do a thing with it.  Imagine if every one who had a hot moment in their career used that period to make at least one portrayal of a historical figure how much better we would know our past and our struggle. 


Meanwhile, CBR reports:


The Blue Lagoon director Randal Kleiser wants to discuss with Brooke Shields the allegations of sexual exploitation she made against him.

Per BuzzFeed.News, Shields opened up in her new Hulu docuseries, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, about her work on the 1980 romantic drama, The Blue Lagoon. Shields was 14 at the time the movie was made. Now, as an adult, the actor alleged that the Blue Lagoon director pushed the marketing of the film around the actor's image as underage eye candy to male audiences. Additionally, she claimed that Kleiser tried to exploit her sexual awakening as "going from a child to a woman during the filming." Kleiser is also known for directing 1978's Grease.



I'm with Rebecca ("brooke shields knows how to self-promote "), she really is reaching.  Brooke's career is in the toilet where it's been for a long, long time.  Her chin is doing this weird thing where it looks like it's crumbling and she's desperate for attention.  As Ava and C.I. noted on Sunday in "TV: The media's lack of accountability:"
 
Brooke's the one who chose to disclose that she was a virgin -- she did it to have a publicity hook for the book she had coming out.  You know, the same way she waited until she needed to promote PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS to disclose that she was raped as a young adult.
 
 I actually need to quote another part of the essay:

Mother Teri is blamed for everything, then it's blame Andre Agassi (first husband) for everything.  When is it Brooke's fault?  It's so bad that the 'documentary' even blames Michael Jackson.  

 

He claimed he and Brooke were dating!!!!  


Yeah and so did she.


The 'documentary' shows photos of Brooke and Michael -- at the American Music Awards.  They don't show photos from the Grammys.


Maybe Brooke didn't want to talk about that?


We will. 


Brooke's career was in the toilet and she was a professional joke.  SAHARA, her most recent film, had bombed at the box office.  How badly?  Brooke was paid more for starring in the film than the movie made in ticket sales.  Her Calvin Klein commercials were over and her  Well Balsam commercials had further turned her into a joke. The American Music Awards with Michael Jackson?  A huge amount of publicity that she sorely needed.


And if she'd left it at that, we wouldn't be commenting.  But ask any Jackson sister and they'll tell you, she didn't leave it at that.  She demanded Michael take her to the Grammys.  She hounded on the phone, she showed up at his home.  He didn't want to take her.  She insisted.  And the sole reason -- she points out now that they were never in love or even dating -- was for publicity.  


Now we don't see, in the 'documentary,' the Grammys.  We don't see that because it blew up in Brooke's face.  She was humiliated.  As she told Michael when they arrived -- with Emanuel Lewis, "They're laughing at us!"  Yes, they were.  And Brooke wanted to leave immediately.  


But there she is whining -- and, yes, "whining" is the only term for it -- that she turns on the TV and there's Michael saying that they're dating.  She tells us, in the 'documentary,' that she picked up the phone and told him to stop saying that because she was dating someone.


Okay.  Well, she didn't feel that way when she could get mileage out of him.  If the Grammys had gone the way the American Music Awards had, she might even still be pretending they dated.




Sorry, if you love Michael Jackson, I do believe he did things when he slept with the kids.  But even with that said, that doesn't give Brooke Shields the right to lie about him.  Whatever he did (or did not do) off stage, he was an incredible musician and no one needs a 'professional virgin' who used him for publicity to go around accusing him of her own actions.  She's awful.  Tatum O'Neal has never made comments about him and she was his 'girlfriend' before Brooke.  

Brooke was always a lousy actress and, sad to see, she's a lousy person as well. 

How dare she sign onto a film where she knows she's going to be playing a girl who is pregnant before the age of 16, a girl who is nude for most of the movie, a girl who walks in on the boy and then later whine.  They paid her way too much money -- over $500,000 and they needed a hit.  They sold it the way they sold it.  Considering the character she chose to play, she got what she was paid for.  Take accountability already.

Jodie Foster doesn't blame everyone for the way things turned out.  It's got to kill Brooke Shields that she doesn't have Jodie's career.  Both were child actors, both did films, both were the children of single mothers.  The difference?  Jodie's mother educated her.  Jodie worked at her craft.  Jodie wasn't doing nonsense -- like SAHARA -- because she was offered $2.5 million.  Jodie chose roles that let her strut her acting chops.  Jodie is a two time Best Actress Academy Award winner.  Brooke has never, ever been nominated for an acting award, not a serious one.



Golden Raspberry Awards?  She's been nominated for those and she's won -- for SAHARA, SPEED ZONE and BLUE LAGOON.  

As Brooke embarrasses herself yet again, Jodie's gearing up for the debut of TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY on HBO MAX.  Maybe Brooke should think of how it looks to her two daughters to see their mother, a grown adult, constantly put the blame on everyone else?

 

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

 

Wednesday, April 12, 2023.  Corruption dances across the American landscape while THE ATLANTIC rushes to minimize it, 42-year-old member of Congress 'forgets' that she's not married (and has never been married),  and much more.






Will Crooked Clarence Thomas be punished?  Will he be removed from the Supreme Court to restore some legitimacy to the body?  Or is the whole system so corrupt that he'll be allowed to remain on the bench and pretend like nothing happened?  Barry Grey's WSWS report would argue for the latter since the whole system has become corrupt:

A common feature of the pervasive corruption of capitalist politics and politicians in America is the practice of using privileged information to make stock trades, particularly in the midst of the recurring crises that beset Wall Street. In such matters, as in passing laws to ban strikes by rail workers and impose contracts rejected by the workers, bipartisanship prevails.

Last month’s government bailout of rich depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the second and third biggest bank failures in US history, is no exception.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal, citing recent legally required disclosures, reported that three House members, two Republicans and one Democrat, two of whom were directly involved in secret bailout talks, made substantial trades in bank stocks in the initial days of the crisis. According to the Journal’s own investigation, New York Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer made trades that marked “the latest instance of congressional stock trading intersecting with official business.”

Malliotakis bought stock in New York Community Bankcorp (NYCB) on March 17, two days before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced that Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of NYCB, would take on Signature’s deposits. Signature, headquartered in New York City, had been placed in receivership by New York regulators on March 12.

Just days before she bought the stock, Malliotakis issued a statement (March 13) on her Twitter account in which she boasted of working closely with federal and state officials to address the failure of Signature.

“Both last night and this morning I have been meeting with the Federal Reserve, U.S. Department of Treasury, Governor [Kathy] Hochul and New York State Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne Harris to discuss the closure of Signature Bank,” she wrote, adding, “I have been assured all depositors will be made whole through the Deposit Insurance Fund which is made up of contributions from all member banks, not taxpayer funds.”

Malliotakis bought $1,001 to $15,000 in NYBC stock on March 17. The day after the March 19 announcement that NYBC’s Flagstar subsidiary would acquire Signature’s deposits, NYBC stock rose 32 percent, landing the congresswoman a tidy profit.

Rep. Malliotakis’s disclosure said the stock purchase was made by her spouse, a common excuse given by politicians who are involved in insider trading. Unfortunately for the congresswoman, she is unmarried. 


She forgot.  She forgot she wasn't married.  Just slipped her mind. A Greek Orthodox, 42-year-old woman and she 'just forgot.'  Kind of hard to believe that, kind of hard to believe it hasn't been a topic of conversation in her own Greek Orthodox family.  


Democratic senators are calling for the Supreme Court to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose reported luxury trips funded by a billionaire Republican donor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have announced they will hold a hearing on Supreme Court ethics.

The panel also warned of legislation, if the court does not resolve this issue on its own.



Clarence Thomas is the dumbest U.S. Supreme Court Justice as well as the longest serving and the most sexually creepy, I always thought, although the limber Brett Kavanaugh bounced far ahead of him in the last category.

In 2016, Thomas asked a question in court, breaking a 10-year silence. For a decade, the man had nothing to say. Was he shy? He’s no longer shy, his confidence built up from hanging with billionaire Harlan Crow.

“What first attracted you to the billionaire Harlan Crow?” I’d ask Thomas. “What first attracted you to the non-bright and biddable Justice Thomas?” I’d ask Crow.

They’re a pairing made in American hell, a bad influence on each other and a terror to fellow citizens, particularly women. For 20 years, Crow has treated Thomas and his family to luxury cruises on his yacht, flights on his private jet, and stays at his East Texas ranch and his private Adirondacks resort, ProPublica reveals. His gifts, including portraits, have been lavish. Thomas keeps them secret. 


It is a horror show.  And note the silence -- still -- from so many 'left' YOUTUBERS.  And note the shameful whores rushing in to defend Clarence and/or his sugar daddy.  The always embarrassing ATLANTIC offers garbage from Graeme Wood who rushes to defend Nazi Harlan Crow -- Clarence's sugar daddy:


Recent reporting by ProPublica has suggested that that is what Harlan Crow in fact is: a sinister Croesus meddling in world affairs, chiefly by corrupting Clarence Thomas with gifts of private-jet flights and bottles of pricey French wine.
Crow also owns Nazi memorabilia, including paintings by Adolf Hitler, a signed copy of Mein Kampf, and a set of swastika-emblazoned napkins. 

But, please note, Graeme insists that doesn't make him a Nazi.  After you question Graeme's sanity, the next one is to ask if Harlan is also Graeme's sugar daddy?

No, you don't own a signed copy of MEIN KAMPF unless you're a fan boi.  If you're disturbed -- the natural reaction -- by Hitler crimes and you somehow end up with a signed copy, you throw it in the trash.  You discontinue it as a collector's item in the interest of the millions who suffered because of Hitler.  That's before we get to the paintings and the "swastika-emblazoned napkins."  

Hon, Happy April 20th.  Clarence and Ginni are coming over, where do we keep the swastika-emblazoned napkins?

I've already placed them on the sideboard, right next to our commemorative Heinrich Himmler plates.  Happy April 20th.



The incident reflects the broader lack of accountability at the high court regarding off-bench behavior. Justices regularly brush aside reporters’ queries for specifics on travel and gifts, book advances and other extracurricular activities.

They have repeatedly spurned calls by members of Congress that they adopt a formal ethics code. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin made another such plea to Roberts this week as he also urged the chief justice to open an investigation into Thomas’ conduct.   

At the same time, the high court has long benefited from a certain degree of good will, free of the scrutiny watchdog groups and news media have given the legislative and executive branches of government.

They may have squandered that good will.

Polls show the public approval of the court – now controlled by a conservative supermajority – plunging. The pattern was accelerated after last summer’s reversal of longstanding precedent in multiple cases, most notably the decision dissolving nearly a half century of abortion rights precedent.   


It's an illegitimate court and its image is in tatters.  This cannot stand. 





There’s no need to demonize and dehumanize any group of people in a legislative process stacked in Republicans state lawmakers’ favor from the get-go. Those are the spoils of 20 years of gerrymandering, packing courts with partisans and voter suppression.

Florida Republicans hold a super-majority and have all the votes in the Legislature necessary to pass whatever bill they and their autocratic agenda-setting leader, Gov. DeSantis, could possibly desire.

But they carry the bully gene in their souls.

They’ve now advanced to quash the most vulnerable among us with evil verbal attacks that have no place in society, much less the Florida House.

At a committee hearing Monday, Rep. Webster Barnaby, a Deltona Republican, railed against transgender people, calling them “demons and imps” and “mutants from another planet.”




Disgusting behavior on many levels, but the lack of decorum and civility is especially galling because he’s targeting vulnerable people — misunderstood transgender people, who have the highest suicide rates in the country.






Last month in Nashville, widely regarded as the entertainment capital of the South, Tennessee lawmakers passed a law that bans one class of entertainer: "male and female impersonators," otherwise known as drag performers. However, a day before the nation's first anti-drag law was set to take effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked it for violating the First Amendment.



That is right.  It's a free speech issue.  You wouldn't know that from watching the endlessly pontificating Jonathan Turley as he climbed the cross for every right winger who got what was coming to them -- booed.  Booing is not free speech, he Tweets endlessly and he write over and over in bad columns for FOX "NEWS" and THE NEW YORK POST.  Once upon a time, before he became so disgusting, other newspapers would carry him.  Not now.  So Swirley shows up to whine of how uncivil and mean and wrong it is when a hate merchant gets booed (or claims that they were 'assaulted' when there's no evidence to back that claim up) but when lawmakers try to strip performers of their First Amendment right, that doesn't warrant a column -- after over a year of this, he will do a blog post -- where he pretends he just stop breast feeding his own children and -- having birthed children (and nearly gotten back that figure) -- he knows how disgusting drag queens are but . . .  maybe even they have some rights too?  Such is the decaying mind of what once the country's leading legal light.  




Back to Roman Feeser:

How did drag queens get dragged into politics? For that, we turn to the city of Jackson, Tennessee.

In March, Tennessee state Rep. Chris Todd, a Republican, indicated to the state Senate that it was his constituents who requested he take up the bill: "This past year in my community, we had a local group decide to do a, quote, family-friendly drag show. When they listed this as family-friendly, my community rose up."

The community of Jackson never even saw the scheduled Pride performance before opponents raised thousands of dollars in donations and filed an injunction to prevent it from taking place. Todd then introduced the new bill as an obscenity statute to prevent "adult cabaret performers like drag queens from performing in public spaces where children could be present."

Critics of the bill say an obscenity law is already on the books, and that this is specifically targeting the LGBTQIA+ community.




And it does target them.  That's why these laws are being proposed.  But that doesn't concern Jonathan Turley.  He's too busy throwing his lot in with Lorie Smith -- the web 'designer' who insists her free speech rights would be abused and denied if she were forced to design a website for a same-sex couple.  Jonathan's so deep in his homophobia that he can't even note that the woman has no standing.  She's not been asked to do this and said "no."  But, you know, maybe someday, it might come up, possibly.  So by all means let's waste the Supreme Court's time.  Once upon a time, law professors grasped standing, taught standing and questioned it when a case moved forward when the person bringing it did not have standing.


But when, like Jonathan Turley, you now drop to all fours and beg the bigotry to take you from behind, you can't be bothered with legal concepts.

If he didn't also agree to a ball-gag, maybe he could explain to us all how Lorie Smith has been injured?  She thinks she will.  She thinks someday a same-sex couple is going to come to her for a website -- they'd have to be really self-loathing to pay her any money -- and that, when that happens, she will be damaged.  Where's the injury right now?  There is none.



But that's what we have that no one wants to get honest about:  A crazed right-wing, motivated by hate, working to overturn the rights of everyone.  They plot in secret, they seek out idiots like Lorie Smith to pursue cases and they try to get those cases with the judges they want.  I'd argue the whole thing is a criminal conspiracy that is abusing the courts and is a threat to democracy.    As Nazi worshipper Harlan Crow demonstrates, big money gives you access.  Clarence Thomas' sugar daddy is all about pay-to-play and democracy and the law are destroyed as a result.  

But don't look to Turley to weigh in on that, he's too busy gazing up at the hate merchants as he kneels before them, ready to service their every need.


It's really sad when someone's kink is so out of control that they let it destroy their reputation but, boys and girls, that's how low Turley's sunk.



Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro visibly stumbled as he attempted to defend Republican billionaire donor Harlan Crow’s ownership of Nazi memorabilia and remnants from totalitarian regimes.


The Daily Wire founder used his latest podcast to defend Clarence Thomas’ from ProPublica’s report that the Supreme Court justice accepted luxurious gifts and vacations paid for by Crow, and Thomas never marked any of this down in his financial disclosures. This led to Shapiro fuming over the scrutiny Crow has received for his collection of historical pieces from toppled autocracies.



How sad, how very sad.  Billy on the "Unplugged" episode of DIFFICULT PEOPLE (Billy Eichner's character) was tempted by Cecil Jefford until he saw the man's collection of Nazi artifacts.  That was all it took for Billy.  Sadly, the same cannot be said for Ben Shapiro and, Ben, John Mulaney is not playing the part of Harlan Crow.  So exactly what is it that has turned your head?


(John Mulaney's next comedy special debuts on NETFLIX, April 25th, FYI.)


Ben Shapiro can take comfort in the fact that he's still young.  John Stauber can't claim to be young.  Or good looking.





For those who don't know, George Sorors has given to Human Rights Watch so John's furious.  I don't like George Soros.  I'm on record and that goes back to the '00s.  I had to go on record because Ava and I were accused of taking Soros money.  I don't take blood money.  And I'm not a whore.  I can't be bought.  Why did the rumor start?  Ava and I wrote a piece that numerous sites reposted (without our permission, which is fine) and many were, like Danny Schechter's MEDIA CHANNEL, sites that took money from Soros.  We did not take money from him.  We did not take money from anyone.  We were not asked by anyone if they could reprint and we were not told by anyone that they had reposted us.  I knew Danny offline.  When I found out that the Soros claim was because of Danny's reposting, I asked him if he realized that he had damaged our reputation and he replied with a list of other sites that had reposted Ava and my piece.  Those people may have received money from Soros (I know Danny did) but Ava and I didn't.  And we made clear of that and that we found the assertion offensive because George Soros has made his money off the blood of others. That is his line of work.  Others have to suffer for him to profit.  

Unlike John Stauber, I reject George Soros.  John kind of does.  He pretends he's enraged by everyone who takes Soros money and but then he reTweets Susan "Medea" Benjamin, for example.  Does he really not know how much money Soros has given Global Exchange?  

He's deranged.  (Actually both are, John and George.)



How stupid is John?  I mean, I know he's stupid.  Rebecca's rightly pointed out "john stauber is the 21st century david horowitz."  He's gone over to the right and offers his homophobia and his transphobia and reTweets the most objectionable people -- as Rebecca and Ruth have repeatedly documented.  (He also blocked me when I objected to his lying about a friend of mine in a Tweet.  John just makes up garbage these days.)   But has he lost all his marbles (Ruth was just saying he was senile with dementia.)  The reason I ask is it was last week that the new spokesperson was noted.  And yet FOX BUSINESS NEWS knows the immediate impact.  From looking at sales records?  No, from cherry picking a few bars.  Is it even five?  Bad writing bores me and I didn't make it through the whole article.  

Imagine that, FOX BUSINESS "NEWS" -- from the network trying to demonize trans people -- publishes an article with no real figures or, for that matter, data and former media critic John Stauber swallows it down to the hairy root.   Well, at least he's found a calling.  He's kind of like a priest . . . with too much time on his hands and unlimited access to minors.

On Iraq, MEMO notes:

The Iraqi government has called on Turkiye to apologise for an attack on an airport in the country's northern Kurdish region, Reuters news agency reports.

According to the report, the Iraqi demand on Saturday came as a Turkish Defence Ministry official told the Reuters news agency that no Turkish Armed Forces operation had taken place in that region in recent days.

Iraq's presidency said the attack on Friday took place in the vicinity of the Sulaimaniyah Airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, denouncing it as a "flagrant aggression" against its sovereignty.



The US press that has ignored this attack continue to ignore it.  




The following sites updated:



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