EQUALIZER 3 is so-so. I was expecting more. EQUALIZER 2 is my favorite in the series. I love the sequence where Miles is in Denzel Washington's home when the bad guys come in and, over the phone, Denzel directs Miles into a secret room. That's what made the film for me. We can't be Denzel's character but someone like Miles brings us into the film.

There's no one like Miles in the third installment.

Dakota Fanning is probably the best thing after Denzel in the film. But the worst thing is the lack of innovative sequences.

I'm not talking about the script. I think we all expected it to be paint-by-numbers -- and it is. But we also expected for tension and set pieces that would really grip us. That doesn't happen.

And they try to wrap a bow around the end that doesn't really fit. It tries to act like it was always working towards something in the three films when, no, you made it up as you went it along and it shows in all three films so don't try to pretend that you had planned this all along.

Not really a good movie at all. We came home depressed and ended up going to PEACOCK and streaming Ben Affleck's HYPNOTICS.

How did this movie fail at the box office?

It's a very good movie and especially good once you get to the final 40 or so minutes and grasp the twists and turns from earlier. It's going to age well and find an audience.

Go stream it if you want to be satisfied. If you feel like being robbed, go pay to see EQUALIZER 3.

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

Friday, September 1, 2023. Crooked Clarence makes more claims, Iraq convicts in the killing of an American citizen (convicts but apparently does not name), we review the clownish Cornel West, a brief moment on water rights and more.

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Billionaire and the Sidepiece" went up here yesterday.

Harlan Crow has paid for even more travel trips for Crooked Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The news broke yesterday and Betty posted early with "Crooked Clarence lies again" because the media was just repeating -- without question or comment -- Clarence's claim that his security detail told him he should try to travel by private plane.

As Betty points out, if that was the case -- if he's not lying again -- they didn't tell him to let other people pay for his private plane travel.

And I'm not sure they told him that. Clarence has a long history of lying and I'm failing to understand why with all the FBI agents available and with the Supreme Court of the United States Police Department if, after DOBBS was leaked to the press, a threat assessment required more protection, it wouldn't come from government agents? Doesn't make sense.

I want to see that report. I want to see a report where his security detail states he needs to travel by private plane. And since this would be based upon a threat assessment, I want to know why it wasn't covered by the US government.

Clarence is lying yet again and Betty's right. This needs to be called out and that's why we're starting with it in the snapshot.

Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:

Right-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas revealed Thursday that he took three flights on the private jet of conservative billionaire Harlan Crow last year, a disclosure that came more than four months after ProPublicareported that the powerful judge has been accepting luxury trips from the Texas real estate magnate for decades.

The trips are outlined in Thomas' required financial disclosure for 2022. Last May, according to the document, Thomas flew on Crow's private jet to Dallas, where the justice delivered a keynote address at a conference held by the right-wing American Enterprise Institute.

The disclosure states that the May flights to and from Dallas "were by private plane for official travel" because Thomas' "security detail recommended noncommercial travel whenever possible," citing "increased security risk following the Dobbs opinion leak."

That opinion, which was formally handed down on June 24, 2022, ended the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S.

Kyle Herrig, a senior adviser to the progressive group Accountable.US, said in a statement that "it's no surprise that Justice Thomas has kept up his decadeslong cozy relationship with billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow with even more lavish jet rides and vacation reimbursements."

"For years, Thomas has used his position on our nation's highest court as a way to upgrade his own lifestyle—and that hasn't stopped," Herrig added.

Thomas, who has faced calls to resign over the gifts from Crow and other billionaires, also acknowledges in the filing that he "inadvertently omitted" bank account information in financial disclosures dating back to 2017. Thomas previously had to amend two decades of disclosures after he neglected to include information about his wife's income from conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation.

"In a pathetic attempt to clear his name, Thomas' latest financial disclosure confirms his financial dependency on right-wing billionaires and his scorn for basic judicial ethics and common decency," said Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America. "It's no wonder the Supreme Court is mired in an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy."

And a friend just called regarding DEMOCRACY NOW! yesterday. I didn't catch it but we're noting this segment.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: “America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow.” That’s the headline to a major New York Times investigation that examines how the nation’s aquifers are becoming severely depleted due to overuse in part from huge industrial farms and sprawling cities.

The depletion of the nation’s aquifers is already having a devastating impact. The Times reports that in Kansas, corn yields are plummeting due to a lack of water. In Arizona, there is not enough water to support the construction of new homes in parts of Phoenix. And rivers across the country are drying up.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going now to Oklahoma, where we’re joined by Warigia Bowman, who has been closely tracking this issue, director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Thank you so much for being with us. Can you start off by just explaining what an aquifer is, why these groundwater resources are under such threat, why they’re so critical not only to the United States but all over the world?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: Well, thank you so much, Amy. It’s really an honor to be on your show. I’ve been listening for years, so I am grateful for the opportunity.

For your listeners, an aquifer refers to, essentially, a container of soil and rock that holds water under the ground. This is not an underground river. Rather, it’s water flowing through porous rock and soil. So, if you have an aquifer very close to the surface, we usually call that artesian, and that’s when you see a spring. So, if you see a spring bubbling out of the ground, that means that the aquifer is very close to the surface. Some aquifers are very deep below the surface, and they were formed by glacial rainwater billions and millions of years ago. So, an aquifer is just a fancy way of saying, you know, the place that holds our groundwater.

Now, aquifers are critical for both the United and the world, because we get so much of our drinking water from groundwater. It’s really a significant percentage. In California, it could go as high as 60% in a drought year.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Warigia, if you could talk about how the federal government and state governments manage public water supplies?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: OK. Well, the federal government does not deal with groundwater. They have the power to. The Supreme Court has said, in Nebraska v. Sporhase, that the federal government has that opportunity. But all water law is done at the state level for the moment. And what that means is that each different state has a different approach to managing its water. So, actually, who manages water at the local level, that’s a municipal issue. That’s a little bit more of an infrastructure issue. But in terms of who owns the water and the legal regime to utilize it, that’s a state law issue.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about how aquifer depletion isn’t solely a problem in the west of the country, how the tap water crisis is emerging in other parts of the country, as well?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: OK, well, I’m not an expert on the tap water crisis, but I will say that all coastal regions in the United States are really being threatened by groundwater and aquifer problems. Some of the hardest hit are going to be Louisiana and Florida. Obviously, New York will eventually be hit.

Let’s take Florida. I’m sure you guys have already heard about how residents in Miami are trying to move their properties or find property on hillier areas, but in places like the Everglade, you have a very delicate balance of freshwater and saltwater. But when we overdraw our aquifers, then you get something called saltwater intrusion, which upsets that balance. And that’s also a serious problem in Louisiana.

And surprisingly, under the Mississippi River between Mississippi and Arkansas, there’s enormous aquifer depletion. It’s hard to believe because the Mississippi is such a big river. But the farmers in that region are withdrawing so much water so fast that actually the aquifers underneath the Mississippi River are one of the most endangered aquifers in the United States.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Warigia, if you could talk about, very quickly, in the last minute we have, how the climate crisis worsens this aquifer depletion and accelerates it?

WARIGIA BOWMAN: Well, there are a few different ways. The first way is precipitation is declining. Snowmelt is declining — I mean, snow is declining. But one thing to understand it that aquifers and groundwater, they recharge incredibly slowly. So, it can take millions of years to fill an aquifer, but they can be depleted, you know, in 50 years. But as surface water supplies, like rivers and streams and lakes, are depleted, farmers and industry are going to draw more from groundwater, and so that accelerates the depletion.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Warigia Bowman, we want to thank you so much for being with us, associate professor and director of sustainable energy and natural resources law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

That does it for our show. A very happy birthday to Hany Massoud! Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Sonyi Lopez. Our executive director is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo, Miguel Nogueira, Hugh Gran, Denis Moynihan, David Prude, Dennis McCormick, Matt Ealy and Emily Anderson.

If you want to sign up for our daily digest, news in your email box, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us.

That's an important story, and there's so much more to it.

If you live in Goodmanville and you've got a lake and you think this doesn't effect you, you're mistaken.

I've whined here for years about how this isn't what I want to write here. This is what we have to and I've whined since the start that I wanted to cover water rights. This isn't not going to be that because there's no time. And let's keep it conversational and emphasize just one key point.

Danny Schechter was a media analyst. He and I kept bumping into each other in 2004 (we already knew each other) on campuses because I was speaking out against the Iraq War and he was promoting his documentary on the media selling the Iraq War. Since we were often bumping into one another, we'd sometimes plan a lunch together for a future date. I believe we were in Dallas -- I was speaking to three campuses and he was doing a film festival there. He brought along someone who'd done a documentary about water issues who also brought along a college professor.

The college professor explained that Denton, Texas had all this water around it. But Dallas didn't have enough for the coming years. So the City of Dallas actually had the rights -- purchased them -- to Denton's lakes.

This isn't just an issue to the areas that will be depleted, it's all an issue to areas that can look out the window and think they're safe -- oh, look, the lake's got plenty of water -- because you may not be. Your city government may have sold off your water rights.

I've condensed that but that's the basic point. You need to know who has the rights to area's water.

Let's move over to Iraq. THE CRADLE reports:

The Iraqi government has discussed establishing a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes as the country grapples with crippling electricity shortages.

The media office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that the most recent meeting of the Ministerial Council for National Security discussed “establishing a limited nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes and the production of clean electric energy that contributes to reducing dependence on other sources of energy such as gas and oil.”

The Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Ali Fadel, announced last June that Iraq produces 24 thousand megawatts per day, an increase of 22 percent over last year. However, providing electricity 24 hours a day requires production of 34 thousand megawatts per day.

Oh, look, 20 years after Bully Boy Bush was lying about "yellow cake uranium," Iraq may finally get some.

So US troops remain on the ground in Iraq supposedly to train and help with terrorism -- rooting it out -- and yet Iraq's the place for a nuclear reactor. Hmm.

In other news, the US State Dept issued the following yesterday:

Press Statement

Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson

August 31, 2023

We welcome the Iraqi court’s decision to convict and sentence multiple individuals on terrorism charges for their roles in the killing of U.S. citizen Stephen Troell. It is critical that all those responsible for the brutal, premeditated assassination of Mr. Troell face justice and accountability. We once again extend our condolences to Mr. Troell’s family and hope this verdict brings them some measure of justice.

Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

The officials did not identify the Iranian and provided no further details about the case.

The Interior Ministry also confirmed the sentences in a statement, saying four other accused are still wanted.

"The Iranian man was the mastermind of the crime," one legal source told Reuters. All five were arrested in Iraq soon after the fatal shooting, the source said.

At the time of the killing, Mr Troell was working in the local English school, the Global English Institute, run by the Texas aid group Millennium Relief and Development Services.

A native of Tennessee, he had lived in the Iraqi capital with his wife Jocelyn – who was the language school's manager – three daughters and a toddler son, since 2018.

Shortly after the killing, social media accounts close to Iran-backed Shiite militias accused him of being a spy, although they produced no evidence for the claim.

"Let's just go with Tina Louise." Yesterday's snapshot was an apparently an eye opener for some. Again, let me repeat myself, African-Americans are not going to line up behind Cornel West because Cornel's Black. That belief is latent racism on the part of White people. They are not lining up behind Tim Scott.

B-b-but Cornel's a hero.

Conrel's a hero to White blabber mouths.

You are ignorant of reality if you don't grasp that.

Cornel is seen as an enemy by some as a result of 2008. It's not in his WIKIPEDIA, big surprise. But Cornel went around 'pressuring' or 'attacking' Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries and election.

You have no idea, if you live in a White-focused world, how scarring that was.

Tavis Smiley partnered with Cornel for that 2008 action.

I know Tom Joyner, love him, known him for decades. In 2008, Tavis had to leave THE TOM JOYNER MORNING SHOW and Tavis and Tom were very close and neither wanted it to happen. But despite being a beloved part of the show, by staff and by the audience, it did happen. What Cornel and Tavis were doing was leading to a huge ton of complaints from listener and there was also some drop off in the ratings with more of a drop off expected. So Tavis left the show.

NOTE: I am not in the mood for stupid. I've told Martha and Shirley to delete any e-mails coming into the public account that want to pretend they know facts when they don't. Do not e-mail, "You are confusing 2012 with 2008." No, CRAPAPEDIA is wrong as usual. It's a White site, don't trust it for information about any non-White person. 2008 is the issue. I'll spoonfeed lazy asses once and only once on this: here's a link to ESSENCE and it's from 2008 and that's when Tavis left. And Tom's quoted in there and Tom told the truth. I have no idea why Cornel's lying in the interview but Cornel's always lying.

This is the sort of thing in the Black community that White YOUTUBE can't, won't and doesn't tell you. Sometimes it's because they're young adults too stupid to learn history before opening their mouths to offer 'facts.' Sometimes it's because they just don't care. It's not White so it doesn't matter to them and, who cares, they're just going to say whatever they want about Black people because isn't that the White way.

I'm sick of it, I'm sick of these people thinking they can weigh in when they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

After Barack was elected in November 2008, Cornel could never figure out where he stood on Barack which resulted in gushing and in attacks and it never made sense and Tom Joyner's audience was vocal about that. After the election, with Barack in the White House, some of the tensions could have healed for Cornel. And he could have, for example, remained a critic of Barack and that would have been okay. People would have said he was being consistent. Instead, he was all over the map -- slamming one moment, fluffing the next. Over and over.

Cornel's audience is and always has been people who could be male characters on THE BIG BANG THEORY. A bunch of White men and Raj.

He talks a lot -- in circles -- he never does anything. He's a blabber mouth.

He's not Rev Jesse Jackson who's got a lifetime of activism -- real activism -- and then decides to run for president in 1984. He's a DSA academic removed from reality. And since YOUTUBE is the same -- and is pretty much hosted by people who could be male characters on THE BIG BANG THEORY -- no one wants to comment on that reality.

He's not a doer, he's a talker.

He's not an activist, he's an academic. And not a good academic because a good academic can, for example, criticize Lawrence Summers without sounding anti-Semitic. Cornel knows all about coded language and used it repeatedly in his war with Lawrence Summers (and that goes far beyond with the ridiculous comparison of Summers to Ariel Sharon). We have criticized Lawrence repeatedly and harshly over the years and we never had the need to do it with references -- coded or otherwise -- to Lawrence being Jewish.

Your nerd fan boi fantasies about Cornel West are not reality.

Jesse and Jackie Jackson are fixtures in the African-American community and that's due to the fact that they have roots in and they are part of it. They have given decades working in the community.

Cornel and all three of his wives can't make that claim.

I'd say he was busy working in the academic community but that's a lie as well and that was at the heart of his dispute with Lawrence when Lawrence took over at Harvard -- Cornel was too busy trying to become an academic celebrity, churning out co-written 'books' that were sloppy and not scholarly.

Cornel was not leading protests, he was not organizing within the community, he was shucking and jiving and making funny faces in interviews to increase his own fame and wealth.

He is weak ass and he's seen as a clown.

But you keep imposing how you see him onto others and pretend like that's reality. See where it gets you.

This push to make Cornel West the Green Party presidential nominee (they will choose their nominee at their party convention in the summer of 2024) makes about as much sense as White House chief of staff Jeff Zients telling Joe Biden that the next cabinet secretary opening should go to Tina Louise "because she was so good on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND as Ginger."

And let's talk the real harm if Cornel is the nominee. He's not a Green (he's DSA) and you're yet again telling your own party that there is no one in the party worthy of the nomination so you're going to draft from outside the party again.

Today we're all the children of Florida. Nathan Diller (USA TODAY) reports:

Canada warned travelers visiting the United States about state laws impacting LGBTQ people.

The country added a cautionary message for travelers who identify as Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or those who use other terminologies to its travel advice and advisory page for the U.S. on Tuesday.

“Some states have enacted laws and policies that may affect 2SLGBTQI+ persons,” the advisory said. The warning recommended travelers check relevant state and local laws.

“The Government of Canada takes the safety and security of Canadians abroad very seriously and provides accurate and up to date information in its Travel Advice and Advisories to enable travelers to make informed and responsible decisions regarding their destinations,” a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada told USA TODAY in an emailed statement.

From the government of Canada's Global Affairs website:

2SLGBTQI+ travellers

Some states have enacted laws and policies that may affect 2SLGBTQI+ persons. Check relevant state and local laws.

Travel and your sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics

Travel and your sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics

Foreign laws and customs related to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) can be very different from those in Canada. As a result, you could face certain barriers and risks when you travel outside Canada. Research and prepare for your trip in advance to help your travels go smoothly.

CBC notes:

The updated advice does not mention any specific law or state policy, nor does it suggest staying away from a particular state. When asked for details, a department spokesperson pointed to laws targeting the transgender community.

"Since the beginning of 2023, certain states in the U.S. have passed laws banning drag shows and restricting the transgender community from access to gender affirming care and from participation in sporting events," the spokesperson said in a media statement.

"The information is provided to enable travellers to make their own informed decisions regarding destinations. Outside Canada, laws and customs related to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics can be very different from those in Canada."

I don't know what to say except, "Today, we're all the children of Florida."

Like those poor unfortunates in Florida, we are the laughingstock. We are looked down on by educated areas of the world, just like the children in Florida who can't learn this or study that or read that. Government officials have betrayed us and made us seem like idiots. Hopefully, as we should grasp that the children in Florida are not responsible for Ronald DeSantis' war on education, the people of the world can grasp that we are not all as stupid and hateful as some of our leaders.

The Florida section above was dictated but accidentally got left out when the snapshot went up. It was put in on 9/1/23 at 11:27 am PST.

Let's wind down with this from Will Lehman:

A strategy to stop the EV jobs bloodbath!

Dear fellow workers,

As the clock ticks down to the September contract expirations for 170,000 US and Canadian autoworkers, plans for a jobs massacre of historic proportions are being concealed from the rank and file.

The transition to electric vehicles must not be carried out at workers’ expense!

Join an online meeting this Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Central time for an urgent discussion of this threat. The meeting will review critical information on the scale of the coming attacks on jobs and the strategy for workers to unite internationally to fight the jobs massacre and reverse concessions. Register for the event here.

I encourage all autoworkers and other UAW members to attend:

Yesterday, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) released a major statement calling for an all-out fight by autoworkers internationally to stop the EV jobs bloodbath.

The IWA-RFC wrote:

What is being prepared is not a contract, it is a death warrant for hundreds of thousands of auto jobs in North America and millions around the world. To oppose this, workers must have all the facts so they can develop a strategy to defend jobs and living standards.

This once-in-a-century industry transition threatens to eliminate half or more than half of all auto jobs in the US in the next five to 10 years, according to industry reports and research by experts.

In the US, plans for a brutal restructuring of the auto industry are being worked out behind workers’ backs by the United Auto Workers union bureaucracy, which is conspiring with management and the Biden administration. In Canada, the Unifor bureaucracy and the Trudeau government are playing similar roles.

The primary concern of UAW President Shawn Fain and the UAW apparatus is not a “just transition” to EVs—which is impossible under capitalism—but rather to maintain and expand its access to dues money from workers at the new EV battery plants.

US imperialism and its allies, meanwhile, see the transition to EVs as a vital necessity, as they seek to undermine their economic competitors—particularly China—and increase the massive profits pumped out of the working class.

The defense of workers’ jobs and the progressive resolution of any of the life-and-death problems confronting workers requires an international strategy, uniting autoworkers around the world, who confront the same enemies in the world’s transnational auto companies.

To stop the plans for a jobs massacre, the IWA-RFC and the Autoworkers Rank-and-File Committee Network are calling for workers to form rank-and-file factory committees and fight for the following demands:

Immediate release of the list of planned plant closures!
Not a single job loss or plant closure in the transition to EV!
If EVs require less labor time to produce, then reduce hours and increase pay!
Unite across borders to prevent a race to the bottom!
Place the auto industry under social ownership subject to democratic worker control!

Join us for this urgent discussion on how workers themselves can unite internationally and fight for their interests. Register today to attend, and invite your coworkers.