Has there been a worse film in 2023 -- worse than SOUND
OF FREEDOM? Putzes flocked to the film insisting it was their story.
Anyone who still thinks that might want to read this from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
The team behind Sound of Freedom has remained silent so far on new allegations involving Tim Ballard, who is portrayed in the movie as a hero by Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel.
Ballard,
founder of the anti-child-trafficking group Operation Underground
Railroad, rose to new levels of prominence this summer when the film
turned into a sleeper hit that has grossed more than $182 million
domestically and $210 million worldwide.
On Monday, a Vice News report detailed
anonymous allegations against Ballard relating to his quiet exit in
late June from O.U.R., which he launched in 2013. His departure came as Sound of Freedom filmmaker Alejandro Monteverde and Angel Studios were readying the film for release over the July Fourth holiday.
Ballard,
a former Department of Homeland Security official, embarked on
undercover overseas missions to fight child trafficking upon starting
O.U.R. According to Vice, he brought women to pose as his wife
on these missions and allegedly coerced them to share a bed or shower
with him under the guise that these behaviors were needed to fool child
traffickers.
Vice also
reported that an O.U.R. employee who traveled with Ballard on an
overseas mission filed a sexual harassment claim against him.
Tim Ballard, the real-life founder and onetime CEO of Operation Underground Railroad who is portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the indie hit Sound of Freedom,
was the subject of sexual misconduct allegations and a related
investigation involving seven women, according to a story published by
Vice.
It's
one problem after another with that film. I think it'll harm any
chances at any awards when that time rolls around. It's just had too
much bad publicity.
Last year, when I saw Hasan Minhaj perform stand-up
comedy in New York, he told a joke about how he came across a drunk
white woman who was vomiting on the side of the street, and when he went
to check if she was alright, she looked up and asked if he was her Uber
driver. I rolled my eyes, turned to my friend and called bulls---.
Turns out it probably was.
The
comedian, a Muslim Indian-American, who has built a brand and career
around autobiographical comedy with political overtones — often
centering himself in stories where he is subjected to racism — turns out
to have been lying. A New Yorker exposé,
written by Clare Malone, found that his stories are often either wild
embellishments or just never happened. He is the boy who cried racist
wolf. And although Minhaj staunchly defended his lies and embellishments
to Malone, claiming they reflect “emotional truths” that need to be
addressed, he is instead hurting people of color — not helping them.
Lying
about racism does a huge disservice to racial and ethnic minorities,
and it will likely only buttress white supremacy, an apparatus designed
to belittle and deny racism as it is. Having a high-profile brown person
build his career in part around fabricated experiences with racism will
only feed into this narrative.
No
surprise, Whoopi Goldberg has already rushed forward to defend him.
That would be the same Whoopi who defended Roman Polanski with regards
to Roman drugging the girl and then having sex with her. Whoopi
announced on THE VIEW that this wasn't "rape-rape." So it's no surprise
she's rushing to defend Minhaj. It does matter. From Noor's column:
But
after Malone interviewed Minhaj’s doormen, his residence’s mailroom
employees, security personnel hired through his show and his personal
security guard — and after reviewing records from local hospitals and
the New York Police Department team that’s tasked with investigating
anthrax — Malone could find no evidence of the incident. When she
challenged Minhaj on this, he admitted it never actually happened but
did claim that someone had once sent him white powder (which,
interestingly, he never informed anyone on his security team of).
In
his other Netflix stand-up special, “Homecoming King,” Minhaj tells the
heartbreaking story of how the white girl who had agreed to go to prom
with him ultimately rejected him and went with a white boy instead
— something Minhaj only learned about when he arrived at her house, all
dressed up and ready to take her to the dance, and the other boy was
already there. Her family didn’t want her prom pictures to be with a
South Asian boy, they said. In a sick twist of irony, he alleges, she
went on to marry an Indian man.
However,
according to this woman, they were good friends at the time and the
rejection never happened (she declined his invite before the prom),
which Minhaj confirmed when confronted by Malone. Yet, disturbingly, he
invited the woman and her husband to the Off-Broadway version of the
show and did little to conceal their identities (projecting real
pictures of them on stage, blurring out only the faces). What ensued for
this woman was years of harassment and doxing, which Minhaj dismissed
when she approached him about it.
Again, it does matter.
Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snashot:"
Tuesday, September 19, 2023. Turkey kills three security force members
in Iraq (three more injured), Iraq's prime minister meets with the US
Secretary of State, Ronald DeSantis continues his war on education and
wants to talk 'decency' -- no, he's not calling out Lauren Boebert for
groping that man in public -- and much more.
An airstrike on a military airport in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous
Kurdish region killed three people Monday, local officials said.
The
region’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement that the attack
on the Arbat Airport, 28 kilometers southeast of the city of
Suleimaniyah killed three of its personnel and injured three members of
the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
Drone attack on the KRG? Hmm. Who could that be? Who spring sto mind? The government of Turkey?
Al Jazeera’s Abdelwahid said that Turkish drones have been hovering in the area for the past three days.
“The Sulaymaniyah province is home to anti-Turkish and anti-Iran groups,
and both these countries have been conducting air raids in and around
Sulaymaniyah,” Al Jazeera’s Abdelwahid said, adding that we still do not
know who is behind the attack.
The
government of Turkey has sent ground forces into Iraq and set up bases
-- in violation of Iraq's sovereignty -- and under the pretext of
fighting 'terrorism.' Even when they're killing children, they insist
they're killing terrorists. When they attacked vacationers at a resort,
they insisted it was to kill 'terrorists.' The attack on Monday left
three Iraqi military officers dead and three more wounded.
AFP reports:
Around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) Monday, “the drone entered Iraqi airspace,
crossing the border from Turkiye, and bombarded the Arbat airfield,”
which is mainly used by crop-spraying aircraft, said General Yehya
Rassoul, spokesman of the federal armed forces commander in chief.
“This attack constitutes a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said,
adding: “Iraq reserves the right to put a stop to these violations.”
[. . .]
“These repeated attacks are incompatible with the principle of good
neighborliness between states. They threaten to undermine Iraq’s efforts
to build positive and balanced political, economic and security
relations with its neighbors,” Rassoul said.
[. . .]
The United Nations mission in Iraq condemned the attack on Arbat airfield.
“Attacks repeatedly violating Iraqi sovereignty must stop,” it said.
“Security concerns must be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy —
not strikes.”
Bafel
Talabani, President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of
the dominant Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, confirmed Monday's drone
strike. He said those killed and wounded were members of the Iraqi
Kurdish counter-terrorism force.
"We
strongly condemn the terrorist attack on the Agricultural Airport of
Arbid in Sulaymaniyah, which resulted in the martyrdom and injury of six
heroic Peshmerga," he said.
Iraqi
Kurdistan’s internal security forces, Asayish, said the
counter-terrorism force was attacked and three members were killed
during a training mission inside the airport.
Iraqi
Kurdistan's Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani condemned the drone
attack and demanded the intervention of the federal government
authorities to "prevent these attacks from recurring".
Azhi Rasul (RUDAW) reminds, "In April a drone strike targeted a convoy carrying US military
personnel, including Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) general commander
Mazloum Abdi, near Sulaimani International Airport. Abdi blamed Turkey
for being behind the attack."
Mohammed
Shia al-Sudani, prime minister of Iraq, is not currently in Iraq. He's
in the United States and he will address the United Nations this
week.
REUTERS notes, "Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani met with U.S.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York on Monday and received an
invitation from U.S. President Joe Biden to visit Washington, Iraqi
state media reported." If they meet, it would be the first face-to-face between Mohammed and Joe.
MEMO notes, "Biden and Sudani have yet to meet since Sudani took office last year
after being appointed by a coalition of parties, predominantly Shia
Muslim groups close to Tehran. He has since walked a diplomatic
tightrope between the US and Iran, two countries that in the past have
fought out their rivalry on Iraqi soil."
Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) adds:
Last week, Assistant Treasury Secretary Elizabeth Rosenberg visited Iraq and met Mr Al Sudani and the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq Ali Al Alaq.
They
discussed bilateral relations and measures taken by the bank to fight
money laundering and terrorist financing, the central bank said.
Washington
has been pressing Iraq since last year to stop the flow of the dollar
through the foreign currency auction run by the Central Bank of Iraq to
countries under US sanctions, including Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
The Federal Reserve Bank
of New York has applied strict measures on requests for international
transactions from Iraq, rejecting many and delaying others.
The US State Dept issued the following yesterday:
The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Iraqi
Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani today on the margins of United
Nations General Assembly in New York. Secretary Blinken and Prime
Minister Sudani renewed their commitment to continue strengthening the
partnership between the two countries and reaffirmed the principles in
the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement. The Secretary also
encouraged the Government of Iraq to continue sustainably developing
energy resources and combating climate change and underscored U.S.
support for re-opening of the pipeline with Türkiye. The Secretary
urged the Iraqi government to continue its cooperation with the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to foster the KRG’s stability and
resiliency. The Secretary commended the Prime Minister’s commitment to
judicial independence in Iraq’s recent conviction and sentencing of
multiple individuals on terrorism charges in connection with the killing
of U.S. citizen Stephen Troell. The Secretary conveyed an invitation
from President Biden to the Prime Minister to visit the White House soon
and reiterated the U.S. commitment to assisting Iraq in achieving a
secure, stable, and sovereign future.
He asserts that as the first Iraqi leader
since the U.S. invasion in 2003 to have spent his entire life within
the country, he is better able to understand what Iraqis have been
through, and to make changes.
Every other prime minister after the toppling of Saddam Hussein
spent years in exile or working abroad, but Mohammed Shia al-Sudani,
53, never fled Iraq, despite Mr. Hussein’s having ordered the execution
of his father and other close relatives.
“I
am a product of the institutions of the state,” Mr. al-Sudani said in a
recent interview in Baghdad, “and I understand the citizens and their
priorities.” He described himself as part of “a second generation” of
post-Hussein politicians, and said those with his background were closer
to the people and understood that “the street wants a change.”
Mr. Sudani’s
assessment is born of 20 years of holding government jobs, from mayor to
minister. During that time, he has managed to win over Iraqis of almost
all political stripes, coming across as straightforward — even earnest —
and pragmatic.
But he faces formidable obstacles, given the challenges confronting Iraq.
Among them are global warming, the persistent and growing influence of
Iran, and the entrenched system of corruption in a country where a high
percentage of jobs are in government, and where applicants often must
pay a bribe or have a political connection even for low-paying
positions.
Meanwhile, THE MAJORITY REPORT spoke with
Jessica Valenti regarding the right-wing attacks on rights are linked.
In other news, Ronald DeSantis remains a fake ass. Despite lying to
Norah O'Donnell last week on THE CBS EVENING NEWS that he would treat
all Americans the same, we all know that's not true. The most recent
proof? In a column, attorneys and co-presidents of The League of Women
Voters Florida chapter
Cecile M. Scoon and Debbie Chandler (TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT) write:
Across
our spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and the purple mountain
majesties of our great but struggling nation, many people and
organizations are working to extend the fundamental right to vote to all
lawful citizens. Special plans for expanding the foundational right to
vote to all lawful citizens are being made for National Voter
Registration Day on September 19. In the face of efforts to expand the
franchise, there are several states focused on making it harder for
citizens to vote and adding difficulty to registering voters, including
here in Florida.In
a 2021 ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker found that
Florida officials have spent the last 20 years intentionally making
registering voters and voting more difficult by creating a variety of
prohibitions erroneously. Since Judge Walker's order, the Florida
legislature has “gifted” Floridians with yet another nearly 100-page law
with a slew of even more prohibitions, increased criminal penalties,
and fines related to voting. This new government “fix”, also known as
Senate Bill 7050, directly impacts any organization that wishes to
register voters in Florida.
The
League of Women Voters, a more than a century-old non-partisan
organization, whose volunteer members are dedicated to registering and
educating voters, has made the difficult decision to change its way of
doing business in Florida due to this newly enacted law. Dedicated
volunteers will no longer collect completed paper voter registration
forms and return them to their local Supervisors of Elections on a
voter's behalf. Gone are the days when hundreds of skilled volunteers
with paper registration forms, pens, and clipboards will register voters
in neighborhoods and at community events. Senate Bill 7050 sets fines
for even inadvertent errors so high, the League’s yearly budget could be
affected.
You
know who works to suppress the vote? People who don't believe in
democracy. People who don't respect the will of the people. People
named Ronald DeSantis.
You
know, people who use their political office to destroy your child's
future. My heart goes out to parents with children currently in The New
College of Florida. That was actually a good university prior to
Ronald. But his war on education has harmed the university and it will
harm the future of the students -- in fact, parents and students should
consider suing Governor Ronald.
Aneeta Mathur-Ashton (THE MESSENGER) explains:
The New College of Florida saw a dramatic drop in its national ranking amid an ongoing conservative overhaul.
In
its newly revamped ranking system report released Monday, U.S. News and
World Report now lists the university, located in Sarasota, Fla., as
tied for 100th place — a notable 24-spot decrease from its previous ranking.
The
trend, while startling, reflects a decrease seen across the map for
universities located in the state — with the University of Florida
dropping one spot, the University of South Florida dropping three spots,
and Florida State University dropping three spots.
The
drop in rankings comes amid a massive conservative overhaul that has
been going on since January after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new
majority to the university’s board of trustees and tasked them with
transforming the school into the "Hillsdale College of the South,” a
private conservative Christian school in Michigan.
You
know what probably didn't drop? The tuition parents and students are
paying. They should sue Governor Ronald for the way he's destroyed
their education -- both in terms of what they could be learning and also
in terms of how little their degrees will now be worth as the
university had been turned into a national dirty joke.
DeSantis'
and the larger Republican fascist and white right's plans to erase the
real history of Black America and the color line include teaching that
white on Black chattel slavery was basically a type of jobs program and
not a centuries-long institution of human trafficking, torture, rape,
murder, war, dislocation, and exploitation on a global scale that killed many millions of Black people.
Such a reading of history is inaccurate, based on lies and willful
distortions of fact and historiography, intellectually dishonest, and is
right-wing dogma and disinformation masquerading as "scholarship".
Social theorist and cultural critic Henry Giroux, has correctly described DeSantis'
weaponization of education in the service of a white supremacist
fascist agenda as being an example of "apartheid pedagogy". In an essay
at the LA Progressive, he explains:
Apartheid
pedagogy is about denial and disappearance—a manufactured ignorance
that attempts to whitewash history and rewrite the narrative of American
exceptionalism as it might have been framed in in the 1920s and 30s
when members of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan shaped the policies of some
school boards. Apartheid pedagogy uses education as a disimagination
machine to convince students and others that racism does not exist, that
teaching about racial justice is a form of indoctrination, and that
understanding history is more an exercise in blind reverence than
critical analysis. Apartheid pedagogy aims to reproduce current systems
of racism rather than end them. Apartheid pedagogy most ardent proponent
is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who has become America's most prominent
white supremacist.
Apartheid
pedagogy is a form of white supremacy; white supremacy is inherently
violent. Apartheid pedagogy is not new. Its roots can be traced back to
slavery, the end of Reconstruction, and the Jim and Jane Crow terror
regime and "separate but equal". Today's attempts by the "conservative"
movement to reverse the gains of the civil rights movement are but a
continuation of that centuries-long white supremacist political project
to protect and expand white privilege and white domination over every
area of American life. Apartheid pedagogy as seen in DeSantis's Florida
is also part of a much larger global project as seen in Orban's Hungary,
Putin's Russia, and other parts of the "Western" world, to end
multiracial pluralist democracy.
In
other Ronald news, the man who dresses like he's standing in line at
Sam Goody waiting to purchase Barbra Streisand's EMOTION album has the
nerve to criticize the dress habits of others.
Isaac Schorr (MEDIAITE) reports:
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis slammed Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman (D-PA)
for wearing shorts and hooded sweatshirts inside the upper chamber of
Congress on Monday, deeming his wardrobe “disrespectful” of the
institution.
“Did
you guys hear the U.S. Senate just eliminated its dress code because
you got this guy from Pennsylvania — who’s got a lot of problems, let’s
just be honest — like how he got elected, well I mean he got elected
because they didn’t want the alternative,” began DeSantis, inserting a
veiled swipe at former President Donald Trump and Mehmet Oz, his handpicked GOP candidate into his critique of Fetterman.
“He
wears like sweatshirts and hoodies and shorts, and that’s his thing. So
he would campaign in that — which is your prerogative, right? I mean,
if that’s what you want to do,” he continued. “But to show up in the
United States Senate with that and not have the decency to put on proper
attire? I think it’s disrespectful to the body, and I think the fact
that the Senate changed the rules to accommodate that I think speaks
very poorly to how they consider that.”
Fetterman
dressed appropriately for his swearing in. After that? Well, the
rules have been changed. Don't like it? Why is that? Do you know his
health? I don't. But I do know John has had health issues. The change
in dress code might be for that reason. It might be just because Chuck
Schumer thought the rules needed to be updated.
What
I do know is that ridiculous vest that Ronald wears constantly is a
joke and manages to make him look both shorter and fatter. Know what
else I know? He's calling out the Senate, Schumer and Fetterman for
clothes and to toss out the word "decency."
Decency?
Decency?
Where is his condemnation of US House Rep Lauren Boebert? Or does he
think it's appropriate for her to act as she did in the video?
She's
a member of Congress who chose to go out in public on a date with her
boyfriend -- while she's still married. No, that divorce is not final.
The two are merely separated. Not only did she elect to take another
man out on a date but she was tickled pink when, in an auditorium filled
with people (including children), her date groped her breasts and then
she went to town on his clothed lump -- at one point in the video, she's
not just grabbing his crotch, she's jerking him.
But
Ronald wants to talk the 'decency' of John wearing shorts? Not the
groping display in public that was really offensive and would have been
if it were two unknown people but is only more offensive because one of
the two people is a member of Congress.
I
think Ronald's offended that John, even with health problems, is both
better looking than Ronald and more real and sincere to voters than
Ronald is.
We'll close with this from Will Lehman:
Dear fellow workers, Today, Newsweek published my op-ed statement on the class issues underlying the autoworkers’ battle, which I am reposting below. Read and share the article with your co-workers, and email me to let me know what you think: willforuawpresident@gmail.com. |
On
Friday, President Biden spoke from the White House about the
autoworkers’ strike, calling for the car corporations and the United
Auto Workers to reach a “win-win” agreement for workers. “Record
profits have not been shared fairly, in my view, with those workers,”
Biden said. “Workers deserve a fair share of the benefits they helped
create for an enterprise.” Biden’s
remarks raise fundamental questions about the distribution of wealth in
the United States. Much more than a contract dispute is involved. Workers’
wages at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have declined
dramatically over the past 50 years. In 1973, autoworkers received an
average hourly wage of $5.54 an hour—more than $38 an hour in today’s
dollars. If that wage had merely kept up with inflation (setting aside
the massive increases in productivity over that time), autoworkers would
be making nearly $40 an hour today. But
today temporary workers at GM start at $16.67 and top out at $20, half
as much as workers five decades ago. Should temps be lucky enough to be
given full-time status, their top pay is capped at just over $32 an
hour, which it takes eight long years to reach. Another
comparison: GM CEO Mary Barra received a $28.9 million compensation
package in 2022. She made approximately $2.4 million a month, $550,000 a
week, $110,000 a day, or an “hourly” rate of nearly $13,800. It would
take a temporary worker making the maximum $20 an hour almost three
years to make as much as Barra does in a single day. The
difference between the two, however, is that every penny of Barra’s pay
package is ultimately derived from the value produced by the labor of
the working class. How can Biden’s “fair share” be distributed between a corporate executive making $13,894 an hour and a temp making $20 an hour? The
conventional argument made by champions of the “free market” system is
that executives are paid for their “performance,” by which is meant
their ability to deliver for Wall Street. They make millions because the
shareholders receive billions. And how much profit have the companies made? In 2022, GM, Ford, and Stellantis made a combined $77 billion in gross profit. If
that $77 billion were to be distributed among all 150,000 Big Three
autoworkers in the US, each worker would receive a bonus of roughly
$513,333. Of
course, GM, Stellantis, and Ford employ many tens of thousands more
workers around the world, and their labor is also exploited to produce
the billions which accrue to the shareholders. There are also the vast
supply chains, workers throughout the auto parts plants, who are
integral to the productive process. The
president claims that a “win-win” contract for workers and the
corporate owners can be reached. But Biden, the veteran capitalist
politician, knows that’s impossible. What the president is trying to
cover up is that workers and the corporate oligarchy have fundamentally
irreconcilable class interests. There is no “fair share” in a set-up in
which investors get billions, executives get millions, and workers get
pennies. There
is an approaching day of reckoning with social realities that have long
been concealed and covered up. Workers are increasingly aware of the
vastly unequal society in which they live and are looking for a way to
change it. That’s why when I ran as a socialist in the UAW’s 2022
elections, I received 5,000 votes from autoworkers, despite efforts by
the union apparatus to suppress the vote, resulting in a turnout of just
9 percent. UAW
President Shawn Fain has taken to denouncing “corporate greed” and the
“billionaire class.” In reality, Fain and the union bureaucracy he
oversees serve an essential function on behalf of the corporations. They
block or limit strikes (as they are currently doing, isolating a
walkout at the Big Three to just three plants) and enforce the demands
of management, imposing one sellout, concessionary contract after the
other for the past 45 years. For these services, the bureaucrats receive
their own payouts, including six-figure salaries that put them in the
top 5 percent of income earners, an affluent upper-middle class. The
White House and the UAW leadership have been in constant communication
for months, closely coordinating their strategy and talking points, with
both Biden and Fain repeating the same stock phrases about a “fair
share” ad nauseam. Trump,
the fascist demagogue, is seeking to capture growing discontent among
workers, particularly over the looming jobs bloodbath related to
electric vehicles. To stop workers from directing their anger at the
corporations, he scapegoats workers in Mexico and China for layoffs and
plant closures. What
Biden, Trump, and Fain all fear is that inequality is driving the
working class in the United States towards socialist politics—that is, a
political perspective based upon workers’ independent class interests. Capitalism
is showing masses of workers that it is at war with their basic needs.
Inflation, the unrestrained transmission of COVID-19, deadly working
conditions, the climate crisis, and the threat of nuclear world war are
confronting workers all over the world. More and more workers are seeing
the need to overturn this entire system and bring about one in which
social need, not private profit, determine how society’s resources are
organized. Share the article → |
|
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