Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Do we need another live-action HOCUS POCUS?

CNN reports:

 

Disney is set to conjure up another sequel to a beloved film.

According to a recently published New York Times profile of Sean Bailey, who is president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, “Hocus Pocus 3” is in development.

“Hocus Pocus 2” was released in October, almost 30 years after Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker blessed us – or should it be cursed us? – with what’s widely considered the official film for the Halloween season.


Why?  HOCUS POCUS 2 was a huge disappointment.  If you were going to make another sequel, I agree with what Kathy Najimy said in real time, it would need to be an animated film.


That I might be interested in.


But this last one was not good.  And the idea that you didn't need the cast -- the kids -- from the original was grossly insulting.  I had no interest in seeing it but by Thanksgiving, when I heard nothing but anger from one fan of the first film after another, I did check it out and I did see how insulting it was to fans of the first film.


 

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

 

Tuesday, June 6, 2023. A new group of losers announce they'd like to be President of the United States, one gets booed on THE VIEW, another doesn't grasp that his own party can't stand him, a third doesn't realize that the made up party that's given him a nomination does not have ballot access in a single state, but for all their stupidity, Lauren Boebert still manages to top them as a public disgrace. 


Senator Ted Cruz was basically button holing any reporter he could yesterday to repeat (over and over), of the debt ceiling vote last week, "It gave Joe Biden and the Democrats four-trillion-dollars."  We note that not because I think Cruz is correct but because this is a very popular take among the right-wing.

So what to do if you had made comments like Ted Cruz ahead of the vote but then didn't vote?  What would you do then?

Daniel Dale and Morgan Rimmer (CNN) report:

 On Saturday, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado posted a video on Twitter in which she claimed that she had intentionally skipped Wednesday’s key House vote on a bill to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling.

“No excuses: I was ticked off they wouldn’t let me do my job, so I didn’t take the vote,” Boebert said, going on to allege that the voices of individual House members had been stifled during the legislative process. “Call it a no-show protest, but I certainly let every one of my colleagues and the country know I was against this garbage of a bill.”

But Boebert’s claim of a deliberate “protest” absence is contradicted by her own words in the congressional record. After the vote ended on Wednesday, Boebert submitted an official statement in which she said she had been “unavoidably detained” for the vote and would have voted against the bill had she been present.    

 And Boebert’s claim is further called into question by CNN footage from the House steps in the moments after the vote concluded.

Less than a minute after the vote was finalized, CNN photojournalist Jake Scheuer captured video of Boebert running up the steps as a CNN associate producer [Morgan Rimmer] mentioned that the vote had just been closed. Boebert stopped running for a moment to turn back and ask, “They closed it?” After the associate producer confirmed, Boebert continued her dash toward the building entrance.   


Yes, we're back to it again.  We noted it yesterday but it just can't be a one day thing.  At THE DAILY BEAST, Ursula Perano writes:

When Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was caught on video missing a critical vote last week to prevent a default on the debt—and then tried to spin her absence as an act of conscience -- she didn’t only earn widespread derision and gawking on social media.

The archconservative congresswoman also gifted her leading Democratic rival, Adam Frisch, a moment that crystallized his case against her for the 2024 election: that she simply isn’t showing up for the job she was elected to perform.

“Besides excused absences for sick family members and other family emergencies, I'm not sure why anyone would be late, let alone practically skip a vote,” Frisch told The Daily Beast in an interview on Monday.

“I don't know what was taking her away from voting on one of the most important bills that the Congress is going to probably have this year,” he added.

For his part, Frisch said he would have voted for the legislation that paired an extension of the federal government’s borrowing authority -- which averted a default -- with spending cuts and other concessions to Republicans, though characterized it as “not perfect.” 

And that's certainly a solid take.  

But there's so much more there.  

It goes to character.  You grandstand about how important this vote is and then you miss it.  Instead of owning up to that, you wait a little bit, you tape a video where you lie and say you skipped the vote to protest the bill and you release that video.  Think about that.  Grasp that you are a member of the US Congress and you and your team invent a lie to cover for missing the vote, strategize to come up with the lie, go to the trouble of not just being George Santos and lying to the press about it as you speak to them, but actually tape your own video that you release to the public yourself with this lie.

It goes to stupidity, absolutely.  She knew at least a few members of the press were present.  She surely didn't realize that they had video and thought it would be her (lying) word against the press present.  

But it goes to character, immaturity and dishonesty.

This is eighth grade s**t.  This is so immature.  What adult does this?  

And it shows such disrespect for every one of her constituents.  

Since yesterday morning's snapshot, KRDO has filed another report.







Boebert has done nothing since being first elected but agitate and self-promote. She is only interested in — and maybe only capable of — engaging in high-pitched diatribes that draw cameras and MAGA supplicants. If it does not benefit her directly, she has no time for it.

The debt ceiling debate was the perfect example.

Before the vote, Boebert showed up on time and eager to every press gaggle with a microphone. She spent weeks calling for fellow House Freedom Caucus crazies to oppose the deal hammered out by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She pulled out all the top hits, from lambasting “the swamp” to proclaiming “fake news.”

Rep. Ken Buck’s opposition at least had the benefit of consistent principle. He has never supported a debt ceiling hike and opposed similar measures under former President Donald Trump. Rightly or wrongly, Buck believes the government spends too much and should be held to account when it bumps up against its budget limits.

Boebert is not nearly as nuanced. Apparently she just felt a lack of attention since she had the national spotlight on her during the contentious election of McCarthy to Speaker of the House. In January, she gleefully preened for the lights and flashbulbs as she confounded even the most conservative pundits with her unintelligible rationale.

Eclipsed in the interim by her best frenemy, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has taken on the role of MAGA Translator in Chief for McCarthy, Boebert seemed spoiling for an opportunity to throw herself in front of cameras again. Consequently, when the hint of opposition to the debt plan deal surfaced, Boebert straightened her skirt, flipped her hair and went running to the closest reporters. It is the political equivalent of a Pavlovian bell.

Boebert could not help but undermine her own leadership and party. The opportunity to promote her own brand and social media following pulled more strongly than any political loyalty, much less the best interests of her constituents thousands of miles away. 

Boebert did stop short of calling for McCarthy to be removed from office. A part of the Succession-esque “meal fit for a king” Boebert and company forced McCarthy to swallow in exchange for their support in his Speaker bid, she demurred when asked about whether a snap vote should be called to oust McCarthy. Instead, Boebert replied that she was “focused on taking down this bill.” 

Apparently, she was so focused that she forgot when the vote was scheduled.


But again, I just can't stop marveling over her lack of character.  She plotted her lie.  She thought if the press members who saw her running to make the vote and knew she missed it came forward, she could just deny it and lie and be believed because it was her against the media.  She taped the lie and she released the video with her lie.  


I just can't stop marveling over this.  If she'd run over a person by accident, is this how she'd have handled it?


We talk to our children about reality and responsibility.  Well, most of us do.  Most of us.  Not Lauren.  Which is how she ended up dropping out of high school because she got pregnant and raised a son who, at 17, got a younger girl pregnant and now Lauren's about to be a grandmother.  


She takes no responsibility for her actions and that's apparently torn apart her family and she still can't learn from it.   As Elaine noted:


Boe-Boe.  Next year is an election year and all she has to show for it is hate.  She's not serving anyone.  Hell she couldn't even make the debt ceiling vote after running around getting press on it over and over.  Boe-Boe's a lazy hack.


This is how she acts when she almost lost her seat last November?  A handful of votes (found during the recount) allowed her to retain her seat.  Instead of rolling up her sleeves and getting serious, she's continued to be one of the biggest jokes in the land.


She has some developmental issue that is preventing her from learning.  It's really sad. 


It is sad.  Everything about Lauren's trashy life is sad.




And, as Elaine noted, next year is an election year.  Lauren has so much to live down.


She's not the only one running for election.  Senator Tim Scott wants to be president of the United States -- not president of The Down Low Club, president of the United States.  And what better way to show your maturity then losing it repeatedly on THE VIEW.   To the point, please note, that the studio audience boos you.


That should be quite the campaign.  Meanwhile, former US Vice President Mike Pence made the announcement yesterday that everyone's long expected.  Let's get Karen to a support group for women whose husbands, late in life, come out of the closet.  Oh wait, that wasn't the announcement.  Yet.  No, Mike announced he's running for the GOP's presidential nomination.  




There's so much crazy in the world of presidential campaigns these days.  THE VANGUARD noted one example.



As Ruth observed:

That is THE VANGUARD and they are taking on the nonsense of the People's Party.  That has been the biggest con job in the world.  No candidates came up from it.  Now they are desperate for attention so they go with a celebrity: Cornel West.  The professor must not have many ethics or possibilities if he has taken their nomination.

Taken.

Be clear about that.  It is a supposed political party.  But they did not have a primary, they just handed out their nomination.  That is democracy?

They are a very sad and very mixed up group.


And, as THE VANGUARD pointed out, they don't even have ballot access. Talk about a vanity campaign.


In other news, Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:

The Iraqi parliament will convene on Thursday to vote on the country’s highly-awaited budget bill, after almost three months of studying the draft.

The Iraqi council of ministers approved the federal budget bill for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025 in March, and sent the draft to the legislature. The parliament was set to vote on the budget on May 27, but disagreements within the finance committee, concerning amendments relating to the Kurdistan Region, prevented the legislature from carrying out of the process.

The finance committee is yet to reach an agreement on the divisive amendments, but is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss the latest updates, according to Jamal Kochar, a Kurdish member of the committee.



The following sites updated:





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Weekend box office -- and correcting the lie that THE LITTLE MERMAID is bombing

rongetsspanked

 

 

Above is Isaiah's The WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Little Ronnie Gets Spanked Again"from last Thurdsay. And now, from THENUMBERS.COM, here's the weekend box office:



1 N Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Sony Pictures $120,663,589   4,313   $27,977 $120,663,589 1
2 (1) The Little Mermaid Walt Disney $41,385,711 -57% 4,320 n/c $9,580 $186,992,778 2
3 N The Boogeyman 20th Century… $12,356,486   3,205   $3,855 $12,356,486 1
4 (3) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 Walt Disney $10,677,998 -49% 3,580 -360 $2,983 $323,189,452 5
5 (2) Fast X Universal $9,598,830 -58% 3,467 -621 $2,769 $128,824,595 3
6 (4) The Super Mario Bros. Movie Universal $3,368,740 -47% 2,344 -804 $1,437 $566,296,010 9
7 (6) About My Father Lionsgate $2,057,738 -52% 2,464 n/c $835 $8,781,831 2
8 (5) The Machine Sony Pictures $1,719,608 -66% 2,409 n/c $714 $8,678,044 2
9 (8) You Hurt My Feelings A24 $769,814 -45% 912 n/c $844 $3,001,134 2
10 (7) Kandahar Briarcliff E… $750,133 -68% 1,737 -368 $432 $4,304,166 2


Some people are saying (lying) that THE LITTLE MERMAID is a bomb.  It's a children's movie.  You need to look, since 2020, at it in comparison to other films for kids.  Kids and certain older audience members really haven't returned to pre-pandemic numbers yet.  May never, in fact.


So one of the biggest kids hits most recently was PUSS N BOOTS: THE LAST WISH.  It came out December 23rd.  In two weeks, THE LITTLE MERMAID has made $186 million in North America in ticket sales.  It took 17 weeks (April14th) for PUSS N BOOTS to make $185.5 million in North America.  Grasp that.  It is a hit no matter what lies some DISNEY-haters feels the need to tell.  It's made $141 million overseas.  This was only its second weekend.  I don't know that there's another kids movie (the Spider-verse is geared at adults and teenagers) out or coming out this summer.  I'm sure there is.  But the point is that kids movies don't vanish in three weeks.  It'll probably grab another fifty million in six or seven weeks.  But they're acting -- these liars -- like, "It's over, no one's going to see THE LITTLE MERMAID."  It's already a hit and this was only the second weekend.


I don't know why people feel the need to lie.  Some of it is hatred for DISNEY and some of it is hatred because Halle Bailey is African-American.  But they need to get a grip and stop lying. 


If you need another comparison.  Pre-pandemic, 2019, the most recent DISNEY live-action remake of a cartoon came out: DUMBO.  DUMBO opened March 29, 2019.  19 weeks later, 114,759,006 was the gross in North America. 19 weeks later. In two weekends, THE LITTLE MERMAID is already at $186,000,000 in North America.

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

 

Monday, June 5, 2023.  A judge overturns Tennessee's drag show ban, a legal body gets caught trying to hide evidence from Julian Assange's attorneys, drought stricken Iraq sees more water wasted, Lauren Boebert caught lying on tape with video of her lying and video proving she was lying, and much more.



The appearance of this new evidence has been a surprise in the case against Morales in Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional. None of these computer records previously appeared in the initial copy made by the police, when officers categorized the material seized from the security contractor when he was arrested in September 2019. All of this material was uploaded to a cloud storage system within the judicial systems, so that all parties involved in the case could review it. The arrest and indictment of Morales took place weeks after an investigation by EL PAÍS revealed the videos and audios that UC Global employees had recorded while the Australian was preparing his defense with his lawyers.

The discovery of these new clues about the CIA’s spying on the cyberactivist — who remains imprisoned in a London jail — is no accident. Assange’s lawyers found problems when downloading the records uploaded to the cloud. They managed to get Judge Santiago Pedraz — who is overseeing the case — to authorize a second copy of the material seized by the agents. A new digital document dump offered a clear picture that the police had not pieced together. Now, a report by the experts called by Assange’s lawyers credits the appearance of “a very relevant volume of material, which was not included in the original [police] copy.” Forensic analysis describes the copy of the hard drive as containing “multiple pieces of evidence.” In this second dump, the mentioned folders have appeared, including the one that UC Global labelled as “CIA.”


Julian Assange remains imprisoned and remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden who, as vice president, once called him "a high tech terrorist."  Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat



The Biden administration has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal assaults under Donald Trump.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.

But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used before for publishing classified information.

Whether the US justice department continues to pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to protect the press.

Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.



On Thursday, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, prominent Australian publications, reported new information indicating that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is continuing a probe of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

The article reported that the previous week Andrew O’Hagan, a British journalist, had been contacted by the FBI, who asked to interview him about Assange. In 2011, O’Hagan had been contracted to ghost write Assange’s autobiography.

Like many representatives of the affluent and complacent British upper middle-class, he subsequently became an embittered opponent of WikiLeaks, writing a tedious and mean-spirited account of his relationship with Assange for the London Review of Books.

O’Hagan has indicated that he refused to speak to the FBI. He said he would rather go to prison than cooperate with an FBI operation targeting journalists. That is a principled stand.

The apparent probe, however, is disturbing and highly unusual. It has been years since the US government issued an indictment against Assange for exposing American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The WikiLeaks founder has been detained in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison for more than four years on the basis of the successive indictments and an extradition request.

The probe could point to an attempt by the US government to concoct new charges against Assange or even other WikiLeaks representatives. Far more likely, it indicates that after all these years, the American state has no conceivable case against Assange and is continuing to fish for more lies and falsifications to attack him in the current extradition process.

This morning, WikiLeaks issued a statement, taking issue with the manner in which the FBI probe had been reported by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. Both publications had stated that the O’Hagan request indicated that the FBI had “reopened” an investigation into the WikiLeaks founder.

WikiLeaks, however, noted: “Since the current process was initiated in 2017 under the Trump Administration after pressure from CIA head Michael Pompeo, the investigation has never been closed. It is therefore nonsensical to suggest it has been re-opened.”





Never has the wrath and petulance of the American government been focused so relentlessly on a breach of official secrecy. The pursuit of Julian Assange is in its 14th year, as the U.S. continues trying to extradite him from London to stand trial for helping the world’s most powerful news organizations publish U.S. diplomatic and military intelligence in sweeping defiance of secrecy protocols. Assange, convicted of nothing, has been behind bars in Britain since 2019, when he was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy where he had sheltered for seven years.

The data leaks for which three presidential administrations have now pursued Assange took place in 2010, and while his treatment has been routinely denounced by press advocates worldwide, the media have yet to address a fundamental question, one that they are uniquely qualified to answer: What did the leaks actually do? Did the material that Assange’s anti-secrecy organization, WikiLeaks, made public do damage to U.S. national interests commensurate with the fury they provoked?

Or did the leaks, as his supporters claim, expose military wrongdoing that deserved exposure and, thanks to the release of reports from U.S. diplomats posted abroad, offer people worldwide valuable insight into what their own governments were doing that they might never have learned otherwise?

Isn’t it time for the press, which benefited mightily from what it got from WikiLeaks, to do the reporting that would enable the public to judge whether Assange is a traitor or a benefactor?

Those questions weren’t raised — in or outside the courtroom — when Assange’s principal source Chelsea Manning, the Army clerk who leaked the 2010 files, was treated with withering brutality. Arrested within weeks, Manning was held in a Marine brig in solitary confinement for 10 months then convicted and sentenced to 35 years. By the time President Barack Obama ordered her freed in 2017, she had spent nearly seven years behind bars. She was again jailed in 2019, when she refused to turn against Assange, and was held for another 12 months. At no point was Manning allowed to testify about what motivated her, and the possibility that the disclosures were, on the whole, beneficial was never raised.


At what point does it end?  At what point do we all see at once that there's no excuse for this persecution, there's no logic to it and it's a waste of taxpayer money?


Speaking of wastes of taxpayers money, Lauren Boebert.  She was against the debt ceiling bill and she wanted her constituents to know it and that she wasn't going to vote for it!  Then she missed the vote.  So what do you do?  KRDO reports she recorded a video insisting it was a "no show protest."  




There the clown is lying again.  Lying as usual.  She can't stop lying.  Here's another KRDO report but with the video of Lauren showing up too late to vote.





Poor Lauren.  She's denying rumors that she was a prostitute and that she had abortions (plural) and, of course, Stan Lee has apparently taken a second DNA test to prove he's not her father as she and her mother maintain.  On top of all this, it looks like she made a terrified child who was threatened by his father lie to the police.  Don't worry though, she'll find a way to put it all behind her and return to trashing LGBTQ+ people in no time because that's the kind of hate merchant she is.

Now Lauren's stupid and hateful and lied after the fact about missing the vote.  Exactly how much are her constituents willing to put up with?


The rest of the country is pretty damn tired of her stupidity and her lies. . It's not our fault that she and Marjorie Taylor Greene and so many others never got an actual education.  Rosalyn R. Lapier (COUNTERPUNCH) attempts to educate those in need:

Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte became the latest to sign several new anti-transgender laws, including one that will prevent gender-affirming medical care for minors.

One thing these new laws do not take into account is that the 12 federally recognized tribes in Montana have historically recognized multiple gender identities, including transgender identities. Most Indigenous peoples recognize multiple gender identities that are believed to be the result of supernatural intervention.

In this regard, Montana state Rep. Donavon Hawk, a Democrat from Butte who is Crow and Lakota, said, “It surprises me that this country is only a couple hundred years old, and we are not able to function with LGBTQ people in our communities.” Indigenous communities have incorporated LGBTQ+ peoples within their societies for centuries.

As an Indigenous scholar who studies the history and religion of Indigenous peoples, I am troubled by how these new anti-transgender laws might affect religious expression and the rights of Indigenous communities, not just in Montana but across the nation.

Indigenous ideas about gender

Indigenous peoples have been in North America for at least 30,000 years. As their societies developed over time, hundreds of different ethnicities, languages, religious practices, gender expressions and identities emerged.

Transgender individuals, an umbrella term for individuals whose gender identity is not linked to the sex they were assigned at birth, have existed throughout history, including within Indigenous communities.

I learned from my maternal grandparents about Blackfeet religion and history. The Blackfeet acknowledged and accepted individual gender expression and identity because it was granted by the divine. Personal gender identity was rarely questioned, because it was tantamount to questioning the divine.

I first learned about Blackfeet ideas about transgender individuals as a young person from hearing oral history stories about famous Blackfeet religious leaders, warriors and adventurers who were transgender. They were viewed as having a direct connection to the divine. People often sought out these individuals for blessings, prayer or spiritual guidance.

Indeed, anthropologists and historians have studied Blackfeet gender expression and learned that the Blackfeet recognized multiple gender identities, including what is defined today in Western societies as transgender.

Two-Spirit and the divine

The modern-day term that many Indigenous peoples in North America have begun to use as an umbrella term to describe the multiple gender identities within Indigenous communities is Two-Spirit. That includes transgender people.

In many Indigenous communities, as the Indian Health Service notes, Two-Spirit identity is believed to come from the divine in visions or dreams and Two-Spirit people often “filled special religious roles as healers, shamans and ceremonial leaders.”


It's funny, isn't it, how transphobe Jonathan Turley wants to blog religious freedom to give a hate merchant an excuse for not designing a website (to be clear, she's never been asked to so her case should have been refused for lack of standing) but he is so stupid and ignorant of religion and he will continue to ignore the realities that he can't use to preach transphobia while insisting he believe in freedom of religion.  Guess he's just another White European colonizer who took over Native American land and refuses to show respect to the religions that were established on this land.
 


The Tennessee law aimed at placing strict limitations on drag performances is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled.

The first-in-the-nation law is both "unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad" and encouraged "discriminatory enforcement," according to the ruling late Friday by U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

"There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. But there is a difference between material that is 'obscene' in the vernacular, and material that is 'obscene' under the law," Parker said.



"The Tennessee General Assembly can certainly use its mandate to pass laws that their communities demand," Judge Thomas L. Parker wrote in his ruling. "But that mandate as to speech is limited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which commands that laws infringing on the Freedom of Speech must be narrow and well-defined. The AEA is neither."

The law was supposed to take effect July 1. It's not clear if the Tennessee Attorney General will appeal the case to a higher court. 


These laws have been passed around the country and 'legal expert' and 'Constitutional scholar' and noted transphobe Jonathan Turley has been silent.  Now that the victory came for free speech, he rushes to blog about it and attempts to tie it into the need to let business discriminate against consumers if the consumers are gay.  Business don't have religious rights.  They aren't people, you idiot.  A business doesn't go to church and doesn't have a faith to practice.  Oops, you're revealed as an idiot who makes any lie in the world to discriminate against people.  (P.S. I see you think you can trick the university about what they recently talked to you about.  Sad news for you, I caught your lack of compliance and will be pointing it out to officials later today.)


Western oil companies are exacerbating water shortages and causing pollution in Iraq as they race to profit from rising oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Water scarcity has already displaced thousands and increased instability, according to international experts, while Iraq is now considered the fifth most vulnerable country to the climate crisis by the UN. In the oil-rich but extremely dry south, wetlands that used to feed entire communities are now muddy canals.

Mahdi Mutir, 57, worked as a fisher his entire life. For years, Mutir and his wife woke at dusk, sailing along a thick network of canals in Al Khora, a few kilometres north of Basra. The harvest was meagre but enough to provide food for the family of seven.

That changed last year. Now, at the height of the rainy season, Mutir’s boat lies stranded in the mud.

“It is the water station the Italian company built: they need water for their oilfields,” Mutir said, pointing at the black smoke rising from the Zubayr oilfield on the horizon.

To help extract oil, companies pump large quantities of water into the ground. For each barrel of oil, many of which are later exported to Europe, up to three barrels of water are pumped into the ground. And as Iraq’s oil exports rise, its water has dramatically fallen.


The whole world is facing drastic climate change but climate models suggest that Iraq will be among the worst effected.  Back in March, Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reported:


The United Nations stressed that Iraq is suffering from a real water crisis, calling for collective action to find solutions to this crisis, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
The statement was made on Sunday by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, during her participation in Iraq Climate Conference held in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
“There is an urgent need to find solutions to the water crisis in Iraq,” Plasschaert stated.


Urgent and it only gets more urgent each day.  Already problems are evident.  January 10th, Yale's School of Environment published Wil Crisp's article which opened:


Three years ago, the vast marshlands of southern Iraq’s Dhi Qar province were flourishing. Fishermen glided in punts across swathes of still water between vast reed beds, while buffalo bathed amid green vegetation. But today those wetlands, part of the vast Mesopotamian Marshes, have shriveled to narrow channels of polluted water bordered by cracked and salty earth. Hundreds of desiccated fish dot stream banks, along with the carcasses of water buffalo poisoned by saline water. Drought has parched tens of thousands of hectares of fields and orchards, and villages are emptying as farmers abandon their land.

For their biodiversity and cultural significance, the United Nations in 2016 named the Mesopotamian Marshes — which historically stretched between 15,000 and 20,000 square kilometers in the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers — a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The marshes comprised one of the world’s largest inland delta systems, a startling oasis in an extremely hot and arid environment, home to 22 species of globally endangered species and 66 at-risk bird species.

But now this ecosystem — which includes alluvial salt marshes, swamps, and freshwater lakes — is collapsing due to a combination of factors meteorological, hydrological, and political. Rivers are rapidly shrinking, and agricultural soil that once grew bounties of barley and wheat, pomegranates, and dates is blowing away. The environmental disaster is harming wildlife and driving tens of thousands of Marsh Arabs, who have occupied this area for 5,000 years, to seek livelihoods elsewhere.

Experts warn that unless radical action is taken to ensure the region receives adequate water — and better manages what remains — southern Iraq’s marshlands will disappear, with sweeping consequences for the entire nation as farmers and pastoralists abandon their land for already crowded urban areas and loss of production leads to rising food prices.

The Mesopotamian marshlands are often referred to as the cradle of civilization, as anthropologists believe that this is where humankind, some 12,000 years ago, started its wide-scale transition from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement. Encompassing four separate marshes, the region has historically been home to a unique range of fish and birdlife, serving as winter habitat for migratory birds and sustaining a productive shrimp and finfish fishery. 


AP has observed, "Climate change for years has compounded the woes of the troubled country. Droughts and increased water salinity have destroyed crops, animals and farms and dried up entire bodies of water. Hospitals have faced waves of patients with respiratory illnesses caused by rampant sandstorms. Climate change has also played a role in Iraq’s ongoing struggle to combat cholera."  And now action? Or what might pass for it.   Khalid Al Ansary (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reported:

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on Sunday kicked off an initiative to plant 5 million trees and palms across the country in an attempt to alleviate some of the deleterious impacts of climate change, a statement from his office said.

Iraq has suffered years of drought, and more than 7 million people have been effected or lost their incomes from agriculture and fishing, Al-Sudani’s office said. The war-torn, oil rich country has experienced higher temperatures, persistent drought, an increase in dust storms and a crop area cut by half, all impacts of extreme weather caused by climate change.


Real action would be addressing the use of water by the oil industry -- water that's not going to the people.  

 Kat's "Kat's Korner: Simply Red's just marking TIME" and "Kat's Korner: Summer means Miley and The Jonas Brothers" went up Saturday.  


 The following sites updated:




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Friday, June 2, 2023

My grandmother wants me to point out that someone was right

fattara

 

 

Above is  Isaiah's The WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Tara asks WWPD -- What Would Putin Do?" and hopefully Tara Reade will stay in Russia and never impose on the US again.

There's a lot I planned to write about Thursday night but it's no longer Thursday night and I need to get to bed.


I do want to make one point tonight, briefly, (this morning) and that is, thank you, C.I.  She called out this wave of hate and she was right to do it.  And she was it with the attacks on BROS.  My grandmother came across an article on BROS which was that hideous Ben Shapiro insisting that he wasn't anti-gay because he was attacking BROS.  That's what he was saying last fall.  Of course, now we know that his whole thing has been about attacking everything LGBTQ+ to tear that community down.  He's been exposed due to his own big mouth.  So, as my grandmother pointed out to me, it was about being anti-gay. 


She said, "Stan, everyone with a platform was silent and treated it as though it was just happening but this was organized and it was the first real shot in these attacks.  She (C.I.) saw it and she stood up immediately.  Please note that at your site and please tell her that she made a difference."


And I did.  My grandmother had a son who died of AIDS (my uncle, of course).  He was gay.  She takes these attacks on LGBTQ_ people very seriously, as we all should.

 I'm tired or I'd write more about this and about NETFLIX.  Sorry.

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

 

Thursday, June 1, 2023.  Tara Reade's running a new con, Margaret Kimberly plays Dolly Parton in 9 TO 5 -- who's been saying it -- we all point to Tara and say in our best Lily Tomlin, "She's been saying it!", the IMF wants to further hobble Iraq, and much more.

How do we deal with insanity?


I think in this country, we practice denial.




First off, Margaret, your definition of defect is wrong as any person aware of the many artists that defected to the US from the USSR could tell you. Second, crazy Tara's the one using the term -- or did you not make it through that video broadcast?


Tara Reade from her 'press conference' in Russia: As far as, like, going to another safe haven, I mean, there are many Americans here [in Russia] --  and I don't want to out a bunch of Americans --  but there are people here that are coming to Russia -- much like back in the day when Soviet Union people defected over to the US.  Now you have the opposite,


So if you don't like people using the term, take it up with crazy herself.



 
Oh, look, it's Sabby Sabs, now our latter day Jerry Falwell.

Remember The Clinton Chronicles?  Yeah, that's the crazy Sabby Sabs is now embracing and spreading -- and I didn't think my opinion of her could go any lower.

Crazed Tara Reade departs to Russia and wants to defect claiming her life is at risk, that people want to kill her.  Maybe the one behind you in the buffet line, Tara, but the rest of us don't really care about you at all.  She's in danger!  Danger!  She must move to Russia!  And then -- so brave -- she must risk newfound safety in newfound motherland by holding a press conference!!!!!

She's a fat lying con artist.  Let's grasp that right away.

If you actually bothered to listen to that 'press conference,' it should have struck you as so familiar.

Tara is a con artist and has been all of her life.  That doesn't mean she wasn't assaulted.  It does mean she cons people and she's not a very good con artist.  She goes on RISING or whatever in 2020 and she's just glad to be there and she's so safe and feels so good and this support is just amazing and wonderful.  Then she burns these same people after she takes what she can get from them.

You may remember Sabby Sabs joined Tara in trashing AOC recently for never saying a word.  If you don't remember it, you won't find Sabby's Tweet because she deleted it after we pointed out here that AOC actually spoke up in defense of Tara in real time.



That is classic Tara Reade.  People busted their rears to defend her and she didn't care.  She was and remains a joke and an ungrateful one at that.

I love how she's got all these people cheering her on at her Twitter feed and coming up behind their cheers are their comments about how Trump needs a second term.  Her new crowd does not oppose sexual assault.  They're all for it.  But they hate Joe Biden.  So 'survivor' Tara 'believe all women' Reade gets cozy with a crowd that believes no women.  That tells you the cess pool Tara bathes in.

In fairness, a cess pool may be the only thing she can fit into, she just keeps getting fatter and fatter.  Where are they hosing her off at next -- to be Pee Wee Herman about it.


Tara's a user and a con artist.  And that Sabby deleted her Tweet instead of correcting it goes a long way towards explaining how she became the 21st century Jerry Falwell hawking The Biden Body Count.

So Tara burns her Democratic bridge -- not left, she was too stupid and insipid to be left.  So then she's on Tucker and other right-wing shows and, golly gosh, thank you all for your support, I feel so safe and trusted and I really appreciate you.

Did you catch the damn 'press conference'?  It was exactly like that -- again -- because the bad con artist just keeps playing the same con.  Thank you, Russia, for believing in me and I feel safe and welcomed and . . .

Spare us.  While the willful idiots like Sabby play along and indulge Tara's crazy, those of us who can connect the dots caught on long ago.

The kindest thing Ava and I ever did for Tara was not review her book.  Clearly, no one read it.  It was one inconsistency after another.  

Liars get assaulted and liars get raped.  The fact that she's a liar doesn't mean that she wasn't assaulted.  (Speaking of lies.  I'm finding it hard to believe that Tara -- grifter that she was -- lived in the 12th district in 2020.  She keeps insisting she wrote Nancy Pelosi about what happened because Nancy was her Congress person.  I want a former address and a voters registration card before I believe that.  She made the claim in the video and did so in her lying voice that always tells on her.)

Tara was a problem from day one.

I'm not talking about her changing stories.  A victim of assault can change her or his story.  It doesn't mean that they're lying.  It most often means that they don't feel comfortable discussing it -- for any number of reasons.  

I never found that a problem for her.

I did find her glaring stupidity a huge problem. 

She is a geopolitical analyst -- she insists this week and that's got to be the funniest line of the week.

Listening to her prattle on during her initial phase of discussing her assault -- as Tara told us how the world was -- was hearing a college freshman who never cracked a book tell you the history of the United States.  It was a bunch of cliches and a bunch of mistakes.  And it wasn't a left perspective.  It was a partisan perspective. 


She was Diane Chambers -- serving up words that don't really mean anything and in no way demonstrate that she was educated but that can fool the ones who don't know better or who are barely paying attention.

Then she was the Tucker fan and she had all of the 'insight' that only a Mother Tucker could provide.


And now she's found Russia.  In grad school, I wrote a paper about a central American country that basically thrived by pitting the US and the USSR against each other.  Tara is now that country -- probably she's a bit bigger than that country but she is that country.

Russia, watch out.  She's going to turn on you like she does everyone else.


And other people need to watch out as well.  She's claiming her life is in danger.  She started that nonsense last month -- see Mike's "The hideous Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jonathan Turley and Shamoo The Whale Reade."  No.

If Joe Biden was giving kill orders, I kind of believe that the mother of Navy Joan would be way, way, ahead of Tara on the list.  

And in what world is Tara credible anymore?

I'm serious.  She's made herself a loon over the last years and she's not believable.  She herself is not believable.  So there's no need to kill her for something she says happened in the 90s that's already been discussed at length.

She didn't get her fair share of media!  Because she's a damn fool.  We said here, the minute Alyssa Milano started Tweeting about Tara, that Alyssa was getting that from Time's Up! and that Tara needed to do a lawsuit.  

Tara and her co-horts did nothing.  Many months later, we learn what a fraud Time's Up! actually was.  

Tara blew every chance because she was a stupid idiot.  That's not fair.  She was working a con so she might have been too busy to pursue chances.

But she is a con artist.

And her latest con is that she knows so much and is so valuable that Joe Biden wants her dead and she's had to flee the country for her safety -- and probably to get away from several creditors, knowing Tara.

I'm just not in the mood for this nonsense.  I don't think any of us who lived through the 90s are in the mood for this nonsense.

Joe Biden is not coming after Tara or sending people to get Tara.

No one really believes her anymore.

It was always a tough case for her because no matter how many pictures from the early 90s she floated to the press, she was still grossly obese in the present and most people still confuse rape with sexual desire and think you have to be attractive to be raped.

That was strike one.

Strike two?  How about all the predators she spent 2022 and 2023 cozying up to?  Amber Tamblyn is not someone whose integrity is in question.  No one's disputing her claims about James Woods -- except James Woods. 

But there's Tara "I'm an assault survivor" reTweeting James Woods.  There's Tara defending registered sex offender Scott Ritter (who went to prison, who was convicted in a court of law -- after his third arrest).  

She's a con artist and that was part of her makeover for her right-wing self.  

It's one strike after another on her.

Does that mean she wasn't assaulted?

No, it doesn't.

But at this point, and now with the Russia defection, no one should waste their breath on her anymore.  She is a known liar and she lies repeatedly.  It does go to character and, yes, after awhile her actions and her lies bring into question whether anything she says is truthful.

As a witness, she's no longer believable and no one should waste their time on her.

And the 'gift' there for Tara is, since no one believes her, she can stop fretting that someone's trying to kill her and stop pretending she's a 'whistle-blower.'

She's Russia's problem now.  Sadly, we still have Sabby Sabbs.

Not a Sam Seder fan, but we'll note this clip of THE MAJORITY REPORT.




In his rundown of Ron DeSantis' latest problems, Mike noted the War Criminal remarks from FOX "NEWS" (see "Butt exercises and Ron DeSantis").


Meanwhile, Margaret Griffiths (ANTI-WAR.COM) notes, "During May in Iraq, at least 53 people were killed, and 29 more were wounded in violent incidents. In April, at least 47 people were killed, and 65 more were wounded."  At least.  In part, "at least" due to the fact that when noting the Turkish governments attacks on Iraq, she only figures in guerillas.  The Yazidis, for example, aren't part of the count.  Unless the Turkish government has labeled them "guerillas" and then she'll count them.

THE NATIONAL, presumably with a straight face, offers, "Iraq needs fiscal discipline and wide-ranging structural reforms to reduce its economic vulnerabilities as foreign exchange market volatility and a drop in crude production continue to slow its growth momentum, the International Monetary Fund has said."  What Iraq needs is not "fiscal discipline," it needs to end corruption.  Iraq is not short of money, it brings in billions.  And then, due to government corruption, that money never goes to helping the people.   REUTERS notes, "Iraq's May oil revenue was $7.3 billion with an average price per barrel of $71.30, the ministry said in a statement."  There are countries that never see that amount of income.  Iraq sees it but never gets improved due to the theft that takes place.  The IMF always preaches the same strategy and it doesn't work and it's not going to work in Iraq.  Hopefully, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani will be heeded this time and not ignored.  He earlier called out these efforts to hobble Iraq. 



In other Iraq news, AFP notes:

Iraq's shrunken and conflict-scarred Christian community is launching a new television channel as part of efforts to save their dying language, spoken for more than 2,000 years.

Syriac, an ancient dialect of Aramaic, has traditionally been the language spoken by Christians in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, mostly in homes but also in some schools and during church services.

However, Syriac-speaking communities in the two countries have declined over the years, owing to decades of conflict driving many to seek homes in safer countries. In Iraq, the Christian population is thought to have fallen by more than two-thirds in just over two decades.

"It's true that we speak Syriac at home, but unfortunately I feel that our language is disappearing slowly but surely," said Mariam Albert, a news presenter on the Syriac-language Al-Syriania television channel.

Iraq's government launched the channel in April to help keep the language alive. It has around 40 staff and offers a variety of programming, from cinema to art and history.


Meanwhile, some are bothered by the kingdom of Jordan's decision to allow the Baath Party to participate in the political process.  In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was the figurehead for the Baath Party.  The Baath Party always existed outside of Iraq -- it was a pan-Arab movement.  In Iraq and Syria, it took hold.  In other Arab countries, it might not have dominated but it was politically active.  THE CRADLE notes:


The Iraq’s Islamic Dawa Party described the decision of the Jordanian authorities to allow the Baath Party to resume political activities in Jordan as a “hostile and provocative act,” Iraqi Shafaq News reported on 26 May.

The Shia Dawa Party’s political office said in a statement that, “The Iraqis were surprised, shocked, and outraged by the news of the Jordanian government’s permission for the (Saddam’s Ba’ath) party to engage in political activity.”

On May 14, the Independent Electoral Commission in the Kingdom of Jordan approved the political participation of 27 new political parties, including the Arab Socialist Baath Party, whose Iraqi branch was led by long-time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.



Iraqi political parties have expressed indignation after the Baath party’s licence was renewed in neighbouring Jordan. 

The Iraqi Islamic Al-Dawa party, which is the party of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, expressed “shock and outrage” at Amman’s move. 

Jordan’s Independent Electoral Commission on 14 May approved the political participation of 27 political parties, including the Arab Socialist Baath Party, after changes to its electoral law required all existing political groups to be re-licensed to resume political activities in the country. 



Dawa is usually identified with former prime minister and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki but, yes, the present prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Saudani is also a leader of Dawa.  He differs from Nouri in at least one regard -- Mohammed never fled Iraq.  Unlike the cowards before him, he didn't flee the country and didn't have to wait for the US military to invade in 2003 in order to return to Iraq.



On the topic of Iraq's neighbors, Gustaf Kilander (INDEPENDENT) notes the results of Turkey's relections:


President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose rule has grown increasingly authoritarian during his two decades in power, won 52 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff election, securing another term.

At the end of his next term, he will have been at the top of the Turkish government for a quarter-century.

During his rule, Mr Erdogan restricted press freedom, imprisoned journalists, and used the LGBT+ community as a cudgel in the culture war to attract socially conservative voters as his chaotic economic policies have sent the Lira into a tailspin.


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