ETERNALS, DUNE, Steve Burton
ETERNALS passed the $150 million mark over the weekend. DUNE, by contrast, finally squeaked to $100 million. If you've forgotten, DUNE has been in release longer and it had nothing but feather kisses from a media willing to lie and pimp it. The same media, however, attacked ETERNALS non-stop.
Okay, I need to talk about Steve Burton. He is famous for playing Jason on GENERAL HOSPITAL. He is also my grandmother's favorite actor on the show. And she's very upset because he's not on the show. He was fired because he wouldn't get the COVID vax. He had objections to it (including religious). That his religious objection wasn't honored is not pleasing my grandmother who grew up in the church and still goes three times a week at a minimum. (If you're a member of a Black church, you know her type.)
She does not understand why GH couldn't just honor his objection. She does not understand why they weren't able to just screen.
Steve Burton is GENERAL HOSPITAL for her -- more so than Luke (Anthony Geary) ever was. And she is ticked off. I'm finding it hard to believe that she's alone on this.
I agree with her that there are other things that could have been done and I also think this is discrimination. If things get much worse, this is going to be like McCarthyism where a group of people end up stigmatized and unable to work.
My grandmother will be reading this. If she feels I left something out (we discussed this at length on Thanksgiving), she'll let me know and I'll return to the topic. Otherwise, this will be it (unless there's another development).
Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Still no final voce count released in Iraq, still no one arrested for the assassination attempt or 'attempt' on Mustafa al-Kahdimi, don't call it progress.
Hassan Ali Ahmed (AL-MONITOR) emerges from the steno pool to type:
Iraqi national security adviser Qasim al-Araji appeared at a press conference on Nov. 29 to unveil the first report prepared by a special committee tasked with investigating a drone attack on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi's residence earlier this month.
The committee, headed by Araji, was formed a day after the Nov. 7 drone attack to investigate and find the party behind the attack that was widely condemned by the international community.
The members of the committee consist of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Abdul Amir Yarallah, deputy commander of the Joint Operations Command Gen. Abdul Amir al-Shammari, head of the National Security Service Hamid al-Shatri, deputy of the intelligence service Majid al-Dulaimi and Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.
The report revealed new details on the attack.
Araji disclosed that two explosive-laden drones packed with Composition C-4 targeted the prime minister's residence in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad in the early hours of Nov. 7. Initially, the first drone aimed its explosives at the flat roof, only to be followed by the second drone immediately targeting the entry of the courtyard.
This style of attack was intended to strike Kadhimi with the second drone while he was fleeing the scene through the entry, the report noted.
Generally, the only ones who can tell you what was intended are the culprits themselves. What's Araji confessing to?
This garbage that AL-MONITOR has run is exactly why Iraqis have never bought into the notion that this was a real attack. Per AL-MONITOR, the investigating body can mind read but they can't figure out who pulled it off?
It's more garbage. That's all it is. It's not making the attack or 'attack' look real. Everyone's fully aware that this is the last day of November and that the alleged attack took place at the start of the month. They want high drama and yet the reality is that if an attempt was made on Mustafa's life, ther should have been arrests long ago. The fact that this didn't happen backs up the beliefs of many that the whole 'assault' was staged and staged to create sympathy for Mustafa.
Was the 'attack' real? I have no idea, I wasn't there. But I do understand people in Iraq rolling their eyes over this nonsense. Were the attack real, that would mean an assassination attempt took place. And yet approximately one month later no arrests?? If there was an assassination attempt, that's not the normal response.
The whole thing has felt suspicious from the start and it's now, as one Shi'ite noted on Arabic social media this morning, just looking desperate.
Where are those election results? Still not in. Can't count ballots, can't catch killers, what can Mustafa's government do?
The electoral Committee is handing complaints over to the judiciary. That's where it stands now.
Jeanine Antoinette Hennis-Plasschaert heads the United Nations' mission in Iraq. She's done a miserable job. Last week, she spoke to the UN Security Council and lied. SHe lied. The October 10th election -- that we still don't have a final tally on -- was free and fair.
She deserves the bad reputation has in Iraq. We've ignored a lot of her problems because, with that position, we largely cover what they 'testitfy' to while appearing before the United Nations. But, to recap some of her greatest hits, she oversees a staff who told a man 'just don't burn yourself in front of our mission.' He walks in and explains his problems and how the UN is not addressing them and that he's going to set himself ablaze. And the UN response -- her staff -- is fine, just don't do it in front of our building.
Then there was the man who was assassinated in public and Jeanine's refusal to meet with the mother. The mother had to protest and more before the press on this got so bad that Jeanine had to get off her lazy ass and meet with the mother.
Now there's all the issues regarding Israel that would take multiple snapshots to cover but we'll just note that she's seen as a supplicant to the government of Israel and not a represetnative of Iraq.
With that baggage and so much more, she shows up to the UN Security Council and lies that these were free and fair elections.
When you disenfranchise, they aren't free elections. And many groups were disenfranchised but let's just note the most obvious one. A week before the election, on Mustafa's orders, the electoral commssion announced that a segment of the militias -- those publicly opposed to Mustafa -- would not be allowed to vote the Friday before the election. They couldn't vote on Sunday. They were being deployed around the country to protect polling stations. That was the entire reason for the early vote. And most of the security forces got to early vote. But not all.
That is discrimination and that is disenfranchisement. In addition, Layal Shakir (RUDAW) notes, "Qais al-Khazali, secretary-general of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the pro-Iranian PMF militias, met with the head of the United Nations mission in Iraq earlier this month and said he presented her with evidence of electoral fraud."
Jeanine's a liar. She's not an honest broker.
Back to the assassination attempt or 'attempt,' ALJAZEERA reports:
Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, an Iran-backed armed group under the Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella, had long denounced the blame as well as the election results.
In a televised speech on Sunday, al-Khazali said the investigation committee must "provide tangible and real evidence" instead of "allegations from the media and Facebook".
Telegram channels affiliated with pro-Iran armed groups charged ahead with their campaign against al-Kadhimi, spreading unsubstantiated claims that the prime minister staged the attack to blame it on the armed groups.
Well when you fail to do the most rudimentary of forensics on the alleged crime scene, apparently all you have for 'evidence' is social media.
In other news, the PUK did poorly in the election. Hiro Talabani is upping her game after the election and has begun deploying her son Bafel to make public statements calling out 'the government' for the way protesters in Sulaymaniyah are being treated. Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:
The head of Sulaimani's ruling party on Tuesday apologized to students for a violent crackdown on last week's protests, two days day after he met with a group of students.
"I am deeply saddened by the unjust violence that has been executed against a number of students. I sincerely ask for pardon from my sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers who walk towards a glimmering future with hope," read the statement from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) co-chair Bafel Talabani on Tuesday.
He pledged to make "immense changes" and "resolve the shortcomings," adding that they "will work closer with the youth and students."
Student protests began a week ago at the University of Sulaimani and were met with a crackdown as police used electric batons to disperse the crowd. But the protests continued, growing in size every day and spreading to other cities and towns across the Kurdistan Region over the week and security forces used tear gas and water cannons to quell the demonstrations. There were also reports that forces used live ammunition.
We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:
Black Alliance for Peace Statement on Venezuelan Elections
The news out of Venezuela related to the elections is that there is no news. All attempts to attack and delegitimize the process failed and the people of that beleaguered nation once again chose independence and dignity over surrendering to the imperialist gangsterism of the United States and their white supremacist, European colonial allies.
For the first time in four years elements of the political opposition participated in elections that saw nearly 70,000 candidates representing 37 national political parties and 43 regional organizations for 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 lawmakers, and 2,471 councilors.
Demonstrating once again that it is committed to open, fair, and clean elections, the Consejo National Electoral (CNE), the governmental body responsible for organizing elections in the country, issued credentials to over 300 international observers from 55 countries and institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the Carter Center.
The "Great Patriotic Pole" (GPP), a coalition of parties and social movements organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), won overwhelmingly including 20 out of 23 key governorships in the sub-national election.
According to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, "The support of the Venezuelan people for their process demonstrates once again, like what we just saw in the Nicaraguan elections and the failed revolt in Cuba on the 15th, that the white supremacists do not understand that when a people have tasted freedom, reconnected with their pre-colonial cultural traditions of knowledge production and independence, they become immune to the political, ideological and material attempts to drive them back into subordination."
The elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the abandonment of reactionary forces in Cuba by the Cuban people, and the solidarity from progressive forces globally in support of the struggles for national liberation and self-determination in the Americas, represent the upsurge of popular opposition and the growing weakness and fragility of U.S. and European imperialism.
They all forcefully affirm that the colonial realities are being reversed. It is a victory for all oppressed, colonized, and working-class peoples when a people, working to build a new society for themselves freed from the dehumanizing effects of the colonial/capitalist system, are able to withstand the systematic assaults on their democratic process and national sovereignty. BAP stands firmly with all of these attempts and proudly salutes the people of Venezuela.
No compromise, no retreat!
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DUNE is finally done
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. They year already feels better, doesn't it?
The trash has been taken out.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
That awful DUNE. Today is Friday and DUNE will be out of the top ten.
It was at number five for the box office on Tuesday. It fell out of the top 20 on Wednesday. It did not jump back in Thursday. It is not back in today. The 'reign' of that awful film -- pimped so hard by VARIETY, DEADLINE and THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER -- is over. Still in the top five? The film the same three trade publications savaged: ETERNALS. It was at 99 million due to Tuesday's ticket sales. It has made less than $300,000 since then. It might get lucky and squeak across the $100 million mark. Meanwhile, Thursday saw ETERNALS at number four and it had racked up $142 million in ticket sales.
So most of us knew which one was the real hit. If you saw them both, you knew ETERNALS was a satisfying film experience and then some while DUNE was about casting Tony Randall to play Superman.
May this b the end of Timothee Chalamet's film career barring the decision by UNIVERSAL to make THE MARY GROSS STORY with Timothee in the lead role.
Keep the prissy and fey Chalamet far away from action films.
DUNE sucked. It was a lousy film in so many ways, however what was the worst was Timothee in the lead role.
DUNE is done -- someone tell DEADLINE which is still pimping it -- today they're trying to claim it's Oscar worthy.
We ate a lot of turkey and watched TV and played board games on Thanksgiving. Most of today? Spades, gin rummy and THREE'S COMPANY (my uncle saw there was a marathon of it on IFC).
Be sure to read Ava and C.I.'s "TV: You can learn a lot from documentaries -- more than they intend to teach" -- per my uncle who said it's a must read. I agree 100%.
Thursday, November 25, 2021. A US veteran is dead and it's not because he's crazy but it may because the system failed him, protests continue in Iraq, the Australian government tells the world to please abuse Australian citizens, and much more.
Rose L. Thayer (STARS AND STRIPES) reports:
Ian Fishback, a former Army officer who in 2005 raised concerns about the treatment of detainees in the Global War on Terror, died Nov. 19 at an adult treatment facility in Michigan. He was 42 years old.
In a statement posted with Fishback's obituary, the veteran's family thanked his hometown community in Newberry, Mich., for the support provided Fishback in "recent difficult times."
"He faced many challenges and many of us felt helpless. We tried to get him the help he needed. It appears the system failed him utterly and tragically. There are many questions surrounding his death and the official cause of death is unknown at this time. We can assure you that we will get to the bottom of this. We will seek justice for Ian, because justice is what mattered most to him," according to the statement.
Fishback's mental health had declined recently and he struggled to get access to medical and mental health care from Veterans Affairs, said his longtime friend Justin Ford.
For those who knew Fishback, his friend said that his actions regarding the inhumane treatment of detainees came as no surprise. He always had a strong moral and ethical compass and held tightly to those principles, Ford said.
"Standing up for what you believe in is never easy. And it wasn't easy on him," he said. "He paid a price."
THE NEW YORK TIMES had a story on Ian Fishback. We didn't note it.
Ian Firshback did something heroic when others didn't. He could have looked the other way, as many did. He could have focused on something else. But he knew right from wrong and was raised to stand up for what was right.
To me, THE TIMES story read like 'crazy man kills himself -- more mental illness help needed at VA.'
He wasn't crazy.
I don't know that you could even call him mentally ill. And be careful with that term if your goal is to help veterans. Don't just apply it because you survived viewing a season of Jerry Springer programs and you think that's the equivalent of a hospital residency.
We say "Post-Traumatic Stress" here and we have used that forever. That condition is a coping condition. You are in volatile and violent environment and your body and your mind respond by making you hyper-vigilant. A veteran with PTS has a coping mechanism and now that she or he is back in civilian life, they need some help adjusting, re-orienting their body, mind and soul to a calmer world that they do not have to be hyper-vigilant in order to protect themselves and others.
When you stigmatize something, you make it harder for people who need some coaching, counseling or assistance to get it. Retired Gen Peter Chiarelli got that and was part of the move towards changing the term to PTS.
"Disorder" at the end of that is a shaming term that will result in fewer service members and veterans seeking assistance.
Words do matter. And THE NEW YORK TIMES report was appalling.
Crazy man kills himself -- more money to VA so the crazies can help!
That is how it read.
A brave person did a heroic thing. It wasn't easy to do it at the start and you can be sure it was hard to live with. Revealing what was happening didn't undo the damage. It didn't undo what was done -- those tortured were not magically untortured. And the horror that Ian felt that moved him to expose what was happening remained inside him.
That's sadly very normal. No one should have that in their head. We would all struggle with that. It is normal. We recoil from horrors for a reason.
The system clearly failed Ian. But Ian wasn't crazy. He was sent by our government into a war and he experienced very troubling things as a result. You go deep diving, you need to decompress. You experience what Ian did, you need something more than, "Thanks for your service."
And to be really clear, I'm not advocating for returning service members to be kept in some sort of isolation for weeks. When they return, they should be able to return to their loved ones. I am saying that services need to be made available. That's counseling with trained medical professionals, absolutely. That's also religious counseling -- that's chaplains and others. There should be a huge range of people to talk to and you should be encouraged to check in with some of the resources available.
If a veteran is feeling suicidal, it is great that there's a toll free number where they can serve assistance -- 800-273-8255 -- and it's sad that Eric Shinseki's family worked to make the use of that number questionable. But that the service is so needed goes to the fact that there are so many gaps in care.
And there were way too many gaps on the part of the US government with regards to Ian. He was abandoned in many ways.
He did a heroic and courageous thing. The US government did not honor that action.
There needs to be an award for people who show true courage and character by coming forward like he did. He received no special decoration from the US government. If he had, that could have eased some of his stress. If the government had officially recognized the strength of his actions, that could have made a real difference.
In Iraq, protests continue:
In #Iraq police respond with force as #Sulaymaniyah student protest enters third day
Ayub Zangana Tweets:
On the #16DaysofActivism against violence against women I'm sharing these photos of brave women who are brutally attacked and beaten by security forces of #sulaymaniyah for demanding their rights. KRG is only against violence if it's not done by them.
@unwomeniraq
@UNIraq
MRT explains:
The protests, in principle to ask that scholarships be restored to university students, highlight the economic crisis that the autonomous government is going through. Significantly, 80% of Iraqis trying to reach the European Union from Belarus come from this region of northern Iraq.
In view of the complaints, the Kurdistan regional government has decided to allocate a budget to help students of universities and institutes, according to an official spokesperson quoted by the information network Esta. It is not clear if that promise will be enough to calm the spirits of young Kurds, whose protests have been harshly repressed according to local media.
The Kurdistan government suspended student stipends in 2015, due to the economic crisis caused by falling oil prices, the fight against the so-called Islamic State and the wave of internally displaced people who arrived from other areas of the country. Until then, university and high school students received between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqi dinars (between 18 and 61 euros) a month. Now, young people consider that the circumstances that led to the interruption of aid have already been overcome.
Dilan Sirwan (RUDAW) reports:
Half a dozen men, some of them heavily armed, wrestle a young man to the ground where one of the men kicks him hard in the head. The young man is then hauled to his feet and led away, all the while taking blows from the men's fists. This is the scene in a video that appears to have been shot from a nearby rooftop during a student protest in Sulaimani. The clip sparked outrage online.
The protests began on Sunday at the University of Sulaimani and were met with a crackdown as police used electric batons to disperse the crowd. But the protests have continued, growing in size every day and spreading to other cities and towns across the Kurdistan Region.
The internal security forces (Asayish) issued a statement on Wednesday about the video "in which someone hurts a protester in an illegal and inappropriate way." They said they have made an arrest in connection with the incident.
The protests began with students demanding restoration of a living allowance. The government used to pay a monthly stipend of 40,000 to 100,000 dinars ($27 - $67) per student. It was one of the expenses the government cut when it introduced austerity measures like salary cuts to cope with the financial crisis caused by the war with the Islamic State (ISIS), low oil prices, and budget disputes with Baghdad. Without the funds, some students have problems buying food or paying for accommodation.
But the allowance is just the start of a long list of grievances.
"The allowances was basically the match that starts the fire. We are demanding better services. We are demanding the removal of political influence from university affairs. We are demanding a better education system," Ahmed*, one of the protesters, told Rudaw English on Wednesday.
Student representatives on university councils are often picked based on their affiliation with political parties. Classes are often overcrowded or frequently interrupted because teachers go on strike over unpaid salaries.
In Iraq -- yes, even in the KRG -- the government response is always to attempt attacks on reporters to discourage coverage. Again, even in the KRG this happens:
Four journalists detained during protests in Sulaymaniyah
anfenglishmobile.com
RojNews correspondents Berhem Letîf and Birwa Eshed, who have been missing since Wednesday, were detained during student protests in Sulaymaniyah. Karwan Enwer of the journalists' union in Sulayman...
AL-AHAD TV notes:
Our correspondent in Sulaymaniyah: The media cannot approach the gate of Sulaymaniyah University for the fear of getting arrested. #Iraq
The 'brave' Kurdish forces are attacking reporters and they're attacking students. This is outrageous. Where are the Barzanis and the Talabanis -- the two Kurdish family dynasties? Why aren't they publicly speaking up? Because they're in charge of the government and they approve of these actions?
Actions like the ones Nozheen Murad notes below:
"…security forces locked up about 20 girls in one of the university dormitories of the University of Sulaymaniyah and fired tear gas inside the hall"
Quote Tweet
Euro-Med Monitor in Iraq
@EuroMedIraq
· 6h
The security forces' repression of demonstrators in #Kurdistan is a grave attack on freedom of opinion and expression, and the freedom of peaceful assembly, which are guaranteed by the Iraqi constitution in Article 38. https://euromedmonitor.org/a/4749
I thought Hiro Talabani was many things. I did not think she was stupid until right now. Is there a reason she hasn't deployed all her sons in front of TV cameras to denounce what's going on? To pin it on the Barzanis? That would elevate her family. Not much else will at this point. I thought she was smart enough to seize every opportunity. Guess not. Or maybe her sons are all in the US right now?
As for the Barzanis, they need to grasp that the Talabanis rode high for years and didn't think that would ever end. It has ended. Election after election demonstrates that. And that could easily be the Barzanis fate next if they don't start addressing real concerns and stop using security forces to threaten and abuse the people.
Speaking of failed governments, will Australia ever defend their own citizens? They refuse to stand by journalist Julian Assange who remains threatened and abused by the US and UK governments. In addition, they refuse to defend another citizen who's being held in an Iraqi prison. Christopher Knaus (GUARDIAN) reports:
Australian engineer Robert Pether has penned a handwritten note to Scott Morrison from his Iraqi jail cell, pleading for the prime minister to intervene and warning he is effectively being held hostage.
Pether has been behind bars for almost eight months after being lured to Iraq and arrested in relation to a dispute between his firm and the Central Bank of Iraq over the construction of its new Baghdad headquarters.
In August, Pether was sentenced to five years in an Iraqi jail and fined $US12m over allegations his firm, CME Consulting, spent money that should have gone to an architect and a subcontractor.
The sentence devastated his Ireland-based family, including his wife, Desree, and three children, who say Pether has been punished for what is effectively a contractual dispute that belongs in civil courts.
Pether said he'd been tricked into signing a confession – written in Arabic – in front of a judge after being told it was a routine court record.
"Two months later I learned the document was my alleged confession," he wrote. "The first time I saw a translation of this document was four months after this date and it was nothing like the statement I had given during the interrogation process."
Australia's 60 MINUTES filed a report a few weeks ago.
Winding down, yesterday's snapshot noted Hunter Biden's latest scandal. Yesterday evening, a friend told me Jonathan Turley had weighed in. We had problems yesterday getting the snapshot up so I missed that -- I did go in an add a note and a link. If you missed his column, here's the opening:
I previously wrote a column on the one year anniversary of the Hunter Biden laptop story that marveled at the success of the Biden family in making the scandal vanish before that 2020 election. It was analogized to Houdini making his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear in his act. The Biden trick however occurred live before an audience of millions. Now, in an encore, a new major story on Biden's Chinese dealings has surfaced. Once again, poof!
The media has made the story disappear except for a couple of the usual outlets. Even with the New York Times reporting on the story, the disclosure of Biden's role in securing one of the world's largest cobalt mines for China (a key component to electric battery production) has been ignored by the major networks and many other print outlets. Once again, ABC. NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and other media just cannot see the elephant.
What is most amazing about this continuing trick is that the story has all of the elements that the media longed to confirm during the Trump Administration on the financial dealings of the Trump children. The son of the President was involved in a successful effort to handover a strategically vital natural resource to the Chinese that would guarantee their dominance in one of the most important new industries of the "Green economy." This occurred during a period when Hunter Biden and his uncle were accused of running a global influence peddling operation with foreign powers that cashed in on the Vice Presidency of Joe Biden. Then there is the fact that the story appears to contradict denials of continuing ownership in such foreign interests by the Bidens.
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