Tuesday, May 02, 2023

Gordon Lightfoot

Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot has passed away.  AP reports:

Gordon Lightfoot, the legendary folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind" and "Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.

Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.

Considered one of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, Lightfoot recorded 20 studio albums and penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway," “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

In the 1970s, Lightfoot garnered five Grammy nominations, three platinum records and nine gold records for albums and singles. He performed in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.



He wrote many great songs and did a fine job singing them.  However, check out the below.



That's from Barbra Streisand's STONEY END and she she nailed that song.  It's too bad she did THE BROADWAY ALBUM.  If that had been a one-off, fine.  But it ended up being the death of her as a singer.  The same way, around the time of THE THIRD BARBRA STREISAND album, her career slid into the ditch.  After "People," she couldn't get another hit to save her life and by the late 60s no one was buying her albums.  She was singing the same songs as everyone else and she was no longer singing them with the drama and passion she did on the first two albums.  (Her best album from the sixties is THE SECOND BARBRA STREISAND album and it was her first one to be certified as gold.)  

She tried to go contemporary and didn't do a good job.  Then Richard Perry produced STONEY END and BARBRA JOAN STREISAND and her career was revived.  The first album had her singing amazing songs by amazing songwriters -- Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, etc.  She finally got another hit single with Laura's "Stoney End."  She should have stuck with Joni and Laura songs because they challenged her vocal range.  

But look at what she did with Gordon's song.  

She could have done that with other songs.  EMOTION was a so-so album.  But I'll take it over almost everything that followed.  

She had a great voice that should have been interpreting the songs of today.  Before THE BROADWAY ALBUM, she scoffed at the idea of doing it and said she didn't want to go backwards.  But she did it and she went backwards. 

Gordon was Canadian so we need to note the Junos -- their equivalent of the Grammys.  AP notes that he had five Grammy nominations.  Okay, but he won 16 Junos.  His last big selling studio album was HARMONY from 2004 which made it to number 13 on the album charts in Canada and number 35 in the US.  He had 19 best of, greatest hits, collections.  In addition, his work is the subject of five different tribute albums. In Canada, he had 3 platinum albums and 2 gold ones.  He had 36 singles chart in the top 100 on Canada's singles charts -- he charted on their pop chart, their adult contemporary chart and their country chart.  His number ones were his cover of "Me and Bobby McGee" (country chart), "If You Could Read My Mind" (ac and pop charts -- number one on both), "Beautiful" (ac chart), "You Are What I Am" (ac and country chart), "Sundown" (pop chart), "Carefree Highway" (ac chart), "Rainy Day People" (ac chart), "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald" (number one across the board: country, pop and ac chart), "The Circle Is Small (I Can See It In Your Eyes)" (ac chart), "Dream Street Rose" (ac chart) and "The Same Old Obsession" (ac).  So that's 11 songs but note that is not 11 number ones since several hit number one on more than one chart -- he held the number one spot fifteen times on three charts.  


"The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald" was also a huge hit in the US, making it to number two on the pop charts.  THE DETROIT FREE PRESS dipped into their archives for this report from 1976:





The song is long and moody, an unlikely hit in the highly competitive world of popular music. But in Detroit and other Great Lakes cities, it's now one of the top records on AM radio.

The song is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot's tribute to the giant freighter that went down in Lake Superior last November with all 29 hands lost.

"Because of this one tune, the album it's on is No. 1 in Great Lakes cities," says Bob Merlis, of Warner Brothers Records.
[. . .]

Lightfoot has been fascinated by the Great Lakes for years, according to his sister and office manager, Bev Lightfoot of Toronto.

"We grew up in Orillia, Ont., which is right near Georgian Bay," she said. "He's had his eye on the big vessels for years.

"He felt very badly when The Edmund Fitzgerald went down," she continued. "He decided to write the song in memory of the families left behind."

She said her brother has received several letters from family members, all expressing pleasure over the song. Lightfoot is off on a long canoeing trip, she said, and couldn't comment on the success of his song. He isn't aware yet of its mushrooming popularity, she added.

They might have split up or they might have capsized

They may have broke deep and took water

And all that remains is the faces and names

Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

The U.S. Coast Guard, which has been investigating the disaster, still isn't sure why the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. Its latest attempt to pinpoint the cause used an unmanned submarine with a remote-controlled camera which filmed and videotaped the remains of the sunken ship at the bottom of the lake in May.

"It's like reconstructing an airliner crash, except it's harder to piece it back together," says Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Dan Shotwell. "All we've got are photos and the TV tape."

Gordon was a huge recording star. You can stream the 2019 documentary GORDON LIGHTFOOT: IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND on AMAZON.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Tuesday, May 2, 2023.  The US government releases a religious report looking at other countries, the effects of climate change in Iraq are there for anyone to see, Robert Reich oversimplifies what's taking place with the hate merchants today, and much more.


The US Commission on International Religious Freedom notes:

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today released its 2023 Annual Report documenting developments during 2022, including significant regression in countries such as Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, and Russia. USCIRF’s 2023 Annual Report provides recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s promotion of freedom of religion or belief abroad.  

USCIRF’s independence and bipartisanship enables it to unflinchingly identify threats to religious freedom abroad. In its 2023 Annual Report, USCIRF recommends 17 countries to the State Department for designation as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs) because their governments engage in or tolerate “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations” of the right to freedom of religion or belief. These include 12 that the State Department designated as CPCs in November 2022: Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—as well as five additional recommendations: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Syria, and Vietnam. For the first time ever, the State Department designated Cuba and Nicaragua as CPCs in 2022.

“USCIRF is disheartened by the deteriorating conditions for freedom of religion or belief in some countries— especially in Iran, where authorities harassed, arrested, tortured, and sexually assaulted people peacefully protesting against mandatory hijab laws, alongside their brutal continuing repression of religious minority communities.” USCIRF Chair Nury Turkel said. “We strongly urge the Biden administration to implement USCIRF’s recommendations—in particular, to designate the countries recommended as CPCs, and for the Special Watch List, or SWL, and to review U.S. policy toward the four CPC-designated countries for which waivers were issued on taking any action. We also stress the importance of Congress acting to prohibit any person from receiving compensation for lobbying on behalf of foreign adversaries, including those engaging in particularly severe violations of the right to freedom of religion of belief.”

The 2023 Annual Report also recommends 11 countries for placement on the State Department’s SWL based on their governments’ perpetration or toleration of severe religious freedom violations. These include two that the State Department placed on that list in November 2022: Algeria and Central African Republic (CAR)—as well as nine additional recommendations: Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. USCIRF is recommending the State Department add Sri Lanka to the SWL for the first time due to its deteriorating religious freedom conditions in 2022.


Iraq is a country that they recommend for the State Dept's Special Watch List:

Background
Iraq’s population is approximately 95–98 percent Muslim, with 61–64
percent Shi’a and 29–34 percent Sunni. Christians—consisting of
Catholic, Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East, Protestant Evan-
gelical, and others—comprise approximately one percent, although
accurate figures are obscured by frequent displacement both within
and beyond Iraq’s borders.
Iraq is unique as a Shi’a-majority Arab state. It has ties to both
the Sunni-majority Arabic-speaking world and Iran, a non-Arab Shi’a
country. Iraq is also home to numerous ethnic and religious minorities
such as Kurds, Yazidis, Sabean Mandaeans, Kaka’is, Shabaks, and
Turkmen as well as members of Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, Armenian,
and other Christian churches. In 2022, at least 2,763 Yazidi women and
girls kidnapped from Sinjar by ISIS were still missing, many potentially
hidden within northeast Syrian camps detaining ISIS fighters and
their families. Yazidi Iraqis welcomed the international community’s
additional steps toward accountability and justice, such as a German
court’s judgment in July convicting a repatriated German ISIS member
of genocide.
Article 2 of the federal constitution establishes Islam as the offi-
cial religion and affirms “the full religious rights of freedom of belief
and religious practice to all individuals such as Christians, Yazidis and
Mandean Sabaeans.” However, the penal code contains blasphemy
statutes, and since 2016, the Law of United National Identity requires
non-Muslim minors to convert to Islam if one of their parents becomes
Muslim, as in the ongoing legal case of an Assyrian child.
In the years since the 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein’s
regime, sectarianism has flourished, with political power in the IFG
distributed along religious lines among dominant Shi’a political
parties, a Kurdish president, an Arab Shi’a prime minister, and an
Arab Sunni president of Parliament.
Other Religious Freedom Issues in the IFG and KRG
Within weeks of the new administration’s emergence in October,
IFG agencies issued eviction notices to Christians in a displacement
settlement in Baghdad’s Zayouna district, leaving the families—many
of whom ISIS had displaced from their Nineveh homelands in 2014—
facing homelessness during winter. The evictions were completed in
February 2023.
Community members from other religious minorities, including
Sabaean Mandaeans, Shabaks, and Kaka’is, have communicated their
intentions to lobby international bodies for minority protections and
the new IFG administration for constitutional and other legal safe-
guards for religious and ethnic minorities. These activists note that,
for example, Article 125 of the federal constitution sets forth “admin-
istrative, political, cultural, and educational rights” for minorities but
lacks mechanisms of enforcement.
Political representation remained an important concern for reli-
gious minorities, with communities pointing out flaws in both the IFG's. 
and KRG’s quota systems for elected representatives from minority
religious backgrounds. Some minority advocates suggested both
the IFG and KRG amend their existing quotas to ensure minority
representation is effective and meaningful rather than symbolic and
vulnerable to dominant religious groups’ political appropriation
of minorities’ seats. In February, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court
further limited the political representation of Yazidis, Shabaks, and
Feyli Kurds, forcing those minorities to campaign within the already
severely circumscribed Christian and Mandaean components. In
March, archaeologists criticized both IFG and KRG leaders’ ongoing
sectarianizing of cultural heritage sites, finding it amounts to cultural
heritage predation. In the IFG, confessional political and religious
groups leveraged the ethnic and religious political quota system, the
Iraqi Constitution of 2005, and a collection of later laws, including
religion-specific endowments, to misappropriate and alter the char-
acter of religious heritage sites. Meanwhile, the KRG’s “land grabs”
of indigenous Christians’ villages and sites constituted a form of
targeted demographic change, prompting continued displacement
and migration.
In May, the Iraqi Parliament passed a Sadr-proposed law criminal-
izing Iraqis’ and foreigners’ ostensible attempts to normalize relations
with Israel. The law did not address Judaism and set forth exceptions
for Iraqis’ “religious visits” to Israel as preapproved by the Ministry
of the Interior. However, it not only potentially “promot[ed] an envi-
ronment of antisemitism” but also reflected Iraq’s rampant political
sectarianism, with Shi’a parliamentary blocs advancing the legislation
in part to distance themselves from Sunni Kurds’ and Arabs’ perceived
receptivity to normalizing ties with Israel.
Key U.S. Policy
The administration of President Joseph R. Biden continued to prior-
itize Iraq’s stabilization and economic development in U.S. relations
with both the IFG and KRG.
In July, the United States condemned an attack on a resort in
Duhok that killed at least eight civilians. The IFG attributed the strike
to Turkey, which frequently carries out airstrikes in northern Iraq in
ostensible pursuit of members of the terrorist-designated Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK). The strikes have contributed to the abandon-
ment of nearby Christian villages, threatened already traumatized
Yazidis in Duhok’s displacement camps, and inhibited Yazidis’ return
to Sinjar. The United States maintained its “strong support for Iraq’s
sovereignty and its security, stability, and prosperity, including that
of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.”
The United States Agency for International Development
asserted its commitment to providing financial assistance to help
enable the approximately 1.67 million displaced Iraqis’ return to their
homes. In November, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Alina L. Romanowski
redeclared a disaster in Iraq for fiscal year 2023 “due to the ongoing
complex emergency and humanitarian crisis."


And they offer:

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
■ Include Iraq on the Special Watch List for
engaging in or tolerating severe violations
of religious freedom pursuant to the Inter-
national Religious Freedom Act (IRFA);
■ Use diplomatic channels and multilateral
engagement to encourage the IFG and the
KRG to expedite processing the return of
kidnapped and displaced Yazidi genocide
survivors and assist them in reintegrating
into Iraqi society; to resolve conflicts over
disputed areas per Article 140 of the Iraqi
constitution, while including all religious
and ethnic minorities in the process; and
to comprehensively implement the Sinjar
Agreement with full inclusion of the Yazidi
community in particular;
■ Impose targeted sanctions on additional
PMF leaders responsible for severe vio-
lations of religious freedom by freezing
those individuals’ assets and/or barring
their entry into the United States under
human rights related financial and visa
authorities, citing specific religious free-
dom violations; and
■ Continue to assist Iraqi religious and eth-
nic minorities in rebuilding communities
devastated by ISIS and in advocating for
their own interests, including opening a
broad discussion on holding fair and free
elections to select their own local leaders as
well as representatives to the IFG and KRG.
The U.S. Congress should:
■ Incorporate religious freedom concerns
into its larger oversight of the U.S.-Iraq
bilateral relationship through hearings, let-
ters, and congressional delegations and by
appropriating funding for development pro-
gramming to strengthen religious freedom.


A lot of people spent yesterday -- Norman Solomon shows up all over -- with worthless articles about yesterday being the 20th anniversary of Bully Boy Bush's "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" moment.  I didn't see any that were cleverly written nor did I see any that said anything that hadn't been said when the same people wrote them on the 1st anniversary of Bully Boy Bush's idiotic moment.  He's a War Criminal and the crimes continue -- even though those writing the pieces all appear to have checked out on Iraq around 2008.

We're not wasting our time on noting that.  We will point out that  Steve Hanley (CLEAN TECHNICA) notes:

21-year-old Ali Julood, a native of Rumaila, Iraq, was scheduled to speak a the BP annual meeting on April 27, but he couldn’t. Ali died on April 21, a victim of leukemia likely caused by flaring near his home. His father, Hussein Julood, spoke for his son instead via a webcam.

Through an interpreter, he told the meeting, “From my door, you can see the black smoke from gas flaring 24 hours a day, and you can smell the toxic chemicals from these flares. Sometimes it’s so bad, breathing is difficult, and oil rains from the sky. Cancer is so common here, it’s like the flu.” Hussein told the BP meeting that Ali “loved nature — his favorite place in the world was his garden. And he wished that children could enjoy playing and breathing freely outside.”

Ali was one of several people interviewed by the BBC last year for a documentary entitled “Under Poisoned Skies” that examines the activities of the oil and gas industry in Iraq. The BBC found that areas near gas flaring sites contained high levels of chemicals and pollutants, with rates of leukemia and other cancers among the local population notably higher than in other parts of the country.

In Rumaila, where Julood lives, flaring occurs less than 2 km from the family home, despite Iraqi law requiring a minimum distance of 10 km from residential areas. Ali’s phsician told the BBC that his leukemia was likely caused as a result of his proximity to those chemicals and pollutants. A report leaked to the BBC showed rates of the cancer in the area, which is located south of the city of Basra, have increased by 20% in the past five years.

The BBC investigators found evidence that millions of tons of emissions from gas flaring had failed to be declared by major Western oil and gas companies working in Iraq. In its report, it named BP, Eni, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Shell as companies that are contributing to the egregious level of pollution in the area.


Maybe if the insta-writers had tied in that or other actual issues that Iraq has to deal with it -- fallout from the Iraq War -- they could have written something meaningful?  They could have noted how the war ravaged country is now a climate disaster, for example.  Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) reports:

Farmer Saadoon Abdul-Sahib Jabr has been in the agriculture business for decades.

In that time, he has seen it all, from droughts and heavy rains to failed crops and deteriorating soil quality.

But these past few months, he said, have been particularly challenging.

Mr Jabr, 58, inherited 1,000 dunams — or 247 acres — of land from his father in the town of Al Maimouna, in Maysan province south of Baghdad. He planted 80 dunams with wheat and barley.

This year’s season for winter grains, beginning around October and ending as late as May, got off to a very rough start for farmers, with little rain and dwindling water levels in the rivers.

“The situation was very tough,” said Mr Jabr. “The drought this year was the most severe one.”

Known in ancient times as Mesopotamia or the Land Between the Two Rivers, Iraq is said to have been the site of the biblical Garden of Eden.

Today, the UN classifies the oil-rich nation as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. Its severe water crisis has been gradually worsening for decades, negatively affected by climate change, mismanagement and pollution.

Iraq’s two main sources of water, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which account for more than 90 per cent of the country’s freshwater reserves, have significantly declined over the years. Construction of dams and diversion of water upstream in Turkey and Iran has exacerbated the situation, leaving downstream nations like Iraq with less water.


Of the 17 most water-stressed countries in the world, 11 are in the Middle East and North Africa, making it one of the most affected regions in the world.

Over the years, a lack of fresh water resources has been compounded by climate change, population growth, poor management and — in some places — conflict. It has reached a stage where it affects the daily lives and health of millions.

As the climate crisis accelerates, water scarcity in the region home to 360 million people is expected to worsen and disrupt economic growth. A report from the World Bank found that climate-related water scarcity may lead to economic losses of up to 14 per cent of the region’s total GDP over the next 30 years.

[. . .]

The UN has identified Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to climate change.

One of the most affected sectors by water scarcity in Iraq is agriculture, which makes up less than 4 per cent of the country's annual GDP of 208 billion (as of 2021) but is the main source of income for at least a third — or 14 million — of the nation's 44 million population.

Iraq’s two main sources of water, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which account for more than 90 per cent of the country’s freshwater reserves, have significantly declined over the years. The construction of dams and the diversion of water upstream in Turkey and Iran have exacerbated the situation, leaving downstream nations like Iraq with less water.

Mismanagement and pollution have also contributed to the crisis.

Some farmers have begun turning away from centuries-old irrigation techniques to more modern systems that reduce water use by almost half.

The government provides some support but farmers say not nearly enough to cover their needs.



In other news, KURDISTAN 24 notes, "The U.S. State Department announced on Sunday that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, will visit Baghdad and Erbil over the next few days."  MEHR NEWS AGENCY reports:

Turkish airforce has bombarded several villages in Metin Mountain located in Dohuk Province in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, media sources reported on Wednesday.

An eyewitness said that Turkey has been bombarding the region for the past week, stirring panic among the local people in the region.

From time to time, the Turkish military carries out air strikes on alleged PKK positions, which is listed as a terrorist group by the EU, US and Turkey.


Robert Reich.  Not a fan, not an enemy.  George Washington University's transphobe Jonathan Turley had a hissy fit over Robert's GUARDIAN column last week.  Remember, Turley wants opinions to be freely expressed . . . except when he doesn't agree with the opinions.  


For a second week, Montana Republicans have blocked Democratic transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from participating in a debate over proposed restrictions on transgender youth.

Zephyr, a first-term Democrat from Missoula and the first openly transgender woman elected to the Montana legislature, hasn't been allowed to speak on the state house floor since last Tuesday, when she told Republican colleagues they would have "blood on their hands" if they banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

On Monday, her supporters brought the House session to a halt, chanting, "Let her speak!" from the gallery before being escorted out. Seven were arrested for criminal trespass. Republican leaders describe the disruption as an "insurrection."

[. . .]

  It's tempting to dismiss all this as just another outcropping of crazy right-wing bigotry.

And it's tempting to be appalled at such blatant prejudice but believe there must be more important issues to worry about. According to the Pew Research Center, only 1.6% of U.S. adults are transgender or nonbinary (that is, their gender differs from the sex they were assigned at birth).

Yet let me remind you: Bigotry against minority groups based on sexual orientation or gender Identity, such as the trans community, is a way fascism takes root.

As the world tragically witnessed in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, the politics of sexual anxiety gains traction when traditional male gender roles of family provider and protector are hit by economic insecurity. 

That's from his COMMON DREAMS column.  Robert misses so much.  That's why I'm neutral on him.  While I can agree with his COMMON DREAMS column, I'm also aware that he's left out so much.  It's not all economics.  It's about power and it's about a right-wing element that feels powerless.  It goes beyond wages and goes to the pandemic.  That left so many feeling so powerless.    Look at Marjorie Taylor Greene attacking Randi Weingarten last week (see Friday's Iraq snapshot).  They're insecure and they're paranoid and they feel powerless as a result of the pandemic. 

Wages?  That's part of it.  Inflation certainly is.  But Reich's not a social scientist, he's just an economist and can only go there for every explanation.  For every explanation and the only explanation.  That's why I'm neutral to him.  His vision is too limited for me.




New content at THIRD:



The following sites updated:






Posted by at

Monday, May 01, 2023

I object to the proposed Christopher Robin movie

It's May 1st.  Not April 1st.  So I guess this story is for real:



An R-rated live-action/animation hybrid series about Winnie-the-Pooh character Christopher Robin is in development from Boat Rocker Studios and Shamier Anderson and Stephan James’ Bay Mills Studios, Variety has learned exclusively.

The official logline for the project, currently titled “Christopher Robin,” states, “Christopher Robin is a disillusioned New Yorker navigating his quarter-life crisis with the help of the weird talking animals who live beyond a drug-induced portal outside his derelict apartment complex, the Hundred Acres.”


I don't get why someone would want to do this or why anyone would pay to see it.

I'm not a prude -- I've been called many things, but never a prude -- but I don't see why you would do a film like this.  Christopher Robin?  My goodness.  How in the world did people sign off on this?  What's next -- Fat Albert aged 20 years and now a swinger?  


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Monday, May 1, 2023. Attacks on the LGBTQ+ community continue in the US while in Iraq a hissy fit takes place at an airport and a former prime minister finds himself accused of crimes.


Starting in the US, Brendan Farrington (AP) reports:

State Sen. Shevrin Jones can often be seen at the Florida Capitol greeting staff and colleagues with a smile or laugh, but when he’s alone it’s a different story.

“The outward expression is to show God’s love. That’s what I was taught,” said Jones, a Democrat. But, he said, “I have enough tears in my car to fill a lake.”

For Jones, who is gay, the past two years have been emotionally draining as Florida passed a flurry of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. 

More than 200 LGBTQ+ lawmakers across the country feel just like Jones, at a time when anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation is flourishing — as if they are under personal attack, and that they need to continually defend their community’s right to exist. The issue exploded into the national spotlight last week when Montana Republicans voted to bar Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who is transgender, from the House floor after a standoff over gender-affirming medical care for minors.





 





Marcia's been covering this story  (see Marcia here and here) but Professor Hate and Transphobia at George Washington University Jonathan Turley can't find it.  It's not that he misses all stories related to trans issues, it's just that he picks and chooses.  For example, he's found a single bar that's refusing to allow people to trash Bud Light for having had a trans influencer.  His position?  Of course, it's that the bar is in the wrong.  He never defends trans people.  They're attacked verbally and they're attacked physically and he doesn't give a damn -- in fact, he really incites it, let's be honest, he's a hate merchant.  


So's John Stauber.  And Stauber popularized a big lie about BUD LIGHT taking a huge hit.  It wasn't that huge unless you were FOX "NEWS" -- which was John Stauber source, of course.  In the '00s, he told people to reject the lies of FOX "NEWS" now, struggling for purpose and recognition, he embraces the lie machine he once called otu.


Today at CNN, Danielle Wiener-Bronner offers an analysis (including how Bud Light bungled their response):

BeerBoard, which tracks sales data, previously told CNN that the 3,000 locations it tracks poured 6% less Bud Light than rivals — including Miller Lite and Coors Light — from April 2 to April 15, a turnaround from previous weeks. Also, Bud Light sales fell 17% in the week ended April 15 compared to the same week in 2022, according to an analysis of NIQ data compiled by Bump Williams Consulting provided to the Wall Street Journal.

Still, it’s too soon to tell whether the boycott efforts will have long-lasting sales impacts, as customers often don’t commit to them for long. And the stock of Bud Light owner Anheuser-Busch (BUD) has fallen only about 3% in the last month, suggesting Wall Street isn’t too worried. Anheuser-Busch (BUD) reports earnings on May 4.    



All that self-created drama by the fright-wing and that's all it did.  However, read the analysis, Bud Light chicken s**t move in response will hurt the company.



Randell and his family are bracing for the worst-case scenario.

Over the past few months, the 16-year-old North Texas boy has watched Senate Bill 14 — which would bar transgender youth like himself from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapy — sail through the Senate and a House committee. The legislation would also ban transition-related surgeries, but they are rarely performed on kids. And on Tuesday, the bill could be up for a key vote in the lower chamber, where the legislation has more than enough support to pass.

“I am a really happy kid, and I have a really positive outlook on life,” said Randell, who is usually quick to laugh. “That would push me past my breaking point.”

That legislative progress means Texas, which has among the country’s biggest trans youth populations, is on the brink of joining over a dozen other states in banning transition-related care for minors — treatment medical groups and LGBTQ advocates say is vital for a portion of the youth population at high risk for depression and suicide.

“The last appointment we went to, the endocrinologist didn’t start with, ‘Hey, how’s your medicine going?’” said Kay, Randell’s mother. “They started with, ‘The government’s probably going to shut down the clinic. Where will you go for your next appointment?’”


Who's standing up for these people in need?  Not the hate merchants like Tulsi Gabbard who does the bidding of Guru Chris, the leader of the cult she's a member of.  Not Glenneth Greenwald, Jonathan Turley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, et al.




It pains me because once a person has been made to feel unwelcome, it's a real uphill battle for them to be welcomed again into a church community. In 2003, a group of sisters, myself included, started an inclusive Catholic group.

The group was birthed out of our frustration with the lack of equality that was happening around us, not just in the Catholic Church, but in the U.S. as a whole. Creating the group was our way of telling people who have felt unwelcome in the church: "You belong."

Over the last two or three years, a group of justice promoters from vowed Catholic religious communities have spoken about LGBTQ+ rights and women in the church, and inclusion.

I've lost track of how many state legislatures have horrendous bills in front of their state houses that are very anti-trans. In the U.S., we know violence against trans women of color especially is skyrocketing.

In early February, ahead of International Transgender Day of Visibility in the U.S., we decided to write a statement of solidarity as Catholics, knowing full well that our church has been a source of much sorrow and pain for the LGBTQ+ community.

We met on March 17, but just a few days after, the United States Catholic Bishops Conference (USCCB) put out a teaching about what Catholic healthcare institutions are allowed to do in terms of offering medical or surgical treatment to the trans community.

So, after our bishop's conference came out with this statement, we felt an even greater urgency to speak up and say: "Wait a minute." There are a whole lot of Catholic persons who welcome members of the LGBTQ+ community, we know that you're whole as you are, and we're going to find a way to reach out to you and to be there with you.

That is what being a Catholic sister is about. Part of our life commitment is to reach out to the people that are pushed aside and to those who are being made to feel like they are less than whole.


At TEEN VOGUE, Catherine Caruso writes about an upcoming Supreme Court case:

[T]he Court’s latest LGBTQ+ rights case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, may deliver a substantial blow to the civil rights and liberties of same-sex couples and the greater LGBTQ+ community.

The case concerns Lorie Smith, a Colorado-based graphic designer and owner of the web design firm 303 Creative, who refuses to create wedding websites for LGBTQ+ couples, citing her deeply held religious beliefs. Smith is seeking an exemption from a Colorado law that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Smith is arguing that being forced to comply with this law would infringe on her First Amendment rights by compelling her to use her art to convey a “message” she finds objectionable. She’s being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group. (ADF disputes that label.) For nearly three decades, the ADF has been associated with legal efforts to allow businesses to deny goods and services to LGBTQ+ people, among other homophobic policies. 

According to several legal experts Teen Vogue spoke to, the arguments against Smith’s case are entirely reasonable. The state is not forcing her to sell a particular service or create a particular message that goes against her beliefs. Colorado’s public accommodations law only requires businesses to provide the same goods or services to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. 

“There's a range of all sorts of reasons that a business can refuse to serve a customer, but not based on discriminatory reasons that are prohibited by the statute,” said Jennifer Pizer, chief legal officer for the LGBTQ+ civil rights firm Lambda Legal. “She's engaged in conduct very well calculated to communicate to the entire country that she opposes marriage for same-sex couples, but if she wants to sell a particular service that she has chosen to sell, then she should be required to do that consistently to the state law.”

The oddest part about this case is that it’s based entirely on something that has not yet occurred: Smith’s company does not currently offer wedding website designs, nor has she turned away any same-sex couples seeking this service. Unlike most Supreme Court cases dealing with nondiscrimination protections, there are no specific aggrieved individuals in this case. Instead, lawyers at the ADF have preemptively filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado on Smith’s behalf in order to directly challenge and undermine this law.

“It is a plaintiff in search of a problem in order to create a constitutional rule, which would, I think, at the end of the day, potentially subjugate same-sex couples who are in the public square,” Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University’s College of Law, told Teen Vogue. “Not only has this case been manufactured, which is unusual in terms of the way litigation develops, but it has been done so for the express purpose to harm same-sex couples, and that has been the ADF's mission for many, many years now.”


Exactly.  As we've long noted here -- in response to Jonathan Turley's cheering the case on -- the hateful Lori has no standing.  She has not damaged.  This is hypothetical and normally the Supreme Court would wait for a plaintiff  to have standing -- to be able to show some way that the law is impacting her actual business.

But we have an illegitimate (and unethical) Supreme Court made up of a lot of liars who lied through their confirmation hearings and now think they can ignore precedent and just make up decisions to fit their prejudice.

Turning to Iraq, Mitchell McCluskey and Aqeel Mohamed (CNN) reported Saturday:

      

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decried the presence of the US military in Iraq during a meeting with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid in Tehran on Saturday.

“The presence of even one American in Iraq is too much,” Khamenei said, Iranian state media outlet IRNA reported.

“Americans are not friends with anyone and are not even loyal to their European allies,” Khamenei said, as he called for Iran and Iraq to expand “bilateral cooperation.”   


Maziar Motamedia (ALJAZEERA) notes this was Rashid's "first visit to Iran as head of state since his election last October."  Azhi Rasul (RUDAW) adds, "The US has been on the outside of recent major diplomatic developments in the Middle East - a restoration of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia and Saudi-led moves to welcome Syria back into the Arab League. Washington was 'blindsided' by the developments, according to reports."


The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, announced a plan to develop and expand Baghdad International Airport in the second half of 2023, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s press office. 
The statement illustrated that Al-Sudani made a tour of inspection on Saturday at the airport to check the facilities, and was briefed about the services provided to travelers. 
The Iraqi Prime Minister revealed his government’s intention to develop and expand the airport in the second half of 2023.


It must have been some meeting.  It's resulted in the Baghdad International Airport director resigning.  Chenar Chalak (RUDAW) reports:

The director of Baghdad International Airport on Sunday submitted his resignation from his position, following an encounter with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani the day before where the premier strongly criticized the director for the airport’s poor quality of services.

PM Sudani conducted a visit to the Baghdad airport on Saturday to evaluate its services and facilities. A video emerged on social media soon after showing Sudani angrily shouting at Hussein Qasim Khafi, the airport’s director, during his visit to the airport.

“What is this mess?... How long have you have you been working here?” Sudani is seen telling Khafi in the video, before shrugging off the director’s attempt at a response by yelling “Enough!”


We'll note this Tweet.


al-Sudani also plans to reshuffle his cabinet -- let's hope that goes more smoothly.

While al-Sudani is throwing hissy fits at the airport, the previous prime minister is back in the news.  ALMAYADEEN reports that Mustafa al-Kadhimi is being investigated over the killing of Qasem  Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhadndis.  He's being accused of negligence and dereliction.  THE CRADLE adds:

On 16 March, a member of Iraq’s parliament, Hussein Mones, filed an accusation against Kadhimi at the Public Prosecution Office for “gross negligence” and “failing to provide necessary security information to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to take appropriate measures that would prevent endangering the safety of civil aviation at Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.”

Mones’ official accusation also highlights “intentional damages to public property,” which include the vehicles that were transporting Soleimani and Muhandis when the illegal US strike happened.

The accusations pertain to Kadhimi’s tenure as the head of the country’s National Intelligence Service – a role he occupied before his becoming prime minister in May 2020.

In July 2020, Iran suggested that it had evidence that linked Kadhimi to the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis.




Kadhimi, who left office in October, came to power in 2020 after mass anti-corruption demonstrations felled his predecessor. His government’s high-profile campaign to tackle graft in one of the world’s most corrupt countries drew widespread international encouragement.

Central to the effort was a series of highly publicized night raids in late 2020 on the homes of public figures accused of corruption, conducted under the authority of the Permanent Committee to Investigate Corruption and Significant Crimes, better known as Committee 29. The architect of the raids was Lt. Gen. Ahmed Taha Hashim, or Abu Ragheef, who became known in Iraq as the “night visitor.”

But what happened to the men behind closed doors was far darker: a return to the ugly old tactics of a security establishment whose abuses Kadhimi had vowed to address. In more than two dozen interviews — including five men detained by the committee, nine family members who had relatives imprisoned, and 11 Iraqi and Western officials who tracked the committee’s work — a picture emerges of a process marked by abuse and humiliation, more focused on obtaining signatures for pre-written confessions than on accountability for corrupt acts.

Those interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters or, in the case of detainees and their families, to protect their safety.

“It was every kind of torture,” one former detainee recalled. “Electricity, choking me with plastic bags, hanging me from the ceiling by my hands. They stripped us naked and grabbed at the parts of our body underneath.”

In at least one case, a former senior official, Qassim Hamoud Mansour, died in the hospital after being arrested by the committee. Photographs provided to The Post by his family appear to show that a number of teeth had been knocked out, and there were signs of blunt trauma on his forehead.

Allegations that the process was riddled with abuse became an open secret among diplomats in Baghdad last year. But the international community did little to follow up on the claims and the prime minister’s office downplayed the allegations, according to officials with knowledge of the issue. Although a parliamentary committee first revealed the torture allegations in 2021 and Iraqi media have raised the issue sporadically, this is the fullest attempt yet to investigate the claims and document the scale of the abuse.





The following sites updated:


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