Friday, February 07, 2025

Prince

Prince's death hit hard and still does.  I listened to him last weekend.  There are times when I can't.  He was a great talent and one of the biggest music stars of his time.  In fact, the list of big 80s musical acts would be (in no particular order)

1) Prince
2) Madonna
3) Tina Turner
4) George Michael
5) Michael Jackson
6) Billy Joel
7) Janet Jackson
8) Whitney Houston
9) Bruce Springsteen
10) Diana Ross 

I include 'hold overs' on the list because it's not about who debuted in the 80s -- it's about who dominated radio.  Diana, of course, had the number one hits "Endless Love" (with Lionel Richie) and "Upside Down" and -- as a soloist on USA Aid For Africa "We Are The World." Her other top  hits included "Why Do Fools Fall In Love," "All of You" (duet with Julio), "Mirror Mirror," "So Close," "Muscles," "Pieces of ice," "Swept Away," "Working Overtime" (number three on the R&B chart), "Work That Body," "Paradise,"  "Chain Reaction," "Telephone," "Eaten Alive"  and "Missing You" -- all of those were top forty hits on AC or pop or R&B or dance -- or any combination of the two or more.  "Swept Away" was a top forty pop  hit but I didn't realize it made it to number three on the R&B charts or that it made it to number one on the dance charts. So add that in and she had four numbers ones during the eighties.  And I just mentioned that to C.I. and she said, "Read it back to me."  And then: "What did you forget?"  

???

"It's My Turn."  I did!  Top ten pop hit, top ten adult contemporary hit and number 14 on the R&B chart.  I love that song.





So you had hold overs like Diana, Billy Joel and Bruce from previous decades.  And Prince actually hit in 1979 for the first time but he's really an 80s artist and the one who dominated that decade.  Tina emerged as a solo act and superstar in the 80s.  

And Tina's gone now, and George Michael, and Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson, and Prince.

I don't think you can picture 80s radio without those five artists.  


Netflix has canceled the release of what was supposed to be a six-part Prince documentary directed by Ezra Edelman.

"The Prince Estate and Netflix have come to a mutual agreement that will allow the estate to develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince's archive," Netflix said in a statement shared with Variety on Thursday. "As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released."

Upon making this news public, Prince's estate published a video on X touting "the vault has been freed," and including the hashtag "Free."

Representatives for the late artist's estate previously claimed a first cut of the film was filled with "dramatic" factual inaccuracies and "sensationalized" renderings of certain events from his life, according to sources close to the situation.

Edelman, best known for creating the "O.J.: Made in America" documentary, had been quietly working on the film for over four years. Edelman, who was enlisted to replace original director Ava DuVernay, was given extensive access to Prince's archives.


Prince is an artist who deserves a film.  Documentaries?  Great.  But a film, a feature film.  I don't think people realize that we don't have a Jimi Hendrix film.  We have two Aretha movies -- one a feature.  We have DREAMGIRLS and SPARKLE supposedly loosely based on The Supremes.  There are two Whitney films -- one a feature.  And a very bad Michael Jackson film is headed to theaters shortly.  And if you leave pop and rock, it's even worse.  There's no film about Dinah Washington or Eartha Kitt or Sarah Vaughan, Etta James . . .  Nina Simone got a feature film and everyone seemed to attack it. The only jazz era Black woman to be the focus of a feature film was Billie Holiday -- two films and Diana Ross and Andra Day both earned Best Actress Oscar nominations for their portrayals.  

I mention that because no one needed a Bob Dylan feature film.

The only reason to do that was to some sort of acid trip version of a film.  Bob's life is not interesting enough for a film.  He's led a very settled life.  And his fame comes early on and then just sort of peters out.  There's no drama.  There's no Tina overcoming Ike and showing the world.  There's just a boy who wants to be a music star and lies to the press and becomes a music star.  And then tours and records for fifty or so more years.

I like Dylan's music but his life has no real drama.

And the only one more boring is Bruce and now they're trying to do a film about him?

They've done Jim Morrison in that awful THE DOORS which just demonstrated what a bad director Oliver Stone could be and how out of touch with music and life he is.  We've had Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse and Elton John.  I think they're doing Mick Jagger and that's a life.  In fact, there's so much drama there, they might need to do a six hour film.

But not everyone's life is interesting enough for a film.

Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Friday, February 7, 2025.  Elon Musk remains a menace, CNN lies in a so-called 'report,' what if AOC was the 2028 Democratic Party's presidential nominee and, oh, yeah, about political closet cases who pretend to be Democrats.


Let's start with Donald Chump's pimp Elon Musk.  David Gardner (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:


Has Elon Musk’s DOGE dream taken the wrong fork in the road?

Two key court decisions on Thursday have thrown a harsh spotlight on the buccaneering billionaire and his flippant attitude toward the law.

They have also cemented the new arena in which the “Deep State” establishment that Musk and President Donald Trump so detest is launching its belated counterattack against the biggest threat to the status quo in generations.

The decision by a Boston judge to block Musk’s grandstanding buyout plan on Thursday came as another district judge in Washington, D.C., limited DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s payments system.

The two judges standing in the way of DOGE’s whirlwind cost-cutting programs are both appointees of former President Bill Clinton. It seems the resistance will begin not on the streets, but in the courts.


Elon Musk?  Given everything by Chump who apparently fears his pimp will smack him up otherwise.  When Elon glares, Chump knows he has to hit the street and get to work.  And the work Chump's given Elon everything. -- all our private information.  That's our "papers."  It's not the 1700s.  That's our "papers" and that's a violation of the 1rth Amendment.  And last night on MSNBC, Joy Reid explained the type of people trolling through our private information.




Rachel Maddow notes the racist Elon hired has resigned after being exposed as a racist.


A racist?  Of course, Elon would hire a racist -- that's what Elon is.  And what else is he?

A security risk.  Determined to be so by our own government.  And yet given access to our private and personal information.  

Elon can't legally be president.  Because the racists was born in South African (where, during apartheid, he learned to benefit from and enjoy racism).  That's his birth country, where he spent two decades.  Then he moved to Canada because his mother was born there.  Dual citizenship.  Wait, we're not done.  He then became an American citizen.

Now, let's be clear, this was not, "Give up your prior citizenships and you can become an American citizenship."  No.  It was just another merit badge.  Iraq's Constitution, written in 2005, rightly forbids officials and elected leaders from that sort of scam.

But not a problem in the US, apparently.

And no one had a second thought about someone with a minimum of triple divided loyalties would be given the private and personal information of the American people.

Chump put Elon in charge and the two of them together have violated Americans' right to privacy.  

This is the sort of issue that leads people to nod and then it festers and festers.  

Good journalism could speed up the process.

But we don't have good journalism. 

We do have CNN.



People are posting that video and commenting and basically being as inept and stupid as CNN. 

Maybe we should do an origin story before we get into the video?  It help explain our take on the above and on the topic after the CNN video.

20 yeas ago, the internet was newer (newish?) and some thought we were going to tackle the media -- which has sold the illegal war on Iraq -- and make it better.  And some did try.  I said early on that you're going to cut off Cokie Roberts' head and just find 20 more sprout up.  I tend to think I called that correctly. 

But back in the day, NPR was covering the 2004 election.  Bully Boy Bush and Dick Cheney were the GOP side while John Kerry and John Edwards were the Democratic side.

NPR brought on Robert Kagan to 'evaluate.'  Kagan is a neocon and was a Bully Boy Bush supporter and some people objected online and to the NPR ombudsperson. 

Now there were strong objections made.  And that's fine.  

The ombudsperson dismissed them.  And that's because the wrong objections were made.



"When NPR Fails You, Who You Gonna' Call? Not the Ombudsman" was when a ton of people found us at the end of November in 2004  BUZZFLASH and many others linked to it.  

It zoomed in on what NPR didn't tell you -- but should have -- and what the ombudsperson didn't tell -- but should have.

Robert Kagan was brought on to evaluate the two campaigns.

That had been covered.

What had not been covered?

Who Kagan was married to.

Victoria Nuland.  Today, a pretty familiar name.  Back then, no one apparently knew.

At that time, she was Dick Cheney's right arm.  So you had the husband of Dick Cheney's assistant coming on NPR to evaluate Dick Cheney's opponent.  And no needed -- REQUIRED -- disclosure was made.

So when I say I don't like political closets, that's what I'm talking about and have been talking about here forever.


Now back to the video.  Here's a transcript I'm copying pasting -- it's from the closed caption and it's ot perfect but I'm not honestly in the mood to sit here and fix it.  You should be able to follow along and if you can't, e-mail your representatives to demand better closed captioning service:


Jason Carron: Days before the last presidential election, Donald Trump was the invited guest as the Great Commoner Restaurant in Dearborn, MI.  Albert Abbas says he extended that invitation, a decision he is now reflecting on.  Given all that has happened in the last 24 hours, many in the community are a lot at a loss for words.  

Albert Abbas:  Last night was a very rough night for most of us.

Jason Carron: Abbas is Arab American and one of a number of Democrats who voted for Trump.  Abbas says he hoped Trump would do more than President Joe Biden did to help Palestinians suffering in Gaza. 

Donald Chump: The US will take over the Gaza Strip. 

Jason Carron: But after Trump said Palestinians should leave Gaza so it can be redeveloped, Abbas says not only does he feel betrayed, he's hearing from a number of people angered over his past support of Trump.

Albert Abbas: People were really, really frustrated and I don't think there's anyone to blame.  At the end of the day, as Arab Americans or Muslims, we really didn't have much of a choice.  

Jason Carron: Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, is home to the largest Arab American population in the United States community, which helped Trump carry the critical swing state.  He won 42% of the vote in Dearborn versus Vice President Harris with 36% and Jill Stein with 18.  In 2020, Biden handily carried the city with 69%.  Faye Nimmer voted for Trump in 2024 out of frustration over the previous administration support of Israel.  Now she is troubled by the president's proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza. 

Faye Nemer:  I mean, it's-it's very concerning and it's infuriating. 

Jason Carron: You're infuriated but standing by your decision for now to have voted for Trump.

Faye Nemer: Correct.

Jason Carron: And what would move that needle for you to say, "You know what?  I made a mistake."

Faye Nemer:  Palestine is the red line for this community.

Jason Carron:  Nimr says she suspects Trump is bluffing and is using his proposal as some sort of negotiating tactic. That's the same sentiment shared by Omar Czar. 

Amer Zahr: First, this is clearly not going to happen, right? 

Jason Carron: And real estate broke Ali Al Farajala. 

Ali Farajalla: A lot of people are calling me and texting me and saying, "Hey, you know how, how did your vote work out?  You know, how is that third party vote?"

Jason Carron:  Both were so-called protest voters.  Neither supported Trump or Harris.  Are there any sort of second thoughts now about having 


Ali Farajalla: Absolutely not. And I'll still do it again and again and again. 

Amer Zahr: I didn't vote for Trump, so a protest vote, I don't know. I would say it was a targeted vote of conscience to say that the children of Gaza have to mean something.  Their death has to mean something. 

Jason Carron:  And while Arab Americans here were divided in the past, going forward, one point is uniting them opposition to Trump's proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza. 

Wayne County Commissioner Sam Baydoun:  The community will be unified. I will tell you this, the Palestinian people would rather die and live in a demolition site than to be ethnically cleansed and being sent out of Gaza to Egypt or Jordan.


What did you think?  

I thought: "What a bunch of liars."

We've got other things to do so let's just take on one of the people in the video above -- one besides Jason who clearly does not know how to do journalism.

Albert.  He voted for Chump. Yes.  But that's not all he did.  He campaigned for Chump.  Took himself  to FOX "NEWS" and to FOX AND FRIENDS WEEKEND.  He trashed Democrats to various outlets.  He didn't just vote for Chump.  

Why be so modest?  

You did what you set out to do.  

Just voted from Chump, hardly. 

So we're in lie mode? 

 CNN has locked us down in lie mode?

You know I don't play that game, right?

You know I'm not going to let Albert lie to the country.

Albert's a homophobe.  

And, let's be clear, Dearborn and Hamtramck, you've got a lot of gutter trash.

You think we're going to forgive you?

Really?  Because some on the left want to baby you because you're "Palestinian"?  (Albert's Lebanese American.)

CNN might lie for you, trash, but I'm not going to.  

October 19, 2022, Max Eden's NEWSWEEK piece "The Book Burners speak out."

Albert, did you forget you were quoted there?  Wallowing  in your homophobia and trying  to hide it behind children?

You're a bigot.  You're a trashy bigot.  

And you also decided to vote for Chump before Harris was even the nominee.  You told friends you were going to when Joe Biden was still in the race.  You told people you weren't for voting for Biden back before October of 2023. I know that because I did the work that Jason and CNN didn't.  I made the phone calls that they should have. 

And like most homphobes in the US, you were never going to vote for a Black woman.



And before any on the left want to rush to rescue him, check out his 2020 school board campaign -- which he lost! -- for his anti-union talk.  Yeah, homophobe, anti-union.  These are the ones that refused to vote for Kamala.  Own what you did.  You destroyed the country.

And just as Americans hearing Robert Kagan talk smack about John Kerry had the right to know that Kagan's wife was working for Dick Cheney -- the rival ticket -- CNN viewers had a right to now that the 'Democrat' was an anti-union, homophobe who'd already left the party before October 7, 2023.  He'd left before that.


To defeat Kamala Harris last November, it was important that voters turn out in lower numbers.  Democrats have the public.  If they show up, Democrats win.  We also all knew it was going to be a close election.  

So we could have rallied on behalf of our country.  But instead Gaza Freaks in the media -- liars one and all -- worked to destroy enthusiasm for the ticket.  They did that the way Amy Goodman did -- kine of like CNNs report above -- bringing on Democrats who aren't Democrats.  

The theme was "even Democrats don't like her."  So you got Naomi Klein (who should not have US citizenship -- she was born in Canada and only many years after her father deserted the US military during Vietnam) -- to say hold your nose and vote for her.  What a ringing endorsement.  From a non-identified Socialist.  And that was one of the kinder moments.  Usually the "Democrats" (unidentified Socialist -- one time an unidentified Communist) just attacked her.

And they pimped -- over and over -- the lie that Democrats were lukewarm on Kamala.

With all the attacks and all the encouraging people to stay home and not vote and all the encouraging them to vote for Jill Stein -- and this came from the left -- Kamala still got 48.4% of the popular vote to Chump's 49.9%.  She had a three month campaign and she came that close.

And she could have made it across the line if Socialists weren't in poltical closets.

I had no idea how extremely unaware people were of this.

AOC is a Socialist.  She's had problems with the DSA and maybe she's breaking with them, maybe she's not.  But if she runs in 2028 for the presidency, I would vote for her.  

I am not, however, going to waste three months of my time ahead of the election trying to do teach-ins on what Socialism is and what it means to AOC.

FOX "NEWS" will be ripping her apart.

"Well, they always rip us apart!"

Yes, they do.

But the difference here is that FOX "NEWS" could be ripping her apart for being a Socialist and there is no rebuttal because of the fact that people watching are saying, "She lied about it."

And then the reason why really don't matter at all.  She lied?  End of support.

Now we've been talking about this here because it's important.  I've been noting on BLUESKY as well.  If I had more time we'd go into BLUESKY but thank you to two people in the last 48 or so hours.

Rashida Tlaib is a Socialist.  That's why her sister slammed Democrats in her nonsense attack this week.  It wasn't "my party" or "our party" let us down -- it was Democrats.

And when this reality is noted, people -- bright people on the left -- tell me I'm wrong, ttell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm not the one saying I won't vote for AOC for president due to her being a Socialist.  Actually, I should say that I would vote for her in the primaries.  I've already said I'm voting for the nominee in the general election no matter who they are.

But there are people who would not be supporting Rashida the "Democrat" if she wasn't.  You're not helping your cause.  You need to step out of the political closet and start honestly discussing what that means for America.  Let's move to an e-mail:


You are making s[**]t up.  You don't like Tlaib so you call her a socialist.  I like Cortez and I would vote for her but you trying to run off voters before she even announces so they run off and do not vote for her.  These women are Democrats, not socialists.  Your lies won't work on me.  I am opposed to Socialists and Socialism so you picked the wrong one to lie to.  I would never, ever vote for a socialist to be president.  You are lying to smear Cenk and Kyle and Justice Democrats. 


So you'd vote AOC or you wouldn't?  Because she is a Socialist.




In the 2018 midterm elections, two members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) were elected to the House of Representatives: Rashi­da Tlaib in Michigan’s 13th dis­trict, and Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez, in New York’s 14th dis­trict. To mark the occasion of the most socialists entering the House for the first time in a single year, I wrote in these pages, ​“the 116th Con­gress will con­sist of two social­ists and four hun­dred and thir­ty-three rep­re­sen­ta­tives of oth­er per­sua­sions. It’s a start.” 

And indeed it was. In November 2020, both Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez handily won re-election, and have been joined in the 117th Congress by two more DSA members: Cori Bush from Missouri’s 1st district and Jamaal Bowman from New York’s 16th district. That raises the democratic socialist numbers from two to four out of four hundred and thirty-five. (At this rate, doubling the socialist delegation every two years, it’d only take six more elections before socialists in 2032 would become a majority in the House — exponential growth is a wonderful thing.) 



Is that clear enough for you?  A DSAer writing about other Socialists at IN THESE TIMES.  


I'm not in the mood for us losing in 2028 because some political closet case choose to run and then it implodes when the well known (to most of us, anyway) secret becomes public and their closet is used to say they're a liar and that there must be something wrong with Socialism for them to hide it.

I'm not the one conning you, e-mailer.  But you say you'd never vote for a Socialist?  Then join the crusade to get them out of their political closets.  


I've said before that I don't have a problem with Socialists, Communists, etc.  I do have a problem with tricksters.  I have a real problem there.

If AOC got the nomination, I would vote for her.  I'm voting for the Dem nominee in 2028 no matter who it is.


And it could be AOC.  And she could be great.  But if she's the nominee, we're not going to win if we're hiding.  I'm a Democrat.  And Kamala Harris pleased me and many other Democrats.  If a Democrat is the nominee, I don't want Amy GoodWhoreman parading her usual line up of freaks that 'forget' to mention that they aren't Democrats and they're not critiquing the nominee as a Democrat, that they're Socialists.

The e-mailer probably thought he was ripping me a new one.  He wasn't.  All he was doing was making my point for me.

He loves AOC and Rashida.  He wants AOC to be president.  He will never vote for a Socialist.

AOC could very well be the nominee -- and I would vote for her.  But you need to be laying the ground work now.  People need to know she's a Socialist now.  It doesn't need to be hidden away for something FOX "NEWS" and the GOP can use to tank the party. 

The party can't be controlled from the shadows.  That's what it will look like if political closet cases don't start getting honest.  AOC also needs to get honest about what she believes in.  





The following sites updated:




 

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