How
do you pick the greatest movies of all time? What are the requirements?
How about a movie that you have watched a hundred times? How about a
movie that stars all of your favorite funny people being as funny as
they have ever been? How about a comedy that is gentle, riotous and
infectious?
I’ve never understood why that wasn’t as important as “Citizen Kane” when making these lists. Well, “Waiting for Guffman”
is my “Citizen Kane.” Has anyone watched “Citizen Kane” more than three
times? Maybe eight people. Does anyone think Orson Welles’ performance
is better than Eugene Levy’s in “Guffman”? If you were feeling down
about the state of the world, what would you watch, “Waiting for
Guffman” or “Citizen Kane”? They need to move “Waiting for Guffman” much
higher on this list! Christopher Guest is a legendary comic force. The
man behind “A Mighty Wind,” “Best in Show” and the star and co-writer of
“This Is Spinal Tap” has brought the world countless comic pleasures,
but “Guffman” is my favorite.
I
love WAITING FOR GUFMAN. Parker Posey is perfection in that film. I
love it when she's talking about the DQ and how sometimes people come
in, maybe just for a cup of ice, you know?
She
is so funny in that film. So Christopher Guest lives in Blaine,
Missouri and they've got a bit centennial coming up so the town hires
him to put on a big celebration. There idea of big and his are two
different things. But he puts together a troupe with Eugene Levy,
Parker Posey, Catharine O'Hara, Fred Willard and Matt Kessler and they
practice to learn it so they can forget it -- though Christopher thinks
they could save time by not learning it since they're just going to
forget it . . .
And you can't forget City Council member Steve (Michael Hitchock) who just loves the play Corky's written and taken the lead in. Michael gushes, "He can act and he can sing and he can dance. There's only one other person in the world who can do all that and that's Barbra Streisand."
Matt
Kessler's character drops out of the troupe so Christopher has to take
over that role. Interestingly, Matt ended up dropping acting after the
movie. Too bad because he was really talented in this.
On movies, VARIETY insists, "As Houston, the British actor Naomi Ackie is far from the singer’s physical double, yet she nails the hard part: channeling her incandescence. "
No, she doesn't channel Whitney's incandescence. Yes, she is British
and, yes, it is another insult to Black actresses that they refused to
cast an American in this role. A long pattern of this happening, in
fact. "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Wednesday, December 21, 2022. Hate merchants peddle hate with little
consequences, Iraq's last prime minister was a sadist sicko, Will Lehman
calls out voter suppression, and much more.
We're going to start with this exchange from last week's House Oversight Committee hearing:
US
House Rep David Cicilline: Republicans are happy to discuss our
community when they're attacking our rights, when they're crying on the
House floor because they oppose marriage equality or when they releasing
statements attacking our community in press releases and when they
release new bills targeting our community. But when it comes to
actually discussing the violence against our community and its causes?
Just a quick condemnation of what happened at Club Q and violence
broadly and nothing more. In my view, this is shameful. And so I want
to begin, Ms. Robinson, to thank all of the witnesses for being here
today. Ms. Robinson, as we near the end of this hearing, is there
anything that we've not covered yet relating to anti-LGBTQ+ extremism
and violence that you would like to share for the record?
Kelley
Robinson: We can do something about this. We can assure that social
media companies uphold their community standards. We can pass the
equality act to ensure that LGBTQ+ people actually don't have legalized
discrimination happening to them in more than half of the states. We
can, as a community, step up and say whole heartedly, no matter what our
party affiliation is, repudiate and rebuke these horrendous attacks on
our people. There is work to be done and, especially on this ten year
mark of Sandy Hook, we can do something to end this epidemic of gun
violence. We have to and we must.
US
House Rep David Cicilline: Thank you so much. And Mr. Wolf, thank you
so much for being here and for sharing your story. What message do you
have for politicians who are championing bills to limit the rights of
the LGBTQI+ community?
Brandon
Wolf: Thank you, I'm grateful to be here. And my message is simple:
Words have consequences. Somebody has to pay the price for unmitigated,
unbridled hatred -- the kind of hatred that we've seen on the rise
across this country. We've heard a lot about accountability in this
hearing and I'm glad we're talking about accountability. No one is
asking for anyone but the shooter at Club Q to be on trial in Colorado
Springs. But what we are saying is that people should be accountable
for the things that come out of their mouths. And when you're willing
to traffic in cheap shots and biogtry against a marginalized community
that's already seeing hate against it that's on the rise, already seeing
violence rising across the country, when you're willing to traffic in
those things to score political points, you have to be accountable for
what happens next. You have to hold yourself accountable for the impacts
of your words. Words really do have consequences. Unfortunately,
communities like mine have felt them. We have to do better than we are
today.
Last Wednesday, the
House Oversight and Reform Committee, chaired by US House Rep Carolyn
Maloney, held a hearing entitled "The Rise of Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and
Violence in the United States." The hearing was held due to the rise
in violence aimed at the LGBTQ+ community which includes last month's
Club Q shooting.
The shooting left five people dead:
- Daniel Davis Aston, 28
- Kelly Loving, 40
- Ashley Paugh, 35
- Derrick Rump, 38
- Raymond Green Vance, 22
The shooting also left twenty-five people injured.
There's at least one more moment from the hearing I intend to highlight this week. For hearing coverage, see Monday's "
Iraq snapshot," THIRD's "
Editorial: Words and silences have consequences," "
Those fake ass 'religious' litigants (Ava and C.I.)" and "
BROS (Ava and C.I.)," Thursday's "
Iraq snapshot" and Friday's "
Iraq snapshot," Ruth's "
Allies are needed (House Oversight Committee)," Kat's "
Respect for Marriage Act is only step one, more needed," "
Cori Bush speaks some truth in Committee hearing," Trina's "
LGBTQ youth need a safe nation (Dr. Jessie Pocock)," Mike's "
Texas, come claim your idiot (House Oversight Committee)," Stan's "
Shontel Brown, Chris Wallace, Wonder Woman" and Rebecca's "
glenn greenwald wants to be the biggest bitch there is ."
Hate
merchants continue to attack the LGBTQ+ community and they largely get
away with it. You can -- and a body does -- call for gay people to be
killed -- and get away with it. At least with regards to government
officials. Sometimes, a community comes together to make clear that
this hate speech is neither wanted nor desired. Such as in Fort Worth,
Texas, where Stedfast Baptist Church's hate merchant Jonathan Shelley is
in a tizzy that
his church will have to move yet again:
“The
reality is nobody really wants to lease to us, so it makes it very
difficult,” Shelley said. “I am still working a few options, as far as
lease options, or maybe even getting a building.”
In May, Shelley spoke to the Arlington City Council and said that gay people deserved to be killed. He advocated for enforcing an old Texas law outlawing “sodomy” that has since been ruled unconstitutional.
Residents
in Watauga have said they want Stedfast out of their community because
it promotes hate-filled, violent rhetoric that causes them to be
concerned about their safety. Church officials said they have been
harassed by the protesters.
You're calling for
murder. And you're surprised people don't want to lease to you? You're
calling for murder and you're pretending that this is due to your
religious teachings. See "
Those fake ass 'religious' litigants (Ava and C.I.)"
for how to many idiots are getting away with too much by citing
''religious freedom" when they're not even practicing the teachings of
Jesus.
Your a hate merchant
spewing hate but don't worry, Jonathan Turley will always protect your
speech. He won't protect the rights of other speech. He won't protect
the speech of drag performers or of libraries but he'll rush to defend
the hate merchants and only the hate merchants.
Protesters
trying to shut down a reading event geared toward neurodiverse children
at a branch of the New York City Public Library were met by a wall of
counterprotesters.
The standoff over the Drag Story Hour event
— a popular national storytelling program where drag performers read
children's books at libraries, schools and bookstores — took place
outside the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library in
Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday. The event was billed as
“storytime with local drag performers adapted to be more accessible to
kids with autism and other disabilities.”
Saturday's
protest was just the latest in a string of standoffs across the country
from a fringe movement targeting drag events over unsubstantiated
allegations of grooming.
The
group demonstrating on Saturday brought handmade signs covering a
spectrum of issues, with messages protesting everything from fascism to
grooming to gender identity.
New
York City Council member Erik Bottcher shared images and videos online
of the protesters, some of whom he tried speaking with before entering
the children’s reading event.
“I
want to show you the face of hate, right here in Chelsea,” Bottcher
said in a video shared on Twitter, before showing the counterprotesters
clad in rainbows.
“This
is particularly important at this moment when we are seeing a rise of
hate and violence targeting LGBTQ+ communities," the representative
said.
A right winger
gets booed at a campus events and Jonathan Turley's sobbing tears and
insisting booing is wrong. (Another example of how stupid he is and how
he shouldn't be commenting on supposed art -- cake baking and computer
templates aren't art.) But a mob goes after a library event and, in
fact, targets a local government official and Jonathan says nothing.
Well, after all, FOX NEWS is now paying him.
Outrageous. Unless you're banking a check from FOX NEWS apparently.
Turning to Iraq . . .
Mustafa
al-Kadhimi was Iraq's most inept prime minister since the US-led
invasion of Iraq. It turns out that he might have also been one of the
most corrupt and sick -- and remember, Iraq has already suffered through
two terms of Nouri al-Maliki being prime minister. So to be more
corrupt and sick than Nouri is really saying something. Remember,
Nouri's actions lead to the rise of ISIS in Iraq.
Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim (WASHINGTON POST) report:
A flagship anti-corruption drive under the tenure of U.S.-backed Iraqi
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi used incommunicado detention, torture
and sexual violence to extract confessions from senior Iraqi officials
and businessmen, according to a nine-month investigation by The
Washington Post.
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.
Right now, my thoughts
go to Robert Pehter, whose been held forever and who looks like he's
been tortured. The Australian government has done nothing to secure his
release.
We'll wind down with this from Will Lehman's campaign:
Dear fellow workers, Yesterday,
I submitted a formal protest to the UAW Monitor challenging the UAW
election results. Based on extensive evidence of voter suppression by
the UAW bureaucracy, the election cannot be considered a real expression
of the will of the membership, and the results should not be certified. I
encourage you to read the full text of my challenge to the UAW election
results, which thoroughly documents how the vote was suppressed: |
This
election was characterized by a deliberate suppression of the vote of
the rank and file by the entrenched UAW leadership. The union
intentionally failed to provide adequate notice to the rank and file,
who are not accustomed to direct elections and would not ordinarily
expect to receive ballots. This fact is confirmed by the extremely low 9
percent turnout. Hundreds of thousands of members were simply unaware
that an election was taking place and did not vote. In some locals
representing tens of thousands of younger academic workers, turnout was
less than one percent. The
9 percent turnout in the UAW elections was by far the lowest for any
direct national union elections. By comparison, the first-ever Teamsters
direct election in the 1990s had 28 percent turnout. The first-ever
UMWA direct elections had 47 percent. The alibi of the UAW apparatus—that workers are “apathetic”—is simply not credible. Meanwhile,
even as the UAW apparatus was keeping workers in the dark about its
union elections, it went to great lengths to “get out the vote” for the
Democrats in the midterm elections—meaning that the UAW leadership had
the means to inform workers of the union elections, but deliberately did
not. To
remedy the violation of workers’ democratic right to participate in a
meaningful election, either ballots should be re-issued and a new UAW
election held, or the names of all candidates added to the ballot in the
runoff. In
either case, this time adequate measures must be taken to prevent the
UAW leadership from suppressing the vote and ensure that the entire
membership is aware of the election and able to vote. I urge workers in the UAW and my followers to read the full protest and to share it as widely as possible. Contact my campaign and
send us a statement supporting my challenge opposing the UAW
bureaucracy’s attempt to once again trample the rights of the rank and
file. |
|
The following sites updated:
