The World Today Just Nuts: Batgirl

I want to note this from GAME RANT:

Brendan Fraser's Hollywood comeback was not only in The Whale, but Batgirl, too. The directors had strong things to say about his performance that further conflicted with statements made by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and DC Studios CEO Peter Safran on why the DC film that included more of Michael Keaton's Batman was canceled.

Warner Bros. Discovery reportedly canceled Batgirl because of a tax write-off, an unprecedented incident following the completion of its principal photography, even for WB. Safran and Zaslav later expressed Batgirl as “un-releasable” and not on par with the quality expected from DC. Leslie Grace responded to the studio executives' Batgirl comments, disagreeing that the film's cancelation had anything to do with its quality. Now, Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah add fuel to the fire while discussing Fraser's excellent performance in the shelved HBO Max original film that, like Blue Beetle, would have starred a Latinx actor in the main role.

During an interview with Yahoo, El Arbi said Fraser gave an “Oscar-worthy” performance in a movie the directors describe as having a tone that “was really a blend between Nolan and Burton,” with practical sets and miniatures instead of CGI. "Gotham City was a more realistic world, and the story was very straightforward and emotional. It was more of an actor's movie without a lot of visual effects,” El Abri said. From what Fraser has stated about Firefly in Batgirl, the character’s story would have been a sympathetic tale hitting home for audiences, as Firefly was a veteran driven to crime from a lack of benefits, which presumably allowed the actor to pull from aspects in the real world to influence his performance.

A Batgirl movie is something that people like me have waited years and years for. I grew up drawing Batgirl. I watched the TV show in the mornings before I was old enough to go to school. I loved the Batgirl episodes best and I loved that opening where she's on the motorcycle in the credits. I'd try to draw it just like on TV. I can remember the first time I drew her and Robin and my grandmother being blown away. All the grandkids liked to draw but even the ones who were six or so were drawing stick figures. I never drew stick figures. I'd probably be better today if I had. But I drew them and she was blown away and put it up on the fridge and that just encouraged me to draw more and more.

I nailed the costumes in that drawing.

Why?

Probably because I was breast-obsessed as I've noted before. Batgirl and Wonder Woman were characters I used to draw constantly.

I didn't care for Batman that much -- in the comic but especially in the TV show. I liked Robin and when Batgirl came on the show (third season), I thought that it was the best it ever was. Loved all those episodes -- especially the ones set in London and any one with Catwoman played by Eartha Kitt.

Season three had so many great villains: Catwoman, The Siren (Joan Collins), King Tut, Egghead, The Joker, Louie the Lilac, The Penguin . . .

And I thought Batgirl's lair was so much cooler than the Batcave.

She had an apartment. She goes into the bedroom and like the dressing table unveils for her costume and mask and then we see her coming out of the building as part of the outside wall comes down to make a ramp for her motorcycle. And I loved the motorcycle more than the Batmobile. We had a mini-bike at our grandparents that we all had to share and I could relate to the motorcycle more than a car.

WARNER BROS should have released the movie. This will be a sore spot for a lot of us that will only get worse each year.

Let me note one more thing on movies, INDIE WIRE reports:

Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" turned the tortured life of J. Robert Oppenheimer into a bona fide summer blockbuster by treating the physicist's inner musings as a canvas for an epic. But despite devoting three hours of runtime to the man who invented the atomic bomb, the film never actually shows the devastating weapon being used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The artistic choice polarized many cinephiles - including Spike Lee.

In a new interview with the Washington Post, Lee heaped praise on Nolan but said that he would have liked to see the film place more emphasis on the Japanese people.

"And Chris Nolan with ‘Oppenheimer,' you know, he's a massive filmmaker. Great film. I showed [‘Dunkirk'] in my class. And this is not a criticism. It's a comment. How long was [‘Oppenheimer']? If it's three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people," Lee said. "People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive. It's not like he didn't have power. He tells studios what to do. I would have loved to have the end of the film maybe show what it did, dropping those two nuclear bombs on Japan."

Agreed. I've got a comic going up later today at THE COMMON ILLS, by the way. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, October 6, 2023. Iraq is phasing out the US dollar for the Iraqi people, hate merchants in the US continue to lie to the press and to the courts in their efforts to destroy democracy and humanity, Cornel West has another campaign announcement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr goes extremely tacky in his use of his uncle's image, and much more.

A lot to cover. Some community members wished we'd opened with the issue of human rights in the US yesterday instead of concluding with it so we'll open with it today. University of Michigan political science professors Pauline Jones and Andrew Murphy write at THE CONVERSATION:

When the Supreme Court ruled in 303 Creative v. Elenis in 2023 that a businessperson could not be compelled to create art that violates their religious beliefs – specifically, a wedding website for a same-sex ceremony – supporters of the decision celebrated it as a victory for freedom of religion and expression.

On the day the ruling was issued, the conservative Family Research Council called it “the latest in a trend of victories for free speech and religious liberty,” while the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression hailed “a resounding victory for freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.”

But contrary to these claims, the Supreme Court’s decision does not protect the freedoms of all Americans. Rather, it represents the culmination of a decadelong strategy by conservative Christians – known sometimes as the Christian right – to use the courts to limit the freedoms of groups of Americans of whom they disapprove. On issues where the Christian right’s First Amendment claims directly threaten the equal citizenship of sexual minorities, for example, the court left no question about which side it was on.

As experts on religion and politics globally and in the United States, we think the effectiveness of this strategy has the potential to degrade both the quality of American democracy and freedoms of religion and expression.

The First Amendment protects a cluster of core rights and freedoms: religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly and petitioning the government.

The 303 Creative decision threatens to undermine this crucial set of rights by privileging a particular group’s version of what it means to exercise speech and religion. We believe that will have harmful consequences for sexual minorities’ pursuit of inclusion and full citizenship across a range of domains, from intimate behavior and expression to inclusion in the commercial and economic realms.

Hate merchant Lorie Smith and her lying attorneys. They all damn well knew that no one asked her to design a same-sex wedding website but they lied to the court. If you believe in hell, they'll all rot there. Regardless, history will remember them as liars, as trash and as hate merchants. Samantha Riedel (THEM) reports:

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right Christian group at the forefront of recent anti-LGBTQ+ business lawsuits in the U.S., founded companies and staged fake weddings to claim their clients’ religious rights were being violated, according to a new investigation in the Washington Post.

The ADF has for many years represented conservative clients who claim anti-discrimination laws violate their religious rights, and scored a major victory in 303 Creative v. Elenis this summer when the Supreme Court ruled that a web designer could not be compelled to create a wedding site for a gay couple, even if they provided the same service for straight couples. In their arguments to the Court, ADF attorneys cited several of their previous victories on behalf of wedding vendors like Masterpiece Cakeshop who demanded the right to refuse service to LGBTQ+ customers. But in its investigation, Post reporters found that not only did many of those clients leave the wedding industry entirely after their lawsuits were over, some of them did not even have such a business until the ADF established one on their behalf.

According to the Post’s report, ADF lawyers signed off on incorporation documents and drafted policy frameworks for several new companies, which in turn were used as justification to bring lawsuits challenging local nondiscrimination statutes. To promote some of the lawsuits, the ADF distributed “videos and images of plaintiffs photographing women in bridal gowns,” reporters found, which were fabricated at “staged events featuring ADF employees.”

One such client was Chelsey Nelson, a Louisville woman who claimed she had always wanted to be a wedding photographer. The Post reported that ADF lawyers approached Nelson in 2018 and founded a business in her name a month before filing suit against the city. Nelson has since moved to Florida, leading city attorneys to ask to have the case thrown out; although the ADF claimed in a court filing earlier this year that Nelson was still somehow open to bookings in Louisville and had photographed two weddings this summer, reporters noted that one of those events was for a family member and neither took place in Louisville.

Another ADF case concerned two Minnesota videographers who said they refused to film same-sex weddings. Although the ADF cited the case in their eventual 303 Creative petitions, Minnesota officials claim that the group withdrew the case to avoid handing over evidence that would have revealed the videographers did not actually have a viable business, according to the Post. The judge overseeing the case agreed to throw it out, writing that the ADF had “conjured up” the case as a “smoke and mirrors case or controversy from the beginning.”

[. . .]

Despite the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year, the ADF’s 303 Creative case appears to have similarly spurious foundations, according to recent reporting. While the plaintiff claimed to have been approached by two gay men in 2016 about creating a wedding site for them, no evidence was ever presented that this actually took place; a report by the New Republic found that the couple in question did not actually exist and that one of the men in question was already married to a woman. Still, the decision holds, and has already had trickle-down effects on LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. One justice of the peace in Texas began refusing to sign marriage certificates for LGBTQ+ couples just two weeks later.

Through trickery and deceit, they have sought to strip the rights of others. That's not democracy and that's not how human rights work. They had to lie because they couldn't achieve their goals with truth.

They've got this strategy of lies and they're renaming things to work their lies. again, must reads for the week THE NEW YORKER's "The Next Targets for the Group That Overturned Roe" by David D. Kirkpatrick and WHOWHAT WHY's "Catholic Crusaders Find Forbidden Fruit in Bookshelves of Local Library" by Bethany Carlson.

Yesterday, Peter Smith (AP) reported on the rise of the non-religious in the US:

As Dulak rejects being part of a religious flock, he has plenty of company. He is a “none” — no, not that kind of nun. The kind that checks “none” when pollsters ask “What’s your religion?”

The decades-long rise of the nones — a diverse, hard-to-summarize group — is one of the most talked about phenomena in U.S. religion. They are reshaping America's religious landscape as we know it.

In U.S. religion today, “the most important story without a shadow of a doubt is the unbelievable rise in the share of Americans who are nonreligious,” said Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University and author of “The Nones,” a book on the phenomenon.

Yet some zealots want to destroy the separation of church and state in the US and inflict their views on all of us. Remember, the Supreme Court that allows that can also allow burkas and other things from other religions. We have a wall between church and state for a reason. "You get witch-hunts and wars when church and state hold hands," Joni Mitchell observed in "Tax Free."

By the way, Joni's JONI MITCHELL ARCHIVES, VOL. 3: THE ASYLUM YEARS (1972 - 1975) is out today. Many must hear tracks but top among them is "Piano Suite: Down To you/Court And Spark/Car On A Hill/Down To You" a 12 minutes and 33 second track.

Back to the topic, it's not about helping anyone, these attacks on LGBTQ+ people. It's certainly not about helping children. Don Kusler (TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE) explains:

I exercise my parenting rights directly with my children daily by sharing my thoughts, inquiring with questions, and supplementing those classroom and life lessons in my own way. The parents of my children’s peers do or don’t do the same to their own degree.

However, those actions on my part don’t come from storming school board meetings, trashing or threatening school and classroom leaders, or trying to impose my worldview on the school and community at large.

The “parents' rights” movement is not new, although it has seen a boost in visibility in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The topics falling under this umbrella over the decades have covered what books are in schools (and libraries), what material is taught in lessons, homeschooling, charter schools, dress code, sexual content, bathroom usage, sports participation and even the censoring of history lessons.

Parents should be involved in the education and upbringing of their children. We have that right.

While it may be my right to direct the education and upbringing of my children, it is not my right to impose my views on parenting on my child’s entire classroom, school or community.

That, sadly, is precisely what the culture warriors of the current parents' “rights” movement are trying to do.

Instead of this polarizing tactic, a collaborative approach that includes a professional methodology, supplemented at home by the individual desires and experiences of parents, provides a solid balance for the educational outcomes of our students. This has been and continues to be happening in school communities nationwide.

The leaders of the parents' rights movement and self-serving political actors are jeopardizing every child’s educational opportunities and experiences to serve their selfish, short-term political goals.

Self-serving certainly gets at the heart of it. Joey Nolfi (ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) reports:

Billy Porter has voiced frustration with education systems that ignore the contributions of queer artists to American culture.

The Pose star appeared on Live With Kelly and Mark on Thursday to promote his new musical, Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live For, currently playing in his and the legendary jazz musician's hometown of Pittsburgh.

"Everybody knows Duke Ellington, but very few people know one of the mastermind behind Duke Ellington, and his name was Billy Strayhorn," Porter explained to cohosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. "He's one of he greatest jazz musicians, writers, and arrangers of all time."

We're robbed of knowledge and we're robbed of humanity when we try to suppress the full text and scope of humanity. But that's what the hate merchants want. That's why they attack education, that's why they attack Civil Rights. They'd rather lie -- and teach a lie -- that slavery was beneficial then acknowledge the truth and reality that slavery was one of the gravest sins on this planet and that until we address that, we aren't free from it and we can't recover from it.

They seem to think, the hate merchants at war with African-Americans, women and the LGBTQ+ movement, that we can ignore the past but all that does is imprison everyone in the past. It's not helpful in any manner and I believe the AA mantra is "secrets keep us sick."

Lisa Deaderick (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE) reports:

Recent legislation signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week includes a number of bills that bolster support for LGBTQ youth in schools. Advocates and researchers say that continued protections are necessary in the face of increasing policies and legislation that specifically target students to exclude them from participating in sports, from classroom discussions and lessons that include representation of diverse families, from feeling safe in their identities and expressions of those identities at school.

"And it's troubling, but we have a reality here in California where some people say, 'Gosh, do we even need to do LGBTQ inclusion work? We live in a blue state,'" said Vincent Pompei, an assistant professor in the doctoral program for educational leadership at San Diego State University, and a member of a state advisory committee to create online training courses for school faculty to support LGBTQ students who are experiencing bullying, harassment, discrimination, or rejection at school or at home. "Well, advocates like myself, who are entrenched in this work, have always known that not to be true, but it's becoming more and more clear what our current state is of LGBTQ young people living and trying to survive and thrive in California," he said, citing survey statistics on the mental and emotional health and well-being of LGBTQ kids compared to their heterosexual, cisgender peers.

To discuss about some of these new bills, the arguments around notifying parents if a child prefers to identify at school in ways that don't align with their assigned gender at birth, and what may shift a collective understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ students to one of greater support and inclusivity, Pompei is joined in conversation by Emily Fisher, a professor in the school psychology program at Loyola Marymount University where her work is focused on increasing school support and creating safe and supportive learning environments for LGBTQ-plus students. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. )

Q: California is among a group of states rated by the Human Rights Campaign to have a broad range of equality protections for LGBTQ people; what are your thoughts on these recent bills and why they're necessary?

Fisher:There's been a lot of attempts to try to deny the existence and the basic humanness of LGBTQ individuals. What schools have done, and districts that have tried to put policies in place, is that they don't even acknowledge that LGBTQ youth exist. I think that the bills that the governor signed [last] weekend really say that there are basic human rights that are afforded to all young people and that your sexual orientation or gender identity should not determine your right to exist. You should be able to be yourself, you should feel supported, and you should be able to access the academic and social curriculum that your peers do.

Pompei:My wish is that we wouldn't need legislation to protect the human and civil rights of another human being. Unfortunately, because of bias and stigma and misinformation, we have to pass policies that provide further protection to prevent harm, but also to send a message to vulnerable populations — in this case, LGBTQ young people — that even in light of these attacks that they're experiencing, the state of California and their government have their back. They are listening to the voices of LGBTQ young people, to the research about what these students need in order to learn, in order to engage in their education, and in order to thrive in school and beyond. Part of me wishes that this was not necessary; that we were just decent human beings and said, 'Hey, you know, everyone's treated with dignity and respect.' That's, unfortunately, not the world that we live in today.

Any time I hear a school board passing anti-LGBTQ policies or proposing anti-LGBTQ policies, they're never discussing the disparities that we continue to see, and the data as it relates to LGBTQ students compared to their non-LGBTQ peers. That relates to feeling connected, feeling safe, feeling cared for, experiencing mental health challenges, and even suicide. They're passing policies without talking about what the school district is going to do to address them. From the California Healthy Kids Survey, the latest public data that they have available on their dashboard for San Diego County, shows that 68 percent of LGB students and 79 percent of trans students indicated chronic sadness or hopelessness in the past year, compared to 25 percent of straight students and 30 percent of cisgender students. Forty-four percent of LGB students and 57 percent of trans students in our county seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, compared to 9 percent of straight students and 12 percent of cisgender students. So, it's troubling to me that we're passing policies rooted in transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, rather than actually looking at what the research says about what will help all students, including LGBTQ students, learn and engage and thrive in school. It's hard to answer that question without painting a larger picture, but I can say that yes, I'm excited, I'm celebrating, but I'm also sad that we have to pass laws to protect students from our elected officials who have made an oath to serve all children in public school. It's troubling to me.

Sam Manzella (FATHERLY) writes:

America’s 300,000 transgender youth are under attack. In 2023 alone, Republican lawmakers have introduced nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills, more than any year in recent history. More than 80 of these bills have already passed into law, and the bulk of which target trans and nonbinary youth. States like Florida and Iowa have stripped their access to medically necessary gender-affirming healthcare; others, including Kansas and Missouri, have banned trans student athletes from competing on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Additional attacks include bills that would forcibly out trans students to their parents if they’re out at school or prevent them from discussing queer and trans issues in classrooms.

Policymakers typically push these bills under the guise of “protecting women and children” or “defending fairness in sports.” In reality, this year’s deluge of legislation is the latest in a series of ongoing, coordinated political attacks against the trans community. It’s been mounting since 2016, when GOP lawmakers in North Carolina advanced the nation’s first anti-trans “bathroom bill.” And with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, advocates expect to see right-wing politicians double down on anti-trans attacks as a means of galvanizing voters.

Every child deserves the freedom to be their authentic self without persecution. And although transphobia may seem like a niche issue, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Attacks on trans kids hurt all children, including those who are cisgender by jeopardizing their rights, safety, and education. This is how.

First and foremost, every form of systemic oppression — from transphobia, to sexism, to racism — is interconnected. It’s no mistake that this wave of transphobic bills has cropped up alongside anti-abortion laws and book bans. The conservative politicians who back these harmful policies are one and the same.

A political attack on one marginalized group invariably affects others. To grasp this, it’s helpful to understand intersectionality, a term coined by feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the ways Black women experience intersecting dimensions of gender- and race-based oppression. If we examine systemic transphobia through an intersectional lens, we see that Black and Brown folks experience the brunt of transphobic violence, and anti-trans sports bans, for example, disproportionately impact girls and young women, cis and trans.

So, anti-trans laws don’t just harm trans kids; they create an overarching climate of fear and prejudice that endangers cis girls, queer kids, and children of color, too.

Let's turn to the US political circus.

The numbers. That's really been the failure of 'analysis' of late. The numbers don't add up. That was true of those trying to pimp Barbara Lee and insisting that Gavin Newsom must, MUST, appoint her to fill Dianne Feinstein's seat. In a three-way race with Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, Lee came in a distant third -- in the single digits. Why would he ignore the Democrats of California's preference for Adam and Katie to appoint the loser Lee? He wouldn't. No sane politician would. The numbers told the tale but you know your deluded crazies. You should know them very well. Look at those who have pimped Cornel West. The numbers never added up there either. Didn't stop THE VANGUARD, Bri-Bri, Sabby White Gal Sabs and countless others from pimping Cornel.

They spat out lies and delusions. The numbers never made the case that their spin tried to.

Hard to believe it's only October. It was June 5th when the Democratic Socialist took to Russell Brand's online program to declare he was running to be president of the United States -- because an accused rapist and harasser is the natural platform for other crazies, apparently.

He was running for president as the presidential nominee for The People's Party! See Ava and my "Media: How can you trust a journalist today?" and this Iraq snapshot for how Cornel spilled the beans in an interview with Jared Bell (without knowing it apparently) about how Chris Hedges negotiated that nomination (with himself as the vice presidential nominee until Mrs. Hedges nixed that at the last minute) and then pretended to be just a reporter covering a story -- never revealing in his 'reports' that he had approached The People's Party to make Cornel the nominee (CRAPAPEDIA still can't get that right but CRAPAPEDIA doesn't stream BLACK POWER MEDIA -- or anything with "Black" in the title or on the screen). Backward channels, no real democracy at all. How sad, how pathetic and how telling.

It only got worse. Cornel decided that he didn't want to be associated with those accused of harassment -- Russell Brand was only one, turns out Cornel wasn't aware of the allegations regarding Nick Brana. As people began asking WTF was wrong with him, Cornel quickly announced he wasn't running with The People's Party.

He -- and his liars -- began promoting him as the Green Party's presidential candidate.

They were lying. And they knew it because when this nonsense started, the Green Party -- nationally -- got more complaints than they've ever gotten as members reached out to say not just "no" but "Hell NO!" to Cornel being gifted with the nomination. Jill Stein and Chris Hedges thought they could strong arm the party into gifting the nomination to Cornel. Green Party members pointed out to leadership that the bylaws were in place and had to be followed: No one was handed the nomination, they had to compete for it and it would be decided at the 2024 summer party convention and not until then.

And by attempting to steal the nomination -- that's what Cornel and his supporters were trying to do -- he had so ticked off the rank-and-file that there was little chance he'd be getting the nomination a year from now.

Again, the numbers didn't add up.

Greens were furious that yet another non-Green was trying to steal their party's nomination and step ahead of actual Green Party members running for the nomination.

That is not democracy.

As late as last week (see Marcia's ""), Cornel was still misrepresenting (and the press allowing him to do so) as the Green Party's presidential nominee.

No.

Yesterday, Cornel did what has been the hallmark of his brief political career so far: Abandoned ship.

Someone who is so politically stupid that they take the nomination of The People's Party only to reject it a week later is someone that's not fit to run for the presidency. You do the due diligence and research before you announce you're running on a party's ticket. Not after. That's insane and it marked Cornel as a joke from the start of his political career.

That really should have been the end of it.

That's a disgrace.

If it had been Donald Trump or Joe Biden, people would have been loudly mocking the candidate.

And they should have.

70 years old and you don't know enough to check out a political party before accepting their presidential nomination?

It's also disgraceful to go around claiming your another party's nominee when, in fact, you're just a candidate for their nomination. But it sure did get you a lot of media time, didn't it? Further pissing off the Green Party rank-and-file who pointed out that this was him using the party to get press attention and that this was at the expense of the other two declared candidates for the nomination.

Cornel finally did the math.

Ken Thomas (THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:

West said Thursday he would seek the presidency as an independent candidate, choosing to forgo a run with the Green Party. The decision complicates his ability to get on the ballot—if he had won the Green nomination, it would have ensured ballot access in nearly 20 states with the potential for close to all 50 states.

West dismisses talk that he could serve as a spoiler in the race and says he is in the campaign with a message tailored to disaffected voters. And even though he has raised minimal funds, Democrats are fretting about him for two reasons: he has the ability to appeal to elements of the Democratic Party that are central to President Biden’s re-election campaign. And in an election that may again be decided by thousands of votes in a handful of states, every vote for West could aid the public intellectual’s larger target: Donald Trump.

[. . .]

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.), a Biden supporter who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus’s political-action committee, was dismissive of West’s effort. “He’s basically in this presidential election just as a side show with no organization,” he said. “People will know that this is a time for seriousness and not a time for individuals looking for publicity.”

Now let's note another thing about the numbers, it's over. There's no reason to waste time on Cornel and his 'campaign.'

He's not going to win -- the numbers. He's an independent candidate who owes a half million dollars to the US government. He is not H. Ross Perot. He will not be able to mount a ballot access campaign. He may still have the endorsement of the Socialist Alternative Party but they don't have ballot access in federal elections. The Libertarian Party isn't going to take him. No Labels isn't going to take him. He's left without ballot access. It's time to move on and focus on real candidates -- and that can be candidates who are running to build a party.

AP claims he left the Green Party. When? When was he ever a member? In 2020, he was endorsing Bernie Sanders, for example. Cornel has never been a Green. He's a Democratic Socialist.

A number of e-mails came in from people regarding a YOUTUBE program. I'm not ignoring the e-mails. Ava and I are going to address that at THIRD. Yes, the writers' strike is over; however SAG remains on strike so we aren't covering entertainment programs still.

Let's note the ridiculous Robert F. Kennedy Jr who entered the race with promise and hope and then opened his mouth and lost Democrat support. Again, the numbers told the story there and we were noting -- before most polls came out backing up our observations -- that Junior had turned off Democrats. That was due to his homophobia and transphobia, that was due to his efforts to end abortion (which he later backtracked on). That was due to one too many crazy statements. That was due to racism that went far beyond his claims that certain groups were exempt from COVID (due to biological engineering supposedly). That was due to his outlandish claim that big business could be trusted to address climate change. That was due to his getting in bed with Moms For Bigotry (and only stepping back when it was made clear that would be the final nail in the coffin that was becoming his wife's career thanks to his stupidity, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, et al).

The campaign sent out a mailing on Wednesday at 5:31 pm EST:

Thank you for signing up to receive the details for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s major announcement on October 9 in Philadelphia, PA, the birthplace of our nation. We are proud to share the official invitation for the event. We hope you will join us.

In his speech on Monday, Mr. Kennedy will lay out a path to the White House that involves a major shift in American politics. We invite you to witness history in the making, at the very spot where our founding fathers launched this nation in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. On Monday, we come together again to reset the course of our nation.

This is an event you won’t want to miss. We hope you will join us. Please RSVP to be there in person.

If you can’t make the event in-person in Philadelphia, we will be livestreaming the event as well. If you would like to register for the livestream event, you can register for that as well.

This is a free event.

And then they begged for money, of course. But what I found more distasteful was this:

Donate today to put a Kennedy back in the White House — Elect Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as President to unite America in 2024!

I've disabled the link on "Donate today" because I find that sentence disgusting. "Put a Kennedy back in the White House"? He has nothing to run on but that his uncle was President. And even after his uncle's grandson has called him out -- and his uncle's daughter Caroline has made it clear that she agrees with her son -- he's trying to use his uncle to get to the White House.

That's really tacky.

At any rate, he's expected to announce he's leaving the Democratic Party. He'll paint is as freedom move and argue that's why he's making the announcement in Philadelphia. He can stand in front of The Liberty Bell while Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" blasts over the p.a. system -- and if he can't use Elton's version, maybe Lara Trump will sing it for him?

Turning to Iraq, Joshua Ramos (WATCHER GURU) notes, "In a rather surprising development, Iraq has officially announced its intention to ban all cash withdrawals and transactions in US dollars. The country’s Central Bank official has announced the ban, as it hopes to lessen misuse of the current reserve and US sanction evasion." REUTERS adds, "People who deposit dollars into banks before the end of 2023 will continue to be able to withdraw funds in dollars in 2024, Ahmed said. But dollars deposited in 2024 could only be withdrawn in local currency at the official rate of 1,320." Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reminds, "The Governor of the CBI, Ali Al-Alaq, mentioned last month that the CBI intends to limit all domestic trade transactions to the local currency starting next year. Al-Alaq elaborated that this step aims to limit dealing in the US dollar outside the banking sector in Iraq, contributes to reducing smuggling of foreign currency abroad, and supports the Iraqi dinar." Sinan Mahmoud (THE NATIONAL) offers:

[. . .] Washington has been pressing Iraq to slow the flow of dollars through the foreign currency auction run by the CBI to countries under US sanctions, including Iran, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Lebanon, where some people and groups have been sanctioned by the US Treasury.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has applied strict measures on requests for international transactions from Iraq, rejecting many and delaying others.

It has also blacklisted several Iraqi banks suspected of money laundering and carrying out suspicious transactions. The latest restrictions were put in force in July, when 14 private Iraqi banks were barred from conducting dollar transactions.

This has led to an increase in demand for US dollars on the black market in Iraq.

The government has taken several measures to protect the dinar, including a currency revaluation, banning dealing with the greenback in the market, and offering a specific amount of hard currency for traders and travellers at the official rate.

With that in mind, let's note this from David S. Cloud and Ghassan Adnan (WALL STREET JOURNAL):

Iraq is seeking a special shipment of $1 billion in cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but U.S. officials have withheld approval, saying the request runs counter to their efforts to rein in Baghdad’s use of dollars and halt illicit cash flows to Iran.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq two decades ago, the U.S. has supplied $10 billion or more a year to Baghdad on semimonthly cargo flights carrying massive pallets of cash, drawn from Iraqi oil sales proceeds deposited at the Fed. In Iraqi hands, the bank notes have become a lucrative source of illicit dollars for powerful militias and corrupt politicians, as well as for Iran, U.S. officials say.

In making a request for an extra shipment of $1 billion, Iraq says it needs the cash to help prop up its stumbling currency. After the U.S. denied Iraq’s initial appeal last month, the Central Bank of Iraq last week submitted a formal request, which the Treasury is still considering, a senior Iraqi official said.

The behind-the-scenes wrangling highlights Baghdad’s unique dependence on the dollar and the little-known system for supplying it with prized U.S. currency. A vast amount of dollars flows through loosely regulated Iraqi banks and currency-exchange shops, which U.S. and some Iraqi officials say are rife with fraudulent transactions and money laundering. Since last November, Washington has banned 18 Iraqi banks from dealing in dollars and adopted stricter rules for electronic dollar transfers from its banks.

Winding down, Cher will have a Christmas album out shortly -- her first. Her video for "DJ Play A Christmas Song" came out last night.