I'm so sick of buttinsky Caitlin Johnstone.
His accomplishments as governor of that state deserve attention—but mostly because they are significant steps towards transforming Florida into an autocracy similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. The arc DeSantis is plotting for his state and our nation may be many things, but it is not American.
Our comparison of the two regimes stems from on-the-ground observation. One of us was an ambassador in Central Europe and has visited and written about Orbán’s Hungary. The other was the duly elected county prosecutor in Tampa, Florida, whom DeSantis unlawfully suspended.
The scenes from Florida are by now familiar. A substitute teacher fired for posting a video of empty bookshelves in a public school library. The parents of an LGBTQ+ child wrestling with whether to leave their state because of the government’s hostility. A duly, twice-elected prosecutor suspended illegally and escorted out of the office by an armed sheriff’s deputy.
But the similarities between the Florida that DeSantis has helped create and Orbán’s Hungary deserve more attention here in America.
Like DeSantis, Orbán has used the power of the state to target the LGBTQ+ community while trumpeting traditional values to build his base. The two men have also both demonized migration and migrants. DeSantis has taken it so far that there are criminal investigations in Texas—and possibly in California—of his potential involvement in schemes to move undocumented migrants around the U.S., allegedly tricking them.
And then there is Orbán’s and DeSantis’ shared hostility to the rule of law.
DeSantis has shown remarkable disdain for the law he is sworn to uphold. He has enacted multiple laws which have been found by courts to violate the U.S. Constitution, including legislation restricting discussion of race in schools, controlling the speech of social media companies, prohibiting peaceful protest, criminalizing transgender health care, and restricting voter registration. He has unlawfully targeted businesses who speak out against legislation he supports, most notably Disney, and has allegedly flouted campaign finance laws and ethics.
Reports indicate that at the height of the "war on terror" following the September 11 attacks, detainees at Guantanamo Bay who refused to eat were often strapped down and a liquefied nutrient slurry was pumped into them through a tube forced into their nose — or in some cases, their rectum. The U.N. has classified force-feeding prisoners as a form of torture.
DeSantis, who was a 27-year-old Navy lieutenant judge advocate general at the time, has admitted in interviews that he advised Guantanamo guards on how to force-feed striking detainees in a way he believed was consistent with military law — but he denies allegations that he personally oversaw Adayfi's force-feeding, and as of now there is no publicly known independent evidence confirming or refuting this. Whether or not he was present, Guantanamo policy was notoriously micromanaged by leaders in D.C., making it doubtful DeSantis had a significant role in setting the controversial policy.
According to the report, the allegedly political decision to not air the documentary "came as [Paramount] cut costs to reflect a gloomy streaming business. The company folded a diminished Showtime under the streaming umbrella Paramount+, and laid off a wave of staffers, including the executive who greenlit prestige unscripted shows and documentaries. The new president Chris McCarthy, has a background in less expensive reality TV."
Thursday, July 20, 2023. Noted transphboe Jonathan Turley just makes s**t up and publishes it these days (that's what happens when bigotry seizes the brain) and he's also struggling with the English language and numbers, thief Shelby White has enough money to keep her out of prison so it's incumbent upon society to make it clear to her that she's fooled on one, a right-wing outlet thinks -- like Turley -- that they can say something's true when it's not (and when you're lying about Barbie, I mean how low an disgusting are you), and much more.
If country music used to pride itself on being about “three chords and the truth,” the increasingly belligerent superstar Jason Aldean has a different idea of what the genre should represent: two chords and a beating, or maybe a shotgun blast.
Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” is close to being the most cynical song ever written about the implicit moral superiority of having a limited number of neighbors, which is saying something, given how many attempts to write the Great American Small Town Anthem are generated in a single year. At least most of the others at least put up the appearance of celebrating local pride, not prejudice. But for Aldean, it’s about how tiny burgs are under the imminent threat of attack from lawless urban marauders who will have to be kept at bay by any means necessary — meaning, pretty explicitly, vigilantism.
You can just see Aldean speaking up at a town council meeting to keep the interlopers out: First, the outsiders visit your charming off-the-interstate vintage stores, then they’ll be back with their BLM protests and Molotov cocktails. Ban antique shops now, before it’s too late.
“Try That in a Small Town” was risible enough as a single, but in case anything about its lunkheaded songwriting felt like it was left as subtext and not made explicit, Aldean has released a music video for the rising hit. It, too, is in the business of handing out black eyes… to country music, that is, much more than any imagined invaders.
The setting, outside the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, has proven upsetting for some who know or learn the history of the building. It’s where, in 1927, a white lynch mob dragged a young man named Henry Choate through the streets behind a car before finally hanging him from a second-story courthouse window. Let’s give Aldean and video director Shaun Silva the benefit of the doubt and assume they had not indulged in a history lesson when they decided the same frontage where a Black man was murdered in front of a crowd would be a good place to alternate projected footage of protesters being put down with a draped American flag. (Hard to blame anyone for thinking that this history did show up in Aldean’s or the filmmakers’ web search on the location, but imagining that they knew that and proceeded anyway, as a known dog whistle, is… just tough to contemplate.)
Movieguide, a nonprofit Christian movie review website, has warned readers not to watch the film, as it "forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories." The website issues family-friendly movie ratings based on various content concerns, including language, violence, and sex.
“Millions of families would have turned out to the theaters and purchased tickets, but instead, Mattel chose to cater to a small percentage of the population who has proven over and over to abandon the box office," one of its many articles dedicated to the film reads. "Movieguide’s 40 years of research indicate this just isn’t true, and Mattel has made a grievous mistake.”
Meanwhile, back in April, Adel Fakhir (ALJAZEERA) wondered whee Iraq's antiquities were? A few more of them have returned home. May 19th, the Manhattan District Attorney's office announced:
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., announced today the return of two ancient stone antiquities, a Mesopotamian limestone elephant and a Sumerian alabaster bull, to the people of Iraq. Collectively valued at $275,000, these artifacts were looted from the ancient city of Uruk, now known as Warka, one of the oldest civilizations in human history.
The figures were stolen from Iraq during the Gulf War and smuggled into New York in the late 1990s. The alabaster bull was seized from the private collection of Shelby White and the limestone elephant from a storage unit that belonged to the convicted trafficker Robin Symes, where it had been hidden since at least 1999. The items were returned during a repatriation ceremony attended by Thomas Acocella, Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge of Homeland Security Investigations New York and Dhafer Abdulrazaq Jalil, Counselor at the Embassy of the Government of the Republic of Iraq in Washington D.C.
“Once again, we see historic and priceless antiquities hidden from the public and sitting in the possession of traffickers and looters. We will not allow New Yok City to be a safe harbor for stolen cultural artifacts,” said District Attorney Bragg.
“I’m grateful for the work by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for its efforts to repatriate these precious, historic antiquities to Iraq,” said Dr. Salwan Sinjari, Iraqi Chargé d’Affairs to the United States. “These pieces belong to Iraq—and belong in Iraq—and now they will help the Iraqi people better understand and appreciate our own history and culture with this connection to the past. This is another example of the longstanding cooperation, friendship, and partnership between Iraq and United States.”
“It is a great privilege and honor to return to the people of Iraq these two rare and ancient artifacts that reflect their nation’s rich history and heritage,” said HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo. “Investigating the theft of cultural property, and illicit international trade of art and antiquities, is a unique part of our mission at Homeland Security Investigations, and every repatriation brings us closer to our goal to remove the incentive of those who pilfer a nation’s cultural history for profit.
The Sumerian bull was originally given as a religious offering to the goddess Inanna at her temple at Uruk. This statuette was probably left together with or in substitution for the living sacrificial animals that it represents. Although elephants were known to have existed in Mesopotamia and have appeared in excavations dating to the 4th millennium, they were rarely represented in art, making this limestone figure one of the very few examples to have survived to the modern day.
During District Attorney Bragg’s tenure, the ATU has recovered over 800 antiquities stolen from 24 countries and valued at nearly $160 million. Since its creation, the ATU has recovered nearly 4,500 antiquities stolen from 29 countries and valued at more than $375 million. Under District Attorney Bragg, the ATU has also repatriated more than 950 antiquities stolen from 19 countries and valued at more than $165 million. Since its creation, the ATU has returned more than 2,450 antiquities to 24 countries and valued at more than $230 million.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Senior Trial Counsel, supervised the investigation, which was conducted by Assistant District Attorneys Taylor Holland and Christine DiDomenico; Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Daniel Healey and Hilary Chasse; and Special Agents Robert Mancene, John Paul Labbat, and Robert Fromkin of Homeland Security Investigations. The District Attorney’s Office would like to thank Shelby White for her assistance and cooperation with our investigation.
###
Let's put a spotlight on one of the crooks. Torey Akers (THE ART NEWSPAPER) notes:
Authorities seized the bull figurine from Shelby White, the investor, art collector and board member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The expansive collection she accrued with her late husband, Leon Levy, has come under scrutiny for including many artefacts with uncertain provenance. The district attorney's investigation into the collection has already resulted in the seizure of 89 stolen antiquities valued at over $69m and originating from ten different countries. White cooperated with investigators, according to the district attorney's announcement.
Shelby White is not a poor widow. She's 84 years old and sitting on millions. She's used that money to try to buy herself a life in the last two decades. That money bought her a seat on a government committee that was supposed to be figuring out the illegal artifact trade and how to stop it. Yes, Bill Clinton put the fox in the henhouse. This latest revelation is not a shock. She and her dead husband profited from looting and illegal trade. Sarah Cascone (ART NET) notes:
One, a Sumerian alabaster bull, belonged to philanthropist Shelby White, a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board of trustees. It joins a significant number of other objects from her collection that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has seized in the past two years.
[. . .]
Works from the couple’s holdings were among a group of Greek antiquities restituted in March. And earlier this month, the DA returned two seventh-century stone carvings to China that belonged to White and were on loan to the Met—part of a growing cache of antiquities either in the museum’s collection, or on view at the institution, that have been seized and/or repatriated due to looting in recent months. Reports suggest there is more where that came from.
I'm sure there are many more items to be found in 'their' collection. WIKIPEDIA notes:
The Levy-White collection has been scrutinised for looted objects: in a 2000 article, archaeologists David Gill and Christopher Chippindale stated that 93 percent of the works at the exhibition Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection had no known provenance.[15]
Upon search warrants issued by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on 28 June, 2021, and April 27, 2022, objects were seized from White's Manhattan home and were returned to Turkey and Italy, these objets constituting "evidence of criminal possession of stolen property in the first, second, third, and fourth degrees, as well as of a conspiracy to commit those crimes"[16]
The Office of Manhattan District Attorney General seized 89 stolen antiquities, valued at $69 million and originating from 10 different countries, and returned some of them to Turkey[17] and Yemen.[18]
In May 2023, Chinese antiquities loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Shelby White were seized and returned to the Chinese Consulate.[19]
Now that we're all on the same page, the dumpster fire is back in the news. Divya Kishore (MEAWW) reports:
A prominent trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) has come under fire after cops recovered numerous stolen artifacts from her house. According to reports, the confiscated items are worth $69 million and were collected by Shelby White and her late husband Leon Levy over several years.
89 artifacts have reportedly been removed from White's possession by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Special Antiquities Trafficking Unit in the last two years. An April statement by Manhattan DA Alvin L Bragg, Jr said, "Our investigation into the collector Shelby White has allowed dozens of antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin to finally return home."
However, there were many who were not convinced by White's apparent innocence as Elizabeth Marlowe, the director of the museum studies program at Colgate University, reportedly said, "There is no way that someone at her level of the market and her depth of collecting and her prominence at the Met - there is no way someone at that level did not know they should be asking for things like export licenses."
Patty Gerstenblith, an expert on cultural heritage issues and a professor at DePaul University College of Law, added, "Her collecting practices do not fit the model of how a museum should be pursuing knowledge and preserving the historical record. I don't think the good works, the support of archaeological work, outweigh the harm that she caused."
She's a thief and she needs to be called out every day of however many years she has left on this earth. Crooks like her don't go to prison, so public scorn's all we can mete out.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, their local chapter of Moms For Liberty has been very active. Ali Jabar and Abby Sewell (AP) report:
Protesters angered by the planned burning of a copy of the Quran stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad early Thursday, breaking into the compound and lighting a small fire and setting off a diplomatic furor.
Online videos showed demonstrators at the diplomatic post waving flags and signs showing the influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr ahead of a planned burning of the Islamic holy book Thursday in Stockholm by an Iraqi asylum-seeker who burned a copy of the Quran in a previous demonstration last month.
Following the incident, the Swedish Embassy announced it had closed to visitors without specifying when it would reopen. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani convened a meeting with security officials and said in a statement afterwards that Iraqi authorities will prosecute those responsible for the arson as well referring “negligent security officials” for investigation.
No word yet on whether other Moms For Liberty like 'Dr' Naomi Wolf and Tulsi Gabbard would be rushing to Iraq to assist mother Moqtada in the mission. AFP notes:
"What has happened is completely unacceptable and the government condemns these attacks in the strongest terms. Iraqi authorities have an unequivocal obligation to protect diplomatic missions and personnel under the Vienna Convention," Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in a statement, adding that Iraq's charge d'affaires would be summoned to the foreign ministry.
REUTERS offers this quote:
“It is clear that the Iraqi authorities have seriously failed in their responsibility to protect diplomatic missions and personnel,” Billstrom said in a statement.
Dropping back to Tuesday's snapshot:
Cardinal Louis Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, announced Saturday that he is withdrawing from his seat in Baghdad after Iraqi President Abdul Rashid revoked a decree recognizing him as head of the Christian Church in Iraq.
Sako said he will be taking up residence in a monastery in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq, where he will continue to lead the Chaldean Church.
In a statement issued July 15, Sako called the president’s action — which calls into question his ability to control Church assets in the country — “unprecedented” and “unfair.”
“It is unfortunate that we in Iraq live in the midst of a wide network of self-interest, narrow factionalism, and hypocrisy that has produced an unprecedented political, national, and moral chaos, which is rooted by now more and more,” Sako wrote. “Therefore, I have decided to withdraw from the patriarchal headquarters in Baghdad.”
Cardinal Louis Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, announced Saturday that he is withdrawing from his seat in Baghdad after Iraqi President Abdul Rashid revoked a decree recognizing him as head of the Christian Church in Iraq.
Sako said he will be taking up residence in a monastery in Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq, where he will continue to lead the Chaldean Church.
In a statement issued July 15, Sako called the president’s action — which calls into question his ability to control Church assets in the country — “unprecedented” and “unfair.”
“It is unfortunate that we in Iraq live in the midst of a wide network of self-interest, narrow factionalism, and hypocrisy that has produced an unprecedented political, national, and moral chaos, which is rooted by now more and more,” Sako wrote. “Therefore, I have decided to withdraw from the patriarchal headquarters in Baghdad."
[. . .]”
A source at Asianews points out that the whole affair turns on this point: “Someone wants to take control over the assets and properties held by Christians and the Church.” President Abdul Latif Rashid has intervened in recent days with the intention of “clarifying” his decision.
His office issues a statement saying: “Withdrawing the republican decree does not prejudice the religious or legal status of Cardinal Louis Sako, as he is appointed by the Apostolic See.” According to the Kurdish Muslim leader, “the abolition of the Presidential Decree is intended to correct the situation,” while the patriarch continues to enjoy “the respect and appreciation of the presidency of the Republic as Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the world.”
“However, the president’s decision strips the Chaldean leader – the Patriarch – of the right to administer church assets, which are the target of Ryan 'the Chaldean' and his Babylonian Brigades. ‘It’s no coincidence that the president’s decision came a few days after he met with Ryan,’” a source told AsiaNews.
“For over 100 years, the patriarch, after his papal appointment, had his office recognized by decree by the king and then the president, upholding his status as head of the Church and custodian of its properties.” With the withdrawal of the decree, the primate “will likely lose control over the [Church’s] assets and properties,” the source concludes, but Cardinal Sako “is determined to fight and is already studying ways to appeal in court so that law prevails and justice is done.”
Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) updates the ongoing story:
The US ambassador to Iraq will be summoned by Baghdad over remarks made by a US official about the removal of the head of the Christian Church in Iraq, the government said on Thursday.
Ambassador Alina Romanowski is to be called in after State Department spokesman Matthew Miller described the treatment of Cardinal Louis Sako as harassment.
He said he was troubled by Iraq’s President Abdul Latif Rashid's decision to revoke a decree recognising the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, as head of the country's Christian Church.
“I will say we are disturbed by the harassment of Cardinal Sako ... and troubled by the news that he has left Baghdad,” Mr Miller said on Tuesday.
“We look forward to his safe return. The Iraqi Christian community is a vital part of Iraq’s identity and a central part of Iraq’s history of diversity and tolerance.”
Mr Rashid's office said the president was "disappointed by accusations levelled against the Iraqi government" by Mr Miller and would summon the ambassador.
The following sites updated:
