The Rise of Skywalker Is A Let Down - Pop Matters

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Abrams is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

The struggle of both Rian Johnson in Episode 8 and JJ Abrams in Episode 9 to answer the question of how to tell the story post-episode VI raises another pertinent issue with such film-making sagas: understanding the time and space of the story itself.

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Unlike Abrams' earlier success, the pressure this time around is too much for him to overcome. He is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

Abrams and his writers added a new problem by reintroducing Emperor Palpatine as this trilogy's arch-villain, as he was in the previous two trilogies. In Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader had tossed Palpatine down a skyscraper-sized elevator shaft.  Are we to suppose it had been a soft landing? More than likely, Abrams et al. hope we won't suppose anything.

Reprisals by just about every cast member in the saga will either titillate or irritate depending on viewer disposition, especially since most of these cameos are inessential to the immediate action. As force-ghosts and SGI allows, the dead never have to remain dead; they enter a digitalized holding cell to be recycled ad infinitum for Disney's profit.

This parlor trick results in (a) whatever heroic act a character undertook in previous films being rendered utterly meaningless (b) any death of a current film's character being stripped of any poignancy because we've grown wise to the fact that this trilogy will drag them back into the story.

The full article is available here

White House Aides Tried To Talk Trump Out of Withholding Ukraine Aid - New York Times

Trump’s top national security advisers tried to talk him out of withholding the money. 

It has been revealed that President Trump demanded that the Pentagon withhold money from Ukraine at a crucial time in its war with Russia.  Trump’s own top national security advisers tried to talk him out of his determination to withhold the money.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton met with Trump together to convince him to release the aid because it served American interests. He refused.

It is no wonder Trump does not want any of them to testify. I seems safe to exclude the possibility that their testimony would exonerate him.

The full article is available here

Anguish & Anger From Navy SEALs Who Turned In Edward Gallagher - NY Times

Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms.

Fellow Navy SEAL's dire descriptions of Chief Gallagher, who had eight combat deployments and sometimes went by the nickname Blade, are in marked contrast to Mr. Trump’s portrayal of him at a recent political rally in Florida as one of “our great fighters.”

Video interviews and group texts obtained by The Times show men describing their platoon leader in grim terms.

“The guy is freaking evil,” Special Operator Miller told investigators. “The guy was toxic,” Special Operator First Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, said in a separate interview.

“You could tell he was perfectly O.K. with killing anybody that was moving,” Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators.

The video interviews and private group text conversations obtained by The Times do not reveal any coordinated deception among the SEALs in the chief’s platoon.  Instead, they show men who were hesitant to come forward, but who urged one another to resist outside pressure and threats of violence, and to be honest.

The full article is available here

How Fascism Works: Fascism, Truth, and Trump - Yale professor Jason Stanley

The full article is available here

Trump Impeachment Is A Victory For Our Republic, But Struggle To Keep Republic Goes On - Jeff Wiersma

Trump's impeachment is worth celebrating due to the sovereignty of our constitution and the rule of law being reaffirmed.  The participation in our democracy, by Republicans and Democrat alike, from which impeachment resulted is what gives me reason to be optimistic.

Trump's impeachment is a poignant reminder that voting matters, as the oversight which lead to impeachment was only made possible by the House coming under Democratic control as a result of the 2018 midterm elections.

However, celebration of Trump's impeachment should be tempered with the acknowledgement that it never should've needed to come to this. Trump’s campaign and administration have been an undemocratic, malevolent, and incompetent edifice of lies, and one that - until impeachment - plowed undeterred through other protections designed by the founders to contain both despots and the tyranny of factions they are prone to create.
Most importantly, the edifice of lies that is Trump is still supported by 35-40% of the U.S. electorate. (While that is certainly better than a majority of the electorate supporting Trump, it is a significant amount of the U.S. populace).  This remains a legitimate reason to be concerned about the well-being of our republic and our societal discourse.

The takeaway = impeachment is a short term victory, but the struggle to keep our republic goes on.

Fact Check: Yes, ICE Refused Flu Shot Vaccine/Administering, Which Doctors Donated, For Detainees - Truth or Fiction

Claim: "U.S. border agencies have refused donations of flu shot vaccines for immigrant detainees, despite in-custody deaths due to influenza."

Rating: "True."

By the end of the federal fiscal year in September 2019, at least three immigrant children had died of the flu in federal custody, including a sixteen-year-old boy whose May 2019 death in Border Patrol custody was caught on video, which was obtained months later by investigative journalists.

In November 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported that border agencies refused donations of flu shot vaccines as well as the services of doctors to administer them.

The full article is available here

Trump and AG Barr Claim IG Report Says Exact Opposite of What It Really Says - Andrew Prokop

The inspector general failed to find wrongdoing in the FBI’s opening of the Russia investigation. Donald Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t like that.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has completed his lengthy review of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia — and his report, released Monday, fails to back up President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about a “deep state” plot against him.

In the report, Horowitz wrote that the decision to open the investigation “complied with [Justice] Department and FBI policies.” And, he said, he did not conclude that top officials were driven by “political bias or improper motivation” in doing so.

Horowitz’s report does not confirm any of the theories that Trump and his people have floated and outright debunks some.

The inspector general failed to find wrongdoing in the FBI’s opening of the Russia investigation. Donald Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t like that. Instead of disputing the report, Trump and Barr announced that it said the exact opposite of what it actually did.

This development suggests we are entering a new phase of disinformation, when Trumpians no longer try to spin facts but simply make their own and sell their false narrative.

The full article is available here