#david horowitz

[eretzyisrael]

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has previously criticized Candace’s promotion of Tate. But because of our history with Candace and our hope that she would pull out of this spiral, we did not make an issue of it.

The atrocities of October 7, the appearance of ignorant mobs in the U.S. chanting “Hitler was right” and supporting the Hamas terrorists, and Candace’s moral equivalence about these neo-Nazis have changed the stakes. We have decided to issue the present statement because of her recent promotion of Hamas’ genocidal lies.

For example, she has falsely compared Israel to the “segregated South.” This is the sort of ignorant ‘Apartheid State” slander that we expect from Black Lives Matter – and the Jew-killers of the Middle East.

When Candace implied that Israel was engaged in “genocide” for defending itself against the atrocities committed by Hamas, that’s the kind of genocidal lie we expect to hear from Hamas.

And when she suggested that to remove the Hamas auxiliary — Students for Justice in Palestine — from campuses would increase antisemitism, that’s what we expect to hear from the New York Times.

It’s not what we at the Freedom Center stand for and it’s not what the patriotic movement we have been helping to build over the last 35 years represents.

Instead of focusing on the meaningful activism and defense of American values that brought her to our attention, Candace Owens has become obsessed with her own fame, stirring up drama to compensate for a lack of real achievement. Her comments about Israel and her promotion of people like Andrew Tate are part of a pattern. Candace tackles a subject she knows nothing about, never bothers to learn anything about it, and then rides the backlash by playing the victim to generate more fame and money.

What a tragic misuse of talents.

[jt1674]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

David Horowitz speaking at the University of California San Diego in 2010.

Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas, here and now?

Student: I'm sorry, what?

Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas?

Student: Would I condemn Hamas?

Horowitz: As a terrorist genocidal organization.

Student: Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?

Horowitz: So you won't. I actually have had this experience many times. You didn't read the pamphlet, because the pamphlet gives chapter and verse of the main connection is that the MSA [Muslim Students Association] is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network as revealed in the documents.

Student: I don't think you understood what I meant by that. I meant, if I say something, I'm sure that I will be arrested. For reasons of Homeland Security. So, if you could please just answer my question.

Horowitz: If you condemn Hamas, Homeland Security will arrest you?

Student: If I support Hamas, because your question forces me to condemn Hamas. If I support Hamas, I look really bad.

Horowitz: If you don't condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed.

I have had this experience at UC Santa Barbara where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas. And none of them would.

And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask questions. And I said, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah? And he said, well, that question is too complicated for a yes/no answer.

So, I said, okay, I'll put it to you this way: I'm a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn't have to hunt us down globally. For or against it?

Student: ... For it.

Horowitz: Thank you. Thank you for coming and showing everybody what's here. And you're wearing a terrorist neckerchief.

==

This was chilling.

It exists in an average university. It's a far-right ideology of supremacy that has tricked far-left idiots into protecting it by falsely using the intersectional language of victimhood.

Is everybody getting this yet?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eli Clifton at The Guardian:

Top Republican donor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass is connected to over $16m in funding to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups that have advocated for a US war with Iran and other militaristic policies in the Middle East, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft.

Media reports on Yass, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trading and technology firm, have focused on his outsized role in the Republican party, to which he is now the largest political donor in the 2024 election cycle, contributing more than $46m thus far. Yass has also emerged as the biggest funder of a group targeting progressive representative Summer Lee in her primary race, suggesting an interest in influencing Democratic primary outcomes, not just in boosting Republicans. But little has been reported about his involvement in funding groups advocating a pro-Israel US foreign policy, hawkish US policies in the Middle East and support for theorists whom experts described as extreme anti-Muslim conspiracists.

Leading Yass’s philanthropy in the foreign policy space is $7.9m contributed to Jerusalem Online University between 2014 and 2019 by a grant-making group at which he once served as one of three directors. A Jewish Daily Forward investigation into the group in 2011 found that the website promotes itself as a source of educational materials about the Middle East and Israel, but the website’s actual message is far more biased, the Forward found. “On its website and its promotional materials, Jerusalem Online U hardly portrays itself as a center for neutral academic inquiry,” the Forward wrote. “In fact, it boasts an explicitly pro-Israel mission that seems distinctly at odds with academic principles. In one advertisement for its services, the Jerusalem Online U site’s blog features a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Congress last May that ‘Israel is what is right’ about the Middle East. The words ‘Be a Part of What’s Right’ appear on screen as he speaks.”

The contributions came from the Claws Foundation, an entity at which Yass served as a director alongside Arthur Dantchik, a co-founder of Susquehanna, and attorney Alan P Dye. Dye did not return calls for comment. The Kids Connect Charitable Fund – which does not list Yass or Dantchik as directors but listed the Claws Foundation as a “related tax-exempt organization” in an IRS filing and was identified as an arm of both men’s philanthropy by Haaretz – contributed another $3.48m to Jerusalem Online University’s parent organization, Imagination Productions. The Claws Foundation also issued a $10,000 grant to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2011 and $35,000 in grants, between 2010 and 2011, to the Center for Security Policy, an anti-Muslim and conspiracy theory-promoting group founded by Frank Gaffney, whom the Southern Policy Law Center describes as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” and the Anti-Defamation League describes as a chief promulgator of the conspiracy theory “that the US government has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and that a number of political figures have actual ties to the group”. The Center for Security Policy vice-president, Clare Lopez, has said: “When Muslims follow their doctrine they become jihadists.”

In 2013 to 2014, the Claws Foundation sent $250,000 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, another central promoter of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Horowitz, whom the group is named after and who serves as its president, once complained that Muslims were a “protected species in this country” and said he was “wait[ing] for the day when the good Muslims step forward” at a Brooklyn College event in 2011. “The fact Yass is donating to Gaffney and Horowitz’s organizations shows how extreme his politics are,” said Tommy Vietor, former national security council spokesperson under President Obama. “They are beyond Trump. They are OG conspiracy theorists. Gaffney in particular.”

[...] Trump has a track record of shifting positions on Israel and Iran to align with political mega-donors. Only after securing the nomination in 2016 did Trump pivot to more militaristic positions in the Middle East – committing to withdrawing the US from the JCPOA, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and supporting an unconditionally pro-Israel US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – positions in lockstep with his biggest political patrons in the general election, the late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam.

Top GOP funder and billionaire Jeffrey Yass has donated over $16M into pro-Israel Apartheid and anti-Islam causes.

[thenewdemocratus]

Front Page: David Horowitz: Salon's Infantile Leftism

Source:The New Democrat  To just to speak to David Horwitz’s critique of Salon and Joan Walsh. He did what he accuses them of doing, which I’ll get into later. Using hyperbolic rhetoric to critique President Obama and Democrats. Saying they are destroying the economy, anti-military and you can go down the line and read his article yourself. Which is how he counters Joan Walsh who said that…

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan surprises David Harbour with a funny message

[camyfilms]

BONES AND ALL 2022

You remind me of every junkie I ever met. You look like the kind that's convinced himself he's got this under his thumb. But you pull on one little thread and... But maybe love will set you free, man. Maybe love will set you free.

[confesspinkfloyd]

If I had a nickel for every time I saw a band that had a cute keyboard player that gets left out at least once, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's cool that it happened twice. (Pink Floyd & Tally Hall)

[scenesandscreens]

Bones and All (2022)

Director - Luca Guadagnino, Cinematography - Arseni Khachaturan

"I don't trust you. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong about that, it matters that I feel it."

[theculturedmarxist]

In front of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library, seven infant-sized bundles of white cloth rested on the steps, splattered with red paint. Behind the swaddles, plywood boards read “10,600 lives slaughtered,” “4,412 children,” and “let Gaza live,” alongside images of Palestinian flags and olive trees.

This was the scene where Columbia students gathered last Thursday for a “peaceful protest art installation” and demonstration organized by the campus chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. Hundreds of students demanded that Columbia publicly call for a ceasefire in Gaza, divest its endowment from corporations complicit in Israeli apartheid, and end its academic programs in Tel Aviv.

The next day, Gerald Rosberg, chair of the Special Committee on Campus Safety, announced Columbia had suspended its chapters of JVP and SJP through the end of the semester, citing an “unauthorized event” that “included threatening rhetoric and intimidation.” The announcement quickly drew widespread criticism, including from hundreds of Jewish faculty who denounced the “vague allegations” that served as grounds for the suspensions.

But amid the backlash, StandWithUs, a self-described “non-partisan Israel education organization,” lauded Columbia’s decision. “StandWithUs sent several legal letters to universities like @Columbia, urging them to immediately hold these groups accountable for the hate, fear, and harassment they incite on campus,” the group wrote on social media. “We hope more universities will follow suit.” 

Alongside Israel advocacy groups like the Brandeis Center, the International Legal Forum, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, StandWithUs has spent years trying to shut down criticism of Israel on college campuses, often by weaponizing civil rights law. The groups allege that, while the political speech may be protected by the First Amendment, it fosters a campus climate of antisemitism in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits federally funded programs from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. As students have ramped up pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past month, Israel advocacy groups have escalated a pressure campaign of their own. 

Earlier this month, StandWithUs sent an open letter to thousands of universities addressed to the general counsel and vice president of student affairs, outlining actions colleges could take to ensure compliance with Title VI. The group’s recommendations include requiring student identification cards at protests, monitoring university communication channels for “biased statements about Israel,” and investigating student groups for ties to Hamas. The group has also sent a surge of direct letters urging administrators to clamp down on specific Palestine solidarity campus events. Meanwhile, on November 9, the Brandeis Center filed two Title VI complaints with the Department of Education against the University of Pennsylvania and Wellesley College. (The Brandeis Center also joined forces with the Anti-Defamation League to call on the presidents of nearly 200 universities to investigate their SJP chapters, alleging they could have ties to Hamas that would constitute “materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization.”)

According to Dylan Saba, a staff attorney at Palestine Legal, the groups tend to target “pretty mundane examples of pro-Palestine expression … because that’s precisely what these organizations are trying to get rid of.” But as Israel’s military assault over the past month has become “increasingly indefensible for the pro-Israel forces,” it’s spurred a new wave of Title VI threats.

“That’s what’s motivating the strategy to try to raise the stakes of Palestinian expression and organizing by getting universities to try to crack down on it,” said Saba. “If you can’t win the debate because the facts aren’t in your favor, it’s pretty sensible to try to stop it altogether.”

Crackdown at Columbia

The Title VI crusade adds even more fuel to the recent punitive actions against Palestine solidarity student groups. 

Since the start of Israel’s bombing of Gaza, students at Columbia have organized numerous protests, vigils, and rallies in a show of support for civilians in Gaza. As part of a nationwide “Shut it Down for Palestine” walkout on November 9, SJP and JVP arranged an art installation and rally.

One day later, the groups were suspended for the unauthorized event and “threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” making them ineligible to hold campus events or receive school funding for the remainder of the term. 

While university policy requires students to obtain a permit 10 days before an event, violations of policy usually result in a disciplinary proceeding against individual students, not an outright suspension of an entire organization, according to Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University who has been serving as a faculty advocate for the sanctioned students. 

Franke noted that the organizations were suspended by a newly formed group, the Special Committee on Campus Safety, which was created with no advance notice and did not go through the standard University Senate Executive Committee approval process. Columbia’s website does not contain any mention of the Special Committee before the November 10 announcement, which did not elaborate on the new committee’s members or purview. 

“We don’t know who’s on it, who created it, what its authority is, under what rules is it operating,” said Franke. Franke has asked Rosberg, the chair of the Special Committee, for more information about the new group and the specific rhetoric that led to SJP and JVP’s sanctioning. She says she has not received a response. 

Additionally, internet archives show Columbia quietly updated its student group event policy some time between June 12 and October 20 to include new language around the sanctioning of student organizations “for failure to obtain event approval and/or not abiding by terms of an approved event.”

“They edited the student conduct rules without any consultation with the groups that normally are required to be consulted,” said Franke. 

Columbia University did not respond to a request for comment.

During her 25-year tenure, Franke noted she’s seen “a lot of demonstrations,” from the Iraq War to 9/11. “All manner of things have been debated, protested, and the university’s structure was able to handle it,” she said. “But somehow, they had to create — without any consultation with any of the responsible governing bodies — a whole new way of dealing with these issues.”

Columbia is one of three private universities that have now sanctioned their SJP chapters in an unprecedented cascade of crackdowns on student organizing around Palestine solidarity. 

Earlier this month, Brandeis University announced an outright and total ban on its SJP chapter, claiming the group “openly supports Hamas.” On Tuesday, George Washington University suspended its SJP chapter from hosting on-campus events for three months.

Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, wrote in a statement to The Intercept that after the group sent letters to thousands of universities, “many responded privately thanking us for the letter or, in the days after receiving it, taking concrete action on their campuses, such as Columbia, Brandeis, and GWU banning SJP for the rest of the semester.” 

She added, “Other schools have notified us that they have launched independent investigations or task forces to address antisemitism. We look forward to seeing the results of those inquiries.”

Changing Standards

At Pomona College in Claremont, California, student organizers have also been challenged by a shifting web of guidelines. Samson Zhang, an editor of a student publication focused on leftist campus organizing called Claremont Undercurrents, noted that new policies seemed to arise in direct response to specific Palestine solidarity campus actions. 

In one instance, 150 students attended a vigil at the student services center. “It was very intentionally organized so that no club claimed it, and the messaging was that it was organized by everybody and nobody,” said Zhang. “That happened Friday, and by Monday they sent out an email with a new demonstration policy that an event is only compliant with the student code of conduct if there’s a specific student club that it’s registered under.” 

And, on November 7 — the day before a planned divestment protest — Pomona President Gabi Starr sent a letter to students and alumni with a reminder of campus demonstration rules. Claremont Undercurrents reported that one day before Starr’s email blast, StandWithUs sent her a letter expressing concern over the event. The letter urged the administration to take immediate action “to prevent discriminatory treatment of Jewish and Israeli students” and specifically noted that the administration has “the right to prohibit masks worn for the purpose of concealing identity.” Starr’s email similarly states that “masks that prevent recognition of individuals pose a challenge to the ability to maintain campus codes of conduct,” adding that students may be asked to remove them. 

In response to inquiries from The Student Life, a campus newspaper, Pomona’s spokesperson said Starr’s mention of masks “was in response to significant concerns related to our own campus — not in response to any outside organization.”

StandWithUs has targeted Pomona before. In April 2021, the Associated Students of Pomona College voted to ban the use of student government funds on items or companies that “knowingly support the Israeli occupation of Palestine” — a move that triggered a swift condemnation from Starr. That same day, StandWithUs sent a letter praising Starr for her statement and calling on her to use “whatever means at your disposal to invalidate this resolution.” Every student government representative that voted in favor of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolution that year was then doxxed on Canary Mission, a secretive website that posts public blacklists of Palestinian rights organizers.

One year prior, in February 2020, the David Horowitz Freedom Center wrote to Starr and Pitzer College President Melvin Oliver, claiming that the colleges had violated Title VI by fostering “pervasive, college-sponsored anti-semitism.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified Horowitz as an extremist, noting that “the Freedom Center has launched a network of projects giving anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies a platform to project hate and misinformation.” 

“Political Cudgel”

A core ask from groups like the David Horowitz Freedom Center and StandWithUs is that university policies adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, or IHRA, working definition of antisemitism, which critics say falsely equates broad criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The IHRA definition found new footing in 2019, when then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to “consider” the IHRA definition in Title VI enforcement. 

“IHRA expressly recognizes that criticism of Israel, similar to criticism of other countries, is not antisemitic,” wrote Rothstein of StandWithUs. “And it recognizes that some rhetoric and actions related to Israel do cross the line into bigotry.”

By eliding meaningful differences between critique of Israel and Jewish discrimination, said Saba of Palestine Legal, the groups warp claims of antisemitism into a “political cudgel” to be wielded against students voicing solidarity with Palestine.

The Brandeis Center’s recent Title VI complaint against the University of Pennsylvania conflates disparate events as uniform examples of campus antisemitism. The letter notes recent disturbing attacks against Hillel, a Jewish student organization, including bomb threats and an instance in which a Penn student vandalized the Hillel building and yelled “fuck the Jews.” But the letter also highlights Penn’s “Palestine Writes” literature festival, condemning the September event’s inclusion of speakers “known for their aggressive stance against the Jewish State.”

In November 2022, the International Legal Forum, an Israel-based organization dedicated to “fighting legal battles against terror, antisemitism, and de-legitimization of Israel,” filed a Title VI complaint against the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, after nine student groups banned supporters of Zionism from speaking at their events. In its complaint, the group wrote, “Zionism is an integral and indispensable part of Jewish identity.”

Since its founding in 2001, StandWithUs, which is registered as a nonprofit under the name “Israel Emergency Alliance,” has launched efforts to oppose “anti-Israel bias” in libraries, supported anti-BDS laws, and encouraged supporters to buy Caterpillar stock amid scrutiny over the construction company’s role in Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes. The group recruits annual student fellows to serve as pro-Israel activists on American campuses nationwide and once invited Elvis Costello on a VIP trip in an attempt to convince the singer to change his mind about canceling concerts in Israel.

Last year, StandWithUs filed a Title VI complaint against George Washington University, after assistant professor of clinical psychology Lara Sheehi hosted a brown-bag lunch with a Palestinian professor, leading to a pressure campaign and an internal investigation that turned up nothing. “Many of the statements the complaint alleges were made by Dr. Sheehi were, according to those who heard them, either inaccurate or taken out of context and misrepresented,” the university said in a summary of its findings at the time, adding that Sheehi had “denounced antisemitism as a real and present danger” in classroom discussion. StandWithUs refuted this characterization. In February, Palestine Legal filed its own Title VI complaint against GWU for a “hostile environment of anti-Palestinian racism,” which cites the Sheehi case among others.

“The byproduct of all of this is that you have now a lot of obfuscation about what the meaning of antisemitism is and what constitutes antisemitism, which is very dangerous for Jewish students on campus,” said Saba. “It makes it much more difficult to be able to identify and work to eliminate real instances of antisemitism and threats to Jewish students, which tend to come from the political right.”

Meanwhile, many members of the Jewish community are resisting these groups’ efforts to conflate Judaism and Zionism, noting that their faith inspires resistance to injustice, not blanket support for a regime. 

“A lot of institutions across the country, and also at the university, have pushed this idea of a hegemonic Jewish community that all shares the same political beliefs,” said Rafi Ash, a Brown University sophomore who was one of 20 Jewish students arrested during a November sit-in at an administrative building organized by BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now. “We all have been kind of disturbed by the ways in which a Jewish identity has been twisted in a way that makes it political.”

While the Department of Education is expected to field a new influx of Title VI complaints from organizations representing Jewish students, Saba noted that groups like Palestine Legal have also filed complaints regarding instances of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic discrimination on campuses. The Department of Education has never made a finding of antisemitic or anti-Palestinian discrimination in any of its investigations so far, though that could soon change as the Israel–Hamas war puts Title VI in the limelight. The American Civil Liberties Union has begun to take legal action over the First Amendment rights of Palestinian solidarity protesters.

“We are in touch with many, many, many student groups across the country, and we are seeing a pattern of heightened scrutiny and suppression,” said Saba. “Fortunately, despite the mass suppressive effort, students are continuing to organize, continuing to speak out, and are refusing to be silenced. We’re seeing one of the largest upsurges in pro-Palestine organizing and demonstration that we’ve ever seen.”

[twenty-words-or-less]

Bones and All

Summary: A pair of young cannibals (Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet) go on a road trip across the country and fall in love along the way.

Beautifully bleak in visuals and sound, turned borderline tragic at end. Didn't feel chemistry between leads but rooted for them anyway.

Rating: 4.5/5

Photo credit: The Guardian

[sparksofcalliope]

Two Poems by David D. Horowitz

#poetry #poems #poetrylovers #SparksofCalliope #truth #rhyme

Substance Let every spammer, crook, and scammer Purvey false images of glamor, I still won’t trust them. To be sure, No person’s perfect, godly, pure, But honesty and truth still matter Far more than sales from phony patter. Snake oil sells, but truth’s the cure. Talk is Cheap As shadows coat the warehouse, pit bulls bark Behind steel, padlocked, folding safety gates; Spike-peaked rail fence;…

[cosmopoliteus]

#Piano Music for #Travel on #Spotify 🎹

[2ndaryprotocol]

#NowWatching Bones And All (2022) 🍖🔪💀

“𝙸 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞. 𝙸𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚏 𝙸'𝚖 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚘𝚛 𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝, 𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕 𝚒𝚝.”

[rookie-critic]

Bones and All (2022, dir. Luca Guadagnino) - review by Rookie-Critic

Bones and All is an odd one, and it is definitely not for everyone. I've heard every opinion under the sun about this one: it's incredibly gruesome, it's not that bad/I've seen worse, it's tonally inconsistent, it does a great job of balancing its contrasting tones, and on, and on, and on. My opinion is that it's pretty good. I feel that it mostly does a good job of balancing the tones of the gross-out gore and violence with the more standard YA romance beats, but there are times (especially the end) where things start to unravel and the performances feel like they're out of a cheap soap opera. This is strange and feels like a deliberate choice because for a lot of the movie the acting is really good. Timothée Chalamet in particular is very captivating. Taylor Russell, who plays the film's lead character Maren, does this crazy thing where it's almost like she goes dead inside when she needs to "feed." Her and Chalamet have great chemistry and their performances, for the most part, are fantastic. The cinematography and the production design are also remarkable, and for how ridiculous the plot seems when it's laid out plainly, these two aspects of the film make it seem surprisingly grounded.

Grungy middle America is on full display, and the road trip aspect of it all in conjunction with that stellar cinematography and production design allows the locales to almost become characters in the film as well. The movie works on a lot of levels, but its biggest flaw (outside of the ending hitting with a dull thud) is that I'm not entirely sure I know what the point of it all was. I've been told the book it's based on is supposed to be an LGBTQIA+ allegory, and I can see the correlations between a lot of the film's sequences and themes with that, but overall I just don't think it holds together very well when you start picking it apart (and you can definitely pick it apart). As far as the violence and gore goes, I'm sure a lot of people will have a hard time stomaching it, but if you're the kind of person who saw the trailer, understands what kind of film this is, and is still interested in watching it, chances are you've seen way worse than this. None of it particularly bothered me, and the most disturbing scene in the film is not disturbing because of anything having to do with the gore or violence of it. I'm not sure I can recommend this one fully; it's a little too niche for casual audiences and very in-between in its highly contrasting genres for, well, genre fans, so it's a little tough to place. For the most part, I did enjoy it, and I think there's enough to like here to justify a good score.

Score: 7/10

Currently on the absolute tail end of its theater run. You can purchase the movie on YouTube and it's also available for pre-order on DVD & Blu-ray through Warner Bros.

[sgiandubh]

No lies last forever, part 2: the (over)due confirmation

With the Happy Sad Confused Tenth Anniversary Live Special being made available online, I think all doubts have now been lifted about the entire Intergalactic Bullshit this fandom has been deliberately fed for years and years in a row, by a cheap, sad troll and his accomplice. Both imbeciles' determination being only matched by the cast's complete indifference to fandom drama and, as I already wrote (https://www.tumblr.com/sgiandubh/764711074507390976/no-lies-last-forever?source=share), ***'s incompetent, tone-deaf PR.

You can watch the entire recording here, by the way:

The part where S specifically addresses his (non-existent) 'friendship' with William Shatner has been explicitly planted by the end of Jack Quaid's dedicated segment. That it has been discussed and planned prior to the show is obvious. And this time, Josh Horowitz wasn't even subtle - he announced the topic way before it 'spontaneously' popped into the conversation (39:42):

Transcription follows:

Josh Horowitz (JH): 'So, what's the dream for further voiceover roles, do you want a Pixar movie, do you want Outlander -the cartoon, what do you want?'

[laughter throughout the panelists]

S: 'Oh, I'm a Star Trek fan, actually' [women in the audience boo and shout - I wonder why, seriously], 'I am a Star Trek fan, I grew up watching Next Gen, so maybe Below Decks is... come on, guys.. '

[Note: yeah, he's such a fan, he has no idea the correct name of the cartoon spin-off, in which Jack Quaid has a voiceover role, is Star Trek: Lower Decks]

JH: 'We'll get him out in a second' [note: Jack Quaid], we'll talk some Star Trek, amazing...'

See? Not even subtle, if you ask me. I think this is something S wanted out for a good while now. It doesn't erase or even ease the pain and the trauma brought to so many people in this fandom by a pair of idiotic bullies, but I think it was very brave of him and, at any rate, it's better later than never.

And so, I waited. And waited. And waited. And then, here it went (01: 02: 54):

JH (consulting notes):' Um, we also should mention Star Trek: Lower Decks, we talked Star Trek a little bit earlier...'

Jack Quaid (JQ):'And, by, the way, this is the last season of Lower Decks, but we would have loved to have you! What the fuck, I didn't know you watched the show! [inaudible, if someone caught it properly, something like 'that was so close', I'd love to know more and especially who said it - thank you] Unbelievable!'

S: ' That is so cool, man!'

JQ: 'Oh, thank you, dude! Oh, yeah, hey, let's get rendered (?), let's do this, we keep going, let's get him on, let's do it!'

JH: 'Isn't...isn't William Shatner a big Outlander fan? I feel like he is...'

S (very uneasy): 'Ah... erm... yeah... (scratches back of his head)...I hung out with him once, we went to his stables and I watched him like riding a horse and stuff.... And, I don't know, it was really weird, cause sometimes I wonder if I am speaking to him via messages and stuff, or if it's actually his assistant [JQ: 'oooh!'], I don't know...'

JQ: 'Does his assistant look a lot like him?'

S (chuckles): 'Kind of...Yeah, you can't tell them apart. Yeah, no, but I believe he was a fan, until he saw me ride'.

Despite the jocular tone, I think everything is pretty much clear, here. Definitely a prepared conversation, despite Horowitz's efforts to make it sound playful and spontaneous. Something he even took prior notes about and made sure to include in the panel - nothing more serious than that, in fact. As for the sad cretin mentioned there, what would be left to say... S sent the guy to Coventry in barely two phrases and actually poked fun at his appearance and demeanor ('you can't tell them apart'). So long for the fictional 'friendship' and 'communication' between S and The Assistant, so long for the braggadocio that horrible little man exhibited all the way, pretending he actually had a personal relationship with S (well, as we all see, he actually doesn't: he doesn't even have a name, in S's book, as acquaintances, let alone friends, do). His only claim to fame was what, in reality? Answering some X DMs sent by S to his employer? Hello? How about his threats, then? How about his repeated calumny of people he didn't even know, calling them 'crazies', 'in need of medical attention', etc?

And please, don't come after me with that sorry excuse that 'it's S's humor'. There was nothing humorous about it and I have proven it already.

I will leave you draw your own conclusions about the non existent friendship with Shatner, something that has probably been 'encouraged' ex nihilo by *** and taken to dramatic cheapness and conflict with and within this fandom by The Assistant himself, mainly, and his friend, the OG Troll. I do not remember hearing/seeing Shatner himself saying all those horrible things (please correct me if I am wrong), so until I am proven the contrary, it's only logical to have many thoughts and questions about these people's strange, very strange obsession with OL and its two main co-stars.

Not to mention the most idiotic threat I have ever read in this fandom. Something I fell upon by absolute chance this morning. I mean, I couldn't even believe people actually bought such primitive, kindergarten bullshit:

[July 29th, 2017]

' Do you still want OL to continue or not, people?'

Empty, illogical threats: why would *** cancel its actual cash cow show, just because two co-stars had something SO obvious, that people realized there was more than the official narrative to it? And what about the crazy story about Albrecht & co. investigating and allegedly menacing fans with going to court? Has this cretin ever realized the potential media scandal would have far outweighed the inanity of such a claim? That it could very well have a serious impact on ***'s company profile and future projects, even?

I really, really think both of these Unsavory Clowns should find another playground and another obsession to cling on (wasn't the first, would not be the last). Elsewhere. In a galaxy far, far away.

PS: Thank you, regular attendee who bravely spilled the tea and thank you, old shipper who came forward and confirmed. And many heartfelt thanks to all of you shippers, old and new, who also bravely stepped forward with their personal take on everything these two have done to this place.

Dare we hope this is the beginning of the end? What is sure, is that no lies last forever. Or as we say in Romanian: minciuna are picioare scurte și adevărul o ajunge/'a lie's got short legs and truth will always catch up with it'.

[Later edit]: edited to add a new, improved clip that actually does include the entire conversation.