'dynasty' continues to wind down what is now going to be its final season. wasn't planned that way but 'the cw' decided in may the show as canceled.
let's gripe about crapapedia:
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | Rank | Average viewers (in millions inc. DVR) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | |||||
| 1 | 22 | October 11, 2017 | May 11, 2018 | 145 | 1.00[4] | |
| 2 | 22 | October 12, 2018 | May 24, 2019 | 141 | 0.80[5] | |
| 3 | 20 | October 11, 2019 | May 8, 2020 | 133 | 0.59[6] | |
| 4 | 22 | May 7, 2021 | October 1, 2021 | 161 | 0.40[7] | |
| 5 | 22[8] | December 20, 2021 | September 30, 2022[9] | 140 | 0.39[10] | |
september 30, 2022? there is no way that crapapedia can tell us what the average viewers were for episodes that have not yet aired. the rank? for fall to spring, yes that was the show's rank. clearly many shows after the end of may.
crapapedia is crapapedia.
'dynasty' seems to be running in circles. excuse me. running and walking in circles.
michael got back the widow of the man and he and sam killed. remember that was already taken care of, he saw her, he realized it was too dangerous, it was over. until it wasn't. circles and circles. 'the girl's in circles and circles and circles again' - as tori amos sings.
but, hey, we moved forward!
no, we didn't. the episode ended with him realizing he needed to ... break it off.
to get there we had to have blake and ben in court against each other. alexis, using joseph's diary, was able to provide the note ben left when he was supposed to be watching their mother. she dies that night, if you've missed the last 4 episodes, and blake blames him for leaving her alone and he has maintained he left blake a note.
alexis takes the stand and talks about his cheating and every thing else and how he leaves that night to be with his mistress. and fallon's furious at blake - while dominique provides the lony life in these dull court scenes by interrupting repeatedly to fashion and model outfits for the press.
the note jogs something in fallon's mind. she takes the stand at her own orders. she explains that she and steven were scared that night and that they left a note for blake on the back of ben's note. the judge says nice story but there's no note from stephen on it. fallon explains her brother was in his 'harriet the spy' mode and used a stylus, she grabs a marker and lightly goes over the back of it and steven's message appears. blake never saw the note.
kirby stands up and explains alexis didn't have the note, she stole it with the diary that kirby's father kept. alexis admits she may have embellished her testimony.
the judge tells ben that he did leave a note as he had maintained. but it was his responsibility to make sure blake saw it before ben left. she calls the mother's death a tragedy. but ben's getting no money.
adam is now dating fallon's pregnant surrogate. fallon catches them fully clothed on a bed watching a movie.
liam is struggling to write. 1 student he's assigned can't write. he just needs a piece of fiction to turn in to get his father off his back. finally, liam writes it for him. he turns the story into his professor - liam's mentor. the professor talks about how the kid finished the assignment but how bad the story was.
liam now doubts his abilities.
i guess that's why we had crystal with dominique when dom got the news that the airline went with her for the fashion contract. dom had also given crystal advice. crystal couldn't believe some of the things blake had done - things that came out during the trial. dom said she had a relationship with her kids because they were able to see the woman she has become and not just the woman she was.
crystal goes back to the mansion and she and blake make up. he's surprised that dominique, his 1/2 sister, is the 1 who made his case for him. ben shows up and blake tells him that he wants ben to move to atlanta and for them to work on their relationship. ben vows revenge, insults blake, insults the child the surrogate is carrying for fallon and storms out.
kirby burned joseph's diary in front of blake, she said michael made her promise she would (michael helped her get it back from alexis - he knew alexis' hiding place). michael and kirby talked and she talked about how secrets always come out. which michael is thinking about when on the date with the widow so he lies and tells her that his old girlfriend came back to town and he's sleeping with her. the widow leaves. the relationship is over. until the lazy writers need to fill space again.
sam pats michael on the shoulder after the woman leaves.
i think that was the whole episode.
best characters: dominique, michael, adam and kirby.
worst used in the episode: fallon, alexis and sammy jo (sammy was great in his brief moments, he was barely on though).
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Hundreds of Democratic candidates on federal ballots this November have tethered themselves to President Joe Biden’s political fortunes. The Democrats’ chances of keeping a majority in the U.S. House and Senate have been as weak as he is.
According to new polls, Biden has now become a first-term lame duck. Since he will not be the party’s standard-bearer in 2024, Democratic Congressional candidates can focus on winning in 2020 even if it means straying from Biden’s policies.
1. New polls
The President’s current job approval rating is down to 38.4%, from 55.8% on Inauguration Day.
A bracing new Harvard-Harris Poll finds that registered voters have now written Biden off, with 60% having “doubts about his fitness for office,” 64% saying he is “showing he is too old to be president,” and 71% concluding he “should not run for a second term.”
2. Getting worse
Things are likely to get worse as the midterm elections approach. Of course, every consumer purchase brings new evidence of inflation. Within a few weeks, we may be in a recession, too. The U.S. economy shrank by 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank is projecting another drop, of 2.1%, when second quarter estimates come out on July 28. When the economy declines for two quarters in a row, a recession has begun, according to the common rule of thumb.
Registered voters see inflation as the “most important issue facing the country today,” and only 28% approve of Biden’s job performance at handling inflation, according to the Harvard-Harris poll.
These findings should not come as a surprise. Instead of tackling inflation, Biden has spent months trying to blame a certain someone for it.
Asked about rising anger at his inaction, President Joe Biden dismissed the critics: "I'm the only president they got," he snapped.
Joe might want to reflect on the vibrant history of American democracy: If leaders don't lead, the people will, even if that means getting a new president.
It's a serious handicap for an elected leader to be considered a lame duck. Far worse, though, for the "leader" to be considered just plain lame.
He has tumbled into both ditches of lameness and lame duck. He set himself up for lame duckism in the 2020 race by promising voters that he would merely be "a bridge, not... anything else." He portrayed himself as a trusted, bipartisan inside player, an interim senior statesman who would calmly pilot the ship of state from Trump's bombast to wherever, whatever and whomever was next. Now, just a year and a half into his presidency, the duckism syndrome has kicked in, and he's scrambling to insist that he's still the president and making plans to run again in 2024. But that only highlights Biden's chief flaw: his inherent lameness.
He's playing president rather than being one. Take his embarrassingly meek response to the Supreme Court's six partisan extremists who just nullified the fundamental freedom of all women in America to control their own bodies. Biden called the court's dictate "terrible," but what did he do? His first "action" was to send out a fundraising mailing asking for $15 donations to reelect Democrats. Then he flew off on a four-day trip to Europe. Roundly condemned for being AWOL, he belatedly held a press conference in Spain, calling the Court's attack on women "destabilizing." Gosh, Joe -- so harsh! Then he called on Congress to do something.
But wait -- aren't you the president?
The US Senate could flip Republican in November, if retired football star Herschel Walker defeats incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock. Walker was in the lead until recent revelations that he has several unacknowledged children, despite railing against fathers who don’t fulfill their parental responsibilities.
Warnock is now holding a 10 percent lead four months ahead of the election. However, now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, Georgia is about to enact a bill banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, and it will no doubt become a contentious issue in this race, with Warnock backing womens’ right to choose and Walker backing states’ right to choose.
With the Senate majority and now the possibility of somehow restoring abortion rights at stake, the race is attracting national attention and record-breaking amounts of money. With the Senate majority and now the possibility of somehow restoring abortion rights at stake, the race is attracting national attention and record-breaking amounts of money.
I spoke with Ethiopian American activist Tsehai Alemayehu about how he thinks his community will vote this time.
***
Ann Garrison: Tsehai, can you tell us about the Ethiopian American community’s relationship to the Democratic Party and to Joe Biden and Senator Raphael Warnock in particular?
Tsehai Alemayehu: The Ethiopian and Eritrean American community here in Georgia, like most immigrants everywhere, have traditionally supported the Democratic Party. I have personally been a Democrat for all the many years I’ve lived in this country and have always voted Democratic. And during the 2020 election, we organized our communities to support the Biden campaign and to support the Senatorial campaigns of Reverend Warnock and Jon Ossoff as well. So we thought, given our work, and given the results that we delivered to the Democratic Party, that we would have great supporting relationships going forward. Unfortunately, once this gentleman got into office, when trouble started in Ethiopia and we sought support for our issues, they turned their backs on us. So we haven’t had much of a relationship with Senator Warnock or President Biden since the 2020 election, not since they took office.
And in fairness, because we are a small Georgia group here, our relationship with Joe Biden would have been through our elected representatives rather than directly with the White House. We don’t have lobbyists. We only use our voices and the voices of our representatives to speak with the White House. And of course, like I said, the main actors, Senator Warnock and Senator Ossoff, whom we contributed to electing into office, were not willing to speak on our behalf with the Biden administration.
AG: Did you attempt to meet with Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock?
TA: Yes, we did. We spent many, many, many months trying to meet with Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock. We have spoken many times with their staffers, first in Washington, actually, in the case of Ossoff, only with his staffers in Washington and the local office. In the case of Senator Warnock, we have spoken to his Senatorial staff, as well as with his campaign staff. We have also met with Senator Warnock himself on two different occasions.
AG: And what happened in Ethiopia after the election that made you seek their help?
TA: In the first hours of November 3, 2020, which was election day in the US, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had been removed from power just a couple of years earlier, declared war and attacked the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), who were stationed with in Tigray. And initially, the Ethiopian government organized a response, and fairly quickly, the TPLF leadership was chased out of the main urban centers. And it looked like the war was quickly over. So in December, January, February, we had no reason to worry about the issues across Ethiopia. And we had no reason to speak with our representatives to develop policy in support of Ethiopia.
AG: And what happened then? Why did you then need the support of the Biden administration and your representatives, your senators?
TA: So a number of things happened. On the warfront, the TPLF—with the support of many of its sponsors, which, to our regret, include the United States—were able to dislodge the Ethiopian National Defense Force from Tigray. And when they crossed over into Amhara and Afar territories, in town after town, they committed gross human rights violations and war crimes. They engaged in public mass rape of men, women and children, entirely designed to dehumanize, humiliate, and break the fighting spirits of people.
We engaged our representatives, asking and expecting that they would condemn these inhumane acts and persuade the Biden Administration to condemn TPLF and use its influence to rein in that organization. We spent months, first just trying to get audiences, and then to educate staffers and legislators about what was going on in Ethiopia.
To the contrary, right about that time, the State Department was engaged in pronouncements of its support for the TPLF. Going a step further, the State Department issued daily threats against the government of Ethiopia, the Amhara and Afar state governments, and even the peoples of Amhara and Afar. The State Department was insisting that the TPLF should have a free run of the house not only in Tigray, but also in Amhara and Afar Regions. Neither the people of Afar and Amhara, nor the ENDF, were supposed to defend themselves and their fellow citizens from the TPLF.
And we were first confused as to why exactly this was happening, how could pursuing this line of policy possibly advance the interest of the United States. We were appealing to our Senators and Congressmen to please listen to us to learn what exactly is going on. We tried to educate these men in the recent history of Ethiopia believing that their positions arose from ignorance. We spent nearly six months pursuing this dead end strategy. But none of them were anxiously awaiting to hear from us. Not our senators and not the White House.
It was as if the Biden administration had decided it would have the final say as to how Ethiopia governs itself, and the US’s preferred Ethiopian partner would be the TPLF. We tried to tell all within earshot how dangerous that line of thinking is. But we were rebuffed at every turn.
Biden’s effort to portray the war in Vietnam as a noble cause, “to defend our nation and our values,” is a travesty. Vietnam was 8,000 miles from the United States. No Vietnamese was engaged in threatening the United States, and most Americans had never heard of Vietnam before the Kennedy administration began the US intervention in that country’s civil war.
Nearly 60,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam, compared to at least two million Vietnamese. Of the Americans, one third were actual draftees, while many others were National Guard and Reserve soldiers or “volunteers” who joined a specific military service rather than be drafted and take their chances on what the Pentagon would choose to do with them.
Biden chose to honor the four Vietnam veterans, and through them, rehabilitate the war itself, only a few weeks after he signed a massive spending bill bringing total US military and economic aid to Ukraine to more than $60 billion. The United States and its NATO allies are for all intents and purposes at war with Russia, in a conflict whose escalation could well lead to direct combat between US and Russian troops. This war will continue, according to Biden, “as long as it takes.”
Under such conditions, the White House feels it necessary to bury the collective memory of the Vietnam War, and particularly the mass popular opposition to the innumerable crimes of American imperialism which were exposed at that time. Instead, the Vietnam War is being treated as one more example of the nobility and heroism of America’s military operations overseas.
A member of the committee, Representative Aref Al-Hamami, told the Iraqi News Agency (INA): "It was agreed within the parliament to collect signatures after returning to session to legislate a law prohibiting homosexuality in Iraq."
He added that "legislation of such a law will be reinforced by legal provisions that prevent homosexuality and the perversions associated with it."
The leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, had earlier proposed that there be a special day against homosexuality .
Iraq’s Coordination Framework, a pro-Iran Shia alliance, faces disagreements among its ranks on who should be the next prime minister, as a large faction seems keen on avoiding a confrontation with populist leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
Local media reporst indicate that there are five figures vying for the post. However, Iraqi experts believe that competition is virtually limited to the leader of the State of Law coalition, former prime minister and vice-president, Nuri al-Maliki and the former minister of labour and social affairs, Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani.
Those experts say that an agreement could be reached soon on Sudani’s nomination to avoid a consequent political confrontation with the leader of the Sadrist movement, Moqtada Al-Sadr, who strongly opposes the return of Maliki to the premiership. Sadr could also use the street again to topple the government and call for new elections.
Observers believe that the nomination of former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, as well as the current Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, was merely a manoeuvre aimed at indirectly blocking Maliki’s bid.
The leaders of the Coordination Framework intend to hold wide discussions on a list of candidates before agreeing on a personality that meets their requirements.
Their agreement is almost certain to end the ongoing political crisis that has followed last October’s parliamentary elections.
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