Beans and the Boys
Series Review: Citadel (Prime)
I watched the first two episodes. The acting isn’t bad, the casting isn’t bad, the cinematography is good, but the storyline is stupid. Will I watch episode 3? Doubtful.
Night Agent (Netflix)
FBI Agent Peter Sutherland is thrown into a vast conspiracy about a mole at the highest levels of the United States government. To save the nation, he plunges into a desperate hunt for the traitor, while protecting ex-CEO Rose Larkin from the people who murdered her aunt and uncle. It’s not a bad series. I’ve made it through three episodes without casting it aside. It’s no more believable than Citadel, and the talent casting (beyond the two leads) could have been more creative, but they’re on budget.
Identify the Inverted Tank
There are clues – be careful, but you can get it.
The Swamp didn’t like this
No FOIA for YOU!
The watchdog group Judicial Watch says the Dept. of Justice is refusing to release names of staffers working in the office of the Special Counsel in charge of two investigations targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Dec. 9, 2022 for public records including all staff rosters, phone lists, or similar records depicting all employees hired by or detailed to the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The Justice Department responded on April 12, reporting Judicial Watch, stating that it located records responsive to the request, but was withholding them “pursuant to Exemptions 6 and 7(A)” of FOIA:
Exemption 6 pertains to information the release of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
Exemption 7(A) pertains to records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, the release of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.
The federal government frequently violates the Freedom of Information Act law. Any claimed exemptions are supposed to be interpreted narrowly with all non-exempt portions promptly produced.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November to take over two investigations involving Trump, who is running for re-election in 2024.
The first investigation involves Trump’s handling of documents he retained at his Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence after leaving the White House in January 2021. Trump says he used his presidential authority to declassify the records in question, but the FBI used a SWAT style raid to confiscate them.
The second investigation regards Trump’s challenge of the 2020 presidential election results, which allegedly included a plan to submit separate slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Trump’s supporters say planning to submit different electors is entirely legal and permitted, particularly since fraud was suspected.
Previous Judicial Watch and other investigations of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team highlighted anti-Trump bias and partisan hiring.
FBI official Peter Strzok was secretly removed from Mueller’s team after his anti-Trump and political text messages were uncovered.
One can only conclude, after seeing the uproar over the anti-Trump, partisan Mueller operation, that the Garland Justice Department has something to hide about Jack Smith and his prosecutors again targeting Trump and other Republicans with unprecedented investigations. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith isn’t above the law and the American people have the right to basic transparency and accountability.
Link to Judicial Watch FOIA here.
Worth 1000 words
Identify the Inverted Tank:
Panzer 38(t)
That was actually a lot easier than LL meant it to be. The large road wheels and obvious Czeck design make it a 38(t) rather than a 35(t) (which would have smaller double-bogie wheel sets).
Much better tank than the equivalent German one. Faster, better armed, better armor, better layout.
And it’s obviously the tank (turreted version) rather than a casement anti-tank vehicle (the Hetzer) or some semi-armored SPG.
Had a model of one of the 38(t)s. Nice little tank
Yes!
Hi Surly, I’m late to the game because of work issues. On the 28th, you identified the plane as a Tu-126 Moss. I thought it was a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, but I could be wrong.
The plane behind the tail of the Tu-126 is a Skyhawk.
Dang it! Road wheels give it away. No sloped armor so can’t be Hetzer.
For me, casting, acting, camera work, etc., are just means to an end. If you don’t have a story to tell or something to show, it’s not worth my time. Good acting and directing can get a story over some hurdles*, but a plot that requires the supposed expert to make a rookie mistake, for example, is too much. *My instance is Laurene Olivier facing the camera and yanking me into the film of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
May I be the skeptical bent down centurion in Bean’s Passion play?
Once again, I’m more 11th Century Mormon, so the only Passion Play would be the Battle of the Mountain in Italy when Normans, Italo-Normans and Siculo-Normans faced off against Lombards, Byzantines and muslim mercenaries. The Normans were losing, bigly, until they got ready for one more FU cavalry charge, then a host of horsemen, wearing white cloaks and white shields (along with armor and clothing) rode into the mass of Normans, joined ranks and then the whole mass charged. Normans won, the white riders rode off into the sky.
Now that’s a passion play. Surprised it hasn’t been made into a movie, but then again, most Normanish things haven’t.
Alluding to my earlier comment in a earlier post, I may adapt that persona of a aged pimp hustling for change to supplement my meager pensioner living… I was a charge nurse with a stable typically of eight to ten female nurses that I was in charge of and could order about. I understand they can make up to $30,000 tax free dollars a year if they are working a lucrative corner and have a good hustle.
It’s all in the product and the marketing.
I’ll mail you a crust of bread, Cederq…
You are merciful, LL.
Ah, Nutflix, won’t support them, nosiree. Barely support scAmazon, barely. Their “Reacher” series was excellent and the coply action wasn’t half-bad.
And that’s the key, have to be decent and believable, or so over-the-top it’s farcicle (like “Police Squad” with Leslie Nielson.)
Which is why Mrs. Andrew and I only made it through 3 episodes of “Will Trent” before just bailing. Spoiler Alert: Said Det. Trent has dyslexia if not actually illiterate. Yeah, right, a dyslexic cop. In Atlanta, who isn’t a POC. (in Atlanta, there’s only one type of POC if you know what I mean.) Right…
Now “So Help Me, Todd” is better. It doesn’t take itself seriously and is actually well written. Though the last episode, about a condemned killer who is black, started with ‘more black people on death row because of racism blah blah blah’ and ‘you can’t get the death penalty just from pushing someone down the stairs’ which are both incorrect. Firstus, more blacks are on death row because more blacks commit first degree murder. Secundus, if you push someone down the stairs after planning and with malice aforethought, then that is the very definition of First Degree or Capital Murder. I’ll give the show two more strikes before bailing.
Good luck getting a FOIA out of anybody today… grrr… Re the last two, ‘figures’… LOL
x2
“… but the FBI used a SWAT style raid to confiscate them.”
A “raid” totally for political optics to obfuscate the Biden and Obama felonious document handling, especially when one looks at the open dialog and inspections that had occurred just prior (that “might want to put an extra lock on that door” request). But hey, Biden said the despicable Afghan withdrawal was Trump’s plan and that was bought as gospel.
What do you do with a legal FOIA when the lawless in Gov’t basically flip you the bird?
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…”
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Andrew Jackson, 7th President of these here United States, may have said that.
x2 to you both.
Like everyone else I have no crystal ball, thought things would not, could not, get worse from 3 years ago. But we’re there. I think back to my childhood growing up 15 minutes from where Washington crossed the Delaware, Colonial epicenter…a carefree childhood with a bright future knowing without any doubt that our basic Freedoms and Tenets would NEVER be taken down, especially by any American.
Now look where we are. I fear (not “fear” but more “royally frosted”) these reprobates and evil-doers are willfully forcing us back to King George-level British rule, only morphed to Marxism. “We” left England for a reason. Now these pieces of human debris are demanding we return. Gas ranges in NY?? Yeah, way off the rails. Friggin’ morons, most of whom have no clue how to plug their beloved “planet saving” EV into the wall recharge receptacle without electrocuting themselves and burning the house down.
They seek for no more than to control us.
To make us accept their doctrine.
Their god.
Hegelianism, Marxism, Cultural Marxism, Sexual Liberation, Feminism, Intersectionality, Gender Ideology, Critical Race Theory, Climate Panic Ideology, Diversity, Globalism, and the Great Reset, which currently are gathered under the rubric of “Wokeness” share essential properties in common, and spring from a common tradition.
Wokeness is Witchcraft. It is modern Gnosticism.
A word of clarity is in order:
Roughly speaking, philosophy can be defined as the attempt to avoid the magical thinking that is native, natural, and endemic to mankind.
Magical thinking urges the mind to grasp mystical intuitions as if confirmed, to affirm tribal traditions as if divinely authorized, to conflate symbol and reality. Roughly speaking, witchcraft is the belief that manipulating the symbol manipulates reality: magic words make the spoken curse come to pass, or striking pins into a voodoo doll afflict the living victim whose image it bears.
Hence magic essentially is the vainglorious assumption of divine prerogatives: It is the claim that Man has godlike sovereignty over the elements of nature and the course of destiny. Magical thinking flatters and inflates pride.
—
Theology is reasoning about religion, but it is not religion. Religion is keeping faith with the revelations of divine and sovereign being, including such sacrifices, rites, laws, and moral principles as divine commandments establish. Religion, in a word, is obedience to the supreme being, loyalty, and filial piety offered to sovereign and perfect reality, perfect mercy, goodness, justice, and love.
We were enjoying Citadel, but it requires a Yuge suspension of disbelief.
Yuge.
Night Agent
They’re only looking for one traitor in D.C.?
Are they blind?
-Kle.
Trying to find a needle in a stack of needles…
These times can be tough for Ex Pimps. The gas prices are too high to afford to deliver the Ho’s to the Johns, and too expensive for the Johns to come to them.
(This was cleaned up for some readers.)
Thanks for the review on the Citadel. I almost started in on it but wasn’t sure about starting another series.
Citadel- Looked at the trailer, MrsPaulM said, “Looks lame” (or words to that affect).
These “other” series shows on Prime got in front of Reacher S2 release because – according to someone who apparently knows – the shows are similar and would compete. Pretty sure us viewers don’t care about marginal competition and want them to get on with releasing R-S2.
Great photo of Beans and his crew, nice one.