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Judge Allows ‘Mandalorian’ Actress to Proceed With Disney Lawsuit After Being Fired for Nazi Germany Comments
Gina Carano as Cara Dune in “The Mandalorian” season two, exclusively on Disney+. Photo: Disney+
A US federal judge ruled on Wednesday that actress Gina Carano can proceed with her lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm, which fired her from the Disney+ television series “The Mandalorian” because of a social media post that compared political differences in the US to what Jews experienced in Nazi Germany.
“I look forward to this case moving forward and proving Disney’s blatant discriminatory actions,” Carano said after leaving court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
“Disney should not have carte blanch authority to fire any actor just because Disney disagrees with something they say outside of work,” she added. “No actor would be free to have a voice if that were true.”
US District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in Los Angeles ignored efforts by Disney lawyer Daniel Petrocelli to dismiss the lawsuit. Petrocelli claimed Disney has the “right not to associate with a high-profile performer on a high-profile show who’s imbuing” the Star Wars-based series with “views it disagrees with,” which could result in fans turning away from the show. He argued that Disney has the First Amendment right to sever ties with an employee who does not share the company’s values, even if the move violates state anti-discrimination laws. Disney purchased Lucasfilm, started by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, in 2012.
“I’m not convinced there are no disputed facts,” Judge Garnett said in response to Petrocelli’s argument. The judge referred to allegations made by Carano that she was fired in 2021 to draw attention away from some of the controversies Disney was involved in at the time, including its contract dispute with actress Scarlett Johansson and critique of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act.
Carano starred as bounty hunter Cara Dune in the first two seasons of “The Mandalorian.” She was not under contract to appear in the third season of the show, according to court records.The actress claims in her lawsuit, which has received funding from X/Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk, that she was wrongfully terminated and discriminated against when she was fired from “The Mandalorian” in 2021 for expressing personal views on social media that Disney did not support.
Lucasfilms, which co-produces “The Mandalorian,” announced Carano’s firing after the former mixed martial arts fighter shared a post on social media that said: “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”
Disney argued that the state cannot force employers engaged in “expressive activity,” like Disney and LucasFilms, to work with someone who allegedly hinders its ability to properly express its values. Petrocelli claimed that the First Amendment entitles Disney to take action to make sure “The Mandalorian” is not associated with views that it and many viewers might find offensive and contrary to the company’s message.
“The messenger is part of the message,” Petrocelli said. “Imagine she made comments that she hates Jews or that there was no Holocaust.”
A final ruling in the lawsuit has not been made yet. Disney has not publicly commented on Garnett’s decision on Wednesday not to dismiss the lawsuit.
The post Judge Allows ‘Mandalorian’ Actress to Proceed With Disney Lawsuit After Being Fired for Nazi Germany Comments first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Benjamin Netanyahu was burned in effigy on the streets of Montreal during a Friday night riot
Justin Trudeau condemned for subsequently attending a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto.
The post Benjamin Netanyahu was burned in effigy on the streets of Montreal during a Friday night riot appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Report: IDF targets Hezbollah chief in Beirut
Illustrative. Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Hadath, Lebanon October 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
JNS.org – A massive explosion in a building in Beirut on Saturday killed 11 people and wounded dozens in what Arab media said was a failed Israeli attempt to kill Hezbollah’s head of operations, Muhammad Haydar.
Israel did not immediately claim responsibility specifically for the explosion early on Saturday in the eight-story building in the Lebanese capital’s Basta neighborhood. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said only that Israel struck an unspecified target in Beirut, the fourth strike in the city in a week.
Basta is situated in the city’s center. The bulk of Israel’s strikes in Beirut have been in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, a Hezbollah stronghold in the city’s south.
Lebanese media reported that at least 63 people were wounded in the strike.
Avihai Edraei, the head of the Arabic-language department of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, posted a tweet on X on Saturday calling on residents of Dahiyeh to evacuate their homes. They are living near Hezbollah installations, he said, against which “the IDF will act in the near future.”
The targets of Saturday’s strikes “were located by Hezbollah in the heart of the civilian population. Prior to the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians,” the IDF wrote in a statement. A headquarters, a weapons depot, “and additional Hezbollah terror infrastructures” were attacked, the statement said.
According to Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, Israel has killed 2,450 terrorists in Lebanon and Syria. Lebanese health authorities said that 3,365 people have died in strikes by Israel. Those data do not distinguish between terrorists and civilians. On the Israeli side, terrorists have killed 121 people, with 76 of them being soldiers.
The post Report: IDF targets Hezbollah chief in Beirut first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Troubling Details Emerge About Disappearance of Chabad Rabbi, Inaction of UAE Authorities
Zvi Kogan. Photo: LinkedIn via i24 News
i24 News – i24NEWS learned chilling details about the disappearance of Chabad emissary Zvi Kogan, who went missing last week in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Kogan did not show up for scheduled meetings he had during the day. After he failed to make contact, his wife contacted the security officer of the Chabad house, who alerted the local authorities. Information about the incident was also shared with the Israeli authorities.
Kogan disappeared from a location about an hour and a half from Dubai. i24NEWS can report that complaints were made to both the Dubai Police and the Abu Dhabi Police on Thursday, yet no actions were taken by either.
i24NEWS also became privy to the information that although Kogan’s car got a speeding ticket on its way to Oman, in this case too the authorities in the Emirates and Oman did nothing.
i24NEWS can also confirm that there is tremendous anger in Israel at the Emiratis, who did not respond to the suspicious signs and did not act in time. In fact, actions were only taken after the intervention of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
The story has troubling echoes of the abduction by Iranians of German-Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd; he was kidnapped from Dubai to Iran via Oman and was eventually executed.
The post Troubling Details Emerge About Disappearance of Chabad Rabbi, Inaction of UAE Authorities first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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