Coming Attractions: Love, Simon

Due out in March:

New gay film Love, Simon has released its first trailer – and it promises a rollercoaster of emotions.

The young adult dramedy, which is set to come out in March next year, tracks Simon, a 17-year-old high school student who has not come out to any of his friends and family.

Based on Becky Albertalli’s book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the blockbuster will see Simon – played by US actor Nick Robinson – come of age as he comes out.

Some of the reactions:

There are more at the link.

And the trailer is very well done -- one of the few that doesn't turn me off to the film.



What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, I realize it's Thursday, but there were -- let's call them "technical difficulties" -- and the "What's New" post for Sunday didn't publish.

But all's better now -- almost -- so here's a catch-up:

The Gypsy tradition of Serbian music, Kurdish pop, Music from Nightnoise, Hot Cocoa, Classic Fairy Tales, Slipstream, and It’s Snowing!

More PC Horsepucky (Updated)

(Note: the updates are additional comments that occurred to me on rereading this piece, as part of the text.)

My reaction to this story is to make a point of seeing any film that has Armie Hammer in the cast:

Hollywood star Armie Hammer has deactivated his Twitter account following a shade-filled thinkpiece that questioned his entire career.

While generating Oscar hype about his new film, gay romantic drama Call Me By Your Name, Hammer hit back against the negative article. . . .

The actor was responding to an essay on BuzzFeed, titled Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen.

The article’s author, Anne Peterson, challenged Hammer’s career as “a beautiful, pedigreed white man” which afforded him opportunities to safely fail and bounce back.

This, I think, tells you all you need to know about the article:

But Hollywood would never give up on a guy that handsome, that tall, that white, with a jaw that square.

It's a hit piece, no more, no less, that goes to all sorts of places that have nothing to do with Hammer as an actor. The author really seems to resent the fact that Hammer comes from money (his grandfather was oil tycoon Armand Hammer) and keeps coming back to it, making the point over and over again that he's a "rich asshole," in spite of all the comments from people who actually know him that he's not.

Apparently, from some of the comments, it's intended to be a piece about white male power and privilege in Hollywood. What it is is a mean-spirited attack on one man. Frankly, if you want to do a piece on white male power and privilege in Hollywood, do a piece on white male power and privilege in Hollywood. It's not that hard to figure out. (The author, by the way, has a Ph.D. from the University of Texas and wrote her dissertation on the gossip industry. Maybe that explains why the "think piece" is so shallow.)

I've only seen Man From U.N.C.L.E., of Hammer's previous work, and he was more than adequate as Ilya Kuriakin. Not brilliant, maybe, but good. To blame the movie's failure on casting Hammer and Henry Cavill (whom she characterizes as "a junior-varsity Tom Cruise") as the leads, rather than a script that simply wasn't up to snuff, seems to be a case of bending reality to suit one's agenda. (Cavill, by the way, has a history in film and television going back to the beginning of the millennium.)

Footnote: This is exactly the kind of response I'd expect from someone defending the article:

Trans.: It's about me! It's always about ME ME ME!

And of course, given the tenor of this piece (thesis: "White straight man bad"), I would guess that if the author did write a piece on an actor or actress of color, the subject would need no defending.

Ironically enough, someone made the point just before this tweet appears in the article that Hammer has devoted a lot of energy to supporting black and gay filmmakers.

Footnote 2: Inevitably, director Luis Guadagnino is asked to justify not casting gay actors. It's a criticism leveled at everyone who does a gay-oriented story using straight actors, from those who don't seem to see the logical conclusion: if sexual orientation is a requirement for acting a particular role, then no gay actors should ever be cast as straight characters, right? (And of course, the point is, they're actors: they make their living making us believe they're someone else.)

OK -- that's all the political correctness I can handle right now.

Antidote: New Zealand Cops

Been under the weather for a few days, but this lightened up my morning:

Today's Must-Read: The Internet For Sale

If FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has his way:

Net-neutrality protections assure that the essential democratic discourse on the World Wide Web cannot be bartered off to the highest bidders of a billionaire class that dominates the political debate on so many other media platforms.

Citizens love net neutrality. “The overwhelming majority of people who wrote unique comments to the Federal Communications Commission want the FCC to keep its current net neutrality rules and classification of ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act,” Ars Technica reported in August. How overwhelming? “98.5% of unique net neutrality comments oppose Ajit Pai’s anti–Title II plan,” read the headline.

The media monopolists of the telecommunications industry hate net neutrality. They have worked for years to overturn guarantees of an open Internet because those guarantees get in their way of their profiteering. If net neutrality is eliminated, they will restructure how the Internet works, creating information superhighways for corporate and political elites and digital dirt roads for those who cannot afford the corporate tolls.

It's part and parcel of Trump's agenda: Dismantle America and hand the pieces over to the "right people."

Read the whole thing. And call your congresscritter.

Via Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Today's Must-Read: No Secrets

Between our president and our enemies, at least. Here's a really scary article by Howard Blum at Vanity Fair on Trump blowing the Israelis' cover.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on May 10th, 2017.

By Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/Getty Images.

On a dark night at the tail end of last winter, just a month after the inauguration of the new American president, an evening when only a sickle moon hung in the Levantine sky, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters flew low across Jordan and then, staying under the radar, veered north toward the twisting ribbon of shadows that was the Euphrates River. On board, waiting with a professional stillness as they headed into the hostile heart of Syria, were Sayeret Matkal commandos, the Jewish state’s elite counterterrorism force, along with members of the technological unit of the Mossad, its foreign-espionage agency. Their target: an ISIS cell that was racing to get a deadly new weapon thought to have been devised by Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Saudi national who was al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker in Yemen.

It was a covert mission whose details were reconstructed for Vanity Fair by two experts on Israeli intelligence operations. It would lead to the unnerving discovery that ISIS terrorists were working on transforming laptop computers into bombs that could pass undetected through airport security. U.S. Homeland Security officials—quickly followed by British authorities—banned passengers traveling from an accusatory list of Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptops and other portable electronic devices larger than a cell phone on arriving planes. It would not be until four tense months later, as foreign airports began to comply with new, stringent American security directives, that the ban would be lifted on an airport-by-airport basis.

In the secretive corridors of the American espionage community, the Israeli mission was praised by knowledgeable officials as a casebook example of a valued ally’s hard-won field intelligence being put to good, arguably even lifesaving, use.

Yet this triumph would be overshadowed by an astonishing conversation in the Oval Office in May, when an intemperate President Trump revealed details about the classified mission to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Sergey I. Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Along with the tempest of far-reaching geopolitical consequences that raged as a result of the president’s disclosure, fresh blood was spilled in his long-running combative relationship with the nation’s clandestine services. Israel—as well as America’s other allies—would rethink its willingness to share raw intelligence, and pretty much the entire Free World was left shaking its collective head in bewilderment as it wondered, not for the first time, what was going on with Trump and Russia. (In fact, Trump’s disturbing choice to hand over highly sensitive intelligence to the Russians is now a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia, both before and after the election.) In the hand-wringing aftermath, the entire event became, as is so often the case with spy stories, a tale about trust and betrayal.

Since I'm feeling charitable this morning, I'll just note that I don't believe Trump was purposely undermining Israeli (and Western) intelligence efforts in the Middle East (although he's repeatedly shown that he has no love for the intelligence community). It's that he's a show off ("Looky what I got!"), pathologically insecure, completely ignorant of foreign affairs, has no concept of consequences -- that there even are such things -- and fairly stupid.

And he's managed to do incalculable damage to our intelligence efforts.

Read the whole thing. It's appalling.

Via Balloon Juice.

Antidote: One Good Turn. . . .

One of those stories that shores up my faith in people:

Johnny Bobbitt Jr pictures with Kate McClure and her boyfriend Mark D'Amico https://t.co/odCGDwF63u pic.twitter.com/k1nDNQiGTt

— infowe (@infowe) November 23, 2017

Kate McClure, 27, who was helped by a homeless Marine named Johnny Bobbitt Jr. last month when her car ran out of gas while driving towards Philadelphia, raised more than $100,000 for the Marine through a GoFundMe donation page.

According to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer, McClure was driving on the southbound I-95 road which goes towards Philadelphia to meet a friend when her car started to choke because it ran out of gas. She pulled on to a nearby exit ramp and just made it to the bottom. It was around 11 p.m. local time, it was dark and she was reportedly alone.

According to the report McClure, who works for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, said, "My heart was beating out of my chest. I didn’t know what the heck to do."

She then called up her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, 38, who told her that he will come to get her. At that moment, Bobbitt Jr. came towards her and told her to sit inside the car and lock the doors and said that he will be spending his last $20 to buy gas for her, from a few blocks away.

Read the whole thing. And Happy Thanksgiving.

Wrong Question

Digby seems to be making a connection -- or trying to -- between Eastern European origins and sympathy for Nazis:

A Minnesota man accused of committing war crimes when he commanded a Nazi-led unit during World War II contributed thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee, a Daily Beast review of federal campaign records found.

OK -- this guy was, for all intents and purposes, a Nazi. But she goes on:

I had a landlord who was a Polish immigrant of that generation and he worshiped Ronald Reagan too. I don't think he was a an actual Nazi. But he could have been. He certainly didn't like Jews.

Anti-Semitism was pretty much a given in Eastern Europe during the 1930s and 40s, and long before. But the idea that Eastern Europeans of that generation -- or the next -- were Nazis or sympatherizers I think misses one very important factor.

When I was the at the University of Illinois in Chicago, I met a lot of Lithuanians whose parents had fled the country after World War II. Most of them had been born in Germany in 1945-46 or thereabouts. And they were all very right wing. They weren't Nazis -- they were hard-core anti-Russian, simply because of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after the war. And I can't begin to describe just how much they hated Russians.* (Just to give an idea of the depth of nationalism in this group of displaced people, there was a Lithuanian government in exile in the U.S. as late as the 1960s. Noted science fiction writer Algis Budrys was president. To a certain extent, it's a very deep-seated case of denial.)

All of which is to say that it's a little simplistic to try to connect emigration from Eastern Europe in the 1940s with Nazi sympathies -- it's much more a matter of being anti-communist, or more specifically, anti-Soviet.

* This is in large part just the twentieth-century manifestation of attitudes that go back several hundred years. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Lithuania was the dominant power in Eastern Europe, stretching from the Baltic in the north to the Black Sea in the south and including Ukraine and a large chunk of Byelorussia. (It was also the only country in Europe with religious freedom, including Jews.) The Union of Lublin (1569), which joined the Kingdom of Poland with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in a unified political state (as opposed to the personal monarchy that had existed since the late fourteenth century) shored up the Lithuanian state in its wars with the emerging Muscovite kingdom, which had been going on since the Muscovites had thrown off the Mongols. So this antipathy goes back quite a way. This resentment of Russia was only exacerbated by the Partitions of Poland in the eighteenth century -- Lithuania and a large chunk of Poland proper wounder up as part of the Russian Empire. They gained independence after World War I, only to be re-occupied during World War II.

Yes, on top of everything else, I'm a history buff. I think it's genetic.

Happy Thanksgiving

For those in the States. (And for the rest of you, Happy Thanksgiving anyway.)

And a note for all the "War on Christmas" warriors -- although I doubt that any of them read this blog:

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the CTA, for the holiday season (which has now begun), programs the displays on the front of the buses to show:

Route number and name (i.e., "22 Clark")

Destination ("Howard Red Line")

now followed by

"Seasons Greetings"

and then a graphic of Santa's sleigh.

I've already seen one bus with the display reprogrammed; looking forward to more.

Snap! Or Is That "Slap!"

Another judge has stopped Trump's military trans ban, cold. And he wasn't gentle about it:

A federal judge has entirely halted President Donald Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, and called the Commander-in-Chief's tweets announcing the total ban in July "capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified." Trump this past summer sought to bar any new transgender recruits from entering the military and discharge all openly-transgender service members.

The cherry on top:

"President Trump’s tweets did not emerge from a policy review, nor did the Presidential Memorandum identify any policymaking process or evidence demonstrating that the revocation of transgender rights was necessary for any legitimate national interest," Judge Garbis wrote in his decision "Based on the circumstances surrounding the President’s announcement and the departure from normal procedure, the Court agrees with the D.C. Court that there is sufficient support for Plaintiffs’ claims that 'the decision to exclude transgender individuals was not driven by genuine concerns regarding military efficacy.'" . . . .

"An unexpected announcement by the President and Commander in Chief of the United States via Twitter that 'the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military' certainly can be considered shocking under the circumstances," the decision continued.

Happy Thanksgiving, asshole.

Waiting for outraged statement from Tony Perkins about "lawless judges" in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . .

Because we all know this "policy" was a sop to the anti-LGBT "Christians" in the base.

For all you legal geeks, the decision is here. It's very closely reasoned and very precise.

In Case You Were Wondering

Who owns the government, this should give you a clue:

The Federal Communications Commission is preparing a full repeal of net neutrality rules that require broadband providers to give consumers equal access to all content on the internet, putting more power in the hands of those companies to dictate people’s online experiences.

Ajit Pai, the chairman of the F.C.C., plans to reveal a sweeping proposal to scrap the net neutrality rules on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details are not public. The rules, created during the Obama administration, prohibit broadband providers from blocking, slowing down or charging more for the delivery of certain internet content. The proposal will be presented in a December meeting of F.C.C. commissioners and is expected to pass in a 3-to-2 vote along party lines.

Which is a big lollipop for Internet providers (most of which don't offer such great service to begin with). What it means is:

But under a repeal, companies like AT&T and Comcast may be able to charge people higher fees to access certain websites and online services. The companies may also be able to prioritize their own services while disadvantaging websites run by rivals.

It's even more pernicious than it looks on the surface. Read the whole article and get ready to call your congressperson.

Via Joe.My.God.

Well, It Was Nice While It Lasted

The American experiment in self-governance, I mean. Here's one more sign that it's on the way out:

A federal judge Monday permanently struck down one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders, cutting off funds to “sanctuary cities.”

In a summary judgment ruling, U.S. District Judge William Orrick III found Trump’s Jan. 25 executive order violated the Constitution in multiple ways: by invoking spending powers that belong exclusively to Congress, and by placing unrelated conditions on federal grants in violation of the Tenth Amendment.

“Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves,” Orrick wrote in a 28-page ruling.

So far, all well and good. (There are further details at the link.)

The DoJ,on the other hand, doesn't seem to believe in American system of government:

However, a Department of Justice spokesman said the court had “exceeded its authority” in its ruling, and vowed that the department would continue to follow Trump’s direction with regard to the January executive order.

Let's see -- where in the Constitution does it say that the executive branch gets to decide the limits on the power of the courts?

I see a flurry of contempt citations coming.

Via Joe.My.God.

What's New at Green Man Review

Here we go, another Sunday, and more goodies at Green Man Review. But beware: Here Be Dragons! -- and a lot of other good stuff, as well.

Enjoy!

Antidote: Zoo Babies

To wit, baby binturongs at the Perth Zoo:

Via Digby, who has more information.

And, not to be outdone, Lincoln Park Zoo recenbtly (like, last month) welcomed a new Goeldi's monkey:

It's that little tuft of fur with a face clinging to its mother's back. (They really are tiny little things -- the baby is almost as big as a mouse. Almost.)

Today's Must-Read: How We Got Here (Update)

This piece by Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo pulls together some of the trends I've noted in the Republican party over the past thirty-plus years (specifically here, here, and here).

"This is what happens when party becomes almost a religion," MSNBC's Joy Reid told Chris Hayes last night on "All In." Reid was commenting on the GOP's defense of Alabama's Roy Moore and acceptance of a Republican president with a lengthy history of sexual misconduct. "We don't care how low he takes this country, how low he takes our party," she said, or "what a scoundrel he is, what a scam artist he is, what a con man. And literally, it can be a child molester as long as it's a Republican ... Nothing comes before party ever. Ever."

The Republican Party and the country didn't sink to these depths overnight. The right has, over decades, acculturated its base to lies as one of the basic food groups. Our sitting president is simply the main course.

Of course, it would take a book -- maybe several -- to lay out the whole story. After all, we're dealing with an element of American society -- reactionary, xenophobic, misogynistic, racist -- that has been with us from the beginning. It's just that the right has weaponized it.

History operating the way it does -- as a series of reactions -- I'm confident that this, too, shall pass. We've had these episodes before and somehow survived them. But also, from an historical perspective, no empire lasts forever. Which leads me to wonder who's going to be left to pick through the rubble.

Update: This piece by Timothy Egan at NYT gives some good background:

It would be much easier to sleep at night if you could believe that we’re in such a mess of misinformation simply because Russian agents disseminated inflammatory posts that reached 126 million people on Facebook.

The Russians also uploaded a thousand videos to YouTube and published more than 130,000 messages on Twitter about last year’s election. As recent congressional hearings showed, the arteries of our democracy were clogged with toxins from a hostile foreign power.

But the problem is not the Russians — it’s us. We’re getting played because too many Americans are ill equipped to perform the basic functions of citizenship. If the point of the Russian campaign, aided domestically by right-wing media, was to get people to think there is no such thing as knowable truth, the bad guys have won. . . .

Nearly one in three Americans cannot name a single branch of government. When NPR tweeted out sections of the Declaration of Independence last year, many people were outraged. They mistook Thomas Jefferson’s fighting words for anti-Trump propaganda.

I keep remembering the Texas Board of Education removing critical thinking skills from the school curriculum because it might teach children to question authority.

Think about that.

Via Bark Bark Woof Woof.

They're Not Hypocrites, They're "Christians": Case in Point

Yesterday I referred you to an article examining the focus of the "religious" right on maintaining power. Today we have it baldly stated:

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said today she plans to vote for Roy Moore in the Dec. 12 election for the U.S. Senate despite allegations of Moore's sexual encounters with teenage girls about 40 years ago, which Moore has adamantly denied.

Ivey, answering questions from reporters after the traditional Thanksgiving turkey pardon event at the governor's mansion, said protecting the Republican majority in the Senate was a major factor.

"I'm going to cast my ballot on December the 12th, and I do believe the nominee of the party is the one I'll vote for," Ivey said. "I believe in the Republican Party, what we stand for, and most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that's what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore."

Tribalism at work: Ivey will vote to keep Republicans in power, even if it means voting for a sexual predator, because if they lose their Senate majority, they lose their chance to complete the destruction of American democracy -- in the near future at least. After all, if you can steal one Supreme Court seat, why not steal them all?

Via Joe.My.God.

Today's Must-Read: They're Not Hypocrites, They're "Christians"

I've pointed out before that today's evangelical "Christians" and their wholly-owned subsidiary, the Republican party, are not about morality, they're about power and control. Here's an incisive examination of that idea:

According to an expert in the intersection between religion and sex, the fact that evangelicals are flocking to support embattled Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore should not come as any surprise, because maintaining “power” is at the center of their world.

This is the nut:

“How did sexual politics become so central to religious discourse in the United States? Why do we have such an obsession with sexual morality?” Griffith was asked.

“The Bible has things to say about sex. But for Jesus, in the New Testament, it’s not a major thing at all,” she replied. “He’s far more concerned with feeding the poor and caring for those in need. When you look back over the last century of Christian argumentation and political concern, however, it’s had a lot more to do with sex than with caring for the poor.”

Americans are obsessed with sex, especially conservative, "religious" Americans. And as far as their devotion to Jesus goes, think about it: how many soup kitchens and homeless shelters are being run by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, or Focus on the Family? I actually checked out some of their websites a while back, looking to see what programs they had for families. The best they could offer was links to other organizations. Considering the hundreds of millions of dollars they've spent fighting any extension of basic rights to LGBTs, that's pretty pathetic, but it gives you a good idea of their priorities.

That tied in with this article that I ran across a bit earlier:

Taken together, the speakers’ comments mirrored the disturbing public record of Moore himself: anti-reproductive choice, anti-LGBTQ, and solidly in favor of using the power of government to bring the country back to, in Moore’s words, “the One on whom it is founded.”

There's also a strong element of tribalism involved, illustrated in the NCRM article. It's striking how little regard -- or perhaps more accurately, open contempt -- these "Christians", patriots all (just ask them) have for America's foundational principles, especially separation of church and state, equality under the law, and an independent judiciary.

As I said, it's illuminating -- it's also nice to have my analysis validated.

All the Little Dictators

are coming out from under their rocks:

A photo posted on social media showing a truck sticker with an expletive directed toward President Donald Trump is going viral and prompting local law enforcement to search for the driver.

Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls posted a photo of the back of a white pickup truck with a tinted back window and a large sticker that reads, "F*** Trump, and f*** you for voting for him."

The sheriff's response:

app-facebook

Sheriff Troy E. Nehls

19 hours ago

I have received numerous calls regarding the offensive display on this truck as it is often seen along FM 359. If you know who owns this truck or it is yours, I would like to discuss it with you. Our Prosecutor has informed us she would accept Disorderly Conduct charges regarding it, but I feel we could come to an agreement regarding a modification to it.

Note: When interviewed for the storly, he actually sounds fairly reasonable -- but he did start off by threatening criminal charges -- which wouldn't stick:

KPRC 2 legal analyst Brian Wice said this was a free speech issue and referred to the 1971 case of Cohen v. California. According to the case, the Supreme Court "overturned a man's conviction for the crime of disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket in the public corridors of a courthouse that displayed the phrase, 'F*** the draft.'"

(Link added.)

It's bullying, no more, no less, as typified by our regrettable president -- and every other dictator or wannabe who ever lived.

Via RawStory.

Today's Must-Read: Dictatorship, Here We Come

The Republican party has spent the last thiry-five years trying to gut American democracy. Now that they've managed to install a president who thinks he's a king, they're moving one big step closer to getting their wish. This portion is from Josh Marshall's report:

That said, the Times account is much clearer on the politics involved. The Times notes that the letter comes ten days after Trump publicly demanded that the DOJ go after Clinton. And then there’s this graf …

The decision to examine those matters raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is trying to use the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and distract from the special counsel’s investigation into his presidential campaign. It also comes at a tenuous time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Mr. Trump has hinted to advisers he may want to fire. People close to the White House believe Mr. Sessions can stop the president from firing him by appointing a special counsel to investigate the uranium deal. Before leaving for a trip to Asia this month, Mr. Trump expressed his frustration with the Justice Department.

To not get ahead of ourselves, it is important to note that the letter in question only says that Sessions is considering the right course to take and that appointing a special counsel is just one option. But make no mistake: this is as bad as it looks. A President is demanding that federal law enforcement go after his political enemies. And federal law enforcement appears ready to comply.

This is not something that happens in a democracy. As Digby points out:

Threatening to jail your political rivals is something you don't see in advanced democracies. That's the way it's done in banana republics and totalitarian dictatorships, and it says everything you need to know about Trump.

I think it's a mistake to focus on Trump: he's merely the means. If you look at the Republicans' scare tactics regarding "voter fraud," attacks on the courts, giving the nod to police brutality directed toward minorities, and the relentless chipping away at civil rights since the days of St. Ronnie, it's clear that Trump may very well be the end game -- if we manage to avoid being incinerated because of his bully boy posturing. If you think I'm seeing conspiracies, note this article: the key point here is that Congressional Republicans are fully on board with the anti-Clinton witch hunt.

I still wonder if New Zealand is far enough away.

Culture Break: The John Lewis Christmas Ad

John Lewis is a major British retailer, and their Christmas ads are always wonderful. This approaches high art:

And for all the whiny "Christians" out there, yes, I said "Christmas." Big whooping deal.

A note: just about everyone has a Solstice holiday. (And yes, Christmas was on the Solstice on the old calendar, moved from the spring to coincide -- and co-opt -- the Roman Saturnalia.) It's just another example of the self-absorption of so-called "Christians" that saying "holiday" is offensive.

Grow up and get over yourselves.

(And I think it's just the cherry on top that the ad features an interracial couple. Lewis does things like that.)

And another note: I've noticed, probably in response to the Trump regime's attacks on immigrants, LGBTs, women, and other minorities, and the lawsuits of poor, persecuted "Christians" who've discovered that they're not immune from anti-discrimination laws, that a lot of businesses on Chicago's North Side have signs saying "Everyone welcome here."

The Vote Is In

Australians voted 62 to 38 percent in favor of equal marriage. In response, PM Malcolm Turnbull has vowed to have a marriage bill through Parliament by Christmas and shot down attempts by the right wing to neuter the bill:

Moments after the survey result was announced, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appeared before national cameras and vowed his intention to get a same-sex marriage bill through Parliament by Christmas. Watch below.

Earlier today, Turnbull denounced right wing plans to laden the bill with “religious liberty” amendments which would legalize anti-LGBT discrimination by wedding-related businesses. According to Turnbull, such amendments are “non-starters.”

The bill in question was really pernicious, and obviously derived at least part of its DNA from American "religious freedom" bills.

There's a good editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald that makes a very interesting point in regard to "religious freedom" exceptions to anti-discrimination laws:

In 2008, a group talking about suicide prevention with at-risk LGBTI teens from country Victoria booked a getaway at the Phillip Island Adventure Resort. The group, Way Out, did not realise the resort was owned and run by a conservative religious group, the Christian Brethren.

When the Brethren found out who they were hosting, they cancelled the booking, saying the group's activities were "contrary to God's teaching as set out in the Bible", and contravened the resort's "safety" policy.

"Our definition of safety, because of our Christian faith, does not support or include the promotion of homosexuality," the camp said at the time. It was, no doubt, a sincere religious belief.

Even so, the camp lost the case all the way through the courts until the High Court refused special leave to appeal. The camp, the courts said, was a commercial enterprise, and did not have a "religious purpose". It was therefore not protected by the general exemption that religious organisations have under anti-discrimination laws.

(Emphasis added.)

I wonder if that point about "religious purpose" has occurred to anyone arguing the Martyred -- sorry, I mean "Masterpiece" Bakery case. It seems central to the whole issue to me.

At any rate, welcome to the club, Australia.

In Defense of Roy Moore: Pffft!

Of course Moore has his defenders -- he's Republican from Alabama.

Rush Limbaugh to the rescue:

Not [sic] matter what the real stories are here and no matter what the evidence is, these guys, these people, on the Republican side are making it clear they’re going to prevent this guy from ever being seated in the United States Senate. Did you know that before 1992, when a lot of this was going on, that Judge Moore was a Democrat?

“You didn’t know that? How ’bout all these people now – ‘Oh yeah, everybody here knew about Judge Moore!’ –- while he was a Democrat? Nobody said a word. When he supposedly was attracted to inappropriately aged girls, he was a Democrat.

So was Strom Thurmond, once upon a time. So, let me guess -- Moore found Jesus and got a Get Out Of Hell Free card.

Sandy Rios goes ol' Rushbo one better:

It’s what the darkness always does to the light. Remember that Jesus himself was accused, but he was completely innocent. Remember that they paid guards to come and lie about whether the stone was rolled away and the body was not there. This is not new.

So, he didn't find Jesus, he is Jesus. But then, Sandy Rios is out somewhere beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Nice To Have It Right Out in the Open

See, the Republicans know how to get the economy going:

Andrew Biggs is a Republican member of PROMESA, a board created in 2016 to chaperone Puerto Rico’s finances in the wake of the island’s bankruptcy problems. Yet, when speaking about the recovery efforts, he compared those U.S. citizens to “drunks” who have “hit rock bottom.”

The Intercept reported Tuesday that, while speaking at an American Enterprise Institute event on the island and disaster relief, Biggs claimed fair treatment of workers is what is stopping Puerto Rico from recovery. He specifically cited minimum wage laws, labor rules surrounding just-cause termination, paid sick days for staff, paternity leave and overtime. Even a planned Christmas bonus is stopping Puerto Rico from greatness, according to Biggs.

“The reality is, the government doesn’t want to do these things,” he said of labor laws. “If you let them not do them, they won’t do them.” If the island were to be given additional aid from Congress, Biggs argued that it should come with strings attached demanding they kill their progressive labor laws.

See? If we just get rid of those pesky liberal labor laws and workplace safety rules and all that junk -- maybe just bring our labor laws into line with those of, say, China, why, jobs will just flow back into America.

And given that his audience was the American Enterprise Institute, which is about as corporate friendly as you can get, this comment is no surprise:

Toward the end of the panel, AEI resident fellow Desmond Lachman said, “One doesn’t want a good crisis to go to waste.” He explained “other countries” have sought support from the International Monetary Fund when they hit “rock bottom” after a natural disaster.

Right, the IMF -- remember how they helped Greece out? And that wasn't even a natural disaster. That one came directly from people like the members of the American Enterprise Institute. (I seem to remember that would-be dictators, along with muzzling the press, go after labor unions -- the organizations that are the origin of those pesky labor laws.)

Oh, and by the way -- Puerto Rico isn't a separate country: it's a U.S. territory. So many people, especially on the right, seem to forget that. Maybe because Puerto Ricans tend to be brown and speak Spanish.

Today in Social Protest: More Idiots

You may have read about advertisers pulling their ads from Sean Hannity's show (and what took them so long?). The first was Keurig, which produces coffee makers and accessories. This is what passes for a boycott among the trumpanzees:

Kuerig coffee and some others decided not to advertise on Sean Hannity’s show after he stood up for Roy Moore. That made Sean's fans very angry. So they decided they would destroy their own coffee makers.

Gizmodo reports:

This predictably escalated even further and now Twitter is filled with amazing videos of right-wingers smashing their costly home coffee machines. The intent is apparently to intimidate Keurig into once again sponsoring Hannity’s show, lest he fall victim to the same fate that awaited accused abuser Bill O’Reilly.

There are videos at the link, which for some reason I can't embed this morning.

So, smashing a coffee maker that you've bought and paid for as a protest against the manufacturer is really going to -- do what? Prove that you broke one of your two remaining brain cells?

Honoring Our Veterans, Trump Style

I just ran across this photo, which went viral over the weekend:

(Henka Martinez/AFP)

The photo depicts a group of several Mexican men who served in the U.S. military in order to become citizens, but were denied and deported. The soldiers protested on Memorial day this year in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

All I can say in response to that is to echo this tweet:

“Deported veterans”

Think about that for a second... https://t.co/xdG9QGauv9

— Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) November 12, 2017

No Surprises Here

Here's a couple of very revealing facts about Republicans and "Christians" in the wake of the accusations against "Judge" Roy Moore:

But the answers to this question are disturbing: "Given the allegations that have come out about Roy Moore’s alleged sexual misconduct against four underage women, are you more or less likely to support him as a result of these allegations?"

Just 38 percent said they now are less likely to vote for Moore, 33 percent say it makes no difference to them, and a nearly one in three Alabama voters (29%) say they are more likely to vote for Moore as a result.

The poll, conducted November 9-11, also says nearly six in 10 (58%) call themselves evangelical Christians.

It's bad enough that 29% of Alabama voters are more likely to vote for Moore after the allegations, but that 33% don't care is even more appalling.

I think it's become quite clear over the past couple of years, and especially since the election of Trump, that evangelical "Christianity" is not a religion and has nothing to do with Christ: it's a tribal identity marked by hating the same people. As long as that's in order, there are no expectations of good behavior or moral probity (except, of course, in calling out the failings of the disfavored groups), especially for men.

(For an illuminating discussion of evangelicals' attitudes toward women and sexual predators, see this post by Digby.)

In other words, it's everything we as a society have been moving away from for the past century.

A Note: Oh, an about all those senators taking back their endorsements, etc.: Moore's not well-liked in Washington to begin with, but he's what they had. Now they have a credible excuse for cutting him loose.

Today in Advertising: The Three Bears

Rowse Honey, a UK brand, has an ad campaign that's a lot of fun, featuring, of course, the Three Bears -- although Goldilocks doesn't seem to be in evidence. Here's the trailer:

And you can watch the first three episodes at Rowse's YouTube channel.

Today in Sports: 200,000 Idiots

This had to happen:

A Facebook group with more than 200,000 followers is planning an NFL boycott over Veterans Day weekend.

"We will be not be watching or listening to NFL games on November 12th in solidarity with veterans around the country, as football players have continued to disrespect the national anthem, the American flag, and everything our nation stands for," it says on the Boycott The NFL Facebook page.

Of course, that's not what it's about at all, but Trump said it, so it must be true.

Via Joe.My.God.

Morons.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yep, it's Sunday again, and there's more goodies at Green Man Review -- Dead Can Dance, Alan Garner, Kage Baker, Blowzabella, Mouse Guard, and chocolate (would you believe 85% cocoa?). And that's just skimming the surface, so click on over and enjoy.

It Doesn't Matter

In the wake of accusations that Roy Moore engaged in a little bit of "romance" (which apparently went beyond moonlight and roses) with underage girls a while back, some GOP senators are pulling their endorsements, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has pulled funding for his campaign, and it looks as though former (interim) senator Luther Strange may mount a write-in campaign.

Know what? It doesn't matter: Moore will win, and probably by a good margin, because that is what the Republican party has become: embezzler, sexual predator, con man, it doesn't matter: he's one of them, and he hates the same people they hate.

Here We Go Again

One of the definitions of insanity is trying the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. (Actually, I'd call it "obsession" rather than outright insanity, but hey. . . .). Here's the latest version of "trickle down" economics from Trump's chief economic advisor:

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn defended Republicans’ proposed tax cut legislation on Thursday by explicitly saying that tax cuts for wealthy people will “trickle down” to the rest of the economy. . . .

The best way to really benefit middle-class families, Cohn insisted, was to cut taxes for corporations that would then use that windfall to raise workers’ wages.

“We create wage inflation, which means the workers get paid more; the workers have more disposable income, the workers spend more,” Cohn said. “And we see the whole trickle-down through the economy, and that’s good for the economy.”

(Emphasis added.)

That part is really funny -- like corporations are going to spend "windfalls" on workers. I have to wonder if Cohn is really that disconnected from the realities of employment in America (which would put him in the same category as those cabinet members who have expertise in something, theoretically, just not the areas they're supposed to be managing). My guess is that he's just another flim-flam artist.

And just in case you had any doubts, the tax "reform" plan is slanted very heavily in favor of the idle rich -- you know, trust-fund babies, the ones who inherited their money (like a certain president I could name). Case in point: the estate tax:

Cohn also defended the plan’s phase out of the estate tax, which would be a massive boon for President Donald Trump’s own children, as well as the children of other wealthy families.

“Are you seriously saying with a straight face that getting rid of the estate tax is about farmers and not about very wealthy families?” CNBC’s John Harwood asked Cohn.

“What I’m saying is that it benefits farms, it benefits small businesses, it benefits a lot of different people,” Cohn replied.

“Small businesses with more than $11 million estates?” Harwood countered.

“We do not believe that death should be a taxable event,” he said.

Snicker. In case you hadn't noticed, Republicans don't think anything should be a taxable event. At least, not for rich people.

Is This a Referendum?

NCRM has a nice overview of the off-year and special elections this week:

Tuesday night Democrats swept the nation. It's hard to find races where Republicans beat Democrats.

The real story is not just that voters repudiated Donald Trump, the real story is that voters saw Trump, Trumpism, white supremacy, Neo-Nazism, anti-Islamic hate, homophobia, transphobia, "economic nationalism," anti-immigrant hysteria, the threat of tens of millions losing healthcare while the billionaire club gets richer by first breaking then re-writing the rules, and they said "No."

I don't think it's just that voters rejected Trump -- he's more of a catalyst, I think. Voters are finally waking up to what's been happening for the past ten to fifteen years: out-of-control police, immigrant bashing, attacks on the civil rights of minorities, especially LGBTs, from the "religious" right, unbelievable numbers of shootings, flagrant disregard of the rule of law (can you say "Roy Moore"?), white supremacists and neo-Nazis crawling out from under their rocks, the whole complex of anti-Americanism disguised as "patriotism". Trump just crystalized it: these are, after all, his supporters, and no matter how distressing their recent victories, we just have to keep in mind that they are the minority.

It just took those who actually do value American ideals to get off their asses and vote.

My favorite item among these is this one:

And in one of the best stories of the night, also in Virginia, Danica Roem became the first openly transgender candidate to be elected a state legislator.

It gets even better. She ran against a virulent anti-LGBT lawmaker who wrote the state's anti-trans "bathroom bill." Delegate Bob Marshall for decades has been targeting and attacking the LGBT community. This is what justice looks like.

Trump's reaction is only to be expected:

Congratulations to all of the ”DEPLORABLES” and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory! pic.twitter.com/7ifv5gT7Ur

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017

That's somewhere beyond denial.

Culture Break: Led Zeppelin: Kashmir

A version of this came up on this morning's playlist, by a group called Guarneri Underground (who are definitely worth checking out). Sadly, I couldn't find a video of their performance, so I thought, "Let's go to the source."

It Just Gets Worse

This is not really the time to leave no stone unturned -- I mean, when you consider what's hiding under them. From Right Wing Watch:

Mark Taylor, the “firefighter prophet” and right-wing conspiracy theorist who claims that God told him that Donald Trump would become president years ago, appeared on Greg Hunter’s “USAWatchdog” program last weekend, where he revealed that God told him that two of the five former presidents will soon die and the other three will face jail time as divine retribution for criticizing President Trump.

Taylor said that when he saw all five former presidents gathered at an event to raise money for hurricane relief, he received a word from the Lord that “two will be taken, three will be shaken.”

“They were doing this Hurricane Harvey relief effort,” Taylor said. “They were trying to raise money for Hurricane Harvey, but we all know that is a bunch of lies. These guys could care less about people, it’s about their agenda. They disguised it as a relief effort for Hurricane Harvey victims and they go in there and they trash Donald Trump.”

“The Bible says, ‘Do not touch my anointed, but especially my prophets,'” he continued. “These guys have now touched God’s anointed, Donald Trump. They used it as a platform to go in there and attack.”

As far as I recall from the reports on that event, Trump's name wasn't mentioned. I guess, to some people, that constitutes an attack.

The really scary part is that this guy is not that far out of the mainstream -- for wingnuts.

Via Joe.My.God.

Today in WTF?

Oh, I guess that's all OK, then:

Hans Fiene, a Lutheran pastor who is also a regular contributor to the right-wing website The Federalist, has written a new column in which he explains that allowing 26 people to die at the hands of a crazed gunman at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, this weekend was actually God’s way of answering their prayers. . . .

“So when a madman with a rifle sought to persecute the faithful at First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, he failed,” Fiene says. “Just like those who put Christ to death, and just like those who have brought violence to believers in every generation, this man only succeeded in being the means through which God delivered his children from this evil world into an eternity of righteousness and peace.”

I wonder how much the NRA paid him for this.

By the way, we're pretty sure this loon was not looking to persecute Christians -- he could do that by ordering a cake for a same-sex wedding. Word is that he was in a "situation" with his mother-in-law, who attended that church.

Fox News is already on board:

Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt asserted on Monday that the dozens of people killed at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas had gone to the right place to be shot because they were close to Jesus at the time of their death.

So, if you're looking for a good place to be gunned down, by all means avoid 7-Eleven.

Wait 'til the Twit-in-Chief sees this.

Today in Be Careful What You Wish For

What did this idiot think was going to happen?

Papa Johns CEO John Schnatter’s comments about the NFL were widely criticized, after he suggested he would be pulling advertising from the league over the police brutality protests.

"The NFL has been a long and valued partner over the years. But we're certainly disappointed that the NFL and its leadership did not resolve the ongoing situation to the satisfaction of all parties long ago. This should've been nipped in the bud a year and half ago,” he added, in comments that prompted a backlash among a number of people – and oddly drew praise from white supremacists.

Defending the pizza CEO, Adrian Sol wrote for The Daily Stormer, which refers to the NFL using racist language: “This might be the first time ever in modern history that a major institution is going to be completely destroyed explicitly because of public outrage over their anti-white agenda.”

Sol also shared a picture of a swastika pizza and mulled: “Papa John: Official pizza of the alt-right?" in comments that prompted the company to insist racists should not buy their pies.

Pizza from the Daily Stormer website.

Of course the "alt-right" liked Schnatter's comment -- the Racist-in-Chief has been the biggest critic of the protests.

And suddenly that's not what Schatter wanted at all:

Peter Collins, the senior director of public relations at Papa Johns, said in a statement: “We condemn racism in all forms and any and all hate groups that support it.”

“We do not want these individuals or groups to buy our pizza,” he added.

Then you did it all wrong.

Via Joe.My.God. Note: I've rearranged elements of the story to give a better sense of the history.

Giggle du Jour

The Birther-in-Chief is on his way to Asia to visit his Asian hotels -- umm, a state visit to meet eastern heads of state. First stop, of course, is Hawai'i:

Protestors troll Trump with "Welcome to Kenya" signs during Hawaii visit https://t.co/iep1MFYbWB pic.twitter.com/FQ958ekMlq

— The Hill (@thehill) November 4, 2017

Pfft!

Today at Green Man Review

It's Sunday again, and that means more goodies at Green Man Review. Just to whet your appetite:

Our Guy Fawkes celebration, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, a new recording of old Albanian folk music, Wolves and the Wilderness in the Middle Ages and other matters…

Off you go then -- enjoy!

Another Must-Read: The Other Con Man

I noticed years ago that Paul Ryan, the Republicans' "fiscal genius," couldn't add. At this point, I'm surprised he can walk and breathe at the same time. Paul Krugman goes after him, and it ain't pretty:

It really is amazing to watch this chaotic horror show play out at the highest levels of a great nation’s government. But I guess this is what you have to expect when you hand over the reins of power to a con man, whose whole career has been based on convincing naïve marks that he’s a brilliant deal maker, but turns out to have no idea how to actually govern.

Oh, wait — did you think I was talking about Donald Trump? I’m talking about Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, an obvious phony who nonetheless convinced the rubes — that is, much of the news media and the political establishment — that he was a brilliant fiscal expert. What we’re witnessing now is the end of the charade, the political equivalent of what happened when graduates of Trump University tried to get some value in return for their money.

On Thursday, House Republicans unveiled a tax “reform” bill with the same good order and careful deliberation with which they unveiled their various attempts to repeal Obamacare. That is, after having had years to prepare, the G.O.P. waited until the last minute to throw something together, without any hearings or serious analysis.

It's been a while since the Republicans have been capable of drafting any intelligible legislation -- they've gotten to used to having outfits like ALEC and the Heritage Foundation do it for them. (Of course there's the fact that the ten stupidest members of Congress are all Republicans.) And I can't confess to any surprise that they'd try to ram through a budget with no hearings, no discussion, no analysis, despite the fact that the number don't add up. It's giving their owners what they want, so why the need for any transparency?

And Ryan's role in all this is key.

Footnote: Just to give you an idea of how slipshod, if not downright delusional, the GOP's "budget" is, get this:

On Thursday, House Republicans issued a fact sheet about their new tax cut plan that referred to Americans earning $450,000 a year as “low- and middle-income” — even though that income level would put those taxpayers in the top 0.05% of all individual Americans.

Median household income in the U.S. is $59,039.

Today's Must-Read: The Ruling Class

Here's a good example of our betters:

The JCs' preferred narrative has worked its way so deeply into the public consciousness that Americans elected an arrogant, narcissistic, supposed billionaire as president one year ago. For who better to run a government that's not a business as though it were? Oddly enough, he's proven as superior at running a government as Facebook proved at sniffing out political ads purchased with rubles.

Like many plutocrats, he reacts badly to not getting his way and the deference royalty wealth demands.

The New York Times reported this week that another of the president's fraternity killed off his own business rather than treat employees as respected partners:

A week ago, reporters and editors in the combined newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist, two of New York City’s leading digital purveyors of local news, celebrated victory in their vote to join a union.

On Thursday, they lost their jobs, as Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade who owned the sites, shut them down.

Digital media is a tough business, to be sure. Still, Ricketts' approach to to his employees was familiarly authoritarian. He wrote before the vote, “As long as it’s my money that’s paying for everything, I intend to be the one making the decisions about the direction of the business.” When he couldn't get his way, he threw a tantrum and broke his toy.

And for sheer pettiness, you can't beat this:

One week after the New York team unionized, Mr. Ricketts shut it all down. He did not try to sell the company to someone else. Instead of bargaining with 27 unionized employees in New York City, he chose to lay off 115 people across America. And, as a final thumb in the eye, he initially pulled the entire site’s archives down (they are now back up), so his newly unemployed workers lost access to their published work.

The "JCs", in case you were wondering, are the "job creators" -- you know, the ones who are creating jobs in China, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines, and lately, Ethiopia (making shoes for "women who work," because labor costs in China are too high).

That's the way they've created an environment in which they can get away with crap like this: those in the U.S. who actually have jobs are rightfully reluctant to rock the boat, especially since more and more states have become "right to work" (which means "employers' right to fire at will"). You see what happens when workers try to protect themselves. The owners want another Gilded Age, and to hell with workers' rights, child labor laws, workplace safety laws, and all this other crap that they don't need.

And please note, it's not all just greed, although that's a big part of it. It's power and control -- that's what they want, that's what they've always wanted.

And the Republicans are more than willing to give it to them -- they know who owns them.

A footnote: don't let anyone tell you that the 1% are creating the wealth of this country: they're not. They're appropriating the wealth created by their employees.

We Can Dream. . . .

Sadly, it came back:

But then at 8:05 p.m. ET, Twitter posted a statement saying Trump’s “account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee.”

“The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored,” the statement read. “We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.”

However, two hours later, Twitter admitted that the deactivation wasn’t an accident at all. A preliminary investigation showed that Trump’s account was taken offline “by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day.”

Oh, well. . . .

Oops -- Happy Halloween

I almost completely blipped on Halloween yesterday -- didn't even light a candle to guide the spirits on their way (got home about 3:30, had a late lunch, and fell asleep until 7). I did think to pick up some candy, just in case, although in three years I've had zero trick-or-treaters. So I wind up nibbling on Twix snack packs for a while.

At any rate, I love this image, and thanks to Digby, I'm able to share it with you:

It reminds me of Ben at about three months.

Culture Break: Annbjørg Lien: Loki

If you're not familiar with Annbjørg Lien and you have any taste for traditional Nordic music, you should check her out. (Yes, I have several of her albums.) She is also one of the String Sisters, six women who are world-class fiddlers and who can bring down the house. I reviewed their "Live" album and discovered later that someone had put the whole concert on YouTube.

Image du Jour

After reading the news this morning. I was going to do a "Disgusting People" post, but there are too many candidates and I'm not adjusting well to the cold weather, so my energy level is way down: I just want to crawl into bed until May. This sort of says it all: