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."