Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

I don't normally condone vandalism but this Pick Axe Guy actually does deserve a star, unlike the traitor whose star he destroyed. I even consider the act of taking a pick axe to the Hollywood Star of Donald Jackass Trump an act of fine performance art; very fine. And very fine patriotic performance art at that!

Like most things in his miserable excuse for a life, Traitor Don did nothing to earn his star. I mean, come on now, are we supposed to believe that just having a godawful dipshit show like "The Apprentice" is enough to earn one a star? If so, that certainly cheapens the value and significance of every other star imbedded in the sidewalks of Hollywood. This everybody gets a trophy nonsense has gone way too far. Next thing we know, Pablo Escobar will get a star just because there have been so many TV shows and movies about him. Hell, in this perverse world, Pablo Escobar could get a star just because of all the cocaine his cartel made available to the entire Hollywood film industry.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Diaper Don told the Hollywood folks in charge of the stars that he would pay for a star. He probably even asked for one that was bigger than everyone else's. In any event, if he did offer to pay for a vanity star, he probably stiffed the city when the bill arrived.

As it turns out, the misguided folks in charge of the sidewalk stars quickly replaced the destroyed star with a new one. So much for the claims that people in Hollywood are all a bunch of liberals. The countdown for the destruction of the new star has already begun. Its fate is sealed. Only the mechanism of its destruction is to be determined. When it is gone, it will no doubt also be replaced and the Diaper Don will claim "I've had more stars on Hollywood Boulevard than anybody. It's a record. Believe me. Tremendous honor."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Republicans love to bitch and moan about the Hollywood community. They would have you believe the canard that everyone involved in the film industry is well left of center. It gives the Repugs something to shake a stick at and wail that they are not being treated fairly.

The truth is, however, that Hollywood is full of creepy money cretins just like Steve Mnuchin. Mnuchin has long been one of the bankers of Hollywood, credited as being an executive producer for a lengthy list of Hollywood products. You can look up his filmography on IMDb. Just a short list includes Mad Max: Fury Road, Wonder Woman, The LEGO Batman Movie,  How To Be Single, the dreadful Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, and the perfectly named Pan. He's put money behind both winners and losers, although, artistically, it would be hard to find many winners on his list of credits. To be fair though, and I'm always fair; one movie he backed was Sully. I did like Sully very much. Then again, it was a true story and Tom Hanks was the lead, so it would have been hard to mess it up; not impossible, but hard. Fortunately, they stuck to reality and there were no exploding cockpit controls, no giant Hudson River anaconda who ate the passengers, and the plane didn't clip the Statue of Liberty on its way to a safe landing in the water.

Given the quality of the movies Mnuchin has associated himself with, though, it's not surprising that he threw his lot in with the Trump administration; plenty of hideous real monsters there, from the lead actor on down, or is it up? After all, the Trump administration is one really bad movie. You would be hard pressed to make this script up and get it produced by Hollywood. No one would believe characters like Stephen Miller, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mike Pence, and all the rest could possibly exist. I mean, come on, Kellyanne Conway and Obama spying on her from her magic microwave oven? This is Ed Wood Plan 9 From Outer Space stuff.



Anyway, tonight's meme is presented for your amusement in order to call attention to the rancid hypocrisy of Steve Mnuchin. I chose it now because this weekend is the weekend of the NFL draft. When it comes to being a total douchebag, Mnuchin has an inside track for a Oscar.

How Widely Will the Sex Abuse Scandals Spread Before They're "Contained"?

by Gaius Publius

Just a heads up. The liberal-side sexual abuse scandal that's spreading widely, catching both greater and lesser lights, is not likely to let up. Large fish (for example, Harvey Weinstein) and smaller (for example, the Washington Spectator's Hamilton Fish V) are getting entangled in the net of long-delayed, entirely appropriate outrage. The circle of scrutiny is wide, enough so that even apparently innocent people, like Matt Taibbi for instance, feel compelled to post preventive pieces like this.

Spreading Like a Fire

We're in the spreading phase of this wild fire. Soon the firefighters will come to tamp it down. Will they succeed? My guess is yes. After all, the practice is apparently so rampant that the sheer number of people taken out — on our side, good progressives, yes, but also guilty of what we most claim to disavow — may prove too large, with too many of the names too prominent.

Hollywood tried circling, to some degree, its wagons around Weinstein, and those who early on defended him are coming for their own share of shame. As many have noted, yours truly included, there are many ways the Weinstein world and culture touches the larger liberal world and culture.

My best guess is that the powers that be in the left-mainstream world will look for a time to shout "Enough already. We get the point. Let's not spill any more blood," surely a move to defend those many about to be touched. Watch for that.

As an example of what still hidden from most eyes, and what will most definitely, with backstage force, remain buried from wide public view for as long as possible, consider the following.

A World Hiding Serial Harassers Hides Serial Pedophiles As Well

A world like Hollywood or mainstream politics — on both sides of the aisle — hides not only many individuals who "get away with it" because, well, they can. It hides self-sustaining and reinforcing groups of those who "get away with it" as well.

Consider Fox News, for example, as not just a place where lots of sexual abusers work(ed), but as an organization that proactively attracts and enables those people. This is not passive allowance of a crime, but proactive creation of it. If the organizational heads at Fox News were engaged in procuring people to be put into lives of prostitution, for example, we'd call the organization by a gangland term, a "prostitution ring."

Which leads us to the other main point of this piece. It looks like there is or has been a pedophile ring operating in many of the Hollywood circles inhabited by good "liberal" people like Harvey Weinstein.

This comes from former child actor Corey Feldman via Zero Hedge:

For years, actor and former child star Corey Feldman has been warning anybody who would listen that Hollywood is a place where adults have more inappropriate contact with children than probably anywhere else in the world.

So it’s unsurprising given the renewed focus on sexual assault and harassment brought about by the Harvey Weinstein scandal that Feldman’s accusations would receive renewed attention, considering he made the media rounds as recently as 2016 to talk about how a pedophile ring in Hollywood abused him and his friend, fellow actor Corey Haim – actions Feldman blames for Haim’s eventual death from a drug overdose.

And yesterday, he returned to the “Today” show and, during an interview with Matt Lauer vowed to release the names of six men who he alleges participated in the abuse of himself, Haim and other young stars. The interview followed Feldman’s announcement in a YouTube video last week that he was launching an Indiegogo page to try and raise money for a feature film about pedophilia in Hollywood that he hopes to direct. However, as Lauer pointed out, Feldman’s target budget - $10 million – appears lofty. But the former child star appears determined to tell his story the way he wants it to be told.

See the video above for Feldman's interview with, to my ears, a defensive Matt Lauer asking the questions. A brief segment:

LAUER: “Why are you talking to me? Why aren’t you talking to the police right now?”

FELDMAN: “I told the police. In fact if anyone wants to go back to 1993, when I was interviewed by the Santa Barbara Police Department. I sat there and gave them the names. They are on record. They have all of this information, but they were scanning Michael Jackson. All they cared about was trying about to find something on Michael Jackson.”

LAUER: “Who you said, by the way, did not abuse you.”

FELDMAN: “Who Michael was innocent. And that was what the interview was about with the pollice in 1993. I told them, he is not that guy. And they said, maybe you don’t understand your friend. And I said, no, I know the difference between pedophiles and somebody that is not a pedophile because I have been molested. Here’s the names, go investigate. And let me push this forward, there are thousands of people in Hollywood that have the same information. Why is it all on me? Why is it, if I don’t release the names in the next two months, six months or a year, I’m the bad guy. I’m the victim here. I’m the one who has been abused. I’m the one who is trying to come forward and do something about it.”

LAUER: “But —“ [crosstalk]

FELDMAN: “Please, I’m sorry. There are thousands of people out there, Matt, who have this information. Any one of those child actors that went to the teenage soda pop clubs with me when I was a kid, know who those people are and the people who ran it. Anybody can go back through history and look at the Teen magazines and say what was the name of that venue they were promoting and who ran that venue own who endorsed it.”

If you noted the references to "soda pop clubs" in Feldman's comments, one name that keeps coming up is "Alphy's Soda Pop Club." We're in Rumorville here, so I'll just link to one piece discussing it. Names associated with Alphy's club, of which Feldman and Corey Haim appear to be founding members, include then-teens like "Alyssa Milano, Nicole Eggert, Ricky Schroeder, Drew Barrymore, Alfonso Ribero, Scott Grimes" and more. Many, few, or none of those people may have been victims, but still, that's a lot of name people.

Notice too that Feldman mentions "soda pop clubs," plural. Are there more?

In addition, Feldman has blamed a "Hollywood mogul" for his friend and fellow child actor Corey Haim's death, not as a direct cause, but an indirect one (Haim died after years of substance abuse):

In 2011, Feldman claimed that a "Hollywood mogul" who abused Haim was to blame for his death.[93] The 2013 memoir by Corey Feldman, Coreyography, details the sexual abuse he and Haim suffered as young actors in the film industry; during the filming of Lucas, Feldman stated that Haim "allowed himself to be sodomized",[94] and "had been tricked into engaging in a painful session of anal sex by a man on the movie set. The man told Haim that sex between men and boys was normal in Hollywood, saying that 'all the guys in the entertainment world do it.'

Note also the inability to people to criticize Kevin Spacey, as his name rises again into this discussion. Not part of any "ring" per se; there are no such allegations. But he has a past that includes admitting he "may have" handled a 14-year-old inappropriately. Will his current status as a darling of the left play mitigate the renewed criticism he may encounter?

Bottom Line

Again, just a heads up. Your takeaways for now:

• This scandal could grow very very big, implicating many.

• If a coverup comes, it will come in force. Watch for it.

• If a coverup comes, everyone involved in making it seem lighter that it should be, or making it go away, is complicit.

Just saying. This will absolutely be a test of mainstream liberal, and possibly progressive, adherence to a principle which that culture claims to honor deeply.

GP
 

Confidential to Antonio Sabato Jr.: God thinks you're an asshole and Jesus says you suck

One more time --
We first looked at this clip in the July 27 post "If the campaign is going to be a 'feelings' fight, is the handwriting on the wall?"


"What is truly revealing is [Antonio Sabato Jr.'s] implication that believing something to be true is the same as its being true. Because if anything, that was the theme of the Republican Convention this week. It was a four-day exercise in emphasizing feelings over facts."

-- John Oliver, on that Sunday's Last Week Tonight

by Ken

Leastwise that's my opinion, Antonio, up there atop this post -- you know, about God thinking you're an asshole and Jesus saying you suck. And you know what? As you explained so eloquently on national TV, I'm entitled to my opinion, and you can go against it, but I believe it. Why . . . why . . . denying me my right to have and express my opinion is just like Communism, as you have further explained.

And it seems only fair to allow you to make your case, seeing as how I so enthusiastically endorsed John Oliver's making a federal case of your nationally televised assault on sense, sanity, truth, and decency, your coast-to-coast declaration of war on, well, reality. I'm sure you remember what you blithered, but perhaps some readers could use a refresher. As John put it, you, an "IMDB-page-awarded actor," after "deliver[ing] a relatively restrained speech" at the convention, "open[ed] [your] heart regarding President Obama to ABC News":



Since you still don't get it, Antonio, not any of it, it's hard to know where to begin. And not, I think, with the most obvious point: that what you believe is demonstrable and well-demonstrated bullshit, delivered with the intent, or at least the result, of destroying civility and decency, and that it can only be the product of some combination of imbecility and insanity. No, I think we have to back up to the underlying belief: that being a Muslim is inherently evil, or for that matter in any way subject to reproach, especially from a demonstrated lunatic-cretin. Because with this stated belief, you declared yourself, again to a national TV audience, as a snarling, savage bigot and hate-monger, again with no imaginable goal except the destruction of sense, civility, and decency.

So while yes, you have a right to your beliefs and of course the right of free speech to express them. But included with those rights are the rights of others to respond to their ignorance, delusionality, and dangerous hatefulness. This is, after all, the way free speech is supposed to work. And yet . . . and yet . . .

As Walter Einenkel explains in a DailyKos post, "Washed-up soap actor says his claim that Obama was a Muslim has led to a Hollywood blacklist":

Well, two weeks later, the former Dance Night Obsession star is saying that his support of Donald Trump has led to a Joseph McCarthy-like blacklist of Sabáto Jr! As an aside, here’s a tweet from Sabáto Jr. from a little over a month ago.



Sadly for Antonio Sabáto Jr, not unlike people’s reaction to 2003’s Wasabi Tuna, the backlash against him is making him frowny-face-unicorn-poo-brokenheart emoticony. He tells Variety:

I think this country allows you freedom of speech. Anybody should be allowed to say whatever they want. When you’re in my business, you can’t talk about [conservative] politics. You just can’t. You’re attacked viciously in a way that I’ve never been attacked before.

On Twitter, there’s been name calling, and celebrities attacking me. That’s fine. I see it, but I don’t read it. I block them and delete them and move on. There’s so much negativity you can be taken into that. But I’ve also heard from celebrities: “If he can do it, I want to speak my mind too.” They are fed up with the way this country has been running and by all these lies.

As our Antonio prattles on, he seems to lose some of his optimism.

I was never a politician. I care about my country. I put God first. For the last seven-and-a-half years, I’ve seen this country led by a leader that’s made mistakes. I spoke my mind about it. But because I’m in the industry, you can’t talk about that. The media and the liberals act the way they act: The will back up the president until the end. It’s been interesting. I’ve had fantastic directors who have said officially to my agents and managers they will never hire me again. They will never even see me for projects. That’s unfair. It’s just like Communism.

Um, yikes! "Just like Communism"? Do you actually known anything about Communism, Antonio? Or, more to the point, about blacklisting? This is actually the sort of thing beloved by power-mongering right-wing hatebags.

But to return to the, er, substance, of your complaint -- so much crackpot bullshit, so little attachment to reality. Well, sorry, Antonio, none of this washes, for the reasons I sketched earlier on, but also, as Walter points out with regard to your newfound diminished employability:

This would be true, if it was true. Here’s a quick list of the liberal power brokers of Hollywood:

• Robert Downey Jr. -- Conservative and top grossing actor in Hollywood
• Clint Eastwood -- seriously
• ylvester Stallone -- the guy that has three top grossing films over the last five years
• Jerry Brickheimer -- If you’ve watched a movie that goes “boom” in the last 40 years, he probably produced it.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Was a governor once, I think
• James Woods, Jon Voigt, Gary Senise, John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Adam Sandler, Robert Duvall, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ... and the list goes on.

Hollywood’s about narcissism and money -- yes, there are “liberals” in Hollywood, but mostly “social liberals,” which means virtually nothing except that you are aware that gay people aren’t going to some fictitious hell. However, the Shark Hunter actor, who will be coming out with a mini-series next year titled Antonio Sabato Jr Down Under, feels like he’s being punished for being as dumb as a brick.

Ah, if only our IMDB-page-awarded boy was aware that "he's being punished for being as dumb as a brick." Now I don't want to let this go without restressing John Oliver's original point, which emphatically wasn't about our Antonio being an idiot. As he made abundantly clear, it was about the belief that "believing something to be true is the same as its being true."


HOWEVER, ANTONIO, AS REGARDS YOUR CAREER . . .

. . . being dumb as a brick may well be a problem. Even more of a problem is your demonstrated willingness, even eagerness, to make headlines by spewing imbecilic, hate-infested lies and delusions. You've turned yourself into what's often known as a "loose cannon," and this often doesn't sit well with people one would like to do business with. Just consider, if you were the producer of such hot-ticket spectacles as Shark Hunter and Antonio Sabato Jr Down Under, how eager would you be to sign up a potential cancer for your extravaganza?

Now one doesn't want to get so personal as to cast aspersion on your talents, Antonio. Just because those talents don't happen to include much in the way of acting doesn't mean you shouldn't be employable as an actor. If Hollywood were to outlaw the hiring of low-talent actors, well, it would be a very different place, wouldn't it? But did you really expect  Antonio, that your talents -- being pretty and having a killer body -- would be a lifetime meal ticket? Does that sound like Hollywood?

Did readers notice, by the way, buried in Antonio's blithering, the apparent source of his seemingly implacable Obama hatred? "For the last seven-and-a-half years, I’ve seen this country led by a leader that’s made mistakes." Well, DWT has had a fair amount to say about mistakes made by President Obama, but the list doesn't include being a Muslim, and wouldn't even if it were true.


RECALLING THE TALENTS OF ANTONIO SABATO JR.

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Is it so hard to understand why CT Rep. Joe Courtney is upset by this misrepresentation in LINCOLN?

Democrat Joe Courtney has represented CT's 2nd CD since 2007.

"I'll stick to my nice safe snakepit in Washington."

-- Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT), reflecting on his
accidental immersion in the politics of Hollywood

by Ken

Here's another one for the "You Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Cry" file.

[Connecticut Dem Rep. Joe] Courtney told us Monday he was captivated by the movie until it came to that moment: How, he wondered, could a Connecticut congressman have voted that way? “Our state abolished slavery completely in 1848. Children of slaves were emancipated by 1784,” he said. “The Harriet Beecher Stowe house in Hartford is a shrine in Connecticut history.” Courtney checked and discovered that the movie was wrong: In fact, all four of the Nutmeg State’s delegates voted for the 13th amendment.

-- from WaPo's Reliable Source report, "Rep. Joe Courtney gets lesson in Oscar politics in debate over 'Lincoln" accuracy"

Let's back up a bit. Here's the start of the Reliable Source report (links onsite):

Rep. Joe Courtney says he had no idea he was wading into controversy when he questioned the accuracy of a key scene in “Lincoln.”

After all, he knows Washington politics, not Hollywood politics.

Last week, the Connecticut Democrat called on Steven Spielberg to “correct an historical inaccuracy” in the Oscar-nominated box-office hit -- a scene, at the film's climax, suggesting that two of his state's three representatives voted against outlawing slavery in 1865.

[Here's the Wall Street Journal's account. -- Ed.]

Then follows the paragraph I quoted at the top of this post. I don't know about you, but I really do get why Representative Courtney reacted the way he did, especially after he checked his assumption that the detail in the film couldn't be right and, no doubt much relieved, found that he was right. History matters, and relative to a lot of these United States, Connecticut has an OK record on the slavery question. Sure, the fact that it was legal until 1848 is nothing to brag about, but it counts for something that this blight had been corrected by 1848, when the Civil War was just a dark cloud on the distant horizon.

However, as the Reliable Source report notes, the congressman's grounding in DC politics didn't in any way prepare him for the political minefield he apparently inadvertently stepped into. If you or I were to write a letter to Steven Spielberg, that would be one thing. (Actually, it would probably be nothing, but never mind.) When a U.S. congressman writes a letter, though, well, it sets thoughtful -- or perhaps cuckoo -- minds a-thinking.

The timing of Courtney’s letter, three months after the movie’s release, set off alarms in showbiz circles: Ballots had just gone out to Oscar voters. Was the congressman trying to influence the Academy Awards in favor of another contender?

Don’t laugh: Oscar campaigns can be as multilayered and dirty as political races, with producers pushing whisper campaigns against rival films to complement the glowing ads and charming talk-show spots for their own. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists noted, Courtney had a debt to Ben Affleck, whose “Argo” is up against “Lincoln” for Best Picture: The star briefly campaigned for him in his extremely close 2006 race.

Ah, so Representative Courtney is presumed to have been feigning concern about his state's reputation as part of a conspiracy to do his benefactor Ben Affleck a solid. Well, sure, look at the timing. The movie has been out for three months, and only now, during this cesspool of dirty dealing that is Oscar voting, has he piped up with his complaint. Here's the Reliable Source again:

Courtney has a simple explanation for why he dropped his bomb on "Lincoln" last week: He only just saw the movie.

"Between the campaign and the lame-duck session it was impossible to get out to see some movies," he told us. A week ago Saturday, he and his wife finally had a night off and found it playing at a second-run theater.

Naturally, Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner has answers too.

A couple days after Courtney raised his objections, screenwriter Tony Kushner acknowledged that he tweaked the scene -- not to defame Connecticut, but to highlight “the historical reality” that the vote indeed was very close -- and chided the congressman for taking it so literally. “I hope nobody is shocked to learn that I also made up dialogue and imagined encounters and invented characters,” he added in a letter reprinted by the Wall Street Journal.

This is one of the reasons I'm always uneasy when the line between nonfiction and fiction is blurred. It becomes OK to highlight historical reality by means of untruths.

“I get it,” Courtney told us. “Screenwriters are not obligated to present a documentary. But to me, the vote is so significant. . . And this will be a movie like ‘Schindler’s List,’ like ‘Amistad,’ that is going to be a teaching tool, and Spielberg is clearly creating this movie for this purpose.” (Courtney’s crusade played well back home in Connecticut, judging from a number of grateful.newspaper editorials.)

I suppose viewers of the movie know that they're not seeing a documentary. But amid all the pretensions to historical accuracy, do those viewers have any idea what in the movie is true and what isn't? Will non-Connecticut moviegoers have any reason to question the apparent "reality" that even from a state as anti-slavery by the outbreak of the Civil War as Connecticut, two-thirds of its congressmen voted against the 13th Amendment?

Sorry, but for me, it's just a little too convenient a piece of historical rewriting to stretch today's over-honored "two sides to every argument" proposition to an issue on which, at least in this case, there weren't two sides. I don't have any trouble getting why the congressman reacted the way he did.

I suppose there is something to be said for the idea that a congressman has to be careful about what he attaches his official standing to. After all, if, say, Mrs. Courtney had written the same letter on her personal stationery from her home address in Connecticut, nobody would have heard about it.

But that's the thing too: Nobody would have heard about it.

#

What Is With These Corrupt DC Democrats Who Back Anti-Family Conservatives?

The 15 second web-ad above makes the point that reactionary Blue Dog Tim Holden of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania isn't really a Democrat. In past years-- when Holden's 17th congressional district meandered south and west from Schuylkill-- into solid red territory-- Holden would have been happy with the meme. McCain won his old district with 51% and Holden was fine when the local media informed the voters that Holden was a steadfast ally of George W. Bush and his toxic, destructive agenda. But now the 17th has shed the GOP counties in the south and heads north and east into blue territory where Obama racked up solid victories. Holden's reactionary Republican record is a poor fit for the voters of Luzerne, Carbon, Lackawanna, Monroe and Northampton counties. Obama won Pennsylvania with 55% in 2008. Lackawanna County is the base of Matt Cartwright, the progressive Democrat challenging Holden and Obama won there with 62%. At the same time Obama lost Schuylkill, Holden's base, with 45%.

"Tim Holden says he's a Democrat," reads the ad, "but he votes Republican. He voted against affordable health care; voted to give tax cuts to the rich; and a pay increase to himself." And this year when the Democrats are talking nonstop about the Republican War Against Women, it turns out Holden was on the wrong side of those lines too. A fanatic anti-Choice zealot, Holden has been a solid supporter of all the worst crap Boehner and Cantor have thrown against the women, especially poor women, that the Democratic Party claims to be opposing. But they're not opposing Tim Holden-- even though Matt Cartwright is pro-Choice and has a long record as an effective advocate for working families and for women. Are they hypocrites? Well, sure. The Inside-the-Beltway Democratic Establishment bigwigs like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, Joe Crowley, Allyson Schwartz have no principles or values. To them the Republican War Against Women is a convenient cudgel to use against Republicans in an election cycle but when Blue Dog "Democrats" like Holden vote the same way as Republicans... not a peep out of any of these villains.


According to ProgressivePunch, in the 2011-'12 congressional session, Holden voted against the progressive positions-- in crucial roll calls-- 63.75% of the time. He voted with the Republicans about as frequently as Ron Paul (R-TX) bit not as frequently as Walter Jones (R-NC). And Holden wasn't even the worst of the Blue Dogs! 10 Blue Dogs scored even lower than Holden. The two worst, Oklahoma's Dan Boren (85.66%) and Arkansas' Mike Ross (83.27%) are retiring from Congress and crossing the street to become corporate lobbyists. But corrupt Blue Dogs Jim Matheson (UT- 81.34%), Jason Altmire (PA- 77.41%), Collin Peterson (MN- 76.87%), Jim Costa (CA- 75.57%), John Barrow (GA- 75.09%), Senate candidate Joe Donnelly (IN- 72.96%), Henry Cuellar (TX- 70.9%) and Ben Chandler (KY- 67.42%) are all being supported in their bids to stay in Congress, despite their voting records, all of which have been helpful in the Republicans' War Against Women-- and in the Republicans' War Against Working Families.

My own congressional district-- one of the most liberal in America, the 28th-- has just been assigned a Blue Dog. Adam Schiff is far too right-wing to be representing Hollywood, West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Atwater and Silverlake. McCain only managed to win 26% in the new boundaries but in a district with a bigger LGBT community than San Francisco's, Schiff, a deranged war-monger and bigot, has routinely voted against gay equality over and over again. His crucial lifetime progressive score on LGBT issues is an abysmal 28.57, one of the lowest of any Democrat in Congress.


It's a cruel joke that the Democratic Party has a homophobic asshole and AIPAC advocate for endless wars representing West Hollywood. That's something that will have to be worked on. And all over the country-- especially since "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel has taken over the DCCC-- the Democrats have backed absurdly conservative politicians whose views are at odds with Democratic ideals and with the interests of their own constituents.

And sooner or later these right-wing Democrats, especially in Republican areas, decide to stay on the same side of the aisle where they find themselves voting. Conservative Democrats in the Texas legislature, for example, keep doing it. One sleazy right-wing anti-women Blue Dog type, José Manuel Lozano, looked at the way his district had been redrawn-- giving it a redder tint-- and BOOM! he crossed over to Darkness. An ally of Cuellar's, Lozano is now officially a Republican, bad-mouthing the Democratic Party that nurtured his corrupt career at every opportunity. "This is not San Francisco. This is Texas," the anti-working family reactionary told the media.

Lozano’s district formerly included Kleberg, Jim Hogg, Brooks, Kennedy, Willacy and part of Cameron counties, Latino heavy counties that are predominantly Democrat, based on an analysis of the 2008 and 2010 elections. These areas are now in District 31, represented by Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City.

Lozano’s new district includes Bee, Jim Wells, Kleberg and San Patricio counties, which are also heavily Hispanic (63 percent), but which are more evenly contested. President Barack Obama carried Jim Wells and Kleberg counties, while Senator John McCain carried the other two by more than 55 percent in 2008.

The interim bipartisan map, approved on February 28 and negotiated by several U.S. representatives and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, also created two new districts that are Republican-leaning and Latino-dominated in the Dallas-Fort Worth areas, and one in each of the San Antonio and Austin surrounding areas.

...Lozano is the third Democrat to switch parties since late 2010, and the second Latino.

"I wish he wouldn't have switched," said US Representatives Henry Cuellar, whose district also changed during redistricting.

Cuellar said that Lozano was a conservative, Blue Dog Democrat like himself.

The two were supposed to work together in a proposed Blue Dog session for state and federal representation. But the animosity on the floor from the Democratic leadership was such, Lozano said, that it just was not possible to follow through with plans for the Blue Dog caucus.

"I admire him because he works with everyone," Lozano said of Cuellar. Yet, he said the Democratic caucus was oblivious to his constituents’ needs.

"It's wrong," he said. “I tried, but the party leaders chose to turn a blind eye to the Hispanic community."

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie, in a prepared statement, called Lozano’s decision to switch parties “unprincipled and cowardly.”

“Just 15 months ago, Lozano was elected to office as a Democrat. The instant things got tough, Lozano jumped ship and joined a party that has betrayed his constituents,” Richie said. “He’s proven he has no core and stands for nothing, but his quest to grab and hold power.”

And Lozano, of course, had been part of the Republican War Against Women. He was one of the only Democrats in the Texas legislature to support a controversial bill requiring women wanting an abortion to have a complete sonogram. But there was not a peep out of DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who tweets her condemnation of Republicans 20 times a day for the same offense. I'm surprised Steve Israel didn't try to recruit Lozano to run for Congress against a progressive somewhere. Now if Lozano manages to survive two Republican primary challengers, he'll have to face either former state Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles or newcomer Gabriel Zamora from Agua Dulce, both Democrats.

The real problem for Democrats is that corrupt conservatives like Israel, the Blue Dogs and Joe Crowley (head of the New Dems) are frantically working to fill Democratic ranks with more Tim Holdens and more Adam Schiffs and more José Manuel Lozanos. The last time the Dems tried that-- under Rahm Emanuel-- it led directly to the Blue Dog apocalypse of 2010 that cost the Democrats control of Congress and gave us Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor and the horrifying agenda they've rammed through Congress-- with the help of what was left of the Blue Dog caucus (like Holden).

Watch the video up top again and then, please consider helping progressives replace Tim Holden with Matt Cartwright, which you can do here or just send a general overall message to DC Democrats that if we wanted to support conservatives we'd be Republicans.


UPDATE! What A Great Press Release-- Cartwright Is Beating Corrupt Blue Dog Tim Holden

Holden's deceptive, vicious ads and sneaky campaign isn't fooling anyone in the 17th CD. Brand new polling shows Matt Cartwright leading Holden with less than three weeks until the primary. Three more giant Blue America billboards went up today in Northampton and Lackawanna counties.

Matt Cartwright now leads 42-36 against the 20-year incumbent. The Cartwright campaign has not yet mentioned Holden in any advertising, while Holden has started his second negative ad, an obvious result of his own polling. Just as troubling for Holden is the fact that he is running in a district where his vote to create the Halliburton Loophole and his vote against President Obama’s groundbreaking Health Care Reform are highly unpopular.

“While I’ve been focusing on issues that affect the lives of the people I seek to represent, Tim Holden has focused on me,” points out Matt Cartwright. “He can’t win on his record, so he wants to tear me down. This is politics at its worst. The say anything, do anything approach to win at all cost. I learned from my father to always tell the truth and to never tear down another man just to build yourself up.”

Tim Holden has refused to hold any debates. He is in the middle of a two week congressional recess, yet his website lists an office opening on March 31st as his most recent campaign event.

“Again, if he discusses his voting record, he loses,” says Cartwright. “So he hides behind nasty TV ads. The people of northeastern Pennsylvania deserve better.”

Labor Day Special: Since When Did Outsourcing Become Funny?

- by Noah

Reality shows? You want reality shows? I’ll show you reality shows! I got your reality shows right here! WTF!



OK. NBC’s about to premier Outsourced show doesn’t fit the normal definition of a reality show. No, instead, NBC thinks it can turn an ugly reality for millions of Americans into a putrid stream of bad “jokes.” It’s safe to say that my contempt for the decision makers at the media corporations knows no bounds. Hollywood, in particular, strives to explode my inner contempt-o-meter on a near daily basis. (Actually, it’s not inner. I wear it on my sleeves.) Today, the news reached me that NBC, through its association (think contamination) with Universal, has a brand new zippy TeeVee show called Outsourced, based on the 2007 John Jeffcoat movie of the same name. The film was generally well thought of but it was a romantic comedy centered around a guy who was sent to India to train his replacement; not a happy task, but one people can relate to and empathize with. The TeeVee show? That’s another matter. It’s a sitcom! Ain’t outsourcing grand! Let the laughter begin! It’s about a guy who has a job with a company that sells vulgar, tasteless novelties. He goes to work one morning only to find that everybody in the call center is gone. He has a choice. He can lose his job, or, he can go to India to run the brand new, no doubt innovative, fresh, and synergistic, call center over there. The whole show seems to be built around jokes about whoopee cushions, fake vomit, beer helmets, “jingle boobs,” and fake dog poop. From there, the synopsis claims, comedy ensues!
 
I know actors need jobs too but this is downright shameful. There’d be more dignity in dancing around a pole. Here we are in a time when people are starting to build tent cities in this country because some a$$sholes in suits have decided that Americans don’t matter and that their jobs are fair game to be shipped overseas and Hollywood thinks that’s funny and turns it all into a bunch of fart jokes. Wow. What will the drugged out, overly self-preoccupied airheads of Hollywood think of next? It’s bad enough that LA people spend most of their time worrying about having the right press agent and worrying about whether they are driving the right image car or wearing the right image shoes or watch, now they think the plight of people who used to have real jobs is grist for humor! The calls for boycotts have already begun. I hope someone takes a good look at the show’s sponsors to see how many American jobs they have outsourced!

I’ve spent a lot of time in LALA over the years and I’ve always been struck by two things. One is that it’s a whole city given over to plastic surgery addicts. The other is its near total obliviousness to the fact that there is a whole rest of the country on the eastern side of the mountains; mountains that you can only see about 3 days a year, due to the smog of brown flatulent gas that is really Hollywood’s number one product. Obviously, the situation isn’t getting any better when the average price of a movie ticket ($12.00 here in NYC) for a crap movie exceeds the figure of the average unemployment rate (hovering around 10%, nationally), but, I digress. I’m writing just about TV today.
 
In response to this particularly egregious example of corporate insensitivity, I have decided to pitch my own TV shows, shows that more realistically express the feelings of the viewing audience, to the dunderheads of Hollywood:

1. Hit The Streets- A gang of merry unemployed 99er pranksters, deeply in  debt, starving, wondering how they’re going to feed their kids, and dressed as pirates go to a different corporate headquarters each week, starting with Wall Street, and do a peoples’ hostile takeover, set up a plank high up on the roof of the glass tower and make the CEOs walk the plank!
 
          2. Bail Out!– Weekly plane ride. No parachutes. A cattleprod. You get the picture.
 
           3. With Truth And Laughter For All- This is my comedy entry and it’s very low budget. Each week, I simply select a series of speeches by politicians, clips of corporate morons in suits and ugly ties, and useless, barely glued together TV personalities like Bill-O, Neil Cavuto, or Wolfie, and I add a laugh track from an old sitcom underneath every word they utter. It adds perspective!
 
           4. The Dispossessed!– Corporate heads and bank swine are kidnapped and airlifted to an uncharted island, where an unseen enemy lurks and causes weekly mayhem. A talking volcano that demands sacrifice makes for numerous innovative twists in the last 3 minutes of every episode.



5. I Have Your Family– Remember that old weekly drama called The Equalizer? This one takes off where that one left off and creeps further into the ever-darkening Noahworld. Each episode begins with a phone call to a CEO or politician’s desk right after that goon has done something heinous to something or someone, be it an individual employee, union busting, an attack on the environment… Viewers get to voice their choice of punishment via texting; selecting from a delicious menu of punishments, designed to specifically match the crime. Plenty of Tony Haywards get to figuratively or literally drink the oil and meet their just reward.

Every night, I dream of a world where these corporate toe-tapper studio turds never exist. Having worked in the music business all of my career, I’ve met so many of their kind. They just want us to laugh it all off. We’re supposed to accept their mindless drek and jive, just like we’re supposed to get used to permanent war. NATGEO is even offering a show called Giuliani’s 9/11. I kid you not. He’s turned it into a TV show where 9/11 centers around him. That’s not a show. It’s a mental illness syndrome that will someday bear his name.
 
Rest assured though. I do know that none of my pitches will ever get “into development.” My show ideas might be something people can actually relate to in these harsh days; at least people outside of boardrooms and Hollywood studios. No, instead, I can all but guarantee you that somewhere, right now, in some Hollywood office bungalow, there is some little TV weasel planning a sitcom based on a New Orleans family’s experiences during Katrina. It’ll be called Five Feet High And Risin’ or, maybe Movin’ On Up, as in movin’ on up to the roof top where the family will be fishing for catfish from the roof, swimming, diving in the deep end of their street, and holding candlelight suppers. Good Times!  If the ratings take a dive, that weasel can always come with his Plan B- Auschwitz- The Musical!

WHO DO THE HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES SUPPORT? AND HATE?

I never had many right wing friends. I know a few Republicans; not many. But in business you meet some from time to time and some seem friendly. I live in L.A. and there are hardly any around. One of my favorite restaurants-- especially when I have fancy out-of-town guests-- is the Water Grill and it draws a pretty establishment-looking crowd and sometimes I get a mildly Republican vibe in there. Someone once took me to Mastro's Steakhouse and it reeked of them. It was loud and brassy and the portions were enough for a family of four. Everything was gross; I never went back.

I do have one friend who claims to be a "libertarian" but who I've worked on for years and as a result he's now a more respectable human being-- he's even stopped whoring around, getting drunk and using drugs, and he's married a lovely (and progressive) woman and they have two kids and he has totally turned against eating unhealthy food and supporting Bush and the Republicans. Unfortunately, primitive tribal identity politics has a strong hold on him and last week he invited me to come with him to a fundraiser for the guy he's supporting for president, Giuliani. "It's time for an Italian president," is all he could say in defense of the goomba he wrote a $2,300 check for.

I know how fed up he is with the Iraq War and how the Republicans have disastrously botched what they call the "war on terror." I argued that by supporting a stay the course Republican like Giuliani he would be condemning his two sons to eventually have to go fight overseas. "They're protected," he says, something many wealthy, selfish sociopaths think about their own situation. What about other people's sons and daughters? It doesn't matter; it's time for an Italian president.

Today's L.A. Times has a piece on who Angeleno celebrities are supporting. Will Smith is for Obama; wingnut Dennis Miller is for Giuliani; Oprah is for Obama, as are Ben Affleck, Ed Norton, Matt Damon, George Clooney and David Geffen; Quincy Jones and a lot of the old school Dems are sticking with Hillary.

The didn't mention which Republicans Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears are backing. But the article goes on to talk about a growing sophistication among celebrities who have learned that their support can be a "double-edged sword."

Clooney points to a deeply personal example of Hollywood backlash: His father, former television anchorman and game show host Nick Clooney, lost his congressional race in Kentucky in 2004 after his opponent blasted him for having "Hollywood values."

"It became an issue of Hollywood versus the heartland," said Clooney, who opted not to publicly campaign for his father. "I believed I could only do him more harm."

So when Obama, an Illinois Democrat, told Clooney last year that he was thinking about running for president, the actor was excited but cautious. "I told him I would do anything for him, including staying completely away from him," said Clooney, speaking recently on his cellphone from the South Carolina set of his latest movie, "Leatherheads."

Obama, however, welcomed Clooney's involvement and support. They got to know each other a year ago while attending a rally to raise awareness about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and have stayed in touch. When asked about Clooney at a recent event, Obama broke into a smile, gestured expressively and said simply: "He's a good friend."

I doubt Paris and Brittney are as politically astute as Clooney but I know for a fact that some Republican strategists are already asking them to keep their right-wing opinions to themselves. When the Bush-lovin' Brittney was asked to perform at the last GOP convention, some of the wingnuts went bonkers.

The belly-baring pop star is being courted to attend the Republican convention in New York next week, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and that has sparked outrage among some conservative groups.

"Through her immature antics, Spears has probably done more to undermine sexual morality than all the misguided legislation introduced in the United States over the last decade," the Illinois Family Institute wrote in an e-mail to members. "It would be the height of hypocrisy for a party that claims to represent wholesome values to celebrate her."

Citing Spears’ "lesbian" kiss with Madonna, her "general immodesty," and her annulled marriage to a childhood friend, the group is urging Republicans to call the GOP’s convention hotline to protest any appearance by Spears.

But whether the wingnuts want Brittney and Paris out there campaigning for McCain or Giuliani or whichever rightist they decide to sacrifice to Hillary-- or if they'd keep them locked up in a closet as tightly as Mitch McConnell keeps his sexual proclivities-- the GOP sure hates outspoken progressive celebrities. Although some of the biggest names in fascist propaganda, like Ann Coulter, Hannity and Scarborough, stayed away last night the Republican Party's Media Research Center had their 20th anniversary gala/hate-fest at Washington's Grand Hyatt. Greedily shoveling the grilled beef down their throats-- eat more, little piggies, eat more-- they were all hootin' and hollerin' as they let their hair down and took off their masks to reveal the monsters lurking beneath. The purpose of the night was to slander progressive media celebrities and independent voices who don't just regurgitate Rovian talking points and recycled tracts from Hitler and Mussolini.

Bottom of the barrel GOP spokesperson, Neal Boortz, for example went after Keith Olbermann, calling him a "void surrounded by a sphincter muscle... You know you've done something right when that footstool attacks you on national TV." Boortz also seems to have a bone to pick with Bryant Gumbel, calling him an "arrogant little jock-sniffer" and an "obtuse mindless person." Oooooooo.

One of the biggest Republican thinkers in the media-- not counting Brittney Spears-- is Wheel of Fortune's Pat Sajek and although he was too almost drunk to make it to the podium on his own, he did manage to accept a large pointy phallus ("The I'm Not a Political Genius But I Play One on TV" Award) for Rosie O'Donnell, saying "I don't know if she has room for this, but I'd be happy to take it over to her and show her where to put it." Hic.