June 30, 2018

Dave Eggers: A Cultural Vacuum in Trump's White House

This White House has been, and is likely to remain, home to the first presidency in American history that is almost completely devoid of culture. In the 17 months that Donald Trump has been in office, he has hosted only a few artists of any kind. One was the gun fetishist Ted Nugent. Another was Kid Rock. They went together (and with Sarah Palin). Neither performed.

Since his inauguration in January 2017, there have been no official concerts at the White House (the Reagans had one every few weeks). No poetry readings (the Obamas regularly celebrated young poets). The Carters began a televised series, “In Performance at the White House,” which last aired in 2016, where artists as varied as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Patricia McBride performed in the East Room. The Clintons continued the series with Aretha Franklin and B. B. King, Alison Krauss and Linda Ronstadt.

But aside from occasional performances by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the White House is now virtually free of music. Never have we had a president not just indifferent to the arts, but actively oppositional to artists. Mr. Trump disparaged the play “Hamilton” and a few weeks later attacked Meryl Streep. He has said he does not have time to read books (“I read passages, I read areas, I read chapters”). Outside of recommending books by his acolytes, Mr. Trump has tweeted about only one work of literature since the beginning of his presidency: Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury.” It was not an endorsement.

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It’s crucial to note that the White House’s support of the arts has never been partisan. No matter their political differences, presidents and artists have been able to find common ground in the celebration of American art and in the artists’ respect for the office of the presidency. This mutual respect, even if measured, made for the occasional odd photo-op. George H. W. Bush met Michael Jackson, who wore faux-military garb, including two medals he seemed to have given himself. Richard Nixon heartily shook the hand of Elvis Presley, whose jacket hung over his shoulders like a cape.

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But that kind of thing is inconceivable now. Admittedly, at a time when Mr. Trump’s policies have forcibly separated children from their asylum-seeking parents — taking the most vulnerable children from the most vulnerable adults — the White House’s attitude toward the arts seems relatively unimportant. But with art comes empathy. It allows us to look through someone else’s eyes and know their strivings and struggles. It expands the moral imagination and makes it impossible to accept the dehumanization of others. When we are without art, we are a diminished people — myopic, unlearned and cruel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/dave-eggers-culture-arts-trump.html

June 26, 2018

please be civil

June 26, 2018

David Lynch responds to Trump being excited by his taken out of context comment...

Dear Mr. President,

This is David Lynch writing. I saw that you re-tweeted the Breitbart article with the heading – Director David Lynch: Trump ‘Could Go Down as One of the Greatest Presidents in History.’ I wish you and I could sit down and have a talk. This quote which has traveled around was taken a bit out of context and would need some explaining.

Unfortunately, if you continue as you have been, you will not have a chance to go down in history as a great president. This would be very sad it seems for you – and for the country. You are causing suffering and division.

It’s not too late to turn the ship around. Point our ship toward a bright future for all. You can unite the country. Your soul will sing. Under great loving leadership, no one loses – everybody wins. It’s something I hope you think about and take to heart. All you need to do is treat all the people as you would like to be treated.

Sincerely,

David Lynch

https://www.facebook.com/davidlynchofficial/posts/1800909923291220

June 21, 2018

Why is everyone freaking out over a jacket? The photo is from 2015 and Michelle Obama wore it first.

June 20, 2018

Lewandowski works for a PAC that gets donations from a co. that owns private detention facilities

Corey Lewandowski, who said "womp womp" on national TV today regarding a 10-year old immigrant girl with Down Syndrome being taken from her mother, works for a PAC that gets donations from a company that owns private immigration detention facilities.

https://twitter.com/ASankin/status/1009259214785482752

June 20, 2018

Somebody said the crying kids are Stephen Miller's new ringtone.

eom

June 18, 2018

Border patrol agents jokes that wailing children sound like an orchestra

New: ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing.

Border Patrol agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”

https://twitter.com/ProPublica/status/1008799826669178880

It's no wonder Trump poll numbers are up...

P.S. FUCK YOU lurking wingnuts

June 15, 2018

GQ: This Is Why Trump Won

On Wednesday, MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff got to tour a former Walmart turned detention facility—a prison, really—for immigrant children, many of whom have been forcibly separated from their parents by U.S. officials. There, he found a Soviet-style mural of President Trump alongside a quote from The Art of the Deal. According to Soboroff, the kids only get two hours outside a day. The prison is growing overcrowded and is only getting worse, thanks to the Trump administration’s zeal for prosecuting immigrants, some of whom were already living here legally. And these are just the kids who are accounted for. There are also, of course, over a thousand immigrant children who are now UNACCOUNTED for.

In other news, Robert De Niro said a bad word in public.

This was apparently an egregious enough offense that it merited two separate op-eds in The Washington Post, and another op-ed in The New York Times from Frank Bruni, who was once a wonderful restaurant critic and is now one of the most singularly inane political columnists working today, which is saying a lot! His column about De Niro came in the form of an open letter, because Bruni is apparently an 8th grader. It’s also full of the same tepid, tut-tutting “Take the high road” hogwash that helped get us into this mess in the first place. Worst of all, Bruni posits all of his pathetic complacency as a grand, overarching form of political strategy.

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Bruni is far from alone in smarmily crying out THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON! every time a liberal gets angry about something they ought to be angry about. It is the laziest, stupidest theory, one that posits that the only possible way to take down Trump from his evildoing is to keep your voice so quiet that everyone else can opt out of hearing it. It’s also a clear case of naked pandering from newspapers that skew liberal but still yearn—whether for financial reasons or out of sheer vanity—to appear fair to both sides. This is how you end up with two sets of rules for each party. Republicans can be openly racist, nationalist, corrupt, and horny. Democrats have to be GOOD, because Americans apparently crave goodness even though 60 million of them voted for Donald Trump.

Would you like to know why Trump REALLY won? Cool. Donald Trump got elected because the electoral college is outdated and worthless. He got elected because of voter suppression. He got elected because of the fear and the racism of some white voters—whether that racism is out in the open, or kept in a closet in the suburbs somewhere. He got elected because his opponent had a poor election strategy. He got elected because of the great ocean patch of horseshit news that floats into every corner of the Internet, and the willingness of bad actors (Fox News, Infowars, Russia) to add to that patch. And he got elected because of the platforms of people like Frank Bruni, who continually preach adherence to norms and believe any deviation from them is a losing strategy.



There are many people to blame for Trump, but celebrities who vocally oppose him are probably the last people you should target. That fabled high road that Bruni is preaching? Well, he can rest assured that the Democratic Party also has an enormous hard-on for it. Chuck Schumer has openly praised Trump and courted him. A bunch of Democrats voted for a toxic bank-deregulation vote and have confirmed nearly every crooked nominee that Trump pulled out of the sewer to further rip off the American people. They’ve also pretty much dropped cries for gun control. They’re being MORE than civil, and the result is Republicans running roughshod over our most vulnerable citizens.

Wanna know how Trump wins re-election? This is how. It’s the same goddamn reason he won in 2016. He’ll win again because both the establishment media and the Democratic kingmakers are thin-skinned dipshits who will blame literally ANYONE for Trump but themselves. They will also recognize the Republican Party as legitimate and deserving of its power, when it has long since been exposed as a wholly criminal enterprise that needs to be destroyed. I guess that’s strong language, but strong language is needed when the supposed guardians of democracy are willing to yuk it up with Sarah Sanders at a dinner and concoct 900 synonyms for the word lie, all in the name of politesse.

https://www.gq.com/story/this-is-why-trump-won

June 13, 2018

Trump Appointee Compiles Loyalty List of U.S. Employees at U.N., State

Foreign Policy reports:

A senior advisor to the State Department appointed just two months ago has been quietly vetting career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to determine whether they are loyal to President Donald Trump and his political agenda, according to nearly a dozen current and former U.S. officials.

Mari Stull, a former food and beverage lobbyist-turned-wine blogger under the name “Vino Vixen,” has reviewed the social media pages of State Department staffers for signs of ideological deviation. She has researched the names of government officials to determine whether they signed off on Obama-era policies — though signing off does not mean officials personally endorsed them but merely cleared them through the bureaucratic chain.

And she has inquired about Americans employed by international agencies, including the World Health Organization and the United Nations, asking their colleagues when they were hired and by whom, according the officials.

More: http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/13/trumps-vino-vixen-compiles-loyalty-list-of-u-s-employees-at-u-n-state-mari-stull-political-appointee-state-department-international-organization-united-nations-political-retribution-chaos-dysfunction/

https://twitter.com/davidmackau/status/1006933847274065920

https://twitter.com/caitlin__kelly/status/1006934816472870913

June 6, 2018

You fake right, I'll fake patriotism...