The title is truncated a bit to fit the subject line, but "This Vicious Buffoon Is a Vessel for All the Worst Elements of the American Condition" is the entirety of it. And it fits.
Everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel.
—HRH George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland
This video should be the only news from now until Election Day, and probably beyond that, all the way to the next Election Day in 2020 as well.
This video captures perfectly where we are as a nation at this moment in history. It shows with startling clarity the end result of civic disengagement and democratic apathy. It shows without question that we have allowed our republic to fall into the hands of a sociopath whose feeling for his fellow human beings can be measured against a poker chip. It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the better angels of our nation have been sold out to anger, and greed, and stone hatred. It shows precisely the depths to which our fellow citizens will follow this bag of old and rancid sins. Some of those citizens know better. Some of them don't. All of them are dangerous blockheads.
Look at the man behind the seal of the President of the United States, mocking the recollections of a survivor of sexual assault. In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.
The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides.
We have had good presidents and bad—a Buchanan is followed by a Lincoln who is followed by an Andrew Johnson, and so forth. But we never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We have had presidents who have been the worthy targets of scalding scorn, but James Callender went after giants. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.
Watch him make fun of the woman again. Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut the fuck up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.
Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Thursday, September 27, 2018
"America's Dad" no more
I suppose that the real takeaway from Bill Cosby's conviction for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand is this: there are people out there who will disbelieve a rape victim's testimony no matter how compelling the evidence is if the perpetrator is famous or powerful enough. To add some background on this, here's an personal anecdote:
When all of this shit started hitting the fan a few years ago - 2015, if I recall correctly - one of my coworkers complained that people "should leave the man alone" (or words to that effect) apparently because she just could not believe that any of the women that were coming forward at the time actually had a legitimate reason to. Like a lot of true believers in the saintliness of certain public figures, she discounted the truthfulness of anyone who dared to sully Cosby's image; all they were, apparently, were women who had a grudge against him or were mere publicity hounds and not legitimate victims of some of his assaults from years back. She's not with the company I work for in Meatspace anymore, but it'd be interesting to see what her opinion is now.
We saw this sort of thing with Michael Jackson, of course. The difference is that Jackson was acquitted due to lack of proof and Cosby wasn't. My own personal belief is that Jackson probably was guilty, but I wasn't on that jury and it's pointless now since Jackson isn't around to deny it. This time the jury was in agreement, though, and my guess is that although the #Metoo movement had a lot to do with consciousness-raising about sexual assault in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that wasn't the reason Cosby was convicted. It was simply a preponderance of evidence that did him in, not adverse publicity.
Even with his conviction, there are still some major points that some people don't get about the subject of alleged victims coming forward in situations like this; the defenders of Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh have said over and over again that the allegations against him are false and almost entirely motivated by politics. There's a serious problem with that assertion, however: no such allegations came out during the confirmation processes for Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Samuel Alito or Neil Gorsuch, or any number of male nominees to the court before them with the exception of Clarence Thomas. And although Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, he wasn't accused of out-and-out sexual assault as Kavanaugh is. The really ugly thing about the Kavanaugh situation isn't that the charges are somehow automatically false (which they're not) or that Kavanaugh may be denied a seat on the SCOTUS bench because of them (which might not happen either, sad to say); it's the kneejerk reaction of way too many politically connected individuals in automatically believing that The Woman Made The Damn Story Up.
Yes, there are women who've fabricated rape stories: one of the most famous of those incidents was here in Illinois with Gary Dotson, and it was ultimately DNA evidence (his was the first conviction that was overturned in the US on that basis) as well as a very public recantation by his alleged victim Cathleen Crowell Webb. But to automatically assume that a woman coming forward years later has a sinister agenda isn't merely ridiculous; it's got more than a touch of misogyny to it, and if it turns out she was right it's a form of victim-shaming that a lot of people should know better than to engage in. And of course they don't.
So what did the other victims of Cosby get out of this? Nothing, other than his imprisonment; his legal bills will be huge, and there's every possibility that he'll be safely dead before anyone comes calling with a successful civil lawsuit for what remains of his money. Ultimately, though, automatically believing an alleged victim without due process may be a mistake, but more importantly reflexively not believing her might be an even bigger one.
When all of this shit started hitting the fan a few years ago - 2015, if I recall correctly - one of my coworkers complained that people "should leave the man alone" (or words to that effect) apparently because she just could not believe that any of the women that were coming forward at the time actually had a legitimate reason to. Like a lot of true believers in the saintliness of certain public figures, she discounted the truthfulness of anyone who dared to sully Cosby's image; all they were, apparently, were women who had a grudge against him or were mere publicity hounds and not legitimate victims of some of his assaults from years back. She's not with the company I work for in Meatspace anymore, but it'd be interesting to see what her opinion is now.
We saw this sort of thing with Michael Jackson, of course. The difference is that Jackson was acquitted due to lack of proof and Cosby wasn't. My own personal belief is that Jackson probably was guilty, but I wasn't on that jury and it's pointless now since Jackson isn't around to deny it. This time the jury was in agreement, though, and my guess is that although the #Metoo movement had a lot to do with consciousness-raising about sexual assault in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that wasn't the reason Cosby was convicted. It was simply a preponderance of evidence that did him in, not adverse publicity.
Even with his conviction, there are still some major points that some people don't get about the subject of alleged victims coming forward in situations like this; the defenders of Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh have said over and over again that the allegations against him are false and almost entirely motivated by politics. There's a serious problem with that assertion, however: no such allegations came out during the confirmation processes for Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Samuel Alito or Neil Gorsuch, or any number of male nominees to the court before them with the exception of Clarence Thomas. And although Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, he wasn't accused of out-and-out sexual assault as Kavanaugh is. The really ugly thing about the Kavanaugh situation isn't that the charges are somehow automatically false (which they're not) or that Kavanaugh may be denied a seat on the SCOTUS bench because of them (which might not happen either, sad to say); it's the kneejerk reaction of way too many politically connected individuals in automatically believing that The Woman Made The Damn Story Up.
Yes, there are women who've fabricated rape stories: one of the most famous of those incidents was here in Illinois with Gary Dotson, and it was ultimately DNA evidence (his was the first conviction that was overturned in the US on that basis) as well as a very public recantation by his alleged victim Cathleen Crowell Webb. But to automatically assume that a woman coming forward years later has a sinister agenda isn't merely ridiculous; it's got more than a touch of misogyny to it, and if it turns out she was right it's a form of victim-shaming that a lot of people should know better than to engage in. And of course they don't.
So what did the other victims of Cosby get out of this? Nothing, other than his imprisonment; his legal bills will be huge, and there's every possibility that he'll be safely dead before anyone comes calling with a successful civil lawsuit for what remains of his money. Ultimately, though, automatically believing an alleged victim without due process may be a mistake, but more importantly reflexively not believing her might be an even bigger one.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
"Paranoia, they destroy ya..."
My apologies to the Kinks for misuse of that quote, but it's pretty damn obvious that that's exactly what you get when you interview President Unintelligible on anything related to the Mueller investigation these days. As quoted by Charles P. Pierce in Esquire:
“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office. “I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done ... in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said. “If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. ... I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”
Other than the slight issue with not being able to fire the director of the FBI before your own inauguration as President, what's most evident about that quote and others from that piece in The Hill (Original here, for completeness' sake) is that Trump not only has some major issues with his thinking on the subject of exactly who's corrupt here (the smart money says it's his own flunkies, judging by all the indictments, guilty pleas and rolling over to cooperate with prosecutors and the like), but he also actually thinks he's doing us all a favor by trying to break effective independent law enforcement on the Federal level - at least where his own administration is concerned, of course.
But the thing that comes across the most in that word salad is that he thinks they're all out to get him.
Hence the reference to that Kinks song in the title.
It just fits too well.
“What we’ve done is a great service to the country, really,” Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval Office. “I hope to be able to call this, along with tax cuts and regulation and all the things I’ve done ... in its own way this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt,” he said. “If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don’t want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day on the job. ... I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don’t want him there when I get there.”
Other than the slight issue with not being able to fire the director of the FBI before your own inauguration as President, what's most evident about that quote and others from that piece in The Hill (Original here, for completeness' sake) is that Trump not only has some major issues with his thinking on the subject of exactly who's corrupt here (the smart money says it's his own flunkies, judging by all the indictments, guilty pleas and rolling over to cooperate with prosecutors and the like), but he also actually thinks he's doing us all a favor by trying to break effective independent law enforcement on the Federal level - at least where his own administration is concerned, of course.
But the thing that comes across the most in that word salad is that he thinks they're all out to get him.
Hence the reference to that Kinks song in the title.
It just fits too well.
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
In Memoriam: Stan Mikita, 1940-2018
Stan Mikita's death is particularly sad, especially considering the dementia that robbed him of his memories as a player in later years, but that's not what defined the man. Instead, this does:
541 goals, 926 assists and 1467 points, four NHL scoring titles and eight appearances as a NHL All-Star in a 22-year career spent entirely with the Chicago Blackhawks. He holds the team records for assists and points and is only second to Bobby Hull in goals scored. Add to all of that the fact that he played on the 1961 Blackhawks squad that would be the last to win the Stanley Cup until 2010 and you're looking at a career that marks Mikita as one of the top 5 players in franchise history, if not the top player, period.
He'll be missed.
541 goals, 926 assists and 1467 points, four NHL scoring titles and eight appearances as a NHL All-Star in a 22-year career spent entirely with the Chicago Blackhawks. He holds the team records for assists and points and is only second to Bobby Hull in goals scored. Add to all of that the fact that he played on the 1961 Blackhawks squad that would be the last to win the Stanley Cup until 2010 and you're looking at a career that marks Mikita as one of the top 5 players in franchise history, if not the top player, period.
He'll be missed.
Signal boost: No, the Trump Tower meeting was not "totally legal"
The following is a particularly well-reasoned editorial in the Los Angeles Times by Harry Litman and David Lieberman concerning the latest nonsense out of Trumpistan concerning the 2016 conversation between members of his political team (including Donald Trump, Jr.) and a Kremlin-affiliated Russian lawyer.
Exposing a longstanding lie blunt even by his standards, President Trump on Sunday confessed by tweet that the purpose of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his campaign and a Kremlin-linked lawyer was “to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics.”
It was left to his lawyer Jay Sekulow to try to clean up the mess. Addressing whether the meeting constituted a criminal violation, Sekulow told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that “you have to look at what laws, rules, regulations, statutes are purportedly violated here.”
So let’s do that. Meeting with a foreign power to get assistance with a presidential campaign is not totally legal; special counsel Robert S. Mueller III almost certainly could indict Donald Trump Jr. today for what is publicly known about the meeting; and the president should be deeply concerned about his own liability.
Mueller’s February indictment of the Internet Research Agency, and associated Russian entities and individuals, charged a conspiracy to influence the election to damage Hillary Clinton, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and support Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — let’s call it an electioneering conspiracy. The indictment charged violations of 18 U.S. Code § 371 — conspiracy to commit an offense against, or to defraud United States.
Under the “defraud clause,” as precedent and the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual make clear, the statute criminalizes “any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of government,” even if the object of the conspiracy is not a criminal offense. According to Mueller’s indictment, the conspiracy sought to defraud the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice — the agencies charged with preventing foreign nationals from making contributions, donations or expenditures (which can include not just money, but any “thing of value”) that would influence U.S. elections.
Conspiracy law, it’s important to note, punishes the act of agreeing to a forbidden goal regardless of whether that goal is achieved. So long as the government can establish that targets agreed to pursue the conspiratorial objective, they may be prosecuted as co-conspirators. Conspirators need only agree to help bring about the object of a conspiracy even if they are not aware of all the details of the conspiracy itself. For example, in “chain-conspiracies” usually involving narcotics, lower-level buyers and sellers are included in larger distribution conspiracy so long as they have some understanding of the existence of the larger plot.
The Trump Tower meeting clearly fits established definitions of “conspiracy to defraud the United States.” In early June, Trump Jr. received an email explaining that a Russian government official wanted to provide his father’s campaign with incriminating documents and information about Clinton as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. replied, "if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” The June 9 meeting was confirmed two days earlier, on June 7. That night, Trump announced that he would “give a major speech” in the next week to discuss “all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
On the face of it, Trump Jr. was approached by a foreign government seeking to influence an American election. Trump Jr. welcomed the possibility of influence, and candidate Trump’s actions, while circumstantial, indicate that he intended to make use of that information. It is irrelevant, in conspiracy law, that Trump Jr. found the information ultimately worthless, or as Trump said, that “it went nowhere.”
Michael Cohen’s allegations last week must have deeply terrified the president and those looking out for his legal interests. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and “fixer,” reportedly is willing to tell Mueller that he was in the room when Trump heard about and approved the June 9 meeting. That would potentially place the president at the center of the decision to join the electioneering conspiracy. Trump’s later documented effort to dictate a false statement about the meeting looks like an attempt to cover up his culpability. A prosecutor and jury are entitled to view a cover-up as evidence of participation in the conspiracy.
More than one year after telling the world that the June 2016 meeting was about adoptions, Trump and his eldest son stand stripped of their false cover. There is no more denying that the meeting sought to enlist the help of a hostile power to swing the election Trump’s way. The effort and the false statements about it were plainly deplorable. Whether they also were illegal turns on questions of law that Trump cannot obfuscate or control. They are what they are. Mueller already has laid the legal predicate for the Trumps’ guilt. Trump is at last playing in a legit game, and his hand is weak.
Exposing a longstanding lie blunt even by his standards, President Trump on Sunday confessed by tweet that the purpose of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his campaign and a Kremlin-linked lawyer was “to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics.”
It was left to his lawyer Jay Sekulow to try to clean up the mess. Addressing whether the meeting constituted a criminal violation, Sekulow told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that “you have to look at what laws, rules, regulations, statutes are purportedly violated here.”
So let’s do that. Meeting with a foreign power to get assistance with a presidential campaign is not totally legal; special counsel Robert S. Mueller III almost certainly could indict Donald Trump Jr. today for what is publicly known about the meeting; and the president should be deeply concerned about his own liability.
Mueller’s February indictment of the Internet Research Agency, and associated Russian entities and individuals, charged a conspiracy to influence the election to damage Hillary Clinton, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and support Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — let’s call it an electioneering conspiracy. The indictment charged violations of 18 U.S. Code § 371 — conspiracy to commit an offense against, or to defraud United States.
Under the “defraud clause,” as precedent and the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual make clear, the statute criminalizes “any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of government,” even if the object of the conspiracy is not a criminal offense. According to Mueller’s indictment, the conspiracy sought to defraud the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice — the agencies charged with preventing foreign nationals from making contributions, donations or expenditures (which can include not just money, but any “thing of value”) that would influence U.S. elections.
Conspiracy law, it’s important to note, punishes the act of agreeing to a forbidden goal regardless of whether that goal is achieved. So long as the government can establish that targets agreed to pursue the conspiratorial objective, they may be prosecuted as co-conspirators. Conspirators need only agree to help bring about the object of a conspiracy even if they are not aware of all the details of the conspiracy itself. For example, in “chain-conspiracies” usually involving narcotics, lower-level buyers and sellers are included in larger distribution conspiracy so long as they have some understanding of the existence of the larger plot.
The Trump Tower meeting clearly fits established definitions of “conspiracy to defraud the United States.” In early June, Trump Jr. received an email explaining that a Russian government official wanted to provide his father’s campaign with incriminating documents and information about Clinton as part of “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. replied, "if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” The June 9 meeting was confirmed two days earlier, on June 7. That night, Trump announced that he would “give a major speech” in the next week to discuss “all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
On the face of it, Trump Jr. was approached by a foreign government seeking to influence an American election. Trump Jr. welcomed the possibility of influence, and candidate Trump’s actions, while circumstantial, indicate that he intended to make use of that information. It is irrelevant, in conspiracy law, that Trump Jr. found the information ultimately worthless, or as Trump said, that “it went nowhere.”
Michael Cohen’s allegations last week must have deeply terrified the president and those looking out for his legal interests. Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and “fixer,” reportedly is willing to tell Mueller that he was in the room when Trump heard about and approved the June 9 meeting. That would potentially place the president at the center of the decision to join the electioneering conspiracy. Trump’s later documented effort to dictate a false statement about the meeting looks like an attempt to cover up his culpability. A prosecutor and jury are entitled to view a cover-up as evidence of participation in the conspiracy.
More than one year after telling the world that the June 2016 meeting was about adoptions, Trump and his eldest son stand stripped of their false cover. There is no more denying that the meeting sought to enlist the help of a hostile power to swing the election Trump’s way. The effort and the false statements about it were plainly deplorable. Whether they also were illegal turns on questions of law that Trump cannot obfuscate or control. They are what they are. Mueller already has laid the legal predicate for the Trumps’ guilt. Trump is at last playing in a legit game, and his hand is weak.
Greg Abbott continues to be bad at a couple of things
So he's bad at what, you might ask? Thinking, for one. And telling the truth.
As if his penchant for black helicopters and such wasn't bad enough, he decided to Tweet a bogus Winston Churchill quote because it would prove a point he was trying to make. A pity for him Churchill never said anything of the sort, although his attempt to walk it back was only a partial one:
"What I tweeted was a sentiment that I had," Abbott said at a news conference on changes to the state's bail laws. "It was irrelevant to me who may or may not have said that in the past. I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism for saying it. If no one else said it, attribute the quote to me because it's what I believe in."
Politicians: can't live with 'em. Actually, at times you can't take 'em seriously as adults, either.
As if his penchant for black helicopters and such wasn't bad enough, he decided to Tweet a bogus Winston Churchill quote because it would prove a point he was trying to make. A pity for him Churchill never said anything of the sort, although his attempt to walk it back was only a partial one:
"What I tweeted was a sentiment that I had," Abbott said at a news conference on changes to the state's bail laws. "It was irrelevant to me who may or may not have said that in the past. I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism for saying it. If no one else said it, attribute the quote to me because it's what I believe in."
Politicians: can't live with 'em. Actually, at times you can't take 'em seriously as adults, either.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Now reading
The Legacies of Betrayal anthology (Graham McNeill, editor) from the simply upbeat Warhammer 40K blokes at Black Library/Games Workshop, who decided to add the phrase "let the galaxy burn" under the main title in case you didn't quite get the point.
Stay trendy and dumb, and the money will roll right in
It's not just that Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP empire has expanded to the point of being an extremely viable boutique (read: overpriced and vacuously trendy) business based on all sorts of ridiculous air-filled woo, but that the promotion of said woo in the face of all sorts of counterevidence (such as from gynecologist Jen Gunter) seems to not have slowed her death march into the land of big money quackery down one bit:
At Harvard, G.P. called these moments “cultural firestorms.” “I can monetize those eyeballs,” she told the students. Goop had learned to do a special kind of dark art: to corral the vitriol of the internet and the ever-present shall we call it cultural ambivalence about G.P. herself and turn them into cash. It’s never clickbait, she told the class. “It’s a cultural firestorm when it’s about a woman’s vagina.” The room was silent. She then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!” as if she were yodeling.
(Yeah, I know - those last three sentences almost seem like a scene written by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in one of their more cynical moments, but no, she apparently really did do that.)
As of June, there were 2.4 million unique visitors to the site per month, according to the numbers Goop provided me. The podcast, which is mostly hosted by Loehnen and features interviews with wellness practitioners, receives 100,000 to 650,000 listens per week. Goop wanted to publish articles about autoimmune diseases and infrared saunas and thyroids, and now it can, on its own terms — sort of.
After a few too many cultural firestorms, and with investors to think about, G.P. made some changes. Goop has hired a lawyer to vet all claims on the site. It hired an editor away from Condé Nast to run the magazine. It hired a man with a Ph.D. in nutritional science, and a director of science and research who is a former Stanford professor. And in September, Goop, sigh, is hiring a full-time fact-checker. G.P. chose to see it as “necessary growing pain.”
Oh, but I can actually think of a better cure for those growing pains: actually involving more than just one former Stanford professor, but a number of actual doctors and scientists - if not to debunk some of this nonsense, then to provide something at least resembling a counterpoint to the mindless cheerleading for all of this crap.
I just don't think it'll happen. Too much work, and too hard on Gwyneth's sizeable bank account. Which, of course, is the real beneficiary here.
At Harvard, G.P. called these moments “cultural firestorms.” “I can monetize those eyeballs,” she told the students. Goop had learned to do a special kind of dark art: to corral the vitriol of the internet and the ever-present shall we call it cultural ambivalence about G.P. herself and turn them into cash. It’s never clickbait, she told the class. “It’s a cultural firestorm when it’s about a woman’s vagina.” The room was silent. She then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!” as if she were yodeling.
(Yeah, I know - those last three sentences almost seem like a scene written by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in one of their more cynical moments, but no, she apparently really did do that.)
As of June, there were 2.4 million unique visitors to the site per month, according to the numbers Goop provided me. The podcast, which is mostly hosted by Loehnen and features interviews with wellness practitioners, receives 100,000 to 650,000 listens per week. Goop wanted to publish articles about autoimmune diseases and infrared saunas and thyroids, and now it can, on its own terms — sort of.
After a few too many cultural firestorms, and with investors to think about, G.P. made some changes. Goop has hired a lawyer to vet all claims on the site. It hired an editor away from Condé Nast to run the magazine. It hired a man with a Ph.D. in nutritional science, and a director of science and research who is a former Stanford professor. And in September, Goop, sigh, is hiring a full-time fact-checker. G.P. chose to see it as “necessary growing pain.”
Oh, but I can actually think of a better cure for those growing pains: actually involving more than just one former Stanford professor, but a number of actual doctors and scientists - if not to debunk some of this nonsense, then to provide something at least resembling a counterpoint to the mindless cheerleading for all of this crap.
I just don't think it'll happen. Too much work, and too hard on Gwyneth's sizeable bank account. Which, of course, is the real beneficiary here.
Idiot, Uninterrupted: You Gotta Have Friends...
So the latest odd strategy by the legal defenders of the Orange Thing In The White House is that he had his most famous proxy assert - no lie, now - that collusion with the Russians just wasn't illegal, period. Never mind the fact that this little idea seems to fly in the face of the Republic of Trumpistan's previous assertions that there was no such collusion - it's all okay now, according to Angry Grandpa Rudy.
Unfortunately, though, there's all of this:
So far, special counsel Robert Mueller has accused the Russians of hacking into Democrats' computers and stealing emails, as well as trying to stoke U.S. tensions before the 2016 election using social media. Mueller has already accused Trump's former campaign chairman and another top aide of working as foreign agents for Ukrainian interests and funneling millions of dollars from the work into offshore accounts used to fund lavish lifestyles.
Mueller might decide, for example, that a crime was committed if he finds evidence that an American was involved in the hack of Democrats, either by soliciting it or paying someone to do it.
The investigation also has exposed Moscow's aggressive outreach to the Trump campaign, including a promise of "dirt" on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in a meeting attended by Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr.
If Trump or his aides knew in advance that Russia had the trove of stolen emails and did nothing to alert federal authorities, they could be accused of covering up the crime of stolen emails or working as foreign agents. Although it's rare for the Justice Department to charge people for not reporting illegal behavior, it's also not often that a special counsel team, with a wide-ranging mandate to find wrongdoing, is on the case.
As well, a conspiracy to defraud the United States can be used to refer to any two people using "deceit, craft, or trickery" to interfere with governmental functions, such as an election.
In other words, "collusion" might be shorthand. But if it relates to Russia and U.S. elections, it can still be very much against the law.
Unfortunately, though, there's all of this:
So far, special counsel Robert Mueller has accused the Russians of hacking into Democrats' computers and stealing emails, as well as trying to stoke U.S. tensions before the 2016 election using social media. Mueller has already accused Trump's former campaign chairman and another top aide of working as foreign agents for Ukrainian interests and funneling millions of dollars from the work into offshore accounts used to fund lavish lifestyles.
Mueller might decide, for example, that a crime was committed if he finds evidence that an American was involved in the hack of Democrats, either by soliciting it or paying someone to do it.
The investigation also has exposed Moscow's aggressive outreach to the Trump campaign, including a promise of "dirt" on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in a meeting attended by Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr.
If Trump or his aides knew in advance that Russia had the trove of stolen emails and did nothing to alert federal authorities, they could be accused of covering up the crime of stolen emails or working as foreign agents. Although it's rare for the Justice Department to charge people for not reporting illegal behavior, it's also not often that a special counsel team, with a wide-ranging mandate to find wrongdoing, is on the case.
As well, a conspiracy to defraud the United States can be used to refer to any two people using "deceit, craft, or trickery" to interfere with governmental functions, such as an election.
In other words, "collusion" might be shorthand. But if it relates to Russia and U.S. elections, it can still be very much against the law.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Idiot, Uninterrupted: The Sequel
And so The Donald walked back his bizarre assertions about Russia's innocence in hacking the DNC in 2016.
Oh, wait. He didn't. Or did he? It's getting harder and harder to tell, since President Unintelligible believes that any answer he gives will always be the right one, no matter how much it contradicts previous ones.
Meanwhile, fear the deadly threat that is...Montenegro. All 600,000+ of 'em. Maybe they'll invade Milwaukee or some other city equivalent to their gigantic population.
Oh, wait. He didn't. Or did he? It's getting harder and harder to tell, since President Unintelligible believes that any answer he gives will always be the right one, no matter how much it contradicts previous ones.
Meanwhile, fear the deadly threat that is...Montenegro. All 600,000+ of 'em. Maybe they'll invade Milwaukee or some other city equivalent to their gigantic population.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)