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letterstomycountry · 5 years

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Manufacturing Liberal Consent

Image via TPM

Noam Chomsky wrote a book with Edward S. Herman in 1988 called Manufacturing Consent. It is about how media outlets are controlled and manipulated by people in positions of power to influence public opinion.

I couldn’t help but think back to Chomsky’s message in Manufacturing Consent as I took stock of the media coverage of this year’s Democratic primaries, which has been uniformly awful.

Take, for instance, the popular narrative that after Joe Biden won Michigan that the Bernie Sanders campaign is all but over. Headlines include:

Sanders not dropping out but where does he go from here?

Bernie Sanders will stay in primary race despite losses in key states

Campaign Says Bernie Sanders Will Not Drop Out Immediately Despite Michigan Loss

Defiant Bernie Sanders vows to soldier on in US campaign

The bleak picture painted by these headlines suggest that the Sanders Campaign’s chances of victory is slim. But that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Right now, Joe Biden has 864 delegates. Bernie Sanders has 710. So Bernie is roughly 150 delegates behind. And there are still over *2000* delegates that haven't been awarded yet.

So why are so many pundits saying Bernie Sanders' campaign is basically over and has failed to “win key states” when the Obama campaign was even further behind in 2008? Why the slanted media coverage?

The answer seems pretty clear:

You can see that strikingly today where there is huge debate about Sanders being a socialist. “How can we have a socialist president?” In fact, Sanders is what would be called a moderate social democrat in most other societies. In other societies, the word “socialist” is not a curse word — people call themselves socialists and even communists. In the United States, there’s a stigma attached to it by massive propaganda going way back to 1917. Such huge propaganda efforts to demonize the concepts of socialism and communism (saying it means the “gulag” or whatever) is again pretty much unique to the United States. It’s a barrier to introducing even mild New Deal–style social-democratic reforms.

This stigma is largely a type of manufactured consent, however. When you ask people if they agree with the policies Bernie Sanders is proposing, polls consistently show that the majority of people approve of his policies.

Polls also consistently show that the Bernie Sanders campaign is the best suited to defeat Donald Trump in the general election.

So why do we continue to hear how dangerous it is to nominate Bernie Sanders as the Democratic presidential candidate from media outlets? Why are people like Chris Matthews freaking out on national television? Why are moderate democrats calling for the primary to be “shut down” when there’s still a relatively small gap between the candidates?

This is how the rich and powerful manufacture consent. They use their influence over media outlets to ensure that a certain narrative is reinforced. And frankly, I have to say that this year’s coverage of the Democratic primary has been uniquely demonstrative of that fact. Never before has it been more plain that people in charge of powerful institutions are using their large bank accounts and ability to influence media programming decisions behind the scenes to try to sway public opinion in a specific direction by making certain narratives about politics appear to be "common sense" among the intellectual class.

How else can we explain the fact that we have been bombarded with opinion pieces over the past year telling us how Bernie Sanders isn’t electable, despite poll after poll showing that Bernie Sanders does better against Trump than any other candidate? How else can we explain the fact that nearly all the other moderates in the Democratic primary dropped out in near-perfect synchronicity just before Super Tuesday in an effort to shore up support for a single moderate candidate?

The DNC has made it publicly apparent that they want to stop Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. Some reports suggest that Barack Obama made several calls telling the other candidates it was time to drop out and get behind Joe Biden. Whether that specific factoid is true or not, who knows. But given the DNC’s very publicly announced bias towards Sanders, it seems probable that there was an organized effort to get the moderate candidates to coalesce around a single moderate.

And so the DNC has now forced Joe Biden upon us. A man who--not unlike our current President--apparently has trouble not touching women without their consent. A man who is showing signs of deteriorating cognitive ability. A man who is so gaffe prone that his own surrogates are trying to limit the number of public appearances he makes to avoid more media gaffes. A man who, despite signaling support for the #metoo movement and women’s rights, once said this about Roe v. Wade:

“I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”

And even if you ignore all this, imagine how Donald Trump--a master of verbal misdirection and appealing to the electorate’s baser instincts on the bully pulpit--will manhandle a Democratic presidential candidate who recently tried to quote a well known phrase from the Declaration of Independence and forgot it halfway. This is to say nothing of the ammunition Trump will have during the general election given that the Republican led Senate is now proceeding with an official corruption probe into Joe and Hunter Biden’s private dealings.

Despite all this, establishment Dems are doing their best to manufacture consent for Joe Biden. And by every indication they are doing a hell of a job. Before Super Tuesday, Biden’s performance was abysmal. But once he became the only moderate left in the race, and suddenly received a storm of endorsements from other establishment politicians, he was suddenly electorally competitive. Add to this a little bit of voter suppression designed to discourage young voters from participating, along with the emotional resilience of the “problematic Bernie Bro” mythology that has been empirically demonstrated to be false, you have an excellent full court press designed to manufacture consent for Joe Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Keep this in mind as the primary campaign continues. And keep it in mind this Sunday when Joe Biden debates Bernie Sanders. Better yet, think about all of this if Joe Biden gets the nomination, because if he does, he will almost certainly lose to Donald Trump in November. Not just because he is a weak candidate, but because nominating Joe Biden is the end of the Democratic party as we know it.

Progressives have made it clear that they are sick of being lied to and used to support Democratic candidates who then flip the script once they are in office. They are tired of being black-mailed into supporting candidates like Joe Biden, who told a room of wealthy donors last year that “nothing will fundamentally change” if he is elected President.

The media has done a fantastic job of making Joe Biden seem like an electable moderate. But “our needs our not moderate.” As we speak, New York City can’t close schools to prevent the Corona Virus from spreading because over 100,000 kids in the NYC school system are homeless and depend on meals from school to get enough food for the day. But since nothing will fundamentally change if Biden is elected, it sounds like he will not show half as much determination to solve this problem as he showed in opposing federal busing to end segregation in the 1970′s.

Remember that Al Gore lost in 2000. John Kerry lost in 2004. Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. And recall that Obama won in 2008 by appealing to young voters, who are much more supportive of progressive policies than older voters. Despite this, the Democratic party has once again--just like in 2000, 2004, and 2016--made it abundantly clear that it would rather run a weak establishment moderate and lose, than run a progressive change candidate and win. Why? Well, at least that way, wealthy democratic donors get to keep their yacht money.

#politics #joe biden #democrats #2020election #primary #2020primary #bernie sanders

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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DONALD TRUMP’S STRANGE AND DANGEROUS ‘ABSOLUTE RIGHTS’ IDEA

This is a profound misunderstanding of the American constitutional system.

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

By Jane Chong, Former law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit | Published February 29, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted March 01, 2020 |

President Donald Trump’s theory of executive power starts and ends with his “absolute rights.”

Trump invoked that catchphrase earlier this month, when, in apparent response to his angry tweets, the Justice Department undercut its own prosecutors and reduced their recommended prison sentence for Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend and former campaign adviser. Trump denied having asked the Justice Department to step in—but not without insisting that he had the “absolute right to do it” if he so chose.

That claim is a favorite Trump refrain, and like a brake warning light, it tends to signal that the car is no longer safely in contact with the legal road. In May 2017, after The New York Times reported that Trump had spilled highly classified information to Russian government officials, he tweeted that he had “the absolute right to do so.” In December of that year, when asked whether the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails should be reopened, Trump invoked his “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.” Six months later, in June 2018, Trump tweeted that Robert Mueller’s investigation was “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” and that if push came to shove, “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself.”

[ Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes: 23 dangerous propositions the Senate just ratified]

Things snowballed in 2019. In February of that year, Trump announced that he had the “absolute right to declare a national emergency” in order to obtain border-wall funding that Congress had not authorized. In April, Trump denied reports that he had offered to pardon the Customs and Border Protection commissioner if he were arrested for enforcing Trump’s policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, but tweeted that he had “the absolute right” to close the border. In October, in the midst of the House impeachment inquiry into his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump claimed that he had an “absolute right, perhaps even a duty,” to ask foreign countries for help in investigating corruption. In November, he derided Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, by tweet in the middle of her testimony before the House Intelligence Committee and claimed his “absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”

The temptation may be to dismiss Trump’s theory of absolute rights as a showy rhetorical tic. But one of his very first acts as president was to operationalize that theory, not long after debuting it on the campaign trail. “The president has the right to ban any group or anybody … that he feels is going to do harm to our country,” Trump explained in a June 2016 appearance on Howie Carr’s radio show, while inveighing against Muslim immigration to the United States after the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. “They have an absolute right, Howie.” Seven days after his inauguration, Trump signed a legally and operationally unworkable executive order imposing a 120-day ban on entry for all refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries and an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria, which reportedly underwent none of the usual interagency review processes.

Most recently, less than a week after claiming his “absolute right” to intervene in Stone’s case, Trump issued a round of pardons that conspicuously included his friends and associates, most colorfully Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor and a contestant on Trump’s show Celebrity Apprentice, who was caught on FBI wiretaps in 2008 trying to sell President Barack Obama’s Senate seat. The move suggests more coming interference on behalf of Stone, the “tough, loyal guy” whose case, Trump alleges, was “totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought,” and whose trial, Trump claims, suffered “significant bias.” Last week, when asked again about his plans regarding Stone, Trump mused aloud, “I’m allowed to be totally involved. I’m actually, I guess, the chief law-enforcement officer of the country.”

[ Read: Will Trump destroy the presidency?]

The point is, Trump’s theory of executive power does real work and has had real consequences. The opening memorandum prepared by Trump’s defense team for his Senate impeachment trial, for example, served as an homage to the general concept of absolute rights and built from its vision of an unconstrained executive the startling argument that the president cannot be impeached for abuses of power. Trump’s coinage actually made a revealing, and legally mystifying, appearance in the brief: “It is well settled that the President has a virtually absolute right to maintain the confidentiality of his diplomatic communications with foreign leaders.” As support for this sweeping claim, Trump’s team cited the Supreme Court’s 1974 decision in United States v. Nixon. But that decision notes nothing more than the courts’ traditional deference to the president’s claims of executive privilege over communications bearing on sensitive foreign-policy and national-security matters—and ultimately determined that President Richard Nixon had to hand over tapes subpoenaed by the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal.

Where Trump derived the idea that as president he enjoys absolute rights is unclear. But his chosen phraseology is sticky and evocative. It carries a quasi-juridical ring that belies its conceptual incoherence. Closely examined, his incessant invocation of the phrase evokes the image not of the leader of the free world, but of a freeholder enjoying untrammeled and indefinite possession of his estate. Constitutionally baseless but rhetorically compelling, the whole concept of “absolute rights” is best described as a legal innovation by a real-estate mogul who understands power through the prism of private property rather than public obligation.

As the owner and developer of a sprawling global real-estate empire, Trump, of course, knows a thing or two about property. And in the world of property, the best kind of ownership is “absolute”—or “perfect”—title. Absolute title grants the title holder unequivocal, unchallengeable ownership rights. The property is free and clear, to be enjoyed and used by the owner as he sees fit. It is encumbered by nothing. The owner is beholden to no one.

What does it mean for Trump to claim ownership of not a golf resort but the executive branch of the U.S. government?

Commentators have repeatedly observed that Trump “has often seemed to conflate himself with the government, and his own interests with the nation’s.” Thus, to criticize Trump is to attack America. This makes some sense if the unitary executive is reimagined as a sole proprietorship, an arrangement in which the business enterprise enjoys no legal existence separate from its owner.

“I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” Trump crowed to a group of teenage conservatives at a Washington, D.C., summit in July, awkwardly waving his constitutional authority like a golden ticket entitling him to full possession of a chocolate factory. Conceived this way, as absolute title, Article II vests the president not with power sanctioned by and concomitant with his obligations to the people, but with rights enforceable against them.

This is a profound misunderstanding of the American constitutional system. Within that system, rights protect individuals against incursions by the state. The assertion of “absolute rights” by the country’s chief executive stands this concept on its head by purporting to insulate state conduct, however arbitrary and transgressive, from review or even critique. The idea is incompatible with the design of Article II, which vests the president with conditional, circumscribed authority to ensure that the laws are “faithfully executed.” Some of that authority is his alone to exercise—for example, only the president can grant pardons, command the armed forces, and recognize foreign states. But to the extent he misunderstands or abuses that authority, the Constitution facilitates challenge by the other branches. In extreme cases, that challenge is supposed to take the form of impeachment and removal.

In short, absolute presidential rights have no place within a constitutional democracy, wherein all power is derived from the will of the governed. And they have no purchase in a three-branch federalist republic, wherein the national executive is subject to check by Congress and the courts, and forbidden from seizing powers held by the states.

Since the start of his presidency, Trump has been criticized for asserting what amounts to a kingship—prompting one of his personal lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, to announce during the House impeachment inquiry that as president, Trump “has the power that kings have never had.” Dershowitz’s unabashed embrace of the comparison calls to mind the closing words of Alexander Hamilton’s “Federalist No. 69,” which underscore the differences between the president of the United States and the king of Great Britain. The president is an officer elected by the people; the king is “perpetual and hereditary.” The president is “amenable to personal punishment and disgrace”; the king is “sacred and inviolable.” Hamilton concluded his exercise with a call to resist those who claim “things so unlike resemble each other.”

But closely examined, the executive-power claims pioneered by Trump, the consummate wheeler and dealer, may not require leaping to a wholly different governmental paradigm. Something messier is happening here, something less lucid and self-aware than a power grab by a would-be monarch. For Trump, who inherited and then spent a lifetime expanding an empire that embodies ownership on a scale unimaginable to the ordinary American, power has always been property, property has always been power. James Madison wrote, “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort.” In Trump’s view, that protected property happens to include all the authorities and privileges encompassed in the “absolute rights” of the American presidency, the greatest deal he has ever closed.

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This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.

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JANE CHONG is the former deputy managing editor of Lawfare and served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

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TRUMP’S QUIET POWER GRAB

The president’s administration is attempting to bring thousands of federal employees under his control, and the public is largely unaware.

By Peter M. Shane | Published February 26, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted March 01, 2020 |

Throughout the federal government are thousands of officials who do not direct courtrooms, but who are, in a sense, judges. They are federal employees who preside over trial-like disputes, hear evidence and testimony, and make decisions that can deeply shape people’s lives, such as the granting of asylum and veterans benefits. These executive-branch employees are administrative adjudicators.

The Trump administration has launched an obscure but dangerous effort to undermine this system, and to dictate both the appropriate circumstances for commencing adjudication and the rules that govern how disputes with agencies are resolved. If the Trump administration’s strategy works, it will have steered the federal bureaucracy further toward an authoritarian future in which all executive-branch policy making must bend to the whims of a single individual, the president.

[ Shadi Hamid: The fundamental legitimacy of Donald Trump.]

Although precise data are hard to find, recent work by two leading administrative-law scholars suggests there are roughly 12,000 of these agency adjudicators of various types across the federal bureaucracy, as compared with about 870 permanently authorized federal-court judges. Though the number of matters these adjudicators handle is very hard to come by, a 2016 estimate suggests that they decide more than 750,000 cases annually, which would be about double the number of civil and criminal felony case filings in federal district court.

A plurality of administrative adjudications involve Social Security disability claims. But there is extensive variety among the several hundred agencies and programs involved in administrative adjudication. Some agencies, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, engage in licensing. Others, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Trade Commission, impose penalties for legal noncompliance. Numerous adjudication schemes across multiple agencies involve disputes about government payments, the awarding and administration of government contracts and benefits, and the imposition of employee discipline. A database created by Stanford Law School and the Administrative Conference of the United States numbers these programs and the agencies involved in the hundreds.

The public is, for the most part, quite oblivious to much of this activity’s scope and importance, much less the Trump administration’s attacks on its integrity. What is at stake is not the specific resolution of individual disputes—at least not thus far—but rather the authority to dictate the general rules by which agencies decide individual cases, cases in which accuracy and impartiality are key values.

Administrative adjudication is essential to the effective implementation of federal law. For some agencies, adjudication is a necessary component of policy making, because the statutes they enforce are extremely general and sweeping; specificity gets fleshed out on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, prior to the 1960s, administrative adjudication was more prevalent than issuing general regulations as a policy-making vehicle. For example, the National Labor Relations Board is charged with combatting “unfair labor practices.” It gives that standard meaning by bringing cases against individual employers who engage in activity the NLRB suspects is unlawful. These matters are tried before officials called administrative-law judges, or ALJs, whose decisions are reviewable first by the five members of the NLRB and then, if appealed, by a federal court. Lawyers working on subsequent labor disputes can consult the administrative orders that emanate from these adjudicative proceedings, just as they would read court decisions, to find out how the NLRB interprets the law. This is, likewise, how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pursues “unfair or deceptive trade practices,” and how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prosecutes a variety of offenses under the federal Securities Act.

Congress also empowers a wide variety of administrative judges to be the first-line decision makers regarding individual applicants for all sorts of government benefits. The largest group comprises the ALJs who work for the Social Security Administration. Other agencies use different categories of administrative judges to approve applications under programs as diverse as veterans benefits, patents, and refugee asylum. ALJs enjoy a number of statutory protections intended to depoliticize their service and to protect, within bounds, the independence of their judgment. Other agency adjudicators with different titles almost always enjoy less protection for their decision-making independence, based on their agencies’ governing statutes.

[ Kim Wehle: Congress has lost its power over Trump.]

The Trump administration is now waging a two-pronged attack on the independence of all administrative adjudicators, including ALJs, and the agencies that employ them. The first prong involves telling agencies, via executive orders, how to exercise the discretion that Congress has given them to conduct adjudication. One such order, from October 2019, boasts the lofty title “Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication.” Among its provisions is a limit on when agencies may judge a private party’s past conduct to be unlawful based on a general legal standard. The executive order says that no such agency determination may be issued unless the agency has first warned the public—through a specific rule—that the general legal standard prohibits the conduct the agency would now challenge.

This may not sound like much, but in practice it would make the work of a number of federal agencies far more difficult. Consider this scenario: The FTC finds that a company has been using artificial intelligence in a novel way to ascertain which of its online customers can most effectively be tempted by a misleading, if not outright duplicitous, sales pitch. The FTC has never encountered the practice before. The FTC’s statute currently gives the agency discretion to launch an administrative proceeding against the company to determine whether the technique should be deemed a forbidden “unfair or deceptive trade practice.” If, based on the agency’s policy deliberations and a carefully assembled factual record, the FTC determines that the practice is “unfair” or “deceptive,” it could prohibit the company’s future use of that practice. What the FTC could not do would be to penalize the company for its pre-adjudication conduct—for example, by levying a fine—if no prior FTC proceeding had warned the company that it was violating federal law. The relief—as lawyers call a remedy to a legal problem—would have to be entirely forward-looking. The Supreme Court has approved this manner of administrative adjudication since 1947.

Under the Trump order, the FTC would not be allowed to proceed as I have described. It would first have to conduct a rule-making on the fairness of AI-guided online sales practices before it could go after any firm. This might be grossly inefficient and would disable the FTC from developing a nuanced factual understanding of regulated practices through individual cases. The Trump order does insist: “Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect … the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof.” The problem with this promise not to “impair” is that the order’s so-called fair-warning requirement, if applied to delay or prevent adjudication, would do just that. On this issue, Trump’s order either alters the discretion of administrative agencies or it is meaningless.

[ Peter M. Shane: The obscure—but crucial—rules the Trump administration has sought to corrupt ]

The second and even more aggressive prong is the Trump administration’s campaign to undermine independent agencies, which conduct a lot of the highest-profile administrative adjudications. The aim is to put an end altogether to the idea of independent officers in the executive branch. An agency is considered an “independent agency” if its head or heads may be dismissed by the president only with good cause—typically, “inefficiency, malfeasance, or neglect of office.” Conventional understanding is that presidents may fire at will any administrator who lacks such statutory protection. The Department of Justice under Trump, however, has been working hard to nudge the Supreme Court into determining either that any statutory limits on presidential at-will removal authority are categorically unconstitutional or that “inefficiency, malfeasance, or neglect of office” must be interpreted broadly enough that failure to follow any presidential directive would become “good cause” for dismissal. This would effectively end, for example, the independence of the Federal Reserve System.

The Justice Department’s first attempt at curtailing independence came in a 2018 case called Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission. The issue in Lucia was whether ALJs used by the SEC were “officers”—as opposed to “employees” of the United States—and thus had to be directly appointed by the SEC itself. (Under Article II of the Constitution, Congress may allow heads of agencies to appoint “inferior” officers. The president must appoint “principal officers” with Senate advice and consent. Congress has free rein for determining how “employees” may be hired.) The Court determined that the ALJs were indeed “officers” under the Constitution. It thus concluded that the SEC had acted unconstitutionally by allowing its chief administrative-law judge, working with SEC staff, to choose the commission’s ALJs. By not personally signing off on the appointments, the SEC commissioners had hoped to create the appearance of greater impartiality when their ALJs decided cases in which the SEC itself was a party. But given the Court’s holding, the SEC commissioners—the agency’s principal political appointees—would henceforth have to formally appoint the bureaucratic judges deciding the agency’s cases.

The Justice Department wanted the Court to go further, however. It argued that if the ALJs are “officers,” then the statute protecting them from at-will discharge would have to be narrowly interpreted so that they could be fired simply for failing to follow directions. The Court explicitly refused to discuss the issue. But the Solicitor General proceeded to issue a memorandum to all agency general counsels, advertising the Department’s eagerness to mount this argument in a future case.

A more direct vehicle for pushing the Court to invalidate agency independence from presidential control is a case to be argued on March 3, Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (I helped write an amicus brief in this case defending the constitutionality of the CFPB’s structure.) The Justice Department’s position is that the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1935 decision upholding agency independence, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, should be overruled. Should the Court agree, it would not only render independent judges unconstitutional within any agency, but Congress would no longer be able, through tenure protections, to limit direct presidential policy control over the principal officers who deliver each agency’s final judgments—members of the Federal Communications Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and all the similar bodies I have already mentioned. All would become removable by the president at will.

The Trump administration, in short, is challenging agencies’ ability to go after wrongdoing through administrative adjudication, and is seeking to undermine the independence of both first-line agency adjudicators and the heads of the agencies they work for. The administration appears intent on expanding this campaign. On January 30, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a request for information that could be used to inform further agency-adjudication orders. Public comments are due on March 16. The questions posed by the OMB suggest the Trump administration is interested in significantly rewriting the rules by which agencies conduct their trial-type proceedings.

Yoni Appelbaum: Americans aren’t practicing democracy anymore

By making the investigation and prosecution of regulated parties more difficult, the president threatens to create a system that, through centralized control, would allow cronyism and “agency capture” to protect corporate interests ahead of the public interest. New rules shaping adjudication could also enable political officials to make it harder for individuals to get the government benefits to which they are entitled.

A group of administrative-law scholars at George Washington University wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in Lucia warning of the disaster that would follow tightening political controls over agency adjudicators. They pointed out that “Congress devoted a substantial amount of time during the 1930s and 1940s to the question of how to structure agencies that engage in adjudication of regulatory disputes.” By statute, Congress imposed procedures for ALJs that were “specifically designed to ensure that they had an appropriate degree of decisional independence from the agencies whose cases they were to hear.” Making ALJs removable at will, or simply for failing to follow directions by political superiors, would undermine the impartiality that Congress sought to guarantee.

Impartiality is anathema to Trumpism. That the Trump administration wants to upend a long-standing system for assuring both the reality and appearance of fairness in agency adjudication may be shocking. But it is not surprising. If you consider yourself on block watch for threats to democracy, take your eyes for a moment off the president’s Twitter feed and turn your attention to administrative law. Danger is lurking amid the complexity.

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This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.

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PETER M. SHANE is the Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II chair in law at the Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

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The World Is Experiencing a New Form of Autocracy

Today’s authoritarians use legal measures to subvert constitutional constraints on their power.

By Tim Horley, Anne Meng, Mila Versteeg | Published March 01, 2020 7:30 AM ET | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted March 01, 2020 |

In March 2018, Donald Trump, addressing a crowd of donors at his Florida estate, told what sounded like a joke. He was talking about the recent amendment of China’s constitution to remove presidential term limits, allowing Xi Jinping to serve in that office indefinitely. About Xi, Trump said: “He’s now president for life, president for life. And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give it a shot someday.” The crowd cheered and applauded in response. In fact, Trump has told one version or another of this joke many times since becoming president.

And though Trump’s remarks are generally perceived as facetious, many of his counterparts on the world stage are quite serious. In January, Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian nation in an annual State of the Union–esque speech. Alongside pledges to improve living standards by, among other things, offering free hot meals to schoolchildren, he proposed major constitutional reforms that could see the presidential office weakened and the prime ministry and State Council strengthened—measures very likely aimed at ensuring that Putin can remain in power after 2024, when constitutional term limits will force him out of the presidency.

[ Barbara McQuade: What would happen if Trump refused to leave Office? SEE TIMELINE]

This is how authoritarianism looks today. Our original study documents all term limit evasion strategies worldwide since the year 2000. We found that presidential-term-limit evasion is exceedingly common: About one-third of all presidents who reached the end of their term made a serious attempt to overstay. Two-thirds of those who made the attempt succeeded.

What’s particularly interesting is not only that so many presidents try to evade term limits, but that they are more and more sophisticated and legalistic in how they do so. Whereas leaders once used unmistakably authoritarian actions to stay in power, such as banning opposition parties or dismissing the legislature, today’s heads of state instead use democratic institutions and legal measures to subvert constitutional constraints on their power. More specifically, we found that there are four basic strategies for evading term limits, none of which violates a constitution outright: adding constitutional amendments, rewriting the constitution, using the courts to reinterpret the constitution, and appointing a placeholder president.

The first and most common strategy—used in some 66 percent of the attempts in our data—is simply to amend the constitution to extend or remove term limits. This is the path Xi took when, with hardly a whisper of dissent, he removed any limit on the number of five-year terms he could serve. Often, such changes are breathtaking in their sophistication. In Rwanda, for instance, Paul Kagame presided over a constitutional amendment process that will allow him to serve for a total of 35 years (or longer, if further amendments are in the offing). The effort began in 2015, when Kagame’s party encouraged voters to sign petitions urging Parliament to give the president an additional term. The party—the Rwandan Patriotic Front—withheld its formal endorsement for these efforts until a critical mass of signatures was reached. Once this happened, Parliament passed an amendment unanimously, and then a reported 98.9 percent of voters in a popular referendum ensured that the amendment would take effect. Throughout, Kagame himself never made public whether he intended to remain in office or otherwise commented on the amendment process, and he announced his intention to seek another term only after the measure had passed. The amendment allows Kagame—and only Kagame—an additional seven-year term, after which a new limit of two five-year terms (passed as part of the amendment package) will apply to him on a prospective basis. Thus, he may remain in office until 2034 while preserving an aura of democratic legitimacy and guaranteeing, at least on paper, that his successor will be limited to a maximum of 10 years.

A second strategy, which constitutes about 8 percent of evasion attempts, is what we call the “blank slate” strategy: when a leader creates an entirely new constitution, essentially nullifying the old term limits. When a new constitution is created, the leader’s term is effectively restarted, without any apparent constitutional violation. This was one of the methods employed by former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir until his ouster last year: After taking power in 1989, he oversaw not one but two entirely new constitutions, and thus remained in power for decades without formally violating term limits; each time there was a new constitution, his term started all over again.

A third strategy, which has had remarkable success in Latin America in particular, is to challenge the very legality of term limits in court. This strategy constitutes about 15 percent of evasion attempts since the turn of the millennium. In Nicaragua, for example, President Daniel Ortega was able to successfully remove term limits from his nation’s constitution by arguing that they were a violation of his human rights. The court, reasoning from a body of constitutional and human-rights law, agreed. A similar story unfolded in Bolivia and Honduras. In fact, though one might be tempted to put faith in judges to prevent executive overstay, our study found that courts are remarkably pliant. With the important exception of Colombia, where the Constitutional Court blocked Álvaro Uribe’s attempt to extend his term a second time, courts tend to sign off on term-limit evasion in all its guises.

A fourth strategy, also constituting about 15 percent of evasion attempts, is what we call the “faithful-agent strategy,” which involves presidents seeking a successor they can control, so that they can continue to govern even while formally out of office. Putin was previously able to extend his own rule using this strategy. He took office in 2000, when Russian presidents were limited to two consecutive terms of four years. In 2008, rather than simply moving aside or seeking to overstay his legal term as president, he stepped down, endorsing a handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, as president. Medvedev promised to nominate Putin as prime minister if elected. With Putin’s endorsement, Medvedev easily won the presidency, and very shortly after taking office he oversaw a parliamentary vote confirming Putin as prime minister. For the next four years, Putin served as a potent prime minister to the relatively inert President Medvedev. After constitutional reforms passed in that era, Putin could return to two more consecutive presidential terms, now extended to six years each. Thus, without violating the law, Putin has maintained an iron grip on power for 20 years; he is the longest-serving Russian head of state since Joseph Stalin.

Finally, a small handful of presidents were able to stay past their term by illegally delaying or canceling elections. However, this is the least frequently used strategy (only 5 percent of evasion attempts), most likely because it is more evidently illegal and authoritarian.

Still, one-third of overstay attempts did fail—and typically in spectacular fashion. In recent years, popular movements in Malawi, Burkina Faso, and Paraguay, among many others, have forced presidents to back down. (Burning down parliament, where the president’s allies may be at work on legislation to extend the president’s term, seems to be a particularly effective palliative.)

In Paraguay, for example, a recent push to amend the constitution to remove its strict single five-year term limits initially looked poised to succeed: Then-President Horacio Cartes secured enough support to get the Paraguayan Senate to pass an amendment that would have removed term limits. Unexpectedly, however, the opposition called for nationwide protests, and thousands of Paraguayans heeded the call—a variety of political and religious groups joined in, including, most prominently, the Catholic Church. Protesters clashed with the police, leading to one protester's death, but they managed to burn down the part of the legislature where the Senate met. The strong public backlash was enough to pressure Cartes to back down, formally withdrawing his support for the amendment via a letter to the archbishop of Asunción. Congress then voted down the proposal, and in the 2018 elections, Cartes did not participate, allowing for the election of current President Mario Abdo Benítez.

Paraguay is just one recent example of the power of public resistance; our study found that popular resistance through the coordinated efforts of various civil-society groups, including students, clergy, labor unions, and—in some cases most crucially—defectors from the president’s own party, is by far the most effective means of preventing overstay. Another source of optimism is that in well-established democracies with a long history of rotation from power, executive overstay is relatively rare. Out of these democracies in our data set, only 18 percent of leaders attempted to evade term limits, mostly through constitutional amendments.

Nonetheless, the legal and constitutional strategies that leaders use to keep themselves in power are particularly dangerous precisely because they are perceived as being procedurally democratic. A new generation of autocrats has perfected the art of looking democratic while pursuing authoritarian goals. Whether they succeed usually comes down to whether ordinary citizens take the threat seriously enough to do something about it.

This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.

_____

TIM HORLEY is a lawyer and a 2018 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law.

ANNE MENG is an assistant professor of politics at the University of Virginia. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Constraining Dictatorship.

MILA VERSTEEG is the Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and a senior fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs. She is the author of the forthcoming book, How Constitutional Rights Matter.

*********

#trump administration #politics #president donald trump #politics and government #trump scandals #trumpism #republican politics #donald trump #us politics #trump news #u.s. constitution #constitution

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primortravel · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://primortravel.com/explore-nyc-like-a-local-crazy-sexy-fun-traveler/

Explore NYC like a local - Crazy sexy fun traveler

16 Jul2021

New York City is a fantastic destination for any traveler. With a mix of different cultures, incredible monuments, and exotic food joints – the city is full of so many places to visit that it might seem overwhelming. While the famous tourist attractions include the iconic Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Empire State Building, and Central Park (to name a few), NYC is so much more than that! But can you explore NYC like a local, and not like a tourist?

We don’t mean that you shouldn’t visit these places. What we’re saying is that NYC is home to even amazing spots that are underrated and often hidden from plain sight. From the Whispering Arch of the Grand Central to the beautiful Stone Street in Manhattan, there are scores of hidden gems in this city that are sure to take your breath away.

Today, we’ll explore some ‘secret,’ not-so-famous attractions that you must see when visiting New York City. So, let’s explore NYC like a local!

1. Visit the Morgan Library and Museum in Murray Hill

This beautiful and historic library feels more like a scene from a Harry Potter movie than a library. Built for Pierpont Morgan between 1902-1906, this momentous building was formerly known as the Pierpont Morgan Library.

It currently houses a museum with a huge collection of manuscripts, books, and artworks and is located between 36th street to the south at 225 Madison Avenue. You can find more about the rich heritage and visitor timings on the library’s website.

2. Walk through New York’s Breathtaking Glass Waterfall

After just a 4-minute walk from Times Square, you’ll reach what’s called the glass waterfall. Snuggled against one side of the famous McGraw-Hill building, it’s a thing of shimmering beauty.

As you stand below the waterfall and allow the water to fall majestically over the glass dome, you feel a sense of relaxation amongst the busy life in New York City. We are not exaggerating; you can clearly see each droplet of water reflected on the glass surface. It’s a pity if you miss this spot during your visit.

3. See the Smallpox Hospital in Roosevelt Island’s

This hospital has a spooky history. It was built on Roosevelt Island in 1856 to quarantine people suffering from smallpox. Featuring a Gothic Revival style, the hospital treated about 7,000 patients every year during its prime.

It was abandoned in the 1950s but was declared a city landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1975. There are rumors of ghosts and other supernatural activity within the hospital, so it’s better to visit it during the daytime and take someone with you if you’re faint-hearted. It sure is a must-see spot for all adrenaline junkies!

4. Visit Stone Street in Manhattan

Manhattan is considered one of the best places to stay while visiting New York City by Selina.com. It is competing mainly with Brooklyn for the title of “best borough in NYC”. Both have outstanding reputations, but Manhattan has Stone street, as well.

Located between Whitehall Street in the west to Hanover Square in the east, Stone Street was one of the first streets to be paved with cobblestones and was formerly called Duke Street. Today, it is famous for its eating places and restaurants and is ideal for visiting during the night.

5. Visit the Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn

Dead Horse Bay is a landfill situated between Marine Park and Jamaica Bay in Brooklyn. This peculiar bay is covered with thousands of glass bottles and other indecomposable material.

Contrary to other places on this list, it is not a location known for its scenic beauty but a reminder about NYC’s past. A time before cars, when people drove horse-and-buggies, and dead horse carcasses were used to manufacture glue and fertilizers.

Dead Horse Bay offers curious minds a glimpse into the past dating as far back as 100 years.

6. See the Old City Hall Subway Station

One of the most remarkable stations in NYC, the Old City Hall station is located at the end of the 6 train line, which terminates at the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan. It was closed in the 20th century.

With its stained-glass windows and meticulously designed arches, the Old City Hall station is a true remnant of the old New York City. Having said that, it can be relatively tricky for you to visit.

The MTA Transit Museum runs tours of the station on certain special occasions. These tours allow tourists to catch a glimpse of this marvel of engineering and design. So, it is recommended to check the timings and dates of these visits if you wish to see the station.

7. Experience the Waterfall in Greenacre Park, Midtown

The Greenacre park in Midtown East is famous for its 25-foot waterfall constructed from huge sculpted granite blocks. Built in 1971 by the Greenacre Foundation, it offers tourists a nice distraction from the busy streets of NYC.

Having received several awards for its design, the park has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the US Department of Interior. You can find everything about this exotic location on their official website.

8. See the amazing Fort Tryon Park in Inwood

Get prepared to be amazed by these massive stone arches that look out of another century. The last standing remains of the Tryon Hall Mansion; these stone arches were built between 1901-1905.

Fort Tryon Park is probably NYC’s most beautiful piece of outdoor artwork. An interesting fact about this park, apart from the marvelous stone arches, is that it is home to Manhattan’s largest dog run. You can find the entire history of this park along with the public activities currently on offer on the park website.

9. Whispering Arch of Grand Central Station

The whispering Arch in the Grand Central Station is another amazing hidden attraction in NYC. Well, this one is more like an open secret and is something you have to hear instead of seeing.

All you have to do is to stand facing the corner of the arches and ask a friend to stand on the opposite side of the arches. Now even if you speak in a normal tone, you’ll be amazed to find that your voice will clearly be heard on the other side!

This neat acoustic trick is because of a clever design known as the whispering gallery. Because of its dramatic and unique method of communication, this spot is famous for marriage proposals.

NYC Grand Central Station

10. Observe the Bird Habitats of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Queens

Having saved one of the best spots for the last, we now present to you the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. One of the largest bird habitats in the US, it includes 12,600 acres of water, salt marshes, and upland fields.

Created in the 1950s, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is a great place to observe seasonal bird migration. You can visit Jamaica Bay’s website for complete information about the timings and driving directions.

To Sum Up

Phew! That was quite a list.

These were some of the ‘secret’ places to visit in NYC that not everyone has heard of. By visiting these spots, you will be exploring NYC like a local, and that’s really something!

TIP: In the past I published another article about alternative atractions in New York City. Check it out! NYC has a lot to offer beside the main tourist spots, trust me.

Have you been to NYC? If so, are you familiar with the places mentioned in this article? Tell me in the comments below.

Posted in North America, tips, travel, USA Tags: New York, USA

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#Backpacking #SoloTravel #SoloTraveling #Solotrekker #Travel #Traveling

#Backpacking #SoloTravel #SoloTraveling #solotrekker #Travel #Traveling #Social Travels #Solo-Traveling

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octranslations · 7 years

Text

Haiiro no Ginka Volume 42

Haiiro no Ginka Volume 42 March 2009

Translation Credits:

Gansonaki Kaoru-ya - Nao Toshiya Aibiki no Mori - Risu Shinya Dr. Nemunemu no daigyakushi - Nao Die Meisho de meishu - Nao Mu no Koufuku, Sanretsusha to Kubi - Nao

Gansonaki Kaoru-ya

Is everyone doing great (genki)? It's me Kaoru who is doing great.

England's KERRANG! Tour is done. I am writing this after the live in Saitama, the first day of TOUR09 FEAST OF V SENSES. I have read all the mail that I received from Osaka-jo Hall and Namba Hatch. When I read everyone's feeling about UROBOROS, their expectation of the Osaka-jo Hall and the feeling after the Osaka-jo Hall, I felt a bit really touched. It's probably age. (Laughs). But a good age.

Osaka-jo hall was the best! I am sorry that it's loaded with much reflection but it was a great time. I saw a lot from people who were able to tell me that they were able to feel UROBOROS and enjoy it, it really made me happy. I was able to tell various magazines about my state of mind but I am really a happy person! To think there are so many great people exist! Recently, I am just always giving thanks but, Honma Arigatou! (REALLY THANK YOU!) Now I really want to make you guys see an even greater greater scene kind of live that I can think of.

Also, we will go to places we've never been and we will go to the places whose people who have have never seen us before, the Livehouse Tour has begun. In Livehouses, the microphone wires are few, (the drums are many so we can take a few...) which is why acoustic guitar songs and there are some songs that we can't play but this the only tour where you can taste this!

Also the dude limited live, you're men so it's okay to have some injuries right? The one we had few years ago was so quiet but this time you're guys so let me see your fighting spirit!

For this year, if we are able to carry out all the planned out things right now, we will make a really boastful number of lives, until we can still go for it, we go!

In the feeling of battle of 2009 to one's heart's content(rocking) DIR EN GREY, give me a big rampage! I am expecting it! Until you can do it, do it!

See you!

To the people in London who may see this, we will return so wait for it!

Toshiya Aibiki no Mori

What's up!? The previous article had such good reviews so for this time I will write the sequel (laughs). Here it is!

I think this was also posted on Boo-san's (VJ Boo) blog, but this is our bus during the US tour. This brings back old memories...

At the rehearsal studio, the day before the tour, Mr. Shinya and I through the mirror. I think this mirror was in Mr. KAORU's previous page.

We went to UNIVERSAL STUDIOS in ORLANDO.

The weather was also nice, it was great! First, we went to SPIDER-MAN.

Next we went to JURASSIC PARK. My whole body was drenched wet! But it was fun (laughs).

Then, we went and rode on the Hulk. Making sure that Mr. chicken-kun doesn't run away, The 2 of us, Mr. Die and I, firmly held both of his sides and off we went to a fun journey (laughs). Mr. chicken-kun kept on screaming, "It's not yet over!? Not yet over!?" (laughs).

THE BLUES BROTHERS!? were there, that was hanging there, it was a fun time.

Page2

This is New York! I was happy that Virgin (records) had UROBOROS properly placed!

T-shirt of the band who did the OPENING ACT for the US tour, THE HUMAN ABSTRACT

It's been a long time since I wore an earring. The hole is something that shouldn't be closed.

At Boo-san's (VJ Boo) DJ event, SHELLAC's Akinori, Boo-san and I were...drunk...

At the meeting at Osaka Jo...its Masuda-san like always (laughs).

From the left, charisma hair and makeup, Yamaguchi-san, charisma trainer, Yooko-chan, charisma stylist Omiko (laughs). They are in a good mood?

Atsushi-san the DJ. I am indebted to him even from from before.

Bad adults (laughs)!!

From the left, its Mr. Sakano the crybaby, Mr. Okita of Shinki Music (Manager of the Sales Division), and Mr. Bandou of YOUNG GUITAR

To everyone at VISUAL TRAP. I am always really grateful, we will ensure that we pay by the due date!!

After the live on the 31st I went straight to the hospital. I came down with influenza (flu), and during the live I thought that I was going to die.... Due to the extreme physical activity, the drooling won't stop, because of the fever and the sluggishness my consciousness was fading away. At the hospital I got an IV drip, on the 1st I went back to my parent's home via Nagoya, I was in bed for 5 days and spent the whole New Year in bed... But, I want to praise myself since I think that I worked pretty hard if I do say so myself (laughs).

Well, the end of last year was like this. And at the start of the year is the KERRANG!tour. I don't know if I will do this journal for the next time but that's it for now! Until then!!

Shinya Dr. Nemunemu no daigyakushi

Hello Everyone. Nemunemu's corner will also start today. So, this time I bring you the diary on the November 2008 American Tour. I just appropriately picked out the days when there are things happening. And so here it is.

Nemunemu Diary ~America & Canada collection/volume~

11/4 Today, we are checking our equipment in the rehearsal studio in preparation for the real tour tomorrow. It's the same studio that we went to even during the past American Tour. It's the Myu- jin (place) where Dr.Nemunemu said that he Nia- (did something). I quickly checked my drums but the rototom didn't arrive. So, by car, we had to go to a music store to buy one. There was a rototom and I was able to buy it with no problems but they don't seem to sell adapter for the rototom. So when Dr. Nemunemu had to find something that can replace it inside that store, I found an exact adapter. The item found was attached to a snare drum then, when we asked the storekeeper if we could have the same one, he suddenly said that it's attached to the snare so you would have to buy the snare too. As we were having trouble, "I only need to buy the adapter, why do I have to buy the snare too?!" , a different storekeeper peeked out from the back area came out and handed us the same adapter and that is how I got the adapter in my hands. And at that I was able to do the setting with no problems.

11/6 Today is an off day so we went to Universal Studio. In the midst of going there my other name "chicken" was revived. (Refer to Vol. No. 33) Dr. Nemunemu has never been to Japan's Universal Studio but then, it most likely doesn't have those big rides. So I went there with much confidence. Just then as we arrived and saw the theme park, I suddenly saw big-looking lanes of Rollercoasters. Dr. Nemunemu thought secretly, this one is just impossible. However, I was able to ride the other rides with much confidence/leisure. And as the fun time just continued on, suddenly, the bassist said, "Let's go on 'that' next!". Of course, "THAT" meant the really big ride. I said, "Dr. Nemunemu will stay down here and wait." But the Toshiya & Die Combination were able to make Dr. Nemunemu take the ride by any means. They said, "If you are able to ride that we will never call you chicken again.", they also said, "it's a chance to remove that dirty name chicken". Even at that as Dr. Nemunemu is going to decline, suddenly, the 2 grabbed me up by both of my arms and I was dragged by force and made me get in the line. So while in the line, I tried running away during the unguarded moments but I would get quickly get caught by the two and was stuck in middle and then suddenly, I was on the ride. During the ride it was the most dreadful time. I was thinking that even I was able to ride it, and also even after that, just like before my other name is chicken.

11/9 Today after dinner, I went with Die, Toshiya, Nora, and the tech Kuroo-san, goods seller Jordan, for bowling. When it comes to bowling, Dr. Nemunemu was so into it a few years ago that he was able to write a lot about it at that time (very much like myself) but recently, I haven't played it at all. It can't be helped that I haven't played but we did 2 games and on both Dr. Nemunemu scored the lowest. Well as I said to myself it can't be helped since I haven't played recently,?I suddenly a heard a Japanese prattle from the rear. "Ma-ke-in-u". "Ma-ke-i-nu" (Loser) as I turned around, Jordan faced Dr.Nemunemu and said it. Beside Jordan, the bassist was doing a "I will try and teach you" face and grinned. In a few seconds, my other name is "Makeinu"(Loser).

11/10 Today's live is at Baltimore. When Dr.Nemunemu went in the dressing room, Jordan faced Dr. Nemunemu and said happily, "Mi-ki-inu". Instantly, it was a mistake but Dr. Nemunemu didn't correct him and rather left it at that. Today's first song is OBSCURE. So I came out, sat in my drumset and waited for the SE of OBSCURE to play. And suddenly, Kaoru-kun played the intro of HYDRA-666-. While I was thinking, "Oi, oi, Kaoru-kun it's a different song." I quickly decided that I should just continue drumming HYDRA-666-. But then, I looked at the members as if nothing has changed and we normally performed HYDRA-666-. But the song list placed at Dr.Nemunemu's area was undoubtedly had OBSCURE. Then I thought that "Then, Dr.Nemunemu's song list must be wrong". While I was drumming, I was doing signals "it's wrong! it's wrong!" to the drum tech Kenji Fujieda but Kenji Fujieda had a dumbfounded face as if to say, "what's wrong?" In summary, I was able to tell him that the song list was wrong and we at least made it the second song. Why is it that Dr. Nemunemu was the only one who had yesterday's setlist?

11/13 Today is an off day in New York and everyone went to Manhattan. While walking in the city, Dr. Nemunemu asked Kenji Fujieda. "What is famous in New York?" "First, it's the Statue of Liberty." "Aah-" "And the World Trade Center Right?" "Aah-" "And the Empire State Building Right?" "Ee?! What's that?!" "He-?! You didn't know? It's the place where King Kong climbed up on." "He--So which place did King Kong climbed up on?" "...." it's Generation Gap. Then, after going around in various shops, we went to Virgin Records to check that UROBOROS was there. After taking a look around the shop and thought about going out, I knew that the Chikurin would come and even intentionally volunteered to watch the Dir Live in New York was coincidentally there also looking at UROBOROS. I knew that he will be here in New York but this is just really coincidental. When we called to him he was so surprised, "Wha? Why are you also here?" he said what I also wanted to say. And then we went out of the store and in the street in front of the shop. Since this morning, we went out separately but somehow coincidentally assembled there with Kuroo-san and then, we went out for food. New York is small.

11/16 Today is Toronto Canada's Live. After the performance, I think there were really good people that were there so when I though of throwing some sticks, I thoughtlessly bumped my head on the speaker that was hung there. It was so dark so I didn't see it. Luckily it was dark and I thought that unless only a few people in front caught me bumping my head. After that, there was the meet and greet, a foreigner who can speak Japanese said, "Shinya-san, Atama wa daijoubu desuka??" ("Shinya-san is your head okay?") At that point, Dr. Nemunemu has completely forgotten about hitting his head. And for a certain period I was thinking, "E?? Do I really look that weird(in the head; nuts)?"

11/23 While Dr. Nemunemu was eating chocolates in the dressing room, the Human Abstract's guitarist Tapley came. Dr. Nemunemu always seems to eat chocolates and Tapley asked him where is his favorite chocolate from? Since, Dr. Nemunemu likes GODIVA, I said GODIVA (go-di-ba). From that, Tapley said that he doesn't know it and asked me where is it from, I really didn't know but it was most probably from Belgium but it's pretty famous, I explained. So he asked me for the spelling, and when I said G.O.D.I.V.A. he said, "Ooh! GODIVA!" (goh-dai-va). So it seems in America the pronunciation of GODIVA is "GO-DAI-VA". So please everyone remember this little trivia (food for thought).

12/3 Today we are going to buy lunch so we went to the nearby fish mart. There was a flood of delicious-looking crabs, shrimps, scallops, and etc. And mixed among those was an angler fish that had a very stern face was placed there. The face looked really scary and I wanted to take a picture of it and went towards it up close. Suddenly, the angler fish was actually going to be moved by the storekeeper behind, it was a candid item, the storekeeper came close and with yelled(bellowed) with a loud voice and made the fish move and Dr. Nemunemu was really surprised (shocked/scared). Then, the almost forgotten other name, chicken, was again revived.

So this was how it was.

HAPPINESS OF NOTHING, THE ASSEMBLED AND [THE] NECK

For oneself, what is really needed? Precious things? How much does one person really understand one's self? How important is it? Actually, for those who look like they haven't noticed It feels as if 'there is a lot'

In everything one does, there is definitely a meaning in every action If you turned around these nonchalant actions and words, that person can feel it inside Do you understand the words that I just wrote and the things that I requested in the previous newsletter?

By all means, I want you to think about it Surely, this is connected to growth as humans

But I wonder if fun things, pleasure and escaping from reality are also good? However, there is surely something more important here But if even one person noticed (for me), isn't there a point as to why I am writing a newsletter?

There are people who would say that it's because I simply didn't want to answer it, but do I look like that kind of person? If you were those kinds of people then you won't write these hassle-some things I think that other people's growth can be whatever but...

Just for the record, all of the previous questions were already answered during the creation of the previous newsletter. Of course on answering, since the previous main purpose of my request will change and I think it will dim(fade) so I sealed up the answers.

But for the meantime instead of using it for leisure, use the time and your head for growth This time too, if I had the time to think about it or the opportunity change it as much as possible This time it seems that my corner has a meaning

January the 18th, 2009 18:30 from England.

Translator's Notes: Kyo was referring a lot to the previous Haiiro no Ginka (Vol. 41) where he presented all the questions that the people sent him with no answers. He was supposed to answer all of it in this Volume

Die Meisho de meishu Question: The chord Am, how many kinds of Am are there? What's different about them? Do you change the places you press when matching it with the song?

Die: For me, the sound of the Am chord has a unique atmosphere that no other minor chord has. You can feel painful loneliness and behind it a warm kindess. From there, what kind of feeling can you feel? Depending on the person who plays Am, when Am is sounded, it plainly pulls out the player's view of life. There is also an Am that is simply musically played with no feeling. Even pressed in that position, it's a simple chord that is not laborious(hard). Although I think that it being a simple chord, it's consequentially entrusted to the player for the chord's deepness. Well, put aside my view of Am, if it's about playing, the same Am's sound does change depending on the position therefore I change the position depending the song's atmosphere and the connecting chords before and after it.

For example ? is what we call the orthodox Am hold. In "Sajou no Uta" with this position you scratch while plucking(strumming) "Jyakajyaka". ? is high-positioned Am. This position is the base phrase for the cutting play of "audrey".

Question: What changes in playing the Electric and Acoustic for Die-san?

Die: With the Acoustic Guitar, the pressing power of your left hand compared to the electric needs more power and the picking nuance of your right hand. Because as a live instrument it brings out the natural sound so surely the way you play an electric changes. And for an electric the sound is distorted and in places where there is more or less a miss(mistake) you can sometimes not get caught. In the acoustic, if you made a mistake, you will immediately get caught. (Laughs) During acoustic guitar recordings, I get to use a number of guitars but each one has it's own definite character. Which is why while feeling the picking and the change of touch of each guitar, each has it's own best point and sound so, I try all the guitars. And if it is the best sounding one then I choose that one.

Question: In "Gaika Chinmoku Nemuru Koro"'s intro part, the tapping phrase you used is so painful yet beautiful but when I first saw it live, I always say too much, "It's like magic...". For me, who has never did tapping, wanted to copy it, but I doesn't really understand it. This time, by all means, please teach me. Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu. (Sorry for the trouble/ inconvenience)

Die: Actually, I thought up this song's intro phrase during the "UROBOROS" recording's very last day, this was really the last of the last recorded phrases. This phrase's, what you call tapping, doesn't use a pick. First, press with your left hand's pointing finger is on the 1st string 10th fret and 2nd string 10th fret, the ring finger(or pinky) is on the 13th fret.

(Continues to the right page)

RED 1: With your right hand's middle finger(or pointing finger) press the 15 fret like hitting it. (Hammering on) WHITE 1: When your right hand's middle finger(pointing finger) hammers on the 2nd string on the 15th fret,

RED 2: On the same string you pull it while letting go (Pulling off), WHITE 2: While still pressing on the string make it slide to the 18th fret. (At the same time, the middle finger of your left hand presses the 11th fret.),

RED 3: In the same manner with the left ring finger, let go while pulling (pulling off), WHITE 3: Pulling Off,

RED 4: With the right hand's middle finger(pointy finger) hammer on the 17th fret. WHITE 4: In the same way, the left middle finger, pulls off.

This is the phrase's basic play using both of your hands, the point is keep the rhythm of the hammering on and pulling off, not to cut the sound midway, and to keep the sound level even.

Well, I feel that I have explained it quite simply. At first, it may confuse your head (confusing) but slowly try to get it to sound one by one, once you get used to it you will be able to play it.

#haiiro no ginka

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olivia-longueville · 7 years

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His main triumph was to retain the king’s favor for years

On November 29, 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was in the king’s favor for most of his life, died at Leicester Abbey around the age of 57.

From 1515 to 1529, Wolsey had a profound influence on King Henry. He was an extremely dedicated and ardent administrator who held various important positions in the government and in the Roman Catholic Church in England, including Lord Chancellor and Papal Legate.

Henry VIII’s ascension to the throne was viewed as the dawn of a new majestic age in England. Wolsey was always by the king’s side, always ready to dispense knowledge and wisdom to his sovereign, always ready to cater to Henry’s every whim. He wanted to play a significant role in England’s politics and help usher the country into an era of stability and prosperity. Wolsey fawned over the new king and flattered him to the utmost, and soon Henry noticed him.

A few months after his coronation, the king appointed Wolsey royal almoner. Young Henry was an intelligent, well-educated, and clever man, but like most monarchs, he preferred the pleasurable aspect of his rule to the ordinary routine of state affairs which had to be conducted with dignity and skill. The king was well disposed towards Wolsey and eagerly delegated the major responsibility of running the government to the competent man. Henry allowed Wolsey to make most of the decisions.

Cardinal Wolsey was known for being an efficient administrator, both for the Crown and the Church. He was made Archbishop of York in 1514 and then a Cardinal in 1515. Fortune’s wheel was spinning in Wolsey’s favor again: he became a papal legate in 1518, and, in 1524, his appointment as papal legate was renewed for life. It seemed that God smiled down on Wolsey and blessed his career in the Church, making him feel as if he were standing near the golden gates to paradise while still being on earth. Indeed, he became the most important clergyman in England, and all his positions gave him absolute control of the Church within the kingdom. Soon afterwards, King Henry appointed him Lord Chancellor.

The king trusted Wolsey so much that he would allow him to do things that he wouldn’t ordinarily permit his other subjects. Wolsey became fully responsible for England’s foreign policy and had near-complete control of England’s state affairs. Even though England had meager resources and was not in a position to generate sufficient funds for constant military training of royal armies and shipbuilding, Wolsey still succeeded in creating a consistent, pragmatic, and flexible foreign policy. A clever man by nature, Wolsey comprehended that Henry’s much-desired foreign policy – to obtain the crown of France – was unrealistic because England’s resources were small compared to those of other nations, and he managed to delicately balance on the thin line between his sovereign’s desires and real possibilities.

Wolsey allied England with powerful countries to ensure that the country’s security and interests were protected. Famous events such as the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 added to the prestige of England abroad. Treaty of London of 1518 (a non-aggression pact between the major European nations) was his greatest success, binding twenty countries together in peace, including Burgundy, France, England, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, the Papal States, and Spain.

Despite being Chancellor and controlling the country’s foreign policy, Cardinal Wolsey failed to develop England’s overseas trade and to ensure that royal revenue increased at the same rate as the king’s spending, because his knowledge of finance was poor. In the early 16th century, the economy was changing (the so-called Price Revolution which refers to the high rate of inflation that occurred during this period across Western Europe), but Wolsey didn’t comprehend the complexities behind this change.

Thomas Wolsey was quite successful in his administration of the Church. The reorganization of the dioceses to correspond with population levels was his main success and a useful reform. He endeavored to ensure that the Church served Henry’s interests, and these aspirations were explained by his strong sense of loyalty to the king. He dissolved a number of small monasteries in order to build Cardinal College at Oxford and a school at Ipswich because of his desire to increase the educational level of priests to counter the spreading Lutheran teachings, but contemporaries thought that their creation was meant to leave a permanent mark of Wolsey’s power in England. Wolsey also attempted to try and control Irish dioceses by appointing English clergyman to position there.

There are also many negative points about Wolsey’s administration of the Church. There were too many bishoprics and abbotships which he controlled but never visited. Most of them were controlled by him for financial purposes, and he didn’t know what was happening in them. Such bishoprics included York, which he was Archbishop of for 15 years and didn’t go there once.

Unfortunately, being selfish and greedy like any sane man in power, Wolsey sought to increase his wealth and, thus, channeled some of his energy into clerical affairs, including appointments and elections of clergy. For the purpose of personal enrichment, he kept bishoprics vacant and took the income from them, and he even made up his mind to introduce an inheritance tax on wills. Furthermore, Wolsey took advantage of his secular power in increasing his income by making nobles present him with expensive gifts.

Geoffrey Moorhouse characterizes Thomas Wolsey in the book “The Pilgrimage of Grace”:

“Arrogant by nature, he [Thomas Wolsey] was also greedy for emoluments of one sort and another, a lucrative Church appointment here, the acquisition of property there. He built palaces, including Hampton Court, and in these he entertained extravagantly with an entourage which far outnumbered that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would attend royal pageants with seventy servants, whereas Wolsey always turned up with 300 or more. Like many another priest he fathered children and saw to it that his son was promoted to one valuable benefice after another, despite the fact that he was not even old enough to be ordained. On the other hand, mindful of his own background, he had much sympathy for the poor in any struggle they had with the rich (who regarded him as an upstart) and he appointed commissions to look into the vexatious matter of enclosures; though it did little good, because it did not address the real problems of rural poverty, he had illegally created hedges and walls pulled down and open fields restored. His greatest achievement at home was to overhaul the legal system and provide it with a sound bedrock on which later reforms could be built.”

Cardinal Wolsey’s main triumph was to retain the king’s high favor until 1529, for so long, in spite of having a swarm of enemies. He achieved that by keeping other councilors’ and nobles’ access to Henry limited and by ensuring that he had the sole control of the daily state affairs.

His fate was sealed when he failed to accomplish the annulment of King Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Catherine’s nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, controlled the pope at the time, especially after the Sack of Rome in 1527. It is possible that Anne Boleyn and her faction conspired against Wolsey and persuaded King Henry that the cardinal was deliberately slowing proceedings. The pope decided that the official decision regarding Henry’s first marriage would be made in Rome, not England, but that was not what the king wished.

King Henry supposed that Wolsey, as “Legate a latere” (a papal legate of the highest class) had the significant influence in Rome and could convince the pope to grant him his annulment. Consequently, Henry probably believed the Boleyns, and Wolsey fell out of the king’s favor. On the king’s orders, Wolsey was stripped of his offices and property, including the magnificent Hampton Court. At first, he was permitted to remain Archbishop of York, so he journeyed to Yorkshire for the first time in his life. When he arrived in North Yorkshire, he learned that he had been accused of high treason and commanded to return to London. A distressed Wolsey set out for the capital, but he fell ill on the journey and passed away soon.

Just before his death, Cardinal Wolsey reputedly spoke these words:

“I see the matter against me how it is framed. But if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs.”

#Thomas Wolsey #Cardinal Wolsey #The Tudor Period #Tudor History #anne boleyn

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anderson-paak-afromusicology · 4 years

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Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar is another rapper, similar to J. Cole, who has caught my attention in the past few years. He’s an artist who tells us a story when he raps and doesn’t rap to rhyme (if that makes sense). He grew up in Compton, California and was a part of the gang, Gangster Disciples. Slowly he moved away from his gang life as his music career grew. He began his career being known as K-Dot and one of his early mixtapes got him signed to the label, Top Dawg Entertainment. As he continued to produce music, his success followed. His debut album, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, really sky-rocketed his name in the music industry and people began to truly realize his talent. In his life, he has won 13 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards and five Billboard Music Awards. As I said before, what I really liked about his style of rap was that he raps about his real life experiences being in gangs and how he used to make money. It almost transports you, and you feel what he felt in those moments. One of my favorite songs by him is “HUMBLE.,” but he’s featured in some other great songs like “Mona Lisa” and “Wat’s Wrong.”

Coming up in the streets of Compton, it is easy to understand Kendrick’s early style of rap, gangster rap. NWE also came through in Compton and inspired a generation of young gangsters at the time with their music, which most gang members resonated with. Kendrick since then has moved away from his gang life, but his music still talks about his experiences and how they affect who he is today.

An individual that inspired Kendrick heavily was Jay Z. Now Jay Z really doesn’t need much of an introduction because he is one of the, if not the, greatest rapper in history. Now that’s very controversial because everyone has their opinion, but his legacy is one that many have struggled to come close to. His numbers speak for themselves, he’s sold over 50 million albums and 75 million song worldwide, not to mention winning 22 Grammy Awards, the most by any rapper and many other accolades. One of his greatest songs, and one of my favorites, is “Empire State of Mind.”

Calling Jay Z one of the greatest rappers of all time is very controversial and I understand that. So who inspired him? One of his greatest inspirations was The Notorious B.I.G. Now this is another man who many does not need an introduction, but let me anyway. The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie, was an American rapper born in New York. He grew up in Brooklyn, and his debut album Ready to Die, made him known worldwide. In his time, he had a great feud with rival gang member/rapper Tupac Shakur, but that’s for another blog post. Selling over 21 million albums, Biggie is easily one of the all time greats, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide. One of the few songs I’ve heard and liked of his is “Hypnotize.”

Interestingly, Biggie’s lyrics and diction was heavily influenced by Donald Harrison, who was a saxophonist. All the previous artists I have spoken about fall under the hip hop genre, but Donald Harrison was a Jazz artist. He was also known as a master in soul and funk, however, he was mainly known for his Jazz records. Donald Harrison had many influences at the time, but his greatest mentor was Art Blakey, the drummer from the Jazz Messengers. Art Blakey was also a jazz musician, known especially for his drumming. He was inspired by the jazz/bebop musician Billy Eckstine. He was in a band with Art Blakey, but moved onto playing with more notable bebop artists, more specifically Miles Davis. Miles Davis was inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s exquisite guitar playing, and Jimi Hendrix was influenced by Muddy Waters. Muddy Waters was a Blues legend and looked up Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the Devil for his amazing guitar skills, was influenced by very few as he was the first to play the guitar the way he played it.

Kendrick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4RELGc9su8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmOoJme-uGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UThhCgxFfcQ

Jay Z:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsZlY0Vz4-o

Biggie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4ftn4PArg

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libertariantaoist · 8 years

Link

If the New York Times is to be believed – a problematic proposition – then it looks as if Trump Derangement Syndrome has gone international. In a front page article headlined “As Trump Era Dawns, A Sense of Uncertainty Grips the World,” we are told:

“The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.”

Oh heavens-to-Betsy, whatever shall we do?

So what’s the source of this latest Trumpanic? It’s an interview with Tory mandarin Michael Gove and Kai Diekmann, a former editor of the German newspaper Bild, in which the President-elect reiterates what he’s been saying to the American people for the past year, and on the basis of which he won the election: US foreign policy is going to change, and in a big way.

However, to Times reporter Steve Erlanger, this all comes as a big revelation, evidence that “Trump has again focused his penchant for disruption on the rest of the world.” Oh, the poor babies! Perhaps they need to find a safe space in which to park themselves for the next four-to-eight years.

This being the Times, there’s the requisite Russia-baiting:

“No one knows where exactly he is headed – except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.”

If this reads like a paragraph torn out of one of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s strategy memos, well then consider the source. And speaking of the source, what exactly did Trump say in this supposedly “disruptive” interview that has the Powers That Be in such a tizzy?

They ask him about Brexit, and he endorses it, as he has in the past. They ask him if he’d vote for Angela Merkel in the upcoming German elections, and he demurs: “I don’t know who she’s running against.” Besides which, isn’t it a bit unseemly for an American President-elect to endorse a candidate for office in a foreign country? It surely would be in bad taste if the situation were reversed. They press him on Merkel’s open invitation to the entire nation of Syria to emigrate to Germany: was it “insane,” as he said during the campaign? Or has he changed his mind for some reason? He reiterates his often-stated view that “it was a big mistake for Germany,” and then broadens out his answer to include an analysis of the regional chaos caused by the administration of George W. Bush, whom he doesn’t mention by name but it’s clear where he places the blame:

“Look, this whole thing should never have happened. Iraq should not have been attacked in the first place, all right? It was one of the worst decisions, possibly the worst decision ever made in the history of our country. We’ve unleashed – it’s like throwing rocks into a beehive. It’s one of the great messes of all time. I looked at something, uh, I’m not allowed to show you because it’s classified – but, I just looked at Afghanistan and you look at the Taliban – and you take a look at every, every year its more, more, more, you know they have the different colours – and you say, you know – what’s going on?”

Those pathetic Republican “foreign policy experts” who are now complaining about being on an “enemies list” kept by the Trump transition team deserve to be on that list: they, after all, were the architects of the ongoing disaster described by Trump, and he clearly doesn’t care to reward failure. This is precisely why the GOP foreign policy Establishment campaigned so hard against him: that these losers are now locked out of the administration is good news indeed.

More good news: Trump is taking direct and very public aim at their patrons, the Military-Industrial Complex that Dwight David Eisenhower so presciently warned us against. Even as he pledges to upgrade the US military, the President-elect clearly knows who his enemies are:

“Boeing and Lockheed Martin are you know big contractors for this country and we have an F-35 program that has been very, very severely over budget and behind schedule. Hundreds of billions of dollars over budget and seven years behind schedule. And, uh, they got to shape up.”

Employees of both Boeing and Lockheed-Martin gave record amounts to the Clinton campaign: indeed, the entire industry went for Hillary in a big way.

Asked about his top priority as commander-in-chief, Trump had one word to say: “ISIS.” Asked how he’d deal with ISIS, he demurred. Yet it isn’t at all hard to imagine what his strategy will be: he’s not saying we should “get along with Russia” because he’s a secret Putinite, as our crazed conspiracy theorists would have it. Clearly he means to enlist Russia’s support in what he envisions as a short but effective campaign to eliminate ISIS entirely, at least when it comes to the Syrian “Caliphate.” After all, Russia is already in Syria in a big way: and Trump’s hostility to the Obama administration’s campaign to overthrow Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad indicates he’s likely to align with both Syria and Russia to restore some sort of order to the region. As to what degree he’ll farm out this task to the Russians and the Syrians, we’ll see. We’ll also see how “quick” this joint campaign will be: history does not bode well, in any case. Yet it’s clear he wants to minimize our involvement.

This segues into what is the most controversial part of the interview:

“Q: Talking about Russia, you know that Angela Merkel understands Putin very well because he is fluent in German, she is fluent in Russian, and they have known each other for a long time – but who would you trust more, Angela Merkel or Vladimir Putin?

“Trump: Well, I start off trusting both – but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.”

Oh, how the “experts” and the political class went ballistic over that one! How dare Trump equate our “ally” Germany with our evil “adversary,” the perfidious Putin! And yet the reality is that neither Germany nor Russia is inherently either friend or foe: they are simply actors on the world stage whose relations to the US are based entirely on what is in America’s interests. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address:

“[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.”

Trump’s “realist” value-free characterization of our relations with the leaders of both Germany and Russia represents a return to the foreign policy of the Founders, from which we have strayed to our great detriment. It is, as Trump proclaimed so often during the campaign, a foreign policy that puts America first.

As he’s being interrogated by a Brit and a German, much of the interview deals with Europe, and specifically policy toward Russia. Asked if he can “understand why eastern Europeans fear Putin and Russia,” he says “Sure, oh sure,” and then goes very quickly into a critique of NATO, which he says is “obsolete.” It’s obvious he thinks the fears of the east Europeans are vastly overblown, as indeed they are. Trump complains that “the countries aren’t paying their fair share. So we’re supposed to protect countries but a lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, NATO is very important to me.”

Yes, but how important is “very important” in TrumpWorld? Europe’s welfare cases shudder as they contemplate the answer.

Gove avers that “Britain is paying,” and Trump agrees, but says: “There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much, from twenty-two.” And as Trump no doubt realizes, the costs of NATO involve more than money: we are obligated to defend twenty-two countries in case they are attacked. That’s twenty-two tripwires that could set off a major war: the price of that is incalculable. Is it worth it?

Trump clearly has his doubts, and it’s this that has the Euro-weenies in an uproar. After all, they’ve been coasting along on Uncle Sam’s dime for all these years, financing extensive welfare programs for their own citizens as well as a horde of migrants: the idea that the gravy train is going to dry up has them up in arms.

And of course the issue of NATO is really about the Russian question – is Putin really intent on annexing his “near abroad” and re-establishing the Soviet empire? This nonsensical fantasy, based on nothing but rejuvenated cold war hysteria, is clearly doubted by Trump and his advisors. So when he’s asked if he supports the continuation of European sanctions against Russia, Trump replies:

“Well, I think you know – people have to get together and people have to do what they have to do in terms of being fair. OK? They have sanctions on Russia – let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it. But you do have sanctions and Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.”

In short: sanctions can be ended as part of a grand bargain with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals on both sides and guarantee European security. Ambitious? – Yes. Praiseworthy? – Certainly. Can he do it? Only by overcoming the War Party’s opposition in Congress, led by Mad John McCain and joined by the now-Russophobic war-crazed Democrats out to obstruct anything and everything Trump does, even at the cost of world peace.

It’s absolutely wonderful how Trump’s offhand remarks rub the commentariat the wrong way, especially because what he says is indisputable. Asked which number he dials if he wants to talk to Europe – a riff off a remark by Henry Kissinger – he names Merkel on the grounds that “you look at the European Union and it’s Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany. That’s why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out.”

Zing! Poor Angela Merkel – she can’t get no respect!

Elaborating his view of the EU, Trump averred:

“People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity but, I do believe this, if they hadn’t been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it, you know, entails, I think that you wouldn’t have a Brexit. It probably could have worked out but, this was the final straw, this was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I think people want, people want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave.”

We can’t forget that the interviewers are Europeans who have been sucking at the American teat since the end of World War II, as one of the final questions makes all too clear:

“Your policy platform of America First implies you’re happy to see the rest of the world suffer. Do you?”

Spoken like a true dependent, and yet Trump lit right into them with the unvarnished truth:

“I don’t want it to be a disruption – I love the world, I want the world to be good but we can’t go – I mean look at what’s happening to our country – we are $20 trillion [in debt] – we don’t know what we’re doing – our military is weak – we’re in wars that never end, we’re in Afghanistan now 17 years … it’s the longest war we’ve ever been in.”

Endless wars, endless payments to feckless “allies,” endless hectoring by these ungrateful wretches who accuse us of wanting to “see the rest of the world suffer” – Trump would put an end to all this, and I have no doubt that the American people support him wholeheartedly. Shall we take a poll on the popularity of the US bearing the brunt of Europe’s “defense” against an enemy that disappeared in 1989? Shall we have a national referendum on the prospect of going to war over whether Montenegro – a nation the size of the metropolitan New York area – shall have a “pro-Western” government?

If you wonder why our “intelligence community” is waging open warfare against the forty-fifth President of these United States, you have only to look at this interview. He is challenging the “liberal” international order which has paid out liberal amounts of moolah and unearned prestige to a whole class of government contractors, thinktank poobahs, useless spooks, and their ancillary business enterprises for decades.

Without this “international order,” we’re told, the world will be plunged into “uncertainty,” if not complete chaos. This is a lie. The only uncertainty that Trump’s America First foreign policy imposes is uncertainty as to where the war profiteers’ next meal ticket is coming from. And that, dear reader, is a cause not for panic but for celebration.

#justin raimondo #anti-war

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maxwellyjordan · 6 years

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Forthcoming paper on influence of law clerks recalls Rehnquist article from 1957

The specter of the law clerk as a legal Rasputin, exerting an important influence on the cases actually decided by the Court, may be discarded at once. … It is unreasonable to suppose that a lawyer in middle age or older, of sufficient eminence in some walk of life to be appointed as one of nine judges of the world’s most powerful court, would consciously abandon his own views as to what is right and what is wrong in the law because a stripling clerk just graduated from law school tells him to.

William Rehnquist – writing in a 1957 issue of U.S. News & World Report, four years after clerking for Justice Robert Jackson and 14 years before becoming a justice himself – called this the “common-sense view of the relationship between Justice and clerk” and noted the “complete absence of any known evidence of such influence.”

A paper recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization – “Legal Rasputins? Law Clerk Influence on Voting at the U.S. Supreme Court,” which takes Rehnquist’s quote as an epigraph – claims to offer the evidence that Rehnquist found lacking. (The paper looks at cases decided between 1960 and 2009, a period after Rehnquist’s clerkship from February 1952 to June 1953.)

Authors Adam Bonica, Adam Chilton, Jacob Goldin, Kyle Rozema and Maya Sen “find that clerks exert a modest but statistically significant effect on how justices vote”: “To interpret the magnitude of this effect, our estimate suggests that, on average, a justice would cast approximately 4% more conservative votes in a term when employing his or her most conservative clerks, as compared to a term in which the justice employs his or her most liberal clerks.”

A four percent swing might not seem like much, but it could amount to three or four votes in an 80-case term; “that’s not an insignificant effect in terms of the sheer magnitude of the findings,” Sen observes. Although recent terms have actually had fewer than 80 cases, many terms in the studied time period had more.

The authors suggest that “[t]here are at least two pathways for how such influence could occur: delegation and persuasion,” which need not be mutually exclusive. Because the authors find “substantially larger effects in cases that are higher profile (17%), cases that are legally significant (22%), and cases in which the justices are more evenly divided (12%),” as opposed to lower-profile cases that a justice might be more likely to delegate to a clerk, the authors conclude that clerks primarily influence a justice’s voting through persuasion. Sen suggests that in major cases law clerks might be more interested in speaking up and expressing personal opinions.

The authors note that anecdotally, “[i]nterviews with former clerks certainly suggest that clerks exert a significant degree of influence over their justices in specific cases,” but caution that “this view may be colored by clerks’ exaggerated sense of their own importance in the process or may represent aberrations from the norm.” At least one former clerk – Professor Daniel Epps of Washington University Law, who clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy from 2009-2010 – nevertheless considers the study’s finding “a bit surprising.” Epps shares Sen’s “intuition that the big cases are ones in which there are more discussions among the justice and the clerks—and thus more possibility for persuasion.” But he also senses that “those are the cases where the justices have the strongest intuitions already, and thus might be least susceptible to persuasion.”

As with any empirical study, this one relies on contestable factors. For example, the authors measure clerk ideology based on political donations. As another political scientist who studies the court, Adam Feldman of Empirical SCOTUS, observes, the hypothesis that donations are an accurate proxy for ideology “seems sensible,” but other intervening factors may influence choices about where to direct contributions.

Another methodological hurdle is causal: Do clerks influence justices or do justices simply hire like-minded clerks? Sen calls this the “birds of a feather flock together” problem. For this reason, it’s analytically helpful that justices typically hire clerks one or two terms in advance. If more conservative clerks were hired by a justice during the same term as their clerkships, a more conservative voting pattern by that justice that year might simply reflect the conservative inclinations of the justice – who decided both who to hire and how to vote – at that time. But because clerks are hired well before their clerkship terms, and assuming (among other things) that justices do not hire with foresight about future changes in their own voting patterns, Sen explains, the authors “can compare justices’ changes in voting from year to year and be reasonably assured that … we are capturing the effect of those clerks in a particular term.”

Returning to Rehnquist

This is not the first academic study to consider the potential influence of law clerks. For example, in a 2011 article in the Cornell Law Review, “Judicial Ghostwriting: Authorship on the Supreme Court,” Jeffrey Rosenthal and Albert Yoon conduct a text analysis of the justices’ opinions and find that variability in their writing styles offers “strong evidence that Justices are increasingly relying on their clerks when writing opinions.”

In his article, Rehnquist acknowledged that “[o]n a couple of occasions each term,” Jackson asked clerks to draft opinions for him, “along lines which he suggested.” Indeed, Rehnquist insisted that the “result reached in these opinions was no less the product of Justice Jackson than those he drafted himself; in literary style, these opinions generally suffered by comparison with those which he had drafted.”

Concurring in Brown v. Allen, a case decided during Rehnquist’s clerkship, Jackson wrote one of his most famous literary lines: “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Even as the recent study suggests that “we” in some cases may include influence from clerks, Brown does not appear to be one of those cases, at least for Rehnquist and Jackson. Rehnquist wrote a memo arguing that federal courts should grant habeas petitions involving issues considered by state courts only if the defendant had been denied the right to counsel. That recommendation did not have much “impact” on Jackson, as David Garrow wrote in a 1996 profile of Rehnquist for The New York Times, and the case has become “justly famous among criminal law practitioners as the modern fount of an expansive approach to Federal courts’ habeas jurisdiction.”

Another case in which Rehnquist seems to have been unsuccessful in swaying Jackson’s vote is none other than Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist wrote Jackson a memo arguing in favor of the precedent underpinning segregation, the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson. Jackson, instead, joined a unanimous court in overturning Plessy. Rehnquist’s memo proved controversial during his 1971 nomination to the court and 1986 elevation to chief justice. In both instances, Rehnquist claimed that the memo articulated Jackson’s views, not his.

Both of these decisions may have been part of Rehnquist’s reasons for publishing his 1957 article. As he wrote, “I commit my limited knowledge of the nonconfidential aspects of the system to public print because recent controversy about the Court’s decisions may make it of general interest.”

In that article, Rehnquist did acknowledge that law clerks, himself included, possibly affected the Supreme Court’s “certiorari work” – the process of deciding which of the many requests for review to grant each term — through “unconscious slanting of material”: “I must admit that I was not guiltless on this score.” (Clerk influence on the certiorari docket was outside the scope of the recent study.)

And along with admitting his own guilt, the conservative Rehnquist faulted his generally more liberal peers:

From my observations of two sets of Court clerks during the 1951 and 1952 terms, the political and legal prejudices of the clerks were by no means representative of the country as a whole nor of the Court which they served. … And where such bias did have any effect, because of the political outlook of the group of clerks that I knew, its direction would be to the political “left.”

Rehnquist explained that those “political and legal prejudices of the clerks” included “extreme solicitude for the claims of Communists and other criminal defendants, expansion of federal power at the expense of State power, and great sympathy toward any government regulation of business—in short, the political philosophy now espoused by the Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren.”

Rehnquist’s concern about undue clerk influence does not seem to have abated in the course of his career. “Decades after his U.S. News essay, Chief Justice Rehnquist continued to fear the influence of clerks,” as Adam Liptak wrote for The New York Times in 2008. Liptak pointed to a 1996 memo Rehnquist wrote to his fellow justices in which he expressed concern about a certain practice within the cert pool, a labor-saving device in which a petition is first reviewed by one law clerk for all the participating justices.

Even as clerks are increasingly in the news – from the Heritage Foundation’s now-cancelled “Federal Clerkship Training Academy” to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s first-ever all-female team of Supreme Court clerks – the role of clerks remains a “perennial topic of interest about which little is known,” as Bonica, Chilton, Goldin, Rozema and Sen write in their introduction. Articles like theirs and Rehnquist’s help to shed more light on this underappreciated aspect of the American judiciary.

The post Forthcoming paper on influence of law clerks recalls Rehnquist article from 1957 appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

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newyorktheater · 7 years

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The Spring 2018 season Off-Broadway promises some thrilling shows, as the preview guide below should make clear. There are new plays by superstar playwrights — Caryl Churchill (about revolution) Terrence McNally (about Nijinsky) Bruce Norris (about slavery), Adrienne Kennedy (about Jim Crow and Nazism), Lynn Nottage (about an elephant)…as well as New York premieres of plays by Tracy Letts, Martin McDonagh, Dominique Morisseau, and Aristophanes (in Greek!).

Idina Menzel, Will Swenson, Jeremy Irons, Jayne Houdyshell and some of the hottest Broadway directors, many of them women, are working Off-Broadway in Spring 2018. Off-Broadway offers off-kilter, foreign, fresh, and also familiar. The playwright of “The Vagina Monologues” brings her recent memoir to the stage. The”Hedwig” composer brings back the 70s in a new musical (the second of two shows to have “Disco” in the title this season.) The “In The Heights” playwright creates a new musical for Daphne Rubin Vega as an undocumented immigrant. For its 25th anniversary, the Encores cobbles together a new musical that’s a collage of old ones.

Unlike Broadway, Off-Broadway is more than a collection of individual potential hits or misses. (See my Broadway Spring 2018 Preview Guide.) It’s marked by theaters/theater companies that present whole seasons of original or originally interpreted work.

That’s why the Off-Broadway preview below largely groups shows according to the theaters that are producing or presenting them. I list those theaters in order of my preference for them (determined by such factors as their recent track record, the promise of the new season, and by the overall experience I’ve had with the theater.)

Clink on the theater’s name for more information about the theater, and on the show title for more about the individual production.

(The asterisk *, explained more fully at the bottom, indicates those theatrical empires that are both on and Off Broadway. Listed here are only their Off-Broadway offerings.)

I’ve put a red check mark — √ — besides a few shows about which I’m especially excited, or intrigued, or at least notably hopeful. It was hard to narrow it down this year.

THE PUBLIC THEATER

425 Lafayette Street. Twitter: @PublicTheaterNY

Having originated Hamilton, Fun Home,and, most recently, Latin History for Morons, the Public is on a roll, the latest of many in the successful downtown empire that Joe Papp created half a century ago. The Public is so popular these days that members have been complaining that their membership doesn’t guarantee tickets to the Public shows they want to see. But it’s sounds hard to miss with any of these shows:

Thomas Kail and Sarah Burgess

Bruce Norris

Daniel Alexander Jones

Lynn Nottage

Rinne Groff

Under the Radar Festival

January 4-15

Kings

January 30 – March 25, 2018

Written by Sarah Burgess (Dry Powder), directed by Thomas Kail (Hamilton,) A comedy about a lobbyist named Kate who worries that her Congresswoman client is so high-minded it will ruin her career. But then for the first time Kate is faced with a choice that might change everything for her: back the system, or back what she believes in?

The Low Road

February 13 – April 1

Written by Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park), directed by Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen.) Set in the 18th century, this wild new work imagines America’s first laissez-faire capitalist, a young man inspired by a chance encounter with Adam Smith to put his faith in the free market. But his path to riches becomes inextricably entangled with that of an educated slave, a man who knows from experience that one person’s profit is another’s loss, in this parable about the true cost of inequality.

Black Light

February 12 – March 25, 2018

Daniel Alexander Jones returns to Joe’s Pub as Jomama Jones, going on a painful personal journey set to pop, rock, soul and disco.

√ Miss You Like Hell

March 20 – May 6

Book and lyrics by Quiara Alegria Hudes (In The Heights, Water by the Spoonful), music & lyrics by Erin McKeown. Directed by Trip Cullman. Daphne Rubin-Vega is Beatriz, flawed mom to 16 year-old Olivia, and an undocumented immigrant on the verge of deportation. They take a road trip together.

√ Mlima’s Tale

March 27 – May 20, 2018

The play written by Lynn Nottage (Ruined, Sweat) tells the story of a magnificent elephant trapped in the clandestine international ivory market.

Henry V

April 23 – May 13

Fire in Dreamland

June 19 – August 5

Written by Rinne Groff. Directed by Marisa Wolf. On Coney Island, in the aftermath of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, a disillusioned do-gooder named Kate meets Jaap Hooft, a charismatic European film-maker who sees in the devastation wrought by the storm an opportunity to make a work of art about another disaster that struck Coney Island some hundred years before: the 1911 fire that started in the amusement park known as Dreamland.

SIGNATURE

480 West 42nd Street. Twitter: @signaturetheatr

As the first New York theater to win the Regional Tony Award, the Signature now has some solid proof of what has been clear to its patrons for years. What has distinguished this theater is not only its track record, but its commitment to keep the price of all tickets for initial runs relatively low — $30 now (up from $25.)

With the recent expansion of both their facilities and their mission, some longtime subscribers have had to adjust to the introduction of work by more untested playwrights. But it feels hard to go wrong given the three playwrights on offer:

Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo

January 30 – March 11

Directed by Lila Neugebauer. A new production of Albee’s two-act play that incorporated his older, and seminal, The Zoo Story. In act one, Homelife, we meet Peter and his wife, who live a comfortable but vaguely unhappy bourgeois existence; in the second act, The Zoo Story, Peter is forever altered by an oddly persistent stranger in Central Park.

√ Paradise Blue

April 24 – June 3, 2018

By Dominique Morisseau (Skeleton Crew, Pipeline). Directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Jitney.) In 1949, Detroit’s Blackbottom neighborhood is gentrifying. Blue, a troubled trumpeter and the owner of Paradise Club, is torn between remaining in Blackbottom with his loyal lover Pumpkin and leaving behind a traumatic past. But when the arrival of a mysterious woman stirs up tensions, the fate of Paradise Club hangs in the balance

Our Lady of 121st Street

May 1 – June 10, 2018

By Stephen Adly Giurgis (Between Riverside to Crazy, Jesus Hopped the A Train, The M-F With the Hat.) After the death of the beloved Sister Rose, a group of her former students return to their Harlem neighborhood to pay respects. But at the Funeral Home, there’s a problem—her dead body has been stolen

PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS

416 W. 42nd St. Twitter: @PHNYC

Annie Baker’s “The Flick” is one of six plays that originated at Playwrights Horizons that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The theater offers new plays and musicals that are consistently worthwhile, in an environment that feels dedicated both to the theater artists and the theatergoers.

Mankind

December 15, 2017 – January 28, 2018

Playwright and director Robert O’Hara imagines a future world in which women are extinct and men can get pregnant.

Miles for Mary

January 11, 2018 – February 04, 2018

Created by the Mad Ones and directed by Lila Neugebauer, a comedy about the planning committee for Garrison High School’s ninth annual Miles For Mary Telethon in 1988.

This Flat Earth

March 16, 2018 – April 29, 2018

Written by Lindsey Ferrentino (“Ugly Lies The Bone“) and directed by Rebecca Taichman (“Indecent“) At a middle school in this seaside town, the unthinkable has happened, placing a bewildered community in the national spotlight. Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie and Zander, two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they witnessed, their awkward crushes, and an infinitely more complicated future. There’s a second Ferrentino play at the Roundabout.

Clare Barron

√ Dance Nation

April 13, 2018 – May 27, 2018

Written by Clare Barron,co-winner of the first Relentless Award. Directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans. Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay.

Log Cabin

June 01, 2018 – July 15, 2018

Written by Jordan Harrison, directed by Pam McKinnon. When a tight-knit circle of comfortable married gays and lesbians see themselves through the eyes of their rakish transgender pal, it’s clear that the march toward progress is anything but unified

NEW YORK THEATER WORKSHOP

79 East 4th Street. Twitter: @NYTW79

NYTW got much attention for presenting David Bowie’s musical “Lazarus.” and r its “Othello” with David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig. Its fare has ranged from the innovative and tuneful — “Hadestown” — to the cutting edge and incomprehensible — “Fondly, Collette Richland”

An Ordinary Muslim

February 7 – March 11

Written by Hammaad Chaudry his professional playwriting debut, and directed by Jo Bonney. A Pakistani-British couple struggle to straddle the gap between the doctrines of their Muslim community and the demands of secular Western culture.

√Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

Dates to be determined

Written by Caryl Churchill (Love and Information, Cloud Nine), and directed by Rachel Chavkin (Great Comet, Hadestown) In 1647 England, power is shifting and, amid the chaos and confusion, revolutionaries across the country are dreaming of a new future. Anything by Caryl Churchill is worth seeing.

The House That Will Not Stand

Dates to be determined

By Marcus Gardley (X), directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (Pipeline). In the heat of summer in 1813, Louisiana passed from France to the United States. On the eve of the transfer, in a house in mourning, freedom hangs in the balance for a steely widow and her three eligible daughters, all free women of color. Inspired by Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba.

ST. ANN’S WAREHOUSE

Although it primarily presents avant-garde European exports, this Brooklyn theater climbs up in my preference thanks to Taylor Mac’s homegrown 24-Decade History of Popular Music late last year. This season’s offerings give us a sense of what’s happening politically overseas.

Ballyturk

January 9-28

Written and directed by Enda Walsh. The lives of two men unravel quickly over the course of 90 minutes.Where are they? Who are they? What room is this, and what might be beyond the walls?

Also in January: The Irish Rep Theater is also mounting a 20th anniversary production of Walsh’s Disco Pigs.

Returning to Reims

Feb 4-25

Based on the memoir by Didier Eribon. Directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Philospher Didier Eribon, returning to his childhood home, discovers that the left-wing and liberal middle-class have abandoned the working-class, and workers are running into the arms of the right-wing National Front. How is this possible?

The Fall

March 8-25

Devised collaboratively by a cast of seven actors, the play recounts their experiences as student leaders of the #RhodesMustFall protest movement, which called for the teardown of a colonialist monument on their University of Cape Town campus.

The Birds

May 2-13

By Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Nikos Karathanos in Greek with English subtitles. Two Athenians, fed up with their city and the gods who rule over it, travel to the countryside to ask the birds to build them a new utopia.

BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC

I always love attending BAM. Theater is only one of their many offerings, and (similar to St Ann’s Warehouse), they are primarily European exports, either classical or avant-garde. But the three plays this Spring strike me as must-see, at least for me.

King Lear

April 7-29

Directed by Gregory Doran for Royal Shakespeare Company, starring Antony She.

Long Day’s Journey into Night

May 8 -27

by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Sir Richard Eye for Bristol Old Vic, starring Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville

Love and Intrigue

June 6 – 16

.Friedrich Schiller,Directed and adapted by Lev Dodin, for Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia. Two young lovers meet their fate in German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy of class warfare and courtly intrigue, first produced in 1787.

ATLANTIC THEATER

The Homecoming Queen

Written by Ngozi Anyanwu in her Off-Broadway debut, directed by Awoye Timpo. A bestselling novelist returns to Nigeria to care for her ailing father, but before she can bury him, she must relearn the traditions she’s long forgotten.

January 10 – Feb 11

Hangmen

January 18 – March 4

Written by Martin McDonagh (The Beauty Queen of Lenane), directed by Matthew Dunster. A play about the second-best hangman in England hanging out in a pub on the day they’ve abolished hanging.

This Ain’t No Disco

May 11- July 1

Music and lyrics by Stephen Trask (Hedwig and the Angry Inch)and Peter Yanowitz. Directed by Trip Cullman. The story of drifters and dreamers in the night world in 1979 New York of Studio 54 and Mudd Club

May 11 – July 1

The Great Leap

May 23-June 17

Written by Lauren Yee. Directed by Taibi Mgar. San Franciscan sidewalk basketball star Manford Lum, talks his way onto a college team as they travel to Beijing in the era after th Cultural Revolution, forcing him to juggle international politics and his own personal history.

PARK AVENUE ARMORY

Although the Armory has been presenting theater for ten years, it’s not been a regular stop for me. A Room in India convinced me it should be. As with St Anne’s Warehouse and BAM, the theater they present is largely European, cutting-edge, often hybrids, and they require patience and an open mind. But, offered in the vast expanse of the Armory’s Drill Hall, these aren’t just shows; they’re events.

Yerma

Federico García Lorca’s 1934 drama is reimagined by Australian director and dramatist Simon Stone, who transforms the tale of a provincial Spanish woman’s desperate desire to have a child into a parable of modern life

March 23–April 21, 2018

Myriad

May 22–24, 2018

I can only quote the description: “a hyperstitial ‘concertscape’ imagined from the perspective of an alien intelligence that explores disorienting relationships between space and sound and mutates forms of live musical performance.”

The Let Go

June 7–July 1. 2018

Nick Cave’s hybrid installation, performance, gathering and dancing environment acts as an alternative platform for viewers to speak their minds through movement, work out frustrations, and celebrate independence as well as community.

√ The Damned

July 17–28, 2018

Ivo van Hove in collaboration with Comédie-Française adapts Luchino Visconti’s film about the disintegration of the wealthy Essenbeck family and their steel dynasty during the seizure of power of the Nazis in 1933 in Germany. In French with English supertitles.

LINCOLN CENTER THEATER*

@LCTheater

The shows at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway venues are inexpensive (especially at the Claire Tow theater, where initial-run tickets cost $20) and often rewarding.

Queens

Feb 10 – March 25

Written by Martyna Majok (Ironbound, Cost of Living.) The lives of two generations of immigrant women collide in a basement apartment. When the choices they’ve made about their security, dignity, and desires come back to haunt them, they must ask: what cannot – and should not – be left behind?

Admissions

Feb 15 – April 29

By Joshua Harmon (Significant Other). Directed by Daniel Aukin. The admissions officer and her husband the headmaster of The Hillcrest School are proud of their efforts to diversify the student body. But when their only son sets his sights on an Ivy League university, personal ambition collides with progressive values. Harmon has a second play, Skintight, at Roundabout.

ROUNDABOUT* LAURA PELS

The empire that is now Roundabout includes three Broadway theaters, and that’s where most of the attention is focused, mostly on star-studded revivals, especially musicals. But its fourth building houses two Off-Broadway theaters (one of them a tiny “Black Box” theater.) It is in its Off-Broadway facility that Stephen Karam’s The Humans originated.

Amy and the Orphans

Feb 1 – Ap 22

Written by Lindsey Ferrentino (Ugly Lies The Bone). Directed by Scott Ellis (She Loves Me.) After their father’s death, two unhinged siblings reunite with Amy, their movie-loving sister who has Down syndrome. An unexpected turn reveals the moment that changed their lives…and the fact that Amy may be the only one who knows her own mind.

Bobbie Clearly

March 8 – May 6

Bobbie killed Casey in the middle of a cornfield in Milton, Nebraska. Two years later, Milton’s residents are ready to tell you their side(s) of the story.

Skintight

May 31 – August 26

Written by Joshua Harmon. Idina Menzel stars in a play by Joshua Harmon as a woman who discovers her fashion-designer father is wrapped up in his West Village townhouse with a 20-year-old who may or not be gay, but is the same age as his gay grandson.

MCC THEATER

Address: The Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street. Twitter: @mcctheaterl

Relevance

Feb 1-Mar 11, 2018

Written by JC Lee. Directed by LIesl Tommy (Eclipsed.) Jayne Houdyshell (The Humans) portray a celebrated author and veteran feminist warrior who may have met her match in a promising young writer (Pascale Armand from Eclipsed) who is quickly becoming the leading cultural critic on race, class, and gender for a new generation — and far more conversant in social media.

Transfers

Ap 5 – May 13

Written by Lucy Thurber (Insurgents), directed by Jackson Gay

Two gifted students from the South Bronx are competing for a life-changing scholarship at an elite northeast university when they are unexpectedly confronted with their shared past during a campus visit.

Reasons To Be Pretty Happy

Aug 16 – Sep 23

Written by Neil LaBute. Directed by Leigh Silverman.fter five years in New York, Greg and Steph return to their blue-collar hometown for their 20th high school reunion and to a dramatic encounter with Kent and Carly, the friends they left behind. The third play that uses these characters — preceded by Reasons to be Pretty, and Reasons to Be Happy

SECOND STAGE*

This is the first year the theater is programming the Helen Hayes on Broadway. Here are the two that are being presented in their Off-Broadway house a few blocks away:

Cardinal

January 9 – February 25

Greg Pierce’s new play about a rivalry in a Rust Belt town, directed by Kate Whoriskey , who directed Sweat.

Mary Page Marlowe

Written by Tracy Letts (August: Osage County). Directed by Lila Neugebauer (The Wolves, Signature Plays). A seemingly ordinary accountant from Ohio has experienced pain and joy, success and failure — forgotten moments adding up to a memorable life.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Fire and Air (Classic Stage Company)

January 17-February 25, 2018

Terrence McNally explores the rich history of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev’s itinerant Russian ballet company. Surrounded by great talents of art, design, and music, the tempestuous relationship between Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky revolutionizes dance forever.

Hey Look Me Over (Encores at City Center)

Feb 7 – 11

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the concert series, this new musical features Bob Martin, as his beloved Man in Chair character from The Drowsy Chaperone, plays an opinionated Encores! subscriber who leads the audience on a guided (and sometimes mis-guided) tour of his favorite scenes and songs from musicals he’s always wanted to see at City Center: All American, George M!, Greenwillow, Jamaica,Mack & Mabel, Milk and Honey, Sail Away, and Wildcat.

In The Body of the World (MTC)

January 16 – March 25

Directed by Diane Paulus and starring Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) in a play based on her memoir: While working with women suffering from the ravages of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ensler was stunned by a life-threatening diagnosis.

He Brought Her Heart Back In A Box (TFANA at Polonsky)

January 18 – February 11

Adrienne Kennedy’s first new play in a decade is set in Georgia and New York City in 1941, and “braids together the indignities of Jim Crow, rising Nazism, sexual hypocrisy, Christopher Marlowe, and the lingering shadow of a terrible crime.”

Jerry Springer The Opera (The New Group)

January 23 – March 11, 2018

Starring Terrence Mann and Will Swenson.

—

Other companies and theaters worth checking out:

Ars Nova

Rattlesticks Playwright Theater

Mint Theater

Mayi Theater Company

Primary Stages

There are also commercial shows put together by independent producers that appear in theaters for rent, such as:

Cherry Lane Theatre Daryl Roth Theatre Gym at Judson Lucille Lortel Theatre New World Stages Orpheum Theater The Players Theatre Snapple Theater Center Theatre Row – The Acorn Union Square Theater Westside Theatre

*THE ASTERISK: Off-Broadway AND Broadway

*Just to complicate matters, several of the resident theaters also present shows on Broadway – Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theater Company (MTC), the Roundabout Theater Company., and starting this season, Second Stage Theatre, which has bought the Helen Hayes. Their Broadway offerings are listed in my Broadway 2016-2017 Preview Guide.

What Is Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway?

Off-Broadway theaters, by definition, have anywhere from 100 to 499 seats. If a theater has more seats than that, it’s a Broadway house. If it has fewer, it’s Off-Off Broadway.

There are some terrific Off-Off Broadway theaters, sometimes confused for Off-Broadway. These include (but are not limited to) The Flea, Labyrinth Theater, and LaMaMa ETC.

Monthly Calendar of Openings

Because there are so many shows Off-Off Broadway, and their runs are so limited, I include them in my monthly theater preview calendar (along with Broadway and Off Broadway openings) posted near the beginning of each month.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information about Off-Broadway, go to The League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers (aka The Off-Broadway League). This should not be confused with the Off-Broadway Alliance, which is a separate organization (though they should probably merge, no?)

What’s Off-Broadway Dough? Does that mean there’s not much of it? pic.twitter.com/KHH1kApUzb

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) September 4, 2016—-

Off Broadway Spring 2018 Guide The Spring 2018 season Off-Broadway promises some thrilling shows, as the preview guide below should make clear.

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loveislove216-blog · 7 years

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Is Homosexuality a Choice?

There are only two answers to this questions: yes, people choose their sexual orientation and no, homosexuality is predetermined. Socio-biologists have delved deeper, analysing the nature vs nurture debate in the attempt to provide a viable answer to this question. Yet sexuality is a complex matter and both sides of the coin presents notions that, to this day, remain contentious. The 19th century saw homosexuality as being a result of mental illness and moral corruption. Whereas, the 20th century posed the question of biological, social and psychological influence.

Biologically, a multitude of studies have presented evidence to suggest that homosexuality is a result of an alternative brain structure and genotype (Rosenblum and Travis, 2016). In 1991, Simon LeVay’s publicly controversial study discovered that the third interstitial nucleus situated in the hypothalamus is, on average, smaller in “gay men and straight women than in straight men” (Rosenblum and Travis, 2016:148). Since the hypothalamus is thought to influence natural urges such as hunger, thirst and sexual arousal it is believed that this could be a valid argument and reason for homosexual preferences. However, LeVay’s study was empirically flawed and methodological issues lead the research to be statistically insignificant. The participant’s that took part in the investigation all died from AIDS-related illnesses. As medical treatment is known to affect a variety of brain structures, critics reevaluated whether or not the gay men had smaller interstitial nuclei as a result of homosexuality or alternatively their life-threatening illness.

In 1993, Dear Hamer developed a widely renowned study establishing a link between homosexuality and the genes of maternal uncles and cousins, but not among paternal relatives. Hamer and his associates discovered, through DNA linkage analysis, that male homosexuality is “preferentially transmitted through the maternal side and is genetically linked to chromosomal Xq28″ (Hines, 2005:105). Despite this, critics identified certain empirical flaws. The data collated was only statistically significant under certain circumstances. The the base rate of maternal homosexuality is relatively low, the data is statistically significant. Conversely, if a more reasonable base rate is used, the data is rendered insignificant. Clearly, the causal reasoning behind homosexuality is more than merely brain structure or one single gene.

Opposing the nature arguments, the nurture debate points to the influence an individual’s social environment, upbringing and peer exposure has on sexual identity, orientation and preference. A great deal of the socio-environmental discourse argues that the way in which an individual is brought up by their caregivers is heavily linked to the gender identity they conform to. Often referred to as the Parental Manipulation Theory, this idea suggests that parents have the ability to pass on their “evolutionary fitness” (Johnson and Heffner, 2003). A similar theory proposed by Sigmund Freud argues parental and peer experiences leads an individual to adopting a heterosexual or homosexual orientation, as each person is born innately bisexual (Freud, 2016).

Yet, science is beginning to accept that sexual orientation is a convoluted topic that combines both nature and nurture, and is not linked to one specific phenomenon. As Smiley (2016) states, “if it’s not genetics defining sexuality, then it must be a choice and choice implies not just morals and ethics, but, more importantly to detractors, the ability to change, to choose another path.” It’s upsetting that society puts pressure on trying to define the root cause and reason for homosexuality, whilst heterosexuality has never been under this scrutiny because it is deemed ‘normal’. The ‘homophobia: social experiment’ video below explores homophobia within day-to-day society.

youtube

So why is homosexuality so stigmatised? Some point to the assumption that homosexuality and mental illness go hand-in-hand. This concept is particularly remnant within Chinese culture.

The Chinese Psychiatric Association studied the link between homosexuality and mental disorder. Utilising individuals who were of a homosexual orientation in Bejing and some who sought mental health support. The study concluded that “homosexuality per se should not be considered a mental disorder, but “homosexuals” experiencing distress due to their sexual orientation need mental health services” (Drescher and Lingiardi, 2003:135). Moreover, Cong Zhong and Gao Wenfreng (1999) collated the opinions of psychotherapists regarding their acceptance and tolerance toward gay people. The study produced incredibly controversial results. 17.4% of the 47 individuals interviewed believed homosexuality was immoral, 20% saw gay people as anti-social, 5% saw them as promiscuous and 2.5% saw them as evil. In addition to this, 56.5% of the participants deemed homosexuality “not a disorder but also not normal,” whilst 26.1% considered it a mental disorder. However, remarkably, a monumental 55% of the psychotherapists believed gay people’s mental health was poorer to that of heterosexual individuals (Drescher and Lingiardi, 2003:136).

Within Chinese society, homosexuality has been ostracised, leading gay individuals to feel shame, lose their sense of dignity and identity leading them to experience outright discrimination. According to Goddman (1963), stigma has been defined as “a discrediting attribute that decreases the status of an individual who possesses a characteristic that is undesirable in the eyes of society” (Liu et al, 2011). Public homophobia has created stigma that has been infiltrated into institutions and organisations. Recently, reports by the Human Rights Watch have been published regarding the public and private clinics in China that continue to offer ‘conversion therapy’. A therapy believed to change the sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual. Although homosexuality has been decriminalised for over 20 years in China, conversion therapy continues to condemn LGBTQ individuals to medication, confinement and electric shocks in the attempt to alter their sexual preference (HRW, 2017).

People are being treated as inferior for merely loving someone who is the same gender as them. It’s the 21st century and the homophobia that continues to invade certain aspects within society demonstrates how narrow-minded some people still are. Human beings are being punished, tortured mentally and physically, labelled as ‘abnormal’ and ultimately condemned for not following traditional ideals. Surely love shouldn’t be caught up in the other tragic events that go on in our world today. Homosexuality is not a choice; neither is it biologically determined. It just is, and people need to accept that.

References

Drescher, J. Lingiardi, V. (2003). The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality: International Perspectives. CRC Press.

Freud, S. (2016). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. New York. Verso.

Hines, M. (2005). Brain Gender. Oxford University Press.

HRW. (2017). China: End Conversion Therapy in Medical Settings. Available: here

Johnson, R. Heffner, C. (2003). Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture. AllPsych. Available: here

#lgbtq community

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newstfionline · 7 years

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150 Years After Sale of Alaska, Some Russians Have Second Thoughts

By Evan Gershkovich, NY Times, March 30, 2017

The reassertion of Russia’s greatness has been a motif of Vladimir V. Putin’s presidency, and his projection of military might and cyberpower is in part why Russian-American relations are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

So the 150th anniversary on Thursday of Russia’s sale of Alaska to the United States--an event few Americans may notice--was a day of mourning for some hard-right Russian nationalists who see the transaction as a gigantic blunder by the ailing czarist empire, one that reverberates as the major powers vie for influence over the Arctic and its natural riches in an age of climate change.

“If Russia was in possession of Alaska today, the geopolitical situation in the world would have been different,” Sergey Aksyonov, the prime minister of Crimea, told a Crimean television network this month.

A niche military magazine, Military-Industrial Courier, recently ran a two-part article headlined “The Alaska We’ve Lost,” grumbling about what could have been.

Mr. Putin, asked about Alaska during a call-in show that year, said “we don’t need to get worked up about this.” At the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk, Russia, on Thursday, however, he said that American activities in Alaska could destabilize world order. “What we do is contained locally, while what the U.S. does in Alaska, it does on the global level,” he said, calling the American development of a missile system there “one of the most pressing security issues.”

No one, of course, is seriously suggesting that Russia retake Alaska like it annexed Crimea in 2014 from Ukraine. But the differences in how the sale is remembered in Russia and the United States--and, crucially, among Alaska’s indigenous communities--points to the state’s history as a cultural and religious crossroad.

Russians started to settle Alaska in 1784, setting up trading posts and Eastern Orthodox churches, mostly along the coast. By the 1860s, having lost the Crimean War to Britain, and fearful that Britain would seize Alaska in any future conflict, the czar decided to strike a deal.

The sea otters who were the heart of then-thriving fur trade had almost been wiped out, and the Russians also feared that if gold were discovered--as it would be, in the Klondike Gold Rush that started in 1896--the Americans might overrun the territory, said Susan Smith-Peter, a historian at the College of Staten Island in New York.

“From the Russian point of view, the deal made a lot of sense,” she said. “They could irritate Britain, and they could have a closer relationship with the United States.”

The United States also thought the purchase would position it closer to trade with China, and fend off any British thoughts of encroachment on the West Coast, said Gwenn A. Miller, a historian at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

“It was really about Manifest Destiny,” she said, “about expanding the U.S.”

The treaty--setting the price at $7.2 million, or about $125 million today--was negotiated and signed by Eduard de Stoeckl, Russia’s minister to the United States, and William H. Seward, the American secretary of state. It was mostly considered beneficial to both countries, but some critics derided it as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox”--and even now, scholars debate whether it was a bargain.

In some Russian quarters, the sale has left a bitter aftertaste. “Along with Alaska, you sold out your Russian people,” Vladimir Kolychev, a history enthusiast, wrote in a poem last fall, addressed to Czar Alexander II.

Andrei Znamenski, a history professor at the University of Memphis, said that irredentist calls to reclaim Alaska were not limited to extremists.

“It’s a very convenient episode for nationalists, who want Russia to expand, to exploit,” he said. “It fits into national rhetoric: Look how the Americans have treated us.”

Theories even abound that Russia got stiffed; that the gold used to pay for the sale sank on a ship; or that robbers seized the gold. (One scholar, Aleksandr Petrov of Moscow State University, refuted those theories by tracking down a document showing that nearly all of the money went to build railroads.)

In Washington, the anniversary was to be commemorated on Thursday with a luncheon at the National Press Club, a State Department reception and a concert with music by the composer John Luther Adams, who spent much of his life in Alaska. In Alaska, talks, lectures, art exhibitions and other events will continue through Alaska Day, Oct. 18, which marks the formal transfer of the territory. Alaska became the 49th state in January 1959.

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who is Tlingit, an indigenous group of the Pacific Northwest, called the events “a commemoration, not a celebration.”

“We are looking at the 150 years through a very eyes-wide-open kind of way,” Mr. Mallott, a Democrat, said in a telephone interview. “There have been, both under Russian and U.S. dominion, issues for Alaska’s Native peoples that have not been so good. But we also are very mindful that we live in the greatest democracy on the face of the earth regardless of recent circumstances, and the other side not so much.”

When the Russians arrived in Alaska, they conscripted the people living along the coasts to hunt sea otters. After the land’s sale, the indigenous groups were freed, but the Americans brought their share of problems, said Sergei A. Kan, a professor of Native American studies at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

“The Russian era was about paternalistic control, but the Russian goal was not to transform life radically, but to harness the people for economic purposes,” Mr. Kan said. “With the Americans, it was accompanied with a much more forceful Westernization.”

Hal Spackman, the executive director of the Sitka History Museum in Alaska, said the Russian legacy could still be seen in people’s surnames, the names of geographical features, and the endurance of the Russian Orthodox faith.

Bob Sam, 63, a Tlingit who was born and raised in Sitka, which was Alaska’s first capital, said that not everybody in the area was happy about the sesquicentennial.

“But after 150 years,” he said, “it’s time to heal and it’s time to find togetherness so that Alaska Natives can go on to be the human beings we were intended to be.”

The sale also came up this week on the sidelines of the forum in Arkhangelsk.

Paul Fuhs, who runs the Marine Exchange of Alaska, a private effort to regulate shipping in the Bering Strait, said his Russian counterparts had at times, over drinks, bemoaned the sale of the land.

“They think it was a stupid decision that they sold it for $7.2 million,” he said at the forum. “That does not mean that they will come over with their army to take it back.”

#Alaska #sale of Alaska #Russia's sale of Alaska #William Seward

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newstfionline · 8 years

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Trump the Disruptor

By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com, January 17, 2017

If the New York Times is to be believed--a problematic proposition--then it looks as if Trump Derangement Syndrome has gone international. In a front page article headlined “As Trump Era Dawns, A Sense of Uncertainty Grips the World,” we are told:

“The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.”

However, to Times reporter Steve Erlanger, this all comes as a big revelation, evidence that “Trump has again focused his penchant for disruption on the rest of the world.”

This being the Times, there’s the requisite Russia-baiting:

“No one knows where exactly he is headed--except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.”

“Look, this whole thing should never have happened. Iraq should not have been attacked in the first place, all right? It was one of the worst decisions, possibly the worst decision ever made in the history of our country. We’ve unleashed--it’s like throwing rocks into a beehive. It’s one of the great messes of all time. I looked at something, uh, I’m not allowed to show you because it’s classified--but, I just looked at Afghanistan and you look at the Taliban--and you take a look at every, every year its more, more, more, you know they have the different colours--and you say, you know--what’s going on?”

Employees of both Boeing and Lockheed-Martin gave record amounts to the Clinton campaign: indeed, the entire industry went for Hillary in a big way.

This segues into what is the most controversial part of the interview:

“Q: Talking about Russia, you know that Angela Merkel understands Putin very well because he is fluent in German, she is fluent in Russian, and they have known each other for a long time--but who would you trust more, Angela Merkel or Vladimir Putin?

“Trump: Well, I start off trusting both--but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.”

As he’s being interrogated by a Brit and a German, much of the interview deals with Europe, and specifically policy toward Russia. Asked if he can “understand why eastern Europeans fear Putin and Russia,” he says “Sure, oh sure,” and then goes very quickly into a critique of NATO, which he says is “obsolete.” It’s obvious he thinks the fears of the east Europeans are vastly overblown. Trump complains that “the countries aren’t paying their fair share. So we’re supposed to protect countries but a lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, NATO is very important to me.”

And of course the issue of NATO is really about the Russian question--is Putin really intent on annexing his “near abroad” and re-establishing the Soviet empire? This fantasy, based on nothing but rejuvenated cold war hysteria, is clearly doubted by Trump and his advisors. So when he’s asked if he supports the continuation of European sanctions against Russia, Trump replies:

“Well, I think you know--people have to get together and people have to do what they have to do in terms of being fair. OK? They have sanctions on Russia--let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it. But you do have sanctions and Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.”

In short: sanctions can be ended as part of a grand bargain with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals on both sides and guarantee European security. Ambitious?--Yes. Praiseworthy?--Certainly. Can he do it? Only by overcoming the War Party’s opposition in Congress, led by Mad John McCain and joined by the now-Russophobic war-crazed Democrats out to obstruct anything and everything Trump does, even at the cost of world peace.

It’s absolutely wonderful how Trump’s offhand remarks rub the commentariat the wrong way. Asked which number he dials if he wants to talk to Europe--a riff off a remark by Henry Kissinger--he names Merkel on the grounds that “you look at the European Union and it’s Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany. That’s why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out.”

Zing! Poor Angela Merkel--she can’t get no respect!

Elaborating his view of the EU, Trump averred:

“I think people want, people want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave.”

“Your policy platform of America First implies you’re happy to see the rest of the world suffer. Do you?”

“I don’t want it to be a disruption--I love the world, I want the world to be good but we can’t go--I mean look at what’s happening to our country--we are $20 trillion [in debt]--we don’t know what we’re doing--our military is weak--we’re in wars that never end, we’re in Afghanistan now 17 years … it’s the longest war we’ve ever been in.”

Endless wars, endless payments to feckless “allies,” endless hectoring by these ungrateful wretches who accuse us of wanting to “see the rest of the world suffer”--Trump would put an end to all this, and I have no doubt that the American people support him. Shall we take a poll on the popularity of the US bearing the brunt of Europe’s “defense” against an enemy that disappeared in 1989? Shall we have a national referendum on the prospect of going to war over whether Montenegro--a nation the size of the metropolitan New York area--shall have a “pro-Western” government?

Without this “international order,” we’re told, the world will be plunged into “uncertainty,” if not complete chaos. The only uncertainty that Trump’s America First foreign policy imposes is uncertainty as to where the war profiteers’ next meal ticket is coming from. And that, dear reader, is a cause not for panic but for celebration.

#Donald Trump #Trump foreign policy

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