#brooks brother riot

[futurebird]

December 13th 2000 in The White House's Old Executive Office Building

Al Gore: (speaking very slowly and clearly, as if trying to calm a heard of raving mad red-eye's kelpies*) "… while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it."

The first really big election I voted in! I was devastated at how easily Al Gore gave up. My more moderate/liberal friends are saying "Surely you can see why this was the right thing to do, *now* right?"

uh… not really?

Listen, I want to! I really really do! But I don't. Do you see this moment in a new light now?

*it's me. I'm the mad kelpies

[mitchipedia]

How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection

Chris Lehmann at The Nation:

The precedent set by the post-election uprising in Miami-Dade County gives the lie to the common depiction of the failed Trumpian coup as an isolated and outlying event in the annals of right-wing protest. In reality, the “Brooks Brothers riot,” staged amid the surreal, fiercely contested battle over the Florida vote, laid out the blueprint. Then, as in 2020, key legal and political strategists on the right sought to disrupt a clear procedural mandate to preserve the integrity of a vote count. The symbolic staging of the right-wing uprising conveyed the clear message that the votes of a white, upscale electorate were innately more American, legitimate, and potent than the more numerous non-white coalition that broke for the Democratic presidential ticket.

Still more remarkably, both disruptive actions aimed at flipping the election into the Republican column took shape under the guidance of fabled right-wing dirty-tricks impresario Roger Stone—an ardent student of Nixonian electoral realpolitik who moved seamlessly into the vanguard of the Trumpian right. The legal arm of the GOP’s orchestrated bid to shut down the 2000 election recount in Florida boasted no less than three future Supreme Court justices among its foot soldiers: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

​…

It’s not hard to discern distinct echoes here of the far more militant demands from the aggrieved January 6 mob to overrun the Capitol barricades, attack the Capitol Police, and hunt down and menace Democratic lawmakers inside the building. One difference, though, is that the Brooks Brothers riot worked.

​

[papasmoke]

You know it's funny I thought the best tools the republican party relied on to win were voter disenfranchisement, brooks brothers riot/Jan 6 style shenanigans, gerrymandering, galvanizing white lumpenprole racial anxiety, and the fact that their democratic opponents are frequently arrogant broadly unpopular assholes who are unable to meaningfully attack Republicans on most economic and foreign policy issues during campaigns because both parties broadly subscribe to the same neoliberal governing model.

My mistake, boy it sure is lucky it's never the democratic party's or anybody else in power's fault for their own failures. It's the voters!

[wilwheaton]

"Justice Elena Kagan memorably castigated him for treating 'judging as scorekeeping,' whining about 'how unfair it is' when he loses, and repeating the same bad arguments 'at a higher volume.' Justice Sonia Sotomayor has repeatedly accused him of outright dishonesty by misrepresenting precedent and dangling false promises. In a fed-up dissent in just her first term, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson compared a Kavanaugh majority opinion to the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. [Samul] Alito’s rebuttal to Kavanaugh’s dissent in Sackett v. EPAconsisted of exactly one sentence: Kavanaugh’s argument, Alito wrote, 'cannot be taken seriously.'"

Justices are 'losing patience': Brett Kavanaugh skewered as a 'lightweight' in brutal analysis

Hold up.

This guy?

“The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque character assassination will dissuade confident and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country, and as we all know, in the political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.”

This piece of shit?

The guy who spent his entire life as a right wing activist judge, who was part of the Brooks Brothers “riot”, snarled and barked and insulted the Senate Judiciary Committee during his farcical confirmation hearing, who lied repeatedly about his history of sexual assault, his gambling debts, and threatened to explicitly hurt people who he views as antagonistic to him ... turns out to be an intellectual lightweight in the mold of Thomas? He doesn’t give a flying fuck about law or justice or precedent, he just wants to hurt people he doesn’t like under the color of law?

Wow. None of us saw that coming.

[tanadrin]

The Biden administration should go after everybody involved in trying to overturn a U.S. election, by which I mean they should arrest everyone who participated in Bush v Gore. Brooks brothers riot = the original insurrection.

[lizardsfromspace]

Recently Reddit has become the most aggressively astroturfed social media site I've seen. Probably not literally, but more noticeably bc it's all centralized. Certain topics just get swiftly drowned in comments, usually very similar ones

It's really noticeable in subs where most users have some kind of flair. Like on sports subs, where you suddenly have a lot of comments angry about immigration or something who stick out like a sore thumb bc none of them have any team flair set. Brooks Brothers riot levels of blending in

[collapsedsquid]

According to two Biden campaign officials and two other sources with knowledge of the operation, draft pleadings and legal motions, for all kinds of possible Trump-related emergencies, are already written and at the ready. In critical swing states such as Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, Team Biden is regularly in contact with an array of outside counsels and local law firms that have been retained to actively monitor what is happening on the ground, including with regards to the activism of election-denying Trump allies.  Bidenworld’s closely-held list of nightmare scenarios — in which Democratic legal teams would have to battle it out tooth and nail with Republican counterparts before, during, or after Election Day 2024 — has grown “comically long,” says one source with direct knowledge of the matter. Biden campaign officials and other Democrats familiar with the topic tell Rolling Stone that a key concern, for which step-by-step gameplanning has already begun, is how to robustly respond if Trump and other leading Republicans try to engineer another Jan. 6-style power grab. In these internal wargames among Bidenworld and Democratic attorneys in key states, this kind of Jan. 6 sequel has included scripts in which House Republicans or state officials refuse to certify a Biden victory — an act that prominent GOP politicians, including on Capitol Hill, have publicly dangled as an option.

I'm sorry but gop legislators refusing to certify an election is not a "Jan 6th-like event," I fucking hate this shit. I mean these are necessary preparations, I am glad they are making them but I fucking hate that this is how they talk.

I hope however that in their insane desire they have to contextualize everything as "Jan 6th-like" while actually preparing for battles in the courtroom they are not ignoring the synthesis of these two and are preparing for a "Brooks Brothers Riot-type event"

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

Smith recounts these facts to establish Trump’s motive and intent on January 6

December 5, 2023 (Tuesday)

A new filing today by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the case United States of America v. Donald J. Trump for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election shows Smith’s office establishing that Trump has a longstanding pattern of refusing to accept election results he dislikes.

As early as 2012, the filing notes, Trump baselessly alleged that voting machines had switched votes intended for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. In the 2016 campaign he “claimed repeatedly, with no basis, that there was widespread voter fraud,” and publicly refused to commit to accepting the results of that election. This pattern continued in 2020, but in that election he took active steps to seize power.

The filing introduced information that Trump, an agent, and an unindicted co-conspirator tried to start a riot at the TCF Center in Detroit as vote counting showed Biden taking the lead. As Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo points out, this scheme sounds much like the Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000 that stopped vote counting in Miami-Dade County in Florida. Roger Stone was a participant in the Brooks Brothers Riot; in 2020 he was working to keep Trump in office.

Smith’s team shows how this pattern continued to play out in the 2020 election, with Trump urging supporters like the Proud Boys to back him, falsely asserting that the election had been stolen, and attacking former supporters who denied that the election had been stolen. The pattern has continued until the present, with Trump calling those who were found guilty of offenses related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol “hostages” and claiming they were “treated horribly.”

Smith recounts these facts to establish Trump’s motive and intent on January 6, but his identification of a longstanding pattern indicates it would be a grave mistake to think Trump has any intention of campaigning fairly or accepting any result in 2024 other than his return to the White House.

New House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has endorsed Trump for president and was a key organizer of the congressional effort to keep Trump in office, has promised to release all the surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Trump supporters insist that the full tapes will reveal that the attack was not as bad as the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol showed. Johnson said that the tapes must be shared publicly for “transparency.”

Today, Johnson supported Trump’s message about January 6 when he said that he was making sure the faces of rioters are blurred in the surveillance footage. "We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ [Department of Justice] and to have other, you know, concerns and problems," he said. Johnson’s spokesperson quickly walked back the comment, saying Johnson meant to say that faces were blurred to prevent “all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors.”

Also today, Kash Patel, who served on Trump’s national security team and is widely expected to return in a second Trump administration, expanded the authoritarian threats Trump people have been making to include the media. On former Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast, Patel promised that the Trump team would fill government positions from top to bottom with loyalists and would use the Department of Justice to go after those perceived to be Trump’s enemies.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Yesterday, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is promoting her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, called out Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for his continuing hold on military appointments that kept more than 450 routine promotions from taking effect over the past ten months. Tuberville claimed his refusal to permit the nominees’ confirmations was an attempt to change Pentagon policy of permitting leave for service members in states that ban abortion to obtain abortion care elsewhere. But on NPR yesterday, Cheney wondered: “Why is Tommy Tuberville doing that? Is he holding those positions open so that Donald Trump can fill them?”

Today, under great pressure from members of his own party who worried the Democrats would change the rules to weaken the power of the Senate minority, Tuberville released his hold on most of the nominees. The Senate promptly confirmed 425 of them.

Still, Tuberville retained holds on 11 officers of the most senior rank. According to congressional reporter for Punchbowl News Andrew Desiderio, the positions left vacant are commander of Pacific Air Forces, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Air Component Command for the United States Indo-Pacific Command, commander for Air Combat Command, the head of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program, the head of Northern Command (which defends the United States and coordinates defenses with Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas), the head of the U.S. Cyber Command, vice chief of staff of the Army, vice chief of staff of the Air Force, vice chief of Space Operations, and vice chief of Naval Operations.

Last night, Cheney explained to political commentator and television host Rachel Maddow exactly what a second Trump presidency would look like, Cheney said: "He would take those people who are the most radical, the most dangerous, who had the proposals that were the most dangerous, and he will put them in positions of supreme power. That's a risk that we simply cannot take."

Mark Joyella of Forbes took note of Maddow’s introduction last night, in which the host stressed the importance of protecting democracy. She began by emphasizing how much she and Cheney disagreed about everything in politics, so much so that it was as if they were on different planets at war with each other.

Maddow made that point, she said, because “in civic terms, in sort of American citizenship terms, I think it's really important how much we disagree. It's important how far apart we are in every policy issue imaginable. It is important that Liz Cheney is infinity and I am negative infinity on the ideological number line. It's important because that tells you how serious and big something has to be to put us, to put me and Liz Cheney, together on the same side of something in American life.”

The Rachel Maddow Show was the most watched news show on cable television last night, with 3.15 million viewers. The Fox News Channel’s show Hannity, hosted by personality Sean Hannity, had just under 2 million viewers.

It seems clear Americans are waking up to Trump’s threats to stack the government with loyalists, weaponize the Justice Department and military, deport 10 million people, and prosecute those he perceives to be his enemies in politics and the media. Interviewing Trump tonight, Hannity tried to downplay Trump’s statements about his authoritarian plans for a second term by getting him to commit to staying within the normal bounds of a president should he be elected in 2024. The first time he was asked, Trump sidestepped the question. So Hannity asked again. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” he asked.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded.

Source: Heather Cox Richardson 

[billdecker]

I’ve spent nine months perfecting my 40th birthday party playlist and I think I have it. It’s split up into kinda eras/musical obsessions of my life and songs that mean a lot to me/remind me of people no longer in my life, so here we are...

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs

Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park

Banquet - Bloc Party

Michael - Franz Ferdinand

Mirror Kissers - The Cribs

Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand

Somebody Told Me - The Killers

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes

One Step Beyond - Madness

The Sound of the Suburbs - The Members

Jilted John - Jilted John

Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols

Teenage Kicks - The Undertones

Ever Fallen in Love - Buzzcocks

Going Underground - The Jam

Rock the Casbah - The Clash

Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way - The Blow Monkeys

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears

The Look of Love - ABC

Wishing I Was Lucky - Wet Wet Wet

Breakout - Swing Out Sister

Yes Sir, I Can Boogie - Baccara

Dancing Queen - ABBA

Best of My Love - The Emotions

Got To Be Real - Cherly Lynn

Never Too Much - Luther Vandross

Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind & Fire

You To Me Are Everything - The Real Thing

The Snake - Al Wilson

Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield

Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett

Do I Love You - Frank Wilson

Get Ready - The Temptations

Reach Out, I’ll Be There - Four Tops

My Girl - The Temptations

I Can’t Help Myself - Four Tops

This Old Heart of Mine - The Isley Brothers

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston

Respectable - Mel & Kim

London Nights - London Boys

When Will I Be Famous? - Bros

Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley

You’ll Never Step Me From Loving You - Sonia

Too Many Broken Hearts - Jason Donovan

Love in the First Degree - Bananarama

Venus - Bananarama

One For Sorrow - Steps

All That She Wants - Ace of Base

Love to Hate You - Erasure

Love Shack - The B-52′s

Sweat (A La La La La Song) - Inner Circle

Baby I Love Your Way - Big Mountain

Shine - Aswad

Would I Lie To You? - Charlie & Eddie

Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison

Save Our Love - Eternal

Stay - Eternal

Naked - Louise

Maybe - Emma Bunton

Mi Chico Latino - Geri Halliwell

I Turn To You - Melanie C

Out of Your Mind - True Steppers, Dane Bowers, Victoria Beckham

I Want You Back - Mel B, Missy Elliott

Re-Rewind - Artful Dodger, Craig David

Scandalous - Mis-Teeq

Flowers - Sweet Female Attitude

I Know Where It’s At - All Saints

Never Ever - All Saints

Stay - Lisa Loeb

I Quit - Hepburn

Drop Dead Gorgeous - Republica

Trouble - Shampoo

Bitch - Meredith Brooks

You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette

Celebrity Skin - Hole

Weak - Skunk Anansie

Don’t Speak - No Doubt

Torn - Natalie Imbruglia

I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys

Crazy For You - Let Loose

Love Me For a Reason - Boyzone

Keep On Movin - Five

Be the First to Believe - A1

Love Here I Come - Bad Boys Inc

I’m a Man, Not a Boy - North & South

House of Love - East 17

Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble - PJ & Duncan

If I Give You My Number - PJ & Duncan

I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue

Never Too Late

Step Back in Time

Better the Devil You Know

Spinning Around

Can’t Get Blue Monday Out of My Head - Kylie, New Order

Girls & Boys - Blur

Connection - Elastica

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

Creep - Radiohead

Song 2 - Blur

Your Woman - White Town

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve

Change - Lightning Seeds

Trash - Suede

A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins

Disco 2000 - Pulp

Common People - Pulp

Country House - Blur

Mulder and Scully - Catatonia

World in Motion - New Order

Three Lions - Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds

Wannabe - Spice Girls

Say You’ll Be There

Who Do You Think You Are?

Spice Up You Life

Stop

Old Before I Die - Robbie Williams

Rock DJ

Millennium

No Regrets

Angels

Babe - Take That

Once You’ve Tasted Love

It Only Takes a Minute

I Found Heaven

Could It Be Magic

Everything Changes

Pray

Relight My Fire

Two Can Play That Game - Bobby Brown

I Luv U Baby - The Original

Don’t Give Me Your Life - Alex Party

Never Let Her Slip Away - Undercover

When I’m Good and Ready - Sybil

Ride on Time - Black Box

The Rhythm of the Night - Corona

No Limit - 2 Unlimited

Get A Way - Maxx

The Key The Secret - Urban Cookie Collective

U Sure Do - Strike

I Breathe Again - Adam Rickitt

Spaceman - Babylon Zoo

Red Alert - Basement Jaxx

Feel It - The Tamperer, Maya

Freed From Desire - Gala

Mr Vain - Culture beat

What Is Love? - Haddaway

Gypsy Woman - Crystal Waters

Finally - CeCe Peniston

Free - Ultra Nate

Dreamer - Livin Joy

Let Me Be Your Fantasy - Baby D

I’m Alive - Stretch n Vern

Set You Free - N-Trance

disco tits - Tove Lo

Coconuts - Kim Petras

Outside - George Michael

It’s a Sin - Pet Shop Boys

Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Gimme Gimme Gimme - ABBA

Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler

Let’s Dance - David Bowie

Temptation - Heaven 17

Gold - Spandau Ballet

Karma Chameleon - Culture Club

Club Tropicana - Wham

I’m Still Standing - Elton John

Uptown Girl - Billy Joel

Young at Heart - The Bluebells

Come On Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners

I Could Be So Good For You - Dennis Waterman

Amarillo - Tony Christie

Delilah - Tom Jones

The Best - Tina Turner

All Around the World - Lisa Stansfield

The Time of My Life - Billy Medley, Jennifer Warnes

Especially For You - Kylie, Jason

Perfect Moment - Martine McCutcheon

Chains - Tina Arena

A Design For Life - Manic Street Preachers

Yes - McAlmont & Butler

I Do This All The Time - Self Esteem

Zombie - The Cranberries

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

The Wonder of You - Elvis Presley

Don’t Look Back in Anger - Oasis

Baby I Love You - The Ramones

[anarcho-mom-unist]

There’s a lot that is absolutely dismal about the national strategy, messaging, and long-term goals of the US Democratic Party, but what’s been sticking especially badly in my craw is how much they’ve embraced Liz Cheney and cast her in the role of the fictitious “principled Republican politician”. I understand that the sins of the parent are not the sins of the child, and yet when your father is Dick Cheney —unapologetic war monger and profiteer, and second-in-command to an illegitimate president whose ascendance to the presidency was the result of corruption, coordinated threat of mob violence (what is the Brook’s Brothers Riot if not a more dignified, actually successful of January 6?), and the first fruits of the reactionary plan for the already anti-democratic US Judiciary—and you decide to enter into a political career, your entire professional life ought to be a thorough repudiation of all the work of your father if you want to receive anything but disdain from anyone with a conscience. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world where the most influential leaders of the Democratic Party have anything resembling the decency to have even meager standards about whom they champion and call honorable.

The Democrats will refuse to govern or even present themselves in a way that serves as a coherent, meaningful alternative coupled with a smug insistence that the fact they are not their opponents is the only argument they need for regaining, maintaining, or expanding power. They will scorn the left wing of their own politicians, organizers, voters, and constituents beyond anything but materially unthreatening scraps and happily embrace any Republican who rejects the most outrageous and offensive elements of the far right. The Republican plan for the United States is nothing short of theocratic fascism that will happy burn the world and demean everyone they label as deviant, that is real and horrifying and my disdain for the Democrats is not endorsement of this worldview. Rather, it is the lack of alternative worldview, plan, and story on offer and pointing to the sadistic, hateful policies of your opponents has yet to ever be enough bring nonvoters to your side and maintain the confidence of your base. And yet I don’t have much of a reason to believe that the Democratic message will be anything but lip service to progress, running to the right to chase mythical moderates, and maintaining the violence perpetuated, armed, and bankrolled by the US as global hegemon.

Anyway, US American electoral politics are absolutely dismal.

[crossdreamers]

The transgender journalist who covered the war in Ukraine has now enlisted with the Ukrainian forces

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo of Las Vegas is believed to have been the only out transgender female war correspondent in Ukraine. This month she joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“I wasn't coming here to necessarily cover war,” Ashton-Cirillo told Dawn Ennis of Forbes. “I’ve never been in combat before. I've never been exposed to live fire. This was a follow up to my refugee book that I was unhappy with. That's what this trip was, to let me write the refugee book that was not written properly in 2015.”

She wrote a book about the Syrian refugee crisis prior to coming out as transgender.

Adam Zivo of the Washington Examiner writes:

After almost changing her mind at the Ukrainian border, she made it into the country and serendipitously met two men working in security. They invited her to Kharkiv to "see the real war." 

Impulsively, she joined them and, despite several moments of fear and doubt, was soon enmeshed with Ukrainian security forces in Kharkiv, a city that few journalists or aid workers dared visit at the time. She saw dead bodies for the first time, which imparted upon her the gravity of her work. She began to tweet furiously about the atrocities occurring around her almost every day.

Joining the Ukraininan armed forces

Later this year she enlisted with the Ukrainian Armed Forces.  

The "tremendous amount of atrocities" she saw "put the seed in my mind about wanting to do something more,” she told Adam Zivo.

She is also a representative for the Ukrainian village of Zolochiv, in the Kharkiv region, appointed by its mayor to advocate with aid groups. She is no longer working as a journalist.

Being transgender in Ukraine

She says that she has met few problems being a transgender woman in Ukraine:

"People in Ukraine are not focused on gender identity or a person’s sexuality. People in Ukraine judge you based on your values and viewpoints when it comes to liberty, democracy, and your desire to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against terror," she told Zivo. 

We are glad people have treated her this well. We know that Ukraine, like all countries, has its share of transphobes. To give one example: Whether the Ukrainian military treats a transgender woman as a woman or as a man at the border seems to be a matter of luck.

The Russian regime, however, is weaponizing transphobia as part of their war effort,  making transgender people scapegoats for everything Putin thinks is bad in the world. The fact is, of course, that Putin is the clearest sign of the fascist cultural cancer that is spreading right now.

In April, the Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Sarah of being a "Nazi," leading to death and rape threats from Russia’s supporters. This is a typical "pot calling the kettle black" situation.

Exposing Republican extremism in Nevada

This is not the first time Sarah has been fighting transphobic far right extremists.

In 2021 Sarah ran a campaign for the Las Vegas City Council after she, as a journalist,  had carried undercover infiltration of the Republican party in Nevada. She documented efforts to "get the Proud Boys out" for a planned "Brooks Brothers Riot" as part of efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 United States presidential election. 

She withdrew from the race in October that year, saying she wished to focus on a political news portal she had created, Political.tips. The site is still there, but it is understandable that Sarah is too busy to update it on a regular basis.

Three top photos from Sarah (via Forbes and twitter), bottom photo from her city council campaign.

Follow Sarah on twitter!

LGBTQ+ organizations in Ukraine

[byneddiedingo]

Linda Darnell, Sidney Poitier, and Richard Widmark in No Way Out (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)

Cast: Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Mildred Joanne Smith, Harry Bellaver, Stanley Ridges, Dots Johnson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Amanda Randolph, Maude Simmons. Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Lesser Samuels. Cinematography: Milton R. Krasner. Art direction: George W. Davis, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Barbara McLean. Music: Alfred Newman.

Although its treatment of race relations in America seems naive today, No Way Out stands up as a solid drama about an issue that in the post-war years was finally receiving the attention from Hollywood filmmakers that it had too long deserved. It also launched the career of Sidney Poitier as well as, in smaller roles, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. The plot hinges on the novelty of a Black doctor, Luther Brooks (Poitier), serving as an intern in hospital in a large city. When two brothers, Ray (Richard Widmark) and Johnny Biddle (Dick Paxton) are admitted to the prison ward of the hospital after being shot by the police during a robbery, Brooks notices that Johnny's symptoms are not just that of a leg wound; suspecting some sort of mental impairment, Brooks does a spinal tap, during which Johnny dies. Ray Biddle has already demonstrated his racist animosity toward Brooks, and claims that he killed his brother. An autopsy would determine whether Brooks's suspicion that Johnny's death was caused by an undiagnosed brain tumor is correct, but Ray won't allow it, and he's backed up by his brother George (Harry Bellaver) and initially by Johnny's ex-wife, Edie (Linda Darnell). She once had an affair with Ray, but she loathes him and has done what she can to escape the poor-white neighborhood, Beaver Canal, where she grew up and the Biddles still live. Ray spurs the rabble-rousers of Beaver Canal to start a race riot, but they are met with resistance from the Black neighborhoods. The film is a little over-plotted: The crux of the plot, the autopsy, gets resolved in a way that isn't entirely convincing, and the confrontation of Brooks and Ray Biddle arrives in what's almost a coda, as an anti-climax. Widmark is allowed to overact in the role of Ray, and Poitier has yet to acquire the confident presence that made him a star. The best performance in the film comes from a deglamorized Darnell, who gives Edie a real toughness and vulnerability, suggesting that her inclination to do the right thing is at war with her experience growing up in Beaver Canal. The film's portrayal of raw racism still has the power to shock: We rarely hear white actors use the N-word today, even when their roles as bigots might seem to require it, and I flinched when a white woman spat in the face of Poitier's character. It's weaker in the treatment of racial violence: No one on either side seems to have any guns. 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 5, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 6, 2023

A new filing today by Special Counsel Jack Smith in the case United States of America v. Donald J. Trump for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election shows Smith’s office establishing that Trump has a longstanding pattern of refusing to accept election results he dislikes. 

As early as 2012, the filing notes, Trump baselessly alleged that voting machines had switched votes intended for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. In the 2016 campaign he “claimed repeatedly, with no basis, that there was widespread voter fraud,” and publicly refused to commit to accepting the results of that election. This pattern continued in 2020, but in that election he took active steps to seize power.

The filing introduced information that Trump, an agent, and an unindicted co-conspirator tried to start a riot at the TCF Center in Detroit as vote counting showed Biden taking the lead. As Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo points out, this scheme sounds much like the Brooks Brothers Riot of 2000 that stopped vote counting in Miami-Dade County in Florida. Roger Stone was a participant in the Brooks Brothers Riot; in 2020 he was working to keep Trump in office. 

Smith’s team shows how this pattern continued to play out in the 2020 election, with Trump urging supporters like the Proud Boys to back him, falsely asserting that the election had been stolen, and attacking former supporters who denied that the election had been stolen. The pattern has continued until the present, with Trump calling those who were found guilty of offenses related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol “hostages” and claiming they were “treated horribly.” 

Smith recounts these facts to establish Trump’s motive and intent on January 6, but his identification of a longstanding pattern indicates it would be a grave mistake to think Trump has any intention of campaigning fairly or accepting any result in 2024 other than his return to the White House. 

New House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has endorsed Trump for president and was a key organizer of the congressional effort to keep Trump in office, has promised to release all the surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Trump supporters insist that the full tapes will reveal that the attack was not as bad as the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol showed. Johnson said that the tapes must be shared publicly for “transparency.” 

Today, Johnson supported Trump’s message about January 6 when he said that he was making sure the faces of rioters are blurred in the surveillance footage. "We have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don't want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ [Department of Justice] and to have other, you know, concerns and problems,"  he said. Johnson’s spokesperson quickly walked back the comment, saying Johnson meant to say that faces were blurred to prevent “all forms of retaliation against private citizens from any non-governmental actors.” 

Also today, Kash Patel, who served on Trump’s national security team and is widely expected to return in a second Trump administration, expanded the authoritarian threats Trump people have been making to include the media. On former Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast, Patel promised that the Trump team would fill government positions from top to bottom with loyalists and would use the Department of Justice to go after those perceived to be Trump’s enemies. 

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Yesterday, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is promoting her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, called out Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) for his continuing hold on military appointments that kept more than 450 routine promotions from taking effect over the past ten months. Tuberville claimed his refusal to permit the nominees’ confirmations was an attempt to change Pentagon policy of permitting leave for service members in states that ban abortion to obtain abortion care elsewhere. But on NPR yesterday, Cheney wondered: “Why is Tommy Tuberville doing that? Is he holding those positions open so that Donald Trump can fill them?”

Today, under great pressure from members of his own party who worried the Democrats would change the rules to weaken the power of the Senate minority, Tuberville released his hold on most of the nominees. The Senate promptly confirmed 425 of them. 

Still, Tuberville retained holds on 11 officers of the most senior rank. According to congressional reporter for Punchbowl News Andrew Desiderio, the positions left vacant are commander of Pacific Air Forces, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Air Component Command for the United States Indo-Pacific Command, commander for Air Combat Command, the head of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program, the head of Northern Command (which defends the United States and coordinates defenses with Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas), the head of the U.S. Cyber Command, vice chief of staff of the Army, vice chief of staff of the Air Force, vice chief of Space Operations, and vice chief of Naval Operations. 

Last night, Cheney explained to political commentator and television host Rachel Maddow exactly what a second Trump presidency would look like, Cheney said: "He would take those people who are the most radical, the most dangerous, who had the proposals that were the most dangerous, and he will put them in positions of supreme power. That's a risk that we simply cannot take."

Mark Joyella of Forbes took note of Maddow’s introduction last night, in which the host stressed the importance of protecting democracy. She began by emphasizing how much she and Cheney disagreed about everything in politics, so much so that it was as if they were on different planets at war with each other. 

Maddow made that point, she said, because “in civic terms, in sort of American citizenship terms, I think it's really important how much we disagree. It's important how far apart we are in every policy issue imaginable. It is important that Liz Cheney is infinity and I am negative infinity on the ideological number line. It's important because that tells you how serious and big something has to be to put us, to put me and Liz Cheney, together on the same side of something in American life.”

The Rachel Maddow Show was the most watched news show on cable television last night, with 3.15 million viewers. The Fox News Channel’s show Hannity, hosted by personality Sean Hannity, had just under 2 million viewers. 

It seems clear Americans are waking up to Trump’s threats to stack the government with loyalists, weaponize the Justice Department and military, deport 10 million people, and prosecute those he perceives to be his enemies in politics and the media. Interviewing Trump tonight, Hannity tried to downplay Trump’s statements about his authoritarian plans for a second term by getting him to commit to staying within the normal bounds of a president should he be elected in 2024. The first time he was asked, Trump sidestepped the question. So Hannity asked again. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” he asked. 

“Except for day one,” Trump responded.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[practically-an-x-man]

Ooh! What's some music you like? Either specific songs or albums or artists or w/e, as specific or as vague as you wanna be

Ooh thank you! I listen to a TON of stuff so here we go!

First off, my all-time favorite band is Queen (I'm actually going to see them in October, and I am UNBELIEVABLY excited!!)

I listed to a lot of metal and punk rock: Ice Nine Kills, As Everything Unfolds, Senses Fail, Against Me!, Green Day, Counterfeit., Halestorm, Bad Wolves, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Soundgarden, Trivium

Also some slightly older metal: Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, System of a Down, Black Sabbath, Dio, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Tesla, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth

(and just a lot of 70's and 80's music, not all metal - I like Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra, Elton John, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, U2, David Bowie, all of that sort of thing too)

I really like alt rock and pop rock (I guess that's what you'd call these? idk): Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Twenty One Pilots, Fun., Imagine Dragons, AJR, Weezer, Muse, Paramore, Mother Mother, Crashing Atlas, Tigress, As December Falls, Foo Fighters, The Smashing Pumpkins

(side note everyone just calls them "Smashing Pumpkins" but that's not right. it's THE Smashing Pumpkins. Smashing is an adjective)

I also LOVE The Amazing Devil but I have no idea where they fall in terms of genre. They're just fucking awesome.

I grew up on country music and live in the American South, so that's got to make an appearance too: Brad Paisley, Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Johnny Cash, Tim McGraw. Recently I've been getting into Brothers Osborne too, thanks to hearing Skeletons in the Sandman series

I'm also big on showtunes: Wicked, The Book of Mormon, Chicago, Kinky Boots, Tick Tick Boom!, Hamilton (don't @ me I just like the music), and just theatre in general. And opera too! My favorites are Die Zauberflöte, Fidelio, and Carmen - I'm particularly fond of Clémentine Margaine's performance as Carmen

Believe it or not, I'm sure I'm still missing a bunch. Like I said, I listen to a TON of music and even this is just what pops to mind off the top of my head. I could go into my favorite songs and albums too, but... I think I've been on this soapbox long enough, lol.

[thesearethingsetcetera]

all yankees fans wouldn't look out of place at the brooks brothers riot

i don't have twitter or anything anymore and i miss being able to blast dumb thoughts to ppl ngl so here it goes

[footieridiculosity]

Louise Brookes, whose brother Andrew, 26, was one of the 97 people killed, said of the report: “This is a total, outrageous failure to understand the disaster. And this prejudice, that Liverpool supporters are hooligans, based on a complete misunderstanding of something that happened 33 years ago, nearly caused another disaster in Paris, to a new generation of Liverpool fans.”