Republican Jesus & Roger Marshall's Compassion

Republican Rep. Roger Marshall

Well it's Friday and it's been awhile since I've given out a George Lincoln Rockwell Award in recognition of those individuals whose actions or words best exemplify the heartless spirit, toxic ideology and pseudo-intellectual hypocrisy of the infamous founder of the American Nazi Party.

It was my intention to bestow this honor collectively upon the individuals responsible for the ongoing nationwide slew of bomb threats and vandalism targeting Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools, cemeteries and even senior centers. 

But authorities are still trying to identify the degenerate anti-Semitic cowards responsible.

So this week's winner is the distinguished Kansas Republican Congressman Roger Marshall.

Now to be perfectly clear, by awarding this man the Rockwell, in no way am I suggesting that he is an American Nazi.

He won the award because his comments reflect a rigid, narrow-minded ideology, and his cold-heartedly categorizing an entire class of Americans as "others" simply because they exist on a different part of the economic spectrum than he does.

Even amidst the flurry of bipartisan outrage this week over the release of the new healthcare bill, cooked up by congressional Republicans determined to repeal the Affordable Care Act out of their lingering spite and deep-seated contempt for President Obama, Congressman Marshall's comments to STAT News stood out.

He became the target of criticism this week by politicians, citizens, and the media after he had the gall to invoke Biblical scripture to justify a Republican healthcare bill that will make it more difficult for the poor and working class to have health insurance.

Wisdom from President Jimmy Carter

And will by some estimates strip an estimated 18 to 20 million people of their healthcare by removing Medicare subsidies.

As reported by multiple media outlets this week, including the Washington Post, Marshall told STAT:

"Just like Jesus said, 'The poor will always be with us,'...There is a group of people that just don't want healthcare and aren't going to take care of themselves." 

Paraphrasing Jesus to justify stripping people of their healthcare is about as low as it gets.  

And this, of course, from a practicing obstetrician who claims to be pro-life and now receives comprehensive healthcare that is paid for in full by American tax payers.

Oh and speaking of Marshall's concern about those who "aren't going to take care of themselves".

The first-term Congressman representing the 1st District of Kansas was elected this past November with the support of a consortium of powerful Kansas agricultural interest groups (and the political action committees and lobbyists they bankroll) with the assurance that he will protect the billions of taxpayer dollars that go towards crop insurance and farm subsidies.

So in Marshall's mind, individuals receiving billions in taxpayer dollars for healthcare is wrong, but Kansas farmers receiving billions to subsidize the Kansas agricultural industry is OK?

Situational ethics at its finest.

Speaker Ryan and his trojan horse tax cut

This from the same Republican Congress trying to pass a healthcare bill that will make accessing healthcare more expensive for people who aren't fortunate enough to receive it through their employer - and one that conveniently comes gift wrapped with a $600 billion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

Jesus never said "screw the poor and working class" as the GOP have with their new healthcare bill; and with just about every other piece of legislation that congressional Republicans have tried to pass this year.

For a political party that spends so much time ranting against Muslims based on the argument that America is a Christian nation, Republicans support an awful lot of initiatives that seem to run counter to actual Christian values.

Let's not even get into the conduct and words of the vulgar compulsive liar who calls himself president.

In order to justify unpopular policies that enrich the few and further disenfranchise those people conservatives dismissively classify as "others", remarkably some Republican politicians like Congressman Roger Marshall, have even conjured up their own fake "Republican Jesus".

Not the Jesus found in the pages of the New Testament - but an unrecognizable one devoid of compassion, charity and unconditional love for others.

Uncle Ben's Old-Fashioned Revisionist History

Dr. Carson addresses HUD employees 

Remember back in November when Dr. Ben Carson declined a cabinet position in the Trump administration saying: "Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water quite frankly."?

Don't say he didn't warn anyone.

Carson's outrageous comments on Monday in front of hundreds of gathered employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development truly reflect the Republican Party's embrace of "alternative facts."

From the perspective of a student of history who knows a little something about the African Slave Trade and the institution of slavery in America, I believe it was ludicrous of Carson to compare European immigrants who voluntarily left their homelands and arrived at Ellis Island in the 19th and early 20th century, with African slaves who were first brought to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.

Now it's one thing for this pontificating former neurosurgeon to wax philosophic and merge distorted fact with his own peculiar interpretation of Christian theology in the sing-song sermon-like way he did during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But his medical gifts and status as a darling of the Christian right don't necessarily make him qualified to head up a massive federal agency like Housing and Urban Development - a complex organization with over 8,000 employees and an annual budget of $49.3 billion tasked with (according to its mission statement) creating "strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all."

Does brain surgery qualify him as an affordable housing policy expert?

No, but like the equally-unqualified secretary of education Betsy DeVos, he's now the head of a major federal agency anyway.

How Africans "immigrated" to America

Carson's suggestion, widely panned by both citizens and academics on social media, was absurd.

African slaves, who were forcibly kidnapped from their homeland, shipped thousands of miles across the Atlantic while chained in the hulls of ships in traumatic deplorable conditions, before being sold into a state of slavery to live out their lives in a state of perpetual human bondage for financial profit, were not "immigrants".



Suggesting otherwise reflects a simplistic understanding of the complex history of the institution of slavery.

Such asinine statements also reflect the Republican Party's abject willingness to place extremist conservative ideology over relevant professional experience, knowledge, training and competency.

Carson's personal beliefs are his own business.

But his decision to share those kinds of personal views in front of an audience of hundreds of HUD professionals and policy experts in a public forum where he was essentially introducing himself as the agency head was unprofessional - and remarkably inappropriate.

Yesterday's statement was not the first time that Uncle Ben, as some in the African-American community have taken to calling him, has demonstrated a questionable grasp of history and a bizarre willingness to try and factually retrofit the institution of slavery to fit conservative principles that exist far outside the mainstream of the American center.

How can a guy who separated conjoined twins
at the brain be so ignorant about history?

Why would a gifted neurosurgeon with a background in biology, medicine, chemistry and neuroscience willingly allow himself to be used as a flagrant conservative tool?

Carson criticizing the Affordable Care Act as "the worst thing since slavery", as he famously did back in October of 2015, epitomized baseless partisan pandering - and can you imagine the reaction if Jeff Sessions or Ted Cruz had said such a thing?


It's as if Carson's being African-American functions less as an example of the diversity within the Republican Party than it does as a kind of political-racial "Get Out Of Jail Free Card" that enables the GOP to use him as a conduit to deliver messages that are intentionally demeaning to the black American community as a whole.

Or, as in the case of his misinformed comments on slavery, meant to undermine the significance of the role that institutionalized slavery has played in the economic and political marginalization of large segments of the black population.

In an essay published in the January 27th issue of the Hollywood Reporter about the duty and importance of African-American celebrities to use their influence to insure that the concerns and needs of the millions of voiceless poor and working-class black Americans who have, are and will be comprehensively ignored by the Trump administration, former NBA great-turned writer Kareem Abdul Jabbar noted of Caron's delusional right-wing agenda:

"More insidious is Carson's war on Planned Parenthood based on his inaccurate belief that clinics were placed in black neighborhoods to control the black population."

The 7'2" former LA Laker and master of the Sky Hook was far less sparing in his view of the role Trump envisions for Carson in the new administration given his own admission that "has no government experience." 

Trump's "Black shills"? Manigault and Carson  

Jabbar suggested that Trump uses both Carson and Omarosa Manigault as "black shills to distract us from the paternalistic policies dismantling civil liberties for people of color, women, the LGBT community, Muslims and immigrants."        

Outspoken actor Samuel L. Jackson didn't hold back on his reaction to Carson's statement on African slaves being "immigrants" either.

In a widely-circulated Twitter message Jackson said: "OK!! Ben Carson...I cant! Immigrants? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS?!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!! #dickheadedtom"

And that's just a slice of the contempt people expressed for Carson's HUD speech on social media.

Given Trump's desperate attempts to distract attention from almost every single person in his sphere of influence having proven ties to Russia, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the White House intentionally gave that "slaves are immigrants" line to Carson and asked him to use it in his HUD speech - there's just something distinctively Bannon-ish about it.

If there's been a more shaky rollout of a presidential cabinet in the 241-year history of the United States than that of the current Republican administration I really don't know what it is.

With Trump now Tweeting outright quackery so outrageous that even his own staff refuse to comment on or defend it, perhaps Uncle Ben's helping of good old-fashioned revisionist history was meant to deflect the unwelcome attention to his boss' blatant lies.

If only for a moment.

7 Minutes and a Photo Op: Were HBCU Leaders Misled?

HBCU leaders stand with Trump as Kellyanne Conway
looks up etiquette on her cell phone
 

Like many people who don't consider themselves fans of the Trump administration, I must confess that I had mixed feelings about the decision by the leaders of America's Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU's) to visit the White House on Monday.

My initial reaction was shaped by the divisive nature of 45's toxic campaign rhetoric and the numerous culturally insensitive comments he's made in person and online.

And his overt pandering to racists.

After all, Trump is the same guy who famously spent well over a year aggressively promoting the bogus (and overtly racist) disproved right-wing nut-job conspiracy propaganda that President Obama was not born in the United States.

Remember back in September 2012 when Trump made a complete ass of himself with his videotaped recording of his offer to donate $5 million to charity if Obama proved he was born in Hawaii like some kind of cheap carny huckster?

So when I heard the news earlier this week that the HBCU leaders had accepted an invitation to attend a special sit-down "listening session" with the controversial new secretary of education Betsy DeVos, I was pretty skeptical.

The resident White House bungler adviser Kellyanne Conway fulfilled my low expectations for this meet-and-greet when she was photographed in the Oval Office casually seated on the couch with her legs exposed and her feet curled up under her tapping away on her cell phone as a roomful of formerly-dressed African-American college presidents and leaders posed with Trump while he signed yet another executive order.  

Given the formal setting in the Oval Office, the fact that the meeting took place during Black History Month, the larger historical context of HBCU leaders collectively paying a visit to the White House and the Trump administration's historically low approval ratings with African-Americans, Conway's puzzling decision to sit on the couch like she was at home in her living room was a remarkable display of lack of basic manners and etiquette.

Howard president Wayne Frederick (right) poses with
with Betsy DeVos at a Feb 22nd meeting at Howard

The optics of the widely-circulated image only served to reinforce the reputation of the Trump administration as being totally out of touch with, and contemptuous of, African-Americans.

Oh and that listening session with education secretary Betsy DeVos that was supposedly the entire focus of the White House visit?

It never actually happened.

Which really isn't all that surprising.


As an article posted on the NPR Website this morning reported, the actual listening session was interrupted when a White House staff member entered the room and invited the gathered HBCU leaders to step into the Oval Office for an unscheduled meeting with Trump.

NPR quoted a Medium article in which the president of Dillard University Walter Kimbrough said:

"There was very little listening to HBCU presidents today - we were only given about two minutes each, and that was cut short to one minute, so only seven of maybe fifteen or so speakers were given an opportunity today."

A minute each? Was that the Oscars?

Clearly fifteen people could not speak for thirty minutes each, but come on man, one minute is barely enough time for someone to introduce themselves.

Now obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but my sense is that the average reasonable person would agree that a White House event billed as a "listening session" with fifteen or so college and university leaders and the secretary of education should last a lot longer than ten or fifteen minutes.

U.S. Marshals escort James Meredith, the first
black student at Ole Miss, to classes in 1962
 

Particularly given the historical context of systematic discrimination in access to education in the U.S.

To top that off, DeVos, a billionaire who has spent decades and millions of dollars promoting charter schools and private religious schools in an effort to undermine American public schools, made yet another embarrassing cultural faux pas when she used her remarks after the meeting to promote her personal school choice agenda.



DeVos, who also took flak back on February 12th when the Dept. of Education misspelled the name of the famed African-American author and sociologist W.E.B Du Bois in a Twitter message then sent out an apology with another spelling error, demonstrated an alarming lack of knowledge of history by suggesting that HBCU's were an example of the success of school choice when she said:

"HBCU's are real pioneers of school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater equality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish."

Actually Betsy, the 107 HBCU's that still exist today are not "pioneers of school choice."

They are an important historical legacy of the institutionalized racism that systematically blocked African-Americans from attending many colleges and universities in the 18th and 19th centuries.

They were first formed back in 1837 starting with Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, but most were formed starting after the Civil War ended in 1865.

HBCU's were formed 27 years after Congress passed the Morrill Act of 1862 (which mandated federal funds to create land grant colleges for each state) in response to the Agricultural College Act of 1890 which, according to Wikipedia, required "states to establish a separate land grant college for blacks if blacks were being excluded from the existing land grant colleges." 

Which, in most parts of America, they were.

Graffiti on a Howard University sidewalk

Until HBCU's were formed, black students were completely excluded from attending colleges in the southern U.S.

My father graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in the 1950's, the first HBCU to open in the south in 1865 - it was founded by an Amherst graduate who fought for the Union during the Civil War named Henry Martin Tupper.

My father's experiences as a student at Shaw were absolutely central to his development as a man and later success as a professional.

So my guess is that he would have supported the decision by the HBCU leaders to visit the White House.

But reaction from other HBCU alumni and current students has been mixed.

This morning the New York Times reported about some of the backlash from HBCU students and alumni - including graffiti scrawled on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. criticizing president Wayne Frederick as the "overseer" of "the Trump plantation."

Students from various HBCU's have expressed criticism on social media of their respective leaders meeting with a president who has surrounded himself with advisers like Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller.

Men who now shape White House domestic policy and have also openly espoused racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant beliefs and who are also personally linked with known white supremacists.      

But not all HBCU students and alumni were critical of the HBCU leader's White House visit.

Morgan State University in Baltimore

This morning I spoke with a woman who graduated from Morgan State University in Baltimore, which was founded by Methodists in 1867.

She has her masters in education and worked as a public school administrator for years, and her view was that it was important for the HBCU leaders to attend that meeting, regardless of what happened or the reactions on social media.

Or the media's coverage of it.


This HBCU alumnus was adamant that federal funding for HBCU's is absolutely critical, and that given the challenges that HBCU's face in raising money, those leaders had a responsibility to take advantage of any opportunity to convey the importance of those institutions directly to the secretary of education or the president - whoever that might be.

She also shrewdly noted that HBCU's need to be directly involved with the upcoming midterm Congressional elections - as the battle for federal funding for higher education is really fought in the trenches of Congressional appropriations.

So I find my initial skepticism of the visit tempered somewhat by the bigger picture.

When viewed in the historical and political context, my sense is that it took courage for the leaders of those schools to collectively show up to the White House to represent the interests of HBCU's and their students, faculty, employees and alumni.

They know who Trump is, and they knew they would catch heat for going to the White House, but they were able to put aside their personal political views or opinions, be professionals first and show up.

And in my view that took courage.

So we'll soon see if Congress backs up Trump's show of support for HBCU's with funding for Pell Grants for lower income students and other federal support.

Even if that listening session with the secretary of education was intentionally cut short to get a photo op of those HBCU leaders in the Oval Office with the president, to be fair to Trump, there isn't a president I know of who wouldn't make sure to get that photo op.

So after thinking about it, my sense is that it was important for those HBCU leaders to be photographed in that room - especially with this particular president.

In this case I think the optics were important for both sides.

It's just a shame that Kellyanne Conway couldn't muster the decency and respect to stand up for what those leaders represent.

Chad Robertson, The DOJ's "Pull Back" & Trump's Blind Eye

Shot in the back: Chad Robertson with his family

With each day, it seems as if the Republican politicians frantically tugging at the strings of power in Washington are turning the clock backwards to a darker place.

Attorney general Jeff Sessions has already indicated that the Justice Department under the Trump administration will "pull back" on using the power of the federal government to hold members of law enforcement responsible for the unjustified killing of innocent unarmed U.S. citizens.

While that is reflective of Session's history as an opponent of civil rights activists and voting rights (for people of color and immigrants), it certainly doesn't bode well for Chad Roberston's family to obtain justice from the legal system.

Amidst all the confusing clutter of mainstream media attention focused upon America's resident Deporter-in-Chief over the past few weeks, the deadly shooting of Chad Robertson by Amtrak police in Chicago did not garner the level of media attention it probably merited.

You certainly haven't heard Sean Spicer whining about "under reporting" over THAT particular case in any of his contentious, invitation-only White House briefings lately.

(But it's a safe bet that Spicey won't be complaining about the media "under reporting" tonight's bombshell Washington Post story about records showing Sessions lied under oath during his Senate confirmation hearings about his having been in contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential race...)

Any number of local Chicago and midwestern media outlets ran the AP text of the story about Robertson's death, but it felt like the questionable circumstances warranted more extensive mainstream media attention given the ongoing epidemic of members of law enforcement making the decision to shoot at unarmed African-American and Hispanic men for no justifiable reason.

Sadly, Robertson's death was yet another case of a member of law enforcement making a deadly decision to fire a handgun at a person based on a false allegation of the victim having a weapon that never actually existed.

Amtrak transit officer LaRoyce Tankson

According to an article posted two weeks ago on the Chicago Sun-Times Website, Robertson, 25, and two travelling companions were on a one-hour layover stop at Chicago's Union Station during a February 8th Megabus trip from Memphis to Robertson's home town of Minneapolis.

As the three of them were walking around inside Union Station, they were approached in what the Robertson family attorney Douglas Hopson called an "aggressive" manner by two Amtrak transit officers.

Robertson and his friends then exited Union Station to walk to a nearby restaurant to get something to eat.

When the two Amtrak transit officers followed the three men to the restaurant, they continued to harass the three passengers and demanded to search them - when Robertson, who feared for his life, began to run away at about 8:45pm, officer LaRoyce Tankson dropped to one knee and fired a shot and missed.

He fired a second shot that struck Robertson in the back, the bullet lodged in his spine and left the father of two a quadriplegic.

He died in the hospital seven days later.

Tankson was subsequently charged with first-degree murder by Cook County prosecutors and was held on $250,000 bail - but he was released pending a March 9th court appearance.

Now Tankson's attorney claims Robertson and his two friends were confronted by Tankson and his partner for smoking some marijuana in public - and a small amount was found on him after he was shot.

But does that really justify shooting the guy in the back while he was running away?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

But remarkably, yesterday, as the New York Times reported, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice would begin to pull back from efforts to monitor police departments and officers accused of the excessive use of deadly force.  

Despite the Justice Department's own report that identified racially biased policing as widespread and systematic in Chicago.


And despite unarmed 25-year-old Chad Robertson having been shot in the back by a federal transit officer while running away less than a month ago, Sessions, now the nation's top law enforcement official, reasons that:

"We need (to), so far as we can, in my view, help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness."

So in Sessions' mind, decreasing Justice Department scrutiny of overt cases of unarmed people being shot by police is the way to help them "get better"?

Does that make sense to you?

In the hermetically-sealed ideological bubble of Trump-world, that kind of asinine thinking, codified by the unapologetically white supremacist worldview held by the White House's top domestic policy advisers including Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, it does makes sense.

In the real world it doesn't.

Jewish tombstones overturned in Philadelphia [Getty]

In the real world that kind of thinking essentially condones criminal conduct by some members of law enforcement.

And worse, it also reassures them that if they "make a mistake" and shoot and kill an unarmed person for no real reason at all, the Department of Justice under Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions won't hold them accountable for their actions.

Sound absurd?

It is, but it's part of the Republican vision for the American landscape.

And remember folks, that's the approach to police reform of a president who yesterday actually had the gall to publicly insinuate that the horrifying wave of recent bomb threats to Jewish schools and community centers, and the heinous and offensive desecration of Jewish cemeteries were the fault of Trump's "opponents".

Not the cowardly devotees of Breitbart News who openly play footsies with anti-Semitic and white supremacist beliefs like some kind of sick religion.

Nope. The delusional ass-clown who currently occupies the Oval Office would have you believe that his "opponents" were the ones who entered a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia the other night and spent hours toppling over hundreds of tombstones.

 The same president who last night asked the members of Congress and the American people to "embrace this renewal of the American spirit." willfully turns a blind eye to the anti-Semitism his own campaign brought out of the shadows.

Repulsive acts of hate that are taking place around the country in front of our own eyes.

Sadly, we can also expect the current attorney general to turn a blind eye towards the epidemic of racially biased policing in America which violently and unfairly condemned Chad Robertson to the unfortunate ranks of The Counted.

Oscar Giveth, And Oscar Taketh Away

La La Land producer Justin Horowitz stuns the audience

Last night when ABC cut to commercial break just before awarding Best Picture I was admittedly grumbling about the ceremony stretching into four hours.

People were already exiting the small Oscar party gathering I attended because of the late hour, and after Casey Affleck won Best Actor over Denzel Washington I was tempted to take off too.


But boy was I glad I stuck it out to the end to witness what was perhaps the biggest epic fail in the awarding of the coveted Best Picture category in Oscar's history.

Now it's reasonable to expect (or at least hope for) a good plot twist or revelation at the end of a movie.

But who'd have guessed that the film industry's most prestigious awards program would deliver a once-in-a lifetime jaw-dropping ending that would result in Best Picture being bestowed on Moonlight - an independent arthouse film made on a budget of $1.5 million about a gay black boy's coming of age set in the economically bleak landscape of Miami's Liberty City?

Now THAT was a Hollywood ending.

Sure there've been surprise upsets before, like at the 49th Academy Awards in 1977 when Rocky beat out All The President's Men, Network and Taxi Driver to win Best Picture.

Or in 1999, Shakespeare In Love beat out Saving Private Ryan and Elizabeth to win Best Picture, many fans and industry types alike are still seething over that one - personally speaking Cate Blanchett losing Best Actress to Gwyneth Paltrow bordered on criminal.

Roberto Benigni at the 1999 Oscars

By its nature, as a live televised broadcast where creative types bestow and receive recognition for their work from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Awards is fertile ground for the strange, the beautiful and the controversial.

Excitable Italian director/writer/actor Roberto Benigni's comically climbing over the backs of the seats in front of him to reach the stage to receive his Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1999 Academy Awards ranks up there as one of the most touching moments in Oscar history.

But last night's envelope debacle tops them all in my opinion.

For the record I thought La La Land and Moonlight were both excellent films, and it's a shame Price-Waterhouse and the stage managers messed up the award the way they did.


As a writer and former actor, both films were very well written with good cinematography that served the respective stories and characters - both scores were good, but La La Land's soundtrack was undoubtedly the best of the evening.

There's no question both casts were solid, while the supporting roles in Moonlight were much more intricate and central to the plot, as evidenced by Mahershala Ali winning Best Supporting actor for his role as the sympathetic drug dealer Juan and Naomie Harris being nominated for Best Supporting Actress as the main character's troubled mother, the leads in both films delivered really impressive performances.

Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone deserve props for their singing and dancing as well as acting in La La Land.

While Gosling's jazz piano playing was pretty impressive, check out former NBA star-turned writer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's critique in Hollywood Reporter on why La La Land's only major black character being the jazz sellout while Gosling's character Sebastian is the jazz "purist" has unintended negative cultural implications for African-Americans.

Stone in particular showed a range in her work that hasn't been seen before, and she's got a natural effortless charisma that connects with the camera really well.

Natalie Portman in Jackie

While I was happy for her, I have to say that I thought Natalie Portman's work in Jackie was the stronger overall acting performance of the two that I saw.

I did not get to see Isabelle Huppert in Elle, Ruth Negga in Loving or Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins - though I do want to see all three when I get the chance.


Overall I thought it was an enjoyable Oscars, and Jimmy Kimmel did a pretty decent job as host.

Though I felt he was a bit snarky when he was talking about the various films, particularly in the beginning when he was calling out the various nominees for their work.

The issue of smaller films having to compete with blockbuster tentpole pictures and audiences who now have such a wider array of entertainment choices with on-demand cable and streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime to watch is obvious; so I didn't think it was really classy for Kimmel to keep repeatedly knocking performers in smaller films over the fact that "no one saw it."  

That line got a little old after he'd used it twice - especially considering the audience and how difficult it is to get smaller quality films made and distributed these days.

To me, quality actors like Viggo Mortensen should be applauded for choosing roles in smaller budget films like Captain Fantastic.

Denzel reacts as Casey Affleck wins Best Actor

While the whole episode with bringing the people from the Hollywood tour bus into the theatre was touching in a way, it ran way too long in a live televised ceremony that repeatedly runs past midnight on the east coast.

But my biggest beef for the 2017 Oscars was Casey Affleck winning Best Actor for Manchester By The Sea over Denzel Washington in the screen adaptation of August Wilson's play Fences - which he also directed.


I saw both of these films and there is no question that the depth, nuance, intensity and range of Washington's work far outweighed Affleck's performance.

Denzel poured his heart and soul into that film - you could see it on the screen.

Don't get me wrong, Affleck did the best work he's ever done on screen and surpassed his personal boundaries as an actor - but that performance wasn't in the same league as Washington's.

Denzel deserved the Best Actor Oscar, and you could plainly see from the look on his face that he (and some of the people in that room) felt that way too.

I don't think it was a "race-thing" necessarily, though race (both that of the actors and of the majority of the Academy's members) clearly had something to do with it.

Affleck's winning was more of an "industry-thing", particularly given the star power and influence of both his older brother Ben and Manchester By The Sea's producer Matt Damon.

But that, as they say, is Hollywood.

Barry Jenkins and the cast and producers of Moonlight

As for the much-discussed debacle with the envelope for Best Picture, I felt bad for all concerned.

Poor Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were placed in the impossible position of being on live television with the wrong envelope - it was clear that it didn't make sense to Beatty when he looked at it.

But also really awkward that he gave it to Faye Dunaway to read...



It was embarrassing for the cast and producers of La La Land to be in the midst of their celebratory speeches only to have the mistake revealed in such a jaw-dropping way.

But to me, more importantly, the confusion of how it happened took away from the magic of that winning moment for the director, cast and producers of Moonlight.

That moment of energy when the audience recognizes the Best Picture winner was taken up by the total confusion on a stage filled with representatives from Price-Waterhouse, stage hands, host Kimmel, an embarrassed Beatty and Dunaway and the groups from both films.

There's plenty of blame flying around - and an SNL skit isn't far behind.

Obama tries to stay cool as Roberts flubs the oath

But what's remarkable is that after all the negative press over the past couple years over the Academy failing to recognize the achievements of actors, producers and directors of color, how in the world could they mess up making sure the correct envelope was given to the two Hollywood legends handing out the Best Picture category?

I mean the Oscar winners aren't selected that night or anything, Price-Waterhouse makes a huge deal out of guarding the winners and there are months of rehearsals.


It's kind of reminiscent of the epic cringe-worthy moment when then-new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts messed up the words of the oath of office during President Obama's historic first inauguration back in 2009.

Like last night at the Oscars, it was a singular moment in history meant to be magical in some ways, particularly given that the all-black cast of a film directed and written by black Americans won Best Picture during Black History Month.

A moment that should have thrown back the shadow of a divisive, xenophobic bigot of a president.

But some of that magical quality was taken away by a simple and inexcusable mistake, one that won't soon be forgotten.

Who's Ignoring Domestic Terrorism Based On Race?

One of the faces of domestic American terrorism:
racist killer Adam W. Purinton

Earlier today Donald Trump was quick to take the stage at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland to rant about deporting brown-skinned immigrants.

As the New York Times reported, Trump's rambling CPAC speech "included a promise to throw illegal immigrants 'the hell out of the country' and a recitation of his law-and-order campaign promises." 

Right-wing hot-air rhetoric custom tailored to his overwhelmingly white conservative audiences that are replete with coded racist overtones and the intentional vilification and "othering" of people with dark skin.


45 has been big on pedantic inflammatory blathering about kicking people off welfare, simplistically characterizing cities like Chicago as vast post-apocalyptic wastelands and his incessant finger pointing at terrorist attacks abroad; both real or, as in the case of Sweden, imagined.

But interestingly, the White House has been virtually silent about a recent act of violent domestic terror that resulted in the shooting death of an innocent person of color and the wounding of two other people.  

On Wednesday night patrons at a popular sports bar in the affluent suburb of Olathe, Kansas called Austin's Bar and Grill were watching a Kansas Jayhawks basketball game on TV when witnesses heard 51-year old Adam Purinton yell out "get out of my country" before he pulled out a gun and began shooting at two Indian men.

According to an article on the Huffington Post, 32-year-old Alok R. Masadani and 24-year-old Ian P. Grillot both suffered gunshot wounds, and a third man of Indian descent named Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot and killed.

Grillot, who is white, did not know the the two locally-employed engineers from Hyderabad, India, but according to an Aljazeera.com article bartender Garret Bohnen said in an interview, "From what I understand, when he [the gunman] was throwing racial slurs at the two gentlemen, Ian stood up for them." 

Like other terrified patrons Grillot hid as Purinton fired nine shots, but then he attempted to subdue the gunman as he tried to escape, but was shot in the chest.

Victims Masadani, Kuchibhotla (center) and Grillot

Purinton fled across state lines and eventually found his way to an Applebees 70 miles away in Clinton, Missouri where he allegedly told a bartender that he'd "just killed two Middle Eastern men."

It took the White House two whole days to comment on the shooting, by the time Sean Spicer offered a statement about the incident earlier today, it was to insist the shooting was not related to Trump's anti-immigrant fear-mongering.

At a press conference on Thursday an FBI spokesman said the agency is still trying to determine if the senseless attack was motivated by racial bias.

By any definition the shooting that took place in a crowded bar on Wednesday night has all the characteristics of a terrorist attack.

So where's the heated condemnation and muscular anti-terrorism rhetoric from the White House?

Maybe that righteous indignation only applies when the attacker is Muslim and has dark skin.

Perhaps the problem for the White House in this case is one of perception since Purinton, a 51-year-old white American male who looks exactly like a textbook definition of a Trump supporter, doesn't fit into the current White House definition of "other."

Regardless, what's becoming clear about the High-Chair President is that sometimes his silences can be just as revealing as his endless Twitter messages and rambling speeches.

For the past two weeks he's done little but blather on about terrorism and the danger that unprovoked attacks based on hatred pose to innocent people.

But for 48 hours this week the same guy who watches television all the time and Tweets about crap as meaningless as a retail chain not carrying his daughter Ivanka's fashion accessories, says nothing about a white American man hurling racial slurs at and then shooting two innocent Indian men minding their own business at a crowded bar full of patrons - while yelling "get out of my country"?

I mean honestly, who does that sound like? Same guy who told the audience at CPAC earlier today that he planned to throw illegal immigrants "the hell out of the country"?

Why don't Trump and Spicer mention domestic terror
attacks against people of color in America?

Remember a few weeks ago when Trump stood in front of an audience at the U.S. Central Command and leveled false accusations about the media underreporting incidents of terrorism?

Specifically he said:

"It's gotten to the point where it's not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it."


Later that day, in what can only be described as a case of the chaotic Trump administration trying to coordinate their flagrant (and frequent) lies, White House press secretary Sean Spicer cited "several instances" where he claimed the media had not adequately reported terrorist acts committed or supported by the Islamic State.

The White House released a list of 78 terrorist attacks that it claimed were underreported.

In response to those wildly unsubstantiated accusations leveled by the White House, on February 7th the BBC published a list of the 78 incidents and carefully detailed the ones they had reported on - all but 12.

Well the media is reporting on the terror attack that took place in Olathe, Kansas - but this time it's Trump who isn't talking about it.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla and his wife Sunayana Dumala

Last week Trump spent at least three days talking about a terror attack in Sweden that never happened, but in three days he's said nothing substantive about an actual terror attack that actually did happen on American soil where one person was killed and two injured?

He's got some balls using ten minutes of his CPAC speech earlier today talking about "fake news media" being the "enemy of the people".

And thus Srinivas Kuchibhotla, yet another unarmed innocent person, joins the ranks of The Counted.

According to the latest statistics from GunViolence.org that number now stands at 2,320 for 2017.

2,320 human lives, and it's only February 24th.

Just remember folks, one of the first pieces of legislation the Republican-majority House and Senate went after was overturning an Obama administration order that made it tougher for people with mental illnesses to obtain firearms - think about that when Purinton tries to plead insanity.

Who's the real "enemy of the people" in this country?

Oceti Sakowin Camp Closes: But the Struggle Continues

 Water protectors march out of Oceti Sakowin camp

The was a sense of poignancy, defiance and nobility as the last remaining residents of the Oceti Sakowin protest camp in North Dakota departed yesterday in advance of a 2pm deadline-to-vacate order signed by Governor Doug Burgum.

The thousands of native peoples from around the world who joined the protests represented the vanguard of a much broader grassroots protest movement.

Opposition not just to oil, but to the increasingly soul-less coalition of extremist political and social conservatives whose rigid ideology now serves the interests of the massive corporate monarchies that rule over the various fiefdoms of banking, fossil fuel and petrochemical production, agriculture, manufacturing, mining and telecommunications.  

The 150 or so protesters who walked arm-in-arm out of the snow and mud covered grounds of the Oceti Sakowin camp Wednesday afternoon ( under the eyes of over a hundred law enforcement officers from different states) were still singing, chanting and most importantly - standing.

With a federal court having ruled that drilling to run pipelines that will carry crude oil directly beneath a fresh water source the Sioux share with 20 million other people can proceed, this particular battle is done for now.

But the war of non-violent resistance is not over.

Hundreds of other protesters who defiantly stuck out the freezing temperatures of the winter in support of the sovereign rights of the Standing Rock Sioux are reportedly moving on to other protest camps in the area that have been set up on private land where government officials cannot order them off.

New EPA administrator Scott Pruitt

Others will take the next stage of the fight to court rooms and legislative chambers.

Even if many of those too are stacked with conservative Republicans who've shown a willingness to bend the law to the will of the alliance of oil companies, pipeline manufacturers and banks behind the DAPL regardless of the cost to human and environmental health.

Republicans like the climate change denying lackey of the oil industry Scott Pruitt.


After being sworn in last Friday as the administrator of the same federal agency he repeatedly sued as the attorney general of Oklahoma, the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, addressed members of his staff for the first time on Tuesday.

As Rebecca Leber reported for Mother Jones on Tuesday, Pruitt delivered a generic 11-minute speech that was short on policy specifics and gave no indication of what the Trump administration has in mind for the EPA's role in addressing climate change.

As America comes to grip with the reality of a man who denies the existence of climate change heading up the government agency charged with protecting the environment, his confirmation doesn't bode well for grassroots environmental groups opposing oil and natural gas pipeline projects around the nation.

In the same way that an executive order issued by the White House has tasked members of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to begin an unprecedented roundup of illegal immigrants in the United States, regardless of how long they've been here or whether they've committed a criminal offense, in the wake of the inauguration on January 20th, efforts to remove the Standing Rock protesters increased in some unsettling ways.

   CLDC attorney Lauren Regan

According to an article posted on The Guardian back on February 10th, Lauren Regan, the executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon reported that at least three different DAPL protesters were contacted directly by agents from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) to ask them for information about the Standing Rock protests.

As she told The Guardian, "From the very beginning, law enforcement has attempted to justify it's militarized presence...by making false allegations that somehow these water protectors were violent." 

Rumors about FBI surveillance of Standing Rock protesters had been swirling on social media just days after Trump's inauguration.



An interview on the Tuesday February 7th episode of The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC with Cora Currier and Trevor Arronson, contributing writers to The Intercept, offered some chilling perspective and insight on the kinds of tactics the FBI likely used in Standing Rock to monitor protesters and undermine demonstrators.

Click the link above if you have a few minutes, it's definitely worth a listen.

Currier's and Arronson's contribution to an Intercept series called 'The FBI's Secret Rules', uncovered some fascinating details on the scope of FBI surveillance.

For example, they noted that in the late 60's and early 70's, the FBI employed approximately 1,600 informants as part of their notorious COINTELPRO program of domestic surveillance of groups they deemed subversive; including Civil Rights activists, Black Panther Party members, Vietnam War protesters, feminist organizations and the KKK.

By the post-911 era when the U.S. government was appropriating billions to anti-terrorism and homeland security efforts, the number of FBI informants had soared to over 15,000 - so it's fair to assume that the FBI had informants in place at the Standing Rock protests.

Oceti Sakowin camp structures burning on Wednesday

Members of local law enforcement were engaged in the same kinds of harassment tactics too.

A Monday February 13th article posted on the Website of
 The Guardian chronicled claims by several members of the veterans activist group VeteransRespond that local police stopped their vehicles simply for having out of state plates and conducted bogus searches.




Flagrantly illegal police searches that turned up small amounts of weed that some of the vets take for medical reasons to alleviate symptoms of PTSD which were used to arrest and detain the protesters.

As my friend James, who lives on the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, reminded me the other night, Native Americans have been viewed as terrorist suspects by the U.S. government since long before the highly-publicized 1973 occupation of the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota by some 200 Oglala Lakota and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

As I write this late Wednesday night, there are reports that at least 50 to 75 protesters remain inside the Standing Rock protest camp, though local law enforcement have made no efforts to forcefully remove them even though the governor's order to evacuate expired at 2pm on Wednesday.

Despite the outcome, the Standing Rock protests brought global attention to both the sovereignty of indigenous peoples as well as the environmental dangers posed by the slew of oil and natural gas  pipeline projects being constructed across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The intentional burning of temporary wooden structures at the Oceti Sakowin protest camp by departing protesters yesterday is symbolic.

Protesters claimed the burning of those structures was an "ending prayer", maybe it's meant to symbolize the end of this latest chapter of the ongoing war for Native American sovereignty.

The global support that the Standing Rock Sioux garnered raised awareness of the struggle for the rights of indigenous peoples in America and around the globe - but it also helped to galvanize a much broader protest movement that made its presence known on January 21st.

What happened in Cannon Ball, North Dakota reaffirms the power of peaceful protest, civil disobedience and non-violent resistance at a time when millions of Americans are gearing up to oppose the policies of the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress.

A chapter may have ended in the Sakowin camp with the assistance of the corpratocracy, federal and state entities including the FBI, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, federal courts and local law enforcement from multiple states.

But this story is far from over.

As one of the camp's leaders Phyllis Young noted in an interview, "The camps will continue, freedom is in our DNA, and we have no choice but to continue the struggle."

Fallout From 45's Swedish Fantasy

At this point it's difficult to tell whether it's more embarrassing to be America's unpopular Groper-In-Chief, a member of the Republican Party, or a citizen in the nation that elected the delusional clown who calls himself our president.

Apparently undeterred by the recent backlash from senior White House staff members Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway talking about fictional terrorist acts in Atlanta and Bowling Green, yesterday the increasingly erratic SCROTUS made reference to a terrorist attack in Sweden that never actually happened.

As the New York Times reported 45's latest lie was told in front of an audience of supporters in Melbourne, Florida on Saturday.

Evidently he'd fled there to try and escape his historically low poll numbers, growing anger over his disastrous policy rollouts and scrutiny over his ties to Russia.

Was the delusional Donald simply trying to re-stoke the irrational anti-immigrant hysteria that fueled his presidential campaign in a desperate attempt to boost his sagging poll numbers?

Perhaps he said it as a distraction from a story posted on Saturday by Reuters about the federal government's inquiries into Russian interference in the November 8th elections including three separate FBI investigations into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails, the hacking of Hillary Clinton adviser John Podesta's email account and a counterintelligence probe of financial transactions between Russian individuals and organizations with known ties to the Trump campaign.

Who knows, maybe it was a poorly-planned klutzy combination of both.

Regardless of his intentions, the absurdity of his lie has gone global - further reinforcing the public perception of him as being detached from reality, averse to telling the truth and completely unqualified to hold the office he's held for less than a month.

The flagrant lie drew a swift response from social media that ranged from bewilderment, to condemnation, to amusement and mockery.

One of the funniest responses was from an unknown Twitter user who had the presence of mind to quickly create a parody Twitter account called "Last Night In Sweden" that began posting some pretty hysterical sarcastic responses to the mythical terrorist attack.

One of the photos published by Aftonbladet showing
actual scenes of Sweden on Friday night

Some of my favorites include:

"Last night we listened to ABBA. Today, we are listening to an angry yam."

"Last night, no one in Sweden had heard of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution. Today we are very interested."

And (Last Night In Sweden) "It was very cold."

Swedish media was quick to jump in on the act as well.

The popular Swedish tabloid daily Aftonbladet posted an article in English that listed a brief timeline of routine things that actually WERE happening in Sweden on Friday night when Trump's non-existent terrorist attack was supposedly happening.

Including:

"8:46pm: Due to harsh weather in the northern parts of Sweden, the road E10 was closed between Katterjakk and Riksgransen. Due to strong winds and snow in the region the Met office also issued an avalanche warning."

Ex-Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt

Upon learning of Trump's statement, early this morning former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt posted a brief message on his Twitter account that read:

"Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound."

Questions indeed.

Like where's the White House focus on REAL terror plots here in America?


While Trump and members of his senior staff have been trying to incite fears about foreign terrorist acts that haven't actually happened, the White House is facing growing criticism for ignoring the danger of real terror attacks by white extremists here in America.

As the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center Richard Cohen warned in a recent article, with the Trump administration so consumed with the idea of terrorists from foreign nations entering the U.S., they are ignoring the potential for threats faced from right-wing American extremists.

As Cohen notes, individuals like white supremacist Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 men, women and children and injured nearly 700 in the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Neo-Nazi Wade Page who shot and killed six Sikhs at a temple in Wisconsin in 2012, or more recently, Dylan Roof, who murdered nine African-Americans attending a Bible study in South Carolina, represent a far more dangerous threat to American lives than the fictional terror plots consuming the Trump administration's attention.

Trump, Stephen Bannon, his anti-immigrant zealot policy adviser Stephen Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions only being capable of seeing a boogeyman with dark skin is troubling.

The inability of Republican leaders to acknowledge that a terrorist that looks more like them also represents a clear and present danger to Americans of all faiths and ethnicities is a threat far more menacing than the imaginary terrorists who did not attack Sweden on Friday night.