Thursday, May 25, 2023

Cry Baby Ron

This morning was supposed to start with all of us being greeted in print and on air waves about 'big news' Ron DeSantis. Instead, he's an afterthought as the world mourns Tina Turner. If people are paying attention to him at all, it's due to how bad his 'big moment' went yesterday. POLITICO reports:

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ was a glitch.

The Florida governor announced his presidential campaign on Twitter Spaces, in an appearance meant to be a veritable launch hosted by an actual rocket man.

But within seconds, it was clear that Tallahassee had a problem.

The feed broke, connections got cut off, the hosts seemed confused. It was inauspicious. It also was a black mark on the candidate's supposed trademarks — expert organization and a comfort with the vanguard of modern media.

“It was bold. It turned out to be a mistake,” radio host Erick Erickson emailed supporters about the mishap. “It is recoverable. But it is a reminder that some things should be under full control of the candidate, particularly the launch day.”

The risk for DeSantis is the prospect of the botched rollout forming a narrative and cutting against the very argument he is making to Republican primary voters — that he is a competent alternative to the chaotic presidency of former President Donald Trump.

Ha ha! He didn't get his moment and he strted his campaign with a whimper. Ha ha! CNN adds:

The Florida governor has been preparing for months to run for president, but his official campaign launch committed a cardinal political sin – offering his opponents, especially ex-President Donald Trump, an opening to turn him into an object of ridicule.

First, DeSantis made the unorthodox choice to make his long-awaited run official not among regular voters, but on a Twitter Spaces audio stream alongside Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform, which meant the biggest moment in his political career played out through a disembodied voice.

Worse, the launch interview was delayed and plagued by glitches. The cliche that the best day of any presidential candidate’s campaign is when they first announce will not apply to DeSantis, who managed to obliterate his own message. And even when the event got up and running, it felt more like a fan fest for Musk, as various conservative opinion leaders called in to boost DeSantis but seemed more effusive about his host.

“It came across like he was a talk radio host not the future leader of the free world,” former Trump administration communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Poor little cry baby Ron. Ken Meyers (MEDIAITE) notes:

Morning Joe pulled no punches in mocking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ (R) tech-addled attempt to launch his 2024 presidential campaign via Twitter.

During a Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk, the governor confirmed his bid for the White House on Wednesday night. However, the moment was ruined by a catastrophic combination of shutdowns and technological problems. Joe Scarborough got right to it on Thursday as he pronounced the spectacle “a meltdown over the meltdown,” even if it does give DeSantis mass publicity.

“It was bad. I mean, it was bad on so many fronts. But he raised some money; he got people talking about him today, not in a positive way,” Scarborough said. “There is a long way to go,” he added. “This would be like the first game of 162-game baseball season, and your star pitcher getting the ball and accidentally throwing it and hitting himself in the face. It happens — but there’s 161 other games left.”

Baby Ron is wetting his pants.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, May 25, 2023. Tina Turner is the focus for the snapshot today.

The Queen of Rock and Roll has died. This after a multi-decade career which saw Tina Turner awarded with 12 Grammys -- the only woman to win a Grammy in all three popular music genres -- rock, soul and pop.

As a member of a revue, she found fans in 1960 with her vocals on "A Fool In Love." She would next touch recording genius when she went into the studio with Phil Spector for "River Deep, Mountain High." Phil wanted nothing to do with the revue, he just wanted Tina in the studio by herself to record the vocal. Just as Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong had nothing to do with "Someday We'll Be Together" (Diana Ross is the only Supreme that sings on that number one song), Tina was the only artist from the revue performing on that song.

Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote the song with some tinkering around by Phil. It was the culmination of Phil's entire work. And it flopped in the US. It only went to 88 on the US pop charts but it went to number three in England and the song is now considered a historically and artistically significant recording, one that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and one that regularly makes the lists of all time great recordings.

It greatly expanded the appreciation of and audience for Tina Turner. She recorded the song in 1966. For context, Cher was also a solo artist and part of a duo at this time. In 1967, Sonny & Cher would have their last significant hit of the decade with "The Beat Goes On" (number six on the US pop chart) and Cher would have her last significant solo hit of the decade with "You Better Sit Down Kids" (number nine on the US pop chart). Both women, who would become great friends, saw the careers sag and both would look at the older men in charge of the duo and say they needed to modernize and go younger. Sonny didn't believe that was the answer. Tina had more luck because the revue was forever doing club dates and needed to have songs that got the room pumping so current hits by others could be worked in. As a result of Tina's interest in and love of the music around her, she would do vocals on covers such as "Let It Be," "Honky Tonk Woman," "I Want To Take You Higher," "Get Back," "Everyday People," "With A Little Help From My Friends," "Up On The Roof" and many more. She always made the songs her own.

Many would only realize how great her interpretive skills were when she took "Proud Mary" back into the top ten in 1971. I just probably do a note right here that I knew Tina and she was a great friend. In this obit, we're not naming people who were mean to her. That's not just her first husband, that's also people who thought it was cute, as late the 80s, to refer to Tina with the n-word. So if you see "Proud Mary" and think of some 60s White group, don't e-mail me telling me I should have included their racist ass in this entry. It's not an oversight on my part, this is about honoring Tina and I'm not honoring anyone who hurt her.

Tina took the tired 60s song and made it unique. Resulted in a Grammy win.

She also was a song writer. One of the songs she wrote was the song about her hometown "Nutbush City Limits." It would become a top forty hit in the early seventies and she would re-record it and perform it repeatedly throughout her career.

She was an amazing live performer and one of the few women who could regularly fill auditoriums. Janis Joplin recognized Tina's onstage brilliance as did audiences. Of the female musical artists who came to fame in the sixties and survived (Janis would pass away shortly after that decade ended; Joni Mitchell would garner her audience in the 1970s), Tina was part of a rare group of women who set records with ticket sales for their performances -- it was Tina, it was Cher and it was Diana Ross.

Aretha Franklin! No, it was just those three. Aretha didn't tour that often and she had a reputation by the end of the 70s as cancelling too often that led to poor ticket sales -- you don't want to buy a ticket, make plans to attend only to show up and find out that the artist has decided they're not doing the concert. Cher, Diana Ross and Tina were the three that sold tickets.

She made a name for herself and she did it with hard work. No one was going to take her name from her.

I, TINA, her 1986 book with Kurt Loder, was made into the film WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT starring Angela Bassett who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the film.

Part of the story of Tina Turner is her courage and her love for life and people. She was terrorized throughout the sixties and most of the seventies by a man who claimed to love her but didn't. He was a liar and he was a thief who stole songwriting credits throughout his career. His beating up Tina was well known by the time he thankfully died. But, for those too young to remember, when he did die in 2007, there were people trying to praise him and trying to minimize what he did. Those people included Danny Schechter who thought doing one interview with Tina gave him 'insight' into her abuser and that Tina needed to forgive him and . . .

Garbage. Ava and I took that on in 2007 and this is from what we wrote and I am pulling the man's name (he's called by his last name in the clip earlier from WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT IT):

Now reading some of the boys last week, it appeared that the film What's Love Got To Do With It confused them. Or possibly it was Angela Bassett's fighting figure that confused them? Her deltoids are world class and could qualify her for a bodybuilding competition, no question. While she gave an amazing performance, it was too strong to capture Tina (offstage) in the days before she left [terrorist]. The body type was wrong as well which is why it's so very jarring when Tina takes over the performance during the last minutes of the film's final scene. It's equally true that [terrorist] was softened by the actor performing him who also had the benefit of being attractive.

Somehow, the film's timeline?, some people seem to have the idea that he beat her up real bad in a limo in Dallas in 1976 and Tina up and left. Wrong. He beat her repeatedly. He beat her through the sixties, he beat [her] through the seventies until she left. And when she left, this 'kind' man threatened to kill her and did a little more than threaten.

That wasn't about 'love.' What's love got to do with it? Not a damn thing.

Tina was a meal ticket and long before [terrorist] moved into his 'open' relationship ('open' for him only, of course), Tina was well aware of his many girlfriends, mistresses and one-night-stands. When she would try to leave, he would beat her. When she did leave, he would pull her off a bus and beat her. When the song didn't sail up the charts, he'd beat her. When he was having a bad day, he'd beat her. When he thought she was getting too much credit (she was the act), he'd beat her. He'd beat her for any reason whenever he damn well felt like it. It was a non-stop abusive relationship.

And, sad to say, many of the rock press knew about it when they were together and many of them sided with [terrorist]. That was the attitude in the rock press. It was especially the attitude at Rolling Stone and, for those who doubt it, you can comb the archives and find that attitude displayed everywhere -- even in an article on Sonny & Cher's then-new TV show, where it was 'shared': "Many of my friends favor the belief that after work Sonny beats the sh*t out of her with a tire iron." (For those too lazy to do their own research, the pig 'sharing' that bit of 'amusement' was Chris Hodenfield.)

That was the Rolling Stone attitude. It didn't disappear. In 1981, editor Brant Mewborn was screaming loudly for the magazine to feature Tina (who just done two multiple night engagements of SRO business at the Ritz and been brought on Saturday Night Live by Rod Stewart to sing a duet of "Hot Legs") and the reaction was one of indifference, one of 'she walked out on [terrorist].' The abuse was well known by then. Didn't matter. That was the 'feel' and 'mood' at Rolling Stone: Tina walked out on the man who beat her, she didn't matter.

Rolling Stone was long aware of what actually went on in The [terrorist] and Tina Turner Revue. Some of the truth leaked out in Ben Fong-Torres' hard hitting piece in the magazine's October 14, 1971 issue. Rolling Stone was made even more aware after the publication of the article when the police nabbed a man who had been hired by Ike to break the legs of Ben Fong-Torres and publisher Jann Wenner. The article noted his 'flirtations' with other women and his heavy coke use.

Tina was the one who got them to update their sound when their music was dying in the sixties. So the idea that "even Tina has to" feel anything is beyond belief.

She was enslaved. She wasn't allowed to live her life. She wasn't allowed to practice her religion. She wasn't allowed to be just an artist in the revue. She would try to bargain her way out of the relationship with that and [terrorist] would just beat her.

He beat her because he was damn lucky she presented herself in his life. He beat her because he couldn't beat men and he couldn't make the male singers stay. He beat her because she was his ticket to big money and big fame. Even with all her talents provided him with, he still beat her and that was because he really couldn't take the fact that no one really considered it "[terrorist] and Tina," it was just Tina. Which is why the Who wanted Tina for their film (Tommy) and not [terrorist]. Which is why Phil Spector wanted Tina (and not [terrorist] for "River Deep Mountain High." By the end of the act, he couldn't even keep it together in the studio.

He beat her over and over for their entire relationship. He beat her with his fists, he beat her with wire hangers, he beat her with whatever was handy. An electrical cord could and would do. He threatened her with death (repeatedly) if she left him.

[. . .]

No, Elijah, [terrorist] did not "discover" Tina. And comparing the serial physical abuse Tina endured for over sixteen years to a sex act ("groupies and playthings") reveals a lot of stupid. The choice of the word "treatment" as opposed to "abuse" ("his treatment of her") is also sadly revealing. (Wald does use abuse elsewhere. But we don't think abuse is "treatment." Even "mistreatment" would be an improvement over "treatment.") As for Wald's claim in the article that a White musician's death wouldn't result in the same kind of obituary attention to his violence, give us an example? We can provide one who would get the same treatment: Phil Spector.

And that would have been true if he'd died long before Lana Clarkson was murdered. He was another control freak and he was abusive to Ronnie Spector. Not on an [terrorist] scale but few people in the world will reach that kind of scale while in the spotlight.

Jim asked us to write about this and showed an e-mail explaining why this topic needed to be addressed. A reader of two years had been on the AOL message boards and saw [terrorist]'s abuse minimized by guys with man-crushes on [terrorist] who repeatedly down-played the physical abuse of Tina Turner, the beatings, the crimes. The reader said it brought back for her the denial she was met with when she brought charges against her then husband for abuse.

Boys, it's sad when your heroes have feet of clay, we understand. It must be even sadder when your hero turns out to be an abusive crook. But that is the reality of [terrorist]. And he didn't 'just beat Tina once,' he did so repeatedly. And the message that the reader copied and pasted into her e-mail, where a man was saying that all that happened, all that caused Tina to leave, was [terrorist] was in a bad mood and just slapped her, is a nice little fantasy for those who need their daily dose of denial. But it's not reality.

[. . .]

Nor are we willing to allow that [terrorist] got a bum deal because his abuses, his crimes, were noted in his obits. He was an abuser who regularly beat Tina, made her live in fear (to the point that she once tried to take her own life just to be free of him -- a detail that got left out by the [terrorist] Defenders) and really only controlled her because she was a woman. He thought it was his 'right' and when men defend him, they, intentionally or not, further that message. The reader who wrote saw her then-husband convicted of violent abuse (some of which he admitted to in court but tried to justify it with the 'pressure' he was under) and yet, even with that, nearly a decade later, she still encounters people who feel the 'need' to sing his praises to her and say they hope someday she can put her 'issues' behind her. Her 'issues.' Had she been assaulted by a stranger would the same 'caring' people stop to wonder when she and the criminal could be in the same room together? No.

Here's the thing, if [terrorist] had beat a woman he wasn't involved with even once the way he regularly beat Tina, his ass would have been hauled off to jail and it's doubtful that people would be writing "Poor [terrorist]" pieces today. But because it was his wife (or 'wife'), we're supposed to allow for something. What, we're not sure. But there's a lot of minimizing going on about the fact that he 'only' beat his wife. (And for the record, he also beat many of his mistresses. Ann Thomas is only one of the many women who've gone on record explaining how [terrorist] also beat them.) As if it's somehow 'different' if the woman you physically attack is your wife. Almost as if they're saying, she probably asked for it.

The American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic Violence notes that 1.3 million women "are physically assaulted by an intimate partner" each year in the US. That's nothing to minimize.

Tina survived. Nothing could take the abuse or the memories away. She was terrorized and she suffered throughout her life as a result. It's nothing to be minimized or excused. Or glamorized by two idiots in music who felt their own boring lives needed dressing up.

Tina couldn't change what she'd endured but she could -- and did -- make the rest of her years matter.

In 1984, she returned to the charts with her PRIVATE DANCER album (ten million copies sold around the world) which included the hits "Better Be Good To Me," "Let's Stay Together," "Show Some Respect" and the number one hit "What's Love Got To Do With It." She'd start touring for the album as Lionel Richie's opening act but quickly go out on her own and rock the whole world. She'd have one achievement after another. Many more hits, many more record topping concert tours.

She'd also find lasting and real love with Erwin Bach. She would detail their nearly forty years together in her 2018 book MY LOVE STORY: A MEMOIR. ESSENCE writes about their love affair and offers a photo essay. Alex Ross (PEOPLE) notes:

The music legend — who died at age 83 on Wednesday after a "long illness," her rep confirmed — opened up about her romance with Bach, now 67, in her 2021 HBO documentary Tina.

"He was [16 years] younger [than me]. He was 30 years old at the time and had the prettiest face. I mean, you cannot [describe] it. It was like insane. [I thought], 'Where did he come from?' He was really so good-looking. My heart [was beating fast] and it means that a soul has met, and my hands were shaking," Turner recalled in the film.

"We met at Cologne [Bonn] Airport — actually it was Düsseldorf Airport [in Germany], and her manager Roger [Davies] asked me to pick up Tina," added Bach, a former music executive, in the documentary," Bach said in the documentary.

THE GUARDIAN offers their pick of her ten greatest songs, Australia's ABC offers their pick of five greats, ULTIMATE CLASSIC ROCK serves up their ten choices and BILLBOARD goes with 15. In 1994, a three disc retrospective contained 48 tracks and even it couldn't represent all her greatest songs -- not even all her greatest up to 1994. 1986's "One Of The Living," for example, wasn't on the box set. The song co-written by Holly Knight (who also co-wrote Tina's "Better Be Good To Me" and "The Best") made it to number 15 on the pop charts.

As the Iraq War dragged on and on -- and continues to -- it became a song we'd note here many times. "You can't stop the pain of your children crying out in your head/ We always said that the living would envy the dead."

Tina's passing is the news. Someone else thought he'd be the news but it's Tina Turner that the world is thinking of. In "Tina" last night, we noted those commenting on her passing -- that included Diana Ross, Jennifer Hudson, Ringo Starr, Keith Urban, Dionne Warwick, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. It's a passing that touches the world, a loss that many of us feel.

Last month, Roseanne Greenstreet interviewed Tina for THE GUARDIAN:

How would you like to be remembered?

As the Queen of Rock’n’Roll. As a woman who showed other women that it is OK to strive for success on their own terms.

The following sites updated:

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Tina Turner, Eric Swalwell, John Roberts

I remember being a kid and hearing John Waite's "Missing You" and thinking it was okay. But in 1996, Tina Turner did her version and that was the song that hooked me. She really nailed it -- as she did most songs. It was surprising and sad to learn she passed away today. She gave us all a lot of love and a lot of great music.

My parents have a big record collection. More vinyl than you'll ever believe. And they're Tina fans so I grew up hearing Tina. To me she was always an interpreter. She'd take these songs like "Help," "Let It Be," "Higher Ground," "Let's Pretend We're Married," "1984," "Proud Mary" and "Missing You" that other artists had recorded and she'd find her way into the song and make it fresh and alive and completely her own.

I'll miss her.

Now for political news, NBC NEWS reports:

The House Ethics Committee ended its two-year investigation into Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., over allegations that he had ties to a suspected Chinese intelligence operative.

In a letter to Swalwell dated Monday, the committee said it will take no further action in the probe that began in April 2021 into “allegations raised in the complaint that you may have violated House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct in connection with your interactions with Ms. Christine Fang,” the suspected Chinese spy.

“The Committee has previously reviewed allegations of improper influence by foreign agents and in doing so, cautioned that Members should be conscious of the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions,” the letter said. “We encourage you to contact the Office of House Security for any guidance on steps you can take to prevent or address such attempts.”

The investigation into Swalwell came in response to allegations that Fang was involved in fundraising operations for his 2014 re-election campaign and helped place an intern in his office, Axios reported.

So that ends that. I have covered the topic so I'm noting that as an update. I will assume that a committee under a Republican controlled House would move forward on Democrat Swalwell if there was any reason to move forward. Since they did not, I will assume he came up clean.

Next up, from CNN:

Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday night that he wants to assure the public that the Supreme Court is committed to adhering to the “highest standards of conduct,” appearing to direct his remarks at critics of the high court amid recent ethics controversies.

“We are continuing to look at things we can do to give practical effect to that commitment, and I am confident that there are ways to do that that are consistent with our status as an independent branch of government under the separation of powers,” Roberts told an audience gathered in Washington, DC, for an event hosted by the American Law Institute, where he received a medal honoring the late Judge Henry J. Friendly.

Sure, Roberts, sure. You refused to appear before the Senate to address this, but sure.

It's an illegitimate court. I'm speaking of the Supreme Court. And America has woken up that realization. Devan Cole (CNN) notes:

Americans’ approval of the Supreme Court has fallen since the start of the year, according to a new poll released Wednesday, with 41% of the country saying it approves of the nine justices amid a barrage of media reports and watchdog complaints concerning ethics and transparency at the nation’s highest court.

The Marquette Law School poll provides fresh insight into how the public is reacting to a court that has become engulfed in controversy that, for the most part, is unrelated to its decisions in high-profile, politically fraught cases that typically shape the nation’s view of the court.

Conducted between May 8 and May 18, the survey is the first to be completed by the school since ProPublica published an explosive report in early April about years of lavish trips and gifts Justice Clarence Thomas accepted from a GOP megadonor, the first in a series of stories concerning the conservative jurist’s lack of transparency on his financial disclosure forms.

Since 2020, Marquette finds, approval of the court has frequently “oscillated” between surveys, but with declining high points in each cycle. The results of the new poll – which found that 59% of US adults disapproved of the court – are similar to those found in a July 2022 iteration of the survey taken days after the court overturned Roe v. Wade, but represent a downtick from more recent versions of the poll. In January, the same poll found that 47% of American approved of the court, while 53% disapproved.

It's an illegitimate court. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, May 24, 2023.

Today, Ron DeSantis is expected to announce that, like diarrhea, he will run. Soft and fat Ronnie and his butch wife deceived Florida voters last November. Those voters picked him for governor for a second term while, all along, his plan was to use them -- as he's used the state all along -- as a stepping stone. He had no plans to serve out a four year term. And, since the start of the year, he's been campaigning for the GOP's presidential nomination.

While he's convinced he's about to rule the world, he may have to settle for Miss Congeniality in his own party. Bernd Debusmann Jr (BBC NEWS) notes, "Recent polls have shown that Mr DeSantis still lags behind the former president as far as his popularity among US Republicans. Various surveys conducted in mid-May 2023 show him between 28 and 45 percentage points behind."

When not shoveling so much food down that he makes himself sick, Ronnie can be found doing harm to the state of Florida. One lawsuit after another due to his actions and its the people of Florida -- the ones he plans to abandon -- that get stuck paying the legal bills.

Greg Owen (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Hamburger Mary’s, the iconic burger joint found in gayborhoods across America, is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the state of Florida over the state’s new drag ban.

The Orlando branch of the flamboyant, drag-themed restaurant chain says they’ve been deprived of their First Amendment rights and are already losing customers under the state’s new rules targeting drag shows.

[. . .]

Hamburger Mary’s “simply cannot take the chance that their business or liquor licenses would be suspended for hosting a drag show where children attend,” the lawsuit states. “In addition, the criminal penalties of the law put individuals at risk of prosecution because of the content of their speech.”

The restaurant regularly hosts drag performances that include bingo, trivia, and comedy. On Sundays, children are welcomed at “family friendly” drag shows.

According to the suit, Hamburger Mary’s has lost 20% of their reservations for the Sunday shows and other events since announcing minors could no longer be in attendance while drag performers were present.

A high percentage of wait staff regularly dresses in drag, as well.

“The broad, sweeping nature of the statute, and the vagueness regarding what conduct is and is not prohibited, will have a chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Florida,” the lawsuit says.

A First Amendment issue. Well then we know Jonathan Turley's covered it! No. No. Since becoming the ugliest whore for FOX "NEWS," Jonathan Swirley Turley only worries about the First Amendment if some right-winger gets booed or yelled at. Actual real life implications on the rest of us? Jonathan can't be bothered. He's far too busy preaching transphobia and disgracing George Washington University.

From yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!:

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The NAACP has issued a formal travel advisory for Florida. In an announcement Saturday, the group said Florida is “hostile to Black Americans” under Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who’s expected to announce his run for the 2024 presidential nomination this week.

The moves comes after Florida passed the Stop WOKE Act to restrict conversations about race in schools and businesses. DeSantis has also attacked the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course and on Monday signed into law a measure that blocks colleges from spending public funds on diversity, equity and inclusion. He also signed a slate of legislation Wednesday targeting the LGBTQ community.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement, quote, “Let me be clear — failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all.”

The NAACP was joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and the LGBTQ rights group Equality Florida.

The moves comes as tourism is one of Florida’s biggest industries.

Meanwhile, PEN America, the book publishing company Penguin Random House and several other authors and parents are suing the Pensacola, Florida, school board for banning books on race and LGBTQ issues from school libraries, saying they violated the First Amendment.

For more, we’re beginning with Suzanne Nossel, CEO of the free expression group PEN America.

Suzanne, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you explain what this lawsuit is all about?

SUZANNE NOSSEL: Sure. We are suing in Escambia County to challenge the removal of books from classroom and school libraries. There are well over a hundred books that have been put under review and taken off classroom shelves for protracted periods while review processes are underway. That’s in contravention of the best practice guidelines that the American Library Association and others say you should follow, National Coalition Against Censorship, whereby books, if there’s an objection, should remain on the shelves while those objections are adjudicated. And then, there are more than 10 books that have been banned entirely. And this effort disproportionately targets books by and about authors of color, LGBTQ narratives.

And so we’re bringing a challenge under both the First and the 14th Amendments to the Constitution, the First Amendment because these bans and removals violate children’s right to read, and the 14th Amendment because they raise equality concerns. When books are targeted based on the stories told, who’s telling the stories, what the color or the sexual orientation of the characters, that violates our protections for equality in education. And so, we’re asking the school board to put these books back on the shelves, and the court to vindicate children’s right to read.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain really what this Stop WOKE Act says and how it allows for banned books? How specific is it? Or is it that the vagueness is what is so threatening?

SUZANNE NOSSEL: It’s really the vagueness. I mean, this idea that teachings that could create racial tension or make people feel guilty on the basis of their racial identity are prohibited raise all kinds of questions for teachers and librarians about what books might be construed to fall afoul of those restrictions. If a kid reads a book and they ask a question that demands an answer that could touch upon some of those sensitive topics, does the teacher risk being disciplined? Do they risk a complaint from a parent that could run all the way up the chain?

And that’s really the way censorship works deliberately — vague laws that don’t just pinpoint what specifically is out of bounds, but rather cast a broad chill, a pall on education. It’s teaching our children that there are ideas and books that are so dangerous that they ought to be off limits, which runs counter to the very role and purpose of public schools in a democracy, to be an incubator for citizenship, where you learn how to engage with all sorts of people, all sorts of ideas.

AMY GOODMAN: From your press release, in Escambia County, nearly 200 books have been challenged; 10 books have been removed by the school board; five books were removed by district committees; 139 books remain restricted, requiring parental permission. You also write, “Children in a democracy must not be taught that books are dangerous.” Talk more about the specific books that are banned and how exactly you plan to get these books back on the bookshelves.

SUZANNE NOSSEL: Yeah, sure. Look, it’s a long list of books. And it’s quite shocking to see things like Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye or Judy Blume’s Forever. You know, that’s a book that I grew up with, that, yes, was a little bit edgy in my time, but decades have passed. These are things that have been on the shelves, that have been treasured by young people for long periods of time, works of literature, Toni Morrison, a Nobel laureate in literature. So, to ban her books, you know, the idea that they have no value, no redeeming value for children, is outrageous.

There are also books like And Tango Makes Three, which is a story about same-sex penguins in the Central Park Zoo that raise a baby penguin, and this is being objected to because it’s seen as promoting LGBTQ lifestyles, or Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, about a child whose uncle gets married to a man. And so, it’s a real effort to both expunge books that are seen as contravening a very traditional, rigid conception of what family life ought to look like in America, and then books that are construed as sexually provocative. They’re being labeled pornography, even though they don’t bear any resemblance to the legal definition of pornography. So, it’s painting with a very broad brush.

And most of these objections have been brought by a single teacher in the school district. This is not a groundswell of parents who are raising these objections. It’s a single individual. And on the basis of that, in many cases, as we outline in our complaint, the school board has overridden the considered opinion of its own review panel. So, it has an empowered review panel of experts that it has designated to read books when there is an objection, to take a look and decide whether there is value for children, whether these books ought to remain in the classroom. And the pattern in Escambia that’s so disturbing is a political override of that expert opinion. So their own designated panel is being brushed to the side, and politics and ideology are ruling the day.

Chris Hayes also covered the issue on his show yesterday.

But again, having traded in legal expertise for the one-dollar-bills FOX "NEWS" slips into his g-string, Jonathan Turley can't cover this issue.

Musical interlude.

That's Tori Amos performing her song "Muhammad My Friend" with Tool's Maynard James Keenan.

Tool performed Sunday at Daytona's Welcome to Rockville festival -- and he did so in drag. John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

“I’ve been cross-dressing since long before these clickbait-junkie dupes were out of diapers,” he told The Messenger. Keenan went on to explain that he was simply riffing on a look he wore onstage in the ’90s. “It’s pretty crazy the technology and the prosthetics nowadays, how they’ve come along, and I just was considering bringing the look back. And that’s really all there is to it. I’m not a political fella -- had nothing to do with Florida.”

Still, the father of two made it clear that he opposes drag bans like the one in Florida. “I think limiting people’s access to anything is absurd,” he said. “Good parenting allows you to teach your kids how to be reasonable and reason and puzzle things out and decide for themselves what the f**k they wanna see or not wanna see.”

Asked whether he identifies with drag performers, Keenan said, “I guess so, yeah.”

“On occasion, I am a drag queen; I’ve been a drag queen,” he explained. “I’m casual, so the hardcore people are going to dismiss me as being a tourist.”

He also expressed “solidarity with people who are not afraid to express themselves.”

“People that want to express themselves in whatever f**king way they want to express themselves, as long as they’re not physically directly hurting someone? Yeah, go for it. I’m all for ya.”

Meanwhile, Richard Luscombe (GUARDIAN) reports:

Numerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has found.

DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates.

“This will go a long way to ensuring we can have the best and the brightest filling our law enforcement ranks,” Florida’s Republican attorney general, Ashley Moody, said in April last year as DeSantis announced one-time $5,000 bonuses for new recruits.

However, among the almost 600 officers who moved to Florida and received the bonus – or were recruited in state – are a sizable number who either arrived with a range of complaints against them, or have since accrued criminal charges, the online media outlet Daily Dot has discovered.

They include a former trainee deputy with the Escambia county sheriff’s office charged with murdering her husband; an officer with the Miramar police department fired for domestic battery and kidnapping; and a former member of the New York police department (NYPD) who was hired by the Palm Beach police department having once been accused of an improper sexual proposition.

That officer, named by the Daily Dot as Daniel Meblin, was also part of a $160,000 settlement by the NYPD for violence at a 2020 protest against the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in which officers were accused of beating Black males without provocation.

A Palm Beach police spokesperson told the Daily Dot that Meblin – who had complaints against him including abuse of authority and sexually propositioning a teenager – had disclosed his background during the hiring process, according to the NYPD watchdog 50-a.org.

That's what he wants to impose upon the rest of the country -- failure and danger.

Paul Rudnick is always hilarious and intentionally so. However, we'll wind down noting the unintentionally hilarious who can be found across Twitter this morning trying to inflate their tiny man Ron DeSantis and his 'combat service' in Iraq. Ronnie was a legal adviser, kids. He didn't take part in combat. Quit making idiots of yourself in public. He's a War Criminal -- due to his actions at Guantanamo -- but he is not a combat veteran.

The following sites updated:

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Ron DeSatan

Starting with THE REMIX MORNING SHOW.

Ron DeSatan -- as they call him on BLACK POWER MEDIA -- is just disgusting:

On March 21, 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed MAGA Republican Sandra Atkinson — who was chairing the Okaloosa County GOP — to the Florida Board of Massage Therapy, noting that the appointment was "subject to confirmation by the Florida Senate." Two years later, DeSantis' connection to Atkinson is drawing scrutiny — as Atkinson, according to USA Today reporter Will Carless, appears to have entered the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

Photos, Carless reports in an article published on May 23, show Atkinson marching with "Stop the Steal" demonstrators in Washington, D.C. that day. Atkinson, according to Carless, has "denied" to USA Today that she entered the Capitol with the mob that stormed the building.

But Carless reports that "according to a USA Today review of multiple videos from the day and an interview with a close Republican Party associate," Atkinson "proceeded to the Capitol and through the doors."

That's who he hangs out with and recommends? And Ron DeSatan thinks he's fit to be president? He's not fit to be governor. Or dog catcher.

The article continues:

"The same kind of activity has led to criminal charges for many who stormed the Capitol (on) January 6 — charges for unlawful entry, picketing or other nonviolent acts," Carless explains. "Two months later, Atkinson's name emerged in bold type, in an announcement from DeSantis. She was being given a new job: The governor was appointing her to a statewide regulatory board."

Now note this:

DeSantis is spending time in Washington, DC, while his campaign manager, Christina Pushaw, tweeted an emoji of a waving hand upon learning that LGBTQ+ families are leaving Florida due to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Pushaw was already blocked on Twitter Pushaw is one of the most critical people in DeSantis’ reelection and no stranger to controversies. She was suspended [from Twitter] for, as A.P. reported, making “a direct effort to activate an online mob to attack a journalist.”

Florida’s Voice conducted a poll, saying that the “majority of “queer parents” consider leaving Florida because of the law barring sexual orientation/gender identity instruction in K-3.”

Pushaw, born in California, posted a clip of DeSantis, saying, “DeSantis gets it: “Gender ideology has no place in our K-12 school system.”

In another tweet, Pushaw shared another DeSantis quote, “We do not allow teachers to lie to students by saying they may have been born in the wrong body…”

Pushaw’s reaction to the news that many LGBTQ parents are considering relocating or leaving Florida made her one of the most talked about people on social media. However, most of the comments were not pleasant.

One person replied to Pushaw, “Your bigotry is showing.” Another asked, “Why would you cheer people wanting to leave the state?” The third said, “My family, including my six-year-old granddaughter, are participating in the pride parade in Miami Beach. And no, we are not queer.

[. . .]

Someone pointed out, “Doctors and teachers are leaving en masse, too.” Another wrote, “She is the face of extreme hate. Most countries would recognize it as a crime against humanity but not in Florida.”

Ron DeSatan just knows all the good people.

Ed Mazza (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson predicted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expected attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination could turn out to be very short.

“Polls still show DeSantis as having the best chance to defeat Donald Trump in the GOP race,” he wrote. “But they also show his prospects rapidly heading in the wrong direction.”

DeSantis, who is expected to announce his candidacy within weeks, is down by 37 points in one recent poll.

DeSantis is trying to run to the right of Trump, pushing “some of the most draconian” restrictions on abortion rights as well as attacks on everyone from the LGBTQ community to teachers in the name of his “anti-woke” agenda.

“Ta-da! Yet his poll numbers keep going down, not up,” Robinson wrote.

DeSantis has also been locked in a war with Disney in retaliation for the company’s criticism.

“Trying to punish a company for statements that had no practical impact — except, perhaps, on DeSantis’s brittle ego — seems wildly at odds with traditional conservative values,” he noted, adding:

“The Disney thing would just be a loopy sideshow if it didn’t highlight traits that could hold DeSantis back as a presidential candidate — and that would be dangerous for the nation and the world if, heaven forbid, he ever became president: paper-thin skin, a propensity to hold grudges and a tendency to go way too far.”

DeSantis has been telling donors that he’s a better candidate than Trump because he thinks he can win in the swing states. But Robinson said DeSantis’ far-right agenda won’t play well in those key regions.

Meanwhile REUTERS caught DeSatan in another lie:

Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas and his business partner were arrested in 2019, accused by the U.S. government of funneling a Russian oligarch’s money into American political campaigns. One recipient of Parnas’ donations -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis -- has said he was barely an acquaintance.

“The governor does not have a relationship with these individuals,” DeSantis’ spokesperson at the time, Helen Aguirre Ferré, said in a statement on Oct. 10, 2019. Six days later, DeSantis told reporters that Parnas "was just like any other donor, nothing more than that.”

But DeSantis and Parnas worked more closely together than the Republican governor has disclosed, according to a detailed account of their relationship Parnas provided to Reuters and 63 previously unreported text messages from DeSantis to Parnas between May and October 2018, as DeSantis campaigned for governor. A jury later found Parnas guilty of campaign finance crimes and other charges.

Do you get how stupid and cry baby Ron is? We don't need him the White House, it's bad enough that he's the governor of Florida.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Joe Biden again claims Beau Biden died in Iraq, Marianne Williamson's campaign continues to self-implode, an American is convicted of torture (sadly, it's not Bully Boy Bush who got convicted), and much more.

India's REPUBLIC WORLD notes:

US President Joe Biden has once again come under fire for claiming that his late son Beau "lost his life in Iraq" -- a statement that alludes to the president's long-held view that poisonous burn pits were to blame for the younger Biden's brain cancer death at the age of 46. After making similar remarks at least twice earlier in the year, the president made his most recent ones to US troops stationed in Japan during his visit to the nation.

Yes, we're back to that again.

Erik Uebelaker (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:

Joe Biden recently told Marines stationed in Japan that his son Beau died in the Iraq war—an incorrect statement that the president has puzzlingly made several times in the past. “My son was a major in the U.S. Army. We lost him in Iraq,” Biden told the troops in Iwakuni on Thursday, according to a video obtained by the New York Post. Despite his son actually dying of brain cancer at the Walter Reed military hospital in Maryland, Biden has made the same claim about Beau’s death at least twice before. Last October, Biden told an audience in Colorado that Beau “lost his life in Iraq.” Just weeks later, he said “I’m thinking about Iraq because that’s where my son died,” during a speech in Florida. In reality, Beau died in 2015 after battling stage four glioblastoma—a diagnosis that the president has previously attributed to the “burn pits” in Iraq, which the military used to destroy trash while Beau was deployed from 2008 to 2009.

THE DAILY MAIL points out, "His death may have been linked to burn pits he encountered while serving in Iraq, although Beau did not die while fighting in the Middle East." But Gustaf Kilander (INDEPENDENT) goes full on enabler in "Critics say Biden is lying about how his son Beau died – they are ignoring the full story:"

Right-wing media outlets have attempted to use Mr Biden’s comments on Beau’s death as a sign that the 80-year-old Democrat has memory issues, ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

[. . .]

In 2016, then the vice president, Mr Biden said his son’s cancer could have been caused by the toxic burn pits he was exposed to during his service in the Middle East.

The New York Times reported that Mr Biden said he was “stunned” when he read a chapter concerning the death of his son in the book The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers by Joseph Hickman.

First off, it's not a sign of 'cognitive decline.' Or, if it is, it was evident before he was elected. I'm not in the mood to spoonfeed lousy reporters who can't do their job. But Joe made those remarks on the campaign trail. We called it out in real time. And a sign of just how sorry Gustaf is,

Second, Gustaf and other lazies, there's no reason in the world to refer to some stupid NEW YORK TIMES article. THE TIMES has 'reporting issues' to put it kindly. If you want to go to Joe discussing burnpits and Beau, you go to that.

Which is right here, 'journalists.'

That's January 10, 2018, THE NEWSHOUR (PBS):

Biden also said that reading “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers,” a book on the topic by Joseph Hickman, which included a chapter on his son Beau, opened his eyes to the possibility of a link to his son’s cancer.

“There’s a whole chapter on my son Beau in there, and that stunned me. I didn’t know that,” Biden said. He added, the author “went back and looked at Beau’s tenure as a civilian with the U.S. attorney’s office [in Kosovo] and then his year in Iraq. And he was co-located in both times near these burn pits.”

Joe's been making these statements forever. If you're now appalled by it, my big question would be: Where were you when it started?

Because we've called it out all along, long before he became president.

Beau did not die in Iraq. He came back to the US and died six years later.

People shouldn't try to justify it or enable him on this. He needs to be held accountable. But, again, this didn't happen this year or last year or in 2021 for the first time. It may be a sign of something, but it's not a new cognitive decline because, again, he was making the statements that Beau died in Iraq while on the campaign trail.

Since we're discussing presidential campaigns, let me note how I love the liars. Oh those Marianne Williamson freaks. They lie and then they lie again. We told you, before POLITICO ever published the story about Marianne's 'interacting difficulties,' that she was a nightmare to work with and that this went back decades. Then POLITICO does their story about how Marianne terrorized campaign staff during her failed 2020 run fo the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. And The Merry Mariannes rushed to tell you it was lies, all lies. POLITICO did another report about how her current campaign is in shambles and The Merry Mariannes are back insisting it's a lie.

It's not a lie.

The departure came about when Marianne ranted and raved over how her polling was stagnant and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had passed her in the polling from the moment he announced his candidacy. That was the fault, she insisted, of her campaign.

Because 'positive thinking' never allows Marianne to own up to her own failures.

As this very public battle took place -- with four other players present -- it was offered to Marianne that she was ignoring key issues and maybe addressing them would bring her more support. She sneered at the issues (which including that she needed to call out the war on the LGBTQ+ community) and said she was a "big thinking" candidate and these little issues were "beneath" her.

The campaign's not going off the rails, it is off the rails.

This may surprise but, despite her well known vanity, Marianne remains incapable of self-examination. Oh sure, she's always been her own favorite topic. But she can't admit any wrong doing and her own 'introspection' plays out like gushing press releases.

She's killing her own campaign.

More say they will be leaving soon.

The Merry Mariannes throw hissy fits online and have been doing that since day one. Remember Krystal Ball screeching and screaming that everybody get on board with Marianne?

They're idiots. Marianne is not happening and won't ever happen unless the candidate learns to listen.

It'll never happen because the professional 'speaker' doesn't believe listening is part of an exchange since she never got paid to listen.

The Merry Mariannes can lie and spin and even deceive themselves but, currently, the only one who appears to be a viable candidate to rival Joe is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In other news, WFMZ reports:

A Stroudsburg man has been convicted in federal court of torturing an Estonian citizen in 2015 in Iraq.

The U.S. Department of Justice says it was in connection with running an illegal weapons manufacturing plant in Kurdistan.

Ross Roggio, 54, was convicted of torturing an employee who raised concerns about what they were doing.

On the matter, the US Justice Dept issued the following:

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, May 22, 2023

Man Convicted of Torture and Exporting Weapons Parts and Related Services to Iraq

A federal jury convicted a Pennsylvania man on May 19 for numerous crimes, including the torture of an Estonian citizen in 2015 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in connection with the operation of an illegal weapons manufacturing plant in Kurdistan.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Ross Roggio, 54, of Stroudsburg, arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct and detain the victim at a Kurdish military compound where Roggio suffocated the victim with a belt, threatened to cut off one of his fingers, and directed Kurdish soldiers to repeatedly beat, tase, choke, and otherwise physically and mentally abuse the victim over a 39-day period. The victim was employed at a weapons factory that Roggio was developing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that was intended to manufacture M4 automatic rifles and Glock 9mm pistols.

In connection with the weapons factory project, which included Roggio providing training to foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle, Roggio also illegally exported firearm parts that were controlled for export by the Departments of State and Commerce.

“Roggio brutally tortured another human being to prevent interference with his illegal activities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Thanks to the courage of the victim and other witnesses, the hard work of U.S. law enforcement, and the assistance of Estonian authorities, he will now be held accountable for his cruelty.”

“Today’s guilty verdict demonstrates that Roggio’s brutal acts of directing and participating in the torture of an employee over the course of 39 days by Kurdish soldiers could not avoid justice,” said U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “We thank all the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked tirelessly to address these acts that occurred in Iraq.”

“Today’s milestone conviction is the result of the extraordinary courage of the victim, who came forward after the defendant inflicted unspeakable pain on him for more than a month,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “Torture is among the most heinous crimes the FBI investigates, and together with our partners at the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, we will relentlessly pursue justice.”

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly dedicated to pursuing those who commit human rights violations, like Roggio, to ensure perpetrators face justice for their atrocities,” said Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Tae D. Johnson of ICE. “Our investigators will continue to work tirelessly with government partners so these horrendous acts do not go without consequence.”

“The illegal export of firearms parts and tools from the United States often goes hand in hand with other criminal activities, such as the charge of torture on which the jury voted to convict the defendant,” said Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Carson of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Office of Export Enforcement, New York Field Office. “I commend our law enforcement colleagues for their dedication to bringing justice in this case.”

Roggio was convicted of torture, conspiracy to commit torture, conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq without the approval of the Department of State, exporting weapons tools to Iraq without the approval of the Department of Commerce, smuggling goods, wire fraud, and money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Roggio is the second defendant to be convicted of torture since the federal torture statute went into effect in 1994.

The FBI and HSI investigated the torture and were joined in investigating the export control violations related to the firearms manufacturing equipment by the Department of Commerce’s BIS Office of Export Enforcement.

Trial Attorney Patrick Jasperse of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd K. Hinkley for the Middle District of Pennsylvania are prosecuting the case. The Estonian Internal Security Service, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and the Pennsylvania State Police also provided valuable assistance.

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE, or complete the FBI online tip form or the ICE online tip form.

New content at THIRD: