bring May flowers…that’s for sure…as well as April rain…rain…rain…Sophie’s graduation was in the rain…what a pain…but as Elissa texted “rain or shine”…says it all…asked Rinagai if she wanted to go to the movies…we went to see Air, me for the second time…and I did see the end one other time…Air was a 4:00…what a wonderful movie…so uplifting…and great for Nike…in the beginning having a 17% share of the basketball sneaker…and because of Michael Jordan, became Number 1…and bought Converse in the bargain…Nike is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon…directed by Ben Afflect…also starring, and with Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans, Chris Messina, Chris Tucker and Viola Davis…a great cast…the theater was fairly crowded for 4:00 on a Saturday…I think word of mouth has helped get the crowds in…Fellini’s 8 1/2 was at 6:30…there was a window of only 30 minutes to have dinner…I arranged with Lucky Well, across the street from the Ambler, to have a table and our food ready at 6:00…thank you to the hostess who got everything together and we ate and we were crossing the street to see the Fellini film on time…and that was really full…only seats in the very front…the film about making a film…it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costumes ( Black and White ) in 1964…from Wikipedia: “8+1⁄2 (Italian title: Otto e mezzo, pronounced [ˈɔtto e mˈmɛddzo]) is a 1963 surrealistcomedy-drama film directed and co-written (with Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Brunello Rondi) by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. The metafictional narrative centers on Guido Anselmi, played by Marcello Mastroianni, a famous Italian film director who suffers from stifled creativity as he attempts to direct an epic science fiction film. Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, and Eddra Gale portray the various women in Guido’s life. The film is shot in black and white by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and features a soundtrack by Nino Rota ( who won an Oscar for Godfather II, he composed Godfather 1 and introduced us to the Godfather theme ), with costume and set designs by Piero Gherardi.
8+1⁄2 was critically acclaimed and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (black-and-white). It is acknowledged as an avant-garde film and a highly influential classic. It was ranked 10th on the British Film Institute‘s The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012 critics’ poll and 4th by directors. It is listed on the Vatican’s compilation of the 45 best films made before 1995, the 100th anniversary of cinema. The film ranked 7th in BBC‘s 2018 list of The 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films voted by 209 film critics from 43 countries around the world.
The film was also included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage‘s 100 films to be saved, a list of 100 films that “have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978”. It is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential films of all time.”…my neck was a little cricked at the end and I had to put my coat over myself as it become cold in the theater…it was part of the Ambler’s 35 MM Film Festival…did I write that I missed Top Hat last night?…I really wanted to see that on the big screen…Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers…we went to Marzano’s for dinner last night…compliments of Sally and Rob and Danny and Lori…they gave me gift cards for my 80th Birthday…Pam, Julia, Henry and Jim…fun and delicious…Yum!… thank you Sally and Rob and Danny and Lori…and Jim for paying the difference…tomorrow Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant…love that movie…it’s at 12:00…I hope I make it…I have a dinner date with Susie tomorrow at 6:00 postponed from last week…that was my Saturday…walking through the raindrops…that kept falling on my head…April showers bring May flowers…
came home to watch Sing…the first animated film in the Sing franchise…great voice talents…Taron Egerton played Johnny the Gorilla…who sings Elton John’s I’m Still Standing…Taron went on to play Elton in the film Rocketman by a turn of events…I’m sure Sing and Taron’s performance of I’m Still Standing gave him a thumb’s up…Egerton won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy…and Elton John and Bernie Taupin won a Golden Globe and Oscar for their original song I’m Gonna Love Me Again for the film…I read about the film’s censorship in some countries…interesting…from Wikipedia: “In March 2019, it was reported that Paramount Pictures was pressuring director Dexter Fletcher and producer Matthew Vaughn to cut a sex scene between Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, so that the film could receive a PG-13 rating in the United States, as influenced by the financial success of Bohemian Rhapsody the year prior. Fletcher denied the reports, saying that the movie “has and always will be the no holds barred, musical fantasy that Paramount and producers passionately support and believe in” and said the allegations were “nothing but rumours”.
In Russia, where the film was released on 6 June 2019, about five minutes of footage were removed from the final cut. Central Partnership, the film’s Russian distributor, removed all scenes involving homosexuality and drugs, a move that was criticized by both John and Paramount. The film was censored in Malaysia, sparking condemnation from art critics that the country was becoming a “nanny state“. Safaruddin Mohammad Ali, the head of the country’s Film Censorship Board, said “We do not allow any scenes that promote LGBTQ in films that are for public viewing”, adding that “Although it is about the real life of Elton John, it is not for him to allow the public to see whatever he does or whatever activities he indulges in that is not our culture”.
The film was banned in Samoa, a conservative Christian nation. Principal Censor Leiataua Niuapu, of the country’s Censorship Board, explained: “It’s a good story, in that it’s about an individual trying to move on in life. He [John] went through a difficult family life and managed to move on and become very successful. But there are acts that are not good for public viewing and against the law.” The film was also banned in Egypt, where John himself was banned from visiting back in 2010. The reason given was his “anti-religious sentiments”, though Film Stories journalist Simon Brew argued that the ban “seemed pretty clear it was more to do with [John’s] sexuality”.
In October 2019, Entertainment Weekly digital director Shana Krochmal accused Delta Air Lines of removing “almost every reference” to John’s sexuality in the version of the film shown on the airline, including scenes of kissing and gay sex. In response, a Delta spokesperson said that “Delta’s content parameters do not in any way ask for the removal of homosexual content from the film” and that “We value diversity and inclusion as core to our culture and our mission and will review our processes to ensure edited video content doesn’t conflict with these values”…I had no idea!…Sing was so adorable…we all raced to Neshaminy Movie Theater to see Sing…the voice talents of Matthew McConaughey, Reece Witherspoon, Seth McFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, Rhea Perelman, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Jennifer Saunders, Jennifer Hudson, Nick Offerman among others making Sing great…I hope you saw Sing…and Sing II…
we’ve all been hearing about Clarence Thomas’ corruption…and let’s not forget the credible accusations of sexual harassment that Anita Hill…Thomas played the racial prejudice card, he did so indignantly…showed the way for Brett Kavanaugh…those many years later…and the sham 2018 FBI “investigation” about more sexual misconduct at Yale besides Christine Blasey Ford’s account of her run-in with Kavanaugh in High School…and there’s been Neil Gorsuch’s failure to disclose a real estate sale… first this from The Guardian by Stephanie Kirchgaessner: “Revealed: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh assault claims contained serious omissions: The 2018 investigation into the then supreme court nominee claimed there was ‘no evidence’ behind claims of sexual assault: A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.
The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.
The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.
Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.
Smith wrote to Davis in the 29 September 2018 email that he was in a class behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez (who graduated in the class of 1987) and believed Ramirez was likely mistaken in identifying Kavanaugh.
Instead, Smith said it was a fellow classmate named Jack Maxey, who was a member of Kavanaugh’s fraternity, who allegedly had a “reputation” for exposing himself, and had once done so at a party. To back his claim, Smith also attached a photograph of Maxey exposing himself in his fraternity’s 1988 yearbook picture.
The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.
The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.
Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.
Smith wrote to Davis in the 29 September 2018 email that he was in a class behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez (who graduated in the class of 1987) and believed Ramirez was likely mistaken in identifying Kavanaugh.
Instead, Smith said it was a fellow classmate named Jack Maxey, who was a member of Kavanaugh’s fraternity, who allegedly had a “reputation” for exposing himself, and had once done so at a party. To back his claim, Smith also attached a photograph of Maxey exposing himself in his fraternity’s 1988 yearbook picture.
The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.
“I was not at Yale,” he said. “I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven.” He added: “These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.”
The revelation raises new questions about apparent efforts to downplay and discredit accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh and exclude evidence that supported an alleged victim’s claims.
A new documentary – an early version of which premiered at Sundance in January, but is being updated before its release – contains a never-before-heard recording of another Yale graduate, Max Stier, describing a separate alleged incident in which he said he witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself at a party at Yale.
It has previously been reported that Stier wanted to tell the FBI anonymously during the confirmation process that he had allegedly witnessed Kavanaugh’s friends push the future judge’s penis into the hand of a female classmate at a party. While Republicans on the Senate committee were reportedly made aware of his desire to submit information to the FBI, he was not interviewed by the committee’s Republican investigators.
The committee’s final report claimed there was “no verifiable evidence to support” Ramirez’s claim.
It is not clear how the film’s director, Doug Liman, obtained the recording, or whom Stier was speaking to when it was recorded.
Stier, the chief executive of a Washington nonprofit who formerly served in the Clinton administration, declined to comment to the Guardian.
He is married to Florence Pan, a prominent judge on the US court of appeals in Washington. Pan sits in the seat that was vacated by Ketanji Brown Jackson, the US supreme court justice, and is seen as a possible future candidate for the US high court.
Maxey adamantly denied any allegation that he exposed himself to Ramirez at any time. Asked if he had ever visited Yale at the time of the alleged incident, Maxey said he had visited his older brother, Christopher, who was an older student at Yale, on a limited number of occasions when he was a senior in high school, but that they had not attended any freshmen parties.
Maxey, a Republican activist, has gained prominence in conservative circles for his role in sharing a portable hard drive of data from Hunter Biden’s laptop with members of the media, including the Washington Post. When he was reached by the Guardian, Maxey said he was in Europe and claimed he had “just” given the hard drive to Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary.
Maxey has said he obtained the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani. He previously worked as a researcher for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast but the two have since had a falling out.
While Maxey seemed in his interview with the Guardian to have been annoyed that Smith – whom he said he didn’t know or recall interacting with – named him in an accusatory email, he also separately defended Kavanaugh, who he said had behaved like a “choir boy” while attending Yale.
Smith’s email arrived in Davis’s inbox six days after the New Yorker first published details of Ramirez’s accusation. In the article, Ramirez described how Kavanaugh had allegedly exposed himself drunkenly at a dormitory party, thrusting his penis in her face in a way that caused her to touch it without her consent in order to push him away. Ramirez, who was raised as a devout Catholic, described feeling ashamed, humiliated and embarrassed after the alleged assault, and recalled how Kavanaugh had allegedly laughed as he pulled his pants up.
Kavanaugh has denied the incident took place.
Ramirez, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.
Smith did not respond to several requests for comment.
It is not clear whether Smith, a Denver-based partner at Bartlit Beck, knew or had a relationship with Kavanaugh while or after both attended Yale as undergraduate students, or what prompted him to send Davis the email, which was an apparent attempt to clear Kavanaugh of suspicion.
According to his online biography, Smith attended the University of Chicago’s law school after graduating from Yale and – like Kavanaugh – was part of the legal team that represented George W Bush in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida.
Redacted emails show that Smith also appears to have shared his accusation about Maxey with federal investigators. While the name of the accuser and the accused were redacted, records released by the FBI show that an individual made the exact same claim as Smith made to Davis to the FBI shortly after the email was sent to Davis. In it, the individual wrote: “I submitted this same information to a staff member of the Senate judiciary committee, Mike Davis, because I know him, and he suggested I also submit it to you.”
Davis declined to comment. The Republican staff on the Senate judiciary committee declined to respond to a request for comment.
The FBI was at the time involved in its own review of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. The investigation, conducted under FBI director Christopher Wray, another Yale graduate, has widely been derided as a “sham” by Democrats led by the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate judiciary committee.
Whitehouse’s office is expected to release a report into the FBI’s handling of the Kavanaugh investigation by the end of this year.”
from CNN by Jessica Schneider and Tierney Sneed: “Justice Neil Gorsuch’s property sale to prominent lawyer raises more ethical questions: A nearly $2 million sale of property co-owned by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to a prominent law firm executive in 2017 is raising new questions about the lax ethics reporting requirements for Supreme Court justices.
Property records from Grand County, Colorado, show that the Walden Group LLC – a limited-liability company in which Gorsuch was a partner – sold a 40-acre property on the Colorado River to Brian Duffy, chief executive officer of the prominent law firm Greenberg Traurig.
Duffy and his wife, Kari Duffy, paid $1.8 million for the property on May 12, 2017 – just one month after Gorsuch was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
The financial disclosure report filed by Gorsuch for the calendar year 2017 lists a sale by the Walden Group LLC for a profit of between $250,000 and $500,000. However, the section where a buyer could be listed is blank. It’s unclear if that’s a violation of ethics rules.
Brian Duffy is currently based in Denver and previously served as president and chair of the Greenberg Traurig’s 600-member global litigation department.
Lawyers at Greenberg Traurig have appeared in numerous cases that have come before the Supreme Court since Gorsuch joined the bench in April 2017. Duffy told Politico that he had not himself argued any cases that were in front Gorsuch, nor had he and the justice met in a social capacity.
“I’ve never spoken to him,” Duffy said, according to the Politico report. “I’ve never met him.”
The Supreme Court has not responded to a request for comment. CNN also has reached out to Duffy and representatives for Greenberg Traurig.
Notably, another lawyer in the Greenberg Traurig’s Denver office led the legal team representing state of North Dakota in a dispute over the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority in regulating carbon emissions as part of the Clean Air Act.
Gorsuch was part of a six-member majority on the Supreme Court that ruled last June in favor of North Dakota and other Republican-led states to cut back the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants.
The Supreme Court has ethics rules, but it’s largely up to high court to enforce them. The justices have refused to be bound by the official code of conduct that applies to lower-court federal judges and that provides more enforcement mechanisms for policing conflicts involving transactions or business relationships with lawyers or others who come before the court.
The opaqueness in how the sale was recorded on Gorsuch’s financial submissions is the latest example of the justices coming under scrutiny. Democratic lawmakers have said that if the Supreme Court does not adopt more stringent ethics rules, Congress could step in. However, Republicans on the Hill have shown little interest in getting involved.
“This is just another example in a long line of examples of the justices feeling that they are wholly unaccountable to anyone,” said Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund, a group that advocates for greater transparency at the Supreme Court.
“Instead of treating their jobs like the public servants that they should be, they see themselves as above all of us and the rule of law itself,” Lipton-Lubet added.
A version of one court ethics reform bill that has circulated on the Hill would require a cooling-off period in which a judge or justice couldn’t hear a case involving a party, a lawyer or a firm supervisor from whom the judge or justice had received “income, a gift, or reimbursement” that requires disclosure under the judiciary’s ethics rules.
Democratic lawmakers have been scrutinizing recent revelations that Justice Clarence Thomas went on lavish trips that included private jet and yacht travel that were paid for by a GOP megadonor. The bulk of the hospitality went unreported on Thomas’ annual disclosure forms.
Thomas has said he was advised that he was not required to report the hospitality, but he has yet to publicly address a separate real estate transaction involving the donor, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, that went undisclosed on his submissions.
Chief Justice John Roberts has been invited by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin to testify to Durbin’s committee about ethics, but the justice has not responded to the voluntary request.”…but a couple of days ago, “in the letter, Roberts declined to testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing next month about ethics rules governing the high court.”…from Reason by Josh Blackman: “Chief Justice Robert’s Letter to Senator Durbin: Last week Senator Dick Durbin invited Chief Justice Roberts to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Despite my hope that the Chief would send Justice Breyer, Roberts respectfully declined Durbin’s invitation. And he sent a letter explaining his decision.
The letter is short–only one page–but Roberts packs a lot in there. I’ll focus on three primary arguments.
First, Roberts invokes the separation of powers and judicial independence.
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.
Roberts does not even begin to explain what those “separation of powers concerns” are. Nor does he elucidate why testifying would weaken “judicial independence.” To play devil’s advocate for a moment, Roberts would be under no obligation to talk about any case or controversy. And, with lifetime tenure and guaranteed salary, the Senators cannot actually do anything that would affect Roberts’s ability to decide cases. The Senate could defund the Court, turn off the lights, eliminate law clerks, and so on, but those remedies are unlikely. Roberts’s conclusory statements are not self-evident.
Yet, Roberts has made such an unexplained statement before. Every New Year’s Eve, the Chief Justice issues an annual report. His statement from December 2011 included this paragraph:
The Code of Conduct, by its express terms, applies only to lower federal court judges. That reflects a fundamental difference between the Supreme Court and the other federal courts. Article III of the Constitution creates only one court, the Supreme Court of the United States, but it empowers Congress to establish additional lower federal courts that the Framers knew the country would need. Congress instituted the Judicial Conference for the benefit of the courts it had created. Because the Judicial Conference is an instrument for the management of the lower federal courts, its committees have no mandate to prescribe rules or standards for any other body.
In January 2012, I wrote that Roberts issued an advisory opinion. At the time, I was persuaded by the Chief. But for reasons I’ll explain later, I now think he’s wrong. I’ll come back to Roberts’s opinion later in the post.
Second, Roberts turned to precedent. He explains that only two Chief Justices have testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Chief Justice Taft in 1921 and Chief Justice Hughes in 1935. And those “hearings involved routine matters of judicial administration relating to additional judgeships in the lower courts and jurisdiction over appeals from lower court injunctions.” Chief Justice Rehnquist appeared twice before House committees on similarly mundane matters. According to Roberts, no testimony was offered by Chief Justices Burger, Warren, or Vinson. Roberts mentioned that Chief Justice Warren submitted a prepared statement concerning federal employees salaries.
Roberts’s history is incomplete. (He has a bad habit of ignoring unhelpful precedent; See U.S. v. Burr) The Chief omitted a very relevant invitation to testify in 1937. Shortly after President Roosevelt announced his Court packing scheme (“Court reform” in newspeak), the Senate Judiciary Committee invited Chief Justice Hughes to testify against the bill. Richard Friedman described the event in the Journal of Supreme Court History.
The Administration took less than two weeks to present its case, and then it was the turn of the opposition forces. Senator Burton K. Wheeler, the liberal Democrat from Montana, was scheduled to lead off their testimony on Monday, March 22. For some time he and his allies had been trying to bring the Court in on their side of the fight. On March 18 Wheeler, accompanied by Senators Warren Austin, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and William King, one of the panel’s senior Democrats, called on Hughes to ask him to testify against the bill. The Chief Justice received the delegation “with his usual Jovian affability and expressed willingness to appear. He would not do so, however, unless accompanied by Brandeis, the senior and most revered member of the Court’s liberal wing. The Senators left in jubilation, assuming that Hughes would testify with Brandeis and Van Devanter, as he had two years before against a bill aimed at changing the Court’s appellate procedure, This time, however, Hughes found that Brandeis stood fast against an appearance in which the Justices would “testify on a matter affecting their own integrity.” Hughes thereupon suggested that he might, in response to a request from the committee, write a letter stating the facts of the court’s work. That idea Brandeis accepted and so, Hughes found, did Van DeVanter.
Ultimately, Hughes wrote a letter. But it was not approved by all members of the Court. Only Justices Brandeis and Van Devanter approved. Hughes wrote:
I have not been able to consult with the members of the Court generally with respect to the foregoing statement, but I am confident that it is in accord with the views of the justices. I should say, however, that I have been able to consult with Mr. Justice Van Devanter and Mr. Justice Brandeis, and I am at liberty to say that the statement is approved by them.
Plus Hughes seemed to issue an advisory opinion about whether Congress could divide the Supreme Court into “panels.” Roberts issued his own such advisory opinion in December 2011.
Could Roberts have even prepared a letter on behalf of the entire Court in response to Senator? We know from Joan Biskupic’s book that some of the other Justices are peeved at how much control the Chief takes over the Court unilaterally. I think it would be impossible for Roberts to gain consensus on such a letter. Speaking of Aaron Burr, Roberts did what he does best: talk less, smile more, don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.
Third, Roberts drew a direct comparison between himself and the President:
Congressional testimony from the head of the Executive Branch is likewise infrequent. According to the United States Senate website, no President has ever testified before the Senate Judiciary, and only three Presidents (in 1862, 1919, and 1974) have testified before any Congressional committee.
In 1862, President Lincoln voluntarily testified about how his annual message was prematurely published in a newspaper. In 1919, President Wilson voluntarily testified concerning the peace treaty with Germany and the League of Nations. And in 1974, President Ford voluntarily testified about his pardon of former-President Nixon.
Once again, Roberts played fast-and-loose with the history. A footnote on the Senate site indicates that George Washington testified before the full Senate in 1789.
1. President George Washington testified before the entire Senate on the subject of Indian treaties on August 22, 1789.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was not formed until 1816. So Roberts’s statement was technically accurate, but it was not entirely forthcoming. Washington’s meeting was actually quite significant. He sought the Senate’s “advice” with regard to treaties with Indian tribes. Of course, the collective Senate was indecisive, and wanted to appoint a committee to study the matter. Washington found the incident to be such a waste of time that he never again sought the Senate’s “advice.” Going forward, Washington only requested “consent” in the form of a Senate ratification vote. I wrote about this episode in my 2017 article, SCOTUS After Scalia (starting at p. 135):
In a scene too remarkable to imagine, President Washington “started up in a violet fret.”449 In words emphasized in Maclay’s journal, the General barked, “This defeats every purpose of my coming here.”450 Washington had visited the Senate with Henry Knox, the secretary of war, who could “give every necessary information.”451 After Washington “cooled, however, by degrees,” he did not object to a delay until Monday, “but declared he did not understand the matter of commitment” to a committee. 452 Washington then “withdr[e]w” with a “discontented air,” that could be described as “sullen dignity.”453 On Monday, the Senate reconvened, with President Washington wearing “a different aspect” from his previous visit.454 After a “tedious debate,” and several modifications to the language of the treaty, the Senate provided its advice and consent.455 “This closed the business. The President of the United States withdrew, and the Senate adjourned.”456 Presidential frustration with indecisive congresses is as old as the Republic.
Other than Roberts’s incomplete account of history, the Chief Justice does not explain why he is analogous to the President. I suspect the answer would go something like this: the Constitution creates the executive branch and the judicial branch. The President is the head of the executive branch and Roberts is the head of the judicial branch. Therefore, they hold equivalent statute in our separation of powers. QED.
I don’t think this argument works. The Constitution created the position of the President. No statute was needed when President Washington was elected. Likewise, no statute was needed to create the individual representatives and senators in Congress. No statute was needed to structure the number of Presidents (1) and size of each house. The Constitution took care of that. But a statute was needed to create the position that Roberts currently holds. And a statute was needed to set the size of the Supreme Court. Plus Congress was under no obligation to even create the lower courts, which Roberts now presides over. I discuss some of this history in Part II of my series with Seth Barrett Tillman:
Four years earlier, the Judiciary Act of 1789 stated that the “the supreme court of the United States shall consist of a chief justice and five associate justices.” On the same day the Judiciary Act was enacted, President Washington sent a communication to the Senate, which was recorded in the Senate Executive Journal. Washington made nominations for the “Supreme Court of the United States.” He selected John Jay for “Chief Justice,” and John Rutledge, James Wilson, William Cushing, Robert Harrison, and John Blair as “Associate Judges.”
But wait a minute, you might ask. Doesn’t the Constitution require the Chief Justice to preside at the impeachment of the President? There is no requirement that the Chief Justice referenced in the Impeachment Clause is the same person as the presiding officer of the Supreme Court. None. Seth and I raised this issue during the first Trump impeachment, where we explained that Justice Thomas could have presided, if Roberts was unable to do so. Or, we think, Congress could designate a different presiding officer by statute. Lots of people offered commentary about our view on Twitter, but to my knowledge, they haven’t revisited the issue in four years. It was, and is, very common for people to criticize us on topics they had previously given zero thought, and give zero thought subsequent to that criticism. Weird.
In any event, no the Chief Justice is not equivalent to the President in terms of our separation of powers. Why does this fact matter? Since Congress has created the judges of the Supreme Court by statute, Congress has enacted laws governing what those justices can do. Congress established the date on which the justice assembles (the first Monday in October), the required quorum size, the federal recusal statute, and so on. There are some limits on that authority with regard to judicial independence. But, sorry Chief, Congress could enact an ethics code on the Court. The permissible canons of such a code are a very different matter.”
Senator Whitehouse has been on top of the Supreme Court non-ethics…he’s good at numbers too…here’s what he said about McCarthy’s debt ceiling limit package – “If ever you needed proof that the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, McCarthy’s debt ceiling limit package is it…Amazingly, almost 280 pages out of the the 320 page bill are devoted to fossil fuel industry giveaways. This bill isn’t about debt and deficits. It’s not about limiting, saving, and growing. It’s about serving fossil fuel, the source of the money that keeps them in power”…true to form…Republicans are full of it…
up before 10:00 when Elissa called to hear if I was up…I got myself together…was at her apartment by 11:20 to help her with her luggage and get her to the airport…I thought traffic wouldn’t be bad at 11:30 on the Expressway…but the bottleneck was true to form…giving Elissa a little anxiety…I always recall when Nancy and I we’re heading to the airport, she was always worried that we wouldn’t make the plane and I was always worried that we would make the plane…I don’t like to fly but realize it’s the only way to get somewhere other than drive…so over the years my “fears” make been allayed and I get on a plane and fly…we didn’t know what terminal her plane was…American has several terminals…we stopped at the B Terminal for her to ask the agent which terminal…found out it was Terminal F…the last one…she ordered a wheelchair to the gate…it’s a great way to get though security…they whisk you through and deliver you to your gate in plenty of time…her flight was at 1:30…I always stop at the new Wawa gas station on the other side of the Penrose Avenue Bridge…where I found a penny and a dime…I stop to use the facilities…found a nickel getting gas later in Roslyn…then off to the Art Museum…I always take advantage of being in town to go to the Art Museum…but first to Little Pete’s Restaurant at The Philadelphian where my mother-in-law lived for years and years…she had the greatest apartment on the 20th floor facing the city and the Art Museum…we would always go there for the Thanksgiving Parade…and to watch fireworks…and any other event happening on the Parkway…went to have a Milan Salad and onion soup for lunch…and as luck would have it, the “Little Pete’s Salad” was on lunch special…$14.95…it came with only four shrimp…instead of 5…which was okay for the price…it was a delicious lunch and then I walked through the building, through the lobby to get to the Art Museum…they are doing construction at the back of the building with barriers all along the Fairmount Blvd…noisy and “scary”…walked to the North Entrance and headed to the Second Floor to see the photography show of Judith Joy Ross’s photographs…she is a PA native…around Weatherly, Bethlehem, Philadelphia and Hazelton…where her family has lived for generations…I haven’t been to Weatherly…but the other places I have been…Hazelton was like going back to the 30’s…I bought a large bowl there…my mother-in-law loved the bowl and asked if she could have it…I loaned it to her…we got it back when she died…I use it for taking salad to here and there…it’s big…and getting harder and harder to get around these days…but I still use it…that’s how I remember Hazelton…and artist that I knew casually lived there…a friend of Ron Bateman, another artist who originally was from England…Ron taught at Tyler…I have a couple of his paintings and several of his prints…last I heard he was in Spain…he’s in the Art Museum’s collection…he was represented by the Marion Lockes Gallery way back then…anyway, Judith Joy Ross…from the Museum’s site: “Judith Joy Ross was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1946. She graduated from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1968 and earned a master’s degree in Photography in 1970 from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
Ross has received a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985), an Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1986), a City of Easton/Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant (1988), the Charles Pratt Memorial Award (1992), and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant (1991). Her photographs are included in numerous institutional collections including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; among many others.”…and here’s what the posted about the exhibition: “
Through August 6
“Judith Joy Ross has, as an artist, no formula. She starts over again each time—the riskiest way to do it. She has a style, of course, but it is austere. It cannot, if she panics, be used to take the place of content.”
—American photographer Robert Adams
The work of Judith Joy Ross marks a watershed in the lineage of the photographic portrait. Her pictures—unpretentious, quietly penetrating, startling in their transparency—consistently achieve the capacity to glimpse the past, present, and perhaps even the future of the individuals who stand before her lens. Since the early 1980s, Ross has used a large-format, 8×10-inch view camera as a tool to capture the distilled essence of her brief encounters with a cross-section of the American people, with a focus on those in eastern Pennsylvania, where she was born and raised.
For Ross, whose stated purpose is “to notice what is going on with other people and to record it,” this has required a spontaneous and radical reformulation of the relationship between the photographer and the photographed. When successful, these encounters yield pictures that enable an acute emotional and psychological connection that resists sentimentality, upends prejudice, and traverses boundaries of time, place, and circumstance.
Featuring approximately 200 photographs, this exhibition charts Ross’s work through all her major projects as well as smaller series and individual images that have never been seen before. Together, these bodies of work explore what it means to be a citizen and a human being, forming a profound portrait of our age. The Philadelphia Museum of Art will be the only US venue for the exhibition, following its European tour in Madrid, Paris, and the Hague.”…I left the Museum around 4:30…down Kelly Drive and straight to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy the hair stuff I’ve been looking for since a year ago that I ran out of…they stopped honoring the coupons yesterday…and I couldn’t stay as I wanted to go see the Vermeer documentary…I went back to get them…on 10% off…but I got them anyway…back home to make guacamole…and gather up chips, crackers ( GF rice crackers we all discovered from Aldi that are fabulous )…Havarti with dill, and onion dip to take to Trivia…meet Pam and Julia…our team is named Three Generations…and Jim was there, he took the train out…we won won of the four rounds…we hadn’t won for a while lately…but we felt “we were back”…and by the way, Julia is the greatest at unscrambling words…Jim is great at knowing the year a song came out…and I know stuff just from my 80 years…hahaha…the question was “Michael Jackson was called the King of Pop, Elvis was the King of Rock and Roll, what was Benny Goodman called?…Jim and I knew he was the King of Swing…trivial night at the Cheshire Brewing Company at Creekside is always fun…and a beer every once in a while is good too…home by 9:30…to settle down…I walked over 2.2 miles today…”hobbling along”…my knees are killing me…I force myself to walk…Pam made me an appointment to see about my knees in May…which is right around the corner…as well as Ben’s 27th birthday…my grandson will be 27!!!…on May 2…his birth made me a grandfather in 1996…love that boy!…well, I watched a little bit of MSNBC and promptly fell asleep on the sofa…woke up…and wrote this blog about my full day…Elissa got to Michigan for her granddaughter’s graduation…and all is well…
I’m glad to hear Disney aka Robert Iger…is suing Ron DeSantis…stupid Ron DeSantis…from CNN by Eric Bradner and Steve Contorno: “Disney sues DeSantis and oversight board after vote to nullify agreement with special taxing district: Walt Disney Parks and Resorts on Wednesday sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his hand-picked oversight board, accusing the Republican 2024 presidential prospect of weaponizing his political power to punish the company for exercising its free speech rights.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court minutes after the board appointed by DeSantis to oversee Disney’s special taxing district sought to claw back its power from the entertainment giant, voting to invalidate an agreement struck between Disney and the previous board in February, just before that board’s dissolution.
“What they created is an absolute legal mess, OK? It will not work,” said Martin Garcia, chairman of the DeSantis-picked Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board of supervisors.
Wednesday’s moves are the latest escalation in the fight between DeSantis and Disney as DeSantis moves toward a 2024 presidential bid.
Disney responded by suing DeSantis, the board and Florida Department of Economic Opportunity acting secretary Meredith Ivey, seeking to block the board’s moves.
The lawsuit characterizes Wednesday’s vote as the “latest strike” in “a targeted campaign of government retaliation – orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech.”
It says DeSantis’ retaliation “now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”
“Disney finds itself in this regrettable position because it expressed a viewpoint the Governor and his allies did not like. Disney wishes that things could have been resolved a different way,” the lawsuit says. “But Disney also knows that it is fortunate to have the resources to take a stand against the State’s retaliation – a stand smaller businesses and individuals might not be able to take when the State comes after them for expressing their own views. In America, the government cannot punish you for speaking your mind.”
The board’s move Wednesday was expected, and board members in previous meetings had previewed its argument over why it saw the agreement as invalid. In March, the board hired a team of law firms to represent the district in “potential legal challenges” with Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, signaling that DeSantis’ appointees anticipated the fight was headed to the court room.
Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted at the entertainment giant’s case against the state when he told shareholders earlier this month that “the company has a right to freedom of speech just like individuals do.”
“The governor got very angry about the position that Disney took, and it seems like he’s decided to retaliate against us. … in effect, to seek to punish a company for its exercise of a constitutional right,” Iger said. “And that just seems really wrong to me – against any company or individual, but particularly against a company that means so much to the state that you live in.”
The fight now shifts to the courts, where Disney, in its 77-page lawsuit, is seeking an injunction that would block the board from exercising the power DeSantis and the Republican-led legislature sought to hand it.
“We are unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state,” DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske said. “This lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”
DeSantis, speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, blasted Disney’s lawsuit against him Thursday, saying the company did not “want to pay the same taxes as everybody else.”
“I don’t think the suit has merit. I think it’s political,” DeSantis said, accusing the entertainment giant of being “upset that they are actually having to live by the same rules as everybody else.”
The yearlong fight has strained what had long been a cozy relationship between Florida’s government and the state’s best-known employer and attraction of tourist dollars. DeSantis earlier this month suggested the state could build a prison or competing theme park on what had for decades been Disney-controlled property.
The Florida governor’s battle with Disney has become a flashpoint in the early stages of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Former President Donald Trump and a slew of other candidates and potential rivals, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have lambasted DeSantis for his actions, characterizing them as anti-business.
After a hearing in which several business owners, including those who run restaurants and bars at Disney World locations, urged the board to work with Disney, Garcia said the board would seek to raise taxes to pay for its legal fees in evaluating and combatting what he called “eleventh hour agreements.”
“Because that’s going to cost us money, we’re going to have to raise taxes to pay for that,” Garcia said.
The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District board of supervisors – the board named by DeSantis and packed with his allies earlier this year – took over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the special taxing district that for half a century gave Disney control over the land around its Central Florida theme parks.
But before the DeSantis-selected board was in place, Disney in February reached an agreement with the outgoing board that seemed to render the body powerless to control the entertainment giant. The DeSantis administration was unaware of the agreement for a month and vowed retribution after it became public.
The agreements Disney signed with the previous board ensured the company’s development rights throughout the district for the next 30 years and in some cases prevented the board from taking significant action without first getting approval from the company. One provision restricted the new board from using any of Disney’s “fanciful characters” until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England.”
Its development agreement was approved over the course of two public meetings held two weeks apart earlier this year, both noticed in the local Orlando newspaper and attended by about a dozen residents and members of the media. No one from the governor’s office was present at either meeting, according to the meeting minutes.
In Wednesday’s meeting, the board’s special general counsel, Daniel Langley, walked through its legal argument for nullifying the deal between Disney and the previous board.
He said the board had not provided the required public notice of its meetings, and said the agreement was not properly approved by two municipalities within the district, the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista.
He also argued that previous amendments to Disney’s long-term comprehensive plan were not properly vetted and approved by those two municipalities.
“The bottom line is that a development agreement has to be approved by the governing body of a jurisdiction, and that didn’t happen from the cities that have jurisdiction,” Langley said.
Former Florida Supreme Court justice Alan Lawson, an attorney hired by the district, said that “the old board attempted to act without legal authority to act.”
“This is essentially about what it means to live and work in a country governed by the rule of law. Everyone must play by the same rules,” he said. “Disney was openly and legally granted unique and special privilege – that privilege of running its own government for a time. That era has ended.”
The end of a decades-old agreement
The state legislature created the Reedy Creek Improvement District in 1967 and effectively gave Disney the power to control municipal services like power, water, roads and fire protection around its Central Florida theme parks that didn’t exist before Walt Disney and his builders arrived. But the special district also freed Disney from bureaucratic red tape and made it cheaper to borrow to finance infrastructure projects around its theme parks, among other significant advantages.
That special arrangement, though criticized at times, was largely protected by state politicians as both Disney and Florida benefited from the tourism boom.
The unlikely fracturing of Florida’s relationship with its most iconic business started during the contentious debate last year over state legislation to restrict certain classroom instruction on sexuality and gender identity. Disney’s then-CEO, Bob Chapek, facing pressure from his employees, reluctantly objected to the bill, leading DeSantis to criticize the company. When DeSantis signed the legislation into law, Disney announced it would push for its repeal. DeSantis then targeted Disney’s special governing powers.
For DeSantis, who has built a political brand by going toe-to-toe with businesses he identifies as “woke,” the latest twist threatens to undermine a central pillar of his story as he lays the groundwork for a likely presidential campaign. An entire chapter of his new autobiography is devoted to Disney, and the saga is well-featured in the stump speech he has delivered around the country in recent weeks. ( This story has been updated with additional reporting. )
..it’s now become clear that DeSantis made a blunder…going after Disney…one of his many blunders as he seeks to be the GOP’s presidential nominee…he, as of yet, hasn’t tossed his ring into the fray…he has to resign from the governorship to do so…he should keep his day job…
and Special Counsel Jack Smith whisks Pence before the grand jury in record time…yay!
I spent most of the day at the Ambler Theater…I remarked to the ticket taker, that now knows me, “I should get a bed here”…I was there last night too…in the meanwhile, I went to Bed Bath and Beyond, their last day for their “coupons”…picked out a few things…what I went for was Brita filters…they don’t have them…and a woman at the beginning, gave me 5 coupons…I got in line and it was never ending…they only had two registers open…I couldn’t stay…put everything back and left…had to be at Ambler at 4:20…meanwhile, I hear trump is calling E. Jean Carroll a liar in a post in the last couple of days…the very thing she is suing him for…he just never learns, and he opts for not showing up to tell his side of the story…methinks he protests too much…trump tried to delay this suit…citing he was already in New York previously and needed a cooling off space…but the judge would have nothing of it…his future prospects of lawsuits seems the future would be worst…today the Judge rebukes trump…from The Guardian by Chris McGreal: “Judge rebukes Trump for ‘entirely inappropriate’ post before E Jean Carroll testimony: Lewis Kaplan condemns ex-president for calling civil rape trial ‘a made-up scam’ and Carroll’s lawyer a ‘political operative’: E Jean Carroll, the advice columnist suing Donald Trump for rape, testified on Wednesday in the civil trial of the former president for alleged battery and defamation.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” she said.
Before Carroll took the stand, however, the judge in the case, Lewis A Kaplan, rebuked Trump for an “entirely inappropriate” statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, shortly before proceedings began.
Kaplan warned the former president’s lawyers that such statements about the case could bring more legal problems upon himself.
Trump, who has not attended so far, called the case “a made-up scam”. He also called Carroll’s lawyer “a political operative” and alluded to a DNA issue Kaplan has ruled cannot be part of the case.
He also called Trump’s post “a public statement that, on the face of it, seems entirely inappropriate”.
The Trump attorney Joe Tacopina noted that jurors are told not to follow any news or online commentary about the case. But he said he would ask Trump “to refrain from any further posts about this case”.
“I hope you’re more successful,” Kaplan said, adding that Trump “may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability”.
The trial opened on Tuesday with Carroll’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, telling the jury of three women and six men she was seeking “to clear her name, to pursue justice and to get her life back”.”…from NSNBC by Lisa Rubin: “How E. Jean Carroll camp’s opening statement went from compelling to can’t-look-away: The start of the Carroll v. Trump defamation and battery civil trial was unlike anything I’ve seen in a federal courthouse.: On Tuesday, I walked into the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse in Manhattan, a gleaming marble tower where this lawyer-turned-journalist spent considerable time over the last 20 years — but never quite like this.
That’s because the opening statements in the civil trial for writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and battery lawsuit against Donald Trump were unlike anything I’ve seen in a federal courthouse. It was a searing, vivid account of a nearly 30-year-old alleged sexual assault that could easily devolve into a “he said/she said” but for intrepid lawyering, fortuitous photos and videos, and Trump’s own spigot of speech.
While legendary litigator Roberta Kaplan has been the face of Carroll’s case, there are several other, less visible lawyers on her team with serious trial chops. And Carroll began her case with one of them, a woman named Shawn Crowley, who not only spent several years as a prosecutor in the same courthouse, but also was a law clerk to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over the trial.
Crowley started with the basic allegations: Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room while on a shopping trip to find a gift for a woman Trump knew.
When Carroll confided in two friends shortly thereafter, they gave her opposite advice, Crowley alleged. One allegedly explained to Carroll that she had been raped and urged her to call the police. Days later, the other friend allegedly warned that Trump would “ruin her life and her career” if she spoke.
Carroll, born in 1943 and raised to “grin and bear it,” chose silence, Crowley alleged, until “silence became impossible” in the wake of The New York Times’ Harvey Weinstein reporting, which set in motion the #MeToo movement.
Having newly embarked on a book project about women’s experiences with men, Carroll was forced to re-examine her own life experiences and ultimately wrote not about others, but about herself. And she finally confronted a trauma long buried: the alleged assault by Trump, which she included in that book and in an excerpt published in June 2019 in New York magazine.
But after she came forward, Trump’s “explosive” response, a denial that claimed Carroll was “not my type” (or code for “she was too ugly to assault,” as Crowley put it), made her a target for online attacks and then unraveled her career as an advice columnist.
Crowley made clear that she was “proud to represent” Carroll and help clear her name. And while maintaining that the jury could hold Trump liable on the basis of Carroll’s testimony alone, she insisted this case is not a “he/said, she/said” because so many other witnesses can — and will — corroborate her account.
Those witnesses include the assistant manager and chief of operations at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-90s, who Crowley said can confirm key details about the store and why no one saw Carroll and Trump on the night of the alleged assault; Carroll’s sister, who Crowley said can explain why, given their shared, rural Indianan upbringing, Carroll’s decades-long silence is unsurprising; two experts who are expected to opine on the psychological and reputational impact on Carroll; and of course, the two friends to whom Carroll revealed the alleged assault in real-time.
At all times, Crowley was calm but firm, insistent yet relatable. Her opening was like an invitation to the jury to examine the rings of a tree. At the center, there is Carroll’s own narrative. One ring beyond are all the people who say they can back up Carroll’s own account. And finally, she outlined the case’s outer-most ring: the testimony of two other women, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who have alleged Trump sexually assaulted them too in 1979 and 2005 respectively. (Trump has vehemently denied the allegations.)
And that’s where Crowley’s opening went from compelling to can’t-look-away: She wove the stories of Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff into “three women, one pattern,” all of which she said tracks Trump’s own statement on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. (The court has already ruled that Carroll can introduce that tape as evidence.)
Referencing that tape, Crowley continued, “He thought no one was listening,” but it was “not locker room talk.” Instead, she asserted, the tape describes exactly what Trump did to each of them: Forcibly kiss without consent, grab, grope, and “do anything” because he was a “star.”
And in each of the cases, Trump lied, denying the assault, Crowley said, before demeaning the accuser as “not his type.” The problem, of course, is that Carroll was exactly his type. How do we know, she asked? Because there is photographic proof that he met Carroll at an event in the late 1980s.
Crowley then put that photo up on a screen for all present to see, showing Carroll, now an elegant 79, in her mid-40s, all bouncy hair, shining eyes and gleaming teeth. And Crowley then revealed that at Trump’s deposition, the former president testified, under oath, that Carroll was Marla Maples, his second wife, who he has said was exactly his type.
Before she finished, Crowley reminded the jurors: This isn’t a criminal case. All they have to decide is whether he was lying in his October 2022 post on Truth Social, in which he called her story a “hoax and a lie,” and is it more likely than not that he assaulted her? And Crowley assured the jury that Carroll’s team would show them how the evidence supports only one conclusion: that Trump is liable for both defaming Carroll and assaulting her.
On Wednesday morning, Carroll’s team will start their case in earnest with witness testimony. Will they deliver what they’ve promised? And can their witnesses withstand the withering cross-examinations Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina committed to in his opening on Tuesday? (For more on Tacopina’s opening statement, check out my Twitter thread here.)
I’ll be in the courtroom for the action. Stay tuned.”…yes, stay tuned…trump seemed to be on his way to accountability, and comeuppance…
I raced to Ambler to see a documentary about Johannes Vermeer…”the Master of Light”…an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam got almost all of the Vermeer paintings known in the world together…the exhibition was sold out which runs from February 10 through June 4, 2023…probably the reason they made this documentary…from Illuminations:
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has pulled off the unthinkable, mounting an exhibition of almost all of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings. The exceptional nature of the show was not lost on art lovers, with every single ticket being sold out before opening. For those feeling they’ve missed out on this genuinely once in a life time opportunity, we would like to point you in the direction of our excellent film on Jan Vermeer.
In the film, Michael Gill delves into the master’s world and talks about the camera obscura and Vermeer’s interest in science and cartography. Together with experts, he explores Vermeer’s secrets of perspective, space, allegory and symbolic relationships in his works.
Very little is known about Vermeer himself. There are no diary entries, writing, or letters that have survived. Vermeer was hardly recognised during his lifetime, and cemented his outsider status when he married by converting to Catholicism in a mostly Protestant country. To paraphrase Heidegger, he lived, he painted, he died.
With only 34, possibly 35, paintings in existence, attempting, to assemble them all in one place has proved difficult. Due to their fragility and value, galleries have long been resistant to loaning the Dutch Master’s paintings. This exhibition pulls work that is owned by the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, Dublin’s National Gallery, with other works coming from as far a field as New York and Tokyo.
The exhibition a the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam runs from the 10th February – 4th June.”…the Rijksmuseum owns 3 Vermeers, I saw them in May of 2019 went I went to Amsterdam before meeting Candy and Ray in Paris…what a great trip that was…my hotel was right around the corner from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum…Amsterdam was my number one place to go…my dream come true…and Amsterdam did not disappoint…the Anne Frank House too…loved the documentary…they talked about each painting in the exhibition…”The work Girl with a Pearl Earring permanently resides in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague.”
it was a beautiful day when I walked into the Ambler at 4:14…when I walked out at 6:15 it was raining…I crossed the street to the BBQ restaurant , The Lucky Well, to see if they had a burger…which they did…and it was delicious…they also had Allagash White on tap…I was a happy camper…walked back across the street to see Tokyo Story…a Japanese film from 1953, restored…from Wikipedia: “Tokyo Story (東京物語, Tōkyō Monogatari) is a 1953 Japanesedrama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recognition and was considered “too Japanese” to be marketable by Japanese film exporters. It was screened in 1957 in London, where it won the inaugural Sutherland Trophy the following year, and received praise from U.S. film critics after a 1972 screening in New York City.
Tokyo Story is widely regarded as Ozu’s masterpiece and one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. It was voted the greatest film of all time in the 2012 edition of a poll of film directors by Sight & Sound magazine.”…the Plot from Wikipedia: “Retired couple Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama live in Onomichi in western Japan with their daughter Kyōko, a primary school teacher. They have five adult children, four of whom are living. The couple travel to Tokyo to visit their son, daughter, and widowed daughter-in-law.”…all their children are too busy to deal with their parents…all except for the daughter-in-law…she takes off work to show they around Tokyo…feeds them and they stay at her humble home…she treats them with dignity and love, more so than their own “flesh and blood”…it was a pretty good film, slow paced but interesting, they was the children treated their parents…and in the end, the mother dies on her return home, the children gather again…”you can’t show your appreciation graveside”…The Plot: “
Retired couple Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama live in Onomichi in western Japan with their daughter Kyōko, a primary school teacher. They have five adult children, four of whom are living. The couple travel to Tokyo to visit their son, daughter, and widowed daughter-in-law.
Their eldest son, Kōichi, is a doctor who runs a small clinic in Tokyo’s suburbs, and their eldest daughter, Shige, runs a hairdressing salon. Kōichi and Shige are both busy and do not have much time for their parents. Only their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko, the wife of their middle son Shōji, who was missing in action and presumed dead during the Pacific War, goes out of her way to entertain them. She takes time from her busy office job to take Shūkichi and Tomi on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo.
Feeling conflicted that they don’t have time to entertain them, Kōichi and Shige pay for their parents to stay at a hot spring spa at Atami but they return early because the nightlife there disturbs their sleep. Tomi also has an unexplained dizzy spell. Upon returning, a frustrated Shige explains that she sent them to Atami because she wanted to use their bedroom for a meeting; the elderly couple has to leave for the evening. Tomi goes to stay with Noriko, with whom she deepens their emotional bond, and advises her to remarry. Shūkichi, meanwhile, gets drunk with some old friends from Onomichi. The three men drunkenly ramble about their children and lives. A policeman brings Shūkichi and one of his friends to Shige’s salon. Shige is outraged that her father is lapsing into the alcoholic ways that overshadowed her childhood.
The couple remarks on how their children have changed, returning home earlier than planned, intending to see their younger son Keizō when the train stops in Osaka. However, Tomi suddenly becomes ill during the journey and they decide to disembark the train, staying until she feels better the next day. They return to Onomichi, and Tomi falls critically ill. Kōichi, Shige, and Noriko rush to Onomichi to see Tomi, who dies shortly afterwards. Keizō arrives too late, as he has been away on business.
After the funeral, Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō leave immediately; only Noriko remains. After they leave, Kyōko criticises her siblings over their selfishness toward their parents. She believes that Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō do not care how hard it will be for their father now that he has lost their mother. She is also upset at Shige for asking so quickly for Tomi’s clothes as keepsakes. Noriko responds that while she understands Kyōko’s disappointment, everyone has their own life and the growing chasm between parents and children is inevitable. She convinces Kyōko not to be too hard on her siblings because one day she will understand how hard it is to take time away from one’s own life.
After Kyōko leaves for school, Noriko informs her father-in-law that she must return to Tokyo that afternoon. Shūkichi tells her that she has treated them better than their own children despite not being a blood relation. Noriko protests that she is selfish and has not always thought about her missing husband, and Shūkichi credits her self-assessment to humility. He gives her a watch from the late Tomi as a memento. Noriko cries and confesses her loneliness; Shūkichi encourages her to remarry as soon as possible, wanting her to be happy. Noriko travels from Onomichi back to Tokyo, contemplating the watch, while Shūkichi remains behind, resigned to the solitude he must endure.”
it still was raining a little when I drive to Elissa to wrap her book that I helped her with for her granddaughter’s college graduation…she leaves tomorrow for Michigan…I will drive her to the airport…I wrapped the present…and came home…found a quarter today…and spoke to Linda, she called after having lunch with Sally and Pam…Sally’s birthday was the 25th…Happy Birthday Sally…
amid all the talk and speculation of Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox “News”…and Joe Biden throwing his hat in the ring.. Fani Willis announcing to the world, indictments would be coming between July and September…and Senator Tuberville of Alabama singlehandedly is stalling military promotions over defense Department’s abortion assistance policy…it means the promotions do not take place, they do not take positions and is dangerous to our military security around the world…Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has ethics problems…law firm head bought Gorsuch’s property on the Colorado River…”Brian Duffy, chief executive officer of the prominent law firm Greenberg Traurig, which had numerous appearances before the Court, Gorsuch did not recuse himself…we also have the beginning of the Civil Suite of E. Jean Carroll against trump…a civil battery and defamation trial…a no nonsense judge, Lewis Kaplan, speedily got a jury seated…it’s said that trump will not appear at the trial…it doesn’t look good for trump…then we have Harry Belafonte has died at 96…from congestive heart failure…singer, actor and activist…the Banana Boat song…”come Mr. Tallyman, tally me bananas”… “daylight come and me wanta’ go home”…Harry Belafonte was the biggest thing in the 1950’s…I remember it so well…he introduced the world to calypso music…Wikipedia: ” His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.”…who knew, Harry Belafonte was an EGOT…he was awarded an Oscar for his humanitarian activism…the first black person to win a Tony…all through his career he was a civil rights activism and humanitarian activism…from Wikipedia: “Political and humanitarian activism:
Belafonte is said to have married politics and pop culture. Belafonte’s political beliefs were greatly inspired by the singer, actor, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson, who mentored him. Robeson opposed not only racial prejudice in the United States but also western colonialism in Africa. Belafonte refused to perform in the American South from 1954 until 1961.
Belafonte gave the keynote address at the ACLU of Northern California’s annual Bill of Rights Day Celebration In December 2007 and was awarded the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival featured the documentary film Sing Your Song, a biographical film focusing on Belafonte’s contribution to and his leadership in the civil rights movement in America and his endeavors to promote social justice globally. In 2011, Belafonte’s memoir My Song was published by Knopf Books.
Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement:
Belafonte supported the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s confidants. He provided for King’s family since King made only $8,000 a year as a preacher. Like many other civil rights activists, Belafonte was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. During the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, Belafonte bailed King out of Birmingham, Alabama City Jail and raised $50,000 to release other civil rights protesters. He contributed to the 1961 Freedom Rides, supported voter registration drives, and helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington. He later recalled, “Paul Robeson had been my first great formative influence; you might say he gave me my backbone. Martin King was the second; he nourished my soul.” Throughout his career, Belafonte was an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. From 1987 until his death, he was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
During the “Mississippi Freedom Summer” of 1964, Belafonte bankrolled the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, flying to Mississippi that August with Sidney Poitier and $60,000 in cash and entertaining crowds in Greenwood. In 1968, Belafonte appeared on a Petula Clark primetime television special on NBC. In the middle of a duet of On the Path of Glory, Clark smiled and briefly touched Belafonte’s arm, which prompted complaints from Doyle Lott, the advertising manager of the show’s sponsor, Plymouth Motors. Lott wanted to retape the segment, but Clark, who had ownership of the special, told NBC that the performance would be shown intact or she would not allow it to be aired at all. Newspapers reported the controversy, Lott was relieved of his responsibilities, and when the special aired, it attracted high ratings.
Belafonte celebrated his 93rd birthday on March 1, 2020, at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in a tribute event that concluded “with a thunderous audience singalong” with rapper Doug E. Fresh to 1956’s “Banana Boat Song”. Soon after, the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture announced it had acquired Belafonte’s vast personal archive of “photographs, recordings, films, letters, artwork, clipping albums,” and other content.”…”come Mr. Tallyman, tally me bananas”…
tonight I went to see a Preston Sturges film, The Palm Beach Story…a screwball comedy written and directed by Sturges…from Wikipedia: “The Palm Beach Story is a 1942 screwball comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea ( .I read that Claudette was paid $130,000 while Joel McCrea was paid $60,000 ), Mary Astor ( as a frivolous rich sister of Vallee’s character…married numerous times, and we annulments )and Rudy Vallée. Victor Young contributed the musical score, including a fast-paced variation of the William Tell Overture for the opening scenes. Typical of a Sturges film, the pacing and dialogue of The Palm Beach Story are very fast.”…it was a screwball comedy…with more funny situations, rather than funny dialogue…I did laugh a few times…clever lines…I like Sullivan’s Travels better…it had more substance…Preston Sturges like to poke fun at the rich…always beautiful apartments or houses…and Rudy Vallee was quite good…he sings Goodnight Sweetheart under the window of Claudette Colbert’s character Gerry…Rudy Vallee was a crooner…and it was Rudy Vallee who had the now classic line at the end of Some Like It Hot…”nobody’s perfect” when Jack Lemmon tells him “he can’t marry him because he’s a man”…Preston Sturges was the first writer director to put those two words together on the screen…from Wikipedia: “Prior to Sturges, other figures in Hollywood (such as Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and Frank Capra) had directed films from their own scripts; however, Sturges is often regarded as the first Hollywood figure to establish success as a screenwriter and then move into directing his own scripts, at a time when those roles were separate. He sold the story for The Great McGinty to Paramount Pictures for $10 in exchange for directing it. Anthony Lane writes that “To us, that seems old hat, one of the paths by which the ambitious get to run their own show, but back in 1940, when The Great McGinty came out, it was very new hat indeed; the opening credits proclaimed ‘Written and directed by Preston Sturges,’ and it was the first time in the history of talkies that the two passive verbs had appeared together onscreen. From that conjunction sprang a whole tradition of filmmaking: literate, spiky, defensive, markedly personal, and almost always funny.” For that film, Sturges was the first person to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
I so enjoy old movies I have seen before and appreciate the Ambler for presenting old films…they are having a 35 MM Film Festival this weekend…playing Top Hat with Astaire and Rodgers…Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn…among other films…check it out…
my knees have been bothering me lately…didn’t walk around Ambler to get my steps in…but found a quarter…thank you Preston Sturges and rest in peace Harry Belafonte…
there were several “mutual agreements” to part ways at major media companies…at NBCUniversal, Jeff Shell has resigned for having “an inappropriate relationship with a colleague”…NBCUniversal is the parent company of Comcast…then, Don Lemon of CNN announced a “parting of the ways”…this from NBC News by Doha Madani: “Don Lemon says he has been fired from CNN: Lemon has been at the center of a string of controversies over his on-air comments and treatment of female colleagues.: Don Lemon was terminated from his anchor role at CNN, he announced Monday.
Lemon announced the news on Twitter, saying he was informed by his agent that he was being terminated.
“I am stunned,” Lemon wrote. “After 17 years at CNN I would have thought someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.”
In a tweet, CNN refuted Lemon’s account as “inaccurate.” The network said he was offered a chance to meet with management but “instead released a statement on Twitter.”
CNN CEO Chris Licht said that the network and Lemon have “parted ways,” according to a memo provided to NBC News on Monday.
“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years,” the statement said. “We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”…Lemon tweet: “I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”
then in a stunning turn of events at Fox “News”. that made my heart sing, hahahahahaha..from The New York Times by Jeremy W. Peters, Katie Robertson and Michael M. Grynbaum: “
Fox News Parts Ways With Tucker Carlson Days After Dominion Settlement
The announcement came less than a week after the network agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit in which Mr. Carlson’s show, one of the highest rated on Fox, figured prominently. He was said to be surprised by the move.:
Fox News on Monday dismissed Tucker Carlson, its most popular prime-time host and one of the most influential voices on the American right.
The network made the announcement less than a week after it agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit in which Mr. Carlson’s show, one of the highest rated on Fox, figured prominently for its role in spreading misinformation after the 2020 election.
Mr. Carlson’s program became a must-watch for conservatives during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, an ideological ally and occasional confidant of Mr. Carlson’s. Both men helped push hard-right positions on issues like immigration reform and race relations into the Republican mainstream, and both relished antagonizing their political opponents with audacious and often untrue attacks.
Here is what else to know:
The decision to let Mr. Carlson go was made on Friday night by Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive officer of Fox Corporation and the son of its co-founder, Rupert Murdoch, and by Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, according to a person briefed on the move.
Mr. Carlson was given no heads-up that his time at Fox News was drawing to an end, according to two people with knowledge of the timing of the conversation. The anchor was told of the network’s decision on Monday morning, and his senior executive producer, Justin Wells, was also out of a job.
A Fox spokeswoman said Mr. Carlson’s show would be replaced with a new program called “Fox News Tonight” that would feature rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named. Brian Kilmeade was the first host on Monday night, but he said little of Mr. Carlson beyond wishing him well.
Mr. Carlson is also facing a lawsuit from a former Fox News producer, Abby Grossberg, who claims that he presided over a misogynistic and discriminatory workplace culture. Ms. Grossberg said in the lawsuit, which was filed in March, that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she discovered the work space was decorated with large pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a swimsuit.
from Katie Robertson: “Tucker Carlson has not yet released a statement or spoken publicly of his firing from Fox, more than seven hours after it was announced.”
The abrupt cancellation of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” will come at a cost for Fox News.
Mr. Carlson’s prime-time show brought in $77.5 million in advertising revenue last year, dwarfing his Fox News prime-time colleagues as well as his main competitors on CNN and MSNBC, according to Vivvix, a research firm.
Last year, Anderson Cooper’s 8 p.m. program on CNN had ad revenue of $50.7 million, while MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” brought in $30.9 million, according to Vivvix data.
Meanwhile, Sean Hannity’s 9 p.m. Fox News show took in $50.4 million, and “The Ingraham Angle” had ad revenue of $53.7 million.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” also had a bigger year-to-year increase compared with those shows. Last year, the show took in $10 million more in ad revenue compared with 2021, a 15 percent jump.”
With his abrupt departure from Fox News on Monday, Tucker Carlson lost the megaphone that many have accused him of using to spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines, gender identity and election integrity.
Civil rights activists and media experts expressed hope that a major force in the misinformation ecosystem had been muzzled.
The television host was “one of the nation’s most prolific mouthpieces for white supremacy, misinformation and misogyny,” said Bridget Todd, director of communications at the gender equity advocacy group Ultraviolet.
“We are not sad to see him go,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and chief executive of the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization GLAAD, wrote on Twitter.
Mr. Carlson’s show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was the most-watched show in prime-time cable news, averaging 3.25 million viewers in the first quarter of the year. He was also a prominent figure in the defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems. Before the election technology company settled with the network last week for $787.5 million, it blamed stars like Mr. Carlson for giving credibility to false voter fraud narratives while privately mocking them.
Yet even as Mr. Carlson’s ability to spread misinformation is likely to be “greatly diminished” without Fox News, the conspiracy theories he championed will continue to be shared, said Howard Polskin, who compiles a daily newsletter, TheRighting, which tracks conservative news outlets.
“This is a weed with deep roots — just because you take away something on top of the soil, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to pop up elsewhere,” he said. “There are so many voices on the right. They’re proliferating, and they’re a lot of the time getting louder and more passionate.”
Andrew Torba, who founded Gab, a social network that has become a hub for white supremacists and extremists, said Mr. Carlson should create his own digital broadcasting network “so that he no longer needs to ask permission from anyone to cover any story he wants.”
The absence of an explanation from Fox News about Mr. Carlson’s exit did not prevent an outpouring of unfounded speculation about the departure, including rumors that he had been silenced by Fox.
Prominent anti-vaccine skeptics, including the Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., proposed without proof that Mr. Carlson was fired for suggesting that Fox News had promoted the Covid-19 vaccine to please its pharmaceutical advertisers.
Anti-vaccine activist Dr. Sherri Tenpenny also posted several messages to her 124,000 Telegram followers, suggesting that there was a conspiracy behind Mr. Tucker’s departure from Fox News. “Don’t expect #FoxNews to tell the truth, as they got rid of the only Journalist that could NOT be controlled,” she wrote.
Mr. Carlson and Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Rashad Robinson, the president of the advocacy group Color of Change, worried that Fox would replace Mr. Carlson with “someone even worse” and called for more accountability for media figures who spread misinformation.
“Firing Tucker Carlson doesn’t undo the damage he’s already done or signal any new direction for Fox,” Mr. Robinson said on Twitter.“
Tucker Carlson’s popular show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has held the weeknight 8 p.m. slot since 2017, when it replaced Bill O’Reilly’s show after he was fired from the network.
Often pushing conspiracy theories and racist narratives, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” became one of the most-watched shows in prime-time cable news, averaging 3.25 million viewers in the first quarter of this year.
The Fox News host Harris Faulkner said Monday while on air that, starting Monday evening, the interim show, “Fox News Tonight,” would fill the 8 p.m. hour “with rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.”
Brian Kilmeade was the first host on Monday night, and he told viewers in brief comments: “As you probably have heard, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. I wish Tucker the best. I’m great friends with Tucker and always will be.”
Mr. Carlson’s last show was on Friday. In it, he appeared to not know it was his finale. He ate a sausage and pineapple pizza with a delivery man who had thwarted a man running from police and told viewers: “We’ll be back on Monday. In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love.”
Tucker Carlson is facing a lawsuit from his former head of booking, Abby Grossberg, who says she was subjected to a hostile and discriminatory work environment.
Ms. Grossberg, who was fired by Fox News shortly after she filed two lawsuits against the company in March, joined Mr. Carlson’s team in 2022 after several years as a senior producer for Maria Bartiromo, another Fox host.
Ms. Grossberg said in the lawsuit naming Mr. Carlson that male producers regularly used vulgarities to describe women and frequently made antisemitic jokes.
On her first day working for Mr. Carlson, Ms. Grossberg said she discovered the office was decorated with large pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit. She said she was once called into the top producer’s office to be asked whether Ms. Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.
Ms. Grossberg also said in her lawsuit that after she was coerced by Fox’s lawyers into providing a misleading deposition in a recent defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems and defending an offensive text from Mr. Carlson, his producers emailed the rest of the staff in recognition of “Abby Day” and suggested ordering a staff lunch to celebrate.
Fox has disputed Ms. Grossberg’s claims, and Mr. Carlson hasn’t said anything publicly about the case.
“We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, also names Fox Corporation, Fox News, some network executives and several of Mr. Carlson’s producers as defendants.
In a statement on Monday, one of Ms. Grossberg’s attorneys, Tanvir Rahman, said that Mr. Carlson’s departure from Fox News “is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying and conspiracy mongering claimed by our client.” Mr. Rahman said that the legal team would be taking Mr. Carlson’s deposition and those of his subordinates “in the very near term.”
as Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry would say…Tucker Carlson’s firing ‘made my day’…even Julia alerted me this morning…I think it made most people’s day…everyone except for Marjorie Taylor Greene and don, sr. and don, jr…and Kevin McCarthy, remember McCarthy gave hours and hours of security tapes of the January 6 insurrection…a smart move by McCarthy…NOT!!! we’re all waiting with “bated breath” to see where happens next to Carlson…where will he land…will he be trump’s VP pick?… hahahahahaha….Biden and Kamala Harris had the Tennessee Three at the White House today…and he threw his hat in the ring, four years to the day that he announced his candidacy for President in 2018…
from Sunday Morning…Brooklyn Public Library’s President and CEO, Linda Johnson has a program Books Unbanned…students 13-21 if they can’t find a book they want on their library shelf, send them an email and they will send you a free library card to their digital books…”Summer Boismier, a tenth grade English teacher in Norman, Okla., who was removed from her classroom and accused of distributing pornography” resigned her position and now works for the Brooklyn Public Library…”cartoonist Art Spiegelman, whose Holocaust-themed graphic novel “Maus” has been targeted by book banners, calls Mom’s for Liberty, founded by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, more Mom’s for suppression, the beginning of authoritarianism…banning books are the beginning of authoritarianism…we must look out…and fight back…
Chita Rivera, the original Anita in West Side Story, is 90…and still going “strong”…a great segment on the first Latina who was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor…3 time Tony Winner…has written a book Chita: A Memoir…and I found out James Corden is calling it quits…no more Late, Late Show…Mr. Karaoke Carpool…he’s going home to England..and how about Dame Edna?…remember him?…Barry Humpheys died this week at age 89…complications of hip surgery…Ken Potts, one of the last two survivors of the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor has died…he was 102…I’ve written before, my next door neighbor on Massasoit Street was a survivor also…he was a fireman…he died sometime ago…his daughter Wanda was my sister’s best friend…she was at my wedding…she died young also, from breast cancer…( my sister has lost more than her share of friends to cancer )…and death doesn’t descriminate, K-Pop band Astro member Moon Bin died at age 25…Todd Haimes, Artistic Director and CEO of New York’s Roundabout Theater Company died at age 66…and Jazz Pianist, Ahmad Jamal died at age 92…notable deaths this week…
and Judy Blume finally gave permission for her coming of age book Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret to become a movie…with Rachel McAdams…and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret…Pam and Julia can’t wait to see it…they join the crowd of millions anticipating the movie…
we have New York, New York, a new musical on Broadway…from Sunday Morning: “BROADWAY: John Kander, Lin-Manuel Miranda on “New York, New York” on Broadway | Watch Video The theater legend who co-wrote, with Fred Ebb, such classic musicals as “Cabaret” and “Chicago” has a new musical opening on Broadway. “New York, New York,” adapted from the 1977 film, features never-before-heard songs by Kander and Ebb, and new songs by Kander and “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Correspondent David Pogue talks with the 96-year-old Kander, Miranda, and director-choreographer Susan Stroman about the show, in which aspiring performers try to make it in “a city that never sleeps.”…and like the song says…”if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!!!!!”
I read Jennifer Rubin’s What Caught My Eye…and as I said yesterday, I value her opinion…this from Jennifer Rubin…”What Caught my eye:
Fox News: The price of sheltering Fox News’s top hosts from the jury — to acknowledge lying to viewers — is apparently $787.5 million, one of the largest verdicts in history for defamation suits. The settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems is well beyond the best estimate of actual damages (and more than seven times the annual revenue of the whole company, by one estimate). “The truth matters,” said Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson after the shocking settlement twist. “Lies have consequences.” Fox News said in a statement that it “acknowledges” the court’s findings its statements were false, although there was no apology. Moreover, the settlement comes after ample evidence, now in the public record, that Fox News personalities egregiously and repeatedly lied. As one of Dominion’s lawyers put it, “The world got to see the documents” showing what Fox News personalities said in private as they were lying to viewers.Fox News isn’t out of the woods. It still faces a suit from software company Smartmatic, suits from shareholders and even the potential for a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (for failing to disclose potential liability). The question remains: Will politicians and other media outlets stop treating Fox News like a legitimate news outlet? It certainly doesn’t behave like one.
Cringeworthy judges: For decades, Republicans have sought to capture the courts and convert them into ideological instruments for a White Christian nationalist agenda. They’ve certainly pushed the envelope on race (e.g., punching holes in the Voting Rights Act) and thrown precedent overboard (in reversing Roe v. Wade). However, a funny thing happened on the road to judicial hackery: The judicial heroes of the right seem to have serious ethical blinders. (Perhaps in becoming partisans, they’re adopting the morals of politicians, not judges.)The latest wrinkles in the saga of Justice Clarence Thomas’s sketchy finances: He reported income from a company that didn’t exist. And Harlan Crow purchased a property from Thomas and his relatives at anallegedly inflated price —and is allowing Thomas’s mother to live rent free in the house. The cloud over the court has forced Thomas to resubmit his financial disclosures.But that cannot be sufficient. The public is owed a complete explanation and an independent investigation. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) asked the Judicial Conference of the United States to examine Thomas’s failures to disclose. The good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the chief justice and Justice Department. Most of all, the high court must have a mandatory ethics code. Thomas’s conduct will only accelerate the court’s declining approval. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who fancies himself an institutionalist, is presiding over a judicial Titanic.
Meanwhile, District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, author of the appallingly hackish opinion overthrowing the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, was not completely forthcoming in his confirmation process. The Post reported that just after Kacsmaryk was first interviewed for consideration for a judgeship, he demanded his name be taken off a law review article that “argues against a 2016 Department of Health and Human Services rule forbidding doctors to discriminate against patients who seek gender-affirming care or pregnancy termination.” As sources in The Post’s article noted, that’s “exactly the kind of material the Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to gather in the judicial confirmation process.”Given the GOP House majority and the stiff two-thirds requirement for removal by the Senate, neither Thomas nor Kacsmaryk will get impeached, let alone removed. However, following a full investigation they should be referred, if warranted, to their state bar associations for discipline. If the rule of law means anything, it means that judges must adhere to the same ethical standards and rules that all public officials must follow.
What is WRONG with these people?: You wonder if the MAGA crowd has a political death wish. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who originally went after Disney for criticizing his mean-spirited “don’t say gay” bill) threatened to target Disney rides (but exempt its competitors) for inspections and build a prison next to Disney. (This is supposed to please Middle America, which loves taking their kids there?)Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wants to pardon the convicted murderer of a participant in a Black Lives Matter gathering. The U.S. Army sergeant had a slew of racist, venomous messages on his phone.An Oklahoma sheriff and other officials were caught on tape joking about the good old days when there were lynchings. The GOP governor called on them to resign. Subsequently, one county commissioner resigned.
Republicans in multiple states are bringing back child labor. Even in dangerous workplaces. Red states threaten to close or defund libraries rather than respect the First Amendment. (Just like segregationists closed swimming pools and public schools rather than integrate.) Yup, refusing to give all kids access to books will really “own the libs”!
Indifferent to government’s impact on real people, encased in a right-wing bubble and driven by anger and ambition, these politicians act like Democrats’ caricatures of Republicans. They are a gift to Democratic ad makers everywhere. Distinguished person of the week – Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has been dogged in his efforts to expose soft money operations that influence the Supreme Court. He’s been a persistent critic of the lack of a mandatory ethics code. This week, he outdid himself. In his 21st speech on the topic, he took to the floor to blow to smithereens any rational excuse for Justice Clarence Thomas’s behavior. Whitehouse pointed out that the provision exempting “hospitality” from friends and family does not cover travel (e.g., private jets, yachts). The requirement to report property sales is definitive. Beyond that, Whitehouse made as cogent a case as one can make for court reform, beginning with ethics reform. No one can honestly deny the conflicts of interest and influence peddling that the current system allows. The court’s reputation is in shambles. Because the justices won’t take steps to clean up their act, Congress must do so. For bringing this to light in ways every American can understand, we can say, well done, Sen. Whitehouse.
Something different – I love documentaries. ( I too love documentaries ) They can be about anything: golf (“: Full Swing”), music (“Summer of Soul” — the other major musical festival of 1969), the fate of a Jewish town in Poland (“Three Minutes: A Lengthening”) or civil rights (the superb “13th”). Sometimes, the smallest topics can be revelatory. My recent favorite in this category: “The Automat.” Yes, the story of the famous Horn & Hardart! But like the really great documentaries, it’s about more than the specific topic. You do learn about the weirdly fabulous restaurants where you could put in a nickel (later a whole dime as prices rose!), open a little window and get a delicious piece of pie or even a dinner. It’s also about the rising and falling fortunes of New York City, women’s entrance into the workplace, the theater, immigrants (watch for Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and even democracy. And that’s, I suppose, why I love documentaries. They’re a delightful reminder that small discoveries and a narrow slice of life can illuminate complex, critical issues.
From my weekly Q&A – Every Wednesday at noon, I host a live Q&A with readers. Read a transcript of this week’s Q&A or submit a question for the next one.
Steve: What structural changes do you have in mind for our democracy? We all know that our Constitution contains the results of a bunch of unfortunate compromises needed to bring the slave states on board. Lincoln thought it sold out the principles in our Declaration of Independence. You mention rather need for structural change. What do you have in mind? Thanks.
Jennifer Rubin: We can try to reach a threshold of states agreeing to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would essentially convert U.S. presidential elections to a popular voting system; do away with the Senate filibuster; expand the House of Representatives; give Washington D.C. representation in the House and Senate; and set Supreme Court term limits or expand the court to match the number of circuits (13, currently). In addition, we can end legislative gerrymandering; repair the Voting Rights Act to “fix” the Supreme Court rulings that gutted Sections 2 and 5 of the law; end single-judge divisions (which allows judge shopping); expand lower federal courts (to increase diversity); and expand voting access (e.g., regularize early voting, make election day a holiday). Finally, we need a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court reversal of Citizens United. Each reform would put more democracy back into our system.”
had a lovely, fun evening playing Pitch with Keith, Patty and Gary…catching up and having fun playing Keith’s family card game at he taught us…today went to Home Depot…bought a few things I needed for my “backyard” garden…found a penny…
I watched the film Amsterdam again today…it grew on me…and I especially loved the song at the end…called Time sung by GIVĒON:
[Verse 1] The time We had together A time When all things were better All of those moments May have gone too soon They meant so much
[Pre-Chorus] I never knew For only now Can I truly see How much that time with you That time shaped me So even though I was unaware [Chorus] I wanna say thank you For the time we shared
[Verse 3] The time When all things were better Will stay with me For as long as I remember So much I have done Has withered away But never these memories I cherish today
[Pre-Chorus] How could I have known Just how strong they could be? They changed my life In ways I can’t believe In those moments We’ll stay forever
[Chorus] And so I thank you For the time we had together
Writers: Jahaan Sweet, Daniel Pemberton, Augbrey Graham, Giveson Evans
with all the mucky muck with this judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling…and the Supreme Court kicking the can down the road…it’s clear trump judges suck, BIG time…and the whole reason those “doctors” filed their suit in Amarillo, just to get Kacsmaryk, for they knew the way he would rule…a no brainer…actually no brain at all, thinking they could heap their view on the entire country…a judge without any scientific, or medical background could overturn the FDA’s okay of 23 years and the generic for 4 years…I value Jennifer Rubin’s Opinion…from The Washington Post Opinion by Jennifer Rubin: “Right-wing judges may cripple the GOP: U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s widely pannedruling blocking the Food and Drug Administration’s approval more than 20 years ago of an effective and safe medication, mifepristone, used both for medical abortions and to treat miscarriages, is another in a string of decisions from right-wing judges that may well boomerang on the MAGA movement. The decisions have revealed its true reactionary face.
Kacsmaryk’s opinion (which the Justice Department appealed on Monday and moved to stay) displays the three telltale characteristics of Trump-appointed judges’ opinions: Contempt for the law, sleight of hand on the facts and partisan language more appropriate to a MAGA rally than a courtroom.
On the law, Kacsmaryk ignored the six-year statute of limitations on FDA challenges and trashed any semblance of “standing.”
Kacsmaryk “said physicians who may treat patients who have side effects from medical abortions prescribed by someone else are sufficiently injured by mifepristone to sue,” writes Mark Joseph Stern for Slate. “Kacsmaryk’s logic would essentially abolish the standing requirement for lawsuits against drug approvals by creating a special exception out of thin air. That is not the law.”
Moreover, the judge’s reliance on the 1873 “anti-vice” Comstock Act smacks of utter desperation to find any rationale for his desired result. The law, which included a wildly overbroad ban on mailing any “thing” that could be used in an abortion, was an obvious government prior restraint on speech. Comstock was largely invalidated by the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connect.
“Over sixty years ago, the interpretation of the Comstock Act endorsed by Judge Kacsmaryk was already recognized as part of a bygone era,” constitutional scholar Michael C. Dorf writes. He also notes that a December 2022 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel explains in detail that “the relevant provision of the Comstock Act has long been read to forbid the mailing of materials only for illegal abortions.” Federal courts held that position well before the passage of Roe v. Wade, he adds, and thus the rulings survive the Supreme Court’s overturning of that law.
Kacsmaryk’s ruling also makes factual assertions that are “scientifically baseless and infused with hostility to abortion,” constitutional scholar Kate Shaw writes in a New York Times op-ed, “including that the FDA failed to consider ‘the intense psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress women often experience from chemical abortion.’”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists lambasted the decision as “inflammatory” and “brazenly” substituting “the court’s judgment for that of trained professionals.”\And Kacsmaryk’s decision displays the voice of an overtly antiabortion advocate. Any pretense of judicial impartiality was dispensed with when he insisted on calling the fetus an “unborn human,” referring to “fetal personhood” and asserting that women who have abortions “often experience shame, regret, anxiety, depression, drug abuse and suicidal thoughts.”
Given that Kacsmaryk’s decision has heaped fuel onto the conflagration caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Republicans might want to ponder: Is the right-wing judiciary as a whole a threat to the MAGA movement’s viability?
It is one thing to gin up the base on invented threats from critical race theory or the “great replacement theory.” But when the MAGA movement’s judges begin to inflict radically unpopular edicts on those outside the right-wing audience, that risks sparking a counter-response: a determined, broad-based movement insistent that the United States not turn the clock back on decades of social progress.
Republican setbacks such as the disappointing 2022 midterms, a progressive Democrat last week winning a crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court seat and rising support for abortion rights over the past year suggest that conservatives may have won the battle to stack the courts with ideologues but might be losing the war for public opinion and, ultimately, electoral control.
The more the Supreme Court diverges from overwhelming public sentiment on issues such as abortion, guns and voting rights, the more strength and more allies the progressive movement may gain.
Writing in the Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein considered the current Supreme Court’s “backward-facing crusade” and found historical echoes in the 1850s and 1930s. “In each of those decades, a Supreme Court that also was nominated and confirmed primarily by a political coalition reflecting an earlier majority similarly positioned itself as a bulwark against the preferences of the emerging America.”
The court, Brownstein says, with its deplorable slavery-preserving Dred Scott decision in 1857, helped drive the nation toward the Civil War and emancipation. In the 1930s, the court tried to derail President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs but ultimately acquiesced, ushering in wide acceptance for an activist federal government.
Radical judges who would impose their will on modern America make themselves a target for a movement that pushes back on the courts’ decisions and on the courts themselves. No wonder that there are rising calls for expanding the Supreme Court as well as lower courts (to dilute right-wing judges’ power); limiting Supreme Court terms; and stripping jurisdiction from the Supreme Court. Support for progressive state judicial candidates who vow to act as a counterweight to right-wing judicial imperialism is almost inevitable.
Republicans cannot very well tell their appointees to cool it; they certainly cannot contain the blowback their judges unleash. The greatest irony of Donald Trump’s presidency might be that the “accomplishment” that most thrilled right-wingers may accelerate the vanquishing of a movement that is at odds with the values and sensibilities of most Americans. And the power of the judiciary itself may be one of the casualties.”…
Elissa and I and Aunt Lois went out for dinner and a movie…Pam and Julia alerted us of storm warnings until 9:00…while we were sitting in Tiffany Diner…I hadn’t been there for years and years…I love a diner…I love to eat breakfast any time of the day…and I always crave a waffle…Elissa alerted me to their waffle combo…a waffle with 2 eggs, 2 strips of bacon and 2 sausages…right up my alley…just what I wanted…Aunt Lois had a California Wrap…and Elissa opted for a Buffalo Chicken Salad…while we were sitting there, I could see grey clouds slowly roll in…the sky got darker and darker…and then a deluge…it poured…buckets…we were rethinking the movie…but, luckily, while we were finishing eating…the rain began to subside…and it wasn’t so ominous out there…the movie we “wanted” to see at the Grant Regal was at 7:00…we had had until at least 7:15 to get there and seated with all the previews…I went and got the car…picked them up at the end of the ramp and we were at the movies in no time…and with plenty of time to see the beginning of the movie…what movie you ask?…well, when it was all over, Elissa said “it was the worst movie she has ever seen”…and I value her opinion…I thought it was pretty bad…but not the worst I ever seen…I had to agree with Elissa…it was pretty bad, I felt bad that I suggested the movie…and we sat through it…the Movie?…Redfield…Nicholas Cage as Dracula…billed as a comedy horror film…the synopsis: “Renfield, the tortured aide to his narcissistic boss, Dracula, is forced to procure his master’s prey and do his every bidding. However, after centuries of servitude, he’s ready to see if there’s a life outside the shadow of the Prince of Darkness”…plenty of blood…and guts…and not much comedy…but I thought Nicholas Cage played Dracula campy…after all was said it done…it wasn’t good…but for me, it wasn’t the worst movie I have ever seen…but I felt bad that I made them sit through it…sorry Elissa and Aunt Lois…
there was a saving grace, I found a quarter, two dimes and two pennies at the movies…
whenever I hear or see the word Chevalier, I think of Maurice…Chevalier…that suave Frenchman, the actor…from Gigi…the 1958 film…the musical comedy…it won everything at the Academy Awards…Best Picture for Producer Arthur Freed…Best Director for Vincente Minnelli, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for Alan Jay Lerner, Best Art Direction for William A. Horning and E. Preston Ames, Set Direction for Henry Grace and F. Keogh Gleason, Best Cinematography – Color for Joseph Ruttenberg, Best Costume Design for Cecil Beaton, Best Film Editing for Adrienne Fazan, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture for Andre Previn, Best Song “Gigi”, Music by Frederick Loewe, Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner…it won all nine awards it was nominated for…it was the year of Separate Tables, I Want To Live, The Defiant Ones, Auntie Mame, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof…but it was Gigi which won everything else besides Acting Awards…Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold sang the song, I Remember It Well…today was a beautiful day, Elissa picked me up…ran errands with her…Whole Foods to return something to Amazon…bought and shared some multi-grain bread…to Raymore and Flanigan for Elissa is pick out a mattress to replace the one she has had for less than a year…then to Ben and Irv’s for a lean corned beef special…Elissa had a turkey special…then we raced to the Ambler to see this new movie Chevalier…opened today…( I found 2 pennies today )…I’m sure we’ve all seen the ads on TV… “the untold story”…from Wikipedia: “Chevalier is a 2022 American biographical drama film directed by Stephen Williams and written by Stefani Robinson. It is based on the life of the titular French-Caribbean musician Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr. The film also stars Samara Weaving, Lucy Boynton, Marton Csokas, Alex Fitzalan, and Minnie Driver…The Premise: “The rise and resurgence of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a French-Caribbean violinist and composer who rose to fame through his musical prodigy. But a complicated love life and the racism of the ancien régime leads to a falling out with Marie Antoinette, and Saint-Georges realizes that things must change…”The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Joseph Bologne rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with a love affair and falling out with Marie Antoinette.”…it was pretty good, the costumes were beautiful and the story supposedly based on a real person…all taking place just before the French Revolution…I spoke to my sister this morning…she said Kelvin Harrison Jr. has been making the rounds on TV…he plays the violin…beautifully…the opening scene is Bologne playing the violin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…and Mozart asking the question “Who the f**k is that?”…do I think Mozart said f**k?…who knows…in any event, racism was alive and well in France…and the rape of plantation owners with their slaves was also prevalent…there are black descendants of Thomas Jefferson…from Wikipedia: “Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Four survived to adulthood and are mentioned in Jefferson’s plantation records: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings…In 1787, when she was 14, Sally Hemings accompanied Jefferson and his daughter by Martha to Paris. There Sally was a legally free and paid servant as slavery was not legal in France. At some time during her 26 months in Paris, the widower Jefferson began having intimate relations with her.”…Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…a brief history of Jefferson and Sally Hemings from Wikipedia: “Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Four survived to adulthood and are mentioned in Jefferson’s plantation records: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings. Sally Hemings worked for two and a half years (1787-89) in Paris as a domestic servant and maid in Jefferson’s household. While in Paris, where enslaved people could petition for their freedom, she negotiated with Jefferson to return to enslavement at Monticello in exchange for “extraordinary privileges” for herself and freedom for her unborn children. Decades later, Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings’s children – Beverly and Harriet left Monticello in the early 1820s; Madison and Eston were freed in his will and left Monticello in 1826. Jefferson did not grant freedom to any other enslaved family unit.
The claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, entered the public arena during Jefferson’s first term as president, and it has remained a subject of discussion and disagreement for two centuries. Based on documentary, scientific, statistical, and oral history evidence, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) Research Committee Report on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (January 2000) remains the most comprehensive analysis of this historical topic.
Historical Background
In September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a disaffected former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years “kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves.” “Her name is Sally,” Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had “several children” by her.
Although there had been rumors of a sexual relationship between Jefferson and an enslaved woman before 1802, Callender’s article spread the story widely. It was taken up by Jefferson’s Federalist opponents and was published in many newspapers during the remainder of Jefferson’s presidency.
Jefferson’s policy was to offer no public response to personal attacks, and he apparently made no explicit public or private comment on this question (although a private letter of 1805 has been interpreted by some individuals as a denial of the story). Sally Hemings left no known accounts.
Jefferson’s daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph privately denied the published reports. Two of her children, Ellen Randolph Coolidge and Thomas Jefferson Randolph, maintained many years later that such a liaison was not possible, on both moral and practical grounds. They also stated that Jefferson’s nephews Peter and Samuel Carr were the fathers of the light-skinned Monticello slaves some thought to be Jefferson’s children because they resembled him.
The Jefferson-Hemings story was sustained through the 19th century by Northern abolitionists, British critics of American democracy, and others. Its vitality among the American population at large was recorded by European travelers of the time. Through the 20th century, some historians accepted the possibility of a Jefferson-Hemings connection and a few gave it credence, but most Jefferson scholars found the case for such a relationship unpersuasive.
Over the years, however, belief in a Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship was perpetuated in private. Two of her children—Madison and Eston—indicated that Jefferson was their father, and this belief has been perpetuated in the oral histories of generations of their descendants as an important family truth.
DNA Evidence and Response
The results of DNA tests conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and a team of geneticists in 1998 challenged the view that the Jefferson-Hemings relationship could be neither refuted nor substantiated. The study–which tested Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Field Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson’s uncle), John Carr (grandfather of Jefferson’s Carr nephews), Eston Hemings, and Thomas Woodson–indicated a genetic link between the Jefferson and Hemings descendants. The results of the study established that an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808), the last known child born to Sally Hemings. There were approximately 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and a few of them are known to have visited Monticello. The study’s authors, however, said “the simplest and most probable” conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson had fathered Eston Hemings.
The DNA testing found no genetic link between the Hemings and Carr descendants, refuting Jefferson’s grandchildren’s assertion that his Carr nephews fathered Sally Hemings’s children.
Additionally, the DNA study found no link between the descendants of Field Jefferson and Thomas Woodson (1790-1879), whose family members have long held that he was the first son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Madison Hemings, Hemings’s second-youngest son, said in 1873 that his mother had been pregnant with Jefferson’s child (who, he said, lived “but a short time”) when she returned from France in 1789. There is no indication in Jefferson’s records of a child born to Hemings before 1795, and there are no known documents to support that Thomas Woodson was Hemings’s first child.
Shortly after the DNA test results were released in November 1998, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formed a research committee consisting of nine members of the foundation staff, including four with Ph.D.s. In January 2000, the committee reported that the weight of all known evidence—from the DNA study, original documents, written and oral historical accounts, and statistical data—indicated a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings, and that he was likely the father of all six of Sally Hemings’s children listed in Monticello records—Harriet (born 1795; died in infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born 1808).
Since then, a committee commissioned by the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, after reviewing essentially the same material, reached different conclusions, namely that Sally Hemings was only a minor figure in Thomas Jefferson’s life and that it is very unlikely he fathered any of her children. This committee also suggested in its report, issued in April 2001 and revised in 2011, that Jefferson’s younger brother Randolph (1755-1815) was more likely the father of at least some of Sally Hemings’s children.
From the Historical Record
The following summarizes what is known about Sally Hemings and her family.
Sally Hemings (1773-1835) was an enslaved woman at Monticello; she lived in Paris with Jefferson and two of his daughters from 1787 to 1789; and, she had at least six children.
Sally Hemings’s duties included being a nursemaid-companion to Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Maria (ca. 1784-1787), lady’s maid to daughters Martha and Maria (1787-1797), and chambermaid and seamstress (1790s-1827).
Sally Hemings left no known written accounts. It is not known if she was literate.
In the few scattered references to Sally Hemings in Thomas Jefferson’s records and correspondence, there is nothing to distinguish her from other members of her family.
Thomas Jefferson was at Monticello at the likely conception times of Sally Hemings’s six known children. There are no records suggesting that she was elsewhere at these times, or records of any births at times that would exclude Jefferson paternity.
There are no indications in contemporary accounts by people familiar with Monticello that Sally Hemings’s children had different fathers.
Sally Hemings’s children were light-skinned, and three of them (daughter Harriet and sons Beverly and Eston) lived as members of white society as adults.
According to contemporary accounts, some of Sally Hemings’s children strongly resembled Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings’s children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson’s 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family.
Thomas Jefferson did not free Sally Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson’s death in 1826, and went to live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville.
Several people close to Thomas Jefferson or the Monticello community believed that he was the father of Sally Hemings’s children.
Eston Hemings changed his name to Eston Hemings Jefferson in 1852.
Madison Hemings stated in 1873 that he and his siblings Beverly, Harriet, and Eston were Thomas Jefferson’s children.
The descendants of Madison Hemings who have lived as African-Americans have passed a family history of descent from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings down through the generations.
Eston Hemings’s descendants, who have lived as whites, have passed down a family history of being related to Thomas Jefferson. In the 1940s, family members changed this history to state that an uncle of Jefferson’s, rather than Jefferson himself, was their ancestor.
According to Madison Hemings, his grandmother Elizabeth Hemings (1735-1807) was the daughter of an African woman and an English sea captain. By Madison Hemings’s and other accounts, Sally Hemings and some of her siblings were the children of John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, making her the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748-1782). Elizabeth Hemings and her children lived at John Wayles’ plantation during his lifetime.
Questions remain about the nature of the relationship that existed between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings; whether she had a child at Monticello shortly after they returned from France in 1789; and whether there is anything to connect Jefferson, Hemings, and Thomas Woodson.”
and yes, I remember it well…the song “I Remember It Well”…
Lyrics of I Remember It Well
HONOR?: We met at nine We met at eight HONOR?: I was on time No, you were late HONOR?: Ah yes, I remember it well. We dined with friends We dined alone. HONOR?: A tenor sang A baritone. HONOR?: I remember it well. That dazzling April moon! There was none that night. And the month was June HONOR?: That’s right, that’s right. It warms my heart To know that you Remember still The way you do HONOR?: Ah yes, I remember it well. How often I’ve thought of that Friday– Monday– HONOR?: Night, when we had our last rendezvous And somehow I foolishly wondered if you might By some chance be thinkin’ of it too That carriage ride You walked me home HONOR?: You lost a glove I lost a comb HONOR?: Ah yes, I remember it well. That brilliant sky! We had some rain HONOR?: Those Russian songs From sunny Spain HONOR?: Ah yes, I remember it well. You wore a gown of gold I was all in blue HONOR?: Am I getting old? Oh no, not you! How strong you were How young and gay A prince of love In every way HONOR?: Ah yes, I remember it well.
I heard that Chinese proverb from the mouth of Donald Sutherland in the movie about sexual harassment…the film was Disclosure…besides Donald Sutherland, the 1994 film also starred Michael Douglas and Demi Moore…from Wikipedia: “a 1994 American thriller film directed by Barry Levinson, starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. It is based on Michael Crichton‘s novel of the same name. The cast also includes Donald Sutherland, Caroline Goodall and Dennis Miller. The film is a combination thriller and slight mystery in an office setting within the computer industry in the mid-1990s. The main focus of the story, from which the film and book take their titles, is the issue of sexual harassment and its power structure. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success grossing $214 million against its $50 million budget.”…Donald Sutherland started a speech with “May you live in interesting times”…it appears to be a “blessing”…but in reality it is a curse… from Wikipedia: “”May you live in interesting times” is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinesecurse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is normally used ironically; life is better in “uninteresting times” of peace and tranquility than in “interesting” ones, which are usually times of trouble.”…we are living in the curse of interesting times…young people are being murdered, through gun violence…by ringing the wrong doorbell, or pulling into the wrong driveway…over and over again…these times are attributable to trump and Fox “News”…with their fearmongering…the GOP and Fox “News” are trying to rule by fear…making you afraid of anyone who is not a white Christian…”Gym” Jordan in New York trying to intimidate Alvin Bragg…along with Fox telling us that New York is crime ridden…as is the entire country…showing black and brown people in violent acts of crime…New York City is way safer that Jordan’s home district he represents in Ohio…his whole New York hearing has backfired on him…Opinion from Roll Call by Walter Shapiro: “House Republicans’ NYC violent crime hearing was a political farce: Tellingly, even Fox News skipped much of Jim Jordan’s field trip:
NEW YORK — A bit before 9 a.m. on Monday, I courageously left my apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and crossed Central Park to the East Side in the back of a taxi.
What a dystopian hellscape. Yes, crosstown traffic in Manhattan is that bad.
At 9 a.m. in a federal building downtown, just a few blocks from the courthouse where Donald Trump was arraigned, the field-tripping House Judiciary Committee began a hearing focusing on the man who supposedly has become one of the greatest menaces facing America: Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.
As Jim Jordan, the jacketless committee chairman, declared in an apocalyptic opening statement: “For the district attorney, justice isn’t blind, it’s about looking for opportunities to advance … a radical political agenda. Rather than enforcing the law, the D.A. is using his office to do the bidding of left-wing campaign funders.”
It is, of course, coincidental that Bragg is the district attorney who indicted Trump. It is also an odd quirk that Bragg received help in his 2021 election campaign from a group partly funded by George Soros, whose place in GOP demonology is midway between Satan and Hillary Clinton.
Attacking Bragg was obviously payback for bringing felony charges against the former president — though committee Republicans denied it with the credibility of Trump bragging about a “perfect” phone call.
Elise Stefanik — a major figure in House GOP leadership who was sitting in on the hearing even though she is not on the committee — gave away the rest of Monday’s agenda when she said: “Look no further than the last November election when we flipped four congressional seats [in New York State]. What was the No. 1 issue? It was crime.”
But committee Republicans ran into two problems with the over-hyped production, both of which could have been anticipated before they left Washington.
With the Democrats actively participating in the hearing and committee members stymied by a five-minute limit for questioning, it is was impossible to develop a coherent narrative about Bragg. Even Fox News only intermittently followed the hearing.
The facts also conspired against Jordan, Stefanik and Co.
Major crimes in New York City jumped during the pandemic — felonies are up by about 45 percent since 2021 — but they have dipped by a little in Manhattan this year.
Tellingly, crime in New York started from a low base. So while the percentage increase sounds ominous, New York’s per capita crime numbers are just one-third as high as those of seemingly safe Columbus, Ohio. Jordan’s 4th Congressional District borders Ohio’s capital city.
Committee Democrats hammered home this point, but the crime details also tripped up Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy.
Bragging about Rudy Giuliani’s record as mayor, Roy noted that New York was averaging over 2,000 murders a year in the early 1990s. “Due to the strong support of law enforcement and the anti-crime policies adopted by the city,” Roy said, “it got down to 288 in 2018.”
“But now,” Roy added ominously, “it’s back up to the mid-400s. I think the question is whether or not … you feel safe in New York City right now?”
Compared to the 1990s, New York is a much safer city. And Roy’s numbers — even though they were brandished for dramatic effect — underscored that point.
If Monday’s hearing had been designed with fact-finding rather than politics in mind, witnesses would have discussed the difficulties in deciphering causation when it comes to fluctuations in crime rates. Experts, after all, are still debating the reasons for the crime turnabout in the 1990s.
‘Violent crime epidemic’
But the overheated Republican narrative was that everything in New York was Bragg’s fault, probably including the Broadway closing of “Phantom of the Opera” after a 35-year run on Broadway.
Two-term Republican Rep. Troy Nehls went full Trump as he raged late in the hearing: “Mr. Bragg, I hope you’re watching. … You’re a disgrace. You’re a danger to this country.”
Exactly why Nehls, the former sheriff of Fort Bend County in Texas, feels so menaced by Bragg remained a bit murky during his five-minute rant. It has something to do with defunding the police and how “the dishonest media is the greatest threat to this country.”
Part of the problem with the orchestration of the hearing was that many of the crimes that the witnesses were lamenting took place before Bragg became district attorney. And the key political witness, Robert Holden, is a city councilman from Queens, which has its own non-Bragg district attorney named Melinda Katz.
But the Republicans did have one thing going for them in portraying Manhattan as more dangerous than the front lines in Ukraine. New York is the tabloid center of the nation. And Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, as well as the TV stations that emulate the newspaper, still follow the dictum, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
There are, alas, always horrendous crimes in a city of 8.3 million people, even if statistically the odds of being a victim are low. As Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson said with confidence, “We have a violent crime epidemic here — and everybody in America knows it because we see the videos played out on our television local news every single night.”
Clearly, it never dawned on Johnson that TV networks tend to play up stories that happen in the metropolis where they are headquartered, which is why New York crime stories regularly pop up on Shreveport news shows.
For all the Republican pyrotechnics, Monday’s hearing probably gained Bragg votes when he runs again in 2025. Somehow, I suspect that Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, will not hesitate to indict Trump for illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election because she fears a visit from Jim Jordan and the Judiciary Committee.”…”Gym” Jordan should take some advice from Dorothy…when looking for your heart’s desire, look in your own backyard…these are like the curse of interesting times…Ron DeSantis crashing and burning in his undeclared race for the presidency…Kevin McCarthy willing to have the U.S. crash and burn by not raising the debt ceiling…of course the repugnant Republicans raised the debt ceiling for trump…raised our debt $2 Trillion with trump’s and the GOP’s tax cuts for the top 2%…plus continuing to not disclose that it’s debt we’ve already spent…it’s like raking up our Credit Card then not wanting to pay the bill…and for all their baloney about “pro-life” and banning abortion nationally, they want you to have the baby resulting from rape, but then doing away with programs to help raise that child…the moment of birth, they abandon the child…this from Thom Hartmann: “The so-called “party of life doesn’t, it turns out, give a damn about actual human life unless it has a net worth over a half-billion dollars: Kevin McCarthy has a keen new idea about what he thinks he can get out of Democrats in Congress in exchange for Republicans authorizing the government to pay the trillions in debt that Donald Trump racked up in his four years in office.
In exchange for lifting the so-called debt ceiling, McCarthy wants Biden and congressional Democrats to throw millions of families off food stamps (SNAP) and end even the possibility of any help to low-income young people unable to pay off student loans.
He claims this is because the federal government can’t afford to help out students or hungry Americans. Nonetheless, his caucus is also pushing a new $1.8 trillion cut to the already-hobbled estate tax, paid exclusively by “lucky sperm club” children of the morbidly rich when they inherit fortunes they didn’t lift a finger to create.
Ironically, this proposal came out the same week that The Journal of the American Medical Association published a new study finding that poverty is the fourth largest killer of Americans.
And by poverty, they’re not just talking about the profoundly poor or homeless: for the purposes of this study they defined poverty as everybody living on less than the 50 percent median of income in the nation.
“Current poverty was associated with greater mortality than major causes, such as accidents, lower respiratory diseases, and stroke. In 2019, current poverty was also associated with greater mortality than many far more visible causes—10 times as many deaths as homicide, 4.7 times as many deaths as firearms, 3.9 times as many deaths as suicide, and 2.6 times as many deaths as drug overdose.”
The outlook for people who’ve spent at least the past 10 years living below the US median income level is even more grim. The researchers refer to this as “cumulative poverty”:
“Cumulative poverty was associated with approximately 60% greater mortality than current poverty. Hence, cumulative poverty was associated with greater mortality than even obesity and dementia. Heart disease, cancer, and smoking were the only causes or risks with greater mortality than cumulative poverty.”
Concluding that “poverty should be considered a major risk factor for death in the US,” the researchers noted that the situation is probably even worse than what they were able to easily measure:
“[O]ne limitation of this study is that our estimates may be conservative about the number of deaths associated with poverty.”
You’d think that discovering over a quarter-million Americans every year die from current poverty, and an additional 406,000 die every year from long-term or “cumulative” poverty, would move the GOP.
After all, they control the poorest states in the nation, so this hits their constituents harder than it does the electorate of Democratic politicians. This hits right smack in the middle of where Republican politicians live.
But ever since five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court first legalized political bribery in 1976 and 1978, paving the way for the Reagan Revolution, the GOP has abandoned Eisenhower’s embrace of unionization and anti-poverty programs to instead suck up to the morbidly rich and the corporations they control.
Just in the past six years, Republicans have:
— Repeatedly fought efforts to raise the $7.25 minimum wage (which would be over $15 if inflation-adjusted and over $25 if adjusted for worker productivity gains).
— Blocked passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would give workers the right to join a union by simply signing a card, all while putting forward new legislation to block gig workers from unionizing.
— Cut funding for school lunches by about 40 percent.
— Refused to extend the Child Tax Credit, which lifted millions of families with kids out of poverty during the pandemic.
— Denied healthcare to low-incoming working families in almost a dozen GOP-controlled states refusing to expand Medicaid.
— Sued the Biden administration all the way to the Supreme Court to stop Democrats’ efforts to reduce the burden of student debt by a paltry $10,000. ( remember Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, was forgiven $183,504 in PPP loans…Congressman Vern Buchanan, R-Florida, had over $2.3 million in PPP loans forgiven…Congressman Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, had over $1.4 million in PPP loans forgiven…Congressman Kevin Hern, R- Oklahoma, had over $1 million in PPP loans forgiven…Congressman Mike Kelly, R-Pennsylvania, had $987,237 in PPP loans forgiven…Congressman Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, had $482,321 in PPP loans forgiven…trump associates, members of his administration received $$$, Jared Kushner also received $Millions in PPP loans…trump’s top lawyers, Marc Kasowitz’s law firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP , received between $5 million and $10 million…David Pecker, Mr. National Enquirer, now no longer, but instrumental in trump’s hush money scandal also received millions…all forgiven…and the list goes on and on…)
— Responded to the slaughter of schoolchildren in Tennessee by proposing legislation making it impossible for grieving parents to sue gun manufacturers and sellers.
— Challenged legislative efforts by Democrats to slow down climate change by citing bullshit phony science promoted by the fossil fuel industry and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
— Demanded cuts in social security and propose raising the retirement age to 70 for people currently under 50.
— Supported the ongoing privatization of Medicare through George W. Bush’s corrupt Medicare Advantage private insurance scam.
President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan expanded child tax credits and access to Medicaid in 2021, lifting an estimated 12 million people, including 5.6 million children, out of poverty. As Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) economists noted: “[T]he Rescue Plan may turn out to be the most effective single piece of legislation for reducing annual poverty since 1935.”
When Republicans refused to go along with an extension of the program last year, however, childhood and general poverty both shot back up, proving that poverty in America isn’t some mystical or even natural force, but a policy choice embraced by the GOP.
When confronted with the option of cutting or even ending poverty in America (and the homelessness and crime attendant to it) or adding trillions to the money bins of the morbidly rich, Republicans choose the latter every time.
Biden’s policies brought Trump’s 14.7 percent unemployment rate all the way down to 3.6 percent, lifting millions of families out of poverty. Now, however, Trump appointee and lifelong Republican Jerome Powell has dedicated his efforts at the Fed to jacking unemployment back up (while doing nothing at all about out-of-control corporate price gouging) just in time for the 2024 election.
As Senator Ron Wyden said yesterday: “Republicans manufactured this [debt ceiling] crisis, and Speaker McCarthy’s proposal to get out of it would destroy jobs, worsen healthcare, increase hunger, hurt the climate, and make millions of American families poorer.”
The so-called “party of life” doesn’t, it turns out, give a damn about actual human life unless it has a net worth over a half billion dollars.”…it’s disgusting…and immoral…and typical of the GOP, the Gas and Oil Party…the party of the super rich…and screw the little guy…not even crumbs for the poor…McCarthy and the GOP repugnants want to curse us to “live in interesting times”…
laughable – Mike Lindell, the Pillow Guy and election denier was proved wrong about his voter fraud “theory”…“There’s a $5 million prize for anybody that can prove the election data that I have from the 2020 election was false, is not from the 2020 election.”…he was proved wrong, his Prove Mike Wrong Challenge…a private arbitration ruled Lindell had to pay Robert Zeidman, from The Washington Post “Zeidman, a computer forensics expert and 63-year-old trump voter from Nevada, the panel said Zeidman was entitled to the $5 million payout.”…hit them in the pocketbook…Lindell is also being sued by Dominion…
Pam and Julia are on the mend, still cautious to be around anyone…I brought them food from Lee’s Hoagies…they loved their dinner…better than toast…for sure…and I finished the art project for Elissa this afternoon…all is well…and feeling pretty good about DeSantis crashing and burning…he thought he was the “great white hope”…not so much, and not so smart for a Harvard law graduate…and even more feeling pretty good…trump goes on trial next week, E. Jean Carroll suing trump in a civil defamation trial…yippie…
Art Salazar 