He's litty

In an op-ed for Foreign Affairs this week, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that he’s optimistic that incoming President Joe Biden will put all of that nasty “America First” business behind us and get back to conducting U.S. foreign affairs the old way. You know, the way that involves aligning ourselves with our enemies, making a complete mess out of situations that don’t need to involve us, carrying countries that can’t pay their debts, and sending our military into wars that never end. It sure will be great the have The Establishment back in charge, huh?
...
Together with American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake and the Hoover Institution’s Jim Ellis and Joe Felter, Mattis wrote, “In January, when President Joe Biden and his national security team begin to reevaluate U.S. foreign policy, we hope they will quickly revise the national security strategy to eliminate ‘America first’ from its contents, restoring in its place the commitment to cooperative security that has served the United States so well for decades.

“The best strategy for ensuring safety and prosperity is to buttress American military strength with enhanced civilian tools and a restored network of solid alliances – both necessary to achieving defense in depth,” they claimed.

Yeah. NOT Trump’s approach, which only gave us the first four-year period in modern history that the U.S. didn’t get itself involved in any new foreign wars. Not Trump’s approach, which finally convinced our NATO allies to buy in on their own national defense. Not Trump’s approach, which put a decisive end to ISIS in Syria and sent Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to his eternal reward. Not Trump’s approach, which has led to unprecedented Middle Eastern peace deals and a weakened Iran.

“In practice, ‘America first’ has meant ‘America alone.’ That has damaged the country’s ability to address problems before they reach U.S. territory and has thus compounded the danger emergent threats pose,” they claimed without evidence. “Not even the United States is strong enough to protect itself on its own. Cooperating with like-minded nations to sustain an international order of mutual security and prosperity is a cost-effective way of securing that help.”

Oh, do tell us about “cost-effective” national security. How much has Iraq and Afghanistan cost our nation again?

All this op-ed tells us is that, with Trump out of the way, the neocons in both the Democratic and Republican parties are ready to jump back into the mix and pick up like nothing ever happened. Hooray…
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President Trump is still battling to expose possible voter fraud in the 2020 election and secure a second term.

As Revolver has repeatedly pointed out, Republican state legislators should be rallying behind the president, and pledging to appoint a pro-Trump slate of electors to the Electoral College if they are not adequately convinced the 2020 vote was fair and free of fraud.
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Instead, state-level Republicans are doing nothing. Perhaps they are convinced that no fraud occurred. The truth, of course, is that America’s electoral system is a mess, and it is nearly impossible to detect or prevent competent fraud.

Republicans only have themselves to blame for what happened in the 2020 election. And whether Trump succeeds or fails in his legal challenges over the 2020 election, the party has an obligation to make sure this mess never repeats.

For the past decade, Republicans have been handed victory after victory at the state level. The party has had undivided control of a majority of state legislatures after every single election since 2010. Entering this year, they controlled thirty. In the key 2020 swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, and Florida, they have controlled both houses of the state legislature for the entirety of the past decade. In every single one of those states, Republicans also controlled the governor’s mansion for at least four years. In Georgia, Arizona, Texas, and Florida, they had total control of the state government for the entire decade.

Power is useless when it isn’t used. Yet when it comes to elections, Republicans wasted their power, and allowed Democrats to create the situation the prevailed in 2020, the situation that may have let a presidential election be snatched away from them.
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Two U.S. Citizens Who Were Detained for Speaking Spanish Reach Settlement Deal with U.S. Gov’t

Read more at:
missoulian.com/news/national/2-d...



www.democracynow.org/2020/11/25/...
... Two U.S. Citizens Who Were Detained for Speaking Spanish Reach Settlement Deal with U.S. Gov’t
Headline Nov 25, 2020
In Montana, two U.S. citizens who were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection for speaking Spanish while grocery shopping have reached a settlement in their racial profiling lawsuit against the Trump administration. Ana Suda and Martha Hernandez were standing in line at the store when a CBP agent asked them where they were born and demanded to see identification after hearing them speak Spanish. The two women, who were born in Texas and California, showed their valid Montana driver’s licenses, but were taken into custody anyway.
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Donald Trump has added yet another name to the long list of friends, loyalists, cronies, and conservative celebrities who have received presidential pardons or commutations. This time the beneficiary is his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection with the Trump-Russia scandal. Weeks into his administration, Trump fired Flynn for lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. But in recent years, Trump, as he has falsely contended the Russia investigation was a hoax, has defended and hailed Flynn. Trump’s use—and abuse—of executive clemency has figured prominently in his presidency. One widely discussed Trump 2020 campaign ad, aired during the Super Bowl, featured Alice Johnson—a Black woman who served 21 years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense before Trump commuted her sentence in 2018. “Thanks to President Trump, people like Alice are getting a second chance,” the ad stated. In February, Trump freed several women who served time with Johnson.
... But Johnson’s case is far from typical. More often, Trump has used his pardon powers to reward political allies, such as Flynn. Here’s a list of right-wing icons, corrupt public officials, accused war criminals, and other controversial figures who have received clemency from Trump.

Roger Stone
Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, was convicted of lying to Congress, obstruction, and witness tampering in connection with the Russia investigation.

The Trump connection: Stone’s 2019 trial revealed that Trump likely lied to special counsel Robert Mueller about his own role in the scandal, but Stone has remained staunchly loyal to the president. Trump returned the favor. He repeatedly sought to intervene on Stone’s behalf—publicly berating federal prosecutors, the judge in the case, and even a juror. Senior Justice Department officials allegedly pressured government attorneys to “cut Stone a break.” On July 10, Trump commuted Stone’s sentence, just days before Stone would have been required to report to prison.

Joe Arpaio
During his 24 years as the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Arpaio called himself “America’s toughest sheriff” and became known for his severe treatment of immigrants and the harsh conditions in his county jail. When a judge ordered him to stop detaining people based solely on suspicion of their immigration status, which amounted to racial profiling, he refused. In 2017, he was found guilty of criminal contempt of court for violating that order.

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The Trump connection: Arpaio endorsed Trump in January 2016, citing his stances on immigration and stumping for him in Iowa. The two men also share a fondness for racist conspiracy theories. At the same time Trump was pushing the false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, Arpaio sent one of his deputies and a member of his volunteer birther posse to Hawaii to investigate Obama’s birth certificate. At an August 2017 rally in Phoenix, Trump hinted at a pardon. “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” he said. “I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine.” Days later, the president followed through. “Sheriff Joe is a patriot,” he declared. “Sheriff Joe loves our country. Sheriff Joe protected our borders. And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration.”

Dwight and Steven Hammond
When Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted of arson for burning more than 100 acres of federal land, their case became a flashpoint in the fight for control over public lands. (Witnesses testified the fire was intended to cover up evidence of illegal hunting; the Hammonds said they started the fire on their own property to burn off invasive species and it accidentally spread.) “They have become symbols of the way many rural Americans feel they’ve been wronged by federal overreach,” BuzzFeed News reported. Their case sparked a 41-day standoff with federal agents at a wildlife refuge in Oregon, led by Ryan and Ammon Bundy. Many people joining the protest were members of unofficial militias, armed with long guns and pistols and dressed in full tactical gear. One Arizona rancher was killed by police.

The Trump connection: The Hammonds had support both from right-wing extremists willing to take up arms against government regulation and from a multimillionaire oil magnate. Forrest Lucas—a GOP megadonor who holds naming rights to the Indianapolis Colts stadium and has close ties to Vice President Mike Pence—made the Hammonds a personal cause as a symbol of his anti-regulation agenda. Trump pardoned them in July 2018. Lucas flew the Hammonds home in his private plane after they were released.

Rod Blagojevich
Blagojevich was governor of Illinois in 2008 when then-Senator Barack Obama won the presidency, leaving Blagojevich to pick Obama’s successor. The governor was convicted of trying to shake down a children’s hospital and sell Obama’s Senate seat. “I’ve got this thing and it’s f**king golden,” he said on a secretly recorded call, referring to the Senate seat. “I’m not just giving it up for f**king nothing.”

The Trump connection: Blagojevich appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice reality show after leaving office but before going to prison. (He was fired from Celebrity Apprentice, Trump told him, because his “Harry Potter facts were not accurate.”) In recent years, Blagojevich’s wife Patti became a regular on Fox News, hoping to catch the president’s ear as she pleaded for clemency and shopped the theory that Robert Mueller and James Comey—two of the key law enforcement officials who later investigated the Trump-Russia scandal—were behind her husband’s downfall. (Mueller was head of the FBI at the time of Blagojevich’s conviction; Comey was in private practice.) “They took down a governor, and now they’ve got their sights much higher,” she said. Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence on February 18, freeing him from prison six years early.


Scooter Libby
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2007 in an infamous case involving the disclosure of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. At the time, Plame was married to a diplomat who had accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

The Trump connection: Comey, who was deputy attorney general at the time, appointed Patrick Fitzgerald—the same US attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich—as special counsel to investigate the Plame scandal. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence in 2007, allowing him to avoid prison time but leaving the conviction on his record. Libby’s defenders continued to argue that he’d been railroaded by overzealous prosecutors, and Trump pardoned him in 2018. Victoria Toensing—who was Libby’s lawyer, as well as vocal Trump ally and a key player in the Ukraine scandal—told the Washington Post that Libby was the victim of an “injustice inflicted on him and his family” by Comey and Fitzgerald. The White House gave a similar explanation. “Many people think that Scooter Libby was the victim of a special counsel gone amok,” Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said. The same day Trump pardoned Libby, he attacked Comey.


Bernard Kerik
Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner under Rudy Giuliani, pleaded guilty in 2009 to eight felonies, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials. During sentencing, the judge said Kerik had made “a conscious decision to essentially lie to the president of the United States to get a cabinet position”—a reference to the fact that Bush had nominated him in 2004 to serve as Homeland Security secretary. He served three years in prison.

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The Trump connection: Kerik has been a regular on Fox News, where he has suggested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) should be arrested over their roles in Trump’s impeachment. According to a White House statement, Giuliani and Fox host Geraldo Rivera were among those who pushed for a Kerik pardon, which Trump granted on February 18.

Michael Milken
Billionaire Michael Milken, once the highest-paid man in the history of Wall Street, helped create the market for junk bonds in the 1980s. The “junk bond king” was charged with insider trading and convicted of securities fraud in 1990. He served 22 months in prison.

The Trump connection: Trump pardoned Milken on February 18. The president’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, lobbied for Milken’s pardon, as did Giuliani, whose US attorney office had prosecuted Milken. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin—a longtime friend who flew on Milken’s private jet last year—pushed for the pardon. So did Rupert Murdoch, who relied on Milken’s services to fuel the growth of News Corp. According to the White House, the pardon was also supported by GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson, Trump fundraiser and inaugural committee chairman Tom Barrack, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Paul Pogue
Pogue, who owned a Texas construction company, was convicted of underpaying his taxes by nearly $500,000 in 2010. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

The Trump connection: Pogue’s son Ben and daughter-in-law Ashleigh donated more than $200,000 to the Trump Victory PAC. The Daily Beast reported that on the day of their first donation, Ashleigh posted an Instagram photo of the couple posing with Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host, in the Hamptons. The president pardoned Pogue on February 18.

David Safavian
Safavian was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements in 2008 in connection with the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. (Abramoff pleaded guilty to, among other things, defrauding Native American tribes). Safavian, who was working in George W. Bush’s budget office at the time, went on a golf trip to London and Scotland with Abramoff. Safavian was sentenced to a year in prison.

The Trump connection: Safavian is general counsel at the American Conservative Union, which is chaired by Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes was formerly the White House director of strategic communications and went on to serve as a spokesperson for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Trump pardoned Safavian on February 18.

Pat Nolan
Nolan, a Republican former California state legislator, pleaded guilty in 1994 in an FBI political corruption sting known as “Shrimpscam,” in which federal agents pretending to represent a shrimp business offered bribes to lawmakers. He served 26 months in prison. He’s since become a leading conservative voice on criminal justice reform.

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The Trump connection: Nolan leads the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at the American Conservative Union Foundation. Nolan was also an influential voice in favor of the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform law that Trump sees as one of his signature legislative achievements. (The measure was highlighted in Trump’s Super Bowl ad that featured Alice Johnson.) Trump pardoned Nolan in May 2019.

Kristian Saucier
While a sailor in the Navy, Saucier illegally retained photographs he took of classified areas of a nuclear submarine. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.

The Trump connection: On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump frequently referred to Saucier’s conviction as an example of punishment for what he deemed a lesser offense than Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State. He pardoned Saucier in March 2018.

Dinesh D’Souza
D’Souza—a conservative provocateur and former Reagan adviser—is known for his incendiary articles and films, including ones that have focused on Obama-related conspiracy theories. He was convicted in 2014 of making illegal campaign contributions to Wendy Long, a Republican Senate candidate in New York, funneling $20,000 through straw donors to evade campaign finance limits. He was sentenced to five years probation, including eight months of confinement in a community center.

The Trump connection: D’Souza claimed that Obama’s Justice Department had pursued the case because D’Souza had made a movie critical of Obama. A judge at the time called this theory “nonsense,” but it resonated with Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was among those who lobbied for a pardon for D’Souza, which Trump granted in May 2018. Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host and former judge who is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, applauded it. Roger Stone cited D’Souza’s pardon as a signal that Trump had the backs of former aides who had been indicted in the Mueller investigation. “It has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III: Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen,” Stone told the Washington Post.

Conrad Black
Black was a media mogul who at one point ran the world’s third-largest newspaper company, which owned papers such as the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Telegraph. In 2007—in yet another case prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald—Black was convicted of obstruction of justice and fraud for swindling his company out of $60 million that should have gone to stockholders. Black served three and a half years in prison, though parts or his conviction were ultimately overturned.

The Trump connection: At Black’s 2007 trial, Trump had been expected to testify that Black’s wife’s $62,000 birthday party was a business event, rather than a social gathering—but Black’s lawyers changed their minds at the last minute. In recent years, Black has become a prolific writer of op-eds praising the president, as well as the sycophantic book Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. Rush Limbaugh and Henry Kissinger were among those who pressed Trump to pardon Black; he did so in May 2019.

Angela Stanton
Stanton was convicted on federal conspiracy charges for her role in a car theft ring in 2004. After serving her two-year prison sentence, she became a television personality and author, starring in a BET docuseries and writing an inflammatory book called Lies of a Real Housewife, alleging that one of the stars of Real Housewives of Atlanta had been part of her “hustler’s life of crime” years ago.

The Trump connection: Stanton helped push for the First Step Act. In 2019, she participated in a Fox News panel of Black voters as a Trump supporter. After being pardoned on February 18, she announced plans to run for Congress as a Republican. She ultimately lost her race by more than 70 percentage points.

Eddie DeBartolo Jr.
DeBartolo, a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, was convicted in 1998 of failing to report a $400,000 bribe the governor of Louisiana solicited from him. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and $1 million in penalties.

The Trump connection: DeBartolo supported Trump’s presidential campaign and hosted a pre-inauguration party headlined by Kimberly Guilfoyle and Omarosa Manigault. DeBartolo is also a local celebrity in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. As Philip Bump wrote in the Washington Post, Trump’s pardon of DeBartolo, issued on February 18, could have been part of his effort to keep Ohio red in 2020.

Michael Behenna
Behenna was an Army lieutenant who served five years in prison for the 2008 murder of Ali Mansur, an Iraqi prisoner. US forces took Mansur into custody after a roadside bomb killed two of Behenna’s friends and platoon members, but he was freed when the military couldn’t conclusively link him to the bombing. Behenna was supposed to drive Mansur back to his village. Instead, Behenna stripped him naked, interrogated him without authorization, and fatally shot him. He later claimed self-defense
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Despite the undeniable fact that Hillary conceded the day after and trump was given a smooth transition, trump voters still lie and cheat and then project.

Almost two weeks after the votes that made him a one-term president were counted, Donald Trump is still claiming that he won. In reality there is no room for doubt. Joe Biden beat him by almost 6m votes, amassing 306 electoral-college votes to Mr Trump’s 232. Yet reality is a stranger to Mr Trump, who was crying fraud before the first vote had been cast. He has since fired an official who contradicted his view that the election was stolen and encouraged his supporters to protest against the result.
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Most Republican leaders go along with the president. They include his attorney-general, Bill Barr, who told prosecutors to investigate “substantial allegations” of election fraud; Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who has championed the president’s right to go to court; and Lindsey Graham, one of Mr Trump’s staunchest Senate defenders, who Georgia’s secretary of state says pressed him to exclude legitimate ballots.
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Did you know that the pilgrims almost starved after they arrived at Plymouth Rock? That's because they were forced to farm "collectively." The corporation that funded the expedition said, "grow food together. Divide the harvest equally."

Shia Lebouf attempts to go all out virial, ultimately gets arrested, so starts the whole, I am going to plant my flag where the , OK, 4chan population and the Trump loving people cannot get to it, did you follow this story back in 2017-18? if not it was a wild ride across the world, to get Shia, and did they succeed well, f'yah they did every time! and that drove Shia into a fu'ing log cabin inside a museum and there he stayed for what over a month I believe it was, this was such a fun ride people, priceless. ... This is just one part of many. But it happened right after Trump got in office, the "He Will Not Divide Us Movement", was a colossal failure and the people spoke. Just as they did today in Pennsylvania. Think about it.
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Chris Ray Flying over the target , once AGAIN!

The finale of “Dancing With the Stars” waltzed its way to solid if unspectacular ratings on Monday night.

A total of 6.1 million people tuned in to watch former “Bachelorette” Kaitlyn Bristowe and her partner Artem Chigvintsev be crowned the Mirrorball Champions. That represents a six-week viewership high, but is down around 2 million viewers on the season 29 premiere. ... Afterwards, “The Good Doctor” came in even with a 0.6 rating and 4.4 million viewers.
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Back in 2013, The Croods became a meme without anything from the movie actually going viral. Oh, it was a pleasant enough film (“[it] isn’t particularly smart, but it has just enough wit to keep us engaged and just enough speed to keep us from feeling restless,” I said in in my review) and a sizable hit, too — a rare non-sequel blockbuster for Dreamworks Animation at the time. But, somehow, the picture became a punch line, a poster child for high-concept, grab-all-the-money-while-you-can bluntness. Maybe it was the dull simplicity of its premise: a prehistoric family engages in death-defying shenanigans while outrunning the apocalypse. Or could it simply have been the dim-bulb musicality of that title? Go on, say, “Croods” out loud a few times, and be sure to extend that “oo” as much as you can; I guarantee you’ll feel both better and dumber.
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New movies in 2020 don’t really become memes anymore — at least not in our current dystopian holding pattern — so it may not matter one way or the other that The Croods: A New Age essentially presents the same conflict as the first film did, between brute force and wit, between fear and knowledge, only with a somewhat more pointed and timely slant. After a prologue that shows us how Guy (Ryan Reynolds), the smarty-pants dreamer who helped save the titular cave family in the first film, became an orphaned wanderer, the new movie picks up where the previous one left off. The Croods are still looking for a new place to call home. Guy is continuing to romance Eep (Emma Stone) under the watchful gaze of her paranoid father, Grug (Nicolas Cage).

The family eventually finds itself in an idyllic land run by a rather modern-looking couple, Hope and Phil Betterman (Leslie Mann and Peter Dinklage, respectively), who have managed to pioneer advanced farming methods alongside newfangled concepts like clothes, soap, and privacy. The Bettermans, it turns out, were friends of Guy’s now-deceased parents. They disdain the Croods’ uncouth ways and are somewhat outraged that Guy is engaged to Eep instead of their own daughter, Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). It’s a dynamic ripe for confrontational, culture-war bivouacking: The fey, man-bunned Phil and the nice-on-the-outside, judgmental-on-the-inside Hope are exactly the kind of progressive 21st-century busybodies who would have voted for Obama a third time we’re often told America loves to hate. (Let’s face it, even progressive 21st-century busybodies hate progressive 21st-century busybodies.) Next to them, the ignorant, slovenly Croods feel refreshingly salt of the earth. It’s like Idiocracy in reverse.

But that’s just the setup. This is an animated family film, after all, so we know that Hope and Phil and Grug and his wife, Ugga (Catherine Keener), will eventually set aside their differences to cooperate against a common enemy and that things will get entertainingly rollercoaster-y just like they did in the first movie. Back in 2013, The Croods’ elaborate, rapid-fire action sequences felt like typical studio animation pyrotechnics. Now, they’re a little more elaborate and a little more rapid-fire, but a lot less impressive. Still, the few clever Mad Max: Fury Road call-outs might help the film pander to grown-up viewers (while reminding us all over again how much Fury Road was basically a live-action cartoon).

More fun are the imaginative prehistoric beasts, from land-sharks to six-eyed spider-wolves to a tribe of “punch monkeys” that has developed a language that consists entirely of, well, punches and slaps. This was one of the strengths of the first picture, too: You sensed that the filmmakers had a blast inventing crazy new creatures for this primeval fantasy land. Oddly, it was one of the weaknesses of the first film, too: The more creative the world around the Croods got, the less interesting and more boilerplate the Croods’ actual story felt. But our world has changed as well, and one need not be too cruel to The Croods, a sentence I can’t believe I just typed. Once upon a time, saying a movie would help “pass the time” felt like damning with faint praise. Today, it feels like an essential service.
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If there exists a poster child for racism in Hollywood, it might very well be the marketing for Couples Retreat. The 2009 comedy had an ensemble cast of top comedy actors, but when it came time to putting together the names and faces of the talent for the movie poster, the Black actors were excised from the international edition. ... Just what did this decision say about Hollywood's view of moviegoers around the world, and what did that say about Universal Pictures, which distributed the motion picture? Although many may ascribe this notorious act of racism to the entertainment industry's pre-woke days, things haven't gotten better, says Couples Retreat star Faizon Love, who on Wednesday filed a fresh lawsuit against Universal over what occurred.
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Country music star Morgan Wallen will be grateful for second chances this Thanksgiving -- he'll be the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live," 2 months after the show axed him.

'SNL' announced it Wednesday, saying Morgan will perform on the December 5 show ... with Jason Bateman hosting. Moments after the news ... ... Morgan was keeping things pretty humble, and simply tweeted, "Let's try this again."
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Just like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Disney Plus, HBO Max is adding a ton of great new titles to give you some festive treats this holiday season. The Warner streaming service’s December haul isn’t necessarily full of Christmas content – there’s a lot of that already available – but there are definitely a ton of must-see films and TV shows on the lineup, so let’s take a look at the highlights.
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December 1st brings a glut of newly licensed titles, including everything from horror prequel Annabelle: Creation to the original Westworld movie. In terms of franchises, you’ll be able to find a bunch of The Crown films, some Final Destinations and the whole Free Willy trilogy on the site next month. And if you’re looking to chow down on some of the best movies around, you won’t be disappointed. Just a few of the acclaimed classics being added to HBO Max on the first day of December include The Shawshank Redemption, Gladiator and The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Nowhere has the COVID pandemic been as paradoxically good for the real estate market, perhaps, as California’s patrician seaside community of Montecito, where TV writer-producer Oliver Goldstick has sold two neighboring properties in an off-market deal for a combined $4.1 million and concurrently shelled out a bit more than $4.9 million for a stately and nearby 1920s English Tudor residence designed by beloved high-society architect George Washington Smith.

I find it fascinating that former President Obama chose this moment in time to write and publish his book, Promised Land. He could have had it released a year before the elections, or a year from now, once another administration had been settled. Instead, he decided to ride the coattails of the election, as though he had won another term, and capitalize on someone else’s momentum.
...
Obama the 2008 candidate came off as likeable, but that was clearly an act. Obama the 44th President and Obama post-presidency is an insufferable jerk who doesn’t know when to leave the stage.

My colleague Nick Arama said it perfectly,

“I have to admit that one of the great things about the Trump Administration is that Barack Obama is no longer president.

“Now while it’s fair that as a Democrat, he would have policy that I would likely disagree with and yes, want to fight against, often what was most infuriating about Obama was his utter pretense and gall, claiming to be against division while completely cutting people up or siccing his administration on them behind the scenes.

“He was always praised by media for being so smooth. But they mistook ‘smooth’ for caring, rather than simply being smooth, deceitful and huge narcissist.”

Big time. It doesn’t help that the Democrat Party keeps calling him back, like a talisman. Obama could refuse, but narcissist that he is, he can’t ignore the siren song of attention. It’s not like he and Michelle aren’t busy making left-leaning, poorly produced Netflix fodder. In fact, he made a big deal that he wanted to stay out of this election (yeah, right). But… the party… and Joe Biden needed him, so he made the ultimate sacrifice and came back on the stage.

As my colleague, Scott Hounsell, says, “Excuse me while I call BS.”

Obama loves to pontificate and will take any opportunity given to do so. Because he was the leader of the free world for 8 years, he will always be given a stage to do just that. Today’s stage was Charlamagne tha God’s Breakfast Club morning show.

Obama was with “his people”, so he put on his best “black voice”, and spouted his usual bromides and platitudes from 2008-2016 about a “better day” for Americans and Black people. Same Hopey, Changey, mish-mash that is about as deep as a mud puddle and has just as much clarity.

As during his presidency, he talked in generalities without diving deeply into connecting those generalities to real-life or real-world experience. Apparently, his book is 768 pages—obviously, Bill Ayers did not write this one for him—so Obama’s penchant for bloviating spills over into this bloated written work.

Charlamagne tha God asked what did Obama do for Black people while he was in office. Obama claimed,

“Poverty dropped faster than everyone else, Black income went up faster than everyone else. We didn’t advertise that.

“A lot of my policies were targeted toward people most in need, those people were disproportionately African-American.”

“At the end of the day, there is no way in 8 years to make up for 200 years.”

Is that the President’s job, even the first Black Bi-Racial one? I don’t think so. Increasing food stamp distribution and spouting about how Trayvon Martin could have been your son, are not policy prescriptions that helped anyone, especially Black people. But do sound off about all the difficulties you had during your presidency in “helping” Black folks.

Because I have ignored Obama since he left the presidential stage, I had forgotten how demeaning he could be to people he dislikes or doesn’t understand. He attempts to sound reasonable, but his contempt bleeds through like a leaky pen on white silk.

In his discussion on the Senate run-off in Georgia, he went on a tangent about how the rest of the country doesn’t think like “us” urbane city dwellers:

“But listen, it’s hard winning in Georgia. Just like it’s hard winning in Iowa. Just like it’s hard winning in a lot of the country.

He would know because he won both. He had the goodwill and votes of white people, religious people, gay people, straight people, people of all stripes across the country. Yet, he shows his appreciation by continuing to insult them.

“One thing I hope the book also reminds us of; those of us who live in D.C., or New York, or L.A., sometimes we do not have a good enough sense of how big this country is and how a lot of folks do not accept at all things that we, who are living in Urban, Metropolitan areas just take for granted.”

Like, what, Arugula? Obama makes no bones that he considers the rest of the country that is not a major metropolitan center, hicks and rubes, reminiscent of his Bitter-Clinger comment during the 2008 election.

Then, his distaste for Black people who are not like him peeks through. “I deeply believe that people should be treated equally, under the law, regardless of sexual orientation. […] But we all, I mean, I think there’s huge chunks of my community where that’s still controversial.”

And who doesn’t? I’ve traveled quite a bit, and there are thriving Gay communities in rural areas as well as urban areas. And who is “my community”? Rich DC elitist? Or the Hollywood set with too much money and too little sense? Obama makes it appear that Gays are hated outside of urban areas and in the Republican Party. Ever heard of Richard Grenell? Ricky Rebel? There was and is prominent support of Trump in the Gay community, but the narcissist that Obama is, he assumes because Obergefell v. Hodges happened during this presidency, that he has a handle of what matters to the Gay community.

He’s an idiot.

As is his wont, Obama droned on, and this is the comment that got the most steam:

“People were surprised about a lot of Hispanic folks who voted for Trump. But, there are a lot of evangelical Hispanics who, the fact that Trump says racist things about Mexicans or puts detainees, undocumented workers in cages, they think that’s less important than the fact that he supports their views on gay marriage and abortion.”

Of course, his fan club at The Breakfast Club didn’t even challenge him on the fact that “children in cages” was instituted on his watch. So, in this entire ramble, he insults people of faith and maligns an entire ethnic group because they do not support killing babies.

If this type of crap had come out of anyone else’s mouth, you’d hear an outcry. But 44 gets away with it and it’s considered erudite.

Give me a break.

He goes on to claim Republicans create a false message about Democrats like they want to take your guns away. This is the President who won the 2009 “Gun Seller of the Year” award because of the spike in sales of guns and ammunition after he was elected. The same President who politicized the tragedy of Sandy Hook in order to try to institute national gun control.

But yeah, Democrats wanting to take your guns away is a Republican trope.

Uh-huh…

“Smooth cruelty”. Perfectly on point.
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Thanksgiving will be a holiday after all for the Ravens and Steelers, whose Thursday-night matchup has been postponed until Sunday, due to the COVID-19 outbreak with which the Baltimore NFL squad have been dealing.

Coming off the bench to populate NBC’s primetime Thanksgiving slate will be an encore of this year’s National Dog Show (which first airs Thursday at noon ET), followed by a rerun of The Wall (featuring the grandmother/granddaughter duo of Nellie and Taylor from Quarryville, Pa.).

This is the type of story that would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad. Actually, you know what? It’s hilarious anyway.

A new report shows that employees of Penguin Random House Canada aren’t too happy about the publisher’s release of a new book by clinical psychologist and author Dr. Jordan Peterson. On Monday, he announced that he was releasing a new book titled “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life,’ which will come out in March of next year.
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On Tuesday, Vice reported that the release of Peterson’s book has caused controversy at the publishing company. Workers became emotionally distraught when they found out that their employer was working with the author. These employees are trying to pressure the company’s leadership to cancel the release of the book because that’s how progressives deal with views they don’t like.

Four employees with Penguin Random House Canada told Vice that the company held a town hall regarding Peterson’s book on Monday in which “executives defended the decision to publish Peterson while employees cited their concerns about platforming someone who is popular in far-right circles.”

One of the employees, who is a member of the LBGTQ community, said that Peterson “is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him.”

Another worker stated that “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives.”

“They said one co-worker discussed how Peterson had radicalized their father and another talked about how publishing the book will negatively affect their non-binary friend,” according to Vice. “The company since June has been doing all these anti-racist and allyship things and them publishing Peterson’s book completely goes against this. It just makes all of their previous efforts seem completely performative,” the worker added.

In a statement released by email, the publishing company indicated that it is open to its employees’ feedback:

“We announced yesterday that we will publish Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order this coming March. Immediately following the announcement, we held a forum and provided a space for our employees to express their views and offer feedback. Our employees have started an anonymous feedback channel, which we fully support. We are open to hearing our employees’ feedback and answering all of their questions. We remain committed to publishing a range of voices and viewpoints.”

Each worker who spoke with Vice said that if the company doesn’t cancel the book, they would prefer that it consider donating the profits from Peterson’s book to LGBTQ organizations.

This is the type of story that makes one wonder if these far-leftist types ever listen to themselves. The fact that employees would break down and cry because their employer is releasing a book by Jordan Peterson is asinine. At no point in Vice’s report did anyone give any credible examples of Peterson making bigoted comments against anyone nor did they share any real evidence that he is radicalizing right-wingers.

The fact is, ever since Jordan Peterson vocally opposed attempts by the Canadian government to force people to use “preferred pronouns” when addressing members of the transgender community, the far-left crowd has been gunning for him. The fact that he appeals to white right-wingers doesn’t earn him points in the “everybody I disagree with is a bigot” circles.

Fortunately, Penguin Random House Canada hasn’t bowed to the leftist mob. Their refusal to give in to pressure is needed in these times when progressives seek to cancel anyone who doesn’t obey their edicts.
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Per an official release from Warner Bros.: The studio announced today that Mads Mikkelsen (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Hannibal,” “Casino Royale”) has been cast as Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the third “Fantastic Beasts” film. The latest installment in the series is currently in production at Warner Bros. ... Studios Leavesden outside of London. The journey continues as Warner Bros. Pictures’ third “Fantastic Beasts” film takes audiences back to the beloved Wizarding World for an all-new, globe-trotting adventure. The latest installment of “Fantastic Beasts” features an ensemble cast led by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”), Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Callum Turner, William Nadylam, Poppy Corby-Tuech, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates, and two-time Oscar nominee Jude Law (“Cold Mountain,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley”).
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