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Month: May 2019

A political divorce by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on May 13, 2019

A political divorce
by Tom Sullivan

Andy McKean returned to the Iowa legislature after a fifteen-year absence. Starting in his late 20s, he’d served seven terms in the House and three in the Senate — 24 years in all — before returning to Jones County to serve as county supervisor and to see his kids through their teens.

The Republican caucus he found upon his return left him uncomfortable and isolated:

I believe that it is just a matter of time before our country pays a heavy price for President Donald Trump’s reckless spending and shortsighted financial policies; his erratic, destabilizing foreign policy; and his disdain and disregard for environmental concerns.

Furthermore, he sets a poor example for the nation and our children. He delivers personal insults, often in a crude and juvenile fashion, to those who disagree with him, and is a bully at a time when we’re attempting to discourage bullying, on- and offline.

In addition, he frequently disregards the truth and displays a willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity, and disability.

I believe that his actions have coarsened political discourse, contributing to unprecedented polarization and creating a breeding ground for hateful rhetoric and actions.

“If this is the new normal, I want no part of it,” McKean writes in The Atlantic.

The longest-serving Republican in Iowa filed for divorce from his political party on April 23 and became a Democrat:

“With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party,” McKean said during a news conference at the Capitol. “Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do.”

The Des Moines Register reported McKean’s is not the first defection:

McKean is not the first Iowa lawmaker to cite Trump as a reason for leaving the Republican Party. Former Sen. David Johnson quit the Republican Party in 2016 in protest of Trump’s candidacy. Johnson, who later registered as an independent, did not seek re-election in 2018.

Former Rep. Dawn Pettengill, a Republican from Mount Auburn, left the Democratic Party in 2007. She did not seek re-election in 2018

Such defections may not get much press and there may yet be too few Republicans of conscience willing to speak publicly (or even to pollsters), but they are out there.

**********************************

Walter Shaub ran the U.S. Office of Government Ethics under President Obama. He resigned in protest in July 2017. Shaub is now a senior advisor to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

“My hobbies include screaming into the void and banging my head against a table,” Shaub joked in a November interview.

CREW responded to one of the sitting president’s many weekend tweets on Sunday:

Shaub responded personally:

As great a betrayal of this country’s principles are the many self-described patriots willing to be subjects. They are out there too.

Trump To Government: Don’t Publish the Truth If It Makes Me Look Bad by tristero

Published by tristero on May 13, 2019

Trump To Government: Don’t Publish the Truth If It Makes Me Look Bad

by tristero

Call it the ostrich strategy:

It’s easy to reach for metaphors to describe the war in Afghanistan — quagmire, money pit, a boulder that must be rolled up the Hindu Kush for eternity. 

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told The Times this month that a recent decision by the Trump administration to stop releasing important metrics about the war — the size of the Taliban, for instance, or how many provinces they control — is akin to “turning off the scoreboard at a football game and saying scoring a touchdown or field goal isn’t important.” 

Put another way, the American people are being kept more in the dark about the dismal state of the United States’ longest-running war, now in its 18th year…

In the latest report, in addition to the updates not provided to the inspector general on the number of districts and people living under Taliban control, the following metrics were classified or otherwise kept from the public eye: the number of casualties suffered by Afghan security forces; performance assessments of the Afghan Army, police and other security organizations; all but general information about the operational readiness of the security forces; the number and readiness of the elite Special Mission Wing of the Afghan Air Force; and reports on the progress of anticorruption efforts by the Ministry of the Interior. 

My guess is the same stunt is being done with at least some economics statistics, too.

Yet another assault on America’s system

Published by digby on May 13, 2019

Yet another assault on America’s system

by digby

I mentioned Pence’s passing comments on this the other day and it looks like Trump and his henchmen are serious about it:

President Trumpis looking to stop lower courts from being able to issue wide-ranging injunctions in a move that could dramatically limit the authority of judges.

The plan comes as groups opposed to Trump have been able to get several of his policies, including those seeking to limit immigration, put on hold by nationwide orders issued by lower courts in battles that were eventually decided by the Supreme Court.

Advocacy groups that have pushed judges to issue nationwide injunctions say they are necessary to protect people from policies they see as harmful, and some legal experts agree, arguing that the right to issue such actions is protected under the Constitution.

But opponents argue that injunctions should be applied more narrowly to groups that are directly impacted, saying the more liberal use of injunctions is hurting the judicial system.

Vice President Pence this week brought the issue front and center, saying in a speech to the conservative Federalist Society that the administration has been “unfairly” targeted by injunctions — and promising to unveil in coming days pathways to put the issue before the Supreme Court.

“So I say to all those gathered here: For the sake of our liberty, our security, our prosperity and the separation of powers, this era of judicial activism must come to an end,” Pence said. “The Supreme Court of the United States must clarify that district judges can decide no more than the cases before them.”

Pursuing an end to nationwide injunctions would mark the latest attempt by President Trump to shape the federal courts after getting two Supreme Court justices confirmed and more than 100 of his judicial picks installed by the Senate.

Trump opponents have argued that nationwide injunctions are necessary to protect people who may not be part of a lawsuit but would nonetheless be impacted by a particular policy or legislation.

“When the extent of the harm is nationwide, the relief should be nationwide,” Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney for the LGBT rights group Lambda Legal, told The Hill.

She pointed to the ban on transgender service members as an example of a national policy that the group was able to fend off by convincing a judge to issue a nationwide injunction, arguing that more soldiers than those filing the lawsuit would have been impacted by the action.

The administration eventually implemented a more limited form of its ban on transgender service members.

Meanwhile, Cecillia Wang, a deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the administration’s effort to limit the scope of injunctions “is simply to stand in the way of justice.”

Wang also argued that the power to issue nationwide injunctions is protected under the Constitution.

“I can’t take seriously the vice president’s threat to undo what the founders of the country, the framers of the Constitution intended, which is to have a safeguard against unlawful executive branch action,” Wang said.

But other legal experts oppose nationwide injunctions. They argue that judges’ rulings blocking policies should apply only to those behind the legal challenge and that courts are overstepping their bounds by issuing wide-ranging injunctions.

Samuel Bray, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who has been vocal in his opposition to national injunctions, said such sweeping orders “take the courts outside of their constitutional role.”

He argued that district courts were designed to rule on matters involving specific parties and not an entire nation. And if individuals in a lawsuit want the order applied nationally, Bray said, they could always file a class-action lawsuit to do so.

“Everybody in the class will win or lose together,” Bray said. And he noted that if one party loses its case for a national injunction before one judge “someone else can take another bite at the apple in another court.”

Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan who is similarly opposed to nationwide injunctions, said policies that are challenged in court deserve to undergo a “robust” review in the courts and should not simply be put on ice by the ruling of a single judge.

“What I struggle with is why anyone would support handing to judges the authority to put a halt to important government programs just because they happen to get their knickers in a twist about a particular case,” Bagley said.

It’s unclear how the Supreme Court would rule if the question does land before it.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, has previously called for the Supreme Court to take up the issue of national injunctions if they continue to be used in the legal system.

But some experts say the rest of the court may be wary of deciding to take away a power from judges that is currently used throughout the United States and that enjoys a strong legal precedent.

It would also be hard to get a case before the Supreme Court that allows it to rule solely on the constitutionality of national injunctions since challenges to injunctions are often part of broader cases.

That means the justices could effectively dodge the issue, ruling on the merits of an injunction as it applies to a specific case without necessarily ruling on the wider constitutionality of nationwide injunctions.
[…]
“The party who holds the presidency doesn’t like them. And the party who’s out of power does like them,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at American University, told The Hill.

Frost said she supports the existence of national injunctions. But she said that judges should be cautious in issuing the orders and only do so if they feel it’s necessary to protect a wide range of Americans wrongly impacted by a federal policy.

But she rejected the argument made by Pence and others that one federal judge should not be allowed to make a ruling that can impact the entire nation.

“That’s how our district courts work. A single judge gets to decide lots of sweeping questions about policy that are applied nationwide,” Frost said.

And she noted that the Trump administration can always appeal a judge’s ruling and receive a stay on an injunction, as it recently did over an order that would have paused a Trump policy requiring some asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico as their cases are processed in the U.S.

Ultimately, Frost said, conservatives who are now seeking to limit injunctions may come to regret it should the Supreme Court rule in their favor.

“It’s shortsighted to get rid of them and say, ‘Well, that will produce more policy that I like.’ It might well not,” she said.

Republicans are counting on their packed judiciary and the handpicked Supreme Court majority to deliver for them.  And they probably will …

It’s true that Democrats have kvetched about this. But I don’t recall them actually planning to change the judiciary. Of course, they worried that it would be used against them when Republicans are in power and, needless to say, they were right. Republicans have no such concerns.

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How did they keep from bursting out laughing?

Published by digby on May 12, 2019

How did they keep from bursting out laughing?

by digby


Indeed:

In 2016, when release of a video showing Trump boasting crudely about grabbing women’s genitals threatened to bring down his campaign, Pence traveled to Liberty University to urge people of faith to rally for Trump.

“Shortcomings are no excuse for inaction,” Pence said.

After Trump took office, he chose Liberty University for his first commencement address. As Pence did this year, Trump in 2017 encouraged graduates to stay tough under criticism. And he also thanked attendees for their support.

“Boy, did you come out and vote,” he said. “Boy, oh, boy, you voted, you voted.”

About 81% of white evangelicals voted for the Trump/Pence ticket. That’s a greater share than supported George W. Bush in 2004, John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012.

Right wing Christians have no shame. Which is an interesting theological twist.

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He knows everything already so he doesn’t need experts

Published by digby on May 12, 2019

He knows everything already so he doesn’t need experts


by digby

With the president seizing unprecedented powers and turning the congress into his supplicants, it seems like a good time to reprise  this story?

He said in a series of interviews that he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.”

Trump said he is skeptical of experts because “they can’t see the forest for the trees.” He believes that when he makes decisions, people see that he instinctively knows the right thing to do: “A lot of people said, ‘Man, he was more accurate than guys who have studied it all the time.’ ”
[…]
Trump’s approach goes beyond the chief executive manner of Reagan or the younger Bush. “We’ve had presidents who have reveled in their lack of erudition,” said Allan Lichtman, a political historian at American University, citing Warren Harding and Lyndon Johnson as leaders who scoffed at academics and other experts. “But Trump is really something of an outlier with this idea that knowing things is almost a distraction. He doesn’t have a historical anchor, so you see his gut changing on issues from moment to moment.”

One day last month, Trump had a visit from a delegation of prominent executives in the oil, steel and retail industries, and one of the executives told Trump that the Chinese were taking advantage of the United States. “He said, ‘I’d like to send you a report,’ ” Trump recalled. “He said, ‘I’d love to be able to send you’ — oh boy, he’s got a lengthy report, hundreds of pages. . . . I said, ‘Do me a favor: Don’t send me a report. Send me, like, three pages.’ ”

Trump said reading long documents is a waste of time because he absorbs the gist of an issue very quickly. “I’m a very efficient guy,” he said. “Now, I could also do it verbally, which is fine. I’d always rather have — I want it short. There’s no reason to do hundreds of pages because I know exactly what it is.”

Essentially, he says he’s a God who needs no advice or information because he automatically knows everything. The constitution is irrelevant because it’s on a piece of paper.

This is why his cult loves him of course. They are conservative evangelicals after all.

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There’s a reason they don’t keep records and it’s probably not good

Published by digby on May 12, 2019

There’s a reason they don’t keep records

by digby

It’s not normal for a president and his senior advisors to tear up meeting notes or fail to even make them in the first place. I know that seems obvious, but it’s really important not just for history but because it indicates that the president is operating under a secret agenda. When it comes to Donald Trump and his family, who may very well be compromised by his opaque business dealings around the world and God knows what else, there is ample reason to be suspicious.

I don’t know where this is going but I’m glad they’re doing it:

President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner have been accused of breaking the law by failing to keep records of their meetings with foreign government officials including Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and top Saudi officials.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Trump and the executive office of the president, the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleged that White House officials including the president and Kushner seem to have violated the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act by intentionally neglecting to create and keep records of meetings with Putin and Kim, among other foreign officials.

“There are a lot of questions surrounding Jared Kushner and the extent to which he, like the president, has an agenda that also serves his own personal and family business interests,” CREW’s chief FOIA counsel Anne Weismann told Newsweek on Tuesday.

The suit cites news reports that Trump had at least five different meetings with Putin with no notetaker in the room, meaning an official record of the meeting does not exist. Trump also confiscated a State Department interpreter’s notes after meeting with Putin in Germany, and had a private meeting with Kim in Vietnam with two interpreters but no record was produced, according to the suit.

In addition, the suit raises a recent meeting Kushner had with top Saudi officials that did not include State Department officials, and from which no record was created.

“The absence of records in these circumstances when the President and his top advisers are exercising core constitutional and statutory powers causes real, incalculable harm to our national security and the ability of our government to effectively conduct foreign policy,” the suit states, “Because the documentary record of this administration’s foreign policy regarding Russia, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia will be unavailable to policymakers and forever lost to history.”

Weismann said Kushner—whom Trump tasked with creating a supposedly soon-to-be-released Middle East peace plan—is meeting with very sophisticated and possibly adversarial foreign leaders and “that alone raises concerns.”

“He may be compromising American interests in ways that we don’t know about,” Weismann said. “Even if he’s not acting to pursue his business or financial interests, he doesn’t come to the job with experience in foreign relations.”

Trump has no experience either and he’s incapable of learning. Neither of them have any business doing foreign policy in the first place but to do it in secret while routinely ignoring the advice of their own experts and relying on wily foreign strongmen who flatter them is extremely dangerous.

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“She done good” #Warreninwestvirginia

Published by digby on May 12, 2019

“She done good”

by digby

It probably helps that being from Oklahoma gives her a certain common touch that you might not expect from a Harvard Law professor. She doesn’t pander to the ugly side or pull out some dumb cultural signifier that nobody believes. She just talks about how her policies will affect ordinary people.

She wouldn’t have a chance in hell of winning West Virginia (even in a primary probably.) But her message is correct, nonetheless. “You may not vote for me but I want you to know that your lives are as important to me as any other American’s and my agenda will help you right along with everyone else.” That’s morally correct and it’s the best any Democrat can do in this polarized society. Keep it simple.

Update:

Politico was at the rally:

It was a startling spectacle in the heart of Trump country: At least a dozen supporters of the president — some wearing MAGA stickers — nodding their heads, at times even clapping, for liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren.

The sighting alone of a Democratic presidential candidate in this town of fewer than 400 people — in a county where more than four in five voters cast their ballot for Trump in 2016 — was unusual. Warren’s team was apprehensive about how she’d be received.

About 150 people gathered at the Kermit Fire & Rescue Headquarters Station to hear the Massachusetts senator and former Harvard professor talk about what she wants to do to fight the opioid epidemic. Trump-supporting college students in baggy t-shirts, housewives in pearls, and the fire chief dressed in uniform joined liberal retirees wearing rainbow “Persist” shirts and teachers with six-figure student loan debt.

Kermit is one of the epicenters of the opioid addiction epidemic. The toll is visible. The community center is shuttered. Fire trucks are decades old. When Warren asked people at the beginning of the event to raise their hands if they knew somebody who’s been “caught in the grips of addiction,” most hands went up.

“That’s why I’m here today,” she said.

Warren entered the room from behind a large American flag draped in the station. Roving around a circle of people seated in fold-out chairs, she tried to strike a tone equal parts empathy and fury, while avoiding pity. She went full prarie populist, telling people their pain and suffering was caused by predatory pharmaceutical barons.

The 63-year-old fire chief, Wilburn “Tommy” Preece, warned Warren and her team beforehand that the area was “Trump country” and to not necessarily expect a friendly reception. But he also told her that the town would welcome anyone, of any party, who wanted to address the opioid crisis. Preece was the first responder to a reported overdose two years ago only to discover that the victim was his younger brother Timmy, who died.

Preece said after the event that he voted for Trump and that the president has revitalized the area economically. But he gave Warren props for showing up.

“She done good,” he said.

Others agreed.

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Don’t mediate. Organize. by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on May 12, 2019

Don’t mediate. Organize.
by Tom Sullivan

Not to go all fanboy, but this tweet thread yesterday from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminded me of something Maria from Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis might say about the exploited workers of her city of the future. Underground, unseen and disposable, they slave away so industrialists and business magnates might enjoy their shining towers and Eternal Gardens high above. Maria is a kind of prophetess to the poor.

Except, Maria urges the suffering underclass to endure until The Mediator arrives to lift their burdens and allow them to share in the plenty their labors create. AOC urges ours to organize.

The responsibility narrative the elite sell workers to blame them for their lot is a lie.

It may be “like” 10 people, but Eternal-Gardens rich, Club-of-Sons rich is a bit more than 10. Her point is it is an elite few supported by others’ toil.

Basic standards of dignity (plus worker safety) and equitable shares in the economy are common to Maria’s vision, to AOC’s, and to Elizabeth Warren’s as well. Unlike Maria, the latter two are not waiting for a male savior.

There is no Freder in our story. The privileged son of the master of the city is no mediator between the “head” and “hands,” but a false prophet. And worse.

Lawrence Glickman, a historian at Cornell University, points to another false narrative in a tweet thread this morning. Like the “poor character” narrative, “Employing the word ‘Washington’ rather than naming the Republican Party, creates a ‘both sides do it,’ style of reporting that helps the GOP whose goal is to create maximum cynicism about the ability of government to accomplish anything constructive.” Especially, for workers.

Mediation. Dignity for workers. Equitability. These are not goals for the elite. Control is.

The 2019 SIFF preview By Dennis Hartley @denofcinema5

Published by digby on May 12, 2019
Saturday Night at the Movies

The 2019 SIFF preview

By Dennis Hartley

It’s nearly time for the 44th Seattle International Film Festival (May 16th to June 9th). SIFF is showing 410 shorts, features and docs from 86 countries. Navigating festivals takes skill; the trick is developing a sense for films in your wheelhouse (I embrace my OCD and channel it like a cinematic dowser). Here are some intriguing possibilities on my list after obsessively combing through the 2019 SIFF catalog (so you don’t have to).

Let’s dive in, shall we? SIFF is featuring a number of documentaries and feature films with a sociopolitical bent. The documentary Cold Case Hammarsjkold (Denmark) follows intriguing new leads regarding the mysterious 1961 plane crash in Zambia that took the life of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarsjkold. Werner Herzog meets one-on-one with the eponymous former leader of the Soviet Union in Meeting Gorbachev (UK/USA). Russia, Russia, Russia…Putin’s Witnesses (Latvia) is filmmaker/Russian ex-patriate Vitaly Mansky’s unblinking look behind the scenes of Putin’s election in 2000.

Keira Knightly stars in Official Secrets (USA), the true story of a whistleblower prosecuted in 2004 under the UK’s Official Secrets Act after she exposed U.S. espionage shenanigans designed to drum up support for invading Iraq. Raise Hell: The Life and Time of Molly Ivins (USA) profiles the late, great, and fearless political writer who suffered no fools gladly on either side of the aisle. The Fall of the American Empire (Canada) is the bookend to Quebecois director Dennys Arcand’s trilogy of sociopolitical satires, preceded by The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions.

Thinking green: 2040 (Australia) is a hybrid eco-doc that speculates on a *possible* utopic future for the planet…if “we” get our act together. The eco-doc Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (Canada) is a “timely meditation” regarding modern civilization’s impact on the Earth’s environment (looks to be along the lines of Koyaanisqatsi). The Wild (USA) is filmmaker Mark Titus’ update to his 2014 eco-doc The Breach, which studied the threat to Bristol Bay, Alaska’s salmon industry posed by local copper mining.

Too much cold reality for you? How about a little levity, then? The Death of Dick Long (USA) is a self-proclaimed “ridiculous comedy” about “two idiots in small-town Alabama” (sounds about my speed) who bungle through a hasty cover-up after a mutual pal meets an untimely end while they’re all out partying together (good times!). Support the Girls (USA) is a day-in-the-life “working-class comedy” from Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess) starring Regina King as the harried manager of a Texas-based “breastaurant”.  Emma Peeters (Belgium) concerns a struggling thespian who decides to end it all on her imminent 35th birthday (according to her, “the expiry date for actresses”).

Dramadies: Sword of Trust (USA) is this year’s Opening Night film at SIFF and the latest from Seattle-based director Lynn Shelton, wherein two young women encounter the conspiracy-laced worldview of a crotchety pawnshop owner (Marc Maron). Winter Flies (Czech Republic) is a road movie about the misadventures of two Czech teens as they joyride a stolen car through “the dramatic backroads of northern Bohemia”.  Go Back to China (China) is a family dramedy about a young woman living high off her trust fund in L.A. who gets cut off by her prosperous dad in China. If she wants back on the gravy train, he demands she must first come back to China for a year to work at his toy factory

Pure drama:  This is Not Berlin (Mexico) is a coming-of-age tale with an ensemble cast, set against the 80s new wave music and art scene in Mexico City. A 12-year-old girl deals with growing pains and tensions brewing at school between white and First Nations students in A Colony (Quebec). Alice(Australia) is a woman left high and dry by her husband who becomes a sex worker in desperation yet finds it unexpectedly empowering.

Burning Cane (USA) is the buzz-generating debut from 18-year-old director Phillip Youmans, set in rural Louisiana. Monos (Columbia) is an uncompromising war drama about 8 teenage guerilla fighters who go rogue in a dense South American jungle, with a female American hostage in tow. Piranhas (Italy) is “a harrowing tale of gang violence” set in the Neopolitan crime world, adapted from a Roberto Saviano novel. The Ground Beneath My Feet (Austria) is a psychodrama about a workaholic facing mounting pressures in her personal and professional life that are nudging her closer to a breakdown.

Okay, enough with the drama, already. I wanna dance. Alt-rocker PJ Harvey literally travelled the world to find inspiration for her latest album, and her journey is documented in A Dog Called Money (Ireland). Yes, he’s still alive, and doing well, thank you-David Crosby: Remember My Name (USA) is “an aggressively honest portrait” of the rock icon, produced by Cameron Crowe. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (USA) sounds…cool.

And the hits just keep coming…Pavarotti (USA/UK) looks to be a full-scale (sorry) portrait of the late opera star from veteran director Ron Howard. The Apollo (USA) mixes archival stage (and backstage) footage with contemporary perspectives to reflect on the past, present and future of Harlem’s iconic performance venue. The rock ‘n’ roll comedy Yesterday (UK) sounds like a potential crowd-pleaser, considering it’s a Beatle-inspired musical fantasy that features the never-a-dull-moment Danny Boyle at the helm.

From the crime/mystery/thriller files: I’m a “Nordic noir” aficionado, so I hope to catch An Affair (Norway) wherein a disenchanted housewife being stalked by a “hunky young man” becomes the stalker herself when he tires of the chase and moves on. Conviction (France) is a true crime legal thriller promising to be “a crackling nail-biter”. In Stray Dolls (USA), a South Asian immigrant woman fresh to the U.S. takes a job at “a seedy” New Jersey motel, then gets dragged into an ill-advised scheme by a fellow housekeeper.

Forays into sci-fi and fantasy beckon: Cities of Last Things (Taiwan), “a sci-fi-tinged noir” looks like it could be a mindblower, with three actors in separate vignettes all playing one character-a tortured Taiwanese police detective navigating one long dark night of his soul (or something to that effect). Sons of Denmark (Denmark) is a dystopian political thriller set in 2025, when an underground group desperately fights to stop a fast-rising ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant party from taking power in Denmark (seems rather timely). I’m intrigued to see As the Earth Turns (USA), a 1938 silent film shot in Seattle and recently discovered at the home of director Richard Lyford. Restored and featuring a new score by Seattle composer Ed Hartman, it is described as “a sci-fi thriller that cleverly foreshadows many things still relevant to us.” What an amazing find!

Fear not, midnight movie and/or horror fans-SIFF has not forsaken thee: The Legend of the Stardust Brothers (Japan) is “a lost gem of 1980s Japanese cinema” that I somehow missed on its first go-around. Looks like this will be my chance to catch the revival of this “Rocky Horror meets Hard Day’s Night” hybrid and report back to you. Ghost Town Anthology (Quebec) is a film “shot on grainy, 16mm stock” about a sleepy Quebecois hamlet that “has a ghost problem” (I’m scared already). I don’t know what took him so long-but the maestro of deadpan cinema Jim Jarmusch has finally got around to making a zombie flick: SIFF just announced the late (but very welcome) addition of  The Dead Don’t Die (USA) to the schedule (with Bill Murray, Adam Driver, and Chloe Savigny!).

Obviously, I’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ll be plowing through the catalog and sharing reviews with you beginning next Saturday. In the meantime, visit the SIFF site for full details on the films, event screenings, special guests, panel discussions and more.

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