While those supportive of Trump have touted these actions as a show of openness, many others have pointed to the questions left unasked – and the people who have not been asked anything at all – as indicating that these disclosures about Epstein were more of a show than any real push for truth. For them the Maxwell transcripts, and the ignoring of victim’s voices, are not a sign of openness; they are a sign of a reluctance to pursue any potentially dangerous truth.
For example, Blanche asked Maxwell whether people around Epstein – including the numerous high-profile and powerful men who had known him – were associating with him for the purpose of sexual encounters. In her reply Maxwell said that some of the “cast of characters” around Epstein were “in your cabinet, who you value as your co-workers”.
Despite the fact that Maxwell had just openly mentioned Epstein associates as being in Trump’s current cabinet, Blanche – a hardened lawyer not known for missing a trick in trial argument – did not pause to ask Maxwell to identify the cabinet members she was referring to.
What the hell? She said there are members of Trump’s cabinet who were associating with Epstein for sex??? And this isn’t major headlines?
I’m gobsmacked. Who could it be? If I had to guess it would be Kennedy and Lutnick. Bobby Jr’s admitted that he knew him and he’s a hard-core womanizer. And maybe Lutnick who is a rich Wall St guy. Other than that I’m clueless.
But you would have thought we’d have heard about this in all the discussion of Maxwell’s interview. She’s an inveterate liar, of course, so who knows. But that isn’t any excuse for the media to ignore this particular charge.
Disaster capitalism for the Trump era. Destroy the place, commit genocide, starve people out — create a high tech resort for tech oligarchs. Easy peasy:
A postwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration, modeled on President Donald Trump’s vow to “take over” the enclave, would turn it into a trusteeship administered by the United States for at least 10 years while it is transformed into a gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub.
The 38-page prospectus seen by The Washington Post envisions at least a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.
Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new “AI-powered,smart cities” to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.
The plan estimates that every individual departure from Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of temporary housing and what it calls “life support” services in the secure zones for those who stay.
Called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) now distributing food inside the enclave. Financial planning was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group.
People familiar with the trust planning and with administration deliberations over postwar Gaza spoke about the sensitive subject on the condition of anonymity. The White House referred questions to the State Department, which declined to comment. BCG has said that work on the trust plan was expressly not approved and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently fired.
Great. The people who brought you famine and the indiscriminate shooting of people who are desperate for food are involved in this. Perfect.
And then there’s this:
On Wednesday, Trump held a White House meeting to discuss ideas for how to end the war, now approaching the two-year mark, and what comes next. Participants included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff; former British prime minister Tony Blair, whose views on Gaza’s future have been solicited by the administration; and Trump’ son-in-law Jared Kushner, who handled much of the president’s first-term initiatives on the Middle East and has extensive private interests in the region.
Nobody knows if they were talking about this grotesque plan for a Vegas style resort in Gaza but it stands to reason that even if they weren’t their own plans are similar. This is what Emperor Trump has decreed.
I do wonder if the MAGA cult is on board with a 10 year American occupation though. I suppose they probably are. If their Dear Leader wants it they will happily sign on.
ED O’KEEFE: Part of what distinguished the Los Angeles operations, however, is that National Guard troops were there, in essence, protecting or backing up those federal agents as they conducted operations.
Is that what we should expect to see in Chicago?
SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: You know, that always is a prerogative of President Trump and his decision. I won’t speak to the specifics of the operations that are planned in other cities, but I do know that L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action.
And that city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state. And so the citizens who live there, the small business owners in downtown L.A., they’re thankful that President Trump came in with federal law enforcement officers and helped support keeping those streets open, keep their homes and businesses from burning down, and made sure the law and order was restored.
ED O’KEEFE: I just want to clarify one thing you said there. You said L.A. wouldn’t be standing if not for these federal deployments?
SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM: So many of those homes and businesses that were in downtown L.A. and in those areas were dealing with riots and violence. And coming in and bringing those federal law enforcement officers in was incredibly important to keeping peace.
And so we are grateful that President Trump was willing to send resources and people in, in order to enforce the law. And, Ed, since then, we have arrested 5,000 dangerous illegal criminals out of L.A. and removed them from our country and had them face justice for their crimes.
Utter, fucking nonsense. Nothing like that happened, There was no riot. A couple of Waymos were set on fire. And businesses in LA are suffering because they’ve chased off all the workers and customer, just as they’re doing in DC right now and also lying about it.
I don’t know how we can possibly deal with the kind of blatant mendacity that literally says “you can believe me or you can believe your lying eyes” and 40% of the country believes them while a fair percentage of the rest doesn’t seem to think it’s a deal breaker.
How does a society come back from this, especially when we are in the midst of a technological revolution that’s virtually designed to obscure reality?
The NY Times reports: “for three decades, successive American presidents have invested enormous diplomatic capital to cultivate a friendship with India:”
Bill Clinton, who laid the foundations of the modern U.S.-India partnership, called the two democracies “natural allies.” George W. Bush described them as “brothers in the cause of human liberty.” Barack Obama and Joe Biden both cast the relationship as one of the defining global compacts of this century.
To Washington, India was a vast emerging market, a potential counterweight to China, a key partner in maintaining Indo-Pacific security and a rising power whose democratic identity would bolster a rules-based international order. For its part, India — mistrustful of the West after nearly a century of British colonial rule — shed its Cold War suspicion of Washington, which had armed and financed its archnemesis Pakistan for decades, and moved steadily closer to the United States.
It took Donald Trump one summer to obliterate these gains.
You won’t believe why he did it:
In May, he claimed credit for ending a brief military conflict between India and Pakistan. This incensed India, which regards its dispute with Pakistan as strictly bilateral, and humiliated Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had touted his closeness to “my friend Donald Trump.” Mr. Trump proceeded to have lunch at the White House with Gen. Syed Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief and former head of the country’s spy agency, which the United States has accused of supporting international terrorist groups. He also called India’s economy “dead” and imposed punishing 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports to the United States.
He’s a schoolyard bully who demands that everyone in his orbit succumb to his petty needs or risk being on his bad side. He has no respect for the internal political needs of any foreign leader. He wanted India to help him get the Nobel Prize and demanded that they bow down if they didn’t want to be publicly insulted and hit with massive tariffs.
In the process Trump united all the political factions in India which had all apparently believed Trump’s fatuous claims of being a “good friend” to Mr Modi, something which had been decisive in bolstering Modi’s own cult of personality. Modi even endorsed Trump in 2020.
Biden, being an adult with a sophisticated understanding of how the world works, overlooked that and attempted to keep the relationship functional but when Trump won, “the Indian leader’s supporters believed that Mr. Trump, rather than lecture New Delhi, would squeeze the country’s enemies and accelerate India’s rise.”
Ooops.
It hasn’t worked out that way. Mr. Trump has jeopardized the bilateral relationship and dismantled, almost overnight, Mr. Modi’s meticulously crafted image as a globally venerated statesman — something his rivals in the Indian political opposition have been unable to do.
The United States is India’s largest trading partner, and the tariffs are expected to devastate businesses across a range of sectors, causing factory closings, job losses and slower growth.
Mr. Trump at first applied a 25 percent tariff on Aug. 1 as part of his global assault on U.S. trading partners. Days later, he announced an additional 25 percent levy to punish India for buying Russian oil. The latter outraged and puzzled Indians — it was Washington, after all, that had initially encouraged India to purchase Russian oil to help stabilize global prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China, which imports more Russian oil, and Europe, whose overall trade with Russia is larger than India’s, have not been penalized for that.
He has no idea what he’s doing other than causing chaos under the assumption that everyone will eventually bend to his will because he’s omnipotent and unassailable.
India knows now that even if they lick Trump’s boots so the U.S. will remain a strategic partner against China in order to protect its trade and security, they have no way of knowing if it’s going to last. Trump might be french kissing Xi Jinping at any moment. (It sure seems as though he’s giving the green light to take Taiwan whenever he wants…) So they’re hedging their bets now:
This weekend Mr. Modi is making his first visit to China in seven years for a regional summit, where President Xi Jinping will personally welcome both him and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The Indian and Chinese armies clashed on their disputed border in 2020, and this visit is a potentially momentous opportunity to reset India-China relations, finesse lingering disputes over their border, trade and regional security, and — for China — to begin drawing India away from Washington’s orbit.
Modi is a lot like Trump and placed a big bet on his personal relationship with him. He should have known better. He may very well eventually see that its in his interest to give Trump what he wants which is to bend the knee. But whatever trust had been built up between the two countries over time is gone. Egomaniac demagogues FTW.
Mutual trust and respect must guide India-China relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two leaders met on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China’s port city of Tianjin on Sunday.
The closely watched bilateral began with a firm handshake, signalling the next step in rapprochement between the two long-time rivals while also sending a message to US President Donald Trump, whose tariff offensive has soured Washington’s ties with both New Delhi and Beijing.
During the hour-long meeting, PM Modi underlined recent progress in bilateral ties, from an agreement between special representatives on the border standoff, to the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and the restoration of direct flights between the two countries.
[…]
Seven years have passed since PM Modi last set foot in China. His last trip, to Wuhan in 2018, followed the tense Doklam standoff. This time, the focus is on economic and strategic alignment as the two Asian powers navigate the turbulence caused by Trump’s tariff barrage.
In recent days, China has unequivocally condemned the punishing 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, saying it “firmly stands with India” and denounced the US as a “bully”.
The US and China have an uneasy tariff truce in place after Trump delayed the reinstatement of sky-high tariffs on Beijing by another 90 days amid ongoing negotiations.
Beijing was further piqued when, earlier this week, Trump threatened 200 per cent tariffs if it curbed exports of rare-earth magnets to the US.
PM Modi is also scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tianjin on Monday, the first huddle between the two leaders since the US doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent over New Delhi’s refusal to stop buying Russian oil.
Yeah. Trump is a brilliant world leader. Have you heard his uncle taught at MIT?
The purge of several high level members of the Centers for Disease control last week sent shock waves through the political establishment which were dramatic even at a time when political shock waves seem to hit every few hours or so. The ouster of the new CDC director infectious disease expert Susan Monarez, who was just confirmed by 51 Republican Senators in July, for her unwillingness to sign off on dubious new COVID vaccine recommendations and the apparently pre-determined findings of the vaccine board that Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr has packed with his quack cronies, was unexpected. That it immediately triggered the resignations of five other top scientists at the CDC in protest made it all the more astounding. Kennedy promised to shake up America’s public health agencies and he has kept that promise.
Kennedy is the world’s most famous vaccine skeptic, having spent years wallowing in the rabbit hole of dark conspiracy theories about the alleged dangers of life-saving vaccines, among other things. A card-carrying practitioner of the woo-woo wellness movement, Kennedy was a known fanatic on this issue when he and Donald Trump struck their backroom deal during the campaign to deliver his followers in exchange for a role in the new administration. Since the woo and the wingnut factions of the growing anti-vaxx movement post COVID had merged, that represented a fairly good sized chunk of voters, something Trump needed since he’d lost credibility with that crowd when he bragged about Operation Warp Speed, the project to bring the COVID vaccines to market in record time.
We knew that among his first orders of business would be to do away with vaccines. They’ve not only withdrawn approval for the new COVID shots to be given to anyone but the elderly and those who are immunocompromised, they also cut research funding for the mRNA technology which shows tremendous promise for breakthroughs in cancer and other diseases. He has promised to provide the results of a new study, apparently thrown together in the last couple of months, that will reveal the cause of autism. Considering that he recently demanded the retraction of a Danish study that found no correlation between aluminum (used in vaccines for the last hundred years) and autism, it’s fair to suspect that he has miraculously found that he was right all along and childhood vaccines are the culprit.
At the heart of Kennedy’s ideology is a belief in eugenics, something he shares with the president who has often discussed his belief in his own “good German genes” and extolled the “racehorse theory.” Kennedy has expressed his belief in eugenics by suggesting recently that people with autism are nonfunctional members of society, echoing the 1920 essay Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Lifewhich claimed that those with disabilities and the mentally ill are nothing more than “empty human husks” who “are a terrible, heavy burden upon their relatives and society as a whole.” He and TV Dr. Mehmet Oz, the director of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, have taken to declaring that “being healthy is your patriotic duty” suggesting that if you get sick or develop a disability you are a traitor — and probably don’t deserve medical care.
So, none of this is as unprecedented as we might like to believe. It was really only after World War II that America had a consensus view on the value of science and technology research. If you saw the movie Oppenheimer you may remember the character of Vannevar Bush, played by Matthew Modine, one of the bosses overseeing the Manhattan Project. He was a key advisor to presidents Roosevelt and Truman during and after the war and wrote a seminal report called Science, the Endless Frontier which was the pivotal document that shaped the way the federal government supported and funded research in the post war world. His report set the idealistic agenda that drove American achievement in science and technology and the prosperity that followed from it.
Presidents from Roosevelt onward supported that agenda. Some like Kennedy and (surprisingly) Nixon pushed it very hard. But around the 1970s, advances like environmentalism and the birth control pill challenged the business world and certain religious factions which formed an unlikely alliance against that bipartisan consensus.
20 years ago science writer Chris Mooney published a book called The Republican War on Science that revealed how they worked to discredit climate change, stem cell research, the effects on humans of smoking and pollution, the benefits of alternative energy, evolution, educational standards among other things. Right around the time that Mooney’s book was being written in 2004 more than 12,000 scientists signed a statement called Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making charging the Bush administration with widespread “manipulation of the process through which science enters into its decisions.” It declared that:
There is a well established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies. These actions have consequences for human health, public safety, and community well-being.
There is strong documentation of a wide-ranging effort to manipulate the government’s scientific advisory system to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration’s political agenda.
There is evidence that the administration often imposes restrictions on what government scientists can say or write about “sensitive” topics.
None of that is to say that what’s happening now isn’t all of that on steroids but you can certainly see the resemblance between them and now. The main difference is that in Bobby Kennedy’s HHS it is no longer about ideology or even business interests. It’s in service of crank conspiracy theories, woo-woo wellness influencers and weird dystopian visions of supermen doing pull-ups to demonstrate their patriotism.
So it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the person Kennedy has named to be the new Director of the CDC is not even a physician. He’s a man named Jim O’Neill whose claim to fame is as a former health speechwriter for the Bush administration and a close association with techlord Peter Thiel. Trump tried to make him FDA Chief in his first term but was thwarted when people found out that he is known for promoting the idea that the FDA should stop doing trials for safety and efficacy and instead allow drugs to be tested by the public, which he calls “yelp for drugs.”
American leadership in the fields of science and technology is coming to an end. It was a good run, bringing many important advances and tremendous prosperity to the United States and the world. But its demise didn’t start with kooky Donald Trump or crazy Bobby Kennedy Jr. They are just the natural consequence of a concerted effort undertaken long ago by a group of people who decided that supporting reason and rationality were not in their best interest. You have to wonder if any of them saw this coming.
Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro (White House photo).
Judge Jeanine Pirro’s track record as a Fox News celebrity turned Donald Trump’s U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is going as one might expect. Trump’s takeover of D.C. law enforcement, and Pirro’s tenure to date, suggests Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye, “is little more than theater with essentially no legal foundation.”
Trump’s deploying federal law enforcers and National Guard to D.C.’s streets has resulted in over 1,000 arrests in the first two weeks. But given Pirro’s record in court so far, many appear to be nuisance arrests.
“The resulting cascade on the court system has been compounded by Pirro’s push for prosecutors to bring the harshest charges allowable, even for minor infractions,” Tesfaye explains. Her aggressive posturing is “colliding with real-world constraints” as politicized prosecutions keep failing in court:
“Prosecutor Jeanine Pirro’s office has now whiffed on three cases alleging defendants assaulted federal agents during Trump’s police takeover,” HuffPost reported on Aug. 29. The New York Times observed that “one of her biggest challenges is matching her confident public messaging with results, given the mass departures of career prosecutors and support staff.”
Pirro recently revealed that she is getting help from military lawyers, because her office is short 90 prosecutors, as well as 60 investigators and paralegals. D.C. federal courts, used to processing an average of six new cases per week, now face six or more cases per day, many stemming from low-level offenses that previously would’ve been diverted or even dismissed. At the height of this recent backlog, over 125 criminal defendants appeared in a single day, forcing judges to speed through hearings and delay fair trials until as far out as 2027, according to the Associated Press. Defense attorneys are crying foul and civil rights groups are suing. It’s clear that Pirro’s directives are unsustainable.
After the $787.5 million Fox settlement paid to Dominion Voting Systems, a Fox producer called Pirro a “reckless maniac” for airing baseless claims about the 2020 election even after being told they were false.
Pirro’s incompetence as U.S. attorney appeared again after a grand jury failed to indict Sean Dunn for felony assault. The former Justice Department paralegal famously threw a Subway sandwich at an immigration enforcement officer.
The D.C. grand jury failed to indict three others arrested in the Trump-Pirro crackdown, the Washington Post reported:
Before prosecutors failed to indict Dunn, a grand jury on three separate occasions this month refused to indict a D.C. woman who was accused of assaulting an FBI agent, another extraordinary rejection of the prosecution’s case. Days later, a federal magistrate judge said an arrest in Northeast Washington was preceded by the “most illegal search I’ve seen in my life” and described another arrest as lacking “basic human dignity.”
The “most illegal search” Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui had ever seen involved the arrest of Torez Riley for illegal firearm possession:
The judge found that D.C. police officers, who were on patrol with federal agents, violated Riley’s privacy rights by searching his bag, where they found two guns. Riley had previously been convicted of weapons offenses, prosecutors said.
Police said in court documents that Riley’s bag had been searched in part because it appeared to contain something heavy. But that observation was not enough to show probable cause that Riley had committed a crime, the court found.
It was “without a doubt, the most illegal search I’ve seen in my life,” said Faruqui, a former D.C. federal prosecutor, adding that Riley had been jailed and kept away from his three children and pregnant wife for a week because “he was a Black man going into Trader Joe’s.”
Riley’s case was dismissed.
The “basic human dignity” case was that of Christian Enrique Carías Torres, charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding federal officers after an officer hit his head while tackling Carías Torres as he exited a D.C. coffee shop with a delivery order.
“I’d say we live in a surreal world right now,” Faruqui said in court. “You should be treated with basic human dignity,” he told Carías Torres. “We don’t have a secret police.”
The Post also reports on the woman accused of assaulting FBI agents:
Prosecutors alleged that Sydney Reid was obstructing and recording agents from the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they attempted to arrest a gang member being released from the D.C. jail who was slated for deportation. An FBI agent scraped her hand against a wall amid the fracas, and prosecutors planned to charge Reid with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer, a felony offense punishable by up to eight years in prison.
Under the Fifth Amendment, however, charges that carry potential penalties of more than a year in prison must be approved by a grand jury. At least 12 members must vote to authorize an indictment. After striking out with the D.C. grand jury, prosecutors dropped the effort to charge Reid with a felony and instead filed a misdemeanor charge that does not require grand jury approval. The maximum penalty for the misdemeanor is one year in jail.
Faruqui called another arrest last week, “perhaps one of the weakest requests for detention I have seen and something that, prior to two weeks ago, would have been unthinkable in this courthouse.” This is the case of Paul Anthony Bryant, a D.C. attorney and West Point graduate (WUSA9):
Bryant was arrested Wednesday morning on a warrant out of D.C. District Court on charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding police, threating a federal official and threatening to kidnap or injure a person. His attorney said he had appeared in D.C. Superior Court on Monday but had been released.
According to charging documents, a group of Ohio and Delaware National Guardsmen who were patrolling 14th Street Sunday evening reported Bryant approached them and began yelling things, including, “These are our streets!” and, allegedly, “I’ll kill you.” Before leaving the area, Bryant allegedly “threw his left shoulder” into one of the Guardsmen’s shoulders.
[…]
Because National Guard troops patrolling D.C. don’t wear body cameras, Bryant’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Alexis Gardner, said there is no video of the alleged interaction. Another attorney who filled in to represent Bryant at Wednesday’s hearing said charging documents did not mention that Bryant, who is Black, claimed members of the Guard yelled slurs at him.
Faruqui released him over objections from prosecutors until a hearing on Tuesday. He cited Trump’s release and pardon of Jan. 6 insurrectionists:
“To charge people for what seems to be lesser conduct and then say they’re so dangerous they have to be locked up,” Faruqui said. “It puts prosecutors in an impossible position.”
Tesfaye concludes:
The collapse of her high-profile indictments has become a defining feature of Trump’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital. In an unprecedented move, Trump’s Justice Department effectively stripped local D.C. prosecutors of authority, placing federal officials — who are appointed directly by the president — in charge of everything from misdemeanors to high-profile protests. Never before has the White House asserted so much direct prosecutorial power over a U.S. city.
With Trump’s installation of shock troops like Pirro to carry out his ideological retribution under the banner of justice, judges and juries are now functioning as the final guardrails in the near-total absence of resistance from the Republican-led legislative branch. Thankfully, over 200 court orders have blocked Trump’s policies, including at least 120 rulings within the first 100 days alone.
It’s not even a good reality show. But it doesn’t have to be. Trump and his lackeys mean to chalk up enough harassment arrests to intimidate the populace into submission even if many thin cases never get to trial.
Autocrats, populists, friends and foes, a strongman waging a war in Europe and the leader of the world’s biggest democracy will all be hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping this weekend at a summit designed to showcase Beijing as a global leader capable of providing a counterweight to Western institutions.
Heads of state and delegations from across Asia and the Middle East will meet from Sunday in the Chinese port city of Tianjin for the two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security grouping that has emerged as a cornerstone of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to rebalance global power in their favor.
Trump’s upending global trade with his tariff war cast ripples across this meeting.
Chinese officials have billed the summit as the SCO’s largest yet, with the diplomacy and pageantry setting the stage for Xi to tout his country as a stable and powerful alternative leader at a time when the world’s leading superpower the United States under President Donald Trump is shaking up its alliances and waging a global trade war.
The gathering also comes days ahead of a major military parade in Beijing that will offer a different message – that of China’s rapidly developing military might, and draw autocrats like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing alongside Putin and Russia-friendly European leaders Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Slovakia’s Robert Fico.
France 24 offers a 5 min. video that suggests the presence of Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un together for the first time represents an “axis of upheaval” that challenges the U.S.-led western order.
Yes, but look at all the gold-painted crap in the Oval Office.
Raise your glass to the hard-working people Let’s drink to the uncounted heads Let’s think of the wavering millions who need leaders but get gamblers instead
-“Salt of the Earth”, by Mick Jagger & Keith Richard (from the album Beggar’s Banquet)
“It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.”
― Studs Terkel, from his book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
(Shame mode) Full disclosure. It had been so long since I had contemplated the true meaning of Labor Day, I had to refresh myself with a web search. Like many wage slaves (yes, I am still punching a clock at 68…Google “average 1 bedroom rent in Seattle” for further details), I view it as one of the 7 annual paid holidays offered by my employer (table scraps, really…relative to the other 254 weekdays I spend chained to a desk, slipping ever closer to the Abyss).
To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android…I’m not getting you down, am I?
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
By the way, Labor Day isn’t the sole “creation of the labor movement”. Next time you’re in the break room, check out the posters with all that F.L.S.A. meta regarding workplace rights, minimum wage, et.al. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so flippant about my “table scraps”, eh?
I have curated a Top 20 list of films that inspire, enlighten, or just give food for thought in honor of this holiest of days for those who make an honest living (I know-we’re a dying breed). So put your feet up, cue up a movie, and raise a glass to yourself. You’ve earned it.
Blue Collar – Director Paul Schrader co-wrote this 1978 drama with his brother Leonard. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto portray Motor City auto worker buddies tired of getting the short end of the stick from both their employer and their union. In a fit of drunken pique, they pull an ill-advised caper that gets them in trouble with both parties, ultimately putting friendship and loyalty to the test.
Akin to Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, Schrader subverts the standard “union good guy, company bad guy” trope with shades of gray, reminding us the road to Hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. Great score by Jack Nitzsche and Ry Cooder, with a memorable theme song featuring Captain Beefheart (“I’m jest a hard-woikin’, fucked-over man…”).
Bound for Glory – “This machine kills Fascists”. There’s only one man to whom Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen must kowtow-and that’s Woody Guthrie. You can almost taste the dust in director Hal Ashby’s leisurely, episodic 1976 biopic about the life of America’s premier protest songwriter/social activist. David Carradine gives one of his finest performances, and does a credible job with his own singing and playing. Haskell Wexler’s outstanding cinematography earned him a well-deserved Oscar. The film may feel a bit overlong and slow in spots if you aren’t particularly fascinated by Guthrie’s story; but I think it is just as much about the Depression itself, and perhaps more than any other film on this list, it succeeds as a “total immersion” back to that era.
The Corporation – “To assess the ‘personality’ of the corporate ‘person’ a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social ‘personality’: it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism.”
While it’s not news to any thinking person that corporate greed and manipulation affects everyone’s life on this planet, co-directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott deliver the message in a unique and engrossing fashion. By applying a psychological profile to the rudiments of corporate think, Achbar and Abbott build a solid case; proving that if the “corporation” were corporeal, then “he” would be Norman Bates.
Mixing archival footage with observations from some of the expected talking heads (Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, etc.) the unexpected (CEOs actually sympathetic with the filmmakers’ point of view) along with the colorful (like a “corporate spy”), the film offers perspective not only from the watchdogs, but from the belly of the beast itself. Be warned: there are enough exposes trotted out here to keep conspiracy theorists, environmentalists and human rights activists tossing and turning in bed for nights on end.
The Crime of Monsieur Lange – With its central themes regarding exploited workers and the opportunistic, predatory habits of men in power, this rarely-presented 1936 film by the great Jean Renoir (La Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game) plays like a prescient social justice revenge fantasy custom-tailored for our times. A struggling pulp western writer who works for a scuzzy, exploitative Harvey Weinstein-like publisher takes on his corrupt boss by forming a worker’s collective. While it is essentially a sociopolitical noir, the numerous romantic subplots, snappy pre-Code patter, busy multi-character shots and the restless camera presages His Girl Friday.
El Norte – Gregory Nava’s portrait of Guatemalan siblings who make their way to the U.S. after their father is killed by a government death squad will stay with you after credits roll. The two leads deliver naturalistic performances as a brother and sister who maintain optimism, despite fate and circumstance thwarting them at every turn. Claustrophobic viewers be warned: a harrowing scene featuring an encounter with a rat colony during an underground border crossing is nightmare fuel. Do not expect a Hollywood ending; this is an unblinking look at the shameful exploitation of undocumented workers.
The Grapes of Wrath – John Ford’s powerful 1940 drama (adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel) is the quintessential film about the struggle of America’s salt of the earth during the Great Depression. Perhaps we can take comfort in the possibility that no matter how bad things get, Henry Fonda’s unforgettable embodiment of Tom Joad will “…be there, all around, in the dark.” Ford followed up with the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941) another drama about a working class family (set in a Welsh mining town).
Harlan County, USA – Barbara Kopple’s award-winning film is not only an extraordinary document about an acrimonious coal miner’s strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973, but is one of the best American documentaries ever made. Kopple’s film has everything that you look for in any great work of cinema: drama, conflict, suspense, tragedy, and redemption. Kopple and crew are so deeply embedded that you may involuntarily duck during a harrowing scene where a company-hired thug fires a round directly toward the camera operator (it’s a wonder the filmmakers lived to tell this tale).
Last Train Home – This absorbing, beautifully photographed documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan centers on the Zhang family: Changhua (dad), Suqin (mom), their 17 year old daughter Qin, and their young son. Changhua and Suqin are two of the 130 million migrant workers who crowd China’s train depots and bus stations every spring in a mass, lemming-like frenzy to get back to their rural villages in time for New Year’s holiday. And like many of those workers, these are the few precious days they have per year to see their children, who, due to the fact that their parents lack urban residency status, do not qualify to attend the public schools in the cities where they work.
Changhua and Suqin toil away their days in the city of Guangzhou, working in a factory. Early on in the film, a wordless sequence, wherein we watch the couple performing their evening ablutions before turning in for the night, speaks volumes about the joyless drudgery and quiet desperation of their daily life. They appear to be bunking in a closet-sized cubicle (with only a curtain for privacy) within some kind of communal flophouse (possibly adjacent to, or perhaps part of, their factory building-which is an even more depressing thought). One colorless day blends into the next.
The only break in the monotony comes when the New Year arrives, and the couple attempt to make their way home in time-and I have to say, this is as far from a madcap John Hughes romp starring Steve Martin and John Candy that you can possibly get.
The director was given an amazing degree of latitude by the family in filming their lives; to the point of feeling almost too close for comfort at times (especially during an intense family row that gets physical). As difficult as some of it is to watch, however, the end result is an engrossing portrait of what happens in a country like China, which has seen so much rapid industrialization and exponential economic growth in such a relatively short period of time that the infrastructure and social policies have fallen light years behind.
And the saddest (and most ironic) part is that the millions of working poor like the Zhangs, who made the country’s new prosperity possible, are in no position to benefit from it. Although…when you think about it, that scenario is not exclusive to China. (Full review)
Made in Bangladesh – “Repeat after me,” a union organizer directs a roomful of female garment workers in a key scene from writer-director Rubaiyat Hossain’s 2020 docu-drama: “Worker’s rights are human rights… [And] women’s rights are human rights.” Through a First World lens this dialog may appear a bit heavy-handed, but the sad fact remains there are still places in this world where these truths are not necessarily held to be self-evident.
The central character is a headstrong 23 year-old named Shimu (Rikita Nandini Shimu). To avoid a forced child marriage, she fled her home village when she was a pre-teen and now lives in Dhaka with her husband of choice Reza (Shatabdi Wadud). Like many young women in the capital, Shimu has found gainful employment in the garment industry. That is not to say she has a dream job; in point of fact she works in a sweatshop.
In addition to putting up with the low wages, long hours, unsafe conditions and spotty overtime compensation Shimu and her fellow workers regularly face sexual harassment, workplace intimidation, and all the other systemic maladies of a patriarchal society. Still, it’s a paycheck; with her husband chronically unemployed, somebody has to pay the rent.
After an explosion and fire kills a fellow employee, Shimu is approached by an investigative journalist, who after hearing her account of working conditions steers her to a local union organizer (Shahana Goswami). Shimu embarks on a mission to unionize her factory. With obstacles at every turn (including at home) she has her work cut out for her.
While it is a familiar narrative (especially if you have seen Norma Rae, a film the director has cited as an inspiration, along with the real-life story of a woman named Daliya Akhter who is a factory worker and union leader) Hossain offers us a 21st Century feminist heroine who challenges the stereotype of the subservient Muslim woman and reminds us that the final chapter in the struggle for worker’s rights is yet to be written.
Made in Dagenham – Based on a true story, this 2011 film (directed by Nigel Cole and written by William Ivory) stars Sally Hawkins as Rita O’Grady, a working mum employed at the Dagenham, England Ford plant in 1968. She worked in a run-down, segregated section of the plant where 187 female machinists toiled away for a fraction of what male employees were paid; the company justified the inequity by classifying female workers as “unskilled labor”.
Encouraged by her empathetic shop steward (Bob Hoskins), the initially reticent Rita finds her “voice” and surprises family, co-workers and herself with a formidable ability to rally the troops and affect real change. An engaging ensemble piece with a standout supporting performance by Miranda Richardson as a government minister.
Matewan – This well-acted, handsomely mounted drama by John Sayles serves as a sobering reminder that much blood was spilled to lay the foundation for the labor laws we take for granted in the modern workplace. Based on a true story, it is set during the 1920s, in West Virginia. Chris Cooper plays an outsider labor organizer who becomes embroiled in a conflict between coal company thugs and fed up miners trying to unionize.
Sayles delivers a compelling narrative, rich in characterizations and steeped in verisimilitude (beautifully shot by Haskell Wexler). Fine ensemble work from a top notch cast that includes David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones, Joe Grifasi, Jane Alexander, Gordon Clapp, and Will Oldham. The film is also notable for its well-curated Americana soundtrack.
Modern Times – Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 masterpiece about man vs. automation has aged well. This probably has everything to do with his embodiment of the Everyman. Although referred to as his “last silent film”, it’s not 100% so. A bit of (sung) gibberish aside, there’s no dialogue, but Chaplin finds ingenious ways to work in lines (via technological devices). In fact, his use of sound effects in this film is unparalleled, particularly in a classic sequence where Chaplin, a hapless assembly line worker, literally ends up “part of the machine”. Paulette Goddard (then Mrs. Chaplin) is on board for the pathos. Brilliant, hilarious and prescient.
Next Sohee – Writer-director July Jung’s outstanding 2023 film is reminiscent of Kurosawa’s High and Low, not just in the sense that it is equal parts police procedural and social drama, but that it contains a meticulously layered narrative that has (to paraphrase something Stanley Kubrick once said of his own work) “…a slow start, the start that goes under the audience’s skin and involves them so that they can appreciate grace notes and soft tones and don’t have to be pounded over the head with plot points and suspense hooks.”
The first half of the film tells the story of a high school student who is placed into a mandatory “externship” at a call center by one of her teachers. Suffice it to say her workplace is a prime example as to why labor laws exist (they do have them in South Korea-but exploitative companies always find loopholes).
When the outgoing and headstrong young woman commits suicide, a female police detective is assigned to the case. The trajectory of her investigation takes up the second half of the film. The deeper she digs, the more insidious the implications…and this begins to step on lot of toes, including her superiors in the department. Jung draws parallels between the stories of the student and the detective investigating her death; both are assertive, principled women with the odds stacked against them. Ultimately, they’re tilting at windmills in a society driven by systemic corruption, predatory capitalism, and a patriarchal hierarchy.
Norma Rae – Martin Ritt’s 1979 film about a minimum-wage textile worker (Sally Field) turned union activist helped launch what I refer to as the “Whistle-blowing Working Mom” genre (Silkwood, Erin Brockovich, etc).
Field gives an outstanding performance (and deservedly picked up a Best Actress Oscar) as the eponymous heroine who gets fired up by a passionate labor organizer from NYC (Ron Leibman, in his best role). Inspiring and empowering, bolstered by a fine screenplay (by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.) and a great supporting cast that includes Beau Bridges, Pat Hingle and Barbara Baxley.
The Old Oak – The bookend of a triptych of working-class dramas set in Northeast England (preceded by I, Daniel Blake in 2016 and Sorry We Missed You! in 2019), Ken Loach’s 2024 drama marks the 87-year-old director’s 28th film.
The story (scripted by Paul Laverty) is set in 2016, in an unnamed “pit town” on the Northeast coast of England, and centers on TJ (Dave Turner), who is barely making ends meet as the owner and proprietor of The Old Oak pub. He inherited the pub from his late mother, who had invested in the property with the settlement money she had received after TJ’s father died in a mining accident. TJ himself began working in the local mine just before a major strike in the mid-80s. After the mine closed, he threw himself into community organizing. Depressed over a broken marriage, he’s become more withdrawn in recent years.
TJ was born and raised in the village, so he’s known the pub’s hardcore regulars since his school days. Many of them worked alongside TJ in the mine, and are suffering similar economic hardships, living off modest pensions or on the dole. You get the impression daily life for the town’s residents has become predictably drab; a reliable disappointment. In addition to providing a cozy space where they can toss back a pint or two and forget their problems, The Old Oak has become the de facto community center.
One day, a busload of Syrian refugees appears and disembarks in the center of town. Unfortunately, not all the locals appear willing to roll out the welcome wagon. When xenophobic catcalling escalates into a scuffle that results in a young Syrian woman’s camera getting damaged, TJ intervenes and defuses the situation. TJ learns that Yara (Ebla Mari) has picked up her English skills from working as a volunteer in a refugee camp in Jordan. The camera is her most prized possession, as it was given to her by her father, who is imprisoned back in Syria. TJ and Yara strike up a friendship that fuels the heart of the narrative.
The Old Oak is rife with Loach’s trademarks; not the least of which is giving his cast plenty of room to breathe. The entire ensemble (which ranges from first-time film actors to veteran players) delivers relatable, naturalistic performances. Hovering somewhere between Do the Right Thing and Ikuru, The Old Oak is raw, uncompromising, and genuinely moving (so rare at the multiplex nowadays), with an uplifting message of hope and reconciliation. If this is indeed its director’s swan song-what a lovely, compassionate note to go out on. (Full review)
On the Waterfront – “It wuz you, Chahlee.” The betrayal! And the pain. It’s all there on Marlon Brando’s face as he delivers one of the most oft-quoted monologues in cinema history. Brando leads an exemplary cast that includes Rod Steiger, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint in this absorbing portrait of a New York dock worker who takes a virtual one-man stand against a powerful and corrupt union official. The trifecta of Brando’s iconic performance, Elia Kazan’s direction, and Budd Schulberg’s well-constructed screenplay adds up to one of the finest American social dramas of the 1950s.
Roger and Me – While our favorite lib’rul agitprop director has made a number of films addressing the travails of wage slaves and ever-appalling indifference of the corporate masters who grow fat off their labors, Michael Moore’s low-budget 1989 debut film remains his best (and is on the list of the top 25 highest-grossing docs of all time).
Moore may have not been the only resident of Flint, Michigan scratching his head over GM’s local plant shutdown in the midst of record profits for the company, but he was the one with the chutzpah (and a camera crew) to make a beeline straight to the top to demand an explanation. His target? GM’s chairman, Roger Smith. Does he bag him? Watch it and find out. An insightful portrait of working class America that, like most of his subsequent films, can be at once harrowing and hilarious, yet hopeful and humanistic.
Silkwood– The tagline for this 1983 film was intriguing: “On November 13th, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there.” One might expect a riveting conspiracy thriller to ensue; however what director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arden do deliver is an absorbing character study of an ordinary working-class woman who performed an act of extraordinary courage which may have led to her untimely demise.
Meryl Streep delivers a typically masterful performance as Silkwood, who worked as a chemical tech at an Oklahoma facility that manufactured plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. On behalf of her union (and based on her own observations) Silkwood testified before the AEC in 1974, blowing the whistle on health and safety issues at her plant. Shortly afterwards, she tested positive for an unusually high level of plutonium contamination. Silkwood alleged malicious payback from her employers, while they countered that she had engineered the scenario herself.
Later that year, on the last night of her life, she was in fact on her way to meeting with a Times reporter, armed with documentation to back her claims, when she was killed after her car ran off the road. Nichols stays neutral on the conspiratorial whispers; but still delivers the goods, thanks in no small part to his exemplary cast, including Kurt Russell (as Silkwood’s husband), and Cher (who garnered critical raves and a Golden Globe) as their housemate.
Sullivan’s Travels — A deft mash-up of romantic screwball comedy, Hollywood satire, road movie and class warfare drama from writer-director Preston Sturges.
Joel McCrea is pitch-perfect as a director of goofy populist comedies who yearns to make a “meaningful” film. Racked with guilt about the comfortable bubble his Hollywood success has afforded him and determined to learn firsthand how the other half lives, he hits the road with no money in his pocket and masquerades as a railroad tramp (to the chagrin of his handlers).
He is joined along the way by an aspiring actress (Veronica Lake, in one of her best comic performances). His voluntary crash-course in “social realism” turns into much more than he had originally bargained for. Lake and McCrea have wonderful chemistry. Many decades later, the Coen Brothers co-opted the title of the fictional “film within the film” here: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Working Man – Even during “normal” times, losing a job can be traumatic; especially for career employees in traditional blue-collar manufacturing jobs who get blindsided by unexpected factory shutdowns. Such is the lot of the Every Man protagonist in writer-director Robert Jury’s 2020 drama.
His name is Allery Parkes (Peter Gerety). Allery has been working at the same factory most of his adult life, living quietly with his devoted wife Iola (Talia Shire) in a small (unidentified) rust belt town (maybe in Illinois). As the film opens, Allery wearily un-crumples himself from his bed in the manner that weary elderly folks do. He goes through his morning ablutions, slaps together a Braunschweiger sandwich on white bread (no condiments), nods goodbye to his wife and dutifully sets off on his morning walk to work, replete with thermos and lunch pail.
Not unlike Allery himself, who not so much walks as waddles due to his time-worn hips, this is a town obviously on its last legs. Abandoned buildings abound, many adorned with “for lease by owner” signs. Allery works at a factory that manufactures plastic…widgets?
Sadly, the factory is closing, and this is to be the last shift for Allery and his co-workers. They are instructed to knock off early, line up for final paychecks, then sent off on their (not so) merry way. However, Allery is determined to finish out his full shift, to the chagrin of his supervisor-who nonetheless understands the gesture and lets Allery exit the stage with dignity intact.
Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that while the factory has shut down, Allery is not ready to rest on his laurels. One day (to the puzzlement and concern of his wife and neighbors) Allery sets off as he has for decades, thermos and lunch pail in hand.
What’s he up to? As this was the last operating factory in town…where is Allery headed?
For that matter, with 90 minutes more to fill-where is this story headed? I’m not telling.
For those who may currently find themselves in a situation like Allery’s, the film may deliver a shot in the arm that they could use right about now; perhaps a glimmer of hope that all is not lost, that this too shall soon pass …or at the very least, an affirmation of the dignity of work.
Some frustrated U.S., Ukrainian and European officials say part of the problem is the go-it-alone style of Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for peace missions and go-to negotiator on Ukraine. He has refused to consult with experts and allies, leaving him uninformed at times and unprepared at others, according to seven people familiar with internal discussions. Two said he misses the mark by viewing the conflict through a real estate lens, like a land dispute.
Trump’s unconventional fixer has met Putin five times over six months, but he has yet to translate his access to the Russian leader into any breakthroughs on Ukraine.
[…]
A number of those people argue that the war is much more complex than Trump’s confidant seems to grasp, and blame him for American efforts that have yet to net any meaningful concessions from Moscow.
“His inexperience shines through, he has the president’s ear, which is evident, but there has been some confusion about what has been said and agreed,” said a person familiar with the diplomatic effort.
[…]
“He’s kind of a rogue actor,” said a U.S. official familiar with Witkoff’s diplomatic style. “He talks to all these people, but no one knows what he says in any of these meetings. He will say things publicly but then he changes his mind. It’s hard to operationalize that.”
Witkoff’s Washington office is sparsely staffed, and short on people with Russia expertise or experienced in complex diplomatic negotiations. And he has refused to do typical consultations with Russia and Ukraine experts in and outside of government, according to the five people familiar with internal discussions.
It’s clear that he has no idea what he’s doing.
“The thing is, Witkoff isn’t consistently engaged. He will pop in for a visit to Vladimir Putin, say a bunch of stuff, not tell anyone what really happened and then just fuck off to his life again. Meanwhile, the Russians are talking to you about how ‘Witkoff says…’ and you don’t know whether they’re right or not, but you can’t get a readout from the Russians,” the U.S. official said.
Witkoff at times appears to struggle to focus on more than one task at a time, the U.S. official and another one of the people said, adding that when a flurry of developments occurs in one portfolio, say Gaza or Iran or Ukraine, other priorities take a backseat. He is not a voracious consumer of his intelligence briefing materials and doesn’t read them every day, the second person said.
He’s a real estate buddy of Donald Trump’s. That’s all he is. And even the Russians are frustrated with him because he’s terrible at the job:
Witkoff’s Russian interlocutors are also frustrated, particularly with his inability to properly convey Putin’s messages and red lines to Trump, according to the person familiar with his diplomatic efforts, another person familiar with the matter and the first U.S. official.
Russian officials value that Trump has sent someone who is close to the president and can speak for him, but are concerned that Witkoff doesn’t fully understand what Putin is telling him, they said.
He’s a lot like his Dear Leader.
Read the whole thing for the details of just how thoroughly he is screwing up the Ukraine war. It’s astonishing. And yet the administration stands by him 100% because he’s one of Trump’s most loyal accomplices.
If you want to know if Trump will ever get rid of him, here’s your answer:
Witkoff: "There's only one thing I wish for: that that Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since that Nobel award was ever talked about." pic.twitter.com/aIKOIBd5L6
He’s bringing world peace and stiffing a contractor on labor day all at the same time. What a Superman.
Seriously though — this man is not well. He thinks he is Emperor of the world and can act on any passing thought he has and share it with the country like it’s a royal announcement.
