It remains mind-boggling that grown men and women worship the hapless Wile E. Coyote of American politicians. They attend the would-be strongman’s rallies, buy his shitty merch, and mimic his dance to the gay national anthem. Even Elaine Benes finds his dance stupid. His entire adult life, Donald Trump complained that the world was laughing at the U.S. (him). Then he got elected president and United Nations ambassadors from around the world laughed at him. Wile E. didn’t understand that another ACME product blew up in his face.
Half of American voters rehired the man last month. The world doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry as Trump announces a series of defective appointments to his new administration. Trump’s recruiting leans heavily on Fox News regulars or “central casting” stereotypes. But in fact, most feature in the ACME catalog.
On Saturday, Trump proposed son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father as ambassador to France. The man pleaded guilty in 2005 to “18 counts of illegal campaign contributions and tax evasion, as well as witness tampering after he retaliated against his brother-in-law, William Schulder, who was cooperating with federal investigators.”
Social media’s JoJo from Jerz (Joanne Carducci) reminds Threads users just how Kushner wound up in jail.
View on Threads
Trump also nominated Kash Patel as FBI Director on Saturday. Patel has been a faithful promoter of Trump propaganda. He played a role in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election Trump lost to Joe Biden. Special counsel Jack Smith’s may have dropped his prosecution of Trump for that act, for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, and for stealing national security documents. But when (not if) his report sees the light of day, Patel’s role may be implicated in it, Marcy Wheeler reminds us:
Then there’s another aspect to the timing. Trump announced this pick — as he did the decision implanting all his defense attorneys at DOJ — while Jack Smith’s prosecutors are working on their report. And Kash should show up in that report, at least to lay out his false public claims that Trump had declassified all the documents he took with him (and possibly even his demand that he got immunity before giving that testimony). I’m not sure how central that will be to a report. But Trump had a choice about how confrontational to be with how he installed Kash in a place to dismantle the so-called Deep State, and his choice to be maximally confrontational may have a tie to this report.
People are currently thinking of all the other ways Kash has helped serve Trump’s false claims in the past — the false claim that the Russian investigation was predicated on the Steele dossier, efforts to override Ukraine experts during that impeachment, attempts to misrepresent the Russian investigation. But the Smith report may well explain that Trump’s FBI Director nominee played a more central role in Trump’s effort to spin Trump’s efforts to take hundreds of classified documents home. So when Kash gets a confirmation hearing, it will put the veracity of the Smith report centrally at issue. If Senators find the report convincing, they should have renewed cause to reject Patel’s nomination, but Trump has almost without exception forced GOP Senators to believe his false claims to avoid scary confrontations with him, so I wouldn’t bet against Trump and Kash.
Trump has spent eight years sowing propaganda about his own corruption and crimes. Not just Patel’s nomination to a position in which he could thoroughly politicize rule of law, but also the means by which Trump made that nomination, is part of that same project.
As George W. Bush might ask: Is our reporters learning? So far, no, Wheeler concludes. They continue to soft-peddle Trump’s propaganda and the “weird” aspect of his nominees. The way in which he’s rolled out his new team of vipers is all part of his efforts to deconstruct reality, and to make it “far more difficult to sort out truth from crime anymore.”
Or a real tunnel from a false one. It’s increasingly difficult to bet our nation’s future as a democratic republic on Trump’s haplessness.
Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, that most venerable of American holidays which enables families to gather once a year to count their blessings, stuff their faces, and endeavor mightily to not bring politics into the conversation, I thought I might mosey on over to the movie pantry and hand-select my top 10 food films. Dig in!
Big Night– I have frequently foisted this film on friends and relatives, because after all, it’s important to “…take a bite out of the ass of life!” (as one of the characters demonstrates with voracious aplomb). Two brothers, enterprising businessman Secondo (Stanley Tucci, who also co-wrote and co-directed) and his older sibling Primo (Tony Shalhoub), a gifted chef, open an Italian restaurant but quickly run into financial trouble.
Possible salvation arrives via a dubious proposal from a more successful competitor (played by a hammy Ian Holm). The fate of their business hinges on Primo’s ability to conjure up the ultimate feast. And what a meal he prepares-especially the timpano (you’d better have pasta and ragu handy-or your appestat will be writing checks your duodenum will not be able to cash, if you know what I’m saying).
The wonderful cast includes Isabella Rossellini, Minnie Driver, Liev Schreiber, Allison Janney, Campbell Scott (who co-directed with Tucci), and look for Latin pop superstar Marc Anthony as the prep cook.
Comfort and Joy– A quirky trifle from Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth (Gregory’sGirl, Local Hero). An amiable Glasgow radio DJ (Bill Paterson) is dumped by his girlfriend on Christmas Eve, throwing him into existential crisis and causing him to take urgent inventory of his personal and professional life. Soon after lamenting to his GM that he yearns to produce something more “important” than his chirpy morning show, serendipity lands him a hot scoop-a brewing “war” between two rival ice-cream dairies.
The film is chockablock with Forsyth’s patented low-key anarchy, wry one-liners and subtle visual gags. As a former morning DJ, I can attest the scenes depicting “Dickie Bird” running his show are authentic (a rarity on the screen). One warning: it might take several days for you to purge that ice cream van’s loopy theme music out of your head.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover– A gamey, visceral and perverse fable about food, as it relates to love, sex, violence, revenge, and Thatcherism from writer-director Peter Greenaway (who I like to call “the thinking person’s Ken Russell”).
Michael Gambon (who passed away earlier this year) chews up the scenery as a vile and vituperative British underworld kingpin who holds nightly court at a gourmet eatery. When his bored trophy wife (Helen Mirren) becomes attracted to one of the regular diners, an unassuming bookish fellow (Alan Howard), the wheels are set in motion for a twisty tale, culminating in one of the most memorable scenes of “just desserts” ever served up on film (not for the squeamish).
The opulent set design and cinematographer Sacha Vierny’s extraordinary use of color lend the film a rich Jacobean texture. Richard Bohringer is “the cook”, and look for the late pub rocker Ian Dury as one of Gambon’s associates. It’s unique…if not for all tastes.
Diner– This slice-of-life dramedy marked writer-director Barry Levinson’s debut in 1982, and remains his best. A group of 20-something pals converge for Christmas week in 1959 Baltimore. One is recently married, another is about to get hitched, and the rest playing the field and deciding what to do with their lives as they slog fitfully toward adulthood.
The most entertaining scenes are at the group’s favorite diner, where the comfort food of choice is French fries with gravy. Levinson has a knack for writing sharp dialog, and it’s the little details that make the difference; like a cranky appliance store customer who will settle for nothing less than a B&W Emerson (he refuses to upgrade to color TV because he saw Bonanza in color at a friend’s house, and thought “…the Ponderosa looked fake”).
This film was more influential than it gets credit for; Tarantino owes a debt, as do the creators of Seinfeld. It’s hard to believe that Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Daniel Stern, Timothy Daly, Steve Guttenberg and Paul Reiser were all relative unknowns at the time!
Eat Drink Man Woman– Or as I call it: “I Never Stir-Fried for My Father”. This was director Ang Lee’s follow-up to his surprise hit The Wedding Banquet (another good food flick). It’s a well-acted dramedy about traditional Chinese values clashing with the mores of modern society. An aging master chef (losing his sense of taste) fastidiously prepares an elaborate weekly meal which he requires his three adult, single daughters to attend. As the narrative unfolds, Lee subtly reveals something we’ve suspected all along: when it comes to family dysfunction, we are a world without borders.
My Dinner with Andre– This one is a tough sell for the uninitiated. “An entire film that nearly all takes place at one restaurant table, with two self-absorbed New York intellectuals pontificating for the entire running time of the film-this is entertaining?!” Yes, it is. Director Louis Malle took a chance that pays off in spades. Although essentially a work of fiction, the two stars, theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn are playing themselves (they co-wrote the screenplay). A rumination on art, life, love, the universe and everything, the film is not so much about dinner, as a love letter to the lost art of erudite dinner conversation.
Pulp Fiction– Although the universal popularity of this Quentin Tarantino opus is owed chiefly to its hyper-stylized mayhem and the iambic pentameter of its salty dialogue, I think it is underappreciated as a foodie film. The hell you say? Think about it.
The opening and closing scenes take place in a diner, with characters having lively discussions over heaping plates of food. In Mia and Vincent’s scene at the theme restaurant, the camera zooms to fetishistic close-ups of the “Douglas Sirk steak, and a vanilla coke.” Mia offers Jules a sip of her 5 Dollar Milkshake.
Vincent and Jules ponder why the French refer to Big Macs as “Royales with cheese” and why the Dutch insist on drowning their French fries in mayonnaise. Jules voraciously hijacks the doomed Brett’s “Big Kahuna” burger, then precedes to wash it down with a sip of his “tasty beverage”. Pouty Fabienne pines wistfully for blueberry pancakes.
Even super-efficient Mr. Wolfe takes a couple seconds out of his precisely mapped schedule to reflect on the pleasures of a hot, fresh-brewed cup of coffee. And “Don’t you just love it when you come back from the bathroom and find your food waiting for you?”
Tampopo– Self billed as “The first Japanese noodle western”, this 1987 entry from writer-director Juzo Itami is all that and more. Nobuko Niyamoto is superb as the title character, a widow who has inherited her late husband’s noodle house. Despite her dedication and effort to please customers, Tampopo struggles to keep the business afloat, until a deux ex machina arrives-a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki).
After one taste, Goro pinpoints the problem-bland noodles. No worries-like the magnanimous stranger who blows into an old western town (think Shane), Goro takes Tampopo on as a personal project, mentoring her on the Zen of creating the perfect noodle bowl. A delight from start to finish, offering keen insight on the relationship between food, sex and love.
The Trip– Pared down into feature film length from the BBC series of the same name, Michael Winterbottom’s film is essentially a highlight reel of that show-which is not to denigrate; as it is the most genuinely hilarious comedy I’ve seen in many a moon. The levity is due in no small part to Winterbottom’s two stars-Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, basically playing themselves in this mashup of Sideways and My Dinner with Andre.
Coogan is asked by a British newspaper to take a “restaurant tour” of England’s bucolic Lake District, and review the eateries. He initially plans to take his girlfriend along, but since their relationship is going through a rocky period, he asks his pal, fellow actor Brydon, to accompany him.
This simple setup is an excuse to sit back and enjoy Coogan and Brydon’s brilliant comic riffing (much of it improvised) on everything from relationships to the “proper” way to do Michael Caine impressions. There’s some unexpected poignancy-but for the most part, it’s pure comedy gold. It was followed by three equally entertaining sequels, The Trip to Italy(2014), The Trip to Spain (2017), and The Trip to Greece (2020).
Tom Jones– The film that made the late Albert Finney an international star, Tony Richardson’s 1963 romantic comedy-drama is based on the Henry Fielding novel about the eponymous character’s amorous exploits in 18th-Century England.
Tom (Finney) is raised as the bastard son of a prosperous squire. He is a bit on the rakish side, but wholly lovable and possesses a good heart. It’s the “lovable” part that gets him in trouble time and again, and fate and circumstance put young Tom on the road, where various duplicitous parties await to prey upon his naivety.
John Osborne adapted the Oscar-winning script; the film also won for Best Picture, Director, and Music Score (Finney was nominated for Best Actor).
The film earns its spot on this list for a brief but iconic (and very tactile) eating scene involving Finney and the wonderful Joyce Redman (see below).
One way we know for a fact that it’s a cult is because the most embarrassing things Trump does, he doubles down on and his flock immediately turns it into a ritual which they use as a form of worship for Dear Leader and a demonstration of solidarity with each other. This one’s a doozy, not least of which is because many of them are homophobic right wing Christians who are dancing along to a gay pick-up song from the 1970s and they either don’t know or don’t care.
According to this AP story, a lot of women are having to carry around pepper spray on campus these days for fear of being assaulted:
It’s a response to an emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers who have seized on Republican Donald Trump ’s presidential win to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online. Many have appropriated a 1960s abortion rights rallying cry, declaring “Your body, my choice” at women online and on college campuses.
For many women, the words represent a worrying harbinger of what might lie ahead as some men perceive the election results as a rebuke of reproductive rights and women’s rights.
[…]
Isabelle Frances-Wright, director of technology and society at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focusing on polarization and extremism, said she had seen a “very large uptick in a number of types of misogynistic rhetoric immediately after the election,” including some “extremely violent misogyny.”
There was a local story of a Trump parade here in LA with the big blue flags and young guys screaming this “your body my choice” out the windows. Very nice.
The phrase was used right afte the election by the Neo Nazi Nick Fuentes and apparently it got 35 million views on X within 24 hours. The bros really like it. It’s all over women’s comment sections on Tik Tok, and young kids are hurling it in girls faces in middle school.
Online declarations for women to “Get back in the kitchen” or to “Repeal the 19th,” a reference to the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote, have spread rapidly. In the days surrounding the election, the extremism think tank found that the top 10 posts on X calling for repeal of the 19th Amendment received more than 4 million views collectively. […]
Anonymous rape threats have been left on the TikTok videos of women denouncing the election results. And on the far-flung reaches of the web, 4chan forums have called for “rape squads” and the adoption of policies in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian book and TV series depicting the dehumanization and brutalization of women.
The article points out that a number of mass shootings were inspired by 4Chan threats.
Apparently, all these young men feel they’ve been discriminated against by women (I guess they got turned down for dates?) and are fearful of losing their place at the top of society’s hierarchy. Donald Trump and his “bro” campaign made them feel vindicated. They’re lashing out at women because it makes them feel powerful again. Great.
He’s the richest man in the world due to his entrepreneurial talents. Is it possible that he’s also incredibly stupid? It sure looks like it. Every single item on that list other than Epstein’s sex island is 100% prime bullshit.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has threatened a children’s hospital with “consequences” after a doctor posted a viral TikTok telling patients they’re not legally obligated to tell a hospital their citizenship status.
On November 1, a new executive order went into effect requiring Texas hospitals that accept Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Plan to ask patients if they’re US citizens. The question now appears on intake forms at hospitals across the state, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
Dr. Tony Pastor, a cardiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, went on to post a TikTok on November 11 telling patients they’re not obligated to answer the question. The video went viral, garnering more than one million views.
As a result, the Republican governor said on Wednesday the hospital’s state funding could be at risk.
“Hey Texas Children’s Hospital & Baylor College of Medicine this doctor is putting your Medicaid & Medicare funding at risk,” Abbott wrote on X, sharing a link to an Express-News article that reports on Pastor’s video.
“ou [sic] better think twice & have crystal clear records,” he added. “There will be consequences for failing to follow the law in the Order.”
Pastor told his followers in the viral TikTok, which appears to be deleted as of Thursday, that “people do not actually have to answer the question. So my proposal to everyone who’s seeing this is, just know that you do not have to answer this question,” Pastor said.
The cardiologist posted another TikTok earlier this week expanding on his argument.“This new law that’s asking hospitals for immigration status is under the guise of trying to get data on how much money we’re spending on undocumented patients,” he said. Pastor also said he’s “going to keep advocating for our patients because that’s why we went to medical school, and not to be ICE deportation people,” according to local outlet KFOXTV.
The hospital quickly capitulated releasing a statement saying that they will comply with the order. But the doctor is right. Patients are not obligated to answer the question to receive care.
Basically, the state has devised a bogus rationale to require hospitals to gather the names of undocumented people seeking care for the purpose of deportation. They know it, the hospital knows it and the patients know it. The patients are not obligated to give that information but either they will avoid seeking necessary medical and will die or they’ll reluctantly give the information if they have no choice. Just as has happened with abortion in Texas, doctors are put in a position of violating their oath or risking their own freedom or the hospital’s funding.
That this whole thing played out on social media with rhetoric that seems like it was lifted from a script about the mafia makes the whole thing even more surreal. Republican leaders are now routinely threatening citizens, institutions and businesses right out in the open and everyone is running for cover.
Homan: Do not harbor and conceal an illegal alien.. because it is a crime. Don't impede us because it's a crime. Don’t obstruct because it's a crime…
Homan: People are going to be held accountable.. What did the united nation have to do with the open border crisis? Who in the Biden administration opened the doors on this humanitarian crisis? What NGOs were involved..
Gingrich: They played YMCA and danced to it in terms of Trump and instead of saying young man they were singing Trump man. Now this is the kind of cultural change that you see maybe twice in a century
Gingrich: I think the only way you can begin to understand this is to take trump totally outside of normal American politics and recognize that he's a mythic figure. He’s like some of the people who come out of the viking sagas
Corporate America is unleashing an unorthodox campaign to influence Donald Trump’s agenda in the weeks leading up to his second inauguration, a period that is emerging as a key stretch for shaping the next administration.
To break into the unusual circle of influence that surrounds Trump, chief executives are discussing whether to try to secure an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. They are buying the Trump family’s cryptocurrency token and emailing tips about spending cuts to Vivek Ramaswamy. Some lobbyists are instructing companies to scrub their websites and corporate policies of language that favors Democrats and instead tout GOP-friendly issues such as job creation.
The moves are part of an effort by corporate interests to more strongly align with the Republican Party after drifting away from it in recent years.
[…]
Despite the populist influx among his base, Trump still cares deeply about markets and businesses, and he remains more accessible than most high-profile politicians. The most recognizable chief executives don’t require a go-between to reach the president-elect: Leave a message with one of his assistants and Trump will call back people whose names he recognizes directly, multiple corporate advisers said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, Trump adviser Stephen Miller told Fox News. (A Meta adviser confirmed the meeting.) And Coinbase Global CEO Brian Armstrong and a team from Ripple Labs have each spoken with Trump in recent days, according to people familiar with the matter.
I guess it’s all “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” now, a distincly different vibe than 2016. Elon seemsto have given Trump some cachet he didn’t have before.
Watching this display of The Emperor Has No Clothes is going to be very disheartening.
Thanksgiving is over (even if leftovers may not be). It’s time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get to resisting what’s coming. Spocko has gotten after that message with both ears.
False narratives that sold half the country on Trumpism were not born yesterday. It took time, billions of oligarch money, and repetition, repetition, repetition. Propaganda succeeded, among other things, in convincing people that illegal immigration (a misdemeanor, first offense) was a “crisis” best dealt with by a career criminal with 34 felony convictions, dozens of other grand jury indictments (including for inciting an insurrection and theft of state secrets), and a civil penalty for sexual assault. Courts liquidated Donald Trump’s charitable foundation as a fraud, dismantled his “university” as a fraud as well, and banned him from doing business in the state of New York.
How the hell could Americans hire that guy as chief executive of the United States of America? A second time?
The answer, says Andrea Pitzer of the new Next Comes What podcast, is simple: propaganda works. Pitzer, author of “One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps,” studied the rise of concentration camps as a means of controlling large groups of “undesirables” with a small number of guards. The invention of barbed wire and automatic weapons helped the practice along. Take note. Trump 2.0 plans to erect them on the southern border.
Olivia Troye is now a regular guest on cable news networks not in the grip of the MAGA cult. Her experiences as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Mike Pence during the Tump administration left her both changed and politcally homeless. Troye’s Thanksgiving message reminded me of another story of political transformation I once witnessed.
I’m especially grateful for the incredible gift of finding a new tribe. Taking a stand has often left me in political no-man’s land, but in that space, I’ve discovered something profound—a community of people like you. Your support, courage, and shared belief in doing what’s right have reminded me that I’m not alone. Together, we are building something stronger than partisanship: a tribe rooted in shared values, integrity, and hope for the future. Thank you for being my tribe.
Gratitude is a powerful force, but its true strength lies in its ability to inspire us to be better—for ourselves, one another, and the country we love.
That’s something we can all be thankful for.
Before MAGA came the T-party. Many on the right erupted into into paroxysms of rage at the election in 2008 of the country’s first Black president. Before Trumpism and red hats, the T-party cosplayed as revolutionary war soldiers. They pretended their loud protests had to do with tax policy and not white freakout at having to share power with people designated untouchables by European settlers 400 years ago.
The party’s reactionary turn unnerved a couple of local activists who, like Troye, began moving away from the county Republican Party. A few years later, the former chapter chair of Republican Women decided to run for county commission as an independent. It was a district in which Democrats failed to field a candidate. We offered to help.
At the end of her first monthly meeting with us, she stood, and through tears expressed gratitude for our help and her welcome. And great relief.
“Y’all are actually doing something!” she said with some surprise. (We had not spent our meeting badmouthing Republicans.) We had our own goals, plans for action, and a positive agenda. Like Troye, she and her husband had found a new tribe. That break took guts. Today they are friends.
Half the country just chose to align themselves with the tribe my friends left a decade ago. The sadness in that is profound. But there is hope too. Not everyone on the right is there for Trumpism. Some are there out of political muscle memory. Welcome them when they turn.
