I am quick to say that freedom of speech is not for the speech you like, but for the speech you hate. That said, not all speech is equal- some is misguided and ignorant, some is deliberate lies, and much of it is hilariously stupid.

Take, for instance, racism. Trump is a racist, that is why he will never condemn racist speech.

Which is not to say it should be tolerated. On the contrary it must be publicly denounced at every opportunity until people learn it is shameful, embarrassing, and unacceptable.

That’s what is meant by using good speech to drive out bad.

A lot of people take offense at Sam Bee using the word “feckless” to put down Ivanka. I’m surprised their virgin ears have heard such language, let alone understand it (for the record it means “ineffectual”). They are, of course, free to gin up their own sense of outrage in the hope of encouraging TBS to believe that Sam is bad for business.

Trump’s demand that TBS fire Samantha Bee may violate First Amendment
by Melanie Schmitz, Think Progress
Jun 1, 2018

On Wednesday night, in the opening monologue of her show, Full Frontal, Bee criticized Ivanka for posting a photo of herself with her son at the same time her father was implementing aggressive immigration policies that separated hundreds of thousands of children from their parents at the southern U.S. border.

“Ivanka Trump, who works at the White House, chose to post the second most oblivious tweet we’ve seen this week,” Bee said. “You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child. But let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c—t.”
…
Bee’s comments came one day after comedian Roseanne Barr was criticized for making racist remarks about former Obama administration senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Barr later issued an apology and claimed she was leaving Twitter, and ABC canceled her show, Roseanne, a short while later. The comedian quickly returned to the social media platform within the day and reverted to tweeting questionable content in the days that followed and suggested that the sleeping drug Ambien had caused her to write racist things.

Conservatives, including Trump, have since attempted to draw some sort of comparison between the two comedians, denouncing what they claim is a double standard among liberals and the media.

“Compare ABC’s reaction to Roseanne Barr’s tweet w TBS’s non-reaction to Samantha Bee and you’ll see a double-standard in action,” tweeted Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. “There’s no uprising against Bee. Why? Because she is liberal. Because the MSM protects Obama and his aides, but not Trump. The hypocrisy is sickening.”

The president’s suggestion that TBS fire Bee over her remark, however, may actually pose a threat to the First Amendment. In suggesting that certain language be banned from media and calling for Bee’s firing, Trump, an elected official, may arguably be attempting to infringe on Bee’s right to free speech.

“[The First Amendment] doesn’t apply to media companies punishing employees […],” Paste Magazine‘s Roger Sollenberger wrote Thursday. “The First Amendment (though it has several exceptions, such as defamation and incitement to violence) is our guarantee that the government will never step in to silence its critics. So it is a violation of the First Amendment for the White House to step in and advocate private citizens should be silenced for speaking their mind.”

Many have also pointed out that Trump himself enjoys using the word “c—t” several times in the past to describe women whom he dislikes.

As Scott Bixby of The Daily Beast notes, in his book, Fire and Fury, author Michael Wolff claims Trump described former acting attorney general Sally Yates as “‘such a c—t” when squaring off with her over the travel ban, which targeted people from several Muslim-majority nations. Trump later fired Yates for refusing to implement the ban.

Former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin also claims that Trump called her a “c—t” during an angry phone call in 1988. Trump had reportedly phoned Lin to complain about a story she had written about his allegedly shady business practices in Atlantic City.

Jessica Leeds, who accused the president of groping her and allegedly attempting to reach up her skirt during a flight to New York in the 1980s, also claims the then-businessman called her a “c—t” after meeting her again at a gala years after the incident.

Trump also has made lewd remarks about groping women without their consent, admitted to making sexual advances on married women, and has made disparaging remarks about both the women who have accused him of sexual predation as well as the wives of his political rivals, specifically Heidi Cruz, wife of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries. Trump has also mocked his female political opponents for their looks.

I suspect most of them are not part of Ms. Bee’s target demographic anyway.

But free speech, I’ll defend to the death your right to be a humourless prick, even if you’re an official of the United States government provided you don’t act in your official capacity to encourage censorship. That would be a violation of the First Amendment.

On the other hand there is this thing called Conspiracy in Restraint of Trade which is illegal. No, it’s not the same thing as a boycott (which is free speech), it’s specifically a part of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and makes the practice of colluding to reduce competition, say for good NFL Quarterbacks, a criminal offense.

Trump may have violated federal law by urging NFL owners not to sign Kaepernick
by Lindsay Gibbs, Think Progress
Jun 2, 2018

Last month, the NFL announced a new policy for its players during the national anthem: Players are permitted to stay in the locker room during the anthem, but if they go out onto the field during it, they must stand. If any of the players takes a knee, the team will be fined.

Soon afterwards, a Wall Street Journal report confirmed what most have long suspected: That President Donald Trump’s public outrage about NFL players protesting police brutality and systemic racism during the national anthem at football games heavily influenced NFL owners to change the rule, and discouraged them from signing players who would protest.

It’s all terrible news for those in favor of free speech and peaceful protest, and for those against white nationalism and police brutality.

However, Mark Geragos, the lawyer representing Kaepernick in his collusion lawsuit against the NFL, sees the glass as being half full: He believes that both the anthem rule change and the information about Trump’s influence on NFL owners will go a long way towards helping him prove that the NFL and NFL owners colluded to keep Kaepernick out of the NFL, despite the fact that he had the talent to be a starting quarterback in the league.

A few revelations from the last couple of weeks strongly support Geragos’ case here, and it’s important to remember that Geragos knows much more about the case than we do — he has taken the depositions of more than a dozen NFL owners, while the public only knows about the depositions that have leaked.

But the WSJ article itself make(s) a pretty strong case against Trump. Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross reportedly said that his opinion about players protesting during the national anthem changed last fall, after Trump called any player who took a knee during the national anthem a “son of a bitch” and told his supporters that NFL owners should take any player who protests during the anthem off the field immediately and fire him.

“I was totally supportive of [the players] until Trump made his statement,” Ross said. “I thought he changed the dialogue.”

Of course, influencing the private hiring decisions of a company isn’t the only part of U.S. Code 887 that needs to be proved; it would also have to be shown that Trump did it for partisan political purposes.

That sounds trickier to prove, but in this case, that’s not necessarily true.

First of all, Trump’s comments were made at a political rally supporting an Alabama Republican candidate for US Senate — an expressly partisan environment. And according to the WSJ, Trump told Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in private conversations that the issue was a “winning” one for him.

“This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” Trump said on the phone to Jones, according to a sworn deposition given by Jones and reviewed by the WSJ. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”

If that’s not enough, after the NFL changed its anthem policy last month, media outlets such as CNN framed it as a “victory” for Trump. And, it just so happened that Vice President Mike Pence agreed.

Of course, the NFL’s official stance has always been that it’s up to each individual team who they sign and don’t sign, and that it’s just a coincidence that Kaepernick and his former teammate Eric Reid — a talented, unsigned safety who protested during the 2016 and 2017 seasons and also has a collusion lawsuit against the NFL — are currently unemployed.

But Geragos has implied there’s plenty of evidence to contradict that claim. This week on CNN, he said more information on collusion between the NFL and Trump to keep Kaepernick out of the league is coming.

“I would stay tuned because this case is about to take a dramatic turn,” he said, adding that “somebody has decided they were going to dime out the NFL for what they were doing.”

All of which goes to show that you ought to be careful before you get your panties in a bunch over “free speech”.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Timothy McVeigh convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing; Coronation day for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II; Pope John Paul II visits Poland; Baseball’s Lou Gehrig dies.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Thomas Hardy

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I’ve been reading a lot of garbage about why Melania is out of the spotlight recently, ranging from Pod Person Conspiracy Theories to speculation that she’s being held in a 50 Shades of Gray sex dungeon in the old White House Bowling Alley.

The truth is likely more mundane and tragic than that. She’s probably much sicker than the White House is letting on.

Of the two most common causes for the surgical procedure (Kidney Embolization) she underwent, the most acute is an Arteriovenous Malformation. This causes bleeding and if it takes place in the Brain or near the Spine can be quite serious indeed. Kidney not so much.

The second cause is called an Angiomyolipoma, a random collection of blood, fat, and muscle cells. While not malignant in the sense that it’s actively growing, it can indicate a tumor in another part of the body, say, the Lung that might be very dangerous.

In both cases her doctors will want to monitor her condition closely for changes and she probably won’t feel very energetic for a long time.

I want to emphasize I’m not a doctor of any sort and have only worked the side of the gurney that faces up at the ceiling, so this is based on information you can find with the right kind of internet searches, not any type of training.

Samantha Bee is angry that Trump’s DHS is snatching babies from their mothers and losing them. Roseanne Barr is angry that Valerie Jarett is Black. See the difference?

Obama was a horrible President. Speaking of Roseanne.

Gotta watch out for that Ambien.

Back to stealing babies

Surrey With The Fringe On Top

War On Music

Zack Morris Is Trash- Season 2, Episodes 7 – 9

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

The Beatles release their ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album; Actress Marilyn Monroe born; CNN hits the airwaves; Mormon leader Brigham Young born; Blind and deaf author and activist Helen Keller dies.

The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one’s self to others.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Even the biggest United States of Europe proponent has to admit that the only people who are happy with the current direction in Brussels are German Bankers.

Merkel barely survived re-election due to German popular disdain for EU Immigration policy (which I happen to support mind you except I don’t think it goes far enough). Macron is implementing anti-Union Neo Liberal austerity policies that threaten to damage or dispose of his governing coalition in Labor unrest. Italy has just delivered a decisive (well, as far as these things go in Italy) vote against the European Currency Union (Euro), and Brexit is, well, Brexit.

Now garden variety corruption has ousted the pro-EU Prime Minister of Spain.

Rajoy likely to be forced out as Spanish PM as Basque party turns against him
by Sam Jones, The Guardian
Thu 31 May 2018

Mariano Rajoy’s controversial and scandal-mired tenure as Spanish prime minister seemed all but certain to be entering its final hours on Thursday afternoon when a small Basque party threw its weight behind a no-confidence motion tabled after Rajoy’s party was found to have profited from a huge corruption racket.

After hours of suspense, the Basque Nationalist party (PNV) revealed it had decided to back the motion proposed by the opposition socialist party, PSOE, delivering the handful of votes required to oust Rajoy of the People’s party (PP) and replace him with the PSOE leader, Pedro Sánchez.

The PNV’s five votes – together with the support of groupings including the anti-austerity Podemos party, the two Catalan pro-independence parties and another Basque party – gave the PSOE 180 votes in Spain’s 350-seat congress, four more than were needed.

Rajoy, who made a defiant appearance in parliament during the morning session, was absent from the chamber when the PNV announced its decision shortly after 5pm.

The party said it had never sought to play a king-making role in Spanish politics, but felt an ethical and political duty to support the motion.

“This isn’t simple; this isn’t easy,” said PNV spokesman Aitor Esteban. “But we have to do it.” He said last week’s court verdict, confirming the PP had benefited from a corruption scam, had marked “a before and an after”.

A Spanish government spokesman said Rajoy was not considering his resignation despite being on the cusp of losing the vote in parliament.

The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to be named in media reports, said Rajoy planned to address the lower house on Friday before the vote.

Rajoy had earlier accused the PSOE of opportunism, reminding it of its own corruption scandals.

“With what moral authority are you speaking? Are you perhaps Mother Teresa of Calcutta?” he asked. “There have been corrupt people in the PP, but the PP is not a corrupt party,” he said.

Sánchez called for “democratic regeneration” as he sought the backing of MPs, saying: “Resign, Mr Rajoy. Your time is up.”

He said Rajoy had failed to accept responsibility for the PP’s corruption, which was made public last week when one of its former treasurers was sentenced to 33 years in prison for fraud and money laundering. The party was fined €240,000 (£210,000) after judges at Spain’s highest criminal court ruled it had benefited from the kickbacks-for-contracts scheme.

Rajoy accused Sánchez of using the motion to propel himself into government without an election. “Mr Sánchez is being driven by his eagerness to become prime minister … He wants to be prime minister without having to resort to the ballot box, because even kids know he’ll never win at the ballot box.”

However, Sánchez’ promised to stick to Rajoy’s recently approved budget – which will bring increased investment to the Basque country – as well as signalling a willingness to engage with Catalonia’s pro-independence government.

Although Podemos backed the motion, the centre-right Ciudadanos party called instead for a snap election and refused to align itself with “populists and nationalists”.

If Sánchez’s motion is formally approved on Friday, he will become prime minister next week. He promised to call a general election if he succeeded Rajoy but said his party would first spend a few months concentrating on social and educational reforms before taking the country to the polls.

Rajoy’s minority government has been beset by corruption scandals over recent years. Last July, Rajoy became the first serving Spanish premier to testify in a criminal trial after being called to give evidence in the kickbacks-for-contracts case. In their ruling last week, judges in the case questioned the credibility of his testimony.

At the end of April, the PP president of Madrid’s regional government stepped down after revelations that she had apparently being caught stealing two tubs of face cream seven years ago. Cristina Cifuentes had been under intense pressure to quit over allegations that she faked her master’s degree.

One of her predecessors, Esperanza Aguirre, stepped down as head of the regional party two years ago, admitting that “corruption is killing us”.

Although the PP won by a landslide in the 2011 general election, it failed to achieve outright victory in the December 2015 election or the one that followed six months later.

Spain spent 10 months in the hands of a PP caretaker government until October 2016, when Rajoy was returned to office after the PSOE abstained from the investiture vote to break the political paralysis and avoid a third election.

Finding Bigots

They’re not saying “Rudy”. They’re saying “Boooo”.

In some places they call that a “Bronx Cheer”. In the Bronx they say the same because “What the f*ck you looking at Motherf*cker?” is a friendly greeting.

Now in Philly you don’t know they love you until they start throwing batteries. “Cs” are best. “Ds” are too heavy and double and triple “As” don’t do nearly enough damage.

The Rose Ceremony

Starship Icarus Part 2

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

The Johnstown Flood kills more than 2,200 people in Pennsylvania; Israel hangs ex-Nazi official Adolf Eichmann; Bombing suspect Eric Rudolph caught in North Carolina; Actor-director Clint Eastwood born.

Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great.

Fred Allen

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Needless to say both supported by the mouthpiece of the Neo Liberal establishment, The New York Times. Our friend Bill Black explains-

The New York Times Praises the Italian Establishment’s Economic Illiteracy and Assault on Democracy
by William Black, New Economic Perspectives
May 29, 2018

I start with the NYT’s second lie, for exposing it also exposes the first lie. Giuseppe Conte, the “designated prime minister,” did not “announce … that he had failed to form a government.” He announced an undisputed fact – a political rival, President Sergio Mattarella, refused to allow the two parties to form a coalition government because he objected to their selection of Paolo Savona as their economics minister.

Italy has a very different political system than the United States, so let me make the key point clear that the NYT writers sought to obscure. Italian voters crushingly rejected the political policies of President Sergio Mattarella in the recent elections. They strongly supported the views of rival parties – the (generally leftist) Five Star Movement and the (hard right) League. A strong majority of Italian voters rejected Mattarella’s policies. The Five Star Movement and the League’s supporters share the view that Mattarella’s establishment economic policies have done catastrophic damage to the Italian economy and people. The establishment economic policies include devotion to the euro, austerity, anti-worker policies, and continuing public bailouts of failing Italian banks.

The euro is a terrible creation that has caused immense harm. The eurozone violates even the neoclassical economic requirements for an “optimal currency zone.” Every honest economist recognizes that fact. Stephanie Kelton was one of a material number of economists who predicted the euro’s inherent problems over 15 years ago. The NYT presents opposition to Italy’s membership in the euro as bizarre and obviously bad economics. In reality, it is even good neoclassical economics. German neoclassical economists, for example, typically think that the EU should never have allowed Italy to adopt the euro. If you have freed yourself from neoclassical nostrums, your opposition to the eurozone will be even more profound. The NYT authors’ first lie is the wacko claim that Conte was “planning to sneak out the back door of the eurozone.” It would take too many paragraphs to explain each aspect of nasty, dishonest rhetoric contained in that single clause, so I will shorten my response: BS.

Virtually every economist opposes the way Italy continues to bail out its failing banks.

Because adopting the euro and economically illiterate and destructive austerity removes Italy’s most effective means of responding to the Great Recession, the European establishment economists’ policies have proven disastrous. The eurozone, a full decade after the acute phase of the financial crisis began, finally has a broad recovery. Even now, however, its overall unemployment rate is over twice that of the United States. As of March 2018, Italy had 11.0 percent unemployment – nearly three times the U.S. rate. Youth unemployment remains at scandalous rates in several EU nations: “Greece (42.3% in January 2018), Spain (35.0%) and Italy (31.7%).”

It is true, and scandalous, that EU establishment economists typically continue their dogmatic support of austerity. In the United States, fortunately, the opposite is more nearly true. The overwhelming majority of U.S. economists supported stimulus in response to the Great Recession. The loud minority that predicted that stimulus would lead to hyper-inflation has, as Paul Krugman rightly emphasizes, proven as intellectually dishonest as they have proven wrong for they refuse to admit error. We have run (again) a real world experiment. Stimulus proved a great success. Austerity proved the financial malpractice equivalent to bleeding the patient.

Paola Savona has enormous experience with the Bank of Italy, the academy, industry, and government. His economic positions are the best hope for Italy in a decade. In the U.S. context, he would be a mainstream economist. His views on the euro have repeatedly proven correct while the Italian establishment’s economic policies have repeatedly proven to be grave failures. The Italian establishment, despite this record of economic failure and the election results has literally taken the position that it is so illegitimate to adopt economic views and policies that accord with reality that no government can be formed if the economics ministry is not occupied by a failed ideologue who worships the euro and austerity.

In Italy, elections have not had consequences. The neoclassical establishment, crushed in the elections primarily due to their persistently terrible economic policies, are blocking the voters’ preferred parties because they intend to appoint the first competent Italian economic minister in over a decade. The establishment is blocking that appointment at the behest of bankers and the Germans, who dominate eurozone economic policies. The Italian establishment’s economic policies and blocking of the winning coalition that crushed it in the elections; are anti-democratic, pro-banker, economically illiterate, and anti-Italian sovereignty.

The NYT authors of the article present it as a straight news column. The authors seeks to obscure all the analytics that I have emphasized. They also engage in blatant propaganda.
…
Mattarella very good. He calmly gave a “civics lesson” to benighted Italians too dumb to vote for a government “that protected Italian interests.” Note the context: this means, first, that the “civic lesson” is that Mattarella will overturn the results of the democratic election that repudiated the establishment, which is an interesting concept of “civics.” Mattarella, the fictional “keeper of Italian institutions,” does not believe in “keeping” the Italian institution of democracy.

Second, failed establishment economic policies that have manifestly harmed “Italian interest” and favored the interests of German bankers are the only acceptable policies to Mattarella. What are the odds that Mattarella would admit that those establishment economic policies, which he has championed for over a decade, were failures, apologize, and work fervently to undo the harm his dogmas caused to the Italian (and Greek and Spanish) people? Recall that none of the small minority of U.S. austerians has been willing to admit error even in a context where their failed policy recommendations caused vastly less harm because elected officials rejected their worst policy recommendations. Mattarella would have to admit that his policies had caused severe harm to tens of millions of Italians for over a decade. Such an admission would destroy the establishment in the next election.

The authors do not call Mattarella on even his most obvious lies. Instead, they embrace the lie, quoting without contradiction Mattarella’s lie: “I did all I could so that a political government could be formed.” He actually vetoed the formation of the government and he did so for the most anti-democratic of reasons to avoid admitting the crushing error of his own disastrous economic policies.
…
Five Star, very bad. The authors’ describe the Five Star Movement as an “outrage machine.” Recall that the Five Star Movement got more votes than any party in the election – and got shafted by the establishment because it had the audacity to oppose the establishment’s terrible economic dogmas that devastated Italy. How dare the Five Star Movement be “outrage[d]” at the establishment’s anti-democratic and economically illiterate actions?
…
The authors do not bother to inform the reader that the IMF has, for decades, functioned as the chief acolytes of austerity. They also do not inform the reader that even the IMF has now published studies demonstrating that stimulus in response to the 2008 financial crisis had proven even more effective than its proponents had predicted. The Italian establishment wants to give power to Cottarelli, however, because he is an unreconstructed austerian and supporter of Italy remaining in the euro.

The NYT’s coverage of European economics continues its mindless and dishonest embrace of failed economic dogmas. It has now descended to the point that it praises even the most anti-democratic actions designed to thwart the will of European voters who demand an end to the self-inflicted injury of austerity and the euro.

Italeave!