So here’s what Aziz Ansari (who’s not as famous as he thinks because I’ve never heard of him) did-

He and this photographer met at a party and over a mutual interest in cameras flirted a bit verbally. She was probably impressed by his celebrity (Netflix? Nope, still don’t get it. More obscure than Basic Cable.) and I imagine she was fair to middling attractive (he on the other hand is a hot mess even accounting for taste). They were both with other people.

He hit her up for her phone number (something you’ll extract from me only under waterboarding) and then started text bantering. I imagine he initiated it because he didn’t give her his number.

Eventually they agreed to have a date. They met at his apartment, had a drink, and went out to an Oyster Bar.

They didn’t stay long. When they got back to his place she made some chit chat about his counters, he invited her to sit on them (umm… why would you want to do that?) and then he started kissing her.

Let me repeat that. He started kissing her.

Folks, that was the moment this stopped being a date.

“In a second, his hand was on my breast.” Then he was undressing her, then he undressed himself. She remembers feeling uncomfortable at how quickly things escalated.

When Ansari told her he was going to grab a condom within minutes of their first kiss, Grace voiced her hesitation explicitly. “I said something like, ‘Whoa, let’s relax for a sec, let’s chill.’” She says he then resumed kissing her, briefly performed oral sex on her, and asked her to do the same thing to him. She did, but not for long. “It was really quick. Everything was pretty much touched and done within ten minutes of hooking up, except for actual sex.”

Huh wha?!

Now a lot of photons have been spilled on whether Ansari actually committed Assault or not. I remind you Assault can be mere words, but if you touch someone…

That’s Battery.

Men, and I am chromosome damaged myself so I can use that word, this is not how you treat equals. You look them in the eye (ok, so I’m not actually very good at that because I have severe self esteem issues and am very shy, normally I stare off into the middle distance somewhere) and not at whatever bits you find sexually distracting so you can ignore what they are saying.

I also have interruption issues because regardless of any other characteristic about you I am completely convinced that I know more about the subject under discussion than you do. It’s frequently true. I am arrogant and vain and it comes from a lifetime of privilege.

But at least I have tried to train myself to overcome these failings and as ignorant as I ever was I never kissed a woman, she always kissed me. I never touched a woman except in places she touched me first.

That’s just manners.

The reason this infuriates me today is not just the clueless Saturday Night Live sketch this weekend, but that Morning Joe and any number of “Liberal” commentators are pretending that this is some kind of moral “gray area”.

This is a red line!

There is no “ah” or “umm” or “watch it” anymore than there is about race. It’s cut and dried.

Do you find that funny?

I feel compelled to remind you that what racists, bigots, and misogynists chiefly desire is not just that we tolerate their abhorrent behavior, they want us to applaud it; to laugh at their minstrel shows and drunken Irish jokes, and admire their sexual “conquests”.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

Should Aziz Ansari be labeled a Sex Criminal and publicly register and be forbidden from coming within a quarter mile of Schools?

Maybe not, but there is no denying that what he did was not just stupid, but bad, evil; and if he is shunned by his audience and never performs in public again it’s a fate he justly deserves.

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.

President George W. Bush warns terrorists still threaten United States;
bomb rocks an abortion clinic in Birmingham; “The Raven” is first published; Ty Cobb named hall of famer; Oprah Winfrey is born

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

Thomas Paine

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You know, watch this space. I do all kinds of pieces.

These seemed to go together.

Fed Up With Democrats as Usual? There’s a Whole Universe of Progressive Groups Ready to Take the Reins
By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
January 23, 2018

Last June, after Democratic candidates had lost four straight special Congressional elections (Rob Quist in Montana, James Thompson in Kansas, Archie Parnell in South Carolina, and Jon Ossoff in Georgia), America’s purveyors of conventional political wisdom simultaneously jumped to the conclusion that the policies and message of Democrats were just too progressive for our nation of moderate-right voters. The Washington cognoscenti expressed dismay that, despite Trump’s dismal public approval ratings and the nationwide surge of “Resist!” campaigns, the hapless Democratic Party was still unable to score any electoral victories. “Why Do Democrats Keep Losing in 2017?” queried a June headline in The Atlantic. “Democrats just went 0-4. When will they win?” asked a cynical CNN reporter. “It is a bit surprising that Democrats haven’t managed a single victory yet,” declared a University of Wisconsin election expert. “Panic is setting in on the left,” exclaimed a Vox headline.

Really?

No, not really. The professional political observers are like cats watching the wrong mouse hole. They are so fixated on the minutia of Washington-centric politics that they’re missing the much bigger story of transformative political changes that have erupted in every region of the country. Far from panicking, America’s political left is organizing, strategizing, mobilizing … and WINNING. Coalitions of local progressive activists (newly energized by an infusion of dynamic, creative young people and people of color) came together after the 2016 election. They recruited and trained candidates from their own ranks; methodically knocked on doors, having thousands of front-porch conversations with voters on basic issues; mobilized supporters for intensive election-day turn-out drives; and elected scores of audaciously populist mayors, council members, legislators, and other officials.

This is the mouse hole to watch, for it’s where ordinary people — those fed up with the corporate-rigged, business-as-usual politics and policies of both major parties — are actively rebuilding democracy and beginning to produce real change. It’s a nationwide rebellion made up of spontaneous local rebellions, each sparked by various specific grievances with America’s ruling royalists. Linking these uprisings together is a shared determination to restore our nation’s unifying ethic of the Common Good, a principle that my old daddy used to express this way: Everybody does better when everybody does better.

This burgeoning movement is not merely about protesting or lobbying the government — it intends to become the government. It’s a new politics embracing a three-front strategy I call R-I-P:

• Resist the Trumpeteers and corporatists of all parties who’re imposing plutocratic rule over us commoners.
• Insist on enacting a positive, aggressively progressive people’s agenda.
• Persist in organizing from the ground up to sustain both “little-d” democratic politics and “everybody” policies.

The most common characteristic of last year’s progressive, populist candidates is that they were genuinely of the people, not career pols who were next in line. And they were not simply running for office, but running for specific economic, social and political changes to make America better for families and neighborhoods like theirs. They didn’t need campaign consultants to tell them what to say and not to say, for they were politicized by personally experiencing assorted assaults on their values and sense of justice. Politics is not a game to them — they know who they are, what they’re fighting against and, more importantly, what they’re fighting for.

Knowledgeable and trusted local groups have been key to the recent election victories by bona fide progressives. These groups build relationships through work in their communities, know whom to speak with and can tackle the intensive work of going door to door. Several national organizations understand the power of a local focus and have invested in identifying amazing grassroots partners — their 2017 results speak to the potential of this emerging network. Groups like Our Revolution, Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter, Democratic Socialists of America, People’s Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy for America and the Movement Voter Project are just some of the organizations doing important work. As the Movement Voter Project put in its recent report, “Failure is not an option. Not for our children. Not for our grandchildren.”

Accept no substitutes.

In a meta sense my Therapist is $200 a 45 minute hour and in order to keep it on my insurance, quarterly she has to certify my continued insanity.

I once met a guy who’d been institutionalized and after I knew him for a while I worked up the courage to ask him, “Why did they lock you up?”

“Well, the last time it was because I decided I had a hangup about clothing so I got naked and walked down the middle of the street.”

Walking down the middle of the street?! That’s crazy! You’re just asking for some idiot to hit you.

And that’s the balancing act really. Convincing them you’re sick enough that you require treatment but not quite so sick they need to restrain you and pump you full of drugs.

Sisyphus is not a patient with a mental health problem. To see him as a patient with a mental health problem is to ignore certain larger aspects of his predicament connected to boulders, mountains, and eternity.- Carl Elliot

That wasn’t so bad? Try this.

So last Century you say? How about this one.

Ok, so that was kind of like, random. I just can’t tolerate 4 minutes of Will Ferrell shouting. But to answer my rhetorical question in the title-

Yes, yes it can.

As Atrios says, never forget W is a horrible, horrible person who surrounded himself with many horrible people. He wanted to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He gave hundreds of Billions of dollars to the wealthiest .01% in Tax Cuts. He ignored National Security until about 3000 people died in a terror attack. He involved us in 2 failed Wars (that not for nothing were also War Crimes of the type we used to hang Nazis and Japanese for). He tortured people. He trashed your Constitutional protections and instituted a permanent surveillance State that exceeds the Stasi’s and Joseph Stalin’s wildest dreams…

Oh, and he trashed the economy too.

Worst ever? Who has two thumbs?

Donald John Trump is at least an ineffectual clown. Things could be much worse.

Of the big two burger chains, McDonalds and Burger King, I must confess I have a preference for Burger King even though they both have creepy mascots (c’mon, The King is like the creepiest ever and Ronald is a clown).

While McDonalds has superior fries (because they cook them in beef tallow) flame broiling is no joke and the Burger King burgers taste better no matter what size you order. McDonalds “Special Sauce” is basically Mayonnaise and Ketchup and for me it doesn’t work, I ask them to ditch it. Speaking of condiment customization that’s always been a feature at Burger King and McDonalds strongly prefers you accept the default (it is one way to get a fresh burger though).

Do not get me wrong though, there are definitely some dishes that I prefer to get from McDonalds. For example, McDonalds chicken nuggets never let me down. Plus, I am a huge fan of their desserts. Especially the hot fudge sundae. Whenever there is a mcdonalds deal that I can use to get some money off I cannot resist treating myself every once in a while. I love saving money and therefore I am always on the lookout for discount codes and coupons that I can use when grabbing some fast food.

Anyway, one recent menu addition that I have to give Burger King credit for is the Hot Dog. I have craved those for years. I went out special just to have one right after they were introduced and they’re not bad. If you want Oscar Meyer bologna on a stick, well, they’re not that though they are mild. My taste runs more to Nathan’s as a national brand and Hummel, a local, is even better. When I visit the City (there is only one) I’ll have Sabretts. I like mine with Ketchup (I know, and I don’t care), Brown Mustard (Guldens is best), and chopped Onions (Sweet or Bermuda).

No relish please. Too sweet.

Now McDonalds is marketing itself as Starbucks with meat but if I want good coffee I’ll go to Dunkin Donuts and grab myself a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissant to go with that. If I want a really tasty burger nothing better than Wendy’s and they have lemonade. Canada? You have Tim Horton’s (coffee sucks but scrambled eggs instead of a hockey puck is nice) and you have A&W which I will drive a half hour out of my way to find because those frosty mugs are so cool.

All of these are road food of course, the kind you get when you need to gas up, and stretch; when I’m actually somewhere I prefer to discover some nice local non chain place and I almost always find it an interesting and rewarding experience.

Burger King? Well, their ads have always been kind of wacky. Here’s one they dropped Wednesday-

Yes, that is them talking about Net Neutrality, and in kind of an interesting and coherent way.

Why are they doing that, how does it relate to their corporate branding?

I don’t know.

But Net Neutrality is very important because the alternative is Monopolistic Extortion at best and flat out Corporate Censorship at worst. The next time you get in a debate with someone about its desirability (not likely, it has 80% approval) you might want to trot this little YouTube out and educate them.

Why is Burger King better at explaining net neutrality than the FCC?
by Nicole Karlis, Salon
2018-01-25

The scenes are filmed reality-TV style, and a title at the end explains that the customers are real people, not actors. Naturally, customers become increasingly aggrieved at the wait times and the inequity over whose Whopper gets delivered first.

“Burger King corporation believes that they can sell more and make more money selling chicken sandwiches and chicken fries, so now they’re slowing down the access to the Whopper” one of the employee-actors says.

Customers in the ad call the system a “bad dream” and “worst thing I’ve ever heard of.”

At the end, Burger King interviews the customers. Some admit surprise at how much they learned about net neutrality through their experience trying to buy a Whopper.

“A Whopper taught me about net neutrality. It’s stupid, but true,” one says.

“I didn’t think that ordering a Whopper would really open my eyes up to net neutrality,” says another customer.

It’s unclear which parts of the ad were staged and which ones weren’t, or whether more informed customers were edited out. Still, the ad exemplifies the degree to which many Americans are uninformed about internet access politics.

Net neutrality advocacy has been ongoing since the Obama administration passed an order that classified the Internet as a Title II entity under the Communications Acts. That move established restrictions for Internet providers that inhibited them from blocking content, accessing content, and throttling Internet content – meaning when Internet Service Providers intentionally slow (or speed) a specific Internet service. As President Obama explained a few years ago, “no service should be stuck in a ‘slow lane’ because it does not pay a fee.”

Once incumbent President Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has regulatory power over communication media like the internet, Pai made it the FCC’s priority to reverse Obama’s net neutrality rules. In his proposal, net neutrality regulations would essentially become obsolete. The vote passed to repeal them 3-2 along party lines on Dec. 14.
…
The current Trump-era FCC pushed an anti–net neutrality agenda from the beginning, despite widespread (and ongoing) public opposition to repealing net neutrality. Commissioner Pai made a video that purported to “explain net neutrality” in December. The video, which was widely derided as condescending and insulting to the American public, poked fun at Millennials and typified them as ignorant, while highlighting how Internet users would still be able to “[Insta]gram their food” and “stay part of their favorite fandom.” It was also released on the day of the vote. Pai’s video didn’t explain how repealing net neutrality would change Internet pricing packages, mention throttling, or any of the real concerns experts had been raising before the vote.

It is odd that Burger King of all companies is engaged in educating the public on what net neutrality is, and the implications of the December FCC vote. But if the government isn’t going to take activists’ concerns seriously, at least somebody else is – even if that somebody is the marketing team of a major fast food chain.

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.

Soviet troops liberate concentration camps; Paris peace accords are signed; Astonauts die on Apollo one; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born; Composer Jerome Kern born

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

Samuel Gompers

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Mike, why am I out?

You’re not a wartime Consigliari, Tom. Things could get rough with the move we’re making.

Tom, I advised Michael. I never thought you were a bad Consigliari. I thought Santino was a bad Don, rest in peace. Michael has all my confidence as do you. But there are reasons why you must have nothing to do with what’s going to happen.

Maybe I could help.

You’re out, Tom.

Of course today’s big “news” is the story that Trump actually tried to fire Robert Mueller in June, ordering White House Legal Counsel Donald McGahn to do the job (despite his “You’re Fired!” reputation, The Donald is notoriously reluctant to actually do the deeds himself. I on the other hand, have. Non, je ne regrette rien.). McGahn refused.

After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.

Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.

McGahn is hardly a profile in courage (any more than James Comey). He had at least 2 very good reasons to take the position he did.

First (and McGahn is a typical Republican slimeball so I doubt this entered his conciousness for an instant) the White House Legal Counsel is no more the President’s personal lawyer than the Attorney General is. The White House Legal Counsel’s job is to advise and represent the Office of The President, not it’s current occupant. This is why Trump has Ty Cobb.

Secondly, as a lawyer you’re allowed to represent people who are very, very guilty. Indeed our system of Justice demands that you do so, and to the best of your ability. You’re not allowed to conspire with them to enable future crimes.

For instance, lying under oath is a crime. As a lawyer, an Officer of the Court, you can’t call a Defendant as a Witness in their own defense, even though you know that if you don’t it may result in their conviction, should you strongly suspect or be certain they will lie on the stand. Of course individuals can lie to their own lawyers all they like, it’s just usually not in their best interest.

Of course punishment is rare (You know why Sharks won’t eat Lawyers? Professional Courtesy.), but rare doesn’t mean never and the lowest sanction is Disbarment (ok, Reprimand, but that’s hardly a sanction at all, remember the Sharks?) and you could go to Jail, no joke at all.

In the quote above Michael and Vito Corleone are actually doing Tom Hagen a favor. They’re about to initiate a Gang War and kill dozens of people. They don’t want Bruce Cutler involved because they may need him later.

Another justification that is being offered is this-

Mr. McGahn was also concerned that firing the special counsel would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation.

Asked and answered Counselor. Trump bragged about it to Russian Ambassador Kislyak (do we tap the Russian Ambassador’s phone? Duh!) He said so himself ON AIR TO A NATIONAL TELEVISION AUDIENCE in his interview with Lester Holt.

There are no more questions your Honor. It’s just a stipulated fact.

There is a lot of gassing today about how this makes it easier to prove malicious intent. Pelion on Ossa (Sigh. For those not familiar when Otus and Ephialtes waged war on the Greek Gods of Olympus, which is a real mountain, they took Pelion and put it on top of Ossa, which are both also real mountains, so that they could make their attack from the same level.).

Folks, what even matters anymore? The case that Donald John Trump is a criminal is already rock solid. The problem is that Republicans won’t impeach and Institutional Democrats (looking right at you Nancy Pelosi) show little enthusiasm for it.

Trump committed treason. Bill Clinton got a consensual blow job (yes, I am aware of the power dynamics).

One of these things is not like the other.

Unfortunately that’s all original. Except the music.

So it seems the current Misadministration asked the Guggenheim Museum if they could borrow Van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow (1888) which is basically a picture of a man walking a dog for temporary exhibition in the White House because everybody knows Trump’s fake Renoir is… well, fake.

It’s actually a common enough arrangement and usually goes though without a hitch. This time, alas, the painting, “prohibited from travel except for the rarest of occasions”, was scheduled to be sent to Spain for an extended period and then return to New York for display in the permanent collection. For the foreseeable future.

Ahem.

However, do we have a deal for you! Maurizio Cattelan’s America has just come off display and both we and the Artist would be more than happy to have you install it, we’ll even send a Curator Plumber to help.

Plumber?

America is a solid Gold toilet worth more that $1 Million just as bullion. Then there is the artistic value. Outside of being fully functional in every respect it is reliable, having had more than 100,000 umm… visitors during its year on display in the 5th floor lavatory. People say it’s a transformational experience.

From the Washington Post–

Cattelan has also suggested that he had in mind the wealth that permeates aspects of society, describing the golden toilet “as 1 percent art for the 99 percent.”

“Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” he has said.

Alternet calls it “a massively bold trolling”.

I am compelled to agree.

We are sorry not to be able to accommodate your original request but remain hopeful that this special offer may be of interest.

Burn!

Somebody else. Or somebody else. Or somebody else.

I’m not gonna run!

I personally am not a member of Oprah’s target audience. Daytime talk is an annoying part of the waiting room experience (of which I have far too much) that I deal with by closing my eyes and concentrating on my breathing. Were I not compelled to keep a sharp ear open for the much anticipated “Mr. Hornbeck?” I’d stuff them with my Munitio NINES and watch something from my 128 Gb database of captured video on my phone or my Fire 8.

Yes, I have 2 nano setups that share components. Mostly my phone is just a phone.

But back to Oprah. I have great admiration for her success, she is truly an inspiration as a genuine Media Billionaire (she could buy and sell Trump) and talent (again better than The Donald) and from what I can tell has a real empathy for people. I’ll never quite forgive her for “Doctors” Phil and Oz whom I regard as manipulative quacks and charlatans however you try to be charitable and accept folks at face value and I’m willing to believe that’s what happened.

After her speech at the Golden Globes and given recent political developments the enthusiasm of her fans for a potential Presidential run is understandable.

Alas (or thank goodness, depending on your perspective) it is not to be.

Oprah Winfrey For President? Not Interested, Says Talk Show Mogul
by Greg Evans, Deadline Hollywood
January 25, 2018

“I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not,” Winfrey tells InStyle when asked about Oprah 2020. “And so it’s not something that interests me,” she says. “I don’t have the DNA for it.”

Winfrey told the magazine she saw an “Oprah 2020” mug and thought it was “cute,” and even has met with (an unidentified) someone who offered campaign help, but despite urging by friend and CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King, a run for office is unlikely.

Says Winfrey: “Gayle – who knows me as well as I know myself practically – has been calling me regularly and texting me things, like a woman in the airport saying, ‘When’s Oprah going to run?’ So Gayle sends me these things, and then she’ll go, ‘I know, I know, I know! It wouldn’t be good for you – it would be good for everyone else.’ I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign. That’s not for me.”

(h/t Gabriel Bell @ Salon)