Speech, free and otherwise
With everything else going on, you may not have noticed that the US Agency for Global Media got a new jefe, Michael Pack, who proceeded to fire the heads of Radio Free Europe and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Pack is a Trump hire so I was prepared to despise him, but I find myself in strange company than runs from Eliot Engel to Sebastian Gorka. Michael Doran, who served in the more recent Bush administration, predicts Pack will be "as effective as a drugged bug in a bottle," which I have to admit is pretty colorful talk. Veteran rightzi David Reaboi boasts that he advised Pack on cleaning out "a megaphone for anti-American leftwing agitprop." (Because American = rightwing, it's just common sense.) I suppose we wait to see who he installs in these and other outlets. Not holding my breath for Amy Goodman.
A lot of people rely on Voice of America and RFE for news they can't get from state media or online. For example, many Russians may not see the darkly funny side of a school surveillance system called, as Godunov is my witness, Orwell. I can't decide if they've never read 1984 or they use it as a manual. Winston Smith had to remind himself to compose his features into an expression of quiet optimism within range of a viewscreen; facial recognition technology can tell if you're faking.
Jeremy Christian is devoted to freedom of speech. Three years ago he decided to exercise it on a Portland, Oregon, train, yelling racist abuse at two Muslim women. Three passengers intervened, and Christian stabbed two of them to death and wounded the third. Yesterday a judge sentenced him to life in prison and recommended that it be "real life" so Portland doesn't have to listen to his free speech anymore. He responded with one last mouthful directed at the two women: "I should've killed you bitches." Another First Amendment martyr.
The Eiffel Tower has reopened, but Americans won't be climbing to the top to see the spot where Ninotchka and Leon fell in love. (It's just a better movie than Sleepless In Seattle, and Paris is prettier than Manhattan.) The European Union may ban Americans from traveling there because of our inability to get covid under control. In fact, we seem to be actively helping it thrive. Having encouraged millions of covidiots to crowd public places, dose themselves with dangerous drugs and rip masks off non-idiots, Trump decided it was time for another assault on the Affordable Care Act. Less than two weeks ago Americans shivered at the story of Michael Flor, the seventy-year-old Seattle man who recovered from covid and was handed a hospital bill for $1.1 million. (Yes, the Hindustan Times, because this news rocketed around the world. Also no paywall.) In politics as in comedy, the secret is timing. But Senate Republicans, public health officials, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dick Fucking Cheney all agree: This is getting worse.
There are signs that Trump, whose emotional underdevelopment Hillary Clinton warned us about, has already given up. Last night he held a Hannity hand-job billed as a "town hall" in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that will probably come up next time you search for "incoherence." Not enough people love him, he's still figuring out the job nearly four years after the "I alone can fix it" speech, he had hardly even heard of Washington before being "elected," he made a few mistakes like hiring John Bolton, experience is a good thing, but you know what's the worst thing? "Here's a guy who can't talk. When he does talk, he can't put two sentences together...and he is going to be president because some people don't love me, maybe. And all I'm doing is doing my job."
It's true, Joe Biden is no Barack Obama or Franklin Roosevelt, but he's also not a depraved, grifting, semi-literate racist who hides in a bunker because of a few protesters. He doesn't issue empty threats to mayors who displease him. He knows that tariffs only hurt the American companies and consumers who have to pay them. He isn't obsessed with his television ratings. He won't spend his mornings watching television in bed or his afternoons asking people if Finland is part of Russia. He doesn't think Nazis are "very fine people" or cherish statues of seditious generals over suffering people. He doesn't think every bloody thing that happens in the world is a plot to make him look bad. If he even contemplates appointing a Secretary of Education who tries to wreck the public schools, Jill Biden, Ph.D., will straighten him out. (She won't have to.) Did I leave anything out? The orange clown makeup. So yeah, I can do without the silver-tongue eloquence of President Covfefe, and the endless lava-flow of moronic tweets. Come on, January!
Smash the statues, reunite the families at the border, turn off the gaslights, count the silverware and fumigate the White House. Oh, and tell Putin to go fuck the Urals.
A lot of people rely on Voice of America and RFE for news they can't get from state media or online. For example, many Russians may not see the darkly funny side of a school surveillance system called, as Godunov is my witness, Orwell. I can't decide if they've never read 1984 or they use it as a manual. Winston Smith had to remind himself to compose his features into an expression of quiet optimism within range of a viewscreen; facial recognition technology can tell if you're faking.
Jeremy Christian is devoted to freedom of speech. Three years ago he decided to exercise it on a Portland, Oregon, train, yelling racist abuse at two Muslim women. Three passengers intervened, and Christian stabbed two of them to death and wounded the third. Yesterday a judge sentenced him to life in prison and recommended that it be "real life" so Portland doesn't have to listen to his free speech anymore. He responded with one last mouthful directed at the two women: "I should've killed you bitches." Another First Amendment martyr.
The Eiffel Tower has reopened, but Americans won't be climbing to the top to see the spot where Ninotchka and Leon fell in love. (It's just a better movie than Sleepless In Seattle, and Paris is prettier than Manhattan.) The European Union may ban Americans from traveling there because of our inability to get covid under control. In fact, we seem to be actively helping it thrive. Having encouraged millions of covidiots to crowd public places, dose themselves with dangerous drugs and rip masks off non-idiots, Trump decided it was time for another assault on the Affordable Care Act. Less than two weeks ago Americans shivered at the story of Michael Flor, the seventy-year-old Seattle man who recovered from covid and was handed a hospital bill for $1.1 million. (Yes, the Hindustan Times, because this news rocketed around the world. Also no paywall.) In politics as in comedy, the secret is timing. But Senate Republicans, public health officials, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dick Fucking Cheney all agree: This is getting worse.
There are signs that Trump, whose emotional underdevelopment Hillary Clinton warned us about, has already given up. Last night he held a Hannity hand-job billed as a "town hall" in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that will probably come up next time you search for "incoherence." Not enough people love him, he's still figuring out the job nearly four years after the "I alone can fix it" speech, he had hardly even heard of Washington before being "elected," he made a few mistakes like hiring John Bolton, experience is a good thing, but you know what's the worst thing? "Here's a guy who can't talk. When he does talk, he can't put two sentences together...and he is going to be president because some people don't love me, maybe. And all I'm doing is doing my job."
It's true, Joe Biden is no Barack Obama or Franklin Roosevelt, but he's also not a depraved, grifting, semi-literate racist who hides in a bunker because of a few protesters. He doesn't issue empty threats to mayors who displease him. He knows that tariffs only hurt the American companies and consumers who have to pay them. He isn't obsessed with his television ratings. He won't spend his mornings watching television in bed or his afternoons asking people if Finland is part of Russia. He doesn't think Nazis are "very fine people" or cherish statues of seditious generals over suffering people. He doesn't think every bloody thing that happens in the world is a plot to make him look bad. If he even contemplates appointing a Secretary of Education who tries to wreck the public schools, Jill Biden, Ph.D., will straighten him out. (She won't have to.) Did I leave anything out? The orange clown makeup. So yeah, I can do without the silver-tongue eloquence of President Covfefe, and the endless lava-flow of moronic tweets. Come on, January!
Smash the statues, reunite the families at the border, turn off the gaslights, count the silverware and fumigate the White House. Oh, and tell Putin to go fuck the Urals.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 2:42 PM
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