Wednesday
Jun152016
The Commentariat -- June 16, 2016
Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "By a 85-13 vote on Tuesday, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year.... It welcomed women into Selective Service for the first time, starting in 2018, unless that policy is stripped when the bill goes to conference.... Republicans had stopped the female draft provision in the House.... Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a military veteran opposed to women serving in combat, proposed the draft[-women] amendment during mark-up, to make a point. Expecting the amendment to fail, he voted against it, ready to argue that Democrats and other supporters of women in combat were hypocrites. To Hunter's surprise, the draft provision nearly survived." CW: See also Patrick's comment in yesterday's thread re: why drafting women is important to gender equality in the military.
Karoun Demijian of the Washington Post: "Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) ended a blockade of the Senate floor after nearly 15 hours Thursday, announcing Republican leaders had agreed to hold votes on Democrat-backed measures to expand background checks and prevent suspected terrorists from acquiring guns." CW: What is striking about the story is the no-brainer measures Republican senators say they won't support. Confederate voters have left our government in the hands of dangerously irresponsible NRA stooges. ...
...Matt Laslo of The Daily Beast: "Republicans hate terrorists, but they seem to hate gun control measures even more...Even critics argue it's major progress that some in the GOP are even considering potentially banning people on the terrorist watch and no-fly lists from buying firearms." --safari...
... Meg Anderson & Domenico Montanaro of NPR: "In an abrupt shift in message, Donald Trump indicated Wednesday that he might be taking on a Republican tenet: the party's long-standing opposition to gun control. Trump said he would talk to the NRA about not allowing 'people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.' In typical fashion for the presumptive Republican nominee, the announcement came via Twitter: 'I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the no fly list, to buy guns.'" -- (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ashley Parker & David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's stance ... does not necessarily jibe with the positions of the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association, whose endorsement Mr. Trump frequently boasts about on the campaign trail. His tweet could be read to support measures pushed by Democrats and opposed by Republicans in Congress, reflecting the unusual nuances of the issue, which touches on public safety and civil rights beyond the Second Amendment." -- CW ...
... ** BFD. Gail Collins: "On Wednesday, Donald Trump took time out from vilifying Muslims and put some of the blame on gun control [even though Florida has perhaps the most permissive gun laws in the nation]. If the patrons of Pulse ... had been carrying concealed weapons, he said, they could have taken control of the situation.... Trump did not specifically say that we need to uphold Americans' freedom to drink while armed. But there doesn't seem to be any other way to interpret his argument. Also, there actually was an off-duty police officer working in the club who tried to shoot the gunman but failed.... The myth of the cool and steady shooter is one of the most cherished beliefs of the National Rifle Association and its supporters. Trump himself has bragged that if he'd been in Paris on the night of the attacks there, he would have shot the terrorists.... This is an excellent example of delusional gun thinking." -- CW...
Americans for Responsible Solutions (published June 10th): "Navy combat veteran and retired NASA astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly, the Co-Founder of Americans for Responsible Solutions, today joined with veteran leaders from across the country to announce the Advisory Committee of a new national effort, the 'Veterans Coalition for Common Sense,' to urge our country's elected leaders to do more to prevent gun tragedies." Lots of big names signed on here. --safari
Mark Hensch of the Hill: "Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said Tuesday that anti-LGBT laws across the U.S. are 'motivated' by the same hate behind Orlando's recent massacre at a gay nightclub. 'I think it's important for folks to realize the type of hate and prejudice that motivated this individual is still fed by the discrimination we have in so many states,' Merkley said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' 'In Florida, you can be fired from your job if you're gay or lesbian. You can be kicked out of a restaurant or theater. You can be kicked out of rental housing.'" -- CW ...
... Kevin Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post have a roundup of some things known or alleged about the Orlando shooter & his wife. -- CW ...
... Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "A U.S. law enforcement official confirmed that [Orlando mass-murderer Omar] Mateen posted threatening comments directed at the United States on Facebook before the attack. The account was later taken down.... The FBI confirmed it had interviewed the wife of Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old gunman." -- CW ...
... Malia Zimmerman of Fox "News": "In the hours after he blasted his way into an Orlando gay nightclub, and with his victims lying dead or wounded around him, Omar Mateen took to Facebook to pledge his loyalty to ISIS and threaten more attacks on the civilized world..., [Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)] told FoxNews.com Wednesday." -- CW ...
... Scott Fais of News 13 Orlando: "About 45 minutes after the shooting began, the phone rang inside the News 13 newsroom. 'It was at 2:45 a.m. when I had just received the phone call of someone claiming to be the Orlando shooter,' [producer Matthew Gentili] said. '... 'I heard, "Do you know about the shooting?'" Gentili said he was aware of the shooting.... 'I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter,' the person on the other end said.... 'He did it for ISIS, and he started speaking Arabic,' Gentili said." -- CW
New York Times: "In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the government has disclosed new portions of transcripts from so-called combatant status review tribunal hearings in 2007. The documents focus on torture in the C.I.A.'s black-site prisons before the detainees were transferred to the military's wartime prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." Transcript follows. A related story, by Charlie Savage, is here. -- CW ...
... First, Do No Harm. Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "Sensitive agency documents, declassified on Tuesday, provide a new level of detail on the intimate involvement of its medical staff during its post-9/11 torture program. Officials assigned to the Office of Medical Staff (OMS) provided precise specifications for enforcing sleep deprivation, limiting the caloric intake of detainees' food, and the proper positions for waterboarding, as outlined in a 2004 document providing 'guidelines on medical and psychological support' for torture." CW: Any licensed professionals on the "medical staff" who drew up or approved these guidelines should be stripped of their licenses, at the very least.
American "Justice" Ctd. Seth Wessler of The Nation: "This year marks two decades since the Bureau of Prisons' privatization experiment began, under the mandate of a Clinton White House and GOP-controlled Congress dedicated to 'reinventing government.' From the start, some BOP officials and lawmakers feared privatization might degrade quality. Congress ordered studies of the BOP's two pilot programs, comparing their operations to similar bureau-run facilities...Taken together, the studies that Congress had ordered showed a clear result: The experiments had failed.... The study concluded that privatization had not saved substantially on costs yet had eroded the quality of care [and] that any cost savings were eclipsed by the financial burdens of oversight.... By fiscal year 2015, the BOP's budget for private contractors was over $1.05 billion." --safari...
... Rupert Neate of the Guardian: "How long prisons will continue to be such money-spinners could depend on who wins the race for the White House. On the campaign trail Hillary Clinton has vowed to 'end private prisons and private detention centers. They are wrong.' Donald Trump, on the other hand, has called for increased outsourcing of prisons.... States spend about $8bn (£5.5bn) a year on healthcare to try and keep prisoners alive. In a bid to cut costs, more state prisons and county jails are adding healthcare to the growing list of services that are outsourced to for-profit companies." Includes stats and graphs. --safari...
... Carimah Townes of ThinkProgress: "In a growing movement largely going unnoticed by the national media, inmates all over the country are starting to stand up against the brutal conditions and abuses they have faced for decades...[T]he actions are part of a unified prisoner movement that's sweeping the country. And they're gearing up for a bigger protest that could force even Wall Street to take notice...'[W]e prisoners across the United States vow to finally end slavery in 2016,' reads a call to action posted in April. 'Our protest against prison slavery is a protest against the school to prison pipeline, a protest against police terror, a protest against post-release controls. When we abolish slavery, they'll lose much of their incentive to lock up our children, they'll stop building traps to pull back those who they've released.'" --safari
Presidential Race
Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "... the first full-blown general-election Electoral College forecast" indicates that the presidential race "could be a blowout for Hillary Clinton." Current polling suggests the Electoral College outcome would be "Clinton 358, Trump 180." -- CW
Sam Biddle & Gabrielle Bluestone of Gawker: "A 200+ page document that appears to be a Democratic anti-Trump playbook compiled by the Democratic National Committee has leaked online following this week's report that the DNC was breached by Russian hackers. In it, Trump is pilloried as a 'bad businessman' and 'misogynist in chief.'... It appears that virtually all of the claims are derived from published sources, as opposed to independent investigations or mere rumor. It's also very light on anything that could be considered 'dirt.'..." The story reprints excerpts of the document. -- CW ...
... The full document is here. -- CW
Much of it is false and/or entirely inaccurate. We believe it was the DNC that did the 'hacking' as a way to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader. Too bad the DNC doesn't hack Crooked Hillary's 33,000 missing emails. -- Conspiracy-Theorist-in-Chief Donald Trump, Wednesday ...
... Googling for Dollars. Jesse Singal of New York: "Professional Oppo Research on Trump Basically Just Requires Some Googling...." CW: If you can Google "Trump sucks," you too can be a "professional" oppo researcher! Copy-and-paste skills required. Apply at Democrats.org or call 202-WUT-EVER & ask for Debbie.
Sabrina Siddiqui & Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "The 'reckless' proposals floated by Donald Trump would have done nothing to prevent the carnage of the Orlando massacre, Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday. Speaking at a national security forum, Clinton ... declar[ed] Trump 'temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified' to assume the role of commander-in-chief. 'Not one of Donald Trump's reckless ideas would have saved a single life in Orlando,' Clinton said. 'A ban on Muslims would not have stopped this attack. Neither would a wall. I don't know how one builds a wall to keep the internet out,' she told an event in Hampton, Virginia." -- CW ...
Some days I expect [Trump] to come out and say, "I'm not an expert on national security, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night. Let me tell you what I think." -- Kevin Madden, a veteran GOP strategist and former adviser to Mitt Romney ...
... Yes, Trump Finds Breitbart a Good Source for Foreign Intelligence. Karen DeYoung & Jose DelReal of the Washington Post: "Just two days after Donald Trump implied that President Obama sympathized with terrorists, provoking a backlash that included members of his own party, the presumed Republican presidential nominee declared himself 'right,' based on a published report claiming administration 'support' for the Islamic State. In a post to his Twitter account early Wednesday, Trump said 'Media fell all over themselves criticizing what Donald Trump "may have insinuated"' about Obama. 'But he's right,' it said, linking to a story published by the conservative website Breitbart News. The story was based on a declassified 2012 cable.... But the document appears to be an initial intake of spot intelligence from the early days of the Syrian civil war. That intelligence had not yet been vetted or verified. Trump's embrace of Breitbart's interpretation of the cable fits a pattern of careless handling and circulation of facts, particularly in the realm of foreign policy." -- CW
Trump to GOP Critics: STFU. Eric Levitz of New York: Donald Trump "offered some advice to those Republicans who think the government should not discriminate against citizens on the basis of their religious beliefs. 'Don't talk. Please, be quiet,' Trump said. 'Just be quiet, to the leaders, because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter, and we have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself.'" -- CW
Jamelle Blouie of Slate: "If there's anything consistent in Trump's politics, it's nativism and racial prejudice...Trump's popularity is low. It can get lower...By the time we reach the Republican National Convention, Trump might be a zombie candidate: lifeless but still shambling forward, consumed by his most animal impulses...Between now and November, there's a good chance we'll see something almost unprecedented in modern American politics: a world where the elected officials and elites of a political party are either indifferent to the fate of their party's nominee or outright antagonistic to him." --safari
Tim Mak of The Daily Beast: "The Trump Foundation, Donald Trump's nonprofit organization, is under fire for allegedly operating as more of a political slush fund than a charity. The foundation is accused of violating rules prohibiting it from engaging in politics prompting ethics watchdogs to call for public investigations. On numerous occasions this year, Trump's campaign work and his foundation work have overlapped putting himself at risk for penalties and his charity at risk of being shut down." --safari
Ken Vogel, et al., of Politico: "Donald Trump is relying heavily on the Republican Party to bolster his skeletal operation, but his campaign's relationship with the Republican National Committee is increasingly plagued by distrust, power struggles and strategic differences, according to sources in both camps." -- CW ...
... BUT. Jonathan Chait: "... for all of Trump's erratic and authoritarian impulses, and for all of the long-term brand damage he threatens, Republican insiders have made their peace with the prospect of handing him the nuclear codes" because he has quietly signaled he would give them what they want most -- irresponsible fiscal policy & confederate judges. -- CW
Ovetta Wiggins of the Washington Post: Maryland "Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said emphatically Wednesday that he does not plan to vote for Donald Trump...." -- CW
What? Equal Time? Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: Wednesday, Fox "News," CNN & MSNBC all cut away from a Trump rally to carry -- if briefly -- Hillary Clinton's speech on national security. -- CW
Senate Race
I enjoy my service here a lot. -- Marco Rubio, on his feeling about the Senate, Wednesday
That's peculiar, because for quite some time Rubio said he couldn't stand the Senate and that he'd "given up on it," which was why he didn't show up there often. -- Constant Weader
... Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who pledged for months not to seek re-election to the Senate as he waged an ill-fated campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, said Wednesday that he is rethinking that decision and could enter the race as soon as next week. Rubio said his decision followed a Sunday conversation with his friend Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (R), who is running to succeed him in the Senate, on the sidelines of the scene of the terror attack in Orlando." ...
... Marc Caputo of Politico: Sen. Marco Rubio's friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, who has been running for the Senate seat Rubio said he would vacate, told Rubio he should reconsider his decision not to run for re-election. "Bottom line, Lopez-Cantera said in the interview: 'Nothing has changed. I'm still running. Marco isn't.' The filing deadline for the race is June 24, when Rubio is scheduled to hold a fundraiser for Lopez-Cantera. If Rubio decides to run, Lopez-Cantera won't file. Right now, longtime friends of both men believe Rubio ultimately won’t run: The lure of a much bigger paycheck and proximity to his family will outweigh another term in the Senate." CW: They both sound like such fabulous patriots: "This is bigger than me. And this isn't about me. And it's not about you. It's about our country and this election." Lopez-Cantera told Rubio.
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Reader Comments (13)
BLACKBOARD JINGLE
Colbert does what a comedian worth his salt does to a buffoon worth very little and who plays with language that is inflammatory and dangerous. The blackboard, of course, is a silent homage to Glen Beck, who tried to connect the unconnected at his peril.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-trump-nazi-symbol_us_5761560be4b0df4d586ea4de?section=
James Fallows' Daily romps with Trump: this segment on DT's statement, "There's no real assimilation".
http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/05/the-daily-trump/484064/
@safari––thanks for all the prison/ incarceration pieces. Another issue that begs for reform. Could we say, albeit quietly as to not disturb the naysayers, that we are experiencing the possibility of some radical changes on all sorts of issues?
"We've only just begun" sung by the Carpenters could be our song about reform rather than about weddings and promises. Maybe.
Total shock: the NJ Star Ledger actually published my letter to the editor.
Shame on President Obama for sounding like a serious professional leader.
Apparently in the new America, the President should be a pompous loudmouth idiot.
Am beginning to suspect a Treasury Dept. conspiracy that even Trump's sensitive conspiracy antennae have so far missed:
There's must be something about money that deadens conscience, much like ticks inject an anesthetic at the bite site so its victim won't notice it's being sucked dry.
No other explanation is reasonable. Elsewise, why would we privatize obvious government functions like prisons, schools and public utilities, when time and again the numbers show privatizing costs more and provides poorer service? Or why would politicians continue to do the bidding of NRA lobbyists when the mayhem that results is repeatedly splashed across the headlines? How could they not notice or not care?
Must be somewhere in the bowels of the Treasury Dept. our money is secretly sprinkled with some conscience-deadening compound, likely discovered by an evil genius in an underground laboratory somewhere in the mountains of Iran, before our good ole American dollars are put in circulation. Can't be anything else.
Sensitive as he is to hidden machinations, I expect Trump will tumble to this any day now, tweet his discovery, give all his infected money to charity, and properly blame the Kenyan Muslim Obama for secretly destroying the moral fiber of our once great country.
@Marvin:
Good for you and the Ledger!
Welcome to America. Yesterday on my NYC walk I went by the Stonewall Inn to see the memorial to the Orlando shooting. What I also saw was 10 police armed with assault rifles protecting the place.
I did expect to see one or two but this looked like a war zone. I wonder what the plan is for the gay pride parade a week from Sunday?
And notice how little is being talked about with the white guy arrested for heavily armed plan for LA gay pride parade. If he was a Muslim it would be the top headline. Of course Christians have the constitutional right to use arms.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Forty years ago today in a township far from the US, a 12 year old boy was shot and killed by police. The boy was part of a group of locals protesting the fact that their schools would no longer be allowed to use their native language and they would all, instead, be forced to speak the language of the ruling class. The township was Soweto. The young boy's name was Hector Pieterson.
His body was picked up by an older boy named Mbuyisa Makhubo who ran to a local hospital, not knowing that the boy in his arms was already dead. For his kindness that day, Mbuyisa Makhubo was targeted by police and Afrikaner officials. He disappeared into the mists of time. But this photograph of that day's brutality circled the world and presaged the beginning of the end for the hated and immoral apartheid system, it was the Soweto Uprising.
Know who tried to halt that process? Who tried as long and as hard as they could to maintain the system of organized, vicious racism?
Republicans. That's who. A long list of Republican leaders hated the anti-apartheid movement along with Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. These included Nixon, Reagan (especially Reagan), Cheney, George W. Bush, and a number of younger far right wing activists who worked mightily on behalf of racists and haters, notably former Republican superstar lobbyist Jack Abramoff, current no-tax hater Grover Norquist, and Jeff Flake, now a senator from the famously tolerant state of Arizona. They all saw fit to put forward their best efforts to keep down an entire race.
It's not that they didn't care about South Africa. They did. As long as Afrikaner rulers stayed in power and mouthed anti-communist slogans, and as long as people like Mandela and Tutu could be described as shills for the Soviet Union. Thus, an entire race could be painted as deviants, undesirables, criminals, and dangerous threats to FREEEDOM, in order to satisfy the political goals of others.
Sound familiar?
Donald Trump is proposing nothing less than American Apartheid. A wall to protect him from the undesirables in Mexico. An immigration system rigged to turn away all members of an entire religious group, no exceptions. In fact, Trump's form of Apartheid is more far reaching than the most depraved pro-apartheid racists could have hoped for during the height of the Soweto Uprising.
So if you've got any Hugh Masakela, or Miriam Makeba, or Ladysmith Black Mambazo records, put 'em on today and do one of those funky Jules Feiffer dances.
But don't forget that cold blooded reptiles like Grover Norquist are still slithering around. And, by the way, his personal choice for president?
Guess.
And now that I think of it, the new boss, if elected, would not be the same as the old boss.
He'd be much--much--worse.
Nothing pithy to say, just that Colbert is a genius.
I'm not sure I understand the issue people have with women in combat. Is there still a perception that they aren't capable? That they're not tough enough? What? Surely it can't be that a woman's death in combat is more tragic than a mans? I have a son and a daughter and I don't want either of them drafted. One of my biggest fears when my son was born was that the draft would be reinstituted, and I seethed when his selective service notice came in the mail. So, while I certainly don't want to see one for my daughter either, the notion that her life is more valuable than my son's doesn't compute for me.
While (if) Congress considers legislation to deny weapons to people on the various terrorist watchlists, and time passes until at least the next inauguration a few things will happen in the world of guns:
-- various folks who are members or associates of "militias", and of groups such as those listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, will stock up on assault-type weapons and high-rate, high-caliber handguns, for several reasons:
--1 -- Because the general public increases gun-buying whenever there is "serious" national discussion of gun-limit legislation, and those folks are part of the public
--2 -- Because a number of those folks will expect to be on some of those lists, and will want to stock up before they are banned. You don't have to be an immigrant or a muslim to be in the TIDE, on the watchlist or the No-Fly list.
--3 -- Because many of those people interpret any gun regulation as the first step on a slippery slope, and will extrapolate that denying potential terrorists any gun will lead to denying everybody certain types of guns (assault-type weapons, high-rate high power handguns)
-- Then, if listed people are banned, a black-market in such weapons will develop (actually, expand) when people who seek to buy from dealers are rejected, infer they are banned, and decide to exercise their rights and buy black market. Their sense of "higher law" is, in many cases, what got them listed in the first place.
So ... if such considered legislation does not anticipate the need for and provide expanded capacity in law enforcement (e.g. ATF, FBI) to deal with an expanded black market, Congress will have created a situation that actually worsens our gun problem.
This is going to be tough.
PD,
You're quite right about the horrific state of prisons in this country. Anyone who read the New Yorker piece a couple of weeks back about the way disturbed prisoners are treated should be justly outraged. But, as is typical with Republican thinking, it's always okay to make money off the most vulnerable in society, and in this case there is more than one vulnerable group. First, are the prisoners whose lives are turned over to the private sector as data points on a profit margin chart. The other vulnerable group is congressional Republicans whose cupidity and low energy brains make them perfect targets for private sector vultures who, of course, will turn around and dedicate a certain amount of the piles of money they take from taxpayers to make sure the imbeciles who gave them that money in the first place keep getting reelected so they can keep the money spigots open and running.
But beyond all that, I just cannot get out of my mind's eye the image of thousands of prisoners in state and federal lockups, smiling sweetly, swaying back and forth along with guards keeping time with tasers and billy clubs, all singing "We've Only Just Begun".
We've only just begun to live
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way
(We've only begun)
eeeek....
Patrick,
I get what you're saying, but I think any roadblock is a good one. All that stuff is already happening. Gun nuts already own enough hardware to keep a medium sized war going for thirty years. But if just one disturbed or pissed off begrudger can be prevented from waltzing into "Bob's Guns and Crossbows" and walking out with an assault rifle it'll be worth it.
A large component will be education and more rational information (I know rational is not a word one connects with the gun knobbers, but...). These people have been so inundated with propaganda, from Fox, from the NRA, from congress, that the smallest accommodation means the end of the world for all of them, that red flags go up at just a hint of discussions, never mind any actual sit downs. If at least a few of these people can get over their zero sum game impulses and realize that no one is coming to take their guns and no one is abolishing the Second Amendment, we might be able to turn down the heat.
I have no doubt that there will always be the unhinged and the mentally confused, but we'll have them anyway.
We've already tried doing nothing and every six weeks or so, we get another mass killing. And no amount of gun control will prevent all mass killings (another bit of zero sum foolishness) but if we can keep Joe Sixpack who got dumped by the girl friend he's been beating for three years from buying an assault rifle and killing her, her dog, and her whole family it will be worth the effort.
There's no guarantee except one. We keep going the way we're going now, a lot more people will be murdered.
@ Patrick: I'm not sure what would constitute a 'black market' in your mind but one will hardly come into being in a nation where only a handful of states require background checks for private sales, Thus a black market could be the parking lot of most gun shows.
Further on your note on women in the military. The other day for some reason I was going through the Canadian military dress code and directly after 6B3 Fulldress Scottish Infantry I found 7-1 Maternity dress. It caused me to reflect for a moment. But then our new Army Chief of Staff, who commanded an infantry regiment in Kandahar Afghanistan, is a mother of 4.
Four words that don't get mentioned in all the discussion of the second amendment: "A well regulated militia..." The goal today seems to be an unregulated mob.
@AK: Grateful to you for reminding us about the Soweto Uprising–-another example of change for the better. My point today was–– as awful as things are––in most countries––something is taking place that smells like reform or at least a facing of those nativist/nationalist tenancies. I have always thought that THIS country is in its teen years––becoming aware of life's travails, but on the path of rediscovery and *enormous change.
And yes, love the image of hundreds of prisoners prancing on stage singing "we've only just begun"––Mel Brooks would do it up proud.
And speaking of Broadway bound: Wesleyan U. (one of our son's alma mater) has created the "Hamilton Prize" in honor of two of their alumni, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail (the director): An anonymous donor is funding four year scholarships to students going into the arts. The vetting process will include, among others, Miranda and Kail. Good news. Great news for some lucky duckies.
* Have you noticed how in TV ads, in papers, in magazines, in cartoons, we are seeing at last Black and Brown faces, along with women who are round and plump and don't resemble a twig. Progress, my friends!