Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World - Adam Curtis - 2021

★★★★★-Holy shit. A masterpiece six-part BBC documentary series from Adam Curtis about how our contemporary existence, which emphasizes individualism over collectivism, is completely shit, totally unfulfilling, and was designed as a way for the powerful elite to keep citizens in control. “All human beings live in a made-up dream world of stories, which give them the illusion that they are in control,” he says. “But really, there’s something else inside them that they will never contact.” Goes through all of the intricacies of how it got this way. I think this is supposed to be a kind of call to wake-the-fuck-up, but doesn't exactly offer a way out of the mess, not that it really needs to. The documentary is more impartial observation.

It really goes deep, discussing things like the fall of the British Empire, American imperialism, China's political crisis in the wake of the Great Leap Forward, and the resurgence of Russian nationalism. It goes through all this and more whilst telling individual stories that came out of those systems. 

All this has led the perpetual creation of conspiracy theories and grasping at dangerous national myths. This while also coming to a sobering realization in the failure of technology to emancipate society envisioned by techno-utopians. The result was a surge in populism in the West, culminating in Brexit and Trump, as people looked to radically alternative visions for the future, allowing for those in power to push beyond ethical boundaries that should have served as breaking points. Like I said, holy shit. 

Curtis first blipped on my radar in college when I stumbled upon his BBC documentary series Pandora's Box: A Fable From the Age of Science which aired in 1993. It deals with the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism. Also in six parts, each episode deals with a theme. They are: Communism in the Soviet Union, systems analysis and game theory during the Cold War, economy of the United Kingdom during the 1970s, the insecticide DDT, Kwame Nkrumah's leadership in Ghana in the 1950s, and the history of nuclear power. It blew my mind. 

At some point in the last year I heard an interview with Chuck Klosterman where he talked about Pandora's Box and Adam Curtis, focusing on this new documentary and how heavy it was. That shit is my brand, so I'd watch until my brain hurt, turn it off, and start up again the next day from where I left off. It took me forever to watch it. But holy shit, did I love it. As a guy who fancies himself a media theorist, I'm not sure if it is for everyone, but it is definitely my jam. 

One of the things I enjoyed most was the lesson of the oft-forgotten historical figure whose influence triggered ripples that continue into the present. Individuals like Michael X, Afeni Shakur and her son Tupac (who took on the persona of a character to create change only to live as a cartoon), Arthur Sackler, Jiang Qing (Mao Zedong's wife), Murray Gell-Mann, and others are explored to provide some context behind the turmoil that engulfs the world at present. 

It also details the struggles faced by those marginalized by society. Some examples. The story of a woman seeking a sex change in the 1970s that is forced to undergo demeaning psychological evaluation. The reality of the Ethiopian famine which led to Live Aid which is remembered as a kick ass concert but was really a scandal that throws us into the complexities of humanitarian intervention that resulted in the exploitation of the narrative for personal gain. 

Yeah, this mesmerizing series rocked me. The main point that I walked away with is that humans inhabit a simplified dream world that defies rationality. In an era of individualism, rather than attempting to alter this dream world, governments fight for its preservation. The allure of appealing to reason and effecting change on a grand scale is rendered obsolete as we are content with the dream, like in Brave New World. This controlling our collective rage (done on a global scale) is a means to consolidate power and eliminate political adversaries. The disheartening truth is that all endeavors to radically transform the world lead to profound pessimism with the responsibility lying on the individual, rather than society as a whole. As individuals turn inward, the management of this attractive yet pessimistically curated dream world becomes a hybrid amalgamation of psychology, economics, and finance. The dream world thrives as through its meticulous cultivation by the ruling class.

This is something I think about constantly as I recycle, eat a vegan diet, and just basically try and live simply. It's all just a drop in the bucket, my actions. It shouldn't be on us to change the world. Sure, we probably all do our part, some of us anyhow. But it should really be on the ruling classes to get the real problems figured out. But why do that when they can just distract us with bullshit while preserving the status quo. Yeah, if I were teaching a class, this would absolutely be on my syllabus. I've got like 12 pages of notes, but nothing I really say about it is going to do it justice. 

You can watch it for free on YouTube here. It will blow your mind. Plus, the soundtrack is incredible.

On Trump's CNN Townhall

In regards to CNN putting this trash on television. Way I see it, basing this on my worthless grad school work on Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan and so forth, the electric teevee machine isn’t designed for real debate, just entertainment. So despite claiming they are a news source, their trying to entertain (unlike say PBS or whatever). It’s purpose is to get you there and keep you watching. He’s on their network to do the dog and pony show and bring in unlikely viewers, maybe (wishful thinking here) win some over by pandering to them. “See we aren’t liberal after all! Trump is here! We gave him a platform and let him say whatever he wants (pretty much).” So they keep pandering, inching farther right. Bring on someone like Jeffrey Lord and Tomi Lauren to say whatever Trump says is normal and that he was the greatest president ever. Hoping to get more viewers and more advertising and all that.

The aim is to seem middle of the road to get both sides watching. To do this, media companies in this lane give crazy a platform and constantly cover it. This always has the effect of normalizing it. “If the election wasn’t stolen, why would they let him repeatedly say this?” “If he was a rapist, why would they let him joke about it?” So forth. Plus, I think we’re still in this climate change and guns everywhere mess because both sides get treated as valid. Right-wing media is treated pretty fairly though they outright lie and deny the other side as being valid at all. So what we get is the echo chamber saying congress shutting down the government is great (or whatever), and then the mainstream saying, “well, they have a point.”

Trump’s gift, from a media theory perspective, is his ability to own people’s attention because he understands how mediums like television own our attention. So he stokes conflict, turning everything into can’t-look-away entertainment.

CNN knows this. They are not innocent. Yeah, viewers make the choice to watch, but they’re manipulated into doing so. Trump won in 2016 because of this shit. 

Political Musings - The War on Woke

Here is my monthly political musing following Conservative Political Action Conference and the National Conservatism Conference, both taking place in March. The gist of both was more or less liberals control everything and are destroying the country through “wokeness.”

Wokeness, of course, is the right's new boogeyman. The end of a line that goes abolition, reconstruction, suffrage, the New Deal, communism, civil rights, socialism, gay rights, wokeism. It's sort of used for a unified “left” that hates America which people use to justify their decision to vote for Donald Trump. The times ahead, for them, are a mix of fear and hope, with opponents who are both malevolent and ignorant, countless yet surpassed by "ordinary" Americans. The Republican party's repeated warnings of doomsday in the event of a Democratic victory can only be uttered so many times before their voters stop listening. 

This is all culture-war nonsense. The Tucker Carlson schtick, aka “owning the libs,” requires disregarding the genuine hardships of the world - such as the isolation of a transgender student, the anxiety of the uninsured, or the struggles of a Black man, so forth. It's a manipulative tactic that treats all of life as a ratings game that relies on constant outrage, signaling white identity, and making sweeping generalizations. Conservatives, led by Trump as their culture-war president with limited policy, are fixated on the culture war. However, any conservative worth a shit is contemplating how to move beyond this approach and achieve tangible progress.

Anyway, CPAC and NCC were a lot of projection with CPAC being pro-Trump and NCC being pro-far right with the 2024 hopefuls doing the heavy lifting. The later fancy themselves “Reagan Republicans,” which is more or less the same old shit. Coke Zero to Diet Coke, Carl's Jr. to Hardees, cocaine to crack, so forth. Same means and ends but with different packaging/delivery methods. Trump is pure rage, Reaganites are also full of rage, but smile a little more. 

Some examples of the latter group include Rachel Bovard, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Marco Rubio. 

Bovard got a lot of attention coming out of the conference. Sort of the breakout star. She's a somewhat intelligent/accomplished/young conservative who has worked for various Republican politicians and conservative organizations. She believes that previous generations of conservatives were too naive in thinking that liberals and conservatives had similar goals for America. In her view, the left is actively working to destroy everything the conservative movement stands for. The left does this by controlling every aspect of American society and culture and that they are using their power to dismantle traditional American values and institutions. She is not alone, of course, in such beliefs: 

Cruz: “The left’s attack is on America. The left hates America. It is the left that is trying to use culture as a tool to destroy America.”

Hawley: “Their grand ambition is to deconstruct the United States of America.”

Rubio: “We are confronted now by a systematic effort to dismantle our society, our traditions, our economy, and our way of life.” 

And so forth.

All of this is built on bullshit, of course. From Bovard: “Woke elites—increasingly the mainstream left of this country—do not want what we want. What they want is to destroy us... Not only will they use every power at their disposal to achieve their goal,” they’ve been doing it for years “by dominating every cultural, intellectual, and political institution.” Progressives pretend to be the oppressed ones, “but in reality, it’s just an old boys’ club, another frat house for entitled rich kids contrived to perpetuate their unearned privilege. It’s Skull and Bones for gender-studies majors!” So much for toning it down a bit. 

The left, according to them, is conspiring to undermine America. Not a lot of details on how this is being done but it seems to involve a combination of academia, Hollywood, the news media, and George Soros.

This is how they justify playing dirty and their attempts at doing at exactly what they are accusing the left of, namely destroying their way of life. Leonard Leo, a prominent figure in the Federalist Society, for example, has set his sights on expanding his influence beyond the judiciary and into various sectors of American culture. The guy was a key player in the effort to dismantle Roe v. Wade. Through that bullshit, Leo was involved in the appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. His aim is to establish a "Federalist Society for everything" to take on such institutions as Wall Street, Silicon Valley, journalism, Hollywood, and academia. Leo believes that the same tactics that worked for the Federalist Society in the legal arena can be applied to other areas, including combating "wokeism" in corporate and educational settings, so-called biased media, and corrupting entertainment.

This is, of course, insane and unlikely to work since wrong to think organized/unified wokeists are taking over all the institutions of American life. Not that they care. It's just their way of justifying what they are doing at the state level. 

The argument, they say, is that since the libs control everything, they have to aggressively use state legislatures to pass laws embracing their values, essentially what’s now happening across red America, including my home state of Indiana. An “unapologetically embrace the use of state power,” is what they are calling it. National conservatism taken to its ultimate end, which involves utilizing state authority to dismantle large corporations while simultaneously resisting coastal cultural norms. The conflict between cultural values and economic classes merged, so they hope, and a new right-wing movement arises in which a group of intellectuals lead working-class individuals in opposing the cultural and corporate elites. Blah blah blah. Putting a lot of faith in pushing money upward, but it's worked so far so why not. 

So what are they trying to do with state power, you ask. Well, if you are Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, for example, a favorite for the Republican presidential nomination by the by, who says that his state “is where woke goes to die,” you use it to obliterate First Amendment Rights. 

A bill growing down there in America's wang is an explicit attempt to undo the 1964 Supreme Court decision, The New York Times Company v. Sullivan. This is a bulwark of First Amendment law that requires public figures to prove a news organization engaged in “actual malice” to win a defamation case. The so-called price of being a public figure decision. This case freed news organizations to pursue vigorous reporting about public officials without fear of paying damages.

The new bill would change the definition of actual malice to include any allegation that is “inherently improbable” or that is based on what it calls an “unverified” statement by an anonymous sourceMostucked up is that it says that all anonymous statements are “presumptively false” for the purposes of a defamation case.

If the bill is enacted, it would create enormous damage which other states will copy, likely with its language verbatim, on the way to the high court, where it will ultimately head. Once there, the conservative Justices will likely give it the okay as they would directly benefit from such a landmark case. Citizens who value free speech should really start raising a shit before the state silences them, just saying. The bill obviously represents a dangerous threat to free expression, not just for the news media, but for all Americans, regardless of their political beliefs. But, you know, for Republicans don't really seem to apply. 

Then, of course, there is the whole transgender rights thing that the Republican Party is actively making their major platform for their base of unhinged bigots. At CPAC, for example, one Michael Knowles advocated for the complete elimination of transgenderism from public life, a sentiment that captures the essence of the right's collective efforts. Although there are numerous bills with varying objectives and justifications, Indiana signed one yesterday, their overall impact is reflective of fuck you if you're transgender. DeSantis (did I mention his national aspirations?), again, is leveraging the issue to bolster his anti-woke political image. Own those libs!

What does all this mean, exactly? I think it means the Republican Party is on some weak bullshit, and they know it. It remains unclear whether right-wing populism is here to stay, but it is clear that it requires an adversary, and opposition to “woke” ideals is a convenient target, although ultimately a one they can't really define. Look at the Federalist Society, for example. Their objective until recently was simple: replace one group of judges with the most ideologically extreme. Having unfortunately succeeded, now they are largely opposed to this concept of being “woke,” which is more or less taking on the entire culture without knowing what it is or means. However, as they are learning, attempting to reverse social progress across all facets of American society is not a simple or attainable goal, especially when lacking an understanding of the root causes of that progress. 

To clarify, to be “woke” originally referred to having an awareness of social issues, particularly pertaining to racism and inequality. It has since evolved to encompass actively seeking education on issues with the goal of taking action to effect positive change. Nowadays, the term is commonly used to describe individuals who are socially conscious, who give a shit about other people, who aren't the raging asshole no one wants to engage with. These are the people that the anti-expression laws are coming for. For now, to the real fucks pushing this stuff, I say, go fuck yourself, you pieces of shit. 

The Presidents: 250 Years of American Political Leadership – Iain Dale

For Presidents' Day, figured I'd get to writing about the book on the gentlemen who have held the office I read earlier this month. I read about each of them, even the completely forgotten and/or terrible ones. Super interesting. All of them. Also, most of them were real pricks. 

Format of the book is each president gets an essay. Writers are academics, historians, journalists, and politicians. They were all carefully chosen based on expert knowledge of their subjects. The book goes through each of the presidents' achievements, influence, their lasting legacy, and how they were perceived in their own lifetimes. 

I am trying to put my political biases aside when looking at those I think are underrated, overrated, and those I think are truly great.

First off, the ranking systems I am looking at are the Siena Presidential Expert Poll and the C-Span Survey of Presidential Leadership. There are lots of others out there, but none of those get the respect or publicity of these two. 

Siena's been putting it's survey out since 1982. In total, they've published seven. Each has come out during the second year of the first term of each president since Ronald Reagan – 1982, 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022. The rankings are based on surveys collected from historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars. The surveys judge the Presidents on attributes, abilities, and accomplishments. The Siena poll is more along with my rankings. 

The most recent C-Span survey, published in 2021, questioned 142 presidential historians and biographers. The questions consist of rankings based on effectiveness for ten categories. They are Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations with Congress, Vision/Setting An Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice for All, and Performance Within the Context of His Times. 

In the 2022 Siena survey, the top five, which are unchanged from the 2018 version, were FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jefferson. According to the C-SPAN survey, the five highest rated presidents are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Rounding out the top ten are Eisenhower, Truman, LBJ, Kennedy, and Madison. This is the first time LBJ has entered the top ten, very much deserved by the by. 

Of the Presidents in my lifetime, from most recent. Biden ranks 19. Trump 43. Obama 11, up from 17. I think that will be much higher in the future. W comes in at 35. He has been all over the place but always in the bottom half. Started at 23 just a year after 9/11. Went down to 39 in 2010 whilst we were still in the financial crisis him, and the Republicans caused and with Katrina still fresh in everyone's minds, before moving up to 33 in 2018. Clinton, who has always been in the teens, comes in at 14. H.W. at 20. And Reagan dropped from 13 to 18. Still way too overrated.

The worst five, also unchanged from the 2018 survey, are Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding, and Pierce. Those seem about right.

For C-Span, the top ten are Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Teddy, Eisenhower, Truman, Jeffereson, JFK, Reagan, and Obama. The bottom five are William Henry Harrison, Donald Trump, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.

My top four are pretty firm. That list is FDR, Lincoln, Washington, and Truman. Fifth would probably be Obama or LBJ, though Teddy, Wilson, and both the Adamses were pretty strong as well. If I really had to choose though, I'd go with Obama as he didn't have something he really screwed up with like the others. But LBJ is easily the most underrated President. If we are just looking at the good, I'm putting him at fourth.

Each of my presidents in the top four faced significant existential challenges related to the nation’s survival. One and two are Lincoln and FDR. No question. The three defining crises for American were the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. These two knocked that shit out of the park. Lincoln kept the country from breaking apart. He also ended slavery. Dude is practically a saint. 

FDR did more for economic justice than any other president. The only one that comes close is LBJ, one of the reasons why he ranks so highly on my list. Came in at the worst of the Great Depression, telling Americans "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Then he made lasting policy that dug us out of the shit. And Republicans still try to dismantle his legacy. 

This is why I think the C-Span poll is shit. Any poll that doesn't have Lincoln or FDR at the top is a masturbatory. Also, having Reagan in the top ten is a complete joke. 

Conservative "greatness"

Which brings me to the overrated. First up, Reagan. The Gipper. Revered by Republicans as all except Ike and H.W. in their lifetimes have been complete shit shows. He gets undeserved credit for ending the Cold War and jumpstarting the economy. His major achievement was trickle-down which is bullshit that didn't work, and Republicans are still grifting us on. Meanwhile, dude repeatedly caved to terrorist and fucking supplied them, i.e. our enemies, with weapons, and supported the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Nicaraguan government by supporting “freedom fighters,” i.e. Contras. His administration was the most corrupt in U.S. history up until Trump with well over 100 administration officials, including several cabinet members, being investigated, indicted, or convicted of crimes. Many of them were pardoned by Reagan or Bush before they could even stand trial, which was a hell of president. He tripled the national debt in his eight years, making him third worst. The two ahead of him, FDR and Wilson, had world wars that drove their totals up. Reagan had peace. He also completely ignored the AIDS epidemic, continued to give Saddam fucking Hussein weapons despite his many atrocities like using chemical weapons to kill 5,000 plus Kurdish civilians, and vetoed the Comprehensive Apartheid Act against South African in 1986 that would have levied economic sanctions. This is just some of his bullshit. Fuck that guy.

Second, JFK. Rates high for his public speaking skills and vision. Masturbatory bullshit. He did defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis and promise to put a man on the moon. But the Cold War raged on and the most the moon stuff happened under LBJ and Nixon. These are the big two. 

Now underrated. Gonna start with Obama. He not only provided the country with an incredibly important health care initiative—something that presidents have been trying to do for almost 100 years—he also got us out of a crisis that was deeper than the Great Depression when the stock market crashed in 1929. What we were experiencing right before he took office was worse than what FDR had to deal with, and he pulled us the fuck out. How the fuck is he so tremendously underrated? I guess that is what he gets for pointing out that Republican economic policies are shit and being black. Thanks Obama! 

Second, LBJ, mostly for his pursuit of equal justice for all Americans. Took office after JFK was assassinated and greatly surpassed his predecessor. He enacted the landmark Civil Rights Act. He urged the country "to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor," which became his agenda. This resulted in Medicare for the elderly, increased aid for education, and anti-poverty programs. Dude was a legend. 

This guy has been around

But then he also gave us Vietnam. He was also pretty disgusting. Made cabinet members take meetings with him while he was on the shitter, and he was fond of taking dudes who tested him to the bathroom while he pissed and turning to zip up to show off his apparently massive unit. 

But let's look at the good. Born legit poor, he started out teaching at an extremely poor, segregated Mexican-American high school, which he took pride in and made him sympathetic to racial issues. 

In 1965, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson said:

“I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.”

After teaching for a little while, in 1931 he was appointed to legislative secretary for one Richard M. Kleberg after winning a special election to represent Texas in the United States House of Representatives. A staunch supporter of the New Deal, he was bounced around to various positions culminating in an appointment to head the Texas National Youth Administration in 1935. This enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. 

This eventually led to him getting elected to the House in 1937, where he served until 1949, even taking on active military service during WWII. From there he went to the Senate from 1949 to 1961. While there he became Majority Whip, then Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Minority Leader, Majority Leader, Vice President, and finally President. Incredible. 

One anecdote I loved that was not in the book that I heard about him was immediately after he left office he began smoking to everyone around him's shock. He suffered a near fatal heart attack at age 47. He was a heavy drinker, smoked 60 cigarettes a day, and never worked out. He quit for the next 15 years. Once he lit up that first time, his wife and daughter were like, what the fuck. He said something along the lines of, “I've given my life to my family and public service. The rest of my life is mine to do with as I want.” Now chain-smoking again, he said "I'm an old man, so what's the difference? I've been to the Mayo Clinic twice and the doctors tell me there is nothing they can do for me. My body is just aging in its own way. That's it. And I always loved cigarettes, missed them every day since I quit. Anyway, I don't want to linger the way Eisenhower did. When I go, I want to go fast." Right on. You can read about that time of his life in this Atlantic article from 1973. 

Next we have the Adamses. The elder, the nation's second president, known for his integrity; he deftly dealt with growing hostilities with France. We never went to war because he negotiated a peace deal. He was also opposed to slavery, as was his son, who had the misfortune of the first great recession. He His served during a time with a contentious Congress with great division. However, he fought for civil liberties and the unification of the country. But ended up losing to that fucker Jackson. 

Lastly, I'm going to mention Wilson. Dude had a strong vision for the country and moved many pieces of important legislation through Congress. He also convinced Congress in 1917 that America could no longer remain neutral in World War I. However, like Teddy Roosevelt, dude was incredibly racist and made the lives of black people much worse, basically turning a blind eye to lynching and watching Birth of a Nation in the White House. 

True Crime: Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich is the greatest movie of all time

Were you ever sent three 12-year-old girls to sexually abuse as a birthday gift? I’d like to answer that question. But today I’m gonna have to assert my Sixth Amendment rights, my Fifth Amendment rights. Is it true that you forced Virgina Roberts to have sex with numerous friends of yours? Are you kidding? I assert my Sixth Amendment rights, my Fifth Amendment rights. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: It lacks new insight, but by focusing on the stories of survivors Filthy Rich sheds light on the lasting impact of Epstein's crimes.

This mother fucker. Really effective doc. Epstien had a sexual abuse pyramid scheme going, got caught, should have gone away forever, and was given a slap on the wrist by a fucking douchbag who eventually got promoted into Trump's cabinet. This Alex Acosta prick. Fucking incredible. I totally want to murder this dude and Epstein and a bunch of other people based on this shit. Probably most of all Alan Dershowitz. 

One of the women, this Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, has repeatedly said that Dershowitz had sex with her when she was underage. His move is to say she won't go on record because she is afraid of committing lible but that is bullshit.

In this doc fucking prick makes the statement "I challenge Virginia Roberts to come on your show, look in the camera and say the following words: 'I accuse Alan Dershowitz of having had sex with me on six or seven occasions.' She has never been willing to accuse me in public, so please accuse me on this show. I challenge you." 

Immediately cut to her saying "I was with Alan Dershowitz multiple times. At least six that I can remember. I was trafficked to Alan Dershowitz from Epstein... He's denied being with me. Is one of us telling the truth? Yes. Is that person me? Yes." 

He said the same shit in this New Yorker article from last year, "Alan Dershowitz, Devil's Avocate." It's his game to make you think she is lying or whatever. Fuck him. This article also makes the case that Dershowitz wasn't that great of a lawyer either. He was mostly hyped by himself and powerful friends. No F. Lee Bailey, for example. Again, fuck him. Great read by the way, the New Yorker piece. 

Gist of the doc is that the survivors of Epstein's sexual abuse/statutory rape/straight up rape reveal how they were manipulated and abuse by the billionaire who kept buying his way out of trouble. All of them were emotionally scarred and suffered greatly. Their stories are powerful and moving and gut wrenching. A must watch, but be prepared to be outraged. 

Also, something that wasn't in the documentary, just an FYI... Q: "Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?" A: "Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir." How's that for making your blood boil. And, to be fair, he hung out with Bill Clinton, too, who has lied about it. Though no one is claiming they were forced to bone ole' Slick Willy. 

After watching the American Murderer: The Family Next Door, Epstein didn't seem so bad for about a minute and a half, which is fucked. Then you see the devastation and hear what these women went through again and again. Fuck. Never the same. These dudes are the fucking worst. 

Mueller Report did not exonerate Trump... Barr did what he was hired to do and Dems need to step the fuck up

Angry political rant after Trump steals the narrative following Barr's bullshit summary of Mueller's report which he is never going to make public... Dems are a fucking joke. "Trying to impeach Trump would be bad," they say. "It didn't work so well when Reps tried it with Clinton." Horseshit. In 2000, after the bullshit impeachment, the GOP held all three branches of the government for the next six years.

Also, a sitting president can't be indicted? Why is that exactly? Oh, because Nixon's legal team wrote a memo saying so almost 50 years ago to save him from doing jail time. That is neither law nor precedent.

If Trump is allowed to server out his term, we will never return to normalcy. Republicans cannot be given a free pass to cheat in elections any more and then change laws and send more money upward with insane tax bills while global issues like climate change, hostile nation-states, recession, and right-wing nationalism threaten to bring all this shit down. Going dark is not the fucking answer. Dems need to stand the fuck up for justice right the fuck now.

BlacKkKlansman is the greatest movie of all time

BlacKkKlansman. It's great. I thought director Spike Lee was done. Didn't think he would ever make another movie that I gave a shit about. The last movie of his I really, really liked was Clockers and Oldboy ended it for me. I wasn't ever going to get excited about a Spike Lee joint ever again. Also, he really turned me off when I went and saw him give a talk that he obviously hadn't prepared for where he railed on the Academy Awards making "make up calls" (which, to be fair, isn't wrong), choosing majors, and kids texting/playing video games. I know a dad ramble when I hear one and that was a dad ramble. It did start off with this pompous dean from the business school that gave a 10 minute masturbatory intro that culminated with him gifting Spike the gift of an IU Adidas basketball jersey to which Spike fucking told the dude "I can't take that. Don't you know I have a Nike contract? Respect that." which was pretty baller. Also, love me some Reggie Miller and the 1990s Indiana Pacers and their feud with Spike didn't really impress me much. But anyway. Yeah. Thought that dude was past his prime. But this shit was god damned amazing. Instant classic. Greatest fucking movie of all time.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: BlacKkKlansman uses history to offer bitingly trenchant commentary on current events -- and brings out some of Spike Lee's hardest-hitting work in decades along the way.

Pros: Spike Lee is fucking back and bringing that shit. The casting is pretty great and everyone fucking brings it. A lot of these roles can't be easy either. Denzel's kid is the next Denzel. Adam Driver is fucking sick too. The story is crazy interesting. Spike fucking nails the late 1970s. Great soundtrack.

Cons:  The tone of the movie at times seemed way off. The first half of the movie was too light, bordering on comedy, for how heavy the last half gets. Otherwise it was perfect.

Gist of the movie, based on a true story, is that undercover Colorado Springs police detective Ron Stallworth, a black man, miraculously infiltrates the the Ku Klux Klan through a series of phone calls to organization leadership including Grand Wizard/former Republican (of course) Louisiana State Representative/presidential candidate David Duke. Obviously unable to meet the group face-to-face, Stallworth gets veteran detective Flip Zimmerman to take on the role as they work to take down the hate group intent on white-washing their violent image to garner more mainstream appeal. Staring in the film are Adam Driver as Zimmerman, Topher Grace as Duke, Laura Harrier as foxy lady Patrice Dumas, and John David Washington as Stallworth who just knocks it out of the fucking park.

Some extraordinarily powerful scenes. The one that really got to me was one that featured Harry Belafonte at a black power rally where he tells the story of a mentally handicapped boy's lynching that he witnessed as a boy. White people at the lynching took pictures of the guy being tortured and made postcards out of them. I went to the movie with a history teacher who talked about how this was real and how some guy compiled a bunch of them to bare witness. This site shows some but be warned it is truly disturbing (as is this part of the movie). I wish I hadn't clicked on it as I am too sensitive for that stuff. Spike splices this in with a Klan rally where they watch super racist silent film Birth of a Nation that portrays black men (mostly played by whites in blackface) as obsessed with raping white women and the KKK as heroes giving the two sides a nice juxtaposition. One as clearly fucked and the other is clearly not. No both sides bullshit.

This is where the film excels in that the film does a great job of making the contemporary alt-right, white nationalist group look ridiculous while also illustrating dangerously horrific they were at one time and have managed to become again in the Trump era. While the movie takes place in the 1970s, a lot of the rhetoric that is getting thrown around today. Stuff like "make America great again" and "America first" and so forth. Stuff that they really said that right-wing shit heads say all the time. Spike also splices together a couple of minutes of footage from last year's Charlottesville rally, including the woman getting hit by the car, and Trump saying it was "both side". So if it wasn't clear throughout the movie that this shit is still a problem, it totes is clear, then there is no mistaking it by the time you leave the theater.

Another uncomfortable scene is one where a klansman's chunky wife gleefully talks about "killing niggers" which is seriously fucked. This chick was really stoked. It was like she was anticipating having her first child or something. Showing just a pure joy and what not.

MVP of the film is an easy win for Washington. I had no idea this was Denzel's boy, the one that briefly played in the NFL, and kept thinking how he was Denzel-esque. Even sounded just like him and the performance has to have Oscar buzz when that time rolls around. Favorite little ditty with him is when he asks David Duke if he can get a photo with him and at the last second puts his arm around him in a baller move. He is gonna be a star, this guy. It's not even close although this made me a true believer in Spike Lee again and Adam Driver is a 10/10 as well. Driver's best scene comes when he talks about being jewish. It's not something he ever really thought about, but now, as someone who has infiltrated the KKK, he thinks about it all the time and this assignment is getting to him and what not.

So that was BlacKkKlansman. Movie totally kicks ass. Now that I've cancelled MoviePass for finally going to shit and picked up AMC's deal where you can go see the same movie more than once, I'll likely go see this one again before it's out of the theater. Yeah, greatest movie of all time.

Blood Father was the greatest movie of all time

Blood Father is out there but enjoyable. Mel Gibson acts his ass off in this kickass flick. I watched Get the Gringo, another Gibson movie, a few years ago and really liked it. This one was even better. It is pretty unfortunate that Gibson is such a fucking mess. Dude is killer on the electric TV machine.

I guess Gibson is sort of back. Apparently Hollywood people (and people in general) are over the homophobia, racism, sexism, antisemitism, so forth. But Eastwood is still out. Fuck that guy. Talking to a fucking chair. What kind of shit is that.

This sort of made me realize I can forget a lot of shit about the actors on screen—I assume they are all fucking horrible—unless they are Scientologists. If they worship Xenu or Tom Cruise or whatever and are into their Thetan levels then they are fucking dead to me. I will not watch a movie with a Scientologist in it without mentioning it at least 20 fucking times. Other personal demons—maybe with the exception of supporting Trump—don't usually ruin movies for me.

Pros: Solid performances. Gibson looks fucking awesome and kills it. Taut for an action flick.

Cons: Not the most original thing I have ever seen. Gibson is a racist.

Best line: “I'm afraid of what you'll think about me.” “And ruin the great impression you've made so far.”

Disclaimer: My notes pretty much always contain some spoilers but I rarely give away the ending.

Notes: Starts with a girl, who we see on a missing person flier, buying bullets for a gang. She is suspected of stealing from the gang. They go to this house where people were stealing money and kill the guy that lives there. Want her to kill the girl. Drugs and money. Instead she shoots the main gang guy, her boyfriend, and takes off.

Now we see a bearded Gibson. Dude is fucking fit. It is strange watching this with Logan out there because a bearded Gibson looks just like a bearded Jackman. It's fucking so weird. Also, it's sort of a similar movie as both involve the dude with a beard driving around some girl with Mexican paramilitary ties for the whole movie before finally shaving and then dying.

Who wore it better?

But yeah, he is a recovering addict who works in a tattoo parlor. He has also done time. His sponsor is William H. Macy. In his Lethal Weapon trailer, his daughter, the girl from the first scene who has been missing for five or so years calls, freaking out, wanting money to skip town. Been there, man. So far the hopes are high for this movie.

He convinces her to stay with him for one and to dry-out before skipping town. She's freaked out and still using though. The gang shows up. Have a shootout that ends with them tipping the mobile home and the trailer park community mobilizing a militia within minutes. They bounce, he is on parole, and she starts letting him in on what is going on but she is “afraid of what” he will think of her. “And ruin the great impression you've made so far.” So they are wanted by the police. They show up at a hotel they are staying at. Out of nowhere though this terminator, sicario dude shows up. He basically is the fucking terminator. The scene where he is shooting at them as they are fleeing the parking lot might as well have that burp song that played whenever you saw T2.

Make their way to some biker dude's compound. It's that guy that is in all of Tarantino and Kevin Smith's movies these days. The patriarch from Red State. He owes Gibson for taking a rap and doing time. That night he hosts a biker party. He corners the girl at said party. Gives her some biker wisdom. He makes some points but mostly just talks a lot of nonsense. Then he ends up selling them out for a $30K reward. Real piece of shit, this guy. Talks a bunch more shit and Gibson gets the upper hand. Apparently he was some real badass before he went to prison. The biker gang comes at him on the road, I guess since Red State was so loyal, and they have a shootout on the road which ends with a bike hitting a semi head on. It is gnarly and cool.

Getting towards the end here, things get tense and real as per use. It ends with some pretty sweet but low-key action that never goes over-the-top. If you like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, you will like this as it is more or less the same movie but with bikers and Zetas. Plus, Archie from Repo Man shows up a couple of times. Anyone from that movie making an appearance is always a positive.