Lobenthal.com

Imagine if I, as a white half-Jew, suddenly announced that no person of color should be allowed to write about the Holocaust?

That is what is happening in reverse in the publishing industry, as it gloms onto yet one more fad–the insistence that only a member of a subject or minority population can write about that population.

I am hearing more and more first-and-second hand stories of noted and accomplished writers being told that their book cannot be bought because the publisher simply cannot allow a straight white man to publish a novel concerning a member of the LGBT community. . . and crap like that.

This is an utter refutation of imagination, artistry, and empathy.

of an America stupidified and deculturized by Republican design.

Back in 2017, when Trump was trying to kill the NEA and the NEH, Christopher Knight noted in the Los Angeles Times that:

“Since Ronald Reagan, the arts agency has been whittled away to a mere shadow of its former self. In inflation-adjusted terms, it spends $100 million less today than it did 20 years ago.”

I was fingering some type of commemorative medallion that my father’s father received when he mustered out of the US Army following World War I in 1918. On the back there’s a raised letter inscription “THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION,” and a listing of all the countries on the Allied side. I wonder if Grandpa understood the hype quotient.

have been utilizing Ye to promote fascism for a long, long time.

At Salon, Amanda Marcotte reports on the long-standing matrix of evil between Fox, overpaid Murdoch puppet Tucker Carlson, & Ye, and, of course, the Republican party, which is all in.

is integral to his political platform, and fits right in with his complete lack of a moral compass. He is totally transactional. He deems the support of neo-Nazis crucial to his future political fortunes, heaven help us.

Heather Digby Parton at Salon gets inside the conniving, amoral ambition motivating DeSantis.

As part of an ongoing pattern of brazen complicity between City Hall and the private development sector, the unique character of the Village is now going to be assaulted by two residential skyscrapers slated to rise at the corner of Washington Street and Houston.

Brian Pape at the West View News reports that the buildings were originally to include 30% “affordable” and “senior” housing units, but, well, that apparently was no longer considered necessary to win the ever-so-stringent approval permits. Not even worth going through the motions anymore.

As soon as Ronny D graduated from a fact-based educational institution he started lying his way through a teaching career, inculcating alternate facts about the Civil War in his high school students.

DeSantis is a Christo-Fascist, funded by wealthy Christo-Fascists like Betsy DeVos. He wants to rule a theocratic America. No other religions will be welcome here.

The minute DeSantis starts airing his ads in Iowa, Biden and the Democrats have to go on the offense.

And the media has to do its job and expose who he is and what his record portends.

Can’t we please put it to rest, before Musk, Gates and the entire flotilla of malevelent dingbats drive this country over the edge?

Amanda Marcotte writes in Salon:

The infatuation with our richest capitalists is related to, but in many ways goes even beyond, the illusion that the U.S. is a meritocracy. The notion that to be very rich must also mean you’re brilliant permeates our society, justifying both ridiculously low taxes on the wealthiest Americans and the undue influence they exert over our political system. It’s a social fiction that dates back to the Gilded Age and has covered up the intellectual deficits of many famous Americans.”

Like DeSantis, Pompeo doesn’t have an original bone in his body, so it’s not surprising that he’s parroting the GOP’s attack lines on public education.

Remember, the more ignorant America is, the easier for the Republican Fascist Party to rule.

That’s what the Democrats may finally be learning.

Props to Karin Jean-Pierre for refusing to be steamrolled by a “reporter” from Murdoch’s fascist rag The New York Post when he tried to capsize the press conference with Dr. Fauci.