Lobenthal.com

“Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.”

King Lear

He just declared there will be no governance unless he can be placed above the law and commence the dictatorship he’s been dreaming about since. . . well, at least dating back to when he kept Hitler’s speeches at his bedside.

And sometimes I think it was, in a way more creative because more self-fashioned.
In any case, truth — existing equally but in different mediations in pumped-up florid rhetorical expressions as well as intimate, “naturalistic” ones, in drawing rooms and hovels– will out.

Writing about Tallulah in 1938, Helen Ormsbee opined that she was “particularly gifted at using imagination so that she extends the realty of a scene beyond the limits of the stage setting. Every time she comes in or goes out at a door, that next room, that hallway, that sidewalk which cannot be seen, all become existent in the story. She makes you believe that they are there just out of view. From the first moment she steps into a play she brings with her a conviction of the reality of events that have been happening offstage.”

Footage of Hitler and Stain with translated surprint alongside footage of Trump at last night’s rally.

As Trump becomes more lawless and traitorous by the day, Speaker Pelosi has descended into a battle of will against her own caucus, which now demands impeachment.
She makes the incredible statement that allowing Trump to run roughshod over our democracy w/o any opposition is a mark of patriotism on the Dems part.

If Pelosi will not relent, she must be defied.

Meanwhile, experts on authoritarianism are imploring her to wake up.

Since rent regulation was deemed invalid upon tenant vacancy in 1993, New York City has seen an onslaught of greed and tenant harassment that defies description.

As NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer said last year: “Housing is the number one issue for our city. With rents skyrocketing, wages stagnating, and backwards rent laws squeezing New York tenants, our runaway housing system is leaving so many behind. This is our moment to go to the Albany legislature and unstack the deck for tenants across New York. We need to expand and strengthen our rent laws – now.”

Yes, a repeal bill is floating around Albany, but where, exactly, s it headed?

These people are disturbed; they have no civic pride or consciousness at all. They need to be re-programmed.

In The City, Yoav Gonen and Greg B. Smith broke the story.

It seems that Disney wants to build a new tower headquarters here, and they don’t care how much downtown NYC history they destroy in the process. The Kramer Levin lawyers to whom de Blasio still owes a lot of money are moving in to grease the skids for Disney.
Did I hear quid pro quo?

This is our city:

“The Landmarks Preservation Commission did not respond to a list of questions about the Disney project from THE CITY. Kramer Levin also did not respond to a list of questions about Disney and the other clients for whom the firm listed the mayor’s office as an intended target. Disney did not respond to a call seeking comment.”

Disney’s obliviousness and its duplicity is a sign of utter contempt for this city; while the question must again be asked: is anything going to be done about the corruption of the Landmarks Preservation Commission? Obviously the new director, despite her preservation credentials, is not willing to stand up for NYC.

Use public funds to subsidize research–then turn it over for free to the private sector so it can make billions from it while screwing the taxpayers who funded the original research.

That’s why Dem. Reps. Cummings and Ocasio-Cortez were grilling Pharma exec Daniel O’Day last week: the AIDS preventation drug Truvada, developed on the government’s dime, is now priced so that 90% of the Americans who need it can’t afford it.And the ones who can are paying through the nose.

Here’s to your beloved socialism, Sen. McConnell & Pres. Trump!

Trump should not be allowed to BRAG about it.

Democrats, anyone?

In Marseilles during New York City Ballet’s 1955 European tour, Balanchine was rehearsing Maria Tallchief in his one-act Swan Lake, which she had created four years earlier. As was his wont, Balanchine was making changes to what he’d originally staged that were not always welcomed rapturously by his interpreters. Tallchief was resisting Balanchine’s tweaks to the ps de deux. “No, no, no,” Balanchine insisted. “Oh, George,” she replied, “you just don’t know what’s beautiful!”