Whore AOC Gets Berated At Nearly-Empty Town Hall For Sending Billions To Ukraine, Pushing Country Toward Nuclear War

[Diseases of the 2%...]

There is no such thing as gay art.

I didn’t want to write this piece. I didn’t want to diminish
“the first major studio movie written by and starring a gay man”
or spoil its Rotten Tomatoes score or dance on the grave of its
box-office prospects.

I certainly didn’t want to attack the star of “Billy on the
Street” and “Difficult People,” two of the most successful
screen adaptations of the gay sensibility in recent memory. But
Billy Eichner forced my hand.

No one wants to support a movie at the point of a bayonet.

It’s not just straight people who failed to show up for
Eichner’s rom-com “Bros” on opening weekend who might be feeling
the pinch. As Variety pointed out in its autopsy of the film’s
box office flop, its dreadful $4.8-million take “means many
LGBTQ viewers didn’t show up to see the comedy in theaters
either.”

Does that make us too the “homophobic weirdos” of Eichner’s
confounding post-bomb tweet spiral or simply the silent Benedict
Arnolds of his self-proclaimed march into the history books?

“Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A
CinemaScore etc, straight people, especially in certain parts of
the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. And that’s
disappointing but it is what it is,” Eichner wrote Sunday in
response to news of the returns.

Eichner could be forgiven for throwing a misplaced elbow or two
in the aftermath of such a crushing disappointment. But the
sense of self-importance and, yes, entitlement in his response
dovetails with the film’s rollout. Before its world premiere at
the Toronto International Film Festival, he bragged that “Bros”
“is not an indie movie. This is not some streaming thing which
feels disposable, or which is like one of a million Netflix
shows. I needed to appreciate, ‘This is a historic moment, and
somehow, you’re at the center of it. You helped create it.’”
(His shady remarks weren’t lost on fans of Hulu’s “Fire Island,”
even prompting its creator, Joel Kim Booster, to respond
publicly and defuse the backlash.)

“You’re at the center of it”: Here were words to stick in one’s
craw, to suggest that, as well-versed as Eichner may be in the
traditions of the rom-com, his understanding of queer history on
screen had momentarily escaped him. It is precisely the indies,
the “disposable” experiments, the made-for-TV movies and
forgotten genre entries, in which LGBTQ people established
themselves in the American imagination before there was a name
for us. No one person, or cultural artifact, is at the center of
that generations-long struggle, to which Eichner has referred
again and again in his press tour for the film — or indeed, as
the box office wags pointed out, on which Universal Pictures’
marketing campaign leaned with such misplaced abandon.

In truth, “Bros” is not nearly so radical as it claims, and that
disjuncture between what it is — a perfectly entertaining,
middlebrow rom-com — and what it understands itself to be — a
landmark moment for LGBTQ people in popular culture — is
inextricable from the hand-wringing around it. It is eminently
laudable that Eichner has made a sexually frank studio comedy
featuring two gay men, and that he insisted, as wingman/co-
star/co-producer Guy Branum notes, on an all-LGBTQ cast.

Ultimately, though, the film’s innovations are incremental:
Rather than reinvent the genre around a different set of mores,
it simply replaces the “marriage plot” with the “monogamy plot,”
down to our former free-agent hero being harangued by his new
beau about kids.

It’s especially frustrating because “Bros” knows better, or
seems to. Its lacerating send-ups of token representation in
Hallmark Christmas movies; the “haunted house of gay trauma”
that pop culture passes off as queer history; even Eichner’s own
public persona are all a potent, knowing nod to the ongoing
challenges of telling LGBTQ stories — of living LGBTQ lives —
without simply repurposing a tired, old, straight script.

Until the culminating frame of its final act, that is, when the
image of two conventionally attractive gay men kissing is
positioned, literally, as the laudatory bookend to “5,000 years
of gay love stories erased from the history books.” For a film
otherwise allergic to moralizing, this sure seems like “old-
fashioned heteronormative nonsense” to me.

It is often said, of course, that we dislike in others that
which we most dislike in ourselves, and it’s impossible to see
“Bros” — its arrogance, its failure, its enlightened intentions
and benighted outcomes — without feeling implicated in it. I am
of Eichner’s generation, or close to it; of his race, his
gender, his sexuality, his industry, his city. I am the person
meant to “see myself” in “Bros,” to be “represented” by it, to
celebrate the “milestone” it marks. I am, in the sense of the
term that suggests affiliation, his “type,” and he mine — I am
reasonably sure, after seeing the film twice, that I have woofed
at his shirtless torso on Scruff in Los Angeles.

And yet, despite the affinities Eichner and I share on paper —
no, because of the affinities we share on paper — I recoil at
“Bros’” squandered privilege, bristle at its star’s attempt to
hide its shortcomings behind the veil of homophobia. After all,
if the film believes in the progress it celebrates — that of
setting our own terms, of deciding for ourselves — then it must
earn the support it seeks and not merely expect it.

In the quarter century since “Will & Grace,” whose Debra Messing
makes an ingenious cameo in “Bros,” the very forms Eichner
appeared to dismiss in his eagerness for theatrical triumph have
carved out the space for LGBTQ people to choose among numerous
options instead of clinging to every scrap of queer
representation as though it were a life raft in storm-tossed
seas.

The freedom “Bros” extols, or tries to, is not just sexual
freedom. It is the freedom to fight over, criticize, even ignore
the artworks that claim to represent us — and, on the flip side,
the freedom to keep making and consuming gay art whether
straight people show up for it or not.

Indeed, when I saw the film a second time this week, at a half-
full weeknight screening at the Sunset 5, what struck me most
were the loudest laughs and cheers, all directed at the gayest
material — the slap fight-turned-sex scene, the Bowen Yang
cameo, Nicole Kidman’s pre-roll ad for AMC.

“Bros,” a film expressly about the refusal to butch up one’s
voice for a straight audience, isn’t for everyone, and it
doesn’t need to be. It can be for us, to argue about on Twitter
or at the bar before “Drag Race,” outside the circuit party,
during our own dates (or orgies). And it can be for us to decide
it’s not worth our time or our money, that we would rather watch
some other queer film or TV series out of love, instead of
watching this one out of obligation.

To say “let gay art bomb” is not to say “let gay art languish.”
It need not mean that we stop pressing film studios and
television networks for more, and more thoughtful, LGBTQ
representation. It need not mean that Eichner be kept from
another shot. It’s simply a reminder that — not only for gay art
but for art, full stop — commercial failure has often been a
sign of creative success. It is through the push and pull of the
popular and the avant-garde, the acclaimed and reviled, the
celebrated and the suspect, that we arrived at the place where
“Bros” could sink or swim.

May the next quarter century bring still bigger swings, still
more revolutionary incursions into the mainstream, still more
films and TV series “too gay, too niche” for straight audiences
and not gay enough — never gay enough — for us. That’s progress.

Bombs away.

AIDS and Monkeypox away.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-10-
05/bros-billy-eichner-box-office-lgbtq-representation

[Gregory P. Schermer]

This spic bitch should be sent to fuck Russians until she dies.

In an absolutely brutal verbal tongue-lashing, protesters at a
town hall interrupted far-left Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez (AOC) and excoriated the congresswoman for supporting
Ukraine and pushing the country to the brink of nuclear war.

The event, which barely had any attendees if the video is to
believed, was held Wednesday at Bronxdale High School in the
Bronx.

A man named Jose Vega tweeted a video of the exchange in which
he claims he and a friend “confronted” AOC for her vote to fund
weapons transfers to Ukraine.

The protesters point out that Ocasio-Cortez ran as an “outsider”
but, unlike Tulsi Gabbard who recently left the Democrat Party,
has joined colleagues in lockstep in their support for Ukraine
over the American people.

“Tulsi Gabbard, she’s left the Democratic Party because they are
war hawks,” Vega’s co-protester shouted. “You ran as an
outsider! Yet, you’ve been voting to start this war in Ukraine.”

“Why are you playing with the lives of American citizens?” he
asked. “You’re playing with our lives!”

ose Vega - Vote Diane Sare!
@JosBtrigga
·
Follow
My friend @Noggatone and I confronted Congresswoman @AOC on her
support for Nuclear War and Ukrainian Nazis. I call her out for
being a coward in the face of the party that will push us all
into Nuclear war right now. Will she stand up like @TulsiGabbard
and fight for peace?

6:07 PM · Oct 12, 2022
Read the full conversation on Twitter

https://twitter.com/i/status/1580364662419312641

https://thepoliticalinsider.com/video-aoc-gets-berated-at-nearly-
empty-town-hall-for-sending-billions-to-ukraine-pushing-country-
toward-nuclear-war/

[Gregory P. Schermer]

On Thu, 6 Oct 2022 23:14:48 -0000 (UTC), Nadegda

On Thu, 06 Oct 2022 04:47:04 -0700, The Klaun Prince of Crime posted

On Thu, 6 Oct 2022 08:05:08 -0000 (UTC), kensi

We're accustomed to thinking of ourselves as apart from the so-called
"natural world", but that was always a fantasy rooted in supremacist
ideologies.

Kensi admits to being unnatural..

Quite the opposite, actually, Scout. Still suffering from reading
comprehension problems, Scout?

Evidently.

Scout = valued contributor.

Valued contributor to what?

To thoughtful discussion.

Like hell he is.

You , on the other hand, only seem to be able to regurgitate whatever
you come across on leftist propaganda sites. You have no value.
You know what they do to people with no value, right?
And keeping your door locked at night won't help.

Threatening a former (or, for that matter, a current) vote wrangler is
grounds for an instant Tinfoil Sombrero, so enjoy your prize, kook!

This seems to be a day for kooks getting spanked by the vote wrangler.

You need to pull out another sock

Proof, kOok?

This is getting rather /pro forma/ at this point, isn't it? It's not as if
I *ever* respond to such a challenge with anything but smokescreens,
vague hand-waving, or crickets.

Indeed. Still, the rules are the rules.

What's the rule about sock puppet stroking?

[J D Young]

Jews hate it when the true facts about them are publicized.

Cornell University is set to host a panel—on the holiest day of
the year for Jewish students—featuring a professor who compared
the Jewish state to Nazi Germany, claiming that Palestinians in
the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip are living in an "extermination
camp, run by Jews."

The Cornell Institute for Comparative Modernities panel, which
is titled "Palestine and Indigenous North America," is the final
event in a series about "Settler Colonialism, Sovereignty,
Apartheid." The panel includes Cornell American Studies
professor Eric Cheyfitz, who has compared Israel to Nazi
Germany, and University of Kansas professor Robert Warrior, a
vocal proponent of the anti-Israel boycott movement, who claimed
that Israel "illegally confiscates Palestinian lands, it
literally blows up Palestinian homes, house by house."

The event comes as Jews on college campuses are facing increased
incidents of anti-Semitism, with the federal government
investigating allegations of anti-Jewish harassment at multiple
schools, including the University of Southern California and the
University of Vermont.

The event will take place on Oct. 5, which falls on Yom
Kippur—precluding many Jewish students and community members
from attending. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for
Jews during which they are required to fast and refrain from
working.

"The terrible ironies of history: Gaza has become an
extermination camp, run by Jews," Cheyfitz, the Cornell
professor, wrote on Twitter in 2014.

Cheyfitz equated Gaza, the Palestinian territory that Israel
withdrew from in 2005 and which is controlled by the Hamas-led
government, to the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi Germany.

He also described Israel as a "terrorist organization,
projecting its crimes on the defenders of human rights," and
claimed "Apartheid Israel is in its death throes. The symptoms:
Violence, in its desperation, is all Zionism can offer the
world."

The panel seeks to draw comparisons between Palestinians and
colonialized groups, while discussing "settler colonialism and
the comparative context of Palestine," according to an event
description. It is part of a yearlong series of panel
discussions.

Cornell did not respond to a request for comment.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/extermination-camp-run-by-jews-on-
yom-kippur-cornell-set-to-host-professor-who-compared-jews-to-
nazis/

[Gregory P. Schermer]

Democrats love killing babies.

There is definitely some serious misrepresentation going on
about what was said in those hearings about Roe and Casey, but
it’s not coming from the Justices.

Calling a precedent “settled” means only that it exists and says
absolutely nothing about whether it could, or should, be
unsettled.

Schumer and others who claim that Justices lied or
misrepresented their views about overruling Roe or Casey are
lying or misrepresenting those Justices’ views.

Within hours of the publication of the leaked first-draft
opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
suggesting that the Supreme Court will overrule Roe v. Wade and
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Senate Majority Leader Charles
Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a
joint statement accusing “Republican-appointed Justices” of
having “lied to the U.S. Senate.” Two days later, Schumer
identified the “lie” as “misrepresenting their views” during
their confirmation hearings “on respecting precedent when it
came to decisions like Roe.”

There is definitely some serious misrepresentation going on
about what was said in those hearings about Roe and Casey, but
it’s not coming from the Justices.

Some members of Congress went even further than Schumer. Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), for example, claimed that “several
Supreme Court justices, including Justice Alito … stated during
their confirmation hearings that they would not overturn Roe v.
Wade. Every single one of them said … under oath, that they
would actually preserve Roe.”

No Supreme Court nominee has ever come close to saying any such
thing about any precedent. In fact, for decades, nominees of
both parties have studiously avoided giving even what Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg described in her 1993 hearing as “hints …
forecasts … [or] previews.” Transcripts of those hearings, which
are available here, here, and here, show exactly what the
Justices said and expose how accusations of “lying” are pure
fiction.

Dobbs Case Tests Our Commitment to the Constitution

During the September 2005 hearing on John Roberts’ nomination to
be chief justice, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) compared such
gatherings to a “kabuki dance.” Senators try to determine how
nominees will vote or write regarding certain issues, while
nominees resist pressure to show their judicial hand. Nominees,
for example, decline to say whether particular precedents either
were correctly decided or should be overruled and often refer to
precedents as “settled.” Schumer now claims this word is a
promise to oppose overruling a precedent.

Every Supreme Court nominee who has referred to a precedent as
“settled” has not only meant the same thing but has even defined
it during their hearings. A precedent is settled because it is a
precedent—that’s it, nothing more. Calling a precedent “settled”
means only that it exists and says absolutely nothing about
whether it could, or should, be unsettled. In Justice Samuel
Alito’s January 2006 hearing, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) asked
if Roe v. Wade “is the settled law of the land.” Alito responded
that “settled” did not mean “it can’t be re-examined.” Instead,
“settled” means that Roe is “a precedent that is entitled to
respect as stare decisis.”

In her July 2009 hearing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained that
“[a]ll precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law
subject to the deference [which the] doctrine of stare decisis
would counsel.” She gave the identical response about whether
several individual precedents were settled: “That is the
precedent of the Court, so it is settled law.” Asked about Casey
in particular, Sotomayor repeated that it “is the precedent of
the Court and settled in terms of the holding of the Court.”

Justice Elena Kagan followed the same script during her July
2010 hearing. District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v.
Chicago, holding that gun bans violated the Second Amendment,
are, Kagan said, “settled law” and are “entitled to all the
respect of binding precedent.” She put in the same “settled”
category precedents such as Citizens United v. FEC, holding that
restrictions on election-related expression violated the First
Amendment; Gonzalez v. Carhart, finding the federal Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban Act constitutional; and United States v.
Lopez and United States v. Morrison, which held that two federal
statutes exceeded Congress’ authority to regulate interstate
commerce. Kagan explained to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that
she did not distinguish between “precedent” and “settled law.”
She was crystal clear: “What I mean to say when I use those
phrases is, these are decisions of the court.”

The fact that Schumer enthusiastically supported Sotomayor and
Kagan proves that he knew exactly what they meant. After all, he
has said that “overturning Citizens United is probably more
important than any other single thing we could do to preserve
this great and grand democracy.” He would never have supported a
Supreme Court nominee who pledged never to consider overruling
Citizens United or the other precedents Kagan called “settled.”

Republican nominees have carefully duplicated the
Sotomayor/Kagan strategy. During Gorsuch’s March 2017 hearing,
for example, he told Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) that Obergefell v.
Hodges, holding that the Constitution protects a right to same-
sex marriage, is “absolutely settled law.” Similarly, Gorsuch
told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) that Griswold v. Connecticut
and Eisenstadt v. Baird, which created and extended a
constitutional right to use contraception, “are precedents of
the U.S. Supreme Court” that “have been settled.” He told Sen.
Chris Coons (D-CT) that Casey, Lawrence v. Texas, which created
a right to same-sex sodomy, and Obergefell are all “settled law
in the sense that [they are] decision[s] of the U.S. Supreme
Court, entitled to the weight of precedent.”

Kavanaugh’s September 2018 hearing followed the same pattern,
with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asking “what do you mean by
‘settled law’?” Kavanaugh could have been reading from the
Sotomayor hearing transcript: “Senator, I said that it is
settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court.” Blumenthal asked
if Kavanaugh would “[c]ommit, sitting here today, that you would
never overturn Roe v. Wade.” Kavanaugh gave the expected
response: “Senator, each of the eight Justices currently on the
Supreme Court, when they were in this seat, declined to answer
that question.”

Similarly, in her October 2020 hearing, Justice Amy Coney
Barrett told Feinstein that Obergefell “is a precedent of the
Supreme Court entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare
decisis.” Barrett said the same thing to Durbin about decisions
upholding the Affordable Care Act and to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-RI) about United States v. Virginia, which struck down single-
sex education at the Virginia Military Institute, and Bostock v.
Clayton County, construing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act as barring employment discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation or gender identity.

Overturning Roe v. Wade Would Be Neither Radical Nor

Conservative. It’s Just Right Thing to Do.

Republicans did not flinch at Republican nominees calling these
precedents “settled” any more than Schumer did when Kagan put
Citizens United in that category. Each nominee chose to use that
label precisely because, at least in the Supreme Court
confirmation context, it provides a way to respond while not
compromising impartiality. Asked by Durbin what she meant by
“settled,” Barrett also echoed Sotomayor: “Any precedent
entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis could be
characterized as settled.” In other words, every precedent is
settled.

Notice that, when referring to precedents as “settled,” nominees
also add phrases such as “respect as stare decisis” (Alito),
“entitled to all the weight that precedent usually gets”
(Kagan), “entitled to the weight of precedent” (Gorsuch),
“entitled [to] respect under principles of stare decisis”
(Kavanaugh), and “respect under the doctrine of stare decisis.”
Just as “settled” means a precedent exists, these phrases refer
to the process of determining whether a precedent should be
overruled. The factors used in this process are well known and
have resulted in the Supreme Court overruling its own precedents
hundreds of times.

While Sotomayor said that “all precedents of the Supreme Court I
consider settled,” she has voted several times to overrule them.
So has Kagan, who said that “settled” means nothing more than
“precedent.” If, as Schumer claims today, “settled” means
“immune from overruling,” then Sotomayor and Kagan must also
have lied to the U.S. Senate.

This confirmation hearing strategy is well established and has
been followed consistently by nominees of both parties. The
public record is clear. No one, especially members of Congress,
who even casually follows the Supreme Court confirmation process
would fail to grasp something so clear. The obvious conclusion
is that Schumer and others who claim that Justices lied or
misrepresented their views about overruling Roe or Casey are,
well, lying or misrepresenting those Justices’ actual views.

https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/the-justices-didnt-lie-
about-roe-v-wade-and-democrats-know-it

[Ray G. Farris]

Good. Now people can get some facts and truth.

Truth Social, the Twitter alternative backed by former President
Donald Trump, is now available for download in the Google Play
Store following months of being blocked over violent content.

Google's reversal indicates that it's now satisfied that Truth
Social can follow its guidelines. In a statement, Google said
Trump's app will remain accessible as long as it abides by rules
"to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove
objectionable posts such as those that incite violence."

On Truth Social, users compose "truths" much like tweets on
Twitter. The platform is dominated by right-wing and
conservative voices, with views that can quickly veer into
conspiratorial territory.

For months, the app has been available to download on iPhones
and other Apple devices, but its appearance on Androids is a
significant victory. Google's operating system supports some 70%
of smartphones worldwide. In the U.S., where iPhones dominate,
about 44% of devices are Androids, according to market research
firm StatCounter.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/14/1129024148/google-truth-social-
trump

[Gregory P. Schermer]

The disaster from Vermont squeaks.

CINCINNATI (ENQUIRER) - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called Kroger’s
latest move an “absolute disaster” after the Cincinnati-based
grocery retailer announced its plan to take over Albertsons in a
$24.6 billion deal on Friday, according to the Cincinnati
Enquirer.

The combined sales of the two grocery store chains are nearly
$210 billion, putting Kroger about $10 billion shy of U.S. food
sales at Walmart, the world’s largest grocer.

Kroger seeks to create grocery giant in $20B Albertsons bid <<

In a tweet Friday, Sanders called on the White House to reject
the merger.

“At a time when food prices are soaring as a result of corporate
greed, it would be an absolute disaster to allow Kroger, the 2nd
largest grocery store in America, to merge with Albertsons, the
4th largest grocery store in America,” the Vermont progressive
wrote. “The Biden Administration must reject this deal.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren reacted to the then-rumored merger in an
interview with MSNBC on Thursday. The Massachusetts Democrat
said the U.S. has failed to utilize antitrust laws for decades,
the Enquirer reports.

“For example, with grocery stores, remember how many grocery
stores there used to be? And now what you have is a handful of
giant chains,” Warren said.

The senator said Kroger earned almost $900 million in the third
quarter of 2021, more than three times the amount it made in the
same time period in 2019.

“That’s because they have a lot of market dominance,” she said.
“If we move in on antitrust law, break up these giant
corporations, then we get real competition and then we get
markets that are truly competitive.”

Kroger and Albertsons are expected to divest 100 to 375 stores
to pacify antitrust concerns, leaving Kroger to operate more
than 4,500 stores nationwide, according to the Enquirer.
Albertsons’ investors will own a separate company that includes
the divested stores.

Both stores currently employ a combined 710,000 associates and
operate 4,996 stores, 66 distribution centers, 52 manufacturing
plants, 3,972 pharmacies and 2,015 fuel centers in 48 states and
Washington D.C.

https://www.fox19.com/2022/10/16/bernie-sanders-blasts-krogers-
246b-albertsons-deal-calls-it-absolute-disaster/

[Gregory P. Schermer]

Democrats are responsible for this.