It seems like the season for dish-spilling political memoirs. First we had former Republican speaker John Boehner raking his party over the coals for ending up in Crazytown. Then over in the UK a former Conservative cabinet member Alan Duncan has published excerpts from his diaries while in government in which he castigates Boris Johnson, calling him a buffoon.
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The decision by Major League Baseball to pull the big All Star game from Atlanta in protest against Georgia’s passing of restrictive voting laws has provided Trump with another culture war to fight about, since those wars are all he has.
Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson led rightwing backlash after Major League Baseball said it would not play its All-Star game in Georgia because of a new law that restricts voting rights in the state.
The former president and the Fox News host some say is his Republican political heir thereby ranged themselves against current president Joe Biden and the Democrat he served as vice-president, Barack Obama.
“Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans,” Trump said in a statement, “and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the radical left Democrats.
“… Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with free and fair elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?”
Coke and Delta are among companies which have expressed concern over the Georgia law, which restricts early and mail-in voting, measures seen to target minority voters likely to back Democrats.
I think that Trump is making a mistake by picking this particular battle. Previous attempts by conservatives to boycott basketball and football because of their support of protests against police brutality and systemic racism went nowhere. While baseball’s players and fanbase skew more white than the other two sports, I think that this boycott move will also fizzle because Americans love their sports and their junk food too much.
John Boehner used to be the speaker of the House of Representatives from the time Republicans got a majority in 2010 until he retired in 2015. He was an old style Republican, following their standard playbook of reducing taxes on the rich and on businesses and opposing progress on social issues. But even that level of commitment to right-wing issues was not enough to placate the crazies that had, aided by Fox News, taken command of the party’s agenda and he retired from Congress in 2015. He started making a lot of money by, among other things, getting involved in the now-legal marijuana business even though as a congressman he had supported strong punitive measures against even the use of small amounts of marijuana, something that resulted in large numbers of people being sent to prison and having their lives ruined.
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The cartoonist zeroes in on the subtext.
The team that goes by the name the Cleveland Indians used to have a grotesque caricature called Chief Wahoo as the team logo. Each year on opening day there would be demonstrations against the logo and the name, leading to confrontations with fans who were determined to hold on to the racist images. The team has been slowly bowing to pressure to change, after long resisting it in the name of ‘tradition’. It no longer has the logo on team uniforms and has promised to phase out the name as well. It has now announced new policies for fans
Cleveland Indians fans will not be able to paint their faces in Native American fashion or wear headdresses to games at Progressive Field this season, according to a new team policy.
The no-tolerance policy also involves abusive or inappropriate language or conduct deemed disorderly or disruptive, and that includes “inappropriate dress.” The team says fans could be ejected or refused admission.
Restricted attire includes headdresses and face paint that references American Indian cultures and traditions. Inappropriate or offensive images, words, dress or face paint must be covered or removed. The prohibition extends to solicitation of contributions and distribution of literature at Progressive Field.
However the team is not willing to hurt its revenue source of selling merchandise because “The policy does not extend to the Chief Wahoo logo on attire, said Curtis Danburg, vice president of communications and community impact.”
I was not sure what would await me from my brief hiatus from blogging when I started following the news closely again. I did not expect to anything as wild as the story involving Matt Gaetz. For those not familiar with him, he is a MAGA-loving Florida congressperson, one of Trump’s most ardent supporters and considered a rising star in Republican circles, who looks like one of those used-car salespersons on late-night TV. Or an extra from the film Grease, what with his high head of slicked black hair. One expects him, Travolta-like, to whip a comb out of pocket and use it whenever he sees himself in any reflecting surface.
I would like to thank everyone for their kind words about Baxter. It means a lot.
I will start blogging again tomorrow.
He was a truly wonderful dog, gentle, affectionate, and playful, and I loved him dearly. I am lucky to have had him as part of my life for so long and losing him is very painful to bear.
I need to take a break from blogging for a couple of days.
More and more women are coming forward accusing New York governor of Andrew Cuomo sexual misconduct. Here is the just the latest example.
Sherry Vill remembers feeling embarrassed and stuck as the New York governor Andrew Cuomo “manhandled” her and came on to her in her own home, in front of her husband and son.
“He towered over me,” she said during a press conference on Monday. “There was nothing I could do.”
Vill, 55, met Cuomo in May 2017, when he visited her suburban house near Rochester, New York, while surveying flooding damage in the area. Hers is the latest in a series of allegations detailing a pattern of sexual misconduct by the now infamous chief of state.
Vill recalled Cuomo holding her hand, forcibly grabbing her face, aggressively kissing her cheeks and calling her beautiful. The unwanted advances made her uncomfortable, especially around her family and neighbors.
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After Reconstruction when Black voters obtained the right to vote, there have been serious efforts to limit their voting by raising all manner of obstacles as part of the Jim Crow laws that limited Black participation in civic life. The Republican party has for the longest time, ever since they realized that they were in danger of becoming the permanent minority party, sought to disenfranchise voting by poor and minority communities so that they could hold on to power by retaining a majority in the white community. In the past, these efforts were more discreet but Trump’s failure to win re-election and the loss of their majority in the senate by two senatorial defeats in Georgia, of all places, has resulted in a re-thinking. This is because despite their efforts at Black voter suppression and energizing their white voters to come out in record numbers for Trump, voters of color were energized even more and the increase in their numbers dwarfed increased white turnout.
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