Author: Neon Vincent

While I last mentioned gerrymandering and redistricting at my blog in John Oliver and Vox examine gerrymandering, the issue has continued to make news.  The top story on the issue is that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on two lawsuits contesting the gerrymandered districts in North Carolina and Wisconsin.  These cases have different bases, as Vox explains in The difference between racial and partisan gerrymandering.

The Court won’t use the same criteria for either case. Here’s why.
…
In America, voting districts are redrawn every ten years to account for shifts in demographics. Someone has to be in charge of drawing the new lines. And because voting is left to the states, in many jurisidictions this responsibility is left to partisan politicians. This creates an opening for politicians who might want to alter the outcome of an election through a process called gerrymandering.

But not all gerrymandering is the same. There are, in fact, two types: racial, and partisan. It is much more difficult to prove harm as a plaintiff in a partisan gerrymandering case than a racial one. And that distinction has to do with provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The North Carolina example was egregious enough that Vox used it as an example in one of its earlier videos on the subject, Gerrymandering: How politicians rig elections.

Most Americans think elections are rigged, and they’re right. Vox editor-in-chief Ezra Klein explains how gerrymandering works, and how to fix it.

As I’ve written before, I support the idea of nonpartisan, independent redistricting commissions to reduce gerrymandering.  As for the Supreme Court cases, I’m much more optimistic about North Carolina’s districts being remedied than Wisconsin’s, although I’m hoping that the Supreme Court does find that partisan gerrymandering has gone too far.

Originally posted at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

Yesterday, I shared The Weather Channel telling off Trump for leaving climate agreement.  Today, as promised, I have more reactions from people who publicly disagreed with Trump.  Chief among them was Elon Musk, who warned that We’ll Leave White House Councils If US Leaves Paris Accord as CNBC reported on Wednesday.

CNBC’s Eamon Javers reports on Elon Musk’s threat to leave White House advisory councils should President Trump exit from the Paris Climate Accord.

Follow over the jump for the reactions from Musk and other business leaders when Trump followed through.
CNN Money reported yesterday morning that Musk was among the Top CEOs to Trump: You’re wrong on climate change.

After President Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, top executives like Apple’s Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg expressed deep disappointment.

If Trump made his decision for business, then business did not agree with it.

That’s not all.  CBS This Morning listed Musk by name in the description for How business leaders are reacting to Trump’s Paris accord decision.

Business leaders slammed President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. IBM, ExxonMobil and Amazon support the accord, and both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney’s Bob Iger say they will leave Mr. Trump’s economic advisory council because of the decision. CBS News financial contributor Mellody Hobson joins “CBS This Morning” from Washington to discuss the business impact of the decision.

I’m with Hobson, who is married to George Lucas, on this issue.  This decision, if not reversed, will cede leadership on green energy to China.  That’s a dumb thing to do, but I’ve never accused Trump of being smart.

It took Trump defying Musk to get the latter to resign as one of Trump’s advisors, but people had been asking him to do that for a couple of months, as CNBC reported in New Calls For Elon Musk to ‘Dump Trump’ from this past April.

Doug Derwin, Silicon Valley startup investor, discusses his push to get Elon Musk to ‘dump Trump.’ Derwin says President Trump’s policies directly contradict Musk’s core values.

Now that Musk has resigned from Trump’s advisory councils, will Derwin make good on his promise to donate $1 million to a charity?  I hope so.

Originally posted at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

I had other plans for today, but Trump announcing that the U.S. was leaving the Paris Climate Accord took precedence.

The news caused all kinds of reaction, some of which I’ll post tomorrow, but the one I found most worthy of immediate attention came from The Weather Channel.  TMZ summarized it in one paragraph and posted the screen capture image above.

The Weather Channel devoted nearly all of its website’s home page Thursday to a not-so-subtle shot. This is what it looked like moments after the Prez ended his announcement at the White House — and ALL its top stories are dedicated to making Trump’s decision look like total foolery.

It didn’t even wait until Trump announced.  It prepared a video on the rumors and posted it as U.S. Quits Paris Agreement: What Happens Now?

The results could be disastrous.

After Trump spoke, it followed up with To President Trump: Regardless of Politics, Science Screams The Truth.

Weather Channel meteorologist Kait Parker addresses the decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement.

As TMZ wrote, “There’s nothing lukewarm about this reaction.”

An extended version was originally posted at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

Over at my own blog, I promised I’d get to the Razzie winners this week at the end of ‘Suicide Squad’ vs. ‘Deadpool’ at the Razzies and Oscars.  It’s time to keep that promise.  Take it away, Razzies!

Razzie Members from all over the world have cast their votes and the “winners” have been announced for the best of the worst.

The results make me happy, as “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” won four Razzies, Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Director for Dinesh D’Souza, and Worst Actress for Becky Turner.  I was hoping for that outcome.

I expect “Batman v. Superman” will win, but I am rooting for “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” instead.  That movie is my pick for worst political movie of the year.

That prediction and hope was for Worst Screenplay, which “Batman v Superman” actually won, making that sentence a successful prediction, but I am very happy that Dinesh D’Souza’s attempt at a documentary beat out the one of the worst big-budget superhero flicks of the past year for Worst Picture, as well as D’Souza proving worse as himself than both Ben Affleck’s Batman and Henry Cavill’s Superman and worse than Zak Snyder as a director.  Finally, the movie’s lead actress Becky Turner won Worst Actress for a total of four Razzies, tying “Batman v Superman.”
Speaking of the Caped Crusader and Man of Steel, they were judged to be the worst combo in major Hollywood films last year.  It’s the fault of the writing, but yes, the two deserved it.  They had really lousy chemistry on screen except when Wonder Woman was present, so she gets the credit.

As for the two remaining awards, allow me to brag.  First, my comments on Jesse Eisenberg being nominated for Worst Supporting Actor as Lex Luthor.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was worse than Leto as Joker…My wife and I agreed he wasn’t Lex Luthor, who should be colder and more openly calculating, but a more organized version of The Joker who had a goal beyond “watching the world burn.”

While I expressed doubts that Eisenberg was worse than the supporting actors in “Zoolander 2,” he did deserve the nomination and didn’t say he wouldn’t win.  I guess the “Zoolander 2” vote was split and Eisenberg’s Luthor was that bad.

Next, my observation in ‘Superman vs. Batman’ buries ‘Zootopia’ in rubble that I repeated in Razzie nominations confirm my guesses as to worst speculative fiction movies of 2017.

“Dawn of Justice” may end up with the same kind of dubious distinction “Fifty Shades of Grey” earned–nominated for both an Oscar (Special Effects) and at least one Razzie (Worst Reboot/Ripoff/Sequel).

And it won Worst Reboot/Ripoff/Sequel.  I called it a year ago.

Finally, why were these movies considered terrible?  “Batman v Superman” was judged bad because didn’t meet expectations, but the audience probably didn’t have much in the way of expectations for D’Souza’s hack job on Clinton, other than it being a hack job.  While it met those, which was enough to make it the biggest grossing documentary of the past year, it failed to meet every other standard for artistry and veracity.  At least D’Souza showed up to “own his bad,” proving he has some sense of humor, but he doesn’t seem realize it’s not the Hollywood insiders who were voting, it’s the fans.  Dude, Hollywood doesn’t hate your movie, America hates your movie.

Originally posted at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

Last night, my wife and I watched as Donald Trump’s rally on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus was “postponed” in the face of massive protests.  They were at least one step above calls to ‘Dump Trump’ and ‘Arrest Snyder’ at the Detroit Republican Debate.  My wife said that “the torches and pitchforks came out for the Trumpenstein monster last night.”  Yes, they have, but a different image came to my mind.  The protests and the conflict afterward stuck me as just one step short of Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold fighting with the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten during the Weimar Republic.*  The mainstream media’s came off as less alarmed, but not by very much.  Watch ABC News’s summary of the incident for Nightline: Trump Postpones Chicago Rally as Crowds of Protesters Gather.

Hundreds of protestors and supporters took to the streets after the GOP frontrunner canceled an event amid security concerns.

I’ll return to the comparison to 1968 later.  Right now, I’ll outsource my take on the responsibility for the atmosphere to Michael Smerconish on CNN, who contends TRUMP HAS SHOUTED “FIRE” IN A POLITICAL THEATER.

Smerconish assesses Donald Trump’s role in contributing to the environment of anger in America, after chaotic protests cancelled a Chicago rally.

As one can see, the news media has changed its tone when covering the Trump campaign.  In part, it’s because violence against protesters, who are mostly members of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, at Trump’s rallies and other campaign events is a real story.  As both reports show, Trump has contributed to the atmosphere that allows such behavior and capitalized on the prejudices of his supporters.  That’s not new.

Follow over the jump for what I think has changed.
What is new is that Trump has actively antagonized the press, beginning with calling for relaxing libel laws so that the news media can be more easily sued for defamation.  That’s called picking a fight with people who buy ink (or pixels) by the barrel.  That’s an action that Mark Twain advised should be avoided at all costs, yet Trump did it.  Now, his campaign and supporters have escalated the conflict.

This week, the conflict between Trump’s campaign and the media added another dimension when a Breitbart reporter claimed she had been bruised by a Trump campaign staffer.  Breitbart tried to cover up the story, but one of their people resigned and blew the whistle on his former employers.  Now, the targets of violence have expanded from protesters to the press.  That’s guaranteed to make coverage more hostile.

To add insult to the press’s injury, a CBS reporter was arrested while covering last night’s protest.  That wasn’t the Trump campaign’s doing, but it added to the media’s antagonism to the campaign.  

As for ABC News’ comparison of today to the summer of 1968, I think it’s a better analogy than Weimar Germany.  We’re not at either place yet, but 1968 is only blocks away and we’re headed right for it. Weimar Germany, on the other hand, sits way out on the horizon where one can make it out with sharp eyes.  Let’s hope we’re not headed there.  Otherwise, it’s welcome to Weimar America, where it’s Springtime for Trump.

*The sides aren’t as extreme as Sturmabteilung vs. Roter Frontkämpferbund–yet.

Originally posted at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.