Just Number One With Racists, Con't

Donald Trump is winning because he represents the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is filled with bigots.  Really is that simple, as Greg Sargent points out.

With less than a week to go before the first voting, the new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that Donald Trump continues to grow stronger. He sits high above his GOP rivals, with the support of 37 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents nationally. A majority of Trump supporters say they’ll definitely vote for him. Three out of four Republicans think Trump has the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton, suggesting many GOP voters are coming to see him as a very plausible standard bearer. 

But this one finding from the poll is worth some attention: Trump is absolutely dominating among GOP voters who think immigration weakens American society.

Republicans who think immigration is bad for America overwhelmingly favor Donald Trump (and to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz.)  That's the long and the short of it.  Other candidates are in single digits when it comes to this issue.

"Deport them all" is what Republicans want.  They want Donald Trump.  No need to overthink this, guys.

StupidiNews!

• One person was killed as federal agents arrested Ammon Bundy and several other followers driving to a meeting, however several continue to occupy a wildlife refuge in Oregon.
• MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union-Leader will hold an unsanctioned Democratic debate five days before the state's primary, so far only Martin O'Malley says he will be there.
• Republican front-runner Donald Trump says he will not participate in Thursday's debate before the Iowa Caucuses next week, citing anger at FOX News. 
• Philanthropy to US universities reached a record $40.3 billion in 2015, including a record $1.63 billion in gifts to Stanford, edging out Harvard's $1.1 billion.
• Israeli officials say the country's electricity authority was hit by a major computer hack as the country experienced a cold snap and record electricity consumption.

Last Call For Florida Man Strikes Again

I'm pretty sure at this point that red states are just going to try to ban abortions until they can force a Supreme Court ruling that bans abortions. At least, that seems to be the plan in Florida.

Florida lawmakers are moving forward with a near-total ban on abortions in the state plus a second bill placing new requirements on doctors who perform abortions. 

By an 8-3 vote Monday afternoon, a House criminal justice panel voted to advance the more sweeping piece of legislation (HB 865), which would make performing an abortion or operating an abortion clinic a first-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Just hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated its long-standing ruling affirming women's right to the procedure.

“The bill recognizes that both the mother and the baby are citizens of the state of Florida... and we are therefore compelled to protect their lives,” said Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, the bill's sponsor. 

He has put forward similar legislation for seven years, but it had never before been considered by a committee, the first step required to pass a bill into law, until Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, agreed to consider it Monday. Trujillo, the chairman of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, did not discuss the bill during debate and left the committee room without commenting. 

“The Legislature finds that all human life comes from the Creator, has an inherent value that cannot be quantified by man, and begins at the earliest biological development of a fertilized human egg,” the bill says. 

It goes on to say that “personal liberty is not a license to kill or otherwise destroy any form of human life,” and that the state has an interest in stopping abortions, unless the safety of the mother is in question. 

It’s likely that Van Zant’s proposal, if passed by the Legislature, would lead to lawsuits citing the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling inRoe vs. Wade. That became even more likely Monday morning after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an abortion ban in North Dakota.

Florida Republicans have a veto-proof supermajority in the House and nearly one in the Senate, so they could pass the House bill and the Senate would take it up.  One possibility is that it could die there, the argument being that the state would lose millions in taxpayer funds defending a bill that will be overturned by the Supreme Court, but there's no reason to let this out of committee unless the plan is to try to pass it (hence the seven years of not getting out of committee.)

However the other and much more likely possibility is that this bill is meant to sell Ohio-style TRAP laws in the state as a "compromise" bait-and-switch tactic.

Last week, a House panel gave the first nod of approval to tougher licensing requirements (HB 233) for abortion clinics that would hold them to the same or higher standards as surgical centers. 

The third proposal (HB 1411) also passed its first House committee Monday afternoon, by a 7-6 vote. The wide-ranging bill blocks state funding for facilities that perform elective abortions, sets new requirements for inspections by the Agency for Health Care Administration, and requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges and agreements to transfer patients to a hospital located within 30 minutes of the facility where an abortion is performed. 

“I believe that the bill protects the health and wellbeing of mothers in Florida, those who make the choice to have an abortion,” said bill sponsor Rep. Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article56473868.html#storylink=cpy

In other words, things just got very real in the Sunshine State, and abortion just became a major issue in the largest 2016 swing state.  This nasty little trick will almost certainly close several Florida clinics if it gets through, while all the outrage and coverage is on the unconstitutional ban bill.

Neat trick, huh?

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article56473868.html#storylink=cpy

Here We Go Again, Day 24

Time to check in with the Bundy seditionists in Oregon and their armed little insurrection, and Think Progress reporter Casey Quinlan has a good rundown of what's been going on at the wildlife refuge as we enter our fourth week with these bozos still not magically being arrested.

An armed group that has taken over a national wildlife refuge to protest federal land use policies continues to escalate the situation by introducing a common law grand jury, which has no actual legal standing. They have chosen Joaquin Mariano DeMoreta-Folch, St. Augustine Tea Party government accountability chairman and a longtime proponent of convening secret citizens’ panels to indict government officials to be their common law judge and at a recent event held at the refuge a New Mexico rancher, Adrian Sewell of Grant County, New Mexico, renounced his federal grazing contract from the U.S. Forest Service. 

Oregon officials want the militia to leave, saying it’s been far past time for the occupation to end. But it doesn’t look like the leader of the militia, Ammon Bundy, is ready to end the stand-off. 

Bundy walked out of a private meeting with a federal agent on Friday after the agent refused to speak in the presence of media, according to the Associated Press. Bundy also questioned the FBI authority, telling an agent, “If you haven’t got sanction from the sheriff, there’s no reason to be talking to you.” 

On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said the occupation was costly to taxpayers and sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch telling them to end the occupation of federal land “as safely and as quickly as possible.”
Earlier this month, Oregon Sheriff Dave Ward met Ammon Bundy in a near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Ward encouraged Bundy to leave town and told Bundy he would offer “safe escort out.” Bundy and the group of armed men he leads have threatened to kill law enforcement if they try to intervene, so this offer, while intended to spare human lives, is fairly extraordinary when compared to other protests. 

Yet, Bundy lectured the sheriff on the constitution and said the armed men would stay there indefinitely. According to OregonLive, Bundy told the sheriff, “Until we can see that there is a great momentum and the people can get doing that themselves, then we will remain … That could be a week, that could be a year.” After their discussion, the group bulldozed a fence that divided private ranchlands from public land and damaged Native American archeological sites. Last week, two members of the militia were arrested after driving two federal vehicles to a local Safeway.

So a couple dozen armed yahoos have decided that the Federal government has no jurisdiction and are going to stick around against the wishes of pretty much everyone involved.  I understand that these clowns very much want to martyr themselves, commit suicide by federal cop, and be the "heroes" that spark some sort of national Second American Revolution or something stupid like that, but eventually these guys have to go to Federal prison for this.

At some point, law enforcement has to, you know, enforce laws.  It's not "non-violent protest" when you're armed and calling for the overthrow of government.  It's sedition.

Not A Single Solitary Reason

President Obama took to the Washington Post this week to write an op-ed explaining his executive order Monday ending the practice of solitary confinement for juveniles in federal correctional facilities.

The United States is a nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance. Those who do make it out often have trouble holding down jobs, reuniting with family and becoming productive members of society. Imagine having served your time and then being unable to hand change over to a customer or look your wife in the eye or hug your children. 

As president, my most important job is to keep the American people safe. And since I took office, overall crime rates have decreased by more than 15 percent. In our criminal justice system, the punishment should fit the crime — and those who have served their time should leave prison ready to become productive members of society. How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people? It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity. 

That’s why last summer, I directed Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and the Justice Department to review the overuse of solitary confinement across U.S. prisons. They found that there are circumstances when solitary is a necessary tool, such as when certain prisoners must be isolated for their own protection or in order to protect staff and other inmates. In those cases, the practice should be limited, applied with constraints and used only as a measure of last resort. They have identified common-sense principles that should guide the use of solitary confinement in our criminal justice system. 

The Justice Department has completed its review, and I am adopting its recommendations to reform the federal prison system. These include banning solitary confinement for juveniles and as a response to low-level infractions, expanding treatment for the mentally ill and increasing the amount of time inmates in solitary can spend outside of their cells. These steps will affect some 10,000 federal prisoners held in solitary confinement — and hopefully serve as a model for state and local corrections systems. And I will direct all relevant federal agencies to review these principles and report back to me with a plan to address their use of solitary confinement. 

It's a good start, and countless issues with our broken mass incarceration system and mental health treatment system remain and will remain until we demand something is done.

But it's a start.

StupidiNews!

• California police are hunting three escaped inmates from the Orange County Central Men's Jail that broke out on Friday, a $50,000 reward has been posted for information leading to capture.
• The US Supreme Court has sided with the Obama Administration in a 6-2 ruling on electricity regulation that allows utilities to pay large industrial and commercial users to save energy.
• With American tourists now coming to Havana, Cuba's tourism industry is struggling to keep up with the increased demand for hotels and rental cars.
• A Texas grand jury has cleared Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue, but has instead indicted two activists involved with secretly recording the fake sales.
• In the home of ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft, San Francisco's largest cab company is facing bankruptcy reorganization after owing more than $20 million to creditors.

Last Call For Dark Money

This month being the anniversary of the odious Citizens United Supreme Court decision that unleashed unlimited money into our political system, it's worth going over author Jane Meyer's book Dark Money as a hard look at the billionaire right that has all but purchased our political system. The Koch Brothers did everything they could to stop the book coming out, and that included going after Meyer herself.

In the summer of 2010, she published a pathbreaking, in-depth piece, headlined "Covert Operations," which chronicled the rise of the Kochs' ideological network—dubbed the "Kochtopus"—and the efforts of the publicity-shy libertarian brothers to guide the burgeoning tea party toward policies that favor Koch Industries. The article depicted the Kochs as secretive bankrollers waging a war against President Barack Obama and opposing environmental safety measures. The Kochs were enraged by the story. A lawyer for their company complained; David Koch called the story "ludicrous." But the New Yorker saw no reason to correct anything. And the kerfuffle seemed to die down. Or so Mayer thought. 

While reporting for her book, Mayer discovered that after her story was published, the Koch political machine assigned six or so operatives, who were working in borrowed space in the lobbying firm operated by J.C. Watts, a former Republican congressman, to dig up dirt on her. She notes that a source told her, "If they couldn't find it, they'd create it." And Mayer maintains that a private investigative firm, Vigilant Resources International, was hired for this job as well. (This company was founded by Howard Safir, who had been a New York City police commissioner when Rudy Giuliani was mayor.) 

Mayer writes that she was at the time unaware of this effort, but she began to spot clues. A blogger asked if she had heard the rumor that a private detective firm was on her trail. At a Christmas party, a former reporter told her that a private investigator had mentioned that some conservative billionaires were looking for dirt on a reporter who had written a story they disliked. Then, in January 2011, a New York Post reporter, Keith Kelly, contacted David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, to get a comment on "allegations" that would soon be published claiming that Mayer had borrowed heavily from other reporters. Shortly after that, as Mayer puts it in her book, Jonathan Strong, then a reporter at the conservative Daily Caller, emailed Mayer and Remnick and asked whether her work fell "within the realm of plagiarism." He sent several examples of her purported theft. 

Mayer mobilized quickly. She contacted the writers whose works she had supposedly swiped—in some cases she had given credit to these writers—and they told her they did not consider these instances of plagiarism. Mayer says she sent these facts to the Daily Caller, and the story disappeared. Subsequently, in the New York Post, Kelly wondered, "Who is behind the apparently concerted campaign to smear The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer?" Kelly asked Tucker Carlson, the editor of the Daily Caller, about the origins of these allegations against Mayer, and Carlson replied, "I have no clue where we got it. I never ask the reporters where they get stuff, only whether it's true. In this case, we didn't have enough." Strong declined to talk to Kelly about the story. 

The Koch operatives, Mayer was later told by a source she doesn't name in her book, "thought they had you. They thought they were going to be knighted by the Kochs." And Mayer observes, "Their search for dirt had started with my personal life, I was told, but when that turned up nothing truly incriminating, they moved on to plagiarism." Later on, the general counsel of Koch Industries sent a letter to the American Society of Magazine Editors decrying the article in an attempt to prevent the New Yorker from winning a National Magazine Award for the piece. 

When Mayer asked Safir if his firm had investigated her, he said, "I don't comment. I don't confirm or deny it." And a spokesman for the Koch brothers would not talk to Mayer about this. Indeed, another Koch brothers spokesman did not respond this week when Mother Jones asked if the Kochs had mounted a secret operation against Mayer.

The effort failed and Meyer's book came out this month, it's on my reading list.  But it should serve as a major alarm to our sleeping media, because the only reason they are allowed to exist is that the corporate giants who own them see benefit in keeping them around.

When that changes, when a journalist goes after the Kochs, for instance, all bets are off.

DIspatches From Bevinstan, Con't

Here in Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin is raising a lot of eyebrows today after declaring a state of emergency for this weekend's major winter storm...and then jetting off for New Hampshire to give a speech in front of Republicans.

Bevin was guest speaker at a Saturday luncheon during the New Hampshire GOP's "First in the Nation Presidential Town Hall," according to media reports. Bevin, who took office as governor last month, grew up in the Granite State.

His administration defended his decision to leave Kentucky while it was under a state of emergency.

"Gov. Bevin has been directly involved in the management of this snow storm," said Jessica Ditto, Bevin's spokeswoman, in a text message.

Bevin decided Saturday morning that the weather situation was well-in-hand and that he would honor his commitment to speak in New Hampshire. She said the governor also was meeting with companies interested in moving jobs to Kentucky.

Earlier Saturday, Bevin posted pictures of himself on Twitter in front of a salt truck and alongside state highway workers.

Many parts of Kentucky got more than a foot of snow, stranding thousands of motorists overnight on Interstate 75 and leaving thousands without power.

So Bevin's answer to his first real test as Governor under a weather emergency was "Let me go give a speech in New Hampshire, you guys will be fine."

Yeah, that seems about par for the course for the guy personality-wise.  Not too particularly worried about thousands without power, but he's got to go take a trip to give a speech bragging about he's the future of the GOP heading into 2020.

He'll reimburse the state later for the trip.  Good job if you can get it.

Jeb Bush, Professional Loser Magnet

Jeb Bush is a horrible candidate, and I'm not sure how the reputation as "the smart Bush" got hung around his neck, but if there's one thing Jeb! is actually good at, it's siding with the losers well after the game is over.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Sunday applauded Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's response to the water contamination crisis in Flint -- even though the situation was caused by Snyder's own administration.

"I admire Rick Snyder for stepping up right now," Bush said on CNN's "State of the Union." "He's going to the challenge. He's fired people and accepted responsibility to fix this."

Bush's praise comes as some are demanding Snyder's resignation over the preventable disaster in Flint, where as many as 100,000 people have been drinking and bathing in brown, lead-contaminated water that the government previously told them was safe. As The Huffington Post's Arthur Delaney reports, this happened because Snyder's government gave Flint bad water treatment advice.

When host Jake Tapper said he was surprised to hear positive words for Snyder given his role in the catastrophe, Bush held firm and said he's impressed with the way the Republican governor is owning the issue.

"Instead of saying, 'The dog ate my homework, it's someone else's fault,' once it became clear, he's taking the lead now," Bush said. "That's exactly what I think leaders have to do."

The guy has all the political instincts of a particularly runny cow pie, I swear.  He's abysmal at this. Rick Snyder is as politically toxic as the sludge water he's still forcing Flint residents to drink, and we're supposed to think that praising the guy is going to help Jeb Bush's case as "a guy who makes good decisions"?

Oy.  Can somebody just shut the guy up already?

StupidiNews!

• A 7.1-magnitude earthquake rocked Alaska over the weekend, centered on the Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage, where no major damage was reported early Sunday.
• Israeli doctors say 92-year-old former Israeli President Shimon Peres in in stable condition after the Nobel Peace Prize winner was admitted to a Tel Aviv hospital for chest pains.
• US Secretary of State John Kerry saya scheduled Syrian peace talks that were to have started today are being delayed as invitations to various rebel parties are still being lined up. 
• January is on track to be the slowest month in new IPO stock offerings since December 2008, so far zero IPO offerings have been scheduled for this month.
• Oklahoma Republicans are pushing legislation that would prevent teachers from being disciplined for teaching alternative scientific theories.

Last Call For The Moose And The Money Man

Welp, you knew this was coming.

"I hope nobody's allergic to nuts, because we've got a big one here."

Indeed, we do.

Innovative Technology Solutions From The GOP

Broadband internet still not available to 10% of America?  That's a problem in 2016.  The Republican fix to the problem is very simple: redefine "broadband internet speeds" downward until everyone qualifies.

A year after the Federal Communications Commission changed the definition of broadband Internet to include only faster speeds, Republicans in Congress are still mad about the decision.

Using the new broadband minimum speed of 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload, the FCC'sannual review of deployment this month said that broadband isn't being offered to about 34 million Americans. ISPs immediately criticized that assessment; yesterday their friends in Congress piled on.

Six Republican Senators—Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)—outlined their concerns in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler yesterday. (The Hill reported on the letter andposted a copy.) "We are concerned that this arbitrary 25/3 Mbps benchmark fails to accurately capture what most Americans consider broadband... Looking at the market for broadband applications, we are aware of few applications that require download speeds of 25Mbps," the senators wrote. "Netflix, for example, recommends a download speed of 5Mbps to receive high-definition streaming video, and Amazon recommends a speed of 3.5Mbps. In addition, according to the FCC's own data, the majority of Americans who can purchase 25Mbps service choose not to."

The Republicans' argument seems to assume a household with just one Internet-connected device running a single application. When the FCC increased the definition of broadband from 4Mbps/1Mbps to 25Mbps/3Mbps, it said that families are using multiple devices simultaneously and that the older broadband standard was "inadequate for evaluating whether broadband capable of supporting today’s high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way.”

ISPs themselves admit as much in their marketing, Wheeler argued a year ago, pointing out that Verizon says 25Mbps speeds are "best for one to three devices at the same time, great for surfing, e-mail, online shopping and social networking, [and] streaming two HD videos simultaneously." Verizon's marketing pushed 50Mbps as the speeds families should get if they use three to five devices at the same time.

So why is this such a big deal to Republicans and the ISP who they own?  Because net neutrality rules work off of the availability of broadband.  Republicans want to define the category of broadband downward so that ISPs can meet net neutrality competition standards more easily.

Nice of them, huh.

Sunday Long Read: The Case Against Bernie

Jon Chait makes the same arguments that myself and many of my readers have made against a Bernie Sanders presidency: that while what Sanders want to accomplish is laudable, eventually his methods to accomplish them include "and then the country rallies around me and we win."

The Sanders campaign represents a revolution of rising expectations. In 2008, the last time Democrats held a contested primary, the prospect of simply taking back the presidency from Republican control was nearly enough to motivate the party’s vote. The potential to enact dramatic change was merely a bonus. After nearly two terms of power, with the prospect of Republican rule now merely hypothetical, Democrats want more.

The paradox is that the president’s ability to deliver more change is far more limited. The current occupant of the Oval Office and his successor will have a House of Representatives firmly under right-wing rule, making the prospects of important progressive legislation impossible. This hardly renders the presidency impotent, obviously. The end of Obama’s term has shown that a creative president can still drive some change.

But here is a second irony: Those areas in which a Democratic Executive branch has no power are those in which Sanders demands aggressive action, and the areas in which the Executive branch still has power now are precisely those in which Sanders has the least to say. The president retains full command of foreign affairs; can use executive authority to drive social policy change in areas like criminal justice and gender; and can, at least in theory, staff the judiciary. What the next president won’t accomplish is to increase taxes, expand social programs, or do anything to reduce inequality, given the House Republicans’ fanatically pro-inequality positions across the board. The next Democratic presidential term will be mostly defensive, a bulwark against the enactment of the radical Ryan plan. What little progress liberals can expect will be concentrated in the non-Sanders realm.

So even if you fervently endorse Sanders's policy vision (which, again for the sake of full candor, I do not), he has chosen an unusually poor time to make it the centerpiece of a presidential campaign. It can be rational for a party to move away from the center in order to set itself up for dramatic new policy changes; the risk the Republican Party accepted in 1980 when Ronald Reagan endorsed the radical new doctrine of supply-side economics allowed it to reshape the face of government. But it seems bizarre for Democrats to risk losing the presidency by embracing a politically radical doctrine that stands zero chance of enactment even if they win.

The political reality is that the House, the Senate, and 24 states are under total GOP control, along with 70 of 99 state legislatures and 31 governor's mansions.  Until that is fixed, even the most left-friendly president won't be able to get things done.

Ross's Revenge: The Bloombergining

So question for the assembled: who would be hurt more by a Michael Bloomberg third party Perot run, the GOP or the Dems?

Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for an independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers said he is galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side.

Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has in the past contemplated running for the White House on a third-party ticket, but always concluded he could not win. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations.

Mr. Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

He has retained a consultant to help him explore getting his name on those ballots, and his aides have done a detailed study of past third-party bids. Mr. Bloomberg commissioned a poll in December to see how he might fare against Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton, and he intends to conduct another round of polling after the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 to gauge whether there is indeed an opening for him, according to two people familiar with his intentions.

Mr. Bloomberg’s aides have sketched out one version of a campaign plan that would have the former mayor, a low-key and cerebral personality, deliver a series of detailed policy speeches, backed by an intense television advertising campaign that would introduce him to voters around the country as a technocratic problem-solver and self-made businessman who understands the economy and who built a bipartisan administration in New York.

On the surface, I would think that Bloomberg would run as a gun-control, abortion-friendly moderate Republican, but I really can't decide if that would draw off more Stepford Wives Republicans sick of Trump/Cruz, or Lefty Dudebro Dems who hate Hillary and are eyeing Trump because of his billionaire status.

The Bloomberg numbers could change wildly if Cruz or Sanders are candidates rather than Clinton or Trump, too.  I dunno.

I know the last time this happened back in '92, Democrats won pretty handily, but that was against incumbent Poppy Bush, and both parties lost millions of votes to Ross Perot, Clinton just lost fewer.

Poppy's numbers were about where Obama's are now, upper 40's/low 50's too.  I don't know, I'd need more data.  My gut tells me Bloomberg would split the "time for a change from the Democrats" vote and Hillary would win, but I dunno if that would happen.

What say you guys?

The Academy Learns A Lesson

With the massive #OscarsSoWhite backlash against the Academy Awards for a second straight year without a single person of color nominated for a major acting or directing category, and high-profile actors like Jada Pinkett Smith, her husband Will Smith, and Mark Ruffalo calling the Academy out, the organization is moving quickly to repair its less than golden image.

The organization that hands out Hollywood’s highest honors, reacting to criticism of its all-white slate of Oscar acting nominees this year, is taking steps to improve the diversity of its membership, including curtailing the voting rights of inactive participants.

The goal is to double the number of women and minorities who are members by 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences said Friday in an e-mailed statement. The organization plans to add three new governors to its board immediately.

The absence of a minority nominee for a second-straight year, especially after critically acclaimed performances by Will Smith in “Concussion” and Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation,” has sparked renewed calls for change and revived the Twitter hashtag #Oscarssowhite. Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is black, promised there would be changes after the nominations were announced on Jan. 14.

“One good step in a long, complicated journey for people of color + women artists,” Ava DuVernay, who directed “Selma,” said on Twitter after the announcement. “Shame is a helluva motivator.”

Starting this year, each new member’s voting status will last 10 years, and will be renewed if that new member has been active in motion pictures during that decade, the academy said. Lifetime voting rights will be bestowed on individuals after three 10-year terms, or if they have won or been nominated for an Academy Award. 

April Reign, who has done an amazing job for a second year with #OscarsSoWhite, has gotten a lot of press over this and has really been an excellent voice for people of color concerning the movement.  She's pretty pleased with the results:

I’m very encouraged. I think that the changes that will be made will make a significant difference. I appreciate the fact that the vote was unanimous, which indicates to me that the academy is serious about making the organization more inclusive and more diverse. I’ve spoken about my concern that some of the older academy members still have a vote even though they aren’t active in the film industry and that appears to be addressed.

The fact that they will be proactively looking for more diverse members is [also] exciting.

And the lesson:

Never say it’s just Twitter or that social media can’t change things, because I think we’re seeing it. My words and the words of so many seem to have resonated with the academy. There were thousands of people using the hashtag. I think this is a really good start toward systemic change with respect to the academy.

It's one the Academy is learning the hard way this weekend.