Liz Cheney, eldest daughter of Darth Cheney, has announced she is running for the Senate, taking on another Republican for the nomination.
News reports do not answer the questions top in our minds: Does Liz, like her father, lack a beating heart? Does she have a reflection in the mirror? Can she be warded off with garlic? What type of spell is she casting in the picture above?
A prom apparently has a different meaning in the U.K. than in the United States. There were rumors that the identity of the next Doctor would be revealed at a prom this weekend. That didn’t occur, but there was an appearance by Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman in the video above.
Entertainment Weekly interviewed Steven Moffat. Following are some of the more interesting/news worthy answers:
Are you hoping the new Doctor will appear in this year’s Christmas special?
Yes. That’s not the hope — that’s the plan. It’ll be the traditional regeneration. You know, the eleventh will fall and the twelfth shall rise. And you’ll see that in the closing moments of the show. I mean, you sometimes sit and think, “Are there better ways of doing it? Is there a different way of doing it?” But quite honestly what could be better than that? It’s just too exciting. [Laughs]Am I right in thinking that the new series—the first post-Matt shows—will be broadcast in late summer 2014?
I think that’s probably right. But these things change so often.What can you tell us about this November’s Doctor Who 50th anniversary show?
[Laughs] Oh, well, very, very little. It will feature of course Matt and Jenna Coleman, but in addition there’ll be Billie Piper and David Tennant and John Hurt. But we’ve been really quite careful. We have a philosophy that anything we shot outside we had to own up to but the rest of it…You’re just going to have to wait until November to find out about.What is the format of the 50th anniversary special? Is it movie-length?
It’s a special episode. I think you could call it movie-length, yeah. I mean, I’m saying that with a slight hint of vagueness because I don’t know the finished running time. [Laughs] It’s certainly well over an hour.How much longer do you yourself intend to stay with the show?
I think a year at a time. I’ve signed up for this next year, with the new Doctor. It’s one of those jobs when you know when you’ve had enough. At the moment I haven’t had enough and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m very excited for the challenge of the new Doctor and establishing that new Doctor. So, no plans to leave as yet. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be here for 20 years. There will come that day when I think it’s time someone else had a go and it’s time I did something else.You’re also the executive producer of Sherlock. Have you finished shooting the new series yet?
Oh, I wish! We’ve done two. But we’ve now got a small gap — a small gap? A large gap! — while Martin (Freeman) goes back to New Zealand to film a bit more of the Hobbit and then he’ll return to us. Hopefully, by that time, I’ll actually have finished the Sherlock script I’m writing and we’ll make another one.
Entertainment Weekly has picked up some news on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in preparation for their Comic-Con panel. Here are a couple of the top items:
1. The pilot hints at how mild-mannered kick-ass bureaucrat Agent Coulson (Clarke Gregg) was resurrected to lead the team after being killed off in The Avengers (his S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues say he must “never know the truth” about his death). Yet you’ll have to keep watching to learn the full story. “We can’t wait to pull the curtain back on that,” says co-creator Jed Whedon. “[But] we’re going to take our time.”
2. The S.H.I.E.L.D. story will work in tandem with the Marvel films, both past and upcoming. In fact, the first episode will pick up a storyline that’s familiar from one of the Marvel hits — and it’s not The Avengers. “We plan on trying to weave in between the films and try to make them more rewarding on both ends,” says Jed Whedon, who points out the trick is to make the audience not ask a certain fanboy-bar-fight-style question: “In any of these [episodes], you can always ask: ‘Why don’t they just call Iron Man?’” Yeah, that would be annoying! So our next question is: Why don’t they just call Iron Man? “They are aware of each other,” Whedon says of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team and the metal-suited Malibu playboy, “but they do have to have their own lives.”
J.K. Rowling had a detective novel published under the name of Robert Galbraith earlier this year, with her identity leaking out this week. io9 has a rundown of reviews of the novel, which sound quite favorable. Conveniently, the book is scheduled for paperback release later this month.
Zachary Quinto has this speculation regarding the next Star Trek movie: “Star Trek 3 should be filming, I suppose, next year. It’s going to be made a lot quicker than the last one. That’s the plan, although nothing is confirmed yet.” That would make it difficult for J.J. Abrams to direct as he will be busy with Star Wars. Presumably they will want to release the next movie for the 50th Anniversary in 2016.
With J.J. Abrams directing movies for both franchises, and with the recent Star Trek movies in many ways being more Star Wars than classic Star Trek, the old Star Wars vs. Star Trek fan wars seem to have died out. George Lucas provides more reason for peace between the two:
The documentary “Trek Nation” chronicles Rod Roddenberry’s personal journey to explore the importance of the legendary sci-fi franchise dreamed up by his father Gene.
The film comes to DVD on Tuesday, and among the bonus materials included in the release is an interview with “Star Wars” creator George Lucas talking about the important role “Star Trek” played in paving the way for his own space opera.
“‘Star Trek’ softened up the entertainment arena so that ‘Star Wars’ could come along and stand on its shoulders,” Lucas said in an interview.
While Star Trek worked far better as a weekly show than as movies, it also must be kept in mind that Star Trek probably would have never been released as a movie, reviving the franchise, if not for the success of Star Wars.
Summer Glau has been cast for a recurring role on Arrow:
Glau, who has amassed plenty of genre street cred in TV series like Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Dollhouse, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and most recently as a recurring on Syfy’s Alphas, is set to play the dangerous Isabel Rochev, Vice President of Acquisitions of Stellmoor International, a company looking to take over Queen Consolidated.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Kristen Bell (currently busy filming the Veronica Mars movie) will have a guest appearance on Parks and Recreations next season, in an episode to air in early October:
After shooting the Veronica Mars movie, Kristen Bell will guest-star in an episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation as Ingrid, a snooty City Councilwoman from Eagleton. “She’s Leslie’s equivalent, but richer and better dressed,” executive producer Michael Schur tells EW. The two will first meet up at the annual Pawnee-Eagleton high school basketball game. Bell and Parks actor Adam Scott previously worked together on Party Down and Veronica Mars, and she currently stars with frequent Parks guest Ben Schwartz on House of Lies.
A lot happened in last week’s True Blood–the type of changes and revelations we might not have expected until towards the end of past seasons. The show certainly has its flaws, and I almost gave up on it a few times, but enough is happening this season to keep my interest.
The Newsroom returns for a second season tonight. Oliva Munn discussed preparation for her role on The Newsroom with Vanity Fair:
“I write a lot of notes in my scripts,” she explains. “It’s important for me to have them there as a reference so I can keep on track for what I’m wanting to convey. Sometimes, no matter how much I prepare, I can let my emotions of the day affect my choices in a scene, so I like to have my notes with me to remind myself of what track I should be on. And with scripts as complicated and rich as Sorkin’s, it’s vital for me. My notes become my sheet music.”’
Netflix is quickly establishing itself as a service worth subscribing to for its original content now that there are multiple choices for on-demand movies. Orange Is The New Black premiered this week and is up to premium cable standards, and they are negotiating for a second season of Arrested Development. Besides their original series, Netflix recently released the excellent BBC2 series The Fall before it completed its run in the UK.
The old Republican Party would talk about abortion during elections but wouldn’t dream of actually trying to restrict abortions and the issue was forgotten between elections. Country Club Republicans didn’t really want to lose this option should their own daughters get pregnant. Republican strategists were wary of the outcome, realizing that making abortion a true political issue would turn their party into a regional party without chance of success beyond the conservative areas of the country. That has already occurred, so perhaps they have nothing more to lose. In the old days, Republican leaders considered the religious right a bunch of kooks as they sought their votes and contributions. Now the kooks are in control of the Republican Party.
Texas today passed harsh restrictions on abortion rights, contrary to the right to privacy inherent in the Constitution as upheld by the Supreme Court. Of course the conservative activist judges who have been working to change the United States into a right wing Bizarro World which our Founding Fathers would not recognize might go along with these Republican attempts to restrict the basic human right to control one’s own body. Conservatives have been spreading a revisionist history for the past several years denying the separation of church and state which this nation was founded upon.
Placing these restrictions on abortion rights is part of a trend:
In the first six months of this year, a total of 47 line items restricting abortion have been enacted in 18 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based research group that supports abortion rights. Perry’s signing of the Texas legislation would bring the 2013 count to 52 restrictions in 19 states.
That midyear tally is the second-highest of all time, surpassed only by 2011, when 80 line-item restrictions were enacted in 19 states.
The Republicans will enjoy such political victories in the short run. They are aided in many states by advantages gained in 2010 when voters were conned into thinking they were voting for jobs, not the agenda of the religious right. In the long run, this will just accelerate the trend for Republicans to be unable to be elected outside of the most authoritarian portions of the country. Demographic trends may make even victories in some Republican areas more difficult. The authoritarians of the Republican Party share the tendency of authoritarian groups to support racism and xenophobia. Even Texas might not be a safe Republican state in another decade. Look at the electoral map and try to figure out how Republicans have any chance of winning a national election without Texas, after losing other large states such as Ohio and Florida.
“Republicans are already trying to paint Hillary Clinton as too old to be president. In fact, a new ad claims she’s so old that she could be a Republican.” –Conan O’Brien
One of the strangest headlines ever: Man arrested for having sex with pool raft
Rand Paul is standing by his aide who went by the name Southern Avenger in an interview with Howard Fineman:
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Sen. Rand Paul stoutly defended an aide who, as a radio shock jock in South Carolina, praised John Wilkes Booth, heaped scorn on Abraham Lincoln and wore a ski mask emblazoned with the stars and bars of the Confederate Battle Flag.
Paul (R-Ky.) stressed that he opposed such views, many of which have been recanted by the Senate aide, Jack Hunter, who co-wrote Paul’s first book in 2010 and who is now his social media adviser in Washington.
“I’m not a fan of secession,” Paul said. “I think the things he said about John Wilkes Booth are absolutely stupid. I think Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. Do I think Lincoln was wrong is taking away the freedom of the press and the right of habeas corpus? Yeah.
“There were great people who were for emancipation. Lincoln came to his greatness. One Republican congressman described it as ‘on borrowed plumage.’ I love the description, because there were some great fighters [for emancipation] and Lincoln had to be pushed. But I’m not an enemy of Lincoln, like some who think he was an awful person.”
Paul said that Hunter had never acted in a discriminatory way, and that his earlier work in South Carolina was a form of youthful political showmanship.
“People are calling him a white supremacist,” Paul told me in his Senate office. “If I thought he was a white supremacist, he would be fired immediately. If I thought he would treat anybody on the color of their skin different than others, I’d fire him immediately.
“All I can say is, we have a zero tolerance policy for anybody who displays discriminatory behavior or belief in discriminating against people based on the color of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation, anything like that,” Paul told me. “We won’t tolerate any of that, and I’ve seen no evidence of that.
The Hill summarized the controversy:
Paul’s comments follow a report from the conservative Washington Free Beacon about Hunter, who joined Paul’s office as social media director in 2012. Hunter worked with Paul on the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.
In his 20s, Hunter was the chairman of the League of the South, a group that “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern State from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic,” according to the Free Beacon report.
Anti-Defamation League Investigative Research Director Mark Pitcavage called the group “implicitly racist.”
During his radio career, Hunter also discussed “racial pride” and expressed his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, according to the Free Beacon. In 2004, Hunter wrote that the Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth’s heart was “in the right place.”
During his time as a radio host, Hunter would also make public appearances wearing a mask with the Confederate flag printed on it. Paul brushed off the mask when asked about it.
White supremacists have always been a major part of Ron Paul’s support. Rand Paul has attempted to position himself as a more mainstream Republican while still capitalizing on his father’s supporters. Failing to distance himself from someone such as Hunter will make it more difficult for Paul to maintain mainstream support beyond the south.
Politico reports that Sarah Palin is thinking of running for the Senate next year in Alaska. The seat is currently held by first-term Democrat Mark Begich.
My bet is that Sarah Palin prefers the money and high profile she currently has in conservatives circles. There remain many potential opportunities for her outside of politics. The conservative and Tea Party movements are full of fools who are easily parted from their money. It is questionable if the former half-term governor of Alaska would be interested in doing the work of being a Senator for the next three years.
Ron and Rand Paul both have a tremendous number of supporters who agree with them on one or a small number of issues but typically have little knowledge of the full spectrum of their beliefs. This commonly stems from their views on foreign policy or drugs. Their opposition to the drug war as well as the Iraq War did make them stand out, but their extreme states’ rights view should not be confused with libertarianism. Their supporters range from libertarians to neo-Nazi groups, and in many ways it is the neo-Nazis who understand their views the best. Their opposition to government action is generally restricted to the federal government. This, along with opposition to the checks and balances in our system, sets up a situation which would make tyranny on a state or local level far easier to achieve.
Ron Paul has always been a creature of the extreme end of the old right, supporting their views ranging from isolationism to racism. Some libertarians still accept Paul’s denials of involvement in his own racist publications, while many other libertarians did distance themselves from Paul when his denials were debunked. Whether Rand Paul can avoid being tainted by his father’s racism might have a major influence on the trajectory of his political career. The Washington Free-Beacon raises questions as to whether Rand Paul has a similar background to his father’s:
A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.
Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.
Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”
“The League of the South is an implicitly racist group in that the idealized version of the South that they promote is one which, to use their ideology, is dominated by ‘Anglo-Celtic’ culture, which is their code word for ‘white’,” said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research at the ADL. The ADL said it does not necessarily classify it as a hate group.
There is far more about Hunter in the linked article. Rand Paul’s office released a statement saying “Sen. Paul holds his staff to a standard that includes treating every individual with equal protection and respect, without exception.”
I doubt that the views of a single staffer will seriously taint Rand Paul, but being the son of a prominent racist politician does place his career at risk, at least on a national level, if further reasons to question Rand Paul regarding racism should be uncovered.
Update: It appears this isn’t the first time a staffer has been tied to racist views:
And the worst part for Paul-land is that it’s hardly the first time something like this has come up. In late 2009, Rand Paul’s campaign spokesperson was forced to resign after Kentucky blogger Joe Sonka discovered the MySpace page for Chris Hightower’s heavy metal band, which was a fan of KKK gear and wishing people a “HAPPY N***ER DAY!!!” on Martin Luther King Day (that post was accompanied by a photo of a lynching). There was also, of course, Paul’s momentary opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“According to the polls, Anthony Weiner is the favorite to become the next mayor of New York City. How many of you have seen the Weiner poll? Anthony Weiner is out front. Isn’t that what got him into trouble in the first place? It’ll be a long campaign. All the guy has to do is stick it out. I hope the guy doesn’t get cocky. Weiner has a firm lead and his popularity is swelling.” –David Letterman
