Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 205

25 last-minute book gifts to stuff in your favorite reader’s stocking

I suffer from bibliophilia and I’ll admit I often prefer to spend time with books rather than people, but that’s not a problem . . . is it?

One thing I love almost as much as the books themselves is recommending them to people, so here I’ve selected 25 of the best titles I’ve read this year (out of the 104. So far. There are still a few weeks left of the year, you know).

I read eclectically and widely, so there should be something here for everyone on your gift list, or you may even want to pick up a few for an early Christmas present to yourself. It’s been a hard year – you deserve it!

Speaking of hard years, while I didn’t plan to do this, quite a few of the books on the list have a political angle, from a French philosopher who seems to have predicted the Trump era, to an apocalypse novel that could prove prophetic soon, to a classic treatise exploring the effect of screens and entertainment on American society. Furthermore, 17 of the 25 authors here are women, which also seems appropriate, with the recent resurgence of feminism and the #MeToo movement.

Most of these books were published within the last few years, though a few older classics appear as well. Happy reading to you and yours!

“Hello Sunshine,” Laura Dave

This humorous novel straddles the chick lit-line. It’s got all the qualities of a good entry in the genre: female main character, love interests, happy ending, solvable relationship problems – but there’s something more here, as well. Ultimately, this book shows us what it’s like to struggle to live an authentic life in our current culture that values appearance and image more than anything else. An added plus: it’s also food porn. This book is perfect for the Food Network or HGTV junkie who feels maybe just a bit guilty about their love for reality-TV shows.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Society of the Spectacle,” Guy Debord

Okay, so I’ll admit I haven’t actually finished reading this one yet, though I started it over a month ago. This book, written by a French philosopher, is dense, and it’s been a long time since I took that philosophy course in college. It’s worth a read, though, for anyone looking to understand our current political and cultural predicament. For a taste of the wisdom here: “Understood on its own terms, the spectacle proclaims the predominance of appearances and asserts that all human life . . . is mere appearance.”

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,” Neil Postman

The lover of classic cultural criticism on your list has probably already read this one, but it’s worth another read. When this book was first published in 1985, television’s detrimental societal effects was the pressing concern. With the proliferation of screens since then (and the invention of the internet, of course), the book may be even more relevant now than it was then.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors,” Jeanne E. Arnold, et al.

This study, produced by three anthropologists and a photographer, makes some great points about consumerism and over-busyness, as well as giving insight into how American families use the spaces in their homes. It claims to be the first “systematic” study of its type, in its documentation of the “staggeringly complex material worlds of contemporary American families.” Or, if you want to just look at the pictures, there’s some amazing clutter porn here, along with inspiration to get off the couch and clean your house for those fast-approaching family holiday visits. Buy it for the fan of “Hoarders: Buried Alive,” or for your favorite anthropologist.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“One Second After,” William R. Forstchen

A fast-paced apocalypse novel in which the “end of the world as we know it” has been instigated by a war that America loses, this book may almost too real for most people on your gift-buying list, unless, that is, you’ve got to find that special present for Uncle Bannon. There’s nothing he likes more than contemplating the END OF ALL THINGS. This is the first book of a trilogy, and the final book, :The Final Day,” just came out in October, so if you’re feeling generous, get him all three!

Buy “One Second After” on Amazon here; buy “The Final Day” here.

“The Guest Room,” Chris Bohjalian

This is the perfect book for your friend who loves to be disturbed. Honestly, I could barely get through this it, it was so disturbing, yet it was hard to put down! The plot, which involves teenage sex workers who murder their Russian “bodyguards,” is especially timely. Because of Russia, I mean. Right? This is also a great one for the Twitter-obsessed bibliophile. Bohjalian is very friendly on Twitter and will totally respond if you tweet to him. That’s how I found out that he reads in the bathtub every night. TMI?

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Citizen: An American Lyric,” Claudia Rankine

As a book that has won numerous awards, this is the one to buy for your cousin who’s getting his MFA in poetry writing. Rankine’s work generally considered one of the most important poetry books of the last 10 years or more, and every serious poet should have it in their library. Or, buy it for your white-supremacist uncle who needs to learn what it’s like to live as an African-American in our country. It may not change his views, but it’ll provide for some exciting Christmas dinner arguments.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Small Great Things,” Jodi Picoult

Here’s another one for your uncle. In this book, an African-American nurse is accused by a white supremacist couple of killing their infant shortly after birth. Is she really guilty? I won’t spoil it for you (or for your uncle), but as with all of Picoult’s books, this one is a real page-turner and, as her books tend to be, extremely timely, exploring issues of race and politics in America.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“My Not So Perfect Life,” Sophie Kinsella

This is what our current political climate has brought me to: chick lit. But after being inundated with bad news day after day, a little decently written, humorous, fast-paced chick lit can be just the thing. And as Sophie Kinsella books are set in England, this one also appeals to my inner-Anglophile. Buy this for the woman in your life for her bathtub reading, along with a good bottle of white and some dark-chocolate truffles.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing,” Jennifer Weiner

Speaking of chick lit, this memoir by genre writer Jennifer Weiner is what started my recent chick lit binge. One of the fun things about reading her novels, after having read this memoir, is noticing all the parallels in them to her life, and then seeing where she diverges from her own narrative. Also, her awkward childhood and adolescence will make this one appealing to any woman who has ever felt awkward (that is, all of us).

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Middle School: Big Fat Liar,” James Patterson

This book is number three in Patterson’s Middle School series, and I was forced to listen to it on audio in the car by my 11-year-old son. While I don’t normally dabble in literature for middle-school boys (nor books of the James Patterson persuasion), the book is surprisingly funny and contains some good lessons for kids that aren’t packaged in too cheesy of a manner. Get this one for the eight to 12-year-olds on your list (boys or girls), or wrap it up for your buddy Donald Trump. It reads at his grade level, and the message is one we need him to hear.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“The Best We Could Do,” Thi Bui

This bestseller is for the graphic novel connoisseur. I checked this out from the library for my son and he passed it on to me, making it the first graphic novel I have ever read. I was impressed by the narrative of this poignant memoir, which follows a family’s journey out of war-torn Vietnam. With this book, I had made the mistake that most graphic novels are for kids, so imagine my surprise when I encountered a childbirth scene, complete with rather graphic images. So maybe wait a year or two before you buy this one for your 11-year-old nephew. It’s best for the sixteen-and-up crowd.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots,” Jessica Soffer; “Swimming Lessons,” Claire Fuller

With compelling female characters and top-notch prose, these two novels will appeal to the literary-minded feminist in your life. Soffer’s book will also interest foodies, as the main character is a 15-year-old girl on a quest to recreate the recipe for her mother’s favorite meal.  Fuller’s book will entice bibliophiles with its book-focused mystery and a setting that includes a charming local bookshop.

Buy “Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots” on Amazon here, and “Swimming Lessons,” here.

“The Idiot,” Elif Batuman; “The Weird Sisters,” Eleanor Brown

Another set of books that will appeal to the literary feminist, but this one will also interest the college student on your gift list, or the friend who loved college and still pines for those days. College student Selin, narrates her college adventures and mis-adventures in in Bautman’s book, while the “The Weird Sisters” is set in a small liberal-arts college town. The father of the three sisters in this latter book is a Shakespeare professor and scholar (thus the “weird sisters” reference), and the entire family communicates mostly through Shakespearean quotes.

Buy “The Idiot” on Amazon here, and “The Weird Sisters,” here.

“Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World,” Nell Stevens

This beautifully written literary memoir is a must-have for all the writers on your gift list. Author Nell Stevens wins a grant to go anywhere in the world to write her novel and picks a place where she thinks she’ll encounter the least distractions: the Falklands. Distraction-free it is, but seeing how she deals with the challenge of being alone with herself for a long period of time is eye opening. In the end, did she get a novel out of the experience? No, not one that has been published, anyway: I Went to the Falklands and All I Got Was This Stupid Memoir. But not stupid at all, and the lesson here for writers is not only to never give up, but also, be willing to write what comes to you – even if it doesn’t follow your original plan.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit,” Michael Finkel

Here’s another book about purposeful isolation, only Christopher Knight spent 27 years alone instead of just three months like Stevens. Part biography, part mystery, this nonfiction title is as gripping as a novel, and the descriptions of Knight’s time in the woods will so appeal to your dad. In fact, the copy I got for my dad just arrived today.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things,” Jenny Lawson

And then we have another inspiring, never-give-up kind of memoir — but this one, as the title suggests, is hilarious! And yes, also horrible. Jenny Lawson struggles with debilitating depression and anxiety, and here she documents the struggle honestly and brutally while also managing to maintain a remarkable sense of humor. Her first memoir, “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,” is worth a look as well.  In fact, get your memoir lover and/or depressed sister both. It’s best to read them in order.

Buy “Furiously Happy” on Amazon here, and “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,” here.

“Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine,” Gail Honeyman

Speaking of depression, in this novel, the title character, surprisingly, Eleanor Oliphant, is not actually fine at all. In fact, she tries to kill herself. I won’t mention any spoilers here (besides that tiny one), but this book is so compelling that I read it in just two days, and just like the Jenny Lawson books, it’s also extremely funny and leaves you with a good feeling, which is just what any reader needs these days.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Purity,” Jonathan Franzen

Yes, I know,  everyone hates Franzen. Still, I thought I needed more male authors on this list, so here ya go. But seriously, I love this type of book – long (this one’s over 600 pages), epic novels that you can really get lost in, in which the main characters’ psyches are probed in minute detail. Give it as a hate present, if you like, though the recipient may end up loving it, contrary to expectations.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood,” Trevor Noah

Hey, another male author! Noah is a funny guy, and yes, there is some funny stuff in this book, but it’s not all jokes. There’s also a lot of eye-opening discussion of South Africa and Apartheid/post-Apartheid life as we see Noah, a bi-racial kid, growing up in a world where he just doesn’t fit in anywhere. Fans of “The Daily Show” will love this one.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“Today Will Be Different,” Maria Semple

Let’s not get too crazy with the male authors, now. This novel is one of the most enjoyable audiobooks I listened to this year. Not only is the story funny and serious and compelling all at once, but the narrator is someone you’d love to hang out and gossip with at your neighborhood Starbucks. This is Semple’s second novel, and her first one, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” is just as fun (the audiobook version again). Pick this book up for your friend who has to do a lot of driving and needs some entertainment in the car.

Buy “Today Will Be Different” on Amazon here, and “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” here.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” J.K. Rowling

If your friend as a lot a lot of driving, gift him or her a Harry Potter audio book. Book seven of the series is 21 hours and 26 minutes long! Last year I had to drive my kids 40 minutes to and from school, and Harry Potter helped us through. This is a fun listening experience, even if you’ve already read the books and seen the movies. Narrator Jim Dale is one of the best; I’d even go so far as to say the audiobook is better than either the book or the movie.

Buy it on Amazon here.

“The Bookshop on the Corner,” Jenny Colgan

This book belongs in one of my favorite new genres: books about books and/or bookstores.here, a librarian loses her job and ends up running a bookstore out of a van in a rural community. This is the perfect book to give to anyone who’s ever dreamed of running a bookstore – which, let’s face it, all of us who love books have had that dream at some point.

Buy it on Amazon here.

Musician David Bazan’s crisis of faith: “I always had assumed that hell was real”

David Bazan (Credit: tinyhuman/Ivan Agerton)

Artists often need to be alone to produce their best work. And in the case of musicians, both the creative process and the fruits of that process, performing, require musicians to be on their own. There’s a lot of time spent on the road, away from friends and family.

David Bazan is a singer/songwriter who spends about half the year on tour. He used to do this with a band, most notably Pedro The Lion, but over the last few years, David’s solo work has gained momentum. So that means more time, well, solo.

“You start to get to the point where your, sort of, basic friendships with people just start to erode where you just don’t have . . . I could just slip through the cracks, you know?” Bazan told the show. “You know how you just have that basic group of friends that you check in on them and they check in on you? There just wasn’t anybody like that. I didn’t have time to be friends with people . . . I just was always behind the wheel of my car by myself.”

But this interview took a pretty mind-blowing turn when it became more about the loss of faith than the creative process. One day Bazan, who got his start in Christian rock, woke up questioning his religion.

“I had always assumed that God existed. I always had assumed that hell was real and all these things, because I grew up in that world,” he said. “My first conscious thoughts were that that was reality. And so I thought, well if I’m going to take this seriously I should go and find the . . . if not proofs for those things, investigate to my own satisfaction that those are leaps of faith that I am taking on my own.”

“Original sin kind of fell pretty quickly after having a daughter,” Bazan said. “I don’t understand and could never love a being who just so easily decides to separate from his beloved creation. I thought, how would that ever be attractive to me? Somebody who thinks that power is the thing that woos me? No. So original sin was gone. . . .  Inerrancy fell. It was like I have these four pillars, and that one went, and then hell went, then original sin went, and then there was just [this] God-slash-Jesus pillar just sort of hanging out there on its own. Like, OK, what do we do now?”

Hear Bazan tell his story:

“The Lonely Hour” is a podcast that explores the feeling of loneliness — and solitude, and other kinds of aloneness — at a time when it may become our next public health epidemic. The show is co-produced by Julia Bainbridge and The Listening Booth. Julia, the host and creator, is an editor and a James Beard Award-nominated writer.

All episodes published on Salon so far can be found here.

Who said it: Republican congressman or Christmas villain?

Jim Carrey as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."

There’s something familiar about the way the GOP talks about the poor. If you’ve been paying close attention to Republicans in the House and Senate, they may strike you as being eerily reminiscent of other curmudgeons we normally hear from this time of year—infamous villains like Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Between defenses of their ruthless attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and their ludicrous justifications for passing a bill that slashes taxes for the rich while hiking costs for the poor and middle classes, Republican politicians are sounding more and more like the grumpy, selfish antagonists from our favorite stories of the season.

Don’t believe it? Take this quiz to see if you can tell the difference between real people and fictional characters. Check your answers at the bottom.

When it comes to the poor, Mitch McConnell’s views are virtually the same as Mr. Potter’s from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” P hoto Credit: Liberty Films (Potter, left); Wikimedia Commons (McConnell, right)

1. “I am an old man and most people hate me. But I don’t like them either, so that makes it all even.”

a) Mitch McConnell

b) Orrin Hatch

c) Mr. Potter (It’s a Wonderful Life)

2. “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.”

a) Paul Ryan

b) Ebenezer Scrooge

c) Mitch McConnell

3. “Are you running a business or a charity ward? Not with my money!”

a) Paul Ryan

b) Mr. Potter

c) Sen. Chuck Grassley

4. “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

a) Sen. Chuck Grassley

b) The Grinch

c) Mr. Potter

5. “Oh, bleeding hearts of the world, unite!”

a) The Grinch

b) Ebenezer Scrooge

c) Orrin Hatch

6. “Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses, are they still in operation? Those who are badly off must go there.”

a) Mitch McConnell

b) Ebenezer Scrooge

c) The Grinch

7. “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything.”

a) Mr. Potter

b) Paul Ryan

c) Orrin Hatch

8. “Those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

a) Mr. Potter

b) Mo Brooks, Alabama congressman

c) Ebenezer Scrooge

9. “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work, so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”

a) The Grinch

b) Ebenezer Scrooge

c) Paul Ryan

10. “Uh-huh. You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class.”

a) Chuck Grassley

b) Paul Ryan

c) Mr. Potter

# # #

Answer key: 1:C, 2:A, 3:B, 4:A, 5:A, 6:B, 7:C, 8:B, 9:C, 10:C

George Zimmerman threatens to “beat Jay-Z,” feed him to alligators over Trayvon Martin series

IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT - Beyonce and JAY Z performs during the On The Run tour at Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Sunday, July 20, 2014 in New Orleans. (Photo by Robin Haper/Invision for Parkwood Entertainment/AP Images) (Credit: Invision For Parkwood Entertainm)

George Zimmerman has threatened to physically assault Jay-Z over the docuseries the hip-hop star is producing about Trayvon Martin, 17-year-old Zimmerman shot and killed.

As HuffPost reports, Zimmerman said the production team for the series “harassed” his family, and showed up to his parents’ house and uncle’s house unannounced to get them to participate in the show. He also claims, the crew trespassed, and that he will “beat Jay-Z” and “anyone who fucks with my parents will be fed to an alligator.”

“What I said is I would beat him as if I was Solange, and he would find himself coming out of the south side of a gator if he comes to Florida and bothers my family,” Zimmerman told the Orlando Sentinel.

Martin also said, “I know how to handle people who fuck with me, I have since February 2012.” Zimmerman killed Martin on February 26, 2012.

Rapper Snoop Dogg responded to Zimmerman’s threats with one of his own: “If one hair on Jays hair is touched that’s when the revolution will b televised. . . Trayvon Martin Gone but not forgotten.”

If one hair on jays hair is touched that’s when the revolution will b televised We one

What it will take for Democrats to take back the House?

(Credit: AP)

What a difference one special election makes! Following Tuesday’s historic victory by Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama’s Senate race, Democrats and Republicans, to say nothing of pundits and election data-crunchers, have been revisiting old assumptions about 2018 and 2020.

Most visibly, the radical reactionary Republicans who backed Roy Moore, led by white nationalist and Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, are on the defensive. Bannon, who never stopped himself from throwing mud before, complained about the Democrats’ “new model” of smearing his Breitbart-branded patriots. Of course, mainstream media had a villainous role.

“I think the new model is they’re going to come at people with personal attacks and just overwhelm them with media — and you got to remember this wasn’t supported, this was triggered by the establishment,” Bannon said Wednesday night on his national radio show, referring to the Washington Post‘s reporting of Moore’s past habit of preying on teenage girls. “They’re the ones that triggered all this stuff on Moore.”

His guest on Breitbart News Tonight, Pat Caddell, went even further into the us-versus-them, real patriots-versus-establishment shills divide that is likely to resurface in 2018’s GOP congressional primaries. (Caddell is a pollster who four decades ago helped elect Democrat Jimmy Carter, but in recent years has backed Donald Trump and white-America centered populism.)

“Understand this,” he intoned. “We’re watching how they are developing to handle the revolt, if you will, or the rebellion; you put it down. And that is to work in concert with the mainstream media. Even Republicans are doing this, as well as the Democratic establishment, to squeeze this out, and they will use it to attack candidates who are unworthy . . . But as people come forth to take back their country, we’re going to have to find ways to protect, to give cover to these people . . . [from others] trying to take them out.”

The Bannon mob isn’t usually this defensive. But after Alabama, they have plenty to worry about, even if it’s not what they’re fixating on. Alabama saw an unprecedented numbers of whites — especially those under 44 and suburban women — vote for a Democrat, instead of reflexively for a Republican.

That is a break-the-mold political development. It was one of many metrics from the Alabama election that leads to a new landscape of blue hope and red dread. Another is Alabama counties with majorities of registered Democrats showed up in much larger percentages to vote than GOP majority counties.

This raises a question some of the country’s best respected election data crunchers and forecasters have been debating since Tuesday: How big of a popular vote majority do Democrats need in 2018 to win back the House?

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, named after Larry Sabato, who decades ago took the helm at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, a rather dense post by Alan Abramowitz concluded, “a popular vote margin of between three and four points would be large enough for this purpose.”

The reason Democrats cannot win elections simply with 50 percent plus one is because many House districts have been gerrymandered, which means their boundaries were drawn based on segregating each party’s most reliable voters. The GOP did this in a dozen states in 2011 that resulted in Congress and state legislatures being under their control for most of this decade. So Abramowitz is saying that 53 to 54 percent of registered Democrats must vote in November 2018 for their party to win 24 seats to take the House.

Other election data nerds quickly pounced on that figure as being too slim in Twitter posts.

“I thought it was more?” replied David Leonhardt, a New York Times columnist.

“This is way too low. More like 7-8%,” tweeted David Wasserman, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report.

“Totally agree. I don’t have numbers in front of me but I’ve looked at this specific w before. It’s basically 7.25% by which Dems need to win national vote for Congress in order to overcome gerrymandering. Chew on that,” tweeted Jeremy Kalin, a former Minnesota legislator.

Then came FiveThirtyEight.com’s Harry Enten, who tweeted, “Lots of discussion in nerd Twitter on just how much Dems need to win House vote by in order to win majority of seats. Here’s what I wrote in Feb 2017.”

That analysis is worth reposting, because it says Dems need an 8-point popular vote edge to breach the GOP’s gerrymander advantage.

“The median congressional district was 5.5 percentage points more Republican-leaning in the presidential race than the nation as a whole in 2016, meaning Democrats are essentially spotting the GOP 5.5 points in the battle for control of the House,” Enten wrote. “And even that may be underestimating Republicans ability to win a majority of seats without a majority of the vote. Since 2012 (or when most states instituted the current House district lines), Republicans have won, on average, 51 percent of the two-party House vote and 55 percent of House seats. If that difference holds for 2018, Democrats would need to win the House popular vote by about 8 percentage points to win half the House seats.”

Why do these figures matter? Because as some of these same election data crunchers pore over the exit polls and other results from Alabama and every other big election in 2017, it appears that the Democratic wave is right on the brink of closely winning (like in Alabama) or losing (as Jon Ossoff did by a few points in Georgia’s sixth congressional district last spring).

“In six 2017 special elections, Dems have been outperforming their @CookPolitical PVI-suggested share of the vote by an average of 9%,” tweeted Wasserman on Friday.

So, if Democrats have been turning out by 9 percent more than expected, how come they haven’t swept every race this year, you might ask? The answer is the gerrymandering advantage, which these analysts have been debating, is at the starting line of the process. But there are other intentional barriers that await Democrats at the finish line, where Republicans have passed laws and regulations to undermine turnout. The biggest is stricter voter ID requirements to get a polling place ballot, which congressional analysts have said peels off 2 to 3 percent of likely turnout. (Academics say it’s more.) There are other tactics too, such as limiting early voting opportunities, complicating registration and illegally purging infrequent voters.

Alabama’s senate election was the perfect capstone to a year when Democratic candidates and voters increasingly were getting their mojo back. Bannon and his right-wing rabble should be worried, because as Dems are getting organized and more optimistic, the Republicans are rife with intra-party strife, deeply unpopular policies and an unstable president.

However, Democrats, progressives and independents need to know the scale of the barriers that await in 2018. Because as much as the opposition party turned around and regained momentum in 2017, more will be needed next year to retake Congress and put a big red stop sign before the GOP.

 # # #

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America’s democracy and voting rights. He is the author of several books on elections and the co-author of Who Controls Our Schools: How Billionaire-Sponsored Privatization Is Destroying Democracy and the Charter School Industry (AlterNet eBook, 2016).

Bitcoin futures trading could burst its own bubble

A new wave was added to the never-ending Bitcoin mania when the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) became the first major derivative exchange to launch Bitcoin futures on December 10. Such was the euphoria among early investors that trading was halted twice due to CBOE speed breakers, which slow or pause trading when price movements are excessive.

The launch of Bitcoin futures at CBOE is set to be followed by its cross-town rival, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, which plans to launch its own version of Bitcoin futures trading on December 18. And Nasdaq is preparing for a similar launch in the second-half of 2018.

Bitcoin futures allows traders to speculate on what the Bitcoin price will be at a later date. For instance, at the time of writing this article, the January contract for Bitcoin was trading around US$18,300, up from an opening price of US$15,000. Traders bet on this and profit accordingly.

Such was the excitement at the launch of futures that the Bitcoin price touched an all-time high of US$17,382.64 after one day of CBOE trading. This might sound good for Bitcoin lovers, but it could yet spell doom for the cryptocurrency in the long run.

Bitcoin futures could actually end up reducing the price of Bitcoin. Futures trading gives new investors the choice to bet against Bitcoin and also allows them to settle contracts in dollars, boosting their liquidity. Plus, Bitcoin futures allows investors to trade off the cryptocurrency without actually owning it. This protects them from any volatility in the real-time spot market. This could reduce the demand for Bitcoin, pushing down prices.

Futures lessons

Even though crypto futures are new to the market, futures contract trading dates back to ancient times. In 1750BC in Mesopotamia the Babylonian king, Hammurabi, introduced a legal code, which included stipulations for trading goods at a future date for an agreed-upon price.

A futures contract, in its simplest form, is an agreement to buy or sell an asset at a future date at an agreed-upon price. One party to the contract agrees to buy a given quantity of securities (such as stocks or bonds) or commodities (oil, gold, Bitcoin), and take the delivery on a future date while the other party agrees to deliver the asset.

Futures markets involve hedgers and speculators. Hedgers are concerned with protecting themselves from future price drops. Hedgers will buy or sell their commodity to lock in a price against future risks of it dropping in value. Speculators assume the risk, often borrowing a substantial amount of money to buy contracts that they hope will go up in the future. If the market moves against them, they will lose more than they invested.

One key requirement of futures contracts is that they must be traded on standardised exchanges such as the CBOE or CME. The arrival of Bitcoin futures at an established and well-regulated derivative exchange will encourage more investors to trade in digital currency, giving Bitcoin a place among mainstream finance. Even household names including Goldman Sachs have said they plan to clear Bitcoin futures on behalf of some clients.

This will fuel the cryptocurrency’s price rise, as crypto traders and dealers can hedge their positions based on the future market. For example Bitcoin miners will benefit from futures contracts as they can use them to hedge against their mining cost, getting money in advance from speculators hoping to make a future profit.

On the flip side, the launch of Bitcoin futures will attract greater scrutiny from the regulators which will cast a shadow on the fate of the Bitcoin in the long run. In this regard, the trade association for the futures markets, the Futures Industry Association warned the US regulator that not enough risk evaluation has been done on Bitcoin and the risks it poses to financial stability.

The launch of Bitcoin futures has aggravated other regulators, with scrutiny beginning to encircle the cryptocurrency. Hong Kong’s regulator issued a warning that only licensed firms can offer such products within Hong Kong. In Korea, the Financial Services Commission financial regulator issued a directive that bans securities firms from taking part in Bitcoin futures transactions.

Perhaps more worryingly, the levels of futures trading has not been as high as the initial flurry of excitement may suggest. The volume of trading since bitcoin’s launch on CBOE has been relatively low, especially compared with more established currencies futures.

So, although Bitcoin has the added legitimacy of being traded on futures exchanges, the relatively low levels of interest from big institutional investors is indicative. If history is anything to go by, the tulip bubble burst in February 1637 – not long after the Dutch created a futures market for buying bulbs in 1636 at the peak of tulip mania. The advent of futures trading may well further inflate the “Bitcoin bubble” and push it to its bursting point.

Nafis Alam, Associate Professor, University of Reading

Experts tell Congress how to cut drug prices. We give you some odds

(Credit: AP Photo/Chris Post)

The nation’s most influential science advisory group was set to tell Congress on Tuesday that the U.S. pharmaceutical market is not sustainable and needs to change.

“Drugs that are not affordable are of little value and drugs that do not exist are of no value,” said Norman Augustine, chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s committee on drug pricing and former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp.

The report, “Making Medicines Affordable: A National Imperative,” identifies eight steps to cut drug prices. It also provides a list of specific “implementation actions” for various federal agencies, including Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.

Tuesday’s hearing, which is the third in a series by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, comes as Americans across the political spectrum say lowering the price of prescription drugs is a top priority. Nationwide, dozens of cities, counties and school districts have turned to drug importation as a solution to high prices. And legislators from both parties have also supported  importation of drugs from countries where list prices are cheaper.  While individual states have passed laws for more transparency and price controls and President Donald Trump has publicly called for lower drug prices, Congress has stalled.

So, will the committee’s recommendations spur action? Kaiser Health News takes the political temperature, talks to experts and rates their chances:

Recommendation No. 1: Allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices

Current law prohibits the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary from directly negotiating drug prices, and the committee says that’s ridiculous.

The committee recommends Medicare and other agencies negotiate which drugs are placed on a list of covered drugs and, when necessary, exclude some drugs. This is not a new idea.

Some states are already restricting high-priced drugs in Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for low-income Americans. But federal efforts to change Medicare are more complicated.

Just two months ago, top House Democrats introduced another Medicare negotiation bill. But don’t hold your breath, Trump hasn’t responded to multiple letters sent from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) — including one after the most recent bill was introduced in late October. That bill hasn’t moved past the health subcommittee.

Recommendation No. 2: Speed approvals of safe and effective generics and biosimilars

This recommendation has a strong ally at the Food and Drug Administration.

Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced a “drug competition action plan” in June and followed it up two months ago with a new set of policies aimed at speeding the drug approval process for complex generics. More changes are expected, too, as Gottlieb wrote in his blog post: “If consumers are priced out of the drugs they need, that’s a public health concern that FDA should address.”

But the pharmaceutical world knows which games to play to keep competition at bay. The committee specifically recommends the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission should watch for anti-competitive tactics, such as pay-for-delay and extending exclusivity protections. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on pay-for-delay, saying settlements between brand-name drugmakers and generic rivals warranted antitrust review. The total number of these deals has fallen in recent years.

To further encourage generic approvals, Congress could include several proposed bills, such as the so-called CREATES Act, in a final year-end package, said Chip Davis, president of the generics and biosimilars lobby Association for Accessible Medicines.

“People are starting to pay more attention” to anti-competitive patent tactics, Davis said.

Recommendation No. 3: Transparency

The committee takes direct aim at drug prices by saying that Congress should make manufacturers and insurers disclose drug prices, as well as the rebates and discounts they negotiate. It also asks that HHS curate and publicly report the information.

States have taken the lead on price transparency, with Vermont the first to pass a law, which requires an annual report on up to 15 drugs that cost the state a lot of money and have seen price spikes. In Congress, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), introduced a bill in June that would impose price-reporting requirements on some drugs. It now sits in the Senate Finance Committee. The pharmaceutical industry has fended off most price disclosure efforts in the past.

Notably, the committee also recommends that nonprofits in the pharmaceutical sector — such as patient groups — disclose all sources of income in their tax filings. That’s a move that would reveal exactly how much the pharmaceutical companies are supporting advocacy groups.

Recommendation No. 4:  Discourage the pharmaceuticual industry’s direct-to-consumer advertising

The U.S. is only one of two developed countries in the world to allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (the other is New Zealand, and doctors there have called for a ban). And U.S. taxpayers support the tax breaks with a deduction that politicians have tried to eliminate in the past.

Now, the committee recommends Congress eliminate the tax deduction pharmaceutical companies are allowed to take on direct-to-consumer advertising.

This is an idea that should have wide support. Polls show that most Americans favor banning the ads and federal lawmakers have tried to change the rules on so-called DTC for years. The American Medical Association (AMA) called for a ban on pharmaceutical advertising directly to patients in 2015, saying there were concerns that the ads were driving up demand for expensive drugs. The FDA provides guidance for the advertising and, in August, FDA Commissioner Gottlieb said he may reduce the number of risks manufacturers must reveal when advertising a medicine.

In a sign of just how entrenched the tax break is in D.C. politics, Sen. Dick Durbin (D- Ill.) introduced a bill last month that doesn’t eliminate the break but takes a step to rein in the advertising. Durbin’s bill would require manufacturers to provide the wholesale price of a drug in their advertisements.

Recommendation No. 5: Limit what Medicare enrollees pay for drugs

The committee ticks off a to-do list for Congress when it comes to what older Americans and those with disabilities are paying for drugs.

Their recommendations include asking Congress to establish limits on total annual out-of-pocket costs for Medicare Part D enrollees and telling Congress to make sure the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services efforts to guarantee enrollee cost sharing is based on the real price of the drug as well as how well the drug works.

Turns out, there is already some limited movement on this one.

Medicare allows negotiations between the corporate insurers and pharmacy benefit managers who help administer the Part D program. CMS announced last month that it is exploring how to pass on the behind-the-scenes manufacturer rebates to patients, though it warns premiums may rise if they make this move.

Recommendation No. 6: Increasing oversight of a very specific federal drug discount program

The committee is stepping into a hot-button political issue by recommending increased transparency and oversight of a program that Congress created in 1992.

The program, known as 340B, requires pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs at steep discounts to hospitals and clinics that serve high volumes of low-income patients. Congress held two hearings this year, questioning who is benefiting from the discounts, and CMS recently announced it was slashing Medicare reimbursement to some hospitals enrolled in the program.

Hospitals are fighting back, filing a lawsuit over the reimbursement cut. The committee, echoing concerns from House Republicans, recommends making sure the program helps “aid vulnerable populations.”

Recommendation No. 7: Revise the Orphan Drug Act

The committee wants to make sure the 1983 Orphan Drug Act helps patients with rare diseases.

The law, intended to spur development of medicines for rare diseases, provides financial incentives for drugmakers such as seven years of market exclusivity for drugs that treat a specific condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people.

The program has been under fire this year after Kaiser Health News, whose investigation is cited by the committee, reported that approved drugs often gamed this system and won blockbuster sales for more common diseases. The Government Accountability Office has begun an investigation into the program after receiving a request from top Republican senators and FDA’s announced “modernization” plan for the agency this summer.

The committee’s requests include limiting the number of exclusivity periods a drug can receive and making sure drugs that win the financial incentives really do treat rare disease. Finally, the committee says HHS should “obtain favorable concessions on launch prices, annual price increases,” and more.

Recommendation No. 8: Make sure doctors prescribe drugs for the right reasons

Medical practices, hospitals and doctors should “substantially” tighten restrictions on office visits by pharma employees, and the acceptance of free samples, the committee recommends.

This isn’t the first time the national group has recommended controlling drug samples and visits. In 2009, the then Institute of Medicine said doctors and medical schools should stop taking free drug samples. It may have worked — to some extent. A study this year found that academic medical centers that limited visits saw changes in prescribing patterns.

Now, the National Academies committee says doctors in private practice should also stop taking free samples and welcoming pharmaceutical visits. The AMA, which is the nation’s largest membership group of doctors, supports physicians using samples on a voluntary basis, particularly for uninsured patients.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Top 10 films of 2017 that didn’t play it safe

(Credit: Paramount Pictures)

“Now you’re in the sunken place,” that line from Jordan Peele’s phenomenal success, “Get Out,” may be the mantra for 2017. The year sunk from low to lower to still even lower what with Trump, the sexual harassment scandals that rocked Hollywood and politics, and more Trump. Did anyone else feel like they’d had a cup of Missy Armitage’s tea? Or wanted one?

Thankfully, there were some films to distract me from the relentless horrorshow. Maybe it is a sign of the terrible times, but I gravitated to idiosyncratic films that didn’t play things safe; films that made me uncomfortable as Chris Washington (Daniel Klauuya) in “Get Out.”

Looking back on films in 2017, there were two movies in particular that were so far-out and fucked-up they made me itchy and giddy. They are simultaneously flawless and flawed — but that is why I loved them so much. There were at least half dozen other films that also got under my skin in ways that wowed me and disarmed me, made me think, laugh, and cry at the same time. Those are the Best Pictures of the year for me; the films I will remember and watch again. Because I think films should generate a reaction — even if it’s anger.  

Here is my totally personal, take-no-prisoners Ten Most Memorable Films of 2017:

1. The most polarizing, thought-provoking, argument-starting, dizzying, dazzling, love-it-or-hate-it you can’t shake it from your system film this year was Darren Aronofsky’s allegorical “mother!” Whether viewers see all the biblical references, or think it’s about the desecration of mother earth, or believe it to be a stinging social commentary, the film is absolutely thrilling, eye-popping, head-scratching, and riotous at the same time. Mother (Jennifer Lawrence), a pregnant woman, and Him (Javier Bardem, typecast as God), is a writer in a creative slump. They live in a big old, possibly crumbling house in the middle of nowhere. When an uninvited guest (Ed Harris) and his wife (a hilarious Michelle Pfeiffer) drop by and stay over, they destroy everything, especially His’ precious perfect crystal. Then things get seriously weird, and Aronofsky’s film gets as unhinged as its title character. “mother!” goes wildly off the rails with ecstatic gonzo sequences that need to be experienced.

Not everyone loved “mother!” It was a flop at the box office, and earned that rare F from Cinemascore in an audience exit poll. But it begs viewers to engage with it even as it challenges them. Jennifer Lawrence is shot in intense close-up for almost half the film that it becomes hypnotic or hateful. Bardem is both seductive and irritating as a writer who refuses to listen to his wife; you love to hate him. And the house, which Mother never gets to leave, is pretty fabulous.

“mother!” deliberately did not please everyone — after the film, my friend Jimmy quipped, “’mother!,’ may I have my $10 back?!” — but as I said, the best films polarize viewers.



2. The other deliriously insane film I saw this year was “The Book of Henry.” When it ended, I said to my friend Keith, “There’s one thing I didn’t understand: What the fuck was that?!” To which he replied, “I thought it was a comedy!” Director Colin Trevorrow’s film, based on a script by Gregg Hurwitz, is relentlessly and unintentionally hilarious. It’s a quirky teen film that features brain tumors, child abuse, and suicide. Henry Carpenter (Jaeden Lieberher), is a boy genius. He plays the stock market well so his single mother Susan (Naomi Watts), can quit waitressing and get rid of the beat up old car she loves. He develops elaborate Rube Goldberg contraptions that his bullied younger brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay), admires. Henry also discovers that his neighbor Glenn (Dean Norris) is abusing his daughter Christina (Maddie Ziegler). So Henry creates a book that outlines an elaborate plan for his mother to execute to save Christina from more abuse. It’s already far-fetched and credulity straining, but “The Book of Henry” goes for broke repeatedly. From a sequence where Susan follows Henry’s pre-recorded plans — which include him anticipating her confusing right and left — to a has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed climactic sequence where Trevorrow cross-cuts between the school talent show and Susan speeding off to take out Glenn with a rifle. Yes, this is a film that features teens and pre-teens burping and dancing on stage one minute, and crackerjack-timed “La Femme Nikita” hit-man suspense the next. But wait, there’s more! A touching pieta scene is meant to jerk tears from viewers. Instead, I welled up with tears when Sarah Silverman, as Susan’s wacky bestie, fights-flirts with Henry in a hospital room. The film is also not without romance, as the dreamy Lee Pace plays a dreamy doctor who meets, cares for, and is patient with Susan. “The Book of Henry” deals with grief and trauma in unusual — extremely unusual! — ways, which is both headscratching and heartrending. I’ve never seen anything like it. This child’s fever-dream of a film is wrongheaded in all the right ways.

3. “Columbus” by writer/director Kogonada, was the most satisfying, heartbreaking film I’ve seen all year. Shot in Columbus, Indiana (yes, VP Pence’s home town), every image is freighted with meaning. The story has Jin (John Cho in a leading man role he deserves) arriving from Korea to care for his ailing father. He meets Casey (Haley Lu Richardson in a breakthrough performance), a young woman whose dreams are on hold as she is stuck in town, caring for her mother. The pair develops an intense friendship. They talk. They listen. They discuss architecture. When Jin asks Casey why she likes a particular building, the exchange is breathtaking. It may sound dull or didactic, but trust me, it is neither. Koganada and his two leads make “Columbus” hypnotic and moving. This quietly powerful film is achingly beautiful both visually and emotionally. For me, it was extraordinary.



4. If “Columbus” was a minimalist masterpiece, “Endless Poetry” was a maximalist one. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s latest semi-autobiographical film was a vivid, sensorial experience from which I’ve still not recovered. And I don’t want to. The film has Alejandro (Adan Jodorowsky, the director’s own son) forging his way as a poet in 1940s Chile against his father’s Jaime’s (Brontis Jodorowsky’s) wishes. This is a film where writing and self-determination is perhaps more important that a father’s love. Jodorowsky creates such vivid and impassioned work of art — everything here is beautiful even when it is so gleefully over the top — it becomes impossible not to be seduced by the fantasia. From eye-popping street parades, to the frequent full-frontal nudity, to the remarkable opera singer Pamela Flores in a double role as Alejandro’s mother as well as a flame-haired woman who inspires and seduces him, the film is endlessly entertaining. And the exchange between father and son in the end is as powerful as the one in “Call Me by Your Name.”



5. “Good Time” I don’t think I had a better time in the theatre this year than during the 100 harrowing minutes of Benny and Joshua Safdie’s white-knuckled thrill-ride called “Good Time.” An exceptional Robert Pattinson (who proved that his turn in “Cosmopolis” was no fluke) plays Connie a not-to-bright bank robber who makes one bad decision after another trying to raise enough money in one night to save his disabled brother (Benny Sadie) from jail. Tightly plotted, darkly funny, nasty, nasty, nasty, and featuring at least one plot twist that viewers will never see coming, “Good Time” delivered on the promise of its title.  



6. “Lady McBeth” William Oldroyd’s film debut was a shocking, stunning drama aided in no small part by Florence Pugh’s astonishing performance. A young bride (Pugh) rebels against patriarchy by having an affair with Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), a worker on the estate. How things play out  — hint, there is murder. More than one, really — is spellbinding. Oldroyd shoots his film in vibrant color but with minimalist design. Pugh practically rips your heart out as you watch her suffer, become empowered, and then wreck havoc on those who have wronged her. It’s both devastating and fabulously satisfying.



7. “The Wound” by John Trengove, infected me more than any other film this year. This was an intense, exceptional film about an unusual topic — male initiation rituals in the Xhosa culture — and it featured a helluva performance by Nakhane Touré as a gay man trapped in a love triangle. “The Wound” took me to a world I’d never seen before, and I found it fascinating and unforgettable. I’ve been championing the film since I saw it at a fest in April, through it’s theatrical release in August, and its Oscar campaign for Best Foreign Language film; it’s presently on the shortlist of nominees. It is now on DVD and blu-ray. I can’t encourage viewers enough to see it.



8. “The Human Flow” Ai Weiwei’s epic documentary about the refugee crisis was an outstanding, immersive experience. It makes you feel small and uncomfortable. You watch hundreds of people trekking through rivers and streets or living in camps or detention centers for months on end, all because they need to leave their homelands. You wonder how do they do it? How would I do it? And why does anyone have to? Ai captures the resilience of these people in a way that is full of empathy and understanding. Ai’s film is a staggering, astonishing achievement.



9. “Raw” Julia Ducournau’s squirm-inducing thriller, about a vegetarian who becomes a carnivore after eating a raw kidney, was one of the most assured and daring film debuts of the year. It’s a body-horror drama full of uncompromisingly gory and ferocious scenes — that botched Brazilian wax YIKES! Ducournau offers a literally primitive metaphor for coming-of-age and female sexuality. “Raw” is a film to be seen at your own risk, but it is absolutely rewarding.



10. “Debris” I did not see a more unsettling short film this year than Julio Ramos’ “Debris.” This 14-minute gut-punch has migrant laborers getting into trouble on a construction site. It left me speechless when it screened at the Telluride Film Festival. (Fun fact: the program was curated by “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins). It spoke volumes on greed, immigration, and ethics. It was short, sharp, and shocking. I hope more people can see it.

Will the “Star Wars” magic soon wear off?

Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

George Lucas’s “Star Wars” is one of the most successful film franchises in history. His original film, “Star Wars: A New Hope,” was released in 1977 as an auteur project. Forty years later, Lucas’s original vision has spawned countless numbers of comic books, novels, video games — and of course — sequels and other TV and film projects that would help to define the very idea of a Hollywood blockbuster film and collectively be worth billions of dollars.

The newest installment in the “Star Wars” film franchise is “The Last Jedi.” Debuting last Thursday in the United States, it has already broken box office records. “The Last Jedi” has also received near universal praise from critics who describe it as “amazing,” “bold,” “exciting” and “thrilling.” While serious fans of “Star Wars” are much more divided in their feelings towards “The Last Jedi” and its predecessor, “The Force Awakens,” the box office success of those two films — the first since the widely despised “Star Wars” prequels more than ten years ago — shows that the Force is still strong among the general viewing public.

This week’s episode of “The Chauncey DeVega Show” celebrates all things “Star Wars” and the release of the newest installment in the saga “The Last Jedi.”

Physicist Patrick Johnson joined me on this episode. He is a professor at Georgetown University and the author of the new book “The Physics of ‘Star Wars': The Science Behind a Galaxy Far, Far Away.”

In our conversation, Johnson explains how science can help us to understand the Force, the physics behind lightsabers, the engineering involved in building the Death Star and yes, whether Han Solo could have made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

The second guest on this week’s podcast is Bill Slavicsek. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on “Star Wars.” Slavicsek helped to perfect the classic “Star Wars” role-playing game from West End Games, wrote the highly regarded and beloved “A Guide to the Star Wars Universe” as well as the “Star Wars Sourcebook.” His work continues to influence the writers and creators of the new “Star Wars” films, including “Rogue One” and the TV show “Rebels.” Slavicsek is also one of the principle game designers for the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons and the online video game Elder Scrolls.

I also share my thoughts about all of the people who now claim to love black women, after the latter helped to defeat Roy Moore in Alabama. And I offer my preliminary review of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” — hint: this movie is not the great creative success that many reviewers and others are claiming it is.

Is FCC Chairman Ajit Pai a closeted alt-right sympathizer?

FCC commissioner Ajit Pai presents his dissent during a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing at the FCC in Washington. (Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to repeal an Obama-era regulation to preserve net neutrality, defying Silicon Valley executives and consumer advocacy groups, not to mention the will of the people. A recent University of Maryland survey finds that more than 80 percent of registered voters oppose the FCC‘s plans.

The move will fundamentally transform the internet as we know it, allowing corporate behemoths like Verizon and Comcast to manipulate loading speeds and charge customers a premium for access to individual websites and apps. Adding insult to democratic injury, circumstantial evidence suggests the man who cast the deciding vote, Ajit Pai, sympathizes with the so-called alt-right.

Back in November, the Trump appointee for FCC chair unveiled his plans to junk the net neutrality rules established in 2015, arguing that websites and social media platforms, rather than internet service providers (ISPs), posed the greatest threat to an open internet. At the time, Pai singled out Twitter for blame.

“The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate,” he told the R Street Institute, a libertarian-minded think tank. “And to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or deverifying conservative users’ accounts as opposed to those of liberal users. This conduct is many things, but it isn’t fighting for an open internet.”

It’s difficult to know exactly who Pai had in mind, but Slate’s April Glaser notesthat Twitter recently deverified the accounts of several prominent white supremacists, including Laura Loomer and Jason Kessler. The former is a YouTube sensation on the alt-right who was recently banned from Uber and Lyftfor her Islamophobic tweets, while the latter was one of the organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. In October, Kessler was indicted on a felony perjury charge after falsely accusing a man he’d assaulted of attacking him first.

“What’s weird about Pai’s comments is that while these are all figures on the right, conservatives don’t typically count them among their ranks,” Glaser writes. “And while conservatives do sometimes cast themselves as ideological victims of Silicon Valley’s overreach, there have been no recent deverifications of prominent right-wing figures, ‘conservative’ or otherwise, not known for promoting hate. In other words, according to Pai, the demotion of racists on a social network is a bigger deal than an action that could radically change the architecture of — and who succeeds on — the internet.”

Weirder still is the video Pai released Wednesday in conjunction with the Daily Caller assuring millennials that they can still “gram their food” and “post photos of cute animals” if net neutrality is scrapped. (In May, he made a separate appealto America’s youth by reading aloud the meanest tweets about his proposals, a nod to the popular segment on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”) When he’s not wielding a fidget spinner and assuring viewers they can still binge-watch “Game of Thrones,” he can be seen doing the Harlem Shake next to a woman named Martina Markota, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has speculated that Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chair ran a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington pizzeria.

Before joining the Daily Caller, Markota appeared in a video for the Proud Boys, a self-described “Western Chauvinist” men’s club with ties to the alt-right, where she claimed that the (thoroughly debunked) Pizzagate was real. “This is not something I’m making up because I’m trying to…put in my fantasy version of what’s going on and interject it into these email scandals,” she says at one point. “This is independent of the campaign. I know what cheese pizza is.”

Pai, the son of Indian immigrants, has been a subject of racist attacks himself in recent months, some of them bearing the hallmarks of the alt-right. “We all have the power to murder Ajit Pai and his family,” an FCC commenter wrote in May. “Jk jk.” No one stands to lose more from the repeal of net neutrality rules than the patrons of websites like 4chan and Reddit, which internet service providers will soon be able to slow to a crawl, so it’s difficult to imagine white nationalists embracing Pai as an ally, and vice versa.

And yet. After the FCC chairman pleaded his case that social media networks were suppressing free speech, he earned the effusive praise of far-right radio host Matt Forney and Andrew Torba of Gab, a platform where users “are generally free to be as racist or anti-Semitic as they’d like without fear of being reprimanded or censored,” according to Slate.

It’s possible, even probable, that Pai was unaware of Martina Markota’s history before he recorded his latest video for the Daily Caller. But the fact remains that Jason Kessler got his start as a contributor for the right-wing publication, and Pai had no reservations about lending it his imprimatur. With a White House that has excused and enabled white nationalists at every turn, no one in the Trump administration has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Jacob Sugarman is a managing editor at AlterNet.