Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 265

NRA whines in new ad: Trump is victim of “the most ruthless attack on a president”

Dana Loesch (Credit: NRA News)

The National Rifle Association has returned from its retreat in its hopes of flying under the radar in the aftermath of the country’s deadliest mass shooting.

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch has returned from her self-imposed exodus to star in another outrageously political advertisement on behalf of the president.

“We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president, and the people who voted for him, and the free system that allowed it to happen in American history,” Loesch begins in the advertisement. “From the highest levels of government to their media, universities, and billionaires, their hateful defiance of his legitimacy is an insult to each of us.”

“We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president & the people who voted for him…in American history.” –@DLoesch #NRA pic.twitter.com/rcPAKMVJI0

— NRATV (@NRATV) October 20, 2017

As is the common theme of most NRA ads, this one doesn’t particularly have any message or theme besides to anger its liberal opponents.

Loesch continued, “But the ultimate insult is that they think we’re so stupid that we’ll let them get away with it. These saboteurs, slashing away with their leaks and sneers, their phony accusations and gagging sanctimony, drive their daggers through the heart of our future, poisoning our belief that honest custody of our institutions will ever again be possible.”

“So they can then build their utopia from the ashes of what they burned down. No, their fate will be failure and they will perish in the political flames of their own fires. We are the National Rifle Association of America. And we are Freedom’s Safest Place,” Loesch added.

The newly released ad eerily reflects a message delivered last week by former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, who seemed to take pleasure in causing political enemies to suffer.

“The left has no idea how much more damage we can do to them as private citizens, as people unfettered,” Gorka said last weekend.

3 Richard Spencer supporters accused of shooting at protesters

William Fears; Colton Fears; Tyler Tenbrink (Credit: AP)

Three supporters of Richard Spencer — the who infamously led a “Sieg heil” for President Donald Trump after he won the 2016 election — have been charged with attempted homicide after they allegedly shot at a group of anti-Spencer protesters.

The incident occurred after Spencer delivered a speech at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

“Shortly before 5:30 p.m., it was reported that a silver Jeep stopped to argue with a group of protesters and began threatening, offering Nazi salutes and shouting chants about Hitler to the group that was near the bus stop,” wrote the Gainesville, Florida Police Department in a statement.

The men chanted in support of Adolf Hitler and shouted “Sieg Heil,” according to the Gainesville Sun. One of the men got out of the car with a handgun while the others encouraged him to shoot the protesters. He eventually fired a single shot, which missed, before driving away.

The suspects included 30 year old William Fears and 28 year old Colton Fears of Pasadena, Texas, as well as 28 year old Tyler Tenbrink of Richmond, Texas. At least two of the suspects are believed to be connected to extremist groups, the police report noted, while one is a convicted felon who will face additional charges because he possessed a firearm.

“During the altercation, Tenbrink produced a handgun while the Fears brothers encouraged him to shoot at the victims. Tenbrink fired a single shot at the group which thankfully missed the group and struck a nearby building. The suspects then fled in a silver jeep,” the statement explained.

Tenbrink is being held on a $3 million bond, while William and Colton Fears are being held on bonds of $1 million each.

Trump’s tweet about U.K. crime was triggered by watching TV — and not Fox News

(Credit: AP)

President Donald Trump tweeted an erroneous claim that was nearly identical to an on-screen graphic that has repeatedly aired on the racist, conspiracy-mongering One America News Network (OANN) that falsely linked crime in the United Kingdom to “radical Islamic terror.”

In a segment airing at 6:25 a.m., OANN ran a chyron which read, “Report: U.K. Crime Rises 13% Annually Amid Spread Of Radical Islamic Terror.”

Minutes later, at 6:31 a.m. Trump tweeted:

Just out report: “United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of Radical Islamic terror.” Not good, we must keep America safe!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2017

As The Guardian reported, Trump “erroneously” linked the rise in crime to terror even though the report in question “barely mentions terrorism other than to refer on one occasion to the impact recent terrorist attacks in Britain had on the headline murder rate.” Additionally, as the Daily Mail noted, “British MPs tore into Mr Trump for talking ‘nonsense’ and said he is ‘spreading fear and xenophobia’ by wrongly blaming the rise on terrorism.”

Given the timing of his tweet, and the fact that his morning tweets did not mirror “Fox & Friends,” as they often do, it is entirely possible that Trump got the segment from watching OANN. The network is available through DIRECTV, which Trump reportedly uses.

Trump has previously praised OANN and the network’s White House correspondent, Trey Yingst, was one of the most called-on reporters during former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s briefings.

OANN has a history of shilling for Trump, even hyping the president’s lies about the crowd size at his inauguration. The network, additionally, hired Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a political commentator (he was reportedly later fired for appearing “too much” on OANN’s competitors). OANN has a penchant for pushing racist commentary and debunked conspiracy theories — including about the death of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich — and has repeatedly hosted Jack Posobiec, a far-right troll who heavily pushed the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory.

Tucker Carlson: Trump can’t be racist toward Puerto Ricans because they’re white

Tucker Carlson Tonight (Credit: YouTube/Fox News)

It’s been a month since Hurricane Maria barreled into Puerto Rico and left the island in desperate need of assistance. The federal government’s slow response, and President Donald Trump’s provocations — such as blaming the island for impacting the nation’s budget — has left many wondering why the U.S. would neglect some of its own citizens.

But Thursday night Fox News host Tucker Carlson didn’t seem to take issue with reports that the government had failed to adequately respond to the damage left in the wake of the hurricane. No, he was concerned about people calling the president’s various actions (and inactions) racist.

“God there are a lot of dumb people on TV,” Carlson accidentally ironically said after showing clips of politicians and pundits alike questioning racial motives as to why the Trump administration had neglected Puerto Ricans.

“Is Trump actually bungling a hurricane response just because he’s a racist cartoon?” Carlson asked, before he introduced his guest, Evangeline Gomez, who was described as an attorney and Democratic commentator.

“I just don’t understand the evidence for racism in this,” Carlson said.

“Well to the people who make that argument, they’ve seen his [Trump’s] tweets, the tweets basically implying that Puerto Ricans were lazy, they weren’t helping one another, they were depending on the federal government to help them when they could have done these things themselves, which was impossible,” Gomez explained.

“As a factual matter, Puerto Rico is 75 percent white, according to the U.S. Census,” Carlson pointed out. “I’m not sure how that’s racist. I mean, maybe he doesn’t like Puerto Ricans or maybe he did a bad job, that’s all fair, but racist?”

Carlson’s numbers are correct in the sense that he collected them from the U.S. Census. It’s a curious thing that, yes, the majority of respondents to the census in Puerto Rico did indeed identify that way. However, focusing on that particular finding disregards the fact that Puerto Ricans’ are, by and large, proud of their own Hispanic-influenced heritage, one that they make sure stands in positive distinction from white-directed culture and other cultures of the mainland U.S.

As well, the entirety of the island’s population is historically of Hispanic origin, according to the Pew Research Center. Perhaps most importantly, the majority of mainland Americans perceive Puerto Ricans to be Hispanic no matter what they mark on a census form. Just ask most Puerto Ricans, the hatred some in his country have for Mexicans and South Americans often bleeds over onto them.

“The race angle bothers me because it’s unfounded, it makes people hate each other.” Carlson said out of either a lack of comprehension or willful disingenuousness. “It’s just stupid.”

In a segment from the same night, Carlson turned his attention to the timeline of what exactly occurred when Stephen Paddock opened fire on concertgoers in Las Vegas and killed 58 people and injured hundreds more.

Carlson cited a report from the Daily Mail which called the timeline into question and suggested the Mandalay Bay security guard, who reportedly alerted police about Paddock, would not appear on TV out of MGM’s fear that he would not being able to stick to his story when faced hard-hitting interview questions.

Carlson called the security guard’s actions into question, asking why he should be considered a hero.

That security guard’s name? Jesus Campos.

 

The breast cancer fight went corporate 25 years ago this month

(Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES POLITICS HEALTH SOCIETY))

Breast cancer is the darling of corporate America, with pink ribbons adorning everything from handbags to handguns. Corporations put a pink ribbon on their products to boost sales and build their brand. And it works — sales go up and profits increase. Unfortunately, despite 25 years of pink ribbon marketing, breast cancer diagnoses have not gone down.

It’s one reason the national education and activist organization that I lead, Breast Cancer Action, has long called October “Breast Cancer Industry Month.” October was designated Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) more than 30 years ago—by the corporation now known as AstraZeneca, in partnership with the American Cancer Society. Three decades later, corporations in virtually every industry participate in breast cancer promotions. It’s no surprise that Pharma and biotech companies that produce treatments get involved. But corporations that manufacture products that increase the risk of breast cancer also join up with multimillion-dollar cancer charities to “raise awareness” during BCAM. This coordination produces a neat profit cycle for all involved, by keeping the spotlight on awareness and early detection while ignoring primary prevention.

The pink ribbon isn’t just a symbol of breast cancer awareness; it’s a symbol of the breast cancer industry. This October marks 25 years since the multibillion-dollar cosmetics corporation The Estée Lauder Companies helped launch the pink ribbon and with it the global marketing bonanza.

The now pink ribbon was, from the very beginning, a corporate take-over of what began as a peach-colored ribbon focused on prevention. Charlotte Haley developed the first breast cancer ribbon to promote political action and bring resources and attention to breast cancer prevention. When Estée Lauder and Self magazine approached Haley in 1992 to partner, Haley declined, saying they were “too corporate.” Not to be deterred, Estée Lauder and Self “rebranded” the ribbon at their lawyers’ advice. And when they changed the color of the ribbon, they also changed the focus from prevention to their own corporate profit.

Nothing reveals the profit motive behind the corporate pink ribbon more clearly than the practice of pinkwashing: when companies claim to care about breast cancer by promoting their pink ribbon products, but at the same time produce, manufacture or sell products that may increase the risk of the disease. When Estée Lauder slapped the first pink ribbons on their products they not only launched the breast cancer industry, they became the original pinkwasher. Estée Lauder tells us to buy their products because they care about breast cancer. But they don’t tell us that their products contain chemicals that may increase the risk of the disease — or even interfere with treatments.

A number of chemicals have been associated with increased breast cancer risk. Hormones play a critical role in the development and treatment of breast cancer. And a large body of research implicates commonly-used hormone disruptors in increasing risk of the disease. Some newer research suggests that these same chemicals might also interfere with the most common breast cancer treatments.

Cosmetics and personal care products are one of the least regulated industries in the U.S. Which means that Estée Lauder can comply with the law, and still their products may expose users to chemicals that are suspected to increase the risk of breast cancer. Indeed, Estée Lauder is choosing to celebrate 25 years of pink ribbon marketing by encouraging women to buy their “Advanced Night Repair” serum — which comes with a collectable Pink Ribbon Keychain — but contains the hormone disruptor ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, more commonly known as octinoxate. Octinoxate is absorbed through the skin and mimics estrogen. The health group Silent Spring advises the public to avoid products that contain oxtinoxate.

Octinoxate is not the only chemical of concern in Estée Lauder’s products. In fact this year, nearly every product sold under Estée Lauder’s Breast Cancer Campaign lists “fragrance” as an ingredient. Anything that is labeled “fragrance” is protected as trade secret, which means that companies are not required to disclose the specific chemicals used. Numerous studies have shown that fragrance often includes hormone disruptors and carcinogens, as well as sensitizers that can trigger uncomfortable side effects for women undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Without this basic transparency, there is no way to know all of the chemicals in Estée Lauder’s products that may increase the risk of breast cancer or interfere with treatments.

In addition to cleaning up their cosmetics, to protect consumers from chemicals of concern, Estée Lauder should join companies like Johnson & Johnson that have committed to removing 1,4-dixoane, a mammary carcinogen, from their production processes. Actions that might bring them a step closer to their self-proclaimed goal to “create a breast cancer-free world.”

It takes more than a pink ribbon to show a company really cares about women living with and at risk of breast cancer. Instead of taking steps to clean up their products and manufacturing process as part of their work to “create a breast cancer-free world,” Estée Lauder is congratulating themselves on distributing more than 150 million pink ribbons at their beauty counters and illuminating more than 1,000 landmarks around the world pink “to raise awareness.” They even hold the Guinness World Record for “Most Landmarks Illuminated for a Cause in 24 Hours.” But in our book, the only record they hold is longest running empty awareness campaign.

As Estée Lauder promotes 25 years of pink ribbon marketing, we are calling on them to stop the betrayal and stop pinkwashing. Hypocritical marketing and publicity stunts in the name of awareness get in the way of the true work needed to address and end the epidemic.

More than a quarter of million women are diagnosed with breast cancer each and every year. More than 40,000 women still die from the disease annually. And despite widespread mammography screening, estimates are between 20–30 percent of patients diagnosed with breast cancer — even at an early-stage — will eventually develop metastatic disease, which is when the cancer spreads to other organs. And women of color and underserved communities fare worse and bear a disproportionate burden of the disease. By pretending that distributing pink ribbons and illuminating buildings is meaningful action, Estée Lauder is trying to keep the focus off of the ingredients in their products that may contribute to increased risk of breast cancer and interfere with breast cancer treatments.

Women at risk and living with breast cancer deserve better.

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Join us in telling Estée Lauder why this is Knot Our Pink Ribbon — send your letter to Estée Lauder now.

Trump may compound the health insurance industry’s problems

Protests agains the current GOP health care bill (Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky)

President Donald Trump has issued the first of what promises to be a series of health insurance executive orders aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

It instructs the government to essentially exempt small businesses and potentially individuals from some of the rules underpinning the landmark legislation known as “Obamacare,” following the GOP’s failure to get Congress to approve a plan to repeal and replace it.

These steps would free more employers to access bare-bones and short-term health insurance coverage and join together to bargain with insurers. It’s not clear how this order will change the U.S. health insurance market. But as a health finance professor and the former CEO of an insurance company, I’m confident it is more likely to compound many of Obamacare’s problems than to fix them.

Designed this way

To be sure, the Affordable Care Act has problems. For example, premiums have continued to rise since the Affordable Care Act’s enactment – albeit at a moderate pace for insurance obtained through employment.

In particular, many smaller employers have seen their costs rise dramatically since insurers were forced to price their plans based on the average of all claims in the small group market rather than the experience of each firm.

But there is a reason why Obamacare was designed this way. Employers with older and less healthy workers were almost shut out of the insurance market because insurers deemed them so costly to cover and wanted to avoid the risk. Companies with younger and healthier workers had a good deal previously, but many other employers did not.

The Affordable Care Act was supposed to solve this problem by lumping everyone together to even out rates. Making rates more reasonable for many Americans meant requiring some of us to pay more.

Market dynamics

The government’s attempt to keep President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated promise that “if you like your current plan, you can keep it” didn’t help. Employers with low-cost plans and healthier workforces chose to be grandfathered out of many new requirements, leaving a much less healthy – and more expensive to cover – pool for pricing everyone else’s insurance.

Nevertheless, the share of adults without health insurance fell to a record low of 10.9 percent in late 2016, from 18 percent before the health insurance exchanges opened in October 2013, as measured by polling by Gallup and Sharecare. (The uninsurance rate has ticked up to 11.7 percent since Trump took office.)

What would be a good way to get the remaining 28 million Americans insured at a reasonable cost? It may seem obvious that letting small businesses without much purchasing power in the health insurance market band together will enable them to get the same deals as large self-insured companies – which get to choose among a variety of options.

In most markets, this kind of diversity and choice fosters the robust competition Trump says he wants to see. But in health insurance, this may lead to fragmentation and market failure.

That’s because as insurers scramble for ideal customers – those least likely to get sick – they drive higher-risk people away by charging them higher premiums and making them foot a bigger share of their medical bills. Unfortunately, the latter (people often with preexisting conditions and requiring long-term treatment) really need medical care and the insurance coverage required to get it.

Because of this, all but the largest of the association health plans that the executive order is supposed to encourage still will most likely exclude high-risk individuals and employers, just as they have in the past, as health law expert Tim Jost predicts.

How will the vulnerable get health care?

Trump said that his executive order will help “millions and millions of people.” But I believe it is more likely to drive coverage for many out of reach while benefiting the Americans whose insurance needs are relatively minimal.

One could argue that the government should never have tried to force healthier people to pay so much more for coverage to make it affordable for everyone else. Yet the nation needs a mechanism to help Americans with chronic and preexisting conditions pay for the medical care they need.

Establishing high-risk pools is one way to make this work, and they definitely can help as long as there is funding available. Unfortunately, most attempts to handle high-risk individuals this way have run out of money and left vulnerable patients high and dry. Trump’s approach does nothing to deal with this.

Any solution that makes health insurance more affordable across the board will need to be comprehensive. I believe Trump is instead embarking on a process that is both naïve and piecemeal based on wishful thinking regarding the power of markets to resolve all the problems with this difficult sector.

During his signing ceremony, he promised that the policies established by the order would “cost the government virtually nothing.” If that proves true, it is likely that we will receive exactly what we pay for.

J.B. Silvers, Professor of Health Finance, Weatherhead School of Management & School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University

What you need to know about changes to the health law

Apparently frustrated by Congress’ inability to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump this week decided to take matters into his own hands.

Late Thursday evening, the White House announced it would cease key payments to insurers. Earlier on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at giving people who buy their own insurance easier access to different types of health plans that were limited under the ACA rules set by the Obama administration.

“This is promoting health care choice and competition all across the United States,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for, and they’re going to be very happy.”

The subsidy payments, known as “cost-sharing reductions,” are payments to insurers to reimburse them for discounts they give policyholders with incomes under 250 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $30,000 in income a year for an individual. Those discounts shield these lower-income customers from out-of-pocket expenses, such as deductibles or copayments. These subsidies have been the subject of a lawsuit that is ongoing.

he cost-sharing reductions are separate from the tax credit subsidies that help millions of people pay their premiums. Those are not affected by Trump’s decision.

Some of Trump’s actions could have an immediate effect on the enrollment for 2018 ACA coverage that starts Nov. 1. Here are five things you should know.

1. The executive order does not make any immediate changes.

Technically, Trump ordered the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury within 60 days to “consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, to the extent permitted by law,” on several different options for expanding the types of plans individuals and small businesses could purchase. Among his suggestions to the department are broadening rules to allow more small employers and other groups to form what are known as “association health plans” and to sell low-cost, short-term insurance. There is no guarantee, however, that any of these plans will be forthcoming. In any case, the process to make them available could take months.

2. The cost-sharing reduction changes ARE immediate but might not affect the people you expect.

Cutting off payments to insurers for the out-of-pocket discounts they provide to moderate-income policyholders does not mean those people will no longer get help. The law, and insurance company contracts with the federal government, require those discounts be granted.

That means insurance companies will have to figure out how to recover the money they were promised. They could raise premiums (and many are raising them already). For the majority of people who get the separate subsidies to help pay their premiums, those increases will be borne by the federal government. Those who will be hit hardest are the roughly 7.5 million people who buy their own individual insurance but earn too much to get federal premium help.

Insurers could also simply drop out of the ACA entirely. That would affect everyone in the individual market and could leave some counties with no insurer for next year. Insurers could also sue the government, and most experts think they would eventually win.

3. This could affect your insurance choices for next year. But it’s complicated.

The impact on your plan choices and premiums for next year will vary by state and insurer. For one thing, insurers have a loophole that allows them to get out of the contracts for 2018, given the change in federal payments. So, some might decide to bail. That could leave areas with fewer — or no — insurers. The Congressional Budget Office in August estimated that stopping the payments would leave about 5 percent of people who purchase their own coverage through the ACA marketplaces with no insurers in 2018.

For everyone else, the move would result in higher premiums, the CBO said, adding an average of about 20 percent. In some states, regulators have already allowed insurers to price those increases into their 2018 rates in anticipation that the payments would be halted by the Trump administration.

But how those increases are applied varies. In California, Idaho, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, for example, regulators had insurers load the costs only onto one type of plan: silver-level coverage. That’s because most people who buy silver plans also get a subsidy from the federal government to help pay their premium, and those subsidies rise along with the cost of a silver plan.

Consumers getting a premium subsidy, however, won’t see much increase in their out-of-pocket payments for the coverage. Consumers without premium subsidies will bear the additional costs if they stay in a silver plan. In those states, consumers may find a better deal in a different metal-band of insurance, including higher-level gold plans. Many states, however, allowed insurers to spread the expected increase across all levels of plans.

4. Congress could act.

Bipartisan negotiations have been renewed between Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., to create legislation that would continue the cost-sharing subsidies and give states more flexibility to develop and sell less generous health care plans than those currently offered on the exchanges. Trump’s move to end the cost-sharing subsidies may bolster those discussions.

In a statement, Murray called Trump’s action to withdraw cost-sharing subsidies “reckless” but said she continues “to be optimistic about our negotiations and believe we can reach a deal quickly — and I urge Republican leaders in Congress to do the right thing for families this time by supporting our work.”

Trump on Friday urged Democrats to work with him to “make a deal” on health care. “Now, if the Democrats were smart, what they’d do is come and negotiate something where people could really get the kind of healthcare that they deserve, being citizens of our great country,” he said Friday afternoon.

Earlier Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not sound as if he was in the mood to cut a deal.

“Republicans have been doing everything they can for the last ten months to inject instability into our health care system and to force collapse through sabotage,” he said in a statement. “Republicans in the House and Senate now own the health care system in this country from top to bottom, and their destructive actions, and the actions of the president, are going to fall on their backs. The American people see it, and they know full well which party is doing it.”

A poll released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 71 percent of the public said they preferred that the Trump administration try to make the law work rather than to hasten replacement by encouraging its failure. The poll was conducted before Trump made his announcement about the subsidies. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

5. Some states are suing, but the outcome is hard to guess.

Even though all states regulate their own insurance markets, states have limited options for dealing with Trump’s latest move. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia, led by New York and California, are suing the Trump administration to defend the cost-sharing subsidies. But it is unclear whether a federal court could say that the Trump administration is obligated to continue making the payments while that case is pending. 

The best book about the Beatles you will ever read is “Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress”

(Credit: Getty/Hulton Archive)

Ever since I got into the Beatles as a 14-year-old, I have been reading Beatles books rapaciously, ranking them in my head with only slightly less of the zeal I deploy in ranking Beatles albums.

For instance, I will all but throw down — rhetorically speaking, of course — in arguing that Peter Brown and Steven Gaines’ “The Love You Make“ has more of the visceral truth than the rah-rah cheerleading of the “Anthology,” that Philip Norman’s “Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation“ is the best tome on the pre-fame years, and that acclaimed Beatles chronicler Mark Lewisohn is absolutely awful at writing, but may be the best researcher of a pop culture subject of the last century.

This October marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do.” This song release marked the end of the pre-fame years by reaching 17 on the British charts.

No one would maintain that the song is a masterpiece, but I’m constantly struck by how well it has aged — it’s brawny, bluesy, just tender enough, just tough enough, just distinctive enough. It also did not hurt that manager Brian Epstein bought up 10,000 copies himself, a formula for success called padding, through which the Beatles owe, in some degree, their next opportunity or two. They now had an audience, and upon that audience they happily cascaded “Please Please Me,” “From Me to You,” “She Loves You.”

What does this have to do with what I’m going to call the best Beatles book to date? Quite a lot, really. The Beatles always had oodles of help along their journey. They were good at cashing in on breaks, but a lot of people were quick with a career-building handout. When in a rut early on, someone in the band would remark, “something will happen,” and something, inevitably, would.

They didn’t expect their fame to last, which is why I think they let writer Michael Braun see an uncensored version of their particular collective, with many of their very human foibles on display. Braun traveled with the band on their 1963 UK autumn tour. He followed them to Paris in early 1964 and on to America for the big breakthrough on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He wrote a book, which appeared at the peak of Beatlemania, called “Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress,” the subtitle being a reference to John Bunyan’s 1678 Christian allegory, “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Our Mr. Braun meant literary business.

He was a whiz of a writer, a legit prose stylist who was no pop music obsessive, but rather someone who could filter information like a journalist, while writing like a stylist. He gives us the Beatles as they were, which in John Lennon’s words about this very book, were as “bastards.”

I’ve noticed in these sociopolitical times that there is a great need for Beatles people to treat their heroes as if they are representatives of some nostalgia-friendly safe space. When I write on the band — as I frequently do — any negative comment, no matter how seemingly benign, is going to generate a lot of hate mail. The comment can be completely factually true, simply a matter of the messenger coming along with some vetted documents in his arms, and the onslaught begins. Sometimes with death threats.

This has often caused me to think about Braun’s book, which is out of print (though available on Kindle). I wonder if it will always be out of print, or at least while we are so sensitive about everything. What I’m seeing, though, is this need to protect one’s idols, if they are Beatles, as if they must have no transgressions; if there were it would be an indictment against the individual who needs Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey to be akin to plush stuffed animals they hug when they are are sad or angry, or just, to use a Beatles expression, cheesed off at the big, bad world. The Beatles, whose images were appropriated for what’s actually a fairly witty mid-1960s cartoon, have become cartooned in 2017 culture. Hail the four saints.

Not only is this silly — and depressing, really — it’s disrespectful, a trend that robs four men of their humanity, their rights, as humans, to do wrong — we are not talking murder or child molestation here — and to then carry on from those mistakes, ideally as better people, and, with the Beatles, better artists.

They are definitely brattish in “Love Me Do!,” not unlike that high school sports teammate you might have had who was immature a lot of the time, and funny some of it.

George Harrison slags off Ella Fitzgerald as an “old fogey.” They dash off a song for Billy J. Kramer and laugh over how dumb he’ll sound singing it. John Lennon speaks with Braun about the script for “A Hard Day’s Night” which will become the Beatles first film. “He explains that his first line in the film is one he’s supposed to say when Paul enters with an old man,” Braun writes, then quotes Lennon about how he is meant to ask McCartney who his friend is. “I wouldn’t say that,” Lennon adds. “I’d just say, ‘Who’s the old crip?’”

“Crip” being cripple, of course. If you know Beatles history — or even just watch the film of the band’s first U.S. concert, in Washington, D.C., in February 1964 — you know that they made fun of the handicapped at their shows. You also may know that the Beatles made Nazi salutes on hotel balconies to the crowds below.

What does this mean? These are some pretty bad things, no? I am not someone who believes that doing a bad thing automatically makes you, for the duration of your life, a bad person. We are far more foundationally complex than that — or we can be, anyway, if self-reflection and growth is part of our status quo, meaning we never really have a status quo because we are in flux. Ideally. The Beatles were very good at being in flux. As people, and certainly as artists.

They were often far better at the evolving person bit than some of their fans are today. Hear me on this: some of their fans. The portion of that fan base that attempts to veil the Beatles from the vetting we so readily subject others to.

You might go to a museum and love the Picassos on the wall, with this love helped along by your ignorance as to some of the unsavory aspects of the man’s life, because a Picasso bio is probably not something many people seek to spend time with anymore. That discussion about whether the art is separate from the artist — one I see trotted out frequently on Facebook — won’t come up. But the Beatles? People are more apt to read a Beatles bio, so why aren’t they ever called out on the carpet?

Personally, I like people who are humans. Just because you’re a person doesn’t mean you’re fully human. The latter make mistakes, learn from them, make some more and learn from them quicker than they did the ones prior. Because that is growth. Pressure will make humans do all kinds of things, too, and while I wish the Beatles didn’t do some of the things they did, because people were undoubtedly hurt, it never made me love them less. I didn’t need them to be protected, and reading “Love Me Do!,” it’s almost refreshing to have these moments where you think, “right, stop being a jerk, dude, I’m out of here for a bit,” because that is exactly how we feel, at some point, with the people who mean the most to us in our lives, the people we love and count on.

The nicest remark I can make about Braun’s achievement is that if the Beatles did not exist, we’d still have a work of literature here. It’s a collage work, as well. The notes from fans which Braun includes can be downright creepy, showing this need people have to have the pits inside of them filled by external sources, because they can’t fill them themselves.

I like to think that progressing through the Beatles’ music over the course of their career, and tracking their growth — that notion of progress that Braun picked up on so early in their artistic, emotional, spiritual journey — probably better helped the writers behind these letters source meaning from within as they went along in their own lives. It just might not have been there like they wanted it to be, when they first encountered the Beatles. But then again, the Beatles themselves could say the same thing, going by Braun’s book, and I think they got to a pretty good place by the end.

TV Triage: A guide to series that are ready to give up the ghost

(Credit: ABC/CBS)

Someday soon the networks will acknowledge the obsolescence of the fall TV premiere model. In practice we’re already there: You may have noticed in recent years that networks have been saving their best series for January debuts. This is partly because by then the distraction of the holiday season has passed and viewers are inside more, having hunkered down for winter.

Spring is television’s other desirable premiere berth — late March and April, to be specific. This is when cable and streaming tend to push out their awards bait to ensure qualification for that year’s Emmys nominations. So charmed are we by these emerging buds that we forget the mistakes of September, October and November ever happened. Fall season is the season of dying things.

Nevertheless, it’s still a traditional launch pad, although its purpose seems to have evolved somewhat into a testing ground for uncertainty. However, this fall’s middling bunch of series has the stupendous luck of debuting in a season that, according to Nielsen, is commanding lower ratings compared to where they were last year. And remember, last year’s election lunacy made the 2016-2017 contenders struggle to achieve liftoff.

ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are down by double digits in the coveted 18-49 demographic — up to 17 percent — and while we can point to a number of systemic shifts as reasons for this, one is very simple: most of the new shows are a waste of time.

Be that as it may, none has been cancelled. Yet. (And CBS’s “S.W.A.T.” has yet to premiere.) Granted, we’re still a mere three weeks into the season, but somebody’s pink slip is undoubtedly being filled out as I type this. As for whose, here are a few educated guesses along with qualifications, in some cases, as to why they may live regardless of how few of us want them to.

“Marvel’s Inhumans,” ABC. Many critics, myself included, had no love for the premiere of this poorly scripted superhero drama bedecked with stunningly unrealistic digital effects. In this case audiences and professional TV viewers are in agreement — its audience hovers around 3.4 million.

Then again, “Inhumans” is a Friday night show, and Fridays have been ratings black holes for years. Plus, “Inhumans” is a miniseries, so ABC is likely to ride this pug to the end of November. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” takes over its timeslot on December 1, with a two-hour premiere at 8 p.m., settling into it 9 p.m. slot on December 8.

“Ten Days in the Valley,” ABC.  Together “Inhumans,” ABC has the dubious honor of airing the two lowest rated new series of the 2017 fall batch (The network also is home to the highest-rated new drama, “The Good Doctor,” proving that fortune withholds with one hand as it caresses with the other). Unlike its comic book cohort, “Ten” — a mystery about a TV producer (Kyra Sedgwick) searching for her missing daughter —  is not a bad show. Rather, its crime is its lack of originality. It also happens a miniseries although, at this point, one can more accurately call it a placeholder; ABC is likely to shift its Sunday schedule to accommodate the return of “American Idol” in midseason.

“The Mayor,” ABC. On the comedy side of things, unless a newbie show is connected to a known franchise, a la CBS’s “Young Sheldon” and NBC’s reboot of its old Thursday night hit “Will & Grace,”  it’s hating its chances right now. Even a well-reviewed comedy like ABC’s “The Mayor” (yes, another tough nut for the network) hasn’t connected with a sizable audience yet.

That said, “The Mayor” is owned by ABC, one of those indicators that give struggling shows a better shot at getting cleared for more episodes than series produced by non-affiliated studios.

“Me, Myself & I,” CBS. “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Bobby Moynihan’s debut outing as a sitcom star gets an A- for execution, but his show had the dubious luck of premiering on the same night as “Young Sheldon,” which dwarfed it in the ratings. In the three weeks that it’s been on the air, it has bled nearly 44 percent of the audience that tuned in for its series premiere.

CBS is not a patient network when it comes to series it does not own, so it’s a good bet that this series will be done right around turkey time. Meanwhile, the inferior “9JKL” is getting decent ratings behind “The Big Bang Theory” on Mondays. Though that may change once the hit comedy moves to Thursdays in a couple of weeks, CBS owns it, and that means we may be stuck with its lease until May.

“The Brave,” NBC.  Although no network’s contribution to the season’s military drama trend is lighting the schedule on fire, NBC’s series fails to benefit from a strong lead-in “The Voice” and earns lower ratings than the drama that occupied its slot last year, “Timeless,” which was cancelled before fan outcry led NBC to restore it to life, and that show’s midseason replacement, “Taken.” Both predecessors of “The Brave,” are waiting in the wings to return to the schedule. It’s only a matter of when.

Now, on to the department of “It’s Anyone’s Guess . . . ”

“The Orville,” Fox. Chill, Seth MacFarlane fans — this series is only on the list because Fox has no clear first-year losers right now. However, the “Star Trek” (choose from the following: homage, spoof, rip-off, “I dunno!”) debuted to an audience of 7.32 million on a Sunday in September, but has shed viewers since its Thursday move; last week’s episode attracted 3.37 million in overnight ratings.

But McFarlane is an earner for Fox, which tends to evaluate a title’s success by a different standard than other networks, and if “The Orville” performs well in delayed viewing on other platforms — which it has so far — the network may keep it around for a time.

“Dynasty,” The CW. Another example of a network that defies convention when it comes to ratings, The CW measures hit status in terms of the profitability of a brand as opposed to how well it does in the ratings. That’s good news for this reboot, which attracted just over 1.3 million viewers for its broadcast premiere. The CW has done worse. Not much, but it’s happened. But in this case, a soft hello doesn’t matter since CBS Corp. owns “Dynasty” and has licensed the series to Netflix to air 188 countries, with episode available within 24 hours of its domestic premiere.

Therefore, presuming it lives, do not wonder why this middling revival remains on the schedule. All we can do is hope that something better comes along.

Fox News is in the middle of a low-key public beef with Radiohead

Radiohead (Credit: Getty/Rich Fury)

A rock band with millions of fans, the adoration of critics, the reputation as perhaps the best act in their genre over the last 30 or so years and umpteen Grammys. A news network with the millions of viewers, the adoration of the president of the United States, the reputation as perhaps the most toxic force in American discourse over the last 30 years or so and Steve Doocy — who ya got?

Yes, it appears that Brit alt stalwarts Radiohead and hosts at the Fox News networks are going through a bit of a rough patch after host Kat Timpf clumsily dropped a halfhearted insult the band’s way.

As Brooklyn Vegan has it, Timpf — a favorite around here — was discussing the new crop of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee nominations over the weekend on the network’s “Greg Gutfeld Show.“ Radiohead is making their first appearance on that shortlist along with rock and blues acts the Moody Blues, Depeche Mode, Rage Against The Machine, Bon Jovi, Judas Priest, Dire Straits, the Cars, Eurythmics, the J. Geils Band, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Link Wray, the Zombies and the long-snubbed MC5. Other, less expected performers on the list include a number of soul, jazz and rap artists including the Meters, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, LL Cool J and Nina Simone.

Timpf claimed that “seeing as that it’s about fame, and not talent, I think Radiohead will get in and should get in” which is interesting given that they are often acknowledged perhaps the most musically and technically advanced rock band of all time.

She added that, “I don’t even like them, but the kind of guys that I like have to be three things: strange, malnourished and sad. Those guys always like Radiohead. So I’ve had to pretend to like Radiohead for years just to get these men.” It’s a bit more than we wanted to know about Timpf’s personal predilections. She added that “If that’s not fame and power that will get me to do that for someone else, I don’t know what is.” Right.

Along the way, she noted that the band’s music was, “elaborate moaning and whining over ringtone sounds” — a genuinely knowing and hilarious description of Radiohead’s body of work, but an objectively false one as well.

Watch her do it all while wearing Warby Parkers below:

One would think that — outside of a fan-driven backlash — this would be the end of it. After all, the members of the band rarely get down in the dirt with the press, preferring instead to draw attention to their various progressive causes and score Paul Thomas Anderson films.

And, yet, here we are with Radiohead guitarist and very thin, very odd man Johnny Greenwood slinging back via his Twitter account. On the sly, Greenwood revised his Twitter bio to read: “my life in the gush of boasts……….’strange, malnourished and sad’ (fox news – *spits three times*)” a clear reference to Timpf’s comments. Nice stuff.

Responding both to that and the backlash, Timpf open up on Twitter, simultaneous joking with, pleading for mercy from and trying to fight the onslaught of enraged, sometimes harassing fans.

Actually my favorite band is Brian Jonestown Massacre https://t.co/MPL3ek5ycL

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 16, 2017

I made a self-deprecating joke on a comedy show about the men I like to date & now have an entire fandom after me & it's just the most 2017

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 17, 2017

That I think they're hot? https://t.co/Jh8BmzzLsb

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 17, 2017

HOW IS THIS AN INTERNATIONAL CONTROVERSY https://t.co/vvv7OhXlju

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 17, 2017

Sample of what my inbox looks like because I made a *joke* on a *comedy show* about a *band* pic.twitter.com/DeGk5khtkB

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 17, 2017

Keep in mind the email continues, all of it was too long for a screenshot

— Kat Timpf (@KatTimpf) October 17, 2017

Now, the critique of Timpf she singles out is inappropriate and should never have happened regardless of how, well, dumb her comments were. We at Salon genuinely hope that things like that will stop. We also hope Timpf takes a moment away from her latest emaciated, morose lover to listen to “In Rainbows” with open ears for the first time. Some of those cell-phone ringtone sounds are nice.