Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 957
November 10, 2015
If you drink every time the GOP candidates mention HRC you will be drunk by the end of tonight’s debate
If you're planning on watching the GOP debate tonight, you probably won't want to do it sober. So we've got a drinking game for you to play while you watch: drink each time a Republican candidate mentions Hillary Clinton. If the last three debates are any indication of how tonight's will go, you'll probably be drinking a lot. What's your guess on what the total number will be? Check out this super funny supercut of the Republican candidates tirelessly mentioning the Democratic frontrunner's name: [jwplayer file="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/Clinto..." image="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/2014-0...] If you're planning on watching the GOP debate tonight, you probably won't want to do it sober. So we've got a drinking game for you to play while you watch: drink each time a Republican candidate mentions Hillary Clinton. If the last three debates are any indication of how tonight's will go, you'll probably be drinking a lot. What's your guess on what the total number will be? Check out this super funny supercut of the Republican candidates tirelessly mentioning the Democratic frontrunner's name: [jwplayer file="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/Clinto..." image="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/2014-0...] If you're planning on watching the GOP debate tonight, you probably won't want to do it sober. So we've got a drinking game for you to play while you watch: drink each time a Republican candidate mentions Hillary Clinton. If the last three debates are any indication of how tonight's will go, you'll probably be drinking a lot. What's your guess on what the total number will be? Check out this super funny supercut of the Republican candidates tirelessly mentioning the Democratic frontrunner's name: [jwplayer file="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/Clinto..." image="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/2014-0...] If you're planning on watching the GOP debate tonight, you probably won't want to do it sober. So we've got a drinking game for you to play while you watch: drink each time a Republican candidate mentions Hillary Clinton. If the last three debates are any indication of how tonight's will go, you'll probably be drinking a lot. What's your guess on what the total number will be? Check out this super funny supercut of the Republican candidates tirelessly mentioning the Democratic frontrunner's name: [jwplayer file="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/Clinto..." image="http://media.salon.com/2015/11/2014-0...]
November 9, 2015
Sotomayor shreds conservative SCOTUS justices for justifying “deadly force for no discernible gain”
In her dissent of the Supreme Court's decision today to dismiss a case concerning the death of Israel Leija, Jr., Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her colleagues for sanctioning a "shoot first, think later approach to policing." Leija was shot to death in 2010 during a high-speed police chase on I-27 in Texas. According to NBC News, the chase began after a local officer tried to arrest Leija on an outstanding warrant at a fast food restaurant. During the 18-minute-long chase, Leija twice called police dispatch to warn he was armed and willing to shoot if the chase wasn't called off. Police laid spike strips at three spots along the highway in an attempt to disable Leija's car. Despite orders from a superior to stand by until Leija reached the spike strips, State Trooper Chadrin Mullenix fired 6 shots from an overpass at the speeding car. At least 4 of these shots fatally hit Leija; none hit the car's engine block. "[I]t was clearly established under the Fourth Amendment," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, "that an officer in Mullenix's position should not have fired the shots." "Mullenix took his shot when Leija was between 25 and 30 yards away from the spike strip, traveling at 85 miles per hour," Sotomayor explained. "Even if his shots hit Leija’s engine block, the car would not have stopped instantly." After the shooting Mullenix said to his superior officer, "How's that for proactive?" And though "the comment does not impact our legal analysis," Sotomayor said, "[T]he comment seems to me revealing of the culture this court’s decision supports when it calls it reasonable — or even reasonably reasonable — to use deadly force for no discernible gain and over a supervisor’s express order to 'stand by.'" The Court's decision could play a substantial role in shaping the way police misconduct cases are tried in the future. Find the full RawStory report here.In her dissent of the Supreme Court's decision today to dismiss a case concerning the death of Israel Leija, Jr., Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her colleagues for sanctioning a "shoot first, think later approach to policing." Leija was shot to death in 2010 during a high-speed police chase on I-27 in Texas. According to NBC News, the chase began after a local officer tried to arrest Leija on an outstanding warrant at a fast food restaurant. During the 18-minute-long chase, Leija twice called police dispatch to warn he was armed and willing to shoot if the chase wasn't called off. Police laid spike strips at three spots along the highway in an attempt to disable Leija's car. Despite orders from a superior to stand by until Leija reached the spike strips, State Trooper Chadrin Mullenix fired 6 shots from an overpass at the speeding car. At least 4 of these shots fatally hit Leija; none hit the car's engine block. "[I]t was clearly established under the Fourth Amendment," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, "that an officer in Mullenix's position should not have fired the shots." "Mullenix took his shot when Leija was between 25 and 30 yards away from the spike strip, traveling at 85 miles per hour," Sotomayor explained. "Even if his shots hit Leija’s engine block, the car would not have stopped instantly." After the shooting Mullenix said to his superior officer, "How's that for proactive?" And though "the comment does not impact our legal analysis," Sotomayor said, "[T]he comment seems to me revealing of the culture this court’s decision supports when it calls it reasonable — or even reasonably reasonable — to use deadly force for no discernible gain and over a supervisor’s express order to 'stand by.'" The Court's decision could play a substantial role in shaping the way police misconduct cases are tried in the future. Find the full RawStory report here.In her dissent of the Supreme Court's decision today to dismiss a case concerning the death of Israel Leija, Jr., Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her colleagues for sanctioning a "shoot first, think later approach to policing." Leija was shot to death in 2010 during a high-speed police chase on I-27 in Texas. According to NBC News, the chase began after a local officer tried to arrest Leija on an outstanding warrant at a fast food restaurant. During the 18-minute-long chase, Leija twice called police dispatch to warn he was armed and willing to shoot if the chase wasn't called off. Police laid spike strips at three spots along the highway in an attempt to disable Leija's car. Despite orders from a superior to stand by until Leija reached the spike strips, State Trooper Chadrin Mullenix fired 6 shots from an overpass at the speeding car. At least 4 of these shots fatally hit Leija; none hit the car's engine block. "[I]t was clearly established under the Fourth Amendment," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, "that an officer in Mullenix's position should not have fired the shots." "Mullenix took his shot when Leija was between 25 and 30 yards away from the spike strip, traveling at 85 miles per hour," Sotomayor explained. "Even if his shots hit Leija’s engine block, the car would not have stopped instantly." After the shooting Mullenix said to his superior officer, "How's that for proactive?" And though "the comment does not impact our legal analysis," Sotomayor said, "[T]he comment seems to me revealing of the culture this court’s decision supports when it calls it reasonable — or even reasonably reasonable — to use deadly force for no discernible gain and over a supervisor’s express order to 'stand by.'" The Court's decision could play a substantial role in shaping the way police misconduct cases are tried in the future. Find the full RawStory report here.
A new “Better Call Saul” trailer hints at Jimmy’s “Breaking Bad” evolution
The first trailer for “Better Call Saul” season two has arrived, and it’s a cryptic little number, featuring a despondent-looking Jimmy walking through a parking lot. As he walks, we hear key lines from last season that suggest the beginnings of his evolution from Jimmy to Saul: His impassioned declaration that he's "a lawyer, not a criminal," his brother’s cruel retort that "Slipping Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun," and his Walter White-esque declaration to Mike in the finale that doing the right thing is "never stopping [him] again." It may not have the pizzaz of that Junior Brown song, but it’s certainly enough to get us excited for the second season, which premieres some time in 2016. Watch: The first trailer for “Better Call Saul” season two has arrived, and it’s a cryptic little number, featuring a despondent-looking Jimmy walking through a parking lot. As he walks, we hear key lines from last season that suggest the beginnings of his evolution from Jimmy to Saul: His impassioned declaration that he's "a lawyer, not a criminal," his brother’s cruel retort that "Slipping Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun," and his Walter White-esque declaration to Mike in the finale that doing the right thing is "never stopping [him] again." It may not have the pizzaz of that Junior Brown song, but it’s certainly enough to get us excited for the second season, which premieres some time in 2016. Watch:
“Repent that Dumbledore emerged as a homosexual mentor for Harry Potter”: Inside the bizarre anti-gay conference featuring Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee & Bobby Jindal
Pandering to the voters of Iowa used to be represented by the debate on ethanol subsidies but it has become increasingly clear that on the Republican side, the fight for evangelical voters is the fight to win the Iowa caucuses and for extreme right-wing candidates like Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, campaigning at a Christian evangelical conference during which the host cited the Bible as justification to murder gays and lesbians is just par for the course. The National Religious Liberties Conference was a two-day conference in Iowa this weekend and as Right Wing Watch has extensively covered, attendees were not only treated to speeches from three GOP presidential candidates, but with pamphlets that called for the "death penalty for gays" and a rant about Harry Potter turning America's youth gay. The conference organizer, Kevin Swanson, is no stranger to controversy, having once said this of the Disney film Frozen: "I think this cute little movie is going to indoctrinate my five year old to be a lesbian or treat homosexuality or bestiality in a light sort of way.” The Daily Beast's Thor Benson has more on the event organizers:
This event is organized by conservative radio host Kevin Swanson, whose greatest hits include advocating for the execution of gay people and support for Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexual laws, (a country where homosexuals experience “corrective rape”). He also thinks God is going to wipe out America over homosexuality and that America’s welfare system goes hand-in-hand with prostituting women. Another two speakers appearing at the conference have also called for gay people to be executed. Reverend Phillip Kayser has said he would approve of executing gay people, though he thinks it’s unlikely to happen in America. Joel McDurmon, president of the Christian organization American Vision, has written “the homosexual act as a civil crime deserves the death penalty.” Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the conservative organization The Family Leader, will also be in attendance. He has compared supporting gay marriage to supporting slavery.Despite hosting at least one top-tier candidate (Ted Cruz is rising), Swanson seemed unable to control his ridiculous right-wing rhetoric this weekend. “America, repent of Harry Potter. America repent of How to Train Your Dragon. Repent that Dumbledore emerged as a homosexual mentor for Harry Potter,” Swanson inexplicably shouted during one of his speeches "mourning" a culture of homosexuality. At another point, Swanson vividly described his imagined reaction to a same-sex marriage invitation from his son. "Here is what I would do: sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and I'd sit in cow manure and I'd spread it all over my body. That is what I would do and I'm not kidding, I'm not laughing." Still, Huckabee, Jindal and Cruz saw fit to visit Swanson's conference to pander to Iowa voters who view Kim Davis as a case of Christian persecution in America. “Who would have ever thought that an elected county clerk in Kentucky would be put in jail by a federal judge for believing exactly what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton believed about marriage just three and a half years ago?” Huckabee said, according to the Des Moines Register. "Our religious liberties are under assault." “Christians are under physical assault all over the world and Christian values are under assault right here at home,” Jindal echoed. “Four more years of these radical left policies, we won't even recognize our country anymore.” Calling it "the most important question" for any presidential candidate, Swanson asked Ted Cruz "how important is it for the President of the United State to fear God?" "Any president who doesn’t begin everyday on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief," Cruz said to thunderous applause and shouts of "amen!" “We have a responsibility, as scripture tells us, to be watchmen on the walls" Cruz reminded the faithful who had flocked to hear him speak that part of their duty is to vote. "If another 10 million evangelical Christians vote in 2016 and simply vote our values, we won’t be up at three in the morning wondering what happened in Ohio and Florida," Cruz said. "They’ll call the election at 8:35 p.m. because Christians would have turned this country around." Watch coverage of the conference, including Ted Cruz's address, via Right Wing Watch: Pandering to the voters of Iowa used to be represented by the debate on ethanol subsidies but it has become increasingly clear that on the Republican side, the fight for evangelical voters is the fight to win the Iowa caucuses and for extreme right-wing candidates like Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, campaigning at a Christian evangelical conference during which the host cited the Bible as justification to murder gays and lesbians is just par for the course. The National Religious Liberties Conference was a two-day conference in Iowa this weekend and as Right Wing Watch has extensively covered, attendees were not only treated to speeches from three GOP presidential candidates, but with pamphlets that called for the "death penalty for gays" and a rant about Harry Potter turning America's youth gay. The conference organizer, Kevin Swanson, is no stranger to controversy, having once said this of the Disney film Frozen: "I think this cute little movie is going to indoctrinate my five year old to be a lesbian or treat homosexuality or bestiality in a light sort of way.” The Daily Beast's Thor Benson has more on the event organizers:
This event is organized by conservative radio host Kevin Swanson, whose greatest hits include advocating for the execution of gay people and support for Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexual laws, (a country where homosexuals experience “corrective rape”). He also thinks God is going to wipe out America over homosexuality and that America’s welfare system goes hand-in-hand with prostituting women. Another two speakers appearing at the conference have also called for gay people to be executed. Reverend Phillip Kayser has said he would approve of executing gay people, though he thinks it’s unlikely to happen in America. Joel McDurmon, president of the Christian organization American Vision, has written “the homosexual act as a civil crime deserves the death penalty.” Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the conservative organization The Family Leader, will also be in attendance. He has compared supporting gay marriage to supporting slavery.Despite hosting at least one top-tier candidate (Ted Cruz is rising), Swanson seemed unable to control his ridiculous right-wing rhetoric this weekend. “America, repent of Harry Potter. America repent of How to Train Your Dragon. Repent that Dumbledore emerged as a homosexual mentor for Harry Potter,” Swanson inexplicably shouted during one of his speeches "mourning" a culture of homosexuality. At another point, Swanson vividly described his imagined reaction to a same-sex marriage invitation from his son. "Here is what I would do: sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and I'd sit in cow manure and I'd spread it all over my body. That is what I would do and I'm not kidding, I'm not laughing." Still, Huckabee, Jindal and Cruz saw fit to visit Swanson's conference to pander to Iowa voters who view Kim Davis as a case of Christian persecution in America. “Who would have ever thought that an elected county clerk in Kentucky would be put in jail by a federal judge for believing exactly what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton believed about marriage just three and a half years ago?” Huckabee said, according to the Des Moines Register. "Our religious liberties are under assault." “Christians are under physical assault all over the world and Christian values are under assault right here at home,” Jindal echoed. “Four more years of these radical left policies, we won't even recognize our country anymore.” Calling it "the most important question" for any presidential candidate, Swanson asked Ted Cruz "how important is it for the President of the United State to fear God?" "Any president who doesn’t begin everyday on his knees isn’t fit to be commander-in-chief," Cruz said to thunderous applause and shouts of "amen!" “We have a responsibility, as scripture tells us, to be watchmen on the walls" Cruz reminded the faithful who had flocked to hear him speak that part of their duty is to vote. "If another 10 million evangelical Christians vote in 2016 and simply vote our values, we won’t be up at three in the morning wondering what happened in Ohio and Florida," Cruz said. "They’ll call the election at 8:35 p.m. because Christians would have turned this country around." Watch coverage of the conference, including Ted Cruz's address, via Right Wing Watch:
White guilt and “The Good Wife”: When good intentions about corporate diversity fall painfully short
There is a system of rules and accepted behaviors that governs the processes of the entire planet and yet is rarely acknowledged. It’s a dress code, a day-to-day ethic, a grammar of speaking and being; it’s corporate culture, and whether or not we want it to, it runs the world. You either learn how to use it, or you learn to let it use you; and even if you opt out, most of the institutions that run the planet operate under its guidance. One of the reasons “The Good Wife” has become such a captivating show for critics and fans alike is because in a television landscape glutted with workplace dramas, “The Good Wife” actively engages with the bizarre convolutions of corporate culture. There’s something immediately recognizable about the characters’ attempts to navigate asking for raises, angling for promotions, or struggle through working with someone they really don’t like. The court proceedings of “The Good Wife” are unlike any other show on television, because the judges and opposing lawyers are recurring characters—colleagues in their own right, even as they’re rivals on the floor. “The Good Wife”’s finest season, its fifth, revolved around emotionally fraught corporate shuffling, as a few lawyers left one firm to start another. And last night’s episode, “Lies,” offered another revealing, incisive little gem, one that really had no reason to be in the season’s storyline except that it interested the show’s writing team. In it, firm partners Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), David Lee (Zach Grenier), and Howard Lyman (Jerry Adler) are tasked with hiring three new associates. Most of the candidates are white men from top-tier law schools—Harvard, Stanford, Yale. One is a black woman named Monica Timmons (Nikki M. James), and though we know the partners best, we experience the interview process through her eyes. One of the ways “The Good Wife” digs into corporate culture is with clever and insightful perspective-switching, and this is no exception; there is no area of work that feels most fraught with unspoken expectations and well-established norms than the job interview. Monica is perfectly prepared. She looks appropriate, is extremely polite, and arrived early; she spots the other interviewees —white men—and tries not to let the competition get to her. Her resume, like the other applicants’, is on off-white, heavyweight paper, with a font to set off her name that is pretty but not distracting. And she is doomed from the moment she walks through that door. Exactly why she is doomed is open to interpretation. The titular “Lies” of the episode directly refer to another plot about an employee being subjected to a polygraph test, but given that this interviewing plot is in this episode, the title takes on greater significance. The interview process itself is what seems to be the bigger lie, as Monica steps from office to office, going through an hours-long gauntlet of interviewers with partners who alternate between tone-deaf, rude, and irritatingly condescending. Howard asks her if she’s “Nigerian, or what?” and then praises her for being “sassy.” Diane and Cary both individually ask her if growing up in Baltimore was “tough,” presumably because they have seen “The Wire.” David Lee is unimpressed with her alma mater—Loyola—and doesn’t bother hiding it. It is a demoralizing series of meetings, one where every interviewer brings their preconceived notions to the forefront. For the viewer, what follows is even more uncomfortable: the meeting where the partners discuss their findings. The episode uses the four partners to stake out four different corporate reactions to an atypical applicant: David Lee insists on choosing the best for the job, Diane wants to make a diversity hire without saying “diversity hire,” Cary likes the guys he can identify with, and Howard Lyman thinks they should hire “the black girl.” The following conversation is a human resources department’s worst nightmare, as the four try to come to a consensus. Hiring to promote diversity is a shell game with no easy solution—I’ve written about it before. And at least partly, that’s because it’s hard to say what needs to be said without making even more of a mess of things. Diane plays the show’s resident party-line liberal, and she articulates the conundrum of her own top-down progressivism: The firm does not discriminate, positively or negatively, based on race, but Monica’s race is the key feature that sets her apart; it is the characteristic that adds complexity to her Loyola attendance and Baltimore upbringing, that makes her an individual with a story instead of a piece of paper with varying fonts. Diane, as the most well-meaning partner, is stuck in a position of authority that can’t justify the “right” decision. And so Monica does not get the job. “The Good Wife” is kind of ruthless with hiring storylines. In a season three episode, “Marthas And Caitlins,” protagonist Alicia (Julianna Margulies) is asked to choose between two candidates that remind her of different aspects of herself, before being forced to choose the candidate that has a personal connection to one of the partners. It’s an unfair choice, and everyone—Martha, Caitlin, and Alicia herself—knows it. But, the episode observes, that’s how the world works; a choice has to be made, and what goes into the choice is often unpleasantly arbitrary. In “Lies,” the odds are not in Monica’s favor, and that is, in itself, another installment of unpleasant, behind-the-scenes choice-making. What makes the situation in “The Good Wife” singular is that it addresses not just the duplicity of the job application process—a “meritocratic process” that, unchecked, favors wealthy white men—but also Diane’s guilt for failing to help Monica. Diane calls her in to deliver the rejection to her face, thinking of it, perhaps, as a gesture of respect. Monica sees it as a condescending waste of her time. “You brought me in here to say you want to help me, but not give me a job. Okay. This was most illuminating.” Diane is flummoxed at the anger she seems to have sparked for Monica, and is disturbed, then, when Monica releases an “undercover video” from her interviews that splices together all the worst things the interviewers said, which makes the firm look very tone-deaf, indeed. The video is the weakest part of the narrative—a symptom of “The Good Wife”’s obsession with surveillance and technology that ignores some questions like, where the hell was her hidden camera? And does making an undercover video really lead a partner to change their mind about an applicant?—but it serves to give Diane and Monica one final scene together. Guilt is a transformed and misplaced type of anger, and in Diane’s case, it comes from a perch very high above Monica’s; the top-name partner in the firm that just rejected her. Monica reflects it back to her as anger, and it’s a moment of revelation for Diane, who is the character the audience knows best. All Diane is seeing in Monica is a reflection of what she wants to see, and her guilt has her bringing back Monica again and again, as if to attempt once more to peer into that confusing mirror. Diane struggled to become a name partner, as the only woman in the firm, and as she communicates to Monica, she empathizes. “Everyone has to eat dirt on the way up,” she says. Monica, who is expecting a job offer after successfully getting Diane’s attention once more, is once again furious. “There is no comparison,” she says, between Diane’s difficult choices to get ahead and the discrimination she faces. “I don’t choose to have women hold their purses tighter when they see me coming down the street. I don’t choose to have cops pull me out of my car and frisk me for failing to signal…. I don’t want your understanding. I don’t need your advice. What I need is a job.” And with that, she stands up and walks out. This season, “The Good Wife” hasn’t always been able to find that corporate culture sweet spot—partly because protagonist Alicia has split from all the other regular characters, and partly because the firm shuffling and reshuffling has been very hard to follow. There’s an extensive political subplot about Alicia’s husband Peter (Chris Noth) running for president on the Democratic ticket, and last night’s “Lies”’ reintroduced the NSA flacks that were bizarre but beloved characters in season five. Even this storyline, with Monica’s job interview, has its odd hiccups. But Monica herself, as a marginalized outsider frustrated with the characters of the show, is an incredible character in both conception and execution. “The Good Wife” explores power, morality, and gender throughout its long 22-episode seasons—and has at times failed to tell stories about race well, especially as regular characters of color faded from the show’s storytelling. There’s a sense in which Monica is holding Lockhart, Agos & Leeto accountable, and there’s also a sense to which she’s holding the show as a whole to account—for losing Archie Panjabi’s Kalinda Sharma, for distancing the storylines of characters of color like Matan Brody, Geneva Pine, Wendy Scott-Carr, and Lemond Bishop, and for struggling with their own top-down guilt and confusion about how to incorporate employees of color into their workplace. It’s clearly important, but characters like Diane lack a roadmap, and as a result, they don’t help—they just make people like Monica very angry. As the episode identifies, through Monica, the problem with well-meaning guilt—white, liberal, privileged, or otherwise—is that it puts that misplaced anger on the marginalized group, instead of where it belongs: on the very person feeling that guilt. It's hard to hold yourself accountable for the injustices in the world, as Diane realizes. But it would also have been more responsible of her to acknowledge her own blame and recommend Monica to another firm than it is to drag her in for another round of soul-searching. The guilt is useful in that it indicates to Diane that something is wrong, but instead of either owning it or doing something about it, she tries to absolve herself to Monica. And Monica—a one-off character who we might never see again, though who knows, with "The Good Wife"—is there to give her the lowdown: If you're going to play the game of corporate culture, there is no absolution. There's just making choices, again and again.There is a system of rules and accepted behaviors that governs the processes of the entire planet and yet is rarely acknowledged. It’s a dress code, a day-to-day ethic, a grammar of speaking and being; it’s corporate culture, and whether or not we want it to, it runs the world. You either learn how to use it, or you learn to let it use you; and even if you opt out, most of the institutions that run the planet operate under its guidance. One of the reasons “The Good Wife” has become such a captivating show for critics and fans alike is because in a television landscape glutted with workplace dramas, “The Good Wife” actively engages with the bizarre convolutions of corporate culture. There’s something immediately recognizable about the characters’ attempts to navigate asking for raises, angling for promotions, or struggle through working with someone they really don’t like. The court proceedings of “The Good Wife” are unlike any other show on television, because the judges and opposing lawyers are recurring characters—colleagues in their own right, even as they’re rivals on the floor. “The Good Wife”’s finest season, its fifth, revolved around emotionally fraught corporate shuffling, as a few lawyers left one firm to start another. And last night’s episode, “Lies,” offered another revealing, incisive little gem, one that really had no reason to be in the season’s storyline except that it interested the show’s writing team. In it, firm partners Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), Cary Agos (Matt Czuchry), David Lee (Zach Grenier), and Howard Lyman (Jerry Adler) are tasked with hiring three new associates. Most of the candidates are white men from top-tier law schools—Harvard, Stanford, Yale. One is a black woman named Monica Timmons (Nikki M. James), and though we know the partners best, we experience the interview process through her eyes. One of the ways “The Good Wife” digs into corporate culture is with clever and insightful perspective-switching, and this is no exception; there is no area of work that feels most fraught with unspoken expectations and well-established norms than the job interview. Monica is perfectly prepared. She looks appropriate, is extremely polite, and arrived early; she spots the other interviewees —white men—and tries not to let the competition get to her. Her resume, like the other applicants’, is on off-white, heavyweight paper, with a font to set off her name that is pretty but not distracting. And she is doomed from the moment she walks through that door. Exactly why she is doomed is open to interpretation. The titular “Lies” of the episode directly refer to another plot about an employee being subjected to a polygraph test, but given that this interviewing plot is in this episode, the title takes on greater significance. The interview process itself is what seems to be the bigger lie, as Monica steps from office to office, going through an hours-long gauntlet of interviewers with partners who alternate between tone-deaf, rude, and irritatingly condescending. Howard asks her if she’s “Nigerian, or what?” and then praises her for being “sassy.” Diane and Cary both individually ask her if growing up in Baltimore was “tough,” presumably because they have seen “The Wire.” David Lee is unimpressed with her alma mater—Loyola—and doesn’t bother hiding it. It is a demoralizing series of meetings, one where every interviewer brings their preconceived notions to the forefront. For the viewer, what follows is even more uncomfortable: the meeting where the partners discuss their findings. The episode uses the four partners to stake out four different corporate reactions to an atypical applicant: David Lee insists on choosing the best for the job, Diane wants to make a diversity hire without saying “diversity hire,” Cary likes the guys he can identify with, and Howard Lyman thinks they should hire “the black girl.” The following conversation is a human resources department’s worst nightmare, as the four try to come to a consensus. Hiring to promote diversity is a shell game with no easy solution—I’ve written about it before. And at least partly, that’s because it’s hard to say what needs to be said without making even more of a mess of things. Diane plays the show’s resident party-line liberal, and she articulates the conundrum of her own top-down progressivism: The firm does not discriminate, positively or negatively, based on race, but Monica’s race is the key feature that sets her apart; it is the characteristic that adds complexity to her Loyola attendance and Baltimore upbringing, that makes her an individual with a story instead of a piece of paper with varying fonts. Diane, as the most well-meaning partner, is stuck in a position of authority that can’t justify the “right” decision. And so Monica does not get the job. “The Good Wife” is kind of ruthless with hiring storylines. In a season three episode, “Marthas And Caitlins,” protagonist Alicia (Julianna Margulies) is asked to choose between two candidates that remind her of different aspects of herself, before being forced to choose the candidate that has a personal connection to one of the partners. It’s an unfair choice, and everyone—Martha, Caitlin, and Alicia herself—knows it. But, the episode observes, that’s how the world works; a choice has to be made, and what goes into the choice is often unpleasantly arbitrary. In “Lies,” the odds are not in Monica’s favor, and that is, in itself, another installment of unpleasant, behind-the-scenes choice-making. What makes the situation in “The Good Wife” singular is that it addresses not just the duplicity of the job application process—a “meritocratic process” that, unchecked, favors wealthy white men—but also Diane’s guilt for failing to help Monica. Diane calls her in to deliver the rejection to her face, thinking of it, perhaps, as a gesture of respect. Monica sees it as a condescending waste of her time. “You brought me in here to say you want to help me, but not give me a job. Okay. This was most illuminating.” Diane is flummoxed at the anger she seems to have sparked for Monica, and is disturbed, then, when Monica releases an “undercover video” from her interviews that splices together all the worst things the interviewers said, which makes the firm look very tone-deaf, indeed. The video is the weakest part of the narrative—a symptom of “The Good Wife”’s obsession with surveillance and technology that ignores some questions like, where the hell was her hidden camera? And does making an undercover video really lead a partner to change their mind about an applicant?—but it serves to give Diane and Monica one final scene together. Guilt is a transformed and misplaced type of anger, and in Diane’s case, it comes from a perch very high above Monica’s; the top-name partner in the firm that just rejected her. Monica reflects it back to her as anger, and it’s a moment of revelation for Diane, who is the character the audience knows best. All Diane is seeing in Monica is a reflection of what she wants to see, and her guilt has her bringing back Monica again and again, as if to attempt once more to peer into that confusing mirror. Diane struggled to become a name partner, as the only woman in the firm, and as she communicates to Monica, she empathizes. “Everyone has to eat dirt on the way up,” she says. Monica, who is expecting a job offer after successfully getting Diane’s attention once more, is once again furious. “There is no comparison,” she says, between Diane’s difficult choices to get ahead and the discrimination she faces. “I don’t choose to have women hold their purses tighter when they see me coming down the street. I don’t choose to have cops pull me out of my car and frisk me for failing to signal…. I don’t want your understanding. I don’t need your advice. What I need is a job.” And with that, she stands up and walks out. This season, “The Good Wife” hasn’t always been able to find that corporate culture sweet spot—partly because protagonist Alicia has split from all the other regular characters, and partly because the firm shuffling and reshuffling has been very hard to follow. There’s an extensive political subplot about Alicia’s husband Peter (Chris Noth) running for president on the Democratic ticket, and last night’s “Lies”’ reintroduced the NSA flacks that were bizarre but beloved characters in season five. Even this storyline, with Monica’s job interview, has its odd hiccups. But Monica herself, as a marginalized outsider frustrated with the characters of the show, is an incredible character in both conception and execution. “The Good Wife” explores power, morality, and gender throughout its long 22-episode seasons—and has at times failed to tell stories about race well, especially as regular characters of color faded from the show’s storytelling. There’s a sense in which Monica is holding Lockhart, Agos & Leeto accountable, and there’s also a sense to which she’s holding the show as a whole to account—for losing Archie Panjabi’s Kalinda Sharma, for distancing the storylines of characters of color like Matan Brody, Geneva Pine, Wendy Scott-Carr, and Lemond Bishop, and for struggling with their own top-down guilt and confusion about how to incorporate employees of color into their workplace. It’s clearly important, but characters like Diane lack a roadmap, and as a result, they don’t help—they just make people like Monica very angry. As the episode identifies, through Monica, the problem with well-meaning guilt—white, liberal, privileged, or otherwise—is that it puts that misplaced anger on the marginalized group, instead of where it belongs: on the very person feeling that guilt. It's hard to hold yourself accountable for the injustices in the world, as Diane realizes. But it would also have been more responsible of her to acknowledge her own blame and recommend Monica to another firm than it is to drag her in for another round of soul-searching. The guilt is useful in that it indicates to Diane that something is wrong, but instead of either owning it or doing something about it, she tries to absolve herself to Monica. And Monica—a one-off character who we might never see again, though who knows, with "The Good Wife"—is there to give her the lowdown: If you're going to play the game of corporate culture, there is no absolution. There's just making choices, again and again.
“But would Jeb abort fetus Hitler?”: Twitter has a heyday with Bush’s promise he’d kill Baby Hitler
Much has been made of Jeb Bush, a candidate who last ran for office in 2002, struggling to connect with an electorate stratified by fast moving and diffuse media coverage, but lately, Jeb's attempts to talk pop culture have just served as comedic fodder. There was his creepy "Super Girl" remark that the young actress "looks pretty hot." His attempt to reboot his faltering campaign by releasing a book of over 700 emails he sent while governor of Florida back in the early 2000s went about as well as you'd expect. Vic Berger IV has become a Vine superstar artistically mocking Jeb's most awkward moments on film -- and he's got plenty of material. And now eager to promote "Reply All," his aforementioned thrilling book of emails, Jeb has finally gotten in on a weeks old Twitter meme about the hypothetical fate of baby Hitler. Back in October, the New York Times Magazine trolled the internet on a quiet Friday afternoon when it polled its readers on whether or not they would go back and kill Hitler as a baby. For some reason, when asked about his most interesting email today, Jeb joked with the Huffington Post that first he'd have to sift through to find an example that was not "x-rated" before gleefully sharing his thoughts on baby Hitler. “Hell yeah, I would!” Jeb declared when asked if he would, in fact, travel back in time to kill baby Hitler. “You gotta step up, man.” Needless to say, Twitter users were quick to jump on a throwback trending topic and mock Jeb all the while: https://twitter.com/JosephDiebold/sta... https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/sta... https://twitter.com/PoliticalGroove/s... https://twitter.com/jdhowa2/status/66... https://twitter.com/Millerita/status/... https://twitter.com/exjon/status/6638... https://twitter.com/ProfJeffJarvis/st... One user clearly understood what Jeb meant when he warned "it could have a dangerous effect on everything else, but I’d do it -- I mean, Hitler”: https://twitter.com/MattOB34/status/6... Even Jeb! got in on the joke: https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/66... has been made of Jeb Bush, a candidate who last ran for office in 2002, struggling to connect with an electorate stratified by fast moving and diffuse media coverage, but lately, Jeb's attempts to talk pop culture have just served as comedic fodder. There was his creepy "Super Girl" remark that the young actress "looks pretty hot." His attempt to reboot his faltering campaign by releasing a book of over 700 emails he sent while governor of Florida back in the early 2000s went about as well as you'd expect. Vic Berger IV has become a Vine superstar artistically mocking Jeb's most awkward moments on film -- and he's got plenty of material. And now eager to promote "Reply All," his aforementioned thrilling book of emails, Jeb has finally gotten in on a weeks old Twitter meme about the hypothetical fate of baby Hitler. Back in October, the New York Times Magazine trolled the internet on a quiet Friday afternoon when it polled its readers on whether or not they would go back and kill Hitler as a baby. For some reason, when asked about his most interesting email today, Jeb joked with the Huffington Post that first he'd have to sift through to find an example that was not "x-rated" before gleefully sharing his thoughts on baby Hitler. “Hell yeah, I would!” Jeb declared when asked if he would, in fact, travel back in time to kill baby Hitler. “You gotta step up, man.” Needless to say, Twitter users were quick to jump on a throwback trending topic and mock Jeb all the while: https://twitter.com/JosephDiebold/sta... https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/sta... https://twitter.com/PoliticalGroove/s... https://twitter.com/jdhowa2/status/66... https://twitter.com/Millerita/status/... https://twitter.com/exjon/status/6638... https://twitter.com/ProfJeffJarvis/st... One user clearly understood what Jeb meant when he warned "it could have a dangerous effect on everything else, but I’d do it -- I mean, Hitler”: https://twitter.com/MattOB34/status/6... Even Jeb! got in on the joke: https://twitter.com/JebBush/status/66...
John Oliver’s best piece ever: This brilliant expose on our endless prison cycle is an absolute must
In just one year, John Oliver has covered several facets of the U.S.'s truly jacked-up criminal justice system from mandatory minimums, to how bail punishes the poor, to over-stretched public defenders and small municipal violations putting you in the fuckbarrel. It's so depressing, Oliver encouraged viewers Sunday evening during "Last Week Tonight" to eat their feelings at Dairy Queen. Instead of discussing the depressing ways in which we lock people away, Oliver addressed what happens when people leave prison. Since President Obama commuted the sentences of the largest number of federal prisoners, this is particularly relevant. Fox News might be freaking out about the 6,000 people being released, but Oliver says that most of these people were going to be released over the course of the next several years anyway. More than 600,000 people are released from prison each year. However, despite what Hollywood wants you to believe, leaving jail isn't exactly all blue skies, rainbows and sparkly shit falling from the sky. "For a surprisingly high number of prisoners their time on the outside may be brief," Oliver says because the national average of recidivism is 50 percent. Pennsylvania's Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel says we're spending $80 billion to fail half of the time. But when you look at the challenges that those who served their time face on the outside, it isn't hard to see why they end up back in jail. First, many former prisoners are denied government services, which makes it difficult to get a job and pay for life on the outside. Ever been applying for a job and see that line that says "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" You have to imagine most of those that check "yes" end up on the bottom of the stack. In fact, in some states it's even illegal to hire ex-prisoners for some jobs such as nurses, teachers and even in Mississippi an alligator rancher. Seriously. Which makes sense, I guess, if you understand how creative people coming out of prisons must get just to find jobs. Finding work is so difficult the Ohio State Rehabilitation and Corrections Reentry Resource Manual gives tips such as refraining from using negative words like "went to jail" on forms that ask why you left job and instead put "relocated" or "contract ended" both of which are totally legitimate. If an ex-con does manage to find work and "are trying their hardest, satisfying the conditions of parole can be maddeningly difficult," Oliver said because "two-thirds of parolees who go back to prison do so, not due to a new crime, but because of parole violations." Sometimes these can be as simple as "missing appointments or failing a drug test. For some, it may be because they're dealing with untreated substance abuse or mental illness." Such was the case of one man named Bilal Chatman who worked hard to get his life back on track after spending a decade in prison. He began having problems scheduling meetings with his parole officer while also working his full-time job. Chatman worked a normal 9 to 5 job, but his parole officer left work at 4:30 and wouldn't allow him to come in early. "I felt set up," Chatman said. "I feel like most people in that situation are set up to fail." Get this, in most states, you have to actually pay for parole services. In Pennsylvania, they charge a $60 fee just to enter the program. "And if you don't have the fees they charge, you can be forced to make a truly ridiculous choice," Oliver said showing a clip of a woman saying the parole officer will hold you in prison until you do have the money. One parolee said that he ended up having to sell drugs just to pay back the state of Pennsylvania. Many of these policies began in the 1990s when we were all trying to figure out how to be "tough on crime." Most were passed without a second thought or any debate, but the outcomes have been terrible. "It's not always easy to care about the welfare of ex-prisoners, and some are going to re-offend no matter what you do," Oliver said. "But the fact remains, over 95 percent of all prisoners will eventually be released, so it's in everyone's interest that we try to give them a better chance of success." Check out the rest below:
“A life sentence to poverty”: How our laws deny ex-offenders a true second chance
President Barack Obama has always supported criminal justice reform, broadly speaking. Recently, though, the president has moved criminal justice reform issues to the front-and-center of his public agenda. This summer, for example, he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Soon after, he held a (remarkably worthwhile) discussion on reform at the White House, too. These were important victories for those who support reform. But they were also primarily symbolic. Last week, however, Obama went one step further and announced a handful of new executive actions intended to put some policy meat on those symbolic bones. And while the devil is always in the details, multiple reform groups endorsed the president’s directives, all of which are intended to make it easier for the formerly incarcerated to truly start their lives again. Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Rebecca Vallas , the director of policy for the Center for American Progress’ Poverty to Prosperity Program. We discussed the president’s recent actions, his executive orders, and the next step for the criminal justice reform movement. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length. What was your initial, gut reaction to President Obama’s announcement last week? It’s been wonderful to see the bipartisan momentum continue to grow for criminal justice reform, and see policymakers of all political stripes calling for sentencing reform, for prison reform, and so on. But, most notably, what was fantastic to hear from the president was the focus on policies to give people a second chance. We can’t leave out the reentry piece of the puzzle; if we do, we’re basically guaranteeing that whatever gains we see from reducing mass incarceration will be short-lived, because a huge share of the people that we released from correctional facilities are just going to end up right back behind bars. So, it is really important to see the president emphasizing the importance to support reentry, and also of removing obstacles to reentry, when we can. Tell me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that there’s been a marked shift within pro-reform circles toward more discussion of reentry and reinvestment. Is that true? I think we’re seeing growing awareness that we need to focus on it. Between 70 million and 100 million Americans — that’s as many as one-in-three of us — have some type of criminal record. That’s the legacy of our nation’s failed experiment with mass incarceration. There is also a growing awareness that having even a minor criminal record can present obstacles to employment, to housing, education, family reunification — I could go on. And the lifelong consequences of having a criminal record really stand in stark contrast to the research we have on redemption, which finds that once an individual with a prior non-violent conviction has stayed crime-free for just three to four years, that person’s risk of recidivism is no different from the risk of arrest for the general population. So, we end up with the situation where having a criminal record is basically a life sentence to poverty — and it’s really out of sync with the reality of the risk that these people, whom we’re sentencing to poverty for life, actually pose. Let’s talk about the president’s announcement. On the policy side, the part that got the most attention was Obama’s directive to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to, according to some observers, “ban the box.” What doest that mean? When we talk about ban the box policies — which are now in effect in 19 states and some 100 municipalities, possibly more — it doesn’t mean not considering a criminal record in the hiring process. What it means is delaying the point in the process where that criminal record is considered. The idea is to give job seekers with records a chance to actually be considered and demonstrate their qualifications, rather than having their resume automatically fall into the trash; which is what happens with many people with records. We know that 9 in 10 employers today conduct criminal background checks on their applicants; so criminal records can really be an intractable barrier to employment for tens of millions of Americans. (And this is even the case with just an arrest that never led to a conviction.) People tend to be familiar with the costs of mass incarceration. But the barriers associated with bearing a criminal record — most notably regarding employment — come at a really significant cost to the economy as well. In terms of lost GDP, the cost of employment losses amongst people with criminal records is a whopping $65 billion per year. So by calling on OPM to issue ban the box rules, the president has taken a very important first step. But we need to watch to see if there will be proof in the pudding. What do you mean? What I mean by that is, where in the hiring process is the record considered? That matters a great deal. Is it just [removing it from] the job application? Or, better, is it pushing it [back] until what is called the “conditional offer stage,” when the employer has already decided that they want to hire a job applicant? The rule that the president has called on OPM to issue is unclear. It’s something that will be developed in the rule-making process. So that is something that must be watched, because it will make a big difference. Are there any other to-be-decided details that supporters of the general policy should keep an eye on? The rule will only apply to federal agencies — not to federal contractors. In his speech, the president called on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation [to that effect], which is being championed by Senator Cory Booker and Senator Ron Johnson. That legislation would delay consideration of a criminal record until the conditional offer stage, and it would also extend to federal contractors. So the bipartisan legislation is the next needed step after the president’s action. Just to be clear, then: “Ban the box” does not always mean getting rid of the question entirely? I saw some people saying that because the president’s directive doesn’t completely remove the question from the hiring process, it wasn’t really banning the box. “Ban the box” is the main phrase people use to describe these kinds of policies; but it can be a little bit misleading, because it isn’t completely eliminating consideration of the record. I like to call it “fair chance hiring.” It’s about giving job seekers with records a chance to demonstrate their qualifications before the record is actually considered. That is what the president called on OPM to do. Obama also called for public housing authorities to change the way they dealt with the formerly incarcerated. What problem is he trying to solve on that front? People get, on a common sense level, that safe and stable housing is foundational to economic security. But it also has powerful anti-recidivism effects for people with criminal histories. Unfortunately, many people who are released from incarceration have no idea where they are going to go to live. (About one-third, expect to go to homeless shelters once they are released.) We have policies in place that basically shut every door in people’s faces as they seek to find safe and stable housing; public housing authorities have broad discretion to deny housing — or even evict whole families — just because there is this “one-strike-and-you’re-out” policy that public housing authorities have interpreted in a very broad way. How is the administration trying to redress this? The guidance that the Department of Housing and Urban Development released last week, under the president’s direction, makes clear to housing authorities that they are not required to use a “one-strike” policy; that they are not required to exclude everybody with a criminal record from public housing; that they are not required to evict families and households because one member has a criminal record. Most importantly, the guidance lays out factors that public housing authorities should consider. Such as? Basic, common sense factors: Whether the offense is relevant to the safety of other residents, the time since the conviction; and whether, since then, the person has rehabilitated. The guidance also makes clear that arrests that didn’t lead to convictions cannot be grounds for denial of housing or for evictions. This is a huge deal, because a really big part of the trend [of criminal justice policy] in the past several decades has not just been mass incarceration; it has also been hyper-criminalization. We’ve seen the over-policing of communities of color leave millions of Americans with arrest records even though they were never convicted. It sounds like the general, unifying theme of these reforms is that people cannot successfully reintegrate into society unless they have a foundation — and that a foundation requires not just family or friends but a steady income and a place to rest your head, too. That’s exactly right. Making sure that that foundation is there by removing government-sanctioned obstacles is something that the president has made a commitment to, and something that state and local policy makers across the country are trying to do. And It has to be part of the puzzle as we seek to have a conversation about how best to reduce mass incarceration.
