Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Come on, man.

This blog will pay for itself.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Republicans in disarray!

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Stand up, dammit!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Thou Shalt Not Criticize The Dear Leader

Thou Shalt Not Criticize The Dear Leader

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To celebrate NATO’s 70th birthday, the Danish Atlantic Council, a thinktank, arranged a conference to be held on December 10. The American Ambassador to Denmark was invited to be an organizer. The lineup of speakers was pretty much as one might expect.

The Ambassador insisted that one of the speakers be removed from the program: Stanley Sloan, a visiting professor at Middlebury College, fellow at the Atlantic Council and former CIA analyst. Sloan has been critical of President Donald Trump. The Danish Atlantic Council has now canceled the entire conference.

The paper Sloan intended to present can be found here. In it, he talks about internal and external threats to NATO. The internal threats are largely, but not entirely, Donald Trump, which is what the news has been telling us through last week’s NATO meeting. Others of his papers can be found here.

The Ambassador, Carla Sands,

is a former actress, chiropractor, and board member of major California institutions who was confirmed to her post in 2017 after making contributions to Trump’s campaign and inauguration and, according to ProPublica, being recommended by Eliott Broidy. Her official Twitter account looks much like any other ambassador’s, while her personal account is often retweets of articles from far-right outlets like Breitbart and Prager University.

David Frum (yes, I know, but he’s got this right) checked out her Twitter account, with screenshots because he figures the account will be deleted or cleaned up. There’s a lot more to the thread; this is just a sample.

The Trump administration keeps pushing the boundaries. Earlier in that thread, Frum points out that his participation in conferences was never censored by the government. That’s been the policy until this Dear Leader and his far-right minions.

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    PeakVT

    The conference should have been held.  I can see why the Danish Atlantic Council wouldn’t want the hassle.  But NATO just might be an important part of European and thus Danish security, and threats to NATO might be something the Danish public should know about.  Also, too, authoritarianism in an important ally (though in general West Europeans seem to be studiously ignoring authoritarianism close to home in Poland and Hungary these days).

  4. 4.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @PeakVT: I can go either way on that. The Danish Atlantic Council’s statement is good and worth reading. I think the determining factor likely was that the US Embassy was a participant, and their censorship was unacceptable. I am seeing approval of the cancelation from people I respect.

  5. 5.

    trnc

    I doubt that Carla Sands has ever read Animal Farm.

    On the contrarary; it was her instruction manual.

  6. 6.

    Wag

    David Frum and  Jennifer Rubin have been really interesting the past year or so.  Both are very intelligent, excellent writers, and both are vociferous critics of the president.  I disagree with their past stands on policy, but welcome them to the fight against Trump

  8. 8.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Earlier in that thread, Frum points out that his participation in conferences was never censored by the government. That’s been the policy until this Dear Leader and his far-right minions.

    Oh, but Bush was still worse than Trump, don’tcha know as people like Glenn Greenwald will love to tell us

     

     I am seeing approval of the cancelation from people I respect.

    Are these people politically right-wing? What’s their reasoning for their approval?

  13. 13.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Pigdog: There has always been an issue of appointing campaign donors to ambassadorships. When it’s been done by previous presidents, the candidate usually has some related experience to bring to the position and enough sense to let the professional State Department diplomats run things. That’s gone out the window with Trump.

    It’s something that the US does more than other countries and should stop in all presidential administrations.

  14. 14.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Oh crap, I’m sorry! I didn’t read the comment the whole way through. Yeah, the Council probably did the right thing here by canceling as a stand against censorship being pushed by the US embassy

  15. 15.

    SFAW

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    In her favor: she also speaks Xhosa and Afrikaans, which is a vast improvement over a preznit* who cannot speak English coherently.

     

    ETA: Prof. Irwin Corey’s stand-up routine made tons more sense than anything the Moron-in-Chief says.

  21. 21.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: Exceptions do prove the rule.  Ambassador Swanee Hunt was an excellent diplomat in Austria who was deeply involved in securing legal stability in neighboring post-soviet nations.

    She gave boatloads to Clinton.

  22. 22.

    droog

    @debbie:

     

    The Ambassador was invited as an organiser, not just a guest. Disinviting her would be firing her and whilst that would give us a chuckle, I can understand how in such lofty academic/policy circles it would have been a difficult thing to do.

  25. 25.

    germy

    Mr. Stanley Sloan’s proposed last-minute inclusion in the program by @AtlantDK did not follow the same deliberative process of joint decision-making and agreement that we followed when recruiting all other speakers.— U.S. Embassy Denmark (@usembdenmark) December 8, 2019

    Well alright then.

  27. 27.

    germy

    Credentials

    Carla Sands was an actress in B-movies who became a chiropractor, then married a wealthy L.A. real-estate developer 20+ years her senior. He died a few years ago. She was on the Trump campaign finance committee, I believe. Good times.— Gary Legum (@GaryLegum) December 7, 2019

  30. 30.

    Msb

    Well, this is some stupid if consistent loyalty. Sands is the ambassador humiliated by trump’s cancelling the state visit that he had demanded because the Danes wouldn’t sell him Greenland.

  31. 31.

    Curt L.

    FWIW, Carla Sands is sort of the Melania of the high-end Los Angeles real estate world.  She retired from acting and chiropracting to marry an old goat whose mug was on park bench advertisements all over the Westside in the early years of the century.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    Projection, projection, projection.  The John Kass tweet:

     

    Is America still a free country, or has the hard left built an Animal Farm upon …

     

    Blindness, too.  John Kass does not understand Animal Farm.  Ted Cruz did not understand Green Eggs and Ham.

     

    It’s clinical.

  36. 36.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

     

    @Tim C.: I’m going to look up her IMDB page.  Damn you both. :)

     

    ETA – Four TV series and two stinkers.  Only the best people (who bribed their way into this bastard administration.)

  41. 41.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle:

    Ted Cruz did not understand Green Eggs and Ham. 

    Would Ted, could Ted, on a boat?  What’s Ted, what’s Ted, doing with that goat?

  43. 43.

    germy

    @debbie:   B-movies can be fun.   In my opinion, the acting career was  more honorable than chiropracting, real estate grifting, or trump supporting.

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    TPM headline: “Trump Tells Mostly Jewish Crowd They’ll Vote For Him Because They Want To Protect Their Wealth”

     

    Nothing at all problematic about that. Nothing at all.

  48. 48.

    ThresherK

    Mel Brooks was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning.

     

    It’s always amazing to remember that he and Anne Bancroft were happily married life partners for over 40 years. He’s Mel Brooks, the guy who wrote the bean-eating campfire farting scene, and she was Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, among other career-making roles.

     

    However, Brooks really didn’t seem to have a handle on the whole “Is comedy too restrictive today?” question. He talked about PC-ness and swear words while not demonstrating that he recognized straight white Christian guys longing for an age when you could punch down on women, people of color, LGBTQs, etc, and call it “comedy” without repercussion.

     

    People who whine “we couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today” can never have made Blazing Saddles.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: that’d be a great respite thread: What’s a “B movie” these days, and what are the best B movies.

     

    @dmsilev: he says shit like that almost every time he talks to a Jewish audience– dual loyalty, you’re all so good with money, you all love your money, Bibi is your president of your country– but Ilhan Omar gets death threats for pointing out that the  American-Israeli Political Action Committee engages in politics

  51. 51.

    Kay

    The reason it scares me is because I don’t agree with political media- I think there’s probably political upside for some Senators to break with Trump on something, but they don’t.

    I think it’s rank, coward-excusing bullshit that some of these senators would face this huge pro-Trump backlash in their states. Not true.  think they go along with him because they’re afraid OF HIM. Not voters. Trump himself. That’s scary because it’s real authoritarian rather than political calculation.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @dmsilev:

    More problematic for me was this:

    “Because you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people…they don’t love Israel enough.”

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ThresherK:

    He talked about PC-ness and swear words while not demonstrating that he recognized straight white Christian guys longing for an age when you could punch down on women, people of color, LGBTQs, etc, and call it “comedy” without repercussion.

    I’m not surprised, really. He’s pushing 90 and he’s the youngest member of his social circle (Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, Norman Lear).
    John Cleese is another beloved legend who can disappoint his fans: “Are you really telling me my funny Indian accent is racist! How dare you!”

  55. 55.

    Miss Bianca

    @ThresherK: I love “Blazing Saddles”, but recognize it as a period piece.

     

    I also laughed at “Thank You for Smoking”, but had to turn off the special features featuring the white guys who made it talking about “political correctness”. Yes, boys, we get it that you feel constricted by modern standards of decency.Your movie did the talking for you, and it made your erstwhile “points” in a much more oblique and therefore less obnoxious way. Move along.

  60. 60.

    ThresherK

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s different with Brooks than Cleese, for me.

     

    The Producers was about how to address Nazism in an era when it really wasn’t done. And the entire hook of Blazing Saddles was the token black sheriff appointed by the governor, and the expected racism that the townsfolk never showed.

     

    Sure, his style was making movies with a Borscht Belt / variety show style of “some of everything”, but there was always the structure of a real story there. The crudeness was often in service of picking on the proper targets. I don’t know how someone ages out of that realization.

     

    John Cleese’s remarks about an Indian accent I haven’t heard, but when I think of his targets, all I can think of are The French, and “Making the case against the government, a small puddle of brown liquid”. (Writer unknown, just Monty Python stuff.)

  61. 61.

    MattF

    @dmsilev: And note this. One could say, well, Hallmark movies are bullshit by definition. But there should have been someone in the loop who recognized that it was offensive. Or, maybe there was someone and they were ignored.

  63. 63.

    ThresherK

    @Miss Bianca: Eh, “Thank you for Smoking” lost me when it was the lawyer “debating” his son about “choice” of ice cream flavors.

     

    Hard pass. If I want South Park’s “don’t bother” nihilism, I’ll watch South Park.

  64. 64.

    Miss Bianca

    @ThresherK: I think for me the “yeah, this is bad, but I can’t stop watching” is that the lead actor bore an uncanny resemblance to an old bf. That, and Kim Dickens, whose talent was totally wasted on the role of the douchebro’s ex-wife.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    (OT: I love Joy Reid, but why is she giving twenty minutes to Jack Kingston to say things like “the Squad is impeaching President trump”?)

  68. 68.

    Warblewarble

    Across the borderline by Linda & Emmylou the anthem of hope for a better America. Hold on hold fast make it happen. there is an America the Beautiful so much of the world has looked to. Let it not be further betrayed by trumpthuglicans.

  70. 70.

    johnnybuck

    @Kay: I think Brian Kemp, the Governor of Ga, might actually end up proving your point. His refusal to appoint Rep Collins to the senate, Trump’s guy, doesn’t seem to be causing him any backlash.

  71. 71.

    Warblewarble

    Nikki haley shit,Tom Cotton shit ,Rubio shit, Cruz shit shit, all along the line fill in trumpthuglian names, so who is Biden going to work across the aisles with “Moscow Mitch” good luck with that says Harry Reid who should know what a nest of vipers looks like.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    Donnie is carrying out Breitbart’s mission of breaking international institutions.  Film at 11.

     

    Look for these efforts to continue as long as he and his minions have power.

     

    Good for Denmark for refusing to be part of it.

     

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  73. 73.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Miss Bianca: Cool.  Let’s see…

     

    The Masque of the Red Death and Tales of Terror are both quite good, and both star Vincent Price.  Death Race 2000(1975).

     

    He’s produced too many ridiculous creature features to list.

     

    Take a stroll through his IMDB filmography.

  74. 74.

    smintheus

    @germy:  “actress in B movies” is being generous. She was in 2 movies, the best of which (Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell), has a 2.7 rating on IMDB.

     

    Her qualification was that she gave a quarter million to Trump’s campaign, held high-dollar fundraisers for him, and gave $100K to his inaugural slush fund. Also, as a chiropractor she knows how to do back massages.

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    This is probably a dead thread, but for any late-arriving readers, wanted to point out the language in the Danish American Council’s press release (which, sadly, does not seem to allow cut and paste).  They were very clear about precisely what caused the cancellation of the conference; they did not couch it in Mr. Bangert’s  more diplomatic “the process has become too problematic” (which means — what?)   The press release:

    … Amongst the invited Speakers invited by the [DAC] was Mr. Stanley Sloan from Atlantic Council United States.

    Regrettably, the American Ambassador did not want Mr. Sloan’s participation.  As the Embassy is co-organizer and sponsor, the [DAC] had no other option than to cancel Mr. Sloan’s participation in the Conference.

    We have all the time known that Mr. Sloan has a critical approach towards President Donald Trump.  That is no secret — especially, when following his Twitter and Facebook profile.  We have, however, never doubted that Mr. Sloan at our Conference would deliver an unpolitical and objective lecture.  Mr. Sloan had made us that promise.  Therefore, we decided to keep Mr. Sloan as Speaker, until the American Ambassador demanded that Mr. Sloan’s participation got cancelled ….

    … [Mr. Sloan ultimately decided to publish the speech he would have made] a decision we respect.  … Mr. Sloan wanted to commend Ambassador Carla Sands [for her support of shared values] …over-all, I do not see any direct or concealed attacks on President Donald Trump.

    I applaud the DAC’s courage in explicitly spelling out what caused the cancellation.  That is how you fight fascism and intolerance of free speech:  explicitly call it out.

    Let’s see if any major US newspapers follow up on this topic.  Good on Cheryl for informing us.

    The more I thought about this situation, it is chilling.  Terribly chilling.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    The strength of message means nothing to them.

    They are incapable of learning to become normal humans, no matter the actual lesson or the degree of it. They are racists and money grubbers, taking pennies for their hate because they can’t earn it any other way. And they don’t even understand they are being used.

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