Huh. Woman who rushed the stage at Shakespeare in the Park doesn't SEEM starved for attention or anything. pic.twitter.com/XvroAsRgPJ
— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 17, 2017
As reported in the Washington Post:
Two right-wing activists interrupted the Friday evening performance of a controversial production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in New York’s Central Park, causing a stir on social media — where numerous videos of the protest proliferated — and resulting in one woman’s arrest.
In the videos, a woman identified as Laura Loomer, an employee of the far-right website Rebel Media, can be seen storming the stage during the scene of the title character’s assassination, shouting “Stop the normalization of political violence against the right! This is unacceptable!”…
Within the commotion, a second pro-Trump protester, Jack Posobiec, can be seen standing and yelling in the audience, “You are all Goebbels!” and “The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands!”…
In a string of tweets, the Public Theater confirmed the interruption at its Friday show and said it had been “part of a paid strategy driven by social media.”…
Posobiec, a Washington-based Trump supporter who formerly also worked for Rebel Media, told The Washington Post on Saturday that, contrary to some media reports, he and Loomer did not coordinate their protests. Rather, he had attended the performance at the encouragement of alt-right personality Mike Cernovich, who posted a “challenge” on Periscope last week offering a $1,000 prize for anyone who could get tickets to the play and interrupt the show….
Cash Rules Everything Around Them — dolla-dolla, get tha monee…
America: people are calling & emailing theaters called "Shakespeare" across the country complaining about their play https://t.co/a0yxHpbfHh
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) June 17, 2017
First they came after the Shakespearean production companies and I said nothing because … wait a minute, what the hell?!? https://t.co/xARQcUCmtk
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) June 17, 2017
To be fair, there is a very old American tradition of interrupting plays. pic.twitter.com/hYEpY693X1
— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 17, 2017
About 50% of accounts demanding a Julius Caesar staging be closed because it offends them have "not politically correct" in their profiles.
— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) June 17, 2017
People who interrupt live performances should be arrested.
I don't feel like this is a particular controversial position.
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) June 17, 2017
Just when you might think it can’t possibly get any dumber…
You go on offense and win by destroying the reputations and careers of those on the left. Not by disrupting a play and becoming the story.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) June 17, 2017
Tomorrow I'll be holding a production of the Salem Witch Trials where Hillary is burned at the stake
— Jack Posobiec ???? (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017
So glad Twitter is finally being adapted for the stage https://t.co/eC2ie1Ndnl
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 17, 2017
This dumbass doesn’t even understand what a fucking brilliant production choice this would be for The Crucible. https://t.co/4tAPWtU3N9
— Jesper Andersen (@jandersen) June 17, 2017
For the record: None of the Salem Witch Trial victims were actually “burned at the stake” — they were hanged, suffocated, or died of neglect while imprisoned. (IIRC, the Puritans considered burning infidels a disgusting effete Papist custom, not something to be emulated by decent God-fearing Christians.)
And on today’s trolley tours, the Salem tourist guides explain that the whole witch scandal was part social hysteria and part scheming by the local elite to acquire more property and political power. Not that we Moderns would know anything about situations like that…
Baud
Is this an appropriate place to wring our hands about the goings-on at Evergreen State College?
Kay
@Baud:
DougJ says “the Oberlin student council” to describe the whole genre of Right wing college student behavior outrages- which makes me laugh. Perfect.
hedgehog mobile
So does this make reading Shakespeare a revolutionary act?? I have a copy of Julius Caesar on order from Amazon.
Baud
They’re holding the RNC convention very early this time.
Baud
@Kay: Unlike Evergreen State College, I had heard of Oberlin before yesterday.
japa21
For people that claim liberals are a bunch of wusses who can’t handle things, RWNJ’s sure have awfully sensitive fee-fees.
aimai
I’m so old I remember when the right wing was wringing its collective hands over the refusal of liberals to permit the reading or staging of Shakespeare’s plays because he was a dead white guy.
Baud
I think lost in all of this is the egregious way in which Shakespeare in the Park has insulted Julius Caesar.
bystander
There is a police presence in front of the Public Theater as well as the Delacort where JC is on stage.
I still say it’s admirers of JC who should be rushing the stage. He’s the one being maligned here as an incompetent, petty bully.
ET
To go along with this but on a humorous note, Smirnoff has an ad trolling Trump.
bystander
@Baud: We both seem to be sticking up for the underdog here.
And can we bring up Evergreen State closer to my bedtime? Not a substitute for Lorazepam but might round it out. Thanks!
hovercraft
@japa21:
Sadly if you tried to explain the irony of this, you’d get a bunch of blanks taters from these people. Much like LaPalin back in the day, they don’t understand free speech. Lucretia and her father bleating about how mean everyone is to them is of a piece with Newt whining about Bill, or Yertile and Boehner claiming that Obama was mean to them. For a party of tough people they sure do whine a lot.
HinTN
@japa21:
I am so stealing this.
chopper
so one of them screamed about stopping the normalization of political violence, while the other one yelled that all the people there were joseph goebbels. makes sense.
oh wait, she said political violence against the right. never mind.
Baud
@bystander: Right. My eyes just glazed over trying to follow last night’s thread. Sounds like a case of douchebags vs. douchebags.
japa21
@Baud: Hadn’t seen this and now, having read your concise synopsis, I don’t think I will look it up.
Eric
@Baud: yes. It is an egregious misreading of the play. It is central to the story that Caesar is a “great man”. It is not about the killing of an incompetent. The drama is complicated as to what is right and wrong, in much the same way Antigone is complicated. I vote for both sides on this one and shunt them all away.
Frankensteinbeck
@hovercraft:
To the tribalism, all rights only apply to themselves. It’s not even deliberate. The concept of others having rights is a blind spot. You see it particularly clearly in conservative Christian arguments. The bedrock assumption is that their religion is true, so others don’t count and only they deserve freedom of religion. They’ve been challenged on this so much, they came up with an ‘Islam is a political system’ soundbite.
It ties beautifully into the asshole’s inability to grasp that their freedom stops where it takes away someone else’s freedom.
Villago Delenda Est
Fucking Trumpanzee Philistines.
Wipe them out, all of them.
hovercraft
@Baud:
My take exactly.
AliceBlue
I’m losing track of who’s to blame for the Scalise shooting. So far I have:
1. The media
2. Shakespeare
3. Barack Obama
4. Kathy Griffin
5. Rachel Maddow
Anything I’m missing?
Raoul
WaPo has a story up that is shocking in its sensibility and obviousness. “Why Republicans won’t work for the Trump administration.”
I’ll note that a couple of the jobs not yet confirmed are Secretary of the Navy and Ambassador to Japan (though the latter has apparently at least been formally named, months ago. Unknown if it’s a vetting problem or a Senate problem with moving that forward).
In particular, though, I want to point and laugh at this Podium Spice quote:
I actually think Spicey is telling the truth here! But a very limited truth. Since he fails to mention anything about the quality of the people stampeding to get in on the grift. They have to be utter morons or grossly inappropriate to the jobs to want in at this point.
None of this gives me pleasure. Idiots in charge contributed significantly to the horrors in New Orleans after Katrina. We haven’t (yet) had a domestic crisis anywhere near the scale of a Macondo oil leak or a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane raking over heavily populated areas.
We are well on our way to the distressing adage that republicans hate government so much they get elected to destroy it.
OzarkHillbilly
I see the misspelled Loony again.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: If you want to look for the most militant practitioners of “Political Correctness”, look to the shitheads of the right.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
This whole Laurie Loomer thing is, what else, a big grift. Over at LGF someone posted a screenshot of a GoDaddy domain registration for Freelaurie.com. The registration of this domain name was 4 hours before the protest at the play. The registration was done by Ezra Levant, well known Canadian conservative with ties to the Koch Bros, started Rebel media, and associates with Holocaust deniers They’re just going to extract as much money as they can with her “legal defense”.
Raoul
@hovercraft: Maybe I’m still waking up, but I find the idea of these people having “blanks taters” in response to being challenged gives me the giggles.
hovercraft
@AliceBlue:
This morning Jake Tappers asked Wilmer if all his talk about revolution could be responsible.
And I’m sure that I missed it somewhere, but Hillary running and rigging the democratic primary thereby causing BS to “lose”, must somehow be the one true culprit.
OzarkHillbilly
@AliceBlue: Hillary Clinton
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@AliceBlue:
The gays…
Atheists…
Liberals…
Hungry Joe
Evergreen State College leans artsy, latter-day hippie; Matt Groening (“The Simpsons”) and Lynda J. Barry (“Ernie Pook’s Comeek”) are alumni. It made my heart (or maybe my kidneys, or was it my liver?) hurt to hear such Wash of the Hog from such well-meaning people.
I swear I wasn’t that clueless when I was that young. I’d ask some old friends but I’m not sure I want to hear what they say.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I’m shocked, shocked that it’s another grift.
Citizen_X
Next, they’ll be complaining about the casting of a play about one of the Founding Fa…what? NEVER MIND.
hovercraft
@Villago Delenda Est:
One thing you can always count on with the right, malicious stupidity and projection.
@Raoul:
: ) Ooops, not even sure how stares became taters.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raoul: Even Sheriff Clarke has decided he wants nothing to do with Trump’s administration.
eta spelling
debbie
They need to shut down the transportation to and from Staten Island at 6:00 pm.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: What I wouldn’t give for some blanks taters and fried eggs about now. Yummo!
MoxieM
I’m so surprised by low-information voters not understanding Shakespeare, or even Arthur Miller. What if we told them he was married to Marilyn Monroe? Would heads explode?
Whattaboutery: that piece the WaPo yesterday about how “heartland” voters hate educated elites because culture. Whut?
Hey, where’s the snark tag? Is this thing even on?
dr. bloor
@Kay:
It’s getting so you need a program to figure out who’s wielding the giant paper mache puppets.
AliceBlue
@hovercraft: @OzarkHillbilly: @West of the Rockies (been a while):
Of course! How could I forget? [Slaps head].
Sab
@hovercraft: I don’t know but I like it. Reminds me of Little Orphan Annie’s eyes.
Roger Moore
@japa21:
As the saying goes, it’s always projection with Republicans. ALWAYS!
Trentrunner
Please God let one of these broflakes interrupt Miss Patti Lupone.
Their metaphorically stripped carcass would barely block the aisle…
dr. bloor
@Hungry Joe: Eye-rolling, cram-your-napkin-in-your-mouth-so-you-don’t-laugh-out-loud-at-your-brutally-earnest-friend stuff has been going on forever at these places. It just has a much bigger microphone and more seekers of bread and circuses than used to be the case.
OzarkHillbilly
@AliceBlue: S’ok, I forgot godless heathens and I am one.
Hal
I had no idea Trump had hired POS lawyer Jay Sekulow as part of his legal team.
http://forward.com/news/national/374864/meet-jay-sekulow-a-jewish-born-believer-in-jesus-on-trumps-legal-team/
But he is a scam artist just like Trump and so many associated with Trump, so it makes sense:
Scale Free
The whole thing was planned &…err, staged. Rebel Media registered the freelaura.com domain 4 hours before the show even happened.
ArchTeryx
You know, this reminds me I need to pick up a red MAGA hat soon.
Not to wear, mind you. When Trump is out of office, I’m going to burn it and dance around the flames. It deserves no less treatment then was done to Waffen-SS uniforms after WWII.
cleosmom
@AliceBlue: “Anyone I’m missing?”
“Hillary”, Vince Foster and Jane Fonda for starters. Give them a little more time and they’ll dig up some Democrat from the 1870s.
mere mortal
“This dumbass doesn’t even understand what a fucking brilliant production choice this would be for The Crucible.”
What signifies a “private server”?
No Drought No More
“First they came after the Shakespearean production companies and I said nothing because … wait a minute, what the hell?!?”.
Wrong. First they came for Murphy Brown, and I said nothing because I was not Murphy Brown. Then they came for for the Dixie Chicks….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@AliceBlue: according to the GOPbot Joy Reid is stinking up her show with right now (I imagine there was a memo from Andy Lack about “fair and balanced” this past week), you forgot Kanye West. The guy who said something ten years ago, prompting Obama to call him a jackass.
@cleosmom: no offense to Jane Fonda, but I saw a Karen Handel flyer about evil leftist celebrities propping up Jon Ossoff and thought, “Paula Dean endorsed Ossoff?” A fairly obscure netflix show is the most non-right wing media attention I’ve seen Jane Fonda get since… 9 to 5? Golden Pond?
Doug R
Evergreen State College? I blame JP Patches.
Mike in NC
Real Mercans don’t read Shakespeare. Well, they don’t read at all when there’s FOX Noise.
Chris
I’ve never seen the play, so someone correct me if I’m wrong. But isn’t the whole point of it that killing Caesar was a terrible idea, because the killers only end up hastening the fall of the republic they’re trying to save? In other words, a cautionary tale to those who want Trump gone rather than an encouragement to kill Trump?
dww44
Today’s opening segment of the CBS Sunday morning magazine show was an “examination” of the partisan divide in the country leading off with the events of last week, i.e. the shooting of Steve Scalise and other GOP’ers. Narrated by Ted Koppel, it engaged in some more both- siderism, although a majority of the media outlets highlighted were conservative and far right, with an occasional dig at far lefters like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann .The whole piece was anchored by Koppel’s interview of Pat Buchanan and the only new thing I learned was how much Trump in his campaign borrowed from Buchanan’s Presidential campaigns of the 90’s.
Aside from all that the piece truly ended without a sensible coda,and, once again, left me perplexed by Koppel himself. While decrying our country’s extreme partisanship, he allowed ONLY conservative voices to weigh in on the divide. Aside from whatever political biases he may have, this piece simply was unsatisfying and disappointing.
Doug R
@dww44: In other words, a “Kop out”?
RSA
This Shakespeare guy deserves to be in JAIL for writing a play about the President. Why can’t he be more like Frederick Douglass, whom I’ve been hearing good things about?
Woodrowfan
@Baud: nobody is covering themselves with glory at that school right now….
Eric
@Chris: yes yes and yes. But it also clear that Caesar must be stopped from becoming the republic. It is that moral tension that makes the play lasting.
Woodrowfan
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: did you account for time zones??
Woodrowfan
check Goodwill or the Salvation Army thrift stores in about 3 months.
Zach
Jack had me convinced “you’re all gerbils!” was some new nonsensical right wing meme until he explained a bit and I realized he just doesn’t know how to speak.
dww44
@Doug R: Very apt.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Woodrowfan: The registration shows it was submitted at 18:07 UTC which is 14:07 EDST
D58826
The definition of class :
Tweet from Barack –
Of all that I’ve done in my life, I’m most proud to be Sasha and Malia’s dad. To all those lucky enough to be a dad, Happy Father’s Day!
and Michelle
Our daughters may be older and taller now, but they’ll always be your little girls. We love you.
And then not so much from Der Fuhrer in 2013 (other than complaining about polls haven’t seen anything today):
Happy Father’s Day to all, even the haters and losers!
FSM I hate the 22nd amendment
JGabriel
But the normalization of political violence against the left is completely okay.
Kathleen
@OzarkHillbilly: He decided he needed to spend more time with his corpses.
Another Scott
Some say it was LSD not witchcraft that made people insane in Salem:
Science FTW!!1
Cheers,
Scott.
hovercraft
@dww44:
Rachel is a liberal, she’s not far left, Keith is further left, but still not the far left. Far left to me are places like the Nation and The Young Turks. These are the same people who bought into GOP bullshit memes like Obama is the most liberal socialist president in the history of America, he’s a centrist, heck Nixon was more liberal on some things than Obama. It’s true that we’ve reclaimed the word liberal, we’re not ashamed to call ourselves liberal or progressive, but the rise of liberalism is not because we’ve lurched to the left the same way the right has lurched into bizzarro world, it’s because so much of the conservative agenda has failed and we’re the only other game in town. Now if only the media would catch up, though I did catch a discussion on Fareed Zakaria where Jill Abrahmson and another panelist were pointing out that the problem is more with Yertle and the right, someone tried to call bullshit on her saying that saying one side is worse is not helpful. Then another guy came in and slammed him, pointing out that Mandela was almost singlehandedly responsible for South Africa’s reconciliation, it’ starts at the top, and Twitler is the biggest problem, he sets the tone for the entire country.
Another Scott
@AliceBlue: Wilmer, of course.
:-/
[ I see hovercraft got there first. ]
Cheers,
Scott.
ThresherK
@dww44: I was not at home during this show. I asked Spousal ThresherK if I missed anything good on CBS SM, and she told me their “cover piece” was basically false equivalence which scraped to equivocate left-wing and right-wing extremes and papered over crap in search of our national comity.
In other words, she recoiled from it exactly the way I would have and how you did. She’s growing up so fast *sniff* !
Woodrowfan
@hovercraft:
Um, no. He just didn’t veto bills where the veto was guaranteed to be over-ridden. And some positions (like like clean air) were not partisan.
bmoak
@AliceBlue:
You forgot Bernie Sanders.
Woodrowfan
@Another Scott: not all historians agree, but I like that thesis myself and on the rare occasions I teach the early US history survey I bring it up….
Radiumgirl
@AliceBlue: The guy who actually pulled the trigger.
Villago Delenda Est
@Doug R: I lived in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area long enough, and at the right time, to get that reference.
Timurid
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
The Aristocrats!
MattF
Mildly OT, but it’s just remarkable, even in this day and age…
Speaking of Republicans who think they’re brilliant, we have Noot, who has (apparently) changed his mind about Obstruction of Justice. No, I can’t get over it.
Immanentize
I must admit these times are feeling olde-tyme and biblical and …
D58826
@Woodrowfan: I’ve seen it expressed as he was willing to give the liberals their domestic agenda if they left him alone on his global goals. China and detente with the USSR probably had the support of the D’s anyway. Vietnam/Cambodia not so much. So if he was ‘more liberal’ than Obama it was a tactical move. He also had the advantage that a much more moderate GOP might well have gone along with some of the domestic stuff and most certainly would not have savaged him as a RHINO like the GOP today.
The parties, esp the rightward charge of the GOP makes it hard to make these kinds of comparisons. When we talk today about the founders opposition to women voting or their support for slavery it is always prefaced with a ‘it was a different time and place’ comment. We may well have to start adding that preface to presidents like Nixon/Ford and Carter. The hard right Christianist base of the GOP would have filed impeachment charges against Obama if he had invited a returned Jesus to visit to oval Office
hovercraft
@Woodrowfan:
Nixons healthcare bill was more liberal. He created the EPA. Obama is plenty liberal, but every president operates with in the socio-cultural-political era of the time, creating the EPA back in the 70’s wasn’t controversial, cap and trade today is extremely divisive and the fossil fuel industry is positioned to fight all regulation tooth and nail. Little did Ted Kennedy know that the Nixon plan was a great deal, but things changed and 30 years later he proudly voted for Obamacare. Nixon was an insecure, paranoid, crook, but he was actually interested in policy, and had a couple of good ideas. I think.
D58826
from GOP antitrumper ana navarro
https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/876479702826921985
D58826
@hovercraft:
But he was our crook and he knew what he was dealing with vis-a-via the USSR
D58826
Love this exchange. It says a lot about the quality of our educational system:
person one on twitter :
Person 2 in response:’
Of course telling them Othello was a Moor would probably fall on deaf ears as well.
https://twitter.com/Mobute/status/876193758227910657
Redshift
@hovercraft:
But that’s the point – it’s not just that protecting the environment wasn’t controversial, there wasn’t a liberal/conservative divide on the subject. The fact that it’s considered liberal now doesn’t make Nixon more liberal.
Chris
@D58826:
Basically, Nixon was Mirror Universe LBJ. Johnson only really cared about domestic issues, and was willing to go along with a right wing foreign policy out of political necessity. Nixon only really cared about foreign policy, and was willing to go along with a liberal domestic agenda out of political necessity.
Origuy
Shakespeare was born into a recusant (Catholic) family. He maintained the favor of the royals by being very careful what he wrote and putting the Tudors in the best light possible. Julius Caesar shows the result of assassination–worse tyranny. Elizabeth I was constantly worried about assassination herself; the Pope having declared her anathema. The Scottish Play was Shakepeare’s suckup to James VI/I, twisting Scottish history to make James’ ancestors look good and throwing in witches. (James was obsessed by them.)
D58826
This will end well. If he is so lacking in intestinal fortitude maybe he should get another job. Counting snow flakes on an iceberg per chance.
http://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2017/06/gop-rep-wants-congressmen-packing
D58826
One Trumplite noticed it was Father’s Day. But on Twitter at least I still haven’t seen a word about the tragic news from the USN Fitzgerald
D58826
Twitter is having a lot of fun with the works of Shakespeare as written by Trump. There is the Merchant of Vilness and Orangefello instead of Othello are just two of the many entries
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
Here’s a crazy thought: why don’t the Congresscritters ban people from bringing guns to their town halls rather than bringing a gun themselves?
I crack myself up sometimes.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
FWIW, the guy who ran to Fox News with his sad tale of being oppressed by the PC police seems to have distorted the story to benefit himself and the right wing. Shocking, I know.
D58826
Well Lil Marco thinks the Russians hacked into the elections but Trump is entitled to think otherwise. A flat earther is entitled to his own opinion but I don’t think he should be in charge of NASA
D58826
@Mnemosyne: I think they all have visions of playing Gary Cooper in High Noon.
Raoul
@MoxieM: America’s Blessed Heartland™ is the trunk of the tree of anti-LGBTQ bullshit and hatred in this country. Does the WaPo bother to point out the gay teen suicide rates in these states with the pro-Trump butthurt? Of course not. We’re supposed to sit down, shut up, and preferably get some torture (aka conversion ‘therapy’) to we can help them feel better about themselves. Fuck all that, mainstream apologists for benighted ignorance and hate.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
Patti LuPone approves this message.
Lurking Canadian
@aimai: It would be Political Correctness (TM) and thus bad, to protest the staging of Merchant of Venice on the grounds that the depiction of Shylock is anti-Semitic.
However, it is just Plain Common Sense (TM) and thus good, to protest the staging of Julius Caesar on the grounds that somebody might get the idea to stab the President on the steps of the Senate.
I’m sure it makes sense if you have the Right sort of education.
D58826
well here is one answer to ‘What is Wrong with Kansas’?
listen up DC
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dave-helling/article156692719.html
D58826
AP mobile is reporting a terrorist attack at the resort area in Mali’s capital. Hostages and casualties reported. Didn’t Der Fuhrer promise all of that would end on day one? Maybe he should borrow Bush 43’s bullhorn when yelling at the TV.
Rugosa
@hovercraft: An excellent comment.
BC in Illinois
@Lurking Canadian:
I remember a news report of a few years back, about a school system debating whether Romeo and Juliet should be removed from the curriculum. There was concern that it would encourage teen suicide.
The person commenting on this story had two points, as I remember.
First, what world are people living in? The play’s been around and acclaimed for 400 years. If it hasn’t set off a rash of suicides yet, what makes them think it will start now, with today’s teenagers?
Second, the commenter recalls (as I do) the depiction of Romeo and Juliet from the 1960s. We thought it was about urban gang warfare.
RepubAnon
@chopper: Yes, sounds as though they’re fine with political violence in general – just not against the right. Trademark infringement, perhaps?
It’s right up there with the folks who invented terms such as “feminazi” gasping in shock and horror when people dare to observe the Goebbel’s level of big lies routinely issued by right wing news sources.
Bill in Section 147
@hovercraft: Covefe perhaps. Some how I thought taters made sense. I think I need another glass of Rosato.
Jay
@AliceBlue: 6 Arthur Fonzarelli