#bill mcneal

[thatsbelievable]

[almost-correct-quotes]

newsradio was the show of all time. dave foley from kids in the hall is the wettest most pathetic wisconsin cat who just wants his girlfriend to be mean to him and his employees to do their jobs. they got bored of naming episodes and just named them after led zeppelin albums for a while. the writers just started taking stories from their real lives. phil hartman plays the most transcoded vitriolic asshole of all time and he's iconic. andy dick is. there. joe rogan is somehow the most famous cast member now

[bill-mcneal]

sorry to invade your inbox, i just have newsradio thoughts and ummmm. it's small tumblr community. 💗 i just think dave discovers he likes drag after the halloween episode. also dave crossdressing is lisa's bi awakening. also someone from the station sees them together while dave is crossdressing and lisa cheating allegations go wild. rumors abt lisa's stunning secret girlfriend run absolutely rampant in the office, and dave thinks it's hilarious until lisa gets too exasperated over it and convinces him to come clean. so then he tells everyone it was him, and no one believes him :/ and thinks he's too embarrassed to admit he lost lisa to such a sexy lady.

i absolutely love this !!! i definitely agree that dave enjoys doing drag,, i think that it's a great edition to his character !!! ALSO OMG it's like an episode,, so real,, i bet dave would get teased by bill for "turning lisa gay" as if she wasn't already bisexual before,, lmao,, (and who is he to talk),,

i actually love the hc that dave experiments with his gender expression,,

[pleasedonttellmymom]

considering pulling a bill mcneal and taking a vacation to a mental institution

[bill-mcneal]

the most correct take on the character !!! phil would be proud !!

blog too stressful as of late so fun question time: what fictional characters have made you go "they are canonically transmasc even if its not canon. i know because they told me personally. the writers dont know them like i do"

[keep-it-light]

Today is this legend's Birthday.

Born on this day - 9/24/1948

The Sultan of Smarm

The Glue of "Saturday Night Live"

The Man of a Thousand Voices

Keyrock "The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer"

Chick Hazard, Private Eye

Captain Carl

Bill McNeal

PHIL HARTMAN!!!

A Legend of Comedy. Happy Birthday Sir.

[onenakedfarmer]

Currently Watching [Hal Hartley Retrospective]

THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH Hal Hartley USA, 1989

-

Bonus Shorts

THE CARTOGRAPHER'S GIRLFRIEND (1987) AMBITION (1991) OPERA NO. 1 (1994) IRIS (1994)

[identity-library]

Diverse Sexuality (TV Shows)

A:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013)

José "Joey" Gutierrez (Gay)

Marcus Benson (Gay)

All Saints (1998)

Charlotte Beaumont (Bisexual)

American Dad (2005)

Greg (Gay)

Terry (Gay)

Andor (2022)

Cinta Kaz (Unspecified WLW)

Vel Sartha (Unspecified WLW)

Arthur (1996)

Nigel Ratburn (Gay)

Patrick (Gay)

B:

Battlestar Galactica (2004)

Felix Gaeta (Bisexual)

Big Mouth (2017)

Ali (Pansexual)

Charles Lu (Unspecified MLM)

Connie LaCienega (Pansexual)

Elijah (Asexual)

Jayzarian "Jay" Bilzerian (Bisexual)

Jessica "Jessi" Glaser (Bisexual)

Matthew MacDell (Gay)

Maury Beverly (Pansexual)

Megan (Bisexual)

Mona (Bisexual)

Nadja El-Khoury (Lesbian)

Shannon Glaser (Lesbian)

Simon Sex (Bisexual)

Sonya Poinsettia (Bisexual)

Tyler Pico (Pansexual)

Bob's Burgers (2011)

Natalie "Nat" Kinkle (Unspecified WLW)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013)

Jenny Gildenhorn (Bisexual)

Jocelyn Price (Lesbian)

Kevin Cozner (Gay)

Raymond "Ray" Holt (Gay)

Rosalita "Rosa" Diaz (Bisexual)

C:

Chicago Fire (2012)

Clarice Carthage (Bisexual)

Darren Ritter (Gay)

Emily Foster (Bisexual)

Leslie Shay (Lesbian)

Chicago Med (2015)

Lawrence Dayle (Unspecified MLM)

Peter Kalmick (Unspecified MLM)

Terry McNeal (Gay)

Code Black (2015)

Carla Niven (Lesbian)

Malaya Pineda (Lesbian)

Noa Kean (Bisexual)

Community (2009)

Craig Pelton (Unlabeled MLM)

Frankie Dart (Unspecified WLW)

Craig of the Creek (2018)

Alexis (Pansexual)

Courtney (Lesbian)

George (Gay)

Jasmine Williams (Lesbian)

Kelsey Pokoly (Lesbian)

Laura Mercer (Lesbian)

Raj (Gay)

Secret Keeper (Gay)

Shawn (Gay)

Stacks (Lesbian)

Tabitha (Lesbian)

D:

Dead End: Paranormal Park (2022)

Barney Guttman (Gay)

Logan Nguyen (Gay)

Norma Khan (Bisexual)

Zagan (Pansexual)

Doom Patrol (2019)

Kay Challis/Crazy Jane (Lesbian)

Larry Trainor (Gay)

Dr. Who (2005)

Adric (Pansexual)

Bill Potts (Lesbian)

Canton Everett Delaware ||| (Gay)

Chris Cwej (Bisexual)

Clara Oswald (Bisexual)

Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw (Bisexual)

Heather (Lesbian)

Jack Harkness (Omnisexual + Polyamorous)

Jennifer "Jenny Flint" Scarrity (Lesbian)

Madame Vastra (Lesbian)

Melony "River Song" Pond (Bisexual + Polyamorous)

Nyssa of Traken (Bisexual)

Oliver Harper (Gay)

Olivia "Liv" Chenka (Bisexual)

Patricia Haggard (Lesbian)

Rogue (Gay)

Tania Bell (Lesbian)

Tegan Jovanka (Bisexual)

Toshiko Sato (Bisexual)

Yasmin Khan (Queer)

E:

Equestria Girls (2017)

Sunset Shimmer (Bisexual)

ER (1994)

Courtney Brown (Lesbian)

Kerry Weaver (Lesbian)

Kim Legaspi (Lesbian)

Maggie Doyle (Lesbian)

Sandy Lopez (Lesbian)

Euphoria (2019)

Cal Jacobs (Bisexual)

Elliot (Unlabeled MLM)

Jules Vaughn (Unlabeled WLW)

Nate Jacobs (Unspecified MLM)

Rue Bennett (Lesbian)

Ever After High (2013)

Apple White (Unspecified WLW)

Darling Charming (Unspecified WLW)

F:

G:

Glee (2009)

Adam Crawford (Gay)

Alistair (Unspecified MLM)

Blaine Anderson (Gay)

Brittany Pierce (Bisexual)

Dani (Lesbian)

David "Dave" Karofsky (Gay)

Elliott Gilbert (Gay)

Hiram Barry (Gay)

Kurt Hummel (Gay)

Leroy Barry (Gay)

Santana Lopez (Lesbian)

Sebastian Smythe (Bisexual)

Spencer Porter (Gay)

Grey's Anatomy (2005)

Amelia Shepherd (Bisexual)

Arizona Robbins (Lesbian)

Callie Torres (Bisexual)

Carina DeLuca (Bisexual)

Dayna Knox (Lesbian)

Eliza Minnick (Lesbian)

Erica Hahn (Lesbian)

Levi Schmitt (Gay)

Mika Yasuda (Bisexual)

Nico Kim (Gay)

Taryn Helm (Lesbian)

Teddy Altman (Bisexual)

H:

Harley Quinn (2019)

Basil Karlo/Clayface (Gay)

Edward Nygma/The Riddler (Gay)

Frank (Asexual)

Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn (Bisexual)

Leslie Wills/Livewire (Lesbian)

Mari McCabe/Vixen (Bisexual)

Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy (Bisexual)

Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Unspecified WLW)

Sylvester "Sy" Borgman (Bisexual)

Hazbin Hotel (2024)

Alastor (Aromantic, Asexual)

Angel Dust (Gay)

Charlotte "Charlie" Morningstar (Lesbian)

Cherri Bomb (Bisexual)

Husker (Pansexual)

Sir Pentious (Bisexual)

Vaggie (Unspecified WLW)

Valentino (Pansexual)

Vox (Bisexual)

Heartbreak High (2022)

Darren Rivers (Gay, Queer)

Donald "Ca$h" Piggott (Asexual)

Dustin Reid (Unspecified MLM)

Malakai Mitchell (Bisexual)

Missy Beckett (Bisexual)

Quinni Gallagher-Jones (Lesbian)

Rowan Callaghan (Bisexual)

Sasha So (Lesbian)

Heartstopper (2022)

Ben Hope (Unspecified MLM)

Charles "Charlie" Spring (Gay)

Darcy Olsson (Lesbian)

Isaac Henderson (Asexual, Aromantic)

Nick Nelson (Bisexual)

Tara Jones (Lesbian)

How I Met Your Mother (2005)

James Stinson (Gay)

Human Resources (2022)

Claudia (Lesbian)

Danielle (Lesbian)

Flanny O'Lympic (Bisexual)

Van (Lesbian)

I:

J:

K:

L:

M:

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (2015)

Alix Kubdel (Aromantic)

Caline Bustier (Unspecified WLW)

Gisèle (Unspecified WLW)

Juleka Couffaine (Unspecified WLW)

Marc Anciel (Unspecified MLM)

Max Kanté (Asexual)

Nathaniel Kurtzberg (Unspecified MLM)

Rose Lavillant (Unspecified WLW)

Zoé Lee (Unspecified WLW)

Modern Family (2009)

Cameron Tucker (Gay)

Gil Thorpe (Gay)

Mitchell Pritchett (Gay)

Pepper Saltzman (Gay)

Ronaldo (Unspecified MLM)

Mom (2013)

Bonnie Plunkett (Bisexual)

Ray Stabler (Gay)

Rudy (Bisexual)

N:

Nanbaka (2016)

Jyugo (Bisexual)

New Amsterdam (2018)

Elizabeth Wilder (Bisexual)

Iggy Frome (Gay)

Lauren Bloom (Bisexual)

Leyla Shinwari (Lesbian)

Martin McIntyre (Gay)

New Girl (2011)

Melissa (Unspecified WLW)

Reagan Lucas (Bisexual)

Sadie (Lesbian)

O:

P:

Peacemaker (2022)

Christopher Smith/Peacemaker (Bisexual)

Leota Adebayo (Lesbian)

Private Practice (2007)

Amelia Shepherd (Bisexual)

Q:

R:

Raising Dion (2019)

Kat Neese (Lesbian)

Roswell, New Mexico (2019)

Alex Manes (Gay)

Allie Meyers (Unspecified WLW)

Anatsa Mufaro (Unspecified WLW)

Blaire (Unspecified WLW)

Forrest (Gay)

Isobel Evans-Bracken (Bisexual)

Michael Guerin (Bisexual)

Shivani Sen (Unspecified WLW)

Runaways (2017)

Karolina Dean (Lesbian)

Nico Minoru (Bisexual)

Xavin (Pansexual)

S:

Safe (2018)

Pete Mayfield (Gay)

Saving Hope (2012)

Bree Hannigan (Lesbian)

Maggie Lin (Bisexual)

Sydney Katz (Lesbian)

Shadowhunters (2016)

Alexander "Alec" Lightwood (Gay)

Aline Penhallow (Unspecified WLW)

Magnus Bane (Bisexual)

Olivia Wilson (Unspecified WLW)

Samantha (Unspecified WLW)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

Adora (Lesbian)

Bow (Bisexual)

Catra (Lesbian)

Double Trouble (Gay)

Entrapta (Bisexual)

George (Gay)

Glimmer (Bisexual)

Huntara (Lesbian)

Kyle (Bisexual)

Lance (Gay)

Light Hope (Lesbian)

Lonnie (Bisexual)

Mara (Lesbian)

Mermista (Bisexual)

Netossa (Lesbian)

Perfuma (Unspecified WLW)

Rogelio (Bisexual)

Scorpia (Lesbian)

Sea Hawk (Bisexual)

Spinnerella (Lesbian)

Station 19 (2018)

Amelia Shepherd (Bisexual)

Carina DeLuca (Bisexual)

Dayna Knox (Lesbian)

Eli Stern (Bisexual)

Emmett Dixon (Gay)

Maya Bishop (Bisexual)

Michelle Alvarez (Lesbian)

Nikki (Bisexual)

Pam Williams (Lesbian)

Travis Montgomery (Gay)

Steven Universe (2013)

Bismuth (Lesbian)

Dogcopter (Gay)

Harold Smiley (Gay)

Pearl (Lesbian)

Peridot (Asexual, Aromantic)

Ruby (Lesbian)

Sapphire (Lesbian)

Stumptown (2019)

Dex Parios (Bisexual)

T:

The Babysitter's Club (2020)

Dawn Schafer (Unlabeled WLW)

Janine Kishi (Lesbian)

The Magicians (2015)

Eliot Waugh (Gay)

The Owl House (2020)

Amity Blight (Lesbian)

Darius Deamonne (Gay)

Eda Clawthorne (Bisexual)

Gilbert Park (Unspecified MLM)

Harvey Park (Unspecified MLM)

Hunter (Bisexual)

Lilith Clawthorne (Asexual, Aromantic)

Luz Noceda (Bisexual)

Willow Park (Bisexual)

The Resident (2018)

Jake Wong (Gay)

The Rookie (2018)

Jackson West (Gay)

Gino Brown (Gay)

The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (2024)

Klak (Unspecified WLW)

Slug Girl (Unspecified WLW)

The 100 (2014)

Bryan (Gay)

Clarke Griffin (Bisexual)

Eric Jackson (Gay)

Lexa (Lesbian)

Nathan Miller (Gay)

Niylah (Lesbian)

Zev (Gay)

Titans (2018)

Tim Drake/Robin (Bisexual)

Total Drama (Franchise)

Bowie (Gay)

Raj (Gay)

U:

V:

W:

X:

Y:

Z:

#:

9-1-1 (2018)

David Hale (Unspecified MLM)

Evan "Buck" Buckley (Bisexual)

Henrietta "Hen" Wilson (Lesbian)

John Russo (Unspecified MLM)

Karen Wilson (Lesbian)

Michael Grant (Gay)

Tommy Kinard (Gay)

9-1-1: Lone Star (2020)

Carlos Reyes (Gay)

Tyler Kennedy "TK" Strand (Gay)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

women's march for equality 1971

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 25, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The last several days have seen a Republican stampede to distance the party from the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision of a week ago, when it ruled that embryos frozen for in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children and that their injury can be treated like injury to a child. That decision has led major healthcare providers in Alabama to stop IVF procedures out of fear of prosecution. 

IVF is very popular—about 2% of babies born in the U.S. are the product of IVF—and Republicans recognize that endangering the procedure has the potential to be a dealbreaker in the upcoming election.

The fury at the Alabama decision of those who have spent years and tens of thousands of dollars in their quest to be parents was articulated yesterday in a conversation between Abbey Crain and Stephanie McNeal of Glamour, in which Crain recounted her five-year IVF journey and noted that the Alabama justice who wrote the decision, Jay Mitchell, “who,” as she said, “lives five miles down the road from me, goes to a church that people in my circle go to, and has children in schools in my community, has more of a say in whether and when I get to be a mom than me.” 

The Alabama decision is a direct result of the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, decided thanks to the three religious extremists former president Trump nominated to the Supreme Court. That decision referred to fetuses as “unborn human being[s]” when it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. The Alabama decision cited the Dobbs case 15 times, relying on it to establish that “the unborn” are “living persons with rights and interests.”

Republicans are now denying they intended to halt IVF with their antiabortion stance and their appointment of religious extremists to the courts. But that position doesn’t square with the fact that since the Dobbs decision, they have pressed for so-called personhood laws, laws that give the full rights of a person to an embryo from the time of conception. Since Dobbs, sixteen state legislatures have introduced personhood laws, and four Republican-dominated states—Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona, although Arizona’s has been blocked—have passed them. 

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans introduced a national personhood bill as soon as they took control in January 2023. The bill, titled “Life at Conception Act,” currently has 124 co-sponsors, including House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). On Friday, Johnson claimed to support IVF, raising the question of what exactly that support for IVF means, considering the process requires discarding certain embryos.

In the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a “Life at Conception Act” on January 28, 2021. It currently has 18 co-sponsors, including Steve Daines (R-MT), who is the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the official campaign organization to elect Republican senators. On Friday the NRSC distributed a memo to candidates telling them to “align with the public’s overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments.” 

While it is the IVF story that has garnered the most attention this weekend—likely because it has obvious implications for the 2024 election and Republicans have tried to rush away from it—it is simply a different facet of a larger story: the leaders of the Republican Party are working to overthrow democracy.

On February 15, news broke that Alexander Smirnov, the informant who had provided the “evidence” that then–vice president Joe Biden and his son had each taken a $5 million bribe from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma, had been indicted by a federal grand jury for lying and “creating a false and fictitious record.” On February 20, Trump-appointed Special Counsel David Weiss of the Justice Department filed a document concluding that Smirnov has “extensive and extremely recent” ties with “Russian intelligence agencies.” 

The use of Russian disinformation to destabilize democracy in the U.S. looks much like the information warfare Russia has used to establish Ukrainian leaders that worked for the Kremlin. It was the ouster of one of those leaders, Viktor Yanukovych, in the 2014 Maidan Revolution ten years ago that prompted Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine later that year. Yanukovych won office with the help of American political consultant Paul Manafort, who advised and, briefly, chaired the Trump campaign in 2016, when it weakened the Republican party’s platform plank that supported arming Ukraine against Putin after his 2014 invasion.

Seeding lies about corruption that came from Russian-linked Ukrainians was central to Trump’s 2019 impeachment: his phone call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky demanding Zelensky announce an investigation into Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter was part of an attempt to create dirt on the Bidens. That call happened after Trump’s advisor Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine, where he talked to “an active Russian agent,” according to the FBI. FBI agents warned Giuliani that he was a target of Russian disinformation.  

That poison has now spread from Trump’s rogue team in the White House to the Republican Party itself, which has apparently been carrying water for Putin at the very center of our government. 

Meanwhile, under pressure from Trump loyalists in the House, Speaker Johnson is refusing to take up a measure to aid Ukraine in its resistance to Russia’s 2022 invasion. Such a measure is popular in the U.S., both among the population in general and among lawmakers. While other countries can provide funds, only the U.S. has enough of the required war matériel Ukraine so desperately needs. Already, Russia has managed to retake the key city of Avdiivka because Ukraine’s troops don’t have enough ammunition, and today Jimmy Rushton, a Kyiv-based foreign policy analyst, quoted a Ukrainian officer’s report that they can’t “medivac our guys from the contact line anymore because we don’t have any artillery ammunition to suppress the Russians. We have to leave them to die.”

The reluctance of House Republicans to support Ukraine has global implications. Putin is trying to tear up the rules-based international order that has protected international boundaries since World War II, while Trump has threatened to destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that holds back Russian aggression. In the Wall Street Journal on Friday, chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov noted that European countries are worried that the U.S. will not defend its allies, while Putin has made “a de facto military alliance with the rogue regimes of North Korea and Iran while growing closer and closer to authoritarian China.”

European nations have expanded their own military production and support for Ukraine; Poland and the Baltic states have invested far more in their militaries than NATO’s threshold of 2% of a nation’s gross domestic product. In the Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum reported Friday that some of the nations that border Russia are looking again at land mines, concertina wire, and trenches—the technology of last century’s wars—to protect themselves from a Russian invasion. 

Putin and allies like Viktor Orbán of Hungary have been clear they believe democracy is obsolete. Far-right extremists in the United States agree, insisting that democracy’s demand for equal rights before the law undermines society as immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights challenge “traditional” values. That ideological justification has led many white evangelical Christians to flock to Trump’s strongman persona.

How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

But Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary suggested that the drive to lay waste to American democracy is not popular. Trump won the state, as expected, by about 60%—lower  than predicted. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley won 40% of the vote. This means that Trump will have to continue spending money he doesn’t currently have on his campaign.   

More important than that, even, is that it shows that even in a strongly Republican state, 40% of primary voters—the party’s most loyal voters—prefer someone else. As Mike Allen of Axios wrote today: “If America were dominated by old, white, election-denying Christians who didn’t go to college, former President Trump would win the general election in…a landslide.” But, Allen added, “It’s not.”  

Which may be precisely why Trump loyalists intend to overthrow democracy. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[manofbeskar]

I LOOOVEEE talking about the music that inspires specific pieces of mine so here's a list of every artwork and the song that it's inspired by. They either inspire the colour scheme, composition, mood or concept.

The Apostate || Muddy Waters by LP [insp: mood, colour scheme]

Aphra and the Death Star || I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers [insp: composition, colour scheme]

Dincobb projection || ceilings by Lizzy McAlpine [insp: mood, concept, colour scheme]

Joel and Ellie || American Pie by Don McNeal [insp: concept]

Old and Satisfied || Long Long Time by Nick Offerman [insp: mood]

Bill and Frank Picture Frame || Long Long Time by Linda Ronstadt [insp: mood, colour scheme]

Cobb and the sunset || Binary Sunset by John Williams [insp: mood, composition]

Hanlando on the Falcon || Bang the Doldrums by Fall Out Boy [insp: concept]

Dincobb cape wrap || Yes to Heaven by Lana Del Rey [insp: colour scheme]

Dincobb club dancing || Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) by ABBA [insp: mood, colour scheme]

The Black Parade Dincobb || I Don't Love You by My Chemical Romance [insp: mood, colour scheme]

IBYMBYBMYL Dincobb || Early Sunsets Over Monroeville by My Chemical Romance [insp: mood, colour sheme]

TCFSR Dincobb || Cemetery Drive by My Chemical Romance [insp: mood, colour scheme]

Dincobb speeder reunion || There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths [insp: mood, colour scheme, composition]

Hanlando car kiss || Favorite Record by Fall Out Boy [insp: mood, colour scheme, concept]

Cobb cantina yearning || Need You Now by Lady A [insp: mood, concept, colour scheme]

Dincobb Free Guy AU || Professional Griefers by deadmau5 and Gerard Way [insp: colour scheme, concept]

Dincobb western bar || Whoever Broke Your Heart by Murphy Elmore [insp: colour scheme]

Dincobb birthday art || Fire Meet Gasoline by Sia [insp: composition, concept, colour scheme, mood]

Western Dincobb for DTIYS || Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen [insp: composition]

Dincobb birthday art (cheek kiss) || Brazil by Declan McKenna [insp: mood]

Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker || everything i wanted by Billie Eilish [insp: concept]

Vaderdala stained glass || In My Room by Chance Peña [insp: mood, concept]

Dincobb twin suns || G.I.N.A.S.F.S. by Fall Out Boy [insp: mood, colour scheme]

[sutrala]

Bill McNeal - Skank (2024)

http://dlvr.it/TFKcdV

[thatsbelievable]

may I rupture you?

I’m glad you asked, because, no.

[housefreak]

NewsRadio Bill McNeal Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor DAAAMN!!!

[bill-mcneal]

//I’ve been a Phil Hartman/Bill McNeal kick and rewatching NewsRadio and I just found your blog…. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!

THANK U OMG FEEL FREE TO DM BTW because i love phil and always adore talking about his content,, my hyperfixation,, or moreso special interest in him ended but i still know all about him and love him so much,, he's one of my favorite people,, it always warms my heart when fans reach to me to talk with them abt him,, i love that man dearly,, <333 thank u so much <33

[fairhopeman]

𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧

The last several days have seen a Republican stampede to distance the party from the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision of a week ago, when it ruled that embryos frozen for in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children and that their injury can be treated like injury to a child. That decision has led major healthcare providers in Alabama to stop IVF procedures out of fear of prosecution.

IVF is very popular—about 2% of babies born in the U.S. are the product of IVF—and Republicans recognize that endangering the procedure has the potential to be a dealbreaker in the upcoming election.

The fury at the Alabama decision of those who have spent years and tens of thousands of dollars in their quest to be parents was articulated yesterday in a conversation between Abbey Crain and Stephanie McNeal of Glamour, in which Crain recounted her five-year IVF journey and noted that the Alabama justice who wrote the decision, Jay Mitchell, “who,” as she said, “lives five miles down the road from me, goes to a church that people in my circle go to, and has children in schools in my community, has more of a say in whether and when I get to be a mom than me.”

The Alabama decision is a direct result of the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, decided thanks to the three religious extremists former president Trump nominated to the Supreme Court. That decision referred to fetuses as “unborn human being[s]” when it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. The Alabama decision cited the Dobbs case 15 times, relying on it to establish that “the unborn” are “living persons with rights and interests.”

Republicans are now denying they intended to halt IVF with their antiabortion stance and their appointment of religious extremists to the courts. But that position doesn’t square with the fact that since the Dobbs decision, they have pressed for so-called personhood laws, laws that give the full rights of a person to an embryo from the time of conception. Since Dobbs, sixteen state legislatures have introduced personhood laws, and four Republican-dominated states—Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona, although Arizona’s has been blocked—have passed them.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans introduced a national personhood bill as soon as they took control in January 2023. The bill, titled “Life at Conception Act,” currently has 124 co-sponsors, including House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). On Friday, Johnson claimed to support IVF, raising the question of what exactly that support for IVF means, considering the process requires discarding certain embryos.

In the U.S. Senate, Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a “Life at Conception Act” on January 28, 2021. It currently has 18 co-sponsors, including Steve Daines (R-MT), who is the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the official campaign organization to elect Republican senators. On Friday the NRSC distributed a memo to candidates telling them to “align with the public’s overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments.”

While it is the IVF story that has garnered the most attention this weekend—likely because it has obvious implications for the 2024 election and Republicans have tried to rush away from it—it is simply a different facet of a larger story: the leaders of the Republican Party are working to overthrow democracy.

On February 15, news broke that Alexander Smirnov, the informant who had provided the “evidence” that then–vice president Joe Biden and his son had each taken a $5 million bribe from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma, had been indicted by a federal grand jury for lying and “creating a false and fictitious record.” On February 20, Trump-appointed Special Counsel David Weiss of the Justice Department filed a document concluding that Smirnov has “extensive and extremely recent” ties with “Russian intelligence agencies.”

The use of Russian disinformation to destabilize democracy in the U.S. looks much like the information warfare Russia has used to establish Ukrainian leaders that worked for the Kremlin. It was the ouster of one of those leaders, Viktor Yanukovych, in the 2014 Maidan Revolution ten years ago that prompted Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine later that year. Yanukovych won office with the help of American political consultant Paul Manafort, who advised and, briefly, chaired the Trump campaign in 2016, when it weakened the Republican party’s platform plank that supported arming Ukraine against Putin after his 2014 invasion.

Seeding lies about corruption that came from Russian-linked Ukrainians was central to Trump’s 2019 impeachment: his phone call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky demanding Zelensky announce an investigation into Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter was part of an attempt to create dirt on the Bidens. That call happened after Trump’s advisor Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine, where he talked to “an active Russian agent,” according to the FBI. FBI agents warned Giuliani that he was a target of Russian disinformation.

That poison has now spread from Trump’s rogue team in the White House to the Republican Party itself, which has apparently been carrying water for Putin at the very center of our government.

Meanwhile, under pressure from Trump loyalists in the House, Speaker Johnson is refusing to take up a measure to aid Ukraine in its resistance to Russia’s 2022 invasion. Such a measure is popular in the U.S., both among the population in general and among lawmakers. While other countries can provide funds, only the U.S. has enough of the required war matériel Ukraine so desperately needs. Already, Russia has managed to retake the key city of Avdiivka because Ukraine’s troops don’t have enough ammunition, and today Jimmy Rushton, a Kyiv-based foreign policy analyst, quoted a Ukrainian officer’s report that they can’t “medivac our guys from the contact line anymore because we don’t have any artillery ammunition to suppress the Russians. We have to leave them to die.”

The reluctance of House Republicans to support Ukraine has global implications. Putin is trying to tear up the rules-based international order that has protected international boundaries since World War II, while Trump has threatened to destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that holds back Russian aggression. In the Wall Street Journal on Friday, chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov noted that European countries are worried that the U.S. will not defend its allies, while Putin has made “a de facto military alliance with the rogue regimes of North Korea and Iran while growing closer and closer to authoritarian China.”

European nations have expanded their own military production and support for Ukraine; Poland and the Baltic states have invested far more in their militaries than NATO’s threshold of 2% of a nation’s gross domestic product. In the Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum reported Friday that some of the nations that border Russia are looking again at land mines, concertina wire, and trenches—the technology of last century’s wars—to protect themselves from a Russian invasion.

Putin and allies like Viktor Orbán of Hungary have been clear they believe democracy is obsolete. Far-right extremists in the United States agree, insisting that democracy’s demand for equal rights before the law undermines society as immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights challenge “traditional” values. That ideological justification has led many white evangelical Christians to flock to Trump’s strongman persona.

How religion and authoritarianism have come together in modern America was on display Thursday, when right-wing activist Jack Posobiec opened this weekend’s conference of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., with the words: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” He held up a cross necklace and continued: “After we burn that swamp to the ground, we will establish the new American republic on its ashes, and our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.”

But Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary suggested that the drive to lay waste to American democracy is not popular. Trump won the state, as expected, by about 60%—lower than predicted. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley won 40% of the vote. This means that Trump will have to continue spending money he doesn’t currently have on his campaign.

More important than that, even, is that it shows that even in a strongly Republican state, 40% of primary voters—the party’s most loyal voters—prefer someone else. As Mike Allen of Axios wrote today: “If America were dominated by old, white, election-denying Christians who didn’t go to college, former President Trump would win the general election in…a landslide.” But, Allen added, “It’s not.”

Which may be precisely why Trump loyalists intend to overthrow democracy.

— 𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐎𝐗 𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐍

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

The emergence of Neo-Realism, Film Noir and the importance of Perspective: Bicycle Thieves and Call Northside 777

By Jack Muscatello

With rapid changes in Europe following the Nazi’s surrender in 1945, cinematic movements worldwide began responding. An interesting parallel emerged between Italian and American cinema, which mirrored each country’s location to the war. In Italy, the scene was much more chaotic and unknown. With the fall of the Axis Powers, a sudden gap in power contributed to economic hardship, experienced firsthand throughout the country. Italian cinema, likewise, became raw and personal, focusing directly on characters in despair who often turned to crime as a means to attain a marginally better life. In the US, however – victory was apparent, and thus the cinematic landscape was typically disconnected from any suffering at all. Characters were outside parties in crime conspiracies and mysteries, with the luxury of hindsight at their fingertips. No two films encapsulate this dynamic more than De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Hathaway’s Call Northside 777, both released in 1948.

In the midst of economic unrest and social instability, Italian filmmaker De Sica used the story of Bicycle Thieves to hone-in on a small neighborhood in Rome experiencing the gap left behind by Mussolini’s tumultuous collapse. As a means of representing the large population of displaced and struggling families in Italy, De Sica placed Antonio, Maria and Bruno at the heart of a narrative of misfortune, mischief and the art of “wrong place, wrong time”, which came to summarize many Italian “realist” films of the late-40’s. The oddly slapstick style of De Sica’s presentation of Antonio’s bike being stolen, along with the chase that follows for the rest of the film, matches an industry-wide attempt at connecting with more simple emotions in the midst of difficult subject matter. Though this effort had mixed results, the aptly titled “Neo-Realist” style embodied by De Sica and other filmmakers of the time touched on the daily struggles of the average family in a way seldom seen before. The surprising blend of humor and dark themes allowed the story to become more digestible, “… where De Sica’s clumsy characters tend to be portrayed in similar clown-like terms, but it is in De Sica’s own works that Vidor’s conflicting view of urban modernity comes to the forefront, in particular… in the irresolution of the unemployed bill-poster in Bicycle Thieves… these are characters who fight with a feeling of uncertainty, discontent and resignation” (Haaland, 42). For De Sica, moments of subtle humor work in his favor when showcasing Antonio’s descent over the course of the film. This harkens back to the idea of Italian Post-War cinema as highly personal, directly tied the character’s frame of mind and discontent with their place in the world. Opposite this exists the American philosophy for Post-War storytelling – removed, dissociated from the characters at the center of the conflict, and much more objective in its view.

At the helm of this stylistic endeavor is Henry Hathaway’s Call Northside 777, which observes a previously settled murder case in a new light, helping pave the way for a proper and truthful settlement of justice in a decision made at the height of Prohibition. In contrast to De Sica’s personal and subjective view into Antonio’s thoughts and perspective, the character P.J. McNeal is an outside observer looking back at the murder case with the convenience of hindsight and a mountain of old evidence. As America (socially and on the Home Front, at least) was largely isolated from the war effort, McNeal is over a decade removed from the case; and though he becomes emotionally attached to Wiecek’s innocence over the course of the story, his social status and personal life have not been impacted by the murder until now. This began a steady argument at the time for the meaning of “Film Noir” – is it about the criminals directly, or can it also be about the crimes in general (including those seeking to catch them)? For some, the film embodied a dissociated noir style, as, though it had the trappings of a noir film, its characters did not fit the bill for classic noir archetypes. To summarize this debate, “… there are differences between the two series. To begin with there is a difference in focus. The documentary-style picture examines a murder from without, from the point of view of the police official; the film noir is from within, from the point of view of the criminals” (Borde and Chaumeton, 20). Hathaway’s documentary style is the particular focus of this debate, as it very much centers the film in the “realism” genre convention. This, ironically, places Call Northside 777 closer to De Sica than the noir classics of the time, given its more authentic and less flashy presentation, much like De Sica’s work in Bicycle Thieves. However, the disconnect between McNeal and the case persists as a separation between Italian Neo-Realism and the “realist” films in Hollywood. The industry was still “Hollywood”, after all, and thus did not possess the same in-depth personal vantage point that De Sica and others in Italy experienced first-hand after the war.

In this image, P.J. McNeal sits at his desk, more than a decade after the murder case was settled, examining evidence to find any proof of Wiecek's innocence.