Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Republicans across the country have been
obsessing over former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time
at the State Department.
But what Republicans really should be asking
is:
What about Gowdy’s private email server?
On July 5, Clinton was cleared by a team of FBI investigators led by
FBI Director James Comey. Dismayed by the fact that their email-centric
political witch hunt failed to indict Clinton just weeks after the
Benghazi “scandal” also cleared her, they decided to investigate the
investigators and take on Comey. Gowdy led a portion of Comey’s
interrogation.
Which makes it all the more hypocritical to learn that Benghazi
Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been exposed for having his own
personal email server at treygowdy.com. AlterNet remarks that
“while it’s not unusual to maintain such a thing particularly for
campaign work, it’s not clear that Gowdy utilizes this email solely for
political campaign work and not congressional tasks.”
Requests for comment by both Alternet and Correct The Record‘s David Brock
were both ignored by the Gowdy camp, which is highly indicative that he
does use his personal email for Congressional work- if he had nothing
to hide, why wouldn’t he just say so? Especially with the integrity of
his failed committee under such harsh scrutiny by the rest of the
nation, demanding answers for the colossal misuse of public funds and
time. Gowdy had better be ready to put his own actions under the
microscope.
Here is the full text of David Brock’s inquiry:
Dear Chairman Gowdy:
I noted with interest your public demand that Secretary Clinton turn
over her personal email server, presumably so that the committee can
access some 30,000 Clinton emails deemed to be strictly private and
beyond the reach of the government.
This Orwellian demand has no basis in law or precedent. Every
government employee decides for themselves what email is work-related
and what is strictly private. There is no reason to hold Secretary
Clinton to a different standard— except partisan politics.
But since you insist that Clinton’s private email be accessed, I’m
writing today to ask you and your staff to abide by the same standard
you seek to hold the Secretary to by releasing your own work-related and
private email and that of your staff to the public.
While I realize that Congress regularly exempts itself from laws that
apply to the executive branch, I believe this action is necessary to
ensure public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of your
investigation.
This week, high-profile police killings of two black men—Alton
Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was killed
in Falcon Heights, Minnesota—have renewed heated debates about police
violence, and brought the Black Lives Matter movement back into the
spotlight.
Every time this happens, cries of “Black Lives Matter” tend to be
met with the response “All Lives Matter.” Even presidential candidates
have made this mistake—last year, Hillary Clinton said “All Lives
Matter,” though she has since corrected herself. And lots of white
people have expressed confusion about why it’s controversial to broaden
the #BlackLivesMatter movement to include people of all races.
The real issue is that, while strictly true, “All Lives Matter” is a
tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in
America face.
The best explanation we’ve seen so far comes from Reddit, of all
places. Last year, in an “Explain Like I’m 5” thread, user GeekAesthete
explained, clearly and succinctly, why changing #BlackLivesMatter to
#AllLivesMatter is an act of erasure that makes lots of people cringe.
GeekAesthete explains:
Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and
while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So
you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this,
your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.”
Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that
was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of
everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s
smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that
you still haven’t gotten any!
The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had
an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just
like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as
though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was
not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get
their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you
were trying to point out.
That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture,
laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all
lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our
society.
The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn’t work that way.
You see the film Nightcrawler? You know the part where Renee Russo tells
Jake Gyllenhal that she doesn’t want footage of a black or latino
person dying, she wants news stories about affluent white people being
killed? That’s not made up out of whole cloth — there is a news bias
toward stories that the majority of the audience (who are white) can
identify with. So when a young black man gets killed (prior to the
recent police shootings), it’s generally not considered “news”, while a
middle-aged white woman being killed is treated as news. And to a large
degree, that is accurate — young black men are killed in significantly
disproportionate numbers, which is why we don’t treat it as anything
new. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much attention
to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don’t
treat all lives as though they matter equally.
Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives
matter” also has an implicit “too” at the end: it’s saying that black
lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives
matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of
dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black
lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all
lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is
essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.
Yep, there you go. Bookmark it, print it out, give it to your friends.
Hillary Clinton has a nearly 80 percent chance of winning the White
House in November, FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver predicted
Wednesday.
FiveThirtyEight projected Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning
the general election against Donald Trump, who has just a 20 percent
chance of succeeding President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
“Here’s how to think about it: We’re kind of at halftime of the
election right now, and she’s taking a seven-point, maybe a 10-point
lead into halftime,” Silver told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good
Morning America.” “There’s a lot of football left to be played, but
she’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national
poll.”
Indeed, a Ballotpedia survey of seven swing states
released Wednesday shows the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee sweeping Trump in Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North
Carolina, Ohio and Virginia by margins ranging from 4 to 17 percentage
points.
Silver, who correctly forecast 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and every
state in 2012, noted that both camps “have a lot of room to grow,” but
no candidate has blown a lead as large as Clinton’s advantage over Trump
in nearly 30 years, when former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis lost
to George H.W. Bush despite maintaining a large lead coming out of the
spring and summer.
“It’s been a crazy year, politically,” Silver said, adding that more
states, particularly red states, are in play in 2016 than in previous
elections. “For example, Arizona looks like a toss-up. Maybe Georgia.
Maybe Missouri, North Carolina again.”
“Likewise,” Silver continued, “if Trump gains ground on Clinton then
maybe a state like Maine — used to be a swing state, not so recently” —
could be in play, too.
Silver also defended his August forecast that gave the billionaire businessman a 2 percent chance to win the GOP nomination.
“That wasn’t based on looking at polls. Trump was always ahead in the
polls, and one big lesson of his campaign is don’t try and out-think
the polls and try and out-think the American public,” Silver said. “And
Trump has never really been ahead of Clinton in the general election
campaign. He did a great job of appealing to the 40 percent of the GOP
he had to win the election, the primary — a lot different than winning
51 percent of 100 percent.”
Lawrence
O’Donnell has a thorough explanation of the woes plaguing Donald
Trump’s campaign as Trump complains he’s running against two parties
while a new scandal develops with the ‘Trump Institute.’
Stuart Stevens and Eugene Robinson join the discussion.
Gary Johnson, Jill Stein (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Jonathan Ernst)
Ever
since Hillary Clinton became the “presumptive nominee” for the
Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders supporters have been faced with a
seemingly impossible dilemma: Vote for someone you hate (Clinton) or
vote for someone despicable (Trump). You either cast your vote toward
someone you see as a shill for corporate interests or you vote for a
bigoted monster. There is a real sense that there simply is no other
choice.
But
vote shaming seems to have caused unanticipated blowback. As mind
boggling as it may be to consider, many Sanders supporters are actually
suggesting they will choose Trump over Clinton. A June 14 Bloomberg Politics national poll of
likely voters in November’s election found that just over half of those
who favored Sanders — 55 percent — plan to vote for Clinton.
Stop and ponder how crazy that is for a moment. Frustration
with establishment politics is so high that folks will vote for a
misogynistic, racist, egomaniacal buffoon over a party insider. Anger
over a sense that the primary season was rigged, that Clinton lacks
integrity, and that the voting process was unjust has driven supporters
of a progressive candidate toward one who has been repeatedly described as fascist. For some Sanders supporters, #NeverHillary can only mean Trump.
That
false logic is a clear sign of how our democracy is rigged and our
system is flawed: Voters frustrated with the system are planning to cast
their votes within the same system.
Armes, like many other
Sanders supporters, never considered a third option. It never occurred
to her to vote for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, or Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Armes was thinking in the binary two-party logic that forces her to choose between either a Democrat or a Republican.
There
is only one way to win an election for president in our country today
and that is by being the nominee of one of the two principal parties.
The reason for this is that we have “winner-take-all” system. In almost
every state, the candidate with the majority of votes wins all of the
Electoral College votes. So voting for a third party can really skew the
outcome. Even worse, it usually skews it away from your likely
second-choice candidate toward the person you fear winning the most.
This
is why many Sanders supporters who now say they are voting Clinton have
switched over. In general, they won’t be voting for Clinton because
they like her; they will be voting for Clinton because they are
terrified of Trump. And the same dislike is taking place on the other
side of the political spectrum. Voters are supporting Trump because they
deeply dislike Clinton.
In fact, as Harry Enten reports for Five Thirty Eight,
“Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at
this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.” So this really is the
election between two evils. The only question, thus far, has been which
of the two is the worst one.
As FairVote.org explains, ranked choice voting makes democracy more fair and functional.
In ranked choice voting, alternatively known as instant-runoff voting,
voters rank their votes. If your first choice does not win, then your
vote goes to your second choice, and so on. So, under ranked voting, you
could vote Stein first, then Clinton. That would guarantee that a vote
for Stein could not actually help Trump. It would also guarantee that we
could get a fair and accurate assessment of how many people really
picked Clinton or Trump as their first choice. If it seems complicated, check out a sample ballot here.
The
mere idea that voting for Nader wrecked the election and skewed votes
leading to a Bush Jr. presidency should be sign enough that we are due
for change. Voters who wanted to support a splinter candidate were
punished for exercising their rights. The problem is not just the
anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College; it is the way the
all-or-nothing system forces a two-party duopoly that can’t be
challenged without grave consequences.
The
reasons for considering an alternative voting system go beyond a desire
to give third parties a chance for greater visibility and more votes.
There is much more at stake. First of all, the winner-take-all system
increases fear-based voting. Voters are more inclined to vote against a candidate than to vote for someone.
So, as you ponder the two unappealing choices likely to
head the November ballot, consider bucking the closed two-party system
and voting a third way, but more importantly consider fighting to change
the rigged system that got us into this mess.
Sophia A. McClennen is
Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the
Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between
culture, politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy
M. Maisel, is, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics.
A jury has convicted a veteran U.S.
Congressman Chaka Fattah in a racketeering case that largely centered on
various efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.
U.S.
Rep. Chaka Fattah was found guilty of all counts against him, including
racketeering, fraud and money laundering. His lawyers had argued that
the schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political
consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.
As
he emerged from the courthouse after the guilty verdict, Fattah made a
brief statement about conferring with his lawyers before continuing to
walk away without answering further questions from reporters.
The
59 year old Democrat has represented West Philadelphia as well as parts
of Center City, South Philly, Montgomery County and the Main Line in
Congress since 1995 and served on the powerful House Appropriations
Committee. But he lost the April primary and his bid for his 12th term.
His current term ends in December.
Fattah's
jovial and calm demeanor didn't change much as the verdict was read,
said NBC10's Deanna Durante who was in the courtroom.
Fattah will remain out on bail ahead of his October sentencing.
Jurors
began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon, nearly month after the
trial began May 16. A juror was dismissed in the racketeering case
without explanation Friday. An alternate replaced the missing member,
and U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III ordered jurors to begin
deliberations again.
Four co-defendants also faced numerous charges.
- Fattah's former chief of staff, Bonnie Bowser, was found guilty on some of her 21 counts.
- Fattah's friend and wealthy supporter, Herbert Vederman, was found guilty on all 8 counts.
- Political consultant Robert Brand was found guilty on all two counts.
- Former Fattah aide Karen Nicholas was found guilty on some of her seven counts.
The
four-week trial concluded quicker than most observers expected and did
not involve any bombshell testimony or evidence entered by prosecutors
and defense attorneys.
Instead,
the trial revolved around the legality of the defendants actions related
to a $1 million loan made during Fattah's failed 2007 mayoral campaign.
Prior
to the trial, Fattah's chief strategist for that mayoral bid, Richard
Naylor, pleaded guilty to misuse of campaign funds. He testified early
on in the trial as a prosecution witness.
“This
charge cost him his reelection. He’d been an 11-term Congressman and
did a lot of things for his constituents when he was in office,” said
Howard Bruce Klein, a former federal prosecutor. “So I would say it’s a
sad ending for a public servant who made scholarships available for
thousands of students over the years, but now has come to a very unhappy
ending, being guilty of corruption. So it’s a day for the Congressman,
it’s a sad day for his constituents and it’s a sad day for
Philadelphia.”
Members of the jurors didn't immediately comment as they left the courtroom Tuesday afternoon.
In this Majority Report clip, we are lucky enough to hear the wise words
of Alex Jones concerning the Orlando massacre. Jones (of course) thinks
that the globalists/U.S. Government/anti-gun lobby (??)/probably the
Illuminati/Obama are to blame for the mass shooting at Orlando nightclub
Pulse because of immigration laws.
The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an
American-born citizen, reportedly not that religious, likely mentally
ill, and possibly gay himself.
These are all incredibly sound reasons to
conclude that Alex Jones is wrong, as always, but here you go. He ruins a lovely nature scene while he’s at it.
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) has had enough of the growing movement to
drug test poor people who need government assistance. So on Tuesday,
she’s introducing a bill that she says will make things fairer.
Her “Top 1% Accountability Act” would require anyone claiming
itemized tax deductions of over $150,000 in a given year to submit a
clean drug test. If a filer doesn’t submit a clean test within three
months of filing, he won’t be able to take advantage of tax deductions
like the mortgage interest deduction or health insurance tax breaks.
Instead he would have to make use of the standard deduction.
Her office has calculated that the people impacted will be those who
make at least $500,000 a year.
“By drug testing those with itemized
deductions over $150,000, this bill will level the playing field for
drug testing people who are the recipients of social programs,” a memo
on her bill notes.
Moore has a personal stake in the fight. “I am a former welfare
recipient,” she explained. “I’ve used food stamps, I’ve received Aid for
Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Head Start for my kids,
Title XX daycare [subsidies]. I’m truly grateful for the social safety
net.”
Ten states
require applicants to their cash welfare programs to undergo a drug
test. States are currently barred from implementing drug testing for the
food stamps program, but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has sued the federal government to allow him to do so and has gotten some Congressional Republican support.
Moore has been frustrated to witness attempts to tie those who avail
themselves of the safety net to drug use. “Republicans continue to
criminalize poverty and to put forward the narrative, the false
narrative in fact, that people who are poor and reliant upon the social
safety net are drug users,” she said.
In fact, evidence from test results
among states that test welfare recipients indicates that they are no
more likely to use drugs than the general population — in fact, they may
be less likely.
That didn’t stop House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) from using a drug rehab center as the backdrop while he unveiled his poverty plan
last week. “I think this is what tipped me over the edge,” Moore said,
“rolling out his poverty initiative in front of a drug treatment program
to sort of drive that false narrative forward.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at a drug rehab
facility in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, Tuesday, June 7,
2016, where he proposed an overhaul for the nation’s poverty programs. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Moore also wants to use her bill to question why some recipients of
government aid are treated differently than others. “On the one hand,
poor people…are entitled to things like Medicaid and SNAP [food
stamps],” she said. “People who take tax deductions and particularly
those in the top 1 percent…are not entitled to anything.” But they still
benefit from a large pot of government money.
When it comes to drug abuse, “There are no boundaries with regard to
class or race,” she said. “If these poor people who are entitled to SNAP
for survival are required to be drug tested, then certainly those
people who claim $150,000 or more in tax deductions should be subjected
to the same in order to receive this benefit from the government.”
Moore also thinks that while there is no evidence that drug testing
welfare recipients saves states any money, drug tests for wealthy
taxpayers could be different. “We would save a lot of money on this,”
she said. “When you add up all of the tax expenditures, all the money we
give really wealthy people, it really rivals the amount we spend on
Defense, Social Security, Medicare.” The mortgage interest deduction,
which overwhelmingly benefits people making more than $100,000, alone cost $70 billion in 2013, or 0.4 percent of GDP.
Her bill will also help illuminate this very fact: that so much is
spent on tax expenditures, not just on direct aid programs like welfare
and food stamps. “We think it’s important to engage in some transparency
and accountability around tax deductions,” she said.
Moore is not the only lawmaker in Congress who has raised questions
about unequal treatment between the poor who make use of government
programs and everyone else who needs them. In February, Rep. Rosa
DeLauro asked why
only recipients of food stamps were being considered for drug testing
but not the farmers who also make use of programs run by the Agriculture
Department.
But Moore is very serious about pushing her bill forward. “I’m
motivated,” she said. “I’m going to work on it very seriously. I’m going
to try to get cosponsors.”
She also wants to “engage the wealthy in this poverty debate,” she
said. “I would love to see some hedge fund manager on Wall Street who
might be sniffing a little cocaine here and there to stay awake realize
that he can’t get his $150,000 worth of deductions unless he submits to a
drug test.”
Why is the Ed Schultz Show hotter than a polar bear in Pensacola? Easy. Because he is so different from every other talk show hosts. He’s a straight talking, no-nonsense voice of reason in unreasonable times.
On Thursday's Show, Ed gives commentary on the Republicans predicament with Donald Trump as their presumptive nominee and the fight that his heating up over gun control. We are joined by Jane Kleeb, Director of Bold Nebraska and candidate for Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, joins the show to talk about the impact of Bernie Sanders on the Democratic platform.
It is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of
wayward youth of a bygone era, and it's astonishing to imagine it under
the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries.
The
class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to
make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council. This is the
C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil
and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front
page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks
for in a president. There's no philosophy here, just an attitude.
He
is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved
on, but not Donald. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and
the duck's ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the
first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says that
the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make
things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our
neighborhood. His followers don't necessarily believe that — what they
love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious,
the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck
you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers,
teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who
think they're better than you — you have the power to scare the pants
off them, and that's what this candidate does better than anybody else.
After
the worst mass shooting in American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead
in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces
of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement
on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the
tragedy showed that he had been "right" in calling for America to get
"tough."
Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.
We
had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all
about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled
lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole
ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in
an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after
graduation, some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others
became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a
month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a
mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let
their hair down. But if your dad was rich and if he was born before you
were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically
impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man
who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president.
The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that
success will steady him and he will accept wise counsel and come into
the gravitational field of reality but it isn't happening. The Orlando
tweets show it: The man does not have a heart. How, in a few weeks,
should Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell teach him basic humanity? The bigot
and braggart they see today is the same man that New Yorkers have been
observing for 40 years. A man obsessed with marble walls and gold-plated
doorknobs, who has the sensibility of a giant sea tortoise.
His response to the Orlando tragedy is one more clue that this
election is different from any other. If Mitt Romney or John McCain had
been elected president, you might be disappointed but you wouldn't fear
for the fate of the Republic. This time, the Republican Party is
nominating a man who resides in the dark depths. He is a thug and he
doesn't bother to hide it. The only greatness he knows about is himself.
So
the country is put to a historic test. If the man is not defeated, then
we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on
education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation
that elects this man president is not a civilized society. The gentleman
is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his
wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.
Garrison Keillor hosts "A Prairie Home Companion." This column was provided by the Washington Post News Service.
One purist breaks down everything you’re doing wrong
Welcome to IMHO, the corner of Eater where we hand a megaphone to people with something to say about the world of food.
American barbecue is having a moment. Thanks in part to
pitmasters such as Aaron Franklin in Austin and marketing campaigns from
big food brands, the word "barbecue" — no matter how it's spelled — is
part of this country's vernacular perhaps like never before.
But for traditionalists in the South, where American barbecue
flourished, there is cause for concern. Barbecue has rules, and they're
being broken on a daily basis.
We should go ahead and get this out of the way: I am incredibly
close-minded on the subject. In all other walks of life, I like to
consider myself a progressive. There's no right way to be a person, and
really, we're all just trying to figure it out as we go. No one should
have to constrict their human experience just because it doesn't fit
into someone else's idea of what is good and proper.
But let me tell you, when it comes to American barbecue — I certainly
won't attempt to set ground rules for other barbecue cultures across
the globe — there are absolute rights and wrongs. Sure, there's
some room for interpretation, but good-intentioned "barbecue" lovers
across this country are blaspheming day in and day out.
Before declaring
what barbecue isn't, it's best to define what it is: pork that's slow-cooked with smoke.
And if you think that's an idiotic opinion from someone who happens to
have a keyboard and internet connection at his disposal, consider this:
Good-intentioned "barbecue" lovers are blaspheming day in and day out.
"I mean, pig and burned wood charcoal, and that, to me, is it," says
John Currence, the James Beard Award-winning chef based out of Oxford,
Mississippi. "If you don't have both of those things, to my mind, you
don't have what constitutes barbecue."
Currence was born in New Orleans, won the 2009 James Beard Foundation
award for Best Chef: South, and owns a restaurant empire expanding
across the region from its home base in a small Mississippi college
town. Since 2013, his City Grocery restaurant group has operated Lamar
Lounge in Oxford, becoming the only smokehouse in the state to
specialize in whole-hog barbecue. If anyone can claim to be an authority
on the subject, it's someone with Currence's resume.
So why pork? Why does the meat have to come from a pig for a plate of
barbecue to exist? Why doesn't smoked chicken, the dish that's most
associated with Alabama white sauce, count? "And why in the world aren't
smoked brisket and beef ribs — which have become the face of the modern
barbecue movement in America — included in this conversation?" hordes
of angry Texans ask as they sharpen their pitchforks.
Southern historian Don Harrison Doyle notes
the first Europeans to come in contact with the Chickasaw, a people
that resided on lands that would eventually become Mississippi, were
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his crew in 1540. De Soto and his
comrades introduced the low-and-slow cooking style they had learned
about during their time in Mexico, and they prepared a feast of the wild
hogs that were found in the area.
Writing his pro-pork manifesto for Esquire
magazine in 1976, Jim Villas details how English settlers took up the
method shortly after arriving in Jamestown. Pork was the obvious meat of
choice during the early days of barbecue in North Carolina. Smithsonian Magazine notes
pig farming was relatively cheap and low-maintenance, especially
compared to the idea of domestic cattle. Carolinians didn't have to do
much at all, allowing pigs to fend for themselves in the woods and then
hunting them when meat was needed.
Even as the region changed over the years and cattle farming became a
more reasonable proposition, I think there's a pretty clear reason why
pork continued to dominate North Carolina and the rest of the South: It just tastes better.
Any time I have this argument with someone who wants to extol the
virtues of the cow, I see the same trump card played: "It takes a lot
more talent to produce world-class smoked beef than world-class smoked
pork." I will cede this point. Smoking brisket takes an incredible
amount of skill, and as long as you follow a few basic rules, it isn't
too hard to produce good smoked pork on your first try. But this just
proves why porcine meats are so superior. They're already more delicious
to begin with. Add some smoke and spice, and they're divine. Currence
shared how the first taste of legendary Raleigh, N.C.-based pitmaster Ed
Mitchell's ‘cue was "like a lightning bolt to my head."
Anyone traveling through the region by automobile will be able to
spot endless visual cues that, despite brisket's rise in popularity
around the country, pork is still king all over the South. Get off the
interstate and drive around long enough, and you'll wonder how so many
barbecue joints can exist within a sparsely populated area. How do you
pick the best one to stop for lunch? Tradition says it's all about the
human-like qualities of the pig on the sign out front. "You assign a
numeric score to a barbecue joint based upon the number of human-like
things the pig on the sign is doing," writes Robert Moss, author of Barbecue: The History of an American Institution.
"A realistic pig just standing there: zero points. A pig standing up
and wearing a hat: two points. A standing pig in a hat and overalls
strumming a banjo, winking, and turning a barbecue spit (or feasting on
his brethren) — well, just pull right on over. You have found a winner."
You'll notice there's no mention of looking for a sign with a
banjo-picking cow.
For those who worship at the Church of Carolina Barbecue, the idea of
classifying anything from a cow under the barbecue umbrella makes as
much sense as calling a ground turkey sandwich a burger. One must
specify that this item is a "turkey burger," because a traditional
burger is made of ground beef. If you must refer to brisket as barbecue,
at least have the decency to call it "Texas-style barbecue" when you're
outside the Lone Star State. (I respect the fact that beef-lovers
believe in a slow-smoking method that transforms a cut of meat into
succulence that cannot be matched.)
What I will not abide is associating hamburgers, hot dogs,
direct-heat charcoal grills, and, god forbid, gas grills with the
subject. How these items became linked with the idea of barbecue is
beyond me.
"It was a misappropriation of that word,
and I guess it came from the barbecue pit," Currence says. "My
grandfather had this giant brick barbecue pit. It had smoking chambers
in it, but it also had a hot grill where you could cook hamburgers and
hot dogs. It came from the cross-utilization of those implements and
more processed foods: ‘We're just going to go barbecue these
hamburgers.'"
"Barbecue these hamburgers" is a phrase that never should be uttered.
One does not barbecue hamburgers and hot dogs. In fact, one does not
really "barbecue" anything. If you're preparing barbecue — a noun —
you're smoking a whole hog or ribs or pork shoulder. Even many
brisket-loving Texans who are about ready to ring my neck would agree
barbecue comes from indirect heat and long cooking times. When you're
throwing some burgers and dogs on the hot grill for a few minutes,
you're "grilling out" or "cooking out." Furthermore, a party that
involves friends and family coming over to eat grilled hamburgers and
hot dogs is not "a barbecue" where I'm from. That's a cook-out. Actual
barbecue must be on the menu for an event to actually be a barbecue.
Yes, Merriam-Webster offers a few broad definitions
of the word that seem to cover basic grilling and anything under the
sun that could be thrown on a grill. Unfortunately, the brains behind
the dictionary recently destroyed their credibility by attempting to define a hot dog as a sandwich.
This is obviously a debate for another time, but a hot dog is its own
thing. It's not a sandwich. Are you really comfortable with the idea of "barbecuing some hot dog sandwiches"? Do not trust Merriam-Webster.
CNN reporter Emanuella Grinberg, a New Yorker who now resides in Atlanta, tackled the subject of grilling vs. barbecue
last year. Grinberg explains how other Southern language and comestible
quirks ("y'all," sweet tea) were adopted with ease, but changing her
definition of barbecue was a touch more difficult. "It would take years
for me to see it [a Southerner's] way (or, more likely, give up the
fight) after learning what barbecue means to the South," she wrote. And
that gets to the heart of the matter. For so many Southerners, a burger
or dog on the grill is all fine and good, but barbecue is something so
much more.
Lest you think I'm an inflexible curmudgeon, I'm relatively
open-minded when it comes to the subject of sauce. When it comes to
augmenting chopped or pulled pork, I prefer the thin, sharp
vinegar-and-pepper varieties of eastern North Carolina, but the
inclusion of ketchup or tomato paste in the western part of the state
and throughout much of the South can make for a nice accompaniment. The
mustard-based products of South Carolina are tasty as well. And I would
be remiss if I didn't put in a plug for white sauce, which comes from my
native Alabama. Invented by Big Bob Gibson in Decatur some 90 years
ago, it's based on mayonnaise, vinegar, and pepper, and it's never
really been accepted outside the northern half of its home state.
Before I become Public Enemy No. 1 in the state of Texas, I will
admit that smoked brisket, when done well, is phenomenal eating. It's a
fact I've only learned recently. I have family in Texas, but because of
my devotion to pork and poor brisket experiences, I've never bothered to
give it a try in its homeland. It wasn't until an Eater event last
November (in New York City of all places) that I tasted outrageously
delicious brisket. John Lewis, who has experience at Austin shrines
Franklin Barbecue and La Barbecue and now operates his own restaurant in
Charleston, S.C., served it up. It was salty and smoky, fatty and
moist. It raised my eyebrows and stopped me in my tracks. I had no idea
brisket could be that good.
It was delicious, but it wasn't barbecue.
If you’re a chef, restaurant worker, or in any way
involved in the food industry — or if you’re simply a smart diner with
something to say — we’d love to hear from you. Send a pitch (or a
completed opinion piece of 1,000-1,500 words) to imho@eater.com,
along with an explanation of who you are and why your voice on this
matter is an important one. Accepted submissions will go through a
standard editorial process before publication, including adjustments for
clarity and structure, as well as copy- and fact-checking, always with
the writer’s signoff.
Chris Fuhrmeister is Eater's evening news editor and editor of Eater Atlanta. Hawk Krall is a Philadelphia-based artist, illustrator, and former line cook with a lifelong obsession for unique regional cuisine.
The victims from the Orlando shooting haven’t even been completely
removed from the nightclub where they died and already, news media is
doing their best to politicize the issue.
There are still so many questions yet to be answered, but that didn’t
stop Fox News’ Tucker Carlson from blaming Obama for the largest mass
shooting in American history.
First, the segment featured an author fear-mongering about whether or
not the attack was “Jihadi,” and telling regular people that they are
on the “front lines” in a war against this sort of terrorism.
Carlson said that the tragedy is the fault of the president because
he doesn’t regularly say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” the
talking-point repugs love to revert to when they want to blame Obama for
not banning all Muslims.
For the record, there has been no confirmation that the attack in
Orlando had anything to do with Islam, especially because of the added
element of sexuality which appeared to be the target of the attack.
We will find out a lot more about the motives of the shooter as time
goes by, but from listening to Fox, you would think we already knew.
Tom Tomorrow: "I didn’t have time yesterday to write anything in
response to the latest horrific gun massacre, but there are relevant
cartoons here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Oh, and also here. Those are just off the top of my head, I’ve undoubtedly forgotten others."
Fifty people were killed in a gay nightclub last night in Orlando,
the deadliest mass shooting in US history. This marks 998 mass shootings
in the 912 days since Sandy Hook.
These shooters have murdered at least 1,105 people and wounded 3,929 in just two and a half years.
These numbers come from the Gun Violence Archive,
an online database that has been tracking this data since 2013, marking
each time four or more people (not counting the shooter) were shot at
the same time and location. These astronomically high numbers may
actually be too low, Vox reports.
Mass shootings — defined as public shootings in which four or more
people are shot, excluding domestic, gang, and drug violence — are
getting progressively more frequent, according to this analysis from
Harvard School of Public Health researchers. Pitifully, these
increasingly common massacres are only a sliver of America’s total
deaths from firearms, which are now totaling over 32,000 every year.
Compared to other developed countries,
the US had 29.7 firearm homicides per 1 million people in 2012, whereas
Switzerland had 7.7, Canada had 5.1, and Germany had 1.9.
When a mass shooting happens, conservatives viciously attack
progressives for calling for more gun control. Barely a few hours after
the Orlando massacre, conservative website Red State put
out an article which snidely began with “It never fails. The collective
stupidity of the left is never more apparent than when there is some
kind of violent tragedy that takes place on US soil, particularly when
it involves guns.”
Fifty deaths is the highest body count in a single shooting so far in
the United States, but if we continue to allow bought-by-the-NRA
conservatives to lead us away from real reform, it won’t take long
before somebody goes for the new record.
Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW
Donald Trump faced a backlash on Twitter after tweeting his response
to the deadly Orlando shooting Sunday morning, when he acknowledged
“congrats” for “being right” on terrorism.
Like much of what Trump does, it inspired a wave of responses. It
angered Republicans and Democrats as well as some celebrities who
criticized with a familiar line: that Trump is self-centered even in
moments of tragedy — the shooting killed at least 50 people and is the
deadliest mass shooting in American history. The motives of suspected
shooter Omar Mateen were not immediately clear.
John Legend, the singer and songwriter, Chris Sacca, the venture
capitalist and George Takei, best known for his role on Star Trek,
called Trump out on Twitter.
Well-known Republicans criticized Trump as well, including Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan and GOP strategist Ana Navarro.
The Clinton campaign and its allies, who are eyeing a general
election strategy that seeks to hang Trump on his own words, criticized
the presumptive nominee for his comments.
Others criticized him for calling it a terrorist attack before the
facts of the case were fully known.
