When your sense of entitlement can land you in jail.

"The only thing I like about rich people is their money.”
― Nancy Astor the Viscountess Astor    

So now that America is learning that it isn't those poor "undeserving" black children taking their children's spots in elite colleges and universities, I hope that folks will think twice the next time they scream affirmative action. 

Most of us are not surprised that these pay to get your child in college schemes have been going on. And we are all aware that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Entitled children and their entitled parents just can't go to good old State U with all the common folks. The scary thing is that these children already have all the money and resources at their fingertips, so they really should be getting into these prestigious schools on their own merit. 

Anyway, the more I hear and read about this story, is the more I want to see Mr. trumps high school and college transcripts. He likes to say that he is smart, and brag about the fact that he went to Penn, but the truth is he has fought like hell to keep his grades a secret, and the folks at Penn won't even acknowledge him or take his money.  

Make no mistake, Mr. trump is no different than the folks who got busted for trying to cheat to get their children in college. Just look how he got his daughter and  son- in- law security clearances. 

This is how democratic lawmakers feel about it.

"Just look at the President and his Administration. The working class are held to one standard, while the likes of Ivanka and Jared can be granted security clearance over the objections of intelligence professionals."

Yeah, I can definitely see Daddy trump pulling some strings to get his children special treatment that they don't deserve. Kind of like his daddy did for him.   

Bubba the Love Sponge, a massage parlor owner, Tim Apple, and the week just started.

What a time to be an American.

The president of these divided states said that all democrats hate Jews, and he lied to us about a trivial slip of the tongue that he uttered on live television.  Throw in the fact that he was meeting with the head of the massage parlor where Robert Kraft was arrested-- she was quite possibly selling access to him to Chinese state officials--- and you have a very bizarre time in our history.

So there is a lot of craziness going on around this president, but one thing we know for sure is this: His television station will continue to support him and put out propaganda to prop him up no matter what. They will do everything in their powers to make sure that nothing can bring him down. It's no wonder that the democrats refused to have their debate on that network. Some folks say that it's a mistake, but I say what difference does it make?  A debate among democrats  won't change the mind of one single trmpnut who watches that network.

Speaking of  trump state television, it seems that a couple of their hosts have found themselves in a bit of hot water recently.

"Fox News has distanced itself from critical remarks about Islam by one of its commentators and has received calls to fire one of its primetime hosts for comments that were criticized as misogynistic, adding to renewed scrutiny of the cable news channel.

On Sunday night, the liberal activist group Media Matters for America released recordings of a variety of comments Tucker Carlson made during appearances on a radio show in which he disparaged sex workers in Florida and described women as being “primitive.”

Carlson, who joined the network in 2009, made the comments on a radio talk show hosted by “Bubba the Love Sponge” (whose real name is Todd Alan Clem) from 2006 to 2011. Carlson was a host on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008. He has also worked for CNN and PBS.

Carlson described both Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton as being against men and described other women including Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Arianna Huffington in derogatory terms.

Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the women’s rights group UltraViolet, called for Carlson’s removal in a statement sent to NBC News.

“Tucker Carlson is a dangerous misogynist,” Thomas said in the statement. “Carlson’s defense of domestic abusers and child rapists, and his perverted comments about young girls, are nothing short of horrifying. Unfortunately, they’re also not surprising. This report shows exactly who he is and has always been. Fox News should fire Tucker Carlson immediately.”

Fox News declined to comment. Carlson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "

Well Tucker finally did respond, and like his buddy in the White House, he has refused to apologize for his vile behavior.

" Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Sunday refused to apologize for a series of past comments about women and issues like statutory rape that surfaced in a YouTube compilation by Media Matters for America (MMFA).

During call-in segments on “Bubba the Love Sponge Show” between 2006 and 2011, the future Fox News host said that women enjoy being told to “be quiet and kind of do what you’re told” suggested that statutory rape isn’t like “pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting” them and described Martha Stewart’s daughter, radio and TV personality Alexis Stewart, as “c–ty.”'

In a statement on Sunday night, Carlson said, “Media Matters caught me saying something naughty on a radio show more than a decade ago.” (He sidestepped the fact that some of the highlighted comments occurred as recently as 2011.)

“Rather than express the usual ritual contrition, how about this: I’m on television every weeknight live for an hour,” Carlson continued. “If you want to know what I think, you can watch. Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why.”

[Source]

Just like his pal, he is always looking for ratings. 

*Pic from motherjones.com

Caption Sunday.

It's Sunday, and since Mr. trump was signing bibles down in Alabama, Imma need a caption for this pic.

*Pic taken from Al_Miller62 on twitter.

The wrist slap heard around the world.

           Jussie Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts today by a Chicago grand jury for lying about a racial attack. It will be interesting to see how his trial shakes out, and if he is found guilty what type of jail time he will be looking at.

I know one thing, Jussie is not an old connected white man, so he will not be given the Paul Manafort treatment. In case you have been living on another planet, Paul Manafort was given a less than four year sentence yesterday by a Judge who basically nullified a jury decision by a jury of Mr. Manafort's peers. The Judge in the case said Manafort lived a "blameless life" and gave him a sentence about 15 years below the sentencing guidelines. The Mueller team was asking for something in the range of 19 to 24 years in prison. Manafort got less than four with time served. Talk about a slap on the wrist. I bet a slap would have hurt mire than that.

Of course we all knew that Mr. Mueller and his team was not going to get their wish. Well connected white men do not get the book thrown at them for white collar crimes. Forget the fact that Manafort stole millions of dollars from taxpayers and did business with despots who burned women and children to death. Forget the fact that everyone in Washington knew that he was an unscrupulous grifter who shook his d**k at the law for years. He didn't even apologize for what he did in open court before being sentenced. Maybe if he did the Judge would have given him probation and told him to go home to his wife.

And note I said well connected white men. This same Judge gave William Jefferson 13 years for doing less than Manafort was accused of.

And then there was this doozy:

"FYI in 2018, #JudgeEllis sentenced Frederick Turner, 37, to a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine: "I chafe a bit at that, but I follow the law. If I thought it was blatantly immoral, I'd have to resign. It's wrong, but not immoral." 

But this is where we are in America, a poor black kid like Kalief Browder can sit in notorious Rikers Island for over 3 years for stealing a backpack, while rich connected white men get less than four years for stealing millions from us and propping up despotic regimes all over the world. Browder committed suicide; Manafort will probably be pardoned by the president.

And let's think about the message that we are sending to our children. Michael Cohen got almost just as much time as Manafort and was vilified for snitching. Manafort, on the other hand, is being viewed as a hero to trumpnuts for not snitching 

"I chafe a bit at that, but I follow the law"

Except when it's rich connected white men. Got it.

Let's see what happens when Manafort has to face the music again next week. The most the Judge in the D.C. case can give him is 10 years. She has been tougher on trump's former side-kick than Judge Ellis, who didn't like this case from the start.

Don't start partying yet Paul, this is halftime in your sentencing phase. Although history says that you can start at least ordering the champagne.

Bringing the goods.

Michael Cohen brought his receipts to Congress today, and it boggles my mind that people still believe trump and the folks in the cult of trump over Cohen when it comes to the levels of corruption in the trump orbit.

Cohen actually brought copies of edited false statements to congress. Of course it won't matter to some folks, because they just can't bring themselves to believe that their exalted leader and the people around him could be guilty of such shenanigans.

"There were several changes made, including how we were to handle that message, the message of course being the length of time that the Trump Tower Moscow project stayed and remained alive," Cohen told the House Oversight and Reform Committee."

 I wonder why it is that all of these trump officials lie when it comes to Russia. If everything is on the up and up, why lie about what you did in regards to Russia every time the subject comes up? Why all the lies about the campaign's contacts with Russia? We keep hearing that there is no collusion between trump's camp and the Russians, but after looking at all the evidence how can we believe them?

If I were Michael Cohen's lawyers I would be calling my own lawyer today. Preferably one that specializes in legal ethics. If they are not careful, a letter from their states disciplinary board could be in the mail soon. If they really did help him edit his statements to lie to congress that is serious business.

We know one thing: trump will not back them up. They are all on their on with this one. trump, as is always the case, will disavow any knowledge of what took place. 

Finally, we now know that the president lied about putting pressure on his staff to get security clearance for his daughter and son-in-law. And, equally important, his daughter lied about getting a high level security clearance with the help of her duplicitous father. The way she lied was scary. She didn't bat an eye when she looked at her interviewer and denied that she was given any preferential treatment.

I guess it's true that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  At least in this case it looks like the apple might have fallen right under the tree.

The trump protectors.

I am glad to see that the House Judiciary Committee is taking on trump Inc. I mean somebody had to do it. As Americans we could only stick our heads in the sand and cover our ears for so long.
Can you imagine if the democrats had not taken back the House? The trump protection racket in Washington would have just doubled down on protecting Mr. trump and defending the indefensible. 

 "House Democrats sent more than 80 letters Monday demanding documents from family members, business associates, political confidants and others with connections to President Trump, opening a sprawling investigation of whether he and his administration have engaged in obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power."   

While 80 letters might seem like a lot to some people, I would suggest that they will need more. I don't think that we can comprehend the level of corruption that is taking place right under our noses and in plain sight with this family.

Hopefully the democrats in the house will shame those in the senate-- who are invested in protecting this president at all cost-- into coming to their senses. I doubt that it will happen, but we can dream.

Of course one reason that it is so hard to make at least 40% of the people in this country see that they are being hoodwinked is a certain television and media conglomerate that is hell- bent on protecting Mr. trump.

We are just learning today just how deep this FOX NEWS trump partnership is. Mr. trump actually rates the FOX hosts on a loyalty scale. He can do that because he believes, and rightfully so, that they are all in the tank for him.

If you really want to see how the synergy works between trump and his pals at FOX, read the excellent article from Jane Mayer in New Yorker Magazine.

Here is an excerpt from it:

"In January, during the longest government shutdown in America’s history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message.

But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.”

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

Hemmer argues that Fox—which, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Fox—acts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support. “Fox is not just taking the temperature of the base—it’s raising the temperature,” she says. “It’s a radicalization model.” For both Trump and Fox, “fear is a business strategy—it keeps people watching.” As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead. All day long, Trump retweets claims made on the network; his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has largely stopped holding press conferences, but she has made some thirty appearances on such shows as “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.” Trump, Hemmer says, has “almost become a programmer.”

Fox’s defenders view such criticism as unfounded and politically biased. Ken LaCorte, who was in senior management at Fox News for nearly twenty years, until 2016, and recently started his own news service, told me, “The people at Fox said the same thing about the press and Obama.” Fox’s public-relations department offers numerous examples of its reporters and talk-show hosts
challenging the Administration. Chris Wallace, a tough-minded and ecumenical interviewer, recently grilled Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, on the need for a border wall, given that virtually all drugs seized at the border are discovered at checkpoints. Trump is not the first President to have a favorite media organization; James Madison and Andrew Jackson were each boosted by partisan newspapers. But many people who have watched and worked with Fox over the years, including some leading conservatives, regard Fox’s deepening Trump orthodoxy with alarm. Bill Kristol, who was a paid contributor to Fox News until 2012 and is a prominent Never Trumper, said of the network, “It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.” Joe Peyronnin, a professor of journalism at N.Y.U., was an early president of Fox News, in the mid-nineties. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he says of Fox. “It’s as if the President had his own press organization. It’s not healthy.”

Nothing has formalized the partnership between Fox and Trump more than the appointment, in July, 2018, of Bill Shine, the former co-president of Fox News, as director of communications and deputy chief of staff at the White House. Kristol says of Shine, “When I first met him, he was producing Hannity’s show at Fox, and the two were incredibly close.” Both come from white working-class families on Long Island, and they are godfathers to each other’s children, who refer to them as “Uncle Bill” and “Uncle Sean.” Another former colleague says, “They spend their vacations together.” A third recalls, “I was rarely in Shine’s office when Sean didn’t call. And I was in Shine’s office a lot. They talked all the time—many times a day.”

Shine led Fox News’ programming division for a dozen years, overseeing the morning and evening opinion shows, which collectively get the biggest ratings and define the network’s conservative brand. Straight news was not within his purview. In July, 2016, Roger Ailes, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Fox, was fired in the face of numerous allegations of chronic sexual harassment, and Shine became co-president. But within a year he, too, had been forced out, amid a second wave of sexual-harassment allegations, some of them against Fox’s biggest star at the time, Bill O’Reilly. Shine wasn’t personally accused of sexual harassment, but several lawsuits named him as complicit in a workplace culture of coverups, payoffs, and victim intimidation.

Shine, who has denied any wrongdoing, has kept a low profile at the White House, and rejects interview requests, including one from this magazine. But Kristol contends that Shine’s White House appointment is a scandal. “It’s been wildly under-covered,” he said. “It’s astounding that Shine—the guy who covered up Ailes’s horrible behavior—is the deputy chief of staff!”

The Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, another conservative Never Trumper, used to appear on the network, but wouldn’t do so now. “Fox was begun as a good-faith effort to counter bias, but it’s morphed into something that is not even news,” she says. “It’s simply a mouthpiece for the President, repeating what the President says, no matter how false or contradictory.” The feedback loop is so strong, she notes, that Trump “will even pick up an error made by Fox,” as when he promoted on Twitter a bogus Fox story claiming that South Africa was “seizing land from white farmers.” Rubin told me, “It’s funny that Bill Shine went over to the White House. He could have stayed in his old job. The only difference is payroll.” [More here.] 

I am just still trying to figure out why they are still allowed to call themselves FOX "NEWS." 

*Pic from ebay.com

 

Caption Saturday.

I need a caption for this pic.


*Pic by (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) for the Washington Post.

The politics of anger, racism, and fear.

Down in Washington D.C. there is a modern day Klan rally going on. I think they call it the CPAC Convention. I say modern day Klan rally, because unlike the Klan rallies of old, there are actually some black folks down there cooning for the convention goers entertainment. ( I see you Van Jones, Diamond and Silk, and Candace Owens.) At this rally the are  also cheering the death of past political leaders.

Anyway, these people down in Washington -who have been brought together by hate- will fit right in with the party of trump.

The following article is a must read if you want to understand what is going on in out current political climate.

The Field Negro education series continues.

"Is the president of the United States a racist? The short answer is yes, but the question itself actually misses the mark and is dangerously misdirected for those who want to redress the ongoing consequences of racism in America.

Since January, a number of national leaders have asserted that Trump is a racist. First, when asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes whether she believes President Trump is a racist, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded, “Yeah, no question.” More recently, Senator Sherrod Brown followed suit, telling Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that “We have a president who is racist.” Bernie Sanders has also forcefully said, “We now have a President of the United States who is a racist.”


These statements were met with surprise by white male reporters. During the 60 Minutes interview, Anderson Cooper immediately challenged Ocasio-Cortez by asking, “How can you say that?” Chuck Todd, host of one of the most important television political platforms in the country, quickly cut off Brown with the rejoinder, “Let me pause you there. You believe in his heart, he’s a racist?”

Since that specific question is in the national conversation, we should give it a clear answer: Yes, Donald Trump is racist. My colleagues at Democracy in Color have catalogued 242 separate actions, statements, or policies from the first 18 months of the administration. Both Vox and The New York Times recently provided historical summaries of Trump’s racism going back decades.

While it’s important and a good sign that some of our nation’s leaders, and media, are coming forward to call out Trump as a racist, focusing on that narrow question is problematic and could be counterproductive in many ways to the larger goals of ending inequality and injustice in America.
First, it diverts attention from the manifestations of racism that are most destructive. The emphasis on one individual’s personal views, actions, or statements misses the point, if the goal is to dismantle racism. Martin Luther King clarified the distinction in 1963 when he challenged the idea that legislation “has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me.”

The problem in this country isn’t the backward views of individuals, even if one of those individuals occupies the Oval Office. What plagues this nation is a vast array of public policies and practices that perpetuate a status quo that is grossly unequal and unjust after centuries of explicit racialized economic exploitation that is maintained by widespread, contemporary implicit bias. It is those public policies and practices that are the problem and that need to be addressed.

Far more dangerous than Trump’s personal beliefs are his public actions to make America white again—his political efforts to consolidate the support of millions of individuals who fervently believe that white Americans are under siege from people of color, especially Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Muslims. At a recent Trump rally in El Paso, Texas, a Trump supporter articulated the public-policy priorities of far too many Americans when he said, “Build the wall, deport them all.”

Which leads to the second shortcoming of focusing on what’s in Trump’s heart—a diversion of energy and efforts from the immediate and most important challenges before us. The solution to a racist individual in the White House is to remove that individual (which absolutely has to happen). But our country’s problem is bigger than that. Much bigger. In order to transform this status quo, we need sophisticated electoral and social change strategies that are executed with a narrow focus and pinpoint precision.

In light of the significant opposition to increasing racial diversity and enthusiasm for returning to the days when white was legally and unapologetically right, the moral and political imperative of this moment is to build a larger, more powerful, and more effective movement than the one that propelled Trump to power and continues to cower most of the Republican Party. Journalist Ron Brownstein, one of the clearest analysts of this situation, describes what is happening right now as a struggle between the Coalition of of Restoration versus the Coalition of Transformation. Fortunately, there are more people in the Coalition of Transformation, what I call the New American Majority—people of color and progressive whites. The challenge is ensuring that those in the transformation coalition turn out to vote so that there are more voters in each upcoming election. Naming racism—especially systemic and structural racism—can in fact be an important and motivating signal to the multiracial base of the Democratic Party.

To maximize our prospects for victory, we should also work to attract moderate whites who are repulsed by Trump’s behavior but have managed to excuse and overlook what he is doing to the country. In order to attract those voters, a singular focus on what goes on in Trump’s heart rather than what comes out of his mouth and how those words represent the sentiments of a hateful and hostile movement of people would be a serious electoral mistake." [Article here]

Call the Drop Squad.

Today, in Washington, Michael Cohen told America what every black person in America already knew: Donald trump is a racist. Of course, as is to be expected, an old white republican man in congress jumped to trump's defense. How did he do it? By embarrassingly parading a house Negro to congress as a silent prop and declaring that she is one of trump's black friends. (That old white man himself who side tracked the hearings today to declare that he himself is not a racist, might himself have some explaining to do.)

Now I don't know Lynne Patton personally, but if I did, I would try to hide her from the Drop Squad  , because I suspect that they are looking for her at this point. She is the worst kind of Negro. One who would sell out her people and sell her soul for a few dollars and a job.

 "Patton, a former party planner for the Trump Organization and old friend of Cohen’s who now oversees public housing in New York and New Jersey for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, stood silently as Representative Mark Meadows pointed to her, a black woman:

“Lynne Patton says she would not work for a man who is racist,” the Congressman said, after Cohen had referred to Trump in his prepared remarks as a racist. “She disagrees with you.”
“She says as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Ala., that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was a racist,” said Meadows. “How do you reconcile the two of those?” '   

This was sad and pathetic. As is always the case, the narrative goes something like this: How can he  be a racist?  He has a black friend.

Anyway, I watched some of the committee hearings today, and everything Michael Cohen said just confirms what I already knew. The only people who are living in a world of delusion when it comes to what Michael Cohen was saying are the trump sycophants who will believe everything and anything that Mr. trump says. Forgetting, of course, that he has already lied to us over eight thousand times.  

"''d like to say directly to the president: We honor our veterans — even in the rain. We tell the truth even when it doesn't aggrandize you. You respect the law and our incredible law enforcement agents. You don't villainize them.

You don't disparage generals, Gold Star families, prisoners of war and other heroes who had the courage to fight for this country. You don't attack the media and those who question what you don't like or what you don't want them to say and you take responsibility for your own dirty deeds.

You don't use your power of your bully pulpit to destroy the credibility of those who speak out against you. You don't separate families from one another or demonize those looking to American for a better life. You don't vilify people based on the god they pray to and you don't cuddle up to our adversaries at the expense of our allies. And finally you don't shut down the government before Christmas and New Year's just to simply appease your base.

This behavior is churlish, it denigrates the office of the president and it's un-American and it's not you."'

The last part of that statement above is the only thing that Cohen said today that I disagree with.

Sorry Michael, it is exactly who he is.

Driving Mr. Shirley.

A white friend of mine (yes I have some) wanted to know what all the fuss was about with the movie Green Book winning the best picture award at the Oscars. "I thought it was an excellent movie" he opined, and frankly, I don't see why African Americans are so upset about this movie winning.

"Didn't it have an excellent African American co-star who won an Oscar for his role?" He asked. Wasn't it based on a true story about a famous African American musician?"

He was right about the black co-star winning an Oscar and it being based on a true story about a great African American  musician, but he was wrong about the movie deserving to win the Oscar, and that African Americans were misguided for not liking it.

This particular guy is a liberal and he considers himself "woke". Unfortunately it is always harder for me to have to explain to liberals about their paternalistic form of racism as opposed to the right wing conservatives who pretty much embrace their racist side.

The truth is, the voters in the Academy are all a lot like my friend. To them, this was a feel good movie about racism that made them feel good about themselves. The old Jim Crow South viewed from a racist white guy who got to know a magical Negro and was transformed after being forced to be his buddy. It's always about them. When those narrators tell you about a "feel good" movie coming to a theater near you, please believe that it's about making them (white people) feel good. Not us black folks. To us (black people), it's about painful memories.

I didn't watch The Green Book, because I didn't have to. I know all about Driving Miss Daisy, The Green Mile, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Ghost, and all those other magical Negro movies.

It would have been nice if The Green Book was more about the main character's experience with actual green books while driving through the Jim Crow- era South. Instead, once again, we got to see racism from the white perspective.

Call me crazy, but I was just hoping that as a country we would be past this by now. I mean Driving Miss Daisy was  in 1990 for crying out loud!

I'm sorry, Don Shirley was a brilliant piano prodigy (he was from Jamaica no less) who mastered the standard concert repertory by the age of ten. He deserved better. 

Caption Saturday.

I need a caption for this pic.

*Pic from vox.com