This week, the City of West Hollywood council joined in the gratuitous insults and derogatory that has come to characterize our politics on both sides. The city council unanimously voted to ask Los Angeles and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove President Donald Trump’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star has been repeatedly vandalized in recent weeks. In the meantime,Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that Austin Clay, 24, was charged with vandalism for destroying Trump’s star last month. He used a pickaxe.
The move is part of the shrill partisanship that has been embraced by politicians eager to outdo each other in appealing to the most extreme voices in their respective parties.
Mayor John Duran attempted to spin the gratuitous insult as some type of public service in a rather transparent interview with CNN: “The West Hollywood City Council did not pass the resolution because Donald Trump is a conservative or a Republican. Earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is an honor. When one belittles and attacks minorities, immigrants, Muslims, people with disabilities or women — the honor no longer exists.”
That sounds a lot like disagreeing with Trump’s policies and appealing to his critics.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce makes the decisions about the Walk of Fame.
This is not the first such controversy but conflicts usually occur over the decision to award a star — not some retroactive decision to remove one. For example, in 1958, Charlie Chaplin was supposed to be among the initial group of 500 stars but was rejected due to his prosecution for violating the Mann Act. In 1972, his star was awarded (Chaplin had earlier been acquitted of the Mann Act charge). Likewise, opera singer Paul Robeson was barred due to his political views, but later in 1972 given his star.
At the time, many were outraged by barring the communist Robeson and insisted at the time that a person’s political views should not be considered in recognizing a career in entertainment. Yet, many now want to do the same thing to Trump, retroactively, based on his politics. They cannot have it both ways. Either the stars are awarded solely on the basis of an entertainment career or they are capricious recognitions based on the popularity of performers and their respective views.
If we are going to engage in retroactive evaluations based on people’s political or legal history, we could have a lot of space on the walk. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of murder. Errol Flynn was known as a serial pedophile. Roseanne Barr just had her show taken away due to racist remarks. Bill Crosby is facing jail for sexual assaults going back over a decade. Thomas Edison is now viewed as anti-Semitic. Both Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey are accused of sexual misconduct. Robert Wagner is still suspected in the killing of his wife and actress, Natalie Wood. The list goes on and on. They can continually reexamine or remove stars or leave the stars as solely based on a person’s contributions to the arts and entertainment.
What do you think?
Paul Robeson merits a Red Star for his enthusiastic support for his “Beloved Comrade” and Champion Mass Murderer Josef Stalin.
Possibly Related To Star Defacing
NEW POLL: RACE RELATIONS WORSE UNDER TRUMP
YET REPUBLICANS THINK RELATIONS HAVE IMPROVED
One year after President Donald Trump said there were “some very fine people on both sides” of violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, a majority of voters in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll say race relations have gotten worse since Trump became president.
According to the poll, 55 percent of voters say race relations have worsened under Trump, compared with 16 percent who say they have gotten better. Another 18 percent say race relations have stayed about the same since Trump became president last year.
Just over half of white voters, 51 percent, say race relations have worsened under Trump, while larger majorities of African-American voters (79 percent) and Hispanics (60 percent) say they have gotten worse.
Self-identified Democratic voters overwhelmingly say race relations have gotten worse under Trump (82 percent), compared with only 4 percent who say they have gotten better and 9 percent who say they are about the same.
But more Republicans say race relations have gotten better under Trump (35 percent) than say they have gotten worse (25 percent). About three in 10 — 29 percent — say race relations have stayed about the same. (Independents mirror the overall electorate: 13 percent say they have gotten better, 55 percent say have gotten worse and 20 percent say they are about the same.)
Edited from: “Majority Says Race Relations Have Gotten Worse Under Trump”
Today’s POLITICO
79% of Blacks and 60% of Hispanics think race relations have gotten worse.
THERE WAS A LOT WRITTEN ABOUT RACE RELATIONS GETTING WORSE UNDER OBAMA AS WELL, BUT I DON’T REMEMBER THE POLLING RESULTS.
West Hollywood does not govern the Walk of Fame; that’s Hollywood. In addition, after the #MeToo complaints about various actors, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce released the following statement:
“The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has received enquiries asking whether we are planning to remove the stars of Walk of Famers because of alleged misconduct. The answer is no.”
“The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a registered historic landmark. Once a star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Because of this, we have never removed a star from the Walk.”
Convicted rapists such as Bill Cosby still have their star, and will continue to do so. Once a star is awarded, it is considered historic.
If repeated vandalization and whinging about Trump’s star leads to its removal, then it will embolden more bad behavior. It’s a payoff for trying to force others to bend to your will. That is not a republic.
This is once again weaponizing against conservatives. Trump has problems with infidelity, loves self aggrandizing Tweets, and stands in his own way. He’s not a racist, anti-Semite, or Fascist. The Left has called every single GOP Presidential candidate a Fascist for decades. It is simply what they call people to shut down debate.
I do not think that both sides are equally at fault. Are Liberals threatened with violence, or the victims of violence, when they try to speak on college campuses across the nation? Are they incessantly heckled when they do actually make it onstage? Are Liberal students, from kindergarten to graduate school, harassed across the nation? Do they have to pretend to be conservatives in order to get a better grade? Does Hollywood portray Liberals as evil? Does the mainstream media deliberately shape public opinion against Liberals, through fraudulent reporting and selective editing? Do they put on people who claim that Liberals should be choked and harassed until they know they are not welcome anywhere? Do the FBI, IRS, and DOJ work in collaboration to harass Liberals and protect conservative criminal activity? If Donald Trump sold 1/5 of American uranium to Russia, in exchange for a huge donation to his foundation, had his own server to hide his communications from review, uploaded top secret information to the Cloud, and then destroyed his laptops and Blackberries, while under Congressional subpoena, with hammers, would that be the non-news that it is for Hillary Clinton?
Does the mainstream media report on all the vicious violence against Trump supporters? What about how people are afraid to wear a MAGA hat in public for fear they will be assaulted? Can you imagine the uproar if Obama supporters could not wear the iconic image of him on hats and T-shirts?
No, it is not the same. Conservatives are not harassing and attacking Democrats across the nation, including in universities. When the Tea Party held rallies against high taxes, they cleaned up after themselves. They did not storm buildings. Abolish ICE mobs took over an ICE building in Portland, held officers captive inside, and the Democratic mayor/police superintendent, refused to allow the police to respond to their frantic calls for help. They occupied the building for 38 days, and left behind human feces and dirty needles. Did they travel to Portland from San Francisco? Conservatives are not forming mobs to prevent Democrats from speaking at campuses.
Now, if a conservative holds up the severed bloody head in effigy of some Democrat politician, I will be right there condemning it…unlike the mainstream media did for Trump.
Sounds like you’re promoting a culture of victimhood.
You haven’t had an original idea in 30 years.
Karen S….I wish you could recite your comment on a television news show. It is just excelent!
Well said!
Thomas Edison was the very type of a brilliant American genius, inventor, and captain of industry.
As was Henry Ford.
You say they both disliked Jews? Hmmm fascinating
Ford was a promoter and distributor of nutty-vicious tracts. Edison was no such thing.
PS just leave the stars. who cares what garbage they do. it marks a moment and we should stop wasting effort on social-media icon defacements.
Geo Washington is the big Kahuna. They’re coming for him soon I am sure.
Donald Trump no more needs a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame than George Washington needs his face carved on Mt. Rushmore. You can hate them or love them, but in the end they will have a legacy that endures far beyond monuments to them.
Olly: History won’t be written by Trumpers.
The history of this era will be written by Millennials 20-30 years from now. ‘They’ will define Trump for an America that is far less White. Their books and films will be the ones that influence future generations.
The history of this era will be written by Millennials 20-30 years from now…Their books and films will be the ones that influence future generations.
Proponents of the current regime will write their version of history and opponents will write their version. That is as predictable as the tides. We’ll also have objective historians whose work will withstand the test of time because they let the facts speak for themselves.
In the meantime, the most important thing we can do is to keep working on removing anyone from teaching positions that use them to indoctrinate rather than teach:
“I am concerned that the call for ‘objectivity’ may just inadvertently become the most effective destructive weapon against social justice,” and sent it to the members of Newton North’s history department.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/07/emails-reveal-high-school-teachers-plotting-hide-political-bias-parents/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=a246c4e2d1-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-a246c4e2d1-79248369
i bet you’re white and you hate how lucky you were to be born that way
the masochistic glee of white liberals is sickening.
Kurtz, demographers project this country will have a Hispanic majority by 2040. That’s not my opinion. That’s only a statistical trend unlikely to reverse.
So one has to ask how Donald Trump will look a Hispanic majority 20 years from now.
demographers project this country will have a Hispanic majority by 2040.
That would require the ratio of Hispanics to non-Hispanics increase 5-fold in 22 years. The only demographers projecting that are the intoxicated ones you’ve encountered at the gay bars you frequent in West Hollywood.
Oh I get it, ‘liberals are gay’. What a lame stereotype! Which illustrates how low, and perfectly stupid, Spastic is willing to stoop. One can only guess that Spastic lives in a very little town where the only liberals are the florist and a high school English teacher.
No, you don’t get it.
What town do you live in Spastic? Did you say it was near Buffalo?
AMERICA WILL BE MAJORITY NON-WHITE BY 2045
New census population projections confirm the importance of racial minorities as the primary demographic engine of the nation’s future growth, countering an aging, slow-growing and soon to be declining white population. The new statistics project that the nation will become “minority white” in 2045. During that year, whites will comprise 49.9 percent of the population in contrast to 24.6 percent for Hispanics, 13.1 percent for blacks, 7.8 percent for Asians, and 3.8 percent for multiracial populations (see Figure 1).
The shift is the result of two trends. First, between 2018 and 2060, gains will continue in the combined racial minority populations, growing by 74 percent. Second, during this time frame, the aging white population will see a modest immediate gain through 2023, and then experience a long-term decline through 2060, a consequence of more deaths than births (see Figure 2).
Among the minority populations, the greatest growth is projected for multiracial populations, Asians and Hispanics with 2018–2060 growth rates of 175, 93, and 85 percent, respectively. The projected growth rate for blacks is 34 percent.* The demographic source of growth varies across groups. For example, immigration contributes to one-third of Hispanic growth over this time span, with the rest attributable to natural increase (the excess of births over deaths). Among Asians, immigration contributes to three quarters of the projected growth.
Edited from: “The U.S. Will Become Minority White In 2045, Census Projects”
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTE, March 14, 2018
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/16/with-fewer-new-arrivals-census-lowers-hispanic-population-projections-2/
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/
Peter Hill:
Would these be the same Millennials who cannot name the rights protected by the First Amendment, or even describe what free speech means?
Perhaps the Millennials will be the ones in power re-writing history, just as academics have capsized the education system to the Left. That does not make it accurate, only biased.
Millennials are also statistically far more in favor of Socialism and Communism than any other demographic. That reflects a deep ignorance on the history of these movements. if they get their wish, then the US will become another Venezuela, with people starving in the street and fighting over toilet paper and the rare scavenged fruit. Can you imagine the radical changes that would have to take place to our Constitution in order to create a Socialist US? Capitalism would have to become illegal, which would create a police state arresting anyone who tries to start a business. And yet, Millennials romanticize Socialism and despise Capitalism. Perhaps that is because they are legally considered children until they are 26 for insurance purposes, and for renting a car. Maybe when they grow up, they will feel differently. If they depend on the mainstream news and academia for their information, however, this is unlikely.
We will get the leaders that we vote for. Perhaps we will vote for our own demise and go down the black hole of egalitarianism. It always ends up with human rights abuses and privation. It is amazing the evil that is done in the name of the good of the people.
Great. Our country is going to be run by the people who needed safe spaces in college, bubbles and a teddy bear in order to handle discussing difficult topics, and who believe that opposing viewpoints is physical violence that must be put down.
We’re doomed.
I’m not a Millennial so I’m not obligated to defend their views. But Millennials, more than anyone currently over 50, are the ones most likely to write the history of this period.
No, people of a certain cohort will write a draft of it. Succeeding cohorts will write another draft.
They didn’t need any of these things. This is largely a supply-side dysfunction.
Karen, why do you use this board to free-associate?
There have been some oddities in political behavior in the last 20 years, among them the abrupt shift in the balance of opinion among youth cohorts between 2000 and 2008, There’s another set of cohorts coming behind them. Peter Shill is a great subscriber to a thesis promoted and then repudiated by John Judis. No point in discussing it.
“based on his politics.”
Racism, misogyny, homophobia, may reflect ignorance, but they are neither political nor religious. Conservatism includes a wide array of common perspectives as does Progressive thought, but hate crimes are not part of that commonality. Hating people who are different from one’s self is neither religion nor politics, but only a symptom of mental dysfunction.
hate is just an emotion. like anger. it has its place. get over it.
Mr. Kurtz and Chris Bacon,…
– As Chris Bacon’s post implies, there is no hate within the liberal community.
They are always tolerant of those with opposing views😕, and would never claim some kind of moral/ethical superiority over the basket of deplorables.
Tom, Trump has been insulting people with daily tweets every since his campaign took off. And on numerous occasions Trump has referred to specific Blacks as having “low I.Q’s”.
Is there not a principle that says, “Whatever goes around comes around”?
I mean, if you’re a ‘president’ and you make a point of insulting people every day and rousing your base with mean-spirited talking points, there’s going to be some blowback.
This notion that Trump is somehow a ‘victim of mean liberals’ is the most retarded trend to date regarding Trump defenders.
Peter Hill,…
– It’s possible that Trump is a little thin-skinned.😉
In a number of cases, his insults are reactions to slights, or perceived slights, from others.
Suggesting that Maxine Waters has a low IQ is neither racist nor inaccurate. If she is not in fact dumb as a post, she does a great imitation of a very stupid person.
The color of her skin is not going to protect her from that observation.
Her mission to. overturn the 2016 election results via the impeachment of Trump and Pence ( or maybe Putin, too) has been evident since the inauguration, if not November 9th, 2016.
Her claim that “700 Billion people” would lose their insurance if Trump was successful in repealing ObamaCare seemed like an exaggerated or hysterical claim.
( Now that I think about it, it was in a sense “hysterical”)
I look at Trump’s insults on a case by case basis; e.g., his attacks on Rep. Waters are the result of a great deal of provacation on her part.
That may well be the case with Rosey O’Donnell as well; I think she initiated the war of words with Trump, and she is a truly an obnoxious and abrasive and repulsive individual ( also noted in a South Park episode as she approached and entered her nephew’s kindergarten classroom…you gotta see that episode).
His attack on McCain was in reaction to McCain’s comment that “the crazies” would be attendinv a Trump rally in Phoenix.
I don’t agree with how he responded to McCain’s insult….it was tasteless and inaccurate….I’m saying that it didn’t just come out of the blue.
McCain himself has been accused of making insulting, tasteless remarks; “How come Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Be cause Hanet Reno is the father”.
In McCain’s defence, I don’t think he intended that remark to go public, and he did apologise when it got out.
Trump is “unfiltered”; that appeals to a number of people.
Unfiltered comments generally don’t appeal to me, except when I make them😀.
Should be “Janet Reno”.
Waters isn’t dumb, she’s old! And she should retire along with Pelosi and Feinstein. But Waters isn’t the only Black Trump has referred to as ‘low I.Q.
The fact is that insults are essentially Trump’s stock in trade. That’s what kept “The Apprentice” going as long as it lasted. And if Trump weren’t in politics, ‘I’ would think he’s funny.
But presidents set the tone for everyone. For that reason presidents have generally tried to be civil and statesmen-like in public. That’s just common sense. If the president is seen as mean-spirited, then it’s open season on him.
Peter,…
If Waters had an IQ of 110 at age 30 and an IQ of 80 at age 80, that does’nt make her smart.
If her age is the reason for her stupidity, it does not make her any less stupid.
Peter Hill – the question is do they have low IQs? Did he say that because of the person or because of the race? People have called me a fool. Is that racist? When I was tutoring athletes, I did most of my work with blacks, did they have low IQs? Sometimes I wondered about a few. However, that was not racist, that was from trying to keep them in school. 🙂
Wah, wah, crybabies will leave Jane Fonda’s star intact, an obvious traitor to our nation…typical left wing regressive misfit hypocrits. Along with many others, we’ve started boycotted CA goods such as wine and tourism.
i say leave them all. fonda certainly was a star. peter fonda is sick too, but a star likewise. it’s just a sign of notoriety in that business. a sordid business we all know.
a lot of them are trust babies with no jobs leading a lot of unemployed and unemployables with no jobs
the working people are rebelling and Trump is the leader.
There are a lot of stars that need to come off if they are going to get queasy about sex or politics. Does CNN have any stars on there?
I think that Trump should remain on the Walk of Fame until he is acquitted under the Marin Act like Charley Chaplin.
Make it the Walk of Flame and burn Trump’s star off with a blow torch.
LOL, as if there is nothing better for them to do. What would you call these people, sore losers, mentality insane, or just pure evil?
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of murder.
By a vicious and abusive prosecutor. He was eventually acquitted. And ruined. Can’t possibly acknowledge that a great many lawyers are bad men, can we?
Errol Flynn was known as a serial pedophile. Roseanne Barr just had her show taken away due to racist remarks. Bill Crosby is facing jail for sexual assaults going back over a decade. Thomas Edison is now viewed as anti-Semitic. Both Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey are accused of sexual misconduct. .
Putting a jumble of incompatible complaints in one set of sentences makes you sound silly.
Robert Wagner is still suspected in the killing of his wife and actress, Natalie Wood.Robert Wagner’s loser sister-in-law persuaded local law enforcement to injure his reputation by executing a scheme to shake the tree for witnesses to ‘come forward’ 30-odd years after the fact to provide evidence of him having killed his wife. In seven years, they haven’t ‘come forward’ because such witnesses do not exist. They don’t exist because Natalie Wood had too much to drink and fell in the water and drowned while the other three people on the boat were asleep or otherwise pre-occupied.
DSS – “Fatty” Arbuckle worked in the film industry under the name Will B. Goode trying to clear his image.
That’s nice. What did his balance sheet, his marriage, and his box office look like after multiple criminal trials?
DSS – my understanding is that he was financially ruined and unable to get work in Hollywood.
Exactly. I lived and worked in Hollywood at the time and nobody, especially including the police, ever believed he had a thing to do with her death. I can understand that Ms Wood’s sister would like to blame someone, anyone, other than her own sister, but your snide accusation that he is still a “suspect” is baseless and in particularly poor taste.
Surely there are more serious matters.
I guess this is just a gossip column.
David Benson owes me nine citations (one from the OED) and the source of a quotation, after eleven weeks, and needs to cite all his work from now on. – Until you start pumping out those citations you owe me and others it might as well be a gossip column.
As a longtime resident of Hollywood I am intimately familiar with the Walk of Fame. It’s the main business district of my local community. The West Hollywood City Council has no authority over the Walk of Fame. The Walk of Fame is in Los Angeles, a different municipality.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is the proper authority, as Professor Turley notes. They award and place the stars which line both sides of Hollywood Boulevard, an east-west through-fare. Stars span a mile encompassing the historic entertainment district.
Stars also line both side of Vine Street, a north-south through-fare, for less than half a mile; linking Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards through the former radio district. The radio studios are long gone, But that was Vine Street’s significance.
A large ratio of these stars salute long-dead personalities. They were placed decades ago when Hollywood Boulevard was more upscale than today. The district was in almost constant decline during the later 20th Century. For that reason most stars awarded in the past 20 years have been placed on the Walk of Fame’s western stretch.
Trump’s star is on that western stretch; a strip that includes The Hollywood-Highland Mall, Chinese Theater, Roosevelt Hotel, El Capiton Theater and Jimmy Kimmel’s studio, an old Masonic temple. Pedestrian traffic resembles Times Square in New York.
There is, in fact, a subway station under the Hollywood-Highland Mall. Which brings in a steady flow of traffic from other parts of L.A. The Walk of Fame is a major destination on weekend nights. Unfortunately this means gangsters and whoever.
So keeping Trump’s star secure would require a full time guard. Which isn’t practical.
My advice would be to shelf it for now.
So keeping Trump’s star secure would require a full time guard.
Because your movement is made up of emotionally disturbed petty criminals.
There’s no movement here. It’s just an urban neighborhood where the cops have much to do.
that too!
Peter,…
-Since the local police don’t have the resources to watch over the star, maybe Trump will order a detachment of Secret Service agents out there to protect his star.😃
Funny teach, cause most would think your and Trump’s movement is made of emotionally disturbed people. And most of his administration criminals.
It’s silly too because anyone with a cup of Coca Cola can deface a star by dumping just a few ounces. That’s all it takes to render those stars sticky and filthy.
I think about 62 million people voted for Trump, and Fishwings seems to think that all of them are “emotionally disturbed”.
I think it was c. 65 million who voted for Hillary; from Natacha’s and others’ reaction to Trump’s victory, we KNOW that all of them are emotionally disturbed.
Ironically the same community pushing for this are the ones that call Trump supporters hill billies, uneducated, smelly and toothless. It is all political. That is why the box office sales are suffering. Isn’t Bill Cosby’s star still there?
Stars on th Hollywood walk of fame. Now there’s something I stay up late at night thinking about.
I’d like to know if they’re going to refund his money, somewhere between 20-40k, if the star is removed?
Professor Turley, are you equating the freedoms of religion, belief, thought, opinion, speech, assembly, socialization, etc., which you referred to as racism and antisemitism, with assault, battery, rape and murder? Are you telling America as a constitutional scholar, that the belief and opinion of racism and antisemitism are precluded by the Constitution? Are you positing that the Constitution mandates opinions and beliefs? Which Article, Section and Clause please? Perhaps that is the reason that Google and Facebook have imposed censorship on orders from the Communist Chinese. The Constitution establishes the same oppressive and tyrannical communist dictatorship as the Communist Manifesto. Right? The American Founders must have violated the freedom of their own Constitution when they wrote the Naturalization Act of 1790 and required citizens to be “…free white person(s)…” That’s ironical. The Founders violated their own Constitution within the year of its adoption. That’s hilarious. Someone around here has no concept of freedom and the fact that people must adapt to its outcomes. America must be at its end.
FB is actually NOT online at all in China. At all. on orders from the CCP
Google is working with the CCP to build a censored version
The American version already has censorship programmed into the “algo” sneaky like
Siriusly, why should anyone really care that Trump has a star? If you are opposed to Trump and really want to do something meaningful that helps people, you should spend your time doing something other than trying to get his star removed.
You don’t get it. Portside politics is now reducible to striking inane poses and a slew of criminal enterprises. They don’t do anything of value anymore.