Dialogic Cinephilia - November 9, 2018

Cole, David. "Trump Fires AG Sessions, Installs New Loyalist Whitaker to Oversee Mueller Probe." Democracy Now (November 8, 2018) ["President Donald Trump has fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, replacing him with a Trump loyalist who has called special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation a “witch hunt.” Matthew Whitaker, formerly Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, will now take charge of the Russia inquiry, prompting questions about the future of the Russia investigation and whether Trump will target Robert Mueller next. Some experts are raising questions about the legality of putting Whitaker in charge rather than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing the Russia probe. The ACLU wrote in a statement, “Jeff Sessions was the worst attorney general in modern American history. Period. But the dismissal of the nation’s top law enforcement official shouldn’t be based on political motives.” We speak with David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center. His most recent book is “Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law.”"]

Cole, David and Elizabeth Holtzman. "Ex-Congresswoman Who Voted to Impeach Nixon: Trump Firing Sessions Brings Back Troubling Memories." Democracy Now (November 8. 2018) ["Democrats have seized control of the House of Representatives, flipping more than two dozen seats in a historic midterm election that gives Democrats subpoena power for the first time since President Donald Trump was elected two years ago. A day after the election, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump’s firing of Sessions has led to many comparisons between Trump and former President Richard Nixon. On Wednesday, CNN’s Jake Tapper called Sessions’s ouster another chapter in “a slow-motion, multi-monthed Saturday Night Massacre.” He was referencing the infamous Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy resigned after President Richard Nixon ordered Richardson to fire the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. We speak with Elizabeth Holtzman, former U.S. congressmember from New York who served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach Richard Nixon. Her new book, “The Case for Impeaching Trump,” is out on Monday. And we speak with David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center."]

Haaland, Deb. "One of Nation’s First Native Congresswomen, Calls for Probe of Missing Indigenous Women." Democracy Now (November 8, 2018) ["Two Native American women have made history in the midterms, becoming the nation’s first Native congresswomen. Democrat Sharice Davids won the 3rd Congressional District in Kansas, unseating Republican Kevin Yoder. In New Mexico, Democrat Deb Haaland won in the 1st Congressional District, defeating Republican Janice Arnold-Jones. They will join more than 100 women in the U.S. House of Representatives—another historic first. We speak to Deb Haaland about her plans for Congress, the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women around the country, and whether she’ll attempt to impeach Donald Trump."]

Innocence (Belgium/France/UK/Japan: Lucile Hadžihalilović, 2004) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Smith, Thomas and Andrew Torrez. "Dissenting on the Supreme Court." Opening Arguments #183 (June 18, 2018) ["Today’s episode takes a deep dive into two recent 8-1 decisions by the Supreme Court: Collins v. Virginia and Sveen v. Melin. What makes a decision nearly unanimous, and what causes that lone Justice to dissent?"]

Stranger By the Lake (France: Alain Guiraudie, 2013) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Tlaib, Rashida. "On Impeaching Trump, Occupied Palestine & Becoming One of First Muslim Congresswomen." Democracy Now (November 9, 2018) ["On Tuesday evening, Palestinian American Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Somali American Ilhan Omar in Minnesota became the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress. Rashida Tlaib is a Democratic Socialist who supports the Palestinian right of return and a one-state solution. She also supports Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing ICE. The child of immigrants, Tlaib has spoken out against the Trump administration’s travel bans."]

STRANGER BY THE LAKE Alain Guiraudie, France, 2013. Guiraudie’s Cannes-awarded exploration of death and desire unfolds entirely in the vicinity of a gay cruising ground that becomes a crime scene. Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is a regular at a lakeside pickup spot, where he finds companionship both platonic and carnal. But his new paramour Michel (Christophe Paou) turns out to be a love-’em-and-leave-’em type, in the deadliest sense… Guiraudie has long been a singular voice in French cinema: anti-bourgeois, at ease in nature, a true regionalist and outsider. Here he and [cinematographer Claire] Mathon capture naked bodies and hardcore sex with the same matter-of-fact sensuousness they bring to ripples on the water and the fading light of dusk.  - The Female Gaze (2018)