Author name: moderat ereport

Conservatives in America control every lever of the federal government’s power, but they remain infuriated that they do not control the levers of culture and entertainment. Surely that cannot be because the type of entertainment they push is garbage no one wants to watch. No, it must be because the right studio, backed by the right multimillionaires, hasn’t come along. Enter Founders Films—ugh. Backed by high-level employees of Vice President JD Vance benefactor Peter Thiel’s Palantir Technologies, surely this will be the way that conservatives crack the entertainment market.  Do Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, early Palantir employee Ryan Podolsky, or investor Christian Garrett have any particular background that would make you want to give them money to run a studio? Not particularly, although Sankar is getting to play-act as a soldier, having been one of four tech executives that the Army invented a detachment for. Why? So that they could all pretend to be lieutenant colonels despite never having served a day. Shhh. No one tell Sankar, as he thinks it is real and did a wildly embarrassing piece about it for Bari Weiss’s Free Press for Eugenics Enthusiasts.   Related |Army gives shady offer to tech bros so they can play soldier So, what do these big brains have planned once they sucker some other multimillionaires out of their not-actually-hard-earned money? Such blockbuster ideas as “Operation: Pineapple Express” about the “botched withdrawal” from Afghanistan; a 9/11 movie celebrating “courage”; and a yet-unnamed flick about the 2020 assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Surely all of those will be blockbusters. Move over, Marvel! There’s also a three-part adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” planned, because of course there is. Were the people demanding a new Ayn Rand trilogy? Couldn’t they just go watch the trilogy that came out like 15 years ago? Sure, the first part got mercilessly panned by critics, and the second part got mercilessly panned by critics, and the third part got mercilessly panned by critics. Actual moviegoers didn’t, well, actually go, particularly by the time Part III rolled around. But surely now America is ready for six to nine hours of Ayn Rand beamed into their eyeballs, right? Hopefully Founders Films will have better luck than the producers of the previous trilogy, who had to recall 100,000 DVDs because the jacket described Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged: as “a timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice,” and Randians 100% do not believe in self-sacrifice.  Perhaps Americans will rush to the cineplex to see some other Founders Films fixations, which will be “unafraid of offending Chinese audiences” and will use “American cultural power to spread skeptical views of the Chinese government.” Definitely what we are all looking for.  Actor Gina Carano’s extremist views got her shunned by mainstream Hollywood producers. But Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire Studio gave her another chance to flame out. No matter how much money the Palantir dudes and their pals throw at this exercise, it’s likely just going to be Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire Studio 2.0. Did you know conservative gadfly Shapiro had a movie studio? Okay, be honest: Did you know Ben Shapiro had a movie studio because you were ever organically aware of one of his entertainment offerings, or only because of coverage of his failed attempts to break out of the right-wing ecosphere? Thought so.  Shapiro’s studio already offers what Founders Films promises: jingoistic trolling starring a combination of fading stars and people that the rest of Hollywood doesn’t want to work with because it’s weird when people keep yelling about wokeness when you’re just trying to do your job. Who could have predicted that “Terror on the Prairie,” a 2022 Daily Wire joint starring Gina Carano after she went full anti-vaxxer transphobe, would have flopped? Everyone, actually.  In the end, perhaps this isn’t such a bad thing. If conservatives want to light their money on fire by giving it to other millionaires to make bad, ham-handed movies that no one wants to watch, who are we to say no?

An initiative to fill in historical gaps from the Muir Woods National Monument disappeared under pressure from the Trump administration. By Jessica Kutz or The 19th Under pressure from the Trump administration, the National Park Service (NPS) removed historical context from signage that explained the role women played in the creation of the Muir Woods National Monument and highlighted the racist ideologies of some of the men associated with the site. A ranger for the monument confirmed that the information removed last week originated from an initiative by NPS officials called “History Under Construction” that filled in gaps in the timeline of the park to offer a more comprehensive history of the monument in Marin County, California, which is known for its old-growth redwood trees. An article on the National Park Service (NPS) website explains what new information park officials had added to the interpretive signs in 2021. This had included highlighting the work of a women’s club, called The California Club, which launched the first campaign to save what was then known as Sequoia Canyon. Related | Trump wants you to snitch on national parks The updated text also detailed the racist backgrounds of otherwise celebrated men associated with creating the monument. For example, it added the political views of William Kent, who was credited with buying and later donating the land that would become the national monument to President Theodore Roosevelt. The additions referenced that he worked on anti-Asian policies during his time in Congress, which laid the groundwork for Japanese mass internment during World War II. It also pointed out that important conservation figures of that time like Gifford Pinchot, who was appointed chief of what is now the U.S. Forest Service in 1898, was also a eugenicist who believed the human race could be improved by “selective breeding.” He served a 10-year term on an advisory council of the American Eugenics Society. Protesters at Muir Woods National Monument decry the Trump administration’s firing of park workers on March 1. The additional text also highlighted the original caretakers of the land, the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo tribes, as well as pointing out that their lands were stripped from them and later became places like the national monument. All of the additions associated with the initiative have been removed. NPS did not respond to a request for comment by The 19th as of press time. The monument’s ranger office confirmed that the language was taken down at the direction of the NPS’s Washington, D.C., office following a secretarial order issued by the Department of Interior (DOI). The order outlined how the agency would implement the Trump administration’s executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, that stated the federal government would take action to ensure that any monuments, memorials, statues or markers managed by DOI do not contain “descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Instead it stated the agency should focus “on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.” In a March press release, Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the park system said, “The president’s executive order could jeopardize the Park Service’s mission to protect and interpret American history.” He continued, “Every American who cares about our country’s history should be worried about what people, places, and themes disappear next.” A separate follow up order issued in June by the DOI asks land managers to report any language that was added after 2020 that could potentially violate the executive order. It also required land agencies to post notices that would allow members of the public to report any language via a QR code. Related | Why conservatives are obsessed with erasing history—except the Confederacy Prior to the executive orders, the Trump administration was already taking action to revise information on park websites that did not align with its priorities. For example, NPS removed references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument’s webpage in February. The monument, in New York City, was created to honor the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.