The Felon Will Overplay His Hand … Be Ready

This was shared on Robert Reich’s site but the removal of The Felon's name was done by me:

Friends,

I sometimes share with you perspectives about what we’re up against from non-American writers and journalists. Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., and a former journalist, published this short essay recently in Politico Magazine. As we prepare for [the new] regime, I thought you’d find her views useful.

***

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary.

Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and [The Felon] critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

[The] President-elect’s … return to power is unnerving but America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance—the network of state and local governments—offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents.

Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, [The Felon] really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbanization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

After a stunning electoral loss like this, there’s a natural impulse to shut off the news, log off social media and withdraw from public life. I’ve seen this with friends in Turkey and Hungary with opposition supporters retreating in disillusionment after Erdogan’s or Orbam’s victories. Understandably, people want to turn inwards.

Dancing, travel, meditation, book clubs—it’s all fine. But eventually, in Poland, Hungary and Turkey, opponents of autocracy have returned to the fight, driven by a belief in the possibility of change. So will Americans.

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too.

The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X—or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

3. Don’t Fear the Infighting

 [The Felon]’s victory has understandably triggered infighting inside the Democratic Party and it looks ugly. But fear not. These recriminations and finger-pointing are necessary to move forward. In Turkey, Hungary and Poland, it was only after the opposition parties faced their strategic and ideological misalignment with society that they were able to begin to effectively fight back.

[The Felon] has tapped into the widespread belief that the economic order, labor-capital relations, housing and the immigration system are broken. You may think he is a hypocrite, but there is no doubt that he has convinced a large cross-section of American society that he is actually the agent of change — a spokesman for their interests as opposed to “Democratic elites.” This is exactly what strongmen like Erdoğan and Orban have achieved.

For the Democratic Party to redefine itself as a force for change, and not just as the custodian of the status quo, it needs fundamental shifts in how it relates to working people in the U.S. There is time to do so before the midterms of 2026.

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent.

[The Felon] was beatable in this election, but only with a more captivating candidate. For Democrats, the mistake after smartly pushing aside President Joe Biden was bypassing the primaries and handpicking a candidate. Future success for the party will hinge on identifying a candidate who can better connect with voters and channel their aspirations. It should not be too hard in a country of 350 million.

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, [The Felon]’s opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. When Erdoğan finally lost his absolute predominance in Turkish politics in 2024, it was largely because of his mismanagement of the economy and the opposition’s growing competence in that area.

[The Felon]’s appeal transcends traditional divides of race, gender and class. He has formed a new Republican coalition and to counteract this. Democrats too, must broaden their tent, even if means trying to appeal to conservatives on some issues. Opposition over the next four years must be strategic and broad-based.

Street protests and calls to defend democracy may be inspirational, but they repel conservatives and suburban America. Any grassroots action must be coupled with a clear, relatable economic message and showcase the leadership potential of Democratic mayors and governors. Identity politics alone won’t do it.

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy—and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world.

[The Felon]’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand—at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

Have faith.

Stay active.

Soldier on.

Resist and …

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE

Bobservations

The other night, sitting around chatting, I was waiting for Carlos to finish his story, so I could tell him that I wanted to go see The Favorite this weekend. Imagine my surprise when, as I was thinking this in my head, Carlos said…

“There’s a movie called The Favorite that I would like to see …”

“STOP IT!!!”

“Stop what?”

“I was gonna tell you about The Favorite! Stop reading my mind! Stay outta my head.”

And he smiled and said …

“I wasn’t reading your mind, I was hacking your brain.”

Then he began laughing about collusion and now I’m terrified.

A group of journalists whose work has landed them in jail—or cost them their lives—have been named TIME’s Person of the Year for 2018:

“Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments. This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment: Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md.”

Yes, _____’s Enemy of the People are TIME’s Person of the Year.

He must be fuming since he was overlooked in favor of the press, but I’m loving it.

On the heels of her Oval Office standoff with _____, House Minority Leader, and soon to be Speaker, Nancy Pelosi questioned the president’s manhood, calling the border wall a matter of masculine pride:

“It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing.”

Later that night, Stephen Colbert took it a step further, saying that, since the wall is about his manhood:

“No wonder he can’t get it erected.”

Boom!

As an officiant of same-sex weddings, Sara Cunningham has been to so many ceremonies in which couples’ parents refused to attend because Gay, and so she decided to try something new.

She took to Facebook to offer her services as a stand in for the biological mothers of couples who did not want to go to their children’s wedding:

“PSA. If you need a mom to attend your same sex wedding because your biological mom won’t. Call me. I’m there. I’ll be your biggest fan. I’ll even bring the bubbles.”

Cunningham has already stood in for mothers who won’t several times this year, with plans for more next year. And, even better, there are other mothers out there who want to join her in her project.

Good on her!

_____ claims no collusion between Russia and his campaign and yet now we know that at least sixteen members of his cabal have ties to Putin and his regime.

Yup, nothing to see here.

Prepare to boycott … Walgreens calls itself the friendly neighborhood drugstore, giving flu shots to children, helping communities after storms, donating to charity. But there’s more …

To protect a tax break,  Walgreens has allied itself with Wisconsin’s brutally partisan Republican Party, which is in the midst of a power grab, stripping authority from Wisconsin’s newly-elected Democratic governor and attorney general solely because Republicans lost those offices.

One would think that an organization claiming to care about community values would speak up, but not Walgreens; and not some other corporate supporters of the Wisconsin GOP, like Microsoft, Dr Pepper Snapple, J.P. Morgan Chase or Humana.

Start writing those letters, and start spending your coins elsewhere.

In what I call High-larious news … GOP Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is calling on incoming House GOP campaigns chief Tom Emmer and the rest of the leadership team to conduct an autopsy to find out what went wrong for Republicans in the disastrous 2018 midterms.

Um, Elise, I’ll make it easy for you: what went wrong is …. _____.

Fix that problem and you might save your party, except your party is too entrenched on saving itself in any way it can—see previous story—and may well just die out.

Sorry, not sorry.

SCOTUS dealt a setback to Louisiana and Kansas, turning away their appeals of lower court rulings that blocked their efforts to end public funding to Planned Parenthood.

The case, which did not challenge the constitutionality of abortion itself, is one of a number of disputes working their way up to the Supreme Court over state-imposed restrictions on abortion.

Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch voted to hear the case, while new Justice Sexual Predator Drunken Frat Boy Kavanaugh upset his evangelical base by opting not to hear the case.

Next up … Kid Rock as Ambassador?

Don’t laugh. This week _____ picked former FOX & Friends correspondent Heather Nauert as Ambassador to the United Nations, replacing Nikki Haley who resigned last month. Nauert has served as a spokesperson for the State Department since April 2017 but has little to no experience in government or foreign policy.

But then, neither does this illegitimate president.

I stumbled across this on Twitter, and I must say it’s what I would call the Best Christmas Hannukah card ever.

Oops. In the same week that TIME called journalists and the press it’s Person of the Year we have a retraction from a one newspaper.

I guess, from reading the headline, maybe they need a new copy editor?

We just started watching Sharp Object, a murder mystery on HBO, but, as usual, my eye goes to the hot fill-in-the-blank character, this time a detective played by Chris Messina.

He.Smoulders.

That’s all.

The Funny Papers

Jim Morin, Reynold Phillip, Ben Jennings, RJ Matson, Pat Bagley, Drew Sheneman, Steve Benson, Adam Zyglis, Mike Luckovich, Clay Bennett

Tuesday Thought #4

Note To Journalists: Be Like Jake

First off, thank you Jake … Tapper, that is.

As the White House continues to stumble and fumble and mumble over that book, they decided to send White House Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller out to do damage control. Trouble is, Stephen is a bit of a drama queen and on Jake Tapper’s State of the Union Show on the President’s least favorite news channel, CNN, he tried to pushed his fake outrage act a little too far and Jake sent him packing.

Stephen started by calling Steve Bannon’s comments in Fire and Fury: Inside the _____ White House, “grotesque” and more:

"The book is best understood as a work of very poorly written fiction. The author is a garbage author of a garbage book."

When Tapper questioned his assertion, Stephen called him "condescending” and claimed Tapper’s attitude was "part of [his] M.O." He then accused Tapper of making a "snide remark"—coming from the King of Snide, that was rich—while he attacked CNN, saying it runs "24 hours of negative anti-_____ hysterical coverage" while delivering "spectacularly embarrassing false reporting." But the best part was when Stephen asked for three uninterrupted minutes to talk about _____:

“Viewers are entitled to have three minutes of the truth. Why don’t you just give me three minutes to tell you about the Donald _____ that I know?”

That was all for Jake, because he realizes this isn’t the _____ news channel on _____ TV being run by a _____ Minister of Propaganda; he told Stephen he wouldn’t get the three minutes because it wasn’t his show and that sent Stephen in freak out zone, so Jake was done:

“Okay, you’re not answering the questions. I get it. There’s one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious because you’re trying to please him. I’ve wasted enough of my viewers' time.”

And Stephen was toast. Tapper threw to a commercial and when he returned to the Stephen Miller Free Zone, he told viewers:

“Welcome back to earth."

So, note to other journalists, when these minions of the Fat Bastard appear on your shows to spout their lies and propaganda, end them; end the interview, cut them off if they don’t answer a question. You have the power to release the information and if what the _____ shills are doing is lying and faking the news, send them home.

And again, Thanks Jake.

NCRM

For Nico Hines and The Daily Beast Outing Seems To Be An Olympic Sport

Outing; I’m of two, well, maybe three, minds about it …

If you’re an anti-LGBT public figure or politician who makes a living denying The Gays equality while trolling bathrooms or internet sites or airport bathrooms looking for a same-sex hook-up, then I’m all for the outing; I’m looking at you Larry Craig.

If you’re a closeted public figure who has photos of yourself kissing and fondling your same-sex partner, but continue to play that tired “My life is private” line, then I’m kinda okay with the outing; I’m looking at you Queen Latifah, because I wonder how many closeted girls, especially young Black girls, you might help to come to love themselves and accept themselves and live out loud and open if you lead the way?

If you’re a public figure living a private life and don’t want to come out for reasons of your own, well, I say you should come out, or be outed; coming out is a deeply personal process that’s different for all of us, and no one should take that chance away from you; I’m looking at you Colton Haynes, whose coming out was used as sport by some, sadly, in the gay community.

But what about closeted athletes at the Olympics? What about outing athletes from different countries across the globe, some countries where these athletes cannot live openly for fear of persecution, prosecution, and even death? Yeah, that kind of outing is reprehensible and stupid and thoughtless, and it’s that kind of outing that Nico Hines, and The Daily Beast, tried to pull last week in Rio.

Hines, a straight journalist, had been covering the Rio games for the Daily Beast and he, and obviously his editors, thought it might be high-larious to see if they could spot, and out, gay athletes at the games.

And Nico Hines went so far as to create a fake profile on Grindr, a gay social app — for meeting gay people and, yes, even hooking up with other gay men for sex — to see how many athletes, just the gay ones mind you, were cruising for sex between events.

Himes says he was shocked, shocked he says, to find that Rio de Janeiro has become “a hotbed of partying athletes, hookups, and sex, sex, sex.” Well, just the gay sex was what Nico wanted to cover; and he did. And while he never named any athletes on the site, or any athletes that responded to his fake profile, he shared other information about them, like the sports they played and the countries they were from:

“Athlete profiles on the various apps during my short exploration included a Brazilian track star, an Italian volleyball player, a South American record-holder in the pool, a sailor from New Zealand, a British diver, and a handball player from a notoriously homophobic country.”

A handball player from a “notoriously homophobic country”? As in a country that might arrest this athlete, jail this athlete, kill this athlete? Because that could happen; I imagine once Hines described the athletes and told where they were from and what their sport was, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who they were, or might be. A “South American record-holder in the pool” might be pretty easy to find.

So, how does this kind of reporting become “journalism” when it reeks more of a really bad Jacqueline Susann novel from the 70s? Also, why just the gay athletes? Why not troll Tinder and see how many straight athletes were hooking up for “sex, sex, sex”?

Oh, because Nico Hine, while straight and married, perhaps has a prurient fascination with the world of gay sex and the stereotype that all gay men are out to f**k or get f**ked. It’s ridiculous and stupid and careless and dangerous to equate his story with journalism of any kind.

Once again, this isn’t about hookups and gay men and sex; it about putting closeted gay men who live in countries where simply being themselves is a crime, in danger, and if even one athlete is harmed, or worse, by having their story told — albeit without ever mentioning them by name — then I would like to see Nico Hines and The Daily Beast held accountable.

Hines entrapped these gay men by faking a profile, by posing as a gay man interested in hooking up for sex, just to out them in a story. And now, both he and The Daily Beast are on the offensive … for being offensive.

After the story was published and the outrage, and backlash, began, Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief John Avlon reworked Hines’ piece, allegedly removing any identifying information, but left the story online and added a ‘fauxpology’:

“We have made some editorial changes to the article, responding to readers' concerns, and are again sorry for any upset the original version of this piece inspired."

That’s not enough; not by a long shot. You have created a dangerous environment for these athletes when they return home and a little light editing does not absolve The Daily Beast or Nico Hines for that.

Of course, Nico Hines is also trying to justify his little article — originally titled, "I Got Three Grindr Dates in an Hour in the Olympic Village" — by saying he never lied:

"For the record, I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t — unless you count being on Grindr in the first place — since I’m straight, with a wife and child. I used my own picture … and confessed to being a journalist as soon as anyone asked who I was."

Huh; so Nico didn’t lie? He posted his picture to Grindr and said he was a gay man looking for action in Rio and that right there, the very beginning of this mess, is an outright lie.

Grindr is an app for men who wish to hook-up with other men; that’s what Grindr is. So, to be on that app when you aren’t looking for a hook-up with another man is absolutely a lie; it’s the textbook definition of a lie.

Again, if one gay athlete is harmed, jailed, persecuted, prosecuted in any way, then lay the blame at the feet of The Daily Beast and Nico Hines.

As one athlete, openly gay Tongan Olympic swimmer, Amini Fonua, did via Twitter:

“As an out gay athlete from a country that is still very homophobic, @thedailybeast ought to be ashamed.

“Imagine the one space you can feel safe, the one space you’re able to be yourself, ruined by a straight person who thinks it’s all a joke?

“No straight person will ever know the pain of revealing your truth, to take that away is just… I can’t. It literally brings me to tears.

“It is still illegal to be gay in Tonga, and while I’m strong enough to be me in front of the world, not everybody else is. Respect that.”

And then Amini Fonua posted this picture for Nico Hines ....

... with the following message:

“Yo @nicohines & @thedailybeast — if what you were looking for on Grindr was hot ass (and I don’t see any other reason why you’d be on there) here you have mine in all its proud glory … Now kiss it and f**k off.”

And maybe they did; shortly thereafter The Daily Beast completely removed Nico Hines’ piece:

“Today, The Daily Beast took an unprecedented but necessary step: We are removing an article from our site. [We do] not do this lightly. As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.

Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values — which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world — are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers … The article was not intended to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does.

“Our hope is that removing an article that is in conflict with both our values and what we aspire to as journalists will demonstrate how seriously we take our error. We were wrong. We will do better.”

Here’s the part that I don’t quite get; you call yourselves supporters of the LGBT community, you call yourselves allies to our fight, but how did no one, no one, stand up and say, when this story was being bandied about as an idea, that it was all kinds of wrong? Did no one at The Daily Beast even take a moment repeat the idea out loud so you could physically hear how awful it sounded?

I hope Nice Hines and the Daily Beast have learned a lesson, because being gay is not a joke, not something to be made fun of on a global scale where we can be targeted, marginalized, criminalized and murdered for our sexual orientation. Our lives are not meant for fluff pieces by the likes of Nico Hines or The Daily Beast use to score higher readership numbers.

I wish every gay person could come out, but I know that’s impossible around the world and in some places, and some families, here at home. But I don’t want anyone to be put in danger by having some “reporter” tell some story about them. And so I, for one, will probably be looking at other websites for news from now on … apology or not.

sources:

LGBTQ Nation
NCRM
Pink News

Burning Bridges ... And Pissing Off JLo

Luckily I have a boss who knows that I’m a dick with a smart mouth and that I do love my job because sometimes the things I say could get me fired ... like the time my boss was in a mood and was ranting about his employees and saying things like,

“I wish … yada yada yada.”

And I replied,

“You know what I wish? I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the day you offered me this job and say, ‘F**k you.”

And, before you ask, he laughed , and, yes, I am still employed. But I’ve always wondered about the way to quit a job … to burn those bridges … scorch that earth … leave nothing but ruin in your rear-view mirror and know there isn’t a chance in Hell you’ll be hired back or get any kind of reference anywhere.

Case in point: Sara Hammel.

I don’t know this woman but I’m thinking a job as a hostess at Red Lobster will be the only job she can get now … especially when JLo puts a hit out on her.

See, Hammel, a longtime People writer, quit the magazine recently, but not before writing a Scorched Earth Resignation Letter to editorial director Jess Cagle and other top editors:

Dear People Magazine,

I quit.

It’s not me, it’s you. It’s been a wildly dysfunctional 14 years, and you’re an entirely different magazine than when we first got together. I swear half the current staff doesn’t know my name, despite my contribution to something like fifteen hundred stories in your celebrity annals, so here’s a refresher: I worked inside your London, Los Angeles and New York bureaus, covered breaking news in nine countries, and dealt with too many celebrities to remember.

Sara sounds like she has issues with people not remembering her.

My first celebrity assignment for you was Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in 2002. My last was Robert De Niro in April 2016. In between, there were memorable encounters galore, including making the gorgeous and empathic Mariska Hargitay ugly-cry (turns out she cries at like every charity-related event, phew), enduring an Oscar winner’s public bullying over an intimate dinner…

Sadly, she fails to name the bully.

… facing a personal crisis at Tom Cruise’s wedding in Rome, getting basically, kind of spat on by a snotty J. Lo (okay, it was like a very wet pffttt in my general direction, really obnoxious) …

 JLoogy?

… having fun with endless lower-key celebs like Rosario Dawson and Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Douglas, observing just how stiff and awkward George Clooney is around kids, insulting Sheryl Crow’s baby, and getting groped/harrassed by an A-list [omitted] performer in New York and Paris (that’s not to be flip—it was violating as hell. I’m still pissed I didn’t jab him in the balls with my pen).

I want names!

… This is just what the entitled stars and their bat—t crazy publicists put me and many other talented, hard-working reporters through. You people, as it turns out, are worse. Stupidly, we expect loyalty and support from you after years of service. We are naïve. Despite your nicey nice, glossy and chirpy veneer, some of us think of you more as the Leo DiCaprio of magazines, using up every beautiful model that crosses your path (“beautiful model”= “award-winning journalist” in this scenario), discarding them, and pretending you leave no wake behind you.

Like I said, hostess at Red Lobster.

I’m oddly surprised my tenure here is ending not with explosive hatred stoked by a cold dismissal from an insensate behemoth (i.e. you)  — a fate I watched ashen-faced friends and colleagues endure before my eyes during the Los Angeles bureau’s 2008 culling  — but with a slow fade-out and a final venting of my gossip-weary spleen.

Then again, that’s why I’m happy being freelance. I’ve survived something like eight rounds of layoffs where talented colleagues were bitch-slapped into oblivion and, I hope, will never give their nights, weekends, relationships and sanity again to keep up with an email chain about whether Jennifer Aniston is pregnant at 47 because of those tummy photos and what kind of mom will she be, when really she just had an extra burrito at lunch; but oh, wait, the rep says it’s just a rumor so there’s no story this week after all.

Someone needs to settle herself.

I will say, what happens after that is that my debut teen mystery, the one I spent my adult life making into a reality, but which, despite the schlock regularly featured in its pages and online, People decided to ignore — more to the point, they ignored me entirely — even after I toiled away for them for 14 years. They wouldn’t even give me a digital post that I wrote, sourced, and agreed to remove the name of my book from (LOL). That book is called The Underdogs.

Ah, so therein lies the rub. Sara wrote a book and expected People magazine to promote it for her and when they didn’t, well, she began the venom-spew.

I’ll leave you with the kicker:

As I was crafting this letter, a Tweet came through from one of your top editors, Kate Coyne, crowing about her full-page People feature promoting her brand-new book, accompanied by a colorful screenshot. “Don’t ask how, but I got in touch with someone at @people—now I’m in the new issue. So grateful!”

You should be, Kate. Enjoy it while it lasts.

And now we’ve come full-circle. Another People employee did get her work promoted in the magazine, but Sara did not. I’m guessing green, while Sara’s color, is not a good look on her.

Hammel has a memoir out … on Kindle, perhaps because no respectable publishing house would touch her … called “Red Carpet Regret: Confessions of a Cynical Celebrity Journalist.”

On the other side, People is holding its head up high … I now, People magazine is trying to act all dignified, and a spokeswoman said:

“We don’t comment on personnel matters.”

No, but they do slyly destroy those to trash the Goliath. Or maybe send JLo and Clooney out to tag-team Sara Hammel into nothingness.