Trump isn't the only far-right president to try his hand at overthrowing democracy; the question is what if any "lessons" he has learned from them

This country did the “unthinkable,” which was to forget the (recent) past and reward a man who weaponized the government against personal "enemies" and instigated an attempt at a violent overthrow of the U.S. government simply because he didn’t like the result of an election. Donald Trump justified his actions by insisting the 2020 election was “stolen,” but the real reason is that he a self-serving narcissist, megalomaniac, and most of all a sore loser. He is a man used to getting his own way, or ordering underlings to do to it his way, and by extralegal means if necessary—just don’t “quote” him on it, or you’re “fired.” 

But he will reward his “loyal” foot-soldiers, promising them that they will be pardoned for serving time in jail for crimes in which he personally is “immune” from consequence. Trump has even threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to stymie mass protests against him. Whatever he does, we can't say we were not "warned." Trump, being a bit of a coward, will of course deploy his fanatical lieutenants to do most of his dirty work, just as Hitler's underlings performed his dirtiest dealings "in his name."

Nor should it come as a “surprise” that all of this is coming from the darkest corner of the radical right—not the “radical left.” In Russia, Hungary and Turkey we see the dictatorial impulses of the political right in “action,” stifling opposition both politically and in the press. More recently we saw an attempt at his in South Korea. The Korea Times reports 1 that in the aftermath of right-wing President Yoon Suk Yeol declaration of “martial law,” which he justified in a televised address because, according to him, the country “falling into the depths of national ruin” by “eliminating anti-state forces as quickly as possible and normalize the country.” 

Of course for a time the people would have to endure “some inconveniences.” However, the declaration failed to gain support from Yoon’s own party, and it lasted all of 6 hours before he was forced to call it off.

The reality was that Yoon was frustrated that his conservative agenda was being stymied by the opposition that controlled the legislature, and that he and his wife were being investigated for illegal election interference and accepting illegal gifts. Polls had previously shown Yoon’s approval rating dipping below 20 percent, and a new poll commissioned by the Korea Times indicated that 70 percent of respondents, like these protestors against Yoon…

 

…believe that he committed treason and should be removed from office. It probably shouldn’t come as a “surprise” that Yoon is an admirer of Trump, and although the whole thing started and was over before Trump woke up, we shouldn’t doubt that he would have been “interested” in how it would have all played-out, and see if he could learn any “lessons” from it. 

But the South Korean attempt at deposing a democratically-elected government and imposing personal dictatorship was chicken feed compared to the far-right machinations of Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro. He apparently learned some “lessons” from Trump’s failed insurrection, and decided to have an actual “plan.” First he followed Trump’s lead by sowing doubt in the “integrity” of the election before it happened. 

Thus Bolsonaro, aware of his weakness in polling, set-up a narrative of election fraud by inviting diplomats to a meeting in order to claim “vulnerabilities” in the voting system—and, should we be “surprised,” without evidence. After the 2022 election, it was declared that some voting devices made in “specific years” were defective and could have “permitted fraud.” Of course it was not suggested that Bolsonaro’s own prior election victory was the result of “fraud.” 

Again taking his cue from Trump, Bolsonaro rallied supporters to demonstrate on the street, who set up camps outside military sites to put “pressure” on the military to act to overthrow the election, and all else having failed, to engage in their own version of January 6, this time on January 8, 2023, in which Bolsonaro supporters engaged in carnage in the National Congress, the Supreme Court and the palace where the president works, not where he or she resides.

But as an investigation by the Federal Police indicates, this was what was happening in “public”; behind the scenes, something much more sinister was in the works. Bolsonaro and his cronies had plans for assassination and a coup de tat that only went awry when two heads of the military got “cold feet.” As summarized in the leading newspaper in Brazil, O Globo 2 , the December 2022 plot involved the murders of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as well as Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. 

This was to conducted by a "black ops" group made up of special forces military personnel; Bolsonaro’s involvement was confirmed with the participation of Mauro Cid, his aide-de-camp who handled the provision of money and making “arrangements.”

One of the group involved in the kidnapping of Moraes, Major Oliveira, attending a meeting at the executive workplace, the Planalto Palace, when it appears that Bolsonaro was also present. Another Bolsonaro lieutenant, Mario Fernandes, produced a document called the "Green and Yellow Dagger”—the “operational plan” for the coup attempt, including a list of weapons, such s pistols, rifles, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers. According to the Federal Police, the list of high caliber weapons indicated an operation under the control of the military.

General Mário Fernandes was one of the military leaders who got “cold feet,” He is reported to have spoken “personally” with Bolsonaro, suggesting he was “concerned” about the camps being established outside military barracks, which made the appearance of an imminent coup attempt more obvious. In early December, Bolsonaro met with General Estevam Caos Teophilo to come up with a decree to justify a coup, and would include the commandeering of the Superior Electoral Court, with the obvious intent of finding “election fraud.”

On the day of Lula’s inauguration, it appears that Cid and another plotter and Bolsonaro confidante, Marcelo Câmara, appear to be expecting something to happen, but that "The guy is scared," perhaps meaning a would-be assassin of Lula, Alckmin and Moraes. The plotters had not yet given up, however. Cid sent a message to Câmara if "anything" was happening. It was indicated that Moraes movements were still being tracked. Lula was referred to as the election “thief.” It was suggested that the “black ops” group was “moving into position” for something on December 15. 

Whatever was planned was ordered “aborted.” What was intended to happen was a military-led coup in which a junta government under something called the “Institutional Crisis Management Office” would be created, “justified” by Article 142 of the Brazil Constitution, which in fact had little to do with defining what was happening.

Meanwhile, instead of vacating the presidential palace for the incoming president, Bolsonaro refused to leave, apparently in the hopes that “something” would happen that would allow him to remain. The January 8 insurrection by his supporters caused a lot of damage but otherwise did not convince the military to step in with its support. Whether the “black ops” was involved in instigating the insurrection is still subject to question.

The Federal Police report claims that the failure of Bolsonaro’s coup was “due to circumstances beyond his control.” That included "then-Army commander, Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, and the Army High Command rejected the use of ground forces to provide the necessary support.” It was reported that only Navy commander Adm. Almir Garnier actually gave the coup his unwavering support. 

But despite the obvious involvement of top military leaders in even discussing a coup attempt, only Garnier, Defense Minister Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, and Bolsonaro were initially indicted who had connection with the military, being that there was fear of antagonizing it. But since then the full import of the military's involvement has led to further indictments.

In fact Gomes, rather than being a "hero" in support of democracy, was fully involved in  supporting the encampments and pro-Bolsonaro protests, and thus enabled the January 8 uprising. It was noted that of the High Command’s 16 four-star generals in regard to a coup, “Five don’t want it, three want it a lot and the others are in a comfort zone”—meaning that whatever happened (and it would have if the troops had left the barracks to join the insurrectionists)—then the whichever side “won” the fence-sitters would join.

So are you glad we live in a country where such things are “impossible”? I mean, did you already forget January 6 and how Trump is going to let all those people loose on the world again? I mean a majority of people in this country knew they elected as a president a man who freely admitted he would play “dictator” for a day, which in reality means whatever he does that day won’t end on that day, that Trump will have a stock of cronies who will not advise him to follow the law or the Constitution, but will themselves be eager to exercise their own unfettered power based on their own crazed beliefs. 

But Trump himself is man who recognizes no “guardrails” to the power he has been allowed to control. He will not merely be like The Wizard of Oz who is revealed to be a phony façade to scare the hell out of people, when behind the curtains he is nothing but a weak little man who controls the leavers. Those leavers are dangerous for a fool to control, but we are talking about a man who wants to use those tools to destroy his “enemies”—anyone who dares to tell him “no.”

Now is not the time to give up on freedom of speech or press rights

 

Isn’t freedom of speech and the press such fun? We can call a spade a spade and not be afraid that a neighbor or colleague at work or a family member will notify the “authorities” and then you don't have a  job anymore (unless you work for a company run by Elon Musk). Thus we  can say that two former Florida Democrats who switched parties, state representatives Hillary Cassell and Susan Valdes, are complete self-serving hypocrites who think that throwing out whatever ethics and morality they ever possessed out the door in order to “party” with Republicans is a “vision for a better, more prosperous Florida,” or after losing a vote for county party chair, goes sulking in the corner because she feels “ignored.”

Freedom of speech and the press also allows us to admit that rather than put Bill Clinton on a pedestal as an “elder statesman,” we can admit that in many—if not most—ways his administration was a domestic policy disaster for this country. Clinton enabled what was then the Republican version of Project 2025. Why? Is it that hard to understand? Clinton needed “friends” after Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1994, with those troublesome Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky affairs in tow.

What followed was something we see today by some politicians, corporations and billionaires who have run afoul of Trump. From his book A Fabulous Failure, Nelson Lichtenstein 1  noted that by 1995, Clinton, desperate to remain “relevant” and fortunate enough to face a white-bread opponent, Bob Dole, for reelection in 1996, became

the first Democratic President since FDR to win two consecutive terms, but that accomplishment seems merely a product of his accommodation to an ideology that privileged trade liberalization, financial deregulation, privatization of government services, and the growth of class inequalities. Clinton’s 1996 declaration, “The era of big government is over,” seemingly ratified Reaganite conservatism.

Lichtenstein notes that Clinton relied on Republican support against his own party’s opposition to his numerous “reforms” in regard to everything from financial deregulation, immigration, welfare, crime, trade and telecommunications—all which had some varying degrees of making the “problems” they were supposed to “fix” worse. The idea that the economy had entered a “new phase” of  “technologically-driven productivity gains, global trade, and financial innovation that simultaneously reduced unemployment and interest rates, elevated the stock market, and made international trade a win-win proposition” turned out to be “an illusion, but an even greater failure," one that

may well have arisen from the Clinton Administration’s actual achievements: creating a federal budget surplus, downsizing the government workforce, enacting an ambitious crime control law, passing the North American Free Trade Agreement, constructing a pathway for China to join the World Trade Organization, and deregulating both Wall Street finance and America’s vast telecommunications infrastructure. Wall Street boomed and unemployment dropped, but in the end, none of these reforms moved the nation toward the economic stability, social equality, or global democratic resurgence. Trade with China, the Clintonites had prophesied, would undoubtedly create the conditions for a free press, entrepreneurial freedom, and the autonomy, individual and organizational, necessary to sustain a robust civil society in that ancient nation. They were convinced that democratic effervesce was sure to accompany all those new cell phones, stock markets, and supermarkets.

Of course, China remains a totalitarian state. In the end, Clinton—rather than showing the way “forward” for the Democratic Party, “was a dreadful party leader” according to Lichtenstein. The party, as shown by Bernie Sanders, could be both “progressive” and appeal to the same working class voters who were fooled by Donald Trump into thinking he and Musk have the working class “interests” in their “minds” rather than their own greed.

Let’s take a look at Clinton’s Telecommunications Act and what it brought us. At the dawn of the television era, most radio stations were operated by major media companies at the time, but who then largely abandoned radio to focus on the new medium, television. In order to replace them, radio stations relied on selling licenses to local entities, often small businesses creating shows to use to advertise their goods. Lack of control meant independent voices could be heard. As Paul Matzko of the Cato Institute pointed out

Finances were tight for these independent stations, so the owners were open to selling timeslots to groups the networks wouldn’t have given the time of day to. That included a new generation of right-wing broadcasters, who (mostly unfairly) attacked liberals and Democrats as unpatriotic Communist sympathizers. After President John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, he became a particular target of these broadcasters, who went after everything from his mishandling of the Bay of Pigs invasion to his proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This Radio Right emerged rapidly. The biggest of them, a fundamentalist minister from New Jersey named Carl McIntire, could be heard on just two radio stations in 1956; by 1963, he was on more than 460 outlets. His estimated weekly audience was 20 million people—about as many as Rush Limbaugh reached 40 years later.

But what did Clinton’s Telecommunications Act do that made this situation worse? Seattle, for example, is supposed to be a “liberal” city, yet you won’t hear any “liberal” talk anywhere on the radio, unless you consider NPR “liberal.” There used to be a “progressive” talk station on AM 1090, but that only lasted a few years and was replaced by sports talk (I don’t know what it is now). Why? Because “big business” was back in “charge” and they could decide who was or wasn’t heard, especially if controlled by “conservatives.”

Before the Act, there were limits on how many broadcast stations one company could control, whether television, cable, radio or even the Internet. Those limits were removed, and the result was smaller local stations were bought out of the market. The result was a massive reduction in independent stations, and what was left was a relative few stations that were wholly corporate-controlled. 

Instead of hearing something from the tiniest tweak of the dial,  what was heard was what a small “sampling” of (mainly far-right) “voices," most of them syndicated countrywide.  “Liberal” local voices in even “liberal” communities were thus silenced because there was no jobs open for them in order to “speak.”

So “thank you” Bill Clinton, who is in poor health and recently hospitalized, and so it is unfortunate that this nasty business has to come on now, because freedom of speech and the press is under more stress with the election of Trump. We see in states like Florida, Texas and Oklahoma that the anti-DEI and CRT movements are really a cover for far-right denial of free speech. I mean, let’s be honest about this: racists want to be racists and don’t like being called on it, and this is a way to do it. 

On the other hand, they want to stuff down our throats their own “cultural” and “religious” views that they claim that all “patriotic” people (well, white people anyways) should abide by. It’s bad enough that they elected as president someone who doesn’t practice any of that himself, but hypocrisy and ignorance has no shame.

We have already seen how allegedly “liberal” media has “sucked” up to Trump so that he won’t do bad things to them.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to Congress whined  and begged for forgiveness for how he felt “pressured” by the Biden administration to "censure" widespread disinformation about COVID-19, and Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos nixed the intended publication of the endorsement of Kamala Harris. 

Comcast, owner of MSNBC, forgot how Fox News lost viewership after the 2020 election, and decided that MSNBC’s losing of viewership after this past election wasn’t a “fluke” and decided to cast it and it’s NBC News division outside to fend for themselves like unwanted children. Time will tell when viewership will rebound when people realize that what Fox News is telling them and reality are not coinciding.

Disney, which owns ABC News, decided $15 million was a “fair” price to pay to get Trump off their back with his phony “defamation” claim—you know, the same one that a New York judge threw out because he said E. Jean Carroll was within her rights to call what Trump did to her “rape” despite the technical definition of what that was in the state penal code. But all this "settlement" did was make Trump more convinced he can wage war successfully to silence the "enemy" media.

Thus Trump and his bloated billions from his media company and the leftover PAC money will be used to intimidate the press and social media outlets through the tactic of “frivolous lawsuits” meant to put the offending voice out of business through massive legal expenses. This is what Media Matters is up against from Musk and Republican state attorney generals.

How about these

Fraudsters. Liars. Perjurers. Felons. Grifters. Stooges. Imbeciles. Murderers. When it comes to describing scientists whose peer-reviewed studies suggest the COVID-19 virus made a natural jump from animals to humans, molecular biologist Richard Ebright and microbiologist Bryce Nickels have used some very harsh language. On X (formerly Twitter), where the two scientists from Rutgers University are a constant presence, they have even compared fellow researchers to Nazi war criminals and the genocidal Cambodian dictator Pol Pot.

That’s right, it isn’t the “left” that Science is noting here that is engaging in outrageous and despicable libels against others in print or social media in order to silence differing opinions. Elbright and Nickels are far-right proponents of the “lab-leak” theory, which has gained new “credence” since the Republican-composed pandemic “report” and the former Trump CDC head recently claiming that it is “possible” that U.S. “covert” agents in the Wuhan, China lab created the virus there, of course with no evidence. The right-wing Wall Street Journal, however, printed a “report” that three Pentagon scientists are making that claim which is not supported in the “official” Pentagon report.

Meanwhile, as the ACLU notes, Trump is considering every option to stifle dissent. He has “indicated that his administration would consider invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military to America’s cities — potentially targeting those with large BIPOC and immigrant communities — to suppress the right to protest. Trump has also indicated that his administration would attack online free expression by forcing media companies and online platforms to carry conservatives’ preferred speech.” 

He can do this because “As president, with federal law enforcement agencies under his control, Trump could carry out attacks on advocacy organizations and individuals he opposes.”

I mean, there is nothing “new” or “strange” about this—Texas’ nutcase AG Ken Paxton wastes hundreds of millions of state taxpayer money inventing a new case practically every day. Of course Texas has “plenty” of that oil money to waste on frivolous lawsuits, but not so much on what people actually need to stay alive; in fact Texas’ “Lone Star” do-it-alone strategy is coming to “fruition,” with its insufficient power grid and water shortages threatening to make life miserable for a lot of people. Of course it blames its failures on immigrants.

Besides, the U.S. Supreme Court has already decided that a corrupt individual like Trump can’t be criminally prosecuted for “official acts,” and what exactly those are open to only one definition, Trump's own. The ACLU points out that the court’s ruling on “immunity” means that probably the most important “guardrail” preventing Trump from silencing his “enemies” is non-functional:

Since President Richard Nixon was held accountable for deploying the DOJ against his political enemies, the department’s independence has been a fundamental norm preventing presidents from overstepping. Yet Trump has asserted that, as president, he has “an absolute right” to do what he wants with the DOJ. The Supreme Court recently removed one guardrail in Trump v. United States, ruling that the president cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts,” including actions taken through the DOJ. Trump can use a politicized DOJ by dropping civil rights enforcement cases and instead bringing abusive cases attacking voters, protestors, journalists, abortion care providers and patients, and others he perceives as enemies.

The Guardian, meanwhile,  pointed out that the First Amendment may not serve as the “guardrail” against Trump’s attempts to silence critics that people think. It pointed out that in the Pentagon Papers case, the Supreme Court “left open the possibility that reporters and publishers might be prosecuted after the fact.” The Supreme Court has also not resolved the question of whether “government investigators can compel reporters to reveal their sources.” While some states have “shield laws,” Congress has never passed a similar law on the federal side. In this story concerning the “mess” created by the “murky” Branzburg vs Hayes case 2  from Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declined to recognize a First Amendment privilege that would allow news gatherers to refuse to answer grand jury questions about their sources’ criminal conduct. But even while rejecting this kind of reporter’s privilege, the majority acknowledged that “news gathering is not without its First Amendment protections”––although it declined to articulate what those protections might be, beyond indicating that the First Amendment might protect journalists where prosecutors issued subpoenas in bad faith.

The question now is if how will the U.S. Supreme Court respond to questions left “murky” and answered previously with confusing qualifications when Trump and his Justice Department to be headed by Pam Bondi leave the starting block. Bondi, who was chair of the America First Policy Institute and whose principle “qualification” for AG is that she used that position to advocate the usual Trump-inspired misinformation and conspiracies, and according the Brennan Center

AFPI has brought a series of concerning lawsuits in recent years, particularly in the voting rights and elections arena. In 2024, AFPI brought at least five lawsuits aiming to hinder ballot box access or disenfranchise specific groups of voters, according to the Brennan Center’s research. Several of these lawsuits contain questionable factual and legal reasoning.

Perhaps we give Trump too much “credit.” He is the oldest man ever elected president, and we have seen when he goes off “message” he appears to be either insane or suffering from dementia. We already know that he is backing off on some of his Day One decisions, including admitting that he won’t be able to bring down those high prices he blamed Biden for and not greedy businesses—in fact if he goes through with his tariff and deportation plans, people should expect prices to go higher--maybe a lot higher. 

Trump can't blame everything on people expressing their First Amendment rights, but he will try to shut them up if he can; after all, he won this election on voters being purposefully ignorant. If we let him act on his dictatorial impulses by running “scared” or trying to suck-up to him instead of telling the truth, that is just another step toward a fascist government.

Packers at least made it look "close" in another loss to Vikings

 

Another close but no cigar game would seem to be suggested by the Packers once more falling by a “whisker” to a good team, losing to the Viking 27-25 on the road, and falling to 0-4 against their top-two division rivals. The Packers needed to win this game to prove doubters wrong that they were not in the top-tier at least in the NFC, but the Packers now fall to 0-5 against the “elite” teams in the NFC, their other loss to the Eagles. They have not beaten a team that has at least 10 wins this season (well, OK, the Rams won their 10th game today); last season, despite finishing only 9-8, they beat two teams that won more games than they did during the regular season, the Chiefs and Lions, and another in the playoffs, the Cowboys.

This game really wasn’t that close. The Vikings dominated the Packers through 3.5 quarters of game, leading 27-10 and narrowly missing adding a field goal to that total. With 9 minutes to play in the game, the Packers had been out-gained a shocking 417-142, with Love throwing for just 78 yards passing at that point. Alright, so the Vikings laid down on defense and the Packers managed to score two touchdowns late in the game. But with 2 minutes to play, the Vikings awoke from their slumber, and Sam Darnold, who finished with 377 yards passing and 3 TD passes, managed to complete another pass for a first down and insured the game as the Packers ran out of timeouts.

Next week the Packers play the 4-12 Bears and that should be win number 12 for the season, which is an obvious improvement on paper over last season, but it is difficult to say the team is actually “better” than the one that entered the playoffs winning 6 of 8 games including those over the Chiefs and Lions. The Saints were easily handled by a 3-12 Raiders team this week, so last week’s win was somewhat less impressive. The Packers will not get a home playoff game in the wild card round, and will most likely play a rejuvenated Rams team that has won 9 of 11, although depending on what the Commanders do, they could fall to the seventh seed and face the Eagles again.

A look at the new Looking For Mr. Goodbar Blu-ray release from Vinegar Syndrome

Alright, I said I’d review Vinegar Syndrome’s release on Blu-ray the long lost film Looking For Mr. Goodbar in the first “official” Paramount-sanctioned release of the film on disc, although there are a few “unofficial” DVD releases of varying “quality” of bad. The cover VS concocted for it will give people the wrong idea about what the film is about, as suggested by the cover of the first-run hardcover edition of the original novel that I have...

 

...but maybe it will "attract" the uninitiated who are attracted to suggestions of titillation. 

We are told that the transfer is a 4k scan straight from the original camera negative. Whether there was actual restoration work done on the print is not clear, but at least they started with what qualifies as the “best available” source.

The alleged hold-up to an “official” release of this film on disc concerned music rights, less apparently from “cost” but “permission” from those who found “god” and were not sure they wanted to be attached through their songs to this film. But this film was made in 1977, closing on a half-decade, and most people who remember this film are either dead or don’t spend their time listening to old songs (well, I do). 

But then again, the people who like this film do so (or did) in part because of the music of mostly well-known hits at the time. For myself, the opening montage certainly needed to be left untouched, but otherwise (for me) the only song that was absolutely essential to the narrative was Bill Withers’ “She’s Lonely.” The fact that the music was in fact left largely unaltered is just a “bonus.”

The film is based loosely on the novel by Judith Rossner, whose main character, Theresa Dunn,  was based on the real-life case of Roseann Quinn, which I discussed in my overview of the film here 1  as well as my thoughts about the point of the film, so I won’t repeat it here. The transfer of the VS release has a bit rate from about 39000 kbps, which is pretty decent, so we should see fairly good detail, although to bring out “detail” through making the grain more obvious, a darker print  was apparently used to good effect in well-lighted scenes, but in some cases  negatively affected visibility in darker scenes.

I used for comparison purposes the 1080p web rip based on a transfer used for broadcast and streaming services. I used that transfer for my 2022 film overview, which I regarded at the time to be the “best” this film would ever look. In this early scene from the web rip…

 

…and the Blu-ray…

 

…we can see the difference in a shading toward red in the Blu-ray, which provides a noticeable improvement in clarity in flesh tone. Again, this was apparently done using a somewhat darker print, enhancing the grain to look more “lifelike” in well-lighted scenes. On the other hand, the web rip version looks slightly “soft” as if by DNR. 

Notice that the chairs behind Theresa have a reddish-brown appearance, a more “natural” tone than the dull brown in the web rip. On a computer screen the difference isn’t so noticeable that it makes much difference while viewing the film in real time, but on larger screens, because the bit-rate is much higher on the Blu-ray, the differences can seem more “dramatic,” and that I thought that at least in light scenes like this the transfer was quite good.

However,  that using a darker print to enhance the grain in daylight or well-lit scenes, is not always to positive effect in dark scenes is shown in this comparison, with the web rip version on top:

 

While still “soft” you can actually see “more” in the web rip screenshot, and in the Blu-ray the reddish “tint” of the flesh tones tends to be more murky. This is just a "detail," and may not matter that much during real-time viewing. 

Of course this interpretation isn't always consistent; in this comparison, while you can see “more” in the lighter web rip transfer, the detail in the robe being worn by Theresa is one area where the Blu-ray print is an obvious improvement.  

 

Improvement is more prominent in the medium shots, like this one, with brighter colors (see the red ornament near the ceiling lamp):

 

In this outdoor scene, again darker but with somewhat improved print detail:

 

And in this bar scene the darker, redder print shadows faces, but in turn enhances the “detail” on objects when enough light is present.

 

I suppose that it is possible that a more thorough restoration of the print could improve detail in the dark scenes, but at this point I’m not willing to wait five or ten years for Criterion to get a hold of this, which they should have been able to do if a boutique distributor like Vinegar Syndrome—which specializes in “cult” films, adult films from the “classic” period, and occasionally adding a few studio films to enhance the quality of their catalogue like this one—could somehow get their hands on it. 

But overall this BD release is one where I can’t really say much more than this is now the “best available” option out there for this film if you don't have the option of playing the 4k UHD version.

This release includes an audio commentary by an admitted big fan of the film, Gillian Wallace Horvat. I don’t agree with all of her observations about the film, and she basically sees what she wants to see in the Theresa character and not from an “outsider’s” perspective, and guesses at what motivates the male characters. But it is nonetheless interesting to hear a commentary that is somewhat at odds at what you think you are looking at on the screen.

The most interesting "special feature" on the disc is an audio retelling of the obscenity trial in Provo, Utah against the showing of the film. Other than that, there is an audio of an interview with Rossner, and a 23-minute documentary about director Richard Brooks in regard to the film.

By the way, the "limited edition" comes with a 40-page "book," about which I will say that you are not really missing anything if you have to "settle" for the "standard" edition to be released  by Amazon in a month. Criterion's "book" that accompanied its recent Blu-ray release of Pandora's Box on the other hand was worth any added expense.

Update: the Amazon release was delayed four weeks due to the fact that there was a "read flaw" found in the UHD version by people who purchased the title during VS' "Black Friday" sale; when played with Dolby Vision on, the disc froze at a point late in the film and could not be "advanced" beyond that point. VS announced it will have a replacement disc available in February..