Wednesday Reads: Chairs…Chairs would be nice.
Posted: August 24, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Journalism, Media, Mid Day Reads, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, the GOP, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights 18 Comments
Oh, I know it is late. I spent last night…or should I say the early morning hours spying images to use for this afternoon’s post. Geez, imagine all that time being sucked into a black hole of Pinterest Far Side pins…and then realizing it is 5am and you have written nothing.
On the plus side, I do have some great cartoons for you, so enjoy those at least. (Most of them are from Gary Lawson, but there are other artist included as well…)
Now a few links, I’m introducing this article with a clip from Absolutely Fabulous…it is a quick little bit about chairs:
Starting at the 14:31 mark, the character Catriona is giving her suggestion for a editorial in the Magazine…and she mentions “chairs”:
And chairs I thought might be interesting.
I’ve got a friend with some lovely chairs in her shop.
– Jocasta? – Yes.
She believes chairs are as important to civilisation as a masterpiece or something.
I wrote it down somewhere.
We could print that up and do some lovely photos.
And now the link:
Sitting Up: A Brief History of Chairs
A brief history of chairs.
Still from Lawrence of Arabia.
There is a pivotal early scene in David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia in which T. E. Lawrence and his superior, Colonel Brighton, visit the desert encampment of Prince Faisal, a leader of the Arab Revolt. The royal tent is spartan yet luxurious, patterned woven cloths hang from the low ceiling, a large brass samovar gleams in the candlelight, the ground is covered with a rich carpet. There is no furniture; the men sit on the carpet. Brighton, in his tailored uniform, polished Sam Browne belt, and riding boots, looks distinctly ill at ease with his legs awkwardly stretched out in front of him. Lawrence, a lieutenant and less formally dressed, appears slightly more comfortable, with his legs folded to one side. The prince, attired in a dark robe and a white ghutrah, reclines on a pile of sheepskins, while his colleague Sherif Ali leans casually against a tent pole. The various postures cinematically underline a central point: the relaxed Bedouins are at home in this place—the desert—while the stiff English colonel is an interloper. Lawrence is somewhere in between.
The world is divided into people who sit on the floor and those who sit on chairs. In a classic study of human posture around the world, the anthropologist Gordon W. Hewes identified no fewer than a hundred common sitting positions. “At least a fourth of mankind habitually takes the load off its feet by crouching in a deep squat, both at rest and at work,” he observed. Deep squatting is favored by people in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but sitting cross-legged on the floor is almost as common. Many South Asians cook, dine, work, and relax in that position. Certain Native American tribes in the Southwest, as well as Melanesians, customarily sit on the floor with legs stretched straight out or crossed at the ankles. Sitting with the legs folded to one side—Lawrence’s position above—is described by Hewes as a predominantly female posture in many tribal societies.
The diversity of different postures around the world could be caused by differences in climate, dress, or lifestyle. Cold or damp floors would discourage kneeling and squatting and might lead people to seek raised alternatives; tight clothing would tend to inhibit deep squatting and cross-legged sitting; nomadic peoples would be less likely to use furniture than urban societies; and so on. But cause and effect does not explain why folding stools originated in ancient Egypt, a region with a warm, dry climate. Or why the Japanese and Koreans, who have cold winters, both traditionally sat on floor mats. Or why the nomadic Mongols traveled with collapsible furniture, while the equally nomadic Bedouins did not.
Take a look at the rest of that, it is interesting.
Sticking with non-Trump articles for now…BBC – Culture – The 21st Century’s 100 greatest films
The best that cinema has had to offer since 2000 as picked by 177 film critics from around the world.
That is the main link, but if you are like me you would rather read a criticism of the thing…
Here is one from TCM’s blog moviemorlocks.com – The Greatest Films of the 21st Century
I suffer from chronic list fatigue, initially eager to scroll through the latest re-ordering of greatest hits, but inevitably collapse into a heap before I ingest the whole thing. Enter the BBC to test my illness. Yesterday they unveiled the results of their mammoth “Greatest Films of the 21st Century” poll, in which 177 critics submitted their top movies of the current century. It confirms that David Lynch’s fractured, terrifying Hollywood fairy tale Mulholland Drive (2001) is the consensus film of the age. It has been topping lists of this ilk for years now, and I welcome a film so mysterious as our millennium-overlord. My narcolepsy is triggered not by the quality of the works cited, but the recycled nature of the discourse it elicits, which tends to ignore the films entirely for a “this-over-that” essentialism that reduces complicated aesthetic experiences to numbers on a list. Which reminds me, now it is time for me to reduce complicated aesthetic experiences to numbers on a list! Below you’ll find my top ten films of the 21st Century that were not included in the BBC’s top twenty five, in a modest effort to expand the conversation.
Go and check out that list, you may be surprised by what is included.
From Jezebel: 177 Critics Picked the Best Films of the Century. Guess How Many Were Directed By Women!
The BBC published its long-awaited list of the 21st century’s best films, as selected by 177 film critics from around the world. Lists like these are meant to drum up conversations and controversies, and when appearing online they’re usually the creations of a single author—a single critical mind. But the BBC has provided a decent chunk of data to supplement its numbered list, so we have a pretty good understanding of who those film critics are.
The 177 are from 36 countries, but nearly half (81) are from the US. Going down the list:
“19 from the UK, five each from Canada, Cuba, France, and Germany, and four each from Australia, Colombia, India, Israel and Italy. Lebanon, the UAE, China, Bangladesh, Chile, Namibia, Kazakhstan and many others are represented too.”
OK! Great. So they did a little work attempting to create a truly international pool of people. But what about gender? Of the 177 critics, there were 55 women and 122 are men. That’s roughly 31%, which is depressing until you look at data released earlier this summer that says women make up only 27% of film critics, at which point it becomes ever so slightly less depressing.
Similar feelings may arise when looking at the breakdown of the directors on the list. Of the 102 films (there was a three-way tie for #100), 12 (or roughly 12%) had women as directors, which is just three percentage points higher than the industry as a whole.
More at that link.
On another issue, yes I must mention the Trump campaign: Yes, CNN and ABC Really Did Live-Stream Mike Pence’s Haircut | Mediaite
It seems like only yesterday the big news in candidate’s hair was that high dollar haircut Edwards treated himself to years ago. Remember? Now, the media is fucking covering the haircuts live!
I think this politician should be running on the GOP presidential ticket…sound like he is pretty successful to me: America’s Only Dog Mayor Gets Elected to Third Term | Mental Floss
Just a few links now that may bring up your blood pressure:
Why is WikiLeaks publishing private individuals’ personal information? | PBS NewsHour
‘It’s about freedom’: Ban boosts burkini sales ‘by 200%’ – BBC News
Mylan CEO saw 600% pay increase during EpiPen price raise – NY Daily News
Revealed: Zika’s damage to babies’ brains more extensive than microcephaly
At least one woman finally gets what is owed her: Homeless woman proves Social Security owed her $100,000 | Tampa Bay Times
Last for those who have the cash:
Everybody knows you can’t take the whole tribe cross-country without the proper chariot. And as fans of the 1980s comedy classic National Lampoon’s Vacation will tell you, there’s no holiday roadster better suited for a jaunt to road trip-purgatory than the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Now you, too, can know the luxury of gliding across the U.S. in a dinged-up metallic pea tank—“honky lips” graffiti not included—with a Houston-based auto dealership claiming to have theVacation car on sale for a measly 40 grand.
Listed as a “1979 Ford LTD,” the car features a Walley World bumper sticker, a dog leash, and a luggage rack, perfect for transporting any late relatives you might happen to pick up (and then drop off) along the way.
(Image: Carlyle Motors)
Of course, the seller makes no guarantees that this particular extremely ugly vehicle is one of the five Trucksters used in the film, so you’ll just have to take it on faith that this isn’t one of the many replicas people have made in tribute to the movie. (To quote the listing on the collectible car marketplace Hemmings, “Although this particular car is believed to be used in the filming of the movie, there is no documentation that comes with the car.“) We’re sorry if that’s a big disappointment for you, folks. Moose out front should have told ya.
Enjoy the cartoons!
This is an open thread.
Sunday F*ck You Trump and Other Reads
Posted: August 21, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, abortion rights, birth control, Climate Change, crops, Environment, Environmental Protection, Environmentalists, Farming, Hillary Clinton, History, income inequality, Migrant and Refugee Crisis in Europe and Mediterranean, the GOP, The Media SUCKS, Women's Rights | Tags: California Water Rights, Trump 6 Comments
Good Afternoon
This post is more of a link dump than anything else, we are still working on the move…and it seems like it will go on forever.
The articles will be presented to you in a certain way…
Starting with the deep south…Florida:
In Florida, Pregnant Women Cover Up and Stay Inside Amid Zika Fears – The New York Times
Moving westward…Civil suit will cost parents of Ga. teen found dead in gym mat – NY Daily News
Trump has been causing the usual fuck ups at campaign rallies in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan…
Being Donald Trump Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry
Trump’s Second Amendment Comment Is Part of an Ongoing and Troubling Trend
Trump To Black Voters: ‘What The Hell Do You Have To Lose?’
(Just a couple of more links on Trump that I have to include.)
Jerry Falwell Jr.: Trump is the Churchillian leader we need – The Washington Post
Churchillian? What the fuck is that?
Here is TPM’s take on that op/ed by Jerry Falwell Jr: Jerry Falwell Jr.: Americans Must Elect Trump Or ‘Suffer Dire Consequences’
Jerry Falwell Jr. penned a Washington Post op-ed posted Friday evening that compared Donald Trump to Winston Churchill and warned that Americans will “suffer dire consequences” if they don’t line up behind the GOP nominee.
“We are at a crossroads where our first priority must be saving our nation. We need a leader with qualities that resemble those of Winston Churchill, and I believe that leader is Donald Trump,” Falwell wrote.
Westward ho….to a new study out of Colorado: Contraception’s Role In Fighting Poverty
And in Washington State…Interracial Couple Allegedly Stabbed For Kissing by White Supremacist | LawNewz
Next up is a long read from the Grist: This California couple uses more water than all of the homes in Los Angeles | Grist
I don’t know I always find the topic of water rights laws interesting.
The Resnicks are the world’s biggest producers of pistachios and almonds, and they also hold vast groves of lemons, grapefruit, and navel oranges. All told, they claim to own America’s second-largest produce company, worth an estimated$4.2 billion.
The Resnicks have amassed this empire by following a simple agricultural precept: Crops need water. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of California’s byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the state’s water than any other family, farm, or company. They control more of it in some years than what’s used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.
Such an incredible stockpiling of the state’s most precious natural resource might have attracted more criticism were it not for the Resnicks’ progressive bona fides. Last year, the couple’s political and charitable donations topped $48 million. They’ve spent $15 million on the 2,500 residents of Lost Hills — roughly 600 of whom work for the couple — funding everything from sidewalks, parks, and playing fields to affordable housing, a preschool, and a health clinic.
Last year, the Resnicks rebranded all their holdings as the Wonderful Company to highlight their focus on healthy products and philanthropy. “Our company has always believed that success means doing well by doing good,” Stewart Resnick said in a press release announcing the name change. “That is why we place such importance on our extensive community outreach programs, education and health initiatives and sustainability efforts. We are deeply committed to doing our part to build a better world and inspiring others to do the same.”
But skeptics note that the Resnicks’ donations to Lost Hills began a few months after Earth Island Journal documented the yawning wealth gap between the couple and their company town, a dusty assemblage of trailer homes, dirt roads, and crumbling infrastructure. They claim the Resnicks’ influence among politicians and liberal celebrities is quietly warping California’s water policies away from the interests of the state’s residents, wildlife, and even most farmers. “I think the Wonderful Company and the Resnicks are truly the top 1 percent wrapped in a green veneer, in a veneer of social justice,” says Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of Restore the Delta, an advocacy group that represents farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, east of San Francisco. “If they truly cared about a sustainable California and farmworkers within their own community, then how things are structured and how they are done by the Wonderful Company would be much different.”
In other California news, Hearst Castle threatened by fast-moving Chimney Fire – LA Times
Keeping with the Go West…theme: vintage everyday: Girls of Western United States in the early 20th Century: The Real Cowgirls of American West
Cowgirl – It’s not just a word it is a way of life! The Beauty of a Cowgirl must be seen from her eyes because that is the doorway to her heart, her true beauty is reflected in her soul.
Here are what images of badass cowgirls in the early 20th century looked like.
And just a few more articles, dealing with worldly news:
Why a 1995 speech proved formative for Clinton | PBS NewsHour -This is a post about that famous speech of Clinton’s given in China in 1995.
Refugees in Greek camps targeted by mafia gangs | World news | The Guardian
Not so jovial after all: how historians misunderstood William the Conqueror | Books | The Guardian
That is all the links I have for you today…this is an open thread.
Wednesday Evening: Is it hot enough for you?
Posted: July 6, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Afternoon Reads, Republican politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights 6 Comments
Good evening!
I’ve got several links for you today, on various topics…some have more bearing than others.
So many of the newsy links today are news to me…it is embarrassing. (This past week…I’ve purposely have avoided all the internet.) In fact, the loudest news today is from Baton Rouge. I must admit, I have been in the dark regarding this latest shooting and killing of a black man by a white police officer.
Sterling was shot and killed early Tuesday morning after police responded to a
complaint about an armed man threatening people outside a convenience store. Cell phone video showing Sterling on the ground, underneath two officers, when he was killed, began circulating online early Tuesday evening. By the end of the night, the outrage was rippling nationwide.
Baton Rouge police, the local district attorney, and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), who called the video “disturbing,” announced Wednesday morning that federal officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office and the Department of Justice would investigate Sterling’s death.
About an hour later, Baton Rouge police chief Carl Dabadie named both officers who had been involved in the shooting: Blane Salamoni, a four-year veteran from a prominent local law enforcement family, and Howie Lake, a three-year veteran of the department.
“We want to know what happened, we want to know the truth,” said Dabadie, who did not clarify which officer fired the fatal shots. “At this point, like you, I am demanding answers, like you all, my prayers are with this community and the family and loved ones of Mr Sterling.”
Questions abound as to the circumstances of Sterling’s death, which was the 505th fatal police shooting by an on-duty officer in 2016, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings. And, as has been the case after dozens of other fatal police shootings in recent years, the first versions of what happened are coming more from a video showing a fragment of the incident than from police.
Taken out of this case alone, the fact that this is the 505th fatal police shooting by an on-duty officer in 2016 should make anyone take a moment to stop and maintain on that number.
“If you look at the video, it certainly speaks for itself,” said state Rep. Edmond Jordan, an attorney representing Sterling’s family, during a news conference Wednesday morning. “Mr. Sterling was not reaching for a weapon. He looks like a man who is trying to get his head up, who is actually fighting for his life. A life that ended immediately thereafter, almost as if he knew what was about to happen.”
The cellphone video of the incident began with police standing a few feet from Sterling. A loud pop — like that of a stun gun — can be heard.
“Get on the ground!” a police officer yelled.
“Get on the ground!” the voice yelled again, followed by a second pop.
Sterling, a large man, remained on his feet.
A police officer tackled him over the hood of a silver car, then onto the ground.
Meanwhile, another restrained his left arm behind his back and knelt on it.
“He’s got a gun!” someone yelled.
“Gun! Gun!”
Both officers drew their pistols from their holsters. In the video, Sterling appeared to be fairly immobile.
Then, the officers shouted something unintelligible, which seemed to include the phrase “going for the gun.”
Two noises that sounded like shots rang out immediately after.
Whoever filmed the video then dropped the cellphone.
“Oh, s—,” someone said.
Three more shot-like sounds rang out.
“They shot him?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my f—ing goodness.”
Sterling was pronounced dead on the scene when an ambulance arrived at 12:46 a.m. East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner William “Beau” Clark said in an email that the initial autopsy reports concluded Sterling suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back.
Read more if you want, at the link above.
Here are a few other stories on this shooting:
This link has a few videos: ‘He’s got a gun! Gun’: Video shows fatal confrontation between Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge police officer | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Another Video of Alton Sterling’s Public Execution
Issa Rae Starts Scholarship Fund For Alton Sterling’s Children
Alton Sterling: police appear to take gun from body after fatal shooting | US news | The Guardian
Hey, did y’all hear about the big lawsuit over at Fox! Check this out:
Gretchen Carlson, a broadcast veteran, claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit that she was let go from Fox News on June 23 as retaliation for rebuffing Roger Ailes’ sexual advances.The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in New Jersey Superior Court, states that her contract expired, and that despite working at Fox News for 11 years and being the host of a show that was leading in its afternoon time slot, she was unfairly terminated as the result of events much earlier.
Hmmmm…remember that she spoke her mind after the Orlando Pulse massacre.
According to the complaint, “When Carlson met with Ailes to discuss the discriminatory treatment to which she was being subjected, Ailes stated: ‘I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better,’ adding that ‘sometimes problems are easier to solve’ that way. Carlson rebuffed Ailes’ sexual demands at that meeting, and nine months later, Ailes ended her career at Fox News.”
I didn’t know they fired her recently, did you? Wonkette refers to Doocy as the “rapey one” so this sort of fits:
In 2009, Carlson says she complained to a supervisor that Steve Doocy, one of her co-hosts on Fox & Friends, “had created a hostile work environment by regularly treating her in a sexist and condescending way, including by putting his hand on her and pulling down her arm to shush her during a live telecast.”
Carlson accuses Doocy of “severe and pervasive sexual harassment” off the air and “generally attempting to put her in her place by refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop.”
More about this turn of events here:
Gretchen Carlson files sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News CEO Roger Ailes – POLITICO
Inside Gretchen Carlson’s Lawsuit Against Roger Ailes – The Atlantic
So the sentence has been handed down in South Africa: Oscar Pistorius Sentenced to 6 Years in Reeva Steenkamp Murder – The New York Times
Has Oscar Pistorius got off lightly with six-year sentence? – BBC News
And here is some sad news, on a captive who did not “get off lightly” …it looks like Chelsea Manning tried to commit suicide: Chelsea Manning, convicted in WikiLeaks case, hospitalized after reported suicide attempt – The Washington Post
Down in Florida, the Zika virus is becoming a daily news story, as more babies are being born with the virus. I found this story interesting however: One Zika twin has microcephaly; the other doesn’t. But why? – CNN.com
Jacqueline Silva de Oliveira sits on the edge of her bed, holding her 6-month-old son, Lucas. He squirms in her arms before he finally screams out, hungry and demanding milk.
His twin sister, Laura, barely notices, just a slight nod and a twitch of her eyes. Half his size, she is quiet, asleep on the other end of the bed, as she often is. When she wakes, even her cries seem to struggle from her throat. She can’t breastfeed. She can barely hold up her small head. She has microcephaly.
Amid Zika Crisis, House GOP Proposes Eliminating Birth Control Program
Well, what do you expect?
In other news…Immigrant Rights Groups Call for Moratorium on Deportations After Supreme Court Ruling – Rewire
Pope Francis Can Begin By Apologizing For His Own Hateful Words Against Gays
‘Gay is not okay’ Iowa church claims free speech right to ban trans worshipers from bathroom
Unmasking Alzheimer’s disease risk in young adults – CNN.com
And my last link for you tonight…Why are people starting to believe in UFOs again?
In the 1990s were a high-water mark for public interest in UFOs and alien abduction. Shows like “The X-Files” and Fox’s “alien autopsy” hoax were prime-time events, while MIT even hosted an academic conference on the abduction phenomenon.
But in the first decade of the 21st century, interest in UFOs began to wane. Fewer sightings were reported, and established amateur research groups like the British Flying Saucer Bureau disbanded.
In 2006 historian Ben Macintyre suggested in The Times that the internet had “chased off” the UFOs. The web’s free-flowing, easy exchange of ideas and information had allowed UFO skeptics to prevail, and, to Macintyre, people were no longer seeing UFOs because they no longer believed in them.
Data seemed to back up Macintyre’s argument that, when it came to belief in UFOs, reason was winning out. A 1990 Gallup poll found that 27 percent of Americans believed “extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth at some time in the past.” That number rose to 33 percent in 2001, before dropping back to 24 percent in 2005.
But now “The X-Files” is back, and Hillary Clinton has even pledged to disclose what the government knows about aliens if elected president. Meanwhile, a recent Boston Globe article by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie suggests that belief in UFOs may begrowing.
She points to a 2015 Ipsos poll, which reported that 45 percent of Americans believe extraterrestrials have visited the Earth.
So much for reason.
Why does Western society continue to be fascinated with the paranormal? If science doesn’t automatically kill belief in UFOs, why do reports of UFOs and alien abductions go in and out of fashion?
To some extent, this is political. Even though government agents like “Men in Black” may be the stuff of folklore, powerful people and institutions can influence the level of stigma surrounding these topics.
You can read the rest of the story at the link.
So what are y’all doing this hot summer evening?
Wednesday Reads: Appearance is everything
Posted: June 29, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, abortion rights, Afternoon Reads, American Gun Fetish, court rulings, Democratic Politics, Great Britain, Gun Control, legislation, Planned Parenthood, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, SCOTUS, the GOP, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: homeless children 13 Comments
Abortion Ruling: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Paul Fell
Ah, good afternoon!
It has been a while since we took a look at the offerings of political cartoonist, so I thought today would be a good day for that…and in all honesty, there is another reason, things have been moving quickly with my parent’s closing (it is now pushed to the 6th) so there is plenty to do. (But it is a good plenty…)
First I will start with this video from UNICEF, posted on Huffington Post Facebook page,
Some of you may have seen this…if you haven’t please take the few minutes to watch it in full.
If you cannot see the embedded video, here is a link to the page: The Huffington Post
Those fuckers made that little girl cry.
Many of the cartoons today mention the ruling regarding SCOTUS smackdown of Texas Anti-abortion law HB-2. In relation to this, Vox has an article: It could take years for Texas abortion clinics to reopen, even after a Supreme Court victory – Vox
Pro-choice advocates won a huge victory on Monday when the Supreme Court struck down two major anti-abortion laws in Texas inWhole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Those laws, part of an omnibus anti-abortion bill called HB 2, were responsible for closing about half of all abortion clinics in Texas.
Before HB 2 passed in 2013, Texas had 41 open clinics. Today there are 19. If the Court had ruled to uphold the restrictions, that number would have shrunk to nine. So it’s no surprise that lead plaintiff Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO and founder of Whole Woman’s Health, said she was “beyond elated” by the ruling.
But, Hagstrom Miller said in a recent interview with Vox, a victory at the Supreme Court is really just the beginning for abortion providers in Texas. Not only are other restrictions, like a 20-week abortion ban and limits on medication abortion, still in place in Texas but HB 2 has also done lasting damage to abortion access that could take years to repair, if it can be repaired at all.
It turns out, according to the Vox report…
The closed clinics can’t just reopen overnight, and some might never reopen
Well, I realized that they would not reopen with a snap of the fingers, but that some may never reopen, that just is salt in wounds.
Then there was this, from the NY Times: Abortion Ruling Could Create Waves of Legal Challenges – The New York Times
From Texas to Alabama to Wisconsin, more than a dozen Republican-run states in recent years have passed laws requiring that abortion clinics have hospital-grade facilities or use doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Now, Monday’s Supreme Court ruling — that those provisions in a Texas law do not protect women’s health and place an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion — will quickly reverberate across the country.
It will prevent the threatened shutdown of clinics in some states, especially in the Deep South, that have been operating in a legal limbo, with Texas-style laws on temporary hold. But legal experts said the effect over time was likely to be wider, potentially giving momentum to dozens of legal challenges, including to laws that restrict abortions with medication or ban certain surgical methods.
“The ruling deals a crushing blow to this most recent wave of state efforts to shut off access to abortion through hyper-regulation,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School.
Adopting stringent regulations on abortion clinics and doctors that are said to be about protecting women’s health has been one of the anti-abortion movement’s most successful efforts, imposing large expenses on some clinics, forcing others to close and making it harder for women in some regions to obtain abortions. Republicans like Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who deplored Monday’s ruling, argued that they were requiring clinics to “be held to the same standards as other medical facilities.”
Now, the court has ruled that any such requirements must be based on convincing medical evidence that the rules are solving a real health issue to be weighed by a court, not by ideologically driven legislators — and that the benefits must outweigh the burdens imposed on women’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Take a look at that article, because it highlights a few states that currently have abortion laws going into effect on July 1st…which could now be seen in a different light since the Monday ruling.
One more link before the cartoons…I just think this is funny: Why Do Monkeys Become More Selective With Friends As They Age, Just Like Humans? : SCIENCE : Tech Times
Scientists from the German Primate Center wanted to know how age affected the behavior of more than 100 Barbary macaques kept in an enclosure in a park in France.
They investigated how the monkeys – whose ages ranged from 4 to 29 years (equivalent to 105 human years) – reacted to physical objects such as novel toys and tubes with food, social interactions such as fighting and grooming “friends” and new social information, such as calls and photos of “friends” and “strangers.”
Researchers discovered that the interest of Barbary macaques in toys wane when they become adults. At around 20 or the retirement age of monkeys, these animals approached fewer monkeys and had less social contact.
What surprised scientists is that this obvious withdrawal was not prompted by a social affinity to avoid old monkeys. Younger ones still groomed and approached their elders.
It also wasn’t because older monkeys were not interested in anything at all. Scientists found that older monkeys still hissed to others during fights and still responded to photos of others.
These older monkeys are still attuned to what is going on around them, but they do not want to participate, says Julia Fischer, one of the researchers of the study.
They hissed? Could this be a monkey’s way of saying, get off my lawn?
The dominant psychological theory that could explain why this behavior happens in humans is that they want to maximize the time they have left with death on the horizon.
Fischer says although monkeys have excellent memories, there is no evidence that they are self-aware about their impending deaths. So if both monkeys and humans act this way as they age, the theory may be rationalizing a natural behavior with biological roots, she says.
Alexandra Freund, Fischer’s co-researcher, says the findings of the study clearly tell us that we are not distinctive in how we grow into old age.
“There might be an evolutionary ‘deep’ root in this pattern,” says Freund.
There is a bit more at the link, along with some other sources and connections to the published study.
And now the funnies…
Starting with Luckovich…06/17 Mike Luckovich: Losing letters. | Mike Luckovich
From June, published around the 17th.
06/22 Mike Luckovich:Hair today… | Mike Luckovich
Signe Wilkinson: Abortion Clinic – Truthdig
Clay Bennett: Brexit Lifeboat – Clay Bennett – Truthdig
Jeff Danziger: Another Benefit of Brexit – Jeff Danziger – Truthdig
Jeff Danziger: Brexit Racism – Jeff Danziger – Truthdig
From Cagle Cartoons, click to see the toon:
This is a good one: Brexit
Brexit ….a different one, but the same name.
Brexit …another one with the same name, but different, and damn good.
And the rest from the AAEC:
George Will splits from GOP: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by J.D. Crowe
06/28/2016 Cartoon by MStreeter
Brexit and Trump: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Steve Greenberg
Undue Burden: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Rob Rogers
GOP Sit-In: 06/24/2016 Cartoon by Rob Rogers
Great Britain Great Again: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by A.F.Branco
The above cartoon is from a right wing cartoonist btw….so that is not a sarcastic cartoon. It is in fact a glorification. To see more from this cartoonist…cough, cough: AAEC — Political Cartoons by A.F.Branco Because I will not put up a sample of his other shit. (Now, I bet that gives ya the creeps. As it gave me…at least check this one out: Eye To Eye: 06/26/2016 Cartoon by A.F.Branco)
The Bowtie Rebellion: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Jen Sorensen
SUPREME COURT v TEXAS ABORTION LAWS: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Deb Milbrath
John Lewis sit-in: 06/29/2016 Cartoon by Deb Milbrath
Brexit: 06/28/2016 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
Smoking gun: 06/29/2016 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
Pulse shooting: 06/15/2016 Cartoon by Adam Zyglis
That is an older cartoon, but I thought it was a good one and should be included.
06/28/2016 Cartoon by Matt Wuerker
06/23/2016 Cartoon by Matt Wuerker
06/13/2016 Cartoon by Matt Wuerker
American Community: 06/29/2016 Cartoon by Angelo Lopez
06/29/2016 Cartoon by Joe Heller
06/27/2016 Cartoon by Joe Heller
06/29/2016 Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies
06/29/2016 Cartoon by Joel Pett
Pat Summitt Tribute: 06/29/2016 Cartoon by J.D. Crowe
This is an open thread…
Monday Reads: The Supremes Speak
Posted: June 20, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, SCOTUS, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: Clarence Thomas, SCOTUS, Texas Trap Laws 26 CommentsGood Afternoon!
I’m in an absolute haze from a summer cold that popped up yesterday and sent me directly to bed. I’m trying to write and work right now
but it’s not easy at all. I want to try to discuss a lot of upcoming things that will be important including the SCOTUS decision on the Texas Trap laws regarding abortion and abortion clinics. These law certainly create an undue burden and they reflect specific religious view rather than medical or biological science. Here’s a few reads to prepare us all because it’s important for all of us to understand this basic constitutional right.
Abortion opponents regularly talk as though no restriction is off the table when it comes to stripping away reproductive rights. And supporters of abortion rights don’t always set them straight. If we don’t know what our established rights are, we can’t defend them. Pro-choicers need to know why abortion is a constitutional right and what boundaries the U.S. Supreme Court has set out to protect it.
1. Abortion is protected by the rights to bodily integrity and to make decisions about family. The Court explained that decades ago.
The 14th Amendment prohibits states from depriving a person of liberty without due process of law. A person has the right to end a pregnancy without undue interference from the government because that right to liberty includes (1) the right to make decisions about family and (2) the right to bodily integrity.
However, in order to portray abortion rights as illegitimate, conservatives like to argue—inaccurately—that the Court legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade by inventing a right to privacy that is not grounded in the Constitution’s actual text.
In the pre-Roe contraception case Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court did hold that “penumbras, formed by emanations” or various interpretations of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments protect a right to privacy. But in deciding Roe, the Warren court located the right to privacy in the 14th Amendment’s explicit protection of the right to liberty. Regardless, the Court’s understanding of the rights that protect reproductive freedom expanded beyond just privacy decades ago.
Privacy is barely mentioned in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which established the current law governing abortion rights more than 20 years ago. “The controlling word in the cases before us is ‘liberty,’” the decision explained. It was settled law prior to Roe that liberty includes “the right to make family decisions and the right to physical autonomy.”
Privacy is also a constitutional right, and it was indeed violated by the laws at issue in Roe and its companion case,Doe v. Bolton. Those laws required a woman seeking an abortion to share her reasons for wanting the procedure with legal or medical authorities to have any hope of receiving legal abortion care. However, the law and discourse around privacy at the time of Roe implied a woman should be permitted to use contraception or end a pregnancy because the state should not interfere in decisions made in secret with the permission of her doctor, husband, father, pastor, or others. Casey instead properly recognized that the 14th Amendment protects a person’s right to control her body and destiny.
So why has the idea persisted that all we’ve got is a privacy right made up out of thin air? A counterintuitive and less textually based right serves abortion opponents, but abortion rights advocates also have a history of telling us abortion restrictions are primarily a threat to privacy. As William Saletan documented in Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the War on Abortion, in the run-up to Casey, pro-choice leaders emphasized privacy on the advice of pollsters and political consultants to appeal to anti-government, anti-welfare, anti-tax, and anti-integration sentiments. While reproductive rights lawyers argued to the Supreme Court that the Constitution’s protection of autonomy, bodily integrity, and equality protected abortion access, outside of court pro-choice leaders told the public the right at stake was privacy. But, ultimately, the Casey decision provided a much fuller discussion of why abortion is constitutionally protected by rights beyond privacy.
Abortion is protected by the due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment (which restricts the federal government) and the 14th Amendment (which was added to the Constitution to restrict the states). As Casey explained, “It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.” Using the force of law to compel a person to use her body against her will to bring a pregnancy to term is a violation of her physical autonomy and decisional freedom—which the Constitution does not allow.
Follow the link to read about the other two basic rights that include:” 2. Any pre-viability ban is unconstitutional. Period.” and “3. Casey‘s “undue burden” standard is a meaningful protection of abortion rights when courts apply it properly.”
There’s no doubt that the Texas Trap Law creates an “undue” burden. Clinic closures have left the few remaining clinics overwhelmed.
The war on abortion access in Texas has already fundamentally shifted the landscape of women’s lives in the state. Now, the fallout continues: The closure of Planned Parenthood (PP) clinics in the state—which once served as primary sources of reproductive health care for women there—has left the few clinics remaining in west Texas underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed by demand.
According to new research, 60 percent of women receiving a low salary who were of reproductive age accessed health care through PP before the cuts and defunding which took place in 2013. The majority of those patients have since been directed to Texas Tech University and Midland County Health Services (MCHS) after PP’s clinics in west Texas closed—increasing demand at an overwhelming rate for their capacity to provide services.
“There are women [who] need these services but can’t afford them and we see as many as we can,” Michael Austin, director of MCHS, told Women’s Health Policy Report. “But the state program to help these folks along has basically evaporated. So I’m afraid there are probably a lot of folks flying under the radar who need care and aren’t getting it.” Austin pointed to the challenges of seeking funding in a state that has “eliminated or severely messed up” many of their programs which provide reproductive health care to women.
In 2011, the Texas State Assembly passed legislation which blocked funding to women’s health clinics, including Planned Parenthood, and cut the state’s family planning budget by two-thirds. Two years later, the draconian anti-abortion bill known as HB2 was signed into law by Governor Rick Perry, putting in place numerous obstacles meant to shutter clinics and restrict women’s access to safe and legal abortion. HB2 requires that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital and clinics are licensed ambulatory centers. It also bans surgical abortion after 20 weeks and medication abortion after seven. (Medication abortion is the most cost- and time-effective abortion procedure.)
HB2’s impact was immediate and drastic. 82 percent of family planning clinics closed. The number of abortion practitioners decreased by over 75 percent. Over half of the clinics performing abortion closed, which in turn drastically increased the time it would take for women to make an appointment to 28 days— essentially rendering the option of medication abortion moot. When it comes to clinics, Texas is in crisis.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear the Connecticut law banning assault weapon as well as the challenge to other state laws. This
leaves the bans in place.
SCOTUS will look at certain key rights of jailed inmates that have illegal immigration status.
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will take up a case exploring when immigrants detained solely for immigration violations have the right to be released from jail.
The justices agreed to consider a federal appeals court decision that essentially found detained immigrants were entitled to a bond hearing after six months in custody and every six months thereafter.
The high court’s announcement comes as immigrant rights advocates are awaiting a Supreme Court decision on the legality of President Barack Obama’s executive actions granting quasi-legal status and work permits to millions of immigrants who entered or stayed in the U.S. illegally.
In that case, the Obama administration is aligned with most immigrants rights groups. However, in the case the court said Monday that it would take up, the Obama administration is pressing for fewer rights for detained immigrants. In fact, the administration is asking the justices to overturn the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that found immigrants have the right to regular review of their detention.
The newly-accepted case, Jennings v. Rodriguez, could also explore when immigrants accused of ties to terrorism have to be released if authorities are having difficulty deporting them.
SCOTUS blog has some basic information on the remaining cases in the docket. Here’s a few of the remaining 13.
Between tomorrow morning, when the Justices will take the bench at ten o’clock, and the end of June, the Court is expected to issue thirteen rulings in cases involving everything from tribal-court jurisdiction to abortion, immigration, and the scope of federal laws prohibiting political corruption. Here are summaries of each pending case:
Dollar General Stores v. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (argued December 7, 2015). This case stems from accusations by a thirteen-year-old member of the tribe that a manager at a Dollar General store within the tribe’s reservation had sexually molested him while the boy was interning at the store. The child and his parents filed a lawsuit against the manager and the store in tribal court, arguing that the store was liable for the manager’s conduct. The issue before the Court is whether the tribal court has jurisdiction over tort claims against defendants, like Dollar General, who are not members of the tribe.
Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (argued December 9, 2015). This case, a challenge to the university’s consideration of race in its undergraduate admissions process, is on its second trip to the Court. In 2013, the Court sent the case back to the lower courts for a more critical look at whether the university really needed to consider race to achieve a diverse student body. After the Fifth Circuit once again upheld the policy, the Court agreed to weigh in. Unlike some of the Court’s other high-profile cases this Term, no one expects the Court to deadlock: Justice Elena Kagan is not participating, which in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death leaves the Court with just seven Justices to decide the case.
Utah v. Strieff (argued February 22, 2016). When a police officer stops a pedestrian in violation of the law, asks him for identification, discovers that there is a traffic warrant for his arrest, arrests him, and in the process of searching him discovers drug paraphernalia and methamphetamines, can the evidence found in the search of the pedestrian be used against him? Edward Strieff argues that it cannot: because the police officer’s stop was illegal, then anything obtained as a result of the stop is also tainted. The state, on the other hand, contends that the evidence should be admitted because it resulted from the lawful warrant for his arrest, rather than the illegal stop.
Taylor v. United States (argued February 23, 2016). The petitioner in this case, David Taylor, was part of a Virginia gang that robbed drug dealers. The two robberies that led to this case, however, did not yield any drugs – only cellphones, jewelry, and a small amount of money. Taylor was indicted on federal charges that he had violated the Hobbs Act, which punishes robberies and extortion but applies only when the defendant “obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce.” The question before the Court is whether the federal government is required to prove facts to show that the defendant’s conduct actually affects commerce.
Voisine v. United States (argued February 29, 2016). Stephen Voisine and William Armstrong, the other petitioner in this case, both pleaded guilty in state court to misdemeanor assaults on their respective domestic partners. Several years later, each man was charged with violating a federal law that prohibits the possession of firearms and ammunition by individuals who have previously been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Voisine and Armstrong contend their state convictions do not automatically qualify as misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence because the state-law provisions can be violated by conduct that is merely reckless, rather than intentional.
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (argued March 2, 2016). This is a challenge to the constitutionality of two provisions of a Texas law regulating abortion in that state. One provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have privileges to admit patients to a local hospital; the other requires abortion clinics to have facilities that are comparable to outpatient surgical centers. Texas contends that these new laws are constitutional because they were intended to protect women’s health, while the challengers argue that the law was actually intended to close most clinics and therefore limit women’s access to abortions.
RJR Nabisco v. The European Community (argued March 21, 2016). The issue in this case is whether and to what extent the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a 1970 law that was originally enacted to target organized crime, applies outside the United States. The European Community filed a lawsuit in the United States, seeking to hold RJR liable for what it says is the company’s role in an international money-laundering plot that harmed European countries. RJR counters that nothing in the law suggests that Congress intended it to apply to a situation like this. Justice Samuel Alito is almost certainly writing the Court’s opinion in this case, because he is the only Justice who has not yet written for the Court’s March sitting; based on the oral argument, that could bode well for RJR.
United States v. Texas (argued April 18, 2016). This case is a challenge to an Obama administration policy, announced in November 2014, that would allow some undocumented immigrants to apply to stay in the country and work legally for three years. Before the policy could go into effect, Texas and a large group of other states went to court to block its implementation, arguing that the administration lacks the authority to issue a policy like this. But before the Supreme Court can weigh in on that question, it will also have to agree that the states have the legal right, known as “standing,” to challenge the policy at all; the lower courts ruled that they did, because at least Texas would incur additional costs from the undocumented immigrants who would become eligible for driver’s licenses if the policy goes into effect.
Birchfield v. North Dakota (argued April 20, 2016). Twelve states and the National Park Service impose criminal penalties on suspected drunk drivers who refuse to submit to testing to measure their blood-alcohol levels. The question before the Court is whether those penalties violate the Fourth Amendment, which only allows police to “search” someone if they have a warrant or one of a handful of exceptions to the warrant requirement applies. Three drivers from North Dakota and Minnesota argue that neither of those conditions is met, and so the laws must fall.
Encino Motorcars v. Navarro (argued April 20, 2016). This case requires the Court to weigh in on the interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which generally requires employers to pay overtime to employees who work for more than forty hours in a week but also contains a variety of exceptions – including for a salesman whose primary job is selling or servicing cars. The respondents in this case are service advisors at a car dealership, who argue that they are not included in the exemption and are therefore entitled to overtime.
You can check out the rest on the link to SCOTUS blog. So, there’s a lot of interesting things coming down the pipe. We’ll definitely be following a lot of them.
There’s one piece of SCOTUS gossip that you might be interested in today. Check out this lede by David Badash: “DC Insider Report SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas Thinking of Retiring Throws Twitter Into Frenzy.”
The Washington Examiner Sunday afternoon posted a piece by DC insider columnist Paul Bedard that claims uber-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “is mulling retirement after the presidential election, according to court watchers.” Those “court watchers” of course are unnamed, so the actual source of the claim is unknown.
It could be true, it could be false, but the implications of course are tremendous. Assuming Republicans in the Senate successfully keeps their vow to not confirm any SCOTUS justice nominated by President Obama, and wait until the next president takes office, this would mean the next president would automatically nominate not one but two justices to the nation’s top court, controlling its destiny for decades.
So naturally, Clarence Thomas began trending on Twitter.
Follow the link for the Twitter Frenzy.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
h/t to Delphyne
Wednesday Reads: Chubby Sh-h-h….
Posted: June 15, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, open thread, Republican politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: #FuckYouBernieSanders, 2016 Hillary Clinton, Brock Turner, Donald Trump WTF, Omar Mateen, Pulse Nightclub Shooting 23 Comments
Good Morning…
…maybe afternoon.
Hey….what does Hillary say?
—————————>
(It looks like her…doesn’t it!)
And by all accounts, she will have a few outcast among those in the “Fan” base.
Can you believe that Sanders is still swinging his figurative big dick around?
Hillary Clinton won the D.C. primary primary last night, by around 60 points. It’s over over. For real over. No more pretending it’s not over. It’s done.
Clinton and Bernie Sanders (and key members of their teams) met for a chat last night, and it sounds like the least fun meeting ever! I have never read about a meeting that I was more glad to have not attended!
Relatedly: My top secret sources tell me that Sanders didn’t like THE ESTABLISHMENT that Clinton chose for their meeting.
Sanders still in the race after meeting with Clinton | TheHill
Bernie Sanders is staying in the Democratic presidential race after meeting with rival Hillary Clinton, the party’s presumptive nominee, for nearly two hours at a Washington, D.C., hotel on Tuesday night.
Sanders and Clinton met at the Capital Hilton just blocks from the White House to plot a way forward after the Democratic primary season came to a close on Tuesday.
Neither took questions from press after the meeting. They were whisked away in black cars behind the protection of legions of security guards and campaign aides.
Sanders and his little chubby…
Sanders and his wife Jane went in and out of the front entrance of the hotel, which was lined with cheering onlookers who snapped pictures and yelled out his name. Campaign manager Jeff Weaver also attended the meeting.
Clinton went in and out of the back entrance to little fanfare. She was joined by campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook.
The Sanders campaign released a statement late Tuesday night saying the group had “a positive discussion about how best to bring more people into the political process and about the dangerous threat that Donald Trump poses to our nation.”
Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said there are still a variety of issues where they are “seeking common ground,” including raising the minimum wage, campaign finance reform, universal healthcare and more affordable college tuition.
“Sanders and Clinton agreed to continue working to develop a progressive agenda that addresses the needs of working families and the middle class and adopting a progressive platform for the Democratic National Convention,” Briggs said in the statement.
See, Sanders and wife Jane went out the front door…Clinton was taken out the back way. What the fuck is that all about?
More on this Sanders shit:
No More Mister Nice Blog: Brass Balls, Huge Ego. No, Not Trump.
Bernie’s scaring me…Cannonfire
Although I must give credit where it is due…and someone at Fox News was definitely swinging some big dick yesterday, and she sure surprised me!
Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson Accidentally Forgot To Be Stupid Again | Wonkette
“There’s no doubt Omar Mateen was able to kill so many people because he was firing an AR-15,” Carlson said. “A military-style assault weapon, a weapon easier to buy in the state of Florida than buying a handgun. Florida sets a three day waiting period for purchasing handguns, but the state mandates no waiting period for any gun that requires two hands to hold.”
She then pointed to a recent poll showing that 50% of Americans support an assault weapons ban.
“Do we need AR-15s to hunt and kill deer? Do we need them to protect our families?” she asked. “I’m in favor of people being able to carry. I think some of these mass shooting would have been less deadly if that were the case.”
“But I’m also with the majority today, taking a stand,” Carlson said, referring to the ban.
“Can’t we hold true the sanctity of the Second Amendment while still having common sense?”
As Wonkette makes a point, this isn’t the first time Gretchen has shown some decency…the last time was a moment five years ago on the curvy couch:
Do you remember when stupid old Barack Obama had absolutely nothing to do with killing Osama bin Laden? In the aftermath, one of the complaints (besides the fact that stupid old Barack Obama acted like he had anything at all to do with killing Osama bin Laden) was that bin Laden had been given Muslim ceremonial rites before becoming food for the fishies. This is because the mental giants at Fox were very angry, we guess, that Osama bin Laden was dead. Wait no, that can’t be right. It was because they had to be angry about SOMETHING. ANYWAY, there they were, all het up that Barack Obama hadn’t personally pissed on bin Laden’s corpse, which he definitely had nothing to do with killing, Calvin-styley.
“Shoulda peed on him,” said the rapey one.
“Or made a doody!” said the stupid one.And that’s when Gretchen Carlson’s head spun around on her body three times, her eyes became insane Michele Bachmann eyes, and actual devils came out of her mouth as she actually YELLED that YOU GIVE THE PERSON THEIR PROPER RELIGIOUS BURIAL RITES.
“Whoa,” we said to ourselves but not out loud, “Gretchen Carlson actually takes religious liberty seriously, good for her!” Then we went back to masturbating with a copy of the Satanic Bible.
Now normally I would be bothered by the reference of calling a woman stupid in that blog title…but remember, in the light of some of the outrageous things this woman has said before…I think it fits.
And since this post is becoming theme-like in a sense, in that I am focusing on dickless wonders who need to compensate by beating their chest and violating all sorts of sensible behavior and humanity (more on that in a minute unfortunately). Here is yet another example of a woman with balls, giving it up but good:
Just watch it…
(Oh and by the way, if you want to…remember a while back I wrote about Florida and the mental health facilities…it was a series of articles published by The Tampa Times. Well, Sam Bee also did a piece on that the same night she did the Orlando bit. It is here if you want to see it. Florida’s Mental Health | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee | TBS – YouTube)
Anyway, here are the links I was talking about…the big swinging dick waving asshole news, in full dump fashion.
WV ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Murders Three With AR-15 | Crooks and Liars
Everything changes when an AR-15 is present. Everything.
Monday there was another mass shooting in West Virginia, which turns out to have been a sovereign citizen who had a dispute with his neighbors over firewood. Instead of resolving the matter peacefully, he pulled out an AR-15 and shot them all to death.
No, really. Over firewood.
Balkinization: Great Speeches in American History Delivered by Donald Trump
Washington’s Farewell Address: “Today I’m announcing my candidacy for a third term, as I am indispensable.”
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: “With malice toward all, with charity for none, let us give these Confederate traitors what they deserve.”
FDR’s First Inaugural: “Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.”
John F. Kennedy’s First Inaugural: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what your country can do for me.”
Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Republican Convention Speech: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Ronald Reagan’s Challenger Speech: “Tonight I want to talk to you about the losers who run NASA and blew up our space shuttle.”
Okay, he didn’t actually say those things…but here is something Trump did say:
Trump accuses Obama of siding with U.S. enemies | MSNBC
Trump adopted a self-congratulatory posture about the deadliest mass shooting in American history; Trump said President Obama should resign because he won’t use the anti-Muslim phrasing Republicans like to hear; Trump suggested the president might be a terrorist sympathizer; Trump stripped the Washington Post of its press credentials; and Trumpdelivered a nauseating and brazenly dishonest speech demanding a ban on Muslims entering the country and targeting American Muslims’ loyalties.And really, that’s just a sampling – from the last five days.Yesterday, after President Obama made Trump’s rhetoric look ridiculous, the Republican candidate responded in the most Trump-like fashion possible, telling the Associated Press:“President Obama claims to know our enemy, and yet he continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies, and for that matter, the American people.“When I am President, it will always be America First.”The Atlantic’s James Fallows noted soon after, “Saying that the Commander in Chief has prioritized the enemy’s interests is an accusation of treason…. I am not aware of any previous case, whatsoever, of a national-ticket candidate publicly accusing a president or presidential nominee of a capital offense.”
NC Trump Rally Account Is The Scariest Thing You’ll Read Today | Crooks and Liars
New Evidence Donald Trump Didn’t Pay Taxes – The Daily Beast
Donald Trump in Atlanta: Gov. Nathan Deal cautious at fund raiser | Political Insider blog
Donald Trump in Atlanta: Supporters gather at the Fox Theatre | Political Insider blog– Check out the picture at that link…it is enough to give you nightmares.
In other related news…on the dominate male dick show part…Judge Aaron Persky removed from sexual assault case amid complaints after Brock Turner verdict
Man who called Orlando shooting ‘community service’ loses… | www.ajc.com
And…for all those with little chubbies…Maddow shows how frighteningly easy it was for Orlando shooter to get gun inside the club
“In terms of understanding what happened inside that dark nightclub at 2:00 in the morning Sunday and how one guy was able to kill 49 other people and wound at least that many, it helps to know and I think it’s chilling to know that one of the things that this American gun company markets about this gun is that it is super easy to fire,” Maddow said in footage posted by Media Matters. “It’s easier to fire than an AR-15. And it fires faster and with less kick than your standard AR-15.”
Maddow showed footage of the commercial promoting the Sig Sauer MCX, which she said was confirmed as the weapon used in the rampage on Saturday night. The ad shows a lone gunman making his way through a dimly-lit room firing the rifle, and highlights the fact that it can be folded up.
“They fall all over themselves in their marketing material to say how much respect they as a company have for the military and for law enforcement personnel,” she said. “They say they make these guns as great as possible because they know police officers and soldiers’ lives are depending on these guns. And then they sell them to the general public. They sell them to anybody who walks in off the street. They’re legal for just about anyone to buy.”
She also pointed out that she has shot AR-15 rifles at shooting ranges in the past.
“One of the things that is unnerving about it is that when you hold one and when you fire it, it’s light enough and controllable enough and easy enough to handle and use, that literally a four-year old or a five-year old could reasonable handle one, and fire in the right direction,” she said. “It’s a very easy-to-use weapon that’s very light and very easy to handle and that doesn’t kick much when you pull the trigger. This Sig Sauer MCX is designed to be even easier to fire than that.”
And in another article…
Helen Ubinas: I bought an AR-15 assault rifle in 7 minutes – SFGate
Seven minutes. That’s how long it took me to buy an AR-15, the semi-automatic rifle used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Seven minutes. From the moment I handed the salesperson my driver’s license to the moment I passed my background check.
It likely will take more time than that during the forthcoming round of vigils to respectfully read the names of the more than 100 people who were killed or injured.
It’s obscene.
Why can people on the terrorist watch list buy guns, and other FAQs | PBS NewsHour
Top doctors group declares gun deaths a ‘public health crisis’ | TheHill
Physicians Demand End To 20-Year-Old Ban On Gun Violence Research | ThinkProgress
I think that is a good group of links on the Gun Control issues.
In this next article… a sociological look at Mateen and Brock Turner: Two violent men, two symptoms of the same sickness
America woke up this weekend to the news of the deadliest civilian mass shooting in the nation’s history. The senseless tragedy will undoubtedly evoke anger, sadness and helplessness.
In the meantime, many will forget to think and talk about Stanford swimmer Brock Turner’s crime and his “summer vacation” jail sentence: three months for the vile sexual assault of an unconscious woman.
As a sociologist, I was struck not by the abrupt shift to a new moral crisis, but by the continuity. Sociologists look for the bigger picture, and in my mind, Mateen’s crime didn’t displace Turner’s. Yet the media simply replaced one outrage with another, moving our attention away from Stanford and toward Orlando, as if these two crimes were unrelated. They’re not.
In world news….
Avocado shortage fuels crime wave in New Zealand | World news | The Guardian
While here at home:
Michelle Obama’s Kick-Ass Lady Crew Celebrates ‘The United State Of Women’
Outside White House Women’s Summit, Activists Demand Executive Action on Abortion Law – Rewire
Yeah, go figure….
Hillary gave a speech today: In Pittsburgh Hillary Clinton Assails Donald Trump’s Magical Thinking | Still4Hill
And our last link…The world lights up in tribute to the lives lost in Orlando – in pictures | US news | The Guardian
Go and see all the pictures around the world…
Let’s call this an open thread…post what your thinking about.
Saturday Reads: white privilege and the enabling of rape culture
Posted: June 11, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, Rape Culture, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Vagina, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: Brock Turner, rape culture, violence against women 24 Comments
Good Afternoon!
(Rape and sexual assault trigger warnings)
I went to undergraduate school at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska where I immediately joined the University Women’s Action Group and followed the work I did in high school as a volunteer for what was the the nascent Rape Crisis line set up by the Junior League in Omaha. I had been assaulted in the choir room at my high school when I was a junior by two seniors. I was forcibly held down for a period of time and had bible verses and other things shouted at me. It made me realize how vulnerable every girl and woman is to the pack mentality of white men and boys with privilege who are taught by their parents, religions, coaches, teachers and friends to go out and grab anything they want because they are told they are the masters of the universe and entitled to go for it.
I worked hard to change the old laws in Nebraska when I hit college so that violent crimes against women and children would be removed from the Property Crimes Divisions of police departments, so that female police officers were assigned to victims, so that women didn’t need 3 witnesses to their assaults to even be considered assaulted rather than just telling tales, so that husbands could be found guilty of rape, and so that women’s sexual history and facts not pertinent to the rape would not be brought up to slander the victim in court. I taught basic self defense and lectured at sororities which mostly meant telling my peers to assume they’d be assaulted at some time so here’s ways to lower your risk.
I wound up helping a friend who had been raped in the stacks at the library through the legal process that re-victimized her. She was afraid to even report the rape since she had been smoking pot earlier in the evening. This was in the mid 1970s. My lecture to those girls was to basically warned them to avoid the male athletes; especially the football players and travel and stay in packs in well-lit areas. But how and why should you tell any student to avoid studying in the library? A serial rapist was later found to haunt there and it proves women can’t assume they are safe anywhere, and that thought rules our lives.
I had planned to be a lawyer at that time and the way the system treated women and children that were assaulted by men was at the top of my list of things I intended to change. At 60, a full forty years later after my core activism, I know now that even systemic changes do not change men like Judge Aaron Persky. He’s getting some blow back but, he just won another term. It also hasn’t apparently changed how many boys are raised in this country.
I’d like to think that my work at that time made women and children safer but then I read about Brock Turner, Stanford University where rapes are frequent , Turner’s parents, and our justice system that still metes out justice based on levels of privilege.
Yes, it’s that post. It’s where we confront a society that raises and enables rapists. We face a judge and court system that fails when it comes to privileged white males. My oldest daughter’s first labor day weekend at LSU turned into an ER visit when she was roofied at a local college bar and temporarily paralyzed. Fortunately, she was with other girls and some properly-raised boys took her to the hospital. Believe me, I never lectured my daughters on much of anything because my mother raised me in fear of all kinds of things like being captured for white slavery. You kinda stop listening to it after awhile and I never wanted that to happen so I chose my lectures carefully. I lectured my daughters on never, ever leaving their drinks uncovered or unattended at any time. Gigging in the French Quarter left me knowing that the tricks of Bill Cosby live on. Let me tell you about a local eye surgeon on that account … but that’s for another day.
The deal is that we still live in a world where many men think they have a right to anything they want including the bodies of women. To quote one of my favorite lyricists, “you have to be carefully taught.”
Well, it’s as good a day as any to discuss how a judge in California enabled a rapist after a jury of his peers delivered a guilty plea on 3 felony accounts. The six month sentence–which appears to look more like a three month sentence–has outraged the American Public. Follow this link to CNN for a good understanding of the basics of the case.
Please be aware that this post will contain information that may trigger visceral responses in any of our readers that have been sexually assaulted. I know that we have quite a few survivors here, so I want to make it clear that this post and the links may upset you.
Believe me, I’m amazed that our country is finally at the point where a sexual assault case can garner so much attention. I don’t know what got us to that point. I only know that it’s been a long time coming. One in five women and one in thirty three men will be the victims of sexual violence at least once in their lives. An American is sexually assaulted every two minutes. That is no small number.
The victim’s statement to Brock Turner, the former Stanford student convicted of sexually assaulting her, has been viewed online millions of times since last week. A CNN anchor read the statement, in full, on television. Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, read it aloud on the House floor. The case, which resulted in a six-month jail sentence and probation for Turner, has touched off furor among those who say the punishment is too light, and sparked vigorous debate about the intersection of sexual assault, privilege, and justice.
This is an astounding moment, in part because it’s so rare for sexual violence, despite its ubiquity, to garner this kind of attention.
“It’s incredible,” said Michele Dauber, a Stanford Law School professor who has pressed for the recall of the judge who sentenced Turner. “Why did that happen? First of all, it’s the tremendous power and clarity of thought that is reflected in the survivor’s statement.”
“She is helping people to understand this experience in a visceral and clear way,” Dauber added. “And she’s brushing away all the really toxic politics around campus assault that have built up. People have said, ‘How can we really believe these women? It’s his word against hers.’ This men’s rights movement has emerged. And there’s been a lot of rage happening out there. Then, whoosh, [this statement] really reframed it.”
It wasn’t just the statement. In March, Turner was convicted of three felony counts: sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and assault with an intent to commit rape. If it’s rare for someone to report a sexual assault in the first place, it’s even more unusual for that report to result in a conviction. In the vast majority of sexual assaults the perpetrators never serve time in prison—97 percent of cases, an analysis of Justice Department data by the anti-sexual violence advocacy group RAINN concludes.
Another unusual component of the case at Stanford: There were eyewitnesses. Two graduate students were riding their bikes through Stanford’s campus when they saw, “a man on the ground, thrusting toward a body,” The Mercury News reported in March.
We’ve found out some horrible things since the sentence was handed down. The parents wrote letters to the judge pleading for leniency that are so appallingly clueless and selfish that you wonder how this boy has not become a full blown sociopath. The letters fell on sympathetic ears, however, since the judge himself was a Stanford athlete at one time. I’ve linked to the mother’s newly released letter since the father’s has pretty much gone viral and we’ve discussed it already in some downthread conversations.
A letter to the judge from Brock Turner‘s mother calls the convicted rapist the “most trustworthy and honest person I know.”
The emergence of Carleen Turner‘s glowing assessment of her “beautiful son,” a former Stanford swimmer, comes after his victim’s letter went viral, his father’s letter sparked outrage, andBrock’s own statement maintained the encounter was consensual.
His mother’s letter depicts Brock as a model student and citizen, and she laments the misfortune that has struck her son:
My first thought upon wakening every morning is “this isn’t real, this can’t be real. Why him? Why HIM? WHY? WHY?”
She goes on to describe the devastating effect of this “awful, horrible, terrible, gut-wrenching, life-changing verdict” on her family:
My once vibrant and happy boy is distraught, deeply depressed, terribly wounded, and filled with despair. His smile is gone forever-that beautiful grin is no more. … We are devastated beyond belief. My beautiful, happy family will never know happiness again.
In her concluding plea for mercy, she says Brock isn’t tough enough to survive prison and would be a “target” for other inmates:
I beg of you, please don’t send him to jail/prison. Look at him. He won’t survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete- all the publicity……..this would be a death sentence for him.
This is from the mother of a convicted rapist worrying about her son being raped in prison. No one should be raped. EVER. Not even her rapist son deserves to be raped. But, really, how can anyone be so unaware of the suffering of her son’s rape victim and yet be so concerned about his potential rape? Here are some new developments found by the press since the story has garnered so much attention. Turner sent pictures of the rape victim’s breast to his friends.
Investigators believe Brock Turner may have photographed his assault victim’s breasts, then sent the pictures to a group of friends, the Daily Mail reported.
According to police, Turner received a text message via the GroupMe online app asking, “Who’s [sic] t*ts are those” from a fellow swimmer, identified as Justin Buck. However, the picture that prompted the question was deleted from the group chat by an unknown party.
A witness also told police that he saw a man standing over the victim holding his cell phone.
“The cell phone had a bright light pointed in the direction of the female, using either a flashlight app in his phone or its built-in app,” a police statement read.
The witness, identified as Blake Bolton, then “told the male subject to roll her over onto her side to breathe. The male subject did not do this. Bolton then got on his knees and checked her pulse. When he got back up, the male subject was gone.”
USA Swimming has banned Brock Turner for life. 
The U.S. governing body for the sport of swimming on Friday banned ex-Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner, whose six-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman has stirred widespread outrage.
Condemning Turner’s “crime and actions,” USA Swimming said that he is not a current organization member and is ineligible for membership.
“Brock Turner’s membership with USA Swimming expired at the end of the calendar year 2014 and he was not a member at the time of his crime or since then,” USA Swimming spokesman Scott Leightman said. “As a result, USA Swimming doesn’t have any jurisdiction over Brock Turner.”
Court documents have been released and show that Brock Turner lied about his past partying exploits. Turner’s parents and the student himself indicated that Stanford made him do it. Evidence shows otherwise.
In a letter submitted to Persky prior to sentencing, Turner said he came from a small town in Ohio and never experienced partying that involved alcohol. But when he started attending Stanford, Turner wrote, he began drinking to relieve the stress of school and competitive swimming. He blamed a “party culture and risk-taking behavior” for his actions.
But prosecutors said they found text messages and photographs that show Turner lied and has a history of partying.
Investigators found photographs of Turner smoking from a pipe and another teammate was holding a bong, according to court documents. A photo of a bong was found as well as a video showing Turner smoking from a bong and drinking from a bottle of liquor.
“Furthermore, there are many text messages that are indicative of drug use, both during the defendant’s time at Stanford and during his time in Ohio when he was still in high school.”
In a message sent to a friend in 2014, Turner asked: “Do you think I could buy some wax so we could do some dabs?” Dabs is a reference to smoking a highly potent form of cannabis, known as honey oil.
Turner also talked about using acid while in high school and at Stanford. He bragged about taking LSD and MDMA together, an act referred to as “candyflippin,” according to prosecutors.
A professor in his Ohio community indicates that Turner’s surroundings enable all kinds of white privilege and bad behavior. It sounds a lot like the place where I grew up. (H/T to BostonBoomer)
The kids walk to school and go home for lunch. The schools are nationally recognized. In fact, the local nickname for Oakwood is “the Dome,” so sheltered are its residents from violence, poverty and inconvenient truths. I have lived here for more than 20 years.
Communities like this one have a dark side, though: the conflation of achievement with being “a good kid”; the pressure to succeed; the parents who shrug when the party in their basement gets out of control (or worse yet, when they host it) because “kids are gonna drink”; the tacit understanding that rules don’t necessarily apply. The cops won’t come. The ax won’t fall.
Yet now it has.
Invariably, when I tell someone who knows the Dayton area that I live in Oakwood, they assume that I am rich, narrow-minded, a Republican or some combination thereof. If most residents were just the stereotype, though, I would not have been happy here as long as I have. For the most part, I have loved raising my kids here. But I have struggled, too. My closest friends and I have a long-standing joke about needing to remember to “lower the bar” around here — about not falling prey to the pressures to conform and compete, not buying the line that the schools or the kids are special. Most of us understand our privilege and good fortune. Many do not.
There is an Oakwood in every city; there’s a Brock Turner in every Oakwood: the “nice,” clean-cut, “happy-go-lucky,” hyper-achieving kid who’s never been told no. There’s nothing he can’t have, do or be, because he is special. Fortunately, most kids like this will march into their predictably bright futures without victimizing anyone along the way. Many will do good in the world.
But it’s not hard to draw a straight line from this little ’burb (or a hundred like it) to that dumpster at Stanford. What does being told no mean to that kid? If the world is his for the taking, isn’t an unconscious woman’s body? When he gets caught, why wouldn’t his first impulse be to run, to make excuses — to blame the Fireball or the girl or the campus drinking culture? That is entitlement. That is unchecked privilege.
I’ve been in conversations about rape, violence, and rape culture for over 40 years. I feel like there’s not much new that can be added to the conversation although all the wisdom beings in the multiverse know that those of us that really care about this try angles old and new. It rarely captures public opinion unless it’s part of the rescuing the princess paradigm and that worries me.
It’s interesting that the thing that started this latest outrage also displays intersectionality so we not only see that rape culture is alive and well but the treatment of rapists by judges depends on factors like privilege and race. My guess is that treatment of victims depends on similar factors. The referenced article is by Shaun King. I wish he would investigate the justice meted out for poor women and for women that are racially minorities brutalized by men because my guess is they don’t get their day in court let alone their week in the press. Would this story have gotten so far if the victim was less educated or “articulate”? If she were a sex worker or poor? If she were a Hispanic woman who overstayed her VISA?
All victims of rape deserve justice as do all perpetrators.
Mothers and Fathers, don’t let your babies grow up to be rapists.
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