Showing posts with label Ferguson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ferguson. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 678

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, November 28, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: The President Is a Megalomaniacal Fantasist and "Wilder, I wish you well." and Putin Really Hopes You'll Blame Ukraine for His Aggression. And ICYMI late yesterday: Trump Regime Isn't Doing Background Checks on Staff at Child Detention Camp.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Let's start out with the Democrats! In good resistance news, Stacey Abrams continues to be fucking awesome! Richard L. Hasen at Slate: Stacey Abrams' New Lawsuit Against Georgia's Broken Voting System Is Incredibly Smart.
Defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her allies are taking on Georgia's shoddy election system in the right way: through a big and bold lawsuit. At the very least, the lawsuit will shine the light of day on how Georgia makes it much harder than many other states to register and successfully cast a ballot. If the lawsuit achieves its more ambitious aims, a court could put Georgia's voting system back under federal supervision for up to 10 years.

Rather than how a typical voting lawsuit works with a singular focus on a problematic aspect of Georgia's electoral process — like overexuberant voter purges or its shoddy voting machinery — the lawsuit makes an argument that the cumulative effect of Georgia's system is to deny voters, especially voters of color, the opportunity to easily cast a ballot which will be fairly and accurately counted.

...[I]t is smart to make an argument that the system cumulatively disenfranchises voters. Rather than focusing on one of the hurdles facing voters, this suit lays out all of the hurdles together. Voting should not be an obstacle course, but the lawsuit claims that's exactly what Georgia has created through a combination of misfeasance and malfeasance.
And in more good resistance news, House Democrats are taking voters' message that their mandate is to hold Donald Trump accountable. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The True Depths of Trump's Cruelty Are About to Be Exposed.
The House GOP's near-total abdication of any oversight role has done more than just shield [Donald] Trump on matters involving his finances and Russian collusion. It has also resulted in almost no serious scrutiny of the true depths of cruelty, inhumanity and bad-faith rationalization driving important aspects of Trump's policy agenda — in particular, on his signature issue of immigration.

That's about to change.

In an interview with me, the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee [Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)] vowed that when Democrats take over in January, they will undertake thorough and wide-ranging scrutiny of the justifications behind — and executions of — the top items in Trump's immigration agenda, from the family separations, to the thinly veiled Muslim ban, to the handling of the current turmoil involving migrants at the border.
Right on.

In not-good news... Frank Dale at ThinkProgress: WTF Is Schumer Doing? "[Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)], who has made a series of pointless deals allowing confirmations of dozens of Trump judicial nominees, said on Tuesday that he's willing to offer Trump $1.6 billion for border security. ...Schumer has previously offered Trump funding for the border wall that he keeps falsely claiming is already under construction."

Honest to Maude, I have no fucking idea why there are Democrats who think Nancy Pelosi is our biggest problem and ignore the giant turd that is Chuck Schumer's senate leadership. HAHA J/K I KNOW WHY LADIES AMIRITE.

* * *

[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault; child sex abuse] Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald: How a Future Trump Cabinet Member Gave a Serial Sex Abuser the Deal of a Lifetime. "Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found. ...Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life. But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein's crimes and the number of people involved. Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes."

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: Giuliani's Bizarre Bragging About the Manafort-Trump Alliance Raises New Obstruction Questions. "The first two paragraphs of this New York Times story are remarkable enough: Despite Paul Manafort having agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation, his lawyer, Kevin Downing, continued to brief [Donald] Trump's legal team. That's a highly unusual setup, and one that is generally frowned upon in legal circles. The next two paragraphs, though, might take the cake. In them, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani practically brags about having pulled one over on Mueller by gleaning key information from the arrangement. ...[T]he Trump team is saying this highly unusual arrangement was used to gain a strategic advantage. It isn't even pretending these were harmless status updates. Giuliani is gloating about having gamed the legal system."


Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer at Politico: Trump Threatens Government Shutdown over Border Wall Funding. "Nine days ahead of a deadline that could trigger a partial government shutdown, with no solution in sight, the president told Politico in a Tuesday Oval Office interview that he is unflinchingly firm Congress must send him a bill approving $5 billion for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and said he would 'totally be willing' to shut down the government if he doesn't get it. ...Sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with a stack of papers, magazines, and a soda at the ready, Trump said he now believes that a pitched battle over the border is a 'total winner' politically for his party, and a loser for Democrats. 'I don't do anything...just for political gain,' Trump said. 'But I will tell you, politically speaking, that issue is a total winner.'"

Erin Durkin at the Guardian: 'There Is No Attempt to Hide': Ivanka Trump Defends Use of Private Email. "Ivanka Trump reportedly used her personal account up to 100 times in 2017 to contact other Trump administration officials. The news drew immediate comparisons with Hillary Clinton's use of a private server as secretary of state, which still prompts Donald Trump's supporters to chant 'lock her up' at rallies. The president apparently wanted Clinton prosecuted after he took the White House. But on Wednesday Ivanka Trump insisted there was no comparison between the two cases. 'In my case, all of my emails are on the White House server. There's no intent to circumvent,' she told ABC. 'There's no equivalency to what my father's spoken about.'" Okay, player.


Rebecca Morin at Politico: Trump Retweets Fake Pence Account Giving Thanks for Clinton's 2016 Loss. "Donald Trump on Wednesday shared a post from a parody account of Vice President Mike Pence giving thanks 'for every day Hillary Clinton is not president.' The post was originally shared by @MikePenceVP, a profile that uses the same photo as one of Pence's verified accounts but describes itself as a 'fan account.' ...'I'm thankful for every day Hillary Clinton is not President!' the @MikePenceVP account tweeted on Thanksgiving. Trump retweeted the post Wednesday morning to his 56 million Twitter followers. ...It is unclear whether the president thought he was retweeting the vice president or knew it is a parody account."

It's equally possible that Trump was too daft to realize in the middle of another tweetshitz frenzy that he wasn't retweeting the actual veep, and that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and decided to try to create a distraction from his daughter's email scandal. Scary.

* * *

[CN: Corruption; exploitation] Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Puerto Rican Homeowners Suffer as FEMA Pays Exorbitant Prices for Home Repairs. "More than 100,000 homeowners in Puerto Rico may be victims of a widespread corruption scheme involving a government-run program to fix their properties, according to an investigative report from the New York Times. ...The program received $1.2 billion to repair up to 120,000 homes that were damaged, but not destroyed, by Hurricane Maria. ...Luis Vega Ramos, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, said [the program] was a mixture of 'incompetence and corruption.' 'The government's responsibility is to watch out, to be custodians of the proper and effective use of those funds,' he told the Times. 'I don't understand why they need to pay hundreds of millions of those dollars to middlemen who turn around and permit overpricing.'" Because the entire Trump administration is a giant grift.

Speaking of which... [CN: Wildfires] Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Trump Officials Accused of Using Deadly Wildfires to Boost Logging. "Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said that he hoped new legislation would allow for the 'thinning' of forests to help prevent wildfires. He said he was confident Congress would soon pass a new farm bill that would remove environmental reviews for the removal of trees and brush, as well as the building of roads through federal forests. 'We have to manage our forests,' said Zinke on a visit to the charred remains of Paradise, a town in northern California that has been razed by the so-called Camp fire. ...Zinke was joined on the Paradise tour by Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, who also backs greater intervention in forests. 'People say they want pristine forests — well, this doesn't look pristine to me,' Perdue said, referencing the ashy remains of Paradise." Rage seethe boil.

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: When Love Is Not Enough: The Health Toll of Immigration Enforcement.
Julia Perez Pacheco and Samuel Oliver-Bruno have been together for more than 20 years and for the entirety of that time, Oliver-Bruno has been Perez Pacheco's rock. He has supported her financially and emotionally, paying her medical expenses, driving her to doctor's appointments, and caring for her during hospital stays.

...The effect his deportation will have on his life is clear, after having spent over two decades in the United States. Less acknowledged has been the effect his deportation will have on the health of his family members, who have already been shaken to their core by his detainment.

For his wife, his deportation could have potentially "life-ending" and "life-changing" effects, according to her cardiology physician assistant, who wrote a letter of support for the family as Oliver-Bruno pursued deferred action.

Perez Pacheco has pulmonary arterial hypertension, an "aggressive and progressive" condition caused by lupus, a diagnosis she received at 15. Lupus affects most of the tissues in the body, causing them to become inflamed and scarred. For Perez Pacheco, this primarily has meant that lupus is affecting the blood vessels in her lungs and her heart. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is not curable, the physician assistant explained in the letter, and ultimately Perez Pacheco's condition will "deteriorate."

Presently, she is devastated. She told Rewire.News the past several days have been hellish. She is tired and has "no willingness to do anything."

"I have horrible headaches and mentally, I don't know how much longer I can keep carrying all of this pain," Perez Pacheco said late Monday afternoon. "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

Although her particular situation is unique, the negative health impacts of detainment and deportation on families is an underreported, yet increasingly common, issue. Fear, trauma, and stress are having very real and damaging effects on immigrant communities that researchers are still working to understand. Adults who are subjected to immigration enforcement are experiencing severe and wide-ranging health implications. And these outcomes, medical professionals say, should be viewed as a public health crisis.
It is absolutely and unquestionably a public health crisis. Sustained anxiety and trauma are serious health concerns.

Opheli Garcia Lawler at the Cut: Another Ferguson Protester Has Died. "Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American activist who live-streamed throughout the protests against police brutality and the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, has died. ...Masri is not the first person connected to the Ferguson protests to die in the years since the protests against the killing of Michael Brown. Danye Jones and Darren Seals have both been found dead since 2014. Jones death was considered by police to be a suicide, but his mother Melissa McKinnies — who is a prominent activist herself — suspected foul play. Seals was found shot to death and set on fire, and his murder has not been solved. The circumstances of Masri's death have not been released or confirmed." My condolences to his family, friends, and community.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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"We can never forget this."

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, August 09, 2017
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[Content Note: White supremacy; police brutality; death.]

Today is the three-year anniversary of Michael Brown being fatally shot in the street by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, whom a grand jury refused to indict for the killing.

Breanna Edwards at the Root: 'This Is Ground Zero': Ferguson, Mo., Remembers Mike Brown on 3rd Anniversary of His Killing.

On Tuesday night, more than two dozen people gathered near the spot where Michael Brown Jr. was gunned down three years ago on Aug. 9, 2014, to mourn and remember the 18-year-old whose life was taken from him and to reconstruct a makeshift memorial in the spot where he died.

"We can never forget this," activist Meldon Moffitt told a group of residents and other community activists as they stood on the site. "This is ground zero."

Brown's death sparked months of protests and served as the catalyst to the Black Lives Matter movement.

...Moffitt has been a part of the demonstrations at the site where Brown was killed since the beginning, and he laments that despite all the cries of protest and demands for change, not much has changed.

"Where are the police and politicians tonight?" he said. "If they cared about the community, about making a difference, they would be here with us. They're a part of this, too."
Systems of oppression and violence cannot change unless people change — and it can't just be the people who are targeted for harm by those systems. It must be the people who enforce them. And the people of privilege who abet them, consciously and actively or via indifference.

It isn't enough for the powerful and privileged to remember. We must take action.


Do the work.

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We Resist: Day 195

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, August 02, 2017
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: I Write Letters and Today in White Supremacy White House and Trump Signs Russia Sanctions Bill, with "Concerns".

Today's top issue is immigration, as Donald Trump has unveiled an immigration plan that would severely curtail legal immigration.


This, too, is another proposal to fundamentally alter the character of the United States and our place in the world. It's devastating.

And, let me be blunt, for anyone who doesn't understand what a "merit-based" immigration policy that favors English-speaking immigrants actually is: It's a white supremacist shitshow. That's what it is.

And even if we were willing, for shits and grins, to pretend that it was really just about centering skilled workers, the fucking chutzpah of a man married to an immigrant who entered the country as a model advocating a "merit-based" immigration policy!

Which is not a knock on modeling or an implication that it's an unskilled job. But in terms of integral work, we need agricultural laborers to process food significantly more than we need models. (Someone might observe we need them more than political writers, too, and they would be absolutely correct.)

This policy is perhaps the ultimate example of closing the door behind you once you've exploited the opportunities offered to you. What a cruel, selfish shitbird Donald Trump is.

In other immigration news...

[Content Note: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Elise Foley at the Huffington Post: ICE's 'Targeted Enforcement Operation' Mostly Arrests Immigrants It Wasn't Targeting. "An Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation to arrest people who entered the country without authorization as kids or as families ended up mostly sweeping up other people who officers encountered along the way. ...The purpose of 'Operation Border Guardian/Border Resolve' was to pick up people who came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors or family units. But such people made up only about 30 percent of the total arrests: 120 people who entered the country as unaccompanied minors and 73 as part of families, versus 457 who were 'encountered during this operation,' as ICE put it in a statement. An ICE spokeswoman confirmed that those 457 people were not the targets of the operation."

[CN: Nativism; harassment] Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress: As United States Cracks Down on Refugee Resettlement, the 'Ellis Island of the South' Keeps Open Arms. "[Clarkstown, Georgia, is] often referred to as the 'Ellis Island of the South.' In recent decades, the Clarkston area has accepted roughly 1,500 refugees each year, making the town the most diverse 1.4 square miles in the United States. Clarkston is now home to people from more than 40 countries speaking more than 60 languages. ...The world right now is experiencing the largest forced migration crisis in recorded history, with more than 21.3 million refugees worldwide. And opportunities, especially in the United States, are quickly disappearing. [Donald] Trump campaigned for the presidency with a staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-refugee message, and in his five months in office, his administration has followed through with actions that have terrified the residents here."

[CN: Nativism; human trafficking] Nina Mast at Media Matters: Pro-Trump Trolls Silent After "Alt-Right" Ship Detained in Mediterranean for Apparent Human Trafficking. "Defend Europe, an anti-immigrant group that attempts to disrupt humanitarian search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea, recently chartered a boat that was stopped in a Cyprus port, where several members were arrested for forging documents and engaging in potential human trafficking. Since then, pro-Trump media trolls associated with the campaign have been conspicuously silent." I'll bet they have.

* * *

Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker: Trump's Real Personnel Victory: More Conservative Judges. "So while the public watches Trump churn through White House staff members, his Administration is humming along nicely in filling federal judgeships, with the enthusiastic assistance of the Republican majority in the Senate. The first and most important victory for the President came with the confirmation of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, in a seat that Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, kept vacant for nearly the full final year of Barack Obama's Presidency. But McConnell didn't just protect a Supreme Court seat for the next President; he basically shut down the entire confirmation process for all of Obama's federal-judgeship nominees for more than a year. It's the vacancies that accumulated during this time — more than a hundred of them — that Trump's team is now working efficiently to fill." *screams*

Chris Riotta at Newsweek/Yahoo News: Trump Can't Be Left Alone, So His Generals Created Plan to Keep Tabs on Him. "Donald Trump can't be left alone to make decisions regarding matters of national security — at least, that is reportedly the view of his new chief of staff, John Kelly, and of his defense secretary, James Mattis. The two military men, who Trump affectionately refers to as 'my generals,' hatched a plan during the initial months of his presidency to ensure he wasn't left alone while in the U.S., the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Kelly and Mattis agreed to schedule their travel arrangements so at least one of them could be physically accessible to the new president at all times, an official with knowledge of the pact said."

Instead of "hatching a plan" to make sure someone is always with him, these two abetting clowns should have been hatching a plan to convince every Republican Congressman that Donald Trump is unfit to be president because he cannot be trusted. Goddammit.

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Trump Is About to Make America Much Crueler to Unionized Workers. "Since Election Day, unions have lived on borrowed time. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has exclusive authority over many key questions of labor law, is still controlled by Democrats — thus shielding workers and their unions from attacks that became far likelier the moment Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 election. But this period of interregnum is about to end. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) began the process of confirming the first of Trump's two nominees to the NLRB on Monday. When both nominees sit on the Board, a swift rollback of union rights is likely."

[CN: War; death] Micah Zenko at Foreign Policy: Donald Trump Is Pushing America's Special Forces Past the Breaking Point.
With little policy guidance or public attention, the Donald Trump administration has further expanded former President Barack Obama's use of lethal counterterrorism operations in nonbattlefield countries — namely Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. During the final 193 days of Obama's presidency, there were 21 such operations. Over a comparable number of days under [Donald] Trump, there have been five times as many operations: at least 92 in Yemen, four in Pakistan, and six in Somalia.

The workhorse for these expanded missions is the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) — a sub-unified command of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). We know that JSOC, and not the CIA, is the lead executive authority for these operations because they are overt, rather than covert. Military officials have publicly explained the missions, and the Defense Department has even issued press releases about them...

There is no reason to doubt that Trump will turn more and more to JSOC, just as his predecessors did, in pursuit of counterterrorism objectives. But this over-reliance on lethal force is not just exhausting America's special operators; it is wholly insufficient to comprehensively confront the underlying causes of militancy and terrorism — a mantra Pentagon officials repeat when they all but beg Congress to adequately fund the State Department.
The whole piece is an important read to understand our current military policy, and what's wrong with it.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Billy House at Bloomberg: House Judiciary Chairman's Priority: Investigating Hillary Clinton. "Between Russian meddling in last year's election, Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, and the president's public drubbing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the House Judiciary Committee has a lot it could be looking into. But its Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, has a different priority: investigating Hillary Clinton." PRIORITIES! The Republican Party definitely has them! And they. are. terrible.


* * *

In good resistance news, or at least not terrible news...

Alice Ollstein at TPM: Federal Court Gives States a Say in Trump's Battle over Obamacare Subsidies. "As [Donald] Trump mulls sabotaging Obamacare's exchanges by cutting off billions in cost sharing reduction payments to insurers — payments that are the subject of an ongoing federal lawsuit that began when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives sued the Obama administration in 2014 — a new court action this week makes it harder for him to unilaterally ending the subsidies. On Tuesday night, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a motion filed by 16 states — led by New York and California — who want to be intervening parties in the lawsuit around the legality of the payments. This means that even if Trump decides to drop the government's defense of the insurer subsidies, the states can take up the mantle."

Imani Gandy at Rewire: Lawsuit Revived Against Ferguson Police. "A federal appeals court on Tuesday breathed new life into a multimillion dollar lawsuit alleging that police in Ferguson, Missouri, used excessive force on protesters during the civil unrest following the death of Michael Brown in 2014. A unanimous three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that one of the nine plaintiffs, DeWayne Matthews, could move forward with his claims that Ferguson police used excessive force when they arrested him on August 13, 2014. The ruling reverses part of the lower court's decision last October to dispense with the entire lawsuit."

Mark Hand at ThinkProgress: 16 Attorneys General Sue Scott Pruitt for Blocking Implementation of EPA Smog Rule. "The states contend that Administrator Scott Pruitt's proposed one-year delay in compliance deadlines for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards violate the requirements of the Clean Air Act. The Obama-era regulation lowered the allowable concentration of ozone to 70 parts per billion, from the previous 75. 'By illegally blocking these vital clean air protections, Administrator Pruitt is endangering the health and safety of millions — but attorneys general have made clear: We won't hesitate to fight back to protect our residents and our states,' New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the lawsuit, said in a statement."

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 106

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, May 05, 2017
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

As the political news today is overwhelmingly about the "healthcare" bill, I want to use today's thread to talk about something else that really needs our attention.

[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; violence; death; discussion of self-harm.]


Edward Crawford was the man at the center of this iconic image taken during the protests in Ferguson. Last night, he was found dead in his car.

My condolences to his family, friends, and community. I am so sorry.

This is the police account of what happened:
He was in a car when the gun went off. Two women were in the car with him, police say. The women told police that Crawford had started talking about how depressed he was. They heard him fumbling around for something, and the next thing they knew he shot himself.

Crawford's father, 52, said he believes it was an accidental shooting, not intentional. "I don't believe it was a suicide," he said. He said investigators weren't saying much to him yet. "They're being hush-hush," the father said.

While police say it was self-inflicted, they say that doesn't conclude if the victim shot himself on purpose or if the gun discharged accidentally. The case is being handled by district detectives, not homicide investigators.
His father noted that Crawford had been in good spirits: "He just got a new apartment and was training for a new job."

That does not, of course, necessarily mean that he did not take his own life. People are complicated. Crawford, as Morgan Jael notes in an important thread, "faced several charges while the man who took the photo won a Pulitzer Prize." He would not be the first Black person who took his own life after terrible interactions with the police and/or the carceral state. The story of Kalief Browder, for example, should be one that we all know; he is a man whose death we should all grieve.

And, as I wrote when reporting the alleged suicides while in police custody of Sandra Bland and Kindra Darnell Chapman, even suicide "doesn't mean agents of the state aren't culpable, as so many white people are keen to argue. That means we need to interrogate why it is, exactly, that Black people in police custody view taking their own lives as their best possible option."

Crawford was not in police custody. Nor was Browder. But they had life-changing interactions with police. We cannot overlook that.

All of which should not be taken to mean that I believe Crawford took his own life, because I don't. (It is merely to observe that, even if he did, that did not happen in a vacuum.)

And I don't believe it for this reason: Crawford is at least the third Black activist/protestor in Ferguson to be found dead in his car.

In November 2014, Deandre Joshua was found dead in his car with "a bullet in his head and accelerant poured on his body in an apparent attempt to light him on fire."

In September 2016, Darren Seals was found dead in his car, having "suffered a gunshot wound before the car was set on fire."

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't a pattern, but a series of coincidences. Maybe Crawford did take his own life accidentally, or deliberately.

Either way, we need to resist the urge to ignore even the possibility that Black activists have been targeted, and/or that their interactions with police are underwriting self-harm. Black lives matter, and the reasons that Black lives end matter, too.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, September 07, 2016
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Here are a couple of links of interest from the news today:

Looks like the media have finally been shamed into pretending like they give a flying flunderton about the Trump University pay-for-play story. Neat!

The Dallas Morning News has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president—which is really saying something! "We don't come to this decision easily. This newspaper has not recommended a Democrat for the nation's highest office since before World War II—if you're counting, that's more than 75 years and nearly 20 elections."

Cool headline, Politico! "New trove of Clinton Benghazi emails proves thin." Aww, can you hear their disappointment? If not, maybe the first paragraph will help raise the volume: "A set of about 30 Benghazi-related messages found by the FBI during their investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email system turns out to contain little fodder for critics or supporters of the Democratic presidential nominee."

[Content Note: Violence; death] RIP Darren Seals. The Ferguson activist has been killed at age 29. My condolences to his family, friends, fellow activists, and community.

Female World War II pilot Elaine Harmon has finally been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

In some good news: Giant pandas and most humpback whales are no longer considered endangered species. Pandas have been downgraded to "vulnerable," and nine of the 14 humpback whale species have made a full recovery. "Five of the iconic species' populations will remain on the list because of their low numbers and continuing threats." And, of course, further measures are needed not only to help the rest recover, but also prevent loss of the populations which have once again begun to thrive.

What have you been reading?

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, August 10, 2016
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Police force; sexual assault; racism; video may autoplay at link] AP: "Federal report blasts Baltimore police over bias, force." Federal report confirms what Black people have been saying about their lived experiences for decades, but has been ignored because we don't regard marginalized people as authorities on their own lives. Don't get me wrong: This report is necessary so that meaningful changes can be implemented. Still. It is horrifying and infuriating that it took so long for officials to listen. The Washington Post has excerpts from the report, and they are deeply troubling and rage-making and difficult, but important, to read.

[CN: Police brutality; death] Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of Michael Brown being killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. I highly recommend this October 2015 piece by Sarah Kendzior: "Ferguson in Focus." And, at Colorlines, Akiba Solomon has a Q&A with Marc Lamont Hill on "Michael Brown, Imperfect Victims, and Getting Past Survival Mode."

[CN: Racial wealth gap] Goddamn: "The wealth gap between blacks and whites in America will take hundreds of years to close—if ever. If current trends persist, it will take 228 years for black families to accumulate the same amount of wealth as whites, according to a report released this week from the Corporation for Economic Development and the Institute for Policy Studies. For Latino families, it will take 84 years. Over the past 30 years, the average household wealth of white families has grown 85% to $656,000, while that of blacks has climbed just 27% to $85,000 and Latinos 69% to $98,000. 'We're seeing wealth concentrating in fewer and fewer hands and those hands are overwhelmingly white,' said Josh Hoxie, who leads the project on opportunity and taxation at the Institute for Policy Studies."

[CN: Police shooting; death] How the hell did this happen? "A 73-year old woman was killed during a police community seminar on Tuesday in Punta Gorda, Florida, during a routine training exercise. Mary Knowlton was taking part in a police-hosted informational meeting by the Punta Gorda police academy, when she was fatally shot during an exercise that was supposed to simulate a hypothetical crisis situation. The 'shoot/don't shoot' scenario—a demonstration that was part of a two-hour-long citizens' police academy event—is intended give guidance about how police determine when to use lethal force in a potentially deadly, real-world confrontation. ...It is not clear why a loaded weapon was used in the exercise, given that such demonstrations are often conducted with fake or unloaded weapons." Incompetence? Carelessness? Indifference?

[CN: Street harassment] "You can now call into a hotline and talk to someone about your experience with street harassment, in the same way as you might call a national hotline to turn to someone for support after a sexual assault. The organization Stop Street Harassment has partnered with Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) and Defend Yourself to create the first-ever national street harassment hotline. The phone hotline launched last month and the online hotline, which you can find on the SSH website, launched on Wednesday. The new tool is evidence of how much the conversation around street harassment has recently changed—from one that accepts harassment as a fact of life (mostly for women) to one that challenges the assumption that harassment is simply an inevitable and harmless part of life."

[CN: Homophobia] Seethe: "Female athletes at the Olympic games in Rio are being taunted by crowds chanting 'bicha,' a homophobic slur comparable to 'faggot.' According to the LA Times, journalists said it was the first time they heard 'bicha' being used at a women's game in Brazil. During the opening games of the soccer tournament on August 3rd, fans on the sidelines chanted the slur—often used during men's soccer in Brazil—directed at Australian keeper Lydia Williams, Canadian goalie Stephanie Labbe, and other players."

Submitted without comment: "Bernie Sanders now has one thing in common with the millionaires and billionaires and other 1 percenters he so frequently attacked on the campaign trail: he now owns his very own summer home. Vermont magazine Seven Days reported Tuesday that the 74-year-old senator and his wife, Jane Sanders, have purchased a four-bedroom house on the shore of Lake Champlain for roughly $600,000. Jane told Seven Days that they had recently sold a house in Maine that had belonged to her family since the 1900s, and used the proceeds to purchase the new property, which is located in North Hero (population 803, as of the 2010 census). With this purchase, Sanders now owns at least three houses, the others being in Burlington, VT, and Capitol Hill in D.C."

Whoa: "Surviving in the wilderness of space takes more than a sleeping bag and a packet of wet wipes, and so to explore how humanity can stay alive in the cold dark beyond, NASA is canvassing designs for new deep space habitats. The agency's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program ask private companies to build ground-based prototypes of various modules, meeting a number of criteria from basic life support to fire safety tech and radiation mitigation. ...NASA is hoping these habitats will eventually be part of its crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s, an ambition that has occupied the space agency for the last six years."

And finally! This is wonderful: "A missing Kansas City dog was recently reunited with her family largely thanks to herself. ...Tabitha was safe and being cared for by a family who believed she didn't have a home. As fate would have it, the woman caring for her had the news on when this story aired, and Tabitha heard it. She started going bonkers, responding to Kelly's description of how she called for Tabitha. The woman knew instantly because of the dog's reaction and her photos that this was definitely Tabitha. The temporary caregiver contacted the Schaefers and a reunion was soon underway." ♥

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 11, 2016
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; death; video may autoplay at link] Fucking hell: "Three separate car bombings in the Iraqi capital Wednesday killed at least 93 people and wounded at least 165. The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for all three bombings. In recent months, the extremist faction has lost some of the Iraqi territory it conquered in a stunning 2014 blitz. But Wednesday's carnage demonstrates the group's lingering ability to launch significant attacks across the country and in the heart of the capital. In the largest attack of the day, a car bomb ripped through a commercial area in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City Wednesday morning, killing at least 63 people and wounding at least 85. Later in the afternoon, two more car bombs killed at least 30 and wounded 80, police officials said. One bomber targeted a police station in Baghdad's northwest Kadhimiyah neighborhood, killing 18, of whom five were policemen, and wounding 34. Another bombing In the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Jamiya killed 12 and wounded 46." I am so angry and so sad about the continued havoc and fear and injury and death that IS is wreaking in Iraq (and elsewhere). Fuck these people. My thoughts and sympathies and support are with the people of Iraq who are being targeted by this incomprehensibly cruel group.

[CN: Police brutality; white supremacy] Delrish Moss has been sworn in as Ferguson, Missouri's new chief of police. Moss "is the first Black person to run the department. Moss, 51, takes over the department as it works to implement the terms of its agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which requires a major overhaul of practices that were found to violate the civil rights of the city's Black residents." Good luck to him. I mean that with all seriousness and hopefulness.

Vice-President Joe Biden says if he'd decided to run for president, he would have been aces! "It's an awful thing to say, but I think I would have been the best president." Yep, that's an awful thing to say!

[CN: Fat hatred] "Obesity may not cut your life short after all, a new study suggests." No shit! Gotta love the entire tenor of this article: Look, science, may be proving that fat doesn't actually kill you, but let's not get ahead of ourselves! Your life will probably be terrible! And also maybe science is wrong! In any case, let's not get ahead of ourselves with any kind of wild notions that we should stop hating fat people and bullying them constantly under the auspices of concern for their health.

[CN: Racism; displacement] Wow: "The remains of at least 10 Native American children who died nearly 2,000 miles away from their homes while being forced to attend a government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania more than a century ago could soon be repatriated under an effort taken up by a South Dakota tribe. The exhumation and return of the bodies of the children who as students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School were stripped of their culture and left vulnerable to abuse won't be an easy undertaking. But leaders of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe hope that a meeting with representatives from the U.S. Army and other tribes scheduled for Tuesday will begin the negotiation process to repatriate the remains of the 10 children, and eventually, of the dozens more who died while attending the school as part of an assimilation policy intended to rid the children from Native American traditions and replace them with European culture. 'We are hoping that the United States government will say 'Yes, let's bring your relatives home,'' said Russell Eagle Bear, the historic preservation officer for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe."

[CN: Rape culture; familial sexual abuse] Ronan Farrow, the son of Woody Allen, has written a piece for The Hollywood Reporter about, essentially, the fact that the media and lots of famous people continue to ignore his sister's allegations of sexual abuse against their father. And I have a lot of thoughts about what he wrote, none of which I feel like detailing today, but I will point out this one incredible, painful irony: "But it hurts my sister every time one of her heroes like Louis C.K., or a star her age, like Miley Cyrus, works with Woody Allen." Louis CK, of course, has been accused of sexually harassing and/or assaulting multiple female comics. But no charges have been brought, so everyone feels free to ignore them. Like, yanno, Woody Allen. It's entirely possible (and likely) that Dylan and Ronan Farrow are among the many people who have simply never even heard of these charges.

[CN: Transphobia; typical bad media language and misgendering] "Portage transgender teen places second in prom queen contest." This is where I attended high school. There are problems with the article, but I'm really glad that Dakota Yorke was given a chance to speak for herself and I was pleased to see how many of her classmates are publicly supporting her. As well as the school! Good job, PHS.

[CN: Misogyny] OMFG this article about the Ghostbusters reboot. The subhead ALONE! "It's hard to believe geek culture 'sexism' is responsible for all the bad buzz aimed at Paul Feig's female-fronted remake. Now we need Bill Murray to save the day." Of course we do. Love how sexism is in scare-quotes, btw.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] This tickles me endlessly: "Known for her grasp of policy, Mrs. Clinton has spoken at length in her presidential campaign on topics as diverse as Alzheimer's research and military tensions in the South China Sea. But it is her unusual knowledge about extraterrestrials that has struck a small but committed cohort of voters. Mrs. Clinton has vowed that barring any threats to national security, she would open up government files on the subject, a shift from President Obama, who typically dismisses the topic as a joke. Her position has elated U.F.O. enthusiasts, who have declared Mrs. Clinton the first 'E.T. candidate.'"

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "Move over bald eagles, the bison are coming for you. While the bald eagle may be the national bird of the U.S., President Obama today officially made the bison the official mammal of the United States by signing the National Bison Legacy Act into law. It is the first time the U.S. has designated a national mammal." Congratulations, bison!

And finally! It's generally not a great idea to surprise someone by getting them a pet, lol, but this story is absolutely terrific: "A teacher in Texas was understandably distraught when her beloved 16-year-old cat named Blondie died. But Tonya Andrews' tears of sadness turned to those of joy when her caring students at Joshua High School, in Joshua, surprised her soon after with an extraordinarily thoughtful gift: two adorable kittens. ...Initially, the teacher thought they belonged to Hanhart and that the class was just going to play with them. 'Then she held them out to me and said they were mine. My heart was filled with joy,' she added, saying she'd 'never forget our sweet, sweet Blondie,' who they'd rescued from a warehouse in Fort Worth. 'But my heart can now experience happiness again.'" Blub!

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, February 10, 2016
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

After failing to impress voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is reportedly considering suspending his presidential campaign. Seeya.

[Content Note: Disablism; mental illness stigma; violation of workers' and students' rights] I don't even know where to begin with the clusterfuck going on at Mount St. Mary's: Basically, the new president decided he wanted to address the school's retention problem by targeting students who were at risk for dropping out, and instructed professors to flag students using questions from a mental health diagnostic survey. And then, when professors pushed back, they were shitcanned. What the everloving hell.

[CN: Police brutality; racism] Good grief: The Ferguson, Missouri, City Council voted Tuesday night "to rebuff a proposed agreement to reform its police department and court. The city proclaimed that the decision amounted to approving a consent decree that it had spent months negotiating with the department, arguing that seven suggested changes were among hundreds of requirements to which the city had agreed. But one of the proposed amendments would wipe out much of the decree in the event Ferguson disbanded its police force." Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is not happy: "The Ferguson City Council has attempted to unilaterally amend the negotiated agreement. Their vote to do so creates an unnecessary delay in the essential work to bring constitutional policing to the city, and marks an unfortunate outcome for concerned community members and Ferguson police officers. ...The Department of Justice will take the necessary legal actions to ensure that Ferguson's policing and court practices comply with the Constitution and relevant federal laws."

[CN: War on agency] At the Guttmacher Institute, Heather D. Boonstra details how anti-choicers alarmism about fetal tissue research "now threatens fetal tissue research itself," which is very concerning given that "medical research using human fetal tissue obtained from abortions has benefited millions of people worldwide and holds great promise for the continued advancement of basic science, as well as for the development of lifesaving vaccines and therapies."

This is amazing: "The Trust Black Women Partnership (TBW), a collective of Black women-led organizations and advocates, released a solidarity statement with Black Lives Matter (BLM) on Tuesday, reaffirming the shared roots of struggles for Black self-determination and bodily autonomy. The statement comes as movements to end state violence and secure reproductive justice continue to converge around the country. 'The Reproductive Justice movement, created in 1994, the Trust Black Women Partnership, created in 2010, and the Black Lives Matter movement, created in 2012, were created because the lives of Black people were in peril,' the statement reads. 'All were born out of a demand for the…liberation of Black people in this country. And all were born because of the leadership of Black women.' ...'Reproductive justice is very much situated within the Black Lives Matter movement,' [BLM co-founder Alicia Garza] said. 'This isn't just about the rights of women to be able to determine when and how and where to start families, but also our right to raise families, to raise children to become adults.'"

[CN: Homophobia] Goddammit: "South Dakota lawmakers have launched a full-blown attack on LGBT rights, passing two pieces of legislation this week that would do irreparable harm to the state's LGBT community. If signed into law, these two bills would legalize discrimination against LGBT citizens and ban transgender students from participating in high school athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity."

[CN: Privacy violations] Um, what? "The US intelligence chief has acknowledged for the first time that agencies might use a new generation of smart household devices to increase their surveillance capabilities. ...James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, was more direct in testimony submitted to the Senate on Tuesday as part of an assessment of threats facing the United States. 'In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things, e.g. remotely operated thermostats] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,' Clapper said. Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones." Terrific.

[CN: Racism] Another aspect of institutional racism within our justice [sic] system: "The rulings of Black judges are 10 percent more likely to be overturned than those of their white counterparts. ...Reversals are anything but inconsequential. They force judges to revisit old cases, while their everyday caseload keeps on filling the docket. Then, of course, there's the reputation hit—good luck getting promoted with an armful of overturned verdicts. Maybe that explains why there are so few dark-skinned arbiters on the appeals bench."

Donald Trump says he would easily beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. Okay, player.

"Aaron Sorkin Is Bringing To Kill a Mockingbird to Broadway." Nope!

And finally! "This Cat in a Cone Is Having a Fucking Awful Day." LOL awwwwww.

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, January 29, 2016
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Racism; police misconduct] The U.S. Department of Justice and Ferguson, Missouri, officials have reached an agreement that is poised to overhaul the city's entire justice system. [January 27] marked the end of negotiations sparked by the Justice Department's 2015 investigation, which concluded that the city's policing methods violated the rights of its Black citizens on the streets and in the courtrooms, all in the interest of filling the city's coffers. St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the agreement, called a consent decree, will go through three rounds of public hearings before the city council votes on its adoption on February 9. If it rejects the agreement, the Justice Department will move forward with a suit against the city. Key points of the 131-page agreement include: Community policing and engagement, policies and training, eliminating bias, stop and search procedure, first Amendment activity, force, and municipal code reform."

[CN: War on agency] "Ohio's GOP-held state senate voted this week for the second time on a bill that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood. This time state senators were met with protesters offering testimonies, wearing patient smocks, and asking where the GOP lawmakers expected them to access health care." The protesters are so brave and amazing, but fuck if I'm not angry they are obliged to do this.

Potentially good news for marriage equality advocates in Australia: "Support for marriage equality in Australia's parliament has reached critical mass in both houses for the first time ever, according to the Sydney Morning Herald: 'According to the key lobby group leading the charge for a broadened definition of marriage in the Marriage Act, Australian Marriage Equality, there is now a slim majority of pro-change MPs in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate.'"

Taiwan has elected its first female president: "In a landslide victory, the leader of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen won the country's presidential election, becoming the first woman in Taiwan's history to hold the position. ...A scholar with advanced degrees in law from Cornell University and the London School of Economics, Tsai served previously as chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Office, a government office that mediates interactions between Taiwan and Beijing. In 2004, Tsai joined the DPP, stepping in as the party's chairwoman just four years later. Despite a failed presidential bid in 2012, Tsai persevered, guiding her party to victories in regional elections. Tsai also emerged as a vocal advocate of women's and LGBT rights, advocating publicly for equal employment opportunities for women and marriage equality, respectively."

(If there are less flattering things to be said about Tsai or her platform, I'm not deliberately concealing them; I'm just not super familiar with Taiwanese politics.)

"The US economy grew at an annualised rate of 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared with the same quarter a year ago, official figures show. The rate of growth marks a sharp slowdown from the 2% growth recorded in the previous quarter. The US Commerce department said one reason for the slower growth was a slowdown in consumer spending." Here's an idea: Let's pay people livable wages and then see if they have more money to spend!

Okay! "Friday marks seven years since President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, the first bill he signed, aimed at helping women combat the gender wage gap by giving them more time to bring lawsuits. But in that time, the gender wage gap—which means that American women working full-time, year round make 79 percent of what men make, a gap that's much larger for women of color—has only narrowed by two cents, not a statistically significant change. So to mark the anniversary, Obama will announce executive action on Friday to institute a new requirement that companies with 100 or more employees report what workers are paid broken down by gender, race, and ethnicity to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)."

Octavia Butler's personal journal is everything. Wow.

"Octopuses are social animals that change colors to resolve disputes and even throw debris at each other, video footage of a group of the feisty sea creatures in Jervis Bay has shown." They are forever fascinating creatures.

[CN: Fat stigma; disordered eating] Oprah Winfrey, who recently bought a huge stake in Weight Watchers and has been doing the most dreadful commercials for them, said in an interview, "I actually was traveling the other day and opened a 5 oz. bag of crinkle cut, black pepper potato chips and I counted out 10 chips. And I ate the 10 and I savored every one. And I put the bag away. Of all the accomplishments that [I] made in the world, all the red carpets, and the awards and those things that I've done. The fact that I could close the bag and not take another chip—it's major for me." I understand that Winfrey is dealing with disordered eating, but her stated goal is explicitly thinness. And the fact that she regards not eating chips as one of her major accomplishments is just fucking depressing as hell.

And finally! Baby hummingbirds! Squeeeeee!

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, October 26, 2015
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Earthquake; death] Goddammit: "More than 100 people were reported killed Monday when a powerful earthquake centered in northeast Afghanistan triggered landslides, building collapses, stampedes, and panic from Central Asia to India. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.5 and was centered in the Hindu Kush mountains, 158 miles north-northeast of Kabul. The epicenter was near the Jarm district in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan, one of Afghanistan's most inaccessible regions, where a massive landslide last May killed hundreds of people. The Pakistani military said 123 people were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and nearly 1,000 injured." The Guardian is providing live updates. Aid relief information will surely become available as the day goes on; please feel welcome and encouraged to share links to relief efforts in comments. If you are hoping to locate someone in the area, Google's dedicated Person Finder is a good resource.

[CN: Arson; racism; terrorism] A seventh church has been damaged by arson in the Ferguson area: "'Holy God...if we ever needed a wake-up call to believe that racism is alive in St. Louis—if this is not it, I don't know what it could be,. the Rev. Mike Kinman, an Episcopal priest at St. Louis' Christ Church Cathedral, told the Post." (Previously.)

This fucking guy: "Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator. And he just can't stand it anymore. 'I don't know that 'hate' is the right word,' Rubio said in an interview. 'I'm frustrated.' This year, as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate—the very place that cemented him as a national politician—as a place he's given up on, after less than one term. It's too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It's the White House or bust. 'That's why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,' Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes." Um, okay. Except you're still meant to be representing the people who elected you, dipshit. And also? If you think the Senate is slow and frustrating, you might want to talk to President Obama about whether the presidency is a high-octane thrillfest when it comes to enacting an agenda which depends on Congress for passage. Do any of the Republicans running for president understand how the government actually works?!

[CN: Privilege] GOOD GRIEF Donald Trump's rags to riches story: "'It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars,' Trump remarked. 'I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest. But I came into Manhattan and I started buying properties, and I did great.'" He pulled himself up by his gold-plated bootstraps! What have YOU ever done?!

Welp! "In April, Dan Price, CEO of the credit card payment processor Gravity Payments, announced that he will eventually raise minimum pay for all employees to at least $70,000 a year. The move sparked not just a firestorm of media attention, but also a lawsuit from Price's brother and co-founder Lucas, claiming that the pay raise violated his rights as a minority shareholder. But six months later, the financial results are starting to come in: Price told Inc. Magazine that revenue is now growing at double the rate before the raises began and profits have also doubled since then."

I love this with one million hearts: "Every afternoon, the students riding on bus 7 in Arlington, Washington, receive warm waves from an elderly woman as they pass by her home... Known as 'the grandma in the window,' she is a daily staple for this group of kids, as well as for the bus driver, Carol Mitzelfeldt. So, when one morning in September, the window was empty, the students on the bus were concerned and wanted to make sure their 'grandma' was OK. ...Mitzelfeldt learned from the elderly woman's husband, Dave, that her name is Louise Edlen, she'd had a stroke a few days prior and was being cared for at a local rehabilitation center. ...The students then posed for a photo of themselves waving out the windows of the bus, just as Edlen sees them each afternoon. Mitzelfeldt had the picture mounted on a large foam board, signed it on behalf of bus 7, and delivered it to Edlen at the care center. Though she struggled to speak because of the stroke, Edlen was able to tell Mitzelfeldt that she loved the children and they mean a lot to her. Fortunately, last Tuesday, Edlen returned home. And fanfare awaited her—Mitzelfeldt and a large group of students put together colorful signs welcoming their 'grandma in the window' back home, cheering from the windows and honking horns." ♥♥♥

YESSSSSSSSSS! "A spokesperson for David Bowie has confirmed that his new album will be released in January 2016. Entitled Blackstar, the album will also feature a single of the same name." I AM SO EXCITED!!!

In case you were wondering why Adele uses a flip phone in her new video, now you know!

[CN: Racism; misogyny; homophobia] Oh for fuck's sake just SHUT UP, Roger Moore: "I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond. But they wouldn't be Bond for the simple reason that wasn't what Ian Fleming wrote... It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist—it is simply about being true to the character." (Previously.)

!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Mega-shark teeth wash ashore in North Carolina: Recent storms and high tides have unearthed a prehistoric marvel on the coast of North Carolina. Fossilized shark teeth, some as big as an adult hand, have been plucked from the sand by beachgoers in North Topsail Beach and Surf City, North Carolina... The teeth are immense and immensely old: Researchers say the teeth once belonged to a Megalodon, the largest shark ever to live. Megalodon went extinct some 2.6 million years ago."

[CN: Moving gifs at link] And finally! Baby deer rescue and rehabilitation! Adorbz! And what a terrific success. Yay!

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Video autoplays at first link] The first official trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been released!!! WOOT! Are you so excited?! I am so excited! Here are six things we (sort of) learned (maybe?!) from the trailer.

[CN: Racism; antisemitism] And a seventh thing we learned (hahahasob we already knew this!) is that white supremacists are the fucking woooooooorst: "The #BoycottStarWarsVII hashtag, which started appearing on Twitter Sunday night, expresses objection to the fact that The Force Awakens features lead characters who aren't white males, with its users accusing the movie of pushing a sinister multicultural agenda. '#BoycottStarWarsVII because it is anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide,' read one tweet from an account calling itself 'End Cultural Marxism.' (A subsequent tweet from the same account read 'A friend in LA said #StarWarsVII is basically 'Deray in Space,''—a reference to civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson. 'Jewish activist JJ Abrams is an anti-white nut.') Another Twitter account, calling itself 'Captain Confederacy,' similarly griped that 'SJWs [Social Justice Warriors] complain about White artists 'misappropriating' culture created by blacks but then celebrate a non-White Star Wars.' Yet another complaint read that the movie should be boycotted 'because it's nothing more than a social justice propaganda piece that alienates it's [sic] core audience of young white males.'" Go to hell!

[CN: Drones] Good: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pressed ahead on Monday with a lawsuit to compel the CIA to turn over basic details about the US program of clandestine drone warfare, a week after startling contours of the program emerged in a new leak by an anonymous intelligence source. The ACLU lawsuit seeks summary data from the CIA on drone strikes, including the locations and dates of strikes, the number of people killed and their identities or status. The ACLU also is seeking memos describing the legal reasoning underpinning the drone program. None of the summary strike information is currently available to the public, which instead must rely on estimates compiled by analysts and journalists, based on reports on the ground."

[CN: Racism; police misconduct] This is amazing: "Ferguson Traffic Fines Reform Is Having a Surprising Side Effect: A tiny Missouri town disbanded its police department last week, acknowledging that its old way of operating was untenable under a new state law restricting towns in St. Louis County from using cops, courts, and speed traps as a money mill. ...Charlack isn't the first town to dissolve its force in recent months, and it likely won't be the last either." Wow.

[CN: Violence; death; guns] Fucking hell: Oscar Pistorius "was released on parole late on Monday, just short of a year into his five-year sentence for killing [Reeva Steenkamp, who was dating him at the time of her death] on Valentine's Day 2013. [Pistorius] must serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest and still faces an appeal on Nov. 3 by prosecutors who argue that he should have been convicted of murder, not culpable homicide." Not only was he released from prison after only one year, but he was released a day early: "Pistorius had been expected to leave prison on Tuesday, and his early release took media by surprise." Sure. We wouldn't want him to be disgraced in the media for killing someone.

This is a must-read piece by Ian Millhiser: "The Future of the Democratic Party Will Be Decided by the Supreme Court."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] LOVE: "President Obama hosted 300 students, 11 astronauts, and Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on the south lawn of the White House on a clear Monday night for the second 'Astronomy Night.' And in the third row, among the students, was Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas boy who became an international celebrity after police investigated the clock he invented for a school project as a possible explosive device. Mohamed did not bring his clock, despite an invitation from Obama to do so."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] COOL: "You can now marvel at a dozen new shots of Earth every day. NASA has launched a new website this week showcasing beauty shots of Earth as it rotates over a 24-hour period. The photos are taken from the vantage point of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), which is positioned a million miles away from Earth. Every day, visitors to the new website can expect to see at least a dozen gorgeous color images of our planet that NASA said will have been taken anywhere from 12 to 36 hours earlier from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC). Because the images will be taken over the course of the day, it will show Earth as it rotates, providing a look at the entire globe." YES!

A new study done by an international team of scientists reveals that "the origins of modern dogs 'extremely messy'" but it appears as though dogs may have originated in Central Asia. Still: "Adam Boyko of Cornell University and one of the study's researchers [cautioned] that it was very possible that dogs were domesticated elsewhere before arriving in Central Asia and diversifying into modern canines. Regardless, the study's large population sample, including village and feral dogs, is remarkable, representing a clearer picture of dogs and where they come from. As Boyko quipped, 'The great thing about working with dogs is that if you show up with food you don't usually have trouble recruiting subjects. Usually.'" LOL aww.

Oh my heart: "A little girl who was adopted by her family celebrated her 8th Gotcha Day by adopting a kitten from a rescue center for pets displaced by the recent severe flooding in South Carolina. Kayla Hodge visited the Beck recreation Center in Georgetown County with her family on Saturday. The rec center is being used as a temporary shelter for animals displaced or lost due to the flooding, as well as some pets from the St. Frances Animal Center. The family say they had not planned to go home with new pet but Kayla was drawn to an unclaimed kitten named Kermit. Saturday was Kayla's 8th adoption Gotcha Day and ended up being Kermit's Gotcha Day, too, as he got adopted into Kayla's family."

And finally! Goats on a trampoline! I repeat: Goats on a trampoline!

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In the News

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, August 25, 2015
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Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Some images may be NSFW] Substantia Jones, the genius behind The Adipositivity Project, has launched a new Tumblr called Fat People Flipping You Off, and IT IS GIVING ME LIFE TODAY. Naturally, I had to immediately take a picture of myself and submit it, because, as y'all know, I've been a fan of being fat and flipping people off FOR YEARS! You can submit your own picture here.

*insert sound of ticker tape* And now for the stock market news: "The global stock market panic appeared to be easing Tuesday as US markets opened up following a dramatic sell-off by investors around the world dubbed 'Black Monday.' On Monday the Dow Jones industrial average crashed more than 1,000 points when it opened, ending the day down 586 points, or 3.6%. In the first two minutes after the opening bell on Tuesday, the Dow rose 300 points and was up 372 points, or 2.35%, before noon. The S&P 500 was up 2.43% and the Nasdaq 3.29%, also reversing much of their Monday declines." Bulls and bears and bells! This investment expert's advice? Stick your money under your mattress!

[CN: Racism; over-policing] In good news: "A new judge in Ferguson, Missouri, has halted court practices that were seen as a major factor in unrest over the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown a year ago. Judge Donald McCullin cancelled arrest warrants issued before this year, mainly to African Americans. Defendants of minor offences will also be offered alternatives to prison. It follows a US justice department report that found the police in the city unfairly targeted black people. The report, released in March this year, said court officials and the local police were exploiting people to raise revenue." So that's very good. Except: "Part of the sweeping changes to court practices announced by municipal Judge McCullin on Monday include offering defendants options to dispose of their cases, such as payment plans and community services." Those payment plans? Can wreck people financially for years. Honestly, what needs to happen is that "community policing" that essentially boils down to using municipal violations to make money just needs to stop the end.

[CN: Terrorism; guns; injury] Deserved: "At a ceremony on Monday, French president François Hollande presented three Americans and a Briton with France's highest honor for subduing [a gunman on on a Paris-bound Thalys train on Friday], while [Mark Moogalian, 51, an American-born professor at the Sorbonne, who was shot attempting to tackle the gunman] was being treated in Lille for the injuries he sustained during the attack. He is expected to recover and will receive the Légion d'honneur later. A young French banker who also intervened has asked for anonymity and will also be presented with the award, but at a private ceremony."

[CN: Misogynoir] Good fucking grief: "A group of black women were escorted off of a train taking them on a wine tour after a white woman complained they were laughing loudly. After the women, who are all members of a book club, exited the train they were met by a group of police officers. No charges were filed. ...The complaint that this is 'not a bar' is perplexing considering the primary purpose of the train is to serve alcohol. A maître d' also told them they were making too much noise. Asked who was complaining, he said that 'people's faces are uncomfortable.'" Jesus Jones. For the record, laugh loudly around me all you want! I love listening to people laugh loudly!

[CN: Homophobia; violence; terrorism] Among their other many reprehensible policies and actions, the Islamic State is also ruthlessly, violently homophobic: "They hunt them down one by one. When they capture people, they go through the person's phone and contacts and Facebook friends. They are trying to track down every gay man. And it's like dominoes. If one goes, the others will be taken down too." Sob.

[CN: Racism] Black American Airlines employees have appealed to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to investigate their on-the-job treatment: The "employees at Reagan National and Philadelphia International airports say they have been subjected to racial taunts and are routinely assigned unsafe equipment and the most difficult tasks. ...'I was told by one manager to go back out to that plantation, go back out to the cotton field. They thought it was hilarious, but I didn't think it was one bit funny,' said a woman who has worked as a counter and gate agent for more than 30 years at National, which occupies a site that once was a 1,000-acre plantation." Fucking hell.

Oh nooooooo this poor kid: "A 12-year-old Taiwanese boy lived out a slapstick nightmare at the weekend when he tripped at a museum and broke his fall with a painting, smashing a hole in it. Exhibition organisers said the painting was a 350-year-old Paolo Porpora oil on canvas work called Flowers, valued at $1.5m." You break it; you buy it! Just kidding. The collection is insured, and the damage will be repaired as best as possible.

Speaking of ART: "Woman Sees Trump's Face in Her Tub of Butter." LUCKYYYYYYY!

[CN: Some images/lyrics may be NSFW] Here is Tom Hardy lip-synching to EVERYTHING. You think that's hyperbole? It's not!

And finally! A British woman spends a whole lot of time and money and energy rescuing a stray dog in Greece who saved her from an attack. Best! Friends! Forever!

Open Wide...
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