In the News

Here's some stuff in the news today...

Lots of terrible Trumpery to report!

I'm shocked—SHOCKED, I tell you—that Donald Trump's campaign website refuses to allow donors to cancel recurring donations. Geez, you'd think that campaign was being run by some kind of thieving con-man or something!

[Content Note: Misogyny] Trump released his list of economic advisors, and there isn't a single woman on it, because of course there isn't! This is particularly notable given his selection of Mike Pence as a running mate. A deeply anti-choice ticket. A bunch of male economic advisors. Almost certainly none of whom acknowledge reproductive freedom as a key economic issue for women.

Relatedly: "Trump Declines to Name Women He'd Put in His Cabinet Besides Daughter Ivanka." Sure.

[CN: Islamophobia; auditing] Meanwhile, Trump's New York State campaign co-chairman, Carl Paladino, insists that President Obama is a Muslim: "In the mind of the average American, there is no doubt he is a Muslim. He is not a Christian." Okay, player.

All of which, among the other 200 things since yesterday I haven't included, is leading Republican elites to start chattering about how Trump needs to get out of the race. Hey, bozos: You had your chance to stop him from being your nominee during a one million year primary. Where were you then? Need I remind you that he has been a dirtbag all along?

Meanwhile, even now, Republicans are just covering themselves in all sorts of glory by continuing to endorse him. To wit: "This 30-second video is absolutely devastating for Donald Trump." As advertised! In case you don't feel like watching it, the basic gist is John McCain, who has endorsed Trump, stammering out a glorious salad bar's worth of arglebargle word salad when asked if he is "comfortable with Donald Trump possibly having control of the nuclear arsenal." It may be devastating for Trump, but it's catastrophic for McCain.

Not so former CIA acting director Michael J. Morell, who endorsed Hillary Clinton today and made it abundantly clear that Trump shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

Earlier today, Clinton made an appearance at the joint convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), and she said a lot of good stuff, but this was my favorite: "'Rosa Parks opened up every seat on the bus' [and] now we have to make sure 'everyone can afford the fare.'"

In non-election news:

[CN: Lead poisoning; police brutality; guns; misogynoir] This report on how both Korryn Gaines and Freddie Gray had lead poisoning is both devastating and important reading.

[CN: Misogyny] Jennifer Garner is a repeat offender in the "giving interviews about how women who aren't mommies are garbage" file, and here she goes again: "I'm really glad that I'm playing moms because there's no more rich time in a woman's life than when you're having babies and when you're trying to figure out how to parent them and balance everything, and the emotional weight of seeing your children struggle." LEARN TO USE "I LANGUAGE" JENNIFER. JFC.

I don't generally care for war movies, but if you're going to put Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy in your war movie, well, I just might watch it. (I will definitely watch it.)

And finally!

LOL! Greyhound laziness at its most amazing! [Video Description: A greyhound in a life jacket bobbing around in a backyard pool, not even trying to swim.]

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Pulse shooting; bigotry] There is, of course, an abundance of news about the gunman in the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I am reluctant to link to any articles in the corporate media, because they either show pictures of Omar Mateen, so ubiquitous that you would think he's a hero rather than a mass murdering fuck, or because they show pictures of survivors in their moments of absolute grief. I frankly don't want to support either one of those habits. So, here is some relevant (and verified) news in brief: Mateen has a history of domestic violence, which makes him like most other domestic terrorists. Both his ex-wife, his coworkers, and his father confirm that he was virulently homophobic, misogynist, and racist. He passed background checks to secure employment as a security guard. His coworkers expressed concerns about his violent rhetoric. He legally acquired the weapons that he used to slaughter and wound dozens of people.

[CN: Continued from above, plus terrorism] This is important commentary, care of New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, on how the Islamic State's "lone wolf" appeal works. Essentially: Anyone can now claim to be a "lone wolf" working for IS, and then IS just takes credit. Which has a number of significant ramifications, including making "lone wolves" much more difficult to thwart, and the promise of being elevated as an international terrorist acting as enticement for violent men who are disposed to commit heinous acts of violence already.

[Continued CN] Meanwhile, Donald Trump has implied that President Barack Obama may be intentionally sabotaging the US. Rage seethe boil. Because precisely what we need in this moment is accusations that the President who has, more than any President before him, challenged othering rhetoric, and who has tried to enact gun reform, is committing treason. JFC.

[CN: Racism; misogyny; Islamophobia] Meanwhile, Trump surrogate Roger Stone says that Hillary Clinton's chief aide and friend Huma Abedin, who is Muslim, could be a "Saudi spy" or a "terrorist agent." I honestly do not even have words to explain how enraged this makes me. I have never met Huma Abedin (although that would be awesome!), and she is a very private person, but I feel reasonably confident, based on the role she has long played at Clinton's side, that she is probably one of our country's greatest patriots.

In other news:

"The Supreme Court said on Monday Puerto Rico cannot restructure the debt of its financially ailing public utilities to help overcome a decade-long economic crisis. The 5-2 ruling means the US territory must wait for Congress to pass debt-relief legislation to help ease its fiscal woes."

"How unusual is the Republican blockade of the nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court? After a comprehensive look at every past Supreme Court vacancy, two law professors have concluded that it is an unprecedented development. ...In every one of the 103 earlier Supreme Court vacancies, the professors wrote, the president was able to both nominate and appoint a replacement with the Senate's advice and consent."

[CN: Climate change] "Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will shatter the symbolic barrier of 400 parts per million (ppm) this year and will not fall below it our in our lifetimes, according to a new Met Office study. Carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii are forecast to soar by a record 3.1ppm this year—up from an annual average of 2.1ppm—due in large part to the cyclical El Niño weather event in the Pacific, the paper says. The surge in CO2 levels will be larger than during the last big El Niño in 1997/98, because manmade emissions have increased by 25% since then, boosting the phenomenon's strength."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "Microsoft Corp. is acquiring the professional social network LinkedIn Corp. for $26.2 billion, one of the largest technology-industry deals on record, as the maker of Windows software attempts to put itself at the center of people's business lives. ...LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture, and independence and Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive officer of the company, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. The deal is the most expensive relative to earnings of any takeover valued at more than $5 billion this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

And finally! "Cat Becomes Friends with a Chipmunk." Aww.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Today is Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, Earth! Sorry we treat you like crap!

President Obama is in the UK today, and, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, he urged the UK to remain part of the European Union because "it increases UK power and security to be part of the European Union," while Cameron said "being a member of the EU strengthened Britain's 'special relationship' with the US."

[Content Note: Racism] Meanwhile, London Mayor Boris Johnson, an advocate for leaving the EU who is critical of Obama for what he perceives as meddling in UK affairs, "wrote about the decision of the Obama administration to remove a bust of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. 'Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan president's ancestral dislike of the British empire—of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,' said Johnson in an article designed to hit back at Obama after the US president waded into the EU referendum debate on Friday." I mean.

[CN: Shooting; death] "Shootings with multiple fatalities were reported along a road in rural Ohio on Friday morning, but details on the number of deaths and the whereabouts of the suspect or suspects weren't immediately clear. The attorney general's office said a dozen Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents had been called to Pike County, an economically struggling area in the Appalachian region some 80 miles east of Cincinnati. Spokesman Dan Tierney says the Pike County Sheriff's Office requested state help at 8:20 a.m. Tierney had no information on whether a suspect was in custody. He also had no confirmation on the number of fatalities. BCI spokeswoman Jill Del Greco said there are multiple crime scenes along the same rural road. Several news outlets reported that at least one shooting was in or near a residence." Obviously, I have no idea what happened, but this sounds like it could be a family shooting at multiple sites of relatives who lived near one another. I hope no one else is harmed. My condolences to the whole community.

[CN: War on agency; racism; classism] "Planned Parenthood (PP) announced on Wednesday (April 20) that the multi-year legislative campaign against the organization is now threatening health care access for 500,000 people. Twenty-four states have moved forward with attempts to cut funding to the provider, which offers birth control, STI screening and abortion care to millions of people around the country. ...We've covered why threats to PP disproportionately impact people of color, but it's also worth noting that many of the pink states in the map above have significant populations of people of color who rely on the threatened services. In fact, the organization says that 29 percent of the people who are at risk of losing access are Latino."

[CN: War on agency; racism] "Dozens of people of color sent a letter to Congress Thursday expressing outrage over the introduction of the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) of 2016 (HR 4924), which they say threatens the future of abortion care and codifies dangerous racist and sexist stereotypes against Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Black people, and Latinas. Introduced by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, the bill seeks to impose criminal penalties on providers who perform abortions knowing that they are sought on the basis of the fetus' race or sex. It also seeks to criminalize anyone who coerces a person into seeking a race- or sex-selective abortion; anyone who raises funds for the procedure; or anyone who transports a woman into the United States or across state lines to obtain the abortion—and imposes a penalty ranging from a fine to a five-year prison term. Cloaked in the language of 'nondiscrimination,' the act would achieve the opposite goal, the letter says, by singling out women of color for additional scrutiny based on, among other things, the 'gross mischaracterization' of Asian-American communities, in particular, as having a preference for male over female children."

[CN: Misogyny] "Turnover was pretty high for the top jobs at North America's largest companies last year, rising to 14.3 percent, the highest in three years. But even with all that new hiring for the job of CEO, women still couldn't get their foot in the door. Of the 87 new CEOs hired at the biggest companies, just one was a woman, according to a report from PwC's Strategy&. That woman was Andrea Greenberg, picked to lead MSG Networks, the new name for Madison Square Garden's businesses. Women's chances of getting one of these top jobs at large American companies is declining—while Greenberg represented 1 percent of all incoming CEOs, women made up 4 percent in 2014 and more than 7 percent in 2012. In fact, 2015 was the worst year for women getting hired as CEO since PwC began tracking figures in 2004."

[CN: Self-harm] Here's something you may have missed in lots of reporting about the increasing suicide rate in the US: "The largest increases in suicide were seen among middle-aged men and women 45 to 64 years old, and girls 10 to 14 years old. ...The suicide rate among women increased more quickly than among men."

In good news: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia will use his executive power on Friday to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, circumventing his Republican-run legislature. The action will overturn a Civil War-era provision in the state's Constitution aimed, he said, at disenfranchising African-Americans. The sweeping order, in a swing state that could play a role in deciding the November presidential election, will enable all felons who have served their prison time and finished parole to register to vote. ...'There's no question that we've had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans—we should remedy it,' Mr. McAuliffe said Thursday, previewing the announcement he will make on the steps of Virginia's Capitol, just yards from where President Abraham Lincoln once addressed freed slaves. 'We should do it as soon as we possibly can.'"

This is a lovely piece by my BNR colleague and friend JP: "In the crowds standing behind Hillary, I see people who look like me, and I can do so without straining my eyes. That's exciting to me. That's what I want tomorrow's America to look like—a place where, no matter where you come from or who you are, there is a spot for you. At a time where bigotry is on the rise, that's radical. In fact, that's revolutionary."

Team Cruz has produced another garbage advert, this time imagining Hillary Clinton and her team as a bunch of monsters who can't stop Ted Cruz. What a fun dream for him! "Though Cruz's fictional Clinton campaign is worried about facing him in the general election, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Clinton beating Cruz 46 percent to 44 percent." Ha!

Neat! "The Hubble Space Telescope may be turning 26 years old this weekend, but its vision is still out of this world. Case in point: [a] jaw-dropping view of the Bubble Nebula to celebrate the iconic space observatory's birthday."

And finally! Baby clouded leopards! "'Hand-rearing of these endangered exotic cats is an established practice that's critical for their well-being as cubs and their later participation in the Species Survival Plan program for Clouded Leopards,' said staff biologist Andy Goldfarb. Goldfarb has spent three decades caring for and raising endangered cats, and is known internationally as an expert in raising Clouded Leopards. The cubs each weighed around 13 ounces, or just about three-quarters of a pound, at their first checkup. It's still too early to tell their genders for certain, and they have yet to be named. The zoo will issue a news release and post to its Facebook page when details are available on how the public can help name the cubs."

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NOPE

[Content Note: Racism; misogyny.]

Bernie Sanders once again suggests he's going to be a magical president, and again slams President Obama for failing to overcome Republican obstructionism:

Bernie Sanders says the aim of his political revolution is to bring more people into the political process than President Barack Obama, arguing that he can close a presidential leadership gap that's persisted over the eight years of the Obama administration.

"There's a huge gap right now between Congress and the American people. What presidential leadership is about closing that gap," he told MSNBC in an interview Wednesday that will air in full Thursday evening on "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell."

Asked if he believed President Obama had closed that gap, Sanders said: "No, I don't. I mean, I think he has made the effort. But I think what we need, when I talk about a political revolution, is bringing millions and millions of people into the political process in a way that does not exist right now."

I don't have anything to say about this that I haven't said before:

Is Sanders suggesting that President Obama didn't have "tens of millions of people [ready] to stand up and be involved in the political process the day after the election"? Because whooooooooooooops. I described being in Chicago literally the day after President Obama was first elected thus:

Wednesday, the day after the election, the Space Cowpokes, Iain, and I were in Chicago all day, and something incredible had happened. (The same thing was happening in New York, too, as noted by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and I've gotten emails from people saying they found the same thing.) It was, like, Crazyhappyland. Everyone was laughing and smiling and being extra nice—spontaneous conversations about music, art, food, life, the election with strangers in elevators, in restaurants, in cabs, on the sidewalk. It was like every single person in Chicago had been told they had 100 years to live. Black, white, gay, straight, woman, man, everybody. People were happy and inspired and excited. A cloud had lifted. In one of the most politically cynical cities in the world, where the people know better than most that policians are fallible beings who often fail to deliver and fuck up in myriad ways, there was still a tangible, beautiful sense of the possible. The entire city was enveloped in great expectations.

Right now, let's believe we can do this.

And because, as I've said no fewer than a nonillion times now, this election is not just about Barack Obama, and his presidency will not be just about Barack Obama, but about us all, there's just this huge chance for something big in that optimism blanketing Chicago on Wednesday.

There was a palpable feeling of excitement and engagement, all over the country. If that didn't translate into enough energy and involvement to overcome the Republicans' gross obstructionism, welp.

Well, I do have one new thing to say. I have a real problem with Sanders' entire campaign increasingly resting on the idea that he will be able to accomplish things that a woman and a black man could never accomplish. I understand that Sanders isn't specifically saying he can accomplish them because he's a white man, but the reality is that he is positioning himself as uniquely capable in comparison to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, neither of whom are white men.

And lest anyone imagine that this unspoken message isn't resonating with at least some of his supporters, behold this incredible meme which is flying across social media:


Yeah.

Bernie Sanders isn't a wizard or a Jedi, despite what his claims about marshaling millions suggest to the contrary. He's just an old white guy, who is currently engaging in fantastical rhetoric that is demeaning to both our current president and his primary competitor.

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OMG Carly Fiorina

[Content Note: Racism; Islamophobia.]

Corporate power-failure Carly Fiorina was doing a cool townhall in New Hampshire when one of the people with whom she was speaking, a white man, called President Obama a "black Muslim," and Fiorina, like Donald Trump earlier in this campaign, declined to correct him. When she was subsequently criticized for failing to push back on that mischaracterization, this is how she defended herself during a Fox News interview:

Fox Anchor, a young blond white woman, whose name I don't know: I also want to hit on— There was a moment in New Hampshire, ah, where a gentleman approached you in a diner and made a reference to President Obama. We have that clip, and I want your response to it, if you could please.

Cut to clip: An older white man sitting in a booth at a diner (not "approaching" Fiorina, as the anchor suggested; Fiorina is standing beside the table where he is sitting and eating) looks up at Fiorina and says: "He doesn't want this country to get ahead. He doesn't. He's a Muslim. He's a black Muslim!" Fiorina starts to move away from him and says: "Well— It's time to—it's time to do something different in many ways." The man responds: "Absolutely!" Cut back to studio.

Anchor: He made a reference to the President being a Muslim, and you're being criticized because you didn't respond to that.

Fiorina: Well, I've responded to that over and over again—and, you know, at that diner townhall, I went through substantive question after substantive question, so. I've said on many occasions that President Obama tells me he's a Christian; I take him at his word. But the truth is: President Obama isn't on the ballot. The person who's on the ballot, who's gonna be on the ballot on the Democrat side, is Hillary Clinton. And so I talk about the issues that face our nation, and I talk about how it is that I can beat Hillary Clinton, because, in the end, we have to win the White House. But I also think it's time to do something different now. We simply cannot replace a D with an R, because we've had Rs in the White House over 40 years, and yet the things we say we care about haven't gotten fixed. We haven't ever slashed spending, we haven't ever limited the size and growth of government.

So, because Obama isn't running, there's no need to treat him with even a modicum of fucking decency. Hot take, Fiorina!

I am absolutely rage-exhausted with conservatives using this "Obama says he's a Christian, and I take him at his word" line, which I can only assume was conceived by Grover Norquist having a fever dream of Karl Rove making sweet love to a photograph of Frank Luntz moderating a focus group.

It's so cynical. It's basically a way of calling Obama a liar, but without calling him a liar.

And even if Fiorina has pushed back on that shit a million times (pix or it didn't happen!), that doesn't give her a free pass to not push back on it every time she's confronted with it. And the reason she didn't is because it's useful to her that people think this stuff, and believe she shares their convictions. And that guy clearly did—and no wonder, since her reply was essentially: "Yeah, we need to get a white Christian in there!"

So, basically: Blah blah Obama's a liar blah blah pivot to Clinton.

Rinse and repeat for however long this asshole retains her seat in the clown car.

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Rupert Murdoch: Still the Absolute Worst

[Content Note: Racism.]

Last night, conservative media magnate and real-life cartoon villain Rupert Murdoch tweeted this shit in support of Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson:

So, President Obama has been wayyyy too black for conservatives for seven years and now he's not black enough for Rupert Murdoch? Cool.

I think it's super neat when white people who don't believe race is a cultural construct start ranking blackness, without a trace of irony.

Anyway.

It's hard to know what to buy for the billionaire who has everything, but let's all chip in and buy Rupert Murdoch a big bag of STFU. Since he clearly doesn't have one.

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Christian Supremacy; Islamophobia; homophobia; anti-choicery.]

"President Obama's classless decision to transform Pope Francis' visit to the White House into a politicized cattle call for gay and pro-abortion activists is an insult to millions of Catholics. Why is it that Obama goes to extremes to accommodate Muslim terrorists but shows nothing but disdain for Christians? This is a new low for an administration that will go down as the most anti-Christian in American history."—Professor of Bible Bigotry and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, without a trace of irony that he's complaining about the President being anti-Christian while addressing his hosting the Pope at the White House.

Someone let Mike Huckabee know that there are gay and pro-choice Catholics.

Meanwhile, I'll have a talk with President Obama about how virulently anti-Christian he is. I'll drop by next year's National Prayer Breakfast. Or maybe the White House Easter Egg Roll. Or perhaps the White House Christmas Tree lighting. Or any one of a number of explicitly Christian events hosted by our Christian president every year.

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This Is Where We Are

[Content Note: Racism; birtherism; Islamophobia.]

Last night, at a rally in New Hampshire, an audience member said that President Obama is a Muslim, and Republican candidate Donald Trump did not even bother to correct him:

The exchange came during a post-debate rally in Rochester, N.H., during which Trump asked the audience for questions rather than giving a speech. To kick things off, Trump pointed at a man in the audience: "Okay, this man. I like this guy."

"We have a problem in this country, it's called Muslims," the man said. "We know our current president is one. You know, he's not even an American. Birth certificate, man."

"Right," Trump said, then adding with a shake of his head: "We need this question? This first question."

Obviously Trump wasn't happy with the question, but he didn't condemn it, either. Because his entire campaign is rooted in xenophobia, and to directly challenge it would be to undermine the very reason his supporters like him.

This incident is reminiscent of one on the 2008 campaign trail, in which one of then-GOP nominee John McCain's supporters made the same accusation against the President—except McCain responded in a very different way:

A white man, holding the mic at a townhall event: —and, uh, frankly, we're scared. Um, we're scared of an Obama presidency.

Edit. McCain, holding the mic: First of all, I want to be president of the United States, and obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be. But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States. [outraged noises from audience] Now, I—I just—I just—now look, I— If I didn't think I would be one heck of a lot better president, I wouldn't be running, okay? [cheers and applause] And that's the point. That's the point. Um.

Edit. A white woman, holding the mic: I gotta ask you a question. I do not, uh, believe in—I can't trust Obama. [McCain nods] I—I have read about him, and he's not—he's not—he's a, um, he's an Arab. He is not— [McCain shakes his head] No? [McCain reaches for the mic and takes it away]

McCain: No. No, ma'am. No, ma'am. He's a—he's a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about. He's not. Thank you.

Now, obviously McCain's response is still garbage, because "Arab" and "decent family man and citizen" are not mutually exclusive categories. But at least he didn't let that shit slide without any pushback at all.

And we're talking about a man who engaged in a campaign absolutely filled with racist dogwhistles against the President. Which exposes McCain's rank hypocrisy. But when faced with a supporter explicitly saying what he'd been dogwhistling, he denounced it.

Trump can't even be bothered to do that.

When John fucking McCain is the standard-bearer for decency, and your party's front runner can't even live up to the rock bottom expectations established by McNasty, you have derailed.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: War on agency] Fucking hell: "The U.S. House is likely to vote shortly after the August recess on a bill that would at least temporarily defund Planned Parenthood... It's not clear which proposal will be voted on, exactly when the vote will come, or whether the bill would be attached to other legislation. GOP aides told The Hill that leaders are still weighing their options, but a likely candidate is Rep. Diane Black's (R-TN) bill to halt federal funding to Planned Parenthood for one year while congressional investigations into the organization proceed. ...Some Republicans want to threaten a government shutdown by blocking any spending bills that contain funding for Planned Parenthood, but GOP leadership seems eager to avoid the chaos and controversy the move would provoke." I don't even know what to say anymore.

[CN: Homophobia; video autoplays at first link] Despite the US Supreme Court rejecting an appeal from Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis, who refuses to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Davis continues to refuse to comply with federal law, citing her "religious objections." Fire. This. Person.

[CN: Transphobia; carcerality; sexual assault] At last: "Ashley Diamond, the transgender inmate who sued the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) after being denied a safe environment and medically necessary gender dysphoria treatment, was released today after more than three years in prison, where she was housed with male inmates and sexually assaulted eight times. Diamond, 37, was released from Augusta State Medical Prison just five days after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed additional documents supporting her motion for preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed in February. The papers, which include sworn statements from multiple transgender inmates, demonstrate that the GDC continues to systematically deny appropriate care to transgender inmates, despite having earlier announced a policy change. 'I'm overjoyed to be with my family again and out of harm's way,' Diamond said. 'Although the systematic abuse and assaults I faced for more than three years have left me emotionally and physically scarred, I'll continue to fight for justice and to shine a light on the gross mistreatment of transgender inmates in Georgia and nationwide.'" Sob.

[CN: Racism; xenophobia] How are we even supposed to deal with this? "A majority of Republican voters, 54 percent, think that President Obama is a Muslim, according to a new survey from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP). Asked whether they thought Obama is a Christian or Muslim or if they were unsure, 32 percent said they were unsure. Fourteen percent said he was a Christian."

[CN: Rape culture; Christian Supremacy] Of course: Michael Seewald, the father-in-law of Josh Duggar's sister, Jessa, has written a piece of fetid bullshit about how Duggar isn't a real Christian (ahem) because of the Ashley Madison cheating stuff. This would hardly be worth mentioning except: "[I]n an earlier post [Seewald] defended the Duggars after Josh's molestation of his sisters was brought to light."

[CN: Rape culture] Drink up, assholes: "Joe Paterno Beer Flying Off Shelves: Pennsylvanians can't get enough of Duquesne Brewing Company's Paterno Legacy Series beer. The brew, which honors late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, hit shelves last week, and the brewery is already preparing for a second run."

I love Serena Williams with ten thousand hearts: "I embrace me, and I love how I look. I love that I'm a full woman and I am strong, and I'm powerful, and I'm beautiful at the same time, and there's nothing wrong like that. It's so important to look at the positives, if I get caught up looking at the negatives it can really bring you down… I don't have time to be brought down, I've got too many things to do. I have Grand Slams to win, I have people to inspire, and that's what I'm here for."

[CN: Racism; disablist language] WHUT: "James Bond author says Idris Elba is 'too street' to play the suave spy." It doesn't take a superspy to decode that communication. Fuck.

[CN: Moving GIF at link] This BBC host is SO EXCITED about seeing a blue whale! And I don't blame him one bit!

[CN: Moving GIFs at link] And finally! "Two Guys Went Fishing But Ended Up Catching Abandoned Kittens." Oh. Mah. Gawd. THE CUTEST!

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Human rights violations] Detroit's decision to turn off water to residents in arrears, at a rate of 3,000 residents per week, in the middle of summer is a human rights violation. It doesn't take the United Nations weighing in to recognize that, but they have. And now the Council of Canadians is stepping in to fight the turnoffs, because "our water is their water." This is an absolute fucking disgrace. The US is an absurdly wealthy country, and no one should have to go without water. No one.

[CN: Racism] A float featuring an outhouse labeled "Obama Presidential Library" won an award in a Fourth of July parade in Norfolk, Nebraska, over the weekend. Parade committee member Rick Konopasek defended the float and wants to know: "So should we deny the 95% of those that liked it their rights just for the 5% of people who are upset?" 1. Yes. 2. There is no guaranteed "right" to enjoy racist parade floats, dipshit.

[CN: Guns; violence] Chicago had another weekend of alarming gun violence, during which "at least 11 people were killed and 60 others wounded citywide." I strongly recommend checking out @Karnythia's TL for important commentary on violence (and the surrounding politics) in Chicago.

[CN: Terrorism; violence] Nigeria's military has claimed it killed "53 fighters from the armed group Boko Haram when it repelled an attack on a military base in the northeast Nigerian town of Damboa. A statement from defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade added that five soldiers and a senior military officer had also been killed in an exchange of fire Friday night. The military often reports high casualty figures for the rebels and relatively low ones on its own side. It is usually not possible to verify these reports independently." This ongoing battle with Boko Haram is just devastating for the region. In related news, the 200+ abducted girls still remain in Boko Haram's possession.

[CN: War on agency; misogyny] Dreading this big time: "The US Supreme Court will decide next term whether the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) requires an employer to provide workplace accommodations to pregnant employees if that employer also provides comparable accommodations to non-pregnant employees who become temporarily unable to perform their jobs without the accommodation."

[CN: Clergy abuse] Pope Francis met with survivors of Catholic clergy sex abuse in order to ask for forgiveness and promise accountability. Some survivors groups are rightly questioning whether this is just another publicity stunt from the Pope who, mere months ago, was still defensively quantifying how few priests have committed sex abuse.

[CN: Fat bias; misogyny] Andi Zeisler's review of Melissa McCarthy's new film Tammy is terrific: "Tammy Is Not a Great Film—But It Is a Radical One." I haven't seen the film yet, but I find it very interesting, ahem, that the complaints McCarthy is doing "the same character" have only arisen now that she's doing that character as a co-lead with an older and further aged woman (Susan Sarandon), instead of a beautiful thin woman (Sandra Bullock in The Heat) or a handsome thin man (Jason Bateman in Identity Thief). It's like suddenly time to criticize her when she's saying LOOK RIGHT AT ME. That's no coincidence.

Ten percent of USians are totally disengaged from politics: "Overall, 10% of Americans are what we call Bystanders, or the politically disengaged, according to Pew Research Center's Political Typology report. None of this cohort say they're registered to vote, and none say they follow government and public affairs most of the time (this compares with 48% of Americans overall). Virtually all of this group (96%) say they've never contributed money to a candidate running for public office." One part of me feels like how can anyone be so disengaged from politics when politics affects everything, and one part of me feels like I can't fucking blame them, lolsob.

Pink Floyd will be releasing its first album in 20 years later this year. Neat!

[CN: Fire; injury] Firefighter Major Kyle Durham adopted a badly injured puppy he rescued from a fire. All the blubs forever.

And finally: This USB Keyboard Will Bring Back the Nostalgic Clicks of a Vintage Typewriter. WANT!!!

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; death] On Monday, Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers "killed at least 200 civilians in three communities in north-eastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said on Thursday. A community leader who witnessed the killings on Monday said residents of the Gwoza local government district in Borno state had pleaded for the military to send soldiers to protect the area after they heard that militants were about to attack, but help did not arrive." This group is the definition of terrorism. Rage. Seethe. Boil.

[CN: Terrorism; white supremacy; guns] Speaking of terrorism: "A massive investigation in Oregon shows evidence of a criminal web—involving guns, drugs, stolen property, identity theft, and violence—linking white supremacists and outlaw motorcycle gangs. 'Operation White Christmas,' as the year-old investigation is code-named, so far has resulted in the arrests of 54 individuals, mostly in the Portland area, leading to 11 criminal cases in state court and another 43 in federal court. ...The Oregon suspects variously are affiliated with at least five known street and prison white supremacist gangs—European Kindred (EK); Rude Crude Brood; All Ona Bitch (AOB); Fat Bitch Killers (FBK); and Insane Peckerwood Syndicate (IPS), authorities say."

[CN: Racism; exploitation] RIP Chester Nez, the last surviving original Navajo Code Talker. "Nez was one of 29 members of the Navajo Nation who helped create the code used by the American military in World War II—a code that Japanese soldiers were never able to break during the conflict. ...Chester Nez spoke to Stars and Stripes in November, telling the newspaper, 'I was very proud to say that the Japanese did everything in their power to break that code but they never did.' Nez also said that he grew up during a time of difficult relations between the U.S. government and the Navajo Nation. He told Stars and Stripes that children were often removed from reservations, put into boarding schools, and prohibited from even speaking the Navajo language. Like so many others, Nez was recruited from one of those schools. The unmistakable irony, of course, is that it was the very prohibited language that proved to be an invaluable tool for the Pentagon in World War II's Pacific theater."

[CN: Rape apology; sexual violence] Babulal Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in India's Bharatiya Janata party-run central state of Madhya Pradesh, says that rape "is a social crime which depends on men and women. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong." Nope.

[CN: Racism] A new Fox News poll finds that "a majority of voters say the Obama administration is less competent than Bill Clinton's and a plurality say it is less competent than George W. Bush's." Huh. I wonder what it is about President Obama that would make respondents to a Fox News poll say that he is less competent than Presidents Clinton and Bush. I CAN'T IMAGINE.

Dutch forensics experts have discovered how to accurately date fingerprints: "'It's not quite the Holy Grail of fingerprinting, but it's a very important discovery,' Marcel de Puit, fingerprint researcher at the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI), told the AFP news agency on Wednesday, hailing what he said was a world's first. 'Police regularly ask us if we can date crime scene fingerprints,' he said, for instance a neighbor's prints found at the scene of a burglary. Were they left the last time the neighbor came round for coffee or from the night of the crime?"

Melissa McCarthy on explaining fame to her oldest daughter: "She asked me, 'Are you famous?' And I said to her, 'Famous doesn't mean anything. Just because people know my face doesn't mean they know us or that it makes us any more interesting or better.'"

And finally: Here is some GOOD NEWS for people who love awesome ladies! Star Wars: Episode VII Casts Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie. More like Brienne of DARTH, amirite?

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Abduction; terrorism; misogyny; abuse.] After another eight girls were abducted by Boko Haram, following the mass abduction 23 days ago, dozens of protestors rallied at the Nigerian Embassy, "with the hope of pressuring authorities to take action. ...Molly Alawode, a leader of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, told Al Jazeera the protests would continue 'if the government doesn't live up to its duty of service and protect the Nigerian population. We think it's really important to send this message today to let him [President Goodluck Jonathan] and other leaders know that the world is really watching,' she added." Nigerian police have now offered a $300,000 reward for information aiding in the rescue of the girls, and the White House has announced "it is sending a team to Nigeria to aid the effort to find the girls and those responsible."

[CN: Racism] Former Republican Governor of Floria Charlie Crist, who is now a Democrat, says that one of the primary reasons he left the GOP was its entrenched racism toward President Obama: "I couldn't be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president, I'll just go there. I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing, it was intolerable to me."

[CN: Rape culture] Speaking of intolerable, Tucker Carlson is such a fucking dirtbag: "A 15-year-old boy looks at [being sexually assaulted by a female teacher] as the greatest thing that's ever happened." He is as colossally gross as he is colossally wrong.

[CN: Guns] Speaking at the National Council for Behavioural Health conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned against letting go unchecked the idea that "anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime." Said Clinton: "I think again we're way out of balance. I think that we've got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime. And I don't believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people. And I think you can say that and still support the right of people to own guns." I will give this a provisional thumbs-up, although I expect that Clinton, should she become a candidate, will disappointingly take the same approach that's popular among Democrats right now and ultimate propose reforms that demonize people with mental illness.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton, former Second Lady Lynne Cheney took to Fox News to discuss Monica Lewinsky's recent piece in Vanity Fair about her affair with former President Bill Clinton, and these are the actual fucking words that Lynne Cheney actually fucking said: "I really wonder if this isn't an effort on the Clintons' part to get that story out of the way. Would Vanity Fair publish anything about Monica Lewinsky that Hillary Clinton didn't want in Vanity Fair?" Jesus Jones.

And finally! NBA MVP Kevin Durant gave a moving acceptance speech last night, in which he "thanked teammates by name, telling personal tales about each of their relationships and why they mattered to him. He thanked his coaches, talking at length about the close bond he has had with coach Scott Brooks since they came together during the Seattle SuperSonics days in 2007. ...When he finally turned his attention to woman who has always been his backbone, everything else seemed to fade away. With the room captivated, the son who is truly one of a kind spoke from the heart. 'Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21 years old,' Durant said, crying. 'Everybody told us we weren't supposed to be here. We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I had was when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, no furniture, and we just all sat in a room and just hugged each other. We thought we'd made it.'" He called his mom "the real MVP." All the blubs forever.

(Video is here. If and when I can finally find a transcript, I'll add a link. If you happen to find one, please drop a link in comments.)

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A Colossus of Nope

[Content Note: Racism; language policing.]

George Will, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post, has repeatedly gone after President Obama using coded (or not so coded) racist language. In his latest, headlined "Barack Obama, the adolescent president," Will complains bitterly that Obama's rhetorical skills prove that he's "an adolescent."

Will is just savvy enough to realize it would be too obvious to call our first black president "a boy."

His column opens thus:

Recently, Barack Obama — a Demosthenes determined to elevate our politics from coarseness to elegance; a Pericles sent to ameliorate our rhetorical impoverishment — spoke at the University of Michigan. He came to that very friendly venue — in 2012, he received 67 percent of the vote in Ann Arbor's county — after visiting a local sandwich shop, where a muse must have whispered in the presidential ear. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had recently released his budget, so Obama expressed his disapproval by calling it, for the benefit of his academic audience, a "meanwich" and a "stinkburger."

Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan talking like that. It is unimaginable that those grown-ups would resort to japes that fourth-graders would not consider sufficiently clever for use on a playground.

Those grown-ups. Unlike our current president, who is a boy.

Frankly, I can absolutely imagine any of those former presidents making a similar sort of joke at a similar sort of venue. Media coverage of those presidents, however, is different than media coverage of presidents and candidates today, so I'm not sure an offhand joke would have been recorded or remembered or considered evidence of anything other than the fact that most national politicians are pretty awkward with the relate-to-the-people humor.

What I can't imagine is a serious national columnist proposing that one of those presidents making an offhanded wordplay joke rises to the importance of a column in the Washington Post about how said joke reveals something meaningful about the character of the man who made it.

And, listen, I'm genuinely not one to play the "What about Bush?" game, because I generally see it being used to deflect legitimate criticism of Obama. But this is categorically not legitimate criticism of Obama, so WHAT ABOUT BUSH.

Former President George W. Bush, during a debate with then-Democratic nominee John Kerry: I own a timber company? That's news to me! Heh heh heh. Need some wood?

That was not merely a stupid joke, but a deflection of the fact that Bush was, in fact, part owner of a "limited-liability company organized 'for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales,'" i.e. a timber company. Bush routinely used his "bad jokes" to lie, not merely to try to make the partisan audience in front of him chuckle politely.

Which is but one example of the many behaviors exhibited by Bush during his presidency, which might reasonably be called a wee bit immature. On balance, maybe referring to Ryan's budget on one occasion as a "stinkburger" isn't any worse than Bush nicknaming and routinely referring to his own closest adviser, Karl Rove, as "Turd Blossom."

Will wasn't publicly handwringing about Bush's immaturity while in office, because he wasn't trying to discredit Bush. And now Will can apparently find no viable critique of Obama, so he resorts to racist dog whistles about his being "an adolescent" rather than a man. Which is itself a further extension of the "manhood problem" meme.

The Washington Post should be ashamed to publish this despicable nonsense. But, clearly, they're pretty okay with continuing to pay a fine salary to a man who uses their space to make belittling racist attacks on the President of the United States.

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David Brooks Says President Obama Has a "Manhood Problem"

[Content Note: Gender essentialism; racism; misogyny.]

David Brooks continues to be the absolute worst:

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Sunday claimed that President Obama's foreign policy isn't "tough" and that he has a "manhood problem" in the Middle East.

Pivoting off Sen. Bob Corker's (R-TN) charge on NBC's Meet the Press that Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine have showed an "era of permissiveness" under Obama, later in the program, Brooks — while noting that he doesn't necessarily agree with the charge — said this issue extends to the Middle East:

BROOKS: Basically since Yalta we've had an assumption that borders are basically going to be borders and once that comes into question if in Ukraine or in Crimea or anywhere else, then all over the world all bets are off. And let's face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I'll say it crudely — but a manhood problem in the Middle East. Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin? I think a lot of the rap is unfair but certainly in the Middle East there is an assumption that he's not tough enough.

NBC's Chuck Todd agreed. "By the way, internally they fear this you know it's not just Corker saying it, questioning whether the president is being alpha-male," he said. "That's essentially saying 'he's not alpha-dog. His rhetoric isn't tough enough.'"

Leaving aside the evident issue that conservatives never think diplomacy and/or non-military interventions are "tough enough," because they favor an aggressive, militaristic foreign policy, this shit not only plays into gender essentialist narratives equating maleness with toughness, but also invokes a racist history of policing and questioning black male manhood, which has long written black men out of the stereotypical definitions of the "alpha male."

(I suspect if Brooks were obliged to address such criticism, there would be a whole lot of intent argumentation, but the point is not whether Brooks explicitly intended to invoke racist tropes. He did, and his intent is irrelevant.)

Meanwhile, I expect we will be hearing an increasing number of overt and thinly veiled gender essentialist attacks on the current president, as conservatives seek to preemptively discredit presumed candidate Hillary Clinton on the basis that she is not a man.

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Meanwhile...

[Content Note: Racism; racist imagery.]

While former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says President Obama should have been able to "see the future" regarding Russia, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that a "trained ape" could have done a better job in diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.

"We have status of forces agreements probably with 100, 125 countries in the world," Rumsfeld said Monday night on On the Record with Greta van Susteren on Fox News. "This administration, the White House and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement. A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement. It does not take a genius."

"Trained ape" is one of Rumsfeld's favorite turns of phrase, but his casual use of the term does not mitigate the racist connotations of using it in the specific context of criticizing the foreign policy of our black president.

Who was just depicted, along with the First Lady, as an ape in a Belgian newspaper last week.

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Guns; racism.]

"I urge our president to use caution when attacking clearly defined absolutes in favor of his principles. When absolutes are abandoned for principles, the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone's graffiti."—Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association and professional jackass, in response to President Obama having said in his inaugural address that USians should not "mistake absolutism for principle," despite the fact that the President only obliquely referred to gun reform by saying: "Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm," which obviously entails much more than preventing gun death, as his address made abundantly clear.

Aside from the fact that LaPierre is a rank liar and a tedious hyperbolist, I wonder how many of our white presidents have been accused of spraying "graffiti" on the Constitution.

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Sure

[Content Note: Sexism; racism.]

Possibly feeling they've exhausted race-baiting strategies a few weeks before the election, the Romney campaign is now pulling the old "Democrats are so weak they're practically women!" gambit: "Adviser says Romney will ask Obama to 'man up' on Libya attack at debate."

Former Ambassador Richard Williamson, a top foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said Tuesday that the Republican nominee would call on President Obama to "man up" and "accept his responsibility" for the terrorist attack on the American diplomatic mission in Libya.

In an interview with Fox News, Williamson, who served as ambassador to the U.N. for special political affairs, said that despite a town-hall debate format that involves more of an interaction with undecided voters than a back-and-forth between the candidates, he believed Romney could question "why we can't get transparency" about the attacks.

"They have a right to know, to make judgments about his stewardship as president and I think Gov. Romney, quite properly, will be asking questions, probing," Williamson said.

He added that Romney would try "to ask the president to man up, accept his responsibility and explain to the people the failure that resulted in four American deaths."

Actually, upon consideration, I suppose the picture of a white dude barking at the African American president to "man up and accept his responsibility" will be a pretty effective appeal to racists, too.

Gross.

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Generally Terrible

"This fuckin' election!"
Here is all the latest news (or at least some of it!) from the long national nightmare that is The Presidential Election 2012: Vote for Whoever You Think Will Destroy the Country Less Quickly!

If you were waiting to decide how to vote based on what British asshole and inexplicable US television personality Piers Morgan thinks, well, you are IN LUCK today! "He's one of the least principled politicians I've met. But I believe Mitt Romney might just save America." Sure.

I know what you're thinking! BUT WHAT DOES JAY MCINERNY, AUTHOR OF ICONIC 80'S SECOND-PERSON NOVEL BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY, HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS?! "We have to give Obama a second chance."

Boy, it just doesn't get any easier, does it? Piers Morgan says Mitt Romney will save America, WHICH IS PRETTY GOOD, but Jay McInerny says that President Barack Obama deserves a second term, WHICH IS ALSO COMPELLING. I hardly know where to turn.

It's no wonder that it's still a tight race going to debate #2!

Hey! Speaking of the debate! The one thing EVERYONE can agree on is that scheduled debate moderator Candy Crowley, Woman, stinks! She has suggested that her role in moderating the town-hall style debate, in which average voters who do not have decades-long careers as professional journalists ask questions of the candidates, could include asking follow-up questions, especially in the event that the candidates are evasive. Naturally, both campaigns are OUTRAGED! They selected a competent female journalist to moderate the perennially awkward to the point of infuriatingly useless town-hall style debate so that she would STFU!

As Crowley put it last week, "Once the table is kind of set by the town-hall questioner, there is then time for me to say, 'Hey, wait a second, what about X, Y, Z?'"

...After Crowley made her "x, y, z" remarks to Suzanne Malveaux on October 5, the two campaign counsels, Bob Bauer for President Obama and Ben Ginsberg of the Romney campaign, jointly reached out to the Commission to express concern that the moderator’s comments seemed in direct conflict with the terms of their agreement. The Commission sent back word that they would discuss the matter with Crowley and reconfirm her function.

Reconfirm her function. Yiiiiiiiiikes. The American Democracy at work!

[Content Note: Racism.]

And in other news, Republicans are still super racist toward the President!

Mark Sanford Says Obama Will 'Throw a Lot of Spears' at Next Debate: "The disgraced former Republican governor of South Carolina on Sunday used a racially-coded term in his prediction that the nation's first African-American president would go on attack and 'throw a lot of spears' at Tuesday's town hall debate. ... 'Completely coincidentally, and not at all related to this, the term 'spearchucker' is a racial slur against black people, but what would a 52-year-old white guy from South Carolina know about that?' [Mediaite's Tommy Christopher] quipped sarcastically."

Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son Says We "Have The Opportunity" to Send Obama Back to Kenya: "Jason Thompson, the son of former Governor and Wisconson Senate candidate Tommy Thompson, speaking this morning at a brunch attended RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that 'we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago—or Kenya.' ... The Thompson campaign emails: 'The Governor has addressed this with his son, just like any father would do. Jason Thompson said something he should not have, and he apologizes.'"

And Getty Images photographer Jamie Sabau snapped an image of a white man at a Romney campaign event in Lancaster, Ohio last Friday wearing a t-shirt reading: "Put the white back in the White House." He was also sporting a Romney/Ryan campaign sticker. Gee, it's almost like running a campaign full of racist dog-whistles and overt racism attracts racist supporters! GO FIGURE!

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

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Solid Reasoning from a Well-Known Genius

[Content Note: Racism.]

Professional grumpy conservative George Will uses his latest column to express his mystification that Mitt Romney is losing. President Obama, he observes, is a terrible president presiding over a terrible economy:

Romney and his advisers must be bewildered by this fact: In October 2011 they would have been serenely confident of victory if they had been told that 12 months later the following would be true.

That President Obama would be waist deep in muddy and contradictory descriptions and explanations of the terrorist (he now concedes) attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. That data just released for August 2012 showed that real disposable income had again declined. That Obama would actually celebrate the fact that, for the first month since he took office, there were more U.S. jobs than when he took office. That the most recent figures show a 13.2 percent decline in durable goods orders. That nearly 25 percent — the highest in three decades — of Americans between ages 25 and 55 are unemployed. That the second-quarter growth rate was adjusted down from an anemic 1.7 percent to the stall speed of 1.3 percent.

...Obama's administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically.

Not all of that is totally accurate or fair, but, in broad terms, I won't argue with the fact that President Obama hasn't been as aggressive enough in his economic policy. Of course, I think he hasn't been, and refuses to be, aggressively progressive enough, even leaving Republican obstructionism aside, but potato potahto. Point is, the economy still stinks.

So why is it then, George Will wonders, that USians aren't willing to throw Obama out on his ass and vote in Mitt Romney? The evident answer is because no matter how bad one might think Obama is, anyone who isn't a free-market, no-tax, let-them-eat-bootstraps conservative readily acknowledges that Mitt Romney is even worse.

But George Will has a different theory:

A significant date in the nation's civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues' first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.

Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson — who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams — showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.

Perhaps a pleasant paradox defines this political season: That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC's excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation's heart, if not its head.

I don't even know where to begin with that. I mean, in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and twelve, this guy still thinks "colorblind equality" is a laudable objective. (And still thinks wordplay like "darkly suggested" is clever.) So the context of this theory must include the decrepit brainpan of fetid ideas whence it emanated.

But this shit got published in the Washington Post. So its context is also one of credibility and presumed wisdom. Yikes.

Yikes—because what George Will is saying here is ugly and wrong. During the last election, liberals only voted for Obama because he is black and we wanted to make history, and now we are only voting for Obama because he is black so we're holding him to a lower standard.

Which would be a shitty assertion even if it were not easily seen to be demonstrably wrong. We are "especially reluctant to give up on" President Obama? Excuse me? As compared to what—the previous two-term president who, after his first term, was already known to be a wanton warmonger who cooked a case for war, had no exit strategies for either of the wars he started, demonized dissenters as traitors to their nation, supported torture, undermined the international rule of law, thumbed his nose at domestic law, expanded the powers of the executive branch in contravention of the people's will, oversaw a congressional majority rife with corruption and unchecked spending, eschewed any and all accountability, demonized marginalized peoples, and was a comprehensive failure in just about every aspect of his presidency, yet squeaked out a victory to get a second term?

Really, George Will? Compared to George W. Bush, the president no one in the party you support, including your current nominee, will name for fear of being tainted with the lingering odor of his catastrophic presidency, was someone USians were less reluctant to abandon after one term than Barack H. Obama, who inherited Bush's garbage economy and nightmare disaster foreign policy decisions, and whose biggest failure is failing to be sufficiently progressive to unhesitatingly consign his predecessor's every policy to the dustbin of American history?

Get a grip.

If the reason that President Obama is leading has anything to do with the color of his skin, it is this: Being a black man in the United States of America is to be part of a marginalized community, and to be part of a marginalized community generally necessitates and creates a level of empathy that being an undilutedly privileged person does not.

Lots of people, even people who support him, see in Mitt Romney something that tends to be described as "robotic" or "cold" or even "sociopathic." What they are seeing is a lack of empathy.

And in a nation where so many people are struggling, so many are hurting and desperate and disillusioned, feeling like their president gives a shit is not a small thing.

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Quote of the Day

Now, the fact that a lot of Americans are still opposed not simply to the presidency of Barack Obama but to the idea of the presidency of Barack Obama is not something that Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or in fact any Democratic speechmaker will talk about at the convention. But it's indisputable, and it accounts for the almost fantastic nature of what many Americans think of both the president and the First Lady. To be sure, they're politically vulnerable on merit; but they're also vulnerable because even, after their four years in office, a weirdly unvarying percentage of America does not accept them as Americans. It is prejudice, pure and simple, and it manifests itself less in polling results than it does in a political discourse warped by whispers and suspicions kept sub rosa.

And so it was hard to say what Michelle Obama had to do on Tuesday night, because so much of what she had to do tonight was something outside the realm of polite speech. Republican commentators spoke almost winsomely of Ann Romney's need to humanize Mitt Romney; but no Democratic commentator could speak of the necessity of "Americanizing" Barack Obama without indulging the worst instincts of the American electorate. So what Michelle Obama did, quite simply, was engage the best...

So maybe Michelle Obama was supposed to humanize her husband on Tuesday night, in her big speech. Maybe she was even supposed to humanize herself. But she wound up doing something very different, and something far more rare, and something that not only answered the people who insist that she is not like them but also had to shame them: She was simply human, and so as American as any of us could hope or dare to be.

—Tom Junod. Go read the whole thing here.

[H/T to Jessica. See also: Irin Carmon's "Michelle Obama: Beyond mom-in-chief."]

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