Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner's lawsuit arguing that President Obama is not implementing Obamacare fast enough "contains a glaring misrepresentation of a recent Supreme Court decision that undermines much of the basis for this lawsuit."
If only we had a Supreme Court majority who would give a crap about that.
Of Course It Does
TV Corner: The Leftovers
[Content Note: Spoilers for the latest episode of The Leftovers. Violence; cultism.]
This is pretty much the face I'm making every minute of watching this show.
We have now reached the third episode of this series, which apparently means they've done enough random set-up of our main characters and story, and now we're going to move into dedicated character episodes.
Obviously, there's no better place to start than with a character who has only minimally penetrated the edges of our awareness, so we begin with an episode centered on Reverend Matt Jamison, of whom we've gotten only the briefest of glimpses as he hands out his flyers detailing the sins of the people who have disappeared.
Here's what happens: The bank is foreclosing on Pastor Who's church, because he has failed to make payments for a million years. This is because no one is going to church anymore. Also? His wife is severely disabled from a car crash caused by an unmanned vehicle during the rapture-or-whatever, and he can't pay her home healthcare aide. Basically, dude's pressed for cash.
He asks his sister for the money. She's the lady who lost her husband and both children in the rapture-or-whatever, and also has hand lotion in her car. She tells him to fuck off. He tells her that her husband was cheating on her with their kids' preschool teacher. She laughs in his stupid face.
He digs up money in a peanut butter jar that Police Chief Kevin Garvey's dad buried under his backyard grill and earmarked for Pastor Who before he was hauled off to the asylum. But it's only $20,000. Pastor Who drives to a casino and bets it all on red three times. Yay! He has the money he needs.
The casino gives him a giant wad of cash in an envelope, and a shady character who saw him winning at the roulette table follows him to his car, asking for gas money. Pastor Who is
On the way to the bank, Pastor Who sees one of the cigarette cultists get hit in the head with a rock by kids in a jeep. It's like mailbox baseball, only with rocks and heads. He gets out to help and whooooooooops then he gets hit in the head with a rock! I think god is definitely telling this guy to stop helping people.
Anyway, following THE WORST DREAM SEQUENCE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE, he wakes up in the hospital. Eccleston butt. It's late in the day, and the bankman only gave him one day to come up with the cash to save the church, so he rushes over to the bank. Turns out he's been totes unconscious for two days and fully missed the deadline. Sad trombone.
He goes over to the church to discover that the cigarette cultists have bought it, because of course they have. And they are painting the entire exterior of the building, including the windows, white, because of course they are.
Pastor Who looked pissed. The end.
And I still have no idea what this show is even doing. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be serious? I don't get it. I have never not gotten a show before the way I'm not getting this one.
Discuss!
Now It's a Whole Thing with Jean
Last year, I posted an SNL digital short which was a music video for a song called "(Do It on My) Twin Bed," about getting in on in your childhood bedroom while you're home for the holidays. Since the writers of that short have now been nominated for an Emmy, including my favies Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon, I thought it would be an excellent time to repost it so we could all enjoy it! (Again or for the first time.)
Exterior of house decorated with Christmas lights. Interior of house: An older white couple stands by a Christmas tree. Another older white couple sits on a couch, talking. On another couch, a bunch of kids are sitting and chatting with older relatives. By the mantle, the women of SNL (Noël Wells, a thin white brunette woman; Kate McKinnon, a thin white blonde woman; Vanessa Bayer, a thin white brunette woman; Aidy Bryant, a fat white brunette woman; Cecily Strong, a thin white brunette woman; and Nasim Pedrad, a thin Iranian-American brunette woman (I'm not sure if she identifies as white or a WOC, hence noting her heritage) stand in a row, wearing club clothes. They introduce themselves to a back beat, in girl-band style. McKinnon: "We're home for the holidays." Wells: "And this year, we brought our boyfriends home with us." Thin white male cast members Taran Killam and Brooks Wheelan, and thin white male host Jimmy Fallon wave at the camera. Bayer: "But just because we're back in our mom and dad's house..." Pedrad: "Doesn't mean we can't still get a little nasty." They all laugh.That will never stop being fucking amazing.
The music kicks in. From here on out, the quoted text is song lyrics, set to images of the women prance-dancing on a stage, interspersed with images of the women awkwardly getting their sexy on with uncomfortable dudes in a white metal-framed twin bed in a teenage girl's room, frozen in time, with posters of Mario Lopez and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, among others, hung on the walls.
McKinnon: Back in town visiting my mom and dad / But that don't mean I don't wanna be bad / Say what's up to my cousins / Say what's up to my neighbors / Then take my man to my childhood bedroom.
Pedrad: This is my old christening dress / And here's my stack of X-Files on VHS.
Bayer: Now we're gonna freak (freak) / In my monkey sheets / That I've had since I was a kid.
All: Let's do it on my twin bed (twin bed) / Not gonna like it (like it) / But it's the only option (option) / Where we can get it poppin' (poppin') / Let's do it on my twin bed (twin bed) / Pop and fall off it (off it) / But let's get wild (wild) / In a bed for a child. (child)
Strong: If you want an old cat to watch you bone / You're gonna want to get down in my parents' home / It'll make you spotty (spotty) / While you lick my body (body) / Then he'll throw up on your bag!
Bryant: Come on, sexy boy, gotta do this quick / While my folks are at the pharmacy; my mom is sick / She's had a cough (cough) / She got it from Jean (Jean) / And now it's a whole thing with Jean.
Wells: I'm glad you got to meet my Uncle Ted / Now keep it down 'cuz he's asleep on my trundle bed.
Uncle Ted: Hey don't mind me (me) / We're family (leeee) / Did ya hear Aunt Ruth is dead? (sad)
All: Let's do it on my twin bed (twin bed) / Even though Aunt Ruth's dead {Ruth's dead) / Wish we had more room (more room) / But grandma got the guest room (guest room) / But we'll still get nasty (nasty) / Up against my trophies (trophies) / You're a certified hottie (hottie) / Like JTT.
Talking poster of Jonathon Taylor Thomas: Aww, thanks!
Jimmy Fallon, rapping: Girl, you know I love you, but let's be clear / I'm having lots of trouble gettin' horny here / I wanna get down and do my thing / But your childhood bed has antique springs / And I guess your mom don't know how to knock / Keep my foot on the door 'cuz it doesn't lock / I can't fully undress in case your parents come through / Just shirt, no pants, like Winnie the Pooh / [inaudible under audience laughter] even tryin' to get laid / Near a photo of you from seventh grade!
The music halts to just a beat and the camera zooms in on a seventh grade photo of Kate McKinnon. Bryant (I think) says in voiceover: "Let's take it back now, y'all!" The camera moves through the picture onto a stage where a giant photo of each woman from seventh grade serves as a backdrop while they dance in front of it. IT IS SO FUNNY. And then, at the end, a giant image of Jimmy Fallon's seventh grade yearbook photo, which he stands in front of, looking embarrassed.
All: So let's do it on my twin bed (twin bed) / Not gonna like it (like it) / But ya can't be picky (picky) / When you're staying with your family! (family)
Fallon: I've been sexing in a tiny twin bed, y'all.
McKinnon: Happy holidays.
Bryant: We out.
Also? Paul the Spud and I will never stop laughing at this. NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by daisies.
Recommended Reading:
[Content Note: Rape culture] EBONY has launched an important series entitled EndingRape4Ever, which will explore the US rape culture through the lens of the black experience. Part One, by Lori Robinson, the author of I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and the special guest editor for the series, has been published here: "It's Personal."
BYP: [CN: Racism; misogyny; classism] Rachel Jeantel Heartbreakingly Blames Herself "a Little Bit" for Zimmerman Verdict
Jake: [CN: Homophobia] Indiana Attorney General Pushes for Ten Judge Panel to Decide Marriage
Andrea: [CN: Violence; abuse; appropriation] Beyond the Pros and Cons of Trigger Warnings: Collectivizing Healing
Ragen: [CN: Fat bias; health policing] When They're Concerned About Your Health
Prison Culture: [CN: Inmate abuse; carcerality] Cecily McMillan Describes the Violence of Prison Searches
Leigh: [CN: Misogyny; policing] But WHAT CAN BE DONE: Dos and Don'ts to Combat Online Sexism
Zoë: [CN: Food insecurity] Community Eligibility: A Proven Tool to Address Child Hunger
Veronica: [CN: References to gun violence] Janelle Monáe at the Taste of Chicago
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Process Model Ally Work, Part Three
[Content Note: Appropriation; silencing; violent metaphor. Part One. Part Two. Please note that the "Process Model" is not my invention, but a concept that is discussed by many feminist and womanist writers who have informed my thinking, especially the terrific Sister Outsider.]
Above is a tweet I published the day Maya Angelou died, after seeing a bunch of white women police black women's reactions to losing a prominent black female scholar and lecture black women that Maya Angelou's work was "universal," so valuing her specifically as a black woman is somehow wrong.
This is something white women do a lot to black women. It's something that members of privileged groups of people do to members of marginalized groups of people all the time, "What about the men?" being an easily recognized variation (which lots of white feminists inexplicably don't reverse engineer to apply to their own demands to have their concerns centered). It's something that members of one marginalized group do to members of other marginalized groups.
In its every iteration, the effect is essentially: "Sure, yeah, awesome, your issues, but why aren't you talking about ME?"
Sometimes it functions as straight-up silencing. Other times, it serves as an attempt to flatten a conversation and elide key differences between groups, i.e. erase privilege. (Which is itself an indirect silencing.) When, for example, a fat activist is talking about the specific body policing to which fat women are subjected, and a thin woman says, "Thin women get body policed, too," that is a true thing—and it is also irrelevant to the discussion of fat women's lived experiences.
But it doesn't have to be.
By which I mean: If a thin woman, for example, is able to see similarities in her own lived experience to those being detailed by fat women, she can use that to build a bridge to that community.
That doesn't mean admonishing that community to include and center her. It means finding within herself an empathy that makes her able to engage in valuable ally work.
Once upon a time, a friend of mine, a cis woman who is married to a trans woman, posted a thing on social media that was a list of (IIRC) 30 things that trans* people have to think about when accessing healthcare that cis people don't.
And, as I read it, I was struck—once again—by how many of those things I had experienced because I'm a fat (cis) woman.
Finding my own experiences there did not produce an instinct to mount some petulant protest about how "I have to face a lot of this, too, and I'm cis!" Instead, my instinct was to, once again, observe (privately, to myself) that trans* people and fat people (who are not mutually exclusive groups) have a whole lot of reason, centered around bodily autonomy, to work as each other's allies.
That I have a whole lot of personal reason to work as an ally to trans* people, in addition to its just being the ethical thing to do.
Privileged people have a choice when we see our own experiences in the reported experiences of people who don't share our privilege: We can jump in and demand that marginalized people acknowledge our experiences, or we can use shared experience as a way to draw closer to that community.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that people who find similar experiences in some other group's oppression pipe up to say, "Me too!" Inserting oneself, whether in a negative or positive way, is still centering oneself.
This isn't a piece about how to interact with other people. It's a piece about the interior work we have to do on ourselves.
About how we think about things.
The way I think about things absolutely affects the way I approach people. One of the most crucial changes in my thinking I've ever had is this:
Not giving myself permission to audit how someone else is feeling about something, and instead replacing that instinct with an urge to understand why they're feeling that way, has made a radical difference in my ability to listen—a quality that my various privileges (including and especially my white privilege) socialized me to explicitly ignore in favor of judgment and emotional policing.
I am still, and will always be, a flawed work in progress. Changing the way I think, examining how even the way I thought about things, is ongoing and necessary. It is simply not possible to change one's approach to people without changing one's thinking about one's privilege.
We are human sponges socialized in a culture steeped in institutional oppressions and we continue to be bombarded with messages exhorting us to privilege whiteness and maleness and straightness and cisgenderedness and thinness and able-bodiedness and wealth and and and and and, messages that encourage us to treat people without those privileges as less than every day of our fucking lives; and it is absurd to imagine that we can overcome this socialization without serious effort.
Resocializing ourselves out of the shit with which we were indoctrinated is work. It doesn't happen by magic or mere will.
We need to rethink. In every sense of that word.
Privilege gives us bad instincts, by design. One of the worst is to center ourselves in other people's spaces, using commonality of experience to facilitate division, rather than alliance.
"Me too" isn't empathy, when it effectively functions as "Me."
Because trickle-down social justice doesn't work any better than trickle-down economics, we must embrace a bottom-up social justice activism. Rights are really not, despite protestations to the contrary, a zero-sum game. It's not just okay, but important, for people with relative privilege to step aside in support of people with even less privilege who experience the same oppression. Work up, and that equality will come to you, too.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; violence; death] In Israel and Gaza: In the past week, more than 800 homes in Gaza have been either damaged or destroyed; nearly 20,000 people have fled Gaza; 172 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died; more than 1,000 people have been injured; 36,000 Israeli reservists have been called up to report for duty; and dozens of people have been arrested protesting in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Last night: "Israeli warplanes and naval gunboats struck over 200 targets overnight, while armed groups in Gaza fired about 20 rockets into Israel." This morning: Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that Israel "is continuing to pound Hamas and its infrastructure. The damage to Hamas and to other terror organizations in the Gaza Strip is severe." It doesn't sound like Israel is "pound[ing] Hamas and its infrastructure" as much as it is just devastating the population of Gaza. Which I know we're meant to treat as synonymous with "Hamas and its infrastructure," but isn't. Children are not "Hamas and its infrastructure."
[Please note: If you misrepresent expressions of concern for Palestinian civilians as a blanket endorsement of Hamas, you will be shut the fuck down.]
[CN: Environmental disaster] Over the weekend, Oklahoma was shaken by seven small earthquakes in fourteen hours, "part of an increase in earthquakes across Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas that some scientists say could be connected to the oil and gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, and especially the wells in which the industry disposes of its wastewater."
[CN: War on agency; war on drugs] Tennessee Mom Arrested Under New Pregnancy Outcome Law: "A Tennessee woman was arrested Tuesday under a new state law that criminalizes drug dependent mothers. The Tennessee measure, signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam in April, prohibits 'the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant, if [the] child is born addicted to or harmed by the narcotic drug.' The new mother was arrested and charged with simple assault just two days after giving birth. The infant tested positive for amphetamine, which is not a narcotic according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration. There have also been no reports that the newborn was addicted to the drug or harmed by exposure." This law is garbage. It's a disincentive for pregnant women to seek healthcare and treatment for addiction; criminalizing addiction isn't actually a solution to addiction ever; and separating parents from children to imprison parents, instead of using the cost of incarceration to facilitate wellness, does no one any fucking good.
Here is the story of President Obama fist-bumping for gay rights. "As the president approached, Webb threw his hand down and slapped the counter dramatically. 'Equal rights for gay people!' 'Are you gay?' the president asked. 'Only when I have sex. That's when he laughed and said: Bump me.'"
[CN: Racism; police malfeasance] It's a real mystery why many people of color might be inclined to mistrust the police: "The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is expected to release the details of an investigation into two former Fruitland Park police officers who may have ties with the Ku Klux Klan." Jesus Jones.
This is just a terrific story about lots of people turning up for an 8-year-old boy's piano recital on his front porch. Not because he's a virtuoso (he's not), but because he advertised a recital, and so they provided an audience.
RIP Tommy Ramone.
[CN: Misogyny] Why do the showrunners on so many shows I like have to be fucking shitlords? "As for those who criticized the first season [of True Detective] for not having substantial female leads, Pizzolatto said that it 'affected me a little bit in my conception of season 2, but then not at all. I realized I was listening to things I didn't agree with and taking cues from the wrong places. I just put it out of my mind.'" Terrific.
And finally! A Magical Miniature World of Snails. I love snails. They are the cutest!
Yes
[Content Note: Body policing; fat stereotypes.]
Every year, ESPN's magazine does a "body issue," featuring the naked (but carefully positioned) bodies of prominent athletes. This year, the cover features professional baseball player Prince Fielder, and there's an additional photo of Fielder inside:
[Click to embiggen.]
Those pictures are everything.
Fielder had to know when he posed for these shots, since he's already routinely mocked for being "out of shape," that revealing his body would not be met with universal approval. And it has not been. I won't be giving any traffic to the sites in which commentators are ridiculing and body policing him, or complaining about being "forced" to gaze upon Fielder's body with their delicate eyes, but they're out there, if you have any inclination to find them.
But Fielder posed all the same, and the resulting images are a challenge to anyone who thinks there is only one "athletic physique," any one way to appear "strong," any one definition of what the human body should look like.
The negative reactions to viewing these pictures says something about the people having them, not something about Fielder. He is brave.
And he is visible.
It's not about finding him beautiful; beautiful is beyond the point. No one need agree that he is beautiful to understand that he is a human being with a right to be free from judgment and hatred on the basis of his appearance.
The conflation of those two—asking to be found beautiful and asking to be seen—is the shortest (and most mendacious) way that conversations about body acceptance get shut down.
Prince Fielder, I see you.
* * *
The rest of the issue, as Travis Waldron notes here, isn't quite as radical. I've no idea, of course, whether they asked, say, Holley Mangold, to pose and she turned them down, or whether they didn't even ask. But I hope to see much more body diversity, especially among the women, in future issues.
US DoJ Will Support Marriage Equality at SCOTUS
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
As multiple states are challenging rulings legalizing same-sex marriage, and Utah has announced its intention to take their case to the United States Supreme Court, US Attorney General Eric Holder says that the Department of Justice "is ready to intervene on behalf of marriage equality" if SCOTUS agrees to hear a case on the matter.
Holder made the statement in an interview broadcast [Sunday] on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. ...If the high court hears [Utah's] or a similar case from any other state, the Justice Department will file a brief with the court that "will be in support of same-sex marriage," Holder said in the interview with ABC News' Pierre Thomas. It would be "consistent with the actions that we have taken over the past couple of years," Holder added, such as refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a key portion of which was invalidated by the Supreme Court last year.Right on.
However, in that decision, when the court ruled that DOMA's ban on federal government recognition of same-sex marriages violates the U.S. Constitution, it did not say whether marriage is actually a constitutional right. And when the high court heard the case involving California's Proposition 8, the question before it was whether the measure's proponents had legal standing to defend it in court; in ruling that they did not, the Supreme Court let lower court rulings against Prop. 8 stand, but still did not establish a constitutional right to marriage.
Holder said he believes marriage is a constitutional right, and he thinks the Supreme Court will agree when it considers cases on state-level bans of same-sex unions. "I think a lot of these measures that ultimately will come before the court will not survive a heightened scrutiny examination," he said.
Open Thread
Hosted by a manx cat.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter M.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by cake.
Recommended Reading:
Sarah: [Content Note: Abortion; birth trauma; silencing] What We Don't Talk About When We Don't Talk About Abortion
LeBron: I'm Coming Back to Cleveland
Dante: [CN: Gun violence; racism; carcerality] Remember the Zimmerman Verdict with an Evolved Approach to Gun Violence
Aura: [CN: Child abuse; xenophobia; video w/o transcript] Inside the Immigration 'Icebox'
Digby: [CN: Xenophobia; abuse; eliminationism] The "Diseased" Immigrant: A Very Old Story
BYP: [CN: Police brutality; misogynoir] Professor Ersula Ore Pleads Guilty in Deal
Ria: The Hubble Just Spotted This Odd "Star Bridge" Connecting Two Galaxies
Finaira: [CN: Misogyny] Labyrinthine Dreams
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
This guy. ♥
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Bonnie Tyler: "Total Eclipse of the Heart"
This is the story of a beautiful lady who embraces the danger of wandering around her drafty, candle-filled castle in flowy, flammable robes near flowy, flammable window dressings. She is friends with dancing ninjas, gymnastic fenders, and schoolboy angels who like to cosplay as the T-Birds from Grease, football players, and demon priests. Also: Doves.
Little-known fact: The last 30 seconds of this video is one of the greatest things ever committed to film.
An Observation
[Content Note: Fat bias; emotional policing.]
I wonder how many thin people understand the enormous pressure on visible fat women to model an impervious armor of deflective wit.
That's a dynamic I've written about before, in discussing Gabby Sidibe's response to the fat hatred she gets on social media, this idea that fat women must always convey strength and tenacity and resiliency.
And I wonder how many thin people understand that obliges us to pretend like fat hatred doesn't get to us.
That we must be both fierce and friendly in order to be listened to. In order to be worth listening to.
That we must couch all discussion of harm within humor.
It's tiring, not to mention counterproductive, to have to project a veneer of imperviousness to the very harm caused by the hatred we're trying to explain is harmful.
So, here's the deal: If you really want to be an effective thin ally to fat people, the first and most important thing you can do is grant us our full humanity in your every interaction with us.
That includes letting us talk about the incredibly damaging effects of fat hatred in ways that maybe aren't so comfortingly sassy.
I'mma Just Leave This Here
[Content Note: War on agency; appropriation; concern trolling; corporate personhood.]
To save you the trouble of reading this VERY IMPORTANT contribution to the Hobby Lobby debate, here's a breakdown:
1) Liberals are stupid
2) I'm a liberal
3) I'm a law professor, so let me explain this to you
4) The Hobby Lobby decision was about freedom liberties
Go man prof, go!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; violence; death] In Israel and Gaza: "Israeli airstrikes on Gaza killed four more Palestinians before dawn on Friday, raising the death toll from the four-day offensive to at least 102, including dozens of civilians, while a Palestinian rocket hit a fuel tanker at an Israeli gas station, causing a blaze. ...Medical officials in Gaza said at least 70 civilians, including children, are among the 102 killed since the offensive began Tuesday. The salvos into Israel have so far caused no fatalities, due in part to interception by Israel's partly U.S.-funded Iron Dome aerial defense system. But eight people were wounded, one seriously, by a rocket on Friday that hit a fuel tanker at a gas station in Israel's port city of Ashdod, an ambulance service spokesman said. Firefighters doused the flames. Israeli leaders, determined to end Palestinian rocket attacks deep into the country, have hinted that they could order the first ground invasion of the Gaza Strip in five years."
[CN: War; violence; death] In Russia and Ukraine: "Ukraine's military has said 23 servicemen have died in clashes with pro-Russia separatists across the east, a development that threatens to shatter slim western hopes of a truce in the three-month insurgency. ...The official spokesman of Ukraine's intensifying campaign against the rebel movement added that 93 troops had sustained 'wounds and contusions of varying severity.' Ukraine's defence ministry said in a separate statement that the toll included 19 troops who were killed early on Friday in a multiple rocket attack staged by insurgents near the Russian border. ...Friday's official death toll is the highest since Poroshenko tore up a brief ceasefire with the rebels on 1 July and relaunched an offensive that managed to dislodge the militias from key eastern strongholds they have controlled for nearly three months."
[CN: Child endangerment; xenophobia; abuse] Here is a breakdown of what would be funded by President Obama's $3.7 billion requisition to address the undocumented immigrant children crisis. The problem, from the start, with this entire program is that the focus is on deportation, of children who are risking everything to get here because they are in danger at home. "Under this scenario, rather than being transferred to HHS for screening by professionals to determine if they have been victims of trafficking or have claims to asylum, children could be subject to immediate deportation at the discretion of Border Patrol agents with no training in child welfare. That would be a very bad thing, not just for the kids who would be sent back to the dangerous conditions they risked their lives to escape, but for the nation and what it says about how we treat the most vulnerable among us."
Good: "Florida Court Declares One of the Worst Partisan Gerrymanders in the Country Unconstitutional."
All right then: "Amazon Wants Special Permission to Fly Its Delivery Drones, Dammit." Given that Amazon is a corporation, and this is AMERICA, I see no reason why the rules will not be bent in their favor.
Laverne Cox forever: "I'm just really proud of who I am. I love myself today—and I don't everyday. It's something I have to work at. My career and my life changed when I started accepting and embracing myself more. I hope this inspires my other black, trans folks to pursue their dreams, too."
[CN: Animal cruelty] And finally! Raju the Elephant is slowly starting his rehabilitation process. The humans in charge of his care are carefully trying to rebuild trust with him, and he now has a female companion elephant, whose history is similar to his. All the blubs.
