[Content Note: Racism; violence.]
This morning, Reuters published an "exclusive" headlined: "Missouri police plan for possible riots if Brown cop not charged."
And it is a rank piece of racist shit, published under the auspices of detailing the strategizing between local and federal authorities in the event that Officer Darren Wilson, who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, is not indicted by the grand jury.
Here are just a few of the problems with this article:
1. There is not even a passing indication of the inherent problem with authorities spending an enormous amount of time and energy on "riot prevention" and comparatively little to social justice. This is a constant feature of US coverage of this case (and all others like it): "Race" is only a subject worthy of exploration, or even mention, when it's about, say, black people protesting, but not when it's about white people ignoring structural inequities.
2. "In differing accounts, police have said Brown struggled with Wilson before the fatal shots were fired. But some witnesses say Brown held up his hands and was surrendering when he was shot multiple times in the head and chest." Some witnesses say? Are there any other witnesses, beside the officer who shot him, who say otherwise? That is some real tricksy wording there, Reuters.
3. "A memorial to Brown on the spot where he died, and where his body lay uncollected for four hours, still stands, a crucifix surrounded by teddy bears, photographs, flowers and handwritten notes decrying his loss and the alleged brutality of police." No mention of the memorial having been destroyed by a fire.
4. "Riots" and "protests" are conflated throughout the article. Also treated as equivalent? Black protesters and white people buying guns: "Ferguson today is a city on the edge. While mostly black residents hold small protests outside the police station each night, gun store owners report a jump in sales to white residents."
5. Later: "Adam Weinstein, co-owner of County Guns, said sales were up 50 percent since Brown's shooting, mostly among white residents fearful of riots who are buying Glock, Springfield and Smith & Wesson handguns, and shotguns. 'They are afraid the city is going to explode,' Weinstein said, a former member of the U.S. Navy and St. Louis firefighter with heavily tattooed arms." Welp. I mean, seriously, lots of people have "heavily tattooed arms"—so many that it's hardly worth mention. Unless, perhaps, you're relying on an old stereotype about racist white men with tattooed arms, in order to actually use your "news" story to foment racial discord.
6. And just look at the all-caps section headings on that article: "SIMMERING ANGER" and "BLACK PANTHERS." Seriously? I mean: SERIOUSLY?
7. "Police and elected officials are meeting regularly with multi-racial citizen groups in a bid to improve community relations, tackle concerns about police discrimination, and avoid the turmoil that followed Brown's shooting. Civil unrest is still the 'worst case scenario', Ferguson Mayor James Knowles] said." Uh, really? Worse than communicating to white police officers that they can kill unarmed black people without consequence, and worse than communicating to black people that their lives don't matter? You know, maybe civil unrest in response to that shit isn't actually the worst case scenario, Mayor Knowles.
Knowles is one of five people quoted in the article. All of them are men. The others are the tattooed Weinstein and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, who are white, and, finally, in the last paragraphs of the article, under the heading "BLACK PANTHERS," protest leader Tef Poe and "Mauricelm-Lei Millere, an advisor to the New Black Panthers," who is given no title, unlike the mayor and police chief, despite the fact that he is a psychotherapist and is publicly identified in all his public online spaces as Dr. Mauricelm-Lei Millere.
All of this, all of it, without a trace of irony that this kind of reporting is part of the exact reason that white racists expect the city to "explode." Reporting this irresponsible endangers black people's lives. I can't put it any more plainly than that.
This Reuters Article Is Vile
More Falling Dominoes
This time in Idaho and Nevada:
Striking down bans on same-sex marriage in two states, and setting the stage for the same outcome in three others, a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Tuesday nullified laws in Idaho and Nevada. The ruling [pdf] by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is expected to control pending challenges to bans in Alaska, Arizona, and Montana.Nevada had decided not to defend its state ban, so there almost certainly won't be an appeal. Idaho may try to appeal, but "the Supreme Court's refusal on Monday to review the three other federal appeals courts' decisions that came out the same way might suggest little hope of succeeding with a challenge before the Justices."
With developments since Monday's refusal by the Supreme Court to get involved in the constitutional controversy at this point, it now seems clear that the same-sex marriage campaign has succeeded — or very soon will — in thirty-five of the fifty states, plus Washington, D.C. That is the combined result of federal and state court rulings, actions of voters in passing ballot measures, passage of new laws by state legislatures, and the Supreme Court's refusal to second-guess the near-unanimity of federal court rulings in favor of gay and lesbian marriage.
Naturally, it wouldn't be the first time a state government has wasted taxpayer money continuing to fight to maintain as long as possible the legal right to discriminate against people seeking same-sex marriages, but the Supreme Court really made it pretty clear that there's truly no potential upside anymore.
The losers are losing at an exponentially accelerating rate.
Only fifteen states left to go. That is incredible. Congratulations, Idaho and Nevada!
An Observation
I think it's adorable when grown-up people use words like "misandry" and "reverse racism" and "sasquatch" with me in allegedly serious sentences.
And by "adorable," I mean: "A convenient way of conveying to me that I should not waste my time engaging with them."
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Alison Rose: "Who was your favorite teacher, what did they teach, and what made them stand out for you?"
I am fortunate to have had a lot of great teachers in my life, both formal and informal. The first person who came to mind today was a professor of anthropology I had at Loyola, Dr. Paul Breidenbach.
I had him for several classes, and attended events he regularly held for students at his home within walking distance of campus. He was brilliant and warm and funny and kind, and I learned a lot from him, academically and personally, but what most makes him stand out for me is that he was so profoundly his own person.
I could always spot him from halfway across campus, with his particular hunching gait, hands in his pockets, head down as if weighed by the heaviness of the thought in which he was lost. Always in jeans and a sweater. His curly, unruly hair caught in the wind coming over the lake.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Breidenbach," I would say as I passed him. He would look up, just enough to be polite, to mumble a perfunctory hello, and, if you were someone he liked, someone he was happy to see, he would double-take and his face would break into a grin for a proper greeting. Sometimes he would stop you and run past you whatever new idea had seized his mind as he strolled.
In class, he was all frenetic energy, moving like he had electricity running through him, because he couldn't get all his thoughts out quickly enough. When he ran out of room on the chalkboard, he would just continue on the cinderblock walls of Damen Hall, and we could do naught but hang on for the ride and try to keep up.
Dr. Breidenbach was the first male professor I had who told me that I was one of the best students he'd ever had, without couching it in terms of my being a girl. He didn't tell me I was one of the best female students he'd ever had, nor did he touch me or lean in too close as he told me. He looked me in the eyes and complimented me fiercely; he made a compliment that fucking meant something.
Remembering Dr. Breidenbach for this question, I looked him up only to find he passed away two months ago. His obituary is accompanied by a picture of him sporting his infectious grin.
But Loyola's anthropology department has a picture of him exactly as I remember him: Jeans, sweater, hands in his pockets.
Good afternoon, Dr. Breidenbach. And thank you.
* * *
(Do you have a suggestion for a Question of the Day? Drop it here!)
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
* * *
So, if I had just a shitload of money, and so did everyone else on the planet, and all of us could just spend it profligately forever and ever, or we were living in some other kind of utopia where I could barter services for goods, I would spend or barter ridiculous sums to own a moto jacket in every color of the rainbow. Because I ♥ moto jackets.
I especially adore my black faux leather moto jacket, which I happened to be wearing in yesterday's #365feministselfie:
Misandry helmet + moto jacket.
It's not easy to find a totally great moto jacket in plus sizes, and I drool over them whenever I find them.
Anyway! I don't really have anything else to say today. I mostly just wanted to post a Fat Fashion thread to let you know that ModCloth is having a 15% off everything sale, with the code YAY15, and Torrid is having a BOGO 50% everything sale, with the code AUTUMN.
So if there's anyone who's always looking and/or waiting for a good sale, maybe today is your day!
As always, all subjects related to fat fashion are on topic.
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
Recommended Reading
[Content Note: Discussion of racism and intersectional oppression; appropriation; violence.]
Alicia Garza: "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement."
I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed. It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements.Go read the whole thing.
Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.
...When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this country–one half of all people in prisons or jails–is an act of state violence. It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence. Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence; the fact that 500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows is state violence; the fact that Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war is state violence; Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state-sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by White supremacy is state violence. And the fact is that the lives of Black people—not ALL people—exist within these conditions is consequence of state violence.
When Black people get free, everybody gets free.
#BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean your life isn't important–it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on Black lives, we understand that when Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelly. Who definitely has the cutest earsies.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Proving the Point
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; injury. Please note that video showing altercation may begin playing automatically at link.]
Just down the road from me in Hammond, Indiana, a black family has filed a lawsuit alleging excessive force, false arrest, and battery after two police officers pulled over their vehicle and the situation escalated from there.
In the car were Lisa Mahone, who was driving the family on the way to visit her mother in the hospital, her boyfriend Jamal Jones, who was in the passenger seat, Joseph Ivy, their 14-year-old son, who recorded the altercation from the backseat, and his little sister Janiya, who was seated beside him.
Hammond Police Officers Patrick Vicari and Charles Turner, who both appear to be white, pulled over the vehicle under the auspices of a seatbelt violation. The officers requested information from Mahone and Jones, and, at some point, "put spike strips in front of the vehicle" so they could not leave, which the officers later said was because Mahone "shifted her car into drive and moved her vehicle in a forward motion." Further, the officers pulled a gun on the family, which the officers later said was because they "feared for their own safety because one officer said he saw Jones drop his hands behind the center console of the vehicle."
Mahone and Jones say they did not understand why anyone but the driver was being questioned for a seatbelt violation, nor why Jones was presumed to be reaching for a weapon when asked for his ID. They were scared when an officer pulled his weapon on them, which seems pretty fucking reasonable.
At that point, Mahone called 911 and reported that they were afraid to get out of the car and didn't understand what was happening. And not for lack of asking the cops, who continued to just order Jones to get out of the car, with a gun drawn on him. While Mahone speaks to a 911 dispatcher, Jones speaks with the cops through his cracked car window, trying to understand why he is being asked to get out of the car.
And then one of the officers shatters Jones' passenger side window, sending glass throughout the car. The officer reaches in and tases him, then they drag him from the vehicle, as Mahone exclaims and the children make shocked and terrified sounds. Jones is then thrown to the ground, tased a second time, cuffed, and taken away. He has been charged with resisting arrest.
Despite the fact that the officers did not tell him he was under arrest nor even explain to him for what reason he was being asked to exit the vehicle in the first place.
According to the lawsuit, Officer Vicari has been named as a defendant in three other cases alleging excessive force, and Officer Turner has been named as a defendant in one other case involving excessive force.
Meanwhile, Hammond Police Lt. Richard Hoyda is defending the officers' actions: "In general, police officers who make legal traffic stops are allowed to ask passengers inside of a stopped vehicle for identification and to request that they exit a stopped vehicle for the officer's safety without a requirement of reasonable suspicion."
Okay. Sure. But officers cannot continue to pretend that they exist in a vacuum. In a nation in which police brutality against black people has a long history, and during a time in which multiple incidents of deadly police shootings of black men have been prominently in the news, it's bullshit to pretend that it's entirely reasonable to order an unarmed black man who has done nothing wrong to get out of the car while an officer is aiming a gun at him.
The police keep saying that this is all about keeping officers safe. But I can't just be expected to forgive all manner of fuckery because I want officers to be safe. I want people who interact with officers to be safe, too.
And we have seen that there is no guarantee that complying with officers' orders will necessarily ensure someone's safety. Black men have been shot with their hands in the air. Black men have been shot while lying on the ground. Black men have been shot while handcuffed.
Police cannot keep pretending this doesn't matter.
And let's be real about what happened here: Mahone and Jones were afraid that the police were going to use excessive force. And then the police used excessive force. Their fears were entirely justified.
Police officers cannot keep proving the point, and then blaming people for a failure to comply. If it isn't safe for people to comply, don't be fucking surprised when they don't.
And, for fuck's sake, stop using that as a justification for harming people.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny; gender essentialism.]
What is this commercial?
A young thin white brunette woman stands in her kitchen, behind an island which separates the kitchen from the living room, where her young thin white brunette husband is playing video games with three of his young thin male friends, one of whom is also white, one of whom is Latino, and one of whom is black.Rumchata: Get drunk so you don't care if your husband plays video games with his friends all night while ignoring you, even if he promised to spend time with you.
"Greg, I thought we were gonna watch our show!" she says, to his back. He turns to her and says, "As soon as we finish this level."
Her head rolls back exasperatedly. She takes a sip from her glass of Rumchata (an alcoholic beverage) on the rocks. Suddenly, the lights go blue, pop music starts, and her husband and his friends turn into a boy band, singing as they do a choreographed dance: "There's a bunker on the right / Watch out! / I'll lay down suppressive fire / Mikey, launch an RPG! / Keep the formation tight / So tight! / Once we've cleared this forest / Then it's on to victory!"
The woman holds the bottle of Rumchata in her hand and looks at it curiously. Her husband then turns to her and sings: "I know I said we'd start our show / Over twenty minutes ago / Back then my health was in the red / And I thought that soon we'd all be dead!"
Suddenly the woman is smiling and hopping up and down excitedly like she's at an actual concert. She dances in the background as the men sing: "Lock and load / We're on the attack / Enemies all around us / But there's no turning back / Hey now / Time to invade / Head's up! Look out! What's that? Oh no! / GRENADE!"
A fire ball appears on the screen, followed the words: "MISSION FAILED."
The lights go back to normal, catching the woman still dancing and saying, "Woo!" The men look at her, and she says, "Oh, come on! You can't give up that easily!"
Text onscreen reads, and a female voiceover says, "Rumchata. Pour yourself a vacation."
I mean, shit, you don't want to be a nagging wife, do you? Don't you want to be a cool chick who doesn't need or expect anything from her intimate partner and just wants him to do what makes him happy? DRINK UP SO YOU'RE NOT SUCH A BITCH.
Could I hate this more? No.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Here we go again to almost certainly another disappointing outcome: "The Justice Department is preparing a fresh round of attacks on the world's biggest banks, again questioning Wall Street's role in a broad array of financial markets. With evidence mounting that a number of foreign and American banks colluded to alter the price of foreign currencies, the largest and least regulated financial market, prosecutors are aiming to file charges against at least one bank by the end of the year." Why do I expect a disappointing outcome? "The charges will most likely focus on traders and their bosses rather than chief executives." So, not meaningful accountability, but a few patsies sacrificed for the appearance of "doing something." Terrific.
[Content Note: War on agency] The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Texas abortion providers in an appeal to the Supreme Court regarding Texas' omnibus abortion bill, has requested Justice Antonin Scalia "put an appeals court decision on hold while their case makes its way through the judicial system. ...The majority of Texas' 20 or so remaining legal abortion providers were forced to shutter or stop offering abortion care this weekend following a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned an earlier federal district court injunction against the law, allowing the state to begin fully enforcing HB 2, which anti-choice Texas legislators passed last summer despite weeks of public protest at the capitol building in Austin." Says CRR's president and CEO Nancy Northup: "We look now to the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately reinstate the injunction, allow the clinics to reopen, and put an end to the irreparable and unjustifiable harm to Texas women that is happening right now."
[CN: Homophobia] Here is a map of what legal same-sex marriage looks like in the US after yesterday's Supreme Court decision. A majority of the US population now lives in states where same-sex marriage is legal. But, as Zack notes at the link: "What's perhaps most important to note is that most of the eleven states affected by the Supreme Court's actions [yesterday] do not have state-wide nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation. In fact, only Colorado and Wisconsin do. This means that even though same-sex couples will soon be able to legally marry in those nine other states, they can also be legally fired, denied housing, or refused service simply for doing so." That needs to change, and quickly.
[CN: Misogyny; racism; antisemitism] Vice-President Joe Biden is a gaffe machine, and his latest is a real doozy. I would argue, however, that his latest gaffe doesn't matter more so much as it matters differently. It matters a whole lot when the vice-president others marginalized populations, too.
[CN: Classism] Republican Indiana Governor Mike Pence continues to try to peddle his stupid, HSA-based "alternative approach to expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act" and continues to fail to convince the Obama administration that it's a good idea. Possibly because it is not a good idea.
[CN: Racism] A bunch of white Cardinals fans engaged in rank racism right in the faces of a small group of mostly or entirely black protesters, who were agitating for the arrest of Officer Darren Wilson. All of it is fucking horrible, but seeing a bunch of white people chant "USA! USA! USA!" at a group of black protesters feels somehow extra terrible. It just so perfectly underlines that there are lots of white people who insistently believe this country exclusively belongs to them.
[CN: Sexual assault] Actress Jennifer Lawrence, who was a victim of the hacking in which private photos of celebrities were stolen and published online, including nude photos, calls the incident exactly what it really is: A sex crime. "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. ...Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame."
And finally! When Cleo the Cat's guardian, Nancy Cowan, had to move into a elder care home, Cleo decided she didn't want to live without Nancy, so she tracked her down at the home and now is allowed to live there with her. Amazing. ♥
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Body policing.]
[Photo via.]
"It really bugs me the way people criticize how actors look. ...I get accused of having a haughty smugness. I have a lopsided mouth. I can't help it. I was born with it. It looks as if I am smirking. I have had my publicist tell me, 'Don't do that smile on the red carpet.' I'm, like, 'That's my smile.'"—Actress Natalie Dormer in a recent interview.
I'm always fascinated when female celebrities talk about smiling, or not smiling, and how often it comes back to having been policed for the quality or quantity of their smiles. Many years ago, I read an interview with Victoria Beckham about how she doesn't smile for many public photos because she doesn't particularly love the way she looks when she smiles, and I've read an interview with Kristen Stewart in which she said she feels that if she smiled more on red carpets and for photo shoots, she feels like she'd just be criticized in a whole different way than she is for typically not smiling.
All of which is tied into the "resting bitch face" narrative.
Add this to the Can't Fucking Win List: If a woman's face is serious, she's a bitch. If she smiles, she's unserious or trying too hard or fake or or or. If she smiles, but her smile fails somehow to be perfect, then she should stop smiling, or smile differently, or change the entire structure of her face, I guess.
I have a lopsided mouth and a crooked smile, and "resting bitch face," so I've gotten this my whole life. If I'm not smiling, I'm aloof or mean. If I am smiling, I'm smirking. If I try to force an unnatural but more symmetrical smile, then I'm fake.
Can't fucking win.
And I know I'm not alone.
All of this without a trace of irony. Nothing could make a woman less inclined to smile than having her face constantly policed for substandard smiling.
The Nicest Clown Car in All the Land
Politico has yet another terrific story about all the 2016 Republican nominee wannabes, accompanied by this tremendous image of all the players in this go-around's Game of Groans:
"Big Tent."
The story is about how this collection of bozos needs to be nice to each other during the next presidential primary, instead of tearing each other apart, so whoever wins is in the best position to beat Hillary Clinton.
(Because this, like every other news article about 2016, is taking as read that she will be the Democratic nominee, despite the fact she has not even announced her candidacy.)
The reason for this article, and others like it, is because Republicans have convinced themselves that extended, bruising primaries is why they've lost the last two elections, and not because John McCain was an angry, entitled grump who failed at concealing the hot cauldron of rage beneath the transparent veneer of a terse smile stretched thinly across his face, and who chose an epic dipshit as his running mate, nor because Mitt Romney was a mannequin from the 1% Store whose attempts at seeming folksy made him seem like a clueless dolt, and who literally said out loud that people aren't entitled to food, nor because their party's entire platform is rank garbage, nor because Barack Obama was a superior candidate by virtually every metric.
Nope. None of that. They lost because their long primaries with lots of debates ultimately weakened their nominee, because of all the bad stuff the other nominees said about him in the process.
Presumably meaning things like, "He is barely even anti-choice," and "He doesn't support bombing the fuck out of other countries like I do," and "He hardly even hates immigrants."
Anyway. Our favorite clown wrangler, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, decided after the last presidential election that this presidential election would not be plagued with the same problem of voters getting such a good look at the GOP's reprehensible candidate, so he condensed the primary calender and reduced the number of debates.
Which is really sad for me, personally, because I love watching Republican debates. I can't get enough of them.
But none of that matters if the candidates aren't nice to each other, to make sure that one of them wins, darn it!
Great strategy. A strategy so amazing, in fact, that it takes Newt Gingrich to be the voice of reason (oh boy; you have officially derailed):
Newt Gingrich, one of the short-lived insurgent front-runners in the 2012 primary, dismisses the party's desire to avoid bloodletting as "nonsense."Leaving aside everything that's wrong with that, his point that primaries serve to prepare a candidate for the general election is a good one. Candidates, especially those who have never before run for national office, need that experience.
"There's a wing of the Republican party which would like life to be orderly and dominated by the rich," said Gingrich, whose own candidacy was enabled by a super PAC funded by $21 million from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. "And so they would like to take all of the things that make politics exciting and responding to the popular will and they would like to hide from it. The fact is, if you can't nominate somebody who can win debates and come out of the contest stronger, they wouldn't have a chance to beat Hillary in the general."
But, hey, if the Republicans want to keep a low profile while they figure out which of the two dozen men and zero women vying for the presidency will represent them, lest voters get a look at them before they start their "I'm Not a Democrat! (And that's all you need to know.)" campaign against whoever the Democratic nominee is, have at it.
At least McCain and Romney were prepared. It could be fun to mix things up by watching a Republican get destroyed in a whole new way, too.
Question of the Day
It's that time again: What would you like to see asked as a future Question of the Day? Either something that's never been asked, or something that I haven't asked for awhile and you really enjoyed the first time around.
OMG
This is just a terrific video of a man rolling around on the floor with a gaggle of pug puppies. Enjoy!
Video Description: Five pug puppies sit on a bed on the floor, beside a mirror. A sixth investigates on the other side of the small room. A fat older white man in a blue and white striped shirt and black trousers comes into the room, stepping over a barrier in the door, and greets the puppies in Russian with a warm voice. One puppy runs toward him excitedly, and the rest quickly follow as he lets himself collapse to the floor. The puppies run and jump all over him, kissing his face as he talks to them. He hugs them all his arms and laughs as they squirm around him. They love him SO MUCH! He pets them and laughs.
According to comments at YouTube, he is saying: "Good morning, pugs, good morning! Hello, hello!"
Awwww. ♥
[H/T to my pal Ellen.]
What the...?
[Content Note: Christian Supremacy; police misconduct.]
So, in Indiana (of course), a 60-year-old woman named Ellen Bogan was pulled over by Indiana State Police Trooper Brian Hamilton, who gave her a warning ticket for an alleged traffic violation, then proceeded to proselytize to her about Christianity, asking her where she went to church and if she accepts Jesus Christ as her savior.
Bogan and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana have filed a lawsuit in federal court against Hamilton. The lawsuit alleges he violated Bogan's First and Fourth Amendment rights when he probed into her religious background and handed her a church pamphlet that asks the reader "to acknowledge that she is a sinner."Bogan and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Hamilton "violated Bogan's First and Fourth Amendment rights." Which he clearly did, as he was in uniform and on duty and thus a representative of the government at the time.
...Bogan, who lives in Huntington, said Hamilton asked her about her faith multiple times during the traffic stop. Because he was a trooper and his police car was still parked behind hers, she said she felt she could not leave or refuse questioning.
"The whole time, his lights were on," Bogan said. "I had no reason to believe I could just pull away at that point, even though I had my warning."
Bogan's complaint also claims that Hamilton asked if he could give her something and that he went to his car to retrieve a pamphlet from First Baptist Church in Cambridge City.
The pamphlet, which was included in the lawsuit, advertises a radio broadcast from "Trooper Dan Jones" called "Policing for Jesus Ministries." It also outlines "God's plan for salvation," a four-point list that advises the reader to "realize you're a sinner" and "realize the Lord Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins."
"I'm not affiliated with any church. I don't go to church," Bogan said. "I felt compelled to say I did, just because I had a state trooper standing at the passenger-side window. It was just weird."
But of course the American Family Association of Indiana are insisting that Hamilton's First Amendment right to free speech is being encroached upon, never mind that no one is saying he shouldn't be able to hand out his stupid pamphlets—just not while he's on duty, wearing a uniform, carrying a weapon, and empowered with the influence of the police force, which is intimidating at the best of times and potentially coercive during a traffic stop.
Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, said that although the traffic stop might not have been the best time to quiz someone about faith, he questioned whether a police officer should lose his right to free speech because he is wearing a badge.Yeah. Someone coming to your door and a police officer pulling you over is exactly the same thing. Good grief.
"I have people pass out religious material all the time. Mormons come to my door all the time, and it doesn't offend me," Clark said. "(This case) might not be the most persuasive time to talk to someone about their faith, but I don't think that a police officer is prohibited from doing something like that."
The American Nightmare
[Content Note: Sexual assault; exploitation; misogyny.]
Because for-profit prisons have worked out so well, now the US has for-profit detention centers for undocumented immigrants. And in news that should surprise no one but horrify and outrage everyone, some of the same problems are endemic at for-profit detention centers, including sexual assault of detainees:
Guards and staff have allegedly been sexually abusing mothers at a controversial immigration detention center for families in Texas that opened just two months ago, according to a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security filed by several advocacy groups this week.As you may recall, the GEO Group is the corporation which has previously been cited for allowing "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate" at its facilities, and yet the US government continues to subcontract to this reprehensible carcerality profiteer, then has the unmitigated temerity to assert that it gives a fuck about what's happening.
The complaint filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and attorneys from the University of Texas School of Law alleges "substantial, ongoing sexual abuse" at the Karnes County Civil Detention Center in Karnes City, Texas.
Women at the 500-plus bed center, which opened in August, told attorneys that staff have been removing mothers from their cells at night to engage in sexual acts, promising immigration help in exchange for sexual favors, and groping women in front of children, according to the complaint.
"Guards using their respective positions of power to abuse vulnerable, traumatized women all over again is not only despicable, it's against the law," said Marisa Bono, staff attorney with MALDEF. "This is exactly why the federal government should not be in the business of detaining families."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not comment on the sexual claims, citing an ongoing investigation.
"ICE has a zero-tolerance policy for all forms of sexual abuse or assault," said Nina Pruneda of DHS/ICE public affairs in an email. "Accusations of alleged unlawful conduct are investigated thoroughly and if substantiated, appropriate action is taken."I guess "appropriate action" does not include not giving money to private contractors who have a demonstrable history of indifference to prisoner abuse.
"The government has no business detaining vulnerable mothers and children that it cannot protect from this type of abuse," said Barbara Hines of the University of Texas Immigration Clinic, which filed the complaint this week.No, it can't.
But ICE has said it can both detain families and keep them safe.
There are people who got real miffed at me for being underwhelmed by and critical of the White House's "It's On Us" campaign against sexual assault. But one of the many things I dislike about it is that the White House's focus on rape prevention is limited to college campuses, and I've got no inclination at all to congratulate the White House for a half-assed prevention campaign that ignores the systemic sexual abuse of detainees in the nation's detention centers and prisons, and accepts congratulations for rape prevention while doing fuck-all to actually prevent rape of women who aren't privileged college students.
I've got nothing but contempt for the White House proclaiming "It's On Us" to prevent sexual abuse while giving money and support to corporations who exploit vulnerable people for a profit and allow endemic sexual abuse in their facilities.
We, the people, are paying the salaries of rapists.
