[Content Note: Video autoplays at first link] Suggested by Tom Haverford: Would you rather live in the pocket of a giant kangaroo, or have a pocket on your own stomach that has a tiny kangaroo in it all the time?
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
The Pointer Sisters: "Neutron Dance"
Well, Well, Well
Sabrina Siddiqui for the Guardian: "Barack Obama basks in public approval after 'best week of his presidency'."
[President Obama's] poll ratings reached a two-year high following what political commentators said was the best week of his presidency.LOL LOVE.
...[Obama] said the results of the supreme court decision to uphold a key component of his healthcare law "speak for themselves." Obama's remarks coincided with the release of a new poll that found his approval ratings at 50% for the first time in more than two years.
...It also included higher marks for the way the president had handled race relations in the United States. According to the survey, 55% of Americans said they approved of Obama’s handling of issues pertaining to race, while just 42% said they disapproved.
...Asked what he planned to do with the political capital he appeared to gain from last week, Obama said: "The list is long."
He added: "We are going to squeeze every last ounce of progress that we can make … as long as I have the privilege of holding this office," he said, before identifying issues such as infrastructure spending, criminal justice reform, and expanding free community college as potential opportunities.
Obama also pointed to a plan announced by his administration late on Monday that would allow more US workers to qualify for overtime pay. Up to 5 million lower-paid US employees will benefit from the rule change, which raises the salary limit used to determine who is eligible for mandatory overtime pay.
"What we're going to do is just keep on hammering away at all the issues that I think are going to have an impact on the American people. Some of them will be left undone, but we're going to try to make progress on every single one of them," Obama said. "I feel pretty excited about it. So I might see if we can make next week even better."
Can highly-paid and highly aggravating Democratic strategists stop with the tired bullshit about how the US doesn't like lefty politics now? The more progressive this president gets, the more people like him.
It would be great if the people paid for their political expertise could actually remember that.
"Fat" Is Not a Valid Criticism of Chris Christie
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
Earlier this afternoon, I did a bunch of tweeting about using fat hatred against Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie. If you're not on Twitter, or if you missed them, you can view those tweets, as well as some older tweets I've done on the same subject, which I compiled into this Storify.
Basically:
Here is a place for discussion of this subject.
Support Trans People by Supporting Trans People
[Content Note: Transmisogyny; ciscentrism.]
Last night, a Seattle-area publication reported:
A $50,000 donation is cause for celebration at the Queen Anne offices of the Girl Scouts of Western Washington. "We have these little clapper thingies, and the clappers go mad when we get that kind of gift," says the council's CEO, Megan Ferland. So when Ferland came back to the office earlier this spring and announced that she'd just landed a $100,000 donation, the place went mad. Not only did it represent nearly a quarter of the council's annual fundraising goal, it would pay to send 500 girls to camp. "We were thrilled," Ferland says.The Girl Scouts of Western Washington returned the money, and started a fundraiser to replace the gift. The fundraiser quickly went viral.
Except there was a catch. In late May, as news of Caitlyn Jenner's transition was blowing up your Facebook news feed, she received a letter from the donor with a brief request: Please guarantee that our gift will not be used to support transgender girls. If you can't, please return the money. [Emphasis original]
Why wouldn't it? The Girl Scouts do great work. Transphobic discrimination is bullshit. I thought about kicking in a few dollars after my next paycheck.
As of this afternoon, the fundraiser passed the original $100,000 goal—a day after it started. That's fabulous news.
However.
The Girl Scouts is an organization that's predominately run by cis people and that predominately serves cis girls. On some level, the trans girls that the organization is serving are hypothethical. Are there trans girls (and nonbinary children) in Western Washington? Absolutely. Are there some of these trans kids in the Girl Scouts? Probably. I'm not sure if administrators even know. I'm not sure they want to. That's the entire point—their organization exists to serve all children who aren't boys.
I'm thrilled to see this outpouring of support. I just know that most organizations that focus on serving trans people can't imagine receiving this outpouring of support. We can't get that support for young trans people, let alone trans adults who come with the flaws that come hand-in-hand with being fully grown humans struggling to navigate an occasionally fucked-up world.
I think it's great that people are supporting a solid organization that does good work. But I don't think cis people should congratulate themselves on taking this particular stance for trans people. Giving cis people money who tolerate trans people shouldn't be a radical act. It's basic human decency.
Fighting for trans people involves fighting for trans people even when we're not hypothetical.
Richard Dawkins Isn't Funny
[Content Note: Racism; slavery.]
Richard Dawkins has mastered the art of obliquely referencing in really outrageous ways topics that have been in the news, apparently in order to stir up reactions. Here is his latest, riding on recent conversations about the Confederate flag:
When called out for the dubious accuracy of this statement, Dawkins claimed that he was just offering an alternate-history novel idea in 140 characters, and chided those who responded for their "vitriol" and incivility.
I'm going to be honest that a part of me doesn't want to respond to Dawkins' outrageous tweets anymore. I now genuinely believe him to be a professional troll who is engaging in the internet equivalent of poking at us with a stick until he can get a reaction. Every word wasted on him at this point feels like giving in to his demands for attention.
But this isn't occurring in a vacuum. This narrative, whether admittedly "fictional" or not, that slaves "would've been freed" (eventually! somehow! by 2015, definitely!) by white people, through the kindness of those who oppressed them, feeds into the same modern cultural choice to obscure the work that marginalized communities perform in order to improve things for themselves right now.
These messages are constant and harmful and not anywhere even remotely funny. Dawkins' immense privilege allows him to joke about slavery and how the oppression of black Americans totes would have ended on its own somehow someway through the inevitable efforts of somebody, while ignoring all the oppression that is happening right now, today, and which many white people are blissfully choosing to ignore.
That isn't okay, it's not helpful, and in fact it's downright harmful.
Daily Dose of Cute
This face!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Plane crash; death] Terrible news: "More than 100 people were feared dead after a military transport plane ploughed into a residential area shortly after take-off in northern Indonesia on Tuesday, in what may be the deadliest accident yet for an air force with a long history of crashes. 'For the moment we know there were 113 people (on board). It looks like there are no survivors,' Air Marshal Agus Supriatna told Metro TV in the Sumatra city of Medan, adding that some of the passengers were air force families." I feel so desperately sad for people who lost loved ones and colleagues in the crash, especially since there is a good chance it could have been avoided with better safety practices.
[CN: Sexual violence; torture; death] A new report from the UN mission in the Republic of South Sudan has "warned of 'widespread human rights abuses,' including gang-rape and torture in a report based on 115 victims and eyewitnesses from the northern state of Unity, scene of some of the heaviest recent fighting in the 18-month-long civil war. The military, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), launched a major offensive against rebel forces in April, with fierce fighting in Unity state's northern Mayom district, once a key oil-producing area." The civil war has displaced more than 100,000 people, and the South Sudan army has committed terrible atrocities, including raping then burning girls alive inside their homes. It has been extremely difficult to intervene: "The UN said it had tried to visit the sites of the atrocities described by witnesses, but was routinely denied access by the army."
[CN: Police brutality; racism] The Justice Department has found, as we all saw with our own damn eyes, that police in Ferguson, Missouri, violated protesters' rights and escalated violence: "A DOJ document obtained by the Post-Dispatch faults Ferguson police for their aggressive response to protesters last August. In a summary of its third Ferguson report, which is soon to be released, the DOJ contends officers from Ferguson, St. Louis County, St. Louis and Missouri Highway Patrol 'violated citizens' right to assembly and free speech, as determined by a U.S. federal court injunction.'"
[CN: War on agency] Fucking hell: "In a city of 700,000 people, Franz Theard is one of a kind: a doctor who performs abortions. He runs El Paso's sole remaining abortion provider, the Hilltop Women's Reproductive Clinic. Like other clinics in Texas, it was 48 hours away from being forced to stop offering abortions but was reprieved on Monday by the US supreme court's decision to allow facilities that don't meet the state's strict new standards to remain open while the justices consider whether to take the case on appeal. The vote keeps Hilltop fully operational at least through the summer, but Theard is unsure about the longer term. Even if the requirements—that clinics qualify as ambulatory surgical centers and doctors have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital—are struck down by the supreme court, he worries that it will be impossible to find a successor willing to work in a hostile and isolated environment."
[CN: War on agency; misogynist terrorism] Relatedly, the indispensable Robin Marty has just written a new piece about how the "harassment of doctors, legislation limiting where they live and work, and a slew of model bills that open them up to potential felony charges if a mistake is made while terminating a pregnancy" is creating a shortage of abortion providers.
[CN: Racism] This story about "How a Hawaiian mountaintop became a battleground between native activists and astronomers" is fucking incredible. By which I mean: Rage-making. I can't even believe (I can totally believe) how hostile scientists are being to native Hawaiians. And straight-up racist shitlords. You know how much I love love love space exploration done through mega-telescopes, since I post about it virtually every day, but FUCK THIS. Exploring the stars cannot come at the expense of being decent people on terra firma.
[CN: Anti-vaxxing] Welp: "California lawmakers have passed a bill that would impose one of the strictest school vaccination laws in the US. It would require most schoolchildren to be vaccinated against diseases including measles and whooping cough. Governor Jerry Brown must now decide whether to sign the bill, which has faced fierce criticism from some parents' groups, into law. ...Parents opposed to the bill have vowed to take legal action, even though the issue has been upheld in court, including by the Supreme Court. They argue that some vaccines are unsafe and claim the legislation is eliminating informed consent and trampling on parental rights." Children with health issues preventing them from getting vaccinated would be exempted by the law. I said pretty much all I'll ever say about this shit here.
[CN: Homophobia] Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has words for Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has been calling for a federal amendment to undermine the Supreme Court's marriage ruling: "Well, Scott Walker, if you believe the next president's job is to encourage bigotry and to treat some families better than others, then I believe it is our job to make sure you aren't president." TELL HIM!
[CN: Homophobia] "A county clerk in Arkansas plans to resign effective Tuesday because of a moral objection to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Cleburne County Clerk Dana Guffey said Monday she has notified the county judge of her plans to resign. She says she has a moral objection to issuing the marriage licenses following Friday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriages nationwide." Good decision! Bye!
Something something Chris Christie blah blah president. Also: He loves to lie. A lot.
These shooooooooooooooooooes! OMG SHOES!
[CN: Disablist language] Robert Zemeckis wants no part of any Back to the Future remakes, reboots, retools, reimaginings, or anything else! So you'll just have to wait until he's dead. If you really want one. Or, you know, just watch the classics. (Controversial!)
And finally! Uggy the French Bulldog Puppy playing in the sand! Squeeeee!
I See What You're Doing There
[Content Note: Homophobia; misogyny; rape culture.]
So, there's this meme going around that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has supported same-sex marriage for decades. A Salon headline declares: "Bernie Sanders supported full marriage equality 40 years ago." Wow! Pretty amazing, right?!
Here is the evidence—a letter in which he details some of his his platform while a candidate for governor of Vermont from the Liberty Union Party in the 1970s:
If you aren't able to find, exactly, where his support for same-sex marriage is, that's because it isn't there.
To imagine that statement "supports marriage equality" rests on an ignorance about the history of queer rights—specifically that "homosexual activity" was criminalized in much of the country at the time. Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court "struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, making same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state and territory," was only decided in 2003.
Clearly, Sanders is advocating against the laws that criminalized homosexual acts, which is terrific, but that's quite a different thing altogether from supporting same-sex marriage, and it's a gross simplification of the history of queer rights to pretend otherwise.
To be abundantly clear, my issue is not with Bernie Sanders. My issue is with progressive media that erroneously proclaims Sanders—a man who has failed utterly to include intersectional analysis in his campaign—more progressive than he actually is.
(Especially when it is clearly meant to be a dig at Clinton, who has a solid long-time record on queer rights, her delayed "evolution" on same-sex marriage notwithstanding. Never mind that we know her opposition was likely a condition of her employment with the administration, as Vice President Joe Biden was roundly criticized for going "off-script" when he came out in favor of same-sex marriage, thus forcing President Obama's hand. But Obama always allowed Clinton the freedom to advance queer rights via the State Department, and she ran with it. Anyway.)
(Also: Have you seen [CN: video autoplays at link] this campaign advert? Anyway.)
(Also: Same-sex marriage is not the only queer issue that matters. But it's the only one on which most other candidates have any position at all. Clinton, on the other hand, has actual accomplishments around employment, healthcare access, passport rules. Pay attention to who continues to pretend those issues don't matter. Anyway.)
But I digress!
So, besides making Sanders more progressive than he really was, in a way that obscures queer history, the thing about this letter is: Juxtapose how we are supposed to receive it as a Very Important Document about Bernie Sanders' decades-old beliefs against how we were meant to receive that troubling essay, which isn't supposed to matter because it was so long ago.
His decades-old minimized terrible beliefs about women are irrelevant.
His decades-old exaggeratedly awesome beliefs about same-sex marriage are SUPER IMPORTANT.
On the one hand, a 40-year-old opinion that doesn't reflect well on Sanders' progressivism is dismissed by virtue of its age. On the other hand, a 40-year-old (alleged) opinion that does reflect well on Sanders' progressivism is more highly valued by virtue of its age. Cool.
I see what y'all are doing there. And I ain't impressed.
I'm not offended, either; I'm just contemptuous.
[H/T to Deeky.]
Tweet of the Day
Paul Feig, co-writer and director of the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters film tweeted this image of the new Ghostbusters' uniforms yesterday. Are you excited?! I AM SO EXCITED!!!
The Good News and the Bad News
[Content Note: Class warfare; worker exploitation.]
The Good News is that President Obama has announced plans to make a significant change to the overtime exemption:
Here's a convenient way of getting more work out of your employees, without paying the required time-and-a-half pay for anything over 40 hours a week: Call them "managers." Currently, these so-called white collar workers are exempt from overtime if they make more than $455 a week or $23,660 per year, even if they perform routine tasks like stocking shelves at a convenience store. In fact, those small-time bosses don't even have to be paid anything more for the extra hours they put in to get the job done, not even minimum wage.Lots of my friends, across a number of industries, have experienced this phenomenon. I experienced it, too, back when I was working in Corporate America. And for many people who go from hourly wages with overtime to a salaried wage with no overtime, because you're declared a "manager," it ends up being a steep cut in pay. An employer might raise your base salary, but if they're requiring you to work all kinds of hours for which they suddenly stop paying you, it's often a reduction in your income, with no reduction in workload.
Monday night, President Obama announced that he wants to double that threshold, to $50,400 per year. The move would expand the number of people eligible for overtime from about 8 percent of the salaried workforce to about 40 percent, according to a recent analysis by the left-leaning, labor-friendly Economic Policy Institute.
"That's good for workers who want fair pay, and it's good for business owners who are already paying their employees what they deserve -- since those who are doing right by their employees are undercut by competitors who aren't," Obama wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed announcing the decision.
There are federal guidelines that define that constitutes a "manager," but many employers don't follow those guidelines, hoping their employees either don't know their position has been illegally redefined or values their job too much to cause trouble. Or, you know, isn't getting paid enough to even hire an attorney.
It's a major area of worker exploitation in the US, and while raising the exemption threshold is not a comprehensive solution, especially when workers' rights are not rigorously enforced, it's a necessary and excellent step.
And it's a step Obama can take on his own:
Obama, who has implemented a number of his most consequential workplace policies through executive order, doesn't need congressional approval to implement the new overtime rule. However, it will have to go through a public comment period, and employers will have lots to say.Which brings us to the Bad News: Employers are already pushing back hard.
Rather than just paying managers more for the extra time, a study commissioned by the National Retail Federation warned that employers would likely hire more part timers to do that work, and cut base pay and benefits to keep people's compensation the same overall. Meanwhile, companies might have to cut down on the number of managerial jobs they offer, making it more difficult for employees to climb the professional ranks and leading to more inequality in the workforce, not less. Nonetheless, even if they're able to avoid paying more for labor -- and there's evidence to suggest they won't be able to avoid it completely -- employers fret that the change would still cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to make the adjustment.Emphases mine.
Now, if businesses think the Department of Labor didn't do enough to consider the economic impact of the new rule, they could try to block it in the courts -- or at least delay it, in hopes of running out the clock until a more sympathetic administration arrives in the White House. Alternatively, some experts think businesses might end up pushing to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act itself to block the new rule.
What employers are threatening—hire more part-time workers to cut the number of employees with benefits; diminish the number of positions to prevent promotions that yield higher salaries—are things that employers have already been doing for years. Which is part of the reason why this proposal isn't a comprehensive solution: What we need are tighter labor regulations that prevent precisely this sort of profit-maximizing (and often nakedly spiteful) worker exploitation and artificial salary depression and all the "speedup" practices, like not filling jobs when people leave and simply redistributing their work among remaining staff, who aren't compensated for the additional duties.
The frank truth is that many, many US employers have shown they simply won't act in the best, or even in the most basically fair, interests of their employees unless they are forced by regulation to do so. So that's what needs to happen.
The market simply doesn't solve the problem, when the problem is exploited workers.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Quinalla: "What fandom, hobby, sport, etc. do you really get into and why do you think you are so into it? (None of course is always an acceptable answer!)"
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Patriarchy; rape culture.]
"What if bros were safe? What if they weren't dangerous, sexist homophobes, but instead tender and kind—both to each other and to the women in their midst? What if packs of jovial, tank-topped 'manly men' weren't something to steer clear of after dark? What if they were polite, considerate and believed God to be a woman? Would they be bros at all?"—The opening paragraph of Stacey May Fowles' review of Magic Mike XXL for the Globe and Mail, a film she describes as "an ingenious revelation of a film—it's designed for women yet steered by all-male leads, tapping into a best guess at women's desires in a self-aware, sincere, entirely deliberate way."
I haven't seen the first Magic Mike movie, and I don't know if I'll ever see this one, but I know a lot of people who love the hell out of these films, and I figured this review might be of interest to y'all lovers of this franchise and maybe to some of those who haven't fallen in love with it. (Yet?!)
[H/T to Jess.]
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by the color yellow.
Recommended Reading:
TLC: [Content Note: Transphobia; anti-immigrationism] ICE Issues New Guidance on Transgender Detainees; #Not1More et. al. Explain Why It's Not Enough
Libby Anne: [CN: Christian Supremacy] An Atheist Parent, an Evangelical Grandmother, and a Six-Year-Old Girl
Prison Culture: [CN: Self-harm; death; racism; carcerality] Breaking People
Grace: [CN: Misogynoir] The Sisters Are Alright According to Tamara Winfrey Harris' New Book
Casey: [CN: White Supremacy] The Three Possible Outcomes from SCOTUS' Decision to Rehear Affirmative Action Case
David: [CN: Fearmongering; animal endangerment; violence] Does Shark Week Portrayal of Sharks Matter?
Esther: How to Pour Two Liquids into a Glass and Make a Rope
TMV: "He was handsome and dashing, and all those things [Tom] generally avoids."
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Car Chase in Detroit Ends with Two Dead Children
[Content Note: Death; injury; police misconduct; racism.]
In an absolutely terrible story out of Detroit, police officers did not cease pursuing during a car chase once it entered a populous residential neighborhood, and two black children are now dead and several others injured:
Brother and sister Michaelangelo and Makiah Jackson, ages 6 and 3 respectively, were playing in front of their home when a police car appeared, chasing what appeared to be a red Challenger. According to eyewitnesses, the police car bumped the Challenger, and the car "flew up in the air." Witnesses heard tire squeals, as if the car was attempting to stop, but by then it was going too fast and had lost control and hit the two small children, killing them instantly.My condolences to the families, friends, and neighbors of the children who were killed, and I hope the families of the injured children, as well as LaKendra Hill, have the resources they need to heal their physical wounds.
...Even after the car had dragged the children a distance down the street, the police did not stop their pursuit. They continued to chase the car across one front lawn after another, finally crashing, critically injuring three more children including three-year-old Darius Andrews, Jr., Isaiah Williams, 5, and Zyaire Gardner, 7. Twenty-two-year-old LaKendra Hill sustained injuries. The father of the youngest called seven-year-old Zyaire "the real hero," adding, "He saved my son's life. He grabbed him and tried to hold him."
As with many other deadly interactions with police, the original police account was contradicted by witnesses: "On the night of the incident, police Chief James Craig said that the police car had already stopped the chase after they 'lost sight of the car.' After many eyewitnesses had refuted that claim, Craig said that a supervisor had ordered a stop to the pursuit."
Further, the police tried to justify the pursuit by claiming that the driver (or passenger) of the car was seen with a gun, but again had to backpedal: "The next day the chief said there was no gun, and that the case started when the police 'made eye contact' with the occupants of the car."
If that sounds familiar, it's possibly because police in Baltimore "made eye contact" with Freddie Gray before pursuing him on foot and then arresting him and putting him in the back of a police van where he later sustained fatal injuries.
The driver of the car, according to police is 29-year old-Lorenzo Harris, "who was on parole but had not been reporting in to his parole officer." Okay. Well, unless there was evidence he was imminently planning a violent crime, a high-speed chase was hardly necessary for a parole violation.
And that's not just my opinion:
On paper, the official policy of the Detroit Police Department includes this:Meanwhile, despite the Chief Craig's contention that "a supervisor had ordered a stop to the pursuit," the officers who continued the pursuit allegedly in contravention of a command have not been suspended nor fired, nor are they even being investigation, in any report I can find. Craig has said merely that "his department is reviewing its pursuit policy."
Members involved in a pursuit must question whether the seriousness of the violation warrants continuation of the pursuit. A pursuit shall be discontinued when, in the judgment of the primary unit, there is a clear and present danger to the public which outweighs the need for immediate apprehension of the violator. Officers must keep in mind that a vehicle pursuit has the same potential for serious injury or death as the use of fatal force. … Officers must place the protection of human life above all other considerations.Their true attitude, priorities, "policy" is written in the blood of small children on those front lawns.
Harris, the driver being pursued for a parole violation, has been arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder, among other charges.
Naturally, we are meant to view Harris, a convicted drug user who was skipping parole meetings, as exclusively responsible for the deaths of Michaelangelo and Makiah Jackson.
But I wonder how it is that we are supposed to ignore the context in which any black man or woman, who is pursued after "making eye contact" with police, might find themselves dead if they land in police custody?
Who the fuck is being served or protected by any of this?
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
[Content Note: There is a strobe-light effect in this video.]
Starship: "We Built This City"
Ink
We've previously had super fun threads (the most recent) in which we share images of our tattoos and discuss the process of choosing art and what it's like to get tattooed, etc., so here's another one! Share your ink, talk about your tattoos, ask questions of inked folks if you're considering getting a tattoo, whatever you like!
* * *
This weekend, Shaker masculine_lady came to visit, and one of the things she wanted to do while she was here was get a tattoo from one of my tattoo artists, Jake, who's done my beetle, my abstract leg piece, my POW!, my sassy cat, and my jellyfish.
And, with her permission, here is the incredible result:
"Come at me, bro!"
This was a pretty significant calf piece, and she sat through it like A CHAMP!
Because obviously a tattoo day isn't really a tattoo day unless everyone gets tattoos, I had Jake go ahead and add the wing to my bee, because I never did decide what word I wanted inside of it, and then add some text above:
"Reviresco" is the motto of Clan MacEwen, and it means "I grow strong again" (or "I grow verdant again"), which is a sentiment that's meaningful to me on an individual level, as a survivor—and also meaningful to me as one person in the partnership illustrated by this sleeve, a partnership that's built around helping each other be and stay and become strong.
Also, I just think it has a really cool fucking sound to it, lol. REVIRESCO!
So: What's up with you?
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie spies something!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Death penalty; environmental harm] Well, that was short-lived: The Supreme Court is back to disappointing the hell out of me, issuing two terrible opinions this morning: In Glossip v. Gross, they ruled "that a drug used by Oklahoma as part of its lethal injection procedure does not violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, dealing a setback to opponents of the death penalty." And in Michigan v. EPA, they struck down "new rules for America's biggest air polluters...dealing a blow to the Obama administration's efforts to set limits on the amount of mercury, arsenic, and other toxins coal-fired power plants can spew into the air, lakes, and rivers."
The Supreme Court giveth, and the Supreme Court taketh away. And by "Supreme Court," obviously I mean Anthony Kennedy. It's fun when my non-US friends and family express horror that so much rests in the hands of nine people, and I get to tell them it's really only one guy. And by "fun," I mean I'm sobbing and rending my garments.
In some lingering good news from the Supreme Court's better decision-making days of last week, Ian Millhiser explains how "Chief Justice Roberts Rejected Marriage Equality in the Best Possible Way for Liberals."
* * *
Two major debt crises in motion today: In Greece, "Greeks faced shuttered banks, long supermarkets lines, and overwhelming uncertainty on Monday as a breakdown in talks between Athens and its international creditors plunged the country deep into crisis." And in Puerto Rico, Governor Alejandro GarcÃa Padilla, "saying he needs to pull the island out of a 'death spiral,' has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions."
I don't have the requisite economic expertise to comment meaningfully on the global consequences of these crises. What I will say, however, is that my thoughts are with the people of Greece and Puerto Rico, and I am desperately sorry that their fates are so inextricably tied to the wills of people whose fortunes have been made in part by exploiting them.
* * *
[Content Note: War on agency] Goddammit: "The Ohio Senate's GOP majority on Wednesday approved a ban on abortion after 20 weeks' gestation only hours after it went through committee. SB 127, which anti-choice group Ohio Right to Life called its 'legislative priority' this year, was passed after exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother were removed from the measure. The bill passed in a 23-9 vote and will now move to the Republican-led state house for approval. ...Ohio is one of at least ten states to introduce so-called fetal pain abortion bans this year. A similar ban was passed in West Virginia after the GOP-majority state legislature overrode the governor's veto. The Wisconsin Senate passed a so-called fetal pain bill this month. The South Carolina legislature will next January take up a 20-week ban despite arguments between conservative legislators that the bill was too lenient because it included exceptions for rape and incest. Those exceptions were eventually removed."
I don't even know what to say anymore that I haven't already said six thousand times about these aggressively hostile thunderfucks who are doing everything they can to subvert the right ostensibly guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. I am just constantly, constantly angry about the erosion of reproductive rights across the country, and it just feels like it's been so fucking long since reproductive justice advocates have had a big win.
Would the country celebrate with us even if we did? (That's rhetorical.) (That's also exactly the problem.)
* * *
[CN: Wimbledon spoiler] Serena Williams won her opening match at Wimbledon today, defeating Margarita Gasparyan of Russia 6-4, 6-1. Because of course she did! "Williams has won three straight major titles, including the Australian Open and French Open. If she wins the title at the All England Club and then defends her title at the U.S. Open, she would be the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same season." Yowza!
She is amazing, and I love watching her play so much. If you, too, are a Serena Williams fan, you might enjoy [CN: disablist language] "17 fascinating facts about Serena Williams, who's on the brink of tennis history."
* * *
In presidential primary news, Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is reportedly going to announce tomorrow that he's running for president, and Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich is reportedly going to announce his own presidential run on July 21. THAT IS ONE CROWDED CLOWN CAR!
Meanwhile, Democratic Vice President Joe Biden is still weighing a White House run of his own.
LET'S ALL RUN FOR PRESIDENT! EVERYONE RUN FOR PRESIDENT!
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[CN: Homophobia] Jamilah King has written a great piece on what the Supreme Court's marriage decision means for LGB parents in the South: "The American South is home to many ironies, but perhaps none as intriguing as those relating to same-sex unions. Before Friday's historic Supreme Court ruling, same-sex marriage was almost universally banned in Southern states, a reality that painted a bleak picture for LGBT Americans who live there. But then there's also this: There are more gay and lesbian parents raising children in the South than anywhere else in the country, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the Williams Institute, an LGBT think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles. For example, more than 20% of same-sex couples are raising children in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, and of those couples, blacks and Latinos are more than twice as likely as white parents to be raising children. These are facts that help reshape the narrative of same-sex marriage from an individual's quest to legally wed whomever they please to a family's search for legal protection."
[CN: Animal extinction] Holy crap: "We are at the beginning of the world's sixth mass extinction; not since the fall of the great prehistoric beasts has our planet seen such extreme species loss. Last week, scientists writing in the journal Science Advances found that vertebrates—animals with a backbone—are going extinct at a rate up to 100 times greater than in the past. These rates are unusually high, even considering Earth's long history, and humans—for whom a period of such high extinction rates is unprecedented—could feel the consequences in as few as three lifetimes."
LOLOLOL: "Pope's climate change activism sets stage for awkward visit to Capitol Hill." Brilliant.
All right then: "After 35 years in development, the world's first commercially available jetpack will be available next year for $150,000." The worst part about this is that I only have $149,873 in my jetpack fund. DAMMIT!
[CN: Animal illness but happy ending] And finally! A pink flamingo in Sorocaba, Brazil, whose left leg was partially amputated to halt an infection after a break, has gotten a prosthetic leg and: "Within days the flamingo was adjusting nicely to his new leg—even tucking it under his body to make the flamingo's classic one-leg standing pose." Aww!
