Trust this: If your "criticism" of Clinton sounds like Limbaugh mix tapes from the '90s, you're not fixing to lead a progressive revolution.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 27, 2016An Observation
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sneezefarts.
Recommended Reading:
Kayla: [Content Note: Sexual harassment; disablism] Nobody Catcalls the Woman in the Wheelchair
[Related Reading, to reaffirm this space explicitly does and will always make room for this experience: On Harassment and the Marking of Visible Womanhood.]
Adam: [CN: Appropriation; racism] On Apache Pizza and the Globalization of American Indian Cultural Appropriation
Danika: [CN: Discussion of addiction and mental illness stigma] Carrie Fisher Talks Mental Health
Fannie: TV Series Signal Boost: Her Story
Kat: Why Missy Elliott's Feminist Legacy Is Criminally Underrated [Note: I take some issue with some of the ways the author compares Elliott to current pop icons and avoids deeper exploration of body size and sexual presentation, so heads-up on that, which I wasn't sure how to succinctly content note, but there's a lot of good stuff there otherwise.]
Angry Asian Man: Nathan Chen Is the Future of US Men's Figure Skating
Cheryl: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Is Even Weirder Than You Remember
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Dump Trump! And Other Musings!
[Content Note: Fearmongering; outrage ginning.]
Hey, ya bunch of feminist bats! It's me, Butch Pornstache, America's most beloved political commentator.
I heard some of you weirdos were hoping I'd weigh in on this presidential race, so here I am! Long time no talk about LOVING AMERICA.
Now I know what you're probably thinking: Butch, didn't you used to be a Tea Bagger? Yes, yes I did. But after my ex-wife/fiancée Tammy canceled my BMX Babez subscription and rigged up my phone so Shakesville is the only website I can access on it, this stupid blog is the only reading material I have every time I do a dumper.
And I have to admit, no matter how much I've tried to resist it, I've learned a few things.
Plus, you know the old saying: Consistency is the goblinoid of the salt mines. I've never really understood that saying, but I think it means something about how changing your mind is a good thing. And I guess it still counts if you've changed your mind under the duress of your ex-wife/fiancée Tammy and your stepmom Cheryl screaming at you about how your brainpan is full of what they like to call "indefensible garbage."
Point is: Between Tammy, Cheryl, and you bunch of jerks, I've come a long way, baby!
And, as I don't need to tell you, since you complain about it all the time, being a mediocre white man who's been wrong about everything qualifies me as an expert on any subject I choose.
So here is my tooth sense on the dirtbags and dipshits running to be president of these great United States:
Hillary Clinton: Man, what a nerd! This lady was in her room studying Supreme Court decisions and reading biographies of dead politicians while the rest of us were out shoving leftover pizza through the library book return and smoking weed. Her brain is stuffed full of so much information, I would be scared to get into an argument with her over the spelling of my own name because I'd definitely lose. She's the biggest dork I've ever seen in my life! That seems like a pretty good argument that she should be president to me. We tried the guy you'd most want to drink a beer with, and that didn't work out so hot. I guess presidents should know stuff.
Martin O'Malley: I don't know who that guy is. But I knew a guy named Joe O'Malley once, and he was all right.
Bernie Sanders: This guy seems like a dweeb, too. But not the good kind of dweeb who does all the work when you get paired up for a project in English class. He's more like the dweeb who gets the teachers to sign his yearbook because he doesn't have any friends his own age, and plays Dungeons & Dragons with all the little kids who still let him get away with being mean and shouty about the rules. I kind of want to TP his house. Seems like he could definitely be president without blowing up the planet, though.
Jeb Bush: Oh brother. (No pun intended!) This guy looks like he doesn't even know where he is, and not in the good way. (DRUGS.) He looks like he'd have more fun if he just retired to Florida to play golf and avoid phone calls from his family.
Ben Carson: Nah.
Chris Christie: Pass.
Ted Cruz: I don't get this guy at all. He's always smiling while saying shitty things. It's creepy as hell.
Carly Fiorina: Every time I hear her talking, she's telling me that she's not Hillary Clinton. You're damn right you're not, lady!
Jim Gilmore: Who?
Mike Huckabee: This guy is why I don't go to church. That and also I love to sleep in on Sundays.
John Kasich: Never heard of him.
Rand Paul: Is this the guy whose dad is Ron Paul and whose mom is Ayn Rand? I think Glenn Beck told me I should like this dude back when I was a Tea Partier. My stepmom Cheryl told me that taking advice from Glenn Beck is like taking acting lessons from Steven Seagal, and, as you know, I'm a Van Damme man, so.
Marco Rubio: This guy always looks nervous, and it makes me anxious when I look at him. You know when you go to the post office to pick up your According to Jim DVD collection because when they tried to deliver it your mailbox was full of back issues of BMX Babez you were hiding, and it's really quiet in there, and all of a sudden you have to sneeze and you know the force of it will shoot out a loud fart and it's gonna be embarrassing? That sneezefart anxiety is how I feel when I have to look at Marco Rubio. That can't be a good quality in a president.
Rick Santorum: Yuck.
Donald Trump: Now this is a guy I really have something to say about! DUMP TRUMP! The Donald is always saying he wants to "Make America Great Again." What the fuck, man? AMERICA IS PRETTY GREAT RIGHT NOW. Sure, we've got problems, but what country doesn't? Oh, you know what country doesn't? AMERICA, if you listen to the people who shout at your face that it's the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD if you happen to favor another country's healthcare system or weed laws.
They say America is perfect if some liberal wants to do something, and they say America is terrible if some liberal wants to do something, and I still ain't no liberal and I would rather eat my best friend Dick Balzac's hairpiece than defend liberals, but that shit just don't make sense!
And nothing Donald Trump says makes any sense! He's no president! He's just like this shithead conductor in front of a giant orchestra of anger (CULTURE), waving his little music stick to make the angry people get louder and louder.
If you listen to only one piece of the wisdom I'm dropping on you today, let it be this: DUMP TRUMP! He is bad for America.
Pornstache: OUT.
Daily Dose of Cute
Wee Sophs.
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: Holocaust; anti-Semitism] "Dozens of elderly Holocaust survivors lit candles at Auschwitz on Wednesday, exactly 71 years after the Soviet army liberated the death camp that has become the most powerful symbol of the human suffering inflicted by Nazi Germany during World War II. The commemoration at the former death camp in southern Poland, an area under Nazi occupation during the war, is part of the U.N.-designated International Remembrance Day, marked by politicians, survivors, and others in ceremonies and events across the world. At Auschwitz some of the survivors wore sashes or scarves that recalled the striped pajama-style clothing that prisoners were forced to wear. They placed candles and wreaths at a wall where many prisoners were executed before gathering with the presidents of Poland and Croatia for official ceremonies. The Nazis killed more than 1 million people at Auschwitz, most of them Jews but also Roma, non-Jewish Poles, and others. This year's commemorations come as a resurgence of anti-Semitism casts a shadow over a new generation of European Jews, something that is driving thousands of them each year to leave the continent. 'We must be honest enough to admit that more than 70 years after the Shoah, anti-Semitism is still alive in our 'civilized' European Union,' Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top foreign affairs representative, said in a statement."
[CN: Toxic water; reproductive injustice] Kanya D'Almeida explains how the Flint water emergency is a reproductive health crisis: "Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that pregnant women and lactating mothers who are exposed to lead are at heightened risk of gestational hypertension. And since lead can persist in bones for decades, especially in pregnant and lactating women, mothers and their babies remain exposed to lead long after external sources of contamination have been eliminated. 'This is a reproductive health crisis of monumental proportions that you would not expect to see in a developed country and certainly not in a state…like Michigan, which ironically is surrounded by one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world,' Dr. John Hebert, director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency Program at the Hurley Medical Center, told RH Reality Check."
[CN: Misogynist terrorism; harassment] Scaachi Koul on the Gregory Alan Elliott harassment verdict and why "There's No Such Thing as Digital-Only Torment: The feelings are the same. You're trapped, you're worried this will escalate into something you can't outrun, you don't want this person to know where you live or who's in your family. People will blame you for this regardless—Were you wearing a short skirt? vs. Were you trolling him?—and your recourse is limited. People feel bad for you, sure, but no one can really do anything." YES.
[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] I don't even have words anymore, only rage and grief: "Before he was killed in Chicago for allegedly swinging a bat at a police officer, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier tried calling 911 three times. But audio recordings released this week by the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) reveal that two dispatchers ignored LeGrier's pleas for police assistance. ...When Officer Robert Rialmo arrived at the scene, he shot LeGrier seven times. He also shot a neighbor in the chest, killing her accidentally."
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Of course: "Back at work after last weekend's snowstorm shuttered the federal government, [Senator Lisa Murkowski] the Republican senator from Alaska noted that she shared something in common with every single person in the room. No, Republicans and Democrats didn't magically come together during the weather break and agree on something. Every single person in the room was a woman. Every. Single. One."
IMPORTANT RIHANNA NEWS! "The singer released a brand new single from her forthcoming album Anti early Wednesday, amid rumors that her long-anticipated record could arrive soon. The track, called 'Work,' features Drake and debuted on Tidal. The release comes after Billboard published reports that Rihanna would drop a new song on Wednesday at 8 a.m. ET and that Anti would debut Friday." Yay!
[CN: White supremacy] Keith Reid-Cleveland on why Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation couldn't have come at a better time: The film—which tells the story of Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion and shares its name, very deliberately, with the D.W. Griffith original that is, to put it succinctly, super fucking racist—"was the brainchild of Nate Parker and took the public by storm almost a week after the Academy Awards announced that they, once again, shutout actors and actresses of color for nominations." The film "recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. The attention was so sudden that there was a bidding war the very next morning that ended when Fox Searchlight, the same studio that released 12 Years a Slave, bid $17.5 million to distribute it."
[CN: Racism; blackface; appropriation] In other film news: "Joseph Fiennes to play Michael Jackson in 9/11 road-trip drama." I'm sorry WHUT.
Neat! "Astronomers have discovered the largest known solar system, consisting of a large planet that takes nearly a million years to orbit its star. The gas giant is one trillion kilometres away, making its orbit 140 times wider than Pluto's path around our Sun. ...The planet, known as 2MASS J2126-8140, is between 12 and 15 times the mass of Jupiter. ...This system is nearly three times the size of the previous widest star-planet pair. The star and its planet were found by a survey of young stars and brown dwarfs in Earth's neighbourhood."
And finally! This is a moving video about miniature horses who work as therapy animals. I love horses so much.
Primarily Speaking
Only 285 days to go until Election Day now! *collapses*
[Content Note: Racism] Yesterday I mentioned Hillary Clinton's ahistorical and troubling comments on Reconstruction during the last Democratic town hall (and explained further in comments why they were so problematic).
Last night, Clinton's Senior Advisor and Senior Spokesperson, Karen Finney, issued a clarifying statement: "Her point was that we might have gotten to a better place under Lincoln's leadership. What we needed after the Civil War was equality, justice, and reconciliation. Instead we saw the federal government abandon Reconstruction before real change took hold, which ultimately led to a disgraceful era of Jim Crow. And as she talks about frequently, too many injustices remain today. Attempts to suppress voting rights go back to racist efforts against Reconstruction, and in fighting for voting rights and equality today we are continuing a long struggle that still has to be fought and won in our own generation."
Noting "racist efforts against Reconstruction" was wise, as it at least signals that Clinton understands Reconstruction itself wasn't racist. But acknowledging the pernicious narrative about Reconstruction into which her comment played would have been appreciated.
In other Clinton news: "At a campaign event in Deocorah, Iowa on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton lit up when a voter asked her if she would consider appointing the president to the Supreme Court should she win the White House. 'Wow, what a great idea. No one has ever suggested that to me, I love that, wow,' the Democratic presidential candidate responded. 'He may have a few other things to do but I tell you that's a great idea. ...I mean he's brilliant, and he can set forth an argument, and he was a law professor, so he's got all the credentials.'" I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH! But only if President Obama is interested, of course! But if he is, LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Donald Trump says he won't participate in this week's Republican debate (awww) because Fox News is mean to him. And his official statement about it is, naturally, fucking amazing.
Yes, it's real.
WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWWWWWWWWW WOW WOW WOW
In other debate news: "After MSNBC and the New Hampshire Union-Leader announced on Tuesday that they would hold an unsanctioned Democratic presidential debate ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would not attend a debate not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, told the New York Times that Sanders won't participate in an unsanctioned debate for fear that he would be barred from future official debates. A spokeswoman for Clinton, told the Union-Leader that the former secretary of state would be 'happy to participate in a debate in New Hampshire if the other candidates agree, which would allow the DNC to sanction the debate.' The DNC said in a Tuesday statement that the party will not sanction the Feb. 4 debate planned by MSNBC and the Union-Leader." Okay.
The rest of the dipshits + Martin O'Malley running for president are still running for president.
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Robert Gates Ain't Impressed
[Content Note: Militarism.]
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is a Republican, doesn't have many kind words for the slate of Republican candidates' grasp of foreign policy:
"The level of dialogue on national security issues would embarrass a middle schooler," Gates said of the Republican contenders at a Politico Playbook event in Washington on Monday. "People are out there making threats and promises that are totally unrealistic, totally unattainable. Either they really believe what they're saying or they're cynical and opportunistic and, in a way, you hope it's the latter, because God forbid they actually believe some of the things that they're saying."I have a lot of disagreements with Robert Gates, but this is not among them.
...Gates was the only defence secretary in American history to be asked to remain in that office by a newly elected president. Working under Barack Obama, he was alongside Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state and praised her as "tough minded" with "a lot of common sense" but admitted they began to disagree on issues towards the end, notably the intervention in Libya.
He did not mention Bernie Sanders by name but did suggest both Democratic and Republican candidates are being given an easy ride by the media. "Frankly, I think that the press needs to be more aggressive," he said. "A lot of people in both parties are making huge promises and commitments."
"In some cases, the things they're saying they're going to do are unconstitutional or merely against the law and others are, from a budgetary standpoint, inconceivable, and so it seems to be that the press has not hammered hard enough and been relentless in saying, 'How the hell are you going to do that?'"
Behold Your Roosting Chickens: An Ongoing Series
[Content Note: Bigotry; wedge politics; scapegoating.]
Background: Behold Your Roosting Chickens.
Another day, another story about Republican Party elites feigning pretense about how Trump came to be leading in their primary:
With time running out until the first primary votes are cast, establishment Republicans have begun a ferocious round of finger-pointing over who is to blame for the party's failure to stop Donald Trump.Well, you know what they say: When you point a finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
The chiding, once limited to private conversations, is now erupting in public view — with campaigns, operatives, donors, party officials and conservative intellectuals arguing over why something hasn't been done to stop the man who has been leading nearly every state and national poll since August. Trump, many in the GOP's upper ranks are convinced, would lead the Republican Party to an epic defeat in November, with consequences all the way down the ballot.What a perfect, terrible quote. My party is about to nominate someone who would be ruinous for the country if elected. How can I cash in?
"This whole thing is a disaster," said Curt Anderson, a former Republican National Committee political director and veteran operative. "I think I'll write a book about it."
The story goes on to detail who has come up for a share of the blame: "Receiving much of the blame is Right to Rise, the cash-flush super PAC that broke records when it announced last year that it had raised more than $100 million in support of Jeb Bush. The group has directed relatively little of that sum toward attacking Trump... Yet others say it's unfair to solely blame Bush—and that Rubio is just as culpable. Despite winning the support of an array of deep-pocketed donors, including hedge fund manager Paul Singer and tech titan Larry Ellison, Rubio has and his allies have done little to attack Trump... Still others fault Ted Cruz, who spent months cuddling up to Trump in hopes of scooping up his supporters... But it's not just campaigns that are coming under fire—it's also donors, many of whom were presented with the opportunity to go after Trump but didn't pull the trigger... Much frustration has been directed at the RNC, which some believe has been pushed around by the party's surprise poll-leader..."
Bush's super PAC. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. Republican donors. The Republican National Committee. Someone is to blame, dammit!
The only thing of which they are sure is that it isn't establishment Republicans.
It definitely isn't the people who flatter themselves by claiming to be the intellectual wing of a party that depends on the exploitation of an intractable streak of anti-intellectualism among its key demographic, the people sophisticated enough to not personally be offended by LGBT folks and people of color and uppity women, but unethical enough to exploit such bigotries nonetheless.
It definitely isn't the people who, after decades of fearmongering, scapegoating, dogwhistling, and wedge issue politicking, devised to convince (primarily) poor whites to vote against their own interests, have built a base that is essentially a seething conglomeration of intolerant bullies whose stubborn refusal to evolve ideologically is matched in astonishing obduracy only by their unjustifiable hatred.
It definitely isn't the people who exploited prejudice without reservation, creating the very ideological dumpster from which Donald Trump emerged as Garbage King.
Not only are they themselves not to blame, they are victims!
In some instances, anger has begun boil to over. Earlier this month, during the RNC's winter meeting, Holland Redfield, a party committeeman from the Virgin Islands, rose during a private breakfast to vent to Priebus about Trump. During the impromptu speech, Redfield complained of the pressures to not speak out, saying, "We're almost terrorized as members of our party."Yeah, well, that's a little bit like programming your GPS, following the directions, and then claiming your car hijacked you when you reach your destination.
In an interview, Redfield said that other RNC members had privately applauded him since his speech became public. But he predicted that, if Trump becomes the nominee, the party would face an intense battle between those who were going along with his candidacy and those who aren't.
"It will be a major internal fight," he said. "I feel the party has been hijacked."
But, as always, the architects of the Ownership Society refuse to own their shit.
"Personal responsibility" is something they shout at vulnerable people who weren't born with their privileges; it's a catchphrase to absolve themselves of their responsibility toward their fellow citizens, not something they feel obliged to practice.
Update from Malheur
[Content Note: Guns; death; insurrection.]
Last night, law enforcement and some members of the insurrectionists holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge got into a violent confrontation about 20 miles away from Malheur, and one militia member was killed, one was injured, and a bunch were taken into custody.
Oregon standoff spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum was killed and other leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation were arrested Tuesday after the FBI and state police stopped vehicles about 20 miles north of Burns.One might imagine that means their insurrection is over, but one would be wrong: "At the refuge Tuesday evening, occupier Jason Patrick reported no unusual activity. 'It's pretty quiet here,' Patrick said. He said no one was leaving as of 6 p.m. Hours later, Patrick said the refuge remained quiet but 'we're all standing here ready to defend our peaceful resolution.' He wouldn't elaborate."
Authorities did not release the name of the person who died at the highway stop, but Finicum's daughter confirmed it was Finicum, 55, of Cane Beds, Arizona, one of the cowboy-hat wearing faces of the takeover.
...Ryan Bundy, 43, of Bunkerville, Nev., suffered a minor gunshot wound in the confrontation about 4:30 p.m. along U.S. 395. He was treated and released from a local hospital and was in FBI custody, authorities said.
Also arrested during the stop were his brother, Ammon Bundy, 40, of Emmett, Idaho, Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada, and Shawna J. Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah. They were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony.
...[Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore], a vocal supporter of the Bundy family, said that Ammon Bundy told his wife that Finicum was cooperating with police when he was shot.
But sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Finicum and Ryan Bundy disobeyed orders to surrender and resisted arrest. No other details were available.
And outside the refuge, Finicum is now a martyr to the cause, and other extremist groups are rallying around the government action taken against the insurrectionists.
In the meantime, Operation Mutual Defense, a network of militias and patriot sympathizers, issued a call on its website for help at the refuge. The post was written by Gary Hunt, a board member from California who has expressed support for Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City and had ties to the patriot movement.Which means that things could potentially get a lot worse before this things, unless the feds move to end it swiftly. But they haven't shown much inclination to do that, frankly.
"You have an obligation to proceed to the Harney County Resource Center (the wildlife refuge) immediately," Hunt wrote. "If you fail to arrive, you will demonstrate by your own actions that your previous statements to defend life, liberty, and property were false."
My condolences to Finicum's family, who I'm sure loved him very much.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Alison Rose: "I'm gonna borrow this two-parter from James Lipton/Bernard Pivot: What profession other than your own (if you have one at the moment) would you most like to attempt, and what profession would you NOT want to attempt?"
I would like to attempt being an astronomer. I would not want to attempt being a politician.
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
* * *
I just saw this recipe recently for Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Soup, and I can't wait to try it! I love hearty soups in the winter.
I will probably adjust the recipe a bit, chiefly by adding leeks (mmmmmmm leeks) and reducing the cheese content (because I love cheese but that seems too rich for my guts), but this is a great base recipe.
I've never met a potato soup I didn't like.
GOOD GRIEF
[Content Note: Misogyny; objectification.]
It continues to be a real mystery why Republicans aren't connecting with a majority of female voters:
Republican Sen. Mitch Holmes has seen women wearing "over the top" attire during his decade in the Kansas Statehouse, by which he means, their tops didn't cover over enough.This story was filed under the headline: "State Lawmakers 'Distracted' by Women's Wardrobes."
"A blouse that came way past the rib cage was one of the most outlandish ones," he told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. He said his dress code was needed to prevent distractions from the legislative process.
But after he was shamed on social media as a "sexist" and "cave man" for telling women how to dress, Holmes dropped his guidelines the next day. His written apology Tuesday said he "meant no offense" by suggesting that "for ladies, low cut necklines and mini-skirts are inappropriate." Failing to apply the code to both genders, he wrote, was unacceptable.
It's at least the fourth time recently that [Republican] lawmakers have retreated from statehouse dress codes that applied to female colleagues, lobbyists, interns, and other citizens.
Well. If the straight gentlemen who disproportionately fill state legislative positions can't contain themselves and retain their focus in the presence of women who are wearing whatever the fuck we want, perhaps the solution is to replace them with women, who won't get so gosh darn distracted by reflexive objectification.
Sounds About Right
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
Jerry Falwell, Jr., chancellor of the bigot factory known as Libery University, has endorsed Donald Trump:
Falwell, in a statement released Tuesday, said that Trump is "a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again."If Emperor Falfatine of Evangelical Educationland endorsing billionaire cartoon villain Donald Trump doesn't irrefutably demonstrate that the Republican Party ain't about moral superiority and is just about entrenching privilege, I can't imagine what would.
"It is truly an honor to receive Jerry's endorsement. Not only is he a high quality person, with a wonderful family, whom I have great respect for—I also consider him a very good friend and his support means so much to me" Trump said in the same statement.
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley, bringing the max dudliness.
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: Possible shooting; video may autoplay at link] A possible active shooter was reported at the Naval Medical Center San Diego this morning: "NMCSD posted the following notice to its Facebook page around 8:10 a.m. Tuesday: '**!ATTENTION!** An active shooter has just been been reported in building #26 at Naval Medical Center San Diego. All occupants are advised to run, hide or fight. All non-emergency response personnel are asked to stay away from the compound, located at 34800 Bob Wilson Drive, San Diego, CA 92134.'" Fucking hell. I hope everyone is okay.
UPDATE: [CN: Video autoplays at link] "Authorities 'have not located any casualties or evidence of a shooting having taken place,' Navy Region Southwest spokesman Scott Sutherland told Navy Times. 'They are conducting a secondary, more thorough floor-by-floor sweep now.' Personnel remain sheltered in place, he said." Phew.
[CN next two paragraphs: White supremacy] Hillary Clinton is being criticized for historical revisionism after her comments on Reconstruction at the Democratic Town Hall last night: "Identifying Abraham Lincoln—not her husband Bill Clinton nor former rival and boss Barack Obama—as the president who most inspired her, Clinton lauded the 16th chief executive as a figure who 'was willing to reconcile and forgive. ...And I don't know what our country might have been like had he not been murdered, but I bet that it might have been a little less rancor, a little more forgiving and tolerant than might possibly have brought people back together more quickly,' Clinton continued. 'But instead, you know, we had Reconstruction, we had the reigns of segregation and Jim Crow. We had people in the South feeling totally discouraged and defiant. So, I really do believe he could have very well put us on a different path.'" As Jamelle Bouie accurately summarized: "No HRC, Reconstruction was actually good! It didn't fail, it was destroyed!"
And while it is true that during the Reconstruction era, there was rancor and divisiveness, insomuch as white people were rancorous and divisive toward black people, that is clearly not what Clinton said. And language matters. To conflate Reconstruction with white supremacy is a huge fucking problem. As of this writing, her campaign has not issued any follow-up statements, clarifications, or apologies.
[CN: Carcerality] In very good news, President Obama has announced that he is adopting the recommendations in a Department of Justice report on "the overuse of solitary confinement across American prisons," among which includes "ending the practice of placing juveniles in restrictive housing." This is certainly not a comprehensive solution to the vast and varied problems with the US prison system, but it is an important step in reducing one of the key conveyors of the trauma and dehumanization inherent to that system.
[CN: Transphobia; body policing] In more good news: "The International Olympic Committee is adopting new guidelines that will make it easier for trans athletes to compete in the Olympic Games. Previously, trans athletes were required to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. According to guidelines made public on Sunday, the new recommendations remove any restrictions on trans men, and allow trans women to compete in the Olympic Games after one year of hormone replacement therapy." Those are definitely imperfect and arbitrary guidelines! But they are a step in the right direction.
[CN: Misogyny] Lots of women are still dying from heart attacks and heart disease because many of the public awareness campaigns around heart health center on men's symptoms. Here is some crucial information "about key differences in heart attack indicators and treatment in women."
"He's a liar. That's why nobody likes him, that's why his Senate people won't endorse him, that's why he stands in the middle of the Senate floor and can't make a deal with anybody. He looks like a jerk."—Donald Trump, talking about Ted Cruz. Yeah. Donald Trump just said someone else is an unlikable liar who looks like a jerk.
[CN: Video autoplays at link] In case you were waiting to see who George Pataki would endorse after dropping out of the Republican primary, your seemingly interminable nightmare is over! He has endorsed Marco Rubio. What a coup for the thirsty jerk!
[CN: Rape culture] The next time some dipshit is caterwauling about rape accusations ruin men's lives, tell them to watch Woody Allen's new series on Amazon. Because of course he has a new series. And of course stars, including Miley Cyrus, are lining up to be in it.
Wow: "A rare white giraffe was spotted in Tanzania's Tarangire National Park. This giraffe, named Omo, has a condition called leucism. 'Leucism is a genetic condition that results in some of her skin cells being unable to create pigments, so she ends up looking very pale, with only vague patterns compared to a normal giraffe's coloration,' said Derek Lee, founder of the Wild Nature Institute. Lee researches giraffes at the National Park."
And finally! Ecuadoran police saved a sloth who got stuck in the middle of a highway: "That's when the local police went on the most adorable rescue mission and commemorated it by posting pictures on their Facebook page. The little traveller had gained many fans who were glad to know that the story ended well." Oh sloths. ♥
Looking For Bernie's America: Why His Gun Vote Mattered
[Content Note: Guns.]
Six months ago I wrote Looking for Bernie, a four-part series exploring Bernie Sanders’ record in historical context, analyzing it through the lens of intersectional feminism. With limited resources and time (this was done in between summer teaching gigs), I combed through online archives of every primary source I could lay my hands on. Because I'm a historian, and the historical context of what was happening when, and against what larger backdrop, is important to me. If Bernie was going to (in the words of [CN: video autoplays] his campaign’s latest advertisement) attract voters “looking for America,” then it seemed fair to look for Bernie’s history, and investigate from a left-minded perspective, exactly what kind of America he’s been working for in Vermont and in Washington.
And yesterday I read a fantastic piece in Mother Jones, by Pema Levy, that does just that. The article focuses specifically on the historical context around Sanders’ vote to insulate gun manufacturers from lawsuits. It outlines something that is almost never brought up today when discussing this vote: the fact that such lawsuits were starting to really make a difference. In fact, a lawsuit was pending at that time from New York City, showing that gun manufacturers were flagrantly ignoring information about the criminal gun market—information that could have helped keep guns out of manufacturer’s hands:
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms informed gun manufacturers every time a gun used in a crime was traced to their companies, information that would have made it easy for manufacturers to determine which of their distributors and dealers were supplying the black market, yet manufacturers continued to sell guns to those "bad apple" dealers.But that trial never came. Why? In large part, it was the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which gave “sweeping legal immunity” to the gun industry.
As the trial neared, the city had marketing experts, dealers, and former gun industry officials ready to testify that the gun manufacturers' lack of oversight of their dealers and distributors could only be attributed to a willful blindness that allowed them to profit off the criminal gun market. The city's lawyers were prepared to argue that in Southern states with lax gun laws, manufacturers supplied dealers with more handguns than the legal market could consume, knowing the excess guns would be trafficked north up the I-95 corridor and sold illegally in cities like New York…
And that’s what Bernie Sanders voted for.
I really urge you to read the whole article, because it does such an excellent job of explaining the historical context for the law, and how close the Unted States was to a genuine breakthrough on gun issues. Sanders has represented this vote as as one undertaken against frivolous lawsuits, the kind that put “mom and pop” businesses at risk. He has said that gun manufacturers should be no more at fault than the manufacturers of hammers, which can be used as fatal weapons too.
Except that analogy doesn’t quite work:
To Lowy, Sanders' hammer analogy is misleading. "The idea he's getting at is, if all you did is make or sell a product that's used in a crime, you shouldn't be liable," says Lowy, who has litigated cases for the Brady Center for 18 years. "And he's exactly right. But the lawsuits that I was involved in aren't premised on that theory. Our theory is that the gun companies did something wrong: They didn't use reasonable care." Some of the suits focused on manufactures' failure to incorporate safety systems into their weapons. But others, like New York's, argued that gun manufacturers facilitated the illegal gun market through lax oversight of their distributors. These suits were based on the legal principle of negligence, the idea that an individual or company is liable if it fails to exercise reasonable care. In many industries, manufacturers monitor their products from the factory to the distributors to the market. For example, due to the risk of food-borne illness, the food industry has developed its own set of food safety protocols, beyond what federal regulators require, to manage its downstream distributors. But the gun industry engages in remarkably little oversight. So the lawsuits sought to establish through the courts what gun control advocates couldn't accomplish through state legislatures or in Washington: liability for gun manufacturers who don't oversee their supply chain.This is a really, really important piece of context. The lawsuits of the early 2000s were predicated on tying the problems of gun violence to the problem of gun manufacturers not giving a good goddamn about their supply chain. Sting operations were getting press attention. It was a crucial moment:
"What the gun industry chose to do was, at best, put their heads in the sand and ignore the reality that they were utilizing these bad-apple gun dealers," says Lowy. "They knew that if they acted reasonably and put some reasonable oversight and conditions on the downstream sellers they would end up losing profits from the criminal gun market."
… Again and again, dealers happily sold their guns to the undercover cops. In one Detroit-area sting in which one officer posed as an illegal buyer and another as a straw purchaser, the gun seller gave instructions to the undercover officer acting as the straw buyer: "When the manager comes over to check this, it's your gun. You're not purchasing it for him, it's your gun…This is called a straw purchase. It's highly illegal." The sting was videotaped and later aired on NBC's Dateline. "Lawsuits frame issues often differently than the popular culture does," says Timothy Lytton, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law. "Gun violence up until the 1980s was thought of as a problem of bad apples—criminals who were shooting people—and that it was a crime problem. The tort lawsuits basically reframed this and said, 'No, the real problem here isn't criminals. The real problem is industry practices, and…the real focus needs to be placed on the carelessness of industry distribution practices and the responsibility of the industry to police its own supply chain.'"I encourage you to read the whole article.
I don’t expect Bernie Sanders to have been a psychic and figure out where his vote might have led. But I do expect an honest discussion of a fair criticisms from the left, especially this one.
I’ve felt many things about Bernie Sanders and his campaign in the months since I wrote about his history. Sometimes it’s been positive, and sometimes it’s been anger. But when reading about how the gun immunity laws took away what was an increasingly successful tool for fighting gun violence, what I feel is sadness. Sadness, and regret for a United States that lost one of his best hopes for reducing its epidemic of gun violence.
The music that the Sanders campaign has chosen for its Iowa campaign ad is a truncated version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.” It’s a story of a couple walking, hitchhiking, and finally taking a bus ride to New Jersey from Michigan. It has sweeping chords and a chorus that sounds like optimism, when heard in the proper mindset.
But when I hear it, I’m thinking about that vote. About what might have been. About the tragedies that might NOT have been. So what I hear is the last verse, a confession of confusion and melancholy that comes in the midst of this journey looking for America:
"Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping
“I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why”
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all gone to look for America…
Behold Your Roosting Chickens
[Content Note: Bigotry; wedge politics; scapegoating.]
Once upon a time, the Republican Party hid its despicable platform of bigotry and social Darwinism behind a thin veil of claimed decency. They were the "Party of Moral Values," the "Moral Majority," the "Compassionate Conservatives."
It was Orwellian hogwash, but it was, if literally nothing else, a nod to the expectation that politicians not behave like unleashed monsters; that they were elected to serve some ostensible greater good.
That time has passed.
Now, the Republican primary has yielded two frontrunners whose unfettered avarice, nationalistic militarism, and seething hatred of marginalized people is fully on display, without even a perfunctory euphemism of moral superiority slapped on for appearances.
To the contrary, such adherence to quaint pretensions of decency are regarded as a sickening weakness. Genuflections to political correctness.
Gone are the dogwhistles, replaced by bullhorns.
But this is not, as many "moderate" Republicans suggest, a Republican Party that has become unrecognizable. It is, instead, a party whose leading contenders for the presidency have taken off the mask, allowing the party to be seen at long last as its actual self.
Today, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns for the New York Times report: "As Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Soar, G.O.P. Leaders' Exasperation Grows."
Another day, another story about GOP elites taking to fainting couches over their gross candidates.
"The members of the party establishment," they write, "are growing impatient as they watch Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz dominate the field heading into the Iowa caucuses next Monday and the New Hampshire primary about a week later."
They don't want Trump or Cruz, because either one of them "could utterly destroy the Republican bench for a generation if they became the nominee."
Nothing is more dangerous to the GOP brand than a nominee who flatly refuses to pretend that their policies are anything but what they actually are. This is not about morality or compassion. This is about winning.
Winning by military might. Winning by hoarding resources. Winning by upholding unfair advantages conferred by privilege.
The Republican platform has always been about winning. Winning elections, yes. But more importantly the sort of personal triumph defined by treating life as a zero-sum game, at which there are winners and losers. Makers and takers. Haves and have-nots.
Survival of the richest.
The challenge for Republican elites has always been how you convince people who aren't obscenely wealthy to vote for a platform designed to exploit them.
So they developed a strategy based on appealing to bigotry, to othering and scapegoating and victim-blaming. And then they dressed it up in cynical language about morality.
Donald Trump in particular has no use for this masquerade.
He's quite content, proud even, thankyouverymuch, to blaze through the campaign trail without any of the requisite delicacy. Because he knows that decades of building a base by fomenting hatred doesn't require it anymore.
The Republican Party has traded again and again on the conjured idea of an American golden era, circa 1945 to 1960, after boys who were ripped from the arms of their virginal sweethearts and sent to another continent to fight a great war against tyranny and despair, had returned home as men, as heroes, and set to work, every last one of them, making babies with doting wives and grabbing the American Dream with both hands in the dawn of suburbia. Scientists in white lab coats and square, black-framed glasses toiled away to make American astronauts the first on the moon, and to fill all the pretty new homes behind perfect white picket fences with fancy, new-fangled household gadgets to make life easier and more fun. Teenagers hung out at sock hops and neon-lit diners, girls longing for lavaliers and boys wondering how to get laid. Elvis' pelvis was considered a scandal, and Marilyn Monroe a bombshell. Dad had a pension and the promise of a gold watch at the end of a long career with a single firm, and Mom had a Frigidaire. And everyone was happy.
Vote for us—and we'll give you that.
Long before Donald Trump had the chutzpah to make it his actual campaign slogan, the Republican Party was promising to Make America Great Again.
But the Republican promise has always had the very same flaw as their policies: It is contingent on pretending that the complexity and complications of human existence, and the flaws of humankind, don't exist.
It's an empty promise built on an illusion, carefully constructed to conceal that America's so-called golden age was imperfect like any other, and perhaps even more so than most. Half a million of those boys who went off to war never came home—and some of them weren't boys at all, but men, who left wives and children with desperate struggles in the place where their husbands and fathers had been. Some who had come home were never the same, their bodies or minds damaged beyond real repair. Women who had been called to duty in factories or faraway lands were forcibly driven back into domesticity, segregation was a legal fact, every gay or bi woman and man had a closet of hir very own, mental illness was treated with lobotomies, McCarthy was on his Communist witch hunt, and we fought an all-but-forgotten war in Korea for three years and lost over 35,000 soldiers. There were back-alley abortions, and the KKK, and Elvis and Marilyn both died of drug overdoses.
Vote for us—and we'll restore your waning privilege, so you'll maintain the luxury of never having to care about that shit. So you won't have to think about people who don't matter to winners.
The Republicans have held out this chimera to their base—this Leave It to Beaver bullshit—as if the typical family once was, and should be again, a model of white Christian perfection that never fought, never struggled, never suffered. And never had to be subjected to interactions with people of color, or LGBT folks, or any women besides Mom and maybe a nice lady to help sons take out books on the Boy Scouts from the local library. They have held it out as if it has actually been, and as if it could be again.
And they did so even knowing that the fantasy of this nonexistent perfect America is the very thing that created the beloved "traditions" of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the first place. It has been the dangling enticement of a happy family, supported by a single secure and well-paid job, in which no one is wracked with disillusionment, dispossession, or a lack of opportunity—an invitation to join for which most Americans are never given the chance to RSVP—which created the resentment and scapegoating that are the foundations of social conservatism.
"BOOTSTRAPS!" shouted the Republican Leadership, as they deregulated consumer protections and dismantled workers' rights. "BOOTSTRAPS!" shouted the GOP's Corporate Masters, as they relocated the bootstrap factory to China. The barrel-chested barons of a new Gilded Age stood astride the bodies of those who had been condemned to less fortunate fates, singing the praises of Social Darwinism and bellowing about the superfluity of a social safety net, declaring without a trace of irony, "The government never gave me anything!" as they deposited their million-dollar checks from their latest no-bid Defense Department contract then headed off to Tiffany's to get The Little Woman a bauble with their fat tax returns. "BOOTSTRAPS!"
And when working hard failed to deliver on its enticing promises, and the only thing the Invisible Hand gave its working class believers was the finger, the promise-makers deflected accountability to the targets of that attentively nurtured hate.
If it weren't for progressives... If it weren't for feminists and gays and undocumented immigrants... If it weren't for that dark-skinned president...
People who bought into the narratives of self-determination, of rugged individualism, of bootstraps, the uniquely American myths of achievement and goodness in Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinist and Prosperity Gospel morality tales, who believed that shit, have been left with nothing but impotent anger—and, having been encouraged to make no social contract, to depend on no one but oneself, to hoard all the rewards of the success that bootstrapping was supposed to yield and share naught, they were then left with no one to blame but themselves when it all went wrong.
Which, obviously, wasn't going to do.
Fortunately, even though wealth and opportunity and security failed to trickle down, blame did not. And the promise-makers who quickly said, "Don't look at us!" were happy to provide to their disaffected base a road map to where their ire should be directed.
Now the Republican establishment is stuck with the result—their revolting (in every sense of the word) base, who still believe, and must, lest they face their complicity in having been left with naught but their biases, that the responsible party for their struggles, their disaffection, their undefined but keenly-felt fury, is those people, not the Grand Old Party who promised them something better in exchange for their votes.
The political leadership taught their base too well whom to blame for what ails them, and thus cannot now move them from their fixed gaze and finger-pointing, even as it isn't helping the party anymore—and stands likely to hurt the party for the foreseeable future. They sowed the seeds of prejudice for decades, and now they reap nothing but the only crop such seeds can yield.
So here we are.
And now the party elites have the temerity to publicly lament that the genie won't go back in the bottle.
"What happened to my party?" wonder the vanishing moderates of the Republican Party, shaking their heads gravely and publicly wringing their hands, before shuffling off to wash them of any responsibility.
You happened to your party. You and your exploitation of the darkest prejudices, the worst of human nature. You and your greed. Your careless fearmongering. Your cynical scapegoating. Your endless denials of injustice.
You happened, with your insatiable appetites for more wealth, more power, more influence, more control. You and your voracious need to win.
You happened. You and your bumper sticker sloganeering in a complicated world.
And now you shamelessly deflect blame by pretending to by mystified by why your base is rallying around a billionaire with a bumper sticker slogan stitched in gold thread on tacky hats.
Have all the fucking seats on that fainting couch. And behold your contemptible chickens as they come home to roost.
