Howdy Shakers! It's March--and that means spring is in full swing in these Southern states. it comes on fast here, and doesn't linger long. It seems like the flowers of early spring just got here...
...and now the mid and late spring tulips are blooming!
I have lots more pictures below the fold, so if you need a flower break, come on in!
[Content Note: Violence; racism.]
As you've no doubt heard, Donald Trump had a rally scheduled at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Friday night, which was canceled after protesters were met with violent pushback from his supporters.
Minutes after Mr. Trump was to have taken to a podium on the campus of a large, diverse public university just west of downtown, an announcer suddenly pronounced the event over before it had begun. Hundreds of protesters, who had promised to be a visible presence here and filled several sections of the arena, let out an elated, unstopping cheer. Mr. Trump's supporters, many of whom had waited hours to see the Republican front-runner, seemed stunned and slowly filed out in anger.The University of Illinois at Chicago is not only a public university with a diverse student population; its campus sits in a part of the city whose population is comprised by people who are routinely the targets of Trump's hostile and marginalizing rhetoric. Chicago has a vibrant activist community that is currently mobilized against racist and authoritarian police brutality (as but one very visible example). Trump can't have been surprised that his campaign and his aggressive rhetoric would not be welcomed with open arms by Chicago.
...In the hours before the event, inside the 9,500-seat arena, Mr. Trump's backers were energized. Some dressed in outfits to match his, and chanted "Trump! Trump! Trump!" as they waited.
But the situation grew tense as the size of the protest crowd became clear, and as some yelled anti-Trump slogans and skirmished with the supporters. Three men in T-shirts that read, "Muslims United Against Trump," departed early on, delighting the pro-Trump crowd.
Outside, a tense standoff mounted as well. ...A large group opposing Mr. Trump merrily taunted the people entering the stadium with shouts of "Donald Trump has got to go" and signs caricaturing Mr. Trump as a fascist with a Hitler mustache. (In one only-in-Chicago insult, a protester carried a sign reading, "Trump puts ketchup on his hot dog.") And then, suddenly, an announcement declared the event "over" and repeated it several times.
...Arguments and small skirmishes broke out along the streets. At one point, the police rushed in, separating people.
At least one man was hit on the head with a police baton, witnesses said, and blood could be seen coming from a gash on his face. A woman, also bloodied, was led away by police.
"They got the job done," Vickie Deanda, 54, an accountant from Chicago, said of the demonstrators. "Someone has to object to this hatred. The people inside have a right to be there. But we have a right to be here, too."
[Content Note: HIV/AIDS stigma; homophobia.]
On Friday, Hillary Clinton attended former First Lady Nancy Reagan's funeral and ahistorically and harmfully commended her and President Reagan for their position on HIV/AIDS.
She quickly issued an apology: "While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I'm sorry."
A longer statement came later, and that statement can be read in full at Medium. Two points I want to highlight:
1. Clinton fully retracts saying that the Reagans started a national conversation on HIV/AIDS and gives credit where credit is actually due:
To be clear, the Reagans did not start a national conversation about HIV and AIDS. That distinction belongs to generations of brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with straight allies, who started not just a conversation but a movement that continues to this day.2. Clinton calls for a number of items that would benefit people with and/or researching HIV/AIDS, including this: "We should call on states to reform outdated and stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws." Yes. It's easy to call for more funding; it's a little bit tougher (apparently) for politicians to call for these reforms.
The AIDS crisis in America began as a quiet, deadly epidemic. Because of discrimination and disregard, it remained that way for far too long. When many in positions of power turned a blind eye, it was groups like ACT UP, Gay Men's Health Crisis and others that came forward to shatter the silence — because as they reminded us again and again, Silence = Death. They organized and marched, held die-ins on the steps of city halls and vigils in the streets. They fought alongside a few courageous voices in Washington, like U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, who spoke out from the floor of Congress.
Then there were all the people whose names we don't often hear today — the unsung heroes who fought on the front lines of the crisis, from hospital wards and bedsides, some with their last breath. Slowly, too slowly, ignorance was crowded out by information. People who had once closed their eyes opened their hearts.
If not for those advocates, activists, and ordinary, heroic people, we would not be where we are in preventing and treating HIV and AIDS. Their courage — and their refusal to accept silence as the status quo — saved lives.
This blogaround brought to you by icecubes.
Recommended Reading:
Alaa: [Content Note: Racism; Islamophobia; violence] The Unsolved Muslim Murders Casting a Dark Cloud over Indiana
Amy: [CN: Racism; anti-immigrationism; trauma] Donald Trump and His Supporters Are Hurting My Child
Kenrya: [CN: Sexual violence] New Book Helps Native American Girls Cope After Sexual Assault
Sean: Did LIGO Detect Dark Matter?
Jepchumba: Kenya's League of Extravagant Grannies
Bina: [CN: Racism; appropriation; war] Whiskey Tango Foxtrot the Movie
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
[Content Note: HIV/AIDS stigma; homophobia.]
Earlier today, at Nancy Reagan's funeral, Hillary Clinton said: "It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan—in particular Mrs. Reagan—we started a national conversation, when, before, nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it, and, you know, that, too, is something that I really appreciate—with her very effective low-key advocacy, but it penetrated the public conscience, and people began to say, 'Hey, we have to do something about this, too.'"
This is aggressively wrong.
President Ronald Reagan pretty famously did not even publicly say the word "AIDS" during the first seven years of his presidency, despite the fact that AIDS (then called GRID) was identified in 1981, his first year in office.
It was only after HIV/AIDS activist and actress Elizabeth Taylor persuaded President Reagan to attend an event, nearly two years after their mutual friend Rock Hudson had died of AIDS, along with more than 20,000 other Americans, that he finally said the word aloud.
It's tough to "start a conversation" about something you refuse to even say, or acknowledge the existence of.
Further, Clinton's contention that "nobody would talk about it, nobody wanted to do anything about it" is a gross erasure of all the HIV/AIDS activists and patients who sure as shit were talking about it and doing everything they could about it, including pleading with the Reagan administration (for a start) to do something about it.
The problem wasn't so much that it was "difficult for people to talk about HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s," but that the people in power found it "difficult" to listen. Or care.
And insomuch as it was difficult for people with HIV/AIDS to talk about it, that was because of the stigma around HIV/AIDS that persists to this day. Which the Reagan administration was key in facilitating and maintaining with their silence and hostility.
No one should ever say anything nice when it comes to the Reagans and their attitudes toward HIV/AIDS, no less credit them with starting a national conversation.
Clinton needs to issue an apology for this. It's not just factually wrong; it's harmful.
UPDATE: Clinton has issued a statement and apology: "While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, I misspoke about their record on HIV and AIDS. For that, I'm sorry."
While I genuinely appreciate the actual words "I'm sorry," quickly delivered, "misspoke" isn't right when you get it so badly wrong.
I certainly hope there is a more reflective statement forthcoming, that shows some recognition of how her utterly ahistorical revisionist history of the Reagans' position on HIV/AIDS was not merely inaccurate, but hurtful.
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Hot damn! This campaign advertisement featuring Shonda Rhimes, and the stars of three of her hugely successful shows—Viola Davis from How to Get Away with Murder, Kerry Washington from Scandal, and Ellen Pompeo from Grey's Anatomy—endorsing Hillary Clinton is pretty fucking cool. I can't even imagine how jazzed Clinton must be!
In other endorsement news, Dr. Ben Carson has endorsed Donald Trump. Sure.
On the other hand: "The AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. federation of labor unions, will launch digital attack ads targeting Republican front-runner Donald Trump next week as part of a multi-pronged effort to derail the New York billionaire's bid for the White House and dampen union workers' enthusiasm for him. Officials at the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group of 56 unions representing 12.5 million workers, told Reuters the ads will depict Trump as anti-union, and will appear on Facebook and Twitter. ...'Donald Trump has tapped into the very real and understandable anger of working people. But while he says he's with America's working people, when you look close, it's just hot air,' AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told Reuters. 'Donald Trump is nothing but a house of cards, and once we educate people, the house of cards comes crashing down,' he said."
[Content Note: War; displacement; descriptions of rape, murder, and violence] The United Nations Office of Human Rights has published an incredibly difficult but equally important report on the vast scope of brutal human rights violations in South Sudan, in which a civil war between government and opposition forces has been waging since 2013. Women and children are especially singled out for vicious abuse and sexual violence, and UN investigators found that the South Sudanese army have allowed their affiliated militias "to rape women in lieu of wages while fighting rebels. ...According to the UN report, militias operated under a 'do what you can and take what you can' agreement that allowed them to rape and abduct women and girls as a form of payment. They also raided cattle and stole personal property, it added. The scale and type of sexual violence committed in South Sudan constitute some of the most horrendous human rights abuses in the world, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said." And still the world continues to refuse to meaningfully intervene.
[CN: War on agency] In Indiana, the state legislature is attempting to pass another abortion restriction so extreme that even some Republicans are objecting: "Under HB 1337, which both chambers of the legislature passed this week, women would be prohibited from seeking an abortion if they discover their fetus has genetic abnormalities. ...According to a Planned Parenthood statement, the legislation is 'particularly cruel in that it's designed to shame and demean a woman who is facing tragic circumstances with a lethal fetal anomaly.' Essentially, a grieving pregnant woman grappling with the news that her unborn child won't survive outside the womb would be required to receive information dissuading her from ending the doomed pregnancy. ...'The bill does nothing to save innocent lives. There's no education, there's no funding. It's just penalties,' Rep. Sharon Negele, a Republican who has sponsored anti-abortion legislation in the past, said this week at a hearing regarding HB 1337." When Sharon Negele says you've gone too far, you have truly derailed.
[CN: War on agency] Meanwhile, in Utah: "A Utah bill requiring doctors to administer anesthesia to a fetus at 20 weeks' gestation or later during an abortion procedure now heads to the governor's desk, after Republicans on Thursday pushed through the measure during the legislative session's final hours. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Curt Bramble (R-Provo), hinges on the unsubstantiated notion that a fetus at 20 weeks' gestation feels pain, despite an exhaustive scientific review saying that's simply not the case. SB 234 passed in the house in a 56-13 party line vote, after clearing the state senate this month over Democratic opposition. Republicans control both chambers of the Utah legislature."
[CN: Fat hatred; video may autoplay at link] Fucking hell: "A new commercial that is part of Lane Bryant's body positive campaign may never get a chance to air. A representative for the clothing company tells People it has been rejected by multiple TV networks including NBC and ABC. ...In a statement to People, a representative for NBC said, 'As part of the normal advertising standards process, we reviewed a rough cut of the ad and asked for minor edits to comply with broadcast indecency guidelines. The ad was not rejected and we welcome the updated creative.'" Um, okay. Let me guess: These "indecency" issues with fat female bodies would definitely not be a problem with thin female bodies.
[CN: Holocaust survival] Yisrael Kristal, an Auschwitz survivor, is now the world's oldest known man, at age 112 and 178 days. "As he received his Guinness World Records certificate, Mr Kristal said he did not know the 'secret for long life' and that he believed everything was 'determined from above.' 'There have been smarter, stronger, and better looking men then me who are no longer alive,' he added. 'All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.'" Blub.
"This Incredibly Deep Space View Could Solve One of the Mysteries of Our Universe." COOL.
And finally! Baby aardvark! That last picture is THE BEST.
[Content Note: Racism.]
Yesterday, during a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Barack Obama was asked about anti-Trump conservatives' contention that his administration is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump. He replied with a wry grin: "I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things, but being blamed for their primaries and who they're selecting for their party, um...is novel."
He then went on more seriously to say again that he regrets the polarization in DC, and that he does "all kinds of soul searching in terms of the things I can do better to make sure that we unified country."
And then he said this:
It's fair to say that the Republican political elites and many of the information outlets—social media, news outlets, talk radio, television stations—have been feeding the Republican base, for the last seven years, a notion that everything I do is to be opposed; that cooperation or compromise somehow is a betrayal; that maximalist, absolutist positions on issues are politically advantageous; that there is a 'them' out there and an 'us'—and 'them' are the folks who are causing whatever problems you're experiencing.BOOM.
And the tone of that politics, which I certainly have not contributed to— I, you know, I don't think that I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example, and I don't remember saying, 'Hey, why don'tcha ask me about that?' [chuckles] Or, 'Why don'tcha question whether I'm American? Or whether I'm loyal. Or whether I have America's best interests at heart.'
Those aren't things that were prompted by any actions of mine. And so, what you're seeing, within the Republican Party, is to some degree, all those efforts, over a course of time, creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive. He's just doing more of what has been done for the last seven and a half years.
And, in fact, in terms of his positions on a whole range of issues, they're not very different from any of the other candidates. I mean, it's not as if there's a massive difference between Mr. Trump's position on immigration and Mr. Cruz's position on immigration. Mr. Trump might just be more provocative in terms of how he says it, but the actual positions aren't that different.
For that matter, they're not that different from Mr. Rubio's positions on immigration. Despite the fact that both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio—their own families are the products of immigration and the openness of our society.
So I am—I am more than happy to own the responsibility as President, as the only office-holder who is elected by all the American people, to continue to make efforts to bridge divides and help us find common ground. As I've said before, I think that common ground exists all across the country—you see it every day in how people work together and live together and play together and raise their kids together.
But what I'm not going to do is to validate some notion that the Republican crack-up that's been taking place is a consequence of actions that I've taken.
There has been a whole lot of talk about how Republicans who allegedly want to prevent Donald Trump from being their nominee might try to exploit the possibility of a contested convention, i.e. if none of the four remaining candidates (but really only two have a shot: Trump and Ted Cruz) meets the threshold of 1,237 party delegates needed to win the nomination.
At the Guardian, Ben Jacobs has a solid piece explaining how that all works, for anyone who has questions about the process.
I really don't think it's going to come to that. I expect that Trump will either win the nomination outright, or come so close that it would be absurd for the Republican Party to try to undermine him and their base.
The Republican Party does a lot of absurd things, but essentially conceding they don't even want to try to win the presidency, and risk their Congressional majorities in the process, is highly unlikely to be one of them.
[Content Note: War.]
Back in January, I wrote a piece about the metrics I use to assess presidential candidates, and I said I'm looking for, among other things, someone "who understands that diplomacy and negotiation are huge parts of the president's job, and who is a solid diplomat and negotiator."
This morning, Aphra_Behn pointed me to this article about the crucial role Hillary Clinton played in the Irish peace process.
During that trip and subsequently, Hillary Clinton played a leading role in creating the links between the White House and leaders on the ground that would be so important in subsequent years.There's much more at the link, and I encourage you to read the whole thing.
Her visits to the Falls and Shankill Roads in Belfast to meet working-class women from both communities were especially important. She helped empower key women at a time in the conflict when women's voices were hardly heard. She played a major role in setting the groundwork for the formation of parties such as the Women's Coalition, which was to play an essential role in cross-community bridge building in the vital years when the peace process was being bedded down.
...Then, of course, there were the meetings in Washington, usually around St. Patrick's Day, and the White House "Irish night," which became a fixture at Hillary's insistence.
The boost to the peace process of a First Lady of the United States welcoming party leaders of whatever stripe to the White House had to be seen in person to be believed.
When perhaps the most famous woman in the world spent an extraordinary amount of time just listening to the perspectives from the various parties, it was bound to have an impact.
Progressive Unionist Party Leader David Ervine, tragically now deceased, described her as the most knowledgeable person on the issue he had met in Washington. John Hume, the SDLP leader and Nobel Peace laureate who was a frequent visitor and friend, agreed. They were sitting together in a smoky hotel bar in Washington, D.C. after an economic conference on Northern Ireland, another Clinton initiative, and Hillary had just knocked them dead with a spirited contribution on peace and economic strategy.
...Hillary used the example of her peace efforts in Northern Ireland on her future global travels. Soon after being named Secretary of State she met with a small group of Irish-American leaders and spoke of her hopes that Irish Americans would meet and give advice to other diaspora leaders such as Pakistani and Indian Americans, revealing to them how the Irish diaspora helped end the conflict in Northern Ireland.
As Secretary of State, Hillary convened several diaspora conferences and used Ireland as an example of peace brokering in her bestselling memoir, Hard Choices. She also included Northern Ireland on her final travel trip as Secretary of State and received an overwhelming reception from party leaders on all sides when she spoke at a luncheon sponsored by the American Ireland Fund at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. She promised to stay involved and she has.
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
The twelfth (!!!) Republican debate was last night, and the field which one was fully seventeen candidates has now dwindled to just the four horsemen of the primarypocalypse: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich.
In a departure from the previous debates, it was relatively sedate, as the candidates substituted passive-aggression and side-eye for the familiar bellowing and wild gesticulation.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Which means we get headlines like this one: "Civility makes a surprise appearance at GOP debate." Haha sure. The Republicans' have set such a low bar for themselves with their abhorrent behavior that if they manage to not scream at each other and talk about their dicks, it's considered "civility," even when they're quite literally debating whether to shred the fucking Geneva Conventions.
CNN has a complete transcript of the debate, and I've Storified my tweets.
I don't know what else I can say about these jackasses at this point. These are not just people with whom I have profound policy disagreements; they are people who in every conceivable way, from their competence to their temperaments, are wholly unfit to lead a nation.
What is your favorite card game?
Maude, I love card games. I can't even think of one I don't like!
Not that anyone was ever thinking any differently, but it's nice to see someone admit it:
During a Thursday morning radio interview, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) candidly explained that Senate Republicans would take a different approach to a Supreme Court nominee if a Republican president were in office and replacing a conservative justice.That's a lot of words to say: Of course we wouldn't obstruct a Republican president! Don't be ridiculous!
Johnson was asked on Wisconsin radio show "Morning Mess" about Senate Republicans' refusal to consider President Obama's forthcoming nomination to the Supreme Court. The host hypothesized that things would be different if Mitt Romney were in the White House.
"It's a different situation," Johnson said. "Generally, and this is the way it works out politically, if you're replacing — if a conservative president's replacing a conservative justice, there's a little more accommodation to it."
"But when you're talking about a conservative justice now being replaced by a liberal president who would literally flip the court — you know, let's face it, I don't think anybody's under any illusion — President Obama's nominee would flip the court from a 5-4 conservative to a 5-4 liberal controlled court," the senator continued. "And that's the concern, is that our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, our First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty, will be threatened. And so it's an incredibly serious moment in terms of what's the composition of the court going to be."
Johnson said that confirmation for a Supreme Court justice should wait until after the election.LOLOLOLOLOL yes letting the people decide is indeed the reasonable and fair thing to do! And the people decided WHEN WE REELECTED PRESIDENT OBAMA! You fucking asshat!
"Let the American people decide. It's a very reasonable, I think probably the fairest thing to do," he said.
[Content Note: There is a strobe light effect in this video.]
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Hillary Clinton is a monster who must be destroyed.
At least, that's what we're meant to believe. And I could (literally) spend a decade documenting the misogyny unleashed upon her with the explicit objective of monsterizing her, and still fail to convince people who refuse to see her any other way.
Even despite the fact that, if she were not reflexively regarded as a monster, there would be no demands on her to "humanize" herself.
As if dehumanization is a thing we do to ourselves.
[Content Note: Racism.]
"There is a pattern—demonstrated time and time again—by both Sanders and some Sanders supporters of racial cluelessness, an infantilizing and almost colonial kind of condescension about policy, and a tendency to react to anyone who points that out by, well, supplying even more evidence of racial tone-deafness, self-ordained intellectual superiority, and sometimes completely open displays of various forms of outright bigotry. ...Black voters are also just that: voters, with functioning minds and political priorities, not pets. Every candidate should be prepared to craft an appealing platform and then tailor not the content but the presentation of their policy ideas for different groups of voters. That's what it means to campaign, to compete for voters in a democracy."—Janell Ross, who has been absolutely on fire lately at the Washington Post, with another terrific piece: "Bernie Sanders's most vitriolic supporters really test the meaning of the word 'progressive'."
[H/T to Aphra_Behn.]
