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The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by a briefcase.
Recommended Reading:
Peter: VIDEO: On CNN, I Explain the Difference Between Donald's and Hillary's Unfavorables
Fannie: [Content Note: Misogyny, Harassment, Violence] Sanders, Stop the Mob or Get Out
Sameer: [CN: Racism; guns; violence] REPORT: Black People Are Primary Victims of Mass Shootings
Shane: [CN: Racism; colorism; misogynoir] White Is Right, But Light-Skin Is the Next Best Thing
Jenn: [CN: Racism] Asian American Group Files Anti-Affirmative Action Complaint Against Yale, Dartmouth, Brown: What You Need to Know
OBOS Contributors: [CN: War on agency] History of Abortion in the U.S.
Ragen: [CN: Fat hatred] Avenue's Coupon Debacle, and Then Some
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Some Perspective, Please
Welp:
Sen. Bernie Sanders has been given highly unusual say over the drafting of the Democratic Party platform this year even if, as expected, he loses the primary contest to Hillary Clinton.I'm not mad about that. It seems completely reasonable to me that a runner-up who mounted a successful if ultimately losing campaign should be given some input on the party platform. If the primary had gone the other way, I wouldn't want Clinton shut out.
The two Democratic candidates have agreed with Democratic Party officials to a new apportionment of the 15-member committee that writes the platform, according to Democratic officials familiar with the compromise worked out this month.
Clinton has picked six members, and Sanders has named five — including a longtime activist on behalf of Palestinian rights, a potential sign of his plans to push the party's policy on Israel in a different direction, the Democrats said Monday ahead of an expected announcement by the DNC.
...DNC rules allow the chairman to pick the entire slate of 15 people who govern the platform that will be presented at the party convention in July.
The change was made to be inclusive of Sanders supporters after the strong liberal challenge he mounted during a long and sometimes bitter primary.
I am, however, perturbed that Sanders, with the collusion of the media, has so successfully written a narrative that he is the One True Progressive in the race that we get paragraphs like this one:
Gunnels and the Sanders campaign are already at work producing a draft of the bullet points it hopes to get into the party platform, the source continues. Some things the Sanders camp will push for include firm opposition to a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in this Congress; requirements to break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions; more in infrastructure spending; a $15-per-hour minimum wage; tuition-free public college, and, possibly, a carbon tax, in keeping with the ambitious agenda Sanders has campaigned on.Let's play Which of These Things Hillary Already Supports!
And then we can spend the next one hundred years rolling our fucking eyes when Bernie Sanders gets credit for "pushing her left."
It's true that there are some differences in the details of their proposals. Broadly, Sanders' plans are more all-or-nothing, while Clinton's plans tend to be more nuanced, e.g. minimum wage hikes that better reflect individual local economies and free college based on need.
But, again, that's more a reflection of their differences in approach rather than fundamental differences in their ideologies.
There is a credible argument to be made that Clinton's detailed policies which are sensitive to context are actually more progressive than Sanders' versions.
But let's not let inconvenient facts like that get in the way of a terrific narrative about how a man should be allowed to take credit for all the good ideas on which the woman who defeated him will be running.
Anyway.
One other note: Among Sanders' platform committee picks is Professor Cornel West. It seems...an odd choice to me to choose West, who has said some truly nasty things about President Obama. I know he's been a reliable Sanders surrogate, so I understand why Sanders chose him, but it still seems like a bad decision to choose someone for the Democratic platform committee who has so harshly bashed the sitting Democratic president.
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!
Hillary Clinton, Monster, Refuses to Say Something Nice About Terrible Man
by Shaker Alison Rose, a fierce queer feminist, avid book lover, and proud cat lady who lives in the northern SF Bay Area.
On May 22, Hillary Clinton was on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. I didn't watch it because a whole hour spent with Chuck Todd is not how I want to spend my Sunday mornings, especially when I could be doing something far more stimulating and invigorating, like scraping bird crap off the balcony railing.
But Anne-Laurie at Balloon Juice linked to the transcript, and one of the bits she highlighted made me want to fling my laptop into a live volcano.
After a question about what kinds of people Clinton would have on her list for potential running mates, to which Clinton answered, in part, that she would include "businesspeople who are really successful as opposed to pretend successful" (heh heh), there was this exchange:
TODD: Pretend successful? You don't think—Well, do you? DOOOOO YOOOUUUUUU??!!
CLINTON: Yeah.
TODD: —is there anything Donald Trump's done that you think should be praised?
CLINTON: I think he needs to release his tax returns. The only two we have show that he hasn't paid a penny in taxes. And yet he goes around talking about "Make America Great." You know? That means paying for our military. That means paying for our roads. That means paying for the V.A. That means a lot of things. And if you've got someone running for president who's afraid to release his tax returns, because it will expose the fact that he pays no federal income tax, I think that's a big problem.
TODD: No, my question was there's nothing about his background that is praiseworthy?
CLINTON: We'll find out. Because we have to get below the hype. We have to find what the reality is. And—
TODD: You don't feel like you know that?
CLINTON: I don't think the country knows it.
TODD: Do you?
The audacity of demanding that Clinton find something to praise about someone as odious, hateful and ignorant as Trump just galls me. To ask the question in the first place and then to keep hammering away at it when she refuses to take the poisonous bait is not only pathetic and eye-roll worthy; it's also insulting and disrespectful to Clinton as a woman, as a presidential candidate, and as a person who does have a lot in her own background that is praiseworthy.
From working for the Children's Defense Fund to trying to help secure healthcare reform to being a tireless fighter for women's equality around the world to a thousand other things, Clinton has a personal and professional history that can be admired and emulated. She has spent much of her life trying to make the lives of others, many of whom were far less privileged than she was, a little bit better and a little bit fuller. She has made this work a central focus of her presidential campaign.
Donald Trump has...not done that. I am not going to enumerate the mountains of reprehensible garbage that make up his life's resume thus far. We know who he is, and who he has always been, with his employees, his girlfriends and wives, the media, the contestants on his reality shows...we all know just what kind of man he is.
And it's not a praiseworthy one. And Clinton knows that as well as, or at this point even better than, the rest of us.
But Chuck Todd just couldn't stand letting her get away with not giving in and offering up some laudatory remarks about him. He's a rich and powerful man, and in this society that clearly means he deserves esteem, no matter what else he is besides rich and powerful.
Money, might, and masculinity are in and of themselves praiseworthy in a capitalist, patriarchal oligarchy. Clinton challenging that status quo makes a lot of people, a lot of men, uncomfortable.
I hope she keeps doing it. That's praiseworthy.
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia getting some scritches.
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: Police brutality; racism] Goddammit: "A Baltimore police officer has been acquitted of assault and other charges in the arrest of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died a week after he was critically injured in police custody. A judge found Officer Edward Nero not guilty of misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. The judge announced his verdict on Monday. Nero was one of six Baltimore police officers charged in the case. He waived his right to a jury trial, opting instead to argue his case before Circuit Judge Barry Williams. An earlier trial for an officer charged with manslaughter in the case ended in a hung jury in December." So is anyone going to be held accountable for Freddie Gray's death? Anyone? At any point? Fucking hell.
[CN: Racism; murder] "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a black Georgia death row inmate convicted in 1987 of murdering an elderly white woman, finding that prosecutors unlawfully excluded black potential jurors in selecting an all-white jury. In a 7-1 ruling, the court handed a victory to inmate Timothy Foster, 48, who asserted prosecutorial misconduct after he was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1986 murder of Queen White, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher. The justices threw out Foster's conviction after decades on death row. He could still potentially face a retrial. During jury selection, all four black members of the pool of potential jurors were removed by prosecutors, who gave reasons not related to race for their decision to exclude them. Only white jurors were selected for the panel that ended up convicting Foster and sentencing him to death. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court's majority, wrote that prosecution notes introduced into evidence 'plainly belie the state's claim that it exercised its strikes (removing a potential juror) in a 'color blind' manner.' At the time of the trial, Foster's legal arguments over jury selection failed. It was only in 2006 that his lawyers obtained access to the prosecution's jury selection notes, which showed that the race of the black potential jurors was highlighted, indicating 'an explicit reliance on race,' according to Foster's attorneys."
In other SCOTUS news: "One of the Most Aggressive Gerrymanders in the Country Just Lost in the Supreme Court."
[CN: Racism; carcerality] This is a really important bit of investigative work, analysis, and reporting on "risk assessment" algorithms that are used "to inform decisions about who can be set free at every stage of the criminal justice system, from assigning bond amounts—as is the case in Fort Lauderdale—to even more fundamental decisions about defendants' freedom." In case you haven't already guessed, they assess higher risks for black people accused of crimes than they do white people accused of crimes. But that is a simplification of the complex problems with risk assessment software. I strongly urge you to settle in and read the whole thing.
[CN: War; terrorism; death and injury] Awful, just awful: "A pair of bombings carried out by Islamic State militants killed at least 45 people in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Monday, targeting young men seeking to join the army who gathered at two recruitment centers, security officials said. One suicide car bomber killed at least 20, while a second bomber on foot detonated an explosives vest at the other recruitment center, killing at least 25. Scores of others were wounded, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. The local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for two attacks in a statement posted on social media networks by sympathizers... Monday's blasts underline the precarious security situation in Aden, the country's main port on the Arabian Sea, several months after government forces and allied militiamen backed by a Saudi-led coalition retook the city from the Shiite rebels, also known as the Houthis. The city has in recent months seen a series of suicide bombings and assassinations mainly targeting army and security forces."
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] "President Barack Obama announced Monday that the United States is fully lifting a decades-long ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam. In a joint news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said that the removal of the ban on lethal weapons was part of a deeper defense cooperation with the country and dismissed suggestions it was aimed at countering China's growing strength in the region. Instead, it was the desire to continue normalizing relations between the United States and Vietnam and to do away with a ban 'based on ideological division between our two countries,' he said."
[CN: White supremacy] Phew: "Alexander Van der Bellen has won Austria's presidential election, preventing Norbert Hofer from becoming the EU's first far-right head of state. Mr Hofer led narrowly after Sunday's election but postal votes gave Mr Van der Bellen victory by 50.3% to 49.7%. Mr Van der Bellen campaigned on a pro-EU platform backed by the Greens Party. Mr Hofer, of the Freedom Party, tapped into anti-EU sentiment and fears about rising numbers of asylum seekers. ...At his swearing-in as Freedom Party candidate, Mr Hofer wore a cornflower in his lapel, which was a Nazi symbol in the 1930s. French PM Manuel Valls said in a Twitter post: 'It's a relief to see the Austrians reject populism and extremism. Everyone in Europe must draw lessons from this.'"
[CN: Misogyny; racism; war on agency] "In July 2013, an Indiana woman named Purvi Patel sought treatment at a hospital emergency room for heavy vaginal bleeding, telling doctors she'd had a miscarriage. That set off a chain of events, which eventually led in February 2015 to a jury convicting Patel of one count of feticide and one count of felony neglect of a dependent. Patel was ordered in March to serve 20 years in prison for that conviction. On Monday, attorneys for Patel will argue to the Indiana Court of Appeals that Patel's conviction of feticide and felony neglect is contradictory, and thus should be overturned. Furthermore, they will say, it opens the door to wide-scale prosecution of pregnancy terminations in the state."
[CN: Zika] This is a must-read: "Zika is coming, but we're far from ready." It's important not only because Ronald Klain details the problem, but also because he proposes an eminently reasonable solution.
From the Wall Street Journal: "Though Donald Trump dispensed with his last primary opponent months before Hillary Clinton will, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee trails far behind the leading Democrat in organizing in key general-election states." And yet, virtually every headline I'm reading today says it's a DEAD HEAT, because POLLS. Polls are not all that matters. Especially because the average person isn't tapped into little things (ahem) like how one candidate's organization makes the other's look like a broken-down clown show.
And finally! "Bearded Dragon and Cat Become Two Unlikely Best Friends." Awwwwww lol. I sure wouldn't recommend assuming that cats and lizards will get along (!!!) but this is pretty darn cute.
Progress!
[Content Note: Racially insensitive language.]
On Friday, President Obama signed into law legislation to "modernize terms relating to minorities."
In a rare show of bipartisan support, the measure H.R.4238, passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and the Senate earlier this year. Obama signed it into law Friday.That's excellent and much-needed progress. It's still imperfect, as there are, as examples, people who prefer "Latinx" to "Hispanic" and people who prefer "Black" to "African American." It's always best to ask individual people how they identify.
...Here's what the bill states:
Office Of Minority Economic Impact.—Section 211(f)(1) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7141(f)(1)) is amended by striking "a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent" and inserting "Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native".
"The term 'Oriental' has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good," said Rep. Grace Meng of New York, who sponsored the bill.
Meng, a Democrat from Queens, encountered the term while doing legislative research and had sought to eliminate its usage from government terminology.
"Many Americans may not be aware that the word 'Oriental' is derogatory. But it is an insulting term that needed to be removed from the books, and I am extremely pleased that my legislation to do that is now the law of the land," she said in a statement.
But that said, getting rid of some language that has long been considered offensive from government documents is a good thing. And it's pretty terrific that it passed unanimously.
Now if we could only convince every member of the House to be as sensitive in the rest of their legislation...
Yeah, They're Basically the Same (and That Was Sarcasm)
[Content Note: Guns.]
Reuters: "Trump Rallies Gun Owners with Fiery Anti-Clinton Speech."
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump assured gun owners on Friday he would protect their constitutional right to bear arms and eliminate gun-free zones if elected, accusing Democrat Hillary Clinton of wanting to weaken gun rights.During the same speech, Trump said, incredibly, that Clinton's policies would be a particular danger to women: "You have a woman living in a community, a rough community, a bad community—sorry, you can't defend yourself." Which is garbage for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that women are at greater risk because of the ubiquity of guns and the lack of laws preventing domestic abusers from procuring them, and including the fact that women (especially black women) who use guns in self-defense typically end up on trial, because "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws are unevenly applied by both race and gender.
Trump, who will almost certainly be the Republican presidential nominee, picked up the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, a politically powerful lobbying group which claims more than 4 million members.
...Trump, who is trying to unite the Republican Party behind him after a brutal primary battle, accused Clinton, a former secretary of state to President Barack Obama, of wanting to end the 2nd Amendment, which says in part that the people's right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed."
"Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment, not change it; she wants to abolish it," Trump said.
...Trump told the NRA he would eliminate gun-free zones imposed in some areas, noting that the 2015 shooting deaths of four U.S. Marines at an armed forces recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, took place in a gun-free zone.
Anyway.
New York Times: "Citing Family, Hillary Clinton Affirms Gun-Control Stance."
Hillary Clinton invoked her roles as mother and grandmother on Saturday to deliver an impassioned rebuttal to Donald J. Trump's contention that her push for stricter gun control would make families less safe, saying the presumptive Republican nominee would put more children "at risk of violence and bigotry."Seriously: Anyone who can look at their differences on this issue alone and say that these two candidates are basically indistinguishable from one another has their head up their ass. I can't sugarcoat it. That is a catastrophically ignorant and dangerous position.
The day after Mr. Trump received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, Mrs. Clinton assailed her probable general election rival as pandering to the group.
"I believe it's the most powerful lobby in Washington," Mrs. Clinton said of the N.R.A. at an event in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to benefit the Trayvon Martin Foundation's Circle of Mothers. "And we know some candidates will say or do anything to make them happy."
Speaking in a ballroom full of mothers who had lost children to gun violence, Mrs. Clinton defended her position on gun control and her promise to overhaul the criminal justice system.
"I love my daughter and granddaughter more than anything, and I worry about them as every mother does, and I want them always to be safe," Mrs. Clinton said. "Parents, teachers, and schools should have the right to keep guns out of classrooms, just like Donald Trump does at many of his hotels by the way."
She mentioned his speech to the N.R.A. on Friday, which included a vow to allow teachers and principals to arm themselves. "This is someone running to be president of the United States, a country facing a gun violence epidemic, and he's talking about more guns in our schools," Mrs. Clinton said. "He's talking about more hatred and violence in our streets."
Mrs. Clinton delivered her remarks to a group named after Mr. Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old who was fatally shot in 2012 by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Before she spoke, Mrs. Clinton sat for dinner alongside Mr. Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton.
"We will carry the memories of your sons and daughters in our hearts every day, as you do," Mrs. Clinton told the group as she affirmed her plans to strengthen background checks and take other measures to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
And you don't even have to like Hillary Clinton to acknowledge these differences. You don't even have to support her. All you have to do is have the merest discernible trace of intellectual honesty and a modicum of concern for the most vulnerable people in our society who will be most pointedly affected by the vast differences in policy between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
If you don't live in a place where gun violence is an immediate concern to you, LUCKY YOU. Not everyone is so fortunate.
What Are You Even Doing, Sanders? Today's Edition.
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
So, Bernie Sanders' scorched earth campaign against Hillary Clinton continues, despite the fact that polls show that a large majority of his supporters are prepared to vote for her in the general election. His latest jeremiad against Hillary? That a vote for her would merely be a vote for "the lesser of two evils."
On ABC's This Week, Sanders told host George Stephanopoulos that voting for Hillary vs. Trump would be "voting for the lesser of two evils." When Stephanopoulos asked him if that's how he's describing voting for Hillary, Bernie deflected, saying it's not him saying that, but "the American people."
WATCH: @BernieSanders: American people see Hillary Clinton as "lesser of two evils" https://t.co/xVovAIuhzHhttps://t.co/Tw5TMvEZlX
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 21, 2016
Sanders: We need a campaign—an election—coming up which does not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. I don't wanna see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils. I want the American people to be voting for a vision of economic justice, of social justice, of environmental justice, of racial justice. That is the campaign we are running, and that's why we are getting the support we are."I've got a piece at BNR with additional commentary about this nonsense.
Stephanopoulos: Is that how you would describe Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump—as the lesser of two evils?
Sanders: Well, if you look— No, I wouldn't describe it, but that's what the American people are saying. If you look at the favorability ratings of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of them have very, very high unfavorables.
Then, during an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union, Sanders said during another monologue against the "corrupt" Democratic nominating process: "Some 400 of Hillary Clinton's superdelegates came on board her campaign before anybody else announced. It was anointment. And that is bad for the process."
"Anointment" is, first and foremost, more dogwhistled sexism. But, beyond that, I wish one damn journalist would point out to Sanders in response to this shtick that Clinton has run for president before. She was a known quantity.
And, in addition to that, she was a Democrat. A long-time Democrat. He has been a Democrat (at least in name) for a hot minute.
It's entirely reasonable for Democratic superdelegates to back, at the outset, a long-time Democrat with a proven track record of knowing how to build and manage a national presidential campaign.
Further, as I have now pointed out about a biebillion times: In 2008, the superdelegates also started out backing Clinton by a large majority. And when she began losing the primary, they started backing then-candidate Barack Obama.
She wasn't "anointed" then, and she's not being "anointed" now.
Grumble.
In other news, Sanders also said on CBS' Face the Nation that he's supporting Democratic National Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz's primary opponent, law professor Tim Canova: "Do I think she is the kind of chair that the Democratic Party needs? No, I don't."
Now, personally, I have problems with some of DWS' decisions; I don't believe she's above criticism. (No one is!) But it's very interesting to me that Sanders has announced his support for her primary opponent, who just happens to be a dude.
Which means he's supporting four candidates, two of whom are straight and running against openly gay contenders, and one of whom is a man running against a woman.
I keep getting
Oh well. Feel free to ignore all of the above, since I'm just a paid shill for Hillary Clinton who definitely only started caring about these sorts of things once I started getting paid to write exactly the same things somewhere else that I've been writing here for 12 years. (Make sense of that!) (I dare you!)
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
#WomenTrumpDonald
So, here's what happened: Yesterday, I was just in the middle of reading yet another infuriating article about Donald Trump and his claim that he's the best candidate for women when my power went out.
And then it stayed out. For hours. With nowhere to direct my growing frustration, I sat down with a pen and paper and started writing a letter to Trump.
That letter is: Dear Donald, From One Pissed Off American Woman.
Immediately, my colleagues and friends started conceiving the letters they'd write to Trump. From a Pissed Off American Mom. From a Pissed Off American Woman of Color.
There is a lot of anger to go around, and you can expect to see more of it [at BNR], which we will be filing under the hashtag #WomenTrumpDonald.
Because we will Trump him. We see through his transparent braggadocio about how "tremendous" he'll be for women. We will trump him with our inability to be hoodwinked. We will trump him with our contempt. And when Election Day comes, we will trump him with our votes.
[Crossposted from BNR.]
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by eggrolls.
Recommended Reading:
Sameer: [Content Note: Police brutality; eliminationism; misogynoir] Activists Gather Around the Country to #SayHerName
Françoise: [CN: War on agency; misogyny; NB: Not only women need access to abortion] How U.S. Policy Continues to Threaten Women's Reproductive Rights Globally
Adrienne: [CN: Racism; gaslighting] WaPo's New Redsk*ns Survey: Faulty Data and Missing the Point
stavvers: [CN: Ciscentrism; heterocentrism; misogyny; sex-shaming] Shit I Cannot Believe Needs Saying: Don't Blame Women for Men Being Crap at Sex
Monica: Legal Drama Doubt Featuring Laverne Cox Being Picked Up by CBS!
James: Stare into the Face of Ghostbusters' Biggest New Villain
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Olivia, looking for trouble.
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: Airline disaster; death] "Egypt said on Friday its navy had found human remains, wreckage and the personal belongings of passengers floating in the Mediterranean, confirmation that an EgyptAir jet had plunged into the sea with 66 people on board. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered condolences for those on board, amounting to Egypt's official acknowledgement of their deaths, although there was still no explanation of why the Airbus had crashed. ...The navy was searching an area about 290 km (180 miles) north of the port city of Alexandria, just south of where the signal from the plane was lost early on Thursday.There was no sign of the bulk of the wreckage, or of a location signal from the 'black box' flight recorders." My condolences once again to the people who lost loved ones. I hope they will get some answers soon.
[CN: Extreme heat; death] My god: "A city in India's Rajasthan state has broken the country's temperature records after registering 51C, the highest since records began, the weather office says." That's 124 degrees Fahrenheit. "The heatwave has hit much of northern India, where temperatures have exceeded 40C for weeks. The run-up to the Indian monsoon season is always characterised by weeks of strong sunshine and increasing heat but life-threatening temperature levels topping 50C are unusual. Murari Lal Thanvi, an eyewitness in Phalodi, told the BBC he had struggled to stay outdoors on Friday. 'Even my mobile phone gave up and stopped working when I was trying to take pictures today,' he said." Dozens of people have already died in the heatwave. Absolutely awful.
[CN: Illness] Fuck: "More than 270 pregnant women in the U.S. are infected with the Zika virus and worry about whether their babies will be born with birth defects, federal health officials announced Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the way it reports Zika-affected pregnancies, and said the new numbers show 279 women who tested positive for the virus. This includes 157 women in the 50 states and Washington, D.C, plus 122 in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other U.S. territories. So far, fewer than a dozen have had an 'adverse event,' such as a miscarriage or evidence that the fetus has a birth defect, CDC officials said." Still, the CDC continues to encourage pregnant people who have themselves or whose partners have traveled to Zika-affected areas to get tested for the virus.
[CN: Anti-immigrationism; doxxing] "A federal judge with a history of anti-immigrant sentiment ordered the federal government to turn over the names, addresses and 'all available contact information' of over 100,000 immigrants living within the United States. He does so in a strange order that quotes extensively from movie scripts and that alleges a conspiracy of attorneys 'somewhere in the halls of the Justice Department whose identities are unknown to this Court.' It appears to be, as several immigration advocates noted shortly after the order was handed down, an effort to intimidate immigrants who benefit from certain Obama administration programs from participating in those programs, lest their personal information be turned over to people who wish them harm. As Greisa Martinez, Advocacy Director for United We Dream, said in a statement, the judge is 'asking for the personal information of young people just to whip up fear'—fear, no doubt, of what could happen if anti-immigrant state officials got their hands on this information. Or if the information became public." I don't even have words. What the fuck.
[CN: Misogyny; harassment; threats; abuse] "When Will the Internet Be Safe for Women?" The opening of that story details the swatting of a Massachusetts state congresswoman in retribution for introducing legislation to try to address swatting and online harassment. Which pretty much sums up the state of affairs.
[CN: Threats; harassment] Krystal Lake, a black woman from Long Island, "said she received death threats after photos of her wearing a cap with the message 'America Was Never Great' were posted widely on social media." Obviously, this was a response to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan, and, the truth is, the country has not been great (and still isn't) for lots and lots of people. And the fact that a black woman got death threats for expressing that opinion really kind of proves her point.
[CN: Fat hatred; bullying] I mean, this is how Donald Trump treats his friends: "Donald Trump teased New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about his weight while speaking at a fundraiser to pay off Christie's presidential campaign debt. Trump, when mentioning that the Nabisco cookie plant was leaving Chicago for Mexico, pointed to Christie and told the crowd the governor would stop eating Nabisco cookies. 'I'm not eating Oreos anymore, you know that—but neither is Chris,' Trump said. 'You're not eating Oreos anymore. No more Oreos. For either of us, Chris. Don't feel bad.'" This fucking guy.
[CN: Fat hatred; bullying] Hey, speaking of Trump and his disgusting fat hatred, remember the former Miss Universe who said that Trump had called her Miss Piggy? Well, she just got her US citizenship, and Hillary Clinton tweeted at her: "Congratulations on becoming a U.S. citizen, Alicia. Enjoy casting that vote." HAHA YES!
No kidding: "The last time information from Donald Trump's income-tax returns was made public, the bottom line was striking: He had paid the federal government $0 in income taxes." Which is exactly what I predicted his current tax returns will show.
RIP John Berry: "John Berry, an original member of hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, died Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m. at a hospice in Danvers, Massachusetts. He was 52."
Trees sleep? "In research both charming and groundbreaking (sorry for the pun), scientists from Austria, Finland and Hungary used lasers to measure the overnight movements of birch trees. Their unexpected finding: During the hours of darkness, the trees appeared to relax, or droop, their branches at the tips by as much as four inches." Oh trees. You are a delightful mystery!
And finally! Big man and tiny dog! LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
Trump and His Terrible Temperament
I've got a new piece up at BNR about Donald Trump's new campaign chair and chief strategist, Paul Manafort, conceding that Trump's behavior is a problem: "Promising that Trump's 'behavior can be changed' is a tacit admission by his own campaign chief that Trump's behavior is a problem."
I mean.
What is there even to say anymore? This guy's a disaster. And he needs to be kept as far away from the Oval Office as possible.
