TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
(And please don't forget to tip your very overworked bartender!)
The Virtual Pub Is Open
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
(And please don't forget to tip your very overworked bartender!)
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
1985 Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante commercial
Because when you've got good taste, it shows.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by ice.
Recommended Reading:
Ali: [Content Note: Sexual assault; racism] Of Course Trump Will Blame a Mexican for the Flurry of Sexual Assault Allegations Against Him
Bridget: [CN: Misogynoir] Yes, Petty Black Feminists Ruined Birth of a Nation
Fannie: [CN: Misogyny; rape culture] Locker Room Talk: No Men or All Men?
Jim: [CN: Misogyny; rape culture] On Rape Jokes and Normalizing Assault
Monica: [CN: Violence; transphobia] Rest in Power Brandi Bledsoe
Danielle: 18 Throwback Photos of President Obama and Hillary Clinton Over the Years
Françoise: [CN: Misogyny; homophobia] We Need a Feminist Secretary-General at the United Nations
Brian: The Making of California's Mini-Mammoths
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
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: Sexual assault; disablist slur] More unearthed grossness from Donald Trump: 1. In 2006, Trump responded to a "joke" about how he's sexual predator by shrugging and saying, "It's true." 2. In 1992, "Trump is described as having spotted a youth choir singing Christmas carols at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. He asked two girls how old they were. When they said they were 14, Trump, then 46, replied, 'Wow! Just think—in a couple of years, I'll be dating you.'" 3. Trump reportedly called Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, "retarded" when she was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice.
[CN: Worker harassment] An important piece from Sharona Coutts at Rewire: "At Trump's Companies, Workers Have Long Suffered Illegal Threats and Intimidation. ...On at least eight occasions since 2007, Trump's companies have had to reinstate or reimburse workers who were fired illegally in retaliation for their union activities, the documents show."
[CN: Misogyny] And the rotten apple doesn't fall far from the rotten tree: "Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., dismissed workplace sexual harassment in a 2013 radio interview—and suggested that women who couldn't take it should become kindergarten teachers."
Meanwhile: "Entire US political system 'under attack' by Russian hacking, experts warn." Terrific. Funny how Trump doesn't seem too concerned about this actual possibility of "rigging."
In other election news, Hillary Clinton has picked up two more major newspaper endorsements: 1. "The Miami Herald recommends Hillary Clinton for president of the United States." 2. The Idaho Statesman: "Hillary Clinton’s experience makes her the right choice for president."
[CN: Police brutality] This is huge: "The Justice Department said Thursday that it would start collecting nationwide data early next year on police shootings and other violent encounters with the public, after a series of protests and investigations since 2014 spurred by a string of deadly episodes. The project, the most ambitious the federal government has undertaken in tracking the use of force by police officers, is meant to fill what officials say is a huge and frustrating void in publicly available data on the shootings that have roiled the country. Under the plan, the Justice Department will gather more data on the use of force by federal agents and help local departments report information on a wider range of police encounters."
[CN: Racism] A new Department of Justice report has found: "San Francisco PD Targets People of Color. The Justice Department's COPS Office just made 272 recommendations aimed at revamping the department."
[CN: Death penalty] "In a long-awaited decision, the Florida Supreme Court today ruled that the Florida Legislature botched a re-write of the state's death penalty statute earlier this year, meaning that Florida currently has no death penalty. ...Today's ruling was in response to one handed down on Jan. 12, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death penalty was unconstitutional because it required a judge—not a jury—to decide whether a defendant should be put to death. By a vote of 8-1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jurors—not a judge—must specifically identify why someone convicted of a capital crime should be put to death."
Wow: "In a medical first, brain implant allows paralyzed man to feel again."
Beautiful: "I Photographed the Fairy-Tale World of Snails in Poland."
What have you been reading?
Numbers 13 and 14
[Content Note: Descriptions of sexual assault; racism.]
On Wednesday, 11 women came forward with reports that they had been groped or peeped on by Donald Trump. Yesterday, a 12th woman, Lisa Boyne, came forward. Today, a 13th woman, Kristin Anderson, has also come forward, reporting that Trump sexually assaulted her at a nightclub in the early 1990s.
Kristin Anderson was deep in conversation with acquaintances at a crowded Manhattan nightspot and did not notice the figure to her right on a red velvet couch — until, she recalls, his fingers slid under her miniskirt, moved up her inner thigh, and touched her vagina through her underwear.A "phony allegation" that describes exactly what Trump claimed he does on the recording with Billy Bush. That is, just grabbing women's genitalia unsolicited.
Anderson shoved the hand away, fled the couch and turned to take her first good look at the man who had touched her, she said.
She recognized him as Donald Trump...
The episode, as Anderson described it, lasted no more than 30 seconds. Anderson said she and her companions were "very grossed out and weirded out" and thought, "Okay, Donald is gross. We all know he's gross. Let's just move on."
...As Trump has done with others who have made accusations, his campaign said that Anderson is making the whole thing up.
"Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity. It is totally ridiculous," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an emailed statement.
Again, the timeline is this: Over the course of several days leading up to the debate, we heard Trump admit that he kisses and gropes women without their consent, and that he walked in on naked pageant contestants. Women who had been subjected to these acts, many of whom have said they questioned themselves and/or what really happened, thus had their experiences validated by the very man who assaulted them. During the subsequent presidential debate, moderator Anderson Cooper pressed Trump about whether his "locker room talk" had ever been more than just talk. Trump said no. Women to whom he had actually done these things then decided they could no longer keep their stories to themselves.
The suggestion that these women are motivated simply by trying to influence the election elides that Trump invited these accounts to be made public by lying, and very publicly.
Y'all understand that questioning the "timing" is implicitly an argument Trump should have been able to lie during debate w/o consequences.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 13, 2016
It's also pretty rich (and by that I mean "cruel") to accuse a woman of doing this for "free publicity," given that several of the women who have come forward have had their personal contact information widely shared. There is a cost to speaking out. Trump's allies have made sure of that.
UPDATE: A 14th woman has now also come forward:
A former contestant on Donald Trump's reality television show "The Apprentice" spoke out on Friday to accuse the Republican presidential nominee of sexually harassing her when she sought his help after her time on his show.Trump continues to deny that any of the allegations are true. During an event in North Carolina today, he again suggested that two of the women—Jessica Leeds, who accused Trump of groping her on an airplane, and People writer Natasha Stoynoff, who accused Trump of groping her while she was profiling him for the magazine—aren't attractive enough for him to have assaulted, again implying that sexual assault is a compliment.
Summer Zervos, who laid out her allegations at a tearful press conference with attorney Gloria Allred on Friday, said Trump pursued unwanted sexual advances toward her when she met with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss employment opportunities in 2007.
Zervos said she had first met Trump when she was a candidate on the fifth season of "The Apprentice" and later reached out to him for career advice, with the hope of working for the Trump Organization.
She met with him in his New York office, Zervos said, when he kissed her unexpectedly multiple times on the lips, and he later suggested meeting in Los Angeles to discuss her employment.
He also said during the speech that "some woman" should "say falsely" about President Obama what they have said about him. And let's be clear what that means: Trump invited someone to falsely accuse a Black man of sexual assault, which is part of an ugly history in this country.
I take up space in solidarity with the women who are speaking out about having been abused by Trump, and with our President.
Two Peas in the Worst Pod
I've got a new piece at Shareblue with a timely reminder that Mike Pence plays from the same handbook as Donald Trump:
This is your regular reminder that Mike Pence is just Donald Trump without the theatrics: As Trump disgorges broadsides about how "this whole thing is rigged" at campaign events, Pence is doing the same thing via his preferred subtler route.As always, there's more at the link!
...Trump and Pence are playing with fire. People who lose faith in their governmental institutions can be dangerous. They know this: Indeed, fomenting the rage of perceived injustice among their supporters is the very point. It is central to their platform.
The Republican Party, by virtue of its unwillingness to move even incrementally forward on social policy, is turning itself into a party that cannot win on a level playing field. So Trump and Pence are trying to upend the playing field altogether.
Trump is just more obvious about it.
When you see Republicans wistfully longing that Pence were at the top of the ticket, it is not because he has fundamentally different politics than Trump. It means they like what Trump is selling — they just do not like the way he is selling it.
If you feel safe doing so, share widely! We've gotta make sure the GOP own this guy as much as the guy at the top of the ticket.
Photo of the Day
We are all this awesome pink-haired lady spying Hillary through a window.
POTUS Bringing the Fire
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
FLOTUS wasn't the only one who brought the fire yesterday. POTUS had a little fire-breathing of his own to do.
.@POTUS on fire, asks GOP: "You claim the mantle of the party of family values, and this is the guy you nominate?" https://t.co/dIZOuiTKxO
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 14, 2016
They knew better, a lot of these folks who ran, and they didn't say anything—and so they don't get credit for, at the very last minute, when finally the guy that they nominated, and they endorsed and they supported, is caught on tape saying things that no decent person would even think, much less say, much less brag about, much less laugh about or joke about, much less act on. You can't wait until that finally happens and then say, "Oh that's too much! That's enough!" and think that you are showing any kind of leadership and deserve to be elected to the United States Senate! [cheers and applause] You don't get points for that!Brilliant.
In fact, I'm more forgiving of the people who actually believe it!—than the people who know better and stood silently by out of political expediency, because it was politically convenient! [applause]
And if your only organizing principle has been to block progress and block what we've tried to do to help the American people, every step of the way... So you're not even consistent anymore. You claim the mantle of the party of family values, and this is the guy you nominate?! And stand by and endorse and campaign with?! Until finally, at the eleventh hour, you withdraw your [endorsement]? You don't get credit for that. [applause]
You're the party that is tough on foreign policy and opposes Russia? And then you nominate this guy? Whose role model is Vladimir Putin? The former head of the KGB? I'm sorry—what happened?
It's Not Just You
If you're not seeing some of the site photos, it's not just you. I have contacted Photobucket, and hopefully they will resolve the issue ASAP.
Hillary Clinton, Y'all
[Content Note: Bigotry; assault.]
Hillary Clinton, speaking at a fundraiser yesterday:
And the whole world, the whole world has heard Trump brag about how he mistreats women, and the disturbing stories just keep coming, but it's more than just the way he degrades women, as horrible as that is: He has attacked immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, POWs, Muslims, and our military, which he has called a disaster. There's hardly any part of America that he has not targeted.I love her. That is all.
It makes you want to turn off the news; it makes you want to unplug the internet or just look at cat GIFs. Believe me, I get it. In the last few weeks, I've watched a lot of cats do a lot of weird and interesting things. But we have a job to do, and it'll be good for people and for cats.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker car: "What smell do you most strongly associate with a particular memory?"
There's a particular Avon product—I don't know what it is, or if it's even made anymore—that reminds me so strongly and powerfully of my grandmother when I smell it. I remember being on a train platform in Chicago probably almost 20 years ago now, and a woman walked by me wearing that perfume or lotion or whatever it was, and it struck me with such overwhelming, physical nostalgia for my grandmother that my knees almost buckled.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
The Roots: "How I Got Over"
(I can't believe this song is seven years old already!)
Without a Trace of Irony
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Corporate media are horrified Trump treats women like his property, while continuing to treat Clinton like an extension of her husband. Huh.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 13, 2016
Number 12
[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
Another allegation of inappropriate, abusive behavior has been made about Donald Trump:
Lisa Boyne, a health food business entrepreneur, described a disturbing episode in the mid-1990s: While at a restaurant with her and others, she said Trump paraded women in front of their table, looked under women's skirts, and commented on whether they were wearing underwear.Meanwhile, during a campaign speech today, Trump called the women who have accused him "horrible people" and "liars," and said of the People reporter who shared her account of being assaulted yesterday: "Take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don't think so. I don't think so." Because he evidently believes that sexual assault is a compliment. It is not.
"It was the most offensive scene I've ever been a part of," Boyne told The Huffington Post on Thursday. "I wanted to get the heck out of there."
...According to Boyne, the group was seated at a semi-circular table, with the women in the middle and Trump and Casablancas flanking either end. The women couldn't get out of their seats without one of the men getting up ― which they refused to do. Instead, Boyne said, Trump insisted that the women walk across the table, allowing him to peer up their skirts while they did so. Trump "stuck his head right underneath their skirts," Boyne said, and commented on whether they were wearing underwear and what their genitalia looked like.
Michelle Obama Delivers Another Stunning Speech
[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
First Lady Michelle Obama gave an exquisite speech in New Hampshire today. The whole thing was amazing, and I've got a piece at Shareblue with an additional excerpt, but this powerful section in particular brought me to tears:
And to make matters worse, it now seems very clear that this isn't an isolated incident. It's one of countless examples of how he has treated women his whole life. And I have to tell you that I listen to all of this, and I feel it so personally. And I'm sure that many of you do, too, particularly the women. The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It's frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.The other part that really did me in was when she talked about what a great role model Hillary Clinton is, because she embodies admirable values. (That clip is at Shareblue.)
It's like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you're walking down the street, minding your own business, and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body. Or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long, and makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. It's that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them, or forced himself on them and they've said no, but he didn't listen. Something that we know happens on college campuses and countless other places every single day.
It reminds us of stories we heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how, back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office, and, even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough. We thought all of that was ancient history, didn't we?
And so many have worked for so many years to end this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect, but here we are. Two thousand and sixteen. And we're hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail. We are drowning in it.
And all of us are doing what women have always done: We're trying to keep our heads above water. Just trying to get through it. Trying to pretend like this doesn't really bother us. Maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak. Maybe we're afraid to be that vulnerable. Maybe we've grown accustomed to swallowing these emotions and staying quiet, because we've seen that people often won't take our word over his. Or maybe we don't want to believe that there are still people out there who think so little of us as women.
Too many are treating this as just another day's headline; as if our outrage is overblown or unwarranted; as if this is normal, just politics as usual. But New Hampshire, be clear: This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn't matter what party you belong to—Democrat, Republican, Independent—no woman deserves to be treated this way; none of us deserves this kind of abuse.
And I know it's a campaign, but this isn't about politics. It's about basic human decency. It's about right and wrong. And we simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer, not for another minute and let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say: Enough is enough. This has got to stop right now.
Enough is enough. This shit hurts. And it may feel like it's normal, but it isn't. It doesn't have to be. We can reject it. We must.
In the News
Here's some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; displacement; famine] This Washington Post piece on the famine in Nigeria is a must-read: "About a million and a half of the victims have fled the Islamist extremists and are living in makeshift camps, bombed-out buildings, and host communities, receiving minimal supplies from international organizations. An additional 2 million people, according to the United Nations, are still inaccessible because of the Boko Haram fighters, who control their villages or patrol the surrounding areas. 'We will see, I think, a famine unlike any we have ever seen anywhere,' unless immediate assistance is provided, said Toby Lanzer, the top U.N. official focused on humanitarian aid for the region."
[CN: Abduction; misogyny; video may autoplay at link] In related news: "Twenty-one of the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014 have been released, according to the Nigerian government." Twenty-one. Out of hundreds who remain missing.
The Washington Post has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. That brings the grand total of major newspaper endorsements to: Hillary: ALL OF THEM and Trump: STILL ZERO.
Anne Holton, who is married to Tim Kaine, was asked during a CNN interview how her husband "courted" her. She replied: "I courted him." We have a fine, fine Democratic ticket this year, friends.
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature. Okay!
Wow: "There are a dizzying two trillion galaxies in the Universe, up to 20 times more than previously thought, astronomers reported on Thursday. The surprising find, based on 3D modeling of images collected over 20 years by the Hubble Space Telescope, was published in the Astronomical Journal."
OMG LOLOLOL: "The officers began searching the house… And then, the burglar appeared. In fact, he was unapologetically staring at them right from the roof window! 'One of the deputies outside the house heard this scratching noise,' said Crum. 'He shined his light around the house... The deputy said, and I quote: At that point we ditched all tactics and died laughing.'"
What have you been reading?
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Please Support Shakesville
This is going to be the bluntest fundraiser I've ever done: This election is hard. It has taken a toll on me, being deeply and constantly immersed in the news, spending so much time with (as it were) Donald Trump and his supporters, and with people who are cruel to Hillary Clinton.
I've navigated a damn lot of vicious pushback, staking out the ground I did during the primary and during the general election.
It is only getting more difficult and distressing by the day, for reasons I'm sure I don't need to explain.
If you have valued being able to come to this space during this time, for commentary and a space to comment, please donate, if you can.
Please note that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. There is a big enough readership that no one needs to donate if it would be a hardship, and no one should ever feel bad about that. ♥
