Suggested by Shaker KitSileya: "What was a regular habit (e.g. biting nails; humming) which you never thought you'd stop, but then one day you realized you had stopped without trying?"
So, when I was in middle school, I developed this strange habit of running my lower front teeth over the inside of my upper top lip, over and over, until it was dry. I don't know why I started doing it, but it quickly became compulsive.
It was a physically unpleasant feeling, and it also very obvious when I did it, contorting my mouth into a strange shape, so it was embarrassing for me as well as unenjoyable.
I have a very clear memory of sitting in my 7th grade science class, and doing this weird thing, and wishing desperately that I could stop but feeling like I couldn't.
And then, one day about a year later, I realized that I'd stopped doing it. Just as inexplicably as I'd started.
Question of the Day
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by the color grey.
Recommended Reading:
Lili Loofbourow: [Content Note: Misogyny; manipulation; abuse] The Myth of the Male Bumbler
Megan Koester: [CN: Sexual assault; intimidation] I Tried to Break the Louis C.K. Story and It Nearly Killed My Career
Damon Young: [CN: Toxic masculinity; abuse] How, If You're a Man, to Deal with the Fact That You're Probably Trash
Drew Magary: [CN: Sexual assault; violence; misogyny] Why All the Comedy Men Are So Awful
Andrea Grimes: [CN: Social media harassment; abuse] Would Life Be Better Without Twitter?
Princess Weekes: [CN: Sexual objectification; child abuse] Mara Wilson on Childhood Fame and the Sexualization of Child Actors
Sameer Rao: National Trust Launches Initiative to Preserve Black History Sites
Dani Deahl: This 10-Year-Old Was Able to Unlock His Mom's iPhone Using Face ID
Stella: Woman Adopts Dog for Her 25th Birthday, and the Before-and-After Photos Say It All
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Sexual assault. Video may autoplay at link.]
"I put it in the back of my head, and I understood why women everywhere had to let it go. ...This the thing that a lot of people just don't understand, and they end up blaming the victim. I have totally said I will not be shamed. I will not be shamed. I did nothing wrong. Nothing."—Terry Crews, who named his assaulter and filed a police report, and continues to be an important public figure speaking out on behalf of male survivors of sexual assault.
I Don't Care About Your Boner
Given the extraordinary breadth of human variation and the complexity of human sexuality, there exist women, somewhere, who enjoy being hit on at the gym.
I am not one of them.
I especially don't enjoy it while I am swimming.
Last weekend, it happened again. It was a different guy from the other guys who have preceded him, but they all might as well have been the same dude for how similar their ploy is.
Like all the other guys, this guy walked into the pool area and stood at the end of the pool, scoping out the lanes. As I swam the length of a lap toward the end of the pool where he was standing, I could see him scan the lanes; choose the lane beside me; slide into the shallow end and fuss with his cap, waiting for me to reach the end of the lane.
I could see him turning toward me with a grin and fixing to say something to me, just as I reached the end of the lane and turned so quickly that he didn't have a chance to speak.
And then I spent the next 15 minutes or so of my swim — which is a time I need for self-care; a time I crave to get lost in my own thoughts; the only time where I can focus exclusively on myself — avoiding this asshole as he timed his swim to recurringly arrive at the ends of lanes at the same time I did. Or just before.
The first time a man did this to me at the pool, I convinced myself that I was imagining it. Until he tried to strike up an overly friendly conversation with me, between laps. The second time, I again convinced myself that I was just being paranoid. Until the same thing happened again. And so on.
By now, I knew what was up. I knew I wasn't flattering myself. And so that 15 minutes or so I spent feeling anxious. And angry at this man who rammed his boner into my serenity.
"You're Queen of the Breaststroke!" he blurted out, at the end of the lane, where he'd been waiting for me.
"What?" I spat at him, not because I hadn't heard him.
"Queen of the Breaststroke!" he said, then looked at me expectantly, like I was supposed to do something sexy, or at least grateful, as the next step in this exchange.
"Yup," I said.
I turned to restart my laps, but he barreled on: "Why do you only do the breaststroke?"
Here, I have to tell you that what I wanted to say was: "That is none of your fucking business. Fuck off and leave me alone." But I didn't. Because I didn't want him to escalate, and I didn't want to be "a bitch" right in front of the teenage lifeguard, where this guy had positioned himself before propositioning me, for precisely that reason.
I see that lifeguard all the time. I spend long hours in a space where he might be tasked with helping me. I don't want him to think I'm "a bitch."
What I said was: "Because it's the only stroke I can do." That is not technically true — it's merely my strongest stroke — but it's true enough, and I don't owe this guy anything, including honesty.
Again, I moved to restart my laps, and again he said: "You can't do the front crawl?"
"Nope," I said, increasingly terse. One of the things I have discovered, however, is that the men who come onto me seem to be attracted to my disinterest, and being rude is often not the deterrent I'd hope.
"Well, I'm only going to be here another 10 minutes or so," he told me, like I gave a shit, "but I'll be here next week, and, if you want, I can teach you the front crawl. I'll make you an expert in it in no time."
"No thanks," I said, and then I ducked under the water, kicked my feet hard against the wall, and slid away from him.
Iain, who had been in the lane to the other side of me this entire time — wearing a green version of the purple swim cap I wear, each a grinning cartoon monster face — was waiting for me at the other end. "All right?" he asked.
He knew what was happening. He had already seen men doing this to me, the waiting for me and striking up conversations about how they wanted to spend one-on-one time with me in the pool or the weight room or somewhere else, teaching me something. Always offering to teach me.
Iain knows I can take care of myself; that I'm not his property to defend. He also knows it's kind to check in.
"Yep," I said.
I went back to swimming. The thing I love most. The thing I do to try to forget how few spaces there are where I am able to breathe without the acrid stink of men being shitty.
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.
We Resist: Day 300
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Lock Her Up for WHAT, Though?
[Content Note: Mass shooting.]
There was a time, in my lifetime, when a shooting in which five people died would have been news for days. Now it's news for hours, if that. We have become frighteningly inured to mass shootings in the U.S.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 14, 2017
Already, yesterday's mass shooting in Rancho Tehama, California, has almost completely fallen out of the news. The fact that Donald Trump tweeted (then deleted) a message to the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas, the site of last week's mass shooting, is getting more attention than the shooting itself.
The fact that the U.S. president can't even keep track of all the mass shootings is a fairly compelling argument for gun reform. https://t.co/d5HEECdgbb
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 15, 2017
Five people, including the shooter, were killed and at least 10 were injured. And it's just another day in America where nothing will ever change, because no amount of grief or outrage will motivate Republicans to do anything that will risk that sweet NRA money.
Relatedly: Lois Beckett at the Guardian: The Gun Numbers: Just 3% of American Adults Own a Collective 133 Million Firearms.
American civilians own at least 265 million firearms, which gives Americans the highest rate of per capita firearm ownership in the world, with about one gun for every American.And there are an estimated 7.7 million super-owners in the country, who are disproportionately white men. Just a bunch of white men with massive personal arsenals. Swell.
...But surveys show that gun ownership in America is actually highly concentrated. Only 22% to 31% of Americans adults say they personally own a gun.
Rates of personal and household gun ownership appear to have declined over the past decades — roughly two-thirds of Americans today say they live in a gun-free household. By contrast, in the late 1970s, the majority of Americans said they lived in a household with guns.
Most of America's gun owners have relatively modest collections, with the majority of gun owners having an average of just three guns, and nearly half owning just one or two, according to a 2015 survey by Harvard and Northeastern researchers, which gave the most in-depth estimate of Americans' current patterns of gun ownerships.
But America's gun super-owners, have amassed huge collections. Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms — half of America's total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from eight to 140 guns, the 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each.
* * *
AP/PBS: RNC Cuts Fundraising Ties to Roy Moore. "The Republican National Committee has severed its fundraising ties to Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. A Federal Election Commission filing late Tuesday shows that the national party is no longer part of the effort to raise money for Moore, the embattled GOP nominee facing allegations of molesting two teenagers when he was in his 30s." Too late, RNC. Too late.
David Smith at the Guardian: Roy Moore Complains He Is Being 'Harassed' by Media. "Addressing the faithful at a Baptist church revival in south-west Alabama, Moore insisted that the claims are a calculated effort to derail his political career. 'Why do you think they're giving me this trouble?' he demanded. 'Why do you think I'm being harassed in the media and people pushing forth allegations in the last 28 days of this election?'" Roy Moore is a rapist who complains about being "harassed." JFC this fucking guy.
Nowhere in this piece is it mentioned abandoning Moore might be an absurdly hypocritical choice for Trump, given his own record of sexual assault. https://t.co/9kiarz3OsA
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 15, 2017
I mean, the entire Republican Party is a bunch of absurd hypocrites on the subject of sexual assault as long as Trump is in office. It would be nice if the political press would point out that indisputable fact in every article on the topic.
* * *
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Sahil Kapur at Bloomberg: Senate Republicans Toss Potential Obamacare Bomb into Tax Bill. "Senate Republicans have tossed a potential bomb in the middle of their tax overhaul bill. The plan released Tuesday night mixes two red-hot debates by adding a repeal of the Obamacare law's individual mandate to their tax legislation. While the move will help them meet their fiscal target, it complicates the vote calculations in both chambers and hands Democrats a bumper sticker-ready issue they can use to charge up their base. The revised proposal 'will effectively repeal Obamacare's individual mandate tax so that we can provide even more tax relief to low- and middle-income families,' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday."
Also so they can more quickly destroy Obamacare, because the entire thing collapses without the individual mandate.
How new plan works:
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) November 14, 2017
1. GOP ends Obamacare’s individual mandate
2. Fewer healthy people buy insurance
3. Premiums shoot up for everyone else
4. Millions can’t afford insurance who want it
5. Govt saves $ on subsidies
6. $ goes to corporations & rich people
Tory Newmyer at the Washington Post: Senate GOP Is Gambling Bigly by Rolling Back Individual Mandate in Tax Package. "Senate GOP tax writers incorporated the high-stakes maneuver into the latest version of their plan, released late Tuesday night. They applied the new revenue to making permanent the deeply-slashed 20 percent corporate rate at the heart of the tax plan; doubling the child tax credit to $2,000; and expanding access to a deduction for pass-through businesses. But the updated bill sunsets individual rate cuts at the end of 2025 to help the package comply with strict budget rules — a move that Democrats seized on to blast the GOP for prioritizing corporate interests over working people." Correctly seized on and accurately characterized, I might add.
The CBO says that the GOP tax bill could trigger $25 billion in Medicare cuts. https://t.co/OB9lctrI2b
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 14, 2017
Tucker Higgins at CNBC: CEOs Raise Doubts About Gary Cohn's Top Argument for Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate Right in Front of Him. "A meeting of CEOs might seem to be a friendly gathering place for [Donald] Trump's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs. But at a gathering of chief executives hosted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, business leaders called into question one of Cohn's top arguments for slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. When one of the Journal's editors asked the crowd if they planned to up their capital expenditure if the GOP's tax plan went through, only a smattering raised their hands. 'Why aren't the other hands up?' Cohn asked." Because trickle-down economics is trash.
* * *
[CN: Islamophobia; homophobia] Normally, People choosing its annual "Sexiest Man Alive" wouldn't be of much interest to me, and it certainly wouldn't warrant a place in the We Resist thread, but, this year, they chose Blake Shelton, and uh.
I guess it makes sense in Trump's America that an Islamophobe who "jokes" about beating up gay men would be named the "Sexiest Man Alive."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 15, 2017
(While I know that it may be tempting to respond to this item by commenting that Blake Shelton doesn't deserve it because "he isn't even that sexy" or whatever, that is not the point and please don't do that. Thanks.)
* * *
[CN: Nativism] Esther Yu Hsi Lee at ThinkProgress: Immigration Arrests at New York Courthouses up 900 Percent, Advocates Say. "The number of immigrants arrested or detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency at courthouses in New York has gone up 900 percent in 2017... About 20 percent of individuals detained by ICE did not have prior criminal convictions; 16 percent were there for desk appearance tickets or offenses that didn't warrant an arrest. Some of the immigrants were arrested in family court and even at the Queens Human Trafficking Court. 'The exponential increase in ICE courthouse arrests reflects a dangerous new era in enforcement and immigrant rights violations,' Immigrant Defense Project attorney Lee Wang told the publication. 'Immigrants seeking justice in the criminal, family and civil courts should not have to fear for their freedom when doing so.'" Unconscionable.
[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: Trump Administration Orders Large-Scale Immigration Raids — for DUIs.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out a large-scale enforcement operation last week targeting undocumented immigrants charged with driving under the influence (DUI), signaling to advocates that while publicly claiming to remove "violent criminals" from local communities, the Trump administration is targeting those with low-level offenses.They're counting on people agreeing that DUIs are a serious enough offense to warrant our inattention. Listen, I hate people driving while intoxicated. I loathe it. And I absolutely do not support this administration targeting undocumented immigrants for committing this crime. Deportation is displacement. That is not the community standard for driving while intoxicated anyplace in the United States.
Since November 4, ICE has apprehended 25 undocumented immigrants in Long Island, New York, as part of the immigration enforcement sting "Operation Secure Streets." Twenty-four were targeted because of a DUI-related conviction, according to ICE. "This operation targeted those who were convicted of driving under the influence, some with children in the car, solidifying ICE's commitment to remove public safety threats from our communities," said Thomas R. Decker, an ICE field office director.
Michael Admirand, senior legal counsel at Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project, told Rewire that prior to the Trump administration, he had not heard of ICE operations targeting immigrants with DUIs. Perhaps more alarming, Admirand said, is the rhetoric administration officials use to justify large-scale raids.
"What is becoming clear is that targeting people for DUI is a theme for [the Trump administration]," Admirand said. "In September, during the nationwide raids that detained almost 500 people, the Trump administration said they were targeting violent criminals, like MS-13 gang members. By far, the most prominent conviction among those detained was DUI. There is a striking disconnect between the rhetoric the administration uses to justify these raids and the reality of who is actually being targeted."
NEW: Richard Cordray, appointed by Pres. Obama as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will step down "before the end of the month."
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 15, 2017
⬆️ We are going to have to resist mightily whoever Trump installs in his place.
[CN: Transphobia] Katelyn Burns at Rewire: Despite Electoral Gains, Transgender Community Faces Barriers to Political Involvement. "While it's critically important that the trans community remains politically active in electoral campaigns, canvassing and phone-banking can present particular challenges to trans volunteers. 'A pretty common thing that trans people will say [is], 'I don't want to go to door-to-door' or 'I don’t even want to do phones. Can I do data entry or something that isn't public facing?'' [Jay Wu, communications manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality] said... Eve Freeman, a trans woman from Northern Virginia who chose not to get directly involved in Roem's campaign, says that her deep voice was part of the reason for her decision. ...Freeman's concerns are painfully common for many trans people and will remain barriers until society grows more comfortable with the idea that trans people are just average, everyday citizens like anyone else. Campaigns should be actively looking for ways to make their operations more trans-friendly, including finding roles for trans people who don't want to face the public."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
The What Happened Book Club
This is the seventh installment of the What Happened Book Club, where we are doing a chapter a week.
That pace will hopefully allow people who need time to procure the book a better chance to catch up, and let us deal with the book in manageable pieces: I figured we will have a lot to talk about, and one thread for the entire book would quickly get overwhelming.
So! Let us continue our discussion with Chapter Seven: Motherhood, Wifehood, Daughterhood, Sisterhood.
* * *
This was a very interesting chapter for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Hillary wrote it so deftly. It was the same voice, her voice, as every other chapter of the book, but there was a subtle shift in tone that underscored the intimacy of the relationships she was exploring.
It was a reminder, for those of us who cared to take it, that we don't own the entire lives of public figures. No matter how much our culture of judgment may exhort us to opine on every aspect of their lives.
For those of you listening to the audiobook, I can imagine how deeply moving it was to listen to Hillary in her own voice talk about these most important relationships in her life. It was moving to read.
I particularly loved reading her write about her fondness for children, and I recalled all the amazing photos of her along with campaign trail with girls and boys, and I got weepy all over again that she isn't their president.
And, because my most present family relationships are with my family of choice, I was incredibly moved by her section on friendship. The very last words of the chapter may have been my favorite: "I don't believe any of us gets through life alone. Finding meaning and happiness takes a village. My friends have been my village. I wouldn't have it any other way."
Nor would I.
Discussion Thread: Good Things
One of the ways we resist the demoralization and despair in which exploiters of fear like Trump thrive is to keep talking about the good things in our lives.
Because, even though it feels very much (and rightly so) like we are losing so many things we value, there are still daily moments of joy or achievement or love or empowering ferocity or other kinds of fulfillment.
Maybe you've experienced something big worth celebrating; maybe you've just had a precious moment of contentment; maybe getting out of bed this morning was a success worthy of mention.
News items worth celebrating are also welcome.
So, whatever you have to share that's good, here's a place to do it.
* * *
Recently, Iain and I were heading out for a date night, and, as we left, he looked at me and said (which I am sharing with permission): "There isn't any part of you that I'm not in awe of right now."
That was just one of the best compliments I've ever received, especially because it came from him. And because he said it so matter-of-factly. It wasn't rehearsed; just observational.
And it made me feel awesome.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: Scots are known for delivering the best insults — but they give the best compliments, too.
Lock Her Up for WHAT, Though?
The Republicans' focus on Hillary Clinton at this point puts them well beyond merely the deeply unserious party they have long been. They are authoritarian abettors, trying to engineer a show trial for their deplorable president.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 14, 2017
Donald Trump really wants to punish Hillary Clinton. Like all terrible authoritarians before him, he wants to annihilate his most accurate and courageous critics; and like all insecure megalomaniacs before him, he wants to ruin the person whose decency indicts him, by projecting on her his own worst characteristics and then pronouncing her deserving of scorn and harm.
He has ordered Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate Clinton, publicly tweeting his directive, and, a day before Sessions testified before the House Judiciary Committee, he sent a letter to Republican committee chair Bob Goodlatte, disclosing that Sessions has "directed senior federal prosecutors to explore whether a second special counsel should be appointed to probe a host of GOP concerns — possibly including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia."
During the hearing, Sessions insisted he was not being influenced by Trump, desperately trying to maintain the illusion of objectivity, while also keeping the door open for an investigation of Clinton:
At Tuesday's hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Sessions denied that he was responding to Mr. Trump's public pressure. "A president cannot improperly influence an investigation," he said, "and I have not been improperly influenced and would not be improperly influenced. The president speaks his mind. He's a bold and direct about what he says, but people elected him. But we do our duty every day based on the law and facts."The Republicans have been hanging their hope on the Russia Reversal — the narrative it was actually Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who colluded with Russia. But the more scrutiny given to collusion with Russia during the campaign, the worse it gets for Trump. So they've shifted their eggs into the Uranium One basket, trying to create Sessions' requisite "factual basis" with a bunch of bullshit to justify a special counsel to investigate Clinton.
Even as he rebuffed Democrats suggesting he had been compromised, Mr. Sessions pushed back against Republicans who pressed him on why he had not already appointed a special counsel. "What's it going to take to get a special counsel?" demanded Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio.
"It would take a factual basis that meets the standards of the appointment of a special counsel," Mr. Sessions said.
Trump's minions at Fox News have been hitting the story hard, but the entire conspiracy theory took a major blow last night when Shep Smith "took apart the Uranium One conspiracy theory in what amounts to a methodical annihilation of his own network's coverage of the story."
Shep Smith just took apart the Uranium One conspiracy theory in what amounts to a methodical annihilation of his own network's coverage of the story. pic.twitter.com/D439QyIBWU
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 14, 2017
Even so, the accusation is predicated on the charge that Secretary Clinton approved the sale. She did not. A committee of nine evaluated the sale, the President approved the sale, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and others had to offer permits, and none of the uranium was exported for use by the U.S. to Russia. That is Uranium One.One might imagine that would settle the matter, but of course it has only turned Smith into a target for conservative excoriation.
Because facts are irrelevant. Facts are the things that stand in the way of putting Hillary Clinton in handcuffs and marching her onto a platform in a public square to begin her show trial.
That Trump is leading this charge is very serious indeed. And he's chosen a target that many of the most powerful people in this country have decided it's okay to abuse; about whom it's okay to lie; whom countless people are unwilling to defend, no matter what is being done to her.
I hope that these folks love their country and its democracy more than they hate Hillary Clinton, but, given the result of the 2016 election, I'm not sure that they do.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker particolored: "Which fictional character has had the biggest impact on your life?"
God.
I don't say that flippantly or casually. I know I risk offending people who believe in god(s), but I am not impugning anyone else's belief.
(Stating the fact of my atheism, like stating the fact that I choose not to parent, is inevitably received by some people as an implicit judgment of their beliefs/choices. It really isn't, though!)
I just happen to believe that no god(s) exist, yet others' god belief has had a major impact on my life — much more significant than any other character I regard to have been conjured by humanity.
Gross
Carol E. Lee and Mike Memoli at NBC News: Pence Creates His Own VP Club With Biden and Cheney. UGH! Worst club ever!
[Vice President Mike Pence] speaks with Joe Biden on the phone at least once a month, and he's had numerous conversations with Dick Cheney, even meeting in his West Wing office, according to people close to the two former vice presidents. Their discussions involve an exchange of ideas and advice, these people said, with Biden and Cheney offering their counsel on foreign and domestic policy issues, the interplay between the White House and Capitol Hill, and how to navigate the country's No. 2 job.You know, if this were any other administration, I would just consider that business as usual.
...The aide said Pence "shares a warm relationship" with Biden, "and they've spoken many times, particularly on foreign affairs matters."
The outreach between Biden and Pence flows both ways.
Pence has called Biden before each of his foreign trips to get his views on the policies and personalities at play in the countries he was visiting. Biden, in turn, has spoken with Pence before his own overseas trips to inquire if the White House has any messages it would like him to deliver, or if there were any sensitivities around the administration's policy efforts.
But this is not a normal administration.
We are fighting fascists here, and Biden is asking them how he can be a good messenger. Fuck that.
There was a time when I might have given Biden credit for staying in the loop to keep tabs, but his behavior has long since eroded any rationale for a good-faith presumption of loyalty to marginalized people. Or to anyone but himself, frankly.
Get It Together, White Men
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity.]
I spend my days writing about the Trump administration, which is a group of white cishet men (and some piddling number of enablers) who embody toxic masculinity.
In between writing about their aggressive fuckery, I write about mass shootings and other acts of public violence committed by men, virtually all of whom have some history of domestic violence, each of whom slaps a different toxic masculinist ideology on top of their heinous massacre.
And in between all of that, I write a seemingly endless number of pieces about the rape culture, and all the men who sexually harass and/or sexually assault women and children and, to a lesser extent, other men. And I write about all the (mostly but not exclusively) men who abet and defend those abusers.
My entire life at the moment feels consumed by documenting and resisting toxic masculinity.
I am fucking exhausted.
And I am fucking raw.
And I really need all the white men who reassure me #NotAllMen to get it together, step the fuck up, and start carrying some of this burden.
Because, since I write about toxic masculinity, I am also constantly subjected to it. In comments, in my inbox, in my mentions.
I can't breathe without the acrid stink of men being shitty.
And every goddamned day of my life, I am more resentful that men who claim to be Good Progressives, who insist they are my allies, who claim to be feminists continue to treat the dismantling of toxic masculinity as women's work.
You are not doing nearly enough, men. Not even close.
And I am sick of that, too.
Mass Shooting in Northern California
[Content Note: Guns; death; domestic violence. Video may autoplay at second link.]
This afternoon in Rancho Tehama, California, about 135 miles north of Sacramento, a gunman killed several people at a number of different sites, following what has been described as a "domestic violence incident."
Casualty numbers are still preliminary, but it sounds as though he killed four people and then himself (or he was killed by police) at multiple scenes, including an elementary school. Several more people, including children, were injured.
Neither the suspect nor any of the victims has yet been named by police.
Brian Flint, who is a neighbor of the suspect, told the Record Searchlight that living near the shooter was "hell."
"The crazy thing is that the neighbor has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hundreds of rounds, large magazines," Flint said. "We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he's been threatening us."My condolences to the victims' family, friends, and community. I am so sorry.
Living near the gunman was "hell," Flint said, and the man was a known felon who often harassed him and his neighbors.
I will update this post as additional information becomes available.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share updates in comments. Let's keep this thread image-free. Thanks.
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.
We Resist: Day 299
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Mike Pence Is a Liar. And by Fannie: Rape Culture Rigs the System Against Women.
Ashley Parker at the Washington Post: Trump's Asia Trip Was Mostly Free of Incidents — Until It Wasn't.
After an eight-day stretch of mostly good behavior, Trump wandered off script this past weekend in Vietnam as he headed into the final leg of his visit. Chatting with reporters on board Air Force One, the president suggested that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin's assertions that Russia had not meddled in the 2016 presidential election and, on foreign soil, disparaged three former U.S. intelligence agency heads as "political hacks."And what they are is disloyal trash. In any other administration, the president suggesting he believes the leader of a hostile adversary over U.S. intelligence would be a fucking scandal. In this administration, it's just another day in an illegitimate presidency that the most powerful people in this nation have inexplicably decided to normalize, at the potential cost of the complete decimation of our democracy.
...White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not flinch when Trump began recounting Putin's denials to the White House press corps — "I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it," the president said — and no one from the West Wing made any effort the explain or clarify his initial remarks.
In a news conference the next day, however, Trump was asked exactly what he meant, and explained that he ultimately believes his own intelligence agencies — which have concluded that Russia did, indeed, meddle — over Putin's claims to the contrary.
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, meanwhile, all but shrugged when asked about Trump's tweet insulting Kim with schoolyard taunts, saying that Trump alone "put it out."
"They are what they are," Kelly said of the tweets.
* * *
[Content Note: Sexual assault] Charles Bethea at the New Yorker: Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore's Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall. "This past weekend, I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people — including a major political figure in the state — who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. Some say that they heard this at the time, others in the years since. These people include five members of the local legal community, two cops who worked in the town, several people who hung out at the mall in the early eighties, and a number of former mall employees. (A request for comment from the Moore campaign was not answered.)"
The Gadsden mall in Alabama has a Sears, Chick-Fil-A, and it may turn out, higher standards than the World's Greatest Deliberative Bodyhttps://t.co/kRp3AL7wIc
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) November 14, 2017
[CN: Sexual assault] Abby Baird at ThinkProgress: A Fifth Woman Is Accusing Roy Moore of Sexual Abuse. "Moore's campaign responded to the allegations in a statement Monday, saying, 'Gloria Allred is a sensationalist leading a witch hunt, and she is only around to create a spectacle.'" Oh fuuuuuuuuuck that.
[CN: Sexual assault] Matt Shuham at TPM: Alabama Rep.: 'Contested' Sexual Assault Allegations Won't Change My Vote. "Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said Monday that he would still vote for Roy Moore to become Alabama's next senator, despite a wave of allegations of sexual assault and misconduct made against Moore by women who were teenagers at the time of the alleged incidents. 'America faces huge challenges that are vastly more important than contested sexual allegations from four decades ago,' Brooks said in a text message to AL.com. 'Who will vote in America's best interests on Supreme Court justices, deficit and debt, economic growth, border security, national defense, and the like?' Brooks continued, according to the paper. 'Socialist Democrat Doug Jones will vote wrong. Roy Moore will vote right. Hence, I will vote for Roy Moore.'" Seethe.
[CN: Sexual harassment; video may autoplay at link] MJ Lee, Sunlen Serfaty, Sara Ganim, and Juana Summers at CNN: 'Nothing About It Felt Right': More Than 50 People Describe Sexual Harassment on Capitol Hill.
Be extra careful of the male lawmakers who sleep in their offices — they can be trouble. Avoid finding yourself alone with a congressman or senator in elevators, late-night meetings, or events where alcohol is flowing. And think twice before speaking out about sexual harassment from a boss — it could cost you your career.I'm guessing that environment of constant harassment is unlikely to change during the administration of a president who is himself a confessed serial sex predator, especially as long as his abetting party is running the Hill.
These are a few of the unwritten rules that some female lawmakers, staff and interns say they follow on Capitol Hill, where they say harassment and coercion is pervasive on both sides of the rotunda.
There is also the "creep list" — an informal roster passed along by word-of-mouth, consisting of the male members most notorious for inappropriate behavior, ranging from making sexually suggestive comments or gestures to seeking physical relations with younger employees and interns.
CNN spoke with more than 50 lawmakers, current and former Hill aides, and political veterans who have worked in Congress, the majority of whom spoke anonymously to be candid and avoid potential repercussions. With few exceptions, every person said they have personally experienced sexual harassment on the Hill or know of others who have.
In an environment with "so many young women," said one ex-House aide, the men "have no self-control."
"Amongst ourselves, we know," a former Senate staffer said of the lawmakers with the worst reputations. And sometimes, the sexual advances from members of Congress or senior aides are reciprocated in the hopes of advancing one's career — what one political veteran bluntly referred to as a "sex trade on Capitol Hill."
These anecdotes portray a workplace where women are subjected to constant harassment.
The @GOP leadership shouldn't be too goddamned surprised that their party attracts serial sex predators when a central plank of their platform is forcing women et. al. to do with their bodies a thing they do not want to do.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 13, 2017
[CN: Sexual assault] Kaiser at Celebitchy: Jon Stewart Was 'Stunned' to Hear About Louis CK, Despite Hearing Rumors a Year Ago. "In one of the stories I did about Louis CK last week, I mentioned the year-old video of Jon Stewart being asked directly about Louis and the rumors (at that time, it was just 'rumors') of his sexual harassment of young, female comedians. Jon Stewart was a complete douche about it. ...Jon was on the Today Show this morning to promote The Night of Too Many Stars, which he's hosting for HBO. ...Jon says he was 'stunned' and he asked himself 'Did I miss something? Could I have done more?' and 'In this situation, I think we all could have. So you feel anger at what you did to people.' Except that he did hear about it a year ago... Jon says he had a feeling of 'I know Louis; he's always been a gentleman to me' and admits that 'it speaks to the blindness that I think a man has…'" I really despise Jon Stewart.
* * *
Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed: Justice Department Confirms Prosecutors Are "Evaluating" Claims Raised Against Hillary Clinton. "Senior federal prosecutors are looking into whether there is any merit to allegations made against Hillary Clinton and the FBI's investigation into her during the election, a Justice Department lawyer told lawmakers in a letter on Monday. Congressional Republicans have requested the appointment of a second special counsel to look into allegations relating to Clinton and the Clinton Foundation — including those relating to the Uranium One sale — and the investigation into Clinton's email server. On Monday, the head of the Justice Department's legislative affairs office responded to those requests by confirming that 'senior federal prosecutors' were 'evaluat[ing] certain issues raised in your letters.'"
Catherine Lucey and Meghan Hoyer at the AP: Trump Choosing White Men as Judges at the Highest Rate in Decades. "Donald Trump is nominating white men to America's federal courts at a rate not seen in nearly 30 years, threatening to reverse a slow transformation toward a judiciary that reflects the nation's diversity. So far, 91 percent of Trump's nominees are white, and 81 percent are male, an Associated Press analysis has found. Three of every four are white men, with few African-Americans and Hispanics in the mix. The last president to nominate a similarly homogenous group was George H.W. Bush." Huh. It's almost like men who sexually assault women don't respect them or something.
Gideon Resnick and Sam Stein at the Daily Beast: Before He Was Tapped by Donald Trump, Controversial Judicial Nominee Brett J. Talley Investigated Paranormal Activity. "Brett J. Talley, nominated by [Donald] Trump to the Federal District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, has never tried a case, is married to a White House lawyer, and has been dubbed as unqualified by the American Bar Association." I would call this unbelievable, but, of course, it's entirely believable, because this administration is a toxic dumpster fire.
Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: The Senate Tax Bill Is a Handout for Wealthy Americans. "Republicans in the Senate were determined to a write a tax plan that, unlike the House's proposal, would be less of a handout to some of the wealthiest Americans. Unfortunately, it seems the new plan still benefits them significantly. Both bills center around a huge corporate tax cut that Republicans hope will allow freed-up cash to trickle-down to the middle-class in the form of higher wages and more jobs. Analyses of the House tax plan finds that it falls far short of that goal, and the Senate bill doesn't hold up any better under scrutiny."
Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: If the Tax Bill Is So Great, Why Does the GOP Keep Lying About It? "Nearly every claim Republicans are using to market their tax plan is at best a distortion, at worst a deliberate falsehood. Which raises the question: If their plan is really so great, why not sell it on the merits? ...Why all the falsehoods? Why not just sell their tax agenda on the merits? Presumably because Trump and Republican lawmakers know they're offering a plan the public doesn't want. Ergo, they need to promise things the tax plan doesn't do."
[CN: White supremacy] Auditi Guha at Rewire: Congress Wants to Stop Pipeline Protests by Prosecuting Activists as Terrorists. "In case a military-style takeover wasn't enough to deter pipeline protesters at Standing Rock, some congressional lawmakers are pushing to treat environmental activists like terrorists. A group of 80 congressional Republicans and four Texas Democrats in October submitted a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to look into the possibility of prosecuting pipeline protesters under the domestic terrorism statute. They cited attempts to shut off valves and damage pipelines but seem to include the larger nonviolent resistance in their push to use the terrorism statute against activists. The bipartisan group claims that 'maintaining safe and reliable energy infrastructure is a matter of national security.'" Chilling.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Rape Culture Rigs the System Against Women
[CN: sexual harassment]
With revelations now published on the daily of women navigating sexual harassment in their workplaces, a picture emerges quite clearly of its impact on women's careers, opportunities, and financial well-being.
Observe.
Here's Laurie Kilmartin, on being a female comic in a profession that worships men like Louis CK, who has finally admitted that the rumors about his sexual abuse and manipulation are true:
"Standup comedy is hard on its women.... I'd say almost every female comic could name a comedy club she can't walk into, a booker she can't email or an agent she can't pursue because of the presence of a problematic guy. We are all avoiding someone who could help us make money."Or, take the recent allegations of endemic sexual harassment against Andrew Kreisberg, an executive producer for Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow:
According to many interviewed by Variety, Kreisberg’s problematic behavior, particularly around women, got worse once he had a great deal of authority as an executive producer on several shows.
'The power went to his head,' says a male writer. 'It became clear to me that it would be very dangerous, career-wise, for me to confront him about his behavior.'Or, the allegations against DC Comics veteran editor Eddie Berganza:
Two women say he would talk about how he hired staffers based on their looks, and one quoted him as saying, 'You should have seen the other dogs we interviewed for that position.' Kreisberg denies saying this.
'Younger women were constantly belittled and subjected to nasty comments,' says a writer who has worked with Kreisberg.
A high-level producer at a CW show says that a young woman who worked in two successive lower-level jobs was the object of Kreisberg’s 'obsessive crush,' and left due to his unwanted attention, an account confirmed by more than a dozen other sources"
"Liz Gehrlein Marsham had been working at DC Comics for less than three weeks when she said a veteran editor named Eddie Berganza cornered her, stuck his tongue in her mouth, and attempted to grope her.The article goes on to note that none of the women who reported Berganza are working at DC Comics, or any mainstream comics company, anymore.
For Marsham, who was 29 at the time, a foot in the door of DC had been a dream come true. 'I was so excited,' she told BuzzFeed News. 'I ran around the office the first week taking pictures of things and sending them to my parents.'
But the six years after that 2006 encounter were a 'period of slow heartbreak,' Marsham said. Berganza’s actions and DC’s response would change the course of her career — and become fodder for the rumor mill surrounding Berganza and the increasingly open secret of his misconduct. Marsham would be forced to choose between working under Berganza, who she said made her feel profoundly unsafe, or avoiding him at the cost of advancing the career she'd been so proud to start at DC.
'By the time I left,' Marsham said, 'I was really demoralized. I was physically ill from being stressed all the time and trying to hide it. I just felt like I needed to get out, however I could.'”
It's said that not all superheroes wear capes. But, know this as well: Not all villains wear masks. Rape culture doesn't require them to. Sexual predators in the workplace, particularly the higher up they are, are often brazen and enabled by other, complicit powers-that-be.
Every anti-feminist backlash in the US has had its own version of the self-centered claim that feminists are motivated by the hatred of men. Yet, if the spate of recently-revealed "open secrets" has demonstrated anything, it's that it has always been the other way around.
That women are widely seen as not fully human like how men are fully human means that male reactions across the political spectrum often take a predictable turn: The other side does it too! Many men still view sexual harassment claims, not as wrongs inflicted on human beings who matter, but as ways to score points against political rivals, usually other men.
Or, they will engage in performative allyship, so that they can appear to be pro-woman without actually taking concrete steps to upend male supremacy in their fields:
cool cool while you're waiting for that maybe check out your writers room pic.twitter.com/Hfbbu02ATe— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) November 11, 2017
The backlash to this spate of sexual harassment revelations will come, and probably quite soon.
The Damores and other Trump-ish intellectual mediocres of our time already habitually bemoan policies that they believe stifle white men from speaking their "courageous" "politically-incorrect" "truths" about how much better they are than everyone else. So, expect more of that. But,w e can also anticipate anti-feminist women getting paid to write rape apologia in major mainstream news outlets. The destiny of mankind, emphasis on man, is apparently for each successive generation to invent new ways of asserting that men are irreplaceable wunderkinds, while women are dime-a-dozen disposable.
Yet, we are living in an important moment. One thing the anti-feminists had right all along is that many feminists are angry. However, in a phenomenon that is quickly becoming problematic for misogynists, many more women and allies are joining us.
Multitudes of men, left, right and center are harassers and rapists, you say, almost like there's a larger culture that aids and abets sexual predation?— Fannie Wolfe (@fanniesroom) November 9, 2017
"We fucking told you so." -Ancient Feminist Proverb
And so, last week, I opened Twitter to see that each of the ten top trending hashtags was about a man who was in some way actually facing consequences for having habitually abused his power. Many women are done being quiet. We are witnessing the phrase "the personal is political" clicking, for many women, after decades of smears against feminists had blunted its power.
To many of us, Trump is a symbol for every abuser who has gotten away with it, been rewarded for it, scarred our memories, and traumatized our lives and careers. So, while men couldn't help but share their oodles of generic, non-gender-based opinions on all the things that supposedly "led to Trump," what they largely overlooked was this: Rape culture. But, that's no surprise. Melissa has previously summed up the events leading to the 2016 election as "a catastrophic failure to listen to women."
Well fellas, do you hear us now?
Feminist Catherine MacKinnon has referenced human rights violations that are thought to be "too extraordinary to believable or too ordinary to be atrocious." I think about that quote a lot these days. The conventional wisdom has long been that sexual harassment cannot possibly be that extensive, but if it is, is it really that harmful? What's a little office masturbation, anyway?
The working reality is that for every famous person who has courageously shared their story of harassment, predation, or rape at the hands of a famous or powerful man, thousands upon thousands of ordinary people, predominately women, have our own. These harms will likely never be in the news, because either we, or the abuser, are not famous.
Take the 700,000, predominately Latina, farmworkers who signed a letter of solidarity with those who have spoken out against gender based violence:
"We wish that we could say we’re shocked to learn that this is such a pervasive problem in your industry. Sadly, we’re not surprised because it’s a reality we know far too well. Countless farmworker women across our country suffer in silence because of the widespread sexual harassment and assault that they face at work.Take the allegations within the labor movement itself, wherein Caleb Jennings, the lead organizer for the Fight For $15 campaign in Chicago, was recently fired after allegations of abuse and sexual harassment:
We do not work under bright stage lights or on the big screen. We work in the shadows of society in isolated fields and packinghouses that are out of sight and out of mind for most people in this country. Your job feeds souls, fills hearts and spreads joy. Our job nourishes the nation with the fruits, vegetables and other crops that we plant, pick and pack.
Even though we work in very different environments, we share a common experience of being preyed upon by individuals who have the power to hire, fire, blacklist and otherwise threaten our economic, physical and emotional security."
"In June 2016, over 50 staffers signed a letter calling for Jennings to be fired. The letter alleged that he shoved a 28-year-old female staffer Gönül Düzer against a door frame, and then later fired her. The letter described Jenning's attitude as 'sexist and aggressive.' A portion, obtained by BuzzFeed, read, 'Caleb has made himself well known for creating a toxic work environment… Making it more egregious in this instance is that the FF15 Organizing Coordinator attacked an immigrant and a woman of color, exactly the workers which the FF15’s success depends on.'"In 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received nearly 13,000 charges alleging sexual harassment, 84% of which were filed by women.
Meanwhile, EEOC charges almost certainly undercount actual occurrences of workplace harassment, as some people instead file with state authorities, some seek remedies within the workplace, some perform work that is not captured in these statistics at all, and/or some don't report the incident(s) at all. A 2013 YouGov/Huffington Post survey, for instance, found that 70% of people who had been sexually harassed in the workplace did not report it.
Many of us are ordinary people going about our lives, trying to make a living, when we find ourselves required to tip-toe around the egos, manipulations, and genitalia of powerful men, at great cost to our well-being, livelihoods, and careers.
What is no longer deniable in good faith is that what's being revealed en masse is a labor issue of rather significant proportions:
Rape culture rigs the system against women. And, we're pissed about it.
More to the point, as politicians across the political spectrum chase angry white male working class voters, they would be wise to start taking the women of this revived feminist movement seriously as a political force. Sexual harassment is a labor condition that predominately harms women. As such, many of us are also savvy enough to know that sexual harassment is not a problem that will be solved by simply "fixing the economy," eradicating "the global oligarchy," or whatever the generic white-man-centered panacea du jour is.
We must seek out and promote the politicians, pundits, and allies who share our anger and possess this understanding.
Jeff Sessions Open Thread
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today. If you would like to watch it live online, C-SPAN is streaming the hearing.
It's meant to be on various issues facing the Department of Justice, but Democrats are expected to give him a good grilling about being a traitorous liar (basically).
Here's a thread for discussion.
* * *
ETA. I don't know who the woman is sitting behind Jeff Sessions, but she seems pretty dubious about his opening statement, lol!
ETA 2. Apparently that's his wife hahahahahahahaha.
Mike Pence Is a Liar
So I'm reading this Politico piece about Mike Pence's denial that he knew anything about Don Jr. being penpals with Wikileaks, and I come to this incredible passage:
"The Vice President was never aware of anyone associated with the campaign being in contact with Wikileaks," said Pence's press secretary, Alyssa Farah, in a statement. "He first learned of this news from a published report earlier tonight."Pence, as you may recall, has used this very same excuse multiple times before.
In fact, in a piece I wrote in February, after he made the same incredible claim about Mike Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, I called it "his go-to move."
While Governor of Indiana, Pence used the old "had no knowledge" chestnut to distance himself from scandal. And it was just as absurd then as it is now.This is an identifiable play from his playbook. It's a lie to which he returns over and over.
Perhaps most famously, Pence claimed, exactly as he is now, that he learned from the press about the proposal for a state-run and taxpayer-funded news (propaganda) outlet: "I frankly learned about the memo from press reports late Monday."
He made this incredible claim despite the fact that two employees had already been hired; that "a governance board of communications directors" had been established; that a draft story had already been circulated; and that Pence himself had tweeted about it.
And he claimed that he learned about it from the media, just as he is claiming now.
This is his go-to move to try to disassociate himself from troubling stories that go public via leaks. He feigns ignorance, because it's preferable to look like he's out of the loop than intractably corrupt.
Pence is a snake. And every single reporter covering this denial needs to contextualize it with his history of saying precisely the same thing: "Who me?! Oh geez, I found out about it from the news."
The fuck he did.
