Suggested by Shaker bellist: "What book from a minority viewpoint would you recommend that you can hand to an ally and say, 'This is what my life is like; these are the day-to-day micro (or macro) aggressions I have to put up with. Read it and learn.'?"
I don't have a good answer to this question. I think the fact that I don't is why I wrote the Terrible Bargain.
Question of the Day
Your Best Photograph
If you're a photographer, even if a very amateur one (like myself), and you've got a photo or photos you'd like to share, here's your thread for that!
It doesn't really have to be your best photograph—just one you like!
Please be sure if your photo contains people other than yourself, that you have the explicit consent of the people in the photos before posting them.
* * *
I snapped this while trying to get a good photo of a beautiful hair clip I just bought recently. Didn't get a good picture of the clip at all, lol, but I liked the way this turned out all the same!
(I eventually managed to get a slightly better pic, which was a total inception selfie, to boot.)
An Observation
[Content Note: Sexual assault.]
Dudes out here whining about how the inclusion of too many female characters is ruining Star Wars for them, while I can't watch fucking Parks and Recreation anymore because Chris Pratt, Louis CK, and Aziz Ansari are all goddamn sex abusers.
Cry me a fucking river.
Constantly Breaking News: Trump Is Terrible for Women
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
This is a very good piece by Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: How Has Donald Trump's First Year Affected Women?
In it, Siddiqui details many of the policies directly and negatively affecting women in the U.S., and also how a misogynist agenda is inspiring women to fight back.
It's accurate, if incomplete — which is no criticism of Siddiqui. Trying to encapsulate in a single article the Trump-Pence agenda's every attack on women — and trans men, and many genderqueer and intersex people, in the process — over the last year would be genuinely impossible.
Especially because every bit of his governing malice, from economic policy to immigration policy to healthcare policy and beyond, affects women just as much as, if not more than in many cases, it affects men. Particularly women with multiple axes of marginalization.
And then there is this: One of the major ways that Trump's first year has affected progressive women, profoundly, is by adding an absolutely enormous amount of stress and anxiety to our lives.
It's not just what's happening every goddamn day, the relentless drumbeat of cruelty and corruption and incompetence, but the constant worry about what will happen tomorrow. And the day after that. And in the coming weeks and the next year and the time to follow.
What will happen to our country? To the world? What will happen to me? To my family?
And when I am not busy fretting, I am busy being full of rage and full of grief, and wondering what I can do to not feel so frustratingly impotent, unable to make a meaningful difference as so much I value slips away.
And a constant thread of resentment runs through my every waking hour. I am bitter about who isn't our president, and about who is.
Approximately 15 times every day, I think to myself: Goddammit I'm furious we even have to talk about this! Trump's presidency has debased all of us.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 12, 2018
And I am so fucking sad, so much of the time, because I cannot stop, nor do I want to, thinking about the people who are being harmed by this presidency, by this president and his reprehensible party.
There are days, many of them, when I feel I won't be able take another day of it. I know all too well that I am not alone.
We Resist: Day 364
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) 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: Trump Is Making America a Pariah.
I don’t know if the government is going to shut down on Friday. But judging by the mood among Dems lately this is the likeliest it’s felt since September 2013.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 18, 2018
[Content Note: Disablist language] So, we're barreling toward a government shutdown, because the Republican Party is hot garbage. At least one Democratic Senator is bluntly calling it like it is:
Quick timeline: Last year POTUS actually says “we need a good shutdown.” Then, DACA is revoked. Then, CHIP expires. Then, no deal on budget. Republicans set multiple fires that they cannot put out. We are willing to work with them , but it’s impossible when they act this crazy.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 17, 2018
Speaking of CHIP:
BREAKING: Trump has just said he opposes CHIP as part of a CR to keep the government open.
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) January 18, 2018
Malice is the governing directive of Trump policy. And chaos is its beating heart. Alice Ollstein at TPM: Trump Blows Up Republican Plan to Blame Democrats for Blocking CHIP.
As of Wednesday, amid internal GOP divisions on a spending bill and a potential shutdown looming Friday night, House Republicans had coalesced around a strategy: Accuse Democrats planning to vote no because the plan doesn't include relief for 700,000 young immigrants of deliberately blocking the renewal of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).A mess deliberately created by the Republican Party. And then Trump went and rolled around in that mess with the same gusto that my dog rolls around in anything stinky.
On Thursday morning, [Donald] Trump torched that strategy with a single tweet, indicating that CHIP should not be attached to the short-term spending bill at all.
The declaration [that "CHIP should be part of a long term solution"] upends 11th-hour negotiations on Capitol Hill that were already teetering on the edge of collapse due both to Democratic opposition and internal Republican divisions.
The far-right Freedom Caucus says they have more than enough "no" votes to block the passage of a short-term deal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) openly admitted Wednesday that he has no idea what [Donald] Trump wants or would sign when it comes to immigration. Each day, more Senate Republicans declare their intent to vote against the continuing resolution.
"It's a mess," Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) told reporters, exiting a closed-door lunch with the GOP caucus on Wednesday.
Anyway, this continues to be evergreen.
Fuck every single person who said or implied there was no difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 15, 2017
* * *
Everything is fine. (Everything is not fine.)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Americans should be "sober" about possibility of conflict with North Korea https://t.co/VFpUFfhkr9 pic.twitter.com/XXrLWN1EN7
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 17, 2018
WARNING: This is a serious intelligence indicator. Obviously Mattis/Tillerson have orders to plan & prepare to strike North Korea. A “Bloody nose” attack would lead to total nuclear, bio & chemical war in Korea. It’s Insane. https://t.co/mUVTJlODH8
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 18, 2018
We are being governed by people who refuse to give healthcare to children and are actively hunting for a devastating global war. What the entire fuck. Sob.
* * *
Danica Coto at the AP: U.S. Withholds Hurricane Emergency Loan Sought by Puerto Rico. "A billion-dollar emergency loan approved by Congress to help Puerto Rico deal with the effects of Hurricane Maria has been temporarily withheld by federal officials who say the U.S. territory is not facing a cash shortage like it has repeatedly warned about in recent months. ...Federal officials said the U.S. government will create a cash balance policy to determine when the funds will be released via the Community Disaster Loan Program. They said in the letter that the cash balance level will be decided on by the federal government in consultation with Puerto Rico officials and a federal control board overseeing the island's finances. Once the central cash balance decreases to that level, the funds will be released, officials said." Unfuckingreal.
Matt Shuham at TPM: Acting CFPB Director Mulvaney Requests No Quarterly Funding. "Mick Mulvaney, the Trump-appointed acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, asked for zero dollars in his quarterly budget request Wednesday. In a letter obtained by TPM, Mulvaney told Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that '[s]imply put, I have been assured that the funds currently in the Bureau Fund are sufficient' to last the quarter. ...The move is unprecedented: The consumer watchdog agency has reliably asked the Fed for tens of millions of dollars quarterly to cover its operating expenses. The requests have topped $200 million four times, and have never been rejected."
Ed O'Keefe at the Washington Post: Trump Pushes Back on Chief of Staff Claims That Border Wall Pledges 'Uninformed'.
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that some of the hard-line immigration policies [Donald] Trump advocated during the campaign were "uninformed," that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border, and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting."Mixed signals." That's an unnecessarily polite way of saying the President of the United States is completely incoherent and has no fucking idea what he is talking about on any policy, ever.
The comments were out of sync with remarks by Trump, who in recent days has reiterated his desire to build a border wall that would be funded by Mexico "indirectly through NAFTA."
Trump amplified this stance Thursday in back-to-back tweets that called the North American Free Trade Agreement "a bad joke" and asserted that reworked trade deals with Mexico would somehow pay for the wall "directly or indirectly."
"The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water," Trump wrote.
"The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S.," Trump continued. "The $20 billion dollar Wall is 'peanuts' compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!"
The mixed signals underscore the difficulty congressional Republicans have faced as they have tried to decipher what the president wants in an immigration deal.
Also, he is a liar. As usual. E.A. Crunden at ThinkProgress: Trump Claims His Stance on the Border Wall Hasn't Changed; His Own Record Proves That's Not True. "The president has often promised a 'big, beautiful wall,' but the specifics of that project have never been entirely clear. The wall, which poses a number of environmental, logistical, and financial obstacles, is all but impossible to build in the style Trump wants. The president has also seemed to shift his stance dramatically at times, saying that the wall is more of a symbolic gesture, rather than a literal proposal."
Peter Stone and Greg Gordon at McClatchy: FBI Investigating Whether Russian Money Went to NRA to Help Trump. "The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections."
This is, of course, not the first time the NRA has been suspected of having worked with the Kremlin to influence the election.
Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: House Intel Will Release Fusion GPS Interview Transcript. "The House Intelligence Committee will release the transcript of its interview with Glenn Simpson, the head of controversial research firm Fusion GPS, The Daily Beast has learned. The transcript could be released as soon as today. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat, has called for the release of the transcript. Fusion GPS's co-founder has also called for its release." Good.
* * *
[CN: Sexual assault; descriptions of sexual violence; rape apologia. Covers entire section.]
Rebecca Ratcliffe at the Guardian: Sexual Harassment and Assault Rife at United Nations, Staff Claim. "The United Nations has allowed sexual harassment and assault to flourish in its offices around the world, with accusers ignored and perpetrators free to act with impunity, the Guardian has been told. Dozens of current and former UN employees described a culture of silence across the organisation and a flawed grievance system that is stacked against victims. Of the employees interviewed, 15 said they had experienced or reported sexual harassment or assault within the past five years. The alleged offences ranged from verbal harassment to rape. Seven of the women had formally reported what happened, a route that campaigners say is rarely pursued by victims for fear of losing their job, or in the belief that no action will be taken."
Kim Kozlowski at the Detroit News: What MSU Knew: 14 Were Warned of Nassar Abuse. "Reports of sexual misconduct by Dr. Larry Nassar reached at least 14 Michigan State University representatives in the two decades before his arrest, with no fewer than eight women reporting his actions, a Detroit News investigation has found. Among those notified was MSU President Lou Anna Simon, who was informed in 2014 that a Title IX complaint and a police report had been filed against an unnamed physician, she told The News on Wednesday. ...Among the others who were aware of alleged abuse were athletic trainers, assistant coaches, a university police detective, and an official who is now MSU's assistant general counsel, according to university records and accounts of victims who spoke to The News. Collectively, the accounts show MSU missed multiple opportunities over two decades to stop Nassar, a graduate of its osteopathic medical school who became a renowned doctor but went on to molest scores of girls and women under the guise of treating them for pain."
Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: Sex-Abuse Doc Larry Nassar Complains His Victims' Impact Statements Are Too Harsh. "Former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sexual assault, complained Thursday that he cannot stand the stress of listening to dozens of young women cry and scream at him for what he did. 'I didn't orchestrate this. You did,' Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sternly replied to Nassar... 'You may find it harsh that you're here listening, but nothing is as harsh as what victims endured in your hands,' she added." Fuckkkkkkkkk that guy.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Dylan Farrow Details Her Sexual Assault Allegations Against Woody Allen. That is the full transcript to the video embedded in the tweet below.
The urgency and courage of @realdylanfarrow in this interview is something. I believe her now, and I have believed her always. https://t.co/Oj4X85vQyl
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2018
You know what else is something? That clip of Woody Allen, in which he says that if he'd wanted to be a child molester, he'd had plenty of opportunities. That is not something a decent person would say.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2018
It does, however, sound like something a person who had recently begun "an affair" with his own stepdaughter would say, though.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2018
Kaiser at Celebitchy: James Franco Will Attend Sunday's SAGs; He's 'Reaching out to Former Girlfriends,' Too. "[H]e's trying to make calls behind-the-scenes to make sure that no one is going to expose him even further. 'James Franco is digging into his past in the wake of allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior. 'James has been reaching out to former girlfriends for the past month asking about his behavior,' a source tells PEOPLE. 'He's known this was coming and was trying to get ahead of the story.'' ...I wonder how those calls will go. 'Look, if People Magazine or The Hollywood Reporter calls you, what will you say? Oh, I don't remember it that way. Hey, can I buy you a new car?' That's exactly what's happening." Probably. And no matter what the exact content of those calls, it's gross he's even making them. Yikes.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
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!
Trump Is Making America a Pariah
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to "Make America Great Again," which, in his first year in office, he has utterly failed to do by any reasonable metric — and always will, since his idea of "greatness" is terrible.
He has, however, Made America Garbage Around the World. #MAGAW
Julian Borger at the Guardian reports:
Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll.Surely this cannot come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about world affairs. Presumably, that includes most members of the U.S. political press, and yet they treated the last presidential election like it was a fucking game and treated Donald Trump like he was an entertaining clown, instead of a reckless authoritarian who would never do anything else but plunge the United States into chaos and despair were he to reach the Oval Office.
The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump — the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago.
The result comes after a separate Gallup survey found that Trump reaches the first anniversary of his inauguration with the lowest average approval rating of any elected president in his first year.
...The latest study confirms some of the worst fears of foreign policy analysts in the US and Europe that Trump's "America first" approach, combined with his volatile and irascible personality, is weakening cohesion among western democracies in the face of a growing challenge from autocracies in Russia and China, and the rise of illiberal democracies and xenophobic nationalism inside Europe.
Germany is now seen as a global leader by many more people (41% of the sample), with China in second place on 31%. Russia has 27% approval for its global role according to the poll.
In just under half of the world's countries — 65 out of 134 — US standing collapsed, by 10 percentage points or more. Some of the biggest losses were among Washington's closest allies in western Europe, Australia, and Latin America.
One of the sharpest declines in confidence in US leadership was in the UK, where it dropped by 26 percentage points. A third of Britons questioned in the new poll expressed approval, with 63% voicing disapproval.
"This year marks a significant change in our trends," wrote Gallup's managing partner, Jon Clifton. "Only 30% of the world, on average, approves of the job performance of the US's leadership, down from 48% in 2016. In fact, more people now disapprove of US leadership than approve. This historic low puts the US's leadership approval rating on par with China's and sets a new bar for disapproval."
And, yes, we cannot underestimate the role that Russia played in elevating him to that position, not to mention millions of bigoted Americans who cast votes for him, but the fact that this inevitable result of a Trump presidency was not the centerpiece of all discussion around Trump's candidacy, rather than an inexplicable bid to normalize his radical extremism, accompanied by the humiliation as hysterics of the people who did predict this and followed by the relentless admonishments to "give him a chance" once he was elected, is a shame on the U.S. political press which should never be forgotten.
Hello, Stranger
"I'll be right back."
"I'll be right here."
I sat in the car and watched Iain as he walked across the parking lot to a store where he had to return something. His gait was so familiar to me — his long strides; his shoulders hunched against the cold.
I tried to force myself to forget that I knew him, in order to imagine what I would think if I were looking at a stranger.
He probably wouldn't even register at all, like the other man strolling past him in the parking lot hadn't registered to me, until just that moment. Like I wouldn't register to Iain, if he passed me on the street as a stranger. Just two nondescript, middle-aged people, like millions of others.
Iain disappeared into the store.
Maybe, I thought, if he were a stranger, holding a door for me, or I a stranger holding a door for him. If we paused long enough to smile at one another and say thank you. Maybe I'd notice the laugh lines around his eyes; the freckles scattered across his forehead.
But probably not. Even when I smile at someone holding a door for me, even when I pause to say thank you, I don't really see them. They don't really see me, either. Not in a cruel way; just in the way of people going about their business quickly, with purpose other than finding intimacy with strangers.
If I encountered Iain as a stranger, I thought, the truth is that I probably wouldn't think anything about him at all.
As the faintest gauze of melancholy began to lay itself upon me, at the thought of this world in which I didn't know him, Iain appeared once again, bursting through the swinging doors of the store with a grin and a wave.
Every inch of him seemed to glow with familiarity. His hair, his posture, his elbows stuck out as hands were plunged into pockets. I felt the force of knowing him — the things that make him laugh, the way his arms feel when they're wrapped around me, what he wants for dinner after a hard day.
I know him, I thought, with surety and gratitude. The knowledge of this person, so vast and comprehensive, filled my heart, and tears sprang to my eyes.
I could no longer even try to imagine him as a stranger. We have not been strangers to each other for a very long time.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Calinaponisle7: "What is your favorite new/current flavor or combination of flavors? How did you come across it?"
Chocolate + citrus.
Orange especially, but also lemon, lime, grapefruit, kumquat — any of 'em.
I don't have a memory of first coming across the combination, but I suppose, like lots of kids, it was probably the first time I had a Tootsie Roll, which is basically chocolate orange.
Terry's Chocolate Orange is my favorite, though. YUM.
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by panthers.
Recommended Reading:
Jessica Testa at BuzzFeed: [Content Note: Misogyny] She's 17 and Wants to Be a Politician; Her Dad Says He Won't Vote for Her.
Chauncey DeVega at His Eponymous Blog: [CN: White supremacy; nativism] White Supremacists Know That Donald Trump Shares Their Political Dreams and Goals
Andy Towle at Towleroad: Cory Booker Explodes at DHS Secretary for Inability to Recall Whether Trump Said 'Shithole'
Andrea Grimes at Medium: [CN: Sexual assault; rape apologia] Stop Waiting for the Real Aziz Ansari
Erica C. Barnett at The C Is for Crank: [CN: Sexual assault; rape apologia] Before We Defend Aziz Ansari, Perhaps Some Critical Thinking Is in Order
Brent Lang at Variety: [CN: Discussion of rape in film] Keira Knightley on Colette, Pushing for Social Change, and If She'll Ever Direct
Ragen Chastain at Dances with Fat: [CN: Fat hatred] Roxane Gay, Midwest Writer's Workshop, and Breaking the Silence of Fatphobia
Fannie Wolfe at Fannie's Room: On "Fragility" and Boundaries
Transgender Law Center: New Trans Youth Storytelling Platform Will Connect Voices and Experiences Across the U.S.
Stephan Salisbury via philly.com at Good Black News: Philadelphia Museum of Art Acquires Quilts, Sculptures, and Other Works by African American Artists from the South
Vivian Kane at the Mary Sue: Trailer for Won't You Be My Neighbor? Explores What Made Mister Rogers' Neighborhood So Magical
Sameer Rao at Colorlines: Meshell Ndegeocello Unveils Heartbreaking Cover of Prince Classic, "Sometimes It Snows in April"
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
The What Happened Book Club
This is the thirteenth 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 Thirteen: Those Damn Emails.
* * *
This chapter was so obligatory and unfun that even Hillary Clinton herself recommended skipping it. Which I very nearly did.
I will confess I laughed out loud at her opening paragraphs:
Imagine you're a kid sitting in a history class thirty years from now learning about the 2016 presidential election, which brought to power the least experienced, least knowledgeable, least competent President our country has ever had. Something must have gone horribly wrong, you think. Then you hear that one issue dominated press coverage and public debate in that race more than any other. "Climate change?" you ask. "Health care?"I don't even know what I can say about this chapter and its subject that I haven't already said a dozen times, so I will simply make this observation and then we can all just head to comments to scream, commiserate, and pass around a virtual bottle of gin: If it hadn't been HER EMAILS, it would've been something else.
"No," your teacher responds. "Emails."
Emails, she explains, were a primitive form of electronic communication that used to be all the rage. And the dumb decision by one presidential candidate to use a personal email account at the office — as many senior government officials had done in the past (and continued to do) — got more coverage than any other issue in the whole race. In fact, if you had turned on a network newscast in 2016, you were three times more likely to hear about those emails than about all the real issues combined.
One of the biggest lies that is told by the political press about the 2016 election, which naturally gets told in defense of their own shitty coverage, is: Hillary Clinton's emails wouldn't have been a story if only she hadn't— AND I'M GONNA STOP YA RIGHT THERE BECAUSE THIS IS BULLSHIT AND I CAN'T LISTEN TO IT ANYMORE.
The truth is that if it hadn't been her decision to use a private server, it would have been something else. Something equally as insignificant spuriously elevated to the level of CRITICAL ISSUE by an identical use of ceaseless repetition.
There was always going to be some manufactured scandal used to compete with the relentless exposure of foibles, flaws, failures, and outright fuckery of her Republican opponent.
And then the same press bitterly complains that she hasn't sufficiently apologized.
Yeah, well, neither have they. And, unlike Hillary Clinton, they actually have something for which to fucking apologize.
May MRAs' Misogyny Ruin Everything for Them Always
For many years now, we've had to listen to Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and sundry other manbabies whine that everything from casting Idris Elba as Heimdall to an all-female Ghostbusters reboot was retroactively ruining their childhoods.
Naturally, the current Star Wars sequels (and prequels) are driving MRAs to distraction with their shameless inclusion of people of color and MULTIPLE WOMEN OMGGGGGG.
So, some righteously outraged dude re-cut The Last Jedi to remove all the women:
According to Pedestrian, an anonymous user uploaded a film called "The Last Jedi: De-Feminized Fanedit" to Pirate Bay on Sunday, referring to the person as an "MRA," or "Men's Rights Activist." Just in case the video's intent was unclear, the MRA in question also titled it "The Chauvinist Cut."Some people have posited that the misogynist fan edit was created by someone doing a mighty impression of an MRA, rather than an actual MRA, to which I'd say where's the joke and what is it even, since some dipshit claimed responsibility "for tanking the Rotten Tomatoes audience score" of The Last Jedi, because girls have cooties. For real.
Where would the new Star Wars movie be without its many powerful female figures? At least this one guy wants to know, because he's so unhappy with The Last Jedi that he turned the 152-minute movie into a 46-minute episode of men doing things in space. The user describes the cut as "basically The Last Jedi minus Girlz Powah and other silly stuff."
The point is, if it's supposed to be a parody of MRAs, it's indistinguishable from actual content produced by MRAs, many of whom are no doubt enjoying this woman-free version at this very moment. It's real enough, no matter who created it.
Which doesn't mean it's still not a fucking joke, of course!
All the best folks are laughing at it, in fact. Like the director of The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson.
Priscilla hits all the major points here but I’ll just add hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha https://t.co/f0bKJ9NeUe
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 16, 2018
And Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill.
Agreed. But let me add
— @HamillHimself (@HamillHimself) January 16, 2018
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣- mh https://t.co/H3jacep5sU
And John "Finn" Boyega.
Great points. Hope it’s okay to make a final point...
— John Boyega (@JohnBoyega) January 16, 2018
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 https://t.co/YnXFrjW47r
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! All I can say is:
If your delicate eyes being subjected to people of color and GASP! multiple women in the Star Wars universe retroactively ruins your childhood, I can only imagine that being laughed at by LUKE SKYWALKER destroys your whole life. https://t.co/bLhLbKBoih
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 17, 2018
GOOD.
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 363
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) 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.
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Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Maybe Let's Not Empower Trump to Use Nukes and Trump Administration Revives the "Conscience Clause".
Remember how Steve Bannon was scheduled to testify yesterday before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election? Yeah, well, it went great! (It did not go great.)
MORE NEWS: Top Dem on the committee, @RepAdamSchiff, says after committee subpoenaed, Bannon’s lawyer contacted the White House, which “doubled down” on demand he not answer questions.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 17, 2018
BREAKING: AP Sources: Steve Bannon attorney relayed questions to White House during House interview, was told when not to respond.
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 17, 2018
I love how 13 days ago, Trump issued a statement that said, in part, "Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination." Now that lowly "staffer" is so important that the White House has to control his response to Congressional questioning!
Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: Steve Bannon Will Tell All to Robert Mueller, Source Says. "Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon broke some bad news to House investigators Tuesday, announcing that the White House had invoked executive privilege to keep him from answering many of their questions. But executive privilege — the president's right to keep certain information from the public so he can have frank conversations with aides — will not keep Steve Bannon from sharing information with special counsel Robert Mueller's team, according to a person familiar with the situation. 'Mueller will hear everything Bannon has to say,' said the source, who is familiar with Bannon's thinking."
I'll believe that when I read about it in actual unredacted transcripts issued by Bob Mueller's office.
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Eric Trump is famously not very bright. But this was pretty disastrous even by the rock bottom standards he's set for himself:
Eric Trump on his father: "He is the least racist person I have ever met in my entire life."
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) January 17, 2018
Eric Trump says his wife Lara, his infant son, his brother Don Jr., his sister Ivanka, his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, his sister Tiffany, his brother Barron, his nieces and nephews, his mother Ivana, and First Lady Melania Trump are all more racist than Donald Trump. https://t.co/c2tNOACFdC
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 17, 2018
Presumably not a complete list of everyone Eric Trump has ever met in his entire life.
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In yet another example of how decent and competent people don't want to work for or with the Trump administration, so we're increasingly governed by unethical shitheads... Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post: Nearly All Members of National Park Service Advisory Panel Resign in Frustration. "More than three-quarters of the members of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service have quit out of frustration that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year. The resignation of 10 out of 12 National Park System Advisory Board members leaves the federal government without a functioning body to designate national historic or natural landmarks." Welp.
Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier at BuzzFeed: Investigators Are Scrutinizing Newly Uncovered Payments by the Russian Embassy.
Officials investigating the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 US presidential election are scrutinizing newly uncovered financial transactions between the Russian government and people or businesses inside the United States.One of the transactions being investigated is a $120,000 payment made to former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak ten days after the election of Donald Trump. JFC.
Records exclusively reviewed by BuzzFeed News also show years of Russian financial activity within the US that bankers and federal law enforcement officials deemed suspicious, raising concerns about how the Kremlin's diplomats operated here long before the 2016 election.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team, charged with investigating Russian election interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, is examining these transactions and others by Russian diplomatic personnel, according to a US official with knowledge of the inquiry. The special counsel has broad authority to investigate "any matters" that "may arise" from his investigation, and the official said Mueller's probe is following leads on suspicious Russian financial activity that may range far beyond the election.
In Touch has published a report that Stormy Daniels, the woman whom Donald Trump is alleged to have paid off to keep silent, had an affair with Trump soon after First Lady Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron. At ThinkProgress, Judd Legum explains why this story matters, and, to my mind, this is the most important point: "The story suggests Trump is vulnerable to blackmail and extortion. According to reports, Daniels was able to extract a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about her affair with Trump. How many other women have stories about Trump that he does not want told? This is potentially a very dangerous predicament for a sitting president. ...Trump, reportedly, has things to hide and is willing to go to substantial lengths to hide them."
[Content Note: Misogyny; class warfare] Heidi Shierholz, David Cooper, Julia Wolfe, and Ben Zipperer at the Economic Policy Institute: Women Would Lose $4.6 Billion in Earned Tips If the Administration's 'Tip Stealing' Rule Is Finalized. "The Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed a rule that would make it legal for employers to pocket their workers' tips, as long as they pay those workers at least the minimum wage. The proposed rule rescinds portions of longstanding DOL regulations that prohibit employers from taking tips. We estimate that if the rule is finalized, every year workers will lose $5.8 billion in tips, as tips are shifted from workers to employers. Of the $5.8 billion, nearly 80 percent — $4.6 billion — would be taken from women who are working in tipped jobs."
[CN: Nativism; white supremacy] Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani at ThinkProgress: Media Coverage of Trump's Claim That He Wants Immigrants from 'Everywhere' Is Laughable. "On Tuesday, Trump was asked by CNN's Jim Acosta whether he wants more immigrants from Norway. He replied that he actually wants immigrants from 'everywhere.' ...But without any actual evidence to support his claim, much of the media decided to take Trump's new comments on face value. 'Trump says he wants immigrants from 'everywhere,'' Reuters reported Tuesday, with no context of the president's previous rhetoric or policies before last week's report. CNN published another piece with the exact same headline, and again mentioned none of the president's previous rhetoric or policies. Even publications that offered some context published nearly identical headlines, which made it seem like a president who ran a virulently anti-immigration campaign and has implemented anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies as president, does indeed want to accept them now."
[CN: Nativism; abuse] Rory Carroll at the Guardian: U.S. Border Patrol Routinely Sabotages Water Left for Migrants, Report Says. "United States border patrol agents routinely vandalise containers of water and other supplies left in the Arizona desert for migrants, condemning people to die of thirst in baking temperatures, according to two humanitarian groups. In a report published Wednesday, the Tucson-based groups said the agents committed the alleged sabotage with impunity in an attempt to deter and punish people who illegally cross from Mexico. Volunteers found water gallons vandalised 415 times, on average twice a week, in an 800 sq mile patch of Sonoran desert south-west of Tucson, from March 2012 to December 2015, the report said. The damage affected 3,586 gallons. The report also accused border patrol agents of vandalising food and blankets and harassing volunteers in the field."
[CN: Nativism; sexual assault; self-harm] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: Migrant Attempts Suicide After Forced to Interact with Alleged Abuser. "An asylum-seeking Salvadoran woman, whose allegations of repeated sexual assault by a guard at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Texas went largely ignored, has attempted suicide. Laura Monterrosa, who has been detained at Hutto since May 2017 and alleges her abuse began in June, first went public with her allegations in November, leading to a supposed investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Williamson County Sheriff's Office. In the days that followed, other women detained inside Hutto came forward with allegations of abuse. But after two interviews with officials from ICE and Williamson County in which there was a language barrier and Monterrosa initially wasn't allowed access to counsel, ICE unceremoniously announced that it found Monterrosa's allegations to be 'unsubstantiated.' The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has since confirmed it intervened in the investigation of sexual assault allegations emerging from the long-troubled detention center."
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[CN: Fat hatred; body shaming] Finally, this is a very good piece by Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Stop Talking About Trump's Weight. "Focusing on his size is a distraction from all of the other pressing issues with his presidency, and doesn't hurt Trump nearly as much as it hurts anyone else who is fat, uncomfortable in their own skin, or struggling with their body image in any way."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Trump Administration Revives the "Conscience Clause"
[Content Note: Misogyny; transphobia; homophobia; fat hatred; disablism.]
The Trump administration, by which I mean Mike Pence, loves the old culture wars so much that he's pulled up one of its Greatest Hits on the ol' jukebox of horrors: The Conscience Clause.
Dan Diamond and Jennifer Haberkorn at Politico: Trump to Shield Health Care Workers Who Claim Moral Objections.
The Trump administration is planning new protections for health workers who don't want to perform abortions, refuse to treat transgender patients based on their gender identity. or provide other services for which they have moral objections.This was a constant fight during the Bush administration. (One against then-Senator Hillary Clinton fought vehemently. Cough.) And no matter how sophisticated the language — Republicans have since largely abandoned the term "conscience clause" and have significantly toned down the religious rhetoric on this subject — it's still a garbage position that privileges a very specific brand of conservative Christianity in direct violation of the mandate to "do no harm."
Under a proposed rule — which has been closely guarded at HHS and is now under review by the White House — the HHS office in charge of civil rights would be empowered to further shield these workers and punish organizations that don't allow them to express their moral objections, according to sources on and off the Hill.
...The pending rule, which could be released as soon as this week, has been described to POLITICO as establishing a new "division" of the HHS civil rights office that would conduct compliance reviews, audits, and other enforcement actions to ensure that health care providers are allowing workers to opt out of procedures when they have religious or moral objections.
For more than a decade, healthcare providers who subscribe to the particular iteration of Christianity that gives them religious cover for their existing bigotries, have insisted that not being able to refuse to provide care to certain patients — abortion-seeking women, transgender people, gay/bi people — leaves them with "no choice," complaining that "the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills, or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible."
(And what they find "morally reprehensible" will ever expand to include people of whose "lifestyle choices" they don't approve: Fat patients, addicts, alcoholics, smokers, people with chronic pain they decide are "pill-seeking.")
Only in an environment where "freedom of religion" is deliberately misconstrued to mean "the right of a single strand of conservative Christianity to not have to follow the rules everyone else does" could an expectation to provide legal healthcare services constitute religious discrimination. Only in this atmosphere could not being able to pick and choose which patients you want to serve, thusly redefining your entire profession on your own terms, be considered tantamount to having no choice at all.
Here's your choice: Do what you were hired to do or get another fucking job.
This culture of victimhood among conservative Christians is ridiculous in the extreme. It is predicated on the flawed assertions that their version of Christianity is the only version, and that it is the exclusive source from which morality can be derived.
The morality of all other Christians, all people of other religions, and all irreligious people must be diligently ignored — particularly those traditions in which there is an obligation to provide care to all people.
If those equally valid beliefs were not erased from all public conversation, the barking dipshits who equate oppression with a requirement of compliance with one's basic job description might have to face the reality that there's not some insidious siege upon religious freedom, but instead just a minority group whose religious beliefs make them intrinsically unfit to hold positions as healthcare providers.
They want to have their cake (opposition to certain healthcare procedures) and eat it, too (be healthcare providers free to decline patients of their choosing). But it just doesn't work that way.
A marketing exec for Phillip Morris who's lost a parent to lung cancer and decides that hawking smokes is "morally reprehensible" doesn't get paid to sit in her office doing nothing. She finds a way to navigate doing a job that she finds objectionable but provides a living, or she finds another job.
If you sign up to be a healthcare provider, you bloody well provide healthcare.
It's no one else's responsibility to indulge your conscience — especially not a patient whose very life might depend on your fulfilling the functions you were hired to do.
The vile irony of this trash is that asking for on-the-job exemptions from primary duties based on religious beliefs is nothing less than the "special rights" conservatives are incessantly accusing the LGBTQ community, women, and other marginalized populations of seeking.
But we just want baseline equality. Christians who want to use their interpretation of the Bible to rewrite their job descriptions want an inequality that caters to their personal whims.
It's bad enough when it's some asshole who doesn't want to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples or bake a cake for their wedding, but "conscience clauses" in the field of medicine, where lives depend on people who don't hesitate, who put patients' needs before their own desires, such a willful dereliction of duty is thoroughly contemptible.
It is immoral. It will be deadly.
Maybe Let's Not Empower Trump to Use Nukes
Hey, remember when I said that today was going to suck in at least three different ways? Yeah, well, here's number one.
Last Wednesday, I linked to a report at the Guardian that the Trump administration was developing a plan "to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for U.S. Trident missiles."
On Friday, I linked to a report at the Huffington Post reviewing a draft document of the Nuclear Posture Review, authored by the Pentagon, which indeed called for expanded nuclear capacity.
Today, David E. Sanger and William J. Broad at the New York Times provide additional details on the draft document, under the blunt headline: "Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks with Nuclear Arms."
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to [Donald] Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.I have a number of significant concerns about this policy, including the fact that the source of cyberattacks is not always immediately clear. Sophisticated hackers can leave digital "fingerprints" that misdirect responsibility at a cursory glance, and it can take a lengthy forensic investigation to reveal the actual source.
For decades, American presidents have threatened "first use" of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country's power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons.
...It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.
"We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be," the draft document said. The Trump administration's new initiative, it continued, "realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment."
I have very little faith that an administration who believes it's reasonable to use nuclear weapons to respond to a cyberattack, even a devastating one, will have the patience to wait for definitive confirmation of the culprits.
Trump's itchy nuclear trigger finger could launch a nuke at entirely the wrong source — and the fact that our adversaries know this means that misdirection of sources is an even more likely scenario.
Indeed, it's a potential scenario so obvious that surely even the dipshits and scumbags comprising the Republican Congressional caucus can recognize it. And still they refuse to remove this dangerous tyrant before he kills countless people.
Hello. Here Is Three Minutes of a Grazing Wombat.
Look, I don't know exactly how today is going to go, but, if it's anything like any other day for approximately the past fifteen months, it's gonna suck in at least three different ways, so I figured it couldn't hurt to have three minutes of a grazing wombat to turn to, just in case anyone needs it.
Video Description: A small, brown, round wombat stands in a grassy patch near a stream on a slightly overcast day. The wombat grazes on the grass, munching contentedly. The wombat slowly moves in a circle, continuing to pull and eat blades of grass. This continues for three minutes.
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I would like to point out that the description on this video at YouTube reads: "What actually is a Wombat? To be honest I don't know. But they are cute! The only thing a Wombat does is eating, sleeping, and to make new Wombats! Sounds like a heavenly life, doesn't it?"
Yup!
In another video by this videographer and poet, the same wombat drinks from the stream, noms more grass, and then drinks more water from between some rocks while balancing on a wee grassy patch. The description on that video is: "I met this acrobatic Wombat at the Cradle Mountain National Park in Tasmania."
It is titled "The dancing wombat," and when someone in comments takes issue with the fact that the wombat doesn't appear to be dancing, the videographer replies, "It is dancing very slow." LOL.
