What part of your home is the least frequented? Is there a room you just never go into? A basement that you avoid? A guest room that you forget is there until you have a guest? A closet that you don't open just so you won't be reminded of the mess it contains? A chair in a corner in which no one ever sits?
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Privilege.]
"Hi Bernie Supporters. I'm writing to not just ask, but beg you to vote for Hillary in the General Election. ...The #NeverHillary crowd is incredibly privileged. A Trump Presidency would be a minor annoyance to white, middle-class, college educated progressives. ...To my community a Trump Presidency is an existential threat. Millions of Latino families will be torn apart. Muslim citizens would have their freedom of movement eliminated. ...If you really care about the future of the movement, you need to vote for Hillary to prevent Trump."—Anthony Flores, in a terrific piece, "Bernie Supporters: People of Color Need You to Vote for Hillary. And You're Going to Need Us."
As an aside, I think he (inadvertently) sounds a little cavalier about abortion access, when he says it's protected by Roe v. Wade, which elides the decimation of access on the state level. But he's right in the sense that abortion access will always be available to the people to whom he's writing this letter. It's the people on whose behalf he's writing it that most stand to risk further erosion of their reproductive rights, so, really, it's just another reason that the people at whom it's directed need to support Hillary Clinton, if they really care about people of color. As they have been insistently purporting.
What the F@#k Is This Article?!
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; dehumanization.]
Apparently not content with containing their misogyny to Hillary Clinton, Newsweek has published a profile of her chief aide, Huma Abedin—or, rather, what reads a lot more like a hit piece on both Abedin and Clinton, masquerading as a profile.
There is a whole lot to deconstruct here, and I'll leave it to you to tease out every shred of indecency in comments, but I just want to note some of the things that Newsweek evidently believe are okay things to say about a Muslim woman of color:
* "For most of the past 20 years, Huma Mahmood Abedin, now a vice chair of Hillary Clinton's campaign, has served as Clinton's 'body-woman'—basically a glorified lady's maid."
* "The perpetually lipsticked and soigné Abedin is elegant and gentle—qualities Clinton sometimes lacks—but also relentlessly obedient, a quality her boss treasures." (OBEDIENT. IS SHE A DOG?)
* "selfless servility"
* "She does some bag-schlepping, but her job has evolved: She carries her own purse (she has a collection of designer 'it' bags)."
* "Like her boss, Abedin has mastered the steely glare"
* "But after a career of being seen but not heard..." (OH COOL SHE'S BEEN UPGRADED FROM A DOG TO A CHILD)
* "From the wounded master who taught her everything she knows, she has learned that to be candid is to be crucified."
I mean. Wow.
Daily Dose of Cute
This is Dudley's subtle way of letting me know he'd like me to stop watching CNN and serve up his dinner now, please.
Video Description: Dudley the Greyhound stands at the far end of the dining room, looking at me. He does a dramatic play-bow, scratching at the floor, then spins in a circle. "What are you doing?!" I ask him with mock outrage. His ears go up. "What do you think you're doing, Dudley?" He stares at me. "What a goofball." He spins in a circle then gallops toward me. Spins! Gallops halfway back! Spins! Comes toward me! Gallops all the way back to the far side of the room. Stands and stares at me. "What a goofball!" He gallops back, pivots, gallops away again. Back and forth, back and forth. Matilda the Cat, sitting on a dining room chair, watches him go back and forth, her head turning like she's viewing a high-speed tennis match.
"Dramatic!" I tell him. He spins in a circle. "Dramatic dog." One ear goes up. "Do you want a little bone?" I ask him. ("Little bone" is what we call dog biscuits at Shakes Manor.) He gallops toward me, then races back and forth some more. Zelda comes into frame and sits beside me. When he comes back toward us, she play-bows at him. He runs away. "Go get him, Zelly!" I say. She runs the other direction, trying to entice him to chase her. But he is a greyhound on a mission.
Back and forth. He gallops back toward me then comes to a stop, panting, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He looks at me then takes off again.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
"If Hillary were a man, she would not be the same person she is."
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
I've got a new essay up at BNR on Donald Trump's imagining away Hillary Clinton's womanhood:
After both of them solidified their places as their respective parties' nominees, Donald Trump used his victory speech to go after Hillary Clinton: "Frankly," he mused, "if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote."Click on through to read the whole thing!
There's a lot wrong with that statement, not least of which is the embedded implication that being a woman is somehow beneficial in US politics—though the low percentages of women at every level and in every branch of government certainly does not bear that out, not to mention the little fact of our never having elected a female president.
But the most significant, if less obvious, problem with his statement is that it presupposes if Hillary were a man, she'd be the same person she is now—just with a different gender.
And that is fundamentally false, representing Trump's incomprehension of—or indifference to—how culture works. We do not grow up in a vacuum, but are socialized within a context steeped in oppressions that shape us.
I may literally write my actual damn fingers off by the end of this election. But I swear to the fates that I will not let up on calling out Trump on his misogyny and defending Clinton against misogyny when there is so much at stake in this election.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Misogyny] Former Speaker of the House John Boehner has some cool stuff to say about Ted Cruz: "Lucifer in the flesh. I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life." Yikes! LOL. During the same talk, he also went down the "woman card" route on Hillary Clinton, to a decided lack of enthusiasm: "On Clinton, Boehner's reviews were more mixed. Early in the talk, the speaker impersonated Clinton, saying 'Oh I'm a woman, vote for me,' to a negative crowd reaction. Later, he added that he had known Clinton for 25 years and finds her to be very accomplished and smart." Interesting, isn't it? Cruz's own colleagues can't find a single nice thing to say about him, but it's Hillary Clinton who's supposed to be the "unlikeable" one in this race. Even though people at a Boehner speaking event like her enough that they don't appreciate his mocking her. Huh.
Whooooooooooops! "Sanders is biggest spender of 2016 so far—generating millions for consultants." Wasn't there a candidate whose platform was centered around getting money out of politics? I was sure there was... "Sanders's money blitz, fueled by a $27 average donation that he repeatedly touts, has improbably made the anti-billionaire populist the biggest spender so far in the election cycle. The campaign's wealth has been a surprising boon for vendors across the county who signed on to his long-shot bid. The large profits stem in part from the fact that no one in Sanders's campaign imagined he would generate such enormous financial support. So unlike Clinton, he did not cap how much his consultants could earn in commissions from what was expected to be a bare-bones operation, according to campaign officials." Another perfect example of why it's not a good idea to put goofballs in charge of your national presidential campaign.
(I'll also point out that Sanders spending the most money disproves his own thesis. Money doesn't actually buy elections. He's losing. That's not, by the way, an argument against campaign finance reform. It's just an observation that money isn't everything. You still have to be the best candidate to win.)
[CN: Warmongering] "President Trump fills world leaders with fear: 'It's gone from funny to really scary.' Most of the world seems to agree a Donald Trump presidency is a disturbing possibility that would inflict unthinkable damage, Guardian reporters found." The world is understandably in disbelief that the US could even consider voting for this asshole. (P.S. It was never "funny.")
Meanwhile, at home: "Registration among Hispanic voters is skyrocketing in a presidential election cycle dominated by Donald Trump and loud GOP cries to close the border. Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials, projects 13.1 million Hispanics will vote nationwide in 2016, compared to 11.2 million in 2012 and 9.7 million in 2008. Many of those new Hispanic voters are also expected to vote against Trump if he is the Republican nominee, something that appears much more likely after the front-runner's sweeping primary victories Tuesday in five East Coast states. A whopping 80 percent of respondents in a poll of registered Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada said Trump's views on immigration made them less likely to vote for Republicans in November. In Florida, that number was 68 percent." I'm very excited that so many new Latinx voters are enrolling! But I wish it was only because they had something great to vote for, and not because they were scared that Trump will fuck their entire lives.
[CN: Misogyny; rape culture] In other Terrible Trumpery: Trump held a rally in Indianapolis yesterday, and got former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight to introduce him. If you're not familiar with Knight, he's a nightmare monster human who abused his players and had a massive anger management problem. Oh, and he loves saying shitty stuff about rape. While he introduced Trump, a guy was positioned directly behind him (campaigns are very involved in who is seated behind the podium at broadcast events) wearing a "Hillary for Prison" shirt. And once Trump came onstage, among his usual garbage fare, he bragged about having been endorsed by Mike Tyson, who was convincted of rape in Indiana. So, all around terrific event, basically.
And still more: Former cable host Campbell Brown says she blames TV for Trump. (Hey, so do I!) "My friends in the TV news business are in a state of despair about Donald Trump, even as their bosses in the boardroom are giddy over what he's doing for their once sagging ratings. 'It feels like it's over,' one old friend from my television days told me recently. Any hope of practicing real journalism on TV is really, finally finished. 'Look, we’ve always done a lot of stupid shit to get ratings. But now it's like we've just given up and literally handed over control hoping he'll save us. It's pathetic, and I feel like hell.' Said another friend covering the presidential campaign for cable news, 'I am swilling antidepressants trying to figure out what to do with my life when this is over.'"
[CN: Transphobia] GODDAMMIT: "On Tuesday night, the City Council of Oxford, Alabama unanimously approved a new ordinance that will punish individuals for using restrooms that do not match their biological sex as stated on their birth certificate. The policy is a direct response to Target indicating that trans people are welcome and will be respected in their stores. ...Anywhere within the city's police jurisdiction, it is now a criminal offense for transgender people to use restrooms that match their gender identity unless they have undergone surgery and successfully changed the gender marker on their birth certificate. Each individual violation will result in a $500 fine or up to six months in jail." I am just incandescently angry about this. I trust it won't survive a court challenge, but this is just unfathomably cruel in the meantime. JFC.
[CN: Police brutality; racism; guns] "A Baltimore police detective shot [14-year-old Dedric Colvin] in East Baltimore on Wednesday afternoon who he wrongly believed was carrying a semiautomatic pistol, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said. The boy suffered what police called non-life-threatening injuries to a 'lower extremity,' Davis said. The weapon turned out to be spring-air-powered BB gun—not a real firearm." So, like Tamir Rice, Dedric Colvin was playing with a toy gun. Plainclothes police officers spotted him, confronted him, he ran, they chased him, he told them it was a fake gun, and then they shot him. And then Colvin's mother was taken in for questioning. Thank Maude he was not killed. Naturally, the police are already victim-blaming, because of course they are.
[CN: Police brutality; racism] Meanwhile, in Oklahoma: "A jury found a sheriff's deputy guilty of second-degree manslaughter Wednesday in the fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect. Robert Bates, who was a volunteer reserve sheriff deputy for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office last year at the time of the shooting, never denied shooting Eric Courtney Harris. Bates, 74, said he meant to use his Taser stun gun, not his revolver, on the suspect, who had been tackled by other deputies and was being held on the ground. The jury deliberated less than three hours and recommended Bates serve four years in prison, the maximum possible sentence. Preliminary sentencing is set for May 31."
[CN: Rape culture] Also in Oklahoma: "An Oklahoma court has stunned local prosecutors with a declaration that state law doesn't criminalize oral sex with a victim who is completely unconscious. The ruling, a unanimous decision by the state's criminal appeals court, is sparking outrage among critics who say the judicial system was engaged in victim-blaming and buying outdated notions about rape." Rage seethe boil.
"Women would have to register for the draft under an amendment added to an annual defense bill Wednesday. 'If we want equality in this country, if we want women to be treated precisely like men are treated and that they should not be discriminated against, then we should support a universal conscription,' Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said. The House Armed Services Committee voted 32-30 to include the amendment in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). ...In 1981, the Supreme Court ruled that women did not have to register for the draft because combat jobs were closed to them. With that reason now moot, some lawmakers have argued women should now register. Others want women to remain exempt, while still others say this is the opportune time to abolish the draft altogether." All or nothing. I have super mixed feelings about the draft, because I don't want anyone drafted, but I also realize that the military is disproportionately staffed by people of color from low-income backgrounds, for whom the military is their best choice. Really, the answer is no more fucking wars. But that ain't up for a vote in the US.
[CN: Fat hatred; misogynoir; colorism] This is so, so good and important: "Bittersweet Like Me: When the Lemonade Ain't Made For Fat Black Women & Femmes." I'm not even going to excerpt it. Just go read the whole thing.
Paul Feig, y'all: "I've had producers lecture me: 'You don't want to get pigeonholed as a women's filmmaker. I'm like, what does that mean? If I did nothing else in my career but work with great women and provide great roles for them I would be very happy."
And finally! Baby Red River Hogs named after Star Wars characters! LOL YAY!
"Older women know they have value. It’s everyone else who seems to disagree."
[Content Note: Misogyny; ageism.]
I've got a new essay up at BNR on why many older women are enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton:
Older women occupy a very particular space in our culture—a space frequently defined by an abandonment of listening. Rather than valuing the lived experiences of older women, and the wisdom those lives have imparted, we turn away from them, dismissing them as irrelevant; we neglect to listen, just at the moment where they may offer insights most profoundly worth listening to.This is a really long one, and I'm super proud of it, so I hope you will head over to read the whole thing, and I hope you like it!
In her beautiful essay, "Listening to Old Women," Soraya Chemaly observes: "One day last year, I was thinking about the erasure of aging women in our culture and searched for the term 'venerable women.' I was curious about what images of wise and respected women the world produces. Google's seemingly baffled autocorrect responded, tellingly: 'Do you mean venerable men or vulnerable women?'"
We cast older women aside—and with them, their voices.
So it doesn't surprise me that there hasn't been much interest in exploring older women's support for Hillary, or what it might signify to them.
Women, of course, are not a monolith. Not all women support Hillary, and not all women who do support her do so for the same reasons.
But among the older women who support Hillary—and, depending on your own age, you may count my nearly 41-year-old self among them—are lots and lots of women who see in Hillary Clinton a direct challenge to the habit of tossing away older women, like so much useless rubbish.
Hillary has a voice. And people listen to it. She has experience, which people respect. She has knowledge, and it is widely valued.
This is not the typical experience of older women, who are devalued at the intersection of misogyny and ageism—and whatever other parts of their identity (race, disability, body size, sexuality, gender) are used to devalue us, too.
Witnessing Hillary, an older woman, fight her way to get into the most exclusive boys' club on the planet, and seeing her succeed, inching ever closer, is exciting. And more than that: It's validating.
Because older women know they have value. It's everyone else who seems to disagree.
An Observation
[Content Note: Gender essentialism; misogyny; transphobia.]
I cannot even deal with the breathtaking heinousness of the Republicans' double-edged gender essentialism. If you're a woman who has a vagina, you vote with it. If you're a woman who doesn't have a vagina, go fuck yourself—use the men's room.
STOPPPPPPPPP
[Content Note: Racism.]
This morning, Jane Sanders appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe, and was asked how she explains Bernie Sanders' failure to capture more support from people of color. This is how she responded:
I think if he was running against anybody but Hillary Clinton, who was the anointed one, who is the most well-known person that is running for office in this country and in the world— She has a good relationship with the African-American community that goes back decades. So that hurts us, helps her.Let me first note that the question was not specifically about Black voters; in fact, it was asked about minority communities leading up to the California primary, which clearly includes large Latinx and AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) populations.
So, Sanders first of all just ignored them completely, which, you know, might have something to do with the fact that her husband's campaign hasn't caught fire with a majority of voters from those communities.
Secondly, again with this persistent contention from Team Sanders that Black voters aren't thinking hard about their votes, but are just going along with Hillary Clinton because they don't know any better or haven't heard of Bernie Sanders.
Third, calling Clinton "the anointed one" is such gross bullshit.
Just another a day in the Sanders campaign. None of this even surprises me anymore. But I'm still angry about it. For fuck's sake.
Welp
Bernie Sanders isn't dropping out, and he continues to fundraise, but he's laying off hundreds of staffers:
The Vermont senator revealed the changes a day after losing four of the five states that voted Tuesday and falling further behind Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite the changes, Mr. Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party's summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved.My condolences to the people losing their jobs.
"We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around the country," Mr. Sanders said in the interview. "We don't need people right now in Connecticut. That election is over. We don't need them in Maryland. So what we are going to do is allocate our resources to the 14 contests that remain, and that means that we are going to be cutting back on staff."
When asked how many people would be let go, Mr. Sanders didn’t give an exact number but did say many people would be affected.
"It will be hundreds of staff members," Mr. Sanders said. "We have had a very large staff, which was designed to deal with 50 states in this country; 40 of the states are now behind us. So we have had a great staff, great people."
He added that he hoped to work with the people his campaign is letting go in the future.
"If we win this, every one of those great people who have helped us get this far, they will be rehired," Mr. Sanders said. "But right now, we have to use all of the resources we have and focus them on the remaining states."
He said his campaign's fund-raising was not suffering. "We are doing well, and it continues to be very strong," he said.
People can do whatever they want with their own money, but Sanders continuing to aggressively fundraise, while indulging this pretense—that many of his supporters believe—that he can still actually win the nomination, which he cannot, strikes me as not entirely ethical.
And he is still saying that: "We are in this campaign to win, but if we do not win, we intend to win every delegate we can, so that when we go to Philadelphia in July we are going to have the votes to put together the strongest progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen."
Meanwhile, his campaign manager Jeff Weaver is still peddling the narrative that they can straight-up win, saying "he still sees a 'mathematical possibility' of catching Clinton, saying Sanders is poised to go on a winning streak and will continue to try to convince the party's superdelegates that he would be the stronger Democratic candidate against Republican front-runner Donald Trump in the fall."
To be clear: At this point, "Sanders would need 107% of remaining delegates at stake in order to win the nomination."
Anyway. Like I said, people can do with their money whatever they want to do with it, but I just wish Sanders would be more honest about the investment they're making.
Question of the Day
Who is your favorite female TV character of all time? And how you establish that is up to you: It doesn't necessarily have to be the "most feminist" female character (although it can be!); it could be the female character who best represents your lived experiences, who reminds you of women who are important to you, who feels most familiar to you, who is the funniest, with whom you'd most want to have lunch, who you most aspire to be like, whatever!
Kids Today
Get ON my lawn! Where I will bring you the rehydration beverage of your choice:
A 12-year-old girl in New York has mistakenly run a half-marathon after she confused the start of the race with a five kilometre course she was supposed to be running.Her mother was very worried, but police found her running the half-marathon. "She just wanted to finish the race," her mom said, adding that LeeAdianez received a medal. ♥
LeeAdianez Rodriguez had registered for the 5km race that was part of last Sunday's Rochester Regional Health Flower City Challenge. She thought she was arriving late at the starting line when the race started, so she began running with the rest of the runners.
She was supposed to run the Wegmans Family 5km, which starts on the same bridge 15 minutes after the distance runners set off.
It turned out she was running with the half-marathoners on the 13.1-mile course and not in the 5km, or 3.1 miles. Rodriguez says she realized about halfway through that she was in the wrong race but decided to finish.
She completed the half-marathon in 2:43:31.
GOOD GRIEF
So, it's official: Ted Cruz, who has zero chance of winning the Republican nomination, has picked Carly Fiorina to be his running mate in the general election, in which he will not be running.
This is truly one of the most stupendously foolish ideas in this entire campaign season, and, I don't have to tell you, that's really saying something.
I didn't actually think it was possible for me to want to vote even less for Ted Cruz, but apparently it is!
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by grass trimmings.
Recommended Reading:
Heather: [Content Note: Misogyny] The Lean-In Industry
Sikivu: [CN: Sexual violence; rape apologia; misogynoir] Black Rage, Black Silence, & Sexual Violence
Juliana: Indigenous Movement Stops Construction of Brazilian Mega-Dam
Kiri: [CN: Colonialism; racism] Boris Wasn't Just Attacking Obama's Heritage; He Was Attacking Us All
Angelica: Amandla Stenberg Opens Up About Their Gender Identity
Charline: Is the Use of Mirrors in Films Gendered?
Veronica: [CN: Spoilers] Book Review: The Obsession
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
"Give me things!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
The Media Is Running Against Hillary Clinton, Too
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
I've got a new piece up at BNR about how the media is effectively working with Donald Trump to run against Hillary Clinton (and about how BNR is dedicated to calling it out):
There is much reporting today on Trump's sexist rhetoric during his victory speech (such as it was) last night, including his claim that, were Hillary a man, she wouldn't have gotten 5% of the vote—an incredible assertion embedded with the implication it's somehow easier to be a woman in US politics—and that all she has going for her is the "woman card."Click through to read the whole thing!
But in most of that reporting, one won't find much analysis of Trump's gendered rhetoric. Indeed, many news outlets will fail to even explicitly identify it as sexism.
...Many on the right will openly champion Trump's sexism. Not so among the corporate media, who resort to more subtle manifestations of the gender barrier: Unflattering photos, discredited tropes about "low enthusiasm" and "likability," diminishing the historical nature of Hillary's candidacy, commentary on her voice and appearance, treating the cost of her haircuts as a news story, highlighting the opinions of women who don't like her, as if women are a monolith.
And the failure to call Trump's sexism exactly what it is. Reporting it without comment, while he turns the presidential election into an epic battle of the sexes.
It will be pervasive, and it will be insidious. And we will be paying attention.
I'm really, really happy and proud to now be part of two teams who unapologetically center women in our coverage of politics, and who consider feminism an integral part of progressivism.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Bernie Sanders released a statement on yesterday's primary: "I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come." (I love how he says that like somehow she hasn't been focused on the issues. Note to Senator Sanders: Speech transcripts aren't actually a campaign issue.) He goes on with his new bailiwick: Open primaries. "I am proud that we were able to win a resounding victory tonight in Rhode Island, the one state with an open primary where independents had a say in the outcome. Democrats should recognize that the ticket with the best chance of winning this November must attract support from independents as well as Democrats. I am proud of my campaign's record in that regard." Dude, seriously, the Democratic Party is well aware of that. Closed primaries, whether you agree with them or not, are to make sure that Democratic voters are choosing the Democratic candidate. Because the party needs first and foremost their base to have maximum excitement about the candidate they put forth. It's not a general election. It's a Democratic primary.
Thanks, no doubt, in no small part to Sanders' now infusing his every speech with complaints about the primary process (even though he loves caucuses, which are the least Democratic aspect of it), along with Donald Trump's singing the same refrain, more than half of US voters now "believe that the system U.S. political parties use to pick their candidates for the White House is 'rigged' and more than two-thirds want to see the process changed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll." In need of reform and "rigged" are not the same thing. Possibly nothing makes it more plain that the system is not "rigged" than the fact that Obama won in '08. The winner wins.
Ted Cruz will reportedly "make a 'major announcement' at an afternoon rally" in Indianapolis today. Incredibly, it's probably not that he's dropping out. The rumor is that he will instead announce Carly Fiorina as his running mate should he get the nomination. Okay, player.
[Content Note: Misogyny] Donald Trump is the most disgusting Republican presidential candidate I have ever had the misfortune of covering, which is really saying something. This passage comes from a GQ profile of Melania Trump: "Melania is as fastidious a wife as she is a mother, which Donald appreciates. Things come easy with her. 'I work very hard from early in the morning till late in the evening,' Donald told Larry King in 2005. 'I don't want to go home and work at a relationship.' To the twice-divorced Donald, Melania is terrific. He's never heard her fart or make doodie, as he once told Howard Stern. (Melania has said the key to the success of her marriage is separate bathrooms.) He can trust her to take her birth control every day, he boasted to Stern; she's just amazing that way. She has the perfect proportions—five feet eleven, 125 pounds—and great boobs, which is no trivial matter. Stern once asked Trump what he would do if Melania were in a terrible car accident, God forbid, and lost the use of her left arm, developed an oozing red splotch near her eye, and mangled her left foot. Would Donald stay with her? 'How do the breasts look?' Trump asked."
[CN: Sexual assault] "Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday admitted to sexually abusing teenage boys during his time as a high school wrestling coach in a Chicago suburb before his career as an elected official. Struggling to stand in federal court Wednesday, 74-year-old Hastert gripped his walker, approached the microphone and said that he 'mistreated' some of his wrestlers and apologized. 'They looked to me, and I took advantage of them,' Hastert said as he awaited his sentencing after pleading guilty last fall to breaking federal banking laws in a hush-money case. 'I apologize to the court and to the people of the United States.' Judge Thomas Durkin sentenced Hastert to 15 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, along with two years of supervised release on the condition that he get sex offender treatment. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month sentence. Durkin called Hastert a 'serial child molester' and said he must not contact any of his victims. 'That's necessary to protect the victims,' the judge said." Rage seethe boil.
[CN: War on agency] Jessica Mason Pieklo is typically fantastic in her coverage of a federal investigation which "uncovered AmeriCorps volunteers allegedly violating federal law by assisting patients seeking abortions. ...AmeriCorps volunteers are free to work as abortion doulas on their own time and not wearing AmeriCorps gear to do so. They can also do so working as abortion clinic escorts—which are not the same thing as doulas—who help patients navigate a gauntlet of anti-choice protesters outside abortion clinics on their way into their procedures. The government's own findings provide zero information as to whether these volunteer activities happened on personal time or not. The first question to ask then is: When did these activities happen? Assuming the AmeriCorps volunteers didn't do this work on AmeriCorps time, then there is not an issue of illegality."
At Ebony, and in collaboration with the Ms. Foundation for Women, Wade Davis has introduced a week-long series in which "thought leaders are sharing stories and visuals of Black men engaging with ideas of feminism and gender equality."
President Obama: "Letters from kids like you are what make me so optimistic for the future. I hope to meet you next week, 'Little Miss Flint.'" RIGHT IN THE FEELS!
HBO will submit Beyoncé's Lemonade for Emmy consideration. FUCKING RIGHT IT WILL! "Whether Kahlil Joseph and Beyoncé herself, the credited directors of the piece, can be joined by 'additional directors' Melina Matsoukas, Todd Tourso, Dikayl Rimmasch, Jonas Akerlund, and Mark Romanek remains to be seen. HBO is in the midst of working out those details."
[CN: Animal distress] Dogs don't like hugs. As a rule! Some dogs do, under specific circumstances, like when they're already stressed and like their people to act as a human thundershirt. But generally, don't squeeze your dogs! It feels like doggy jail!
[CN: Animal abuse, but happy ending] When I was a kid, I was constantly finding hurt or endangered wild animals and rehabilitating them (sometimes in secret, because my mom was rightly concerned I was going to be bit or catch some disease), and I was lucky enough to live near a wildlife preserve where they could be safely relocated and released (with the staff's help). Which is a long way explaining why I love this story about a rescued possum so much.
And finally! "Cuddly Cat Family Adopts Orphan Pup." Awwwww! ♥
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