Love is love!This has been a weird week (heck, it’s been a surreal year!). But today is Pride Day. A day when ordinarily I and my husband would be walking from the hotel where we had been attending Locus Awards Weekend the previous two days, and we’d watch the Pride Parade, then walk to the Pride Festival. But this year everything (including sci fi conventions) has moved on line, so that we can avoid gathering in large groups and causing more spikes of the pandemic.
But it is still Pride Day, even if we’re all social distancing and meeting virtually. It’s a day to commemorate the time that a bunch of queers got fed up with police brutality and decided to fight back.
There would be no pride without black trans lives!It was the night that Marsha P. Johnson hurled a shot glass at a cop when they began their usual routine of lining up everyone in the gay bar, then singling out all the trans and gender-non-conforming people to arrest. Marsha wasn’t the only trans person of color to fight back that night, and she wasn’t the only one to keep fighting for queer rights, helping to found several of the organizations who took the fight to both the streets and the halls of government. When you hoist that rainbow flag, remember to thank those trans women of color who started it all.
Every year Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God.com reposted the complete text of the very condescending story that the New York Daily News ran shortly after the original Stonewall uprising. I think it’s good to remember how people saw (and many still do) our community and concerns: LGBTQ History: “The Foot Wore A Spiked Heel”.
“The first PRIDE was a riot.” And a mice caricature of Marsha P. Johnson, the street queen often credited with throwing the first brick at Stonewall. (Click to embiggen)“If your family isn’t supportive of you, guess what? You’re my family now. Congratulations. Drink plenty of water. Get enough sleep. Love whoever the hell completes you.”“An army of lovers cannot fail.” (Click to embiggen)The original Pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 has 8-stripes. Colors were removed and changed originally due to fabric availability.
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“Did you know? Willeem Arondeus was a homosexual Dutch artist, author, and anti-Nazi fighter, who bombed thee Amsterdam public records office to hinder the identification of Jews by the Nazis. He was arrested within a weeek and later executed. His last words were, ‘Let it be known Homosexuals are not cowards.’”“Queer & lovin’ it!”
“United We Resist!”“Black Trans Lives Matter”
“Queer Pride”“Have a rainbow day!”“Pride equals Power”“The only choice I made was to be myself.”We’re all part of the queer resistance. More colors more pride.Happy Pride Month!
I keep saving various images to possibly use to illustrate a Friday Five post or a political commentary, then wind up using only a fraction of them. So, here are a few of those memes and graphics you may find amusing, enlightening, or thought-provoking:
Claim: “Blocking someone means your just afraid of what they are saying.” Truth: “Just because I put garbage in the dumpster doesn’t mean I’m scared of garbage, it means it’s rank and I don’t want it in my house.” Block early and often. (click to embiggen)Have meeting in your workplace? Ever been stuck in a conference room with a bunch of other people for a long time, and feel as if you’ve gone braindead? Turns out science has the answer! Look at the CO2 levels in this chart! (click to embiggen)Click to embiggen,,,“The shooter’s manifest praised Trump as a ‘symbo of renewed white identity and common purpose.’ Let this sink in. A US President is the inspiration of white terrorists around the world. Let that sink in.”“State ownership and control is not necessarily Socialism – if it were, then the Army, the Navy, the Police, the Judges, the Gaolers, the Informers, and the Hangmen, all would all be Socialist functionaries, as they are State officials – but the ownership by the State of all the land and materials for labour, combined with the co-operative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be Socialism.” — James Connolly“The enemy doesn’t arrive by boat, he arrives by limousine.”“In a society where work is necessary for survival, when you refuse to make the workforce accessible or safe for trans/ non-binary people, what you’re saying is you don’t care if we die. It’s a violent as any physical attack.”
A future I hope to live to see…I haven’t posted a weekend update in a while. This has been a really bad week for Cadet Bonespur. I could have done Friday Five Times Five of links just to articles about that, but the most interesting story to break this week was reported Thursday night, though I only saw it this morning: Manhattan District Attorney Considering Criminal Charges Against Trump Organization. One reason this is so intriguing is that because it would be state criminal charges, Trump can’t undo anything that happens with a Presidential Pardon. Those are limited to federal crimes. Couple that with the CFO of the Trump Organization getting some kind of immunity deal from prosecutors, and we start seeing things get really interesting: ‘Could Lead to the End of the Trump Organization’: Former Prosecutor Discusses Parallels to Watergate.
The sad reality is that no matter how many criminal convictions and guilty pleas are racked up around Trump, his supporters will never abandon him. Congressional Republicans have made it clear they won’t fulfill their Constitutional duties (the President was impeachable on violation the Emoluments Claus of the Constitution practically on day one) unless they perceive that sticking by him is going to harm them. So there isn’t going to be a crack in that solidarity until after the midterms, at the earliest.
But still, the wheels of justice grind on. And guilty verdicts will keep piling up.
“Republicans could end this any time. Choosing not to makes them traitors.”
Meanwhile, I continue to try to find ways to keep my levels of outrage down to manageable levels. Getting caught up on shows via the DVR and Netflix, helps. Getting back to by big pile of to-read books also helps.
Well, there are at least two reasons. The simplest one is that if the Dems manage to take back the Senate, they could prevent Cadet Bonespur from appointing anyone new to the court. So at least some of the GOP operatives see this as their only chance to ensure future court rulings continue to take rights away from workers, women, queers, and everyone else that isn’t a Republican billionaire.
But that isn’t the only issue! Now that we know that Justice Kennedy’s son arranged for Trump to get a billion dollar loan, and that Trump has made references to Kennedy’s son within earshot of live microphones just about every time the Justice and the alleged president have been together in public, it seems extremely likely that among those dozens of sealed indictments that Robert Mueller has obtained over the last year or so is probably against Kennedy’s son. This could result, if any of the related indictments or Cadet Bonespur’s attempts to pardon (pre-emptively or not) key people winds up being appealed to the Supreme Court. While recusal is solely up to each Justice, it would be very unlikely that Kennedy would not recuse himself if his son was involved in a case before the Court.
Though it angers me enough that the Republicans stole a seat from Obama last year, and I’m not looking forward to what the court will do with another arch conservative on the bench, I do take heart that despite all the brave talk about a red wave, the people in the know (like those billionaire mentioned above) are acting as if there is a good chance that the Senate won’t have a Republican majority after November. So there is that, I guess.
The marches themselves may not directly accomplish something, but the turn-out indicates people are willing to take action (which includes voting in November).
(click to embiggen)Meanwhile, there have been continued mock outrage over things like a restaurant deciding it didn’t want to serve members of this administration that our aiding and abetting the kidnapping of children at the border, taking health care from tens of thousands, encouraging white supremacists to commit violence, and so forth. I don’t always agree with columnist Michelangelo Signorile, but this week I do: Fuck Civility. And an extra stron f– you to the editorial writers who seem to think that getting in the face of people who have either ordered the commission of these crimes (mass separation of families is defined under international law–the very agreements our country help promulgate after World War II–as genocide and is a crime against humanity) is somehow just as bad or worse than actually committing those heinous acts.
“Give me a break! What is more uncivil and cruel than taking children away? It should be met with resolve and strength. And if some of that comes across as a little uncivil, well, children’s lives are at stake.”
Some days, the best thing a guy can do is shut up and let other people talk. So, without further ado:
“Never doubt you are valuable & powerful & deserving of every chance in the world.” Little girl’s sign quotes Hillary.“So bad even introverts are here.”“We are the Resistance”“Don’t forget Princess Leia was also a Senator and a General.”“Grab ’em by the midterms”“National Women’s March One Year Later: The Resistance is Still Going Strong.”
I gather lots of memes, info graphics, and succinct comments that I think might make a good companion to a blog post someday. A lot of them are potential illustrations for the next Friday Links. And then I don’t use them all. So I thought I could make a post with a bunch of the recent ones.
About tolerance and intolerance “The whole ‘How come you won’t tolerate my intolerance!’ is hardly a rhetorical home run, or a recent issue. Karl Popper nailed it in 1952.” (Click to embiggen)
About stupidity “Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous…” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer (click to embiggen)
About the lying liar and his masters “Turns out, it wasn’t Trump’s investments in Russia that shaped his pro-Putin views, it was Russia’s investment in him.” (Click to embiggen)
Who’s going to get hurt by Trumpcare (Click to embiggen)
(Click to embiggen)(Click to embiggen)(Click to embiggen)
About economic inequality Income inequality in America is much, much, much worse than we think it is. (Click to embiggen)
“The concentration of income and wealth is deepening around the world, driven by more than rising paychecks for top American financiers and chief executives. Returns to invested capital are outstripping economic growth across advanced countries, directing a growing share of economic rewards into the hands of the wealthy.” (Click to embiggen)
“Some people are like dark clouds, when they disappear, suddenly it’s a sunny day.”I’m sure that someone will tell me (as they have when other infamous bigots have died) that I should not speak ill of the dead. I will point out that the one of the oldest recorded instances of a this admonishment (a Greek text from about 600BC) is more accurately translated as, “Of the dead, nothing spoken unless truthfully.” So in that spirit, let me say that a dark cloud has passed, NARTH Founder and Leader in Ex-Gay Torture Movement Joseph Nicolosi Dead at 70. And that I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment in this headline about this death: Ex-Gay Therapy Should Die With Its Pioneer, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.
Nicolosi is just one of many who have profited over the years with the torture and bullying of gay people, often driving them to suicide. He was most recently in the news in 2012 when he tried to sue the state of California to overturn their ban on so-called gay conversion therapy for children and teens. A lawsuit which he lost, thank goodness! And just because another old, hateful bigot has died I know it doesn’t mean that this particular type of oppression is going to end. I can just hope that this death will get is a little closer to that ending, all right?
Source: thedesmondproject.com/Homelessness-Info.html (Click to embiggen)Joseph Nicolosi caused a lot of people—a lot of vulnerable children—pain and suffering and actually increased the odds they would commit suicide. His propaganda encouraged parents to kick their gay children out on the street, leading to more pain, suffering and death. And he profited from that pain and suffering. The organization he founded still profits from it. So, damn right I’m going to speak ill of the dead.
And the usual arguments why one shouldn’t speak ill (he’s not here to defend himself, think of his grieving family, et cetera) should all be overruled by the fact that there are thousands of dead queer kids who not only aren’t here, either, but had no one to defend them from Nicolosi and his fellow bigots. Their memory and their grieving families deserve the truth. And the truth is, the world is a slightly better place now that Nicolosi isn’t part of it.
In completely unrelated news, The DOJ Just Called for the Firing of 46 Obama-Appointed U.S. State’s Attorneys, Including Preet Bharara. This was very abrupt, and included at least one such prosecutor who was specfically asked to stay on recently by both Donald and Sessions. A mass firing is unusual in itself, and the initial reports of this made it clear it was very disorganized. At least one of the prosecutors admitting that he learned of his firing from the news—not even from a reporter calling for a comment. Also, the Justice Department doesn’t have any replacement prosecutors ready to nominate.
It’s becoming clear that there is more than enough evidence to indict a lot of Donald’s inner circle over various criminal charges, many of which border on treason. And if such an investigation got enough core Republican voters up in arms, Congress might actually do their job and start investigation the president himself. Getting rid of a lot of experienced federal prosecutors who are, by law, supposed to operate somewhat independently is one way to decrease the chances such a thing will come to pass.
It’s also yet another tin-pot dictator move, which this administration keeps doing again and again.
Voter ID laws don’t effect everyone equally (click to embiggen)Voter Suppression Laws Are Working. The real purpose of so-called Voter ID laws is not to prevent voter fraud. That’s how they sell it, but the real aim is to keep poor people, the elderly, and other marginalized people from voting. Voter fraud is a for all intents and purposes a myth: There have been just four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election – three of them voted for Trump. The number of fraudulent votes cast are always such a tiny fraction of the total that they don’t effect the outcome of races. And we’ve known this for a while.
Seriously, during part of the George W. Bush administration, U.S. Attorneys were ordered to make finding voter fraud a higher priority than any other case they were investigating. And after a lot of time and effort was expended, they came back and told the administration what state officials who run elections have been saying for decades: voter fraud is virtually non-existent. The most common forms of voter fraud, which add up to far less than one percent of the votes cast, are relatives of recently deceased people casting an absentee ballot for the dearly departed. The next most common is a relative who has been appointed a legal guardian of an elderly relative believing (incorrectly) that the power of attorney they have been given over the relative with a diminished capacity gives them the legal right to fill out the relative’s ballot. And the third most common are people who are wealthy enough to own homes in multiple states registering in all of them and voting there under the mistaken notion that because they pay taxes in more than one place, they can vote.
The Republican party of my state several years ago famously spent more than a million dollars tracking down four voters who had voted illegally in the very tight governor’s race that year: all four of the convicted felons who hadn’t had their voting rights restored had voted for the Republican (because the Democratic governor had been the state’s Attorney General before, and the four felons held grudges against her).
A lot of people ask, “What’s so hard about showing your ID?” Which seems like a reasonable question to a person who enjoys a certain amount of privilege. The funny part is, that the people asking this know how hard it can be and you can prove it to them. All you have to do, is ask them whether they look forward to going to the DMV to renew their driver’s license. They will either brag about how wonderful it is now that their state allows people to renew on line, or they will tell you a horror story about being trapped at said office for a long period of time. While it is an inconvenience to someone who is able-bodied, has access to their own transportation, and has a work schedule that allows them to take the time to go stand in line, to anyone who isn’t in that situation, it becomes an insurmountable obstacle.
Most poor people in the U.S. work multiple jobs. They aren’t hanging around on street corners waiting for a welfare check (that’s an even bigger myth). The typical low income family has trouble finding the time to sleep and cook meals for their kids, let alone try to find enough time during one of the days a licensing office is open to go stand in line for hours. That’s if they can even get to the office. The states that have passed strict Voter ID laws also happen to be states that have fewer offices where people can get an ID. And coincidentally, they tend to only have those offices in locations convenient to affluent neighborhoods.
So you have to add many miles of travel (and the time and expense involved) to the difficulties to overcome to get an ID. That’s if the person has their own transportation. And it just so happens that the same states the have strict Voter ID laws also spend the least amount of money on public transit. Yet more barriers.
I think about the hassle my mom went through a few years ago after a move when she was trying to get her license renewed and updated with her new address. I don’t remember how many times she had to go back, but it was several. One time it was because whoever she talked to before she went in didn’t tell her the right documents she would need to prove what her new address was. I don’t remember what the problem was the next time, but then after she finally got it after her third or fourth visit, they mailed it to her and several pieces of information on it were incorrect. So she had to go back to get it corrected, and that took more than one trip.
My mom is retired, so she theoretically had the time, and she can drive herself, and the office wasn’t very far from her apartment, but she’s got a lot of health issues, and some days she just doesn’t have the stamina to sit in a non-ergonomic waiting room chair for who knows how long, right?
And then there’s the matter of the fee to get the ID. The constitution forbids poll taxes but the requirement of having state provided ID for which you are required to pay a fee is essentially a poll tax. And even if you argue that the ID serves other purposes, the fee is yet another barrier for low income and fixed-income people.
So, Voter ID laws effectively take the vote away from low income people, people with disabilities or mobility issues, and people living in certain communities. And the lawmakers who pass the laws are well aware that those populations tend to vote in favor of one party more often than the other. They want to take that vote away.
Fortunately, there is something you can do about it: Donate to and/or Volunteer with Spread The Vote (spreadthevote.org). Spread The Vote helps people get their required ID. They provide volunteers to help people collect the required documents, transportation to the apply for their ID, assistance with fees, and so forth.
If you want to help with the fight at a legislative and legal level, consider donating to Project Vote (projectvote.org). Project Vote is working to improve voter registration processes and remove the barriers to make it difficult for people to get registered and to vote.
“Remember, sex is like a Chinese dinner. It ain’t over ’til you both get yours cookie.” —Alec BaldwinI’m not terribly happy with yesterday’s edition of Friday Links. The biggest problem is that once work’s craziness ramped up midweek, I had neither the time nor energy to do my usual news reading. The only reason there were as many links as there were is because I spent several hours in a couple of waiting rooms on Tuesday while my hubby was getting tests run and consulting for an upcoming medical procedure. I had planned to spend the time writing, but I couldn’t concentrate when I tried to write. Surfing and reading was a lot easier.
I have been trying, since Inauguration week, not to let all the bad news related to Republicans, the neo-Nazi regime, and so forth dominate the links. But since my time was unevenly distributed throughout the week (and I was exhausted after each of my 10+ hour work days), I didn’t devote my usual time to specifically looking for cool links on other topics. Unfortunately today’s update ain’t gonna completely make up for that.
But! We do start out with something funny: Jezebel Investigates: How Are These Cookies Fucking?. Some organization promoting safe sex sent out cookies that seem to depict a pair of people having sex. But the author of the blog noticed that the position doesn’t look possible, let along comfortable. There’s a series of pictures as she draws the possible pieces of furniture that might be involved to get the couple into the position. It’s silly, but fun!
“According to the poll, 42 percent of white evangelicals said they oppose allowing business to refuse services. Fifty-two percent of Mormons, 53 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 60 percent of Muslims, 63 percent of Hispanic Catholics, and 72 percent of Jews said they are against allowing small business the right to refuse services.”
So a majority of white evangelicals are still opposed to protecting our rights, but look at those other groups. Also, even among the white evangelicals, 42% oppose allowing businesses to discriminate against us! Groups and businesses such as the NFL are simply responding to the free market. They risk offending more customers and potential customers by remaining silent or supporting discrimination, than they do opposing it.
Understanding retail realities fit into another story I didn’t link to this week: Donald got angry when the Nordstrom chain of stores decided to drop Ivanka Trumps line of apparel. Donald’s anger didn’t quite have its intended effect: After Donald Trump’s angry tweet, Nordstrom stock goes up. I’m going out on a limb here and thinking that stock investors aren’t doing this just to irritate Donald. And we’ll come back to that, but let’s look at what has come to light about the retail chain’s decision since the angry tweet: Wall Street Journal: Internal Nordstrom Data Show Sales Decline for Ivanka Trump Brand. The article says a 32% fall for the year, but other data indicates that it’s even worse, with a 63% drop year-over-year during the final three months of the year. And there’s more: Nordstrom Isn’t the Only Retailer Where Ivanka Trump Sales Are Tanking.
So it is clearly a business decision. Some of our allies are trying to take credit because there has been an organized #GrabYouWallet movement which started out as a few women angry about the “grab ’em by the pussy” tape last fall started asking people to boycott places that sold merchandise for Donald and his family. And it is certainly possible that the letters to the retailer influenced their decision. I think it is more likely that the information the #GrabYourWallet people shared, including about the shady business details involved in those clothing lines, contributed to the accelerated drop in sales (which had already been declining since at least the beginning of 2016).
And those sales were falling for non-political reasons: The Real Problem With Ivanka Trump’s Clothes, According to One Epic Tweetstorm. The tweet storm by Tribune Media Senior Editor Megan Carpentier, includes links to some business journal articles showing why several clothing lines, not just Ivanka’s, have been losing sales.
“This slate of mega-retailers has long been among the prime draws to the mall for middle-class women, offering apparel that they could easily mix and match into outfits for client meetings, kiddie birthday parties or date nights. But lately, they can’t seem to design clothes that women want to buy. In other words, people think their clothes are ugly.” —Washington Post article
And then Carpentier gives examples of how Ivanka Trump’s line has veered into even worse territory than the other brands. You need to go look just for some of the pictures!
Anyway, it’s hilarious that once again folks on the right are angry about businesses responding to the free market. I think Wall Street investors realize that a retail chain dropping an unprofitable line shows good business sense. And also, knowing how much positive publicity the chain is generating on social media for standing up to bullying can’t be bad for the store’s image!
Font Folly 