Russia's UK embassy mocks Westerners as 'gay pigs' https://t.co/UmFaritp8S
— PinkNews (@PinkNews) October 24, 2016
Gay pigs in a concentration camp, at that – and cowering before a huge, biceps-displaying Russian bear.… Read the rest
Mother Russia
Oct 28th, 2016 2:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonBecause they would have been arrested immediately otherwise
Oct 28th, 2016 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonFederal prosecutors took two weeks to present their case, finishing with a display of more than 30 guns seized after the standoff. An FBI agent testified that 16,636 live rounds and nearly 1,700 spent casings were found.
During trial, Bundy testified that the plan was to take ownership of the refuge by occupying it for a period of time and then turn it over to local officials to use as they saw fit.
Bundy also testified that the occupiers carried guns because they would have been arrested immediately otherwise and to protect themselves against possible government attack.
Quite. Just what I said. They would have been arrested immediately otherwise because they had broken into a closed … Read the rest
Just a protest, folks
Oct 28th, 2016 11:28 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Washington Post has more on the Bundy gang verdict.
… Read the restWhile a jury acquitted the Bundy brothers, most of the people charged with the Oregon takeover already pleaded guilty or still have to stand trial on federal charges — a group that includes both Bundys, who are still in custody because they are facing another federal trial in Nevada stemming from a different standoff between the family and the government.
…
During the trial, prosecutors described the takeover as a long-plotted occupation, while attorneys for the occupiers — who did not deny they were there — insisted they were not trying to prevent people from doing their jobs, but were instead protesting government actions.
More than two dozen
The narrative must not be disturbed
Oct 28th, 2016 10:26 am | By Ophelia BensonSarah Haider on the SPLC and that list.
… Read the restNuance is lost where the religion of peace is concerned, and the SPLC paints its targets with a broad, clumsy brush. Those profiled range from pundits who believe that radicals have “infiltrated the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and State Department” to activists who offer compassionate, empathetic, and exceedingly balanced views on the faith. The latter is exemplified by the Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, who spent his formative years in the service of an Islamist organization working to re-establish a global caliphate. After disavowing his former associates, he has spent the past decade working to encourage reform and secularization in Muslim countries and communities.
Nearly every charge against him in the report is
A supply problem
Oct 28th, 2016 9:29 am | By Ophelia BensonAmjad Khan at Sedaa suggests that the SPLC’s grotesque claims about Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are rooted in an inadequate supply of racists at a time when the demand is higher than ever before.
Without the demand left-wing activists that organise themselves as anti-bigotry activists can’t justify their work and, more importantly, request for donations. Hence, the definition of bigotry needs to be stretched, new sources of bigotry need to be found and, eventually, critics of the regressive left find themselves being accused of bigotry.
I think the first three words should read “Without the supply” but we get the idea – there aren’t enough racists to keep anti-racism organizations busy and well funded. I don’t actually … Read the rest
Staggered
Oct 28th, 2016 8:07 am | By Ophelia BensonI’m staggered that a bunch of armed men can take over federal property, maintain their siege–and then get off scott free. Does anybody think the outcome would be the same if armed Muslims, black men, or Native Americans tried this? And I fear it may encourage others to try similar stunts. Thoughts?
My thoughts: yes, no, yes. I too am staggered and horrified that they got off. I don’t for a second think the outcome would be the same if armed Muslims, African Americans, or Native Americans tried this. I fear that it’s overwhelmingly likely that this idiotic verdict will encourage others to try similar and worse violent crimes against our national parks and refuges. The assault … Read the rest
A man with an assault rifle
Oct 28th, 2016 7:57 am | By Ophelia BensonPeter Walker posted this yesterday evening. He later said in a comment that he’d love the photo to be on the front page of every newspaper in the country, so share it widely if you’re so inclined.
… Read the restTo all my Harney County friends, and friends of Harney County: I feel gut-punched, like you probably do. Here’s a photo I took at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 12. A USFWS vehicle is blocking the entrance and a man with an assault rifle is on guard. I had to ask for permission to enter. How can this not have impeded FWS employees from doing their job???? Here’s my promise to Harney County: regardless of the Bundys
Not guilty
Oct 27th, 2016 5:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis day really has been a package of horrors.
The Bundys and their friends have all been acquitted.
Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five of their followers, charged in the armed takeover of a federally owned Oregon wildlife sanctuary in January, were acquitted Thursday of federal conspiracy and weapons charges.
The verdict brings to a close a case that gripped the nation earlier this year with its public debate about government powers, public lands and constitutional rights.
And sends a message to all white right-wing fanatics that they can probably grab a national park or wildlife refuge and get away with it, if they go in heavily armed enough. It sends a message to all non-white people that we … Read the rest
A new study shows
Oct 27th, 2016 1:06 pm | By Ophelia BensonBy way of a shout-out to blasphemy and a fuck you to the SPLC – the new Jesus and Mo:
There was no ‘Terror List’
Oct 27th, 2016 12:22 pm | By Ophelia BensonMaajid linked to this on Facebook, in response to the SPLC’S bullshit about a “terror list:”
… Read the restIn light of a number of recent accusations that have been levelled at Quilliam and our track record, we felt it was necessary to set the record straight with regards to our work. The below is a breakdown of common accusations that are directed at us with clear responses beneath.
Accusation – Quilliam produced a McCarthyite secret ‘Terror List’ that smeared ordinary Muslim groups and individuals as extremist and gave it to the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OCST).
Response – This accusation repeated here by the Guardian is simply false. There was no ‘Terror List’. We produced
Bad move SPLC
Oct 27th, 2016 11:18 am | By Ophelia BensonAnother one of those mornings that starts with a horror in my news stream – the Southern Poverty Law Center branding Maajid Nawaz an “anti-Muslim extremist” in a new report/field guide. They also include Ayaan Hirsi Ali under that hateful umbrella, but it’s the inclusion of Maajid that dumbfounds me the most, seeing as how he is in fact a Muslim and is most explicitly and centrally anti-extremist.
In short, this pisses me off, big time. It pisses me off because it’s grossly inaccurate, and unfair to Maajid. It pisses me off because as he points out it puts a target on him. It pisses me off because the SPLC has done heroic, brave work in the past. It … Read the rest
A little room in your womb for Jesus
Oct 26th, 2016 3:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonSamantha Bee on that whole thing where Catholic bishops tell women to die rather than get an abortion. It’s brilliant.
H/t Jen Phillips… Read the rest
A clampdown on increasingly varied uses for ashes
Oct 26th, 2016 3:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonAh, the Vatican, and god-botherers in general, inventing ridiculous intrusive rules based on their reality-defying beliefs, and then trying to insist that everyone obey them. Like the Vatican saying omg no you may not scatter someone’s ashes or fling them off the top of a building or put them on your bookshelf next to Ray Monk’s biography of Bertrand Russell. Why mayn’t I? Well because it gets death all wrong. The Vatican is the authority on death, as any fule kno. Death isn’t where you stop being alive and begin to decompose, it’s the gateway to eternal life dootdeedoo.
… Read the restStrict new Vatican guidelines forbid a list of increasingly popular means of commemorating loved ones – from scattering ashes at
If
Oct 26th, 2016 12:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonUh oh. Rachel Maddow could be in for some shunning.
New rule:
If you don’t have a vagina, you don’t get to make laws regulating them.
Men do not have a fundamental right to use female bodies
Oct 26th, 2016 11:20 am | By Ophelia BensonGlosswitch on the World Health Organisation’s new definition of infertility:
A woman’s desire to control her reproductive destiny will always be in direct opposition to patriarchy’s desire to exploit female bodies as a reproductive resource. The social institutions that develop to support the latter – such as marriage – may change, but the exploitation can remain in place.
To put it another way, marriage is not the only way to exploit female bodies as a reproductive resource. We live in modern times! We are liberated! Women can simply be rented now!
… Read the restThis is why all feminists – and indeed anyone serious about tackling patriarchy at the root – should be deeply concerned about the World Health Organisation’s new definition
The Green Man
Oct 26th, 2016 10:49 am | By Ophelia BensonThe BBC reports on a pleasing interlude in the well-forested state of Maine:
A man in America has been arrested for obstructing traffic after crossing the road dressed as a tree.
Asher Woodworth, from the US state of Maine, covered himself in branches and walked really slowly across a street.
Ok so he slowed traffic a little, but he probably brightened up a lot of people’s day in the process.
Police in Portland arrested this tree for blocking traffic this afternoon. For real. @WCSH6 @WLBZ2 pic.twitter.com/molDocnKu7
— Kattey Ortiz (@KatteyOrtizTV) October 24, 2016
You can see people grinning in the video – including one of the cops. Day brightened.
Frankly I hope it catches on. Beats scary clowns any day.… Read the rest
This will help rile up the base
Oct 25th, 2016 6:06 pm | By Ophelia BensonObama is reminding the Republicans that he warned them.
… Read the restOn the stump, Obama now regularly links Trump’s candidacy, and the bind he’s created for down-ballot Republicans, to a greater theory about the way the right has practiced politics throughout his presidency.
“For years,” Obama said in Las Vegas, “Republican politicians and the far-right media outlets have pumped up all kinds of crazy stuff about me, about Hillary, about Harry [Reid]. They said I wasn’t born here. They said climate change is a hoax. They said that I was going to take everybody’s guns away.”
Obama went on:
[T]here are a lot of politicians who knew better. There are a lot of senators who knew better. But they went along
Guest post: The party where facts don’t matter
Oct 25th, 2016 2:04 pm | By Ophelia BensonOriginally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Trump and framing.
Here’s my armchair theorizing about the rise of Trump:
1. Republicans became the party that refuses to compromise. Explaining why is probably a whole separate argument itself, but here are a few contributors. (a) The tyranny of 40% — hard-core conservatives don’t have an actual majority among the population as a whole, but they can control the Republican Party, and they make up enough of the public that they don’t think they need non-conservative allies. In part they’re right: they vote in higher numbers (especially in midterms), and aren’t “wasting” their votes by being concentrated in urban areas. (Progressives, by contrast, have generally learned to accept that they need … Read the rest
Trump and framing
Oct 25th, 2016 9:32 am | By Ophelia BensonGeorge Lakoff on Trump last July:
Donald J. Trump has managed to become the Republican nominee for president, Why? How? There are various theories: People are angry and he speaks to their anger. People don’t think much of Congress and want a non-politician. Both may be true. But why? What are the details? And Why Trump?
He gives an extended answer that he says is based on his research…but his sample of the theories above is too short: he leaves out the simple fact of Trump’s celebrity, which is surely much too important to leave out. An unknown guy from East Jesus, Oklahoma who did exactly what Trump did would not, I think, have had the success Trump had.… Read the rest
He is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan
Oct 24th, 2016 5:26 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh look, a detailed examination of Trump’s SLAPP suits, sweetly titled Donald J. Trump Is A Libel Bully But Also A Libel Loser. The author is Susan E. Seager.
Donald J. Trump is a libel bully. Like most bullies, he’s also a loser, to borrow from Trump’s vocabulary.
Trump and his companies have been involved in a mind-boggling 4,000 lawsuits over the last 30 years and sent countless threatening cease-and-desist letters to journalists and critics.[1]
But the GOP presidential nominee and his companies have never won a single speech-related case filed in a public court.
He had all the fun of bullying people though.
… Read the restThis article examines seven speech-related cases brought by Trump and his companies, which include four
