Oct 28th, 2018 9:10 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Julia Ioffe asks how much responsibility Trump has for the synagogue massacre.
The summary: he doesn’t have to do the shooting himself to be part of the cause of the shooting.
Culpability is a tricky thing, and politicians, especially of the demagogic variety, know this very well. Unless they go as far as organized, documented, state-implemented slaughter, they don’t give specific directions. They don’t have to. They simply set the tone. In the end, someone else does the dirty work, and they never have to lift a finger — let alone stain it with blood. I saw it while reporting on Russia, where, after unexpected pro-democracy protests and the annexation of Crimea, Putin created an environment so vicious,
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Tags: Trump
Oct 27th, 2018 3:01 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Meanwhile the dedicated campaign to get women’s jobs taken away if they don’t agree that men can be women continues.
“Students spoke up” apparently after and because these two inquisitors spat out a bunch of tweets accusing Nina Edge of the usual bullshit, complete with tagging a bunch of people like the nasty wannabe cops they are. And took a bragging selfie to say so.… Read the rest
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Oct 27th, 2018 11:54 am |
By Ophelia Benson
This fucking fool.
Oh they should have had armed protection. So what’s he saying? That there should be armed protection everywhere? Supermarkets for instance, like that Kroger in Jeffersontown, Kentucky where a white guy shot two black people to death a few days ago? But what if the security guard is in aisle 10 so the shooter goes to aisle 2 to shoot people there? It would take a lot of armed security to cover the whole space, and the parking lot … Read the rest
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Tags: Trump
Oct 27th, 2018 10:49 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Today in Pittsburgh:
A gunman attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue during services Saturday morning, killing multiple people and wounding three police officers, among others.
The suspect opened fire inside the Tree of Life Synagogue during a baby naming ceremony, Philadelphia’s attorney general told the Associated Press.
Ah, during a baby naming ceremony. Thoughtful touch.
During a standoff, the suspect spoke multiple times about wanting or needing to kill Jews, police dispatchers said on the radio.
He surrendered to police around 11 a.m. Dispatchers said he had a pistol on his ankle and another in his waistband, and had been injured. KDKA reported that he came out crawling.
The Tree of Life synagogue is located in a leafy residential enclave
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Oct 27th, 2018 10:11 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh look, an exciting investigative scoop by The Oxford Student.
Let’s rush to read this investigative uncovering of a truth:
Please note that this article contains explicit discussion of transphobic statements and images.
Professor of Sociology and Fellow of St Cross College Michael Biggs has been posting transphobic statements online under the Twitter handle @MrHenryWimbush, The Oxford Student can reveal.
The Twitter account, named Henry Wimbush and still online at the time of publication, has been tweeting statements such as “transphobia is a
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Oct 26th, 2018 3:16 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Gary Younge at the Guardian sees a connection between Trump’s constant stoking of hatred and the highly stoked hatred we see all around us.
Trump’s election and the xenophobic rhetoric that came with it not only emboldened schoolchildren to parrot bigotry to their peers, it gave the state free rein to unleash its power indiscriminately against a minority community. So when pipe bombs are sent to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, California congresswoman Maxine Waters and CNN it should be understood not only as a specific threat to democracy but as one of the most violent examples yet from a democracy that has long been under threat.
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…Both in his candidacy and presidency Trump has made direct appeals
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Tags: Trump
Oct 26th, 2018 9:22 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Suspect arrested.
Federal authorities made an arrest on Friday in connection with the nationwide bombing campaign against outspoken critics of President Trump, a significant breakthrough in a case that has gripped the country in the days leading up to the midterm elections.
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The arrest came only hours after the mysterious spate of pipe bombs spread further as federal authorities said on Friday morning that they had found two more of the explosive devices: one addressed to Senator Cory Booker and the other to James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence.
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The package addressed to Mr. Clapper was meant to be delivered to the New York offices of CNN, where he works as an analyst,
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Oct 25th, 2018 5:45 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Back to Kansas:
After moving Dodge City’s sole polling site outside city limits, county election officials sent newly registered voters an official certificate of registration that listed the wrong place to cast a ballot in the midterm election — the latest election snafu to surface in the iconic Wild West town where Hispanics now make up the majority of the population.
The southwest Kansas city, located 160 miles (257 kilometers) west of Wichita, has only one polling site for its 27,000 residents. For nearly two decades, that site was at the civic center in the mostly white part of town.
So, finding that too easy, officials moved it outside of town a mile from any bus stop…and then they … Read the rest
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Oct 25th, 2018 5:38 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh good, more erasing.
Weird, ain’t it? No mention of lesbians, but urgent recruiting of trans women.
Oh wait there is one mention of lesbians! Well sort of. Well not really mention, but tiny hint. Tiny bashful hardly there hint. There’s the L in LGBT Foundation.
Not for long though, judging by the replies.… Read the rest
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Oct 25th, 2018 2:17 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Daily Mail (yes; sorry):
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.
The woman, named only as Mrs. S, 47, from Vienna, was said to have held two seminars in which she discussed the marriage between the Prophet Mohammad and a six-year old girl, Aisha.
According to scripture the marriage was consummated when Aisha was just nine years old, leading Mrs S. to say to her class Mohammad ‘liked to do it with children’.
She also reportedly said ‘… A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? … What do we call it, if it is not paedophilia?’
It … Read the rest
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Oct 25th, 2018 1:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Guardian reports live on a law enforcement press conference in NYC:
40m ago 15:45
Sweeney is reiterating that the 10 bombs are being analyzed at Quantico, the FBI’s forensics lab in Virginia. He’s also confirmed that white powder in some of the devices, including the one delivered to the CNN offices, does not constitute a biological threat.
38m ago 15:47
John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter terrorism, says that a retired police officer found the package in lower Manhattan addressed to Robert DeNiro.
“A retired NYPD detective who was awake and watching the news saw an image of one of these devices and it occurred to him that it resembled a package he had
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Oct 25th, 2018 1:08 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Charles Blow on Trump’s hate-mongering and how it may connect to all these bombs popping up:
Trump’s hatred, racism, insecurity, anti-intellectualism and grudge against the elite society that had always disdained him was perfectly suited for conservatives who were entertaining the same notions but had no one to openly champion their intolerance with effrontery.
On Monday in Houston, Trump was again whipping a rally crowd into a fear frenzy with his dystopian vision of America. He said:
“Democrat immigration policies allow poisonous drugs and MS-13 to pour into our country. And Democrat sanctuary cities release violent criminals from jail and straight into your neighborhoods.”
As the audience chanted, “CNN sucks,” he said, “Don’t worry. I don’t like them either, O.K.?”
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Tags: Trump