Oct 25th, 2018 10:22 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Bomb sent to CNN yesterday. Today Trump tweets:
In other words, Trump says SEND MORE BOMBS.
The Times:
President Trump on Thursday blamed the news media for the division and anger in the United States, as the authorities discovered more pipe bombs intended for the president’s political rivals.
Mr. Trump had called the night before for national unity
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Tags: Trump
Oct 25th, 2018 9:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The Guardian has a letter plus answer thing under the headings In it together Women.
Headline: When I went home with period pains I told my boss I had a cold. Should I have told the truth?
Letter:
Last month I had to leave work in the middle of the day. I was in a great deal of pain from my period, a problem I have had for several years. Sometimes I can manage it with painkillers, but not always. Even when I can cope with the pain, my periods affect my sleep, and make me slower and less productive. When my (female) boss saw how unwell I was, she kindly suggested I go home. I told her the
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
16 comments
Oct 24th, 2018 6:11 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Originally a comment by latsot on He’d blab all the secrets if only he knew anything about them.
As the text says, it’s not only secret information that’s damaging. We all routinely give away far more information than is good for us. We tend to assume that the minutia of our lives are uninteresting and cannot harm us (if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear).
We do crazy things like tell Amazon who our friends and family are, when their birthdays are and the sort of stuff they like. In fact, it’s worse than that, because we tell them the sort of stuff we think they like. Of course, if they are Amazon customers too, … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Oct 24th, 2018 5:39 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Words matter.
The president of CNN strongly criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his anti-media rhetoric, just hours after the network discovered that a pipe bomb had been sent to its headquarters in New York.
“There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media,” Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, said in a statement. “The President, and especially the White House press secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that.”
Still not showing any comprehension. Trump is off at another rally as we speak.
Trump has frequently criticized CNN and other media organizations as “the fake
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »
Tags: Trump
Oct 24th, 2018 4:44 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
But her emails department:
When President Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening — and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said.
Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Tags: Trump
Oct 24th, 2018 1:11 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Index on Censorship withdraws from Truth to Power events:
Earlier today, Index on Censorship became aware that the organiser of an event, of which we are a media partner, disinvited Julie Bindel as a speaker after other participants accused her of inciting hatred towards transgender people and complained about her involvement.
We recognise that the event organiser Jeremy Goldstein has apologised for his mistake and offered to reinstate Bindel on the panel and she has refused.
Index believes that all speech – eccentric, contentious, heretical, unwelcome, provocative, bigoted – should be protected unless it directly incites violence.
Index on Censorship will no longer support this event.
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe exactly what Index believes in that … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Tags: Julie Bindel
Oct 24th, 2018 12:42 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Speaking of real telling truth to power…Gulalai Ismail an hour ago:
3 years ago when I received Common Wealth Youth Award for Democracy, Dr. Arif Alvi now the president of Pakistan was proud of my work. I was appreciated by many in the power corridors. Today, I’ve been framed as anti-state for the very same work and very same narrative and been put on ECL; this is the cost one has to pay for showing solidarity to local Pashtun’s Resistance movements against terrorism.
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Gulalai Ismail
Oct 24th, 2018 11:12 am |
By Ophelia Benson
So this is where we are.
Authorities said Wednesday they had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in New York and former president Barack Obama in Washington, while another possible bomb was discovered at CNN’s offices in Manhattan.
These devices and other suspicious packages were located after an explosive device was found this week in a mailbox at the Bedford, N.Y., home of George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who is a frequent target of criticism from far-right groups.
Not a “target of criticism” so much as a bogey-man, a scarecrow, a hate-figure, a protocol of the elders of zion in one person.
Anyway. This is where we are. Not yet two … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
4 comments
Oct 23rd, 2018 5:19 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Deb Haaland on the voter suppression in North Dakota:
On Oct. 9, our U.S. Supreme Court green-lighted voter suppression of Native Americans in North Dakota in a move that should outrage all of us. It comes just two short years after the Native American environmental movement skyrocketed into the national spotlight through the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. Now, those same Water Protectors are under attack again.
As a Pueblo Indian woman, I traveled to North Dakota and stood with the Water Protectors to protect land and water. Now, I support them and Native Americans across North Dakota as they organize to keep their right to vote during a contentious election
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Oct 23rd, 2018 5:04 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Hangin’ with Hannah:
https://twitter.com/HannahMouncey/status/1054208545812434944
https://twitter.com/HannahMouncey/status/1054210534390685696
https://twitter.com/HannahMouncey/status/1054211818535546880
https://twitter.com/HannahMouncey/status/1054509307897638912
Awww – sister!… Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
15 comments
Oct 23rd, 2018 11:59 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh no.
Business Insider:
The son of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was pictured with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the man widely believed to have orchestrated the journalist’s death.
The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported that Khashoggi’s son, Salah Khashoggi, met the king and crown prince on Tuesday in Riyadh.
…
The journalist had four adult children, all of whom
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Oct 23rd, 2018 10:36 am |
By Ophelia Benson
There was this guy on a plane in Barcelona the other day.
Police say they have identified a man filmed racially abusing an elderly woman on a Ryanair flight.
The woman, Delsie Gayle, 77, said she had been left stunned and depressed after a man shouted at her to move seats as they boarded a plane last Friday.
In footage shared on social media, Gayle’s daughter tries to stand up to the man and tells him her mother is disabled. The man says he does not care “whether she’s fucking disabled or not. If I tell her to get out, she gets out”.
I watched the clip a couple of days ago; it’s horrible.
In the footage, the
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Oct 22nd, 2018 4:09 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump thinks women don’t get enough shit yet, he wants to make sure they get more.
The Trump administration is expected to soon issue regulations that would expand religious and moral exemptions for covering birth control in employer health insurance plans, a move that critics say would limit women’s access to contraception.
“a move that critics say would limit women’s access to contraception” – why do news outlets say stupid things like that? Of course it would limit women’s access to contraception, by definition; if you remove an item from insurance coverage, then access to that item becomes limited. That’s like saying if you cut workers’ pay then workers have less money.
The exact details of the exemptions, and
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Oct 22nd, 2018 3:12 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I saw a thing today. I was out in the neighborhood, walking to and fro in the world and up and down in it; it’s very foggy here so there is heavy condensation on the bushes and trees and everything else. What happens when there’s condensation like that? You see how many spider webs there are everywhere. I stopped to look at one, because a spider web beaded in condensation is a damn pretty thing, and I looked so closely that I noticed a thing new to me. Webs have long radial lines, like spokes, and short lines between them. At the sides of the web, but not top and bottom, the short lines make a Y – they have … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
11 comments
Oct 22nd, 2018 11:12 am |
By Ophelia Benson
This is a thing from October last year but I’m curious about it. A friend posted it on Facebook yesterday (probably not noticing the date – it happens to all of us), and there are a lot of angry comments and a lot of comments saying it looks fake. My reaction when first reading it was it’s fake. I still think it’s fake. I’m curious about what others think.
A daycare center received this letter. This is trump’s America. 😥😡
The text of the letter:
Hello I am writing this as a concerned parent and friend!
So most of us noticed you have a black girl working for the daycare. Our problem is she’s too dark most of the
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Oct 22nd, 2018 10:25 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Aaron Blake at the Post points out that Trump’s abject hero-worship of dictators is a tell:
President Trump has once again given away the game on Saudi Arabia and his reverence for authoritarians. But his soft stance on the Saudis’ killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi also betrays this irony: By going easy on them, he’s conceding his own weakness.
Despite ostensibly putting pressure on Saudi Arabia this weekend to come clean, Trump in an interview with The Post’s Josh Dawsey seemed to marvel at that same government’s ability to snuff out unrest.
“He’s seen as a person who can keep things under check,” Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I mean that in
…
Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
1 Comment »