God damn Amnesty.
Abortion bans like the one passed in Alabama are a violation of human rights.
These bans will be deadly.
They will endanger pregnant people’s lives.
They will re-victimize survivors of rape and sexual violence by denying them their rights.
We must not go back.
— Amnesty International USA (@amnestyusa) May 15, 2019
Another heretic shunned, this time by the group The Atheist Community of Austin.
… Read the restStatement from the ACA Board of Directors
Recently, the ACA Board of Directors was made aware that guest co-host Stephen Woodford (YouTuber “Rationality Rules”) had made ignorant and transphobic videos and statements on his social media platforms in the weeks leading up to his appearances on ACA shows. We would like to make it clear that we do not share or condone his opinions or attitudes, and that we fully and actively support equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community.
We acknowledge that the ACA did a poor job showing our support by allowing Mr. Woodford to make appearances on our shows without either addressing his controversial
Have you been wondering how the Red Hen restaurant has been doing since that day it asked Sarah Sanders to leave? Have you been wondering if the Trumpers have shut it down? They did try, but they failed.
… Read the restYet, as I kept opening the letters, I saw a pattern. For every hateful message, there was one of gratitude. For every angry accusation that our actions were driven by the inability to accept Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, there was a note of thanks from someone lamenting Trump’s rollback of protections for marginalized people. What’s more, for every wish that our business die a painful death, there was a dollar bill or a generous check or an order for a gift
In Alabama women are officially not people, they are just incubators owned by men.
… Read the restAlabama lawmakers voted Tuesday to ban virtually all abortions in the state — including for victims of rape and incest — sending the strictest law in the nation to the state’s Republican governor, who is expected to sign it.
The measure permits abortion only when necessary to save a mother’s life, an unyielding standard that runs afoul of federal court rulings. Those who backed the new law said they don’t expect it to take effect, instead intending its passage to be part of a broader strategy by antiabortion activists to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which
Lindsey Graham is another very bad man.
Tens of thousands of social media users joined a call for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s resignation on Tuesday, after the South Carolina Republican publicly offered advice to Donald Trump Jr. about his recent congressional subpoena.
The president’s eldest son was subpoenaed in April to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, after twice backing out of planned testimony before the committee.
The subpoena prompted Graham—one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies—to tell Trump Jr. on Monday to refuse to answer the panel’s questions.
“You just show up and plead the Fifth and it’s over with,” Graham told reporters, according to The Washington Post.
Witness tampering … Read the rest
Yesterday Fresh Air was an interview with Phoebe Waller-Bridge who created and wrote “Fleabag.” There was one especially interesting bit…
… Read the restGROSS: So you went to a Catholic school for girls. How did the sex segregation work for you? And was this – like, how old were you when you were in Catholic school.
WALLER-BRIDGE: I went there when I was 11. My mum had felt it was very important from day dot that we had boys around (laughter), as well as our brother. And – ’cause my brother had his sisters around the whole time. And we had him. But it’s something about actually socializing. And so mum was really, really good about making sure that we had boys and
Trump’s lawyers are claiming that Congress can’t investigate Trump’s corruption.
Lawyers for President Donald Trump and the House clashed Tuesday in federal court over the extent of Congress’ power to investigate him in the first legal test of Trump’s effort to block sprawling probes of his finances and private business.
Trump wants a judge to prevent a congressional committee from obtaining financial records from his longtime accountant, Mazars USA.
He’s the president, dammit! He’s busy! He has a lot of Fox to watch, a lot of golf to play, a lot of ice cream to gobble, a lot of insult-tweets to tweet. He can’t be worrying about Congress finding out exactly how crooked he is.
… Read the rest
… Read the restDonald Trump told reporters Tuesday he “didn’t understand” FBI Director Christopher Wray’s “ridiculous” answer that the FBI didn’t spy when looking into then-candidate Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election.
“I didn’t understand [Wray’s] answer,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. “I thought the attorney general answered it perfectly. So I certainly didn’t understand that answer. I thought it was a ridiculous answer.”
Trump has claimed the FBI “spied” on his campaign and that subsequent investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including by special counsel Robert Mueller, were part of an “attempted coup” against him. Attorney General Bill Barr has also pushed that narrative, telling lawmakers last month that “spying
Is Trump hoping to start a war with Iran?
DoJ investigating Trump’s opponents. A European neo-fascist getting red carpet treatment in Oval. War plans for Iran. All out trade war with China. These are all things happening right now.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 14, 2019
Are they working on the pretext even now? There’s a hole in a Norwegian oil tanker anchored off the UAE.
The damage appeared relatively minor, and no one has been officially blamed.
And yet, there are growing fears that this mysterious, obscure incident could become a catalyst — accidental or otherwise — that inflames the already knife-edge tensions between the United States and Iran.
Or, rather, between Trump and those scary Mooooslim guys … Read the rest
Rosenstein is dropping the mask.
Former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein on Monday defended his role in the firing of James B. Comey from the FBI and criticized the bureau’s former director as a “partisan pundit” — offering one of his most detailed public accounts of the hectic events that led to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel.
Partisan? Partisan in what sense? Comey was a lifelong Republican until Trump and the Republican enablers of Trump turned him off that party without turning him on to the other one. It can’t be called “partisan” for Republicans or conservatives to be disgusted by Trump and the party loyalty to Trump. Trump is a bad man… Read the rest
Barr is doing what Trump hired him to do.
Attorney General William P. Barr has tapped John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, to investigate the origins of the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Barr picked Durham in recent weeks to work on the review, which is designed to ensure the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were “lawful and appropriate,” a person familiar with the decision said.
That is, to search for some excuse to pretend that the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were not “lawful and appropriate.”
… Read the restIn the weeks since the release of the report, Trump and his
So now the Supreme Court might reverse Brown, too? Seriously?
Since April 2018, more than two dozen executive and judicial nominees have declined to endorse the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education. This week — one that marks the 65th anniversary of the landmark ruling that struck down legal apartheid in this country — the Senate is poised to confirm three of those judicial nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench.
That is simply unacceptable.
I’ll say. It’s horrifying.
… Read the restFor nearly 65 years, the legal consensus around Brown was unequivocal. With its transformational opinion eviscerating segregation and codifying the modern contours of equal justice, Brown remained above partisanship, ideology and everything else.
Even
For today’s adventure in trending authoritarian we have Trump snuggling up to Orbán.
Orban has said he he building “an alternative to liberal democracy."
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 13, 2019
… Read the restSo what’s so special about that Orbán meeting? Well for one thing it fits into a pattern of Trump cosying up to authoritarian leaders – see Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, to name but three.
Orbán, the far-right Hungarian prime minister, has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities and the courts. He was snubbed by both Barack Obama and George W Bush, while last year the European parliament voted to bring disciplinary proceedings against Hungary for putting
David Frum writes that if Trump had been smart – gosh these wild hypotheticals, huh? – he would have embraced the Mueller report, apologized for mistakes, promised to learn from them, condemned Russian interference, moved on.
… Read the restBut that is not the Trump way. The Trump way is to escalate, always.
Over the four weeks between the Barr letter and the release of the redacted Mueller report, Trump kept insisting that the Mueller report said more than it did. It said, in effect: We didn’t find sufficient evidence to charge your campaign with conspiracy, and our internal Department of Justice policies forbid us from charging you with obstruction. He wanted it to say: You did nothing wrong. He wanted it
Pakistani authorities have a word with Twitter.
https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1127685318386290688
You know, the US, or Mississippi, or Little Rock could pass a law saying nobody is allowed to criticize the US. Such a law would not pass judicial review, but supposing for the sake of argument that it did – would that mean that people in Pakistan or Mexico or Somalia have to obey that law? Of course not. There’s such a thing as jurisdiction. The laws of one country don’t extend to the people of all other countries. In other words, who cares that some goons in Pakistan claim that that friendly panel of Jesus and Mo saying howdy “is in violation of Pakistan law”? Why does Twitter bother passing that … Read the rest
This crap again.
Scarlett Moffatt and Jodie Whitaker lead worst dressed on #BAFTATV red carpet https://t.co/NuFa4jdkXE pic.twitter.com/edfFYRFOND
— Mirror Celeb (@MirrorCeleb) May 12, 2019
The article is just a string of photos like that and the “reporter,” James Brinsford, saying why he doesn’t like each dress.
Note the ratio.
The replies are uniformly hostile.
People are so weird – sitting down in cold blood to put together a thing like this that is nothing but bullying intended to make people feel bad – women, specifically. They go to an event, they dress up the way they have to, they pose obligingly for photos, wearing their biggest smiles – and along comes ratbag to say they all look like crap. Meanness … Read the rest
Whoa, top class DARVO from the Trump gang!
The White House on Sunday decried Democratic-led congressional investigations, saying Democrats are refusing to abide by “rules and norms” that govern oversight authority as they issue subpoenas for documents the Trump administration refuses to hand over.
We’re not refusing to abide by “rules and norms,” you’re refusing to abide by “rules and norms.” So there!
… Read the rest“There are rules and norms governing congressional oversight of the executive branch, and the Democrats simply refuse to abide by them,” White House deputy press secretary Steve Groves said in a statement. “Democrats are demanding documents they know they have no legal right to see — including confidential communications between the President and foreign leaders and grand
Jesse Singal on the Ban Scholars move:
2/ less faith that, as a journalist who often writes about science, I will be able to continue using Twitter without getting punished for communicating scientifiically accurate infromation. Twitter is making a terrible and embarrassing error here that it should fix.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) May 12, 2019
4/This is how you get the most important outlet in the world running an extremely misleading column on testosterone, the ACLU arguing women can compete w/and beat men in competitive sports. etc.
We're approaching a Soviet/fundamentalist/take your pick level of science denialism. pic.twitter.com/SJ6ia3NvLe
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) May 12, 2019
… Read the rest6/ In conclusion , Twitter, PLEASE suspend me for accurately citing the DSM. I am
Ok let’s talk about that.
Transgenderism is an actual thing. Transethnicism, as far as we know, isn’t.
— Mitch Benn (@MitchBenn) May 11, 2019
What does it mean to say “transgenderism is an actual thing”?
It’s an actual thing in the sense that people talk about it a lot, but that’s not what Benn means, because he contrasts it with “transethnicism” which as far as we know, according to him, is not an actual thing.
So what does he mean? Presumably something like “an actual condition, not just a fashion or fad or subject of conversation.” But then how does he know it really is an actual condition, not just a fashion or fad or subject of conversation? Is his … Read the rest
Nick Cohen writes that Britain is too fond of “characters” to call a far-right politician a far-right politician.
If you want to deceive the French public, you pose as an intellectual. In England, you pose as a character. Like a criminal on a witness protection programme, the ham actor who plays upper-class roles avoids the accountability that prevents democratic life degenerating into the feast of fools we see around us.
In the US you pose as a nice guy. (Women of course don’t get to play this game.) Joe Biden is recycling himself yet again because of all those cozy photos of him with Obama. Joe Biden is not a nice guy.
… Read the restThey get away with it because the
