In today’s US Gun Terrorism news so far:

The Denver Post:

One Douglas County deputy died and four more were wounded along with two civilians Sunday morning at a Highlands Ranch apartment complex. The shooter was also shot and is believed dead, the Sheriff’s Office said in a tweet at 9:32 a.m.

Deputies were responding to a domestic disturbance call.

CBS News:

Police in Houston say they arrested a man found with guns and ammunition in his hotel room early Sunday, as authorities across the country remain on high alert ahead of planned New Year’s Eve celebrations.

The guy was drunk and tottering around hassling other guests, so police asked him to go to his room and when … Read the rest

This woman in #Iran took off her #Hijab to protest the mandatory Islamic dress code imposed on Iranian women. #IStandWithHer #IranProtests #Islam pic.twitter.com/G6oKHIPA68

— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi) December 29, 2017

A clear photo via Fariborz Pooya:

Maryam’s new Facebook cover photo:

… Read the rest

Trump’s good buddy former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke:

I am UNINTIMIDATED by lib media attempts to smear and discredit me with their FAKE NEWS reports designed to silence me. I will continue to poke them in the eye with a sharp stick and bitch slap these scum bags til they get it. I have been attacked by better people than them #MAGA pic.twitter.com/XtZW5PdU2b

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 30, 2017

I am UNINTIMIDATED by lib media attempts to smear and discredit me with their FAKE NEWS reports designed to silence me. I will continue to poke them in the eye with a sharp stick and bitch slap these scum bags til they get it. I have been

From the ACLU:

During the holiday season, many of us think about what we can do to help people struggling with poverty. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on the other hand, decided just before Christmas to rescind a guidance meant to protect low-income Americans.

The 2016 guidance, issued by former President Obama’s Justice Department, urged state and local courts nationwide to abide by constitutional principles prohibiting the jailing of poor people who cannot afford to pay court fines and fees. Jeff Sessions’ action makes clear that he and his Justice Department are unconcerned by courts trampling on the rights of poor people.

The Obama Justice Department issued the 2016 letter after reports and lawsuits by the ACLU and other groups

The hot Donnie-news today is what got the FBI started on the Russia investigation. It turns out it was Papadopoulos blabbing to an Australian diplomat.

During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But

Jonathan Freedland wrote a book about the American revolution almost 20 years ago. The timing was not great.

The American revolution, I argued, was our inheritance, a part of our patrimony mislaid across the Atlantic. From a written constitution to a system of radically devolved power to the replacement of monarchy with an elected head of state, it was time for us to bring home the revolution that we had made in America.

Mere months after publication came the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

“So you want us to live the American dream?” one interviewer asked. “All a bit of nightmare now, isn’t it?”

And that was then.

That, or something like it, has happened at intervals ever since. If

Weirdness.

A tweet by Lindsay Shepherd:

"Wilfrid Laurier University is not safe for their students nor the surrounding community" – local antifascist group

I actually kind of respect how militant these people are.

Their writing needs some work though. pic.twitter.com/9zG5YauFUO

— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) December 30, 2017

Oof – the writing and thinking in that post is so bad I have to go look at the Facebook group. I’m especially curious about what any of that has to do with the IWW – the Industrial Workers of the World aka Wobblies.

The About page sounds IWW-compatible, ish, sort of.

The General Defense Committee (GDC) acts in defense and solidarity for those oppressed by capitalism. We advocate for a model of

In the least surprising news of the day:

It pays to be a chief executive officer in the United States, according to a new report revealing that the pay gap between U.S. CEOs and their employees is larger than in any other country.

The report may be new, but I’m pretty sure the finding is not. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before, more than once, because we’ve been arranging things this way for a long time.

The U.S. CEOs of the top publicly traded companies came in first on Bloomberg’s 2017 ranking of Global CEO Pay-to-Average Income ratio. According to the analysis, CEOs in the U.S. averaged $14.3 million in annual pay, making 265 times more than their average

Originally a comment by iknklast on Maybe it’s time for Vanity Fair to do one.

Vanity Fair, which looks like it is on its last legs

That’s the same thing he says about every news source he doesn’t like – looks like it is on its last legs. He has no imagination, no creativity, no ability to hold enough phrases in his head to even say anything that isn’t a repeat of what he’s said dozens of times before.

And I wish everyone would shut the hell up about Hillary and focus on what we need to focus on – Donald J. Trump, toddler-in-chief. I am sick of hearing pundits who have never been to the midwest for any … Read the rest

An article at Scientific American claims that new research suggests that men are less green aka environmentally conscientious than women because they think green=girly.

Some researchers have suggested that personality differences, such as women’s prioritization of altruism, may help to explain this gender gap in green behavior.

Our own research suggests an additional possibility: men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity. It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.

Oh noes.

We showed that there is a psychological link between eco-friendliness and perceptions of femininity. Due to this “green-feminine stereotype,” both men and

Was Vanity Fair’s “advice” to Hillary Clinton sexist shit or “lighthearted” and amusing speaking up to power?

Maybe it's time for Hillary Clinton to take up a new hobby in 2018 pic.twitter.com/sbE78rA5At

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) December 23, 2017

Well the fact is she has taken up a new “hobby” – she’s not running again, and she’s doing other things. But by “hobby” they really mean hobby, as opposed to serious grown-up work; they mean go away, be quiet, don’t keep being public and saying words.

Funny that they didn’t say that to Sanders or Biden, isn’t it. I wonder what the mystery ingredient might be that makes it ok for them to keep being public and saying words and … Read the rest

Another chilling piece of ugliness from the Trump administration via Chiraag Bains, a former senior counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions retracted an Obama-era guidance to state courts that was meant to end debtors’ prisons, which throw people who are too poor to pay fines into jail. This practice is blatantly unconstitutional, and the guidance had helped jump-start reform around the country. Its withdrawal is the latest sign that the federal government is retreating from protecting civil rights for the most vulnerable among us.

What are we to conclude from this? That Trump and Sessions want to see poor people rot in jail because they can’t pay court fines.

The Justice