National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

7

Get Educated. Get Tested. Get Involved. Get Treated.

The day was originally established in 1999 to call attention to the impact of HIV and AIDS in the black/African-American community, and 18 years later, it is a vital reminder that in Los Angeles County — and indeed across the country — the impact of HIV continues to be devastating. According to the 2017-2021 Comprehensive HIV Plan for Los Angeles County, for example, the HIV epidemic among the black/African-American community in our own backyard encompasses the following statistics:

  • Blacks/African-Americans are one of three racial/ethnic groups most impacted by HIV
  • Among men who have sex with men (MSM) blacks/African-Americans have the highest estimated HIV prevalence
  • Young (18-29) black/African American MSM are one of the fastest-rising groups contracting HIV
  • New HIV diagnoses  both adults/adolescent males and females is highest among blacks/African-Americans
  • Among females living with HIV, the majority are black/African-American

For a sobering perspective on the epidemic nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year reported that if current trends continue, one in two black/African-American MSM will contract HIV in their lifetime. Fifty percent. Even PrEP, the daily use of a pill that prevents HIV, approved four years ago, is not yet making major inroads in communities of color, due to lack of awareness, problems with access, and concerns about its cost as well as distrust of the medical establishment (the shameful legacy of Tuskegee still looms large).

[…]

Get Educated
Everyone in our community has a responsibility to learn the facts about HIV as well as other sexually transmitted infections and talk with our friends, family, and sexual partners. This will go such a long way in ensuring that we are all informed. Additionally, it is important that we all know the truth about the ways to prevent HIV transmission (condoms, PrEP/PEP, HIV-positive individuals being in care and on medication). It is also important we support those who are HIV-positive. This reduces the stigma associated with living with HIV, which often prevents those who are HIV-positive from seeking the medical care they need or from talking to their loved ones.

In addition, if you have health insurance, talk to a medical provider about PrEP and other HIV prevention methods. If you don’t have insurance, find out if you qualify for a low-cost plan. In California, for example, Medi-Cal enrollment continues year-round, and PrEP is one of the benefits an enrollee can access for little or no cost. The Trump administration can’t take that away yet.

Get Tested
If you’re sexually active, get tested for HIV and STIs every three to six months. It’s easy to do, free even if you don’t have insurance, and confidential. Encourage your friends and partners to get tested and share their results too.

Get Involved
There are many wonderful HIV and health care organizations in our community that are committed to ending the epidemic. They need your support, whether through volunteering or financially. Reach out to them to see how you can help. In addition, lend your voice to the fight to keep Obamacare accessible for everyone. Access is a crucial component to fighting HIV and getting people in care.

Get Treated
If you are HIV-positive and not getting medical care, find out where you can get it. If you are in care, take your medication as prescribed. We know that when HIV-positive individuals are virally suppressed the likelihood of them transmitting HIV is almost zero.

We should never forget that we can help each other with each of these steps — that we are stronger working together. The future isn’t looking so bright out there at the moment, let’s be honest. But we can ensure we are doing everything possible with the resources above to stay healthy in body and mind. We can, and will, thrive despite those who would seek to strip care away from us.

Via The Advocate. * National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Paid Protesters and Offenses Against ‘God’.

AP Photo.

AP Photo.

Louie Gohmert, not exactly known for any sort of rational viewpoint, has now picked up the banner of “Paid Protesters!” and running with it. For the most part, there isn’t anywhere Gohmert is taken seriously, except for Breitbart. Yes, Fascist Daily has embraced the daft Gohmert.

That congressman is Louie Gohmert of Texas, who is well known for his crazy talk, such as his statement that gay men make ineffective soldiers because they’re getting massages from their lovers all day. But Breitbart and its ilk treat him as a serious person.

“This is fake news,” he said of the protests against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. “This is people who are just out there to create the appearance of obstruction. You know, Patrick Poole, remember back in one of the demonstrations on the Mall, caught one of the guys: ‘Hey, how much are you getting paid?’ He said, ‘$15 an hour. I thought everybody was getting that.’ They’re getting paid. The Soros money gets spread around.

As usual, rethugs seldom care about the source of their information. No one loves bullshit quite as much as conservatives.

Poole, by the way, is a conspiracy-minded blogger who regularly rails against “radical Islam.” It’s not clear what protest on the National Mall Gohmert is referencing, but several right-wingers have asserted that Soros funded the Women’s March on Washington and paid its participants — something the fact-checking site PolitiFact rated “Pants on Fire.”

Get those facts right before you twist them to pieces, okay? As usual, Ann Coulter has been waxing glib about the Tiny Dictator, never getting a single fact right, because hey, they have alternative facts, and those are better, right?

She particularly praised Trump’s executive order banning entry to the U.S. by residents of seven majority-Muslim countries, and his ban on refugees in general. “And as I wrote in my column in Breitbart, it’s not just that we’re worried they’re going to shoot up a gay nightclub or a community center in San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, 9/11 — that isn’t the only purpose to this,” she said. “What’s the upside? We keep bringing in all of these elderly, sickly poor people. They aren’t fleeing anything except not as good or free health care in Yemen as in America. We have our own poor people. We have our own elderly.”

:Must not drink tea when reading: Not as good or free health care in America? Okaaaaaaaaaay, we’re on another planet now, right? Because on the planet known as Earth, the country known as America has never had good or free health care. People don’t completely uproot themselves and place themselves in tenuous and frightening position because American healthcare. This is jaw-dropping willful delusion.

Well, so much for “Give me your tired, your poor,” plus Coulter doesn’t generally express much concern about impoverished American citizens. And several studies have indicated that neither legal nor undocumented immigrants are a drain on social services. Check out The New Republic’s analysis here. And, of course, some of the attacks she cited were committed by people born in the U.S. (Surprisingly, she did not mention the Bowling Green Massacre.) But misleading rhetoric like Coulter’s is exactly what builds support for Trump’s xenophobic policies.

The republican insistence on any and all terrorism being “outside” once again emphasises their view on domestic terrorism: oh, that? No, no such thing. America has a huge problem with homegrown terrorism, and the denial continues, and we will pay for that, because all those homegrown terrorists think they are home free in the Fascist States of America now. They aren’t far wrong, either.

We’ve been reporting a lot on the past week on potential Trump executive orders affecting LGBT people. First there were rumors that he would undo President Obama’s executive order prohibiting companies with federal contracts from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. He then announced he would not, a decision that was reportedly influenced by daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner — although they are hardly real allies of LGBT people.

Some on the far right were not pleased with Trump’s decision. Among them was Alan Keyes, who worked in the Reagan administration and has sought the presidency, both as a Republican and as a member of minor parties.

Oh goody, yet another World Nut Daily talking head. This is sure to be predictable: Queer Bad! Transgender Terrifying!

“The existential perpetuation of humanity depends upon procreation,” Keyes wrote. “The relations between man and woman, with a view to human procreation, toward which they are naturally impelled, therefore involve unalienable right.” LGBT people, according to Keyes, are “impelled by their own will and preference toward lifestyles that have no special regard for the common good.” And they “deny and disparage the God-endowed natural right of procreation,” he added.

People have the right to eschew procreation altogether, y’know. Some people want sprogs, some people don’t. The key here being people. Their particular orientation doesn’t matter. All manner of hetero people can’t have sprogs, but still want them. Do they get booted onto the icky queer pile?

Keyes may be more pleased about another LGBT-related executive order, a draft of which was obtained and published by The Nation last week. It would provide companies, nonprofits, and even government employees a broad license to discriminate, without repercussions, against LGBT people and anyone else who offends a certain set of religious beliefs. The protected beliefs are that only heterosexual marriages are legitimate, that sexual relations are reserved for such marriages, that life begins at conception, and that gender is fixed at birth. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has refused to confirm or deny that the order is under consideration. We haven’t seen the far-right media weighing in on it yet, but activist groups such as the National Organization for Marriage are pushing it.

Another thing that didn’t please the far right last week was the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to admit transgender boys. “The BSA folded on God and how he ‘made them male and female,’” wrote Brent Bozell in a column on Townhall. “In today’s culture, the secular left lets man overrule God. This cowardly shell of an organization should just scrap the references to God, and every God-respecting church should jettison their Boy Scout units to the nearest secular gathering place.” He of course ignores the fact that an increasing number of churches accept and affirm transgender people — and these congregations most likely respect God.

That would be one particular god. That particular god is rejected by a whole lot of people. It has no place in my head or life. I am, as ever, amused by the whole “made them male and female” crap. Yeah, yeah, and supposedly, they were made in Jehovah’s image, too. Christians never ever think that through.

The Advocate has the full run down on fascism today.

 

Cowards.

Mary Ann Ahern NBC via Twitter.

Mary Ann Ahern NBC via Twitter.

Republicans continue in their fine tradition of cowardice, hiding and running away from their constituents, who want some actual answers about healthcare and other issues. These aren’t the first cons to run away in the face of questions from those they claim to represent, but the pace of Runaway Sir Robins has definitely picked up.

Constituents of Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) have been trying to share their concerns regarding the Republican-led effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A meeting with 16 constituents was abruptly canceled by Roskam’s staff this week when they learned a member of the press was present, and Roskam’s appearance at the Palatine Township Republican Organization on Saturday was changed from being open to the public to a members only event, according to the Chicago Tribune.

More than 300 people showed up to protest outside the closed door meeting, expressing concerns ranging from the Obamacare repeal to President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

“We can no longer accept that he refuses to hold town hall meetings or meet with constituents who may disagree with his voting record,” Carolynne Funk told the Tribune. “The stakes are now too high to tolerate being shut out of the democratic process any longer.”

Video posted by Citizen Action Illinois from the protest reportedly shows Roskam leaving out of the back door while the crowd can be heard chanting “shame on you!”

[…]

Roskam wasn’t the only Republican to face an angry crowd of constituents on Saturday.

A sizable crowd gathered at a town hall held by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) while constituents inside expressed their concerns regarding the policies of the Trump administration and the Affordable Care Act repeal, according to KQED reporter Katie Orr, who was present.

Orr posted video on Twitter showing McClintock being escorted out of the event by police.

ThinkProgress’ Laurel Raymond identified several other recent instances of Republican lawmakers going to great lengths to avoid their constituents: Earlier this week, a small group of constituents went to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) state office to discuss Obamacare. The door was locked and Cotton’s staff hid inside, saying the senator wouldn’t be taking constituent meetings. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) invited constituents to “mobile office hours.” When they showed up to discuss health care and Trump’s Muslim ban, she never joined them. Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) told a meeting of conservative groups last week, “Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go.”

“Since Obamacare and these issues have come up, the women are in my grill no matter where I go.” Does Brat style himself a rap star or something? Nope, a 52 year old white male. Speaking that way doesn’t make you cool, Mr. Brat. It makes you sound like an idiot. You aren’t being surrounded by groupies. As it seems to escaped your notice, women are human beings, and these human beings in particular are represented by you, and they’d like to know just what the fuck it is you think you are doing. That would be because they are affected by your actions. I guess the constituents wanting answers who happen to be male are just fine, and not all up in your grill?

Full story at Think Progress.

Sunday Facepalm.

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

Donald Trump and Wayne Allen Root (YouTube/screen grab).

There’s a bowlful of facepalm this Sunday. We’ll start with Smarm-master Wayne Allen Root, who has decided that all people who oppose Tiny Dictator Trump are mentally ill.

“There is not much that needs to be said,” Root declared. “They’re unhinged, they’re off the rails, they’re mentally ill. The Democratic Party has Trump Derangement Syndrome and they are no longer an opposition party or a leading party; they’re not willing to come to the table and work, they’re not willing to vote on Supreme Court nominees, they’re just looking to block and boycott. They’re crazy and so we have just got to run the country and ignore them … I think we have got to erase Obama like he was never there.”

Root went on to encourage the state of California “to leave the union” because “it would be the best thing to ever happen to America, conservatives, the Republican Party [and] patriots. My God, if California seceded with its fifty-plus electoral votes, we win every election for the rest of history.”

“We don’t want California as part of this country anymore,” Root continued, adding that he’d also love to see New York, Illinois, Maryland and all of New England likewise secede and “let this country be a nice conservative country run by people like Donald Trump and Wayne Root.”

Just the idea…*shudder*. You would either find me out of the country, or in a seceded state. Interesting, I suppose, that it doesn’t at all occur to Root what would happen to their dictatorship if California, New York, Illinois, Maryland and all of New England did leave all the conservative idiots on their own. Not only would their economy bottom out, but there would be one heck of a brain drain. RWW has the full story.

We now move on to Pastor Carl Gallups, who is railing on about immigration, and how it’s ‘god’s’ punishment. I wish these jackasses would be specific. Really can’t see Set or Dionysus or a host of other gods doing something so psychopathic and petty.

Insisting that this is all part of “spiritual warfare,” Gallups said, “What’s happening now is a big, heavy dose, a seismic shift of common sense, rule of law and human decency is beginning to come back in vogue and the left and their counterpart in the demonic realm, they are screaming, ‘Oh, it’s utter chaos, it’s utter chaos.’”

I haven’t been in any demonic realm, nor have I been screaming “oh, it’s utter chaos” either. I have been doing my best to wake people the fuck up, that’s a bit different. Fighting and Resistance are not the same as quivering in panic, just so you know.

He went on to explain that while “the world is so concerned about the flood of refugees and illegal immigrants that are violating our boundaries and borders,” it can all be traced back to God’s punishment on America for teaching evolution and allowing gay rights and legal abortion.

No, no, no, no, no. I’m not at all concerned about refugees. I am concerned about all the things which are forcing people to flee their countries. I’m fine with the people, it’s all the war, intolerance, and other nastiness I’m primarily concerned with, because it’s those things which need to change. No one has been violating boundaries or borders. It’s a fucking nonsensical concept anyway. Human imposed borders have been shifting for as long as there have been humans. Same thing goes with migration. People move. *Shrug*

“Here’s what I have been saying for years before this date,” he said, “and that was: Look, we have violated the borders of our children’s minds, for 100 years we have told them that they come from monkeys and that there is no God. We have violated the borders of their souls and their spirits. We have violated the borders of the womb in America and have destroyed 60 million children. We have violated the borders of sexuality, we have violated the borders of family, we have violated the borders of marriage, we have violated the borders of gender. And now, as a judgment from God or as discipline from God, our own geographical borders are now being violated.”

Oooh, yes, introducing children to the concept of thinking, then teaching them how to think, yeah, that’s evil. We don’t come from monkeys, you dipshit. We’re apes. It’s an ‘all in the family’ kind of thing. Can’t we have a law somewhere that prohibits idiots from spouting off about biology until they have had to study it? Yeah, yeah. I can dream.

“The borders of the womb.” :chokes: There’s no one uterus, dude. Individual uteruses are not parts of a hive-uterus. A uterus is a bodily organ, not an entity. A uterus is not an individual. Said organs are inside many individuals, who supposedly have control of them, just like the rest of their organs. Many individuals with uteruses aren’t remotely interested in you or anyone else’s opinion on them. As far as my uterus is concerned, consider it an undiscovered country. No one is welcome.

Borders, borders, borders. You’re boring me to death with this obsession. So Jehovah has gotten all pissy and decided to just now do this immigration thing, eh? So, you’re a dyed in the wool idiot, too. I have to say, ol’ El Shaddai has lost his touch. It got so bent out of shape over a lack of hospitality that he crispy crittered two cities, and turned a sorrowful woman into salt, for the great crime of grieving over her lost family and home. If continuing immigration is all it has, I think your god is past its used by date. Just sayin’. RWW has the story.

Last is right wing lawyer, Larry Klayman, who thinks he’s really onto something with suing our former president:

Right-wing attorney Larry Klayman appeared on Steve Malzberg’s Newsmax program today to discuss the lawsuit he has filed against former President Obama for allegedly inciting a protestor opposed to President Trump’s ban on refugees and immigrants from several predominantly Muslim nations to “assault” him at Los Angeles International Airport over the weekend. That “assault” apparently consisted of carrying a sign and yelling at passengers.

“Someone with an Arabic accent, a female, charged at me and others in a very aggressive and provocative way,” Klayman said, “causing us fear of immediate bodily injury or death—that’s the standard for assault. She was obviously egged on by President Obama after he left office, in his private capacity, when he was giving a call to arms, in effect, to protesters to continue this mayhem and destruction.”

Obama was likewise responsible for the violent protest at Berkeley University last night, Klayman said.

Klayman insisted that his lawsuit “has great merit” and that he looks forward to proving that Obama “is responsible … for assaulting me Sunday evening.”

I have run right out of comment. I am so tired of dipshit idiots. RWW has the story and video.

Sweet Marie.

Hundreds of women stormed City Hall in New York in 1917 to demand cheaper food prices. Credit Bettmann Archives, via Getty Images.

Hundreds of women stormed City Hall in New York in 1917 to demand cheaper food prices. Credit Bettmann Archives, via Getty Images.

Q. A hundred years before the Women’s March on Washington, another women’s uprising took place, in which Marie Ganz, known as Sweet Marie, played a leading role. Who was she and where did she get her nickname?

A. Newspapers of the day said Ms. Ganz, who was arrested in the food riots of 1917, was incendiary and cursed like a sailor. So naturally, cynical reporters called her “Sweet Marie,” according to Thai Jones, the curator for American history in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. In 1925, however, another reporter said that she had received the name “because of an intriguing smile and an engaging personality.”

In 1914, Sweet Marie carried a pistol into the Standard Oil Building in New York and threatened to shoot John D. Rockefeller Jr. Fortunately, Mr. Rockefeller, whom Sweet Marie blamed for brutalizing striking miners in Colorado, was not in.

“She spent 60 days in jail for it, and it was the main thing on her political résumé, if you can call it that,” Dr. Jones said, adding, “She was kind of a street-corner speaker and definitely a rabble-rouser.”

The food riots began on the morning of Feb. 19, 1917, when women who had gone to the food market area in Brownsville, Brooklyn, found that prices, which had already been rising, had gone up again.

The trouble began at 10 a.m., “when a woman who didn’t have enough cash to cover her purchases overturned a pushcart,” William Freiburger wrote on a CUNY web page about the episode.

“As the peddler protested and attempted to chase after her,” he continued, “hundreds of women surged in upon the hapless businessman.”

The police contended with a thousand rioters for two hours before order was restored, Mr. Freiburger wrote.

The next morning, The New York Times said, 400 mothers, many carrying babies, stormed City Hall to demand cheaper food. An official met with Sweet Marie and other protest leaders, promising a meeting with the mayor. The crowd began to disperse. Then Sweet Marie “harangued the crowd in bitter language, and soon everything was confusion.” She was taken into custody.

Outbreaks of violence continued into March, Mr. Freiburger wrote, and protests spread to Philadelphia and Boston.

In March, Eric Ferrar wrote on the Lo-Down website, the city helped to defuse the crisis by “securing thousands of pounds of low-cost produce,” which allowed wholesalers to lower prices.

[…]

“I was concerned almost entirely about the poor and the problems with which they had to contend,” she said, adding: “More than anything else, perhaps, it is an empty stomach that makes a real radical. This is a fact that should compel vital attention of all parties even today.”

The full story is at The NY Times.

Women: An Epic Trolling of Trump.

Isabella Lovin / Swedish government.

Isabella Lovin / Swedish government.

The Swedish government just announced a new climate change law, requiring the country to end greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

The proposed legislation has wide support in Sweden from almost all major political parties across the political spectrum. If passed it will require all future governments to provide updates on how they are tackling climate change and inform Parliament on whether they are on track to the meet the target of zero net greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades.
But many people noticed the all-female picture looks an awful lot like an attempt to troll Donald Trump, after pictures of the US president signing an executive order effectively restricting access to abortion while surrounded by male advisers went viral.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.

Upon enquiry as to the possibly trolling in the photo, it was left up to the viewer to decide:

“You can interpret it as you want,” Lovin’s spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “It’s more that Sweden is a feminist government and this is a very important law that we just decided on.”

“We need climate leadership in the world today. And to make the Paris agreement happen we need climate leadership.”

“I would ask everyone to make their own interpretation.”

People have been busy doing just that:

This cheered me up no end. The Hill and Buzzfeed have this story.

Right Wing Views: Women? Ick.

we-read-breitbart-so-you-dont-have-to-750x

Some nice staffers at The Advocate are reading Breitbart and other fascist publications, so we don’t have to feel all filthy clicking on those sites, but can still know what’s happening. It’s still a very nauseous trip, reading the excerpts, so be warned.

In the current political climate — well, in any political climate — it’s good to know who your adversaries are and what they’re saying. For this reason, we’re initiating a weekly roundup of the highlights and lowlights from Breitbart and other right-wing news and opinion websites.

Our inaugural entry (in more ways than one) takes note of these sites’ coverage and commentary regarding the ban on entry to the U.S. from citizens of seven countries, the Women’s Marches, and Donald Trump’s swearing-in as president.

[…]

Breitbart featured several other defenses of  the Trump order, including a column by failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. She denounces “hysteria” over the order and says calling it a ban amounted to “fake news,” then concludes, “Trump’s executive action is a step in the right direction towards welcoming safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people into our nation that was built on the backs of safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic people willing to assimilate into America’s exceptional melting pot.”

I, I…uh, oh fuck. For the life of me, I cannot figure out, at all, why anyone gives this person space to say anything. It’s nothing but word salad with shit dressing. uStates is a melting pot (not in the least exceptional) because of immigration. (After the genocide of those who were here first, natch.) FFS. All manner of safe, loving, law-abiding, hardworking people have been denied entry and re-entry into the Fascist States of America. What. An. Idiot.

The previous weekend was marked by Women’s March on Washington and sister marches all over the world. In case you think sexism isn’t alive and well, consider what the far-right sites had to say about the actions:

“Just another random protest march by the usual ragbag of leftist suspects, far too many of them blue hair, their whale-like physiques and terrifying camel-toes the size of the Grand Canyon.”

This isn’t from the comments section, folks. This sentence, grammatical problems and all, is from Breitbart contributor James Dellingpole. And wait, there’s more — after sharing his tweet saying men would probably have to fetch their own beers the night after the march, he writes:

“Very few of these shrieking munters — save the token celebrities — will ever find themselves in a position where they are able to fetch a man’s beer from his fridge because first they would have to find a man willing to share the same space with them.”

According to Urban Dictionary, “munter” is British slang for an ugly woman. Dellingpole finishes:

“Still, when all is said and done I think we owe those women who took to the streets across the world in their various pod groups a massive favour. They have reminded us what a Hillary presidency would have looked like every single day for at least four years. And they have swept away any reservations we may have had about the absolute necessity of having voted for Donald Trump.”

Ah yes, women, quelle horreur! Echoes from Euripides’ Hippolyta strike:

Go to hell! I’ll never have my fill of hating

Women, not if I’m said to talk without ceasing,

For women are also unceasingly wicked.

Either someone should teach them to be sensible,

Or let me trample them underfoot.

How little things change, literally, over centuries, when it comes to conservative authoritarians. In 195 bce, Cato the Elder declared:

If every married man had been concerned to ensure that his own wife looked up to him and respected his rightful position as her husband, we should not have half this trouble with women en masse. Instead, women have become so powerful that our independence has been lost in our own homes and is now being trampled and stamped underfoot in public. We have failed to retrain them as individuals, and now they have combined to reduce us to our present panic…It made me blush to push my way through a positive regiment of women a few minutes ago in order to get here. My respect for the position and modesty of them as individuals – a respect which I do not feel for them as a mob – prevented my doing anything as consul which would suggest the use of force. Otherwise I should have said to them, ‘What do you mean by rushing out in public in this unprecedented fashion, blocking the streets and shouting out to men who are not your husbands? Could you not have asked your questions at home, and have asked them of your husbands?

[…]

Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is not good giving her the reins and expecting her not to kick over the traces. No, you have got to keep the reins firmly in your own hands…Suppose you allow them to acquire or to extort one right after another, and in the end to achieve complete equality with men, do you think that you will find them bearable? Nonsense. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters. – Livy, The Early History of Rome, translated by Aubrey de Sélin-court, Penguin Classics, 2002.

Cato’s speech failed, and the Oppian laws were overturned in 195 bce. This was the first recorded protest movement ever organized by women. It’s now 2017 ce, and we have not yet achieved equality, and still find ourselves needing to protest in the streets, much to the displeasure of misogynists everywhere, who still carry the attitude and mores of Cato the Elder.

There were more right wing comments on the Womens’ March:

“Commentators on MSNBC bragged about the crowd size of the women’s marches but, as a fellow female, I couldn’t help noticing the size of some of the marchers. There is a big difference between crowd numbers and crowd size.” — Townhall columnist Susan Stamper Brown

“Never have so many hotness-challenged crones so vehemently rejected being grabbed while simultaneously being at so little risk of it.” — Townhall columnist Kurt Schlicter

And conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars site, which is one that really brings the crazy, approvingly posted a video of a conservative activist called Big Joe confronting a participant in the Women’s March in Los Angeles. “Planned Parenthood is a racist system,” he says. “Margaret Sanger [Planned Parenthood’s founder] thought very little of black people. She thought they were ignorant and shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t reproduce. … You want to be against racists? You should be against Planned Parenthood.” (Editor’s note: The assertion that Sanger and her organization were/are racist is a bald-faced lie, but many on the right believe it.)

Some things never change. The full article is at The Advocate.

#Dress Like A Woman!

Axios has a good article up about Trump’s obsession with how people look, because that’s all that’s important – do they look the part? That’s how he chose half his fucking cabinet, for Christ’s sake.
This is just one little bit, but it’s sparked a big reaction:

Trump likes the women who work for him “to dress like women,” says a source who worked on Trump’s campaign. “Even if you’re in jeans, you need to look neat and orderly.” We hear that women who worked in Trump’s campaign field offices — folks who spend more time knocking on doors than attending glitzy events — felt pressure to wear dresses to impress Trump.

The Guardian and Raw Story both have articles up about the backlash, full of tweets.

Hmmm, I think I need another suit. I don’t have a tux, but I do have a top hat…oh, and I have a tux shirt, like Colette’s! Time to shop.

#Dress Like A Woman.

Arkansas Act 45.

Danny Johnston/AP Photo.

Danny Johnston/AP Photo.

A new Arkansas law bans one of the safest and most common abortion procedures and allows family members to block an abortion by suing the abortion provider.

Arkansas Act 45, signed by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last Thursday, bans dilation and evacuation abortions, the most common abortion procedure during the second trimester of pregnancy. Rushed from filing to law in less than two months, the legislation effectively blocks abortions after 14 weeks by making the safest procedure a felony. The earliest current abortion bans block the procedure after 20 weeks.

With no exception for rape or incest, and a clause that allows a woman’s spouse or parent to sue an abortion provider, the law potentially allows the fetus’s father to sue even in cases of spousal rape or incest, abortion rights activists say. The law could go into effect as early as spring.

Emphasis mine. Looks like Arkansas is going full court biblical, reducing women to mere things, at best, nothing more than chattel. Interestingly enough, the fuckwits in Arkansas are also crusading against Sharia law. Apparently, they are utterly immune from irony poisoning.

State Rep. Brandt Smith (R-Jonesboro) introduced HB 1041, which won approval Thursday from a House judiciary committee, to “American laws for American courts,” reported the Arkansas Times.

He claims the measure was not specifically aimed at Sharia law, although it’s similar to legislation introduced in other states based on the conspiracy theory that Islamic law is creeping into the American legal system.

Yes, you could say Islamic law is creeping in, it’s called American laws for American courts, laws which exist for no other reason than to oppress and grind people down into the dirt, stripping them of their human rights and autonomy. At least Islamic law makes exceptions for rape and incest for 120 days when it comes to abortion, which makes that law better than the “American” one in Arkansas. Getting back to the Arkansas law, they aren’t alone:

When not working in the legislature, Mayberry doubles as the president of Arkansas Right to Life, a subsidiary of the National Right to Life Committee. Introducing the bill before the Arkansas House in January, Mayberry announced that the text was “based on model legislation from National Right to Life that has been passed, or similar legislation has been passed in six states.”

Those six states are Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and West Virginia. In all but the latter two, which passed their bills in spring 2016, legal challenges have temporarily blocked the laws from taking effect. As in the other states, the Arkansas legislation takes a hard line against dilation and evacuation procedures, making their use a Class D felony, punishable by a $10,000 fine or six years in prison.

[…]

But one particularly punishing element of Arkansas’s law has not been tested in court, even in Mississippi and West Virginia, where versions of the bans still stand, reproductive rights activists say.

A clause in the Arkansas law allows a woman’s spouse, parent or guardian, or health care provider to sue an abortion provider for civil damages or injunctive relief that could stop the abortion. And because Act 45 does not provide any exceptions for cases of rape or incest, the clause could allow the fetus’s father to sue an abortion provider even in cases of spousal rape or incest.

Full stories at The Daily Beast and Raw Story.

Donny & Milo: A Fascist Love Affair.

Students protest Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC Berkeley Wednesday evening. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ben Margot.

Students protest Milo Yiannopoulos’ appearance at UC Berkeley Wednesday evening. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ben Margot.

Milo Yiannopoulos calls President Trump “Daddy,” and it seems the relationship might be mutual.

Wednesday evening, UC Berkeley ultimately canceled a speech by Yiannopolous, Breitbart editor and professional provocateur, just two hours before it was to take place. The speech, organized by Berkeley College Republicans, was massively protested, and those demonstrations turned increasingly violent after masked protesters not affiliated with the university started marching on Oakland.

Early Thursday morning, Fox News commentator Todd Starnes railed against the protests:

The birth place of free speech became its graveyard. So here’s what needs to happen: President Trump should immediately issue an executive order blocking Berkeley students from receiving any federal funding. Same goes for any other public university that wants to silence conservative voices. Free speech for all or no federal money! Not a single taxpayer penny, period!

That segment aired around 5:17 am. An hour later, Trump tweeted:

If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

Then, at the top of the 7 o’clock hour, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox and Friends to reinforce the tweet. She mocked the students who protested, saying, “I don’t even know if they know what they’re protesting. I would love to do this big survey nationwide and ask everybody outside these airports, on the college campuses: what’s got you so in a lather?”

“Life doesn’t work that way folks,” she said. “You’re going to work with people who disagree with you. You’re going to encounter folks who aren’t just accosting you in this protective environment.”

The students know exactly what they are protesting, Madame Alternative Facts: sexism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, homophobia, and oh yes, fascism. Pretty much everyone in our now fascist government is someone I disagree with, and they are busy accosting people on every level. We know what that’s like, and so do college students. They aren’t babies, and they aren’t stupid.

Yiannopoulos himself insisted that “the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”

No, the left and all anti-fascist, anti-nazi peoples are simply exercising their rights, and you don’t like that at all. If anyone wants to shut down free speech, it’s the fascist-nazi people. If you’re shouting in the public square, people have the right to respond.

What Yiannopolous offers is not just speech, but bullying of the most vulnerable. He openly encourages those who are white and male to attack basically anyone and everyone else. Trump, taking his cues from Fox News, is validating his behavior.

Indeed. Yiannopolous has already proved, time and time again, that he’s perfectly willing to endanger the lives of others, while taking exception to any and all criticism. The fact that he has the support of the Tiny Dictator is no comfort.

Via Think Progress.

Cool Stuff Friday.

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A close look at the marker drawings of Ben Biayenda reveals a wide range of direct references from African tribal art to French Post-Impressionism and current pop culture. The Paris-based art student’s work celebrates black beauty in all of its diversity. His sensitive portraits depict black women in moments of intimacy, connection and self-care. His scenes are of beauty parlors and plant-filled bohemian apartments. In girl’s dinner, three black women sit down together to share some sushi rolls. An African mask, a Matisse cut out, and a poster of Angela Davis hang on the wall behind them. One of the guests has vitiligo, perhaps an homage to Winnie Harlow, a Canadian model with the skin condition.

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Biayenda started drawing black women two years ago, inspired, he says, by “black femininity, sisterhood, and little moments of beauty.” He is also inspired by black feminist conceptual artists like Adrian Piper and Michèle Magema to interrogate race, gender roles, Western beauty standards, and art itself through his work. Born in Namibia to French and Congolese parents, the artist grew up in France and was exposed to fine art at a young age. He grew to especially love French painters, from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres to Henri Rousseau. “I was really fascinated by painting and I was going to museums in Paris. I really loved it, but there was some frustration to not see much black representation in famous paintings,” he recalls to The Creators Project over a Skype call. His response was to create his own version of art history through work that reflected his own standards of beauty, while drawing on the poses and atmosphere of the classic works he admired.

You can read and see much more at The Creators Project, his website and Instagram.

The Creators Project has a great look at Awol Erizku, and his aesthetic for photographing Beyoncé’s pregnancy:

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Click on over to read the full story and see much more.

ITMFA!

Dan Savage (MSNBC).

Dan Savage (MSNBC).

Savage announced that he’s launching Impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com, where like-minded people can buy merchandise to display their campaign shorthand.

“I didn’t think I’d see a worse president than George W. Bush in my lifetime,” Savage wrote. “But here we are. So I’m bringing back ITMFA buttons and adding T-shirts and, yes, red hats to the ITMFA collection.”

He also added that the money raised will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the International Refugee Assistance Project.

“We’re in for a long and ugly four years, readers,” he continued. “Let’s raise some money for groups fighting Trump, let’s bring ITMFA back into our everyday vocabulary, and let’s remember that we—people who voted against Trump, people who want to see him out of office as quickly as possible, people who are appalled by this and this and this and this—are the majority.”