ThePrettiestOne

youarenotdesi:

fat-amy-for-president:

fat-amy-for-president:

I was at Hot Topic and saw this cool tshirt for some band or something called Bring Me the Horizon and idk what bring me the horizon is and don’t really care but the shirt is cute so i’ll wear it

This was an experiment. See how people started getting mad at me for “buying” a Bring Me The Horizon shirt, when I said I really knew nothing about them? How I said I bought it simply because I thought it was cute? Completely disregarding who the band was?

This is how people from other cultures feel when you purchase and wear garb from their culture with no knowledge of what that garb symbolizes and means. If you wear or use something for the wrong reasons, people get mad. 

This has got to be by far one of the best ways to explain cultural appropriation to people.

comrade:

surra-de-bunda:

stayingwoke:

iamascandallover:

stayingwoke:

AFRICANGLOBE – A courtroom cosmetologist has been tasked to apply make-up on Bayzle Morgan’s face every day during his robbery trial, before jurors can see him.
In the courtroom, Morgan will appear in street clothes, uncuffed and tattoo-free, the Review-Journal wrote.

A white supremacist showed up in court with all of his Neo Nazi tattoos covered up on Monday, as per a judge’s orders.

Bayzle Morgan, 24, is accused of stealing a man’s motorcycle at gunpoint in Las Vegas, Nevada, in May 2013.

He has tattoos on his head, face and neck, which include the words ‘Baby Nazi’, a swastika and an Iron Cross.

A panel of potential jurors allegedly said they wouldn’t be able to treat Morgan’s case fairly because of the markings, prompting a district judge to require them to be covered.

Morgan showed up in court on Monday covered in concealer – and when his attorney said the make-up had started wearing off, the judge agreed to delay jury selection, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

---

Amerikkka. 

THIS IS BULLSHIT. I HAVE SEEN POC IN COURT IN CUFFS AND THE ORANGE PRISON JUMP SUIT BUT THIS FUCKER GETS A MAKE UP ARTIST TO COVER HIS PRIDE; THE NAZI SYMBOL TO FOOL THE JURY INTO THINKING HE IS A GOOD SON? SMMFH!

Exactly

what

does this mean black people ought to be allowed to don full body whiteface to get a fair trial from now on or nah

Now that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is Donald Trump's—ahem—running mate, he is required by Republican common law to abandon any remaining sense of shame. So here he is complaining about President Obama's convention-speech reference to “homegrown demagogues,” which for some reason all of America presumed was a reference to Donald Trump.

"You know, I don't think name calling has any place in public life, and I thought that was unfortunate that the President of the United States would use a term like that, let alone laced into a sentence like that."

At this point you have to ask if Donald Trump puts something in the campaign coffee pots that is pulling even people who once pretended at a bit of dignity into Trump's own vortex of narcissistic delusion. I don't think name calling has any place in public life, says Mike Pence in defense of the man whose only notable domestic policy achievement has been coming up with insulting nicknames for each of the other candidates in his race in the order with which they needed to be dispatched. There was Little Marco and Lying Ted and Crooked Hillary, and while Mike Pence was holding forth on the notion of civility, the top of his ticket was grumbling about how he'd like to hit those Democratic speakers "so hard their heads would spin." Mike Pence signed up for the ticket whose only platform plank is that everybody else but Donald Trump is a “stupid” “dumb” “loser.” Mike Pence woke up this morning to Donald Trump unleashing his standard stream of they-gave-me-my-phone-back invective against “Little” Michael Bloomberg and the “failed” Gen. Allen.

But in the Trump campaign, Democrats' four-day convention was playing to "the politics of fear" and the vice presidential nominee is quite put out that anyone would stoop to "name calling."

Well, fella, at least you're proving Donald Trump picked the right man for the job. And to think we all worried about whether you'd be able to prostrate yourself as readily as Chris Christie had always done.

HILLARY.  GOD I LOVE HER SO THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT HER.  

I must confess that some of my love for Hillary Clinton is borne out of a feeling of protectiveness, because she gets so much shit for stuff that is either a) untrue or b) so blatantly rooted in misogyny it’s amazing people think it’s okay to say out loud.

But before I get into why I love her, I want to take a minute to address the common criticisms thrown her way.

1) She’s too conservative.

Well, first of all, when she was a senator she voted with tumblr’s beloved Bernie 93% of the time.  Second of all, when she was First Lady she spearheaded an attempt to pass Universal Healthcare, something that is still seen as a progressive dream in the US over two decades later.  In fact, the main criticism of her as a First Lady was that she was *too liberal* and *too idealistic.*  She took an absolutely brutal beating from all sides in her eight years as First Lady, so when she ran for public office she recalibrated (only slightly, because again, her differences with Sanders are pretty negligible) and having learned her lesson from the backlash to her attempt at healthcare reform, she moved towards more incremental policies.  She still supports raising the minimum wage, criminal justice reform, gun control, paid family leave, and the right for all women to decide when (or if) they want to have children.

Considering the fact that the Republican Party wants to dismantle banking regulations, overturn the legalization of gay marriage, ban abortion, and keep “conversion therapy” legal, I think she’s got a long, long, long way to go before she’s anything resembling conservative.

2) She gave speeches at Goldman Sachs and therefore must be incredibly corrupt.

Except giving these sorts of speeches is very common amongst the political elite and the fact that she spoke to Goldman Sachs does not mean she’s somehow beholden to them any more than the fact that her speech the American Association of Travel Agents means she will ban price comparison websites for travel.  She got paid– very well– because that is how you make money when you’ve reached her level of politics.  You don’t have to like it, but it’s how things work right now.  Acting like this is a unique flaw for Clinton is disingenuous at best. 

3) There’s just something about her– she’s untrustworthy.  She has to be hiding something.

This one is the most infuriating, because Hillary has been in the public eye on a national level since 1992.  Republicans have spent thousands upon thousands of hours investigating her for various supposed wrong doings, and they have discovered…that her husband had an affair with an intern and she had a slightly-shady email account.

That’s it.  Whitewater, Benghazi, all of it– it’s a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  If she really was the criminal that the Republicans (and some Bernie Bros) imagine, she’s a goddamn supervillian because her life has been under a fucking microscope for a quarter of a century.  The “Hillary is untrustworthy” narrative arose out of the GOP’s completely unhinged need to hate her for everything, so every time a liberal repeats that disproven canard remember that you just made Rush Limbaugh smile.  (And if you do, I hope you can live with yourself).

In fact, Politifact rated her public statements as true, mostly true, or half true (she is a politician, after all) 72% of the time.  For comparison, Barack Obama is at 75%, and tumblr’s darling Grandpa Bernie comes in at a whopping…72%.  And her percentage of statements rated straight out true is 23%, while Bernie’s percentage of true statements stands at all of 13%.  

That’s right, motherfuckers: she tells the straight out truth more often than Bernie, but yet people cling to this “she’s a liar” narrative because it gives them an excuse to dislike her.  

And why do they dislike her?  Well, consider the fact that her approval ratings go down whenever she runs for office, only to rise again once she has the job.  Oddly enough, the American people like her when she is doing her job, only to turn on her rather violently when she dares to reveal even the tiniest sliver of ambition.  Go ahead, look at that and tell me that this need to dislike her is not rooted in an ingrained bias against women with ambition.  I dare you.

But now let’s move onto why I like her.

I like her because Hillary is fucking smart.  

Her policy proposals are interconnected, because she understands that raising the minimum wage will help single mothers, and that tackling substance abuse in the US cannot be done without criminal justice reform.  She knows that racial issues in the United States are a symptom of a larger problem that penalizes people of color and is committed to multifaceted solution that takes into account the fact that poverty and racism are interconnected and you can’t fix one problem without addressing the other.

I like her because Hillary is tough.

I don’t mean “tough” in the macho sense of the word.  I mean she has been a walking target for the GOP for twenty five fucking years, and she hasn’t folded.  Every single thing she wears, haircut she gets, and food she eats gets scrutinized and more often than not, mocked.  I personally wilt under moderately-severe criticism and I am in awe of her ability to face down people who think she should be hung for treason with hardly a wince.

 I like her because Hillary gets shit done.

She’s a dedicated public servant who took a bruising primary loss in 2008 in stride and accepted a position in Obama’s cabinet, and her approval ratings as Secretary of State were almost unbelievably high. And here’s where my protectiveness of her comes in:  Hillary has proven herself over and over again to be qualified, competent, and dedicated.  People who have met her consistently describe her as a kind, thoughtful person, and as someone who has heard her speak in person I can say that she is an engaging, inspiring speaker.  And yet people keep complaining that she’s boring, or awkward, or lacking an element of charisma that can’t be defined. 

You know what I think? I think Hillary is the proverbial hall monitor running for student body president.  She knows the principal and all the teachers, she knows exactly what policy changes are possible and how to go about getting them made. She’s done her homework, researched her positions, and diligently laid out her case for why she deserves the position.

And then the fun stoner from the art department walks up to the podium, announces that he will make the cafeteria serve pizza every day, and walks away to thunderous applause.  Never mind the fact that lunch menus are dictated by federal policy and there is absolutely no way for one student to change that.  Never mind the fact that it’s only one half thought out policy that won’t really, truly change the way the school is run.  It sounds good, so people start looking for reasons to dislike her and justify why they won’t vote for her.  They know she’d be great at the job, but…she wants it too much.  And when the stoner is legitimately defeated, some of his worst supporters decide to vote for the racist jackass who punches kids with disabilities and drives a pick up truck with Confederate flags all over it instead (or write in something clever, like Seymour Buttz) because they really, truly can’t handle the fact that a woman might not just be qualified for a powerful position, but that she actually has the audacity to want it.

Did that last paragraph sound a little personal to you?  Good. It should.  I was that hall monitor (and eventually student body president, although there was no stoner opponent and while my high school had it’s fair share of racist jackasses, none of them bothered with student government).  I know, on a very tiny scale, the garbage truck of crap that comes with being a woman who takes a leadership role.  Navigating that is difficult, but Hillary has been doing it for decades without breaking a sweat.

I am also a woman who has agonized over every goddamn word in this response because I know that by being a woman with an opinion on the internet, I’m running the risk of getting an absolute avalanche of shit dumped on me.  So I carefully chose every link to support my argument because if there’s even one tiny flaw in my logic, every single thing I said will be entirely discounted.  Women don’t ever get to be good enough– we have to be perfect, or there’s no point in trying.

And there’s no doubt about it– Hillary is not a perfect candidate.  She has positions I disagree with, but then again, so does Obama.  There’s plenty of legitimate criticism out there, but so much of it is wrapped in this misogynistic bullshit that boils down to “she’s not behaving the way I want a woman to behave” that it’s nigh impossible to separate the two.

But honestly, if someone reading this still isn’t convinced:

You don’t have to like her, you just have to vote for her.  Chances are, you’re never going to actually meet her, and if you do, it’ll be a handshake on a rope line and nothing else.  She’s not your mom, your cranky aunt, or your mean fifth grade teacher.  She’s not going to be your boss or your neighbor.  She’s running for President of the fucking United States.  And the alternative– and make no mistake, my friends, there’s only one alternative outcome here– is a misogynistic, racist windbag who brags about his desire to bar entry to this country based on ethnicity and religion.  He openly idolizes brutal dictators and lashes out like a toddler up past his bedtime when he’s challenged even the slightest bit.  He is an unhinged maniac who should not be in charge of running a gas station, much less the country, but those are your choices.

A competent, smart, thoughtful, dedicated public servant.

Or this motherfucker. 

So yeah.

#ImWithHer

therabbitears:

I ♥ you, Bob Belcher.

Amid renewed nationwide protests over police killings of black men, a representative from the United Nations toured the United States with a peculiar goal: to assess whether the exercise of freedom of assembly and association in the country conforms to international human rights law.

UN special reporter Maina Kiai concluded a 17-day tour on Tuesday, during which he met with protesters, law enforcement, and government officials in 10 cities—including Baton Rogue, Louisiana; Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; and New York City—and observed protests at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, as well as Black Lives Matter protests in other cities. A full UN report on Kiai's visit is due in June 2017, but Kiai posted his preliminary findings on his Facebook page on Wednesday. Many of them weren't pretty:

• US police officers understand appropriate crowd management and de-escalation techniques, but chose not to use them, Kiai said. Black protesters face more aggressive responses from police than other groups, experience "more intimidation and more disrespect," and are detained longer and face more serious charges when arrested. Such treatment can discourage people from participating in protests—an illegal curtailment of their right to do so, Kiai said. He also compared the Baton Rouge Police Department's aggressive response earlier this month to protesters of Alton Sterling's death to the "mismanagement of protests" seen in Ferguson and Baltimore and noted that the Cleveland Police Department contributed to "escalation" during protests at the GOP convention last week.
• The Department of Justice's 1033 Program has "caused serious harm to the practice of and thinking around management of crowds," by giving civilian police departments military equipment to use against protesters, Kiai said. "Protesters are not war enemies" and must not be treated as such, Kiai said, adding that violent acts by a few protesters should not be used to "strip other individuals of their right to continue the assembly."
• Kiai slammed US police for allegedly spying on Black Lives Matter protesters. He noted, as Mother Jones reported last month, that ahead of the GOP convention, Black Lives Matter organizers in Cleveland had received visits from the FBI that many found intimidating. He also noted that at a Black Lives Matter protest in Philadelphia, protesters pointed out to him an undercover officer who was filming them, a practice he called "unfathomable." Cops should only film at protests to record a crime in progress, he said, not to "intimidate or provoke protesters."

Kiai said Louisiana's new "Blue Lives Matter" hate crime law and similar proposals in other cities could have "disastrous effects." He argued that the arrest of Christopher LeDay, the man who shared the Alton Sterling police shooting video widely, amounted to intimidation and harassment. He also criticized stop-and-frisk and called on the Department of Justice to enforce consent decrees against "as many of the [United States'] 18,000-plus local law enforcement jurisdictions" as possible in order to reduce discrimination in law enforcement.

This isn't the first time the United Nations has involved US policing and protests in the global dialogue on human rights. Members of the Black Lives Matter movement spoke on a panel at a UN event in New York City earlier this month, and a delegation of organizers from Chicago testified before the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2014, along with the parents of Michael Brown.

You can read Kiai's full assessment of his tour here.

What a happy dude!

image / twitter / facebook / patreon

Watch Franchesca Ramsey address and debunk four tactics people often use in efforts to derail conversations about Black Lives Matter.

After months of investigation, more state employees have been charged with crimes related to Flint's water crisis. The Detroit Free Press reports that the six charged employees include "Michigan Department of Health and Human Services workers Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller and Robert Scott, and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Leanne Smith; Adam Rosenthal and Patrick Cook."

According to the Detroit News, the six employees are charged with "misconduct in office, conspiring to commit misconduct in office, and willful neglect of duty." They are accused of, among other things, hiding test results that showed toxic levels of lead in the residents' bloodstreams.

The charges, bought by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, follow felony charges filed in April against another three public employees -- two with the Department of Environmental Quality and one with the City of Flint. From the Free Press:

The city employee, Mike Glasgow, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and is cooperating with the investigation as other charges were dropped. The two DEQ employees, Stephen Busch and Mike Prysby, are awaiting preliminary examinations.

[Schuette] later brought a civil lawsuit against engineering and consulting firms who had consulted on the Flint Water Treatment Plant.

The civil lawsuit, filed in Flint in Genesee County Circuit Court, accuses engineering firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam and environmental consultant Veolia North America, plus related companies, of causing "the Flint Water Crisis to occur, continue and worsen." Both companies have denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight the lawsuit.

Flint's water supply was contaminated with harmful levels of lead since the city transitioned from "treated water supplied from Detroit to raw water from the Flint River, which was treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant" in April 2014. Officials in the Department of Environmental Quality "have acknowledged a mistake in failing to require corrosion control chemicals to be added to the water."

gunsandfireandshit:

tiffanarchy:

moralanarchism:

But yet the people have somehow declared war on the cops? 

Give me a fucking break.  

It’s a war on the people. 

I have been waiting for this study. They killed 1200 in 2015 which is a significant number, but this sheds even more light on the issue. It’s like when you catch a cock roach, then lift up the flooring and find the nest. It’s incredibly clear, based on sheer numbers, where the problem lies. The police are a violent gang, and they’re completely out of control. It’s time to abolish.

I mean, holy shit, they’re the perpetrators of 1 in 11 homicides with a gun despite being such a small percentage of the population.

litanyofexcuses:

Friendly reminder to check you’re not holding tension in your body. Let your shoulders drop, unclench your hands and jaw. Take a deep breath. Much better.

Source

CARTOON: I could be president

By Kevin Necessary 

And what year should we caption under girls of color?

U.S. READERS, REGISTER TO VOTE HERE

micdotcom:

Watch: Jordan Davis’ mother Lucia McBath tells his story with the Mothers of the Movement at the DNC

More FLOTUS Michelle Obama posts | Gifset source

Dear White folks who are mad at Michelle Obama for saying Black Girls Rock 

You know when your friends are playing Pokémon GO and you’re not, but you enjoy watching their triumphs? And you have opinions about what they catch? (Is this just me and my wife maybe?) Wonder Woman and Batman are all too familiar with this problem.

From Tumblr user igot2ne1problems comes this comic of perfection, clearly illustrating the unique struggle:

Oh, Clark. Clark, you’ve all talked about this. Pidgeots are nothing to get this excited over. Get back up there and catch something useful or Bruce will never get back the Watchtower gym, and Diana will continue to make fun of him for it.

(You know he made Supes sign up for Team Valor.)

moveslikekeithrichards:

trying to prove a point to my cat

the-force-naps:

challahchic:

bluespock:

everyone knows that the pokemon go team colors are just preparing us for the inevitable implementation of starfleet in the near future

fuck

wylaneck:

- gay parents
- female masturbation
- guys showing emotion
- they/them pronouns

romanofforcrist:

natalievenom:

Them: Why do you even care who runs the country?

Me: 

I’ve never seen a better use of a gif. Ever. EVER

notetoselftakemeds:

callmebliss:

Mister Rogers would be disappointed in you

Dayummmm… thats some straight up calling OUT.  thats like activating the nukes level shit right there.  i love it.

reclaimingasia:

A white: but saying Asians are naturally smart is POSITIVE discrimination:)))

Me: The model minority myth was invented by whites as a tool of antiblackness to create divisions between communities of color and prove that ‘anyone can succeed in America if they just TRY hard enough!!1!’ thereby implying that antiblackness is black ppl’s own fault for not TRYING enough. Additionally, it relies on false interpretations of data and hurts the opportunities of all Asians, particularly less privileged ones, and dehumanizes Asians by furthering stereotypes of us as some kind of innately robot-like monolithic-minded hive, devalues our individual accomplishments and uses us as a tool to further antiblackness

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California has sought and obtained an indictment against a young man named Stephen Cebula for sending online threats to Blizzard Entertainment, the freakishly successful powerhouse behind the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo games as well as many others. The case is notable because it’s so rare: there’s so much threatening behavior online, and so little of it is addressed by the criminal justice system.

Stephen Cebula seems overtly disturbed. The search warrant for his home and subsequent criminal complaint tell a tale of him engaging in bigoted trash talk with other players on the Blizzard game “Heroes of the Storm,” ranging from racial epithets to comments like “I will kill your family bitch” and fantasies about raping a child at Disneyland. Blizzard suspended Cebula’s ability to communicate with other players. Cebula — perhaps tutored in law and political theory on Reddit, or by Milo Yiannopoulos — saw this as an outrageous violation of his freedom. He used his Facebook account “tedbundyismygod1” to send two threatening messages to Blizzard:

‘Careful blizzard … I live in California and your headquarters is here in California …. You keep silencing me in Heroes of the STorm and I may or may not pay you a visit with an AK47 amongst some other “fun” tools.

'You keep silencing people in heroes of the storm and someone who may live in California might be inclined to “cause a disturbance” at your headquarters in California with an AK47 and a few other “opportunistic tools” …. It would be a shame to piss off the wrong person. Do you not agree blizzard?’

Thus Cebula stood up for all the depraved manchildren of the internet who believe they have a moral right to squat on other people’s property and yell “nigger” at passers-by.

So, before Hillary Clinton puts a cap on the DNC convention with her appearance tonight, let me talk a little about what I think of her as a presidential nominee, (mostly) independent of the fact of Donald Trump as her opponent for the office. And to talk about her as a presidential nominee, I need to talk a little bit about me as a political being.

And who am I as a political being? As I’ve noted elsewhere, among the various political labels that have been used over the last several decades, I’m probably closest to what used to be called a “Rockefeller Republican,” a person who is relatively socially liberal but relatively economically conservative. But that label doesn’t precisely describe me, either. I am both of those things, generally, but it doesn’t get to the root of my political ethos.

To get to that, I need to go back to high school, to a class I took called Individual Humanities. The class was the brainchild of teacher Larry McMillin, and it was a year-long class (interestingly, divided between the last half of one’s junior year and the first half of one’s senior year) that took a look at portrayals of the individual in Western Literature — from Oedipus Rex through Joan of Arc through Huckleberry Finn — to chart the development of the idea of the individual and what it means to be one, in the larger context of  western civilization.

The specific details of the class are something I’ll leave out for now, but the takeaway of the class — the summation of its goals — was to argue that one of western civilization’s great achievements was the development of the independently acting and thinking individuals who saw as their greatest life crisis service to their community. Which is to say: In our world, we get built to think for ourselves, and when that happens, we realize we can’t be in it just for ourselves.

And, importantly, this ethos and the benefits thereof are not the purview of one group or class. Everyone should be encouraged to develop into who they have the potential to become. Everyone in turn uses that realized potential for the overall benefit their community or communities.

Well, that sounds communist! Yes, I suppose if you wanted you could argue that “from each according to ability, to each according to needs” is an expression of this concept, but then again, so is “TANSTAAFL” as long as it’s applied alongside “Pay it forward”; even the concept of noblesse oblige holds its echo. Like the “golden rule” which is found in most major religions, the concept is adaptable to a number of situations. The important things: Development of people as individuals; recognition of the individual’s responsibilities to their communities.

This is, to my mind, a powerful, adaptable and moral ethos, first because it encourages each of us to find our full expression and to develop those gifts we have within us — to become us — and at the same time reminds us that these talents and gifts need to be used not only for ourselves but for the benefit of others. It’s not (just) self-interest, or even (just) enlightened self-interest; it’s realization of self and a commitment to others as the result of that realization. It doesn’t mean one can’t do well for one’s self; most of us are not built to be monks. It does mean you should see “doing good” as an equal or higher goal than “doing well.”

This idea of the enlightened individual in service to their community is a significant part of my own personal ethical toolbox; likewise, it’s part of my political thinking as well, and a thing I want to see in politicians.

Along with this ethos, I have a very large streak of pragmatism, which is to say, I generally think it’s okay to get half a loaf when the full loaf is manifestly not on offer. Should you go in saying “sure, I’ll take half a loaf”? No, go ahead and see how much of the loaf you can get — if you can get the whole damn thing, good on you. But if you get 80% or 50% or 25% or whatever, depending on circumstances, well, fine — that fraction can be a basis to build on. Applying “All or nothing” thinking to every situation is for amateurs, nihilists and fools.

So, let’s apply both of these concepts to Hillary Clinton. I think that Clinton has shown amply over the years that, whatever personal ambitions or her willingness to cash a check for speaking fees (and as an ambitious person who occasionally speaks for money, I don’t see either as inherently a problem), time and again she’s put herself in service. Not with 100% success and not without flaws even when successful, but there are none of us perfect, and the end result of her putting herself back into the arena again and again is that much of that service has had an impact. Her ambition and service are not just about her and what it gets her. She’s done much, and at a high level, for others.

As for pragmatic — well, look. One does not work at the levels she does and has for decades without it, and if there’s any ding on the Clintons as a political couple, it’s their willingness to make a deal. Again, I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing, even if one’s line for “acceptable deal” is elsewhere than theirs. This is definitely a “your mileage may vary” sort of thing, but I’m okay with the mileage I get out of it.

Independent of anything else, Clinton is an attractive presidential candidate for me for the reasons noted above. Service and pragmaticism go a long way for me. In the context of where the GOP is right now, and who they are fielding as their candidate this cycle, it’s not even a contest. In the case of John McCain and Mitt Romney, the two previous GOP presidential candidates, even as I disliked their overall policies and plans for the country, I could not say they had not acted in service to their communities and country, or that they didn’t have the ability to be pragmatic when being pragmatic was what was needed. I can’t say that about Trump. There’s nothing in his past actions that suggests he’s in this life for anyone but himself.

But Hillary Clinton is — is what, exactly? A criminal? Corrupt? Dishonest? Evil? Terrible? Awful? A bitch? Satan in a pantsuit ensemble? As I’ve noted before, a quarter century of entirely outsized investigations into her life and actions have come up with nothing criminal or found corruption that rises to indictable levels. As for the rest of it, whatever Clinton’s own personal characteristics, she also had the misfortune of stepping into the political spotlight concurrent to the GOP wholesale adopting the Gingrich playbook of demonizing the opposition. She’s had an entire political party and its media apparatus spending two full decades telling the world she’s a bitch, and evil, and a criminal. It’s still happening; the Republican National Convention resounded with the words lock her up, lock her up, lock her up. And yet she is still here. She is still in service. Now, you can see that as ego or delusion or the inability to take a hint. I see it as an unwillingness to yield the floor to those whose political playbook is simply “demonize your opponent,” with the rest to be figured out later.

(And make no mistake — should Clinton win the presidency, the fury isn’t going away. The GOP is all in this year with sexism and bigotry and hate, and at this point it has no other gear; it literally cannot do otherwise without entirely losing its primary voter base. This is what the Gingrich playbook has gotten the GOP. It’s made them fury addicts, and the withdrawal symptoms are as likely to kill them as not.)

Maybe ultimately the issue is that she’s not likable, i.e., she’s not the candidate you’ll have a beer with. Well, now there’s Tim Kaine for that if that’s important to you; he’ll have a beer with you, and if you have too many he’ll take your keys when you’re not looking, pretend to help you look for them when you’re ready to go, and then let you sleep it off on the couch. But honestly, I’ve never gotten that whole construct. One, I don’t need to have a beer with my President; I assume they have other things to do. Two, if that’s a controlling aspect of your presidential decision making, I mean, if it actually is important to you, then you’re the problem and you need to pull your head out and maybe have more relevant criteria, or at least put “beer buddy” as far down the goddamned list as possible.

And three, says who? I don’t need Clinton to be likable in order to vote for her for president, especially as I’m not likely to ever meet her and spend time with her and have late night phone calls where we gossip and share secrets. She’s not my friend. But I also don’t find her unlikable today, and I don’t remember that ever being the baseline of my opinion of her (she’s had unlikable moments, to be sure. Welcome to being human). But then, I also don’t tend to think women who express opinions, or who don’t feel the need to excuse their ambition or their place near the top of the power structure, are inherently unlikable. Let’s not pretend that in fact that’s not a problem, still, for a lot of people — and that this being a problem hasn’t been exploited by others.

(Also, you know. Maybe it’s a personal quirk, but I just don’t get that invested in politicians as inspirational figures. I’m perfectly happy with them being essentially colorless and efficient and boring. Maybe even prefer it!)

At the end of the day, without reference to any other aspect of this particular presidential race, Hillary Clinton offers more than enough for me to vote for her. With reference to other aspects of this race — namely, that Donald Trump’s candidacy is as close to being an actual existential threat to US democracy as we’ve had, possibly ever — voting for Clinton becomes not only a preference but a moral necessity. I can’t not vote for Hillary Clinton in this election. So it’s nice to know I would have been happy to vote for her, no matter what.

digoxin-purpurea:

1. The DNC reported a hack of its emails by a Russian server a month ago.

2. A cybersecurity company agreed with the identification of the hacker as Russian and noted that one of the hacking groups involved was operated by the Russian military intelligence service.

In mid-June the company announced that the intruders appeared to include a group it had previously identified by the name “Cozy Bear” or “APT 29” and been inside the committee’s servers for a year. A second group, “Fancy Bear,” also called “APT 28,” came into the system in April. It appears to be operated by the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence service, according to federal investigators and private cybersecurity firms. 

3. From the same article: Pro-Putin Russian hackers have been a thorn in the side of American cybersecurity for years now.

The first group is particularly well known to the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence unit, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. It was identified by federal investigators as the likely culprit behind years of intrusions into the State Department and White House unclassified computer system. 

4. Wikileaks, along with publishing the emails, published unredacted credit card numbers, passport numbers, social security numbers, and home addresses of hundreds of Democratic donors. They called this “not an error.” This is known as doxxing, and it is illegal in US jurisdictions.

Doxing is always illegal, whether it is done against a federal employee, a state employee, or a regular person.  There are federal and state laws that specifically address doxing government employees.  With regular citizens, doxing falls under various state criminal laws, such as stalking, cyberstalking, harassment, threats, and other such laws, depending on the state.  Since these doxing threats and activities are made on the internet, the law of any state may be invoked, though most often an investigator  will look to the state in which the person making the threat is located, if this is known, or the state in which the victim is situated.  A state prosecutor can only prosecute violations of the laws of his or her own state, and of acts that extend into their state.  When acts are on the internet, they extend into all the states.
Misinformation was spread that doxing is legal.  I am not sure how or why anyone fell for that misinformation.  Surely, people must understand instinctively, even if they were misled about the law, that if they are threatening someone or putting them at risk, or tormenting or harassing the other on the internet, that this must be illegal.  Common sense would tell you that bullying or jeopardizing another would be illegal in some way.  So yes, doxing is illegal, no matter who the target.

5. Wikileaks has offered support to the racist, sexist agitator and Trump supporter Milo Yiannopoulos after his ban from Twitter for inciting hate mobs. This support was not merely a tweet or two extending a hand: it was an offer to build an entire new social network fine-tuned to Yiannopoulos’ needs.

6. Milo is a vocal Trump supporter and headlined an event at the RNC.

7. Wikileaks is run by Julian Assange, an accused rapist, who has for years taken a paycheck from Russia Today, the English-language propaganda arm of the Kremlin.

8. Trump, blacklisted as he is from borrowing form most US banks, has enticed mostly investors from Russia to prop up his floundering enterprises.

After his bankruptcy and business failures roughly a decade ago Trump has had an increasingly difficult time finding sources of capital for new investments. As I noted above, Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks with the exception of Deutschebank, which is of course a foreign bank with a major US presence. He has steadied and rebuilt his financial empire with a heavy reliance on capital from Russia. At a minimum the Trump organization is receiving lots of investment capital from people close to Vladimir Putin.

9. Trump is pro-Putin to the point where he would not defend other NATO member nations against Russian attacks.

10. Trump’s right hand man, Paul Manafort, was for almost a decade an advisor to Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine who now lives in exile in Russia and is a major Putin ally. Trump’s other top staffers tend towards supporting the Russian government/elite in various ways.

11. There is nothing in the DNC emails that indicates breaking of any laws.

12. Bernie Sanders only declared himself a Democrat this election cycle. The DNC was not obligated to support him, and yet they did - there are emails where staffers complain about bending over backwards for the Sanders campaign. There’s also a memo from the Sanders campaign demanding a private jet  to be paid for by the DNC after Bernie had reached the point where it was mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination. (They also called Lin-Manuel Miranda a baby for not doing a fundraiser on his off day, which is frankly hilarious.)

12c. Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic nomination by 3,775,437 votes. He lost badly among registerd Democrats, black Democrats, and Latino Democrats. If the DNC is incompetent enough not to secure their servers against hackers, they are sure as shit not capable of stealing nearly four million votes.

13. Hillary Clinton does not have mind-control powers and is not responsible for every single word typed in a private DNC email server.  

14. The release of the emails was timed for when Trump would have a large amount of goodwill - the “convention bump,” as noted in several large-scale polls by reputable organizations - and before the Democrats/Hillary would have a chance to respond to the bump at their own convention.

15. Trump has engaged in much worse political ratfucking of his same-party opponents than the DNC did in its emails, in public, and it is widely known that the RNC has been attempting to sabotage him for months.

16. It ain’t like Putin hasn’t done shit like this before. He killed a journalist with plutonium. I could go on about what he does inside his country, but I’m not super familiar with it, and frankly "sitting head of state ordered the assassination of a journalist in exile by means of nuclear material" is fucked up enough. 

Conclusions that can be reasonably drawn from these facts:

1. Wikileaks, whatever its intentions in the past, is not a neutral whistleblower and cannot be, given the money their founder draws from the Russian government.

2. The DNC did not engage in any political ratfuckery beyond what is normal for any and especially this cycle, nor did they break any laws.

3. Wikileaks is not a progressive actor, given its support for both Milo Yiannopoulos and Vladimir Putin.

4. The hackers sat on the material for more than a month, and the reveal of the documents was timed to hurt Hillary Clinton and buck up Trump.

Other conclusions that can be drawn:

1. Trump and Putin colluded somehow on this hack job.

2. Putin wants Trump in the White House because Trump has, among other things, publicly stated that he will not defend NATO states bordering Russia if Russia invades, and is willing to sponsor illegal activity to make this happen.

Conclusions the FBI has drawn:

The FBI is publicly saying that they suspect the Russian government did this. Several unnamed US officials suspect this was “a deliberate attempt to influence the presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, according to five individuals familiar with the investigation of the breach.”

(Also, on that note - the DNC is not gonna accuse a foreign state of trying to influence the election via cyberterrorism without some cold hard proof. That’s not an accusation you throw around lightly, especially when you represent one of the two largest parties in America.)

TL;DR

Debbie Wasserman Schultz complaining about an independent tanking her anointed candidate should not make you mourn the death of American democracy. What should be making you furious - and terrified, honestly - is that a foreign state, led by an autocrat with a history of human rights abuses, has used a “pro-transparency” organization to achieve its goal in installing a malleable strongman and has committed cyberterrorism in the process.

Please don’t vote third party this election. Please.

iguanodont:

That’s a pretty big moth

th0rnqueen:

Pokemon Go’s impact….