The Mask You Live In, a follow-up to to the 2011 documentary Miss Representation, was created by The Representation Project to dissect modern masculinity as the universally destructive force that it is. The film combines personal stories from boys and men about the expectation to “be a man” and to never be vulnerable with conversations with experts in psychology, gender, and media. There are too many touching and insightful moments throughout the film to list them all here, but the message is clear: the mask of invulnerability boys are expected to wear every day ultimately hurts us all.
so we have a conversational safeword in my group of friends and it’s great, idk why more people don’t do this. whenever someone wants a subject to be dropped immediately no questions asked we just say “spleen” and we stop immediately and it’s a really good way to avoid crossing the line between teasing friends and genuinely upsetting them by accident, or stopping debates from turning into actual arguments
Wait but no this is actually a brilliant idea.
When I was a little baby high school student, I used to do the Living Chessboard at our local Renaissance Faire. We always used “forsooth” to indicate if someone was actually injured and needed to quickly end a choreographed fight. It was also very useful when doing little street improvisations because if someone tried to stop you, you could say “forsooth good sir, I must leave.” and they knew you couldn’t do a scene right then. We all used it in real life too, to say “no really” and it was amazing because there was a word used in a casual setting that meant “I’m not playing, I need you do listen to me.” So if someone tried to pick me up or tickle me, I could say “forsooth stop.” And I was instantly obeyed. I had “forsooth” long before I learned what a safeword was, and having a non-sexual safeword for everyday use amongst a circle of friends was the best thing ever. It made me feel very safe and listened to, even as a tiny 14 year old. Because let’s be honest, 14 year old me was teeny tiny and adorable and it’s easy to coo at kids when they say “no don’t pick me up!” but to have a word that every single person respected to mean “whatever I say after this MUST be listened to” was amazing. It gave me a definitive voice when it would have been easy to dismiss me.
So basically having platonic safewords is awesome and I’m all for it.
Douglas Adams is the best when it comes to describe characters
they need to teach classes on Douglas Adams analogies okay
“He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.”
“Stones, then rocks, then boulders which pranced past him like clumsy puppies, only much, much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost infinitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you.”
“He gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the wind to blow his hair back dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy fooling around with some leaves a little way off.”
“It looked only partly like a spaceship with guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and a great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.”
“If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.”
And, of course:
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”
the one that will always stay with me is “Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath,” i feel like that was the first time i really understood what you could do with words.
Obviously in real life not everyone who could get pregnant is a woman and not every woman can get pregnant, but the motivation behind anti-choice politics is misogyny.
Also:
Twefs like to twist this basic idea into the notion of “sex-based oppression” (oppression based entirely on physiology) according to which AMAB people can never directly experience misogyny.
All women suffer because of the conflation of womanhood with the potential for and obligation toward biological motherhood.
I get so mad about people who insist that doctors went to med school so they can never be wrong about your health like ???? Some Doctors hate fat people??? Some doctors hate the mentally ill or give Helpful NT Advice instead of treatment??? My ob/gyn took four years and a strong arm from my mom to figure out I had pcos???
Doctors are not gods??????
I am a med student, literally currently going to medical school, and doctors are about 15% wonderful people who Care So Much It Hurts, about 60% Eh I Was Optimistic But Ill-Informed When I Chose This Life, and a solid 25% What The Fuck Is Wrong With You You Fucking Fucks Get The Fuck Out Of Medicine Oh Wait You’re Just Going To Retire After Decades Of Being A Bigoted Fuck-Up.
Doctors need to be held accountable. Right now, doctors are virtually never held accountable.
There are doctors who tell lesbians not to worry about STDs because they “can’t get any.” There are doctors who tell fat people to lose weight when what’s wrong is actually a) completely unrelated to weight and b) fatal. A doctor once refused to give me an IUD because I should “marry a nice young virgin man” instead of being a big ol’ queer slutbag. In my summer job reviewing medical records, I’ve seen three patients who were sent home with a disease that almost immediately killed them because the doctors (three different ones!) didn’t take CHEST PAIN seriously. One of my classmates, a future doctor, told me I was overreacting to the murder of Michael Brown and when I said the hell I am he said I must not UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot my master’s degree in social psychology is just there to decorate my shelf! My tiny lady-brain can’t possibly comprehend anything important! I once heard a doctor brag about having forcibly sterilized a Latina woman who didn’t consent because she was an undocumented immigrant and “she had too many already.” He was receiving a LOT of federal research funding for his work with our research group. I’ve WATCHED doctors be horrible, bigoted fuck-ups.
Like, if these are things someone like me, who passionately believes in medicine to the point where I’ve willingly sacrificed a reasonably comfortable job, my free time for at least seven years of training, and my right to decide where I spend at least three years of my life (because we are obligated to go wherever we’re matched for residency), is seeing at one of the top academic medical centers IN THE WORLD, what the FUCK do you think is happening in the REST of the country, where they HAVEN’T attracted “top talent”?
Doctors are not better than other people. We just have less transparency and less accountability. That needs to change.
Paula Akpan and Harriet Evans have launched the “I’m Tired” project to highlight the impact common microaggressions and stereotypes many face on a daily basis. By symbolically and literally carrying the aggressions on their backs, Apkan and Evans hope to help both the subjects and everyone else.
As a child of the 80s, I grew upwatchinga lotof weirdstuff. My parents love movies, from glorious technicolor musicals (hi, mom!) and classic comedies to Westerns and all Kubrick films (hey, dad!), and as the oldest kid I was their pop culture guinea pig as they tried their best to figure out what kind of entertainment would fly with little ones, and what would just straight-up freak us out. But of course, they soon found that mileage tends to vary in a big way—spooky movies that amused me to no end gave my younger brother crazy nightmares, while other scenes that completely disturbed me had zero effect on him, and so on. Kids are fun like that.
Of course, having a strong emotional reaction to a movie or a particular scene isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes the moments we find most upsetting end up sticking with us long after we’ve processed those emotions. I’m sure everyone has a list of the movies that deeply affected them, growing up, and we’d love to hear your stories in the comments, if you care to share! In the meantime, here are my own personal top five trauma-inducing movie moments from childhood (mostly), in no particular order…
Artax Succumbs to the Swamps of Sadness—The NeverEnding Story
Oh, Artax. Other generations had Old Yeller or Bambi’s Mom or saintly Charlotte (of the titular Web) as their Spirit Animals of childhood trauma, ushering them gently into a precocious awareness of the harsh realities of mortality and loss. For better or worse, children of the 80s got the spectacle of a depressed horse sinking into the ghastly black depths of the Swamps of Despair, as his tearful, panicked human companion sobs and screams at him to fight against the sadness crushing in on him. It’s…pretty messed up.
Even knowing that Artax is restored to Atreyu at the end of the movie never did much to assuage my horror at this scene as a kid—I always broke around the point where Atreyu screams “Stupid horse!” as he pulls desperately on Artax’s bridle. It wasn’t just the sudden and tragic death of a beloved animal that was so upsetting (although I’ve never been good at handling that particular type of ordeal)—looking back, I think it was the idea that your emotions could be so overpowering that you couldn’t control yourself, or your actions, that disturbed me almost as much as the sinking horse. The idea of being so sad that you can’t fight to save yourself was just a horrific concept to me as a little kid who knew nothing about depression or mental illness, and frankly, it’s not the most comfortable scene to watch even now, almost three decades later.
But no matter how deeply (or not) Artax’s death affected you back in the day, at least I’m happy to report that all those morbid rumors that the horse used in the movie actually drowned during the scene are apparently completely false (there was an accident on set and Noah Hathaway, who played Atreyu, was injured, but the horse was unscathed.) And then probably went on to live the greatest horse life ever, eventually ascending directly into Equine Heaven alongside Secretariat, Fatty Lumpkin, and Li’l Sebastian, THE END.
A Child’s Guide to Conspiracy, Assassination, and Betrayal—The Secret of NIMH
As with The NeverEnding Story, I adored The Secret of NIMH when I was little, in spite of (or possibly because of) its stranger and darker aspects. The story throws its field mouse heroine, Mrs. Brisby (changed from “Frisby” in the book) into the path of a monstrous cat, a creepy owl, and all sorts of other dangers, all while she’s grieving the death of her husband, Jonathan, and attempting to save one of her children from a life-threatening illness.
While she encounters allies among the rats of NIMH (whose lifespans and intelligence have been expanded in a series of experiments), she also finds herself at the center of a power play by the film’s cunning and ruthless villain, Jenner. When Nicodemus, the wise, kindly leader of the rats, agrees to help move the Brisby home to safer ground, Jenner sees his opportunity to seize power and advance his own nefarious aims. He plots to murder Nicodemus by cutting the ropes during a critical point in the move, crushing the elder rat while conveniently making his death look like an accident.
Jenner’s slick façade quickly comes crumbling down when he attacks Mrs. Brisby in a frenzied attempt to silence her (and steal the magic stone Nicodemus entrusted to her earlier in the film). In the ensuing struggle, he wounds Justin, the Captain of the Guard, and slashes the neck of his former crony, Sullivan, when he attempts to intervene. Justin stabs Jenner and leaves him for dead, but Jenner manages to creep up behind Justin in order to deliver a killing blow. At the last second, the mortally wounded Sullivan hurls his dagger into Jenner’s back, redeeming himself and saving Justin’s life.
It’s an incredibly thrilling, beautifully animated couple of action scenes which reveal a level of villainy, betrayal, and violence that’s practically Shakespearean in its scope—Jenner is as calculating as he is merciless, and it certainly sets him apart from most other villains of children’s movies. The fact that he carefully plots (and successfully carries out) the cold-blooded murder of Nicodemus is still one of the more surprising aspects of the film, and that treachery certainly stuck with me over the years as an example of ruthless, pre-meditated evil.
George Lucas Loves An Orphan—Ewoks: The Battle For Endor
I might be one of the only people who vividly remembers the beginning of 1985’s sequel to The Ewok Adventure (aka: Caravan of Courage), but it was an oddly formative moment for me, and not in a particularly positive way. The made-for-TV movie focuses on Cindel Towani, the flaxen-haired moppet who had starred in the previous film, which saw Cindel and her brother happily reunited with their parents at the end, with the help of Wicket and the other Ewoks. As the sequel opens, their family is preparing to leave the forest moon of Endor when a savage band of marauders attacks—both parents are wounded, and Cindel is forced to escape with Wicket, leaving her family behind to their doom.
As a big fan of the earlier movie, I was already pretty invested in the Towani clan, since the whole first movie centers on getting Cindel and Mace safely back to their parents. More than that, I was basically the same age as Cindel, the main protagonist, and obviously identified with her to a certain point (I mean, what 80s kid didn’t want an awesome Ewok buddy to hang around with? All I really wanted was an Ewok, or maybe a Mogwai, and my six-year-old bucket list would have been beautifully complete.) So when the second installment started off by killing off Cindel’s parents, I completely and immediately rejected the first 15 minutes of the movie or so, because the idea was so utterly terrifying to me.
Obviously, kids then and now encounter plenty of absent/missing/dead parents in the world of children’s entertainment, but something about seeing Cindel go from part of happy nuclear family to orphan-on-the-run in a few abrupt minutes really messed with my head. Not that I stopped watching The Battle for Endor—instead, I’d always ask my parents to fast-forward past the unpleasantness, and would repeatedly reassured them and my brother that “Cindel’s family probably got away” from the bad guys. I mean, we don’t actually see them die, even though Cindel seems pretty definite that she’s an orphan, and is quickly paired up with certified consolation grandpa Wilford Brimley, who presumably helps to fill the family-shaped void in her psyche with his excellent mustache and random curmudgeonly mutterings.
Sigh. Damn you, George Lucas.
So. Much. Animated Rabbit Blood—Watership Down
I’m not going to choose a particular scene, because I think it’s safe to say that very young viewers might find themselves fairly traumatized by the film as a whole, without pointing out any particular moment of climactic violence. If you’re not prepared to see a bunch of grisly rabbit injuries and deaths (no matter how subtly or artfully the surrounding story is presented), then you may want to hold off on Watership Down.
The movie starts off with a rabbit creation myth in which an act of rabbit hubris results in a divine smackdown, as the predators of the world are unleashed upon rabbitkind and begin gleefully (and graphically) slaughtering the peaceful and unsuspecting bunnies. The movie then switches to the more realistically-animated tale of Hazel, Fiver, and their quest to survive in the face of these ancient enemies and more modern, man-made dangers.
Don’t get me wrong—Watership Down is a beautiful film, but it’s also a brutal portrayal of the fear and desperation of these creatures at the bottom of the food chain, and the violence that stalks their every move. It does not shy away from disturbing images, which include (but aren’t limited to): trippy visions of blood-soaked fields, a rabbit choking to death in a snare, a sequence in which an entire rabbit warren is gassed and destroyed using farm equipment, Fiver Hazel getting shot and chasing the Black Rabbit of Death, some intensely bloody rabbit-on-rabbit violence, and a horrifying encounter with a vicious dog. I was captivated by the movie, as a kid, but I was also deeply disturbed by it—as I got older, I read and loved the novel it was based on, but if I had to do it over, I would have preferred to watch the movie after reading the book, when I was a bit older and better able to contextualize the images and experiences being represented, and the emotional reactions they produced.
You Are Who You Choose To Be—The Iron Giant
All of the previous movies on this list I’d seen by the time I was six or seven years old; when The Iron Giant came out, I was in college, and probably thought of myself as being pretty jaded at the time (I mean, kids raised on Watership Down have seen some stuff, you know?)
I hadn’t cried at a movie in years, and certainly wasn’t prepared to be knocked off my emotional high horse by the likes of Hogarth Hughes and his goofy metal-chomping mega-robot, but the retro design looked amazing and I’d heard good things, and so I pressed play one day and completely fell in love in almost no time. And when I came to the scene in which (*spoilers*) the Iron Giant sacrifices himself to save Hogarth and the rest of the town by intercepting an incoming missile, I was absolutely gutted. To this day, I can’t watch the scene, with the Giant smiling to himself and murmuring “Superman” as he slowly closes his eyes, without crying buckets. I’ve tried—it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, it just destroys me with its perfect combination of inexorable sadness and sheer, triumphant, heroic joy.
And while I’m always delighted when the scattered bits of the Giant begin to reassemble themselves at the end, it doesn’t make that one brilliant moment of self-sacrifice any less beautiful or devastating to me. That moment is everything, and even though the older I get, the more I tend to tear up over movies (and TV, and occasionally books and articles…and sometimes the odd commercial, if we’re being totally honest), I’m always grateful for the emotional touchstone that it’s become for me, over time.
Looking back at this list, it’s probably telling that all but one of the movies I’ve mentioned here were adapted (with varying degrees of faithfulness) from books—although I wasn’t aware of that fact, as a child. Perhaps a separate reckoning of similarly memorable moments in fiction might be in order, somewhere down the line. In the meantime, though, I’d love to hear about all the striking, shocking, sad, or trauma-inducing movie moments that have stuck with you over the years, for better or worse…
Bridget McGovern is the managing editor of Tor.com, and clearly watched way too many potentially disturbing movies as a kid. She regrets nothing.
It’s weird how so many people have been more certain than me about my potential family life, even though I’ve held consistent opinions on it for about 2 decades. As I’m getting older, firmly in the ‘sweet spot’ for when I should be getting pregnant, people become increasingly certain about insisting that ANY MOMENT NOW I will realize that the very thing I want out of life is an occupied uterus.
I’ve always been open to the fact that my views might change. I’ve changed a lot since I was 10, thank goodness. As an adult, I interrogate these goals and opinions fairly regularly, because I want to make sure that I’m giving myself the life I deserve. So I look forward in my life and imagine what I want. While I’m sure a future with children would have joy and fulfillment, when I think about that future I also think of a future that is undercut by regret.
It is currently impossible for me to get pregnant, thanks to a lack of partners with sperm and excellent birth control. But if I somehow found out I was pregnant today, my first call tomorrow would be to an abortion provider. This has been true for as long as I have been an adult. It would be a decision I make with certainty. Why is it so hard for everyone else to honour my certainty?
It’s called “Penric’s Demon,” and it came out about a month ago in e-book format. This novella, the longest she’s yet written, takes place in her “World of the Five Gods” universe, with all new characters. Basically, on Penric’s wedding day, he has an unfortunate run-in with a dying sorceress, and gets infested with a demon.
On September 12, 2000, Jon Stewart started The Daily Show’s Headlines segment with the following joke: “The GOP accused of using subliminal advertising. Bush says, ‘Why would we advertise underwater?’” After a run of jokes about then-candidate George W. Bush, Stewart chuckles, “He’s making it so easy.”
“This is a smear campaign pursued with all the obsession of a small child or a serial killer - yet it’s influential enough that Congress launched a full investigation into the claims. When one of the most powerful political bodies in the world can be swayed by a group with so little credibility, how can anyone take it seriously? Jaded politicos might interject at this point to say that no one does.
But of course, this was never really about ‘dead babies’. It’s about vilifying an organisation that provides affordable healthcare to women – contraception, cervical cancer screenings, breast exams and, yes, abortions.
Abortions, which take up just 3% of Planned Parenthood spending, none of which is federal. But presidential hopeful Rand Paul vowed to use ”all legislative vehicles at his disposal“ to force a vote, while Ted Cruz pledged to “eliminate” its state funding.
This is just one in a long line of assaults on women’s reproductive rights – from the Texas bill so famously filibustered by Wendy Davis to the attempt to limit abortions to six weeks in North Dakota. Meanwhile, thanks to the Hobby Lobby ruling, private firms can opt not to offer contraception in workers’ health plans under Obamacare on religious grounds.
This explains why so many senators seem able to overlook the screaming irony that family planning services prevent abortions, and that more restrictive abortion policy laws aren’t associated with lower abortion rates.
But when has evidence mattered? Not in the past, and as the latest vote shows, not now.
It was only ever about ideology. It’s about restricting women’s right to choose what to do with their bodies, and it’s about winning presidential primaries. And with the election circus in sight, there’s more of this to come.”
As with 2012, I’m going to go ahead and break down the Lovecraftian horror-show that is the 2016 Republican primaries. I’m getting it out of the way now instead of waiting until my normal Friday post because there’s a good chance that a half-dozen or so candidates will drop out by Friday; the first debate is coming up, and Fox News has excluded a number of candidates on the possibly-unfair-but-not-entirely-unreasonable grounds that many of them have support that is entirely within the margin of polling error. This means, for those of you who skipped statistics classes, that the existence of Carly Fiorina supporters cannot be proved by science.
The main thing to notice, before we go top to bottom of the barrel, is that this is both a very good year and a very terrible year for Republicans. It’s good, in the sense that Barack Obama is constitutionally disallowed from running again, and he was always a ruthless and savvy campaigner who skillfully illuminated his opponents’ weaknesses. These candidates won’t have to run against that. Instead, they’ll get either Bernie Sanders, who is an awesome common-sense politician with a history of supporting populist causes and who will therefore be painted by everyone as a left-wing loon, or Joe Biden, who is a gaffe machine, or Hillary Clinton, who is counting on being such an obvious choice that nobody will dare point out any of her flas.
It’s bad, though, in the sense that politics is a game of the moment and most of these guys have been waiting so long to run against someone who isn’t Barack Obama that they are officially less relevant to the modern voter than Pat Paulsen. (And yes, I’m aware that Pat Paulsen has been dead for eighteen years.) Most of the candidates the Republicans are putting forward are a group of has-beens and never-weres who are either running for the chance to stand on a national soapbox (and collect names of donors for their super-PAC) or whose bad decision-making abilities extend to their ability to determine whether the American people still cares about them. And on that note, let’s look at their chances to win the nomination!
Jeb Bush Claim to Fame: Is related to the well-known Bush political dynasty Strengths: Is related to the well-known Bush political dynasty Weaknesses: Is related to the well-known Bush political dynasty Chances: Quite good. He’s extraordinarily well-connected to virtually every single wealthy/powerful Republican and conservative in America, he has the ability to present as a moderate despite decades of enacting extreme right-wing policies, and he’s been out of office long enough for everyone to forget how terrible he was at the actual business of governance. His only problem is that he’s very obviously the frontrunner, which will encourage everyone else to chuck bombs at him right up to the convention, and he occasionally has a habit of not vocally pandering to the craziest elements of his party, which means that the Tea Party Republicans will be trying to find an alternative on the grounds that they’ve spent the last two elections trying to find someone moderate and they wound up losing both times.
Ben Carson Claim to Fame: He’s an African-American who actually sympathizes with the Republican Party Strengths: Gives Republicans the appearance of not being racist because hey, they found at least one black guy who agrees with them, so what do you think about that, SJW? #notyourshield Weaknesses: Professional neurosurgeons who disbelieve a fundamental tenet of their field of study tend to have other intellectual blindspots; Republican respect for black people who agree with their position doesn’t actually extend to, y’know, voting for them Chances: Zero. The Republicans like to have people like Ben Carson around to show that they’re not just a bunch of middle-aged white dudes, and they’d probably even be happy to have him as a Congressman in order to make the group photos look more diverse, but there are too many racists in the Republican Party for an African-American to have a chance at being their candidate.
Chris Christie Claim to Fame: He’s that asshole from New Jersey. No, that other asshole. No, not that one either–you know what? He’s the governor, okay? Strengths: Stands a good chance of being able to shout without pausing for breath until Americans give up and vote for him just to get him to shut up Weaknesses: He’s basically Nixon without the philanthropic spirit Chances: Very low. Four years ago, when he hadn’t yet alienated a lot of the people he needs to win and when he still could make a pretense that he was a moderate…and most importantly, when he wasn’t under the shadow of a looming political scandal, he might have had a chance. But he missed the window, and he’s never going to be as big a deal as he was in 2012.
Ted Cruz Claim to Fame: Shut down the federal government in order to extract concessions that he never got, then declared victory despite having achieved nothing. Basically, he’s Vox Day if Vox Day had run for Senate Strengths: Never gives up on anything ever, which presumably includes Presidential bids; is very popular among a segment of the conservative populace that deeply loves Lost Causes, hint hint; can cook bacon with a semi-automatic rifle, which is a crucial Presidential skill Weaknesses: Has the most punchable face of all seventeen candidates, and if you have a more punchable face than Donald Trump then you are working at it; would rather lose on any given issue than achieve anything less than a total victory, which may be a problem if you give him the keys to a nuclear arsenal; constantly looks like he’s just planning to foreclose on the Goonies’ house before heading over to an alumni meeting at Omega House and see if he can’t help get those slovenly Deltas kicked off campus; calls a semi-automatic rifle a “machine gun”, which is a hanging offense in his home state Chances: Low, but not impossible. He’s not well-liked by his own party, which is much more of a drawback than you might imagine, but he makes up for it by having a strong following among the extremists. Given that the Republican Party has done a good job of purging its moderates since 2008, this means he may have more clout than anyone else realizes. On the other hand, he really is quite extraordinarily unlikeable, so he’s going to have to struggle to get votes.
Jim Gilmore Claim to Fame: Physically exists and occupies space, may be composed of matter of some sort Strengths: Could commit murder in the sure and certain belief that nobody would remember what he looked like afterwards Weaknesses: The Doctor implanted a hidden message in the footage of the moon landing with the phrase, “You should kill us all on sight”, so he gets pursued by angry mobs whenever he does campaign appearances Chances: Zero. This is the classic example of a vanity campaign–his friends and family are all no doubt telling him that he’d make a great President, and he has just enough of a background in politics that he’s able to convince himself that if more people heard of him, they’d like him. But being a former governor of Virginia who hasn’t seen public office since 2002 doesn’t even get you a sniff at the Presidency.
Carly Fiorina Claim to Fame: CEO of Hewlett-Packard hanging out with a party that gets visible erections around rich businesspeople Strengths: She’s Donald Trump without the stupid! Weaknesses: She’s Donald Trump without the interesting! Chances: Zero. Like Ben Carson, the Republican Party is happy to pretend that she’s an important and respected figure because it deflects criticism of their treatment of women and minorities, but that respect only extends to her insofar as they’re happy to listen to her saying the things they want to hear when they feel like hearing them. Putting her in a position where she’d actually get to make meaningful decisions isn’t really the Republican way.
Lindsey Graham Claim to Fame: Republican politician from South Carolina since the Clinton era, possessor of portrait that ages while he remains perpetually young Strengths: Actually vaguely kind of moderate for a Republican, which is even more impressive given that he’s a politician from South Carolina; has been around long enough that people more or less recognize him as “that guy who’s always on ‘Meet the Press'”; able to not take it personally when people are jerks to him, which is an underrated skill in his line of work Weaknesses: Too moderate for the crazies and too crazy for the moderates; the subject of persistent rumors about his sexuality, which wouldn’t hurt him anywhere but in the Republican Party; if he ever sees his portrait, he will instantly age and die in horrific fashion Chances: Very low. This is the kind of run that any late-career Senator does, a sort of “no harm no foul” low-key Presidential bid that costs them nothing because they can always go back to their safe Senate seat for four more years before having to stand for another election. It’s usually conducted with all the energy of someone playing slots with the five dollars of free quarters handed out by the casino, and usually ends about the same way.
Mike Huckabee Claim to Fame: Jon Stewart’s crazy racist grandpa Strengths: I said it in 2012, I’ll say it again: “Deputy Dawg-esque appearance and folksy, homespun demeanor lulls people into not noticing what an asshole he is” Weaknesses: Is losing the ability to pull that trick off after ranting about Beyonce, publicly defending a pedophile, and comparing Obama to Hitler Chances: Almost none. Four years of hanging out on Fox News has dulled his ability to articulate intensely right-wing positions without sounding strident, and he’s also one of the few people on this list who was on the 2012 list. People tend not to back proven losers–2012 was probably his high-water mark.
Bobby Jindal Claim to Fame: Governor of Louisiana, one of the few people who looked at the 2008 drubbing the Republican Party took and said, “Hey, maybe the problem is that we’re all idiots!” (He has since walked this back.) Strengths: Actual sitting governor, which is practically like being a rockstar in this crowd; is also a member of the #notyourshield gang, which means he is deeply beloved among Republicans so long as he understands he’s not allowed to disagree with them; can drink prodigious amounts of water Weaknesses: Prone to dangerous bouts of extreme thirst in critical situations, which could be disastrous if it happens during a national crisis; treats his home state more as a sort of useful campaign prop than something to actually govern, which bodes ill for the United States if “President of Earth” ever becomes a thing; looks just enough like Jimmy Carter to trigger PTSD flashbacks among elderly Republicans Chances: Very low. Jindal has a bad habit of pandering to the lowest common denominator in his own party in ways that are crushingly obvious to moderates, and he’s done and said a lot of things in furtherance of this aim that are very hard to walk back. Add this to the previously-described tendency of Republicans to support minority candidates with words and not deeds, and you probably won’t see him stick around long.
John Kasich Claim to Fame: Governor of Ohio, white man in a party where that’s so very distinctive Strengths: Could easily masquerade as three or four other candidates in order to pick up their votes Weaknesses: None of the three or four other candidates he’s impersonating have any support either. Chances: Almost none. His candidacy was a late-stage decision in an already-crowded field, there’s nothing in particular to distinguish him from any number of other candidates on this list, and about the best thing you can say about him is that he could conceivably appeal to moderates, except that’s not a positive trait in the Republican primaries and there are still about three other people on this list that do it better.
George Pataki Claim to Fame: Running gag on the Letterman show Strengths: He’s a Republican who can get elected in New York, albeit not recently Weaknesses: He’s a Republican from New York, which makes him a traitor in the eyes of at least a third of his own party right from the get-go Chances: Almost none. As with Gilmore, this is pretty much a vanity run from someone whose political star has almost entirely faded; it’s more or less a retirement party that he’s convincing some well-heeled conservatives to fund. Expect him to drop out before the first primary.
Rand Paul Claim to Fame: Ron Paul’s slightly-more-hinged son Strengths: Younger than Ron Paul, but still appealing to the same people who masturbate to passages from ‘Atlas Shrugged'; cannot be out-right-winged, even by Ted Cruz; has the kind of love-hate relationship with Rachel Maddow that will someday make a really hilarious biopic Weaknesses: 52-year-old man who still has temper tantrums when reporters are anything less than utterly deferential to him; may or may not have mastered the skill of properly attributing things he didn’t say to the people who said it; is only considered reasonable when compared to his own immediate family Chances: Very low. Rand is another Senator playing with house money (as opposed to House money)–he just got elected in 2014, meaning that he can piss away the better part of a year being stupid in public and failing to get the Republican nomination and still have four years for people to forget everything he said and did. It’s a decision that was arrived at by strategic weighing of the risks, not by a realistic assessment of his chances, and he doesn’t really care whether he wins or loses.
Rick Perry Claim to Fame: Former governor of Texas, former Presidential candidate, and the third claim…I forget the third claim. Oops. Strengths: Amazing hair; glasses make him look all smart and stuff; and the third strength…I forget the third strength. Oops. Weaknesses: Has been out of politics for too long to be seen as relevant; joins Huckabee in the “previous loser” club; and the third weakness…I forget the third weakness. Oops. Chances: Zero. This is the perfect storm of vanity runs–take every single reason mentioned elsewhere in this list, they all apply to Perry. He’s out of office and no longer relevant in politics, he’s already run one campaign and lost, and he flared out by making a public idiot of himself in one of the most memorable fashions conceivable. His only real reason to run seems to be to rehabilitate his reputation, and that’s not going to happen because they won’t even let him sit at the adults’ table this time out. He may be gone by the time I finish typing this sentence.
Marco Rubio Claim to Fame: Republican Senator from Florida Strengths: Hits the sweet spot for Republicans of having an ethnically and culturally diverse background while looking like a preppy white dude; parents were Cuban immigrants, which earns him credit among the people who still have deep-rooted hatred for an 88-year-old man with no political power in his home country; is just bland enough that people not paying attention assume he must be moderate because he hasn’t said anything interesting enough to be called a gaffe Weaknesses: Turns out that his parents were the boring kind of Cuban immigrants, not the politically valuable kind; primarily known for representing a state that is going to be underwater by 2025 and insisting that climate change isn’t a problem Chances: Almost none. This is one of the few cases of someone running too early, rather than too late; Rubio just doesn’t have enough national exposure to get anyone interested in him, and he doesn’t have the kind of personal charisma and campaigning savvy that Obama had to overcome that problem. Again, he’s running mainly because it’s something he can do with no cost to himself personally or politically, not because he thinks he can win, and because it gets his name out there for 2020.
Rick Santorum Claim to Fame: Google it Strengths: Gives the “crazy religious” wing of the Republicans someone to cheer for; has sweater vests Weaknesses: No longer relevant in contemporary politics; has no support beyond the “crazy religious” wing of the Republicans; keeps catching himself halfway through blurting out racial slurs on camera; name is literally synonymous with “oily sack of shit” and that’s not an unhappy coincidence Chances: Zero. He knows it too, which is why he’s currently blasting Fox News for the failures of his candidacy. He’s got the same problem Huckabee had, only he was worse at hiding his mean-spirited stridency to begin with–he’s got no chance, and this is probably his last stab at political relevance. Look for him to become a regular on either Fox News, the 700 Club, or both.
Donald Trump Claim to Fame: Unceasing attempts to force himself onto the American public stretching back for over three decades Strengths: For what it’s worth, he’s the only Republican candidate willing to give his open, honest opinion to people Weaknesses: His open, honest opinions are all garbage and he’s a terrible, racist shitbag whose sole achievement in life is turning the pile of money he inherited into a slightly smaller pile of money while lying through his teeth about it Chances: Zero. Yes, zero. For all that he is polling high at the moment, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this will translate into absolutely no success in Iowa or New Hampshire, and once he loses two primaries, either he will quit in a huff or else the media will latch onto the winner of those primaries and suck all the air out of his candidacy with a new narrative about “Trump in freefall after shattering losses”. I cannot imagine he will survive to the convention. Even the fringiest of the fringe Republican voters are going to, in the end, put their weight behind a proven extremist like Cruz or Paul, and everyone else hates his guts.
Scott Walker Claim to Fame: Turned Wisconsin into West Mordor Strengths: Has absolutely no shame; willing to do whatever his donors want in order to stay in their good graces and keep the money train coming; is utterly ruthless about crushing his opposition, no matter who they are or how inexpressibly cruel it is to go after them Weaknesses: Has managed to, in just five short years, shed thousands of jobs and crater the Wisconsin state budget without producing any kind of measurable success that he can present to the American public by any metric you care to name; pretty much looks like a weasel wearing a cheap suit; is probably going to be in jail by 2016, which will make campaigning difficult and governing the country even harder Chances: Actually pretty good, depressingly enough. All of his failures as a governor have been ideological successes–he’s fucked up Wisconsin catastrophically, but he’s done it by following every tenet of the Republican philosophy, so he can coast during the primaries in the sure and certain knowledge that anyone who calls him on it will be hurt more for violating ideological purity tests than he will for being utterly incompetent at his job. Short of an indictment coming down during the campaign, which is actually kind of possible, he’ll be in it for the long haul.
So there you have it–Bush 3.0 or Walker as last man standing, with Cruz or Paul as the acceptable protest candidates. Kind of makes the next twelve months sound a little dull, doesn’t it?
I first learned about abortion in church. I was in middle school, in the class on sexuality and reproduction that young Unitarian Universalists take during Sunday school: "Our Whole Lives."
There was a box where students could submit questions anonymously to be read and answered by the teacher at the close of class. These questions were sometimes personal: "How does someone know they're gay?" And they were sometimes practical: "How do you know what size condom will fit?'"
One day the question in the box read: "What is an abortion, and why would someone have one?" The teacher paused. This was a bigger question than she was used to answering.
"Well," she started, "an abortion is the process by which someone terminates a pregnancy. It can be done in the doctor's office by physically removing the products of conception, or at home by taking pills that will make the body expel the pregnancy. Women have abortions because they cannot or do not want to have a baby. Some women are sad, some women are relieved, and some women are both."
The explanation was simple and clean. It made sense and levied no judgment against those who chose abortion. In my teenage years, as I became more politically aware and women's rights began to feel relevant to my life, I viewed abortion through this simple, clean lens.
By the time I entered college I was attending rallies and waving signs in support of women's access to health care, birth control, and abortion. I wrote letters and called my representatives and door-knocked for candidates who had woman's rights in mind. In 2008, I cast my first vote ever for Hillary Clinton, a woman who vowed to defend a woman's rights to abortion.
During that election and the next, my anger at pro-lifers grew as politicians and pundits vilified women who have had abortions. They characterized these women as either vindictive baby killers or as so naive as to be tricked by malicious doctors or clinics into killing their babies.
Even in extreme cases of conception by rape, many politicians argued that women should be denied access to abortion. "As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child," said Rick Santorum as he campaigned for the presidency.
Regarding publicly funded contraception, one of the best strategies to reduce unwanted pregnancies and, thus, abortions, Rush Limbaugh said, "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."
I saw these comments as patronizing and paternalistic, and they gave me all the more reason to fight to maintain the right to choose.
I pondered whether I would ever choose to have an abortion if faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Thinking of the choice in the context of my own life made me uncomfortable. I resolved to use reliable birth control and hope for the best.
And then, just a few weeks after my 23rd birthday, with a semester left in graduate school and an intermittently empty back account, I found out that I was pregnant. When I confirmed the pregnancy at the same Planned Parenthood from which I obtained my first birth control prescription as a teenager, the nurse asked if I wanted to "discuss my options" — in other words, if I wanted to consider having an abortion.
"There's no need," I responded as I smiled at the prospect of motherhood. Though it wasn't the circumstances under which I had hoped to become a mother, I was excited and hopeful and in love with my baby already.
My husband and I had been married for over a year. We were sure to have the love and support of our families. And we would, hopefully, both be gainfully employed by the time the baby arrived. We laughed and cried as we told my parents and my siblings. We made doctor's appointments. We started planning to be parents.
I began to bleed while I was crafting valentines for my friends, ones with ultrasound pictures taped into lace hearts that read:
Roses are red, Violets are blue, We're having a baby and couldn't wait to tell you!
The bleeding was light. I was told to rest. It stopped, and then it started again. I went back to the doctor, and the ultrasound showed no heartbeat, just a still, white form, stark against the black background of the screen. The gummy bear that had been fluttering around, dancing for us just days before, was dead.
I was devastated. I felt hopeless and helpless, scared and sorrowful. I was scheduled for a dilation and curettage on the next Monday, and that weekend, as the Mardi Gras parades rolled by a few blocks from my home and the bands marched and played, I lay in bed crying and mourning for the baby that would never be born.
When I checked into the hospital that Monday, the stark terminology used during my stay was jarring. Though I knew that "spontaneous abortion" was a medical term, it shook me to see the word "abortion" associated with my much-wanted baby. Later, when the doctor explained that after the procedure they would send the "fetal tissue" for testing, I caught my breath. "That's not fetal tissue," I wanted to shout, "that's MY BABY." I was put under with tears in my eyes and woke up still crying.
The weeks after my miscarriage were hard. I lay in bed a lot and took the pain pills the doctor prescribed, mostly to help me sleep. My husband grieved, too, and together we had many conversations about who our baby would have been.
Mark Zuckerberg recently shared his experience of pregnancy loss with the world: "You feel so hopeful when you learn you're going to have a child," he wrote. "You start imagining who they'll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they're gone. It's a lonely experience."
I understand the pain behind his words, the difficulty of capturing the grief you feel over an invisible loss. My husband and I too had been hopeful; we had imagined who our child would be, had crafted hopes and dreams for them already. Miscarriage is lonely, perhaps particularly lonely when you're young and your baby was unplanned though very wanted.
A persistent sticking point in my grief was the confusion I felt around a topic I'd always had a clear and strong opinion on prior to my miscarriage: abortion. I realized that I was referring to my miscarriage in traditionally pro-life terms. I talked about "losing my baby" and daydreamed of kicks and contractions. Typically it's pro-life activists who argue that life starts at conception, not pro-choicers like me. But my baby had certainly felt alive to me.
Billboards, featuring pictures of beautiful infants that shouted, "I can hear my mom's voice in the womb!" or, "Heartbeat 18 days after conception!" had always angered me because they're manipulative to women who may be considering abortion. Now I had a new reason to object to them: They made me worry that my baby hurt as it died.
I wasn't shy about telling people about my loss. Though it felt awkward at first when professors asked me why I'd been absent from class or when new acquaintances asked if I planned to have kids anytime soon, I responded with the truth. Their responses seemed to be informed by when they believed that life started and, by extension, their views on abortion. Those who were anti-abortion spoke only of my baby; those who were pro-choice spoke only of me.
Many people told me that my baby was with God now: "A baby angel," said a nurse as she slipped a pocket-size booklet about babies in heaven into my hand as I walked out the door. The booklet explained that some babies were so perfect that God wanted to keep them with him, but that you would meet them in heaven one day. I threw it away when I got home.
At the same time there were those who tried to minimize my grief by minimizing the baby, and the loss, that I felt was very real. More than a few individuals suggested that I simply try again, as if this baby was not unique — was just a blob of tissue no different from how the next might be. One asked if I had even "felt" pregnant at only 10 weeks along. Another would-be well-wisher reminded me that my "baby" was really just a ball of cells that was incompatible with life, and that I should appreciate the sophisticated system within my body that resulted in miscarriage.
As I worked through my grief, I felt guilty both for supporting women's choices to end their pregnancies and for feeling so sad about the end of mine. What made my baby so different from those I was advocating women be able to "terminate"? I felt a great internal pressure to choose between seeing my baby as a baby or as a ball of cells, as a life or as nothing at all. I did not feel entitled to be both sad about my miscarriage and a supporter of other people's abortions.
The questions that kept me up most at night were ones pro-life activists would love for women to have as they consider whether to keep their baby: "Did my baby have a soul? Did my baby know it was alive? Did my baby feel scared as it died?"
Two years later and with a toddler at my feet, I finally feel at peace. I'm at peace with the sadness I felt about my miscarriage — and with my belief that abortion is a fundamental human right. The question, really, comes down to: When does life begin? Is it the moment sperm meets egg? Implantation? The first kick? The first kick that the mom feels? Is it weeks later, when the baby could survive outside the womb? Or weeks after that, when he or she actually does?
I've decided that I don't know when life really begins, and that is okay. My mother, the woman who rewove childhood tales to include strong female leads and who always told me I could be whatever I wanted, had two miscarriages, one before my sister and one before me. As I mourned, I turned to her for support, and I hoped she could answer my questions — about life and pain, beginnings and endings.
Over and over, her response, lovingly, was, "I don't know." Her comfort with uncertainty, with not knowing, helped me ease into being okay with not having the answers.
I don't know when life really starts, but I do know that it's okay for me to mourn the loss of my 10-week-old fetus and for me to simultaneously fight for another woman's right to end hers. In something so personal, so profoundly life-altering as pregnancy, it's silly to think that there is a simple black-and-white answer. It's also silly to think that if you're pro-choice you can't mourn a miscarriage or if you're pro-life you must be devastated by one.
What's right for me, or sad for me, or joyous for me, may be just the opposite for another woman. In the absence of this knowing, knowing when life begins, we must defer to the woman and to what feels right to her, to the balance she strikes between the life she carries and the life she has.
For me and my baby, life began the moment I knew I was pregnant, and it ended as I watched the dark screen stay still. For another woman life may begin at conception, for another not until the baby is wet and wiggling in her arms. Each woman has a backstory, the things that came before the pregnancy, the things that will inform her feelings and her choices. My backstory — the fact that I was nearly done with my education, that I knew my family would support any decision I made, that I had made this baby with the man I loved and with whom I planned to make all my children — informed my feelings about my loss. A different backstory or a different time in my life might have made me feel differently.
I trust women to know themselves, to know their lives, and to make good choices for themselves. I know now too that making a family is hard, that the beginning of life is ambiguous, part science, part spirit. With something so fragile, so hard, we should do all we can to support women in their journey, to celebrate when they celebrate, to mourn when they mourn. I will always mourn the loss of my unborn baby, and I will always fight to keep women's right to choose, and access to abortion, alive.
Julia Pelly has a master's degree in public health and works full-time in the field of positive youth development. She is writing a memoir on pregnancy, motherhood, and sisterhood. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband and son.
As the 2010 midterm elections approached, it initially looked organic: Dozens, sometimes even hundreds of people were attending congressional town halls across the country, turning every event into a referendum over the recently passed Affordable Care Act. At that point, “Obamacare” was still considered a slur rather than the now-popular health care reform act that has helps millions of people, and Democrats were scrambling to defend their support of a program that at that time had no lived experience to offer to critics.
Every public event they attended pivoted into a demand from an angry mob of constituents to defend their votes, and every policy take derailed into a debate over the threat of government healthcare. Soon it became apparent that this alleged grassroots groundswell of opposition was actually being manufactured by right-wing think tanks who were offering strategy memos and talking points, and then being promoted by conservative talking heads who recruited their audiences to attend.
The town halls, which dominated both mainstream and conservative media, combined with a low voter turnout election, are considered by many to be major factors in the 2010 Tea Party election wave. Unsurprisingly, the right wing is anxious to be able to replicate that effort, and now, with their focused battle against Planned Parenthood, they may be preparing to try again.
The GOP has focused like a laser on Planned Parenthood this cycle, eager to pick as big of a fight as possible with the nation’s largest reproductive health care entity. Politicians are playing just as big of a role in the escalating vendetta as the anti-abortion activists who concocted fake identities in order to record the secret interviews with staff members. Nationally, Republican members of Congress admitted to early access to the videos that are now being released weekly, and in Texas, last week’s legislative investigation led to the discovery that Texas lawmakers had also seen videos that had yet to be released to the public.
Much of the protests, media releases, and calls for investigations appeared to be a ramp-up in preparation for this week’s senate vote in favor of pulling all federal funds from Planned Parenthood, allegedly with the intention of giving them to community health centers as an alternative. The bill received majority backing, but not enough votes to overcome a filibuster.
Some may be tempted to think that the failed vote—as well as new polling showing how popular the organization is, despite the smears in the media—would mean an end to the attacks on Planned Parenthood. Instead, they may just be beginning. And they may be becoming far more localized, as well.
Students for Life of America has been one of the key players in the aftermath of the first few anti-Planned Parenthood videos released by the anti-abortion group calling itself Center for Medical Progress. For SFLA, the controversy presents a perfect opportunity to promote their own organizational goals. SFLA itself has “The Planned Parenthood Project,” an endeavor “to expose the nation’s abortion Goliath, Planned Parenthood, with whom they target the most—young people,” allegedly educating students on college campuses about Planned Parenthood’s “plan” to sell them faulty birth control, fill them with hormones, then counsel them into aborting when their hormonal birth control fails.
SFLA took the lead on arranging nationwide, public protests after the first videos were released, arranging the “Women Betrayed” rallies that popped up in more than 60 cities across the country. While other groups have taken over the organization for the next national protest, SFLA has a new target in mind.
Yes, they want to hit the town halls, 2009-style.
“August is a time when Members of Congress are usually in their home districts as Congress is out of session,” writes SFLA President Kristan Hawkins in an email to supporters. “During this time, Congressmen and Senators will often hold Townhall meetings to listen to their constituents concerns and get a pulse on what’s happening at home, as they well should. These Townhall meetings are perfect opportunities to question your Congressman or Senator about his or her votes and ask them to defend why they voted a certain way or how they think they may vote on a similar issue in the future.”
Just like the Great Town Hall Invasion of 2009, a list of potential events to attend is provided, and sample questions are offered as well, such as:
Why did you vote to give my money as a taxpayer to Planned Parenthood?
Why did you vote to fund an organization that has been caught aiding and abetting sex traffickers, taking money to abortion black children, covering up sexual abuse, and selling the body parts of aborted babies?
Do you think that dissecting the body parts of aborted babies to see which organs are good enough to sell is okay?
Do you think that Planned Parenthood affords any human dignity to the children they rip up and sell piece by piece?
It’s almost, “We all understand that National Health Care means rationing health care. What aspects of health care would you propose rationing? And to whom, or to what groups of people would you ration care?” all over again.
Will Students for Life of America have the same success with the town hall gambit that the early Tea Party organizers managed to create leading up to the midterms? If so, that could mean a summer season of unprepared sitting members of Congress seeing their constituent outreach events hijacked into an all-abortion-all-the-time political brawl. And of course the more the right can force politicians to focus on abortion, the less they have to worry about the fact that their stances on marriage equality, climate change, wages, education, immigration and health care are out of step with a majority of Americans.
If 2016 conservatives can manage to grassroots-organize with the same effectiveness as 2010 conservatives did, another GOP wave could be on the way. And we are seeing signs now that they are ready to try. The question is, can they really manage to make Planned Parenthood into the bogeyman that they turned Obamacare into six years ago? If they can’t, then this is one strategy may just end up blowing up in their faces.
Robin Marty is a freelance writer, speaker and activist. Her current project, Clinic Stories, focuses on telling the history of legal abortion one clinic at a time. Robin’s articles have appeared at Cosmopolitan.com, Rolling Stone, Politico, Ms. Magazine and other publications.
So I’m guessing you’re the one who sent me that “compliment” where you called me a “thick female” and said I was your thing?
See, that’s not a compliment. That’s weird and fetishising and I’m not into it at all.
My self confidence is mine, it is my own and it is something I worked hard to get and work harder to keep. Taking a compliment was once really hard for me, if someone (especially a guy) thought I was pretty I was certain it was part of a cruel practical joke, that he was just trying to hurt me.
But I can take a compliment now, they make me happy now and I feel them regardless of gender. I have a guy friend who messages me all the time to tell me “cute selfies” or to say my smile is sweet and I accept those compliments.
Treating me like I am your fetish is not a compliment, treating me like I should be lucky to be 130% of your “thing” is not ok with me at all.
Your whole thing about “fat bitches with attitude” tells me that you like fat women and delight in their low self esteem. You don’t just appreciate our beauty, you want us to be a little broken so that we need you and very likely so we don’t look too closely at you and who you really are.
The implication here is that, because I am fat, I should be fucking grateful that you think I’m pretty. I should be grateful to be a part of your fetish. I should be grateful you deemed me worthy of being noticed.
I’m not grateful, I’m disgusted. And I am untouchable, coz you can’t touch this.
“I shouldn’t have to point this out, but I guess I do: abortion is not funded by the government, by law. Saying “abortion should not be funded by the government” as an argument for forbidding women to get health services from Planned Parenthood is like saying that because some supermarkets sell beer, food stamps shouldn’t be able to to be used at supermarkets, even though food stamps can’t be used to buy beer. I promise you that Jeb Bush knows this perfectly well.”
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