The women's marches in Washington DC and around the country were stunning, inspiring and the first of a million steps that will be needed to build the resistance to Trump. It might not have been as black, brown or working class as many might have liked. But criticizing it from the sidelines doesn't help anyone.
Last week, hours after the disclosure of #TrumpTapes, and the gloating predatory and misogynist language Donald Trump used, New York Times best-selling author, survivor, and Twitter legend Kelly Oxford asked sexual assault survivors to share their stories. The result is nothing short of harrowing. Teen Vogue magazine shared some of the most immediate responses the next day. Today, there are even more allegations of Trump's sexual assualts and the defense by GOP leaders.
An open letter to the voters of the United States...We believe it is our responsibility to use our platforms to bring attention to the dangers of a Trump presidency, and to the real and present threats of his candidacy. Initiated by 100 artists, actors, musicians, DJs, writers, directors, performers...
Neither the videos nor the many investigations that followed have found any evidence that Planned Parenthood employees offered to sell fetal tissue for a profit. Texas is the 12th state in which investigations stemming from the videos have found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. A grand jury in Harris County, Tex., went a step further. Though it was convened to investigate Planned Parenthood, it indicted two members of the group that made the videos instead.
After two days of near silence, Republican presidential candidates are finally praying for the victims of the Colorado attack. Praying is always okay, even for sinners. It's a turn of phrase that doesn't risk showing even the slightest desire to protect Planned Parenthood from future attacks. Republicans might not want Planned Parenthood workers killed, but they sure don't seem to mind if their angry hordes do everything just short of that.
Recent tragedies have shown all too clearly the state of crisis in which we find ourselves. The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting illustrates how right-wing hostility to women's rights makes those providing and seeking reproductive services targets for murder. The shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis by white supremacists demonstrates that anyone doing work around racial justice must now expect and prepare for a violent racist response.
Reader Comments: Straight Outta Compton; Bernie Sanders and Labor; GOP Racism & Immigration; China's Currency Devaluation; Artic Oil Drilling; NLRB and Faster Union Elections; Amnesty and the Sex Trade;
Announcements: Film: Warrior, the Life of Leonard Peltier - New York - September 12; 60 Years of Rebels and Reformers - New York - October 3
Reader Comments: Remembering-Honoring Julian Bond; Immigrant Dreams Deferred; Bernie Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter; The Bomb, Hiroshima, Nagasaki; Black Activists and Palestine; Exonerate Ethel Rosenberg; An Urgent Request from May First/People Link
The Guardian is known for it's best of laundry lists. A recent list of the 100 best English-language novels came with a demurrer from culture columnist Rachel Cooke, saying in effect: The ladies not meant for spurning - and that just 20 books by female authors in a best-of-100 list covering a 300-year period--especially in a listing of authors of fiction--is incomplete bordering on bizarre. Cooke elaborates on what should be on, and what she says can surely be removed.
Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn't stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.
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