... I’m tired of educating strangers on basic Feminism 101 points that they could have learned within (a) their first week of an Intro to Women’s Studies class, or (b) their first twenty-four hours on Tumblr. I’m tired of having to explain why it’s sexist for men to tell me how to do my feminism “right,” why they shouldn’t impose their self-declared authority on my liberation. I’m tired of explaining why barring women’s access to public life, penalizing their public voices through tactics like harassment and intimidation, is integral to the functioning of patriarchy. I’m tired of explaining why demonizing powerful women — calling Hillary Clinton a murderer, a criminal, a hag, a witch, a bitch, etc — is a tactic as old as witch-burning. I’m tired of explaining why “likability” is a trap designed to make women worry more about other people’s feelings than they do about their own lives — and why no powerful woman will ever be “likable,” because the only “likable” thing she can do is give away her power. I’m tired of reading shitty divide-and-conquer thinkpieces about the catfight between “old” feminists (evil, capitalist, wear pantsuits, loathe the young and wish to feast on their economically disempowered flesh) and “young” feminists (hot, cool, hip, fun, down with male power because they understand these silly identity-politics struggles don’t get us anywhere and sometimes men are just smarter, am I right, girls?) and I am supremely tired of looking at that thinkpiece, and others like it, and seeing a male fucking byline on it. But mostly, I am tired of even having to bring it up. I’m so, so, so tired.

Because you know what the kicker is, don’t you? You know what the fun, Black-Mirror-style twist in this story turns out to be? After months and months of painstakingly arguing that (a) sexism was real and (b) sexism played a role in the election, trying to get people ready for the uniquely gendered opposition a female candidate for the presidency would face — “the current Hillary-hate [in the Democratic primary] is an overture: A fraction of the sheer tonnage of misogyny and dishonesty that’s going to come if and when she wins the nomination,” I wrote, back in November of 2015 — and being willfully misunderstood or attacked for it about half the time, well, Hillary Clinton’s feminist supporters were proven right. Now, a year later, in October of 2016, there is nary a progressive-aligned person who would not agree that yes, in fact, sexism does play a role in this election. A very large, very disturbing role, for that matter. We were right. We were vindicated. We won. And it happened in the worst way possible.
...
Being right should at least feel good, but it doesn’t. I should have enjoyed the debates — seeing that, finally, many of my Clinton-doubting friends got what I saw in her; her grace under fire, her merciless tough-bitch baiting of his insecurities, her ability to take a man who’d bulldozed over a dozen Republican candidates and make him look like a screaming, pouting toddler — but I didn’t. It isn’t just an insult to Hillary Clinton that she wound up facing Trump. It’s an insult to all women; it’s confirmation of our darkest suspicions about sexism, that while women are killing ourselves to do better and be smarter and work harder, while we’re building resumes, accumulating qualifications, going to classes, applying for extra credit, the only thing all that excellence does, at the end of the day, is to put us on equal footing with some male idiot who’s done precisely none of the work. It isn’t fun, realizing that the most qualified candidate in modern history is considered roughly equivalent to a barely literate game-show host with no government experience, just because she’s female. It doesn’t feel good, knowing that even Hillary Clinton has to stand there and get screamed at by some Twitter troll, just because she’s trying to get a job.

It is not fun, was not fun, has never been and could never be fun, spending nearly two years “debating” my own humanity through the lens of the biggest news story in the country. It has not been fun realizing that this matter was up for debate. I mean: By my count, Donald Trump currently has twelve standing allegations of sexual assault. Now, thanks to the magic of modern polling, I can see exactly how many of my countrymen don’t give a shit. According to FiveThirtyEight, the number of Americans who would rather elect a rapist than a female human being stands at around 45 percent.

Juneau holds a law degree from the University of Montana and a master's degree in education from Harvard University. She has twice been elected Montana’s superintendent of public instruction, and her time in that statewide office has been marked by tremendous success in raising graduation rates, primarily because she identified Missoula’s Graduation Matters initiative as a good example and encouraged local districts to adopt a similar program, with her office providing helpful tools and information.

At the same time, Juneau has fought against federal policies that don’t fit Montana’s educational needs, such as No Child Left Behind, while also advocating for expanded college and career readiness opportunities.

She has also demonstrated thoughtful decision-making on Montana’s five-member Land Board, breaking from other Democrats on the board at times in order to ensure state lands remain protected in the future, while also giving the go-ahead for timber projects and additional public lands access.

That’s the kind of approach that just might get things done in Congress. If she uses her demonstrated skills to work across ideological divides, she might even be able to use her high profile to break through the gridlock.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A decorated combat veteran warning about the threat of ISIS in America is being challenged for his U.S. House seat by a longtime educator who would become the first American Indian woman in Congress.

The race between Republican Ryan Zinke and Democrat Denise Juneau for Montana's only House seat reflects a broader divide playing out nationwide between Republicans focusing on foreign threats and Democrats honing in on domestic issues from education to the economy.
...
Zinke, who was born in Bozeman and grew up in Whitefish, points to recent attacks in malls in Minnesota and Washington state as evidence the threat is real. He attributed his assertion that ISIS is present in all U.S. states to FBI Director James Comey, who said last year the agency was investigating people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.

Montana has received no Syrian refugees, prompting Democrats to accuse Zinke and other state Republicans of employing anti-refugee rhetoric to scare residents and win their votes.

Juneau's backstory could hardly differ more from her opponent. A member of the Mandan Hidatsa tribes, she grew up on Montana's Blackfeet Indian Reservation, received a master's degree in education from Harvard University and a law degree from the University of Montana.

Denise Juneau’s Twitter profile ends with the proclamation that she is a “54th Generation Montanan,” a play on the tendency of Montana politicians to proudly claim the length of their native Montanan-ness. But Juneau is the only one of these politicians who can say she is the first Native American woman to run for Congress in Montana or any other state.

It’s the latest milestone for a woman who became the first Native American in the nation to win statewide office when she was first elected superintendent of public instruction in 2008.

Her candidacy may be historic, but for Juneau, political life runs in the family. Her mother, who currently serves as a member of Montana’s Senate, was passionate about educating voters and was vocal about civic life.

“She still carries around voter registration cards in her purse and pulls them out at inappropriate times,” Juneau said at an event at the University of Montana. “That was the household I grew up in — it was important to be civically engaged.”

In the swing state of Pennsylvania, we asked families of women – Clinton supporters all – to talk about why they support her candidacy and how they identify with her experiences as a woman in the workforce and as a mother and grandmother at home.

Polly Frey, a 67-year-old former stay-at-home mother and current furniture saleswoman in between jobs, lives with her daughter in the Philadelphia exurbs, and said she certainly sees herself in Clinton. “Being a new grandmother, definitely, it makes her more human and more attractive to me, how she would handle things,” she explained. “I worry about so much more now than I did with my kids, because you know what’s going on and you want to prepare them for what’s ahead and hope that they turn out to be even-tempered, moral, generous – all the things you would want in a human, which sometimes we don’t see in some of the candidates.”

Her daughter, Raina Murdock, is an IT professional who just turned 43 and has two children: Dexter, age four, and Meadow, one.

Murdock said, tearing up: “The one thing that I think is kind of cool, Meadow being the age she is, she’s not going to know any different” than that a woman can be president.

A first-of-its-kind training and intervention program for veterans celebrated its grand opening in Missoula Thursday, Sept. 29.

The Rural Institute for Veterans Education and Research – “RIVER” for short – helps vets reintegrate back into civilian life after their military service ends.

Executive Director Ed Lesofski says, “just like when they went into the military it took a while to learn how to become a military person, they have to relearn what society is all about and that’s part of what we do.”

RIVER offers job training, crisis intervention and some basic medical services.
...
The institute was approved for GI Bill funding through the Office of Public Instruction.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau says that allows vets to use their benefits to pay for training programs at RIVER.

“It’s a real benefit to particularly rural Montana," Juneau says.

Come Celebrate the American Presidential Elections in Geneva!

The upcoming American election promises to be one of the most important and interesting in U.S. history. On this occasion, and for the first time, five American organizations in Geneva have come together to organize a non-partisan American Election Night Celebration.

The AENC Joint Committee unites American Citizens Abroad Geneva Chapter, the American International Club of Geneva, the American International Women’s Club of Geneva, Democrats Abroad Switzerland and Republicans Overseas.

The celebration will begin at 9:30 pm on Tuesday, November 8th, and will continue until 5:00 am Wednesday morning. There will be live news streaming from the U.S. networks, live music and entertainment, interactive games, refreshments and raffle. Ticketholders will receive all final event details on November 6th.

Donald Trump won large victories in online polls conducted by Breitbart and the Drudge Report. Which is a bit like saying the GOP nominee won a poll of his rallygoers.
...
But when we concentrate on scientific polls — which are based on random samples of debate viewers — Clinton was the clear winner.

CNN’s survey found 62 percent of voters saying the Democratic nominee had won the contest, while just 27 percent said that about Trump. That’s the third-widest margin that CNN or Gallup had recorded in a post-debate poll since 1984, FiveThirtyEight notes.

Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling found Clinton winning by a margin of 51 to 40 percent. More critically for Clinton, 63 percent of younger voters saw her as the winner. One of the primary reasons Trump is nipping at Clinton’s heels — even as he’s earned the antipathy of most nonwhite voters and a good many women — is that roughly a third of millennial voters have been pledging their allegiance to third parties. But after Monday night’s debate, 47 percent of voters under 30 told PPP they were more likely to vote for Clinton than before the evening began.

Pundits are only useful insofar as they focus on policy substance or factchecking. Their “who’s up, who’s down” commentary is worthless. Here are three reasons why you should basically ignore the onslaught of horserace punditry that is about to rain down.

1. What commentators think about “exceeding expectations” is an anti-indicator.

2. If polls move after the debate, the reasons were baked in a long time ago.

3. Polarization has made it difficult for opinion to move much.