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niyad
niyad's Journal
niyad's Journal
July 2, 2024
Before yesterday, I kept seeing all the increasing insanity around us,
and thinking that it was as if people had contracted some deadly fever/plague, or some massive, spreading infection, that would reach a critical point, and the fever would break, or the infection just burst and finally clear, and the healing would begin.
This morning, I wonder. . Did we finally reach that point, or is this plague one for which there is no cure, no vaccine, and it is going to kill us all?
July 2, 2024
Personally, I think the seditious six* should have released this "opinion" on 4 July.
It is such a slap in the face to everything that day represents, they might as well have gone all the way.
May they, and their enablers, receive everything they deserve.
(* for some reason, every time I try to type "six", it comes out "sux". )
July 1, 2024
Good morning to our wonderful MIRT. Just an early THANK YOU for all
the hard work you will be doing between now and 5 Roe/Joevember, from ruzzian bots, to our regular trolls, and all the other assorted mayhem. If we could, there would be a regular coffee/tea/doughnut delivery as you labor to keep this site clean.
CHEERS!!!
June 29, 2024
My Daughter Was Assaulted in a Hospital. Body Cams Could Have Brought Us Justice. TRIGGER WARNING
PUBLISHED 6/29/2024 by Anonymous
emergency-room-body-cameras-child-abuse-assault(Cavan Images / Getty)
Editor’s note: This essay contains references to child abuse and sexual violence.
I knew my child was a fighter her first night home when she went wild boar on my chest to get at my breasts. Like her ancestors before her, she was a survivor. I’m glad I didn’t know then all that she would endure. When she was 16 months old, she had a cold with a fever. The neighbor’s baby, the same age, also had the symptoms. We had all hung out during the day with us moms putting them down for naps, giving them children’s Tylenol and watching them play.
That evening, I made the mistake of putting her in a long-sleeved onesie. Her febrile, or feverish, seizure began while I was nursing her—she was choking on my milk. I was terrified. I ran out of our apartment with her in my arms, screaming for help. She looked purple. The seizures stopped and I instinctively patted her on the back to stop the choking. One of my neighbors, a nurse, put us in the car and drove us to the emergency room. Once there, they gave me paperwork describing a febrile seizure. They made it clear that a febrile seizure was the result of a fever spiking and was unlikely to cause permanent damage. I was tremendously relieved. If only the danger of that evening had ended there. The medical staff did not want to release us until she was given a catheter in case there was a UTI. They never told me that catheters to check for UTIs can lead to UTIs or that UTIs were not commonly associated with a fever in infants.
My daughter is remarkably strong. She kicked her legs and did assisted presses into standing from nearly birth. She was an early walker and an early talker. She was savvy for a 16-month-old, and she knew a kind and nurturing environment. The hospital room was not a nurturing nor safe environment for her that evening. The first round of violence included several medical personnel attempting to hold her down and insert the catheter. The catheter insertion did not go in. She used her strong legs, arms and core—her entire body—to reject what they were doing to her. She made her body completely rigid. She was crying. I was pleading with them, Can we please not do this? But they kept at it. What was a traumatic event spiraled out of my control and into abuse. One male healthcare worker in particular seemed to relish in the power of being “in charge.” He and I were in a battle; the more I tried to protect my daughter from him inserting this apparatus into her urethra, the more he insisted upon doing it. He discounted the 16-month-old patient on the bed in front of him. He had all the power.
Afterward, they told me they were unable to get a catheter, so they would wait to see if she urinated during the next hour—as if she would be able to vacate normally immediately after that violation. We were never offered the non-invasive alternative of urinating before the attempt at a forced catheter. She did not do what they needed her to do in that timeframe and a small group of them came back. I cried and screamed inside as my daughter was assaulted again. They held her down and forced the catheter into her. She screamed on the outside. She buckled her body. She went entirely stiff. She cried, she yelled. We cried and tried to resist. We were not successful, neither were they. They told me they had still not gotten a catheter but they had caused bleeding. I did not know the language, “I refuse these medical services,” to intervene on behalf of my daughter. Six people assaulted or aided the assault on my daughter for no medical outcome.
. . .
Especially when male doctors are going to be in the vicinity of female private parts, there must be consent, at all ages, at all times. If the ER staff wore body cams, if I had a video of that hospital room to offer as evidence of the sexual assault of a minor—a toddler—as evidence that the Hippocratic oath was breached, then I would be less likely to be seen as a mother overreacting. We would have a pathway to achieve a modicum of justice. Without it, I am just another mother of a child who can say #MeToo.
RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, has a 24/7 hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) and a chatline at online.rainn.org.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/29/emergency-room-body-cameras-child-abuse-assault/
My Daughter Was Assaulted in a Hospital. Body Cams Could Have Brought Us Justice. TRIGGER WARNING
My Daughter Was Assaulted in a Hospital. Body Cams Could Have Brought Us Justice. TRIGGER WARNING
PUBLISHED 6/29/2024 by Anonymous
emergency-room-body-cameras-child-abuse-assault(Cavan Images / Getty)
Editor’s note: This essay contains references to child abuse and sexual violence.
I knew my child was a fighter her first night home when she went wild boar on my chest to get at my breasts. Like her ancestors before her, she was a survivor. I’m glad I didn’t know then all that she would endure. When she was 16 months old, she had a cold with a fever. The neighbor’s baby, the same age, also had the symptoms. We had all hung out during the day with us moms putting them down for naps, giving them children’s Tylenol and watching them play.
That evening, I made the mistake of putting her in a long-sleeved onesie. Her febrile, or feverish, seizure began while I was nursing her—she was choking on my milk. I was terrified. I ran out of our apartment with her in my arms, screaming for help. She looked purple. The seizures stopped and I instinctively patted her on the back to stop the choking. One of my neighbors, a nurse, put us in the car and drove us to the emergency room. Once there, they gave me paperwork describing a febrile seizure. They made it clear that a febrile seizure was the result of a fever spiking and was unlikely to cause permanent damage. I was tremendously relieved. If only the danger of that evening had ended there. The medical staff did not want to release us until she was given a catheter in case there was a UTI. They never told me that catheters to check for UTIs can lead to UTIs or that UTIs were not commonly associated with a fever in infants.
My daughter is remarkably strong. She kicked her legs and did assisted presses into standing from nearly birth. She was an early walker and an early talker. She was savvy for a 16-month-old, and she knew a kind and nurturing environment. The hospital room was not a nurturing nor safe environment for her that evening. The first round of violence included several medical personnel attempting to hold her down and insert the catheter. The catheter insertion did not go in. She used her strong legs, arms and core—her entire body—to reject what they were doing to her. She made her body completely rigid. She was crying. I was pleading with them, Can we please not do this? But they kept at it. What was a traumatic event spiraled out of my control and into abuse. One male healthcare worker in particular seemed to relish in the power of being “in charge.” He and I were in a battle; the more I tried to protect my daughter from him inserting this apparatus into her urethra, the more he insisted upon doing it. He discounted the 16-month-old patient on the bed in front of him. He had all the power.
Afterward, they told me they were unable to get a catheter, so they would wait to see if she urinated during the next hour—as if she would be able to vacate normally immediately after that violation. We were never offered the non-invasive alternative of urinating before the attempt at a forced catheter. She did not do what they needed her to do in that timeframe and a small group of them came back. I cried and screamed inside as my daughter was assaulted again. They held her down and forced the catheter into her. She screamed on the outside. She buckled her body. She went entirely stiff. She cried, she yelled. We cried and tried to resist. We were not successful, neither were they. They told me they had still not gotten a catheter but they had caused bleeding. I did not know the language, “I refuse these medical services,” to intervene on behalf of my daughter. Six people assaulted or aided the assault on my daughter for no medical outcome.
. . .
Especially when male doctors are going to be in the vicinity of female private parts, there must be consent, at all ages, at all times. If the ER staff wore body cams, if I had a video of that hospital room to offer as evidence of the sexual assault of a minor—a toddler—as evidence that the Hippocratic oath was breached, then I would be less likely to be seen as a mother overreacting. We would have a pathway to achieve a modicum of justice. Without it, I am just another mother of a child who can say #MeToo.
RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, has a 24/7 hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) and a chatline at online.rainn.org.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/29/emergency-room-body-cameras-child-abuse-assault/
June 29, 2024
The Perception Paradox: Men Who Hate Feminists Think Feminists Hate Men
PUBLISHED 4/11/2024 by Amber Wardell
Feminists, on the whole, don’t hate men. We hate sexism and sexist oppression. After all, men are harmed by patriarchy, too.
The perception that feminism is motivated by anti-male sentiment, or misandry, has been used to delegitimize and discredit the movement, has deterred women from joining it, and motivated men to oppose it, sometimes with violence. (Maskot / Getty Images)
The “feminists are man-haters” trope is getting old. For far too long, opponents of feminism have claimed that our movement is rooted in misandry—the prejudice, contempt or hatred against men. Men who have not bothered to educate themselves about what feminism stands for declare loudly and proudly that, if possible, feminist women would subjugate men, destabilize civilization, and summon forth the end of humanity. Until recently, refuting these claims has proven difficult. After all, every feminist-hating man has an anecdotal story of “that one feminist” he knows who definitively hates men. Thankfully, contemporary research has finally given us real, irrefutable evidence that feminists do not, in fact, despise men. A 2023 study measured levels of hostility toward men among feminists, non-feminists and other men. Interestingly, across six experiments conducted in nine nations and almost 10,000 participants, the results revealed that feminist women show no more hostility toward men than both non-feminists and other men. It turns out that just about everyone, including men, has a fair amount of hostility toward men.
Feminists Won’t Coddle Men’s Egos
Something that stood out in the results of the study is that although feminist women appear to have no more hostility toward men than non-feminist women, they are significantly less likely to be benevolent toward men. Whereas non-feminist women are likely to excuse or ignore men’s bad behavior toward women, feminist women will, more often than not, call it out. They will not pull their punches to spare men’s egos. They expect much from men, and will hold them accountable to the behavior they know men are capable of. And it appears that this is where the man-hating feminist trope has its roots. Misogynistic men with weak egos cannot abide being criticized, even gently—especially when those criticisms come from women, and even more so when they come from feminist women, who they have declared to be their mortal enemy. To men like these, being held accountable feels like hostility. A demand for equality and liberation feels like oppression. And being de-centered feels like being shunned. When faced with non-benevolent behavior of feminist women, who they already view as angry, aggressive, stubborn and egotistical, they perceive that behavior as evidence that feminists simply hate men.
It is known that misogynistic men prefer the company of non-feminist women who do not speak up about their misogyny. Since they do not often (if ever) hear that their attitudes about women are problematic, they may indeed view themselves as men who like or even have affection for women. They are unable to handle the wounded ego and cognitive dissonance that accompany being held accountable for their misogyny by feminist women. So, rather than looking inward, they lash out. They label feminists as man-haters to avoid having to examine their own attitudes and behaviors toward women.
. . .
Although feminists will likely never center men in their work, they see men as their partners (but not co-equals) in gender-based oppression. They seek to improve civilization for both men and women by abolishing patriarchy and sexist oppression. In that work, they will often come across entitled, angry men who despise women generally and feminists specifically. When that happens, they will likely choose to go toe to toe with those men, refusing to coddle their egos and addressing their bad behavior instead. Rather than using this feedback as an invitation to challenge their beliefs and join us in the fight to end sexist oppression together, those men will decide to call those feminists man-haters. In reality, it is far more likely that those men simply hate women. They may never change their views about women. But for the many women around the world who choose not to identify with feminism because a man who hates women told them that feminists hate men, we need to correct the perception problem. Feminists, on the whole, don’t hate men. We hate sexism and sexist oppression, and we will not mollify, excuse or enable any man who chooses to uphold them.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/11/feminists-hate-men/
The Perception Paradox: Men Who Hate Feminists Think Feminists Hate Men
The Perception Paradox: Men Who Hate Feminists Think Feminists Hate Men
PUBLISHED 4/11/2024 by Amber Wardell
Feminists, on the whole, don’t hate men. We hate sexism and sexist oppression. After all, men are harmed by patriarchy, too.
The perception that feminism is motivated by anti-male sentiment, or misandry, has been used to delegitimize and discredit the movement, has deterred women from joining it, and motivated men to oppose it, sometimes with violence. (Maskot / Getty Images)
The “feminists are man-haters” trope is getting old. For far too long, opponents of feminism have claimed that our movement is rooted in misandry—the prejudice, contempt or hatred against men. Men who have not bothered to educate themselves about what feminism stands for declare loudly and proudly that, if possible, feminist women would subjugate men, destabilize civilization, and summon forth the end of humanity. Until recently, refuting these claims has proven difficult. After all, every feminist-hating man has an anecdotal story of “that one feminist” he knows who definitively hates men. Thankfully, contemporary research has finally given us real, irrefutable evidence that feminists do not, in fact, despise men. A 2023 study measured levels of hostility toward men among feminists, non-feminists and other men. Interestingly, across six experiments conducted in nine nations and almost 10,000 participants, the results revealed that feminist women show no more hostility toward men than both non-feminists and other men. It turns out that just about everyone, including men, has a fair amount of hostility toward men.
Feminists Won’t Coddle Men’s Egos
Something that stood out in the results of the study is that although feminist women appear to have no more hostility toward men than non-feminist women, they are significantly less likely to be benevolent toward men. Whereas non-feminist women are likely to excuse or ignore men’s bad behavior toward women, feminist women will, more often than not, call it out. They will not pull their punches to spare men’s egos. They expect much from men, and will hold them accountable to the behavior they know men are capable of. And it appears that this is where the man-hating feminist trope has its roots. Misogynistic men with weak egos cannot abide being criticized, even gently—especially when those criticisms come from women, and even more so when they come from feminist women, who they have declared to be their mortal enemy. To men like these, being held accountable feels like hostility. A demand for equality and liberation feels like oppression. And being de-centered feels like being shunned. When faced with non-benevolent behavior of feminist women, who they already view as angry, aggressive, stubborn and egotistical, they perceive that behavior as evidence that feminists simply hate men.
It is known that misogynistic men prefer the company of non-feminist women who do not speak up about their misogyny. Since they do not often (if ever) hear that their attitudes about women are problematic, they may indeed view themselves as men who like or even have affection for women. They are unable to handle the wounded ego and cognitive dissonance that accompany being held accountable for their misogyny by feminist women. So, rather than looking inward, they lash out. They label feminists as man-haters to avoid having to examine their own attitudes and behaviors toward women.
. . .
Although feminists will likely never center men in their work, they see men as their partners (but not co-equals) in gender-based oppression. They seek to improve civilization for both men and women by abolishing patriarchy and sexist oppression. In that work, they will often come across entitled, angry men who despise women generally and feminists specifically. When that happens, they will likely choose to go toe to toe with those men, refusing to coddle their egos and addressing their bad behavior instead. Rather than using this feedback as an invitation to challenge their beliefs and join us in the fight to end sexist oppression together, those men will decide to call those feminists man-haters. In reality, it is far more likely that those men simply hate women. They may never change their views about women. But for the many women around the world who choose not to identify with feminism because a man who hates women told them that feminists hate men, we need to correct the perception problem. Feminists, on the whole, don’t hate men. We hate sexism and sexist oppression, and we will not mollify, excuse or enable any man who chooses to uphold them.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/11/feminists-hate-men/
June 29, 2024
Men and Mass Shootings 25 Years After Columbine
PUBLISHED 4/23/2024 by Rob Okun
The vast majority of men are not mass shooters—but 98 percent of mass shooters are men. Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we can’t prevent these tragedies.
Incoming Columbine High School freshmen Ellie Fairweather (L) and Ava Kyle, both of Littleton, Colo., read quotes along a wall at the Columbine Memorial in Clement Park on April 20, 2024—the 25th anniversary of the school shooting where two male students killed 12 of their classmates, one teacher and injured many more on April 20, 1999. (Marc Piscotty / Getty Images)
Fortunately, there wasn’t a copycat mass shooting on Saturday to grotesquely mark the 25th anniversary of the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. But just as we can be certain there will be another solar eclipse, it’s only a matter of time before a hail of bullets will block out the sun for another community somewhere in America. What’s also true? Expect the shooter to be male, probably white. In an effort to prevent mass shooters from attaining posthumous fame, today the media rarely reveals their names. Back in 1999, after high school seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris murdered 12 classmates and a teacher in Littleton, Colo., their names were widely broadcast and published. A quarter century later, despite substantive actions to prevent mass shootings by a number of states—and, with Vice President Kamala Harris now overseeing the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—we still lead the world in this particular brand of murder. USA! USA! USA! (As horrific as the April 13 murder of six by an Australian man at a mall outside of Sydney is, he was only wielding a knife. I shudder to think of the level of carnage if he had been brandishing an AR-15, the weapon of choice in most mass shootings.)
Australia’s Gun Regulations Serve as Example
Australia, you might recall, banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons after a mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, on April 28, 1996. There a gunman opened fire in a café, slaughtering 35 and wounding 23. Then-Prime Minister John Howard, a conservative politician in office for just six weeks, was able to push through sweeping gun control legislation 12 days after the shooting. The legislative package he shepherded through banned selling and importing semi-automatic and automatic rifles, and shotguns. The package also required gun purchasers to explain the reason for buying the firearm and wait 28 days before obtaining it. Most significantly, the Australian law required a mandatory gun-buyback. The government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms, cutting in half the number of households that possessed guns.
Prime Minister John Howard prays and his wife Janette Howard during a memorial for the 35 victims of the Port Arthur massacre held on April 29, 1996. (Andrew Meares / Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
. . . .
Men’s Gun Violence
In a world where leaders of all stripes use the term “a just war” with a straight face, working to prevent mass shootings feels more within our grasp then say, ending the war in Gaza. What to do first? Change how we talk about the issue. That means refusing to speak out against generic “gun violence.” Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we’ll continue to miss the mark, falling short of any campaign to prevent mass shootings. This is not a condemnation of men. The vast majority of men are not mass shooters. For decades, I worked at a men’s center, published a magazine promoting a new definition of manhood, and championed revisiting how we socialize boys, as early as preschool. More and more men are rejecting conventional masculinity.
The weakened, shell-of-itself National Rifle Association coined the oft cited cliché, “Guns don’t kill people. People do” more than a century ago. Variations have long been used to thwart gun control legislation. It’s astonishing how little pushback there’s been. “People kill people?” Really? Sure, there are rare occasions when women pull the trigger, but as certain as I am that we’ll never hear a news report begin with the words, “A gunwoman opened fire today…” I believe that to minimize mass shootings, we must move the question of the gender of the shooter from the periphery to the center of a long overdue national conversation. Now is a good time to listen again to entertainers Martin Mull and Steve Martin. They had it right when they penned the satirical sea shanty, “Men” with its one word chorus: Men, men, men, men.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/23/men-guns-mass-shooting/
Men and Mass Shootings 25 Years After Columbine
Men and Mass Shootings 25 Years After Columbine
PUBLISHED 4/23/2024 by Rob Okun
The vast majority of men are not mass shooters—but 98 percent of mass shooters are men. Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we can’t prevent these tragedies.
Incoming Columbine High School freshmen Ellie Fairweather (L) and Ava Kyle, both of Littleton, Colo., read quotes along a wall at the Columbine Memorial in Clement Park on April 20, 2024—the 25th anniversary of the school shooting where two male students killed 12 of their classmates, one teacher and injured many more on April 20, 1999. (Marc Piscotty / Getty Images)
Fortunately, there wasn’t a copycat mass shooting on Saturday to grotesquely mark the 25th anniversary of the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. But just as we can be certain there will be another solar eclipse, it’s only a matter of time before a hail of bullets will block out the sun for another community somewhere in America. What’s also true? Expect the shooter to be male, probably white. In an effort to prevent mass shooters from attaining posthumous fame, today the media rarely reveals their names. Back in 1999, after high school seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris murdered 12 classmates and a teacher in Littleton, Colo., their names were widely broadcast and published. A quarter century later, despite substantive actions to prevent mass shootings by a number of states—and, with Vice President Kamala Harris now overseeing the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—we still lead the world in this particular brand of murder. USA! USA! USA! (As horrific as the April 13 murder of six by an Australian man at a mall outside of Sydney is, he was only wielding a knife. I shudder to think of the level of carnage if he had been brandishing an AR-15, the weapon of choice in most mass shootings.)
Australia’s Gun Regulations Serve as Example
Australia, you might recall, banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons after a mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, on April 28, 1996. There a gunman opened fire in a café, slaughtering 35 and wounding 23. Then-Prime Minister John Howard, a conservative politician in office for just six weeks, was able to push through sweeping gun control legislation 12 days after the shooting. The legislative package he shepherded through banned selling and importing semi-automatic and automatic rifles, and shotguns. The package also required gun purchasers to explain the reason for buying the firearm and wait 28 days before obtaining it. Most significantly, the Australian law required a mandatory gun-buyback. The government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms, cutting in half the number of households that possessed guns.
Prime Minister John Howard prays and his wife Janette Howard during a memorial for the 35 victims of the Port Arthur massacre held on April 29, 1996. (Andrew Meares / Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
. . . .
Men’s Gun Violence
In a world where leaders of all stripes use the term “a just war” with a straight face, working to prevent mass shootings feels more within our grasp then say, ending the war in Gaza. What to do first? Change how we talk about the issue. That means refusing to speak out against generic “gun violence.” Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we’ll continue to miss the mark, falling short of any campaign to prevent mass shootings. This is not a condemnation of men. The vast majority of men are not mass shooters. For decades, I worked at a men’s center, published a magazine promoting a new definition of manhood, and championed revisiting how we socialize boys, as early as preschool. More and more men are rejecting conventional masculinity.
The weakened, shell-of-itself National Rifle Association coined the oft cited cliché, “Guns don’t kill people. People do” more than a century ago. Variations have long been used to thwart gun control legislation. It’s astonishing how little pushback there’s been. “People kill people?” Really? Sure, there are rare occasions when women pull the trigger, but as certain as I am that we’ll never hear a news report begin with the words, “A gunwoman opened fire today…” I believe that to minimize mass shootings, we must move the question of the gender of the shooter from the periphery to the center of a long overdue national conversation. Now is a good time to listen again to entertainers Martin Mull and Steve Martin. They had it right when they penned the satirical sea shanty, “Men” with its one word chorus: Men, men, men, men.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/04/23/men-guns-mass-shooting/
June 29, 2024
U.S. v. Rahimi Denies Abusers Firearms. The Decision Is an Outlier.
PUBLISHED 6/24/2024 by Natalie Nanasi
When it comes to gun control, the Rahimi ruling is not an indication that the tides of the conservative Supreme Court have turned.
Students from Washington local high schools demonstrate for stricter gun control outside the White House on Feb. 21, 2018. (Xinhua Ting Shen / Getty Images)
Survivors of domestic violence have won a battle in the war for common sense gun regulations. In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held Friday, June 21, that abusers subject to protective orders can continue to be denied access to firearms. The decision in Rahimi v. United States to uphold federal law will save lives. Over half of women under the age of 45 who are murdered in the United States are killed by their intimate partner. Guns are the weapon of choice in these heartbreaking, and preventable, crimes. Disarming domestic abusers makes our communities safer. A sizeable percentage of men who commit mass shootings have a history of intimate partner violence, and perpetrators are more likely than the average citizen to endanger the life of a police officer.
Zackey Rahimi—the Texas man who brought suit to declare the federal domestic violence protective order gun prohibition unconstitutional—is an embodiment of these statistics. A series of violent attacks against the mother of his child led her to seek a protective order against him. The order required him to surrender any guns he had and forbade him from obtaining new ones. He then not only violated that order, but mere months later committed an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—another gun—against a different woman. As domestic abusers often do, he then turned his sights on the community. Within the span of five weeks, he fired into the home of his drug dealer and shot at multiple cars during road rage incidents; he fired shots in the air both while driving through a residential neighborhood and after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger drive-through. Even the most ardent defender of the Second Amendment would agree Rahimi is not the type of person who should be entrusted with a gun.
. . . . .
Viewing Rahimi as an Outlier
On June 14, the Court struck down an ATF rule prohibiting so-called bump stocks, which turn semi-automatic firearms into machine guns. The ban stemmed from a 2017 mass shooting in which a gunman with bump stock-equipped rifles murdered 60 people and wounded hundreds more at a music festival in Las Vegas. Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of that opinion, was the lone dissenter in Rahimi, but three of the other conservative justices wrote separate opinions to declare their commitment to originalism and suggest that Rahimi—likely because of its egregious facts, unsympathetic defendant and sympathetic cause—may be an outlier. These justices were practically pleading for additional Second Amendment cases through which they could limit gun regulations. Particularly troubling is Justice Neil Gorsuch positing a hypothetical abuser who needs a gun for self-defense. Would the Court limit Rahimi’s holding if faced with such a fact pattern?
Survivors of domestic violence are safer when guns are out of the hands of abusers. We are all safer when fewer guns are circulating on our streets. The road toward such a future is long. But for today, we can take satisfaction that for this Court, allowing domestic abusers access to deadly weapons is a bridge too far.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/24/supreme-court-guns-second-amendment/
U.S. v. Rahimi Denies Abusers Firearms. The Decision Is an Outlier.
U.S. v. Rahimi Denies Abusers Firearms. The Decision Is an Outlier.
PUBLISHED 6/24/2024 by Natalie Nanasi
When it comes to gun control, the Rahimi ruling is not an indication that the tides of the conservative Supreme Court have turned.
Students from Washington local high schools demonstrate for stricter gun control outside the White House on Feb. 21, 2018. (Xinhua Ting Shen / Getty Images)
Survivors of domestic violence have won a battle in the war for common sense gun regulations. In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held Friday, June 21, that abusers subject to protective orders can continue to be denied access to firearms. The decision in Rahimi v. United States to uphold federal law will save lives. Over half of women under the age of 45 who are murdered in the United States are killed by their intimate partner. Guns are the weapon of choice in these heartbreaking, and preventable, crimes. Disarming domestic abusers makes our communities safer. A sizeable percentage of men who commit mass shootings have a history of intimate partner violence, and perpetrators are more likely than the average citizen to endanger the life of a police officer.
Zackey Rahimi—the Texas man who brought suit to declare the federal domestic violence protective order gun prohibition unconstitutional—is an embodiment of these statistics. A series of violent attacks against the mother of his child led her to seek a protective order against him. The order required him to surrender any guns he had and forbade him from obtaining new ones. He then not only violated that order, but mere months later committed an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—another gun—against a different woman. As domestic abusers often do, he then turned his sights on the community. Within the span of five weeks, he fired into the home of his drug dealer and shot at multiple cars during road rage incidents; he fired shots in the air both while driving through a residential neighborhood and after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger drive-through. Even the most ardent defender of the Second Amendment would agree Rahimi is not the type of person who should be entrusted with a gun.
. . . . .
Viewing Rahimi as an Outlier
On June 14, the Court struck down an ATF rule prohibiting so-called bump stocks, which turn semi-automatic firearms into machine guns. The ban stemmed from a 2017 mass shooting in which a gunman with bump stock-equipped rifles murdered 60 people and wounded hundreds more at a music festival in Las Vegas. Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of that opinion, was the lone dissenter in Rahimi, but three of the other conservative justices wrote separate opinions to declare their commitment to originalism and suggest that Rahimi—likely because of its egregious facts, unsympathetic defendant and sympathetic cause—may be an outlier. These justices were practically pleading for additional Second Amendment cases through which they could limit gun regulations. Particularly troubling is Justice Neil Gorsuch positing a hypothetical abuser who needs a gun for self-defense. Would the Court limit Rahimi’s holding if faced with such a fact pattern?
Survivors of domestic violence are safer when guns are out of the hands of abusers. We are all safer when fewer guns are circulating on our streets. The road toward such a future is long. But for today, we can take satisfaction that for this Court, allowing domestic abusers access to deadly weapons is a bridge too far.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/24/supreme-court-guns-second-amendment/
June 29, 2024
Supreme Court Upholds Federal Law Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence
Piper Duncan | June 24, 2024
On June 21, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of a federal law prohibiting those with a domestic violence restraining order against them from possessing a firearm. United States v. Rahimi (2024) served as a test case for the conservative-leaning court, especially after the court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). In the 2022 case, the court ruled that a New York law requiring a demonstrated “special need” for protection with a firearm to conceal carry outside the home was too restrictive. In the majority opinion, Justice Thomas stated that all gun control laws must have a historical parallel to when the Second Amendment was ratified, which the New York law did not.
In the 2024 case, Justice Roberts argued that the federal law in Rahimi fell in line with America’s regulatory tradition by temporarily disarming an individual who poses a credible threat to another. Multiple justices also argued in favor of the federal law, even in light of Bruen, since the restriction only applied to specific individuals rather than the public as a whole. The case’s respondent, Zackey Rahimi, had a domestic violence restraining order taken out against him by his ex-partner after he physically assaulted her in 2019 and attempted to shoot a witness. He was later arrested after being a suspect in six separate shootings where police found firearms in his possession. He was charged with unlawful firearm possession in a federal court due to his domestic violence restraining order. He pleaded guilty to his charge and received six years in prison.
The Feminist Majority, partnering with the National Network to End Domestic Violence and its then director, Donna Edwards, played a pivotal role in passing the original 1996 Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban at the heart of the Rahimi case, often referred to as “the Lautenberg Amendment,” after its sponsor, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). While individuals convicted of felonies are banned from owning guns, this law also included those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.
Rahimi’s case is just one of thousands in the United States, with hundreds of others ending in deaths. Almost half of all women murdered in the United States are killed by an intimate partner, and more than half of these murders are committed with a firearm. Access to a gun by an abuser also increases the risk of homicide by five times. Hundreds of women are killed every year as a result of shootings by intimate partners, making the Supreme Court’s decision on this federal law a significant victory for victims of domestic violence.
https://feminist.org/news/supreme-court-upholds-federal-law-protecting-victims-of-domestic-violence/
Supreme Court Upholds Federal Law Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence
Supreme Court Upholds Federal Law Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence
Piper Duncan | June 24, 2024
On June 21, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of a federal law prohibiting those with a domestic violence restraining order against them from possessing a firearm. United States v. Rahimi (2024) served as a test case for the conservative-leaning court, especially after the court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). In the 2022 case, the court ruled that a New York law requiring a demonstrated “special need” for protection with a firearm to conceal carry outside the home was too restrictive. In the majority opinion, Justice Thomas stated that all gun control laws must have a historical parallel to when the Second Amendment was ratified, which the New York law did not.
In the 2024 case, Justice Roberts argued that the federal law in Rahimi fell in line with America’s regulatory tradition by temporarily disarming an individual who poses a credible threat to another. Multiple justices also argued in favor of the federal law, even in light of Bruen, since the restriction only applied to specific individuals rather than the public as a whole. The case’s respondent, Zackey Rahimi, had a domestic violence restraining order taken out against him by his ex-partner after he physically assaulted her in 2019 and attempted to shoot a witness. He was later arrested after being a suspect in six separate shootings where police found firearms in his possession. He was charged with unlawful firearm possession in a federal court due to his domestic violence restraining order. He pleaded guilty to his charge and received six years in prison.
The Feminist Majority, partnering with the National Network to End Domestic Violence and its then director, Donna Edwards, played a pivotal role in passing the original 1996 Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban at the heart of the Rahimi case, often referred to as “the Lautenberg Amendment,” after its sponsor, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). While individuals convicted of felonies are banned from owning guns, this law also included those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.
Rahimi’s case is just one of thousands in the United States, with hundreds of others ending in deaths. Almost half of all women murdered in the United States are killed by an intimate partner, and more than half of these murders are committed with a firearm. Access to a gun by an abuser also increases the risk of homicide by five times. Hundreds of women are killed every year as a result of shootings by intimate partners, making the Supreme Court’s decision on this federal law a significant victory for victims of domestic violence.
https://feminist.org/news/supreme-court-upholds-federal-law-protecting-victims-of-domestic-violence/
June 29, 2024
Trump’s Lies About Abortion in America Were Particularly Appalling
PUBLISHED 6/28/2024 by Julianne McShane
He falsely claimed that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe overturned, and that Democrats intend to execute newborns.
Donald Trump at the first presidential debate at CNN Studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Kyle Mazza / Anadolu via Getty Images)
(Backpfeifengesicht!!!)
This analysis was originally published by Mother Jones.
Former President Donald Trump did manage to say one accurate thing about abortion at Thursday night’s CNN presidential debate: He’s responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. “I put three great Supreme Court justices on the Court,” Trump said, “and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states.” This isn’t the first time Trump has boasted about yanking the constitutional right to abortion from Americans. As I’ve written, he previously has bragged about appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But otherwise, Trump lied constantly about the realities of abortion in the U.S. during Thursday’s debate. For example, Trump insisted that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.
As reproductive rights scholar and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray said when Mother Jones asked her for comment: “Yeah, that’s a lie.”
In fact, several legal scholars have noted the overturning of Roe undermines the legitimacy of the court given the blatant disregard for precedent, or stare decisis, that the conservative justices showed in issuing the Dobbs decision. Legal scholars also filed several amicus briefs in the Dobbs case urging the Court not to overturn Roe.
Trump also falsely claimed that the Supreme Court “just approved the abortion pill,” referring to the recent case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, brought by anti-abortion extremists, which sought to roll back some rule changes by the FDA that made mifepristone, the first of two pills used in a medication abortion, easier to access. In fact, as my colleague Nina Martin wrote, the Court did not “approve” the pill, but instead ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, since it was based on several hypotheticals:
The Alliance [Defending Freedom, a right-wing religious law firm] contended that a patient might be one of the rare people for whom the abortion pill didn’t work as intended, that she might then seek emergency care at a hospital, where she might encounter a provider who might belong to one of the anti-abortion groups in the lawsuit, who might be put in the position of having to perform an emergency procedure to remove the fetus.
. . . . .
Perhaps most egregiously—and preposterously—Trump insisted that Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.” Let’s break that down. First, federal data shows more than 90 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester. Research has shown that abortions in the third trimester are extremely rare—constituting only one percent of abortions—and they typically only occur when there are major medical concerns regarding the health of the mother or the fetus, or as KFF states, “barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion.” And regarding his claim that Democrats or physicians kill newborns, that procedure is already outlawed at the federal level. So Trump spewed a lot of lies about abortion tonight. But, as I’ve written, the facts about what he’s responsible for, thanks to the overturning of Roe—young victims of rape or incest being forced to give birth or travel across state lines to access abortion, and women facing life-threatening pregnancy complications due to inability to access abortion, just to name a few—are simple facts, far away from political posturing.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/28/trump-debate-abortion-lies/
Trump's Lies About Abortion in America Were Particularly Appalling
Trump’s Lies About Abortion in America Were Particularly Appalling
PUBLISHED 6/28/2024 by Julianne McShane
He falsely claimed that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe overturned, and that Democrats intend to execute newborns.
Donald Trump at the first presidential debate at CNN Studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Kyle Mazza / Anadolu via Getty Images)
(Backpfeifengesicht!!!)
This analysis was originally published by Mother Jones.
Former President Donald Trump did manage to say one accurate thing about abortion at Thursday night’s CNN presidential debate: He’s responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. “I put three great Supreme Court justices on the Court,” Trump said, “and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states.” This isn’t the first time Trump has boasted about yanking the constitutional right to abortion from Americans. As I’ve written, he previously has bragged about appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. But otherwise, Trump lied constantly about the realities of abortion in the U.S. during Thursday’s debate. For example, Trump insisted that “all legal scholars” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.
As reproductive rights scholar and NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray said when Mother Jones asked her for comment: “Yeah, that’s a lie.”
In fact, several legal scholars have noted the overturning of Roe undermines the legitimacy of the court given the blatant disregard for precedent, or stare decisis, that the conservative justices showed in issuing the Dobbs decision. Legal scholars also filed several amicus briefs in the Dobbs case urging the Court not to overturn Roe.
Trump also falsely claimed that the Supreme Court “just approved the abortion pill,” referring to the recent case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, brought by anti-abortion extremists, which sought to roll back some rule changes by the FDA that made mifepristone, the first of two pills used in a medication abortion, easier to access. In fact, as my colleague Nina Martin wrote, the Court did not “approve” the pill, but instead ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, since it was based on several hypotheticals:
The Alliance [Defending Freedom, a right-wing religious law firm] contended that a patient might be one of the rare people for whom the abortion pill didn’t work as intended, that she might then seek emergency care at a hospital, where she might encounter a provider who might belong to one of the anti-abortion groups in the lawsuit, who might be put in the position of having to perform an emergency procedure to remove the fetus.
. . . . .
Perhaps most egregiously—and preposterously—Trump insisted that Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth.” Let’s break that down. First, federal data shows more than 90 percent of abortions take place in the first trimester. Research has shown that abortions in the third trimester are extremely rare—constituting only one percent of abortions—and they typically only occur when there are major medical concerns regarding the health of the mother or the fetus, or as KFF states, “barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion.” And regarding his claim that Democrats or physicians kill newborns, that procedure is already outlawed at the federal level. So Trump spewed a lot of lies about abortion tonight. But, as I’ve written, the facts about what he’s responsible for, thanks to the overturning of Roe—young victims of rape or incest being forced to give birth or travel across state lines to access abortion, and women facing life-threatening pregnancy complications due to inability to access abortion, just to name a few—are simple facts, far away from political posturing.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/28/trump-debate-abortion-lies/
June 29, 2024
Watch Four Songs from Suffs
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