January 16, 2024

HAARP and climate change deniers. On KO's "Countdown" this morning, he

was talking about looney laura loomer and her HAARP diatribe. (For those who have not yet encountered this insanity, in the simplest terms, the HAARP program studies the ionosphere, and is based at the Univ. of Alaska). The loonies have insisted for years that it is a program that controls the weather. KO pointed out that the same people who deny climate change, who insist that humans can do nothing to alter it, are pretty much the same people who believe that HAARP manipulates the weather. (I should probably stop listening at 3 am, I scared my kitty!) Then he said that, if President Buden really controlled this system, wouldn't he have sent rain to end the wildfires, etc.?

We all know that consistency and logic are not in the rwnj's purview, but it is nice to have something so obvious pointed out.

January 11, 2024

The Daily B###h**: Telling idiots to go to hell is how I relieve stress.

*Either a noun or a verb, depending on context.

January 10, 2024

As I posted earlier, Jan 10, 1917, the Silent Sentinels began their protest in

front of the White House, demanding Women's Suffrage. I was reminded of the differences in strategy and approaches between the National Woman's Party (NWP), fiunded by Alice B. Paul, and the National American Women's Suffrage Assc (NAWSA), founded by Carrie Chapman Catt. Apart from Carrie's state-by-state approach to securing suffrage, she also believed that, in the pursuit of suffrage, at all times, the women must be genteel, lady-like, decorcous. Alice B. Paul, and others, believed that was getting them nowhere, and seventy some years after Seneca Falls, fifty years after the Civil War, one was inclined to agree.

I think about that in today's political scene. Many Dem strategists and voters, believe we should be well-mannered, polite, never cause a scene, never play dirty. Others believe in a more direct, no-holds barred approach. Which is more effective? When did 19 A pass and ratify after the Sentinels and the most serious push for that Anendment began?

January 10, 2024

Jan. 10, 1917, the National Woman's Party begins their "Silent Sentinels"

protesrs in front of the White House, demanding that Woodrow Wilson support Women's Suffrage. The NWP (founded by Alice Paul) had determined that the strategy of the NAWSA (National American Women's Suffrage Assc, founded by Carrie Chapman Catt) organization of pursuing Women's Suffrage state by state was wrong, and they were going after a Constitutional Amendment.

Anybody who has seen "Iron Jawed Angels: or the "Bad Romance/Women's Suffrage" music video knows a bit about how the Sentinels were harassed, beaten, imprisoned, tortured, all for daring to denand suffrage and recognition as full citizens. Never forget that that is what the woman-hating pukes, nat-c's, etc, would have us relive.

January 9, 2024

PNES**Apparently more common in women, therefore we won't bother studying it.

GRRRRRRRRRRR

*PNES- Psychogenic NonEpileptic Seizures.

I just learned about this condition last night. In short, seizures that are not caused by epilepsy, or any other physical medical condition, but, apparently, an emotional cause as one result of trauma of any kind.

A friend was telling me about a friend of his who suffers from these kinds of seizures. Neither of us were familiar with them, so I looked it up. As I was reading about the confusion, the lack of understanding, the lack of testing, the lack of interest, in the medical community, I thought, "I bet this affects mostly women." (See Chronic Fatigue Syndrome CFS/ME). About two- thirds of the way down one of the articles, there it was. "This condition seems to be more common in women." I wanted to scream, but that upsets my kitty.

And, of course, there is the lovely fact that those misdiagnosed with epilepsy rather than PNES get prescribed expensive anti-seizure drugs, rather than therapy. How convenient.

Are any of our therapists here in DU familiar with, treating anyone with, PNES? Any advice or insight into how best we can help this man? Thanks in advance.

Between a medical system that doesn't seem to give a damn about women (see catholic hospitals, heart attacks, etc.), and politicians, judges, xian fundies and other haters who seem determined to see that we die in large numbers, it is a wonder that women are still here.

January 9, 2024

Day 8 of the year. Mass shootings* SO FAR: 10** Dead: 18. Wounded: 36.

* mass shooting defined as one in which four or more are dead or wounded, including the gunman.

**edited to add a shooting this evening posted by Ocelot.

FIVE of the shootings occurred on New Year's Day. Two of the nine occurred in Baton Rouge.

But hey, we should "just get over it"!!!
WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!

January 6, 2024

A Timeline of Donald Trump's Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe

A Timeline of Donald Trump’s Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe
From walking into a teen dressing room to joking about his obligation to sleep with contestants, Trump's a storied pageant creep
October 12, 2016
A Timeline of the Creepy Things Trump Said/Did While He Owned Miss Universe

Donald Trump with 51 Miss USA contestants and 20 former Miss Universes in 2006. Curtis/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock (I can't get a link to this incredibly creepy video)

Donald Trump was forced to sell the Miss Universe Organization – which also includes sister scholarship programs Miss USA and Miss Teen USA – in 2015 after his incendiary comments about Mexicans drove away broadcasters NBC and Univision. But Trump owned the pageant for nearly two decades, during which time he would have had the opportunity to come into contact with nearly 4,000 beauty queens. On the heels of the damaging videotape on which Trump and former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush salivated over Days of Our Live actress Arianne Zucker, and joked about sexually assaulting women, came allegations that Trump entered the Miss Teen USA changing room where girls as young as 15 were in various states of undress.

Mariah Billado, Miss Teen Vermont 1997 told BuzzFeed, “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here.'” Three other teenage contestants from the same year confirmed the story. The former pageant contestants discussed their memories of the incident after former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told Los Angeles’ CBS affiliate that Trump entered the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 when she was a contestant. “He just came strolling right in,” Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.” Dixon went on to say that employees of the Miss Universe Organization encouraged the contestants to lavish Trump with attention when he came in. “To have the owner come waltzing in, when we’re naked, or half-naked, in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention…”

. . . . .

His position as the pageant’s owner entitled him to that kind of access, Trump explained, seemingly aware that what he was doing made the women uncomfortable. “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said. (Billado told BuzzFeed she mentioned the incident to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who shrugged it off, saying, “Yeah, he does that.”)

Here are other “highlights” from Trump’s storied history as a pageant creep.



Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado (L), 19, from the hometown of Maracay, won the 1996 Miss Universe Crown late 17 May in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1996
When he bought the Miss Universe pageant family, Trump told Stern in 2005, the pageant was “a sick puppy.” The relative hotness of contestants had seriously deteriorated in the preceding years, he explained to Stern, because the judges had begun placing a greater emphasis on brains over beauty. “They had a person that was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t interested.” The first Miss Universe crowned on Trump’s watch was Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado. Hillary Clinton famously invoked Trump’s treatment of Machado during the first presidential debate. Machado remembers him calling her “Miss Piggy” because she gained weight and “Miss Housekeeping” because she’s Latina. Trump invited reporters to observe Machado exercising, against her protests. She told The New York Times earlier this year, “I was about to cry in that moment with all the cameras there. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, Mr. Trump.’ He said, ‘I don’t care.'”
. . . .




Donald Trump places a ribbon on Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during a press conference at Trump Tower May 12, 2009 in New York.


. . . . .





2015
The 2015 Miss USA pageant was set to take place the first week of July – three weeks after Trump characterized Mexicans as rapists and criminals during his campaign kick-off event. One by one, the pageant’s hosts, judges, sponsors, and broadcasters dropped out. Trump was forced to sell the pageants to WME in September 2015. Update, October 13th, 10:30 a.m. ET: The Trump campaign issued a statement to Rolling Stone categorically denying these allegations and questioning the political motivation behind reporting on them, adding, “Mr. Trump has a fantastic record of empowering women throughout his career, and a more accurate story would be to show how he’s been a positive influence in the lives of so many.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/

January 6, 2024

A Timeline of Donald Trump's Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe

A Timeline of Donald Trump’s Creepiness While He Owned Miss Universe
From walking into a teen dressing room to joking about his obligation to sleep with contestants, Trump's a storied pageant creep
October 12, 2016
A Timeline of the Creepy Things Trump Said/Did While He Owned Miss Universe

Donald Trump with 51 Miss USA contestants and 20 former Miss Universes in 2006. Curtis/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock (I can't get a link to this incredibly creepy video)

Donald Trump was forced to sell the Miss Universe Organization – which also includes sister scholarship programs Miss USA and Miss Teen USA – in 2015 after his incendiary comments about Mexicans drove away broadcasters NBC and Univision. But Trump owned the pageant for nearly two decades, during which time he would have had the opportunity to come into contact with nearly 4,000 beauty queens. On the heels of the damaging videotape on which Trump and former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush salivated over Days of Our Live actress Arianne Zucker, and joked about sexually assaulting women, came allegations that Trump entered the Miss Teen USA changing room where girls as young as 15 were in various states of undress.

Mariah Billado, Miss Teen Vermont 1997 told BuzzFeed, “I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here.'” Three other teenage contestants from the same year confirmed the story. The former pageant contestants discussed their memories of the incident after former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon told Los Angeles’ CBS affiliate that Trump entered the Miss USA dressing room in 2001 when she was a contestant. “He just came strolling right in,” Dixon said. “There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Others girls were naked. Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half-naked changing into our bikinis.” Dixon went on to say that employees of the Miss Universe Organization encouraged the contestants to lavish Trump with attention when he came in. “To have the owner come waltzing in, when we’re naked, or half-naked, in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention…”

. . . . .

His position as the pageant’s owner entitled him to that kind of access, Trump explained, seemingly aware that what he was doing made the women uncomfortable. “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said. (Billado told BuzzFeed she mentioned the incident to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who shrugged it off, saying, “Yeah, he does that.”)

Here are other “highlights” from Trump’s storied history as a pageant creep.



Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado (L), 19, from the hometown of Maracay, won the 1996 Miss Universe Crown late 17 May in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1996
When he bought the Miss Universe pageant family, Trump told Stern in 2005, the pageant was “a sick puppy.” The relative hotness of contestants had seriously deteriorated in the preceding years, he explained to Stern, because the judges had begun placing a greater emphasis on brains over beauty. “They had a person that was extremely proud that a number of the women had become doctors,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t interested.” The first Miss Universe crowned on Trump’s watch was Miss Venezuela, Alicia Machado. Hillary Clinton famously invoked Trump’s treatment of Machado during the first presidential debate. Machado remembers him calling her “Miss Piggy” because she gained weight and “Miss Housekeeping” because she’s Latina. Trump invited reporters to observe Machado exercising, against her protests. She told The New York Times earlier this year, “I was about to cry in that moment with all the cameras there. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this, Mr. Trump.’ He said, ‘I don’t care.'”
. . . .




Donald Trump places a ribbon on Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during a press conference at Trump Tower May 12, 2009 in New York.


. . . . .





2015
The 2015 Miss USA pageant was set to take place the first week of July – three weeks after Trump characterized Mexicans as rapists and criminals during his campaign kick-off event. One by one, the pageant’s hosts, judges, sponsors, and broadcasters dropped out. Trump was forced to sell the pageants to WME in September 2015. Update, October 13th, 10:30 a.m. ET: The Trump campaign issued a statement to Rolling Stone categorically denying these allegations and questioning the political motivation behind reporting on them, adding, “Mr. Trump has a fantastic record of empowering women throughout his career, and a more accurate story would be to show how he’s been a positive influence in the lives of so many.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/

January 6, 2024

Documentary 'Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird' Explores the Fight for Birth Control Access and the Road Ahead

Documentary ‘Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird’ Explores the Fight for Birth Control Access and the Road Ahead
12/29/2023 by Eleanor J. Bader


Bill Baird and Jada Portillo in Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird.

Bill Baird, the man who successfully challenged the U.S. law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, is the subject of Rebecca Cammisa’s powerful documentary, Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird. While much of the film focuses on Baird’s six-decade career—he is now 91—as a reproductive justice advocate and activist, the narrative juxtaposes his efforts with that of burgeoning Arkansas organizer, Jada Portillo. Portillo and Baird met in 2019 when she was participating in that year’s National History Day competition, an annual event for high school students. As the then-16-year-old worked to come up with a topic that fit the year’s theme, Breaking Barriers in History, Portillo decided to focus on the political struggle to legalize birth control in the United States. Although she had never heard of Baird before this, after she read an account of his work, she found his website and emailed him.

For his part, Baird told the filmmakers that he was thrilled by Portillo’s interest and quickly agreed to an interview. Their unfolding relationship—she eager and energetic, he slow and somewhat unsteady—included numerous phone calls as well as a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court where Eisenstadt v. Baird, the landmark birth control case, was argued. The 7-2 decision that resulted from the litigation was groundbreaking. In fact, the Court’s finding, issued a year before Roe, was foundational in the fight for personal privacy and established the government’s limited role in dictating what we can do with our bodies. As Justice William Brennan wrote in the majority opinion, “If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted government intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

But why, Portillo wondered, was this idea so contentious? After all, birth control had been legal for married people since Griswold v. Connecticut was decided in 1965. Why did this right not automatically extend to single people? Yours in Freedom unravels this history. It begins in the early 1960s when Baird became the clinical director of EMKO Pharmaceuticals, a company that manufactured and sold contraceptive foam. He saw a great deal of suffering in the hospitals he visited but was profoundly changed after witnessing a woman die following a botched coat hanger abortion and subsequently committed himself to doing everything he could to promote low-cost birth control and access to safe, legal abortion—healthcare that was available to those with financial means. In short order, Baird became a whirlwind organizer, creating a group he called the Parents Aid Society and driving a truck, dubbed the Plan Van, into impoverished communities where he distributed condoms and foam to residents regardless of their marital status.
. . . .






A clip from Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird.
. . . .

In addition, the film sounds a loud and dire warning about the need for reproductive justice advocates to remain vigilant and active if we want to keep the rights we currently have. This, Baird cautions, requires us to pay attention to politics at the local, state and federal levels.
It’s an important, prescriptive reminder. But Yours in Freedom is also more than this and is an inspiring and deeply felt look at what one person can achieve in the pursuit of justice.“The world is on fire,” Baird says in the film’s final frame. “Freedom is on fire.” Nonetheless, he makes clear that he has already done what he could. It’s now our job to drown the flames and continue the fight for bodily autonomy, human rights and liberation.

Yours in Freedom, Bill Baird is directed by Rebecca Cammisa; edited by Sebastian Jones and Sonja Lesowsky-List; cinematographer Claudia Raschke; Terra Mater Studios; 106 minutes.

https://msmagazine.com/2023/12/29/documentary-yours-in-freedom-bill-baird-explores-the-fight-for-birth-control-access-and-the-road-ahead/

January 6, 2024

Britney Spears and the Right to Reproductive Justice: Regulation and Conservatorship in the Child Welfare System

Britney Spears and the Right to Reproductive Justice: Regulation and Conservatorship in the Child Welfare System
10/26/2021 by Shanta Trivedi
After the outrage surrounding Britney Spears’s conservatorship, activists have seized the opportunity to draw attention to the daily struggles faced by many trapped in the “child welfare” system—or, as advocates rightly dub it, the family regulation system.



Black and Native families are more likely to be reported to child protective services, to have their cases substantiated and to have their children removed and placed into foster care. (yesy belajar memotrek / Flickr)

In the last few months, the world has become re-obsessed with Britney Spears and the conservatorship that has controlled her life for the last 13 years. We felt collective outrage when we learned her father, as conservator, forced her to have an intrauterine device (or IUD) in her body to prevent her from having more children, even though that was her wish. We were stunned and horrified at the recent revelation that her father monitored her phone and installed an audio-listening device in her bedroom. Without a doubt, we should be incensed the law allowed a woman who was competent enough to manage a million-dollar residency in Vegas, to be subjected to this level of surveillance and control.

As we express our rage the law allowed this to go on for so many years, we should take the opportunity to question any and all legal regimes that sanction control over another person. One in particular you may not be familiar with is the child welfare system. It’s Jamie Spears on steroids. Twenty years ago, in her groundbreaking book, Shattered Bonds, Professor Dorothy Roberts wrote:

“If you came with no preconceptions about the child welfare system’s purpose, you would have to conclude that it is an institution designed primarily to monitor, regulate and punish poor black families.”

Two decades later, the “child welfare” system—or, as advocates now rightly dub it, the family regulation system—continues to surveil and control primarily Black and Brown parents. The state questions every parenting decision they make and in too many cases, removes their children, preventing parents from exercising their constitutional right to parent and denying children their constitutional right to be with their parents if they choose. The state questions every parenting decision they make. Surveillance is inherent—constantly under the watchful eye of others who can anonymously report suspected child abuse with few facts, no understanding of what legally constitutes neglect, or simply out of malice. Surveillance is inherent if you live in poverty in the United States and that is not limited to family regulation issues. This is true if you live in low-income housing, take public transportation, send your children to schools, get medical care at an emergency room or happen to live in what police have conveniently dubbed a “high-crime” neighborhood.
. . .





A January 2020 abortion rally in D.C. (Hillel Steinberg / Flickr)
. . . .

The family regulation system therefore impacts women’s reproductive autonomy every day. It prevents parents from making decisions about their children because, once you have made contact with the system, you can remain entangled in that system for years. Many choose not to have more children for fear they will immediately be taken into foster care. Just like conservatorship, it is an invisible but looming threat over reproductive decision-making in the guise of child protection. Disability rights advocates rightly seized upon the #FreeBritney conversation to bring awareness to people who aren’t celebrities, but struggle the same way she does. But anyone who cares about families and family integrity should be having the same conversation. As a family law professor and a lawyer who used to represent indigent parents accused of abuse and neglect, I can tell you this is larger than one woman—it is about the millions of parents who are under relentless state surveillance and whose decision-making is dissected by the state because they are disabled, they are poor or they are minorities.

#FreeThemAll.

https://msmagazine.com/2021/10/26/child-welfare-system-britney-spears-reproductive-justice-regulation-conservatorship/