‘We need more prayer’: Trump orders states to let houses of worship reopen despite coronavirus crisis
So much for the separation of church and state.
Death to Squirrels
by Iris Vander Pluym
‘We need more prayer’: Trump orders states to let houses of worship reopen despite coronavirus crisis
So much for the separation of church and state.
[CONTENT NOTE: anti-LBGTQi bigotry and harassment; language most foul.]
You know, I really hate to toot my own horn, people. But it remains a simple fact that I was housebound, taking paranoia-level precautions against infection risk, gorging myself on Netflix, hoarding unconscionable amounts of toilet paper, following the news and shitting myself* long before damn near everyone** on the planet recently decided to live exactly as I do!
You might think that by now, I’d have some timely wisdom to impart to you, hard won over these past few years while I’ve been consigned to countless stretches of involuntary isolation. Maybe I’d be servin’ up some pithy, practical tips-’n-tricks to help you navigate these perilous, life-changing, life-threatening times within the context of a “healthcare system” deliberately designed to generate wealth, in direct opposition to health.
Alas, nope. I got nuthin’. Except:
WELCOME TO MY WORLD, EVERYONE.
Also: good luck with that.
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*What?! No! I am not going to admit publicly on my blog to literally shitting myself after my (second) ileostomy reversal! I used that phrase only figuratively…yep.
**Oh, I am exquisitely aware that not “everyone” is following my groundbreaking life choices. Just look at these @$$holes popping up today in my morning news scan:
“People filled bars like one in Appleton, Wis., on Wednesday night after the state’s Supreme Court struck down the governor’s stay-at-home restrictions.” (William Glasheen/Post-Crescent/AP)
And by “people,” I think it’s fair to say that The Washington Post editors mean “white dudes” because of course they do. (And because of course they are.)
But there are @$$holes a lot closer to home, too. Take this @$$hole for instance, as seen through my fire escape:
“@$$hole on Hudson Street, 5.13.20”
©Iris Vander Pluym
Now you may have heard that every night at 7pm New Yorkers collectively gather at their windows to make an enormous racket, banging pots and whooping it up, just like when it’s midnight on New Years but waaaaay too cold to leave the apartment. In fact you may have actually heard the noise yourself, because that shit is motherfucking loud. The cacophonous chaos is my beloved city’s daily ritual in appreciation of nurses, doctors, first responders and essential workers of all kinds. No one else here may know what day it is, but we sure as shit know what time it is.
Apparently so does the @$$hole. (And his @$$hole friends, too, who stood on the near corner out of range of my shot). Right on cue at 7 last night, the Maskless Minion of Mindless Misery began waving around his “TRUMP 2020 – KEEP AMERICA GREAT” sign 40 feet from my window.
As the raucous din died down, thence began his spittle-flecked shouting of this message in every direction for all to hear, whilst shoving his sign at the faces of passing people and at the windows of passing vehicles. My neighbors were shouting back things like “Go home!” and “You don’t belong here!” This last, of course, is not only a reference to the infamously liberal borough of Manhattan as a whole, but to the West Village in particular – you know: home of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and the world’s undisputed epicenter of LGBTQi culture and civil rights activism before AIDS decimated the local population and then a monsoon of straight white rich yuppies and super-rich absentee “residents” flooded the neighborhood and drove real estate prices right through the fucking stratosphere.
But this being New York and all, the neighborhood still stubbornly maintains its gritty grip on queerness, which is precisely why the @$$hole brigade was here in the first place – and not pulling this shit in…oh, say, Brownsville. If this were not plainly obvious already, it became crystal clear once their feckless leader began taunting my neighbors with “SISSY BOYS!!!” and “LOSER SOY BOYS, ALL Y’ALL!!!” and “YEAH I’M NOT LIVING HERE WHERE THE SOY BOYS LIVE, LITTLE GIRL!!! LITTLE GIRLY MEN!!! NEIGHBORHOOD FULL OF GIRLY-GIRLS!!!” (I do apologize to readers, but the man was speaking entirely in all caps and with multiple, non-ironic exclamation points.)
The rhetorical heat had risen, though not nearly to the high voltage I prefer when I fuck with conservatives. That’s when I decided to contribute my $0.02 to the verbal volleys and began shouting “Run him over!” at the passing cars and buses, and whining loudly with bitter disappointment as they missed him. Up until this point during his one-man troll show he seemed to be enjoying the back-and-forth jabbing and jeering, but at that he shut up for a moment, lowered his sign and spun around in my direction. “RUN ME OVER, THAT’S NICE,” he harrumphed. Well if anyone would know about “nice” it would be this dude amirite?
There were many, many witty and original zingers like:
“YOU’RE LOSERS!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! LOSER!!! YOU’RE AAAAALLLLL LOSERS!!!”
“WINNING!!! ALWAYS WINNING!!!”
“LOSERS KEEP WALKING!!! WINNERS CAN STOP HERE AND SHAKE MY [ungloved] HAND!!!”
He did get awfully quiet when a large black man on a bicycle stopped to engage him. Gosh, I wonder why that is?
“Do something else,” I heard someone say. “We’re getting bored.”
As we all know, conservatives are nothing if not boring, and so I would soon turn my attention back to my current Netflix binge.
Today I learned via my upstairs neighbor that these tools also made an appearance at the liquor store around the corner. That’s right: my liquor store. Not to buy booze though, just to taunt the extremely essential worker running the register with more tedious and unoriginal anti-queer barbs. And one of the @$$holes got himself arrested for spitting on a woman who told him to put on a mask.
Good times.
My first thought was I’m so happy these particular people are doing exactly the right things to catch COVID-19. Obviously our world would be a far better place without them in it. Unfortunately, that’s not how the virus or conservatives work. They cannot help but do their worst damage to the most vulnerable and defenseless among us. Kovid Karrying Konservatives are bound to infect not just each other at their junior fascist circle jerks, but other people upon whom they inflict themselves, many of whom have no choice in the matter.
Have a nice day.
Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting
President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met yesterday.
…and whose population is overwhelmingly Nordic/North German white?
Naaaaaaah. A US President could never mean something that so blatantly disqualifies him from holding public office, amirite?
Anyway, I really don’t understand how Republicans could possibly object to “shithole countries,” when they are so very committed and determined to turning the country into one.
Let’s see: destroying the safety net at every opportunity, unleashing Big Polluters on our air and water, increasing maternal and infant mortality rates, increasing the devastating effects of the climate crisis, militarizing police forces, increasing extreme wealth inequality, squeezing the poor and middle class to fund tax cuts for their benefactors, running prisons for profit, eviscerating health care access for millions of people, undermining quality public education [I could go on all day but I already have a fucking headache]… Seriously, the only conclusion that can be drawn from their actions is that Republicans fucking LOVE “shithole counties” so much that they are eagerly remaking the US into one.
WHAT.
The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.
First, I get an email from The Nation with the subject line “you DID NOT sign to impeach Donald Trump (WHY NOT?).”
From this alone we can conclude that The Nation must have sent out a mass email survey of some sort recently – one among many similar missives I receive daily from various organs of the Democratic party. Apparently readers were asked to “sign to impeach Donald Trump.” Because that’s how impeachment works: a particular number of readers of a pretentious neoliberal magazine must click “YES” to an email poll.
However, when I tragically failed to timely respond to this embarrassing bid for attention in the guise of an impeachment vehicle, The Nation suddenly got all shouty at me and demanded to know WHY NOT.
Explain yourself, woman!! Do you even read our magazine?! Do you secretly looooove Donald Trump?! How could you???
Because FUCK YOU, The Nation. How’s that?
Moving on.
This morning I get an email from my illustrious Senator Chuck Schumer (D-Wall $treet), presently serving tirelessly as the de facto head of the Democratic party. His subject line is “Yesterday? That was just the start.”
As you might expect, Chuckie is trumpeting Doug Jones beating Roy Moore for the Senate seat abandoned by Jeff Sessions, after Mr. Sessions decided that he could do a lot more damage to peoples’ lives as Trump’s Attorney General than he ever could as Senator from Alabama.
So of course Chuck lays on the usual banal accolades and then he says this:
Now, look, you are welcome to celebrate for a moment. You’ve earned it. This win is thanks to Doug Jones, his incredible team, and you — your calls, your donations, your Facebook posts, your emails to friends. Thank you.
But that moment to celebrate is over. Now it’s time to get back to work.
You had your fun missy, but all that’s over!
Can we just pause for a minute to appreciate how generous it is of Chuckie to allow everyone a brief moment to celebrate a hard-won victory in Alabama?
BZZZT! Show’s over! NOW GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK!
I am sure you are now wondering how we might toil to best please the honorable Senator? Funny you should ask! Why, it turns out Chuckie wants all of us to give a single dollar to each of the eight most conservative Democratic incumbents running for reelection in the US Senate:
If you’re fired up, the single most important thing you can do to help us seize this moment is to let Democrats across the country know that you have their back.
Baldwin, Brown, Donnelly, Heitkamp, Manchin, McCaskill, Nelson, Tester — those eight Senators are on the frontlines of the fight for the middle class. They’re in the fight of their lives. And they need your support — celebrate last night by splitting $8 between them!
Uh no, sorry Chuck. That is not how I celebrate election victories. I’d prefer to spend my eight bucks – more, even – on a lefty primary challenger for your Senate seat.
Any takers?
No…?
Hello…?
All you misogynist motherfuckers can now live out your shitty convictions with your very own bodies!
[D]octors at Baylor University say a woman born without a uterus has delivered a baby after a successful transplant, the first time the surgery has worked outside of the Swedish hospital that pioneered the procedure.
That’s right: no uterus? No problem! Anti-choice d00ds, now you can save the preshuss baybeez in your own implanted uterus!
OMG YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT?? The Texas northern California shooter had a history of domestic violence!
Police said in the hours leading up to that moment, he had killed his wife and hidden her body before beginning a bloody rampage across this community about 135 miles north of Sacramento.
…
Authorities were looking for Neal’s wife, who has not been publicly named, concerned that something had happened to her. They found her body hidden under the floor of their home…Police believe Neal shot her several times on Monday.
…
During the investigation, neighbors told police they believed “there was a domestic violence incident” at the home on Monday…This episode was not reported to police at the time, he said, adding that such incidents were “a very common thing with this couple.”
This has never happened before! It’s just a shame that virtually every mass shooter in recent times doesn’t fit a profile like, say, “violent entitled men who abuse women and children” or something. Then it might be easier to do something to address it? We could maybe ensure such exemplars of American masculinity never have access to guns? Too bad, so sad that they’re each a Lone Wolf living in a cultural vacuum without any common behavior in their backgrounds to trigger an intervention.
Well. At least we have an endless supply of thoughts-n-prayers to offer the victims and their families.
OMG YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT?? The Texas shooter had a history of domestic violence and investigators say his killing rampage was linked to a “domestic situation”:
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex. — Investigators said Sunday’s church massacre in Texas occurred amid an ongoing “domestic situation” involving the gunman and his relatives, at least one of whom had attended the church.
…
Kelley, 26, was court-martialed in 2012 and sentenced to a year in military prison for assaulting his spouse and child, making him the latest mass attacker or suspect with domestic violence in his past. He was reduced in rank and released with a bad-conduct discharge in 2014.
This has never happened before! It’s just a shame that virtually every mass shooter in recent times doesn’t fit a profile like, say, “violent entitled men who abuse women and children” or something. Then it might be easier to do something to address it? We could maybe ensure such exemplars of American masculinity never have access to guns? Too bad, so sad that they’re each a Lone Wolf living in a cultural vacuum without any common behavior in their backgrounds to trigger an intervention.
Well. At least we have an endless supply of thoughts-n-prayers to offer the victims and their families.
This NRA stands for National Restaurant Association, which sounds fairly innocuous, at least compared to the gun fetishist lobby we’ve all come to know and despise.
HAHAHA NOPE.
[CONTENT NOTE: white supremacy.]
No, of course it won’t accomplish much of anything. Does anyone really believe the good ol’ boys of the Alabama Bar see any problems whatsoever with a white supremacist lying liar who lies as attorney general? Hahaha no I think not. But if this petition gathers just enough signatures to make a little noise, it will piss off the rabid racist asshole currently in charge of the U.S. Department of Injustice! FUN!
Conservatives, and particularly conservative men, are notoriously thin-skinned. If the numbers are big enough, maybe it’ll even yield some hot conservative tears – and, well. You all know how much I looooove those! Let’s doooo eeeet!
[via Color of Change]
Jeff Sessions is a liar, a racist, and a white supremacist. Last week, Sessions testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and one thing is clear — enough is enough. Sessions’ entire political career has been to undo major progress hard fought and won from decades-long work by Black people and communities of color. And he continues to spread so many untruths just to maintain power that keeps him in close proximity to the ugliest and most dangerous White House administration. Sessions does not represent and never will represent any symbol of fairness and justice.
Jeff Sessions holds a prominent law license from the state of Alabama that gives him the power to be Attorney General. He should not be the Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice and he has no place in this country to practice law.It is long overdue to finally shut down his power and access as well as stop the harm that he continues to inflict. And the way we’re going to do it is by getting him disbarred from the Alabama State Bar. Bar associations are responsible for issuing licenses for lawyers to practice but just as importantly ensuring that the integrity of how lawyers use their role is upheld.
Jeff Sessions has spearheaded Trump’s entire Law and Order agenda. As Attorney General, Sessions has built a false, racist narrative that crime has exponentially increased across the U.S. Right after being sworn in as Attorney General, Sessions said national crime rates were the highest they’d ever been–but it was a lie. According to FBI data, the national rate was decreasing.1 Sessions is following the eerie and distorted words of Trump who said, “In many of our biggest cities, 2016 brought an increase in the number of homicides, rapes, assaults, and shootings.”2 This in and of itself is a violation of the Alabama Bar Code of Ethics — Sessions is actively engaging in dishonesty as a chief law enforcer. This ignites fears and sets up a big platform for ruthless policies that directly impact Black people and many other marginalized groups.
This white supremacist narrative of Black people and immigrants as violent and dangerous has led to extreme changes and further violates another ethics code of being prejudice and bias. Sessions was determined to bring back the war on Black people by restarting the “War on Drugs.” This includes pushing prosecutors to issue the most severe punishment against people who commit drug offenses, giving local police departments more power to arrest and surveil with access to militarized equipment. He’s against any form of police accountability and has eliminated consent decrees. Sessions even went after Sanctuary cities by threatening to withhold federal funding for refusing to comply with harsh immigration laws. And Jeff Sessions reversed the ban on federal private prisons. Sessions said, “the ban on private prisons hurt the prison system’s ability to meet the future needs for housing.”3 This, of course, is all code for locking up more people for profit. This list goes on and on, and it will continue as long as Sessions has the power to keep his license.
We already know who Jeff Sessions is. It is not just lies — but he is unapologetic in wanting to dismantle democracy and destroy the rights of all our communities. Plain and simple he is a White man with a lot of privilege and power he doesn’t deserve. He is incapable of upholding the integrity of his position in the U.S. Department of Justice. Jeff Sessions has abused his power long enough.
Until justice is real,
Scott, Rashad, Arisha, Scott, Anay, Clarise, Enchanta, Malaya, Kristen, Katrese, and the rest of the Color Of Change team
References:
1. “The ACLU says Trump’s executive order on crime aims to “stop national trends that don’t exist”,” Quartz, 02-09-2017 https://act.colorofchange.org/
go/9697?t=9&akid=8090% 2E2505660%2ErziDSw 2. “Sessions calls rise in crime a ‘dangerous permanent trend,’ but FBI data shows rate consistently falling,” Yahoo News, 02-09-2017 https://act.colorofchange.org/
go/9698?t=11&akid=8090% 2E2505660%2ErziDSw 3. “Justice Department Keeps For-Profit Prisons, Scrapping an Obama Plan,” New York Times, 02-23-2016 https://act.colorofchange.org/
go/7973?t=13&akid=8090% 2E2505660%2ErziDSw __________
Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.
__________
Sign the petition! Forward it! Blast it on your social media! Share far and wide the joy of imagining Jeff Sessions’ epic CBF* as he reads all about it in his morning paper.
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* Cat Butt Face.