When They Go Low, We Go High – Part 2

(You got the sugar… now here’s the medicine…)

First, I need to say this:

I really like Michelle Obama. And yeah, I loved it when she said “when they go low, we go high”. So she is not the one I’m mad it. She is not the one who made this bullshit. It’s everyone else. People have twisted this statement in the same way white people like to twist MLK to use him against, for example, Black Lives Matter protesters.

When Michelle Obama said it, she was talking about being better than Donald Trump. We had the moral high ground. And for an election, it was a great soundbite that probably contributed to Hillary Clinton’s 3-million popular-vote win.

But the thing is, His Lowness, the Cheeto Fascist, Agent Orange of Fake-Tan-Landia, won the electoral college.

And “going high” is costing us way too much.

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When They Go Low, We Go High – Part 1

You know, I really debated making this part of my Self Care series. It really should be, because it’s just so… so… satisfying. In the end, I decided not to for two reasons:

My Self Care series is on a set schedule: every day at noon. Today’s Self Care post has already gone up, and I want to put this up today.

Also, this is going to be the sugar to a spoonful of medicine I plan on dropping shortly about the whole “when they go low, we go high” bullshit.

So…

If you want, consider this part of the Self Care series. I know I do.

And what is it I’m talking about?

Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer getting punched in the face:

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Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown Support Ben Carson for HUD Secretary

I am so fucking angry at this right now it’s not even funny. And I probably shouldn’t be. But I am.

I’m fucking livid.

Fucking Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are fucking supporting fucking Ben Carson for fucking HUD Secretary.

Et tu, Warren and Sherrod?

In a statement regarding her decision, Warren expressed “concerns” about Carson’s “inexperience in the field and his comments on poverty and government dependency,” but supported his numerous promises to expand affordable housing options—including for the homeless and LGBTQ people—and recruit a bipartisan team. “In light of these promises, I support Dr. Carson’s nomination, and look forward to working with him to ensure that he follows through on his commitments,”she said.

…

“Dr. Carson is not the nominee I would have chosen to lead HUD, due both to his lack of experience and his often troubling public statements over the last three years,” said Brown in a similar statement. “But despite my reservations, and my disagreements with some of his positions, I will give Dr. Carson the benefit of the doubt based on commitments he has made to me in person and to this committee.”

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From HuffPo: “The Most Dangerous Bill You’ve Never Heard Of Just Passed The House”

Oh great. Wonderful.

This is where we’re headed…

The Most Dangerous Bill You’ve Never Heard Of Just Passed The House

Last, week, under the cover of a media bliss-out except among Koch funded right-wing channels, the House of Representatives passed a bill which would effectively repeal future standard setting under every important environmental, public health, consumer protection, labor standards, occupational safety and civil rights law on the books.

The bill, called the REINS Act, requires that any future major regulation adopted by an Executive Agency — say a new toxic chemical standard required by the recently enacted Chemical Safety Act, or a new consumer protection rule about some innovative but untested kind of food additive — must be approved by a specific resolution in each House of Congress within 70 days to take effect.

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Chelsea Manning Will Be Free in May 2017

Y’all probably already know it, but I just want to join the celebration:

President Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning’s sentence. She is to be released in May 2017.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday overruled his secretary of defense to commute the sentence of former Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

I cannot express in words how happy I am. Chelsea Manning was unjustly imprisoned, and she will finally see the freedom she deserves.

I’ve always supported her, and I will continue to. She deserves it.

Sadly, being the relentless cynic that I am, I have to reign a little bit on the parade…

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The Resistance Manual – a Project by Stay Woke

Because I’m signed up to Campaign Zero, I got an email today from Deray Mckesson. It was to tell subscribers about The Resistance Manual.

To quote from the email:

Today, we launch the Resistance Manual — an open-source platform to collect information/resources to resist Trump’s agenda & to continue making progress towards equity and justice in America.

Explore the manual to learn about the policies the incoming administration plans to pursue, how they’ll impact our communities, and what you can do to stop them through federal, state, and local advocacy.

You can also find and contribute essential readings in resistance, learn and contribute information about policy issues in your state, and view a growing list of tools and organizations that can help to strengthen your advocacy efforts.

The manual will grow over time as more and more people contribute updates, facts and resources to it. As such, we encourage you to contribute important information for others to read.

If you would like to assist us in growing the content within the Resistance Manual, please reply to this e-mail directly.

We also urge you to dial (844)-6-RESIST to tell Congress to support the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and to vote against Jeff Sessions.

Get educated. Get organized. Take Action.

// DeRay, Netta, Brittany, & Sam

P.S. Shout-out to Chi/Donahoe for assisting with Design.

I really don’t have much to add. Please join the wiki, use, and contribute.

I’ve been ignoring the Orange Cheeto Fascist up to now because I simply cannot believe it. And while I was pretending this past presidential election didn’t happen, fucking Jeff Sessions (the man so racist that Strom Thurmond didn’t want him to be a federal judge in Alabama in 1986) was nominated as Attorney General. I cannot express how badly I want him rejected, but I have little to no hope.

The Resistance Manual is a place to gather and collect all of the ways, large and small, we can resist and fight for the next four years. Please join, contribute, and use for your own activism, as I will be for mine.

Thank you.

From Marcus Ranum: Fellow Travelers

So I recently made three posts about my disappointment in Wikileaks and it’s fans. I am still angry about how they have been acting over this most recent presidential election. As Marcus Ranum noted, what I’m experiencing is the realization that Wikileaks was never an organization for good, but a vanity project by Julian Assange to boost his own ego; and that it was Assange and another hacker, Adrian Lamo, who threw Chelsea Manning under the bus.

Marcus wrote an incredible post about all this, drawing from his own first-hand experience with such hackers. I’ll quote the bit about what happened to Chelsea Manning here. But please, go and read the entire thing. It’s a long read, yes, but it’s very good, and deserves your full attention.

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Clinton Did Not Want to Assassinate Assange (Warning: Infuriating Twitter Convo and Rant)

This post is basically going to be a long Twitter conversation between myself and an asshole, along with interjections from me here. Please note that I cuss a lot here… also, this is not as long as it looks, because it’s basically a whole lot of tweets. So keep that in mind. You’ll move through it faster than you think…

Basic intro… I’ve got three posts now about WikiLeaks and their bullshit. Of course some people are angry at me for that…

*record scratch*

What? Hold up… *runs off to Snopes*

Oh… oh I see where that comes from… oh okay…

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Is WikiLeaks Being Run by 13-Year-Olds? Or Just Their Task Force Account?

The worst thing about all this is that I feel like I’m being forced to join a whole bunch of conservatives and people on Twitter blocked by the Block Bot to do this criticism, and it makes me feel dirty.

To sum up… a while back, as you may recall, WikiLeaks got in some trouble for doxxing people’s private lives. More recently (as of yesterday), WikiLeaks got angry because Obama’s administration decided to anonymously share some of the CIA’s report linking senior Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, to the DNC email server hack.

You know, I remember a time when WikiLeaks was praised. Even those of us who always wanted Assange to face a court of law for the rape accusations leveled against him pretty much liked what WikiLeaks was doing. Maybe that’s because they became a thing during the Bush II Administration, and as a result, were leaking things that really hurt that administration. But it’s not like President Obama’s administration wasn’t hurt by leaking, both from WikiLeaks and from Edward Snowden. And I support all of that despite largely being a very big fan of President Obama (I cannot express in words how badly I’m going to miss him and the entire family; I have major issues with his foreign policy, but he was a great president, as far as I’m concerned).

But either I’ve been blind to what WikiLeaks really is up until now, or they just decided that now was the time to show their true colors… either that, or a 13-year-old is running their @WLTaskForce account…

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Wow Wikileaks… Just… Wow…

I probably shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m sure many will say that to me, but…

I’m surprised.

I’ve already covered this, technically, but…

Again, I’m a big fan of whistleblowers. I am actually sick of the secrets of people in power, and if there’s shit to leak, especially from a government, it should be leaked, because we deserve to know… especially when that government is elected by the people of the country it governs.

One would think that whistleblowing would be a bi-partisan affair. I recall whistleblowing under both Bush II and President Obama, and just assumed it would continue under Trump. But even while that may be the case, it obviously won’t be happening with Wikileaks, which has clearly outlived its usefulness…

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