Republicans Are Trying to Ram Through Crooked Nominees. Here’s How to Fight Them

The Republican party is wasting no time fucking over the country. And they want to make sure they have assholes in place to facilitate their pillaging. They have no interest in governing this country. They have no patience for democratic norms. They don’t give a single shit about ethics.

The Office of Government Ethics is raising alarm over the pace of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees, saying Saturday that they have yet to receive required financial disclosures for some picks set to come before Congress next week.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released Saturday, OGE Director Walter Shaub wrote that “the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me” and that the current schedule “has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews.

“More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings,” Shaub continued. “I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process.”

This is the time when we have to resist. They need us to be quiet and compliant. When we rise up en masse, they learn they don’t have the consent of the governed – and sometimes, it makes them change course.

Here’s a handy spreadsheet showing who’s up for confirmation, why they’re terrible, the date of their hearings, and who to pester about it. Get on the phone and make your voice heard. This is our job this week. We sort of have a democracy still, broken and dysfunctional as it is. Let’s remind our elected officials what their job is. Continue reading “Republicans Are Trying to Ram Through Crooked Nominees. Here’s How to Fight Them”

Republicans Are Trying to Ram Through Crooked Nominees. Here’s How to Fight Them
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Did Steve Mnuchin Screw You Over? Tell Senate Democrats

Trump is a garbage fire, and his cabinet appointments are trash. There’s not a single person he’s nominated who’s qualified for their job. They oftentimes don’t even qualify to be out of prison, but of course America certainly isn’t stingy when it comes to giving passes to rich white people.

Steve Mnuchin is a particularly despicable specimen.

From Elizabeth Warren:

After the 2008 housing crash, Steve Mnuchin swooped in to purchase a failed bank with mountains of bad mortgages on its books. He rebranded the bank as OneWest, and led the bank as it raked in billions in profits by aggressively – and sometimes illegally – foreclosing on people’s homes. OneWest also ran a reverse-mortgage subsidiary called Financial Freedom, which serviced 17% of the reverse-mortgage market but was responsible for 39% for foreclosures. Steve Mnuchin got rich off the backs of working families who were hit hardest by the financial crisis.

Donald Trump now wants to hand Steve Mnuchin the keys to the Treasury Department, where he can make big banks even richer at the expense of America’s families. Were you or someone you know hurt by Steve Mnuchin and OneWest Bank’s predatory business practices? The Senate Democrats are asking people to come forward and share their stories.

Do you have a story to tell about Mnuchin? Please do tell it here.

Image is a comic book-style image. It shows a black city skyline against a twilight blue sky. Grayscale letters along the bottom left say The Foreclosure King. There is a white silhouette of a running man with a briefcase beside them. On the right is a black and white drawing of a middle-aged white man with square-rimmed glasses, saying, "You're evicted!"
Image courtesy US Senate Democrats
Did Steve Mnuchin Screw You Over? Tell Senate Democrats

(Updated) Trump’s Presidency Will Be a Disaster for Public Education

I didn’t post to Rosetta Stones for most of November because America’s election of the least qualified president in our history has me scrambling to assess and mitigate the damage. Much of what he’s done so far doesn’t yet touch on geology, which is what that blog is mainly concerned with – but we will be talking about the threat to our national parks, and there will doubtless be impacts on the USGS and other agencies responsible for essential geological services like volcano monitoring, seismic studies, and similar, which we’ll address.

Trump is already showing which direction he’s taking the country’s public education. If you care about kids being taught science, you’d best gird yourself for a war, because we’re going to have to fight to preserve our children’s right to a strong STEM education.

To begin with, Trump’s Vice President, to whom he plans to delegate most of the actual presidential work, is an evolution-denying Christian extremist who wants creationism taught in public schools. He’s also brought all his political power to bear on overturning the will of Indiana voters while he pushes for expansions of school vouchers and charter schools.

Trump also plans to slash NASA’s earth science division, which would not only cripple our nation’s climate change research, but also have a terrible impact on earth science research.

That rather sets the tenor for what’s to come.

But Pence is merely the beginning. It gets worse. Continue reading “(Updated) Trump’s Presidency Will Be a Disaster for Public Education”

(Updated) Trump’s Presidency Will Be a Disaster for Public Education

You Wanted to Know How Fascism Wins? Look In the Mirror

Donald Trump won the election, but he is not my president. George W. Bush was. Much as I hated him, much as I thought he was the worst thing that had happened to America in generations, at least he was a properly-elected (the second time), career politician who had some idea of how the republic worked and some shred of decency remaining.

Trump is none of those things.

I would not call Hitler Mark II my president. I will not call him president of my country. And if the Tea Party Republicans have shown me anything, it’s that democracy in this country is dead at the national level, and at many places at the local level, and that fire is needed to fight fire.

Right now, I’m in despair and devastated and staring into a future I doubt I can survive. But I am white and cis and hetero, and I will wield those privileges in defense of those less powerful than me for all I am worth. I live on the blue side of a blue state, and I will use that position to protect everyone I can.

Friends I love are going to die.

The things that were keeping them alive will be gutted.

Bigots who despise them have been emboldened enough to murder them without a twinge of conscience.

And you did that to them.

White folk. You did this. Cis folk. You did this. Bernie-or-busters, third party voters, people who didn’t vote because you couldn’t be arsed, people who thought all candidates were the same, people who voted for Trump because you’re either too white or too sexist or too racist or too selfish or too all-of-the-above to think it through, you did this. It’s all on you.

Those of you who thought racism was over and so didn’t make a peep when the Voting Rights Act got gutted, this is on you.

You ask how fascism rises. Look in the fucking mirror. Look. Look at yourself.

That is how.

You are the reason this happened.

So I will not be kind to you. I won’t be gracious in defeat. I won’t let bygones be bygones. I will absolutely let political differences end friendships, because you just voted to watch the world burn. You voted to murder the people I love. This isn’t the bullshit faux persecution that religious right cis straight white people whine about. This is queer folk, and trans folk, and disabled folk, and colored folk, and immigrant folk, and refugee folk, and poor folk, who will all die because you didn’t want to give up your dreams of domination.

I always wondered. I wondered how this happens. I wondered how the ordinary people chose good or evil. I don’t wonder anymore, because I am living it.

So.

If you voted for Trump, understand that I hold you beneath contempt. If you suffer because of what you’ve unleashed, I will feel pity for you, but understand that you brought it on yourself. If you voted for Trump, we are through. You have no place in my life. You are vile. You’re beneath contempt. I never want to see you. I never want to speak to you. I want you out of my life, permanently. I will not seek to take away your rights, but I hope that this decision ends up haunting you. I hope you end up unable to sleep at night. You shouldn’t be able to rest easy after what you have done.

If you voted for Trump, you are not now and never were a friend of mine. Until you show your remorse for that vote and do everything in your power to reverse the damage, you are not someone I can count as a neighbor, much less a friend.

*** Continue reading “You Wanted to Know How Fascism Wins? Look In the Mirror”

You Wanted to Know How Fascism Wins? Look In the Mirror

Not Only Is The Accountant a Shit Movie – It Could Kill You

So. The Accountant’s out. And if anyone thought we were going to get a nuanced film with an autistic hero which doesn’t objectify or other autistic folk, well, looks like they’re wrong. Go read all of the reviews here at my friend Ronja’s Facebook post. I hope you have an ableism bingo card of some sort handy, because you’ll win big just from what the reviewers talk about.

Special notice:  if you’re epileptic or have migraines, or if those health issues run in your family, this movie might physically harm you. More on that later.

If you’re a neurotypical person who goes to this movie and laughs at the awkward things the autistic dude does because hur hur hur he’s awkward, you should probably exit my life until you’ve learned why that shit’s not funny. My autistic friends have a hard enough time in the world neurotypical folk made without you adding to their misery. I mean, seriously, don’t be these jerks: Continue reading “Not Only Is The Accountant a Shit Movie – It Could Kill You”

Not Only Is The Accountant a Shit Movie – It Could Kill You

What We Must Do

It’s been a horrific week for police violence. Alton Sterling was murdered for the “crime” of selling CDs. Philando Castile was murdered for the “crime” of exercising his Second Amendment rights and driving while black. Castile’s slaughter was so egregious that even many of the white folk who typically find some infinitesimal fault on the part of the black man that excuses his extrajudicial execution have to admit this one was pure, undeserved slaughter. Not that they haven’t tried. They always try. It can never be the police who are to blame.

And as protestors peacefully gathered, a sniper in Dallas shot down cops and protestors alike, in a city that was trying to get it right. This will be all the excuse some people need to declare war upon people of color in this country. Not that a clandestine war wasn’t already being waged. Black folk in this country might as well be living in a war zone, see. They’re certainly dying as if they are.

And you may be feeling helpless right now. You may have no idea what to do with your rage and sorrow and pain. If, like me, you’re white, you may not know what do to with the power invested in you by the color of your skin.

Are you ready to listen? Because people of color are telling us what they need. This is what we must do. Continue reading “What We Must Do”

What We Must Do

Indiana Is Poised to Strip Away Abortion Rights – And Make You Pay For Fetal Funerals

Before we begin, I have a confession to make: I was born in Indiana. I don’t like to talk about it. We moved away when I was three, and I’ve always been grateful for the choices my parents made. I’m sure some people love the state, but while there are tiny bits in my memory that stand out as fun or pleasant, most of it is a foreboding, empty gray abyss, and it’s full of cornfields. When my mom moved back there and tried to get me to follow her, I laughed bitterly. I loved her, but there was no way I’d ever be able to live there.

I’ve never been more happy about that decision than now. See, I’m a uterus-bearing American of reproductive age who doesn’t want to bear children under any circumstances, ever. In Indiana, they have decided to take that decision away from people like me. They’ve decided to take it away from people who want a kid someday, but not this soon. They’ve decided to take the choice away from people who are in a dangerous relationship and will be trapped by a child. They’ve decided to take it away from people who are already unable to feed the children they have, much less a new mouth. But they’ll generously allow people who became pregnant through rape or incest to abort, and they’ll even allow people to have an abortion if the pregnancy is putting their life at risk, but even if you fall into one of those categories, you’ll still be forced to listen to the fetal heartbeat first, and wait 18 hours, and other assorted things meant to strong-arm you into changing your mind.

And then, if you’ve stayed the course and cleared all the hurdles put in your way by the patronizing assholes of the Indiana legislature, you’ll be forced to have a funeral.

CONTENT NOTE: medical images of human fetuses below the jump.

Continue reading “Indiana Is Poised to Strip Away Abortion Rights – And Make You Pay For Fetal Funerals”

Indiana Is Poised to Strip Away Abortion Rights – And Make You Pay For Fetal Funerals

Secular Forced-Birth Fans Thoroughly Schooled

There are few people in the world I find more irritating than secular pro-lifers. I mean, religious right-wing anti-abortion activists at least have the excuse of indoctrination. Secular folks should be able to reason without getting misty-eyed over a clump of cells. But there’s a group that fetishizes fetuses above all else. They pretend, occasionally, to care about the women forced to carry said fetuses, but those women are secondary to their desire to populate the earth with bouncing babies. And they have a remarkable amount of magical thinking going on. They believe a world without abortion will be some kind of utopia where men will take care of those darling little bebbies, and women are never ever tricked or forced into becoming pregnant, and the only problem they see is that since everything will be so wonderful, there will be no way to terrorize teens into never having sex.

Think I exaggerate? Read Angie Jackson’s series, which quotes their words and thoroughly demolishes each inane idea. Continue reading “Secular Forced-Birth Fans Thoroughly Schooled”

Secular Forced-Birth Fans Thoroughly Schooled

South Dakota Blazes a Trail of Bigotry

America’s despicable right wing, having failed to prevent same sex couples from getting hitched, has now opened a new front in the culture wars. Their newest campaign is focused on denying transgender folk the right to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender. We’re seeing legislation spring up everywhere trying to force people to pee in the bathroom corresponding to their genitals or their chromosomes rather than their actual gender. It’s fucking ridiculous, and dangerous, and a horrible waste of taxpayer time and money on top of being horrifically bigoted.

South Dakota has the dubious distinction of being the first state to actually pass one of these noxious bills.

Washington isn’t the only place where conservative legislators are figuratively burning transgender people at the stake during an election year. South Dakota has become the first state to pass a terrifying new anti-transgender discrimination law out of its state legislature.

From Stranger alum Dominic Holden at Buzzfeed:

House Bill 1008 states that “every restroom, locker room, and shower room located in a public elementary or secondary school that is designated for student use and is accessible by multiple students at the same time shall be designated for and used only by students of the same biological sex.”

The bill defines “biological sex” as “the physical condition of being male or female as determined by a person’s chromosomes and anatomy as identified at birth.”

So how the hell would schools and gyms check that people using restrooms and lockers have—in their minds—the correct genitalia? What about intersex people? HB 1008 sounds very, very similar to Washington State’s SB 6548, a bill that trans rights activists have dubbed the “Genital Check” bill for the same reasons. SB 6548 would allow businesses, gyms, individuals, whomever, to adopt the same policy. In South Dakota, however, it’s specifically for kids.

So yeah, it’s not bad enough that it targets transgender folk, it has to go after trans kids in particular. Kids who aren’t harming a single soul by being themselves. The only danger is in the poisonous minds of the people who have decided that genitalia is the only thing a person has that matters, and if your naughty bits happen to be the type generally assigned to the gender opposite yours, too bad. I can’t even understand this obsession.

The bill hasn’t been signed yet, so please do add your name to the petition asking Governor Daugaard to veto the damned thing. And while you’re at it, let him know he needs to get acquainted with a few trans folk. Ignorance is literally getting people killed. We can’t accept this.

Gear up, my darlings. It’s going to be a long, hard fight for equality.

Image shows the capitol building in Olympia, Washington. A trans flag flies with the Washington State and US flags. The trans flag colors have been transposed across the entire image.
We’re going to be fighting for trans rights in state capitols all over the country. Let’s not stop until every state in the union allows trans people to live their lives free from oppression. Image courtesy Daisy Western.

 

South Dakota Blazes a Trail of Bigotry

Dear NECSS: You Have Seriously Fucked Up

NECSS is so sorry they offended the fucking asshole who says something awful every 2.2 seconds, and hopes we can all just get along.

Well, we can’t.

Let me explain to the not-so-fine folks on the NECSS board why Richard Dawkins is such a divisive figure, and why giving him his talk back and asking him to be on a panel to discuss the issues “causing conflict both within the skeptical community and within society as a whole” is basically spitting in the faces of those of us who are trying very, very hard to end the abuses that are causing those conflicts.

Here is a brief history of Richard Dawkins being awful, pulled from my own archives, and therefore in no way comprehensive, because the man is a firehose of terrible statements and I have better things to do than spend 100% of my time trying to catalogue all his fuckery. Continue reading “Dear NECSS: You Have Seriously Fucked Up”

Dear NECSS: You Have Seriously Fucked Up