2018 In Review: Gen. John Kelly Is Out. Mick Mulvaney Is In. Who’s Next? The Whole World Is Watching, Part 2

by Noah

Gen. John Kelly is gone. Trump's former Chief of Staff, a man of such low character that only the character of Trump himself could make his look better by comparison, had finally had enough. Working with the criminally insane has to be one of the most stressful jobs imaginable and as bad as he is, and was, who knows what horrors Kelly might have managed to derail. Imagine how bad an act has to be for someone like Kelly to disapprove of it.

Mick Mulvaney is the new White House Chief Of Staff, make that Acting Chief Of Staff. It’s Mulvaney’s third administration job in less than two years. He’s reportedly not even leaving his Office Of Budget Management job. Why? Simple; Trumpanzee is his own Chief Of Staff because he is immune to management. That, together with the stench of corruption that comes with the Chief Of Staff job is good reason not to give up your day job. Oh, and he better lawyer up. That need comes with the job.

Trump was having trouble getting anyone to take the job so he just drafted Mulvaney over from the Office Of Budget Management. Las Vegas is probably already adjusting the odds as to how long Mulvaney will last but one can only shudder at what Mulvaney will prove to be like. It's a case of how low can you go. After all, this White House Chief of Staff thing hasn't exactly been going in the right direction. If you remember, Trump's first Chief of Staff, before Kelly, was former Republican Party head Reince Priebus. We thought that was sick and it was, but then came a man who, unlike Priebus, made absolutely no attempt to disguise his evil. Kelly most blatantly revealed it in his white supremacy, but that's a big reason why he got the job in the first place. That is the nature of the Trump White House. Rest assured, it will remain so.

As I write this, Kelly still has never apologized for his race-based attacks on Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson but why would we expect the kind of cretin Kelly is to do so? As soon as Kelly announced he was leaving, questions abounded. Why did he quit? Did he quit or was he fired? Was he fired in a petulant screaming fit? Does it matter? Who will change the Diaper Don's diapers now?

Before Mulvaney took the job, Mike Pence’s Chief Of Staff, Nick Ayers was “the new Chief Of Staff” for Trump but he didn’t even make it to the first day.

I have to admit that the question of who will soon replace Mulvaney has set my mind in motion. Who wants to be invited down to the oval bunker? How much of a masochist do you have to be? Better BYOCC (Bring your own cyanide caps).

The first name that comes to me is Jared Kushner. He’s family and Trumpanzee already has him sticking his face into just about everything. But what about Kellyanne Conway? Could it be the return of Spicy or The Mooch? A team of Spicy and The Mooch? Mike Huckabee? Some screaming FOX loon like Jeanine Pirro? Sean Hannity already lives up Trump's fat ass. How about a waitress from Mar-A-Lago? Rudy Giuliani? Carl Spackler?Ann Coultergeist? Annette Haven? Annie Sprinkle? Some Russian who doesn't speak a word of English? Borat for real? He’d get along great with Trump. Stay tuned!

Do Foreign Lives Matter? Hillary Clinton, a Death in Honduras & Feminism

Berta Cáceres, Honduran indigenous and environmental activist, before she was murdered (click to enlarge; source)

by Gaius Publius

I've been looking for a way to tell this story, the story of Hillary Clinton and the murder of Berta Cáceres, for a while. The core of the story involves yet another victim of Honduran right-wing violence.

For example, there's this, from The Nation:

The Clinton-Backed Honduran Regime Is Picking Off Indigenous Leaders

The names of Berta Cáceres’s murderers are yet unknown. But we know who killed her.

By Greg Grandin
March 3, 2016

Hillary Clinton will be good for women. Ask Berta Cáceres. But you can’t. She’s dead. Gunned down yesterday, March 2, at midnight, in her hometown of La Esperanza, Intibuca, in Honduras.

Cáceres was a vocal and brave indigenous leader, an opponent of the 2009 Honduran coup that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, made possible. In The Nation, Dana Frank and I covered that coup as it unfolded. Later, as Clinton’s emails were released, others, such as Robert Naiman, Mark Weisbrot, and Alex Main, revealed the central role she played in undercutting Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, and undercutting the opposition movement demanding his restoration. In so doing, Clinton allied with the worst sectors of Honduran society.

More about Cáceres:

Last year, Cáceres – who is a member of the Lenca indigenous group, the largest in Honduras – was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her opposition to one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects, the Agua Zarca cascade of four giant dams in the Gualcarque river basin.

The campaign has held up the project, which is being built by local firm DESA with the backing of international engineering and finance companies, and prompted the withdrawal of China’s Sinohydro and the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation.

Honduras lives under a bloody right-wing dictatorship. The bigs wanted the dam, including the international bigs. She organized the opposition. Someone found a way to clear that hurdle by shooting her in her home.

Hillary Clinton, the Coup in Honduras & the Call to Feminism

But I don't want to tell this story as a policy piece. I want to tell it through the eyes and soul of a woman struggling with what many women are struggling with — should I, as a woman, support Hillary Clinton? If so, why?

This comes via email from writer Deborah Newell (@litbrit, for those who know her that way, and proprietor of litbrit.blogspot.com). It's a classic cri de coeur. Newell is also a former resident of Honduras, as you will read, and until recently not a U.S. citizen (she became a citizen to vote in this election). In addition, she's a strong feminist and has been her whole life.

This account, I think, perfectly sorts through the conflicting pulls and thoughts of people like Newell. It's also the clearest account of what happened in Honduras I've encountered, told through the eyes (I know, mixed metaphor) of a former resident.

Why does murder in Honduras matter? Because I think if Clinton is commander-in-chief, we'll see much more of this. Hyperbolic? I don't think so. Please read and decide for yourself.

"Only a woman could truly know what all that shit feels like, how it talks to us"

Newell begins her note by talking about how much it mattered to her, a British citizen, to be knowledgeable about American politics:

In the days and years before January 22, 2016, when I became a US citizen, the question of whom to vote for was always a hypothetical one for me.

Oh, that doesn't mean I didn't think about, write about, and discuss endlessly at our dinner table all the good, bad, and ugly features of every candidate vying for the votes of my husband and two of my three sons, US citizens by birth. The Huz is our main breadwinner, without a doubt, and we live where his business lives--as opposed to where I would prefer to live--making him the de facto head of the family. But as the saying goes (certainly as it goes in the so-called traditionally "patriarchal" countries I've lived in), the man may be the head, but the woman is the neck that turns the head.

So it would be dishonest of me to say that my interest in presidential politics was just academic. It would be disingenuous of me to say that in researching, analyzing, and discussing the candidates' records and policy proposals; their personal histories and present-day characters; and their values (insofar as it is ever possible to assess those with 100% accuracy when the person one is evaluating only exists in the electronic boxes in one's home), that I was merely indulging a hobby. A rather masochistic hobby.

I was amassing the data, evaluating it, and applying it to the progressive values we've taught our kids, the values that my family and I strive to uphold in all areas of life, not just politics. I was doing my job as "the neck".

Which brings her to consider her reaction to the 2008 primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Newell tells it this way:

In 2008, I was genuinely torn. To my mind, there was not that much difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. All things being equal, I told myself, my feminist self, I would have to support the woman candidate because she would bring to the nation's highest office a range of experiential qualities that a man never could. In the same way that, prior to giving birth to my first child, I always thought I knew what agonizing physical pain was (I had, after all, broken long bones while riding horses, and I'd suffered through a few tropical viruses) but in reality could not possibly know what it was really like until I'd gone through it myself. Likewise, then, a man--even a man who was the most empathetic creature on the planet--could nonetheless never truly understand what it was like to go through life as a woman in our culture.

That mattered a great deal to me. (It still does.)

In short, no man can know what it means to "go through life as a woman in our culture," much less give birth. These considerations are not nothing; they are, in fact, very much "something" and explain the connection that a great many women feel with Hillary Clinton and what she has endured, not just as a woman, but as, well, Hillary Clinton. No man should dismiss this.

I connected with Hillary Clinton on a number of levels, just as the data tells us that women in my demographic tend to. We've experienced sexism and harassment; we've been underestimated and underpaid; we've seen our perceived worth reduced to our fuckability and outward appearance, even as we are simultaneously told to cover up those attributes lest we cause a helpless male superior at work (or else some rando dude in the parking lot) to accidentally rape us. (Ah yes, rape. That vile and violent power-display thing.)

Only a woman could truly know, at the experiential level, what all that shit feels like. How it talks to us, deep inside our brains, telling us we are not as good, not as smart, not pretty enough, not thin enough, too thin, too pretty, too loud, too quiet, and now, for me anyway, too old.

"How it talks to us, deep inside our brains..." And yet Newell notes:

At the same time, though, and despite the powerful impetus to link arms with Hillary Clinton and support her in her quest to become the country's first woman president, I could not ignore her Iraq vote.

Thus it began, back in 2008, for Newell. Which brings her to this day, this election, this season of hoped-for change.

The Foreign Policy of Hillary Clinton

This is the long part, but a part I hope you take time to read carefully. It's well written and moves quickly. Newell brings her close knowledge of Honduran politics to her understand of what a Clinton foreign policy would look like.

Newell:

It's the war/foreign policy thing again. The foreign policy history that Secretary Clinton forged between 2008 and now. It's about Libya. And, for me, Honduras. The later received such scant coverage in this country, it broke (and continues to break) my heart. But it matters a great deal. You see, I lived in Honduras as a young teen--lived through the 1974 Coup--and another part of my heart is with the people of that country, too. Last week, an activist for the indigenous people and campesinos (small farmers) and women of Honduras, a brave and beloved woman named Berta Cáceres, was shot dead in her home.

What does this have to do with Hillary Clinton? In 2009, as Secretary of State, Clinton shepherded in the new, hard-right, School-of-the-Americas trained military junta who ousted a democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya. "Ousted" is not quite the right word: after a contentious back-and-forth between Zelaya and the (far) more rightwing factions of the government, soldiers broke into the president's house, beat him up, held him at gunpoint, and dragged him onto a plane--still in his pajamas--and flew him out of the country.

I hope you didn't skip over the phrase "School of the Americas."

School of the Americas, Where the U.S. Teaches "Counter-Insurgency" to Right-Wing Militaries

One of the most destabilizing forces in the Western Hemisphere is the U.S. Army-run "School of the Americas." Wikipedia:

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the US Army School of the Americas,^[1][2] is a United States Department of Defense Institute located at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, that provides military training to government personnel in US-allied Latin American nations.

The school was founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War.^[3] In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators, generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum.^[4][5] In 2000/2001, the institute was renamed to WHINSEC.^[6][7]:233

From School of the Americas Watch:

The School of the Americas (SOA) is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2001 renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

It was initially established in Panama in 1946 however it was expelled from Panama in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty (article iv) and reinforced under the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (article v).

Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA have left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned. For this reason the School of the Americas has been historically dubbed the “School of Assassins”.

Since 1946, the SOA has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.

About School of the Americas Watch, from Wikipedia: 

SOA Watch

Main article: School of the Americas Watch

Since 1990, Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit human rights organization School of the Americas Watch has worked to monitor graduates of the institution and to close the former SOA, now WHINSEC, through legislative action, grassroots organizing and nonviolent direct action.^[34] It maintains a database with graduates of both the SOA and WHINSEC who have been accused of human rights violations and other criminal activity.^[35] In regard to the renaming of the institution, SOA Watch claims that the approach taken by the Department of Defense is not grounded in any critical assessment of the training, procedures, performance, or results (consequences) of the training programs of the SOA. According to critics of the SOA, the name change ignores congressional concern and public outcry over the SOA's past and present link to human rights atrocities.^[36]

The "school" says it now includes human rights in its curriculum, and even it didn't, no school is responsible for what people do after they "graduate." On the other hand, by their fruit you shall know them. Fruit like this:

Strange fruit: Micheletti coup security forces murder supporter of President Zelaya (source)

Keep the above image in mind. Unending violence like this are the reason families put their children on buses to the U.S. They don't send them away to "send a message" to U.S. policy makers, but to save their little lives. President Zelaya was also trying to save lives. That ended badly as well.

Enter Honduran President Zelaya

Newell on how President Zelaya was helping Honduran society, and why he had to go:

A bit of background: Manuel Zelaya was himself a member of oligarchic society in Honduras. As you are probably aware, Honduras is practically a case study in what goes wrong when income equality gets too out-of-hand. You have a tiny few owning everything, and you have multinational corporations linking arms with them to seize every resource there is, and you have a vast many who have virtually nothing.

"Nothing" often means: no electricity, no running water, no shelter, no food. You have fifteen-year-olds with AKs strapped to them stopping you in the street at gunpoint to ask for your ID, and when you hand them your passport, they look at it upside down because they don't know how to read. (True story.) You have indigenous people being abused at every turn, having their waterways seized for dam projects, their land and mountains destroyed by mining interests, their fields taken over by corporate fruit industries. You have a population kept in line by all the traditional fascistic means: sexism, hard-line religion (in the case of Honduras, the Catholic church), and militarized police forces who beat and kill. Who make people disappear.

But Zelaya, despite his upbringing, had the heart of a leftist. Once elected, he set about making birth control available to poor women. Even Plan B. He stood up and apologized for the country's history of persecuting LGBT individuals, and told them they were okay, they would be safe now. He constantly advocated for the poor, for the indigenous communities, for the campesinos. He worked alongside Berta Cáceres, and other activists like her. He was in the process of pushing for a significant raise in the country's minimum wage when he was "ousted".

And now, the U.S. role, so far as we know it. Newell:

When the coup happened, in 2009, President Obama at first condemned it. As did the UN, as did the OAS. Many Latin American leaders were calling for the US to do something--to demand that Zelaya be allowed to return to his country, where tens of thousands of people were marching in the street, peacefully protesting and calling for their president's safe return (and getting beaten and shot for their trouble). In a few days, the press moved on. Suddenly, our US president was saying nothing. 

Why was Obama suddenly saying nothing? What was driving the change in U.S. policy?

Hillary Clinton & the Destruction in Honduras

It turns out the answer to the question "What was driving U.S. policy?" is in the Clinton State Department emails. It was Clinton herself who strongly advocated the change in policy. (An excellent close read of those emails and policies is here.)

Newell on Clinton and the consequences of this change:

Hillary Clinton's emails, released last summer, tell us why. She was very actively involved in supporting the installation of the new, right-wing government. This has been covered by Democracy Now, TeleSur, and other "alternative" media. This piece in The Nation, written by noted Latin American scholar Greg Grandin, is a good one to start with [see the article linked at the top of this piece].

Why is this important to me, and why should it be important to every feminist who is voting in the presidential election? Because of what happened in the aftermath of Zelaya's violent removal from office in 2009--in the years between then, and 2016.

Draconian abortion laws were put into place. Birth control became unaffordable once again and Plan B was banned.

LGBT individuals were beaten and killed, after they had just begun to feel as though this was their country too, they were free. Now it was, Oh, sorry, you're actually NOT safe. You will be beaten if you're lucky; murdered and mutilated if you're not.

Multinationals got their footholds strengthened as militarized police forces beat and killed protesters.

Which brings us to the children of Honduras, and why they are sent to the U.S. unescorted by their parents:

And, well-documented at this point, the ensuing chaos and mind-bending levels of violence that beset the largest cities, particularly San Pedro Sula, led families who feared for their children's lives (many families had already lost loved ones to drug gang violence) to send them on a long and frightening journey to the US border, where they hoped their kids would somehow find asylum and safety.  Meaning these children would have to travel through Honduras, through the length of either El Salvador or Guatemala, and the entirety of Mexico (parents on this list, please imagine how desperate you would have to be, how dire your circumstances would have to be, for you to kiss your small kids goodbye and put them on a rickety bus and hope against hope they would make it to safety).

"Imagine how desperate you would have to be ... for you to kiss your small kids goodbye and put them on a rickety bus and hope against hope they would make it to safety."

I can imagine. These are parents, human beings like us; not monsters, not unfeeling animal others. Not people who just need a message sent. These are parents who watch first-hand what you just read about, who live in fear, not just for their own safety, but for the safety of their most precious ones, their children. Newell, a Clinton supporter, remember, feels this deeply.

And yet, this happened:

Clinton wants to "send a message"

Newell:

Secretary Clinton said they should be sent back, these kids. Said this would "send a message". I actually watched the debate during which she said this, and shouted at my television: Send a message to WHOM?

Think back through what you've just read. Clinton advocated strongly for policies that created the right-wing-induced ongoing violence, then advocated for the return of the children fleeing it (because the journey here is "dangerous"). That puts Clinton at both ends of the problem, not just the one.

Do Foreign Lives Matter?

Which brings us back to the question of women urging women to support Hillary Clinton. For Newell it leads her to this:

I have been reading the discussions, everywhere, about people's support for Secretary Clinton based on feminist principles, and always the discussion turns to the same questions: Why are you denying my experience as a woman? Why can't you see how important it is to me, as a woman, to have a woman be able to rise above all the things we have all faced and be elected to the country's highest office? Why aren't you listening to me?

Meanwhile, I--a feminist, a mother, a target of sexual harassment and sexism--am asking, Why aren't you listening to ME?

Thus the central conflict of this election, for Newell and for many many others. In light of all of this beyond-our-border destruction (and there is much more that could be cited), can one be a feminist and support Hillary Clinton?

As Newell puts it:

The world does not begin and end at the US border. Back-channeling deals to install right-wing military juntas that impose and enforce draconian reproductive laws is NOT FEMINIST. Back-channeling deals to install right-wing military juntas that silence--by bullet--more than a few women activists, is NOT FEMINIST. When LGBT people are beaten and killed; when women who are raped can't get abortions; when women who live in a highly patriarchal culture cannot even access ways to plan their families, which in turn seals their fate as permanent members of the underclass so favored among multinationals who need cheap, motivated labor ... these results are NOT FEMINIST GOALS.

Thanks for listening. Now you know why, when I say I "feel the Bern", I really mean it.

I understand it's troubling for many women to reject Hillary Clinton, and I hope through Newell's explanation above, the reason it's troubling makes sense. And yet, as she notes, a muscular foreign policy that imposes muscular, fascist, right-wing monsters on second- and third-world populations is no gift to women or to men — or even worse, to their children.

Imposing right-wing fascism on the developing world. Rings a bell. Without making this longer than it is, Hillary Clinton's foreign policy, by all accounts, would be muscular indeed — one could say "Kissinger strong."

"Hillary Clinton Calls Henry Kissinger a Friend, Praises His Commitment to Democracy" (source)

From The Nation again (link at the top):

In her book, Hard Choices, Clinton holds up her Honduran settlement as a proud example of her trademark clear-eyed, “pragmatic” foreign policy approach.

Berta Cáceres gave her life to fight that government.

Is it feminist to support Hillary Clinton? Not if foreign lives matter as much as our own.

(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you'd like to help out, go here. If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!)

GP
 

Women Candidates

I love all our Blue America candidates. Some, however, are a little further along in their evolution towards being... the next Elizabeth Warren or the next Alan Grayson or the next Donna Edwards. After all, that is what we're looking for in candidates. Not John, not Digby, not Jacquie and not yours truly is looking for a candidate we can-- or have to-- tell what to do. I've had hot-under-the-collar disagreements with Donna, with Ted Lieu, with Joe Sestak... but those are people with the brains and the moral fiber to make up their own minds on issues and when they come to a different conclusion about how to proceed... I'm all ears-- well all ears and mouth. If we wanted robots, we'd look for a version of Marco Rubio.

The Blue America House candidates have certain things in common, of course. That's how they got on our list in the first place. Everyone believes in the right of women to exercise control over their own health and bodies without interference from the government. Likewise, everyone believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race, religion, country of origin, sexual preference, gender. Everyone favors peace. Each one is a fighter who will stand up to the bullying from the oligarchs and the puppets of the oligarchs in Congress (like, oh... say Wall Street whore Chuck Schumer or Debbie Wasserman Schultz).

That said, I want to mention that some of the candidates who are far along the road, perhaps because of experience, are state Sen. Pramila Jayapal (WA), Zephyr Teachout (NY), Nanette Barragán (CA), state Rep. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (MD), and former Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (NH). You might have noticed each is a woman. Some have endorsed Hillary and some have been consigned by Madeleine Albright a place in hell; but all are strong, effective and dedicated progressives with records to show why they merit support in their runs for Congress.

We'll come back to them in a moment. I want to take a look at a very personal column Frank Bruni penned for the NY Times Wednesday, Feminism, Hell and Hillary Clinton. I never knew Bruni is gay but he wrote that he is and he seemed offended that there might be an expectation from a gay version of Madeleine Albright that he either vote for a gay nominee or be consigned to hell. Just as the Times was publishing Bruni's column, openly gay Republican Ben West, was announcing his candidacy for the seat held by right-wing Blue Dog Kurt Schrader in an Oregon district that stretches from Portland's southern suburbs through Salem and west to the coast from Manzanita to Yachats. Even though Schrader is one of the very worst Democrats in Congress-- an NRA and Wall Street shill for example-- I suspect Bruni would never vote for West who-- except for his sexual preference-- is a garden variety Republican crackpot. He's running on all the crazy anti-human nonsense Republicans run on. He told the media that he wants "to be very clear that I am much more than a gay man and I’m not defined totally by my sexuality." And that's a good thing.

There are a batch of openly gay Republicans running for Congress this year, including Studboi 1 (AZ), Dan Innis (NH), Chrys Kefalas (MD) and Jacquie Atkinson (CA). I'm going to assume that Bruni wouldn't vote for any of these conservatives, regardless of their sexual preference and that he wouldn't vote for gay conservative Democrat and egregious Wall Street whore Sean Patrick Maloney (NY) either. "Will there be,"he asked in his column, a 'special place in hell' for me if I, as a gay man, don’t support him or her?... I’ll go to the barricades for that imagined gay [presidential] candidate if he or she has talents I trust, positions I respect and a character I admire. If not, I’ll probably go elsewhere, because being gay won’t be the sum of that person, just as womanhood isn’t where Clinton begins and ends." He wrote that he, like many of us, is trying to understand's Albright's idiotic statement.

There’s a weird strain of thought swirling around Clinton’s campaign: that we should vote for her because she’s a woman. Or that she’s inoculated from certain flaws or accusations by dint of gender. Or that, at the least, there’s an onus on forward-looking people who care about gender inequality to promote her candidacy.

I care about gender inequality, and I don’t buy it. It’s bad logic. It’s even worse strategy. People don’t vote out of shame. They vote out of hope.

Perhaps that was among the lessons of Clinton’s defeat in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where she lost to Sanders among all women by at least seven percentage points, according to exit polling, and among women under 30 by more than 60 points.

Clinton is on sturdy ground, morally and tactically, when she mentions a double standard for women. So are her surrogates. Actually, there are so many double standards that you couldn’t fit them in a column eight times the length of this one, and she has bumped into plenty, including, yes, the fuss over her raised voice.

But the argument that she’s somehow not a full-fledged member of the establishment because she’s a woman-- as she contended during the most recent Democratic debate-- is nonsense. On that night, she also echoed a past statement to CBS News that she “cannot imagine anyone being more of an outsider than the first woman president.”

Really? Anyone? Off the top of my head I can think of a person who might quibble with that. His name is Barack Obama.

Anti-Semitism is real and it's deadly and were Bernie to win, he'd be the first Jewish president, something that would have been unimaginable not that many years ago. He doesn't bring that up and neither do his surrogates.

Carol Shea-Porter was an excellent Member of Congress when a Republican wave swept into her district. It's looking like she'll win back her seat this year though, against the same crackpot teabagger. She brought up a good point this morning in a phone conversation: "Even though the House of Representatives does not look very representative when it's not even 20% female, that is not the reason I am running for Congress. I am running again because extremist Republican Rep. Frank Guinta repeatedly votes against what I have always called 'the bottom 99%,' and I have always voted FOR that bottom 99%. His position on women does say it all though: no abortion, not even to save a woman's life."

Let me suggest you take a look at this 90 second video author and activist and Bernie surrogate Marianne Williamson just cut:



Yesterday I was chatting with Marianne about the congressional candidates Blue America and her organization, Sister Giant, are working with for the online progressive summit mentioned in the video. Many of the candidates who are participating are women, from Pramila Jayapal in Washington state to Carol Shea Porter in New Hampshire. But they haven't been invited to participate because they are women. They were invited to participate because they have accomplishments worth sharing and ideas worth supporting.

"I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr.," she told me, "when he argued that the problem with incrementalism is that the status quo co-opts every small change for its own purposes. I think-- and yes, I believe this is in large part because I am a woman-- that passion, and a yearning for the possible, and longing for a more beautiful world -- are the most potent drivers of real change. I guess you could say I agree with Gloria Steinem when she said women get more radical when we get older-- and that's why I'm for Bernie!"

Again, whether you back Bernie or you back Hillary-- or are happy with either-- we are eager to get these incredible candidates into office. This is the kind of messaging we like seeing from our candidates-- Pramila's latest e-mail: "Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a fighter. When I see people being mistreated or see that the system’s rigged to favor the elites, I don’t stand by or wait for easy solutions. I feel compelled to jump into action-- to stand up boldly for what’s right, and take on the important fights even when they’re not easy (and if you’re anything like me, you know they’re never easy). Now, I'm taking the fight for progressive values to the House of Representatives." Congress desperately needs the perspectives of women like her and like Carol. Please tap the thermometer:

The Pressure on Warren to Support Hillary Clinton

American Crossroads letting you know that Goldman Sachs' Blankfein isn't letting you know that he's backing Hillary Clinton — "because I don't want to help or hurt anyone by giving an endorsement." Smiles all round the table. (American Crossroads should be careful what it wishes for.)

by Gaius Publius

There are several parts to a story that's just starting to be told, the tale of the pressure applied by prominent and establishment Democratic women to get Sen. Elizabeth Warren to support Hillary Clinton. Part of that story is taking place in the present — the pressure is being applied now. And it now seems that part of that story may extend into the past — as earlier pressure not to "get in the way" (my characterization) of a possible, as-yet-unannounced Clinton run. The first part of the story is certain, the other, less so, though indications are beginning to emerge.

Let's look at these two parts briefly, the present story and the past one, to see if some dots connect, and to see what other dots might be connected later, pending more data.

Keep in mind, this is an unusual primary for Democrats — we can choose an anti-Money revolution, or a woman president, but we can't choose both, not this time. This complicates both the decision and the optics of endorsing Clinton, especially for women, and especially for women connected to the in-place Democratic establishment. If you haven't figured out why, you'll see in a moment. Read on.

The Present Pressure on Elizabeth Warren to Endorse Hillary Clinton

This present part of the story comes via a good story in The Hill. I encourage reading it all; I found all of it useful: 

Female senators urge Warren: Back Hillary Clinton

Female Democratic senators are privately urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren to formally endorse Hillary Clinton for president.

The lobbying campaign comes as the Democratic race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is heating up going into the New Hampshire primary next week.

A group of Democratic ­senators is taking a bus tour of New Hampshire this weekend to stump for Clinton, and they want the liberal Massachusetts powerhouse to get on board. Clinton narrowly defeated Sanders in the Iowa caucuses earlier this week, but the Vermont senator is a heavy favorite to win New Hampshire.

A few of the senators have discussed with Warren the possibility of publicly backing Clinton. ... “I’m hopeful she’ll join us. I’m hopeful she’ll join the revolution that will allow us to come together to elect” the first female president, said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), one of Clinton’s staunchest supporters.

Asked if she or other senators had approached Warren personally, Stabenow said, “We all talk about it,” but declined to reveal what Warren has said in response.

And:

A Democratic aide said the Senate women have been “trying to do a little arm twisting in recent months.”

“Her role in this campaign would be valuable,” the staffer said. “I think she’s gotten more attention than most senators, and I think it would mean a lot.”

Other women in the Senate have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the campaign for Clinton, which they see as a historic opportunity to advance women’s rights.

Women named in the article as lobbying Warren to support Clinton include Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Barbara Mikulski (Md.). Others named in the article as campaigning actively for Clinton, though not named as lobbying Warren, include Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii).

The question is, why would a senator who said this on the floor of the Senate (my emphasis)...

"A new presidential election is upon us. The first votes will be cast in Iowa in just eleven days. Anyone who shrugs and claims that change is just too hard has crawled into bed with the billionaires who want to run this country like some private club."

... endorse Hillary Clinton? That's a real question. And the answer is, "Of course she would endorse Clinton — unless she were speaking of Clinton."

Which raises real questions, I think, about the reason many (but not all) establishment Democratic women are endorsing Clinton over Sanders. It's certainly true that many think it is time for the first woman president and that Clinton should be that woman, in spite of her ties to Money — for example, ties to the Goldman Sachs executive in the video above.

But it also has to be said that some (I have a few names in mind) think Clinton should be that woman because of her ties to Money and the mainstream establishment that feeds from (and feeds) the same troughs, the establishment from which they draw their own daily cup. For these women, endorsing Clinton achieves two goals with one stroke of the pen, both of which are desirable.

Hillary-Only Feminism?

I wonder ... if there were only a way we could test those commitments to "first woman president" and factor the ties to Money out of the choice. Perhaps if Warren were also running ... or thought to be thinking about running ... with Clinton not yet declared as as candidate ... would these women support Warren because "first woman president"?

I wonder...

In 2014, Zephyr Teachout asked me [the writer of the piece] whether she should run against powerful incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo. I told her that the only reason not to do it would be fear — fear that his machine would belittle her, discredit her, turn her into a joke. She stared at me, and said, “Now I have to do it, because you just dared me to.” That’s a bad ass lady, the kind of lady who is gonna take a hammer to the glass ceiling, smash it, and pull everybody up with her.

We fought that race with almost zero institutional support. Hillary Clinton supported Cuomo. Imagine an alternate universe where Hillary was the champion of progressive women in her own state. She would have been on our rickety bus, sweating the broken air conditioning, letting people know that the era of “three men in a room” making all the decisions was over. We would have elected our first female governor in New York.

After Zephyr lost her campaign, I teamed up with some other awesome ladies who wanted to see Elizabeth Warren run for president. We were inspired not just by her passion for financial reform, but also by her biography. Once again, institutional support was thin. And the supposedly feminist argument from a lot of Hillary fans was that it wasn’t Elizabeth’s turn. Another woman would dilute Hillary’s chances, which would be bad for the cause of electing Hillary as the first female president. Hillary-only Feminism. [my emphases]

Four takeaways for later thought:

• "Hillary Clinton supported Cuomo" against a progressive woman with a real chance to win, Zephyr Teachout.
   
• "[Warren's] institutional support [for a possible presidential run] was thin."
   
• A "supposedly feminist argument from a lot of Hillary fans was that it wasn’t Elizabeth’s turn."
   
• "Hillary-only Feminism" is a striking turn of phrase, and the most highlighted phrase from the article according to Medium.

Why did Ms. Clinton not support Ms. Teachout, also a "progressive," as "first woman governor" of New York? Seems appropriate for someone asking for support on the basis of "first woman president." Perhaps Clinton thought Teachout was the wrong woman to be the first woman governor of NY.

Much to think about. I'd love to know if anyone made the "not your turn" argument to Warren herself, or whether these "Hillary fans" just said it to each other.

Perhaps when Warren writes her page-turning memoirs, she'll peel back that curtain as well.

(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you'd like to help out, go here; you can adjust the split any way you like at the link. If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here. You can volunteer in other ways by going here. And thanks!)

GP
 

An eighth-grader can't wear an incendiary T-shirt like this in a class photo, can she?

Apparently she can't in Owensville, Ohio, where her school principal ordered the T-shirt Photoshopped out. (Sophie, the student in question, supplied this photo of herself holding the T-shirt to the website Women You Should Know.)

by Ken

Just this afternoon in my previous post I was reduced to spluttering in the face of the continued misunderstanding emanating from the Vatican, which doesn't quite get that female people are people just like male people are. Of course the Vatican isn't alone. The Vatican motto enshrined by Pope John Paul II and Pope Cardinal Ratguts, and apparently now tolerated by Pope Francis, is "Them Bitches Be Hos." They're okay to cook and clean, and of course to bear children, for which purpose it's even okay to have s*x with them. But otherwise, they're just accessories.

In case you were wondering why it matters that an organization as influential as the Catholic Church champions the mental deformity that produces this bullshit, we have a case in point this week coming out of Ohio. For once, thank goodness, it's not a case of rape or other violence perpetrated against a woman. But it's pretty appalling nonetheless, not least for being perpetrated by a school.


Since I was extremely un-confident about an embedded version of this clip loading, I'll suggest that you watch it onsite.

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, but sometimes it's what's not in the picture that sends the words flying. As with the eighth-grade photo from Clermont Northeastern Middle School in Owensville, Ohio, in which the principal had a T-shirt with the word "FEMINIST" worn by a student in the front row Photoshopped out, apparently because it might cause controversy -- or even "upset" some people.

Here's Ian Millhiser reporting the story for ThinkProgress:

An eighth grade student at Clermont Northeastern Middle School in Batavia, Ohio wore a black T-shirt on class photo day which included the word “FEMINIST” written across the shirt in white letters. Yet, while the shirt does not violate any school rule and the student has worn it to classes before, the school chose to doctor her class photo to remove the word.

According to the site Women You Should Know, which identifies the student as “Sophie,” Sophie asked principal Kendra Young why the word “FEMINIST” was removed from her shirt in the class photo that was distributed to students, and was told that “the photographer called me and brought it to my attention and I made the decision to black it out because some people might find it offensive.”

Principal Young has reportedly apologized to Sophie for doctoring her shirt, and Young also offered to provide Sophie with an unaltered copy of the class picture. According to a local news report, however, the doctored photo is displayed within the school.

And here's a more detailed account provided by the student's mother, Christine, to the website Women You Should Know:

A couple of weeks ago Sophie wore a t-shirt to school that she had made that said “FEMINIST.” She wore the shirt all day without any issues. It also happened to be the day the 8th grade class pictures were taken.

On Monday, the pictures were handed out to the students and Sophie sees the photo and notices that the word FEMINIST had been blacked out on her shirt. Sophie went to the school principal, Mrs. Young, to find out why this happened. Mrs. Young said, “the photographer called me and brought it to my attention and I made the decision to black it out because some people might find it offensive.”

A friend of Sophie’s called me and I went to the school. Mrs. Young walked out and wouldn’t talk to me about what had happened. I have emailed her twice and she has yet to contact me at all.

Sophie was not violating dress code, she was not inappropriately dressed. Being a feminist is not a bad thing. She should be allowed to express herself.

She just wants everyone to be treated equally. That’s it. The end. She thinks everyone should be treated kindly and with love and that we should all have the same rights. Merriam Webster’s definition of feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal opportunities. Most people, especially in this area, seem to think feminism and misandry go hand and hand and that’s a common misconception. You can still love men and be a feminist. You can still be a homemaker and be a feminist. That’s where we are with this. We just want equality.

I am completely dumbfounded by the situation. I’m upset that the principal won’t speak to me or return my emails regarding the situation. I would think she would want our involvement. I’m just shocked by how the entire thing is being handled.

Wednesday afternoon, the same blogpost reports Christine provided this update:

I actually had a meeting with Mrs. Young (the one who blacked out the shirt) today. She apologized to me profusely, of course, after the local news station called her this morning! She asked me if we were good? I told her she needed to apologize to Sophie and ask her that question. She seemed dumbfounded by that. So she called Sophie down to the office. She apologized to Sophie and asked “What do you want from this?” Sophie replied, “I want everyone to realize that we NEED feminism. I want you to have someone come into the school and educate everyone about feminism. I want us to go to the news station together and show the people that we are working together the make this school and our community and better place for everyone. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” I was so proud of her. She never once said I want a public apology or anything like that. She just wants to give to others. She is such a great kid.

Surely of all people a school principal, charged with educating the students under her oversight, should understand that if there are people who are violently upset by the mere word "feminism," then the one person whose problem it isn't is the student wearing the T-shirt. It's certainly the problem of any such people who would have made a stink about it, but the solution is for them to get over it -- or go the hell back where they came from, which can't possibly be the U.S.A. And I guess it's a problem for the school and for society insofar as we allow censorship merely to coddle their diseased sensibilities and deformed understanding of how our country is designed to work.

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In Hawaii's Senate Contest The Best Feminist Is A Man

Both of Hawai`i's U.S. Senators rank high in Progressive Punch ratings; Hanabusa seeks to break up the partnership

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz is a proud feminist-- with a record of achievement to prove it. And he's running for reelection on it, despite a big money challenge by conservative New Dem, Colleen Hanabusa, backed by corrupt war industry contractors and, predictably (albeit sadly), EMILY's List.

He has an entire section of his campaign website devoted to reproductive freedom.

And he's an original co-sponsor of the Women's Health Protection Act-- top-priority legislation for advocates of reproductive health and freedom.

He has long recognized that marriage equality is a feminist issue and has been a stalwart defender of the right to marry. His campaign also devotes an entire page to marriage equality.

Senator Schatz has described legendary Hawai`i Congresswoman Patsy Mink-- the co-author of Title IX-- as one of his role models.

His wife, Linda Kwok Kai Yun Schatz, holds a Pd.D and is an accomplished architect, and he often celebrates the inspirational aspects of her professional and academic successes.

Senator Schatz was the first to co-sponsor Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's bill for paid family and medical leave.

Despite a strongly progressive record in progressive Hawai`i, Senator Schatz is being challenged in the August 9 Democratic primary by Hanabusa, a sleazy careerist with an egregiously corrupt record in Hawaiian politics.

Hanabusa has been in Congress for 3 years after serving 12 years in the Hawai`i State Senate. While a State Senator, she once considered mounting a primary challenge from the right against Mink. After Mink's death, she ran unsuccessfully for the seat long held by Mink. In that 2006 campaign, she accurately noted she isn't as liberal as Mink was. (In that race, Mink's family endorsed Mazie Hirono, who won the election and has since become Schatz's partner in the Senate, arguably forming the most progressive tandem of any state-- which Hanabusa is trying to break up.)

Indeed, Hanabusa has eschewed the Mink-founded Congressional Progressive Caucus in favor of the Wall Street-funded and owned New Democrat Coalition, the 2014 version of the Blue Dogs, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

In the Hawai`i State Legislature, Hanabusa formed a bloc with other conservative-leaning senators, including several opposed to choice and affiliated with the Religious Right. She failed to seek passage of legislation for emergency contraception and civil unions after vetoes by Republican Governor Linda Lingle. (Lingle appointed Hanabusa's husband as State Sheriff.) Her tenure was marked by support for privatization and anti-labor "reforms," in addition to the Hanabusa-led firing of a female Attorney General who had the audacity to investigate previously untouchable political figures.

In D.C., Hanabusa hasn't prioritized feminist issues. She sits on the Armed Services and Natural Resources committees. In theory, she could use those platforms to fight for peace, the welfare of troops and their families and environmental protection. In reality, she's focused on the needs of defense contractors and polluters and finding rich donors to funnel money into her husband's bank account.

The choice for feminists in this year's Hawai`i Senate race is clear. You can help keep this seat progressive here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Cynthia MacAdams: Feminist Portraits 1974-1977

I'm old enough for Bella Abzug to have been a hero in my life. Next month her daughter-- Professor Liz Abzug, a chip off the old block-- will be moderating a discussion on the Third Wave of Feminism and Beyond. It's part of an exhibition of the works of celebrated American photographer Cynthia MacAdams at the Steve Kasher Gallery in Chelsea.

Aside from displaying more than 70 of MacAdam's works-- an exhibition which runs from January 28 through February 27-- the Abzug panel discussion will also feature a poetry reading by Anne Waldman, a dance performance by a member of the Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre. The other panel members: Anne Waldman, Lee Grant, Mia Herndon of the Third Wave Foundation and Jerin Alam of the National NOW Young Feminist Task Force.

The photography itself-- vintage black and white prints of female artists, activists and intellectuals from the 1970's-- includes works from MacAdam's landmark (and now out-of-print) book, Emergence, as well as photographs that have never been published.

In her Chelsea debut, MacAdams' images of pioneering  figures of the women's movement, such as Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Judy Chicago and Jane Fonda, remind us of the monumental steps taken forward during this pivotal era. The photographs include images of street people and noted actresses, writers, poets and playwrights, from Laurie Anderson and Mary Ellen Mark to Patti Smith, Lily Tomlin and Meredith Monk. 

In this collection of women's portraits, MacAdams eschews the traditional relationship between the female model and the camera, and addresses her subjects like old friends in the middle of an extended conversation. The results are inspiring, thought-provoking and refreshingly forthright.