ismnotwasm
ismnotwasm's JournalKamala Harris wants Dreamers to work in Congress
(its politico, not my favorite source, but Im glad to see Kamala come our swinging for immigrants)
Kamala Harris is going all in on immigration reform.
On Wednesday, the 2020 contender will introduce legislation with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nev.) that would make Dreamers eligible to work as staffers or interns in Congress. Its the latest move by the California Democrat to seize on an issue that her rival Beto ORourke has made his calling card and to advocate for a Democratic constituency thats often reduced to a congressional bargaining chip.
Harris proposal, which would lift what immigrant-rights supporters consider to be a mean-spirited ban on Dreamers working in Congress, comes after Harris traveled to Latino-heavy Nevada this week for her second visit there as a presidential candidate. She also went to Texas recently, in part to build support among Latino voters.
For Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India whose campaign has distributed headsets at rallies to translate her speeches into Spanish, the southwestern sojourns are also an attempt to blunt ORourke, a fluent Spanish speaker who has gone toe-to-toe with Donald Trump on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trumps relentless focus on immigration has given Democrats an early opening to try to distinguish themselves beyond the usual support for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, individuals who are undocumented and arrived to the United States as children. Julián Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, on Tuesday outlined his own plan for immigration reform, which his campaign described as first-in-the-field. In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship, his plan also would reform immigration enforcem
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/kamala-harris-dreamers-congress-1249956
I was raised by racists
Raised to think that black people were inferior. Raised to think that there are good black people and there are finger-popping N******. My Dad, a big Swede who worked hard, worked along side of black men when he was a what used to be called Garbage man picking up curbside trash, altered his racism that much. He used to tell a story of how I hid behind his leg the first time I saw a black man, and roar with laughter. His racism altered with age, as did my mothers but never went away. My maternal grandmother never altered her racism one iota, calling a child of a friend of mine a repulsive pickininny I was in my 20s by then
Anyway When compulsory busing started in the 70s, I was exposed to black kids, and truth to tell, we rarely mixed, but one wonderful thing happened, I was required to take Black history. So books about Harriet Tubman and the Underground railroad and Sojourner Truth, the book Black like Me, I was precocious,reading all kinds of books on ethnicy and racism In middle school, books readily available
So began my education, and it continues to this day. I dont know when the last time I used the N word as an epithet was, decades ago, but I do know by the 80s I knew Blackface was not funny or cool. It was not something I ever would have done. To deliberately CHOOSE to mock a black person. I knew people who remained racist, but I had friends of different races by then. I began to choose my friends with more care, and this despite the fact by the time I was 30 I had experienced many things, drug addiction, homelessness, extreme poverty. But I still knew mocking other races was wrong.
I dont understand people very well, or maybe I understand them too well, I dunno. Racism exists everywhere and and it is MY responsibility as a white person to call it out and condemn it. I dont forgive it, because its not my responsibility to forgive it. Im not a target of racism, I never was. And trust me, I spent time in more than one situation being the only white girl but, at the end of the day, I could always go back to white spaces and blend in. It didnt matter.
Bishop Eddie Long Is Not the Only One Who's Dead
Isnt that what Corey Feldman told us? That his parents knew he was being raped by wealthy heads of studios and his parents told him to endure it for the money, and the millions would be their own cure?
R. Kelly married Aaliyah when she was 15 years old, stalked middle school playgrounds for fresh meat, and peed on the face of a girl who still wore pigtails and barrettes and had the gall to record it. And yet, we went down to the courthouse, proud for no reason, with signs held high above our heads that read: R. Kelly is innocent! not knowing that also written on those signs, in invisible ink, was the postscript: But we aint!
I guess this is how it works in churches, too. Were good with the pastor fucking our children as long as he wines and dines them first; shows them the same favor Jehovah showed a little girl named Mary; grooms them for who knows what, unloading puddles onto them and into them, before discarding them for the next, younger, fresher batch.
Then, when we look into the eyes of those children and the shine is gone, we pretend it was never there to begin with; that they were born with that dullness and the dullness is a good thing because now nothing they endure can tarnish them any further. You cannot debase the already debased. And this is our gift to them.
In this country, we love ovum and sperm. We love zygotes and embryos. We even love fetuses. But we do not no, we absolutely do not love children.
https://medium.com/SonofBaldwin/bishop-eddie-long-is-dead-c6021e55ac9b
Inslee proposes 'public option' health-insurance plan for Washington State
Democratic officials this election season talked often about health-care issues, including the expansion of health coverage or making it more affordable. The proposed legislation comes as Inslee seeks to raise his profile as he considers a 2020 presidential bid.
The proposal would have the state Health Care Authority contract with at least one health-insurance carrier to offer qualified health coverage on the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, according to a summary of the proposal.
The plan would be designed with transparent and consistent deductibles, copays and coinsurance, according to the summary, and would compete on premium price, provider networks, customer service, and quality.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-proposes-public-option-health-insurance-plan-for-washington/
Moore doesn't make me uncomfortable. He annoys me
He tends to feed conspiracy theories. The way our government is set up is around two parties, the only real question is which two parties. It is possible for instance, for Democratic Socialists to become one of the major parties instead of Democrats. That doesnt mean the Democratic Party would cease to exist, any more than The DS party is going to. Thats one thing.
I have a problem with the term corporate when its now a huge meme that people use. When memes were put forth about Hillary Clinton and her large donations coming from, oh, I dont know Bank of something, and people would point out hey, its illegal for Bank of something to donate that amount to political campaigns, these represent donations from individuals, the reply would be Hillary is corrupt and this meme proves it So annoying at the time and so fucking damaging. This was in part what brought us Trump. But there are many parts to the Trump story.
Bernie was indeed pushing hard for the individual campaign donations, refusing PAC money, (as did President Obama, who started this trend started refusing a lot of PAC money in 2008, but he rarely gets credit) but Bernie also lost, and he lost legitimately, no matter what the Micheal Moores of the world have to say. Thats not to say that others havent picked up where he left off. Booker and Harris and Gillibrand, for instance, are now declining corporate PAC money. If nothing else President Obama and Bernie Sanders put their finger on a pulse of rising discontent.
So what does this mean? Are we going to quit throwing pageantry parties? Are we going to pare down the governments frivolous bullshit after the gilded turd of Trumps presidency? Dont know. All I DO know is my reproductive rights are being threatened, hell the reproductive rights of my three year old granddaughter are being threatened, as a woman it is still implied that Im a slut If I get sexually assaulted, LGBLT rights are being threatened, the United States kidnapped children and caused irreparable harm, and continues to defend this, our environment will become more poisoned, job wages are stagnant, hate crimes are on the rise, racism is now openly bragged about and I cannot look toward the Republican Party for the lest vestige of love for human kind. This is sheer horror, epic horror, and every toxic bullshit comment against Democrats and especially Hillary Clinton have their part as well.
Legit criticismsure. I have a Rep I adore. I didnt expect this, but I do Shes signed the M4A legislation which I disagree with, although I agree with Medicaid expansion and insurance reform
With a hearty public option. None of which we are going to get by the looks of thing now. PLENTY of people disagree with me here, and I understand completely.
(FWIW I take a bit of exception to using white privilege discussed among whites as a negative, as whites ARE the ones who need to be discussing this among themselves.)
Record number of LGBT candidates running for governor
In the process, Polis becomes the third member of the LGBT community to win a gubernatorial nomination this year -- the first time in American history more than one open LGBT person has won a nomination in any given year.
Polis faces a close race in a state that gave Hillary Clinton its electoral votes by just a five-percent margin in 2008. Democrats have won three gubernatorial elections in a row, though Republicans captured a U.S. Senate seat now held by Sen. Cory Gardner (R) in the 2014 midterm elections.
Polis will face Walker Stapleton, the first-term state Treasurer who won the Republican nomination on Tuesday. Stapleton, the second cousin of President George W. Bush, outlasted several other Republicans including Doug Robinson, an investment banker who is also Mitt Romney's nephew.
But his nomination is historic nonetheless, in a year in which more gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender candidates than ever before are running for office.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/394314-record-number-of-lgbt-candidates-running-for-governor?amp&__twitter_impression=true
There Is No Biological Difference Between Male And Female Brains
But according to Lise Eliot, a professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School and the author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain, anyone who goes searching for innate differences between the sexes wont find them.
People say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but the brain is a unisex organ. We have the exact same structures, she said onstage Monday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic.There is absolutely no difference between male and female brains.
Eliot said neuroscientists have yet to find a single circuit thats wired differently between men and women, and that differences between sexes are best explained by nurture, not nature.
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/563702/?__twitter_impression=true
And they said rape culture wasn't real
Im posting this, mostly, for myself, as this forum all but died. Remembering all The battles about rape, sexual harassment, rape culture, language, patriarchy at DU. The belittling, the minimizing, the disingenuous arguments, the bullshit. Every once in a while at DU, Ill even see a bitter soul take a pot shot at benevolent sexism because nice guys or something. I got my first hide out of this group reposting a blogger who said instead of all women having to walk around in a state of fear of rape, it was just as logical for all men to be treated as walking around in a state of pre-rape. I still read Dworkin.
Interesting though, how the old van guard of second wave feminists, some of them, lost their way at as the results of their battles bore fruit in succeeding generations of women, reaping the benefits of Feminism. And Feminism itself found its newest rebirth at the crossroads of intersectionality. Interesting, and in retrospect completely logical, how the the most powerful feminist voices now are African American women, as well as other women of color. Trans women are also emerging as a powerful voice for womens rights.
And here we are at another crossroads. As bigoted white men, and bigoted, complacent, white women voted for Trump, it broke something in people of goodwill and compassion and progressive thought. I think what broke was the desire to go along to get along when one has a privileged life. IF one understands what privilege is and what it isnt. Theres still far to much pushback in the age of Trump. It comes from feeling that enough dollars saves one from bigotry
Weinstein and Cosby shows us that beauty, talent and wealth is not enough to protect women. The sheer horror of Trump shows us that seeing thing such as the unutterable pain at the southern border will affect us in such a way we can no longer ignore it. Or at least I cant. I hurt every day, and every day I am angry. I welcome this. It doesnt damage me. I am no passive soul searching for zen and comfort.
94% of Black women who voted voted for Hillary Clinton. There has been a number of attempts to minimize that remarkable statistic, the lastest being to simply ignore it. What did black women know that white women didnt? If you ask them, they will tell you. Its not for me to say. Me? I listened to their voices whenever I could. Still do. Often, I do it in silence, because white women, so many of us were so stunningly wrong in our political choices, there are very few I want to hear from. There are, of course, a few I do. As there are very few white men I want to hear from right now. (Plain, simple reporting aside)
Practically this means I watch no TV pundits at all, get my news on-line after I vet facts, from sources with proven diversity that isnt tokenism. I pay little attention to memes unless they make me laugh. There is still tons of bullshit. Mostly from the right, who have appeared to have lost their damn minds for real, but the left is not immune from bullshit. Some of it I even like, as I lost any desire to play fair As someone recently said this isnt middle school.
Because people have died, are dying, will die. And they will suffer before they do. Im a nurse. I see a lot of suffering, enough death. When its preventable, thats when I get angry as well.
But a major study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine outlines a more comprehensive way of looking at sexual harassment within organizations and identifies the strongest predictor of such behavior. Surprisingly, it has little to do with individual perpetrators.
The study finds that the strongest, most potent predictor of sexual harassment is essentially the culture of the company ― what the researchers call organizational climate.
If employees believe that their organization takes harassment seriously, then harassment is less likely to happen, according to the 311-page report released Tuesday. That faith in fair treatment acts as a deterrent against bad actors and encourages workers to speak up about harassment ― key to keeping bad behavior at bay.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b23f8c3e4b0f9178a9cd6f5?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
Yup
The whole continuing sage of theyre both the same bullshit sounds like damage control from a failed revolution some members of which should have very guilty consciences instead of doubling down. A movement that was mostly for white people anyway.
Democrats have had their own come to Jesus moments after Trump, many of them...but theyve done that despite Bernie Sanders, not because of him, his movement or whatever political party he chooses to align himself with.
Bernie...Hes a popular guy with a lot of people. Sure. But not nearly enough people and certainly not with the diversity we need. The Democratic Party does have that. The Democratic Party platform does have that. Elected Democrats are working their asses off to fight whats happening right here, right now in real time. Thank God for Democrats I say. Thank God for the Democratic Party.
Commander of Cheese--Randy Rainbow
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