In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

Senate Republicans used a procedural move to block Democratic legislation "that would have provided $21 billion for medical, education, and job-training benefits for the nation's veterans" because they didn't like that the proposed program would have been funded "with unspent money from the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the winding down of American military involvement in Afghanistan. The GOP says those are not real savings because no one expected those dollars to be spent as those wars ended." Support the troops etc.

[Content Note: Sexual assault] Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act, which "would remove from the chain of command the adjudication of sexual assault and other serious crimes perpetrated by members of the armed forces," will finally be debated on the Senate floor. Something something House of Cards.

[CN: Fat bias] First Lady Michelle Obama, on the rounds promoting the fourth anniversary of Let's Move, says of speaking with her daughters: "We don't talk about weight. We don't talk about physical appearance. We talk about health." Would that she used the same approach in her national campaign. The fact is, it's disingenuous when "anti-obesity" crusaders claim they aren't talking about fat people's appearance, because "obesity" doesn't describe anything but fatness. And when the First Lady, speaking interchangeably about "obesity" and "lack of healthfulness" says stuff like "we know that we are nowhere near solving this problem once and for all," that is eliminationist rhetoric against fat people, because, for many of us, the only way to get rid of our fat bodies is to get rid of us. I am not a problem to be solved.

[CN: Rape culture] Republican Maine state representative Lawrence Lockman says he regrets saying: "If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn't a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist's pursuit of sexual freedom doesn't (in most cases) result in anyone's death." By which, of course, he means he regrets someone dug up that old quote, not that he actually regrets saying it. Asshole.

[CN: Police misconduct] Two police officers in Midland, Texas, have been suspended for three days without pay after it was discovered they'd made a game out of stealing signs from homeless people. 1. They should have been fired. 2. The woman at the center of this case was homeless. Lots of homeless people have terrible interactions with police, which might be one reason why they don't feel inclined to cooperate with them.

[CN: Guns; violence] More information is being made public about the night Oscar Pistorius killed Reeva Steenkamp, including the fact that his first call after shooting her (he claims accidentally, because he mistook her for an intruder) was not to police or any other emergency services, but to a friend, and that when a security guard from his gated community called after the shooting, Pistorius told him everything was "fine." Um.

Annie-Rose Strasser: "Bitcoin: By the Privileged, for the Privileged."

Game of Thrones Season 4 poster. You're welcome.