In the News

Here is some stuff in in the news today...

Here is just a typically terrific Politico piece about whether Hillary Clinton delaying her announcement about whether she'll run for president is a good thing because it shortens the primary season thus sparing candidates who will run if she doesn't a lot of the "eating each other alive" quality of extended primaries, or if it's the WORST MOST TERRIBLE AND HORRIBLE MONSTROUS THING EVARRRR because she is a selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic devil. (I'm paraphrasing.) (Slightly.)

In other Clinton news, Gallup finds that her top "selling point" as a potential candidate is that she'd be the first female president. Which I find really interesting, especially juxtaposed with the finding that now only 1% of respondents say that the country isn't "ready" for a female president.

[Content Note: Sexual harassment] Anita Hill, whose testimony about allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas were a central part of his confirmation hearings, said yesterday that "as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President Joe Biden did a 'terrible job' overseeing Thomas' confirmation hearings in 1991." Yes, yes he did. And that's a pretty charitable way of putting it, since Biden basically straight-up called Hill a liar.

New legislation introduced by Democratic Representative from New Mexico Michelle Lujan Grisham would "significantly improve the ability of immigrant women and families to access affordable health care." The Health Equity and Access Under the Law (HEAL) for Immigrant Women and Families Act of 2014 would "eliminate discriminatory barriers to coverage, including the current 5-year ban on enrollment after an immigrant has established lawful status...immediately restore full Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage to immigrants who are authorized to live and work in the US and are otherwise eligible for coverage...[and] remove the exclusion of DREAMers who have been granted deferred action through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program from obtaining insurance under the Affordable Care Act."

[CN: Racism] More evidence that suggests public schools are used as a pipeline to prison for many black students in the US: "Data to be released Friday by the Education Department's civil rights arm finds that black children represent about 18 percent of children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students suspended more than once. ...Advocates have long said that get-tough suspension and arrest policies in schools have contributed to a 'school-to-prison' pipeline that snags minority students, but much of the emphasis has been on middle school and high school policies. This data shows the disparities starting in the youngest of children. ...Overall, the data shows that black students of all ages are suspended and expelled at a rate that's three times higher than that of white children. Even as boys receive more than two-thirds of suspensions, black girls are suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or most boys."

[CN: Anti-choice harassment] Englewood, New Jersey, has enacted a buffer zone rule to protect clinic patients from harassment. "Anti-choice protesters in Englewood, New Jersey, can no longer come within an eight-foot radius of a health-care facility’s entrance, exit, or driveway." Eight feet is such a small buffer, especially given the aggressive tactics used by anti-choice harassers. But at least it's something.

[CN: Racism; whitewashing] A petition has been launched in opposition to the casting of white actress Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily, a Native American character, in a new film version of Peter Pan. Like, I'm wondering at what point studios will stop supporting whitewashed characters, if not out of basic decency, which apparently eludes them, then out of a self-interested desire to avoid this kind of legitimate and predictable criticism?

Do you want to see the first posters for the upcoming Dumb and Dumber sequel, which is being made 20 years after the first film's release? Well, if you want to, here they are.

Jem and the Holograms is getting its own live-action screen version. And I was pretty excited about that until I read that it's being directed by the guy who directed G.I. Joe, which was SO terrible, AND it's not being set in the '80s. Boo. All I can say is that Aja, Shana, and Carmen had better not be whitewashed!