In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: War] US respondents to polls are very divided about whether the US has a responsibility to intervene in Iraq during the current crisis. Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in Iraq, meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Kerry promises that US support for Iraq's pushback against ISIS will be "intense and sustained," whatever that means. Meanwhile, Atrios and David Akins raise good questions about where, exactly, all that time and money we were supposedly spending in Iraq on training their troops went?

[CN: War on agency; hostility to reproductive choice] The war on agency is intensifying (again) in Ohio: "Anti-abortion-rights activists in Ohio are working on a legislative agenda for 2015 that could continue to chip away at access to abortion. Already this year, one clinic is in danger of closing because of a provision in last year's budget and three others face the same outcome. In addition, legislation regulating how abortions are paid for has been introduced. In light of these moves, Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said the state is 'quickly becoming one of the most dangerous states for women's health.'" Again: Protecting women, my fat ass.

In related news, Robin Marty, one of the most indispensable reporters on the chipping away of reproductive rights across the US, is fundraising for "a 12-part series that will look at 12 different clinics or cities in the country, telling the history of legal abortion through location and the people inside and outside it." Robin's got additional information on the funding of the project here. The great thing about this project is that it will enable Robin to do in-depth original reporting on spaces in which the mainstream media typically doesn't have interest.

[CN: Misogyny] Here is just a major interview with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is still not a 2016 presidential candidate.

Advocates of splitting the state of California into six smaller states are busily gathering signatures to try to get the measure on the ballot in two years. Good luck!

[CN: Defense of bigotry; slurs; antisemitism; homophobia; misogyny] Gary Oldman defends Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin and their slur-shouting ways on the basis that everyone who criticizes them are hypocrites because "we've all said those things." Whoooooooooooops no we have not all said those things. Like any other kind of abuse, someone who verbally abuses other people imagines that everyone does it. Nope!

[CN: Misogyny] US student is rescued from giant vagina sculpture in Germany. "The mayor of Tübingen told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he struggled to imagine how the accident could have happened, 'even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul.'" Lolsob forever.

And finally: Do you want to read some casting and plot news about the Wachowskis' upcoming Netflix series? Wachowskis, YOU HAD ME AT NAVEEN ANDREWS AND DARYL HANNAH.