In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

The Senate delivered a resounding nope on President Obama's trade deal yesterday, led by Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been the public face of the Democratic Party's feud with President Barack Obama over his trade agenda. But behind the scenes, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) quietly united his party behind a strategy that resulted in a major defeat Tuesday for the president. Brown's weeks of work came to fruition when Democrats voted to block legislation that would have given Obama so-called fast-track trade authority. Fast-track authority would strip Congress of the ability to amend trade deals negotiated by the president and is essential for the passage of Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal the administration is negotiating with 11 Pacific nations. Brown's opposition to giving Obama expedited powers to funnel a trade deal through Congress is no surprise, but his hand in uniting Democrats, specifically those supporting fast-track, proved pivotal on Tuesday."

[Content Note: Disenfranchisement; class warfare] Despite the fact that poll taxes are explicitly unconstitutional, Republicans are nonetheless trying it in Ohio. For fuck's sake.

[CN: Violent rhetoric and imagery] Listen, everyone who knows me knows that John McCain is my arch nemesis, but this shit is absolutely repulsive: "The founder of the Oath Keepers, a loose-knit group of current and former law enforcement officials and military who pledge to defend the Constitution, called for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to be 'hung by the neck until dead' for treason last week as the president of the Arizona Senate looked on." And what was this alleged treason? "He accused McCain and the 'GOP machine' of manipulating the [2008 Republican] convention to sabotage [former Rep. Ron] Paul's chances of winning the state's delegates."

[CN: Misogyny] G. Willow Wilson, one of the creators of A-Force, a comic series featuring an all-female team of Avengers, responds brilliantly to "Dr. Lepore's Lament."

[CN: Homophobia] The FDA is considering revising its long-held ban on gay men donating blood. (And not just gay men: All men who have had sex with men, and all women and genderqueer people who have had sex with men who have had sex with men. The FDA's "gay cooties" rule is like a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.) Even the new rule, however, would "still ban gay men from donating blood if they have had sex with another man in the past year." I cannot believe this is still a thing in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fifteen.

Facebook will now be delivering "Instant Articles" straight to your face. "Facebook is working with nine launch partners for Instant Articles: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel, and Bild."

This is really cool: "Virginia Woolf lived and worked at a time of monumental change in our understanding of the universe. ...Woolf appears to have used this burgeoning of astronomical knowledge to fuel her own creativity, and this is interpreted in the second act of the Royal Ballet's new production, Woolf Works. The second act is titled Becomings, and the production's dramaturg Uzma Hameed tells me, 'Becomings, is based entirely on Woolf's vision of the smallness of human life set against the vastness of the universe. Lasers will be used to create corridors of light and shifting reality planes through which dancers pass at various speeds and in varying relationship combinations. Max [Richter]'s music here provides a shifting cosmic landscape in which orchestral arrangements are embedded in electronic sound—the effect is both weird and grandly virtuosic.'"

Yes, please! "Marvel is courting Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay to direct one of its diverse superhero movies, which include 'Black Panther' and 'Captain Marvel,' multiple individuals with knowledge of the situation have told TheWrap. Insiders suggest that 'Black Panther,' due first in July 2018, is the most likely possibility."

I love everything about this: "Nurse Florence 'SeeSee' Rigney has celebrated her 90th birthday while still employed at a US hospital. Ms Rigney started working at Tacoma General Hospital in Washington state in 1946. It was her lifelong dream since she was a girl, local media reported." Rigney, who is the US' oldest working registered nurse, still "works two days a week at Tacoma General, though in a lesser capacity than she used to. ...Ms Rigney thanked her co-workers and said she was grateful to be 90 years old and still working at the hospital. 'I know I'm a pain in the you-know-what,' she said. 'Thank you all.'"

And finally! "Dreaming Dog Wakes up and Knows Everything's Right in the World." Lol awwww.