In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Transphobia; carcerality; self-harm] Goddammit: "Chelsea Manning, the U.S. soldier sentenced to 35 years in prison for her role in the publication of a vast trove of classified information by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, was hospitalized early Tuesday after what media reports characterized as a suicide attempt. Manning, 28, was taken to the hospital and has since been returned to confinement, said Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman. ...Manning's lead attorney, Nancy Hollander, said in a statement that she was 'shocked and outraged' that an official at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where Manning is imprisoned, provided 'confidential medical information' about Manning to the media but had not shared anything with her team. 'Despite the fact that they have reached out to the media, and that any other prison will connect an emergency call, the Army has told her lawyers that the earliest time that they will accommodate a call between her lawyers and Chelsea is Friday morning,' Hollander said. 'We call on the Army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her well-being and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea's current situation.' Army officials at Fort Leavenworth referred questions to the Pentagon." I am so angry about this, for a dozen different reasons. And I take up space in solidarity with Chelsea Manning, who doesn't deserve to be treated this way, even while incarcerated and irrespective of one's feelings about whether she should be.

[CN: Police brutality; racism; guns; death] "The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation on Wednesday into the fatal shooting of a black man by the Baton Rouge, La., police after a searing video of the encounter, aired repeatedly on television and social media, reignited contentious issues surrounding police killings of African-Americans. ...The decision to have the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the F.B.I. and the United States attorney's office in Baton Rouge conduct the investigation was welcomed by a lawyer for Mr. Sterling's family. "We're confident that it won't be swept under the rug,' said the lawyer, Edmond Jordan, who is also a state representative. 'I think people are confident that justice will be pursued.' Officials identified the two officers as Blane Salamoni, who has been with the Police Department for four years, and Howie Lake II, with three years' experience. Both have been placed on administrative leave." Assholes. Real justice will be zero people like these two on any police force anywhere, and zero Black people killed by police.

[CN: Sexual harassment] Welp: "Attorneys for former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson were contacted by 10 women in the wake of their lawsuit against the network's CEO, Roger Ailes, CNN's Brian Stelter reported on Wednesday afternoon." It's never just one woman. Never.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton gave an important speech in Atlantic City about what a jerk and a failure and a swindler Donald Trump is, in which she amplified the voices of the working people personally screwed by him. I really appreciate that she cares about these people and is listening to them and is telling their stories.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump gave another one of the arglebargle word salad monologues he calls a speech, which was a dreadful spectacle of incoherent nincompoopery, during which he called one of his sons onstage to talk briefly about how their family loves his dad, and then shooed off his son and returned to the podium where he screamed about how he doesn't like mosquitoes, killed a mosquito, then said, "Hey, Hillary, how you doing?" Honestly, it was possibly his worst speech yet, which, I don't need to tell you, is really saying something.

[CN: Misogyny; sexual objectification] Fucking WHAT: "If elected president, GOP candidate Donald Trump may keep his cabinet 'all in the family,' so to speak, with his son Eric Trump vouching for sister Ivanka as vice president on Thursday, according to Politico. The Trump scion appeared on Thursday morning's edition of Fox & Friends, telling host Steve Doocy, 'She's got the beautiful looks, right? She's got—she's smart, she's smart, smart, smart. …She's certainly got my vote.' Donald Trump has been mocked for raving about his daughter's beauty and even saying he would date her if they weren't related." This is one fucked-up family.

Bernie Sanders says he might finally endorse Hillary Clinton. Bernie who now?

And Rep. Darrell Issa, never in the news for anything but being a total dipshit, says he's so angry that Clinton wasn't indicted he wants to shut down the federal government over the situation. Sounds reasonable.

[CN: Homophobic slur; racism] Breathtakingly awful: "A Republican candidate for Senate riled his opponent and others on social media over the weekend by employing a term long used as a slur for gay men to demean one of Donald Trump's interlocutors from more than two decades ago. 'DONALD TRUMP. Putting self-righteous faggots in their place since 1993. How I love this fellow,' Ted Busiek, a 30-year-old Littleton resident, posted to Twitter on Saturday. ...Busiek told the News Service he didn't intend the term in a 'hateful sense' or to imply that the congressman was gay, using the word instead to mean the congressman was 'obnoxious' and was 'kind of being a jerk.' The full-time candidate who served four years in the U.S. Air Force said so-called 'social justice warriors' would 'probably have a heart attack' listening to him and his friends talk, though he said it would be 'very unlikely' that he would use such terminology publicly if elected to the state Senate." Fuck. Off.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] In better news: "Marvel's New Iron Man Is a Black Woman: There's a new Iron Man. Well, Iron Man for now. She's still working on the name. The events at the end of the comic book event series Civil War II will result in Tony Stark stepping out of the Iron Man suit and a new character, Riri Williams, taking over, Marvel tells TIME." I don't really like the Iron Man series, but this is very cool! And I hope Iron Man fans are excited about it! And that it's done well!

Sure, why not: "The Office of Naval Research has given Washington University in St. Louis associate biomedical engineering professor Baranidharan Raman and his team a $750,000, three-year grant to continue his research into turning ordinary locusts into military tools. The idea is simple, even if the execution is not. Like most insects, locusts are equipped with an exponentially more powerful and sensitive olfactory system than anything humans can artificially replicate—so why not use this preexisting system to hunt for bombs, rather than attempting to create what will inevitably be a pale imitation?"

And finally! "This Husky Raised by Cats Didn't Know How to Dog." LOL!