What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
Nearly 50 per cent of youth in Canadian jails are Indigenous.
…98 per cent (no, that is not a typo) of girls in Saskatchewan jails are Indigenous. In Manitoba, approximately 80 per cent of both girls and boys in custody are Indigenous.
…Forty-three per cent of all adult women in Canadian jails are Indigenous, yet Indigenous people make up only 5 per cent of Canada’s overall population.
Canada Is Sending A Generation Of Indigenous Children To Jail | HuffPost Canada
Whoa!
The act contains a package of reforms geared toward making voting more accessible to all Americans.
…The bill would force [Trump,] as well as future presidential candidates, to release their tax returns and would require super PACs to make their private donors public as a way of incentivizing smaller donations.
The bill also aims to make Election Day a paid holiday for federal workers ― a proposal that might encourage private businesses to do likewise, thus allowing more voters to get to the polls.
…Nonwhite voters typically have lower turnout than white voters and also tend to vote more for Democrats. Minorities make up at least 35 percent of the federal workforce, according to FEDweek. Data released last year from the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic also found that black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely as white respondents to face difficulty getting time off from work to vote.
Mitch McConnell: Democrats’ Voting Rights Bill Just A ‘Political Power Grab’ | HuffPost
Now Mitchy, you know the real power grab is not making it easier to vote for groups your party is less popular with.
Trump admitted he had not read an intelligence report when speaking to the press on Thursday. But that did not stop him criticizing how the press had reported on it.
…The intelligence report in question—the Worldwide Threat Assessment released by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats this week—seemingly contradicted many of Trump’s claims about North Korea, Russia and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
Donald Trump Admits He Didn’t Read Intelligence Report, Then Criticizes Reporting on It
hmmmm
In states with laws legalizing medical marijuana, new research shows there are nearly 25 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses.
…Although a causal relationship hasn’t been proven, there appears to be a significant association between marijuana legislation and a fall in overdose deaths.
…1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. Opioid painkillers have long been an option for treating that pain, but their use comes with an inherent risk of addiction and death from an overdose. Chronic pain is also a major driver of medical cannabis use, which is why the researchers wanted to see whether medical marijuana laws and deaths from opioid overdoses were linked at the state level.
States with Legal Marijuana See 25 Percent Fewer Prescription Painkiller
hmmm
What matters, in all these cases, is that powerful women are portrayed as being bad at femininity. Power, intelligence, ambition, authority: In our culture, those qualities are all “masculine,” too. We’re being reminded that, if women manage to possess any of those leadership qualities, it’s only at the expense of their feminine graces. The caricatures the GOP typically creates are monstrous in the manner of Lady Macbeth, praying to the gods to “unsex her” so that she can get on with the male business of killing and ruling. The implication is that by trying to be king, these women have lost their womanhood, and turned themselves into freaks. Just ask the Lady Macbeth of Little Rock. [emphasis: mine]
The smears aimed at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aim not to desexualize her, but to hypersexualize her, casting her as an empty-headed pinup with ideas above her station. …There are the Sarah Palin comparisons, the constant, ancient implication: A woman that turns you on can’t be smart. Right?
…It was easy to mock powerful Boomer women as desexualized or androgynous because they had been trained to desexualize themselves in order to survive hostile work environments.
…[The GOP] portray her as a sex object because sex objects don’t talk back, unless it’s to ask what more they can do for you. In so doing, they give themselves an excuse not to deal with the more serious challenge she poses. Ocasio-Cortez is not meant to be challenging, she is not meant to be argumentative or assert herself, she is not meant to have bold opinions or radical ideas, because she is not meant to have ideas and opinionsat all. She’s not supposed to think. She’s supposed to be looked at. She is supposed to be consumed.
When she ages, men will decide she’s not worth looking at, and that, too, will be cited as a reason not to listen to her.
The GOP’s Sexualized Assault of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | Dame Magazine
This. All of this.
The situation stems from terabytes of data in the criminal case against Russian company Concord Management and Consulting, which is accused of funding a social media effort aimed at swaying American voters in 2016. The Justice Department has been turning over evidence to Concord’s US-based legal team, who can review it with a limited number of people as they fight the case.
Prosecutors now allege that some of the information turned over to Concord before trial got out in October — after a now-suspended Twitter user touted that it had a “Mueller database” and a computer with a Russian IP address published thousands of documents online.
More than a thousand of those documents were part of the case’s evidence collection, and were listed online under labels and folders known only to those involved in the case, the prosecutors said.
????!
“Republicans in Virginia and across the country are trying to play politics with women’s health, and that is exactly why these decisions belong between a woman and her physician, not legislators, most of whom are men,” the statement reads. “No woman seeks a third trimester abortion except in the case of tragic or difficult circumstances, such as a nonviable pregnancy or in the event of severe fetal abnormalities, and the governor’s comments were limited to the actions physicians would take in the event that a woman in those circumstances went into labor.”
Yheskel added: “Attempts to extrapolate these comments otherwise is in bad faith and underscores exactly why the governor believes physicians and women, not legislators, should make these difficult and deeply personal medical decisions.”
hmmmm
McConnell, on Wednesday, criticized the bill as the “Democratic political protection act” and that it would create a “Washington-based taxpayer-subsidized clearinghouse for political campaign funding.”
The package, which is considered a signature issue for House Democrats, includes legislation that makes Election Day a holiday for federal employees. It also encourages private business to give employees the day off.
McConnell blasts House bill that makes Election Day a federal holiday | TheHill
Weh, weh, weh all the way home.
What are you afraid of, Mitch, more Federal Workers voting?
Maybe instead of crying foul and pretending that encouraging citizens to do their civic duty is somehow partisan politics, your party could stop asking them to work for free? Maybe they wouldn’t vote against you in such huge numbers if you stopped doing that?
Asshat.
With fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature, according to research published in the Journal of Communication.
…”The voting behavior was more polarized, less likely to include split ticket voting, if a newspaper had died in the community,” said Johanna Dunaway, a communications professor at Texas A&M University, who conducted the research with colleagues from Colorado State and Louisiana State universities.
Researchers reached that conclusion by comparing voting data from 66 communities where newspapers have closed in the past two decades to 77 areas where local newspapers continue to operate, she said.
…Among the other findings is less voter participation among news-deprived citizens in “off-year” elections where local offices are decided, Abernathy said. Another study suggested a link to increased government spending in communities where “watchdog” journalists have disappeared, she said.
Dunaway said voters in communities without newspapers are more likely to be influenced by national labels — if they like Republicans like President Donald Trump, for example, that approval will probably extend to Republicans lower on the ballot.
Loss of Newspapers Contributes to Political Polarization | Entertainment News | US News
hmmmm
Wonder what the impact is on community without local radio is…
After a veto by then-Gov. Matt Mead at the close of the 2018 budget session, legislation that would create criminal charges for impeding fossil fuel facilities and pipelines during protests is back in the Wyoming Legislature.
Similar in scope to bills introduced in statehouses across the country following the Dakota Access pipeline protests, Rep. Lloyd Larsen’s Crimes Against Critical Infrastructure bill was written with numerous fixes to address questions raised last year.
However, critics told lawmakers at a packed committee hearing Monday that the bill would still restrict people’s lawful right to protest.
hmmmm
In the latest revelation to raise privacy concerns about Silicon Valley’s tech titans, reports have surfaced that Facebook and Google offered adults and teens gift cards for installing apps that would let the companies collect data on their smartphones.
TechCrunch reported Tuesday that, since 2016, Facebook has been paying users — some as young as 13 years old — up to $20 a month to install an app called Facebook Research. The app could give Facebook access to private messages, photos, videos, emails, web searches and browsing activity, the tech news site reported.
…Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote on Twitter: “Wait a minute. Facebook PAID teenagers to install a surveillance device on their phones without telling them it gave Facebook power to spy on them? Some kids as young as 13. Are you serious? “
…This is not the first time Facebook has been accused of going to extreme lengths to get user data. In 2013, it bought a company called Onavo and allegedly used the Onavo app to get more information about WhatsApp, a competing messaging platform that Facebook ultimately bought for $19 billion.
Facebook, Google Draw Scrutiny Over Apps That Collected Data From Teens : NPR
hmmm
A drug that blocks the main toxins of P. gingivalis is entering major clinical trials this year, and research published today shows it might stop and even reverse Alzheimer’s. There could even be a vaccine.
…The disease often involves the accumulation of proteins called amyloid and tau in the brain, and the leading hypothesis has been that the disease arises from defective control of these two proteins.
But research in recent years has revealed that people can have amyloid plaques without having dementia. So many efforts to treat Alzheimer’s by moderating these proteins have failed that the hypothesis has been seriously questioned.
…Bacteria involved in gum disease and other illnesses have been found after death in the brains of people who had Alzheimer’s, but until now, it hasn’t been clear whether these bacteria caused the disease or simply got in via brain damage caused by the condition.
…Multiple research teams have been investigating P. gingivalis, and have so far found that it invades and inflames brain regions affected by Alzheimer’s; that gum infections can worsen symptoms in mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer’s; and that it can cause Alzheimer’s-like brain inflammation, neural damage, and amyloid plaques in healthy mice.
…The bacteria and its enzymes were found at higher levels in those who had experienced worse cognitive decline, and had more amyloid and tau accumulations. The team also found the bacteria in the spinal fluid of living people with Alzheimer’s, suggesting that this technique may provide a long-sought after method of diagnosing the disease.
We may finally know what causes Alzheimer’s – and how to stop it | New Scientist
hmmm
Historians say federally run boarding schools and other tactics to assimilate Native people into white culture have taught generations of Navajo, including Nelson and Sherman’s parents, to discriminate. Navajo leadership are an example. In 2005, the Tribal Council passed the Diné Marriage Act rejecting same-sex marriage.
…“We are seeing clearly the aftereffects of what colonialism can look like and how it really shifted our values as Navajo people,” Nelson said. “Whereas at the time, if you were LGBTQ and growing up in a Navajo traditional family, families celebrated that fact. They said that we were sacred. They said that we had sacred roles.”
Those roles included mediators and leaders.
…When First Man and First Woman weren’t getting along, tradition says, it was the nádleehí [intersex, multi-gendered spirit] who intervened.
…“Navajo family used to pride themselves to have two-spirited people in their family,” Smiley said. “Some of them would take someone by the arm and say, ‘This is my boyfriend. This is my boyfriend.’ That would show people ‘This person makes me rich.’”
…Across the Navajo Nation, elders have come to the aid of granddaughters and grandsons when the rest of the family rejects them. Medicine men revere the “two-spirited,” as they’re sometimes called.
…“When I came out to my family, my mother took it the hardest, but my grandparents didn’t,” said Alray Nelson, an LGBTQ rights activist. “My grandmother sent me a handwritten letter when I was in college. My grandfather doesn’t speak English. He speaks Navajo fluently. He told my grandmother to tell me I would always have a home with them, that I’m his son.
Before reading this article the word, “unlikely,” jumped right out at me. Because -at least to my admittedly whitey white butt- that didn’t seem unlikely at all. Many indigenous cultures in what is now the United States, throughout the Americas, and Polynesia have a tradition of revering or making a special place in society for those with “Two-Spirits.”
What a tragedy that this beautiful tradition of respect, understanding, and acceptance became a casualty of white-washing. ..And how encouraging it is to see it coming back.
Veiling in Muslim societies has always been heavily contingent on geographic, socioeconomic, and historical context, and in contemporary Iran, the issue has long been politicized. In 1936, the first Pahlavi shah issued a decree that prohibited veiling in a bid to modernize his country and inculcate a sense of national identity; he also mandated European-style hats for men. The edict lapsed a few years later, when the shah was forced into exile and his young son took the helm. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi doubled down on his father’s secular, pro-Western orientation, and in the 1970s, as anti-government activism gained momentum, many women consciously adopted headscarves or all-enveloping chadors as tangible rejections of the monarchy.
…Today, any violation is punishable by modest fines and a two-month prison sentence. Compulsory hijab was the sartorial manifestation of a broader imposition of legal and cultural misogyny by Iran’s post-revolutionary leaders. They quickly nullified the monarchy’s nascent efforts to advance the status and rights of women and in its place erected a legal framework that enshrines gender discrimination.
…Alinejad’s campaign focuses on one of the central symbols of theocratic rule: obligatory hijab, or modest dress, which enshrined in Iran’s post-revolutionary legal framework on the basis of Quranic injunctions. Her project was born of an expression of joy: a photo that Alinejad posted of herself running through a London street with her hair aloft, which she noted would be a crime in Iran. The photo and message went viral, and that unexpected outpouring of support launched a movement: first, a Facebook page branded as “My Stealthy Freedom” that invited Iranians to post images of themselves without hijab; within a month, the page had nearly 500,000 “likes.” That was followed in 2017 by a hashtag campaign encouraging women to wear white scarves on Wednesdays to protest laws requiring hijab.
Iran and the headscarf protests
hmmmm
The scandal most centrally involves Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio, who has long been a state deputy from Rio de Janeiro, but was just elected to the Federal Senate with a massive vote total in the last election. The scandal began with the discovery of highly suspicious payments into and out of the account of Flávio’s driver, a former police officer and long-time friend of the president’s.
Each new discovery has escalated the scandal’s seriousness: One unexplained deposit was found going into the account of Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle; both the driver and Flávio himself began using highly suspicious maneuvers to try to stymie the investigation; the amounts of the suspicious transfers began rapidly increasing to US$2 million; and then deposits were found going into Flávio’s accounts in small increments of multiple deposits in rapid succession: at times up to 10 cash deposits made within three minutes, the hallmark of money laundering and evading banking regulations.
…That the Bolsonaro family has been discovered to have such close and intimate ties with militias, including the one involved in Franco’s brutal assassination, stunned the country.
…In explaining why he fears for his life, Wyllys specifically cited these new revelations that the Bolsonaro family is linked to the militia blamed for the death of Franco, who was in the same party as Wyllys.
Video: Bolsonaro Scandal That Drove an LGBT Congressman to Flee Brazil
hmmmm
Migrants Endure Brutal Conditions in Border Encampments – The Appeal
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
But two weeks after Trump had started talking about tape-gagged women — when a January 17 Washington Post article had questioned the claim — a top Border Patrol official had to email agents to ask if they had “any information” that the claim was actually true.
…It’s not clear where Trump is getting his information — but it doesn’t appear to be through official intelligence.
…Requests for information to the field usually aren’t made to get information backing up particular claims — much less claims being made by the president, and much less claims the president had been making for, at that point, two weeks. The implication of the email is that — after CBP had already been asked for evidence by the Post and declined comment— high-level border officials didn’t have any evidence they could point to to prove that Trump was telling the truth.
…Border experts have told the Post and other reporters that they’ve never heard of anything like what Trump is talking about.
Border Patrol asked agents for evidence to back up Trump’s “taped-up women” claims – Vox
hmmmm
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