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May 2017

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What I’m Reading – May 14, 2017

Written by , Posted in What I'm Reading

Fight Back

““I’m so offended by this president that I think it requires me to speak truth to power, to say it like it is and to be as honest as I possibly can about what I think about him being the president of this country,” Waters told me. She believes Trump “colluded with the Russians, with the Kremlin … to undermine our election system and thus undermine our democracy.”” Maxine Waters: Jeff Sessions believes ‘it’s his job to keep minorities in their place’ (by Jonathan Capehart for Washington Post)

“Congress is on recess this week, but most House Republicans aren’t holding open town hall meetings in their districts. Seeing an opportunity to make hay over the unpopular bill, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat from New York’s neighboring 18th District, paid a visit to Faso’s home territory Monday evening for an event organized by Maloney’s re-election campaign and local progressive groups.” A GOP Congressman Wouldn’t Meet With Constituents, So A Democrat Came Instead (by Jeffrey Young for Huffington Post)

Horrific Executive Action and Legislation

“The session finally resumed around 3 a.m., and Republican Sen. Brent Jackson introduced a new budget amendment that he explained would fund more pilot programs combating the opioid epidemic. He cited “a great deal of discussion” about the need for more opioid treatment funding. Jackson didn’t mention where the additional $1 million would come from: directly from education programs in Senate Democrats’ districts and other initiatives the minority party sought.” At 3 a.m., NC Senate GOP strips education funding from Democrats’ districts (by Colin Campbell for The News and Observer)

“So does Ramona Africa. She was actually inside the targeted house at 6221 Osage as it was battered by police bullets and deluge guns and, eventually, brought down by a makeshift bomb dropped from a police helicopter. She managed to escape the burning building. Her fellow members of MOVE, the radical organization to which she belonged that was standing off against the City of Philadelphia, were not as lucky.” I’m From Philly. 30 Years Later, I’m Still Trying To Make Sense Of The MOVE Bombing (by Gene Demby for NPR)

“Billy Koehler eventually got a job delivering pizzas, but the position didn’t offer health insurance. When his implanted defibrillator’s battery ran low, Koehler couldn’t afford the thousands of dollars a replacement would cost. He died on his way home from work in March 2009. “He drove two blocks, came to a stop sign, put his car in park, and slumped into his steering wheel,” Georgeanne Koehler testified.” Yes, People Die When They Don’t Have Access To Health Care (by Arthur Delaney for Huffington Post)

Racism

“Public figures have condemned the gathering, which some, including the city’s Mayor, say echoes the practices of the Ku Klux Klan. ‘[The event] was either profoundly ignorant or was designed to instill fear in our minority populations in a way that hearkens back to the days of the KKK,’ Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer said.” White Supremacist Richard Spencer leads a KKK-style mob of torch-wielding protesters chanting ‘you will not replace us’ in fight to keep a statue of Robert E. Lee in Virginia park (by Timonthyna Duncan for The Daily Mail)

Xenophobia

“A man was caught on video delivering a long anti-Muslim tirade against a family vacationing last week on a Texas beach, repeatedly screaming at them about sharia law, ISIS, and Donald Trump. Fourteen members of the family were on weeklong reunion in South Padre Island when the man, who was identified in a police report obtained by BuzzFeed News as Alexander Downing, of Waterford, Connecticut, approached them.” This Guy Yelled “You’re A Fucking Muslim” And “Donald Trump Will Stop You” At A Family (by Talal Ansari for Buzzfeed)

Accessibility

““I simply began to cry,” Webster told BuzzFeed News. “I am a thick-skinned person, but after a very stressful week this was another reminder that society continues to make my life frustrating and difficult as punishment for a faulty body. “No one should be made to feel that their body makes them unworthy of the treatment afforded to everyone else. I was also just unspeakably angry.”” A Disabled Woman Was Trapped On The Tube Despite Being At An “Accessible” Station (by Rose Troup Buchanan for Buzzfeed)

The Only Review of Ivanka’s Book You Need to Read

“The worst thing is that this is not just a dross self-help book. Anyone can write a dross self-help book. Anyone could write this dross self-help book simply by searching the #wellness tag on Instagram and copy-pasting until they hit sixty-thousand words. The stores are full of such things, but few of them are actively fascist, unless you have a particularly rigorous attitude to the cult of self-help as a means of diverting the anxiety of the atomized individual from social change. No, this is a whole different class of charlatanery—a manifesto for aspirational capitalist self-actualization with the gall to call itself empowering, a prosperity gospel for post-Trump patriarchy chewed up and regurgitated as a set of smirking pull-quotes and suggested hashtags, like a sort of despotic Barney the Dinosaur, except with a duller colour scheme, all slimy socialite salmon and sterile beige.” Our Lady of Complicity (by Laurie Penny for The Baffler)

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