Do as they say, not as they do.

Paul Ryan (Credit: Gage Skidmore)

By Kali Holloway

After every mass shooting, a portion of this country insists the real problem is that there aren’t enough guns. The group that pushes this absurd lie includes Republican politicians, many of whom fear that admitting otherwise would drive away NRA donor funds. There’s been a lot of recent discussion about how GOP legislators do nothing in response to gun massacres, but a 2016 Harvard Business School study proves that’s not quite true. In states with overwhelmingly Republican legislative bodies, after mass shootings, “the number of laws passed to loosen gun restrictions [increases] by 75 percent.” Despite being counterintuitive and demonstrably dangerous, more firepower is the GOP’s go-to solution because “something something don’t tread on me.”

It’s a bad-faith proposition. A party that truly believes guns are the way out of this thing, and that an even more heavily armed populace will ensure American safety, would make different personal choices. In fact, we can gauge GOP disingenuousness on the gun issue just by noting all the places Republican politicians frequent where weapons are banned. Pointing out their hypocrisy has never helped to shame the GOP into decency, but it’s worth a review nonetheless.

Here are five places hypocritical Republicans ban guns in order to ensure their own personal safety.

1. The White House

Along with making Mexico pay billions for a wall it opposed and never taking a golfing vacation, Trump promised on the campaign trail to legislate a future in which guns could legally be brought into every kindergarten classroom and nursery. “My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day,” Trump told supporters in Vermont in 2016. “There’s no more gun-free zones.”

While it’s true no president could unilaterally scrap federal law, it’s also true that Trump’s complicit Republican Congress would probably greenlight any pro-gun horrorshow he could dream up. Yet, in the year since he took office, Trump has not spoken out once — even via his digital bullhorn at Twitter — against the anti-freedom gun ban at the White House. What better way for this president to signify his wholehearted support for gun-based lifestyles than by letting White House visitors from around the world — especially those who live under the tyranny of gun control abroad — bring all the guns they want into the People’s House?

Mad Lib For An Ineffectual GOP Response To The Latest Mass Shooting

Or maybe Trump hasn’t brought up the matter because he doesn’t actually want strangers bringing guns into the White House, seeing as they can and do kill people at the squeeze of a trigger.

2. The Republican National Convention

The quadrennial gathering of this country’s most dedicated Republicans should be a place where GOPers can briefly escape oppressive gun-free “safe spaces” and live on their own gun-riddled terms. Attendees should be permitted — nay, required — to come armed to the teeth. Downtime convention activities should be strictly gun-focused. (Think ball pits, only filled with guns. Cocktail hours, only the drinks are all guns.) At the very end, instead of confetti, the audience should be showered in loose ammo.

But instead of a three-day orgy of gun lust and ammosexuality, the Republican National Convention is a gun-free zone. Guns were banned at the RNC in 2008, 2012 and 2016, and that’s not for lack of trying by those who bothered to petition for bringing guns to the party. For some strange reason, the RNC keeps choosing venues that explicitly ban guns, almost as if it was looking for a convenient excuse. The Secret Service keeps banning guns from the events, almost as if it knows the whole “good guy with a gun” claim is a just a myth. And not a single Republican politician has raised their voice to demand guns be allowed on the convention floor, almost like they’re tacitly admitting to being iffy on the whole “responsible gun owners” thing.

3. Mar-a-Lago

A staffer told ABC News back in 2016 that guns were banned from Trump’s Palm Beach golf property, where the president spends so much time it’s hard to know when he’s doing the actual job of presidenting. That policy appears to still be in place, according to a Politico report from late last year. “Pocket knives, laser pointers, pepper spray, and any other items deemed to be a safety hazard are not permitted on property,” a letter the club sent to members cautioned. “Any items surrendered will not be returned.”

4. The U.S. Capitol Building

Surely, a Congress that has steadfastly refused to pass gun legislation is cool with guns in the Capitol building, if only to make a patriotic point. Why not let the Senate and House galleries double as shooting galleries, since guns are such a national point of pride? When are the gun-loving legislators of Congress, who believe that murdered 6-year-olds are just the price of freedom, going to change the rules so the U.S. Capitol building can become the guntopia it’s meant to be?

The short answer is never. Guns are banned on the Capitol grounds and inside the building itself, which includes the House and Senate galleries. Visitors are also warned against bringing “black jacks, slingshots, sand clubs, sandbags, knuckles, electric stun guns, knives (longer than 3”), martial arts weapons or devices…razors, box cutters, knives, knitting needles, letter openers…mace and pepper spray.”

Why not let the Senate and House galleries double as shooting galleries?

Which all raises the question: what kind of heartless, cruel and immoral people consistently vote against gun control for most Americans’ work lives, but cynically keep guns far away from their own place of business?

5. Republican Town Halls

In early 2017, when Republican legislators realized that angry crowds were showing up in town halls to speak against repeals of the Affordable Care Act, they found two ways to avoid those meetings. The first was to label their own constituents “paid protesters.” The second was to demonize civically engaged voters as violent mobs. It was all for show, of course. In fact, as Talking Points Memo notes, “guns are frequently prohibited at GOP congressional town hall meetings, especially after the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011. Even stalwart conservatives like Rep. Paul Ryan and former Rep. Allen West opted to ban firearms at their town halls.”

Texas Republican Louie Gohmert even went so far as to invoke Giffords as a political prop to get out of being berated by the people he supposedly serves.

“At this time there are groups from the more violent strains of the leftist ideology, some even being paid, who are preying on public town halls to wreak havoc and threaten public safety,” Gohmert claimed in a statement. “The House Sergeant at Arms advised us after former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot at a public appearance, that civilian attendees at Congressional public events stand the most chance of being harmed or killed — just as happened there.”

Giffords, incredibly, had to release a statement encouraging Republicans to do their damn jobs.

“To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage,” Giffords’ message said. “Many of the members of Congress who are refusing to hold town halls and listen to their constituents’ concerns are the very same politicians that have opposed common-sense gun violence prevention policies and have allowed the Washington gun lobby to threaten the safety of law enforcement and everyday citizens in our schools, businesses, places of worship, airports, and movie theaters.”

In an interview later, Giffords stated, “If you don’t have the guts to face your constituents, then you shouldn’t be in the United States Congress.”

And maybe, if you don’t have the guts to deal with the laws you force the rest of us to live under, you for sure shouldn’t be involved in making them.

This story first appeared at AlterNet, and is republished here with permission.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/the-gops-health-care-bill-would-push-more-disabled-people-into-poverty-e2b962f4160c/ Wed, 28 Jun 2017 23:35:34 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=3334 Read more]]>

The GOP’s Health-Care Bill Would Push More Disabled People Into Poverty

The system around disability benefits is already broken — and it could soon get exponentially worse.

Adapted from flickr/Wally Gobetz

Over the last few months, Trump’s Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, has frequently turned Social Security disability insurance into a punching bag. In March, he called it “a very wasteful program.” In May, he declared, “If you’re on disability insurance and you’re not supposed to be, you’re not truly disabled, we need you to go back to work.” A day later, presenting Trump’s budget proposal, he stated he is “a lot less comfortable” with telling taxpayers “look, I need to take this money from you to give to this person over here who really isn’t disabled but is getting a disability benefit.”

Mulvaney’s language surrounding disability insurance, though perhaps particularly sharp, is not unusual. The GOP has long suggested that the system is ruinous and routinely abused by lecherous fraudsters. The problem? Such claims do not hold up to factual scrutiny — statistics show that abuse is, in reality, extremely rare. The disability error rate, which counts both overpayments and underpayments to beneficiaries, is well below 1% of all benefits, as then-Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin testified to Congress in 2012. If anything, in fact, the program is so strict that it makes it too difficult to secure disability insurance in the first place — only 40% of applicants are awarded benefits.

Meanwhile, while Republican leaders crow about a problem that hardly exists, a real issue is often ignored: Disabled people are frequently pushed into poverty, or further into poverty, as a direct result of their efforts to secure financial assistance.

The situation has been dire for a while. And if Trump’s draconian budget is signed, and the Senate’s health-care bill passes, it could get even worse.

Many people are unaware that Social Security disability actually takes two forms: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is granted to disabled people who have worked in the past but are currently unable to do so, while Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is reserved for those who have never worked or only worked a small amount. While SSI is a welfare program, SSDI is insurance — a payroll-tax-funded program the recipient has paid into throughout their adult life.

Award benefits for both programs are meager. For an individual, annual SSI payments top out at about $3,000 less than the federal poverty line. SSDI awards, which are based on the claimant’s previous income rather than on financial need, end up being about $2,000 above the annual poverty line for a one-person household.

Meanwhile, the time between application and approval is, for both programs, prohibitively long: The process can span years, often requiring numerous appeals. And this wait, in turn, can have dire impacts.

Health-Care Activism Is Failing The Disabled Community

Take the case of Courtney, an SSI applicant who shared their experience with me. Since age 11, they have been diagnosed with 13 disorders, the most severe of which are POTS, which causes fainting, lightheadedness, and fatigue, and Myasthenia Gravis (MG), an autoimmune neuromuscular disorder which causes the major muscles to fatigue and stop working. Every five weeks Courtney, now 26, receives treatments to boost immunity and minimize MG symptoms. Treatment and recovery take five days — and without these treatments, Courtney says, they could go into myasthenic crisis, which could cause stop them to stop breathing and halt their heartbeat. Yet even with these treatments, Courtney is unable to meet the physical requirements for available jobs in their area.

Courtney first applied for SSI in February 2016, and has been denied three times. Initially, their disabilities were deemed insufficiently severe. Later Courtney was told that their ability to fill out the appeals paperwork indicated they could work a sedentary job. This kind of justification for denial is not uncommon. Dana Duncan, a Wisconsin attorney who has worked on behalf of disability claimants for 27 years, says that while he doesn’t “want to seem too cynical,” some decision-makers “have gotten jaded, and they’ll put anything down if they want to deny the case.”

Some decision-makers ‘have gotten jaded.’

The success of Social Security claims is further complicated by vocational experts, witnesses who testify for the Social Security Administration (SSA) regarding the availability of jobs that claimants can perform. But as Duncan points out, these experts work with outdated and inaccurate data. Some formerly “unskilled” jobs, for example, now require limited computer knowledge, classifying them as “semi-skilled” — but this change is not reflected in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), the reference text used by vocational experts. Despite this, disability claims are often denied on the basis of vocational expert testimony. (The SSA is in the process of replacing the DOT, which was last updated in 1991, with a new Occupational Information System that will more accurately represent job descriptions and requirements. However, this system will not be complete until 2019.)

The resulting appeals process may further intensify financial difficulties. According to Duncan, “Most of my clients, by the time they get to a point where they realize they’re going to be disabled, they don’t have any money. They’re already missing a lot of work, usually before they ever lose their jobs. They have a huge amount of hospital or medical expenses, because even if they were having coverage, between deductibles and co-pays, they have thousands of dollars a lot of times in medical bills.” So even if these clients are approved, by the time they start receiving benefits they “are so far in debt that they can’t even dig their way out.”

‘Most of my clients, by the time they get to a point where they realize they’re going to be disabled, they don’t have any money.’

The financial burdens of medical care and loss of employment are so significant that some disabled people, particularly those lacking strong personal safety nets, become homeless. Though non-institutionalized disabled people account for only 16% of the U.S. population, over 40% of the country’s homeless is disabled. Duncan has had clients who lose their homes during the appeals process and move “from family member to family member,” live in unheated cabins in the woods, or are forced to stay with their ex-spouses. As a result, not only are applicants stripped of their independence, they can be difficult to locate — which, in turn, affects the success of their claims. In fact, disability and homelessness are so entwined that there is government-funded outreach to help the homeless acquire disability benefits.

Successful applicants typically receive back payments for the time they were unable to work and not receiving benefits. However, debt and interest can accumulate quickly. Simone, a 30-year-old SSI recipient I interviewed over email, waited over two years before receiving benefits. According to Duncan, it is common for applicants to wait three to four years, making Simone’s wait relatively short. Even so, most of Simone’s over $13,000 in “back pay” went toward credit card debt and stopping foreclosure proceedings on her home. By the time she received her benefits, one $1,500 credit card payment had ballooned to $6,000. And although she and her husband only owed about $900 on their home, they ended up paying an additional $6,000 in lawyer’s fees, which, Simone says, would not have happened if they had been able to pay sooner. After quickly depleting thousands in back pay, Simone had only her husband’s income of under $5,000 per year and her monthly SSI payments of $698 to live on.

Simone’s situation has stabilized somewhat. Last year, between her SSI and her husband’s job, her household income exceeded $30,000. This is enough to provide for Simone, her husband, and their young child, but, she says, “We’re still scared.” When determining SSI eligibility and award amounts, the SSA accounts for spousal income and family size, which can result in reduced payments or loss of benefits entirely. If Simone’s husband makes more than $31,000 a year, Simone says, she will lose her SSI, “so we are nervous that right when things look up we could end up stuck again, before I have a chance […] to help the household somehow.”

As for Courtney, their second appeal was denied in September 2016, and they have been waiting on a hearing for nine months. If approved, Courtney says, “I would like to move in with my fiancée and start an actual life.” But they still worry about life on disability, saying that even with benefits, “I have no idea if we can ever get married for real, because I will probably lose my Medicaid if we do and without that I can’t afford to live.” And while Courtney would like to have children one day, they are concerned about the expense. Because SSI award amounts are need-based, Courtney’s benefits will be restricted to less than $400 a month as long as they live with their mother. If they move out and support themselves, they can expect around $730.

‘We are nervous that right when things look up we could end up stuck again.’

Such financial struggles would only worsen under the GOP agenda, especially the proposed budget and the new Senate health bill. The budget would cut $72 billion from Social Security disability programs, further restricting the number of people who can access benefits. It would also slash $616 billion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which would result in loss of insurance for the poor and sick and lead to incomplete documentation of disability and worse health outcomes.

Changes to the Affordable Care Act would only compound these issues. According to a CBO report released on Monday, the Better Care Reconciliation Act — the Senate’s rushed version of a health-care bill — could result in loss of insurance for an additional 22 million people by 2026, raising the total number of uninsured Americans to 49 million. And while the bill does not let insurance companies deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions, it does allow states to alter essential health benefits, meaning that sick people can be forced to settle for worse coverage. These changes would reduce quality of care and increase medical debt — and these gaps in health care would make disability claims even harder to win.

Limited health-care access also increases the number of people who need disability benefits in the first place. Duncan points out that many disability recipients are only sick because “they don’t get the medical care they need.” For example, someone with heart palpitations or high blood pressure might not go to a doctor until they suffer a heart attack. “If they would have been treated for it when it first started, they probably wouldn’t need to be on disability,” he says. “But no one thinks of that.”

As A Disabled Woman, I Am Terrified By A Trump Presidency

This is not to suggest that the current system needs no reform. Currently, an applicant who tries to work while their case is pending is often penalized with denial of benefits. As a result, it can be easier for people to “sit around […] and wait for [their] benefits to start.” Duncan suggests reforms in this area, as well as the option of a “partial disability benefit,” where the recipient is covered under Medicare and can work part-time. These changes could ease recipients’ financial struggles.

Mulvaney has promised that “We’re not going to measure compassion by the amount of money we spend, but by the number of people that we help.” But this reluctance to spend is the problem — with wait times spanning years, and benefits so meager, it is often impossible for disability recipients to rise above the level of survival.

And as for the implied epidemic of abled people exploiting the system? It “doesn’t happen,” Duncan says. Not only is the process of acquiring disability complicated and long, the payout isn’t worth it.

The Trump administration’s agenda for health care and social programs, he adds, “isn’t making America great again. It’s taking away the basics of what we should have as a country.”

“It feels like the government sees my existence as a burden,” Courtney says, “and so does everyone else.”

]]> https://theestablishment.co/there-are-real-paid-protesters-but-theyre-all-right-wingers-2d50d330d7fb/ Sat, 24 Jun 2017 16:46:00 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=3352 Read more]]>

The right has neglected to mention that ‘paid protesters’ are part of the right-wing apparatus.

Adapted from Pixabay

By Kali Holloway

You may have mocked claims about the existence of paid protesters as just another lie from the right. As it turns out, at least on this one issue, they’re actually telling the truth. The problem is, the right neglected to mention those paid protesters are part of the right-wing apparatus.

The story starts last week, when the right wing decided to aim its selective outrage at a free staging of Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” held in New York City’s Central Park. Mike Cernovich, a self-described member of the alt-right who thinks the U.S. should give immigrants IQ tests, put up a YouTube video in which he offered cash to any protesters willing to disrupt the play for pay.

“I’ll give up to 10 people $1,000,” Cernovich says in the footage. “I need you to get up with either a ‘CNN is ISIS’ or ‘Bill Clinton’s a rapist’ or ‘The media is terrorism’ [sign]. And if you’re able to get up and be escorted out by security, then I will give you $1,000.”

In other words, Cernovich was actively and openly looking to recruit paid protesters. You know how conservatives made up that ridiculous myth about George Soros sending checks to liberals who march in protests? This is the real version of that, only sponsored by Cernovich.

The story actually gets richer, so to speak, as it continues. The night after Cernovich’s offer, two protesters went to see “Julius Caesar” in the park. Semi-notorious right-wing media figure Laura Loomer snagged a ticket for a second-row seat that definitely should have gone to someone who actually wanted to see the play. Alt-right provocateur Jack Posobiec, whose greatest hits include pizzagate and the Seth Rich conspiracy lie, also showed up. The two Trumpites told the New Yorker they hadn’t planned to meet — which may or may not be true — and once they spotted each other, they sat apart so as not to arouse suspicion. “Are you here for the Cernovich contest?” Posobiec reportedly texted Loomer, according to the New Yorker. She responded, “Just stay tuned.”

You know how conservatives made up that ridiculous myth about George Soros sending checks to liberals who march in protests? This is the real version of that.

In the middle of the production, Loomer stormed the stage, briefly halting the action and earning a chorus of boos from an audience that just wanted to see some Shakespeare. There’s footage of the whole thing, including Loomer being removed from the stage as she shouts “CNN is ISIS” — the exact phrase Cernovich suggested — over and over. As Loomer was escorted out, Posobiec stood up and began yelling “Nazis” and “Goebbels” at the audience, until he was removed. He also recorded his outburst, possibly because Cernovich wants proof before he’ll pay out.

Loomer continued yelling even once she was put outside the venue, and police finally showed up at some point to arrest her. She was then led away, upright and intact, like a human being who does not also happen to be an unarmed black kid.

It’s important to note that Loomer works for right-wing Canadian media outlet Rebel Media, and until late May, so did Posobiec. The blog Canadaland describes it as a Breitbart-esque site filled with contributors who “have called for a new Crusade to expel Muslims from the ‘Holy Land,” outlined what they “hate about the Jews,” and most recently, said that British Muslims are “enemy combatants,” at least some of whom should be placed into camps.”

Loomer was released hours after her arrest. Rebel Media put up a “Free Laura page” on its website, including a link to a fundraising section for her “legal defense fund.” Loomer herself also tweeted a request to “support [her] legal defense fund.” The link in the message leads to a campaign on WeSearchr, a crowdfunding site that’s like a Go Fund Me for hard-right causes. As of this writing, Loomer’s page has banked more than $12,000. Josh Jordan, who’s written for both Forbes and the conservative National Review, pointed out that Loomer’s page previously noted she had a fundraising goal of $25,000, complete with screengrab. That target number has been erased, but the total intake keeps climbing. And presumably, while the Rebel Media “Free Laura” page doesn’t display tallies, there’ve been contributions via that site as well.

There are a few things that are curious here, that brought out the social media detectives. The first is that Rebel Media creator Ezra Levant made the Free Laura page at 6pm UTC or 2pm Eastern time, a full four hours before Loomer was actually arrested. It’s safe to assume that Levant doesn’t have the power to see into the future, but that he and the team at Rebel hoped she’d get arrested and planned to use the fabricated injustice to raise funds.

There’s also the matter of Loomer’s hefty request for donations. She faces charges of disorderly conduct and criminal trespass in the third degree. The latter is a class B misdemeanor, while the former is merely a violation, meaning it’s even less serious. I spoke to Matthew Galluzzo, a New York City criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. He isn’t representing Loomer, so he can’t speak specifically to her case.

“Most people charged with trespass with no criminal record are unlikely to be convicted of a crime or serve jail time,” he noted, “or have to pay a fine in excess of $120.”

In fact, based on the charges she faces, there’s no outcome that could account for the funds being requested, unless Loomer has a rap sheet as a serial killer that’s been kept hush-hush. So why is Loomer raising so much money? It’s unclear, and no one aside from Loomer and Rebel Media know. However, it is worth noting that Levant recently lost a libel case on appeal, which keeps him on the hook for an $80,000 fine. It’s also true that a company that targeted Breitbart for a boycott has done the same with Rebel Media, which has resulted in at least one major company pulling ads from the site.

If it seemed incongruous that the “new right” — whose members have declared themselves the defenders of free speech and conservationists of Western culture — claimed to be so outraged by the recent staging of a Shakespeare play, this might explain why. And when the right talks about “paid protesters,” just assume they personally know whence they speak.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

Buy Some Swag And Help Build A New Establishment!

Rudy Giuliani: “Hillary, we don’t want your socialized medicine. Take it and stuff it up your… I didn’t say it!” https://t.co/oyjY1zuxa2???@politico

ATTENTION RUDY GIULIANI: NOT EVERYTHING IS A FUCKING JOKE.

ICYMI “America’s Mayor” is one of three remaining Donald Trump surrogates. Everyone actually in elected office or running for elected office, from Speaker Paul Ryan on down, is scampering quickly away so they don’t get any of the shit in the “Trump tapes” on their shoes.

“When you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump said on the tape leaked last week. “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Then, yesterday, in case you didn’t yet feel like you were living in a reality show called “American Democracy on Fire,” Giuliani ratcheted up his support of Trump’s “locker room talk” with some of his own.

“We don’t want your socialized medicine! Take it and stuff it, up, ummb buh,” [trails off]. HUGE cheers from the crowd. “I didn’t say it!!” [hands up] “I didn’t say it; I suggested it, but I didn’t say it!”

While I contend that you can make jokes about anything (seriously, even rape — Dane Cook, who is awful, has a funny rape joke), not everything is a joke. Part of what makes Cook’s joke work is that he’s openly mocking how we have essentially casualized the word “rape” in a way that completely desensitizes us to sexual violence and gaslights victims.

Considering Giuliani’s public divorces (he notified his second wife of their divorce via press conference) and fighting with his ex-wives, it wasn’t necessarily inconceivable (if it ever is) that he was misogynistic enough to utter distasteful things about a female political opponent. And then there was his whole “men, at times, talk like that” shrug defense of Trump’s “locker room” talk tape.

“First of all, I don’t know that he did it to anyone,” Giuliani said on CNN. “This is talk, and gosh almighty, he who hasn’t sinned, throw the first stone here.”

When I accidentally heard the audio from yesterday, I was initially stunned. Like all of the women/femme people in my circle, I am worn down because — SORRY, BRO — words matter.

When “suggesting” that someone(s) shove ANYTHING up anywhere on the first woman candidate for president elicits laugh breaks in a speech, violent language against women has again been normalized. And this normalization actively perpetuates assault.

Studies show that shrugging off statements about sexual assault helps cultivate a sense that this violence is normal and to be expected; as a result, women are more likely to question other survivors, and even to refrain from reporting their own assault. I have questioned my own assaults in part because of this normalization.

Moreover, these statements are damaging because, for so many women, they are triggering, bringing to the surface traumatic memories that have been painfully downplayed as no big deal. As writer Kelly Oxford proved on Twitter, this affects basically everyone, to some degree.

Women: tweet me your first assaults. they aren't just stats. I'll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my "pussy" and smiles at me, I'm 12.

???@kellyoxford

Not even 30 minutes later, she followed up her original tweet by tweeting: “I am currently receiving 2 sex assault stories per second. Anyone denying rape culture, please look at my timeline now.”

Oxford was just asking for people’s first sexual assault. (For the record, I was 8 or 9; Kevin, on the playground as we were lining up after recess, walked up and performed the action Trump bragged about in front of the teacher. No action was taken.) Millions of people have seen it, tens of thousands directly retweeted it, and more than can be accurately counted shared their stories.

For most of us, our first assault was done rather casually, and for many it was brushed off by authority figures. So, listening to a high-level campaign surrogate — an authority figure — smile and laugh while describing a violation similar to what we have experienced is FUCKING TRAUMATIC.

It gets worse.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was on ABC’s Good Morning America Wednesday morning; Politico reports she had this to say about Trump’s dwindling support and surrogate count:

“Well we want the support of anybody who’s going to publicly endorse us. But enough of the pussyfooting around in terms of, you know, do you support us or do you not support us? The fact is that some of these leaders have been wishy-washy.”

I get that “pussyfooting around” is a colloquialism. I’ve heard my mom say it in polite company, so I’m going to assume most people aren’t particularly offended by the phrase on its own.

But for the campaign manager of the Republican party’s presidential candidate to NOT GET THE OPTICS of using anything with “pussy” in it right now — WHILE their most active defender and surrogate is at a rally joking about shoving something up an orifice of the opposing candidate — is the death knell of satire.

This is not just — as has been repeatedly suggested to me on Twitter — me being “oversensitive” or demanding everyone be (GASP, THE HORROR!) “politically correct.” It’s not even just me giving a fuck or two about the psyche of more than 50% of our population.

This matters because words become action when they’re legitimized.

And this is hardly limited to words about sexual assault.

America’s Voice updated their “Trump Hate Map” today with a story from Talking Points Memo: “A Donald Trump supporter was arrested Monday night after allegedly threatening to beat a black woman outside a ShopRite in upstate New York.”

According to the responding officer, 55-year-old Todd Warnken yelled: “Trump is going to win & if you don’t like it I’m going to beat your ass.”

Trump’s encouragement of Islamophobia has also led to such pervasive violence, families are being driven out of our country.

To keep from pulling my hair entirely out, I’m going to rest in the optimistic rhetoric of Rebecca Traister, who wrote Monday that “Trump’s One Public Service Was Exposing the Misogyny of the GOP.”

Great, it’s exposed. The question we’re left with, then, is now what? Other than shoveling Skittles into our face holes, how do we use this moment and all this misogyny exposure?

We know how the far-right patriarchy fuckos are using it:

Trump backers tweet #repealthe19th as polls show he'd win if only men voted https://t.co/K4vd5JClE2

???@latimes

I have to hope we can do better — eventually. But much like overt racism spiked during the administration of the first Black president, I’m anticipating even more of this when we inaugurate a woman in January. If that proves to be true, it’s men that will need to handle themselves and their boys — and do a better job of that than us white folks did for our friends of color the past eight years.

You shouldn’t need to be anyone’s father or brother or son to not want to hear men in positions of power talk about grabbing, shoving, poking, sticking, etc. women against their will. Sexual violence is pervasive and destructive; that should be enough to condemn it. Just as language like that used by Giuliani and Trump can give others permission to speak and act in abusive ways, challenging the words that our friends, family, and co-workers use can work to reverse rape culture.

It’s not enough to ignore your buddy’s distasteful rape joke or not participate in egging him on while he plies the girl at the bar to soften her judgement. If we want the violence to stop, we must actively condemn the words and behavior that write the permission slip.

***

Lead image: flickr/PBS NewsHour

By Alexandra Rosenmann

In two interviews — one from the 2011 documentary Kingdom of Survival, and one from this month with AlterNet writer Aaron Williams — Noam Chomsky shares his views on the current political climate in America and the leading GOP candidate.

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Noam Chomsky has frequently argued that not only do we not have a capitalist system, but no capitalist system has ever survived.

“What we have is a state capitalist system with the state playing a substantial role in American history, in economic development, production and research to keep the private sector viable,” Chomsky said in one of his classic interviews.

Chomsky is not a big fan of modern times. One of his favorite periods of American history wasn’t even in the past century.

“The Industrial Revolution was the period of the free-est press ever in the United States,” Chomsky explained. “There were lots of different newspapers representing different classes and ethnic groups.”

The working-class press was expressing the people’s point of view. It reacted to the wage labor idea that became a major issue of the Republican Party.

“[By participating in] wage labor, you are renting yourself, which is not that different from being a slave except that it will end sometime,” says Chomsky. Self management and institutional control of an organization are perfectly feasible alternatives.

“[The only problem is that they] conflict with the structure of existing power systems] and therefore the educational and cultural system tries to drive them out of your minds and make them seem insane or crazy or unthinkable, but there’s nothing unthinkable about them.”

Watch the entire Chomsky segment from Kingdom of Survival below:

by SLOWBOATFILMS

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Noam Chomsky, 87, is without a doubt the most significant academic figure to cast a highly critical eye on U.S. foreign policies. The 2016 U.S. presidential primaries are in motion and with democratic socialist Bernie Sanders challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, it may be prudent for valued thinkers like Chomsky to turn that eye in on American soil and the inner gears of its political machine.

Aaron Williams: Many people now get their daily news via the news feed on their social media accounts. Unfortunately, these articles are sometimes posted by publications with a particular political leaning and use misleading or misinforming titles that paint their side more favorably. Fortunately, there are many who see past the headline and leave critical feedback.

Noam Chomsky: Furthermore, social media tend to be quite superficial. And they appear to encourage what some young people call “skim reading.”

Williams: How important do you think social media has become these days for making an informed public and how much of an impact do you think it can have on grassroots movements?

Chomsky: They are useful for organizing, but as information sources they do not begin to compare with print media, in my opinion. Nor do TV or radio.

Williams: Bernie Sanders has been quite outspoken about breaking up banks that are “too big to fail.” Rolling Stone recently published an article that speculated on the idea ultimately doing more harm than voters may realize, with corporate bank spinoffs making much more money than they would before a breakup, with some people being driven out of banking to form much less regulated hedge funds. What is your opinion on this? Do you think banks that are “too big” should be broken up?

Chomsky: The consequences should be carefully explored. I haven’t done so.

Williams: What are your opinions on the surprising progress of Donald Trump? Could it be explained by a climate of fear?

Chomsky: Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period. People feel isolated, helpless, victims of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence. It’s interesting to compare the situation in the ’30s, which I’m old enough to remember. Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater. But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.

Williams: With like outspoken socialists Bernie Sanders and UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s current successes, is this a new political age and is this a direct result of austerity?

Chomsky: Sanders, in my opinion, is an honest and decent New Deal Democrat. Corbyn expresses stands of traditional Labour. The fact that they are regarded as “extreme” is a comment on the shift to the right of the whole political spectrum during the neoliberal period.

Williams: Who do you see becoming the next U.S. president?

Chomsky: I can express hopes and fears, but not predictions.

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These articles originally appeared on AlterNet. Interview by Aaron Williams.

Lead Image: flickr/ Tony Webster