This has been on my mind since one week ago, when Dr. Ford identified herself as the victim of alleged sexual assault by the nominee to the vacant seat on the Supreme Court of the United States.
I can barely being to imagine how she’s feeling in view of the event that happened 36 years ago, her identifying herself and the subsequent situation she has endured since her identity became known.
I don’t want to write about the actions of the old curmudgeons, white men who sit on the Judiciary Committee, two of whom where in this same place in history during the Anita Hill hearings. I only want to mention that we, the people, are not blind to the reasons for your actions.
Your legacy, if any, will forever be tainted and if that man sits on SCOTUS, his tenure will be forever tainted. The ‘highest court in the land’ will have two members who has been accused of sexual misconduct.
“Dear Professor Ford” Video Shows Activists and Celebrities Backing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford
In a video circulating Twitter shared with the hashtag #WeBelieveYou, dozens of women showed support for Palo Alto professor Christine Blasey Ford.
The video, titled #DearProfessorFord, shows celebrities, attorneys, and activists lauding Ford for speaking up about her allegation against SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, who has categorically denied the allegation, has been called on by the Senate Judiciary Committee to appear at a hearing on Monday, as has Ford.
“Dear Professor Ford,” the women in the video say, “we know how difficult it is to stand up to powerful people.
We want to thank you for publicly sharing your story of sexual violence.
As members of the Senate determine whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should serve as a Supreme Court Justice, this context is critical.”
The different figures in the video then refer to Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh, saying that “the behavior you described was wrong and runs directly counter to upholding the law and promoting justice.”
The Pussyhat Project launched November 23, 2016 in anticipation and commemoration of the Women’s March on Washington.
Pussyhat Project formed with two aims:
Provide the people of the Women’s March on Washington a means to make a unique collective visual statement (a sea of pink hats) which will help activists be better heard and
Provide people who cannot physically march on the National Mall a way to represent themselves and support women’s rights by creating and gifting pussyhats.
Underlying this project is the idea that in the process of making pussyhats, participants would be connecting with each other and laying the groundwork for future political activism. Pussyhat Project is about creating a platform for people to support women’s rights and each other.
Why is “pussy” in the name Pussyhat?
We love the clever wordplay of “pussyhat” and “pussycat,” buy yes, “pussy” is also a derogatory term for female genitalia. We chose this loaded word for our project because we want to reclaim the term as a means of empowerment.
In this day and age, if we have pussies we are assigned the gender of “woman.”
Women, whether transgender or cisgender, are mistreated in this society. In order to get fair treatment, the answer is not to deny our femaleness and femininity, the answer is to demand fair treatment. A woman’s body is her own. We are honoring this truth and standing up for our rights.
Microsoft’s 2016 holiday advertisement celebrates the accomplishments of ordinary people who worked hard to make 2016 a better year for everyone.
The global tech company worked with the ad agency McCann to bring eight changemakers into the same room to create artwork that reflects their “vision of hope, peace and beauty.”
The “Art of Harmony” ad featured people like Zianna Oliphant, a young girl who pleaded for justice at the Charlotte City Council after the police shooting of Keith Scott in North Carolina, Christopher Catrambone, an entrepreneur who founded the Migrant Offshore Aid Station to help rescue migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, and Jazz Jennings, a transgender activist.
“This year has been challenging for many and much of what we hear in the news can be negative. Microsoft wanted to lift people up and remind them that ordinary people can make a difference.
The message focuses on the spirit of the holidays, people coming together and celebrating what is good and right with the world – what unites us, instead of what divides us.”
Microsoft said.
The ad will run throughout the holiday season on television and online, in markets throughout the world.
“We wanted to lift people up and remind them that ordinary people can make a difference. Our message focuses on the spirit of the holidays, people coming together and celebrating what is good and right with the world – what unites us, instead of what divides us.”
In February 1955, the Los Angeles Police Department, through the pages of the internally produced BEAT magazine, conducted a contest for a motto for the police academy.
The conditions of the contest stated that: “The motto should be one that in a few words would express some or all the ideals to which the Los Angeles police service is dedicated. It is possible that the winning motto might someday be adopted as the official motto of the Department.”
“To Protect and to Serve“, the motto of the Los Angeles Police Department since 1955, has been adopted by many other police forces.
~Wikipedia~
‘All-Out War’ in North Dakota as Police Arrest 141 Water Protectors Activists vow to keep up resistance to Dakota Access Pipeline
Police arrested 141 people in North Dakota on Thursday, November 3, moving in with pepper spray and armored tanks on Native American water protectors and other activists who for months have waged resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
Tara Houska, an Ojibwe attorney and director of the rights group Honor the Earth, told Democracy Now! on Friday, November 4, that the raid was an act of “all-out war … waged on Indigenous protectors.”
Houska, who was reportedly shot in the face with a beanbag round during the onslaught, also said in a separate statement released by a coalition of Indigenous groups on Friday,
“Yesterday was a shameful moment in American history.
Law enforcement is supposed to serve and protect the people, not corporate interests. Police enacted violence on people who were armed only with prayer.”
This week, an impassioned fight over a 1,170-mile oil pipeline moved from the prairies of North Dakota to a federal courtroom in Washington. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation lies just south of the pipeline’s charted path across ranches and under the Missouri River, has asked a judge to halt construction.
The American Indian tribe argues that a leak or spill could be ruinous
It may take until Sept. 9 for a federal judge to decide whether to allow the Dakota Access pipeline to move ahead, or grant an injunction that would press the pause button on construction.
What is happening in North Dakota?
American Indians have been gathering since April outside Cannon Ball, a town in south central North Dakota near the South Dakota border, to protest the Dakota Access pipeline as construction commences. Starting with members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the protest has since grown to several hundred people — estimates vary — most of them from tribes across the country.
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Google Images
Marty Two Bulls
I do not own these images.
No intention of taking credit.
If anyone knows the owner of any, please advise and it will be corrected immediately.
What does each side want?
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a $3.7 billion project that would carry 470,000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields of western North Dakota to Illinois, where it would be linked with other pipelines. Energy Transfer says the pipeline will pump millions of dollars into local economies and create 8,000 to 12,000 construction jobs — though far fewer permanent jobs to maintain and monitor the pipeline.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe see the pipeline as a major environmental and cultural threat. They say its route traverses ancestral lands — which are not part of the reservation — where their forebears hunted, fished and were buried.
They say historical and cultural reviews of the land where the pipeline will be buried were inadequate. They also worry about catastrophic environmental damage if the pipeline were to break near where it crosses under the Missouri River.
2,500 Native Americans Successfully Block Oil Pipeline Construction
State of Emergency Declared
“This pipeline’s construction is being carried out without the Tribe’s free, prior and informed consent in direct contradiction to their clearly expressed wishes.”
Last week, a few dozen Native Americans showed up to protest the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile-long pipeline that would cross right through their sacred land. As word spread, however, the few dozen turned into more than 2,500 native Americans. Because of the large turnout, a brief victory ensued for the people after the developers of the four-state oil pipeline agreed to halt construction until after a federal hearing in the coming week.
In spite of both the company building the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, and the federal government applying pressure, the Native Americans from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have remained resilient.
On Tuesday, August 23, the government placed a restraining order on the protesters prohibiting them “from interfering with its (Energy Transfer Partners’) right to construct the Dakota Access Pipeline (the “Pipeline”) in accordance with all local, state, and federal approvals it has obtained.”
However, the protestors remained steadfast — and peaceful.
“As we have said from the beginning, demonstrations regarding the Dakota Access pipeline must be peaceful,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II said in a statement to reporters on August 17.
“There is no place for threats, violence or criminal activity. That is simply not our way. So, the Tribe will do all it can to see that participants comply with the law and maintain the peace.
That was our position before the injunction, and that is our position now.”
“The pipeline presents a threat to our lands, our sacred sites and our waters, and the people who will be affected must be heard,” Archambault told reporters. “Peaceful demonstration can be very powerful and effective.
But the power of peaceful demonstration is only diminished by those who would turn to violence or illegality. We cannot let that happen. The Tribe is committed to doing all it can to make sure that the demonstrations are conducted in the right way.”
In spite of the threat to the sacred land and the unscrupulous action of the state in taking that land on behalf of big oil, government officials maintain their justification.
“As it appears in … full read/full credit”
thefreethoughtproject.com
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Google Images
Chameleon Horse Art and Design
I do not own these images.
No intention of taking credit.
If anyone knows the owner of any, please advise and it will be corrected immediately.
Pope Francis refused repeated requests to meet with LGBT Catholics but made time for a secret, closed-door meeting with the anti-gay Kentucky clerk who is not Catholic.
I have shared several posts related to Kim Davis and her actions in Kentucky.
She hasn’t been a favorite of mine at all.
I’m a proud member of the LGBT community and married my partner of almost 40 years on January 6, 2015, the day after it became legal in the state of Florida.
Both of us are very grateful that our county clerk did her job and was very nice and pleasant about it.
I know from personal experience how her actions have made the people of her county feel.
Ms. Davis has been seeking the spotlight on the back of her religious beliefs.
She has attained notoriety through the political hacks who have gravitated to her for their own political weak gains.
It seems to me that she’s being used and she’s allowed it because she will also benefit from this in the name of “god’s authority”.
I’ve mentioned before that I was raised in the Catholic Church. My parents were very active in our church.
I was baptized when I was 6 days old.
I went to confession and had my first communion.
I went to Catholic school and college from kindergarten through high school.
I completed my college degree at a Catholic university.
Why do I mention all of this?
Because I know the significance in the Pope’s existence and his authority. I’m well aware of his “infallibility’.
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error “When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.”
Wikipedia
The fact that I felt this pope to be genuine, tolerant and all encompassing has been “destroyed”, in my humble opinion, because of this meeting and the support that he seems to have given to someone who has behaved in a criminal manner.
She’s refusing to do her job.
I’m not anyone fit to judge anyone but her past marriages and personal actions fall quite short from the behavior of a person of faith and religious beliefs.
I found an article in The Advocate which explains quite clearly why this secret meeting may “throw a wrench” in the major advances that have recently taken place in this country.
Again, I say, there’s no place for me in the Catholic church at all.
There’s no place for anyone on the LGBT community in the Catholic Church.
I’ve known it for a long time.
Now, it’s been confirmed, assured, accepted and internalized.
It’s OK.
This will be my last post on Ms. Kim Davis and Pope Francis.
Sorry, Mr. Pope, you did wrong here.
In a short action, you undid all the good that your visit generated …. in my book.
Activists who represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Catholics tell The Advocate they are concerned about now-confirmed reports of a meeting between Pope Francis and anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, fearing that such a meeting could set back what little support there is for the disenfranchised faithful.
“The news that Pope Francis met with Kim Davis while failing to respond to repeated requests for dialogue with LGBT Catholics and their families will be deeply disappointing to many Catholics, gay, trans, and straight alike,” says Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, in an email to The Advocate. “It put the weight of the Vatican behind the US Catholic bishops’ claims of victimization, and supports those who want to make it more difficult for same-sex couples to exercise their civil right to marriage.”
According to the Liberty Counsel‘s release, Francis met with Davis and her husband, Joe, Thursday at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. The pope told Davis, “Thank you for your courage” and “stay strong,” and asked her to pray for him, and she in turn asked him to pray for her. He also presented the couple with rosary beads he had personally blessed.
The pope said little about marriage equality during his visit, but as New Ways Ministry‘s DeBernado mentioned, on the papal flight back to Rome Monday he said there is a “human right” to “conscientious objection,” even by government officials, when duties conflict with their religious beliefs.
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Google Images
“Though LGBT and ally Catholics have welcomed Pope Francis’ affirming remarks, many, including me, have also remarked that he sometimes talks out of both sides of his mouth,” DeBernardo wrote in his email. “Moreover, while he is LGBT-positive in general ways, his remarks on specific moral and political issues are often at odds with his welcoming stance. The time for vagueness, ambiguity, and secret meetings is over. Pope Francis needs to state clearly where he stands in regard to the inclusion of LGBT people in the church and society.”
“I fear that this meeting and claims that the Pope told Ms. Davis to ‘stand strong’ will embolden the many US bishops and others who continue to try to turn back support for LGBT people,” wrote Duddy-Burke of DignityUSA. “It will make even more of us feel like the Pope’s message of mercy and love was not meant for LGBT people and families. It points again to the deep divide between Catholics who affirm and support their LGBT family members and friends, and the hierarchy, which is tragically out of touch.”
During Pope Francis’s U.S. visit, he privately met with Rowan County clerk Kim Davis. During his visit to America, he took a strong stance against issues like arms sales, global warming and the death penalty, but avoided making a direct statement on same-sex marriage. Some see his “secret” meeting with Davis as a sign of his support for her cause.
Nosey the Tortured Elephant Still Forced to Give Rides and Perform
An elephant named Nosey has been abused and neglected for years by Hugo “Tommy” Liebel, who is so heartless he may just be impersonating a human being.
Nosey is in her 30’s and has been tortured for a long time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) even filed a formal complaint against her owner. Liebel faces close to three dozen charges of violating the Animal Welfare Act, most of which are about the luckless Nosey.
Activists made a big difference just by spreading information that Liebel would prefer to keep quiet. Liebel is trying to keep things so quiet that he renamed Nosey to help cover up his history of cruelty. He now calls her Tiny. Meanwhile, the internet strikes back: Nosey has her own Facebook page with information about upcoming performances and how to protest the companies that pay Liebel to exploit her.
In Defense of Animals (IDA) has launched a fresh campaign to persuade the USDA to get serious and retire Nosey to a sanctuary where Liebel can’t touch her. IDA reports that an eyewitness heard Liebel say he had no intention of changing his ways to comply with the Animal Welfare Act and the USDA’s order. The organization says that Nosey has spent hours locked in a trailer in over-90-degree heat, and that she never has the opportunity to walk unless a customer is riding her — otherwise she is locked up.
~~August 14, 2014~~
UPDATE: Even though it seems clear that an elephant named Nosey is in pain and struggling to walk, circus owner Hugo Liebel continues to haul her around the country and force her to give rides. The latest video evidence shows that she has been consistently lame with limited mobility for weeks. A veterinarian who reviewed recorded footage and observed Nosey in person confirmed that she is undoubtedly suffering from ongoing pain.
This is not an elephant who should be performing tricks in a circus; she should be on bed rest with a strict regimen of pampering and medical care.
“Nosey undoubtedly suffers from advanced arthritis and degenerative joint disease, resulting in ongoing pain, and most likely permanently impaired limb function.”
Nosey, an elephant who is used for rides and forced to perform tricks by notorious animal exhibitor Hugo Liebel, has been hobbling around in pain week after week. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has failed to take Nosey off the road, even after hearing from a board-certified veterinarian and elephant expert who observed her and concluded that she “undoubtedly suffers from advanced arthritis and degenerative joint disease, resulting in ongoing pain, and most likely permanently impaired limb function.”
Nosey needs you now. The USDA has agreed to meet with PETA representatives on September 29, and we’re depending on you to make it clear to the agency prior to our meeting that the public demands that it revoke Liebel’s license and confiscate Nosey: http://www.peta.org/action/action-ale…
Dr. Philip Ensley told the FWC:
“This is the worst, most prolonged, documented example of an uncorrected case of suffering and abuse in an elephant I have ever reviewed.”
It Is What It Is 