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demmiblue

demmiblue's Journal
demmiblue's Journal
March 28, 2017

Joe Biden: The correct word for sex without consent is rape. Period.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/846739492568514560

Joe Biden?Verified account @JoeBiden

The correct word for sex without consent is rape. Period. #ItsOnUs to know the signs and to stop it.


March 28, 2017

Dear Gap (and other retailers): Listen to this girl

Source: WaPo



...

Dear Gap,

My name is Alice Jacob and I am almost 5½ years old. I like cool shirts like Superman and Batman shirts and race car shirts, too. All your girl shirts are pink and princesses and stuff like that. The boys’ shirts are really cool. They have Superman, Batman, rock-and-roll and sports. What about girls who like those things like me, and my friend Olivia?

Can you make some cool girls’ shirts please? Or, can you make a ‘no boys or girls’ section — only a kids’ section?

Thank you,

Alice Jacob


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/03/06/dear-gap-and-other-retailers-listen-to-this-girl/
March 28, 2017

Paul Manafort's Puzzling New York Real Estate Purchases

Source: WNYC

...

Real estate and law enforcement experts say some of these transactions fit a pattern used in money laundering; together, they raise questions about Manafort’s activities in the New York City property market while he also was consulting for business and political leaders in the former Soviet Union.

Between 2006 and 2013, Manafort bought three homes in New York City, paying the full amount each time, so there was no mortgage.

Then, between April 2015 and January 2017 – a time span that included his service with the Trump campaign – Manafort borrowed about $12 million against those three New York City homes: one in Trump Tower, one in Soho, and one in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Manafort’s New York City transactions follow a pattern: Using shell companies, he purchased the homes in all-cash deals, then transferred the properties into his own name for no money and then took out hefty mortgages against them, according to property records.

Read more: http://www.wnyc.org/story/paul-manaforts-puzzling-new-york-real-estate-purchases/

March 28, 2017

Ryan: Don't tie Planned Parenthood to government funding fight

Source: The Hill

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House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that Congress shouldn’t try to defund Planned Parenthood in a measure to fund the government, but rather in a separate health care reform bill.

“We think reconciliation is the tool, because that gets it into law,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday, referring to a legislative process that prevents the Senate from filibustering legislation that doesn’t impact the debt. “Reconciliation is the way to go.”

Funding for the government expires on April 28, and conservative lawmakers are likely to push for long-sought cuts to federal spending in the next bill to keep the government running.

A protracted showdown over whether to fund Planned Parenthood--which receives federal reimbursement for other health services but not abortion--could trigger a partial government shutdown.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/326109-ryan-dont-tie-planned-parenthood-to-government-funding-fight

March 28, 2017

America has never seen a party less caring than 21st-century Republicans

We pay our elected officials to take care of our communities and our planet. Since Trump took office, the GOP has set out only to destroy

Source: The Guardian

...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion of “care” lately. Care can be florid and romantic or bureaucratic and dry; it is maintenance and stewardship and only sometimes love. You can take care of something without personally caring about it, which is precisely what we pay our elected officials to do: take care of our communities and our planet, whether or not you share our priorities and fears and weaknesses and religions and sexual orientations and gender identities and skin colours. We put ourselves and our money in your hands. Take care.

I don’t know that America has ever seen a political party so divested of care. Since Trump took office, Republicans have proposed legislation to destroy unions, the healthcare system, the education system and the Environmental Protection Agency; to defund the reproductive health charity Planned Parenthood and restrict abortion; to stifle public protest and decimate arts funding; to increase the risk of violence against trans people and roll back anti-discrimination laws; and to funnel more and more wealth from the poorest to the richest. Every executive order and piece of GOP legislation is destructive, aimed at dismantling something else, never creating anything new, never in the service of improving the care of the nation.

Contemporary American conservatism is not a political philosophy so much as the roiling negative space around Barack Obama’s legacy. Can you imagine being that insecure? Can you imagine not wanting children to have healthcare because you’re embarrassed a black guy was your boss? It would be sad if it wasn’t so dangerous.

That void at the heart of the party, that loss of any tether to humanity, is breeding anxiety on both sides of the political divide. According to the Atlantic, Florida Republican Tom Rooney recently turned on his cohort with surprising lucidity: “I’ve been in this job eight years and I’m racking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that’s been something positive, that’s been something other than stopping something else from happening. We need to start having victories as a party. And if we can’t, then it’s hard to justify why we should be back here.”

Vindictive obstructionism, it seems, is not particularly nourishing for the soul.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/america-party-less-caring-21-century-republicans-gop?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
March 27, 2017

Ivanka Trump Has a New Book. The Question Is Who Gets the Money

Source: Bloomberg

Looks like Ivanka Trump will have a hot new business book on her hands. Trouble is, that prospect is causing a business hiccup for America’s influential first daughter.

With “Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success” set to hit U.S. shelves on May 2, Trump is still trying to navigate how the book will fit into her various moneymaking enterprises.

Given that her father is now president, Trump has pledged to donate all of the proceeds to charity. But with pre-publication orders coming in, she has yet to say where the money will go, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Moreover, because Trump has vowed to separate herself from her namesake women’s fashion line, the book may not do as much to help promote the business she used to run from New York’s Trump Tower.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-27/ivanka-trump-has-a-new-book-the-question-is-who-gets-the-money?utm_content=politics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics

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