Testing: May 2019

Friday, 31 May 2019

National inquiry calls murders and disappearances of Indigenous women a 'Canadian genocide'

http://bit.ly/2W7N2RH

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 02:01PM by N3koChan http://bit.ly/2ELUyvL

Jehovah's Witness Elder Arrested on Four Counts of Child Abuse, Criminal Trial Set

http://bit.ly/2JPDEk3

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 12:08PM by paulfromatlanta http://bit.ly/2EKmQHe

A Florida woman is suing a technical college after she was suspended indefinitely when a photo of her posing with a hand gun at a shooting range on social media was reported to school leaders.

https://fxn.ws/2JRumUE

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 09:32AM by bedfordguyinbedford http://bit.ly/2MkP6pX

Florida man accidentally shoots, kills woman during foreplay

http://bit.ly/2Wvv3ZZ

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 05:31AM by hippiedawg http://bit.ly/2KhRpYi

Colorado Governor Signs Gay Conversion Therapy Ban

https://nbcnews.to/2Knlfui

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 08:13AM by Creasy007 http://bit.ly/2wBUieh

Facebook ordered by U.S. judge to turn over data privacy records

https://reut.rs/311fNTM

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 06:13AM by drkgodess http://bit.ly/2W4u8LQ

Virginia Beach police say multiple people hurt in shooting

http://bit.ly/2KnlfdM

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 08:15AM by yupyup98765 http://bit.ly/2wtSeoV

Tiananmen Square protests: crackdown intensifies as 30th anniversary nears

http://bit.ly/2JPjVB6

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 02:27AM by RaverChild69 http://bit.ly/2MiEd8d

Missouri's last abortion clinic to stay open until at least Tuesday in Planned Parenthood case

https://nbcnews.to/2W0rSFb

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 05:15AM by corginamedzelda http://bit.ly/30ZDv2Y

City hall allows baby Donald Trump blimp to fly over London during the president’s state visit

http://bit.ly/2Kfzcus

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 05:13AM by NitrousHD http://bit.ly/2WsyxMT

Morocco suspect admits killing Scandinavian hiker

https://bbc.in/2WAzJxx

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 01:54AM by Drew_Ferran http://bit.ly/2wsZktE

Los Angeles County sues Bayer's Monsanto over PCB contamination

https://reut.rs/2WgqmDP

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 01:34AM by plato_thyself http://bit.ly/2IdK8pG

Russia Deployed Its Trolls to Cover Up the Murder of 298 People on MH17

http://bit.ly/2MukKkO

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 02:41AM by ovirt001 http://bit.ly/2JNmO5r

Islamic Republic of Mauritania : Third Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Islamic Republic of Mauritania

Islamic Republic of Mauritania : Third Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Islamic Republic of Mauritania
Published May 31, 2019 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Zimbabwe : Staff-Monitored Program-Press Release and Staff Report

Zimbabwe : Staff-Monitored Program-Press Release and Staff Report
Published May 30, 2019 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

North Korea Executed and Purged Top Nuclear Negotiators, South Korean Report Says

https://nyti.ms/2JPDeub

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 12:54AM by classy_barbarian http://bit.ly/2XgaQUY

Dutch Man, Captive for 7 Years, Dies as Philippines Troops Try to Free Him

https://nyti.ms/2MuN2fo

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 09:14PM by Hanginon http://bit.ly/2Xhrp2X

Nearly a quarter-million rape kits are estimated to be untested throughout the US

http://bit.ly/2HLxWxn

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 04:36PM by thus_spake_7ucky http://bit.ly/2MkXciz

New marine protected areas to create 'blue belt' twice England's size

http://bit.ly/2KeOEa5

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 09:25PM by Fosse22 http://bit.ly/2ELjLqc

Louisiana's Democratic governor signs abortion ban into law

https://nbcnews.to/2JLHj2B

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 10:26PM by Perfect_Gas http://bit.ly/2Mk25II

Mark Zuckerberg's personal security chief accused of sexual misconduct, racist and homophobic comments

https://nbcnews.to/2EVO0er?

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 09:26PM by todayilearned83 http://bit.ly/2XhrxQ3

Former Hawaii cop avoids jail in sexual assault of a child over a four year period, beginning when she was 5.

http://bit.ly/2HQiuQV

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 06:33PM by phogna_bologna http://bit.ly/2MkbjV2

I’ve Done a Lot of Forgetting

Jordan Michael Smith | Longreads | May 2019 | 10 minutes (2,744 words)

If someone spits bigotry at you while you’re a kid, you’re unlikely to forget it. You’ll remember it not because it’s traumatic, though it can be. You’ll remember it not even because it’s degrading and excruciating, though it is certainly those things, too. No, you’ll remember it because it instills in you an understanding that people are capable of motiveless evil. That humans can be moved to hate because they are hateful. You aren’t given a reason for why people hate you, because they don’t need a reason. You’re you, through no fault of your own, even if you want desperately to be anyone else. And that’s enough.

I am a Canadian. I was born in Markham, which is a small city about 30 kilometers northeast of Toronto. That distance meant a great deal. Markham was a large town of middle- and working-class families when my newlywed parents moved there, in the late 1970s, with a population that hovered around 60,000. It was pretty mixed demographically, I recall, though containing a white majority. My older sister and I were the only Jews in our elementary school, except for one other family who arrived after we did and seemed not to attract much ire; I imagined it was because they were beautiful and popular (we were neither).

We were one of the minority of Canadian Jewish families living outside Toronto or Montreal. More than 71% of all Canadian Jews reside in these two cities, according to Allan Levine’s serviceable but unexceptional new book on the history of Jewish Canada, Seeking the Fabled City. Levine describes a familiar story of an immigrant group gradually gaining acceptance (and some power) in a once-largely white Christian country. For the first half of the 20th century, Jews in Canada were arguably detested to a greater degree than in America. By the 21st century, Canadian Jews felt as safe as Jews anywhere felt safe. Levine quotes a Toronto rabbi as saying, “Living in Toronto, my children don’t know that Jews are a minority.”

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I always knew. I knew it when my grade five teacher encouraged me to sing along with the Christmas Carols, mouthing the words about how greatly I loved Christ, the Lord. I wrote an essay about how I hated Christmas because I felt left out — but when the teacher, annoyed, asked me if I actually felt that way, I lacked the courage to affirm that I did.

That was what might be called casual antisemitism, deniable to its practitioners because of its thoughtlessness. It can be distinguished from other varieties of antisemitism, which are less casual and more menacing. Such as the kid — the most popular in my grade, who I badly wanted as a friend — who told me that I looked Jewish because I had a big nose. Such as the kid who used permanent marker to brand the word ‘JEW’ on my sister’s knapsack in giant black lettering. Such as the kid who teased my sister for being Jewish so intensely that my family left Markham when I was in grade eight.

I’d like to look back satisfied at having reacted to these incidents with righteous anger. In the School Ties version of my life, I confront every single kid who hissed antisemitism at me, beating up the boys and browbeating the girls. Maybe I confront their parents — in the pre-internet era, they likely learned their precocious bigotry at home — and beat them up, too. My grandfather beat up his antisemitic childhood tormentor, my father used to tell me proudly. In high school, one of my friends attacked a kid who called him a dirty Jew when they were playing hockey, and my Dad always congratulated my friend, for years after.

But what I remember feeling on those occasions in Markham was not anger but fear. That emotion infused a few crucial years in my adolescence, and it’s one that singularly hinders heroism. Fear cripples action and encourages paralysis. So I reacted to jokes and slurs by laughing along — I actually once brought a yarmulke to class and paraded it around on my head to the amusement of my social betters, like a dancing Russian bear — or by pretending I didn’t mind while I panicked internally.

One of the awful things about oppression is that sometimes you can’t bring yourself to hate your oppressors. You want them to like you too badly.

Experiencing bigotry can instill a morbid curiosity about the perspective of one’s oppressors. At some point, in grade six or seven, I started wondering why my school chums despised my Jewishness. Or, perhaps it wasn’t that intentional; maybe I simply became enthralled with the Holocaust at the same time I faced antisemitism at school.

I fixated on the swastika, the symmetrical right angles hypnotizing me. I drew them on notebooks and spots where my parents wouldn’t see. In a remarkable feat for a 13-year-old, I read William L. Shirer’s mammoth The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, as well as a book on Auschwitz and a biography of Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor. I didn’t feel strong emotions reading about the Holocaust, no eruptions of horror or sadness. It was just fascinating to me, the way an unfamiliar animal can seem fascinating. Skinheads, the frightening antisemitic menace at the time, were attractively dangerous. I remember thinking that I’d be a neo-Nazi if I could. They were tough and feared, and I was weak and scared.

Something else was happening to me that became apparent only later on. In his excellent new book on the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism, A Specter Haunting Europe, Paul Hanebrink writes about how the Holocaust became the primary moral tale for the contemporary Western world. The unique nature of genocide “made the Holocaust a paradigmatic case of evil, and charged Holocaust memory with implications for the teaching of toleration in a modern multicultural and liberal society,” writes Hanebrink, a historian at Rutgers University. The Holocaust wasn’t just something else to learn about it. It offered clear, imperishable moral lessons that could sustain me. I had evidence, if I needed it, that my Jewishness was innocent, and my persecutors were guilty of … something. And that those distinctions mattered.

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The problem was that I lacked internal strength. I had convictions, but they gave me no courage. Even if I was convinced I was undeserving of discriminatory treatment, I was too unsure of the other parts of me to act. And so I didn’t. Not when I sat during recess against the brick walls of the school and two boys turned the corner to toss pennies at me. Not when two other boys directed Hitler salutes at me. Not when one of those kids drew a swastika on his pencil box and the principal happened to see it and ineffectually told him to erase it and walked off. Not even then.

I suppose I did have one conviction — I wanted to be popular. Popular kids seemed to have more fun and get more respect. And so, even while I burned at the Jew-hatred thrown my way, I wanted to be friends with the flamethrowers. The next few years I invested heavily in ingratiating myself with the same kids who heaved pennies and Hitler salutes at me. One of the awful things about oppression is that sometimes you can’t bring yourself to hate your oppressors. You want them to like you too badly.

Hanebrink’s book gestures at this without quite making the connection. A Specter Haunting Europe is about the once-widespread theory that Jews were imposing communism on Europeans as a way to destroy the continent. In our era, conspiracies about Jews normally involve them trying to extinguish the white race, using Zionism to poison humankind, or just running the financial system to their own benefit.

But Hanebrink recalls a time — beginning at the end of World War I, culminating in the Holocaust and surviving into the 1980s — when the primary threat from the Jews was thought to be communist. “Over the course of the twentieth century, the belief that communism was created by a Jewish conspiracy and that Jews were therefore to blame for the crimes committed by communist regimes became a core element of counterrevolutionary, antidemocratic, and racist ideologies in many different countries,” he writes. That belief was crucial to Hitler’s worldview, and to some postwar conservative anti-communists, as well.

Several factors combined to smother the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism. The Holocaust’s penetration into mass consciousness offered lessons about where conspiracy theories could ultimately lead. The rise of human rights as an ethical system for understanding the world gained popular appeal. And the demise of the Soviet Union meant the danger posed by communism was pretty obsolete anyway.

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But conspiracies about shadowy communities didn’t disappear alongside the U.S.S.R. Instead, Hanebrink writes persuasively, a fear of political Islam and terrorism assumed the position in the Western imagination once held by Judeo-Bolshevism. “The figure of the Jewish Bolshevik was imagined as a cunning border crosser who brought a dangerous and foreign ideology to a disloyal and discontented minority,” he writes. Jews then, like Muslims today, were seen as hostile to European traditions, preying on innocent whites. When Donald Trump and Ted Cruz advocate patrolling Muslim-majority neighborhoods in the United States to monitor foreigners, or when states introduce a ban on the implementation of “sharia law”, they are repeating lines read by political actors a century earlier who feared Jewish communists.

Hanebrink situates Islamo-panic in the 21st century. Certainly the 9/11 terrorist attacks inaugurated an era of unprecedented mass hysteria about the threat posed by Muslims. But in the United States, that hysteria actually dates to 1979, when Iranian students captured American diplomats and staffers at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held them hostage. That event, coupled with the Ayatollah Khomeini’s verbal assaults on America, inspired hostility toward Muslims that has never abated. As early as 1981, the Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said observed that, “In many instances ‘Islam’ has licensed not only patent inaccuracy but also expressions of unrestrained ethnocentrism, cultural and even racial hatred, deep yet paradoxically free-floating hostility.” The rise of political Islam in Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Algeria and elsewhere in the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s provided further impetus for the fears of Americans and Europeans, as did increased immigration to Western countries by people from the Global South.

It was strategic forgetfulness, acting like I remembered less than I did.

A Specter Haunting Europe notes how Jews morphed from being seen as opposed to Christian civilization to being part of it — to being the bulwark of “Judeo-Christian civilization.” A term regularly invoked primarily but not exclusively among conservatives, “Judeo-Christian” meant in the sense of a shared moral or spiritual sensibility is a fairly recent construct. (The earliest known uses of the term were, utterly predictably, antisemitic.) Instead of invoking Jews as The Other, “Judeo-Christian” integrates them into a White West besieged by alien forces. But it still maintains the paranoid mindset in opposition to foreigners, Muslims, atheists, gay people or feminists. The players are different, but the game is the same. (The sharp-witted gay atheist Jewish former Congressman Barney Frank once memorably quipped, “I’ve never met a Judeo-Christian. What do they look like? What kind of card do you send them in December?”)

The ethos of “Judeo-Christianity” is not something strictly imposed on the Jewish community by outsiders; some Jews participate in the creation of the narrative of the Muslim takeover. In the United States, scholar-activists like Daniel Pipes have been instrumental in spreading fear about Muslims, as have Republican magnates-cum-donors like Sheldon Adelson, activists such as David Horowitz, organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and politicians like Joe Lieberman. And Israel has been at the forefront of anti-Islam activism for decades. It is telling that, in Seeking the Fabled City, Allan Levine repeatedly and favorably quotes the Canadian Jewish columnist Barbara Kay, who wrote in the immediate aftermath of the Toronto van attack that it was normal, and in fact commendable, to hope that a Muslim was the perpetrator, because when a Muslim attacks people it is “part of a pattern” that is familiar and legible, but when anyone else does it, it’s just “a random act over which we hadn’t a scintilla of control.” She wrote this even while acknowledging early (and accurate) reports that “sexual grievances” had motivated the killer, who was later reported to be an “incel” inspired by a previous mass murderer who targeted women. That kind of “sexual grievance” is just the product of mental illness, Kay asserted at the time — the work of someone with “addled perceptions”; only if a Muslim had perpetrated the attack would it have been the result of “radicalization” because “jihadists are not insane.” Kay also persistently inflates the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalism and its attendant symbols, like women’s face covering, portraying a fringe practice that should be easily tolerated in a democracy as some kind of existential threat to the body politic. But Levine cites her as “bright and insightful … possess[ing] a sharp and witty sense of humour … she continues to write about the important issues that matter to her with award-winning and always readable columns, while also being the best grandmother she can be.” Segments of the Canadian Jewish community are as hostile to Muslims as their American counterparts are, and Levine thinks they are just good bubbes.

These Jews are part of a community that was — and still is — the target of conspiracy theories alleging their nefariousness. Now they are indulging in their own parallel prejudices. This fact says nothing about Jews or Judaism. But it says something about human beings. About the ease with which victims become victimizers, and the oppressed become oppressors. About my desire to be among my tormentors rather than their mark.

That ambition actually led me to befriend the guys — and they were all guys — who had leveled slurs and coins at me. In grade eight, my final year in Markham, I made a point of ingratiating myself with them. It wasn’t that I forgave them. More that I pretended to forget what they had said and done. It was strategic forgetfulness, acting like I remembered less than I did. It was more convenient that way, for them and me. We all became pals, watching The X-Files, smoking cigarettes and chasing girls together. I never expressed discomfort with their antisemitism, let alone disapproval.

But geography, like time, can change an adolescent’s thinking. When my family emigrated to the predominantly Jewish suburb of Thornhill, it was just a 25-minute drive from Markham but seemed a world apart. After being one of two Jewish families in town, I became one of the few Jews to have spent time in a non-Jewish neighborhood. My status made me more aware of my Judaism, not less. Here it was cool to be Jewish and un-cool to be anything else. Slurs about Jews were out. Jokes about goys were in. My ethnic pride ballooned, and my confidence likewise did as I aged. But for years I continued to have nightmares about my former friends, the only recurring nightmares I’ve ever had.

And yet, with about 25 years’ hindsight since all this went down, what’s striking is how little all of it has affected me. At least consciously, I never thought much about the pennies and the Hitler salutes. Nightmares aside, I never agonized over facing antisemitism, or even got angry about it. I simply filed it away as something else that happened in my childhood, alongside the time someone stole a porn magazine I’d hidden in a tree and the night my friend and I stayed up late to watch as many Friday the 13th installments as we could. I have this weird ability to analyze the events clinically, devoid of emotion, let alone trauma. If I wasn’t over-sensitive about endless other things in my life, I’d be worried about this detachment.

While thinking about writing this piece, I remembered something I hadn’t thought about in decades. When I was in grade two or three, my friend and I leveled a slur at a kid of South Asian descent. I said something terrible to him, using a word whose meaning I didn’t even know — my friend had used the term, and I joined in, wanting as always to be part of a good crowd (an impulse that can make adults into fascists). A teacher explained to me that we had done wrong and made us apologize. A few years later, the kid we bullied and I became friends, too. I wonder if he forgave me, or just strategically forgot about what I’d done. Sometimes kids have to do a lot of forgetting. Sometimes they don’t forget at all.

* * *

Jordan Michael Smith is the author of the Kindle Single, Humanity. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post and many other publications.

Editor: Dana Snitzky

A decorated Navy SEAL facing a murder trial in the death of an Islamic State prisoner was freed Thursday from custody after a military judge cited interference by prosecutors.

http://bit.ly/2W4KEvg

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 12:50PM by stratohornet http://bit.ly/2XbBOgx

Thursday, 30 May 2019

Scripps National Spelling Bee ends in unprecedented 8-way championship tie after organizers run out of challenging words

https://abcn.ws/2Wfl7En

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 03:16PM by Saculu http://bit.ly/2IacD7N

'I just want my parents back.' Woman says company imprisoned her parents in their own home

http://bit.ly/2XfH9mX

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 07:41AM by Karthas http://bit.ly/2EKS9S7

Massachusetts Hospitals Stockpile $1.6 Billion in Cayman Islands and other Offshore Accounts; Nurses Call for Financial Transparency

http://bit.ly/2I9IRQE

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 11:28AM by mixplate http://bit.ly/2WblGiy

Ben & Jerry's announces plans to make CBD-infused ice-cream |

http://bit.ly/2VXpsY0

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 06:24AM by AnonymousTank http://bit.ly/2QxKcVc

ACLU: Abortion Rights for All Means Your Access to Abortion Shouldn’t Depend on Where You Live or How Much You Make

Abortion Rights for All Means Your Access to Abortion Shouldn’t Depend on Where You Live or How Much You Make
ACLU volunteers around the country are demanding presidential candidates commit to advancing abortion access for all

The headlines about the current state of abortion access seem to get worse every day.

States like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Kentucky have recently passed extreme abortion bans in an attempt to directly challenge Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court. And just this week, we learned that Missouri may become the first state without a health center that provides abortions since Roe was decided. Five other states — Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia — only have one abortion clinic left.

But with our Rights for All campaign, ACLU volunteers can fight back.

There is no question that state legislators opposed to abortion rights, emboldened by Trump’s two appointments to the Supreme Court, are rushing to pass laws that blatantly violate more than four decades of Supreme Court precedent. But this bleak landscape for abortion access is not new (in fact, the most recent headline-grabbing bans are all being challenged in court and haven’t actually taken effect). Rather, it’s the result of a decades-long strategy to push abortion out of reach completely with laws designed to make it impossible for people to access care.

Since 2011 alone, state legislatures have quietly passed more than 400 such medically unnecessary and politically motivated laws, shutting down clinics and erecting so many barriers to care that the right to abortion is now a hollow one for many people across vast areas of the country.

And this deliberate strategy by opponents of abortion rights — to push abortion further and further out of reach — actually got its start in Congress just a few years after Roe was decided. The Hyde Amendment was first attached to a federal appropriations bill in 1976 to withhold insurance coverage for abortion from those enrolled in Medicaid. There is no question that this was done explicitly to block low-income people from getting abortions: Congressman Hyde, the amendment’s sponsor, said so himself. In the years since, Congress has also restricted abortion coverage in a variety of other government health insurance plans and programs, and states have followed suit, passing their own laws restricting abortion coverage in both private and public insurance plans.

Coverage bans compound the effects of the many other types of abortion restrictions passed recently in the states — like clinic shutdown laws that force people to travel hundreds of miles for care and state-mandated waiting periods that add additional time and expense to their trips — to create obstacles that are insurmountable for many. When insurance coverage for abortion is denied, low-income people and disproportionately women of color are forced to forgo basic necessities in order to pay for the care they need. Ultimately, 1 in 4 Medicaid-eligible women seeking an abortion is denied care altogether.

Putting an end to this injustice means eliminating the many types of restrictions that limit abortion access, including the one that first targeted poor women more than four decades ago — the Hyde Amendment — and related government bans on insurance coverage of abortion.

That’s why ACLU volunteers around the country are asking presidential candidates, as part of our Rights for All 2020 effort, whether they will take a stand and lead the fight to ensure that everyone can access abortion care, no matter where they live or how much they make. As a matter of institutional policy, the ACLU does not support or oppose individual candidates for elected office. But we do want to ensure voters are informed and to see leaders elevate the civil liberties and civil rights issues that voters care about.

At campaign stops around the country, ordinary Americans are getting candidates on the record about their plans to guarantee abortion coverage and make the right to abortion a reality for all. When it comes to health insurance coverage, we are asking candidates to show leadership by guaranteeing that any health care plan they endorse will cover abortion and other reproductive health care just as it does other health care services, and by committing to remove all abortion coverage restrictions from budget requests, in order to send a clear message to Congress that abortion access is a top priority.

Candidates should also commit to working with Congress to pass and sign into law the EACH Woman Act, which would lift bans on abortion coverage in government insurance programs once and for all and also stop politicians from meddling with abortion coverage in private insurance plans. For those who want to ensure access to abortion, the EACH Woman Act should top the list of legislative priorities, along with the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would provide a much-needed federal safeguard against state abortion bans and other types of medically unnecessary restrictions in order to literally keep clinic doors open. Together, these bills could truly protect and expand access for people throughout the country.

With the right to abortion under direct attack in hostile states like never before, voters want to see real leadership on protecting abortion access for everyone, no matter where they live, how much they make, or what type of insurance they have. Rights for All will help ensure that voters know which candidates are up to that task.

Published May 30, 2019 at 08:45PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2Kf6cTA

ACLU: Abortion Rights for All Means Your Access to Abortion Shouldn’t Depend on Where You Live or How Much You Make

But with our Rights for All campaign, ACLU volunteers can fight back.

Published May 31, 2019 at 01:15AM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2Kf6cTA

Former Air Force cadet guilty of 'violently' raping fellow cadet and giving her a concussion

http://bit.ly/2HMu13B

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 05:16AM by Treasonmanbad http://bit.ly/2Z32NLX

Oakland Panel Votes to Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms (x-post from /r/shroomstocks)

http://bit.ly/2MxAJyX

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 04:41AM by Itchy_Craphole http://bit.ly/2HN9FY4

12-year-old boy who died was chained and starved by circus promoter parents, police say

https://nbcnews.to/2I4IrLi

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 03:13AM by Lumpenveloppe http://bit.ly/2WeMu1E

Video shows now-indicted Cuyahoga County Jail supervisor pepper-spray inmate strapped in chair

http://bit.ly/2Ies5j8

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 03:16AM by berni4pope http://bit.ly/2WeMsH4

Hundreds of puffins are starving to death because of climate change

http://bit.ly/2wuDq9j

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 02:40AM by FenrirIII http://bit.ly/2IlGTgf

Mount Everest climbers seen crushed together in new video as Nepal debates limiting permits

https://fxn.ws/2XfAHfT

Submitted May 31, 2019 at 12:56AM by Boofing_with_Squee http://bit.ly/2Memq1Q

ACLU: Trump’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda Will Keep Foster Children From Having a Loving Home

Trump’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda Will Keep Foster Children From Having a Loving Home
We’re suing the Department of Health and Human Services to keep a license to discriminate out of South Carolina’s foster care system.

Last week, while the Department of Health and Human Services was rolling-back Obama administration protections for transgender people, it was reported that HHS is also preparing to issue a nationwide rule that would allow for discrimination against same-sex couples seeking to open their hearts and homes to children in the foster care system.

While we don’t yet know what form this rule will take, one thing is clear: It will be bad for the over 440,000 children in government care in need of loving families.

We’re not waiting for the Trump administration to drop this rule, which would go against long-standing best practices supported by every major child welfare organization and former foster youth. Today we filed a lawsuit against HHS — as well as the state of South Carolina — based on action they took to allow foster care agencies in South Carolina to turn away prospective families for children based on religious eligibility criteria that exclude same-sex couples, among others.

Miracle Hill Ministries is the largest taxpayer-funded, state-contracted foster care agency in South Carolina. It accepts only foster parents who meet its religious criteria, which exclude families that do not adhere to Miracle Hill’s evangelical Protestant Christian beliefs and families headed by same-sex couples regardless of their faith.

Because a federal regulation bars discrimination in federally funded child welfare programs, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster asked Trump’s HHS for a waiver from the regulation. They obliged. As a result, Miracle Hill has been given a license to discriminate.

One of the families turned away by Miracle Hill is Eden Rogers and Brandy Welch’s family. Eden and Brandy, who have been married since 2015, are raising two young children. Due to family challenges, Eden helped raise her siblings. That experience inspired Eden to become a foster parent. To prepare to welcome more children into their family, they recently moved into a larger home.

Eden and Brandy reached out to Miracle Hill, the primary agency serving the Greenville area where they live. They mentioned they were a same-sex couple and were repeatedly told that Miracle Hill was a Christian agency that follows Christian values and that they would need to submit the online application form. They submitted the form, which asked them to identify their church. They received a response from Miracle Hill, rejecting their application, stating that as members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, their faith “does not align with traditional Christian doctrine.” Miracle Hill’s doctrinal statement also requires families to believe that “God’s design for marriage is the legal joining of one man and one woman,” effectively disqualifying married same-sex couples.

The children in the South Carolina’s foster care system can’t afford to lose out on families like Eden and Brandy’s.

Giving states like South Carolina the green light to allow discrimination in the public child welfare system only adds to the shortage of families willing to foster or adopt a child in state custody. Families who are rejected by an agency because of their faith or sexual orientation may not have other options in their area. Even if they do, the sting and humiliation of discrimination may deter some from approaching other agencies to possibly face more discrimination. When families are deterred from fostering, this means that more children will be placed in group homes, separated from siblings, and age out of foster care without ever being adopted.

Simply put, HHS and South Carolina have turned child welfare practice on its head by putting the interests of taxpayer-funded agencies above the interests of the children in their care.

While these policies are offered in the name of religious liberty, it is the opposite of religious liberty to allow agencies acting on behalf of the state to exclude people from participating in a government program because they are of the “wrong religion” or otherwise fail a religious test. For this reason, leaders from diverse faith communities have strongly opposed such policies.

Rolling back nondiscrimination provisions in child welfare won’t just be devastating for LGBTQ people and minority faith communities. The Trump administration’s agenda will ultimately cause the most harm to children in foster care who are in need of a loving home.

Published May 30, 2019 at 04:30PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2KarYI4

ACLU: Trump’s Anti-LGBTQ Agenda Will Keep Foster Children From Having a Loving Home

While we don’t yet know what form this rule will take, one thing is clear: It will be bad for the over 440,000 children in government care in need of loving families.

The children in the South Carolina’s foster care system can’t afford to lose out on families like Eden and Brandy’s.

Simply put, HHS and South Carolina have turned child welfare practice on its head by putting the interests of taxpayer-funded agencies above the interests of the children in their care.

Published May 30, 2019 at 09:00PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2KarYI4

Researchers confirm Hawking radiation.

http://bit.ly/2EEZoes

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 05:55PM by IneptNoodle http://bit.ly/2Mhfz84

China military says shouldn't say Tiananmen protests were 'suppressed'

https://reut.rs/2JLQGiq

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 11:13PM by kg4jxt http://bit.ly/2KdT4OD

Man who set himself on fire near White House dies

https://nbcnews.to/2KcM9Fd

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 10:31PM by Perfect_Gas http://bit.ly/2JLXkW1

Heavily processed food like ready meals and ice-cream linked to early death

http://bit.ly/30TFgig

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 08:10PM by XVll-L http://bit.ly/2W1Z2V0

White House 'asked Navy to hide warship USS John S McCain'

https://bbc.in/2wsoQ2f

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 10:30PM by Narazemono http://bit.ly/2wrsd9D

Louisiana Moves to Ban Abortions After a Heartbeat Is Detected

https://nyti.ms/2Kf5Oo3

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 10:41AM by timschwartz http://bit.ly/2KcmcWl

USA Powerlifting bans all trans women from competing as women - Outsports

http://bit.ly/2sXFIMx

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 05:29PM by TaxTheBourgeoisie http://bit.ly/2MeZGyR

Wednesday, 29 May 2019

American woman beaten and left for dead at resort in the Dominican Republic

http://bit.ly/30V34Ck

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 02:15PM by socialjusticereddit http://bit.ly/2VZwgEt

Jailers shut off water to Terrill Thomas' cell, and he died of dehydration. His family now has $6.75 million

https://cnn.it/2XcT1q3

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 02:13PM by PolyDipsoManiac http://bit.ly/30Tg5w3

Disney CEO Bob Iger doubts Disney will continue to film in Georgia if abortion law takes effect

https://reut.rs/2Qzajea

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 01:45PM by lollilicker7 http://bit.ly/2wrRd0r

Israel Moves to Hold New Election as Netanyahu Fails to Form a Coalition

https://nyti.ms/2WdYPmD

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 08:14AM by Yakhov http://bit.ly/2I7gYss

US energy department rebrands fossil fuels as 'molecules of freedom'

http://bit.ly/2JLZ8yu

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 10:25AM by ChickenTeriyakiBoy1 http://bit.ly/2MgGcKk

Man sues after his face is mauled by emotional support dog on Delta Airlines flight

https://ind.pn/2KdBKtc

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 09:28AM by actionalert http://bit.ly/2W4MiNy

Georgia candidate behind 'deportation bus' pleads guilty

http://bit.ly/2JL15uP

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 06:40AM by corginamedzelda http://bit.ly/2KdgxPK

France Hands ISIS Suspects to Iraq, Which Sentences Them to Hang

https://nyti.ms/2HIWaZm

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 05:14AM by CedarDragon http://bit.ly/2McPUNv

City says private border wall didn't have building permit and orders construction to 'cease and desist'

https://cnn.it/30TMP8j

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 05:03AM by SwiftieNA http://bit.ly/2HJ1Wdx

Ashton Kutcher to testify in trial of alleged serial killer accused of murdering his friend

https://cbsn.ws/2I3qw7B

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 12:59AM by FenrirIII http://bit.ly/2JN019Z

Man sets himself on fire outside White House, Secret Service says

https://ind.pn/2MhQRnT

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 04:24AM by WileECyrus http://bit.ly/2KbWtgJ

Four tiger poachers killed in shootout with police in Bangladesh, officials say

https://fxn.ws/2wpArz0

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 03:16AM by TMcFly http://bit.ly/2EH8BCQ

Concealed carry holder shoots gunman in head, police say

http://bit.ly/2HIB6Cc

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 01:38AM by alt_before_email_req http://bit.ly/2YUEmju

A black couple were having a picnic. Then a white campground manager pulled out a gun.

http://bit.ly/2QzsIHR

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 12:38AM by fu2man2 http://bit.ly/2wrcBTo

U.S. Says Russia Likely Conducting Low-Yield Nuke Tests, Defying Test Ban Treaty

http://bit.ly/2W9KMhT

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 02:52AM by Narksdog http://bit.ly/2wsieB6

ACLU: The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if it Wants Access to Our Private Health Information

The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if it Wants Access to Our Private Health Information
Choosing between obtaining health care and giving up one’s privacy rights is no choice at all.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is once again trying to access private prescription records of patients — this time in New Hampshire — without a warrant, despite a state law to the contrary. Today the ACLU filed a brief in support of the state of New Hampshire’s fight to defend the privacy of our sensitive medical information against unwarranted searches by law enforcement.

New Hampshire — like 48 other states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — has established a statewide Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), which logs records of every prescription for a long list of “controlled substances,” including Xanax, Ambien, and many painkillers, filled by pharmacists in the state. The PDMP is intended to function as a public health tool to allow physicians and pharmacists to look up their patients’ past prescriptions for medications that have addictive potential. Because these prescription records are so sensitive, New Hampshire law bars law enforcement agents from accessing the database unless they have a search warrant signed by a judge.

That rule has worked just fine for state and local police, but the federal Drug Enforcement Administration refuses to respect it. The DEA insists that, because it is a federal agency, it can ignore state law and request people’s PDMP records with an administrative subpoena instead of a warrant. Unlike a warrant, a subpoena is issued directly by the agency based on a low legal standard, without requiring the approval of a judge.

When New Hampshire received a DEA subpoena for a patient’s PDMP records last year, the state rightly refused to comply because doing so would violate the state law requiring a warrant. The DEA then sued in federal court, but New Hampshire stood firm, arguing that the subpoena was improper under federal law and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After losing in trial court, the state appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

The DEA’s most galling argument in the case is that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their prescription records held in the PDMP because of the “third-party doctrine.” Under that doctrine, a person is considered to lose their Fourth Amendment protections in information voluntarily shared with a “third party,” like a company they do business with.

We’ve seen that argument before when the DEA tried to obtain PDMP records in Oregon and Utah without a warrant. But the legal landscape has now changed. That’s because last year in Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court made clear that the third-party doctrine does not automatically apply to sensitive agglomerations of digital-age records. That case was about people’s sensitive location records held by their cell phone companies, but the lesson of Supreme Court’s holding should apply equally to the sensitive digital database of prescription records at issue here.

Our amicus brief, filed with the ACLU affiliates in the First Circuit — New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island — as well as the New Hampshire Medical Society, argues that law enforcement agencies, including the DEA, must get a warrant under the Fourth Amendment to access the private medical information in the PDMP database.

As we explain, information about the prescription medications we take can reveal a great deal of intimate and private details about our health, including our medical diagnoses and our doctors’ confidential medical advice. Indeed, this kind of medical information is among the most sensitive data about us. That’s why, for as long as there has been a medical profession, health care providers have been bound by a duty of confidentiality toward their patients’ medical information.

Moreover, this information is not voluntarily shared, in any meaningful sense, with the state’s database. The DEA suggests that people make a choice to give up their privacy protections when they share their medical information with their doctor and pharmacist. But as we write in our brief, choosing between obtaining health care and giving up one’s privacy rights is no choice at all.

The DEA’s aggressive position comes amid intensifying attention to the nation’s opioid addiction crisis. But far from hindering efforts to address that serious problem, strong Fourth Amendment protections are a crucial part of the solution. Successfully addressing drug addiction primarily requires public health approaches, not prosecutorial ones. Easy law enforcement access to medical records not only fuels mass incarceration, it deters patients from seeking necessary medical care.

Requiring the DEA to get a warrant ensures that people’s sensitive prescription records are only available to police when there is a real need. That’s good policy, and good Fourth Amendment law.

Published May 29, 2019 at 04:45PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2JKtcKF

ACLU: The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if it Wants Access to Our Private Health Information

The Government Needs to Get a Warrant if it Wants Access to Our Private Health Information
Choosing between obtaining health care and giving up one’s privacy rights is no choice at all.

Published May 29, 2019 at 09:15PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2JKtcKF

Virginia public colleges agree to freeze tuition next year

http://bit.ly/2Ka78sl

Submitted May 29, 2019 at 10:15PM by EnazS http://bit.ly/2JJVepE

Alex Trebek shares 'mind-boggling' pancreatic cancer update

http://strib.mn/2wofQey

Submitted May 30, 2019 at 12:27AM by bmtri http://bit.ly/2KgTaoN

After 13 straight days of devastating tornadoes, 39 million are still under severe weather threat

https://cnn.it/2Kauv5e

Submitted May 29, 2019 at 07:45PM by twss416 http://bit.ly/2HHFd1l

Australian helicopters targeted by lasers in South China Sea

https://cnn.it/2HI329a

Submitted May 29, 2019 at 08:51PM by coopersnack http://bit.ly/2YXwDkR

Boulder attorney dies after reaching top of Mount Everest, completing his effort to scale highest peaks on seven continents

http://bit.ly/2I30sK1

Submitted May 29, 2019 at 09:45PM by sagunsh http://bit.ly/2Kdw9mC

Chinese Military Insider Who Witnessed Tiananmen Square Massacre Breaks a 30-Year Silence

https://nyti.ms/2Ka7bV3

Submitted May 29, 2019 at 10:09PM by mynameis_neo http://bit.ly/2JIlqB3

Saturday, 25 May 2019

ACLU: Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Wall Crumbles in Court

Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Wall Crumbles in Court
For the first time, a federal judge made clear to President Trump he couldn’t get his wall by illegally diverting taxpayer money.

From the beginning of his campaign for president, Donald Trump claimed that he was going to build a wall along the southern border. He said “nobody builds walls better than me.” He said the wall would be “big” and “beautiful.” He said someone else would pay for it. And he said it would be built so fast that “your head would spin.”

Last night, for the first time, a federal judge made clear to President Trump he couldn’t get his wall by illegally diverting taxpayer money.

The judge’s ruling comes in an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC). Together, the Sierra Club and SBCC represent the communities who live in, protect, and treasure the lands and communities along our southern border. For years, these communities have engaged in the democratic process and successfully persuaded their congressional representatives to deny President Trump funding to build his wall.

Our lawsuit centers on the question of whether the president abused his power to divert funds for a border wall Congress denied him. Unfortunately for President Trump, the Constitution is clear on the matter: only Congress has the power to decide how taxpayer funds are spent. And Congress, like border communities, said no to the President’s wall.

Congress didn’t bow to Trump’s pressure even after he caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history over his demands for billions of dollars for his wall. Congress allocated only a fraction of the money that Trump demanded, and imposed restrictions on where and how quickly any border barriers could be built.

In a blatant abuse of power meant to circumvent Congress, President Trump declared a national emergency on February 15, 2019, and announced he would illegally divert $6.7 billion from military construction and other accounts for the border wall project.

From the beginning, the emergency was obviously a sham. Trump said as much himself when he declared the emergency, saying he “didn’t need to do this” but he’d prefer to build the wall “much faster.” He added that he declared a national emergency because he was “not happy” that Congress “skimped” on the wall by denying him the billions he demanded.

Despite this, the Trump administration tried to argue in court last Friday that Congress never actually “denied” President Trump the billions of dollars he is now trying to take from the military. The court rejected the administration’s argument, reminding the administration that “the reality is that Congress was presented with—and declined to grant—a $5.7 billion request for border barrier construction.”

The court’s ruling blocks the sections of wall that the Trump administration announced would be built with military pay and pension funds. It also invites us to ask the court to block additional projects as they are announced in the future. The judge emphasized the government’s commitment to inform the court immediately about future decisions to build.

It may be easy to ridicule President Trump’s desperation for a border wall — an absurd and xenophobic campaign promise for which he has only himself to blame. But as pointless and wasteful as it may be, Trump’s campaign promise now threatens to cause irreparable and real damage to our constitutional checks and balances, the rule of law, border communities, and the environment.

The wall is part of an exclusionary agenda that President Trump has targeted, over and over, at people of color. From his notorious Muslim Ban, to his efforts to eliminate protections for immigrants from Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, courts have found “evidence that President Trump harbors an animus against non-white, non-European” immigrants. Trump has repeatedly justified his wall by lying about border communities, falsely claiming that America needs a wall.

Border communities know firsthand that walls are dangerous and wasteful. They divide neighborhoods, worsen dangerous flooding, destroy lands and wildlife, and waste resources. As our clients explained to the court, “we are a community that is safe, that supports migrants, that works well together and supports one another, that is worthy of existence.” What border communities truly need is infrastructure and investment, not militarization and isolation.

The court’s order is a vindication of border communities’ advocacy for themselves, and of our Constitution’s separation of powers. As the court wrote, “Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures—even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important—is not a bug in our constitutional system. It is a feature of that system, and an essential one.”

Published May 25, 2019 at 08:30PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2HUXbw6

ACLU: Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Wall Crumbles in Court

Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Wall Crumbles in Court
For the first time, a federal judge made clear to President Trump he couldn’t get his wall by illegally diverting taxpayer money.

Published May 26, 2019 at 01:00AM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2HUXbw6

Friday, 24 May 2019

ACLU: DHS is Locking Immigrants in Solitary Confinement

DHS is Locking Immigrants in Solitary Confinement
As ICE detention numbers reach record high, new reports are extremely troubling.

In 2012, I visited the federal supermax prison ADX Florence in Colorado and spoke with men living in solitary confinement. I listened closely to their stories of anguish, but I could not understand how they survived it. They told me of the horror of being trapped in a small room, without access to fresh air or sunlight, for at least 22 hours a day—alone, afraid, and not knowing when it would end. I learned that people in solitary confinement talk to the walls, to themselves, to no one — sometimes they stop talking altogether.

Those are the types of horrors we now know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is inflicting on immigrants, thanks to the courage of whistleblower Ellen Gallagher. This week, multiple news outlets reported government documents detailing 8,488 cases of solitary confinement. In half the cases, solitary lasted longer than 15 days — the point at which some of its psychological harms may become irreversible and it can amount to torture, as well as a violation of international standards outlined in the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules.

The stories become even more harrowing when we learn why ICE allegedly imposed solitary. NBC news reported reasons including: wearing a hand cast, sharing a consensual kiss, or needing a wheelchair. ICE reportedly put LGBTQ individuals and people with mental illness in solitary as “protective custody,” citing their own safety.

The reports are replete with allegations that, if true, suggest that ICE repeatedly violated its own 2014 directive on solitary confinement.

At the time, the ACLU welcomed that directive as a much-needed step forward, as it required that solitary confinement occur “only when necessary.” Except in disciplinary cases, the directive requires that solitary be imposed “for the briefest term and under the least restrictive conditions practicable.” Individuals may not be placed in solitary based solely on their physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity (among other bases). And solitary can only be imposed as a form of discipline after a panel determines the detainee “committed serious misconduct” and “when alternative dispositions would inadequately regulate detainee behavior.” Instead of following its directive, however, ICE “uses isolation as a go-to tool, rather than a last resort,” The Intercept concluded.

If ICE has repeatedly flouted its own rules on solitary, it should come as no surprise. ICE and its peer agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), have egregious records of allowing officials to commit abuses and endanger lives, often with impunity.

This week 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vazquez died in CBP custody in Texas one day after being diagnosed with influenza. He reportedly had traveled there to reunite with family and support his siblings, including his brother with special needs. Only three days prior to his death, the ACLU Border Rights Center and ACLU of Texas wrote a complaint to the DHS Inspector General describing shocking conditions in CBP detention: Children and their parents forced to sleep outdoors through extreme heat and rain, in puddles of water, given only paper-thin Mylar sheets to shield them from the elements; Border Patrol agents ignoring or denying requests for medical care, including for infants and kids.

And yet the immigration detention machine churns on. This week ICE detention numbers spiked at 52,398 people—an apparent all-time high, and far above the level of 45,000 that Congress authorized earlier this year.

The Trump administration has asked Congress for billions more in enforcement funds for CBP and ICE. At a hearing this week, Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan warned that without more funds, it would be difficult for DHS to prevent “the children being put at risk.” He also asked for new legal authorities to detain families for longer.

Providing an abusive agency more money and authority so that it will stop committing abuses makes no sense. It’s like donating to a corrupt politician, in the hope that it will stop her from yielding to the temptation to be corrupt.

Immigration detention is expensive, inhumane and unnecessary. Instead of being hostage to the Trump administration’s ever-increasing demands, Congress should press the administration to reduce detention and revive alternatives such as the Family Case Management Program, in partnership with community-based organizations, for individuals who need case management support.

Congress should also pass the Dignity For Detained Immigrants Act, a landmark detention reform bill. One key provision: It requires the DHS Office of Inspector General to carry out unannounced inspections of every DHS detention site, and forces DHS to promptly investigate detainee deaths.

Policymakers should be knocking on the doors of every detention site in the nation. We know horrific things have gone on there. Unless they are exposed, and ICE and its contractors held accountable, it’s all too likely the abuses will continue.

Published May 24, 2019 at 09:00PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2EwHbzB

ACLU: DHS is Locking Immigrants in Solitary Confinement

DHS is Locking Immigrants in Solitary Confinement
As ICE detention numbers reach record high, new reports are extremely troubling.

The reports are replete with allegations that, if true, suggest that ICE repeatedly violated its own 2014 directive on solitary confinement.

Published May 25, 2019 at 01:30AM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2EwHbzB

Bulgaria : Technical Assistance Report-Bank Supervision

Bulgaria : Technical Assistance Report-Bank Supervision
Published May 21, 2019 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

ACLU: Black Trans Women Are Being Murdered in the Streets. Now the Trump Administration Wants to Turn Us Away From Shelters and Health Care.

Black Trans Women Are Being Murdered in the Streets. Now the Trump Administration Wants to Turn Us Away From Shelters and Health Care.
Two new rules from the Trump Administration will leave transgender people vulnerable to violence, discrimination, and even death.

It has been a horrific week for transgender and non-binary people. Muhlaysia Booker, Claire Legato, and Michelle Simone are Black trans women who have been murdered in the past week. At least five Black trans women have been killed so far in 2019.

On Wednesday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to give federally funded shelters a license to discriminate and turn away transgender people. The policy move is seen by many transgender and non-binary people as an act of violence on our community and our lives.

Then Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced its plan to take away protections for trans people from discrimination in healthcare. Like many Black trans women, I struggled to find employment and experienced homelessness. I supported myself, and my family, by doing sex work. I was once assaulted and robbed by a client. Even in New York City, outside of the Stonewall Inn, I have been attacked and hospitalized.

For many trans and non-binary people, particularly Black trans women, our homes are not safe. Our schools are not safe. Our workplaces are not safe. We are ridiculed by health care providers and denied basic and necessary health care. When we don’t feel safe to get lifesaving medical care, and when shelters that receive taxpayer dollars are allowed to turn me and my community away, there is no place to go but the streets, where we face violence and murder. And too often, just like I experienced, law enforcement fails to respond.

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Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from youtube.com.

Transgender people need our friends and family to see us, honor and acknowledge who we are, and say publicly that we belong.

In announcing the new proposal, which has not yet been formalized, HUD continues to spread lies and myths about transgender people that we have seen before. The Trump administration has been saying transgender people are lying about who we are in our schools, workplaces, and the military. It even suggested in the HHS comments that sharing space with trans people violates the rights of non-transgender people.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary genders are real. We face violence and discrimination in almost every aspect of life. We are not a threat. And we have a right to belong in this country and in shelters. We deserve access to health care.

To fight back against these attacks, here are three things you can do:

Check-in: Ask the transgender and non-binary people in your life how they are and what support they need.

Speak-up: Ask candidates for office and elected officials how they will respond to the violence against transgender people.

Support: Reach out to trans-led organizations and ask how you can be a part of the fight in your own community.

Transgender and non-binary people are a part of our country as voters, as taxpayers, as students, as parents, and as employees. We cannot be erased, no matter what this administration does.

Published May 24, 2019 at 07:30PM
via ACLU http://bit.ly/2X5gdpS