Informed

Reading Time: 2 minutes Trump will be the keynote speaker at Friday’s event, which will also be attended by his former strategist, Steve Bannon. Other speakers include the founder of anti-Islam group ACT for America and former Trump strategist, Sebastian Gorka.

The anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council, labeled as a hate group by the SPLC, has hosted its annual summit since its inception in 2006.

“Values voters have waited eight years for a leader who puts America’s mission first and respects the values that made America into a great nation,” the council’s president Tony Perkins said in a statement reported by The Hill.

Reading Time: 9 minutes Much of the coverage of these events tends to be theatre criticism, or news stories about a single inflammatory line or two, rating Trump’s performance or puzzling over the appeal to his followers. But what the President of the United States is actually saying is extraordinary, regardless of whether the television cameras are carrying it live. It’s not just the whoppers or the particular outrage riffs that do get covered, either. It’s the hate, and the sense of actual menace that the President is trying to convey to his supporters. Democrats aren’t just wrong in the manner of traditional partisan differences; they are scary, bad, evil, radical, dangerous. Trump and Trump alone stands between his audiences and disaster.

I listen because I think we are making a mistake by dismissing him, by pretending the words of the most powerful man in the world are meaningless. They do have consequences. They are many, and they are worrisome. In what he says to the world, the President is, as Ed Luce wrote in the Financial Times this week, “creating the space to do things which were recently unthinkable.” It’s not a reality show; it’s real.

Reading Time: 2 minutes Disasters such as hurricanes, floods, fires and other emergency situations are all too common these days. In fact, about 4 out of 5 Americans live in counties hit by weather events since 2007, according to disaster declaration data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That illustrates how these events can impact nearly everyone and the importance of having a plan.

This is particularly true for older people and people with disabilities. Health issues, mobility concerns and use of assistive devices can create additional challenges during emergencies. However, there are simple steps everyone can take to prepare now for what may come later.

Reading Time: 7 minutes Although history books rarely record women’s achievements in anything near equal measure to men’s achievements, women HAVE achieved “it all”. We are doctors and lawyers and Supreme Court judges. We are world leaders. – Even though the United States failed to elect Hillary Clinton as our first woman President, there are plenty of countries that have NOT failed to put a woman in the top leadership position. We are scientists, fighter pilots, authors, psychologists, law enforcement officers, astronauts, teachers, professors, builders, race car drivers, actors, athletes, Olympians, musicians, entertainers, technicians, ministers, entrepreneurs – there isn’t a single field where women have not aspired to, and reached, “the top”.

However, what keeps nagging at me isn’t that we need more women “at the top” (although believe me, it has nagged me plenty) but that we need men to be more comfortable reaching down to what is perceived to be the bottom – the unpaid labor and necessary work that keeps the world turning day after day – the multitude of chores historically given to servants. These tasks are generally carried out by women, both physically and emotionally. The laundry load and the emotional load have predominantly been women’s burden to bear.

Reading Time: < 1 minute Need to detox from Donald Trump and the Kavanaugh hearings? Need help staying informed without going insane? Allow yourself to detox from Trump with this week’s mantra: November is Coming.

This is a parody video… hopefully, that’s obvious. But if it’s not, enjoy the healing Reiki-like weirdness.

Reading Time: 9 minutes The dominant cultural narrative at the time of Brett Kavanaugh’s high school experience was the one offered by Sixteen Candles. And it taught any girl who went to a party and got assaulted by an acquaintance that whatever happened to her was surely her fault, that it proved she was the wrong kind of girl, that it was funny, that she had nothing whatsoever to complain about, and that it absolutely wasn’t rape.

Under those circumstances, the mystery is not why “any person would continue to go to … ten parties over a two-year period where women were routinely gang raped and not report it,” as Sen. Graham argued. The mystery is why anyone ever came forward with their story at all.

Reading Time: 3 minutes We’re overdue for a revolution and there cannot be a revolution without women — and you know what? Women did not want this. We didn’t want to have to take our rage to a bloody battlefield. We hoped for the evolution of men who would break the patriarchy themselves. They have not. The problem with that is systems of oppression are not sustainable, no matter how badly oppressors want them to be.

So, here we are, at the party they created, the party we weren’t invited to – but we’re here anyway, and we’re going to burn it down.

We’re going to burn it down, not because we’re angry, but because it’s time.
It’s ours to do and they’ve left us no choice but to do it.

Reading Time: < 1 minute CNN’s Brooke Baldwin says the scene atPresident Trump’s rally during which he mocked Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford was “absent of soul.”