About Donald Trump: Sexual Predator and Republican Candidate for President

This story is evolving. Women are coming forth with their stories of encounters with Donald in which they were the objects of unsolicited and unwanted sexual aggression, and he was the agent.

Donald Trump has been a deeply flawed candidate from the beginning.  He is a power-mad, thin-skinned bully at every level of interaction in society.  Stories that have come to the fore in the wake of the videotape Friday night assert that his “locker room talk” was more than talk.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign released this statement not long ago.

HFA Response to Tonight’s Troubling Revelations about Donald Trump

HFA Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri offered the following statement in response to the new allegations about Donald Trump’s actions:

“This disturbing story sadly fits everything we know about the way Donald Trump has treated women. These reports suggest that he lied on the debate  stage and that the disgusting behavior he bragged about in the tape are more than just words.”

Perhaps this is Donald Trump’s actual contribution to society.  If enough decent men turn against the tawdry, dissolute, perverted “model” he represents for young men in this country, maybe he will have performed a service – his first ever – for the nation and society at large.

He should never be president.  His behavior disqualifies him.  His cavalier attitude toward violating women’s privacy and personal boundaries fall far below the bar.  He is, on so many levels, a horrendous choice for the position and the job.  He lies. He invents fiction about his opponent (which his supporters believe even though none of it is true or validated).  His business practices are predatory and dishonest. He knows nothing and does not seek to learn. He holds dangerous positions regarding foreign policy.  I could go on.  I will not. his attitude toward women is sufficient.

Vote.  I will not tell you how to vote, but you should know on which side your bread is buttered.

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In the News: El-Al Sexism Lawsuit

Middle East
She Was Asked to Switch Seats. Now She’s Charging El Al With Sexism.

The Saturday Profile

By ISABEL KERSHNER FEB. 26, 2016

“The idea of having a Haredi population is wonderful, as long as they don’t tell me what to do.” RENEE RABINOWITZ Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times
JERUSALEM — RENEE RABINOWITZ is a sharp-witted retired lawyer with a Ph.D. in educational psychology, who escaped the Nazis in Europe as a child. Now she is about to become a test case in the battle over religion and gender in Israel’s public spaces — and the skies above — as the plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing El Al, the national airline, of discrimination.

Read more >>>>

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Jennifer Hall Lee on Sexism in Electoral Politics

Jennifer Hall Lee has an essay at Salon today!   Thank you, Jennifer, and big congrats!  Brings back memories and fortifies the spirit!

Saturday, Nov 14, 2015 05:30 PM EST

“Vagina voter”: Witnessing the sexism hurled at Hillary in ’08 — and the assumptions made about her supporters — changed my life

My awareness of how sexism affected the ’08 campaign came gradually, but when it did it changed me profoundly

Jennifer Hall Lee

(Credit: AP/Charlie Neibergall)

Excerpted from “Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox,”

Hillary Clinton and her myriad personal and political experiences have made me a braver person than I used to be. Looking back on the 2008 primary campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I can connect the events that ultimately changed how I see myself as a political person.

As a volunteer on Hillary’s campaign, for eight months, I made numerous phone calls to super-delegates and members of the National Organization for Women. Until then, I’d never followed Hillary’s life or career too closely. I only became a volunteer after I saw the sexism that was thrown her way by fellow Democrats as she campaigned; that sexism prompted me to learn more about her as a person and as a candidate. I didn’t realize at the time how strongly sexism would ultimately shape Hillary’s campaign and its outcome, as well as my view of the political world.

At the time, I was working on a documentary film about the women’s liberation movement and had a full-time job in the film industry as a visual effects editor. My daughter was five years old; the time demands of motherhood were still new for me. Nevertheless, I managed to schedule my campaign volunteer work during lunch breaks and in the few hours I had after I got home. It was the first time I ever volunteered for a presidential political campaign. Was it hard? Yes. But it was transformational.

Read more >>>>

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From Jennifer Hall Lee: Did Hillary Pass the New York Times’ Feminist Test?

From the article:

Did Hillary Pass the New York Times’ Feminist Test?

All together the essays I read showed a range of ages and opinions circling one idea – “Is Hillary a good enough feminist?” Funny. I didn’t realize Hillary was running for Feminist. I thought she was running for President.

SNIP

Brand. Images of multinational corporations form in my head when I see that word. We have barely noticed that the word brand has slipped into our lexicon to assist us when we describe ourselves and our beliefs. It’s shocking. Brands sell products. They are trademarked. A brand is also burned into the skin of an animal to mark ownership. It can’t be undone and it never changes.

Remember the phrase “corporations are people” from the 2012 presidential debate? It was more insightful than many care to believe.

Read more >>>>>http://www.the-broad-side.com/did-hillary-pass-the-new-york-times-feminist-test

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Falling Short

As any archer will tell you, there is a difference between hitting the bull’s eye and hitting the skirt.  Twice in a week now,  I see how the DNC damaged this country by contriving the 2008 nomination process.  Two issues that Hillary Rodham Clinton made eminently clear that she would own, from before she declared her candidacy for president,  were universal health care and a foreclosure freeze accompanied by restructuring of mortgage rates.  Well, we did not get HRC, so we did not see these issues addressed as she had outlined them.

Healthcare:  Yes, we did, after an 18-month battle get something, but a badly flawed something,  that continues to exclude too many, a large percentage of whom are women, and does not include the single most important factor that would  have neutralized completely this week’s argument between the administration and Catholic institutions: the single -payer option.   Had THAT been a non-negotiable part of the package, this week’s issue would never have arisen.

Now this morning, the president presents a plan to help some mortgagees in trouble.  Had HRC’s HOLC or HOME been passed, all mortgagees in trouble would have had access to renegotiation,  and foreclosures would have been temporarily frozen long enough for refinance to have taken place – years ago.

Mortgage Settlement Leaves Some Foreclosure Victims Wanting

Too little, too late for so many.

The Dems are trying to drum up some enthusiasm for an incumbent candidate whose inexperience and self-assuredness have served up insufficiency and inadequacy.  The one who was NOT ready from day one.  The unnecessary debate over women’s’ healthcare and the limitations of this morning’s settlement with the banks do little to inspire team spirit.

As usual, it is the surrogates who must argue with passion that the White House is doing the right thing by women, but is that enough?  It should be the incumbent inspiring the passion.   I find Karen Finney a particularly effective voice on the issue of women’s health care, but as I watch and listen to her, it occurs to me that,  as she inspires me,  it is not Obama I wish to follow into this battle, but rather Karen herself!  I do not know whose voice we will hear speaking for those left behind by the bank settlement, but certainly one will emerge.

In the same way that “Hillary Sent Me”, absent Obama personally reaching out specifically to HRC supporters,  left me completely unmotivated to support him (and even more passionately wanting Hillary), this continuing surrogacy strategy is doing nothing but spotlighting leaders, real ones, that I would much prefer to share a trench with than Obama.  Ms. Finney is quickly emerging as one of those.

So, as I continue to harbor hope that in some way Hillary Clinton ends up at the top of the ballot sooner rather than later, I see in some of the surrogates who defend Obama’s inadequate programs, my future leaders.  Elizabeth Warren is one, and Karen Finney is another to watch.  She has that Joan of Arc quality that HRC has.  Yes, I would follow her into battle just as I would follow Hillary.  Would I follow Obama?  No, I still simply cannot do that.  How can you follow the “leader” who leads from behind?

You only get points for hitting the target.  Obama continually hits the skirt.

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*Edited to add*  It was atrociously negligent of me not to add the link to Karen’s seminal article on this issue which is one of many reasons why I point to her as a leader.  A “must read!”

Church, flock at odds

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A Quiet Death

Overnight,  silently at midnight, DADT expired.  There was no fanfare, and as far as I can see no protests either.  It simply slipped into history and was gone.  Imagine that!

I had two major problems with DADT (aside from the simple unfairness of it).

1.  Not everyone takes naturally to the military. We have a volunteer army, and I believe the military is a calling.  I know I would have been a terrible candidate for military service.  I am just naturally so insubordinate and argumentative.   So, if some young person is called and is willing to defend me and us, why should I care whether that person has blue, brown, or green eyes,  is right or left-handed, is straight or gay?    That never made any sense to me.

2. As a taxpayer, much of what I earn and pay in taxes goes to defense.  I  help pay for some very expensive specialized training.  I resent that 14,000 specialists that I paid to train were fired.

Can we have the Arabic translators back now?  How crazy was that?

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Base to Robby Mook @DCCC (Testing … testing….)

Just got an email from Robby Mook saying that my DCCC membership has expired and all I need to do to renew it is contribute.

With the Federal Election Commission (FEC) deadline just days away, there has never been a more critical time to show your support for President Obama’s agenda….

Really, Robby?  And what agenda would that be?  The one that has yet to advocate for full civil rights for gay Americans? The one that extended unemployment benefits for 13 months but the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans for two years?  The one that, instead of fighting for the single payer option simply allowed it to be excised from the health care bill?  The one that still does not firmly, once and for all say that LGBT rights are human rights, and human rights are LGBT rights?  That among those rights is the right to serve one’s country, and to die for it,  as openly gay?  As who you are?

That agenda?

Dear Robby,

When the Democratic Party listens to its membership, I will renew my membership.

The party refused to provide a fair and transparent roll call vote in Denver in 2008, and the RBC  reassigned Hillary Clinton delegates to Barack Obama in a move that, if not illegal, was at least unethical.

I, as a registered Democrat resent the way the party treated me and my 18 million pro-Hillary cohorts.  My contributions since 2008 have gone and until further notice will continue to go to Hillary Clinton.

What will it take for me to make future contributions?  Put Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket where she belongs.

Regards,

S4H (my real name here)

Happy Pride Day, everybody!

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