Monthly Archives: July 2017

Politics

SCARAMUCCI IS OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci was let go from his position as the communications director of the White House at the behest of the new chief of staff, John Kelly, according to the New York Times.

Scaramucci was only communications director since July 21, during which time he missed the birth of his son to attend Donald Trump’s speech at the Boy Scouts’ Jamboree and had an expletive-filled tirade during a phone call with a reporter from the New Yorker, where he called Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, a “f*cking paranoid schizophrenic” and threatened to fire everyone in the White House until the leaks stopped. In comparison, I have done very little since July 21.

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LGBTQ, Politics

TRUMP’S BAN ON TRANSGENDER PEOPLE IN THE MILITARY

Some research on exactly how transgender military personnel play into the larger scheme.

On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump used Twitter to announce a reversal of the Obama-era policy that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military.

In the three tweets, Trump wrote, “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

The decision caught officials at the Pentagon “off guard,” according to a New York Times article on the subject. “They had been studying, per the orders of Mr. Mattis [Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis] how transgender troops in the military affect other service members, but not with a view toward removing transgender people from the military, several defense officials said.” Mr. Mattis was on vacation when the president made his announcement, and it’s unclear if Mattis was aware that Trump would be making this decision.

Mattis, a retired general, had recently requested a six-month extension on the implementation of the plan to update “medical standards to accommodate transgender service members.” However, Mattis said that the extension did not presuppose a ban on transgender military personnel, according to a Washington Post article. 

From the track record and history of Trump’s tendency to lie (from the size of his inauguration crowd to his belief in voter fraud), the immediate reaction when reading these tweets is not to believe that this is a decision based on hours of careful, rigorous research.

So, in approximately five minutes, I was able to come up with the numbers of how exactly transgender people serving openly affects the military. Now, the breakdown.

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Humor, Politics, pop culture

JARED KUSHNER’S CLOSED-SESSION MEETING WITH SENATE INTELLIGENCE

Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president, has stated, after his closed-session meeting with Senate intelligence staffers, “I did not collude with Russia.”

Photo source: Bravo via Jezebel

Do you remember when you were a little kid, and you did something wrong (broke a fancy glass; accidentally deleted a work file off your parents’ computer; failed a math test) and you had the rest of the afternoon to figure out a good-enough lie to tell to your parents when they got home?

And when they got home, you totally blew the secret because you told the lie in its shiny, well-packaged entirety before your parents even had a chance to discover what you had accidentally done. “And that’s why I failed that test,” you said, vibrating with your lie.

Your parents gave you a long, measured look before calling you on your shit. And even as you were telling it, you knew that they wouldn’t buy it. The truth is weird and messy and doesn’t make sense. Lies, especially lies that you’ve had enough time to concoct, are too clean.

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LGBTQ, Politics

“THERE ARE NO GAY MEN IN CHECHNYA”: The Latest

My previous blog about Chechnya

In an interview with HBO’s Real Sports reporter David Scott, Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, denied recent allegations that Chechen police have been rounding up, detaining and torturing gay men. “This is nonsense,” he said, “We don’t have those kinds of people here.”

When responding to Scott’s questions about the stories surfacing from gay men who allege they were tortured, Kadyrov said, “They are devils. They are for sale. They are not people.”

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feminism, LGBTQ, Life, Politics

THEN & NOW — the 1970s (ish)

This morning, I was walking my dog when I found a Polaroid on the edge on my lawn. A few months ago, my neighbor passed away. She was amazing, super fiery and funny; we were actually quite close. We would go to Home Depot together and pick out plants for me to plant in pots around her house, and I would help her if she needed it. She was in her mid-eighties, and a total badass, and I was sadly at school in Boston when she passed away. But in the following months, and the last few weeks especially, her children have been cleaning out her house.

This morning, the last remaining furniture and garbage (which had been piled at the end of her driveway) was cleared away, leaving behind a few scraps and this grimy, grubby Polaroid, picture-down on my lawn. I flipped it around and it was a picture, taken from the stoop of my neighbor’s house of our street—A silver-blue Volkswagen Beetle parked on the curb, framed by lush green leaves. I took it inside, cleaned the grime off the back and the edges, and really looked at it. There’s no date on the Polaroid, but judging from the make of the car, and the amount of time my neighbor lived in her house, I would guess it was taken in the ‘60s or ‘70s.

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Source: Danny McCarthy

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music, pop culture

KESHA IS “PRAYING” FOR YOU

Written whilst listening to Kesha’s “Praying,” over and over again.

“Praying,” Kesha’s first song off her new album Rainbow, is remarkably restrained, given the fact that this marks her first entrance back into music after years of legal conflict with former producer, Dr. Luke, following accusations from Kesha that Dr. Luke physically and emotionally abused her.

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celebrity, pop culture, social media

ROB KARDASHIAN MIGHT’VE BROKEN CALIFORNIA’S REVENGE PORN LAWS

On Wednesday, Rob Kardashian took to social media to blast his former fiancée, Blac Chyna, for allegedly “cheating on him.”

He posted a video of Chyna kissing another man, purporting that she had sent the video to him, a video of Chyna going into what Kardashian alleged was weight-loss surgery, as well as several screenshots of conversations (between Kardashian and Chyna, and between Kardashian and the alleged other man). After accusing Chyna of essentially swindling him for $1 million, given to her in gifts and rent, Kardashian posted three nude pictures of Chyna before his account was disabled.

While this isn’t the first time that Rob has posted sensitive contact information (he posted the phone number of the “other” man and he has posted his sister Kylie’s phone number, forcing her to change it), this is the first time he’s posted nude images of someone else. And, under California state law, it’s possible that he could face charges for revenge porn.

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Mental Health, Rambles, Things Happening RN

MENTAL HEALTH IS CHIC, YOU GUYS

In typical fashion, I had a perfect title before I had anything else even written.

I just sent an email to a potential new psychiatrist (in the event it works out and I eventually tell you about this, hi hon!). While I was in school, I utilized our student health services and saw the same psychiatrist on-and-off for about three years. Always check out the resources available to you, especially when you’re at school—I’ve heard some horror stories about SHS, but I’ve always had good experiences.

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