I keep trying to write about Texas and the future of Roe v. Wade, and I keep needing to rewrite my thoughts because of all the twists, turns and drama in the news cycle – not just in the Supreme Court but across the Divided States of America. For example, you may have heard this morning that in Virginia, anti-choice candidate Glenn Youngkin won the election to be the state’s next governor. Mr. Youngkin boasts many unremarkable characteristics as a Republican male, including not just a striking resemblance to Brett Kavanaugh, but also a desire to ban library books that just so happen to featur ..read more

For outside observers, the attempt to overturn American democracy on 6 January might come as an eye-opening surprise. But for anyone who’s paid attention to the news or cracked open a newspaper, it was the natural conclusion to the decades-long mainstreaming of American extremism and its normalisation of both violent rhetoric and violent action. Its contempt for reality and basic facts is built on a bedrock of lies, conspiracy theories, and threats of terror against its political opponents. But long before lies, conspiracies and terrorism came together in that very public January attempt to o ..read more

Praise Trump, from whom all blessings flow. (Photo credit Ralph Freso/Getty Images) In my senior year of high school, our beloved Humanities teacher took us through a process establishing that Elvis worship and University of Alabama football are both religions. It was a fun exercise as part of a (thoroughly secular) unit about religious studies, but also… I mean, y’all… Have you ever been to a UA football game? [Hrmph]teen years later, though, the sanctity of The King and The Tide have been overshadowed by the sanctity of The Donald. And going by an outline similar to the one from that class l ..read more

Sarah Sanders responded to a reporter’s question during the morning press briefing by confirming that yup, separating more than 2,000 children from their families is way civil. Recently, White House mouthpiece Sarah Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, after committing the unforgivable offense of being White House mouthpiece Sarah Sanders. (Did I make that sound sarcastic? Because I meant it sincerely. What Sanders does is unforgivably offensive.) Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I polite ..read more

I’m sure most of us here are onboard with the idea that women are people, deserving of rights. My own background is in reproductive healthcare, so I can see how women’s health and women’s rights go hand in hand like Michelle and Barack. But even if I didn’t have a degree in healthcare (and student debt to prove it), you don’t need to be a stable genius to see the link between human health and human rights. In a world with 195 nation-states, not a single nation that fares poorly in women’s rights have ever fared well in women’s health. In fact, a lack of women’s rights is the most reliable pre ..read more

Definitely not a creepy-ass thing to have taking up an entire wall in a child immigration detention center.* The Trump administration is knowingly and intentionally terrorizing defenseless children. Under their new “zero-tolerance” policy, every undocumented immigrant crossing the border is referred for prosecution, and their children are taken away from them, with no guarantee that they’ll ever see them again. Officials from DHS, the Justice Department, and the White House shift the blame to the courts, the Democrats, the parents, whomever they can, but it’s the administration that’s doing it ..read more

That is the smile of someone who’s really excited about the opportunity to screw you over. (Photo credit Jim Bourg/Reuters) Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, and Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to take his place on the Supreme Court. This isn’t a small deal — despite being personally right-leaning, Kennedy has tended to be the moderate swing vote for some of the more contentious cases that have come before the court. (Abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and affirmative action have all had his signature on them.) In replacing him with Kavanaugh, Trump nails down a solid ..read more

Trigger warning: depression and suicide In the past week, fashion designer Kate Spade and chef-turned-traveler Anthony Bourdain both died by suicide — and that’s on top of all the people we haven’t heard about because they’re not deemed newsworthy enough for the public to acknowledge their pain or their passing. I don’t, and can’t, know what was going on in their head, how they felt or why they made the decision they did. That’s part of what makes these things so devastating — the not knowing, and the knowing that you’ll never know. But I do know what it’s like to have depression, and what it ..read more

I wouldn’t normally do this. I wouldn’t normally draw attention to the little-trafficked blog of some fundamentalist Christian mom who just wants to teach the world to walk in truth, and I implore you all not to travel over and start shit in her comments section. That said, any time I see a headline that I’m absolutely certain is from the Reductress, but then it isn’t, my only reaction can be an OH MY GOD, Y’ALL, LOOK AT THIS that can be heard across the whole Internet. Men Prefer Debt-Free Virgins Without Tattoos It’s just so specific. Do you know how much more attractive debt-free virgins ..read more

“So then I thought you might shed a single, crystalline tear of sadness and shame. Can you cry on command?” Charlie Rose has some balls on him, and we know this because several women have alleged they were forced to see them in person. There have been questions about powerful, abusive men felled by #MeToo. How long is long enough for them to stay out of the public eye? Is there anything they can do to atone for the abuse they visited on comparatively powerless women? I don’t have any substantive opinion on that, but I can say that a show hosted by one of them featuring interviews with the rest ..read more