THE BLANKET THAT CAN NEVER BE DRY

sunisup:

roxanneritchi:

icicleman | cowl | verticalvest | gentlemanbones | -alphawaves:

The Utah company “Teen Escort Services” is regularly contracted to forcibly kidnap LGBT teens in the middle of the night and bring them to a detention facility for re-education. Those facilities are said to be “boot camps”, places where “trouble-causing” children can be re-educated, but seriously, when you hear the testimonies of the people who get in…

Read More

Why hasn’t this got more notes

Holy shit.

please, everyone read this. it’s absolutely heartbreaking and absolutely horrible. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

I tried catching all the triggers in this. If I missed something, please add it to the title.

Horrifying.  I knew Utah was a scary place for queer people, but damn.

iamthecrime:

PROTEST THE ACQUITTAL OF TWO NEW YORK CITY COPS FOR RAPE

On Thursday May 26, New York police officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were found not guilty of charges that Moreno raped a woman in her apartment while Mata kept guard, despite the fact that the amount of evidence against the officers in this case was overwhelming. Instead, the jury convicted both officers of official misconduct for entering the woman’s apartment, but found them not guilty of all other charges, including burglary and falsifying business records. This despite the fact that one of the officers had been recorded on tape admitting to using a condom when having sex with the woman who made the accusation. The cornerstone of the defense required that the woman was too drunk to have a credible account of the incident, but sober enough to consent to sex.

Join us in protest. Because raping a drunk women while on patrol is more than “official misconduct”. Because calling 911 should not be an invitation to be raped. Because NO behavior, including being drunk, is an invitation to be raped. Because rapists do not deserve the protection of our tax-funded police department and city officials. Because we recognize this incident as part of the NYPD’s long, horrific history of violence - sexual and otherwise - often and disproportionately against people of color. Because the people of NYC will not accept victim-blaming, cronyism, and a culture of silence that allows rapists to roam free, without consequence. 

For more information: 
Read more about the case here:  Feministing
and here: NYTimes

(via glamaphonic)

bluntlyblue:

Why Obama shouldn’t have had to ‘show his papers’

technipol:

[The article below was written by Goldie Taylor and read by her on Wednesday’s The Rachel Maddow Show]

“Show me your papers!”

Major Blackard, then just 19 years old, dug into his trousers in search of his wallet. He padded his jacket, but could not find his billfold.

“Sir, I done left my wallet…” Blackard said. Before he could finish his sentence, the young man was posted against the brick wall, cuffed and taken to the St. Louis city jail. Unable to prove his identity, he would spend the next 21 days in a cramped, musty cell. That’s where his older brother Matt found him, beaten and bloodied. Matt returned with Major’s employer later that day, wallet and identification card in hand, to post bond.

The year was 1899. Major Blackard was my great, great grandfather.

The real crime, as Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Blackmon points on in his seminal work Slavery by Any Other Name, was that my grandfather was a colored man in America. 

This morning, as White House staffers released copies of the president’s long form birth certificate, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something very ugly was going on. For the first time in recorded history, a sitting president of the United States found it necessary to produce his original birth certificate for public inspection. Not once, in 235 years, have we ever demanded proof that our president was born on American soil.

In a stunning display of unchecked ego, Donald Trump quickly hosted a news conference, during which he took credit for forcing President Obama’s hand. The sometime real estate developer, socialite, author and television personality went on to caution onlookers to let “experts” examine the document. Lest the president continue perpetrating was Trump has called potentially the “biggest fraud in American history.”

Click here to view a PDF version of President Obama’s long form birth certificate

For weeks, the thrice married, comb-over construction magnate has enthralled news reporters with his apocalyptic ranting. Trump openly questioned whether President Obama belonged in the White House, a boardroom, or even an Ivy League lecture hall.

And we let him.

We used all manner of excuses to justify giving Trump as much oxygen as he could suck up. Rarely, if ever, did we press him to produce a shard of evidence to substantiate his wild claims. We smiled gingerly as he all but called us stupid sycophants who were in cahoots with an illegitimate president. We allowed him to hold court on issues on which he clearly has no knowledge and no credibility, beyond the limo ride briefings he apparently receives from his merry band of “yes men.”

Trump didn’t just want the birth record. He wants the president to release his college transcripts. “How did such a bad student get into Harvard?,” Trump keeps asking. The implication is the Barack Obama was the beneficiary of affirmative action and took the place of a more qualified white student. Apparently, graduating magna cum laude from the nation’s most prestigious law school and being named editor of the Harvard Law Review — the institution’s highest student honor — is not enough for him.

It never is for people like Trump.

“If he gets off the phone, or gets off his basketball court or whatever he’s doing at the time,” Trump said. “I mean he should be focused on OPEC and getting those prices down.”

When they tell you this isn’t racial, don’t believe them. This controversy was constructed solely as a way to de-legitimize the presidency of a black man. Those who question the location of Barack Obama’s birth are the very same people who would pack up and move out of the neighborhood if someone like me moved in next door.

When they say they want to take their country back, they mean from us.

According to a recent Public Policy Polling survey, a stunning 51 percent of Republicans believe the president wasn’t born in the United States. In Mississippi, nearly half of all Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. If they had their way, not only would Obama not be president, he never would have been born.That’s how far we have not come.

Some 112 years after my grandfather was snatched from a street corner in the central west end section of St. Louis, it seems we still need to prove our right to be here. 

I thought we were better than this.

(via formerlyroxy)

knifeyutensil:

thedailywhat:

This Idea Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad of the Day: A Republican state legislator from Michigan has generated significant controversy with a budget proposal that would require foster children to purchase their clothing exclusively at second-hand stores.

When asked to explain the reasoning behind his bizarre proposal, State Sen. Bruce Caswell said that, growing up, all his clothes were purchased second-hand at the Salvation Army store by his dad: “[A]nd his comment was — and quite frankly it’s true — once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.”

The plan would provide children in the state’s foster care system with gift cards that would only be redeemable at second-hand stores such as the Salvation Army and Goodwill.

Michigan League for Human Services executive director Gilda Jacobs says she was “flabbergasted” by Sen. Caswell’s proposal. “You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes,” Jacobs is quoted as saying. “You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.”

It is unclear how much money, if any, the state would save if Caswell’s plan were implemented, but the Senator himself has reportedly admitted that it was unlikely to save any.

[messenger / michiganradio / thanks kim!]

Michigan.. you make me so ashamed sometimes to say I’m from there X_x

I just

how can anyone

kljasdfjklahsdlfjkasdlkj

HOW CAN ANYONE THINK THIS IS VALID OR OK OR ANYTHING.  JUST.  HOLY SHIT.  ”I got hand-me-downs which is exactly the same as being in foster care and forced to shop at thrift stores by the government” do you even hear what the fuck you are saying?  I just.  Find it hard to believe that anyone could be so ignorant.

AUGH.

(via skeleopig)