GOP, on Top of Their Hierarchies, Decides Who Deserves What

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on Sunday stressed that her colleagues are focused on preserving benefits for recipients who deserve them as House Republicans push entitlement reform.
"We're not talking about taking away benefits from those who deserve those benefits," Blackburn said on the Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures."

Typical in hierarchies, the top believes that those in lower groups do not deserve the benefits that those on top receive, including health care and a good safety net. Those on top have the power to channel to themselves what they want and need, but rationalize away why those in the lower groups should not have the benefits.

Blackburn's comments come as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has angled to make entitlement reform a GOP priority in 2018, calling Medicare and Medicaid the “big drivers of debt."
 
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/366919-republican-were-not-talking-about-taking-away-benefits-from-those-who-deserve

Assimulation Not Diversity – Way to Keep Hierarchies Strong

According to Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa, “Diversity is not our strength...Assimilation, not diversity, is our American strength.”

In other words, people like me on top of my hierarchy are superior, and everyone else will benefit from being just like us.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/363973-steve-king-diversity-isnt-americas-strength

HIerarchy or the Highway – The Current Republican Party

For decades, the goal of the Republican Party has been to build and maintain hierarchies, including those of the top abusing lower groups and lying, using race as a way to keep whites on top, channeling resources to the top, and excusing the behavior of those who want to do whatever pleases them. 

Conservative columnist David Brooks states in the New York Times concerning current options for Republicans:

"Now it’s clear that middle ground doesn’t exist. That’s because Donald Trump never stops asking. First, he asked the party to swallow the idea of a narcissistic sexual harasser and a routine liar as its party leader. Then he asked the party to accept his comprehensive ignorance and his politics of racial division. Now he asks the party to give up its reputation for fiscal conservatism. At the same time he asks the party to become the party of Roy Moore, the party of bigotry, alleged sexual harassment and child assault."

Brooks claims that Trump is taking the soul of the Republican party, but to a large extent, it  is being given willingly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/opinion/the-gop-is-rotting.html

John Lewis – Stands Against Trump Again

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson is holding its grand opening. But one of the greatest champions of breaking down the race hierarchy is not going to attend, because one of the greatest builders of the race hierarchy is.
John Lewis has said that he will not attend the event this weekend because he would have had to share a stage with Donald Trump.

“I think his presence would make a mockery of everything that people tried to do to redeem the soul of America and to make this country better,” Lewis said Wednesday.

But the Atlanta Democrat said Thursday afternoon that Lewis would reconsider if Trump chooses not to attend the event.

http://politics.blog.myajc.com/2017/12/07/john-lewis-cancels-trip-to-civil-rights-museum/

TIME: "The Silence Breakers" Are Still Breaking Down Hierarchies

To see the TIME video announcing "The Silence Breakers" as the People of the Year. gives us reassurance that underneath the intense hierarchy building efforts of Republicans headed by Trump/Pence, the efforts to break down hierarchies continue to be strong.

"I know the power of patriarchy, I know what men can do when they are angry."

We have experienced how people on top of hierarchies feel is their right totreat people they see as lower. They can harass, expect favors, damage, and bully – all in an effort to show and demonstrate their power.

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers-choice/

Germans Recognize HIerarchy Building by Trump as Challenge

According to a survey by the Koerber Foundation, and reported in Reuters, Germans see U.S. President Donald Trump as a bigger challenge for German foreign policy than authoritarian leaders in North Korea, Russia or Turkey. Hierarchies are easiest to see in lower groups, and the problems that Trump is creating by building hierarchies nationally and internationally are more obvious abroad than to many of his like-minded supporters in the United States.

Apparently Trump, in his efforts to "Make America Great Again," has forgotten that countries without friends are very isolated in their "greatness." From on isolated top of the hierarchies he is building, he believes he has access to all the resources and power to get what he wants. Time will tell.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-germany-survey/germans-see-trump-as-bigger-problem-than-north-korea-or-russia-idUSKBN1DZ0GY

Republicans: Make Sure Everyone's Resources Flow to the Top

According to an article in The Week, The transfer of money from the vast numbers of Americans in the middle class to the far smaller population that occupies the upper fraction of the top 1 percent is approximately a one-to-one transfer.

The Senate Republicans pulled this off their overarching goal of having the billionaire donor class receive its payout, at any cost.

"For all the bill's complexity, its underlying math is relatively straightforward: "By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes, while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut," The New York Times reported, summing up analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)."

http://theweek.com/articles/740773/big-reason-senate-gop-passed-incredibly-unpopular-tax-bill

There's the Hierarchical Christians, and Then Not So Much

The Most Rev. Justin Welby, England's top religious authority, the archbishop of Canterbury, said that he "really genuinely" can't comprehend why fundamentalists in the United States have provided such a strong base for Trump.

Must be that he hasn't comprehended just what U.S. versions of hierarchical religions are based upon – not "man" made in the image of God, but God made in the image of a man on top of a hierarchy (quote from Clueless at the Top).

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/archbishop-canterbury-baffled-christians-who-back-trump-n824001

Excuse: Men Just Can't Control Themselves

One way to keep the top not accountable is to assume that the control tactics they use are inate, and can not be helped. Such is the approach of Stephen Marche in the New York Times article, "The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido."

Of course he ignores the power that men have on top of the hierarchy that has allowed them to control women for centuries.

Marche: "How are we supposed to create an equal world when male mechanisms of desire are inherently brutal?" 

Oh are we supposed to agree that the poor men just can't be held accountable on top of the hierarchy, because they can't help their behavior, it is born to males?

Marche: "Acknowledging the brutality of male libido is not, of course, some kind of excuse. Sigmund Freud recognized the id, and knew it as “a chaos, a caldron full of seething excitations.” But the point of Freud was not that boys will be boys. Rather the opposite: The idea of the Oedipus complex contained an implicit case for the requirements of strenuous repression: If you let boys be boys, they will murder their fathers and sleep with their mothers."

Marche: "What if there is no possible reconciliation between the bright clean ideals of gender equality and the mechanisms of human desire?"  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/opinion/sunday/harassment-men-libido-masculinity.html?emc=eta1

Republicans: Let's Keep the Lower Groups Down, Particularly Children

In The New York Times, in discussing the GOP tax bill: "This time around, much more clearly than before, the goal seems to be to favor wealth, especially inherited wealth, over work. And buried in the legislation are multiple measures that would make it much harder for the children of the middle and working classes to work their way up."

"It selectively raises taxes on families with children. In fact, half — half! — of families with children will see a tax hike once the bill is fully phased in...systematic attempt to lavish benefits on the children of the ultra-wealthy while making it harder for less fortunate young people to achieve upward social mobility."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/republican-taxes-next-generation.html

The Top of Our HIerarchies Obviously Can Never Have Enough - Class War

 Ryan Cooper in The Week:

"The Republican donor class and their employees in Congress are barely even attempting to hide the fact that this tax 'reform' is about transferring as much income and wealth to the ultra-rich as possible, on their direct orders.

"The tax benefits for ultra-wealthy children in particular would be stupendous.

"The only possible conclusion is that the plutocracy is no longer satisfied with taking almost all the income growth. They now want to diminish everyone else's share; as George Carlin once said, "they want more for themselves, and less for everybody else.

"We now know there shall be no quarter from the ultra-rich in their quest to take as much of the national income and wealth for themselves as possible."

http://theweek.com/articles/738111/republican-tax-bill-class-war

Even Conservative Commentators Are Getting It

Jennifer Rubin writes the "Right Turn" blog for The Washington Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective. But even she says that change is needed among conservative men.

When describing Trump stumpers on Sunday shows, she said, "At times the conversation was hilarious — or maddening, if you prefer — as these men showed that being a loyal Republican these days means suspending any moral or religious code one might have."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/20/republican-men-need-new-talking-points/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_3_na&utm_term=.803055e2cad4

Fractal, A Great Model for Hierarchy Building on Hierarchy

In "The GOP's Fractal Incompetency Problem," published in The Week, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry explains that Republican dysfunction is fractal. Every problem is caused by an even deeper problem. We will use Gobry's levels to demonstrate hierarchies.

Going down level after level, we see, to use our terminology and theory, levels of hierarchy seeping into the Republican core. Republicans aren't making choices - they support hierarchies with every decision they make. They don't have a leader weighing the pros and cons - they decide in favor of hierarchies virtually every time.

At another level down, nobody knows or agrees what the Republican Party is for. Yes, they are so clueless at the top, and have accumulated the most clueless in their midst, that they have no idea what reality is at this point.

http://theweek.com/articles/735567/gops-fractal-incompetence-problem

Discuss Trump with Children - A Choice for Parents as in the Former Soviet Union

Mikhail Iossel in The New Yorker brings us to the time of the late Soviet Union, when parents were very cautious about discussing politics with their children in fear that they would tell a teacher or another adult what their parents said.  The same is taking place in Russia now, too—at least, in intelligentsia families: What’s the point of discussing Putin? Putin is as Putin does.

En his article entitled, "Welcome to the World of Soviet Feelings," Iossel equates the Russian situation to the present United States, where parents in the face a choice whether or not to honestly discuss Trump.

 "Trump is a distinctly ugly thread in the narrative of the American Presidency, a human disaster unto itself. What are responsible American parents supposed to say to their children about Trump? 'Sorry, kids, America has screwed up bigly this time around'? This sort of national calamity wasn’t supposed to happen in America. This is the Soviet kind of narrative, if you will: the rulership of the worst sort of people—the reckless, the ignorant, the avaricious, the lethally indifferent. That danger presented by Trump, the precariousness of U.S. democracy—that’s something, possibly, to tell one’s children. And to tell them, also, that it might be best not to talk about any of that with strangers. This is the end of American-bound innocence for the new generation of America’s children—and for their parents, too. Welcome to the world of 'Soviet' feelings."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/welcome-to-the-world-of-soviet-feelings?mbid=social_facebook_aud_dev_kw_paid-welcome-to-the-world-of-soviet-feelings&kwp_0=563002

White Republicans Lead in NRA Funding, Democrats are Way Behind

The New York Times has released the list of the most funded congressional representatives in receiving money from the National Rifle Association (N.R.A.). The article, entitled "Thoughts and Prayers for Texas. NRA Funding for Washington" lists with pictures the top 10.

All of the top ten Senators and Representatives are white Republicans. Eighteen of the twenty are men. 

The highest ranked Democrat in the House is Sanford Bishop, who ranks 41st in career donations from the N.R.A. Among the top 100 House recipients, 95 are Republican. In the Senate, the top two Democrats are Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who rank 52nd and 53rd — behind every Republican but Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/06/opinion/nra-funding-prayers-texas.html

White Men - Key to Why We Have So Many Mass Shootings

According to Newsweek, white men have committed mass shootings more than any other group. However, in our society, we have been slow to identify them as a group.

In hierarchies, top groups are given the "isolated incident" pass. When members of their group do something that is undesirable, it is assigned to a reason other than entitlement, as the Newsweek article suggests is at the root of the anger in white men.

If Muslim men or black women had committed a disproportionate number of mass shootings, then we would notice them as a group. Instead we say white males are mentally ill, but mentally ill women are not shooting hundreds of people they don't know.

 http://www.newsweek.com/white-men-have-committed-more-mass-shootings-any-other-group-675602?amp=1

Hats Off to Tom Steyer

All people at the top of our wealth hierarchy aren't clueless.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has instituted a $10 million dollar ad campaign calling for Donald Trump to be impeached. Watch it here.

http://ktla.com/2017/10/27/trump-calls-billionaire-pro-impeachment-activist-tom-steyer-of-california-wacky-unhinged/

Whitefish - People at the Top Aren't Held Accountable

Usually people at the top are a little more discrete about taking what they want with little opportunity for accountability. But Interior Secretary's Ryan Zinke ignored even that when he gave a contract to a small Montana energy company worth $300 million dollars to supposedly rebuild power systems in Puerto Rico.

Not only is there no accountability for awarding the contract, but a copy of the deal obtained by reporter Ken Klippenstein reveals that the government isn't allowed to "audit or review the cost and profit elements" under the agreement, allowing the company greater discretion and secrecy for how it spends the $300 million to restore power to the island. Puerto Rico is rebuilding after two major hurricanes wiped out most of the island's electrical grid.

Whitefish contract also states that the Puerto Rican government "waives any claim against Contractor related to delayed completion of work." 

Under Trump/Pence and the Republicans, people at the top expect and get what they want at the expense of the rest of us.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/357473-whitefish-energy-contract-bars-government-from-auditing-deal

New World Record - People Dressed as Rosie the Riveter

3,755 girls and women dressed as Rosie the Riveter gathered at the Eastern Michigan University's Convocation Center in Ypsilanti on Saturday, October 14, breaking the world record.

Dressed in blue shirts and red bandanas, the youngest was six months old, and the oldest 110.

Rosie the Riveter was a patriotic symbol pictured in a poster of a woman wearing a bandanna and flexing her muscles under the slogan, "We can do it!" The character was inspired by Michigan native Rose Will Monroe, one of thousands of women who worked at the Willow Run plant producing B-24 bombers during World War II.

And women are still refusing to stay in lower rungs of our country's hierarchies, and are creating change, here and across the world.

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2017/10/michigan_smashes_world_record.html

Extremes at the End of the See Saw

As explained in Everyone Jump Together, that is downloadable for free on this website, people clinging to hierarchies have moved out to the extreme end of the see saw, being motivated by people who want to end hierarchies. Chaos continues to emerge.

In "The Republican Civil War is Spreading," Paul Waldman describes the civil war that is spreading in the ranks of the Republican Party.

"They are beginning to tear themselves apart over the question of who is to blame for their current difficulties, with one side saying it's the fault of a feckless establishment that is insufficiently loyal to President Trump, and the other side saying — mostly sotto voce, but occasionally out loud — that the responsibility lies with Trump himself."

Also, Waldman predicts that if tax reform going down in flames, the conflicts within the GOP will get even uglier.

http://theweek.com/articles/730474/republican-civil-war-spreading?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=10_14_17-article_1-730474

Pas de deux - With Two Men at the New York City Ballet

Even in the days of Trump and Republican enabling, people are moving on to break down hierarchies all over our country. 

One example is ballet, which is examining the traditional male and female roles. Gender norms in ballet have developed through the use of the pointe shoe, worn by women to create the illusion of lightness and of floating, and the rules of partnering: Lifts require upper-body strength that men access more easily than women.

A pas de deux — a dance for two — is usually about love and usually between a man and a woman. But in Lauren Lovette's sweeping, romantic ballet “Not Our Fate," a lush pas de deux is created for two men, not incidentally men of color, in a tender, athletic display of desire.

According to the article, what feels unusual in this two dance, and in another ballet with a male pas de deux, “The Times Are Racing”  also at the New York City Ballet, one of the world’s premier companies, is their fresh approach: full of abandon and brimming with romantic desire, they seem utterly natural. 

One of the dancers, Taylor Stanley said of the performance, “It’s not like we’re pushing boundaries, it’s just that things are sort of looking how they should be looking.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/arts/dance/same-sex-duets-justin-peck-lauren-lovette-new-york-city-ballet.html

Mock PSA in Denmark: A Charity Appeal to Help Americans to Deal with the NRA (Nonsensical Rifle Addiction)

People on the top of hierarchies often have a hard time seeing what is so obvious to other people. Such is the case with the gun situation in the United States.

Calling the NRA, the Nonsensical Rifle Addiction, a Dutch news satire program created a Public Service Announcement, looking like a charity appeal, asked Europeans to step up and help Americans dealing with the NRA by providing funds for "water, blankets, facts, insights, statistics, and truth bombs." The program is hosted by comic Arjen Lubach.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dutch-tv-nra-guns_us_59db1b36e4b0f6eed3514c55

What the Top Gets Away With in Real Life

In our hierarchies, we are taught to not hold the top accountable for actions that lower groups would be called out when doing.

Here is a good list of actions by Donald Trump and his cohorts that Republicans and people who support them refuse to think to be a problem. After all, when someone supports a hierarchy, the top can never be wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/08/opinion/editorials/republican-etiquette-guide.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

The US Supports Murdering Gays and Lesbians

Joining Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the United States has refused to support a UN resolution that  condemns the death penalty for having gay sex. Silence speaks volumes.

The Republicans and Trump/Pence continue to move farther and farther out on the see-saw in support of hierarchies, choosing to ignore how their policies affect anyone not like those on the top. One day they will fall off, hopefully before they take the entire country with them.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-gay-sex-death-penalty-un-same-sex-relations-human-rights-council-saudi-arabia-iraq-nikki-haley-a7980981.html

Supporting Colin Kaepernick, You Never Know What Might Come Your Way

When two Washington Redskins running backs saw an 11-year-old, Jaden, wearing a Colin Kawpernick jersey in a GameStop store, they complimented the youth on his jersey, and bought him an Xbox. 

Jaden said of Kaeprenick in a follow-up interview, “I liked how he wasn’t afraid to show what he thought.”  “He risked getting fired, which was a big thing. I wouldn’t even do that, but he did, and I really like him for standing out. I don’t know if people agree with it, but he just doesn’t care what people say and that’s inspired me and probably inspired other people.”

So many of us are breaking down our country's hierarchies, one day at a time.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2017/09/28/a-kid-walked-into-a-gamestop-wearing-a-colin-kaepernick-jersey-two-nfl-players-bought-him-an-xbox/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.227da27a6273

Divide and Conquer - Trump Now With Professional Athletes

David Remnick, in an article in the New Yorker entitled "The Racial Demagoguery of Trump's Assaults on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry," describes the divide and conquer technique of pushing people down the hierarchy in the minds of those who want to believe themselves to be superior.

"'People like yourselves.' 'Those people.' 'Son of a bitch.' (quoting Trump). This was the same sort of racial signalling that followed the Fascist and white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is no longer a matter of 'dog whistling.' This is a form of racial demagoguery broadcast at the volume of a klaxon. There is no need for Steve Bannon’s behind-the-scenes scriptwriting. Trump, who is desperate to distract his base from his myriad failures of policy, from health care to immigration, is perfectly capable of devising his racist rhetoric all on his own."

"What Trump is up to with this assault on athletes, particularly prominent black ones, is obvious; it is part of his larger culture war. Divide. Inflame. Confuse. Divert. And rule."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-racial-demagoguery-of-trumps-assaults-on-colin-kaepernick-and-steph-curry

Trump Supporters Being Conned on Tax Reform

Bill Mayer asks President Trump's supporters regarding the administration’s tax reform plans —“You know you’re being conned, right?”

"For Maher, however, the problem remains that 'the only prescription Trump has for unrigging the economy is tax cuts' that will 'almost exclusively benefit the people who are doing the rigging...

Most of the people in Trump’s audience don’t make enough to pay income tax at all, don’t own corporations,' he added. 'And the closest they’ve ever been to an estate was when they visited Graceland.”

Blind following of people at the top - believing lies that supporting the top will benefit the lower groups - is what keeps hierarchies strong and lower people engaged. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-maher-donald-trump-tax-reform_us_59c22236e4b087fdf5091f46?utm_hp_ref=donald-trump&utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_2066672&ncid=txtlnkusaolp00001376

Making Sure Trump Doesn't Become the New Norm

Rex Hupple, in the Chicago Tribune, says that he is asked regularly why he doesn't lay off of Trump.

He tells us that an internet meme, showing a video of Trump taking a golf swing and then implying that the ball hit Hillary Clinton stumbling as she stumbles entering a jet, is the very reason that he won't stop.


Saying that he believes that we should not let Trump's behavior become acceptable as the norm, he is trying to raise his children to respect women, and everyone else.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-trump-clinton-golf-ball-retweet-huppke-20170918-story.html

Christianity Will Start A Civil War in the US - Bakker

Televangelist Jim Bakker is using Jesus Christ as a front to justify a civil war in the United States. 

Being on top of the religious hierarchy he creates, allows him to justify using any tools available to keep his power and influence, in the name of the deity that they proclaim to be Number One among deities. God is on their side, apparently. Bakker is predicting that if Trump is impeached, a second civil war is on the horizon.

"If it happens, there will be a civil war in the United States of America. The Christians will finally come out of the shadows, because we are going to be shut up permanently if we're not careful."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/348418-televangelist-jim-bakker-christians-will-start-new-civil-war-if?rnd=1504029305

Republicans - Only Care About the Average Person in Words

People on the top of hierarchies come up with incredible ways to hide their real intentions.

While the Republicans are pretending to care about the average people so adversely affected by Hurricane Harvey, in the same week the House Republicans are looking at cutting almost $1 billion from disaster accounts to help finance the wall Trump wants along the Mexican border. Also, in a speech in Springfield, Missouri, Trump called for sharply cutting taxes on corporations and rich people.

This is the same Republican party that sought to limit aid during Hurricane Sandy to people in New Jersey and New York.

How does Damon Linker, the author of this article. feel Republicans view lower people? "Many of them really think that they deserve to keep every penny and the rest of us owe them an expression of gratitude for providing us the privilege of working for them."

How's that for a description of the views of the top of the hierarchy?

http://theweek.com/articles/721990/gops-dishonest-charade-disaster-relief?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=09_01_17-article_1-721990

Evangelicals Clinging More to Hierarchy

A coalition of evangelical leaders have released a “Christian manifesto” called the "Nashville Statement" asserting their belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and condemning the acceptance of “homosexual immorality or transgenderism.” This group asserted its belief in separate gender roles in its 1987 manifesto, "The Danvers Statement" which affirmed a “complementarian” view of gender roles in a push against secular feminism and egalitarian marriages.

Extreme in their push to return to outdated hierarchies, they are defining roles of submission of women to men, and asserting that anyone but hierarchical heterosexuals have little right to exist.

The fact that these statements are getting press points to the fact that more and more people are speaking out against the hierarchies that the people on the end of the see saw are holding on to for dear life, and losing their rational perspective to do so.

Nashville mayor Megan Barry issued the following tweet, "The “so-called ‘Nashville statement’ is poorly named and does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/30/evangelical-leaders-release-nashville-statement-on-sexuality-rejecting-gay-marriage/?utm_term=.8df65cae4b7f

Trump - Pardoned Arpaio as Hurrican Harvey Made Landfall

Donald Trump on Monday said he chose his time to announce he was pardoning former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio because he “assumed the ratings would be far higher” while Hurricane Harvey made landfall.

Ever putting his own desires and personal needs before everyone else's, typical of a man who sees himself on the top of every hierarchy in the world, no one's needs trump his own.

“In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally,” Trump said during a press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. “You know, the hurricane was just starting.”

But people who see life from a lower perspective have a different idea. Democrats critisized Trump on Friday for timing, with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) accusing Trump of “using the cover of the storm” to issue the pardon.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/348327-trump-i-pardoned-arpaio-during-hurricane-because-i-thought-tv-ratings

Kissin' Cousin of White Supremacy – White Masculinity

Rob Okum is the editor of Voice Male, a magazine that is dedicated to helping our society change the way we raise and view men and boys.

In his article, "The Poison of White Supremacist Masculinity," Okum states, "In our long-term strategy to address domestic terrorism we must make central raising emotionally literate boys, dismantling bullying masculinity, and demanding the CDC conduct a study of the mental health of boys and young men."

Okum and his colleagues have been writing and speaking for years about the gender of the killers—from Columbine to Orlando. He asks how people who covered murder suspect James Fields. Jr. failed to point out the obvious, that he was a disaffected, alienated 20 year-old male. 

"In white America’s ongoing work to unflinchingly take responsibility for our country’s shameful slaveholding origins, we must also examine how we socialize boys to become men. The kissin’ cousin of a white supremacist history is our patriarchal legacy...we must chop down the tree of violent, hate-filled white masculinity to get to the root of our malaise."

http://womensenews.org/2017/08/the-poison-of-white-supremacist-masculinity/

Why Are Women in the Alt-Right? Explanation on PBS Newshour

If the Alt-Right movement has a face of white males, and they proclaim to support so many hierarchies, why are there occasionally white women present?

In a PBS Newshour interview with Seyward Darby, she explains that these women believe in the roles that hierarchies dictate for men and women.

"They very much like the idea of alpha men who embrace a very sort of aggressive form of masculinity.  But in terms of the place women see for themselves, they don’t believe that these men are misogynistic in the way that people looking from the outside might.

"They think that the men of the alt-right just understand biology and that men and women are fundamentally different, not equal, but equally important, and that men should be alpha, macho, fighting battles, running countries, making policy, whereas women have an equally important role on the home front, nurturing family units, inculcating the beliefs of this movement.  They would say they don’t see that as, you know, submission or subjugation.  They would say that it’s equally important, almost like a yin and yang."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/women-joining-alt-right/

Charlottesville: WHACHUMs Acting Out For All to See

The LA Times Editorial Board has issued a statement that "Trump bears some responsibility for the racism on display in Charlottesville." With a "Unite the Right" demonstration attended by head of the KKK David Duke, the Friday night pre-protest chants included statements such as the Hitlerian “blood and soil” and “Jews won’t replace us.”

Donald Trump stated that "both sides do it." Trump deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this "Unite the Right" rally. Instead he believes that people who want to build and maintain hierarchies express just another opinion. But, these people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of the warped, hierarchical belief system of the Right hierarchy builders. 

The torch-bearing parade of overwhelmingly white men shows who is behind these hierarchy-building decrees – the WHACHUMs discussed in our book, Everybody Jump Together, downloadable for free from this website. White males aren't born bigots, our hierarchy creates and encourages them. But if we join together with a common frame of hierarchies, we can push these men, and their leader Trump, off their game.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-charlottesville-racism-trump-20170812-story.html

Trump Insults Followers' Intelligence, But They Still Insist on Following the Top

"Why Do Trump's Supporters Allow Him to Insult Their Intelligence?" asks The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf.  Trump tweeted, "The Fake News Media will not talk about the importance of the United Nations Security Council's 15-0 vote in favor of sanctions on N. Korea!" \Mr. Friedersdorf lists many many articles about the N. Korea mainstream sanctions published before the tweet.

Considering how intent Trump supporters are on supporting him, no matter what he does or says, it is obvious that they are bowing to their programming to not question the top of the hierarchy, and to believe everything that filters down, no matter how ridiculous. Hail to the Hierarchy, no matter what.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-insults-the-intelligence-of-his-followers/536166/

Whites Should Be More Scared of Whites Than Others

In hierarchies, if we are on top, we are programmed to believe that we should fear lower groups, which strengthens the hierarchy because of division, and provides excuses to treat lower groups with less respect.

From 2011 through 2015, CDC statistics covering 99% of the United States population show that the rates of homicides, gun killings, and illicit-drug fatalities are highest in counties where nine out of ten residents are white and where President Trump won the 2016 election.

According to Mike Males in the Los Angeles Times, white people should be more afraid of other whites than they are of people of color.

"The white Americans who are safest from such deaths are those who live in racially diverse areas such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, where two-thirds of residents are nonwhite, where millions of immigrants live, and where voters favored Hillary Clinton in 2016. Nonwhites also are safer in these areas overall, though rates vary by location...According to FBI data for 2015, when whites are murdered anywhere in the country, the murderer is five times more likely to be white than nonwhite.

"Overall, white Americans who live in predominantly white and Trump-voting counties are 50% more likely to die from murder, gun violence and drug overdoses than whites who live in the most diverse and Democratic-voting counties. The more white and Republican a county is, the greater the risk for white Americans."

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-males-white-americans-violence-sanctuary-cities-20170803-story.html

Affirmative Action? How About Looking at Legacy Admissions for Whites.

People in the United States are so programmed that we need to keep the top of the hierarchy on top.

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post points out that legacy admission to colleges are considered by many people to be valid, while affirmative action because of being a non-white-male are not.

"Last year, Gallup asked Americans what factors should come into play when considering college applicants. About three-quarters of respondents said a student’s high school grades should be a major factor; about 3 in 10 said economic circumstances should be.

"But what jumps out is a revealing comparison on affirmative action. Only 9 percent of respondents said that race or ethnicity should be a major factor in acceptance, with an additional 27 percent saying it should be a minor factor. But legacy admissions — giving preference to students whose parents had attended the same school — was viewed as something that should be considered with more weight than race."

Bump goes on to say that affirmative action for those from college-educated families — families that are more likely to be white — was viewed as more acceptable than affirmative action for black or Hispanic students.

The Trump family is used as an example. Father Donald went to Wharton School of Finance, as did his children Donald Jr. and Ivanka. But good luck in having administration and his attorney general focus on that injustice.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/02/of-course-the-trump-justice-department-wants-to-target-affirmative-action/?utm_term=.81ae813b6c7b

Where Being Clueless at the Top of the World Has Gotten the USA

In an Article posted by Fareed Zakaria, and copyrighted by the Washington Post Writers Group, using Pew survey data, Mr. Zakaria is inviting the world to say good-bye to an era when the United States was admired and respected as a world leader, now facing the future of a Post-American World.

"The world has gone through bouts of anti-Americanism before. But this one feels very different. First, there is the sheer shock at what is going on, the bizarre candidacy of Donald Trump, which has been followed by an utterly chaotic presidency."

Describing the reaction of countries around the world to the Trump administration and a country who would elect him, he says, "The most dismaying of Pew’s findings is that the drop in regard for America goes well beyond Trump. Sixty-four percent of the people surveyed expressed a favorable view of the United States at the end of the Obama presidency. That has fallen to 49 percent now. Even when U.S. foreign policy was unpopular, people around the world still believed in America — the place, the idea. This is less true today."

The United States has fancied itself as being on top of the world hierarchy for many years. It appears that, by clinging to the hierarchy in this country that would elect Trump/Pence and their Republican followers, the world is no longer buying this commitment to hierarchies as a valid productive future.

Where will the commitment to our country's hierarchies end up on the global front? Who knows. While people in this country insist on remaining clueless at the top, other people all over the world can certainly see differently.

https://fareedzakaria.com/2017/07/28/say-hello-to-a-post-american-world/

Everyone But the Rich Suffer Under the Republicans - Now Medicare and Social Security

According to Reuters, the Republicans have decided to now go after Medicare and Social Security in their latest efforts to repeal Obamacare.

"President Donald Trump has vowed repeatedly that he 'wouldn’t touch' Medicare or Social Security, but someone forgot to tell House Republicans," according to the article. People on the top of hierarchies don't care how their decisions affect other people not in their elite circles, again, and whatever is promised in the past is up for changes, if the top can benefit.

Republicans promised to do away with Obamacare, and they don't care who they hurt in the process of finding any way they can to do just that. No one will be surprised when the people who really benefit are the rich and the insurance companies, who could receive even more business opportunities with the new Republican plan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-column-miller-medicare-idUSKBN1AC2W7

Republicans: Anti-Business, Turns Out, in Texas

Maybe only caring about the top of the hierarchy brings short-term benefits to a few at the top, but those at the top can be amazingly clueless about how their actions affect the whole, including them.

The Dallas News reports that Texas is falling behind in attracting new business and in employment.

"AUSTIN — The once mighty Texas Miracle is rapidly becoming the Texas Debacle.
After years of leading the nation's job growth, Texas has now sunk near the bottom: 39th, to be exact. The Republican mantra of lower taxes and still-lower regulation has done nothing but disprove itself. Meanwhile, the Republicans that control state government have convened a special session, with economic growth nowhere on the agenda — indeed, the opposite is true. The Republican Party has completed an astonishing metamorphosis: It is unabashedly anti-business."

"At 4.8 percent, the Texas unemployment rate is higher than the national average for the first time in years. That percentage, by the way, means that 700,000 Texans are out of work. The state's overall economic output, the gross state product, has been flat at $1.6 trillion annually even as the state's population continues to rise. That means that Texas now is just about on par with Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, states with small economies that are nearly perpetually stalled for structural reasons. Now in Texas, too, flat is the new up."

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/07/19/increasingly-anti-business-republicans-just-dismantled-texas-miracle

Macho Congressmen: Let's Have a Duel, Female Senators

Republicans can't let go of their heritage in hierarchies to use violence and guns to settle their affairs. The top of hierarchy will resort to whatever it takes to keep them in charge.

Rep. Blake Farenhold (R-Texas) has suggested that he'd like to duel with female senators he blames for the Senate's failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

On Friday, Farenthold told a radio station in Corpus Christi, Texas, “some female senators from the Northeast” are responsible for the Senate’s failure to pass a bill, according to the The Associated Press.

“If it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style,” Farenthold added.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/343477-gop-lawmaker-female-senators-are-responsible-for-healthcare-bill-failure

To the supporters and enablers of President Trump:

"To the supporters and enablers of President Trump: you will never get your country back." So says Michael Starr Hopkins, who also thinks this country is at a point where,  "enough is enough though. At some point, I can’t be a consensus builder. At some point, even I run out of excuses and explanations for people who can’t even be honest with themselves."

Hopkins feels that the people who are enablers and supporters of Trump/Pence should stop going through the motions of claiming to be great Americans, and stop to ask what is an American. The time for politics is over, as we are under attack, not from just a foreign enemy, but a domestic one as well.

He says that the enablers and supporters of Trump/Pence are the antithesis of everything that the Republican party stands for, and are un-American.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/you-will-never-get-your-country-back_us_59373e52e4b06bff911d7be5

It's Why We Have Trump – Don't Have to Listen to Non-Whites

An Airbnb host who canceled a reservation and told the guest, "One word says it all. Asian," has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and attend a college course in Asian-American studies, officials with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing said Thursday.

When Dyne Suh, who had confirmation of the reservation, told host Tami Barker that she would complain to Airbnb, Barker wrote, "It's why we have Trump ... I will not allow this country to be told what to do by foreigners."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/airbnb-host-5000-fine-canceling-over-race/

KelllyAnne Conway - Do They Come Any More Clueless?

Usually we see white men being the most clueless when it comes to Trump/Pence. But KellyAnne Conway is an amazing example of someone who has experience lower on a hierarchy as a woman, but totally denies it, and instead, goes right along gulping down the Koolaid. It seems she will do anything to make sure the top of the hierarchy, Trump/Pence and cronies, are not held accountable.

In a time when thinking people of the United States are so glad the media has stepped up to cover Trump more for what he is, now KellyAnne proclaims:

"The media is “myopic” and “lemming-like” when it comes to its coverage of President Donald Trump and the ongoing investigations into potential ties between his campaign and the Russian government," counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said. That “sameness,” she told Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday night, is the reason why trust in the media has dropped substantially.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/13/kellyanne-conway-criticize-media-russia-coverage-240499

Trump Education Official - 90% Sexual Assault Comes After Drunken Sex and Break-ups

Candice Jackson, a Trump official and the acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said that most sexual assaults come after break-ups and drunken sex.

Many investigations don’t reveal “that these accused students overrode the will of a young woman,” Jackson, whose office tracks Title IX violations, told the New York Times. “Rather, the accusations — 90 percent of them — fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right,’ ” Jackson said.

Just to prove that Trump finds white women who are clueless also, here is a woman, Candace Jackson, who apparently is very willing to go against her own group in order to support the top of the hierarchy, or we can congratulate Trump for truly finding the most clueless people available.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/13/trump-official-apologizes-for-saying-most-campus-sexual-assault-accusations-come-after-drunken-sex-breakups/?utm_term=.9299c191e07a

Civil War On The Way? Maybe from the Alt-Right

We received a few days ago a Facebook message from an old high school acquaintance, white heterosexual able-bodied Christian U.S. born male, that told us that if another "black boy" is elected to the presidency, white males will look like saints, and we can expect a civil war.

Maybe he isn't as clueless as he seemed. According to an article in the Huffington Post, a civil war may be brewing, coming from the alt-right.

After all, more Americans have been killed by white, under-educated, financially impotent, scared white men, aka likely ‘Trump supporters,’ in the past twelve months than by foreign terrorists screaming ‘Allahu Akbar.’

A new ad from America’s largest gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, is being compared to a recruitment video produced by terrorists, experts claim. The video urges viewers to link up with the gun lobby to fight back by raising “clenched fists of truth (viewable from the link below)

Maybe this is why the alt right have been accumulating so many guns. Obviously the fact that so many Americans are killed every day doesn't phase them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yes-there-is-a-civil-war-looming-and-the-alt-right_us_5958aa05e4b0326c0a8d114e

Clueless Trump Supporters Didn't Recognize the Declaration of Independence

So, NPR is calling for revolution.
Interesting way to condone the violence while trying to sound "patriotic".
Your implications are clear.

— D.G.Davies (@JustEsrafel) July 4, 2017

 Just one of the messages from Trump supporters accusing NPR because of the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

“Propaganda is that all you know how? Try supporting a man who wants to do something about the Injustice in this country #drainingtheswamp.” 

Plenty of Twitter users reacted angrily to the thread, accusing NPR of spamming them — or, worse, trying to push an agenda.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/05/some-trump-supporters-thought-npr-tweeted-propaganda-it-was-the-declaration-of-independence/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.e74349cc7b15

Maintaing Hierarchies is the Highest Priority with Republicans

Charles M. Blow, in an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled "The Hijacked American Presidency" states,

"Republicans have bound themselves up with Trump. His fate is their fate. They have surrendered any moral authority to which they once laid claim — rightly or not. If Trump goes down, they all do.

"It’s all quite odd, this moral impotence, this cowering before the belligerent, would-be king. A madman and his legislative minions are holding America hostage."

Republicans have lost any moral compass they had, and instead, have committed themselves fully to hierarchies, no matter what comes along. We have spent 250 years in this country breaking hierarchies down, and will continue to do so. The current Republicans may cause a lot of damage, but they can't change the tide of history.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/opinion/trump-hijacked-american-presidency.html

Guns: Third Leading Cause of Death in Children in US

For people on top of hierarchies, guns apparently are very important. Got to keep all of those lower scary people in line, and make sure they don't want to take away any privilege of the top.

It doesn't matter to them that now, the third leading killer of children in this country is guns. An average of 1,297 children die annually from gun-related injuries.

But of course the top views these deaths as isolated incidences. According to gun advocates, their right to carry a gun and forcing a violent society on everyone else is not a problem, as long as they get what they want.

http://www.newsweek.com/guns-kids-third-leading-cause-death-627209

Top Excluded: Congress Exempts Itself From Health Care Bill Limitations

In hierarchies, the top does not expect to live by the same rules that they inflict on lower groups. The top believes themselves to be superior, so they deserve more of whatever is desired.

True with health care. Republican congress members want to keep the popular parts of Obamacare for themselves and their staffs, but not for the general public of the United States. Congress persons and their staffs are a protected class.

https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15429982/gop-exemption-ahca-amendment?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=entry&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Catholic Bishop in Illinois: No Communion or Funeral Rites for Same-Sex Couples

The hierarchical Catholic Church is continuing in it's ways of creating and encouraging hierarchies.

An Illinois bishop has decreed that he will allow no communion or funeral rights for people in same-sex marriages.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki bans priests and parish staff from performing same-sex marriages or allowing same-sex weddings or receptions at any Catholic facilities. People in same-sex marriages "should not present themselves for Holy Communion, nor should they be admitted to Holy Communion." A person in a same-sex marriage who is facing death may only receive communion after expressing "repentance for his or her sins."

Finally, Paprocki writes that "unless they have given some signs of repentance before their death," people in same-sex marriages may not receive a Catholic funeral.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/23/534127330/illinois-bishop-decrees-no-communion-funeral-rites-for-same-sex-spouses?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170623

Will Donald Trump Ever Experience Life Off the Clueless Top?

Paul Waldman, in an article in The Week, Donald Trump is described as a man who has spent his life defined by the fact that the rules do not apply to him. If he is faced with a situation when the rules do apply to him, he responds by becoming erratic, petulant, self-pitying, and in short, loses control.

Trump does not know how to follow the rules, as he has been given the immense privilege of the top of the hierarchy all his life. He has no idea how to cope with being treated even close to accountable, and is showing typical moves of people on top, who act that any nudge from below feels like a steamroller.

Waldman states, "Who is this joker to tell him what he can't and can't do? So what if there are 'rules' and 'laws'? He's Donald Trump!"

Will be see a man, so used to the privilege of the top, be required to experience even a glimpse of how most of the rest of the country lives? Time will tell.

http://theweek.com/articles/706156/trump-used-breaking-rules-impunity-that-undoing?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=afternoon&utm_medium=06_17_17-article_1-706156

Steve Scalise Shooting - Will It Make Republicans Think?

In hierarchies, people at the top assume they will not be held accountable for their actions, and, their decisions that harm others do not have anything to do with the decision makers. They have long rationalized that problems in our country are caused by others, and have nothing to do with what people on top do, who have the power and resources to set policy and to make changes.

As Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise was shot while playing baseball, do any of us believe that Republicans will rethink their support of guns belonging in the hands of anyone and everyone?

Will Republicans change their minds when the problems with gun ownership adversely hurt one of their own?

Probably not, as instead, they will blame lower groups, and not themselves for being part of the problem.

Comey, Feel What It Is Like for Women with a Predator Boss?

In a wonderful article by Nicole Serratore in the New York Times entitled, "James Comey and the Predator in Chief,"  the author describes Comey's private dinner meeting with Donald Trump as "the experience of a woman being harassed by her powerful, predatory boss. There was precisely that sinister air of coercion, of an employee helpless to avoid unsavory contact with an employer who is trying to grab what he wants."

Comey was "stunned" to find himself in potentially compromising positions. 

Ms. Serratore comments that for a woman who has spent a lifetime wrestling with situations where men have power they can abuse, this was disturbingly familiar. That reaction — the choice of stillness, responses calculated to neither encourage nor offend. Comey said he wanted to avoid granting any favor while avoiding the risk of direct confrontation — a problem so deeply resonant for women.

She goes on to ask, "Mr. Comey, you are not alone. How many of us have played over and over in our minds an encounter that suddenly took a creepy, coercive turn? What did I say? Were my signals clear? Did I do something ambiguous? Did I say something compromising?...What woman has not tried to remain invisible from an unwelcome pursuer’s attentions?"

"Mr. Comey did not want to be left alone with his boss again. We’ve been there, Jim."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/opinion/james-comey-and-the-predator-in-chief.html?_r=0

Brooks: Trump Project Asserts That Selfishness if the Sole Driver of Human Affairs

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, David Brooks quoted two of Donald Trump’s top advisers, H. R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

In other words, the purpose of our lives is to climb the hierarchy, according to two of Trump's top advisors. If you are a white, hierarchy-conservator, able-bodied, Christian, heterosexual U.S. born male, why not, you have all the advantages to get what you want in the U.S.  Looks like a good goal to them.

And Brooks responds, "That sentence is the epitome of the Trump project. It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs. It grows out of a worldview that life is a competitive struggle for gain. It implies that cooperative communities are hypocritical covers for the selfish jockeying underneath."

Radical Republican commitment to hierarhcies all the way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html?smid=fb-share

Pence: Climate Change is an Issue of the Left for Some Reason

Vice President Mike Pence:

.@VP: "For some reason, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left - in this country and around the world." pic.twitter.com/1UgRsgVkj1

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 2, 2017

Aren't we glad that "the left" at least isn't more dedicated to wealth than the radical Republicans that now rule the GOP? Clueless at the Top, and reaping more benefits day by day. So typical of people on top, and wanting to stay there.

 http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/336070-pence-for-some-reason-climate-change-is-a-key-issue-for-the-left

Helen Carroll, LGBT Sports Advocate, Retires

Helen Carroll, the legendary coach, athletic director and advocate who has fought for LGBTQ equality in sports for much of the last 40 years, is retiring from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Carroll ran the sports project for the National Center for Lesbian  Rights for 15 years. Before that, she was the head coach for women's basketball at UNC-Asheville, where she won the NAIA national title in 1984, the only national championship ever for the school. Later, Carroll was the athletic director for Mills College.

Carroll, along with Pat Griffin and Sue Rankin, were often referred to as the “godmothers” of the LGBTQ sports movement.

Best of luck in your new endeavors, Helen!!

http://www.outsports.com/2017/6/1/15723406/helen-carroll-nclr-lgbtq-sports-retire

40 Years Ago Car Racing Gender Barrier Broken with Janet Guthrie, But WIth Loads of Sexism

On May 14, 1977, forty years ago, Janet Guthrie saw a sign that might have been encouragement for any other driver trying to make the cut in the Indianapolis 500, but "JANET GRAB THAT POLE" was in the shape of a penis. Guthrie, now 74, put up with nasty sexist insults along the way to making a lot of cracks in racing's glass ceiling.

Guthrie was welcomed to Charlotte Motor Speedway by a throng of men chanting, "No tits in the pits!" 

"The strangest thing was the rubber chicken hex," Dick Simon, Guthrie's former teammate, recalled two years ago, during the Indy 500's 100th anniversary celebration. "One of the Yellow Shirts [Indianapolis Motor Speedway track guards] that was positioned at the entrance to Gasoline Alley would shake this rubber chicken at Janet every time she passed by him. Just cursing at her and shaking that chicken. It sounds stupid, but his intent was very hateful."

Janet Guthrie holds the record for the best finish by a woman in a top-tier NASCAR race, a sixth-place finish at Bristol in 1977.

 http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/8963949/espnw-janet-guthrie-outraced-insults-make-auto-racing-history

Rachael Scdoris-Salerno Challenges Republican Greg Walden in Oregon

32-year-old Democrat Rachael Scdoris-Salerno has filed paperwork to run for Oregon's Second Congressional District seat. She will attempt to unseat Republican Greg Waldon.

Walden has faced much opposition for his support of Donald Trump, the Trump immigration ban, and voting against LGBT protections. Walden also received more money than any other congresspeople from internet companies, and led the fight to allow internet use data to be sold.

Scdoris-Salerno has competed in the Paralympics in tandem cycling and has worked much of her life at her father's sled-dog business at Mt. Bachelor. She bought the business from her father two years ago.

http://www.kgw.com/news/politics/national-politics/noted-sled-dog-racer-scdoris-plans-run-against-rep-walden/440150575

Transgender Person Allowed to Sue Under Disability Law

In a step in the right direction in breaking down the sexual orientation hierarchy, a judge has ruled that a transgender woman can proceed with a sex discrimination lawsuit under the American with Disabilities Act for gender dysphoria, even though the ADA explicitly excludes transgender people from protection. US District Judge Joseph Leeson avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the ADA, as the plaintiffs had sought, under the legal principle that courts should avoid decisions on constitutional grounds if possible.

Being transgender is not considered by the American Psychiatric Association as a disorder, but it can give rise to a type of anxiety that may require medical treatment, gender dysphoria.

The suit is being brought against the retail chain Cabela's Inc., for sex discrimination, as the plaintiff says she was fired after harassment that included denying her the use of the women's bathroom and temporarily forcing her to wear a name tag with her male name given at birth.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-idUSKCN18F02X