Trump's failures. Ex-presidents must speak out. Gender interruptus. Pussy hat under glass. Saudi Arabia. Steve Miller. Gloria Awards
LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN NEWSLETTER #45 APRIL 26, 2017
POTUS continues to be a consummate loser; the male Supremes keep interrupting their female colleagues; the appalling misogyny of Saudi Arabia and Stephen Miller perversely seems to entitle both the Gulf nation and the Trump aide to represent women. But, thankfully, this week's rogues' gallery is counter-balanced by some fine folks and good causes.
TRUMP FAILURE WATCH
Pre-election screw-ups:
Post-election misfires & defeats. At the 100 day mark, Trump's failures include his botched health care plan; court-challenged Muslim ban; unfilled staff positions: historically low (40%) popularity rate: mounting White House leaks; dissension in the palace; unresolved investigations of himself, his campaign staff and members of his administration; inability to bridge opposing GOP factions; a cabinet disproportionately more white & male than any since Reagan's virtually all of whom either have no prior related experience or a record of adversarial attitudes toward the departments they now oversee. (Click here for specifics).
So what has Trump accomplished? "... almost nothing," says the Washington Post's Elise Viebeck. Peter Baker, of the NY Times, nails the lunacy with "Trump Rejects 100-Day Test, Yet Seeks an A"
Time for the five living ex-Presidents to speak out, writes Arthur Magida. Carter, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama should form a Presidential Committee of Conscience "to admonish and correct a sitting president whose actions are a threat to the defining ethos of the nation...[and] whose cavalier utterances betray the dignity and purpose of the office of the presidency."
Gender Interruptus. A recent study shows that male Supreme Court justices "interrupt female justices three times as often as the men interrupt each other." This finding "aligns with previous research [showing] that women get talked over much more often than men in all sorts of settings....[and] that there is no point at which a woman is high-status enough to avoid being interrupted."
You must be kidding, Part 1. Saudi Arabia has been voted a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is the agency that's supposed to be “exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women."
You must be kidding, Part 2. Before you start congratulating the U.S. for its enlightened policies toward women, please note that gender discrimination-denier, Stephen Miller (above), has been put in charge of "women's issues" along with fake feminist Ivanka.
London's Victoria and Albert Museum acquires a pink pussy hat that was worn at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C.
The British museum exhibits historic suffragist penny.
The 1903 coin, which shows the face of King Edward defaced by the words "Votes for Women," is not just a curious British feminist artifact but a symbol of the intensity of women's struggle to win the vote. The effort it took for suffragists to engrave the slogan into the metal is demonstrated in this video . (Unfortunately, both news story and video employ the term "suffragette," a common misnomer that trivializes the suffrage movement. (Dictionary definition: In English the suffix 'ette.' "forms diminutives (kitchenette, sermonette); distinctively feminine nouns (majorette); and names of imitation products ( leatherette)."
Abortion is an economic issue. Bernie Sanders makes a serious mistake in pitting reproductive rights against economic inequality as if they were competing priorities when the two issues are inextricably interconnected. Democrats have a habit of forming a firing squad in a circle. Let's not poison our party with internecine political struggles and ideological nit-picking. Let's leave self-destruction to the Republicans.)
HUMOR
Notes for Ivanka's Babysitter. The New Yorker intercepts the First Daughter's instructions for how to handle the bedtimes of her kids, ages 1, 3, 5, and 70-going-on-6.
Ridicule is the best revenge. POTUS'S tiny little hands are given something to do in this funny-silly accordion video, the second to go viral,
Speaking of revenge, Samantha Bee’s “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” will broadcast this Sat night on TBS at 10 PM and stream at 11 on Twitter.
ACTIVISM
Protest extreme immigration policies. DREAMers —immigrants who came into the U.S. as children, and call America home—must be protected from Trump's brutal deportation force. Join OFA and fight back.
Flip Montana blue. Click here to help Democrat Rob Quist win Montana's special Congressional election.
Flip Virginia Blue. Click here to help return the Virginia State legislature to the Democrats.
Reminder: Climate March this Sat, 4/29 in D.C. and across the country. Find a local march here.
[Photo ran with FPIR story on Afghan women by SITARA SADAAT]
Named for Margaret Fuller, the pioneering 19th century journalist, critic & feminist advocate, The Fuller Project for International Reporting delivers articles, op-eds, investigative pieces and multi-media coverage of issues affecting women around the world. Support FPIR & amplify women's voices.
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Combatants for Peace in coalition with the Parents Circle/Families Forum, will conduct the 11th annual Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony on April 30th. To watch the live broadcast of the ceremony click here. Follow it on Facebook. Or attend one of the local events featuring the telecast.
NYC AREA
The Gloria Awards, the annual gala benefit named for Ms Foundation for Women Co-Founder Gloria Steinem (above), celebrates activists, innovators, and philanthropists who work to advance gender equality and social justice, fund movement activities, and advocate for women’s progress.
(l-r) Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez
2017 Gloria Award honorees are Hillary Clinton; the four national co-chairs of the Women’s March (above); three outstanding grass roots groups (Young Women United, Miami Workers Center, #EveryBlackGirl), & Sydney Phillips, (below) the 7th grader who fought her way onto her school's boys basketball team when its girls team was disbanded.
"Women in Jewish Life: What to Cherish, What to Change." That's the topic of my talk at a pre-Mothers Day luncheon on Mon. May 8th, 11:30 AM @ Lake Success Jewish Center. (Book signing to follow.) Contact mklayman@lakesuccessjc.org or call 516-466-0569 for tickets.
Literary irony: fiction predicts fact in this chilling quote from Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, CATCH-22. "It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."