And so it begins...

[Scooter]

[Lord Jim]

Trump has apparently seen the news media being focused on a Cat 4 hurricane as a great opportunity to send out dog whistles while trying to fly under the radar with the mainstream press...(Or maybe he's pissed off at Harvey for stealing all the TV time...)

In addition to pardoning Arpaio, he has also chosen this evening to do this:

Trump signs directive banning transgender military recruits

(CNN)President Donald Trump on Friday directed the military not to move forward with an Obama-era plan that would have allowed transgender individuals to be recruited into the armed forces, following through on his intentions announced a month earlier to ban transgender people from serving.

The presidential memorandum also bans the Department of Defense from using its resources to provide medical treatment regimens for transgender individuals currently serving in the military.

Trump also directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security "to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant," the White House official said.

The White House official who briefed reporters on the memo on Friday evening declined to say whether current transgender troops would be allowed to remain in the military under those policy guidelines.

The official signaled that the administration was returning to the military's pre-2016 policy under which no transgender individuals were allowed to serve openly in the armed forces, but said Trump was giving the secretaries of defense and homeland security leeway to determine the policy on currently serving transgender troops.

The official rejected any notion that Trump's directive amounted to discrimination against transgender individuals, and insisted that Trump was not walking back his rhetoric from the 2016 campaign when he vowed to fight for LGBT Americans.

"The President is the President for all Americans, and during last year's campaign he was the first GOP nominee to talk about LGBTQ issues at the GOP convention, but he also was critical of the Obama administration's change in that longstanding DOD policy," the official said.

"He's going to continue to ensure that the rights of the LGBTQ community, as well as all Americans, is protected," the official added. "This policy is based on a series of national security considerations."

The guidance comes a month after Trump said on Twitter that he would reinstate a ban on transgender troops, an announcement that took many in the military's leadership -- including the joint chiefs of staff -- by surprise.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/25/politics/ ... index.html

[Guinevere]

What. The. Fuck.

U.S. Votes Against U.N. Ban On Death Penalty For Homosexuality
We were joined by Iraq, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
by Dan Avery 18h ago

A United Nations resolution banning the death penalty for homosexuality was opposed by a total of 13 countries in the U.N. Human Rights Council. While several were in Africa and the Middle East, the U.S. surprisingly voted against the measure, as well.

Fortunately the resolution passed on Friday anyway, with 27 countries voting for the measure.

It was brought forward by eight nations—Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, and Switzerland—who have made global LGBT rights a priority. (Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Costa Rican Vice President Ana Helena Chacón and other world leaders attended a U.N. LGBT Core Group meeting earlier in the month.)

“This is a monumental moment where the international community has publicly highlighted that these horrific laws simply must end,” said Renato Sabbadini, director of The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). “It is unconscionable to think that there are hundreds of millions of people living in states where somebody may be executed simply because of whom they love.”

Previous efforts by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Russia to block or water down the resolution failed.

The resolution doesn’t call for the end to capital punishment altogether, but asks member nations not to use it in a “discriminatory manner”—including against against minors and pregnant women, or for blasphemy and consensual same-sex relations.

The other countries who voted against the resolution were Bangladesh, Botswana, Burundi, China, Japan, Qatar, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (which currently has the death penalty for sodomy).

Not exactly good company.

http://www.newnownext.com/u-s-votes-aga ... ebook_logo

[rubato]

The GOP exists to hate the people they have always hated.

You are surprised?



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

While it is being reported as "voting against banning the death penalty for homosexuality", I suspect that the U.S. vote was more about preserving its ability to execute minors and people with mental disabilities, which were two other categories included in the resolution. Not that executing people in said categories is any more defensible, but ...

[Guinevere]

No excuse. It's a horrifying, appalling, unjustified vote.

Perhaps some of our death penalty proponents would like to stand up in support.

[Lord Jim]

the U.S. vote was more about preserving its ability to execute minors and people with mental disabilities, which were two other categories included in the resolution.

That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, given that the Supreme Court has struck down the DP for people in those categories...Here's where the problem seems to have arisen....

Here's the State Department explanation:

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert spoke out in a press briefing to reporters in Washington after the UN ballot.

"We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns about the resolution's approach to condemning the death penalty in all circumstances; and, it called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether," Ms Nauert said.

"We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does.”

She added: "The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery, and apostasy.

"We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalization."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 81936.html

Here's a link to the full text of the resolution:

http://undocs.org/A/HRC/36/L.6

Based on this:

2.Calls upon States that have not yet acceded to
or ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty to consider doing so;

the State Department claim that the resolution was calling for countries to abolish the DP entirely would seem to have some validity...

[Big RR]

I don't know Jim, calling on states to consider the abolition of the death penalty is not quite the same as abolishing it, anymore than a call to consider a vegan diet is the same as saying everyone must eat vegan.

as for execution of minors and those with mental disabilities, I think execution of minors for crime committed under the age of 18 is probably forbidden (unless the president wants to send a drone to execute one since that appears to be OK, trial or not), but mental disabilities are harder as they are not easily defined, nor do all authorities agree.

[Scooter]

calling on states to consider the abolition of the death penalty is not quite the same as abolishing it

Try "not even remotely the same". This resolution was obviously worded in such a way as to give those countries who wanted to continue to use the death penalty an easy out ("we considered abolishing it, and chose not to") in order to get their support for the remaining parts of the resolution which aim to curb the use of the death penalty in those circumstances in which no civilized human being would could ever consider it moral to use it.

The U.S. chose not to take that olive branch, and so instead is on the record as supporting the use of the death penalty for homosexuality, adultery, apostasy, etc.

[BoSoxGal]

Our descent into banana Republicanism continues . . .

[Burning Petard]

'banana Republicanism'

OHHHH ! I Like That !

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

Thanks! My phone made it up; I was going to write banana republic but my autocomplete offered that suggestion and I thought, brilliant!

[RayThom]

America’s descent into Banana Republican-ism

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/201 ... story.html

[BoSoxGal]

I didn’t read that! Don’t have a Globe subscription and the bastards only allow one or two free articles each month so I just never click their links.

Maybe Siri read the article? These fucking smartphones are so into everyone’s shit that I’m sure she suggested the phrase because she reads the Globe.


PS, bonus points if you cut and paste the text of that opinion piece for me!

[dales]

Don’t have a Globe subscription and the bastards only allow one or two free articles each month so I just never click their links.

Try pasting the exact headline on google and hit return.

The results appear minus the need to pay anything for their propaganda.

The SF Chronicle pulls this siht and I just bypass their silly subscription service.

[RayThom]

... PS, bonus points if you cut and paste the text of that opinion piece for me!

Here... try this:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/ ... 95120.html

[Guinevere]

Don’t have a Globe subscription and the bastards only allow one or two free articles each month so I just never click their links.

Try pasting the exact headline on google and hit return.

The results appear minus the need to pay anything for their propaganda.

The SF Chronicle pulls this siht and I just bypass their silly subscription service.

Professional journalism is one of the bulwarks against totalitarianism and the alt-facts world. I don't mind supporting quality work with a subscription.

Didn't you used to get paid for your work? Why is journalism different?

[BoSoxGal]

Some of us survive on a very fixed income and paying $30/mo. for access to one newspaper is simply unaffordable. No need to be an arsehole about it.

[BoSoxGal]

... PS, bonus points if you cut and paste the text of that opinion piece for me!

Here... try this:

Boston Globe piece I can’t afford

Thanks for finding this for me!

[Burning Petard]

I pay for electronic NY Times and Washington Post. But both are sad shadows of their paper versions. Sooooo. . . .

I spend lots of time in the local public library, which unhappily has recently dropped their subs for Car & Driver, Nation, Science I know that one is a bit pricey and took lots of space because it is a weekly.

But they still get the Wall Street J, the WaPo, the NY Times and the Philly Inky.

snailgate.