“Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him.

Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. 2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem.

Immigrants don’t pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn’t pay taxes. He’s a business genius.

Hillary’s foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She’s a crook. Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy… Put him in the white house.

Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans” he received would be worth $12 billion today… without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He’s a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She’s a criminal.

Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar loss in 1 year. Genius. Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible.

Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he’s just telling it like it is.

Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd.

Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform.“

- Alex Schiller

The Daily Show, October 6, 2016

Casey Rocheteau, “Mockingbird,” from The Dozen (via 7-weeks)

This is the best description of South Park (and their brand of apathetic conservatism) I ever read. 

clocked

PSA

You feel like shit is a website set up to help you get out of that funk/improve things just enough to not feel horrible and miserable all the time.  It’s amazing.

Whether you struggle with mental health problems all the time or whether this is a new/temporary state for you, this guide is an easy and judgement-free self-care tool.

PLEASE TRY IT OUT!  Really!  You just click through the questions to answer and follow simple instructions that in the end, ideally, will help you to feel more comfortable and stable on a daily basis. 

Good luck!  Have fun!

Wow this self-care took is incredible.

I’m feeling ok right now and am about to settle into bed (but this was scheduled hence the early morning post) but I flipped through it for awhile just to see what it is like and holy crap it’s like a choose-your-own-adventure of self-care activities that not only aims to engage you in positive feel good behaviors but also tries to match its suggestions to your level of energy/ability/can even.

I think I am going to use this definitely when I am having a bad time but maybe also try to incorporate it into my life on at least a weekly if not a daily or semi-daily basis.

This is super super awesome!

Adding this to my resource list.

I LOVE this. Love this.

I cannot bring myself to be in any way upset or angered by Hillary’s statement about having “both a public and a private position” on things. This is basic pragmatism. This is code-switching. It’s uncomfortable to hear, and it leads many (especially straight white male Americans) to feel that they’re being lied to, but it’s how our social fabric is woven.

As a woman, as a queer person, as a feminist, and as a first-generation immigrant from a multicultural family that spans three continents, I absolutely have both public and private positions on many things, political issues included. Brains are complicated and any intellectually-aware person is able to hold some slightly contradictory viewpoints–not because one is “authentic” or “genuine” and the other isn’t, but because shit is complex. There are things that go on in my brain that would horrify you, and things that go on in my brain that would horrify my family, and things that go on in my brain that would horrify my clients and coworkers. I’m allowed to choose whether or not to horrify any particular person at any particular time, and which one of my many equally-“authentic” sides to express in any given situation.

Furthermore, effective politics is in part about persuading and compromising with a variety of people with diverse viewpoints, and the language that’s most effective for one person may not be the most effective for another. The language I would use to convince a Libertarian to support a basic income is not the language I would use to convince a socialist to support a basic income. The language I use to discuss race with my parents isn’t the language I use to discuss race with my Facebook friends. Sometimes different language = slightly different nuances of opinion.

Hillary gets this better than most people, which makes her a terrifyingly effective politician. People are uncomfortable with that. That’s fine. Be uncomfortable with it. Realize that that’s how laws get passed, treaties get negotiated, and international crises get resolved.

You don’t *want* a President who seems like a cool fun chill person who says what’s on their mind all the time. Maybe that’s who you want in a friend. But I don’t, because I wear enough different hats to really understand the value of being intentional about what you express to whom and in what terms.

Yeah, that… that line did not bother me at all.  “You can have a public opinion and a private opinion” Like DUH, that is absolutely what being a politician IS.  You have a conscience and an opinion but you serve the people.

Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain

Scott Lynch:

Whaaaaaaaaa

Saying that man and woman are the only genders is actually LESS nuanced than saying that earth, water, air, and fire are the only elements.

This is fantastic.

exactly this.

Watch: Comedian Aamer Rahman’s explainer of reverse racism is still requisite viewing.

Especially considering the astounding number of Americans who think “reverse racism” is a real problem.

Aamer Rahman’s been the shit for a couple of years now and the fact that he’s just now getting acknowledged is frustrating.

“but what are Hillary’s POLICIES?”

So I got tired of not seeing any news on HRC’s actual positions because every single media outlet is busy fact-checking Trump’s latest Twitter tantrum, and decided to look some up.

Also, tired of stories about 26-year-olds complaining that they can’t get behind Clinton because they don’t know what she stands for, and also have no idea who Ralph Nader is, even though these frickin’ kids are only two years younger than me and also Wikipedia exists

But anyway. Hillary Clinton! Actual positions!

Guys, there’s so much to love.

This is the conscience I’m voting.

Do not come at me with any lesser of two evils bullshit or “well, at least she’s not Trump.”

Bitch has her shit together and it’s time people start respecting that!

“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”

We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”

Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.

Or, backing up FURTHER

and lots of people think this very likely,

“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”

The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.

To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science)  indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.

Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.

Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.

I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.

But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.

I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.