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U.K. Labour MP Chris Williamson likely didn't know what he was getting himself into. (And that's part of the problem.)

After reviewing a British Transport Police report that showed 1,448 sexual offenses on trains in 2016-2017more than double the total from four years ago he suggested exploring the idea of female-only train carriages to create "safe spaces" for women.

To be fair, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn floated this same policy in 2015, but later dropped it; perhaps the backlash Williamson received explains why.

Labour MP Jess Phillips said Williamson's proposal was an "absolutely terrible idea."

"It is essentially giving up on trying to prosecute assaults," she said.

Former Labour Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis dismissed the idea, saying women would find it "grossly insulting."

Indeed, someone was so offended that he or she posted a sign on Williamson's office door that mocked his proposal: "Woman? Sexually harassed at work? How about working on your own floor?"

While countries like Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and India have piloted women-only transportation to cut down on assault and harassment, the approach is a version of victim-blaming. Rather than policing wrongdoing, it lets bad actors off the hook. Instead of demanding a change in attitude and behavior, it put the onus on women to cordon themselves off, lest they tempt men into issuing a sexist quip or committing an abusive act.

As Labour MP Stella Creasy put it: "We need to be clear [that the attackers] are the problem, not women's seating plans."

@clairezillman

Just a little bit

As her bid for a fourth term heats up, German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to be baited into bashing Donald Trump. Whereas her challenger Martin Schulz has referred to the U.S. president as an "irresponsible man," Merkel said that Trump "should be shown the appropriate respect, regardless of how I assess his views."

Reuters

Seeking protection

A new report shows that the prevalence of HIV in Ugandais more than 3% higher among women than men. While overall rates have declined,women remain disproportionately affected by the epidemic, in part because they are more likely to face discrimination when seeking preventative measures, such as condoms.

Guardian

Family affair

Kulsoom Nawaz, the wife of ousted Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif (who's running for her husband's vacant parliamentary seat), has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She's expected to undergo treatment immediately and doctors are hopeful about her prognosis since they caught the cancer early. Her daughter Maryam, once considered an up-and-coming political figure in her own right, will take over the campaign during her mother's treatment.

BBC

An open book

In an excerpt of her new book that's been touted as a candid account of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton delivered the goods, writing that Donald Trump attempted to "intimidate" her during the second presidential debate by standing behind her as she answered questions. "It was incredibly uncomfortable," she writes. "He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. ... What would you do? Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he werent repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say, loudly and clearly, back up you creep!"

Fortune

Sinking like a stone

Emma Stone topped Forbes' highest-paid actress list this year after earning $26 million in 2017, thanks in part to her role in the critically-acclaimed La La Land . But compared to the world's highest-paid actors overallmale and femaleshe ranks No. 15.

Fortune

Still stings

Dating app Bumble, which requires women to make the first move, reportedly turned down a $450 million acquisition offer from Match Group. The bid may have undervalued Bumble, but there's also this factor to consider: a sale to Matchwould have sent Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe back to the company she sued three years ago.

Forbes

Giving an ultimatum

Asian American groups are urging U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to either condemn the acts of white supremacists or resign. Chao, an immigrant from Taiwan, called the Charlottesville riots a display of "hateful behavior" that was un-American, but she didn't distance herself from the president or call out the white supremacists involved in the violence specifically.

Huffington Post

Pucker up

AfterOpportunities Party founder and leader Gareth Morgan of New Zealand tweeted that new Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern should be required to show shes more than lipstick on a pig," female Kiwis used the hashtag #lipstickonapig to post photos of themselves pouting for the camera as a way to call out Morgan's apparent sexism. Morgan refused to apologize for his remark, saying he was referring to the Labour Party as a whole, not Ardern specifically.

Huffington Post

Taylor Swift announces new album 'Reputation'

Entertainment Weekly

Fired Google engineer hires lawyer shortlisted as Trump nominee

Fortune

Melania Trump thanks Chelsea Clinton for defending her son from Internet trolls

Fortune

The changing face of beauty in Northeast India

National Geographic

How one family inspired a football revolution for girls in a village in Pakistan

Guardian

New research is taking womens sexual pleasure seriously

The Cut

See the article here:
Merkel Says Trump Deserves Respect, Hillary Clinton's New Book, and Victim-Blaming via Trains - Fortune

Felder aide says Va. killer was Clinton fan masked as neo-Nazi

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Friday, August 25, 2017, 12:38 AM

ALBANY An aide to state Sen. Simcha Felder recently told a constituent that the man who mowed down a counterprotester with his car during the Charlottesville hate rally might actually have been a Hillary Clinton supporter posing as a neo-Nazi.

Felder aide Darlene Leder told a constituent she had heard that the Virginia rally and violence was manufactured between the citys mayor and police.

I was flabbergasted, the constituent, Eliana Meirowitz Nelson, told the Daily News. I told her that none of it was true. I had friends in Charlottesville. What she said was crazy conspiracy theory nonsense.

She said she noted to Leder that even House Speaker Paul Ryan had spoken out against Trumps comments that both sides were responsible for the violence.

Charlottesville covers two Confederate statues with black tarp

Leder followed up the conversation by emailing Nelson a link to a right-wing conspiracy site, News Punch, that claimed the driver in Charlottesville, James Fields, had ties to Clinton and was funded by billionaire liberal activist George Soros. Nelson provided The News with the email.

The back-and-forth started when Nelson, who is a member of a group called NY State District 17 for Progress that has frequently picketed Felder on various issues, began calling the senators office last Friday, asking why he had not publicly spoken out about the Charlottesville rally and President Trumps response to it.

She said she finally reached Leder, Felders Albany director of operations, on Tuesday.

Nelson described Leder as very friendly, but said she couldnt believe what she was espousing.

James Fields held without bond for fatal Charlottesville crash

Felder is the only Orthodox Jewish member of the state Senate. Though a Democrat, Felder caucuses with the Republicans, giving the GOP the 32nd vote it needs to control the chamber.

Nelson said that Leder suggested she call Felders Brooklyn office. She said she did and spoke with Felder communications director Avi Fertig.

Fertig, Nelson said, told her that if Felder commented on Charlottesville, hed have to comment any time something similar happened elsewhere, which would dilute any statement he might make if there is an incident in Brooklyn.

I disagreed very strongly, Nelson said, noting the Charlottesville rally was the largest gathering of Nazis and white supremacists in the U.S. in decades.

White supremacist Chris Cantwell denied bond

Felder and I as Jews have responsibilities to stand up to Nazism and white supremacy, she said.

19 photos view gallery

Leder could not be reached for comment.

Fertig referred The News to a comment Felder gave KingsCountyPolitics.com, which first reported the issue on Wednesday.

Felder told the site that he was dumbstruck by Leders comments.

I dont agree with her email and I dont know why anyone would send anything from such a crazy website. I will discuss my dissatisfaction with her shortly, he said.

I, as well as any decent human being, deplore any form of racism, Nazism, anti-Semitism and white supremacists. I was also upset by some of Trumps comments, but I dont think he should be impeached.

Nelson said she expects progressive Democrats will try to run a candidate against Felder in 2018 in hopes of flipping control of the Senate to the Dems.

See more here:
Simcha Felder aide says Charlottesville killer was Hillary Clinton supporter masked as neo-Nazi - New York Daily News

Hillary Clinton's new book, 'What Happened,' comes out Sept. 12, but audio excerpts were made public on Aug. 23. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton said her skin crawled as Donald Trump loomed behind her at a presidential debate in St. Louis, and added that she wished she could have pressed pause and asked America, Well, what would you do?

The words, Clintons most detailed public comments about what happened during one of the campaigns more memorable moments, are includedin her new book, What Happened, which she called an attempt to pull back the curtain on her losing bid for the presidency.

Some of the moments during the campaign, she said, baffled her. Others seemingly repulsed her: In recounting the October incident, she referred to Trump as acreep.

The book comes out Sept. 12, but audio excerpts, read by Clinton,were played Wednesday morning on MSNBCs Morning Joe.

In the recording, Clinton noted that she wrote about moments from the campaign that she wanted to remember forever as well as others she wished she could go back and do over.

The moment from the debate appeared to fall into the latter category.

This is not okay, I thought, Clinton said, reading from her book. It was the second presidential debate and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces.

It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, Well, what would you do? Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he werent repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you cant intimidate me, so back up.

The debate took place two days after Trump was heard bragging about groping, kissing and trying to have sex with women on theAccess Hollywood tape comments made in 2005 on an apparent hot mic.

Afterward, some Republican critics said Trump should drop out of the race. But he ended a video response to the years-old tapes release by saying: See you at the debate on Sunday.

Trumps actions during the debate were viewed as bullying even before the moment that Clinton recounted.

As The Posts Sarah L. Kaufman wrote, Trump paced and rocked and grimaced as spoke; he broke into her time by shouting over her. When she protested that she had not done the same to him, he shot back with all the finesse youd hear in a middle school gym: Thats cause you got nothin to say.

When it was his turn to speak, Trump got angry, pointed at her, swung his arms around with alarming force.

[What two body language experts saw at the second presidential debate]

His actions were widely mocked and criticized after the debate, and even featured in a Saturday Night Liveskitthat showed him zooming toward an unsuspecting Clinton.

If a man did that to me on the street Id call 911, political commentator and former Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace said, according to NBC News.

The New York Daily News headline the day after the debate read: Grab a seat, loser.

In the post-debate spin room, Clinton surrogates accused Trump of menacingly stalking the Democratic nominee. Two body language experts analyzed the debate and concluded Trump was trying to assert his power by roaming the stage while Clinton spoke.

Trumps constant pacing and restless movements around the stage attracted attention from Hillarys words, and visually disrespected her physical presence on the stage, as in I am big, you are small, David Givens, director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies, a nonprofit research center in Spokane, Wash., told The Post then.

Clinton said in the audio clip played on MSNBC that What Happened is not a comprehensive account of the 2016 race and that it was difficult to write.

Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldnt bear the idea of letting them down but I did, she said. I couldnt get the job done, and Ill have to live with that for the rest of my life.

Simon & Schuster, the books publisher, says What Happened is Clintons most personal memoir yet.

In the past, for reasons I try to explain, Ive often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net, she writes in the introduction.Now Im letting my guard down.

Immediately after the election, Clinton kept a low profile, though she was occasionally spotted hiking in the woods by her Chappaqua, N.Y., neighbors; SNL even poked fun at the hubbub surrounding her sylvan whereabouts in a sketch called The Hunt for Hil.

In recent months, Clinton has slowly reemerged in the public eye, making speeches and giving interviewsin which she addressed the historic election.

Its unclear how much Clinton was paid for writing What Happened.Simon & Schuster representatives did not immediately respond to questions sent by email early Wednesday.

The publisher never publicly disclosed how much Clinton received for her 2014 book, Hard Choices, though in 2000, Clinton reportedly was paid about $8 million in advance to write a memoir (eventually titled Living History) about her years as first lady, according to the New York Times.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump traded jabs at their second face-off in a contentious town-hall style debate on Oct. 9, in St. Louis, with moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz. (The Washington Post)

Read more:

Hillary Clinton made a rare appearance at The Color Purple and got three standing ovations

Is voting for Hillary Clinton a symptom of low testosterone? This Florida doctor says yes.

This mayor wont stop posting racist Obama memes. He wont resign, either.

Read the rest here:
Hillary Clinton calls Donald Trump a 'creep,' says her 'skin crawled' during debate - Washington Post

Democrats are quite upset about President Trumps decision to ramp up the war in Afghanistan and Im upset about it too, but I just have to ask: Do they remember that their own nominee had the most hawkish foreign-policy record in the race?

Now, I really cant say enough about how much I disagree with President Trumps decision to remain involved and to send up to 4,000 more troops into this disastrous war. After 16 years, somewhere between hundreds of billions and even trillions of dollars and thousands of American military (plus tens of thousands of civilian) lives lost and the U.S.-backed government controls less than 60 percent of the countrys territory. Candidate Trump was right: Its time to get out, and Im disappointed to see that he seems to have changed his mind.

Disappointed, by the way, does not mean that Im surprised. After all, Donald Trump is far from the first person to act more hawkish in the Oval Office than he did on the trail. Remember candidate versus President Obama? During the 2008 campaign, his supporters drove around with bumper stickers that spelled his name with a peace symbol instead of an O, only for him to immediately send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan as soon as he was in office. Truly, it seems as if its nothing more than a pipe dream to hold out hope that any president, traditional politician or not, would ever be able to stand up to the military-industrial complex once landing in office.

It would be bad enough if Democrats were simply criticizing President Trumps hypocrisy on this issue. Yes, if someone is criticizing only Trumps hypocrisy, and did not criticize President Obamas, then that, of course, makes that person a hypocrite himself. But unfortunately, criticizing President Trumps evolution on this issue isnt even the most obnoxious thing those on the left are doing right now: Some Democrats are expressing horror at his decision to ramp up involvement on its face, when their own candidate, who they themselves championed, was a war-drum-beating neoliberal who would have brought us anything but peace.

Make no mistake: The selection of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee does not suggest that the party wanted to move away from BushObama interventionism. Rather, it suggests the opposite. Remember those 30,000 troops that President Obama sent overseas? Clinton initially wanted 40,000. She was instrumental in pressuring President Obama to go to war in Libya, and she spearheaded the disastrous regime-change effort there (to be fair, Donald Trump had supported the regime change as well). One of her biggest foreign-policy influences was Iraq-surge-architect General Jack Keane who made a name for himself by continually calling for greater military intervention in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan and Keane has since reported that Clinton once told him she had made a mistake in not pushing for that surge. She continually supported much greater military involvement in Syria than Barack Obama did; the list goes on and on.

The person whom Democrats chose to represent their party in 2016 is about as well-documented of a hawk as they come, and now were seeing some on the left posturing as if their party champions diplomacy and peace. Senator Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) was critical of President Trumps intention to bolster military action in Afghanistan, slamming his decision to put additional U.S. troops on the ground because it is long past time that we work toward strategies to wind down our operations. Representative Ro Khan (D., Calif.) tweeted: Democrats should be clear and bold: We are for withdrawal. Khans sentiment seemed to extend to party leadership; House minority leader Nancy Pelosi actually had the nerve to release a statement saying, We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan and lets get out!

To be fair, as an article in Vox points out, not every Democrat went so far as to criticize the plan because of their opposition to increased or continued involvement. Some, like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), stuck to simply criticizing the plans lack of details, while others have stayed completely silent. But seeing Democratic politicians such as Pelosi suddenly pretending to be concerned about a politician choosing military intervention just because its politically convenient is nothing short of maddening. A President Hillary Clinton absolutely would not have decided to end the Afghan War. Nothing in her record even remotely suggests that she would have, and Pelosi and others damn well know thats true.

It is correct, of course, that we do need to get out but its absolutely laughable for these Democrats to be acting as though they are somehow the answer to our intervention exhaustion. They had the chance, after all, to present their answer to foreign-policy problems with their 2016 nomination, and the answer they chose came beating the drums of war...all while they stood confidently behind her.

Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.

Originally posted here:
Do Democrats Remember That They Nominated a Hawkish Candidate? - National Review

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

This weekend I had the misfortune to read Roxane Gays recent New York Times op-ed, in which she reflects on Charlottesville, Va., and waxes poetic about how much she wishes Hillary Clinton had won. She writes:

I keep thinking about how different things would be if Hillary Clinton had been elected president. I was, like so many of us, wildly overconfident about her chances. Her presidency was a certainty in my mind and in my heart. And then, it wasnt. Instead, it is 2017 and white supremacists no longer feel the need to wear hoods to hide their racism and anti-Semitism. I am a black woman and I live in a country where the president does not disavow racism.

I cant believe peopleespecially black peopleare still using this moment to push a tired, useless narrative about how much better things would have been if corporate Democrats remained in power. What a shame.

Let me be the one to break the news: Hillary Rodham Clinton is not and never has been our savior. Hillary would not have saved us.

While it is understandable to react to the current racial crises with horror, it is bizarre and ultimately unproductive to conclude that things would have been significantly better under a Hillary Clinton presidency. Gay and others on the left are perpetuating a neoliberal white-savior myththe delusion that Clinton would have swooped in and saved us from the white supremacists in our midst. Its obvious that the same woman who called black children superpredators, the same woman who co-signed racist policies that decimated black families and used racist tropes to attack Barack Obama in 2008, would not have ushered in some kind of racial utopia or led us to the proverbial mountaintop.

More importantly, the simple fact is that we dont have to guess what would have happened if Hillary had won. I can tell you exactly what would have happened because we have strong evidence from recent history. If Hillary had won, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans would have continued to deny the fact that white supremacy still exists in the United States. If Hillary had won, the critical insights of Ferguson, Mo., youths, Black Lives Matter activists and indigenous people standing up at Standing Rock would have continued to be sidelined. If Hillary had won, millions of liberals (especially elites) would still be sleeping, tucked comfortably in their delusions of inclusion. And the painful realities of white supremacy that are now being openly discussed and confronted would have been swept under the rug of respectable, bipartisan denial.

We would not be better off with widespread ignorance (or apathy) about the sleeper cells of white supremacists infiltrating every sphere of power. While many contend that Donald Trump has enabled white supremacists, the truth is that our whole entire society has enabled white supremacists since its inception. The idea that Trump magically created or single-handedly enabled white supremacists is as historically shortsighted as it is politically inaccurate. If anything, his presidency is helping to wake people up to ongoing realities.

Trump did not magically create white supremacy or fundamentally alter the racial power structure of this country. White supremacist groups, long absorbed into (and tolerated by) the majority population, surged under Barack Obamas presidency. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll shows that nearly 1 in 10 adults, or 22 million U.S. citizens, call it acceptable to hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views. And thats just the percentage of people who were willing to admit that they embrace white supremacy. A 2016 survey demonstrated that about a third of Trump supporters described African Americans as less intelligent than whitesand about one-fifth of Hillary Clinton supporters expressed the same racist view.

Sure, thousands of racist extremists might not have felt empowered to take to the streets without an overtly racist president But lets face it: These people (and their moderate white enablers) would have still been spreading cancerous views, making covert discriminatory decisions and helping to oppress people of color under a Hillary Clinton presidency. But apathy and denial would have continued to prevail under the banner of liberal progress.

And while Clinton did give lip service to systemic racism during the Democratic National Convention last year, the fact remains that she has yet to take full ownership of her role (and that of her political party) in perpetuating the very same systematic racism she ostensibly denounced. As Gloria Wekker demonstrates in her brilliant book White Innocence, white populations across the globe are socialized to deny or minimize their role in maintaining racismand Clinton is no exception.

Many people still havent learned the basic lesson of the 2016 election: Over 60 million people voted for an overt racist endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan because we live in a racist society. The white supremacists who are openly marching have been tolerated and normalized by white communities for generations. Each new day brings fresh empirical evidence that while some Republicans claim to disapprove of Trumps open defense of white supremacists in Charlottesville, they dont disapprove quite enough to stop supporting him.

In other words, millions of people in this country, most of them white, either openly embrace white supremacy or openly embrace politicians who openly embrace white supremacy.

While I, too, am horrified by Trumps presidency and all that it reveals about our nation, it is a good and necessary thing that widespread attention is finally being focused on the enduring reality of white supremacy. We now have a unique opportunity to see and name systematic racism clearly and think strategically about the kinds of social and political transformations that will be needed to create anti-racist change.

Those with a platform (especially but not only black intellectuals) should use it to help the public understand that our society has been enabling white supremacy for centuries. Now is not the time to wish for a Hillary Clinton presidency or to lapse into white saviorism. Instead, anti-racists of all backgrounds should seize this moment to challenge the pervasive racial denial that still exists across the political spectrum and build the collective action we need to create a more just society.

Weve got work to do, and Hillary Clinton sho aint gonna do it for us.

Read more from the original source:
Hillary Is Not Your White Savior - The Root