Megan Rapinoe Says US Women's Soccer Team Accepts AOC's Invite To The People's House

Megan Rapinoe Says US Women's Soccer Team Accepts AOC's Invite To The People's House

Megan Rapinoe, the captain of the US Soccer Women’s National Team, has said the team will not attend any White House celebrations honoring the women if the US wins the 2019 World Cup, as they are currently positioned to do.

Rapinoe responded to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, however, saying the team would be pleased to visit the people’s House of Representatives following the tournament — world champs or not.

The purple-haired, gay captain of the women’s team responded to Trump’s tweet about the team coming to the White House — if they are champs, of course, only if they are champs because Trump doesn’t like losers. Rapinoe set the ego-maniac Prez back on his haunches, saying "she’s “not going to the F…ing White House if we win.”

Trump quoted her for the whole world, with his series of presidential admonishments:

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Heyer's Charlottesville Assassin Sentenced To Life In Prison

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Hyer's Charlottesville Assasin Sentenced To Life In Prison

James Fields, Jr., the white supremacist who murdered Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others driving his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 has received a life sentence in federal prison.

Prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fields’s racist, anti-Semitic beliefs motivated his decision to attend the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and use his automobile in an act of domestic terrorism. Thomas T. Cullen, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said after hearing the sentence that the case set a precedent for future instances of domestic terrorism.

Mr. Fields was one of hundreds of young white supremacists who swarmed Charlottesville in August 2017, marching with tiki torches shouting “The Jews will not replace us.”

Supreme Court Says Gerrymandering Fix Up To Voters, Not Judges

Supreme Court Says Gerrymandering Fix Up To Voters, Not Judges

In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court has ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not unconstitutional.

The majority ruled that gerrymandering is outside the scope and power of the federal courts to adjudicate. The issue is a political one, according to the court, not a legal one.

“Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority decision. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.”

So for now, partisan gerrymandering, in which politicians get to choose their voters rather than voters choose their representatives, will remain a fact of American political life.

What is the background to this decision? And what does the decision mean for democracy in the U.S.?

U.S. Houses Passes $4.5 Billion Border Aid Bill Amid Mounting Concern For Detained Migrant Children

U.S. Houses Passes $4.5 Billion Border Aid Bill Amid Mounting Concern For Detained Migrant Children

By Adam Willis. First published in The Texas Tribune.

As reports of migrant children being held in squalid conditions at federal facilities near the border continue to draw outrage, Democrats successfully pushed a $4.5 billion humanitarian aid package through the U.S. House late Tuesday evening with a vote of 230 to 195.

The passage of the bill marks a narrow victory for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who managed to coalesce a unified front after several days of uncertainty and division within the party. Ultimately, only four Democrats broke rank, none of them Texans. Among the Republicans from the state, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, was the only member to buck his party, voting in favor of the bill. Hurd's districts covers much of the state's border with Mexico.

Note: The Four Democratic women who broke with Pelosi are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).

‘Willful Recklessness’: Trump Pushes for Indefinite Family Detention As Sanitary Crisis Mounts

‘Willful Recklessness’: Trump Pushes for Indefinite Family Detention As Sanitary Crisis Mounts

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has been tracking about 40,000 expedited family cases “regardless of whether they reflect a priority designation” in order to ensure they are completed “without undue delay” at ten immigration courts in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, and San Francisco. Nearly 8,000 of those cases have already ended with removal orders. These are some of the migrants ICE agents could now target.

The administration has buttressed its push to detain more families by arguing that few of them show up for their immigration court hearings if they are released. At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on June 11, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan said “family units” accounted for two-thirds of migrants processed at the Southwest border in May, and that 90 percent of families the EOIR was monitoring didn’t appear for court hearings. Several reports contradict this claim.

One case-by-case study of immigration court records showed “as of the end of May 2019 one or more removal hearings had already been held for nearly 47,000 newly arriving families seeking refuge in this country. Of these, almost six out of every seven families released from custody had shown up for their initial court hearing.”

The study further noted that “multiple hearings are [usually] required before a case is decided. For those who are represented, more than 99 percent had appeared at every hearing held.”

Tory Burch Asks Forbes Summit Why The Debate Around Equal Pay For Women Continues

Tory Burch Asks Forbes Summit Why The Debate Around Equal Pay For Women Continues

Forbes considers Tory Burch to be one of America’s richest self-made women, estimating her net worth at $850 million. Judged today by her competence, strategic thinking and brand positioning, Tory Burch, who previously worked at Ralph Lauren and Vera Wang, says that when she launched her lifestyle brand in 2004, she wan’t taken very seriously.

Burch joined ultimate equal-pay activist Lilly Ledbetter to discuss the impact of the gender pay gap in a Forbes Women’s Summit discussion moderated by Cosmopolitan editor Jessica Pels. Ledbetter is known as the Alabama area manager at a Goodyear plant who learned through an anonymous note that she was paid 35%-40% less than men in her same position.

Ledbetter’s case wound its way through the US court system, until the Supreme Court in 2007 overturned a $3 million verdict in her favor, ruling that pay discrimination lawsuits must filed within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck. President Obama effectively nullified the court’s decision in 2009, making the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first new law of his administration. Obama stipulated that the statute of limitations for filing equal-pay lawsuits based on pay discrimination resets with each new paycheck that is part of the discriminatory act.

How Teach for America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement by ProPublica

How Teach for America Evolved Into an Arm of the Charter School Movement-Pt 1 by ProPublica

When the Walton Family Foundation announced in 2013 that it was donating $20 million to Teach For America to recruit and train nearly 4,000 teachers for low-income schools, its press release did not reveal the unusual terms for the grant.

Documents obtained by ProPublica show that the foundation, a staunch supporter of school choice and Teach For America’s largest private funder, was paying $4,000 for every teacher placed in a traditional public school — and $6,000 for every one placed in a charter school. The two-year grant was directed at nine cities where charter schools were sprouting up, including New Orleans; Memphis, Tennessee; and Los Angeles.

The gift’s purpose was far removed from Teach For America’s original mission of alleviating teacher shortages in traditional public schools. It was intended to “generate a longer-term leadership pipeline that advances the education movement, providing a source of talent for policy, advocacy and politics, as well as quality schools and new entrepreneurial ventures,” according to internal grant documents.

The incentives corresponded to a shift in Teach For America’s direction. Although only 7% of students go to charter schools, Teach For America sent almost 40% of its 6,736 teachers to them in 2018 — up from 34% in 2015 and 13% in 2008. In some large cities, charter schools employ the majority of TFA teachers: 54% in Houston, 58% in San Antonio and at least 70% in Los Angeles.

Angelina Jolie Speaks Candidly On World Refugee Day As New TIME Contributing Editor

Angelina Jolie Speaks Candidly On World Refugee Day As New TIME Contributing Editor

Activist actor Angelina Jolie is now a monthly contributing editor at TIME magazine.

Editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal announced that Jolie’s essays will focus on topics related to human rights and displacement, issues front-of-mind for the humanitarian who has worked with the UN Refugee Agency for 18 years.

Jolie first official piece was published to coincide with World Refugee Day, June 20, with the title Angelina Jolie: What We Owe Refugees. She argues: "Under international law it is not an option to assist refugees, it is an obligation," she writes. "It is perfectly possible to ensure strong border control and fair, humane immigration policies while meeting our responsibility to help refugees."

Happy Birthday AOC

Anne of Carversville had a birthday this week, 12 years old on June 17. AOC came to life seemingly out of nowhere, inspired by my reading our founding muse Angelina Jolie’s Esquire interview. Reading her thoughts marked a turning point in my life: Smart Sensuality Angelina Jolie: Virtue Considered in Carversville's Country Air.

Angelina is one of the many Winning Women in Action we track on AOC.

Enjoy reading all of Angelina Jolie’s AOC Archives.

Angelina Jolie Archives @ AOC

New York Is the First City To Fund Abortion Directly. Let's Make Sure It's Not the Last

New York Is the First City To Fund Abortion Directly. Let's Make Sure It's Not the Last

Last week, abortion access advocates in New York made history. When the ink dries on next year’s budget, New York will become the first city in the country to directly fund abortion by allocating $250,000 to the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), which supports anyone who is unable to pay fully for an abortion and is living in or traveling to New York state by providing financial assistance and connections to other resources. This funding will help ensure that every person is able to decide when and whether to become a parent regardless of their income, type of insurance, or citizenship status.

In the face of increasing attacks on abortion access throughout the country, New York City’s commitment to funding abortion sends a powerful message—one that activists in other cities and states can push for.

This is an essential step as we work toward ending the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for most abortions. And we know it won’t be the last: Advocates in progressive cities like ours can seize the opportunity to turn supporters into champions, to advocate for policymakers who talk the talk about abortion access to also walk the walk. Even in progressive states, people face barriers to abortion access.

Trump’s Reelection Support is 50-50 in Texas, Biden and O’Rourke Lead the Democrats, UT/TT Poll Says

Trump’s Reelection Support is 50-50 in Texas, Biden and O’Rourke Lead the Democrats, UT/TT Poll Says

Half of the registered voters in Texas would vote to reelect President Donald Trump, but half of them would not, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

Few of those voters were wishy-washy about it: 39% said they would “definitely” vote to reelect Trump; 43% said they would “definitely not” vote for him. The remaining 18% said they would “probably” (11%) or “probably not” (7%) vote to give Trump a second term.

“That 50-50 number encapsulates how divisive Trump is,” said James Henson, who runs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin and co-directs the poll. But, he added, the number is not necessarily “a useful prediction for an election that’s 16 months away.”

Among Republicans, 73% would “definitely” vote for Trump; among Democrats, 85% were “definitely not” voting for another term.

“This squarely focuses on Trump,” said Daron Shaw, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the poll. However, he said, “it isn’t a matchup with a flesh-and-blood Democrat. It shows Trump’s relative weakness, compared to a generic Democrat in this state.”

Independents were less emphatic than either the Republicans or the Democrats, but 60% said they wouldn’t vote for the president in an election held today, including 45% who would “definitely not” vote for him.

Alexandra Von Fuerst Presents 'Portrait of a Lady', Probing The Presence of Female Aspects in Men

Alexandra Von Fuerst Presents 'Portrait of a Lady', Probing The Presence of Female Aspects in Men

The talented, introspective, inquisitive, artistic, expressive and visionary photographer Alexandra Von Fuerst shares ‘Portrait of a Lady’ with Vogue Italia online.

The Little Sisters of the Poor Joined Trump Administration To Attack Contraception Coverage At SC

The Little Sisters of the Poor Joined Trump Administration To Again Attack Contraception Coverage At SC

Conservatives have spent the better part of a decade arguing the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, which provides insurance coverage for a host of contraception without additional cost or co-pay, violates religious freedom principles. Those efforts have had mixed results. Despite two turns before the U.S. Supreme Court, dozens of lower court orders, and a handful of executive orders from President Trump, the benefit remains in place—but employers who object to it can avoid complying with it.

This week, the Roberts Court will consider taking up a case that could settle the birth control benefit’s fate once and for all.

The case is The Little Sisters of the Poor Jeanne Jugan Residence v. California. Yes, that’s right. The Sisters are at it again.

To understand how yet another case like this could end up before the Roberts Court, let’s revisit for a moment the history of the contraception mandate. Originally proposed in 2012, the birth control benefit requires most employers to include coverage of FDA-approved contraceptives without co-pay in their employer-sponsored health insurance plans. The benefit contains an exemption for religious employers and an accommodation for religiously affiliated employers. The benefit, and the exemption and accommodation, launched a wave of objections and lawsuits that has not yet receded. The first batch of those lawsuits reached the Roberts Court in 2014 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Court ruled that some for-profit employers could take advantage of the accommodation process.

Many Americans Viewed New York Harbor's Lady Liberty as a False Idol of Broken Promises

Top image: THIS MAP APPEARED IN THE MAGAZINE PUCK DURING THE EMPIRE STATE CAMPAIGN, A HARD-FOUGHT REFERENDUM ON A SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT TO THE NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTION—THE REFERENDUM FAILED IN 1915. Lower image: ‘Madre Luz’ by Pablo Machioli, installed in Baltimore at the site of a Confederate monument removed after Charlottesville. It was destroyed. via

Many Americans Viewed New York Harbor's Lady Liberty as a False Idol of Broken Promises

By Angela Serratore. First published on Smithsonian.com as ‘The Americans Who Saw Lady Liberty as a False Idol of Broken Promises’.

It was a crisp, clear fall day in New York City, and like many others, Lillie Devereaux Blake was eager to see the great French statue, donated by that country’s government to the United States as a token of friendship and a monument to liberty, finally unveiled. President Grover Cleveland was on Bedloe’s Island (since renamed Liberty Island), standing at the base of the statue, ready to give a speech. Designed in France, the statue had been shipped to New York in the spring of 1885, and now, in October 1886, it was finally assembled atop its pedestal.

“Presently the veil was withdrawn from her beautiful calm face,” wrote Blake of the day’s events, “and the air was rent with salvos of artillery fired to hail the new goddess; the earth and the sea trembled with the mighty concussions, and steam-whistles mingled their shrill shrieks with the shouts of the multitude—all this done by men in honor of a woman.”

Blake wasn’t watching from the island itself, though—in fact, only two women had been invited to the statue that day. Blake and other members of the New York State Women’s Suffrage Association, at that point New York’s leading women’s suffrage organization, had chartered their own boat in protest of the exclusion of women not just from the statue’s unveiling, but from the idea of liberty itself.

Blake’s protest is one of several highlighted at the new Statue of Liberty Museum, which opened earlier this month on Liberty Island. While the statue’s pedestal did at one point hold a small museum, the new space’s increased square footage allowed historians and exhibit designers to expand the story of Lady Liberty, her champions and her dissenters.

Women Have Been The Fueling Energy Of Christian Right Demands For Decades

Women Have Been The Fueling Energy Of Christian Right Demands For Decades

By Emily Suzanne Johnson, Assistant Professor of History, Ball State University. First published on The Conversation

Alabama’s new abortion restrictions were signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey. But more has been said recently about the fact that the bill was passed by 25 white men in the state Senate. Media reports have pointed to how this law will disproportionately affect black and poor women.

Only four women currently serve in Alabama’s state Senate. Three voted against the bill, while one abstained.

In response to the Alabama vote, Democratic State Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison compared men’s votes on abortion legislation to “a dentist making a decision about heart surgery.”

“That’s why we need more women in office,” Coleman-Madison said.

Across the country, women are underrepresented in legislatures. But the question is: Would voting more women into office necessarily shift the politics of abortion?

Pelosi Is Defiant Against Nadler's Jump Start On Impeachment, Wants Trump In Jail

Pelosi Is Defiant Against Nadler's Jump Start On Impeachment, Wants Trump In Jail

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi affirmed Tuesday night that she wants to see President Donald Trump “in prison”. Her comments came Tuesday night in a heated clash with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler over the feasibility and timing of launching an impeachment inquiry against Trump.

Politico reports that “ Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.” The Speaker, widely considered to be the most formidable female politico in the world, stood her ground, with the support of other committee leaders. Their investigations would stop if an official impeachment inquiry is stopped.

“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.

The Escalation of Anti-Abortion Violence Ten Years After Dr. George Tiller’s Murder

The Escalation of Anti-Abortion Violence Ten Years After Dr. George Tiller’s Murder

By Jill Heaviside & Rosann Mariappuram. First published on Rewire.News

As we mark the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, it is incredible to think that, just over a month ago, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse was really asking how “the pro-life position is in any way violent.”

Violence has been a central tenet of the anti-abortion movement since before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. As activists have sought control over the reproductive freedom of millions of people—particularly women of color, low-income women and families, and queer, gender-nonconforming, and transgender communities—they have used violence as a tactic of control, abuse, and fear across the United States.

Dr. Tiller was Wichita’s only abortion provider for 40 years and was known for his deep commitment to trusting women and their families’ reproductive health decisions. Because of his work, Dr. Tiller was a target of many anti-abortion groups; before he was killed, he survived a clinic bombing and a prior shooting.

Dr. Tiller’s murder wasn’t an isolated incident. Anti-abortion extremists have killed at least 11 people since the 1990s. Their violent history includes the first recorded murder of an abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn, in 1993, and the 2015 shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, which claimed three lives and injured nine people.

Major Film Studios Follow Netflix In Putting Georgia On Notice Over Illegal Abortion Law

Major Film Studios Follow Netflix In Putting Georgia On Notice Over Illegal Abortion Law

It was a slow start on whether or not America’s film industry would become involved in Georgia politics, threatening to abandon existing projects and future expansion of filming major projects like the revolutionary, Oscar-winning ‘Black Panther’ movie.

Netflix was the first major studio to take a stand against the medical-quackery ‘heartbeat bill banning abortion at about six weeks, joining the ACLU lawsuit in fighting the law not only as an infringement of Roe v. Wade, but as pseudo-science that has no basis in medical facts.

Today, an onslaught of new studios including Viacom, CBS, Sony, AMC, NBC Universal and Warner Media raises their collective business voices against the new law.

US Spelling Bee's 8 Winners, ALL Kids of Color, Challenge Trump's White Nationalism Beliefs

US Spelling Bee's 8 Winners, ALL Kids of Color, Challenge Trump's White Nationalism Beliefs

America had a first-ever, dramatic end to the National Spelling Bee. They ran out of words, and eight kids were still standing. The winners are Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao, and Rohan Raja.

With all Trump's hateful anti-immigration rhetoric, I note publicly the absence of a majority of white kids in the final rounds. In fact, they are hard to find in this inspiring group of young people.

What's up? Are white kids not making the cut -- or are they too "good" to undertake a mental challenge like the National Spelling Bee?

MacKenzie Bezos Joins Gates & Buffett 'The Giving Pledge', Sharing Half of Her New Fortune

MacKenzie Bezos Joins Gates & Buffett 'The Giving Pledge', Sharing Half of Her New Fortune

There aren’t many solo images of MacKenzie Bezos out there. Even though the mom of four is a successful writers and played her own roll in the formation of Amazon, almost all images of MacKenzie include her husband Jeff Bezos.

Vogue US interviewed one of the world’s richest women in 2013 in advance of her “gripping new novel Traps”. The interview by Rebecca Johnson describes MacKenzie as a “bookish and she” girl who spent hours in her bedroom writing elaborate stories. She attended first Hotchkiss and then Princeton, a very deliberate choice that gave her access to writer Toni Morrison. One of America’s most important voices became Bezos’ mentor and called her in 2013 “one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative-writing classes . . . really one of the best.”

The Evolution of the Medieval Witch – and Why She’s Usually a Woman

The Evolution of the Medieval Witch – and Why She’s Usually a Woman

By Jennifer Farrell, Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Exeter. First published on The Conversation.

Flying through the skies on a broomstick, the popular image of a witch is as a predominantly female figure – so much so that the costume has become the go-to Halloween outfit for women and girls alike. But where did this gendered stereotype come from? Part of the answer comes from medieval attitudes towards magic, and the particular behaviours attributed to men and women within the “crime” of witchcraft.

Taking one aspect of the witch’s characterisation in popular culture – her association with flight – we can see a transformation in attitudes between the early and later Middle Ages. In the 11th century, Bishop Burchard of Worms said of certain sinful beliefs:

Some wicked women, turning back to Satan and seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe [that] in the night hours they ride on certain animals with the pagan goddess Diana and a countless multitude of women, and they cross a great span of the world in the stillness of the dead of night.

According to Burchard, these women were actually asleep, but were held captive by the devil, who deceived their minds in dreams. He also believed that none but the very “stupid and dim-witted” could think that these flights had actually taken place.