L'esprit de l’escalier

and THEN when women dropped out, they started using incarcerated women as their guinea pigs, and then despite the fact that some scientists who participated in the original trials were like “uh i don’t think this is actually good, it’s making a lot of these women sick,” the pharmaceutical industry & fda were like  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and approved it for the general population anyways, without really warning women about the potential for all these negative side effects

and THEN researchers basically ceased to do any type of research on side effects like depression and decreased libido for 50 years, despite the fact that women were still complaining about them, and because there was no “hard evidence” of these side effects, a lot of doctors basically just assumed women were exaggerating or making it up. and that continued until the first major study of depression in women who take hormonal contraceptives was released just. this. year.

the puerto rico pill trials

the racist & sexist history of keeping side effects of birth controls secret

“it’s not in your head” striking new study links birth control to depression

the side effects of male birth control stopping drug trials reveals a disturbing sexism

male birth control shot prevents pregnancy, researchers call for further study to reduce risk of depression, other side effects

no child should ever have to go through what Diane and her family suffered. but due to the United States’ harsh, complex, and unforgiving immigration system, Diane is not the only one. 

When the Bush administration was discovered to have erased millions of emails illegally sent by 22 administration officials through private, RNC-owned accounts, in order to thwart an investigation into the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys, just one talk show covered it that Sunday.

When Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails, it was barely an issue.

When Hillary Clinton asked Colin Powell how he managed to use a Blackberry while serving as Secretary of State, he replied by detailing his method of intentionally bypassing federal record-keeping laws:

“I didn’t have a Blackberry. What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers. I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.

… There is a real danger. If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it [sic] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law.”

Yet the fact that Hillary Clinton emailed through a private server and didn’t use it to cover anything up is somehow the defining issue of her campaign. “My God,” people cry, “anyone else would be in jail!”

Or is the real scandal that her family runs but does not profit from a charitable foundation awarded an A grade by Charity Watch, a four out of four star rating byCharity Navigator and responsible for helping 435 million people in 180 countries get things like clean drinking water and HIV medication? Because the AP seemssuper concerned that she encountered people who donated to it—specifically Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus—in her official capacity as Secretary of State.

It should at this point be observed that her opponent is a shameless con artist who has built an empire bilking people with fake businesses, fake universities, fake charities and, now, a fake campaign. Last week, he told a lie every three minutes and fifteen seconds. Oh, and did we mention that he, (like so many of his online “supporters,”) is a goddamn Russian stooge? I tried to list all of the dumb, awful stuff that he does every day and I cannot come close to keeping up.

Voters, it seems, are his easiest marks yet.

And it isn’t just Republicans. The double standards are even more transparent on the left.

Back in the mid-90s, Clinton’s persistent unwillingness to hide the fact that she was a thinking human female really freaked the center-left establishment out. Michael Moore observed that, “[Maureen Dowd] is fixated on trashing Hillary Rodham in the way liberals love to do, to prove they’re not really liberal.” The bashing slowly morphed into a creepy, extraordinary sort of policing.

Since then, Clinton racked up a Senate voting record more liberal than any nominee since Mondale. Her 2008 platform was slightly to Obama’s left on domestic issues. Her 2016 platform was barely to the right of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders.

Yet, we have all heard and seen countless liberal posers passionately decrying her “far right voting record,” untrustworthy promises or ever-changing policy positions. Jon Stewart recently called Clinton, “A bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I don’t know what they even are.” Because if he doesn’t know, she must not have any, right?

In fact, there is a very lengthy trail of public records all pointing in the same direction. If you can’t figure out which, maybe the problem is you.

Yet, many on the left who gladly voted for John Kerry, two years after he voted to authorize the Iraq war, now say they couldn’t possibly vote for Clinton, because she did, too.

And view her with contempt for opposing same-sex marriage in 2008, while fawning over men like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, who held the same position at the same time.

Self Portrait with Monkey (1940)

Trump tried to pretend he never said climate change is a Chinese hoax

It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.

“women never shut up”

Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.

“women are shallow”

Lol next

“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”

Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women: Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion

“women are too emotional”

Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.

I blame you.

When someone shot up a school full of kids, and we wanted to take steps to take guns out of circulation, you wouldn’t let us.  You said your sacred right to bear arms was more important than the lives of schoolchildren, and you said it right to the faces of those kids’ parents.

When someone shot up a theater full of moviegoers, and we wanted to take steps to take guns out of circulation. you wouldn’t let us.  You said that the only thing that could have stopped the shooter was a Good Guy With a Gun.  You said it excitedly, as though you wished you were there.  The theater was full of panic and terror and smoke, but you’re sure that you would have taken out the threat with steady hands and no stray bullets.

And when it happened again at a church, you told the same story.  You suggested that church was a reasonable place to start openly carrying guns, just in case.

When someone shot up a mall full of shoppers, and the police responded, innocent bystanders got caught in the crossfire and were accidentally shot by police.  When we pointed out that more guns meant more stray bullets, and we tried to take those guns out of circulation, you wouldn’t let us.  The police never would have fired if the shooter wasn’t there in the first place, you said, so all of the people shot by police were added to the shooter’s murder charges.  The books are kept clean that way, but the lives of the victims’ families won’t be.

Now someone shot up a gay club, during Pride.  We were unable to keep an assault rifle out of his hands (even though he was on the terror watch list!) because to you that sounded too close to keeping one out of your hands, so you stopped us.  You stopped us because only a Good Guy with a Gun could stop a shooter.  But here we are, and after all your macho posturing about stopping shooters, you did nothing.  Instead, you said horrible things.  When you learned Pulse was a gay club, you said he was doing God’s work.  And when you learned he was Muslim, you blamed all Muslims.  

And so I blame you, Good Guy with a Gun.  I blame you for all of it.  America is a war zone, and it is your fault.  We can’t keep guns away from terror suspects.  We can’t keep them away from the dangerously mentally ill.  We can’t keep them away from violent felons.  We can’t keep them away from kids.  We can’t keep them out of schools or churches.  You shriek yourself hoarse about making sure law-abiding citizens can protect themselves, and you do it so loudly that no one can hear us say that every shooter starts off as a law-abiding citizen.