Honestly, how many times can you raise awareness about domestic violence? I feel like the issue is so commonly known nowadays, it's hard for anyone to care about it. It's like: yes, domestic abuse is a thing. Whoop-dee-fucking-do. Extrajudical killings are a thing, too. As well as climate change. Everyone knows about it now. That's why it's not as effective an issue anymore.
>A widespread but illegal campaign by a group calling itself "the Gluers" uses posters to denounce violence against women. It has become an effective - and ubiquitous - tool to raise awareness.

>PARIS - On a recent mild night, a squad of four young women wandered through a peaceful neighborhood in eastern Paris, armed with a bucket of glue, a paintbrush and backpacks loaded with posters.

>They were looking for surfaces to paper with a stark message.

>"There, it's not bad, is it?" said Astrid Tenon, wearing all black, as she pointed to a 20-foot long wall, just east of the Marais neighborhood. Her comrade in arms, Chloé Madesta, holding a bucket, nodded.

>A well-choreographed operation immediately started: First, a woman brushed some glue over the wall, then a second woman pasted up page after page, while a third patted each piece down with another layer of glue.

>After less than seven minutes, the wall bore the words: "You said you loved me, but it was still rape."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/world/europe/paris-france-feminist-posters.html

I suppose it beats letting it fall into obscurity if they don't keep this up. But c'mon, man. People are only interested in what they don't know, not what they're already aware of.

I'm a leftie, and even I was worried this would happen.
>The protests are moving into white residential neighborhoods, where activists demand that people choose a side.

>PORTLAND, Ore. - Terrance Moses was watching protesters against police brutality march down his quiet residential street one recent evening when some in the group of a few hundred suddenly stopped and started yelling.

>Mr. Moses was initially not sure what the protesters were upset about, but as he got closer, he saw it: His neighbors had an American flag on display.

>"It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, 'How dare you fly the American flag?'" said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. "They said take it down. They wouldn't leave. They said they're going to come back and burn the house down."

>Mr. Moses and others blocked the demonstrators and told them to leave.

>"We don't go around terrorizing folks to try and force them to do something they don't want to do," said Mr. Moses, whose nonprofit group provides support for local homeless people. "I'm a veteran. I'm for these liberties."

>Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational - and personal - approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come "out of your house and into the street" and demonstrate their support.

>These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/black-lives-matter-protests-tactics.html

Senate Panel Refers Report on Hunter Biden’s Foreign Dealings to DOJ for Criminal Investigation
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rand-paul-says-senate-panel-will-refer-report-on-hunter-bidens-foreign-dealings-to-doj-for-criminal-investigation/
Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) announced Wednesday that he would refer the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees’ report on its investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings to the Department of Justice for a “a criminal investigation that’s justified.”

“I think riding on Air Force Two and doing business is illegal … and probably a felony,” Paul said in an appearance on Fox News. “I think it’s illegal to take money from a Russian politician’s wife, $3.5 million, was it reported accurately?”
The 87-page interim report released on Wednesday revealed details of Biden’s role on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and his alleged business dealings with politically connected foreign nationals while his father Joe Biden was vice president, including Elena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who was fired in 2010 by then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev over corruption allegations.

The report came after a months-long probe in which members of the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees and their staff reviewed more than 45,000 pages of Obama administration records and interviewed eight witnesses, many of whom are current or former U.S. officials. Records showed “potential criminal activity” relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals, the report said, as well as millions of dollars in “questionable financial transactions” between Biden and his associates and foreign individuals, some of whom had ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

From the April 2020 issue: The president is winning his war on American institutions

Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.


https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54277235
Other sources: https://etudiant.lefigaro.fr/article/a-strasbourg-une-etudiante-frappee-parce-qu-elle-portait-une-jupe_2da03468-fcac-11ea-a122-e726347cce1f/
https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/faits-divers-justice/temoignage-une-etudiante-strasbourgeoise-agressee-car-elle-portait-une-jupe-1600704504
video: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7wcwz8
>French police have opened an investigation after a woman in Strasbourg said she was attacked in broad daylight for wearing a skirt.
The student, identified only as Elisabeth, 22, said she was punched in the face "by three individuals who complained about me wearing a skirt".
The government has denounced the "very serious" incident as unacceptable.
About 1,800 fines have been handed out since a law against street harassment was passed in 2018.
In an interview with France Bleu Alsace radio, Elisabeth said she was walking home when one of the three men said: "Look at that whore in a skirt."
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Two of the three men then held her while the third hit her in the face, leaving her with a black eye, she told the station. The men then fled.
She said more than a dozen people witnessed the incident, but no-one intervened.
On Wednesday, junior interior minister Marlene Schiappa - who is in charge of citizenship and was previously in charge of equality issues - visited the eastern city to discuss the safety of women in public.
She told France Bleu Alsace that "the skirt is not responsible for the attack and the woman even less".
"A woman is never hit because she wears a skirt. A woman is hit because there are people who are misogynistic, sexist, violent, and who free themselves from any law and any rule of civility by striking them.
"When you're a student and you have to think about the outfit you have to wear and the message it sends, it's an overwhelming mental load," Ms Schiappa said.
... continued

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/climate/arctic-changing-climate.html

Open water and rain, rather than ice and snow, are becoming typical of the region, a new study has found.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/23/gop-senators-anti-biden-report-420362

For a year, Senate Republicans have teased a bombshell investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden that could rock the former vice president’s campaign for the White House.

But an interim report, issued by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) less than six weeks before the presidential election and released publicly on Wednesday, is largely a compilation of previously public information — some of it rehashed anew by witnesses who already testified during the House’s impeachment inquiry last year — as well as news articles and strongly worded insinuations with little evidence to back them up.

The report, titled “Hunter Biden, Burisma and Corruption,” reprises these year-old claims and adds little new to a discussion first raised by President Donald Trump’s defense team in his impeachment trial before the Senate earlier this year, when the president was acquitted by GOP senators on charges of abusing his power by seeking to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. The report does little to substantiate allegations against the Democratic presidential nominee, which have been fueled in part by foreign actors linked to the Kremlin whom U.S. officials have said are attempting to interfere in the 2020 election.

The report relies on vague assessments already revealed publicly — namely, from top State Department official George Kent, who said Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company was “very awkward” for U.S. officials who were carrying out an anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. Kent made a similar remark during his impeachment testimony last fall.

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/09/24/us-attorneys-office-says-small-number-of-mail-in-military-ballots-cast-for-president-trump-discarded-in-luzerne-county/
US Attorney’s Office Says Small Number Of Mail-In Military Ballots Cast For President Trump Discarded In Luzerne County
>LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. (CBS/AP) — Federal authorities in Pennsylvania say nine military ballots cast for President Donald Trump were discarded in Luzerne County. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Pennsylvania says an investigation was launched Monday following reports of potential issues with a small number of mail-in ballots at the Luzerne County Board of Elections.
>The FBI and Pennsylvania State Police have conducted interviews and recovered and reviewed physical evidence. Authorities say Luzerne County election officials have been cooperative.
>Authorities can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded and investigators have recovered nine ballots so far.
>...