Finding fake news -- 3 million fraudulent Hillary voters (part 1)

Media are a wreck. In this day of opinion everything and cherry-picked facts, people are searching for ways to find their own information. We need to know how to source our own news, as most outlets aren't doing a good enough job for the nation. This will be a series.

I'm starting with the 3 million fraudulent votes claim, as brought to me by a random twitter user.

.@parentwin DNC-paid contractors were caught on camera admitting to it and three million votes of illegals have already been found ages ago.

— LyleRuderburg (@BetterGemsToday) November 29, 2016

I asked Lyle for citation, and he provided me with several links. We'll take them one by one.

http://sgtreport.com/2016/11/analysis-more-than-3-million-illegal-immigrants-voted-in-the-presidential-election-and-hillary-still-lost/

This is a link from the Sgt. Report, which proclaims itself "The Corporate Propaganda Antidote." The piece is titled: "ANALYSIS: MORE THAN 3 MILLION ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS VOTED IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION… AND HILLARY STILL LOST"

Most liberals stop right here. Because we immediately see made-up news and don't want to waste any time on it. But I want to go all the way through this, from top to bottom, so bear with me.

The piece cites a Tweet from @jumpvote, Gregg Phillips, the founder of the app VoteStand.

Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations.

Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million.

Consulting legal team.

— Gregg Phillips (@JumpVote) November 11, 2016

It refers to VoteStand as a non-partisan group monitoring voter registrations. It continues by stating that illegal immigrants tend to vote Democrat (uncited). Then it refers vaguely to an interview given by Obama, just before the election, where he apparently told illegal immigrants that there would be no legal repercussions for voting, by saying "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself."

It then asks readers to get more information from The Daily Sheeple.



Let's start with VoteStand.

According to its own website, VoteStand is not a non-partisan group monitoring voter registrations. It is actually an app that allows users to report perceived voter fraud. As per the site: "The process is as easy as taking a picture and filling out specific identifying information about the incident."

It allows citizens using the app to report, via their own observations, voter registration fraud, dead people voting, felon vote fraud, absentee ballot vote fraud, voter intimidation/suppression, electronic voting fraud, voter impersonation, ballot stuffing (multiple voting), electioneering and misinformation.

It states that it "uses a high-level encryption inside the app, allowing information to get to the right people and make reporting voter fraud easier."

Nowhere on the site does it say who those people are, and what they do with the information, or how they investigate the claims.

That said, there is a group behind the app. True the Vote. It was founded in 2009.

It describes itself like this on its site: "As the nation’s largest nonpartisan, voters’ rights and election integrity organization, True the Vote exists to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of America’s electoral process. We provide training, technology, and support to fellow citizens so that they can ensure election integrity in their own communities."

True the Vote founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, told ABC Nightline in an interview that the group was non-partisan, but admitted to heading a Tea Party group in Houston and to making a $5,000 donation to a Republican organization.

This is not "the skewed news media." If you watch the video on the link I provided, you will hear Engelbrecht say these things herself. That is a primary source.

So, the nonpartisan organization's founder is partisan. While the organization may perhaps be partisan (which could be proven through staff and volunteer listings which currently do not exist), there is a conflict of interest at the very top.

All of this leads us back to the question of how a small grassroots organization made of citizen volunteers, and an app to help them photograph people they assume are fraudulently voting, allow Gregg Phillips to state that they'd analyzed 180 million voter registrations and found 3 million fraudulent ones.

Let's start with Gregg Phillips. His @jumpvote Twitter account has this pinned at the top:

So, he's not non-partisan.

He didn't answer my request to clarify how he got his numbers, but did answer another user who asked him to show his evidence by saying this:

"I have been consistent from the outset. I will publish all methods, data and analysis to the public and the DOJ."

The thing is, he hasn't. And when you go with news before you present your findings in a publicly accessible or verifiable way, that is fake news. Others may say they trust him, but in that case, they are using a system of belief over a reliance on facts.

So, there is no verification from Gregg Phillips about that 3 million voter fraud number. Only a vague promise of some later, followed immediately by several professions of him being "just a regular guy."


Randi Kaye, an anchor for CNN's 360, asked Phillips for an interview to review his numbers and make his case to the public, presenting his proof. His reply was that she had already decided, and so he wouldn't go on the air.

So, he's not going to show his proof for these numbers. Now, he says it's because CNN has already decided. Fair enough. And yet, no one has any proof of this claim. Again, people can choose to believe him. But that's a belief without facts backing it up.

But who is Gregg Phillips?

In his Twitter profile, he says he's "Founder: @VoteStand, The Cause, Time for a Hero, Voters Trust & Winning Our Future PAC. Board Member."

The Cause seems to be a curated list of voting related news, everything from The Washington Post to Breitbart. From where I sit, it's not slanted, providing stories of all kinds about voting news from all types of publications.

It also has only one issue (August, 2016) and the forward to that issue is written by a John David Phillips.

Voters Trust is said to be a nonprofit organization, but no trace of it exists other than citations from Gregg and Engelbrecht in conservative news sites like The Blaze. This linked piece describes Phillips' role in the organization that cannot be found, but its intent is to highlight a bounty reward that True the Vote was hosting for someone who could find IRS or Obamacare fraud. That bounty went untaken.

A link to another interview with Phillips was provided and it led to The 405; The Talk Alternative, a talk radio show website, which states it is a "independent and growing talk outlet covering the broadest spectrum of politics as well as pop culture and sports, including written and visual media," but also appears to be linked to the Common Sense Conversations podcasts and radio, which is based out of California according to its mailing address. A phone number and email is listed for the creator, but no last name. She goes by Beth Ann. The show with Phillips in it is two hours long, called Sacks Radio. I listened to it for you.

Within that written piece on the 405 site, there was a link to Phillips' Voters Trust PAC, which is also listed on his Twitter profile, if you recall. The link led to a defunct website.

Infowars' Alex Jones linked Phillips to Vote Fraud, a website that stems from 1996 and looks like it. That page, however, is linked to an up-to-date site, Election Night Gatekeepers. There is no information about who runs this site, although it is a pro-Trump site, which quotes Stalin right up top. There is a call-in option for Thursday, for those inclined: "Dial-in Number: (712) 775-7035, Participant Access Code: 938190#." You can contact them at Action@ElectionNightGatekeepers.com, Phone: 513-741-2095. Again, there is no transparency here. Who are we talking to and what are their qualifications?

Election Night Gatekeepers talks  in-depth about Watch the Vote. The first thing on Watch the Vote USA is a paragraph about how they forced the Iowa GOP to change the winner of that caucus in 2012 from Romney to Santorum. We have now reached the first part of this entire post that can be verified. I don't know if Watch the Vote USA had anything to do with it; but Santorum beat Romney by 34 votes two weeks after the state had been called for Romney by eight votes only. The New York Times has this cached.

There is no link that leads from Phillips to Election Night Gatekeepers aka Vote Watch.

Phillips also lists Winning our Future PAC in his Twitter. This is a super-PAC that supported Newt Gingrich in 2012. It's not been updated since, but the Public Integrity Project (Pulitzer Prize winner) shows top donors gave up to $7.5 million in funds; it had a Full Disclosure rating. That's a good thing. It means we can see all donations. It was created by former Gingrich aide, Becky Burkett.

None of this tells us anything about Gregg Phillips other than he's a staunch, active Tea Party Republican.

If you check his LinkedIn, you see he's the founder of AutoGov, and that years ago, in 1995, he was the Executive Director of Mississippi's Republican Party. In 1989, he was the Finance Director for the Alabama Republican Party. So he's not non-partisan. AutoGov is a company that analyzes data, and its star invention is CaseVue, a program that filters multiple patient data to determine whether that patient is eligible for Medicaid, ranking them as if they were getting a credit check.

CaseVue uses "applicant case information together with hundreds of additional bits of publicly and privately sourced data, then uses predictive analytics to assess the presence of risk, quickly defines the likelihood of eligibility – and delivers answers to desktops of caseworkers – all in real time."

It doesn't mention what the privately sourced data are nor how they are found.

AutoGov's other main innovation is GovBox. It looks to be the same program, tweaked for large government program eligibility--mainly social services. It was said to be used in Mississippi after the State extended Medicaid under the ACA to help hospitals there combat the expense of that program (ignoring that the state got a credit for that).

I said said to be because the press release does not name any hospitals in particular, nor does it state any start date for the programs they say are falling into place there. It's published on a site called Presumptive Eligibility, which is run by AutoGov, as another way to sell CaseVue. It was written by a Taylor Phillips.

Now, if you look carefully at GovBox, you will see that Gregg Phillips is looking for information on residents in states that might use it (I couldn't find any currently using it), specifically: Identity (Social Security Numbers), proof of residency, proof of citizenship, income, and assets.

So, it turns out Gregg Phillips is at least working on collecting data about residents of the U.S. for his day-job.

Since CaseVue is said to be in practice in at least four states already, the information on those patients has, at the very least, passed through Phillips' hands. I say said to be because I can find no news from any health related site or organization actually talking about CaseVue other than AutoGov itself.

Autogov has a Dallas, TX address on the site, and a Birmingham, AL address there. News briefs about the company refer to it as an Austin-based company.

Googling him brings up Give Time to a Hero, a failed crowdfunding attempt to buy a watch for every special op in America. This is touching and kind. He only raised $490 out of his $10,000 goal. He's found, much like everyone else, America gives money to conspiracy theories a lot more easily than they give to other people who do good service for our country.

So, that's Gregg Phillips. A guy collecting massive amounts of data through his private company, an outspoken advocate for the far right, and the self-appointed gatekeeper of voter fraud.

Nowhere do we see how he could have gotten the 180 million voter registration information he claims he has. Nowhere do we see how his app and watch groups found 3 million fraudulent voters.

Because it's not real. If you choose to believe it is real, you are believing, not relaying facts. I could not find any facts that backed up his claim, and I went about as deep as one could go.




Okay, let's just QUICKLY look at the rest of the piece he linked me.

"Illegals tend to vote Democrat" it said.

That would be true, as the Pew Research Center found that 31 percent of undocumented immigrants aligned with the Democratic party where as only 4 percent aligned with the Republican party.

So why isn't it true? Because undocumented immigrants don't vote. They're not allowed to by law, and as we just exhaustively went over, there is no evidence suggesting that undocumented immigrants vote.


How about when Obama told Gina Rodriguez illegal immigrants should vote?

I can see how this is being put across. Check out the interview.

Rodriguez wrongly referred to undocumented immigrants as citizens, then she framed the question around herself, a true citizen (in the conservative sense of the word.)

She asks: "If I vote, will immigration know where I live, will they come for my family and deport us?"

Obama is answering her personally. When he said, "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself, and there is not a situation where the voting rolls are transferred over and people start investigating," he is using the you are a citizen yourself as the disclaimer, as the clarification that he is talking about citizens who may have undocumented family members that they are afraid for.

I can absolutely see, however, how it could be taken as an if/then cause/effect statement when only part of the question and answer is given.

When a person hears, "when you vote, you are a citizen yourself" as the article quoted, that has an entirely different meaning than the full quote. However, I would also posture that those who do not like Obama would also hear the second meaning given the entire interview. But that's not what he said.

So IN CONCLUSION:

I spent hours looking for the proof of voter fraud given to me by this link by a random Twitter user. And it wasn't there.

As of right now, no proven voter fraud.

I'll be back with the rest of the links tomorrow or something.

How to handle mean, baseless "reviews" -- Guest post

Last night the Twitterverse exploded around Kathleen Hale’s essay in The Guardian, Am I being catfished? An author confronts her number-one online critic. I’d read it a few days ago, thought it had a great ho-lee-shit quality about it, and scheduled a tweet for later in the week.

Little did I know.

If you haven’t seen it yet, a Goodreads user writing under the handle “Blythe” wrote a review of Hale’s book. Hale thought “Blythe” got it factually wrong, and took issue with the tone. “Blythe” harassed Hale via social media and did everything she could to bring down Hale’s ratings, including commenting on positive reviews of the book to say that reviewer had it wrong.

The We Hate Hale camp’s position is summed up nicely here.

And here’s a post on Bustle with a more nuanced view.

“Book bloggers,” which appears to mean anyone who has a blog and writes about books, or puts comments on other sites that write about books, are shocked—shocked!—that trashing people’s work on the internet as meanly as possible may well be free speech but is not in fact free from consequences.

I can't work out why this article was published. What purpose it could possibly serve, except to frighten and intimidate bloggers.
— Samantha Shannon (@say_shannon) October 18, 2014

The book blogging community is vital & wonderful. I am so sad/sorry about those who may no longer feel they can safely express themselves.
— courtnival of souls (@courtney_s) October 18, 2014

The pearl-clutchers now terrified to post their opinions are laboring under the impression they are reviewers.

They’re not.

They’re hecklers.

This is not to say all comments must be positive. Or represent an in-depth engagement with the text leading to a thoughtful assessment of the positives and negatives and where within its particular canon the book should be placed (that would be a “review”). But little gems like

Fuck this.

are the moral equivalent of the guy yelling “you suck!” at a comedian. “Fuck this” doesn’t add anything to the dialogue. It’s not even a statement of opinion. It’s a deliberate, nasty jab intended to hurt the author personally and financially. And for those still heady with the power to depress sales and writers, it’s not as retribution-free as it looked.

As writers, we’re counseled not to engage with reviews. At all. Ever. And for thoughtful reviews—or even statements of opinion such as “Bad writing and it was a waste of time to read it”—that’s still the best policy. A genuine review by a qualified reviewer can, after the initial pain subsides, be tremendously helpful (it’s usually the first time we’ve heard from someone not already in our corner).

But for the assholes yelling “Fuck this”? Don’t engage as the writer with a reviewer. Squash them like a comic with a heckler.

 STEP ONE: The heckler must be loud enough to be heard by everyone else. 

If you can’t hear them clearly, nobody else can either, and putting down that heckler makes you look mean. For writers, this means don’t seek it out. If you can’t “hear” it, chances are most people outside that immediate community can’t either.

But if it’s coming across your social media, and other people have first identified it as mean, so it’s not just your tender sensibilities? Get on that shit.

STEP TWO: Only engage if you can win.

You’re not in this to be reasonable. You don’t want an apology, an acknowledgement, a recognition or to present your own case. You want to crush. Make them look like an idiot spewing meaningless vitriol.

Fuck this.

Mom, please stop using the Internet.

Craft your response like poetry. Cynical, funny, poetry. You know full well you’re poking an asshole with a stick, and isn’t that funny, gang, when we’re all in it together? The same jackasses who “Oooooooo” with the heckler will laugh at them—even louder, because you one-upped the guy who thought he was smart. The audience doesn’t actually give a shit about who’s “right,” and they aren’t smart enough to tell the difference anyway. (Individual audience members are plenty smart, but the pack is only as smart as the dumbest and most-easily-offended member.) They will side with whoever is the most entertaining, so be that person.

STEP THREE: Be prepared for even more fallout.

They might have more words in them. They might be smarter, or more obsessive than you. They might look you up online and trash you everywhere else they can.

Then again, you might get an essay out of it.

Yes, some parts of the Internet are elegant, intellectual salons. But most mass-review sites are little more than fanboys squeeing and high-school mean girls using authors as cannon-fodder. Every now and then someone says something worth hearing, if only by accident, but why wade through the pettiness to find it? Get a friend to scan for pull-quotes. Then go buy somebody else’s one-star book.


....


Allison K Williams is a freelance writer and editor based in Dubai. Her previous work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Brevity and the New York Times. She blogs at www.idowords.net and edits at www.unkindeditor.com






 

Real Men of Feminism

After the "most notorious American male feminist" stepped down the other day (and then didn't, but definitely did after that) there's been a lot of talk about men feminists (like there ever isn't, am I right?). I'd like to take this moment, however, to turn the spotlight away from the preachy, narcissistic men of the feminist writing spaces and celebrate the real men of feminism. Oh, they're there. They're right here, in fact.

That is Billy Joe Cain, standing with his 14-year-old daughter who wins the award for best sign ever in the history of signs.

Before we move on, let's all get the meaning of this sign clear.

Jesus is not a dick (meaning, cleverly in this case, jerk, douche, asshole, ballseam, term du jour, and also penis).

So keep him out of my vagina (meaning religion has no place dictating a woman's rights to her and continuing beautifully with the little metaphor).

Got it? Okay.

As the pro-lifers came out in droves to attack this young girl, her father stood resolutely by her side. He did not once lose his cool with these monsters who called his daughter a whore, called him a pimp, called her a slut...well, here, read yourself. (And PS - these all came from this post, which you should all read immediately)

This was just one of dozens of calls to physically assault this child for her impertinent sign-holding. And throughout all of these awful, horrible, disgusting threats, her father was able to not end the twitter users' lives. How, I'll never know.

Billy Joe Cain makes the excellent point that holding a sign that says Jesus isn't a dick so keep him out of my vagina is not equal to holding a sign saying I'm having sex at 14 years old.

These two things are not the same.

He doesn't come out swinging, like, how dare you insinuate my sweet pea is having sex with people! He doesn't scramble to re-explain their actions in a this sign has nothing to do with my daughter; she's not having sex! manner. He does not put pressure on her one way or the other. He does not insert his feelings as a man, or as a father into her fight. He does not weigh in on her sexual activity except to ask others not to in a completely benign and calm way.

He stands with her, not for her, and patiently points out the obvious. Even after people too dumb to type words call her a gardening tool.

He gives no air-time to the utterly insulting ridiculousness aimed at both him and a 14-year-old child. He rightly knows that these people will never get the point. He instead spends his energy building up his daughter and her beliefs, protecting her rights and her body.

I mean, seriously, I would be flipping tables in rage right now. Billy Joe Cain? Rides it out. There is no hope for these people. Fanning their flames would only bring hardship on his daughter. They gave their message. They're allowing "discourse". They take their (awesome) sign and go home, leaving the world a better place.

Again, he is simple and directly to the point, cutting through all the garbage. I also do not understand why they are calling his daughter a whore.

Billy Joe Cain goes on to say briefly that his daughter had every right to hold that sign as 14 year olds can and do get pregnant and need to know they have a choice about their own bodies.

And then, you know what? He marches on. He doesn't dwell on his daughter. More importantly, he does not dwell on himself and the good he is doing for the feminist movement.

Instead, he continues to quietly fight the fight. This is his twitter, as of the writing of this post:

This is a man women can call their ally. This is a true male feminist. There's nothing about him anywhere on his feed. There's nothing there showing women how to do feminism correctly. There's no talk of feminism at all.

There is simply a man fighting for the rights of his daughter and her female friends and women at large through education and the works of others.

Billy Joe Cain. A true male feminist.

...

And for another truly wonderful take on this story from the Christian / religious perspective, head over to Corn Dog Mama. She's brilliant, as always with her latest post, "Vaginas, Jesus and Slut Shaming."


 

Caloric Content of Muffins Outweighs Gruesome Texas Showdown in State Senate

At 11:30 p.m. last night, eastern time, I sat hunched over my desk, a glass of wine at the ready, preparing manuscripts to send to magazine editors. I nearly jumped out of my chair when the shrill sounds of a woman with a "parlimentary inquiry" blasted over my computer speakers.

I'd totally forgotten about the Texas filibuster! Not because I wasn't interested, but because news outlets apparently couldn't care less about the veritable circus going on within the chambers. No one was saying anything.

Wait, let me rephrase. No one who gets paid to pay attention to newsworthy events around the country was saying anything. Twitter was aflame, and I did my part to engage the 500 friends I have on my Facebook account, many of whom had no idea what I was talking about.

How could they not? This was a level of Tomfoolery not seen since I'd say 2000 when the presidential election was stolen...by a Texas politician (uncanny coincidence, eh?)

Senators shouting over each other, ineffective calls for order, the crowd literally going wild, arrests, miscounts, wrangling of official records to change vote times, slimy political moves, feminism in Texas ("At what point must a female senator raise her hand to be recognized over her male colleagues?" Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D)TX, who skipped her father's funeral to be there, by the way. This had me clapping in my house at past midnight. Looking like a lunatic, but I didn't care.)

What about this isn't news?

As for me, it was pure luck I had the livestream of the Texas senate going in a tab I'd long forgotten about. Curious about it earlier in the day, I'd clicked over, to no audio, lost interest and left without shutting it off.

Where were you? Where were you CNN? This is...kind of your thing. And you're so "Twittery" and "Youtubey" lately, one would think you would have jumped at the chance to air that livestreaming Youtube video. It's just like a satellite share. It's easier in fact. No coordinates to type in, no networks from which to get permission. Plug in and air the news. You didn't even have to do anything. You had three straight hours of amazing programming just sitting there gift-wrapped for you. Where. Were. You.

Sure, you're there now. 10 a.m. the next morning. But two hours ago, your story on the matter consisted of quotes from random people on Twitter and a brief overview of Wendy Davis' website. Really? You couldn't, I don't know, pick up a phone? Basically, I could have written the story you wrote at 8 a.m. this morning five hours before that. Word for word. Not because I used to be a journalist, but because that's the amount of research you did. Any Twitter or Facebook user even remotely interested in the event could have fashioned your story.

I've never been so disappointed in my life.

Here's a quick rundown of Journalism 101 for you, in case you've forgotten.

Determine newsworthiness:

- Is it timely? (Yes.)
- Is it breaking? (Yes.)
- Is there drama? (Yes.)
- Does it impact individuals? (Yes.)
- Does it have overreaching consequences for the country's population? (Yes.)
- Is it salient? (FFS, YES.)

Women's rights has been a hot-button issue for years now. It's not as if this blindsided you. And sure, state proceedings could possibly be boring and silly, but you had the video at your disposal. You could see that things escalated to newsworthy in .02 seconds. Hell, it was newsworthy as soon as Davis put on her pink sneakers.

Here's what you were doing at 8 a.m. this morning:

- Quoting President Obama's Twitter status from more than 10 hours before that. (Old, vague and irrelevant.)
- Quoting Ricky Gervais' Twitter. (I...what?)
- Quoting some random guy's Twitter who at least said something funny (Not newsworthy.)
- Getting background information on Sen. Wendy Davis from her website. (Lazy. You couldn't confirm she went to Harvard and got pregnant at 19? Really?)
- Outlining the bare bones of the story that anyone could pick up from watching the livestream (Not helpful.)

Here's what you should have been doing:

- Getting to the scene. Seriously. You weren't even present? This wasn't a quick story. You had thirteen hours to get your shit together.

- Interviewing people outside. Can't get in? That's okay. They're taping. Talk to the people outside. Get the human side of the story.

- Calling your sources frantically to get statements from the senators as the proceedings were taking place. Look, I saw Lincoln. They used to do this shit via carrier pigeon, and note-carriers on foot. Surely it's easier now.

- Blowing up the phones of Wendy Davis, the Lt. Governor and Senate President, Kirk Watson, Letitcia Van de Putte, etc. Running them down in person directly after session. Getting the story. You know. Things.

- Stalking the police department. Your people could have been there when they brought the arrests in. On the other side of this, you didn't even have to leave the chamber. Interview police officers at the scene. When they can't talk, call the chief or the PIO. This is easy stuff, people. I did this at 18 years old for a local cable station. No reason why you can't.

- Digging up the rules of the Texas Senate so you could do a feature piece on how many rules were broken in a slimy and horrid way. (Actually, I bet no one does this. If anyone wants to commission me, I'll totally do it for you.)

- Digging up the history of this bill so you could do a feature on how it came to be, who the main players are, and how it all managed to culminate in this wild governmental kerfuffle.

I could go on and on and on, but I'm getting too disgusted.

Journalism, they say, is dead. But Twitter didn't kill it. Bloggers didn't kill it. The Internet didn't kill it. You killed it. By paying your employees literally nothing, by promoting people who don't know what news is but do know how to say "yes, sir," and "you're great, sir."

But, hey, everyone loves a muffin debate, am I right? So get on with your bad self, CNN. You eat that 350-calorie muffin and call it a day. Because it appears you've had yours.

And if you want a true rundown of the actual events, and a number to reach Wendy Davis head over to Accidentally Mommy who wrote a heart-wrenching piece on the implications of this historic filibuster attempt.

 

Clyming the Walls of Feminism - A Critical Look at the Feminist Problem Part I

Feminism needs a hero.

The third-wave, post-modernist conundrum of personal, individual choice (which is a right everyone, including women, should be allowed) versus presenting a unified front to the world of Patriarchal ideology is the cause of much debate and study.

Women deserve equality. That seems like a simple enough cause. Yet as more and more people join the feminism train (which is fantastic), throwing their support and their individuality behind this common theme, a hierarchy of problems emerges, and it goes so much deeper than "I'm a woman who enjoys demeaning beer ads, and as a woman I have the right to enjoy them."

Even as horrid Facebook memes scatter and spread throughout the internet, even as the hashtag #violenceagainstwomeniswrong gets more "But what about the menz?" comments than support, even though, as these examples show, the feminist cause is clearly not mainstream despite the year being 2013, the infighting between feminist groups and groupies takes center stage. And it's happening on all levels. Academically, Angela McRobbie fights Merri Lisa Johnson. In more accessible publications, Abigail Rind wonders if we should just give up the label of feminism altogether, while Jill Filipovic laments the lack of a "variety of feminism".

Clearly, we need to get our act together. Enter Charles Clymer.

Charles runs a rather successful feminist page on Facebook called Equality for Women. He's also a fairly prominent blogger in the area of feminist issues.

He's also a man.

Is this a problem? His supporters say no, and point the finger at the dissenters, calling them hindrances to the movement, saying equality, and thus feminism, applies to all people. And don't women need men on their side, male advocates, if you will? Isn't the point of feminism that men and women are equal, which would move away from the us-versus-them mentality?

Feminist writer and television producer Rain Stickland points out the importance of the male feminist voice, saying, "Realizing that a man could be a feminist has helped with my activism and my writing, and it has made me become a better feminist myself, helping to define what the word means to me."

Clymer explains his goal: "With Equality for Women, I want to provide a safe space for persons of all genders (who believe in women's rights) to encourage each other in their activism and get news and commentary on issues of inequality facing women."

Follower Sheila Holmes says he's doing a good job in that goal. "I have seen so many posts that lifted me up and helped me feel less alone in this world. The postings and conversations on the page often validate my feelings and discomfort at situations and give public voice to what I've been told so many times are insecurities--but they're not."

But when a man becomes a feminism advocate, and then a feminist leader, the lines become blurry.  And the mission statement is quite narrow, though that doesn't seem to be the case at first glance.

The page, which once boasted a team of several moderators, including Tasmyn Elizabeth, Zoe Katherine, Angela Boyle, Evee Vann and Jamie Maguill, now only has Charles as administrator. The self-proclaimed (and rightly so, it is his page, after all, though, of course, there was no vote) president wants his page to be a holiday of agreement and back pats, feminists, survivors, advocates and women all coming together to work toward female equality.

Sounds amazing, but in any group of people you are bound to come up against debate, questions, and commentary that you do not agree with. This is the part where individuals have the right to maintain their individuality and participate in a group effort (and this is where EFW mirrors the major problems in feminist culture today almost perfectly). And Clymer doesn't much like that.

"There are several much more prominent Facebook pages out there right now," Clymer says. "You go on the threads, and it's a complete pie fight. There are men who do nothing but troll these posts. And I don't want that on my page; I want it to be clean. I want people to be able to engage on my page intelligently."

To Clymer, deleting and banning people makes his page the idyllic world he is looking for, and helps it to provide the service he deems to offer. And it's his page; he can do what he wants with it.

"I feel like people seeing those (now deleted) comments get the wrong message," Clymer says. "And I want the page to be a safe space."

Unfortunately, many comments on Equality for Women that have been deleted are by women, and many of the people who have been banned are women. And this angered the women, as you can imagine, because now you have a man running a feminist page essentially silencing women he doesn't agree with. And the disenchantment begins. The litany of crimes against him from those who have been banned is long.

"He has zero interest in letting women be heard about issues that affect them," says Bree Casson, a former EFW follower. "He is only interested in the opinions of Charles Clymer and people who agree with them."

"It's a supposedly safe environment where discussion was supposed to be encouraged, yet any comment that did not support the party line was deleted," adds former member Angelique D'Arcy.

Kallie Whitby gives an informational account of her time on the page, stating, "I followed EFW and had comments deleted where I asked respectful and legitimate questions or voiced disagreement, and ultimately was banned when I challenged their deletion."

Charles says the remarks were out of line. "It wasn't that they disagreed with me, it's that their disagreements were aggressively anti-women, or that their disagreements were abusive. If you come at me like, 'I think it's wrong a man is leading a women's group, I'm going to ban you. I think it's an abusive remark."

After our interview, I convinced Charles to start a no-banning, no-deletion policy toward remarks that were made in a respectful manner. To his credit, he tried, making a post about it on the page and everything. It lasted for, well, a few minutes, really.

Kelly Solberg commented with a "yeah! It's about time!" and was immediately banned. Sandi Yu questioned the banning, as did various others, and many of those women were also banned. The entire post was deleted, but here is a snippet from it when it existed:

EFW: "Sandi, she was a member of a hate group that has worked tirelessly to hurt me. I couldn't ban her until she made a comment on here, but now she did, and I banned her."

Tyra Michelle Brown: "Banning someone for comments on another page is kind of ridiculous. She hasn't made any comments that are ban-worthy on this page, so banning her seems like spite more than anything."

Within that same discussion, Clymer says, "My point is if you're going to have an argument you'll need to have logic behind it. I do too much research and work and advocacy to have someone who glazed over Feminism 101 in college trump my argument with nothing more than 'well, you're not a woman, so you don't know."

And that's an excellent point because the "you're not a woman" argument shouldn't trump research and knowledge. However, the "tone argument" implies that most women of dissenting opinion took one course in feminism and therefore are illegitimate allies. Also, not necessarily a problem within itself, as debates can get heated, and people say things in that heat. We don't want to miss the point he made.

Where it all goes off the rails, though, is that this post and comment thread was completely deleted, ending all possible discourse. Clymer has the power to stop the discussion and he uses it. Several members of that discussion were banned. He has the power to get them off his page, and he uses it.

In Clymer's defense, it seems personal to him because it is.

There really was a group entitled "People Banned by Charles Clymer" on Facebook, and it really did take action against him.

"They sent messages to several of my feminist contacts that I had," he says, "and I had to spend a lot of time gaining back that trust."

This, again, mirrors feminism, the movement. People climb up only to be shot down, either because of mistakes they've made or because of their stations in life, or anything really. But at some point we all have to "man" (see what I did there?) up and accept responsibility for what is our fault and fight against what is not.

A while back, Clymer shut his page down and removed all the mods after intense infighting and confusion that is too muddy to go into here. That drama plays into why Clymer states he will never have a mod team again.

"This is my baby," he says. "I'm going to do it now. People can contribute things, and I'll post with credit, but I'm not going to open the page back up."

As someone who feels he is being relentlessly attacked, this makes sense. To those looking on, however, it looks like he's taking the feminist cause and making it his own.

Former moderator Zoe Katherine says of her time there, "I disagreed on him preaching feminism to women. He's completely unaware of his privilege. You can't tell us not to reclaim words, and you can't tell us to be thankful for our periods. If we disagreed publicly, he'd threaten to remove us as mods; if we did it privately we were guilt-tripped, or simply ignored."

Stephanie Kay related to me a story in which she posted a request that any male moderators on the page "remain aware of the fact that authority over women is a male privilege, and that male allies should be very careful about not turning themselves into the 'voice of feminism'." She says she made a point to explain how male authority in a female space can hurt women. Such as, "we are culturally conditioned to be more accepting of male leaders, we're less likely to voice disagreements in a male-dominated atmosphere, men's voices are considered more valid than ours even on issues directly affecting women." She continued, stating that "privileged allies of other oppressed groups will very often rush to take charge of equality movements, and by doing so, they effectively appropriate the voices of those who are actually being oppressed."

Are these legitimate concerns? Yes. And Clymer has addressed them before. The problem is he is no longer addressing them. What could have been an enlightening debate on privilege and male voices in a feminist world was shut down. And this time not just with deletion or banning.

Both Clymer and Kay forwarded me the entire Facebook exchange between themselves and the moderators from back in March when she voiced her concerns. Several of the women moderators at the time explained that they were just too busy to post, and that Equality for Women was run fairly. Since that time, many of the moderators have retracted their support.

Kay apologized for voicing her opinion in a way both Clymer and his mod team found offensive at the time.

"Basically, she was saying I'm sorry you took offense to what I said," says Clymer. "It was a false apology, and it really angered me because not only was she disrespecting me, she was now disrespecting the moderators."

He later wanted to extend an apology for what you're about to read: "Though I still stand completely by what I said to Stephanie Kay, the way I said it was completely abrasive and inappropriate, and if I had to do it again I'd change the tone. Although I completely believe in the concept and far-reaching harm of male privilege, I feel she only used it to attack myself and the women moderators, which is why I mocked her approach on that. However, that still did not give me the right to berate her. Maturity demands maturity. I'd like to extend my deepest regret and apologies to Stephanie for how I worded my response."

Here was his response at the time:

"Stephanie, I'm going to let you in on a little secret that, apparently, no one has had the guts to tell you up to this point in your life: having a vagina does not grant you magical powers of perception and nuance anymore than my penis magically blinds me from the horrors of the world. 

You have to earn respect for your opinion. I'm not going to hand it to you because you're a woman talking women's rights. Nuh-uh. It doesn't work that way. Because if it did work that way, I would have to hand over the reins of this group to any Phyllis Schlafly who comes in and claims to know more than I do about feminism or claims to have more passion. 

And yes, I am the leader of this page. These are my moderators, who I have selected for the page that I created and into which I  have poured money for advertising, and make no mistake: I do hold executive privilege (your favorite word, apparently), and I do have the final say on decisions. However, I trust my mods, and instead of being a dictator, we work as a team of equals. They let me know when something's off, and I listen to them and heed their advice.
I run this page, a feminist blog, write a column for another feminist blog (under a woman editor-in-chief who respects my writing and invited me to contribute articles), and on top of all that, I volunteer 30-40 hours a week at a feminist lobbying firm. 

Here's a good question: what the fuck have you done for women's rights, lately, other than troll the page I created? 

"I absolutely love your page..." 

That's how your comment began that started all this, and you know what? You should have just stopped typing right then. As long as we're doing our jobs (and, apparently, we are because this page keeps skyrocketing in growth), you need to mind your own fucking business.
You want to talk about privilege? Fine, we'll talk about privilege. What about your idiot privilege? It would seem you're so used to people not calling you out for being an absolute fucking moron that you've become blind to how your asshat actions affect others. 

So no, after us reaching out to you, you decided to insult me, and, more importantly, my moderators with your bullshit, half-hearted, tongue-in-cheek apology. 

Supposedly, you're an outstanding feminist but have no problem telling my women moderators how they're supposed to think and feel. 

Please accept my invitation of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself. 

And one more thing: If I ever see your name on my page again, I will report you for harassment and block you. 

Feel free to relay this message to the 1% of women feminists out there who foam at the mouth and put their bullshit on everyone else who disagrees with them. 

Charles"

These messages, of course, were responded to as an individual responding to a critic who questioned his belief in the cause. And Clymer gets a lot of those messages. He has everything from those carrying a very personal grudge to generalized men's rights activists on his back all the time. People simply have a hard time accepting men as women's rights advocates.

During our interview, Charles said, "To say that men can't be feminist leaders is eliminating half our potential talent in this movement but also losing an opportunity to attract more men into the fight for women's rights. Sadly, many men need to see other men in feminism to feel comfortable. But more than that, I think I do a pretty good job of standing with women, not in front of them. I am eager to hand them the microphone."

Perhaps best known for his "I need feminism because..." photo series, Charles also uses his male privilege to highlight the pervasive nature of rape culture in a way a woman really couldn't get across. When one flips a movement on its head, one can often reach ears that would have otherwise have been deaf to the cause.

His critics say he is taking the feminist movement and making it about him. And some are more adamant about it than others.

Raeven Zayas says, "He's using the oppression of women to gratify his ego."

Angelique D'Arcy adds that, "He is the head of a feminist movement, and he is manipulating the situation and the audience and the delivery of information in a Patriarchal way and actively silencing the very women he's supposedly trying to give voice to."

Clymer sees it differently. He says he's not trying to silence anyone, merely keep his page unified. As for making the feminism cause all about himself?

"They're partially right. I'm in it somewhat for my ego and personal gain. I'm looking at this as a career. I would love to become a leader in it. Part of it is ambition, and I do want to make a name for myself, but 80 percent of it is for the cause. I think there is a difference between people who exploit a cause for their own gain and people who want to be influential."

And that's where feminism as a general movement stands as well, along with any progressive movement. The leaders are looked upon with scrutiny, some justified, some not. Feminism is a personal business as much as it is a movement, and that means the attacks we all feel on our opinions and viewpoints hurt more, influence our own behavior, and change our course.

In the end, it's up to you to decide. Charles Clymer, feminist hero, villain, or just some guy on the internet? But when you do decide, think on the macro level. What do these in-fights say about feminism as a whole, and how does your decision on this microcosm play into your feelings about the movement on the whole?


 

The Layers of Racism...It's Like an Onion, Really

Look, I get it, I really do. Some poor schmoe who gets paid like two cents a tweet for The Onion made a bad decision.

And it was really bad.

But I see where he was going. Taking the sweetest, most innocent, freshest and possibly most talented face at the Oscars--someone who was beyond reproach (because that is what would make the joke funny)--and using the crassest language possible to point out the error in the ways in which the Oscars are both produced and reported.

Who looks the worst? Who's drunk? Who's gotten botox?

It's all garbage, and that's what the man behind the tweet was trying to say.

But that is not what he said.

And to those of you blathering about how no one can take a joke, and we're all clearly missing the intention of the humor and free speech and blah, I've just started this post with proof that, no, I get it.

And I still hate it.

And I'm not even going to defend Quvenzhane Wallis, not because she doesn't deserve to be defended, but because those who supported the Onion's tweet are saying it's not even about her.

It's not about a young child, it's not about a girl, and it's definitely not about a young black girl. People who think it is are just obtusely missing the point. In fact, the supporters of this humor didn't even notice she was black!

First of all, yes you did. Unless you are literally blind and had no access to media during the release of the movie, and during the Oscars and really for all of time (in which case, you wouldn't have heard about the tweet) you noticed her skin color.

What you meant to say was this: Her skin color didn't matter to you. You would have made the same shitty joke about a little white girl, you swear.

Okay, so let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say you would have. Even though you didn't.

The problem is this: It's not up to us to say skin color doesn't matter to us. While it can be a grandiose step in what might be the right direction, it erases centuries of pain, hardship, loss and despicable treatment that is not ours to erase.

As bell hooks said in 1992, white people cannot reach out to black people to combat racism saying, “we’re ready now, let’s be friends. Subject to subject contact between white and black which signals the absence of domination, of an oppressor / oppressed relationship must emerge through mutual choice and negotiation.”

We don't have the right to say when racism is over.

Here's a comment from my friend's blog, the post to which I linked above: "You clearly have not reached the stage of post-racial."

No. No, she hasn't. That's the point. Neither has the person making that comment, although he (or she) thinks he has. "Color blindness" not only minimizes incredible strain and hardship in the distant and recent past for minorities, it also implies that the problems they face today are not there. It subverts efforts to bring about true equality by saying that what we have now is equality. And it is not.

These paltry attempts we make as white people to make ourselves feel better, to allow ourselves to prematurely congratulate ourselves on wiping out racism, are exactly that: paltry attempts.

“[Modern racism] eschews old-fashioned racist images, and as a result, stereotypes are now more subtle, and stereotyped thinking is reinforced at level likely to remain below conscious awareness” (Entman & Rojecki 1992).

My point here is that the little girl is black, and we cannot go around saying we didn't notice or that it has no bearing on the situation, as spectators. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe she will tell us that, or her parents will. They're pretty much the only ones who can make that call. 

Actually, that's not my point. That was my side point. My point is, yet again, that words mean things. And even though you meant the opposite of what you said, you still said what you said. About a little girl. For a cheap laugh. And yes, we all know that no one, especially you, tweet writer, actually thinks Quvenzhane Wallis is that word you called her.

And no, it doesn't matter.

Think before you type. There are so very few lines in this day and age. Why would you cross one like that? And I realize that the joke is damn near impossible to pull off if you use anyone but a child as your vehicle. Because people will take you seriously. And I think now we've all realized that people will still take you seriously. Because words mean things and even if you didn't mean those words, meant the opposite of those words, that message is still being digested by millions of people around the world.

And if there wasn't this backlash of know-it-ally bloggers fighting what we consider "the good" fight? And if the Onion hadn't been forced to take down the tweet and apologize? Well, how many 12-year-old boys (or girls) would have seen it and assumed that kind of language and message was okay, was funny, was cute? Because talking doesn't ever lead to action, right? People, especially young people, speaking words that they've heard those they respect say, that doesn't subconsciously solidify opinion, right? That doesn't normalize behavior, set an example, enhance a point of view, does it?

But maybe it does.

 

Playing on Facebook Can Get You a Job

Playing on Facebook can get you a job - I'm not talking about Farmville, though I'm sure there must be something for which those skills can be used.  While Facebook is thought of by many as a way to pass the time, the social network has broad business applications if you use it right.  And it's only one of many networking, aggregating, blogging and mini-blogging sites out there, all of which can be used to pad your resume.

My young cousin is taking a college course entitled "Digital Literacies and Social Media."  After I stopped laughing (not at you, Margaret, and not at your class, but at how very old I am in my young years - when I was in school the height of technology was using an old Dreamweaver prototype to insert annoying music that played automatically on your own web page), I realized how mainstream social media is becoming in the business world.  It's been a part of our personal lives for years now, but corporations and businesses have a lot of red-tape to cut through before they can implement even the slightest change in ideas.  And the use of social media is no slight change.  It's revolutionizing advertising, marketing and public relations.  It's affecting growth, popularity and income in the business world.  And it's something you can learn while you're staying at home with your kids.  And it's something that makes you marketable, should you ever choose to go back to the working world.
Here is how your blog experience can help you in the workplace:

1) Writing skills - By blogging regularly, you keep your writing skills in tune with today's style.  You know what topics draw in readers.  You know which tones keep their attention.  You have, on your own accord, found an audience and grown it.

2) Networking - By creating a Facebook page and Twitter for your blog, you expand your readership.  You allow for maximum readership at any given time, proving you know not only how to write a compelling piece, but that you also know how to spread the word through grassroot avenues.  As more people join these pages, their friends and associates see links to your stuff, and they in turn may join, creating a spiral of popularity. 

3) Marketing - You may have included giveaways on your blog, or participated in blogshares, or done a guest blog.  All of these will increase your readership and are a form of marketing.  You are reaching out to a foreign audience with your 'product' and enticing them back to your homebase, in the hopes of recruiting new audience members - new buyers, in terms of the business world.  There are blog syndication services, and services allowing you to farm your blog out to local newspapers, aggregates and magazines, all increasing your readership and theirs in a symbiotic relationship.

4) Branding - If your blogging, you've had to come up with an idea, a tagline, and a way to draw readers or viewers in.  I'm a writer, so my blog is all about writing, but there are those who showcase photography, or crafting, and some simply use the blogging platform to forward their original ideas.  For instance, a friend of mine decided to start recycle old crayons.  She created a Facebook page, told a few people about it, and within hours had more than 200 fans.  Her idea was that strong.  As you continue in your projects, you are strengthening your brand, something that businesses are striving to do, themselves, with a lot more notoriety and manpower.  If you can build a brand from scratch, it makes you invaluable. It shows you've got the creativity and gumption to find ways to insert yourself into people's lives.  Branding is important.  Branding is the reason you know The Pioneer Woman's name.

5) Partnerships - if you review products or give them away, you are forging a partnership with the businesses that make those products.  You are forming relationships, connecting the personal lives of your audience to the professional service of that particular business.  You've become not just an end-point, but a link.  Those businesses may eventually offer you advertising, and you will offer them a new audience they'd otherwise be unable to reach.

As businesses struggle to catch up to the personal lives of their consumers, they are looking for people who have honed these skills.  This marks a change from the hireability of just a few years ago.  Where previously, you would have been hardpressed to explain to an employer that while you stayed at home with your children for those few years, you were working on your 'brand,' in today's world, that's exactly what they want to hear.  And it gives you an edge that those who have stayed in the business world do not have.

When I start applying for jobs, it's true, I'll have to tell them that I have not stacked or lined a news show in two years.  And, yes, I'm afraid they'll not take me back.  But I'll be able to show them well-rounded growth in an area that not many people have the opportunity to dip into, in an area that has become very desireable in the eyes of an employer.

I'll be able to tell them that in addition to changing diapers and heating bottles, I wrote pieces that were picked up by such and such publications nationwide.  I'll be able to tell them that without previous name or reputation, I built a following of hundreds of people.  I'll be able to tell them that when I write about breakfast cereals, thousands of people take a peek.  I'll be able to offer them the network I have painstakingly built for myself, and more importantly, I'll be able to offer them the skills I learned while building that network.

This is what they mean when they say mommy bloggers are taking over the world.

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