Books queer SFF Twelve Poems to Help Celebrate Pride Month As June draws to a close, spend some time with these joyful, powerful expressions of queer experience and identity… By Holly Kybett Smith | Published on June 24, 2024 Photo by Jason Leung [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Jason Leung [via Unsplash] We’re in the midst of Pride Month, and with it comes an opportunity to celebrate the creativity of the LGBTQ+ community’s many, many poets. Being part of the queer community can mean facing numerous challenges—especially in parts of the world where there are no legal protections (yet)—but it is also an honour: one that connects you to a large and powerful legacy of art, expression, passion, and love. This month I’ve selected twelve poems that radiate queer joy and encapsulate different facets of queer experience… although they are just the tip of a very large iceberg, and if you go digging, you will find much, much more. Whether you’re an ally to the community, hoping to learn from our perspectives, or you fall somewhere under the queer umbrella yourself, I hope you find something here that resonates with you. “Jesus at the Gay Bar” by Jay Hulme He’s here in the midst of it –right at the centre of the dance floor,robes hitched up to His kneesto make it easy to spin… The first poem I’ve selected is by transgender performance poet Jay Hulme, best known for his work as an LGBTQ+ activist and writer in Christian spaces (notably old churches, which he explores and writes about in loving detail on Substack). “Jesus at the Gay Bar”acknowledges the common belief amongst religious communities that queerness is something one must cure, and gently but firmly assures the reader otherwise. “Fragment” by Sappho I said: ‘Go with my blessing if you goAlways remembering what we did. To meYou have meant everything, as you well know…’ It wouldn’t be a list of queer poetry without acknowledging Sappho: the poetess whose legacy birthed the terms “Sapphic” and “Lesbian” as ways of talking about women who love women. The above excerpt—one of many suffused with gay undertones—is translated by Aaron Poochigan. If you’re interested in exploring a unique angle on the ancient poet and the symbol she has become in modern culture, lesbian fashion historian Eleanor Medhurst talks further about Sappho’s significance in this article. “i love you to the moon &” by Chen Chen not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of queer zest & stay up there & get ourselves a little moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden… This gorgeously romantic poem was included in Poem-a-Day in 2021, and breathlessly captures the whirlwind of a new love. Chen Chen’s writing is a joy, frequently exploring queerness as a theme. “Warming Her Pearls” by Carol Ann Duffy Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistressbids me wear them, warm them, until eveningwhen I’ll brush her hair. At six, I place themround her cool, white throat. All day I think of her… As a lesbian myself, with a proclivity for historical fiction, Warming Her Pearls is probably one of my all-time favourite queer poems, so I had to give it a spot on this list. In elegant verse, Carol Ann Duffy—the first female poet, first Scottish-born poet, and first openly lesbian poet to be appointed Poet Laureate—tells a story of forbidden and subtle romance between the maid and mistress of a historical house, which feels as though it could have slipped from between the pages of a Sarah Waters novel. “Statue of David with Top Surgery Scars” by Devin S. Turk I see the smooth dip in surfacewhere pectorals meet a ribcageand I envision into existence two scarsperhaps still fresh with stitch marks… This playful poem re-imagines Michelangelo’s David—a symbol of high art and traditional beauty in the Western world—as an emblem of transness: this figure is, after all, a man that had to be created, chiselled free, in much the same way that a trans man carves himself into the world. There is something fiercely beautiful about that, isn’t there? “Romance of Possible Contrasts” by Alison Rumfitt They met in a no-good gay nightclub in Kemptownand the Sea danced with the Forestto Madonna, twirling around each other, laughingup to the top where the smoking area was… This sixth poem makes the ordinary extraordinary, weaving a fantastical love story between two forces of nature who happen to meet for the first time in a Brighton nightclub. Rumfitt’s use of magical realism here elevates the mundane to match the heady sensations evoked from queer connection. “Home Wrecker” by Ocean Vuong And this is how we danced: with our mothers’white dresses spilling from our feet, late Augustturning our hands dark red. And this is how we loved:a fifth of vodka and an afternoon in the attic, your fingerssweeping though my hair—my hair a wildfire… Perhaps best known for his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong writes lyrically in poetry and prose. “Home Wrecker,” whichappears in his poetry collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, tells a tantalising and dangerous queer love story. “Seeking Trans Ancestors in Old Provincial Graveyards” by Jay Hulme Every day breaks like a man,and every night falls like a woman,and the dawn arises and the moonin the daytime hangs silent and awkward,like the rest who’ve never belonged… Yes, Jay Hulme gets two spots on my list. Sue me, he’s fantastic! This poem—which appears with “Jesus at the Gay Bar”in Jay’s collection, The Backwater Sermons—follows its narrator through the winding path of a graveyard, musing on the unknown and unspoken queer history that came before. “The Moon Is Trans” by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza From this moment forward, the moon is trans.You don’t get to write about the moon anymore unless you respect that.You don’t get to talk to the moon anymore unless you use her correct pronouns.You don’t get to send men to the moon anymore unless their job isto bow down before her and apologize for the sins of the earth… This gorgeous, emotive poem takes the moon and personifies her as a trans woman. (“Scientists theorize the moon was once a part of the earth that broke off when another planet struck it. Eve came from Adam’s rib.” Who can argue with that logic?) In the writing of it, Espinoza expresses her feelings about womanhood and personhood with powerful clarity. “Poem For My Love” by June Jordan How do we come to be here next to each other   in the nightWhere are the stars that show us to our love   inevitable… June Jordan was a prolific and highly-acclaimed Jamaican American poet, who identified herself within her poetry as bisexual, even when the label was stigmatised. This tender, romantic poem is one of many in her oeuvre. “If You’re Staying, I’ll Stay Too” by Meg Day I know a girl like youwho used to be a thing she isn’t anymore            but hasn’t changed at all.Whose orbit didn’t circle straight—whose            size & distance never quiteseemed right—but no one cared til now… Just as Espinoza reaches into space to express a her identity with The Moon Is Trans, Meg Day chooses Pluto as a locus for expressing theirs as a genderqueer poet. No two celestial bodies are the same, even within the bounds of their categorisations, and isn’t that a wonderful thing? “Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown” by Saeed Jones In this field of thistle, I am the improbablelady. How I wear the word: sequined weightsnagging my saunter into overgrown grass, blondesplit-end blades. I waltz in an acre of bad wigs. This final poem by Saeed Jones uses vivid, tactile imagery to play with gender and sexuality. Elegant and fanciful, deliberately strange and yet simultaneously earnest, each word paints a picture of hope, desire, and possibility. As always, please do feel free to share your own favourite queer poems in the comments. (And if this article has left you yearning to read more by queer writers, why not check out this interview with three of this year’s finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ speculative fiction?)[end-mark] The post Twelve Poems to Help Celebrate Pride Month appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK think tank that was in 2021 awarded a grant by the US State Department and got involved in censoring Americans, has come up with a “research project” that criticizes YouTube. The target is the platform’s recommendation algorithms, and, according to ISD – which calls itself an extremism researching non-profit – there is a “pattern of recommending right-leaning and Christian videos.” According to ISD, this is true even if users had not previously watched this type of content. YouTube’s recommendation system has long been a thorn in the side of similar liberal-oriented groups and media, as apparently that one segment of the giant site that’s not yet “properly” controlled and censored. With that in mind, it is no surprise that ISD is now producing a four-part “study” and offering its own “recommendations” on how to mend the situation they disfavor. The group went for creating mock user accounts designed to pretend to be interested in gaming, what ISD calls male lifestyle gurus, mommy vloggers, as well as news in Spanish. The “personas” built in this way received recommendations on what to watch next that seems to suggest Google video platform’s algorithms are doing what they were built to do – identifying users’ interests and keeping them in that loop. For example, the account that watched Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson (those would be, “male lifestyle gurus”) got Fox News videos suggested as their next watch. Another result was that accounts representing “mommy vloggers” but with different political orientations got recommendations in line with that – except ISD complains its personas (built in five days, and then recording recommendations for one month) basically, weren’t kept in the echo chamber tightly enough. “Despite having watched their respective channels for equal amounts of time, the right-leaning account was later more frequently recommended Fox News than the left-leaning account was recommended MSNBC,” the group said. More complaints concern YouTube surfacing “health misinformation and other problematic content.” And then there are ISD’s demands of YouTube: increase “moderation” of gaming videos, while giving moderators “updated flags about harmful themes appearing in gaming videos.” As for more aggressively censoring what is considered health misinformation, the demand is to “consistently enforce health misinformation policy.” Not only that, but ISD wants YouTube to add new terms to that policy regarding when content gets removed or deleted. This “update” should come by “creating a definitive upper bound of violations could make enforcement of the policy easier and more consistent,” said ISD. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK Think Tank, Once Funded by US State Department, Calls for Stricter YouTube Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

We present you funny dog posts from Jun 16 to Jun 22 that will paws-itively make you through the rest of the week!

Finding Food, and Hope, During Difficult Times

They're Making a List and Checking it Twice

Trump Isn't Just Beating Biden in the Polls; He's Outraising Him Too

In the midst of all of the record-breaking heatwaves the world is seeing at the moment, people’s sleep can be one of the first things to suffer. Not only is that straight up unenjoyable when it’s happening, but a lack of sleep can make us feel pretty awful in the days after too. So how can we beat the heat when we want to sleep?Don’t napAs tempting as it is when it feels like holiday weather, taking a nap when there’s a heatwave isn’t such a great idea if you want to sleep later on. While short naps can make us feel a bit better, if the naps stray into full on deep sleep territory, or you’re simply not a napper under normal circumstances, it can a) make you feel super groggy, which isn’t fun in the heat, and b) make it even more difficult to sleep at night.It’s easier said than done, of course, as heat can make us feel lethargic; that’s because of the extra energy that the body uses up to try and keep your core temperature normal. The visible sign of this is sweating more (which can also happen during a heatwave nap) but underlying this is an energy-expensive increase in heart and metabolic rate.Keeping the bedroom freshThe bedroom might otherwise be a place for spicing things up, but if you want a chance of a decent night’s sleep during a heatwave, one of the best things to do is try and keep things cool in there.Air conditioning might seem like the obvious way to do this, but for one, not everyone has it (fellow Brits will be all too familiar with this) and second, AC can be pretty expensive to run. Thankfully, there’s another simpler – and free – option.Keep your curtains closed during the day – this keeps the sunlight out, stopping it from beaming in and warming up the room. Similarly, it can help to keep windows closed; the air outside is likely to be hotter than that inside, so keeping them shut stops the hot air from moving in.In places where the nights tend to be cooler than the days, as long as it’s safe to do so, opening up the windows for a bit later at night and early in the morning can let hotter air out, and bring some much-needed coolness.This helps us sleep better because lowering its temperature is part of the way that the body prepares to settle down for the night. If the air around is too hot, then it’s a lot harder for the body to cool down, making it difficult to get to sleep.Cool threadsThose cozy teddy fleece bed sheets your grandma got you for Christmas are an absolute no-go in the hot weather. Instead, it’s recommended to switch to bedding made out of more breathable, natural fibers like cotton and linen to stay cool. Bunging them in the freezer wrapped up in a plastic bag can also help.Though it might be tempting to ditch everything when you’re tossing and turning, the body can eventually cool down once you’re asleep – so don’t go throwing away your sheets in a heat-fueled rage, you might be cold later on.No freezing showersThis might go against your every instinct when it’s hot and sticky, but taking a freezing cold shower before bed might actually end up making you even warmer. That’s because it can cause blood vessels to tighten up – known as vasoconstriction, this is a response from the body that conserves heat, which is probably the last thing you want to do.Instead, showering in cool-to-tepid water can help trigger the lowering of body temperature required to get sleepy.

With summer temperatures baking much of the US, Texas's notoriously ailing power grid is set to be put under intense strain once again. Blackouts and power failures are on the cards for many – but previous years have shown some cashing in on the sweltering weather.Faced with sky-high demand last summer, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) took extreme measures to curtail the state’s power usage. Along with issuing eight calls for voluntary energy conservation, the company looked towards Bitcoin mining, the energy-hungry process of using computational power to solve complex mathematical problems to validate transactions on the Bitcoin network and earn newly created bitcoins.In August 2023, ERCOT reportedly paid a single company $31.7 million in energy credits to reduce its Bitcoin mining operations. The company in question is Riot Platforms, owners of North America’s largest Bitcoin mine in Rockdale with a total power capacity of 700 MW.“August [2023] was a landmark month for Riot in showcasing the benefits of our unique power strategy,” Jason Les, CEO of Riot, said in a statement (that’s since been removed from their website).“Riot achieved a new monthly record for Power and Demand Response Credits, totaling $31.7 million in August, which surpassed the total amount of all Credits received in 2022. Based on the average Bitcoin price in August, Power and Demand Response credits received equated to approximately 1,136 Bitcoin,” Les explained.Later that year, a bill was introduced to restrict the amount of compensation cryptocurrency miners could receive in the form of credits, but it ultimately failed to advance past committees in the House.It’s unclear whether Texas will dish out similar credits to Bitcoin miners this summer, although the state’s power grid is in store for further trouble. The latest report from ERCOT predicts a 16 percent chance of an electric grid emergency and a 12 percent chance of rolling blackouts in August 2024 between 8 and 9 pm. Texas is the only state in the continental US with its own electric grid. This has certain advantages, such as dodging federal regulations, but it limits Texas's ability to import electricity from other states during times of need and emergency.In recent years, the situation has become even more severe for the Lone Star State due to the boom in computer data centers and artificial intelligence (AI), which sap a gigantic amount of energy. Studies suggest that AI could account for 0.5 percent of global energy consumption by 2027, about the same amount as the Netherlands. Surging energy demand for AI and crypto will be a problem for many parts of the world, not least Texas, which hopes to pose itself as a hub of tech infrastructure. Whether their electricity grid can keep up remains to be seen. “ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas and others gave shocking testimony today in the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce that within only six years (that’s only three legislative sessions), our power grid needs will grow from about 85,000 to 150,000 megawatts,” Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, posted on X earlier this month.“Later testimony said the growth is due to the increases in population, normal business growth, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, crypto miners and data centers will be responsible for over 50 percent of the added growth. We need to take a close look at those two industries. They produce very few jobs compared to the incredible demands they place on our grid. Crypto mining may actually make more money selling electricity back to the grid than from their crypto mining operations,” he added.“Texans will ultimately pay the price.”

A family in Florida has launched a lawsuit against NASA, seeking compensation after a piece of space junk fell from the sky and crashed through the roof of their house. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident, although the family’s lawyer says the ramifications of this case go far beyond mere damage reparation and could set a precedent for how future claims of this sort are resolved.A significant increase in rocket launches and space operations in the last few years has seen a massive rise in debris floating around in Low Earth Orbit, heightening the risk of collisions in space and potentially posing a danger to those on the ground. And while most of this heavenly waste is likely to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, the incident in question serves as an ominous reminder of what can happen when bits of refuse survive their descent.    In this case, the offending object was identified by NASA as part of a stanchion that was used to load a bunch of spent batteries onto a cargo pallet onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Originally discarded from the ISS in 2021, the item was supposed to harmlessly degrade upon re-entry, but a fragment remained intact and eventually fell straight through the roof of the Otero family’s home in Naples, Florida, on March 8 of this year.“My clients are seeking adequate compensation to account for the stress and impact that this event had on their lives,” said the family’s lawyer Mica Nguyen Worthy in a statement. “They are grateful that no one sustained physical injuries from this incident, but a ‘near miss’ situation such as this could have been catastrophic,” she added. According to the statement from law firm Cranfill Sumner, at least one young member of the Otero family was at home at the moment of impact. “If the debris had hit a few feet in another direction, there could have been serious injury or a fatality,” says Worthy.AFP reports that the family are seeking more than $80,000 in damages, although Worthy insists that the outcome of this case could help to establish a protocol for handling space junk-related incidents in the future. “Here, the U.S. government, through NASA, has an opportunity to set the standard or ‘set a precedent’ as to what responsible, safe, and sustainable space operations ought to look like,” she said.According to a study published in 2022, the space junk issue is now so severe that there’s a 10 percent chance of someone on Earth being killed by falling debris within the next decade. Whatever happens in the Otero family’s case could help to provide a legal framework for dealing with such an eventuality.

[LANGUAGE WARNING] Watch out for shenanigans on Thursday night from CNN’s debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash! Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden — by rule — can have their microphones muted if they go over time. But who can mute Tapper and Bash when they talk over Trump and hit him with unfair and slanted questions?  Based on their reporting and analysis over the years at CNN, Republican supporters of Trump should expect Tapper and Bash to question not just his policy positions, but his judgment and even behavior.  Both had harsh reviews for Trump’s performance after the first presidential debate in 2020.  Tapper blasted Trump: “That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck….worst debate I have ever seen….it’s primarily because of President Trump.” Bash agreed: “You just took the words out of my mouth. You used some high-minded language. I’m just going to say it like it is: that was a shitshow!” On Election Night 2020, Tapper provided a nasty epitaph to Trump’s presidency: “For tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over.” On the other hand, both have profusely praised Biden.  After Biden’s 2024 State of the Union Address, Tapper prompted his colleague: “Dana Bash, what did you think? You’ve been to a lot of State of the Union addresses. Do you think that President Biden met the moment?” Bash giddily affirmed: “He certainly met the moment….[Democrats] wanted him to be a fighter and….did he deliver.” Bash can’t believe Biden isn’t trouncing Trump, even bringing Rep. Nancy Pelosi on her show to incredulously ask: “Inflation, it looks good when you look at the numbers….Wages are up….There’s a lot for President Biden to tout. So the question is about why Americans don’t seem to be giving him the credit?” Here’s a brief montage by NewsBusters Media Editor Bill D’Agostino of Tapper and Bash at their worst:      The following is a small sampling of the most liberal moments of Tapper and Bash’s time at CNN, via the MRC archives:  DANA BASH   “Dumpster Fire” “Shitshow” Debate Was Trump’s Fault     CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper: “That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck. That was the worst debate I have ever seen. In fact, it wasn’t even a debate. It was a disgrace. And it’s primarily because of President Trump, who spent the entire time interrupting not abiding by the rules he agreed to, lying, maliciously attacking the son of the Vice President.”…Correspondent Dana Bash: “You just took the words out of my mouth. You used some high-minded language. I’m just going to say it like it is: that was a shitshow!”...Tapper: “The President does not think he’s going to win this election. And he wants to bring the rest of us down with him.”— CNN’s Debate Night in America, September 29, 2020.   Biden “Met the Moment”     CNN anchor Jake Tapper: “Dana Bash, what did you think? You’ve been to a lot of State of the Union addresses. Do you think that President Biden met the moment?”CNN anchor Dana Bash: “He certainly met the moment that his members of his party, those who are really upset and worried about this coming election year and frankly, what would happen if he didn’t win another time because of their concerns about who’s on the other side of the ticket. They wanted him to be a fighter and — boy — fight, did he deliver.”— CNN’s live coverage of the State of the Union address, March 7, 2024.   Bash Takes Advice From Barbara Streisand On Not Running Anti-Biden “Cheap Fakes”      “When I say ‘it,’ it is a lot of memes and what the White House is calling ‘cheap fakes,’ which means that these — there are videos that are being put out on social media and then amplified on conservative media that in some cases are just not right and in other cases are highly, highly misleading of President Biden and….I don’t want to let a moment go by where I can read a tweet from Barbara Streisand on the show. So, I’m going to do it, she said, ‘We must stay vigilant to the ongoing and pervasive spread of misinformation. Maybe now more than usual, in the lead up to the presidential election.’ And her argument was don’t amplify it. It is interesting given the fact that there was a famous case where somebody took a picture of her house in Malibu and she sued to not have that shown and then it turned out that people started looking at the picture more than before. So, it’s the question that I started this conversation with is how much to talk about it versus how much to just kind of ignore it and we’re trying to do both here.”— Dana Bash on CNN’s Inside Politics, June 19.    Blaming Trump Rhetoric for New Zealand Shooting     “The question is can he [President Trump] and will he do more to bring together – try to bring together people. That’s the opposite of what we saw in Charlottesville and it is the opposite of what we see when the political calendar gets close to election day. When he knows what riles up his base and the problem is riling up the base using terms like ‘invaders’ in ads that he tweets out also reaches people who are nut jobs.”— Chief political correspondent Dana Bash discussing New Zealand shooting as aired on CNN New Day, March 15, 2019.   Taken Aback by Trump’s “Flip Comment” at Debate “Not to sound too corny, but what makes this country different from countries with dictators in Africa or Stalin or Hitler or any of those countries with dictators and totalitarian leaders, is that when they took over, they put their opponents in jail. To hear one presidential candidate, say — even if it was a flip comment, which it was — ‘you’re going to be in jail’ to another presidential candidate on the debate stage in the United States of America, stunning, just stunning.”— Correspondent Dana Bash during post-presidential debate coverage on CNN, October 9, 2016.   Should Trump Receive Intelligence Briefings?  “I want to ask about the idea that Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee for president. U.S. intelligence agencies are reportedly preparing to share classified briefings with him. You’re, of course, a former ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Speaker of the House. Should Donald Trump receive intelligence briefings?”— Host Dana Bash to Rep. Nancy Pelosi on CNN’s State of the Union, March 17, 2024.   Not Even D-Day Ceremony Is Safe From Superfluous Attacks on Trump     “What you have described and what we saw from President Biden on this [D-Day] trip clearly intentionally, not just sending a message to the world that is first and foremost, his goal, but also back here in the U.S., cautioning about the fragility of democracy and it was quite a contrast from what we heard from the former President, his rival, to take the White House again, Donald Trump.”— Host Dana Bash to Rep. Nancy Pelosi on CNN’s Inside Politics, June 7, 2024.   Inflation “Looks Good,” Why Isn’t the Public Giving Biden Credit?      “I want to ask about the economy. Inflation, it looks good when you look at the numbers. Inflation is down to just 3 percent. The labor market is steadily adding jobs. Wages are up. Consumer sentiment is the highest since September of 2021. So there’s, a lot for President Biden to tout. So the question is about why Americans don’t seem to be giving him the credit. A Quinnipiac poll this week found nearly six in 10 Americans still disapprove of his handling of the economy. Why is that? And what does he have to do to turn that around?”— Host Dana Bash to Rep. Nancy Pelosi on CNN’s State of the Union, July 23, 2023.    Bash Worries that Democrats May Suffer From GOP’s  “Baseless” Attacks On DOJ     “Leigh Ann, is it your sense that Democrats who are on the front line, which is when it comes to getting majority back, whether they believe that these attacks on DOJ, these claims, baseless claims that the DOJ is behind, for example, what happened in New York is potent enough to hurt not just President Biden, but down-ballot.”— Host Dana Bash to Washington Post Live’s Leigh Ann Caldwell as aired on CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash, June 5, 2024.    Trying to Provoke a GOP Food Fight: Did Trump “Go Too Far?” “Governor Bush, Mr. Trump has suggested that your views on immigration are influenced by your Mexican born wife. He said that, quote, ‘If my wife were from Mexico, I think I would have a soft spot for people from Mexico.’ Did Mr. Trump go too far in invoking your wife?”— CNN debate moderator Dana Bash to Gov. Jeb Bush at GOP Primary Debate, September 16, 2015   Bash to Ramaswamy: How Dare You Point Out Democratic Racism?     “You took issue with comments from Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. She reportedly said, quote, ‘We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.’ About that, you said, ‘These are the words of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK.’ You know, I’m sure, the KKK was responsible for more than a century’s worth of horrific lynchings, rapes, murders of black people. How in any way are the views you’re talking about comparable to the views and atrocities committed by the KKK?”— Host Dana Bash to GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on CNN’s State of the Union, September 10, 2023.   Praising “Badass” Pelosi “In many ways, Nancy Pelosi is the original Badass Woman of Washington.” — November 13, 2018 tweet (from CNN’s official Twitter account) promoting correspondent Dana Bash interview with Rep. Nancy Pelosi.   Adoring AOC     “Being Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez means being a celebrity and looking like one, red lips and all. She was featured on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2020 and even shot this tutorial for Vogue on her beauty routine....You sometimes take heat for your celebrity status, for being glamorous....You embrace the power?...How do you use that power, the power of femininity, as you describe it?”— Host Dana Bash on CNN’s Being...AOC, August 9, 2021.   JAKE TAPPER   Trump Era of  “Cruelty” and “Meanness” Is “Coming to an End”      “It has also been a time of extreme divisions. Many of the divisions caused and exacerbated by President Trump himself....It has been a time where truth and fact were treated with disdain. It is a time of cruelty where official inhumanities such as child separation became the official shameful policy of the United States. But now the Trump presidency is coming to an end, to an end, with so many squandered opportunities and ruined potential, but also an era of just plain meanness. It must be said to paraphrase President Ford, for tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over.”— Host Jake Tapper on CNN election coverage, November 7, 2020.   When Did Airing “Untrue Things” Stop CNN Before? “We’re not carrying his [Donald Trump] remarks live because frankly he says a lot of things that are not true and sometimes potentially dangerous.”— Host Jake Tapper on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, June 13, 2023.   If He’s “Fighting for Facts and Truth Everyday” at CNN, Then He’s Been Losing “One of the important things in journalism that we can do is remember that we are fighting for the legitimacy of journalism and fighting for facts and truth everyday, everytime we step up to the bat — step up to the plate and it is important that we get it right. Because we are, I think, in a way that I haven’t been in my 55 years, really fighting for the soul of journalism and fighting for trust.”— CNN anchor Jake Tapper at “The Vocation of Journalists in a Time of Testing: Lessons from David Carr. Jake Tapper, Erik Wemple, Claire Giangrave, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Amanda Ripley, John Carr” live stream event at Georgetown University, June 18, 2024.   Boffo Review for Biden Convention Speech     “I’ve heard Joe Biden give, I don’t know, dozens, hundreds of speeches over the years. I have to say this was one of the best, if not the best performance I’ve ever seen.”— Host Jake Tapper on CNN’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention, August 20, 2020.   Hailing a Republican (Jeff Flake) For Standing Up to Trump “You know Joe McCarthy started in the late forties his crusade of indecency and smears and lies. And you know President Trump and Joe McCarthy are very different historical figures, but there is something similar....People are gonna look back at this era and say what were you doing with all – it’s not McCarthyism but it’s something else – all this indecency and all these lies, what did you do during that time?” — CNN host Jake Tapper discussing former Sen. Jeff Flake’s denunciations of Trump as aired on CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, October 24, 2017.   Tapper Questions Disabled Vet’s “Commitment” After No Impeachment Vote     “Congressman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, who lost his legs, by the way, fighting for democracy abroad, although I don’t know what his — I don’t know about his commitment to it here in the United States.”— CNN anchor Jake Tapper during live impeachment coverage, January 13, 2021.