Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

Lida Azizi (left) and Kawsar Roshan in Herat, building a self-driving miniature rickshaw decked with Afghan and American flags. Photograph: Sune Engel Rasmussen

Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

In the days of Trump, we are learning to accept small wins and tiny pleasures. Progressive women got a dose of pure delight on Wednesday -- Pakistan's heroic Malala Yousafzai's birthday -- when news broke that the US State Dept had reversed its refusal to grant visas to six Afghan female students to travel to Washington DC for the FIRST Global international robotics competition next week. 

The international backlash against an absurd decision that allowed the team from Iran and five other countries listed by the Trump administration in their disputed Muslim ban to come to the competition while denying visas to the Afghan girls team looked like unadulterated sexism by the Trump administration. Countless individuals and organizations accused Trump -- who is rolling back women's rights in America -- of retreating from America's previous efforts that support the education of young women in Afghanistan. 

Gambia, the only other country to be denied a visa, will also be coming to Washington. 

Donna Brazile's Book 'Hacks' On Digital Breakins & Breakdowns Debuts On Anniversary Of Trump's Election

Donna Brazile's Book 'Hacks' On Digital Breakins & Breakdowns Debuts On Anniversary Of Trump's Election

Former interim head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will celebrate (NOT!!!) the one-year anniversary of the Trump victory with publication of her book "Hacks:  The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House.”

Brazile’s publisher Hachette promises a book that is “equal parts campaign thriller, memoir, and roadmap for the future.” The publisher did not say how much the book deal was worth.

Did Trump Move To Destabilize Qatar Because Kushner's $500M Loan Went Bust?

Did Trump Move To Destabilize Qatar Because Kushner's $500M Loan Went Bust?

Does Trump-Kushner family payback now govern America's foreign policy? Did Donald Trump agree to destabilize the Middle East, putting our own military personnel at risk in Qatar because a rich businessman wouldn't financially bail out his son-in-law Kushner over the 666 Fifth Avenue Manhattan building that is an albatross around his neck and threatens him with financial ruin? Did you ever believe you would see such a carnival running the US government? Why does a young man this financially desperate have a top security clearance because his big daddy-in-law makes him a Washington honcho? 

Salivating Over Alleged Russian Dirt On Hillary, Donald Trump Jr. Emailed '" Love It."

Salivating Over Alleged Russian Dirt On Hillary, Donald Trump Jr. Emailed '" Love It."

"I love it," was Donald Trump Jr.'s response to news from Russian music publicist Rob Goldstone that the Russians had documents that would "incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia." The New York Times broke its report on the meeting that followed -- one that brought Donald Trump Jr., presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and then campaign manager Paul Manafort into a 20-minute, largely unsatisfactory encounter with Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. 

Goldstone represents Emin Agalarov, known professionally as Emin, one of Russia's biggest pop stars. His father is Aras Agalarov, a real estate magnate sometimes called the "Donald Trump of Russia." The father boasts close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, having won several large state building contracts and being personally awarded by Putin the "Order of Honor of the Russian Federation."

Aussie Journalist Chris Uhlmann: "America's President Has No Desire And No Capacity To Lead the World"

President Donald Trump with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, second from left, at the Group of 20 conference in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

Aussie Journalist Chris Uhlmann: "America's President Has No Desire And No Capacity To Lead the World

Donald Trump delights in being the contrarian isolationist, pulling America out of the international scene with his right-wing, America First mentality. Millions of Americans are worried sick about the practical implications of his attitude and policies that America is the world's top dog and we no longer need to play nice in the community of nations. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the host of the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, opened it by acknowledging the differences between the United States and the rest of the countries. While “compromise can only be found if we accommodate each other’s views,” she said, “we can also say, we differ.”

As American Democrats and many Republicans struggled for just the right words to sum up Trump's total loss of interest in and position of respect in the new world order created by his presidency, it was Australian journalist Chris Uhlmann who described Trump as an "uneasy, lonely, awkward figure" at the meeting before going even further, saying that America's president has no desire and no capacity to lead the world."

His video has gone viral in a massive way!

Ebonee Davis & The Virgin Artiste Explore Fashion & Culture's Projections Around Women of Color

Ebonee Davis & The Virgin Artiste Explore Fashion & Culture's Projections Around Women of Color

The relentless killings of African Americans by America's police officers has prompted the fashion industry to speak out about being black and brown in America and viewed through an often tight cultural lens. Calvin Klein model Ebonee Davis issued a specific call to action in an essay for Harper's Bazaar, written the day after Alton Sterling was murdered in Baton Rouge. Davis implored fashion professionals to "neutralize the phobias surrounding black culture" as well as to produce "positive, accurate and inclusive imagery."

"As artists in the fashion industry, we are the embodiment of free speech," she wrote. "We set the tone for society through the stories we tell—fashion, the gatekeeper of cool, decides and dictates what is beautiful and acceptable. And let me tell you, it is no longer acceptable for us to revel in black culture with no regard for the struggles facing the black community," Davis wrote for W Magazine. 

Ashleigh Alexandria, AKA The Virgin Artiste, Paints The Political Assimilation Of Black Women

Ashleigh Aelxandria, AKA The Virgin Artiste, Paints The Political Assimilation Of Black Women

Ashleigh Alexandria, aka The Virgin Artiste described her collaboration of a body painted model live against a brick wall in Bushwick, Brooklyn juxtaposed with a graffiti painting of eight-year-old's Ethan Armen as ironic. It was the spontaneous addition of a New York cop walking by that gave the artistry a political meaning "due to the recent police killings of Black men and women", Alexandria tells Creators. 

The lifelong New York artist's approach to being a portrait artist and a body painter, relates to works from artists like Liu Bolin, with significant reinterpretation of the concept. "My use of women of color as subjects shows how these women can be blended into the background of American society," Alexandria explains. Partial assimilation and a distinct double-sidedness is a critical element in her work. Francesca Capossela writes for Creators:

NY Dem. Rep. Carolyn Maloney Soldiers On As Passionate Advocate For Women's History Museum

NEW YORK DEMOCRAT CONGRESSWOMAN CAROLYN MALONEY IS INTERVIEWED BY TODAY IN 2014 WITH ROOMMATES DEMOCRAT CONGRESSWOMEN DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ OF FLORIDA AND TERRI SEWELL OF ALABAMA AT HER HOME IN WASHINGTON, DC. MALONEY'S HUSBAND CLIFTON MALONEY DIED IN 2009 MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING IN TIBET.

New York Congresswoman Democrat Carolyn Maloney's Manhattan district includes Trump Tower, making Maloney the primary advocate who is personally lobbying Trump himself and his senior administration officials to support legislation that would finally birth a Smithsonian museum dedicated to women's history on the National Mall.

Politico writes that Maloney was handing out folders of material on the museum, handing them out to Trump and his (few) top female advisors at a congressional picnic in June. 

“I talked to Ivanka about it, I talked to Melania about it, I talked to Karen Pence about it, I talked to Kellyanne [Conway] about it,” Maloney said. “I handed it directly to the president and he said he would read it. I asked Kellyanne for advice on how to approach it. She said to talk to the president directly, she said she would not do it on my behalf.”

Maloney said she had another chance to bond with Conway on the dance floor last weekend at a star-studded party at Washington doyenne Lally Weymouth’s Hamptons summer home. “I thought, ‘Hey, this is my chance to lobby her,’” Maloney said of the party, which was also attended by George Soros, Steven Spielberg, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, among others. “I kept working her over.”

In 2014, President Obama approved the creation of a commission to evaluate the need and feasibility for creating the women's history museum, whose funding would come from private donors and not taxpayers. 

“Right now, we’re only ten months into our brand new African-American Museum, and our next big capital project is a complete revitalization of the Air and Space Museum, which will be $650 million,” said Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas. “It would be very difficult for us to handle a new building right now.”

More feasible than a stand-alone women’s museum, St. Thomas said, was doing “a better job of telling the story of women’s history” across the existing museums. There's little doubt that a Hillary Clinton administration would be more receptive to a women's history museum. 

In May 2017 Elle touched base with Maloney, who has served in the House since 1992 as part of the largest female contingent ever voted into the DC House of Representatives. Maloney, a life-long advocate of women's rights quickly bonded with then 10-term Democrat Patricia Schroeder who tells the story of her own arrival in DC. "Congress "is about Chivas Regal, thousand-dollar bills, Learjets, and beautiful women," one of Schroeder's male colleagues told her upon her arrival. "Why are you here?" Read on at Elle to learn more about Rep. Carolyn Maloney's women's-history-rich story.

Trump Administration Seeks To Put Women Back Into An Ozzie & Harriet World

Trump Administration Seeks To Put Women Back Into An Ozzie & Harriet World

"The data comes from the White House’s annual report to Congress, which was released Friday, and which shows the salary of each employee. To calculate the gender pay gap, economist Mark Perry compared the median salary of male staffers ($115,000) to the median salary for female staffers ($72,650). Initially, media outlets reported a significantly smaller disparity, but their numbers were incorrectly based on mean rather than median salaries. 

As the Washington Post reports, the 37-percent gap is more than double the national 17-percent gender pay gap, and it’s wider than the national gender pay gap in 1980, as reported by Pew Research..

Ozzie . . . Ozzie, wait for me!! I'm just dying to run backwards into your loving arms.

News: Citizens Tell Sen. Susan Collins To Hang Tough On Health Care | States Move To Curb City Laws | Will Trump Ax WH Council on Women & Girls?

News: Citizens Tell Sen. Susan Collins To Hang Tough On Health Care | States Move To Curb City Laws | Will Trump Ax WH Council on Women & Girls?

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is a creature of habit on July 4, marching now for 15 years in Eastport, Maine to celebrate America's day of independence. Collins was celebrated by this small town of 1,331 citizens and their children, cheered for her principled stand against repealing the Affordable Care Act. 

“There was only one issue. That’s unusual. It’s usually a wide range of issues,” Collins said in an interview after the parade. “I heard, over and over again, encouragement for my stand against the current version of the Senate and House health-care bills. People were thanking me, over and over again. ‘Thank you, Susan!’ ‘Stay strong, Susan!’ ”

Two-Thirds In Morning Consult/Politico Poll of 2000 Americans Say Trump's Bloody Mika Brzezinski Attack Is Unacceptable

Poll: Trump's 'face-lift' tweet crossed Line Politico

A large poll of nearly 2000 American voters confirmed that two-thirds say Donald Trump's recent Twitter attack against MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski was unacceptable. 

Conducted June 29-30, beginning hours after Trump called Brzezinski 'low IQ Mika' before writing that she was 'bleeding badly from a face-lift' when visiting his Palm Beach, Florida club over the New Year's holiday., the results included strong condemnation from Republicans. 

The poll includes much additional and interesting questioning of Americans on a variety of topics. Study the results Toplines: http://politi.co/2tG5Cq8 | Crosstabs: http://politi.co/2tNM1Vj

California Said No More Women Will Bleed To Death In Childbirth. The Results Are Dramatic

California Said No More Women Will Bleed To Death In Childbirth. The Results Are Dramatic

Maternal deaths in America are climbing steadily, making us an outlier against the rest of the developed world. The US is only one of 13 countries with maternal death rate increases since 1990. We stand in the company of North Korea and Zimbabwe. 

The reasons for steep rises in maternal deaths in America are several. There have been changes in how maternal deaths are reported. Efforts to correct this under-reporting are a minor reason for the current increase. While it's impossible to prove casuality conclusively, the war against Planned Parenthood has closed many women's health clinics, giving poor and middle class women no access to contraception or maternal care. 

The Republican argument that other women's health care centers will take Planned Parenthood patients is just not correct. An apparent majority of these centers don't accept Medicaid and large numbers do not offer contraception, believing that it goes against religious principles. 

Maternal death rates in Texas have soared, making the state the worst in the developed world with a doubling of deaths over a two-year-period. As lawmakers closed Planned Parenthood locations all over the state, the Texas Observer writes that lawmakers could care less if women are dying in pregnancy for lack of medical care. 

Handmaids News: Handmaids Trump Style | Emma Watson Drops 'The Handmaid Tale' Around Paris | Weak Men Like Trump Fear Menstruation

Handmaids News: Handmaids Trump Style | Emma Watson Drops 'The Handmaid Tale' Around Paris | Weak Men Like Trump Fear Menstruation

Many American high schools have also banned the book from its libraries, claiming the content is too sexually graphic. The American Library Association ranked it No. 88 on its list of most frequently challenged books from 2000 to 2009. The association maintains the list to keep track of books that are subject of attempted bans or censorship.

California Said No More Women Will Bleed To Death In Childbirth. The Results Are Dramatic

California Said No More Women Will Bleed To Death In Childbirth. The Results Are Dramatic

Maternal deaths in America are climbing steadily, making us an outlier against the rest of the developed world. The US is only one of 13 countries with maternal death rate increases since 1990. We stand in the company of North Korea and Zimbabwe. 

Between 2000 and 2014, maternal deaths soared by 27 percent to 24 per 100,000 in America.. That rate is three times the rate of the United Kingdom and about eight times that of Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, writes Vox. 

The reasons for steep rises in maternal deaths in America are several. There have been changes in how maternal deaths are reported. Efforts to correct this under-reporting are a minor reason for the current increase. While it's impossible to prove casuality conclusively, the war against Planned Parenthood has closed many women's health clinics, giving poor and middle class women no access to contraception or maternal care. 

Artist Andrea Fraser Will Map Trump Inauguration Donors & Art World Ties

Artist Andrea Fraser Will Map Trump Inauguration Donors & Art World Ties

Andrea Fraser is a performance artist, known primarily for her focus on institutional critiques. Based in New York and Los Angeles, Fraser is currently a new genres professor in the Art Department faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.  A native of Billings, Montana, Fraser grew up in Berkeley, Calif. She is a graduate of New York University, the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program and the School of Visual Arts. Initially, Fraser wrote art criticism before incorporating it as analysis and commentary in her artistic practice. 

We all know that Donald Trump has little interest in any art not inspired by his own image. His donors, however, are major players in the art world. In her new project, Fraser is mapping the connections between major US museums and the political elite, and their institutional ties to the White House. The Art Newspaper writes that Fraser is documenting all political donations made in 2016 by museum patrons and trustees, many of whom contributed to the Trump campaign and inauguration. 

Donald Trump's inauguration was a small and comparatively understated affair, but one that rose a staggering amount of money -- $106.7 million, twice the amount raised by Obama for his historic, much larger affair, writes Hyperallergic. According to a 510-page report of donations to Trump’s inaugural committee released in April by the Federal Elections Committee, billionaire art collector and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) board member Steven A. Cohen as well as Henry Kravis — whose wife, Marie-Josée Kravis, is the president of MoMA — both gave $1 million. Unlike campaign contributions, which are capped, there is no limit to how much can be given to a candidate’s inaugural committee.

Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

Last week the US Supreme Court temporarily approved parts of Trump's travel ban, preventing visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US without an approved family connection, employee or student status or other pre-existing relationship. The Court will issue a full ruling when it resumes its caseload in the fall. 

One of the first casualties of the new travel ban are six teenage girls -- an all-girl robotics team of young engineers from Afghanistan -- determined to participate in an international science competition scheduled for mid-July in Washington, DC.

Denied a one-week travel visa to participate in the FIRST Global Challenge, the team has already risked their lives in Afghanistan, travelling twice under the reality of truck bombings to Kabul in April. The Afghan team members are from Towhid, Malakai Jalalai and Hoze Karbas High Schools. The trip from their small town near Herat to Kabul was to complete their visa applications. Nothing about the scientific competition was easy for these young women. Other global competitors received their box of raw materials in March. When their own box was held up amid concerns about terrorism, the young engineers improvised, building their motorized machines from household materials, writes The Washington Post. 

Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan's first female tech CEO and founder of Citadel software, who brought the girls together, told Forbes that the girls "were crying all day." While the exact reason for the visa denial remains confidential, only 112 business travel visa from Afghanistan were granted in May 2017, compared to 780 business travel visas from Iraq and 4,067 from Pakistan.

London's V&A Museum Opens Amanda Levete-Designed Exhibition Road Quarter

London's V&A Museum Opens Amanda Levete-Designed Exhibition Road Quarter

London's esteemed museum of design, art, architecture and engineering, the V&A unveiled on July 1 its new public spaces. A street party extended along Exhibition Road, accompanied by floating art from Tomás Saraceno, a fashion spectacular from designer Molly Goddard, and a hybrid opera from Anat Ben-David.

Simply stated, the V&A is shaking off some dust, offering a revamped entrance affectionately dubbed the 'Millenials' Entrance' offering a zone for the museum as entertainment, an alternative to computer screens and coffee shops. 

#Pizzagate Trumpsters Track British Artist Maria Marshall At National Museum of Women in the Arts

MARIA MARSHALL, WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A COOKER (1998). COURTESY OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.

#Pizzagate Trumpsters Track British Artist Maria Marshall At National Museum of Women in the Arts

“There are things here I cannot show you, that some of you aren’t going to be happy with,” says the narrator, whose #Pizzagate channel on YouTube has almost 8,000 subscribers. The tone of voice is scandalized, the language vaguely threatening. He suggests that a man seen in a video in which Marshall makes brownies for her family is a pedophile. I “don’t know what you’re going to do about it,” he says, with the implication that his followers should take their anger to the source. And then: “I’m going to make a video on it in hopes that the right person sees it.” (Note that the video may have been removed.)

#Pizzagate is not gone from America's national scene. The false-flag operation that targeted presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with a debunked conspiracy theory that Clinton joined John Podesta in running a human trafficking and child-sex ring out of a DC pizza restaurant has now swept British artist Maria Marshall into its garbage dump. 

In fact, Marshall's art will be considered 'evidence' of #Pizzagate truth by die-hard Trumpsters. 

Marshall is among the artists collected by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's brother Tony who, with his ex-wife Heather, donated many of the most substantial works that appear in 'Revival', an exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The show celebrates the institution’s 30th anniversary and will be on view through September 10.

Ivanka Trump's Quiet Complicity May Be 'Complicated' But It's Deadly For Women In America

Ivanka Trump's Quiet Complicity May Be 'Complicated' But It's Deadly For Women In America

American women -- and educated women worldwide -- worldwide would respect Ivanka Trump far more if she even signaled support for core women's issues around women's health. Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have no trouble standing for Planned Parenthood. Why can't Ivanka Trump defer to her father as president -- which she must -- yet offer support to the majority of American women at the same time. President Trump is working the will of only a limited portion of the American public.  If Ivanka wants to be taken seriously in her advisory role, she must find a way to quietly signal her lack of support for certain policies in the Trump administration.

At present, the First Daughter is nothing more than dad's great enabler, a prop at her father's side quietly endorsing his every action with her profound silence. 

Solve Sundsbo Captures 'Okja' Villain Tilda Swindon For Vogue Korea July 2017

Solve Sundsbo Captures 'Okja' Villain Tilda Swindon For Vogue Korea July 2017

Actor Tilda Swindon stars in 'T is for Tilda', styled by Jerry Stafford in futuristic fashion looks. Solve Sundsbo captures Tilda for Vogue Korea July 2017./ Hair by Sam McKnight; makeup by Sam Bryant

Swindon currently stars with Bong Joon-Ho in their new Netflix film 'Okja', a story of corporate villainy in the form of a powerful, multinational bio-food company prostituting itself for $$$. Swinton plays Lucy Mirando—as well as her twin sister, Nancy. Upon taking over her nasty father’s company, Lucy announces a contest called the Super Pig Project whereby piggies are sent to farmers around the world and the best one will be crowned the winner 10 years later. Flash forward, and Okja the pig has developed a friendship with Mija (Ahn Seo Hyun), who lives with her grandfather in South Korea. But their idyllic life is disturbed when Mirando comes to reclaim Okja, inspiring Mija to risk everything to save Okja.

'Okha' opened on very limited theater distribution in South Korea this week. Exec-produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, the film did stunningly well in the ongoing dispute with Netflix over the timings of releases.  Fans can also watch the film on the big screen at the upcoming Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Asia's largest genre event, which is slated to run July 13-23 in Seoul's satellite city of Bucheon, writes The Hollywood Reporter.