Virginia Republican Del. Bob Marshall’s berserk homophobia and transphobia aren’t exactly news. His extreme statements and policy stances during his many years in the Virginia House of Delegates reveal his fear and loathing of the LGBTQ community.  But Marshall’s Democratic opponent in this year’s contest for House District 13 happens to be a transgender woman, and the GOP incumbent is not taking it well. Marshall, who refuses to refer to Daily Kos endorsee Danica Roem with female pronouns, is avoiding appearing at debates or candidate forums with her out of fear that he’ll get called mean names (“Bigot Bob” is apparently taking off online). Marshall has seems to have developed a fear of reporters, as well. He’s refusing to allow them to accompany him while he knocks on voters’ doors, and he’ll only respond to questions via email, with carefully planned remarks. And now a conservative outside group is trying to ride to Marshall’s rescue, so to speak, in the form of robocalls full of transphobic smears and lies. Voters in the district are receiving calls paid for by the American Principals Project, a ”social welfare organization” that advocates for “the union of one man and one woman as the definition of marriage,” among other typical conservative insults. The robocalls make a series of (false) statements, then asks if they make the listener more or less likely to support Roem or Marshall. These statements include claims that Roem supports: a law that would shut down hospitals if they refused to perform sex reassignment operations; a law that would shut down adoption agencies that prioritize placing children with married mothers and fathers; allowing boys into girls’ shower facilities and locker rooms, policies that allow boys to play on girls’ sports teams and girls’ sports leagues; and requiring business owners to provide services for same-sex weddings or face possible jail time or fines. All of this is transphobic garbage, obviously. The executive director of APP sees this race as part of a larger cultural battle against, as he put it, “a radical agenda to force the transgender identity on children in our schools.” Marshall’s own crusade against the LGBTQ community is long and storied. A few of his greatest hits include:

Campaign Action A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to turn over all documents pertaining to his decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and leaving 800,000 undocumented immigrant youth vulnerable to deportation. The order includes “emails, letters, memos and other materials.” Initially, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III sent a one-page memo to the Department of Homeland Security explaining why—DACA was “an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws that was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch,” America’s most racist Keebler elf claimed—but the judge says that’s just not enough of an explanation: The order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup, based in San Francisco, also appears to cover legal advice about winding down the program, which grants quasi-legal status and work permits to so-called Dreamers. Acting in a series of lawsuits filed over the decision, the judge said the administration had waived its attorney-client privilege by claiming the decision was driven by concerns that the program is unconstitutional. “Defendants argue that [the Department of Homeland Security] had to rescind DACA because it exceeded the lawful authority of the agency,” Alsup wrote. “They cannot, therefore, simultaneously refuse to disclose the legal research that led to that conclusion. Plaintiffs are entitled to challenge whether this was a reasonable legal position and thus reasonable basis for rescission. In making that challenge, plaintiffs are entitled to review the internal analyses that led up to this change in position.” Well, about that: During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed that DACA was illegal. Based on what legal grounds? The former host of Celebrity Apprentice and creator of Trump Steaks never explained.

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Over the weekend and into this week, women on social media responded to actress Alyssa Milano’s call to write “me too” if they have ever experienced sexual harassment and abuse. Because sexism, misogyny and abuse of women are commonplace in our society, Twitter feeds and Facebook timelines were inundated with survivor stories. From Milano’s initial tweet, its unclear what the real intention of this call to action was. Presumably, it was her hope that by seeing millions of women publicly admit that they’ve experienced sexual violence at the hands of men, it would raise awareness of this important issue. Awareness is great, if and when it turns into action. But there are many problematic aspects to this kind of hashtag that are being unnamed and unheard because of the excitement surrounding it. Though Milano is receiving credit for starting this hashtag, she is 10 years behind the “Me Too” campaign begun by Tarana Burke. This campaign was actually started not to call attention and awareness to sexual violence but instead to let sexual assault survivors in marginalized communities know that they were not alone. A black woman named Tarana Burke is the original creator of the #MeToo campaign that has recently taken over social media. Burke, founder of youth organization Just Be Inc., created the “Me Too” campaign in 2007 long before hashtags even existed. The 44-year-old told Ebony Magazine that she created the campaign as a grass-roots movement to reach sexual assault survivors in underprivileged communities. “It wasn’t built to be a viral campaign or a hashtag that is here today and forgotten tomorrow,” Burke told Ebony on Monday. “It was a catchphrase to be used from survivor to survivor to let folks know that they were not alone and that a movement for radical healing was happening and possible.” Part of what is troubling here is how the labor and activism of black women routinely gets erased, or confused for the work of white women. This matters. It matters because there is a long history of white women appropriating the work of black women and women of color and not giving them credit for the emotional, mental, and physical labor that goes into that work. It is routine and especially frequent in the feminist movement—where black women are often told to ignore racism (especially the racism they experience at the hands of white women) and see sexism and patriarchy as a bigger threat to their well-being. Did Alyssa Milano know that this campaign existed before her tweet? Maybe or maybe not. Likely not (she did tweet about this later). And this isn’t specifically about Milano. But the fact that this work is being credited to her and it took other black women to speak up and lift up Burke’s work (despite it being available on the Internet) is telling about how black women’s activism consistently escapes the public’s attention.

Politico: Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray say they have reached an agreement on a bipartisan Obamacare deal to fund a key insurance subsidy program and provide states flexibility to skirt some requirements of the health care law. There is no assurance that the agreement will get to the Senate floor, however. Republicans on Tuesday were lukewarm about the prospect of resuming debate over whether to try to prop up Obamacare after multiple failed GOP attempts to repeal the law. This is what ‘regular order’ mean. Committees, negotiations, solutions. xin AL Sen race, the crazy wingnut and the decent human being are tied https://t.co/nrtIZFmltN— Greg Dworkin (@DemFromCT) October 17, 2017

Google is honoring the memory of the late Mexican-American superstar Selena Quintanilla Perez in her first-ever Doodle, which also launched on the 28th anniversary of her first solo album’s debut. Having sung almost exclusively in Spanish throughout her childhood and later youth, the 23-year-old was on the cusp of crossover stardom when she was shot and killed in 1995. Despite the fact that Selena has been gone for more than 22 years, her music and spirit have never left. Mexican-Americans, in particular, see her as one of their own, a hometown girl who never forgot or felt ashamed of her roots, and to honor her is to honor them: "I grew up as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant single mom living in a small (primarily white) town outside of Fort Worth, Texas," Perla Campos, Global Marketing Lead for Google Doodles and project manager for the Selena Quintanilla Google Doodle told Billboard in an exclusive interview. "There were always two women who taught me I could do anything and be anything I set my mind to: my mom and Selena. Selena has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember." “She was the girl next door,” tweeted Mexican-American actor and comic Cristela Alonzo, who was the first Latina to create, produce, write, and star in her own U.S. television network show. “We knew and still know women like Selena.”

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has a son who is also named Michael Flynn. Flynn the younger is best known for his outlandish statements in support of every possible conspiracy theory, such as a Russian bribery scandal involving President Obama, a secret group behind the Las Vegas shooting, and a fresh set of accusations against Hillary Clinton. And all that is just today. Which makes this a fairly typical day in the life of blowhard racist golf bro, Michael Flynn—whose biggest accomplishment in life is spreading the insane “Pizzagate” story. But the scruffier, pudgier Flynn—whose only military experience is dodging duck hooks on the golf course—was employed for a bit packing his father’s briefcase, accompanying him on overseas trips, and possibly little things like helping poppa plan to kidnap people and hand them over to foreign dictators. Which has earned him some time with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and has now brought him to the attention of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee, which is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, is interested in Flynn’s work as his father’s aide and travel companion with Flynn Intel Group, the consulting firm retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn formed after he left government service, the sources said. In particular, Junior Flynn was along for that trip. The younger Flynn, 34, accompanied his father on a 2015 trip to Moscow, where the elder Flynn sat next to Vladimir Putin at a dinner to celebrate Russia’s state-funded media network, RT. The younger Flynn can be seen in video from an associated event. The one person who is likely edging out Paul Manafort for “most likely to draw serious jail time” in the whole Trump-Russia affair is Michael Flynn. And we can only hope that’s another trip where Junior goes along.

In what is being described as a “transformational” moment in astronomy, scientists for the first time have verified the existence of an explosion known as a “kilonova” thanks to detectors across the globe that spotted gravitational waves triggered by a collision between the remnants of two dead stars. The discovery announced Monday was made using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which has detectors in Louisiana and Washington, along with a third detector near Pisa, Italy, known as Virgo. At 8:41 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 17, a gravitational wave hit the Virgo detector in Italy and, 22 milliseconds later, set off the LIGO detector in Livingston, La. Three milliseconds after that, the distortion rippled through Hanford, Wash.  LIGO detects black hole mergers as quick chirps that last a fraction of a second. This signal lasted for 100 seconds, and it vibrated at higher frequencies. From the smaller amplitude of the signal, the researchers could tell this event involved less mass than the previously observed black hole collisions. Or described more eloquently:  The collision rattled space-time and sent a wave of fireworks across the universe, setting off sensors in space and on Earth on Aug. 17 as well as producing a long loud chirp in antennas designed to study the Einsteinian ripples in the cosmic fabric known as gravitational waves. It set off a stampede around the world as astronomers scrambled to turn their telescopes in search of a mysterious and long-sought kind of explosion called a kilonova. Einstein first predicted a century ago that waves could ripple through space and time as black holes and other massive objects moved around. But scientists hadn’t confirmed that these gravitational waves existed until 2016, when the merger of two black holes was detected by LIGO. Now, with the discovery of kilonovas, scientists have taken another step in verifying something that up until now had been strictly theoretical.

Donald Trump’s treatment of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (you’re president of that too, Donald) has been criminally negligent. As he’s golfed five times in nine days, it’s been civilians like chef José Andrés who are filling the vacuum to assist their fellow Americans. But while his efforts and others are no doubt saving lives, too many people remain in crisis. The Wall Street Journal profiles Sonia Negrón Bell, who trekked from Chicago to Puerto Rico to aid her ailing parents after her father—normally a subdued man, she says—texted to say that “things are bad here.” Negrón Bell called airline after airline until she found one that would allow her to ship a new generator and supplies, and after arriving on the island, drove hours in treacherous conditions to her parents’ home: She felt a pang when she saw her parents’ pitch-black two-story house. The homes on either side had light from generators. She feared she would find her parents starving or bedridden—or worse. As soon as Ms. Negrón Bell pulled up, her father appeared in the driveway. Mr. Bell got out and hugged him. Her mother shuffled slowly out to the porch. “I love you,” she said to Ms. Negrón Bell, who replied, “I love you too.” Her parents appeared to be holding up—just. It was sweltering inside the house. Pedestal fans stood idle. The refrigerator door was open and inside, it was bare. On the floor were a few buckets partially filled with water. Ms. Negrón Bell and her husband opened their luggage and began pulling out supplies. They turned on solar-powered lamps and several battery-operated fans. Ms. Negrón Bell made her mother a plate of Vienna sausages and crackers. “Thank you, Sonia,” Ms. González said. “Thank you.” According to the town’s mayor, Aguada didn’t see any regular truck shipments with supplies until 12 days after Maria hit.

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The most anti-immigrant members of Congress and other political wannabes won’t even acknowledge the basic humanity of undocumented immigrant youth, but that doesn’t change the fact that immigrant youth are a part of their communities, making contributions as business owners and taxpayers. Immigrants are more than their taxes, but when the Trump regime is hellbent on smearing these families as “welfare queens” (so it’s immigrant youth taking taxpayer-funded golfing weekends?), we’re going to talk about the fact that immigrants help keep Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and Steve King’s state and district running: When Sessions was senator, he accused then-President Barack Obama of executive overreach for enacting DACA. But as the CAP data shows, his home state of Alabama would lose $188 million in GDP annually from removing DACA workers. Sessions’ birth town of Selma, Alabama, which lies in the 7th congressional district, would see a drop of $21.8 million once it takes away DACA from the 500 current recipients and 700 DACA-eligible people. Overall, roughly 4,803 people are current DACA holders in the state of Alabama, the American Immigration Council reported, while another 4,000 residents could have aged into DACA had they been given the chance to proceed with the program. Rep. King has long led the charge to dismantle the DACA program, including introducing House bills to end the program during the Obama years. Earlier this year, King tweeted a controversial photo of him holding a beer out for federal immigration agents after they deported a DACA recipient. If DACA ends without a solution, the 4th district which he represents stands to lose $53.8 million once it strips away DACA from the district’s 800 DACA recipients, according to the report’s data. Sessions should already know that anti-immigrant platforms are a disaster for all Americans. When Alabama enacted what was at the time the most anti-immigrant law in the nation, crops rotted in the fields when immigrant and Latino workers fled the state. In King’s Iowa, Asian, African, and Latino workers “have filled jobs at pork, egg and turkey plants.” New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno—fresh off launching a racist Willie Horton-style ad attacking immigrants—is also from Iowa, and her home district stands to lose nearly $50 million without DACA recipients. Overall, the national GDP stands to lose an estimated $460 billion from Trump ending DACA, including $71 million from his home district. Meanwhile, gains from passing the bipartisan DREAM Act could be as high as a cumulative $1 trillion. Passing DREAM isn’t just morally the right thing to do, it also makes simple economic sense.

Of course, rape and sexual assault victims (as many of Weinstein’s accusers claim to be) don’t have a choice. The point here is that women are damned in workplace harassment situations no matter what they do. Follow Jen on Twitter at @JenSorensen

It turns out there is some good news in Washington. Tapper also asked Tillerson to respond to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who said during his weeklong feud with the president that Trump had “publicly castrated” the secretary of state. ... “I checked; I’m fully intact,” Tillerson responded. Campaign Action This highlight in American history brought to you by the Trump White House. The Trump White House, bringing you daily insanity since … can it only be nine months? Tillerson provided this anatomical reassurance during an interview in which he once again failed to refute calling Trump a moron … make that f#$&ing moron.  And now that we know that Tillerson is “intact,” someone needs him to explain why he won’t stand up to Trump when he thinks Trump is putting the nation at risk. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday he believes staying in the Iran nuclear deal is in the best interest of the U.S. Maybe it’s not the presence of all Tillerson’s parts that’s in question. It’s just the ownership. “I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification,” Trump said during a speech at the White House. And Tillerson is not the only person feeling the squeeze.

The dreams of Atlanta teen Cinthya Moran, who is dually enrolled in high school and college classes, stand to get derailed if Congress does not move on a passing the bipartisan DREAM Act, Congressman Hank Johnson writes. An estimated 100 DACA recipients are enrolled in medical schools around the country—including Denisse Rojas, who recently addressed Congress—and Cinthya is striving to join them: As an aspiring cardiovascular surgeon, Cinthya took her studies seriously – accumulating a 3.8 GPA by staying up nights and studying – pushing herself to work twice as hard. But now her dreams of becoming a doctor could be shattered forever. That’s because Cinthya is one of about 800,000 DREAMers nationwide – young children brought to this country by their parents. Thanks to President Trump’s craven decision to reverse the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program or DACA, Cinthya’s contributions and those of hundreds of thousands of other DREAMers to our community and country could come to an end. Cinthya, 100 DACA medical students, and 800,000 others are at risk of being torn from the only country they’ve ever known as home following Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III announcing the end of the program. And despite Donald Trump’s claim, he can’t extend a program he’s already rescinded. Protecting undocumented immigrant youth like Cinthya is now in the hands of Congress. Johnson says: Cinthya isn’t alone. DREAMers are models of what we hope our citizens become. They go to school, join the armed forces and become productive members of society. In Georgia, the rescission of DACA could mean that 24,000 people would be deported. It is cruel to banish people to a strange land where oftentimes they don’t know the language or culture. It’s for constituents like Cinthya that I’m proud to join my Democratic colleagues in fighting to pass the DREAM Act. ”Cinthya has the potential, vision and dedication to become a cardiovascular surgeon,” Johnson writes, “but she wonders how she will be able to apply the knowledge and skills she has acquired ‘if I’m hiding away in fear of being taken back to a country I have no memory of?’” Cinthya and 800,000 undocumented immigrant youth like her need our help. Make a call to your member of Congress today and urge a clean vote on the bipartisan DREAM Act.

Campaign Action Nearly fourteen months after beginning his protest against police brutality during NFL games, Colin Kaepernick remains unemployed. Though he opted out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers at the end of last season, he has been unable to find a new home in the league. This is surprising based on talent alone—especially given how well he played in the preceding season. However, Kaepernick believes (like many others) that he is essentially being blackballed from football after his season-long peaceful protest. For that reason, he has filed a grievance against NFL owners, claiming they are participating in collusion. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported on what Kaepernick is looking to accomplish with the grievance: "Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Kaepernick wants to trigger termination of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. "Article 69, Section 2 of the CBA allows for the agreement to be terminated prematurely in the event of proof of collusion. Under Article 17, Section 16(c) of the CBA, termination can arise from only one incident of collusion involving only one player if there is clear and convincing evidence of a violation." Kaepernick and his lawyer’s argument is that the owners are working to deny him employment. It does not help also that the current president of the United States has weighed in and has been giving speeches and tweeting for weeks supporting, encouraging and practically threatening owners not to tolerate peaceful protest by athletes during the national anthem. While it may fan the flames of hatred among Trump’s base and those racists who are angry with black athletes protesting injustice, it is also now being used as evidence in Kaepernick’s grievance.

I was speaking at some arts festivals in Italy for a couple of weeks during September, and when I got back I felt like I’d missed about a year’s worth of news, which inspired this cartoon (though obviously this rundown of the past month is meant to be more impressionistic than comprehensive). Readers with long memories may remember this character from a 2002 cartoon, except then he was the Man From Five Years in the Past, because things move a lot more quickly now. If you enjoy my desperate, flailing attempts to keep up with the relentless deluge of terrible news, please consider joining Sparky’s List! And remember, if you missed out on my sold-out Kickstarter career compilation, the second edition is now available from IDW Publishing.

The Republican Party is Dr. Frankenstein, and Donald Trump is its monster. Yes, there were some exceptions, but the fact remains that—in particular by opposing in a knee-jerk fashion everything Barack Obama proposed and by nurturing white grievance and white identity politics—the GOP created Trump, they chose him as their nominee, they rallied around him, and they made him their champion. Frankenstein’s monster, however, could only terrorize one village at a time. Trumpenstein threatens us all. They know what they’ve done. Bob Corker made that perfectly clear. I’ve been following politics for a long time, and I’ve never seen any national political figure talk openly and publicly about a president the way Corker did, let alone someone from the president’s own party. I know that we’ve all gotten sort of used to people talking about Trump this way, but it is, truly, unprecedented. It’s the equivalent of calling 911 for our country. Then Trump this week threatened to tear up the Constitution by junking the First Amendment, the one that guarantees freedom of the press and without which the government could control what gets published. What could prompt him to threaten the core of our democratic freedoms in this way? Because NBC reported a story—backed by multiple sources—that made him look both crazy and stupid. This story detailed a meeting with numerous high-ranking national security officials in which Trump made statements that provoked his own Secretary of State to characterize him as a “moron.” In Vanity Fair, we read of “a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers” who “describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president who seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.” These prominent Republicans described Trump with words like: “unstable,” “losing a step,” and “unraveling.” This is, I’ll say again, unprecedented.

Buzzfeed reports that the streak of powerful men being called to account for their sexual assaults on women is not over. A high-stakes legal showdown is brewing for President Donald Trump, as a woman who said he groped her has subpoenaed all documents from his campaign pertaining to “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.” Successful businesswoman and restaurant owner Summer Zervos appeared as a contestant on Donald Trump’s television show, The Apprentice, during it’s 2007 season. Zervos was the first person “fired” from the season — but only after, according to Zervos, Trump sexually assaulted her. In addition to twice forcing her into a kiss, Zervos says that Trump  … “Came at me and started kissing me open mouthed as he was pulling me towards him. “He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast.” Zervos’ subpoena was made in March, well before the most recent round of news on this topic, but is only now becoming known. She is suing Trump for defamation after he called her a liar for describing his assault. Trump has attempted to have the suit delayed. Trump’s attorneys have until October 31 to respond. 

This past week Trump made a ton of alarming suggestions in furtherance of his white working class culture war against his critics and the media — and that was the suggestion that the broadcast licenses of NBC and the Networks could be pulled because they reported stories the didn’t like. xWith all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017 Blatant attacks on journalism, not just for making an occasional mistake but of being politically biased and publishing reports as enemies against the public good have long been a strategy of bullies, authoritarian, tyrants and fascists, including for example Stalin — or so claims Nikita Kruchev’s granddaughter about Trump. Nina Kruscheva, an international affairs professor at New York’s The New School and granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev, has drawn parallels between President Donald Trump and the USSR’s Joseph Stalin. “Here, President Trump defined ‘fake news’ the way Joseph Stalin defined ‘enemies of the people’: if they offer a slightest objection to his rule they must be wrong,” Kruscheva told the Washington Examiner. “And they must be silenced.” There are times when you really should listen to people who really should know what there talking about as they warn you of impending doom. I suspect this is one of those times.

NPR had a couple of great interviews recently with people who cover how the National Rifle Association (NRA) wins. Mike Spies from The Trace, an independent non-profit dedicated to covering gun issues, and Robert Draper from The New York Times Magazine had an enlightening perspective. Since there are many valuable lessons about politics and how to fight in these articles, it’s worth teasing a few of them out, especially for people who may be newer to this game since the last election.  Without further ado, let’s look at how the NRA has managed to pass so much legislation, and how this might help us fight back.