why in the world are we still asking this question in 2019?
Trump: says and does racist things.
People: call Trump racist.
Journalists and politicians:
Ok but like
There’s no benefit in her going on live television and saying Trump is a racist without elaborating on the subject
What he’s asking is a leading question and sure, taking his ‘how can you say that’ out of context works well to make him seem like he supports Trump but that’s not how it was said in the interview. How it was said was to get her to continue to talk about why Trump is a racist
Don’t believe me? Skip ahead in this video to 0:15 seconds and listen to the entire thing in context.
She then goes on to ELABORATE on how he uses dogwhistles and his reaction to Charlottesville (by calling Nazi’s fine people) so people who tune in to the interview can draw connections to what she’s saying as opposed to just reacting, like op did, to the exact words that are said.
I think too many people on here fail to realize that news, real news, isn’t done by just saying shit. You have to be able to back it up and in order to do so, you need to be able to spell something out for people who don’t get it. And someone who already has been criticized by people for her views (including by people on here, bizarrely, because they keep things she’s said out of context) need to be able to get all the information out there.
“Getting to the truth” journalism isn’t just pelting known liars with hard questions and fact checking, it’s also giving a platform for the people who need to be heard, giving them openings to say their piece, and, when needed, urging them to elaborate.
spiderman is so fucking funny dude saves like an entire country and then he goes home at the end of the day and opens his fridge and hes got like 1 egg and a half empty can of arizona tea no matter how old he is or what comic hes from thats just how peter parker lives
Everything below is posted with liberty and credit to Jemima Harrison and the PDE blog, with the sole purpose for this information to spread as far as possible.
• soon to be 10 years since Pedigree Dogs Exposed
• five years since The Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues of Dog
Breeding highlighted the issues linked to head conformation in
brachycephalic breeds
• 18 months since the publication of research (funded by the kennel
club) spelling out the link between stenosis (pinched nostrils) and
respiratory issues, especially in French Bulldogs
• a year since a veterinary petition demanding urgent reform for flat-faced dogs
• almost a year since the Kennel Club set up the Brachcycephalic Breeds Working Group in response to that petition
.. and of course I have highlighted the issue of pinched nostrils endlessly here on this blog.
Endlessly.
And yet… the picture at the top is one the Kennel Club has used as the
ideal depiction of the French Bulldog in its new edition (2017) of its Illustrated Breed Standards.
And it isn’t a one-off. Here’s the one the KC has used for the Boston Terrier standard.
The Bulldog.
And the Pug.
Dogs are as near-as-damn-it obligate nose breathers. And even if they
can supplement by mouth-breathing when they are awake, they are unable
to do so when they are asleep, meaning thousands of these dogs live
lives of interrupted sleep as they have to wake up in order to not
asphyxiate.
Study after study has shown that these dogs pay the price for not being
able to pull in a decent lungful of air and that starts with the
nostrils.
These pictures are all the proof you need that the Kennel Club is not
taking this issue seriously; that at its very core the KC is paying
nothing more than lip-service to the demands for reform by the
veterinary profession and animal welfare campaigners.
At one of the first meetings of the Brachycephalic Breeds Working Group,
then KC Chairman Steve Dean expressly said that he didn’t want
“changing the breed standards” to be at the top of everyone’s list of
actions that could be taken.
And indeed, it hasn’t been.
There have been some new measures. The KC continues to fund brachy research. There is also now a brachy learning resource
available on the KC website, the promise of better education of judges
and a breed club commitment to educate better about the importance of
keeping brachycephalics slim. There are also now health schemes for the
Bulldog, French Bulldog and the Pug which do test for respiratory
issues.
All this is welcome. But, bottom line, the Kennel Club continues to bat
for the breeders who do not want the basic phenotype to change because
it’s the breeders that pay their wages.
Of course the simplest, quickest remedy is to give these dogs
back some muzzle - to help not just with breathing issues, but to help
protect their eyes from trauma and to give their teeth some room in
their overcrowded mouths (a Pug here compared to an Australian
Shepherd).
The problem is that breeders are wedded to flat faces, particularly in
Pugs and Bulldogs. They talk about the perfect “layback” - which
essentially means that the nose should not interrupt the line between
the forehead and tip of the dog’s chin.
In fact, there’s a new book out on the Pug head (yours for only $159)
which reminds everyone that the word Pug comes from the latin for
“fist” and that this is the shape the Pug’s head should be in profile -
i.e. totally flat.
Here’s a reminder from a top UK show breeder of what the Bulldog’s head should look like.
As you can see, a protruding nose or a less severe underbite is considered a fault.
There was a big review of breed standards following Pedigree Dogs Exposed
but it was mostly to add vague qualifiers such as, in the Pug standard,
"relatively" short rather than just short when describing the length
of the muzzle. This gives the breeders way too much wiggle room. We
need proper metrics - a defined minimum skull/head/muzzle ratio and we
need to find more profound ways to change their minds about what
constitutes their breed in their eyes.
Large open nostrils are a requirement in brachy breed standards, but
this is widely ignored because other points of the breed are considered
more important. There would be outrage if a Frenchie with one lop ear
or a Bulldog with a liver-coloured nose won in the show-ring, but dogs
with slits for nostrils continue to be made up to champions.
Meanwhile, on my CRUFFA group,
whenever you post a picture of more moderate examples of the breed,
current of historical, the breeders heap scorn. A few days ago, one
breeder insisted that the dog featured in this famous painting of a Pug
by Carl Reichert, dating from the late 19th century, was a crossbreed.
Same for these ones. Mongrels, the lot of them.
She admitted that the eye-white showing was undesirable but preferred the look of this Crufts dog.
Today, this was posted on a public Facebook page by one French Bulldog
breeder in response to a plea by vets for more moderate dogs.
(My bolding below)
To those who say you cannot rebuild Rome in a day I say… rubbish. There are already more moderate versions of these breeds out there being
bred by breeders more interested in health than the current fashion.
For more than 10 years, I have called for moderation and hoped it would
come from the breeders. But I now know it won’t. If we want anything
more than a wee bit of tweaking round the edges, then we need to demand
it.
It is time to get tough. These dogs suffer - not all of them all the time but too many of them too often.
Brachycephalics live a third less long than non-brachy dogs. Fifty per
cent have significant airway disease. Almost all struggle to cool
themselves. Most Bulldogs still can’t mate or give birth naturally. Pugs
have 19 times the risk of developing corneal ulcers. All suffer from
very low genetic diversity. And so on.
Today, Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs make up one in five of the
dogs registered with the Kennel Club - up from one in 50 in 2005.
Yesterday, a new petitionwas launched asking for a ban on brachycephalics. Over 20k people signed it in the first 24 hrs.
Have we reached a tipping point? With your help.
I haven’t been able to blog much recently because I am busy finishing
off a television series for BBC2. But I have taken time out to write
this because the new breed standard pictures made me so angry.
So please… Although it’s moderation I want, not a ban, sign the petition. Make your feelings known to the Kennel Club (see here). Complain if brands or media use generic pictures of brachycephalics to sell their wares.
Vets: thank you so much for all that you are now doing, but please keep the pressure on.
And, of course, to everyone out there - please don’t buy that puppy.
It is not safe to buy a Pug, Bulldog or French Bulldog. Not safe for them and not safe for your wallet.
Seriously people. This deserves 6000 notes. It’s not even my text, so it’s not like I’m attention-fishing.
