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I had a strange experience in the Vancouver, B.C. airport last week that I can't stop thinking about.

I was on my way to the Women Deliver conference—the largest international conference on the rights, health, and well-being of women and girls. As a woman and an American, I was excited to be immersed in conversations about improving gender equality globally. I was excited to meet people leading movements to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. Justin Trudeau, Melinda Gates, Tarana Burke, and other major movers and shakers were going to be there. The conference had been sold out for months.


As I made my way through customs at the Vancouver airport, I expected to feel some excitement about being there. I did not, however, expect to feel what I felt as I left the terminal.

The signs for exiting the Vancouver airport don't say "Exit," they say "Way Out." And as I walked toward the Way Out sign, something about those two words and the realization that I had just left American soil hit hard. A wave of unexpected emotion washed over me.

Relief.

Scenes from The Handmaid's Tale—of people fleeing the hellscape the U.S. had become and seeking asylum in Canada—flashed through my mind. A mere few years ago, such scenes would have felt like far-fetched fiction. But walking toward the Way Out signs in the Vancouver airport, it felt too close to home. For a moment, I had an urge to run toward those signs like my life depended on it. To run toward sanity—toward freedom.

We have "American freedoms" drilled into us from the time we're children. Right now, it feels like a lie.

I hadn't fully realized how psychologically oppressive the U.S. had become until I left it, even just temporarily. The steady drip of regressive policies, the erosion of facts and denial of science, the resurgence of racist and nationalist movements, the daily insanity coming from the highest levels of our government, and the intensely polarized atmosphere here has worn on me more than I realized.

And I'm generally a super positive person. Seriously, I'm like the Pollyanna of politics—if I'm struggling here, what are other people feeling? (I'm also a middle-class white lady whose privilege has prevented me from fully grasping the fear and angst marginalized communities have been feeling for, well, ever. I'm well aware that I'm late to the game of uncertainty.)

Stepping into Canada, I felt like I could fully exhale for the first time in several years, only I didn't even know I had been holding my breath. Ironically, leaving "the land of the free" gave me a keen feeling of freedom and a sense of safety I didn't know I'd lost. I never expected to feel that way leaving my own country.

My internal dialogue has always been, "America, I love you. You aren't perfect, but your positives outweigh your negatives." Now it's, "America, I want to love you. But it's clear that our relationship has become toxic and I'm not sure how much longer I can do this."

Attending a women's rights conference as an American right now was surreal.

The Women Deliver conference was a powerful four days filled with people from 165 countries working to empower women and fight for their health and well-being. Heads of international aid organizations, heads of women's associations, heads of movements, heads of state, and thousands of others all gathered together to discuss the state of the world's women and girls.

And you want to know the biggest contribution my country made to that conversation? A litany of regressive policies and legislation that prompted a collective, international rallying cry: "We refuse to go backwards."

I got to see some of the ways our current policies affect women not just in the U.S., but outside of it. For example, I was embarrassed by our reimplementation and expansion of the "global gag rule," which removes funding from any organization that so much as mentions abortion—even in countries where abortion is legal—and puts the lives of women and girls at risk.

I don't think most average Americans understand how harmful the global gag rule is. I watched a woman from Kenya share her story of escaping female genital mutilation at age 8. I heard from a woman in Pakistan who escaped child marriage at 11 years old. I watched an 18-year-old from Nigeria who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram at 14 and repeatedly raped until she escaped at 16—eight months pregnant. The organizations that helped these girls focus their work on sexual and reproductive health, including ending child marriage and genital cutting, educating communities on safe sex, and providing resources to prevent unwanted pregnancy. And if any such organization were to inform a child bride whose body would be ravaged by childbirth or a Boko Haram escapee impregnated by violence that abortion was one possible option for them, they would lose all funding from the U.S.

That is criminal. And it is happening. And it's just one backwards policy America is responsible for.

However, I left the conference—and Canada—with a strong sense of hope.

One thing stepping out of the U.S. and meeting agents of change from around the world showed me was that there are so many incredible people doing important, world-changing work out there. The Maasai woman who has helped save 17,000 girls from genital cutting by helping transform coming-of-age rituals into celebrations of girls' hopes and dreams, for example. Or the 18-year-old Zambian girl who earned a standing ovation from four heads of state after eloquently calling out politicians for being all talk and no action. Or the organizers who pulled together all of these individuals to help women support one another, to stand in their power wherever they live.

I returned to the U.S. not with a sense of dread, but with a sense of purpose. Women are making waves in the world, pushing back against centuries of inequality and patriarchal norms. Naturally, there will be pushback against that pushback, but we will not go backwards.

Everything isn't okay, and we are living in strange times. But there are positive things happening. Old systems have to be broken down in order to build something new. Sometimes a step back clears the way for two steps forward. I have to believe that's where we are right now—poised for a great leap into a better future, where all of us feel free and safe on our own soil.

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Spurs coach Gregg Popovich takes on Trump and racism in a powerful speech.

It's time we had some difficult conversations as a country.

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich has a bone to pick with President Donald Trump's attitude toward politics and sports.

An outspoken critic of Trump, the five-time NBA champion coach laid into the president during a press conference on Monday, critiquing his "childishness" and "gratuitous fear-mongering." This came after a weekend in which Trump uninvited the NBA champion Golden State Warriors from the White House and raged against NFL players protesting police violence.

"Our country is an embarrassment to the world," Popovich added, referencing Trump's antics during his first months in office.


Popovich didn't stop there.

He brought the conversation back around to the real topic at hand: race and racism in America.

"Obviously, race is the elephant in the room, and we all understand that," he said, shrugging off the idea that if we simply stop talking about racism that it'll somehow just go away.

"There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change, whether it's the LGBT community or women's suffrage, race, it doesn't matter," he said. "People have to be made to feel uncomfortable and especially white people because we're comfortable."

"We still have no clue of what being born white means," he said.

Using a (what else?) sports metaphor, Popovich explained that being born white is like having a head start during a 100-meter dash. While there's no guarantee the head start means you'll win the race and while your hard work you put into training for the run shouldn't be discounted, it's still a head start. There shouldn't be any harm in acknowledging the advantage you were given.

"[White people] have advantages that are systemically, culturally, psychologically there," he explained. "And they have been built up and cemented for hundreds of years. But many people can't look at it, it's too difficult. It can't be something that is on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want the status quo, people don't want to give that up. Until it's given up, it's not going to be fixed."

Popovich's metaphor is a spot-on example of what exactly the oft misunderstood phrase "white privilege" means.

Replying to Sports Illustrated's tweet about Popovich's comments, one person remarked, "Hey Pop, where do I cash my 'congrats on being white' check? Don't think that came with my birth certificate, I must've gotten ripped off." The tweet was a classic example of what happens when white people are asked to consider their position and what their whiteness means in the world.

Poet Remi Kanazi responded brilliantly: "You cash it whenever you're pulled over by a cop, in a store not being followed, at an interview for a job, or trying to get an apartment."

No person should have to worry about being shot by the police, treated with suspicion, or discriminated against in the workplace because of the color of their skin. Right now, in America, white people don't have to worry about that. Non-white people do. The goal in the fight for racial justice isn't to bring privileged groups down, but to lift oppressed groups up. It's about finding the same starting line in the metaphorical 100-meter dash.

Watch Popovich's comments on race below:

President Donald Trump's divisive comments on the NFL protests are making national headlines, but to Miami Dolphin Michael Thomas, the remarks hit close to home.

Michael Thomas. Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Sirius XM.

Speaking to reporters from the locker room on Sunday, Thomas — who has knelt during the national anthem before games — responded to Trump's claim that a "son of a bitch" like him should be fired for refusing to stand.


Over the past several months, many players have kneeled during the national anthem in a peaceful, silent protest to draw attention to racial injustice — namely, police brutality targeting people of color — since former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling last season.

"As a man, as a father, as an African-American man, as somebody in the NFL who’s one of those 'sons of bitches,' yeah I take it personally," Thomas told reporters. "But at the same time, like I said in my Twitter posts, it’s bigger than me."

"I got a daughter; she’s going to have to live in this world," Thomas told reporters, holding back tears.

"I’m going to do whatever I got to do to make sure she can look at her dad and be like, 'Hey, you did something, you tried to make a change.'"

Thomas' emotional response shows how deep the president's remarks have cut and why more athletes are now stepping up — or, rather, kneeling down — to spark change.

Controversy surrounding the NFL protests boiled over this past weekend, after the president waded back into the world of political activism in pro sports.

Trump set off a firestorm Friday night at his rally in Alabama, claiming NFL athletes who sit or kneel during the protests should be fired. The following morning, he slammed Stephen Curry for planning to skip his team's potential White House visit after winning the NBA national championship in June: "invitation is withdrawn!" the president tweeted. LeBron James jumped into the foray to defend Curry shortly thereafter, calling the president a "bum."

Trump's bombastic remarks prompted a wave of players to kneel on Sunday. According to NPR, roughly 200 NFL athletes protested as "The Star-Spangled Banner" played before their respective games.

Several Detroit Lions players kneeled during their game on Sept. 24, 2017. Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images.

Critics have slammed Trump for stoking a fire solely to enrage his base while ignoring other dire issues.

"He wanted a reaction; he got that reaction," Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee Chairman, told NBC News. "It’s very disappointing — the same level of stuff we get from the president that doesn’t advance a genuine conversation but polarizes people into camps."

Meanwhile, dilemmas are playing out on the national and global stages — the GOP's unpopular Graham-Cassidy health bill, relations with North Korea, devastation in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria — with little leadership or comment from the president.

"It just amazes me with everything else that's going on in this world, especially involving the U.S., that’s what you’re concerned about, my man?" Thomas noted to reporters on Sunday. "You’re the leader of the free world — this is what you’re talking about?"

It appears so.

Sen. Bill Cassidy has failed the "Jimmy Kimmel Test."

Spectacularly so.

In a blistering monologue delivered Tuesday night, late-night host Kimmel accused the Louisiana Republican of coming on his show and lying "right to my face" about health care.


At issue: the latest Republican attempt to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, with a bill co-sponsored by Cassidy. This bill comes just a few months after Cassidy appeared on Kimmel's show in the wake of Kimmel's newborn son's open-heart surgery and his heart-wrenching monologue about the importance of health insurance.

"A few months ago, after my son had open-heart surgery, which was something I spoke about on the air, a politician, a senator named Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, was on my show, and he wasn't very honest. It seemed like he was being honest. He got a lot of credit and attention for coming off like a rare, reasonable voice in the Republican Party when it came to health care for coming up with something he called — and I didn't name it this, he named it this — the 'Jimmy Kimmel Test,' which was, in a nutshell, no family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can't afford it."

Kimmel argued that instead of passing Cassidy's Jimmy Kimmel Test, the new bill cruelly rips away many of the protections Cassidy promised to uphold.

"Now, I don’t know what happened to Bill Cassidy. But when he was on this publicity tour, he listed his demands for a health care bill very clearly. These were his words. He said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families, and no lifetime caps. And guess what? The new bill does none of those things.

Coverage for all? No. In fact, it will kick about 30 million Americans off insurance. Pre-existing conditions? Nope. If the bill passes, individual states can let insurance companies charge you more if you have a pre-existing condition. You’ll find that little loophole later in the document after it says they can’t. They can, and they will.

But will it lower premiums? Well, in fact, for lots of people, the bill will result in higher premiums. And as far as no lifetime caps go, the states can decide on that, too, which means there will be lifetime caps in many states. So not only did Bill Cassidy fail the Jimmy Kimmel Test, he failed the Bill Cassidy Test. He failed his own test. And you don’t see that happen very much."



The proposed law, as drawn up by Cassidy and three other GOP senators, would indeed drastically weaken many of the Affordable Care Act's consumer guarantees, much as Kimmel described it.

According to an NPR analysis of the bill, states could indeed waive the Affordable Care Act's essential benefits requirement and allow insurers to charge customers with pre-existing conditions more or reject them outright.

Additionally, states could permit insurers to reinstitute lifetime coverage caps, limiting the amount they pay out over a customer's lifetime.

Cassidy responded to Kimmel shortly after the segment aired, disputing the host's characterization of the bill and encouraging his colleagues to vote for it.  

Senators and bill co-sponsors Dean Heller (left) and Cassidy. Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images.

"We have a September 30th deadline on our promise. Let’s finish the job," he said in a statement provided to Vox. "We must because there is a mother and father whose child will have insurance because of Graham Cassidy Heller Johnson. There is someone whose pre-existing condition will be addressed because of GCHJ."

It is difficult to imagine that will be enough for Kimmel, who concluded by pleading with his audience at home to "call [their] congressperson."

"You have to do this. You can't just click 'like' on this video," he said.

The future of health care in America could hang in the balance.