October 18, 2018

Jesus: "I was thinking about coming back, but..."

October 18, 2018

Funniest comedy wildlife photos to take your mind off...well, you know.

Don't you need something funny and cute right now?



























https://animalencyclopedia.info/25-funniest-entries-of-the-comedy-wildlife-photography-awards/6/

October 16, 2018

Rachel exposing voter suppression while hopefully there is still time to do something about it.

In GA, ND. She's doing a great job of detailing it as it is happening. This is different from any election I can remember. Usually media doesn't get to it till after the fact if my memory serves me correctly.

October 12, 2018

At the start of every disaster movie there's a scientist....

My favorite sign from the science march. I saved it because I liked it so much. Seems even more appropriate now than when we had the march.

October 8, 2018

The difference between those who rape and those who don't

A day or two ago, somone posted this article:

Woman Tweets About All The Times Men Didn’t Rape Her To Teach A Lesson On Consent

https://www.boredpanda.com/not-a-rapist-story-mara-quint/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Her conclusion:

In one tweet, she tells about the guy she is with saying, "Seems like you're not into this... it's only fun if you want it."

When I read that, i thought that right there is the difference between those who assault and those who don't - do they care about consent, or do they not? Think of the "grab them by the pussy-when you're famous you can do anything..." tape. Or getting them too drunk or drugged to resist.

I just ran across this illuminating article from Psychology Today:

Rape is Not (Only) About Power; It’s (Also) About Sex

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/201602/rape-is-not-only-about-power-it-s-also-about-sex

The researcher Rachel Jewkes of the University of the Witwatersrand and her colleagues (2010) have looked at some of the motives of rapists. A random sample of men (ages 18–49) from the general population of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were asked anonymously about their rape perpetration practices, motivations, and consequences. “Asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement, and it was often an act of bored men… seeking entertainment. Rape was often also a punishment directed against girlfriends and other women, and alcohol was often part of the context.”

In addition, laboratory research has consistently shown that rapists differ from nonrapists in their patterns of sexual arousal. Rapists show higher erectile response to hearing scenarios of nonconsenting sex. This fact does not exclude the possibility that the rapists are responding to the implied violence in the nonconsent scenario, rather than to the sex. However, research has shown that rapists do not differ from nonrapists in response to scenarios of non-sexual violence. For example, in 2012, Canadian researcher Grant Harris and colleagues summarized the research on rapists’ sexual responses thus: “Violence and injury without sexual activity do not usually produce much erectile responding among rapists.”

In other words, rapists have a unique taste for nonconsensual sex rather than for nonconsensual violence per se.

October 7, 2018

Guaranteed to uplift, check out the song this 6 year old author-singer-songwriter wrote for her mom

I know you all can use something uplifting at this point. Ariana sings the song she wrote for her mom at the 1 minute point in the video, but the whole thing is worth watching. This is one amazing kid. She is also working on a project to eliminate child poverty because "it's very important to help the children in need."

October 4, 2018

Wonder if things would be any different if Al Franken was still on judiciary committee...

I miss him more than ever these days.

October 2, 2018

Kate Snow on Chris Hayes discussing her interview with Julie Swetnick

October 1, 2018

One BIG reason GOP is rushing Kavanaugh, and Orrin Hatch is in it up to his eyeballs:

THey are protecting themselves from whatever corruption charges they may be eligible for, and we know there are many. Russian money, election tampering, collusion, etc. THey want Kav on the court before this case comes up:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/trump-pardon-orrin-hatch-supreme-court/571285/

A Supreme Court Case Could Liberate Trump to Pardon His Associates

Gamble v. United States isn’t related to the Russia investigation. But the outcome—which one senior Republican senator has tried to influence—could still have consequences for the probe.
Natasha Bertrand
Sep 25, 2018
Mike Segar / AP

A key Republican senator has quietly weighed in on an upcoming Supreme Court case that could have important consequences for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

The Utah lawmaker Orrin Hatch, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed a 44-page amicus brief earlier this month in Gamble v. United States, a case that will consider whether the dual-sovereignty doctrine should be put to rest. The 150-year-old exception to the Fifth Amendment’s double-jeopardy clause allows state and federal courts to prosecute the same person for the same criminal offense. According to the brief he filed on September 11, Hatch believes the doctrine should be overturned. “The extensive federalization of criminal law has rendered ineffective the federalist underpinnings of the dual sovereignty doctrine,” his brief reads. “And its persistence impairs full realization of the Double Jeopardy Clause’s liberty protections.”

Within the context of the Mueller probe, legal observers have seen the dual-sovereignty doctrine as a check on President Donald Trump’s power: It could discourage him from trying to shut down the Mueller investigation or pardon anyone caught up in the probe, because the pardon wouldn’t be applied to state charges. Under settled law, if Trump were to pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for example—he was convicted last month in federal court on eight counts of tax and bank fraud—both New York and Virginia state prosecutors could still charge him for any crimes that violated their respective laws. (Both states have a double-jeopardy law that bars secondary state prosecutions for committing “the same act,” but there are important exceptions, as the Fordham University School of Law professor Jed Shugerman has noted.) If the dual-sovereignty doctrine were tossed, as Hatch wants, then Trump’s pardon could theoretically protect Manafort from state action.

If Trump were to shut down the investigation or pardon his associates, “the escape hatch, then, is for cases to be farmed out or picked up by state-level attorneys general, who cannot be shut down by Trump and who generally—but with some existing limits—can charge state crimes even after a federal pardon,” explained Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. “If Hatch gets his way, however, a federal pardon would essentially block a subsequent state-level prosecution.”

October 1, 2018

How to Watch Julie Swetnick Interview Online 8PM ET /PT tonight- please post if you are watching!

Please start a thread and post comments if you are watching!


https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/09/watch-julie-swetnick-interview-online/

Julie Swetnick, the third woman to raise sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, will speak publicly Sunday night in an interview with John Heilemann on The Circus.

The interview will be part of a 30-minute episode, which airs Sunday, September 30, at 8 p.m. ET/PT and will be broadcast on Showtime. If you don’t have cable or can’t get to a TV, you can watch a live stream of the show (or DVR it, or watch it on-demand) on your computer, phone or streaming device by signing up for one of the following cable-free, live-TV streaming services.