I think a lot of people just have no imagination.

Or very little, anyway. They're used to the way things are, and the current situation is working okay for them, so they don't see a problem. Until one day, our jacked up health care "system" bites them or someone they personally care about on the ass.

Maybe they lose the job that they've always relied on for health insurance, and are surprised at how hard it is to find another one with equally good benefits, or they need a treatment their insurance company doesn't want to approve. Or the copay for a drug they can't survive without suddenly goes through the roof. The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is, something they've been taking for granted suddenly just isn't there, and they realize what they've been relying on was a flimsy house of cards all along instead of the rock solid guarantee they thought it was. And they go, "Wow, this really is messed up, isn't it?"

Add to that the fact that way too many Americans are ill-informed about how health care works in other countries compared to the U.S., or how our health care falls short. Too many people believe that America has the "best health care system in the world," because that's what they've been told all their lives, and get all huffy if you try to explain why it actually isn’t. What's really needed, imo, is a massive public education program. But that costs money, so good luck with that. Especially since the insurance companies have loads of money to spend on lobbying to keep things the way they are.

Ketanji Brown Jackson's husband wears socks featuring presidents and founding fathers

Ketanji Brown Jackson's husband wears socks featuring presidents and founding fathers to her confirmation hearings

I hate the idea of discriminating against anyone based on their looks.

It sounds so wrong. But in Cruz's case, all I can see when I look at him is a disgusting, slimy, scummy, smarmy worm disguised as a man.

But then I remember how much I KNOW enough about Ted Cruz and what a revolting piece of subhuman garbage he is. And I have to wonder if I detest that face so much because of its inherent detestability or because of what I actually know about its owner. And the answer is: Yes. To both.

I'm pretty sure I'd find that face unattractive in any case. But what's inside a person can distort the outside to a point where it's almost impossible to tell where the line is between the outer appearance and the seething, writhing core of inner evil behind it. When I look at Ted Cruz, that inner evil makes it impossible for me to even make a truly objective assessment of how ugly he is. It's too hard to see past the evil. Same thing with TFG and some others I won't take the time to mention.

When I was a little girl, my mother would often follow a compliment about my looks with the admonishment, "But renember, pretty is as pretty does." She was so right. Pretty IS as pretty does. Furthermore, ugly is as ugly does, and enough inner ugly can contort an otherwise innocuous face into a hideous reflection of that inner ugly. Once that happens, all bets are off.

Here's a little something to enjoy while watching the SCOTUS confrnation hearings...

...or any other time of your choice!



I plan to keep this pic handy to refer to when Josh Hawley starts acting like an asshole during the hearings (which we all know he WILL do). Just to keep my blood pressure from going completely off the charts.

Durbin, White House slam emerging GOP attack on KBJ sex offender rulings

Source: Politico

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is questioning whether the Supreme Court nominee was tough enough on the matter while on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and as a district court judge.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and the Biden White House on Thursday derided a new GOP attack on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, centered on her handling of sex offenders.

"I don't believe in it being taken seriously," Durbin said in an interview about the charges leveled by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). "I'm troubled by it because it's so outrageous. It really tests the committee as to whether we're going to be respectful in the way we treat this nominee."

Durbin's response -- plus a heated reply from the White House -- comes after Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Jackson's record on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and as a district court judge in a series of tweets Wednesday, going so far as to say "her record endangers children." Hawley's tweets offers a potential preview of Republicans' questions next week, when Jackson's confirmation hearings are scheduled to take place.

-more at source-


Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/17/durbin-white-house-disparage-emerging-conservative-attack-on-kbj-sex-offender-rulings-00018142

Mark your calendars, everyone!

The Senate Judicial Committee hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court start this coming Monday! Here's the schedule, courtesy of https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/ (in reverse chronological order, as listed on the site):

HEARINGS AND MEETINGS

03/24/22 9:00 AM The Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Day 4)*

03/23/22 9:00 AM The Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Day 3)

03/22/22 9:00 AM The Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Day 2)

03/21/22 11:00 AM The Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

*I don't know if Thursday is the final day of hearings; these are all the dates posted on https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/ at the moment.
‐‐-----‐----------------------‐‐-----‐----------------------‐‐-----‐----------------------

For those like me who have trouble keeping track of such things, the Judicial Committee is chaired by Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois, and the Ranking Member on the GOP side is Chuck Grassley
of Iowa. All Committee members are listed on https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/.

I am really looking forward to watching as much of this historic event as possible and discussing it with my fellow DUers!

Exactly what I was getting ready to say.

Glad I decided to read the comments first, so I can piggyback on this instead of starting another separate thread on the same thing.

Eastern Orthodox Christians are definitely the "wrong" kind to evangelicals. I grew up going to Baptist churches that had pretty much the same theology as the current "evangelical" crowd, and based on a rationale that would take too long to go into, my church taught that Catholics weren't really REAL Christians, much as they might think they were. The Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity was never mentioned (only because it wasn't really on the radar), but I'm quite convinced that they would have been regarded much the same way, for most of the same reasons.

There's a VERY strong streak in protestant Christianity (Anerican in particular? Not sure.) of quibbling over who is a "real" Christian and who isn’t, and the answers to that question being a really BFD. Just one of many reasons why I got the f*** out early on. I got sick and tired of 1) the emphasis on not going to hell as the ONLY thing that matters, and 2) all the arbitrary and conflicting rules about what determines whether one does or doesn't go there. I eventually came to reject the whole evengelical/fundamentalist conception of hell as even being A Thing, period.

Unlike some people who break away from their early religious training, I'm still not, to this day, an atheist. I get why people become atheists, but that's just not where I am. I do not need to be an atheist or anti-religion in general however, to view the obsession with making sure one goes to the "right place" after death as an unhealthy thing for religions to be focused on.

More on the whackadoodle MO abortion bill that would LITERALLY kill pregnant people.

In case you haven't heard, a Missouri state representative 9has evidently lost his damned mind and is trying to pass an antiabortion bill that would absolutely for sure result in the deaths of people who are unlucky enough to have an ectopic pregnancy in that state.

Book bans have reached levels not seen in decades

The history of the death penalty in Illinois had a lot to do with my becoming opposed to it.

I was on the fence for a long time, but have been firmly opposed to the death penalty for almost 20 years now. The thing that flipped me from "not sure" to "no way" was reading Scott Turow's book, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Experience on Dealing with the Death Penalty, in which he wrote about his experience serving on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty with the intent of making recommendations for reform. In the book, he describes how he shifted from being what he called a death penalty "agnostic" to becoming opposed to it, in the process of studying the various arguments for and against it and (especially) the many problems with its administration.

It's a terrific book, imo, and a quick and gripping read, at only 164 pages. I can't recommend it highly enough, for people on either side as well as those are undecided, as I was. It may not be enough to convince those who are strongly in favor of the death penalty, but I think anyone who reads it will, at the very least, come away with a clearer understanding of the reasons why some of us oppose it.

Anyone who's interested can read more about it here: https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/legal/turows.htm