June 27, 2022

Overturning Roe is just the cost of doing business for some companies.

Andrew Ross Sorkin on MJ said he talked with lots of CEOs about the SC decision. Corporate HQs to red states to lower costs. They did not like the ruling but to a person they will not leave the red states.

“It’s the cost of doing business.”

Ok! Let’s teach you about cost!

Some companies that primarily support republicans:

https://www.ranker.com/list/republican-companies/coy-jandreau

Mentioned above:

Target. Coachella. Taco Bell. Urban Outfitters. Angel Soft. Wendy’s. Applebees. Marriot Hotels and Resorts. White Castle. Wonderbread. Arbies. Applebees. Walmart (duh). Outback Steakhouse. Red Lobster. Waffle House. Carl’s Jr. Home Depot. Chick-fil-A.

So many more companies and their parent corporations. So many to skewer!

June 25, 2022

Best signs from women's marches

This was 5 years ago but still very apt now, unfortunately. I couldn’t grab any of the pictures.

I like the one that says “I’m so mad I stitched this just so I could stab something 3000 times.”

https://www.boredpanda.com/best-protest-signs-womens-march-washington-donald-trump/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

June 25, 2022

So republicans are bracing for fallout from Roe ruling. They should be.

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/06/24/the-dog-that-caught-the-car-republicans-brace-for-the-impact-of-reversing-roe-00042387

Snip:

This is not a conversation we want to have,” said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country. “We want to have a conversation about the economy. We want to have a conversation about Joe Biden, about pretty much anything else besides Roe … This is a losing issue for Republicans.”

The decision, issued Friday, was a landmark victory for conservatives who have held up overturning Roe as an ambition of near-biblical significance, fundraising, organizing and legislating off opposition to abortion rights for nearly half a century.

But it’s a victory that will almost certainly come at a cost. In Republican circles, a consensus has been forming for weeks that the court’s overturning of a significant — and highly popular — precedent on a deeply felt issue will be a liability for the party in the midterms and beyond, undercutting Republicans to at least some degree with moderates and suburban women.

“The only thing [Democrats] have got going for them is the Roe thing, which is what, 40 years of settled law that will be changed that will cause some societal consternation,” said the former congressman, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “And can they turn that into some turnout? I think the answer is probably ‘Yes.’”
———————-

I think they are wrong! If there are any women who aren’t paying attention (why do these idiot men think women won’t care about this) they have 4 months to have a mishap in their sexual lives to realize they are no more than property and their bodies no longer belong to them.

Game on!!

June 7, 2022

Dog thinks he owns all the holes in the world

June 5, 2022

Liz Cheney interview - preview of the Jan 6 insurrection.

I am sooooo hoping this has an impact.

May 28, 2022

An idea for a Fall political gun safety Ad

We need concise hard hitting attacks against the republicans. This ad is about gun safety. The most important thing is to use their words against them.


It is evening and a guy is driving home after a long distance business trip but we see his phone has died so he hasn’t been in contact with anyone and can’t call his wife to say he’s almost there.

He arrives at his home and calls out to his wife as he enters the house but she is in the basement doing laundry and can’t hear him.

Exhausted he flops on the couch and turns on the tv. He sees a reporter saying there has been a local mass school shooting this afternoon and now he panics. Is this why his wife is not here? He rushes to the kids bedroom and sees they are all there tucked in tight. The relief on his face is profound.

In the background you can hear the politician on the tv say that his highest priority is the children and he will do what he can to keep kids safe. The ad fades and a voice says something about how your life can change in an instant. Don’t let this happen to you - vote out the people who refuse to fix this.

Or the voice could say republicans think keeping you safe is just a liberal wish list. What do you think?

Same type of ad could be used for the grid going down as the guy returns home to his family huddling with mountains of blankets trying not to freeze.

Man, I’ve been letting this one fester!

May 28, 2022

The gun question they can't answer

I have been very frustrated with the questions asked of politicians by reporters that are quickly deflected. It’s BS but they fend off the questions easily.

Here is what I want at a press conference preferably asked by an older citizen and not by a reporter.

“ Regarding mass school shootings It has been said that the best defense for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. My question is - how did law enforcement handle mass school shootings in the 50s, 60s, and 70s?”

I imagine the politician acts confused as he tries to figure out how to respond. You could leave it at that - let it hang in the air or twist the knife a little bit more.

The person could say “my grandkids do lock downs and shooter drills at school. I never had to do that. Now you want to arm teachers and put in steel doors. My grandkids will be living in a police state and you call that freedom?”

Let the networks show that!!

April 17, 2022

The final report on SCOTUS reforms Dec. 2021

Lots of pieces to this but it feels a little like pablum and as long as republicans can filibuster and Dems don’t have 60 Senators I see nothing happening

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SCOTUS-Report-Final.pdf#page26

SNIP: (report is 294 pages long)

Proposals for Reform
The Commission’s Process and Scope of Analysis

In considering the current reform debate, the Commission held six public meetings; heard oral testimony from forty-four witnesses; and received written statements from numerous additional experts and organizations, as well as more than 7,000 submissions in the form of public comment. The views expressed regarding the need for Court reform and evaluating proposals for such reform were wide-ranging and diverse.

Informed by that material and the broader public debate, the Commission divided its work into five parts: one devoted to providing a historical background and the other four devoted to analyzing the major categories of reform proposals. The history of Supreme Court reform debates and proposals. Debates about whether and how to adjust the size, role, and operation of the Supreme Court are as old as the Court itself.

To put the present reform debates in context, in Chapter 1 we provide a historical overview of past efforts in favor of and opposed to Supreme Court reform.

The size and composition of the Court. One prominent proposal would increase the number of Justices who sit on the Court. Other proposals suggest reorganizing the
membership of the Court—for example, by having cases decided by panels instead of the entire Court, or by periodically rotating other Article III judges onto the Supreme Court. We address these proposals in Chapter 2.

The Justices’ tenure. Justices currently serve “during good Behavior,” meaning for life, unless they voluntarily leave the Court or are impeached and removed from office.
Another prominent proposal would limit the length of time that Justices serve on the Court and, relatedly, would define the intervals at which Justices are appointed. We
consider these term-limits proposals in Chapter 3.

The powers of the Court and its role in the constitutional system. Another set of proposals seeks to disempower the Court in relation to the political branches, particularly to limit the Court’s power to declare legislative acts unconstitutional. This category includes modifying the Court’s jurisdiction, as well as changing the Court’s
20 | December 2021

Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States voting rules and the standards of review it uses when considering whether to invalidate
the actions of elected officials. Finally, it includes proposals to allow Congress to override constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court and other courts. We analyze this category of proposals in Chapter 4.

Transparency and the Court’s internal processes.
A final category of potential reforms includes proposals that would address internal operations of the Court. These proposals concern: the procedures and principles the Court applies to emergency applications; judicial ethics and transparency with respect to recusals and conflicts; and making the Court’s proceedings widely accessible in real time through audio or video transmission. We take up this set of reforms in Chapter 5.

With regard to each of the four categories of Court reform, we consider relevant historical background (in addition to the more general historical background provided in Chapter 1); we evaluate the case for and against the reform as framed by proponents and critics; we explore
whether the proposed reforms promote the goals of their proponents and what the potential consequences of the reforms might be; and we consider the legal requirements and obstacles that must be met or overcome to implement the reforms. We do not analyze at length the confirmation process or proposals for how the Senate might reform it.

The Commission recognizes that the processes by which individuals are nominated to the Court by the President and considered by the Senate are central to today’s
debate. However, the Commission’s charge was to address proposals for reforming the Court itself, not for reforming the confirmation process. At the same time, given the extensive and bipartisan testimony we received concerning the intense conflict that now characterizes that process, generating widespread concern that it has become dysfunctional, we have attached an Appendix to this Report that discusses specific reform proposals presented to the Commission—proposals we believe merit close attention and consideration.

April 16, 2022

Do you have a male or female brain? Optical illusions

I couldn’t embed the video or save the picture so here is the article with video included.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/optical-illusion-reveals-if-you-have-a-female-or-male-brain/amp/


Some more optical illusions. I usually have a hard time with them because my eyes rapidly alternate between the two options.
Warning for anyone who has photosensitive epilepsy, but they probably already know this.

https://www.creativebloq.com/features/optical-illusions

Favorites?

March 28, 2022

I'm mesmerized by Leon the lobster, saved from the grocery store

Why did this come recommended on YouTube? I don’t know but I am now invested in this story. The guy’s voice is also soothing.