THE BURDEN IS UNDUE! pic.twitter.com/FAPZE4CvAE
— Planned Parenthood (@PPAWI) June 27, 2016
You may now go about your day.
This post is in: Activist Judges!
THE BURDEN IS UNDUE! pic.twitter.com/FAPZE4CvAE
— Planned Parenthood (@PPAWI) June 27, 2016
You may now go about your day.
Comments are closed.
aimai
OK, the last image was a tiny bit disturbing. Oh, what the hell! Great post and great memes!
JPL
Roberts and Alito told me the law wasn’t about abortion.
Seanly
Hooray! I said more in the other thread.
Paul in KY
She is bad to the bone.
Chris
Living in the age of memes can be beautiful.
Felonius Monk
RBG rocks and Fat Tony is still dead. Isn’t this a great country?
ETA: Does anyone want to start a GoFundMe to buy Clarence Thomas a brain and/or a soul?
nutella
@JPL:
Roberts and Alito are shameless and disgusting liars.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@JPL:
They’re just really really really concerned and deeply care about what’s best for the woman, amirite?
Calouste
OT: There will be a no-confidence vote on Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow by the Labour MPs. The results will be known by 4 PM BST, and allegedly 65-70% of the Labour MPs will vote for him to go.
germy
@Calouste: What happens to Boris With The Good Hair?
SiubhanDuinne
@Calouste:
I had BBC on earlier and heard a little bit of the PM speaking to the House. At one point he welcomed a new Labour Member and then warned her to keep a low profile “or you might end up a Shadow Minister by the end of the day!” LOL, I loves me some Parliamentary Brits.
Lizzy L
SCOTUS for the win! Yet one more illustration why TinyHands cannot be President. Or indeed, any Republican, ever.
Calouste
@germy: No one knows. He wasn’t even in the Commons chamber while Cameron was speaking about the Brexit.
rikyrah
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA A
At the pics of Notorious RBG.
HILARIOUS.
Emma
@germy: Boris has been crushed so far. His little newspaper piece has been thoroughly thrashed by the EU people. He’s got bubkis and his nativists are getting restless.
Hal
Is there any possibility of the EU exit referendum being put up for vote again with a new referendum? It seems like there is a ton of buyer’s remorse going on in England, so why not just have another vote?
Miss Bianca
@aimai: Is it wrong that I loved that last image *the most*? Maybe because it’s the newest to me!
Calouste
@Emma: The Tory majority is small, only 16 seats, although they can probably count on the Ulster Unionists in a pinch. 20-30 anti-Euro Tory backbenchers crossing over to UKIP because Boris doesn’t give them what he promised would mean new elections and the end of the Tory majority.
amk
@Hal: not.gonna.happen.
Emma
@Calouste: Indeed. It is going to be one hell of a summer over there.
Aleta
running and cheering (in front of SC)
Adam L Silverman
@germy: The Conservative Party is preparing a quiet anyone but Boris campaign. There are four or five names being bandied about, with two or three of them, including one of the women MPs, being seen as good, potential contenders to prevent Boris from becoming PM. There also seems to be something between a concern and a push on for overturning the election law and calling for a snap election, which is partially why Labour is trying to shore up its leadership.
Immanentize
@Aleta: That running is actually the young lawyers who were tasked with getting copies of the opinion as soon as available. The cheering is, well, cheering!!
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: They don’t need to overturn the election law. Parliament can call for new elections with 2/3 of the vote, or pass a motion on no confidence with a simple majority. What has changed is that the PM can no longer call a snap election.
petesh
@Adam L Silverman:
More like a bunch of Blairites see an opportunity to rerun not the Brexit vote but the last leadership vote. The Tories are in shambles, and they’d rather split their own party than take advantage. A more cynical and offensive set of weasels it would be hard to find, outside of the Senate Majority Leader’s office.
rikyrah
@Hal:
Should be Cameron’s last duty. Set it up, and say, if we cross the 60% threshold, Article 50 will be submitted the very next day.
Do it within the next 30 days.
There have to be some businessmen who have already come to Cameron and told him that he’s gotta do this for them, because they won’t have this EU shyt phucking with their money.
slag
Is there anyone who still believes that “balls and strikes” are being called on the Supreme Court, or has that zombie lie finally been immolated?
Go Go Ruth Ginsburg!
Calouste
@petesh: If Corbyn had done the job expected of the leader of the largest pro-EU party, he wouldn’t have been in his current predicament. But being on the same stage as Cameron was too much for the purity pony.
Aleta
@Immanentize: yes, the interns right ? I love how they run, even though it’s normal: because of the context it tastes of freedom today
EBT
No guns for those guilty of domestic abuse!
rikyrah
@Calouste:
I can’t believe that this purity pony didn’t see the bigger picture.
DA PHUQ?
aimai
@rikyrah:
I posted this down in the thread below but it bears repeating.
Fair Economist
@Hal:
The buyer’s remorse is a media invention. A poll of voters found only 1% of people who voted to leave are unhappy with the outcome. That’s probably an undersample, but it’s still a small number. That’s still hundreds of thousands of people and you could write stories about Regrexiters non-stop until the next scheduled parliamentary election, but they’re not currently representative (check back in a few months, though.)
Immanentize
@Aleta: I agree — so good — and in their little black dresses to boot! This term, the Court created a new rule that prevented intern “line holders” from standing in line for attorneys (sometimes starting at 1 am or earlier) who wanted to see a case argued. Lawyers can be such jerks (I know as IAAL). But interns can still be opinion runners…. Wouldn’t it have been cool to be one of those women who first got this opinion from the court??
Something to tell the grandchildren.
Calouste
@rikyrah: Can’t be a purity pony without having some quality blinkers.
Poopyman
@aimai: More than a little disturbing, because to me it looked like Cheney. And not one of the females!
Aleta
A year ago at the SC: http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/27/the-running-of-the-interns-is-the-weirdest-and-funniest-tradition-youve-never-heard-of-5268686/
Taylor
@Calouste: There is suspicion that Corbyn wanted the UK to exit the EU and deliberately sabotaged the Remain campaign. He wil not say how he voted in the referendum. And Labor HQ told their Remain campaigners not to talk about immigration….
On the one hand, I can sympathize with Corbyn not wanting to appear with Cameron, after the way Cameron used Labor to defeat Scottish independence, then started talking about “English votes for English laws” to pander to his RW.
On the other hand, it’s the future of your country that’s at stake, FFS.
Adam L Silverman
@aimai: Yep, this is what I was writing about the other night. The Leave side has destroyed any relationships they might have and the personalities involved are perceived, rightly by the EU side, as being obnoxious (Johnson and Gove) all the way through to down right repugnant (Farage). No one on the EU side is going to give them any benefit of the doubt, any straws to grasp. The Leavers have no good negotiating options other than “here’s the paperwork to leave, what is the paperwork for each separate country to set up bilateral trade agreements and can we submit that as one packet or do we have to submit 27 didn’t ones?”.
Calouste
@Fair Economist: You only need 3.6% of the Leave voters to change their mind to flip the outcome.
sherparick
Could also use a picture of Arya Stark doing in Walther Frey after baking his two boys.
George R.R. Martin steals only from the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25GLxOafMks
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/26/12027556/game-of-thrones-finale-recap-winds-of-winter-deaths-wildfire-frey-pies and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25GLxOafMks
People complain about the violence and rapes in GoT, but Martin and the showrunners basically follows Shakespeare into the darkness.
I think the Natalie Dornier and Lena Hedley should both get Emmys for their work last night.
ruemara
I think we got this victory as a way of shoring up conservative turnout in the November elections. It’s very strategic. Many cons are not just unenthused about the Evil Cheeto Candidate, they’re this close to sitting things out. The GOP ,know they have a blowout loss in highly likely potential. What’s a good hot button issue that drives neoconservatives to the voting booth? Abortion. Giving them a loss stokes anger and will amp up their desire to put the right people in place.
Aleta
@Immanentize:
Interesting, thanks.
Miss Bianca
@petesh:So, any member of his party who’s been watching Corbyn’s rabbit in the headlights routine as the Brexit vote came bearing down on him, and is fed up with the pass to which his gormless purity has helped to lead them, must be a “Blairite”? And in the interests of party unity, and to avoid this dread pejorative, (the British version of “neoliberal, perhaps?) should rally round the flag of a leader who apparently can’t lead his way out of a damp paper bag? oookay…
Arogers
@rikyrah: Cameron has resigned.
It may look like a cowards way out but in reality it is allowing Britain to delay invoking article 50.
There will be a new Conservative leadership election and the new leader will have to then go to Europe and get their ass handed to them.
What Brexit people most wanted was to control immigration from Eastern European countries. Europe will not allow access to the free market with restricted immigration – Norway have access to the free market and have to pay money into the EU central coffers and they have to allow free moment of people.
So it is likely that Boris Johnson will be leader, go to Europe and get a really bad deal – at best like that of Norway.
Or Boris pulls the UK totally out of the free market which will put the UK into depression for years.
Neither option is good and neither option will be acceptable to the population of the UK (for various reasons).
Make no mistake any access to the EU free market requires free movement of labour and this is what the Brexit people most want to stop (mainly because they are racist).
Most likely once the reality of deal is understood. The Boris government will collapse and there will be a new election.
No one will be happy.
This is partly why labour are now trying to find a leader who is electable as labour, if they sit on the side lines and attack the final deal Boris gets, then labour has a chance at a land slide.
hovercraft
@aimai:
I think RBG just told the three musketeers to STFU.
And then to keep that weak shit away from the court.
Calouste
@Taylor: I can sympathize with Cameron not wanting to appear with the pigfucker, but only as a private person, not as the leader of the opposition. He had a job to do and he didn’t do it.
And Labour dug their own grave on the Scottish referendum. It was pretty clear that for them it was about cutting the SNP down to size and restoring Labour in Scotland to where it used to be, and they failed miserably.
Fair Economist
@Calouste:
True. However, the poll actually found more Remain voters wanting to switch. Anyway, rerunning referenda until you get the result you want isn’t democratic. Generally voters react poorly to that kind of stunt and if the referendum were run again, blatantly to just get a different result, I’d expect Leave would increase its %, which would be undesirable.
The democratic thing would be for Parliament to treat it for what it is, and take Brexit under consideration. It’ll turn it down – Parliament is overwhelming pro-EU.
LAO
Wow. Just what I needed this afternoon, some good news from the Supreme Court. Shocking what happens when a bunch of ladies sit on the high court.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: The EU is fed up with decades of the UK behaving like a petulant teenager that thinks it’s so special, wanting exemptions for everything and delaying decisions.
Their take is pretty much that if the UK leaves and still wants access to the internal market, they’ll get the same rights as everyone else, and none of the exemptions they have now.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
In trying to safeguard his future he destroyed it. From Politico
amk
from beebs liveblog
Breaking EU rejects informal Brexit talks with UK
EU will not hold informal talks with UK until it triggers Article 50 to leave, Germany, France and Italy insist.
So there.
Amaranthine RBG
You know that Breyer wrote majority opinion, right?
Immanentize
@Calouste:
This is what I was suggesting earlier this morning — the EU should require exit but at the same time be willing to negotiate a concurrent re-application process without the special crap (including getting rid of the pound).
It won’t happen that way, just a fantasy of mine.
Miss Bianca
Wahoo! Go, SCOTUS! No guns for domestic abusers!
Since most all the mass shooters lately seem to have the fact in common that they were accused, if not convicted, of domestic violence, this seems like a step in the right direction.
ETA And cue the obligatory meeping from certain parties about “infringement of constitutional rights!!!11!!” in five…four…three…
boatboy_srq
@Calouste: Quelle surprise. After all, with Tory and UKIP shrieking “LEAVE!!11!1!” and Corbyn all “well, MAYBE we should Remain…” it’s no wonder Labour wants new (actual) leadership.
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
Did you see that Boris wrote an op-ed yesterday pretending Brexit isn’t what it really is.
From the telegraph
There will have to be an entire new crop of leaders, because no one has emerged from this with clean hands. As the full ramifications become clear they will all be punished.
Shana
@Felonius Monk: Hell no, he can pay for those things himself.
aimai
@hovercraft: Sounds like Sanders, squatting on his vaunted email list. How dragonish and how absurd.
Emma
@hovercraft: I saw that. I also saw (put it in one of the threads below) that the EU people thrashed him thoroughly.
That whole column is full of horse puckeys. Boris is making it up as he goes along, hoping nobody will notice until it’s too late.
boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: Corbyn seems a mix of Nader and one other pol whose name escapes me just now….
Emma
@Miss Bianca: In spite of all the other tsuris, today is a good day.
Aleta
@Immanentize: Technically, can the EU fine Britain for breaking a contract? Is there provision in the agreement when a country joins the EU for it to withdraw if it wants?
Aleta
@Aleta: Oh, Article 50.
Cermet
Votes matter and this election is critical; still, Hillary has little to worry about considering the Rump is acting even more crazy. Hopefully, the Senate changes big time and the House moves much more closely to where it needs to be. This ruling matters a great deal since all lower courts MUST use facts and proven requirements to allow any similar restriction from now on – many existing restrictions will either be thrown out by lower courts when tested or be over turned by higher courts when a toad rules incorrectly. This may, may be a sign that demographics, good sense and reality starts to finally take – just hope Hillary realizes she is a one term president and that both the economy and AGW get really bad during her administration – sorry but that will come to pass and she will be blamed. In parallel the right wing grows more insane and dangerous as their grip on power is slowly loosen at the State level – times will get very interesting before the fever is broken and sanity prevails.
boatboy_srq
@hovercraft: The fallout is amazing. Cameron fell on his sword rather than trigger Article 50, Farage is in hot water after his 350 million pound “misquote”, half the UKIP MEPs are soiling their britches over immigration (which will apparently carry on unchanged, according to their public statements, as if they never promised otherwise), and now Corbyn. At the very least it means there will be a new generation of party leaders for the next cycle.
schrodinger's cat
Corbyn and Bernie are two textbook examples of the too-pure-head-in-the-clouds leftists. They are as dogmatic as any person on the religious right, they worship Marx instead of Jeebus.
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: Just like the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, right? Conseratives truly live in an alternative universe.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: But then that doofus Thomas blew their cover.
hovercraft
@amk:
I don’t know what these people expected, you don’t ask someone for a divorce and then start asking them for favors. Consequences and all that.
Patricia Kayden
@Miss Bianca: Wow!! To borrow Biden’s infamous phrase, “This is a b f deal!” This SCOTUS session has really gone well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Miss Bianca: Isn’t it amazing the Venn diagram of “Right to Life” people and Ammosexuals seems to have a very wide overlap? The right to military grade firearms for a few men with tiny dicks is more important that the right of the rest of us to life itself.
germy
Trump fan busted for posing as black woman on Twitter to win over minority voters
hovercraft
@Emma:
I think it’s already too late for him (I hope), time for another career change or for him to settle in as a back bencher.
catclub
@Calouste: wow!
hovercraft
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh hush Obamabot, you know if he had just stood strong right now we’d all have magic ponies. Purity lets you sleep at night. That’s why Corbyn is in such great shape now.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Miss Bianca: WOOT!!!!
aimai
@germy: Whoopsie!
aimai
@Cermet: Hillary seems like a pretty well grounded realist, with an impeccable team of pollsters around her and perhaps the greatest experience of just how hostile the press and public can be of anyone who has ever run for the office (and who hasn’t held it yet). I doubt very much that she needs any lectures from the bloggosphere about just how tenuous her hold on power is going to be with Bill Clinton and Obama there to remind her, should she forget, of how brutally they were both treated from day one.
schrodinger's cat
@hovercraft: That and not ironing your clothes or combing your hair seems to add years to your life.
germy
@aimai: Amazingly stupid how they picked some random photo of a black woman and used it. And then that woman saw her photo and said “Please stop using my photo” and they kept on using it…
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Oh, what a steaming load of horseshit. “Yes, Britons, because we are special *we* will still be able to travel to and live in EU countries with no restrictions, while being able to restrict immigration ourselves! There will be no bad consequences to this decision! No, it had nothing to do with anti-immigrant sentiment! It had everything to do with faceless EU bureaucrats stealing our democracy!”
You probably saw this response from the “faceless EU bureaucrats” which pretty effectively demolishes The Boris.
germy
Patricia Kayden
@Arogers: Adding onto your comments, since BREXIT, hate crimes have spiked in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-eu-referendum-racial-racism-abuse-hate-crime-reported-latest-leave-immigration-a7104191.html
Patricia Kayden
John, my comment is awaiting moderation. Thanks.
schrodinger's cat
Has there been any woman politician of any stripe at Bernie’s or Corbyn’s level, who looks like she just rolled out of bed with rumpled clothes and a bed head, or is that another example of male privilege?
Corner Stone
@aimai:
scav
@Miss Bianca: “Rules are for other people.” Sure sounds like default white man logic.
hovercraft
@Emma:
This morning the EU to Boris FU.
Hal
@germy:
“As a black voter and life long democrat…”
Every time I see some response like this on social media or in comments sections I’m just like, sure Jan.
aimai
@Corner Stone: How classical of you!
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: You know the answer to that question, little lady! Because you know what would happen to her!
(I mean, not that I like her or am defending her, but Jane Sanders has come in for a fair amount of catty bad-mouthing on this very blog for her fashion sense…or lack thereof. And she’s just the candidate’s wife, not the candidate!)
catclub
@Fair Economist:
The real problem (Blame Cameron!) was how incompetently the referendum was set up.
Here is a hugely important, dramatic change from the status quo, but lets not bother with demanding a supermajority ( how big?)
for that change. Part of that is because the vote was actually advisory and the PM invoking Article 50 is the irrevocable act.
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: I am a little bit suspicious of peeps (male or female) who want to be our leaders and can’t be bothered to run a comb through their hair.
hovercraft
@schrodinger’s cat:
She would be a slob, a skank, and frumpy, they would extrapolate from her appearance that she was not serious, disorganized and or a bull dyke. I think that about covers it. Also too could a woman be thrice divorced with multiple infidelities and basically get a pass ? I think not.
amk
I don’t get the whiny reason that how the voters feel disconnected from the pols. You elected them, some of them repeatedly, ffs. Even when you had alternatives (good or bad). Grow the fuck up.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Boris Johnson. Oh wait, he’s a dude.
catclub
@germy:
If I were to predict today, I would guess Rubio holds the seat. But I hope I am wrong.
Cat48
@hovercraft:
That outstanding economy? Credit just, downgraded, ouch Boris.”
Cermet
@aimai: :)
hovercraft
Drump has a response to Elizabeth Warren’s speech this morning. In a phone interview with Hallie Jackson, EW is a fraud and a racist. I applaud him for this very serious statement, it makes him look and sound very presidential. Irony is that his campaign had released a more typical bs statement with normal gop bs, but now everyone will focus on this nonsense from him. They need to break every phone within a mile of him.
EDIT: Elise Jordan gop strategist’s response to Drump, we can’t support a candidate who cannot demonstrate the he is not insane. Ouch.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
Can you *ahem* fucking imagine the RWNJ outcry at what a slutty slut she is? Good sweet christ but I can only begin to see the outer edges of the things that would be said about her, and more likely to her.
PaulWartenberg2016
@germy:
He flees in terror from the monster he created, which leaves only Peter Capaldi to rule them all.
Corner Stone
@aimai: I also got biblical in a previous thread. I cover all the bases. This is a full service blog.
Miss Bianca
@schrodinger’s cat: Did you see Awesomely Luvvie’s blogpost on Bernie Sanders’s hair? Guaranteed to have you weeping with laughter. Don’t skip the recap of the FB posts!
Shell
Read an article about the GOP having trouble finding speakers to appear at the convention. Possibility that Trump might speak all four nights, or his children. Yes, really.
On their official website, it does say..’The convention will also include approximately 15,000 credentialed media’
Does that include the Washington Post?
gex
@Miss Bianca: If Britain were a person asking for a divorce, they’d be demanding that they be allowed to live in the house, sleep in the bed, and eat the meals despite the fact that they will no longer be contributing to house payments or doing any chores.
Corner Stone
CenterPoint, FFS. It’s been over 3 hours without power. I am about to drape garlic around my neck and pin mushrooms to my shirt as I am fucking roasting over here.
hovercraft
@gex:
And conjugal rights.
smith
@Shell: Trump campaign has de-credentialed the Guardian as well. They will be preaching only to the choir.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Please don’t it won’t help.. just sayin
JPL
@hovercraft: I’m not sure if it has been mentioned but Scott Brown said Warren could have a DNA test to prove she native American.
Trump/Brown.. Birtherism/DNA test… Great issues to run on.
dmsilev
@Miss Bianca: I think I’ve figured out Sanders’s hair. He keeps it that way because the bird that nests there is his political talisman.
Keith G
Been listening to the Clinton/Warren speechifying from earlier today. Had to take a bit of a break at the point when Warren flayed Trump down to the bone and then crushed the bones into pulp.
scav
@smith: Just think of all the twitterati with stolen photos are being credentialed! I wonder if they’ll get a ophthalmologist certification in their convention gift-bag as well.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
And this is why we need to keep up the pressure and GOTV. I really think that if we work at it, we can flip Congress.
hovercraft
@JPL:
Plus the Cherokee Nation has indicated that at 1/32nd Cherokee she is eligible to join their Nation. I guess like birtherism it appeals to the base so he’ll keep it up.
I guess he’s still using that most reliable form of polling/ focus grouping twitter and facebook likes and retweets.
aimai
@catclub: They could just have paid for a massive poll, if they were going to pretend to consult the people and then ignore them.
Cermet
@Corner Stone: Buy gas power generator (even a small easy to move one can work) and a window mounted cheap AC; enjoy cool air until power is restored. I even hardwired a line to my generator so I just plug in the AC unit to the wall outlet. No fuss or work except start the generator (which is outside and well away from any air intakes. Can even run my frig and heat if needed.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I think I’m going to be buying her book this fall, because she’s always hilarious.
ETA: It’s from a commenter of hers, but “MR. SANDERS U DON’T HAVE A DAY PASS” always makes me snort-laugh.
GregB
Pre election Brexiters: We must leave the beaureacratically oppressive EU immediately in order to preserve our national sovereignty now.
Post election Brexiters: What’s the hurry? Everything with the EU will be just the same!
catclub
OT: Tom Freidman has a sad!
They would be a party of about three confused copies of Tom Friedman.
Oxymoron alert: “principled conservatism”
Frankensteinbeck
@Amaranthine RBG:
In this case, this is the case which was argued just after Scalia’s death. RGB dominated the oral arguments, grilling the Texas attorneys on precisely the issues that ended up defining the result. This was marked by SCOTUS watchers as a big change, because when Scalia was alive he aggressively dominated questioning, and Roberts and Kennedy listened to him.
JPL
@hovercraft: If Trump had a brain, Scott would not be on the short list for VP. What he did is remind the populace, that Trump was behind the birtherism scam.. I think it’s easy to tie the two together. Questioning heritage again, what else will they do…
catclub
@scav:
That reminds me! Rand Paul has been VERY quiet the past five or so months. One blessing of the Trump phenomena!
aimai
@Miss Bianca: Its too cruel. And too funny. Need to stop there daily. I was going to clip something to share here but I knew I’d get into trouble so I won’t. But thanks for the link.
schrodinger's cat
@Miss Bianca: That was funny, especially the bit about hair standing in solidarity!
catclub
@JPL: It would be great if a)there is a debate and b) Hillary asks him what all those investigators he sent to Hawaii actually found.
Miss Bianca
@dmsilev: LOL!!
? Martin
@Shell: No. First, when Trump says 15,000 think 1,500 at best, and 150 more likely. And the credentialed outfits will be only the best news outfits: Trump News, Trump Post, Trump Times, Trump Dispatch, TNN, The Daily Trump, etc.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: that one’s my favorite too. I think O.Felix Culpa was the one who turned me on to this post a few weeks back. Blame her!!
Poopyman
@Corner Stone:
Pictures!
Gindy51
@Cermet: Or go big with a whole house generator and be the envy of your neighborhood! After our neighbors suffered a 7 day ice storm related power failure, we got one. Haven’t had a serious outage yet but those 4 hours one in -20 can bust your pipes, so we are very glad we got one.
RealityBites
This SC decision is just an appetizer. Now I’m hungry, no STARVED, for more like it. This election is so important. A chance for an unbeatable majority going forward for YEARS! We have a great opportunity. We have to win and win big! ?
rikyrah
Who Will Speak at the Republican Convention?
by BooMan
Mon Jun 27th, 2016 at 01:03:09 PM EST
Seemingly no one wants to speak at the Cleveland convention that will elect Donald Trump as the Republican Partyâs presidential candidate:
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a rising star who helped to write the GOP platform at the 2012 convention, âwill be in her district working for her constituents and not attending the convention,â said a spokesman. Oklahoma Rep. Steve Russell, a former Army lieutenant colonel who helped capture Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, âhas no plans to be a speaker at the convention,â said his office. North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, whoâs frequently talked about as a potential future statewide candidate, âwonât be at the convention.â Mia Love, the charismatic Utah rep seen by many as the GOPâs future, is skipping Cleveland for a trip to Israel. âI donât see any upsides to it,â Love told a reporter on Friday. âI donât see how this benefits the state.â
Reporters at Politico reached out to âmore than 50 prominent governors, senators and House members to gauge their interest in speakingâ there and found almost no takers. So, I took a look at the list of speakers at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and guess what I found?
Pretty much anyone who was anyone had a speaking slot there, from Speaker John Boehner, to House members like Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Marsha Blackburn, to up-and-comers like Mia Love, to senators across the ideological spectrum, to pretty much every major Republican governor in the country.
Romney made sure that Latino governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada were given primetime slots. Govs. Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Mary Fallin, Bob McDonnell, and John Kasich all made appearances, most of them prominent.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire spoke four years ago, but this time around sheâs not even going to attend the convention.
Calouste
@? Martin: MSNBTrump, ABTrump, the New York Trump
Jeffro
@catclub:
No, remember, Friedman’s just an enabler, he’s not a “principled conservative” as he doesn’t really have any principles other than his right to blather on about current events and political figures without making much sense (or when he does, making connections any 7-year-old could make at the dinner table).
True enough, for now. In recent gab-fests with my dad and brother, I laid out for them what a modern, principled, conservative party might look like (just so they’d know they aren’t off the hook if they ‘default’ to voting for Trump in November). They DO have options and could push for ‘principled conservatism’, but they’re just lazy and it’s too easy for them to shut off their brains with dumb anti-HRC comments.
I could tell they were surprised, though, that I was able to articulate it better than they ever have, or could.
rikyrah
Just so I am clear about the SC Decision:
The decision does mean that the rest of those bullshyt laws from the other states are null and void too? right?
catclub
@Gindy51:
The cold snap over the holidays is what killed student apartments in Montreal – they left when it was (practically) balmy.
Poopyman
@rikyrah: An excellent question, because I’m not so sure they automagically go up in smoke.
Trollhattan
@Gindy51:
Jesus, isn’t that about the size of an Impala?
smith
@Cermet: If you’re considering a gas-powered generator, I hope you live in a neighborhood in which the houses are widely spaced. We had a 2-day power outage here last year in the full heat of summer, and my next-door neighbor fired up his generator and ran it for 2 days straight. It’s in his garage, which is closer to my house than his. Of course, with the heat I had to keep my windows open. Those things are LOUD, and after 48 non-stop hours, I was decidedly not amused. If you can afford it, maybe think of solar plus a battery and take advantage of the expiring income tax break.
Jeffro
OT but I forgot to add this to my earlier (also OT) comment at #137: I’m halfway convinced Trump will put Scott Brown on the ticket as his VP and think it’s the most genius call EVER…in his mind, Brown is the perfect foil to “Crooked Hillary’s” potential pick of Warren as VP
Nickel bet!
Trollhattan
@rikyrah: Zell Miller (still alive, I checked), Clint Eastwood, a chair and Sarah ™ should about do the trick.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: That one made me laugh hard too!
Paul in KY
@? Martin: Wish ‘Spy’ magazine would start up again & get credentials.
RealityBites
@Corner Stone: please be careful. Heat can be sneaky, even for the young and healthy. A battery operated fan and a spray bottle of (ice if you have a cooler) water might help.
smith
@Trollhattan: Add Uday, Qusay, Ivanka, and Chris Christie, with a 2-hour speech each night by the Orange Weaselhead, and you’re done. See how easy that is? You need to have the special type of genius exemplified only by Trump himself to cut through the blah blah blah and get things done. It will be tremendous!
Poopyman
@smith: The Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC)? Not expiring:
Miss Bianca
OK, completely O/T, but speaking of laughter…
I was looking at some cute doggie videos on my lunch hour (specifically Mishka and Laika the Talking Huskies), and little Miss Lefty Kitty wakes up from her nap on my chair, hops up on the desk, and starts watching the videos intently, occasionally pawing the screen. She hasn’t done this before. It’s unbelievably cute (yes, I got some crappy photos on my phone). (and yes, Anne Laurie has officially received Office Kitten pics!)
Poopyman
@Jeffro: I’m more than half convinced Trump will not be the nominee. The Establishment’s backbone is slowly solidifying, and a way around his nomination will be found. I expect most everyone thinks the White House is a lost cause, but there’s still a chance for the R’s to salvage down-ticket races.
smith
@Poopyman: That’s great to hear. Thanks!
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: Some people want to hold on to their phony-baloney jobs, methinks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul in KY: I miss those guys something fierce.
Trollhattan
@smith:
Not only tremendous, also, too, classy and yooogly entertaining. How about Night 2 features a Miss Universe pageant and a 90-minute infomercial about any Trump! products not currently in Chapter 11?
No Roman columns, but a stage escalator.
Emma
@rikyrah: Unfortunately, no. These laws are designed to fit specific circumstances, so it’s possible one state’s laws are unconstitutional and others not. What it does do is that anyone is bringing suit against the state, they can point to a precedent.
Mnemosyne
Question for people who read right-wing blogs so I don’t have to: is the small riot with stabbings in Sacramento getting any coverage as OMG HILLARY’S THUGS! or are they steering away from it because the other side was an out-and-proud white supremacist group?
(For those who hadn’t seen the news: there was supposed to be a neo-Nazi rally in Sacramento (CA) this weekend, but our local anarchist assholes showed up, too, and a bunch of people got stabbed. Basically no good guys in this situation.)
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Hal:
Not likely:
I can think of several reasons why the EU won’t allow any backsies, in no particular order:
1. They don’t want member nations to threaten to leave in order to get any kind of concessions or special treatment;
2. They don’t want to give nationalists cover for claiming that EU membership equals a loss of sovereignty;
3. The longer this process plays out, the more damage it does to European and world markets.
Buyer’s remorse does not guarantee a refund.
nutella
@Jeffro:
Nope. Trump is not going to volunteer to stand next to a guy on stage who is 14 years younger and a million times more good-looking than he is. Not gonna happen.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Probably a lot of them, but it will be a fact-based decision in each state to see whether the restrictions are rational and in the best interest of women. It will be like an equal protection inquiry, I suspect — are there similar procedures (minor surgical usually no problem but potentially really dangerous like colonoscopies or some plastic surgery?) which do not suffer the same burdens. It will be a long road ahead, but the presumption is now probably against such restrictions.
Seanly
@aimai:
Okay, trying to see if I have this right. UK wants to negotiate (or at least start them) before they invoke Article 50 so they can see how bad it’ll be? However, the EU is sticking to their guns that the leaver should invoke Article 50 to start the negotiations or STFU?
Hasn’t there also been some chatter that Scotland might throw a wet blanket on the entire thing?
Davebo
Boy it’s a good thing oil prices are so high and we in Texas can afford such frivolous litigation.
Women, what are you gonna do? Next thing you know they’ll want to vote.
Cat48
@JPL:
He could take an IQ test, too. I’m sick of informal requirements that GOP attacks add.
So, a DNA test? They still want Obama’s college transcripts. I truly hate the Gop.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: TPM has a good quick article answering your exact question:
Mnemosyne
I’ll bet I’m not the only one thinking that one of the reasons Obama’s approval rating has been rising lately is that even white Republicans are now saying to themselves, He may be a secret Muslim who’s totally incompetent, but at least he’s better than Trump.
catclub
I read that Bill Clinton was paid $4.2m/yr to be an honorary chancellor of a for-profit (Laureate U) outfit.
And sure enough, there it is on the Clinton’s 2014 IRS forms. I wonder if Laureate got its money’s worth.
It really is amazing that you can look those up.
Fair Economist
@smith:
Trump can give his own nomination speech! It’ll be the greatest EVAH!!
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Yep. The reason we know about those speeches to Goldman Sachs (and the American Camping Association) is that it’s all detailed on their tax returns, and they’ve been publicly releasing their full tax returns for 20+ years now.
eclare
@Corner Stone: Yikes! You’re in Houston, right? And isn’t this the second time in a few weeks? WTF is happening to your transformers?
ETA: Do you have any bags of frozen peas or corn you could put around your neck, or a baggie with ice, to cool you off? Seriously, not snark. I put a plate of ice in front of my fan here.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Sure he’s destroyed America, trampled the Constitution, and hosted meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood at the White House, but at least we still have low wage help around the house.
Davebo
@Corner Stone: You may want to invest in a natural gas powered backup generator.
Hurricane season is here after all!
aimai
@Cat48: My god I would love to see a televised IQ/Alzheimer’s test made mandatory for the Presidency. Instead of a debate lets have a panel of psychiatrists ask the same set of questions of each candidate, on a split screen, so the audience can see how long it takes them to answer a question or do a puzzle or whatever the hell that looks like. Of course it wouldn’t make for riveting tv. It would be more like the monty python sketch where they try to talk about the writing of poetry as though it were a sport, but it would be epically wonderful when applied to Trump. Can’t even imagine how he’d handle a rohrshach blot test (even if they no longer do them).
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!
liberal
@hovercraft: What makes you think they’d give a pass to a Democratic male who was divorced? I can hear the low-information cries now: “Our first divorced president!!1!”
liberal
@Mnemosyne: And if it’s out in the open, it can’t be corrupt, amirite?
Cat48
@aimai:
I agree it would be fun to watch. The GOP just really sounds out of touch with reality at times so there may be cause. ,Clinton belonged to that org for folks with high IQs, can’t remember org name?
MENSA, I’m not qualified!
hamletta
NVM
rikyrah
Donald Trump calls Elizabeth Warren a âracistâ
06/27/16 04:16 PM
By Steve Benen
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) hasnât just been active in calling out Donald Trump; sheâs also positioned herself as one of the nationâs most prominent Democrats that Republicans just love to hate.
This NBC News report, for example, is a reminder that the presumptive GOP nominee is doing more than just trading rhetorical jabs with a Senate critic. One gets the impression that Trump vehemently dislikes Warren on a rather personal level.
Letâs pause to note two things. First, if Donald J. Trump, of all people, wants to have a debate about who is and isnât âa racist,â heâs making a terrible mistake. Second, the background on Trumpâs latest whining has to do with Warren family lore about a Cherokee ancestor.
Republicans donât believe Warrenâs family history, and have used this in recent years to make ugly, racially charged attacks.
rikyrah
@Poopyman:
They don’t have the balls to do it.
Barb2
Generators
Honda makes some quiet models. Fire Departments in our area discovered the Honda Models – homeowners switched after seeing these units in action. In the Puget Sound we have a lot of power outages – tall trees, heavy rain followed by 80 mph wind. No power for a week or more in the dead of winter – frozen well pumps makes the Hondas a must have. Replacing the dead well pump is way more expensive than the Honda generators.
RV owners use the Hondas as well. We used one at Chaco canyon in New Mexico. Restricted hours, but time enough to charge batteries. These generators are very portable.
We still have a giant old loud generator, unused for years. The compact quiet Honda replaced it.
Look for sales – often RV supply stores run sales on the Honda generators.
rikyrah
How Britain Can Break from Brexit
A roadmap for how Britain can walk itself back from its disastrous referendum.
by Richard Ned Lebow and Simon Reich
June 27, 2016
Like so many important events, âBrexitâ â the decision by British voters to withdraw from the European Union (EU) â is the outcome of both social forces and human agency. It offers important political lessons for how to maintain Western democracy and cooperation.
The successful campaign to withdraw Britain from the EU was the work of disgruntled Tories who have not gotten over the loss of empire, the decline in unquestioned authority and privilege of the upper class, and who share the delusion that independence from Europe could somehow restore this bygone era. For decades, these backward looking Tories were consigned to the backbenches of the Conservative parliamentary party. Their moment came in 2013 when Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that the people must âhave their sayâ on Europe and promised to hold a referendum if re-elected. In February 2016, Cameron honored his pledge, announcing a referendum in June. Those voting to withdraw from the EU won a narrow victory â 52 to 48 percent.
The English, the elderly, the rural, and the uneducated voted disproportionately in favor of leaving. But among young voters, 75% wanted to remain in the EU, a percentage almost matched by Londoners, voters in several other major cities, and those in highly educated communities like Oxford and Cambridge. The young are justifiably angry that the opportunities the EU offered them have been taken away by the same generation that has increased their tuition fees and made house ownership an impossible dream. Like many educated and cosmopolitan British people, they have multiple identities, and European is one of them.
Leaders are rarely, if ever, the prisoners of public opinion, and all the more so on the question of the EU in Britain, where nearly half the population supports remaining. So how and why did David Cameron create a crisis that would have been so easy to avoid? The answer lies in his exaggerated fear of UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) and its leader, Nigel Farage. Committed to leaving the EU and reclaiming British âindependence,â by 2014, the UKIP benefitted from the defection of two Tory MPs â one of them appropriately named Reckless â and were doing well in the polls. Tory backbenchers were increasingly outspoken on the EU, and David Cameron agreed to hold a referendum, hoping the promise would keep his party united and present further defections to UKIP. This was a huge miscalculation by the prime minister. Support for UKIP had already gone flat and the Conservative Party easily weathered the defection of a couple of disgruntled members. Moreover, the 40 or so MPs pushing for withdrawal constituted a small faction of the 330 Conservative MPs. Collectively, they might have brought the government down, but did not do so because of the greater expected cost to themselves.
gene108
@liberal:
Yes, you are right. People almost never put corruption out in the open. I can’t think of a case, where someone was corrupt and made their misdeeds public.
Link
I think the Clinton’s did not do themselves any favors by grabbing up as much money as they could by trading off of their names/fame.
They’d both made millions from book deals.
But it isn’t corrupt to get paid, if people want to pay you.
Cashing in on fame and celebrity is a weird area, wherein people do not begrudge athletes (or other celebrities – musicians / actors, etc.) getting paid for endorsements based on their fame, even though they already make a lot of money.
Yet it’s distasteful, when the Clinton’s trade on their fame and celebrity for more money. I know it’s due to the political influence they have and the apparent appearance of impropriety, but it’s interesting to me nonetheless.
dmsilev
Interesting anti-Trump story for your reading pleasure, courtesy of the LA Times. I tried to quote from it, but there are apparently some Bad Words that FYWP doesn’t like and it ate the previous attempts at comments.
smith
@dmsilev: Wonkette featured that story this morning, and pointed out that Ivanka, who usually gets a forgiving look from the press, seems to have participated fully in pulling off this con. Before this is over, the Trumps are going to be right up there with the Palins as a national embarrassment.
philadelphialawyer
Kennedy does not like to be made to look stupid. He really believes in the “undue burden” standard. The Terrible Three are in on the con, and so they have no limits. But Kennedy does. He will allow “his team” to get away with some stuff, but he won’t sit up there forever and pretend that black is white, just cuz the Texas (or some other Traitor State) Legislature says it is.
Pretty much the same in the affirmative action case, too. Kennedy said there was some, conceivable kind of AA that would pass muster. And so he has to uphold at least one such policy, if only to send the message to the selfish pricks who challenge such laws that they cannot count on making a fool out of him indefinitely.
Also, Kennedy likes to be the deciding vote, and, in the abortion cases, voting the other way would only have resulted in another four-four tie, and that would not be very dramatic. So he got to play philosopher-king AND he prevented himself from looking stupid.
Trinity
John Cole, I love you so much for this.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Define “corrupt.” I realize it’s an article of faith now that giving the same anodyne speech on “entrepreneurship” is corrupt when it’s for Goldman Sachs but a-ok when it’s for the American Camping Association, but you should probably realize that it seems like a silly distinction for those of us who don’t belong to the Church of Eternal Clinton Corruption.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
These are the same people who protested a fundraiser at George Clooney’s house as being proof of the
violencecorruption inherent in the system so, no, I don’t think they agree with you that it’s okay to pay movie stars and athletes millions of dollars.As someone who makes their living in entertainment, I obviously have a very different view of whether or not people should be paid for their art.
debbie
This ruling is as great as SCOTUS’s ruling on ACA back in 2012. It was all I could do not to shout out for joy at work.
Of course, since the only side that matters is the conservative side, there have been a number of interviews with local Right to Lifers. They are surprisingly non-snarly, but one person said they were going to go with a new approach: Instead of protecting the safety of the mother (which was also bogus), pro-life groups will work to protect fetuses from pain. Sigh.
Ruckus
@smith:
Way too late for that. Drumpf has been an American embarrassment for a long time. A very long time. The entire family really qualifies. Rich people should be mad that he is going out of his way to make being rich look bad. Now if he really was rich……
Mike E
@Felonius Monk:
Sure, to buy a shiv-proof robe for Kennedy
Cleos
@Cermet: After 64 posts, one that actually makes a reference to the Supreme Court decision. Well, slap my ass and call me Fanny.
J R in WV
@Trollhattan:
Not at all. We got an automatically starting / power company disconnecting Generac installed, it’s about 3x4x5 feet on a little concrete pre-cast pad. They ran a natural gas line from the house over to the generator. It runs every Tuesday for 15 minutes to self-test.
You can hear it running, but it very soon fades into background noise, not as loud as a neighbor running a leaf blower, or even a lawn mower (we don’t have a lawn, or neighbors close enough to hear a bulldozer!). Ours will not run the big A/C compressor, but our basement stays quite cool even during heat waves. I guess we could get a room AC if it looked like we would need it. It actually costs less to run on natural gas than power from the company costs.
The guy who’s business put it in is a retired mine electrician, and most of his workers are guys who used to work in coal-related jobs, like a machinist, laid off, who used to fab parts for mining equipment.
Very responsible workers!
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: Unfortunately, at the moment it looks like we’re on track to elect Hillary with a Republican Senate, with a greater than 50% probability. There might be a lot of ticket-splitting and not very long coattails down ballot. Early days, though.
Matt McIrvin
(This is also what worries me about naming a Dem Senator as VP candidate.)
Paul in KY
@Barb2: Honda stuff is generally top of the line.
Paul in KY
@gene108 ‘You don’t understand! They drove a dumptruck full of money to my house!’
Paul in KY
@dmsilev: I started out sorta chuckling at some of the maroons who got taken, but then I got to thinking more & these people weren’t doing some get-rich-quick scheme, they just thought ‘Trump’ would mean it was 1st class & would get built, etc.
Very, truly sad. Should be some great fodder for campaign commercials there.