August 2, 2023

Make sure to store this as a receipt

https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1686516930356596736?s=46&t=TEkGdOYblbsNDtM5BiaFTQ

Pence: “Today's indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States...Our country is more important than one man. Our Constitution is more important than any one man’s career."

I mean, when you’re right, you’re right. We just can’t forget this in case Pence ever decides to weasel his way to defending TFG again.

July 29, 2023

They're actually running with this crap

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1685289076994318338?s=46&t=TEkGdOYblbsNDtM5BiaFTQ

‘ Blaze podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey suggested God brought “good out of evil” slavery, compared slavery to “trials.”’

Another one:

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1685265252332785664?s=46&t=TEkGdOYblbsNDtM5BiaFTQ

‘Blaze podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey suggested Japanese people may have benefitted from internment camps.’

I don’t care what kinds of skills they learned. How many died before they saw freedom? What kind of abuse did they endure? What kind of trauma did they have? No amount of skills learned were worth that, in my opinion. Besides, couldn’t a free person learn such skills in the real world anyway?

What a whitesplaining racist bunch these people are.

Slavery was not good. Internment was not good. Let’s say they did ‘benefit’ by learning something, it certainly didn’t outweigh the aforementioned.

Do you know who benefitted from slavery? White people.

July 28, 2023

Alabama went from Doug Jones to this

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/called-summer-gop-brushes-off-144037564.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHeHGRhd66Cvze4q7S0wZdA0pry25lWb8JC0PrKfoZq6JIh5zZvGw33v5ZT59ll9qgFwiBnQoeDtteS4oyYz0ocCPrwqKxxwo2QJW9U3o3AZRqHo4zlFIJGtOQ_ANUG1S7zeJqI96lhj3R6l98qjc75GfJ4zlxtURjGGyU7Vpv75

———Snip

“There is a very scientific word for this: It’s called summer,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told HuffPost when asked about the heat on Thursday. “It’s no hotter right now than it’s ever been. I’ve been in this heat all my life in July and August as a football coach. This world’s not heating up, come on.”

———Snip

I sure hope Alabama knows why sane people in the country looks down on upon them and sees them as a joke.

There’s a lot more stuff I don’t know than what I do know. So, when I don’t know about something, I either keep my mouth shut or ask questions. These people, who aren’t experts, what aren’t in the field, simply brush off those who are, trying to make ‘expert’ a dirty word and just shoot from the hip.

Tommy, you know more about climate than climate scientists as much as I know more than you about football Xs and Os.

July 25, 2023

Calling all Ohioans on DU

https://www.dispatch.com/story/opinion/columns/2023/07/23/ohio-special-august-election-why-vote-no-on-issue-1-out-of-control-will-have-all-the-power-suddes/70430717007/

———Snip

If Issue 1 passes, about the only amendments likely to even reach the ballot could be those proposed by the General Assembly’s GOP supermajorities.

For 111 years, Ohioans have been able to amend their state constitution — and it is theirs, not the legislature’s — by a simple majority (50% plus 1) of the votes cast statewide. That can’t happen if Issue 1 wins approval on Aug. 8, because Issue 1 would require a 60% “yes” statewide vote to pass future constitutional amendments.

And for 111 years, Ohioans have been able to place a proposed a constitutional amendment on the ballot by gathering a specified share of signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties. But if Issue 1 wins approval on Aug. 8, it would require future petitioners to gather a share of signatures in all 88 counties.

Also, for 111 years, if sponsors of an amendment submit petitions with fewer than the required number of voter signatures, sponsors are granted an additional ten days to gather the necessary signatures. Not so if Issue 1 wins approval on Aug. 8: Petitioners would no longer have such a ten-day grace period.

———Snip

Choice is on the ballot in Ohio, democracy is on the ballot in Ohio. Tyrannical state legislatures need to be curtailed, and here’s an excellent way to get your rights back to vote no on August 8, then to vote for choice in November.

Republican legislatures bite the hands that feed them by not wanting them to vote on certain issues because they know they’ll lose.

I’m not in Ohio, I’m the next state over in Indiana aren’t given a say on this issue. All you Ohioans, you are - even Republicans lean no more than they do yes (41% to 38%).

Do not sit this referendum out, get the vote out if you’re a Buckeye. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everybody you know, if possible.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

July 22, 2023

Barbie hate - imagine being this miserable

https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1682468998607171584?s=20

Ben Shapiro: My producers dragged me to see ‘Barbie’ and it was one of the most woke movies I have ever seen. My full review of this flaming garbage heap of a film will be out on my YouTube channel tomorrow at 10am ET.


https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1682007241891667970?s=20

Shapiro: All you need to know about #BarbieTheMovie is that it unironically uses the word "patriarchy" more than 10 times.

https://twitter.com/TheLaurenChen/status/1682172080047923201?s=20

Lauren Chen: The Barbie movie literally has Ken try to bring the Patriarchy (explicitly called the Patriarchy) to Barbieland & amend the Barbieland Constitution to remove Barbies from positions of power.

The lengths the studio went to hide how INSUFFERABLY WOKE this movie is are astounding.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ted-cruz-barbie-movie-china-b2378196.html

----Snip

"Ted Cruz once again accused the upcoming Barbie movie of pushing “Chinese communist propaganda” - even though he hasn’t seen it.

For weeks, the Texas senator has zeroed in on a scene from a trailer showing a world map of a contested area in the South China Sea.

Sen Cruz said in an interview with The Daily Signal: “There’s a scene in ‘Barbie,’ where there is this map of the world, and it’s drawn like with crayon. I mean, it’s really a very simple cartoon. And so they have this blockish thing that is called ‘Asia.’ And then they’ve drawn what are called the nine-dashes.

He was referring to the “nine-dash line” used on Chinese maps, showing what it claims is its territory within the South China Sea.

“This is Chinese communist propaganda in which the Chinese are asserting sovereignty over the entirety of the South China Sea,” the Texas Republican continued. “And they don’t have any right to it under international law, but they are trying to take it away from their neighbors there.”

This isn’t the first time Mr Cruz has made these accusations about the highly anticipated movie. Earlier this month he accused the film of “pushing Chinese propaganda” when the trailer was released."


---Snip

Do these people have nothing better to do? What kinds of miserable existences do they have to have so much hate, so much animosity, towards something so trivial?

No movie is for everyone, nobody's going to like every movie. I saw Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One today with a relative who's visiting me at the moment. We both enjoyed it.

Barbie's never really been my thing, though I think I played with a Barbie doll or two when I was a little, little kid, and no, I didn't have any siblings either. I didn't mind it.

Would I enjoy the Barbie movie? Would I like it? The answer is that I'm not sure. Maybe I'd be surprised by watching it, or maybe I'd dislike it more than I disliked Blue Valentine way back in 2011.

You know what I wouldn't do? Use such a movie to fight a nonsensical culture war by getting triggered over what other people do or how other people live their lives - provided they're not hurting anybody. I'm about living my life, minding my own business - if there's a backlash against any patriarchy, if men or women dress or act counter to supposed gender archetypes, that doesn't affect me.

But they use it to push an extremist agenda, even warped enough to think it's "Chinese Communist propaganda." Who comes up with this stuff? Who even thinks of this stuff?

Even if that Barbie movie is the worst movie in the history of cinema, I would still find it less sufferable than any warped MAGA rant.

Speaking of sufferable, Ben Shapiro looks so tortured in that picture, and I'm so here for it.

July 19, 2023

HAHAHAHA!!!!

https://twitter.com/meshawnmaddock/status/1658652379145723904?s=46&t=TEkGdOYblbsNDtM5BiaFTQ

For those who can’t see tweets, former Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock posted a picture of a skeleton, taunting us, ‘Dems waiting for my arrest’

That was tweeted on May 16.

She’s just been charged in the fake elector scheme.

Justice can sometimes be delayed. It doesn’t always mean it’s justice denied.

Hey Meshawn, it was worth the wait. Not only are you a traitor, you’re smug about it, too.

July 1, 2023

Why I think Obergefell is, and isn't, in trouble

Yesterday’s ruling has people, for good reason, questioning if the court will uphold Obergefell, whether it’s bigots who want it struck down or LGBTQ/allies who fear the worst.

These concerns are valid, and I have to say my hopes of them upholding aren’t too high, but I also have my reasons for having some hope.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way and start with the reasons why I think Obergefell is in trouble.

- Constitutional argument: Some people think almost and all federal legislation is unconstitutional, the states rights argument and the fact marriage, nor same-sex couples are specifically enumerated in the Constitution. I personally don’t our rights in this country are limited to what is specifically enumerated, but many seem to think so.

- Yesterday’s ridiculous ruling: If SCOTUS ruled on a hypothetical case for this decision, what’s to stop them from going after Obergefell on a hypothetical, instead of an actual case?

- Can’t trust what they say: What the stolen seats said about Roe in their confirmation hearings and what they actually said on Roe proved to be two different things. They misled at best, perjured themselves at the worst, not ideal for anybody on the highest court in the land.

- No respect for precedent: Roe, affirmative action are the biggest that comes to mind, and while I’ll get to in a bit Obergefell being different, it’s clear precedent is nothing to them.

- Optics: This court is deeply unpopular, they know that, they reversed Roe anyway, and thus giving our side the midterms. They know they’re not trusted, yet they’re flaunting their corruption in our faces and all but officially taunting us that we can’t do anything to reign in their corruption, with a few blows to end Friday a year after Dobbs.

Now, here’s why I don’t think all hope with Obergefell is lost.

- Constitutional argument: While marriage and same-sex relationships may not be specifically enumerated in the Constitution, it is still a freedom. It’s been deemed a civil right and both Loving and Obergefell had rulings grounded in equal protection, arguably stronger legal footing than Roe.

- Some precedents may be safer than others: While this court, especially Thomas, doesn’t seem to buy into the idea of substantive due process, they don’t seem as opposed to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, using it to gut affirmative action this week. I’m not sure Loving is safe, but I’d think the legal reasoning behind it makes it safer than say, Griswold, and those are two cases I hope are never overturned.

Executive orders vs. acts of Congress: Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act and was signed into law by President Biden. This court struck down a vaccine executive order and also his executive order on student loans, saying Congress didn’t pass a law on either of these things. Kavanaugh seemed to imply in his Dobbs concurrence that Congress at least gets some kind of day in the abortion debate and this court saved Obamacare again in California v. Texas. While acts of Congress certainly outside the scope of judicial review, I’m inclined to think this court is more interested in gutting the president’s executive orders than they are legislation he’s signed into law, which leads me to…

The vaccine mandate debates: The court struck down one of the president’s executive orders on vaccine mandates in the workplace, but did allow a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers to go into effect, thanks to Roberts and Kavanaugh joining in with the liberals. If healthcare workers had an obligation to be vaccinated for the people they were treating, I would think government workers have an obligation to issue marriage licenses for those they’re serving, provided there are two consenting adults, vs. the freedom to go unvaccinated/private business arguments.

Different tiers of conservatism: Let’s be honest, all six suck, but to what degrees they suck vary. Roberts isn’t an ally on race relations or guns, and seems to take a conservative stance on religion, but he’s why the ACA still exists, he voted against overturning Roe, voted for Bostock and will assist with Kavanaugh in giving liberals a win. Kavanaugh seems to be to the right of Roberts, as evidenced by Dobbs, but he doesn’t agree with forbidding traveling out of state for an abortion, and in Bruen, took the position that states can require permits and at least is open to gun control. Next are Gorsuch and Barrett. Sometimes, Barrett’s to the right of Gorsuch, sometimes Gorsuch is to the right of Barrett. I don’t think they have the votes to overturn Bostock. Gorsuch and Barrett are in the middle for the court’s conservatives- pretty bad, but not Thomas/Alito bad.

Certs vs. decisions: California v. Texas and Moore v. Harper come to mind. California v. Texas was 7-2, while Moore v. Harper was 6-3, meaning at least one person who voted to grant cert voted to save the ACA and voted to save democracy in these cases. SCOTUS also denied cert to Box v. Henderson, letting the decision stay requiring same-sex parents be on a birth certificate. Do I think there are the votes to grant cert to overturn Obergefell? Absolutely. But granting cert is not the same as overturning.

Legal standing and compelling interest: I don’t agree with pro lifers/forced birthers, but see a more compelling argument that they at least pretend to care about the fetus and want it born since they don’t want a life affected. They couldn’t care less once it’s born, but I could see why not wanting to abort, as Alito touched on this in his Dobbs opinion, it involves a life. Gay marriage doesn’t involve the taking of a life. In fact, it has no bearing on those who aren’t involved in the marriage. It doesn’t threaten heterosexual marriages or anybody’s lives. Nor does it infringe on anybody’s freedom, and if you feel threatened by two men or two women who live 1,000 miles away from you and they marry, the problem is you, not them.

I can absolutely see this corrupt court once again reviewing same-sex marriage, and while I’m anything but confident/positive of them affirming Obergefell due to what I said, the aforementioned reasons prevent me from being completely doom and gloom on the matter.

July 1, 2023

Be patient, things *will* get better

Things obviously didn’t go our way today after the pleasant surprise on Moore v. Harper (and if they could only make one good ruling on the outstanding cases this week, I’m glad it was that one), but setbacks aren’t and don’t have to be permanent.

We’re not going to overturn Dobbs overnight. We’re not going to restore some of the protections this clown court struck down overnight, but I promise you, we stay in the fight, we win this, it’ll all be worth it.

Remember that choice won in every state it was on the ballot in 2022, remember Dobbs prevented a red wave, though President Biden is unpopular, so too are his potential challengers, maybe even of a greater magnitude.

So, here’s what we have to do.

- Not lose focus, keep voting blue. Two of the six are both in their seventies, we play White House and Senate keep away from Republicans, we can eventually get one or two seats when they kick the bucket.

- Keep getting the messaging out about this court, why it matters and those who have suffered from these Draconian rulings.

- Remember to vote in midterms and know those matter, too. Let’s use Kavanaugh’s own words against Republicans when he said abortion would now be decided by the people’s representatives in the states or in Congress, insinuating there could be leeway somewhat for federal protections.

- Stay angry, but do not get defeated. Anger can be a great motivator to get to the ballot box, defeat is not.

How badly do we want our rights back? Our progress back? If we trust that this is a process and treat like one in this world of instant gratification, we can be in business if we keep voting and we keep winning.

We could be screwed if we let Republicans get in and appoint more/younger justices.

Or we could look back on moments like this one day and say that while it never should’ve happened, it was worth it to be patient and reclaim what we never should’ve lost.

June 19, 2023

When you show your stupidity AND racism

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1670790959347519490?s=46&t=d_Lmx0f3ZtHq2niXcqIo0A

Okay, it was originally a Texas one and a national one, so slavery was originally permitted before abolished. Poll taxes and literacy tests were permitted before abolished, the suffrage age was 21 before lowered to 18.

‘When it was enacted, most Americans didn't even know it's meaning and many still don't.’

Well, gee, Americans have a chance to *gasp* actually learn something if they haven’t already? Oh, the horror!

‘It's supposed to celibate the end of slavery, but slavery didn't end in the USA then.’

December 25 was originally a pagan holiday before Christians hijacked it to celebrate their deity who is believed to have been born in the summer.

‘We already had MLK Day to celibate civil rights for blacks.’

Well, Mr. Blacksplainer, we already ‘celibate’ Memorial Day, why do we need Veteran’s Day? We ‘celibate’ President’s Day, why do people need to observe Washington’s birthday or Lincoln’s birthday?

We have Military Appreciation Month in May, why do we need Military Family Month for November?

June 17, 2023

Just stop with the crusade about 'our children'

These people don’t actually care about children. They’re silent when they’re killed in school shootings, fantasize about marrying them and allow them to be married before they turn 18.

They’re silent when they’re abused by ‘Christian’ workers, don’t care about them having a social safety net - one Alaskan lawmaker even insinuated a child dying of child abuse was good for society so the taxpayers wouldn’t have to subsidize that child.

Oh, and if you’re 10 years old and pregnant by rape, they want to force you to have that baby.

It’s time for the rest of us stand up, see through their crap and call them out on them using children as a shield for their bigotry.

That’s all this is. Nothing more, nothing less.