Putting Oil CEO Kelcy Warren on a Parks & Wildlife Board is ludicrous. Its like giving Darth Vader a spot on the Jedi Council.
— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) April 20, 2017
“Putting Oil CEO Kelcy Warren on a Parks & Wildlife Board is ludicrous. Its like giving Darth Vader a spot on the Jedi Council.”
Yep. Who better to be a steward of wild spaces? Think Progress has the full story.
Michael Reagan has decided, in his defense of one Mr. O’Reilly, to focus on … cleavage! Surprised, right? C’mon, no one ever could have guessed that one, no, no. The sheer nerve of women, existing with those inconveniently placed bumps, let alone wearing something low cut. Oooh, the evil.
Conservative commentator Michael Reagan, the son of former president Ronald Reagan, defended Bill O’Reilly this morning over claims that the recently fired Fox News host sexually harassed women.
Reagan, a contributor to the conservative outlet Newsmax, shared posts on Facebook and Twitter insisting that if women wear “low cut dresses,” then men should consider suing “for sexual arousal”
There was a link to that tweet, I removed it as the tweet in question is now gone. It would seem Mr. Reagan got some feedback on that one which he didn’t like.
“If women are going to wear low cut dresses that show cleavage don’t be harassed when we men look. Or shld we sue for sexual arousal?”
Oh, so that’s how it works, women just have to decide we aren’t harassed. Ever. Then everything will be okely dokely!
Another deleted Tweet stated:
Hot Choclare used to be a compliment on your looks today it is called sexual harassment..@oreillyfactor
— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) April 21, 2017
It’s been replaced with this one:
If someone calls u brown sugar because u are in their eyes gorgeous and blk.2 them it's a compliment 2 U it's harrassment,then tell them.
— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) April 22, 2017
“If someone calls u brown sugar because u are in their eyes gorgeous and blk.2 them it’s a compliment 2 U it’s harrassment, then tell them.”
Oh, the denseness of someone who absolutely refuses to get the point. What you think about anyone’s appearance, and how it affects your boner has no place at all in any relationship other than a mutually intimate one.
Via RWW.
Toddler Trump, by Sham.
Despite the Tiny Tyrant’s recent reversal on the importance of the first 100 days, he’s absolutely desperate for a “win” of some kind. For the most part, this involves another attempt at repealing the ACA, or failing that, trying to force congress to hand over forty billion dollars for the Grate Wall of Stupidity™. More and more Americans are standing fast on not wanting the wall at all, and it’s not a remotely realistic “win” to push for, but Mulvaney is dangling an ACA concession, but only if all the money is handed over for the wall. Things were working, more or less, before Trump had to toss a late night wrench into the works, making everything all about his “wins” and nothing more. He has said “yeah, we want to keep government open”, but his actions don’t match that sentiment in any way. As usual, government in this case doesn’t mean jack shit if it doesn’t translate to “wins and approval” for the monstrous ego of Trump.
Trump’s instability has already caused a great deal of damage and irreparable harm; that harm keeps being extended with every rollback, all in the service of making the Tiny Tyrant feel like a big man. Now, he’s looking to toss anything into the cavernous maw of his always hungry ego, and if government shuts down, well who cares? I have no doubt that Trump would see that only as a bully tactic he could use, as that’s the current tactic, and the only one he possesses.
As the deadline for a spending bill looms, the Trump administration is reportedly throwing a monkey wrench into negotiations. The Trump administration is fighting for border wall funding or a crackdown on sanctuary cities, according to Politico, to give the president a victory during his first 100 days in office.
Desperate for a win, the administration is risking a government shutdown by insisting on funding the border wall. Congress has until April 28 to clear a spending bill — but negotiations between Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate stalled over the last 24 hours after White House officials showed they wouldn’t move on funding the wall, Politico reported on Thursday evening.
A victory! The Tiny Tyrant must have a victory! Once again, language choice reveals a very nasty, unstable mindset. Think Progress has the full story, as does Politico.
Pablo Delcan; Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.
President Donald Trump smashed records this month with a reported $107 million dollar worth of donations to the “58th Presidential Inaugural Committee”—doubling the amount received in 2009 by former President Barack Obama. But a deep dive into Trump’s Federal Election Committee filing, spearheaded by the Huffington Post’s Christina Wilkie, presents evidence that a large number of donors used “phony records” or are “front groups.”
Wow: Scores of donors to Trump's inauguration are phony records or front groups. Help us dig, spreadsheet is open! https://t.co/e7IVvIx8gB
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) April 21, 2017
“Wow: Scores of donors to Trump’s inauguration are phony records or front groups. Help us did, spreadsheet is open! https://t.co/e7IVvIx8gB”
The look into all this fraud is being crowd-sourced, if you can help dig around a bit, do so!
Via Raw Story.
This looks like a great deal of fun, with a serious subject underneath: toxic masculinity. If you like or don’t mind spoilers, head on over to Think Progress for the full rundown. If you don’t like spoilers, just watch the trailer and don’t click the link!
‘Colossal’: A monster movie that takes on toxic masculinity.
Oh my. A post at The Creators Project brought all kinds of memories flooding back, especially in regard to KRLA. I remember The Freep fondly.
Psychedelic Center Ltd. Design by Jerry Kay; Sterling Steam Calliope Manufacturing Co., 1967.
From Lofty: Today’s dinosaur collection in the drain round the back of the airport. Swamp hens on the water, silver gulls in line, ibis on the fence. Click for full size!
© Lofty, all rights reserved.
A beautiful European Starling from Kengi. Click for full size!
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Jim Cooke/FMG.
Doctors are speaking out, once again, about the Tiny Tyrant’s mental state. I don’t think it has escaped anyone’s notice that Trump is not exactly the most stable of individuals; nor that his ego is a monstrosity truly out of control. I have no doubt that even the Trump Faithful have noticed this, they just find justifications and rationalizations for it. The big problem here is power. The amount of harm Trump could cause outside of the political arena was high, on an individual level, however, the possibility for harm now is past the stratosphere. This is not someone you want in charge of a monstrously over-powered military and weapons. This is not someone who should even be close to knowing the nuclear codes. This is not someone who can pull off a brinksmanship game with nukes, because no sane person would even consider doing such a thing, the potential for catastrophe is simply too high. The other terrifying aspect to all that is that Trump has no resources other than his standby of bullying. He’s not knowledgeable, he’s not in the least shamed by his willful ignorance; he’s a 70something year old white man who relies completely on Fox News for his information. This does not make him different from all those other 70something white men who do the same, but they aren’t sitting in the perch of power, and no one really cares about whatever nutty stuff they might believe, thanks to Fox feeding.
As usual, there’s much talk about violating the Goldwater Rule, but we aren’t talking about someone who is campaigning anymore, we are talking about someone who has secured a position of great power, and someone who is not mentally or emotionally capable of handling such power. We should not be so cowed, as individuals or as a society, to hush everything up based on politeness, a la you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. There’s a time and place for such courtesies, but this is not one of them. There’s a maniacal, knowledge-deficient bully sitting in the white house, who is swayed by the last person to speak with him. This is not someone who is a thinker, let alone an independent thinker. This is a person who is utterly dependent on the thoughts and feelings of others, and does most things on a whim, much like turning into Mr. Tweet in order to parrot Fox and Friends on Twitter. There should be a discussion of Trump’s overall health, and that most certainly includes his mental health.
Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a group of psychiatrists has warned during a conference at Yale University.
Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical responsibility” to warn the American public about the “dangers” Mr Trump’s psychological state poses to the country.
Speaking at the conference at Yale’s School of Medicine on Thursday, one of the mental health professionals, Dr John Gartner, a practising psychotherapist who advised psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, said: “We have an ethical responsibility to warn the public about Donald Trump’s dangerous mental illness.”
[…]
The doctors have said that even if it is in breach of tradition ethical standards of psychiatry, it was necessary to break their silence on the matter because they feared “too much is at stake”.
It is not the first time Mr Trump’s mental health has been called into question. In February, Duty to Warn, which consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, signed an open letter warning that his mental state “makes him incapable of serving safely as president”.
The letter warned that the President’s tendency to “distort reality” to fit his “personal myth of greatness” and attack those who challenge him with facts was likely to increase in a position of power.
The Independent has the full story.
Also see: Narcissist-in-Chief, A Psychological Take on a Political Reality.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has come to Exxon’s defense — again. AP Photo/Eric Gay, File.
Climate change, why it’s a witch hunt, it is, for real and true! What this is actually about is protecting Exxon, with republicans going full court testerical over the issue, claiming the usual excuse, freeze peach.
Citing Exxon Mobil’s right to “free speech,” 11 state attorneys general — all Republicans — filed in court this week to stop an investigation into the oil and gas giant’s decades-long history of climate denial.
The attorneys general — from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin — filed a brief to support Exxon’s request to stop the so-called “Exxon Knew” investigation, arguing that there is a “public policy debate” over climate change and that the investigation is an “unconstitutional abuse” of power.
“The Constitution was written to protect citizens from government witch-hunts such as this one, where officials use their authority and the threat of criminal prosecution to try and suppress speech on a viewpoint they disagree with,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time Texas has intervened in the investigation on behalf of the state’s largest company. Paxton and his counterpart from Arkansas filed on behalf of Exxon in May of last year when it challenged a Virgin Islands subpoena. Paxton has said the investigations are “ridiculous.”
Think Progress has the full story.
Also see:
The Earth just passed another carbon threshold.
Climate change will fuel terrorism, report warns.
Dow Chemical gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, now wants pesticide risk study buried.
Promotional photo released by Lego showing a Legoland employee helping a child who’s accompanied by an adult (Lego).
A Legoland Discovery Center has opened in Melbourne, Australia, much to delight of children and adults. The playground area, marketed to the 3 to 10 year olds, is not accessible to adults unaccompanied by a child under the age of 16. Some supposedly adult men are appalled by this, yelling discrimination, and violation of human rights. It would be nice to think that acting this childishly is a strategy, but unfortunately, it seems to be a mindset which screams out “I am a spoiled rotten adult male, I have privilege! How dare you keep me out!?”
A handful of adult men are pissed that the Playground area is restricted to children. And one is even threatening to file a human rights complaint.
The Discovery Center opened on Tuesday and adults who aren’t accompanying children (16 or under) have been turned away from the Playground area, which is marketed to kids from 3-10 years of age. Adults without children are still allowed in the shopping area of the attraction.
The Melbourne Legoland location plans to have an “adult night” one night a month, but that’s apparently not enough for some grown-ass men who think they’re being discriminated against. As The Guardian points out, the age restrictions are in place at 17 other Lego Discovery Centers around the world.
“Absolutely appalled by the fact I was unable to enter without somebody under the age of 16,” one man wrote on Facebook. “Lego is not just for children and I’m sure the majority of people would agree with me. I understand it’s a play center but I have no intention on climbing around, simply just to look and admire. Incredibly disappointed, sort yourself out Legoland!!!”
One man even said on Facebook that he was filing a complaint with the local state Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission on the basis that the age restriction discriminates against people without kids. It’s unclear if a formal complaint has yet been filed.
Okay, look, I’m a childfree person, but this complaint is utterly idiotic. It’s one small part of the center, which is distinctly for small children. It’s not discrimination against childfree people to keep lone adults out of a playground for small children. I expect it’s a matter of safety concerns, and Lego wanting a place where parents can relax and not worry about their sproglets. You won’t die if you can’t stomp all over a playground for the little ones. Go on one of the adult nights, you can play to heart’s content. Go to every adult night.
“It’s a bit of a bad joke on your shop having age limits,” another man wrote before the Legoland opening. “When you look on a box of Lego it says ages from 4 too 99 or dose [sic] the shop have different rules. What a joke as I’ve loved Lego for 40 something years and my some [sic] loves doing his moc stuff. Think about it as I believe you need to rethink your rules..”
[…]
“Absolutely disgusted to hear that you will discriminate on grounds of age,” another man wrote a couple of weeks ago, as the controversy began before Legoland even opened its doors. “Lego is something that is enjoyed across all the ages – I personally have thousands of dollars worth of the creator and architecture series and it’s clear that many adults without children will want to experience the attractions.”
Oh FFS, grow up already. Kids should have their own space at something like Legoland, and they do. You aren’t being shut out, you can wander all over the place, with one small exception, unless you have sprogs. Is it really that vital to you, to squeeze out small children, so you can squish yourself into a kid sized chair, and sit at a kid sized table?
Jesus Christ, way to be whiny annoyances having a tantrum, men. Perhaps if you manage to act like an adult, you could be allowed to accompany someone who does have children.
Rats, ever extraordinary!
Deprived of oxygen, naked mole-rats can survive by metabolizing fructose just as plants do, researchers report this week in the journal Science.
Understanding how the animals do this could lead to treatments for patients suffering crises of oxygen deprivation, as in heart attacks and strokes.
“This is just the latest remarkable discovery about the naked mole-rat — a cold-blooded mammal that lives decades longer than other rodents, rarely gets cancer, and doesn’t feel many types of pain,” says Thomas Park, professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led an international team of researchers from UIC, the Max Delbrück Institute in Berlin and the University of Pretoria in South Africa on the study.
In humans, laboratory mice, and all other known mammals, when brain cells are starved of oxygen they run out of energy and begin to die.
But naked mole-rats have a backup: their brain cells start burning fructose, which produces energy anaerobically through a metabolic pathway that is only used by plants – or so scientists thought.
Photo via AP.
Evangelism everywhere, promoting a theocracy, with a firm footing in the white house.
…The schedule does not list who attended that session, but Ralph Drollinger, a right-wing pastor with a long history of ties to Perry and other Trump Administration officials, claims on his web site to be running weekly Bible sessions specially for the Trump Cabinet. He has praised the new administration for its power to “change the course of America in ways that are biblical.”
[…]
In a January radio interview, Drollinger praised then-senator Jeff Sessions, who “hungers and thirsts for the Scripture,” for his performance during his confirmation hearing, when he provided a Biblical justification for his draconian views on immigration. “I’ve had the distinct honor of teaching him on this subject, and many others,” Drollinger said. “There’s nothing more exciting, when you’re a Bible teacher, to see one of the guys you’re working with—to see him or her articulate something you’ve taught them when they’re under the gun.”
Vice President Mike Pence, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, nominee for Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, HHS Secretary Tom Price, and Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, have all sponsored the Capitol Ministries Cabinet Bible study, according to literature put out by Capitol Ministries.
The Cabinet Bible study is the just newest piece of what Drollinger has described as a “para-church ministry” with a “target audience” of political members. In a September 2015 interview, Drollinger described his mission as creating a “factory” to mass-produce politicians like Michele Bachmann, who is on the Capitol Ministries board. “She thinks Biblically,” Drollinger said. “She doesn’t need a whole lot of time to figure out how to vote because she sees the world through a scriptural lens. We need more men and women like her in office.”
[…]
For an outside group to hold an event in a Congressional building, they must be sponsored by a senator or representative; dozens of Members of Congress sponsored Drollinger’s group, including Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Tom Price, and Sessions while they were all still on Capitol Hill. Rep. Mike Conaway, who recently took over the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election from Devin Nunes, is also a Capitol Ministries sponsor.
Now, Capitol Ministries holds three separate Bible Studies each week which it describes in its literature: one for Cabinet members (“7:00 am Wednesdays Mornings. Location Undisclosed. Light Refreshments Served.”); one for the Senate (“8:00 am Tuesdays, Rotating Offices of Senators. Hot Breakfast Served.”); and one for members of the House (“Capitol H324: Monday or Tuesday Evenings after First Votes Back. Dinner Served.”) In an interview in January, Drollinger described the House study as feeling like a truck stop and the Senate study feeling like a country club.
Everything in the article is highly disturbing and frightening. Recommended Reading. Fusion has the full story.
