One thing about me people should know… I hate phone calls. I just don’t want to talk on the phone. Text, email, chat… all good.
But a phone call?
It’s the one thing I’ve avoided while doing my own acts of resistance. I’ve emailed, signed petitions, and the like. I’ve wanted to fax, but never had a way to do that.
And now I do, and you, can, too.
It’s resistbot.io, and Teen Vogue has a great write-up about it…
From Reuters…
Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, on Monday emphasized the need for judicial independence even as Trump castigates jurists who have ruled against him, while Democrats questioned whether he would rule against abortion rights and gun control while favoring corporations.
With the ideological balance of the Supreme Court at stake, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened its confirmation hearing for Gorsuch, a conservative federal appeals court judge from Colorado. Republicans praised Gorsuch, 49, as highly qualified for a lifetime appointment as a justice.
“I think we’re off to a good start,” Republican Chuck Grassley, the committee’s chairman, said afterward, with senators getting their first shot at questioning Gorsuch on Tuesday.
Committee Democrats noted Gorsuch has the chance to join the court only because Senate Republicans last year refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nomination of federal appellate judge Merrick Garland. Despite slim chances of blocking his nomination in the Republican-led Senate, Democrats raised questions about Gorsuch’s suitability for the job.
From the Washington Post:
Homeland Security officials on Monday unveiled the administration’s first list of law enforcement agencies that refused to detain jailed immigrants beyond their release dates so that the federal government could take them into custody and try to deport them.
Federal officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in a conference call with reporters, said local agencies, including some in Maryland and Virginia, failed to honor 206 detention requests from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.
On the plus side, at least most of will know who the “good guys” are in this…
But this bullying tactic cannot go unpunished.
Remember Michael Brown? You really should.
The shooting of Michael Brown occurred on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a northern suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white Ferguson police officer, after reportedly robbing a convenience store. The initially disputed circumstances of the shooting sparked existing tensions in the predominantly black city, where protests and civil unrest erupted. The events received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracting protesters from outside the region. They generated a vigorous national debate about the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans, and about police use-of-forcedoctrine in Missouri and nationwide. A St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict Wilson, and he was exonerated of criminal wrongdoing by the United States Department of Justice.
On Wednesday, March 15th, Michael Harriot published an article at The Root meant to correct public misconceptions around what happened. I feel it is important to share this here…
So here’s what Conspiracy-Theorist-in-Chief wants to do to the EPA (from the Washington Post):
The Trump administration plans to take a sledgehammer to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Thursday’s proposal by the White House would slash the EPA’s budget by 31 percent — nearly one third — from its current level of $8.1 billion to $5.7 billion. It would cut 3,200 positions, or more than 20 percent of the agency’s current workforce of about 15,000.
“You can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it. So, I guess the first place that comes to mind will be the Environmental Protection Agency,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. “The president wants a smaller EPA. He thinks they overreach, and the budget reflects that.”
(Content note: the song I’m highlighting is a song written in response to the way society allows rapists to get away with their crimes.)
I’ve been a pretty big fan of First Aid Kit ever since I first saw the music video for their song Hard Believer, a pretty openly atheist song.
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo consisting of sisters Klara (vocals/guitar) and Johanna Söderberg (vocals/keyboards/AutoHarp). They’ve actually been around for a long while, now, and are immensely talented.
On March 8th, International Women’s Day, they released a new song called You Are The Problem Here. This is how they described it:
“You Are the Problem Here” isn’t a typical First Aid Kit-song. It’s angry and direct. It’s a song written out of despair. After reading about yet another rape case where the perpetrator was handed a sentence which did not at all reflect the severity of his crime we felt upset and vengeful. We were, and are, sick of living in a society where the victims of rape are often blamed for the horrible thing that has been done to them. Our message is clear and should not be controversial in the least: if you rape, you are the problem. Alcohol is not the problem. So called “youth culture” is not the problem. You are. And you always have a choice.
On March 11th, they released the lyric video for the song:
On a whim, I decided to have a look through Congress’s repository of legislation currently being considered, and found the following bills. All have only been introduced, but I find them to be rather disturbing. Almost all of the ones I’m highlighting here have to do with abortion, and, of course, banning it. Considering the fact that they all include “exceptions”, I have a feeling that they won’t pass a conservative congress that wants to ban abortion outright, with no exceptions at all.
But they are worth highlighting, regardless…
The following bills have been filed in Congress. Some have even already passed the Senate or House.
They include terminating needed agencies, defunding Planned Parenthood, criminalizing abortion, etc. Some have no summaries written at the Congress.gov link, so I did not include summaries here. For those who don’t know, Congress.gov is where you can go to basically, follow legislative sessions. You can find out what bills, resolutions, etc have been filed, and keep a close watch on ones that interest or worry you.
Please make your voices heard and register your complaints about these bills. Not one can be allowed to pass…
Agent Orange loves Fox News. So let’s let them know how we feel about him, shall we?
I knew this would happen. I knew, the moment Sir Tiny Hands was put into office, all the states that have legalized or decriminalized marijuana would be done. I knew it wouldn’t last under him.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that he expects states to see “greater enforcement” of the federal law against marijuana use, a move that would be at odds with a growing number of states’ decisions to legalize it.
Spicer, taking questions from reporters at the daily briefing, differentiated between the administration’s positions on medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.
President Donald Trump “understands the pain and suffering that many people go through who are facing especially terminal diseases, and the comfort that some of these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring to them,” he said, also noting previous action by Congress not to fund the Justice Department “go[ing] after those folks.”
As for “recreational marijuana, that’s a very, very different subject,” Spicer said.
Spicer suggested that the administration is opposed to encouraging recreational marijuana use and connected it with the crisis with opioid addiction in some areas.
“When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” he said.
The Department of Justice, Spicer said, will be “further looking into” the marijuana enforcement question, he said, punting questions about the specifics to the department.
“I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it,” he said.