ShazzieB
ShazzieB's JournalThat quote sums it up perfectly.
There is NO margin of error here. None, zero, zip, nada. I'd be shocked if the DOJ weren't being cautious. Why wouldn't they be? They are navigating in completely uncharted waters here, and the stakes are about as high as it gets.
Moving on the slobfather quickly is not nearly as important as getting it RIGHT. A swing and a miss is not an option. They have to hit a home run on the first pitch. And not just any home run; they need to hit it out of the park and into the next county, if not the next freaking dimension.
In addition to the above, we need to accept the fact that there is a lot we don't know. We can't read Merrick Garland's mind, and we have no way of knowing what he is thinking or what he is planning, much less what factors he has to take into account that we have no knowledge of. Assuming we know anything about his intentions, much less his emotional state (i.e. that he's scared), is highly unrealistic.
He either knows what he's doing or he doesn't. If he knows what he's doing (and his track record says he does), we have to trust that he's doing what needs to be done. If he does NOT know what he's doing (which I strongly believe is NOT the case), we're all fucked anyway, and arresting TFG tomorrow would not change that.
Google Maps Regularly Misleads People Searching for Abortion Clinic
Chey was a 19-year-old college sophomore living near Orlando, Florida, when she discovered she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion. She didn’t have anyone she could ask for guidance, so she searched Google for a nearby clinic. “I wanted to find somewhere close to my partner, so I could tell him and bring him with me,” she said in a recent interview.
A Google Maps query for an abortion led her somewhere that offered the opposite: a so-called crisis pregnancy center—a type of non-medical organization with a mission to encourage women like Chey to go through with their unwanted pregnancies.
Google Maps routinely misleads people looking for abortion providers, a new analysis by Bloomberg News has found. When users type the words “abortion clinic” into the Maps search bar, crisis pregnancy centers account for about a quarter of the top 10 search results on average across all 50 US states, plus Washington D.C., according to data Bloomberg collected in July. In 13 states, including Arkansas, South Carolina and Idaho where the procedure is newly limited, five or more of the top 10 results were for CPCs, not abortion clinics.
Chey had no reason to mistrust the result; the Alphabet Inc.-owned search giant in recent years has worked to become a destination for accurate medical information. But CPCs, which are generally backed by religious groups, never provide abortions or refer patients to clinics that offer the procedure. Instead of the help she wanted, the center gave Chey a rubber fetus and a stack of pamphlets with false claims that abortions lead to mental health issues and a higher risk of breast cancer in women.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-google-search-abortion-clinic-crisis-pregnancy-center/
This stuff really grinds my gears!
Big government is fine with them IF...
...it's up in some pregnant person's uterus or sniffing around the genitals of trans kids. Or shooting dirty looks at gay people for having the gall to exist.
The GOP: proudly policing your private parts and personal proclivities whether you like it or not!
A mom's campaign to ban library books divided a Texas town -- and her own family
Weston Brown had given up challenging his mother’s anti-LGBTQ beliefs. But that was before she started coming after library books.
For months, the woman in the clip had been demanding that the Granbury Independent School District ban from its libraries dozens of books that contained descriptions of sex or LGBTQ themes — books that she believed could be damaging to the hearts and minds of students. Unsatisfied after a district committee that she served on voted to remove only a handful of titles, the woman filed a police report in May accusing school employees of providing pornography to children, triggering a criminal investigation by Hood County
Now, in the video that Weston found online, she was telling the school board that a local Christian pastor, rather than librarians, should decide which books should be allowed on public school shelves. “He would never steer you wrong,” she said.
Weston, 28, said his heart was racing as he watched and rewatched the video — and not only because he opposes censorship. He’d instantly recognized the speaker.
It was his mother, Monica Brown.
The same woman, he said, who’d removed pages from science books when he was a child to keep him and his siblings from seeing illustrations of male and female anatomy. The woman who’d always warned that reading the wrong books or watching the wrong movies could open the door to sinful temptation. And the one, he said, who’d effectively cut him off from his family four years ago after he came out as gay.
MORE: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/moms-campaign-divided-texas-town-family-rcna42031
This story is well worth the read, imo, but I share it with the caveat that it is heart-breaking.
I am not anti-religion in a general sense, but I am anti the kind of religion that morphs into hate and intolerance and leads someone to do the kinds of things this woman is doing.
My heart goes out to Weston Brown and everyone like him who has been mistreated by their parents due to their sexuality and/or gender identity. Monica Brown does not deserve to have this remarkable young man as her son.
A mom's campaign to ban library books divided a Texas town -- and her own family
Weston Brown had given up challenging his mother’s anti-LGBTQ beliefs. But that was before she started coming after library books.
For months, the woman in the clip had been demanding that the Granbury Independent School District ban from its libraries dozens of books that contained descriptions of sex or LGBTQ themes — books that she believed could be damaging to the hearts and minds of students. Unsatisfied after a district committee that she served on voted to remove only a handful of titles, the woman filed a police report in May accusing school employees of providing pornography to children, triggering a criminal investigation by Hood County
Now, in the video that Weston found online, she was telling the school board that a local Christian pastor, rather than librarians, should decide which books should be allowed on public school shelves. “He would never steer you wrong,” she said.
Weston, 28, said his heart was racing as he watched and rewatched the video — and not only because he opposes censorship. He’d instantly recognized the speaker.
It was his mother, Monica Brown.
The same woman, he said, who’d removed pages from science books when he was a child to keep him and his siblings from seeing illustrations of male and female anatomy. The woman who’d always warned that reading the wrong books or watching the wrong movies could open the door to sinful temptation. And the one, he said, who’d effectively cut him off from his family four years ago after he came out as gay.
MORE: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/moms-campaign-divided-texas-town-family-rcna42031
This story is well worth the read, imo, but I share it with the caveat that it is heart-breaking.
I am not anti-religion in a general sense, but I am anti the kind of religion that morphs into hate and intolerance and leads someone to do the kinds of things this woman is doing.
My heart goes out to Weston Brown and everyone like him who has been mistreated by their parents due to their sexuality and/or gender identity. Monica Brown does not deserve to have this remarkable young man as her son.
Trumpy be like
this snowman.
The snowball has started rolling down the hill, picking up momentum, getting bigger and bigger. There's no stopping it now.
Yes, he's gotten away with a lot of crap in the past. Wiggled out of some very tight spots (2 impeachments, etc.). But there is something called a tipping point, one definition of which is "the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place." (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tipping%20point)
That is where we are now. Trump is nothing but a flimsy snowman, and the big ass snowball is coming for him. Nothing is going to stop it now.
If somebody was pointing an AR-15 at me, I think I would assume life or limb was at risk.
To me, that would go without saying. I think I would feel so threatened that I would be willing to do whatever was necessary to eliminate that threat. It wouldn't be about whether it's right or wrong to defend property or money with lethal force. It would be about "this miscreant here is ready to kill me and very well-equipped to do it, so if I have a way to stop him in his tracks, then hell, yes, I am going to do just that."
I'm not arguing about what would be most morally right or politically correct or anything like that. I'm talking about what my gut reaction would be. It's easy for us to sit here and armchair quarterback this thing, and talk about whether that store owner "should" have done x or y, but I think it's a whole different thing when you're literally staring death in the face.I wouldn't blame anyone in a situation like that if they went straight to defending themselves the best way they knew how, and I don't blame that store owner.
P. S. Just for the record, I am not and never have been a gun owner, and don't ever plan to acquire one. (The extent of my experience with firearms was shooting a 22 rifle at a summer camp, in very controlled conditions, decades ago.) I am strongly in favor of common sense gun safety laws, especially banning assault rifles.
Airbnb removes Mississippi 'slave cabin' from listings after viral TikTok video
Oh, but there's no such thing as systemic racism in the U.S. How dare anyone suggest such a thing! 
“Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb,” the property-rental company said in a statement to NBC News. ”We apologize for any trauma or grief created by the presence of this listing, and others like it, and that we did not act sooner to address this issue.”
Airbnb added that the company is working with experts to develop new policies to address other properties associated with slavery.
The property at the forefront of the controversy is the Panther Burn Cottage at the Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Mississippi. It is no longer listed on the site.
Read the whole story and see the Tik Tok video here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/airbnb-removes-mississippi-slave-cabin-listings-viral-tiktok-video-rcna41092
Snipped in solidarity: the American men getting vasectomies after Roe - while they can
Following the supreme court’s abortion decision, urologists say more men are taking charge of their reproductive health, to permanent ends.
The supreme court’s recent overturning of Roe v Wade, and the nationwide convulsions over abortion access, was the final push he and his partner needed. When he read that Justice Clarence Thomas mentioned, in his opinion concurring with the controversial ruling, that the court should reconsider access to contraception, Shawn knew he had to move fast.
*snip*
As Shawn and his fiancee were mulling more permanent options for contraception, he began to notice an obvious disjoint between the care he was offered and that which women are typically afforded. He has heard stories of women seeking tubal ligation (colloquially, “tube-tying”) procedures who are pressed about the considerations of “the hypothetical man” – husbands, or even prospective husbands, who may take issue with the procedure. “I see women talking about how they need their husbands’ signatures,” he said, shaking his head, a little disbelieving. “My fiancee was there for my vasectomy. No one asked her. There’s a huge double standard with reproductive rights.”
Suddenly, with the upsetting of Roe, the cultural response to a “child-free” lifestyle has itself been overturned. Once regarded as a selfish gesture, sterilization can now seem downright altruistic. Little has certainly entertained these sorts of bigger political and social considerations. But he ultimately sees them more as post-hoc justifications for something he was already considering. “It sounds grandiose to say that it’s a show of solidarity,” he says. “I don’t want to get a girl pregnant, right? Abortion was never the first choice, obviously. But it was a choice.”
MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/27/vasectomy-roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court
After vandalism, UpRising Bakery re-opens to long lines in Lake in the Hills
The cafe had planned an all-ages drag show Saturday night but had experienced backlash over the previous few weeks. The cafe and the performers were committed to putting on the show, right up until their hands were forced by the overnight destruction.
*snip*
Several Lake in the Hills village trustees and the village president, Ray Bogdanowski, also stopped by Sunday to show support for the business, Bendel-Sac said.
*snip*
Woodstock Pride has been in contact with the cafe offering help, and Buffalo Grove Pride and Together We Stand McHenry County provided "generous" donations Sunday, Bendel-Sac said.
Lake in the Hills Police made an arrest in the case on Saturday. The suspect, Joseph Collins, 23, of Alsip, charged with a hate crime and criminal damage to property, is due in court on Tuesday.
MORE: https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20220725/after-vandalism-uprising-bakery-re-opens-to-long-lines-in-lake-in-the-hills
I said the other day that I wondered if the perp was from out of town. Turns out I was right! That dickweed had to drive over an hour to vandalize that Bakery!
Meanwhile, there has been a huge outpouring of support from the local community. This makes me happy for more reasons than one. I live right next door to Lake in the Hills, and I was shocked by the vandalism, because I truly believed this area was cooler than that. And I was right!
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Name: SharonGender: Female
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