I just want to remind readers that Self Care in general, as well as Great Guitar Solos and Astronomy Picture of the Week are open for submissions. I’m eventually going to run out of stuff to post in these series, and would love to know what space pictures/videos/ideas you find interesting, what guitar solos you love, and what videos, pictures, recipes, etc you just enjoy and make you feel good, so I can post them here.
Don’t be shy! I’m genuinely curious, and I’d be happy to share it!
From ABC News…
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the Trump administration has “looked at” changes to libel laws that would curtail press freedoms, but said “whether that goes anywhere is a different story.”
President Trump frequently slams the press for its coverage of him and in March suggested changing libel laws.
Libel is when defamatory statements about someone are published. But the American press enjoys some protection from lawsuits claiming libel because of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech rights.
At least, that’s how it should be…
For those who don’t know, I live in New York. But at the moment, I’m boarding a flight to Georgia. I’ll be there until April 25th. I’m very excited.
I’ve got a lot planned. I’m going to be rooming with my awesome brother. We’re going to a festival, cooking food, and hanging out. I’m also going to be checking out the Anthropology graduate programs at a school or two down there.
I’ll have Self Care posts scheduled, and I will attempt to post a few other things, but I can’t make any promises beyond the Self Care posts. I’m continuing the checking out. I want to enjoy this time and not be stressed.
I’m trying my best to avoid things that stress me this week. I need less stress in my life, even if it’s temporary.
I should say… when I say that I have “a lot planned”, a very large part of that plan is just relaxing and enjoying myself, not stressing about anything. That’s the biggest thing, actually. I don’t set up itineraries for a vacation. To me, that seems to defeat the purpose. I don’t want to be on any more of time crunch then I have to be. One day, I might have enough money to take an open-ended vacation… maybe. That day is not today. But 7 days… I can enjoy that.
This is definitely self care for me.
See y’all in a week!
Sorry I forgot the Self Care post today. My brother got into town last night, so I stayed up getting kinda drunk on really expensive scotch with him and Dad, and then I woke up at 12pm today and had work at 3pm. So… apologies.
As for news about the Circus Peanut administration… it’s been kinda light in terms of stuff worth highlighting, to be honest… although that’s partly because I decided, what with Passover coming up and my vacation the week after, to take a break… my anxiety’s been spiking horribly again, to the point where 10mg of Lexapro a night is doing fuck all for me. Although I’m sure that’s been obvious considering how my posts have been pretty much since Agent Orange was elected (nothing but anger, cynicism, and hatred).
I need some laughter and happiness.
But anyways… that ableism post has been coming along, and in fact I’m going to focus on it for a bit, so I can put that and my commenting policy up before I start my vacation in Georgia next week.
I’ll see y’all with Great Guitar Solos on Monday at 12pm.
Neil Gorsuch is now on the Supreme Court.
By a 54–45 vote, the Senate confirmed Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday.
The vote effectively returns control of the judicial branch — and with it, the U.S. Constitution — to Republicans. Once Gorsuch is sworn in, Republicans will enjoy a 5–4 majority on the Supreme Court.
Lisa Simpson saying “well, I guess that’s it.” in defeat.
I literally don’t even know how to title this. I’m so fucking mad…
U.S. Launches Missiles at Syrian Base Over Chemical Weapons Attack
The United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria overnight in response to what it believes was a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 100 people.
At least six people were killed, Syria claimed, but the Pentagon said civilians were not targeted and the strike was aimed at a military airfield in Homs.
All but one of the missiles hit their intended target, one U.S. military official told NBC News. The other missile failed.
The strike completed a policy reversal for President Donald Trump — who once warned America to stay out of the conflict — and drew angry responses from Damascus and its main ally, Russia.
From Daily Kos…
Multiple sources are reporting that the House has pulled the vote on Trumpcare, breaking their own promise of the past seven years to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Seven years they had to come up with some kind of bill to replace it. Seven years they had every conservative policy wonk (the real ones, not Paul Ryan) providing advice and offering ideas. In seven years they did squat.
Well, not entirely squat. They had over 60 votes to repeal Obamacare in part or in whole. Every one of those votes was estimated to cost $1.45 million dollars—each vote—of taxpayer money. That’s not counting all the staff time, the committee time, the opportunity cost of everything that was postponed or just not done because of their single-minded obsession on this one thing. Billions of dollars spent—just on votes—not on all the campaign ads for this.
Seven years. They had seven years. And all they had to show for it was a crappy cut-and-paste job from the original law. A bad bill that destroyed Medicaid (Paul Ryan’s frat-boy “dream”), destabilized Medicare, and threw 24 million people off of healthcare.
All for the tax cuts for the wealthy.
And in the process, they self-inflicted incalculable wounds. Ryan had to pull this vote, after strong-arming and threatening his members, even though it would be damaging to them back home. It damaged Ryan AND Trump in the process and makes it even harder for Republicans to pass anything in the future.
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…
I don’t feel like doing a single post for each thing in yesterday’s AJ+ roundup. So I’m just going to link the headlines here with some short excerpts from each article…
From CNN…
Two federal judges have temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s travel ban, both citing Trump’s statements about Muslims during the presidential campaign as part of their rulings.
A ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii Wednesday resulted in a temporary restraining order nationwide, hours before it was set to go into effect. In a decision published Thursday morning, another federal judge in Maryland specifically blocked the 90-day ban on immigration for citizens of six Muslim-majority countries.
In a 43-page ruling, US District Court Judge Derrick Watson, who presides in Honolulu, concluded in no uncertain terms that the new executive order failed to pass legal muster at this stage and the state had established “a strong likelihood of success” on their claims of religious discrimination.