From Lofty, lovely visions of summer rain. Click for full size!
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
From Lofty, lovely visions of summer rain. Click for full size!
© Lofty, all rights reserved.
Shutterstock.
Lawmakers in South Dakota are invoking emergency powers to overturn an anti-corruption law that was passed by a ballot measure during the 2016 election.
The South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act makes it illegal for lawmakers to receive more than a total of $100 annually from lobbyists in the form of “any compensation, reward, employment, gift, honorarium, beverage, meal, food, or other thing of value made or given directly or indirectly.”
The law, which was passed by a majority of voters in November, immediately incited panic among state officials and lawmakers. Some resigned from their posts while others cancelled meetings with any groups represented by lobbyists.
[…]
“In an unprecedented maneuver, state lawmakers are planning to declare a state of emergency so their repeal of the Anti-Corruption Act would take effect immediately, and deny voters their right to another vote on the measure through a veto referendum,” the statement explained. “The bill guts all of the Act’s provisions, including creation of an independent ethics commission, limits on lobbyists gifts to politicians, tougher penalties for bribery, stronger transparency, and a two-year ban on politicians becoming lobbyists when they leave office.”
Represent South Dakota warned that the repeal measure (HB 1069) was so poorly worded that it “may actually legalize bribery.”
Now it’s fake emergencies. Fake, fake, fake, fuck this planet. I want off. Via Raw Story.
Courtesy Gary Dorr.
Later, a veteran buddy looked it up to be sure, matched it up with our pictures, and based on his experience noted:
“My suspicion is that the Avenger Missile Systems deployed to Standing Rock are a cost-effective alternative to having an Apache Helo flying overhead when they need it. The Avenger system has Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) Capabilities. The civilian plane and helicopter probably don’t have FLIR and that is when they need an Apache Helo to “monitor” situations under darkness and record for evaluation later. Instead of calling up the Apache, they can have Avengers on-site for instant intelligence day or night. The Avenger system also has video capabilities. It costs them far less to have an Avenger system on the ground 24 hrs a day than to deploy an Apache Helo occasionally. The security ground forces have Night Vision but the Avenger has FLIR and a laser rangefinder along with video capabilities. The FLIR will be at least a plate-sized round lense mounted on the weapon rail on the left side (driver side) if there is one. Just a suspicion. If I am correct, there should be more info to request in a FOIA. The sheriff’s Department can’t all have TS Sec clearances so if they brief them all using Avenger footage, it should be low hanging fruit that would be unclassified.”
CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.
Trump’s team is worried. Seems they finally figured out they won’t be able to focus Donny at all. Instead of even pretending to do anything presidential, the Angry Tweeter in Chief spent most of his first weekend in office angrily tweeting, and siccing Spicer on the press, to present those alternative facts.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.
I was trying to read an article at Think Progress, but kept getting stuck staring at the photo. Yes, Melania Trump is obviously supposed to be the focus, but that’s not where my eye landed. Instead, all I could see was the face of the woman who got assigned or otherwise stuck with Trump. She looks incredibly uncomfortable, and embarrassed. The way Trump is hunched over is terribly creepy, too.
Via Think Progress.
CREDIT: AP Photo/David Goldman.
Think Progress has the breakdown on the three people short-listed for nomination to the supreme court, as well as the other five on the list. It’s not exactly a list of enlightened people. Given that Trump can’t manage to resurrect Scalia, he’s trying to get as close as he can. Just a bit here, click on over to read the whole nauseating list.
Neil Gorsuch. He authored a book arguing against legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia, and he sided with religious employers seeking to limit their employees’ rights to birth control coverage in the lower court decision in Hobby Lobby. Gorsuch also emerged as one of the judiciary’s leading spokespeople for an effort to hobble the Obama administration’s ability to promulgate progressive labor and environmental regulations. In the waning years of Obama’s presidency, Federalist Society events grew increasingly fixated on limiting federal agencies’ authority to take regulatory action of any kind. Often, they focused their ire on the Supreme Court’s venerable Chevron doctrine, which holds that courts should generally defer to agencies when the law authorizing a regulation is ambiguous, and typically should only strike down such regulation if the law clearly does not permit the agency’s action to move forward.
William Pryor. Pryor attacked Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court’s landmark criminal justice decision in Miranda v. Arizona as “the worst examples of judicial activism,” and he also described Roe as “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” As Alabama’s attorney general, he filed a brief in the Supreme Court arguing that “States should remain free to protect the moral standards of their communities through legislation that prohibits homosexual sodomy” (the Supreme Court disagreed in Lawrence v. Texas). … Similarly, Pryor penned a majority opinion suggesting that lawyers who wish to challenge voter ID laws, a common method of voter suppression, must clear potentially insurmountable hurdles in order to do so. And he called for employers’ rights to ignore laws they object to on religious grounds to be expanded even beyond the bounds established by the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.
Thomas Hardiman. Judge Thomas Hardiman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is one of the more ideologically enigmatic names on Trump’s list — although Hardiman has spoken at several events hosted by the conservative Federalist Society. … Hardiman also wrote a dissent in B.H. v. Easton Area School District holding that the First Amendment permits school officials to ban breast cancer awareness bracelets reading “I ♥ boobies! (KEEP A BREAST).” Though nine of his colleagues disagreed, Hardiman argued that these bracelets fell within an exception to the First Amendment’s free speech protections for student speech that is “lewd, vulgar, indecent, or plainly offensive.”
All the profiles at Think Progress.
Well, it didn’t take long for Trump to destroy what little healthcare this country has, and millions of people are going to find themselves uninsured, and yes, that will be a death sentence for too many people. One person is too many. Yesterday, I was reading about the possible scrubbing of websites, the disappearing of crucial information, and replacing it with fake data, in order to make killing healthcare look like a reasonable thing to do.
Today, I’m reading about medicare. Well, what’s left of it. Medicaid will no longer be a federal program, it’s been converted to a block grant program, putting states in charge of administration. This is not good news.
Even then, we knew what a promise from Donald Trump is worth. Which is why it should come as no surprise that the Trump administration is now planning to strip health coverage from millions of low-income households.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway confirmed on Sunday that Trump’s proposed Obamacare replacement would convert Medicaid into a block grant program. This would take its administration out of the hands of the federal government and put states in charge, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Further details are, presumably, forthcoming. But in the meantime, there’s plenty of research out there on prior Medicaid block grant proposals. When the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analyzed a 2014 block grant plan crafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) (then the chair of the House Budget Committee), it found that would result in a 26 percent cut to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by 2024. It’s difficult to figure out exactly how many people would lose coverage as a result, but here’s a rough guess from the CBPP report:
The Urban Institute similarly estimated that the 2012 block grant proposal would lead states to drop between 14.3 million and 20.5 million people from Medicaid by the tenth year. (That would be in addition to the 13 million people who would lose their new coverage or no longer gain coverage in the future due to repeal of the Medicaid expansion, with the number rising as high as 17 million if all states take up the expansion.)
At a minimum, block granting Medicaid will cost millions of vulnerable Americans their health insurance. Some of those people will die preventable deaths as a result.
The Trump administration is just a few days old. It has a nearly empty cabinet and a scant policy agenda. Its health care plan is mostly a giant blank. But President Trump, through one of his top surrogates, has made one thing clear: His promise to defend the coverage that low-income Americans currently have was a bald-faced lie.
Think Progress has the full story.
Dr. Richard Carrier is suing us for reporting on his well-known allegations of misconduct. These allegations were widely reported on throughout the community, including by third-parties critical and sympathetic to him who are not themselves defendants.
This lawsuit has all the hallmarks of a SLAPP suit — a lawsuit filed to stifle legitimate criticism and commentary. The named defendants are Skepticon, The Orbit, and Freethought Blogs – as well as individuals Lauren Lane, the lead organizer of Skepticon; Stephanie Zvan, a blogger for The Orbit; PZ Myers, a blogger for Freethought Blogs; and Amy Frank-Skiba, who publicly posted her first-hand allegations against Carrier.
We need your help to keep our voices alive. All the defendants are represented by the same attorney, First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza. Randazza is providing his services at a significant discount, but we are not asking him to work for free. Plus, there are thousands of dollars in “costs” for the case that don’t include legal bills, and there is no way to discount those. In order to continue fighting this lawsuit, we, the defendants of this case, have put together this campaign to raise money to defray our costs, some of which is outstanding. Donations will be used only for this case. In the event that the funds raised exceed our legal bills, they will be donated to Planned Parenthood .
If you can help to defray these costs, please do. No amount is insignificant. If you’re unable to donate, please help to amplify the signal. Our thanks.
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© C. Ford.
Arachnids, natch. From rq, click for full size!
© rq, all rights reserved.
Giliell found herself climbing the scaffolding of the new house, and took some photos. Click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
