www.newsweek.com Republican-appointed judge deals major blow to Trump's White House ballroom

Republican-Appointed Judge Deals Major Blow to Trump's White House Ballroom
#Newsweek

Only US Votes Against Women’s Rights Document At UN Commission - Health Policy Watch President of the UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock told the opening of CSW that the backlash against women's rights "feels as though we are forced to

For the first time in decades, consensus broke at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The United States cast the lone “no” vote on a document aimed at improving justice systems for women and girls worldwide. Misogyny is the official policy of the US under Trump.

💙🌊 #MESEN. #Maine.

Support JANET MILLS. She is the assured blue vote in the Senate. We actually know her policy stances both from her actual policy positions and statements as also her record of service.

Don’t play this seat!

Repost please.

Thank you for sharing, Corrina!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Well, well…

If the 14th amendment was not meant for modern immigrants, then the 2nd amendment was not meant for modern arms.

#truth

No argument from me about the "militant Israeli government"! But people are using increasingly careless, imprecise language like just referring to "Israel" instead of the government or the right-wing political parties, etc. It's a short step from that to just saying "the Jews."

So no one should ever be "sympathetic to Israel" for any reason? I don't think you people even hear yourselves anymore.

Her husband is a double amputee in ICE prison. She confronted Kristi Noem over its cruel conditions: ‘I have a fire inside’ Mildred Danis-Taylor dropped everything to advocate for the release of her husband, Rodney Taylor. A brutal year of legal and health challenges led her to Capitol Hill

ICE has kept a disabled double amputee prisoner for over 14 months.

Rodney Taylor has been denied access to his prosthetic legs.

Forced to crawl across dirty floors to access food.

Placed in solitary.

Denied medical accommodations.

They’re killing him & he needs the community to make noise!

RT if you miss having a President with empathy

View of the earth from space at night, with the lights of numerous cities apparent.

April is Earth Month. Love your Mother. 💙

This interview is a uniquely valuable perspective. Please watch.

Loved it!

Many people are upset when raptors attack the birds at their feeders, but these wonderful creatures are not our pets and it's all part of nature.

Adult Cooper's hawk across the yard near a brushpile sitting in a scattering of gray feathers that it has plucked from its prey, a Eurasian collared-dove. The gray hawk has its back to the camera but has its head turned and is looking at me at the kitchen window. The lighter rusty colors are visible around its face and along one side of its body. Blue Mountains, eastern Oregon.

Close up of the Cooper's hawk, showing its adult coloring--gray back with scattering of white spots and rusty barring on its head and underside (visible on one side)--while it sits atop its partially-plucked prey, a Eurasian collared-dove, and looks over its shoulder at me watching it through the window.

Looked out my window yesterday and spotted a mess of light gray feathers near my brush pile and knew that a dove met its end in the talons of a Cooper's hawk, which preys on the larger birds (Eurasian collared-doves and starlings) in my yard. Then I realized the hawk itself was still on the kill! 🪶

68-28, so not quite that bad, but still very lopsided! 😐

Concur! 😊

Photos of a No Kings rally in La Grande, Oregon, showing protesters with signs, flags, and costumes.

La Grande, Oregon, today. We even had a frog!

Indeed.

I never realized until Trump that the whole country is based on the honor system. 😩

Time sensitive: this is the last day to submit comments opposing the Bureau of Land Management's clearcutting of Oregon's ancient forests. This is a tool that educates you on just how diabolical it is, and it helps you submit your comment. morethanjustparks.com/oregon-old-g...

@grahamformaine.bsky.social blamed women for sexual assault, saying they should "take some responsibility for themselves" and "act like an adult."

Here's what Maine women had to say about his words.

Apache women make last-gasp attempt to save sacred land at SCOTUS A group of Apache women filed an emergency request at the Supreme Court to prevent a sacred religious site from being swallowed by a massive copper mine.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: Apache women have filed an emergency request to the US Supreme Court TODAY to stop the destruction of Oak Flat, a sacred site protected since 1955. This is the last legal lifeline. Here is what you can do RIGHT NOW. 👇

Chip in! Show your support with a contribution.

🎉 NEW STATE PAGE NOW LIVE!

📣 #TENNESSEE Democrats need your help!

🚨 This is an #UnlikelyHeroes page *deliberately* featuring Dems running in RED districts to boost statewide turnout & force Republicans to defend their turf.

Donate today! #Blue26

secure.actblue.com/donate/tn26h...

Graphic supporting Kathleen Riebe for Utah's 1st Congressional District.

Utah State Sen. Kathleen Riebe is running for Congress under the state's new court-ordered map. She has a reputation as a fighter on Utah's Capitol Hill and will bring a strong voice on issues such as healthcare, education and the environment.

Elect Kathleen Riebe
Utah's 1st Congressional District

Well, I won’t be getting invited to sit at the cool kids’ table in the Georgia Democrats’ lunchroom. One of the movers and shakers in the Georgia Democratic Party posted today that the biggest mistake Obama and the Democrats made when they were “in power” was failing to pass single-payer health insurance. Her Democratic activist friends quickly piled on saying there was a lot of competition for the things Democrats had “failed” to do when they supposedly had all this power. One commenter said Obama should have “overturned Citizens United.” Another said he should have appointed a Supreme Court justice without Senate approval. Another said Democrats should have “codified Roe when they had the chance.” Every time the post popped back into my feed, someone new had added another alleged Democratic failure. I kept hoping the original poster would push back a little, since she had started the thread. I kept hoping someone would point out the basic reality that Obama never actually had the kind of power these comments assume he had. I kept hoping someone would point out that the Senate has a thing called a filibuster that requires 60 votes. Nobody did. So eventually I did. Or maybe I mansplained. Whatever I did got me promptly blocked, so apparently I am now banned from the cool table.

The biggest problem Democrats have is not that Democratic leaders don’t do enough. The biggest problem is that Democratic voters are constantly fed wildly unrealistic expectations about what Democrats are capable of doing within the actual structure of our government. When those unrealistic expectations aren’t met, voters get disappointed and sit at home the next election to punish the very people who were trying to do the best they could with the power they actually had. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. On election night in November 2008, it looked like Democrats might reach that magic number, riding Barack Obama’s coattails. But they were two short — two weeks after election night President Obama resigned his Illinois senate seat and in Minnesota the race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman went to a contested recount. Obama’s seat was filled fairly quickly on December 30, 2008 when Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed former state Attorney General Roland Burris to fill it. But the Minnesota seat went through recount after recount and months of litigation before Franken was finally declared the winner and seated on July 7, 2009, more than six months after the session had started. Democrats had the magic 60 votes. Seven weeks later, on August 25, 2009, Senator Ted Kennedy died of brain cancer. Back to 59. A month later, on September 24, 2009, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick appointed Paul Kirk as a temporary placeholder to fill Kenedy’s seat until a special election could be held. Democrats had 60 again. But in January 2010, Republicans won the special election when Scott Brown captured Kennedy’s seat, and was sworn in on February 4, 2010, permanently ending the Democratic supermajority.

So the famous “60 Democratic votes” existed only in two fragile windows: The first was the July 7, 2009 seating of Al Franken to the August 25, 2009 death of Ted Kennedy — about seven weeks. The second was the September 24, 2009 appointment of Democratic placeholder Paul Kirk to the February 4, 2010 swearing in of Republican Scott Brown — just over four months. That’s it. Two brief windows. Yes, that’s tedious history. But facts matter. When it came time to pass the ACA, President Obama simply didn’t have 60 votes. And many of the other senators who were nominally Democrats, were people President Obama couldn’t count on — they were very conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats that were only able to get elected from their states because they ran as extreme conservatives and they had no interest in sweeping progressive legislation. Joe Lieberman alone threatened to kill the public option and ultimately did. Others like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln demanded concessions just to get the Affordable Care Act across the finish line. But sure, keep spreading the falsehood that “Obama and the Democrats” could have passed single payer if they had just wanted to. He barely got the Affordable Care Act passed as it was. And the only reason the ACA ultimately survived legislatively is because Democrats were able to use the budget reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes instead of 60. Reconciliation is a special procedure designed for budget legislation — taxes and spending — that directly affect the federal budget. Under the Senate’s “Byrd Rule,” provisions that don’t primarily affect spending or revenue can be stripped out.

A sweeping single-payer system would not simply be a tax or spending tweak. It would require a massive restructuring of the entire health insurance system — eliminating private insurance markets, rewriting regulatory frameworks, and creating a nationwide government-run system. That kind of sweeping legislative overhaul would not qualify for budget reconciliation and would have been subject to the normal Senate rules. Which means it would have required 60 votes. And Democrats only had 59. Democrats didn’t fail to pass single-payer. They failed to possess the magical powers that would have allowed them to ignore basic math. And the comment that went unchallenged (except by me) claiming the Democrats were a big failure because they didn’t “overturn Citizens United”? Are they kidding? Democrats didn’t have the power to do that. The Supreme Court had already ruled that unlimited independent political spending is constitutionally protected speech. Any law Congress passed attempting to overturn that decision would have been immediately struck down as unconstitutional by the same Supreme Court. The only way to overturn Citizens United is through a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds vote in the senate — that’s 67(!) votes, not just 60. Where are Democrats going to get 67 senate votes? Changing the constitution also requires the measure to be ratified by the legislature in 3/4ths of the states — that’s 38(!) states. Democrats currently control 23 state legislatures. Not even close.

I’m not a politics expert. But I try to keep learning and updating my views when reality or history challenge them—even when it’s uncomfortable.

When we repeat narratives like "Dems don't do anything", or "both parties are the same", despite evidence to the contrary, we're no better than MAGA.

Search-and-rescue crews were “flying blind” trying to rescue survivors from deadly tornadoes that hit the Midwest last week.

Why? Because Kristi Noem hadn't approved FEMA’s $200,000 contract with a tornado-tracking tool.

But she had time to spend $220 million on anti-immigrant ads. Priorities.

🚨 Police are responding to active shooter at Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan

Are you a "Justice delayed is justice denied" person or a "The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine" person?

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Kristi Noem.