you might not like this

Historians Find Evidence Of Nation’s Founding Lobbyists’ Campaign To Influence Constitution

WASHINGTON—Drawing on a trove of letters, diaries, and itemized receipts recently donated by private collectors, historians from Georgetown University published new evidence on Wednesday of the Founding Lobbyists’ intense behind-the-scenes campaign to influence the U.S. Constitution.

The documents reveal a concerted effort by America’s earliest corporate power brokers to curry favor with the Constitution’s framers during the 1787 Constitutional Convention all the way through the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, with delegates having been pampered with gifts such as expensive pocket watches, casks of fine Caribbean molasses, and extravagant quail-hunting trips to the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

“What we’ve learned is that these men—acting on behalf of cotton, barrel, and livestock interests, among many others—played a pivotal role in crafting the Constitution as we know it,” said professor J. Wilson Adler, noting that, for example, the Third Amendment barring the nonconsensual quartering of soldiers was only added after James Madison was treated to a feast of succulent brisket and stewed pumpkin care of the powerful boardinghouse industry. “For all the Founding Fathers’ brilliance and vision, it’s now becoming clear just how much the final language of the Constitution was shaped by, say, complimentary jugs of quality mead or all-expenses-paid gambling jaunts aboard company-owned schooners.”

Susan Collins (Maine)

Mike Lee (Utah)

Jerry Moran (Kan.)

Hooooly shit. According to this writer, Xfinity is falsely impersonating its customers in order to post anti-net neutrality comments on the FCC website.

Holy moly, Jennifer Rubin is speaking sense:

Let me suggest the real problem is not the Trump family, but the GOP. To paraphrase Brooks, “It takes generations to hammer ethical considerations out of a [party’s] mind and to replace them entirely with the ruthless logic of winning and losing.” Again, to borrow from Brooks, beyond partisanship the GOP evidences “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code.” 

Let’s dispense with the “Democrats are just as bad” defense. First, I don’t much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. It’s that party’s inner moral rot that must concern us for now. Second, it’s simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem — a “woe is me” sense of victimhood that grossly exaggerates the opposition’s ills and in turn justifies its own egregious political judgments and rhetoric. If the GOP had not become unhinged about the Clintons, would it have rationalized Trump as the lesser of two evils? Only in the crazed bubble of right-wing hysteria does an ethically challenged, moderate Democrat become a threat to Western civilization and Trump the salvation of America.

Indeed, for decades now, demonization — of gays, immigrants, Democrats, the media, feminists, etc. — has been the animating spirit behind much of the right. It has distorted its assessment of reality, giving us anti-immigrant hysteria, promulgating disrespect for the law (how many “respectable” conservatives suggested disregarding the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage?), elevating Fox News hosts’ blatantly false propaganda as the counterweight to liberal media bias and preventing serious policy debate. For seven years, the party vilified Obamacare without an accurate assessment of its faults and feasible alternative plans. “Obama bad” or “Clinton bad” became the only credo — leaving the party, as Brooks said of the Trump clan, with “no attachment to any external moral truth or ethical code” — and no coherent policies for governing.

[…]

Out of its collective sense of victimhood came the GOP’s disdain for not just intellectuals but also intellectualism, science, Economics 101, history and constitutional fidelity. If the Trump children became slaves to money and to their father’s unbridled ego, then the GOP became slaves to its own demons and false narratives. A party that has to deny climate change and insist illegal immigrants are creating a crime wave — because that is what “conservatives” must believe, since liberals do not — is a party that will deny Trump’s complicity in gross misconduct. It’s a party as unfit to govern as Trump is unfit to occupy the White House. It’s not by accident that Trump chose to inhabit the party that has defined itself in opposition to reality and to any “external moral truth or ethical code.”

The cheeky part in me wants to ask if this means Rubin wants to retract her infamous "Jews don’t like Sarah Palin because our men are intellectual snobs and our women are frigid bitches" essay. But I’m feeling magnanimous, so I’ll just give her credit for taking some personal responsibility and applaud (the uncompromising sections in bold certainly helped brighten my mood towards her).

Disabled Person: YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER FOOL!

The United States Government:

In order for disabled people to receive any sort of financial assistant for their housing, food, bills, medical supplies, etc., they cannot ever have more than $2,000 of resources to their name. Ever.

It doesn’t matter what it’s for.

You’re saving up for a new wheelchair?

For college?

To put a downpayment on a house?

Hell man, you just happen to budget for once in your life so that you can have some extra money in case something bad happens?

Your benefits immediately get cut off if you’re a cent over $2,000.

And, even worse, you usually end up having to pay back every dollar the government gave you that month.

So say you get $400. If they find out you’re twenty dollars over the resource limit, you have to give them all $400 back and you undergo an investigation of your funds to see if you will continue getting money.

“What if I spend the money that day?”

Doesn’t matter. In fact, from what I can tell, people who do this are actually put under investigation for fraud.

before the movie came out, Marvel gave him an exclusive preview screening. SOme people were upset because they felt if Marvel was really wanted to thank mantlo, they should have donated money to Mantlo’s family.

Sometimes, at the end of the month, he has no idea what to do with his money because the whole month went by and he still has 400-ish bucks in his account, and he fucking panics because he doesn’t want to get anywhere near 2,000.

And here’s the funnest part of the story!

One day he did a huge commission on Second Life and wound up earning 1500 bucks off of it, and he told the guy to donate it 500 bucks at a time over 3 months. The guy didn’t want to, and just donated all 1500, which put my brother at 2,036 bucks.

The state IMMEDIATELY (I’m talking less than an hour) called him up to tell him over the phone that they were canceling his SSI, because they noticed he had gone over the 2,000 buck threshold. He had to tell them that someone had made a charitable donation to him and that this was not a common occurrence in any way shape or form, and upon not believing him, my mother had to call to talk to them as his legal caretaker and say basically the same thing until they called off the cancellation of his SSI money.

He also had to cancel his renter’s assistance because it put him to 1,062 a month, so if he went 30 days without spending any money they’d cancel his SSI altogether. Like, none of us in the family have any fucking clue why that regulation is in place and it’s the stupidest shit in human history.

Donald Trump has a fake “Time” cover of himself hanging at his golf courses

President Donald Trump has hung a fake Time cover dated March 1, 2009, and touting The Apprentice as a “television smash!” at at least four of his golf courses, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The cover in question, which Time confirmed to the Washington Post was not legitimate, borrowed headlines from real issues of time like “Obama’s Next Move: Can He Cut Health-Care Costs?”

Elements are combinations of particles so I guess a loose metaphor to intersex conditions sort of... almost works? Maybe? If you read particles as like... chromosomes and hormones and genetic mutations and natal enviornment? maybe? but not really?

But gender is... well, im on the record as Not Getting It. Maybe if it could be explained as simply as how many electrons are in which orbital and how many protons are in the nucleus I’d get it better. Tell me what the atomic make up of male is please. What is what in your metaphor? How many neutrons in female? 

The EPA seeks to undo clean water rule, putting 117 million Americans’ water at risk

On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers released a joint proposal to repeal the 2015 Clean Water Rule, an environmental protection law originally put in place in 1972 as the Clean Water Act, but codified by Obama in his second term.

The potential repeal could mark a success for President Donald Trump, who promised to repeal the rule during the 2016 presidential campaign.

However, it could also spell disaster for all Americans who enjoy drinkable tap water.

“If you don’t think twice about drinking water from the tap, you’re benefiting from the clean water rule,” Jamie Henn, cofounder of 350.org, a nonprofit fighting climate change, said in an interview. Read more (6/28/17)

Beautiful! When This 7-Year-Old Boy Could No Longer Afford Treatment For His Brain Tumor, Mitch McConnell Dressed Up As Batman And Wheeled Him Out Of The Hospital

Life has been extremely difficult for 7-year-old Aaron Burkhart ever since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor five months ago. To make matters worse, Aaron’s family lacked health insurance and was soon unable to pay the medical bills for his expensive treatments. Things seemed bleak, but that’s when Aaron got the surprise of a lifetime. When Sen. Mitch McConnell heard that Aaron’s family could no longer afford the treatment for his brain tumor, he visited Aaron’s hospital room dressed as Batman and wheeled him out of the hospital.

Beautiful! It looks like Mitch McConnell found a way to make a sick boy’s last day of medical care a truly special one!

Aaron’s amazing day with the Caped Crusader began when Senator McConnell stepped into his hospital room in an authentic Batman costume and said in a deep, gravelly voice, “I am the Batman. I hear there’s a brave little hero in here who’s currently burdening the taxpayers of Gotham City with medicine he hasn’t earned! We need to get you out of this hospital as soon as possible!” The senator then asked Aaron to climb into a wheelchair, and with his black cape billowing behind him, he began pushing the lucky cancer patient down the hall and toward the hospital’s front entrance.

Here’s a blast from the past. Back in 2009, I started following the case of one Bongani Masuku, at that time International Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Masuku was under fire for a bevy of antisemitic statements, virtually all of which were in the context of Palestinian solidarity work, but which kicked off when he stated that he wanted to “convey a message to the Jews of [South Africa].” Other highlights included:

Referring to Zionists as “belong[ing] to the era of their Friend Hitler”

Contending that “every Zionist must be made to drink the bitter medicine they are feeding our broathers (sic) and sisters in Palestine,” and

Expressing his view that “Jews are arrogant, not from being told by any Palestinian, but from what I saw myself.”

Lovely. In any event, various South African Jews complained and received a judgment from the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) that Masuku’s comments constituted antisemitic hate speech – a ruling which caused COSATU to go absolutely ballistic. Since Masuku refused the SAHRC’s order that he apologize, the case headed off to Equality Court in December 2009 – and that was the last I heard of it.

Until today. The Equality Court issued its verdict, and it found against Masuku on all counts (you can read the opinion here). It unequivocally found that its comments were hate speech, were functionally targeted at Jews, and were unprotected by freedom of expression.* It again ordered him to make an unconditional apology, as well as (with COSATU) paying full litigation costs. It even went out of its way to specifically reject the expert testimony offered in support of Masuku as “partisan” in character and unreliable.

From what I can tell, this is probably not the last stage – there still can be more appeals, and one doubts that COSATU or Masuku have come this far just to give up and apologize to the damn Jews. But right now, this is a major win for the South African Jewish community, and a huge loss for all those who seek to excuse even naked antisemitism by draping it in the cloak of “criticism of Israel.”

* As I have observed previously, South Africa has very different standards regarding free speech compared to the US – the former allows proscriptions against hate speech, the latter does not. In general, I prefer the US model, but insofar as this is a South African court applying South African law that debate is not germane.