Obsessed with Check Please! & Carry On

Please welcome artist Alex Siple/@alexsiple to the Golden Days zine! Here is a preview of her adventurous piece.

Find Alex’s magickal works everywhere ✨ Tumblr // Twitter // Insta

Christmas Check Please! Icons _/ 2/?

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To condense a semester-long law school course into a blog post: Congress delegates significant quasi-legislative power to administrative agencies, e.g. the EPA. These agencies have a great deal of power to shape your everyday life, but our system of civics education is so abysmal that, chances are, you have no idea what kind of power you hold to shape their decisions.

Administrative agencies have to navigate a maze of laws and procedures in order for the rules they make to be effective and binding. These laws and procedures mean that there plenty of ways the agencies can mess up, and when they do, opponents of a rule can bring legal challenges and invalidate it. (This is frustrating for agencies, but delightfully fun for antagonistic nerds like me.)

When an agency wants to create an informal rule, it has to go through a process called “notice and comment.” Basically, the agency announces a proposed rule and permits the public to submit comments on it. The public includes you. 

When the comment period is over, the agency has to take the comments into account and justify its ultimate decision on the proposed rule in light of the comments. If you submit substantive, meaningful comments that challenge the policy or evidence behind a rule, and the agency fails to acknowledge them and explain its reasoning for its final decision, the rule can be challenged and invalidated.

So how do you comment on proposed rules? This lovely little site called regulations.gov. Really, it’s that easy! You can search for topics that interest you and submit your comments online. And you can do it anonymously! 

So please, check the website frequently and comment when it matters to you, so that your voice can be heard and Trump’s agencies have to acknowledge your perspective. If they fail to take your comments into consideration and disregard the American people, they’ll have to answer for it in court.

… the EYEWITNESS fandom really needs your help! I constantly see posts on Tumblr from people who want to see more diversity in media - books, tv shows, movies - and yet here we have a show that has a ton of diversity … but it’s about to be cancelled because of low ratings!

EYEWITNESS is a really great new suspense drama about two boys, Philip and Lukas, who witness a triple murder but have to keep it a secret because one of them is scared that people will find out he is gay. One of them happens to be the foster son of the local Sheriff (who, btw, is a woman!) who is investigating the murder. From there on the show has multiple plot strands that all tangle together at some point, but the romance between Philip and Lukas is at the heart of it all.

Speaking of which … these are the boys:

Reasons why you will love EYEWITNESS:

Complex and complicated love story between two boys (one comfortable with his sexuality, the other deeply closeted) that feels honest and real

Doesn’t shy away from showing physical intimacy between the boys (seriously, they are making out shirtless 7 minutes into the first episode!)

Tough kick-ass female characters

Lots of POC & LGBT representation

Defies gender stereotypes

Positive portrayal of foster kid with foster parents

Deals with important issues like PTSD, drugs and the challenges of coming out in a realistic way

Suspense and lots of plot twists you won’t see coming

A killer who is creepy as hell

An amazing cast!!!

Oh, and did I mention it’s actually well-written?

Unfortunately diverse shows never have it easy, especially if they focus heavily on LGBTQ characters / couples. Add to that the fact that USA Network has basically done nothing at all to promote this show, and you can imagine that ratings are really low. So low in fact that the show will get cancelled if ratings don’t go up drastically!

EYEWITNESS deserves better! And we as a fandom are trying to make that happen. We are trying to get more people to watch to increase ratings.  

So PLEASE … if you live in the US then please watch EYEWITNESS tonight (and the next few Sundays after that) at 10 PM on USA Network. If you can’t watch it live then please DVR it and watch it the next day. Or you can do both which according to the show’s producers will count for two viewings!!!

If you want to catch up on the first 5 episodes you can do so on the USA Network website or app, or you can get the episodes on VoD (iTunes, Amazon Video, etc).

For people outside the US, if you buy the show on iTunes or Amazon Video (if your country has it) then this will also contribute to ratings!!!

If you like the show, please tweet some love for it to @USA_Network and use the hashtags #Eyewitness and #Philkas!

WHOA, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?? -they assumed the white house staff would be sticking around, because they never watched “the west wing” and also because they are GRADE A FUCKSTICKS WITH THE INTELLIGENCE OF DEAD PRAWNS, and thus not only do they not have policy papers written, they are also lacking an actual body of qualified staffers ready to slot into white house and related positions -they have bupkis, frankly -whole lotta nothing

SOLUTION: -THEY HAVE PLACED AN OPEN CALL FOR STAFF APPLICATIONS ON THEIR WEBSITE

THAT’S NOT… VERY WEIRD, RIGHT? PEOPLE APPLIED TO WORK FOR OBAMA ONLINE -yeah, and the website looked like this -trump’s call for applications is a trainwreck. i assume it was written by one of trump’s three adult goblins. look at this paragraph:

“You will be asked fill out a Personal Data Statement if you are considered for a specific position. You will be asked about possible conflicts of interest… organization[s] which you belong or once belonged; speeches you may have given… legal, administrative and regulatory proceedings to which you may have been a party; in short, anything that might embarrass the President or you if he should choose you for a position in his administration…… If Senate confirmation is required for the position you are nominated for, the Senate committee that reviews those nominations may ask you to provide additional information.“ 

WAIT…. WHAT?? -just a little casual there, guys, huh? like…. the whole thing makes it sound like they don’t have a vetting team ready to go. it makes it feel like there’s no solid recruitment team or strategy in place and… -oh my God, wait a second -doesn’t that sound kind of like they’re asking people to vet themselves? -maybe because they are so WOEFULLY, CATASTROPHICALLY SHORT-HANDED?????? -pun intended

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN, ORANGE?? -well, i’m glad you asked, it could mean a lot of things -firstly: i wouldn’t trust these sloppy motherfuckers to staff a lemonade stand -secondly: like, YOU could go WORK FOR TRUMP, probably. they are mass-hiring, like a new denny’s franchise. like eight new denny’s franchises clustered around a single interstate exit, shivering in terror. is your head firmly affixed to your body? are you carbon-based?? they badly need people with those qualifications -thirdly: it may also, eventually, mean that the trump white house is going to produce an unheard-of metric fuckton of personnel scandals in its first year, since there’s no voluntary, self-reporting “are you a serial murderer” box to tick -also, do they not understand that people are going to apply just to fuck with them??? and waste their time??? -i don’t recommend it, honestly. i personally will not be submitting any private information to the trump team even as an obstructionist joke, because they are terrifying anti-semitic racist garbage-fucking hate trolls. i wouldn’t voluntarily give them the address of a shoe store. but if you choose to step up and play the game, have fun and be yourselves*