Newly Confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett

 

During her Senate confirmation hearing, Judge Barrett (born in 1972) was Donald Trump’s third and, hopefully, final Supreme Court Justice.

California Senator Feinstein asked if Barrett, too, would “be a consistent vote to roll back hard-fought freedoms and protections for the LGBT community”. To this, Barrett responded that she had “no agenda”, a line that Scalia himself used during his own confirmation hearing.

“I do want to be clear that I have never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference,” she added.

At those same hearings, Ms. Barrett, Amy (from now on known as “Justice Karen”), made this statement about LGBTQ individuals:

She believed "that sexual orientation is merely a preference," then the LGBTQ community should be "rightly concerned" whether the judge would uphold their constitutional right to marry.

 

Really, Amy?  Seriously??

Is it your preference to have a pair of breasts, mammary glands, attached to your chest?  

Is it your preference to have a vagina implanted between your legs?

Is it your preference to believe you are holier-than-thou and remove a woman’s right to an abortion, simply because you are incapable of ever conceiving again?

Being born LGBTQ is no more a preference or choice than yours is to have your female body parts, Amy.

Oh, and feigning ignorance on that issue, 100%, absolutely disqualifies you from a position on the nation’s highest court, The Supreme Court.

Being less than 50 years old should automatically disqualify you, if for no other reason than you simply haven’t earned your legal chops yet.

Drinking The Kool-Aid

"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an expression used to refer to a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards. The phrase often carries a negative connotation. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion. In recent years it has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.

The phrase originates from events in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple movement died. The movement's leader, Jim Jones, called a mass meeting at the Jonestown pavilion after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and others in nearby Port Kaituma. Jones proposed "revolutionary suicide" by way of ingesting a powdered drink mix lethally laced with cyanide and other drugs which had been prepared by his aides

On November 18, 1978, Jones ordered that the members of Representative Leo Ryan's party be killed after several defectors chose to leave with the party. Residents of the commune later committed suicide by drinking a flavored beverage laced with potassium cyanide; some were forced to drink it, some (such as small children) drank it unknowingly.  Roughly 918 people died.

Descriptions of the event often refer to the beverage not as Kool-Aid but as Flavor Aid, a less-expensive product reportedly found at the site. Kraft Foods, the maker of Kool-Aid, has stated the same.  Implied by this accounting of events is that the reference to the Kool-Aid brand owes exclusively to its being better-known among Americans. Others are less categorical. Film footage shot inside the compound prior to the events of November shows Jones opening a large chest in which boxes of Flavor Aid are visible. Criminal investigators testifying at the Jonestown inquest spoke of finding packets of "cool aid", and eyewitnesses to the incident are also recorded as speaking of "cool aid" or "Cool Aid." It is unclear whether they intended to refer to the actual Kool-Aid–brand drink or were using the name in a generic sense that might refer to any powdered flavored beverage.

The group had engaged in many "dry runs" using an unpoisoned drink.

The phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" as used to describe either blind obedience or loyalty to a cause is considered offensive by some of the relatives of the dead and survivors who escaped Jonestown. Seventy or more individuals at Jonestown were injected with poison, and a third of the victims (304) were minors. Guards armed with guns and crossbows had been ordered to shoot those who fled the Jonestown pavilion as Jones lobbied for suicide.

Now, keeping in mind ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’, think about Trump supporters.  Many are more than willing to give their lives for him, ignoring all 20,000+ lies from this arrogant, entitled man over the past 4 years.  That’s astounding and dangerous.

Why would Trump’s cult followers put themselves in harm’s way like that? For Trump?

This is an actual aerial photo of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana:

And these are the same type of people, blindly, blithely following their leader:

Makes you wonder what kind of Kool-Aid is being served at those rallies.

 

Cheers!

VOTE!

 No matter how you do it, be safe and

Super-Spreader-Event

 

Let's face it.  ANY time you're around Trump, it's a Super Spreader Event since he doesn't know how or when to shut up and sucks all of the oxygen out of the air.

 

More Bad News, Folks

It's not enough that small businesses, among them restaurants, and thousands of one- or two-person operations are closing at an alarming rate with NO relief in sight from the Senate, now the largest theatre chain in the U.S., Regal Cinemas has shuttered its doors closed as well.

This is from their online blog:

Regal Posted on Oct 8, 2020 9:20:29 AM

We can confirm that all Regal theatres across the US will be temporarily closed from Friday (October 9) until further notice.

This is not a decision we made lightly. We did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable re-openings of our theatres and we are so very grateful for our employees who implemented the new protocols, which resulted in lots of positive feedback from customers who visited our theatres and felt safe. We were very proud of the fact that theatres were open for 2 months and there was not one COVID case resulting from visiting the theatre. We cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was.

As we have done to date, we will do everything we can to save livelihoods and the company – this is an extremely delicate and tricky balance. We continue to work with the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), to ensure we are lobbying state and local governments to support our employees and the industry which has so much cultural significance.

We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate our future plans to resume operations once film studios are able to bring their pipeline of major movie releases back to the big screen. We can assure you that once a line-up of movie releases is confirmed, we will be ready to re-open our theatres, as we did in August, with the same safety levels you have already seen while at the same time keeping the great experience that you are used to getting from us.

A big thank you goes to you, our movie-loving customers; your health and wellbeing has always been our priority during this difficult time and we look forward to welcoming you back as soon as possible to enjoy a full slate of films.

If you have any questions, please take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions below.

If you are a Regal Crown Club member or Regal Unlimited subscriber, visit the Regal mobile app and online at regmovies.com. If you do not already have a Regal Crown Club account and would like to receive email updates, you are able to create a free account in one step here.

We sincerely wish good health for you and your families during these uncertain times. 

-The Regal Team

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It's pretty astonishing that the Trump Administration and the Senate are pushing through an ultra conservation, religious zealot, Amy Coney Barrett in order to do two things:

1)  Repeal/dismantle the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and 

2) Repeal Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision.

 That's it.  She's stated in articles and op-eds that those two pieces of legislation are unconstitutional and therefore, must go.

Oh, and potentially, 

3) Decide the outcome of a "rigged election" once Trump loses in just a few short weeks, because, you know, you just can't trust all of those fake ballots.   

(TO BE CLEAR, THAT LAST PART ABOUT 'RIGGED' AND 'FAKE BALLOTS', IS SARCASM.)

Yes, vote as if your life depended on it, because if 2 or all 3 of those things happen, the United States is in deep, deep sh*t.  We cannot handle another second of this Republican President or Senate.  (And by "we", I mean the entire planet.)

The Art Of The No-Deal

Donald Trump came to the White House promising that he would make deals the likes of which the country and the world never seen.

He nears the end of his first term in Washington on Wednesday by abruptly ending the possibility of a deal to provide more money into the economy as it seeks to dig out from a massive hole created by the coronavirus pandemic.

"I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business," Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon. It was a massive shock -- coming less than 24 hours after Trump had been released from Walter Reed medical center after being hospitalized with coronavirus -- and immediately sent the stock market tumbling.

Official Washington was stunned by the news, with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been engaged in ongoing stimulus negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, speculating that Trump's move might have something to do with the medicine he had been receiving to treat Covid-19.

"Believe me, there are people who think that steroids have an impact on thinking," Pelosi told House Democrats on a call organized after Trump's announcement, according to CNN's Phil Mattingly. "So I just don't know."

Regardless of the reasons behind Trump's sudden decision to call off the talks, the practical effect will be to ensure there is no further stimulus money allocated by Congress before the end of its current term. And for Trump personally, the lack of a deal represents a remarkable failing of one of the central promises of his presidency: That he could make deals that other longtime Washington politicians could only dream about.

The seminal text of Trumpism -- to the extent a cohesive worldview exists -- is the billionaire businessman's "Art of the Deal." In the introduction to that book, he writes:

"Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks."

In announcing his presidential campaign in the summer of 2015, Trump put his deal-making prowess center stage. "Now, our country needs -- our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now," he said. "We need a leader that wrote 'The Art of the Deal.'"

Throughout the 2016 campaign, he leaned on the idea that the only solution to a broken Washington was an out-of-the-box business leader who understood the leverage needed to make deals.

In the White House, that rhetoric continued.

"With deals -- that's what I do, is deals," Trump said in May 2018 in regards a China trade deal. He added around that same time: "I've made a lot of deals. I know deals, I think, better than anybody knows deals. You never really know."

But viewed broadly, Trump's first term has been defined by the deals he didn't do. Trump promised to force Mexico to pay for the construction of the southern border wall. He said he would renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal. That he would make a peace deal between Israel and Palestine. That he would pass a new health care bill. That he would pass a new gun control measure.

And Trump has also pulled America out of a number of international coalitions -- including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accords. He's also cut American funding for the World Health Organization and the United Nations.

Trump has, as he did on Tuesday, blamed these deal failures on bad actors -- domestically and internationally -- who actively undermine compromise. "Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19," Trump tweeted. "We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith."

Which, well, OK. But remember: Deals were very hard to come by prior to Trump's arrival in Washington. Partisans with very different priorities as to what Congress should do -- and how they should do it -- are nothing new. And Trump cast himself as the one person with the resume, experience and skill set to break these logjams.

By any -- and every -- measure, Trump has failed to make good on that promise. His shutdown of stimulus negotiations on Tuesday are simply an exclamation point on that failure.

From CNN.com