Tracker

It is news because the GOP is no longer trying to pretend that they are a party of the people.

A Republican lawyer made a stunning admission to the Supreme Court about a voting rights case At the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday an attorney for the Republican National Committee admitted GOP candidates need voter suppression laws, especially those that target minority voters, to win. The high court was hearing arguments related to the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which under Chief Justice John Roberts was gutted to be almost useless in 2013 when he infamously announced, "Our country has changed." The Guardian and HuffPost have written he was suggesting that racism is pretty much over. It is not. Tuesday's arguments discussed the landmark Voting Rights Act and "an Arizona law that disqualified ballots cast in the wrong precinct," as Mother Jones reports. The Brennan Center, as The Washington Post, reporting on today's Supreme Court hearing notes, is tracking over 250 bills Republicans are pushing in more than half the states across the country that are designed to take the "voter fraud" lies Donald Trump and his supporters have been pushing for nearly a year and turn them into "legal" voter suppression. The Supreme Court has changed dramatically in the nearly eight years since it suggested racism isn't a big deal anymore – and not for the better. But it was the court's newest member, and one of the most right-wing yet, who asked a revealing question. "What's the interest of the Arizona RNC here in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?" That law forces the state to throw out voter ballots if cast in the wrong precinct. The question was asked by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The answer stunned many. "Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats," the lawyer, Michael Carvin, responded, as Mother Jones reports. "Politics is a zero-sum game," he added. "It's the difference between winning an election 50-49 and –" he continued, but Justice Barrett wouldn't even let him finish his sentence, perhaps for fear of what else he would say.

Yeah. People have been roped into watching.

Guns and nutcases. Lots and lots of both.

Right wingers are often uncomfortable with transparency in their governments and democracies in general.

Gotta have high stakes for maximum drama. Supplying wine to the watching parents might be a good idea, though.

I think that the CFL ought to be able to present a credible argument to the g]federal and provincial governments for a one million dollar subsidy per team. The country needs to regain a sense of normalcy as a matter of societal mental health and CFL games would be a big sign that we are recovering. Nine million dollars is really a pittance in government budgets.

I suspect that we ultimately will have a hybrid system. Electrical/hybrid vehicles work well and will get better but in high population density areas. I cannot see a viable alternative to diesel and gasoline vehicles for long-haul semis and for people in rural areas. The good news (for some) is that these changes will suppress petroleum production and prices for the foreseeable future. There will have to be a network of charging stations and battery recycling depots, but this should be good news for hydroelectric producers like Manitoba and Quebec.

I want a TV show where a three year old is put into a room with $50.00 worth of new toys at one end and $1,000,000 at the other. The parents would be watching from an adjoining room through a sound-proof glass while the child chooses one or the other.

We as a country still have much to do in confronting what was done and is still often being done to first nations people, and other minorities as well. What we are doing different than the US is not pretending that systemic discrimination does not exist, and we are not threatening to kill people to prove that. We are a work in progress, no question, but there are a lot of other places in the world that are way worse.

I'm Sure It Was Just A Coincidence Hyatt Hotels says it takes concerns that CPAC stage resembled Nazi symbol “very seriously” CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp said the comparison was “outrageous and slanderous” and the stage was “very pretty" Hyatt Hotels on Sunday said it was treating concerns that the stage for Conservative Political Action Conference — held at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando — resembled a Nazi symbol "very seriously" and condemned symbols of hate as "abhorrent." Photos of the CPAC stage at the Orlando hotel went viral on social media as thousands of users compared the design to a Norse rune used by the Nazis during World War II. The othala rune, which dates back hundreds of years, was adopted by the Nazis as "part of their attempt to reconstruct a mythic 'Aryan' past," according to the Anti-Defamation League, and was included on certain Nazi SS uniforms. It has since been incorporated by white supremacist groups in the United States and Europe and was seen at the deadly 2017 neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville.

We can see the light breaking on the horizon!

Canadians Can Expect A Mild Spring Across The Country: Weather Network Canadians across the country can look forward to a mild spring peppered with the odd winter flashback throughout the first part of the season, according to predictions from one prominent national forecaster. Chris Scott, chief meteorologist with The Weather Network, said Canadians can count on some sunny days to put a bounce in their step after a long winter. “There’s going to be some challenges. We’re not out of the woods for winter, but we’ve certainly put the worst behind us and there’s some really nice days ahead,” said Scott, adding that people should get out and enjoy the sunshine when the daily forecast calls for it. The Weather Network predicts that March will bring extended tastes of early spring to Ontario and Quebec after a particularly wintry February. But Scott said the two provinces should brace for a period of colder weather in mid-spring before more consistent warmth sets in.

The only constant in life is change. When the books from Guttenberg press became widespread, people moaned that the oral traditions would die out. When newspapers appeared, people moaned that books would become obsolete. When radio made its debut, the death of the printed word was predicted. When TV started, the end of radio was certain. And now that the internet is popular, surely the print media, radio, and TV are doomed. There is room for all, but adaptations are inevitable. Get used to it, folks.

Apparently a half-inch of rain is equivalent to 10 inches of snow, so all we need is one downpour when the ground is thawed and we're good.

Not unless the event was held in Saskatchewan, and then gopher al dente would be a side dish.

I think that a reality show where participants search for the edge of the world would be very popular.

There is every indication that we are likely to have an early, somewhat drier than normal spring.

Scaramuchi said today that Trump will be in it so long as the rubes keep pumping the money in to his "re-election campaign". The rest of the GOP does not have the sense to realize that Trump is leading the lemmings to the edge of the cliff and does not give a damn whether they live or die.

Instead of worshipping a golden calf, they are worshipping a golden butthole.

Most Independents and Democrats selected Choice #2. But among GOP respondents, most picked #1. And among Trump voters specifically, fully two-thirds chose the first, darker option. I think this is says a lot and frankly isn’t surprising. MAGAs and Republicans lean to authoritarian leaders. There are those among us who, either by personality or by socialization, choose to delegate their thinking and responsibility to others who they invest with power and who they are predisposed to obey. The Stanford experiments have shown that even "normal" people can be directed to think and believe like this,

Monarch Butterfly Population In Mexico Drops By More Than A Quarter The population of monarch butterflies that arrived in Mexico’s forests to hibernate this winter fell by 26 percent from the year before, the country’s Commission for National Protected Areas and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Thursday. Millions of orange and black monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico on a 2,000-mile (3,220-km) journey each year from Canada across North America. But the butterflies occupied only 2.1 hectares in December 2020, compared with 2.8 hectares the previous winter season, the conservationist group WWF said in a statement. Climate change had a “considerable impact” on the butterflies’ migration pattern, as well as the reduction in their milkweed breeding habitant in the United States, the WWF said. Mexico’s western state of Michoacan is home to the country’s largest monarch butterfly reserve, typically a major tourist attraction. Visitors to the reserve have plummeted during the pandemic, sanctuary officials said.

Unless its Texas.

Republicans roll out “tidal wave of voter suppression”: 253 restrictive bills in 43 states Republicans across the country responded to record voter turnout by unleashing a flurry of legislation aimed at restricting ballot access, citing concerns over unfounded allegations of rampant voter fraud that they themselves stoked for months. At least 253 bills with provisions restricting voting access have been introduced, pre-filed, or carried over in 43 states, mostly by Republicans, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, dwarfing the number of similar bills filed at this point in 2020. Many of these measures are in response to a "rash of baseless and racist allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities" that former President Trump and his Republican allies promoted for months without any evidence, the Brennan Center report said. "We are about to be hit with a tidal wave of voter suppression legislation by Republican legislatures throughout the country," warned Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic attorney and founder of the voting rights advocacy group Democracy Docket, who batted back many of the election lawsuits filed by Trump and his supporters. Elias said in an interview with Salon that he fears this could result in a historic "contraction of voting rights like we have not seen in recent memory." "Republicans are doing this because they think they can gain an electoral advantage from making it harder for Black, brown and young voters to participate in the process," he said, adding: "This is the reaction of a party that knows it can't compete for a majority of the votes. So it is acclimating itself to minority rule through a number of tactics. Gerrymandering is one piece of it. But certainly, voter suppression is a big piece of it" Republicans roll out “tidal wave of voter suppression”: 253 restrictive bills in 43 states | Salon.com