Branden Lee is a blogger, screenwriter, producer, and actor, currently residing in Boston, MA. Follow Branden on Twitter and Tumblr.
According to Jezebel, a company called Wing Co. is selling a coat made out of the collected chest hair of a bunch of men, to combat the growing trend of men feeling required to be hairless.
The hair jacket is currently being sold for £2,499, about $3900 and was created using over 1 million different strands of chest hair.
There’s also a version available for women.
As much as I love a hairy man, there’s no way I’d ever want to wear a coat made out strangers’ body hair.
Well, it took less than a week for Alex Rodriguez to cause chaos in Yankee Universe via twitter. The embattled star took to twitter two hours ago and announced that he was cleared to play in rehab games. Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York reached out to the Yankee GM Brian Cashman, and asked him about Rodriguez’s tweet. Cashman, who is known for being forthcoming with the media, did not hold back his feelings. He told Marchand;
“You know what? When the Yankees want to announce something WE will. Alex should just shut the f**k up. That’s it. I’m calling Alex now.”
Clearly Cashman is not very happy with the Yankee slugger. Even more clear is the fact that Rodriguez picked the worst time to join twitter leaving us all to question who he is taking advice from over at camp A-Rod.
A one man band. He “played his… instrument on the Grand Central subway station, leading to the number 4 and 6 trains. Is it music or a whole lotta noise?
Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation’s second-most populous state.
Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday. To derail a vote in the GOP-dominated Senate, she must keep speaking on the bill until midnight — the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.
Before Davis began speaking, her chair was removed. CBSDFW.com reports that Davis must speak continuously — and stay on topic — the entire time. She is not allowed to lean against something for support. And she will not be able to stop or take a break, not even for meals or the restroom, during the entire 13-hour ordeal.
Davis offered some insight to her plans Monday night on Twitter.
Remember when conservatives across the nation accused liberal justices of being activists? Of making law without interpreting it? Of imposing their political ideology on court cases instead of taking a uniquely 18th century view of the constitution? Good times, no?
Welcome to the conservative majority.
Today’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case shows that the right can be just as activist, just as ideological and just as dismissive of the democratic process as they accused the left of being. It was evident during arguments in March, and the decision was not far off from what many feared would happen.
Justice Thomas called for striking down Section 5 immediately, saying the majority opinion had provided the reasons and merely left “the inevitable conclusion unstated.”
The most disturbing part of the decision came from Justice Roberts, who claims to care about originalism and reliance on the past, except in cases where he doesn’t. Thus,
The current coverage scheme, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, is “based on 40-year-old facts having no relationship to the present day.”
“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” he wrote. “It cannot simply rely on the past.”
What makes sense in light of current conditions is a product of the past. That’s the bedrock assumption of every history class I’ve ever taken and one that serious historians wouldsurely agree. It’s like saying that Paula Deen said what she said only in light of what’s happening in the country in 2013 and forgetting that she is a product of a specific time, place, history and upbringing.
As usual, it took a liberal justice to remind the court why the Voting Rights Act had been passed in the first place and why we still need it today: History. From Justice Ginsburg:
“The great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act foresaw progress, even in Alabama,” she said. “’The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said, but ‘it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.”
“That commitment,” she said, “has been disserved by today’s decision.”
Ginsburg also laid out a chilling future based on today’s decision.
She said the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from “first-generation barriers to ballot access” to “second-generation barriers” like racial gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable black minority. She said Section 5 had been effective in thwarting such efforts.
As if on cue, and wasting no time in trying to disenfranchise the next generation,
“With today’s decision,” said Greg Abbott, Texas’ attorney general, “the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately. Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”
Finally, you know that things are seriously awry when a liberal has to remind the conservatives of the bedrock of right wing originalist dogma:
In any event, she said, Congress, which reauthorized the law by a large majority in the House and unanimously in the Senate, was the right body to decide whether the law was needed and where.
Exactly.
Yes, we have an African-American president and we had more African-American participation in the 2012 election, and we have many more African-Americans in local and state offices.But we still have mischief and we still have false cries of voter fraud from the right. What will happen now because of this decision is that those laws will take affect and aggrieved parties will need to react to them after the fact. You were denied your vote? Oh well. Better luck next time.
If Harry Reid is our only hope, we probably have no more hope left. Remember, Harry Reid was the same guy who promised to do something about the Republican abused Filibuster, just to sit on his hands when the time came for him to act.
Now, after the Supreme Court voted down Section 5 of the Voting Act, Harry Reid is once again promising to act.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday that the “Senate will act” to address the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
First, Reid said he will task Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to hold “wide-ranging hearings” on the subject beginning next month after Senate Democrats huddled on the issue during their lunch caucuses on Tuesday.
“There’s general displeasure — and that’s an understatement — in my caucus about what the Supreme Court did. Especially in light of what happened this last election cycle, with Republicans doing everything they could to suppress voting,” Reid told reporters after the lunches. “This is a dark day for the Supreme Court. But it’s been pretty cloudy over there for some time now.
Some Democrats added that the threat posed to minority voting rights — especially through hotly-contested voter ID laws — was just as present as it was when the VRA went into effect. But Republicans argue that the voting situation is much improved since the the act first passed.
“It’s an important bill that passed back in the ’60s at a time when we had a very different America than we have today,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, who declined to elaborate beyond that statement: “At this point I think I’m just going to have to read it first.”
Spencer Overton is a professor The George Washington University Law School and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal research organization, and he teaches and writes on voting rights. He is the author of the book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.
Below are four questions put to Mr. Overton regarding the The Supreme Court’s decision today to strike down a central part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4:
Q. How would you summarize the decision in a single sentence?
A. The court effectively rolled back an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that the Act’s formula requiring federal pre-approval of election changes for some states but not others was outdated because it was based on data from the 1960s and 70s.
Q. Did anything in it — or in the justices’ votes — surprise you?
A. I was not surprised by the votes of the particular justices.
Q. How will the ruling affect elections and voting? How will it affect minority turnout and representation?
A. Overwhelming evidence shows that many state and local politicians continue to win elections by unfairly manipulating election rules, and the court’s decision will only make this problem worse. The biggest problem will be the under-the-radar manipulation of election rules for local offices like city councils, county commissions, school boards, and sheriffs. These offices are often non-partisan and escape national attention, but make important decisions related to schools, criminal justice, health and family services, and economic opportunity that directly affect our daily lives. Local manipulation is a real problem—over 85 percent of all election rule changes rejected as unfair under Section 5 were at the local level. In Nueces County, Tex., for example, the rapidly growing Latino community surpassed 56 percent of the county’s population, and in response county officials gerrymandered local election districts to diminish the ballots of Latino voters. Without Section 5 protections to block this type of racial manipulation, voters in many areas like Nueces County will lack the thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars needed to bring a lawsuit and stop these unfair changes.
Q. What’s next for the Voting Rights Act?
A. Congress should update the Voting Rights Act. First, Congress should update pre-clearance so that states and localities that have recently violated voting rights or do so in the future are required to submit their election rule changes to federal officials for pre-approval. Second, Congress should streamline litigation, so that it is more efficient and effective in stopping unfair election rules before they are used in elections and harm voters. Third, Congress should require that states and localities with significant minority populations disclose information about the effects of their election law changes—more transparency would deter bad activity.
Congress should update the VRA. In fact, in my opinion it should have done so in the period between 1970 and 2006, when the act was up for renewal . The corrupt political situations that were evident in the 60’s, which prompted the creation of the bill, showed themselves to be alive and well during the 2012 election for President of the United States. ~ A. Conton
Kim and Kanye West just gave birth to their daughter, a baby their named… North. And ever since North was born, people have been fixated, trying to get a picture of what the little bundle of joy looks like.
Then this picture began surfacing the internet. But according to TMZ, this is not North West, this is an Imposter Baby…
Thanks to the Conservative controlled Supreme Court, some southern states can now legally take away the voting rights of some of their residents.
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday, the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court.
The 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, found that “things have changed dramatically” in the south nearly 50 years after the Voting Rights Act was signed.
“There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act,” the court ruled. “The Act has proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process.”
“Section 4 and 5 were intended to be temporary, they were set to expire after five years,” the justices added.
Consider this two steps forward, three steps back.
A new Pentagon report shows that most of the sexual assault in the military are against men.
In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.
“It’s easy for some people to single out women and say: ‘There’s a small percentage of the force having this problem,’ ” said First Lt. Adam Cohen, who said he was raped by a superior officer. “No one wants to admit this problem affects everyone. Both genders, of all ranks. It’s a cultural problem.”
Though women, who represent about 15 percent of the force, are significantly more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than men, experts say assaults against men have been vastly underreported. For that reason, the majority of formal complaints of military sexual assault have been filed by women, even though the majority of victims are thought to be men.
“Men don’t acknowledge being victims of sexual assault,” said Dr. Carol O’Brien, the chief of post-traumatic stress disorder programs at the Bay Pines Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Florida, which has a residential treatment program for sexually abused veterans. “Men tend to feel a great deal of shame, embarrassment and fear that others will respond negatively.”
But in recent months, intense efforts on Capitol Hill to curb military sexual assault, and the release of a new documentary about male sexual assault victims in the military, “Justice Denied,” have brought new attention to male victims. Advocates say their plight shows that sexual assault has risen not because there are more women in the ranks but because sexual violence is often tolerated.
“I think telling the story about male victims is the key to changing the culture of the military,” said Anuradha K. Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group that has sharply criticized the Pentagon’s handling of sexual assault. “I think it places the onus on the institution when people realize it’s also men who are victims.”
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