Dr. Flowers @AlliFlowers@talkedabout.social

When a person calls for a permanent ceasefire without simultaneously calling for a return of Jewish hostages to Israel that tells me something about that person that I wish I didn't know but can't unknow now.

The state of the world is truly depressing. What am I doing living in the United States of America surrounded by these MFing haters?

#israel

"We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again. He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.

You are decent. He is not who you are.

Can we be confident that he will not continue to try to cheat in [this] very election? Can we be confident that Americans and not foreign powers will get to decide, and that the president will shun any further foreign interference in our Democratic affairs?

The short, plain, sad, incontestable answer is no, you can't. You can't trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can't. He will not change and you know it.

What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100 percent. A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way."
~Adam Schiff

In case you missed it. State of the Union Cold Open - SNL

Scarlett Johansson made an unexpected appearance in this week's cold open sketch. Saturday Night Live wasted no time in mocking this week's State of the Union speech focusing most of its attention on the Republican rebuttal which this year came from 42-year-old Alabama Senator Katie Britt. Starting at 2:29 to end.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cCfLpuLdF8Q&si=cS2LxDe_OQiGHAqx

P.S.: Sometimes it's easy to believe our elders were hyperconservative, and there's an old trope that every generation believes it invented sex.

Just to strike yet another blow against ageism and stereotyping, here's Barbara Stanwyck at 58 in "The Big Valley" (when I first encountered her work), and another when she was 18 and working as a dancer for the Ziegfeld Follies (and modeling on the side). Now that I'm 62, I can guarantee that the exact same person resides inside both images. Hopefully we learn and grow, but our sense of self, including our passions, never goes away. Please remember that next time you're talking to Grandma.

Stars Wars and Doctor Who both feature villains transparently based on Nazis, and I’m coming around to the idea that Doctor Who had the more socially useful model: Imperial officers / stormtroopers come off as evil but maybe kind of badass, whereas Daleks more accurately portray fascists as stupid and cheap and just gratingly skin-crawlingly annoying.

The idea that something as obnoxious and ridiculous as a Dalek can also be dangerous and utterly evil is…a useful lesson.

Realizing as I wrote the previous post:

Doctor Who is remarkable, unusual among its peers, for its 60 years of near-total non-interest in machismo and militarism. Though the show is often violent, the violence is usually something the baddies do, and always miserable and unfortunate — a failure of some kind, something to mourn. It’s a show where the only things that are ever •badass• are intelligence, courage, and kindness.

Trump again claims E. Jean Carroll made false accusations about him.

he has got the RNC and MAGA to loot.

america's enemies are happy to bail him out.

this makes him feel strong.

Seems the GOP “housewife” and her bosses cherry picked a sex-trafficking event from 20 years ago and decided to try to blame Joe Biden for it.

Lesse’ — who was president 20 years ago…who was it..?

Hmmm…. Wait a minute. It’ll come to me.

Oh yeah!

It was Republican GEORGE W BUSH.

So, not only was Bush responsible for 9/11, wars of convenience, and the Great Recession, but clearly, by their own accounting, sex-trafficking that went unchecked on his watch. #sotu

https://www.salon.com/2024/03/09/katie-britt-seems-to-have-taken-some-liberties-with-that-trafficking-story-she-told/

Journalist catches Sen. Katie Britt in an 'out and out lie' in her State of Union response

A journalist caught Sen. Katie Britt in a blatant lie during her State of the Union response. She claimed that certain crimes took place in the United States, but the journalist pointed out that they actually happened in Mexico.
And guess what? These crimes occurred between 2004 and 2008, while Biden wasn't even Vice President until 2009. Can you believe that?

https://www.rawstory.com/katie-britt-out-and-out-lie/

If you don’t pronounce “Pirates” to rhyme with “Pilates”…

What are you even doing with your life?

My 6YO continued:

6YO: So can they marry a boy or a girl?
ME: Anyone can marry a boy, a girl, or a non-binary person, or whatever. As long as they are an adult, and they aren't already married to someone else.
6YO: So I could marry a girl or a boy?
ME: Yep.
6YO: That's cool.

Yes this conversation happened today, and my two older kids learned about the gender spectrum and marriage equality in a similar way when they were that age.

It's only a big deal if YOU make it a big deal. Love and freedom to be who you are is really easy to understand when you're a kid, and no one has piled baggage on you.

“With nearly as many hospitalizations in January 2024 as in January 2023, it’s clear that #COVID19 is not growing milder and it’s not fading away. The real question, then, is not whether COVID is still a pandemic, but how much COVID illness and death are we willing to accept?”

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-covid-19-still-a-pandemic/

Let me put $91.5M bond from Trump re into context

This is what one million dollars looks like in 100 dollar bills. If you fill the briefcase, it would hold $2.4 million

Last year E Jean Carroll was awarded 2 such briefcases plus change

Today she got instead 40 such briefacases of money!

@GottaLaff

What I'd really like to know is what Trump put up for collateral to cover it.

An amendment enshrining abortion rights was officially sealed into the French constitution Friday, during a public ceremony on International Women's Day. France is the first nation to guarantee the right to an abortion in its national charter.

https://www.voanews.com/a/france-enshrines-abortion-rights-on-international-women-s-day-ceremony/7519770.html #voanews

LOL they staged #GOP Trump fundie Katie #Britt in her kitchen which says all you need to know about how Republicans, including the women, see women.

Do you think if a Republican man had given the rebuttal he'd have been in his kitchen? #sexism

@Oeneus

Lasting ceasefire is easy: Hamas just needs to surrender. After all, every ceasefire has been broken by Hamas.

Law-abiding adults can now carry guns openly in South Carolina after governor approves new law
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/law-abiding-adults-now-carry-guns-openly-south-107896173

So, if you are NOT a law abiding adult, this does not apply to you.

... Wait, what??? ...

"“If you're going to pull out a pistol in public and point it at someone because you are pissed off that they took your parking space. we're not allowing that," the Republican from Spartanburg said."

Oh, okay. Because you are not allowing that, we can all sleep well, knowing it will never happen.

Riiiiiiiight.

#guns #gunviolence #guncontrol

for the traitors who use the line "dems will be the end of the US we need psychoPumpkin" here, the FACTS
A Warmonger will never make a country safer, NEVER!

Things Republicans refused to clap for:

- NATO
- tax cuts
- teachers
- infrastructure
- ending cancer
- border security
- fighting the Kremlin
- lead-free water for kids
- Social Security and Medicare

#SOTU