This includes Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage a constitutional right; Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which reaffirmed a woman’s right to choose first articulated in Roe v. Wade, another Supreme Court case. Grutter v. Bollinger, which instituted affirmative action, the entire body of Civil Rights case law, plus anything related to due process, including the right of minors to due process, your right to an attorney, Miranda rights, inadmissible evidence, etc.
(Even if Trump appoints the worst possible SC nominee, they still can’t reverse any of these decisions without a really significant case coming before the Court with new facts, and then they have to write an opinion stating how this case is different than that other case…it’s unlikely to happen.)
Write law or repeal any existing law
While traditionally, presidents have exerted influence on the legislative agenda (see, Obama’s role in advancing and promoting the Affordable Care Act) they cannot actually write or pass legislation. Bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions must be introduced in the House by a Representative.
Presidents cannot strike down law. Only Congress can repeal laws, and only the Supreme Court can strike them down as unconstitutional.
Presidential influence is just that—influence.
(And if—for example—you are hated by 95% of the party you joined last week, and burned all your goddamn bridges by insulting them at various points in your campaign…..they’re unlikely to partner with you in crafting legislation.)
Make any law or declaration that infringes in any way on the rights of the states
So in the US, most of the rights are reserved to the states. You name it, it’s a state-run power. Criminal procedure and law? States. Medicare and Medicaid? States. The definition of marriage? States. Insurance, health departments, housing, unemployment benefits, public education, all these are state programs. And the president cannot infringe on those powers given to the states.
(This is why down-ticket voting is so important, because Mike Pence as governor of Indiana had 800x the power he’s going to have as VP.)
Declare war.
This one is the most complicated, because with the advent of our “conflicts” in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. there has been a significant shift in the articulation of the war doctrine, and it is one of the least restricted of the president’s “restricted” powers. But, despite all that, a president still has no power to declare war.
Unilaterally appoint heads of administrative departments
Unilaterally make treaties with foreign nations
Essentially, while presidents have a lot of power, it’s mostly unofficial—they can’t make sweeping laws, they can’t overturn existing rights, the most they can do is refuse to enforce them (which is absolutely a threat! and a problem!) but we aren’t electing de facto royalty here.
We need you. The world needs you. We’ve been through this before, in one way or another, and we have prevailed. Who benefits from your death? Only those who want you silenced.
There will be blue skies ahead. There will be triumphs. This is not the end of the world.
Do not go gentle – we are here today because of the stubborn refusal of our predecessors to go away. There are oases even in the darkest of times. You are not alone, and you have not been abandoned. There *will* be blue skies ahead, and you will live to see them.
When I pointed out to one of these individuals that “Gypsy” was a
racial slur*, they said they knew, but used it because people wouldn’t
understand, otherwise.
Look, the treatment of the Romani people throughout history has been horrific, and continues to be to this day.
We’re talking about a group who have been persecuted, enslaved, and
murdered for centuries. Here are a handful of the many examples:
1749: The “Great Roundup” in Spain.
During the reign of Ferdinand VI in Spain, thousands of Romani were
“deported, interned, subjected to forced labour, punished, hurt and
killed.”
20th Century: Hounded in Europe, Roma in the U.S. Keep a Low Profile.
“One law in New Jersey, enacted in 1917 and repealed in 1998, allowed
Gypsies to be regulated more harshly than other groups by allowing local
governments to craft laws and ordinances that specified where Gypsies
could rent property, where they could entertain and what goods they
could sell.”
World War II: The Roma Genocide.
The Roma were among the first victims of Hitler and his Nazis. “[A]t
least 500.000 Roma were victims of the genocide, amounting to perhaps as
much as 70-80% of the total Roma population in Europe at the time.”
1979: Sterilised Roma accuse Czechs.
Beginning in 1979, Czech doctors sterilized Roma women against their
wills. This policy officially ended in 1990, but human rights groups say
the practice continued through at least 2003.
2008: This persecution of Gypsies is now the shame of Europe.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni responded to a wave of
violence against the Roma people with the quote, “That is what happens
when Gypsies steal babies.”
2012: The situation of Roma in 11 EU Member States.
“[O]ne in three is unemployed, 20% are not covered by health insurance,
and 90% are living below the poverty line. Many face prejudice,
intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion in their daily lives.
They are marginalised and mostly live in extremely poor socio-economic
conditions.”
2016: NYCC ’16: Anti-Romani Statements Made at X-Men LGBTQ Panel.
American author Peter David defended the portrayal of Romani people as
thieves, relaying a story about how Roma parents break their children’s
legs to make them more effective beggars. David refused to discuss the
issue further, and “told the questioner to go away.” (David later apologized, saying he was mortified and ashamed of himself.)
“End of 19th century: Legal to shoot Roma people, priests that gave
baptism, confirmation, wedding or funeral to Roma people were in risk of
losing their job.”
“Most of 20th century: Children were taken from their parents (1500
children out of a population of less than 10.000 were either brought up
at other people’s homes or in institutions) laws were enacted to make it
impossible for Roma to continue their traditional living and Roma were
subject to forced sterilization, often without their knowledge.”
There’s a lot more information out there about the Roma and
the discrimination they continued to face. There are an estimated one
million Roma living in the U.S. today, but many prefer to keep a low
profile. From the Hounded in Europe article linked above,
“‘Traditionally, nothing good has come from being identified Roma
because the prejudice is so high,’ says Robert Kushen, executive
director of the European Roma Rights Center.”
I grew up ignorant. I had no clue “Gypsies” were a real thing. I
thought nothing of the person in my D&D group who played as, and
later dressed up as, a “Gypsy” character. Eventually, a friend of Romani
descent helped me start to open my eyes.
In the U.S., racism against the Roma is similar in some ways to
racism against Native Americans. We erase them, replacing real, living
people with stereotypes and costumes and caricatures. The idea of a
white person dressing in black face and putting on a minstrel show would
horrify to most of us today, but people think nothing of dressing up in
their homemade “Gypsy costume” and putting on their best fortune-teller
act for Halloween or the local Renaissance Festival.
Is that conscious, deliberate hatred or intolerance? Not always. But
it’s still racism. It’s still hurtful and damaging to a marginalized
group that’s been targeted for hatred and extermination for centuries.
Harm done in ignorance is still harm.
—
*The last time I talked about this, a commenter challenged whether
“Gypsy” (or the derived word “gypped,” which is essentially equivalent
to saying “Jewed”) was really a racial slur, or if I as a white person
not of Roma descent was just White-Knighting and making a big deal over
nothing. Here are a few links and references for that conversation.
Always Romani, But Never a Gypsy.
“It is an ethnic slur word for my people. Originally it alleged
incorrectly that we came from Egypt, instead of India, but, over the
centuries, it has come to imply we are thieves.”
The Problem with the Word “Gypsy”.
“There are Romanies (like myself) who take no offense to the word, and
in fact, have embraced it and there are others who abhor the word,
likening it to the word ‘nigger’ when describing an African American or
‘spic’ and ‘wetback’ to refer to a person of Mexican heritage.”
I’m sorry, but no you cannot & never will you be.
“This little word, ‘gypsy’, makes my skin crawl. It causes aches in my
heart and beats at my soul. I die a little inside everytime I must say
or write the word. ‘Gypsy’ is a racial slur. It is tantamount to the ‘N’
word. Like the ‘N’ word, ‘gypsy’ was created by people who believed we
were sub-human and enslaved us.”
Law enforcement in Morton County, North Dakota — armed in riot gear — began removing protesters who were occupying the Dakota Access Pipeline site on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation Thursday.
Officers removed a roadblock placed by Native American and environmental rights activists. The removal process resulted in a clash between protesters and officers.
the idea of people having to be ‘useful’ is just so gross, like people do not exist to be used
having to produce something and have a use is a capitalist ideal and not an intrinsic part of humanity
just by being alive you are human and you are worth something and you can never be useless
this applies to animals as well
“Having to like DO THINGS is SO OPPRESSIVE. No one had to like DO THINGS before evil capitalism. In ancient times food, water, and shelter just existed and everything was taken care of for me”
Guess what happened to people who didn’t do things before capitalism? They died. Cause if you weren’t hunting, gathering, or useful in some aspect of nature. You were killed, died or starvation, dehydration, or exposure.
Being useful is literally part of our biology. Fucking moron. You pull some idea out of your ass because you literally don’t want to get off your ass.
I’m not saying nobody should ever do things ever, I’m saying people don;t have to produce to an arbitrary standard in order to prove their right to live
And if you really think disabled people deserve to die if we can’t ‘contribute’ or be useful in a way you approve of then congrats youre a fucking monster
actually there’s significant evidence in terms of Neolithic burials that disabled people who would not have been able to hunt for themselves (the archaeological evidence mostly shows mobility disabilities because it’s visible in the bone record) were well fed and cared for by their communities
so the “people like you would have been left to die” argument isn’t just cruel and violently ableist, it’s extremely historically inaccurate and based off of projecting modern prejudice on prehistoric cultures
sources because I’m on my laptop now!
note: in the neolithic era, a person in their 40s or 50s would be considered elderly
Our society continually propagates the myth that our ancestors’ lives were miserable, but the truth is human beings figured out how to live cooperatively and humanely a long time ago. Really the agricultural revolution fucked everything up.
Cuz clearly people only died and starved before capitalism
Anthropologically, proof of fixed femur fractures in ancient hominids shows that is one of the signs of civilized people– caring for the sick and injured is a cornerstone of civilization. So lmao go fuck yourself with the injured and disabled died thousands of years ago if they couldn’t help provide for their group.
Stop turning ancient hominids into these cruel “survival of the fittest” images. Especially cause that isn’t even what is meant by that phrase.
Even Neanderthals cared for their sick and injured. Which says a lot about those who are against the idea.
Another point: back in the ancient times, pretty much ALL work that got done was work of the “if it doesn’t get done, you starve” variety, perhaps embellished a bit by the “if it doesn’t get done, you’re uncomfortable” sort. Work was vital, yes, but all the work that was vital was vital.
Nowadays, on the other hand, we have excess, and waste, and an absolute shitpot of arbitrary work that gets shoved into the “necessary and vital” pile just because somebody else can make a buck off it, made as much off of cut corners and financial shenanigans as of anybody’s honest labor. Shitty Wal-Mart plastic pitchers and crap toys that capture attention and drop it just as fast, “fast fashion” that you wear twice and it falls apart, shiny chrome washer-dryers that are going to be replaced in five or ten years because planned obsolescence meets upgrade culture, and produce that gets rejected because it doesn’t look shiny and uniform and perfect.
If you’re a cashier, you have to stand even though you could do your job just as well sitting. A fast-food place throws out pounds of fries, empties the whole assembly-line of prepared food into the dumpster at the end of the night, and if you take any of it home to eat, that’s called stealing. Grocery stores throw out entire cartons of eggs because one out of twelve is cracked and lock their dumpsters so nobody can scavenge food from the tons of what’s thrown out still edible. Tech stores demand that unsold computers be destroyed with a sledgehammer before being thrown out, and all the labor that went into making it, assembling it, forming its component parts and mining its raw materials, is all wasted.
We can see this shit going on, we encounter it and sometimes we’re ordered to carry it out, in our workplaces that pay us shit, and let me tell you, there’s a hell of a difference between “if you don’t get the wheat harvested we’ll have no bread all winter” and “you need to spend the next eight hours cooking food so we can hold a profit after throwing a quarter of it in the garbage.” A multitude of people would benefit greatly if allowed to access that waste or allowed to not produce what’s likely going to be wasted.
It’s not that we want something for nothing–it’s that we want the stuff we’ve put work into creating to benefit us, or someone who could use it, and not see good work twisted into benefiting no one while still being demanded and still being underpaid.
If people in agrarian societies of the past starved it was frequently due to an uncontrollable act of nature (drought, flood, locusts, plague).
Now people starve because they don’t “produce” in an acceptable way for our capitalist system, which has a very narrow and limited definition of what being “useful” is, and because our corporate overlords would rather throw food away than feed someone who is starving.
We have enough food, but people are starving to death.
We have enough houses, but people are dying of exposure because they’re homeless.
We have enough medicine, but people are dying because they can’t afford to pay for it.
And we accept this as correct because we’ve been brainwashed that only “useful” i.e. “capitalist productive” people deserve to have food, shelter and healthcare.
When people are struggling or afraid to try something, well-meaning people often try to help them by telling them that the thing is easy. This often backfires.
For instance:
Kid: I don’t know how to write a paper! This paper has to be 5 pages long, and we have to do research! It’s so hard!
Parent: Don’t worry. 5 pages isn’t that much. This isn’t such a hard assignment.
In this interaction, the parent is trying to help, but the message the kid is likely hearing is “This shouldn’t be hard. You’re failing at an easy thing.”
If something is hard or scary, it’s better to acknowledge that, and focus on reassuring them that it is possible. (And, if necessary and appropriate, help them to find ways of seeing it as possible.)
For instance:
Kid: I don’t know how to write a paper! This paper has to be 5 pages long, and we have to do research! It’s so hard!
Parent: It’s hard, and that’s ok. You can do hard things.
Parent: What are you writing about?
Kid: Self-driving cars. But I can’t find anything.
And so on.
This isn’t unique to interactions between parents and children. It can also happen between friends, and in other types of relationships.
tl;dr If something’s hard for someone, telling them that it’s easy probably won’t help. Reassuring them that they can do hard things often does help, especially if you can support them in figuring out how to do the thing.
They have actually done research on this. In cultures and households where kids are told that to struggle with something is a good thing, the kids are more likely to continue to try to do the thing before giving up. In their minds, they are thinking “This thing is hard but if I keep trying or try a different method, maybe I will succeed at it.”
Telling people that things should be easy or that it should come natural (aka talent), actually inhibits their willingness to try as they think that if they can’t do a task that is “easy”, something must be wrong with them.
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to.
And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom…
Abusers are really good at is making you feel like your anger is worse than their abuse.
This is so important. Many survivors have spent months or years not being allowed to express anger or being made to feel ashamed for experiencing anger.
So if you know a survivor, and you tell them that they “can’t” or “shouldn’t” be angry, that will almost certainly be triggering, and it’s really cruel.
Telling survivors that they need to “get past” their anger or to “be the bigger person” or “holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot coal” or “anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die” or that “healing is only possible with forgiveness” or that “forgiveness will set you free,” or that “being angry means the abuser still has control,” or that experiencing anger makes the survivor as bad as the abuser, or whatever else– that’s culturally imposed abuse apologism and if you want to be an ally, you need to unlearn resorting to those platitudes when trying to comfort survivors.
It’s okay to experience anger. It’s literally the natural reaction to boundary violation, and when someone’s boundaries have been repeatedly violated and broken down for years, it’s important for a person’s health to be able to experience and express that anger. It honestly really is.
so uh. tomorrow (or today, depending on when ur reading this post) is the 15th anniversary of september eleventh, and i just want to tell my fellow muslims that its ok, its ok, it’s not our fault, i love you, i love you, its ok, i love you.
also if u r not muslim can u reblog this? last year i really needed a post like this, so if you could spread it i would really appreciate it!!
here’s a thing that i don’t think american kids are told often enough:
STAY AWAY FROM FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES.
ITT tech, virginia colleges, bryant and stratton, the art institutes, university of phoenix, everest, devry, etc – do NOT attend these places. do not give them your money – and it will be a lot of money. They are all, to a one, scams.
For-profit colleges prey on minority, low-income, military, nontraditional, and chronically underemployed students by promising them a quick path to a career. They are lying. They often do not allow the transfer of credits to and from, and many are either unaccredited or accredited by suspect accreditors. They rely on their students to take out massive federal student loan debt. They line their pockets with money from the government and then burden their graduates with tens of thousands of dollars of debt for inadequate education and degrees that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
If you’re a non-traditional student looking for a degree, don’t go to a for-profit. Find a community college in your area instead. most ccs have more flexible class times for especially vocational/technical certifications and quite a few offer online-only or hybrid degrees. Hell, if you’re a non-trad student and you have a GED and some spare cash, try studying for a few months and then taking the SATs/ACT and trying for a four-year straight out (that’s what I did). Or get an AA and then do a four-year. Or look for a technical/adult education program sponsored by a local community college or school district. Just please, please, please, don’t go to a for-profit college. They will ruin your credit rating, your finances, and your job prospects.
This Is a Backup Blog 