Ben Gaines

“Hi, this is Crystal from Central Maine Power. I am calling about the outage you may be experiencing today which began around 10:30 a.m. The outage was caused when an osprey nest came in contact with the equipment on a transmission line…”

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Ben Gaines

sam alito in tuxedo gets recorded incognito

Been there

Evergreen, Alabama Population: 2,253 Photos from Google Places API Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen,_Alabama

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Ben Gaines

There are a million places to take this topic, but I don't think you get the popular collapse in trust for institutions - which gets you Trump - without Bush lying us into war and appointing blockheads like Chris Cox to mishandle the financial crisis.

The thing with "was Bush or Trump worse" is I feel like, we were at like a 7 out 10 in governmental quality when Bush came in, a 2 when he left, then Obama pulled us back up to like 4 out of 10 then when Trump came in he crashed us instantly down to 1.

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The drum sound that Albini got on the Breeders' "Pod" is one of the best in rock records, but man, the whole damn album sounds incredible: nearly 35 years old & hasn't aged a day www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoIy...

Happiness Is A Warm Gunwww.youtube.com Provided to YouTube by Beggars Group Digital Ltd. Happiness Is A Warm Gun · The Breeders Pod ℗ 1990 4AD Ltd Released on: 1990-05-29 Associated Performer: Josephine Wiggs Associated Performer: Kim Deal Associated Performer: Shannon Doughton Engineer: Steve Albini Associated Performer: Tanya Donelly Studio Musician: Carrie Bradley Music Publisher: CMRRA Music Publisher: ATV Music Publishing Music Publisher: Harry Fox Agency Music Publisher: Sony Composer Lyricist: John Lennon Composer Lyricist: Paul McCartney Auto-generated by YouTube.

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Ben Gaines

Do go on, Mr. Stephens...

Saving this for game time. Roll Tide.

I have words for CMP. #Maine

Perfect 90s album, wrong answers only.

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Ben Gaines

A newspaper editor — Chris Quinn of the Cleveland Plain Dealer — says it as clearly as he can: "Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts." www.cleveland.com/news/2024/03... Quinn writes of a different kind of access. Access to our own eyes and ears:

Update 2:

Update: 36 hours, no word from the power company, still trapped.

Though, this is not necessarily their fault.

Central Maine Power is the fucking worst.

We’re potty training, and Micah just had his first poop in the toilet. Naturally, to mark the occasion, we all stood around and looked at it and cheered before he flushed. But since it was truly a massive adult-sized turd, it really didn’t feel like we were faking anything.

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Ben Gaines

The Dormant Reconstruction Amendments Enforcement Clause: Only Congress can enforce the operative provisions of these amendments, but also Congress of course can't enforce the operative provisions of these amendments.

Pretty amazing upside-downworld stuff: when Congress *actually* tries to legislate under sec. 5 (or it's 13th or 15th Amendment counterparts), the justices strike it down. Sec. 5 is only usable as a cudgel against other institutions when Congress is silent, apparently.

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Ben Gaines

the Alabama IVF ruling makes very clear that it's absurd to imagine that this movement to restrict bodily autonomy can't be cabined to "just" attacks on trans people or "just" restrictions on LGBTQ visibility in public or "just" restrictions on the wrong kind of abortion. we're all in the same boat

Opinion | Samuel Alito Opened the Door to Reproductive Hellwww.nytimes.com The Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that frozen embryos are children is only part of the problem.

The simpon

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Ben Gaines

Important @juliaazari.bsky.social points on how the media could respond substantively to Biden age concerns with real reporting, not the perpetual motion machine of "we're reporting on concerns our coverage helped to create"

This is an important short-term message for Dems—especially leaders in Congress—to echo. If this is still the message in October, it’s probably a loser. But February, March, and April is time to work the refs. For better or worse, that’s how the press corps see themselves. A united front helps.

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Ben Gaines

Reply to

Malaclypse the Fetus

It’s an annoying experience but people you don’t like can be correct about things.

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Ben Gaines

Sitting at my desk imagining a world in which Democrats used political power when they have it, instead of spending all their time worrying about what might happen when they don’t ballsandstrikes.org/nominations/...

What Democrats Still Don't Understand About Judicial Confirmation Fightsballsandstrikes.org Voters entrusted Democrats with the power to confirm federal judges. Why are they ceding that power to Republicans?

Maine’s Secretary of State has appealed the Superior Court’s order remanding her ruling in the Trump 14th Amendment case.

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Ben Gaines

Terrific piece from @jbouie.bsky.social about how Americans have misremembered and forgotten the Reconstruction-era Klan - and what that can teach us about the Jan. 6 insurrection

Opinion | Jan. 6 Cannot Go Down the Memory Holewww.nytimes.com We have been down this road before, and it did the country lasting damage.

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Ben Gaines

From Prof. Gerard Magliocca's Maine testimony: 21 instances of contemporary (1867-1882) writings conveying the assumption that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment did in fact apply to the presidency as an office.

Balkinization: Shooting Fish in a Barrel--The Presidency and Section 3balkin.blogspot.com A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics