Not woke enough
With President Donald Trump scheduled to make his Supreme Court nomination over the weekend and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, saying he has the votes to affirm a nominee if qualified, the seemingly powerless Democrats have begun to turn on their own.
One of the victims is Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-California. The 87-year-old lawmaker is the oldest member of the Senate, and concerns have begun to grow as to whether she could lead an aggressive opposition to the court nomination. Critics say she is frail, often confused by reporters' questions and - even worse to them - evinces a more genteel demeanor ascribed to the Senate of a bygone era.
An unnamed Democrat senator said a group of her colleagues would like her to step aside.
"She's not sure what she's doing," the senator said of Feinstein. "If you take a look at [the nomination hearing for now-Justice Brett] Kavanaugh, we may be short two senators because of that. And if this gets [messed] up, it may be the same result."
Her recent opinion that ending the Senate filibuster, which many Democrats are promising to do if a court nominee is confirmed, is a bad idea hasn't sat well either.
"I'm really surprised and taken aback by this," Feinstein told Politco. "Because I try to be very careful, and I'm puzzled by it. My attendance is good, I do the homework, I try to ask hard questions. I stand up for what I believe in."
Having a devil of a time
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saddened many on the political left, but a liberal suburban mom took it a little further, according to the Huffington Post.
Jamie Smith, who describes herself as a "40-something attorney and mother who lives in a quiet neighborhood with a yard and a garage full of scooters and soccer balls," said the jurist's death made her join a satanic temple.
"Our democracy has become so fragile," she wrote, "that the loss of one of the last guardians of common sense and decency in government less than two months before a pivotal election has put our civil and reproductive rights in danger like never before. And, so, I have turned to Satanism."
For her, Smith said, she "knew immediately that action was needed on a scale we have not seen before."
But, she said, her friends needn't worry that she's sold her soul to the devil.
"Members of the Satanic Temple do not believe in the supernatural or superstition ," Smith said. "Satanic Temple members do not worship Satan and most are atheists. Instead, the Satanic Temple uses the devil as a symbol of rebellion."
Family lives matter
Former National Football League defensive lineman Marcellus Wiley caught some flak earlier this summer when he called out the Black Lives Matter movement for its call - then stated clearly under "What We Believe" on its website - for the destruction of the nuclear family.
While on a panel, he denounced the statement and said how being a father and family life were very important to him. He further made his point by reading statistics about single-parent households that show suicide, poverty, drug use, prison time and lack of education are more likely in such families.
Wiley, who hosts the program "Speak for Yourself" on Fox Sports 1 network, said he was criticized for being a Black man and citing statistics about the kind of family unit of which many Blacks are a part.
Since then, after criticism began to grow over links of the Black Lives Matter movement to protests and violence in large U.S. cities, the organization quietly removed the destruction of the nuclear family reference from its website.
But it didn't escape Wiley's notice.
"Heard too many people tell me that I was wrong for misinterpreting BLM's mission statement and I took their words out of context," Wiley tweeted. "You were saying???"
Cheesy decisions
Costco has pulled Palmetto Cheese products from its shelves after the owner of the company had the temerity to say aloud what many people in the country have said privately - that Black Lives Matter and the antifa movement are "terror organizations."
Brian Henry, the owner of the company and the mayor of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, said the company's action was no big deal.
The products were pulled, he said, "as a matter of normal business" and the retailer rotates items in and out regularly.
"We remain optimistic that Palmetto Cheese will be back on the shelves in the not-too-distant future," Henry told the Georgetown Times.
The business owner may have been afraid of being canceled by pimento cheese-loving BLM and antifa supporters, though. He later apologized for his comments.