Nah, there’s no mention of 7 silver coins and the death of the business entity created by the government in their name.

The alternative is do nothing and then act surprised when the GOP do whatever the fuck they want anyway, regardless of Democrat high-road stances.

I wouldn’t go that far…

I thought it was “nip it in the butt” as well. Listening to Les Mis 10th Anniversary Edition, the way the gentleman who plays Javert always sounded like “butt” to me as well.

To answer the other commenters question of what would that mean: for years, I thought it meant “nip” like a dog will nip your finger, and “in the butt” was like, “you’d pinch em in the butt” to get them to stop whatever they were doing.

Also thought the line “Burnin’ up his fuel, out there, alone” in Rocket Man was “Burnin’ up the atmos-PHERE, he’s gone” for years before a friend corrected me.

American’s inability to responsibly inform and engage themselves in our political affairs.

I don’t agree, I still put the majority of the blame at the feet of the DNC. They wouldn’t run on progressive policies, but also refused to compromise with the electorate on anything.

Almost 66 million people voted for Hillary in 2016. Over 81 million voted for Biden in 2020, the campaign where Biden’s team worked with Bernie’s team to bring some progressive-policy to his platform. Yes, four years of Trump and the pandemic helped that voter turnout, but I’d argue it was more the progressive platform.

And in 2024, just under 75 million voted for Harris, who ran a centrist, status quo campaign, and thought “We’re not Trump” was enough to engage voters. Bernie was right, Americans want change, and being promised nothing more than a continuation of the status quo, people stayed home.

And before anyone says “The voters knew the price and their hubris cost all of us, I hope they’re happy!” Why couldn’t the DNC compromise? Harris lost Michigan by less numbers than protest voted in the primaries, so why couldn’t the DNC change course on Gaza? They were the ones telling us the threat that Trump is, they were the ones urging us to give them money to fight (and as soon as they lost, stopped fighting), they were the ones telling us they know best and that they’re going to shift right when we were asking them to move left.

I get it, 77 million people voted for Trump, and that is a problem. But, roughly 90 million Americans didn’t vote, so instead of pushing the party right and parading around with Cheney in an attempt to win over Republicans, then demanding our vote anyway (I voted Harris, fyi) because “Trump fascist, Harris not fascist”, maybe they could try… Popular, progressive policies that will resonate with all Americans? Policies that may actually make those in the “both sides are the same” camp to say, “Y’know what, they’re actually not the same!”

It’s a crazy thought, but it could work.

The last time I went to the doctor was over a year ago, and it was because my mouth/throat was in so much pain I called my friend, who lived 30 minutes away, and begged her to come take me to urgent care while bawling my eyes out.

The initial nurse that comes in is this dude, and I hate male medical professionals when I’m male-presenting: it’s like this fucking machismo bullshit. He’s trying to do the thing where they swab your throat or are just looking back there, and he’s asking me to open wide, and I’m trying but I’m in excruciating pain and apparently couldn’t open wide enough.

So he drops his hands in this exasperated/annoyed gesture and goes, “C’mon man, it’s not that bad, open up.”

I lost it. “Get the FUCK out of this room and send the actual fucking doctor in here! How dare you tell me I’m not in fucking pain when I can’t fucking swallow or breathe without tears welling up! Get the FUCK away from me, NOW!!!” Funnily enough, my mouth was open plenty wide after I lost it on him, and he scurried out the room as soon as she got his swab.

Woman doctor comes in a few minutes later, sees me bawling my eyes out while my friend is comforting me. Doctor doesn’t give me any shit while she’s examining me, and turns out, I had a serious infection behind my tonsils, not strep like douchebag kept telling us it probably was while telling me to “man up.”

Doctor gave me some steroids and told my friend that my, “throat was in really bad shape,” and that she was putting in a rush order for antibiotics at the pharmacy. I was to take the pills immediately when we got home, and again roughly 4-6 hours later (this was around 4 o’clock).

She ended our visit with, “Listen, if you take the second pill around 10, and if you’re not feeling any better by 10:30, you need to go to the ER for emergency surgery, those tonsils are gonna go septic.” But “c’mon man, it’s not that bad.” 🙄

The pills worked, I survived, but my blood boils just thinking about the whole situation and how comfortable that dude was in his attitude towards patients in pain.

Minus the 2+ weeks they take for the holidays.

It was during the Great Depression and WWII that employer-provided health insurance took off. The fed instituted a wage freeze to combat inflation in the 40s, and as a result, employers had to start offering other incentives like health insurance to attract/retain their workforce.

FDR wanted to pass universal healthcare (along with a lot of other progressive policies) under his Second Bill of Rights, but it never came to be. Had his ideas been enshrined in law, we’d have universal healthcare, a minimum livable wage, adequate housing, the right to work, and several others.

I agree, but it’s up to those in charge to deem who are the conspiracy nuts and neonazis, right? And that quickly becomes a slippery slope.

The solution isn’t taking votes away, it’s getting more people to vote.

America has a long history of trying to figure out how to make the votes of certain groups fractional of “true” Americans, the whole 3/5ths compromise and all that.

I don’t think we should be trying to introduce modern day versions of that. I’d much rather see voting day be made a federal holiday, and voting become mandatory.

As Jon Stewart put it: Republicans rely on loopholes, Democrats rely on norms.

I’ve always liked “Just don’t punch down.” But you’re right, we’re all hypocritical in some form or another.

I would say rightfully, yes.

Did the Confederacy actually lose, though? Or did the Union just suffer a pyrrhic victory?

Edit: Just saying, the Confederacy lost but their flag is still flown on the state flag of Mississippi, Reconstruction didn’t go far enough and failed, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, segregation, civil rights movement opposition, systemic and societal racism is still rampant and accepted (Trump), hell, the “state’s rights” arguments is still one of the first reasons people give for the cause of the Civil War. Fuck, we still have legal slavery via our prison system.

So… Did the Confederacy actually lose? Cause they’re ideology, beliefs, and the consequences of their hate is still rampant, and we’re still dealing with their bullshit.

But Hamas settled in Israeli land, robbing it from Israeli families who held it for generations!

Wait, that was Israel settling Palestinian land…

But Hamas has spent decades walling off Israeli neighborhoods, essentially creating ghettos where residents may be restricted from leaving their own homes and are essentially isolated from the world and their communities!

Wait, that was Israel again…

But Hamas has been treating Israeli’s as second class citizens, throwing their garbage onto their heads from the streets above, and forcing them to live under military-law with no protections since Israelis aren’t citizens of Hamas!

Wait… That was Israel, again…

But Hamas killed over 43,000 Israelis over the course of the last year in response to Israel killing 1200 of their citizens and taking several hundred more hostage!

Fuck, that was Israel too… Shit.

From the party that just rubbed elbows with every Cheney to try and shore up moderate-Republican votes for “I have a Glock” Harris?

I like how Jon Stewart put it this week:

“Republicans rely on loopholes, while Democrats rely on norms.”

His whole thing this week was begging the Democrats to fight, to start getting dirty, throwing punches, to basically just not roll over.

But he kept reiterating the Dems need to get over the norms, they need to stop relying on the norms. He cited the hypocrisy of not approving Garland, but rushing through Amy Coney Barrett, and showed how the Dems brought McConnell’s own words to the floor of the Senate.

“And thus, Amy Coney Barrett, head hung, was forced to return to her homestead in-- Wait, what’s that? They didn’t give a fuck?!”

Or the Parliamentarian not allowing something Biden proposed to move forward, and Biden just rolled over. “Oh, uh, we didn’t know about that rule.”

I’m incredibly disappointed too, they’re supposed to fight for us, regardless of circumstances, and we get… The response we get. I completely agree the GOP and Trump were telling us they were going to steal it, and had precedent that clearly tried to last time, and the Dems just… Accepted it. The GOP launched dozens of lawsuits and recounts over handfuls of ballots, but the Dems have just moved on despite these statistical anomalies.

Not a great way to maintain your already waning support among your voting base: telling them they need to fight and support them in their fight, and then they just stop fighting.

But he did his best, and that’s all that matters at the end of the day. 🙄 God was I livid when he fucking said that.

I’m trans, and that’s what bothers me the most about those two congressional Democrats coming out against trans athletes in sports. Parroting the “biological boys in girl’s sports” line the right has been using for years now.

They were so comfortable saying it, that’s what pisses me off the most. It shows me it’s not ingrained in the party’s platform, and we were just a token group to support when they thought we brought in enough votes. So they’d rather scapegoat us and try to court a minority of moderate Republicans that won’t vote for them anyway.

It showed me we, trans people, don’t matter to the DNC. Maybe we matter to the electorate of the DNC, but we don’t matter to the DNC.

Oh 100%.