it should be “Trump returns to White House despite the 14th Amendment saying he can’t.”
I agree, if only there had been someone in charge of a government agency with the mandate to go after people like that, using a system of laws and justice, administered in some kind of court… Ideally someone the offender didn’t appoint themselves, with a time period of roughly, idk, 4 years to get it done?
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.
Correct: I have had two jobs where I only worked 32 hours/week, but was considered a full time employee with benefits and all that.
However, just because your employer considers you full-time doesn’t mean other organizations will. When I was getting my mortgage, it was with one of those 32 hr/week jobs, and my loan company would not sign off on an approval until I could show a paystub with 40 hours/week.
I told them I’m considered full time at my company at 32 hours, and they basically said that’s great, but their policy is 40.
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.
Tip: If you have trouble getting the cranberry sauce out of the can ala can-form, use a knife you don’t care too much about and strike the bottom of the can with the heel of the blade a couple times to create air holes. Do this before you remove the top of the can.
It should help the sauce slide right out, and can be applied to anything with that type of viscosity found in a can.
Cox did this with my dad, fucked around and found out. To this day, if you bring up Cox Cable, my dad goes, “OH, you mean the company I was a loyal customer to for 32 years, 10 months, and 17 days?!”
He had one of those cable-internet-landline bundles and was paying something like $150/month for it, something about he just had to call every renewal or something like that. Well, him and my mom fell on some hard times and forgot/missed a payment/something happened with Cox.
My dad gets the bill the next month, and it says his package is now $300/month (or something ridiculous like that). He calls Cox and wants to know what’s up, why his bill doubled in a month, etc They told him he missed his renewal and thus his promotional price was lost, and now he’s got to do the regular price. He explains what’s been going on and how they’re doing their best, they want to remain a customer, but they’re not paying $300/month for something they were paying $150/month for.
Cox refused to budge, offering a like $25/month discount at best. So my dad goes, “So, I just want to understand… If I was a new customer creating a new account, you’d give me my old rate? And if I hadn’t missed the thing last month, you’d give me my old rate?” Correct. “So my being a customer of yours for over 32 years… That gets me nothing?!” That’s correct, Sir, so would you like to renew, make any changes, or make a payment?
“Oh, you can close the account, I’ll be dropping off your equipment in about 3 hours, thank you.” And they still argued with my dad, I think they moved up to $50/month discount, and he just told them to kick rocks, he would rather have no internet, cable, or telephone, than give Cox his money ever again. And to this day, he refuses to recommend Cox to anyone, and tells them to check his file whenever they call or come to the door trying to get him to come back.
I’ve always liked “Just don’t punch down.” But you’re right, we’re all hypocritical in some form or another.
Ringo Starr: “And Henry would stay there, forever and for always. I think Henry got the punishment he deserved… Don’t you?”
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Hell, they’ll probably make us pay back the economic impact payments we got during the last pandemic.
The G looks completely unrelated to any of the other letters.
I see this, since half of the letters appear to be uppercase, and the other half lowercase:
JaGUar
So… Explain to me how continuing to support the genocide of 3 million West Bank Palestinian lives is caring about the lives of 3 million West Bank Palestinians? And remind me… What support were the Dems showing when, the day after the election, two congressional Democrats came out and said the DNC was too woke on trans issues.
So… Explain to me how the DNC immediately scapegoating the trans community after their abysmal loss due to their own failed campaign… Is showing that they care about American trans lives? Where in her, or any Democrats campaign, was their platform for enshrining LGBTQ+ equality into law? Huh, funnily enough, drag, none of them had one.
And then… Explain to me how the DNC and Biden refusing to let Ukraine use long-range American weapons inside of Russian territory for well over two years is showing care and concern for Ukrainian people? Or, why does Ukraine, who are fighting off a foreign invader, why do they have stipulations on how they can use American weapons, but Israel can just level hospital after hospital in Gaza and that’s completely morally justified? At least Ukraine aims for strategic resource infrastructure and not apartment blocks and schools like Israel (who still is receiving Biden, and then de facto because she doesn’t do anything against it, Harris, unconditional support from the Biden admin).
Lives you are so apathetic about, you can’t even see them as different from any other statistic.
So you’re completely fine with the 43,000 Palestinian civilians who have been killed at the hands of Biden and Harris administration, those are just a statistic that you’re completely fine with because… They’re worth losing because statistically there are more lives to save in your own country.
Wow, I had to look it up, but you’re right drag… Someone choosing not to support a genocide is completely apathetic, but you, the one willing to trade Palestinian lives for American trans lives, you’re the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. Literally the definition of empathy right here, folks!!! The embodiment of the fucking Buddha right here, kill as many Palestinians as needed, they’re just collateral compared to Americans trans lives.
Again, the same lives the DNC threw under the bus the day after the election.
Good to see you’re continuing to double down on your absurdity, drag, still can’t find anyone to point the finger at besides non-voters? How many letters and phone calls have you made to your Democratic elected officials demanding they take more action against your morally just causes? I imagine none, since you seem more concerned with alienating and disenfranchising non-voters than you are actually fixing liberalism and the DNC as a whole.
You’re wasting your breath, drag is Lemmy’s morally enlightened philosopher who somehow thinks non-voters are to blame for not choosing to support a genocide, but the DNC is completely blameless in their unconditional support of a fascist committing a genocide because Trump would commit it worse.
Drag’ll likely respond and start insulting your intelligence, will probably call you a nazi fascist who wants drag and all of drag’s friends dead, and then try to explain why not supporting genocide is significantly worse than supporting it.
All while acting like drag’s the ooooooooonly one who understands how the world works, how morality works, how individual understandings of the world may vary from person to person to culture.
And if you write more than 4 sentences, drag will complain that you’re long-winded and taking too many words to “be wrong.” And that you’re writing as much as you are because you “fail to understand what drag is saying.”
In other words, drag let drag’s fleeting popularity due to a post regarding drag’s preferred pronouns give drag the impression that drag is morally and intellectually superior to those around drag.
Aka, drag is a joke, don’t waste your breath arguing with Lemmy’s most enlightened fascism supporting liberal cOmMuNiSt. 🙄
Most doctors don’t want to run full panel STD-tests anyway. I remember in the military I had to basically tell my doctor I slept with anything with a pulse for her to do anything beyond the basic STD panel (despite me not sleeping with anything with a pulse).
I had some bumps down under and had a doc look at them (after I got out of the military), and asked about an STD test, and she said they were skin tags, no test needed if I hadn’t been with anyone lately. Alright, fair enough, and the skin tags eventually went away on their own.
Now for herpes specifically: there are two main types, Herpes 1 and Herpes 2. I don’t remember which is which off the top of my head, but, they correspond to oral versus genital herpes. They’re not the same virus, though similar. Something like 80% of American adults have oral herpes and most don’t even know it. They’re cold sores more or less on your lips, and they can remain dormant for the entire time someone is alive.
Genital herpes is the “acne” type, and same thing, they tend to come during flare ups that can be exacerbated by stress or other life circumstances. It is possible, but rare, for someone to contract oral herpes on their genitals, and vice versa, and you are correct that it only takes contact or a small open wound for the virus to be transferred.
Does having either form of herpes make you unlovable? No, while there’s no cure, you just need to take precautions if you or a loved one has either form. Basically, do your best to avoid intimacy when you or your partner has a flare up, and if you still gotta get the deed done, consider mutual-masturbation or other sexual activities that don’t require direct skin-to-skin contact. Condoms obviously help, but they don’t protect against everything.
It’s the Dems fault.
Their constituents wanted progressive policies, they wanted change, and when asked what Harris would change or do differently from Biden in her administration, she said “Nothing.”
Their constituents asked them to meet in the middle on the Palestinian genocide, and they were told there was no compromise, fascism/democracy was on the line and it was too important, etc.
And then the Dems began trying to court Republican votes, began parading Republicans alongside themselves at campaign rallies, all while moving further center-right and aligning closer to Biden’s centrist policies.
The Dems told their voters they were unwilling or unable to compromise on the policies the electorate wanted, but then extended their hand across the aisle and called for Republican support, while compromising on the already-barely-left policies Harris had and making them closer to the center…
And the voters stayed home. 11 million people chose “No thanks” versus voting for or against a candidate. Way too many Americans voted for Trump, absolutely, fuck em.
But a lot of people looked at their options and didn’t see a substantial enough difference to bother voting. That tells us more about the Dems and their incredibly unpopular platform among their electorate, and how their campaign strategy of “just be slightly less Republican” isn’t winning Republicans to their side, but it is disenfranchising their own progressive base.
Who I think just made it clear they’d rather not vote than keep being told to plug their nose and wait for progress that just isn’t coming.
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A reasonable person understands running the same strategy over and over and expecting different results is literally the definition of insanity.
But it’s perfectly ok for the DNC to trot out nothing but the status quo for their voters? After over a decade, they can’t promise anything beyond “not fascism” to their voters and the rest of the population?
And I already answered you: Harris needed to convince voters to vot for her, or against Trump. That’s a politicians job during a campaign, and she failed miserably.
So now explain to me why the average voter has to keep swallowing a shit sandwich, but the political party that keeps failing using the same failed strategy, why don’t they have to change? Why is it so unreasonable for them to adopt more popular, progressive policies that voters actually want?
I’ll wait, you can go ahead and explain that.
I voted for Harris. Roughly 60% of American voters who are eligible don’t vote.
Harris needed to convince those voters that she was either worth voting for, or Trump was worth voting against.
She failed to convince them of either, so they stayed home, along with 14 million Dem voters she failed to convince to vote blue like they did in 2020.
Do you think it accounted for the 14 million Dem voters who voted in 2020 but stayed home in 2024?
I doubt it.
I disagree with you, to win an election, you need to convince voters to vote for you. That’s it. Democrats have tried to win over conservatives in at least 2024 and the start of the 2020 campaign (before Biden worked with Bernie’s campaign to run on more progressive stuff).
And they keep losing. If what everyone on Lemmy keeps saying is true, roughly 1/3rd of the country voted Dem, 1/3rd voted Rep, and 1/3rd didn’t vote. And if we’re to believe people who say “both parties” genuinely feel that way, and those people are likely to belong to the 1/3rd who don’t vote…
Why are Dems trying to win over the conservatives at all? Show the 1/3rd of the populace who doesn’t vote that you’re not both the same. No, you’re never going to get 100% voter turnout, but if 77 million (Trump’s popular vote count) is 1/3rd, that means there’s roughly 77 million people that can be won over to vote.
So the Dems need to go after them, and they need to start running on actual progressive policy and positive change for the average American. They need to stop letting Republicans control the narrative for them on their ideas and policies. Obama won on the message of Hope, Biden won on the back of Bernie’s progressive policies, and Trump has won twice now on change.
The common denominator is change, the current system isn’t working for the average American, and people aren’t going to support the status quo. We can sit here and insult Magas and conservatives and comment on how empty their brains are or how selfish they may be or ignorant or incestual or whatever. I get it, I’ve done it, but I bet you at their core, they want something in this country to change for the better.
So they gambled on Trump in 2016, and regardless of your opinion on it, Trump spent four years showing people that you can change things, you can get things done, you just have to break all the rules and norms to do it. Biden gave people hope in 2020 (plus the COVID handling by Trump) so they rebuked Trump.
After four years of the average American seeing no material improvement to their lives (that’s all I’m arguing here, not whether or not Biden actually got anything done), and the Dem candidate running on “I’m going to maintain the course,” people stayed home. They showed the Dems in 2020 that progressive policies win, and yet the Dems still tried to win over voters from the other side as opposed to winning over the roughly 77 million who stay home.
It almost feels like willful ignorance on the behalf of these so-called liberal elite. The simpler explanation, though, is probably money, and that’s why people say “both sides are the same.” It’s because money: both sides of the aisle still insider trade despite it’s unpopularity with Americans, both sides of the aisle still hold expensive campaign dinners with the wealthy elite, and both sides still accept billions of dollars in campaign funds from the oligarchs. My cousin supports Bernie with his heart of hearts, but will not vote because “both sides are the same, I want actual change.”
Progressives need to take the helm from the liberals of the DNC and get PAC and oligarch money out of their organization (which will never happen). They need to show the American people that they not only believe in change, they will get it done, and it will benefit the people. They need to ditch this air of superiority and moral enlightenment and just get things done, stop condescending to your voting base, and make your constituency feel like you hear them.
Anecdotally, my dad and I were talking the other day about the election. He supported Trump in 2016 with some enthusiasm (just because Trump wasn’t a politician and “I make more when Repubs are in office”). Him and I stopped talking for almost 2 years after the election. But the other day, he kinda surprised me by saying, “Y’know, I don’t like Trump, I think he’s an asshole, I didn’t want to vote for him… But I just can’t vote for those pompous Democrats.”
I told him how disappointed I was in the DNC, and he said he liked Kamala, but didn’t trust the Dems (I know, the irony is not lost on me). I asked him how he felt about Bernie, and surprisingly, he made a joke about how we’d all have to learn to talk with our hands if he won. But talking policy ideas, my dad supports all of Bernie’s stuff, he just thinks the Dems are out of touch with blue collar folks like himself.
He doesn’t care that you’ve written a letter condoning the breaking of precedent to the Parliamentarian, and through the process of Habeas Corpus and Secretariat, after 12 years maybe they’ll acknowledge they did wrong. Doesn’t make sense to you, right?
Well, that’s because it’s nonsense, which is basically what the average American hears whenever the Dems get on their pulpit and start finger pointing and blaming everyone but themselves about why they couldn’t get things done. The average American living paycheck to paycheck, who doesn’t have a college degree, and likely hasn’t taken a civics class since high school, doesn’t care about all of these little caveats and the intricacies of an arbitrary system of rules and norms that they created. They aren’t going to sit down and research various political theories and then do a deep dive on the various roles and powers each different tiny figurehead amongst the federal government has and does not have, rounding out the night with a hefty portion of the history and precedent surrounding constitutional law.
They’re just not, and we need to stop pretending they will, or that people will even do the bare minimum of understanding how a bill becomes a law. So run on things they understand, and then actually get them done.
But lying? Nah, look at the division Biden pardoning his son has caused on Lemmy, lying isn’t the answer. They need to run on actual, positive change, and then work to actually make it happen, not these half-assed attempts we keep getting like the ACA.
This turned into a book, but I liked your write up.