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?
But Biden can't lie once. Got it.
I mean... He ran in 2020 saying he would only be a one-term President...
And then him and his staff hid his cognitive decline well past the start of the primaries....
He also said there'd be consequences for Israel if they didn't start allowing aid into Gaza...
So that's four lies, counting his backtrack on pardoning his son.
The problem is Biden helped create the legal system he's now shielding his son from. The same legal system that put thousands upon thousands of sons and daughters behind bars.
And with the recent attention police conduct has gotten (and all the footage we see of officers abusing/torturing/beating/killing those being arrested), how many of those kids never made it to the courtroom because of ol' Joe "Maybe Cops Can Just Shoot-em in the Leg" Biden and the militarized police force he helped create?
You're right, Republicans are corrupt to the core, they're pieces of shit, and they have and will do things that are worse than this. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this only benefits the Biden family, and is corruption, full stop. I understand why he did it, and I've gone back and forth on whether I'd do the same in his shoes (which probably means I would)...
But he deserves to be criticized for it, as I would be, because it's blatant corruption, and just reinforces the notion amongst non-voters that both parties are the same, they only care about protecting and enriching their own, and us plebs can just go fuck ourselves.
And actions like this are exactly why people say "both parties," because they prove it.
Might take some playing around with, but I've managed to get it down to where my joint kinda smokes like a cig when I use my lil rolling machine. Lots of trial and error (and playing around with different brands of papers and such), but I got there.
If you've ever smoked pipe tobacco, you're probably familiar with the 3-compress rule for packing the bowl. First you fill it to the top and press down with the same force you'd use to shake a baby's hand. Then refill and compress with the force you'd use to shake a woman's hand, and then a refill and the force of shaking a man's hand.
When I pack the flower in, but before I push some aside to make room for the filter, I only use a woman's handshake and a baby's handshake to compress it all, and my joints tend not to canoe or go out too often.
Regardless, I hope everything works out for you and it continues to help your arthritis.
USPS will never text you unless you have your account set up that way. My mom sends me these texts asking if they're legit, and I always ask, "Did you order something?" No. "Well, then why would you have a delayed package?"
Again, USPS will not text you like this, and they use a .gov domain.
The cops you can look up that save lives and help people,
Which police department let that shooters murder their town's school children are you referencing when you say "save lives?" Because I distinctly remember dozens of cops, armed to the teeth, sitting idly hy while children were murdered down the hall by a lone gunman.
How many lives did those brave, life saving cops help? Or should we discuss George Floyd, were those cops just saving his life when they responded to a call about a counterfeit $20 and took a man's life?
Or did you mean the countless sex workers that police have "saved" from the streets by arresting them and giving them criminal records? How many lives are the police saving by fucking prostitutes "fOr ThEiR jOb" during undercover stings and arresting them?
Tell me, how many lives were saved during the BLM protests where police met unarmed, peaceful protesters with weapons of war, decked out like they're invading fucking Fallujah?! Go ahead, I want a fucking number of lives that have been saved by police attacking peaceful protesters, I'll fucking wait.
Every single cop is a bastard, full stop. They're class traitors who hide behind "protect and serve" so they can beat and abuse minorities and kill with impunity.
Tell me, where are all the good cops calling for an end to qualified immunity so all the bad cops can finally be filtered out? Where are all the good cops calling for department settlements to be paid out of the department's pension fund instead of the town/city budget, paid for by taxpayers?
Where are all the good cops calling for police funds to be diverted to other public services, which would alleviate some of the work burden on police? Cause any time I've heard talk about police budgets, it's often them complaining that the town is giving $15,000/year for transgender services instead of giving that money to the police and their $1 billion budget.
Where are all the good cops calling for the police to be disarmed, or to be barred from purchasing surplus military equipment? Where are all the good cops when warrants are illegally issued and no-knock raids are carried out?
Tell me, where were all the good cops telling the world to "say her name?" How many police from the St. Louis PD have come forward and disavowed their coworkers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor while she was sleeping in her bed?
I don't recall the PA Fraternal Order of Police ever apologizing for using a black child as a propaganda piece during the BLM protests, but then again, the whole department is full of good cops, I must just be misremembering. I do vividly remember that Philadelphia PD dropped fire bombs on apartment homes, burning down a neighborhood block, so were they good cops too?
I'll answer for you: they don't exist. Once you put on that badge, the only race you care about is your fellow Thin Blue Coward folks. Cowards who couldn't cut it in the military, so they have to LARP as soldiers against their own population to feel like they're contributing to society in any meaningful way. Cowards who need guns and military grade equipment to feel "safe" against peaceful, unarmed protestors while they exchange hand shakes and coffee with armed fascists attempting to do peaceful protestors harm.
So is that what makes the cops good cops, that they stand in solidarity with fascists and tell them they "really appreciate those guys and their help?" Or is that just more "good cop in the background doing good cop things" that I must be completely unaware of?
Or is it the fact that cops kill over 1,000 Americans per year, and over 10,000 dogs per year, is that what makes them good cops, killing family dogs because it's too much effort to try and deescalate a situation? You're right, that makes them saints! Especially all the nonexistent good cops I hear criticizing their cohorts about these practices (this is a joke, there are no good cops, and none of them have ever criticized any of their fellow officers behavior).
But keep licking the boot of people who would have zero problem curb stomping you and then charging you for damage to government property for bleeding on their boots. All those BS photo ops, like the Chief of Police who knelt with protestors after the George Floyd protest who then went on to talk about how we need to just arrest and put away these "animals" in warehouses where we'll let a generation die, and then once all the "problem people" are gone, Amazon can turn them into warehouses.
Clearly there are just a plethora of good cops, you're right, it's completely unfair to criticize them for anything I've listed above, I mean, they're not doing anything to change any of it, so that makes them good cops, right? Or are you just implying that a cop giving a kid a lollipop during a photo op makes up for all of the atrocities committed by police?
Edit: And to be clear, I'm a veteran who never saw combat but also doesn't pretend to like these fucking badge wearing snowflakes, and I also say this as a grandchild of a retired cop and cousin to a potential state trooper and former Marine.
All cops are bastards, don't wanna automatically be a bastard? Don't be a cop.
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.
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.
Just got a commission to make a charcuterie/cutting board for a friend of my brother's.
Beyond that, little gifts for friends/family that are long overdue, most notable being a rosary bead holder for my mom.
This troll... How big we talkin'?
And do we need to worry about him trying to get in muh boy's soul?
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.