Yeah No

I generally liked this episode but yeah, Missy's been dumbed down and Georgie was insufferable. But otherwise it was a good one!

Yes and even though he admitted that it was a "mistake", Trump is still blaming Harvard! Harvard and many people are questioning whether it was actually a "mistake". I can see why. How many "mistakes" has this administration made so far? A LOT.

No I can appreciate it as a humorous comment and the logic can still bug me at the same time. The two aren't mutually exclusive, at least not with me, lol.

I'm getting the understood words. What I'm not getting is the logic. Vaccines don't cause adults. I don't think there's a direct cause and effect relationship between the two things. They may indirectly allow people to reach adulthood by preventing disease, but I don't see how they make adults happen directly. I understand the liberties being taken here and why but it still bugs me.

Speaking of April 19, 1775 and Paul Revere, I am a very proud descendant of Ammi Cutter, who was one of the "Old Men of Menotomy", a militia group who ambushed a British military supply convoy on that date in Arlington, MA (then known as Menotomy). This is considered one of the first if not THE first battle of the Revolutionary War. They were considered too old to for military duty, hence why they were called "The Old Men". They were led by a man named David Lamson, who was part African American and Native American. You can bet your bottom dollar that most MAGA don't know or care about that. Anyway, sorry to go on about that, I'm just very proud of my Revolutionary War ancestry, which includes more names and battles. I suppose I like to think about that rather than dwell on how far we've sunk since then.

Damn! I live under 2 hours away by car but unfortunately I won't be able to go. I love Boston. I was there last year on July 4th and it was awesome! It's quite an amazing experience every year on these occasions but I can only imagine that this year it will be even more amazing.

You're by far not the only intellectual on this board. And also not the only one that isn't in an ivory tower either. Just saying. And all I know is that I have been acutely aware of being "other" in many situations in my life and being treated as such. It's not only an "intellectual" concept. It's something understood intuitively by many "ordinary people". And anti-intellectualism is a thing. People that deliberately dumb themselves down because they can't stand what they see as the intellectual "elite" that they feel put down and snubbed by. Instead of aspiring to be more educated, they deliberately avoid it, put people that are educated down, and fall prey to people like Trump who manipulate them. Trump loves people that don't have good critical thinking skills because it's how he dupes them into their allegiance to him. He's able to play on their emotions because they avoid thinking with their brain. And Trump himself felt snubbed by what he saw as an intellectual elite. The truth was that they saw through his BS and biased perspective on many issues. His views were always colored by prejudice even back in the day and it was obvious to many people. THAT's why he was snubbed. But he blamed it on their "intellectualism". So now he gets all these people to support him in his beef with Democrats and intellectuals and act it out in their own lives.

Yeah and meanwhile mass shootings are mostly committed by angry white males, who are citizens! Unbelievable!

Yeah, the right to be an asshole is big right now. He's given license to all the bad actors out there to act out their assholery, especially men. Like we needed men acting MORE assholic than usual! Yeah although I think it's more like he became a Republican because Democrats tended not to like him (gee, I wonder why??). So he became a Republican to stick it to Democrats for in his mind rejecting him. Meanwhile as we can see now if there was any rejection going on it was probably with very good reason! And this garbage about bringing religion back to the Oval Office, or whatever I read this morning - He doesn't give two craps about religion, he is just using that to anger Democrats that believe in the separation of church and state and to pander to his base. Again, for his own gain only. To keep them loyal to him and MAGA to get Democrats' goats.

The look on this contractor's faced told me he wasn't quite so sure it was going to work but he was still going to support Trump for now. But what would it take for him to turn around? Unfortunately probably a lot more than losing $40,000.... This sounds a lot like something I've said in this thread, although I'm sure that other great minds have thought alike on this and it's not unique to me! That's interesting and I've theorized here that the religious right was ripe for being taken in by Trump because of blind faith. I was thankfully brought up in a Christian denomination that encouraged me to question my faith, but the Christian right can be rather cultish to begin with so the cult of Trump coming about is no shock or surprise. They act about him the way they act about their corrupt, lying, charlatan preachers, who take their money under false pretenses to help the ministry but instead line their own pockets (sounds familiar, right?). It makes people like me sick to my stomach given that my denomination is very opposed to any of that!

Speaking of being able to write volumes on struggling to survive in NYC, I have to say that I watched my own mother, who was a champion of women's rights in the '60s and '70s work full time and go to college at night as well as take care of me, my father and an apartment. Her struggle was immense given that she also had thyroid/energy issues. There was actually a BIG part of me that did not want to have to struggle that much. I saw what it did to her and did not want to have to do it all like she did. Unfortunately even today young men are not stepping up as much as women think they should to share equally in household and childcare responsibility. And I am sure that's one reason I didn't try harder to have a child when that didn't happen for us as we had hoped. I worked in a high stress occupation and I couldn't see how we'd be able to do it all. And like most men even today, my husband thought he was doing more than he was around the house. I know it's commonly thought that today's young men are on board with sharing home responsibilities equally, but there are many studies that say that in young women's eyes that's by far STILL not the case even today!

They probably work because they have to to survive, but it's still not their ideal situation given the values of their culture. I would bet that their female children see their American dream as being able to live out the lifestyle that their mothers couldn't achieve but wished they could have. Being a trad. wife is seen as having arrived, living the dream to them. It's aspirational. Here in CT where the cost of living is slightly lower there are far more such married and cohabiting women staying home with children and not working. It's a struggle to survive in one of the most expensive cities in the world, even in the Bronx and even on public assistance. I could write volumes about that based on first hand experience (although I was never on public assistance)!

You know I just thought of this this morning - given what you're saying about many of these young women being migrants and immigrants, we have to remember that many people just coming to the US do not necessarily subscribe to our general values about women's roles and rights. Some of them come from cultures that we think oppress women and don't support them having careers or identities outside the home. So some of what you're seeing may be because this is what is normal for them in their cultures. Sometimes it takes a generation or so for immigrant women or children of immigrants to adopt certain values that may conflict with those of their country of origin or descent. And some may never adopt them. LOL, yeah, I think it is a cultural thing and the Asian culture is a perfect example of one that would generally not discourage women from pursuing careers. But certain Hispanic cultures probably do, amongst others.

Ugh, yesterday my husband and I met with the contractor that will be doing some work on our house. At some point we started talking about the roller coaster stock market and how our IRAs and 401Ks have seen losses as a result of the tariffs. I figured the contractor might be a Trump supporter so I stayed mum about that. He admitted that so far he's lost $40,000 from his retirement account but said, "I guess we have to give it some time to let Trump's tariffs do their job. I think the markets are going to rebound in a big way". He didn't look too convinced, but was still supporting Trump on the tariffs. My husband and I put on our poker faces and didn't touch that comment. Just ugh. I realize that most contractors around here are likely Trumpers, but my neighbors on either side are also Trump supporters. Meanwhile I live in a very blue town and state. All of these are lovely, not hateful, racist MAGA people. I just think that like many Republicans they're still drinking the Kool Aid and not waking up to what's really happening. I just don't get such blind loyalty, but I think that's one big reason we are where we are right now. In my experience Democrats are much more likely to stand on principle and not make excuses for other Democrats while Republicans will twist their logic into pretzels and engage in denial to defend whatever other Republicans do no matter how vile or repugnant.

First of all, it may be a crime to come here illegally but it's only a civil offense, not a criminal one and just being here undocumented is not a crime in any sense. Secondly, there is zero evidence anyone can produce to substantiate Garcia as a member of MS-13 and any allegations made toward him are also not proven either. So all that is irrelevant as it stands right now. Of course Trump wants Republicans to think it's OK and perfectly legal and fine to treat undocumenteds like criminals who deserve deportation or incarceration but that's not what the law says. Again, few Democrats will argue that our immigration system is working right and doesn't need any reform. Most of us agree that it does need to change and that Biden didn't address it well enough. Very few Democrats and Liberals are for "open borders", whatever that means to Republicans. But Trump's "solution" violates basic human rights and due process among other things. We might agree on the problem but not on the solution here. As usual, Trump takes out a chainsaw when a scalpel would be more appropriate. But it's all grandstanding to make his base think he's righting wrongs with grand gestures that needed to be done. But none of what he's doing needed to be done, not in that way. He's just getting back at Liberals as usual and impressing his base with this crap, all while hurting innocent people in the process. And that's what he is doing 24/7 these days. I think Republicans should WAKE UP. Well then you should understand how you have not seen the entire story about how Democrats feel about white victims either. And like I've already said, Trump only cares about white victims of crimes when perpetrated by minorities, especially minority immigrants, and hitching your horse to his wagon makes you complicit in that as far as I'm concerned. Again, I think fair minded Republicans need to wake up to this. He is duping you into thinking he's only looking out for the interests of citizens when in fact he's primarily motivated by racism, pure and simple.

We could say the same about you in reverse. You haven't shown sympathy for anyone but white victims of crime. Most people in this thread are complaining about what Trump and the Republicans are doing wrong, not expressing every emotion they have. Do you really think anyone here would be unsympathetic to any victim of crime whether or not they were white or it was committed by an immigrant? I have not assumed that. But the right wing media seems to want its base to think that. They keep trying to paint the Dems. as only caring about minorities. That's not true AT ALL. The Dems. don't have an us vs. them mentality at all. They want to see social justice done, not see some people win and others fail. But that's exactly what Trump and MAGA are all about. They want white natives to win and minorities, especially minority immigrants to lose. If Liberals have been somewhat short-sighted about how best to achieve equality between the races, that's one thing, but trying to say that they only care about minorities, women and LGBTQ at the expense of white men is just ludicrous and misinformed. Think about it. Why would I want my white husband to fail so that minorities can succeed? I don't think any Dems. want that. I do agree that some of the present methods are not working so well and are alienating people. Clearly some changes need to be made, but that's the issue. If some white people are alienated at least address it head on, don't insist that you get it all your way without meeting people in the middle. But MAGA wants poor minorities and immigrants to fail and whites to win. And I would find it hard to believe any argument to refute THAT. It's pretty obvious what they want and Trump is doing everything possible to make it happen. All this BS about wanting opportunities to be equal regardless of race and origin is a lie to fool decent people like you into thinking they want racial equality. These people are racists pure and simple. They are not looking for any kind of equality. They are not cutting programs and stripping away money to make things fairer for everyone. That's just the false pretense they're operating under to make it better for whites at the expense of POC. I just wish more Republicans would realize that, but they have them so wrapped around their fingers they either don't see it or see it and don't care. I say it is motivated by racism. See above. And guess what? NO Democrats I know support criminal migrants from being allowed to stay here despite what the right wing media wants you to think. What we ARE against are Gestapo like measures being taken to address the issue by Trump. I think most Democrats will admit that some changes need to be made to prevent and correct the situation, but you have to admit that what Trump is making happen is too heavy handed, denying people basic human rights, and including innocent people like Garcia, who they admit was deported by mistake. I don't care what he supposedly did, none of that has been proven, but the fact that Trump admitted that he was deported by mistake is the whole story as far as I'm concerned.

Interestingly where I live and have come from (NY-CT suburbs/Hartford metro. area) a lot of young men from the suburbs grew up with SAHMs or "Soccer Moms", not mothers that worked, or if they worked, it was only after they started high school or somewhere around that age in part time employment, not a big career job. I am talking about Millennial and some Gen Z men. So the lessons they are learning are that the housework miraculously gets done without them having to lift a finger, which is very unfair to any women they marry or live with. I have noticed that the young men that grew up with either single or married working moms are more self-sufficient and willing to do housework. I don't personally know any young men who have any resentment toward their mothers for working but have internalized the value that both partners are equally responsible for housework and cooking. Of course that's only my experience but around here it may be different than in other areas.

Hah, yeah, I had that selectric in college thanks to my mother working in a big law firm that sold its used typewriters to employees at discount prices. Then when I went to grad. school in the late '80s she had an Olivetti electronic typewriter, which had an LED readout that let you make corrections before it printed the next line. But by that time I was working and had my own word processor at work. This was before Windows existed. I was allowed to use it after work to type up my papers. I REALLY thought I'd died and went to heaven THEN! 🤓 And entitled. I think part of this comes from not having been raised to understand and accept the realities of adult life. Unfortunately there is more of that going around these days.

It sounds to me like adolescent escapist thinking. I'm from the Bronx - granted I haven't lived there in over 30 years and I'm not from the poorest area nor am I a POC but I grew up lower middle class despite the fact that both my parents were intellectuals. I stayed in touch with the Bronx even after moving away because my father and best friend still lived there. But I get it. I had escapist fantasies of getting out of the Bronx, buying a condo. in the suburbs and living the "life of leisure" but I always knew that it would be unrealistic to think that my husband and I could live on one income even at that. He was not college educated and did not come from money either. We did end up saving for a decade and were able to finally buy a condo. in CT thanks to the lower real estate prices after the S&L crisis of the late 80s/early 90s. For young women of color from the Bronx today, I can understand the fantasy of wanting to stay at home. But how unrealistic! Where is this fantasy guy going to come from? Do they know what their prospects are? I get wanting to aim high but still. For a very long time the Bronx has been a vast wasteland when it comes to meeting a decent spouse, especially in the poorest area. My own husband was from Washington Heights in Manhattan. I think it would have been easier for me to meet someone in the Bronx had I been either Jewish or Roman Catholic, but I was Episcopalian and no one even knew what that was where I grew up. And back then certain religious and ethnic groups were more clannish and not as willing to marry outside their own backgrounds.

Thanks for that, I think I'll look into that book. That's exactly it. I notice that with all this information being thrown at us big details and fine distinctions are not being shared. So not only do we not have time to process the information, but the information is either lacking important details or is slanted to get a certain emotional response out of us (usually a negative one like anger). It's way too much and not enough all at the same time. And YES, that's exactly the state Trump wants us in. We're most vulnerable to him getting away with what he wants if we are in a constant state of of hopelessness and confusion such that many can be mislead by him and others can feel unable to actively and effectively respond to his constant barrage of lies and deception. It's just too much for even the most formidable of us to process.

For all we know (I haven't seen any statistics) white immigrants from Ireland and Norway might actually be responsible for more crime than non-white immigrants, but if true the right wouldn't want its base to know about that and even if it were being reported by the media it would likely dismiss it as "fake news". Anything to keep up the myth that most non-white immigrants are gang members, murderers and other types of criminals. And to your point, isn't that similar to what Hitler did? He tried to scapegoat the Jews as being responsible for some of Germany's biggest problems even though that was not true. So that lie was just an excuse to get rid of them.

I agree but I think the major change has been in how much of their own freedoms American's are willing to give up in order to keep their level of comfort. The sentiment in the US was against getting involved in WWII unless that freedom was specifically challenged, which it eventually was after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Japan's declaration of war. That made the difference. It's much harder to see something that direct as abstract! For many reasons, including the U.S. being war-weary after WWI and the Great Depression still being overcome, the predominant sentiment in the US was to stay out of the conflict if our freedoms were not being specifically challenged. Right now, none of our freedoms are being specifically challenged and many people feel that we need to focus on our own issues before getting involved in those of other countries even if our freedoms are being indirectly challenged as well (although I'm not condoning that necessarily). So that's similar. But I agree with you that even if our freedoms were directly challenged, fewer Americans would want to make the necessary sacrifices to defend them. And that's really sad.

The truth is that migrant crime doesn't occur at any greater rate than crime committed by anyone else including citizens so making it about them being a migrant is not the issue. I (and I'm sure Dems. in general) have sympathy for any victims of violent crime no matter who committed that crime. But that's not what I see coming from the right. The right only cares about minorities committing crimes, whether they are citizens or not. Shall white people be against minorities in general based on the rate of their responsibility for violent crime? What about the crime that white immigrants commit? You don't think they commit any? Oh that's right, no one on the right cares about that so you'll never hear about it. It's just racism, pure and simple. If those migrants were white the right would not care less about any crime they committed. And if the victims were not white they similarly would not care less about them either. So please don't make this about hypocrisy because there's far more coming from the right as far as I can see. The real issue is that the right just doesn't like migrants if they are minorities. If they were white Trump would be welcoming them with open arms whether they were coming here legally or not.

This is something I didn't get a chance to talk about before - How social media and the current online experience has shortened people's attention spans even more than they were before. People deal in nothing but sound bytes that demand no real introspection, no deeper thoughts. I doubt most people even read anymore and when they do it's online and not anything truly enriching. Everything they see is on the surface only. People don't take a closer look at anything or anyone. Issues are either black or white, no shades of gray. They judge people based on appearances and hearsay. People are reduced to mere objects, obstacles to get around or eliminate. Thumbs up or thumbs down. They never take the time to get to understand them let alone care about them. I remember when I first got email over 30 years ago, my best friend and I wrote each other long email letters a couple of times a week. No one would do that today. In fact even on chat boards like this one, if you go on too long a lot of people will pass over your post if they think it's "too long". Everyone has conditioned themselves to write the "one-two punch" line that takes only a few seconds if that to read. But unfortunately many of the deeper, more nuanced thoughts aren't that easy to reduce into one line sound bytes. And you have to be willing to sit with your thoughts and not be distracted by 15 other things at the same time. In order to be a human being that cares, you have to let things sink in and allow yourself time to contemplate what it all means - let yourself appreciate someone's humanity. People can't even drive anymore without being distracted by 5 things at the same time so how are they going to sit with themselves long enough to think or feel anything worthwhile? I wrote a post at least a year ago on another thread about how we don't just have distracted driving anymore - we have distracted living.

Exactly, you said it! If the White House were an apartment building Trump would never get his security deposit back. All that gold plating and bling in the Oval Office looks low class and tacky.