Chit-Chat: The Feels

[Dimity]

[supposebly]

I fell down a rabbit hole on Youtube indulging in a bit of Schadenfreude. #fafo if you want to laugh a bit. And keep yelling at the screen: I told you so!!! 

[tearknee]

elsewhere I saw the praising of a man character from a marginalized group in Agent Carter as an example of "liking and uplifting women without tearing down men'.

 

Using a marginalized man as your positive character is the opposite of successful feminist/progressive outreach to boys and men. It's like the suggestion on one progressive Australian social media site of using a *woman* farmer in a hypothetical ad for the Australian Greens in a rural House of Reps electorate - that's just appealing to the same niche progressive demo.

[Eri]

4 hours ago, Browncoat said:

And I would argue that there is very little "wasteful spending" within agencies that are chronically underfunded and understaffed, like the National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, etc., which have been gutted.

If you ask me, I would also argue that DOGE is 100% overstaffed 😉

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

I mean if a person who voted for #45 has sincerely seen the light and believes that they made a horrible earlier  should at least be considered whether one wants to give the benefit of the doubt (e.g 'I know I was being greedy and selfish by overlooking zillions of atrocities he did/sanctioned and the cruelties he inflicted on innocents via slanders and tarring,etc but now I realize I made a horrible error in judgement and want to help right that wrong to the best of my ability').

Now if it's strictly a selfish thing like 'Heh, heh, I thought he'd bring down my egg prices [but couldn't have cared less about all the hatred,blasphemy, bigotry, discord,etc. he'd sown and encouraged]' that would be a different ball of wax.

I'd say, let's see what happens in 2026 midterm elections. If convicted felonies, Nazi salutes, illegal executive orders, a quiet Congress and soaring unemployment doesn't shake these folks, then I'm not sure what to say.  At best, their voting habits might change when they are impacted by Trump's policies but those details didn't matter before, until it affected them personally.

People are all for autonomy and "individualism" when it comes at the cost of others. Maybe they will start to wake up, the same way the Germans did during WWII? For now, they need to see the results of their actions and this is the first step. And I do know some people are perfectly fine with what Musk and Trump are doing now. This country has a real problem acknowledging its faults and it's not changing.

I get the sense that at the federal level, these same voters might think the "strongman theory" narrative works best. At the state levels, voters want progressive candidates and policies. So what is it that they truly want?

When people vote on vibes than actual common sense, this is what happens.

Edited Yest. at 03:37 PM by Eri

[tearknee]

intellectuals are not ordinary people.

The "chavs", "white trash" and "bogans" know how "you" (general "you") see them and Brexit and both Trumps were signs yet to be heeded.

 

[Notabug]

21 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Do you think they can see how much damage he is doing and is going to do to this country?

I think President Trump thinks that he comes first and any damage to the country is secondary and unimportant as long as he benefits personally.

This is a man, who built a casino in Atlantic City and refused to pay local contractors who did the work, many of whom declared bankruptcy and, after bankrupting the business and throwing hundreds of people out of work; actually bragged about what a real estate killing he made buying up properties at deep discounts because of the economic misery he personally caused.

Edited Yest. at 04:13 PM by Notabug

[Dimity]

4 minutes ago, Notabug said:

I think President Trump thinks that he comes first and any damage to the country is secondary and unimportant as long as he benefits personally.

Agreed.  He will see the country go down in flames around him and as long as he profits from it he doesn't give a damn.  It's the sycophants surrounding him who will eventually (hopefully) pay a price.  He never will.  I've given up hoping he will ever get a comeuppance.

Edited Yest. at 04:12 PM by Dimity

[Notabug]

10 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

No justifiable reason? What about entering our country illegally?

 

How about finding all these expenditures that added to our national debt?

 

As a physician, I need to point out that male circumcision actually significantly decreases the spread of HIV virus through intercourse.  Spending $10 million to circumcise males in a poor country with a high rate of HIV is actually far more cost effective than providing drugs to treat the infection or watching a significant portion of the young adult population die of a preventable disease.  Same reason we gave condoms out in other parts of Africa.  About 10% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is HIV positive.  It's around 13% in Mozambique.

Most of the rest of these descriptions are too vague to comment as to how worthwhile they are.

Edited Yest. at 04:26 PM by Notabug

[Dimity]

With regard to the supposedly unjustifiable expenses this argument reminds me so strongly of what happened during Covid.  Suddenly everyone was a doctor, a scientist, an epidemiologist.  It was exhausting seeing all these armchair experts passing judgement on the decisions being made based on what they wanted to believe.  

The same thing is happening here.  Most of the people who are talking about US foreign aid expenditures being wasteful couldn't find the countries being helped on a map.  They certainly have no idea of what is happening, or has been happening in those countries.  

But of course Musk and his teenage band of merry men know far more about these things then the people who've been educated in this area and have worked in the field for years. 

Edited Yest. at 04:44 PM by Dimity

[Notabug]

2 hours ago, abbyzenn said:

 

I do worry - my sister-in-law is Cambodian and here on a green card.  It took over a year for her to get a visa to come here and at that my Dad and I had to sponsor her.  I worry about my 16 and 17 year old nephews who are half Cambodian, born in Thailand (where my brother was serving in the Peace Corps) so their birth certificates don't prove their American citizens

 

I spoke with a woman last week who came to the US from Israel on an athletic scholarship to attend college.  After graduation, she married a US citizen and was given a marriage visa; but the marriage didn't last and, after the divorce, she got a visa through her job.  She has now lived and worked and been a tax-payer in the US for more than a decade.  She is trying to get a green card in hopes of becoming a citizen because she wants to live here.

She is 31, in a serious relationship but hasn't married him because her attorney told her that it might hurt her case if someone thinks it's a green card marriage.  Her attorney told her that it currently is a 10 year or so wait for naturalization via marriage.  She would like to have a child, but has also been informed that the current political climate would lead to accusations that she deliberately had a child in order to get an 'anchor baby' to stay in the country.  So, her personal life is in a holding pattern.

Since January, the estimated wait for her green card has gone from 18 months to 4 years and may well increase.  So, if she follows her lawyer's advice, she isn't getting married or starting a family anytime soon or she will risk losing her case.  She also is not allowed to leave the country-at all-as this is taken as an indication that she is not serious about living here. Her parents are in good health yet and able to visit every year, but that won't last forever.  

If she does get her card in 4 years, she will be 35, an age at which fertility starts to decline rapidly and the risk of pregnancy complications rises significantly

That's the kind of f**kwittery that is going on with immigration these days; even for an English speaking white woman with a college education and a good job.

[Anela]

1 hour ago, Dimity said:

I don't disagree with you but I am not really seeing much sneering.  Definitely a heaping helping of "I told you so" "I so informed you thusly" and "what were you thinking".

Genuine contrition also involves a promise not to do it again.  My problem here is there were a lot of supposedly contrite Republicans in the wake of January 6th who have conveniently managed to forgive and forget - especially the forget part.  How soon before some of these contrite Republicans forgive and forget yet again?

I’ve said “I told you so” a few times.  Yesterday, it was “I fucking told you so!” 

[Dimity]

1 hour ago, Notabug said:

This is a man, who built a casino in Atlantic City and refused to pay local contractors who did the work, many of whom declared bankruptcy and, after bankrupting the business and throwing hundreds of people out of work; actually bragged about what a real estate killing he made buying up properties at deep discounts because of the economic misery he personally caused.

 

[bluegirl147]

1 hour ago, tearknee said:

intellectuals are not ordinary people.

The "chavs", "white trash" and "bogans" know how "you" (general "you") see them and Brexit and both Trumps were signs yet to be heeded.

 

I live in a state known for white trash and yet remarkably I'm not white trash.  And I didn't vote for Trump or any other Republican for that matter.  If I look down on someone white trash or not it's because they have done or said something to make me think they are too stupid to live.  All my life I've been accused of being a snob and I am.  But it's willfully ignorant people I think I'm better than.  And I won't apologize for that especially now that we see how dangerous they can be.

[meep.meep]

7 hours ago, FilmTVGeek80 said:

You keep posting these memes and analogies and acting as if you’re making direct correlations when you’re ignoring important, crucial details. First of all, Clinton and Obama wanted to cut actual wasteful spending - not made up things or pretending important programs are wasteful. And, more importantly they did it LEGALLY. They didn’t ignore laws and the Constitution and basically dare anyone to stop them. Obama and Clinton didn’t bypass Congress and hand the decision-making over to a megalomaniacal billionaire and his group of unqualified 20 years olds. PS. He’s called a fascist dictator for so, so, so much more than his BS claims of wanting to cut wasteful spending. 
 

Having been part of the federal government under the Clinton administration, they not only cut government spending legally, they did it with the respect and cooperation of the people working for the government.  We were part of the solution, some of us lost jobs, but they worked with us to cut spending.  And it was successful.

Many many of the immigrants who will be deported are working jobs that average American citizens don't want to take.  How about all those folks in the Rust Belt whose industrial jobs have vanished to other countries come out to the Central Valley and work in the agricultural fields.?  Not very attractive is it?

[tearknee]

Most people of the GP don't like being made to feel stupid.

 

"If you don't know, find out!" from the 2023 Indigenous Voice referendum was one of the most foolish things progressives ever came up with when they turned out to need the votes of those that they self-provably deem the great unwashed.

I have an ABI (stroke due to... something :() and autism on top of it. I don't see the psychological masks that people use -- the "mask of sanity" is simply the most well-known. Many people become unsettled about this in RL.

 

[Dimity]

9 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

If I look down on someone white trash or not it's because they have done or said something to make me think they are too stupid to live. 

If Covid, reality TV  and living through the Trump Neverending Era has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that there actually are a helluva lot of stupid people out there. 

And I don't mean intelligent people who do stupid things, that's a separate issue - I mean genuinely stupid people who wallow in the depths of their stupidity and in their stupidity manage to feel superior to anyone who attains any level of higher education or accomplishment.  

Of course I've known people  like this (who hasn't) but I honestly thought they were a minority.

[peacheslatour]

Aw, half the Magas know perfectly well it's all lies.  They just don't care.

When Trump says a third of America's children are possessed by Satan and must be burned alive, they'll figure it's probably not true, but they'll still go along with that, too.

[Dimity]

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Aw, half the Magas know perfectly well it's all lies.  They just don't care.

This is what I really wonder about.  I mean in a sense I am on the outside looking in and the fact that Trump lies about everything, all the time, lies, lies and more lies, is just so obvious.  But do those who voted for him not see that?  Or as you suggest they see him as a liar but they don't care?  In a way I'd rather think they believe him because, wow...

 

Except a grown adult who knows someone is lying and doesn't care.

[Lugal]

12 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

How about finding all these expenditures that added to our national debt?

 

The vast majority of those things like "voter confidence" in Liberia and "Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening" are, to my cynical eyes, probably for the interference in other countries to guarantee favorable governments to US business interests.  Although I won't cry if they went away, but either Elon Musk, who is a major business interest himself, is really that stupid (a possibility) or those efforts will be shifted to something more obscure and harder to trace.

Looking at those numbers, they add up to about $729 million.  But it should be noted that the B-2's original cost was per unit was $737 million in 1989, it's overall cost is now about $2.1 billion.  It costs $135,000 an hour to operate.  The F-22 Raptor stopped being made in 2012 due to production costs and maintenance difficulties, but the Air Force plans to keep flying it until 2060.

Meanwhile, the F-35 Lighting has an estimated lifetime cost of 1.7 trillion dollars.  But the good news, it can now fly in the rain!

So when is DOGE going to look into the Pentagon?  I'm not holding my breath.

Edited 22 hours ago by Lugal
spelling

[peacheslatour]

Saturday funnies.

[bluegirl147]

1 hour ago, Dimity said:

If Covid, reality TV  and living through the Trump Neverending Era has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that there actually are a helluva lot of stupid people out there. 

And I don't mean intelligent people who do stupid things, that's a separate issue - I mean genuinely stupid people who wallow in the depths of their stupidity and in their stupidity manage to feel superior to anyone who attains any level of higher education or accomplishment.  

Of course I've known people  like this (who hasn't) but I honestly thought they were a minority.

A big problem is a lot of people have demonized intelligence.  As Trump said he loves the uneducated.   Because they are easier to fool.  It took hold during Covid but started even before that.  This belief that you knew better than people who actually did know things. Not everything is a conspiracy theory and most likely some rando on social media doesn't know how to cure cancer.

1 hour ago, peacheslatour said:

Aw, half the Magas know perfectly well it's all lies.  They just don't care.

When Trump says a third of America's children are possessed by Satan and must be burned alive, they'll figure it's probably not true, but they'll still go along with that, too.

I think for a lot of people they get comfort from ceding their beliefs to someone else. Whether it's their parent spouse priest/reverend or cult leader.  Subconsciously they might think if I'm wrong it's not really me that is wrong.

59 minutes ago, Dimity said:

This is what I really wonder about.  I mean in a sense I am on the outside looking in and the fact that Trump lies about everything, all the time, lies, lies and more lies, is just so obvious.  But do those who voted for him not see that?  Or as you suggest they see him as a liar but they don't care?  In a way I'd rather think they believe him because, wow...

 

 

They have so committed themselves to the main lie which is Trump is their savior I don't know if they will ever believe he is not.  It's that level of commitment that caused those people to drink the Kool Aid and put on those Nikes. 

Edited 21 hours ago by bluegirl147

[peacheslatour]

8 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

A big problem is a lot of people have demonized intelligence.  As Trump said he loves the uneducated.   Because they are easier to fool.  It took hold during Covid but started even before that.  This belief that you knew better than people who actually did know things. Not everything is a conspiracy theory and most likely some rando on social media doesn't know how to cure cancer.

I think for a lot of people they get comfort from ceding their beliefs to someone else. Whether it's their parent spouse priest/reverend or cult leader.  Subconsciously they might think if I'm wrong it's not really me that is wrong.

They have so committed themselves to the main lie which is Trump is their savior I don't know if they will ever believe he is not.  It's that level of commitment that caused those people to drink the Kool Aid and put on those Nikes. 

 

[heatherchandler]

19 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I just want the people defending Trump to explain how forcing women to have babies, or firing federal employees, or getting us into a trade war that's jacking up the price of everything, or will jack up the price of everything, is supposed to help with people's economic woes and financial struggles, or how it's supposed to solve our inflation problem. I mean, supposedly that's why they all voted for him, right? They didn't feel Biden was doing enough to tackle our economic struggles? 

You know that’s not how they see any of this.  They believe abortion is murder, and the life of the child is important.  They are ok with the government saying that abortion is not a federal right.  They believe that the government is bloated and needs to be slashed.  I actually agree with that.  They want to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US so if there are high tariffs it will force the manufacturers to bring the plants back here.  If that actually works, it brings back jobs and money.  Will it work?  I don’t know.  His supporters are very happy about these moves.  But you have to look at it from their perspective.

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by heatherchandler

[Dimity]

24 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

This belief that you knew better than people who actually did know things.

This makes me think of those commercials for various drugs who tell the consumer "ask your doctor to prescribe....". I   think my doctor is the one who should be telling ME what I need not the other way around (least of all based on the urgings of a for profit drug company).  But this is now just the tip of the iceberg, anyone with access to the Internet now thinks they're medical experts.

[Makai]

14 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

 

Sure, If we ignore that those words were followed by actions that can be evaluated and judged. And if you ignore that actual history has proven the economy is stronger when Democrats are in power. 

13 hours ago, Soapy Goddess said:

How about finding all these expenditures that added to our national debt?

 

Analyzing DOGE actions one month into Trump’s second administration

Quote

Rather than fostering innovation, his tenure has been defined by chaos. Musk has been wielding a sledgehammer and tearing down existing structures with little thought for what could replace them. A more strategic approach could have transformed DOGE into a force for genuine reform.
…

Ultimately, knocking things down is easy—anyone who has renovated a house knows that the demolition process is quick, but rebuilding takes much longer. By focusing on destruction rather than construction, Musk is making it much harder for DOGE to produce sustainable efficiency gains. Even if legal and institutional safeguards eventually rein in some of the collateral damage, it will take years for government to recover from the shocks of his tenure.

Quote

He could have done a magnificent job at diagnosing the ills of the clunky and waste-ridden federal contracting system and proposing efficiency-boosting fixes to Congress.

He also could have brought some “tough love” to the federal workforce, championing reforms that Democrats often balk at because of worker resistance. No doubt he and his proudly inexperienced team would have wreaked some havoc along the way, but they could have done some good.

Instead, he is performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer, treating the workforce not as a neglected asset to be fixed but as a pathogen to be purged.

Quote

As we see news stories about nuclear security workers laid off and rehired, of worries about safety risks due to air-traffic control understaffing, and concerns that National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service layoffs could weaken capacity to fight wildfires, we are reminded that fewer workers do not ipso facto equal reform or efficiency. Changing large bureaucratic organizations in a way that improves effectiveness is a whole lot more challenging to achieve.

DOGE can accomplish its stated goal of reform, not just smaller government, and do so with fewer unintended consequences. However, achieving deep, permanent change will require a broader array of tools than we’ve seen so far—tools that require nuance and changes in laws to prove legal and sustainable.

Unfortunately, the very experts that can predict the problems coming are ignored by MAGA voters because they have a deep distrust of nearly everyone that doesn’t think and look like them. 

[tres bien]

Every democratic lawmaker that spent one second kissing up to Trump (Fetterman, Eric Adam’s and possibly Gov Polis of CO) knock it the fuck off

Be a Governor Janet Mills (D Maine) who stood up to Trump during a White House governor’s meeting telling him see you in court when he threatened he would cut off federal funding over her noncompliance of his executive order to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports 

Again every female, every member of the LGBTQ community is under threat by a nonsensical king wannabe 

[Dimity]

2 minutes ago, tres bien said:

Be a Governor Janet Mills (D Maine) who stood up to Trump during a White House governor’s meeting telling him see you in court when he threatened he would cut off federal funding over her noncompliance of his executive order to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports 

THAT'S what he is throwing his weight around over?  Not to trivialize the issue by any means but this is the executive order he is anxious to see carried out to the point where he's going to cut off federal funding?  Jeeze, you can't make this crap up.

[ProudMary]

RE: Immigration

Admittedly, my post is predominantly directed toward right-wing forum members who truly may not be aware of this information as RW news sources didn't give this a lot of coverage. Democrats and Republicans acting together in a bipartisan manner doesn't inspire big viewership or lots of clicks, but this was important and flew under the radar for many people.

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants coming over the southern border into the US did not enter the country by climbing over barriers or traversing the Rio Grande. No, they waited in lines, sometimes for days or weeks, at US border crossings, asking (legally) for asylum, for refuge from the horrors they had experienced in their home country. (The fact that their home countries in Central America were destabilized by the CIA dating back to the Reagan era is a completely different and horrifying subject.) Many of these immigrants have the right to remain in the US until their asylum case comes before an asylum judge. Unfortunately, cases at asylum courts are backed up for up to six years.

Amazingly, a good-sized group of Democratic and Republican Senators--not just one Republican gone rogue, but several--sit down and discuss the issues with the immigration system for close to a year, and actually hammer out a bill, the Border Act of 2024 (S.4361), which involved compromise on both sides. The bill included the hiring of 1,500 additional Border Patrol Agents, which earned the bill the endorsement of US Customs and Border Protection. Also, the bill moved the hearing of asylum cases from the Dept. of Justice to the Dept. of Homeland Security where hundreds of newly hired Asylum Officers would be hearing asylum cases within approximately six months, not six years!

Both sides are satisfied, so much so that Mitch McConnell says he believes he can get the bill passed  UNANIMOUSLY!

Enter Candidate Trump, not yet even GOP Nominee Trump, who tells Sen. McConnell and Speaker Johnson that they'd better not let that bill come to the floor because he needs to be able to campaign on the mess at the border and can't have it seem as if Biden was able to fix it.

We could have had a border solution in place, acceptable to both the left and the right, for a year already but for the pernicious interference of Donald Trump.

[tres bien]

We could have had a lot  done a lot and not thrown the country into a whirling dervish. But no every republican so scared of Trump went running into the corner cowering like a scared puppy instead of standing up for America and the American people 

Edited 3 hours ago by tres bien

[bluegirl147]

21 minutes ago, tres bien said:

Every democratic lawmaker that spent one second kissing up to Trump (Fetterman, Eric Adam’s and possibly Gov Polis of CO) knock it the fuck off

Be a Governor Janet Mills (D Maine) who stood up to Trump during a White House governor’s meeting telling him see you in court when he threatened he would cut off federal funding over her noncompliance of his executive order to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports 

Again every female, every member of the LGBTQ community is under threat by a nonsensical king wannabe 

There is always the appeasers and never works out for them and history doesn't remember them fondly. Fetterman especially is a disappointment.  And Governor Polis WTF happened to you?

Democratic women seem to be the ones standing strong against Trump.  Of course you have Republican women like Collins and Britt and Capito who speak up but only when it concerns them personally. 

22 minutes ago, Dimity said:

THAT'S what he is throwing his weight around over?  Not to trivialize the issue by any means but this is the executive order he is anxious to see carried out to the point where he's going to cut off federal funding?  Jeeze, you can't make this crap up.

It's red meat for the very worst of his base.  

[supposebly]

16 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

We could have had a border solution in place, acceptable to both the left and the right, for a year already but for the pernicious interference of Donald Trump.

Yes, I knew that. That and Republicans kissing Trump's ass.

[bluegirl147]

2 minutes ago, tres bien said:

We could have had a lot done a lot and not thrown the country into a whirling dervish. But no every republican so scared of Trump went running into the corner cowering like a scared puppy instead of standing up for America and the American people 

I wonder if after they get their beloved tax cut if they will grow a spine.  Surely they understand at some point Trump will be gone and then what happens to the Republican party rests with them.

[Dimity]

12 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

Surely they understand at some point Trump will be gone and then what happens to the Republican party rests with them.

This.  The only bright spot (and it's admittedly a reach) in all this is that Trump is an elderly man.  Had all this come down when he was in his 50s or 60s he'd have a potential stranglehold for many more years to come, either as King President or as the Mob Boss whose ring must be kissed and all orders obeyed.

[graybrown bird]

41 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

RE: Immigration

Admittedly, my post is predominantly directed toward right-wing forum members who truly may not be aware of this information as RW news sources didn't give this a lot of coverage. Democrats and Republicans acting together in a bipartisan manner doesn't inspire big viewership or lots of clicks, but this was important and flew under the radar for many people.

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants coming over the southern border into the US did not enter the country by climbing over barriers or traversing the Rio Grande. No, they waited in lines, sometimes for days or weeks, at US border crossings, asking (legally) for asylum, for refuge from the horrors they had experienced in their home country. (The fact that their home countries in Central America were destabilized by the CIA dating back to the Reagan era is a completely different and horrifying subject.) Many of these immigrants have the right to remain in the US until their asylum case comes before an asylum judge. Unfortunately, cases at asylum courts are backed up for up to six years.

Amazingly, a good-sized group of Democratic and Republican Senators--not just one Republican gone rogue, but several--sit down and discuss the issues with the immigration system for close to a year, and actually hammer out a bill, the Border Act of 2024 (S.4361), which involved compromise on both sides. The bill included the hiring of 1,500 additional Border Patrol Agents, which earned the bill the endorsement of US Customs and Border Protection. Also, the bill moved the hearing of asylum cases from the Dept. of Justice to the Dept. of Homeland Security where hundreds of newly hired Asylum Officers would be hearing asylum cases within approximately six months, not six years!

Both sides are satisfied, so much so that Mitch McConnell says he believes he can get the bill passed  UNANIMOUSLY!

Enter Candidate Trump, not yet even GOP Nominee Trump, who tells Sen. McConnell and Speaker Johnson that they'd better not let that bill come to the floor because he needs to be able to campaign on the mess at the border and can't have it seem as if Biden was able to fix it.

We could have had a border solution in place, acceptable to both the left and the right, for a year already but for the pernicious interference of Donald Trump.

Thank you for this careful summary of the bipartisan immigration bill that would have made a real difference, except it was scuttled by candidate Trump and the cowardice of many in Congress.  You are right -- many never knew about (or have overlooked/forgotten) this bill's existence.

[peacheslatour]

27 minutes ago, graybrown bird said:

Thank you for this careful summary of the bipartisan immigration bill that would have made a real difference, except it was scuttled by candidate Trump and the cowardice of many in Congress.  You are right -- many never knew about (or have overlooked/forgotten) this bill's existence.

We could have had an excellent border bill that did many of the things that Republicans explicitly said they wanted but Trump is so petty, so insecure that he couldn't let Biden have a "win". Oh well, Sic transit gloria mundi 

[kittykat]

I mean we can blame Trump all we want for the failed bipartisan bill but the fact remains that enough Republicans folded and killed it for the very same reason Trump wanted.  Plenty of cowardly Republicans couldn't handle the Democrats getting the win either and that's why we are where we are.

[tres bien]

And. Democrats should have taken advantage of this craven BS by running ads on FOX news 24/7

Instead the ceded the whole enchilada to lying power hungry freak show 

[peacheslatour]

4 minutes ago, tres bien said:

And. Democrats should have taken advantage of this craven BS by running ads on FOX news 24/7

Instead the ceded the whole enchilada to lying power hungry freak show 

I hold the press just as guilty. And now they have to live with the fact that they will lose their precious access if they step one foot out of line and diverge from the approved language or ask the "wrong" questions.

Edited 18 hours ago by peacheslatour

[Makai]

9 minutes ago, tres bien said:

And. Democrats should have taken advantage of this craven BS by running ads on FOX news 24/7

 

Wouldn’t have made any difference at all. That audience is unreachable. 

[Dimity]

4 minutes ago, Makai said:

Wouldn’t have made any difference at all. That audience is unreachable. 

Agreed.  I know that many of these viewers probably don't get their news anywhere else, but many of them do watch at least some other stations, see talk shows, listen to the radio and read papers - well ok probably headlines from papers online, but still.  They do have access to other news sources, they don't care. If the Dems had run ads on Fox news they'd have been met with derision.

Edited 18 hours ago by Dimity

[bluegirl147]

3 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

We could have had an excellent border bill that did many of the things that Republicans explicitly said they wanted but Trump is so petty, so insecure that he couldn't let Biden have a "win". Oh well, Sic transit gloria mundi 

100%. If that didn't prove Trump had no sincere interest in a workable immigration bill nothing would.  It shouldn't have been a surprise though since him and current crop of Republicans always put party Trump above country.

26 minutes ago, tres bien said:

And. Democrats should have taken advantage of this craven BS by running ads on FOX news 24/7

Instead the ceded the whole enchilada to lying power hungry freak show 

The Democrats are always playing defense.  They have always let Trump suck up all the oxygen.

[peacheslatour]

13 minutes ago, Dimity said:

Agreed.  I know that many of these viewers probably don't get their news anywhere else, but many of them do watch at least some other stations, see talk shows, listen to the radio and read papers - well ok probably headlines from papers online, but still.  They do have access to other news sources, they don't care. If the Dems had run ads on Fox news they'd have been met with derision.

He taught them to call anything he didn't like or that went against his narrative Fake News. They learned the lesson well.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

[ProudMary]

19 minutes ago, Makai said:

Wouldn’t have made any difference at all. That audience is unreachable. 

I agree. There is, however, an important audience that should be reachable, but requires thinking outside the box.

There is a third party in the US, and they've actually won every election in the past half-century, except for 2020: The "Did not vote" party. 

I wish I had the the answer as to how we reach these Americans, but it's appalling how many citizens "don't do politics."

Voter supression does account for a portion of these voters, but a lot of people still don't look at voting as a civic responsibility. 😥

[peacheslatour]

6 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

I agree. There is, however, an important audience that should be reachable, but requires thinking outside the box.

There is a third party in the US, and they've actually won every election in the past half-century, except for 2020: The "Did not vote" party. 

I wish I had the the answer as to how we reach these Americans, but it's appalling how many citizens "don't do politics."

Voter supression does account for a portion of these voters, but a lot of people still don't look at voting as a civic responsibility. 😥

Looks like Biden got more than anyone else. 

[Makai]

45 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

The Democrats are always playing defense.  They have always let Trump suck up all the oxygen.

I agree to an extent but going on offense also wasn’t going to reach Fox viewers. My biggest takeaway from the election was that every attempt was just going to reinforce Trump’s popularity with MAGA. Anyone willing to switch sides already did so.

There were a couple of women who were MAGA in 2016 that came out hard against him on social media. They explained the MAGA mindset and it was really interesting. There is such a deep distrust of everyone in power and they view themselves as so much smarter than everyone else for seeing through the lies. The more leaders turned against Trump the more it enforced that Trump was an outsider. When Trump said received backlash over saying something, even if it was something they didn’t believe, they equated it to Uncle Bob getting in trouble for telling the pretty waitress to smile. When experts talked about the real impact of Trump’s policies they prided themselves on seeing through the liberal lies. Same thing when Democrats went on the attack. 

22 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

I agree. There is, however, an important audience that should be reachable, but requires thinking outside the box.

There is a third party in the US, and they've actually won every election in the past half-century, except for 2020: The "Did not vote" party. 

I wish I had the the answer as to how we reach these Americans, but it's appalling how many citizens "don't do politics."

Voter supression does account for a portion of these voters, but a lot of people still don't look at voting as a civic responsibility. 😥

I 100% agree. I feel like the biggest problem was that there wasn’t enough done to reach complacent voters and to educate people on the real impact of Trump’s policies, particularly economically. I think that the media is a big part of the problem in that area. I remember that the Wall Street Journal running a story on Trump’s tariff plan where they backing up Trump’s lies and USA Today did a fact check story where they found it was false to say Trump was connected to Project 2025. 

They held the stories on how Trump’s plans would impact the economy until the immediate aftermath of the election. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Makai

[bluegirl147]

15 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

I agree. There is, however, an important audience that should be reachable, but requires thinking outside the box.

There is a third party in the US, and they've actually won every election in the past half-century, except for 2020: The "Did not vote" party. 

I wish I had the the answer as to how we reach these Americans, but it's appalling how many citizens "don't do politics."

Voter supression does account for a portion of these voters, but a lot of people still don't look at voting as a civic responsibility. 😥

The Republicans know if less people vote they usually win.  It's why in addition to voter suppression they also have engaged in making voters have so little faith in our institutions.  They have been undermining our democracy for decades.

It cannot be overstated how much Rupert Murdoch's media empire has harmed this country.

[tres bien]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I hold the press just as guilty. And now they have to live with the fact that they will lose their precious access if they step one foot out of line and diverge from the approved language or ask the "wrong" questions.

The press is most certainly to blame for the way they have covered/treated Trump since 2015

And his constant attacking and belittling the press has made them kowtow to him instead of standing up for their 1st amendment rights 

AP has sued the White House for locking them out of certain White House events and Air Force One because they refuse to use the name Gulf of America. I don’t know what the courts will do because evidently some judges think brainwashing Americans is completely normal and acceptable but more than 40 news outlets including FOX and Newsmax have written a letter to the White House asking them to stop

AP hopefully will not back down no matter what the courts say because they’re standing up and protecting our 1st amendment rights too

 

[Annber03]

5 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

You know that’s not how they see any of this.  They believe abortion is murder, and the life of the child is important.  They are ok with the government saying that abortion is not a federal right.  They believe that the government is bloated and needs to be slashed.  I actually agree with that.  They want to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US so if there are high tariffs it will force the manufacturers to bring the plants back here.  If that actually works, it brings back jobs and money.  Will it work?  I don’t know.  His supporters are very happy about these moves.  But you have to look at it from their perspective.

I have heard that perspective. Many times. I know that's what they think. I also know that all their efforts they've put in to push for abortion bans have done shit to actually stop people having abortions and have actually wound up making things significantly more dangerous, both for the women and the unborn babies they claim they care about so much, so you'd think at some point they'd get a clue and realize that maybe they should change tactics and come at this issue from an angle that doesn't involve trying to regulate women's reprotudctive issues. 

(To say nothing of how they never seem to care about ensuring these babies are safe after they're born. They never vote for policies that will protect these children that the mothers may not be ready to care for, but whom they still insist should be born, because "abortion is murder" and so on. So you'll pardon me if I'm a little bit skeptical of their motivations. 

It's all about controlling women. It always has been. Always will be. And that's not even getting into the science aspect of when life begins, which often tends to run up against these people's belief that "life begins at conception".)

I don't think anyone disagrees that the budget is bloated, but again, it's a little rich for Trump/GOP supporters to complain about that when they continue to vote for a party that runs up the debt every damn time they're in office because of some overseas war they want us to get involved in or some new fancy military toy they want built or wasting taxpayer money on bogus investigations into Hillary or Hunter because this time they'll REALLY get them on...something, I'm sure, or BS like that.

It's become a pattern the past few decades that the GOP comes in and causes a massive economic mess of some sort - a stock market crash happens on their watch, a pandemic they refuse to take seriously makes our country take an economic hit, a war based on lies takes place and balloons our spending, and then people get mad at the GOP, so then the Democrats come in and try to clean up the mess, only for voters to get mad at them because they don't understand that these problems won't magically be fixed overnight and listen to right wing media blame the Democrats for the GOP's own failures. So then they kick out the Democrats and the vicious cycle begins anew. 

And now we've got a guy in office who's filed for bankruptcy countless times in his life and has a history of shitty business practices, and people still honestly think that he will get our spending under control? He's hanging out with one of the richest men in the world and working class people still think he gives any sort of shit about their economic woes? 

Sorry, no. Anyone who genuinely believes that is deeply gullible at best, a flat out moron at worst. 

Same wth the manufacturing jobs. We've already got evidence that the tarriffs won't work and won't bring these manufacturing jobs back that these people sto desperately want, so again, how anyone still thinks otherwise at that point is beyond me. 

Getting rid of all the immigrants won't bring people's jobs back. Slapping tarriffs on other countries wont bring people's jobs back. The GOP has no interest in doing anything about your average person's job concerns. Trump wants AI to be more of a thing, and so many corporations, who are happy to be in league with Trump, would love nothing more than to have as few employees as possble, to spare them having to pay them, like, y'know, a living wage or employee benefits of any sort. 

Trump. Does. Not. Care. About. People. Neither do the GOP. At some point, their supporters need to wake the fuck up and realize this. They need to quit blaming minorities and women for everything they feel is going wrong in their lives and turn that blame where it actually belongs - on the very party in power that is happily screwing them and everyone else over. They can believe all the stuff you mention al they want, but those beliefs do not hold up against the actual facts of the situation. 

Edited 15 hours ago by Annber03

[PRgal]

I sent in my ballot for the upcoming Ontario provincial election.  The post office I normally went to shut down and there was a sign saying where the closest one was, about a five minute walk away.  I was able to access it completely indoors through an underground walkway but was NOT expecting that it would be a maze (there's a lot of reno work going on) NOR did I think it was going to be super-stuffy.  Thank goodness it wasn't freezing cold because I walked home outside.  Should have gone outside both ways.

[chitowngirl]

5 hours ago, Dimity said:

This makes me think of those commercials for various drugs who tell the consumer "ask your doctor to prescribe....". I   think my doctor is the one who should be telling ME what I need not the other way around (least of all based on the urgings of a for profit drug company).  But this is now just the tip of the iceberg, anyone with access to the Internet now thinks they're medical experts.

Even if one asks the Doctor about a drug and it does get prescribed to you, chances are good  insurance won’t cover it…