Manchin betrayal is obvious. He must redeem himself.
US politicians will be like “We are falling behind, we need to compete with China“ then refuse to build infrastructure, expand social programs, or do literally anything other than expand the military.
But he is magic, not limited to the physical problems of supply and demand plus his workers are a branch of elves and they love their jobs because Santa treats them great.
I hope this is photo shopped, but this is the goal of some people who are convinced they need this arsenal to protect themselves from their own government. Hugs
Only the US forces you to give birth while forcing you to pay tens of thousands of dollars to give birth while not letting you have time off to give birth.
Hurting children and parents are pro-life bona fides.
I don't think saying "Goodness, for almost the first time ever, that fucking bastard Trump said something helpful and correct" quite makes me a "Trumper." https://t.co/TDF8ViHPwS
Certain Americans fall for Russian propaganda. They call it ‘research’.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
Even with the Q-publicans doing all they can to obstruct and defeat any attempt to make things better, I don’t think that Biden’s pols are as low as Trump reached.
What most corporations demand and the struggling to survive workers must do. That is why the wealthy fight so hard against the government doing anything to help the public.
Workers / the people / the public are the real economic engine. The real economy is not the stock market or the wealthy, it is the flow of money. Money only flows when people have it to spend and to buy. That gives others the need to produce and sell. The US has been made to accept the myth that the best things happen when all the money is concentrated in the hands of a few very wealthy people. Ever wonder who is behind that lie and why? Scottie
Amazon and Bezos are rich because of the people who work in their warehouses and deliver their goods. And they would rather be complicit in murder than pay a fair return on work. https://t.co/N1NTzz0xKJ
US politicians will be like “We are falling behind, we need to compete with China“ then refuse to build infrastructure, expand social programs, or do literally anything other than expand the military.
"State and local officials said no one has presented actual evidence that rampant fraud tainted the 2020 election. . . Yet they and their staffs have been forced into a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole"
Memo to state and local officials: Tell them to fuck the fuck off, then. https://t.co/kvJv2nQfb1
QAnon followers are meeting in Dallas to drink the “blood of Trump” – a ritual in which they will drink a bleach-based chemical agent from a communal drinking bowl https://t.co/HEqw4Iue6B
A Krampus kontroversy! I don't blame some Christians in this town for being upset over debut of Alpine Yule demons at annual Christmas festival — which Chamber of Commerce has rebranded as de-Christianized "Village Of Lights" https://t.co/i5JQvZgskH
I love this Krampus dress up. So much for religious freedom to worship or not as we choose. Some people still want to tell other they must do as we do, follow the tradition we demand, because only we and are feelings are important.
If you're a good parent, you're going to be supportive of your kid's consistent, insistent, persistent passion for piano. But you're not going to assume they're going to be equally passionate forever, and if they take up an interest in soccer instead you're not going to freak.
If your kid doesn't grow up to play music very often, it doesn't mean that supporting their passion was a mistake. The happiness they got was real, and the experience can enrich them in unexpected ways.
But when parents let youth go on Lupron or get a mastectomy, that is indeed assuming trans adulthood, correct? I don't think people would support such interventions if they thought "it may be a phase who knows"
Lupron: no— the whole point of puberty blockers is not to assume anything until adulthood
Mastectomy— how old do you think you have to be to get a mastectomy? (It's 18.)
— Marnanel Thurman (she/her) @marnanel@queer.party (@marnanel) December 22, 2021
Yeah! If you thought there was no chance of the child changing their mind you wouldn't use Lupron– you'd skip straight to letting them have the puberty of their identified gender. (TBH I think we should do that more– the desistance rate from Lupron is extremely low.)
It is a choice by the unvaxed but it is not a choice on the part of their victims they pass the coronavirus to. If you want to go to parties get vaccinated. This is an attempt to have your cake and eat it also. The unvaxers want the same benefits of having the vaccine without getting it. Really selfish I think.
Incorrect and misleading framing. It is not free stuff. It is getting a return for your tax money. It is a myth that the wealthy push that for some reason they are entitled to taxpayers money by the government serving their wants and needs, but lower incomes are lazy wanting free stuff they don’t deserve to have the government use taxpayer money to work for the public. Every time the Republicans want to give a tax cut they claim it is our money, it is better in your pocket than the governments. When it comes to getting anything for the money we are taxed the Republicans scream it is a moral failing of wanting free stuff. Don’t buy it. The funny thing is you would think that US taxes would be very low or non-existant since the country doesn’t provide for education and healthcare, but they’re quite high actually, and with none of the benefits. Scottie
Here is some fun facts about Sweden, Michael. We have both the above named wishes (but we do not live with the delusion you so happily slap on it – that it is free) and it works. We even reduced our national debt year by year up until the pandemic. This is mainly true for all Scandinavian countries so why do you keep trying to sell the image of tax financed education and health care as not possible to be successful? Merry Christmas to You and everyone on this forum /Mats
He does it because Ramirez, and all his ilk, fear that workers who actually have mandated vacations and retirement and medical care with low cost or free training for new jobs, will actually feel free and move around to the BEST jobs.
Just a clue, save on the very lowest rungs of the wage ladder, people in the USA usually check out the benefits package before they check out wages.
Meaningful medical care is NOT a given. Most companies now provide several “options”, and if you take the cheapest you’ve got no medical at all as far as “usual” medical care goes.
Paid vacation when you want to take it is NOT a given. Carryover of unused vacation time is NOT a given. Being paid for time not used is NOT a given. Vacation over two weeks in a year is a monster benefit.
Actual job retraining paid for by the company and done on company time is absolutely not a given, and nearly nonexistent.
Company pensions are a thing of the past, it’s all about “matching funds in 401K’s” – often just a means to force employees to buy company stock.
Company contributions are VASTLY important, you may pay half the cost of medical insurance, you may pay 2/3, you may pay it all. Same goes for anything and everything.
My “contribution” for my “benefits package” sucks up about a thousand bucks a month. Maybe a bit more. I hate to look at it, because it makes me mad every time.
If anyone over there is wondering why American workers all sound disgruntled, copy this and send it to them. Doubtless the trolls will be whining, they won’t manage to claim any of it is not accurate, but they’ll whine. It’s what trolls do.
Oh, and please take note that I’m talking about what Americans laughingly call “high quality jobs”. Many jobs in the USA come with a caveat called “32 hours” meaning you work for 32 hours a week and get no benefits at all. None. Nothing. The law doesn’t require it so you get nothing whatsoever.
Fauci said that Omicron is spreading much faster but appears to be less virulent than Delta, and exhibits more of a degree of immune escape necessitating a booster. All of which is accurate, none of which is in the least apocalyptic.
Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the American right is still consumed with hatred for White House adviser Anthony S. Fauci. So much so that not only do they scheme to destroy Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but their obsession sometimes devolves into violent fantasies.
You might find the right’s venom for Fauci to be inexplicable. He’s not some kind of partisan going around telling people to vote for Democrats. What did he do to make them so angry? He did what any public health official would have done, which is to explain what we know and don’t know about the virus and encourage people to take precautions.
If liberals loved him, that meant conservatives had to hate him. At this moment the Republican Party’s policy agenda is a desiccated husk to which no one in their party pays more than the most perfunctory attention. What animates them is hatred of the left and the ongoing, endlessly renewable need to Own the Libs. Bashing Fauci became one more way to accomplish that goal.
The second source of rage at Fauci is that conservative media needed a villain for the pandemic story. And not just a villain, but a domestic villain, a target for all the loathing they could muster in order to turn the pandemic into another weapon in the endless war against liberals and liberalism.
Only if you listen too / watch / read misleading right wing media. The rest of us live in reality but those who want to disbelieve science and evidence then … there is a group waiting in Dallas waiting for the return of JFK and his son while drinking bleach. Good luck, your going to need it. This cartoonist rarely has any good cartoons to post as he is always posting about how bad and hard the right has it in the world today. it is always the left making life bad and the right wing conservatives have to bare with it and fix it all. Get real. Scottie
Here are some points that came to me about these smash and grab thefts. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk each make more money off the Trump tax breaks than all the smash and grab robbers put together made last year. And the Sessions-Barr DOJ tried to give more to the despicable Sacklers. While Republicans seek to smash democracy and protect the ultra-rich who are grabbing ever-greater wealth. Republicans sing in harmony, “The election was stolen from us!” Just because the majority did not vote for them.
So Kelley is saying that a few incidents of Smash and Grab by gang bangers in California is worse than Billions in subsidies and Trillions in tax breaks gifted to the oligarchs and mega corporations? Oh that’s right. They are the trickle-down “makers” that (only coincidentally) just happen to be Republican donors. That robbery is just fine. Those at the bottom are wanting the same entitlements that those at the top have enjoyed for years.. unfortunately they can only afford hammers and don’t have access to lobbyists. Smash and grab is old as the hills. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW HERE!
In area after area—campaign finance, union organizing, equal protection, having a day in court, voting rights & now Roe—this extremist Supreme Court is willing to ignore decades of settled law.
"The nurse told the wife that her husband was likely dying, and was begging to see them. All she cared about was masks. She would only come if she and her daughters didn’t have to wear any" https://t.co/mJaij0HzMq
I wrote about the high-profile pundits whose hearts bled for "the people of Afghanistan" last August when the US withdrew but are now silent about the US role in unleashing a mass starvation crisis in Afghanistan via sanctions and asset seizures.https://t.co/hu79dYcrHg
Seriously? THAT’s what Ramirez is complaining about? That Biden/Harris didn’t predict these particular mutations? SERIOUSLY??
Omicron was the 15th documented variant and the 8th variant of concern. The people who understand virology saw it coming. Many of the scientists warned of another COVID December this last summer. If Ramirez isn’t smart enough to understand that the Biden Administration was saying they couldn’t conceive that Americans could still be this ignorant after 2 years of COVID, that there would still be unvaccinated, that people would still refuse to wear a mask, and they would still resist social distancing. Americans have been proving their stupidity every day since Trump was elected and solidifying it since COVID. Time to cull the herd: let the unvaccinated, Q-anon reading, MAGA shitheads rot in their private tents outside of the hospitals. Give them a YouTube stream so they can “prove” they were right as they take their last raspy breath.
Complete misdirection, in fact a lie. Normal for this cartoonist, because keep the base happy is more important than facts. The Coal Miners Union is asking Manchin to rethink his opposition to the bill….
No Manchin is voting his wallet and his bigotry. Poor people can not have money. It is part of the mind set of right wing people of his age. Remember Grassley said it was wrong for the government to help poor people because they would only spend the money on movies, women, and booze. Manchin says poor people if given child care money will spend it on drugs. But they don’t care what the rich people do with the kick backs and subsides from the government because they are special, after all they are wealthy.
At a minimum, we should be clear at this point that the most important Dem opposition to Biden's agenda is a guy who owns a mansion and a yacht opposing a measure that has cut child poverty in half despite representing one of the poorest states in the country, because WELFARE
Something the anti-woke, savvy pundits, strategists and others struggle with: The reality that a lot of folks in red states like mine literally believe government help makes people lazy and dependent. 1/ https://t.co/egO3ZMCM4b via @HuffPostPol
“In recent months, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children” https://t.co/UnsELqt7b4
In Hong Kong 30% voter turnout is seen as protest against one party rule. In Philly, last election was about20% turnout—resignation to our one-party rule. pic.twitter.com/0x0xyvSpXR
In area after area—campaign finance, union organizing, equal protection, having a day in court, voting rights & now Roe—this extremist Supreme Court is willing to ignore decades of settled law.
Florida's Gov Desantis is proposing a law letting parents and children sue schools for teaching "CRT." Previous Florida laws have defined "CRT" very broadly.
Trends in California’s violent crime rate since 2000 broadly mirror trends in the nationwide rate. However, the state saw greater declines in the first decade of 2000, and in 2020 the state saw a drop in violent crime while the nation overall experienced an increase of about 5%. Today, while the state’s violent crime rate is still above the national rate, the gap has dropped by half, from about 20% higher in California to 10% higher. Both California’s and the nation’s violent crime rates are now roughly where they were a decade ago.
Lie, out right lie. Fictional CBO for stupid gullible Republicans. The real BBB bill was not going to add any thing to the deficit. It was completely paid for. The Republicans demanded the CBO score the bill with a bunch of additions that were not in the bill. They made stuff up and demanded a real score on that made up stuff. Those are just “inflated” numbers. It really costs “nothing”. Did Trump’s wall cost anything? GOP says “No”! Did Trump’s tax cut for the wealthy cost anything? GOP says “No”! Did Trump’s complete redesign of Mar A Largo cost anything? GOP, again, says “NO”. Well, there you are. Did Biden’s new pencil cup cost anything? GOP cries “YES”!
That score is fictional. It’s the assessment of what would happen if everything in the bill were made permanent. It’s the same score that was given to the Republican tax cuts IF all of the tax cuts were made permanent. That’s why the GOP made the tax cuts to the bottom 99% phase out starting in 2023. The tax cuts to the top 1% are permanent and it only added $2 trillion to the deficit. Facts matter. It’s the time-honored tactic of “republicans”. Lie about an issue over and over again until enough people believe your lie.
• Joe Biden said “nobody’s going to build another coal-fired plant in America” during the first presidential debate.
• He said under the Obama administration, he brought the cost of renewable energy down to “cheaper than or as cheap as” coal, gas and oil, and his energy plan states that “marketplace competition has continued to shift this country away from coal-fired electricity.”
• His climate action plan does not include a ban on coal. Biden’s climate plan acknowledges existing coal plants as part of the country’s energy portfolio.
Assange is being charged with espionage and computer hacking, not sedition. As you pointed out, he is not an American citizen and so a sedition charge would be nonsense.
The new set of counts immediately raised alarms among press freedom advocates, who argue that charging Assange with violations of the Espionage Act could set a dangerous precedent for journalists. Assange was charged with 17 new criminal counts: One count of conspiracy to receive national defense information, three counts of obtaining national defense information and 13 counts of disclosure of national defense information.
The U.S. has never successfully prosecuted a non-government official for publishing or sharing unlawfully leaked classified information, University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone told NBC News. Some press freedom groups and other people and entities defending Assange were quick to protest the new charges. “This strikes at the heart of the First Amendment and puts all journalists in extreme danger,” The Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a tweet Thursday afternoon.
Goldman Sachs trimmed its quarterly GDP forecasts for 2022, after U.S. Senator Joe Manchin withdrew his support to U.S. President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion domestic investment bill. The fact is the BBB would have added to the economy, added more jobs, increased money flow in the public, reduced dependence on fossil fuels, added needed internet capacity to areas where it is deficient, and so much more. The BBB was paid for and wouldn’t add to the debt. The BBB is good for the people and the country, but it was killed by greed and bigotry.
ICYMI, book banning is now being pushed by county officials in Texas. This week Williamson County commissioners withheld CARES funds from @LeanderISD & @RoundRockISD based on false allegations about "X-rated" material available. More thoughts & links ahead in thread.
Good start coverage from @mikemarut of @KVUE here, but we need to put a finer point on these issues and get eyes on the situation. Because as with Abbott and Mike Kraus's claims–this is politically motivated & NOT ABOUT THE BOOKS.
How do I know? Because districts that DID receive funds–like @GeorgetownISD–also have targeted books like OUT OF DARKNESS available to students… AS THEY SHOULD. These highly vetted & celebrated works of literature serve the needs of students. (See "additional info" below.)
A reminder: in all cases, the books in question are options AVAILABLE to teens, not required course material. The only difference is that the districts denied funds (@LeanderISD & @RoundRockISD) have struggled with public controversies driven by politicized attacks on books.
And this comes AFTER @LeanderISD officially removed 11 books, including OUT OF DARKNESS, from HS book lists and classroom libraries. What is the commissioners' message? You didn't ban ENOUGH books to appease our base, so no $$ for your students.
Again: the opposition to the books is NOT ABOUT THE BOOKS. Conservative groups (links to follow) are using this to signal who matters in schools and whose very existence is "controversial"–just like the books under attack. That's a destructive message for marginalized teens.
"Concerned" adults at SB mtgs may have convinced themselves that they are worried about "sexually explicit content," but if that were true, they would be showing up to protest the many more books with sexual content that center white, straight characters. Hmm.
What's really going on, then? Knowingly or not, these parents are mouthpieces for GOP-funded orgs that direct them to harass and exhaust school personnel and attack books like OUT OF DARKNESS for quick wins to mobilize a conservative base. Some examples ahead.
No Left Turn categorizes books by "trouble" topics: https://www.noleftturn.us/exposing-books/
Texans Wake Up goes a step farther by telling parents exactly what to object to, a letter to use, then "go get 'em!"
Moms 4 Liberty & Defending Ed encourage burdensome FOIA requests: https://defendinged.org/expose/ https://www.momsforliberty.org/resources/
(Targeted ISDs say these requests are relentless–& that those making them have the $$ to keep asking–targeting every purchase order, teacher survey, etc.)
Attacks on books & relentless FOIA requests divert resources away from student learning. The values & attitudes of those bringing them do not reflect the community at large. Most folks appreciate their schools are doing & are too busy trying to make ends meet to harass them.
Central Texas: these folks are holding your kids' education hostage. Even if you don't care about your kids' right to read OUT OF DARKNESS or the targeted books, you should care about the harm of these attacks. The endgame here is not the books. It's undermining public ed itself.
And when I say conservatives are "holding your kids' education hostage," this is NOT A METAPHOR. I just got access to this email from commissioner @cynthialong to @LeanderISD, & it could be summarized as "Ban Books for Bucks."
It's extortion, plain & simple.
That should be @CLongTX 👆 Thanks for helping me catch that, @LISDFuss
"Good" news: you (yes, YOU!) can push back. Take 4 minutes to file a complaint against the Williamson County Commission for misuse of CARES Act funds, & spread the word. This concerns EVERY taxpayer, EVERY community member.
Take 3 min to support fair school funding & youth access to books!
File a complaint against the Williamson Cty commissioners who denied CARES funding to 2 school districts over books they don’t like (including OUT OF DARKNESS).
This take is too online – I get that online leftists can be annoying, but a member of the offline center is the reason millions of kids won't be getting checks January 15th. That's the biggest problem right now https://t.co/UudCo4UQ9y
Most transphobic cis people knew that detransitioning didn't make me cis, but that wasn't the point. They knew I wasn't like them, they knew I was different, had dysphoria and so on. Being detransitioned meant I was a trans person brought under control and therefore "safe".
— Ky Schevers @reclaimingtrans@kolektiva.social (@reclaimingtrans) December 17, 2021
No one is aborting fully born toddlers, but I bet some parents think of it. That is called murder and against the law. Nice heart string pulling cartoon even if totally wrong about the subject. The real issue is about the woman and her rights to her life and her body. She is already born, she is a human life, she has human potential. These are all discounted and ignored by the forced birth crowd. Abortion is used before there is a viable life that can live with out the mother, or in case the mothers life is in danger because her life is important also. The forced birth crowd are not interested in human potential of the unborn fetus because after a baby is born they with draw all support. But every one wants to focus on the word life, well the woman has life. But what they really mean is human and a zygote / fetus is not human, but the woman is. Hugs
Plus these are the same damn people most virulent about not getting vaccines, wearing masks, and denying all the facts of the many deaths from the Coronavirus. Hugs
So misleading, dishonest, and maybe designed to discourage people from demanding government action on climate change. Obama is a private citizen, and while he is important and has some wealth, he is not a corporation spewing pollution in to the environment. It doesn’t matter if he has a beach front estate, again he is not a coal burning power plant or belching smog out his smoke stack. He is surely not dumping his trash into the ocean. Hugs
Here is some fun facts about Sweden, Michael. We have both the above named wishes (but we do not live with the delusion you so happily slap on it – that it is free) and it works. We even reduced our national debt year by year up until the pandemic. This is mainly true for all Scandinavian countries so why do you keep trying to sell the image of tax financed education and health care as not possible to be successful? Merry Christmas to You and everyone on this forum /Mats