Maybe this columnist thinks he’s “shaken”, but I doubt it. The reason he acted in a more moderate way before was that the Christian Nationalist justices didn’t have a strong majority and the ability to impose their agenda with impunity. The minute they had a 6-3 majority, he knew they could do whatever they wanted, and they have.

The only thing we can do about it now is elect as many Dems as possible to the House and Senate and pressure them to impose term limits and expand the Court, things that should have been done a long time ago.

And please, regardless of whether you think your vote for POTUS will count, vote anyway and fill out your full ballot because you have much more influence on your State legislature and local offices, which is where so many things that affect your life are decided.

I see several comments wondering why Stone hasn’t been put in prison. He was, but Trump pardoned him (and a bunch of others)

From his Wikipedia page:

On January 25, 2019, Stone was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in connection with Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation and charged in an indictment with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. In November 2019, a jury convicted him on all seven felony counts. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On July 10, 2020, days before Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence. On August 17, 2020, he dropped the appeal of his convictions. Trump pardoned Stone on December 23, 2020.

Wait, this asshole still has a radio show? I thought he was bankrupt and had to liquidate all his assets to pay damages in the Sandy Hook lawsuit. How can he be broadcasting? Who is paying for it?

The devices were for Putin’s personal use, not for the people.

I usually see lines at the self checkouts too, and they move a lot slower.

So this is pro-self checkout? Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items, I recently read an article saying that even for the companies they haven’t worked out: besides the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway (“Unexpected item in bag”, etc), they’ve lost more to theft and are having to spend more money on adding more anti-theft tech, etc. One company they interviewed is phasing them out.

(edit after reading some comments) The article also talked about people getting in trouble for accidentally not getting something scanned.

Really good article, thanks for posting.

What I don’t like about these graphics is there is no data source so you have to look it up to know how much to believe about what they say. So for those wondering, per Wikipedia:

• Helene was a Cat 4, its max diameter was between 400-450 miles, max wind speed of 140 mph is correct. Known fatalities so far > 227 and counting.

• Katrina was a Cat 5, 400 miles in diameter as shown, but with a max windspeed of 175 mph, not 125. For those too young to remember, Katrina was a very, very bad storm. So bad. Over 1392 fatalities (official estimate; exact number unknown). BTW Katrina also had a big tail/wing(?) stretching to the north when it hit land like what Helene had, but thinner since further west–but those don’t count as part of the measured diameter of the hurricane.

My opinion of this graphic: Hurricanes are getting worse because of climate change, but we don’t need to convince people of that by downplaying Katrina or making Helene look scarier–Helene is also very very bad. It’s all bad, folks.

Katrina photo:

It’s 93 here today and I’m not using the AC, haven’t turned it on for several weeks. That’s because it’s autumn and the hot days are fewer and further between now, and the lows are getting down into the 50’s so in the house it’s only 78 right now (which is comfortable for me, that’s what I keep my AC set on during the summer). If it was 93 but August instead of October, you can bet I’d be using the AC. The overnight lows at that time of year don’t go below the 70’s and the house would never cool off to 78 without it.

Point is, the US is a very large country with lots of different climates, which the people who live in them are acclimated to. Northerners are acclimated to the cold so the 70’s feel very warm to them, while they feel perfect to me where I live. In even hotter areas 70 may feel cool. Of course that all depends on the humidity as well.

I lived in western Montana (cold and dry climate) back in the 80’s. I don’t know how it is there now with climate change, but most people didn’t even have air conditioners at all back then. There was no need. Even in the hottest part of the summer it got chilly or even cold at night. The house would hardly have time to heat up, you could regulate your inside temp with strategic opening and closing of windows at different times.

In many of the responses I can tell which part of the US they visited by the things they list as weird. It’s funny that they think the entire country is like some particular city or area.

The climate is different in different parts of the world, you see. But if you want to live through a Texas summer without A/C, go for it and enjoy.

I wonder how they would go about all this. Medical records will have to be divulged to the State so it can track who is pregnant. They’ll have to outlaw home pregnancy tests, including buying them through the mail. Otherwise women could privately find out they’re pregnant and go out of state for an abortion without the State knowing. They’ll also have to monitor phone and email communications for everyone, not just the pregnant person, to make sure any attempt to contact out of state health providers is intercepted. Or maybe they’ll just slap an ankle bracelet on pregnant women.

They’ll probably also enact laws like the abortion travel ban that Amarillo, TX has on the ballot this November:

The ordinance, first proposed by anti-abortion activists, aims to forbid the use of the city’s roads and highways to seek an abortion out of the state. It would punish anyone aiding a woman seeking the procedure, including by providing funds or transportation, and be enforced through private lawsuits, similar to a 2021 state law that prohibited abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Ending the electoral college and changing to popular vote for the presidency is a very important goal and young people should commit to make it your life’s work, because that’s how long it will take to get a constitutional amendment done, and only if a sustained effort is made.

In the meantime we can also work toward other goals than can help:

1. Expand the size of the House of Representatives. The population is now way too big for the number of representatives we have, each representing 1/2 to 3/4 of a million people or more, when the founders envisioned a ratio of 1 per 30,000. Obviously we can’t achieve that ratio, but there are several good proposals out there to make it more fair.

2. Statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico (they deserve representation! and it would add 4 more senate seats).

Then there’s our representation in the Senate. Our population is distributed very unevenly among the states which get two senators each. Each Wyoming senator represents less than 300 thousand people; Each California senator represents about 20 Million people (2017 figures). By 2040, 2/3 of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of the Senate, and only 9 states will be home to half the country’s population [1]

What can be done about this? What about splitting the most densely populated states into 2 or 3 states? Highly unlikely to ever happen, but it’s an idea. Then there’s the idea of population redistribution. This is happening all the time anyway, but people could consciously choose to move into lower population states where their vote would count more (and cost of living is lower). With remote work much more acceptable these days, it should be easier for people with certain kinds of jobs to do, but it would also need investors choosing to start businesses in those states instead of always flocking to the high density states. There is a little bit of that happening but not much. Otherwise I don’t know how this problem can be solved.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/by-2040-two-thirds-of-americans-will-be-represented-by-30-percent-of-the-senate/

I wondered if this might turn out to be somebody reading something into something, but Nope, he said it clear as a bell. You don’t accidentally say that unless you’re thinking it. This is obviously a word this guy uses frequently, and he even seems proud of himself for it.

I keep a list of states I won’t set foot in.

Let me just fix that headline: “Head of insanely wealthy organization that has sexually abused children for hundreds of years feels justified in calling someone evil.”

It is almost half. There’s a spectrum on the right (as there is on the left of course). The hardcore maga cultists are a little over a third – like you say, 35-37%. But then there are the conservatives who aren’t extremists like them but are still very conservative, so yes, it’s almost half the population. Trump has 42-45% who are definitely going to vote for him no matter what–the rest beyond the maga contingent are the conservatives such as the one-issue anti-abortion segment and the rich who want his tax and deregulation policies; they don’t care about his character flaws or even preserving democracy for that matter.

There are also some conservatives, not many, who previously voted for him and would again, but have come to recognize that trump is so extreme and dangerous that they either won’t vote for him or will hold their nose and vote for a Dem this time, hopefully enough to tip the election in her favor.

Seriously, how the f*** is this guy still in the race?

It’s depressing as hell that this is where we are.

Almost half the country is right wing and the electoral college gives their votes much more weight. That’s just a fact. That means you can’t win a national election without tacking toward their views in some areas, mainly the areas of concern to those in the swing states that will decide the election. You can’t win by pleasing only your own base. Until we either abolish the electoral college and move to popular vote, or liberals/left wing/whatever you want to call it, reach a majority of the population substantial enough to overcome the electoral college.

Neither of those things looks likely to happen anytime soon, so the only option is to deal with our current reality and develop a strategy to win under these circumstances, but at the same time we should also be working to create a movement to amend the constitution to decide national elections by popular vote.

edit to change “half” to “almost half”–gotta recognize there are some more in the middle.

According to Taylor Swift’s post, Trump and his propagandists posting fake pictures of Swift implying she was endorsing him is one reason she went ahead and came out with this statement endorsing Harris now, to refute the fake stuff they are circulating. So their stupid plan massively backfired.

Maybe Swift would have come out to endorse Harris at some point anyway, but doing it now gives people more time to get registered before the deadline.