Did you know that a tree will turn sunshine and carbon dioxide into oxygen and shade, for free?!
The tree doesn’t even try to maximize its economic value by charging for this service? It does sell the oxygen or comfort of the shade at all, it doesn’t have a subscription service so that you can pay it monthly for oxygen and shade.
It’s downright unamerican.
Why tariffs are stupid in three acts
Act 1
American producers: I can’t compete with that $10 foreign product, I have to sell my product at $12 to turn a razor thin profit.
Politician: ok I’ll slap a $5 tariff on the foreign product to protect you.
Act 2
American producer: awesome so now the foreign product costs $15! I can compete
American consumer: oh well I guess I can spend $12 instead of $10… sucks but America first I guess
Act 3
American producer: no need to leave $3 on the table, let’s sell ours for $14.99, I need more profits because everything I want to buy with my profits is now more expensive for some reason.
American consumer: the foreign one used to cost $10 and the domestic one cost $12… now they cost $15 and $14.99. I guess I’ll buy the American one and skip dinner tonight.
By reducing our labor spend on these spend nothing days and not increasing our labor spends on these days surrounding them, we’ve increased our profits!
The “very first thing”?!
This is why you don’t get invited to parties
Yea I feel bad for him too, you can tell when the officer tells him he has no choice to arrest him that he’s realizing how badly he just messed up.
In his mind he was about to lose his pardon and go back into the prison system.
But to me that also makes me think the officer is justified in his use of force. People that think everything is ruined are unpredictable and he was reaching for violence. While he was saying he was going to turn that violence on himself, there’s no particular reason to trust what he’s saying. I think there’s a very real possibility he gets the gun saying “I’m shooting myself” but then once he has it maybe shooting the cop sounds a bit better.
If I’m the officer I’m not rolling the dice to see if he points the gun at his head or mine.
And as much as I can empathize with the feeling of fear and loss in that moment, ultimately he made a bunch of choices that led to that. He did whatever he did to get his license suspended, he drove on a suspended license, and even in this instance he broke the speed limit knowing that the results of even a minor infraction could lead to the loss of his freedom.
At some point he has to be responsible for the consequences of his actions.
Police Activity posted the bodycam footage.
It’s under 7 minutes and when the shooting happens it’s blurred out. It’s relatively tame from a gore point of view, but it’s still a video of someone being shot so watch with care.
Here’s my synopsis of the footage for people that don’t want to watch it themselves, you can skip the preamble if you just want to understand the shooting. In my opinion the officer acts reasonable, friendly, and professional throughout.
Preamble
Shooting
This is shown from his bodycam and also from his dashcam.
A felon retreated into a vehicle, stating he wouldn’t go back to jail, produced a firearm, and threatened violence. Was the guy lying about shooting himself, was his plan to fire the firearm at himself or the officer? Based on my view of the video, the officer acted within his lawful authority, was polite and professional, and only used force consistent with what the situation required. But I’d encourage you to watch the evidence and make up your own mind.
There are a ton of bad cops and awful shootings. I don’t like J6 but I don’t see this as justified because the guy is an asshole, but justified because of his actions at this traffic stop.
The headline here is kinda absurd. From the article
The case, brought by Marlean Ames, a former Ohio Department of Youth Services (the state’s juvenile justice department) employee, challenges a rule the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals applies, requiring majority-group plaintiffs to demonstrate additional “background circumstances” to establish a discrimination claim.
This case is about whether or not the sixth circuit rule that a majority group plaintiff has to demonstrate additional background circumstances is constitutional.
“Because Ames is heterosexual, she must make a showing in addition to the usual ones for establishing a prima facie case,” Kagan read from the ruling, emphasizing that the opinion itself makes clear that different rules are being applied.
That’s liberal justice Elana Kagan making an argument reading the sixth circuits ruling.
A prima facie case is the first step in proving employment discrimination. Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, a plaintiff must show they belong to a protected class, were qualified for the job, suffered an adverse employment action, and occurred under circumstances suggesting discrimination. If these criteria are met, the burden shifts to the employer to provide a non-discriminatory reason for their decision.
So this case boils down to, “do members of the majority group have to jump over a higher bar to require that employers provide a non-discriminatory reason for their adverse employment action.”
The working class should be shoulder to shoulder in solidarity here.
I mean I’m sure the forms aren’t identical but is having to tell the same information so much of a burden that removing it materially changes anything?
It seems like to work would be in tracking the spending and then once that is done what all is there to save from only having to hand that data to one watchdog instead of two?
Unless of course one of those watchdogs, being a smaller state agency, could be cheaply bought and have their reporting requirements gutted.
When powerful people want small government what they really want is cheaper bribes.
I’m sure he will keep his word on every concession he’s gotten from the US without the US getting anything at all.
At least in an extortion scam you get to keep your store from being burnt down by the mob.
It’s an extortion scam coupled with a party that fucking refused to do anything.
Vote for us or a women’s right to choose will be gone!!! Ok we voted for you, you want to do something… no you can’t just ask the lady living her life like a chapter of the handmaids tale to pinky swear… and the Supreme Court just got rid of it… and I have a text asking for $20 to fight like hell…
Fuck the dems. They aren’t getting one red cent from me. Time for a new party that isnt crawling with consultants figuring out how best to milk donations
Every thing she lists is fluff.
If you are an employed professional you are spending your year doing your job. Not going back to school to pick up a certificate for fun or finding a documentary to be in (what even is this?)
I imagine the husband biting through his cheek during this grilling thinking “yea I’m busy fucking doing things.”
This has real “let them eat cake” vibes
Eggs have traditionally been one of the cheapest staple sources of protein for the working poor.
The right is living out their wet dream right now, in charge of almost every facet of the federal government.
And your concern is that people aren’t being nice enough to them and their supporters.
Collaborators can eat shit
I dunno, reading the FAQ this seems like some of the least bad public private partnerships
https://potholepatrol.co.za/faq/
It’s an insurance company that doesn’t want to pay out for people damaging their cars on potholes. Seems like a rare win for everyone. Insurance company pays out less, people don’t slam into potholes damaging their cars, and I guess the insurance company gets some advertising.
There are so many dystopia things going on, but I think this one is fine.
There’s no way a busty woman talking about bitcoins could honeypot any of these people. No sir. These young men are definitely above that sort of thing and no enemy of America would be wise enough to take advantage of these young lads.
Nope, totally safe and secure. We should all sleep soundly tonight knowing some 19 year old has access to our national treasury under the order of a ketamine addict.
You know what they say when you are at the top of a global order and reap substantial benefits from having that coveted position?
Blow it all up and hope that it’ll come out better by having you… at the top… which is where you already were… hold on.
Ok what did they do in those 4 months.
You see what republicans do the moment they get any kind of power? They have shit ready to go. New tax plan, sure half of it is scribbles in the margins, but push it through. No child left behind? Why not, let’s just overhaul the education system, no need to know what we are doing.
They just signed a bunch of executive orders reclassifying everyone as female and turning the government off. They just had them ready to go.
If I were locked out of power in a deeply broken nation, what else do I have to do but get together with the rest of my party and hammer out the shit we want to get passed when we get some power back.
What were they doing for the other months in that 40 years?! Sitting around dialing for dollars begging for plutocrats to give them enough money that they could do fuck all when they finally got power? Yea, that’s it. That’s what they did.
Why didn’t they have ANYTHING ready for when they had power? Why do they always act like “well now that the voters have given us a mandate, you know government is slow going, we don’t even have drafts ready to go to solve any of these problems. Gotta go get my thinking cap and a big cup of cocoa and noodle this… fuck we lost power again. Jimminy jillickers, I can’t believe our rotten luck”
Either they are the most incompetent gaggle of idiots ever assembled under one banner. Or the people that bought their seats for them would rather they talk a big game on msnbc and sit around and not threaten the broken system that has made them incredibly wealthy.
I’ll let you consider which is better.
The republicans are bringing back fascism but they are at least doing awful things their constituents want.
I disagree with these things, but they deliver on their stupid backwards promises.
I’ve voted for the democrats for my entire adult life, the very first vote I cast was for John Kerry.
Here’s the thing though. Are you a liberal, you wonder why the party is hated, have you ever seen Last Week Tonight?
Jon Oliver gets on tv every week and talks about some horrible problem that started with Reagan or Nixon and has just been going strong ever since. There are so many of these. And which ones can I look at and go “well the democrats sure did fix X when they finally had the levers of power”
I can’t think of a single thing. The most important project they’ve undertaken was the ACA, and I don’t know if entrenching health insurance companies permanently and legally into the fabric of our nation is all that much to celebrate.
Do they do some good things from time to time, sure. You can point to a policy here or there that are nice. But it’s a party of not-even-half-measures.
Can we have single payer? No How about a public option? No What can you do? Romneycare… great
Can we have immigration reform? No What can you do? DACA and that’ll be rescinded the moment we lose power.
Can we reign in the banking sector? Nah
Can we close Guantanamo? Too difficult
Can we enshrine the right to abortion in law? No, but we will ask justices to pinky swear… oh they just removed it, nevermind
Can we do anything to help the common man? Let me check with the donors, nah they don’t like that, but if you like some tweets about how trump is bad, I’ve got those for you.
A party that refuses to use the power you give it is not much use.
And before you type up your essay about how Ackshually! There was only one weekend in 2009 when they could have passed any kind of legislation at all. Fucking stuff it. Then they should have sat there all goddamn weekend and passed bill after bill fixing this shit box nation. Their lack of any kind of foresight and planning and doing anything but building a better and better donation collection machine has led us to fascism.
They can collect a billion goddamn dollars but have to text me to see if I can give them just $27 more dollars before they can pass a bill. We need a new party to represent the people.
Amazing what $500B can do to change someone’s mind.
Agreed. I like the film but it feels like two movies stuck together.
One about the vampire society which is really interesting and novel. And another which is just a run of the mill “rebel faction finds the cure and restores humanity story” that you could find in any zombie film.
I sorta get it though because I think it’s a problem a lot of comments in this thread deals with. An interesting world is not an interesting story. You have this cool vampire society, but then what’s the story? I sorta get why it always ends up being the hero’s journey just in a cool world, because otherwise the comments here are “super cool world but nothing happens”