A few years ago, one of Michigan’s plentiful dumbass state legislators introduced a bill to do away with private-employer vaccine mandates, specifically the ones hospitals commonly have that requires their employees to get flu shots and the like. I wrote a story about it, and what stands out to me is what the co-sponsor said when I asked him what his intent was:
“I’m not a strong believer in mandatory things. If it’s against someone’s religious beliefs or something like that, there are people who just don’t believe in things like that.”
There you have the Tea Party mentality, c. 2012: You can’t make me.
What I also remember about that piece is what a doctor told me:
“Nowadays, we’re trying to convince people who are already locked into their opinions, and also don’t have historical perspective on history of these diseases,” said DeGraw, who is a paid consultant for two pharmaceutical companies. “A child born in 1912 had a 1-in-5 chance of dying by its fifth birthday. Even my parents’ generation knew someone who died of these diseases.
“Pertussis is a great example,” he said. “In the ’30s and ’40s, before the vaccine, 7,000 to 8,000 kids would die in the U.S.(from whooping cough). Now, in the last decade, you only get a couple dozen.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleged incoming health czar in the Trump administration (although there are whispers he’ll be Chris Christie’d before January), says he’s not anti-vaccine. He just wants people to have choice, and for them to be fully informed about vaccine safety. I expect we could be heading toward a state of affairs similar to getting an abortion in a red state pre-Dobbs: Of course you can get your child vaccinated, but you have to sit through a video first, in which the “vaccine-injured” will tell sad tales about how their child was fine, fine, perfectly fine, and then he was vaccinated for measles/mumps/rubella and AUTISM. Still want that shot, mom? After all, most kids survive measles just fine.
I don’t want to keep harping on the medical damage we’re facing, because we’re facing so much other damage. Someone suggested that we could see a national school-voucher program in this administration, which will hollow out public schools. They’ll still exist in some fashion, for kids in Detroit or Chicago or wherever, and the Vance children and others of their wealth and class will attend elite private schools, but the vast middle class will be sucked into shitbag voucher academies. They’ll learn that God blessed America alone among nations, that slavery was really just an immigration program with a work requirement, and that higher ed is unnecessary — we need electricians, too! Girls can learn womanly skills like cooking, sewing and housekeeping, and boys will go to shop class.
Needless to say, teachers won’t be unionized, and they’ll be paid shit, while a few voucher-school tycoons grow very very rich. We’ll send money to homeschooling parents, too, and I’m sure that will work out just dandy.
I think I have to listen to some podcasts about movies or whatnot. This isn’t healthy for me or anyone else.
I went to Columbus this weekend, on family matters, and treated myself with the Crazy Mama’s 45th reunion party. Crazy Mama’s was a nightclub I used to go to, along with Jeff Borden and some others, back in the day, which is to say, the ’80s. It was spectacular; at a time when rock music had become bloated and boring — Kansas, anyone? — Crazy’s DJs played new wave, rockabilly, punk and other music that you never heard on the radio, and that just required you to get up and dance. And when I say “I used to go there,” I mean I was dedicated: For a while I was splitting my sleep in half. I’d stay until closing time, go home and sleep three or four hours, get up and go to work, then come home and crash for another three-hour nap before I left for another night of fun.
Pro tip: This is not a sustainable lifestyle, but I was very young.
I’d kinda-sorta planned to go with Borden and another friend, but Jeff had some family matters of his own and so that plan fell apart. I don’t mind going to stuff like that by myself, however, and the music was great — the Whiskey Daredevils, Willie Phoenix, Screaming Urge and the Fleshtones. I had a good time.
But now I’m back home, and it’s starting to look like family matters may bring me back to Columbus sooner rather than later. (I’m being oblique here for a reason.) They say life is a shit sandwich, and everybody’s got to take a bite. I just wish the whole country wasn’t being served a giant platter of them.
Oh, forgot to add: Here’s a podcast featuring Kate. You can listen on whatever platform you prefer. The podcast is called Outer Limited, and it’s produced by a music journalist here in Detroit and another bassist with a local band. The focus is Detroit music. She sounds good!
alex said on November 11, 2024 at 11:38 am
Even though Nancy has kept us all in the loop about Kate’s adventures in the music business, I didn’t fully appreciate how much she has accomplished and how much she has grown as a person until I got to listen to her telling her story firsthand. Definitely worth your time.
It seems that the consensus on the election is the old “it’s the economy, stupid.” It’s also the consensus of the world’s economists that Trump’s economic plans are the stupidest ever proposed and that he’s going to be unpopular in very short order. Global investors are buying up American dollars and boosting the stock market not as a vote of confidence in Trump but rather confidence that interest rates are going to soar.
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robert said on November 11, 2024 at 11:56 am
“They say life is a shit sandwich, and everybody’s got to take a bite. I just wish the whole country wasn’t being served a giant platter of them.”
— sad, but true. If people want to be stupid, ignorant, and/or lazy, that’s their business. I just resent being dragged down with them.
Dear MAGAs – your guy may have won, but remember this, you ARE better off today than you were in 2020, but you won’t be in 2028.
Maybe Elmo & tRump will share some of their wealth with you, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Dear Nancy – good luck with your family stuff & thanks for your columns.
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Julie Robinson said on November 11, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Sorry about those family matters, since I know all too well they’re rarely fun or good news.
Our generation didn’t get scarlet fever, but most of us had measles, chicken pox, and the mumps. My kids missed the chicken pox vaccine by a year or so, but that was the only one of the old childhood diseases they had. I’m just old enough to remember our folks worrying about polio, and their gratitude when we lined up at the local high school for our sugar cubes. We cannot go back to unwarranted suffering and dying.
I’m gonna say it here: I don’t believe Trump will actually appoint RFK Jr to anything. Susie Wiles won’t allow it.
And with that, I’m off to my prerogative as a retired person, a weekday afternoon movie.
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Mark P said on November 11, 2024 at 12:15 pm
We all know that Trump is a Bellagio fountain of lies, but if he does half what he has said he will, it’s going to be shit sandwiches all the way down. As a former missile defense employee, I sincerely hope he puts Herschel Walker in charge of a new multi-billion-dollar “Iron Dome” program. It would be a money hole even if a competent person were in charge. I suppose my former colleagues, most of whom I believe are Trump supporters, will smile and take the money. What I wonder most about is what’s going to happen to national security. It doesn’t matter what Trump promises or does, his history will make it very hard for the government to have an effective national security program, especially since no other country will share their intelligence.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2024 at 12:17 pm
Del,
Thanks for your response to my comment (in the previous thread). I’ll just say one more thing and then I’m done. I really, really don’t understand how someone who is not evil could vote for evil.
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Dave said on November 11, 2024 at 12:40 pm
Julie Robinson, I have the opposite thought, all I thought was how long will Susie Wiles last?
I remember hearing Pat Summerall giving sports updates on CBS radio long ago, I had no idea and how could I, that he was an alcoholic. Does that train you to deal with a narcissist?
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David C said on November 11, 2024 at 12:45 pm
I lost 75% of the hearing in one ear because of measles one year before the vaccine was released. My aunt lost all hearing in both ears to measles. We weren’t able to have children likely because I had mumps as a kid before the vaccine, although not having kids and grandkids in this environment is maybe a blessing with fewer worries. “Harmless childhood diseases” may be harmless in that they rarely kill. They still can harm lives.
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Jeff Borden said on November 11, 2024 at 12:51 pm
It has been an awful year for me. Just lost my younger sister to ALS. My oldest woman friend is in full-blown dementia and was found living in squalor. Two buddies with serious cancer and another with Parkinsons. Of course, the election would be the cherry on top of a shit sundae. The phrase “one thing after another” was invented for my 2024.
The recourse, I think, is to do more for others going forward. This country is going to get a whole lot meaner, uglier and poorer over the next four years. A lot of folks will need a hand or even a kind word. I’m going to do my best to help wherever and however I can. It just seems logical and correct.
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Sherri said on November 11, 2024 at 1:09 pm
I can’t help but laugh at the idea that Susie Wiles is going to save us. The person who headed the campaign that got us here is going to save us?
As long as the Dems hold firm, Trump can’t appoint RFKJR to anything like a Cabinet position that requires Senate confirmation, at least until the GOP gets rid of the filibuster.
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Jeff Borden said on November 11, 2024 at 1:26 pm
Sherri,
tRump can appoint “acting” officials without Senate approval. But that won’t be necessary. They’ll do whatever he wants.
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Jeff Gill said on November 11, 2024 at 1:57 pm
Those sandwiches turn out to be part of a buffet lunch. All you can eat…
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Jakash said on November 11, 2024 at 1:58 pm
As horrible as all this is, I just am amazed at how many “regular” people now seem to be on board the Fascist Express. Before he was elected the first time, I thought “Wow, there’s 35 – 40% of voters who are really, shall we say, misguided.” Then he won, with 53% of white women voting for him weeks after the release of the “Grab ’em by the pussy” tape, even though 3,000,000 more voters chose Hillary. Then he lost by 7,000,000 votes in 2020.
All the rest of it aside, I just can’t believe that a felon who tried to overthrow the government was even allowed to be on the ballot ever again. Yet, this time he actually won the popular vote by 3,500,000 as of now, evidently with 53% of white women voters AGAIN. After all we’ve seen from him for 9 years, overturning Roe v. Wade, the E. Jean Carroll trial, etc. As always, though, it’s the millions of eligible voters who have watched this shitshow all along and somehow can’t be bothered to vote at all that have gotten us where we are.
Enabling a fascist maniac seems a pretty dangerous idea, even given one’s presumed hope to lower the cost of eggs, keep immigrants from eating the dogs and cats, and to keep a trans person from using the “wrong” bathroom. Oh, and to piss off the condescending libs, needless to say. Ay-yi-yi!
I was prompted to write this lame comment when looking back at the 2019 nn.c. post and comments at the Wayback Machine. There I linked to a “piece from Eric Zorn of the Tribune, exhorting us to choose ‘Cult 45’ as the go-to term for Trump supporters.” Realizing that the cult, 5 years later, now comprises over 50% of voters does not seem to indicate that the arc of history is bending toward justice anymore.
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Jeff Gill said on November 11, 2024 at 2:33 pm
Jakash, he got 50.4% of those who voted this time, but it was 74,846,364 voters (as of this am) versus 2020’s 74,223,975. An increase of 622,389 or less than 1% more people voted for him than four years ago. The mystery is how we lost 10,000,000+ from Biden to Harris, some 14% of the previous tally evaporating. Was it the loss of more widely available mail-in voting options, or racism, or sexism, or what toxic soup (to go with the sandwiches) of those three combined?
And in any case, 22% of the country voted for Trump. Call it a third of potential voters once you factor out children & felons & nursing home memory unit residents.
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tajalli said on November 11, 2024 at 3:49 pm
Yeah, Jeff. So, about 33-40% of eligible voters just couldn’t be bothered. Hope they don’t complain.
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Deborah said on November 11, 2024 at 4:29 pm
Did you folks hear that Musk banned Stephen King from Twitter (I refuse to call it X, but who cares) because King Tweeted something calling Musk the First Lady (based on that photo of Trump’s family on election night, minus Melania and Kimberly but included Musk). Musk of course is the guy who is so all in for free speech that he won’t do anything about all the horribleness being spouted on his social media site, but he bans King of course. When I told my husband that King tweeted that he decided that Musk will forever now be thought of to him as Elonia.
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Jeff Borden said on November 11, 2024 at 4:44 pm
Elmo has zero sense of humor…just like his man crush tRump. Elmo attacked SNL and Dana Carvey for mocking him. All those billions cannot buy a funny bone.
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Julie Robinson said on November 11, 2024 at 5:24 pm
Sherri, I don’t think Susie Wiles is going to save us, but I do think she’ll save us from RFK Jr.
Jeff B, how awful. I’m sorry; it goes along with our age. Every week at church we pray for someone with effin’ cancer or to get out of the effin’ rehab hospital, or someone else whose niece has effed up their life. And what we can do here is be kind, as you suggest. We can take a meal or visit; sometimes all we can offer is a shoulder to cry on. But those all help.
So this week we are making blessing bags which will go to a couple of groups working with the unhoused. While we work for political change that would keep housing prices down and wages up*, we also gather socks and gloves, protein bars and dried fruit, toothbrushes and paste, and place them in a small backpack, not just a plastic grocery bag.
*The state and national elections were a disaster, but here in our little blue circle, we elected and reelected some really good people.
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Jakash said on November 11, 2024 at 5:54 pm
Yes, Jeff, a convicted felon and blabbering ignoramus who tried to overthrow the government and less than 1% MORE people voted for him than last time (at this point). Uh, that’s not too encouraging. But, but, but Liz Cheney told us that millions of Republican women would not do so. Hmmm…
Sexism, racism, pro-Palestinian sentiment, anti-woke nonsense, anti-immigration fervor (even among immigrants themselves!), pricier groceries — the lack of turnout for Harris is not all that mysterious to me. As I acknowledged in my comment, “it’s the millions of eligible voters who have watched this shitshow all along and somehow can’t be bothered to vote at all that have gotten us where we are.”
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Jason T. said on November 11, 2024 at 6:15 pm
A few nights ago, Seth Meyers said something during his monologue like, “We’ll still be here next year to make fun of the new administration.”
Yeah, Seth, right up until Comcast/NBCUniversal replaces you with reruns of “Law & Order.” Or “Late Night With Tony Hinchcliffe.”
I’m starting to think that maybe allowing giant corporations to purchase all of the media companies and merge them was a bad idea.
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Sherri said on November 11, 2024 at 6:36 pm
Anthony Romero, the Executive Director of the ACLU, described all the lawsuits the organization filed against the first Trump administration as “sand in the gears.” He knew he couldn’t stop everything, but he could slow things down.
This time around, thanks to SCOTUS (soon to have five Trump appointed justices!), there will be fewer entities that can throw any sand in the gears. The overturning of the Chevron doctrine opens the door to kill the regulatory state, and even in Congress were interested, leaves Congress incapable of doing anything about it.
I live in a state that got bluer this past election, but it’s also a border state, and incoming border czar Tom Homan has already made it clear how he feels about blue state governors that stand in his way.
Time to go increase that donation to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
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Mark P said on November 11, 2024 at 11:04 pm
It turns out the King-Musk thing was apparently a hoax.
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Deborah said on November 12, 2024 at 3:02 am
If you don’t read Heather Cox Richardson I urge you to do so daily. She sends out her Letters From an American via email or you can read it online, the latest one is a doozy https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-11-2024. She gives a synopsis of the day’s key news events, they come out after midnight, for the previous day (did that make sense?). You can get her newsletter daily for free or you can subscribe (Substack). It’s a lot cheaper than the Washington Post owned by Billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Also HCR is an historian so she writes about current events from an historic perspective which is fascinating.
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alex said on November 12, 2024 at 11:05 am
I remember partaking of the unsustainable nightlife lifestyle while at my first job in Chicago after college. I was in a department of mostly twenty-somethings and on occasion groups of us would spend an entire night out partying and then manage to function at work the next day, though barely. What would happen is we would buy tickets to see big performers at small venues and inevitably the performers, who were billed as going on at 10 PM, wouldn’t show up until midnight or 1 AM. I remember a Grace Jones event where she didn’t come out until almost 2 AM, and when she did she staggered onto the stage smoking a blunt, gave us two songs and then made her exit. Another very late one was Astrud Gilberto.
I’ve been reflecting on how it has been a year now since I left the work force and how showing up every day to face a toxic boss was really unsustainable too. It has taken all this time for me to recover from that exhaustion. Despite everything that’s going wrong with the world, I feel like I’ve finally gotten my mojo back.
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Deborah said on November 12, 2024 at 11:10 am
Scout, Congrats to AZ for electing Gallegos, now you will have 2 real Dem Senators, will a Dem be able to replace Gallegos in the house? Seems like that would be the case? Or did that race already take place, sorry I’m not up on that? I gave to Gallegos monthly, I’m happy he won even if the Dems won’t have a majority for a while.
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brian stouder said on November 12, 2024 at 2:08 pm
Alex, regarding the ‘year since leaving the work force and a toxic boss’ – AMEN my brother! I’ve been out from under the thumb for about the same time, including a change of base (from Fort Wayne, with Channel 15 literally in our backyard, and a fire station down the block/!!/; to rural Indiana, with occasional fly-overs of all manner of military hardware related to GrissomAFB, but otherwise panoramic vistas with cattle in the field in one direction, and corn swaying in the breeze [now harvested] in the other…..Truly, I think I’ve gone (at least half way!) to heaven!
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Sherri said on November 12, 2024 at 2:10 pm
If you’re giving up on Twitter and joining BlueSky, I can be found @sherrimnichols.bsky.social.
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nancy said on November 12, 2024 at 2:43 pm
Alex, when I saw Grace Jones a couple years back, she performed topless for the last 20 minutes or so.
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Deborah said on November 12, 2024 at 4:25 pm
Brian, that sounds lovely.
This seems an accurate assessment to me https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/what-i-got-wrong-in-2024
edit: Sherri, I followed you, I’ve been on Bluesky for a while but I didn’t visit much. Since the election it has gotten lots more on board and I find it much more interesting.
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scout said on November 12, 2024 at 4:41 pm
Sherri – I deleted all my socials the day after the ‘election’. Then yesterday I remembered Bluesky, which I had joined ages ago but never used. Now it’s the happening place. Just followed you.
Deborah – yes, much relief we avoided sKari fLake. Ruben is a good guy and yes, I believe his house district would have been pretty solid blue.
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Icarus said on November 12, 2024 at 6:32 pm
Sherri, I might have gotten my Bluesky invite from you. Following you now. if anyone wants to follow me back, here’s mine:
https://bsky.app/profile/mysteriesoflife.bsky.social
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Julie Robinson said on November 12, 2024 at 7:35 pm
Alex and Brian, so glad you’ve found contentment in retirement. This afternoon was spent planting flowers in gentle sun, which is contentment for me.
I’ve never been on Twitter and I’m scrolling past any post that looks like doom.
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Sherri said on November 12, 2024 at 9:10 pm
Seth Moulton, a Democrat (who tried to challenge Pelosi from the right for leadership), wants to thrown trans people under the bus. Not only is is immoral, it’s stupid.
Moulton says he doesn’t want his two little girls to get run over by a male or formerly male athlete on the sports field. I’ve got news for him; one of the major reasons girls plays sports is because they choose the bear instead of the man. I out my daughter in sports so she could learn that when she got knocked down, she could get up again. I put her in karate so she could learn that if she got hit, she could hit back.
I was far more worried about some guy she might date than I was any trans athlete she might encounter.
And Seth, she’s been training against boys and men in karate since she was 11. She’s now a third degree black belt, and last year, competed in a tournament against the men in sparring because there weren’t any women to compete against, and finished fourth.
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Sherri said on November 12, 2024 at 9:50 pm
Meanwhile, Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education. Who do you think monitors Title IX compliance?
As has been obvious from the jump, the people claiming they wanted to protect women’s sports from transgender athletes don’t care about women’s sport, they just hate transgender people, and since they had lost the same sex marriage battle (for now), transgender people were convenient. They also at best don’t care about women’s sports; as long as it doesn’t upset the status quo, women’s sports are fine, but they don’t want women getting any ideas about their place in the world.
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alex said on November 12, 2024 at 10:10 pm
We didn’t get to see Grace Jones topless, but I do seem to remember her being barefoot. She ‘sknown for doing as she wants.
Today I ran into a pair of former colleagues doing lunch at a strip mall Thai place on the other end of town. They looked perhaps a little nervous to see me. Both are married and have long been rumored to be an item. I’ve always given them the benefit of the doubt that males and females can be friends without it being anything more than that, but I honestly don’t care one way or another. It’s none of my business and I’m not going to gossip about it to anyone from my former workplace. And it’s hardly the first time I’ve run into them dining together.
They asked me if I was living on that end of town, and since not, why was I there. I told them I stopped going to the Thai place on my end of town because the lady who runs it keeps touching all over me and making me uncomfortable. This seemed to make them more uncomfortable.
So kind of a weird day here in Peyton Place. They also asked me what I was doing in my retirement and I told them “doomscrolling.” The woman chimed in that it could be a lot of rabbit holes doing that. Sort of an awkward meeting only I wasn’t giving a shit which is nice for a change.
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Colleen said on November 12, 2024 at 10:48 pm
Find me on bluesky as @cmcondron. It seems fairly fascist free.
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Jeff Gill said on November 13, 2024 at 7:48 am
Nancy convinced me: https://bsky.app/profile/knapsack77.bsky.social
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Dave said on November 13, 2024 at 8:25 am
I’ve joined, @RetiredHawger, which is a misspelling of hogger, which is a little used railroad term. I don’t believe I was really aware of BlueSky until now, not paying attention.
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Deborah said on November 13, 2024 at 9:13 am
Everything is getting scarier than I thought it would be this soon. https://newrepublic.com/article/188346/transcript-paul-krugman-badly-trump-voters-scammed The part where Krugmann explains how Trump’s admin will change the “official” statistics to keep the public from knowing how much inflation is going up because of deportings and tariffs. And I think they’ll believe him, even though the fact of paying even more for groceries will be right in front of them, happening to them.
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David C said on November 13, 2024 at 10:14 am
If he implements his tariffs, there’s no way he will be able to hide the inflation and especially the shortages even with them lying their asses off about them. There’s no hiding it if your phone craps our and you can’t replace it. He’s already stocking his administration with ass kissers and idiots. Pete Hegseth, the weekend Fox and Fiends giggling couch tumor, as SecDef? What cabinet pose is Kanye going to get? Fuckups, fuck up. It’s easy to lie about future plans. Lying about the here and now doesn’t work so well. People in the Soviet Union knew everything sucked even as they were being told it didn’t. The way people get information is so diffuse they’re not going to be able to shut it down even if they want or try to.
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alex said on November 13, 2024 at 10:28 am
Guess I’m going down the new rabbit hole with y’all. Find me @alexisdetokeville.bsky.social
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JodiP said on November 13, 2024 at 11:48 am
I really appreciate the community here. I don’t have as much time as I used to to hang out with all of you.
WaPo has an editorial stating Biden should step down so we can have our first female president. I absolutely love this idea.
In addition to seeing the country slide into fascism, my wife and I decided to end our marriage. Financially it makes sense to sell our home, which I’ve lived in since ’95. Also the thought of maintaining it and the gardens is not appealing.
So I am off to a huge adventure!
Like many here, friends and I have been leaning on each other. I continue to volunteer for a few things that make a difference in people’s lives. But really scared and angry about what’s coming.
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