#oh that and medicaid is changing (fuck you biden fuck you biden fuck you biden) so its no longer free

[evilcatgirlwizard]

haha i hate america

[theculturedmarxist]

The Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, had approved the sale of ammunition to Israel twice before this completely unsourced tweet came out. (Blinken is not Biden. Biden is the President.

Man, you're going to be really surprised when you find out who Blinken's boss is, and whose policies the Secretary of State carries out.

Contrary to the claims made in the viral Instagram post, Biden has made a number of executive orders related to issues including abortion and reproductive rights, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and gun crime. Following the June 24, 2022, Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration issued two executive orders intended to protect abortion access. He has also issued 15 orders directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and six pertaining to action on climate change.

rofl

The first Roe executive order is nothing. It just gives the Secretary of HHS homework. What makes it even more ridiculous is that it wasn't issued until after the decision came out, when the decision was leaked two months beforehand. The second one is also a big "so what?" also. "[...]the Secretary of HHS shall consider actions to advance access to reproductive healthcare services, including, to the extent permitted by Federal law, through Medicaid for patients traveling across State lines for medical care." Oh, the Secretary will be considering actions? Great. Thanks a ton.

>the COVID-19 pandemic

lol, who cares? Biden's eugenicist policies have extended the covid pandemic indefinitely and have us primed for a second concurrent pandemic as avian flu is allowed to propagate and mutate.

>climate change

Yeah, great, thanks. I'm sure his orders have been a big help.

>gun crime

Bupkis.

>While it is undoubtedly true that Biden issued no executive orders related to the large-scale Black Lives Matter protests that rocked the country following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, these occurred well before his January 2021 presidential inauguration.

Yeah, the protests occurred before he was president, but cops are continuing to murder working people in droves. But of course Biden wouldn't do anything about that, because that's a feature, not a bug.

The featured tweet might not be strictly true but it is materially accurate. The Biden administration rushed to send ammunition to Israel to facilitate its overt acts of genocide as a matter of "national security." You can split hairs if you want over the mechanism or the bureaucrat that actually carried out the order, but the result is the same. Nevermind hiding behind the verbiage of it being a "sale," because the fact of the matter is that Israel is a massive NATO ammo dump. The weapons were already there. "Selling" Israel the weapons is just a technicality as far as letting them use them.

I hope you fucking liberals are getting demoralized. You're trying to psych yourselves up to support a genocidal, racist, eugenacist, nazi-supporting corpse at the head of a party that supports all the same. You should all kill yourselves.

[whimsicalworldofme]

Hey y'all, I don't give a shit how you feel about Biden/Harris but if you really want substantial progressive change, you better fucking vote in all down ballot races. The House is just barely keeping things from totally crumbling into complete fascism. If we can keep the House and flip the Senate, Drumpf will essentially be rendered powerless even if he does get re-elected.

State and city governments are essential votes too. They determine things like Medicaid expansion and whether or not the cops will be defunded and how that money would be reallocated into your community. Even school board elections are crucial. They can be the difference between abstinence only sex ed and creationism or comprehensive sex ed and actual science being taught in schools. Judiciary positions that you can vote for are crucial for justice system reform as well.

My dad is on the county commission for our small town. The county population is less than 50k. But it's rural and hard hit by loss of factory work, climate change damage to farms, and the opioid crisis.

In recent years, the county commission has approved zoning for wind farms, which boosts the economy and brings in jobs, they also created a drug court that allows addicts to avoid jail if they opt into taxpayer funded rehab programs. My dad wants to do something similar for those with mental heath issues, so they can see psychiatrists to get the help they need, with the goal of reducing prison populations. Because addicts and the mentally ill don't belong in jail. Oh and these initiatives taken on by this tiny county commission? It's in a VERY conservative county. But they're still getting this stuff done on a local level.

The President isn't unimportant, but the smaller races are where shit really gets done so do your research into those and VOTE!

[letmetellyouaboutthiscountry]

I'm mad.

There are people I have a class with who think, out of the lineup of Democratic candidates, that Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttegieg are the most likely to win. If they think that, there is definitely a larger base of people who feel the same way. Fuck that, they're weak candidates and if the DNC chooses either of them, or Bloomberg, the Democrats WILL lose. Trump WILL be reelected.

So let me sell you on Bernie Sanders.

1. Education. His plan includes BOTH student loan forgiveness AND free higher education. That means more opportunity for people to get jobs, which is especially important because, in America, you need a college degree to get even entry level jobs.

2. Free/universal healthcare. If our Canadian neighbor can have universal healthcare and it's not a financial strain on their country, then why can't the U.S. do it too? If most of Europe has universal healthcare and it's not a burden, why can't we?

And before you say, "oh, but you'll have to wait six months before you can get an MRI" first of all, really think about that statement. If you're poor in this country and you need an MRI, you have to think really hard about how much you need it. People die because they decide they can't afford it. That's why we don't have to wait six months, because there are only two kinds of people who can get one: the rich elite and the people already on Medicare/Medicaid. But, not only is there a chunk of people who are poor and don't qualify for Medicaid, there is also a huge gap of people between super rich and dirt poor. Some are uninsured, some have straight up shitty healthcare packages.

And before you say "oh, but I have wonderful insurance through my employer and I don't want it to change" first of all, good for you. I mean that genuinely–thats great that you could get a job like that. But the bulk of the jobs here don't offer that. And, realistically, your insurance won't change. What will happen will be that everyone will have that insurance and the provider will be the government instead of your employer. You aren't losing anything.

3. Taxes. The ultra rich will finally be taxed. This will be the large part of how the country will pay for these programs. Instead of the poor and working classes carrying the financial burden of the country on their small backs, the rich will have to do their part and finally pay up. This will create a self-sufficiency for the country as a whole meaning we will have to borrow less from other countries. And the ultra-rich can, in fact, afford it. Trickle-down economics don't work purely for the fact that the rich, instead of giving the money down to the people under them, they hoard the money and fire the people under them, moving the jobs to another country that will cost them next to nothing to pay for.

4. Intelligence and fire. What we need to beat Trump is a candidate who is as equally fiery and Trump and a candidate who is as intelligent as Trump is dumb. Now, I recognize that, except for maybe Biden, all of the liberal candidates are smarter than the incumbent. I get this statement from the fact that they can all string together a coherent sentence, they have a semblance of a memory, and several of them can, in fact, carefully choose their words so that they don't sound like ignoramuses.

But the fact of the matter is that they don't get heated enough to stand against Trump. That's what makes him SEEM like a strong candidate. Bernie DOES get heated. He's ready to fight. That makes him the best candidate to stand up against Trump.

And I know some of you are thinking that Bernie is too old. He is old. But he's only five years older than Trump. They're within the same age range. Maybe that's still too old, but if the Republicans think it's an okay age, the Democrats can too.

Honestly, it's time to stop believing that the Dems have to take the high road. That doesn't work anymore. The status quo and the moderate stance is weak. The time for kindness is over. It's time for the moderate line straddlers to take a stand. Pick a side.

It's time for change and it has been time for change. Stagnation leads to death and extinction and that's exactly where we're headed if we continue with the status quo.

Vote.

[quakerjoe]

NO MORE: A CUPPA JOE FOR FRIDAY 13 MARCH 2020

I think if Biden's "it", I'm going to abstain.

I'm tired of the Dems doing nothing.

I'm tired of them forcing me to decide between two evils.

I'm not willing to surrender my minute, little slice of political power because of it.

I'll vote downballot and try to replace the old guard who are feckless and ineffective.

I'm tired of their propaganda shows, playing on their fame and reputation while answering to money, not us.

I'm tired of them NOT moving to get rid of the Electoral College.

I'm tired of them NOT moving to attack gerrymandering.

I'm tired of their inability to stand up to a party rife with the actual 'deep state' rich fucks, the nazis, and the kkk.

I'm tired of them playing gambling games with our lives instead of being a force to be reckoned with.

I'm tired of them being decades behind the times.

I'm going to have the balls to abstain.

I'm going to shoot a message into the wall for all to see...

"NO MORE"

Lining me up to vote for a lesser of two evils- the promise of PLUTOCRACY under Biden OR the threat of FASCISM under trump- seriously? I can't see myself attaching my name to that. NO MORE.

Screaming at me because I'm a Sanders supporter and then accusing me of being some fuckwit "Bernie Bro" because I disagree with you? NO MORE.

Here's the thing- WHEN the DNC fronts Biden, and you KNOW they will, we'll see 2016 all over again. When Biden loses, and you KNOW he will, all of these chicken-shit "Vote Blue No Matter Who" cucks will blame ME and those like me, the Progressives, for the defeat SOMEHOW. They always do. NOBODY was willing to own up to HRC's defeat in 2016; what should have been the EASIEST victory in political history.

Oh, and SPARE ME this horse shit about 'electibility' too. Stop sucking corporate media dick for a change. Do you think trump was or even IS "electable"? Let's be clear- BOTH trump AND Biden are all about sucking Wall St ass. BOTH want to give the super rich all the breaks and leave YOU with the bill. BOTH will shitcan Social Security AND Medicare/Medicaid. BOTH.

While Sanders is trying to get us on board with a health care system to literally save us ALL during a pandemic, Biden said, on live telly, that he'd veto the bill if it came to his desk because suddenly, despite voting FOR war with Iraq, NOW he's wanting to know where the money will come from.

So no, I won't be voting for Biden. The country is sick as fuck, and the DNC snake oil solution hasn't worked yet and it never will. The time for massive change is in the air, and that scares Americans because they're terrified of EVERYTHING. This is NOT the "home of the brave". If you couldn't stomach backing Sanders, then I say to you- YOU are a COWARD. As for me- NO MORE!

Right up until recently I was all "Vote Blue No Matter Who" just because I was against trump, and let's be clear- I AM. But using trump's shittiness as leverage for the Dems to allow another version of him who said "nothing's going to change much" to be their candidate is them force-feeding us all a steaming plate of shit. They expect us to eat it. Most of you will. I won't anymore. NO MORE.

Neither Biden or trump ca form coherent sentences or string a thought or two together. And while some of you are out there cavalierly throwing around the "You're a Bernie Bro!" card, your boy Joe is actually verbally abusing and threatening to fight voters, LIVE on camera! So take the Bernie Bro shit and cram it up your ass. You get to play that card NO MORE.

I highly doubt my abstaining from voting for Biden if/when he's the nominee will put a dent in history. I highly doubt this post will start a rally with congrats being thrown my way for having the stones to finally tell the DNC to go fuck themselves. I suspect that more angry responses will fly at me, accusing me of only helping trump. To be clear, I'm helping NEITHER. If anything, I have a better understanding of those who wouldn't vote blue no matter who in 2016. Perhaps I'm just late catching on, but I get it now.

America is ill. Corporate media is ass-fucking you ALL. Progressives get ZERO media coverage, and the GOP-DNC alliance is still conning you into choosing between High Grade Fuckery with GOP politicians of Diet Fuckery with Democrats. MY precious, singular, little vote is my ONLY true weapon, and I hold it dearly. For my own conscience, dignity, and self respect, it must be earned and not surrendered just because I don't like trump. EITHER WAY we're voting for pretty much the same fuckwad only one has an (R) on the ballot, the other a (D).

Perhaps the only way things will TRULY get better is if things proceed to get worse. Perhaps we're simply not "woke" enough yet. Perhaps we really DO want more trump, otherwise the DNC would have told Joe to sit down and shut the fuck up ages ago. Perhaps Warren would have got off her ass and endorsed her "fellow" Progressive immediately in 2016 or, this time around, dropped out before Super Tuesday and, along with Yang, and the "anti-Biden" hypocrite-turncoats like Booker and "I was that girl" Kamala Harris. No, these bullshit artists showed us their true colors and backed Biden. The jig is up. We watched them SELL US ALL OUT, instead of backing the candidate that better and more closely represented their own agendas, or so they claimed once upon a time.

This gaggle of liars and hypocrites will NOT get my vote. NO MORE.

In their actions, the Dems have made it clear. In Biden's own words they seem to want us to 'vote for the other guy'. Well, I choose to vote for neither. NO MORE.

 If you want to keep empowering the Democratic Party to keep making feckless choices, displaying cowardice, and serving us hot bowls of filth to ear, that’s on you. I won’t be doing it anymore. I’ll vote for what I WANT, not for what I’m willing to settle for. This country has moved so goddamned far to the right that sanity and conventional ‘leftism’ is now considered evil and unspeakable.

Why is it a bad thing to want good things for ALL of us? Why are so many people so stoked to keep throwing all of our hard-earned cash to the rich instead of seeing our tax dollars make “We the People” safer, healthier, better educated, and worth being called “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? We throw away our rights, kill our economy, destroy the planet- let’s call it what it is, shall we? We totally shit where we eat and them blame the poor and powerless for the mess. We ALWAYS punch down in this nation instead of going after those doing the real harm. Frankly, I’m sick of the stupidity and ignorance the Democrats have displayed and I will support them NO MORE.

~Quaker Joe

[libertarianbarbarian]

The Every-man Candidate

The Every-Man Candidate

  Facts:

-https://www.libertarianism.org/what-is-a-libertarian

           -for the core principles

-https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/the-wealth-of-u-s-presidents/

 -https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government

 -https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/george-washington

   OPED WARNING

   The every-man candidate. I know you guys are absolutely sick and tired of hearing me talk about this and that when it comes to “every-man” anything but hear me out now. There’s to it I promise you. Ok so everyone knows that we have Donald Trump in the presidency and he’s probably the closest we’ve had to an everyman the way I’d explain it in recent memory.

           Now what do I mean by every-man candidate you say? No, you fucking don’t, lets be honest you’re sitting there telling me to get to the damn point. Ok, we’ve had billionaires, we’ve had both parties…and some idiots back in the day that wanted to call their party the whigs. There was probably a deep meaningful reason but to me right now that’s like a new party coming out of nowhere calling themselves “the weave”. We had a black president…in MY own opinion he was one of the worst, not the worst if you read my last blog.

           But what I mean by an every-man candidate is something that is something completely different. We’re American for fucks sake. We work hard, we all know we’re American, but then we fight over who’s got the most Irish heritage, because we’re a nation of immigrants, or who’s more of a mut than the other. We started off the revolutionary war with getting aggravated at the country that brought our forefathers here like a bunch of teenagers by chucking their shit in to the ocean and flipping them the bird. We’re only eloquent when we absolutely have to be, but in day to day life we love to laugh about the absolutely most horrible shit because we all know life sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it. And we want to protect it.

           Time and time again, however, we’re told that we have to elect from a selected pool of people that keep running for congress to be president. Now we have a billionaire in office that speaks his mind. Lets be honest, he fucks up, but he doesn’t do it intentionally, he had no fucking clue what the hell he was doing when he ran. He was sick of the establishment. He was going about his normal day to day billionaire life collecting money from all his properties and watching people get screwed over by the government and said “Hey I think I want to change that.” And that’s the closest we can get?

           No, I’m sorry look a little bit further. Trump did open our eyes that we gotta do a little leg work and do our own research so why the hell not. Ummmm, George Washington? No. No fucking way.

           Ok, well lets go down the list. He wasn’t involved with the Boston Tea Party directly, but he was one of the founding fathers. I guess that could be a check, but not an every-man check. Turns out his family owned slaves…uh oh, ok bad start. That was before the revolutionary war, ok so not a good thing by todays standards…back then eh…still immoral to us so lets do a little digging on that one.

           I don’t think owning a slave is a good thing. Bar none. We’re not the only one’s to do it. The Chinese have done it, the middle easterners have done it, westerners have done it. Hell before England got to Africa they were enslaving the Irish, ask me how I know (hint I’m third generation Irish here). So lets talk about context. Was it like “Django Unchained”? Did his slaves get treated bad, oh yeah let me go across the street and talk to one of them. I can’t so I have to do the next best thing, historians. No I’m not going to have sex with one of them! From what I could gather, as best as I could not only did he treat them as amazingly as he could, George Washington worked in the fields with them.

           Yeah he had money to buy slaves…but it was kind of his fathers gig. That’s where most of the slaves came from. He felt bad about the whole thing as a matter of fact. Right before he died, before we even fought the civil war, before England caught off the slave trade George Washington had in his will that when his wife died all his slaves would be freed. Cool, so that isn’t so bad right? Doesn’t seem that bad to me to be honest, not the greatest, but not that bad.

           So ignoring the slave part, we know that George Washington could have sat there in the plantation house with his old man and sipped some southern sweet tea while watching the slaves. But instead he decided to go ahead and pick up a scythe and get at it just as hard as they did as long as they did from as many written down eyewitness reports as I found. George Washington busts his ass for work, that’s American as hell.

           How about empathy? So that’s one of the most underrated things about us Americans. Empathy gets us in to trouble ALL the fucking time, it’s the reason why we end up in foreign wars, and get manipulated by fucked up politicians, ahem Woodrow Wilson. What? I can’t let a dead dog lay. George Washington, though, only married once from what I could tell. Never had any kids, none at all…well none of his own.

           You see he married this one chick named Martha. Insert “Batman V. Superman” reference here. She was a widow, back in the day that made you an outcast. For christ sakes your husband could have died of cancer or measles and as a woman you were socially blamed for his death. All the bullshitery of the 1700’s behind, she had two kids from the man that had died when she was married to him. From what literally every historian says good ol’ Georgey boy here didn’t want any more kids cause he already had two. He viewed the two children Martha came as his own and became a diligent stepfather. You know the kind the crowd coos over on “Jerry Springer” for being a good dad when the other, ahem, “goes out for milk”.

           Ok, hard work, empathy. Both American as fuck. I would add standing up for what you believe in…but come on, do I really god damned have to? Revolutionary War ring any bells here people? How about this one. George Washington is famously known for not wanting to be President. Seriously, he didn’t want the job. To add on top of everything he was pretty much forced in to the role because of the moral fiber he was made of. You know, the good stuff. I’d say that’s kind of a check. So here we’re three checks so far that seem pretty American…and for the most part more every-man than pretty much every other president that we’ve had since him…and that’s 44 others.

           I probably could keep on going about the every-man candidate George Washington was, but I got something else for ya. We’ve come close to having every-man candidates since then. Out of all the presidents we’ve had we’ve actually had some that were just as broke as Washington, if not more. But mysteriously ended up getting more money after the presidency…kind of like Biden, ahem.

           Harry S. Truman, Calvin Coolidge, Woodrow Wilson…oh my hate boner is getting even harder now…Chester A Arthur, who in the fuck is that, and James A. Garfield. Those are pretty close to the brokest presidents we’ve had. If you look at them individually though their not all aligned with the every-man, American values that I, and probably you at this point, believe a president should have.

           So what do I think a president should be when it comes to an every man president? Well here, there’s going to be a part two on some of the things that I think would look great in practice as well on paper but I’ll give you a little taste.

           Someone who grew up in the ghetto, or a trailer park. Someone who sincerely had to work in a factory or manufacturing. Farming could do it to, but it’s not like you can’t relate to farmers on a hard days work, maybe not the same type of work but you still have to spend 12 hours or more busting your ass to feed yourself and/or your family. Someone who’s been homeless.

           Haha! I threw you off with that one huh? Well let me clarify that one. I know from experience myself. I’m a veteran for those of you who don’t know. I got out, I didn’t know what the world outside of the military was like when I did get out, so I had to adapt, and adapt quickly. It sucked and I couldn’t do it quick enough. I had a wife and one son at the time. I would like to have someone that knows what it’s like, in office, to sit in a shelter being regimented by a bunch of people that are social workers and that went to school that tell you they know exactly what your experiences are.

           No you don’t and you never will. My experiences are my own. So, Mr. Every-man president lets work together on getting together with the states on smoothing out the process of I don’t know…foodstamps, medicare, Medicaid, and all that other shit. Lets help men get help with getting in to shelters when they have to go to work and make child support too. How does that sound? Being homeless and being among the homeless, or in a trailer park/ ghetto kind of helps you understand that shit better a hell of a lot more than a degree ever will.

           Here’s one for you. I don’t want my every-man candidate to be squeaky clean either. I don’t want him to have a felony. Haha no I don’t want Mr. Murderer in the Whitehouse, only every-man. I want someone that knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the cops so he knows what it’s like to both fear and respect the cops. An absolute every-man. No manipulation, someone that says “I’m sick of this politician shit”, that’s been through hell and genuinely wants to fix shit because he loves this country just as much as you and I do.

[laele25]

And on today’s episode of Republicans are willfully stupid...

We have this little gem of completely gaslit bullshit a friend ran across on Facebook and had to share with me.  So I’m gonna post this ill informed, racist, grammar nightmare, corporate bootthroating wall o’ text as it was posted, then proceed to apply facts to BS,  Complete with the data to back it up.  Since this moron has completely swallowed the kool-aid, cites he is stating facts when there isn’t a fact to be found.   This is gonna be a long one, folks.  So hang in there.   The Facebook post: (brace yourself, the Faux News is strong in this one) I'm just going to leave this right here. “All of you who voted for Biden better own it for the next four years if he wins. (its looking like he may) I dont want to hear you complain about your taxes going up or gas prices doubling. I dont want you to complain when your health insurance cost go up even further than they already are. Dont complain when you bring home less on your paycheck because you're being penalized for climate justice. Dont complain when you lose your job because 11 million illegal immigrants suddenly become legal and your employer decides to hire someone at a lower wage. Dont complain when your job is just out right eliminated because the minimum wage is to high and your employer can no longer afford to stay open or even pay you. Dont complain when your automotive job is eliminated because its shipped back to China. Dont complain when interest rates double maybe triple and homes/automobiles arent as affordable as they used to be. Dont complain when your stocks and 401k take a hit. Dont complain when we are locked into more endless wars in the middle east. Dont complain when your otherwise safe communities are overrun by crime and start resembling Chicago. Dont complain when the educational system goes down. You obviously didnt vote your paycheck or your future. You voted your feelings. Unfortunately facts dont care about your feelings and you will soon(sadly) learn this under a Biden/Harris administration. Just own it.” First of all, since when have Trump voters owned any of his incompetence, bigotry, corruption, and the utter stupid shit he says?  They make excuses, double down on lies, and pretty much basically repeat anything he says even if it’s been debunked repeatedly.   All right, let’s break this down this BS one point at a time.   “Your taxes will go up” Yeah, about that.  The solution is ‘not allowing corporations and the extremely wealthy to evade taxes’.  It’s that simple.  This article goes into the details a bit more and isn’t behind a paywall and has it’s own source links.  https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-taxing-wealthy-americans/ “Gas prices will double-”  This is a tired scare tactic that ironically is because of the hard on these people have for the free market.  Gas prices are low because demand is low because we’re still dealing with the pandemic.  If this hellish plague every ends (either by a vaccine or idiots like this one passing it on to everyone and it killing everybody it could like the Spanish Flu), then they will go back up as demand increases.  But since there is an insane glut of oil in the world, it ain’t gonna be any time soon.

AAA itself said so. https://gasprices.aaa.com/fall-gas-demand-moves-lower-alongside-national-average/ “I don’t want to hear you complain when your health insurance costs go up ... “ More uneducated blathering.  The government doesn’t set the prices for insurance.  Insurance companies do.  The state can tell them they’re trying to raise them too high, but that’s it. Insurance companies have made obscene profits off Covid because of almost no elective surgeries and the aid offered in the first four aid packages.  But with unemployment still really high, they’re starting to feel the strain of the recession.  But as of October 19th, the prices for next year aren’t going to change much.  Regardless who’s president. https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/issue-brief/2021-premium-changes-on-aca-exchanges-and-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-rates/#:~:text=Among%20these%20insurers%2C%20the%20impact,%25%20increases%20(Table%201). The real issue is going to be fewer hospitals (especially in rural areas) driving up the cost of care.  Especially in red states that didn’t expand Medicaid.  Time’s article paints a better picture. https://time.com/5901656/coronavirus-hospital-closures/ “Don’t complain when you bring home less on your paycheck because you're being penalized for climate justice.” Yes, because stagnant wages are totally not the cause of low paychecks and it’s all this recycling and clean energy instead.  We’ll come back to low wages in a minute Except clean energy is cheaper. Even Forbes thinks so. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/renewable-energy-is-now-the-cheapest-option-even-without-subsidies/?sh=3893e0d35a6b And as Stanford University points out, the cost of pollution is appallingly high. https://earth.stanford.edu/news/how-much-does-air-pollution-cost-us#gs.k4cn3x “ Dont complain when you lose your job because 11 million illegal immigrants suddenly become legal and your employer decides to hire someone at a lower wage” First of all, there is  no such thing as an ‘illegal immigrant’. Most immigrant workers do jobs most Americans will not.  Nobody is ‘stealing jobs’, for fuck’s sake. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/10/a-majority-of-americans-say-immigrants-mostly-fill-jobs-u-s-citizens-do-not-want/ This is sad, pathetic, xenophobic racism.   And it’s just gonna get worse now that we’re in a recession and jobs are scarce because of Covid-19.  The ACLU has an article explaining it far better than I can: https://www.aclu.org/other/immigrants-and-economy “ Don’t complain when your job is just out right eliminated because the minimum wage is to high and your employer can no longer afford to stay open or even pay you. Don’t complain when your automotive job is eliminated because its shipped back to China. “ All of this racist, bootlicking garbage can be disproven by this article https://www.epi.org/publication/causes-of-wage-stagnation/ “Don’t complain when interest rates double maybe triple and homes/automobiles aren’t as affordable as they used to be.” I don’t know where Bubba is from, but this already happened. Low interest rates didn’t change that fact. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-housing-rents/unaffordable-rental-housing-may-be-new-normal-in-the-united-states-idUSKBN1ZU0IC “Don’t complain when your stocks and 401k take a hit.“ Newsweek explains why this is bullshit here: https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-donald-trump-better-your-401-k-1542665 “Don’t complain when we are locked into more endless wars in the middle east.“ Apparently, he forgot who got us into those endless wars in the middle east... “Don’t complain when your otherwise safe communities are overrun by crime and start resembling Chicago.” Oh look, more factually challenged racism.   Yeah, nah, the city with the most violent crime by population is Memphis, TN.  Chicago doesn’t even make the top ten. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53991722 “Don’t complain when the education system goes down.” Once again, don’t know here he’s been, they’ve been defunding it for years.  The worst states for education are mostly red states, so says Fox business News. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/most-least-educated-states-america-2020 “You obviously didn’t vote your paycheck or your future. You voted your feelings. Unfortunately facts don’t care about your feelings and you will soon(sadly) learn this under a Biden/Harris administration. Just own it.” The delusion is strong in this one.  I did not exactly run out to vote for Biden/Harris (mostly because we have all mail ballots in my state like sane people), but this guy has no factual information in his entire sad rant.  But how many of the idiots on the right believe this shit?  Most of them.  And that is a very sad fact.     

[kinodraws]

okay just kidding i have LITTLE an energy to make a post about why the midwest slaps ass. 

So, first of all, affordability and cost of living. Wages out here, depending on your profession, can definitely easily get you a 1 bedroom apartment for about $450 - 600$ a month, at least in Fort Wayne, IN, which is where we’re located. I know it can be pricier in places like Chicago and KCMO - but work with me here. The boonies are not that bad and Ohio and Indiana aren’t the hell hole meth laden cess pits everybody seems to think they are. (There’s meth everywhere in the US, we’re not special.)

https://bit.ly/3q4ZUHg <---- this is the apartment complex we’ve lived at for about 4 years now, and it’s been immensely good to us. It’s safe, generally peaceful, the apartments are NOT slumlord specials, and just in walking distance from this place you can find:

- a Walgreens and a CVS - A grocery store (The fresh market) - A planet fitness - All the fast food your guts can handle - Chase Bank and PNC bank (literally right next to one another) - Pet Supplies Plus - A Veterinarian

If you have a car or are willing to take public transportation, you also have access in very close vicinity to stores like Best Buy, Walmart and Target. (BTW, the targets in Fort Wayne start you out at 15$ an hour even for part-timers.) ALSO in driving distance are two other grocery stores, Kroger and Meijer, and tons of doctor’s offices.

Second of all, Fort Wayne is a little blue bubble in a red sea. I know, I know. “But the Midwest is so RED!” You cry! Yes, that may well be, but the more left-leaning people we drag out here the better of a chance we have of changing that! Fort Wayne however, is very blue. Yeah, you have your blue lives matter bumper sticker truck engine revving righties, but doesn’t everywhere? Fort Wayne has a local antifa chapter (shh) and they regularly play capture the flag and take down hate speech/trump stickers. The road nearest to our apartment (hadley) had all of ONE trump supporter on it, the rest of the houses proudly displayed Biden signs this past election season. Ridin’ with Biden isn’t exactly GREAT, but it sure beats the alternative, yanno?

There are also like, an ABSURD amount of truck driving, butch lesbians out here. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m not fucking complaining. 

Also, this town is pretty dang LGBT friendly! Our downstairs neighbour is a trans lady, there’s a lady in our parking lot who’s car is covered in LGBT+ stickers, and our neighbours kitty corner to us had flown an Inclusive LGBT+ flag this past summer. We also had a gay pride flag on our balcony for basically our entire tenure at this place and nobody said Boo about it. Also when Roach and I decided to start house hunting, our realtor was like “Oh are you two common law married?” so either she clocked that roach was trans or I just exude Big Queer Energy. Either way, she was great and it was fine.

Next point of interest - it is crazy easy to buy a house out here if that’s your end goal. Initially I didn’t know what to expect from Fort Wayne when we first moved here, but I fell in love with it and it’s kind of my Place now. Roach bought our house by himself - with 3% down. That’s 4600 bucks! We found a house and paid $75,000 FOR IT. IT’S A THREE BEDROOM! IT HAS A BASEMENT! A little yard for us to garden AND  a front porch! It is basically the perfect starter home. 

I cannot say enough good things about the Midwest. In addition to all of those other points, it has, in my experience, been incredibly easy to get on Medicaid, and Indiana has some of the best, most comprehensive medicaid in the country. It offers dental, vision, and everything else is covered with no deductible for anything. Took me all of 30 minutes to put in my application and I recertify every year by mail. I 100% Recommend doing this if you’re low income. I haven’t been on food stamps out here so I can’t speak to the ease of that process but I have been told by friends that it is similarly easy and streamlined!

ANYWAY please move to the midwest if you’re sick of the cost of living of coastal cities and if you want to experience seasons, homeownership, and friendly neighbours. It has been incredible for us, it might be just as good for you!

I want to write a post about the affordability of the Midwest but I’m so tired. Pls just know that indiana slaps ass and there are tons of reasons to move out here.

[dear-ilenas-friends-blog]

Dear My Sister’s Friends,

Hi! Whats up? We’ve never met, but I’m _____’s sister, Allison. I’ve heard more about you than I’d care to admit, and honestly I’ve got some issues with all of you, but that’s not what I’m writing this for. You all for the most part seem to be a very Pro-Trump group of people. I wish I felt okay brushing that off, being like “oh whatever they have their beliefs I have mine.” But the country has progressed too far into the abyss, and we are only 11 days into the presidency. So we need to talk. This is going to get rough. I don’t really care about your feelings, just FYI.

#1. The ban on citizens from muslim-majority countries is unconstitutional, as is the complete freeze on the Syrian refugee program. Allow me to remind you of WWII and the Holocaust (do not deny it happened, if you do we have a bigger problem on our hands). While the Nazis of Germany and the Fascists of Italy and the Communists of Japan slaughtered millions of people they felt were a threat to society, the United States refused to take in refugees, citing our need to stay out of the war. The US allowed MILLIONS of people to die while we sat back and watched. WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN AGAIN. Oh what's up maybe you were never taught the poem on the statue of liberty? I had to sing it in third grade, and it goes like this: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”. Yeah we don’t turn people away. This whole fucking country was started by people escaping religious persecution in England. And DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED on the fact that we slaughtered indigenous people in order for the immigrants to live here (unnecessary).

#2. Let’s chat about women’s rights. Okay let’s assume that most of you don’t want to get pregnant at the moment, but one of you does. You don’t want that baby? TOO FUCKING BAD BECAUSE THE MEN IN THIS COUNTRY THINK YOU WANT THAT BABY. Some one them think that if you got pregnant from rape (god forbid) your body could just shut down and boom no pregnancy. Oh do you want an abortion? HAHA GOOD FUCKING LUCK. The way your precious president is going, women will not only have limited access to abortions, they may not be able to get them in time. There is a proposed ban on abortions past 6 weeks currently sitting in the senate and let me tell you something, most women do not know they’re pregnant until at least 8 weeks. THAT MEANS YOU WILL BE WAAAAYYYY MORE LIKELY TO HAVE TO CARRY THE CHILD. Oh and, on a related note, they are not children at conception. Fuck that. It’s a fucking zygote until brain waves are present at 25 weeks. And if the woman wants an abortion, her life is ALWAYS more important than the child’s. Yes, in case you forgot, zygotes are what happens when a sperm fertilizes an egg and it begins to grow into a fetus. FETUS. NOT CHILD. Mmmm want some free birth control? Of course you do! I get my pills for free, so does Ilena, so do you. Condoms are pretty free at the health center (or your RA has them - they’re always there just FYI). Bros, the new administration does not want your pills (or IUD or implant or whatever form of contraception you used) to be free. Actually, they don’t want them there at all. Besides the fact that men are running the government and are fundamentally stupid about how women’s bodies work (ask a guy what hole women pee out of- just do it), they also seem to forget about separation of church and state (you know jesus doesn’t believe in birth control blah blah blah see 19 kids and counting for more explanation). I will get more into separation of church and state later. Don’t worry. It’s coming. Anyway, birth control. Remember that. It’s a big deal.

#3. Okay. Separation of Church and State. Hotly debated. Basically it means that we are not a Theocracy, or a government governed by the rules of the bible (a la  the Vatican or...Spain in the 1500s). For some unknown reason, peeps in the government (read: men) think that we aRe kind of a theocracy?!? And love to use the bible to back up research. Okay. There’s a whole lot of shit wrong with that, starting with the fact that the Bible is...kinda not real, and ending with the whole Separation of Church and State clause in our GODDAMN CONSTITUTION. I would also like to take this moment to inform you of a very interesting concept called the American Civil Religion, which is basically the overlying tone of religion that weaves its way through our principles and governmental officials. Why do we always have to say “God Bless America”? Which god? Whose god are we talking about anyway? It doesn’t matter. That’s American Civil Religion. The belief that America is bLeSsEd by God in any way (this is also American Exceptionalism, which is the thing where Americans think they’re better than everybody else and ugh). Google “white savior complex” if you really want to get more into this topic.

#4. Shall we chat about people being nominated by Trump? IDK are you familiar with your currently president’s newest pick for the Supreme Court? Gorsuch? Yeah that guy is literally the worst. He sides with corporations over workers’ unions, has fought for domestic violence to be decriminalized, and would like to appeal Roe v. Wade (that’s the abortion one, in case you didn’t know). Let’s see, who else. Oh yes, his entire cabinet is...well...a clusterfuck. He chose a former CEO of ExxonMobil (oil giant, biggest oil spill in history, ruined the environment NBD) as his Secretary of State. Do you know what the secretary of state does? They go country to country, negotiating and meeting with heads of state, furthering our relationships with allies and creating new relationships with countries. The secretary of state is the most important job in the government next to the president. The most accomplished people have held the position (Madeline Albright, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Thomas Jefferson). I just realized you probably don’t know who Madeleine Albright is. She was the first woman to be Secretary of State, and she’s a badass. Look her up. Tillerson has no governmental experience (unless you count testifying in congress to save his ass) How can he be expected to be the country’s top diplomat? Let’s see, who else? Oh, let’s hit Betsy DeVos. You’ve heard of her right? She’s just a casual multi-billionaire nominated for Secretary of Education. She’s the one who said schools need guns because of bears. She’s also the one who has no experience with public education, and would like to take funding out of public institutions (cough cough University of Massachusetts Amherst cough cough) and give it to private schools and charter schools. Most of you had to take out loans for school right? Yeah good luck paying those off with her in charge. Bernie wanted to make college free? DeVos has no idea how to set interest rates for loans, and the way she’s planning on allocating Education Department funds makes it look like those rates will only increase. So good luck getting out of debt. Department of the Treasury? Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs executive. If you spent any time being angry at Hillary for taking money from Goldman Sachs, thank you new Secretary of the Treasury, who by the way, has zero governmental experience. Secretary of Defense? General James Mattis, a retired Military commander who (thankfully) knows that torture does not work (looking at you Trump). Department of Justice? Jeff Sessions, who famously criticized the NAACP and ACLU while seemingly praising the KKK. Figure that one out. Health and Human Services? Tom Price, and ultra-conservative who has fervent opposition to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) (aka the whole reason you can stay on your parent's health plan until you’re 26). Who else who else...oh yeah Ben Carson, Mr. “I’m not experienced enough to be in the white house bye”, or better yet, Trevor Noah’s best impression to-date. Bro has zero experience in Housing and Urban Development, minus being poor in Detroit. He’s a pediatric brain surgeon….so yeah. Housing. No. Ah the Department of Energy and Rick Perry. The guy who famously said he’d want to eliminate the...department of energy. AWKWARD. Yeah, not a scientist. Climate change denier (though he’s recanted that recently) and oh did you know that the Department of Energy is in charge of our nuclear weapons? Yeah neither did he. The Department of Labor? Andrew Puzder, the one-time chief executive of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. (fast food chains). He’s a constant critic of minimum-wage laws (aka why should we pay people a lot of money so that they can live instead of struggle - let them struggle!) aaannnnddddd shockingly he has no governing experience whatsoever. Only a few left, stay with me! Secretary of the Interior nominee Ryan Zinke was a Navy Seal (that’s cool). He firmly supports mining and drilling on federal lands - which is big no no for environmental preservation. The Department of Commerce’s nominee is Wilbur Ross (shockingly another rich white guy) who...has no experience in government and doesn’t care about workers rights. Honestly no one cares, but the Department of Agriculture’s nominee is Sonny Perdue and he’s pretty whatever, and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs pick is David Shulkin who is from the Obama Administration so...that’s cool. I know what I just laid out is a lot. If you want to know more about the good the bad and the (mostly) ugly, check out this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-cabinet-tracker/510527/ - it’ll give you all the info you need. It’s important to note that there are two women vying for seat on the cabinet. Elaine Chao (who has already been confirmed as the Secretary of Transportation) and Betsy DeVos (who may not be confirmed for so so many reasons). There is one black man (Dr. Ben Carson...who’s special) and the rest of the guys are old, white, and rich #DrainTheSwamp.

#5. Presidential decorum. For those of you wondering, Trump has none. 0/10. Watch, I’ll put it on a scale against other presidents. Barack Obama was a 10. Bill Clinton was a 6. Reagan was a 7. Nixon was also a 0. See what I’m getting at here? Trump tweets. Oh does he tweet. SAD! He bullies people. He bullies DISABLED PEOPLE. He...can’t read? We don’t know. Our current presidents is...I don’t even know how to describe him. He believe Fox News. But he thinks CNN is fake news. No, wait, is all news fake news? The screenshot I took of his inauguration (which I watched on CNN.com) was that fake news? Did i imagine giant swaths of people missing? And then, after seeing that picture everywhere, why did Sean Spicer (ugh I’m not even going there) get up and lie to the entire press corp and country about it? We’re not all stupid. I have eyes. I’m college-educated. I know there were less people at Trump’s inauguration than there were at Obama’s. And both of those had less people than Reagan had! I wouldn’t really care if not for...alternative facts. Ah, alternative facts. The line spewed by the ever-terrible Kellyanne Conway. Alternative facts. Lies. They are the same thing. We cannot allow our government to dictate what is true and false. They will choose what makes them look good. And that will be detrimental for our country.

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I won’t lie to you guys. I got distracted a bunch of times while writing this. I’m at work, after all. But I got distracted because I had to stop to read articles that were coming out AS I WROTE about what’s going on. So I’d like to share what I read every day. Here are some of the things that distracted me:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/02/us/milo-yiannopoulos-ivory-tower/index.html?adkey=bn

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/trump-travel-ban-live-blog/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-defends-troll-milo-yiannopoulos_us_589315e9e4b0af07cb6b992f?8mapjo6cymohia4i&

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/donald-trump-islam.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/politics/trump-supreme-court-gorsuch-senate-democrats.html?ref=politics

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/02/tillerson-diplomats-must-be-team-despite-personal-beliefs.html

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_IMMIGRATION_SANCTUARY_STATES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-02-02-10-52-37

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MOBILIZING_MUSLIMS_MAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-02-02-09-49-14

Please read these (and others) and educate yourselves. You can have an opinion if you’re not educated, but your opinion will be thin (and possibly uninformed) if you don’t back it up with FACTS. ACTUAL FUCKING FACTS. I DON’T DO THIS ALTERNATIVE FACTS BULLSHIT.

Anyway I’ll probably have to write more eventually, but I hope this at least maybe made you think? Or laugh? IDK I’m pretty funny sometimes. Or if you now hate me, well that’s fine too I guess…? Actually no it’s not. I’m pretty cool.

Oh! My next rant will be on Anti-Semitism and Racism and the intersectionality of Racism and Sexism in our country! YAAAAYYYYY

Peace out bitches

Wait no I’m not done I forgot! Going all the way back to the ban on people coming to the country, there are exactly 0 people from any of those countries who have attacked up. Peeps who have attacked us come from countries we didn’t ban (but trump has business ties to so ). ALSO. WHITE SUPREMACIST MEN DO MOST OF THE TERROR ATTACKS IN THE COUNTRY GET IT THROUGH YOUR GODDAMN THICK SKULLS. IT’S NOT MUSLIMS. IT’S THE WHITE MALE RACISTS. Okay the end.