Republicans just killed their chances of even holding seats in November by twice voting against a national right to contraception, because their plan is to ban contraception. This is hugely unpopular, and they just went all in on it publicly. It’s going to be really hard to pretend this isn’t their plan for 2025 when they already tipped their hand today.
For decades they claimed abortion should be a states rights issue, and now that there’s no national right, they are clear they intend to ban it nation wide. Contraception is exactly the same thing, they are already banning contraception in red states and talking about a national ban behind closed doors. Todays votes to preserve their ability to ban contraception nationwide prove it.

Polls are showing fully 1/3 of Republicans don’t support convicted felon Trump to be president, say he’s the wrong candidate…that was before his convictions and before telling the nation to prepare for no contraception and an outright ban on recreational sex…unbiased non partisan polls of Americans done from Canada.

18-37 year old Republican voters are worse, 47% say he shouldn’t be on the ballot.

Hannity tried to feed him answers in a kid glove softball interview and he still couldn’t answer questions, or did answer them by saying “yes, I’m not joking, I do plan to be a dictator for at least a day (then we’ll see if I like it) and I do seriously plan retribution against my political enemies.” (which include my own supporters if they ever question my plans).

Starting next month convicted felon Trump won’t be able to campaign outside his state (Florida?) without getting prior permission from his probation officer! But he’s still the best you’ve got!

Those numbers are going to get worse as reality sinks in that he’s a felon, with all the restrictions and conditions of a felon, and is not only not the best but likely the worst possible candidate, and a loser, who can’t vote, travel between states, leave the country, has to report to his probation officer (if he’s not in prison), etc, and all the bluster about how he can run the country from prison is suddenly reality and they see that’s insanity, and only an actual cultist would be so delusional as to think they couldn’t find a better conservative candidate (Haley likely would have beaten Biden)…too bad for them those cultists have total control of the party. 😂

Oof…convicted felon Trump held a mid day rally in Arizona (so he could go to a San Francisco fundraiser in the evening) during a heat wave and a dozen maga were hospitalized with heat stroke. More proof you are nothing but a vote for him, and you suffering to near death doesn’t even register to him. Guaranteed he won’t be reimbursing the Phoenix fired department that had to use up its resources taking care of convicted felon Trump’s mess.

Get a new lie you moron. You started that one on Jan 20 2021 and it’s never been true.
The economy is doing great. Plowing hard uphill, Americas earning power is STILL INCREASING. Unemployment still record lows for a record time period, gdp still high, inflation low and dropping. Biden’s support is growing while Trump’s is falling off the cliff, idiot. That’s why Trump no longer talks about polls and has removed poll numbers from his tweets…he’s 5% behind now and falling a few more points every week. 😂

You get your nonsensical lies from idiots who only convince other ignorant idiots. Every word a total lie. You love to eat those lies and look the fool, then cannot ever admit your mistakes making you an infant who’s testicles shriveled and fell off.

Wishful thinking doesn’t create reality. I don’t know where you got this stupidity, but it doesn’t resemble reality one bit, sucker.

Nicky Haley is still getting 20%+ in primaries despite being out of the race for months. Trump can’t even get all Republicans, and they are a rapidly shrinking minority today. He has ostracized anyone not in his cult, insulted them, told them they aren’t welcome in maga, and warned that he will get retribution when he gets power. That is not the way to gain votes, it’s how you make people vote against you out of pure self preservation. Will he be replaced at the Republican convention in July? (Ps. DNC Convention is like saying PIN Number…it once again just shows you don’t know what you are saying.

These anonymous, masked, heavily armed, violent, abusive, accusatory terrorists have now been barred by a federal judge from continuing their blatant voter intimidation tactics.

Their leader has been forced to retract her lies…she had been claiming anyone dropping more than one vote is absolutely stuffing ballot boxes illegally, a mule, and proof of voter fraud, all outright lies, had to say specifically that it’s perfectly legal to drop off for others in many circumstances, and had to actually post the AZ law on all her social media pages. Armed thugs, and wearing body armor is now restricted by 250ft from boxes, and the terrorists may not contact voters unless the voter initiates contact (that includes yelling “mule”).

Every one should be identified for public retribution. That’s exactly what they were doing to legal voters for voting legally, except they were labeling those innocent citizens as vote fraud perpetrators when identified, intentionally identifying them for people like the failed Pelosi assassin, so turn about is fair play, identify them as child molesters using playground pictures as the background for their headshots.
Snitches get stitches…terrorists get torn apart. These are terrorists.

I’m certain their employers wouldn’t want to be connected to them. Someone please dox these terrorist assholes.

You must love the 25% property tax increase he just levied on Orange county as retribution for Disney not supporting his “no gender in school” idiocy. The biggest property tax hike in history as a punishment for not falling in line….a tax hike that, thanks to Trump, is no longer deductible on federal taxes.

No sympathy for Disney, they gave Trump over $10 million. Reap what you sow…it’s going to make any additions they planned for Disney World all but impossible to permit, meaning Disney will no longer be investing in Florida, won’t be hiring contractors, buying construction supplies, won’t be paying for services like good roads, police, firemen, street lights, etc, hurting Florida more than the lost tax money….but for residents of Orlando this politically motivated attack is going to be extremely costly and will end the level of services provided by Disney until now….I think it’s over $160 million a year in bills they just transferred to their citizens over sour grapes…or as you say, doing a fair job.

Once again…..Biggest property tax hike ever, and an end to Disney construction, for purely political spiteful motives with absolutely no gains to the state, the county, residents, or anyone.

🤦‍♂️

I must say, I think impersonating someone online to do them harm is a crime. I know he said "Hypothetically" about the things he was doing, but the man could prove harm via the mail he gets from his neighbors. He could show call logs and mailers from Scientology. It's not much different than how congress got involved with robocalls, people recognize these things as lowering quality of life because of the stress of having to deal with that type of nonsense.

Not to say the man who stole the package is blameless. He should be prosecuted for stealing a device that probably cost over $1,000. But what the glitter-bomb-maker did in retribution is - as he says, petty. I'd go on to say immature and irresponsible.

It was thrown at him or behind him in retaliation. I'm sure it was no surprise to anyone involved this might be coming.

"The background for the explosive moment was an incident in the 2015 playoffs, when the Dodgers’ Chase Utley broke the leg of the Mets’ Ruben Tejada on a slide into second base that many observers, and not just in the New York dugout, thought was dirty. Utley was initially suspended two games, but he appealed and was able to stay active for the rest of the series, won in five games by a Mets team that chose to save retribution for a less meaningful time." -Washington Post

In context, makes more sense how pissed off the manager was and how understanding the umpire was to what the manager was saying and angry about.

Here is the Utley slide.
https://www.mlb.com/video/must-c-tejada-injured-on-slide/c-521658783Also
As a side note due to this play MLB changed the rules of what is an acceptable slide.

@ChaosEngine

i have many:teachers,police,firefighters as facebook friends.

during the run up to the election i was posting a ton of my research,analysis and commentary in regards to the election.

this,on it's own,should not be surprising,what WAS surprising is all the support i received from these people and who were simply afraid to like,or comment.

they were literally sharing my work with other people via private messaging.

each and every one expressed to me a fairly robust paranoia that if they liked any of my posts,or commented,that they would receive disciplinary action and that their jobs would be in jeopardy.

i found this very troubling and what i could not,and STILL cannot reconcile,is how some people not only ignore this very subtle form of censorship,but find it a viable and understandable in the realms of social media.

when you restrict what a person can comment or speak on due to fear.this is censorship.

in the case of justine sacco,she was simply making a joke and when put in context..a really damn good one.but due to the self-righteous moralizing of total strangers,her life was destroyed.

now there will be some that may still find this justified,and that is fine,that is their right but what REALLY chills me is that nobody is addressing the much deeper and far more insidious nature of public shaming.basically:other people saw what happened to justine sacco and will modify their social media persona accordingly.

this,in my opinion,will only result in a vanilla goo like substance that offers no challenging ideas,no conflicting opinions that offer an opportunity to discuss and debate difficult subjects,because debate starts with disagreement,and if you impose a fear of retribution by simply posting any content that may be construed as controversial.then the conversation ends...
and we all pay a price for that kind of groupthink.

this will force the really bad and worst of us to go underground,and reside in an echo chamber where their fucked up ideas are parroted back to them,resulting in a confirmation that their worldviews are correct.

conversely...

those who may have good ideas,or wish to engage in controversial subjects,or in the case of justine sacco..make a fucking joke...will be relegated to the "good little worker bee" position.who never challenges power or authority and simply obeys...for fear of losing:financial security,public standing etc etc.

they become fucking stepford wives.

and in my sincere opinion,this is the real danger.

You don't necessarily do good works in order to avoid retribution from a sky daddy if you believe in god, nor do you necessarily do it because you want to get the reward of living in heaven.

I believe although I do not insist god exists. I do what's right because it's right. I'm not looking for a cookie for doing it.

That's really the problem to me on both sides. People spend too much time justifying their own beliefs instead of understanding others.

Can you be good without god?
I submit you can ONLY be 'good' without god, because acting a certain way out of fear of retribution from the sky daddy is not being 'good'. To be 'good', you must act properly because it's beneficial to others, acting properly because it benefits you is self serving, not good.
Could be a *quality movie, certainly a quality discussion that should take place.
*doublepromote

Anybody got a length? The way it played on my computer, it didn't show a progress bar or length....I didn't know if I was in for 2 min, or 2 hours (it was the former).

it's funny perhaps because when you're young those little moments, glimpses of infidelity seem so much bigger, more dramatic than the actual impact it has on your life before adulthood. It feels almost like mock passion; how one thinks one should respond. But it is a pure and naive response; romantic and tragic.

Also, honest and hurt and emboldened to make a video to send as a form of retribution. Yet what retribution did she really have? She threw a bracelet which she only momentarily cherished into a riverbed, as if it were the wedding ring worn for thirty years, now tarnished by her husband's revealed secrets.

It's funny because of it's contrast with our adult experiences and understanding, having experienced or known of this early form of love betrayal in our youth, we are now mature and knowing of human nature, but now reminded in an amusing way because of what she doesn't know yet that we know: irony.

Perhaps a scandal to all of her 12 year old classmates, to some it is frivolous and others an amusement. Something to acknowledge and also chuckle at, but also to admire in her self worth and conquering spirit. It's beautiful, I think. I'm with eric on this: you go girl! hahaha!

Hmm... Democrat failure of 8 years? I seem to recall the Republicans have controlled the budget, more or less for 6 of those 8 years, and solidly for the last 2. I seem to recall we were in a budget surplus before Bush Jr took us out of it for an unjust war built on, at best misinformation, and very possibly lies. All the while the same people crying about the deficit now said then that deficits don't matter. What happened is a failure of Obama, it's a failure of the Republican policies as Obama's weren't even given a shot as the modern day Republican doesn't want a democracy, what they want is a dictatorship where they dictate the rules and compromise with the other side of the isle, formally known as politics, is bad and it's my way or the highway mentality is the rule of law for the party. Hell, the party abandoned its very own plan for affordable health care and now call it one of the worst things ever... their own plan... the same plan, funded the same way with the same penalties for not participating, that they tried to pass into federal law 3 times is now one of the worst things that our government has ever passed.

Cruz and Trump will isolate America from our allies, especially if Trump won. None of our allies (save perhaps Israel) would want to associate with us. They are already mad at us for Bush's wars and both Cruz and Trump want to escalate those wars and "carpet bomb" millions of innocent people to get to a few bad people? Trump wants to kill their families, which will make it easier to radicalize more and more people... and before one says that is the brutality of that religion, which religion is the one wanting to carpet bomb innocent people to kill a few guilty people and torture people and other crimes that their Christ would never support? Of course everything the Republicans want to do is exactly what ISIS has publicly stated they want other nations to do, so perhaps the Republican party is in league with ISIS?

Their policies, especially Trump's, regarding items made out of the country (jobs sent overseas by the same people that Republicans love... the same people who take for themselves while they refuse to pay living wages to their employees for pure greed reasons) would result in an economic melt down in the US as countries and businesses refuse to do as much business with us... or they move from the US dollar as the standard currency as retribution, which again wrecks the US economy.

Of less importance is that a Trump presidency and likely a Cruz as well would result in a guarantee that we'd lose the bids for the 2024 Olympic games and the 2026 World Cup, both of which we have a decent lead on as of now, but if men of hate and discrimination get in, then why would games of peace come? Trump wants to refuse to let Muslims even visit, and that would make a huge percentage of those who'd come for either or.

Anyhow to the subject of Bernie. Yes the Republican's would block everything as they do with Obama, but the conversation is moved and advanced for the people. I'd fear that if Clinton got in, the Republicans would spend all their time trying to impeach her rather than go about the process of governing. Bernie they'd just try to ignore and then get caught off guard as the nation caught onto his ideas and wanted to run with it and gave him a congress that would work with him.... of course a Trump nomination means they'd likely lose the Senate anyhow... which will be hilarious, doesn't matter if it's Clinton or Sanders in the office, because moments after the election, Obama pulls the moderate Supreme Court Justice nomination that the Republicans asked for by name before it became a political issue, and they instead get a more liberal justice... (I'm further amused by how they say they just want American's to vote on it... they did folks, 4 years ago, everyone knew there'd likely be an opening or two during his terms and he still won.)

That makes more sense and I agree. I think that a lot of the good cops are scared of the reaction of the system when reporting bad ones. I think many of them would be far more willing to point out bad cops if they didn't fear retribution by other cops or even their superiors.

WHAT?!? You've never seen American football, or soccer? Multiple refs. Even tennis has multiple referees.
Yes, they can be counted on to do things right because their actions are public. That mirrors the original suggestion that the police video be streamed online publicly in real time. If the refs could turn off the cameras during the game, and make the stadium 'leave the scene and stop interfering', we would likely see just that, infantile backstabbing and/or a striped wall form.
In the US, pay can be crap, but the long hours can mean massive overtime. There are also usually benefits that make up for the (sometimes) mediocre pay.
I agree, they deal mostly with the 'seedy underbelly of society', which is why I think they should spend some time serving the community as part of their job...of course, they are already understaffed and underfunded, so I don't have an answer of how to make that happen. I just think it would give them a better viewpoint of those they 'serve and protect'.
In the US, the fear is of being CAUGHT. That's the only way they face retribution. By sticking up for each other when one commits a crime, it makes being caught nearly impossible.
Yes, because they have authority I feel they have a moral responsibility to wield it responsibly. They should also have a heavy handed legal responsibility, just in case their morals are out of whack.
The only one's I leave out of the blanket condemnation are those willing to stand against their own when their own are wrong...they are seemingly few and far between, but I do admit they exist.

Except there's only one referee to a game, they have absolute authority, everything they see is in public and calling interference on a fellow referee will not see them ostracized and potentially harmed by another ref who, let's not forget, has the ability to call fake interference on them

I get what you're saying. Of all the people they deal with, cops should be most watchful for illegal activity in other cops. In an ideal world, they would be (hell, in an ideal world, we wouldn't need cops).

But in the real world, policing is a tough job. I don't know how it is in the US, but in NZ the pay is crap, the hours are long and most people inherently distrust you. It's not surprising that when you spend your days dealing with the worst of society you form an "us vs them" mentality. Not to mention the politicking and other bullshit you have to deal with.

I think most cops are like most normal people; most of them are fundamentally decent, and just trying to get by and do their job as best they can. Maybe they're not happy about certain things in their job, but they feel powerless to do anything about it for fear of retribution.

Obviously the difference is that the stakes are higher. If I fail to point out an uncomfortable truth to my boss, some software doesn't work as well as it could. They're dealing with peoples lives.

I don't know the answer. Cops absolutely should be held to a high moral standard. They are a necessary aspect of modern society. But I don't think the answer is this kind of black and white thinking of "all cops have turned a blind eye to something, therefore they're all complicit". The world is more complex than that.

Exactly right. I like to play multiplayer FPS games, and in the one I am currently playing (Blacklight: Retribution, for those who are curious), it is possible to make your enemies heads' explode with all the charm of Gallagher smashing a watermelon.

It is, simply put, abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous.

But it's never more than a bonus. I do enjoy it for the sheer brutality of it (and that sound - like a popping balloon), but it's never the focus of the game for me. In fact, most of the time, despite the fact that the game is based on killing, I am mostly concerned with the basic mechanics of the game, and the constant competition I am in with myself.

Another series that constantly crops in these engineered controversies (and which was mentioned in this video), is GTA. People cannot seem to get this idea that teenagers are single-mindedly finding more and more ways to murder random prostitutes out of their heads, when the truth is that that's just one of MANY things you can do in GTA's sprawling cityscapes. I, for example, would sometimes enjoy simply driving fast cars around at night while listening to jazz. Same game, no prostitutes, or the wanton murder thereof, involved.

But then, I suppose "driving fast cars at night while listening to jazz on the radio" nets "news" outlets fewer views than "EVIL VIDEO GAME IS TEACHING THE YOUTH OF AMERICA TO MURDER PROSTITUTES."