Danny Bateman

There’s no perfectly objective news source. AP and Reuters usually do a pretty good job. BBC too. But they all have some level of editorial influence. People need to just read varied sources and use critical thinking skills to evaluate which editorial bent might color those sources. The critical thinking part is lacking in a lot of people.

Man I actually had to watch this to see if there was any actual context I was missing. Nope, Marge just continues to be the embodiment of the least sophisticated, most selfish aspects of America. Using a dead victim of tragedy as a prop to score political points is disgusting, IMO.

Not to derail the FoPo thread, but it is refreshing to see SOMEONE take A step to address the ridiculous cost of financing secondary education so we can actually fill out important fields requiring advanced education instead of leaving vast swaths of our workforce cratered. However misguided people want to judge student loan forgiveness to be (and you can make a strong argument is)... what the hell else is anyone else doing to address the issue as screwed up it as it is? It seems like the conservative position on the issue is to pretend college is still just as affordable as it was decades ago and b!^@h loudly at anyone who complains that it isn't. Cue snarky Boomers not understanding why young people don't just work a job to pay for college like they did when they were younger.

This dude makes the stupidest f#&%ing arguments. Just ignoring the elephant in the room so he can advance his bulls#!t argument. Pound sand antivax boy.

Who can forget Republican nominees Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich and JEB!? At one point all these dudes had a string of strong polling positioning them as tentative frontrunners prior to Iowa. Archy definitely likes DeSantis more than most. I can understand why conservatives think he's an effective executive with conservative bonafides. But the same held true for Walker, in particular. And yet he fell on his face. I'm not sure folks who are fans understand how widely reviled these types are outside their own bubble.

Doing the Lord's work here BRB. This was the chuckle I needed tonight!

Ahh, but what we need to ask ourselves is what are the odds this fellow would just straight-up lie just because he thought it would help him. I don’t know man. He seems like a pretty straight shooter.

I kid, I kid. But the president did suggest injecting disinfectants or administration of light as ways to combat the virus. Given that COVID affects people internally, if we’re not going in through the throat, that leaves only one option…. Re: your second paragraph, well, no, that’s not really how science works. By trade I am a therapist, but I also have formal training in science and am trained to think about things scientifically. Science NEVER claims to be infallible or immutable. Pretty much the entirety of scientific history is built on the basis of improving on the established understanding of how the world works. They don’t care about holding people accountable. If people want to do that with whoever is in charge because of how they led with regards to the science that was decidedly still emerging during a once in a lifetime worldwide pandemic, they’ll do it. The scientists themselves don’t give a crap because that’s not their job. Their job is to do the best they can to best inform leaders the best they can in a collaborative fashion. And scientists do not change their recommendations on a whim, but try to go on the basis of an established consensus. With good reason, too, or medical recommendations would change so frequently we’d never keep up. This is where COVID was challenging, because it was brand new and they had to develop a body of evidence in real time while exercising caution not to just recommend promising initial findings willy nilly before establishing they were in fact not misleading or flawed in some way. Frankly I think those in charge during COVID were dealt a crap hand and most of them tried to do the best they could. I don’t look back and find myself bitter about the decisions made in that time period. IMO Conservative media is deeply intertwined with a persistent drumbeat that its viewers are the perpetual victim and should be eternally angry or afraid; it doesn’t affect me but I wonder if that’s part of why conservatives are so focused on accountability and vengeance on those who’ve wronged them? It’s a very Trumpian ethos. To your other questions: 1. Not sure what you mean. I’m not familiar with specific examples. To speak only on my personal experiences, I got my jab because I was comfortable with the science and life was easy. I got COVID eventually, and after a short spell of the symptoms being rough, I recovered well. I do know others who pursued religious or medical exemptions and they did not seem that onerous. Overall I don’t think about it much because IMO scientists examined a very complex situation and tried to recommend we exercise several of the few levers of control we had available to improve the situation, with working toward herd immunity via vaccinations as a viable one. 2. There’s lot of data on the numerous negative effects of school closures and disruption of in person school via use of virtual schooling on the long term development of young minds. That is regrettable and hopefully we can find different ways to make up the difference had the pandemic never affected these kids. But again, I understand why they would recommend the course of action they did. Best they could hope was that most leaders made sensible decisions. 3. Again, I wore my mask when needed (often at work, rolling my eyes at the inconvenience at times) and life was fairly easy. My understanding of mask use is it was oftentimes not to protect me but to try to protect those around me if I was asymptomatic but infected. I work with lots of folks with compromised immune systems so I wore mine and didn’t think twice about it. I do think folks who would go viral for refusing a mask where they were required generally had a poor understanding of the role of societal consequences for their actions. I see a lot of the same with the way some folks understand the First Amendment. I.e., you can say or do whatever you want given it’s not illegal, but you’re responsible for the consequences of your own decisions. 4. I didn’t think about it much. I just made use of the businesses that were available. Did some driving for Doordash during the pandemic, made a few bucks. I guess I don’t have the same memory of conservatives being ridiculed you do.

I promise you, when people in power enact new voting restrictions, they are not doing it in good faith to strengthen our democracy. We should not just trust them and go along quietly. I would argue we should be pissed any time any freedoms are restricted, within reason. The goal is to chip away little by little until it’s added up enough to sway things in their favor. A maximalist position of just fighting any voting restriction seems fine to me.

Somewhere up here in my state, Dan Severn is still pissed he lost to that shrimpy Royce in UFC 4. 15 minutes of the hugely smaller man controlling your positions until you’re out of gas. Crazy to watch.

Who knows, maybe injecting bleach or rectal administration of UV light will turn out to be great options down the road. If they do hopefully SOME PEOPLE can admit they were just wrong on the matter!

Do you have examples of this?

Yeah wasn't trying to single you out. I'm just a bit punchy. I think in all likelihood a lot of people will have to bite the bullet this go around. I personally don't feel this way, as it's an easy choice for me. Our system is at fault for spitting out these choices again, so IMO we can all be pissed at the system itself. But at the end of the day one party is a lot more broken than the other. Trumpism needs to be told to again f#&% off so we can get a decent alternative for that side of the aisle again. I shudder to think how much worse they get if they're once again rewarded for their current standard bearer.

f#&% the fascist. There, that was pretty easy.

Lol @ the bold. Of course Pillen stuck his nose in this. Ahh well, if there's one thing Nebraskans are used to, it's having conservatism rammed down their throat whether they like it or not. But Nebraska conservatism used to be different. It's a shame places that used to pride themselves on a bit more independent-minded conservatism have also debased themselves at the altar of Trumpism.

We’re in a vibes-based recession, bruh.

And after one weekend:

Mourning the crucifixion and of our one and only Lord and Savior, Donald John Trump of course!!

Well there ya have it. Why do Joe Biden and Democrats hate Jesus Christ? I’ve suspected this very thing for some time now. Good to have it finally confirmed.

Man, you are like a case study in "everything Trump does is fine because Dems are bad."

Yep. The perpetual cynics on Reddit are convinced they’ll just waive that requirement. I’m inclined to agree. I don’t think the GOP is going to start any kind of ethical framework at this point.

Had a good chuckle this morning because getting out of the car at work, CBS aired his thoughts and he just used it to accuse his opponent of hating the police. His comments were so meaningless they didn’t even let him finish for the full clip, they just cut it off mid-sentence. Trumpism lurches further toward fascism. A tale as old as time.

It’s almost like the same voices to predictably line up to proclaim we need to cut Big Business yet more breaks to juice our economy are full of crap.