What is the most succinct way to dismiss russiagate nonsense when it's brought up in conversation?

This is the stuff that the average person isn't even aware of. It's a very interesting read. I wonder what a yuan driven global economy could look like. I'm sure if we looked at the belt and road we'd get some kind of idea, but it's very much only a partial image.

Aw, your Dad loves you!

I did a double take while looking at those screen shots, what a unfortunate name... unless 👀

All the jobs I've worked have been low-wage, where making friends with your coworkers means someone at work will have your back, at least in small ways.

Every low wage job I've worked at has been the same as well. One job I worked along side the department managers son, and we bonded over our mutual disdain for his dad haha.

What kind of job do you have? Something where people are all backstabbing career-climbers?

I've been in situations where someone who presents themselves one way at work, reveal themselves to be a totally different way out of work once they were comfortable.

I don't really want to get into a long winded story. Simple to say, in this one situation, the working and personal relationship was over, but while I might have been done with our "working relationship", our employer obviously was not. So I had to grit my teeth and "be civil" to a real chameleon of a human, knowing full well the depths of their narcissism and ignorant vulgarness.

Since their offense happened off hours and off work property, and "broke no laws", there was little my superior could or would do to address the situation. I was told he had a "conversation" with them, but little else. I thought about changing jobs, but they eventually moved on to "greener" pastures. This was many many years ago. I distanced myself from the "after hours" activities, and those eventually died off. I think my experience (which was no secret) poisoned that well.

Had this been a relationship formed outside work, I would have cut them loose and been done with it. It wasn't so simple unfortunately, thanks in part to the nature and relations of "work".

I don't think this is a wholly abnormal thing. I also have a friends group that has lasted since my teens. Though, as they become more reactionary over the decades, we see each other less. Adolescence is probably the freest time in our lives, or at least it should be.

I think the thing about friendships after your 20s is that instead of meeting people at school, you're doing it at work. If someone turned out to be shitty in school, that was far less consequential then if someone turns out to be shitty at work.

You need to work to live, and compromising your work experience by getting too interpersonal is a real concern. In school there is a lot more comradery between students. At some level, none of you want to be at school, and none of your peers hold any authority over you. Most everyone in your town goes to your school, and you are never worried about getting expelled. There is very little risk in building social bonds in this setting comparatively.

You would think work would be the same, as you all likely do not want to be there on some level. However, you need food, and shelter, and healthcare. At jobs that hardly provide those things, I imagine its easier to make friends, since you're already getting so little to begin with, your always on the hunt for new work anyway.

As I've gained more security through my carrier I've absolutely become more likely to keep my coworkers as mostly coworkers. I've also been burned a couple of times over the years, which probably informs my position more.

As children, you have so fewer hangups and zero social awareness. As an anecdote, we went trick or treating yesterday, and at one house was a little girl and her grandma. My wife got to talking with the grandma and my kiddo and her grandkid started goofing around, playing with our youngest in his stroller. The girl was asking us questions about our costumes, and telling us about her night getting candy. By the time we left, this girl, who none of us knew 5 minutes ago, gave nearly everyone in our group a hug.

I would have to be intoxicated to be as social with strangers as this kid was. It was very cute, but I think, very telling about kids and how they form bonds. Kids are naturals at bonding. Over time that instinct gets clouded by our own lived experience. We become so bogged down by our own fears and worries that we become guarded around others. So much of our socialization is bound to our labor and how we labor. Bonding at work is warped by the social relations of wage labor. You have to be able to work with people at the end of the day. If there is conflict between you and someone else it could cost either of you your jobs. You won't move up a grade next year and you won't have a 2 month break in the summer to detox from the incompatible people you deal with on the regular. There are a lot of consequences to be had socializing at work.

We have very few consequence free places in which we can exist and be our true selves. Where we can socialize like we did when we were in grade school. Its magical watching my kids socialize. They make it look so easy. Its because for them, it really is.

It said "This is Trumps America".

Incredible, what a hero!

It took the conservative movement 50 years to repeal Roe v Wade. The day it was decided conservative forces were already working proactively to overturn this decision. For 50 years RBG criticized the case, stating its reasoning was weak and could be subject to legal attack.

For 50 years Democrats have run on codifying Roe v Wade only to abandon the task after getting elected.

In his first run for election, Bill Clinton told women voters he would support strengthening Roe. Even though his record on the matter was less then good [NYT July 20, 1992]:

The 1989 issue, hastily compiled before a Supreme Court ruling that many believed could abolish the rights established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, said Mr. Clinton "refused to state a position on abortion." Ms. Wright responded, "I don't know why they said that," saying she had sent many newspaper clippings.

The next time around, said a former Naral staff member, Lisa Swanson, Mr. Clinton's office faxed at least three different statements. In the version published in 1991, Mr. Clinton said: "I do not favor repeal of Roe v. Wade. Until the fetus can live outside the mother's womb, I believe the decision on abortion should be the woman's, not the Government's." The statement noted Mr. Clinton's past support of parental notification for minors and restrictions on state financing of abortions.

In the 1992 issue, Mr. Clinton waxed passionate. "The Government simply has no right to interfere with decisions that must be made by women of America to make the right choice," he said. He added, "Although I have supported certain limited restrictions upon Government funding for abortions, I would not veto any bill requiring Medicaid funding that passed Congress." Accepting Status Quo

Operating in a state government where money issues were far more visible than moral ones, Mr. Clinton tended to accept the status quo on abortion. Although Arkansas was one of the few states to legalize abortion before 1973, by the time Mr. Clinton took office in 1979, state policy prohibited financing of poor women's abortions, with rare exceptions.

Governor Clinton made no move to alter the policy. When anti-abortion forces pushed for a constitutional amendment to codify the prohibition, Mr. Clinton questioned the need, saying "We don't use any state money for abortions." Arkansas voters narrowly defeated the amendment in 1986, and approved it 52 to 48 percent in 1988.

In 1989, Mr. Clinton took an active part in modifying bills to require notification of both of parents before a minor's abortion. In recent interviews, the legislation's sponsors recalled Mr. Clinton's insistence on liberal exceptions in cases when one parent was absent or abusive, and his strengthening of the judicial bypass provision required under Supreme Court rulings.

Under his terms as present zero movement was made on codifying Roe as a right.

Obama also told women, specifically at speaking engagements for Planned Parenthood, that one of his top priorities was to codify Roe day one.

Here is his legacy on the matter [Politifact, June 1, 2012]:

After initially vowing to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, President Barack Obama quickly said it's not his "highest legislative priority."

That was in March 2009. Since then, it has scarcely been mentioned. A version of the bill was last introduced in Congress in 2007, and no new bill has appeared since.

We asked NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, to assess the progress on this issue.

"The protection of Roe v. Wade in federal law remains a long-term priority for NARAL Pro-Choice America and the pro-choice community. Unfortunately, the composition of Congress (including the first two years of President Obama's term) did not include enough pro-choice votes to pass legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act," NARAL said in a statement

Keep in mind, there were not enough pro-choice votes while Obama enjoyed a filibuster proof super majority. This means that not every democrat was pro choice, and they could not secure 100% buy in from the party.

Joe Biden ran on codifying Roe v Wade in 2020, but those efforts have stalled due to poor house and senate numbers [Politifact, March 7, 2004].

As his campaign ramped up in 2024 before he was outted as the presidential candidate, he again took up the mantal as a champion for Roe. His position is interesting, considering his personal stance on abortion. [ABC News, 2024]

The young Catholic politician who once said Roe v. Wade “went too far” — and who to this day remains uneasy with the procedure — is now casting himself as the only thing standing between women and strict national abortion bans.

But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.

[Washingtonian, 1974]

But now that he is out of the race, abortion is again back on the menu. One could wonder as well, what the state of things might look like if RBG took all the criticisms she had about the Roe decision to heart and retired under the Obama administration, allowing for a liberal president to add another liberal justice to the courts. However, its clear she was a prideful and arrogant justice, maybe the clout that came with Roe went to her head:

Ginsburg said that “anybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they’re misguided.” No one as liberal as she was could get confirmed, she suggested. She noted that her work production hadn’t slowed. “She had beaten the odds every day of her life and had weathered serious illness in 1999 and 2010,” Resnik says. “Fairly, from her perspective, she saw herself as able to manage the health challenges of aging.

[NYT, 2020]

"No one as liberal as she was could get confirmed, she suggested", really encapsulates just how arrogant she was. The very notion that somehow, the little girls inspired by her legacy, and now primed to take her place, would be less progressive then her rings as absurd. Only a over inflated sense of self could lead one to believe that.

It's not often you watch someone push themselves off the glass cliff. Because of her thick headedness we will never know if the repeal of Roe could have been stalled.

Democrats are the "Big Tent" party, and that includes homophobes and misogynists, and means even with a majority, you will not see Roe be put into law.

Sharpening the contradictions I see.

One can hope that other countries conclude to provide similar aid and relief to Cuba.