BillyClark

Long before the first Republican mentioned a “death panel,” private health insurance companies already had the same thing. And because Medicare was already a thing, the government also had the equivalent of death panels.

No, the truth is that “death panel” is just a scary sounding phrase and never had any real relevance. I’ve noticed that conservatives don’t use words for their meanings. They use them for how scary they sound.

The Secret Service part might make more sense with more context. At the time, Trump had somewhat limited Secret Service because he was not the current president. And he was running his team ragged going to rally after rally, refusing their security recommendations.

They didn’t have the time or the manpower to do the job they were asked to do.

Then, this is just my theory, but although the Secret Service is like the best of the best police, I suspect Trump attracts the worst of the best of the best, if you know what I mean.

In every other job around him, Trump manages to fill it with the worst people available. Competent people don’t like working with Trump because he constantly interferes with their work. I see no reason why his security would be different.

Oh they’re not my children. The neighbors keep dropping them off. They said somebody has to look after them while everybody else is out fighting wolves. Fortunately, when the parents came to pick up their children, nobody asked about those three, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Recently, I seem to have a problem that there are too many wolves around. I’ve lost three children this month alone.

Ignoring everything else, “washed up” only means someone has lost their previous high status. It has nothing to do with age. You can be a washed up child actor.

I used to teach English in Japan. There was apparently a time long ago when native English teachers were treated very badly in Japan. The companies would pay them a pittance and there are stories that some companies confiscated teacher passports. Very bad stuff.

So one remedy that the Japanese government pursued was to establish a minimum wage for teachers. But it didn’t increase for I think decades, and the amount was, once again, difficult to live on. I don’t know whether Japan has increased this minimum wage since then.

Minimum wages need to be based on some other value so that they adjust naturally and we don’t have to wait on lawmakers to manually adjust them, even if they could pass manual updates.

One other idea is to have a wealth ceiling. And then base minimum wage off of that. For example, say that the maximum is X and the minimum wage would be X divided by a billion. If Elon musk wants to have 20 billion, then minimum wage would be $20/hour. That’s just a quick example and not meant to be indicative of the actual numbers.

Of course, it’s completely subjective what is the biggest violation. The constitution itself doesn’t really make any distinction between which violation is worse, unless I am misremembering something.

If you’re offended by a lack of due process and racism and that sort of thing, you might also find the Internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 similarly offensive. 2/3 of them were US citizens whose only “crime” was being ethnically Japanese. Or the infamous Trail of Tears.

I am talking about the concept of replacing the fluoride that you’d normally drink in your drinking water if they stop adding fluoride to it. Do you actually think the fluoride in drinking water only works when you swish with it?

Fluoride helps prevent tooth decay when you ingest it, as well, especially for children. Here is a link.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Fluoride-HealthProfessional/

Listen dude, what you described is from ingesting too much fluoride, which is a problem that I mentioned if you’d read my entire comment. The swallowing of toothpaste is advice for people who are drinking water that hasn’t had fluoride added.

The point of my advice is what to do if they stop adding fluoride to your drinking water.

It’s nice, but we need meaningful campaign finance reform. We need to get Israeli money, and all foreign money, as far away from our political campaigns as possible.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I suspect a lot of Dems knew it wouldn’t pass and are virtue signaling. Let’s see if there’s a blue wave in November and if so, whether they still have the backbone to cut off Israel.

This wouldn’t be an issue if we just had campaign finance reform.

I think I saw on QI that they were talking about how a lot of the public water in England has yet to have fluoride added, and that people could supplement their fluoride by choosing toothpaste with fluoride and swallowing it after brushing.

Also, Wikipedia seems to say that you can get the necessary nutrients by drinking a liter of tea daily, as tea leaves also have fluorine compounds.

But you can also have problems if you ingest too much fluoride.

Was Zeus white? I thought that was also the invention of the Europeans at the time.

I think every American who comes across this article should read the whole thing. It’s not long, and any reasonable person with a high school education will see he’s talking nonsense.

Here are a few choice quotes and responses

Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government

Our form of government’s most basic premise is that it changes if people vote to change it. They can literally change everything about it.

A spirit of “cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus” toward America – by Americans – has taken hold, Thomas said in remarks carried live on CSPAN.

The founding fathers literally started a war of rebellion against their government. That’s what that Declaration of Independence that Thomas mentioned was all about.

He said that the values enshrined in the 1776 Declaration of Independence have “fallen out of favor” among Americans – a trend perpetrated, he argued, by “intellectuals” and the nation’s colleges and universities.

Those values aren’t “enshrined”. They’re not even backed by the laws that our founding fathers ratified.

Thomas called on Americans to stand up for their principles and endure personal “sacrifices,” if necessary, to preserve the nation’s democracy.

“In my view, we must find in ourselves that same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration have so that we can do for our future what they did for theirs,” he said.

Those people, with that document, started a war of rebellion against their government. They were willing to sacrifice their lives to rid themselves of tyranny. How can Thomas reference this and come to the exact opposite conclusion?

And to “preserve our democracy” can only mean one thing. To ensure that the will of the people becomes the law of the land without violating the Constitution or the rights given by it.

Anyone who wants to preserve our democracy has to be viciously opposed to Donald Trump, who’s been trying to oppose the will of the American people and the Constitution.

Most billionaires get their money by exploiting loopholes in the government. For example, they pay no taxes, yet the government will still prosecute people who kill them.

I like solving puzzles, so I think it’s more likely related to that.

When I read a nonsense word, occasionally, especially if it’s easy, I unconsciously read it backwards.

So, I initially read this as “KEEP CALM and BUY BUN”.

I don’t know why I read it as “buy bun” instead of “bun buy”… maybe because it reads like it makes more sense? It wasn’t a conscious decision.

I actually think if a person is completely normal, they’re sort of boring and sad. So, I think of weird as a compliment.

But if they want to keep being offended by being called weird, I’m all for it. It’s the sort of thing I guess a bootlicking sycophant would be offended by. They’ve given up their individuality and their ability to think for themselves to try to fit in and receive praise from their dear leader, so it makes sense that they’d be offended to be called weird.

I’ve never had reason to think Vance was any smarter than the average person.

But I just want to point out that smart people also get fooled by scumbags and confidence tricksters. People are almost always smarter in some areas compared to others, and so even if you’re smart in science or politics, that doesn’t mean you’re going to see every con from a mile away.

This maybe flew over my head. Is Orange man Epstein class?

I am guessing they’re orange to hint that they’re MAGA.

And now, then, I think this may shock you, but there is a fourth consumer class, and they’re a bigger class than you might think. They don’t think about whether a product makes them feel good. They don’t think about whether a specific product is at a low price. Even if they’re poor, they don’t think about budgets, and they tend to be heavily in credit card debt. These people’s defining characteristic is that they don’t think much about anything. They simply choose some authority figure to tell them how to live and then they do whatever they’re told to do. They may occasionally spout out a bit of propaganda out of nowhere, but importantly, they have never once deeply thought about it themselves. They lack even the basic mental tools to think about it.

When challenged, they’ll just say some other bit of propaganda, or they’ll get angry, but they’ll obstinately refuse to think even the tiniest bit for themselves. They have what is called an authoritarian personality, “characterized by a disposition to treat the voice of authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect.” If you look at the Wikipedia article, you’ll see there is a high correlation between having an authoritarian personality and being poorly educated or being religious (especially being an Evangelical Protestant).

Now, then back to the question about the comic. It is impossible to tell whether the orange man is Epstein class or whether he’s simply a mindless MAGA drone with an authoritarian personality, because they say the exact same things. One says it because they’re evil, and one says it because they refuse to question anything that the evil people say.

That’s surprising. Based on his previous behavior, I thought his most likely course of action would be to guarantee that gas prices would go down, and then to declare that gas prices had gone down, even though anyone could easily see that they went up.