Dude. You had $3,000 in student loans. Some of "these kids" graduated from college $70,000 in debt for the same degree you got, now they're earning half as much as you did for a comparable job and they have no expectation of any retirement benefits, and they've been paying on that loan for fifteen years and owe more on it now than they did when they started paying it. They are being ruthlessly exploited by student loan management companies whose entire business model is based upon gouging people who are struggling to pay off their student loans.
Would it fucking KILL YOU to show a little compassion and understanding?
OK, so look, I'm seeing a lot of people who are really, really unhappy with how the current system in the US works.
And you're not wrong. It's bloody awful and has a staggering amount of room for improvement.
The troubling part of this is how many people think that the solution to this is to burn it all to the ground and start over.
Stop and think for a moment about where the power lies right now.
You are deluding yourself if you think that YOU are going to get to define the new system. It is going to be designed and built BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE WHO HOLD THE POWER. And it will have none of the protections that keep them from just doing that right now.
If you succeed in burning the existing system to the ground and starting over, what those people will build to replace it will ALMOST CERTAINLY be SO MUCH WORSE that I don't think you can even really imagine it. The people you are so violently opposed to WOULD JUST LOVE to see you burn it all to the ground.
That way, they get to build THEIR utopia on a clean sheet of paper with nothing to hold them back.
I do think the only way to deal with fascists is with a titanium fist, something Democrats are unable to do since they're essentially a center-right-facing party these days by global standards. So I think the infiltration of fascism into our body politic will only continue, and whether we fall to it seems to be a matter of when, not if. But I definitely do not want that to happen. The problem has been Democrats disowning the left in the constant search for disaffected Republicans.
Say, if one lives in a state that is so blood red it has never even come close to electing a Democrat in a General Election since, say, LBJ ... in those states, I think leaving the top of the ticket blank as a protest (but voting downballot) is not going to harm things.
However, if one lives in a swing state or a blue state, they should resolve to vote for who will cause the least amount of damage to democracy at home.
Musk claimed he was the victim of "economic duress" when he agreed to the settlement and that the SEC "weaponized" the deal in order to "muzzle and harass Mr. Musk and Tesla."
I don’t want to hear one more fucking word about not voting for Joe “Actually the Most Progressive President Any of Us Have Seen” Biden from anyone with basic human decency who also maintains a Twitter account.
I don't want to hear it FROM ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO BE A PROGRESSIVE. Because if you are refusing to vote for “Actually the Most Progressive President Any of Us Have Seen” because he only checks nine out of the ten boxes on your scorecard, you are backing The Other Guy. The Mango Mussolini. Mr. Adjudged Guilty Of Rape, Mr. 91 Felony Indictments, Mr. Half Billion Dollar Judgment For Financial Fraud, Mr. Dictator On Day One (and two, and three, and...).
Yes, what's happening in Gaza is fucking awful. That's a lousy excuse for voting for it to happen HERE. The US actually has a lot less leverage on Israel, and specifically Netanyahu, than you might think. I totally agree we should be doing more to use what little leverage we actually have,¹ not to mention, oh, perhaps not using our UN Security Council veto against measures to try to stop the genocide. But if you think that not voting against Trump is somehow going to make that any better, oh boy, is 2025 under a Trump presidency going to be a rude awakening for you.
¹ And honestly, yes, I think we should be cutting off all aid to Israel, because while doing so won't stop or even slow down Netanyahu, maintaining it certainly won't either, and at least it would make our hands a little cleaner.
On Monday, a lawyer representing [American Airlines] wrote in a filing that the [9-year-old] girl should have been aware that a device [secretly placed by an American Airlines employee] was recording her while she was using the bathroom.
The tech, simply put, works like this: When you create an account for a website or app, your device generates a cryptographic public-private key pair. The site or app backend gets a copy of the public key, and your device keeps hold of the private key; that private key stays private to your gear. When you come to login, your device and the backend authentication system interact using their digital keys to prove you are who you say you are, and you get to login. If you don't have the private key or can't prove you have it, you can't login.
Kyle Rittenhouse scored "far below" the required minimum score of 31/99 on the ASVAB military entrance exam and was permanently barred from the USMC. A retired Navy SEAL who tried for over ten months to try to shape him into a semblance of a respectable human being with a future ahead of him stated that Rittenhouse just pissed it away.