Mr.TaterSalad

NPR: Texas Toughens Ban on Medication-by-Mail Abortions With Jail Time and Hefty Fine Texas Senate Bill 4 Did I miss something? Texas Senate Bill 4 is literally imposing jail time and large fines for individuals, doctors or otherwise, who prescribe and receive pills for medication abortion through the mail. If you think they'll stop there you are fooling yourself. Woman will go to jail just for having an abortion in this country if Roe is overturned.

From the article you shared . . . There is simply no helping a clod like that. It seems like it would take YEARS and YEARS of counseling and therapy to pull just one person like that back from the brink of conspiracy. To know that there are millions and millions more like this ignorant dolt out there is truly remarkable and frightening.

We're about to start putting woman in jail for having abortions if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe and turns abortion rights over to states. In Texas you can already face jail time for prescribing abortion pills online and sending them in the mail. This isn't hyperbole on my part, this is real life. Once the far right strips away abortion rights they'll come for marriage equality and LGBTQIA rights next. That doesn't sound socially liberal to me. That sounds like a few steps away from an episode of the Handmaids Tale. Add onto that, one of the former (and possibly next) President's advisors, Mike Lindell, is talking about jailing 300 million people. Going even further, the former (and possibly next) current President wants to change libel laws and eliminate a free press in this country. You think that sounds crazy until they actually start doing it and again, none of that sounds socially liberal to me.

Let them. They didn't go 0-16, they don't have playoff win droughts that go back to 1990, they've made Super Bowl appearances and the Fords never have.

Maybe the worst behind the Ford's, but no one is worse than the collective Ford Family.

My confidence level of the Cardinals winning is high but something tells me Stafford will win tonight and make me look foolish. I hope we maximize our draft position tonight though with a Rams loss.

I firmly believe in my heart if Dr. King were alive to vote in 2016 or 2020 he would have voted for Bernie Sanders.

Just a friendly reminder that before there was Bernie, there was Dr. King, as America's most prominent Democratic Socialist. Dr. King understood that a free society was an equitable society. He understood the challenges brought and the strife people faced on by having a society of two Americas, one of economic haves and another of have nots. He understood how massively capitalism was failing the working class and working poor. In 1967 Dr. King gave a very important, yet less famous, speech to students and faculty at Stanford University that has come to be known as "The Other America" speech. In it he talked about income inequality, poverty, and helping those less fortunate and the very poor. He said it is much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and good, solid job.

We can agree on that. 🙂 In the era of Trump though, I just refuse to call America a welcoming country anymore. Not that I think we really were in the first place. Hell, back in the 1910s, the Irish on my father's side of the family were told "Irish Need Not Apply" when immigrating to America and looking for opportunity.

Cutting Vaitai and finding a cheap replacement in the draft or via free agency is a smart move. We can match his production at half the price and I think he will be gone.

Inequality.Org: Ideology, Inequality, and the Safety Net

It isn't about Trump, it is about systemic racism and the systems of oppression that were created before Trump and compounded because of him and other bad political actors (including Democrats like Bill Clinton). When you have the kind of generational racism, bigotry, and oppression in this country that we have combined with the poverty people face down in America and our general hatred for helping others and giving people a handout when they are in need, you create a toxic environment that is ripe for the kinds of inner city violence we see in this country. Will TANF checks, housing vouchers, and Medicaid solve urban violence? No, not all at once and not immediately. But when you give people the types of public assistance that set them up for future economic equity and opportunities, you can begin to turn things around. When you put laws in place that push back on the structural racism and systems of oppression that we have had setup for generations in this country, you can begin to turn things around. When people have a fair economic opportunity and a means to get out of the despair they are in, you can turn things around. When you can mend broken homes and put family social structures in place that are supportive of applying yourself, working hard, getting a good education, treating yourself and others around you with compassion, dignity, and respect, will turn things around. Gutting social welfare programs instead of expanding opportunity safety nets, privatizing public schools, loosening gun laws, banning abortions, stifling economic opportunity, these aren't solutions that will help you climb out of the hole we are in. Better wrap around and support services intermixed with improved education, more economic opportunity, family support systems, gun control, these are tangible things that can work.

Let's set aside slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation for a minute and focus more on modern politics. If you do, you will still see that the United States is one of the least liberal countries of eastern/western democracies. We're barley even a democracy at this point. Beyond the fact that we have no universal healthcare we have elected leaders and their followers trying to gut social welfare programs at every turn and think society should be a survival of the fittest. They want, as Dr. King said, socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us. Beyond gutting social welfare, they want to strip away voting rights for people of color, immigrated people, and anyone who didn't vote for them. That's what January 6th was about. Not very welcoming to me. If you collect welfare in this country as a black woman you are called a "Welfare Queen" and derided as lazy and worthless for mooching off the system. As for the person who said that, Ronald Reagan, there is an almost divine like worship of that man and his policies in this country. Don't think Reagan was bad and unwelcoming enough, Bill Clinton called his bluff and did one better. He went out and not only had his racist Sista Soulja moment on national TV, but he proceeded to gut welfare and throw millions into extreme poverty all so he could win some race war to reclaim power for Democrats and himself. And then we come to the most heinous and criminal actor in modern day politics, that being Donald Trump. Trump and a large percentage of the population who voted for him wants these immigrated people to leave and "go back from where they came from." Trump's family separation policy wasn't exactly welcoming and neither are attempts to make English the official language or attempts to prohibit a n accurate teaching of history in America. All the people that routinely go around telling others to "go back to your own country" or "this is America, we speak English" don't seem welcoming to me. You mentioned the rise of far right parties in other countries. As opposed to what here? The Republican Party literally attempted an autocratic takeover of our electoral process and the White House. A lot of that was driven my resentment of people of color, immigrants and white people allegedly losing their standing and power in this country. We have a far right party like the ones in Europe you reference, it's called the Republican Party. For every Alexander Lukashenko, Marine Le Pen, Victor Orban, and Vladimir Putin in Europe we match them with Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Lauren Bobert, Sarah Palin, Gym Jordan, and on. We are off the fucking rails in this country. We aren't the welcoming country that we the Statute of Liberty says we are and we claim to be.

Canada and the US urban areas cannot be compared. Canada did not have segregation in the way the United States did. Separate, but equal, and Jim Crow-style oppression didn't exist in Canada on the scale it does here. Generations of racism, segregation, and oppression we inflicted on blacks and other persons of color is unmatched in Canada. Canada also doesn't have the level of poverty in their urban communities that we do in the States. Canada also doesn't have the problems with drug addition and substance abuse that we have in America. They also don't have a culture that celebrates guns more than people like we do. Canada also has far better public education systems in their urban areas with far fewer students coming from broken homes. The systems of oppressions that we setup here through slavery, Jim Crow, separate but equal laws, our arrest everyone policy on criminal justice, drug addiction, lack of mental healthcare, no universal healthcare, no preventative care, failing education systems, broken homes, don't exist at the scale they do in Canada. If we adopted preventative measures to fighting crime like early education, universal pre-k, parenting courses, substance abuse and recovery programs, drug decriminalization, better funded our public schools, mental healthcare programs, and other wrap around services, we could better stem the tide of urban violence. If we celebrated taking care of people and not guns, we could better stem the tide. Americans fucking hate helping people if it goes beyond opening a door for someone at a restaurant and they hate taking care of the collective and loving thigh neighbor. Our selfishness is second to none among the developed world and is only matched by our ignorance. We love the philosophies of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, objectivism, and individualism, even if we don't know who those people are. The American motto is if I pass a man on fire and I'm carrying a bucket of water with me, I have no moral obligation to pour it on him and put out the fire. The Statue of Liberty should really read forget your tired, forget your poor, forget your huddled masses, that's socialism. When we do help others or try to pass universal welfare programs (food assistance, healthcare, environmental protections, job/skills training, public education) the right and center of this country meltdown and start screaming about how we'll be turning into the USSR under Stalin or China under Mao as a result. They believe that AFDC, Obamacare, Medicare/Medicaid, Medicare For All, universal pre-k, Green New Deal or any other social welfare program are communist and socialist systems of oppressions. These are reasons why the Canadians and Swedes and Fins and Germans and Brits are all doing better than us and don't have the problems in urban communities we do with violence and drugs.

I don't want the Lions to burn a 1st through 4th round pick on a QB this year. However, if he's still there in the 5th round, I'd love to take a flyer out on the Ivy League QB from Brown EJ Perry. The Draft Network: EJ Perry Scouting Report

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy than Matt Patricia. What happened to that defensive guru?

I've hear a lot of people blame the $1,400 checks sent out as apart of the American Rescue Plan as the cause of inflation. I hear boobs like former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers saying that. I know you didn't mention it here and that's fair and fine. I just remind people that if Biden's $1,400 ARP stimulus caused inflation how bad would things have been if Trump had gotten the $2,000 checks he wanted to send out. I ask people who believe Biden's ARP checks caused inflation (not saying you do) if we would have gotten Zimbabwean levels of inflation if Trump had gotten his $2,000 stimulus checks passed.

SOL BABY! Now our Detroit Lions hold the longest active winless drought in the playoffs of any team in the NFL and one of the longest in professional sports in the US. What an honor to have.

I want the Bengals or Cardinals to win a Super Bowl so that I can continue laughing at the Ford's and their ineptitude. The more teams that finally get to or win a Super Bowl, the more we as a fanbase can shame the Ford's and criticize their terrible management. Don't get me wrong, I want this franchise to be one of those Super Bowl teams one day and win one in the worst way. The Ford's are the worst ownership group in sports and deserve all the criticism they earn.

I have a question for our conservative and Republican friends here. According to the Bank of England, the UK's central bank, inflation hit 5.1% in the month of December and is expected to rise to up to 6% by the spring. Do you blame Prime Minister Boris Johnson for that inflation just as you try to blame President Joe Biden here in the United States? What specific policies do you believe Boris Johnson implemented to cause that 5.1% inflation in the UK?

Brad Holmes and Steve Yzerman both figured out how rebuilds work. You have to bottom out and go down first to end up higher than you were before. The questions for Holmes now is can he break the 7-9/9-7 barrier of mediocrity that this team has been stuck up against before. With more draft capital and higher draft picks I feel confident that we're off to a good start from a player acquisition standpoint.

https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/joe-rogan-wrapped-year-covid-19-misinformation-right-wing-myths-and-anti-trans Media Matters did a good job detailing a lot of the misinformation and lies that Rogan allows to be spread on his show or that he himself spreads. A good host would first off not peddle in lies and misinformation and would seek out the truth and would also be a fierce critic to those on their show that do spread misinformation.

MMA Interviewer Joe Rogan is a terrible host. He lets these conspiracy peddlers come on his show and he throws them softball questions and acts like he's so fascinated with all the bullshit they are spewing. Then, when someone like Zepps goes on his show and pushes back he's suddenly willing to question and push back.

I'll leave it be after this comment, but music and political activism have always been tied together, for better or for worse.

It's too bad the Beach Boys want to Make America Great Again too and played at a rally in support of Trump. I guess Brian Wilson and Al Jardine weren't happy about that, so there's that too.