I will argue with you there. She may not have been the best candidate, and might not have won the nomination if there was a primary in 2024, but if she had been elected she would have done the job competently.

Sometimes, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

The graphic artist certainly knew, check out this infographic of how the tower will be erected:

I agree. Not because I feel a woman can’t do the job, but because too many of my fellow Americans are sexist asshats.

The thing is though, they are self-aware to know they can’t just say “a woman can’t do the job” out loud. So they say things like “she has a funny laugh” or “she doesn’t smile enough”. Or say they don’t like her policies, even though they can’t actually name any of her policies. So there will never be a statistic that proves it. Just call it a prediction based in my learned experience.

I hope to live log enough to see AOC (or some other woman, there are several I think are qualified) become President. But I don’t think she can win if she ran right now. And only way she can be in a position to win in 2036 or 2040 is if we turn back the creeping fascism in 2026 and 2028.

Republicans frequently run on a platform that government is corrupt, the they get elected and prove it

Yup, I still have baconreader installed, I can’t delete it.

Meep meep

It all depends on how they travel, doesn’t it? If they were crammed like sardines in Basic Economy, it won’t turn out too well. But something tells me they will probably have plenty of space on that charter flight. The rest of us aren’t so lucky…

USPS:

Finally LMAO @ your notion that the player will get a degree by returning to college for a season.

But that’s the fig leaf that makes it all possible, the notion that we can still have “student athletes”, working toward a degree while they play . (Whether or not the degree is worth anything is a different conversation). The NCAA will continue to use 18 - 22 year olds because school is the reason the NCAA exists. And the NFL doesn’t mind, because they don’t want 18 year olds anyway.

If the NCAA ever decides to disassociate itself from the student-athlete paradigm, then we will see the NFL set up a developmental league to compete with it. Maybe even a system where this D-league is run by the NFL directly, but not affiliated with any particular team, and “graduating” players are still drafted. No star athlete will play in the NCAA if there is a direct path somewhere else to playing in the NFL.

It will be interesting to see how the NFL handles that.

The NFL doesn’t care, I think it even prefers it this way. It’s basically their minor league /developmental system.

There is a marked difference between the college game and the NFL. Those college-age athletes are still developing both physically and as players. I would not want to put an 18 year old on the same field with 25-27 year old players in their prime, but talented ones can compete with 21 year olds.

And, eligibility is strictly capped by a number of years so an exceptional college player will hit the NFL draft at the right time to be an impactful rookie, ready to learn the pro game.

Who cares if a pro player who doesn’t quite make the cut goes back to college? At least they get a degree out of it.

$20 dollar bills are the most common denomination in retail, and ATMs here exclusively hand out 20s. Even with prices going through the roof, you hardly ever see higher denomination bills out in the wild. A shop owner may look at you funny if you hand over a $100 to pay for something (and would definitely get the pen out), but would probably not blink twice when handed five $20s, even though counterfitters target them just as much. (Also note that we no longer make any bills over $100 at all, so your only choices over $20 are $50 and $100…)

We do have some currency modernization programs underway, but they will not effect the size of the bills. We seem to think it would be a disaster if our currency were like every other country’s currency. We need to think we’re Exceptional, I guess.

It’s a brave move on Massie’s part. Copperfield has the ability to make him disappear…

They will claim voter fraud if your mail-in ballot is received on a day of the week that ends in “y”

So that’s the plan - when Democratic states don’t comply to hand over their voter records, the postal service simply refuses to deliver their ballots from the Board of Elections. They can’t vote if they never get the ballot in the first place.

Do YOU think paying high taxes are worth funding schools, hospitals, roads in the US considering their condition?

I do, considering that I continue to live in what many consider to be a “high-tax” state.

There are lots of layers to taxes in the US, too:

-income/payroll taxes are taken by the Feds and the States

-sales taxes are taken by the states and local governments

-property taxes are taken by local governments

And there can be several layers of local governments. I live in a village, which is inside a town, which is inside a county, all with their own governing bodies. In addition, there is a school district, which is funded separately and has a separate boundary that incorporates parts of several towns.

That 7.25 is a nationwide floor on the minimum wage set by the Federal Government. States are free to set a higher minimum. But in states where there is no minimum wage (so the Federal wage applies), tipped workers can be paid as little as $2.13 an hour directly by their employers, as long as they get at least $5.12 per hour in tips.

Take home money is a different thing. Someone making minimum wage on a full-time (40 hr/wk) schedule would only make about $15000/yr. (Let’s ignore the second jobs and overtime they are probably putting in for now.) The Federal standard deduction is currently around $16000, so if that person is single and not someone else’s dependant they will likely end up owing no income taxes. But, they would owe 9.1% right off the top in Social Security and Medicare taxes. They would also have to consider health care. Some states subsidize certain health plans so low-income people can get basic coverage for very little, but that was part of the Medicare expansion that Trump shit all over…

Depending on where you are in the country, the minimum wage can be as low as $7.25/hr. For tipped employees, that minimum becomes $2.13, with the intent that tips make up the rest.

So, that’s a $5.12 difference, with a standard 15% tip a server gets that waiting on a single table with a $40 about in a hour.

Needless to say, most wait staff here are relying on tips for the bulk of their income, and when you fail to tip it’s equivalent to making them work for free. I wish it wasn’t like that here. But in case you haven’t noticed, we have a lot worse problems right now. I don’t think fixing it will be on any politicians radar…

It’s all the damn buttons. When the US got the same chip technology that Europe had, and all those little portable machines became commonplace here, they had to put tip buttons on all of them, and then everyone started using them for everything.

The only time you should feel obligated to tip in the US is in a sit-down restaurant, where the waiter takes your order and brings you your food. If you sit through the whole meal and don’t leave a tip, the waiter will think they’ve done something wrong, as some of their hourly pay is expected to be covered by tips. But no matter what the buttons say, 15% is sufficient, and 20% is generous.

Getting takeout from the same place? Tips are not necessary. I sometimes leave 5% if I like the place. But since there’s no 5% button, I take the time to do the mental math and enter the amount whe paying.

Fast food? A concessions stand at a ballgame? You are under zero obligation to leave any tip, no matter what the buttons say.

they could actually hit 69 Democrat Senators

Not likely, but it would be…

… Nice!