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Post by Merge on Oct 29, 2024 15:01:53 GMT
Put me in the "saw Beto twice" camp.
And my mom took me to see Phyllis Schlafly speak at an anti-abortion rally when I was a young child. But I was really there to be a prop.
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Post by Merge on Oct 29, 2024 13:50:36 GMT
I never, ever watch or listen to news of any kind these days. Really for years. I only read.
I can't stand to hear certain people's voices. I don't like to listen to anyone being contentious with another person - makes me feel edgy and unsettled. Can't watch reality TV for the same reason. I don't watch debates, rallies, or speeches, other than a few clips.
Reading news, even stuff I disagree with, doesn't set me on edge like hearing the same news argued over or presented as a sound bite by live media. So I'm still doing that on a limited basis.
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Post by Merge on Oct 28, 2024 20:58:27 GMT
Vance’s response to the racist “jokes” - essentially get over it. And what kind of vacuum is he living in that he hasn’t heard it. It’s all over the news, newspapers, social media etc Get over itQ. Last night at MSG, speakers spewed racist and divisive rhetoric. Is this the right tone for the Trump campaign?
Vance: We have to talk about the issues most Americans care about…But I haven’t seen the joke you mentioned. We need to stop getting so offended about every little thing. I’m so over it.Same thing Trump said about mass shootings, right? We have to get over it so they can spend more time demonizing immigrants and trans people and trampling on women's rights. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 28, 2024 18:32:19 GMT
Trump simply does not understand tariffs. Food costa in the US will skyrocket if he does this. 🤦🏻♀️ Yup, and all the MAGA people crying about high grocery prices now? Just wait. They’ll be smuggling black market avocados over the border and selling them for $20 each. Should be fun! |
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Post by Merge on Oct 28, 2024 15:19:06 GMT
Ya know, every time I see a construction crew or road crew, I think I should stop and ask all the guys if they’re here legally.
But then I think I’d probably like for our roads to be finished sometime this century, and mentally curse the politicians who hold these guys’ lives in limbo, making them at risk for worker exploitation, rather than creating a more robust guest worker program that would protect their human rights.
BTW, my husband’s company has hired a lot of tech workers from Colombia to do remote work. He visits Bogota frequently, but it’s very difficult for most of their workers to get even a short term visa to come here for meetings. So miss me with the “they should come here legally or not at all” nonsense. These are educated people living nice middle class lives in Colombia, and they can’t even get a tourist visa.
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Post by Merge on Oct 27, 2024 14:26:27 GMT
I don't get it either.. Work with a woman, single mom of 2 struggles day to day financially.on state assistance. full time job grocery store so not great pay but some benefits- she doesn't drive so has to work within walking distance. But Trump certainly wouldn't do her any favors. Told me of someone she knows who would've died during miscarriage without medical help and d&c and how awful it was etc. Voted Trump last week.. I do not get it. She has a daughter too.. She most likely sees that things were better before Biden. Financially a lot of people are hurting right now. No one can deny that. You don't have to like the presidential candidates, and everyone has different things that matter to them. So what, in your analysis, should Biden have done to bring down global inflation faster? And a follow up question - why do you think grocery prices have remained high even as inflation has fallen? |
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Post by Merge on Oct 27, 2024 2:05:53 GMT
Oh goody, a new clown here. 🙄
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Post by Merge on Oct 26, 2024 18:26:44 GMT
This. Every single adult needs marketable skills because you never know what life will throw at you. Oh this a thousand times this - my children can choose whatever path they'd like and I will support them. If my son decides to stay home and take care of their children as his wife's dream is to be a doctor (current girlfriend). Wonderful - knock yourself out. But that has to be a CHOICE! Being unable to be support yourself and staying home is not a choice it's a life sentence - I've seen way way way too many people stuck in miserable marriages as they can't get out as they can't support themselves. It's terrible for everyone even leaving aside the potential for tragedy. Right? People change, marriages end, people get sick and become disabled. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this scenario just in my local mom's FB group: mom of multiple kids begging for some work she can do at home. Dad either left, was injured, or got sick and can't work. She has no marketable skills and can't afford daycare on what she can make in retail or other similar jobs. Everyone needs to be able to support themselves if it becomes necessary. The tradwife dream currently being pushed by the religious right (you don't need college or job training! your only job is to be a wife and mother!) is a recipe for disaster for so many families. Women need job skills and we need to be able to control our own bodies. Anything less and we are not fully equal citizens. And to get back to the OP - women who vote for Trump are casting a vote to be a second-class citizen. Makes no sense at all. The whole idea that we should be happy for men to protect and support us, or worse, for Trump to protect us, infantilizes women and makes a mockery of the last hundred years of progress. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 26, 2024 16:11:57 GMT
I'm not voting for Harris because she's a woman. I'm voting for her because of her policies and beliefs FOR women. All women. When some man tells me I am only voting for her because she is a woman, that really pisses me off. Condescending much? What is behind this whole start of this thread is that I only post political stuff on my snapchat. Most of my friends on there are of the same belief. There are a few that arn't. My meme was..I'd rather vote for my daughters rights, then cheaper gas. or something like that. I can't remember the exact words. and a friend of mine posted back to me. "My daughter will do amazing once Trump is in office". Yea. I didn't engage. I just said, your daughter is amazing now. I totally hear what you’re saying. I was recently at an event with a couple of my more conservative friends and while we didn’t specifically talk about politics I could tell from some of their comments in passing that they must both be Trump supporters. Both of them have teenage or younger daughters and both of them live in Texas. One of them has a 20 yo son that just married his high school girlfriend. The other also has a college aged son whose girlfriend recently decided to drop out of college because “she really just wants to marry my son and be a wife and mother, and you don’t need a college degree for that.” 😳🙄 She expects they will be engaged before the end of the year. Yeah, because nothing tragic ever happens to married very young women who immediately have a bunch of kids. 🙄 I really, really wanted to say something to the effect of it’s always good for women to be educated and have job skills they can fall back on if life doesn’t go to plan, but I knew it would fall on deaf ears. My own mom was widowed at age 50 with three kids under 18 still at home. I have a friend who had a similar situation where her DH tragically passed leaving her a widow with four kids under 15 when she was in her late 30’s, so it does happen along with all kinds of other not ideal situations where the woman has to unexpectedly step up to be the breadwinner of the family. It’s so shortsighted to think that in the world as it is today in 2024, women shouldn’t also have marketable skills. This. Every single adult needs marketable skills because you never know what life will throw at you. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 26, 2024 12:43:53 GMT
Merge and epeanymous , I respect both of your opinions immensely, you are two of the smartest Peas I know, so please may I ask why this is a negative thing in your eyes? I would have thought that people want their news sources to be completely unbiased, and therefore would not want them to endorse either of the candidates. Mine is a genuine question, I honestly would like to understand.  Aww, that's kind of you. From my perspective, it's more the fact that they normally *do* endorse a candidate. To suddenly stop doing so, at the last minute before an election, is to give the impression that the candidates are equally bad and not worth endorsing. This is demonstrably not the case. Also, the fact that the decision was made not for journalistic or editorial reasons, but to kowtow to the wishes of the paper's billionaire owner who doesn't want repercussions from Trump if he wins - that's oligarchy, plain and simple. And America isn't supposed to be an oligarchy. An oligarchy with a leader who is also effectively a dictator (if Trump wins) is Russia. We're not Russia. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 23:35:49 GMT
Seems appropriate.  |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 23:02:52 GMT
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 23:00:50 GMT
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 22:41:07 GMT
The ones in my life are generally: A. Pro-life Catholics B. Non-college educated/college dropout boomers and GenXrs with MAGA DHs/SOs C. Antivaxx/Covid deniers D. Middle class but with limited "small town" worldviews ---Example: they may travel but it's going to be Nashville, FL, or Mexico and they do not watch or read unless it confirms their biases, and they are mostly around other people who think like them and they often drink/go to the bar. E. If older (boomers), have always been Republicans, and it's their identity. They have also spent the last 30 years listening to right-wing radio/pundits. Usually more than one of the above. Catholics? I thinks it’s more the evangelicals up here. The Catholics are really open minded here There are areas where the Catholics are very conservative. My mom’s extended family (South Dakota) are mostly Catholic Trump voters. Huge base of very conservative Catholics in Nebraska where I grew up as well. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 22:11:56 GMT
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 18:50:06 GMT
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 18:45:42 GMT
MIL has been doing this more and more over the past couple of years - getting important dates wrong, that is. We just brush it off. It's not done out of malice and it would hurt her feelings if we said something.
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 14:20:40 GMT
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 11:28:18 GMT
I tend to think that it’s a mix of grievances calculated to sway people who watch RW media. Republicans typically excel at messaging; they are very disciplined. When the bat signal goes out, RW media all repeat the same thing. People become convinced that they are being scammed and flim-flammed. For some, it’s inflation. For some, immigration. They have a grievance message for everyone. What I don’t get is how they seem to have convinced a large swath of people that Jan. 6th was not done by conservatives, and/or it wasn’t a big deal. I saw some idiot on X say that the violence had been debunked. 😳 They’re well and truly brainwashed. I think that conservative media also hides some of Trump’s worst word salad. Not just the conservative media. Mainstream media is also guilty of sanewashing Trump's nonsense. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 10:43:31 GMT
Inflation. It's the economy stupid. I think this is the most significant reason. Inflation is basically back to normal but like it always is after a period of inflation, prices will not magically go back to the level they were before. Yes, Trump's policies will make things worse. This is something I think Harris should be hitting harder with her ads. Tariffs raise prices, inflation will return. Deporting immigrants will also raise prices particularly on food. The way people fail to realize that high prices have not fallen along with falling inflation, and that they need to look to the corporate entities that keep prices high instead of blaming the government - it boggles the mind. Then they turn around a cry about their investments while the Dow keeps hitting new record highs. I don't get that, either. I tend to believe cultural insecurity is a big driver. People have been led to believe that white European culture in the US is in danger of being stamped out by immigrants from other countries that were also colonized by - wait for it - white Europeans who happened to speak a different language. English-speaking Canada is not threatened by French-speaking Canada, and English-speaking Americans will not be threatened by a larger number of Spanish-speaking Americans. So I don't understand that mode of thinking, either. And I also see a lot of people who simply like the feeling that they're part of an in group, or enjoy "owning the libs" because it makes them feel superior. Culty. Truly, the GOP has become a big tent party in that it welcomes a wide variety of grievances against perceived enemies. Neo-Nazis can rub shoulders with climate deniers, Russia enjoyers, misogynists, religious authoritarians, and people who don't understand economics but want to believe that the Democrats have destroyed their finances. One big happy family under Trump, who is happy to stoke all their resentments. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 10:28:57 GMT
He can enroll in a charter school or another school district with those parents none the wiser.
Ideally, he'd be placed in a self-contained setting with very limited contact with other students until his behaviors are better controlled, but there is rarely funding for that kind of thing.
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 10:25:21 GMT
I saw a bumper sticker last weekend about Prop3 (Missouri) and a line saying “no tax funded abortions!” Since they clearly don't know anything about history or abortion law, you can inform them that the Hyde amendment outlawed using any federal funds for abortion way back in 1977. Most so-called pro-lifers seem unaware of that fact. As to the OP - women aligning themselves with the male power base to boost their own sense of safety, security, and superiority is nothing new. It's a form of internalized misogyny. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 25, 2024 0:57:01 GMT
For those NOT from southern California, please note the California Burrito has fries instead of rice. It is a big disappointment from locals when they see California burritos on the menu in other parts of the country and discover there are no fries stuffed inside. I live in So Cal and I've never had fries in a burrito. Yuck! That has got to be the whitest thing I've ever heard.  IDK, potatoes/papas are a common filling in some Mexican cuisine. Not sure how often they're deep fried vs. other cooking methods. My favorite breakfast tacos are potato and egg, but the potatoes are usually parboiled and then browned on the griddle. Peruvian food often contains deep fried potatoes as well - look up lomo saltado. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 24, 2024 21:01:28 GMT
There’s a Harris rally here in Houston tomorrow somewhere downtown. Exact location hasn’t been named yet, but likely Toyota Center, Minute Maid Park, or one of the large theaters. Sadly, I cannot go. [ETA: It's Shell Energy Stadium, home of the Houston Dynamo and Dash and TSU football.]
Meanwhile, Trump has now announced a rally here tomorrow as well. At a furniture store owned by one of his supporters. 🙄
As a Texan, I’m just over the moon that they’re both spending time here this close to the election. Clearly internal polls are showing things are close. Whether that’s for the presidential race or the senate race (Cruz will be at Trump’s rally and Allred at Harris’) I don’t know, but either one is good news.
Also, Beyoncé and Willie Nelson will be at the Harris rally. 🥰 I’m sure Trump will have some C-list has-been, though.
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Post by Merge on Oct 24, 2024 20:12:04 GMT
I'm not a huge burrito fan. Prefer the tortilla/stuffing ratio in tacos.
But if burritos are all that's available, I like green chile chicken or carnitas, cilantro rice, refried beans, pico, and a lot of guacamole. And Freebirds > Chipotle.
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Post by Merge on Oct 24, 2024 15:28:12 GMT
Never read the comments section. It’s a recipe for high blood pressure.
Our local paper did away with the online comments after each article and we’re all better for it.
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Post by Merge on Oct 24, 2024 15:25:36 GMT
Yeah I'm struggling to think where you can get a sit-down meal with drinks for much less than $50/pp these days, other than like Applebees or something. But I suppose every area is different. We don't eat out often these days in part because of the cost. With regard to the OP, I would have been annoyed, too. Chalk it up to a life lesson, I guess. I should have added, this was probably 20 years ago when $50 bought more. But even these days we tend to spend $75 or less when DH, DD and I all go out to dinner. But DH and I don’t drink which does help to keep the cost down quite a bit. FWIW, we recently were treated to an expensive dinner out for a birthday. All of us ordered the special (prime rib) and DH noted, “For what two of these dinners cost, I could have bought a whole prime rib and cooked it myself, fed all six of us and had leftovers the next day.”  Yeah, we find ourselves thinking that a lot these days. Part of reaching the “get off my lawn” stage of life, I guess. As such, we rarely go out for things we could make better and cheaper at home - steaks, salads, burgers, wings, most Italian food other than pizza, etc. If I’m going to spend what it costs to eat out these days, it had better be some artisanal or ethnic food that is way beyond my time and skill. Same with bevs most of the time, TBH. I loathe buying a bottle of wine in a restaurant for $80 and finding it online for $20. Special occasions with friends or family only. But I’m not surprised at the cost. I’ve just learned by now to expect it. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 24, 2024 13:17:53 GMT
When the bill came it was upwards of $50 per person. 😳 .... I would never choose somewhere like that for myself because I never eat enough to even make a $20-25 PP all you can eat meal worth the cost to me See here's the thing..... I would think nothing of spending $50 per person on a meal (even when I convert that to $AUD). We regularly spend that plus more when we eat out. But as a non drinker, I find the cost of alcohol ridiculous. (I'm nothing if not inconsistent haha!) Yeah I'm struggling to think where you can get a sit-down meal with drinks for much less than $50/pp these days, other than like Applebees or something. But I suppose every area is different. We don't eat out often these days in part because of the cost. With regard to the OP, I would have been annoyed, too. Chalk it up to a life lesson, I guess. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 23, 2024 20:18:54 GMT
I don’t strive for happy. I strive, work towards, less stress & more contentment. If I balance those 2 then the happy just seems to happen. No you don’t have to throw a parade when people do their jobs, but a thank you wouldn’t hurt. Acknowledgement. You don’t have to gush that the trash is taken out, but again a thank you wouldn’t hurt. BUT - commenting on those things in that way is all for other people. Responding or not to things getting done will help/hinder others. And honestly if you run around pumping up everyone else you’ll probably just developed a resentment for that. However, noticing things that you like, are good for you can refill your bucket if you will. When people do their jobs then look at what that does for you, frees up your time? Allows you to accomplish something else? THEN your ‘thank you’ will be genuine for both you & them. It’s like the choice to see the silver lining in most situations. To see the small things that improve your day. If you do that then your actions of self care will be less hollow & more fulfilling. The resentment comes from inside you, from your framing, the way you’re looking at things & your reactions to the things around you. It’s noticeable in the way you write about it. “Do I have to throw a parade because someone did their job” just reeks with inner resentment. You need to start actually looking at things from a different lens or you’re going to resent everything & everyone. You need a change of mindset. That's why I asked if maybe she is depressed. It just sounds like depression to me. |
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Post by Merge on Oct 23, 2024 18:30:12 GMT
This thread inspired me to get some chicken thighs out of the freezer. I'll be cooking them in the air fryer and making a salad with little gem/kale mix, chicken, sharp cheddar, apple chunks, pepitas, and cider vinaigrette.
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