In The Handmaid's Tale, right before Gilead takes over the US, women have to have their husbands sign off on their birth control refills. Then they all get fired from their jobs and all their money in the bank gets transferred to their husbands.

I know it's a tired cliche to keep bringing up the Handmaid's Tale, but it just doesn't seem that far out there anymore. Especially the part where everyone just goes along with the changes and learns to live with them. Margaret Atwood based everything in the book off of real events in wold history. So there's that.

Apparently the weather stations in the SoCal desert didn't see it coming at all. Not sure how that's possible, but that's what they said Friday. Tons of flooding in Palm Springs and Vegas too.

Same with every festival. So disappointing that I'll never have the chance to experience (or be able to afford, regardless) the way Coachella or Burning Man was when I was younger.

This 21 Year old has a 6 and 3 year old sons. I'll let you do the math on that. But it adds up to before some states had bans.

First of all, red states made it next to impossible to get abortions even when it was legal. Also, they cost money. Contrary to apparent popular belief, George Soros or the DNC don't just appear to fund every abortion. Or, sometimes people are Catholic, which is fucking stupid, but maybe there's some family shit you don't know about. Especially for a minor trying to get an abortion. Again, contrary to popular belief, they weren't just being handed out for free on every corner to every 16 year old who wanted one. There were still a million obstacles long before the Dobbs decision.

Second, "I'll let you do the math" is a judgey, self-righteous, and gross statement.

So UPS will only put ac in new trucks, sometime next year, and possibly get them to the hottest parts of the country, and old trucks will get "cabin fans" (?).

I know negotiations must be really difficult. I know everyone is relying on their jobs and paychecks to survive. But it seems like too often these corporations get away with half measures and vague promises because even when we revoke our labor, they're still the ones in control. Workers from a company like UPS seem like they should have more control than most though. Shutting down deliveries across the US indefinitely is a pretty big threat. So maybe they could have gotten better results.

Wtf is this thread. I will never understand people who will try to justify shit like this. What does the average person think they're getting out of fighting against better working conditions and higher pay? This is why it's so funny when Americans say they aren't affected by propaganda. Only other countries have that.

Anytime there's a conversation about trump, fascism, and white supremacists in America, there's always at least one of the "dEmOcrAtS sHoUld HaVE dOnE MoRe" crowd. It's so stupid, I can't help but think it's very intentional misdirection. Like it's some astroturfed bullshit from a conservative think tank.

America is shitty for the poor (there is no middle class anymore). So at this point, if voting for someone who is not a fucking fascist dictator is all we can do, then that's what we're going to do.

Like how Japanese internment in America wasn't justified, even if involvement in WW2 was.

Now there's something that sounds like an insane conspiracy theory but actually happened.

Reddit is like a microcosm of American society

They definitely have it in other California cities too. And not just in restaurants.

A chain resale/consignment hipster shop in NorCal started adding a percentage service charge years ago with the same excuse, and you'd only find out about it if you looked at your receipt. The fucked up part is that they also raised their prices so high that I couldn't shop there anymore. It's one of those buy/sell/trade clothing stores, so the whole point was to pay less for decent clothes. But if they're already raising prices significantly, why the fuck do they need yet another charge to pay their workers.

I also think they really must believe it makes them seem "progressive" somehow. Like "oh look, we're on the workers' side!" and they hope no one eating/shopping there will think about it any more deeply than that.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

By far, the biggest category of discretionary spending is spending on the Pentagon and military. In most years, this accounts for more than half of the discretionary budget. In 2020, because some discretionary spending passed through supplemental appropriations went to pandemic programs, the share of the discretionary budget that went to the military was smaller – even though the amount that went to the military was just as high as in previous years.

Most "welfare" falls under discretionary. Medicare, medicaid, and social security (also "welfare") fall under mandatory spending. Social security and medicare make up the largest categories. This organization explains how "welfare" spending increased in recent years due to pandemic spending on things like stimulus checks and increased unemployment.

The bottom line thoughis that people pay into it for years so that it's available when it's their turn to need it. If they never do, then great. It can help someone else, god forbid.

I mean, as of monday his admin just instated a low income repayment plan where you don't have to make payments after the October payment restart if you're an individual making less than $32k/yr or married making $67k/yr household.

So there's that.