At the very least to signal that they think it is wrong. To make the Republicans go on record saying they condone it.

And not only that, make everything they are doing in Congress just that much harder. Those small sabotage of the other harmful work they are doing.

That’s a poor take. I’m exhausted after the last 15 years or so of being very engaged. Politics and the news media has changed. The way things are reported on is different. What is happening is different and what is being reported is different.

I want politics to be about the bureaucracy again and not about power grabs and how to protect ourselves from fascists literally destroying it.

I want to discuss actual bills and how we use the government to better our society. How we structure our laws and society. How we regulate and manage corporations. How we allocate our taxes to mundane and boring agencies and projects. I want to worry about the infrastructure and how we are paying for our roads and rebuilding the bridges. I fucking LIKE that stuff.

I don’t want to get into a ego fight and try and decipher some inane ramblings of a fragile president. I want a president who acts presidential with honor and respect. I want a president I can be proud of, even if I disagree with him.

I want to go back to having political discussions where I may vehemently disagree with someone else but where the stakes weren’t literally life and death. I want to have the kind of engagement where those disagreements didn’t end is name calling and dismissing what the other side felt or their experiences. When we worked towards a compromise that advanced this nation towards a better future and took ideas and concerns from everyone.

And quite frankly. I hate that I am afraid of what this government is doing and what this government is becoming. I hate that they are making me feel that way. I hate that this is probably the very same feeling the right has had that allowed these fucks to be in power in the first place.

I fucking can’t stand how divided we’ve gotten and your “no sympathy” response doesn’t fucking help. I fucking hate how we write off “the other side” just because of what team they are on. If we don’t actually hear what they are mad and upset about they’ll go into their echo chamber with people who do and vote for the fuck that campaigned on destroying the system that wasn’t listening to them.

So don’t think that I want oblivious disengagement. I just don’t want to be in fucking fear for my life, the lives of those I love, and the lives of my community.

All I wanted was to stop having to worry about what was happening in government. I wanted it to go back to boring bureaucracy. I wanted the news to stop being about whatever bullshit came out of Trumps mouth. Or Elon’s.

I just wanted it to go back to normal when it was rare to actually hear what the president said. That their speeches were a special event.

When I hear about his executive orders, I can’t help but picture him dressed as Dolores Umbridge hanging her rules on Hogwarts walls.

If I had any semblance of graphics skills, I’d make a meme out of it.

I am already unable to buy things 6 out of 7 days of the week. Sure. Why not make this one of those days

Seconded. The US can no longer be trusted. God speed, and I wish you the best.

-us

Dolly Parton is urging Republican Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana to reconsider getting rid of her popular “Imagination Library” program, which provides free books to children ages 5 and under.

“We are hopeful that Governor Braun and the Indiana Legislature will continue this vital investment by restoring the state’s funding match for local Imagination Library programs. The beauty of the Imagination Library is that it unites us all—regardless of politics—because every child deserves the chance to dream big and succeed,” her representative said in a statement.

Indiana Republicans have cut the statewide program’s required matching funds from the new budget despite it being “hailed as helping to raise Indiana’s child literacy ranking from 19th to 6th place nationwide” and only costing the state $4.1 million over the last two years.

“It was a disservice to remove it,” says Democratic Indiana Rep. Maureen Bauer.

Most telling is that the state’s Republicans, who included school vouchers for wealthy families in the budget, didn’t bother to look elsewhere for savings.

According to Rose Meissner, president of the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County, the matching funds needed equate to just $1 per month for every child in Indiana.

Parton has run into this kind of ghoulish right-wing behavior before.

In 2022, a Kentucky Republican state senator tried to censor Parton’s library as a part of the fascistic right-wing move to censor children’s education. But after getting an earful from a few million Parton fans, they quickly backtracked.

The Imagination Library, founded by Parton in 1995, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and sends out more than 1,000,000 books every month to 21 states and 5 countries. To date, the program has given more than 270,000,000 free books to children around the world.

The idea that the GOP would take away children’s books is unconscionable—but not surprising.

Even if it was political, which it wasn’t.

What was the political reason? Huh? What benefit did stranding them up there give Biden?

It’s been a long while since I looked, but I remember it being a thing in tails to specifically not resize your browser window or only have it full screen to match a ton of other fingerprints.

Plus since it was a live distro that reset on every reboot it would only have the same fonts and other data as other people using tails. Honestly, I hate that all that info is even available to browsers and web sites at all.

A lot of smart devices are just an esp that basically does that. The zigbee and z-wave stuff isn’t even internet connected. A usb dongle connected to a PC running smart home software locally controls it.

It’s weird that so much has sprung up around personal homes when businesses had bacnet for years and years. Most of that stuff is wired up with basic analog inputs and outputs.

Personally, I like hardwired everything and would like to see more PoE stuff come out rather than wireless. I hate dealing with batteries because some people can’t deal with running low voltage wires.

Same. My iot vlan can’t talk to my main network. If it weren’t for firmware updates, I’d probably null route that whole network when it tries to go out to the internet.

I personally find my ADHD meds exhausting. Like, yes I need them. But when the week is up I feel a little exhausted with everything I’ve had to keep up with. I don’t see them as fun, but I know other people do. They just make me function and I really try to take as little as I can get away with and still be a functional person.

As an aside, electro convulsive shock therapy is still done. It’s weirdly been proven useful for the treatment of some disorders. But as far as I know, it’s now done with full consent.

But now, as back then, no one really truly understands the full mechanism that causes it to suppress symptoms.

California. And I’m not entirely sure. The emails went to my mother, so I didn’t hear too much about it until they terminated our contract.

Oh yea. I’m angry and upset that any acts of defiance will be used as justification for the indiscriminate persecution of entire sections of society.

The systemic marginalization and abuse of vulnerable groups will lead to acts of violence. Which will lead to more marginalization and abuse.

The only way to prevent this is to break the system and embrace these groups.

As a gross oversimplification analogy, but one that any parent should be able to understand. The more you try and control a teenager and suppress who they are the more they will act out and rebel.

And it’s so fucking weird to me to see all this hate. I grew up around migrants, I’ve worked closely with trans individuals and non binary folk. I have never seen the violence or hate or any of the problems the conservative hate propaganda speech about these people.

Because they truly are just people who want to live their lives and be who they are. They all have dreams and aspirations. They want to provide for their families. They want to love each other and be loved in return. They want the same for you and me. They don’t have any agenda to do harm.

Is everyone perfect, no. Do some people cause issues? Sure. But that has nothing to do with race or sexual or gender identity. People in general can be shitty, and you’ll find them in all walks of life.

As an parallel, I was watching PBS’s American Experience about the American Coup in Wilmington, NC in 1898. They shared articles from white supremacists which sounded so eerily familiar to the rhetoric spewed on Fox News and other right wing media outlets. It’s such a tired playbook, but it’s so frustrating how effective it is.

I’ve complained about gun culture being the biggest issue leading to gun deaths before. I’m not a huge fan of gun control as a lot of the left discuss it and my issue with labeling gun laws “common sense” causes a dissidence in people heads where anyone disagreeing not having common sense.

But the rhetoric of “fuck around and find out” and “come and try that here” underpins a thought process that guns are an acceptable solution to problems. And not just acceptable, but on equal footing with other solutions such as running away, defusing or de-escalating the situation, discussions, and compromises. It’s where you see things like Kyle Rittenhouse or “You’re Fucked” being inscribed on the AR used in the murder of Daniel Shaver in Mesa, AZ by the police.

Whereas I believe guns are the final solution to a problem. And imo, one that we all should be reticent to use but ultimately have available to us. They are to be used as a last resort to threats against life and liberty.

The gun culture, mixed with the propaganda of everyone everywhere being a potential threat to you is a leading cause of gun violence.

They are a scape goat. It doesn’t matter if they exist or not if they can sell the narrative.

Crime could be at record lows but they’ll say “Crime is so high, we need to send in police until crime comes down.”

They know full well it’s a lie, but they know enough people won’t double check them and take them at their word. In their minds crime is at an all time high instead.

Only one man would dare give me the raspberry!!!

My father got us kicked off our ISP for downloading music from random public trackers.

I’ve been on private ones for years and never gotten a warning.

If anyone knows about lobotomies, it would be the Kennedys. Just look at Rosemary Kennedy.