The GOP didn't adopt Trumpian views. Trump just made their disgusting views mainstream.

@1 That's partly true, especially with racism and many (most?) social issues. But remember when the Republicans were anti-tariff and anti-Russia? Seems a long time ago.

the
Guardians
Of
Plutocracy

"this playground
for the rich we all
pretend to afford"

not to Worry
the Rich LOVE their Castles
and Gated Communities and plan
to soon follow the Cheney/bush's brilliant
razorwire-topped 'Free Speech!' Enclosures
located Miles from Civilization -- they're gonna
make 'em Bigger -- to fit ALL of us Ninety Percenters

where we'll all 'live' in open-
air Concentration Camps
and well out of Sight
of those who
Matter Most

@3: bingo.

well of Course you are.

you're a SJW
thru & thru.

At 91, Rupert Murdoch is removed from the day-to-day propagandist decisions of Fox News, and he knows how to be deposed. I'm betting that wasn't a particularly productive deposition for Dominion.

I still think it's disgusting that Jerry Hall married that evil fossil.

Regarding the SPD cops in that video, wow, I don't think I've ever seen such a brutal and heartless assault on innocent people such as that! I mean, I hope we can get a GoFundMe going for those brutalized ladies, so they can pay for the years and years of therapy they're sure to need after such a savage and merciless beatdown. The sheer, unmitigated violence of it made me weep and vomit as I watched it.

That video needs to be shared far and wide so that the whole world can know what horrifically brutal animals SPD cops truly are!

@9-11 c'mon you guys have all been here long enough to know that the sheer presence of SPD anywhere is violence in itself. Isn't that why all the resource officers were kicked out of schools?

It’s such a shitty thought – that the medical establishment (direct care, big Pharma, durable medical goods, etc.) - is more than 20% of GDP now, and so infused into the national DNA that we will never be able to have single-payer healthcare. I hate that. Of course, this is a very populous country (still growing by the day!) and national healthcare would have a wallop of a sticker price. I mean, Japan, France, the UK, and Canada have p-p-p-pretty good systems in place though they’re in trouble financially, too – and they have fractions of our total population. Yes, healthcare could get some of that $800B that goes to defense and its wasteful by-products, but do any of us see that happening?

It's a drag, but any solution will have to come from a determined next generation. Just remember, you have a lot of politicians (good guys and bad guys) who’ve gotten rich, rich, rich on healthcare legislation. And many private citizens in the medical and insurance industry who have gotten fabulously wealthy. And I’ve known many medical doctors who, in a year or two after med school, weren’t driving something some of us only dream about owning someday. They’ll all be using their power to keep the status quo.

I’m tradionally not a cat person though I’ve known a cat or two who were perfectly wonderful company. Go get one if you can because a shelter, in spite of an angelic staff, is a terrible place to spend the holidays. That goes for the dogs, too. But take caution: Cats seem to have an obsession with Christmas trees. It’s all the sparkly things, you see, and they loves them some sparkle.

If you need something to be grateful for this holiday season, think about this. In the mid-aughts, we were worried about making marriage equality legal. Remember Prop 8? That was 2008! Here we are at the end of 2022, and not only is it legal, it has been codified into Federal law. Those of us from the 60s and 70s still can’t believe our eyes. Hooray and hallelujah!

@5: Will really is an attorney, I verified registered with the Washington State Bar Association. If he laments his lack of earnings, it's because he's designed it that way.

@Morty! - I ordered a virtual cocktail to be delivered to your table. FTW

& in other other news - nyt:
"Iran Executes Man Over Nationwide Protests"
and our Reich Wing'll do the same thing here

"Mohsen Shekari, 23, had been sentenced to death on accusations of blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the Basij militia during a protest."

the same people who're gonna give US
Theocracy cum Billionaire\Stockholder
Rule with a Biosphere to fucking Die for.

WILL Iranians continue to Stand
against their fascist* leaders?

will we lose our democracy
to the fucking Fascists?

what's it gonna Take
to hand back Power?
Will the Mid-East get
Lit Up like Cheney\bush
Promised us? stay tuned

*perhaps they're merely
Autocratic Tyrants
who don't Mind
getting their
hands dirty

@13 - Yeah, we have a much higher population than Japan, France, the UK and just about every other western, industrialized nation with nationalized healthcare, but we also have a base of taxpayers equally higher than those countries. So, I don't know why a higher population would prevent nationalized healthcare when on a per capita basis our tax base is just high.

with over SEVEN HUNDRED Military bases
Planet-wide busy protecting Capitalism
scuze me, Democracy -- and eating up
precious taxpayer dollars like they're
just little pieces of paper we're
stretched a little Thin lately

well ever since the Military Industrial
$hitplex seized our Economy anyway
well over a Trillion each and every year
it adds up eventually. specially with so
many Corps\Billionaires mostly tax-free

@17 - Good point, Morty. I was thinking that, too, more people, more income/sales tax, etc. Three things come to mind: 1) You better have a good age distribution, 2) you better have low unemployment, and 3) since individual income taxes are based, in most cases, on the amount of income earned, those who are working better be getting more than just survival wages.

Why I thought it would probably take a new generation is because I see it as a priority issue. If you'll pardon the vulgarity, shall we have the biggest dick on the global stage (and I'm all for having a dick that's just big enough to keep the home fires burning), or shall we decide that being well is an important human right in this country and therefore freed from a situation of possible financial ruin or hardship because of illness? Can we have both? Some think so. I think it's possible, or rather, I want to believe it's possible.

Jury let Dimwit Cracker Ed Troyer slide today. It's Pierce. Odds had to be there would be at least one yahoo on the jury.

@17 Morty and @20 Bauhaus I: I share your healthcare concerns. The flu and COVID strains forecast to be particularly brutal this winter. I hope to stay out of the ER--and particularly PeaceHealth St. Joseph hospital, period--if at all possible by staying healthy. I really feel for anyone needing long term care, regardless of coverage.
That our hospitals are facing bankruptcy scares me. How much of hospital bed occupancy is due to people coming here from unfunded red states / counties / communities for care in Washington State that they can't get there?

@18 kristofarian: I share your concerns as well, kris. The U.S. has got to stop playing global cops. All branches of our military are stretched way too thin.

@21 rockyboy: BINGO. I wonder how much the jurors got paid to unanimously find Sheriff Ed Troyer not guilty of false reporting after seven hours of deliberation? The Good Ol' Boy system strikes again. They takes care of their own in Pierce County.

@24 Herr Boob: Gee, you're in a good mood, lately. Did you run over a small child, or something?

@4 kristofarian +1 Agreed.

@7 Max Solomon: Agreed. Jerry Hall must have lost in the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ signs when she married Rupert Murdock, after all those years and kids with Mick Jagger. Yuck!

@9 Morty: Add me to the list of commenters nominating you for the WIN in this SLOG thread! Bravo and kudos!
I haven't seen the brutal footage but am as sickened as you are by widespread police brutality--in the SPD and throughout the U.S. being the accepted "norm". This has to end.

@26 - auntie dearest, @9 was being blatantly sarcastic as there is no "brutal footage" (you don't need a Twitter account to play the video in Hannah's tweet) as the cops gently move the protesters aside so they can do their job.

Given that Morty's a former cop, paired with being a liberal progressive, his sarcasm carries a lot of weight on these matters.

@27: raindrop dear, even purposefully without a Twitter account, I usually avoid tweets.
And I respect Morty's opinion on law enforcement as he was a police officer (now retired).
Nonetheless, police brutality exists and needs to end.