“[L]et’s be crystal clear about this: Liberals are not the ones who are out of touch. Conservatives are. Virtually every poll I saw showed healthy pluralities and sometimes outright majorities opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation. An NPR-PBS-Marist poll had it 52-40 against. News reports didn’t often provide this context I’m about to give you, but this was astonishing. Historically, most people don’t pay close attention to Supreme Court nominations, and they just assume that if the president chooses someone, there must be a good reason. Strong pluralities continued to back Clarence Thomas in 1991 even after Anita Hill testified. It’s extremely unusual, and possibly unprecedented, for most Americans to oppose a Supreme Court nominee. But it’s the case here. It is also a fact that more Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford than believed Kavanaugh. That same NPR-PBS poll had it at 45 percent believing Ford, and 32 percent Kavanaugh. Republicans, not Democrats, are in the minority. Yes, they do have a majority in the Senate, which is why this happened. And Kavanaugh passed by one vote. His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world. And of course let’s not forget, and yes it’s fair and entirely relevant, that Kavanaugh was nominated in the first place by a president who lost the popular vote and of whom a minority of Americans approve. Angry? You bet we are. But crazy? Out of touch? Absolutely not. We who oppose Kavanaugh are the majority. We are the decent people of the heartland.”
I’m just going to highlight this, because it’s so important to remember and to understand:
His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world.
It’s easy to be angry and feel that “America” has lost its way, but the truth is that America has been taken over by a minority of people, backed by neofascists. AMERICA is populated with good people. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT is corrupted by money and power, and does not accurately or fairly represent the overwhelming majority of us who live here.
Unfortunate side effect of America finally getting chip card readers:
Massive uptick in how often cashiers have used the phrase “put it in” at me
I didn’t know so many people would be confused by this, America was still exclusively “swiping” credit cards until only like two years ago. We had no idea it was different in other countries and a lot of us found the new chip method to be strange, awkward and even irritating.
There was also such a rash of people accidentally leaving their cards inserted as they walked out of the store that most chains made the “please remove card” noise significantly louder and harsher, to the further irritation of cashiers themselves who have to hear it all day long.
Do you even HAVE a noise reminding you to take the card back out or is it so second nature you don’t need one?
Okay so it is just us who get reminded to remove our cards the same way we’d be reminded that an unknown life form has breached the hull
I hate the angry, disappointed sound that chip readers make.
And even now, one of my cards doesn’t have the chip yet, it still has to be swiped.
I hate to tell you but in the rest of the world we’ve mostly moved to a system where if the purchase is under a certain amount ($80 in NZ, I think 30 pounds in the UK, not sure about Euro or AUD) you just tap the card on the reader.
The amount in Canada is anything under $50 you can tap to pay. Transactions take seconds.
I’m fairly certain America hinges now on propaganda that everything is okay and we’re still a first world nation when actually, our country is slipping further and further, and we’re really just. The best third world country out here. Not even comparable to most first world countries, so we fucking aren’t one anymore
Sounds like we live in a police state where the rich tax the poor not to feed or protect them but to fund programs and legislature that defunds their resources and encourages them to die. The rich get richer and the middle class shrinks and suffocates while the entire country falls apart because corporate power greed refuses to see the consequences of their actions.
I wish I had the faith to believe what goes around comes around, but I think it’s time to understand that we’re the ones that need to come around and take action. The rich aren’t going to do jack shit for us anymore. Even the rich that care about people on the bottom don’t have the courage to help people en masse
Economically speaking, one of the foundations of a 1st world country is a strong middle class (source, my BBA in Economics and International Business), and it’s been abundantly clear that America’s middle class has been shrinking. Wages have been stagnant since pretty much the 1970′s, American CEO’s wage disparity is the highest in the world when compared to the average of their workers.
Basically, the us *isn’t* a first world country anymore. Our economy may still be one of the highest (I’m not sure if China has overtaken us yet), but our infrastructure is crumbling. Roads and school and bridges are in dire need of repair, our education system is laughable when you see how much money we have available for it. Military spending is out of control, often on things the military doesn’t even need or want. All in the name of continuously soaring profits for the highest echelon of society, who never needed it to begin with.
Here’s some expresses from a recent article about a UN official investigating poverty in the US:
“A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.
“I think it’s very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I’d have to say that I haven’t seen this,” Philip Alston, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.comearlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where “raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.”
“Some might ask why a U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights would visit a country as rich as the United States,“ Alston said. “But despite great wealth in the U.S., there also exists great poverty and inequality.”
Alston also pointed out that the U.S. “has been very keen” on other countries being investigated by the U.N. for civil and human rights issues.
“Now, it’s the turn to look at what’s going on in the U.S.,” Alston said. “There are pretty extreme levels of poverty in the United States given the wealth of the country. And that does have significant human rights implications.”
“The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it’s the role of the government—yes, the government!—to ensure that no one falls below the decent level,” he said. “Civilized society doesn’t say for people to go and make it on your own and if you can’t, bad luck.””
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