Yeah for them to say this much is a big deal considering they like to stay out of this stuff. It’s pretty much a harsh repudiation coming from them.

This is a classic case of the differences between lawful good, lawful neutral, and neutral good.

Lawful good would feel conflicted but settle on conviction, because it was premeditated and not self defense.

Lawful neutral would convict and feel no conflict at all. The law was broken, nothing else matters.

Neutral good would not convict, because they don’t think the law adequately handles this kind of situation.

The problem is, within the legal system, neutral good is seldom an option – by definition it’s going to be some kind of lawful. And that sucks here.

That’s irrelevant to your original point.

And there’s actually only one person to blame – Lieberman’s vote was required to pass the legislation, and he refused to vote for it unless single payer was removed.

when you factor in funding logistics

This is an incredibly important point. Unless rich donors said they’d fully make up the current campaign war chest for the new candidate, there would be a significant funding issue. Being able to use the existing funds is extremely important.

why we have had almost zero meaningful legislation to help the normal people for 40 years.

The Affordable Care Act is why I was able to take a year off work to focus on my mental health after the pandemic crushed it. The Inflation Reduction Act is helping keep the renewable energy company I work for afloat and offering an optimistic future.

No one expects to end up on government assistance or using FMLA to take a few months off for an illness. We support it on the left because we know it’s the fucking right thing to do.

It’s all good and fine to criticize programs as useless theoretically when you don’t rely on them. But when you’ve actually experienced them and needed them, your perspective changes heavily.

Democrats have gotten good shit done for the average person, and I’ve personally benefited from it when I really needed it.

Can confirm, that life sucked. My remote job is much, much better

Lawyers are obligated to defend even obviously guilty people, but seriously? Victim blaming a child?

I get it, it’s hard to come up with a tenable legal defense when someone is starkly guilty, but this is just gross.

It’s cute when a kid has a crush like that, but that’s all it is, a crush. From someone who doesn’t understand what romance is beyond what’s in pop culture. It’s cute and wholesome.

An adult seeing that and going “hmm, what if” is the exact fucking opposite of cute and wholesome. They’re a freaky ass fella who needs to be locked up.

The normal thing to do when a preteen or teenager asks you to have sexual relations with them is to say “absolutely fucking not”.

The whole point of the age of consent is that below a certain age teenagers and children don’t understand what they’re agreeing to or asking for.

This is the stupidest possible legal defense they could make.

This is the best the lawyers could come up with? He very clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel when looking for legal representation

Feels like Labour has really fallen behind other left-wing parties – to the point that they’re even right of Democrats on some issues.

I’m not sure about that for the UK at least. My British friends say Labour is going anti trans

I think what’s most surprising to me is that Florida’s legislature was in favor of the art grants.

Sorry, what the fuck. This is a complete failure on engineering controls and safety. A safety analysis on an industrial plant would find something like this to be a major safety vulnerability that needs several redundant safeguards.

Jesus fucking Christ.

If there is a legitimate reason for a draft, a draft may not be necessary anyway. Unless the enemy is offering a peaceful arrangement to everyone they meet, or there’s no way to get your family to safety, I think most people would willingly fight.

It would be disastrous for Republicans. Independents and moderates would be furious

For one, I think this was already required. I remember having to enroll in selective service.

For two though, whoever calls another draft is dead in the water. It’s commonly accepted that starting an actual draft is political suicide.

That said, it would be nice if we could codify that and ban the draft.

Nah Galveston is Carcinogen Coast.

Houston is “want to drive to X? 30 minutes”. No matter how close it is.

It’s typically a bad idea in negotiations to say “the thing you want to happen will happen if you don’t do what I want!”

I volunteer as tribute.