Jump to content

Brisketexan

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    48385
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    262

Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. Desired anal leakage is surely a thing, right?
  2. And my daughter literally just sent me this message: “Omg so I went to pick up my ——- prescription and I also needed deodorant and ———. The lady rings me up and is like “hey, do you pay for your prescriptions?” And I’m like “yeah, I do.” She goes “oh! So because this is a lifelong medication, you can actually get that paid for. Next time you go into your GP, ask for a medical exemption card. Fill that out and then you won’t have to pay for it again!” And I’m like “oh thanks, will do!” Thinking that I am about to pay out the nose for two months of medication. She rings me up. “15.62,” she says. I look at her. She looks at me. I look at her. She says “…cash or card?” I say “sorry, fifTEEN? Is that just for the deodorant and ———?” Because idk I live in London, seems reasonable. She’s like “oh no, all together! The medication is £5.47.” I look like a bumbling idiot.” Her med is a real-deal necessary treatment, for a serious condition - not unlike insulin in terms of lifetime need. And it is paid for, and getting it was pretty much effortless. Again, NHS is far from perfect, but goddamn.
  3. Finland does a deal where the amount of your traffic fine is tied to your net worth. Because if you’re poor, a $300 fine can mean you can’t pay rent…but if you’re rich, it’s not any deterrent at all. See this story of a rich Finn popped for €121k traffic fine. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/ABCNews/finnish-businessman-handed-121000-speeding-ticket/story?id=99861907 Gosh, that makes sense. And would never happen here.
  4. This. Even my quite feminist wife and daughter both agree “yeah…if we want to win, we need to run a white dude.” That’s just how it be.
  5. The last round of Trump - when they weren’t NEARLY as powerful - they tried to launch an effort to deport lifetime US citizens like my dad (that is, people born in US border hospitals in the 30s and before, when record keeping wasn’t A+). What gives you the idea they won’t be more emboldened this time?
  6. Yeah. If anyone wants to know how this goes, check out our own AG, darling of the Religious Right and the "MUH RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES!" crowd (when it comes to the deeply held religious belief of "God commands me to be a total dick to all the people I hate"). You know, the AG who in the past months has sued more churches and religious institutions than our last 10 AGs combined. He just sues them for doing things like feeding the homeless and providing shelter to immigrants (who, by the way, are sent there BY government officials). "Religious Liberty" is but one of the massive lies they've told. They only mean it for THEIR beliefs (you know, the caustic and cruel ones), not any others.
  7. Fuck you, you stupid fucking motherfucker. You had the chance to put a stop to this. You had a fucking DUTY to do so, a duty imposed by the Constitution establishing the Senate as a failsafe, and you actively SABOTAGED it. You don't get to sink the fucking ship and then decry the lack of lifeboats, you craven treasonous lump of shit.
  8. Including Texas. Hell, it may be done during this upcoming legislative session.
  9. Yes, it's different. Because that role serves the function of requiring that the State properly perform its obligation to collect and present evidence and meet its burden of proof. The adversarial system of criminal justice balances the rights of all, regardless of the facts of any particular case. And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, it provides a valid mechanism for obtaining justice against the wrongful actor. Short story: we can convict serial killers. We do, with regularity. We functionally cannot hold health insurers accountable. They are functionally bulletproof.
  10. To the first part....maybe they are evil. Depends on what they actually do. I'll tell you that my career has taken me to a place where a big part of my job satisfaction is that I get up in the morning, can look at myself in the mirror, and be proud of the work I do and who I do it for. A moral compass is important. No profession - including mine - should discard it. Again, imagine that you are an attorney, and someone wants to hire you to help them craft an iron-clad immunity from liability for building death camps intended to exterminate an ethnic minority. You should decline that representation. If you take it on, yes, you are doing evil. And I have yet to say that anyone in this calculus "deserves to die." What I have said, repeatedly, is that we should not be surprised by this turn of events. We have ample historical reference showing us that when a system is created that fucks over people on matters of life and death, and deprives them of any functional peaceful means of redressing their grievances, violence results. Don't mistake "it's inevitable that frustrated and angry people will take matters into their own hands, so if we want to avoid that outcome, maybe we should fix the system to take that impulse/incentive away" with "the victims deserve to die."
  11. This. This is the model. It works, really, really, really well. Shit, I figured out that was the model when I was a high school age consumer and got utterly fucked by a stereo repair shop (yeah, back in the day when you had stereos you'd get repaired). They fucked me outta $120. It was a small enough amount that even with DTPA laws, it wasn't worth the time or effort to keep fighting it. And I remember bitching to my parents that "even if they get popped one outta ten times, it's still a great profit model for them." Dad knowingly nodded "exactly," and young Brisket suddenly figured out how shit worked. Now, there COULD be ways for members of the public to address such bullshittery....but these outfits have successfully convinced the American people over the past 40 years or so that we desperately need "lawsuit reform" and such, making a huge swath of meritorious claims -- and the chief mechanism for requiring bad actors to change their conduct -- into nonviable claims that never even get off the launchpad. Your state legislator is eating fancy steak dinners and smoking cuban cigars paid for with the premium dollars you paid for coverage (routed through a lobbyist, of course) instead of those dollars being used to pay your claims. The ROI was great -- the insurers spent $X to buy favorable laws, and as a result, saved/profited 10,000X. This is the part of the process where we remind the people that it's not just that the insurers fuck you, it's that you can't do a goddamned thing about it. Any possible path to seeking a redress of grievances has been so obstructed/removed/obliterated that the insurers are now answerable to no one. Except, of course, to the officials we keep voting for who are well-paid to keep that system firmly in place. We should insist on better. We should demand our officials allow for a system that gives human beings a voice and power, and we should refuse to vote for people who aren't on board with that. I ain't holding out much hope for that, are you?
  12. So….decades ago…had a jury trial where opposing counsel and I got rather combative. Often. Every day. He was a real fucker and thought he could bulldoze me. He couldn’t. But…the judge didn’t want us coming to blows in court, so he literally ordered us, on the record, to leave court at the end of the day, walk to the bar across the railroad tracks, and have drinks until we either fought or reached detente. It more or less worked.
  13. Yes. But that’s on you for sodomizing a whooping crane without a permit.
  14. Perhaps you missed the memo...."weasely" is the new "patriotic." Oh....and realize that also means that the 13th Amendment is not valid, either. And yes, they support kicking that one out too. MAKE SLAVERY GREAT AGAIN.
  15. They want to void the 14th because they contend it wasn’t properly ratified (the former confederate states were “under duress”). I am not kidding.
  16. Actually, for those of us who have been around that long.....on Hornfans, there WAS some live-blogging type stuff. Posters reaching out and communicating from NYC because that was the only way they could get messages out, etc. Historically, it was kind of fascinating.
  17. Dude. The issue of whether we live in a society with a functioning Rule of Law and mechanisms for an actual effective peaceful redress of grievances is MUCH larger than and predates TFG and his election. Yeah, there's perhaps one side of the political spectrum that pushes harder to make and keep things out of balance, but it's not like they're alone, and it's not like this isn't broadly systemic. We, as a society, have, over decades....built a terrible system of healthcare that traps people between the scylla and charibdis of "financial ruin/bankruptcy" and "die because you can't afford necessary medical care." And as a bonus, we reward a shitload of individuals with fabulous, multi-million dollar wealth for creating and maintaining that system. And to top it off, we make it functionally impossible for individuals to resolve their specific, individual issues with that system, or for society as a whole to change that system. Toss all of those things in a stewpot, and you you've got a system that fucks people to the point of financial ruin or death--take your pick--for massive profits, and there's nothing you can do about it. I asked this earlier in the thread, but I'll ask it again: when the bolded statement is true....what outcome did you expect? Pick up most any history book. From nation states to tribal societies, if you create a system that creates fabulous wealth for a very small group, not just leaving everyone else to suffer, but actually profiting from their suffering....what eventually happens? Like, it's the eventual outcome 100% of the time. So, in the present case, knowing how humanity and history work.....what did you expect to happen?
  18. We were Alamo people for a LONG time. Used to be able to get them in groceries, including here in Austin. No more. We go with the Mi Tienda now, they're good enough.
×
×
  • Create New...