The VA secretary already said a doctor can refuse to treat a veteran if they are an unmarried woman, among other things like atheism or being LGBTQ+. I can only imagine how hard anyone will have to fight for their benefits during this administration

I can never decided if Thomas or Roberts is worse. Sometimes I think Roberts has some standards, just exceptionally low/evil ones. While Thomas seems completely bought and paid for

Weird, all I’ve ever heard about is how high the suicide rate is among trans people, nothing about murder rate.

Also weird to consider “trans rights are human rights” to be nihilistic (Political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals)

Edit: I meant as in trans people murdering other people. Trans people are overwhelmingly victims of violence than perpetrators

He’s famous for creating a conservative organization while in college, called Turning Point USA. The org puts out a lot of smug memes to appeal to young conservative folks, so naturally people made fun of them and counter-memed.

He’s said a lot of very vile things, like “Black women don’t have the same kind of brain processing power” (paraphrased) when talking about how bad DEI is.

My BFF hadn’t heard of him either, but they curate their feeds to be mostly uplifting fluff, and they aren’t terminally online like I am lol. I was kind of surprised that he was the influencer that got shot though, I might have expected someone like Loomer or Fuentes

I’m not here to downplay those problems in China. They are serious. But, that’s not the government saying they don’t care about children, it’s saying that they have their own racist and bigoted political problems.

And, if you’ve paid any attention, the US is doing really similar things and has been for a long time. We made some progress with the Civil rights movement, but we still have Black people arrested at 2x the rate of white, 37% of the prison pop is Black while they only represent 13% of the general pop. The education system has all but erased the cultural roots of Black Americans, and God forbid a Black teen uses slang to communicate. Most of the sectioning off of voting areas in the US is to minimize their and other minority’s voting power. For now it’s still legal to say “Hey this influencer really made life bad for me, and I’m okay with him being dead”, but it may not remain legal for long. EPA regulations are being dissolved, but the biggest problems will affect traditionally/forced Black neighborhoods.

Where are you getting the idea that the government in China doesn’t care about their children?

Hey man, you’re the one that brought up rules. But while we’re talking about international rules, gene editing of embryos and their descendants is legal in the US if it’s privately funded. And it’s not illegal internationally to do so

Also, I’d be less worried about CRISPR specifically for this use, because it’s not always accurate, is limited in what it can actually do, and there are better gene editing tools now

But our side has rules, you assume they play by the rules.

China academia has the same problem that US academia has: publish or perish.

And seriously, you can’t say something like that and ignore all the BS the US government has been pulling internationally for decades. Trump murdered 14 random people on boats that weren’t even in US territory, and seemingly no one on the international stage gives a shit

I served during a war, but I’m not a combat veteran.

I think putting the focus on being a combat veteran to “earn” disability benefits is unfortunate, because there are things that can disable you even if you aren’t at war. I know a lot of people who have broken their backs during routine maintenance, some who lost hearing to insufficient hearing protection on a flight line, a few who lost limbs to snapping arresting wires, some who have had debilitating reproductive cancer at very young ages because of the chemicals we were exposed to.

But I know far more veterans who are like me and weren’t kept safe from their fellow soldiers/airmen/shipmates. I don’t know if it’s different now, but it was really common to just admin separate people who suffered what I did and not provide medical care. My command went so far as to tell me I was not a veteran and not to seek medical care or benefits when they gave me my discharge paperwork. They said that with straight faces, looking at me with my broken face and skull, bruised and sliced body, and barely able to stay awake because my brain was damaged.

Over 10% of female veterans have experienced what I did, 40% have experienced harassment, and about 5% of men also have the same kind of PTSD that comes from sexual trauma. Regardless of combat deployment status. That really points to an institutional problem with the military. So please, point at the commands when you want to take money away, instead of the people who are using the socialized Healthcare we signed contracts for in event of disability during service

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_War

I loved when they got tired of putting the eye candy in those scenes and started throwing in random characters like Porthos.

Americans for spending so much on wars and veteran benefits that are abused at historic levels as social media taught people how to get to or near 100% disability ratings and lawyers specialized in getting high disability ratings for their clients

This is the first I’m hearing of that. Though I admit I don’t use sm. I was given 100% for PTSD after going through an extremely stressful evaluation where the examiner deliberately triggered me several times. I say deliberate, but it was very subtle, if someone was faking it they wouldn’t have noticed or even reacted.

On the flip side, I have a friend who is missing 10% of his brain to an IED, can’t hear for shit, and can’t walk very far because the part of his brain that is missing controls autonomous breathing - he has to think about it or he doesn’t breathe. He was only given 30% and he honestly doesn’t have the resources or mental fortitude to keep trying to get the VA to take care of him.

I changed my name a few years ago and totally missed out on meme potential 😭

Amazing how they forgot what happened the first time

I struggle to tell light shades apart, especially if I need to name them. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, I’m just an idiot

Dirt is really expensive if you’re unemployed. Some herbs and veg are quite happily grown kratky style, but that also comes with its own challenges

My conspiracy theory is that they’ve fired all the people who monitored and screened communication/social media and replaced them with AI. The problem is violent threats and comments are so common in what it was trained on that the AI doesn’t know when there’s a problem

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They do not contradict each other. I’m certain there will be more stops as the city grows, because they keep improving it. I used to live in a city, in another state, with one of the best public transportation systems in the country, and they also kept improving that system to include the surrounding cities in other counties. Just because something isn’t perfect already does not mean we can’t take it seriously and strive for perfection

It’s a mile, and across an interstate exit, to my nearest bus stop. And I live in the only city in the enormous state that takes public transportation seriously.

I think I feel bad when I read articles like the ones you posted, before this I’d cross the distances and not think much of it because my last two cities didn’t have public transportation. Now I can’t cross fast enough to beat the crossing light, and it’s so incredibly unsafe if I fall. I feel like the problem, I guess

Man, I never used fast food, or drive throughs as much as I have since I developed a mobility disorder. Last week I put a pickup order in at my local coffee shop out of habit, and couldn’t carry both my coffee and the breakfast sandwich to my car at the same time. Which sounds so stupid, but it took so much extra energy for both trips into the store that I was ready to go home and call it a day after that lol

I know the answer is “don’t get fast food and just eat at home”, but I’ve also been so tired after work/school that I’m not eating, and I dunno what the answer to that is either. My state isn’t a place where people think about how to care for their communities, and most of it has hours of highway between “cities”