True, we won’t tolerate a king. OTOH, more than a third of us are more than happy to tolerate a dictator.

As an American, I say Canada should retaliate by reinstating the Digital Services tax which will cost Google, Amazon, et al, billions. See how fast trumplestiltskin changes what’s left of his mind then.

The pricing is different for insured vs uninsured patients,

This is a good point to consider. It’s totally unfair, but providers can charge people without insurance basically whatever they want, a lot more money than they can charge people with insurance, because the ins. companies negotiate the max price that they can charge you.

Yes, I agree with that! HSAs are really good, especially if you’re healthy and not using the insurance. You don’t pay income tax on the money you put in it, and when you use it to pay for health expenses later, it’s also not taxed, so you never paid income tax on it. That’s like getting a 20 or 30% return on your money (or whatever tax bracket you were in and would have paid on it. So I suggest putting as much as you can into it and if your employer also puts some in that’s even better.

I did that for the last few years. So now I have to get some dental work done soon that’s going to cost over a thousand bucks and they’ll want the money the same day. I will just whip out the HSA card and pay it with that.

Make sure you get one that has an out of pocket limit (I think they all have to have a limit–mine was $7000, so if something big happens you’re out a max of 7K)

Gpodder has been around for ages and can do what you’re looking for. It’s probably in your distro’s repository.

They don’t have to think that that many people are going to physically come after them–they have to think that if that many peaceful people are against them, how many not-so-peaceful are also out there? They have to think that those millions of people are going to be on the side of and support those that do come after them and won’t cooperate with the regime. In other words, if something should happen, these millions of pacifists will have seen nothing, heard nothing, have no idea where the “terrorists” are hiding, etc.

They also have to worry that if millions turned out to peaceably protest, millions might also participate in a general strike or other large work stoppages, another means of peaceful protest that scares them more than just large crowds. Even the threat of labor being withheld scares the oligarchs. So ee need to make that happen. The mayor of Chicago has already called for it.

They also have to worry that millions might also take part in the upcoming Black(Out) Friday on Nov. 28th, another form of peaceful protest the day after Thanksgiving (some say it lasts for the whole week) when we refuse to shop at big box stores/big businesses, only buying from small/local businesses. That’s the weekend that most retail companies make the bulk of their annual sales.

And BTW it was very important that there was no violence at the protests–the regime had been putting out a lot of propaganda warning that it would be violent and that participants would be mostly “antifa terrorists”, “illegal immigrants” and “Hamas supporters”. They hoped to get some footage of violence they could spread and tout as proof of their assertions and were denied–everyone could see how ridiculous their claims were. That’s important.

Spanish wordplay: ¿Por qué está feliz la escoba? Porque siempre barriendo.

Translation: Why is the broom happy? Because it’s always sweeping (barriendo = sweeping, sounds like va riendo = goes around laughing)

That’s not the topic of this thread.

Even oligarchs and dictators can’t rewrite the rule of death.

Thanks Huff post, we need this idea to get talked about throughout the media and start gaining momentum. Even just the threat of a general strike will get a response, and any kind of work stoppages even if short of a general strike will cause enough disruption to get a response.

Good thing Newsom closed the road so no cars were moving on it. He knew they’d pull a stunt like this just to bully him.

It doesn’t matter that you just made a first down if there’s only 6 seconds left on the clock.

Yes! After all, how do the jack-booted thugs beat up people who aren’t even there?

You don’t have to have a revolution where some whole new government takes over from scratch–a new political party could be enough if enough support. I think most people want to keep the Constitution but with fixes to safeguard the freedoms it was supposed to guarantee, but turned out to be optional.

We can demand new elections and amendments to the constitution (probably via a Constitutional Convention), and until that can happen, legislation to prevent the executive branch from ever being able to take this much power again.

Reforms to demand would need to start with the most crucial, including things like those listed here. Especially stripping power from the oligarchs! by massively taxing them, overturning Citizens United, and allowing only publicly funded elections. Shoring up the checks and balances to fix the vulnerabilities we’ve learned the hard way. Expanding the Supreme Court to a fairly large number would also be important so our very rights don’t depend on something like one person not dying. Etc, etc. Ah well, I can dream, right?

[Chicago mayor Brandon] Johnson closed out his remarks by calling for a general strike.

Yes!. This is why the regime is scared of large peaceful protests–it tells them we are reaching enough support a stage a successful general strike. I’m glad to hear the mayor call for it! May the idea gain momentum.

The regime was really pushing their propaganda portraying the opposition as consisting of mostly “Hamas supporters”, “antifa terrorists”, marxists, etc. and to expect violence! But what they got was peaceful protestors, costumes, and kids in strollers. You can be sure teams of agents and right wing media are combing footage to find any violence they can possibly use, but it’s too late this time since everyone has seen the peaceful footage. Next time they’ll probably resort to rolling out some AI stuff.

BTW another important thing about these protests is alluded to in the article:

During the march, two protesters stood across from the Trump Tower handing out zines — small, often handmade, booklets — titled, “Why Escalation?” The zines discussed various methods of making protests more disruptive to the status quo — like blocking major roads and occupying buildings — as well as the role these methods played in the work of historical radical groups like the Black Panther Party. “It gives us a really good opportunity to reach people that we wouldn’t have reached otherwise,” one protester, Sarah, said about their decision to come to the No Kings protest.

1. No I don’t, I don’t have a smartphone and my phone only takes still pictures… But that is irrelevant.

2. You missed the entire point of my post, which is to suggest that someone take this propaganda video which is the topic of this thread, and make some edits to it that turns the tables so that it’s mocking trump.

3. I’m not interested in going down a rabbit hole arguing about how people who may decide to make additional, anti-magat videos should go about doing that.

Yes, but it’s easier and faster to do the slop–for those who know how to use it and/or are willing to pay for the subscription, which doesn’t include me but there must be plenty of people who can. So scripts, actors, production, time, editing can’t keep up with their method of just typing in prompts until posting the results.

Of course South Park and SNL and those who can do more professional stuff should keep doing what they’re doing, but meanwhile they are “flooding the zone” as they call it, and it works. Turning their slop-generated messaging (Trump is a king who humiliates his enemies by dropping shit on them from our mighty military jets) into our own messaging (trump is a doofus who shits his pants uncontrollably).

Oh, and in addition to the edits I suggested above, the crowd his shit falls on should all be wearing red MAGA hats and waving MAGA signs!

Can someone please take that video and have AI insert a cut to a shot of his diaper filling up, he gets a surprised “oh-uh” look on his face, then cut back to the original where the shit shoots out? Also maybe put a “Fisher-Price” label on the crown and a three stooges kind of look on his face?

Also I hate to encourage use of AI slop generators, but it looks like ‘our side’ needs to start making some mocking AI vids too.

Edit to add: I just thought of something else, the crowd his shit falls on should all be wearing red MAGA hats and waving MAGA signs. Some could be farmers holding signs saying Soybeans FOR SALE Cheap!

Part of the reason the SCOTUS has been avoiding ruling against trump is that they don’t want to be in that “Emperor has no clothes” position where he defies them with impunity and everyone sees that they have no power over him and his minions at all. The other part is that at least 4 of them are delighted by his actions and 2 are at least OK enough with what he does to go along with those 4.

Fluoride Disconnects One from God

OK, but at least one’s teeth are strong and healthy.