AAAAAHHH!!!!

I'm getting too much money!

Does Zaslav wake up every morning thinking "hmm, what's the most tone-deaf thing I could possibly say to piss off the largest amount of people?"

I love the actual product, but loathe the attempts at feigning some sort of progressivism that always manages to put on blast the fact that its founder was a center-right Spanish politician.

Also, Hazel Southwell is literally right there.

One of the worst parts is that there are many valid reasons to criticize Bill Gates with regards to the COVID vaccine (mainly as it pertains to his intellectual property crusade leading to a few companies getting to dictate the rollout and screwing over the Global South in the process), but it's all drowned out by these idiots screaming about microchips.

And you plan to do what different, exactly?

Up until that point, I was a naive centrist that thought sane liberalism would win out. That election single-handedly destroyed that view and slammed me hard to the left.

Why did we have to fight a war to stop people from owning people of a different race?

That sounds like the other side of my dad's experience. He was a mid-level district manager whose primary job, alongside managing a district of grocery stores under a certain Ohio-based conglomerate, was serving as the barrier between the incompetent good-ol-boys C-suite and the people who actually know what they are doing. The two worst offenders were his immediate boss, the regional VP who we'll call Jane, and the company VP, who we'll call James. James was probably the biggest Trump fan, in that he mimicked his behavior: a chauvinist braggart who was quick to anger and honestly had no right to be that high up aside from his relationships. Promotions for him were a way to reward his friends or those who... "accommodated" him, like one store manager who, despite having not passed the evaluation, still got a store director promotion due to his intervention. Jane, meanwhile, was a kiss-ass whose management style started and ended at anger and threats. Both were Dunning-Kruger personified and my dad had to spend most of his time taking their useless and unrealistic demands and translating them into something halfway-workable in the store, while making sure the managers were ready to revert to whatever dumbass preferences they had the instant one of the two came in for a store walk (something they only did when absolutely required around the holidays, because god forbid they actually manage or something).

He was successful at serving as the barrier, and he commanded immense respect within the district, to the point that when I got my first job working in an adjacent district, the managers (many of whom were hired away from competitors by my dad when the store was still under his purview) still spent a lot of time talking about how much they respected him. That said, he could only take so much, and he knew he had no chance of promotion as long as he stayed there. A while back, he finally got a chance for change, as there was an opening working for the flagship brand of the conglomerate. It was a lateral move, but there was a chance for upward mobility, it was halfway across the country in a place with better weather, and, most importantly, it offered a chance to get the hell away from James and Jane. However, that meant the barrier he erected was gone, and all of a sudden, the micromanagement and bullshit of the c-suite was unleashed on his district. While corporate was happy to get an opponent to their reign of terror brilliance out of their way, the actual rank-and-file, many of whom still remained good friends with my dad, could barely stand it. Every week was a new update on which store manager or department manager ended up quittinf and going to which competitor, all because James and Jane just couldn't help themselves.

(As an aside, and just to give an idea of my dad's management capabilities, when his replacement (a toady who had tried and failed to undermine him and get him fired) himself got fired due to someone needing to get thrown under the bus a pretty bad manager evaluation error, the store managers started calling him for advice, and he basically ended up spending his free time serving as unofficial district manager from halfway across the country as a favor to his old store managers. While appreciated, it did not stop the shitstorm.)

While the exodus was pretty bad, it looks like it ended up being pretty short-lived. Right before he left, the conglomerate installed a new president hired from outside of the company. James was supposed to be the next in line if looking at the company hierarchy, but was passed over. (Another aside, they needed some fresh ideas badly. Even beyond the c-suite fuckery, the company in general was stubborn and overly set in its ways, even rejecting some ideas about tech and home shopping from the conglomerate that would have dragged them into the 21st century in favor of continuing to do things "their way"). The new president took a few months to get situated, but when she finally got adjusted, heads started rolling. First, James. I still don't have all of the details, but he was gone a few months after my dad left. Maybe the misconduct caught up to him, maybe he was still livid about not getting the promotion, maybe it had to do with his son (also an unqualified store manager. Go figure) getting arrested for assault.

As soon as he left, it was only a matter of time for Jane, and about 6 months later, she was gone. According to her Facebook, she left to "go into teaching" (a lot of incredulous laughter was shared at the dinner table when he read that), but we all knew what happened: the exodus was bad in the region, and now that James couldn't protect her, and after some time to see if she would adjust or remain the same, the president presented her with two options: quietly walk away, or receive a not-so-quiet boot out the door. Either way, the worst of the worst was gone, but the damage was done. A lot of good managers left in the year after my dad left the company, and regaining that level of talent assembled will take a long time, especially as other competitors are eyeing expansion into that district.

As for my dad, he's doing great with the conglomerate, has built up a similar rapport with his new managers, and may have a promotion on the way (especially if the FTC decides to not do its job and permits a large merger to go through).

Don't forget the racism. The NRA's perfectly fine with throwing away gun rights if it means making sure only white people are armed. For example, even as Harlon Carter was ramping up his crusade to turn the NRA from a sportsman's organization into the gun lobby, the NRA still supported the Mulford Act, because at least that was taking guns away from those damn ni- I mean, "violent extremists". They were dead silent when a legal, responsible gun owner like Philando Castile was killed. They never said anything when the textbook definition of a "good guy with a gun", Emantic Bradford, was killed. And we all know damn well why.

The Harlon Carter school of gun rights comes with a major caveat present in many strains of conservatism: no restrictions as long as you're part of the right group.

I will say this though, the issue is still pretty complicated, because basically both sides have some history of racism (gun control first started as ways to assuage fears of black uprisings, plus the aforementioned Mulford Act), but then, what part of American society isn't in some way permeated by our racist history?

As far as I'm aware, neither of the striking unions have called for a consumer boycott.

I once waited 3.5 hours for free pancakes at IHOP. I had a shit week and just wanted some free pancakes, but they accidentally crossed my name out before even seating me, so I saw multiple groups arrive after, eat, and leave before my dumbass thought "maybe I should say something."

Also, my phone was dead for the last 2 hours of that.

You know who else could benefit from listening to Behind the Bastards.

The products and services that support this comment.

Actually, nevermind, that would be too good of an ad transition.

The bombs don't avoid gay Palestinians.

At the same time, I see why they'd doubt this, given it sounds similar to the rash of articles about stores closing in cities because of "out-of-control crime" before the midterms, only for the real reasons like corporate reorganization or unionbusting to trickle out later.

There's a certain irony in Google only being useful to find Reddit links, but Reddit's own search engine being so dogshit that you can't find anything on the site unless you Google it

This is the "progressive savior" Dore fans are touting

There's always a rotating villain...

It also doesn't help that Appalachia has basically been reduced to an internal resource colony. Never mind the people who actually live there, its only purpose has been extraction, and everything was built around that. Yes it's brutal, but it paid well. When that dries up it's basically an existential threat. It's not just a case of being set in their ways.

To me, there's little difference between the desire in Appalachia to bring back coal and the desire to bring back factories from overseas.

The fact that Hyundai and Kia chose not to include an industry standard anti-theft system, leading to them being piss easy to steal

Simple reason: the base is rabid for Trump, and Trump is extremely vindictive. Cross him, and your grasp on power is gone. Cozy up to him, and you get just a bit more power, which is all these ghouls care about.

95% of them don't believe in anything except whatever gets them ahead.

The death of 4 is aquatic praxis

I wouldn't go that far. At this point, demographics, political inertia, and Manchin's growing local unpopularity basically mean WV is a lost cause barring some miracle

I still don't know how he keeps winning even as the county gets bluer and bluer

APAB, no exceptions

The sheriff is a Democrat

But if we criticize their criminality and hypocrisy, then they'll lose.

They certainly won't lose because of said criminality and hypocrisy, no. It's because we couldn't shut the fuck up and gawk at the other side

Either the rest of your music taste is terrifyingly eclectic, or you're just gay

Or forced to be inadequate, in the case of Baltimore.

We were supposed to get a new east-west light rail line. It was shovel-ready and federally funded. However, our wonderful governor Larry Hogan, in his push to punish those Baltimore ni- I mean, apply his fiscal conservative bona fides, canceled it, calling it a "boondoggle". Instead of this "boondoggle", Hogan threw his support behind the Purple Line, a similar light rail proposal to connect the whiter, wealthier suburbs in Montgomery and PG Counties. It was funded by public-private partnerships and ended up the subject of land disputes, went billions over budget, and is only just finally getting off the ground.

He also pushed for highway expansion projects that just so happened to benefit his real estate investments, but we don't begrudge him for that for reasons of...

And more horrifyingly: polling might not mean much this far out, but right now, the CPC is leading. Big. Skippy is terrifying, and terrifyingly close to power.

Reading this, part of me wishes his wife wasn't barred from doing anything during the trial. Another part of me knows she'd probably be on some "stand by your man" bullshit because it's politically expedient.

To paraphrase Marco Rubio, "Let's dispel with the notion that [these fascists] don't know what they're doing. [They] know exactly what they're doing."

We like to think they're dumb Bible-thumping hicks, when the people doing this are well-connected Ivy League graduates who have been planning this destruction for half a century now. They know words mean fuck all, they know rules mean fuck all, they know all that matters is exercising power, and the sooner Democrats wake up to the fact that they aren't playing the same game, the sooner they can fight.

I mean, they won't, because best case that would involve growing a spine, worst case they have similar interests (benefit the wealthiest and most powerful), but it's nice to imagine.

Half-eaten hot bar food/sushi stashed behind an endcap of Diet Sprite was my personal favorite to find

Womp womp

An added bonus: he was recommended for the job by the Maryland Republican Party. Surprising if you only know the party based on Larry Hogan, not surprising if you look at the top of the ballot during the last election cycle.

Can't wait to see how they fuck this up just to make sure progessives get fucked harder.

Also really don't want to get lectured on race relations when this is how they celebrate Christmas

Yeah, the name's sort-of left over from the post-revolution era. They used to be social democrats, then moved pretty quickly to the right, especially after all the liberals gravitated towards it in the 80s

Some of the smaller racing subs, especially IndyCar and MotoGP

Issue:

Is it just me, or has "Hot" not refreshed with any new posts in over a day? I know there are posts coming in, but my Subscribed, Local, and All feeds have been static when sorting by "Hot".

edit: I think it's fixed on my end. I'm finally seeing newer stuff when sorting by Hot

She has to be trying to pander to the "No Labels" crowd, because I'm pretty sure they're the only ones left who like her. The GOP are now in decade 3 of their smear campaign against her, and Democrats just want her to go the fuck away after fumbling 2016 away.