My wife is taking a college course on different healthcare systems around the world and literally every single one is a vast improvement over what we have in the US. Obviously Canada and UK are better, but Japan? New Zealand? Singapore? Yep, yep, and holy shit yep. There’s truly just not a developed country with a worse system. We pay way more for (usually) way worse care. And I think most of us are too brainwashed to ever believe that we deserve anything significantly better. A combination of “what’s the catch” and inexplicable shame (or I guess pride) for accepting help that’s for people who need it more.

The DNC needs to be shouting from rooftops about this in Virginia. Republicans at the federal level are about to withhold your lifeline. Voice your disapproval at the ballot box next week and put Democrats in at the state level so that you can get some help from the state when the federal fails you.

A lot of this state is not Nova and Richmond. There will be a lot of pain from this in many rural communities, and it’s important to get the messaging out asap. And I’m sure Virginia isn’t the only state that does odd year state elections, but this one should be easy to swing blue.

Well yeah. Duh. The far right fiercely demonizes the concept of empathy, therefore exhibiting and teaching empathy must be far left.

Their whole platform is to move money from the poor to the wealthy. They trick some of the poor into supporting this by being vehemently opposed to whatever the adults in the room want to do. Psychologically and mentally speaking, conservative voters are edgy, rebellious teenagers fighting against the tyranny of their dad without understanding that dad set the rules because they’re incapable of succeeding without rules being set for them, so they vote for their older brother to punch dad in the mouth and remove all the rules, and then the older brother just says fuck you, cook your own dinner, and btw that xbox belongs to me now since I’m the man of the house. But at least there’s no bedtime now, so that’s cool I guess? And their little sister now just goes to school, does chores, and isn’t allowed to go out anymore, but that’s fine because that’s her place, and if she wanted a better deal, she’d work hard to earn it, so she must just be lazier than them.

Yes, but also these are pretrial detainees, as in not yet convicted of any crime. Article 1 of the 13th amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (emphasis my own)