All Trump proved is that he is the social media-addicted racist uncle everyone has in their family. That is what he demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt.
WoodScientist
joined 1 week ago
Exactly. Maybe Steven Hawking is just really bad at throwing parties!
I would be inclined to agree. Schools themselves have wide latitude to police this type of thing, much wider than general criminal law could do. So I have no problem with the kid being suspended. The criminal charge on the other hand is another matter entirely. That seems like a clear 1st Amendment violation.
Trump signals support for reclassifying pot as a less dangerous drug, in line with Harris' position.
Oh don't worry, I'm sure they get Fox News in Hell.
The entire body of research on "housing first" disproves this classist bullshit. You are literally doing the exact thing OP is talking about. People HAVE done the research and found that giving people housing is the most effective way to help people. It is the most effective way to help people with drug addictions.
Most people do drugs because there is something objectively terrible about their lives. If you had to sleep on the sidewalk, wouldn't you want to get high all day? If you say no, you're delusional.
9 times out of 10, people are poor simply because they are poor, not because of some moral failing on their part. But instead we tell ourselves comforting lies that they must have done something wrong. We tell ourselves this because as long as we don't do those wrong things, we don't end up poor or homeless.
In truth, all that is necessary to be homeless is for the cost of housing to rise above the market value of your skill set. That is all. Or a severe illness is all that's really required.
An example of the law in Texas:
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.65.htm
There is no tuition at public schools. (K-12, ages 5-18 approximately.) There are private schools that some choose to enroll their kids in; often these are religious in nature. And these private schools do charge tuition. But children of a certain age are legally required to attend school of some form:
Most states do allow home schooling with various degrees of requirements therein. But yes, school attendance is required. If a 14 year old is just wandering down the sidewalk at a time they should be in school, they absolutely can be stopped by the police.
Shit. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get that surgery? When I got it, insurance didn't cover it. I had to fly to Thailand to afford it. Even with going overseas it was still about $18k USD including flights and everything. And that was in 2013 dollars. I worked my ass off to afford that. And that's to say nothing of the endless psych evals, therapist letters, and myriad other hoops you have to jump through. It is NOT something you can just stumble into, even if you had an unlimited budget behind you.
And I'll tell you, I was pretty young looking for my age. A bit into transition I was once walking down the street in the middle of the day on a weekday, and I literally had a cop stop me, thinking I was a high school student playing hookie from school. Meanwhile I was 24, having recently finished a masters degree.
My point is...if you could just walk into a high school and get surgery covered like that, and done no questions asked? I would have legitimately become one of those weirdos who fakes being a teenager and enrolls in a high school in their twenties. I probably could have pulled it off. I would have claimed to be a homeless kid, enrolled in a local high school, got the surgery, and then disappeared again. Compared to what I did go through to get it, that would be child's play.
Of course, idiots like Trump don't even realize how involved that surgery is. This is not some outpatient procedure you do in the morning and are up on your feet in the afternoon. Plan a month off of work. That's what it realistically involves. Then imagine paying for it and finding a way to arrange such an extended absence from the very job that allows you to afford it, all while also paying your regular bills and keeping a roof over your head.
For those who need it, gender reassignment surgery is literally life-saving. I can say that from personal experience. But to see ignorant fools like Trump make light of a thing that you had to work so hard to get?...I do not have the words to express it.
While I can't speak on the effectiveness of the strategy, I would point out that Harris et al. aren't really aiming to recruit Trump voters. They're more aiming for more traditional Reaganite Republicans, the "never Trump" people. Think of the type of Republicans like Dick Cheney. That's the type of Republican they're aiming for. They're not aiming to convince an active Trump supporter to flip to Harris. They're trying to get Republicans who don't want to vote for Trump, who would otherwise stay at home, to instead vote for Harris.
My own parents fit into this mold. They're in their sixties and voted for Republicans their entire adult lives, up until 2016. They voted third party in 2016, and in 2020 they switched over to supporting Biden, and now they support Harris and are voting for Democrats across the board.
Whether appealing to voters like my parents or trying to appeal to younger, more disaffected progressive voters is a better strategy, I can't say. But the perennial problem of appealing to hard-core progressive voters is that they are incredibly fickle and often engage in self-destructive purity testing. Look at the leftist voters refusing to vote for Harris over the Palestine issue. Far-left voters have a tendency to find any excuse not to vote for a candidate. It's Palestine this time around, but it could easily be something else. There's always some issue that the main Democratic candidate has that some leftists will cite as a reason not to vote for the mainline Democratic candidate. In 2024, it's Palestine. In 2020, it was Biden and the crime bill. In 2016, it was Hillary's treatment of Bernie. Etc. There's always a purity test violation a certain segment of far left voters will cite to vote against their own interests. They want a perfect candidate, and they will actively seek out any excuse not to vote for the mainline candidate. As no politician will share 100% of their views, there will always be some reason to not vote for them.
The reason Democrats often tilt to the right is that voters on the far left side of things are often short-sighted and incredibly fickle. They're not reliable voters.