Did you mean to reply to me or am I misunderstanding? She is in Laos and that is her final destination. Laos has citizenship tied to parental citizenship, so I conceptually understand that she has a valid claim to Laos citizenship, but she didn’t even have documentation from there. What is your comment getting at?

I think anyone should have the right to opine on anything, but if you’re not even from the US I don’t know how you expect to understand what is and isn’t normal, especially for government jobs.

Society as a whole is not what we’re comparing it to. The whole point of them needing security detail should demonstrate how it’s not like other jobs for other industries. But even so, your initial comment seems to indicate you think it should be provided, but means tested. Now it seems you’re suggesting that the concept in general shouldn’t be done because “society DOESN’T provide”? So either you think it shouldn’t be provided to anyone, objectively a bad decision due to the large volume of credible death threats, or you think it should be provided to some, in which case the majority of my original comment still stands, mainly revolving around how to guarantee parity between public and private and if private security should be given the same leeway that public security is (hint: it shouldn’t).

Yea, the parties make it difficult, but the ones who make it through (AOC, Cori Bush, lots of young progressives) should not have the added stress of fearing they can’t afford security detail if needed. Or that their security detail has been defunded/stripped of its capabilities because rich congresspeople have to pay for theirs so they just made the government provided ones objectively useless. Again, it’s such a small part of our taxes that it shouldn’t even be a question. Kids should get lunches since they are legally required to be at school. Federal employees should get protection if their employment puts them at heightened risk. It’s really not that complicated. We have basically the same system the UK does.

Of course you didn’t answer any of the main points, but if you’re pro means testing we probably disagree to the point where your answers to those questions will be unacceptable to me as well. I thought about removing that line because I knew it would be the only part to prompt a response, and of course it is. Taxpayers footing the bill is one of the only things allowing it to be remotely competitive for poorer people. If politicians had to pay for their own X then they’d just make it so that the line was somewhere prohibitive for poorer people. If we as a society deem something needed as part of the day to day of a public job, then we should supply that thing to the people doing that job. Simple as that. The reason means testing is not in favor is because it doesn’t work. The system is gamed so it applies to everyone or no one depending on what’s better for the wealthy. Additionally of course, it’s stupid because you’re basically saying “you should get this” but for X reason we won’t give it to you. Whatever X reason, it’s almost always bad for society to deny people something that they would otherwise be entitled to. Unless found guilty of a crime, we should all have access to the same benefits our relevant peers do.

I wonder what went down for Laos to accept her. I guess her parents are from there but she was born in Thailand. In the article they mention that Laos is generally uncooperative with accepting deportations, so I am curious to see how it was even justified. People are just going to be sent wherever now? Obviously it’s disgusting no matter where they’re sent, but she’s not even from there!

Are we not against means testing? When I say I’m anti means testing I mean it. Who sets that threshold? What if the politician has $X with no family but another has $X with three kids? Is it per capita? If they can afford security for 2/3 kids do they just pick their favorite/least favorite? Do we still train the security detail? Do they have the same access to safety measures as government security personnel? Is that a world you want to live in where private security firms can close down buildings for the safety of an ex politician? Those people are not beholden to Americans, since they’re privately paid. What oversight are these private companies subjected to and who pays for that as oversight costs change? If we’re going to talk about how small a percentage of our budget feeding kids is, that should apply to keeping politicians safe if deemed necessary. Plus, imho I don’t think politicians should have to regularly and publicly disclose their net worth for the rest of their lives because they were elected to office at some point.

That used to be my belief until I saw reports to the contrary. I believe you can see in my comment history right after the election saying that Gaza was a big contributor, but basically all the analysis I’ve seen since points to that not being true, so I’ve changed my tune. Would love to see what you’re looking at for numbers/polls.

Definitely. And as soon as you say something leftist you’re accused of not voting or “throwing away your vote” so you can’t complain. Like, I get it. “Have the day you voted for” etc, but libs are pointing fingers at the wrong people. I’ve said it like a million times before, but sooo many of my leftist friends reluctantly voted Kamala when they were vehemently opposed to her stance on Palestine and now feel like they sold out for nothing. Like, at least if they hadn’t voted they could say they stood for something. Now they don’t even have a high horse to ride into the apocalypse on. The way libs will break your spirit is wild. They have more energy to fight leftists than republicans.

Maybe, but pride centering mostly attractive young cis white men has been a huge point for years, with (to my recollection) #prideSoWhite becoming a popular hashtag/rallying cry. I wasn’t on any social media outside of reddit at the time and even I saw people #prideSoWhite. Admittedly, both are issues, but I think the community understands that corpo sponsors are kinda necessary for the kind of pride people have become accustomed to, so generally the corpos get flack for sponsoring only a small “acceptable” portion of the community. I think asking community members to share the space with other community members has been the go to for resolving this, cuz you’re generally not gonna get corpos to sponsor them directly. I could be misreading their comment though.

Maybe where you’re at, but our pride was full of all colors of the rainbow and all walks of life. There were speeches from much older people talking about their joy when they were able to be married to their partner of several decades. There were people presenting from all over the gender spectrum. There were drag performers of all sizes and races and people who were just enjoying being themselves. There was a nonbinary artist with a beard in a dress that had a huge audience. It felt like a time to be around people who would love and accept you unconditionally.

To your point about the cis white gay men: There was a much older lady running a booth (not selling just handing out fliers) for a first time sponsor, and I had such a lovely chat with her. Her husband came to keep her company and they were both expressing how they never really knew much about LGBT stuff but seeing people there and the joy really affected her. I don’t know if she was anti lgbt before, but you could tell she was really moved by seeing people basically just being at a fair, but able to be themselves. She told me about a gay couple that stopped by with their kids and how happy the kids looked. She even asked me about the flags (our pride had like every lgbt flag under the sun as freebies). Sure, maybe she’s only affected by the hetero seeming people that fit into the cis white 2.5 kids mold, but I really think it had an impact on her. So, to your point, sure I won’t argue that the hot cis white guys are probably more visible/“palatable” at pride, but it’s still a really important event for the community as a whole, and it’s gotten more open and accepting every year.

I get it, but it would be great if we could’ve kept it as a party. The community has already fought so much. The floats were basically the only way some people understood that LGBT+ was mainstream and accepted now. Rainbow capitalism is bad, obviously, but it’s still devastating to see even that get taken away. Our roots should never have had to be resistance and it’s sad to see it’s come back to that. Same with several other communities. Having struggle be thrust upon you just by virtue of who you are is terrible for mental and physical health. I was looking forward to seeing the next generation thrive. I don’t want to see them in the trenches. I want them to party. I want them to celebrate. I want job fairs at pride to be full of the worst Fortune 500 companies desperately trying to recruit from the community. I want them to live normal lives where they’re not othered just for being and pride had evolved into a celebration of that.

Thank you!

If you get anything together for na’scrivas, I’d love to see it! I love all the sharing of world building that the internet has brought to the hobby. So many different groups will interact with the same NPCs or locations because their GM saw a post about them online and I think that’s so cool. Really adds to the shared language and community of the hobby.

I agree for the most part, but she did have some milquetoast neolib proposals that would have helped. Mostly things already seen in one form or another in Bidens build back better plan, but honestly it didn’t matter. Her rhetoric was weak and her campaign was poorly managed. I saw SOOOO many ads requesting donations (lady, I don’t have money to buy eggs and you’re buying ad space, the optics are bad) and not one of them said anything of substance. I say time and again that Bernie got people to donate time and money they didn’t have because they believed in his message. Kamala had no message. She had some plans, sure, but did not effectively communicate them. They were too little too late regardless, but it felt like her ads were lazy cash grabs that couldn’t even be bothered to give out empty promises.

For what it’s worth, almost all of them are ghost written. They tell someone some stories and sometimes what they want the narrative framing/arc to be and then never think about it again. I bet plenty of people have never even read their own books.

I’d really love for that to be the case (enough people caring about genocide to decide an election), but it just isn’t. The data shows that people on the left still came out to vote and she lost a bunch of centrist votes or people who are seen as “low information”/unmotivated voters. Those people don’t care about Palestine. They thought she was weird, or a DEI candidate, or just weren’t inspired to get up and vote for her. I’m not saying she needs to go more centrist, but people like populism and she just didn’t do it.

Honestly, her campaign already signaled that. This, if true, just reinforces it. It also reinforces that Biden was a bad leader, which he was.

Obligatory: I voted for Harris and Biden and dems down ticket every election since I’ve been old enough to vote.

A bit of a cop out, but I’ve been wanting to tinker with the homebrewery, so I just made a lil 1 page NPC sheet for fun. Not quite an encounter, not even a statblock lol, but I was tinkering so I figured I’d share.

Is “prone to collecting myths” a turn of phrase? I’ve never heard it before, but it goes hard imho. Makes me wanna build a ttrpg encounter around it.