https://twitter.com/georgetakei/status/1662638014856589315

Kevin: We’re holding the economy hostage!

Joe: You won’t pull the trigger.

Kevin: I really don’t want to.

Joe: Sit down. We’ll do the budget like we normally do, just earlier.

Kevin: No new taxes!

Joe: You control the House. There would have been no new taxes anyway.

Kevin: Spending freeze!

Joe: There would have been a spending freeze anyway.

Kevin: Okay.

Joe: Here’s a budget. It looks like what we’d arrive at later anyway, right?

Kevin: Right.

Joe: We good?

Kevin: Uh, yes? I may need help getting it passed. My people hate me.

Joe: We understand. Hey, Hakeem, can you help Kevin out?

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the Citibike rental kerfuffle, in which a woman who was assigned a rental bike is being accused of being a racist Karen because she didn't allow a group of teens to take the bike she'd just rented.

If you're not familiar with the story, google it.

For people blaming the woman - who had just completed a 12-hour shift as a Physicians Assistant at Bellevue Hospital in NYC - I'm curious.

Would you hand over a car you'd just rented?

It seems to be an exact analogy.

I go to Hertz and rent a car. A kiosk gives me paperwork with the license plate of the exact car I've rented. There is no human clerk. I rented the car using an app. If I don't return it, I owe Hertz for the value of the car. I walk up to the car I've been assigned, in its numbered space, and a stranger is standing next to the car, saying it's really theirs. I say, nope, this is the car I was assigned by Hertz. I get in it. The stranger and their four buddies surround the car and prevent me from leaving. I'm startled, confused, scared. I ask them to back off and leave me alone.

They start filming me. They upload the video to the internet and accuse me of being a racist Karen.

Would you hand over the car to the stranger?

He's that mean weird kid who followed the bullies around in middle school, hoping that they would include him.

The bullies used him as a tool to pick on their enemies. There was nothing he wouldn't do in his pathetic and futile attempt to be included, no cruelty too extreme, no self-debasement too far. In the end nobody liked him. The bullies thought he was pathetic and excluded him from their inner circle. Everybody else loathed him.

He didn't recognize any of that. He sniggered and giggled and acted conceited, and when he got caught doing mean stupid things he whined and blamed others.

As yet another mass murder destroys people's lives, I wonder who MTG, Lauren Boebert, Tucker Carlson and the rest will blame this time?

Transgender? Apparently not this time.
Minority? Apparently not this time.
Woman? Nope.

Well, Marge?

I'm going to a Super Bowl party tonight. I used to watch college football but I've never watched much pro ball and things have been pretty busy in my life lately so I literally had to look up who is playing tonight.

If anyone feels like giving a summary of the two teams, what to watch for tonight, etc., I would be grateful!

Joe Biden is turning out to be exactly the president America needs right now. With literally everything - including the immediate future of the planet itself - hanging in the balance, we need a fighter.

Keep telling it like it is, Joe. You're talking to me and millions of us.

(And props to Beto and Fetterman for their plain talk campaigns, too. And that Native woman in Alaska who just beat Sarah Palin.)

P.S. To the MSM: we're not buying what you're selling anymore. The editorial board of the Washington Post - I'm talking to you. We're at war for our democracy. What side are you on?

If you hear or read something that makes you think less of Democrats, think about who stands to gain if Republicans take over Congress in this fall's elections. There's a lot at stake. Who will make billions of dollars if the Republicans are allowed to fully enact their sociopathic plans?

The invasion of Ukraine isn't going well for Putin. Who would he want back in the White House?

If Republicans take back the majority in just one house of Congress, they will block every single effort by Biden. Biden will be blamed for everything that happens and Trump or someone like Trump will be elected in 2024.

Your friends, relatives, online buddies may be well-meaning but the propaganda is real, it's everywhere, and it's designed to be very persuasive. Beware of the agenda behind negativity aimed at Democrats.

https://twitter.com/julie_from_ohio/status/1504241448526438406?s=21

The first response is right on target. I know many people are frustrated that the Democratic Party isn't progressive enough. But the problem I see with some of the alternatives - such as the Democratic Socialists - is that the very real lived experience of black and brown people is ignored and even - as in this case - mocked by white people who consider themselves "progressive."

Do better. Be better. Even this older white woman knows that discrimination against black people for the way they choose to wear their hair is real. And it's deeply racist.

For folks who wonder why us LGBT people care when videographers, photographers, bakers, and other businesses discriminate against us, please read this article.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article250821389.html

A Charlotte videographer who had contracted to capture images of a wedding this month in Hendersonville walked out as the ceremony started when he realized the couple getting married were both women.

Bride Clarissa Templeton said Seth Curl’s sudden departure — without speaking to anyone at the event — was devastating to her and her now wife, Teegan Bullock Templeton. It cast a pall over their once-in-a-lifetime moment and left them with no professional footage of their vows, though they had paid in full for the service.

.....

As she was selecting vendors for the wedding, Templeton said, she was careful to search for LGBTQ-friendly businesses and as she talked to their representatives, made sure they knew she was planning a same-sex wedding.

Templeton did that, she said, “Because of where I live and how I’ve grown up and the people I’ve been around, the things I have experienced from people who don’t know me, because of who I love and who I’m with.”