ck4829
ck4829's JournalIs it time to retire phrases like "law and order" and "tough on crime" from the political lexicon?
I remember seeing that it was time to stop using *checks notes* as a thing...
There may be nothing Twitter is better at than taking a reasonably funny joke and running it into the ground. Recall the whiplash of “Big Dick Energy,” a concept that went from clever to annoying in the space of about 24 hours flat. But not all Twitterisms follow that same trajectory of white-hot viral moment and subsequent spectacular flameout; some of them earn a place in the Twitter vernacular so gradually you barely notice and then become tired just as imperceptibly. All of a sudden, you wake up one August slow-news day and decide that’s it—you never want to see another person do a *checks notes* gag on Twitter ever again.
*Checks notes* had a good run. For the uninitiated, the construction, which sometimes takes the form of (checks notes), is used to indicate that a person has paused what he is saying to make sure he is reading his notes correctly, because he can’t quite believe what’s coming out of his mouth. It’s usually part of some faux-dialogue a tweeter is making up, which is a common practice in tweets. (No one is actually checking any notes; no one even has any notes! The notes only exist for the purpose of the joke.) Some advanced searches reveal that the note-check existed as a tweet format before the dividing line that is the 2016 presidential election, but the last two years are when it really kicked into high gear. It’s sometimes accompanied by a *squints at teleprompter* or similar stage directions for good measure.
If an example will help, see how much-followed journalist Ken Klippenstein recently employed it in a (pretty good) Space Force joke:
Gov't: Sorry we can't give you healthcare, we had to stick to absolute necessities like (checks notes) a Space Force
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 9, 2018
Above, Klippenstein is pointing out the irony of the Trump administration’s interest in a pie-in-the-sky nutty project like Space Force, when, hello, what about health care? At the same time, he is drawing attention to politicians’ habit of sticking to party lines that don’t hold up to any sort of scrutiny. It’s also about a total unwillingness to deviate from a previously agreed-upon script. *Checks notes*, asterisks and all, is basically just a way of asking, “Can you believe this shit?” It’s a completely appropriate cliché for our current moment, populated as it is by politicians who are forever trying to steamroll their way through obvious contradictions; there’s no disputing that. It’s just that at this point, it’s incredibly overdone.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/checks-notes-was-the-perfect-trump-era-twitter-joke-lets-let-it-die.html
"Will not die"
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/checks-notes-meme/
"Bit annoyed" by hearing/seeing it
https://www.reddit.com/r/PetPeeves/comments/1ebseej/people_who_say_checks_notes/
"dumb", "Played out"
https://www.resetera.com/threads/one-meme-thats-dumb-is-the-check-notes-check-notes-meme.172613/page-2
Really?
So I guess I'll be the first person to ask because you know the media is not doing it...
With a convicted and sentenced felon now as the president-elect, is it time to retire the phrases "law and order" and "tough on crime" as they have lost their meaning?
No legitimate president will attack or invade a NATO country
NATO comes before "respect for the office of the president" in my book.
Let's start here: It should be official Democratic Party policy to support and defend any member of the military that refuses Trump's orders to attack or invade another member of NATO without provocation.
Monopoly money isn't real money. You know what else isn't real money? How your medical costs are calculated.
A backpack believed to belong to the man who fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was discovered in Manhattan's Central Park containing Monopoly money, multiple outlets reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Following the Wednesday, Dec. 4, killing of Thompson, 50, outside the New York Hilton Midtown, NBC News, ABC News and The New York Post reported on Saturday, Dec. 7 that the New York Police Department (NYPD) has since recovered a gray backpack officials believe may have belonged to the shooting suspect — who has still not been identified.
https://people.com/monopoly-money-found-in-backpack-believed-to-belong-to-unitedhealthcare-shooter-reports-8757955
Monopoly money is, of course, not actual money. You can't use it for goods and services, it has value really only in the context of a board game.
So what goes into your medical bills? What creates their value?
What is behind us spending much more on other countries in this chart, but living shorter lives?
When someone declares bankruptcy because of medical bills, they are declaring bankruptcy over medical bills yes, but how was the number reached?
When someone's wages are being garnished, how exactly is that amount that needs to be garnished obtained in the first place?
When medical debt collectors are going after someone to pay medical bills they bought to collect on, what exactly are they pursuing?
You might not like the answer...
For far too many cases, it is pretty much a random number that is very high.
Yet another TikTok video calling out the notoriously expensive U.S. healthcare system is going viral on social media. Shared by Adam Conover, a comedian and former host of the informative program "Adam Ruins Everything," in response to another TikTok about how medical bills mysteriously shrink when the patient asks for an itemized receipt, the one-minute clip explains why this suspicious phenomenon happens. The original video was posted by a TikTok user named Tre'jon Wilson and it shows him drinking something while the text overlay ponders whether the American healthcare system is a scam.
"Tell me why my hospital bill went from $4,000 to $950 all because I asked for a receipt and a list of everything I was being charged for," the overlay text reads. "They lowered my bill by 76%. Is it me or our health care system is a scam?" Conover took it upon himself to answer this question by stitching the original video and explaining why so many hospital bills are massive and why the charges seem to vanish when patients challenge them with the hospitals. "It's because the numbers on every hospital or doctor bill are straight-up fake and made up," Conover says in the video.
"If you have insurance, your hospital has to negotiate with the insurance company for the price of the services," he continues. "So they set these super high ridiculous numbers as a starting point for that negotiation. The insurance company says, 'bulls**t, we're paying you a third of that.' They haggle a bit and decide on a number.'" Conover goes on to explain why this system has the power to ruin lives. "Here's the f**ked up part. If you don't have insurance, the hospital still put that original, ridiculously high, just for negotiation number on your bill," he says in the video.
"So you could easily end up paying three, five, even ten times what the procedure actually costs," he notes. "The next time you get a medical bill, make sure you negotiate. There are even non-profits called medical billing advocates that will help you negotiate." Conover ends the video by directing people to an episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" titled "The Real Reason Hospitals Are So Expensive," in which he goes into detail about the questionable practices behind medical billing. His TikTok video touched a raw nerve for those already dissatisfied with the American healthcare system and many confirmed that negotiating the ridiculous amounts mentioned in hospital bills has brought them down to a much lower number.
https://scoop.upworthy.com/tiktok-user-explain-why-hospital-bills-shrink-when-asked-itemized-receipt
Danilo Manimtim, who has a job evaluating disability claims for the state of California, knows the health care system and keeps tabs on his health benefits. He knew he already had met his health insurance deductible for the year, so he expected a manageable out-of-pocket expense for the surgery. He calculated his coinsurance would be about $750.
Then the bills came. ($4057)
Manimtim's big bill stems from a simple decision that turned out to be a pitfall in the nation's complicated health care system: He scheduled his surgery at a nearby hospital — a hospital that happened to charge about $7,000 more for the procedure than his insurer would pay.
Manimtim has proof that it could have been different right under his own roof: Four months later, his wife, Marilou Manimtim, 66, got the exact same procedure at an outpatient eye care surgical center in Fresno called EYE-Q. It is a half-mile from Saint Agnes Medical Center but is not affiliated with the hospital. (And she was billed $204)
https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2022/06/27/he-and-his-wife-both-got-cataract-surgery-his-bill-was-20-times-higher-than-hers
And one more that is also interesting, a group of people in Oklahoma wanted to buy patient debts off of hospitals in the area to forgive them. Hospitals in Oklahoma said "pass" though. Why? As a person in the group pointed out, the hospitals have no problem selling the debts to debt collectors, but why not them? A debt collector would not ask questions about the debt, but I think a person in the field of debt forgiveness would ask what exactly are they forgiving.
https://democraticunderground.com/1033804
And insurance is part of the scam.
You're going bankrupt, you're e-begging on GoFundMe, you're getting your wages garnished, and you're going to an early grave... and it's for a lie.
Murcwashing
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/12/great-moments-murcs-law
https://whereofonecanspeak.com/2023/03/02/youve-probably-never-heard-of-murcs-law-but-youve-seen-it-in-action-lots-of-times/
We're no longer at Murc's Law, we're at Murcwashing.
What is Murcwashing?
Look at this...
Republicans have the White House.
Republicans have the Senate.
Republicans have the House.
And yet, AND YET, the onus will still be on Democrats, everything Republicans do that is bad or things they are supposed to be doing but are not happening, according to the pundits and the media will be a reaction to Democrats by Republicans.
Despite the Republican trifecta, Democrats will be the ones with agency or causal influence over American politics.
Murcwashing.
Expect it, call it out.
You can get some pretty cool scientific swag from Fisher Scientific (From 2022)
You can get tubes, test tubes, tubes designed for immunological assays, you got flasks, cell culture flasks, you can get some Erlenmeyer flasks, it's the place to get some beakers, if you want sera for some reason, vials, and you can get some histology stuff.
What's the point of this post?
Well you see, this is the amazing thing about ALL of these items... You can photograph them. You can make videos of them. You can hold them. You can look at the labels on them. You can compare them to other samples. You can even take a little bit out of them to do your own science stuff on them. And if nobody believes you, can hold it up to the world and say "Look at this! Look at it! It exists! It is real!"
Amazing, right?
Something more physical and substantial than "Dude trust me" or "Just take Russia's word for it about the biolabs" and isn't that amazing? Right, Tucker Carlson? Right, Tulsi Gabbard? Right, QAnon acolytes?
https://democraticunderground.com/100216486105
Nothing other than changing some text into bold and adding a link was changed from this post from 2022
Oh hi, did you know that incoming DNI Tulsi Gabbard mindlessly agreed with "They're putting litter boxes in schools"?
At least 20 conservative candidates and elected officials have claimed this year that K-12 schools are placing litter boxes on campus or making other accommodations for students who identify as cats, according to an NBC News review of public statements.
Every school district that has been named by those 20 politicians said either to NBC News or in public statements that these claims are untrue. There is no evidence that any school has deployed litter boxes for students to use because they identify as cats.
But the claim has taken on a life of its own among a growing number of Republicans, conservative influencers and political commentators. In an episode of Spotify’s “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast this week, host Joe Rogan told former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard that a litter box was installed in a school that his friend’s wife worked at for a girl who “identifies as an animal.” A clip of the discussion quickly began to circulate on social media. Rogan did not name the school, and his publicist did not respond to a request for comment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/urban-myth-litter-boxes-schools-became-gop-talking-point-rcna51439
Notice the bold part, that's important for later on.
And here is the exchange:
JOE ROGAN (HOST): How did anybody allow it to get this far? Who? Are there no adults in the room? I mean, that's a big expression, right?
TULSI GABBARD (FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE): It is.
ROGAN: That was the thing that everyone said we were going to love about the Biden administration.
GABBARD: Right.
https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/joe-rogan-and-tulsi-gabbard-spread-debunked-internet-hoax-students-are-using
https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-rogan-admits-he-lied-about-schools-using-litter-boxes-for-furries-student/
Joe Rogan admits schools don’t have litter boxes for kids who ‘identify’ as furries
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/nov/04/joe-rogan-school-litter-boxes-kids-furries-gender
And here's the comment from Tulsi Gabbard about her realizing her mistake when she agreed to a lie by Joe Rogan that he admitted was a lie...
It's funny how these billionaires are supposedly so smart and so successful, and yet nobody will *ever* say...
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we finally have universal healthcare"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we eradicated measles/polio/HIV/cancer"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we have free college"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we have a truly responsive and participatory democracy that is the envy of the world"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we have eliminated childhood hunger"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we no longer have the 'freedom' of going bankrupt from medical bills"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we really are #1 in education/healthcare/infrastructure/anything really"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we no longer have to put off health checks or therapy because of a fear of the cost"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we finally have Putin facing accountability in the Hague"
"Thanks to these billionaires influencing our politics, we have housing for all"
I am confident that these phrases will never appear out of our media, because they will never happen because billionaires influenced our politics. I am so confident in this that you can save this, bookmark this, print it out, posters and lurkers alike, keep it handy because the first person who shows me a something that does in fact demonstrate one of these things, I will PayPal or Zelle them MONEY.
The hunt is on.
Maybe it's time to embrace being hated, give them something to cry about
I mean, if they love Russia even though Russia despises them and you're a complete monster for valuing human life over healthcare profits and knowing words bigger than one syllable, then why bother, right?
But I love politics, I love change, reform, and making things better. So maybe it's time to go about it the other way.
I have no intention of getting out of the country, so maybe it's time for fun. If they're going to be absurd, then be absurd back. A large enough chunk of the voting base has shown us they don't care about efforts to reach out, so no more reaching out.
Instead of reaching out, smack the back of their head. Dope slap!
They complain about the "smug, condescending liberal"
Nah, I want to be worse. Let's shoot for this time next year, the "smug, condescending liberal" will be seen as the "good old days".
When the Republican trifecta messes up, and they will, this will be me when people are looking for a bailout...
* I'm going to encourage jury nullification for any nonsense law based off of conservative vibes instead of science, logic, and reason. That's right, it's cool.
* Healthcare reform? I'm going to encourage a "not paying" movement. Don't pay medical bills or if you do, pay as slowly as possible. Hey, did you know that when you are e-begging on GoFundMe to pay for those medical bills or declaring bankruptcy over them that they would be called fraudulent in other sectors and those bills end up paying, not for cutting edge research, but for spas and stadiums? Oh yeah. Whoops. I guess the cat's out of the bag.
* And no, I'm not abandoning the "woke" people, the transgender community, or Haitian-Americans. Sorr-- actually, I'm not sorry.
"Oh no, but we'll never win an election again!" I'm done trying to impress the people in the first paragraph and you should be too.
If you don't like it, you can kindly excise (scary word alert: that means to cut out or remove) me from the political landscape. And if you do, let's keep in touch.
This election did remind me how meaningless money actually is
It’s just paper.
How much power money has is only from a shared agreement between us… it’s a social construct.
So, having the bigger war chest or having the better fundraising apparatus translating into nothing should be a reminder that maybe the same thing feeding that war chest shouldn’t be a factor in deciding the quality of healthcare you get or whether you are housed or not.
Meaningless here, meaningless there.
Scary words are not why Democrats lost
This is a rebuttal to:
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=19683236
I'm sorry, rebuttal too big and scary? "Here is why I disagree"'
Still too big and scary? I'm sorry, "WRONG, FAKE NEWS"
You can say the same thing about "woke" or "deep state". There's no way you are going to that same place and ask one hundred people to define "woke" or "deep state" and get a solid consistent definition between the lot of them, a good portion will not even know what you are talking about. Republicans ran on words they themselves can't even define.
I'm pretty sure I've heard the word "transgender" come out of my television more times in the past few months by Republicans than in the past couple of years by anyone and everyone else else. Mindlessly drumming up fear by chanting "transgender" did not stop Republicans so I truly doubt that "cisgender" hurt us.
...
I'm not going to lobotomize myself or participate in Orwellian newspeak, I'm not sure what led to this mess, but this, this will not lead to winning in any form. If anything, it is surrender.
In the appendix to the novel, "The Principles of Newspeak", Orwell explains that Newspeak follows most rules of English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. The political contractions of Newspeak — Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty) — are similar to Nazi and Soviet contractions in the 20th century, such as Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), politburo (Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Comintern (Communist International), kolkhoz (collective farm), and Komsomol (communist youth union). Newspeak contractions usually are syllabic abbreviations meant to conceal the speaker's ideology from the speaker and the listener.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Here's the ELI5. Dumbing yourself down is participating in the fascism.
My parting words for this... Just like I'm not going to abandon the GLBTQ, immigrants, or Muslim-Americans, I'm not going to abandon my vocabulary. If you think so strongly on this, find me and lobotomize me. Okay?
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Member since: Sat Mar 20, 2004, 10:37 AMNumber of posts: 36,205