Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

@Background Pony #E24F  
what minimum wage part?

@Angrybrony  
Covid relief package also had a piece to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr. It’s stupid because that isn’t covid relief, but hey people need immediate help, so you can’t vote no.
 
It can’t be passed via reconciliation now so it can be fillibustered, and two dems oppose it, so I doubt the senate will push it with that bit in.

@Background Pony #E24F  
that sounds great to me. miniwage has been needing a rising for a good long ass time.

@Angrybrony  
Then it should be presented, debated, and passed/not passed like an actual bill. Not slapped into what is supposed to be a time sensitive relief bill.

@tehwatever  

 
Yeah, I’m late to the party, but yeah there are a lot of racists weebs.

@Background Pony #CEFC  
The politics were sound. Tying the minimum wage to a must-pass bill is the only way it can get passed in this day and age, because people are horrible.
 
But there are strict rules around reconciliation. Only budget stuff. Taxing, spending, borrowing. Minimum wage ain’t any of that. It’s just a rule, a regulation, a plain old “thou shalt not X” law.

There’s a golden idol of Trump at the CPAC.
 
 
You know, a few thousand years ago it was a golden calf. Guess this time they went with a golden jackass.

@Zincy  

 
Damn does this look tacky

@Zincy  
the golden bull shiter.

@Background Pony #1F81  
I swear, every time I come to believe that conservatives cannot become more of a caricature of themselves…

@Ereiam
 
We’ve gone from metaphorical cult to literal cult. An actual, bonafide cult straight out of the history books.
 
What both amuses, and saddens me are the people that got suckered into this shameful display. Including a few of our present company.
 
 
Is this what they want? To have their identities and egos subsumed by an obsession with a fat old con man that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them? He’s not your friend, he’s not fighting for you, he does not care about you or anything that happens to you. You are, to him, stones to be stepped on for his own advantage. Nothing more. If that is the life you want to live, then fine I suppose. Exist as little more than some asshole’s personal fluffer.

they aren’t even trying to hide who they really are anymore  
 
 

@Kolbjorn
 
I wish they’d stop stealing sacred symbols.

@Background Human  
You’re right, from a political standpoint it is a tried and true strategy. You know people are demanding a relief package, you know this policy you have would otherwise require real debate, and in the end may be lower anyway due to compromise both with the other party and within your own. However if you attach it to this relief package, even if it isn’t relevant, you put the opposition in a bad position. Vote against it and you get hammered as hating the American people and voting against relief.
 
Politically it is sound, though still scummy.

Fuck you, China.

@Background Pony #1F81
 
I almost wonder how many bible-thumping conservatives would balk at the blatant parallels.
 
Then I remember the last 4 years and realize the answer will be “not enough”.
 
 
@Kolbjorn
 
Oh. Would you look at that. Another “coincidence”.
 
GOP sure has a lot of those.

@Kolbjorn  
What even is the point of CPAC? It’s all the same bullshit you can get at home, every night on TV or 24/7 on YouTube.
 
Or is it like the difference between buying an album and going to a concert?

@Dustcan  
I’m gonna be honest, I think the majority of those so-called “good Christian men” don’t really give a shit about the bible and only want to use it as an excuse to hate gays and minorities.
 
And related, but when did having a gun fetish become part of the American Christian identity?
 
If Jesus saw the state of those “followers” he’d hang his head in shame

@Kolbjorn  
Pretty sure the shape of a stage baring a resemblance to a nordic rune (which doesn’t have a line going through the bottom of it, unlike the stage) is a coincidence rather than any actual evidence of them being “nazis”, as you seem to imply with a large amount of mental gymnastics. That would basically be like saying Joe Biden accidentally saying the N word at the EU Virtual Security Conference was decisive evidence of him being a member of the KKK.

@Background Human  
It’s to make the crazy people feel more important then they actually are.

I wonder if that Trump Tower Climber was at the Capitol Insurrection.

@CaptainXtra  
Wasn’t he climbing it in protest of Trump being president though?

I’m really worried about the side effects of the COVID vaccine.

Virginia has spent the past 6 months making it easier to vote instead of harder.
 
We passed a law in November ending Gerrymandering, as districts are now drawn up by an independent committee and approved by non-partisan courts.
 
There is currently a bill that should pass by next week that restructures voting in VA. Voting materials, like ballots and information, will now be printed in multiple languages. “At large” municipal elections are being restricted, so municipalities cannot just vote themselves into power. Local election officials will have to open up a 30 day public comment period before any changes to voting laws, and it empowers the AG to sue if there are suspected incidents of racial discrimination in voting.
 
Bills already passed include making ballot drop boxes permanent and increasing the number, adding optional Sunday in person early voting, and of course last year we became the first southern state to repeal the voting ID law.
 
 
Republicans, predictably, are screaming and raging.
 
 
Between this, the demographics changes, the the rise of NOVA as a voting bloc, Republicans have likely lost Virginia for the foreseeable future.

@Background Pony #1F81
 
My guess is that it comes with the two party system.
 
The GOP broadcasts themselves as the bible-loving party (they aren’t)? Well then of course Christians will lean towards them. The GOP is also big on guns and low regulations et al? Well, you ain’t got any other options (you do) so you have to be okay with those things too.