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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • I’ll grant that they didn’t even try for a standalone minimum wage increase. I’d be curious to know how that would go too. But it was meant to go into one of the earlier spending bills that had to be passable by a simple majority. Those kinds of bills have certain requirements, or else they’re subject to the fucked up filibuster rules the Senate has.

    The Senate parliamentarian ruled that a minimum wage increase was more than a budget change and did not fit those requirements. I thought Democrats’ argument that it affected revenue via resulting taxes and therefore budgeting was a reasonable one, but it didn’t quite fly.

    Anyway, to say “the Ds couldn’t even be bothered to increase minimum wage under Biden” is a little disingenuous IMO. They did make one honest effort, at least, and anything else was pretty much doomed.


  • convicted and not just hearsay mind you

    Just because I’m an absolute stickler for stuff like this… He was not, technically. “Convicted” means that he was found guilty in a criminal (government accused you of a crime) trial, beyond a reasonable doubt (that is, if the jury thought a defense could be reasonable, even if not totally likely, they must find the defendant not guilty).

    The only sex-related trial Trump has gone through was the E Jean Carroll case. That was a civil case, where the defendant may or may not be found liable based on a preponderance of evidence (that is, jury found something was more likely than not the case and doubts that say otherwise are ok). The jury in that case found that yes, Trump sexually assaulted her and the actions that followed constituted defamation. Worth noting too that the jury found (by that same standard) that what he did was not rape her, although the judge later clarified that the actions constituted rape.

    The reason I bring this up is that the jury had a much lower bar here than they would need for a conviction. They could have been 60% sure and that would fly for the trial he was in, but not for a criminal trial.




  • Friendly reminder that SCOTUS, in an opinion authored by none other than Neil Gorsuch, ruled that discrimination by sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently discrimination by sex. If a set of behaviors is allowed by a cisgender person, but their biological sex does not match their gender, you are discriminating by sex.

    Likewise, if Alex’s husband comes to the company Christmas party and that is only acceptable if Alex is short for Alexandra, a woman, your discrimination by sexual orientation is also discrimination by sex.

    A surprisingly brilliant ruling that has yet to be Constitutionally Calvinballed.