It helps that the cost of meat is outpacing wages, while vegan options are getting cheaper. The best strategy remains regulatory, however. Widespread adoption of sustainable eating habits isn’t something that will just happen voluntarily because people understand the benefits.

Have you raised the question to your boss?

I assumed that this meme was just a reference to his latest bullshit. I’m well aware of Biden’s record, and have been a consistent critic of his for my entire adult life. The earliest memory I have becoming aware of him was when he presided over the Anita Hill testimony.

Democrats keep losing because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the game they are playing. Democracy is not a game of having the best ideas or plans or even character. You can win hearts and minds with passionate leadership and rational persuasion, but we’ll never win another election if that’s the only lever they want to press. It’s a progressive truism that people, given the same information and the same priorities, will reach the same conclusion. So therefore if a conservative has a difference of opinion, they must either not have the same information, or they must have different priorities. That’s why progressives are so frequently astounded at the hypocrisy and mental gymnastics required to support Trump while claiming any moral highground on any position.

How can they claim they want traditional family values when Trump is a thrice-divorced rapist with an obvious attraction to his own daughter? How can they oppose immigration when Trump has had two foreign national brides and Musk was an illegal immigrant? How can they oppose a woman’s right to choose when Trump has paid women to abort fetuses he sired? How can they claim to be patriotic while Trump gargles Putin’s sweaty raisin bag? How can they claim to want fiscal responsibility when Trump has driven his businesses into the ground, routinely declaring bankruptcy and using his political influence to line his own pockets? How can they claim to want lower costs of living when Trump plans to raise tariffs on imported goods, making literally everything more expensive?

The answer is that they don’t care. They don’t care about having all the information, or having true information. The conservative mind is not a rational actor. It’s not built on priorities or fundamental beliefs. There is only one core idea at the nexus of every conservative ideology:

Me good.

That’s it. That’s all there is. Dig down far enough, under all the bullshit and psychological spaghetti of beliefs, and you’ll find one nugget of truth. I am a good person, therefore whatever I want is good, and anyone that wants something else is bad. If it helps me to lie or cheat or murder, then I’ll do those things and they will be good because I did them to help me.

This has always been the comforting lie of conservative thought. Conservatives claim to want stoic preservation of national values, but the reality is that those values inexorably align with their own personal gain. It is not, as most conservatives prefer to believe, a resistance to change for change’s sake, but a narcissistic demand that all policies and decisions benefit themselves.

It’s more transparent now because Trump has worn thin the veneer of reasonable discretion, but the closer to the surface it gets, the more effective the messaging. It’s OK to be selfish, and ignorant, and cruel, and criminal, because deep down we deserve to do whatever we want. We deserve to get whatever we want. Anyone trying to keep it from us deserves to be destroyed. Anything we do to destroy those who would stop us is righteous. Cuz me good.

You’re never going to convince a conservative to vote for the lesser of two evils, because the greater of the two will simply lie to them. The greater evil will tell them they can have it all, that the dangers of climate change or viral pandemics aren’t real, that they don’t have to change their behavior or learn something new. They don’t have to get out of bed in the morning, they can stay warm under the covers and skip school or work or adulting, and everything will be just fine.

To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate. That might sound like a tall order, but we already know how to do it. We already see the gameplan that works on all conservatives. We have seen how centrists and moderates and neoliberals win in conservative strongholds.

Progressives just need to start lying.

Imagine if phrenology caught on as the latest pop-culture dipshit trend.

“My bumpy skull means I’m preternaturally predisposed to be polygamous and misogynist, and I’m just looking for a girl who has a compatible set of head bumps.”

“If you can’t handle me at my alimentivenest, you don’t deserve me at my inhabitivenest.”

Depends on the critique. “Joe is a hypocrite for pardoning his son” is reasonable. “Joe proves that it’s normal for politicians to act unethically, therefore criticisms of all unethical behavior are invalidated by the rule of whataboutism” is a transparent defense of Republican corruption.

He’s just asking how Putin likes to have his genitals fondled.

Agree completely, but peace is not the goal for every combatant. Some want domination, others eradication, while most civilians simply hope for survival. If we add retribution to the mix, then peace gets farther away. There must be some form of forgiveness, or the losing side has no incentive to give up prior to death. Political leverage comes at the point of the sword.

War is war. Winners decide who was justified and who was a criminal. If you’re looking for a team to root for, you’re probably not on either side at all. Nobody wins a war with clean hands.

There’s a correct answer?

Exactly. Journalists and normal class people act like it’s super weird timing to be giving out bonuses, but that’s exactly when executives are going to yo give out bonuses. They want to make sure they get paid first, so that when the creditors descend on the carcass of their company, the executives have already been paid.

I have no doubt Trump made every effort to cheat. There were attempts to keep people from voting, bomb threats, purging of voter rolls, and questionable access to voting machines.

But in the end, Trump won the election. He got more votes in more states, and he will be the President again.

That’s who we are as a country. We elected Trump again. We need to stare at that in the mirror and acknowledge the uncomfortable truth about who we are if we’re going to make it better.

America is not the bastion of freedom and justice for all anymore. We really haven’t been for a very long time, and denial has allowed fascism to infect our collective subconscious.

We, the reasonable people, the ones who believe in freedom, equality, and the rule of law, we are the insurgency. The fox is in charge of the henhouse, and if we’re going to survive it, we will have to fight for our country again. Our forefathers did it, and I believe we can, too.

Touring has always been a boondoggle. Artists could make bank if they were selling out shows, but the baseline venue prices have skyrocketed out of reach for most fans. The producers, promoters, engineers, technicians, roadies, not to mention lodging, travel, and food, a lot of people expect to be paid before the artist makes a dime.

Of course it does, by doing what I said. It’s the only way anything ever changes. Win some elections, frame the debate, pass legislation. That’s how it always works, and it never works any other way (without violence).

There has never been a movement that built up so much grassroots support that everyone just unanimously agreed to go along with it.

They’ll give it up if they have to, yes, but that’s because they have to. The tobacco industry is still doing $100 billion each year, and they print death threats on the packages. People who know meat is bad for the environment still eat it. People are stupid, lazy, and panicky. You won’t reduce the damage at the grassroots level. You have to win elections, frame the debate, and set policies. Anything less is pissing on a forest fire. You’re just going to singe your pubes.

The population at large will never voluntarily choose to stop eating meat. Beef will just become prohibitively expensive, and the government will give more and more subsidies to try to reduce the cost of hamburgers until the market collapses and they blame immigrants/lgbtq+/atheists/whichever scapegoat is most convenient at the time.

The bankruptcy proceedings lower his overall payment by liquidating his assets and settling for lower amounts. It’s common to see people go through bankruptcy and then try to buy back their auctioned assets through an intermediary using undisclosed or borrowed funds. This is fraud, because if they had the means to acquire such funding, they should have used those funds to pay their debts instead of declaring insolvency. That’s why there is a trustee, to ensure that the bankruptcy auction is at arms length from the person who owes.

He’s trying to buy back his company so he can continue doing his show. The people he owes have an interest in making sure he does not continue to do his show, so they have every right to participate in the evaluation and selection of the bids.

Like, imagine Alex Jones owed $10 million and also owned a Picasso. Jones declares bankruptcy because he can’t afford to pay $10 million, and the painting is the only asset he owns. The painting goes up for sale, and there are two bidders. One is a museum offering $5 million, and the other is Blex Hones, LLC, an anonymous collector offering $6 million, who wants to place the painting in a private collection.

He’s trying to lower the amount he pays by $4 million and keep his Picasso. The people he owes are not fooled, and have an interest in seeing that the museum receives the painting so that it can be shared with the public. It is their decision to accept $5 million instead of $6 million, and they have no obligation to give Blex Hones, LLC another shot at bidding more. It is neither collusion nor fraud to take a lower bid because you prefer that buying receive the asset.

Fraud and collusion? Every accusation is a confession. Bitch, there’s no law against “colluding” with the vultures picking your bones clean. You are bankrupt because you spread vicious lies, and now you’re mad that your attempt to reduce your penalties has been rejected. You could keep Infowars if you just paid your debts, but you wanted to delay payments and minimize the cost by colluding with an intermediary and committing fraud in buying your own assets back at a discount. You’re suing because they saw through your bullshit and took a lower payment to avoid enabling your further crimes. That’s perfectly legal.

Defenestration is probably one of the craziest thing about the Putin oligarchy. Like, that’s their calling card, and it fucking works at silencing dissent.

There was Vladimir Shklyarov who died last week, but he was on painkillers in anticipation of spinal surgery, and he slipped off his narrow balcony while having a smoke. His girlfriend saw it happen, and called the police. This was a horrible accident.

So naturally all the reports of his death include a bit about how one time two years ago he tweeted that he wanted the war in Ukraine to end and vaguely yearned for peace. The conservative news media is using any tragic accident to remind would-be Putin critics that if they step even one toe out of line, they could be murdered by the government. Which is how Putin wants it.

Can they see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?