• ATDA@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    They’re dead serious and doing what they were paid to do.

    They weren’t paid to protect you, they weren’t paid to make your life easier, they weren’t paid to represent you at all.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Both parties are very serious…

    …About keeping this economy and system exactly as it is, as they bicker over social wedges that don’t meaningfully impact quarterly earnings expectations.

    They’re both paid well by the same oligarchs to do so.

    If you wanted to see them scrambling to pass real legislation to protect the government from an incoming administration, you should have elected a leftist. You’d see Democrat and Republican reps holding hands, having sit ins, and desperately chanting we will overcome if an incoming administration was promising to dismantle for profit healthcare, for example.

    Don’t worry though, they’d never let that happen. They have all the tools they need to prevent such a disaster as they see it. Their bribes would dry up overnight if they lost control of the narrative and their plebs.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Or was a close call. I heard that were debating changing the national bird to the Hawk Tuah

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    5 days ago

    Represented with great honor in this new legislation is the humble American crow – the true reflection of our nation’s soul. For what is the bald eagle but a symbol of outdated pomp and a government that’s too busy patting itself on the back? The bald eagle, after all, has been perched atop its perch since 1782 – a symbol of a country that’s more concerned with conserving its own status than doing anything to actually improve itself.

    Meanwhile, the American crow is out here living its best life. It’s always scheming, always scrounging for scraps in the garbage of society. It’s a bird of the people – and by people, I mean those of us who are still trying to make ends meet while the fat cats at the top continue to feast on the nation’s wealth.

    It’s also a symbol of our nation’s laziness. The bald eagle may be proud of its slow, majestic flight, but we’re more proud of being able to do absolutely nothing for hours on end without any consequences. We’re a country that can’t even be bothered to show up to its own problems – and the American crow is the perfect representation of that.

    Furthermore, have you seen the state of our national parks? A bunch of underfunded, neglected monstrosities that are more like a symbol of our own institutionalized apathy than anything we’d want to attract. It’s like the bald eagle is just trying to pretend we’re better than we are.

    Meanwhile, the American crow is out here building its own infrastructure – a nest made of whatever it can scrounge up, with twigs and trash and other people’s detritus. That’s the American way – we don’t need no fancy-schmancy ‘bald eagle’ perched on some government-mandated pedestal; we’ve got our American crow, proudly wallowing in its own mediocrity.

    So let’s be real, folks – the next time you see an American crow, that’s what we’re really looking at. That’s what we are as a country: lazy, corrupt, and proud of it.

    • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
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      5 days ago

      If only someone had bothered to research this and write it up in a clear, easy to read fashion. Oh, there’s a link along with this post!

      If you’re thinking to yourself, “Gosh, I thought the bald eagle was already the United States national bird,” welcome to the club.

      • KingJalopy @lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Never had a national bird, according to this article. Thank God our infinitely wise and useful government got on that before they lost all their power to actually do anything meaningful or helpful. 🦅🇺🇸

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        It’s what Franklin wanted. And Franklin had humor and consistent set of morals. And got France to back us up by having sex with so many French women.

        I think the Turkey would be better than a bird we have to ADR in the screech of another animal.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Turkeys: invasive, will absolutely move in and fuck up your shit

          Bald Eagle: almost went extinct because it ran out of a particular type of tree.

          Turkeys: will eat literally anything under the sun. Grass. Seeds. Other, smaller inferior turkeys. Car bumpers.

          Bald eagles: almost went extinct because salmon was in short supply.

          Turkeys: big, fat, aggressive birds with absolutely no fucks to give. The Always Sunny crew if they were all birds and not just D.

          Bald Eagles: sleek, reclusive, and quiet. Literally sounds like a mouse.

          It’s turkeys, it was always turkeys. It’s not even close.

          • leadore@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            It was hunting (considered pests) and DDT (pesticide that made the eggshells break too easily) that made eagles almost go extinct.

            • Wogi@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              Shhhhhhhhhhh. Their inability to make up bullshit on the Internet also nearly caused their extinction.

              Unlike turkeys which as we all know are the driving force behind generative AI platforms. Obviously

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    It’s not like if they didn’t pass this law they would have snuck in Medicare for all - I hate the “Is this a good use of your time” argument.

    But it’s never a bad time to criticize how ineffective lawmakers are.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Anything other than this would’ve had an impact on people’s lives. They don’t need universal healthcare. They need something.

      Your comment is a prime example of the nirvana fallacy.

      • Gork@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Healthcare for some none, small American flags for others!

      • adarza@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        this session has been a dud from the start.

        a split congress isn’t gonna get much of anything worthwhile done, especially not this late in a session… and extra-especially-not with the ultra hyper-partisanship exhibited by the ‘modern’ republicant party since at least the 1990s.

        want something done? something awesome and good? help get democrats and progressives 75%+ of each chamber of congress, plus 38+ state legislatures.

        • krashmo@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Republicans get large chunks of what they want without a majority like that in Congress on a regular basis. If they can do it so could Democrats. They choose not to. There’s no shortage of convenient scapegoats but there is a massive shortage of meaningful action.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            My dude, they couldn’t even repeal Obamacare.

            Dems get blasted for not doing enough. Republicans get praise for just stopping things, half of which weren’t happening anyway

            Thanks, Republicans for another decade without letting the Dems take our guns. Fuck the Dems for not passing some very basic gun control legislation.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            I feel like you’re missing the very clear context that Republicans are hyper partisan who refuse to cross the isle. Earlier this year they voted down their own border security bill because Biden gave it the greenlight.

            • krashmo@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              I’m very aware of the context. For my entire life Democrats have spent more time talking about building coalitions with racists or pointing at their token centrist progress blocker than they have doing anything useful. Say what you like about Republicans but they get their horrible shit done when they have the chance and they don’t give a fuck about decorum or tradition and their voters love them for it.

    • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
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      7 days ago

      The 118th Session? Yeah, we don’t even have a parallel in all of the history of the US to mark how unproductive this session has been. Like not even during the Civil War was Congress this underwhelming. The 118th Session has set a new low water mark for “things gotten done”.

      The biggest issue was that the House spent something like ~60% of their time in Committee doing “investigations” that ultimately led nowhere. Like, I’ll throw Congress a bone here, if they actually impeached someone with all those investigations, I’d give it to them. But that literally nobody was impeached all those investigations basically go into the “wasted time” column.

      And they can’t impeach any of them come the 119th session because… New President, new people. So all that time they invested goes to waste. Hell, even Hunter I can’t give it to them, because in the end, he got a pardon. And as soon as Trump gives the J6 folks a pardon, all that work the Democrats did becomes wasted as well.

      But the 118th spent the vast majority of their time in investigations, so they got so little actually done and passed.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      It’s not like if they didn’t pass this law they would have snuck in Medicare for all

      I might have been at least somewhat mollified of “Natural Bird” meant “New environmental focus on protecting the species” rather than “National Meme”. Might as well make America’s national bird the Dodo, given the rate at which we’re decimating their ecology.

      • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The bald eagle is well protected as a species. Federal charges for killing one. Course that may change under Trump.

    • normalexit@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They could get a vote on the record where Republicans voted against healthcare. We got this bird thing though, so that’s neat.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      7 days ago

      This is so true. Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Listen to a podcast while driving? Even our US Representatives can focus on more than one thing at a time…

    • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They could have tried to do anything actually beneficial for Americans instead though. Like, think about how many hours of work it took Klobuchar’s political peons just to draft the stupid thing. And, they we paid them to do it!! Get fucked Congress.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Actually the Senate passed this in July. It took until now for Congress to pass literally the easiest partisan bill probably because they were waiting to use it as their next shitty rider platform, or because they were too busy wasting time creating a new committee to investigate TikTok.

      • turmacar@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        TikTok is shady in how much info it collects and how tailored the feeds it shows people get.

        It is not unique about either of those.

        Facebook/Google/et. al. being on this coast instead of that coast doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have exactly the same scrutiny. Literally the only evidence offered that TikTok was in any way special was “we can’t tell you but there’s classified info that means we should ban it.” Which is less than encouraging that the ban is for anything other than because of ‘those dang kids’ being annoying.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          TikTok

          Is Run

          By Dictatorship Military

          It’s a weapon that wants to cause permanent irreversible harm to hundreds of millions of people, by design.

          • turmacar@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Agreed.

            They’re also not materially different from Instagram or Youtube. Singling them out as “the problem” is short-sighted at best.

    • Sabata@ani.social
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      6 days ago

      Bet there gong to spend millions to brag about a partisan feel good bill that will distract us from tasty CEO blood.