297 Comments

Ta, Dom, both for the amazing photos and for the post. Harris-Walz 2024, the trifecta, and Dems elected everywhere they can be to every possible office. My mother was a federal employee. Dad's life insurance policy had a rider that paid off the mortgage on the house, so she owned it outright, but she, too, was able to raise three kids on her own because she had a good job with good benefits. Ronnie Raygun forced her into retirement, but that's a story for another day.

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I’m seeing a lot of β€œmature” folk in those pics, not a lot of The Youngs. Hopefully that’s due to the fact that Olds have time and energy to go to rallies, while young folk have jobs and lives, but they will fucking vote anyway. 🀞

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And, I hope, because SocSec and Medicare are on the line because of Project Make America The Hunger Games~~

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The same bullshit possession charge that kept me out of the Air Force in 1969-70-71 (I kept trying) stayed on my record forever and prevented me from getting any federal work, either direct hire or contract work.

How much weed can you stuff into a matchbox? Maybe two grams, if you stuff it. Didn't matter, as just residue or paraphernalia would have gotten me the same result. Librul California didn't mess around with that shit--it was a felony! Funny enough though, I eventually got a job with the State of California.

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Another successful "War on Drugs" story! Almost as good as a "sir"story, but this has the advantage of being true.

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The USAF actually liberalized their policies on weed back in the 90s. Now it isn’t automatically disqualifying, as long as it’s minor personal use with no second-order effects. Even misdemeanor criminal charges aren’t a killer any more.

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Glad to hear it for the generations after mine.

Another part of this chapter is that I was a Cadet Airman in the Civil Air Patrol at the time of my arrest. I got the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge. At around the same time, our Colonel's son got arrested for possession for sale of hashish. He not only didn't get the boot, he got promoted to Cadet Master Sergeant! I learned a valuable lesson then, but the damage lasted my whole working life.

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Yeah unfortunately even in today’s more egalitarian military, rank still does have its privileges.

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Mr Demi works for the feds; they're one of the biggest, & most consistent, employers of visually impaired people. He used to answer phones & sometimes still does, but now he's a lead so spends most of the week helping out coworkers. He's the only disabled person currently on his team.

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Luv the "Cat Ladies for Harris" sign!

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My father was in the Army for 20 years. After he retired, he continued to work civil service for another 12 years until his health finally forced him to call it quits. Because of his federal job (as a medical records admin at an Army hospital) I was able to have a relatively normal lower middle class childhood even after he was out of the Army. He owned the house I grew up in, we usually had enough to eat, and I had clothes even if some of them were hand-me-downs from my sisters. (A tradition we still continue to this day, in our 40s and 50s, with our "closet carousel.")

Federal jobs are good paying jobs! They may not always be glamorous. Sometimes it's grunt work. Sometimes you do need special skills - the niece is a civil service engineer for for the Army Corps of Engineers and they would not have hired her without her master's degree.

But many of the barriers are outdated and unfair.

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"In a countering move the Trump Campaignβ„’ released an access-by-subscription-only based PDF entitled '1001 Ways to Cook Bootstrap'"

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πŸ˜‚πŸ’—

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The Chuck's!

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Wilkes Barre is 12 miles from Dupont, where my mother spent her first 14 years because her father was a coal miner in Dupont. The only time she ever left Dupont during those years was to go on a church outing to Wilkes Barre in a horse-drawn wagon. We visited both towns in 1973 to meet her long-lost relatives, and both towns seemed to be very poor, with inadequate infrastructure and no jobs. I remember well that as we drove into Dupont, the first thing we saw was an absolutely ENORMOUS auto salvage lot full of rusting vehicles, and the street where her elderly cousins lived was not paved and had no storm sewers. I've often wondered if anything has changed there since 1973.

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Wonderful pictures...thank you.

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That story about the single mother with a federal job that made it all work sounds like my life. When my mother passed she had a house and even with all her medical issues she didn't owe a thing.

My dad worked hard but he was self employed and he died broke and owing everyone.

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Remember when Scientific America didn't do politics? Before Trump? They just endorsed Harris

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vote-for-kamala-harris-to-support-science-health-and-the-environment/

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Scienterrific American, amirite?

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Not THAT big a deal. As they said, they did this once before in the last 179 years…

[walks off muttering, β€œThis fucking timeline…”]

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Someone just earned my re-subscription.

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A good effort...hopefully sways someone.

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Dominic, thanks for this. Makes me want Harris to win even more.

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As a policy, it is a good one for a number of reasons, one of which is that it contrasts sharply with the Project 2025 goal of eliminating Democrats from being employed by the federal government. When Elno Uglyface gets to be in charge of getting rid of waste in government, the layoffs will be catastrophic for the economy and social services.

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Loser McTrashTruck will never work in the federal government, because he's backing an even bigger loser.

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Nonsense. He’ll have to hire some people. Once they’ve sworn fealty, sent their firstborns off to the special schools, have been microchipped and gotten the big X tattoos, they’ll be good to go.

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I have a federal job, and ditto.

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Happy Monday, fellow Wonks! Sorry I'm late for (non)-commenting but I missed the Elno Xitter fandango, so OT but two things:

1) As I was leaving my doctor's office this morning, I happened upon a dispenser for our local newspaper which had the blaring heading "HERE'S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT TRUMP'S ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT," but when I got to work and checked the online version: bupkes. In fact, it's already so far down the news headlines that it's been bumped by an article about Boursin-infused grits and an unsolved murder from, kid you not, 1890. So that's where PAB ranks in the grand scheme of things, even in blood red Louisiana. And speaking of...

2) I got my Harris/Walz campaign sign and my dear hubs has already put it out on the front lawn. So far it hasn't been defaced or stolen, so HUZZAH (although I did see a huge PAB/Pigfucker sign nailed to a damn oak tree while the hubs was driving me to work).

Now back to y'all's regular programming, already in progress.

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I’d try those grits. If someone else made them.

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I had a β€œNurses for Kamala” sign for approximately 20 minutes before it was stolen. I hadn’t even gotten it in the ground yet. I had gotten it, leaned it against a window to take home and it was gone within 20 minutes.

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