Don’t even get me started on drag queens, and the word bitch.
But yes, locale does matter.
I have a female friend who is a San Jose native, and she’s alternately called me a dick, ‘dude’ & ‘bro’; many times.
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I like Eleanor Roosevelt on the subject:
As for men… we’re all assholes, so whatever. 
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Is anyone saying that he broke tax laws? If not, we should probably be looking closely at laws that let fabulously rich people get even more so, on the backs of regular people. My son asked me to explain the Wells Fargo and TD Bank issues this weekend, and could not believe that those people are not waiting in holding cells, waiting for arraignment.
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The reversal usage of gendered insults pleases my contrary inner-malcontent.
But the First Lady did make a good point.
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Hmm, not sure why that ended up addressed to you, it was in response to @Snowlark’s comment. But it’s all good! 
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You probably ‘toggled.’
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I once described some male Trump supporters in my area as ‘people whose common-case definition of freedom is being able to smoke wherever they want’.
Being incisive without resorting to name-calling or profanity is a fun, creative exercise. When I post a blue streak, that’s me being lazy—or just so angry that the vitriol has momentarily obstructed my creative pathways.
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I can’t recall where I read this, but it was an opinion piece a few years back on the financial crisis. The Guardian, I think. And I recall the writer being most incensed about how just how many moral wrongs committed had been totally legal.
So many people (myself included) remain angry at ‘the bankers’ and wonder why they’re not behind bars. So much anger directed at individuals—rightly so—but often at the cost of losing focus of the equally enraging fact that our laws allowed for much of their corruption and abuse of the system.
(Also, thank you for steering us back on-topic.)
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I don’t even know what that is, so I probably did! Or it could be that I’m working on my third (and final) beer of the afternoon.
To edge this back on topic… one thing this thread has shown me is that I apparently pay more taxes (by percentage) than either of the serious presidential candidates. Given that I’m solidly middle-class, that’s fucked up.
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You and me both.
And yes, that’s all kinds of fucked up.
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A key question of modern politics: what to do when the law is the crime.
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I’ve not read a more concise summary. That is perfect.
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Yeah, that old saw. Given the nature of Republican politicians and their policies, that’s never been true as long as I’ve been alive, but they’ve definitely cranked up the idiocy in the last 20 years. But I could at least give the benefit of the doubt to those voting Republican - that they had some reason for doing so that wasn’t awful, even if it wasn’t based on anything reasonable. I can’t do that anymore.
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Honestly its just like anything else in the tax code. A relatively common sense idea gets ever more complex crap tacked onto to to bring rates down for the wealthy. Its trickle down plain and simple.
I don’t think you’re mischaracterizing her statement. The news certainly did, to the point where I’ve seen a number of venues change headlines and publish corrections. But at a cursory glance it would look kind of bad (parents basements, and baristas!). Oddly enough it was a fairly compassionate, if clumsy (Hillary in a nutshell), description of the fact that these are young people who’ve gotten a bad beat and don’t see a way out. Along with a call for the DNC to do better by them. I’ve been surprised to see how the news pitched it. One of the corrections I saw was “we made changes to better represent Secretary Clinton’s tone”. Its fucking weird.
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You know when your kid is upset about something, and he’s got a valid point, but goes about it in a completely terrible way and ruins what could have been a valid point, and ends up looking worse than originally? That is Trump.
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You’re eliding over something when you move from your first to your second statement: Trump is utterly incompetent. He is not fit to be the dog catcher, much less President, yet a substantial portion of the electorate are ready to vote for him. And no amount of handwaving about media manipulation is going to make his utter incompetence, nor his supporters’ stupidity, go away.
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There isn’t a single person here who doesn’t take every single tax deduction that the tax code allows. If you don’t, you are stupid. And at tax time, if your deductions add up to you having to pay no taxes, I’m sure that’s exactly what you would pay. I know I would. And not feel bad about it either.
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The whole NYT article seemed sort of desperate or something. Please correct me if I am wrong, but we are talking about what a tax person conjectured deductions that Trump might have legally taken, based on his 95 return, and making assumptions about his post-95 income. Would it not be better to bring out and interview Trump’s old business partners that he surely defrauded, or all the people who could not afford the Trump University ripoff?
I assume that all of those sort of people, the Clintons included, hire smart accountants to save them as much cash as possible on their taxes. I have to assume that the loopholes exist because the very wealthy have paid good money to write them into the tax code. I think it is completely reasonable to be very angry that such laws are written to allow the already fabulously wealthy to become more so. But I am not sure that it is right to be angry at anyone for literally following the law. Or likely for having a good accountant, who follows the law. I really doubt that Trump is clever or patient enough to do his own taxes, or even my taxes.
I would actually be more enthusiastic about him if I thought that he could suppress his giant ego enough to surround himself with experts and follow their advice. Even if he took credit for all of the policies and analysis conceived by those experts.
I refer you to my tweet upthread (admittedly, I haven’t tried to verify this):
https://twitter.com/grudging1/status/782408482410602496/photo/1
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Basically, what it boils down to is, Trump has nothing to offer the country. Not even money.
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