* Health Insurance Premiums (NOT including dental, life insurance, vision or short-term disability, JUST the Cigna Health Premiums for doctor, prescription and hospital): 9.72%
Taxes: 7.75%
Cigna: 9.72%
That's HOUSEHOLD. If we were single-wage-earner household, that 9.72% would be higher. (One year, it was 15% [!!] thenk-yew-not-very-much)
Fuck your "free market capitalism" bullshit. I fucking want a goddman "Medicaid for All" safety net, in case I lose my fucking job, or just can't fucking afford it.
Fuck the GOP and Trump and they're "don't let anyone know Obamacare is still available for those people who desperately need health insurance and can't find it any other way!
Fuck GOP governors who refused Medicaid expansion for the low-income of their states - that is to say, they refused billions of dollars of money that could have come into their state, and the lost billions of potential wages and tax dollars those poor people might have earned/produced if they had been able to afford medications or doctor visits.
"We demand the names of one thousand private citizens, so WE can dissect their private lives and WE can decide if they are good patriots or agents of despotic control," says a politician who shares the name of the most psychotic control freak ever to soil the US Senate.
Good meme. It is possible to focus on more than one thing at a time. Trump and Wall Street and all the rest of the elitists bastards need to be watched. 60 million people can focus a lot of attention on all the bastards at the same time.
I haven't heard this one yet, but in 2018 where actual Nazis are nakedly walking the streets of America, one ran for political office on a major party ticket (and saod party leadership, proven assholes who don't give a fuck about ethics shrugged and as I "Oh, gee, see we can't stop him," but neither did they try to stop him using their private corporate brand or did they denounce him), and the President calling open white supremacists "very fine people."
The song "Dreaming of a White Christmas" is unambiguously about SNOW.
But, you know somewhere, a room full of white-skinned special snowflakes is dreaming of a world filled by only other special white snowflakes.
You either like the song, or you don't. Put your personal butthurt aside for a minute and pay attention.
The song has been around for about a hundred years.
The most famous version is from 1959. This is the version we hear most on the radio.
In 1959, the average American had a bigger vocabulary than today. How's that for sad?
Also, in 1959, there is a serious chance that "gentlemen" were indoctrinated with a better set of behaviors than they are today, including "if she really means 'no,' then be a gentleman and back off."
This is 2018, where the reality if that if she really means "No," there is a very real chance he's going to turm aggro and rape her.
The song, as performed, is clearly intended to be fun and flirty. She's an adult trying to play the coy "But, I'm a good girl, and good girls don't just stay over at a guy's house," game, but she clearly wants an excuse to stay over.
The revolution of the last 30 years has turned that bit over, and women are now allowed to say "if I want to stay, I'll stay, and Hell with decorum."
Some men whine that this "strong women" thing has confused them, and now they're all threatened, but that's a tangent.
If you actually listen to the lyrics, then the entire fucking song he is literally saying "I don't care what you want, I wamt you to stay, and I'm going to get my way."
Yes, literally. And that's the part that - in the era of Bill Cosby and Brock Turner - is chaffing people's butts.
The song lyrics haven't changed. The song lyrics have always had this dual aspect of "fun and flirty" and/or "date rape," but 2018 has been a really aggro year, and the year of #MeToo where women and men are coming forward in droves to say "enough!"
So, if you're feeling butthurt that people are butthurt about the song, pull you're head out of your ass.
The song hasn't changed, but the world is a bit more woke, and in a year or two, we'll all be back to just accepting it as part of Christmas.
Artistically, my favorite part is that he tweaks each musical piece and makes it his own. The technical skill is amazing, and his vocal range is extraordinary.
Each song is clearly recognizable as the original, yet some of them are tweaked to Paradise and back.
Someone was also willing to invest a LOT of money in set pieces for him. I mean, individually, he puts on a great show, but the set pieces really boost him from a one-man sound symphony to a one-man show-stealing headliner.
He does a great job sharing the stage with others, too. This makes sense, given he toured with other artists for a couple years, before stomping The Voice Australia.
I caught myself literally thinking "I'm not even going to bother to dream, anymore," about having something in my life that is deeply important, but there are a lot of hurdles.
I know what needs to be done to achieve this, I just need help with how to keep perspective that dreaming is important and how not to give up.
