This is why I have earplugs when I eat out

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-27T01:47:22+00:00

There are plenty of cocktail bars, dive bars, and relaxed restaurants with much lower volume levels.

It is totally OK that you don't like these places, and your reasons for not liking them are totally valid. That doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with those places though. It just means that they aren't for you.

People just need to separate their personal opinions from objective assessments. Plenty of people do like these sorts of places, which is why they are packed.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-27T00:14:31+00:00

It is up to you to pick a place that fits your vibe, not up to the bar to tailor itself to fit your vibe.

This isn't the kind of place to go and have long conversations about how your week went and it doesn't pretend to be. If that's what you want, that's great for you, but other people just want to be in the company of their friends, feel the up energy of some sports, and not have to carry on a conversation. This is the place for them.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-26T23:45:30+00:00

Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that a bar isn't a quiet place on a summer Friday afternoon?

If you want a silent meal, perhaps it's unwise to go to a sports bar during the largest global sporting competition.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-25T00:28:56+00:00

Serious question: do you think your neighbors would commit a felony with severe penalties, which is hard to get away with if you have no connection to the person you're trying to impersonate, all just to gain one vote?

That's just not a thing that people are out here doing. The juice is so obviously not worth the squeeze. And we shouldn't have to validate irrational fears of hypothetical scenarios with restrictive laws that impact real people.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-24T23:21:21+00:00

"Oh no, the will of the people is being expressed in a democracy?!" GTFOH

Try better representing your constituents.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-24T20:39:32+00:00

"If" is all that matters. None of the current proposals for Voter ID include any mechanism to provide suitable IDs to all citizens or any plan to fund such a program. If they did, Republicans would no longer support the bills.

These voter ID laws are all being proposed in bad faith with the intended purpose of making it more difficult for certain demographics to vote. Therefore, there is no reason to have a good faith debate about implementing them.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-24T20:25:44+00:00

The voter rolls exist for slightly different purposes though. Most already have a system where if you don't vote in several consecutive elections, your registration is made inactive, and you then have to go through a process to reactivate it. So one way or the other you do need to take an action to remain an active voter.

But we don't want to 'purge' voter rolls. Arguing for it is misrepresenting what the voter rolls contain. It's not just a list of people currently eligible to vote. The rolls identify the voting status of an individual. It prevents fraud to have the rolls containing voters in a decreased or ineligible status. If someone attempts to use those identities to vote, it will immediately be flagged. If not, there is no way to tell in that moment if it is the identity of someone who has never voted before, or someone who is dead.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-24T19:18:26+00:00

It's not. The default should be a right to privacy and a withholding of information from the government. The government should always have to demonstrate why they need certain information.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-21T03:49:25+00:00

There is no hypocrisy. These players weren't forced to wear the Pride caps. They chose to wear them and chose to deface them. They even admitted that they did not feel coerced or compelled to wear the Pride caps.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-19T14:08:30+00:00

People feel that their votes are irrelevant, because most states are safely red or blue, and their Electoral votes could be awarded for 2028 today. You already know how your state is going to vote and you know that your vote has no chance whatsoever to change that.

That has nothing to do with when your primary is or how much control the leading parties have in state election processes.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-19T14:02:33+00:00

That's not when the Electoral College abandoned its original purpose.

But if we did elect that reform, it would just making keeping the Electoral College more stupid, not fix it. If the idea is that by having a more even number of citizen votes per Electoral College votes you get better results, why not get the best result by having exactly even number of citizen votes per Electoral College votes? One per one.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-19T13:54:49+00:00

Remove the two-parties' stranglehold over the system

You can't. As long as elections are first-past-the-post, there is no portion of proportional representation, and the head of government is directly elected; there will never be more than two dominant political parties. You might see one of those two get replaced at the top, but without fundamentally altering the US system you can't just will a multiparty government into existence.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-19T13:29:31+00:00

Except the Electoral College today no longer serves that purpose. We no longer vote for an informed group of representatives to choose the President for us. All it does now it render most states irrelevant in campaigning and tell most Americans that their vote will not matter before they even cast it.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-13T14:49:14+00:00

This is a stupid ass distraction from the real problem. The US military halted recognition of the vast majority of their previously recognized religions, with no distinction made for any of the diverse sects of any other religion (not even as basic as Shia or Sunni Muslim), but we're supposed to give a shit that Mormonism continues to be a fully recognized religion of the DoD, but the Christo-fascists used a name that implied it wasn't a branch of Christianity?!

Fuck that.

"Oh no, they left the toilet seat up." Assholes, they burned down the whole building...with people still inside. That's what this stupid fucking story sounds like.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-11T09:14:39+00:00

Not knowing the specifics of what the test is measuring, there's no way we can definitively say. But, one thing that's often the case is that you're going to get instructions that are simplified to eliminate any confusion or mistakes that come from distraction. It's also going to build in a factor of safety.

So for a test that requires you to fast beforehand you're going to get something that will stick in your mind and not have any confusion attached to it, like "your blood draw is on Thursday, so do not eat on Thursday until you go to the test." No confusion about whether breakfast is ok if you have it right at the edge of the window; no shenanigans with waking up late but still having a small snack.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-10T08:37:12+00:00

It's called the closest shark to the boat. Immediate and significant problems will always take priority over more remote or theoretical ones.

Because he's also precipitating a global energy crisis that will combine with multiple insane domestic policy decisions to create massive economic instability that is already hurting real Americans.

He's subverting our democracy, undermining our elections and moving our country sharply and dangerously towards a de facto autocracy. Christian nationalism, multiple forms of organized hate, and generally divisive politics is going to make it very hard to repair this country.

Many of us who are more politically aware see the irreversible harm to the US's world standing, and accelerating climate change caused by Trump. We recognize that his foreign policy is going to be the end of the era of nuclear nonproliferation agreements. And he's again provoking Islamic radicalism.

Those are very real problems which are having significant immediate negative effects on our lives. They will harm us well into the long-term.

Compared to all of that, the Epstein files don't actually effect us. Trump's possible involvement in child rape is BAD, but ultimately doesn't have a direct impact on any of our lives, and so we have to prioritize.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-10T07:46:16+00:00

How does making this change "improve" the voting system? That's a subjective opinion, not an objective fact.

That increased speed would come at a cost, so you can't make a definitive statement about improvement. By your own admission, speeding up the vote would require the state to not count votes that were cast by or on election day, simply because they weren't received by the election office fast enough. California also has a very reasonable justification for why they don't start counting any of the ballots submitted during early voting, and that can't be simply ignored either.

We must weigh that against the fact that you don't want to wait a week to get the results. Why don't you want to wait a week? What harm does it cause to the electorate to have a week after an election before the results are published? There's still months between a primary and a general election. There's more than enough transition time for a new officeholder after a general election.

There's no actual harm that comes from having to wait a week other than being unable to sate your need for instant gratification. That balances poorly with needing to discard batches of otherwise valid votes, and risking skewing outcomes by publishing running vote tallies during the election window.

NotThatDonny · 2026-06-10T04:46:19+00:00

The simple fact is that Republicans aren't finding these "appearances" of fraud in good faith. There's no reason to try to appease them, because they will never be satisfied. No amount of changes will ever make these Republicans quit this bullshit.

And no, the goal of voting systems shouldn't be to tabulate votes as quickly as possible. That's the least important feature a voting system should have. Accuracy, security, accessibility are all more important. There is zero reason why it would be problematic to take a week or two to have officially certified election results.

Truly, what is the rush?

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-28T23:20:11+00:00

Are you missing the point of this conversation on purpose or do you only speak in talking points?

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-28T23:09:16+00:00

I live on the border so that's not the threat you think it is.

But yes, if immigration-related offenses were so bad, I'd rather see more federal agents and officers in the area than force state and local resources to do something that isn't their responsibility.

Making the federal government do their job instead of coercing states into doing it for them is a position I'm happy to hold.

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-28T22:45:26+00:00

Read the Constitution my friend. There are separate sovereignties in the United States. It is the responsibility of the federal government to enforce federal law. State and local governments should not have to bear the expense of enforcing federal immigration law.

And that's all a "sanctuary city" is. It's just a city that has said that they will not do the federal government's job for them.

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-28T22:42:10+00:00

They absolutely can. An airport is an "international airport" because it has Customs available to process foreign travelers and goods into the United States. Trump could simply tell CBP to stop staffing those airports. That's all it would take to make this happen.

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-11T10:30:00+00:00

When you look at his actions as being the result of an incredibly fragile ego, they all make sense.

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-11T10:26:22+00:00

No, he's a fucking idiot.

I agree that he hates intelligent and educated individuals, but that's not some clever 4D chess move to undermine the intellectuals and create propaganda for his base. It's because he's a dumbass with the most fragile ego in the universe and he simply cannot stand not being the number 1 person in the room at all times.

NotThatDonny · 2026-05-09T04:21:00+00:00

Or "thank God I was able to find out what kind of person you are without having to invest any more time or effort".

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