In other news, Water is wet.

Seriously, Shapiro is more double-faced than the Roman god Janus ffs.

My job is paying for my insurance benefits right now when I'm furloughed but I still have to send them check for 100 a month for medical, dental and vision for my share since there is no paycheck to deduct it from. Just sent check in to cover me for this month.

However most restaurants and other places don't even really have benefits to begin with. Perhaps if you are temp furloughed by employer and collecting unemployment you can still be covered as long as you cover your share. Lots of people however have lost their health insurance due to being laid off and are in worse situation than me.  They can sign up for Cobra health coverage but that is expensive as hell each month I believe.

Maybe I'm just an arrogant European but tying a person's literal survival to their job feels like something out of the middle ages.

Yea, I am not a fan of the private system myself that prioritizes profits.  Tying health benefits to employer is just a bad idea.  If you lose your job or in middle of switching jobs and don't sign up for that COBRA stop gap insurance then you are left uninsured.  If you get sick while uninsured then you will get stuck with huge bill if you seek medical coverage unless you are lucky and hospital writes off bill as tax break for charitable service (doesn't happen often).  You can usually negotiate with them but bills here are crazy high. 

Now lots of hospitals are cash starved in USA because they had to postpone elective surgeries which is where they make all their money.  So now we have to bail out hospitals that are already raping the lower and middle income classes with high bills even while insured.  The whole for profit healthcare system is completely broken.  Heck we even have for profit hospitals and non profit hospitals.  What's the difference?  Beats me because non profit (usually catholic or christian) hospitals still charge out the ass.  I went to non profit hospital for appendicitis about 12 years ago (didn't have insurance at time).  My parents helped me pay for the surgeon, MRI, anesthesiologist and pathologist which all are separate bills (all those equaled to about 3k out of pocket).  Then the bill from Seton hospital came which was for the barely checking up on me for one night and morning, helped me get up to go urinate in toilet few hours after surgery because I couldn't piss in container in bed, pain medication, checking into emergency room (automatic 1k+ charge) and one night stay at hospital.  Total for just one night stay (discharged in morning) at hospital not including surgery, MRI or any of that other stuff that actually saved my life...  They wanted 20 thousand dollars for one night stay, barely checking on me, and pain medication and that's a supposedly non profit hospital.  My only luck was did a tax write off (catholic hospital cooking their books imagine that) on my ass and I didn't have to pay because at time was just about to go to Coast Guard (didn't happen after all that). 

So as you can see something is very wrong with our system.  When you view people in terms of dollar signs then you know your society values money more than life.

I would like to have a conversation or debate about the very essence of a so called democracy or republic. The ability to vote. There is now an open war debate about allowing people to vote by mail or absentee ballot.

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/02/849090889/the-legal-fight-over-voting-rights-during-the-pandemic-is-getting-hotter

Pretty much all states to my knowledge allow absentee ballot but in majority of those states the guidelines are very strict and one must meet one of few criteria. Some states have expanded voting by mail during the primary season due to the pandemic.

I see no problem with voting by mail. As long as you have enough election officials to validate the votes then what is the issue? Republicans always scream voter fraud but in my view their main goal is voter suppression.

Even with mail in vote or absentee ballots republicans have in past and present discarded votes even due to minor issues like name's not matching 100% (let's not kid ourselves minorites love giving their kids unique and hard spelling names which might not align 100% with what state information might have on them). So if they forgot to include an apostrophe or they include one and state didn't have it with one then they would throw the vote out. They also like using felon list to reject perfectly legit and registered voters because their name matches a felon (looking at you Florida and other states). I could go on and on like how they keep closing polling stations in minority communities so you have these long lines of people trying to vote (maybe they will just get tired of waiting and not vote) yet I can easily walk into polling station and vote. Usually I vote early so of course little lines but I'm sure my district has better wait times on election day than a heavily minority district.

Republicans try their hardest to spin their attempts at curbing votes as protection against voter fraud.  The real reason is that the more people that vote the least likely they will be able to win elections no matter how much gerrymandering they do. 

Why do you think their stupid election commission demanded by trump headed by that fool from Kansas found little to no voter fraud in 2016 elections and was disbanded?  Because they found little to nothing and some of the fraud that did occur during 2016 elections was by trump lovers convinced by trump that elections were rigged so they voted twice because they didn't think their first vote would count.

Everything I've stated is pretty much fact and I'd like to see a republican spin that.

Republicans hate mail voting because republicans hate people actually voting. The republican base are mostly people who will have no trouble going to vote in person. Retired, rich , unemployed white trash. While the democratic base has a lot of disenfranchised voters like minorities and people who need to work on voting days to be able to eat.
Republicans will fight tooth and nail against mail voting as well as pushing voting days to the weekend because that will make them lose every election in the future.

To put it into perspective, in Germany not only is every adult and German citizen automatically registered to vote, but we get automatically notified by mail when elections are and to top it off get a pre stamped envelope to be able to vote by mail if we cannot go on voting day, which is ALWAYS on a Sunday to make sure as many people as possible are able to vote.

Republicans win when no one gets to vote and they will do everything in their power to keep people from voting, which is why the Republican party is the number one threat to democracy. Not that I would call whatever the United States have democracy. It has been eroded so much that it is now closer to a totalitarian oligarchy than to a democratic republic.

I hope Eric isn't banned.  Even though I disagree with just about everything he says politically, I never seen a post that would be considered trolling or worth banning.  Eric was my go to for far right wing apologist.  

I hope he is. I've never seen someone so consistently, persistently, aggressively wrong about everything while absolutely failing to deliver even a modicum of reason, rationality, logic, or backing up his claims in the least bit. The forum is better off without his trash posting. He has never helped the discussion, he never added to the discourse, he had nothing of value to say, and even Torillian couldn't get a well-rationed argument out of him. Waste of time engaging with him.

Well technically we are supposed to be a republic.  I respect your knowledge of our political system. Only thing I know about Germany is Merkel.  I also know they had one strongest economies in Europe and were supporting failed nations like Greece.  I believe Greece, Spain and Italy are biggest drains on EU.  Kind of like republican states here like Kentucky.  I also know far right parties on emergence in Europe and even Germany but Germany considering their past they frown on those fools.  You see people can still fly Confederate flag here which I respect Germany for banning Nazi flag.  I view those who fly Confederate flags as traitors and losers.  I just want to be like dude your side lost over 100 years ago.  Their is no heritage or tradition.  The war lasted less than decade and we are so far from generations of past.  I can tell you this I don't really give a fuck what my great great great grandad believed in or did.

On side note I love that clip with Bush Jr (W) when he massaged Merkel on shoulders.  Took her by surprise.  She was like wtf is going on.  Bush was like don't worry.  Just go with it.

As a general warning don't call out or critique banned users.