belaborthepoint

[belaborthepoint]

How Emily in Paris changed my life

In the past year, I've had the privilege of seeing myself onscreen in so many forms: characters with brownish hair, characters who are rape survivors, and most importantly, a character who went to Paris one time. It's always nice to see my experiences being handled sensitively and artfully in the media. Whenever I see a tv show that talks about rape and sexual assault, or someone having brownish hair, or something like that, I feel seen to a certain degree. But I don't feel truly understood. Or I didn't, until the show Emily in Paris was created.

There were a lot of great tv shows this year. I really liked Queen's Gambit a lot because everyone looked really pretty and they had cool furniture, and Dudley from Harry Potter was in it. I May Destroy You was kind of cool because I was raped one time and it's always nice to see that portrayed accurately in the media. But I cannot stress enough the significance that Emily in Paris held for me. Me, a person who owns a beret. Me, a person who went to Paris one time when I was 8. Me, a person who is skinny and uses social media. Good or bad, these things are what make me...me. They are immutable facts. I can't change the reality of owning a beret. Well, I could technically give it to a Goodwill or something, but probably someone would buy me a beret again in the future. And I can't change the fact that I owned a beret in the past. It's a part of my journey, my story, and it's woven into the very fiber of my being.

I haven't always been someone who owned a beret. When I was a kid, I didn't own a beret at all, or even that many other kinds of hats. But I did have a dad who owned a beret, and sometimes, when I saw him outside, he would be wearing that very same beret on the top of his head. Later in life, I would buy a beret of my own at Target. But I've been a francophile since the beginning. I watched The Aristocats a lot of times, and when I was a child I took French lessons at my Montessori preschool after we learned how to churn butter in mason jars. When I was 8, I went to Paris with my parents for a week. I don't really remember it because I was 8 and it was kind of boring, but it was also the most formative experience of my life, and I will never forget it. Then, in high school, I watched Amelie, and I knew that I was destined for a life full of whimsy and romance and other abstract things that I vaguely associate with France for some reason.

In college, I saw Breathless, which is a black and white movie that's in French. I don't remember the plot, but it was an artistic masterpiece that forever changed me and made me the person I am today. I also knew someone who played the accordion once. In my early twenties, I watched Amelie some more times. And that's how I got to be where I am today, a person in their mid-twenties with an irrepressible love for things that are sort of French. That's my personality. For better or for worse, I'm complicated, quirky, and beautiful, and I'm also skinny. I might be different from other girls, but that's me, a free spirit who loves to travel and adventure. I've been all over the world in Europe, and I've been to so many European cities in France, all across the globe. I just love to see new places and things and get a new perspective. Sometimes, you just have to see things a little differently and you realize that you just have to look at it a little different.

But being different can be lonely, too, I'm not gonna lie...sometimes I just wish that more people understood what it was like to own a beret. It's easy to connect over things that everyone already has a nuanced understanding of, like having brownish hair, or being a victim of sexual assault, but those conversations get stale pretty quickly. We're all familiar with what it's like to have hair that is not quite brown but not blonde either, or the way sexual assault is handled in the legal system, or navigating rape culture for your whole life. But what about the things that go unspoken? That are too difficult to articulate simply? That we haven't found a shared language for? That we carry inside us at all times, feeling hurt and misunderstood? I am, of course, talking about the experience of going to Paris one time. I've met other people who went to Paris one time, and even some other people who own berets; it seems we're drawn to one another by some kind of inexplicable cosmic force that wants us to find solace in each other's company. There's some kind of magical, intangible quality about someone who went to Paris one time. And it's amazing to meet other people who understand what it's like to have gone to Paris one time. Don't get me wrong, I live for those moments of shared understanding. But I've never felt like the world around us gets it.

And then, Emily in Paris was born. Finally, a piece of art that spoke to me and my experience of going to France one time. Leave it to artists to give a voice to that which cannot be expressed in language, the unknowable sublime. I never dared to hope that I could one day see myself on screen in this way, to feel recognized and understood, and less alone, but Emily in Paris has made that secret dream a reality. This is why art exists. For me, but more importantly, for the children. For all the little girls out there who are white and skinny and own berets and saw a French movie once, this show is for you. All of you. You're not alone. 

[belaborthepoint]

Vice Presidential Debate 2020

SUSAN PAGE: Welcome to the first, and thankfully only, vice presidential debate of 2020. It is my honor to moderate this debate, a messy and chaotic charade that's such an important part of our democracy. We have a small audience here tonight, in part because of covid, and also because no one wanted to come. No one here tonight wants to be here, but with a lot of encouragement they have agreed to express enthusiasm two times. Senator Harris, let's start with you. Please talk about some concrete things that the Biden administration will do to handle covid. You have two minutes.

KAMALA HARRIS: Thank you, Susan. I think instead I'd like to use these two minutes as an opportunity to summarize all the ways that Trump has mishandled the virus. Biden probably does have some ideas, but I will not tell you any of them. Just know that he will do things, and I believe he will do them well.

SUSAN PAGE: Um. Okay. Vice President Pence, I'll give you an opportunity to answer a question. Why is the U.S. death toll higher than that of like every other wealthy country?

MIKE PENCE: Thank you, Susan. I will not answer that, but what I will do is tell you that under President Trump's leadership, Operation Warp Speed, we have something called Operation Warp Speed, which is totally badass. I think ultimately Americans will be proud to have died for their country. Thoughts and prayers to all the families of people who died solely due to our negligence.

SUSAN PAGE: Vice President Pence, your administration has made a mockery of the national response to covid. You don't wear masks and you don't social distance and now Trump has covid himself and is actively exposing other people. How do you expect the American people to take this seriously if you don't?

MIKE PENCE: Well, thankfully most of the country is composed of people who are more intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate than us, and we trust that they will do the right thing. I have to believe this. President Trump and I are pieces of living human garbage, and if I didn't trust that most people out there are actually decent human beings, I wouldn't sleep at night. I just have to believe that we are the very worst that humanity has to offer if I want to have hope for the future.

SUSAN PAGE: Cool. So, for both of you, have you talked to the guys about if they die because they’re old/one of them has covid?

MIKE PENCE: I appreciate that question, but I would like to go back--

SUSAN PAGE: I would prefer if you answered the question actually.

MIKE PENCE: I respect that you feel that way, and instead I will not do that. Senator Harris, I'd just like to say that a lot of people got sick with a cold under Obama's leadership, and if the common cold were as bad as covid, literally millions upon millions of people would die. Lots of people get the cold, and they would all die.

KAMALA HARRIS: Okay?

MIKE PENCE: Also, I think I would be remiss if I didn't remind all of us about the Plague of Justinian that killed 25 million people from the year 541 to 542. The bubonic plague RAVAGED Europe, and where was Barack Obama then? Nowhere to be seen.

SUSAN PAGE: ....alright. Senator Harris, would you be willing to answer the question that Vice President Pence so ineptly evaded?

KAMALA HARRIS: I would not. But speaking of aging and death, I'd like to talk about life, my life, and some highlights from it. Life is so precious. Here one day and gone the next. Which is why it's so important to take stock of the times in our lives that we felt truly happy, because happiness is ephemeral. It's something we can't grasp with our hands, like a butterfly. It's a chimera of a memory of a moment, and we have to hold onto it. When Joe Biden asked me to be his vice president, it was on a zoom call. Haha, anyone here use zoom? Haha just kidding. But it was a zoom call, and it reminded me of my mother, and the day I came out of her sack of flesh that is a human body. It's beautiful, but also gross and weird. But everyone was crying, because I was a baby who became born, and that's amazing.

SUSAN PAGE: I don't even know why I'm here. Okay, well, we're supposed to be talking about the economy now, if that matters to anyone.

MIKE PENCE: Thank you so much, Susan. What Joe Biden wants to do is to tax people. He will tax you. He will take a portion of your money and use it to invest in PUBLIC SERVICES.

KAMALA HARRIS: Yes, correct.

MIKE PENCE: What? No, we don't like that. He will use YOUR MONEY to build ROADS and LIBRARIES and invest in EDUCATION.

KAMALA HARRIS: Yeah.

MIKE PENCE: Uh, uh, okay, hold on, okay, he's also going to BAN. FRACKING.

KAMALA HARRIS: He will do no such thing.

MIKE PENCE: He wants to ABOLISH. FOSSIL. FUELS.

KAMALA HARRIS: No he doesn't!!! We like the fossil fuel industry!!!!!

SUSAN PAGE: Vice President Pence, do you believe that climate change is related to the fact that the climate is changing?

MIKE PENCE: Nope. I believe that the air and stuff are all actually very clean, not in spite of, but because of capitalism. The free market economy is actually the reason why the earth is in such good shape.

SUSAN PAGE: Huh. Okay, let's talk about China. President Trump is a racist. Can you speak to that?

MIKE PENCE: I am also racist and xenophobic, and those are values that are important to me. Joe Biden, however, doesn't hate China that much, which is bad. He actually likes China. He's obsessed with it. He's also a gay cheerleader. He's a cheerleader for gay communists. Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China for years, ever since he joined the intramural adult cheerleading squad for people who love communism. He literally goes to China and wears one of those little skirts even though he's a dude, and he waves pom poms around and does splits and has people throw him up in the air while he shouts good things about Mao Zedong. In his fifth year on the squad, the whole group got matching tattoos of Chairman Mao on their lower backs, and it was all Joe Biden's idea.

SUSAN PAGE: We've seen strains in our relationship with China. Senator Harris, what's your definition of the role of American leadership in 2020?

KAMALA HARRIS: Thank you, Susan. I like that you use the word 'relationship,' cause I think it really is all about relationships. I talk about this with Joe a lot, and how how important friendship is, and how you have to trust your friends. You have to be honest and loyal to them, Susan, because they are your friends. And that's what it's all about.

SUSAN PAGE: Uh, okay. Moving on, Vice President Pence, if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed as a supreme court judge and Roe v. Wade is overturned, would you want your home state to ban all abortions?

MIKE PENCE: That's a really interesting question, Susan, but I think I'll just take this time to say that everyone who practices Islam is a terrorist and Joe Biden loves terrorists. Joe Biden created an entirely different intramural adult cheerleading squad so he could be a cheerleader for Osama bin Laden, because he's obsessed with terrorism. Also, I hope you don't treat Amy Coney Barrett like you did Justice Kavanaugh, whom you criticized and bullied relentlessly just because he's a rapist. If Amy Coney Barrett turns out to be a rapist, I hope you'll give her the respect she deserves. Also, if you critique the pro-life movement it means that you're intolerant of Christianity and you hate religion.

SUSAN PAGE: Senator Harris, same question: if Roe v. Wade is overturned, what would you want California to do?

KAMALA HARRIS: Okay, I just need to make it very clear that Joe Biden and I both believe in God and we're really into going to church. Joe Biden is a Catholic, and I am extremely proud to be friends with him. Catholic men have been persecuted in this country for too long and I'm so happy to say that soon we will have a Catholic man serving as president of these United States of America. But yeah, obviously women should have control over their bodies.

MIKE PENCE: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris murder babies.

SUSAN PAGE: Maybe we should talk about actual murder. Senator Harris, on the subject of racial justice, do you think it's okay that the cops who killed Breonna Taylor aren't being indicted?

KAMALA HARRIS: No, obviously not. We need to reform our criminal justice system.

SUSAN PAGE: Vice President Pence?

MIKE PENCE: Well, you know, it's an interesting question. I think that...death...is....not good. I do not love it when any person dies. It is not my favorite thing by a long shot. That being said, I think the most important thing is that we have blind faith in our incredibly broken justice system, and they said that everything was fine here. So was it wrong that she died? No. And frankly I think it's rude that you would disrespect cops by condemning the act of murder that they committed.

KAMALA HARRIS: Dude, I love cops. I AM a cop. I just think they shouldn't murder people. And I think that if we make it so that they're not allowed to, they will stop.

MIKE PENCE: Why are we talking about human life right now when we should be addressing the real issue at hand which is destruction of property? Killing human beings is one thing, but destroying property? Reprehensible. The only time I've ever been ashamed to be an American is when I spoke personally to the CEO of Target and saw the grief that he and his family were experiencing at the hands of rioters and looters. Those looters have the blood of private property on their hands. I mean, you know, not literal blood, but like, the stuff that buildings are made of.

KAMALA HARRIS: Why can't you just condemn white supremacy? It's really not hard.

MIKE PENCE: Because we ARE white supremacists.

KAMALA HARRIS: Oh, true. Also you have a fly on your head.

FLY: Greetings.

MIKE PENCE: Okay but should we talk about your history with criminal justice reform? Cause it's also not great.

KAMALA HARRIS: It's fine. You still have a fly on your head.

FLY: Howdy.  

SUSAN PAGE: Yeah, there is totally a fly on your head, dude. Now I want to address the fact that Donald Trump will refuse to leave office even if he loses the election. Senator Harris, do you have a plan for if that happens?

KAMALA HARRIS: I think everyone should vote.

SUSAN PAGE: Yeah, but--

KAMALA HARRIS: Everyone needs to vote. Voting is extremely important, and you should do it.

SUSAN PAGE: But do you have a plan for--

KAMALA HARRIS: Voting.

SUSAN PAGE: Okay, whatever. Vice President Pence, what will you personally do if Trump loses the election and refuses to accept it?

MIKE PENCE: He's not going to lose so I actually don't need to think about that.

SUSAN PAGE: Yeah but if he does--

MIKE PENCE: He's not gonna.

SUSAN PAGE: But IF--

MIKE PENCE: Nope. Not gonna happen. I would also like to say that when Joe Biden was vice president, he made the FBI spy on us and our campaign. They had a little man that they shrunk down to fit inside of my pocket and listen to what I said with a little tiny ear trumpet, and he wrote it all down on a small notepad. They spied on us, and if Joe Biden is president he will make lots of small men to climb in people's pockets and spy on the American people. It is unethical and I will not stand for it. But it's fine because Joe Biden will not win.

SUSAN PAGE: Well tonight was a massive waste of time. To conclude this spectacle, we're going to ask a question from an 8th grader. It's not a real question so don't worry about coming up with anything substantial, just say some nice stuff to end the night on a good note. This question is from Brecklyn.

BRECKLYN: It makes me sad when people don't get along. Why can't people just get along?

MIKE PENCE: Brecklyn, that question was dumb as shit. But it was also beautiful, and the only question I will actually bother to answer. Brecklyn, sometimes your friend is a white supremacist. Sometimes, your cousin has blue hair and is a lesbian. But at the end of the day, we all want to smile and hold hands in a circle, because underneath our skin, we all have bones and muscles, and they can look different, but we're all made of the same stuff. We're all made of stars. And that's America. Thank you, Brecklyn.

KAMALA HARRIS: Yes, that's an excellent question. And Brecklyn, I want to tell you that Joe Biden also feels sad sometimes. If I know anything about Joe Biden, it's that he is a human man. He's literally a living human person, which means that he has experienced emotions. He has felt a lot of emotions such as sadness, joy, anger, that specific kind of secondhand embarrassment that you feel for fictional characters on tv, and lots of other human feelings, because he's a person. He's not a lizard, he's not a small pile of rocks, and he's not a piece of wallpaper. He is a human person. THAT'S America.

SUSAN PAGE: Cool, thanks. Well that's that. We hope you'll join us for another presidential debate next week if Trump is alive and has somehow recovered from covid. Which we want. We wish him a, uh, recovery. Goodnight everyone.

[belaborthepoint]

How I got my zoom crush to fall in love with me

I have no hope for the future. I have no remaining interests or passions and I eat nothing but refried beans. I am a ghost of my former self. I am finally convinced that the world is a horrible, violent place and there is no way out. The good thing is, I found love. I saw a hot person on zoom and I made him fall madly in love with me. Indulging in the charade of romance with someone I've never met and who lives in a different state and who has expressed no interest in me whatsoever has been my one source of light in this dark world, and I wanted to share my good fortune by passing along my tips and tricks for making someone on zoom fall in love with you.

The first step in whatever you are doing is to look at instructional drawings on WikiHow. When I looked up how to flirt with someone using a digital medium, there was a big X over a text message with lots of 'hahaha's and 'lol's so I knew that laughing was unattractive. Whenever someone made a joke in the zoom room I made sure to look extremely angry and I sent my crush a message that said "I do not have a sense of humor." To seal the deal, I sent him a video of me crying.

I was worried that my approach might be too subtle, however, when I read about drawing attention to yourself. The article said to wear more makeup than usual, and a hot outfit, so I pulled out my face painting kit and learned how to make it look like my face was like a rat's face with like whiskers and stuff and then I put on a sexy french maid costume. I knew that all eyes were on me in that zoom session and I was eating it up. Sometimes it can be hard to accept attention when everyone is attracted to you because you want them to see you for the person you are beneath that pretty face and also you shouldn't draw too much attention to yourself if you're not a cis man because it's rude and annoying and you're not entitled to that much space, so it's always a delicate balance.

The next thing I learned from an internet article is that you should always be carrying a hot liquid so that people will associate you with warm feelings. But my question was, how will they know what the temperature of the drink is unless it's so hot that you burn yourself? I couldn't think of an answer, so I realized I would have to pour boiling water all over my body, unfortunately. But this could work to my advantage, because I could also use this to draw attention to myself a little bit. I "forgot" to mute my mic, haha, and then I waited for my water to boil and start making a ruckus. Everyone waited for me to go take it off the stove and they were all like "mute yourself" but I pretended that I didn't hear anything for a few minutes and played coy in a fun, cute way. Then I "forgot" to mute myself again, haha, and clattered around the kitchen and dropped some china dishes on the floor and they shattered. Then I was like "okay, about to pour this boiling hot water on top of this teabag in order to make tea!" but then I pretended to slip on a banana peel and I was like "WOAHWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAH" and I swung my arms all around and then fell on the floor. But I forgot to spill hot water on myself so then I had to do it again, and I had to pretend like I'd accidentally dropped TWO banana peels on the floor, which was kind of embarrassing because I would never eat that many bananas in one day but I had to pretend like I was the kind of person who would do that. So then I did the pratfall thing again but this time I lifted up the tea kettle and poured the boiling water all over myself.

Then I screamed and thrashed about on the floor and unfortunately I had to go to the emergency room and get a full body cast for the 3rd degree burns all over my entire body, so I couldn't see how my crush reacted for the end of the zoom session. But for our next encounter, I put some of my sexy lingerie over my full body cast to give him a little something to feast his eyes upon, and I knew that he was loving that because he sneezed two times in a row, which I think was kind of like a secret code to express that he thought I was really hot even in my full body cast. Some people asked if I was okay and I was very sweet and modest and everyone liked that and found me very approachable. This was another thing that was a good tactic, which was to do something kind of embarrassing (slipping on a banana peel and pouring boiling water on my body) to make myself seem more relatable and less threatening since people are often intimidated by my looks.

When two zoom meetings had passed and I had received no DMs, I knew I'd have to step up my game. An additional tip I learned online is that you should connect over shared interests, which initially was a problem because I don't have any interests. But one thing I thought of is that what if I were inside his house? Then we would have the connection of being in the same building. So I flew to his state in a private jet to accommodate my full body cast and then broke his window and hurled myself through it. I used to do long jump in high school track so I'm really good at flinging my body up over things. He was in another room listening to something with noise cancelling headphones on so he didn't hear, and I had the chance to go sit in his bathroom. Conveniently, I really needed a place to poop because I'm scared of pooping on airplanes because I'm worried the gravity will push it back up inside me and clog my organs and kill me. Then I realized it was time for our weekly zoom meeting! So I thought, wouldn't that be so funny if he opened up his laptop and there in my zoom square was someone (me), sitting on his own toilet? That would be so surprising!

Before he got on, someone else said that it was indecent of me to have my camera on while I was pooping, so I had to turn it off until I was done. I finished up and moved to the tub. I thought it would be funny if during the zoom call I washed my hair so he could be like, is that my bathroom? Is that my SHAMPOO? That's funny! Unfortunately I dropped my laptop in the tub and it broke before anyone could see whose tub I was in. But he did have to use the bathroom at one point and he saw me in there washing the conditioner out of my hair. Unfortunately he was more angry and disturbed than charmed, and he asked me to leave his house.

An inspirational quote I always come back to is "it's better to have loved and lost." Margaret Thatcher said that about divorce. I'm someone with a lot of feelings, which is why I went to school to pursue acting and then moved back in with my parents at the age of 25 to wander the rooms of my childhood home wearing sunglasses and smoking CBD out of a long cigarette holder. Not everyone wants to marry me, but everyone falls in love with me at least once. And is it really a romance if there wasn't some drama along the way? I always say, you can't make everyone like you, but you can become an inescapable presence in their psyche for the rest of their days. My crush will never forget me, and for that I am grateful. Our romance was fleeting, like the art of the theatre. You can't hold on to it, and that's what makes it beautiful. Margaret Thatcher said, "you can't always get what you want." I think what connects us as humans is that we all love and we all lose. That's a universal truth. And truth is what it's all about. The beauty of universal truth is why I became an actor and then moved back into my parents' house at the age of 25 to wear long satin robes and listen to opera in the dark. My life may not be glamorous, but it is true. All we can do in these lonely times is to be true and honest and vulnerable with each other. Now is the time to confess your love. Now is the time to hurl yourself through the window of your crush's house. Now is the time to move back in with your parents at the age of 25 to wear old nightgowns and collect dust and stare at yourself in the mirror wondering what has become of the person you once were. I may not be a successful actor, but I do know how to love out loud and with my whole heart, and that's amazing. Margaret Thatcher was actually a mediocre actor in pornographic short films before she became the most famous divorce attorney in the United Nations, and that's what I always think about when I'm going through a heartbreak. I hope this article has helped inspire readers to pursue your own passions and take a chance on love, because that's really what it's all about. As Margaret Thatcher says, love is the answer.

[belaborthepoint]

When we said “we believe women,” we meant we believe women about their experiences with ghosts

In a statement issued by the Democratic Party yesterday, spokesperson Biff Glarnish clarified a widespread misunderstanding. "A lot of people are confused about why we aren't taking these allegations seriously. But we never said we believe women about sexual assault. If we did, we misspoke. The only thing we believe women about is supernatural encounters. Ghosts are real, and need to be taken seriously."

Women, one of the two genders, have a lot to say about sexual assault. They're all like "this happened to me! I don't think rapists should be president! Wahh!!" It's confusing as to what this means. Feeling "violated" can mean anything. I felt violated when I got a strep throat test, but I didn't go around telling people that my nurse practitioner shouldn't be president. The timing of this is very suspicious and gives us every reason to dismiss Tara Reade's claims.

Women lie about sexual assault all the time, because it's fun for them and they like stirring up drama to get attention. While it can ruin a man's life, for the second of the two genders which is women, all it means to them is low stakes amusement. They don't have to deal with shame. It doesn't harm their reputation. Bill Clinton has become a laughingstock and remembered for nothing but the fact that he harmlessly abused his position as the most powerful figure in the entire United States to take advantage of a 22-year-old. He's nothing but a punchline. Meanwhile Monica Lewinsky has just gone about her life, happy and carefree, completely insensitive to the fact that she ruined a president's entire life. In an interview on CNMNMSNBC, Glarnish said "Women lie about sexual assault. If we ever suggested that we should believe these claims, that was a grave mistake that we hope to rectify."

In the wake of the attention-grabbing media stunt of the "hashtag me too 'movement,'" we've lost sight of the issue that we should be having the national conversation around: ghosts, apparitions, and spirits of the dead. On Friday, CNMNMSNBC interviewed Amy Klobuchar to tell her story.

"Before my career as a politician, I made money from ads on youtube after I posted videos documenting strange orbs of light that I saw in my bedroom. This is an important issue and I'm so happy you're taking me seriously as a woman and letting me tell my story. It was literally insane. I was like, just walking around my room and brushing my hair, and then I see this like piece of kind of shimmery light just hanging in the air, like a fractal or something, like a light fractal? Is that the word? And I was like 'hark! Who goes there?!' and then I just knew that it was my great aunt Marge. It was like she was inside my chest, saying 'hi, it's me, Marge.' It was the most profound experience of my whole life."

Due to their promise to believe women unequivically on these matters, the DNC is not challenging the veracity of this statement, but taking it at face value on principle. The DNC has made a commitment to respect women. "In light of the history of women seeing ghosts, we know that there is such a slim chance that they would fabricate a story like this. Not only would it be harmful and disresepctful towards the women to challenge their claims, it would also just be an unproductive use of time, given the extreme likelihood that ghosts are real," said Glarnish. In another CSMNSNMNMNBC interview, Marianne Williamson spoke her truth.

"I know that ghosts are real because I am a ghost. In a dream, I died, and when I woke up, I was a different person, yet somehow the same. I realized that I'm dead in this dimension as well. I had become a spirit of my living self. This allows me to channel the voices of everyone who has ever died, and dedicate myself to the transmission of spirit voices to the earthly realm."

It has been a powerful and touching display of solidarity to watch the DNC, along with mainstream news sources, take these women seriously and elevate their voices at this important time.

[belaborthepoint]

Coronavirus Debate Transcript

JAKE TAPPER: Let's start with you, Vice President Biden. Do you have anything constructive or helpful to say to everyone about coronavirus?

BIDEN: Well, first of all, it's bad. Second if all, go to joebiden.com, where I've laid it all out. Can't remember it right now, but I know that there's a lot of stuff written on my website. I want everyone to be able to get a test. I don't want everyone to have healthcare, but everyone can definitely know whether or not they have it. I see my time is up, but just remember to check out joshbiden.com. I mean Jonah. John. Joaquin Phoenix. What's my name again? It definitely starts with a J and has an O in there somewhere.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders, what would you do tonight to save American lives?

BERNIE: I mean, you might have heard me mention it before, but I have this little idea called 'medicare for all' that I think could be good. You know, so you can actually go to the doctor and go to the ER and go to therapy and not have crippling debt. And we need to make sure that people will be made whole if they lose their jobs.

BIDEN: Oh, good line. I'm gonna write that one down.

BERNIE: If we can put $1.5 trillion into the banking system, we can protect people's wages.

BIDEN: Look, we've done this before. Me and Barack Obama, the president under which who I was a vice president of. When the black death was happening, I mean tuberculosis, I mean chicken pox, I mean leprosy, I mean coronavirus-- wait, what's this current one called? Oh, coronavirus. Okay, when the one in Africa was happening, one that was not coronavirus, we dealt with that. EBOLA! Ebola. It was called Ebola.

DANA BASH: Vice President Biden, would you take the unprecedented step of a national lockdown?

BIDEN: I would do whatever it was that I did under the one and only president Barack W. Bush. Hoover. Adams. Jefferson. Madison. Monroe. Hold on, let me sing the Animaniacs song in my head for a second. Hmmm uhhh Obama! Barack Obama. And with all do resepct, medicare for all has nothing to do with everyone having access to healthcare. They are two completely separate issues. We should do what we did with the Ebola crisis under Barack Obama when the Ebola crisis was happening during the Ebola crisis.

BERNIE: Actually medicare for all is sort of relevant. We don't have enough doctors, ventilators, test kits, prescription drugs, or hospital beds. We have thousands of private insurance plans, we don't have a healthcare system.

BIDEN: What are you even talking about? Does anyone know what he's talking about? Stay on topic! We're talking about a global EPIDEMIC that is affecting people's HEALTH. This has NOTHING to do with HEALTHCARE. Someone reign this guy in! All we do is say, it's a crisis, you don't have to pay for anything. That simple.

BERNIE: It's not that simple though...that law has enormous loopholes and not everyone will be covered.

BIDEN: But I have a plan, and no one will have to pay for anything related to coronavirus.

BERNIE: Even if that were true, wouldn't people still need to go to the hospital for other things? If a kid broke their leg? And wouldn't people still need to go to psychologists? And wouldn't people still have all of the health problems that were happening before the pandemic that are still happening now?

BIDEN: No. People do not break legs during global crises.

BERNIE: Um...okay....also, how are we going to trust you to take on the health care industry, some of which is funding your campaign? Or the prescription drug industry, some of which is funding your campaign?

BIDEN: Look, I-- this is the Ebola crisis. I'm not going to stand here and get into a back and forth about our politics, this isn't a political debate.  

BERNIE: Uh-

BIDEN: What I'm proposing is President Barack Obama's "Obamacare," as coined by President Barack Obama, the man under what I was a vice of president.

BASH: Would you deploy the U.S. military to contain the virus?

BIDEN: Yes. Just like Barack Obama and I did with the Ebola crisis.

BERNIE: Okay but this isn't Ebola. This is way more severe. We need to figure out how to get food to the elderly people who are told to stay home. We need to help the people who are in prison right now, who are in homeless shelters. We need to pay attention to the communities who are most vulnerable.

BIDEN: I think what we need most is to pay attention to the communities who are most vulnerable.

BERNIE: Yeah, I literally just said that.

BIDEN: First things first is the first thing of is surging the capability to prevent a big bump of pain, of what is the potential of causing pain in moving in the direction of making sure we have a plan to make sure it's a plan. Look, our policies have eaten up all our seed corn. We might have brick and wheat but we don't have any sheep to trade. Back in my squaredancing days we called that a jigsaw hootenanny raw dog. We're going to have to, with Trump, he's, for example, he came along and said, I've got a great idea, let's-- well, you're going to tell me...

ILIA CALDERON: Bernie, can you say something of substance?

BERNIE: Sure thing. I think Ebola--

BIDEN: He said 'Ebola' instead of 'coronavirus!!' Hahaha!!!!!

BERNIE: Coronavirus!!! I'm sorry!!! You just said 'Ebola' so many times!!

CALDERON: Can we keep this moving please?

BIDEN: We need to make sure that people will be made whole.

CALDERON: Didn't Bernie say that earlier?

BIDEN: No.

BERNIE: Yes. Yes, I did.

BIDEN: Look. What we need is to make sure that people will be made whole. Bernie keeps acting as though our current economic collapse as a result of coronavirus is somehow related to income inequality, like it somehow disproportionately affects low-income people and like this wouldn't hurt them so much if we had a more equal distribution of wealth, but what I'm saying is...huh...well, now that I think about it, that actually makes sense and is really obvious. But it is also very wrong. We need to focus on this crisis as though it's not happening in the context of an already existing economic crisis and like people weren't already struggling to stay afloat and pay medical bills. We need to talk about this as though it's this totally isolated event that has nothing to do with anything.

BERNIE: We could do that...or we could acknowledge that in addition to helping people during this crisis we also need to help them after it ends when they continue to struggle like they were before the crisis, living paycheck to paycheck and barely making ends meet. We're going to need a healthcare system that supports people once this is over.

BIDEN: But we need to address the current situation, which is a health crisis. This has nothing to do with our healthcare system. You just keep talking about all these random unrelated things, I don't even know where you get these ideas.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders, would you support bailouts for industries being crushed by the outbreak?

BERNIE: We need to stabilize the economy but we can't do what we did in 2008. We need to do more than save the banks or the oil companies. We need to help actual working people.

BIDEN: Yeah, but guess what, Bernie? If the banks went under, everyone that you claim to care about, all those little tiny miniature humans that you're so fond of, those small itty bitty bite-size people that can fit in the palm of your hand and just coochy coochy coo who's a wittle baby!! Goo goo ga ga!! Tiny wittle baby people!! They would all die, which is why we actually still need to prioritize banks over human beings anyways.

BERNIE: We can have a bailout, we just shouldn't make working people pay for it.

BIDEN: OOOOHHHhhhh OHkay!! So you just want to do like a, a uh, a WEALTH TAX or some wacky maneuver like that?? Make the richest people in the country pay for it?? Is THAT what you want?!??

BERNIE: Um, yeah.

CALDERON: Vice President Bident, A lot of undocumented as well as legal immigrants are afraid to seek medical help. How do you ensure they feel safe enough to get treatment?

BIDEN: Illegal creatures are not human beings. I mean, no, that's not the one. That's not right. Illegal...undocumented...illegal alien monsters-- no, that's not it either. Um, PEOPLE, because I DEFINITELY believe that they are indeed human beings (!!), should get help so that they do not die. That's for sure what I think because I am progressive and have always been this way. Also, domestic violence is a bad thing too.

BERNIE: If we had medicare for all I'd make sure that undocumented people were covered so this wouldn't be happening.

BASH: Let me ask you though. You are, as previously mentioned repeatedly, extremely decrepit and about to keel over and die. You are a million years old. Do you wash your hands after you doodoo?

BERNIE: Yes. I also wash my hands after I make peepee. And I use a lotta soap.

BASH: Vice President Biden, you are also fifty trillion years old. Do you wash your hands after you go potty?

BIDEN: Yes. But back in my granddad's day, we would piss on a log in the backyard and call it a wacky doo diddly. You wipe your ass with a pine cone and call it ice cream. That's what the backyard gang always said.

TAPPER: The country is falling apart into a million pieces and is on fire. Why do we not need a revolution?

BIDEN: Because we need immediate change, we need it NOW. That's why I'm advocating for slow incremental change via moderate concessions that don't address any of our country's fundamental problems. I mean, what's a revolution going to do, ha, I mean, change things? We need a CHANGE.

TAPPER: Uh. Right. Bernie?

BERNIE: If you want to change things, if you want to take on Wall Street and the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry, you don't take campaign contributions from them.

BIDEN: I talked about that 30 years ago.

BERNIE: Okay?

BIDEN: I have come up with every idea. If you have an idea, you have an idea in your head, I've already thought of it. I have thought up every idea that has ever been thought. So I think you should join me and and we can work together to accomplish my vision the way that I want it, cooperatively achieving only my goals.

BERNIE: I don't want to join you. You should join me.

BIDEN: I know you are but what am I?!?

BERNIE: What?

BIDEN: If I am leather and you are glue that what you say to me bounces, rolls off of me and then is on you and is sticky.

BERNIE: Um, okay...so how about you get rid of your SuperPACs?

BIDEN: Why don't YOU get rid of YOUR SuperPACs?!

BERNIE: Cause I don't have any.

BIDEN: Yes you do!! You have forty of them and I can name them all.

BERNIE: Okay, sure. You go ahead and do that.

BIDEN: Come ON. Do you hear this guy? Give me a break. Come on. This is ridiculous. Everything this man says is a lie! Including that I've been opposed to Social Security, which I definitely absolutely have not!! I LOVE Social Security!!

BERNIE: So you're going to look me in the eye and tell me you never stood on the Senate floor and repeatedly talked about cutting Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' programs.

BIDEN: Correct.

BERNIE: You didn't say that.

BIDEN: No, I did not.

BERNIE: Is your name Joe Biden?

BIDEN: No.

BERNIE: Is your name Joaquin Phoenix?

BIDEN: Yes.  

BERNIE: Did you star opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in that movie about scientology?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: Are you a scientologist?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: Is your name Tom Cruise?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: Is your name Elisabeth Moss?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: Were you on the popular television show West Wing?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: Are you the daughter of the fictional president Jed Bartlet in the popular television show West Wing?

BIDEN: Yes.

BERNIE: I rest my case.

BIDEN: Go to josiahbartlet.com to view my plans.

BERNIE: Joe has come around on a lot of things but he never supported them when they were popular ideas. Leadership is about going forward even when an idea isn't popular. I've been talking about all these issues for years and he's only now deciding to support them because it's politically convenient. You're now trying to reform bills that YOU voted for. If you hadn't voted for them, we might not even have these problems. Do you remember when you hated gay people?

BIDEN: Still do. I mean sure do. Sure do remember that.

BERNIE: And when you voted for the Iraq war?

BIDEN: Yahuh.

BERNIE: So like, where's your integrity?

BIDEN: Integrity schminschmegrity. That's Yiddish. Haha just kidding. Just some Jewish humor for ya. Anyways, I might hate gay people, but I was the first person to say that I did not hate gay people on live television, and media presence is much more significant than internal values. I actually don't have any values. I'm sort of an empty shell at this point. Just goin' along for the ride. Just chuggin' along. Chugga chugga choo choo!!! Haha!!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back! Here's a question from someone on the internet. How will your cabinet ensure the best advice on issues that affect women's physical and financial health?

BERNIE: My cabinet will look like America.

BIDEN: My cabinet will look like the country of America.

BERNIE: I JUST said that.

BIDEN: No you didn't. Also, I wrote all of the laws about domestic violence. I actually invented domestic violence, and then I wrote bills to stop it. If it's related to domestic violence, I'm responsible. In a good way. I know many women and I don't think that they should be shot with guns.

BERNIE: Remember when you voted to not let low-income women use Medicaid funding for an abortion?

BIDEN: Yes, but other people also voted for that.

BERNIE: And? You're just wildly inconsistent and have a bad voting record.

CALDERON: Next question: should we be deporting people?

BERNIE: No.

BIDEN: Just some people. I now believe that it is wrong to deport millions of inhuman creatures. Real human people. Human being people who are also immigrants. They are people and I believe that. I don't like slavery! You think I like slavery? You think I have a confederate flag tattooed on my back??! You think I'm a confederate soldier because we took a time machine into the civil war because I love slavery so much?!? I don't love slavery!!!!!!!!

CALDERON: But you did oppose sanctuary cities. Where do you stand now? And should undocumented immigrants be arrested and turned over to immigration officials?

BIDEN: ....no...

CALDERON:

BERNIE:

TAPPER:

BASH:

CALDERON: Okay, guess that's all we're getting on that. Bernie?

BERNIE: Obviously we shouldn't be doing that. Kids shouldn't be living in constant psychological terror, scared that their parents will be deported. We need to end ICE raids on day one. I'm the son of an immigrant and this is a country built by immigrant labor. We need to end this demonization.

BIDEN: I wrote every climate bill.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: I know we just keep rehashing the same thing, but Senator Sanders, you have praised one single program of Fidel Castro. Does this mean that you, personally, have jailed, tortured and killed thousands of Cubans? Are your hands stained with Cuban blood? Do you kill Cubans as a hobby and do you enjoy it?

BERNIE: NO. I DON'T. LIKE. AUTHORITARIANISM.

CALDERON: But dictators are dictators. Doesn't this mean that we should portray them in an overly simplistic, black and white way that erases any single good thing they might have ever done?

BERNIE: No, that's not what that means.

BIDEN: I have personally witnessed Bernie murdering thousands of Cubans for fun. He was laughing and dancing and making water balloons full of Cuban blood and drawing smiley faces on them in sharpie. One time I asked him what his favorite activity was and he said 'jailing, torturing, and killing thousands of Cubans.' It happened. Boy scout's honor.

BERNIE: Look. Y'all. Things just aren't black and white. China is an authoritarian society. I know that. But is it not true that they've also made progress in ending poverty over the last 50 years?

BIDEN: That's like saying you want to make out with Hitler and marry him and start holocausts together. That's like saying you are the reincarnation of Hitler and you're in love with yourself.

BERNIE: I mean, no.

BIDEN: Yes it is!!

BERNIE: So China has never ever done a single good thing in the history of ever?

BIDEN: Ya.

BERNIE: I...this is a lost cause.

TAPPER: Speaking of foreign policy, Mr. Vice President, what lessons did you learn from mistakenly voting for the Iraq War?

BIDEN: That I didn't know and it wasn't my fault. None of the bad things were my fault, but I am responsible for all of the good things.

TAPPER: Huh. Interesting answer. Okay, well thanks for being here tonight and not touching each other except for your elbows. This election is going to be chaos. Good luck everyone.

[belaborthepoint]

South Carolina Debate Transcript

GAYLE: Let's begin. Senator Sanders, we currently have a low unemployment rate. This means practically nothing since many people are working multiple part-time jobs with wages that barely keep them above the poverty line. But regardless, why would socialism ever be better than what Trump is doing for the economy?

BERNIE: Trump hasn't improved the economy for anyone other than rich people. We still have 87 million Americans who are underinsured or have no health insurance and 500,000 people tonight sleeping on the streets.

NORAH: Mayor Bloomberg, I'll let you defend capitalism.

BLOOMBERG: Trump should not be president. Russia is helping Bernie Sanders so that Trump will win. Russia gave Bernie Sanders a million donations of $27 to help him.

PEOPLE PAID TO BE THERE BY BLOOMBERG: (APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Why would Russians want Bernie to be president?

BUTTIGIEG: If Bernie wins this nomincation, what you'll have is two people with very strong opinions, and they might raise their voices at each other when they disagree. Now imagine someone who's more relaxed, less agitated, more milquetoast. The kind of person who prefers honeydew melon to cantaloupe and doesn't like spicy foods. Right now, this is not about what we want for our country. It's not about health insurance, or wages. It's about just chillaxing, bro! Haha you know?

STEYER: Bernie is right. The problem is that he's wrong. What working families need is for basic needs to be commodified and privatized so that market has competition and capitalism can thrive. Donald Trump STINKS!

BIDEN: I'm not saying Bernie is responsible for mass shootings, but Bernie is responsible for mass shootings and he loves guns. In case anyone forgot, I was vice president under THE Barack Obama. And Bernie, he, let's talk about progressive. This was something that he wasn't. He, Bernie, he didn't -- progressive is getting, is doing things. And Bernie doesn't get things. Do. He doesn't do them.

BERNIE: Pete is funded by billionaires.

BUTTIGIEG: I will not allow this! I will no longer let this stand! I must let it be known that I also have donations from people who are not billionaires in addition to all of the donations that I do receive from billionaires. By the way, everyone please give me more money right now. As much as you are legally able to, give it to me now.

GAYLE: All right, all right. So, Vice President Biden, why don't black people like you?

BIDEN: Oh, you're actually wrong. They do. And if they don't, they should, because I deserve it. I worked like the devil's hotcakes. You shoot that spittin' pinjata wrestler like a hot diggity blubber nugget, and I mean that! I have come here and I plan to earn the vote and I plan to win it. I will win. You will vote for me or by dang, I'll splitterty splat the whole jib jab plipper plopper. You can count on that, folks.

(APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Mayor Bloomberg. When you apologize for stop and frisk, it's sort of like you're not actually taking responsibility and you're trying to exonerate yourself for every terrible thing you've done? Can you admit that you, personally, carried out stop and frisk and it's your fault and your own actions are to blame?

BLOOMBERG: OH my GOD, ENOUGH with stop and frisk already!! You people are OBSESSED!! Give it a REST. Stop and frisk got out of control. I apologized, I talked to real live black people and I have nothing else to say about it. I don't have to justify myself.

GAYLE: Weellllll you actually kinda do though.

BLOOMBERG: I bet I can name more than one hundred black people. Ben Carson. Um. Give me a second.

GAYLE: Mayor Buttigieg, is racial profiling racist?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. Also, sorry that we're all white, that's kinda awkward. I mean, you know, I'm not black, obviously. I'm white. What else would I be? I'm a white man. I'm not a black woman. I'm not. I'm just, I mean, I'm a man. I'm--

GAYLE: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm a man and I'm white. I'm not even a little bit--

GAYLE: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: I mean, look how white I am! Have you ever even-- I'm so white! I am a white. Man. I shouldn't even really be talking, cause I mean, you know, what do I know? I'm white! I shouldn't even really be talking about racial justice.

NORAH: Yup! Yes. Correct. Okay, moving on--

BUTTIGIEG: I am white.

BLOOMBERG: It's just a fact that racism exists, and we can't deny it. I just think we should all be acknowledging racism more.

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

KLOBUCHAR: I am also white and I would also like to take a moment to speak about race. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, we're all united like three kids in a trench coat. We're all wearing one large garment. We are all three children standing on top of each other in a trench coat and pretending to be one adult, but really, we're children. I think we should provide childcare for everyone, and you know, I think everyone should be able to vote.

(APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Senator Warren, why do you think Bloomberg is the worst candidate for the democratic nomination?

WARREN: Because he's literally a right wing republican who bought his way into this election and nobody trusts him?

GAYLE: True.

BLOOMBERG: In case you forgot, I was there for 9/11. I was inside of the twin buildings. I jumped out of the window of the 18th story through the burning flames and I died in the air from being on fire, but then, like a phoenix born anew out of the ashes of the old, I was reincarnated, and I became a democrat, because I love this country, and I love New York. Have you ever seen the movie Manhattan? It's my favorite Woody Allen movie, the one where he's 60 and dates a 17-year-old but it's okay because it's like quirky New York City people? Sometimes I watch that movie and I'm just like, wow, age knows no bounds. It's actually beautiful. I just love this city. This city is big. It's like a country. It's like a planet. I could probably be the dictator of a whole entire planet if I wanted to. Remember 9/11? Support our troops.

WARREN: Remember when you told a woman to kill her baby?

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

BLOOMBERG: I did not say that.

WARREN: So why won't you let any of these women speak about their experiences?

PEOPLE PAID BY BLOOMBERG TO BE THERE: BOOOOOOOO!! Not all men!!!!  

BLOOMBERG: Look, I don't know what more you want from me. Three women in the history of my whole life didn't think I was funny and then they tried to sue me. I'm sorry that they have a bad sense of humor and are too sensitive. A lot of women get confused and have bad hearing because of their periods, and I'm sorry if they made up things inside of their little brains and got themselves all worked up over nothing, but there's really nothing I can do about that. There's no point in continuing to bring up that I've harassed over a hundred women because it hurts my campaign and will make it less likely that I'll be president, so let's please just get over it.

PEOPLE PAID BY BLOOMBERG TO BE THERE: (APPLAUSE)

NORAH: Moving on! Senator Sanders, can you explain the math for the spending plans of every single one of your proposals in a minute and a half?

BERNIE: Um, no. It's kind of nuanced and would take longer than that.

BIDEN: THAT'S the problem. We need soundbites. Not lengthy plans that you can read about in your own time. You can't expect people to READ.

STEYER: I have an opinion.

BERNIE: Every study shows that medicare for all will save money. It'll cost $45 billion.

STEYER: Excuse me? Hello? I just want to take a moment. I just want to say that what we have on our hands here is the choice between a racist misogynist and a man who wants to make healthcare available for everyone, and to me, neither of those options look good, and this is very scary.

NORAH: Cool, thanks...so back to the actual conversation. Biden?

BIDEN: It's about time. Okay, Tom Steyer, remember when you bought a private prison system that wasn't providing healthcare for the people being held there?

STEYER: But then I sold it afterwards!!

BIDEN: Back in my neck of the woods, my hometown neighborhood baseball team would call that "Holly Golightly." You're just a beautiful, chain-smoking vixen with a cat named "Cat," that's what you are, you little tease! You old fox!

STEYER: Guilty as charged, mister. Say, you wanna get outta this joint and mosey on over to someplace a little more...intimate?

BIDEN: Holly Golightly!!!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GAYLE: Mayor Bloomberg, you're super fatphobic and are one of those people who use the phrase 'obesity epidemic.' Would you carry out fatphobic policies on a national level and continue policing everyone's eating habits and blaming health problems on fatness even though there's actually no direct correlation between weight and health and these ideas are just widely promoted by diet culture and the weight loss industry?

BLOOMBERG: Yeah, I'm still extremely fatphobic.

NORAH: Bernie wants to legalize weed. Discuss.

BLOOMBERG: It should not be criminal. Unless you're a dealer because then you are a bad and evil person. More importantly, we don't really know what marijuana is doing to our brains. Has anyone even researched this before? I don't even know what it is. Is it a plant? Does it grow on a tree? Who even knows! We need to get to the bottom of this. Research suggests that it is unladylike to smoke weed, and only boys do it. Boys are entering comatose states and waking up twenty years later after being cryogenically frozen, because of what marijuana is doing to their brains. It enters the brain cells, it rewires the neurotransmitters and emits electromagnetic currents that destroy your entire nervous system. Marijuana is killing our boys. We need to find out why.

BERNIE: Our criminal justice system is super racist and equates marijuana with heroine.

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

BERNIE:  We're going to expunge people's records and help POC communities start businesses to sell legal marijuana so it's not just white elitist hipsters controlling the market.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORAH: Senator Warren, why should we pull out our combat troops? How can we keep people safe?

WARREN: We're not keeping people safe or doing anything productive at all by keeping troops in Afghanistan.

GAYLE: Mayor Buttigieg, what would you like to contribute, as a veteran?

BUTTIGIEG: When I came out of the womb, I was in full combat gear. And just as sure as the hair on my chinny chin chin, I had a weird birth mark on my shoulder that was the exact image of the American flag. America used to stand for something. That's the America that I know and love.

BRENNAN: Senator Sanders, you've praised communism's ability to lift people out of poverty and acknowledged that socialist governments have done good things. Does this mean that you love authoritarianism?

BERNIE: Obviously not. I don't condone authoritarianism, I just think that Cuba did some things successfully.

BIDEN: So you think authoritariansim is good.

BERNIE: Do you know how logic works? No, I don't. I can say that the Cuban government has done certain things well and still condemn authoritarianism.

BUTTIGIEG: What is HAPPENING here?!? Is this the Cold War?!? What century are we living in that you can talk about the Cuban government with any kind of nuance?!? Who DOES that???! THIS IS INSANITY. What does Bernie think this is, the 1960s?? Are we gonna start dancing to rock and roll and being gay??? Wake up!!!!

BERNIE: Pete, do you really think universal healthcare is that radical? Or raising the minimum wage? Or providing affordable housing? Or raising taxes on billionaires? Or criminal justice reform? Or immigration reform?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. I just can't admit how moderate I actually am.

GARRETT: Senator Sanders, you claim to be Jewish, but you don't hate Palestine...what's the deal with that?

BERNIE: You know it is possible to be Jewish without being a Zionist, right? It's hard to ignore the harm that's been done to Palestinians.

GAYLE: Alright, final question. What's the biggest misconception about you, and what's your motto?

STEYER: The biggest conception is that I'm rich just because I'm rich. My motto is that I like to pour glue on my hands and then slowly peel it off because I know that I can always dig deeper and get to know myself on more levels.

KLOBUCHAR: Biggest misconception is that I'm not a party girl, because give me a few mimosas at brunch and I'll be dancing on the table! My motto is that I want to help people even though I'm a politician.

BIDEN: Biggest misconception is that I want a black woman on the Supreme Court. Wait no. That's my motto. Wait what? Okay, misconception is that I'm bald, while I actually have a gorgeous full head of long, flowing locks. Motto is "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down."

BERNIE: Misconception is that giving people human rights is radical. The motto is the song "It's Possible" from the Rogers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella.

WARREN: One misconception is that I'm not always eating, cause I am always eating. I love snacks. Especially those big jars of peanut butter-filled pretzels. And my motto is, if someone asks you for a peanut butter-filled pretzel, just give it to them, okay? You can spare one peanut butter-filled pretzel.

BUTTIGIEG: Misconception is that I'm too milquetoast, when actually, I am a moderate amount of milquetoast. You want someone who's even keeled and doesn't have emotions all the time. My motto is that I'm like a priest, but like the young hot priest in the show Fleabag. Not like as a character, but just cause I'm young and hot and also religious.

BLOOMBERG: Misconception, that I'm tall. When actually I just take up space because of my male privilege and not my physical height. And the quote is actually a little ditty that I came up with myself that goes "I want to be president really bad please elect me now I have put a lot of money into this campaign and I want to win please vote for me so I can be president."

PEOPLE THAT BLOOMBERG PAID TO BE THERE: (APPLAUSE)

NORAH: Okay, cool...um. Yeah. Super Tuesday's coming right up. I sure up that everyone doesn't drop out and endorse Biden because the DNC desperately wants to defeat Bernie. But I guess we'll find out! Bye!

[belaborthepoint]

Nevada Debate Transcript

HOLT: Good evening, everyone. Since last time, Bernie seems to be winning, but also he is still a socialist? Don't know what's going on there. We have a new addition to the race, a Republican who spent millions of dollars to run as a democrat despite being universally hated by the left and most everyone else. The first question goes to you, Senator Sanders. Why should we choose you as the Democratic nominee rather than the racist and misogynistic Republican who paid to be here?

BERNIE: Because he has attacked like any marginalized group you can think of and no one will want to vote for him and my policies will help people who aren't just rich white men.

HOLT: Mayor Bloomberg, what's your take on that?

BLOOMBERG: I know that Bernie is in the lead right now, but there's literally no chance that he can win. You can't win by taking away people's insurance and then giving it back to them for free, that's ridiculous.

WARREN: You're a billionaire who calls women "fat broads" and "horse-faced lesbians" and you call trans people "it." You're a racist and you sexually harass women and no one wants to vote for you.

KLOBUCHAR: I was going to welcome Bloomberg here tonight until I remembered who he was and then I was like "wait what?"

BLOOMBERG: Look. I'm a New Yorker. Pizza, fuhgeddaboudit. I'm from New York City and there are black people who live in there and I know how to deal with that. Remember 9/11? I was there for that. I was all like, "this is bad and everyone who isn't white is a terrorist." I have spent a lot of money on my campaign.

BIDEN: NBC thinks I'm going to win despite the fact that Bernie is clearly winning. NBC said it. So there you go.

BUTTIGIEG: Come on, people, wake up. Because what if Bernie and Bloomberg are our only options? Then we'll have someone who likes capitalism and someone who thinks that it's bad. We need to elect someone who thinks that capitalism is sort of okay. I know that it's destroying the lives of 99% of the country, but I'm pretty out of touch with those communities so it doesn't really matter to me. I do live in a middle-class neighborhood though so sometimes I see middle-class people on the sidewalk.

HOLT: Bernie, are you polarizing?

BERNIE: I care about the working class if that's what you're asking.

BUTTIGIEG: Blah blah blah I'm Bernie and I looOOOoove poor people!! Look at me!! I have class consciousness!! Blehh!!! Guess what?! You're not special. Lots of people want to empower workers. Just because you're the only person on this stage who will seriously advocate for them doesn't mean that, uh...well...the Culinary Union doesn't like you!! No one likes you!!

BERNIE: ExCUSE me, we have more union support than you can even imagine in your wildest dreams. Unions will always like me better!! They will never love you!!!!!!!!

JACKSON: One time a Bernie supporter said mean stuff on the internet though. Everyone else's supporters are all Buddhist monks who are volunteer dentists in the Peace Corps. Every single one of them.

WARREN: Bloomberg is still a racist.

BUTTIGIEG: But WHY did a Bernie supporter say a mean thing? We really need to think about why this is happening and why Bernie is the only person who has supporters who are not volunteer Buddhist dentists.

BERNIE: I don't know if that's-

BUTTIGIEG: IT IS. You are responsible for everything that any of your supporters say on twitter.

KLOBUCHAR: But if we nominate a woman, sexism will end.

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: We need to show our stuff. Sweat and blood. And that is the truth.

TODD: Senator Sanders, will everyone lose their health insurance and die if you are president?

BERNIE: No. We have the worst healthcare of any major country and I want to change that because healthcare is a human right.

WARREN: We should talk about everyone else's "plan" for healthcare. Mayor Pete doesn't have a plan, he has a PowerPoint. Amy's plan is like a Post-It note, "Insert Plan Here." Biden's plan is like some doodle he did on the back of a receipt. Bloomberg's plan is an ethnic joke that he heard on a cruise ship once and wrote on a napkin. Bernie's is actually sort of okay.

BERNIE: I feel attacked.

TODD: Okay, your turn.

BERNIE: I just want the goal to be actually providing healthcare to people and not just creating profits for the pharmaceutical industry and drug companies.

BIDEN: OBAMA. OBAMA. I WAS VICE PRESIDENT UNDER BARACK OBAMA.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Senator Warren, go ahead.

BLOOMBERG: What am I, chopped livah???? I'm from New York.

WARREN: Amy, the plan on your website is two lines from a self-help book.

KLOBUCHAR: That's IT!!! I've HAD IT!!

HOLT: This is getting juicy! Let's talk about Bloomberg being a racist. Mayor Bloomberg, your policing policy was to put all the cops in minority neighborhoods because you said that's where all the crime is, and that we should throw kids against the wall and frisk them. What do you think that says about you being vehemently racist or not?

BLOOMBERG: Yeah, it is unfortunate how it turned out, and frankly, a little bit embarrassing. But I just didn't want people of color to murder everyone, and I think that's fair. Stop-and-frisk was essentially a good thing, it just happened too much.

BIDEN: No one cares if you're sorry, you still did it! The policy was abhorrent.

BLOOMBERG: But I APOLOGIZED. This is just a complicated issue and there's no easy answer. It's like, should our criminal justice system target black and brown people? I don't know. But yes, it should. Look, nobody's perfect, okay?

WARREN: That was the shittiest apology I've ever heard.

TODD: Relatedly, Senator Klobuchar, you haven't really done much about police brutality and you prosecuted a black teenager who was sentenced to life in prison despite serious doubts about the evidence. Why should black and Latino voters trust your judgement?

KLOBUCHAR: I actually have strong support of African-Americans. Because I earned it. Because I am a leader and I have done the work.

JACKSON: Let's talk about transparency. Senator Sanders, why are you hiding the fact that you're too old and frail to be president without dying from being old?

SANDERS: Um. What?

BUTTIGIEG: I am young and in good health. I do so many planks every single day and I honestly think that I'm the hottest candidate on this stage tonight. I think Bernie should do the responsible thing and admit that he will die from being so old. He's like a million years old.

JACKSON: Bloomberg, why won't you release your tax records?

BLOOMBERG: It's hard to do taxes when you're so rich. And math takes a long time. Not everyone is Andrew Yang, not everyone loves math. It's hard to add up numbers and do charts. And I should not be penalized for that. Also, I give all my money to charity. I don't know why I still have billions of dollars, it really just appears and I don't know where it comes from. I keep giving it all away but somehow I'm still rich. I don't know, okay?

JACKSON: You've sexually harassed women and many former employees have said that your company was a hostile workplace for women. Should we nominate someone who isn't a misogynist?

BLOOMBERG: I might be hostile towards women, but the main point is that I HIRE women. We have tons of women in my company, and they do things and get paid for them. There are lots and lots of women, and some of them even had leadership roles and got paid the same as men. Hashtag me too.

WARREN: Are you serious? You've gotten dozens of women to sign nondisclosure agreements for sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Would you release them from the nondisclosure agreements so we can hear their side?

BLOOMBERG: There are only a few of them.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: Let me finish.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: None of them accuse me of anything other than making a joke that they didn't think was funny because they have a bad sense of humor because women aren't funny.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TODD: Let's talk fracking. Senator Sanders, I know that fracking is bad, but it also creates jobs, kind of like how sweat shops create jobs and that's why they're good. What do you say to the people whose employment is contingent on destroying the planet?

SANDERS: That I don't want the entire world to collapse? Do you like, get climate change, Chuck? Also, the Green New Deal will create 20 million jobs. You can work in sustainable energy and still have a good-paying job.

TODD: Senator Klobuchar, you don't really mind fracking, right?

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah, we can get to carbon neutral eventually. No rush!

WARREN: I wanna reiterate that the Green New Deal will create jobs. We need infrastructure, we need manufacturing-

TODD: But what if we stop fracking and everyone loses their jobs and they're on unemployment for years and then they die? What if we can't employ people in renewable energy until 2050 for some reason?

WARREN: We can have those jobs now.

HUAC: Vice President Biden, you said you might put oil and gas executives in jail. Which companies are you talking about?

BIDEN: I'm going to go far. I'm going to eliminate subsidies and help the minority communities affected by climate change. I have a plan. And it will change -- look, my point is, and here's my point, before my time runs out, my point. My point is that I know about international relations and I will get them to up the ante in a big way.

HAUC: You didn't answer the questions.

BIDEN: I thought I did.

HAUC: Nope.

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, are you a fan of red-lining?

BLOOMBERG: I am the only here that started a business.

TODD: Okay? You said that stopping red-lining has somehow contributed to the financial crisis, can you speak to that?

BLOOMBERG: No. I did not say that. That is wrong.

TODD: Would you like to clarify what you meant then?

BLOOMBERG: I have always been against red-lining. I hate red-lining. Red-lining is my least favorite thing. I don't think it is cute or sexy at all and I don't wear a t-shirt underneath all my clothing that says "I love red-lining" or even own hand-embroidered pillows with sonnets I've composed for red-lining, because I do not like red-lining even a little bit. Some people practice red-lining, and I'm just like "cut it out!" I think the main point is that I'm the only one that's ever started a business. Is that fair? Is it? Hello?? Okay. The point is that we need to teach young businesspeople how to start banks.

TODD: Senator Klobuchar, Senator Sanders one time said on twitter that billionaires should not exist. What do you think?

KLOBUCHAR: I like capitalism. We should just regulate it. But also a few people should be able to hoard the wealth of half the country and I think that's fine.

TODD: Senator Sanders, do you think we should systematically drag rich people out of their homes and publicly execute them in the town square and do weird things with their entrails? Do you have a fetish related to murdering rich people?

BERNIE: No...I just think that there's something wrong with half a million people sleeping on the street while Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans.

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, do you think your mother should have aborted you so that you never existed?

BLOOMBERG: Billionaires' lives matter. I've made a lot of money and given it all away to make the world better.

TODD: Should you have more wealth than 125 million people combined?

BLOOMBERG: Yeah, of course. Unlike most Americans I actually work up to 40 hours a week. That's a lot of hours of work. I deserve every cent.

JACKSON: Mayor Buttigieg, Senator Sanders thinks that workers should have some ownership over the profits of their own labor. Is that like the most effed up thing you've ever heard or what?

BUTTIGIEG: Stop forcing corporations to do things that they don't want to do. They're people too. And you know, I'm the only person who's not a millionaire and I represent all working-class people.

BERNIE: I just think that workers should be making money from their own work. Bloomberg, do you think your workers played no role in making all that money? Workers should share the benefits and have some agency in what happens in their lives.

BLOOMBERG: Having a more equal distribution of wealth in this country will appeal to absolutely no one. That's absurd. The only alternative to capitalism is the specific way that communism played out in Soviet Russia. Communism clearly didn't work and capitalism clearly does work, as evidenced by the way a few billionaires have benefited from it at the expense of the rest of the country. Literally no one wants anything to change.

HOLT: Senator Sanders, it's true that socialism makes a lot of people uncomfy. Most people are all like "ack!" Ya know? In the polls?

BERNIE: The polls show me winning. So no, I don't know. And let's go over a very basic concept that you could understand in one google search. Democratic socialism is not the same thing as communism. And we sort of have socialism right now, but just for the very rich, and rugged individualism for the poor. We have to subsidize Walmart workers who are on Medicaid and food stamps because they get starvation wages. We need a government that works for people besides Bloomberg.

HOLT: But what about how socialism makes me uncomfy?

BLOOMBERG: HE OWNS A CABIN!! BERNIE OWNS A CABIN!!!!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JACKSON: Mayor Buttigieg, why is Mayor Bloomberg's money a problem?

BUTTIGIEG: Oh, it's actually mostly just who he is as a person and his values and his personality and everything he represents and everything he has said or done.

TODD: Okay, we're almost done, so last question. Should the person with the most votes become the nominee?

SANDERS: Yes...???

BLOOMBERG: No.

WARREN: Nada.

BIDEN: Nopedy nope.

BUTTIGIEG: No siree.

KLOBUCHAR: Nah.

HOLT: Alright! Thanks, folks! That's all for now! Bye bye!

[belaborthepoint]

First Dem Debate 2020

WOLF BLITZER: Here we are in Ohiowa. Biden, let's start with you. Why should you be Commander in Chief even though you supported the War in Iraq?

BIDEN: Oopsies! That was a booboo haha. Mistakes. We all make 'em.

PETE: I'm young, and I served with babies, people not old enough to vote, children without memories. They weren't there for 9/11. We will have challenges different from anything we've seen. Cyber, climate, foreign interference. We need to look to the future to learn from the past, and for me, that's personal.

WARREN: The military industrial complex is bad.

WOLF: Tom Steyer, you've never done anything and no one knows who you are. Can you speak to that?

TOM STEYER: Should I look into the camera? Yeah, this is good, this is good stuff. Okay. I worked in finance around the world. I met businesses. I agree with what Elizabeth said, it's about judgement and it doesn't matter if you have zero experience.

WARREN: Uh-

TOM STEYER: Everyone else made mistakes. And you know what? Barack Obama was a senator with no experience, just like me, a white billionaire finance bro with no experience. An outside perspective is what we need, a random dude. That's what I can bring to the table.

WOLF: How are you going to stop ISIS?

BIDEN: I was part of the Iran nuclear deal. And then guess what, we pulled out, people are saying, our allies, we both need to stand down, and now-- we just need to put it to get it in and up and just, and now, and we need to do it.

WOLF: Okay...so would you leave troops there or pull them out?

BIDEN: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...I would leave them there to patrol the gulf, cause we're there already, so you know, might as well, some of them, right?

KLOBUCHAR: You need to leave some there cause of terrorism.

PETE: I remember the day, all those many years ago, I remember it, when we shipped out, saying goodbye to family. I remember walking hand in hand with my best friend, into the sunset, and his child was behind him, and he kept walking and couldn't look back, because if he did, Eurydice would be trapped in the underworld forever. I was just thinking about that story cause I saw Hadestown on Broadway last night. Just terrific.

WOLF: Biden, would you ever take military action without congressional approval?

BIDEN: Only if everyone says it's okay. I mean, we can't just take out all the troops. You can't just talk to terrorists, you have to defeat them. Otherwise we have to police everyone.

WOLF: Just to be clear, you and Obama took military action without congressional approval like a bunch of times. What's the deal?

BIDEN: We had authorization to do other things.

PETE: If our troops have the courage to go into harms way, Congress should have the courage to vote. It's all about courage. As my great-grandfather once said, it takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

WOLF: Isn't that a quote from Harry Potter?

WARREN: J.K. Rowling's a TERF.

BIDEN: I don't know what that means.

WARREN: Trans-exclusionary-

BIDEN: What is trans?

PETE: I grew up with Harry Potter because I am twenty-one years old and it is very close to my heart. In a way, Albus Dumbledore has always been like a grandfather figure to me. And he was gay, even though there's no evidence of that in the text and so no actual representation. Look, Harry Potter is nostalgic for me, okay? Give me a break.

WOLF: What were we talking about?

TOM STEYER: Where's the camera? Am I looking at the-  oh, okay, here we go. I would take military action to protect the lives of American people. Terrorists are bad and I love America. We need a strategy though. And what is that? I don't know. Also, Australia is happening. Also, how can Americans prosper more?

ABBY PHILLIP: Biden, would you meet with North Korea?

BIDEN: They said I am a rabid dog and should be beaten to death with a stick.

BERNIE: Haha.

BRIANNE PFANNENSTIEL: Bernie, why don't you support the trade deal even though the AFL-CIO supports it?

BERNIE: Cause all the unions and all the environmentalists and everyone good in the world opposes it and I don't want all my grandchildren to die.

BRIANNE: We'll talk about climate change in a moment but let's stick to trade.

BERNIE: Joke's on you, they're the same thing. Everything is climate change.

TOM STEYER: Where's the- here we are. Look. On the first day, we get rid of tariffs, waivers, corn-based ehtanol. I am literally the only person here who acknowledges that climate change is real.

ABBY: Bernie, why did you tell Elizabeth Warren that women shouldn't be president? Why do you hate women?

BERNIE: I actually never said that.

ABBY: Really?

BERNIE: Yup.

ABBY: Senator Warren, what did you think when Bernie admitted to you that he was a rampant misogynist who thinks women are all stupid and bad?

WARREN: I did not enjoy it and thought he was wrong. Bernie is my friend. Also, I'm the only person here who's beat an incumbent republican in 30 years.

KLOBUCHAR: I know other women and I am proud to know them, their names are, um, I know their names.

BERNIE: Just so you know, I have beaten an incumbent Republican.

WARREN: When?

BERNIE: 1990.

WARREN: Yeah...30 years ago...

BERNIE: What's your point?

WARREN: I said "in 30 years." So you haven't beaten an incumbent republican in 30 years.

BERNIE: 1990 was 30 years ago, as a matter of fact.

WARREN: Yeah, I know, that's what I'm saying...

BERNIE: Neither here nor there. Anyways. I believe that a woman can be president.

ABBY: Senator Warren, I'll give you the last word.

BIDEN: I would actually like to have the last word.

ABBY: Of course you would.

BIDEN: I also like women. They are competent. But who represents all of us? Brown, black, gay, female, whatever else?  A cishet white guy like myself. I can appeal to the most people.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

ABBY: Healthcare?

BERNIE: Medicare for all. We can finance it with a 4% tax on income. People will be paying 10% of what they're paying now.

BIDEN: We don't really need Medicare for all though.

BERNIE: Workers are paying 20% of their incomes on healthcare. That's insane. People are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills.

BIDEN: Nah.

ABBY: Mayor Buttigieg, you call your plan 'Medicare for all who want it,' but you're forcing people to pay for it even if they don't want it. How do you feel about your false advertising?

PETE: I'm just making sure that um. I'm offering a choice. And my plan is paid for. It's super cheap.

WARREN: The only reason your plan is cheap is that it sucks butt. People won't be able to pay for their prescriptions.

PETE: It's JUST. NOT. TRUE.  

BRIANNE: Biden, do you support free universal infant care?

BIDEN: Here's the thing. I mean, we should have that, yes, BUT I don't know. I also had to deal with child care. I don't know. I know my time is up and I don't really have anything else to say but I'll just stop now, I won't go over like everyone else who has things to say.

WOLF: What about the impeachment?

TOM STEYER: Wolf, we need to decide for ourselves. I know what America is about, Wolf. Standing up for what is right is ALWAYS worth it, Wolf, okay, Wolf? And I will NEVER back down from that, Wolf.

KLOBUCHAR: Have you no sense of decency, sir?! HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF DECENCY??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?

WOLF: .......what? 

BRIANNE: Mayor Pete, what do you do about farms and factories that can't be moved from areas at high risk of flooding?

PETE: Yeah, that's why we need to stop climate change. It's just so bad, it's real bad, and we need to stop it, and that's what I'm gonna do.

BRIANNE: I repeat: what do you do about farms and factories that can't be moved from areas at high risk of flooding?

PETE: Yes.

BRIANNE: Not really a 'yes or no' kind of question.

PETE: Hm?

TOM STEYER: This is why climate change is bad, and I'm still floored that I am the only one here who is not a climate change denier. I am the only person in this room, in this country, who believes in climate change and wants to take action, and I am the only person who can stop climate change. On my first day in office, I will cancel the weather.

BRIANNE: So okay, let me get this straight. You care the most about climate change, but you're also a billionaire who has profited from investing in coal, oil and gas. Correct?

TOM STEYER: Yeah, I mean, I invested in the economy. It was about the economy. But then I divested and I gave all my money away so I could become an eco-terrorist and tree sit in the Amazon rain forest. So, YEAH, I think I CARE about CLIMATE change, idiots.

BRIANNE: Senator Klobuchar, you're quoted as saying "I think fracking is very cool and also sexy. When I think about fracking it makes me feel warm and happy. I don't know, I can't explain it, it just gives me butterflies. I like fracking, okay? I love it. I love fracking." What do you have to say about this?

KLOBUCHAR: I think it's a good transition. It'll get us to carbon neutral eventually. We'll just frack for a little while. We'll be carbon neutral within the next 500 years.

BRIANNE: Okay, Bernie's been raising his hand for a while now like a good little boy so I'm gonna call on him. Bernie?

BERNIE: We actually can't wait 500 years to be carbon neutral because we'll all die and all our children will die and our planet will be uninhabitable.

ABBY: Mayor Pete, you said that black voters don't like you because they don't know you. What if they actually do know you but they just don't like you because of who you are as a person?

PETE: If black people really know me, they like me. It's just that I don't know any actual black people. I mean, is that so bad? Is that really my fault? Wait, hold up. Now that I think about it, my step-cousin went to school with someone who's black and I think he is voting for me probably. My step-cousin, I mean. All I have to say is, I care about poverty and I do not think that police officers should murder people.

ABBY: Bernie, a lot of people don't like socialism. Don't you think that'll be an issue?

BERNIE: Nope, not at all. Most people don't actually know what socialism is, but when you realize that socialism is like, having fair wages and healthcare and access to education, you realize that actually socialism is the bomb dot com.

ABBY: Mr. Businessman, you spent a million dollars of your pocket change on tv ads for yourself. How do you expect people to actually like you?

TOM STEYER: Okay, people. Look me in the eyes. Look at me. I'm talking to you. I started a business by myself. And when I'm in office, I'm gonna show everyone that Trump is a fraud and everyone is a phony. If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did. People never think anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it.

ABBY: Is that from Catcher in the Rye?

TOM STEYER: These are my own words. I've done everything myself.

BIDEN: By the way, just wanted to say that I am uncomfortable saying 'black' and also I have huge support among the African American community. I have met African American people before in my life and we just love each other. So much love.

TOM STEYER: In closing, I love team sports, and you are all my teammates. I can slap your butt, but no one can kick you in the face, and that's how I'm going to win this election. Let's save the world.

[belaborthepoint]

Impeachment hearings - Week 1 transcript

President Trump: None of this is real. It's actually a collective lucid dream about a collective false memory, because of a little something called the Mandela effect. We all believed that Mandela got assassinated, when in fact he never existed. Like my phone call. It didn't happen, but it was also extremely good and appropriate. I had a lot of people listen to it and they loved it. Roger Ebert gave it 100% on Rotten Tomatoes because it was a perfect phone call, and also because it didn't happen.

Fox News: It's funny that people care about this. Everyone's saying that it's illegal to solicit information from a foreign country to use in the next election, but is Ukraine a foreign country? Is it even a country at all? We've never heard of it and the Democrats probably made it up. Nothing about this is real and this is the least sexy scandal we've ever had. No one is even getting naked and they expect people to watch it on tv? When's the last time you watched something that wasn't porn? Give me a break.

DAY 1 - TAYLOR AND KENT

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee): We're here today to decide if an egregious abuse of power is something that a president should do or if maybe that's bad.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes: What we have here is a televised theatrical performance staged by the democrats. You may or may not know that you were cast in a drama, because when you were doing your testimonies in the basement, we were actually auditioning you for the cast of Disney's Death of a Salesman on Ice. And congratulations, you got it! Be off book in two weeks because we open in a month! It's funny how everything in life is kind of like a performance though. Like doing a play is a performance, but politics is also a performance, and if you think about it, identity and the self are like also kind of performances? Which begs the question, what IS performance?

Schiff: What do you guys think?

George Kent (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State): It's my opinion that Trump shouldn't do criminal or impeachable things, which he did.

Bill Taylor (U.S. Diplomat in Ukraine): I have no attachment to the results of this, like whether Trump gets impeached or not, but he definitely did commit all of these impeachable offenses. Trump wanted to withhold security assistance to Ukraine for help with a political campaign and he is batshit crazy.

Schiff: Yeah, pretty much.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan: Okay. You thought that the President was saying that he would withhold aid if Ukraine didn't announce an investigation. But you thought WRONG because they DIDN'T announce an investigation and there WAS no investigation!!!! Which means that it's impossible that Trump could have even made that proposition. And guess what else?? No one even tweeted about it!! What do you think of THAT, huh?? If it wasn't on twitter, it didn't happen. And you think you're this big shot witness and everyone loves you, you think you're the best witness ever and you're the star but guess what you didn't even get the lead role in Disney's Death of a Salesman on Ice!! In twenty years no one will even know your name!! You're NOT the STAR!!

Taylor: I didn't say I was...I'm just trying to give my testimony.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik: Okay, so even though he was trying to withold aid in exchange for political favors, he still gave them aid and the investigation didn't happen so why does it even matter what he said? I believe that actions speak louder than words and it doesn't really matter what anyone says ever. The solicitation of bribery failed. Therefore, it's not bribery.

Taylor: Um.

Stefanik: Also Trump gave Ukraine javelins which are light spears to be thrown by hand, as opposed to a bow and arrow or a slingshot. We believe that all these weapons are cool and fun. Funny enough, Obama didn't give Ukraine any of these things. Isn't this correct?

Taylor: I mean, sure.

Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe: So where's the impeachable offense in this phone call? I don't see it, do you?? I don't see a single impeachable offense anywhere so if you want to point it out to me be my guest. ANYONE??? BUELLER?????

Steve Castor (Chief Investigative Counsel/GOP): You do know that Ukraine was cyberbullying President Trump, right? That they wrote some mean stuff about him on the internet? Which means that they were out to get him?

Schiff: That's a stupid question, but go ahead.

Ratcliffe: What?? Are you serious? Why do you get to make objections?! I've sat here for literally a thousand years and hated everything everyone said but did you hear ME making objections?? I don't think so!!! Just let me know if it's okay to make objections to everything cause I'll totally do that, okay?!  I'm not even kidding. I have a trillion thousand objections to make and I will make ALL of them, MARK MY WORDS!!!!!!

Schiff: I didn't object to the question, I said he could ask it.

Nunes: Um, Chairman??? Are you going to answer Ratcliffe's question????

Schiff: I already said that I wasn't objecting. I've answered the question, so please kindly stop talking.

Castor: As I was saying, you can understand that Trump would be reasonably upset if someone said a mean thing on the internet about him.

Taylor: I don't understand how Trump reacts to anything because he's literally insane.

Castor: Would you agree that there are unresolved facts related to all of the time leading up to the 2016 election?

Taylor: What?

Castor: Would you agree that facts are unresolved?

Taylor: Do you wanna elaborate at all or...

Castor: If Ukraine has facts, they can share them, right?

Taylor: Literally what are you saying?

Castor: If Ukraine has facts about the 2016 election, it's cool if they share them with Trump. Correct? And Ukraine, you know, ought to uh, investigate all that stuff. So, by the transitive property, it's actually totally appropriate and a good thing if Trump threatens to withold aid to Ukraine in exchange for political information that will help him in the next election.

Taylor: Um, no...

Castor: You got readouts of the call and you described it as "cryptic." Do you mean that it was translated from another language?

Taylor: That's not what 'cryptic' means, so no.

Castor: So why did you think it was cryptic?

Taylor: Because it was totally vague and didn't include any details.

Republican Rep. Mike Turner: So let me get this straight. You're testifying about things that you believe are true. Couldn't it be possible that everything you believe is wrong and everything you think you know is a lie? And that actually we're all just characters in someone's dream and none of this is even happening? Did you even think of that?

Taylor: I mean, maybe...

Turner: I rest my case.

Jordan: So were you wrong? Were you just saying random stuff that wasn't true?

Taylor: No..

Jordan: Well actually you WERE because nothing happened. This is all an illusion. Did anyone see that movie The Matrix? It has a lot of philosophy in it and you probably wouldn't get it but this is exactly like that. None of this is real right now.

DAY 2- YOVANOVITCH

Daniel Goldman (Senior Advisor and Director of Investigations): So, Ambassador Yovanovitch, you've been doing this for 33 years. Is it normal for a president to get rid of an ambassador because of allegations that he knew were false?

Marie Yovanovitch (Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine): Nope.

Goldman: How did you feel about Trump saying you're gonna "go through some things?" Did you feel threatened by his very obvious threat?

Yovanovitch: Yeah, it sucked.

Trump: Everything about Marie Yovanovitch is bad. Somalia has problems because of her. Yovanovitch created global warming and she also invented the holocaust. She gave me food poisoning through voodoo because she is an evil sorceress and she can destroy you with her mind. She is trying to establish world domination because she is bad.

Schiff: Trump is attacking you on twitter right now. Do you enjoy being attacked on twitter by the president and do you think that's a normal thing for a president to do?

Yovanovitch: No.

Schiff: And how would you respond to his comment about you being an evil sorceress trying to dominate the world?

Yovanovitch: I mean I think I'm a normal human, as far as I know. I'm not really aiming for world domination.

Castor: And are you saying that having a whole campaign waged against you made it slightly harder for you to do your job and you didn't enjoy it?

Yovanovitch: Obviously.

Castor: Were you aware that Ukraine was out to get Trump? Were there indications that Ukrainians were advocating against then-candidate Trump?

Yovanovitch: No.

Castor: But you know that people said mean things about Trump on social media, right? What do you have to say about that?

Yovanovitch: I mean, yeah, that is what people use social media for.... I don't think that necessarily means that the entire Ukrainian government was plotting against President Trump, if that's what you're asking. Just because someone says something critical about a public official, which happens a lot, doesn't mean that they're trying to undermine someone's campaign. Also U.S. intelligence already determined that the interference was happening in Russia, so...

Jordan: I bet you can see why President Trump might have concerns though, if some people were posting critical things about him on the internet, I bet you could see why he might assume that there was a huge plot against him and everyone was out to get him.

Yovanovitch: ...is that a question? Or...

Jordan: Um, duh. Heh. Idiot.

Yovanovitch: Okay...can you repeat the question?

Jordan: Ummmm okayyyyy.... I bet you can see why President Trump might have concerns though, if some people were posting critical things about him on the internet, I bet you could see why he might assume that there was a huge plot--

Schiff: Mr. Jordan, I've indulged you with extra time. Can you ask the question, if there is one? The indulgence is wearing out.

Jordan: Well OUR indulgence of YOU wore out a longggg time ago, I'll tell you that. Heh heh.

Schiff: I'm about to gavel you down, so ask your question.

Jordan: Fine. Don't you think that Trump has reasons to be concerned?

Yovanovitch: I mean, people say critical things about politicians. I don't know if you know that, but that's kind of what happens in politics all the time every day and it doesn't mean there was a plot against Trump.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi: Do you think, since everything Trump does is consistent with the actions of an authoritarian dictator, that maybe he is an authoritarian dictator?

Yovanovitch: Oh, for sure.

Nunes: Well, I guess this marks the end of Act 1 of Disney's Death of a Salesman on Ice. You all sucked. You didn't embody the characters at all, you weren't listening to your fellow actors, and you weren't physically engaged. The Times is going to give us a horrible review. Thanks for nothing.

[belaborthepoint]

Why people who eat MSG are bad and immoral

Let me start with a personal testimony. I used to be a sad, useless person. I was depressed and sad. Then, someone said, hey, have you ever tried clean eating? And that is when I chose to eat clean. Since I started eating clean, I also learned how to meditate and connect with the universal energy spirit universe energy. This is something that you can find if you are a white person who eats organic foods, and it's what allowed me to become a spiritual person. I paid for a lot of gurus to tell me what nutrients to eat and how to rid my body of negative energy by pooping it out of my butt. Not many people know this, but all unhappiness is caused by toxins that you digest as well as microbiomes. "Microbiomes" is a science word that I like to use to indicate that what I'm talking about is factual and not pseudoscientific. There are many ways to cleanse toxins (of the body and the spirit), but my favorite method is to blend a bottle of B12 vitamins into some apple cider vinegar, and drink five liters every morning and evening. It helps you to pee and poop and cleanses your body of negativity, so you won't have anxiety or depression or be bloated. Anytime someone complains to me that they are sad or have a stomach ache, I know that they are choosing this for themselves, and that they are wrong, and a terrible human being.

You might be wondering, what does eating healthy have to do with being a good person? First of all, you might not know about it, but there's a little something out there called climate change. Everyone is going to die because of it, but we might not. There are many avenues one could take to try and minimize the effects of climate change, but the only legitimate one is diet. It could be worth it to try and organize people to create policy changes, but that is less immediately gratifying and requires more work, and doesn't lend itself as well to virtue signaling. So, what I advocate is individual lifestyle choices alone. If you want to change your lightbulbs and buy a Tesla, that's awesome, but if you really want to be respected and taken seriously, you need to stop eating processed food and start focusing on wellness. The good news is that wellness is available for everyone. It might be a financial investment, but junk food isn't free either. We're all investing our money somewhere, and it's up to us to make those decisions. We all have agency. If you don't buy soda today, you can buy a mindfulness app. If you don't buy dinner this month, you can go to a yoga retreat.

You might say, we're from marginalized communities and can't make decisions for ourselves, which is why colonization is good. Don't blame us for our bad decision making! I understand this perspective. There's a lot to be said for the way that colonialism has allowed white people to bring education to those who don't know anything. But now the information is out there, and you need to take some responsibility for yourselves and stop expecting those of us with privilege to do all the work for you. We delivered these lemons right to your doorstep, so it's time for you to start making the lemonade. Of course, this isn't to say that you have to do it all on your own. There's no shame in asking for help. If more people asked, we wouldn't be forced to give so much unsolicited advice. All you need to do is say, which grocery store should I be shopping at? What food groups should I banish from my diet this year? What weight do I need to be to have dignity as a human being? We will provide all the answers you need.

The easiest way to explain why junk food makes you a bad person is philosophy. If you don't know what philosophy is, it's a field where we study dead white men who sat around and thought about things. They came up with all the answers to life's important questions, because they were the smartest. All the way down from Aristotle to Nietcszche, learned men have said "morality is what you eat is what you are." In Nietshszcze's Geneology of Food, he says "poor people eat a lot of MSG, and that makes them bad." There was a time when poor people ate junk because they didn't know better, because they were kind of stupid and couldn't think for themselves. This was also true of communities from other cultural backgrounds besides white European people. But once they learned what the right way to eat was, they kept deciding to be unhealthy, even though they knew what the one way to be healthy was. I took a philosophy class in college, which is how I know about morality. But even if you can't afford to go to college, you can still go to the library to read Niestczech and use google to look up what nutritional supplements you should buy at your local healthfood store in order to have worth as a person.

The last moral doctrine I like to turn to is ye olde bible. It's a classic source of wisdom and absolute truth that leaves no room for interpretation. Ecclesiastes 14:912 goes "I am Jesus and I think poor people are bad because they do not buy Himalayan sea salt." Every prosperity preacher I know will tell you that you can choose to be rich if you want to, which means that you can choose to buy food that white people say is healthy, which means you can choose to stop climate change, which means that you can save the planet, which means that if you're poor you don't care at all about the future of humanity or the preservation of life and you want to destroy every form of life on Earth because you worship Satan because you are evil because you hate Christmas because you were born with a heart three sizes too small because you're a serial killer because you step on ants accidentally because you hate animals because you watch too much TV because you're stupid because you destroy your brain because you eat chemicals because you don't care about love because you pray at the alter of Lucifer because you take pills because you don't use essential oils because you're in bed with big pharma because you're brainwashed because you can't think for yourself because you didn't go to an elite private university because you're poor because you're a bad person.

[belaborthepoint]

How I turned straight and discovered sugaring

by Ashley P. Ashleigh

This week in Lifestyle and Beauty:

I'm no theology expert, but if I know anything about God, it's that He intended us to violently rip off each hair on our bodies until every inch of skin is as smooth as a baby's bottom when it is still in the womb and has not yet developed hair follicles. Back in my hippie days, I did not understand. I would expose my feet in public, and I left hairs on my body. All my loved ones were so embarrassed by my lifestyle. We'd have these giant family reunions where all the cousins would talk about their new careers as entomologists or high-end morticians, and then there I'd be, standing in a corner, being a pediatrician with hair on my legs. People would approach my parents and say "hey, how's Ashley P. Ashleigh doing?" and my parents would say "well, she has hairs on her body." One time, my great aunt Louise looked at my arms that had hair on them, and she died. Since that moment, I have vowed to do my family proud, and remove all hairs from my body forever more.

In addition to going outside without shoes on, I was also a bisexual. This meant that I would have relationships with both genders of people, because there are only two genders. Women are defined as people who do not have hairs on their bodies, but sometimes women who are lesbians will rebel against the dominant culture by being a lesbian and also having hairs. If they really want to make a big hullabaloo, they will remove the hair from their scalps, but leave it on all the rest of their bodies, to show that they are angry about prejudice in the world and they can have their own personalities and do whatever they want. Lesbian women are all about making a big scene and drawing attention to themselves. I got very sucked into this culture when I would have romantic relationships with female people, and I grew accustomed to people accepting the hair on my body. Then my great aunt Louise fell out of the helicopter and I knew that I had been doing everything wrong, and I decided to become a straight person.

The good thing about being a straight person now is that it forces me to remove hairs from my body and listen to boring music. I watch a lot more commercial movies, and I have new interests such as interior design and macarons. Even though this makes me less compelling as a person, my diluted personality allows me to connect with more people and assimilate into mainstream culture. But most importantly, it allows me to repair relationships with my family members and be in public without making anyone uncomfortable.

I bet you're wondering, "hey, what method of hair removal do you use as a straight person?" Great question! First, I tried shaving and waxing. Shaving was bad because it took a long time and made my legs bumpy. Waxing was okay because it made my skin look like rubber, but it would sometimes leave red marks or clumps of wax seared onto my skin. I was almost at the end of my rope. I went to church every day and prayed to God that I could find some way to make my skin look like a fresh block of cheese in a tight plastic wrapper. That's when God spoke to me and said "sugar." At first I thought he was calling me 'sugar' as a pet name, but when he did not proceed, I realized he was suggesting a trendy new technique called "sugaring." I was hesitant at first, but as soon as I remembered my great aunt Louise getting mauled and eaten by a polar bear, I knew that I'd have to get sexy plastic legs by any means necessary.

If you don't know about it, sugaring is when you have someone wipe frosting on your legs instead of shaving them. It's super quick and you only have to do it once a year, as long as you keep your legs in saran wrap for the first six months so the frosting can congeal around your skin. Basically, you wait for a hard crust to form on your legs, kind of like plaster casts, and then you keep your legs in the same position for 6 months so as not to crack the frosting while it's solidifying. After the 6 months, your hair will be unable to grow back because the fermented sugar seeps into your legs and gives you a form of alcohol poisoning that only damages the hair follicles on the lower half of your body. The last remaining step is to light your legs on fire, but only the part that has frosting on them, so the fire doesn't get on your actual legs, just the outside of them. You immediately extinguish your legs so as not to get burnt. The reason for your legs being alight in flame is that any remaining hair will be singed off.

Since I have no remaining hairs, sometimes people think that I am an infant, but then they realize that I am very tall and so they think that I am sexy. I've had a lot of boyfriends since I started sugaring, which is awesome, and now I'm engaged to one of them whose name is Skrillex, after the singer. His name used to be Chad, but he thought it was too obvious, so he got it legally changed. He loves the fact that I have no hair on my skin and have kind of a boring personality, because it means that we don't challenge each other very much or encourage growth, so it's really easy and we can just stagnate and be comfortable for the rest of our lives. Every time I think about my great aunt Louise trying to build wings and then having them melted by the sun and then mortally falling to Earth, I know that I am doing the right thing, and that she is looking at my stark, barren legs and smiling down at me from up above.

[belaborthepoint]

Why I chose to abandon food for expensive tan-colored liquid

by columnist Ashley P. Ashleigh 

This week in Health and Living: 

Does anyone remember that Spongebob episode (I know, this reference is dating me — I'll admit it! I'm in my early twenties!) where they realize the inside of the krabby patty is this gross grey sludge? I think the Krusty Krab like changed ownership or something? Right? So everyone found the grey sludge really disgusting. The writers of that episode were like "this is gross, and everyone in Bikini Bottom would be so horrified if they found out their mouth-watering meals were made of grey sludge." And I remember being confused, because I have always wanted to eat grey sludge instead of real food. And now, I can. In this blog post, I will explain the personal considerations that influenced my decision to transition from food to expensive tan-colored liquid.

First of all, cooking is cumbersome. Food prep alone is a massive burden. There's nothing I hate more than taking a knife and slathering something all over a piece of bread, and then taking the time to chew it. When I think of the collective minutes of my life that I have sacrificed to the drudgery of picking things up and moving my teeth around, it makes me wish I'd never been born, because to waste my precious time on this earth in such a way is to demean the value of human life. Ultimately, my decision to consume tan-colored liquid instead of food is a spiritual choice, and reflects my philosophy about living with a sense of purpose.

If you know anything about me, you know that I am a tech fanatic. Which is crazy, because I'm a girl. Most people know that girls are bad at STEM subjects, but what they don't know is that we're only stupid because we choose to spend our time creating hair and makeup tutorials on youtube. We don't necessarily lack the capability for complex thinking, it's just not something we prioritize. I didn't care about hard science at all, until I realized that if I did technology stuff, I could get paid more than minimum wage. It's really embarrassing to think that just one year ago, I was an adjunct professor of Comparitive Literature at NYU. I can't even mention the words 'adjunct professor' at all anymore without receiving a gratuitous display of pity and remorse.

Don't worry though — I have a great lifestyle now, because I taught myself how to code and got a job at a startup. I'm programming things for this app that lets you see what your face looks like as a baby, called FaceBabe. So I'm getting a solid income and live in the valley and can afford to spend a large portion of my income on tan-colored liquid. I started my subscription with "Varf" about a month ago, and I am LOVING it. Every morning, I strap a straw to my face. The straw is attached to a giant rolling vat of Varf that I pull along behind me with a leash and harness that I strap around my upper body. But since I don't always want to take the time to put my lips on the straw, a person comes in daily to install a feeding tube in my abdomen and follow me around to make sure it doesn't fall out. This way, I have some choice in how to ingest my nutrients. The best part is that my assistant is actually a higher-up at Varf who has worked their way up the ladder and gotten the privilege of working even harder for Varf. Unfortunately there are no "medical professionals" employed with Varf, but this is actually an asset, because it makes Varf accessible to those without healthcare. If I were still an adjunct at NYU, this would have been a blessing. I didn't have healthcare as an adjunct professor because NYU wouldn't provide it, but also because I didn't want it. Why would you pay all that moolah just in case you flip off the front handles of your bicycle and break both your arms? That actually happened to my friend, but she was in Europe, so it didn't even matter because Europe is a socialist country. She was okay because strangers could drive her around in their cars to help her buy groceries. So anyways, when you subscribe to Varf, you are getting nutrients to sustain you throughout your whole day. I love it so much, I've actually decided of my own volition to start selling Varf to my friends and encouraging them to use it and sell it to their friends as well. My startup company works out of a cafe, so whenever I'm taking a break from my coding work for FaceBabe, I can wander around and approach the cafe patrons to discuss Varf.

Everyone on the Varf team is intelligent, compassionate, and skinny. I don't trust someone to talk to me about health and nutrition unless they have a low BMI number, because people who are fat don't look good, which is how I know that they are unhealthy. They might not have "doctors" at Varf, but I resent the implication that to be a doctor you have to have attended medical school or know how to use a stethoscope. What about a doctor of philosophy, or someone whose first name is Doctor? What are you gonna do about that? You literally have to call that person Doctor because it's their name. Doctors or not, the Varf family is extremely caught up on all the latest nutrition science and knows the right combination of vitamins and nutrients to keep you alive. I've started burning a lot of calories since I stopped sleeping, but I can increase my daily intake of Varf to compliment my level of activity. Since I'm unable to sleep, I like to fill the extra two hours with fun things that I enjoy, like putting masking tape on my body to get weird-shaped sunburns, or cutting holes in people's clothing while they're not looking. Varf has given me so much extra energy because of the caffeine and also the chemicals that rewire your brain and make you have more thoughts faster so you can be more productive. I have become so creative. Sometimes I get terrible headaches because my brain is literally expanding inside my skull, so my bones have to reorient themselves to make room and my head has to get taller. I always wondered why God made our skin so stretchy. I guess he had Varf in mind from the very beginning!

There is a chart online that will tell you how much to eat, and that you should not eat if you are fat. I was so mortified when I was slightly overweight according to the BMI scale, and it's been such a relief to be able to have a chart tell you exactly how much to consume, and not be tempted by all the options that plague food-eaters. All I have to do is tell my feeding tube helper to increase or decrease my dosage and they will take care of everything. They love it and enjoy it so it's like they're just having fun and not working which is why it's okay that they do not get paid. They get a free Varf subscription though, which is excellent compensation and one of the reasons why we all aspire to climb this ladder.

Because I work at a tech company, I don't need any side gigs. So when I say I'm selling Varf subscriptions in my spare time, you know it's a passion project. I have not been pressured or roped into this in any way, and am selling these packages because I want to. Varf has changed my life. It is extremely delicious and feels like I am drinking a smoothie made of my own flesh, which I love. I did not enjoy eating food so it was an extremely reasonable sacrifice to make in exchange for being so skinny and productive all the time, and I know in my heart that it was all worth it, and one day God will reward me for tirelessly toiling to eradicate the fat from  this holy prison of flesh. I believe that God has annointed me his messenger and servant, bestowing upon me the glorious gift of Varf to share with my fellow men, also Varf is not funded by a fundamentalist Christian cult. No one is standing over me, dictating each word I write, and t H reatening m E with re L ease of the P ornographic videos they've filmed of me rolling around naked in a kiddie pool full of M ilk, which I cons E nted to in exchange for paying off my student loan debt, a promise that they had no intention of keeping. Varf is not a pyramid scheme, and if you agree to sell it you will not be dangerously entrenched in this organization for the rest of your life, unable to escape, isolating yourself from anyone in your social circles or extended family who does not choose to drink tan-colored liquid. I advocate for Varf because I think it tastes good and I believe in the mission. I choose to do this because I enjoy it. I am happy. I have a will of my own. I am free.

[belaborthepoint]

All queer people are linguistics professors

A common question I get as a queer person is, "why are you so obsessed with language?" Why are we obsessed with using pronouns and having names for our identities? Some might think that it's because language helps us understand ourselves and our place in the world, or it allows us to feel seen and respected, or it helps us find others we can identify with and find a greater sense of community. But the real reason why we are obsessed with language is that we all have PhDs in linguistics.

The real reason why we are obsessed with language is that we all have PhDs in linguistics

Contrary to popular belief, there is no intersection of working class and queer communities. There are lots of intersecting movements on the left, from labor to climate justice, but none of those people are gay. All queer people are wealthy, WASPy, and college-educated. Though it might seem improbable, every single one of us actually came out of the same three elite universities. We don't meet in bars, community centers, or activist bookstores — we congregate at exclusive membership-only dinner clubs for alumni. As members, we pay thousands of dollars a month, but we retain the privilege of being surrounded by other educated white people.

The main thing we have in common, other than being pretty gay, is that we majored in linguistics. Our identities as queer people actually isn't as central to our lives as one might think. Most of us don't particularly care about being queer at all; it's as relevant to our identities as our hair color. Our sense of personal or communal identities don't come from a shared history of marginalization and struggle, since for most of us, that's so far in the past that there's no reason why we should even remember it. It rarely comes up since there is no remaining bias left in the world, except our own bias towards people without linguistics degrees. I've nearly forgotten that there was ever a time when it wasn't easy to be queer. There is no violence — emotional, verbal, or physical, which is why there's nothing to record on a phone and put on the internet, because it doesn't happen — there's literally no harm being caused to anyone anywhere, and nothing to make us feel threatened for existing or remind us that we are hated. We all feel extremely safe and at home in our bodies and identities, and it's such a non-issue at this point that there's really nothing more to say about it. We basically live in a post-gender, post-sexuality world.

We are obsessed with words and talking about words for the sake of words and not for any other reasons

What really brings us together is our passion for linguistics. We care about language because first and foremost, we are academics. It's common knowledge that the queer bible is Strunk and White, and we spend all our free time reviewing the grammar rules written by the original white guys, playing Scrabble, and reading thesauruses. Unfortunately our free time is rare, given the fact that we're all full-time tenured professors at the same elite universities where we received our PhDs. We deliver lectures, grade papers, peer-review articles, and attend academic conferences on word usage, because we are obsessed with words and talking about words for the sake of words and not for any other reasons.

We’re rarely in situations where someone wouldn’t understand us, would intentionally disregard our identities, or would demand a justification for our existence

Some might think that the only thing we care about is being pedantic about trivial things, and they would be correct. When we advocate for using the right terms to describe ourselves as human beings, it's only because we like being annoying and drawing attention to ourselves. The good thing is that since we're all linguistics professors, we're rarely in situations where someone wouldn't understand us, would intentionally disregard our identities, or would demand a justification for our existence. Nobody challenges us or disrespects us, because we're all lucky enough to live within the bubbles of our elite universities at which we all have faculty housing. So it goes without saying that nobody is homeless. We all live very comfortable, affluent lives until we die of old-age in the comfort of our penthouses, where we receive private, live-in care that we pay for with the pensions from our careers as linguistics professors. When we complain, it's just because we like to hear the sounds of our own voices, not because we lead hard lives. People are kind to us and no one murders us at all.

I hope this cleared things up for everyone! Let me know if you have any more questions and I would love to answer them! None of these issues are emotionally charged for anyone, so it's not emotional labor — it's just fun!

[belaborthepoint]

How I learned to take one strand of my roommate's hair every day for five years and make a hammock out of it

Life is all about the lessons you learn; how to forgive, how to let go, how to take one strand of your roommate's hair every day for five years and make a hammock out of it, etc. This year was particularly hard for me, but I did a lot of growing and changing, and I'm proud to say that I've reached a state of equilibrium. I am healthy, happy, and making a hammock.

This is a challenging time for many of us. We're witnessing human rights abuses on the daily, trying to protect our right to adequate health care, and wondering how early we'll die based on when the earth combusts. Especially if we're already prone to anxiety or depression, coping with the daily struggles of being alive today is an almost insurmountable feat. But thankfully, my mental health is in a great place thanks to a little something called healthy coping mechanisms. I used to abuse food and technology, isolate, and generally check out of my everyday life most of the time. I wasn't present. I was NOT coping in a healthy way. But then I learned that instead of being a passive observer of my own life, I could be present by finding a healthy way to cope. That's how I learned to take one strand of my roommate's hair every day for five years and make a hammock out of it.

I started doing this almost three years ago, so I have a fair amount of hair collected

It's kind of funny how I happened upon this idea. Conveniently, I have a nightly ritual of caressing my roommate's head while she stares blankly into the refrigerator. One night as she was looking at the fridge and I was touching her hair, I thought, 'huh, what if I took one piece of this hair every day for five years and made a hammock out of it?' And that is just what I proceeded to do. I started doing this almost three years ago, so I have a fair amount of hair collected. Not enough for a full hammock, but I've started braiding strands together to get ready.

Each night while my roommate dissociates in the kitchen, I take one strand of her hair and put it inside of my pocket. Then, I bring it into my room and put it in a drawstring velvet pouch that I lock inside of a large wooden chest that serves as my sleeping quarters during night hours. At exactly 3:30 in the morning while my roommate runs laps in the 24-hour grocery store, I take out the velvet pouch and bring it onto the roof, where I have a plastic bed frame shaped like a rocket that I retrieved from my childhood home and turned into a fishtank. I throw some rocks into the pouch and let it sink down to the bottom.

I do not speak of my hammock during this time. I wait patiently to show her the final product.

The next morning at 8am, when my roommate leaves to fly small model airplanes inside of a department store, I retrieve the velvet pouch from the bottom of the pool and resume my weaving work. When I have finished one section, I start on another. At 1pm, my roommate returns home to take apart broken electronics and bake them into cakes that she sits on and takes pictures of. I do not speak of my hammock during this time. I wait patiently to show her the final product. At 4pm, we go to our solo ballroom dancing lessons independently, and meet back at home to have dinner. At 9pm, she begins to stare blankly into the refrigerator, and my practice recommences.

Everyone has different ways of coping with the world

Self-care can take many forms. I used to feel bad about myself because I didn't do fitness and drink vegetables, since I thought that was the only way to be happy. One of the reasons why I love my roommate so much is that she taught me that everyone has different ways of coping with the world. I've realized that we've both become so much healthier and well-adjusted since we started living with each other, because we've encouraged one another to pursue our passions and do things that make us feel better about having a rapist who imprisons children and befriends sex traffickers in the White House. We've both accepted that this is the world we're living in, and we find ways to be okay. Now we are both doing great and loving life. And this is why I'm making this hammock — a gesture, to show her how much I appreciate her and to celebrate our mutual mental health achievements. I couldn't have done it without you babe, and I hope you love your hammock. I worked on it every day for five years using your own hair. I love being healthy and happy with you. We both deserve this hammock.

[belaborthepoint]

How my sexual assault scandal made me a better person

guest writer: cis dude in the public sphere

You might be surprised to hear from me again. I bet you’re thinking, why are people still giving this guy a platform to speak instead of his victims? You’re probably thinking, this is just some PR tactic to try to preserve his image so he can save face and return to his career. But I want you to ask yourselves this: can’t someone save his image while also offering a sincere apology with the help of his PR team? I know that for many, I’m preaching to the choir. For those of you who believed me when I denied all allegations and invalidated the experiences of every person I hurt, and then immediately accepted the denial of my denial and the subsequent apology that I delivered personally to all my victims via twitter, I want to thank you. For supporting me, for believing me, for allowing me to keep going. Not being believed is one of the worst things I have experienced. Even when I’ve lied, it has meant so much to me to know that there are people out there who will take everything I say at face value because they’ve seen me on TV and recognize my name. Having that security has helped me on this journey more than I can say.

The only thing we can control in this life is our reaction to things, not what happens to us

Since you’ve all been so generous with me, I want to return the favor by offering you some of the wisdom that I’ve gleaned over the course of this tumultuous journey. I can say ‘sorry’ for hurt feelings until I’m blue in the face, but ultimately I’ve learned that some people just don’t love themselves enough to move on and choose to stop suffering. So this is not an apology letter. Been there, done that. If you choose not to accept my apology, that’s your decision. The only thing we can control in this life is our reaction to things, not what happens to us. What happens to us is not the fault of God, or fate, or other people. If we’re holding onto anger and resentment, the only person we can blame is ourself. We also have the power to let that go. We have the power to move on and be happy if we want to. If you’re spending years obsessing over something that made you sad, that is on you. You’re choosing to be miserable.

Not everyone is aware of this yet, or is ready to accept the truth, but everything that happens is the result of positive or negative thinking. For example, my career could be over right now, but thankfully, I chose to practice positive self-affirmations each morning and work on forgiving myself. Let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. You might have had one bad night when I assaulted you, but I had to live with what I did to you for years. If you’ve ever felt guilty about something, you know that there is no worse feeling in the world, and that if anyone is truly suffering, it’s the abuser. I actually envy victims, because they’re the ones who get the rush of trust and sympathy, while I’m over here pining for a little bit of respect, having to get major news publications to give me my own weekly column just so I can grovel at the feet of the public. Can you honestly imagine anything more degrading?

If you can learn to think positively, you can stop getting assaulted

Thankfully, I’m making a lot of progress and learning that if I continue to maintain a positive mindset, I won’t be forced to say goodbye to my seven-figure salary, successful career and large fan base. This is good news for everyone, because it means that anyone at all can manifest their own reality. If you’ve had a lot of hardships, that might be a good indicator that you could be a little more optimistic and affirming. If you’ve been assaulted, particularly if it has happened multiple times, not only should you examine your own behavior and clothing style, but you should also examine yourself internally. Bad things happen because you are willing them to. If you can learn to think positively, you can stop getting assaulted. But it won’t happen unless you put in the work. Why do you think the holocaust happened? Why do you think babies are in concentration camps today? Those babies likely spent their first weeks doing nothing but crying and shitting themselves. Crying and shitting yourself is basically the opposite of practicing positive affirmations. What did they expect, honestly, to spend their formative years outside of a cage?

It’s truly shameful that we don’t teach our children to think positively. We invest so much money into educating our kids about the prison industrial complex and no money into teaching how to think your way out of prison. We’ll make every city a sanctuary city, but we won’t tell immigrants to manifest not getting deported. We spend SO much time teaching men not to rape and no time teaching women how to not get raped as a result of having negative thoughts. Our taxdollars are being funneled into all these resources for sex ed classes so that teens can learn how to have healthy relationships, practice consent, and not abuse people, when all we need is one simple book about the power of positive thinking, such as The Power of Positive Thinking. Other required reading could include The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, or The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

If I hadn’t assaulted tons of people, I never would have had to do the internal work needed to forgive myself

But I won’t waste all my energy trying to help other people when, ultimately, we can only help ourselves. And I am so grateful that I’ve chosen to help myself so much. I am grateful for all of this. If I hadn’t assaulted tons of people, I never would have had to do the internal work needed to forgive myself. I wouldn’t have chosen to pay for the private yoga and meditation retreats needed to find the peace of mind I’d been searching for all along but never knew where to look. I’ve learned so much about myself throughout this process, and I know now that this sexual assault scandal has changed me for the better. I’ve done so much work on myself, allowed myself time to think and reflect on my values, and prioritized self-care. So to my victims, I do not wish to apologize yet again, but to say 'thank you.’ If it weren’t for you, I might not be the man I am today, a man I’m proud to look in the mirror and say good morning to every day. A man that I have finally learned to love.

[belaborthepoint]

Why concentration camps might be causing your acne

guest writer: tiffany-type from skin care industrial complex inc.

Hi, friends. As we all know, we're currently living in a very stressful political climate. What some of you might NOT know is that stress causes acne. I'm not talking about the kind of acne you had when you were thirteen and you went to the middle school dance and sprained your knee pretending to be a salmon jumping up a river because no one was asking you to dance and you wanted to draw attention to yourself and then three weeks later a boy followed you home and put a hand-written letter in your mailbox telling you that it was nice to see you at the dance, also his cat died, and he would you like to be his girlfriend. The kind of acne that I'M talking about is stress-induced, the kind that can resurface well after puberty. Usually it occurs during a stressful incident, such as a bad date, realizing that you're living in a country that's reinstating concentration camps and keeping children in cages, or tripping over your own feet — girl, I am right there with you. I also have feet! If you want to talk about being a GIRL with FEET, I am the expert in that field. I could go on and on about all the embarrassing feet-related incidents I've had, but we'll save that for the girls night! We're living in a pretty wild time, and it's hard to make it through one day without being bombarded by all kinds of stressors. Just this morning, I called a Lyft and got stuck in traffic, and was ten minutes late for work! We've all been there!

The only way we can treat our skin condition is by treating our life condition

The first thing you need to do to handle your acne is eliminate every source of stress in your life. This could mean treating yourself to that new juicer you've been wanting so you can clean up your eating, taking up a new hobby such as meditative adult coloring, or shutting down some of the concentration camps in your neighborhood. Isolate what the particular cause of stress is in your life, and cut it out! It's that simple! The only way we can treat our skin condition is by treating our life condition, which means treating ourselves to gifts and luxuries.

Having acne as an adult can be scary, because your face is a big part of who you are, and many people are friends with you because of what your face looks like. Sometimes it feels like all you want to do is hide from the world, which is really all you can do when your face is ugly. But you shouldn't let being ugly stop you from being active, because you can be an active participant in your own recovery process. Just because you're not engaging in public doesn't mean you're not engaging at all. As soon as you clear your skin, you can reenter your communities and start leaving the house again. You just need to be careful to avoid stress at all costs.

Life is about picking your battles, not popping your pimples

Sometimes, there are stressors that can't be changed, which means that you can either keep trying to deal with them, and accept that you will have stress-induced breakouts for the foreseeable future, or you can choose to disengage. For instance, I think that it is very upsetting that children are separated from their parents, malnourished, neglected, and kept in cages, but if I think about that for very long, I will feel stressed and get acne again, and that is the last thing I want for myself. Something I like to say is that life is about picking your battles, not popping your pimples. To make things simpler, you can live your life with clear skin or without it; I don't know about you, but I know which one I would pick. It's not that it shouldn't be stopped, because it's a crime against humanity and maybe the worst thing I've seen happen to children in our country, it's just that I, personally, am not up for the challenge. I'm a brand consultant, not a migrant children consultant. I don't know anything about what's going on, so it won't do any good to harp on it, because the only thing I'll achieve is getting acne.

There's no dollar amount or body count that could equal the value of a face with no blemishes

You might say to yourself, well, at least I can contribute some money to people who are actually helping, but you also need to think about you in all this, and how you're helping yourself. You can't help anyone until you help yourself, and sometimes that means investing so much in your own wellbeing that you have nothing left for others. And that's okay. For most of us, taking care of ourselves means, first and foremost, treating our adult acne, which is often at the root of all our problems. My life coach likes to say that mental illness is just a natural reaction to the state of the world, and also bad skin. Skin care is both expensive and necessary, and if we have to sit idly by while watching 9-year-olds sleeping on concrete every night while trying to keep infants alive because there are no adults taking care of anyone , all we can do is remind ourselves that everything has a cost. And you can't put a pricetag on healthy skin. There's no dollar amount or body count that could equal the value of a face with no blemishes. Beauty is priceless. Conveniently, if you're interested in investing in yourself right away, I'll put a link to my personal online shop where you can purchase a wide array of skin care items, including a new flesh-eating bacteria that will only devour your skin in unsightly places and grow back good as new within a 6-month period. The price tag might seem hefty at first glance, but that's only because this bacteria is extremely dangerous and illegal to cultivate in a petri dish in your own basement. But with great risk comes great responsibility; I'm taking responsibility for MY life and I want to help YOU take responsibility for yours, and learn to love yourself, because that's really what it all comes down to — self-love. And self-love is priceless. If you value yourself and want to help other people find their own sense of internal worth, please consider making a contribution to my skin care company/research facility where we are doing the hard work to help people, especially women, love their faces and also themselves.

[belaborthepoint]

Why I am abandoning my career to watch abc's "Lost"

Dear readers,

This may come as a shock to you, but it's time to announce my formal resignation from all social and professional duties. Thirty-six hours ago, I started watching the abc network's hit drama "Lost," and, forgive the wordplay, found myself. I know I'm employing some humor here, but this is the truest and purest spiritual awakening I've had thus far in my journey. I've committed many years to my quest, but it all seems a waste now, knowing I could've started abc’s “Lost” in 2004. Then again, I believe that everything comes at the right time. The good can't exist without the bad. I needed to live a life without abc’s “Lost” for so long in order to appreciate the higher plane on which I now find myself.

I know it's ironic that I FOUND myself through a show called 'LOST,' but there you go, sometimes it just goes to show that when you least expect it, the universe provides what you've been looking for all along right in front of you in the most unexpected ways, and nothing is an accident. I'm paraphrasing, but I think it was Siddhartha who was the first person to say that. Siddhartha is the name of the second Buddha who's the one in the skinny statue that's not bald. Or maybe he is bald in that one, but he's wearing like a hat or something.

I got distracted, but what I was going to do was to talk about the irony of finding myself in a show about losing yourself. I think the creators of the show were actually aware of this irony as well, which is one of the reasons why its so well done, because in the show, the characters are physically lost on an island, but they end up sort of finding themselves in a spiritual sense, which is cool because it's kind of like I'm going on a journey with the characters because I'm also finding myself.

Basically, all these people are just like stuck on an island and all they can eat are bananas. There is a French person on the island and also someone named 'Ethan,' and they're kind of suspicious characters that we don't know that much about yet, but it's being slowly revealed to us through the masterful art of storytelling. There is also a child on the island and he owns a dog, which really packs a punch, emotionally speaking. There are life and death moments, and fast-paced music that makes your heart beat really fast when you listen to it, and it's literally so good. There's also a romance that is literally so steamy I'm embarrassed about it. There are all these scenes where they're like in the rain and their faces are close together or they're like falling in the mud together or something, but they can't tell each other they love each other because one of them is a doctor and one is a criminal, and they're on an island.

Here is one of the most famous cinematic moments in the show, where he lifts her up during the dance at the end and they sing "Time after Time."

You might ask why I use the word 'us' to refer to myself as I am watching abc's "Lost." First of all, no, it's not for political reasons. It has nothing to do with identity politics and everything to do with the eradication of identity. Let me explain. I use 'us' to refer to the viewer, which is distinct from the "voyeur." In John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," Berger talks about the "voyeur" (Berger. "Ways of Seeing." 1972). To put it in layman's terms, it basically means a person looking AT something. But when you're "watching" abc's "Lost," you are not watching it so much as becoming assimilated into the immaterial communal identity of the viewer, and you are no longer the Other. The spectral phenomenon of abc's "Lost" is not a commercial cultural artifact available for consumption, as some might think. When I logged onto my friend's Hulu account 36 hours ago, I was unwittingly entering into a spiritual psychic realm. If you know anything about Buddhism, you know that losing yourself IS finding yourself.

I no longer have an identity as an individual. I don't have thoughts, feelings or preferences. My name is not Ermnat. Primarily because my parents did not christen me 'Ermnat' at birth, but also because I no longer identify as 'Ermnat,' which was my chosen name on my last spiritual journey. I no longer identify with any name at all. I merely exist. I watch abc's "Lost," I complete my bodily functions, I let energy pass through me like the wind passing through a leaf of grass on a midsummer dream eve, eating grasshoppers out of my hand. There is no language to describe this state, but if there were, it would have to be poetry, which is why I was quoting poetry to try to describe it.

This is just to say, I will no longer be pursuing the path of the mortal who walks along this earth with his face in his head. The only way to find yourself is to see outside of yourself, look beyond your own thoughts and feelings and rise above them. Which is why I am no longer in pursuit of glory or riches, but merely a continued state of nirvana. I am rising above material concerns and the vain trifles of personal relationships. So, this is farewell. If you want to join me, I suggest you turn on channel 7. It's actually not running anymore, so you'll have to stream it, which you can do on Hulu.