LOL at first i thought you were talking about weeb anime figurines, then remembered barbie and ken are things

lol there is one person in this whole thread who’s getting mad, but it’s not me

and yes, as someone else said, it’s no big deal for someone to contact the business office of an institution and offer money on the condition of anonymity and other conditions. and the business people say okay, forms are filled out and signed, and money is transferred. they want to be anonymous because they don’t want all the other institutions calling them asking for money too. and/or they don’t want the world to know they’re the ones influencing the school’s spending

no one wants donors to be able to influence whoever they’re donating to. but that’s how reality works

“i’ll give you 100 million dollars on the condition that $X of it be spent on ______” is how it’s exerting influence

i was a barista for well over 10 years (as an introvert to boot). it’s 100% a side gig. it may cover some food and gas, but NO ONE is paying rent with barista pay, especially since they cut labor every time it’s “slow” for 20 minutes.

i stayed there because of the free pound of coffee every week and flexibility, but don’t act like it’s always the only thing between the workers and homelessness

i imagine captain “it was a perfect phone call” is frothing at the mouth

they’re making a joke of it, but book bans are getting out of control. small libraries really are having to go “adults only” because of the impossible restrictions the new GOP library boards are imposing. project 2025 aims to force anyone who disseminates unauthorized material (basically whatever the fuck the party wants) to become a registered sex offender.

next steps will be to impose “approval boards” (censorship boards) for books before they even go to print or be published. when they’re done with books, they’ll move on to videos.

LGBTQ+ and anti-racist materials are only the starting point. when they’re done eradicating those, they’ll move on to anything that’s critical of any part of the GOP ideology. anything that doesn’t cast the GOP, trump, unfettered unregulated capitalism, white people, “it’s not rape if he’s your husband,” and on and on and on in a positive light–will never see the light of day.

“it can’t happen here!”

it IS happening here

if “will people think i’m alpha if i do this?” plays any part of any decision someone makes, then they’re most definitely not manly, let alone whatever the fuck they define “alpha” as

if trump is the definition of “manly,” then i’m renouncing and defenestrating every element of masculinity in my being

except my penis. i’ll keep that just to piss them off

reminds me of this funny story of when the soviets made asses of the us govt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

wtf france is this real? of course i have no place to criticize, coming from united embarrassment of america

if you can’t handle dealing with endless insufferable people and decided to sign up for a barista job, then that’s definitely on you

made the stop political in nature.

ok? so?

but if your food is your medicine, then they can’t sell you pills

i’d wager “simpleflying.com” gets more money from boing than they get from the machinists striking

you know who’s got who by the balls when one side can tell the other to take their 30% and shove it

same reason people still watch reality tv

lol and they’ll raise prices again next year. and people will complain for a minute, then renew their sub

when is this going to stop being news?

don’t think they’ll stop at gay and anti-racist books. those two are simply easy targets to get started on, since they’ve already got the homophobe/racist vote in the bag. once they succeed in eradicating those books, you can bet your ass they’ll move on to remove anything critical of conservatives, privatized everything, trump, american exceptionalism, christianity (criticisms of all other religions will be protected), and whatever else they feel like, because they can.

once they’re done with libraries, they’ll carry on to the entire publishing industry, stopping books from even going to print before they’re “reviewed” by a censorship board.

and again, if you’re thinking “it could never happen here!” then take a look around you, look at texas, look at the supreme court–it’s been happening for many years

because it’s a cult, dear great leader trump is the only one who’s completely unaffected by scandal. small time nobodies like mark robinson aren’t. look at madison cawthorn. george santos. christian ziegler. though loyalty is more important than anything else to them, their 2 brain cells rubbing together at least recognizes that this toxic goon will do literally nothing to help the republican party, and everything to make them even more hated than they already are. even fucking trump wants nothing to do with him

completely fucking unelectable