If you're smart enough to communicate, you're smart enough to vote! I for one would certainly trust the opinions of the average gorilla over some of my fellow voters at times. :/

Transphobic Democrat Josh Turek proves that "blue no matter who" is just a slur used to browbeat minorities in the Democratic party. If you're a trans person, you are obligated to vote for Democrats that are even more transphobic than Republicans. But remember, blue no matter who applies to you, not the people you're required to vote for. They can vote for whoever they want. We want your vote, not your voice. Sit down. Shut up. Listen to your betters.

Remember, it's your duty to vote for someone who wants you dead, because the other guy wants you even more dead!

I made an admittedly editorialized post, but that is allowed. There is no rule against editorializing titles. The link was to this excellent story by Erin Reed:

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti

The story documents the efforts of Democrat-in-Name-Only Josh Turek to graft Republican anti-trans policies and bigotry into the Democratic party. The (supposed) automoderator flagged the post and removed it for being a "substack post." However, it was likely a manual removal as I would expect automoderator to work quickly, while this was up for hours.

The rule cited was:

"Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading."

This article clearly meets this requirement. Erin in the Morning is an entire journalistic operation with multiple employees. I'm sure they're incorporated in some form. Erin Reed is the most prominent trans rights journalist in the US, probably in the world. She's nationally famous, has won numerous national journalism awards, and has a Wikipedia page. She frequently appears on national media and speaks at events of all kinds. She is one of the most prominent transgender people in the United States.

But apparently if you're trans, to c/politics, regardless of what you accomplish, you can never be a real journalist, only a blogger. Real journalism is for cis people only.

Liberals will lie to you and tell you to "just vote in the primary," but in reality they simply don't care about trans rights and do not believe there is ever a right time to challenge transphobic Democrats.

First primary: the transphobes hide their colors so you can't vote against them.

First general election: the snakes reveal their colors, but you can't vote against the traitors because "blue no matter who." They tell you to just vote in the next primary.

Second primary: the same people who tell you now "save it for the primary" shift their tune to "we can't give up an incumbent seat in a purple district!"

Trans people can see through these bad-faith lies. Yet of course, mansplaining trolls will be sure to breathlessly explain "lesser of two evil" math, as if that's not an argument we haven't heard a thousand times and already rejected due to its obvious flaws. There's never a shortage of arrogant cis people who think they know more about trans issues than actual trans people.

Liberals want your votes, not your voices. Be a good little minority and sit down. Shut up. Support the party. You owe the party your support. The party owes you nothing.

EDIT: A few thoughts to address the comment in the thread here:

1. You need to get past your team sports approach to politics. I am not advocating voting against Democrats in general. I'm advocating for not voting for the 1% of Democratic candidates that have chosen to become fascist collaborators and adopt Republican positions on trans rights. To trans people, the Democratic party going TERF is a greater danger than the Republican party winning a slim majority in the Senate. The nightmare scenario here is what happened with Labor. Labor has completely fallen to Nazi collaborators. The UK has regressed in trans rights to now be the most transphobic country in Western Europe, and that happened under the rule of a center-left government. The trans people of the UK would have been better off with another term of conservatives than the transphobic labor leaders they elected instead. We don't need to elect more Fettermans who will turn around and vote against the party the first chance they get. So many people in this thread believe, "you have to vote for the Nazi collaborators, otherwise the Nazis will win!"

2. On saving democracy: you are vastly underestimating how difficult that task is. You seem to imagine you can just write a bill that just says, "democracy saved," and call it a day. Actually saving democracy is going to require stripping powers from the presidency and dismantling the post-9/11 security state. That requires Democratic leaders of moral strength and conviction. It will take leaders willing to look their constituents in the eye and tell them, "I am going to vote for this bill to dismantle ICE. Yes, that means that occasionally an illegal immigrant is going to murder someone. I'm going to vote for this bill to dismantle the NSA's illegal programs. Yes, that means we may have more terrorist attacks than we would otherwise. It's worth it to save our Republic." Saving democracy requires leaders who are literally willing to vote to kill their fellow Americans. Every power you strip away results in a few more people dying. It's inevitable. And these transphobe Democrats are fundamentally cowards with no inner moral center. They'll follow any poll or vote for any policy they think will get them power. This kind of person is not capable of saving democracy. You can't defeat Nazism by voting in Nazi collaborators, and it's insane to pretend you can.

3. Those arguing that trans rights are a minor or insignificant issue? Frankly, if you believe this, you deserve to have your right to vote taken away. If you're not willing to protect the vulnerable among your community, you deserve whatever evil befalls you. Karma's a bitch in that way. We can all go to Hell together if that's the path you choose.

Long accepted historical facts are misinformation. Wikipedia is imperialist propaganda. Stalin was a good guy. Don't you dare mention that he had defectors who tried to warn him about Hitler's invasion executed for their trouble. That's an inconvenient historical fact, so it's fake news.

Scrappiest of scrap wood projects.

The proportions are odd, but it's designed to fit under the landing of the stairs going into the garage. Makes a good use of an otherwise awkward space. Like everything else in the shop, it's on casters to allow for easy movement and cleaning around.

Most of this wood was from the big lifting tower I used to get the dust collector motor into place.

Continuing the workshop build. Been working like a maniac to get this done. Pleased with the results so far.

The ducting came from Oneida along with the dust gorilla (the big yellow thing.) It's 24 gauge ducting in sizes from 7 to 5 inches in diameter. It comes in approximately 2' lengths and is made from 24 gauge snap-lock piping. Every joint has to be screwed or riveted together, and every seam and joint needs to be taped or caulked.

It's hard to get a sense of scale from the images, but this thing is gigantic. The ceiling in the shop space is 12 feet high, and I'm taking full advantage of it. The main line towers over you as you walk under it.

I still have a second line that will go on the side of the shop near where the furnace and drill press are in these images. The will be two lines, the main central line serving the table saw and workbench, and a second line wrapping around the perimeter of one side serving various other machines. I also have a place in the ductwork to install a third line going in the other direction. It's quite a lot of ductwork to service, but the dust gorilla is so comically overpowered that it just laughs at it.

When I'm running the table saw and dust collector simultaneously, I'm maxing out two 240V circuits simultaneously. The gorilla is on its own dedicated circuit, and the table saw is on a different 240v circuit.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm really pleased at the progress I've made. The second line is something I want to do, and I do have the parts for it. But the first one is critical. It's serving machines that can't operate without a dust collector. I've been without a table saw and planer since we moved houses six months ago. And when you use it as much as I do, lacking it really feels like missing a piece of your body.

I'm currently outfitting a workshop in a garage space. I'm installing a dust collection system. The system will consist of steel ductwork and will be powered by a large dust collector. This collector is a beast of a machine, one of Oneida's dust gorilla models. It runs on a dedicated 230V 30A circuit and will be collecting dust from all the machines in the shop.

So far I've just been working on building out the gorilla itself. Most of the pieces were easy enough, not too heavy and easy enough to bolt together. However, the motor was another story. This thing weighs as much as I do and it needed to be lifted up eight feet in the air, over two feet, and back down a foot or so. It's a large awkward object and there are space constraints due to existing ducting and piping in the area.

This is the motor here:

The gorilla before construction of the frame. (Note the water heater for scale.)

Now, I suppose I could have done this just by rounding up four strong guys and getting a few ladders for everyone to stand on. But I really wanted to be able to place and remove the motor by myself. In case I need to service it or unclog a backup, I wanted to be able to raise or lower the motor again myself. My husband's back is recovering from a sporting injury, so I had to figure out a way to lift this motor single-handedly.

So, I decided to build a large hoisting frame around the thing. My plan was to hang an electric hoist at ceiling height. Use the hoist to raise the motor up. Use a sled on rails to slide the motor over the top of the gorilla, and then use ropes to lower it down.

I spent several days building out this lifting frame from the ground up. At the top are a set of rails allowing a sled to move horizontally along them. The sled has a hole in it to accommodate the impeller motor which sticks out several inches belong the motor housing. The geometry of all of this had to be planned for. The hoist is just a cheap ceiling hoist from Harbor Freight.

Finally, once everything was built, it was time to lift. I built a lifting bar and rigged up the motor.

I stood back, let the winch do its thing, and the whole plan worked brilliantly!

I lifted the motor to the top of the tower using the hoist. I then lowered it onto a sled. I then slid it over top of the gorilla. I did have to modify the sled to remove the front of it, but it worked out just as well.

Finally, I rigged ropes around the motor, raised it up enough to get the sled out, and then carefully, inch by inch, one rope at a time lowered the motor on to the top of the gorilla.

Finally, after several days work, it's done.

It's been a lot of work getting this all together. And I'm sure there may are probably quicker and easier methods of getting a motor up there. But again, I wanted a permanent solution that allowed me to disassemble the system in the future if I need to. But it's been really enjoyable. Also, I now have a giant hoist if I ever need anything hoisted!

Next step is the duct work build out!