Exactly. You get what you give. You give the bare minimum to society, and society will give it right back. You want more, give more. Go help your community. Take out your elderly neighbor’s recycling. Volunteer at your local shelters/soup kitchens. Attend some local events. Sit in on city council meetings. When I moved out of my small town a couple years ago, I learned that real life is a lot like online forums. You have to lurk before you can post. Learn the language, the local etiquette and taboos. Watch the people in your neighborhood, their interactions. Blend into the background, and observe. Talk little, hear and see much.

Exactly. This is a conservative-majority SCOTUS saying, “We decided long ago what we were going to do about this issue and many others. Nothing you can say will change our course. This conversation is over.”

The problem is the Federalism. Individual States have legislatures of their own, with, AFAICT, unchecked power to pass whatever laws they want within their borders. Congress, when it works, can only pass laws that regulate commerce between States, ensure citizens can move freely between States, collect taxes from those States, and other things.

But again, when a State with a conservative legislature has control, they can enact parts of Project 2025, but only within their borders. They can’t force other States to follow suit unless they want SCOTUS involved.

Eyeball every single purchase the Israeli government makes. If they start buying Zyklon B or any of its precursors, and building showers in these camps, then we know. I guess when they said “Never again” after WW2 they meant “Never again, to us.”

Disney winning sets a precedent that will ultimately lead to vigilante justice by necessity.

If Disney wins, then our “justice” system does not work and cannot be trusted, thus leading people to doing what they need to just to survive when every company starts using that clause to prevent us from holding them responsible for anything at all.

And if that’s the case, I guess I need to dig out my mask and cape, and get back to work as a crime fighter.

We literally created the Electoral College as DEI for slave states. It went hand-in-hand with the infamous “3/5ths Compromise” that allowed slavers to cast ballots in the names of their slaves, so slavers could cast as many votes as they had slaves.

Exactly. Conservatives hold as their highest values, conformity, compliance, cohesion, authority, sanctity, and tradition. They love adhering to their established norms and standards rather than challenging them. They defer to those whom they view to be in a position of authority. They have lines they do not want crossed, things they hold sacred. To be called “weird” is to be called as existing outside the norm.

Shame that that is literally the best and likely the only recourse we have. Seems like these are huge gaping loopholes we should have closed decades ago.

They are a real group. They’re part of a coalition with the White Women for Harris, who raised between $2-$8 million for Kamala Harris. Pantsuit Nation is rising up and New Balance Kingdom is going to match their work.

I’ve read her book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” and I have to say, the insight it gave into how Donald Trump came to be was astounding for such a short book. It’s 250 pages, but well worth the read.

I don’t think that’s true. The “left” as I understand it, is a largely heterogenous, loosely united coalition of all kinds of different factions beset by a mountain of conflicting interests and decades of infighting. Some factions are united by choice, and others are there because they would have died out once the USA became consumed by the dominant two-party system we currently languish under.

The Right isn’t like this, or at least it’s not as bad. Despite having just as many if not more factions with just as many if not more differences and conflicting interests, they value loyalty and in-group cohesion, which keeps them coming together every 4 years to form a surprisingly unified front. It also helps that they all fucking hate anyone even slightly left of center and most will vote for a Republican they despise over a Democrat they kinda sorta like on a personal level.

Consider your average Democratic Senator/Representative. They lean left on many things and have the backing of party leadership. To win their election, they need two things, votes and funding. They know that there are many things their voter base is passionate about, such as healthcare reform, police reform, campaign finance reform, housing and income inequality, and so on. They know their voter base has no hope of ever getting these things from Republicans, but unfortunately they are things that the donor class tends to despise. When faced with the challenge of appealing to all the different factions of the left while staying within the good graces of the wealthy donor class, the Democrat will pivot away from “policy” and focus more on “process”. Generally uncontroversial things like bipartisanship, decorum, and compromise. They don’t really take stances on wedge issues unless they run in a solid blue district where they can take that stance and not break up the coalition or lose donor support.

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Honestly if we could get space elevators figured out, the best place to put solar panels would be in the upper atmosphere. Tethered to the ground by massive columns that feed the energy they collect to massive capacitors on the ground?

This. Part of the reason we are in this mess now is that Obama won. The fact that we dare put a black man in the WHITE House, for not 4 but 8 years, broke their tiny little racist brains. They dogged him for every little thing they could, spent 8 years blocking, obstructing, bad faith arguing, and outright refusing to collaborate with a black man.

Like, who do they think they can replace him with, huh? They got a dark horse waiting in the wings? Or are they cooking up the perfect President in a secret cloning lab somewhere?

I want everything SiegedSec found. I intend to copy it and store it for safekeeping.

There were also icemen at one point. Then we invented refrigerators. Nobody seems to miss having a giant block of ice delivered to their house to keep the food we buy at the stores cold. But one thing I think a lot of people miss is appliances that didn’t need to be thrown away.

Your point? The USA became the model for the western world in many respects after WW2, I would not be surprised if French billionaires make their money the same way American billionaires do.

People who make money by investing. In the USA, the top 1% earn their income through investments, usually the purchase and sale of stocks. These are not taxed the same as regular income because they made the argument that you can’t really tax unrealized gains on investments that are sold, and it takes a while for the gains to actually materialize. Also, they tend to store their money, their liquid assets, in countries with looser tax laws, called tax havens. Much of their net worths are tied up in investments. Businesses, homes, art, classic vehicles, precious metals futures, oil futures, boats, etc.

Assessing the value of all of that is a chore, and they also pay lobbyists to keep the IRS defanged so that they don’t have the resources needed to go after the 1%. And don’t get me started on how much more speculative the stock market has become. Investors buy stocks, not on the expected dividends they’ll receive as a share of the profits of the business, but on their ability to flip the stock and sell it at a higher price to another investor, who is only buying because they anticipate flipping the stock. It’s like if a whole neighborhood of single family homes gets bought up buy a few house flippers, who make renovations, then put the houses up for sale, and sell to new flippers, who are only buying so they can make further renovations, increasing the value of the property again to sell to yet another flipper, ad nauseam.

You were an experienced master or your craft at the age of 35

Yep. Gotta figure someone who’s 35 has been around the block, seen some things, knows some things, the office of POTUS doesn’t seem like one you should be able to run for right out of high school. Oh, but imagine if we could. I’m sure it would be hilarious to put a high school graduate in office. Especially a Gen Z kid lmao.