I don’t know if the tariffs were designed to do that, but I’m sure the plan has been to privatize the USPS and many of the functions of the agencies that have been gutted–the goal is to either eliminate or privatize as much of government services as can be done.

Fried in baby oil.

Yes, me too. Cursive is easier and faster to write. Though I usually print the capital letters.

I have never purchased a smartphone and don’t want one. I still prefer to use a flip phone. Their quality has improved over the years so I haven’t been forced to switch yet.

Maybe the ones who died young would have turned worse and worse over time if they’d had a chance?

What would be radical is if someone with some power stands up to trump instead of capitulating. Looks like Pritzer may actually do something (as opposed to Newsom’s campaign performances). Fingers crossed.

There’s something so Uncanny Valley about that face.

Yes, but just until I realize I’m doing it then I breathe.

Obvious Russian agitprop, you can immediately tell by how they put Ukraine as dog poop and by all the replies to it from Russians laughing specifically at that part, but the other stuff is obvious as well.

fucking fat bags of filthy fascist shit 😡

This is all part of was planned to be done all along, regardless of the Epstein files.

Physically possessing the music that you bought, having the actual vinyl records (or later, CDs and DVDs of shows). That you don’t have to keep renewing subscriptions for to continue being able to listen to (or watch), that you can lend out or pass down to your kids or sell to a used record store, where you can buy the ones someone else sold to them. Those were the days.

I don’t think I’d read it, but just looked it up and did. Or maybe I read it before and forgot–I’ve certainly heard that concept enough times, and many variations on it. The ultimate ego trip!

That’s my view too. even if reincarnation existed, it wouldn’t matter. If each life has no memory of the others, then each life is effectively a different person altogether, so from the POV of any one of those people, there is effectively no such thing as reincarnation.

Now suppose there’s some kind of ‘soul’ who the lives ‘belong to’ and will one day remember the lives, again – so what? They’re just memories. Those lives were each a separate person who no longer exists, and never knew the others or the soul.

This is a very good way to explain it. We need both kinds, both are important.

I hate reading the comments of all the capitulators here, carrying water for the regime by trying to discourage people with this constant drumbeat that protests are useless and ineffective. Bullshit. Are you magats? We’ve seen examples in history where protests and the movements they enabled have brought down those in power.

Protests are necessary but not sufficient in themselves. They’re how resistance starts and builds, not how it ends. Did you ever think it might take time to form the momentum to get to a critical mass, especially after decades of complacency? Real momentum and effective action was never going to happen immediately or in just weeks, or even in less than eight months which is where we are now. There are already people grouping and doing things other than protests (iykyk) and will be more, made possible by the support and cover that large numbers participating provide.

Troops are being moved into cities and they will keep being sent to more cities. Blue cities. There’s one reason for that–they want to intimidate people from turning out and use force to stop those who do. trump keeps saying so and plans are being implemented.

Point is, you may think it’s all useless and ineffective, but the regime obviously doesn’t. Why do you want to help them? If you think it’s hopeless, fine–stay home and doom scroll, but stop trying to dissuade others.

… it’s faith and belief that make it work

But it’s also the Achilles heel of the whole system … if enough people in the whole system stop believing in it … it all collapses in on itself and it is destroyed and evaporates instantly.

Just like the US Constitution.

Here, the only office not directly elected by popular vote is the US Presidential/Vice Presidential ticket, where it is determined by the infamous Electoral College, where each state has a different number of votes to cast, one for each senator and representative seat they have. Most states award all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state, but a couple of them (Maine and Nebraska) do it differently, so sometimes the other candidate winds up getting one of their electoral votes.

All other elected offices are determined by popular vote for the seat being elected. So,

For a US Senate seat (where each Senator represents the entire state), every voter in the state votes in that race and the winner is determined by popular vote [1].

For the US House of Representatives, each state is divided into a number of districts, with the number based on the population of that state relative to the US population as a whole. So a state with a large population gets many districts and a state with a lower population gets only a few (in some cases, only one!). The voters in each district elect their representative for their own district and the winner is determined by the popular vote in that district.

[1] Before 1913, people didn’t directly elect their Senators, the state legislatures did! So we’ve at least made progress there.

The USA is a union of 50 semi-independent states, not a single homogenous country, which is where most of the complexity comes from.

But, doesn’t your country (you didn’t say which it is) have any districts (or geographic subdivisions of some kind) where the inhabitants living within it send a representative to the national level to advocate for their interests and vote on national legislation with their local interests considered? That’s what we’re talking about here, except with an extra layer in between, where each State (being a semi-independent entity) gets to decide how it draws the boundaries of the districts within it.

Good to hear!