If you call the police you might wind up dead or in an institution for months or weeks.

If you call for an am ambulance, you might wind up dead or in an institution for months or weeks AND will definitely have a huge bill that you have to pay.

Assuming you’re a US citzen:

0. Identiy that the fault is how we fund healthcare, not “government meddling” or “bad researchers”.
1. Pick a major political party.
2. Register as a member and find out where your local meetings are.
3. Make clear that the ONLY issue you care about is fixing healthcare.
4. Volunteer, donate, or run if you can.
5. Vote in every general, primary, or special election for whomever makes fixing healthcare a priority. Spoil if you must, but VOTE.
6. Dont fall for lies.

Fixing healthcare funding is itself broadly popular, but since its inherently unprofitable to care for sick, disabled, or elderly people all possible fixes are either “socialism” or “die quickly”

Healthcare should be like roads or schools or calling the police, not like cars or contractors or hiring a lawyer.

Very-blue New York has an anti-gerrymandering law so severe that that it netted Red three seats two years ago.

Very-red North Carolina just ignored court rulings and gerrymandering their way to three extra seats this year. And then there’s Texas.

While both sides SHOULD play by the same set of rules, they aren’t. Not even close.

Yes, absolutely.

The American left has a terrible habit of playing nice instead of playing fair.

Congressional gerrymandering should be regulated nationwide or not at all. Instead, we’re stuck with this asinine “no gerrymandering except in redcap occupied states” situation.

For actual fast food - - that you can order in a drive-thru and not have to wait around for - - the best around here is honestly Wendy’s. They’re not anything id pay $20 each for, but their average burger is better than their just-as-fast competition.

If by “fast” you really mean “without waitstaff”, they’re all great. 5 guys, smashburger, fuddruckers", and a dozen tiny chains all make burgers worth paying a premium for.

About the only place NOT worth getting a burger at is anyplace with waitstaff. They just dont take them seriously enough to do a good job, and wind uo about as good as a slightly well-run McDonald’s.

(*: i think this one went out of business.)

The idea that a pedestrian walking anywhere but on a limited access highway would ever be at fault for a collision with an automobile is a direct result of century-old propaganda by the moral equivalent of the NRA.

If i made a self-propelled battering ram with remote controlled steering I would rightly be held to strict liabily if anyone was hurt. But if we put a a chair in the same thing and call it a “vehicle”, suddenly the rules change in our favor.

I like cars and driving, and can easily imagine a number of mitigating circumstances that would shift liability away from the driver, but the presumption that once-walkable city streets are for cars is the result of fierce industrial lobbying and not a reasoned public policy process.

Ignoring Bernie for the moment, “against the working class” is usually a dogwhistle for “poor whites have racial nervousness and i want to exacerbate that for political gain.”. You wont find real examples because, generally, professional democrats arent against anyone. (even nazis, apparently.)

Bernie’s specific crtique was a slightly tone-deaf critique that the dems were largely silent on the economic nervousness of the working class, and instead spend political capital fighting for racial and gender equality. Since the white male working class is not oppressed by race or gender, or in a position to really oppress anyone, they often feel unrepresented.

To rephrase this: they take the time to block out labels to ensure there is a reason for the brands to pay.

Please understand that “nothing” means the built up surplus runs out and there will be not enough money to pay all benefits.

The smart and easy fix would be to raise the cap on ss taxes while flattening the “you deserve more money because you made more money when you were working” weirdness.

Instead, they’ll likely either do nothing and force the dems to fix it in four years, play with benefits to make the poor suffer, or try and replace it with a phased in 401k style stock market scam.

(that last option, btw, is killing social security.)

In common commercial english, i would read that as “this merchant will offer to trade any of the books for an amoumt of currency equal to half the book’s cover price plus $1.”

Such vagueness also suggests sufficient informality that the merchant may either accept seperate offers or veto the general rule on a case-by-case basis.

Bail is not money you get back. It’s money that a bail bondsman doesn’t have to fork over if you dont show.

Either you are so rich that the opportunity cost of tieing up the whole amount is more than the fee (so you just pay the bond fee) or you don’t have enough and need to ask someone to lend it to yoy (that is, you pay the bond.)

New York tried to largely ban cash bail (becaue its essentially just a way to lock up the poor), but because of Republicans and police unions (i repeat myself) who whined about offenses while out on bail, the state poked a bunch of holes in it instead of making pre-trial detention easier.

Cash bail is ALWAYS indefensible. If someone is so dangerous to civic order they need to be detained pre-trial, then no amount of money should get them out of it.

So, you’re asking if there is a shoplifter whose small-dollar.spree was stopped by target, who was then arrested by the police, who then refused an initial plea offer from the DA, who was then charged by a grand jury, refused a pre-trial plea offer, went to trial, refused the pre-verdict plea offer, and was then found guilty?

Well, what about someone who hit 60k over 120 visits?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/05/07/target-self-checkout-thief-aziza-graves-convicted/73599144007/

(edit: shortened url.)

It’s not really “established” becaue there isnt any formal body declaring what names different voting systems have.

Are you unclear about what recognition other demcracies give to parties, how there is no prize for 2nd place in America, or why that lack of such a prize gives rise to a two-party system?

1: FPTP is a terrible term as its literally not an accurate way to describe a “single-vote plurality wins” systrm like most of the USA has. When you use the phrase to someone who doesn’t already agree that there are better ways its just inaccurate enough to sabatoge any point you might make.

2: the UK and other parliamentary systems have embedded rewards just for being “a party”. There are only two parties in the USA becaue parties on their own have institutional recognition, and in our politocal contests there is no prize for second place.

I think rhe voting age should be the lower of the minimum age to labor or the age of potential conscription less the age of the longest-term official whoss job includes sending people to war.

In the USA, that would put the voting age all the way down to 12. And having both been 12 myself once and having close family who were recently 12, I’m entirely OK with that.