Ok, when was the last time you saw a working payphone? 2010? It isn’t safe for teens to not have a phone because payphones don’t exist any more.

Woo hoo! Nice job and way to stick with it.

I saw one.

But the reason Tesla is different is that they don’t work that way. For other car companies a rich family buys a franchise license and sets up “Jones Honda”, Tesla isn’t like that. Tesla owns the dealership and that makes their dwaler license different. With “Jones Honda” if they lose their dealership license, the Jones are SOL and Honda is just fine. With Tesla, they’re all essentially “Musk Tesla” dealerships so only Tesla loses out.

And it’s an open secret that doctors get kickbacks from the tests they order whether you need em or not. $800 out of pocket from an MRI that showed nothing? The dr gets a kickback on that cost. Harder to take them seriously if they’re ordering useless expensive tests to line their pockets

Totally. I’m a big reader I enjoyed reading the HP books when they came out, but wasn’t obsessed. They were good for passing the time, stuck at an airport, sitting on the beach fluffy reads. I wasn’t reading them as literature, just something to relax and procrastinate. The character names often gave them away if you had any knowledge of Latin. OMG, Lupin is a werewolf and Serius Black is a dogman?!? What a shock /s

I started reading them to my kids (who liked the movies) and yikes were they bad. Larger characters have their girth pointed out at evey possible opportunity. I think everything the Dursley men did it needed to be mentioned that they did it while fat. Like 6 times in 2 pages. And her mysteries are even worse.

Or they look like 70s or 80s movies of inner cities.

What they’re saying is that the president isn’t the only election and progressives and those further left rarely running for other offices is the problem. You don’t just wake up one morning and decide to primary the top party choice with little to no experience and win. You build up, Bernie didn’t just run for the nomination, he had a long record of successfully winning races in VT and was a known figure.

There are primaries and elections for school board, mayors elections, governor, state offices, state house and senate, congress, etc. This is where you build a movement, not president. The fact the the US Greens only trot out a presidential candidate every 4 years is how you know they’re a spoiler and not a serious party. If they were we’d have greens running for all those other elections all the time, but they don’t. We need a river of actual leftist politicians and we have like a handful of drops in a bucket.

Well, part of it is that almost every time I’ve said “The States” when asked that question in Europe they look at me like ‘no shit Sherlock I’m not an idiot’ and then ask where in the States. So it may be an efficiency thing for some. I still try to lead with the States as my answer.

I did. It seemed you were saying that the Earth day 1970 protest didn’t do much to help the Earth. That isn’t so.

The US EPA was created in July of that year and the Clean Water Act passed in 1972. Banning DDT for Ag in the US in 1972 brought birds of prey lile the Bald Eagle back from near extenction. They were supremely successful at getting legislation passed. The focus was toxic chemicals and pollutants, not climate change as that wasn’t really on the radar then. So yes, the climate is in shambles right now, but it wasn’t really part of their platform. They mostly got what they wanted from that march and activism then the urgency faded away.

That 3.5% number is of sustained engagement, not one and done. A single event with lots of people is the beginning of a movement. The work needs to keep going. But, the 1970s did see a lot of environmental progress.

This isn’t but I saw a “tariffs are a tax at the gas pump. paid for by the Govt of Canada” billboard in the wild this week. It made me smile.

Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy was another.

I disagree on that. Part of our problem is that those in government don’t really understand governance and the sustem is complex. That takes time and mentorship, a jury duty like system might make bribing harder, but it would make a functional government next to impossible. Age limits, I’m all for that - give em until they’re 70 (or something close) then no more government offices - congress, senate, pres, judgeships, etc. That and have fully publicly-funded elections with limited campaigning windows. No more 2-year presidential runs or congresspeople needing to fundraise and run for their entire term.

Jews are very divided on Israel in general and heartbreakingly on whether or not it’s cool to genocide. Chuck is in the genocide is cool as long as it’s not against Jewish people camp, many of us stand firm on our no genocide no matter what. He’s also a senator so represents all living in NY state, so short answer is no.

Welcome to America. That is the reality most people are under.

That is not the right conclusion. We don’t have a protest culture or union membership to call for or protect protesters, or a centralized population and obvious protest spot. I was talking to an Argentine friend of mine about how it works in Argentina - a handful of big unions who unite and call strikes/protests including the bus drivers who bring moat people to and from work, a centralized population, and an international airport with 1 main highway that can be blocked. Not that all those things are needed to protest effectively, but America has none of that. Hell, we don’t even have healthcare if we’re not employed. We’re kinda starting from scratch.

He is not considered left by actual leftist Americans. We know he’s a corporate shill.

Not in Minnesota https://dfl.org/about/ the party is independent, I think it’s the same in other states. The way the DNC can influence elections in primaries is with endorsements and ad support.

The DNC doesn’t control state elections, the local democratic parties do. It is up to the state parties to run their primary (or caucus) as they choose. The DNC can influence primaries with spending, but they don’t make the rules for state-levrl primaries.