It’s weird here too because states set sales taxes. I live in Oregon, and we don’t have a standard sales tax here. That means what you see is what you pay at the register for most things, and it’s so freaking nice.
About the only thing I regularly see is the bottle tax (0.10/can added at the register). That’s refundable too, at least theoretically, so it’s not that bad.
Democrats touting a road widening project… why celebrate a carbrained regressive idea. No it’s not murdering people in Gaza or Ukraine but seriously folks, not the right move. May be democrats in name but not progressive in practice. That’s increasingly why I’m frustrated with dems and the two-party shit system.
Unlike sane people, regressive leaders do not need or care about reality in order to get people removed from the ballot. It absolutely does not matter that progressives have not invited insurrections. They’ll be removed anyway if that precedent is set simply because they are an alternative option, and the voting population is sufficiently decieved or deluded to support it.
Putin might as well just say the quiet part out loud at this point. Classic sociopath dictator, gotta pretend blood isn’t on his hands.
Rest in peace Navalny. You and your people deserve better than this.
Republicans say the repeal will lead to Michigan becoming less attractive to businesses and will lead to forced union membership. House Republican leader Matt Hall said in statement following Whitmer’s signing that “businesses will find more competitive states for their manufacturing plants and research and development facilities.”
Translation: Regressives want businesses to be able to abuse employees, and they’re afraid that not being able to abuse employees quite as easily will put up some reasonable guardrails on maximizing profits.
It’s desperately needed, and in some senses it doesn’t go far enough.
Regressives held our state government hostage via superminority rule and actively forced us to compromise on their inhuman policies to make any progress for three straight years. Without this, only a rewrite to our state constitution’s quorum rule would prevent eternal hell regressives holding our state hostage via minority rule.
Now, we can at least revoke these turds after they fuck us over. But in the grand scheme of things, I worry that what this law doesn’t do is prevent this new cycle from repeating. It doesn’t take many of them ruling over a few tiny, horribly misinformed districts to screw us all over. In other words, it only takes a tiny number of regressive candidates each year to accomplish that goal.
I won’t give the mouthpeices much credit. But be careful in underestimating them. Self-delusion is deep and complex, and that’s frightening enoguh. Even more frightening though, is that if you go searching deep enough in conservative donors networks, conservativeism always winds it’s way back to members of the 1% seeking unchecked power.
Conservative and religious institutional donors do think ahead, and they are a special breed of cruel, ruthless, and smart. Yes, most of the conservative bloc is dickwaving while they push the “give money now” button of reaction hate politics. It’s pretty obvious that on the surface there’s nothing particularly thoughtful going on there.
But the underlying strategy is as fascinating as frightening. There is a LOT of effort that goes in behind the scenes to figure out how to manipulate literally every aspect of people in society. These big donors typically have highly lucratice connections, often very direct ones, to big corps. Some of the most insidious manipulation that goes on in our society today is the result of capitalist businesses finding ways to perpetually squeeze us harder for a dollar. It’s no coincidence when we see the same tactics being used in politics.
So yeah. I don’t entirely disagree with you but progressives consistently get our asses handed to us when we underestimate anything.
Oh sure, he’s an absolutist: Free speech for him and people he likes? Absolutely. Free speech for people he doesn’t like? Absolutely not.
Yeah, implementing policies like this has to be done really damn carefully to prevent unintended consequences from dragging the whole thing down. It’s also not a push-button solution to a problem; it requires persistent, long-term commitment and gradually change to get right. Tricky, especially when, at least here in the US, regressive politicians regularly get elected and scuttle policies that would eventually work if left alone.
Anyway, yeah, just focusing on a land-value tax alone won’t solve the problem of equitable housing. It’ll have to be worked in carefully with safeguards to prevent the 1% from abusing it, that prevent public green spaces from disappearing into the concrete jungle, that ensures we have space to build and improve public transit, infrastructure , etc.
For example, single family home zoning on large (7000+ sq ft) lots isn’t appropriate major cities. It’s reasonable to expect people to compromise away from that type of housing into smaller lots and mixed-use zoning, so that SFH’s can exist in small spaces but be surrounded by businesses and apartments. But, if a small single family home or an apartment wants to work in a small garden or share a public garden, I think those types of things should be protected and, at least if they’re public access, exempted from land use tax to a certain point.
We of course have to be careful not to allow loopholes that enable people to exploit that and keep inappropriate amounts of land to themselves without paying dearly for it. But we also need provisions for that kind of land use to exist without it being so expensive that only the wealthy have it, or that horrific things like HOAs are the only ones able to afford them.
It’s a mess. I’m glad though that they’re trying it out. Just putting the idea off because it’s hard will keep things worse forever.
Yes, exactly. The short term solution requires that people recognize the greater evil in the room and defend what little progress we’ve made. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Our first part the post voting system is horrible, but until we can build up enough progressive movement to update it to a better system, priority 1 is exactly what you said.
Choosing not to vote for Democrats because they’re not perfect is choosing to step back and give republicans a free ticket to burn all of our progress to the ground. It’s naïve to think otherwise.
And honestly, that naïveté is holding us back from actually addressing issues like us aid to israel. Enoguh splintering among progressives will by default give control back to republican leaders who would happily sit back and watch palestinians die while lying about it and blaming it on anything anyone else other than themselves.
A van is certainly going to be cheaper to put solar on than a whole house LOL! That’s completely understandable. Yep, I’m sorry, I usually assume people are talking about homes because I don’t have a van, and so I misjudged youe capial involved as a lot more than I’d have. For van living I’d say it’s a must-have regardless of price, considering that you might not have grid hookups consistently!
When the options are sue or plan for the future…
You’ve omitted the critical, first-priotity option: get out. Unless that I what you meant by “plan for the future…”
Absolutely nobody who is sane of mind will look at texas, with its radical conservative “leadership” and sociopath 1% investors, and say “I want to stay here even though I could move.” And I’ll admit, I’m very quick to judge you for what you said: if you can afford whole-home solar, you can afford to move to a nice fucking house.
Now, I was in the same boat.
I left idaho (which by many measures is worse than texas) years ago, and have been trying to convince my family to do the same. They agree they need to leave that hateful shithole, but selling their home and uprooting from their tiny circle of non-psychopath idaho friends is still very hard. I’m going to end up digging deep financially to make it happen, but it’ll work out in the end.
Still, nobody deserves to end their life in such a hateful place. Leaving is an option once you can afford a home, no matter what anyone says. And at least if people leave, they won’t be actively forced to support a radical conservative hate state.
It’s unbelievably disappointing to see such an efficient and potentially clean source of transit absolutely ruined. Ruthless capitalism for the win - but only if you’re warren buffet or a dead guy named vanderbilt.
Oh also, let me drop this here: last week tonight on presicion scheduled railroading https://youtu.be/AJ2keSJzYyY?si=gJXfGCO5ubAFjgny
Very similar theme to the above article, also I forgot how absolutely fucked original Thomas the tank engine could be lol
This is so insanely corrupt. Really, Louisiana should be penalized by the feds for even allowing a sham court like this to exist, let alone go as far off the rails as fenton has. And the mayor - and anyone associated with them - really ought to be behind bars serving mandatory minimums.
GOP: Gaslight, Obstruct, Project
Let me share a somewhat related anecdote:
I live in Portland. Bought a house two years ago (yay hyper-specialized job privileges, etc!) and chose a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood, as it was one of the only things in my budget that wasn’t way out in suburban hell. Many of my criteria for buying were just “make sure this isn’t a rotting, radioactive dump” but I did want to make sure I could get an e-bike and ride to the store eventually.
Well. The new place was actually so close to a little local grocery chain that I just had to walk two blocks to it! I was so stoked.
Then, we “managed” the way through the first year by really pinching pennies while we took care of all the critical house fixes, so we didn’t go there a lot. In reality we saved very little by doing this and wasted a ton of driving time and cost, but I did wake up and start waking to the little store more as things “stabilized.”
And then it fucking closed. The little store wasn’t bringing in enough dough to pay their criminally high rent. And so, we were stuck driving further to save a very much imaginary penny on each item we bought anyway. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. I should have been going to the little local store from day one, not to fucking winco and freddys.
I can still ride my bike to the store but it’s so much further that we can’t “just walk.” It’s either a 10m e-bike ride with a cargo basket strapped on, or a stupid 3 min car ride that sometimes takes 10mins due to traffic anyway. What a waste when we had something so much better and more walkable.
Still, can’t complain. If I had moved to suburbia biking to the store would be a stupid and suicidal joke 🤷🏻♀️
My rule for a while has been to limit myself to one major subscription at a time. It really curtails the rampant streaming costs.
I made an exception for spotify for a while (so I’d have spotify + one streaming service + maybe one small low-cost one) but with how expensive they’ve all gotten I’ve reverted to only spotify and low-cost stuff.
Right now I just have spotify and dropout TV so I can catch up on Dimension 20.
Trump
There’s the problem though, zero science and/or logic was involved. It was actively rejected. Something something freeze peach…
I’m afraid for humanity’s future.
I know you said it was multi-ply, but did that pan actually have anything other than a copper core? For example, steel or magnetic stainless steel? Some multi-ply cookware still isn’t induction compatible because those magnetic core materials aren’t included. Copper alone is not compatible with induction because it can’t respond to the magnetic field produced by the induction hob (which is why I’d be skeptical of anyone saying copper “draws too much current,” if anything it draws too little or none at all)
I always do the magnet test on new cookware now, or look for people doing it in review videos. The more magnetic material used (within reason, obviously!) the better the pan will respond to the stove.
Advertising campaigns that straight up lie (“now you’re cooking with gas” and that kind of shit) don’t help. Nor do the substantial natural gas subsidies that some states offer ng suppliers.
Then again, it’s only been very recent that electric induction ranges in north americ have been offered at sane price points. Up until recently it wasn’t easy to find an induction range for under $1k, whereas now it’s a bit more realistic.
People also get unreasonably attached to their cheapo $25 nonstick (even if it was marked up to $200 with some bougie brand name) and will refuse to ditch it for actual quality cookware when they find out that their $25 pan isn’t induction compatible.