You're also describing corporate America. I just spent $150 on groceries. That's double what I was paying only a few years ago. It's $50 more than I was paying just 6 months ago. I understand there's a market correction going on because of tariffs. That doesn't explain why foods that have always been made and manufactured have gone up by that much. It is explained by Wall Street deciding to put psychopaths in charge of companies because they came to realize that, without a conscience, they can raise prices and not think twice about the prices or shrinking the price, just so long the stock goes up. That psychopaths thing? Yeah, there actually was an article about that several years ago. I don't remember the source, but that is a real thing.

But Elon needs his tax cut! He's a job creator! He created jobs by laying out tens of thousands of employees! These jobs were created by him, not the huge government grants he got!

I'm trying to think of how many degrees of separation you have when you consider the fact that a lot of the types of people with that kind of knowledge tend to be pretty antisocial. In my own case, it's more than 2.

I can't speak about suicides, but a friend's son OD'd a couple of weeks ago after asking ChatGPT how to get high and increase the intensity of the high. Given that, I'd say probably yes.

Ask somebody who's not technical if they know how to do this process.

And your average Joe knows how to do this?

I always buy dual-sim phones. Even though I've not traveled outside of the US recently, I always get a sim-based phone. I can use it when I travel and use it locally. No problems whatsoever. Esim's aren't about you, they're about making it easier for carriers to lock you in.

Seems like you made more even after the union dues. You also overlooked the ability to strike and to protect your job. Or do you prefer getting fired on a whim?

The 20th century was built upon, in part, things like highways. They didn't exist, at all. Horatio Nelson Jackson was the first person to actually drive across the nation... in 1903. The automobile opened up the door to point-to-point delivery of things like groceries. It opened up shopping areas outside of downtown. It created unions, which enabled the middle class. The wealthy have done everything they can to eliminate unions because apparently having 500 million in the bank isn't enough. The interstate system was built in part on taxes on the industries of the wealthy. No wealthy person was struggling during the 1970s, the height of unionized labor in the US. Want to know why union workers make more money than non-union? Because they belong to a union. You know medicare, medicaid and social security? Yeah, people don't need to be dying for no particular reason nor struggling to find a place to live past retirement age. Oh, and don't forget: it created your job. Seems the 20th century has done us well. Let's see how long you last without these benefits.

Uhm...

• Revolutionary war. The British sent a lot of troops our way. Granted, we weren't a recognized independent nation yet.
• War of 1812. Our army was different back then, heavy on the militia side. You know, everyone had guns (like today). Like in the Revolutionary War, minutemen strategies were also used it in and are basically early Guerrilla warfare tactics. We would have lost badly, in part, because everyone had a gun.
• Mexican-American war. Mexico was the aggressor. It was because of disputed borders.
• Japan, WWII. Guam, some Aleutian islands, Philippines (then a US territory), and they tried, unsuccessfully, Hawaii (Martial Islands are a part of the Hawaiian Islands). Hawaii was planned to be a jumping point to the US west coast.
• Hitler approached Mexico to try and get them to invade the US to distract us from Europe.

So we do get invaded and our laws make it very difficult for invaders to succeed. Because of our gun laws, we are considered the only uninvadabe country in the world. In Switzerland everyone has a gun because military service is compulsory, but any large army will overtake them. Holding them is another story, but I digress.

It was put together by Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park guys). It was a satire about how some in America and those in the world saw America at the time. This was put out a few years after 9/11, when we were busy dealing with the aftermath of invading Iraq. I have no idea why current post-Britain and post-French empire borders need to be relevant today. Doing borders by culture makes a lot more sense and would probably do more to end wars than anything. Yes, I do understand there are areas where cultures have mixed. A modern example that led to a years long war is Northern Ireland.

Sorry for the vulgar language, but it's needed to make the point. Sometimes somebody has to be the dick to fix things. Remember the movie "Team America: World Police?" There was a line in there somewhere near the end: "You have dicks, pussies, assholes. You need dicks because only a dick can block both a pussy and an asshole."

Pretty much doesn't mean every. My point stands. And I see your 15-30000 and raise you the roughly 900,000 people we legally let enter into the US every year. And trust me, I'm personally involved in the clusterthing that our country is with my own personal health and I've experienced first-hand socialized medicine in Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, you're so anxious to defend illegal immigrants that you fail to look out for the interests of the Americans and legally present immigrants who used to have great paying, secure jobs but who now sit around doing drugs because they can't make ends meet. Why? Because some illegal immigrant, who can work for less because they don't pay taxes, took their jobs. And yes, I do add on the f'ers on Wall Street who offshored our jobs to other countries because it was cheaper. What we're witnessing now is a correction for all of the BS policies implemented by Wall Street. Prices will go up as will wages. You can't sell a product to somebody who can't afford it. It was going to take somebody who had the money to stand up to Wall Street to do so, because he didn't need it. There is, IMO, also somewhat of an ulterior motive behind some of the things Trump is doing: all of Congress is doing the same thing he is, but under the table. By him doing it in the open, the only way to stop him from doing it is to ban the practice, which empties the bank accounts of Congress. Remember how AOC was complaining about not even being able to afford rent when she first took office? Why is she suddenly a millionaire? You can't do that on the salary of someone in the House.

s/And as we can/As soon as we can/

Remember the now rapidly diminishing Woke movement? There's no "side" to an authoritarian government. They're pretty much the same. We need to nuke the 2 party system and start building coalitions on singular issues to get rid of this nonsense. And as we can, overturn Citizens United. Then set campaign donations limits to $50 and advertising budgets for non-entities to $0.