Furbag

George Takei lived during the Japanese Internment during WWII, so I believe him when he says that he's been through worse and that the fight isn't over, but I'm not convinced we haven't fought a single skirmish yet. We've been on the back foot fighting the rise of fascism for 8 years. This is trench warfare and the enemy is perfectly happy to advance inch by inch. The election win for them was a massive defeat for us. Regaining the ground we've lost to xenophobes and racists will probably take the rest of my lifetime advocating for and voting for progressive candidates just to reach a point where things are kinda okay-ish again. It sucks and it feels bad to be in this situation.

Technically neither of those cars would be net environmentally friendly though. The mining operations to produce the cobalt required to produce EV batteries, including the hybrid electric engine of the Prius line, produces enough greenhouse gasses in the production of a single Hybrid/EV car to completely eclipse the lifetime operating emissions of a single ICE car.

Considering the Prius also has emissions, albeit fewer overall compared to a non-hybrid vehicle, it's arguably worse than economy ICE alternatives over their lifespan. The electricity that powers the Tesla might be "clean", but if it was produced by burning fossil fuels at a power plant, it's just shifting the method of combustion from local (petroleum in the tank to feed the combustion engine) to centralized (shoveling coal into a furnace at a power plant) as powergrids will need to continue to ramp up production of electricity to power everybody's cars now too.

When insurance companies start writing policies that allow me to pay less for coverage if my car operates entirely autonomously, that's when I'll start taking car automation seriously. Until then, I'll assume all of these car companies and robotaxi services are just blowing smoke up my ass trying to convince me that this is the future of driving. Sure, it might be in somebody's future, but as long as I'm liable for what my car does while it's in motion, I'm going to insist that I remain in control of the vehicle. Lane/braking assist are all wonderful, but it shouldn't be a substitute for human awareness, it should be a supplement.

Not just an inanimate object - an idea that that object is meant to represent! We're about one level of abstraction away from the pledge of allegiance becoming a meaningless mantra of words with no meaning or relation to one another strung together to make a pretty song that is always sung off-key by grade school children.

Well, it's not like it wouldn't have been the first time an election was stolen by corrupt Republicans. Bullet Ballots are basically the exact opposite of Hanging Chads that we saw cause Gore to lose Florida and the presidency in 2000.

Suspicious as hell, but I don't expect Dems to actually do anything about it.

Resigning from the 119th congress is essentially an admission of guilt at this point. Whatever is in that report will most likely remain sealed as long as he has the cover of being a private citizen once again, which is why he turned these two opportunities down - to keep the evidence of his wrongdoing under wraps so he can't be held accountable by either the public or the justice department.

So, Matt Gaetz is a pedophile and a child molester. And knowing the state of our shitty fucking country he's probably going to get away with it.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what Yew can do for your country!

When you swear ultimate fealty to a cult leader, the officers of the cult are by default the best picks. If you can't see it, it's a problem with you and not a problem with the cult leader.

Until those folk are no longer needed, outlive their usefulness, or turn on Trump of course. Then the handpicked officers in question were actually agents of "The Enemy" all along and needed to be purged.

You deserve the right to exist as much as anybody else.

Hope you can get the police involved, if possible. Not sure where you're from, but I know small town politics don't always make that a real possibility. Rapists too often get away with their crimes because people are too scared to come forward and that's just the sad reality of the country we live in now.

I'll echo the other commenters - if you can get out of here, do it quickly. America is on a very dark trajectory. Don't let yourself continue to be victimized.

Consider how bad things are in Central America right now and then remember that despite the abject violence currently happening in many countries there right now, the U.S. still harbors deep anti-immigrant sentiments and we regularly turn away people fleeing said violence and return them to the custody of their would-be killers.

Yeah, you won't need an answer to this question when the times comes for us. You'll know, and you'll be willing to get on that boat or airplane leaving for anywhere else even if they aren't accepting refugees or the odds are slim that anywhere else will take you, because the alternative is certain death.

You're probably better off trying to emigrate now rather than waiting for things to get worse, if you are in a position where you can make that choice. Some people make their livings preying upon those who are desperately seeking an escape, so it's a bargain right now to leave for the cost of a plane ticket and whatever elbow grease you need to put in to achieve citizenship abroad.

About the only thing that would make me happier than to have the entire pacific west coast secede and create a sovereign nation would be for Trump to do it for us so we don't have to fight a war over it. You want us gone? Please, show us the exit, we'll be on our way. No takebacksies.

Corruption right out in the open and we're powerless to do anything about it.

America is a fucking joke.