Lyrl

It replies to all top-level comments

Their belief in MAGA is filling some deep psychological need. Logical reasoning around the belief is irrelevant because logic can't activate whatever social buttons are being satisfied by their engagement with the MAGA movement.

Research trying to figure out what makes humans susceptible to this kind of stuff and how to protect each other was a hot topic, but then Congressional Republicans launched harassing investigations into everyone in the field and the institutions that supported their work, and of course the current executive branch has entrenched that fear. Gotta keep the victims coming to the grifter trough.

Outside of major roads (the proposal sounds like it allows strip-mall-type businesses facing onto major roads), the limits are on square footage, traffic, hours, and compliance with residential noise and similar restrictions. Mcdonald's probably wants to be open at 1am and have two lanes of drive-thru, but if some franchisee thinks they can make a go of it with a day-hour-only, walk-up-only store, I say let them try.

Loaded-up big trucks/semis and frost-thaw cycles are the source of almost all road wear. Less passenger cars/SUVs/unloaded pickups wouldn't really matter.

I think the person you were responding to was making a joke.

I think I have learned about seven separate ticketing systems at my work, so far. The specialized ones are associated with small teams I know and can go harass if they don't answer in a reasonable time frame. The big main one, the associates reliably answer quickly, to let me know they can't help me. It all feels very broken.

Different people and relationships can have different solutions that work for them. That's OK!

There isn't a list of abusers. The only person the files have evidence of abuse is Epstein himself. Per multiple sources interviewed by the NY Times, the only lists in the files are victims and witnesses, and releasing the files would just victimize them again to doxxing. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/us/politics/epstein-files-trump-bondi-justice-department-fbi.html

Dems are jumping on the bandwagon because it distracts the Republicans from their rampage of destroying the foundations of our country, but the files themselves are a nothingburger as far any actual evidence of crimes.

https://clerk.house.gov/Members/ViewVacancies

Gerald Connolly and Raúl M. Grijalva, apparently. Both were Democrats. No, there are no alternates. Each State determines its own process for filling vacancies: often the governor appoints someone but special elections are also common.

And updating regulations to promote building denser housing in locations people want to live!

Entitlements is a weird one. A person who wrongly believes they are entitled to money/power/respect is "entitled" in a derogatory sense. A person who has paid into the Social Security and Medicare programs for three or four decades is truly, genuinely, entitled to the payout of those programs.

And Republicans believing entitlement programs are bad, when so many of them are dependent on these programs to maintain a basic standard of living, is an astounding level of doublethink.

I could use some history learning to give me hope for a more progressive future. Do you have some examples of corrupt parties burning out I could research?

Once we are confronted with a situation that extends past our moral gray area and into firmly awful territory, nothing beyond that point is any deeper shade of gray - it is all equally morally black. So person A with a wide moral gray area sees a thousand people on the path to senseless death, and an alternative path of senseless death for two thousand people, and finds one thousand deaths a reasonable choice given bad options. Person B with a narrow moral gray area sees the same options and no moral difference - both choices are equally morally black. They rail against the options and see no value in trying to reduce the deaths by one thousand, because that's not enough to bring the situation into their moral gray zone.