This is what I think as well. I understand there are people out there with that opinion, but I think their message is getting signal boosted by people trying to sway the election.

Believe it or not, McConnell is elected by popular vote in the state. Crazy, right?

<places tin foil hat on>

As someone from Kentucky, I could’ve sworn that I saw reports coming out that the margin McConnell was winning by in some rural counties was higher than the ratio of registered Republicans to Democrats. Implying that a large swath of rural democrats were voting for McConnell. Now, I don’t claim to know every democrat in the state. However, every democrat I met hates the guy and a lot of republicans hold their nose voting for him.

Also as quickly as I saw those reports, they vanished. Myriad of reasons to explain things, but sure seems odd, right?

<Removes tinfoil>

Corn Dog Sonnet No. 7 [Remix] in my ass

Not only losers, they are weird

Purely Mail, yes; so long as you’re comfortable with one guy running the service.

Thunderbird for desktop and K-9 for Andriod. Only because they were the most recommended and completely fit my needs.

Have you heard about moonlight and sunshine? You might be interested in that

Have you looked into Purely mail? This is what I use for my custom email needs. I don’t remember all the pros and cons, but the big one that scares most people off is it’s run by one guy. So if something happens to him, you’re potentially SOL. You could probably migrate to a new service, but could potentially be a huge pain.

I volunteered as tribute to be one of these ‘Friends’

Not OP, but I run both because Plex was/is easier to setup non-techy family members and easier to get on their TVs/devices.

Plex has been pissing me off though and I’d like to move to Jellyfin, but sounds like a PITA to transfer everything over. Gonna have to get clever with that probably

Not the original person you replied too, but I don’t mind having hard conversations and trying to expand my world view. Now personally, I’m pro-“Student Debt Fixing”. From what I can tell, I think setting the interest rate to 0% would be the best fix. I’m not opposed to paying back what I owe, I just don’t think the government should be profiting from its citizens. However, I admit I’m not an economist and understand I’m probably misunderstanding something.

Not you make a fair amount points and honestly, I don’t want to address them all (I’m tired :( )

• I know you mentioned where you’re from, interest rates are capped, but I don’t believe we have those in an effective form for the U.S. for student loans. Loans provided by the Government have their interest rate set each year by Congress and usually it’s around 4-5%, but Congress can set it whatever they’d like. I can’t speak for private loans because I don’t have private student loans because it’s was always a bad offer for my situation.

• I don’t completely buy your argument that if the government forgives a $180,000 loan that it’s money from the Federal Reserve that covers it and thus inflates the economy by $180k. Like if you wanted $100 for food and I gave it to you and I decided to forgive it. I don’t consider it paying myself $100 to account for it. I view it more “I gave up the opportunity to make $100”. Remind me of that joke about two economist in the forest.

• How is the government nefarious for forgiving loans? You claim it’s about gaining greater control over the populous. However your own argument is forgiving loans would basically cause inflation to go up. Causing people to buy and save less. Hurting businesses in the process. Possibly causing a recession or even worse a depression. Meaning that the government would be at its weakest because that’s usually when taxes are also at their weakest. Historically, governments have their most control when populations are fat and happy. Most civil unrest are in uncertain times, such as recessions and depressions. If anything it’s more nefarious for the government to keep the loans and jack up the interest rates where people have no ability to pay it off and can’t bankrupt out of it.

• While some of school tuition can be attributed to supply and demand. It can mostly be attributed to a change in how much grant money was awarded to student for college by some president in the 70s or 80s. Normally, I find out who it was, but again I’m tired. I think it was Nixon or Reagan, but Adam Ruins Everything has a decent video on it. Basically, since students couldn’t bankrupt out of loans and the US govt was the backer for these loans, colleges realized it was basically a free money glitch. So instead of competing on education per dollar, some started going for amenities per dollar. So Gyms, Pools, Various sport fields, other random as shit. Some of things had stupid price tags for maintenance alone and that greatly assisted in helping prices go up. Now why didn’t students be smart and choose their college more wisely? I think it’s best to remind ourselves of the demographic we’re dealing with. Often vain and short term thinkers. Some of them aren’t even done developing their brains. Plus I think it’s rich to give upset at people for making dumb choices before going to the place that makes them smart enough to realize how dumb they there. It’s like getting mad at your car for being broken before you take it to shop to get repaired.

My hands hurt and my eyes yearn for sleep. Good night!

I’m not as well read as you, so I’m not entirely sure how these stack up against your list, but I enjoyed:

• Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a YA-Sci-Fi book mostly about what if superheroes were real. Similar vein to The Boys, but not as graphic imo. It’s pretty good and you might enjoy that. It also apart of a series called the reckoners

• To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Paolini wrote the fantasy series “Inheritance” which I though was great and gave this a shot. It’s was pretty good, a little slow, but I think that was more to show how slow would be in space even at >C travel.

• Probably missed it, but have you tried any of Andy Weir’s books? I really enjoyed Artemis and Project Hail Mary has been in my queue.

Didn’t Facebook build infrastructure and give out free phones in India and other developing nations to get them online? I’m sure it was more to harvest their data, but I’m sure that counts pretty solidly for them

That comes down to your state. For Instance, in KY, we have closed primaries so you can only vote with the party you have registered. The general election are open, of course, but the intent is to keep people from voting for the best candidate in their party and the worst for the competing parties.

Every state does it a little different though. Some states like Iowa don’t even have primaries, they have caucuses. That’s you go into a room (typically a school gym) with a bunch of other people and move from side. Being on a certain side counts as a vote. The main drawal to this approach is it encourages people to discuss their thoughts on matters.

Typically though, Dems will have a primary. Even if all the other candidates drop and Biden is the only option.

If you’re interested in the Dems, I wouldn’t recommend voting in other parties primaries. In the lead up to Trump vs. Hillary, many democratic analysist hoped that Trump his primaries. Thinking that it would be a slam dunk for Hilary to win. We all saw how that turned out…

For real. Only two other people have officially stepped forward, but I didn’t learn about that until I seeked that information out.

Imo seemed like they don’t have a ton of funding and that could be that the powers that have money see Biden as having the best chance.