Why would the democratic party want democracy? The people in positions of power in the party got a lot of great fundraising this cycle, and they’ll be able to use the threat of this incoming disaster to raise even more!

Do Americans really believe they’ll be able to get their pet monster under control once they genocide the entire Middle East?

I don’t think any Americans who truly support this think further than the next quarter of Raytheon profits.

They exist, but are more niche. See, for example, the Savage takedown rifle that shoots 22lr / 410 shotgun shells. https://www.savagearms.com/content?p=firearms&a=product_summary&s=22440

Clearly it’s geared towards more of a survivalist/bug-out type scenario, where you might need the 22lr for a squirrel and a 410 for game more substantial.

Obviously several revolver calibers are multi-use too - 357 mag revolvers can all shoot 38 special ammo, for example. Shotguns are also very versatile, letting you shoot slugs/buckshot/birdshot/whatever, all out of the same tube.

I think the increase in ballistic technology has basically made multi-caliber guns fairly obsolete, but I’m no expert. But if you’re carrying something pistol-sized like the article shows, I would imagine you would benefit mostly from just more magazines of 9mm, rather than trying to make a clunky shotgun attachment for a pistol, leading to (1) more complexity in the pistol, meaning more possibilities of something going wrong, (2) need to carry multiple calibers, and (3) more difficulty in training to use both calibers effectively out of the same pistol (i.e. hold it like this for 22lr, hold it like this for 44 magnum).

At a time when we also need more housing density, I feel like subways go hand-in-hand. And even for shittily zoned cities with huge suburb-like areas, I feel like most would benefit from at least nearby subways with parking lots (or ideally, additional bike paths).

someone trained in protecting

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a cop protecting anything other than a storefront

A team of a nurse or social worker + cop is the alternative to (generally) 2 cops. Whatever the funding mechanism behind the doors, you’re switching out a cop for an alternative person, which is exactly what the defund movement has always been asking for. See some quotes below:

https://defundthepolice.org/alternatives-to-police-services/

The police service is a dangerous option for people experiencing a mental health crisis—but for many, it’s the only option. By defunding the police, significant resources can be reallocated to create a new community emergency services to support the mental health needs of our vulnerable community members. Teams trained in de-escalation and who root their work in community-informed practices could provide crisis support and care.

…

One common refrain in opposition to defunding the police assumes that our society will not be able to effectively respond to violent crime. But we have to remember that police do not prevent violence. In most incidents of violent crime, police are responding to a crime that has already taken place. When this happens, what we need from police is a service that will investigate the crime, and perhaps prevent such crimes from occurring in future.

Policing is ill-equipped to suit these needs. When victims are not the right kinds of victims, police have utterly failed, and at times refused to take the threat seriously. Why would we rely on an institution that has consistently proven that it is rife with systemic anti-Blackness and other forms of discrimination that result in certain communities being deemed unworthy of support? Instead of relying on police, we could rely on investigators from other sectors to carry out investigations. Social workers, sociologists, forensic scientists, doctors, researchers, and other well-trained individuals to fulfill our needs when violent crimes take place.

…

If we were to defund the police, we could create new investigative services where diverse teams of researchers and investigators, with a mix of scientific, public health and sociological expertise are able to attend to our investigative needs without the inherent anti-Blackness with which the police services approach our unsolved cases. Additionally, we could put money into programs attending to the food security and housing security needs of people living in precarity, to reduce the likelihood that desperate people unable to have their basic needs met would resort to the extraordinary step of attempting to meet their needs through theft.

You’re not wrong, but so are Republicans. That’s the nature of a 2-party system and why it basically doesn’t work.

Biden didn’t stutter when he was Obama’s VP and his brain was still intact. Seems like everyone but you cares.

(almost) no black people care about Kamala.

If you have a business like a law firm where it is VERY IMPORTANT that a PDF has certain qualities, free tools for PDF creation can be a big gamble, especially if you have to open a PDF that someone else has created and do changes to it. And the cost is pretty trivial compared to the cost of messing up.

You’re right on crumple zones, but also bumper height makes a big difference (i.e. if bumpers are aligned, there’s less damage). https://www.motortrend.com/news/collision-costs-iihs-says-car-suv-bumper-heights-can-prove-expensive-9290/

I’m not the one downvoting you, but I think this is where you might lose me - I agree that people will buy housing and rent it out if they can make a profit, and we’ve had landlords doing that basically forever. But if the government gets involved and owners sell, I don’t see how home ownership can be more unaffordable. Basically we have a hugely constrained supply of housing. If, say, there were 50 skyscrapers full of apartments that went up overnight in San Francisco that charged $1000/month, rents would have to go down everywhere else because there would be the introduction of so much supply that nobody would pay more than that cost (because that’s the alternative to where they’re living now). Obviously that’s a fantasy scenario, but the various governments (city, state, and fed) all are not doing anything to move towards that goal, which would create supply equal to demand. If current landlords sell, then that would drive prices further down, not up - you’re literally increasing the supply again, and also because they will be competing against each other to sell, it should drive down prices for those homes as well.