The issue right now is that we don't know where the "too big to fail" line is.

Right now that would go to banks that have "greater than X" percentage of their depositors be businesses with deposits over $250K.

People could probably figure out the number of businesses, but how would anyone solve for "x"?

If we want to kill the business side of non-big banks, sure. This is basically telling every business other than the truly smallest that they're better off with one of "the Big 4" rather than even a good-sized, multi-state regional bank.

Did you miss the part where I said the only acceptable outcome to this scenario is driving Russia out of Ukraine, and returning Ukraine back to its pre-2014 borders?

>When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.- Sun Tzu

The key to the "best' (which is still bad) case scenario to end this madness is to defeat Russia but not completely humiliate them, which could cause them to say "eh, fuck it. If we have no viable future, then let's just let the nukes fly."

At NO point in my comments have I advocated that "we should all learn Russian and surrender now. The bully wins.' That's complete horseshit.

>Russia leaves Ukraine and all its territories.
>
>Russia pays trillions in reparations.
>
>War crimes trials.
>
>Sanctions for decades.
>
>Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine join NATO.

Russia is 100% in the wrong, and the highlighted bullet point is the only acceptable end to this situation.

The issue with the rest of your list is that we're dealing with a nation run by a madman, with no shortage of madmen (is there a woman in the top ranks of Russian politics who could be leader?) who could, on a whim, choose to fire nukes at every major city in the world and basically end human civilization if pushed too far.

Accomplishing #1 without even MORE of a widespread humanitarian catastrophe that has already taken place is going to be difficult as it is.

I live in the Midwest of the U.S. During the roughly 90 days of meteorological winter, there's usually snow on the ground for somewhere between 30-45 days, and we're usually good for 3-4 good -sized snowfalls of at least 4-6" per year.

This year? 1 big snowfall and maybe two weeks of snow on the ground total. It's seemingly rained more than it's snowed, which is weird for winter.

And the rest of us did relatively nothing while they did so.

The billionaires alone aren't going to melt this glacier, or kill of the bees, or start the Sixth Extinction Phase that some scientists say we're already in. It took billions of people, either actively ruining the Earth or standing idly by while it was done, to do so.

Including you and me.

I'm aware. It was a joke

During my "starving artist" days of my 20s and much of my 30s, I spent many a dollar at Dollar Tree: which used to be a true "dollar store".

You'd think the last place that would have a pricing issue would be a dollar store.

100% copaganda.

>"a white substance escaped and was ingested by the officer."

This is fucking hilarious because the active voice gives agency to the "white substance", an inanimate object, while the passive voice is used to describe the actions of the officer: a living, breathing, thinking being with free will.

This sort of purposeful linguistic slight-of-hand is evil.

>What would you do if I told you the Biden admin instigated this entire war on Nov 10th, 2021 with the signing of the US-Ukraine Charter of Strategic Partnership?

Ignore you like I ignore the crazy people on the street that also babble bullshit?

>tbh WWWIII will happen at some point

Then let's try to make it 150 years from now rather than, say, tomorrow.

I don't know if Cletus and Daisy Mae have enough in their government welfare and Social Security checks to fund Trump's legal team, but if it works, great, I guess.

Now that he's running for President and the RNC won't pay his lawyers anymore...who is?

You know they're asking for HUGE upfront fees before they even open a fresh box of pens.

Agree. Time for Russia to take all their soldiers and shit back across the pre-2014 borders, release all captured/kidnapped Ukrainian soldiers AND civilians (and Ukraine will do the same for Russians), and for Ukraine to sign at least an official "defense assistance" treaty with NATO.

That's what you meant, right?

"Thousands in Italy march in favor of Russia being allowed to keep pieces of a sovereign country they won through illegal invasion."

>Student Sara Gianpietro said the conflict was being dragged out by arming Ukraine, which "has economic consequences for our country, but for the respect of human rights too".

This person is either stupid or evil.

I guess Kaiju are on the menu for 2023.

>and I fear just enough Americans are just xenophobic enough to be pushed into supporting/buying into the GOP’s Fascist & racist rhetoric once the influx of climate migrants becomes significant.

"Just enough". I have some bad news for you. My fellow Americans are, as we speak, happily throwing democracy straight into a burning dumpster because of inflation, gas prices, and fears of an illusory crime wave that does not exist.

Within two weeks, the Republicans will have won BOTH houses of Congress, and we may not even make it to 2024 before the shooting starts.

We're living in the Brightburn timeline, not the Superman one. And we did it to our fucking selves.

God Bless America. Because no one else will.

>You didn't answer my question. How do you stop a bad guy with a gun?

Not let them have it in the first place like other countries do.

Don't nations and continents around the world have "bad guys"? Canada? Europe? Russia? Asia? The Middle East? Oceania? Why is there so little gun violence compared to the U.S. (or the rest of the Western Hemisphere- apparently "West is Best" if you want to shoot people)?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

>An area has high crime. High crime leads to a large police presence. A large police presence in a black neighborhood means racism.

How did you jump from "high crime area" to "black neighborhood"?

> You do know that most homicides by gun, including mass murders, are committed with handguns, right?

> Since 1985 there has been a known total 54 mass shootings involving rifles, mostly semi-automatics. This figure is underreported though, as it excludes the multiple semi-automatic (and fully automatic) rifles used in the 2017 Las Vegas Strip massacre – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 58 and wounding 546. In fact, semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings, being used in the Orlando nightclub massacre, Sandy Hook Elementary massacre and Texas First Baptist Church massacre.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/

How about we just focus on the low-hanging fruit and try to lessen the effects?

> There are around 100k defensive gun uses in the US.

Are there numbers on how many of those are semi-auto long guns vs. pistols and shotguns? I'd like to know how many people use those types of weapons for "defensive purposes".

> Disarmament is likely to affect the law abiding more than the felonious

Good thing I don't want to "disarm" anyone, just outlaw one particular style of weapon and see what happens.

Did the villification lead to the "not risking life", or was it the other way around?

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s I thought cops were heroes, and I would have had no issue approaching one on the street or being cool when they pulled me over for nothing (which I was, three times. No tickets, just "warnings".)

Now that I'm older and I've heard hundreds of news stories about systematic, violent police misbehavior (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge), see them walking around with rifles on their chests like they're in a war zone and know how they abuse and kill non-white people on the regular for minor issues? I want nothing to do with them.

I actually feel LESS safe when there are police around. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work.

>People choose the most effective means at their disposal.

So, if we took away more efficient means of violence from people (semi-auto long guns) and forced them to use less efficient means (handguns, shotguns, hunting rifles, pipe bombs, knives, autos, their bare hands), there would still be a high number of aggravated assaults (which is bad) but fewer homicides (which is good).

Some people that would have died would instead be injured, and I'm guessing some that would have been injured wouldn't be injured at all.

This all sounds like a win-win-win to me.

> Which is, again, to say that it's a more complicated problem than any one means.

Yes, but a sizable number of people want to look at ANYTHING but guns.

I want to look at things other than guns (the state of mental healthcare in the U.S. is appalling, and needs to be reformed and strengthened ASAP), but the ubiquity and ease of acquisition of guns and ammo is a big part of the problem and need to be addressed.

>Because surely no one would ever commit violence with something else.

Why is there at least one shooting in the U.S. every day where multiple people are injured or killed, but not constant mass stabbings, mass SUV killings, mass bombings, mass chokings, etc?

Not isolated incidents you have to go back to 2016 to remember. Every day.

So do cops.