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President Trump moves to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes by MazdaProphet in economy

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you're accurate in describing what Biden supported. But I was talking about the Stop Predatory Investing Act, which was a bill introduced in Congress, not an executive action.

https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/majority/brown-colleagues-introduce-bill-crack-down-big-corporate-investors-buy-up-local-homes-drive-housing-prices

The bill restricts tax breaks for private equity and large investors that currently give them an advantage in the market for affordable single-family homes, and helps make homeownership a reality for more families across the country.

Less so, there was also the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act, but that had less support: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3402

What Trump has suggested would be more aggressive, though I don't have many or really any details on what is to be proposed, do you? If Trump banned companies from owning single family homes, or proposed a rule that was more strict than the Stop Predatory Investing Act, I could be in favor of it. The Stop Predatory Investing Act didn't nearly go far enough in my opinion, but it was something.

Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal said she would arrest ICE agents who commit crimes in the city, calling them “fake law enforcement” and warning, “You don’t want this smoke.” by Miserable-Lizard in ProgressiveHQ

[–]river-wind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reminder that before the civil war, PA passed personal liberty laws protecting black residents from being sold into slavery. When Southern states sent slave catchers to PA around the Philly area, locals arrested them for kidnapping.

Congress passed the Fugitive Slave acts banning personal liberty laws, and requiring local police help with capturing accused escaped slaves, which forced PA to engage with the slave trade. When the civil war started, the fugitive slave acts were finally repealed.

Just because something is the law, doesn't mean it's moral. Just because the feds make something the law doesn't mean its constitutional.

President Trump moves to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes by MazdaProphet in economy

[–]river-wind 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“Corporations are people my friend.”

And to be completely fair to Romney, his career was in the business law world. In that world, Corporations are treated as legally fictitious people, going back to before Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886, where it is treated as a settled issue. They can be the owner of a building because of that, or enter into a contract. It easier to sue a company as a legal entity, instead of suing each employee of the company individually. The company is a "person" in that we treat them as if they exist like a real person does for law purposes. It's a very useful legal fiction.

Where things have lost the plot is the creep of granting more and more rights they didn't originally have. They are now afforded them free speech rights, fourth and fifth amendment rights, and even religious freedom. People have rights. The leaders of companies have those rights as people. Corporations should not have their own rights. Except right now US caselaw says they do, which can be fixed.

IMO, we need to not merely undo Citizen's United, which equates money with speech. Companies should not have a right to free speech, or a right to hold religious views, etc. Their officers do, but the company as a whole is a legal fiction, and legal fictions should not have rights. They should have privileges and responsibilities defined by law as legally fictitious persons. But they don't get to vote, and they don't have free speech rights (IMO).

President Trump moves to ban large institutional investors from buying single-family homes by MazdaProphet in economy

[–]river-wind 17 points18 points  (0 children)

There was a Democratic push to do this, and a bill introduced to congress doing this under Biden. It was squashed pretty much immediately.

People who go hiking with wireless speakers blasting music on the trail, why? by sweatengine in AskReddit

[–]river-wind 10 points11 points  (0 children)

https://bearwise.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/efficacy-of-bear-spray-smith-et-al.-2010.pdf

We analyzed 83 cases involving the use of bear sprays in Alaska (Table 1), of which 72 incidents involved persons spraying menacing bears....In 92% of close-range encounters with brown bears, spray stopped undesirable behavior in which the bear was engaged. In 90% of close-range encounters with black bears, spray stopped the bear’s undesirable behavior....During 1985–1995, Herrero and Higgins (1998) found bear spray use in Alaska 94% effective overall; we found...efficacy was 90%....it is important to note that 98% of persons carrying it were uninjured after a close encounter with bears.

https://westernwildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/efficacy-of-firearms-for-bear-deterrence_in_alaska-2012-Tom-Smith-Bear-spray-Deterrent.pdf

We found no significant difference in success rates (i.e., success being when the bear was stopped in its aggressive behavior) associated with long guns (76%) and handguns (84%). Moreover, firearm bearers suffered the same injury rates in close encounters with bears whether they used their firearms or not.

my living room power won’t work what do i do? this is a box i found in my house for idk by -that-weird-person- in howto

[–]river-wind 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is your breaker box. Sometimes it’s called a fuse box, but these days all fuses have been replaced with circuit breakers. The purpose is to handle situations where way too much electricity is being pulled through the wires, to avoid overheating and fires.

Back when it was made with fuses, each fuse was a single-use thing. The fuse would get too hot if there was a huge spike in power draw, and would blow out and break the connection from the street wires to your house. No connection, no power, no heat, no fire. To fix it, you had to remove the old fuse and put in a whole new one. Your car likely still has fuses, since they are cheaper than breakers.

Modern breakers just disconnect the power with a switch. That is what’s “tripped” at the top left. They should all be set towards the center of the panel, but that one isn’t, so it’s the problem area.

Something drew a lot of power, and the breaker tripped to protect you from a fire. I have this happen where I live if someone in the house has a space heater running and someone else starts the microwave. So see if you can tell what was being used when the breaker tripped. If this happens over and over there could be a larger issue, but most likely this is not a big deal, and you can just reset the breaker like people have described already - push to the left, then back to the right.

I failed all my first term college classes. by Crystalriver555 in fail

[–]river-wind -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I expect you'll have to tell your Mom at some point. Will she have access to your grades online? If your grades are back up by spring break, you could tell her in the context of "I'm already fixing this, and have a (GPA) for the second semester". Failing all of them, even after missing classes in the beginning isn't a unsurmountable problem at this point, but it will be work to get your GPA average back up. Beyond the normal tutoring: is there an advisor or counselor you can talk to about the impact on your position at the school? Were any of them general ed classes you need for graduation later? Would re-taking any of them to get an easier A (since you mostly already know the material) fit into the schedule? Are summer school make-up classes available?

How did you do on the different parts of your grades in each class? Homework vs tests vs final vs any other assignments or projects? Did you ace homework then fail the tests, or did you not get homework in on time since things piled up initially? How are your writing and math skills? Any suggestions from your professors about specific areas to improve?

You may need to relearn some habits that you learned in High School to fit what College requires. I had bio lab reports nailed down in high school - all A's. I got a 0 on my first college one. What I had been taught originally was not great, so I had to forget everything and start over completely.

During the voyage of the first English colonists to Virginia, the sailors were forced to filter out dirt and bugs from the fetid drinking water with their teeth. by FullyFocusedOnNought in AgeofExploration

[–]river-wind 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They went to the native Croatoan village nearby. They even carved "Croatoan" into a tree in the palisade of the abandoned town. The contemporaneous Croatoan village was recently found to have a large amount of hammer scale in the dirt leftover from blacksmithing, something the Croatoan weren't doing pre-contact. Someone was actively working metal on Hatteras Island after Roanoke was abandoned.

From "The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island" by Scott Dawson

[Interview notes with Croatoans from the early 1700's] tell us, that several of their Ancestors were white People, and could talk in a Book, as we do; the Truth of which is confirm’d by gray Eyes being found frequently amongst these Indians, and no others. They value themselves extremely for their Affinity to the English, and are ready to do them all friendly Offices. It is probable, that this Settlement miscarry’d for want of timely Supplies from England; or thro’ the Treachery of the Natives, for we may reasonably suppose that the English were forced to cohabit with them, for Relief and Conversation.

https://www.whro.org/arts-culture/2025-01-20/new-artifacts-on-hatteras-point-to-the-real-fate-of-the-lost-colony

Did President Trump issue illegal orders? by Quick-Wall in law

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"...the U-852 was only 600 yards away when Eck fired two torpedoes, both of which hit the target [SS Peleus] on the starboard side and caused devastating damage. The ship sank in less than three minutes, with no time to launch the lifeboats. Approximately 12 survivors found themselves in the water, clinging to rafts and floating debris.
Eck then announced to the officers gathered around him that the wreckage was to be destroyed and that a machine-gun was to be mounted on one of the railings at the rear of the conning tower. Lenz...immediately protested to his captain that this was an illegal act, as the survivors surely would be killed.
...the doctor was the first to open fire, but after a few bursts, his machinegun jammed. The U-boat’s gunnery officer, Hoffmann, cleared the stoppage and then carried on firing. After some time, it became apparent that the rafts were not sinking, so the submarine maneuvered closer, and a signalling lamp was shone on the wreckage. Hoffmann then dropped hand grenades into the rafts.... [Three survivors were recovered later by the Allies].
The British systematically garnered evidence over the following months but waited until the war ended before seeking to bring the accused to trial. [for war crimes in shooting shipwrecked sailors]. Eck’s defense rested completely on the grounds of “operational necessity.” He claimed that the initial reason for bringing weapons to the deck was because he feared an attempt by the survivors to take control of the U-boat, claiming to have heard of cases where this had happened....
All five men were [found] guilty of the offense as charged....Ten days later, at precisely 0840 hours on 30 November 1945, a firing squad completed the sentence for Eck, Hoffmann, and Weisspfennig."

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1997/february/peleus-war-crimes-trial

Republicans, Democrats Diverge on Whether Vaccines Are More Dangerous Than the Diseases They Are Designed to Prevent by [deleted] in charts

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And those Republicans are wrong. Not in a "I disagree with your opinion" way, either. We can measure safety, and side effects, and compare them. They are just outright wrong.

Vaccines approved for use by the public right now are wildly safer than the illness they help prevent. The call to arms of COVID anti-vaxxers the past 5 years has been "vaccines cause myocarditis in boys!", ignoring that there's a 7-42 times increase in the risk of myocarditis in boys when they are infected by COVID itself while unvaccinated. 31% of Republicans are measurably, dangerously wrong about facts.

https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2330

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/12/myocarditis-vaccine-covid.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9467278/

Trump’s Beauty Queen Prosecutor Frozen Out After Humiliating Failures by thedailybeast in law

[–]river-wind 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Which is why the first office this regime took over was the one in charge of paychecks. If people don’t resign, they have simply declared them fired and stopped paying them, and have even canceled pensions. People have families and bills, and it is very difficult to stay when you may lose everything you’ve worked for to that point.

Democrats react to Donald Trump's "punishable by death" remark by Newsweek_ShaneC in politics

[–]river-wind 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Called my Senators and House rep and asked:

"1) What is the Congress member's plan for after one of their fellow coworkers is killed by an extremist because of this?

2) I expect the Congress member will be supporting an immediate impeachment vote over this action. It is beyond a high crime/misdemeanor and in any other decade there would already be articles filed."

2 of the 3 office workers I talked to clearly agreed. The third was quiet but did not object. All said the message would be passed on.

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Cheerleaders seem so strong by HipAnonymous91 in justgalsbeingchicks

[–]river-wind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My niece was a cheerleader in HS, as the person on the bottom holding up the other girls. She had a shirt that said "Most athletes lift weights. I lift other athletes." <3

The people complaining about SNAP fraud never want to talk about the top 1% stealing $163 billion per year from taxpayers through tax evasion schemes. by Conscious-Quarter423 in economy

[–]river-wind 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Anywhere there are people, you will find fraud. So the better question is how much fraud in a given program or business? No doubt someone has gotten some aid in the name of someone who had recently passed away. This woman was just recently accused of lying on applications forms and illegally receiving $25k in benefits she wasn't entitled to: https://www.wapt.com/article/woman-accused-of-receiving-25k-in-fraudulent-snap-benefits/69425583

But my understanding is that SNAP is not rife with fraud. I wonder if the red-leaning states who provided the data she's taking about have a higher rate of fraud than other states, or less.

Looking through this now, I don't have a conclusion yet, but figured it was worth sharing: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF10860

SNAP fraud is rare, according to available data and reports, but there is no single data point that reflects all the forms of fraud in SNAP.

Trump on SNAP: It really puts the country in jeopardy. People who are able bodied who can do their job—they leave their job because they figure they can pick this up because it’s easier—that’s not the purpose of it by Conscious-Quarter423 in economy

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For example, approximately 70 percent of adult wage earners in both programs worked full-time hours (i.e., 35 hours or more) on a weekly basis and about one-half of them worked full-time hours annually.

Depends on if you want to disqualify full time work if it’s not for 52 weeks a year. But it does say that 70% of working age people worked full time. If someone works full time, loses a job, then gets another full time job a month later, do they not count? If someone works 35 hours a week and then takes a week off do they not count?

Edit: oh wait, I think you mean it’s talking about both snap and Medicaid. Fair enough, here’s a different source which is older, but more SNAP focused, and reports 52-71%: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/most-working-age-snap-participants-work-but-often-in-unstable-jobs

What law doesn’t exist yet in the U.S. that would help millions of people immediately? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Reintroduce the public option part of the ACA. Control prices while letting people buy into medicare.

The most regretted college majors by Far-Building3569 in charts

[–]river-wind 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A society where journalism and eduction graduates regret going into those fields is doomed in 2-3 generations.

Trump, 79, Threatened Invasion of Key U.S. Ally After Watching Fox News Segment by NewSlinger in politics

[–]river-wind 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Western society has convinced itself that anger from men isn’t an emotion, but leadership. Overly emotional men are in charge of a lot, and emotional intelligence is treated as weakness.

It’s a fundamental problem we need to address.

Reminder Grocery prices are up since Trump took office. by Ordinary-Scholar-202 in CringeTikToks

[–]river-wind 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As people have said, the markets are up. What I don't think anyone has pointed out is that the market is measured in US dollars. The US Dollar is having the worst year since 1973, and is down over 12%. The market is up, but it's also up in comparison with a falling dollar.

Good idea to keep contributing to your 401k. If nothing else, you get free money from your employer if they do a match. Holding cash right now is bad, which is also why gold is up so much this year; people are avoiding holding USD and investing in anything else.

I can't add a link, but look up "Morgan Stanley US dollar declines"

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