If insurance costs finally rid us of the plague of ice cream trucks, I'll take it. (For the record, I have no objection to food trucks that sell ice cream. But I have a problem with trucks playing obnoxious music while trolling neighborhoods and parks for kids.) www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/...

Commercial truck fleets face soaring insurance rates - Albany Business Review

Commercial fleets are facing soaring insurance rates — one industry rep calls the increases "a crisis." The problem has cast a chill over the summer for a popular local chain of ice cream trucks.

bizjournals.com

I have to say I'll be slightly disappointed if the thing that actually shuts down their businesses in the end is unpaid taxes. www.timesunion.com/tablehopping...

Taste of Italy appeal for money removed from fundraising site

Campaign, launched over the weekend, had sought $24,000 to “help our family and businesses recover from crisis.”

timesunion.com

the next president has a duty to the country to prove that “tax immunity” is a completely made up thing that doesnt exist. they need to do this through intense prosecution to signal to future leaders what will happen if they try this

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 3d ago

FLAG: Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization under the new 'deal' struck by Todd Blanche. The new order also reaffirms that Trump won't have to pay any taxes he might have owed the IRS.

State legislature control is also more important now than ever for two reasons: 1. State legislatures control redistricting. Electing Dems can stop MAGA gerrymanders or even allow for new fairer maps (particularly in Wisconsin) 2. State legislatures can fight against MAGA election rigging in 2028

These guys won’t stand up for the daughter of a Republican US Senator and they’ll never stand up for your daughter. But they will send some goon to inspect her crotch.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4d ago

Max Miller is denying all the allegations against him and you can tell he's sincere because of the popped collar.

People have such a hard time accepting that more people died of Covid under Biden because of specific policy decisions that he made. It wasn't just spill over from Trump. The Omicron surge killed more people than the initial surge. Spending Covid money on more cops and jails, was a bad call.

Mekka Okereke@mekka.mekka-tech.com · 3d ago

Again, Biden was president when Omicron hit NYC. Lagos and NYC got their first cases of Omicron from Italy within 24hrs. Nigeria caught theirs due to this screening. But you could land at LaGuardia, take the subway to Times Square, without ever being screened.🤦🏿‍♂️ Biden never added this screening.🤷🏿‍♂️

I will pay a premium to not have to interact with an AI agent at a call center. I cannot think of a single time that one has resolved my issue. I cannot be the only person that feels this way. There is a huge opportunity in the market for bespoke customer service.

Huh? I pick up prescriptions all the time without an ID. I just give the pharmacist my date of birth and they hand me the meds. The only time I get IDed is when I'm buying Sudafed, and that's because they want to know if I'm going to cook meth with it.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7d ago

Rep. John McGuire on need for the SAVE America Act: "You can't go anywhere, you can't get medicine, you can't go to the Obama museum without a photo ID."

“it’s reasonable to ask questions about trans girls in sports” was always intended to mainstream transphobia. It’s absurd that people fell for it. Democrats are constantly letting oppressors set the terms of debate instead of just saying “no, fuck you.”

My secret, Cap, is that I'm *always* angry about old books. For instance, here's a tiny slice of the millions of books 1931-1986 that have no commercial value, that are digitized, but that we're unable to use in large-scale research because they are illegal to share or display.

Trump was a kindergarden-level civics test the American electorate failed miserably, and the rest of the world now quite rightly regards us collectively as a toddler stumbling around with a Glock rather than an adult one can deal reasonably with.

I'm honestly okay with this. Let the emergency responders do their job and stay out of their way. It's 2026: she can stay well-informed without taking a lot of time and resources away from the people doing the real work on the ground. We saw enough of Governor Windbreaker from her predecessor.

Times Union@timesunion.com · last wk.

Governor visited Bills' training camp and held other events in Monroe County as Capital Region and Hudson Valley facing worst flooding since 2011.

We saw the same in NY. I don't know if Gillibrand has acknowledged her Islamophobic smear of Mamdani, much less apologized for it. Neither sitting Dem senator endorsed the Democratic candidate for mayor. Even the governor only endorsed him after it was pretty clear he was going to win.

Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli@banditelli.org · last wk.

The Islamophobia **FROM THE TOP** coming out of Michigan is one of the biggest stains on the modern Democratic Party.

They *think* they paid in. But in reality, they're squatting on land the car industry stole to *make it possible to sell them their car in the first place.* To illustrate the principle: In Japan, you may not even purchase a car until you can prove that you have a private parking space for it.

Probably the most difficult thing YIMBYs face -- really, anyone who lives in a city -- is that government-subsidized street parking is one of the single largest barriers to affordability, safe streets, and climate action. That's because drivers view it as an entitlement, like social security. 🧵

This has the same energy as when Dr. Oz did that ad when he was running for Senate where he went into "Wegner's" and complained about the price of veggies for his wife's crudites.

Vince Mancini@vincemancini.bsky.social · last wk.

Oh no, not your mom’s pied-a-terre!!!!!!!

This is absolutely insane, imagine if a progressive elected official was refusing to support Haley Stevens if she won! You’d never hear the end of it. Centrists are the ones who are dividing the Democratic Party with their Islamophobia and purity tests.

We’ve got a full decade of Trump as the premier figure of US politics, and quite a bit longer with internet trolling, and still prominent people fall for the unsubtle “just joking (not joking)” move. At some point, it’s not ignorance, unfamiliarity, or gullibility. Continuing to buy it is a choice.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Trump jokes about serving a third term — and gets laughs at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Motorists act like people who hate cars never drove or used them. Often the opposite. We hate car dominance because we lost a lot of time in cars and we've realized there was never any freedom behind the windshield and that true freedom is outside. We seem crazy because we escaped the matrix.

Fietser@americanfietser.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm somewhat an example of this. I was not an urbanist. Didn't care about city transportation, and had a background in farming where my vehicle was a large truck. Arriving in the Netherlands changed me unexpectedly. I saw what cities could be and that car dominance didn't help us, it hurt us.

📌It's amazing how little attention is being paid to how expensive everything is right now. That's all we heard about from 2020-2024.

POLITICIANS: We can no longer ignore the harm from addictively-designed outrage-promoting social-media controlled by psychopathic billionaires. We have decided to attack the social part. We will not be addressing the addictive design, outrage promotion, or the psychopathic billionaires.

Fight for the Future@fightforthefuture.org · 2w ago

France just became the first nation in Europe to ban teens from social media and, you guessed it, they’re forcing everyone to upload their ID’s for social media access in order to enforce it. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This feels grimly accurate. I think for most people, engagement with the party feels like getting on Temu’s mailing list: Just a neverending stream of spam asking for cash and no other meaningful call to be part of anything that might generate any sense of identity or community.

Feild@feild.work · 2w ago

There's nothing to "join" in the Democratic Party. It's a brand with products I spend my vote on once a year at the democracy store. Most people's experience of it is an endless stream of texts that read like scams, their reward for donating or signing a petition. No wonder DSA is growing

"But it makes the opposing team's fans cheer!" Yes. Probably worth investigating if it's because they switched sides or because they like to see hapless opponents racking up the score for their side. It will be a short investigation.

Politicians and pundits giving up human rights of some "in order to win" is like players scoring on their own goal "in order to win." Yes, you're scoring. You've also forgotten the game, and why you're playing, and what winning even is, and you have to be benched in favor of people who remember.

Oliver Willis@owillis.bsky.social · 2w ago

I will not negotiate away anybody’s human rights and I will oppose any politician who thinks that is an ok stance. I don’t care what party. If you’re going to support democrats who oppose transgender humanity the entire thing isn’t worth fighting for. The line must be drawn.

Ironically, France's government did a study several years ago that found there was no safe or technically feasible way to mandate online age verification without massively expanding surveillance and eviscerating online privacy. They decided to do it anyway.

Fight for the Future@fightforthefuture.org · 2w ago

France just became the first nation in Europe to ban teens from social media and, you guessed it, they’re forcing everyone to upload their ID’s for social media access in order to enforce it. www.bbc.com/news/article...

the reason we dont have medicare for all is bc corporations need employer based healthcare to keep you chained to your desk in a job you hate that doesnt pay you what youre worth

NPR@npr.org · 2w ago

About 24% of U.S. employees stay in unwanted jobs just for health insurance, a report out Wednesday finds. Up significantly since 2021, the uptick in "job lock" is a concerning sign for the U.S. economy. n.pr/4gQIY5E

Every time we try some basic common-sense guardrails, the ag & food industry trots out "But we can't do that, it'll hurt farmers!" line. AND, we keep falling for it. We should be worried about that at least as much as DOGE!

Every now and then, it’s worth saying what ought to be obvious: trans people have always existed, and will exist as long as humans do. They’ve not done anything wrong by wanting their existence recognised, supported, and celebrated. The transformation of their existence into “an issue” is evil.

Absolutely everybody who knows anything about labor demographics saw this coming miles away. The last 18 months have been a steady stream of “nobody could have predicted” things every minimally knowledgable person loudly predicted.

Anna O. Law@unlawfulentries.bsky.social · 2w ago

Eldercare is hard work, severely underpaid that was already understaffed. Since Medicaid is "the primary payer" of this work, it's unlikely there will be a huge increase in wages to attract non-immigrant workers. Are Americans prepared to quit their jobs to take care of their elders? Many have.

Even if Amy Acton wins, she'll be dealing with a Supermajority R legislature. Republicans will still do what they want. The upside for trans people across the US is low with an Amy Acton victory. The downside, allowing this cancer of using transphobia to win, is WAY worse IMO.