I would argue that it’s more a consequence of a whole series of poorly thought-out business decisions. Customer service is a cost center, meaning it doesn’t bring in revenue. So it’s one of those things that executives like to target for cost-cutting measures because any amount they can reduce spending there improves their overall bottom line. So we get things like:

• Outsourcing CS. Maybe in the US, but more likely overseas
• Reduced training
• Rules for call handlers that are meant to encourage solving problems quickly, but effectively punish them for providing good service when they are unable to do that.

When the only meaningful metric they look at is “how little can we spend?” the only logical conclusion is that service is going to suffer. The actual cost of poor customer service is a lot more difficult to pin down and measure.

Just so everyone is clear: these books aren’t part of any curriculum. Kids aren’t forced to read them or listen to them being read. They’re just in the classroom. These people are freaking out just having their kids in a room near these books. If your “expression of religious freedom” is to prevent your child ever being exposed to ideas that might conflict with what you are telling them at home, then you should take them out of public school and lock them in a closet. But your faith must be pretty fragile if those are the sort of measures you have to take to sustain it.

You forgot childcare. Tack on another 2-3K per month in expenses for that.

It is, indeed, a whole truckload of crazy.

Fine, here are several things they could be doing that would actually be productive right now:

• Start campaigning hard, now, for the upcoming midterms, telling voters exactly what the Trump administration has done that is hurting them, and how they can fix it. Look at Bernie and AOC for a good example.
• Identify districts where they can help campaign and inject funding to tip the scales.
• Join protests in their districts. Show up and support the people on the ground.
• Keep pushing to get access to ICE detention centers as much as possible. Tell the stories of the people being detained. Show the world that this has nothing to do with rounding up criminals. If ICE agents try to stop them or assault/arrest them, so much the better. That shit is getting people riled up.
• Stand with state governors that are defying executive orders from the president.

I could list stuff here all day. None of it changes the fact that articles of impeachment aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on right now. Republicans control congress and are colluding with a corrupt executive branch. The Democrats in congress have zero power to effect change through their offices right now. They need to do the work to get some power back first. At best, they can do something like this to grab a few headlines and maybe get a few republicans on record saying they explicitly support what Trump is doing. Sadly, a good chunk of the population agrees still, and this isn’t going to change that.

Do you think the only options are “do nothing” or “do something pointless”?

Balls has nothing to do with it. At this point it’s just a token effort. It won’t pass a single vote.

You very clearly didn’t read the story. Most households are paying LESS than they were when they were allowed to discard unlimited trash for a flat rate. Hopefully because they are being encouraged to recycle more and produce less waste, rather than just dumping it on the side of the road. It’s a simple case of demand elasticity in response to a pricing-structure change. If people can save money by throwing away less stuff, they throw away less stuff.

I agree that corporations should pay their share to handle their own cleanup, but I don’t see any direct link between that and household waste disposal, or any indication from this story that corporations are getting any breaks. It’s a very small township in rural Massachusetts. They don’t even have municipal trash collection. People have to take their own trash to the transfer station/landfill.

How is a corporation responsible for my household trash?

Just insert “allegedly” next time ;)

Literally a decade here. We moved in 2015 and have never had TV service in this house. I’ve even pared back our streaming services significantly. We get Amazon as part of our Prime membership, and a free Peacock subscription with our internet service. I’m grandfathered in to a low-rate for YouTube Premium because I was a Play Music early adopter. The only other ones I pay for are Disney/Hulu and Dropout. If Disney raises their rate again, though, I’m dropping them.

Have you ever heard of anyone getting ticketed for this particular offense? Because if not, then the logical conclusion is that someone being told they were pulled over for this reason isn’t really being pulled over for this reason. It’s just being used as a pretext so they can ID the driver and see if they have any arrest warrants. Whether they were actually following too close or not is irrelevant.

In the video from last weekend of the Australian reporter being shot in the back, you can clearly see the police officer behind her raise and aim straight at her. Clearly there’s no repercussions for misusing these weapons.

They can’t enforce traffic laws, no. So they need some reasonable suspicion that falls under their jurisdiction, which is why I mentioned that they need evidence that an illegal immigrant is in the vehicle. Actual reasonable suspicion, not just a hunch. Just like a traffic cop can’t legally pull you over unless they actually witness you breaking a traffic law.

so I think they are breaking some law here.

They are breaking several laws and violating constitutional rights all over the place. But again. Unless somebody in authority holds them accountable it isn’t going to matter.

I’m pretty much convinced they recruited all these thugs from alt-right groups and disgraced ex-police in the last few months. They don’t have uniforms or badges. They wear face masks and refuse to identify themselves. They needed a bunch of guys that had no problem with being cruel and hateful and they were right there ready to step up.

Yes, if you are driving you’re required by law in New York state to provide your driver’s license if asked.

During a legal traffic stop, yes. They need a reason to pull you over, and that reason can’t be “I want to see your ID.” They must have reasonable suspicion that someone in the vehicle is an illegal immigrant. And that needs to be more substantial than “you look like you might be illegal.” Like they need very specific information that a specific person is in that specific vehicle.

The problem is the justice department has been gutted of anyone that might hold them accountable.

For anyone not familiar with the region, Spokane is the largest city in the eastern part of Washington state, near the border with Idaho. The state is divided down the middle by the Cascade range of mountains. Western Washington is dominated by larger cities and a liberal-voting populace that significantly outnumbers the rural conservative-voting populations of Eastern Washington, which is mostly farming communities and a few smallish cities. Spokane itself is a historically very conservative area. Only in recent years has the balance started to shift slightly there. So it’s a purplish city in the middle of a sea of deep red. The fact that they were able to rally that many people to try to block ICE actions is frankly surprising to me.

Well, shit. My rep is on the list. Just fired off an email to her office that some intern will read and increment a counter.

As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded his handwriting and the threatening letter didn’t match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It’s not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim.

There’s no great leap of logic required here. It furthers their narrative that illegal immigrants are an immediate threat to the security of the country when they can point to one and say “See? This guy was plotting to assassinate the president!” It’s just like the whole hoax about Hatians eating pets. They knew that wasn’t true either. But It plays well with their audience, so they want it circulating in the news cycle as much as possible because it reinforces what those people already believe.

My wife and I made a generous donation pretty much the day Trump signed that order. Fight the good fight, gang!