1. Shooting rifles in an urban area sounds like a great way to go to prison.

2. As of 2026, most rednecks seem to be all for the police state. Don't expect them to come save you.

That's the case in any country where a parliamentary body is split so closely.

When you need every vote to get legislature to pass, because you control 51% of a chamber, backbenchers on the ideological fringe of a party, (DINOs and RINOs) have a lot of power.

When you have a majority with comfortable margins, you can care a lot less about what the Sinemas and Manchins and McCains of a party think.

You're looking at the world with your American blinders on. The rest of the world's elected representatives vote with their party or they leave their party. What you're describing is a fundamentally American phenomenon.

But parties typically have to compromise with other parties in their coalition, so it would seem to amount to the same thing (compromise is required to pass legislation)?

Correct. The difference between FPTP and PR systems (Or countries with very strong regional parties) is that in a multi-party PR system, the coalition happens between party, in a FPTP two-party system, the coalition happens within the big tentpole parties.

There are many reasons for why two-party FPTP sucks, but this phenomena is present in multi-party systems, too. And, of course, sometimes politicians end up crossing the aisle, much to the chagrin of the party whip.

Congress could stop this nonsense tomorrow. The problem is not the body's powers, the problem is that the GOP is happy with Trump doing whatever the hell he wants.

Vote the GOP out, and he'll be impeached.

Impeached, possibly. Conviction is effectively impossible.

That illustrates the structural problem. Congress was designed to have a high bar for action. But the bar is so high that it can't balance the other branches.

I'd argue that no system will work when so many voters are willing to overlook obvious crimes in order to remain in power. But even in less pathological circumstances, the legislative branch had too many internal checks to also participate in external ones.

> then I would expect to see a notation on the price tags and a line-item on my receipts,

Trump started threatening anyone who was going to do that, because he doesn't want his face attached to price hikes.

> Seller gets to keep the returned tax money as pure profit (no refund to customer)

Elections have consequences.

Just because they promise illegal shit on the campaign trail doesn't mean they get a pass for implementing it.

And do you remember when he promised to illegally raise taxes without the consent of congress? Me neither.

Anybody who has worked a service/retail job can tell you that the person literally shitting on the floor rarely is the one to clean it up.

And unfortunately that extends to the metaphor as well. Society would like to see those responsible for the mess to also be responsible for the cleanup. However society expects that everybody but the mess maker will be left cleaning up.

Yeah, tax payers will pay the refund, and the interest accrued on the refund -- when the makaes it's wats through the courts in 3 years

One was killed on the street, as she was leaving a protest, the other was killed while trying to break into a secure area of the capital during an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power after an election.

I think your admission says a lot more about you than it does about either of the two women.

My neighbours may be turds, but I can get over it... Up until the point when they start pissing in my punch bowl.