“Instant-runoff voting” is the generic name for what is called “ranked-choice voting” in North America, “alternative vote” in the UK, and “preferential voting” in Australia.

Instant-runoff voting and ranked-choice voting are one and the same.

No, it clearly has not. Identify one member of the US Congress elected by instant-runoff voting who isn’t from one of the two major parties.

I oppose this. Instant-runoff voting (edit: also known as ranked-choice voting in North America) hasn’t produced much more political diversity and it didn’t lead to a breaking of the two-party system. I think a proportional system like mixed-member proportional might be better for letting in smaller parties and diversifying representation.

Congress can overwrite state election rules as they pertain to federal elections.

I think the Democrats should absolutely work with administration officials. After all, it’s important that their impeachment trials are scheduled during convenient times and do not overlap with committee testimonies.

My Chinese room theory of politics: I don’t actually care whether anyone truly believes what they say. Words speak louder than thoughts and actions speak louder than words. As long as someone is useful as an implement to enacting progressive policy priorities, successful at shepherding legislation, and campaigns for the election of progressives, or can be strong-armed into doing the above three, I could not care less whether they actually believe in what they say.

“Senate Democrats are united in our support for Abdul El-Sayed, because we know he will fight for the economic interests of working families in Michigan, unlike Mike Rogers, who is a tool of Donald Trump and billionaire donors,” [Chuck Schumer] said.

For once Schumer is 100% right.

The state party officials need to expel her from the party. Even if it would only have a symbolic effect they need to make clear that this is unacceptable for anyone who calls themselves a Democrat. If moderates ask progressives to “vote blue no matter who” and then turn around to endorse collaborators then they need to get the boot.

“I couldn’t resist” mfs when they change the headline to spread misleading information about an election

Because it is cheaper to placate him than to face the wrath of his government. Why else do companies do anything?

Fox News has an obvious and pronounced conservative slant, but it is still mostly based in reality, except for programmes like the Sean Hannity show (if that is still going) and whatever crap their commentators say. Fox News is still going to call a duck a duck, or at least a waterfowl, and this sometimes garners criticism from the truth-challenged.

Newsmax and OANN are the actual loonies.

They should really lean into this by making a Wizard of Oz-themed television advertisement.

You can renew it early. The passport doesn’t need to be expired in order to renew it.

You might as well get a passport card too while you’re at it when you renew. It’s $30 more and it’s useful if you lose your passport book, and you can carry it in your wallet as a form of ID that doesn’t have your address on it.

I oppose the death penalty, but if we’re going to have it, it should be by guillotine. I argue this for five reasons.

1. Proponents of capital punishment claim that the existence of the death penalty is to terrify people into not committing capital crimes. A guillotine is a far more terrifying implement of death than a gurney, and for maximum effect it can even be displayed in a museum when it isn’t being used and made available to traumatise schoolchildren with by taking them on highly inappropriate school trips.
2. Procurement of lethal injection drugs is difficult and expensive. Any skilled woodworker can make a working guillotine in a weekend for a thousand dollars.
3. It is easy to operate and even idiot prison officials in Tennessee can operate it without causing unnecessary suffering for the condemned. It’s harder to screw up. Relatively little training is required to operate it correctly and it is fast and easy to set up.
4. It doesn’t hide the fact that killing someone is taking blood and an inherently an act of extreme violence, regardless of whether you have the authority of the state behind you.
5. Nobody can deny that death comes extremely quickly to the condemned after using it.

Oh yeah, well I will pay everyone 91 dollars if Trump’s party loses. Pinkie promise.

Oh, you’re talking about Palestine.

In that case, would you rather have a candidate that does nothing but pay lip service to your cause, or a candidate that actively donates your resources to destroy it?

Tough choice, I’m sure.

I do not feel bad about facetiously trivialising an argument about death and bloodshed into one about dinner in order to highlight the ridiculousness of the logic used.

“Do you want to go to the pizza place or the burger restaurant, Timmy?”

“I don’t want either! I want macaroni and cheese!”

“Macaroni and cheese is not an option, Timmy, now pick from what’s available or I’m deciding for you.”

“No! I’m not picking!”

“Okay, we’re going to the pizza place then.”

(1 hour later) “This pizza sucks! It’s all the burger place’s fault for not appealing to me hard enough by serving macaroni and cheese.”

You have a pay cheque, don’t you? That’s something that they would try to go for.

To be clear, I don’t defend the broken system, but I am trying to see what you can do to make the best of the crummy situation that it is.

If you go to a hospital and the hospital bills $100,000, let’s consider two scenarios:

Scenario 1: You have a high deductible health insurance place with a $10,000 deductible. The health insurance company pays $90,000 and the hospital asks you to pay the rest. Hospital bills have a lot of wiggle room and all of it is negotiable. You tell them you’re broke. In this case, the overwhelmingly likely scenario is that they’ll do something like “Okay, pay us $50 a month for a year and we’ll call it good”, because they already got the vast majority of what they were asking for from the insurance company. They have already made most of their profit. It is totally not worth it for them to even send this to collections, let alone hire a lawyer to sue you.

Scenario 2: You have no coverage. Hospital asks you for $100,000. You tell them you’re broke and will declare bankruptcy. They might offer you a plan like $200 a month for the next three years, because nobody else has paid them anything. And here’s the thing: they have leverage over you, because they know that a bankruptcy lawyer is going to ask for a $10,000 retainer paid upfront. You can’t just go up into your local courthouse and shout "I DECLARE BANKRUPCY!” in the style of The Office. Nope. You’ll just get 25% of your pay cheque garnished for the next eight to ten years because you couldn’t afford a bankruptcy lawyer to stop it. The hospital knows that they can juice $9,000 out of you or more, because you being broke also means you can’t afford a lawyer.

Anyway, you do the maths. I don’t know your financial situation and how much the insurance companies want to insure you. You make the right decision based on your situation. I’m just providing information. Maybe the maths nonetheless points you to Scenario 2 being a better bet. But it’s not as clear cut as one might initially think, so at least give it some thought and punch in some numbers into a calculator. And if you already have, more power to you.

If you are young and fairly healthy, look into high deductible plans. Those should be significantly cheaper but won’t cover any routine health services at all. You’ll pay out of pocket for those (possibly at a much lower cash rate depending on provider). Then plan will, however, cover you if something catastrophic happens which requires expensive care.