All the better to fly all of Trumps cronies.

Why not use that piece of shit plane Qatar gave Trump?

Dems have to be very smart about how they move forward. They can’t stoop to the level of breaking laws that intentionally harm the American people, but I swear to God, if a Democrat says some bullshit about reaching across the aisle, then **we’re fucked.**

If the system was working as expected, it would be fine to work with republican colleagues across the aisle. But since the system is fucked right now, there’s no reason to capitulate and work together with fascist who are destroying the government from the inside in exchange for corporate donations.

Unfortunately, until campaign finance laws And the consequences of citizens United are fixed, there really is no moving forward. As long as corporations are allowed to legally exist as people, and free speech is equated to money, corporations can afford to buy politicians both sides of the aisle in every race. They get to decide who gets more money based on who will support the policies that favor them.

The Democratic Party has long been the party of neoliberalism exiting solely to represent corporate interests. Their defense of the status quo is essentially keeping the money flowing into their campaign for reelection every election cycle.

Everything they do to actually help people as in consequential and changing those facts and simply appears to be doing some marginal good. It doesn’t functionally change the issues in the broken system.

When people say the Democratic Party has a problem with optics or communicating what they actually do for the people it’s only half right. They just don’t have the backbone to spew all of the lies and bullshit as readily as the Republican Party Because their constituents, at least in the democratic cities, have a halfway decent education and won’t believe blatant lies. They know they can’t get away with it so their messaging is just as half assed as the progressive policies they pretend to give a shit about.

All of this is just part of their plan to drastically shrink the government to a size where you can drown it in the bathtub.

It’s definitely not a problem if you ignore it and don’t look at the numbers. All part of the plan.

At this point, you’re just slowly criminalizing being poor homeless middle-class basically anything that’s not rich

Well, you gotta make that money back somehow. Might as well tax all the alcoholic rubes in your own country and blame it on the Democrats or the Canadians, or anyone but Trump, who is actually responsible.

They’re creating artificial demand And capitalizing on it to sell you a new phone and power, charger and accessories, and all kinds of other crap.

There has to be some sort of reasonable balance between new developments and longevity.

Asking any engineer for a device that’s near indestructible but will continue to have software updates for 10 years is a hard ask.

For a lot of devices right to repair would work just fine. Being able to swap out battery extends the life of most cell phones. But it’s an unreasonable request for that cell phone, for example, to be able to be supported for 10 years worth of software updates.

It will slow the development cycle for a lot of devices down quite a bit. Which honestly is fine. I feel like a lot of products have reached maturity, and companies are reinventing them just for the sake of reinventing them and selling a “new” product with a new battery. I’m looking at you, Apple.

The problem with determining what is an acceptable lifecycle for a product is that there will be no one left to support the product in 10 years if the company folds in the meantime. It is a significant drag on companies to support legacy products while also innovating and creating new products. It’s just a fact a fact.

And from a consumer perspective, If you want cool, new fancy, shiny shit every year and for it to be reliable and last for 10 years, it’s just not gonna happen. We have been trained To buy new shit every year and desire that new shiny upgrade Without understanding that we’re getting cheap shitty products for a premium.

Your $100” iPhone is now going to become a $3000 iPhone that lasts for five years instead of two. Tell me how that’s a win for anybody?

Don’t forget that squirrel, raccoon, and possum meat. That’s where the magic flavor comes from!

They look nice because no one’s allowed to use them. They build stuff, but the population is too poor or not privileged enough to be able to use anything. It just looks nice and it’s empty. Just like democracy.

While I agree that something needs to be done, stronger regulations will just be in an added requirement for the development of these devices, which will make it more expensive.

You can’t have fast development, cheap things, and longevity. Companies will not invest in making those products because they’ll be out of business by the time their market is saturated.

you miss understand, they have already decided who is un-American and are enforcing their policy.

True Democrat just means neoliberal corporatist. They only care about money and the appearance of giving a shit about people.

Corporations win. Again. They will suck every minute and cent from you until you are a broken husk.

Years of accumulating debt, competition from larger chains like CVS and Walgreens, and costly opioid lawsuits had pushed Rite Aid to the brink.

https://tinygrab.com/who-bought-rite-aid-in-2025/

Yes they had debt before, that’s why they went bankrupt in the first place. Now they are going bankrupt because private equity decided to buy the business and sell off what they don’t want.

There has to be some growth because inflation eats at the value of your capital every year.

Set up a pihole on your network and add a few block lists. If your IoT appliances phone home at least you can block the traffic and monitor what things phone home.

As for buying appliances that are not smart, It takes extra effort and a trade-off in features.

For example, my toothbrush has Bluetooth in it. if I want a non-Bluetooth toothbrush I’d have to get a lower quality model because they simply don’t make one without it.

Most people buy whatever’s on sale, And considering how expensive home appliances are they usually put the expensive featured models on sale since there’s a bigger margin.

So if I wanted to get a basic one with less features, that’s not smart it would actually be more expensive because it will never go on sale.

I’m pretty sure there’s a Rite Aid near where I am and it’s almost always closed. The only other option is the CVS that’s in Hannaford. Another 35 minute drive in the opposite direction to Walmart. 45 minute drive in the other direction to a CVS.

So a gas station with a pharmacy and minus the gas station? That’s the business model?

Private Equity?

In 2025, Rite Aid emerged from its Chapter 11 restructuring with a significantly leaner operation and a new owner: a consortium led by Cigna’s Evernorth health services division and the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R).

Evernorth, Cigna’s health services arm, had long been eyeing Rite Aid’s Elixir PBM. Elixir, while facing challenges, possessed a significant book of business and a valuable infrastructure.

This wasn’t simply about a larger company swallowing a smaller one; it was about strategically dismantling and repurposing Rite Aid’s assets to maximize value and ensure the survival of its core pharmacy business.

So yeah, they bought the part of the business they give a shit about and are systematically closing the rest of the business, a.k.a. brick and mortar stores.

Private equity don’t really give a shit about that fixing any lthing. So they print a bunch of corporate word salad mumbo-jumbo about how they’re gonna fix shit and when it doesn’t work out, they’re like yep we got the money that we want and the business part that is valuable. Fuck the rest of it. Who cares if there’s another food desert, or whatever the medical equivalent is, and all the rural towns at the rely on these pharmacies for medication.

I guess Walmart pharmacy wins by default.