Exactly. I am more than willing to bet on the Democrats to keep Trump out of office. I trust the VP to do well if she needs to while we have a fully vetted race in 2028 with a lot of potential Gen X candidates that I like.

Crown Point has the most amenities, and continues to grow. Highland is nice as well, but if you eventually have kids, the schools are not as good.

Ours was the porch light.

I drink about 100 oz., and I hated water. My solution is considered cheating to some, but I am getting hydrated. Mio makes a sugar free Sweet tea flavor. I put a few drops in my fake Stanley, add some ice and drink at least 2 a day. I also drink regular unsweetened ice tea. I used to drink 3 Coke Zero, so I am trying to cut back on that. I also stopped drinking alcohol, so I refuse to be upset when people try to Shane me for flavoring water.

I go from sick to enraged. I was talking to my kid and my future DIL. They have two years of fellowship left. If Trump gets in, they will likely work on a long term plan to leave the US to practice medicine, and find a way to get my husband and I out (if I am not out in a political dissident jail by then). I mean, after all this time of demanding Epstein's names being released, and we have Trump's name confirmed this week, nobody cares.

We look like we are about to say something we shouldn't. The sarcasm is about to flow.

Are you trying to tell me that I dreamed the birth of MtV? I was 11 when it started an it literally shaped our generation. It introduced rap to the rural white kids. Michael Jackson became the biggest star in the world while I was in high school.

As for being more progressive, look at the voting habits of Gen X and Trump. Look at who attends the rallies. It is disappointing. And young men are not becoming more progressive related to gender roles, traditional values, etc in Western states. Young women are.

I have great hope for the future, and I love my generation for many things. We have a great shared experience that is fun for reminiscing, but because we were left alone, some of us turned into some real aholes.

Personality wise, McCain. Policy wise, Romney. McCain still voted for much of the most vile legislation that held us back. Romney, in particular was not against healthcare reform, child tax credits. He understands that helping families can actually prosper if given a level playing field. McCain and Bob Dole were very similar. Honorable men willing to vote for horrible things. I think McCain would have been a good leader at certain times. He would have been a good guy through COVID and 9/11 for instance. And he was a dear friend the current big guy, proving hearts beat party, but he had no problem cutting Medicaid, SNAP, throwing poor kids out on the street.

Boomers were both Democrats and Republicans. Gen X was both raised to be racist by Republicans in the South (during the switch after LBJ) or became so after being left as feral animals. To this day, as Gen X, I still will never get over my disappointment with my generation. We were raised on MtV. We were raised to learn about racism and sexism. And not only did we not learn, we seem to have created some incels, read wives and an entire generation of fucking adults who are afraid talk on the phone.

Gary was actively abandoned however. Same with Detroit. When you lose 50-75% of your population quickly, you see that decay. Detroit was smart to pull down entire blocks very quickly. Gary didn't have the funds nor political will to do it. Even after a serial killer was found hiding bodies in abandoned houses, it has been slow to get Indiana government interested in doing anything to help.

Truthfully, your generation needs to do three of the scariest things in America. Register to vote down to the city council in every election; show up at government meetings, writ into all level of officials (especially when they ask for public comments); run for office. As a Gen Xer, I always expected more of my group, but there are more millennials than Boomers. And we Gen Xer s who aren't brain-washed idiots would love it. Though, keep in mind, Polis, Shapiro, Whitmer, Beshear, Pritzker wouldn't be horrible for a couple of y while you take control of the House and Senate

This is a great opportunity for scholars, 2028 candidates and even non- 2025 Republicans to talk about this. I have said for a while, once August comes around, this will be an issue. We have just a few weeks. Be patient.

Anything before August is forgotten in November. All ad money is worthless before September. The October surprise isn't as valid now with early voting, but look at the damage done with the nothing story of Hillary's emails. She was leading before Comey mentioned a possible problem.

But don't get worked up in July. It is the same reason why most people didn't like the idea of a debate this early.

Actually, I do it as a volunteer. 35 years and counting. I started in Oakland and now mainly do child abuse and child advocate, but the opioid epidemic has caused parents to sell their kids. I work with some wonderful police and medical people who call me in the middle of the night to help, then I often end up the child's advocate. I also come in and work with parents who don't know how to handle things and need to hear the process, and need to see people can get to the other side. And, finally, I sometimes lean on the right people to come forward and tell what they know. Sometimes when I am their unofficially helping a "family", I can get people comfortable enough to make an official statement later.

In Oakland,we used to go out, help the child prostitutes, try to get them off the streets. We would give them another number to call besides their pump and try to get the district attorneys to not prosecute. That is how I first met Kamala Harris. She was great with this. She went after pimps and trafficking though.

How would you feel if they did move to your new area, like into a condo or "active senior retirement community" once you were settled? Or do you also want to get some distance from them?

My kid is currently 5 hours away. I miss him, but we visit every few months, have a group chat, and send memes almost daily. When football season starts, he and I are shit talking all through our games, and we try to do watch parties of TV shows. We do holidays close when we can ( they are doctors, so it isn't always on the exact date).

You need to do you, but if you also like them as people, you can find ways to stay connected. Who knows, maybe they can buy a storage facility and live onsite to be close to you.

NTA. I am also an adopted. I will say, I adored my adoptive mom, and she loved me unconditionally. She never made me feel anything but pure, selfless love. However, my adopted status was used against me by a pedophile as a weakness who threatened me with being taken away, from abandonment and shame. I allowed a monster to control my life from the time I was 3-10 then kept my secret until I was almost 20. And during that time I also had the trauma of not knowing why I was given away, where I belonged. It has taken years to heal from both of these traumas. And working with abused and trafficked boys and girls has also taught me that there are worse things than death. I am convinced if I hadn't been born into me, my energy would have been in other places, just as it will spill out in the universe and go off when my body can't take this much fabulous anymore. Remember that you don't need to tell all your secrets. You can simply say you lost the baby. You lost it at a clinic with caring physicians and nurses, or you took pills and literally lost it at home. You can both grieve the loss of potential, and there is no shame. I had multiple miscarriages before my son. It is okay to feel loss, and relief. Every baby wanted is a beautiful goal.

You mean if Biden was falling asleep in public, vacating his bowels ( or at least farting so badly the people in the court room made faces), made incoherent rants at least weekly, appeared to be hyped up on Adderall, lied about things that wrre simple to fact check, mistook his opponent for another high profile political figure ( super predator was a phrase attributed to Hillary Clinton), then I think that behavior over the last year would have made us lose faith in Joe a long time ago. But he had a bad night to me. He sounded okay before and he has sounded better even later that night. Do I wish he was better? Hell yeah! Did I wish Trump was coherent during his term? Oh gawd yes. I had to listen to Bill Barr today say that Trump would say "we should string this person up, arrest them for treason" and they would ignore him because it couldn't legally happen. Guess what!?! It now can!

I will say that if buying a house is so important to people, then a Midwestern suburb needs to be reconsidered. I am assuming it was on this sub, but maybe neoliberal, that showed the household income needed to buy a house. My area was $65,000. A house in my neighborhood just came up for sale. Roof was done in the last 10 years, but hasn't been flipped yet. 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2185 sq. ft. garage, yard, quiet, safe neighborhood, decent school, 40 to Chicago. $285,000. We have bars, good restaurants, close to Lake Michigan and Dunes National Park. Jobs in manufacturing, healthcare, tech if you don't want to commute. For someone crying about not owning a house, that can commute, it is a good deal. The downside is it is Indiana, so no abortion. But we are a moderate, Democratic County. We are actually really close to Chicago and Illinois, do you could have all your healthcare in Illinois and avoid some problems. Taxes are pretty cheap. Some of the neighbors are horrible, but this neighborhood isn't too bad.

You are also forgetting about an entire group that even "pro-life" politicians underestimated - those who have medical complications during pregnancy. Like it or not, women, especially middle and upper class white women are having children closer to 30. That is causing complications. In truth, there have always been complications, but even before Roe, this was handled as a medical procedure. But politicians can't write laws that actually protect the health of the mother while satisfying their most rabid supporters, so an ectopic pregnancy or a non- viable twin or several common problems that were common medical abortions are refused or delayed until the woman is septic or near death. Instead of a simple procedure to remove the embryo from the Fallopian tube, they have to remove the entire tube, making it less likely a woman will be able to easily conceive. My future DIL and my son won't move to any state where they are at risk, and they are delaying pregnancy until they leave Kentucky because of the legitimate danger of a geriatric pregnancy. In good conscience, as a loving spouse, if something was to go wrong when your wife is in labor, would cheaper taxes really matter in the long run if you walk out of the hospital with an infant with severe disabilities and a wife unable to conceive again?

Vermillion County, long known as the most reliable "white" Democratic County in Indiana was also the county that flipped the hardest in 2016. It was crazed. They went for Bernie in the primary and Trump won that county by the highest percentage. They flipped just about every local race too, except for the assessor because that person has to actually do a job. I grew up there, and I swear, I will never spend another dime in that area again. The only time I will visit is for a funeral or a reunion.

The funniest thing to me, is that the amount of money allocated to farmers went down in that county under Trump. And because Pence had leaned so heavily into ag trade between Indiana and China, several farmers are worse off now because a trump took such a hard stance and other countries came in and replaced us with pork production. Surprise, surprise. And because so much money is being siphoned off from public schools and charter schools for suburban areas, rural schools get less support. The county is dying. It is half the population it was when I graduated in the late 80s. They all expected Trump to come in and save them with manufacturing, but those jobs are going to places with a more educated populace under Biden. Sure we are making chips in Indiana, but those partnerships are near Lafayette, Evansville, etc. Amazon is building a data farm, but in Jeffersonville, near Louisville, and close to a community college.

RFK and Trump

I do 60 or less, and I try to make them whole foods, such as lentils, beans, fruits, vegetables, etc. I have pretty much wiped out sugar, flour, processed food, but I don't feel guilty eating a piece of pineapple.

Yes. It helped me add fiber right away and I ate less fatty meats.

Not in my state! We have voucher schools and charter schools and our legislators have attacked our teachers' union for decades. If ALEC or Heritage Foundation comes up with it, we try it. And our homeschooling community has a lot of power as well.

Yeah, haven't been there in 20 years. I believe you if you say it is extremely crowded

I went to Disney world the first year it opened. For years, we went every year. Then, when my child was little, we went to Disneyland and it was certainly more crowded, but still magical to see it with a 4 year old. I went 4 years ago to Disney World for my birthday to do Star Wars, and I still had a great time there and at Epcot. I gotta, it can still be great.