I have pretty simple, straightforward finances. I don't need any pro features.

Does anyone have any shoutouts for their preferred tax preparation software?

I'm from Germany and after noticing that many American personalities have German backgrounds I recently looked up that apparently German is the biggest ethnic group in America and that like 12% of all Americans have German ancestry so basically more than 1 out of every 10 people.

I knew that there are some people in America with German ancestry but I never thought it's that many. I always thought that there were other way more common ethnic groups such as UK, Irish or something Asian/African and thought Germans are a minority. I never thought that Germans are so prevalent in America though and that they're actually the biggest ethnic group. I wonder if that is a topic in American conversation cause I assume many Americans are curious about their ancestry and many might even have had contact to family members that are directly from Germany. And I wonder if they identify as American or German or both? (For example I always hear "African-American" being used but I'm not sure that I heard "European-American" that often)

yay sportsball!

Hey there, I’m from Germany and have mental health issues such as depression and was wondering how prevalent this topic is in America.

Here in Germany this topic has become extremely normal and pretty much everyone seems to openly talk about it even with strangers sometimes. We have a lot of therapists but it’s often hard to get an appointment since medical care in Germany is free and they have overwhelming numbers of people and the therapists don’t have enough availability to accommodate everyone. The therapists I had so far were pretty good since they really seemed to care about me and often did overtime and such to talk.

I wonder if it’s similar in America that a lot of people go to therapy and openly talk about mental health. What is the situation in America like? Do you have many therapists (especially in rural areas) and how easy is it to get in/finance? Or would you say this topic is generally more frowned upon in America in comparison?

I've been busy with [email protected] since that's been seeing a lot of activity. The queue is up to almost the end of February, posting every 30 minutes. If you think that's too much, you should see how much I don't post 😄

So... there's that, at least.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/23402624

The policy set forth in the March 20, 2018, Memorandum entitled "Guidance Regarding Use of Capital Punishment in Drug-Related Prosecutions" is hereby reinstated. In addition to drug-related prosecutions, the policy shall also be applied to cases involving non-drug capital crimes by cartels, transnational criminal organizations, and aliens who traverse our borders and remain in the United States without legal status.

https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388561/dl?inline

I don’t know where else to ask this but I am out. My Latina fiancee has been getting derogatory remarks in public. I’m done. We are both hard-working manufacturers and we are looking at Spain since she is already fluent in Spanish and I am actively learning.

This isn't the greatest ever, but here's mine:

Why does the Mississippi flow south?

Because Iowa sucks!

THIS IS NOT A TROLL. I’d like a deeper dive into this as a black man.

For context, I’ve voted Democratic my entire life, same with my family & most of my friends, including most of my white friends. We tend to agree on the obvious issues in American politics like lobbyist & foreign affairs. But we continue to vote Democratic because we see it as the best way forward for progress compared to the GOP.

But my question is why are white people specifically so strong for the GOP? It seems like no matter which election you look at post civil rights, the GOP either comfortably wins the white vote, or narrowly wins it. Despite issues like the war on drugs, early 90s recession, war on terror, mortgage crisis, Trump’s abysmal response to COVID, cuts to Social Secuirty, Tax Cuts for the Rich, etc. It seems like the white electorate always backs Republicans in big numbers. No matter what.

You could say the same for black people and the Democratic Party, but we are a far smaller voting base that can’t really decide elections outside of a state like Georgia (I live in Chicago). But also, the Dems aren’t perfect, I don’t expect any political party to be, but their track record and policy positions work much better for the common man to me.

Obviously there’s a large contingent of white voters who greatly represent the progressive movements on the left more than any other group, but they’re vastly outnumbered by their Republican counterparts. And Trump did worse with white women in 2024 more than any Republican has post-civil rights.

TLDR; Why does it seem like no matter what Republicans do, white voters who always give them a large amount of support? If Dems held policy positions and had the rhetoric of the modern day Republican Party, I doubt black people would support them.

I saw an Andrew Yang post promoting his Foward Party (trash btw) aiming at gathering right wingers to a populist option instead of the GOP since Trump is corrupt.

And the comments are full of people saying MAGA is the third party option OR that he’s a democratic shill.

Yang posted a similar post promoting his party aimed at liberals to diverge from the Democratic Party and the comments were supportive and saying how the Democratic Party should die.

I was reading a bit about different phones, and one point that comes up a lot from USA commenters is that people cannot just use any phone they want, it needs to be a specific model supporting their network carrier, especially the network bands.

I live in Europe, this is pretty unknown here, and from what I gather, Asian buyers are also free to use any phone they want.

How come that nothing has ever been made to improve that situation?

Background:

• Trump’s second term could mean the downfall of the FDIC, CFPB: Here’s what that means for consumers | CNBC
• Senator warns of national security risks after Elon Musk's DOGE granted 'full access' to sensitive Treasury systems | TechCrunch

What prompted this is I logged into my bank this morning to send some bill payments, and the FDIC banner at the top caught my attention. At first it made me laugh because of recent events, but that laugh turned into kind of a nervous chuckle:

I was like "Surely this administration won't fuck with the FDIC" but then read through the articles above, and now I'm not so confident.

Currently, I use a small, local bank. I've never really worried about it because of FDIC protections, but should I move my money out of it to a larger bank? Withdraw it all and stuff it in my mattress?

I'm not freaking out, but I am concerned about this for the first time in my life.

The rational part of me says that if it gets to that point, my money would probably be worthless anyway except for burning it to keep warm.

It's kinda damn cool no matter what! 😎

Setting aside the obvious one of Florida, I would guess Ohio bc (gestures wildly around) it exists.

(I don't mean to suggest that these are necessarily true)

I saw a cool Taiko drumming performance, so I've got that going for me, which is nice

I am currently visiting the USA, and before I leave I want to try some food that is "uniquely" american - IE, you can't really find it outside of the country.

UK stores do tend to have a "USA section" which has a small amount of sweets and other products. But I am wondering what americans specifically missed / couldn't find in other countries.

As an example - Wendy's as far as I've seen, isn't local to the UK or at least where I live. So trying that was a "unique american food", to me.

I'm also in Chicago at the moment, so I made sure to try a proper (real?) Chicago deep dish pizza (loved it, by the way).

Alternatively, any other suggestions of food to try?

Immediate edit - turns out Wendy's is in some locations in the UK. I just assumed incorrectly!

Thanks for all the suggestions!!

I generally drink zero or one cups in the morning. Sometimes one in the afternoon, but not later than 14:00

Rather than put my answers, I will leave space for you to jump in directly with yours:-).

I'm not talking like 10 of them, just one. Even for historical reasons.

Edit: I suppose you could answer any way you like it, but fwiw I meant like an American flag. 🇺🇲