I have a merchant services account through First Data and I get emails from at least 8 different domains, have disparate logins on another 6 or so domains, all of which require password changes every 90 days, there are at least a dozen different numbers to call depending on what kind of help you might need if something isn't working.

On top of that, they're still sending statements to an old business address I left in 2016 and they can't seem to figure out how to change it to the address I've been at for the last 9 years.

Biden and Obama went after conservative non-profits for having a political disagreement with their agenda. Biden also pressured social media sites to censor information and people they didn't like. Biden had the FBI raid Trump for having classified documents at home even though Biden himself was guilty of the same thing (this isn't me supporting Trump, I despise him). There is all the scandal surrounding Hunter, both here in the US and abroad, and the things that Biden did to protect his son while harming American citizens and our interests abroad. You have the aftermath of Kabul, undermining of railroad workers, his extremely broad pardons protecting people that caused harm to Americans, etc.

I know, you'll hand wave all of that away, because he's on your team... but he has decades of displaying his authoritarian biases and hating Americans that he doesn't like (including blacks, Indians, gays, etc).

So, care to tell me how you missed the hundreds of stories of governmental abuse posted on slashdot in the last 25 years and think it just started under Trump? At least be honest and consistent with yourself.

You don't know about internment camps, seriously? You don't care about due process (I hope you aren't opposing the removal of undocumented people without due process if killing them is ok)?

They've all been spying on us for decades. The breadth of that spying has only broadened thanks to an increase in technological capability, not a change in desire. Obama and Biden both targeted individuals and groups they politically disagreed with as well. It has escalated under every single President, regardless of party (because they're all authoritarians regardless of their rhetoric).

If you haven't seen it, it's because you intentionally haven't wanted to see it. It's been right here on slashdot going back to the 90s. If you cared, you'd go educate yourself on the matter instead of claiming ignorance.

Woodrow Wilson (internment camps)

FDR (internment camps, destroying food during the Great Depression)

J Edgar Hoover, Eisenhower, JFK, RFK, LBJ, etc (COINTELPRO)

GHWB (Ruby Ridge)

Bill Clinton (Waco, Elian Gonzalez, clipper chip)

GWB (PATRIOT Act, Total Information Awareness)

Obama (droning American citizens)

How young and/or sheltered are you that you never suspected anyone of doing it while it's been happening and making the news for decades? This is just a quick list off the top of my head. We can get into the whole NSA/Snowden thing, the Utah data center, wiretapping everyone, ECHELON, Five Eyes, ALPRs, etc, all of which made headlines on Slashdot itself (and with a 6 digit UID, I assume you've been here for it).

If you think this is unique to Trump and he's the only one acting like a dictator, your political bias is showing.

I can't get them to deliver to my business during standard business hours... They're the one logistics company that prioritizes delivering to residences during the day and businesses after they close, ensuring that nobody is there in either scenario. No, my business isn't open at 11:34pm. No, leaving it outside in a commercial area at night isn't a good idea either. Hell, they do it during the day when the business is open, too, when they actually show up during business hours.

I got packages delivered today that were supposed to be delivered Friday. The packages that were due today have been rescheduled for "sometime before the 29th." Meanwhile, the deliveries handled by the USPS and UPS from Amazon are almost always delivered on time.

Amazon Logistics has been so awful, they're supposed to be deprioritized on my account, but this year, it seems like they're (mis)handling at least a third of my packages again. I absolutely despise and detest when I see that they're the ones "delivering" my packages.

If you think the taxes are primarily going to support infrastructure, you're wrong. The vast majority of federal money goes to the military and social programs, the former of which is loved by Republicans as well as many rich Democrats (that are in on the military industrial complex) and the latter of which is overwhelmingly mandated by the Democrats.

The Republicans don't know how to balance budgets, but neither do the Democrats. Again, pick NYS as a whole or pick any city in NYS - they're all run by Democrats and they're all severely in the hole. The problem is too much spending all around.

The red states can support themselves when they aren't busy dealing with mandates imposed by the blue states. Here in NY, the state mandates determine 95%+ of local budgets by doing things like passing the cost of Medicaid onto the county governments (which is why NY has a high income tax, property tax, and sales tax, all of which remain within the state and not passed on to the federal government, not to mention plenty of high use taxes like the Thruway tolls).

What's that? You think we should mandate social spending like Universal Heathcare? So you're opposed to people actually having the freedom to choose for themselves and don't want to give them the opportunity to NOT pay for it? In red areas, even though they collect from such programs, most people don't want them. Then you get to whack them with the stick for telling them that they aren't supporting themselves. Nothing like pushing learned helplessness on people and depriving them of their desire to support themselves. I'm sure you have everything in your life running perfectly as you tell everyone else how they have to run their life, right?

Economic liberty is just as important as social liberty and the Democrats are just as authoritarian and tyrannical as the Republicans, just over different issues.

Part of the problem is mandates imposed on those states by the blue states, which the red states don't want and can't afford to fund.

Democrats arrogantly believe their way is the only way and that everyone that disagrees with them is too stupid to know better, so they must impose their ideas on everyone by federal dictate. They believe in economic freedom as much as the right believes in religious freedom. Both parties want to own you because you're too stupid to be left to decide things for yourself.

Keep your ideas within your own state borders and you'll keep your tax money to use within your own state and/or to lower the cost of living there.

California also has their fair share of people building in places they shouldn't, while your wildfires say hello.

Living in New York is a nightmare, especially outside of NYC. We have high taxation and little to no representation at the federal or state level. Like California, more new mandates and more new taxes. We make California look fiscally responsible though, especially once you realize that the 700+ government authorities (operating as quasi-private, government owned companies) owe hundreds of billions on top of NY's insane debt load. I love where I live, but I can't wait for the day I get to leave because of the oppressive government and economy here.

My local sub went dark without discussion. After 2 days, the mod reopened the sub but restricted it to poll whether the users wanted the sub opened, dark indefinitely, or restricted until the 23rd. When the users voted to reopen the sub, the mod decided to keep it closed and start a new poll because the last vote didn't get the answer he wanted despite that poll being brigaded by people wanting it to remain closed (a sudden surge in votes against opening it during the wee hours of the morning when most people here are sleeping). The result? The sub is still closed despite reopening being up 2:1.

This is as much of a power trip for mods as it is for Reddit, with the users in the crossfire and unable to access important information.

As a merchant, I have no idea what the fees are ahead of time. There are the basic transaction fees ranging from 2-5% depending on the type of card, and I know what those are, but rewards cards often have hidden fees on top that merchants get charged for. So, that rewards card might be a 2% base fee, but then another 2% rewards fee on top of it that I don't even know exists at the time of transaction.

The result is, everyone just gets charged more to make up the cost of the people using cards. The customer thinks they're winning, but they aren't, they're just moving money from one pocket to the other and acting surprised that they "found" money they "didn't" have.

My car has lane detection... I was driving home last night through an area that is under highway construction and the painted lanes don't match up with where the lanes actually are right now, so twice my car popped up an error for "driver fatigue, please pull over and rest." I also get lane warnings when I swerve to avoid someone biking on the shoulder, so if you're driving through an area where a lot of people are biking or you have a lot of pedestrians walking on the shoulder, again, it could cause your impairment alert to go off. Is this system going to shut down everyone's car driving through those situations? How is the computer going to differentiate actual impairment from being alert and driving according to the current road conditions?

Hah! Where I am, we pay a ~3.4% property tax, a 8% sales tax, and an 6.85% income tax. Plus we have all kinds of hidden fees and surcharges for everything. But don't you worry, we just passed a 10% spending increase in the budget...

New York - we make California look responsible.

It's hard to have unity when everyone believes that their side is the sole arbiter of truth and justice, and that anyone that believes anything different is inherently evil.

People from both sides call for the death of the people not like them. Everyone wants to accuse everyone else of being an "ist" of some kind, or default to thinking anyone else can't have possibly honestly formed a differing opinion. Punch someone today. Deplorables, DemonRats, my side good, your side bad, it's all absolutes... and in the process, we dehumanize everyone else.

It's all an existential fight because my way is the one true way and we have to force it on everyone else, even if they don't want it... especially if they don't want it, because the only reason to not want it is because they're evil. At best, I'll unfriend/stop associating with you for having a different opinion so I can blissfully continue to live in my echo chamber where all the good people agree with me.

As an internet person, I have no way to verify you, and I've encountered many people on the internet who lie just to win an argument. But you being a woman also has no relevance here. Are you trying to argue that you speak for all women, whatever your views?

I am speaking for myself... and my perception of your patronizing attitude as you try to white knight someone you presumably don't even know. I know that the supposed white knights I've had in my past are some of the most misogynistic people I've ever met, only they don't realize they're doing it. Look at it as me giving you a chance to grow.

It's rather arrogant of you to assume that was my argument.

Your argument is "I like how "fans" have to resort to making up bullshit to justify their irrational hatred of a woman."

That is, fans make up bullshit because they irrationally hate her for being a woman.

Would you say the same thing about a man? "Fans have to resort to making up bullshit only to justify their hatred of a man." ie, Rian Johnson.

You're the one that claims people hate her for being a woman... so that you can immediately tar them as sexist in order to virtue signal your heroic white knighting.

Maybe most of the EXPRESSED reasons aren't to do with it, but we see that people hide their true views under a veneer of attempted sincerity.

As you call me arrogant for assuming your motivation using your one statement declaration that literally lays out your motivation, you're going to assume to know the real motives of the people that dislike Kennedy and/or the Disney era?

You don't find that rather presumptive, knowing the "real" reason why millions of people "hate" her? You don't even find it the least bit patronizing?

But the sheer volume of irrational vitriolic hatred, compared to what JJ, Rian Johnson, and George Lucas get is huge. Why, for example, are there so many petitions to get rid of her, but barely any (I assume there must be, I didn't look beyond the first page of Google) for when George Lucas was in charge?

Really? You don't remember the hatred of Lucas for the prequels or the Indy4? You somehow missed all the hate that Rian Johnson not only received, but dealt back to the "manbabies?" Was it because you were wearing glasses that only let you see the upset directed toward Kennedy so you could rise to defend her?

Why, for example, are there so many petitions to get rid of her, but barely any (I assume there must be, I didn't look beyond the first page of Google) for when George Lucas was in charge?

I don't understand why twitter and reddit wasn't all enraged when Dred Scott was decided... Online forums were still in their infancy in 1999, when Episode 1 was released. You can't compare the online reaction from then until now - Slashdot itself was only 18 months old at that point and google was only 9 months old.

On top of that, how many sites from 1999 exist today? Geocities, home of many fandoms, is long gone.

But do you not remember The People vs George Lucas, RedLetterMedia's critiques of the prequels, South Park's attack on Lucas' assault on their childhood, etc? Your slashdot id is pretty high, maybe you weren't old enough to remember, but people hated George Lucas. That some people are now clamoring for Lucas to return is more akin to some people thinking that maybe GWB wasn't so bad after all, now that we've had to deal with Trump...

Why does she get hate for the sequels, but not The Mandalorian, when she is equally responsible (ie plays the same behind-the-scenes role) for all of them?

For starters, the rumors are that Kennedy has been largely divested of her power within Lucasfilm and there are competing rumors about whether she wasn't fired because Disney is afraid she'll pull the misogyny card on them and/or because they couldn't find anyone that wanted to replace her. Since the failure of the sequel trilogy, much has been made about more power being given to Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, with them bringing Lucas back into the field. Kennedy still gets an Executive Producer credit as head of the studio, but she isn't allowed to interfere with what DF/JF are doing.

It's her fault the sequels were bad, but she had nothing to do with The Mandalorian, the most expensive Star Wars property so far?

It was Kathleen Kennedy that decided to hire "hot upcoming" directors and not have an overall arc for the trilogy planned out. People said that JJ made a plan for an overall arc, but that following directors/writers were free to do their own thing instead. Of those, Kennedy went on to fire Josh Trank, Gareth Edwards, Phil Lord/Chris Miller, and Colin Trevorrow. Edwards and Lord/Miller were both fired during production while Trevorrow was let go after Kennedy allowed Johnson to essentially wrap up the entire sequel trilogy and the Skywalker Saga with a movie to go. There is nobody but Kennedy to pin those decisions on.

Kennedy herself blames the failure of the sequel trilogy as "not having any source material" to pull from the way Marvel did, completely ignoring the entire Legends universe and Lucas' own treatments for 7-9. She was at the head of the decision to remove that material from canon, which is fine, but there was no reason why they still couldn't pull good bits out of it (as Johnson directly claims that he did). Again, her words, her decisions.

Kennedy also did a video with Lucas when he sold the franchise to Disney after he put her in charge. In it, she claimed to be faithful to the characters that the fans have loved and a lot of people feel like her approach destroyed those very characters, particularly in terms of Han (who is just a deadbeat dad that went back to smuggling) and Luke (who is now a moping attempted kinslayer that refuses to help his friends, only to literally phone it in and go on to die). I can't imagine why fans might feel betrayed.

Finally Kennedy has sat back while all manner of Lucasfilm employees, ranging from Rian Johnson to Pablo Hidalgo have attacked the fans... In most businesses, waging a war on your customers will get you fired, but at Lucasfilm, it's perfectly acceptable.

Even Dave Filoni has said Kathleen Kennedy gave him good advice on the eventual casting of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka. So we get a peek of actually what goes on inside, but somehow she's only responsible for the bad things, and none of the good?

Ok, so she pushed Dawson and green lighted The Mandolorian... in your mind, that outweighs those negatives that I just mentioned? You'll note that not a single one of those negatives has anything at all to do with her being a woman - they're entirely about someone that is the head of a film studio, but, according to you, it's just unfair, undeserved hatred that is really rooted in misogyny, right?

As a woman, I am just as completely capable of failure (or success) as a man is... it's rather insulting and patronizing to assume that women aren't capable of failing, and it's rather misogynistic of you to assume we need to be protected from that failure.

Failure provides an opportunity to learn and grow... in fact, if nobody failed, if people weren't imperfect, the world would be a pretty boring place. And often, it is through that failure that we receive new knowledge, inspiration, and motivation to do something better. Many of my successes today are built on my failures from yesterday.

When you refuse to accept failure and simply project blame onto everyone else, you rob yourself of that opportunity to grow...

Virtually none of the dislike of Kathleen Kennedy has anything to do with the fact that she's a woman... but nearly all of the "defense" of her is centered around it.