Thanks for the discussion, David.

Ha. I work for a local government, and a few years ago, I researched low-income households' energy affordability for the state government.

Although bureaucracy burdens the governments, there is an enormous difference between state and local. The state is disconnected from the general public, while local governments have direct contact and minimal resources to address issues.

If our federal government funded and passed legislation that benefited the public, I would trust their intentions, but this hasn't been the case for decades. Every policy since the 1970s has helped American aristocrats, and our politics worsened when the Supreme Court overturned the Citizen's United case in 2010.

I believed in the US until I lived in Latin America and learned saving the world doesn't entail overthrowing democratic governments. Every country that nationalized resources and invested in the public endured a US-backed coup.

The US continues to intervene in foreign politics to control nations and profit from their resources, but you must see firsthand to acknowledge that the US isn't saving the world.

We don't know the reason for Russia's invasion, and I don't believe it pursued every option to avoid war, but the world's governments failed to de-escalate and mediate to save Ukrainian lives.

The US is constantly at war, but wars don't lead to peace; they lead to more wars. Whatever the outcome, Ukraine and Russia have already lost, but Ukrainians will suffer displacement and trauma for decades.

Thanks again.