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Doesn't it bother you that a legal US resident can be arrested and possibly deported just for expressing opinions that Trump doesn't like? To the best of my knowledge he hasn't been convicted of, or even charged with, a crime. Once you start restricting the scope of the 1st Amendment, where do you stop?

Your forebears created the House of Representatives for a reason. So, even Don Lemon stated that DEI became a house of worship and if you didn't sing with the choir; you were out of the church. IMO; it was an enhanced form of race relations. Congress, not EO. Agreed. Who or how? My grandfather had to come over twice. First time, he was a WOP. Congress. Not EO GAC should be between children, parents and doctors and is really none of any one else's business. One of the issues with transitioning in the military is - once hormone treatment started, they were non-deployable for three years. That is the length of an enlistment, so for many they went in just to get the change (affordability). An issue which could be resolved with Universal Healthcare. Any? How do you feel about the physically disabled? You might want to expand on this. Did you vote FOR the revolting guy? If so; then he is "your guy."

For example, the color line that is terminating every female or non-white person from senior levels of command in the US military, and replacing them with white males. MAGA begs the question: when you say "make America great again", when exactly do you want to return to? When was America "great"? What year do you have in mind? 1950? 1925? 1850? It certainly seems that for a large number of MAGA devotees that was a time when women and minorities knew their place, which was far from any position of leadership. When even being able to vote was a bridge too far. When medicine consisted of leeching and cod liver oil, not vaccines or any science-based elitist crap. Maybe back when real leaders like Andrew Jackson (who Trump so admires) were willing to force the Cherokee off their land, to die on the Trail of Tears on their way to some God-forsaken patch of semi-desert in Oklahoma. Except of course when that land turned out to have a lot of oil, that had to get taken from them too. When, exactly, was America "great" in the eyes of MAGA? What is the destination? Because as you go back, and you don't have to go back far, it might look better for white males but it sucked for everyone else. That's what all this anti-DEI bullshit is about, a desire to return to the past when all those "other people" knew their proper place.

Can we not do the R's are Nazis and Dems are communist crap. Let's stick to discussing policies. Please.

Probably there isn't anything now that will stop China from taking Taiwan, the Spratley's, or anything else they want. We can only hope that Europe can keep the front lines in Ukraine steady to keep Russia from re-arming while all of Europe gets their military capabilities up to speed. What a shit show. Trump is giving Europe to Putin and Republicans in Congress are standing up and applauding him while he's doing it. Unbelievable.

I disagree. The measure of success of a government is support of its people's freedoms, providing for essential basic services and defending the country against its enemies. It is not to make a profit. If a company lets itself be taken over by another company, and its shareholders double their money, that company is successful. If Russia took over control of the US and the people here got a hefty payout from Putin - would you consider that a success? So you support hiring unqualified white straight men over qualified black, LGBT or female candidates? Because DEI is the opposite of that. DEI is "hire the best candidate REGARDLESS of race or sex or orientation or religion." So no medical facilities in the military? No VA hospitals? No GI bill? No airshows? No recruiting? No on-base housing? Because none of those has anything directly to do with killing people. OK. So Melania Trump and Elon Musk flouted the rules. Is that acceptable because they are white? Or is it unacceptable, and should be held accountable? So no breast reduction surgery for female high school swimmers who might have a shot at the Olymics if they get it? No hair transplants for 15 year old boys who are losing all their hair? No breast augmentation for a 17 year old girl who has such lopsided breasts that she is bullied mercilessly? I think that their parents - and not you - are in a better position to decide. White straight men are all terrified that the special treatment they have gotten for 300 years or so is coming to an end. I can't get too upset about that. A president who does nothing, and lets Congress make all the decisions, is vastly preferable to a president who destroys democracy in the US. Indeed, that is how the Founding Fathers pictured the presidency to work. Harris would have been a president. Trump is working towards being a king. Sad that weak people support kings over presidents. You chose him. He is your guy,

But he's your guy anyway. Because there is nothing he could do that would cause you to re-think your support of him, and risk potentially having been wrong. I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I'm assuming that means that your humanity has a price, and so does everyone else's. Wendy P.

I'd take someone who does nothing over someone whose every action is for his own benefit or that of his cronies, who embaces rioters, who openly threatens vengeance on those who oppose him, who spends millions of taxpayer money on golfing while cutting aid to the poorest members of society, who has no conception of the difference between the truth and a lie, who openly brags about being a sexual predator, etc. etc. etc. Nothing sounds pretty good in comparison.

I ran across this by accident just hoping there was an archive site. But it seems the same as before the shutdown. Word will get out, maybe slowly at first, but it will spread.

David, You are the future and you are right for the task. When you actually have the real ability to change things most of us here will be long gone. Please take that responsibility seriously. Joe

It'll probably miss the first attempt. Damn DEI hires. Wendy P.

No argument from me there. But to be clear if it's one of those confused biological situations where parents and medical doctors are trying their best to make an early on decision for a child that avoids a psychological disaster later, and there are never guarantees, you are good with the efforts?

Ahhh - one of those that thinks Trump is playing long range 4d chess, rather than simply trying to have vengeance on anyone who has slighted him. Enough said.

I agree with the sentiment expressed by everyone that snarky comments and labelling people is unhelpful. Biguns point about black and white thinking (psychology term, not race) is bad. The problem with your posts is that Trump/Musk can do anything and you shrug it off as “just …” and go onto to rationalise it is for the greater good, while making sure to mention that it’s better than Biden etc. I’m not sure how any American can support people who do nazi salutes, car sales from the Whitehouse, deliberate lies and deception, celebrate the pain of immigrants and the disadvantaged. the thread about white power in the US has many examples of where this administration has stepped well past the line of racist behaviour. If you honestly believe sexism and racism is bad, how come you’re not as vocal about this administration covering/removing the names of non white and female people who lost their lives fighting for your country? I forget the agency (NSA or CIA). A vast number of American citizens speak Spanish, yet it’s not racially driven that this administration has declared English the official language and removed Spanish language versions of important government websites? I’m sorry but your posts show no evidence that you’re against racism and sexism.

I'll be damned if I kneel before your color line.

The argument being made is that given our history DEI is a pathway to Equality, Merit and Integrity. Sure it's messy but outside of white suburbia there are a few otherwise nice but pointy hat wearing folks who need a solid framework jammed down their throats to quit being assholes.

Once upon a time that would have been an Onion post

Hi folks, Looks like the Jack Daniels people are crying crocodile tears: Jack Daniel's maker says Canada taking bottles off shelves 'worse than tariffs' Too fucking bad, I say. Jerry Baumchen

Who gets to judge those things, though? Currently it is a crew of inexperienced 19-23 year old coders who might be able to write script but clearly have not a clue about anything else. Cuts are being made on the basis of what Elon Musk thinks is useful to himself. He is of course well known for his lack of ability to care about anyone except himself and his 10,000 offspring (or so I infer from his statements and behavior), so condemning a few million people to die of malaria, HIV, or starvation is a small price to pay if he gets his tax cuts and trip to be the king of Mars. When Congress creates programs and allocates money, the Executive Branch has no constitutional authority to kill or defund those programs. The Executive can lobby Congress to get rid of such programs, but to do so they would have to convince Congress to take responsibility. Unfortunately the current cult formerly known as the Republican Party is all too happy to let Musk, who doesn't have to worry about re-election, take the heat for killing programs and ruining many lives, at least until he goes after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (which will begin any day now) and 2/3 of the people who vote R suddenly find themselves in line at the soup kitchen. I fear, though, that virtually every Republican congresscritter will discover that they have no idea where to look for their cojones after Trump and Musk cut them off and fed them to a drove of pigs.

Business is about making a profit for the owners or shareholders. Government is (or should be) about providing services that are not inherently profitable, such as protecting peoples rights and safety, regulating business to limit their tendency to maximize profit by screwing over people, supporting basic research that isn't profitable in the near term but eventually may lead to advances that can be picked up on by industry to develop products such as new drugs, and so on. It's infuriating (to say the least) to see the US government being taken over by grifters who clearly seek to personally profit, either by direct means or indirectly by eliminating the ability of government to prevent them from running roughshod over everybody else. "it's just the way it is" is just a slightly different way of saying "fuck anybody who I don't like".

Government isn't and should never be ran as a business. That is not it's function. More so when current leadership has more experience with bankruptcies than with actual successful businesses.

Hi John, That'll teach her to be a woman. Jerry Baumchen

Well, I don't think Elon should be involved in politics at all and am completely opposed to anything that even closely resembles a nazi salute. I am of an age where my parents served during Korea and had great Uncles that served during WWII. Anything Nazi or Commmunist goes against the grain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz03gjnxe25o Arlington Cemetery strips content on black and female veterans from website. Tell me again how the US administration isn’t racist? This is fucking disgusting

But that is exactly what they did vote for. It's not as if the felon-in-chief kept it secret.

Fine. You don't discriminate. Except against any Democrats, women with funny laughs, anyone who tries to be aware of discrimination, or any victimhood besides your own in having to work with and interact with substandard humans. But those are all real issues, as opposed to the silly ones like people thinking that anything but their essential inadequacy affects their careers. Bullshit. Wendy P.

Diversity & Equality are synonomous. Equity is defined as, "The quality of being fair and impartial." Inclusion is hiring those based on merit no matter their race, creed, color or religion. Integrity - doing the right thing for the right reason. I've never understood the noise surrounding DEI, EEO, These things no matter what you call them are in the Constitution. 14th Amendment.

I'm actually at PIA in Florida now, are you there? What's hilarious here is that at the registration area, they have signs "sorry the shirts and goody bags aren't here yet, they're stuck at customs. We hope they will arrive soon". There's going to be so much winning...

One of the things all us old farts forget is the 9/11 was 24 years ago. To most people under 40 that is a history lesson, not a life experience. A 30 year old was 6 years old at 9/11 they sure as hell don’t remember how everyone came together in support of the US.

Effective != efficient. Effective government is never going to be as efficient as a private enterprise as they have different objectives. Unfortunately the foxes are guarding the chicken run. The first place to start would be term limits for all politicians, aligning their benefit packages with those of other public servants, getting rid of big business in political donations and limiting their ability for insider trading. One of the problems with the 4 year election cycle is that large scale changes can take years. This incentivises politicians to implement quick fixes, and also muddies the waters. The administration often gets the blame or credit for actions from a prior administration.

Did you ever think through the implication of the fact that the only President who's ever been willing to do the things you want is a dumb, revolting sonofabitch? Call me crazy but I can't help thinking that might say something about the merits of the policies. Nah, you're right - it's probably just a coincidence.

Zelensky probably wasn't willing to pay for a whore to suck his dick. Respect is earned or given, NOT demanded. If you have to demand it, it's not respect. Wendy P.

Negative. We wanted you to vote for Harris to decrease the chance Trump would be elected. You chose otherwise. In our country and in the last election, in particular, some of us consider that to be ill considered. Don’t over complicate our simple thinking.

I'd put his head on the block.

Hi Keith, OK, what has Trump accomplished? Other than conning just about everyone he has ever come in contact with. Jerry Baumchen PS) I've constantly said that Harris would not be/was never my first choice. But, compared to Trump, she is a great choice.

Republicans have been crying "wolf" about this since Reagan's time, but the ground has yet to materialize. “What's past is prologue"; Shakespeare (The Tempest)

Given that you know this is a stupid question you are being intentionally dishonest now. You're saying you can't possibly know anything good about any political candidate unless they have already successfully sponsored legislation or wielded executive power - and if they haven't they're just as bad as an insurrectionist, rapist and fraudster? Get a fucking grip, man.

Except for 1835 and 1836 the USA has had continuous federal debt since it borrowed from France to pay for the revolutionary war. The sky hasn't fallen.

Hillary Clinton has all of that. But she's poisoned. She was Secretary of State in wartime; she was a respected senator who did work with both sides of the aisle, etc. You're looking for a governor who's also a veteran (preferably wartime) in a state that's not just a lock for one party or the other. The Vietnam era vets are generally too old. A Pew Research study showed that only 14% of candidates for governor in 2022 were veterans (as compared with 16% of the Senate, and 21% of the House). That's way down from when nearly every politician was male and a WW2 or Korea vet. Serving has become more something that people who don't have tons of resources do more than rich people, and it takes money and connections to run for office. But Wes Moore (who I know you favored) is on that list; I'm not sure he wants it, and you have to REALLY want to be president. Wendy P. Wendy P.

Why? Well, because as they say at the club, "she's not right".

The USA under Trump has shown itself to be an unreliable ally. No wonder Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. are worried.

You think that's going to be accomplished? Massive LOL.

One weekend at Perris Cap't Hooks Sky Pirates were practicing their 10 man speed stars and told everybody that after they got together anybody else could come in on their formation, I got 4 20 man's in a row that day, there is something to be said about "the good old days".

If the only things that are are accomplished by this administration are balancing the budget and removing woke nonsense from government and government funded entities, picking Trump over Harris is a no brainer. Failing to address the staggering debt amassed by the US is not an option. It may be possible to avoid catastrophe by a complete paradigm shift, but it is going to be painful either way. We've been whistling past the graveyard for too long. Gender change can wait until one reaches majority, at which point who cares? On children it amounts to child abuse and deserves treatment as a felony. The discrimination in DEI is both unconstitutional and immoral. Having said all that, Trump is a truly awful human being, and such things as his take on Ukraine are simply jaw dropping. If we can balance the budget, put woke to bed without supper, and keep Trump from fucking up anything else too badly, perhaps having the nauseating sonofabitch around for this term will be worth it. At least he's an improvement over Harris, but that's not saying much.

A couple of years ago my aunt posted on FB asking if anyone had any good BBC video recommendations. My ex being Aussie was horrified and asked my aunt if she had meant to post that publicly:) Very funny seeing the acronym have 2 very different meanings

Glad to see you back

Elon needs to mind his own business, not everyone else's.

The election will almost certainly happen if not with absolute certainty. In the history of the republic since George Washington was elected, US presidential elections have never been canceled, and I genuinely don't see how 2028 would be any different. One of the worse case scenarios I could see is that the election becomes "less democratic" and more "controlled", which could signal that the US is indeed on the path to a dictatorship, but it would most likely be a slow process. That being said, I believe things will get a lot worse before they get better with all the Trump & Musk & DOGE stuff. Resistance against the Trump Administration has started everywhere - people are speaking up and protesting, states are filing lawsuits, judges are blocking Trump's orders, and there are internal conflicts among Republicans on various issues. It's really easy but also deeply understandable to have a "doom and gloom" attitude. Heck, I was reading some news about the "Nazi Salute" at CPAC the other day, and I even hypothetically thought about what I would do personally if I were living in Nazi Germany 2.0. In the meantime, I have been learning about human emotions recently, and emotions pretty much always come before logic. People tend to react emotionally first and use logic later, and this is especially true on social media. The thing I've been taught - and am trying to do - is to use both emotion and logic to form a more balanced perspective, which is why I want to choose intentional optimism. Current American democractic institutions are being tested, but it's not hopeless.

That’s the key. Whoever it is, they need to be willing to break with both Republican and Democratic orthodoxy. Wendy P.

It sounds cooler that he boarded with an attache case versus “He boarded with an attache case and a shopping bag from Publix”.