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She was tested for President and the results came back negative. Actually, the results were quite positive. More Americans voted for her than for her opponent.

If only you'd picked up the phone when they called to ask you how they should have handled it!!!! When did Washington give you the impression they thought the Russians were bluffing? When they advised Americans to leave Ukraine? When they broadcast, step-by-step, the steps that Putin was going to take to 'justify' the invasion? Are you suggesting that they fact that they left a door open for a diplomatic deescalation means that they didn't take the threat seriously? For somebody who touts his centrism and arrives at all of his conclusions through thoughtful conversations and careful research, you seem to arrive at some damn stupid conclusions. As BIGUN noted in another post (BIGUN correct me if I'm misrepresenting you), it seems more often than not you get to the same talking points as Ted Cruz, what a co-inkidink!

We have Laura Ingraham arguing that the Russia investigation caused the invasion of Ukraine. At this point Fox News is nothing more than Russian state propaganda.

Putin states he is invading to "protect civilians", since there is no better way to do that than to bomb a city of 3M people (Kyiv). For some background on Putin's obsession with Ukraine, I recommend this: So that asshole declares the dissolution of the USSR as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. Never mind the 24M Soviets citizens who died in WWII, 2/3 of them civilian.

J.D. Vance, Alex Jones, Tulsi Gabbard Rolling Stone: These Are the American Right-Wingers Covering for Putin as Russia Invades Ukraine

Homicide is defined in the law as "when one human being causes the death of another." That's not a liberal definition, it's the legal meaning of the word. Homicide includes justifiable killing, murder, manslaughter, accident, etc without implication as to criminality. Castle doctrine long ago (centuries) established that you have the right to defend yourself, including with lethal force, in your "castle" (home). As lippy so eloquently put it, SYG laws (mostly written by the NRA by the way) extend that to the Denny's parking lot. It has always been legal to defend yourself, even with lethal force, to protect yourself against someone threatening you with lethal force, if that is the only reasonable way to defend yourself. To some people, though, SYG laws extend the concept of "self defense" to include lethal force to protect yourself against people wielding loud music, plastic bags, bags of popcorn, checking your power meter, etc. In some states SYG has been used to acquit defendants who started a confrontation or fight, then resorted to a firearm when the fight didn't go their way. Drug dealers having a gun battle over territory have successfully used SYG to defend themselves in court. Even if the defendant is eventually charged and convicted, the victim is still dead. Georgia is currently a "shall issue" state, meaning that the state must issue a concealed carry permit as long as you pass a background check. No training in firearm proficiency or the law regarding firearm use is required. Legislation has been introduced, and will certainly pass, to make Georgia a "constitutional carry" state with no requirement for a concealed carry permit or a background check. Whatever your opinion of lax training in SC, in Georgia there is no training at all, so people sometimes discover their misunderstanding of who/when the law allows them to kill someone only after it is too late.

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us; To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion

Too late, Putin has already threatened nuclear devastation to any country intervening. There is no doubt in my mind this isn't "just" a Russia-Ukraine conflict, but the first part of a much larger conflict.

This blast of alternate reality is brought to you by the Kyle Rittenhouse Home Protection Service. From what I see SYG can cause more problems than it solves. With or without it if someone is in your house shoot the bastard, if need be, but bozos wandering around with their guns looking for an excuse to SYG is the problem.

Indeed. And have you noticed we've not taken a lick of shit from a single isthmus or tiny island since.

So you think this is a good thing? " study assessing 41 US states, SYG laws were associated with an 8% to 11% national increase in monthly rates of homicide and firearm homicide. State-level increases in homicide and firearm homicide rates reached 10% or higher for many Southern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana."

Kudos's to President Biden. IMO he has handled the western response to Putin and his madness more or less perfectly. Contrary to Winsor's incessant criticisms of President Biden's intelligence and conduct. He has single handily brought NATO and the west together. IMO liberals and the nature of democracies has given license to Putin's conduct over the last two decades. He has invaded countries before. Killed opposition leaders, journalists and critics. Both in Russia and outside. All w/o real response. But then again so has the Saudi leadership. To some extent there is a realpolitik of the EU dependence upon Russian gas. But as I've said here before Nord Stream 2 should never have been built. Oh well, its but one miscalculation in this entire mess. President Biden is entirely correct as is NATO. This is not "our" war. But Ukraine is but a canary in a coal mine. Putin has unlimited ambition to do and take whatever he wants. Its really up to Russians to remove him. But until then US leadership is needed and thankfully trump isn't in the equation.

I'm going to submit a request to Merriam-Webster's punctuation manager for you requesting the definition of an exclamation point be changed from, "a mark ! used especially after an interjection or exclamation to indicate forceful utterance or strong feeling" to "Fuck the US." It'll save you a lot of time.

I you really wanted someone whose portfolio qualifies them uniquely for VP or POTUS, that would be Hillary Clinton.

Nothing, same as the vast majority of vice presidential candidates. Kind of like Mike Pence. Since there is apparently no one in the entire universe whom you would consider to actually be qualified for anything if you might be challenged on your opinion, (you’re always full of how you think (whoever) is an idiot also), I have no idea of what you might consider to be uniquely qualifying characteristics. Wendy P.

Since rap and hip-hop came into fashion after I reached adulthood, I have difficulty relating to them. My version of "angry young man music" ended with Bob Seger. At one point I was dating a music professor and described rap as "just another genre of angry young man music." That did not go over well with her!!!!!! OTOH as an historian, I try to identify long-term cycles of weather, crop-failures, politics, warfare, art and music. If you live long enough, you will see waves in many aspects of society.,

Can you link me to a post where you were upset about the gender identity politics of Palin's selection? I mean, it quite possibly cost your side the election. You must have been pretty upset about it. Should be easy to find.

Ideally identical turn rigs is optimal of course. Personally when I first started doing back to backs, I had a Katana 120 and a 107 in my rigs. So not massively different. I did one camp where i had a JFX 94 in one and a Katana 107 which was OK as I was super current on the Katana and very conservative on the JFX as it was new. I wouldn't want to do that sort of configuration often though. Now I have identical canopies in both rigs which is nice. Also its nice to have identical containers but again its a luxury that is not always available. But I agree with others, unless you are doing back to backs often then there is not much point in keeping two rigs as you can always borrow another rig. Personally I am doing back to backs almost every time I go to a DZ so for me its a no-brainer