Leaderboard

?? No, I was very specifically comparing MAGA to Nazi. Didn't say anything about republicans or conservatives. It is become more and more clear that MAGA has almost no connection with what the republican party once stood for.

Hi Joe, That could be true. The other option was to sit still & wring my hands. No thanks. Jerry Baumchen

And yet the US would be in such better shape had she been elected.

Uh - right. That's what I said above. OK slight change of topic. Parts of 2025 I disagree with - that's a lot. I'll start with a few examples: Removing any and all federal protections for gay and trans people and women's health. Specifically, "deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists." What is especially galling is that later they mention PROMOTING laws against abortion. Which means that those words are banned, unless the law bans abortion. Then it's OK to use the word. Trying to control law by telling people which words they can't use is known as "Newspeak." Outlawing pornography. Having the federal government ban things they find offensive is a horrible idea, and runs directly counter to the First Amendment. Specifically "Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered." That leads very, very quickly to a government-approved list of books that kids can read that no librarian will dare stray from; if they do they will be arrested, imprisoned and labeled sex offenders. Banning specific areas of study. Again, the federal government has no charter nor right to ban education they dislike, and it is a power they should not have. "The noxious tenets of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country." Banning abortion. Nuff said. Promoting only conservative loyalists in the military. The new government "should rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s finest men and women from enlisting." Partisan military leadership is incredibly dangerous. Revenge. One bullet point in the border section reads simply "Withdraw Biden Administration regulations." No list of which ones. A goal of repealing everything a former president did is one based on revenge, not merit. Parts of 2025 I agree with - all the nonspecific stuff. Sure, protect families, that's great. Stop excessive spending. Also great. Protect kids. I am all for that. Rule of law! Yay! In addition, most of the specific plans they have for revamping the executive branch are sort of dont-cares for me. Every president can set up their administration how they want to. Planning ahead? That's fine. But pretty much every SPECIFIC plan they have that involves new laws/regulations/executive orders that affect the populace ranges from misguided to toxic to just plain evil.

I think this decision will come to be seen as on par with Dred Scott. Like Dred Scott, the damage will likely require a constitutional amendment or two to repair. Perhaps the Democrats should campaign on putting forward a couple of amendments, one to limit presidential immunity and to define a process to decide what acts are "official" and what are not (with self-dealing firmly in the "not" category), and a second amendment to impose term limits on supreme court justices. An enforceable code of ethics would be good too. Perhaps another amendment could introduce an upper age limit to the presidency. Another thing they could campaign on is a repeal of the Comstock Act.

Therefore, all Republicans are MAGA. Therefore, all Democrats support Hamas. I disagree with the association of the entire class rather than the individual policies of each side.

Yep. People get mad when I drew the parallels to Hitler's rise to power. But similar elements keep popping up. In 1933, the German system of justice underwent "coordination" to better align with Nazi goals. Basically all elements involved with the administration of justice - courts, jails, police investigators - were merged into the National Socialist League of German Jurists to better implement the Nazi agenda. Later that year Hitler passed one of the earliest antisemitic laws, purging Jewish and Socialist judges, lawyers, and other court officers from their positions; he then personally appointed their replacements. The Academy of German Law advocated the nazification of German law, cleansing it of "Jewish influence." Judges were told to let "healthy popular sentiment" (gesundes Volksempfinden, or populism) determine the outcome of their trials, rather than any rule of law. Replace "Nazi" with "MAGA" and "Jewish" with "woke" and you have Project 2025.

And she won the popular vote by 2,868,686 votes, which would have meant winning in any country with a rational voting system.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!! Climate change denial website posts video denying the effects of climate change!

Biggest patch I've raked was to put up an Army tent for Elk hunting. Maybe I didn't have the right rake but my impression was an entire forest would take a while.

Should've nuked it.

The reason it was kept quiet was that there was never a single plan made at any one time. It came out of a conference in 1942 and it grew from there. For most of the Nazi era it simply did not exist. It was actually "the Jewish question" and the final solution was so named because it was seen as the answer. After that it was indeed kept as quiet as a wholesale organized slaughter of millions of innocent people could be. Because they all knew it was a crime of immense proportions.

step down, release your delegates and campaign funds and enjoy your retirement as a good president, or risk becoming the president that helped to end the republic.

Burden of proof is on you to prove what the video says is right, not the other way around. Also, just say what the video is saying because nobody's gonna watch that.

He's on my ignore list. Did I miss something?

Jerry, I don't think you achieved anything more than being a check mark in one of three columns on a very low level staffers computer. Maybe I'm dead wrong and overly deluded. I hope so.

I think it all started to go downhill once the first nipple appeared

Because in two and a half centuries, Nixon was the only one who ever needed it, until the Orange Shitgibbon came along.

I can't improve if you don't make suggestions.

The debate was a pure Giash Gallop. It was actually made worse by the microphones being turned off. Biden telling Trump to just shup up man, was actually a good part of the previous debate. I saw a man who had obviously slowed down, but at least appeared to have a grasp on issues and willing to debate on issues. The other person just generally spewed nonsense. Both are poor candidates, very poor candidates.

Because people refused to vote for the email lady.

I know. But that's OK - I write my posts for most, not all, people to understand them.

This is getting a little ridiculous. Biden looked terrible during the debate. He was off his form and obviously tired. He'll have better debates than this - and worse debates than this. Trump, meanwhile, was his usual reality-TV self, with lots of burns and zingers. And this has been what the story has been for the last four years. Why is everyone so SHOCKED! APPALLED! that Trump had a better performance for the debate than Biden? This has been the basis of the campaign since day one - Biden is a competent president, if old, boring and slow, and will run on his record. Trump is a reality TV star and performer who CANNOT run on his record. (Covid? Jan 6th? E Jean Carroll?) There is no reframing needed, no different tack to take, no sudden need to replace Biden that wasn't there before. This is the same decision people had four years ago - just with both candidates four years older. And yes, Biden will continue to deteriorate. So will Trump. And from early polls, no one else sees it as a game changer either. The first poll after the debate shows Biden up by a point, although that's within the margin of error - so in reality it didn't move the needle, at least right after the debate. Don't fall for the media hype.

I definitely don't suffer from a lack of political diversity. I've spent the better part of my adult life working in the oil and gas industry in TX. Most of the people I spend my days with are quite a bit to the right of me, politically speaking. You can say a lot about me, but you sure as shit can't tell me I 'only surround yourself with those like minded'. Most of the time, my coworkers and I don't talk politics. When we do, it doesn't involve sharing asinine YouTube videos.

The issue at Lodi was a complicated one - most people new to the sport don't get, and people who have been involved for a while argue over. I never had a problem over there when I was actively jumping more, but I would never send a new or newer jumper there unless they were under direct supervision from someone I trusted. The accident with Brett on Sept.17th (read above) is a microcosm of what was going on: Brett came to another local DZ a couple weeks before this accident. I was S&TA. I would not let him jump the wingsuit without an instructor. He wasn't very current and kind of had an attitude that was not really receptive to our constructive suggestions. He left and now we all know what happened next. Is that a Lodi issue, or a Brett issue? Some will say Brett was an adult and was licensed and chose to do that and it killed him. Some places do there best to help those who aren't keen on helping themselves. And that is probably the biggest difference between Lodi and some other places. Lodi will let you be an adult, largely make your own choices, and deal with the consequences. Except swooping..don't touch the front risers. Lodi supporters will point to things like no swooping, I've seen Bill kick people of the DZ for unsafe things, etc. etc. And that is all true. However, there was this "let adults be adults" attitude that got more than one person killed, because as we all know, adults sometimes don't know how to be adults - especially skydivers. The TI issue was criminal in my opinion. Anyone that thinks Bill didn't know what was going on doesn't know Lodi. Lodi is a fraction of what it used to be at this point. The TI thing did him in. Kill experienced skydivers all day - nobody will really care. Kill a tandem student with criminal shenanigans - the party is over. Adults being adults right?