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Regardless of party, anyone who dehumanizes political opponents is extremely dangerous. This is the mindset that fuels shootings, assassinations and wars (eventually).

Agreed. There's no excuse for assassination.

Thank you. Did you read this passage: "You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am, I, I — I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights" He was a radical evangelical Christian who believed that killing to protect God given rights as he saw them was a fair trade. No mention of needing the second to defend against rape, lynchings, pedophilia, etc. And for school shootings his plan was more guns in schools. If you want to think he was the right man for the times have at it.

Official award day was weathered out. So, well, I'll have my own ceremony... I didn't join USPA until I was off student status I think, or at least on 15 second delays or something like that. Wendy P.

You throw this up as some form of Ta DAH! Moment. It is merely the main introductory paragraph of the 6 page missive from NYU in the 90's. You fail to post the rest of the information or even provide a link so others can see you're being disingenuous while we get another fucktube video and you argue intellectual honesty. Delgado_and_Stefancic_on_Critical_Race_Theory.pdf

Long, but well worth reading. Full text of Illinois Gov. JB Pritkzer's speech at news conference on reported Trump military plan for Chicago By CBS Chicago Team Updated on: August 25, 2025 / 4:25 PM CDT / CBS Chicago Illinois Governor JB Pritzker spoke at a news conference Monday afternoon, addressing reports President Trump is planning to send the military to Chicago. Here is the full text of his remarks. I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one, that we are facing in this city, and as a state, and as a country. If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country. Over the weekend, we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning, for quite a while now, to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago. This is exactly the type of overreach that our country's founders warned against, and it's the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor. No one has reached out to our staffs. No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us. Local law enforcement has not been contacted. We have made no requests for federal intervention. None. We found out what Donald Trump was planning the same way that all of you did: We read a story in The Washington Post. If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police? Let me answer that question: This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals. This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections. There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no inter- insurrection. There is no insurrection. Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities. Here in Chicago, our civilian police force and elected leaders work every day to combat crime and to improve public safety, and it's working. Not one person here today will claim we have solved all crime in Chicago, nor can that be said of any major American metro area. But calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods and disrupt the lives of everyday people is an extraordinary action, and it should require extraordinary justification. Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency? Look at this. Go talk to the people of Chicago who are enjoying a gorgeous afternoon in this city. Ask the families buying ice cream on the Riverwalk. Go see the students who are at the beach after school. Talk to the workers that I just met taking the water taxi to get here. Find a family who's enjoying today sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator. Ask if they'd like to pass through a checkpoint with unidentified officers in masks while taking their kids to school. Crime is a reality we all face in this country. Public safety has been among our highest priorities since taking office. We have hired more police and given them more funding. We banned assault weapons, ghost guns, bump stocks, and high-capacity magazines. We invested historic amounts into community violence intervention programs. We listened to our local communities, to the people who live and work in the places that are most affected by crime and asked them what they needed to help make their neighborhoods safer. Those strategies have been working. Crime is dropping in Chicago. Murders are down 32% compared to last year and nearly cut in half since 2021. Shootings are down 37% since last year, and 57% from four years ago. Robberies are down 34% year over year. Burglaries down 21%. Motor vehicle thefts down 26%. So in case there was any doubt as to the motivation behind Trump's military occupations, take note: 13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rate have Republican governors. None of these cities is Chicago. Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois. Memphis, Tennessee; Hattiesburg, Mississippi have higher crime rates than Chicago, and yet Donald Trump is sending troops here and not there? Ask yourself why. If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets. Cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect. Trump is defunding the police. To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president's actions. Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidence, and score political points. If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab. Look at the people assembled before you today, behind me. This is a full cross-section of Chicago's leaders from the business world, the faith community, law enforcement, education, community organizations, and more. We sometimes disagree on how to effectively solve the many challenges that our state and our city face on a daily basis. But today, we are standing here united, in public, in front of the cameras, unafraid to tell the president that his proposed actions will make our jobs harder and the lives of our residents worse. Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, "Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?" Instead, I say, "Mr. President, do not come to Chicago." You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy. Most alarming, you seem to lack any appropriate concern as our commander-in-chief for the members of the military that you would so callously deploy as pawns in your ever-more-alarming grabs for power. As a governor, I've had to make the decision in the past to call up members of the National Guard into active service, and I think it's worth taking a moment to reflect on how seriously I take that responsibility, and on the many things that I consider before asking these brave men and women to leave their homes and their communities to serve in any capacity for us. As I've said many times in the past, members of the National Guard are not trained to serve as law enforcement. They are trained for the battlefield, and they're good at it. They're not trained to arrest people and read them their Miranda rights. They did not sign up for the National Guard to fight crime. And when we call them into service, we are reaching into local communities and taking people who have jobs and families away from their neighborhoods and the people who rely upon them. It is insulting to their integrity and to the extraordinary sacrifices that they make to serve in the Guard to use them as a political prop, where they could be put in situations where they will be at odds with their local communities, the ones that they seek to serve. I know Donald Trump doesn't care about the well-being of the members of our military, but I do and so do all the people standing here. So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now. Hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our city's sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon, will prevail in the coming days. If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead. But I know you Chicago, and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago's long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who will be asked to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court martialed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize. To my fellow governors across the nation who would consider pulling your National Guards from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country. Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to. The State of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have. We will see the Trump administration in court. We will use every lever at our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights. Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: we are watching and we are taking names. This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now, and eventually the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law. As Dr. King once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Humbly I would add, it doesn't bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.

As a by the by, things are better in the fam. Not great, but definitely better — seems like a progress better, not just a crisis averted better. We’ll see And thanks, folks Wendy P.

The juxtaposition of your concern over the debt and your support of Trump is so absurd that it is clear your real agenda are elsewhere. During his first term Trump added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt. That was more than 43 presidents had combined to accumulate during the first 216 years of the Republic. Obama added less than that over his TWO terms. His BBB, despite his claims, will simply continue the enormous deficits he created during his first term. Do you really think the leopard changed his spots despite all the evidence to the contary - that's very naive. In my lifetime the debt has increased more under GOP administrations than under Dems.

Yep -- I have two words for you: Abu Ghraib. How many of the personnel who took part in the blatantly illegal acts there looked back and were appalled and disgusted with themselves? We can look from the outside and say unequivocally that those actions were so far outside the realm of OK that how could they not have known? But 1) you will likely find that one or two whose own "Overton window" is far afield of what is acceptable, and 2) those others who are easily convinced that they are right. These days, with the influence of Fox, OANN, etc., the second group is larger and easier to convince.

The myth of American exceptionalism is now dead thanks to the American people allowing it to be killed. The once great shining example of the American Constitution with its separation of powers has been turned into a hollow empty promise. Trump did not do this alone and the midterm elections are not going to undo any of his outrageous actions. The die is cast.

Within two years Brazil dealt with the crime, the trial and the sentencing of its president for treason. The former president was convicted of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election and has been sentenced to 27 years in the slammer.Jair Bolsonaro was a close buddy of the US King Donald Trump.Trump put tariffs on Brazil for proceeding with this trial. On the other hand the US and its weakling president Biden did nothing for four years when King Trump spearheaded an insurrection. Now since Trump has been crowned again he has bullied the courts into empowering him even more. He has used his royal position to earn over $4.2 billion dollars in his first year. King Trump has had his royal clerks re-write history about the insurrection. Every day the King sees new CEOs of giant corporations who pay bribes in order to curry favours. Soon the Kings new B747, another gift/bribe, completely adorned in gold will take flight. Ready to scour the globe for new bribes.

Well actually there is a GOP action plan to protect kids in America. The MAHA plan for healthier kids includes 128 ideas, but few details "The Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Kennedy, identified four potential drivers behind rising rates of chronic disease among children, including poor diet, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity and chronic stress, as well as "overmedicalization" – which the commission describes as "a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children." Well yes it is because for MAGA, Trump, Christian nationalists the silence over the largest killer of American children is absolute. For third straight year, firearms killed more children and teens, ages 1 to 17, than any other cause including car crashes and cancer The hypocrisy of conservatives is absolute.

Now there’s a mantra. So your silence after the targeting of Democratic people in Minnesota, the kidnapping attempt on Gretchen Whitmer in Wisconsin, are also violence? Wendy P.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. The following is a copy and paste job, not my work.... Charlie Kirk said: “It was huge mistake to pass the Civil Rights Act back in 1964.” That is his exact quote. In complete context. Charlie Kirk said: “Jewish money is ruining American culture.” That is his exact quote. In complete context. Charlie Kirk also said: “Gay people are destructive, and they should be put to death.” Yes, that is his exact word-for-word quote. In complete context. On national television. Charlie Kirk also stated, one hour after a tragic school shooting in Lewistown that left 26 dead: “I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” Re-read that sentence, above. Yes, that is his exact word-for-word quote. In complete context. Charlie Kirk also stated this: “We have to tell our babies to stop crying.” Yes, that is his exact word-for-word quote. In complete context. He was discussing the starvation of those in Gaza. Yes, that is his exact word-for-word quote. In complete context. Charlie Kirk also stated this: "I can't stand the word empathy. I think empathy is a made up New Age term that does a lot of damage.” Yes, that is his exact word-for-word quote. In complete context. Murder for political reasons is ALWAYS wrong. Always. My heart sincerely goes out to his wife, and his two children. They did not deserve any of this. They are innocent.

Given that Trump is literally banning words, and banning museums from representing history - your ire is misplaced. He may well have been the best of some group you are picturing. He was not the best of Americans. The best of Americans work to unite the country and prevent violence, not divide the country and foment violence.

The man himself stated publicly and on the record that some people being assassinated by firearms was a fair trade for second amendment gun rights that could be used to defend the will of God. While I continue to wish these gun deaths weren't a part of our daily life, the degree to which I am horrified by this assassination is a whole lot less than I am for the types of gun deaths he thought were the fair trade.

All Americans should horrified by this assassination.

Survivalists have long dreamed of a day when their prepping and AR-15s can be deployed against the evil government. A second American revolution. Well its happened in Washington D.C. Grand juries made up of ordinary freedom fighters are refusing to indict those prosecuted by the King's courts. "In what could be read as a citizens’ revolt, ordinary people serving on grand juries have repeatedly refused in recent days to indict their fellow residents who became entangled in either the president’s immigration crackdown or his more recent show of force. It has happened in at least seven cases — including three times for the same defendant." This despite the fact that juries are force fed whatever stories the prosecutors want to come up with. Stories like the defendant has insulted the looks, the intelligence and the size of the King's hands. Or even called him a Limp Caudillo! One freedom fighter, himself on the brink of starvation because of the King's bad economy. Threw his subway sandwich at a storm trooper and was charged with felonious assault. Three times juries refused to indict him. Now his image of resistance is spreading to the walls of the city. All of which infuriated the King causing him to throw a half eaten Royal Mac hamburger against the great hall of the royal palace. The rest of the world has seen a crack of light under the castle's drawbridge. There is a fight against the King from his subjects.

Sure, but that's why we have a Coast Guard. Tracking the speed boat and intercepting it would have been a no brainer and if they were drug runners and resisted with deadly force then tough shit. This was cold blooded murder not legitimate border protection.

Hi folks, 'Fraud will not be tolerated in President Trump’s housing market.' Really: Oregon’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer, other Trump cabinet members claimed 2 primary residences - oregonlive.com Trump 2.0 business as usual. Jerry Baumchen

Sorry I call them as I see them. I don't see you as a hero. I just see you as one of the many Trump supporters who are maintaining your sanity by denying reality. And while it's good that you are staying sane, it's sad that you are doing it by ignoring reality. Again, given Trump is literally a rapist, and is just as literally supporting and protecting pedophiles and human traffickers, I can't take your crying very seriously. You deal with the beam in your eye and then we'll look to fixing the motes in everyone else's. I blame conservatives for supporting rapists, pedophiles, human traffickers and felons, yes. And will continue to do so until you stop supporting them. For 1500 years academia has been pushing EVERY idea. It's what they do. They push the ideas of Kant, and Nietzsche, and Jung, and Freud. They push "natural philosophy" (science) and math and theater. They go into capitalism and socialism and communism and nihilism and objectivism and every other -ism. The difference between you and I is that I think studying things like that is worth it. You think studying anything other than the things you believe in to be stupidity. Which is why you so often misunderstand what happens in the world around you; you have no frame of reference other than your own, and you get your worldview from whatever Youtube video you saw last night. Then you post that video here thinking it is a substitute for intelligent analysis. It's not. Given that Fauci literally wrote the book on infectious disease, he's a lot smarter than you or I - and has done far more good for Americans (and the world at large) than you or I ever will.

White nationalists feel threatened. Hard working and more intelligent immigrants are a threat. They fight a losing battle.

Regarding the title of this thread. I don’t think we see the US as a laughing stock. I think there’s generally a sense of pity and concern for US citizens and also a recognition that the US is too dominant and a bully in the international community. There’s lots of introspection going on about how we should relate to a rogue nuclear state that is in a rapid state of decline. Trump is definitely the laughing stock along with his cabinet members, but not the US.

"Donald Trump never had the courage himself to raise his right hand and serve his country in uniform, but let me just say from personal experience - and that consists of 23 years in the military, 17 of which, proudly as a member of the Illinois National Guard - that the men and women who are brave enough to wear this country's flag on their shoulder are doing so to defend our nation's rights and freedoms, not to protect a tin-pot dictator's thin skin or to police their own neighbors. It's not what they signed up for, and it's certainly not what their training is focused on." Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D, Illinois), disabled veteran.

Bullshit. On this one item; I agree with him. The flag is a symbol; representative of the men and women that have died fighting for this country. Did you know over three hundred men died trying to get the flag to the top of Iwo Jima - because it meant victory to the enemy. Men and women of service are buried cloaked in the flag. We salute the flag. Maybe "Flags of our Fathers" should be required reading in High School. Nope. There's 1,995 reasons to hate trump, but this ain't one of them. You want to engage in free speech or expression - use signs; use your words, honk your horns, go flip off a cop, but leave the flag alone. IT IS the one thing that illuminates all of your rights.

If his plan was to refuel in Mexico when he gave instructions to 305 in the PNW why ask for the dirty configuration? That configuration has only two rationales, to make it jumpable and to stretch out the search zone. If his plan was to be on the plane when it lands in Mexico neither of these apply. It makes no sense to ask for it.

Not at all. The modern accepted definition of dementia for conservatives is "Biden, not Trump."

And unfortunately folks, this level of stupidity and lack of awareness is the reason the US is now a laughing stock.

If you suspend belief and rationalise enough it makes sense I guess? Trump is the biggest snowflake out there and whitewashing history, yet his true believers think he’s a hero.

That’s an unbelievably hard, near impossible one to deal with. When nothing makes sense how can you know what to say? I’m hoping for you, and believing you have the heart and tools to make it through.

I'm not sure that the CinC knows. Or if he knows, he doesn't care.

Absolutely. When I was in school - health education also included sex education. .

Wrong Timothy McVeigh single handily puts the killed and injured by the right on top by a factor of ten.

And their work is complete. Yet another person who could engage in dialog now sees others only as either like minded or enemies. Wendy P.

Charlie Kirk put himself center stage in the effort to overthrow a democratically elected government in favour of a would be tyrant, and why would anyone think he wasn't ready to do it again? According to Kirk, his own murder is not just the cost of doing business with the second amendment, it's the reason the second amendment was written.

I genuinely believe the US would be a less violent place with more boobies on TV. Countries that don’t allow boobies always seem to be full of angry violent men.

Really, for a good 100 years or so until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s this was fairly true of the US. The “divide and conquer” strategy, especially when it’s US were dividing, is not good for a country that wants to adapt to the world. And the world isn’t going to adapt to it for real long Wendy P.

Nordic countries: The political parties respect each other and trust between them and the government is a given. The people trust the government. America. The political parties are at war and one party the MAGA-republican party teaches that the government is evil.That it can't be trusted and tries to use the justice system against its citizens. The parties use the tax system to create winners and losers.

I refuse to hide from being American, I'm just not especially proud of it for the time being.

Trump might have soldiers in Humvees in Washington. Here in Aus when we deploy the military in a city we do it properly:) They’re practicing for the upcoming air display day - and not my photo.

yes, he's a confounding combination of seeming to know what's he talking about at certain times but then other times he's obviously full of shit. I think about him scoffing over them not being able to take off with the stairs down. "Yes they can..." There's absolutely no way he could have known that. As far as I know the only time a 727 has ever taken off with the stairs down was during the evacuation of Da Nang in 1975 and that was obviously an emergency.

Agree, pyramid scheme, suckers game, there are hundreds of crypto schemes possibly thousands out there. Foolish, greedy little pigs all waiting to get slaughtered. But face it be bibles, steaks, university, casinos, etc. Trump always makes out like a bandit.

It’s entertaining seeing Gavin Newsom taking trump on in his own turf. "DONALD TRUMP HAS 24 HOURS LEFT TO RESPOND TO GOVERNOR NEWSOM’S LETTER. IF HE DOES NOT STAND DOWN, THERE WILL BE A VERY IMPORTANT PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER."

I’ll be honest I don’t understand the resistance to nuclear. I know nuclear waste is expensive and complicated to store and get rid of. That said it’s amazing how much energy people waste. I’ve got an 8kw solar system at home and my monthly bill is under $20 Aus ($10 USD). I run an aircon system in my bedroom and office 24/7 but its average consumption is 0.25 kWh and the rest of the home I just tolerate the heat and cold. You have to change habits though, dishwasher, pool pump and washing machine during daylight hours.

Yep. And Trump will increase that faster than any president in history. It's a historical fact that republican administrations increase deficits faster than democrats on average - so if you want to reduce the national debt (or at least slow its rise) democrats are your best bet. That's why my grandparents came here. For decades that is what America was built on - the backs of people strong enough to leave their homes and make a better life here. Now we have system that denies entry to everyone, worker and student alike, unless they are rich and far right. That will rapidly lead to the US becoming an inbred nationalistic haven for the lazy, who want their due because they are "natives." DEI ended slavery, got us the Tuskeegee airmen, got women the vote and allowed them to own property. DEI allowed gay people to legally exist in the US and get married. DEI put in handicapped ramps and handicapped parking spaces. All good things in my book. Many people oppose such things, of course. Glad I am not one of them.

A married couple was in a terrible accident, and the wife’s face was severely burned. The doctor told her they couldn’t graft any skin from her own body because she was too skinny. Her husband lovingly offered to donate some of his skin. However, the only suitable area to do the whole job was from his large buttocks. But it was a rather embarrassing situation, so they both agreed to keep that detail a secret, and the doctor promised not to say a word. After the surgery, everyone was amazed by the woman's transformation. She looked more radiant than ever! Friends and family couldn’t stop complimenting her fresh, youthful face. One day, deeply moved, she said to her husband, "Dear, I just want to thank you for everything you did for me. How can I ever repay you?" He smiled and replied, "My love, I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek."

Of course - Putin is everything Trump wants to be in life. He's richer, more powerful, better at embezzling and wrote the book on transforming a democracy(ish) into a one-man authoritarian state. Trump meeting Putin is like a teenage girl meeting Taylor Swift.

Anyone can "nominate" somebody for any of the Nobel prizes. That means nothing. The Nobel committees select the winner, and it doesn't matter how many "nominations" someone may have. We had a chemistry professor here who was quite enamored of himself, and he would get his friends to "nominate" him every year. He even had on his website "Nominated for the Chemistry Nobel Prize 10 years in a row!!". All bullshit. He never won of course. Also it's considered to be quite gauche to lobby for a Nobel Prize. Of course "gauche" is Trump's middle name (or one of them).

I feel like this has been asked and answered. The answer being that Cooper wasn't a skydiver nor was he some Braden-esque military parachutist. He was likely someone who had frequently worn parachutes in the military, either as a paratrooper or as a pilot/air crewman.