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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.

Seems likely they're coming. The US is becoming a damn embarrassment. Too many think just saluting the flag shows you're a patriot who supports his country; a shallow belief at best as evidenced daily by the morons driving around shredding the huge ones mounted on their trucks. Teaching kids to pledge allegiance to a piece of fabric instead of the founding documents and guiding principles that distinguish our nation from lesser ones has been a huge error, I think. Just look at our Secretary of Defense who sports an American Flag snot rag in his jacket pocket as his proof of fidelity.

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. .

Plenty of thugs in DC on January 6, 2021. Your hero pardoned them.

Interestingly the Azerbaijani school system is currently secular with religious interests working for change, like here. Now that our IRS has allowed pastors to preach politics from the pulpit we're one foot further out the door and down the rungs. That's what I oppose. I am all for secular support services as described, and with my tax money, as long as religion is no where in sight.

Pretty funny stuff, there. Well, the context for facts matters; after all, ice cream sales and murders go up in the summer, but that doesn’t really mean that ice cream causes murder. And context doesn’t mean the narrative that’s built around it. Think “2000 Mules” (so debunked that they withdrew it) Wendy P.

I see him as creating chaos, stepping back and watching people gravitate to the chaos while he rubs his hands in delight.

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.

Hi Mark, This might be why: The Nazi's first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me. Rev. Martin Niemoeller Jerry Baumchen

Spot on…. I completely agree.

Well, mine doesn't say "liberal," but I do speak French and Spanish, and am polite. Never had an issue (yes, not even in France). I have a feeling it's that polite part that really helps, and not thinking that we have the solutions to all of the world's problems. Wendy P.

Sorry the sarcasm got lost in translation. Trumps answer to everything is an executive order.

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."

Nah this is the real reason: Trump’s Cabinet Meeting Was Stuffed With Flattery for Dear Leader "Every so often, Donald Trump will convene his closest advisers at the White House and smile as they lick his boots to a mirror shine. These Cabinet meetings are effectively televised devotionals to the president’s greatness, with his appointees taking turns lauding him shamelessly. Attorney General Pam Bondi went so far as to credit Trump with saving the lives of 75 percent of America’s population, during a Cabinet meeting back in April. Trump held another Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. It was no different, with the table full of lackeys dutifully praising Trump for rescuing the United States from the brink of destruction. The spectacle lasted over three hours as Trump fielded questions from the congregated media. The adulation clearly went to his head. “I have the right to do anything I want to do,” he said of sending federal troops into cities. “I’m the president of the United States. Here are some of the most shameless examples from Tuesday’s roundtable of the Trump sycophants running the government praising their leader:" “This is just such a great opportunity, really, to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people. … I know we’ll hear, as we go around the table here, how your focus singularly on putting the well being and interests of the American people first is that common thread that we’re seeing your policies being implemented across your administration.” Gabbard has spent the better part of the summer attempting to redirect public attention away from the administration’s bungling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, and towards conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama and the 2016 election. Trump rewarded Gabbard’s efforts with praise of his own, congratulating her on “becoming a bigger and bigger star every day” within his administration. “Mr. President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor — because you are the transformational president of the American worker, along with the American flag and President Roosevelt …and I was so honored to unveil that yesterday.” Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was referencing a literal banner of Trump’s face that has been hung on the facade of the headquarters of her department, alongside a similar banner depicting former President Theodore Roosevelt. Both banners carry the slogan “American Workers First.” “There is only one thing I wish for: that the Nobel Committee finally gets its act together and realizes you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about to receive that award. Beyond your success, is game changing out in the world today, and I hope one day everyone wakes up and realizes that.” Witkoff, not technically a Cabinet member but still invited to the party, later told the president that “working for this government – for you – is the greatest honor of my life,” and praised Trump for supposedly ending “more than seven” international conflicts in the last eight months, although what those conflicts were was left unspecified. “First of all, thank you for the opportunity to work for you. You made this country safe. You opened up the economy. You enforce the law. Now people can get up and provide for their families and go to work every day and be confident in that.” Noem repeatedly praised Trump for a supposed wholesale transformation of the American economy towards unbound prosperity and safety, never mind that the president recently fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for reporting stagnating economic and labor growth in their monthly report. “Thank you for saving college football, by the way. We’re very grateful.” Was college football in such a precarious position that it required saving? No. Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order requiring universities to preserve and expand scholarships for women and Olympic athletes at the collegiate level, as well as reform pay-for-play structure out of college sports. “As we’ve said very often, economic security is national security, and our country has never been so secure, thanks to you. You have brought us back from the edge. You have the overwhelming mandate from the American people. You are restoring confidence in government.” Bessent said that one of the primary ways Trump is restoring trust in the government is by trying to take control of the historically independent Federal Reserve. The president a day earlier attempted to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, a nakedly illegitimate action with no legal basis. Cook’s lawyer said Tuesday that she is not leaving her post and will sue over the move. “You were elected the president of working Americans and that’s why this Labor Day is so meaningful — that’s why this is the most meaningful Labor Day of my life, as someone with four jobs. Trump has been gutting the government since he took office in January and installing loyalists in key positions, which is why Rubio is not only the Secretary of State, but the head of the National Archives, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Trump’s National Security Adviser. Rubio on Tuesday went on to tout Trump’s leadership, describing him as the “Peacemaker in Chief.” A better example of getting the government you deserve can't be made. The rest of the world looks on and laughs abit with fear. I've read this story a couple times and the more I laugh the less I fear the certain outcome of all of this.

She nailed it. I happen to revere what the flag represents and dislike those who disrespect it. Ironically enough, what it represents includes the right to demonstrate said disrespect. Though I am given to Schadenfreude when, say people burning the flag catch fire themselves, I consider it imperative that such people be accorded the full range of rights against which they are railing. If you want to wear the white hat, you have to follow the rules.

Okay, so reasonable people disagree.

Here is another "suspect" (eliminated) who turned out to be an astronaut. Pages 416 and 417 of vault part 109:

Son-of-a-bitch, on top of every other accomplishment you also speak fluent richravizza.

Pretty screwed up set of values to place a racist criminal over someone else because of her gender and colour.

From the flight path panel discussion at CooperCon 2021 with Cliff Ammerman. I went back and listened to my recording which is up on the Facebook group. Here are the relevant excerpts. Darren: “What do you think about that Cliff, do you think it’s possible that he actually did dictate the flight path based on the conditions he demanded the plane fly.” Cliff: “Yes certainly, If you’re going to fly south at ten thousand feet, Victor 23 would be the, the option that I think almost anybody would take. Just because you could fly at much lower altitude.” Darren: “Do you think he knew the plane would fly Victor 23?” Marty Andrade: “Based on that answer, I would have to say yes.” Marty Andrade: “I’m going to direct this to Cliff. Below 10,000 feet how many airways could they have picked, Victory 23 but there should be another one right?” Cliff: “There is another airway to the west called Victor 165 that still would be fairly low. Ugh, this was before the time that they had designed an airway for Portland basically direct to kalamath falls. Now there were high altitude airways but you had to be above 18k feet and obviously DB Cooper didn’t want to do that. So if they would of come back a few years later then this, he probably would of turned at Portland and gone directly to kalamath falls because it’s a more direct route to Reno. But then the min on the route out there is much higher. So my guess would of been then, that if DB Cooper wanted it low, he would of told them to stay on Victor 23 until they can hit further south and that’s just speculation.” Darren: “Well now that you have that information Marty what’s your answer?” Marty: “No I would say that given that, we know from the radio transcript that they were put on Victor 23, um if there really isn’t another option for them at the time then that’s the route they would of been on.” No mention of V27 from Cliff.

Ukraine Diplomacy Reveals How Un-American Trump Is by Thomas L. Friedman NYT editorial. An excellent piece that covers most of the bases. I laughed when he mentioned all the "thank-you"s directed at Trump. All of the appeasement and flattery to shield the ego of the man-child. Today the Kremlin signalled that NO direct meeting between Putin and Zelensky is either planned or anticipated. "During an interview with state-controlled TV channel Rossiya-24 on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow does not refuse talks with Ukraine — but, crucially, insisted any summit would have to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.” Russia’s calibrated language follows a familiar pattern: agree in principle, stall in practice. A similar dynamic played out in May, when Putin suggested a Russian meeting with Zelenskyy for peace talks, only to send a second-tier delegation instead." Meanwhile Trump's deadlines, sanctions, etc. have all gone TACO. His Alaska coming out party for the indicted war criminal and kidnapper of 20,000 Ukrainian children, a flop. Another example of the moral bankruptcy of the republican party.

That’s the only reason I have FB too. I nearly always regret doom scrolling, it only ever makes me think worse of people. Eventually fewer and fewer people will post there, too, as it’s taken over by commercial and generated content, and it’ll get to be a medium for 6 old farts to discuss stuff Wendy P.

I’m really sorry Wendy. Feel free to vent or reach out anytime and please remember to take time for yourself.

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.

What do you call a book club that's been stuck on one book seemingly forever? - Church

It was a factual answer. You were focused on the oath and not the mission of each. Big difference. The Code of Conduct for each is different. Their code of conduct stemmed from Kent State. How is your dissecting the constitution any different than Trump's version. You get to pick and choose what you like. The constitution needs to remain sacred albeit flawed. The courts are more well versed at interpretations. Your example of the Marines is a good one. The courts stopped them from doing anything more than protecting three federal buildings. Personally, I sing the praises of the ACLU, They help keep things in check. You may not know, but since Calley, the miltiary started giving classes in 1971 to everyone from West Point to Basic training on issuing/following legal vs. illegal orders. In 1974, I went to basic. An attorney from JAG came to give us the class. At the end, he gave us a business card to call if someone issued an orde that you "thought" might be illegal for us to get legal counsel. Some soldiers today don't understand why legal is involved at the unit level. It's for this reason.

Health education should include nutrition, the basics of illness (difference between a virus, a bacteria and a parasite), and illness management/prevention (how vaccines work; when to get a vaccine and when to use an expectorant). Basic personal hygiene and food handling.

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.