GeorgiaDon

Would you (and your twin) advise skydiving students there is no need to deploy their parachute until after they've reached the ground? After all, one second before impact they are fine, they are breathing, their heart is beating, they can move their arms and legs. Anyone who says there is an emergency is just pushing panic. Prudent people take action before the problem becomes irreversible

What complete and utter bullshit. Trump agreed to have all US forces out of Afghanistan by May 1 2021. There is nothing in that agreement about hanging on to any airbase beyond May 1. He did commit to releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners (many of whom promptly rejoined ISIS and Al- Qaeda), and he did cut the Afghan government out of the negotiations. His administration did virtually nothing to get any Afghan people who assisted the US and coalition forces out before that exit, and indeed they fought tooth and nail to make sure as few as possible made it to the US. He kept to that timetable despite the Taliban violating almost every condition they had agreed to in the agreement. Trump completely turned his back on the Afghan people, just as he did the Kurds earlier. Biden delayed the US exit until the end of August but decided to follow through with ending US direct involvement in the war. Remaining, in violation of Trump's agreement, could only have been done at the cost all out war with the Taliban, which would have required sending tens of thousands of US troops back into Afghanistan. Between August 14 and the 25th, the US evacuated 82,300 people from the Kabul airport; including evacuations run by other coalition partners over 122,000 people were evacuated. In comparison, between March and December 2020 the Trump administration processed only 532 visa applications from Afghan translators and others who assisted the US; they left the Biden administration a backlog over over 17,000 unprocessed applications.

Georgia recently passed a "constitutional carry" law that abolished any requirement for a concealed carry permit. No permit = no background check, no training or proficiency requirements, no limitations of any sort. It also greatly expanded the sort of places you can carry, and restricted the right of property owners to keep guns out of their establishments.

From CNN: "The National Archives pushed back Friday on former President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor, former President Barrack Obama, “kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified” upon leaving office. “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” NARA said in a statement. “NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration,” the statement from National Archives said. Earlier Friday, Trump alleged that Obama not only kept classified records but that many of them are related to nuclear weapons. Trump made the claim after The Washington Post reported the FBI sought documents related to nuclear weapons when it searched his Mar-a-Lago residence this week. " It's just exhausting, and infuriating, to deal with the constant stream of outright lies from Trump. How do you deal with someone who lies about everything, all the time? Even worse, people believe him to the point where they are literally willing to die to defend his lies. I wish a meteorite would crush him or something, but that would just generate more conspiracy theories. How long will it take this country to recover from his venomous existence?

Both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice used private email, and classified emails were sent to those private email accounts, just as happened with Hillary Clinton. Why does that make Clinton the devil incarnate, but Rice and Powell are excused? Maybe blinders? Maybe partisanship?

Any attempt to rationalize behavior like this assumes there is some sort of logical reason at play, the sort of thinking that rational people apply when they are weighing potential risks and benefits. With Trump, this is a futile exercise. He has never acknowledged that any law constrains him, or applies to him in any way. Considering his malignant narcissism, perhaps it just makes him feel as if he is still President to have this material in his possession. Perhaps he is just pissed off at being told he isn't allowed to have it. He is a child, an obnoxious spoiled brat who never grew up because he inherited enough wealth to escape any consequence of his pathological behavior. What I find to be even more mysterious than his malignant behavior, is that so many people still support and even worship him. Years from now psychology professors will make a career out of studying the contagious insanity that has gripped so much of the US, assuming of course the insanity hasn't sucked the whole world into Orwell's 1984.

The sycophant websites that are linked are pretty hilarious too.

Maybe, but I'm reminded that you shouldn't attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to stupidity. Trump was completely focused on overturning the election, and apparently believed he would succeed in remaining in office. I'm certain that ensuring an orderly transition and complying with the federal presidential records act was the last thing on his mind. I'd guess that anyone in the White House who suggested they start packing much before January 19th would have been pushed out of the presidential helicopter. When the 20th was right around the corner and there was no time left, I suspect everything was just shoveled into boxes and moved. Perhaps Trump and his cronies still believed he'd be back in a short while and nobody would notice the missing documents. Maybe he thought it would mess with Biden's people when they couldn't figure out all these national security issues because the paperwork was missing. Anyway once everything was in Florida, likely someone noticed that they had a big problem. Instead of just admitting to the screwup and taking their lumps, they hid the incriminating documents in the safe and basically dared the "deep state" to come and get them. Bad move. All just speculation, but considering Trump's narcissism and disdain for government or following laws, more likely than speculating that he was going to sell highly classified documents to the Chinese or Russians, or maybe North Korea.

If indeed you do hold a MBA I apologize. I also wonder why you choose to advance an incomplete definition of "recession", at least as far as the Business Cycle Dating Committee (the only official entity that has authority to decide whether or not the economy is in a recession) is concerned. Actually, I don't wonder why. That is consistent with your usual MO.

Considering that 10-20% of known pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion (= miscarriage), and the true rate including the first month or so when most women do not know they are pregnant may be over 50% (link), I would really like to see these Republican attorneys general haul God into court and charge her with murder.

I'm sure that when the Business Cycle Dating Committee or the National Bureau of Economic Research want to have an ex-DZ owner with no background in macroeconomics, or any other qualifications for that matter (except a lot of time on his hands that he likes to spend "owning the libtards") they will give you a call.

It's worth remembering that oil is the starting material for a lot of products other than fuel. It might not be so easy to turn wind or geothermal energy etc into plastics or pharmaceuticals or the other myriad things that are made from oil. Perhaps it might not be wise to just burn it all and figure out what to do to replace it later.

Don't forget about inflation! All those greedy proletariats thinking they should get a share of the wealth their labor is generating! That can only drive up costs! Next thing you know they'll be demanding things like health insurance and sick leave, and that will just cut into the hard-earned dividends the hard working investors are entitled to.

The take-home message of the Rittenhouse affair is, if you see someone entering a school through a side door while carrying an "assault weapon" you should not do or say anything, as they might just be there to protect the textbooks. If you do try to intervene and get shot for your trouble, you are the bad guy. You cannot make any conclusions about someone's intent based on the circumstances, even if you see them shooting they might just be defending themselves. In America the person with the biggest gun is always right.

It says a lot about the general quality of your posts when you have to explicitly let us know that this one is a joke.

Old joke: A baby seal walks into a club...

Well yes, but beyond that is a widely entrenched American ideology of "freedom" that emphasizes "personal liberty" above all else. People in other civilized societies recognize some balance exists between personal liberty and restrictions needed to make for a workable/liveable society. Indeed, they recognize that these two things are not always zero-sum affairs. For example, fewer firearms corresponds to less violent crime which results in more freedom to go out and do things without fear of being killed. Universal health insurance results in greater freedom to change jobs (or start your own business) without exposing yourself or your dependents to the risk of being uninsured, which is especially problematic if you or any of your dependents have a pre-existing medical condition. A large proportion of Americans, though, only recognize things that directly benefit themselves, and mostly in the short term. Almost anything that requires a measure of personal sacrifice, even if the result is a benefit to the whole of society, is pretty much a non-starter.

I sometimes wonder if gas companies have it somewhere in the back (or middle) of their minds that keeping prices high will also hurt the Democrats at the polls, and help Republicans who are more inclined towards giveaways for the fossil fuel industry and much more hostile towards competing renewables.

Also included: that Musk is on the first flight to Mars, and he never comes back.

I like that he's bringing the fight directly to DeSantis. What do all you California residents think of him as Governor?

I still think Biden was the right person to run against Trump in 2020. The country needed an alternative to the 24/7 insanity of the Trump administration. "Boring but serious" got the job done. I don't think it will work again though. The Democrats need to put forward someone who is rational, charismatic, energetic, and younger, someone with the drive to lead an alternative to Trumpism and Republican white nationalistic Christian fundamentalism. Most Americans, I hope, don't see the Handmaid's Tale as an aspirational vision of the future. Surely the Democrats can find someone who can stand as a credible leader and offer a vision of what this country can be. Biden isn't that person, he seems unwilling to take on Republican lies and dirty tricks. Perhaps he is still too stuck in the hope that Republican politicians will, in the end, do what is right for the country.

Military aptitude test. Why do you want to join the military (check all that apply)? 1. Travel to other countries. (X) 2. Meet interesting people. (X) 3. Kill them. (XX)

"Originalists" claim to interpret the law according to how the law would have been understood at the time the law was written. By definition, then, they have to look at history to interpret the law. If they choose to ignore factual analysis from professional historians who are not directly involved in the case, and instead accept without reservation a highly biased "history" compiled by one of the litigants, their decisions must be rooted in nothing more than their personal bias. Five of the six members of the conservative wing are conservative Catholics, and Gorsuch is a member of the Episcopalian church which holds similar positions to Catholicism on many issues. I think that, at best, they (like most people) are resistant to ideas and even facts that challenge their personal values and beliefs. Some I suspect have an intentional agenda to erase social practices that conflict with their idea of "how things should be", i.e. a society governed along conservative Catholic morals. There are also disturbing reports that members of anti-abortion groups that were participants (via friend-of-the-court briefs) in the Dobbs case have, for years, participated in prayer meetings with Alito and Thomas (and also earlier with Scalia). For many people, their religion is the single most important influence in their lives. It's naiive I think to expect that supreme court justices (or anybody) will be able to entirely set that aside. I fully expect that the near future will see the "catholization" of LGBTQ rights, same-sex marriage, and even (leveraging abortion) contraception rights. Even though Loving v Virginia was based on the 14th amendment just like Roe and Griswold I don't expect that to be attacked any time soon because Thomas is in an interracial marriage and also the Catholic church does not oppose interracial marriage.

"Politically incorrect" is one way to put it. That kind of glosses over the fact that part of the "lesson" is the idea that it's appropriate to use physical force and pain to compel someone to do your bidding. Anyway I never had to beat my 3 kids and somehow they all turned out to be people I've very proud of. They did have to be disciplined on occasion, but somehow we always found ways to impose consequences for bad behavior that didn't involve beating. When I was a kid, discipline was often enforced by "spanking" with a wooden spoon, paddle, or other instrument. I can't remember learning much from that, other than "don't get mom or dad mad". Mostly mom, when dad got home from work he would be handed the paddle to administer the punishment, usually without much idea why. I guess that was "normal" in those days.