wolfriverjoe

Betcha she can walk up or down a steep, slippery ramp better than "Cadet Bone Spurs"... Without legs.

Bin Laden was a very minor commander (rough equivalent of a brigade commander in typical military hierarchy) during the Russian war in Afghanistan. The US never gave direct support to him. US support went mostly to one real piece of work, Hekmayter. He killed a bunch of rivals who were coming to a 'conference'. He aligned with the Taliban for a short while in the late 90s, until Taliban leaders realized what a piece of shit he was. The Taliban didn't exist until the mid-90s. They came to prominence because the different militas that sort of unified to defeat the Russians turned on each other after the Russians left (very typical of them, look at Afghan history). The surviving mujaheeden formed the 'Northern Alliance' under Ahmad Shad Masood and fought the Taliban for a while. They were almost defeated, and Masood was assasinated by an Al Queda team posing as journalists, who had a large bomb in the camera. The Northern Alliance is who the SF helped out to defeat the Taliban in 01 & 02. I don't see any real difference either. I don't really have an issue with the Russians offering a bounty for US soldiers. They want us out of Afghanistan... And Europe... So they can become the 'big player'. This isn't new. Of course, pretending they are our 'friends' when they do this is pretty outrageous. And for Trump to have known this (or should have known) and ignored it, while praising Putin and trying to get Russian sanctions lifted, trying to get them back into the G7/G8 is... Treasonous. Similarly, for Trump to pull forces out of Germany, pretending it's to 'save money' (It won't) when what it really does is give Putin a big advantage, is pretty much playing into Putin's hands. Kinda funny how much Trump says & does to help Putin. Almost as if the Russians have something on him for leverage.

From yesterday: Yesterday, Trump tweeted “I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters and agitators have been largely stopped….” Today, Trump spent the day at his golf course in Sterling, Virginia.

Did they pretend it wasn't happening? Or did they do the best they could? Cuomo & de Blasio both made mistakes in the beginning. They admitted it and moved forward. Trump has yet to admit a mistake. Ever. Pelosi (in congress) has no authority over the CDC. No 'executive order' powers. Admittedly, she didn't do much, but what could she have done? Tump, OTOH, failed to adequately staff the CDC. He disbanded the "pandemic response team". He muzzled anyone and everyone in the government (not just the CDC), so that good advice was not dispensed. Just "The stock market is doing GREAT!!!, This will all go away!!." And to get back on topic, apparently Trump was given an intelligence summary of this. But he didn't read it. Maybe because he can't be bothered to read important briefing papers. Maybe because Putin told him not to.

True, but don't forget the 'open up' morons. The protests were orchestrated by Trump minons and controllers (MI protests were organized by a group run by DeVos, WI were organized by a group funded by the Kock bros). The Rs in Wisconsin sued to get the shut down order lifted. The 'conservative' court did just that. GA, FL & TX opened up. The Trumpettes refuse to wear masks, saying they are a 'sign of fear' (Like a virus cares if you are scared of it or not). The rest of the world is finding some relief, while the immature, selfish, impatient idiots insist on going back to 'normal' life. So Florida saw another 9k in positive results yesterday (Friday's results released today). That's nearly 50k positive tests in the last 10 days. Just in Florida. We're fucked.

Seriously? You 'haven't been paying attention'? So you don't realize, that with 4% of the world's population, the US has 25% of the deaths. You haven't been paying enough attention to realize that much of the industrialized world has this under control? That New Zealand has eradicated it? The main reason the US is so far behind is simply because Trump didn't do anything substantial for several weeks. He was waiting for it to "go away". He stopped travel from China (and proposed stopping travel from Mexico - remember that argument?) because they have dark skin. He DIDN'T stop travel from Europe, even when it was clear that Italy had a pretty severe problem... Because they were white. He 'fiddled while the corona burned' (and didn't even get that it was an insult). Now we're opened up. And it's spreading. The positive cases found today were almost certainly infected 2 or 3 weeks ago. So, even if we closed everything down again (and the Trumpettes won't let that happen), it will be 2 or 3 weeks of 40k+ new cases... EVERY DAY. Do the math. 17 days of 40k is... SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY THOUSAND NEW CASES. We're fucked. Thanks to Trump.

Actually, it seems to work just fine. Look how many Trump supporters are denying the science. They are far more likely to get sick, some of them are going to die, but they are going for the 'playbook' just the same.

Not exactly. As I noted, McConnell and the other Rs were doing some pretty disgusting crap before Trump came along. The federal judge appointments are a good example. McConnell & the Senate have confirmed more federal judges than any previous senate. McConnell has encouraged judges that are nearing retirement to retire early, so that they can put their toadies in place, young enough to last for a while. What they've done to the partisanship of the federal judiciary is truly frightening and will take a LONG time to get past. The R base has gone so far out in right field (pun intended) that it's as frightening as the judiciary. There have been a couple major candidates who are truly despicable. Deplorable even. Roy Moore in Alabama is an excellent example. How the hell did he win a primary? Steve King in Iowa was a congresscritter. He lost out on the recent primary, but he has held office since 03. How did he not get tossed once his true colors became obvious. I'd love (really, really love) to see the "Lincoln Project" folks take over the R party. Not betting on it, but it would be nice. But the R base would still be a large group of racist, xenophobic, religious nutjobs. I think their candidates will reflect that for a while.

See the bottom quote. I've seen zillions of Go-Pro video. The difference between a 'failure' and someone reaching up and pushing the off button is pretty clear. No argument. We need REAL oversight of the cops. Not just a 'whitewash board', that is far, far, faaaaar too common.

Bingo. It was a bit unnerving to realize how little my life changed during the lockdown. Fair enough. It seemed to read that way. You are (were) a Trump supporter. That group is, by a large majority, the biggest of the "Covid deniers". Somehow, that's not a big surprise. What platform is that? From what I've read, the GOP convention won't have a new platform for Trump to run on. They're going to recycle the one from last time, which is pretty funny. It repeatedly mentions Obama as president. I've voted almost exclusively R my whole life. Unfortunately, the malaise with them isn't just Trump. He's more of a symptom than the actual disease. When McConnell said he would oppose anything Obama brought up, even if it hurt the country, I was deeply disappointed. When he refused to do his Constitutional duty and hold hearings for Garland, I was done. He doesn't care about the law, he doesn't care about the Constitution, he doesn't care about 'right & wrong'. He cares about power. I'm done with the Rs. For good. I don't like the Ds much, although I'll vote for Biden. McCain was pretty much destined to lose in 08. After 8 years of Bush being the puppet for Darth Cheny, the Koch bros & PNAC, there was very little chance of any R winning the White House. Nope. Wearing a mask is an intelligence test. It deterimines if the person understands basic science. It's deeply disappointing, although not terribly surprising, how many are failing this test. Unfortunately, the price for failure will be pretty severe for some.

Because you were throwing around the concept that more testing and higher positive percentages doesn't mean cases are increasing. Or at least that's how it seemed to read. Trump has tried to pretend that if there wasn't any testing, we wouldn't have any cases. Which is a load of shit. I was wondering if you were going down that same road. Glad to see you understand that this is getting very ugly. Fast. Florida reported over 5500 positive results yesterday. 20% of the tests were positive. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-florida-coronavirus-deaths-cases-wednesday-june-24-20200624-oihwuwwjgfdyxiquakd3ag573u-story.html?fbclid=IwAR30QLVF59m_7I8t8QMkuKIzVyMnuHUeWKFZAwIRtTjF5GR2Y3_XXYTsKzA

Well, a good start would be to require bodycams with audio on ALL cops. Make turning it off a firing offense. And one that revokes the qualified immunity (see my next point). Another good start would be to revoke the qualified immunity for any action that goes against department policy or regulation. For example, the cops on the scene at the McDonald shooting in Chicago falsified reports, changed witness statements and destroyed video from a nearby Burger King. Those actions should end up with the officers becoming personally liable. If the cops knew that they could be held personally responsible for what happened if they violate the rules, I would think the rules would be violated less.

Do you think it's not getting worse? Do you think it's not going to get a lot worse? Or do you think it's 'just going to go away'?

Texas had 5489 new positive test results today. Before any Trumpettes jump on the 'it's because they're doing more tests' bandwagon, the positive percentage has jumped from 3% to 9%. That percentage is not related to how many tests are done (it can go a bit lower if a lot of tests are done because more uninfected people will be tested). Hospitalizations are at an all time high too (also unrelated to testing numbers). https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/23/882504575/5-489-new-covid-19-cases-texas-reports-new-all-time-daily-high?

Yes, there are a lot of factors that go into risk. BLM protesters often kept spacing, and wore masks. At least the peaceful ones did. Around here, the 'open up' came when the state Supreme Court tossed out the governor's order, with no waiting period, restricitons, or anything. That night, bars all over the state opened up and were absolutely packed. Since then, cases is younger folks, (20s - 30s) have spiked pretty hard. A couple of counties have seen case numbers double in short timeframes. Lacrosse county (west side of the state) had cases that traced back to several bars. The health dept identified a bunch of them, and advised any patrons of those places who had been there the first weekend of June that they had a possible exposure. Total positives (and percentage of positive test results) have been fairly stable. But they aren't declining. It's going to be a long and ugly summer.

FIFY.

Not exactly. But he forgot to include the start of the 'open up' protests. I would find it a bit hard to believe that those would not produce a spike, when the BLM protests did.

US soldier gives info about unit, location, movements, security and other stuff to a white supremacist outfit in London, who then passed that on to Jihadists. https://www.whas11.com/article/news/crime/louisville-soldier-indicted-in-plot-to-carry-out-deadly-ambush-of-army-unit/417-4b80905f-7e48-4f6f-ac22-7c5c925dd210

Well, they've abandoned temp & symptom checks at the WH. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/22/881605679/white-house-cools-off-on-temperature-screenings

No, that photo is not representative. In most of the other pics I've seen, the upper deck is completely empty. And despite the claims by the Trump camp, there's no indication that counter protesters prevented anyone who wanted to from entering. Please provide some sort of proof of that claim. You know, if Trump claims something, it's most likely that the truth is the exact opposite. Source:https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-06-20/ap-fact-check-in-time-of-trauma-trumps-congratulates-self And, despite the 'ticket trolling' by all the teenagers, K-poppers and Iowa grandmothers, there was plenty of room for people to attend. Anyone who wanted to could have shown up. But they didn't. Fun facts - Groups that had a bigger turnout in at the BOK center in 2019: Sha Na Na The Pips (without Gladys Knight) Loverboy John Tesch The West Virginia touring company of La Traviata

Ummm…. He died in 2017.

The 'funniest' (read: most disgusting) part about that is that most 'ordinary' people are not paying less in taxes. I'm not. I'm actually paying a little bit more overall in Federal taxes. The 'more money in their pockets' is a trick. When the tax cut passed, the Mango Mussolini directed the IRS to reduce the withholding amounts. So each individual paycheck increased a few bucks. But the amount owed at the end of the year didn't change much. So most people saw that 'big fat refund' disappear. I went from a small refund to a small amount owed. It's absolutely amazing how many people are too stupid to see this.

Not exactly true. Given the activities in Iraq & Afghanistan in the past 17 years, I would suspect we have more combat veterans on the street (not just ones who are cops, too) who have actually killed in battle than any time since the mid 70s. Does that mean that those who become cops have killed people and want to do it again? Maybe. I don't know.

You asked if this is a common thing. No. I've never heard of it before. You are concerned that it could cause issues during a jump. I think you are right to be concerned. Have you tried to hold the freefall position on the ground? Get on the floor and put your arms in the position they would be in in the air. Does the loss of sensation appear? I'm only an amateur neurologist, but if I had to guess, I would think you are getting some sort of nerve impingement when your arms are in that position. None of the harness straps should cause that, and if they do, there really isn't any way to make them tight or loose. Maybe an adjustable lift web on a student harness, or an overtightened chest strap, but nothing like the leg straps. I can't see the leg straps causing this, although it's possible. If it was me, I wouldn't jump again until I was checked by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Federal Judge rules that the book can be published: https://www.boston25news.com/entertainment/judge-bolton-can/MB5IVUZ6MPV2JWHRBU345ZOQ4M/ Interesting that the judge rebuked Bolton for taking it: “upon himself to publish his book without securing final approval from national intelligence authorities”. That's funny. The White House had the book for several months. They had plenty of time to review it, but didn't bother. Perhaps Trump was too busy playing golf.