Lord Ratner

I have those already.

I diversify 🤣😂

I don't think that at all. I think you're a very intelligent, self-driven idealist. And I've noticed that there's a huge and growing divide between the professional class and the plebes. The ability to isolate amongst similarly-situated and like minded families, both online and in communities, is abnormally high in the modern era. Look no further than people like yourself who regularly talk about how great everything is in the modern world while completely failing to see a huge part of the country who have lives that are materially worse than their parents' lives were. You might call it Trump country, but based on your commentary you have little experience with the people in that demographic. The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, the only people who are focused on this issue, probably you, but definitely the hyper progressive activists/politicians in the Democratic party, have a twofold problem. - They hate half of the people in the have-not group. The Trumpers, if you will. - Their prescriptions to help the half they like are violative of human nature and are doomed to failure. You can't see past the teams. That's not on you, the political class figured out how to polarize the electorate almost identically to how sports teams polarize their fans. It's generally harmless in football, but politically it's tearing the country apart. The real game isn't democrat vs Republican, it's the new aristocracy vs everyone else. Just look at the percentage of wealth of the 1% and look at how it changed during the pandemic. The least vulnerable people increased their share of the pie by a huge amount, and they did it with monetary and political trick-fuckery. No, the problem at hand is the continued erosion of faith, shared equally by Democrats and Republicans, in the institutions and elections of our country. In 2016 most Democrats thought the election was rigged. Same for Republicans in 2020. Some boxes of secrets in Trump's basement or emails in Hillary's bathroom are irrelevant. The differing treatment of these offenses by the law enforcement institutions is everything. That is what you fail to grasp.

I don't think I could ask for a better proxy for the generalized problem with liberal/democratic thinking. For that I am grateful. In fact, they are inherently good. But they are also very susceptible to the corrupting influence of power, which our political class have retained in greater quantities since the founding. It has wildly distorted the system as it was designed, wherein the founders recognized this corrupting power and used elections and checks and balances to fight it. But obviously they weren't able to foresee the technological and demographic changes that have made politics a much different beast 200 years later. This is not borne out in the polling data. In fact, Americans on both sides are increasingly likely to believe the people who disagree with their politics are in fact bad people. https://www.npr.org/2022/08/13/1117232857/americans-have-increasingly-negative-views-of-those-in-the-other-political-party https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/10/10/partisan-antipathy-more-intense-more-personal/ And now we are back to the generalized failings of liberal thinking. You believe you are qualified to determine what bad reasoning or logical fallacies are. That you would not afford the same freedom to the proletariat, who you are completely out of touch with. And of course, I'm not making the argument that their decision making will result in better outcomes than yours. In fact, I would bet on you if we could create an isolated system. But we can't, and what we know for sure is that while bad decision making will result in bad outcomes when compared to good decision making, taking away that decision making authority will result in far more catastrophic outcomes. That, at its core, is the foundational error in progressive thought. Individual entities working in massive systems without centralized control always outperform hierarchical control structures. We see this both in the success of individualist-based governments versus socialist governments, and free market economies versus communist economies. We also see this in all manner of policy issues, the greatest of which may be abortion, but gun control, transgender children and their medical care, the gay wedding cake debacle, and the Democratic push to regulate what news stories are suitable for public consumption. Everything the liberals have done to advance these issues in their favor have exploded spectacularly in their face. That is not because of skilled Republican political maneuvering, it's because when you piss on the leg of human nature, human nature turns around and punches you right in the face.

Is the hill "troll shit?" https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3616579-zuckerberg-tells-rogan-that-facebook-suppressed-hunter-biden-laptop-story-after-fbi-warning-defends-agency-as-legitimate-institution/amp/

If you are not tried in court, and there is no statute of limitations, a crime does not expire. You go back as far as the law allows and the crime occurred. If the statute of limitations has passed, public humiliation will suffice. You've obviously never been charged with a crime. I have, and believe me, "the law applied and the investigation thorough" is getting put through the ringer. Full stop. Doesn't matter how innocent you are. I'd like to see most of the assholes in Washington locked up, and I don't care what team they're on. But if it's not going to be fair, it would be better if we went back to the old days of ignoring *all* political corruption on both sides. At least then the voters feel like they are getting fucked equally. Whataboutism isn't a political trick, it's human (animal) nature. As with most liberal failings, ignore human nature at your peril.

Anyone buying gold online? What sites do you use? I suspect all the big names are kosher, but I'd rather have a recommendation all the same. I think the collapse of fiat currency is somewhere in the low single digits probability-wise, so I need to add something a bit "catastrophe proof" to my holdings. Thanks

Obese. A 76 year old obese man.

Shack! I actually don't care if they pay off the loans, *IF* they stop guaranteeing the loans and perpetuating this race to the top in tuition costs. Make the banks take the risk of they want to bet on 17 year olds pursuing English degrees.

As I've said before, that's my dream threesome

I would be surprised if the housing bubble results in the ousting of the CCP, but it is a very different story for Xi. In fact, the party will probably specifically secure their position by using him as a scapegoat. It wasn't CCP, it was all Xi. That's short term, let's say the next 10 years. However, more broadly, no matter what they do to resolve their position in the "everything bubble," their demographics going forward or devastating. Not only do they have a tremendous imbalance between upcoming retirees and the younger generation, but the one child policy also put a huge gender imbalance into the system. Young people can be poached from other countries, though you then have to deal with the problem of integration, but asymmetrically importing women? Not sure how well that's going to work.

This is a great comparison. No. But you can bet your ass if the IG is going to kick in the door of a MAJCOM CC, he isn't doing so without first checking in with the CSAF. And you're delusional if you think otherwise, but I'm beginning to think you just might be. You are the king of misrepresentation. You don't think maybe there might be a conflict of interest in your scenario? Or are you implying that telling Biden about the Trump raid might tip off Trump during his weekly gossip session with Joe? Ridiculous. You are fabricating examples using completely ridiculous comparisons. These are not some routine procedures that don't require the king to sign off, this was raiding an ex-president and likely current candidate for the presidency. If you don't think that needs top of the chain sign off, it becomes hard to believe you were ever in the same military I was in. In fact, your comparison just keeps falling apart, since any major military operation gets sign off from the top. For example, bin laden and Soleimani. Or should Obama and Trump have maintained plausible deniability in those operations? The president is in charge of more than just the military. He can, as many before him have. He will pay at the polls. But the alternative to presidential nepotism is far worse. Besides, from the event you described is likely the legislature that takes over investigative responsibilities, as I suspect they will if Republicans take the house in November. Again, unlike the fantasy world you describe, this is not hypothetical fear mongering. The FBI was literally an unaccountable organization run by a power mad lunatic who used his position of power to extort and likely frame people who he disagreed with. Unelected officials should never have real power. When they do, our system does not operate as intended. This is why the supreme Court does not have the power to make laws, only judge them. And they can't even judge a law without someone else bringing it to them. These are pretty basic concepts and foundational to our government. It is surprising to see you struggle with them so much.

Supposed to where? Is it in the federalist papers? Are any of the founders known to have elucidated such a barrier? Is there a law that has been passed declaring such. Or is this just your opinion? Law enforcement falls under the executive branch, which has only one elected official. Two of you count the VP, but no one does. It is specifically the president's job to oversee these bureaucracies. What you are advocating for is an uncontrolled regulatory state, which is sorta what we have right now and it sucks. For the people, by the people. If the president isn't directly engaged in the management of the FBI and all of it's functions, then we the people have no recourse to change the FBI when it, let's say hypothetically, launches an investigation knowingly based off opposition campaign research, eventually lying to the FISA court in order to obtain warrants to surveil Americans who are participants in the nation's most important political process. Your perspective on this particular issue is perfectly demonstrative of the failing of liberal thought. The system should work this way. Best practices. I don't want. It shouldn't be. Ideals. An idealist would create an independent FBI and think that it will act in accordance with everybody's fair-minded values, even though there is no agreement on what is fair-minded. Conversely, our entire system was designed explicitly acknowledging that idealist independent systems will always devolve to tyranny, and instead used checks and balances amongst the competing branches of government in order to rein in the inevitable corruption and political posturing that would follow. An independent FBI is precisely what Americans should fear, and the history of the organization is so laughably demonstrative of this that I'm surprised you, usually historically aware, would think otherwise.

Not really. The difference between Trump and everyone else (R and D) is that he wanted his minions to publicly declare fealty to him. One of his many character flaws. If you think there has been independence between the president and his cabinet, I have a bridge to sell you in Manhattan.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128392138 I think it's great that so many liberal-minded people are suddenly engaged in national level politics and paying attention, but that doesn't mean everything that happened before you were paying attention is ancient history.

Where is that written, exactly? The constitution? Who does the justice department fall under? Is it like the Federal Reserve? There's nothing normal about raiding an ex-president's home, who very well may be a president-elect again. If you're right and these idiots thought such a decision should be made "independently," we're in bigger trouble than I fear. You can't possibly be this obtuse.

I think you'd have to be high to think the FBI would raid a former president's house without the approval of the current president. If true, Biden should shit-can the entire chain of command. He's supposed to be their boss, when he isn't mumbling into his oatmeal, and this would be a phenomenal decision to make without him.

It would be a shit show, but the real entertainment would be watching his attorneys for the 11 hours. They'd be sweatier than the characters in top gun.

No you walnut. Mistakes and fuck ups happen. That's inherent in the system. These weren't fuck ups. These were intentional applications and misapplications of law based on the political party of the subjects. You think lying to the FISA court was a fuck up? Knowingly using campaign oppo research as evidence? Leaking investigation details to the press? Going on TV daily to lie about the details of the investigation? How about the tax returns that somehow made it to the press, was that a mistaken email from the IRS? Where was the Hillary raid? These cases are so similar it's hilarious, except in her case, the head of the FBI claimed that it was likely her bathroom server of classified emails was compromised by foreign actors. But no no, no need to kick in the door for that. You think these differences are just oopsies? Then you're a fool. The anti-Trump movement has been willing to do and be everything they accuse Trump of being in their crusade to save "us" from him.

How do people not understand that this is everything? Successful societies are not built on right vs wrong. They are built on a sense of fairness. Violate that and you lose it all. If you don't think that it matters that the FBI gave Hillary a pass and is now turning the screws on Trump, you're going to be really shocked when he's reelected president after being indicted, and possibly convicted. Donald Trump is the embodiment of the Republican backlash against what they see as unfair treatment. The solution to that is not more double standards because at least we're doing the right thing now. When the only time you do the right thing is when it's your political opponents, you are not, in fact, doing the right thing.

Did I say that? If you can't take his cock out of your mouth long enough to read what I actually wrote and not whatever you think Liz Cheney would say if you had the chance to yell at her, then there's no point in responding to you. You asked a question, I answered. If you can't handle admitting someone you support is a shitty person, then don't support them, especially publicly. I have no such compunctions.

Because he lies regularly and compulsively. Because he has cheated on every marriage he's been in. Because he dodged military service with "bone spurs." Because he is completely opaque about his income and tax situation, despite claiming for years he has released the information. I don't know many people who would be happy to find out Donald Trump was dating their daughter. Doesn't mean his policies were bad. They were great. And it doesn't make him worse than the other politicians. Wow the opposite. Donald Trump externally looks the way the rest of the political class acts behind closed doors. That's why they hated him so much. He is them, without the decency to hide their ugliness from the public eye.

Honestly? As long as we're content to spend $850k per unit on "homeless shelters," increase SS for a generation that put much less in than they need, and knew it, spend unlimited money on endless medicalization of obese senior citizens trying to live forever, print a few trillion dollars to prop up the financial system's raping of the American savers and retail investors, and all the other ludicrous things we take on insurmountable government debt to fund, I'm quite happy to spend some magical-fed-bucks on arming a peaceful country that was invaded by one of the three biggest geopolitical threats the free world faces (China, Russia, Iran), while the rest of the neutered world stands by like Neville Chamberlain as the great democratization-of-totalitarian-regimes-through-McDonald's-and-Netflix theory crumbles to dust.

Let's not forget the context. Comey had rushed to close the investigation out with no charges against Hillary before yet more evidence of wrongdoing was discovered. So he had to reopen the investigation to save face. This didn't start with Trump. Lois Lerner was the canary in the coal mine. Trump just triggered the rest of them to mount their resistance. And yes, of course Trump is a piece of shit. There may be a few people here who disagree, but overwhelmingly the Republicans I know will all concede that point. However, as we have learned painfully over the past one or two decades, it is not a good-faith conversation, and in an unfair conversation, the targeted side will become reluctant to concede anything at all, knowing it will be used merely as a pretext to ignore whatever legitimate points follow in the conversation.

You generally don't make it very far in conversations where you've already decided someone else's motives, but this is an easy one. Because the people claiming climate change is a threat to humanity aren't acting like climate change is a threat to humanity. Watch what they do, not what they say.