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Smokin

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Everything posted by Smokin

  1. The defense of America is clearly provided for in the enumerated clauses so the Air Force is obviously well within the Federal powers. And, yes, I'm fully thinking of the broader implications. Just to toss out a number, I consider well over half of the Federal government and the things it does to be unconstitutional. Unfortunately, Americans have come to expect an absurdly huge Federal government and the handouts that come with it. Which is also why we are over a year of GDP in debt and some people can't build a house on their own land because someone once saw an endangered salamander there 30 years ago.
  2. Because it is unconstitutional. The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Education is never addressed in the Constitution, thus it is reserved to the states or to the people. Either one of those, but not to the Federal government.
  3. As I understand it, the threshold for libel is way higher when speaking about a public figure. However, if someone really said that they were a Russian agent, I think that would still meet that threshold.
  4. Someone accused him, therefore he is unfit. Sounds about right. Oh, also he's an insider threat security risk because he's a Christian as classified by a security manager that admits to watching MSNBC while driving to work. As if watching MSNBC wasn't bad enough, he said he was watching it while driving to work. Yeah, I trust that dude's judgement. It would be refreshing to hear someone make an argument for or against based on his merits.
  5. I'm wondering if Gaetz's nomination is intentional distraction. I think that could easily be something in Trump's playbook. 'Hey, everyone look at this bat-shit crazy nomination/draft executive order/mean-tweet over here while I quietly prep to cut the entire Department of Education'.
  6. I dislike the loyalty hiring criteria, but it is understandable given the number of people from his first admin that have written books for personal profit claiming he said some pretty terrible things. I've said some bad things among friends when I was angry that would look really bad in a headline (if I were someone that anyone cared to read about), but my friends were "loyal" and haven't held unreasonable things I said against me when they knew I didn't really mean it. Given how many people have stabbed him in the back, by either repeating things they probably shouldn't have or straight up making it up, it is a little tougher to blame him for wanting loyalty this time around.
  7. Some may be mail in ballots that had questionable signatures and needed to be verified, ballots that the machine rejected and have to be counted by hand, things like that. But in general, I agree. I voted in person this year for the first time in 20 years and the machine took my ballot as fast as copier and a little green light came on indicating that everything was good and it was counted. My vote was registered into the state count within seconds.
  8. Legacy carriers drew down or entirely cancelled flying into Israel despite people paying >$10K/seat for first class because of potential for violence. Spirit sees the opportunity to sell seats for Haiti at $69? Lets go!
  9. People don't have to like Trump to have picked him over Harris. I don't like him at all and think he's generally a bad person. But I prefer his views on government over those of Harris (who is also a bad person in my opinion). I know there are some die hard supporters that ignore/justify everything bad he has done (and he's done plenty of bad things), but I would bet the majority of people that voted for him are not in that category. He's personally done plenty of bad things and I disagree with many of his policies, but as often happens in these arguments, people can point out just as many bad things the other side does. So, it all comes down to which policies do you support, and which bad things they do are reasonable to overlook. He's a narcissist and I think the majority of what he does/says is to seek approval rather than following his beliefs. But, the left has engaged in absurd levels of law-fare, demonized half the country, overtly supported castrating kids and taking those kids away from parents that don't support the government castrating their kids. I'll take the narcissist over someone that wants to give my kids castration drugs without my approval.
  10. I agree and some credit is to be given. However, that credit is somewhat decreased by two factors: 1 - It wasn't close. He got 42 more electoral votes than necessary and won every single swing state. A Republican President hasn't gotten that many electoral votes since Bush/Dukakis. Had it been close and taken 3-4 days to count the rest of the votes (still counting AZ? WTF?), they might be singing a different tune. 2 - After all the criticism of Trump not accepting 2020, even the mainstream media would point out the utter hypocrisy.
  11. That would rock DC to the foundations (or muck where foundations should be). That would be amazing and so beneficial to our country if people actually SERVED for two terms rather than making a career and enormous personal wealth out of being an elected official. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think it'll ever happen.
  12. This is contrary to much of the 'get out the vote' movements, but I personally think a low voter turnout is not inherently a bad thing. The level of ignorance of many voters is absolutely shocking. If you don't take the time to become informed enough to make a reasonable decision, then you shouldn't vote. I also agree that many voters were likely completely uninspired by either option and simply decided it wasn't worth their time if a ballot didn't magically show up in their mailbox unrequested.
  13. They were intended to be put on a cargo plane, meaning likely 3-4 potential casualties. My hypothetical was the cargo being loaded on a passenger plane (which does happen). If the cargo plane was airborne and the fire spread and crashed into the Atlantic, I'd imagine it would be very difficult to reliably point to any single package on the plane that caused it. A false flag operation is possible, but potentially killing US citizens in a false flag operation is risky to the extreme. If the US suspected the truth, it would backfire spectacularly. Destroying an underwater gas line and raising gas prices is a totally different level than potentially killing people.
  14. But you know what is an act of war? Bombing NATO countries: https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-plot-us-planes-incendiary-devices-de3b8c0a?mod=hp_lead_pos1 Basically, Russia put two bombs in cargo shipments headed to the US. Luckily they went off while in storage in Germany. Imagine if those shipments got contracted out and put on US passenger planes. Potential to kill hundreds of American civilians and the US government would have no choice but to take some pretty significant actions. Could have easily started WWIII.
  15. Was just going off of real clear politics website, maybe my math was off. You are correct that it is the new House, however you missed the part about each state gets a single vote. "But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote;" (12th Amendment). I don't care how close the House is, when California (normally 54 electoral votes) gets entirely canceled out by Wyoming (normally 3 electoral votes), zero chance the Dems win. Edit to add: They can't delay past March or the VP becomes the President and clearly the Republicans wouldn't delay to effectively choose her.
  16. Problem is that the social media algorithms are programed for engagement. If you routinely look at or engage with X then you're going to see way more of X and very little Y. Over half my youtube feed (the only social type media I have an account on) is hunting videos because that's what I click on. Current polls are interesting. RCP has Trump winning 287 to 251. That's assuming he wins 4/7 battleground states with winning AZ, NV, GA, and NC. If the rest of the map holds, he doesn't even have to win GA. Or if he wins GA and NC then he can win without AZ and NV. If that happens and Nebraska's Omaha district goes Harris (very possible, then we end up 269-269. Then the House votes by state (not reps), so Trump wins by a landslide. If that happens, we'll be subjected to 4 years of the left whining about how unfair that process is and how Trump would somehow not be a legit President while they completely ignore the irony of saying that. He underpolled in 2016 but was more accurate in 2020. Apparently early voting has blown away previous records and for some reason early voters lean Democrat, although there are some polls showing that the early votes are more evenly split this year.
  17. Russia has lost twice as many casualties as the US did in WWI. It looks like Ukraine has casualty rates at about 60% of Russia's if US estimates are accurate. If Russia keeps at it, a year from now they will have more losses than the US did during WWII. There are some interesting parallels to WWI: -Initial estimates were a war that would last weeks, not years -Russia (and everyone else) overestimated Russia's offensive power -Everyone else underestimated Ukraine's defense -Battlefield has become relatively stable without considerable advances by either side and thousands are dying for yards of ground
  18. arg, I'm disappointed in your lack of judgement. It was inconsiderate of you not to precede your post with a trigger warning.
  19. I don't think I've heard anyone on here, or anywhere else for that matter, saying that Trump is a 'good person'. I would never invite him into my home, but that's true of almost all politicians. He's had multiple wives and apparently cheated on all of them. He's clearly an egomaniac. But an idiot? I realize he inherited a bunch of money, but you still don't get to where he is by being an idiot. Any claim that he's an idiot is not grounded in reality. I can't think of a President in US history that is/was an idiot. Harris on the other hand is clearly a 'shitty person' AND an idiot. Any time she's asked a tough question she does that stupid hackle and then proceeds to string together a sentence that is less coherent than the crackhead on the corner in LA. If you think she got to where she is today by any qualities than her genitalia and melanin, I'd like to try whatever you're smoking. She was offered a job with the DA before she passed the bar, which is absurdly unusual and clearly was paved by a patron, which has continued throughout her life. After she failed the bar, the job offer was not pulled. The majority of lawyers (including every single of dozens of lawyers I know) pass the bar on the first try, which means she dumber than the average lawyer. Average is shockingly dumb, so since she is below average than it is reasonable to think that she is in fact an idiot. The problem is we have very limited choices. 99% of politicians give the other 1% a bad name. We are stuck with voting for the person that advocates the polices that are closest to what we want. Trump's policies are not what I would like to see, but they are better than Harris'.
  20. A named source that is making a personal financial profit from making claims like this. A guy that served on Trump's staff but didn't resign in protest despite apparently thinking that Trump is a fascist. Real trustworthy source. I'd trust something that guy says slightly less than a rumor my first grader brings home from the playground.
  21. Didn't Israel say they wouldn't hit Iranian oil? My bet is they hit something in the logistics train that decreases their ability to sell oil, but not hit refineries and such themselves. Maybe shipyards, docks, etc.
  22. Smokin

    Gun Talk

    Ruger American is a great rifle series. I own a few of them. Recently dropped the trigger pull on my primary hunting rifle to around 3 lbs and it was a 5 minute process (including spending a couple minutes finding the proper allen wrench). That rifle is plenty accurate for anything other than crazy long range hunting (600+ yards). The other great thing about them is since they are so similar across various calibers, I don't think you have to constantly practice with your hunting rifle shooting $3/round ammo. My .223 and even .17HMR Ruger American are so similar that I do all my off season practice shooting cheap rounds and feel right at home picking up my hunting rifle and hitting the woods.
  23. Totally agree that you need to tell them to take their offer and shove it. They will almost always throw out a low ball offer and tell you it's the final offer and take it or leave it. It's just their way of buying you off for pennies on the dollar. Legal will get you way more and there's a chance the dirtbag company gets banned, especially if you have some pictures and can prove they lied. Obviously a bit late for you now, but some advice for others: Take pictures and/or videos of everything even remotely valuable in the couple days before the movers show up. Also, go through their pick-up inventory with a fine tooth comb before you sign. They're going to try to rush you as they want to leave and you're going to be ready for them to leave as well, but it's your stuff that they probably are going to break. Before a move overseas, we bought some new furniture a week before the move. The movers marked up the brand new furniture on the inventory to make it look like we had picked it up off the curb. I told the movers they could open up the crate, unload it, and show me the damage (it was one of the first things they loaded) or I wouldn't sign it. Obviously they refused to do that, so I crossed out almost all of their condition annotations and wrote "brand new". We got everything we claimed on that move. Finally, I know not everyone is inclined to do a DITY, but I had such bad experiences on my last two TMO moves that I didn't even consider using them again. In 5 full DITYs, I've broken less things total than TMO movers broke in a single move. The rules also recently changed so you get more money. I made over two months pay on my final DITY. It was some serious work and some stress, but everything that I care about arrived in the same condition as we left.
  24. With both JHMCS and 9X, I'd imagine they do. As a bonus, the pilots that survive the war will have life-long neck pain to look forward to...
  25. The inflight align is capable getting you back to about the same accuracy as a ground start. I've seen it back inside low double digit feet accuracy within minutes. Overfly fix would not be practical for an airliner. Passengers would get upset at dipping a wing to see straight down.
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