nsplayr

Fake it till you make it right? Great thread BTW.

Reagan campaigned on hope and "morning in America" and Carter was linked to an "economic malaise." You can espouse conservative principles and still be hopeful. The sky is falling politics will never win, therefore depriving those who talk that way from the chance at actually governing and trying to put their ideas into practice. America has some structural problems that need to be addressed, however it also has many, many structural strengths that should not be overlooked. Either way, like I said, it matters what you say and if someone wants to be a national leader or a national party in power, they need to put forward a hopeful message if they want to be given the chance to actually lead.

That's funny...the left wing is running the Democratic party now? News to me. Almost all liberals are Democrats, but that by no means that all Democrats are liberals, nor are many of the Democratic leaders very liberal. Couple questions about your theory of birthrates and out of wedlock birth rates: Are higher birth rates good or bad? 19 of the 25 states with a higher than U.S. average birthrates are red states. Obviously scale isn't the same in every state but the actual rankings were different than I imagined before looking. Are our of wedlock births really that bad? I tend to agree just on gut feeling that they are bad too, but I think it's maybe a symptom rather than a cause. I know comparing the U.S. to other countries is heresy but I found this interesting: Out of wedlock birthrates are up all over the world, but the U.S. is pretty much dead in the middle of this group of14 advanced nations. Japan is super-low, Iceland is super-high. I think a lot of that difference is societal and can be linked to the acceptance of out of wedlock births in general, but I'm not sure it's such a terrible malady when 2 of the countries with the consistently highest quality of life ratings are over 50%; doesn't seem to be negatively affecting their society in measurable ways, at least not yet. Just some observations, trying to understand your idea here. Check out the book Our Patchwork Nation. Kinda dispels the red state/blue state myth and looks at counties which provides a lot more detail. There are big differences between different places, but it's not so neat and clean as a bipolar choice. Their website is pretty cool too. Edit to add: massive derail from guns...sorry for playing along.

This is the other reason political views like this will never be winners...a persistent belief that the country will fail or is about to fail and that we should all be fearful for our inevitable downfall. Not a great message to sell to an American people who want...you guessed it...hope. The Right used to be able to provide that hope, haven't seen it lately. Rubio was going for a hopeful message in his SOTU response, not one like what you're saying above, I actually applaud that.

Some entire airframes have civilian MX...not sure how we would fly in the short-term if our MX got furloughed or the contract was terminated.

Enjoy! I'm definitely fairly read-in on survivalist stuff believe it or not. Born there, lots of family still there, love to ski, makes for a winning combination. Mormons are generally very nice even if their religion isn't for me.

Read this before? +1 to Utah, great place for the most part.

Duffle Blog is on this development already.

Joint spouse assignment?

Might be worth asking them to recoup those fees. Here's (in part) what they told me: I had already been charged my first $75 and just recently got it refunded...it's possible they would refund 3 years of fees in the same way. Dibs on a beer if this saves you $225! It did take about 2 months and 2 follow-up emails through the secure message center but well worth $75 per year for the rest of my career.

I just sent an email via their secure contact once you log in to your account. Took like 6 weeks to get it "approved" but supposedly it's always approved for active mil. Some buddies have the cards that carry a $400 yearly fee and it gets waived just the same. They claim it's under the SCRA; I'm not sure how or why that applies but I'll take it.

+1...got this card about 4 months ago and it's been great so far. It's annoying that the cash back isn't just automatically applied to my statement and it takes over a month to get your money from the previous month but whatever...quibbling when I'm getting 6% on groceries. $300 in the bank per year on groceries alone (5% more than I was getting on my last card), plus the annual fees on all AMEX cards are waived for active duty mil. Also love my target redcard...to me it's really the best deal because you get 5% off directly at the register when you swipe. No ifs, ands, buts, or waiting, just 5% off, I go online and click "pay balance" from my checking account. Honestly could not be easier. Like you said, if you're disciplined there is absolutely no reason not to use the various kinds of credit wisely.

Well since there's not a lot of money involved (i.e. you still don't get dependent BAH), I don't see it happening. If DOMA got repealed and you could get dependent BAH perhaps you'd be right. Guess we'll see on both countes...like I said, if you wanna lie to your employer and claim you're gay to get your BFF non-mil roommate an ID (or dependent BAH at some hypothetical point in the future), go for it dude, this policy seems to allow for that just like you can paper marry some rando chick and profit. Like I said, I frankly don't care and if people want to exploit loopholes and sign papers without integrity, that's on them. If it involves lying to pretend you're gay that just adds a little LOL factor to it for me at least. DOD should not give benefits to people who don't warrant them (i.e. "dependents" who are on paper but in reality not), that's efficient governance, but I could not care less what the gender of a person's legitimate, designated dependent or beneficiary is and I don't see why anyone else should care either.

Yea, good points and agreed that it's unlikely due to the entangled legal web constructed around marriage. I'm not really sold one way or the other that the government should or should not promote marriage although I lean toward that it should. Really though you could keep the same system now, just replace in all instances the word "marriage" with "partnership" and keep the same benefits and incentives. Allow any two consenting adults to enter into a partnership, make dissolving them the same as getting legally divorced, and call it a day. Churches can then choose to do marriage however they see fit WRT who they want to allow to marry. I'm sure it's a gross oversimplification but that doesn't mean I don't with it could be made to happen. Seems like nothing other than integrity. If you really want to lie to your employeer by pretending to be in a homosexual relationship with a non-military male friend and roommate in order to get him a mil ID and commissary privileges, be my guest.

People aren't asking to be full-up cops, just concealed-carry firearms. Is there "a lot more" to national CCW than shooting and proper safety?

Re-read attachment 3. Seems like the new benefits apply to declared domestic partners, which it defines as, "...a person in a domestic partnership with a service member of the same sex." I'm fine with doing the same for heterosexual couples who are in a "domestic partnership" but not married but that doesn't appear to be Dod's position here. I guess the fact of the matter is that if you want those benefits you can easily get courthouse married in any state you choose, so if you don't you are choosing to restrict yourself out if free will. Homosexuals are not afforded that opportunity so until that's the case I guess this allows them to affirmatively choose access to those benefits in a similar way. Hell, I think the government shouldn't be in the marriage business in the first place, that would make all this way easier. Set one standard the government recognizes, fill out a form, and two people can be legally bound in a partnership. If you want to get married, which to me should be a religious practice, go to a church. Churches can then set whatever standards they want to be married by their adherents. I agree.

Google the Respect for Marriage Act, it's been introduced in both the 111th and 112th Congresses. Not sure if the sponsors have brought it up again this term. There were 3 House GOP co-sponsors at the very end of the 112th, although at least one gave his support only as a lame duck after being defeated and is now gone.

Full text of the memo that lays out specifically what's covered.

Yea...real quiet considering I haven't heard of it either. Unless we're talking more than 5 years ago...

Let me google that for you... Then click here.

Humm...interesting. More efficient hopefully? One can only hope. Thanks for the info, haven't seen this in practice yet but perhaps soon.

My wife LOL'd at the hurricane one...we just did that one last fall!

Any back story to this?

Brand new home in Navarre can be had for less than that for sure. With the market picking up there is finally new construction again. I live right by Navarre High School, good school district, sidewalks in my neighborhood (try finding that in Holley by the Sea), walking distance to a park, sports fields, and the YMCA. Great for wife and kids. And seriously...if you've ever spend any time living in a real city you will laugh when people complain about traffic on 98. I can count on one hand the number of times it's been horrible in 4+ years but my baseline is DC so take it FWIW. I find the aircrew schedule (i.e. not 0900-1730) is very conducive to missing the worst of the traffic. P.S. - If you're looking to move-in sometime in July-August and want to rent vs. buy I've got a great place in mind you should check out!

Thanks to anyone from here who supported us. Big shout out to all of our supporters and partners along the route too! Great success, raised close to $30K including off-line donations for the Special Ops Warrior Foundation. This is why we did it...never forget