nsplayr

Ya know the Dem President’s son was just charged and plead guilty to crimes. I, a Dem, am fairly happy about that because he pretty clearly did some crimes and no one should be above the law. Meanwhile all the Law & Order right wingers who hate Biden and longed for this even though they said very authoritatively that it could never happen are all pissed off and grouchy, as usual.

If you think he should have been given harsher charges or not given a plea deal, please take that up with the Trump-appointed US Attorney who brought the case. For all his talk, Trump sure did a completely shit job of appointing people that share his corrupt “values” like viciously attacking Dems using the levers of government lol. Wray, Weiss, Judge Cannon, etc. When you pick the refs and still lose it really says something about your case. I am in favor of prosecuting all criminals and holding them accountable. If you want to do that more widely and seriously for political and business elites, I say it again, your terms are acceptable. I have some ideas of where we can start!

This is a man who believes wifi radiation causes cancer, that Prozac causes mass shootings, that W stole the 2004 election because of voter fraud in Ohio, and that vaccines cause autism. If that’s you’re kind of “Democrat” it’s no wonder you’re a Republican! If this were the Dem party I would be a Republican too. Luckily that’s not the case. RFKJ is a piece of crap conspiracy peddler. He’s Marianne Williamson with a dick and a better last name. Never will be President, never should be taken seriously, a disgrace to his name and I’d bet his father has been rolling in his grave for years listening to the volume and variety of BS coming out of his son’s mouth in public.

🤷‍♂️ I was told on good authority by Baseops, Esq. that he would not be charged and couldn’t be charged because he was being protected by The Big Guy. I guess next time I’ll pay for my legal advice instead of relying on the Shitposter School of Law graduates we all are around here. 😅 Why is there no investigation?! (There was one since 2018) Why are there no charges?! (Here they are) But he’s guilty!! (He pled guilty to some of the charges and took a deal on others, which is common) Rabble rabble rabble…nevertheless.

It’s this 100%. The AF gets top talent across AFSCs when compared to the other services or especially the general population, but the system most non-rated folks are operating in beats any innovation, mission-focus, or adaptability out of the vast majority of folks. I know several highly competent lawyers, engineers, loggies, etc. who have succeeded & thrived in dynamic jobs in the civilian world after leaving the Air Force because they could not stand the BS their career fields shoehorned them into for 4-7 years.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hunter-biden-charges/?id=98765518 Health & wellness check on everyone saying, “Oh you could never charge the President’s son!” Well he was charged, pled guilty, and reached a deal with the (Trump-appointed) US Attorney from Delaware David Weiss.

Yup, I’ll optimistic about US soccer’s future, both this talented USMNT and with Messi coming to Miami, general interest increasing for MLS. Not that I ever really played much soccer or care too much about the sport honestly, I mostly just want the US to dominate the world as part of a global manifest destiny thing and we’ve yet to do it in men’s soccer. It’s high time that we get to it! Back-to-back World War champs yet no men’s World Cups, gotta remedy that soon.

🤷‍♂️ USMNT qualified for the World Cup every cycle 1990 through 2014, until they missed it during Trump’s term. They made it once again in 2022 under Dark Brandon’s sage leadership. #IBlameTrump /sarcasm if y’all can’t tell

Agreed! Not my meme but it’s apt 😁 I believe that we will win!

Not entirely gone 👑

I too can write a caricature about the right and what "they support" and then propose it to folks online asking, "HoW cAn YoU sUpPoRt ThIs???!" My man, I/we disagree with the premise of the things you wrote there. Pride month allows LGBTQ folks to celebrate their struggle for equal rights and the progress that's been made there, no different than other "XX history" months. I'm neither radically in favor of over-the-top celebrating differences but I'm not against people doing that either. Some redistribution of wealth via taxes is a hallmark of an advanced economy & society, we can quibble about how much but I support free & fair market capitalism backed by a robust welfare state to help catch people when they fall. A floor, not a ceiling. I'm not sure what vague "ideologies that will eviscerate the family unit" you mean so you'll have to be more specific. I have a very traditional, conservative-friendly family unit and we're doing just great! Other families I know that are quite different than my own are doing great as well. Some people struggle, as always. I hope the same can be said for you and yours. This I actually agree with, as do some of my gay friends, although not all. Younger people tend to see it all as the same struggle, but LGBTQ people closer to my age or older I know say that the wild explosions of different identities, flags, tiny shredouts of identities is counterproductive and that radical trans activists need to follow the model more or less of plain-ole-gay rights and not try to move so rapidly as to diminish support from a general populace of straight people who don't live and breathe this stuff and just want to go on with their lives. I am straight, so I don't wanna speak for others, but I tend to agree. It's mostly from the right in terms of statistically significant losses of support, but it is concerning either way if you are a fan of gay people having the same human and civil rights as straight people. I'm gonna say this up front and it applies to everything below, you need to update your data / assumptions. Income inequality specifically has declined for the first time in decades in the COVID recovery where there is very robust wage growth specifically among the lower-paid 50% of workers. Depicted below is this metric during the Biden Admin, Jan 2021 to EOY 2022. I would argue that both the broad, world-wide post-COVID economic conditions + the Biden admin's actions + Fed/ECB actions have led to our current tight labor market where workers have more leverage than at anytime during my lifetime to negotiate higher wages, switch jobs, or generally leave shitty, low-paid work for greener pastures. Having a hard time hiring servers at a greasy spoon diner that pays tipped minimum wage isn't a sign of a recession, it's a sign of a strong/tight labor market because those waitresses are working at the other businesses down the road paying $15+ an hour. TBH if you want plentiful low-wage workers, you need to encourage more immigration, as immigrants are often more willing to take low-paid jobs than native-born citizens. This used to be true, if you only counted Jan 2017 through March 2020 Trump admin. If you take the whole time Trump was President, it was never true due to the huge losses during COVID. Understandably there are some asterisks there, and rightfully so. Trump did not cause COVID and the whole world took a beating. BUT, it's no longer true. The Biden admin has set new records for declines in income inequality, low unemployments rates, "black unemployment" as Trump so frequently touts, etc. Trump often says on the stump he had the lowest black unemployment rate ever...which is a good thing and was true! But it's not true anymore. Lowest under Trump was 5.3% in August of 2019, current under Biden is 4.7% in April 2023 and continuing to drop. I support a low unemployment rate for all Americans, and the Biden admin is leading the way on employment. Bottom line: if you wanna debate current events, you have to stay current.

This is a common misconception and is not true. Biological sex for humans 99.9% is one of two options, male or female, that is a fact. You can technically be intesex, but I digress. Some animals also have other options but we're talking humans. Gender on the other hand is, "...a social construct and generally based on the norms, behaviors, and societal roles expected of individuals based primarily on their sex." Ask any psychologist or mental healthcare provider and they can explain this to you if you don't have experience in dealing with this concept. So yea, people can decide, "Ya know what, I don't feel fully male or female or feel like some combination of the two, and I don't accept the norms, behaviors and societal roles & expectations that come along with my biological sex." A lot of change in society's norms/expectations/etc. over time has taken place by people doing just that! What jobs men and women can and should have, can women vote, etc., were all questions that arose not just out of the ether, but by people being like, "Wait a minute, f that, I wanna do X and why not??" Today men can be nurses, women can be senators, I can wear a skirt if I want and my wife can wear a top hat and tails if she wants...I think society is better for it. Some percentage of people saying they want to identify as nonbinary (neither male nor female in gender) or gender-fluid (fluctuating back and forth between primarily-male and primarily-female gender expressions) is no different than any of the past changes. Society is usually (1) at first aghast, then (2) tacitly accepts in some places or circumstances, then (3) widely accepts the change, then (4) eventually there's a generation of people in charge who believed the change is perfectly normal. Perhaps you're on step 1 and I'm saying a lot of people, myself included, are now on step 2. All the Zoomers and Gen A kiddos I've known and observed seem to be on step 3, and when they are in charge of things welcome to step 4 my friend. You and I will be left behind and return to dust regardless of how much we yell at the clouds, and how painful that is for each of us to some degree depends on how well we accept that this process is inevitable and maybe it's better to accept it rather than to just grow old and bitter. You don't have to like it, you don't have to feel like your gender is in any way in question, but there are people who say a non-typical gender expression is an innate quality that they cannot change and are asking to be treated with respect and to have the same basic human rights as everyone else. I would advocate being accepting of other people as a general policy, and at minimum letting people be themselves without undue burden from your opinions of them. Is someone a good person? Do they have a solid moral system as evidenced by their behavior? Do they work hard? Do they treat others with kindness? Those are relevant questions for the people I want to associate with - who you want to bang and how you want to be addressed / dress / look / feel is not super relevant to me.

Ok Dr. Aeroplanez, let's talk mental illnesses and fitness to serve. What do you mean by this? What specifically does "correctly" mean? Does it mean typical? Does it mean functional? At what level? Ok do you want to define "mental illnesses" as anything diagnosable in the DSM-5? If so, I've got bad news for your theory. PTSD - a diagnosable disorder in the DSM. You can, in fact, have PTSD and still serve in the military, have a security clearance, be a cop, etc. I know people who are doing this right now. Depression and anxiety - diagnosable conditions in the DSM. Same as above, I know people with these diagnoses who serve honorably every single day Autism - same as above. Alan Turing and Albert Einstein were both very likely autistic and had higher level security clearances than either of us ever will...I think they did some pretty good work! I could go on. Mental illnesses/disorders/conditions are like physical ones, they're not somehow more shameful, more disabling, or more able to painted with a broad brush. Some mental and physical conditions do indeed prevent someone from holding a sensitive or security-related position, and that's fine. You won't be a good infantry troop from a wheelchair unfortunately. And some mental illnesses are that way too. But not all, not the ones I listed above, and importantly, not gender dysphoria, another DSM condition. Gender dysphoria is primarily diagnosed when you have discomfort with your biological sex and the gender-norms that go along with that. It is treated in ways that are meant to reduce that discomfort. The level of discomfort may or may not rise to the level of being disqualifying for some positions in the military/police/etc. Just like back pain. New flash: not every person who is nonbinary or gender-fluid experiences discomfort with their biological sex! The person I am close with going through some of these issues says they are nonbinary and gender-fluid, but is also perfectly comfortable in the body they have and does not experience discomfort with their body. So, they are not actually diagnosed with gender dysphoria. I did not understand the nuances of this even a few months ago, which is why I'm wasting my time typing all this shit out here. Hopefully if any of this can help even one of you numbskulls better understand and support one of your kids, one of your troops, etc., it's worth the effort.

Are you asking if LGBTQ people are disadvantaged/persecuted? I can provide a litany of examples if you need. No, if someone is an asshole, they are an asshole. Disagreeing respectfully with an opinion is fine. Also everyone's a little bit of an asshole on some things, so I don't mean it necessarily maliciously. I appreciate you asking and no ill-intent received. No, I am not LGBTQ myself but have close friends and family members who are gay and also have someone close to me recently going through gender identity issues. Separately have also recently gotten a great layman's education on mental illnesses so it's a bit top-of-mind for me. More on mental illness in a sec. BL: I've learned new things during this process and changed some opinions I had, which is partly why I'm saying the things I'm saying here. I started out basically thinking, look, all this trans & gender-fluid stuff is kinda BS and we need to pump the breaks on these people demanding so much of the rest of the world when they're like 0.1% of the population. I still don't totally disagree with that view. Gay rights happened very slowly over time before they happened seemingly very quickly when Obergefell was decided. I do want folks, even those being persecuted, to understand that they're not necessarily special snowflakes so much that the world has to immediately turn 180 degrees on their every whim. Everyone deserves equal human rights, but you also have to account to a reasonable pace of change that most humans are willing to accept. All that being said, my recent experiences have opened up my aperture a little bit in that, in my new understanding, people that want to define a third gender (nonbinary) or see themselves as gender-fluid aren't really fundamentally different than people who are gay. I have been told by the person I know this isn't a choice, I wish I could just "feel normal," but that this is how I am and I just want to be loved & treated equally just like anyone else. In the end even if I don't really understand it fully, it's really not too much to ask IMHO. So yea, my old-man opinion has changed a bit and other than some fringe issues like competitive sports participation where there are some legit concerns, I am now more of the opinion that just there's much greater acceptance for folks who are gay, whatever people wanna do with their lives & their gender expression is fine. If you want me to attempt to use they/them, that is fine, I will try. If you want to feel more masculine one day and more feminine the next day, that's fine. What haircut you have, what clothes you wear, if you dye your hair blue or have a body full of tats, that has next to zero bearing on A) my life, and B) if you are a good person or not or if you deserve equal, basic human rights or not. It costs me very, very little to be loving and accepting and it means a lot to people who genuinely feel God made them this way. On mental illnesses...

Mumm, disagree I guess. People with non-standard gender expressions in my opinion aren’t advantaged over “regular” people, quite the opposite. Not too many folks jump at the chance and choose to be a persecuted class of people for one reason or another. And I don’t really have or need traditional “objective standards” for what clothes other people wear or how they cut their hair or who they want to sleep with anymore. That does affect me in any way I found out! Is this a good person? Do they do good work? If so great, you be you and good luck. Obviously it’s easy to default to what was traditional when you grew up, but times change and so does the world, like it or not. I’ve often found those who espouse the idea that others can choose to do whatever but I don’t have to condone/endorse/can speak against are often just assholes. To me being accepting by default (which is hard!), even when you may not understand or fully accept a choice someone else makes, has been be a better policy. I have high standards and specific expectations for a lot of things, but not this thing. And I have a lot of recent, first-hand experience, so it’s not a point of view I come to lightly or held right away necessarily.

Didn’t people say that when gay marriage was legalized? “Oh yea, all the E1s in the barracks are gonna ‘marry’ their buddy to get moved off base and married BAH.” Did that happen even once? The few people I know with non-standard gender expressions/identities say the same thing as my gay friends: this is just how I am, it’s not some choice I decided would be cool one day, and it can be pretty hard to be accepted in a lot of places. Probably better to just accept people how they are, treat people fairly and move on with your life. That’s my philosophy at least, even if a lot of this newfangled gender stuff the kids are going on about makes absolutely zero sense to me sometimes. #I’mOldNow

Hell yea! I mean if we can do it LFG, I’d take a transoceanic train from Mumbai to Mombasa 😂 Ok maybe not…

Seems like he might be from or live in New Hampshire and doesn’t want any of you dickheads to get any bright ideas like moving there and messing it up 😄

Resident liberal here. Obviously I disagree with your premise. “Oh how can you live in evil red states where your daughters and wives can’t get healthcare, the government bans books, gay people are ostracized, the Bible is shoved down your throat, etc.” /sarcasm. It’s a bad faith question. I’m not asking that, just parroting back the inverse of what you asked just to be clear. That being said, I’ll answer it! I grew up in what is now a fairly blue state, went to school is a very liberal city, and have since moved because of the Air Force. If I could have landed a job or assignment in a big city, I would have loved that! My family will likely move back to the city where my wife and I went to college at some point after I retire. What is your point in asking this question? Because obviously lots of liberals do in fact live in liberal-voting cities and states…that’s why they’re liberal-voting! The land itself is neutral and lacks consciousness. Also not for nothing, many of the safest states are solidly blue. 9 of the top 10 by these measures! https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/safest-states-in-the-us.html Re: taxes it all depends on your income and situation…different states balance income, sales and property taxes differently and YMMV, plus there are not clear ideological dividing lines there in all cases.

Then why did President Trump do nothing? He spoke very frequently about Biden being corrupt and the laptop and Ukraine and etc., remember he was impeached for extorting Ukraine over alleged Biden corruption. He appointed Chris Wray to lead the FBI, after firing the previous guy. He appointed Bill Barr to lead DOJ, after firing the previous guy. He himself lead the entire executive branch as President. I’ll ask again: why was this supposed clear & obvious, open-and-shut case of Biden corruption while VP not taken care of during Trump’s four years in office?

I actually disagree with @Pooter above, although he's clearly correct in terms of realpolitik / human nature / group dynamics. I alluded to this in a post where I asked why Trump's DOJ didn't prosecute Hillary. Why did Trump and Sessions and Barr et al not do this? They absolutely could have. For all his talk of "locking her up" Trump did absolutely zero to make that happen. Speaking for myself, I do actually no-shit support prosecuting all criminals, regardless of political affiliation. If Kamala Harris shoots someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, I do want the House to impeach her and the Senate to convict her and I want all the Democrats in both chambers to support those actions. If Bill Clinton is caught on tape snorting coke off a hooker's ass in a NYC penthouse, I do expect Alvin Bragg to prosecute him. If CQ Brown sold classified info to the Agrentians for millions of dollars, I do expect Biden to fire him and for Garland's DOJ to prosecute him.* *If there is a winnable case to be made and evidence to support conviction* Y'all can bring up a bunch of stuff on Hunter and Joe and whatever and I'm not subscribed to the Biden Crime Cinematic Universe (BCCU) nearly as much as some of you guys, but there are plenty of conservative prosecutors, DAs, state AGs, etc. who could bring charges if they wanted and had jurisdiction. But they (so far) haven't. I'll give a pass to Ken Paxton down in TX, he has been a little busy with legal issues of his own 😁 Like I said above, Trump and his team also failed to do so when they pretty recently controlled DOJ and it's nationwide jurisdiction so IDK, you tell me why they failed to do what is so blindingly obvious to you. Trump talked quite a bit about Biden and Ukraine and corruption during the 2020 campaign, hell he was even impeached for trying to extort Zelensky over this exact issue, so why did he not have Barr bring charges against Hunter or Joe at that point? After the first impeachment, when Trump felt so very unfairly targeted and aggrieved, why did he not have Barr charge Hunter or fire him and find an AG who would? BL: call me naive, whatever, I don't care. The ideal is not how it works now nor ever and I get that, but that's how it should work and therefore that's what I'm going to call for and expect and support. Equal justice under the law, no one is above the law.

Y'all, I am perfectly aware of how the system currently works. In great detail. Like, do you wanna talk about NE-3 and how in a weird scenario a Dem winning that single electoral vote in an otherwise red state could seal the election for them 270-268? I am a huge f*ing elections nerd if that is not abundantly clear. All candidates should and do campaign for the EC win today and I'm not advocating for them to do otherwise until the system changes. Lol except maybe Hillary who f-ing forgot to campaign in WI 🤦‍♂️ That being said, I would like the system to be different. The NPVIC is a viable and Constitutional way this might happen one day not too long from now. BL: I would like the national popular vote winner to win the election, just like in every other election at every level. I understand the reasons why the founders set up the electoral college, the compromise between rural and at-the-time urban states, but I disagree that it's continuing to serve a valid purpose today. The country is vastly different in 2023 than when the Constitution was written. Like I said, it's a vestigial anachronism of the 1700s that's downsides outweigh any remaining benefit. I also disagree that eliminating the EC would cause the nation to disintegrate, we're way stronger than that, and there is no state that would be better off on it's own than as part of the United States. Also today's divides are not longer regional but are urban/rural. People in Missoula have more in common politically with people in Madison or Austin or NYC than the rest of the state, and vice-versa for the rural parts of most states. I also really do support eliminating the EC on principal, regardless of the fact that it's also painful that it hurts my preferred political party and has cost us the Presidency now twice. Like I posted before, if Kerry had become President over Bush due to a narrow EC win paired with a popular vote loss, A) I would have still thought that was unfair even though I much preferred Kerry in that race, and B) I firmly believe the GOP would have suddenly "seen the light" and joined the Dems to eliminate the EC forever. Outstanding, I'd love to read your response if you ever want to post it. There is a whole cottage industry of think-pieces on why this is, what to do about it, etc. I've read a lot of them. The most persuasive ones either point to needing a nationally transcendent figure like Obama who just beats the pants off of his opponent, delivering states like Indiana and really cutting into typical GOP rural margins, or you need the type of Dem who is perhaps more in line with rural attitudes on trade, immigration, etc., someone like Sherrod Brown or Tim Ryan in Ohio, etc. I don't disagree that's what you'd need to improve rural margins. What the last couple of elections have shown though, 2018-2022, is that as the electorate continues to change and morph and people move and etc., that Dems really don't have to make a ton of progress in truly rural areas. Not that you write them off, but that you can live even with 80-20 margins, similar to how Republicans do in cities. The suburbs remain king and even when you lose a bit of margin in the urban cores (as Biden did comprated to Hillary 2020 to 2016), you can more than make up for it by campaigning hard in and winning the suburbs. So finding out what appeals to your wine moms, your 9-5 officer worker guys, etc. and not getting too suckered into what Billy Bob on the farm or Devonte in the inner city is most concerned with (oh no, stereotypes!), that's a viable path to win. This is the path Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock took in GA, Gretchen Whitmer took in MI, and the path Biden took in GA, AZ, MI & PA that delivered him the White House. Happy to discuss in detail anytime brother, it truly is my wheelhouse of nerdery 🍺

Yes. I truly wish Kerry would have barely won Ohio in 2004, thus giving him the presidency while losing the popular vote. Both parties would have ditched the thing straight away. It’s a vestigial anachronism that modern America no longer needs. The person with the most votes should win, period, just like in literally every other election we hold.

I too support ending the electoral college and yet I can still say I support the constitution! I bet you hold a view like that too. I also think SCOTUS decisions like Heller and Citizens United were wrong, even though because of those decisions, the constitution currently means things I don't think are correct. I would venture you may have felt the same way about Roe or any number other SCOTUS decisions, and I know a few conservatives that would move to repeal various amendments (e.g. 17th amendment) if they could. Many conservative legal experts have big plans to overturn even more currently constitutionally protected rights via their control of the Supreme Court. So it’s not like there is some fixed, sacred thing here beyond some bare basics. What the constitution says can and will continue to change both by passing or repealing amendments (very rare now), or mostly via the courts. Prozac saying he’s in favor of some changes in legal ways (such as the NPVIC) is perfectly normal and not some kind of sacrilege against the founders.

As and you shall receive! 6.9 seconds on google: