On Apr 16, 2024:
posted by gutI don't know if I agree with that. Trump is an unpredictable loose cannon that seems to enjoy insulting our allies. I think that's the real reason the "deep state" worked so hard to obstruct and impeach Trump.
I really think all the people Trump hired to be his advisors that think he's dangerous shouldn't be dismissed. Remember, Trump hires the best people!
Between Russia, Palestine and Iran I'm honestly more than a little concerned about Trump making those decisions. And even if you believe Trump is better than Biden on foreign policy, you still have to acknowledge that the inevitable resistance movement from the left is going to undermine his effectiveness, perhaps dangerously so.
Unfortunately, I do agree with most of what you said, but not because of Trump being the reason. The left would rather see Trump fail even if it means the country fails across the board (foreign policy, economy, etc.).
The left trying to sabotage Trump aside, his foreign policy is still better. The “Trump unstable and crazy” argument goes out the window when he was pretty much spot on with his criticism, and not to mention the world was more peaceful with crazy Trump in the WH. It’s a tough pill to swallow for his critics, but our allies should have increased their defense spending a long time ago. They needed a Russian invasion of Ukraine to wake up.
On top of that, Trump actually speaks from a position of strength and acts upon it if needed. He doesn’t do this half in half out appeasement bullshit straight from the Obama foreign policy playbook. Obama spoke about Isis being the JV squad, meanwhile Trump turned ISIS into a jr high squad. Old man (Biden) yelled at the clouds to Iran not to retaliate, meanwhile Trump had Soilemani killed and informed Iran that the US has 50+ other targets if they even think about retaliating.
You can talk about the “best people” Trump has advising him, but wtf has Blinken done exactly that deserves a round of applause? Are we supposed to be impressed, because he can chop it up with the French and their media, because he speaks fluently?
On Apr 14, 2024:
If this election came down to foreign policy, Trump would win. Biden’s foreign policy has been nothing short of a disaster with Blinken. A liberal’s idea of foreign policy is whether or not Europe speaks favorably of the us or not. Meanwhile, the Biden admin wanted to brush off the Obama admin playbook of projecting weakness.
posted by gutScientific "issues" are never subjective. There may be competing theories and hypotheses, but "subjective" is a media-manufactured narrative where certain theories that support the agenda are promoted as "fact" and "consensus" while competing ideas are SUPPRESSED as "pseudo-science", "conspiracy theory" and "alternative facts".
And, yes, Covid provided numerous examples of all of the above.
Go back 20 years and straight news articles were generally separate from editorials, and were pretty balanced in discussing both sides of an argument's strengths and weaknesses. What passes as straight news today are traditional editorials that skew and slant the facts, and bury counterpoints toward the end of the article. And today's editorials are straight-up propaganda that resort to distortions and strawmen, if they even acknowledge counterpoints at all.
And a lot of useful idiots (quite the handful on this website) eat up those editorials.
posted by ptown_trojans_1People like the option and do not want government restricting them.
People love government restrictions. Just not for them.
posted by HereticSeems to me that 2020 did a great job of illustrating that scientific issues can quickly become subjective issues when you have multiple scientific viewpoints on something, leading to people auto-gravitating towards whichever one mirrors their personal views on the matter.
Scientific "issues" are never subjective. There may be competing theories and hypotheses, but "subjective" is a media-manufactured narrative where certain theories that support the agenda are promoted as "fact" and "consensus" while competing ideas are SUPPRESSED as "pseudo-science", "conspiracy theory" and "alternative facts".
And, yes, Covid provided numerous examples of all of the above.
Go back 20 years and straight news articles were generally separate from editorials, and were pretty balanced in discussing both sides of an argument's strengths and weaknesses. What passes as straight news today are traditional editorials that skew and slant the facts, and bury counterpoints toward the end of the article. And today's editorials are straight-up propaganda that resort to distortions and strawmen, if they even acknowledge counterpoints at all.
I admit to still being angry and resentful about all the covid business. My mother died with a nurse holding her hand because myself nor any other family was allowed in the room with her in her final minutes. And she, nor any of us, didn't even have covid!
So yeah, I am not a person who is comfortable or tolerant with govt being so fucking heavy handed in the minutia of our lives.
On Mar 31, 2024:
posted by Laley23Ill start a petition for the "Sobotka Memorial Bridge"
Pretty much will resolve everything.
Ill start a petition for the "Sobotka Memorial Bridge"
On Mar 27, 2024:
TL;DR: I have found great value with the CSR, and continue to find it. If you're into dining out and traveling, it's almost a no brainer.
I got the CSR when they offered the 100K bonus (bought my wife's engagement ring as soon as I got the card). Although I am annoyed with the increase of their service fee, I still think it's a great card. The priority pass lounge access is awesome, and travel $300 travel credit essentially reduces the price of the card's service fee. Also, having your travel insured is a big plus. I have had to use the insurance a couple times, and they never failed me. The points are also worth 1.5X more if you book flights via the chase portal. If you purchase flights via the chase portal by dollars, it's worth 10X per dollar. Same applies for hotels, and car rentals are 5x points.
They are also starting to build CSR lounges at airports, which will be huge if you happen to be at any of those airports.
On Mar 26, 2024:
Man, between this and Diddy, MLB really trying to knock the Ohtani news off the front page!
posted by justincredibleDiddy = Epstein, more or less.
So, he won’t commit suicide in the near future?
Most ports, if not all require a pilot to embark the ship and guide them in/out of the port. I’m interested in what the pilot’s report will say (if he’s alive). We will most likely see ports requiring tugs to pass under bridges going forward.
posted by geeblockApparently caused by DEI and the border crisis lol
You need to turn off social media for a few weeks.
On Mar 25, 2024:
posted by AutomatikI'm rather sick of traveling for other people. Call it selfish or whatever, I just dgaf anymore.
In the past 8 months, I've traveled for 2 bachelor parties and 1 wedding. The wedding was in St. John for my best friend, so I'll let that one slide.
The wedding is in Charleston. Black tie, white attire welcome party, on a plantation. I have zero desire to fork over the several thousand dollars and use the PTO to go. I just started a new job and my PTO is already very slim.
I'm approaching 40, I'm just over this shit. He's a good friend, but I wouldn't say like in my close "inner circle." I'm thinking I just RSVP no and if he asks, I blame work.
I wouldn’t say a good friend is someone you rsvp as “no,” without any other form of communication with him. If you think he’s a good enough friend, a courtesy text saying “hey man, I would love to come, but I can’t make it work.” Short and to the point. You don’t need to provide him an explanation, and imo it would be pretty ridiculous if he actually tried to fish an explanation out of you.
With that being said, I am with you being over with weddings. I have a built in excuse of being overseas. I have one remaining good friend (not by your definition lol), where it would be a can’t miss wedding.
posted by ptown_trojans_1Thanks. I could also make broad generalizations about you and how you offer no solutions, complain, and think your way is so much better, yet unrealistic, but I'll refrain...
Yes you can, which would not deviate from what you have been doing for over a decade lol. Congrats on passive aggressively refraining this time though.
I have offered my stances and solutions, yet as you (normally) smugly alluded to they are all “unrealistic” even though must have not been tried. Meanwhile, you have quadrupled down on the Obama playbook when the results have been a net negative impact for the country all together, especially when it comes to foreign policy. All the while you still pretend you’re moderate/neutral, because your far leaning progressive friends called you conservative once.
On Mar 16, 2024:
posted by CenterBHSFanNo, this is where you demonstrate to us that your "principles" change, depending on the person in question.
In other words, you don't have principles. You've got /Democrat/ and that's about it.
Your feelings about being threatened by Trump have nothing to do with Hur saying that Biden's lack of cognitive ability allowed him to give Biden a free pass. He made a determination without being a doctor and that has been YOUR main sticking point. You are as unprincipled as Trump is. If you did have principles, you'd want equality in the justice system, especially when the people involved had/have been in such high powered positions on the world stage. and it wouldn't matter if you were afraid of them or not.
Pretty much sums up Ptown and most coastal libs in a nutshell. If Ptown and those alike him just admitted that they know Biden is trash and no better than Trump, but they dgaf and rather see their “team” win, I don’t think anyone would give them that much of a hard time. That’s just the reality of modern politics.
Unfortunately, Ptown still wants to pretend that he is the reasonable figure in all of this and voting for Biden gives him the moral high ground. People like Ptown are dime a dozen. They think that they are so smart that nobody sees through their bullshit. I have a decent amount of friends like Ptown (especially in DC), but at least they are willing to be honest with themselves and everyone else.
posted by ptown_trojans_1Did he say Biden had dementia?
I agree with a lot of the report and have said Biden is too old to run. However, I still think he is less a threat than Trump. That is where I diverge from a lot of posters on here.
No, this is where you demonstrate to us that your "principles" change, depending on the person in question.
In other words, you don't have principles. You've got /Democrat/ and that's about it.
Your feelings about being threatened by Trump have nothing to do with Hur saying that Biden's lack of cognitive ability allowed him to give Biden a free pass. He made a determination without being a doctor and that has been YOUR main sticking point. You are as unprincipled as Trump is. If you did have principles, you'd want equality in the justice system, especially when the people involved had/have been in such high powered positions on the world stage. and it wouldn't matter if you were afraid of them or not.
On Mar 10, 2024:
So the Cavs are…quite good.
On Mar 4, 2024:
posted by ptown_trojans_1This is just my post from the other thread. Yes, I do think Biden is too old to run.
Stephen A. Voice, HOWEVER,
What Trump and his advisors are saying, to me, is far worse.
Trump, just in the last week, is in favor of a national abortion ban, against article 5 in NATO, in favor of mass detention facilities and deportation, and Christian Nationalism. (As in Christian laws tied to the Bible like the Bama IVF law, white Nationalist)
Sorry, that is an immediate no. No, to any of that and I'm sure many of the libertarians on here would be very against that amount of federal power. That is exactly what Trump is saying he and his advisors want to do.
You can try and bury your head in the sand and say oh that is just Trump being Trump, but his advisors will be in power and their rhetoric is absolutely terrible.
His advisors like Stephen Miller, the Project 2025 folks, and his religious advisors are the ones I listen to on what they plan on doing once he is in office.
That to me is far worse than the current situation we have now. That's my rational.
This sounds like 2016 election fear porn, and then when Trump took office about 1% of the fear porn propaganda actually came to fruition. I don't blame dems repackaging this game plan though, because a lot of people buy into it (i.e. ptown), and it worked in 2020. This is the third election in a row, where the best argument the Dems' campaigns have is they are not the other guy running. They are batting .500 with this strategy, we will see how the third and (hopefully) final iteration of this strategy will pan out.
Unless you aren't living in reality, which a lot of coastal libs aren't(including the ones who moved out of their blue states taxing them into poverty), I don't know how anyone can make an argument that this country is better off than it was 4 years ago. Considering Biden's record, Ptown using any type of foreign policy argument against Trump is laughable at best. So far Trump has been on the money about NATO. We all know article 5 of NATO is not going away (so does Ptown, but he is purposely being dishonest), but nobody can say Trump was wrong when he said every NATO nation needed to increase their defense spending. This is pretty much par for the course for the dems foreign policy since 2008. Their strategy has all aged like fine milk, and their best defense is to deflect from their own neoconservatism to bring up the Republican neoconservatism.
Anyway, I will vote for the Libertarian candidate and hope we have perpetual gridlock. I would have voted for Desantis if he won the primary. He would have been my first Republican vote since 2012.
On Feb 13, 2024:
posted by geeblockhttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-mitt-romney-age_n_65c664c5e4b093b2e7838fd0
The huffpo. Romney is an expert when needed and an idiot when not.