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This coming from the people who think vaccines don't work, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, that windmill cancer is a thing, that women can "shut down" a pregnancy if they are raped, and that Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield. I prefer actual reality, even if alternative facts conform more closely to conservative agendas.

In 1939 it was illegal for black men to serve as pilots in the US military. Due to a DEI offensive from the NAACP, labor union leader A. Philip Randolph and Judge William H. Hastie, a war appropriations bill was passed containing funding to train black pilots. This effectively legitimized the use of black pilots by the US military. It was not without friction; a great many opposed it. Major General Frank O'Driscoll Hunter, for example, insisted that "racial friction will occur if colored and white pilots are trained together." But they persevered, and by the end of the war, this DEI squadron (also known as the Tuskeegee Airmen) flew almost 200 bomber protection missions, with a record of protecting bombers almost twice as well as the all-white squadrons flying at that time. Overall the squadron received one silver star, 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses,14 Bronze Stars, 744 Air Medals and at least 60 Purple Hearts. Proof of their unity, excellence and honor by any measure. Martha McSally was one of the first women to fly for the USAF in combat. She was able to do that as the result of a DEI effort to lift the prohibition against women in combat in 1991. She ended up as a decorated squadron leader before retiring and becoming a US representative, where she served for two years in Congress. She was part of several DEI lawsuits, including one against the DoD to end the requirement that women in the US military wear burqas when in public in Arab countries. She was also raped by a superior officer, but managed to overcome that and still become squadron leader during her time in the service. Leigh Ann Hester was a seargeant in the 617th Military Police Company. In 2005 the supply convoy she was guarding came under attack by at least 50 insurgents. She led her team to flank the attackers, and used grenades to end the threat. At the end, there were 27 dead and 6 insurgents, with no losses of the US supply team. She ended up with the Distinguished Service Cross. Again an indication of unity, excellence and honor. So I'd say that DEI has in fact done a lot for combat. It is why black people and women can now serve in the military. It has taken hard work, and overcoming the objections of people like General Hunter above, but we are all better off because of it.

Oh honey, you think people aren’t watching your videos because they can’t?

When you elect a reality tv host as president and someone obsessed with ratings, you get a reality tv cast.

All breaks. Sweet. Everyone on that load has many reasons to be proud. Kudo's to the organizers, too. Well, well, done everyone.

I understand how barcodes work, it was a metaphor. You continue to miss the point. I've said it repeatedly: it's not the issues so much as it's that Trump is an odious scumbag willing to harm anyone for an iota of personal gain. I will make money from his policies but I was happy to leave it on the table in exchange for being represented by an adult not a name calling bully who is both stupid and wide open to manipulation. It is there that we are different.

Quite a funny take on things

Generally speaking knocking posters doesn’t add to the conversation. I’m not talking about your specific post. The ones I find most annoying is scrolling down half a page of ‘he’s on my kill list’, he’s blocked so I can’t see what he posts’ etc. Unfortunately for some time now most right wing leaning posters have been trolls out for a reaction. While I strongly disagree with the views of some of the recent posters, they have refreshingly not been trolling.

You ever been in an environment where you know violence could be imminent at any point and that said violence will 99% work out badly for you? Maybe walked into a Vagos bar wearing red? something along those lines? Cause, I would prefer that the women in my life, and really all women, don't have to feel that way. Many do, and these antics make it significantly worse.

I'm not sure why you think an mRNA vaccine is not a vaccine but there is a lot of evidence that it functions as one. I know you will carry your personal anger and resentment over the extreme pressure put on you and others to make the sacrifice of taking it for the common good despite your beliefs to the grave with you. I'm not even going to try to have that argument again. But the fact is that it is an effective measure that attenuated the epidemic and allowed society to get close to normalcy far faster and with far less death than otherwise. Without it we would be in a far worse place right now.

Maybe that's also because the standard of evidence required for a rape appears to be higher; you made it clear that basically nothing that Carroll said would convince you that she was telling the truth, and that you don't even believe her win; you're probably not alone. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It just means the bullies get to "win." Wendy P.

Hi folks, This is from a CNN reader: American citizens who voted for President Trump do not consider nor empathize for those who’ve suffered until they themselves are graced with misfortune. As I continue to say: It is all well & good until it is your ox that is getting gored. Just wait until they come for you, Jerry Baumchen

Unfortunately the "winner take all" system we have here totally disregards that the winning margin is in low single digits, and the winner may well be extreme, like implementing Project 2025 (which, I suspect, even a lot of Trump voters don't/won't like) with no incentive whatsoever to compromise with the very large minority. Added to that, if the winner turns out to be really awful, it is almost impossible to get rid of them (as compared to a parliamentary system where dreadful leaders can be got rid of pretty quickly). And a system where an indicted criminal gets to choose his/her own judges is just absurd beyond belief.

Ah yes, telling a woman to relax. Such a wonderful attitude. I hope the women in your life haven't suffered any sexual abuse. I know for a fact that if they had, they wouldn't be safe to have that conversation with you. Disgusting.

God I hope you don't have a wife or daughters. If you do, I highly suspect they don't trust you enough to have an honest conversation with you regarding sexual assault. 1 in 6 women in the US have been subject to completed or attempted rape 1 in 4 girls in the US will be sexually abused before they turn 18

I'll concede, and have done so here repeatedly, that we missed a lot and Harris was far from the best candidate possible. But what is nonsensical to me is that the right seems unable to address Trumps criminality and unfitness in any serious way. For example, do you believe January 6 was a "love fest" as Trump has stated and will you be proud to be an American when he fulfills his promise to pardon the lot of those convicted of actions that resulted in 140 police officers being injured or worse?

I'd take a horse over Trump for president.

Those are all laudable goals if he is sincere in pursuing them. There are other people available who could also take the Justice Department in that direction but have better records and abilities. It isn't necessary to make Gaetz the AG except to make a statement. And to get him out of congress. Most likely he will be a sacrificial lamb and never become AG. Which is better than he deserves.

Just for the record, I am an immigrant and I have never eaten a dog. Yet.

Ukraine too. Putin will get his dream of taking back former Russian territories. Democracy be damned.

From Al Jazeera today "Huckabee is vocal about his evangelical Christian faith, which he ties to his policies towards Israel. For instance, he has cited the Bible on several occasions to argue that the Israeli-occupied West Bank is part of Israeli territory." Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is trump's appointment as ambassador to Israel. In the past he has stated that Arabs and Palestinians have no rights in the west bank. That any two state solution will never happen. IMO this is all just Allah's just reward for Arab Americans voting for trump. In the mistaken belief that trump will bring peace to Palestinians. Palestinians have a knack for picking losers for leaders.

There's nothing useful here; just bickering and people trying to bait each other. The value here is in the Incidents and S+T forums. It's avoided one serious indcident/fatality I know of and has probably saved a lot of others.

I was so inspired by Trump's win that I'm going to the next local school board meeting and argue that they hire the town drunks to drive the school buses.

No it isn't.

No it doesn't.

Privatizing the US military would be the most efficient thing to do. Break it up into multiple parts, set up various private armies, air forces and navies and let them compete against each other.

I had forgotten that. It’s fascinating how I was brought up that atheists had no moral compass. 40 years later I’m an atheist discussing with a Christian who is defending a person of no moral compass. i can’t even begin to understand Christian morality.

My decision to go along came from my faith in modern medicine and the efficacy of vaccines, number 1. Number 2 was the information that ventilators etc. etc. were in short supply for those in high risk categories and hospital beds were forecast to be in short supply for everyone. Number 3 was just a desire to not be an asshole and get others upset because I was too good to wear a free, thin piece of paper over my mouth when in public. Seemed to work, best I can tell.

" When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Not that I am very sure facts really matter to you.....

Of course. And the Cutter incident killed a dozen kids and paralyzed hundreds - but no one says "therefore the polio vaccine is not a vaccine." Public vaccination programs (and simpler measures like social distancing/masing, and more draconian measures like quarantines) do not protect individuals - they protect populations. Almost no one got polio after the first wave of vaccinations were complete. And, as noted, there were deaths. But it was worth it to wipe out polio. That's not an individual good - that's a public good. Thus, they continued vaccination even after the disease was mostly gone, and the risk profile for EVERYONE was low. Today, polio has been completely eliminated from the US. Do you see that as a good thing?

You can take that up with GWB's administration. It's what they believed. And that idea that if you Big Lie enough it becomes real has permeated the far right ever since. You claim that liberals are divorced from reality and then you say things like that? You're proving my point here. Vaccines are "fake" infections that present pathogen antigens to your immune system. The immune system then responds to the antigens, thus "training" your immune system to react quickly to pathogens in the future. There are several classes of vaccines: - Live similar pathogens. The first smallpox vaccine was actually a cowpox infection, but it was close enough to generate an immune response that covered smallpox. These aren't used any more, but may be returning in the form of recombinant vector vaccines - engineered viruses that have exactly the antigens you need. - Weakened pathogens. These are the actual bacteria/viruses but damaged so they cannot make you very sick. Polio was an example here; they have since switched to an antigen-only type. - Antigen-only vaccines. These are just the antigens themselves. One way to get them is to denature a virus/bacteria (i.e. kill it) and inject the "debris." The debris will contain the antigens. Another way to get them is to filter out everything but the antigens and then inject them. A third way is an mRNA vaccine that stimulates your own body to produce the antigens. This is the opposite of a treatment or a therapeutic. A treatment is like an antiviral - you take it AFTER you get sick and it interferes with viral reproduction. Vaccines have to be taken BEFORE you get sick, because they do nothing to treat your disease. They only train your immune system. I would STRONGLY recommend you learn your medical science from a reputable source rather than a red-pill podcaster.

I'm guessing TF is that discrimination by a governmental agency is forbidden by the 14th Amendment. The issue is that we all seem to have our own views as to who is the discriminated against party. In Ron's interpretation, apparently, anyone not washed in the blood of Jesus Christ will do.

I work with these people, they exist in reality. They hate women, they NEVER get laid, mostly because they are despicably misogynistic, race hating as well, and Joe Rogan is the source for their information some of them think the Bible is a good loving book..... to add icing to the description

I’d probably be prettier if I smiled more, too Wendy P.

You think he had a blood pact with Trump to get into government before he bought Twitter? Dude - he didn't want to buy fucking Twitter. You're here thinking he's playing 4D chess 20 moves ahead of everyone else when the reality is he made a crazy back of a cocktail napkin offer without doing his due diligence then tried everything he possibly could to back out of the deal until there were no more courts to lose in and he had no legal options left but to pay up. You seem to be living in a fantasy world of bullshit revisionist history.

You listed one of the two. The two were Josseli Barnica, 28, and Nevaeh Crain, 18. There have also been several deaths in Georgia due to women trying to do their own abortions at home - then not going to get medical care when there were complications, since they feared prosecution.

that is the perfect example. the doctors would not do the procedure under threat of prosecution, until they were certain that she was going to die, and guess what? She dies. Again, the law is DELIBERATELY vague so as to put fear into doctors, but the lawmakers can conveniently blame then for not making the decision when every single day, they are under threat of prosecution. Texas AG threatens to prosecute doctors in emergency abortion | Reuters Lady needs abortion... gets court order to get one, as required by law.... AG goes after the doctor anyway because the court order granting her an abortion did not specifically say they could not prosecute the doctor. SHe leaves the state to get the procedure, only because she had the means to do so. millions of other women do not nor ever will have that luxury. Let's not pretend that this is ANYTHING other than exactly what it is.... a total ban on abortion via any means necessary, and women are dying. Those people that voted for Trump and other GOP state legislatures have put my niece in danger.... but some of them still want to be my friend.....

sorry but I do not buy your bullshit. You only care about you and yours, and that is as far as it goes. Trump managed to appoint a supreme Court that got rid of women's rights, specifically.... and then he bragged about it. Dozens of republican held states had trigger laws that immediately went into effect and the onslaught continues. In Florida we went from Roe to 15 weeks to 6 weeks in less than 2 years And now another supermajority government in Florida I guarantee will abolish all forms of abortion for any reason, I expect a nationwide-ban as well.... Trump will simply say "Oh well that's not me, that was congress, I mean everyone wanted it, so I signed the bill" My niece in here 20's in Orlando, is pregnant with her first child, a daughter and is outside the 6 week ban. That means if she has a serious issue late in her pregnancy, LAWYERS will decide whether or not she gets the care she needs, or if her life is in jeopardy. This scenario has already played out in other states with women dying waiting for decisions, even with a court order allowing them to go ahead with what they need. So fuck your 'care about others'..... you obviously don't give a fuck about my family, my niece, her rights, or her medical conditions. You voted for the guy that took all of that away. My niece, my family are just collateral damage while you comfort yourself with how much you 'care' All my hardcore MAGA friends are now celebrating their victories, tipping a glass and saying "Hey let's still be friends", but cannot answer the question of "How am I supposed to feel about our friendship when you voted to DIRECTLY harm my family" fuck that and fuck them.

At the end of the day you voted for a convicted felon. You agree he’s odious but you held your nose and voted for him in the hopes that his VP and Billionaire fanboy, both who are obviously in it for themselves, might do some good. Trump, you think, with his Supreme Court enablers will temper his worst impulses? You are in for an awakening.

I personally know half a dozen women who waited over a decade to come out about their sexual assaults. And most of them heard the same thing when they did - "if it happened she would have gone to the police." "He's a great guy, he would never do that." "She just want to smear him." "She is just trying to get something." "She'd remember a lot more than THAT if she had been raped!" "Look at her, no one would rape HER." In 2005, the New York legislature was considering a law that would allow child rape survivors to file civil suits against their rapists. This was important because so many children had been sexually abused by the Catholic Church in New York diocese. The Church was against it (to put it mildly) and so it was not until 2019 that the Child Victims Act was finally signed into law. After it was signed into law, a New York legislator was approached by several women who had been raped in New York prisons decades ago, asking if the CVA could be used to go after the guards that raped them. The answer was no; it only applied to children. There is no statute of limitations on first degree rape in New York, but there had been such a concerted effort to eliminate any physical evidence by prison guards that there was effectively no way to meet the high standards required for criminal prosecution. That request resulted in the Adult Survivors Act, a law that allowed women raped decades ago to file suits against their rapists. Over 3000 women, mostly former prisoners in NY prisons, filed suits. Over 700 of those were successful, indicating that 700 women were in fact raped 20 years or more ago, and had enough evidence to prove it happened for the purposes of a civil trial. Over 1000 of those are still going forward. Three other people who were prosecuted under this act were Trump, Bill Cosby and Diddy Combs. Someone who you have perhaps heard of is Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order SVU. She was raped 25 years ago and didn't tell anyone about it until about a year back. She wrote an essay about the experience, in which she said something very relevant - "Sexual violence persists not because of something unchangeable in our human condition, it exists because power structures are in place that allow it to happen." Such as the power wielded by celebrities, producers and presidents. https://people.com/mariska-hargitay-experience-rape-renewal-reckoning-8424247 Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted a dozen actresses and raped three of them, most of them over 20 years ago. Most of these women did not come forward until 2017, when the New York Times published an article describing some of them. Weinstein had so much power over their careers that they dared not come forward, for fear that they would be blacklisted. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41580010 So no, it's not sus. It's not even that unusual.

Look, I don't expect you to get where I'm coming from because what I believe and what motivates me falls in most right wingers blind spot. I concern myself with the welfare of others when I vote. Also, I am simply appalled by Trumps behavior. He is inarguably a crude vulgarian, a puerile fool, and a dangerous narcissist, and that's just to start. No matter how much money he can provide to me by and through his policies, and I stand to benefit, I do not want him representing me or my country. He is embarrassing. To me character matters.

You’re beating a dead horse. For some reason this election result has brought out even stronger racist and misogynistic views than 2016. A MAGA person shared this ‘joke’ on FB today “I’m not racist my girlfriend has two black eyes”

I think this highlights the fact that Trump's vulgarity and sexual abuse is not swept under the rug by his supporters, but rather it’s seen as some pathetic alpha male trait to be admired. We’ve talked about racism and misogyny a lot, this election has emboldened people that it’s ok to express your views. The news has been covering how in 21 states blacks have been receiving texts to report to the nearest cotton plantation (It’s a hilarious joke that’s 200 yrs old, so relax and don’t be uptight about it!). I’ve got a 28 year old daughter and she’s got more guts than most men. She’s a child protection case worker. Flies to work in a 172/182 on remote islands. Goes camping and 4 wheel driving in her own in the outback. She regularly goes into situations where she requires armed police support. It’s no wonder insecure men feel threatened by strong independent women. Instead they put on eyeliner, makeup, corsets, lifts and diapers and then proclaim themselves alpha males and make derogatory jokes about women.

9,000 unused permits. If they found a dry hole, the permit would have been used. You really are not a serious person and generally have no idea what you are talking about.

You forgot to mention that trump personally made more money off the presidency than every other president combined in history. "Donald Trump reported making more than $1.6 billion in outside revenue and income during his four years as President of the United States, according to a review of his financial disclosures by CREW. While Trump publicly took credit for donating his taxpayer-funded salary, that ended up being less than 0.1% of the revenue and income he disclosed during his presidency. Far from being a sacrifice, the donation was merely a fig leaf to cover up four years of brazen corruption." "Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750. He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made." You have clearly not learned the first lesson of this election. Facts don't mean squat to the MAGA base and neither does corruption.

Social media is a huge driver of this. That is the reason why true authoritarian nations tightly control it and all media. And where that goes from here is very unpredictable. Most likely it will end up being reigned in everywhere eventually. Probably only after a major crisis like a war or large scale social unrest.

Negativity sells 100 times faster than love. It is always easier to blame your problems on some outsider, instead of inventing ways to improve yourself and become your best possible you. That attitude leads to bullying, because bullies have abandoned efforts to achieve their best possible self and instead seek to improve their status by debasing others. Warfare is the same attitude on a national level. How well did that work for Adolf Hitler back in 1945? How well did that work for the Argentine ruling military junta back in 1982? How well is it working for Hamas today?

I thought we had to pay attention to what he is doing? Cause every time he said something very extreme, people would argue he didn't really mean it that way and that we should go by his actions. Now you are saying we shouldn't go by his actions, but by what he says. Basically you will lick his boots regardless of what he does, cause you can't have an opinion for yourself. It is why you weren't present here until Trump won. (removed personal attack)

Father: "Son, your mother and I have some news for you. You are adopted." Son: "I knew it! So who are my real parents?" Father: "We are. Your new parents are coming by in 30 minutes to pick you up, so get packing"

Haha, shouldn’t have expected anything less from you. If it’s bad then it’s the dems fault, if it’s good then it’s Trumps genius. Pretty much every economist with credibility says Trumps economic plan is nuts (and let’s face it - even you can’t deny he’s had 6 bankruptcies, or were those also Bidens fault?)