I think I am completely losing my shit over this.

I am doing my best to hold on, but I am seriously being tested.

And in all the arguments I am having about this, the defenders cannot come out and say, “Taking kids away from parents is good policy because…” All the defenses of this policy are “Obama, Clinton, Hateful Democrats, Fake News, Deep State, Elian Gonzalez, old laws.”

I will lose friends over this.

But I just cannot…I cannot.

Rubio is clearly running in 2020.

This is the second issue on which he has stood up in contrast to Trump. I can’t remember the first one, but it was a month or so ago. Was it the tariffs? I don’t remember. But he is the only Republican right now making public stands in contrast to Trump. He isn’t fighting Trump, or doing anything legislatively, but he is staking positions. Trump will definitely get a primary battle, and Rubio is already in the ring.

BTW, I really hate the fact that all the talk is still about N Korea when that was a big nothing, and the G7 was highly significant, and that’s been completely buried in the news cycle. And liberals are responsible for that. They keep talking about Korea.

I’m more concerned about what he did at the G7.

I mean…THAT was a clusterfuck.

This guy is an epic disaster, and I know I say this once a month, but I just cannot see any good long term outcomes here. This asshole represents forces that absolutely do not care about human rights on any level, and literally have contempt for democracy. They are slowly strangling this country to death, and it’s hard to have any hope whatsoever.

Enh.

I see a bunch of partisans seeing what they wanted to see. Everybody is promoting a narrative. The most transparent way is through selection of photos to circulate, especially that contrast ones: “here’s a photo of this guy; here’s a photo of that guy. See the difference?”

You know, anybody can stack the deck that way.

As far as this summit goes, Trump DID get something. He got the world media to focus on him holding talks with a “rogue” state, and that promotes his image as a Go-Getter, problem-solver. The fact that many people see through that pose, notwithstanding.

North Korea got more, maybe, since it is a 4th rate nation with no international standing, and this gave them a boost in that way. But Trump really didn’t give up anything. He cancelled a set of joint exercises. BFD. Those exercises are nothing but showbiz anyway. We do everything through the air now.

In the mean time…at least people are talking instead of blustering and blowing things up. Maybe now that he got an ego boost, Rocket Man might be willing to slow down the nuclear development.

It was mostly a photo opportunity, and nothing substantial happened, but nothing bad happened, either.

I believe the US government may have been negligent, but not actively involved.

The prime directive of the Bush admin assholes was regime change in Iraq which was supposed to debut a grand Americanization of the Middle East. We know this without doubt.

So…if the US government had a hand in this, the pilots would have been Iraqis. That just would have been very simple to do, and vastly more effective.

They weren’t. They inconveniently were mostly from countries allied with the US.

waterfield wrote:

I suppose my question is this: if “the issues are complex, and the reading level is too high for most Americans” why is it that on a percentage basis the Republicans have more of their constituency voting than the Democrats? And by a lot.

Good question.

My first armchair guess would be that older, whiter, more affluent voters are more likely to feel like they have a stake in the outcome whereas younger, minority, and poor people are more likely to feel like it doesn’t make much difference.

But I don’t know. Democrats should really figure this out, though. The lack of turnout for them to midterm elections and special elections is the reason that Republicans control the country disproportionately.

It was 30-45 minutes of work to prepare to vote this time.

Anybody can vote by mail. I’m a permanent absentee voter (that way I avoid the long lines of illegal aliens George Soros pays to vote multiple times).

It isn’t time.

It’s that the issues are complex, and the information provided is incomplete (many candidates make generic statements that don’t mean anything, and many don’t provide any statement at all). This is something I would address if I was in power. I would require more information. As it is, how are we supposed to know whom to vote for in down ticket races? How is anyone supposed to know how to vote for a judge or sheriff when they are on the ballot?

The issues are complex, and the reading level is too high for most Americans, so they just don’t do it (or vote based on advertising).

joemad wrote:

i used to lose my patience with youtube vids as youtube has become my new search engine…. if I need fix or learn to do something, I youtube it to find a solution…….. the problem is the folks that create these vids take forever to get to the point, thus I watch them in faster speeds……

Try it for the Noam Chomsky vids… that guy speaks so slow in real time that I have to watch his vids at 2X playback speed……

Oh, I will definitely give it a try. I don’t know how many DIY repair videos I’ve watched that take 4 minutes to say anything relevant.

zn wrote:

Rams player No. 5 will be revealed on NFL Network’s Top 100 Players list tonight (40-31).

Who ya got?

We’re at 5?

And no Gurley yet, and no Donald.

I…don’t know. I would have to guess Donald would be rated higher than Gurley because Donald’s numbers aren’t just the best in the NFL for a DT, they are historically good. Gurley is a great player, but Donald’s production is historically rare.