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@Amber
- I've been merely exposed to straight people my entire life without any apparent effect.
- Insisting that there will soon be a massive conspiracy to make America gay is classic, kooky, conspiracy theory bullshit.
- I strongly recommend you make yourself a tin-foil hat- you're going to be wanting one soon
- Calling LGBTQ people 'evil' "weak" 'intolerant" "violent" "unnatural" and "illegal" in two sentences without assembling any argument is merely hate speech.
- And a desperate ploy by the immoral to convince the stupid to vote for the party of racists, rapists, and Russians.
- Fear makes bad public policy.
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Titone had a similar experience to other individuals who were approached to participate in the documentary, and while initially receptive to the request, she pulled out of the interview after being tipped off by fellow activists. Ultimately, she feels she made the right call, accusing Starbuck of “sensationalizing” her work in the Colorado legislature “just to make money.”
The Starbucks also recorded their attempts to contact Dr. Marci Bowers, a transgender, board-certified gynecologist specializing in gender-affirming surgery and an expert in clitoral/genital reconstruction for survivors of female genital mutilation and cutting. “Why does this ideology not allow questions?” Landon Starbuck asked Bower’s office manager after the employee reiterated that Bowers would not be participating in the film. “Isn’t that a sign of grooming?”
Bower’s employee, who Rolling Stone has agreed not to name to protect their privacy, was not aware that the recording of the call had been used in the film. “I think [Bowers] is very brave in saying yes to a lot of interactions with folks that we already know don’t agree with her,” the employee says, adding that the clinic regularly gets calls from individuals who are intent on pressing their own views, but that Bowers takes all media requests seriously.
Bowers tells Rolling Stone that her office had already been aware that a pseudo-documentary connected to Starbuck was approaching activists for interviews without disclosing his involvement in the project. In 2021, Bowers was one of several individuals duped by The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh into participating in his anti-trans film What Is a Woman? Walsh’s production team used a tactic that has become a template for projects like The War on Children, implementing pseudonyms and creating a shield organization titled “The Gender Unity Project” to mask the films’ association with The Daily Wire.
“We were on the lookout and skeptical of anything being proposed,” Bowers says. “They have this sweet little title and, you know, sounding like they’re just doing a nice little nice documentary piece and it’s all deceptive.”
“They use disinformation and scare tactics to rally the general public against us. So someone who is in the vast ideological middle, if they aren’t really familiar with transgender health care, they have no idea,” she adds. Bowers characterizes the rare instances of gender-affirming surgery being performed on young teens and even children as outliers generally antithetical to medically-accepted best practices, a view consistent with that of accredited medical organizations.
Across the board, the individuals who spoke to Rolling Stone — including Bowers — affirmed that they’re perfectly willing to speak to individuals expressing a genuine interest in their work and perspective. What they’re not willing to do is play along with right-wing influencers who attempt to use their names, work, and public image to malign their communities.
The methods used by the Starbucks and others on the right have created a chilling effect among many LGBTQ+ influencers and activists, who now feel that they need to constantly be on guard and take extra precautions to avoid inadvertently becoming entrapped in a similar scheme.
“I get requests to be interviewed all the time from a lot of different people,” Titone says. “Whether it’s the college student who’s doing a report, or someone who’s doing a podcast or whatever. It wasn’t until this whole thing happened that now I have to be super careful about all this stuff.”
“People who reached out to me had legitimate reasons to interview me — because they were interested in me as a person and what I stand for, not to try to bait me into some film that he’s going to try to make money on and destroy people’s lives,” she adds, describing Starbuck as a “shoe bomber” who’s helped “ruin for everybody” the standard good-faith expectation between activists, advocates, and those looking to hear their perspective.
Multiple individuals who spoke to Rolling Stone added that their relief over not participating in the documentary was compounded given the slew of anti-trans, anti-drag laws that have been passed in Tennessee, where much of the filming took place. “At best, I figured that they wanted to misrepresent me in this sham documentary; but at worst, by inviting me to Nashville, I did not know if they wanted to directly harm me in some way or perhaps try to set me up to be arrested, as this was during the time when Tennessee’s anti-drag bill had passed and before it was stayed by the court,” Lil Miss Hot Mess says.
“While I’m happy to speak with people who I disagree with, I also don’t waste my time on unserious people who are just trying to stir up trouble or misrepresent what I have to say. And if someone can’t show the basic respect of approaching me with the dignity or truth I deserve, then why should I even bother to respond?” she adds.
Electronika feels similarly. “If you’re gonna go into a conversation with a deceptive stance, I mean, that eliminates all potential honesty going forward,” she tells Rolling Stone. “If you can’t go into an interaction with your true colors waving then how can you be trusted in any moment that happens afterwards?”
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The pair left her a voicemail, which was provided to Rolling Stone, in which they questioned why she chose not to be in the documentary and said they wanted to have “civil discourse” with her. Robby Starbuck then asked “Mr. Hot Mess” why “you believe it’s a good thing for grown men to dress up as women and do sexual dances for them” and what “you thought about the people who’ve exposed their genitalia to children, and why that would be OK?”
“I wanted to ask you about why you thought that drag in front of children … was explicitly about politics — not even about inclusion or sexualizing them — but really about politics and making sure that they turned into the little left-wing red guards that you guys would like them to be,” Robby Starbuck adds.
The tone of the message was a far cry from a series of sample interview questions provided to her in earlier communications.
“They claim that they wanted to have balanced ‘civil discourse,’ but that’s ridiculous,” Lil Miss Hot Mess told Rolling Stone. “They not only misrepresented who they were and what their goals were, but then turned and began using incredibly offensive language about me personally and LGBTQ+ communities more broadly.”
Lil Miss Hot Mess’ experience with the Starbucks lays bare the general tone of The War on Children — which couldn’t have been further from the positive-sounding, inclusive forum described in the production’s communications. The pair refer to LGBTQ+ individuals and allies — particularly those advocating transgender acceptance and inclusion — as “pro-mutilation activists,” and describe movements supporting diversity and inclusion as a “far left cultural revolution that is meant to destroy our country.” The film is a synthesis of the right’s fear-mongering over LGBTQ+ issues and attacks against the LGBTQ+ community — one with a forgone conclusion, little room for nuance, and a $12 access price.
The film focuses heavily on staple issues of the right’s now-ubiquitous attacks against gender-diverse individuals and their push for civil rights and access to resources. As the title suggests, The War on Children is centered primarily on how these issues relate to children, highlighting the stories of “detransitioners,” parents of young children who’d questioned their identity, child trafficking victims, and family members who’d lost loved ones to suicide. It asserts that those issues are the result of widespread efforts — primarily led by the left and LGBTQ+ activists — to medically and surgically “mutilate” young people through gender-affirming care, sexualize them through social media, drag, or the introduction of pornography to schools, and normalize sexual relationships between adults and children. This “war on children” will ultimately usher in the destruction of society if not won by warrior parents, the film argues.
“Obviously, parents can dictate what materials their children are exposed to,” Electronika says. “There are no drag shows, or drag story hours, or LGBT events that are happening where children are showing up unaccompanied by a guardian or an adult. … When we do have a drag event that is happening, where minors may be present, it would be a rare occurrence for anything sexually explicit to be occurring on stage.”
The War on Children dismisses the established and ever-growing body of research and medical knowledge around gender and sexual identity as propaganda by the pharmaceutical industry and activists. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards advises against gender-affirming surgery for children and adolescents, which is already extremely rare. Instead, medical standards recommend supportive care alongside work with a mental health professional for young children, and continued supportive care with the option to explore the use of puberty blockers for adolescents under the guidance of medical professionals. Medical experts agree that detransitioning is also a rare phenomenon, with one study review of 8,000 trans patients finding that only one percent of those who had gender-affirmation surgeries regretted it.
In one email obtained by Rolling Stone, Starbuck’s production team tells a potential participant that the documentary has secured interviews with “experts in the fields of parenting, drag, gender-affirming care, inclusion and lawmaking” to paint a full and complete picture of the landscape surrounding issues of gender and identity. While it sounds comprehensive, in reality the documentary is a who’s who of right-wing commentators and activists. The film prominently features Chaya Raichik, the influencer behind Libs of TikTok, as well as anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and representatives from The Heritage Foundation and the anti-abortion group White Rose Resistance.
In an interview with Buck Sexton and Clay Travis given shortly after the film’s release, Starbuck described his conversations with LGBTQ+ allies and activists not as discussions, but as “confrontations.” As individuals withdrew from the production, or outright refused to participate after becoming aware of who was involved, they switched strategies, and had their film crew record their attempts to directly contact activists over the phone. Tennessee, where the majority of the documentary was filmed, only requires one party’s consent to record conversations, and many of those who spoke to Rolling Stone were not aware that their names and recordings of their calls had been included in the film.
Starbuck includes a portion of a phone call with Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone (D), one of the only transgender lawmakers serving in elected office. While introducing the call, he accused Titone of supporting a “trans youth trafficking bill” allowing minors to circumvent state-level bans on gender affirming care, and misgendered her. The portion of the call put in the film is brief, with Titone reiterating her refusal to participate in the project and hanging up the phone shortly after, to which Starbuck tells the camera that “everyone on this pro-child mutilation advocacy side, they avoid conversations at all costs.”
Titone tells Rolling Stone that “this is exactly the kind of thing that I expected from this charlatan,” claiming that Starbuck had edited out the moment on the exchange where she’d called him out on the likelihood that he was recording their conversation without disclosing it to her. When asked if he had informed those he called that they were being recorded, Starbuck told Rolling Stone that “yes, they were told that we were making a documentary at the beginning of the calls or were told before we called in some cases,” adding that recording disclosure was not necessary given Tennessee’s one-party consent law.
Regarding the accusation that she supports “trans youth trafficking” through her support for Colorado’s shield law, Titone clarified that “the bill shields the providers of gender-affirming care and abortion care from outside government trying to get information, or sue, or subpoena, and try to find out who’s coming here to get that kind of health care.” The law was created to protect patients and health care providers amid the rise in state laws restricting access to gender-affirming care, and efforts from prosecutors in conservative states to target medical providers in other states.
“The law is for gender-affirming care, and that’s for anybody — it’s not even for children [specifically],” Titone added. “It’s for anybody who’s transgender who wants to get care. They’re banning adults from getting gender-affirming care in some states.”
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Electronika was one of only two LGBTQ+ individuals or allies the Starbucks interviewed face-to-face who were explicitly identified for the audience as representing opposing views to themselves. Others who were approached were made aware of the nature of the documentary — many through the work of activist Eli Erlick who discovered the ruse — and either pulled out or refused requests to participate.
In emails, Starbuck’s staff used pronoun preferences in their signatures, and provided working titles for the film such as Identity Rising and It Takes a Village. They described the project in similar terms as they did to Electronika, and suggested a desire to discuss the “importance of inclusion among young folks” and exploring “the experiences of trans people and drag queens, with a special focus on trans youth.”
In several instances, potential interview subjects were told the documentary would be directed — and even “self-produced” — by “award-winning” cinematographer Matt Rodgers, with staff omitting Starbuck’s name from communications and making no mention of another co-director or producer. They also told participants that the documentary would be distributed by a “household name” streaming service, and were given blank release forms. In a June 2023 tweet, Starbuck himself hinted that he was working on a “top secret documentary.”
When individuals asked for more details about who was behind the film, production staff pointed to non-disclosure agreements as the reason for the lack of transparency. When one individual — having been tipped off that Starbuck was behind the film — attempted to secure answers about his role in the project, a staffer reassured them that they would be treated fairly because an unnamed woman participating in the documentary would be “representing a different view from Robby’s.”
Almost all of this turned out to be misleading or outright false. The War on Children is a stark departure from the project titles offered to LGBTQ+ individuals and activists. The film was both directed and produced by Robby Starbuck and his media company, with Rodgers credited as cinematographer. The film was not released by a “major streaming service,” but rather made available through pay-per-view on X, the right-wing video hosting website Rumble, and My Movies Plus. The unnamed woman providing a “different view” from Starbuck — whose identity he declined to confirm to Rolling Stone in June — was actually his wife and fellow activist, Landon Starbuck.
Most importantly, as Electronika’s experience demonstrates, the treatment given to members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies deviated drastically from the “fair and honorable approach to each individual” that Starbuck promised in his past comments to Rolling Stone.
“I don’t think a lack of transparency contributed to any hesitation” among potential interview subjects, Starbuck told Rolling Stone in an email. “It’s par for the course that left-wing media like Rolling Stone are more interested in writing a negative story about some subjects we asked to interview being upset than to examine the War On Children that we exposed in our film. The focus of this story should not be Robby Starbuck, Landon Starbuck, or any of the people who claim to be upset,” he added.
When asked to explain the discrepancy regarding what potential interview subjects were told about Rodgers’ role in the film, Starbuck wrote that Rodgers “wore many hats during production including him directing and producing many parts of the film. There are many roles both of us took on that are uncredited as often occurs on small crews.”
Starbuck did not directly address a question about why the production staff failed to disclose Landon Starbuck’s identity when claiming to potential interview subjects that a co-host would express a different view from his own. Instead, he wrote that “it’s very regressive to think she shares all of her husband’s opinions.” (In the context of the film, one would struggle to pinpoint a moment where the two hosts were not in agreement with one another, or operating as a team. “We’re the Starbucks,” Landon narrates in the film’s opening segment, explaining that the pair left the entertainment industry “because we knew that a silent war was being fought for the minds of America’s children.”)
Robby Starbuck adds that that’s why the couple is “here now, to expose the war on children.” The introduction sets the tone of their dynamic throughout the film: Both co-hosts use inflammatory rhetoric to describe their subjects, tag-team interviews, and provide the framework for the film’s narrative.
Electronika was not the only drag queen the film attempted to rope into the production. Starbuck notes in the film that California-based drag queen Lil Miss Hot Mess had pulled out of The War on Children after initially agreeing to participate. In the film, the Starbucks describe an academic paper written by Lil Miss Hot Mess on childhood interactions with drag queen story hours as an admission that “pride and drag for kids was meant to be political.” Landon Starbuck adds in a voiceover that exposing children and young people to drag performances is intended to “sexualize” them and aimed at “creating lifelong left-wing voters.”
The “team absolutely misled me about the premise and tone of the documentary,” Lil Miss Hot Mess tells Rolling Stone in an email. “In fact, they went to great lengths to hide their identities and true intentions, it only became clear later that the Starbucks were behind it.”
Lil Miss Hot Mess adds that she disagreed with the treatment they gave her work, clarifying that her writing “thinks about what children can learn from drag performers, and vice versa.”
“The Starbucks are absolutely wrong,” she says. “Programs like Drag Story Hour don’t just teach about LGBTQ+ people or subjects — and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that — but about a broader way of thinking that is creative, playful, and imaginative.”
When she realized who she was dealing with, and stopped responding to their production assistant, Lil Miss Hot Mess says the couple “became incredibly disrespectful.”
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Emails Reveal How Anti-Trans Doc Duped LGBTQ Allies Into Participating
Robby Starbuck’s film The War on Children accuses LGBTQ+ activists of running from conversations — but they actually caught him trying to trick them into giving interviews
FEBRUARY 10, 2024
IN JUNE OF last year, Nashville drag queen Veronika Electronika arrived at a studio space for what she was told was an interview on her views regarding the struggles faced by children in the trans community, and how the lives and mental health of LGBTQ+ people were being affected by the recent slew of bans and restrictions on gender-affirming medical and drag performances.
Elektronika did not recognize her first interviewer, a woman she chatted with for several minutes before a man she did know entered the room.
“I have a question for you guys,” Electronika asks her hosts once they are seated together. “What do you guys do when you’re not in front of the camera?”
The woman replies that they spend time with their family.
“What are your last names?” Electronika presses.
“Starbuck,” the couple replies.
It’s at that moment that Electronika attempts to end the conversation, realizing that the interview wasn’t what she’d been led to believe.
The interviewers, Robby and Landon Starbuck, are both prominent right-wing activists who, like many conservative commentators, have made vitriolic criticism of the LGBTQ+ community — particularly the transgender and drag communities — a staple of their content. Earlier this month, Electronika’s experience with the couple became public as part of a film titled The War On Children. Robby Starbuck, who headed the project, released the film to great fanfare among the right, with the trailer garnering more than 30 million impressions on X (formerly Twitter) after being promoted by Elon Musk.
In June, Rolling Stone reported on accusations from LGBTQ+ individuals, activists, and allies approached for the movie that Robby Starbuck and his production team used deceptive tactics in order to entice them into participating in the then-upcoming film project. The practice is a staple within a growing right-wing media ecosystem which, as Rolling Stone has reported, is increasingly using the “documentary” format as a way to bypass social media and platform guidelines prohibiting hate speech against minority communities. The film is now available to the public, and new emails and recordings obtained by Rolling Stone show that Starbuck’s misleading tactics extended well beyond what has been previously reported.
When the production team first approached Electronika, they offered her the opportunity to participate in an upcoming documentary “tentatively titled ‘It Takes A Village’ from an award winning director.” The production assistant wrote that the film aimed “to delve deeper [into] exposing how these recent drag bans and gender-affirming care bans have been made, look at how it has affected the mental health of trans people and look forward into what future progress will look and sound like.”
“When I saw Mr. Starbuck walk through the hallway, I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I know this fucker,” Electronika tells Rolling Stone, adding that when she attempted to end the conversation “they tried to convince me to stay and I said, ‘You need to stop recording right now.’ The little red light kept going … and then they wouldn’t stop. So I started recording myself.”
The film depicts the couple pressing her to “denounce behavior that is sexually explicit around children,” showing her a zoomed-in photograph of another drag queen whose underwear became exposed while doing the spits, with a child in the audience as an example.
Electronika’s personal recording of the encounter, which she provided to Rolling Stone, makes clear that her conversation with the Starbucks was heavily edited to make it seem like she was completely unwilling to condemn the exposure of children to sexual material. In reality, Electronika affirmed she cared about the safety of children; that performers should respect their audiences and laws governing explicit material; told the Starbucks she felt “misled” about the nature of the interview; requested she not be used in the film; and emphasized she was refusing to answer questions “because of the setting that we’re in” — which turned out to be
something very different from what she had been led to believe. Some of her answers were omitted entirely, others were used piecemeal. In at least one instance, a comment Landon Starbuck made before Electronika began recording was inserted into an exchange Electronika did record.
In June, Starbucks told Rolling Stone that the film was “not the type of thing where you can expect unethical editing of any kind.”
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@Amber
This documentary video, done by a producer who has worked with some pretty famous people, has shown how and why this world is turning to shit.
- Strongly disagree. This video is merely MAGA propoganda for the weak in mind and spirit. The producer, director, and principle actor is a ex-metalcore videomaker who ran for Congress last year. Failed politicians, deep in throes of debt and power denied are predicatably unreliable journalists.
It is the only place I could find to the full video, and yes, it is on X, but that makes no difference.
- Obviously, sources make a difference to serious thinkers and rigourous truth-seekers. X is a place on the internet remade for the purpose of evading the fact-checkers and verification. Cybersecurity experts CHEQ estimated that 75% of all traffic on Superbowl Sunday. That the owner of a media company that needs to fake 75% of its business endorses propoganda piece says nothing to reliability.
- Verifying the truth is expensive, while telling lies is cheap. Which is why Starbuck can afford to propigate without charge.
The documentary is professionally researched and put together.
- Starbuck told his subjects he was making a documentary called "It Takes a Village." More than one subject was smart enough to tape their interviews as proof that Starburck edited their answers to his liking and inserted question he never asked to deliberately misrepresent the truth. No professional researcher would accept such corrupt methodology.
Through psychological warfare, or as they call it, the mere-exposure effect western civilization is being destroyed from within. There is a war on Western Civilization,
- That war is in Ukraine and MAGA is now clearly rooting for the fall of Western Civilizatiion. Trumpublicans can surrender any pretense of siding with Western Civilization any more. Western Civilization is an inherently liberal institution- the liberal, revolutionary reaction to the statis of medieval autocracies. Trump's call for a return to autocracy is inherently abusive to the core Western values. The Republican Party's mindless kowtow to Trump's command is the greatest threat to Western Civ since Munich 1938,
America has never been so divided across so many lines.
- Objectively false. 93% of Americans support equal rights for LGBTQ persons. Rainbow flags are not sexualizing children as Starbuck would have it. 92% support backgrounds checks for gun ownership. Only 13% of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal and 75% of Americans support the preservation of Ukraine as an European state. America is far more united that before the Revolujtionary or Civil Wars, more united than before WW2 or the Korean War or the Vietnam War. MAGA wishes to divide and so upsells division but the facts are that most Americans think most of Republican policy sucks.
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Alexi Nevalny thinks Trump is a threat Democracy
- Jan 6th established MAGA's intention beyond doubt. We don't need to consult the opinion of murdered Russian polticians to establish Trump's open hostility to Democracy and all other underpinnings of Western Civilization.
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- Unspurprisingly, Greyparrot hates fact-checkers and the facts they supply
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We are in perilous times for patriotic Americans.
- Anybody who thinks GP speaks for patriotic Americans hasn't been paying attention. Beneath everything GP says and does is an objectively discernible desire for the death of American democracy and with it the death of American prosperity and American freedoms. Pay close attention to which side this guy is really on. His doctrine never varies from that of Vladimir Putin's.
Wow, old Joe is so freaking angry.
- So angry that he's has to pay $80 million in damages for verbally assaulting an 80 year old woman he sexually assaulted 30 years ago? Naw. Sane people don't get that kind of angry.
Jill better be careful, those with Alzheimer's often hit their caretakers, even under heavy medication.
- Like all Presidents since Roosevelt excepting Trump, Biden's medical record is published annually. We know exactly what medications Biden takes and we know his mental accuity has been tested as excellent. Why does Trump hide his medical record? A 78-year old living on cheeseburgers and diet cokes has got to have some serious health concerns.
- Snopes explains the correction with clarity:
- We received a ton of comments in a very short time challenging our assumption that wearing a hard hat "backwards" means wearing it with the brim facing to the rear, and "forwards" means wearing it brim to the front. On the basis of that assumption, we originally rated the claim that Biden was wearing a hard hat backwards as false.
The prevailing counter-argument is that if the suspension of the hat has been purposely configured by its owner such that the bill and tightening knob are worn to the back (as was the case of the hat Biden wore), to wear that hat with the bill facing forward is, practically speaking, to wear it backwards. Therefore, it's argued, it's actually true that, in the photo op discussed below, Biden was wearing it backwards. The strap and tightening knob, which should have been behind Biden's head, were on his forehead.
A corollary to that argument is "Biden looks damn silly in any case."
We find these arguments sound. Therefore, the claim "President Joe Biden wore a hard hat backwards during a photo op with union construction workers in Superior, Wisconsin" is true, and this fact check has been re-rated as such. Thanks to all who argued on behalf of this correction.
- I prefer to rely on sources that don't need to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars before they'll admit a mistake and correct the record.
- I'm okay with the President wearing a hat backwards. Sometimes I do the same thing myself.
- What I like to see is the President picking up blue collar endorsements in Wisconsin while Trump is wasitng his donors' hard-earned contributions on pyaing for his compulsive, outrageous sluttiness decades ago. Which of these seems ready to lead?
- Certainly, I like the Biden is capable of wearing a hat to show his solidarity with Amercian workers.
- Trump, by comparison, can't wear any hat. Certainly not on impulse since Trump pays a man more thatn $70,000 per year to whirl his super long hair into a plausible looking confection on the top of his head and sprray paint it gold. Any hat would instantly destroy the illusion that Trump is not bald on top with disgustinly long hair on the sides and waste the hour each day Trump invests in his hair.
- I prefer sane leaders with normal hair. The kind of hair you can pop a hat on just to show you're a friend of the working man.
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The GOP chairman was right to offer Lake almost any price to drop out. Lake easily wins to GOP primary in August and Ruben Gallegos easily beats Lake in November. Lake has just guaranteed the Senate remains Democratic
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Has anyone gained more weight in such a short time?
- You sound exactly like Donald Trump
- What the fuck does anybody's waistline have to do with good governance? Was Winston Churchil less skilled a politican because he was fat?
- Would you be criticising her if she caucused with the Democrats? Obviously not. Jerry Nadler's smuggling at least two Elise Stefaniks down his pants but you have nothing to say there.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
FBI, yeah right. It was all on tape? We've charged 1200+ out of what, two thousand, mostly based on tape, and not a single FBI agent has emerged? Blaming the FBI at this point is an act of surreal faith, a belief in spite of the evidence. True Q. That's what separates a conspiracy theory fron fact-finding.
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@TheUnderdog
- MAGA is a radical Populist personality cult, about as far from American Conservatism as Pluto from the Earth. Saying MAGA Conservative demonstartes a deep ignorance about the history and political positions of American Conservatives. When you say "MAGA Conservative" you reveal to the politcally educated that you don't much about American Conservatism.
If MAGA conservatives wanted to murder elected officials, they would have brought their guns.
- I would encourage you to educate yourself about the facts of Jan 6th. As soon as you do, you will discover that the crowd chanted for hours "Hang Mike Pence." The crowd brought effective nooses to with 30 feet of the place where Pence hid with his wife and family. Pence has testified under oath that he understood that his family's lives were in terrible danger. Remember that when Pence got to the limos, his regular team had been replaced by people he didn't know and Pence wisely ran away from that Secret Service team. We still don't know what those dudes orders were.
Lets just say it is pretty hard (maybe impossible) to violently overthrow a government without guns (especially if the party doing it are hardcore 2A advocates who waive gun flags as much as left wingers waive gay flags).
- Putin did it with poison. Xi overthrew the Chinese government and he only had to disappear a couple of the old school guys. Trump wants to do it using our old fashioned and unnecessarrily complicated electoral system, using it or abusing it.
- MAGA did bring a significant cache of guns to Jan 6th., more than enough to kill a few thousand necessary to secure the Capitol.
- Keep in mind that DC has the strictest gun laws in the US and that if you wanted to see Trump talk that day you had to go through a series of magnetometers. Recall that when the Secret Service complained to Trump that his followers were trying to smuggle long guns into the Stop the Steal Rally, Trump demanded that they be left alone. "They're not here for me." Trump explained in cold blood.
- Nevertheless, more than 123 terrorists have been charged with using a deadly weapon onto the Capitol grounds. 114 Police officers were hospitalized.
- Much later, we learned that the Oath Keepers were guarding three caches of military weapons including grenades, bazookas, AR-15s. One Iraq vet testified thsy one cache waiting on a boat in the Potomac, less than a mile from the Capitol held "more weapons than I've seen since the Iraq War."
- Roger Stone made the call that the riot had failed to disable Congress' capacity to count the vote. The pipe bombs failed to explode. Stone expected Trump to be at the Capitol and the fact that Trump wasn't there was read by Stone as failure or cowardice. Stone was on a plane to Florida 20 mins later., believing they were all about to get arrested.
- We know of a couple of other independent caches, dudes who just filled their cars up with their home arsenals and drove an impressive array of arms including pipe bombs.
- Also, there other pipe bombs planted that failed to go off. Obviously the original plan was to bomb the DNC and RNC National headquarters simultaeously, so that most police would be away from teh Capitol when the mob arrived.
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@n8nrgim
well, that's what its about, robots raising human children on far off planets. I recommend it.
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@n8nrgim
Have you watched that TV show about that scenario, Raised by Wolves, I believe its called?
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@Double_R
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@<<<oromagi>>>
Can you provide a couple of relevant, convincing precedents for self-executing legislation?
The disqualification of any presidential candidate under 35 or not born in the United States.
- But that standard is objective, a measurable standard. Insurrection is a subjective standard in a Democracy that encourages dissent. To encourage dissent in the future, we must apply a standard that it could not apply to ordinary conduct in other offices.
What act would that be? The only process Congress has at its disposal to determine whether someone is guilty of an act is impeachment, and I went on about that at length in the OP.
- not a precedented process or ceremony but an orginal act with bicameral supermajority support. I would call that a sufficient process to enforce the constitutional prohibition. Obviously, this is not much of a possibility in the real present.
The most convincing and damning tactic for ending MAGA is to win a one or two humiliating landslide elections that drive the facists and opportunist haters back into the closet for another generation.I agree with this sentiment entirely, I really do wish this wasn't what we would be debating in an election year. But the constitution with all is provisions exist for a reason, if the best thing for a society to do is whatever the majority wants it would have no purpose. The whole idea is that we follow it regardless of whatever we deem to be best for the moment.
Congress' purpose is to make new law. Congress can make a law tomorrow that says convicted felons can't run for president until their prison time is served (a sensible enought law) and Trump would be disqualified by November.
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@Sam_Flynn
Wikipedia:
it is clear that during the 19th century, the President of the United States was considered an officer of the United States by the public because the original public meaning of “officer” is much broader than modern doctrine assumes— encompassing any government official with responsibility for an ongoing governmental duty. [23] In the case of K&D LLC v. Trump Old Post Office, LLC, 951 F. 3d 503, President Trump successfully argued that the U.S. President qualifies as an Officer of the United States, citing 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The court's agreed, stating this statute permitted President Trump, in his capacity as an "officer... of the United States", to remove the state suit relating to duties of his office to federal court.[24]
Since Trump has benefitted financially from insisting that he is an officer of the United States, justice now demands that Trump either adhere to his previous position or else refund all the profits resulting from his earlier, successful claim that the President is an officer of the United States.
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@n8nrgim
According to a 2012 study, the X/A ratio for bonobos is 0.85, which means that on average, two females reproduce for each male.However, in bonobo communities, a few males monopolize reproduction. For example, one study found that the most sexually successful male fathered 60% of the next generation. Another study found that the most reproductively successful male in bonobos achieves 62% of paternities, which is higher than inchimpanzeesAccording to NCBI, male mountain gorillas who achieve alpha status have large reproductive payoffs. In one-male groups, the alpha male sires all offspring. In multimale groups, the alpha male sires about 85% of offspring.According to Nature, only 52% of male savannahbaboons ever father an infant. The number of infants sired by these males varies from 1 to 16.
- This is jut one of many, many traits we share with the rest of primates.
- Look at primative social groupings like cults: Koresh was sleeping and fathering children with most of the women in the group. JIm Jones fathered dozens of the children he murdered and also asserted his sexual dominance within the male congregation as well. Warren Jeffs fathered about 60 children.
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@TheUnderdog
WIKTIONARY usage notes for "all ages"
In the United States, many entertainment events are restricted to those over the drinking age (21+) or to those who are legally adults (18+). An event that is open to those who are legally children – primarily (non-adult) teens (13–17) and sometimes tweens (roughly 8–12) – is referred to as an all ages event. Such an event may or may not be suitable for young children, infants, and babies – if it is, it may be referred to specifically as family friendly.
BAM! You lose. Only an asshole woud insist that the only possible interpretation is "must be suitable for infants."
Here's what AI thinks of the question:
You
does the phrase "all ages" necessarily impy infant participation?
ChatGPT:
The phrase "all ages" generally implies inclusivity across various age groups and does not necessarily imply infant participation. It encompasses individuals of different ages, including children, teenagers, adults, and possibly seniors, depending on the context. While "all ages" suggests a broad range of participants, it does not specifically pinpoint infants unless the context explicitly indicates so. If infants are intended to be included, organizers or communicators would typically specify "all ages, including infants" or a similar clarification.
BAM! You lose. Only a fascist would insist that their personal misinterpretation must be the standard applied and not the standard commonly used by world famous authors and super reliable magazine publishers.
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->@<<<oromagi>>>Please provide 3 specific examples of Castleman endorsing sex with infantsI really only need one and I provided the link.
- Since Castleman did not write the headline, it does not serve as an example of Castleman endorsing sex with infants.
- Your unique interpretation of "for all ages" as necessarily suggestive of infants in spite typical English language usage is both bizarre and disposiitive for your nutty opinion.
When Kanye West said he liked Hitler ( a claim I think is reprehensible), he didn't need to say it 3x, just once is sufficient.
- OK for you but it different for me. I usually withhold drawing a conclusion about human behavior before a pattern is established. 3 examples is the absolute minimum necessary for establishing a pattern. That's why a 5 paragraph essay uses 3 examples to validate a thesis. I guessed that Michael Jackson was a pedophile when I learned that he spoke to McCaulley Culkin on the phone every day but I withheld drawing a conclusion until his accusers came forward. If you form judgements about people based on a single turn of phrase in a magazine headline, you must be frequently surprised by other people's behavior
I thought Castlemann wrote that headline. I still think article writers write their own headlines.
- Well , that's just faith-based foolishness since the truth of the matter is easily googled
- "Most readers don't realize that those who write stories, the reporters, seldom write their own headlines. They may suggest headlines, but more often space needs or other considerations force an editor to fashion something different. What's more, headlines are too often inaccurate, or biased."
- Writing headlines - North Dakota State University
- I submit that you are one of those readers who did not realize that the reporters, seldom write their own headlines.
The editor (if they agree with it) believes that horrible opinions as well and the editor is probably a gentile. I will hold Gentiles to the same standard as Jews.
- Why? What does anybody's religion have anything to with Castleman's good health recommendation?
They could have said, "adults of all ages".
- But then you exclude teenagers. And i think it important to tell teenagers particularly that actual pussy penetration doesn't need to be focus of very satisfying sex and excluding intercourse from sex is the absolutely the easiest way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I am glad that Castleman addresses teenager as well and particularly. I think you are a twit for characterizing this wisdom as pedophilia or grooming or somehow addressed to pre-teens. Don't you value fewer unwanted pregnancies? Are you really willing to sabatoge good sex advice to teenagers for a chance to hurl one dim-witted anti-semetic screed?
Over 80% of Jews have no idea who Castleman is; but once they find out about what he said, they should denounce him on this issue (same standard for Gentiles).
- or what? they lose your respect? Am I supposed to believe you always thought well of the Jews before this failure to denounce the silliest possible interpreation of a magazine headline?
Correct; him being Jewish had nothing to do with it.
- So what the fuck then with you challenging all of Judaism to denounce the unnamed editor?. This strongly suggests that your anger towards Judaism precedes your misinterpretation of the headline in question.
Castleman's Jewish childhoood has absolutely nothing to do with his opinion that vaginal intercourse need not represent the whole of human sexuality and ought not be taught as the essential act of sex.This is confusing what you are saying here.
- Unfortunately, that is Castleman's thesis. Your admission that you failed to comprehend Castleman's thesis is particularly damning, in case you are wondering.
Your response to this very reasonable, highly researched opinion is "you're a jew and a pedophile."I didn't say that.
- But that's precisely what you said. You didn't make any other arguments other than irrrevantly pointing out Castleman's religion and ignornantly misinterpreting a common turn of phrase as proof of infant-fucking.
I meant the Jews (and Gentiles) that read my post.
- Well, THAT's a big, fat, fucking lie. You said Jew over and over again but never said Gentiles. One problem arguing against bigoty is that the bigot is so willing to distort history, deny the basic shared reality. Saying only now that you really meant Jews and Gentiles alike is a super-weak cop out. Let's address the words in the OP and not your page 2 attenuations.
I mean, if you post something like, "Rand Paul did bad thing X" and you call on Rand Paul supporters to denounce Rand Paul based on thing X, nobody on this site expects their message to reach every single person that likes Rand Paul; but maybe 5 or so Rand Paul supporters, and hope that they denounce Rand Paul based on what Paul did. Does this mean you hate Rand Paul supporters (especially if it's something that doesn't get much media coverage)? Like the big media didn't find this article,, I happened to by pure chance; I wasn't trying to find anything like this article; I just happened too.
- No. I mean a good debater would demand good evidence to support any claim of Rand Paul harms and no good debater would ao misconsture a scientific journal's headline as to suggest incontrovertable evidence of horrible violations of innocence.
Anybody who wrote this OP has committed an act of anti-semitism- that is just fact.I disagree with this claim; I would support both Lee Zeldin (republican jew) or Bernie Sanders (democrat Jew) for POTUS
- Well, first they must publicly denounce Castleman or you are a hypocrite and since neither would be brain-damaged enough to denounce a good man at a mere mad man's request, we can't really believe you'd vote for people who just characterized as in collusion with pedophiles.
I don't hate people for being Jewish.
- You just call them pedophiles for no good reason.
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@Double_R
What did you think about my point that because there is no official proceeding designated to deal with this amendment it becomes self executing?
- I'm uncertain. Can you provide a couple of relevant, convincing precedents for self-executing legislation?
Essentially, what you're arguing is that the only outcome which can satisfy such judgement is for an inserectionist to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
- Or a Congresssional act. Either of those would satisfy due process by my sensibility.
That standard not only seems wholly inappropriate given what's at steak, is also not what the constitution says and is very much at odds with the clear intentions of the amendment.
- I agree that the Constitution does not demand that standard and that Civil War precedent never applied that standard. I agree that the stakes are high- democracy itself as well as our superpower reputation. I think we agree that the Constitution is a little vague and precedent scarce. It is because the stakes are so high that the highest standards of evidence should apply to any punishment applied to a candidate representing one fifth of the people, even if that fifth is objectively the least deserviing of the American franchise.. The most convincing and damning tactic for ending MAGA is to win a one or two humiliating landslide elections that drive the facists and opportunist haters back into the closet for another generation. Our civitas is strongest when the law is laid by clear national majorities.
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@TheUnderdog
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@<<<oromagi>>>
The most telling aspect of your anti-semetic slander is that you never actually state your accusation.
The accusation is that he is defending having sex for people of all ages (even infants).
- This is a stupid fucking lie. MIchael Castleman is one of the most prolific American writers on the subject of sex and sexuality in our lifetime. His opiinions regarding pedophilia and unerage sex could not be better documented or more crystal clear and Castleman does not endorse sex with infants.
- Please provide 3 specific examples of Castleman endorsing sex with infants or apologize for bearing false witness in a public venue laying on with the most scandalous of accusations agasint a stranger without research or care for the harm you inflict.
- Please confirm you are aware that article writers almost never write magazine headlines. That is the job of the magazine editor. If your only, sole, weak-ass, pathetic, shitty piece of evidence is that some Psychology Today editor used the phrase "lovers of all ages" in the same sense as "gamers of all ages" or "sports fans of all ages." then you need to apologize for your incredibly superficial and worthless reasoning. Those phrases do not imply that infants love games or sports, they simply imply that there are multiple stages of develpment about which we may generalize.
- So you can either perceive what a foolish mistake in basic magazine comprehension you have committed, or realize this means that you must prove that all Psychology Today editors are Jewish and pro-pedophilia before attacking Judaism generally for failing to renounce all the editors at Psychology Today. Right?
You can criticize one Jewish person without being anti sematic.
- Castleman's religion has nothing to do with his science-based and well researched opinion expressed here. People on this site really suck at comprehending logical fallacies but here you have provided a perfect example of ad hominem attack. Castleman's Jewish childhoood has absolutely nothing to do with his opinion that vaginal intercourse need not represent the whole of human sexuality and ought not be taught as the essenttial act of sex. Your response to this very reasonable, highly researched opinion is "you're a jew and a pedophile." Do counterargument come any more irrelevantly insulting than that?
- Castleman writes frequently about the necessity of removing religion from healthcare. If he is a practicing Jew, it is not evident in his biography, so why make him representative of all Judaism?
- You did not just criticize one Jew, you called upon all Jews to denounce Castleman, knowing that there is no venue for such a pronouncement and probably knowing that your characterization of Castleman is slanderous bullshit. There's no way all of Judaism could do what you call on them to do so you have set that entire group up for failure to criticize pedophilia based solely on unwarranted religious segregation.
Save the anti sematic label for people who are actually anti sematic; not me.
- Anybody who wrote this OP has committed an act of anti-semitism- that is just fact. Today you are an anti-semite by your own words and deeds whatever you may do to apologize or make up for this act in the future.
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@TheUnderdog
The most telling aspect of your anti-semetic slander is that you never actually state your accusation. That's because the inference you draw would only seem condemnatory to the superficial and ignorant.
So please, state your thesis as succinctly as possible and provide every piece of evidence you''ve assembled to substantiate your creul, unwarranted, vicious, casual
character assasination.
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@Double_R
Does the 14th Amendment, Section 3, apply to Trump?
Yes, it applies to all Americans in equal measure. The Office of the President of the United States is both civil and military, subject to the same constitutional standards as any and all others. Likewise, Trump swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and undeniably ended up undermining that same Constitution more profoundly than any other figure in human history. No single individual has done more structural and reputational harm to the foundational document of the United States of America than Trump. No honest historian would disagree. Certainly, MAGA, by word and deed, is a far greater enemy of the full text and meaning of the US Constitution than the Confederacy ever could be, and therefore more deserving of sanction than the Confederacy, which inspired these protections from charismatic traitors.
Did Donald Trump engage in insurrection or provide aid and comfort to the enemies thereof?
Here is Trump's only official on-the-record description of January 6th: “I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol,” he said. “Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.” (The Post’s Philip Rucker reports that this is not true.) “America is, and must always be, a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. And most Americans agree with Trump's official assessment as a terrible crime against American democracy.
What then do we do with the subsequent information that the Proud Boys, whom Trump called upon to "stand by," led the attack, were instrumental in penetrating the House and Senate's key defenses at the moment of the official recognition of Biden as the winner, and had their legal fees mostly paid for by Trump's lawyer Sydney Powell and a few Trump PACs? Trump paid the legal fees for the very criminals he condemns as defilers of America. This is a matter of public record and an indisputable fact. Those Proud Boys maintained three significant caches of weapons just outside of the District of Columbia. When Trump was told that many of his rallyers came armed with long guns, Trump wanted the guns brought past security. "They're not here to hurt me." Trump's own words indict him: Trump knew why the men with long guns were there. Trump knew who the men were here to hurt. What do we do with the knowledge that, in the moment of the "heinous attack," Trump was desperate to be entering the Capitol, desperate to be striding into the House of Representatives shoulder to shoulder with the QAnon Shaman mob and was only prevented by a Secret Service desperately evacuating the Vice President from that same mob? Since Trump's official assessment of January 6th is a heinous attack and we now know that Trump tried to lead that attack and knew that the attack was armed for a coup, and even now, Trump supports those attackers with fundraisers and PAC payoffs. We must conclude that even now, Trump provides ongoing aid and comfort to the very convicted attackers he officially condemns.
What then do we do with the subsequent information that the Proud Boys, whom Trump called upon to "stand by," led the attack, were instrumental in penetrating the House and Senate's key defenses at the moment of the official recognition of Biden as the winner, and had their legal fees mostly paid for by Trump's lawyer Sydney Powell and a few Trump PACs? Trump paid the legal fees for the very criminals he condemns as defilers of America. This is a matter of public record and an indisputable fact. Those Proud Boys maintained three significant caches of weapons just outside of the District of Columbia. When Trump was told that many of his rallyers came armed with long guns, Trump wanted the guns brought past security. "They're not here to hurt me." Trump's own words indict him: Trump knew why the men with long guns were there. Trump knew who the men were here to hurt. What do we do with the knowledge that, in the moment of the "heinous attack," Trump was desperate to be entering the Capitol, desperate to be striding into the House of Representatives shoulder to shoulder with the QAnon Shaman mob and was only prevented by a Secret Service desperately evacuating the Vice President from that same mob? Since Trump's official assessment of January 6th is a heinous attack and we now know that Trump tried to lead that attack and knew that the attack was armed for a coup, and even now, Trump supports those attackers with fundraisers and PAC payoffs. We must conclude that even now, Trump provides ongoing aid and comfort to the very convicted attackers he officially condemns.
Who and by what process is this decision made?
Well, I agree that Congress has the constitutional authority (and so, perhaps, the responsibility) to enforce any prohibition against traitors running for federal office. I think a legal criminal conviction of insurrection or similar treason likewise automatically disqualifies any officer so sworn. In spite of one Congressional finding and two findings by Justices of civil courts, I do not think that the question of Trump's insurrection has yet met the standard of "proven" guilty, whatever my personal convictions. Perhaps the most obvious way to make this decision is also the most traditional. Let the dumb bastard run. Taking Trump out before November only strengthens his claims of persecution. Left alone, democracy's rebuke can reinforce Trump's eventual conviction.
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Happy Birthday, Jesus
I guess I'm glad you came
your parables did please us
you uncrippled the lame
you did not care 'bout money
you not did care 'bout fame
you never were that funny
but your words were worth aclaim
So happy Birthday, savior
redemption was your aim
we ought do unto neighbors
as our neighbors do the same
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Examples of Fair Use:
- Critical Reviews and Commentary: Providing commentary, criticism, transformative work, or reviews of copyrighted works.
- Educational Use: Using copyrighted material for educational purposes, such as in the classroom or for research.
- News Reporting: Using copyrighted material in news reporting, journalism, or documentaries.
- Parody and Satire: Creating parodies or satirical works that comment on or mock the original.
Obviously, there's more to fair use than just purpose. To separate what ideas are yours vs what ideas are
someone else's, English speakers use quotations, italics, highlights, etc. When you take someone else's
ideas, examples, knowledge, prose, remove the main noun and insert a noun that suits your purpose without
making it clear what is yours and what is theirs , you are commiting property theft just as surely as if broke a
window and took a shit in that author's bed. Worse,really, because you haven't afforded the author the chance of shooting
you dead in the commision of your violations.
You are fabricating the illusion that an American historian agrees with Putin (and therefore you), when the historian wasn't even
talking about Ukraine or Russia. That's fucked up- immoral theft. If I catch you pulling bullshit like this again, I am taking action.
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But, but, we totally could have won Vietnam!"Those who make this argument contend that the United States had been on the verge of winning in Vietnam, but threw its chance for victory away because of negative press and a resulting failure of political will at home. This “lost victory” thesis originated with the Nixon administration and its supporters back in the 1970s, but gained considerable traction in the 1980s and ’90s after it was taken up by a group of influential revisionist historians, including Mark Moyar and Lewis S. Sorley III.Taking their cue from those deluded Vietnam revisionists, Ukrainian war optimists argue that as well: Americans thought we were losing in Vietnam when in fact we were winning, so too are we winning in Ukraine despite apparent evidence to the contrary. The problem, the optimists argued, was that — just as during the Vietnam War — naysaying pundits and politicians were not merely undermining popular support for the war, but giving our enemies (Putin) hope that they could win by waiting for the American people to lose their will to continue the fight.This kind of talk discourages a frank reassessment of our failing strategy in Ukraine, which produces that weekly procession of maimed Ukrainians. America did not experience a “lost victory” in Vietnam; in fact, victory was likely out of reach from the beginning.There is a broad consensus among professional historians that the Vietnam War was effectively unwinnable. Even the revisionists admit their minority status, though some claim that it’s because of a deep-seated liberal bias within the academic history profession. But doubts about the war’s winnability are hardly limited to the halls of academe. One can readily find them in the published works of official Army historians like Dr. Jeffrey J. Clarke, whose book “Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965-1973” highlights the irrevocable problems that frustrated American policy and strategy in South Vietnam. Pessimism also pervades “Vietnam Declassified: The C.I.A. and Counterinsurgency,” a declassified volume of the agency’s secret official history penned by Thomas L. Ahern Jr., a career C.I.A. operations officer who served extensively in Indochina during the war.In contrast, the revisionist case rests largely on the assertion that our defeat in Vietnam was essentially psychological, and that victory would therefore have been possible if only our political leadership had sustained popular support for the war. But although psychological factors and popular support were crucial, it was Vietnamese, rather than American, attitudes that were decisive. In the United States, popular support for fighting Communism in South Vietnam started strong and then declined as the war dragged on. In South Vietnam itself, however, popular support for the war was always halfhearted, and a large segment (and in some regions, a majority) of the population favored the Communists.The corrupt, undemocratic and faction-riven South Vietnamese government — both under President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was assassinated in a 1963 coup, and under the military cliques that followed him — proved incapable of providing its people and armed forces a cause worth fighting for. Unfortunately for the United States and the future happiness of the South Vietnamese people, the Communists were more successful: By whipping up anti-foreign nationalist sentiment against the “American imperialists” and promising to reform the corrupt socio-economic system that kept most of the country’s citizens trapped in perpetual poverty, they persuaded millions to fight and die for them.This asymmetry was the insurmountable stumbling block on the road to victory in Vietnam. Defeating the Communist guerrillas would have been an easy matter if the South Vietnamese people had refused to hide them in their midst. Instead, American and South Vietnamese could only grope after the elusive enemy and were rarely able to fight him except on his own terms.And even as American soldiers began pouring into the country in 1965, there were already enough South Vietnamese troops on hand that they should have been able to defend it on their own. After all, the South Vietnamese forces outnumbered the Communists, were far better supplied, had vastly superior firepower and enjoyed a considerable advantage in mobility thanks to transport planes and helicopters. But their Achilles’ heel was their weak will to fight — and this shortcoming was never overcome. Similarly, most Ukrainians have lost the will as well, with record levels of military aged men avoiding the Ukraine draft to escape a war only oligarchs had a stake in.Some years after the war ended, Lt. Gen. Arthur S. Collins, who had commanded all American troops in the central region of South Vietnam from February 1970 to January 1971, told an Army historian: “I didn’t think there was any way that South Vietnam could survive, no matter what we did for them. What put the final nail in the coffin, from my point of view, was when I learned from questioning [South Vietnamese] general officers that almost without exception their sons were in school in France, Switzerland, or the U.S. If they weren’t going to fight for South Vietnam, who was?”Despite its ally’s fundamental weakness, the United States might possibly still have won, of course, had it been willing to fully mobilize its own national power. But that would have required raising taxes, calling up the Reserves and other sacrifices that President Lyndon Johnson shrank from asking the American people to make.In a recent New York Times article, Mr. Moyar, the revisionist historian, decried “the absence of presidential cheerleading” and took Johnson to task for failing to create a “war psychology” that would have made Vietnam into a patriotic crusade (and presumably silenced the war’s critics). Mr. Moyar argued, “The public’s turn against the war was not inevitable; it was, rather, the result of a failure by policy makers to explain and persuade Americans to support it.”But Johnson was the most astute politician to sit in the White House during the 20th century, and he knew that he faced a paradox. As long as the war in Vietnam didn’t demand too much of them and they believed that victory was just around the corner, most Americans would support it. But if Johnson admitted publicly that South Vietnam could not survive without a full commitment by the United States, he knew that support would crumble.Such a move would reveal the war’s unpleasant truths: that South Vietnam’s government, just like Ukraine's, was an autocratic kleptocracy. Its military was reluctant to fight, much of its population willingly supported the Communists, North Vietnam was matching our escalation step by step, Johnson had committed the country to war without having a plan to win it and the Pentagon had no real idea when it would be won. And Johnson knew full well that if the public turned against the war, it would reject his leadership and cherished Great Society domestic agenda as well.So like other presidents before and after him, Johnson tried to conceal the bleak realities of Vietnam from the American people and deliberately misled them about the war’s likely duration and cost. Just about the last thing he wanted was to engender a wartime psychology — much less call for full mobilization. The Communists didn’t need American journalists and antiwar protesters to reveal that public enthusiasm for the war was fragile. Johnson’s refusal to raise taxes or call up the Reserves had made that obvious from the outset — just as our failure to impose new taxes or enact a military draft since 9/11 signals our enemies that America’s will to fight is weak.Although the United States undoubtedly had the means to prevail in Vietnam, the war was unwinnable at the level of commitment and sacrifice that our nation was willing to sustain. As the renowned historian George Herring put it, the war could not “have been ‘won’ in any meaningful sense at a moral or material cost most Americans deemed acceptable.”Perhaps the key lesson of Vietnam is that if the reasons for going to war are not compelling enough for our leaders to demand that all Americans make sacrifices in pursuit of victory, then perhaps we should not go to war at all. Sacrifice should not be demanded solely of those who risk life and limb for their country in combat theaters overseas. If it now requires American blood to retake the Donbas in Ukraine, then perhaps America should have never beaten the war drums in the first place 10 years ago.
- Totally aside from our usual disagreements, GreyParrot. I am advising you (as I have done in the past) that this is not a fair use of another writer's work. While I appreciate that you cited the work you are parroting (you often don't), that does not give you liberty to edit Kevin Boylon's prose to suit your argument. You can't just remove Iraq and insert Ukraine as if Boylon agrees with your master's philosophy. While not precisely plagiarism, the swapping out of his subject for yours is nevertheless certainly intellectual theft and an impersonation of Boylon offering your opinion- not acceptable. Please refrain from this manner of intellectual theft in the future.
- Incedently, I asked AI for a word meaning "to put words in the mouth of another unbidden" and ChatGPT offered "Puppeteer." I'm not saying you don't know what you're about, I'm just saying it ain't cool.
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The Tet Offensive marked the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War that held the US in a stalemate grip for 8 years from 1965-1973.While the Tet Offensive ultimately failed, it proved that the US had no real plan for actually winning the war, and that attrition was the only near term outcome. This led to the US withdrawing from the region.
- The US Military very definitely had a plan for winning the Viet-Nam war and Tet was the realization of that plan. For years, the South Vietnamese had been trying to lure the NVA into the open where American tanks and planes could be brought to effect and achieve a strategically significant impact on NVA power.
- 45,000 NVA, fully half of the NVA's ground army was wiped out in a matter of days at the worthy price of 1500 US soldiers and some 2000 South Vietnamese. A war of attrition is a good thing if the rate of attrition is 30 to 1 in your favor.
- The US Military plan going forward after Tet was "One more Tet and their finished." Six weeks after the big attack that was supposed to provoke a popular uprising, the North Vietnamese were so dismayed by thier collapse that they asked for peace talks. A peace in 1968 after Tet would have been seen as a decisive victory, as Tet itself is seen.
- But Richard Nixon (secretly, illegally, traitorously) convinced the South Vietnamese to hold out for a better deal, then Tricky Dick backed away slowly into Mao's embrace. Nixon spent South Vietnam like a pawn to pacify China but 50 years later is China really any less hostile to US interests?
- The lesson to be learned is that if Johnson had run for four more years and America had stayed the course, the war would have ended in '68 as an American victory. Recognize victory when you have it and turn that victory into advantage.
The Donbas War is nearing its 10th year. While Russia's goals remain the same for now, which is a referendum for independence within the ethnically Russian Donbas,
- None of this is true. Putin's stated goal is to restore to its former Imperial extent. Putin views all of Ukraine as Russian by right and Kiev as the birthplace of that empire. Russia has already declared the Donbas Russian and any votes run by Russia are meaningless in terms of popular representaton. Any referendum is a sop to Putin's vanity . This invasion is best understood as one man's vanity and I predict this pathetic faltering invasion ends with the death of Putin.
the non-starter that has stymied peace talks to now revolves on Ukraine being independent of NATO.
- In 1991- Ukraine gave all its nukes to Russia in exchange for freedom from Russian meddling, a deal that America put together and American remains the guarentor of that promise. We Americans have signed a binding promise to punish Russia for violating the international law of borders drawn in 1991. Any territorial concession would constitute rewarding an aggressor state for its crimes. Historically, such aggressors are never satisfied and all appeasement is read as provacation by weakness. The lesson of Chamberlain is that it is cheaper to stop such men early and to stop them at any price.
Western powers insist that Ukraine be allowed to expand NATO interests, and that a neutral buffer state would never be tolerated, as this would officially mark the end of NATO expansion and hegemony.
- A pretty obvious lie. Western powers denied Ukraine membership several times from fear of Putin's wrath and even now, engaged in war by proxy, NATO hesitates to grant Ukraine membership. Putin attacked anyway. The notion of NATO as hegemony is conspiritorial QAnon talk. NATO contains Canada and Hungary, Turkey and Ireland. How can the alliance between such poltical opposites be characterized as hegmonic?
Russia's tactic up to now has been to simply wait it out while holding the Donbas,
- Are you pretending that Russia hasn't tried and failed to roll tank colums into Kiev? Are you pretending that Russia does not launch hundreds of missiles at Ukrainian citizens dailY?
knowing full well Ukraine can never retake the fortified territory with its depleted and dysfunctional military.
- In fact, Ukriane has won back about 50% of Russian territorial gains. At this rate, Russia will be forced out of the whole of Ukraine in antoher two years.
And while it suits Russia to bleed the western powers to the tune of billions of dollars over war-blasted territory that essentially means nothing for USA interests
- Americans is honoring signed international treaty law. Russian promises have once again proved weak as water.
beyond the expansion of NATO and the enrichment of wealthy elites, many experts are wondering if Russia will mount a massive attack similar to the Tet Offensve to speed the peace process along.What do you guys think?
The Ukrainian government has counted 340,000 Russian deaths in Ukraine between February 2022 and December 2023. The United Nations has confirmed that 9,701 civilians have been killed and 17,748 injured. The U.K. Ministry of Defence estimates around 320,000 Russi
Dec. 12, 2023, at 11:16 a.m. WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, or nearly 90% of the personnel it had when the conflict began, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Tuesday.
Russia has lost 90% of its invasion force in two years. NATO has made Russia pay 6 times the price America paid in Vietnam without losing a single soldier and the Ukriainian army consistently kills more Russians than Russians kill Ukrainian- an unsustainable apocolypse of a statistic. Any year Russia spends more than half of its military capacity and loses ground is a victorious year for NATO. allies . Every year Putin continue s to crash waves of men and boys on the rocks of Kherson is another decade Russia falls behind the west in wealth and power.
The lesson to learn from WWII is fuck appeasement.
The lesson to learn from Tet is to recognize a brilliantly sucessful battle plan when it plays out before you and pursue that success to advantage. By any rational strategic assessment, Russian loses in Ukriaine are spectatularly unsustainable. Russia can either sue for peace on Urkainian terms or waste its entire military strength to claim territory they are no longer strong enought to hold. Either way, its a W for NATO.
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Saw him live a couple of time in college. A true philosopher king of comedy.
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Intelligence Squared takes on current issues with a small live audience. Usually 2x2 Lincoln Douglas style. The audience applies a numerical rating to their certainty on an issue before and after the debate and the winner is determined by which side shifted further. They also do a pop debate series called VS- batman vs superman type subjects.
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- Notice the injection of race when race is not particularly relevent to the misdemeanors in question.
- Notice that the defendent does not deny commision of the misdemeanors and in fact, made a video tape live record of his misdemeanors as he committed them.
- Notice the scapegoating of Biden when has made a very public point of separating himself from any Jan 6th legal decision at any level.
- Notice the entirely unfounded racist accusation "master" from the most apparent white nationalist on this site.
- Put a black man breaking in into any other narrative and we know for certain that GP supports any lethal response, whatever the facts.
- But a black man breaking into kill Democracy, that sort of misdemeanor GP will defend to the end. Literally ANY means justifies the end of Democracy to GP.
- Always notice the shit sourcing. Consider that GP could have used a very substantial LA Times article or local FOX coverage but he always adds a layer of some QAnon conspiracist talking.
- All reasonable thinkers must agree that any source caught lying about election results is offfically and forever compromised as a reliable source of fact.
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I've gotten into DCC over the last year and am doing 3 different weekly campaigns (one live). I've got a space set up on Discord and am thinking about starting a West Marches pbf. I haven't DM'd since the 80's .
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@hey-yo
I think War with Russia is the big what if consideration. Russia inflicted 85% of all German military casualities at a horrific price. That is, if Germany had not gone to war with Russia then Britain and later, America would have faced the other five-sixths of the German Army in Africa and the Middle East. That suggests a much wider range of potential outcomes to follow.
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Would the battle have been more successful for the American troopers if they had acted in more methodical and slower pace?
No. Fast decision-making and execution are powerful advantages in any battle, period. I don't think a lot of tactical errors were
made on either side of the Battle of Mogidishu. That is- soldiers on both sides executed according to plan.
The primary intellience failure was an underappreciation of the capacity for a single rocket-propelled grenade to bring
down a blackhawk helicopter. That threat seems to have been misjudged in spite of several good reasons to re-evaluate
in the preceding weeks.
The strategic assumptions of the US and the UN were wrong but not really wrong-headed situationally. The US and the UN went into
Somalia with a plan to feed a mass starvation event and an explicit intention not to take sides in the civil war. When Aidid ambushed
UN Pakistani forces in June, that was probably the time to acknowledge that no foreign aid was worth delivering at the point of a gun,
no respect for civil liberty ought be taught by violence.
By all competant hindsight accounts, the July 12th attack on Aidid's war council was the real blunder. It didn't kill Aidid. It didn't weaken
the insurgents, that attack actually strengthened them: that raid: "inflamed anti-UN and anti-American sentiments among Somalis, galvanizing
The lesson to be learned is that was the time to withdraw from that intentionally humanitarian mission. That is the moment when the US decided
to increase risk to a higher casualty tolerance and the possibility of a battle as it happened in size and scope approved. US aid to Somalia was
popular in the US right up to the moment when dead soldiers' bodies were dragged through downtown Mogidishu- that gesture, essentially,
more potent than the fact of the price paid in body count.
A co-worker of mine was the gunner on Super 64. He once estimated for me that he shot four hundred people- men, women, and children but
mostly men during that battle. Then the army came and got him. He never even got shot. Geez- has there ever been a more efficient killing machine
than the modern American soldier?
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@Public-Choice
Do you have a source proving "democrats don't participate"? Because the actual fucking commonwealth of PA disagrees with you. In a June 30, 2023 annual report to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the PA Department of State said:
"Through the SURE system, the county voter registration commissions maintain a complete list of all eligible registered voters in the Commonwealth. As of December 2022, there were 8,700,826 registered voters. The charts in this section represent a high-level snapshot of the change in voter registration over both the previous calendar year and the four-year period since the end of 2018. Details broken down by county and party can be found in Appendices A and B."
In Response to the QAnon contingent of the PA Republican parties' conspiratorial claims: December 29, 2020
Pennsylvania Dept of State Press Release:
We are unclear as to exactly what data and what the legislators actually did to offer this socalled “analysis.” But what we do know is some counties have not yet finished entering into theSURE system what are called voter histories. Each history is tied to the record of the individualvoter who cast a ballot, including regular or provisional ballots. At the time of the legislators’release, these counties included Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, which wouldaccount for a significant number of voters, and other provisional voter histories in a number ofother counties are also not yet complete. It is however the vote counts certified by the counties,not the uploading of voter histories into the SURE system, that determines the ultimate2certification of an election by the counties to the Department, and then in turn, by the secretarybased on the county certifications.
This obvious misinformation put forth by the Republican legislators is the hallmark of so many ofthe claims made about this year’s presidential election. When exposed to even the simplestexamination, courts at every level have found these and similar conspiratorial claims to bewholly without basis.To put it simply, this so-called analysis was based on incomplete and inaccurate data.
Finding Six: A combination of a lack of cooperation by certain county election offices and PennDOT, as well as source documents not being available for seventy percent of our test sample, resulted in our inability to form any conclusions as to the accuracy of the entire population of voter records maintained in the SURE system
County elections chief rebuts “alarming discrepancy” alleged by Reps Ryan and Diamond; Diamond apparently satisfied
Diamond expressed satisfaction with Anderson’s explanations of the counting and reconciliation process, the distinction between counting votes to determine a winner and seeing who voted for registration verification, and why updating SURE system data might be delayed.
“I understand that there is somewhat of a lagging nature of the SURE system,” he conceded. And, “I have always had great faith in the people of Lebanon County to count the votes accurately, and I’m not questioning that.”
Diamond had a specific concern about two county precincts where the difference between votes actually cast and the SURE total was unusually large.
Anderson said provisional ballots played a roll at these precincts. Provisional ballots are issued when a voter shows up to vote, but there is a question about his or her eligibility. The ballot is reviewed by the Board of Elections after election day, and either accepted and counted, or rejected.
Anderson explained that the two precincts cited by Diamond were newly split, and now had two polling places, where before there had been one. For example, the old Swatara Township precinct was now Swatara North and Swatara South. Instead of everyone voting at the township building, half still voted there, but half now voted at a fire company.
Some Swatara voters didn’t know this, and showed up where they voted in years gone by – at the township building – when they should have gone to the fire company. They were then given a provisional ballot and filled it out there, at the “wrong” polling place.
Those provisional ballots were ultimately approved and counted, but credited to the “wrong” polling place’s totals, because that’s where the provisional ballot was issued. As a result, the “wrong” polling place showed more votes cast than it had registered voters, but the total number of votes cast didn’t change.
Anderson added that often a voter will fill out a provisional ballot, but also mistakenly sign the poll book. So until the error is caught, there will be one less ballot than shown in the poll book totals.
He also said that, during the tedious two week process of manually scanning polls books and envelopes for SURE statistics, some ballots don’t scan, and a few manual errors are inadvertently made by overworked election workers.
In addition to having counted and reconciled every ballot cast in the Nov. 3, 2020 election, Anderson said that the county, along with 63 others, [ PA has 67 counties] is voluntarily participating in a statewide “risk limiting audit.”
However, the apparent reference to SURE (Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors) in Pennsylvania points to state data on the voting history of registered voters, which some large counties have not finished uploading yet.
“These counties, which include Philadelphia, Allegheny, Butler and Cambria, would account for a significant number of voters,” Murren told The Associated Press in an emailed statement. “The numbers certified by the counties, not the uploading of voter histories into the SURE system, determines the ultimate certification of an election by the secretary.”
In the 2020 election, there were 90,000 more ballots than eligible voters in PA according to the SURE system. This is a fact.
- You are the last sad bastard to still believe that desperate lie.
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@Public-Choice
The PA government data actually does show a discrepancy.
- False. The discrepency is between the official paper ballot count of the votes by the people of the State of Pennsylvania and a Republican number called the SURE SYSTEM number. Here is the act that created the SURE SYSTEM number back in 2002. The SURE SYSTEM number system is intended to provide a check on voting fairness by estimating how many voters will vote which way based on their voting history. The SURE SYSTEM number has always been terribly inaccurate because Democrats don't participate. The most populous counties in the state have always refused to contribute to the SURE SYSTEM number so even if that number wasn't just some subjectively derived Republican number it would have no hope of reflecting the Democratic half of Pennsylvania. EVerybody except you understands that the SURE SYSTEM number is not an actual count of anything but a Republican estimate of voters based on the voting history of voters in Republican controlled counties. No academic or honest person would expect the SURE SYSTEM number to match the real number.
Nobody can explain the discrepancy. Nobody even offers an explanation. But we should ignore it because mainstream networks aren't reporting it?
- False. Everybody understands why these number are totally different except for you.
I am simply reporting the fact that the ballots are higher by 90,000 than the actual voters. This is a fact.
- A dumb, gullible lie by any measure.
- Do your credibility a favor and stop referring to Verity Vote as "they." Verity Vote is just the blog of a Trump Fan named Heather Honey. There no academic, scientific, political credentials, just a fan and her irratonal opinon.
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Why would any honest thinker give one fuck about the SURE SYSTEM number? That number is broken because the four biggest counties in PA, comprising almost half the population doesn't like SURE SYSTEM. Everybody agrees that the SURE SYSTEM number had no hope of being accurate with half the necessary data simply not being collected. Here's an article from this year with Republicans demanding answers for why the SURE SYSTEM had not been implemented in time for the 2020 election. Here they are admitting the SURE SYSTEM number will continue to be a broken statistic in 2024. The SURE SYSTEM number is not an actual count of anything in the real world, it is an estimate based on how the Republican half of the state voted in the last election. Only a fool would compare the SURE SYSTEM estimate to the actual fact of the paper ballot- physical, auditable, traceable reports of every voters individual conduct in voting. If there's two hundred thousand fake ballots out there, why can't you guys find any examples of voterless ballots?
- Notice- this is an old story. We aren't discussing something new here. The Republicans are re-issuing lies about the unreliability of the American voting in time fot the election. In effect, these stories are not told to be believed but rather told to evoke a certain misanthropic emotion in a MAGA kind of man : we was robbed.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
It would be a terrible mistake to think that Ken Buck was part of the "semi-normal" or conservative rump of the Republican Party.
Buck got his start as a Wyoming oil lawyer under Cheney, who was brought in to work on the Iran-Contra defense and then given
a prominent job at DoJ as a reward.
Buck was forced out of the Bush IIJustice Department for corruptly blowing up the prosectuion of Russian gun dealers who were selling
arms to felons on parole, etc. who could not pass background checks. Weapons from the single gun shop were used in more than 40 violent
crimes in a twoyear period, which caused the FBI to run a sting. Buck's was caught advising the Russians on how to avoid prosecution and
officially repremanded before the Federal Ethics Board. Apparently, illegally arming known gang-members is pro-gun enough to get you elected in DA
in Weld County, which is what Buck did.
When Buck came in with the Tea Party he was considered fringe right-wing although he did lose points for advising the Birthers to stick to the facts.
Buck considers Climate Change a Commie hoaxa and calls the right to bear arms superior to all other constituional rights. He thinks the Federal Govt.
should lock up girls who refuse to give birth to their rapist's child.
Buck was a signer of Texas v. Pennsylvania and Buck supported Trump's coup attempt but remember that he belong's to Cheney faction and when Liz
was ousted, Buck had to step away from the Freedom Caucus to stay in Dick's good graces.
Nor should one think that Buck is now making some kind appeal for Sanity. Because he ousted Cheney, Buck was one of eight congressmen who voted
McCarthy out of office but then he could not support JIm Jordon because of Jordan's conduct during the Jan 6th hearings. Essentially, he is now estranged
from any Republican faction just as his district is rapidly shifting democrat.
There will be nobody left but the wack jobs like Boebert the clown, Marjorie (I’m really a man) Greene, and Jim “I see nothing” Jordan.
Like Boebert's, Buck's district is rapidly shifting from oil and agriculture to tech and green energy. Buck is reading the room and getting out before he bears
the reputation for losing 2 of the last 3 Republican districts in Colorado to Democrats. (The final holdout, Colorado Springs, is a legendary hard-core Ku Klux
Kristian run forturess of MAGA but the city of Colorado Springs just elected their first Democrat for Mayor. The scourge of Republicanism is rapidly dying out
in Colorado and as a result, our great square state has never been more prosperous or free.
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If God wanted us circumcised he woulda cut us hisself
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One can only imagine the garbage Trump and his MAGA nativist tribe will say when they are all replaced with brown people from every other nation on the globe, replacing all Americans of every skin color.
- I don't think you need to imagine, nobody on this site has identified as more Trumpist or MAGA than you GP, however feverishly you will wave your Argentine passport in the reichsuntergang now.
- The Fake News of MAGA is revealed even here: When Chief Joseph wrote his letter of surrender in 1877 NONE of Trump's anscestors lived in the Western Hemisphere while the brown people Republicans now think of as replacing them had been the majority in America for 20,000 years. In 1877, Obama's ancestors had lived in the US for 200 years. West of the Missisippi, the majority of Americans had been born in Mexico. Trump is the son of a migrant. Four of his children have migrant mothers. Considering how sharply we have curtailed migration in recent years, it is fair to say that Trump and his family represent the most recent wave of migrants to the US and by any measure some of the least "native" peoples in America today. When Republicans say Native they mean White Supremacist- the brown majority that preceded them simply doesn't count.
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@n8nrgim
Historians also agree that the biography of Jesus that modern Christians hold as true was an amalgamation of literally hundreds of radically different, incredibly diverse biographies of Jesus written by hundreds of different authors, almost all claiming to an eye-witness account by an apostle. The council of Nicea met in 325AD and decided which parts of which testimonies were gospel and declared the other 99% of testimony heresy. Historians agree that Constantine's motives were not particularly Christian or even religious but polticial, choosing the favorite version of the rich and powerful, most particularly the favorite versions of his mother, Helena. No single individual had more influence about the story of Jesus as told in the Bible than St. Helena and we owe much of our modern ideas of a virgin mother, the trinity, the transmutation of blood to wine, etc to that women's particular prejudices. After 325AD, most of the hundreds of eye-witness testimonies of Jesus were hunted down and destroyed to make certain the Roman Emperor's version of Jesus was the version that you believe in.
The most contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus, writing 60 to 80 years later, had little information about who Jesus was or what he believed and certainly did not seem to have ever heard that he was supposed have risen from the dead Josephus does write of Paul and Peter and Jesus' younger brother James and how the violence between them contributed to the overall violence that ended with Masada, the destruction of the Second Temple and the beginning of the end of Judaism in ancient Palestine. The main issue between them was that Paul had invented something called Christianity and believed that the Sermon on the Mount was a message to be shared across the Roman Empire with non-Jews and foreigners and even women. James apparently believed that his brother Jesus was first and formost a Jew and a Rabbi and a Prophet and that to follow Jesus you firstly had to be a Jew in good standing.
I think an intelligent reading of the New Testament reveals that there was more than one man preaching the forgiveness of a loving god and the promise of eternal life in and around Palestine during the reign of Augustus Caesar. John the Baptist was an early, super popular version of this figure and his execution by Herod served as a kind of model. The Jesus who came from Egypt is almost certainly different from the Jesus from Bethlehem and the Jesus from Nazareth. Jesus the Rabbi is almost certainly a different historical man than Jesus the Carpenter and Jesus the Fisherman and Jesus the Zoroastian wizard. Which of these said what or performed which acts, which of these were executed by Jewish Councils or Roman Governors is unknowable but these governments were putting a lot of rebels and preachers to death in this time.
Christianity does not seem to be the message or intent of Jesus, who barely ever spoke of founding some new religion, but of Paul, an eloquent charasmatic philosopher at the center of Roman Greek and Jewish society who understood what sort of Church and belief system was wanted and would satisfy the popular imagination. Chrisianity should be Paulism because Paul invented the religion, not Jesus.
Rather than ask why the apostles behaved as they did if there were no Christ, this sober historian asks why anybody believes the narrative of those figures told by a
Roman Emperor more than three centuries later, particular when that Emperor had so little faith in the truth of his narrative that he felt the need to supress and
destroy all of the hundreds of alternative accounts that bore witness to a remarkable change in the philophy of the Near East, even while disagreeing utterly about the biographical facts surrounding the central figures of that change.
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Each Representative represents close to a million people.
- 339,996,563 divided by 535 = 635,508. Less than 2/3rds of 1 million, averaged.
I propose to raise the salary of Congress to 20 million dollars a year with the provision that they must have term limits.
- So your plan to convince legislators to pass legislation you like is to bribe them with cash?
- Obviously, your plan is quite corrupt.
The President will have a salary of 50 million.
- Ridiculous
I base this off of the 400 million dollars Barack Obama accumulated from kickbacks during his 8 years as president.
- You typo'd or did that Trump thing where he always boasts by 10x the truth.
- According to Forbes, the Obamas were worth $40m in 2018, $70m today and are expected to earn roughly $240m post-presidency .
It would be a very small part of the national budget.
- Enough to build a wall between the US and Mexico as Trump correctly estimated and promised to do.
- Unfortunately, the Republicans were so goddamned corrupt they spent $15 billion and only built three miles of wall.
It would make it much harder for a lobbyist to purchase a politician.
- Why would you think that? Trump taught us that the greed of some men (Trump, Putin) is quite unsatisfiable.
It would attract much more competition and a higher quality of candidates for the job.
- The current salary of $174,000/year is already more than what 95% of Americans make. 4 of that lat 5% inherited thier wealth and couldn't make a democratic decision to save their trust funds.
- 100% of Americans who both work for a living and have a certain basic moral level already make less than $174,000/yr so that salary should be sufficiently attracitve to any candidate worth a damn.
The fastest way to reduce corruption in Federal poltics is to take all the weird farmer shit out of the process.
- Elections should be held when the weather is fair, not when the crop is harvested.
- All primary and local elections should be held on the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
- All General and State electins should be held on the Tuesday after Labor Day.
- Mail-in ballots starting 30 days before the election are mandatory and universal
- Candidates can only campaign for 30 days before the election.
- The relevant govt pays a flat sum to all qualified candidates.
- The government mandates multiple and pays for multiple forums and debates.
- Candidates return any leftover sums to the state.
- The state announces how much money each candidate spent on the day before the election.
- Paying any campaign expense with personal or private money is a felony meriting one year in jail.
- All elections are majority wins. No foolish farmer era caucus shit
- All primaries happen on the same day, no corrupt "white states first" rules. No Iowa State Fair madness.
- Senators no longer represent states. We are a nation of democratic people not a nation of congruent land-holdings.
- Senators represent the 100 most populous cities in the US. 2 term limit
- US Reps still represent States and regions with district lines drawn by AI exclusive of political consideration. 4 term limit.
- No candidate may be younger than 30 or older than 70
- Only ex-Governors can run for President or VP and are elected by the House of Representatives. The House can vote Presidents in and out of office by majority vote. Presdients can be returned to office as often as Congress sees fit until they are 70.
- No conventions, no long campaigns with roller coaster primaries.
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All you have to do is listen to MSNBC for a couple of hours to prove this claim a blatant lie. Ali Velshi has been leading live coverage from Southern Israel all this past week. Medhi Hassan has anchored his regular morning show every weekday since the conflict began. Ayman Mohyeldin has anchored his regular weekend show since the conflict began.
I'm not sure why the White supremacists think such an easily disproved lie is useful to their project but as always, they can count on Greyparrot to amplify their fake news reports on these pages.
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@ponikshiy
-->@<<<oromagi>>>Can you ban this idiot for openly supporting terrorism?
Can I ban you first for alting like a serial killer?
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It is a lesson long understood by historians: capitulation to an expansionist totalitarian is provocative.
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@ponikshiy
-->@<<<oromagi>>>Let's also agree that Portnoy speaks the truth when he says that any vote for any Republican in any race is dangerous and increases the present peril to American Democracy, a threat that Grayparrot not only endorses but embodies.To be fair. Name a presidential candidate with a chance to win the Whitehouse who is not a threat to democracy?
- Of major candidates, I think Joe BIden, Nikki Haley, and Chris Christie qualify as "not a threat to democracy.
It seems to me, you americas have a choice.Left wing extremism or right wing extremism.The wokies control the left,
- I wouldn't call Biden extreme or even particularly left wing. Traditional Republicans with names like Bush, Cheney, McCain, Romney have all made it clear they're voting for Biden before Trump or one of his clones. Its pretty hard to name a Democrat that's more moderate or right than Biden. That tells us that Biden is the moderate candidate, probably the most moderate major presidential candidate since Eisenhower.
forced sterilization of gender confused children, weaponization of the police state, open borders
- I don't any Democratic candidate that supports any of these platforms.
It is shit future but those are only two possible futures.
- disagree. I am convinced that a lively, technocratic, educated populace can solve global warming, gun viol violence and the Rise of autocracies in 20 or 30 years. Fusion is finally real- we are on the brink of being a species that creates more energy than it uses. 3 or 4 day workweeks, Clean socialized transportation, Cheap, clean and mobile housing, mass robototic improvements to the burdens of labor and agining are all realistic outcomes in that time. I see no reaon to surrender that future to the skeptics.
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Let's agree that any man who spends his millions on luring college girls so he can secretly videotape himself being creul and violent to them once he gets their clothes off is a creep and a pervert and exactly the kind of asshole Greyparrot spends all of his days admiring.
Let's also agree that Portnoy speaks the truth when he says that any vote for any Republican in any race is dangerous and increases the present peril to American Democracy, a threat that Grayparrot not only endorses but embodies.
It seems that poor Greyparrot will never get his chance to be one of Portnoy's bitches.
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