It nauseates me that almost any given topic now gets linked to partisan accusation.

I nauseates me even more that bribery is now legal, thanks to the SCOTUS and Citizen's United / Buckley Valeo.

Worse than both though, you, so hell bent on fault finding you completely miss the big picture.

Dem's aren't the only party catering to the donor class

Both parties are owned and as long as there are enough people like you to only see "the other party" at fault, the problem continues.

The rule of law isn't a football game where you cheer for the home team regardless of right/wrong.

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I never bet a dime on any NFT or crypto, they have no tangible value or underlying asset, they're unregulated - what happened to FTX is just the beginning.

You cannot amass that amount of money into a private, unregulated pool and not expect human nature to kick in.


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To serve man, great book.

Any civilization capable of coming to us is also capable of folding space-time, which basically means they'd be a human wandering into a group of apes.

We're left to hope their nature isn't human nature.


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Rather than start a new thread, figured I'd post here.

No red wave in the midterms for a Dem president with 42% approval, this should have been a wipeout.

Mark, above makes a single statement that I think sums it well "...I'm so tired of all of the hate...".

A handful of regular posters here epitomize that sentiment, non-stop angry blame and insult, the Trump way is no more.

Every single candidate Trump endorsed failed, independents like myself have had enough.

Food for thought to some of you, what you might think is normal, bad mouthing others who don't share your views.

You might go to the local Elks lodge and get good reception, but when online a lot of people are put off, they won't bother engaging because it's pointless.

The anger, name calling, blame and histrionics is costing you.

Trump's going to announce tonight and that's not a good thing for Republicans, especially where he will be running against DeSantis.

The two will engage in a pissing contest for the next two years that's going to drag the entire party down.

Your party needs moderates like Romney, but you push them out, label them "RINO" and no one can tell you different.

I voted D this week, solely for the fact the Trump is going to run and I do not want a republican majority for him to manipulate when he loses.


I live in one of the tight districts, the Dem won.

Milton Friedman proposed a flat 15% tax, which would be perfect.

The problem is that the wealthy can create write-off's the rest have no access to.

Either by strategically purchasing equipment, taking end of year losses, utilizing tax exempt investments or off-shoring money.

Friedman proposed a flat tax, opponents complained 15% would be dramatically lower than rates at the time, until Friedman pointed out that high income effective rates were often in the single digits due to write-off's and legal tax dodges.

Again, Bezos paid 1% last year, that's insane, we should at least have a tax minimum for incomes above median.

We should also revamp the corporate tax system, based on % of jobs here in the U.S. proportional to profit, as well as taxing profit margins to encourage lower end prices as well as high domestic vs foreign employment.

Putin, lifelong KGB agent prior to government.

His vocation is tactician, psy-ops and intelligence.

He's used his skills well, but his work has only benefitted him and his oligarch's at the expense of his country.

He has also murdered dozens of political adversaries.

As for my own leader, Biden is old, even geriatric, but he's socially/politically adept, at least in the fact that he takes advice from his advisors, unlike his predecessor who made a nasty mess with his "I alone can fix it" mantra.

Was an inside joke while on Zoom intended to mean the inverse to that interpretation, but yeah, I can see how it could be misinterpreted.

No, physical abuse is NOT acceptable.

(oops, double post)

True love means accepting the occasional black eye.

Planned a trip to Germany...lotsa bratwurst there!

Corporate taxes will always be passed on to the consumer, while corporate tax cuts are funneled into C-suite salaries/bonuses via stock buybacks.

The only solution is taxing incomes, and now's a great time to remind folks that Bezos and Zuckerberg paid single digit tax rates last year, Bezos paid just over 1%.

I can't wait...white Bratwurst!!

Munich looks beautiful.

We have to take pics for these guys.

You n' me in a surreal old European setting..

We should have ended that contract when they massacred innocent Yemen civilians.

Trump started the contract in 2017 to get oil pricing down, we made a deal with the devil.

No, I'm familiar with the "lunge" account, this one's new and they have recordings.

Tried creating a topic for this, forum seems to be glitching.


A friend just linked me a story regarding tomorrow's Jan 6 committee, new recorded evidence is being submitted regarding his secret service detail warning him of armed protesters.

As part of the new evidence, a quote from Trump -

"I'm the f...ing president, they're not gonna shoot me, take down the f...ing mags."

(mags = metal detectors)

He acknowledged they had guns and ordered them to be allowed in as they chant "HANG MIKE PENCE!".

At this point, his legal team's best strategy is to prolong this with procedural red tape in hopes Trump passes away from natural causes before it gets to trial.

This makes Nixon's "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" look petty.

I recall, in 2020, how scary it was, once we had a vaccine it made sense that it would be important to get as many vaccinated as possible, regardless of it's imperfections.

All I can say is thank God the masks are off, hated wearing those things.

As for Biden and the military, gotta be honest, he's surprised me and folks I talk to on the topic.

He's old, frail in appearance, but when it comes to Ukraine he has been a rock, keeping a cool head but at the same time never hesitates to be bold on Putin.

Putin tried scaring us with nuclear threats from the beginning. He assumed Biden wouldn't aid Ukraine.

Putin had assumed he'd be done in Ukraine in as little as 3 days, Biden completely blindsided Putin.

N Korea and China are watching, well done, Biden.

As for his son, he's clean/sober now, Biden should be proud, also, he has allowed the DOJ to do it's job investigating Hunter.

Professional stunt man, or, crash test dummy.

A little of both, but not fanatically.

That said, Star Wars is far more vast than just the movies allude to.

The lore spans thousands of years, numerous iterations of evil (Sith) Empires, with Palpatine coming back to life under different names.

And, yeah, the movies made it seem like "space fairy tales", Mark Hammel gave Skywalker a silly, naïve feel.

Thinking I'm very hopeful I'll get real time vid's & pics of Nepal, bummed I have to miss this trip.

You missed the point.

Regardless whether she was told to or not, she's a lawyer, she signed a document to verify something she hadn't verified.

Saying that's a "small" mistake is like saying signing a document to join the army was an accident, sorry chum, you're in the army.

This type sh-t keeps happening with Trump's legal affiliations, lawyers making ludicrous mistakes and assumptions.

Trump himself continually makes the same ludicrous assumptions, it seems to roll downhill.

This is what I mean by the combination of inexperience, stubbornness and overconfidence.