Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

That slavery continued at least a hundred years after civil war? That Trump is a treasonous nepotist dictator-worshipping compulsive liar? These are plain facts.

Republican Party says they will not do presidential debates anymore. The party now only exists because Democrats allow it. There needs to be at least some seeming opposition. In themselves, Republicans have lost all purpose.

Americans — bossy, querulous, ubiquitous — have for the last two years been almost entirely absent. Foreign countries suddenly feel more foreign. Long before the invasion of Ukraine, the era in which we exuberantly measured our civilization’s advance by tallying new McDonald’s had come to an end.

(source)

Anyway, his influence is fading. He cannot sustain the momentum anymore.

How do the foreigners like the absence of Americans? Other things being equal, they probably like it quite a bit. Hordes of visitors tend to disrupt settled arrangements. But if you come from a country like Antigua or Aruba, in which upwards of 80 percent of the workforce are employed in tourism, the past couple of years have been calamitous. There are even some “real” countries in which around a fifth of the people make their living off some kind of tourism — like Greece, Portugal, New Zealand and Thailand. When you speak more generally about “travel” — just moving people around — that accounts for about a tenth of the world economy. The United States and Britain are more or less normal in this regard, at around 9 percent.

How does it feel to be an American tourist in such a tourist-free world? That is a more paradoxical subject.

(same article as above)

¹ Which is why so many of your responses devolve into mere name-calling... I myself like a well-put pejorative and I do still appreciate the hoary fine art of invective!
But, sans substantive comment it's not just tiring; it's a waste of time.↵

² And you likely think of yourself as one of the Lions! ↵

³ If your site's name makes a political point, it promotes the perception of an enforced bias, no?↵

It is interesting how, despite the obvious actual practices that are directly opposite to the good promises of the constitution, USA manages to brainwash many as if it were a land of opportunities, a beacon of liberty and worthy of emulation.

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow'rin height
O' Miss' bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum.

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin:
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

(source)

she was taken with his ''can-do approach'' and his lack of dogma.

{source)

2017—“The goalposts have been moving over the years,” asserts the en banc Seventh Circuit majority in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College. Overriding its own precedent and contradicting nine other circuits, the majority holds that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination under Title VII.

In a separate concurring opinion, Judge Richard A. Posner, advocating a “form of [statutory] interpretation” that he labels “judicial interpretive updating,” states that he “would prefer to see us acknowledge openly that today we, who are judges rather than members of Congress, are imposing on a half-century-old statute a meaning of ‘sex discrimination’ that the Congress that enacted it would not have accepted.”

In her dissent, Judge Diane S. Sykes, joined by two colleagues, explains that “we do not sit as a common-law court free to engage in ‘judicial interpretive updating,’ as Judge Posner calls it, or to do the same thing by pressing hard on tenuously related Supreme Court opinions, as the majority does.”

(source)

I'll take this seriously as soon as you are commendable and honest and intelligent yourself.

the SNL skit was faithfully conveying its source material

All this comes across as hyper-individualist and anti-society.

You pointless nitpicker.

Quote from: OakdaleFTL on 2022-04-03, 02:50:50I trust you can distinguish between the regime and the people?
Of course I can. The problem is that you cannot. You are a living embodiment of American wilful invincible ignorance and partisan bickering - without a reason to be any of it.

You are not a government worker or a party official, and you are below middle class. So, given your actual social status, all your interests should be concentrated on making a decent living,

instead of making apologies for the regime that has failed to provide for you in any way. Yet all you do is make apologies for the regime - even worse, demanding that the regime would not provide for anyone. This is highly curious, let's say.

¹ My burial will not burden my family! Yea! ↵

She said that you can see Russia from Alaska. She said so apart from any caricature or irony. It is merely factual to acknowledge that she said so.

The bottom line is Joe Biden — and most of the civilized world — wants to see Vladimir Putin out of power in Russia. More to the point: they want to see his regime changed and him most likely Gaddafi’d for his sins. And, to be frank, who can blame them?

There is just one problem: getting rid of Vlad means World War Three. And I can tell you from gaming out such a conflict countless times in simulators, such a conflict leaves tens of millions of people dead.

But let’s step back for a moment. I’m going to cut the president a little bit slack for saying out loud what we are all thinking. Biden surely was speaking from the heart, and he hasn’t been shy about calling President Putin every name in the book over the last few weeks either.

Considering Biden’s remarks, we do need to consider what has been a clear sea change in Russia policy due to Putin’s shocking invasion of Ukraine, which while warranted, could truly threaten Putin’s reign.

If you compile the tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine and the now trillions of dollars in mounting economic sanctions, the Russian state now faces the most serious crisis to its survival since Hitler invaded the old Soviet Union in 1941.

Six months from now, Russia’s economy could be on the verge of death, due not only to sanctions but also to the fact that most major companies want nothing to do with anything Russian-related: the reputational damage is too much to take on.

So in fact, yes, even if it was not intended, the combined actions of the planet to transform Russia into the new Nazi Germany means in the months to come, regime change will morph into the de facto goal. And Biden let the cat out of the bag.

But we all know such words — and those actions — will have consequences.

(source)

but the masterful handling of the Ukraine crisis that became a full invasion has more than made up for that

The push for Europe to achieve strategic autonomy from the United States is being spearheaded by Macron, who, as part of his reelection campaign, apparently hopes to replace former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto leader of Europe.

Macron, who claims that NATO is "brain dead," argues that Europe needs its own military because, according to him, the United States is no longer a reliable ally. He cites as examples: U.S. President Joe Biden's precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan; the growing pressure on Europe to take sides with the United States on China; and France's exclusion from a new security alliance in the Indo-Pacific region.

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, many EU member states disagreed with Macron. Eastern European countries know that neither the EU nor France can match the military capabilities offered by NATO and the United States. Other countries are concerned about a panoply of issues ranging from financial costs to national sovereignty. Still others are opposed to creating a parallel structure to NATO that could undermine the transatlantic alliance.

Many EU countries insist on respecting former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's famous "three Ds": no decoupling of European security from the United States and NATO; no duplicating capabilities and structures that already exist within NATO; and no discriminating against NATO members that are not members of the EU.

(source)

Before the Sixties, youthful elites were close enough to their patrimony to respect its intellect, energy, values and travail. Liberal guilt, such as it was, rarely went further left than Rockefeller Republican.

Occasionally things get emotional because I feel genuinely insulted how dumb Americans are. But more often I take it as a wonderful opportunity to teach. I'm an old school type of teacher, with dunce hats, spanking and naughty corners in my arsenal. [underlining added]

About USSR I have known since birth that it is evil. It did not require any figuring whatsoever.

¹ And for years was a host of a radio program in my locality.↵

² Perhaps you disapprove? You might prefer there be a school where future presidents are properly educated, perhaps... ↵

Sarah Palin actually said it.

It's not Gorsuch confusing sex and gender, it's you.  

Newsflash: You did not see news there!