Lord Ratner

Exactly. You'd have to be retarded to think an F-16 is harder to fly than a KC-135. One was designed to let the single pilot execute multiple mission types simultaneously while communicating with air and ground units, the other was repurposed 1950's airline technology with steel cables moving the controls. Now, harder mission? Ten times out of ten the fighter mission is orders of magnitude harder than the tanker mission. It's not even close.

I like the Desantis a lot. But at the end of the day he's just a white guy. He has no hook. Nikki Haley is a minority woman, and Dan Crenshaw may be a white guy, but he's a white guy with an eye patch. And a Navy Seal war hero. He has been very clever in wearing that when he has perfectly serviceable fake eyes that he could be using instead. But a boring white guy needs a hook, and an eye patch certainly draws attention. No one gives two shits about the vice president, so I don't think Nikki Haley as the running mate will make a difference. Besides she's got the experience at this point, she should run for the big seat. All the have learned the real lesson of Donald Trump, which is never to apologize or be weak with the media. They are able to do that without the ridiculous clownishnes of DJT, and they have an intellectual argument for their positions.

Nikki Haley with Dan Crenshaw as VP. I think that'll get you 16 years of Republican rule pretty easily. The debates would be a blood bath. I'm not sure even the most ardent democrats can defend Biden through this either tactically, strategically, or politically. The guy is just losing it. I'm amazed at how many "press conferences" he openly starts with "they gave me a list of people to call here." Watching Stephanopoulos literally coach Biden into saying we wouldn't leave Americans behind was another low point. Imagine the irony of the American people choosing the most boring democrat candidate (against the will of the party machinery) to escape the insanity of Donald Trump only to get a whole new type of insanity.

Well, let's ignore for a moment that Biden has a 40-year track record of being an idiot. The situation in AFG is no longer fixable, so why not shift to the "distract" phase?

Watch how Biden is responding. He's gone full angry-old-man. I don't think there's any chance he resigns, which means the 25th amendment, which will be a nightmare for the Dems. He sticks around longer as the inevitable catastrophe on AFG unfolds, then we get President Harris from a contentious legal procedure. Not good. Trump was a clown, and he was just as anxious to pull out of AFG. No one can say if he would have like this, but he certainly was pushing for an even hastier timeline. That said, the *entire* pitch from Biden/Democrats was bringing the adults back in power to save us from the endless Trumpian catastrophes (that were regularly promised but never materialized). Biden is in for less than a year and we get a literal repeat of Saigon. So I'm not sure how the democrats will talk their way out of this one. I suspect the midterms will be a bloodbath. I don't know a single person who had *any* experience with the ANA who thought they would maintain control of the country. There's zero chance this wasn't briefed over and over and over. And if Adam Schiff is already selling out Biden by defending the Intel community, then the party royalty has already decided to sacrifice him.

Agreed, only to add that cash is a party of diversifying. We've gotten so used to the concept that stocks are the only place where your money can make money, because fed policy for the past 15 years has basically made that the truth, barring real estate. How does the phrase go? Bulls get rich, bears get rich, but hogs get slaughtered. There's just too much that doesn't add up, and it looks like inflation is going to be what brings the whole silly plan down. Consider: - higher than expected unemployment, yet 10 million unfilled jobs - crippling supply chain issues *still* hitting nearly every industry. Does anyone think it's good for the economy that you can't buy new cars thanks to the chip shortage? - all of the growth estimates have been off in the wrong direction, and this is after a pandemic set the bar very low. And now China's growth is also slowing. - the government is literally injecting $120 *billion* per*month* into bonds and mortgage backed securities. - inflation... The great destroyer. Right now the cost of margin trading is between 4 and 6% depending on how much money you have in the account. That's with interest rates effectively set at zero by the fed. If inflation continues, and you know it's going to because the Fed is now admitting that it's happening and they wouldn't do that if there was any hope that it wasn't, the cost of all of that leverage is going to go up. Fine and well as long as the stock market keeps delivering these eye-watering games that we seem to have completely acclimated to, but if the FED has to admit that inflation is now a concern, how long do you think they'll be able to keep injecting 120 billion per month into the market? What happens when the biggest support for market prices gets removed, at the exact same time that the cost of leveraging goes up? I was talking to someone who expects a 50% reduction in the s&p 500. It sounds crazy, until you look at the chart and realize that a 50% drop would only bring us down to 2016 levels. Is it really hard to imagine the market, after enduring a global pandemic that continues to cripple the economies of entire countries, would go back to a level it was at only 5 years ago? I'm not advocating for selling everything and sitting on a pile of cash, but if you're not going to take profits after the most incredible run up in prices under the most unlikely conditions, then you're never going to take profits at all. So many people who are euphoric over the stock markets last five or six years don't seem to have stopped to consider exactly what the implications are if this really is the New Normal. Now is a really good time for people to look at their bank accounts and make sure they are complying with the common sense financial security measures that no one talks about anymore. Do you have 6 months of expenses in a savings account, ready for an emergency? If you lose your primary income source at the same time that the market takes a giant hit, are you going to be in a pinch? Do you have a mortgage that you can only afford if there's no change to your employment status? The biggest losers in any crash are always the retail investors. Always. Meme stocks and cryptocurrency have the institutional investors on edge. Sure they'll get on CNBC and tell you how they're buying Bitcoin, but they're surprisingly quiet when they sell after all the retail investors follow their lead and buy something they don't understand. And of course I could be wrong, I probably am. But my family and friends who have everything in the market right now I'll admit that none of this makes any sense. And when I ask them when, if not now, is their trigger to take profits, they have no answer.

Not just any old threat... A terror threat 😂🤣

The leveraging levels are concerning as well. Maybe more concerning than everything else. Right now that leverage only costs 4-6%. If the totally-transient-and-not-concerning inflation eventually forces the Fed to raise the rates... Remember that when the market is over-leveraged, everything loses during the correction. We got a fast-paced glimpse at this in March of 2020. Stocks, bonds, precious metals, crypto, REITS... they all tanked. We're more leveraged now than were were then. Only cash survives the onslaught.

Just watched "Nobody" and it was awesome. It's a John Wick knock off but I think I liked it more. A great addition to the "realistic" action hero genre.

Find out who the contract masters are. They'll be well-known through whatever online forum your pilots use. Read everything they post. Can them with questions. Learn every hustle out there, including the mechanics of how the contract enables the hustle. You want to know every loophole and strategy in depth, *then* decide what type of pilot career you want. I was lucky, my newhire mentor was a union contract compliance volunteer, so I was given a huge head start, but the information is out there. The three primary ways to exploit this knowledge: - Maximize pay (Raw earnings) - Maximize Time Off - Maximize efficiency (pay earned per actual hours flown) I prefer option three. The more flexible you are, the greater you can maximize the option you choose. This summer has been insane for 737 FOs. As a year-four FO I made 31k in May, 23k in June, and 20k in July. Add 16% for the 401k. In those three months I flew a total of about 70 hours, deadheaded for another 30, and went to annual training. That's somewhere around 5 hours of pay for every hour flown. If I chose option 1, I probably could have done ~30k in June and July. Option two is tough when the airline is undermanned. Live near a domicile, don't take the early upgrade, and know your contract. Each of those rules will immeasurably improve your Quality of Life.

Logic penalty. If you're into furry stuff, your horizon is pretty f'n expanded

While I agree with your main premise, that overwhelmingly the public is not nearly as insane as the political class (including all those who are professionally involved with the political world: media, analysts, govt, etc), the topic of CRT has shown that a dedicated minority (in this case, the Marxist-ish takeover of American Universities) can have an outsized effect. What is unclear is the long term efficacy of minority/intellectual movements. CRT is hitting a brick wall now that they attempted to spread in the realm of normal people, i.e. public K-12 school. But that won't necessary result in the removal of CRT garbage from the universities or corporate America. Conservatives are waking up to the notion that you can't just focus on elections and the supreme court. Steering the culture matters too. The current progressive movement is so overtly racist that it's hard to imagine long term success, but even the remote possibility is terrifying to anyone who focuses more on second and third order effects. I don't want my kids growing up in a more-racist world than I did. I've been saying that white supremacy would make a return since Obama's second term. There was a point somewhere during his presidency where the narrative on racism shifted from "I have a dream" to identity politics, specifically the notion that race was a central component of one's being, and should be celebrated rather than minimized. But only if you're brown. It was only a matter of time before a bunch of ignorant white people took that message literally and started celebrating their own skin color. That's why I fear a movement that thrives on MSNBC. Because isolated though it may be, the most powerful man on the planet parrots the talking points in nearly every speech, so it's not that niche.

ACSC masters program. Easy, set your own pace, moderately interesting material, very attentive instructors, and free.

Not unless it was incitement. A directive to cause harm ("go out and punish the cops for killing minorities!") Is not protected. A lie that others use to justify harm ("police are murdering minorities for sport!") is protected. You should brush up on the precedent, you're off base on a lot of this stuff.

No, it would otherwise be illegal for the government to block it. Have you read either of the actual decisions? Much easier that way.

Exactly. Prozac is not reading the case law, just citing his opinion as fact, while treating our citation of the case law as personal opinion. The question is whether the quotes by Nadler, Feinstein, and Psaki raise to the level of implied compulsion that Sullivan and Norwood prohibit. I believe dragging a CEO to D.C., berating them for hours, then warning them that there will be legislation to strip them of control over their property if they don't comply is pretty damn concerning. But it was also ok when the Obama administration went after journalists, so I'm not at all surprised that a more nuanced situation is not a concern to whatever the progressives stand for these days. I just can't find an underlying ideology that is consistent with the various party positions beyond "power is bad, success is stolen."

It's in this very thread. Two examples of legislators threatening government control in the absence of desired actions, which in this case, the desired action is the suppression of speech. The associated supreme court case that lays out the concept is also cited.

Hard to refute? You refuted it yourself. Examples of past censorship are exactly why we shouldn't be doing it now. You think propaganda and racist policy is why the US is a global superpower? Not personal and economic freedom? Let's do a little comparison... Which countries have racism and propaganda? All of them. So that's obviously not what made us different. But our system of limited government and unique conception of individual liberty are quite different. As for your many dodges, we can start with your fixed-wealth formulation for billionaire economics. You might have to go back a few pages since Sua Sponte vomited all over the thread.

That's factually incorrect. What you put on social media is *absolutely* protected by the first amendment if the government is the one trying to block it. Which is literally what we're arguing over, government issuing the threat of legislation to compel censorship by social media companies. Further, the government is free to put out a message. That's very different than suppressing someone else's message. That's such a basic concept I'm shocked I have to type it. Again, how did the government do with the Coronavirus messaging? You really want these clowns going through the internet and highlighting "misinformation" for deletion? Can't wait to hear your support for such action from the next republican administration.

Again, theory, not practice. In practice, the Progressives are arguing for a reality that cannot be accepted by many, many people. The systemic racism argument. Trans women/men *are* women/men. Gender confused children should be given hormones against their parents wishes. Your business should be compelled to violate your mainstream religious beliefs. Reparations. Gun control (literally a constitutional issue). Hate speech should be illegal. Defund the police. And the common response to these issues from the left is something akin to "well you're just taking that cause too literally... It means something different." Defund the police. Systemic racism. Patriarchy. Rape culture. Either name your movements in a way that reflects their true purpose, or so whining when you get called out on being insane based on your own words. But really we all know it's just a defense. When a movement like Defund the Police becomes obviously and incredibly unpopular with the normal voters out there, the extremists/activists scramble to repackage and redefine the movement using double speak and jargon. Slightly modifying the great Groucho Marx... What're ya going to believe, me or your own ears? It's not "misinformation" to accurately describe a toxic movement to the American people. Or the origins of a novel virus. Remember how well the bipartisan experts did on the lab leak story? Besides, don't you have some responses to reply to? You must have been a dodgeball superstar in your youth, the way you selectively respond here.

And this is understated, IMO. The benefits of a overpowered state government are purely hypothetical. In practice it falls apart entirely. Our society produces and provides *immensely* more to citizens and non-citizens alike than more restrictive governments. And the countries that mimic our model (such as the beloved Nordic countries the new American Socialists love to reference) do much, much better when they do. This doesn't even touch the security umbrella we provide that the "more generous" countries couldn't dream of supporting. The left in America is devolving into a faith-based party that has no concern for evidence, history, or statistics. It's all emotion, virtue-signaling, and shaming. That's fine, but it's never worked anywhere, and it certainly didn't produce the incredible wealth, health, and opportunity that Americans are uniquely privy to.

From Sullivan v Rhode Island: "It is true that appellants' books have not *67 been seized or banned by the State, and that no one has been prosecuted for their possession or sale. But though the Commission is limited to informal sanctions—the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion, persuasion, and intimidation—the record amply demonstrates that the Commission deliberately set about to achieve the suppression of publications deemed "objectionable" and succeeded in its aim.[7] We are not the first court to look through forms to the substance and recognize that informal censorship may sufficiently inhibit the circulation of publications to warrant injunctive relief.[8]" Additionally: "It is true, as noted by the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, that Silverstein was "free" to ignore the Commission's notices, in the sense that his refusal to "cooperate" would have violated no law. But it was found as a fact—and the finding, being amply supported by the record, binds us— that Silverstein's compliance with the Commission's directives was not voluntary. People do not lightly disregard public officers' thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around, and Silverstein's reaction, according to uncontroverted testimony, was no exception to this general rule." But you just get off on being the contrarian here it seems, so I don't expect you to see the parallels.

How crazy a senator might be (and she's hardly near the top of that list) is irrelevant. If you can't see how that statement, from one of the highest levels of government possible, is demonstrative of the government threatening a private entity to do their bidding, then you're even drunker than I thought. The case law is clear, the influence does not need to be direct control. But that's really secondary to the point. We shouldn't be paying taxes for partisan political officials to scour the internet flagging speech they disagree with for removal, regardless of who has the final authority to decide.

From Diane Feinstein: “There are going to have to be some controls,” she said. “I’ve said, 'If you don’t control your platform, we’re going to have to do something about it.' I am hopeful that they will." You're not this stupid

That's all well and good, but I don't see any of it as a flaw. It's a necessary ingredient to change, and change is the basis for our continued growth and development. A lot of countries in Europe spend huge sums "protecting" people from the challenges you list, and they barely make a difference, other than to saddle the country with a ton of additional debt. There's a whole lot of people moving to non-coastal cities like Nashville and DFW, all which have their small-town suburbs surrounding them. You can read the currents and profit or fight them and drown, but we aren't an agrarian society so having 5 generations live in the same town isn't a viable option anymore. The monopoly stuff is all true, and it's why we have laws for it. But as you noted, the bigger problem is corporatism. As an example, Amazon gets tax cuts for opening new warehouses. Insanity. We need a constitutional ban on selective taxation that extends all the way to the local level. The greatest threat to a capitalist system is unfairness (of opportunity, not outcome). And no, it shouldn't be a luxury, and it's not. Buying the literal maximum amount of "stuff" with a given income is not a human right. Americans are some of the richest people in the world, and even the lower two quintiles can make choices. In most cases it's not a matter of "can they" but a matter of "do they care?" Just like littering, air pollution, organic produce, bike lanes, and fair-trade coffee, buying from mom and pop stores is a concern of the wealthy.