nsplayr

Sure, being perceived as too old and feeble to serve in the office you're running for isn't ideal. I would advise candidates to not get that reputation lol. Memo to Dianne Feinstein - retire you old hag! I for one also think Biden is older than is ideal for such an important job, but we/he shit the bed picking Harris as the VP and based on her weakness, Uncle Joe has to let it ride one last time. But I will be voting for him over the likely Republican candidates, although y'all could surprise me and nominate someone great and with crossover appeal to Dems, but the way things look right now, I highly, highly doubt that will happen. You go to war with the army you have, as one asshole once said. If Whitmer or Warnock or Buttigieg or Polis or Klobuchar wants to run and Biden bows out, freaking sign me up, I'll be working the phone banks when I'm not on orders. But I can't support Harris first and foremost because she won't win, so we're kinda stuck. I was cheekily in favor of a bank-shot move of appoint Harris to SCOTUS rather than Kentanji-Brown and put someone more politically viable in VP slot, but those kind House of Cards moves don't usually work out IRL. BL: if the next election is perceived by the voting public as a referendum on Biden, he'll probably lose. If it's seen as a choice between Biden and Trump/DeSantis/etc., he is probably favored to win as an incumbent. People can think of a candidate whatever they will, when there are two names on the ballot the only thing you have to do is get more votes than the other guy. Lots of people thought Trump was a huge a-hole in 2016 but also hated Clinton, and he won the voters who disliked both candidates and thus the election. He understood that as a candidate and spent more time making people hate her than trying to get moderates to love him and it worked. As re-elect campaigns go, 2012 Obama successfully made it a choice between himself and Romney. Same with 2004 Bush and Kerry. 2020 was a referendum on Trump more so than everyone head-over-heels loving Biden, and he lost. Those are the historical races most relevant to 2024, although we haven't had a back-to-back exact re-run since 1956 so there are some different dynamics there than 2004, 2012 or 2020.

Yea, pretty incredibly...normal! With today's levels of polarization & general dissatisfaction, it's par for the course. Here's the running approval rating of every recent President at this stage in his presidency. If you didn't already know the results of their re-elect efforts, could you look at these graphs and tell who was reelected and who wasn't? Maybe, but maybe not! Trump - not reelected, decently close, Biden numbers are nearly identical, underperforming by half a point Obama - reelected, decently close, Biden underperforming by 4.5 points GWB - reelcted, decently close, Biden underperforming by 20 points Clinton - reelcted, not that close (Perot a factor), Biden underperforming by 4.5 points GHWB - not reelected, sorta close (Perot a factor), Biden underperforming by 28 points Reagan - reelcted, massive landslide, Biden numbers are nearly identical, underperforming by 2 points So yea...pretty hard to say this far out! He's underrunning everyone until you get back to Carter, so that's not great, but very similar numbers to Trump who lost close yet also Reagan who won in a massive 49-state landslide, so a lot can happen obviously. GHWB was massively popular at this point and he lost. GWB was way above water and won, but it ended up being pretty close, etc. The GOP nominee will matter a lot, to state the obvious. In general every sitting President is the favorite for reelect, and if it's a rerun of someone he beat previously, even more so. If the opponent nominee is someone new & dynamic (see Bill Clinton) I'd put that person as the slight favorite, pending real world events and the actual campaign.

Yea it's those "local control" dickhead planning commissions that f everything up usually. It's a bug everywhere but incredibly prevalent in many liberal strongholds. "Environmentalists" are cutting off their noses to spite their faces when rejecting clean energy, desalination, etc. projects because we need all that stuff about 10x over if we're going to thrive on our changing / heating world. So so much new stuff needs to be build and the government needs to push aside these low-level commissions, partner with industry, and just build it. Case in point, my HOA initially tried to deny my project to put solar panels on the back roof of my house for basically aesthetic reasons i.e. no good reason. Joke's on you MFers, I'm now the president of the HOA (which I hate BTW) and approved the project back in January. IMHO HOAs are localized aesthetic fascism typically run by busybody, brainwormed Boomers and I highly recommend never living in one if you can avoid it 😅 What you do on your property is between you, the government and God, I as a random neighbor should have zero say in that. If I were king for a day I would greenlight every single housing, clean energy (including nuclear) and desalination / water reclamation project on the books and tell the private sector I want 1,000 new projects on my desk by Monday. We need a liberalism that builds and any conservatives that wanna jump on board are also more than welcome too!

I'm a very climate/energy-oriented liberal here and I love nuclear. F all the NIMBYs and "greens" on my side of the aisle who fight against it. From what I've seen we haven't built more due to A) inertia, B) insane regulation leading to insane costs to open a new plant, and C) a political alliance between fossil fuel companies & conservatives plus tree-hugging greens who are scared of radiation that basically caused A and B. I'm enjoying the benefits of cheaper electricity living in the TVA service region where we have three working nuclear plants. I'd put a micro nuclear reactor in my garage if The Man would let me! As a country we're decades behind, but the best time to start catching up is now. Small, modular reactors, molten salt reactors, push the boundaries with fusion research, do it all. All energy that is carbon-free is good energy at this point and energy abundance is the key to unlocking an awesome future. Imagine electricity so abundant that it's not even worth it to meter it, imagine nearly unlimited fresh water due to desalination, minerals mined from asteroids and brought back to earth...all because of energy abundance...LFG. TBH we kind of do. Not a vaccine, but the beginnings of a real cure: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/5th-person-confirmed-cured-hiv/story?id=97323361 Even short of a true cure, modern AIDS medication regimes put a ton of people in a place where HIV is no longer detectable in their blood. Hell of a win for modern medicine!

As you can see in my signature block, it's not the first time! We also agreed on something on July 11th, 2011 😅

Nah, I kinda figured I'd try to get my point across but that in the end no one would change their minds and I probably should just bang my head against the countertop instead. I was right to have that suspicion! I'm truly beginning to view my entire ongoing participation in the forum here as not worth it. Why am I here debating with a bunch of people I've never met, who don't respect my opinions or share my values, and don't give a f anyways? It's a great question. Frankly I don't know what I'm getting out of talking to all you smelly assholes that I can't get by just talking in person to my squadron homies. Politics, flying, AF bitching, etc., it all gets discussed on shift and I've got plenty of years in uniform left to enjoy that back & forth. Good luck to you, have a great life.

So pull out your Republican Rolodex and hit up David Weiss and give him a piece of your mind. I am happy that any charges were brought at all, since I was told that could never happen. If you want to go to law school, become a U.S. attorney in the next 6-9 months and magically charge Hunter Biden so that it guarantees he goes to a federal pound me in the as prison, be my guest. I don’t give a single, solitary F about that guy and I don’t think any of my fellow liberal voters do either.

Ok bud, enough. I should have never brought this up on here knowing exactly how it would go. Believe whatever dumb shit you want, in fact, go on a big podcast and broadcast it to the world like RFKJ. Also good luck forgoing your vaccines! TYFYS.

I clarified what I said. And you're right, I did not ask this question to all five providers, just the first one. Because when you're dealing with something new and very challenging, and you get the opportunity to ask an expert, it's absolutely ok to ask questions even if you already think you know the answers. Shit, if crystal therapy would help my kid I would do it! I know it's BS but ya know what, you be that desperate parent hoping to help your kid and see what you're willing to try or ask about. I can report back that the consensus position of the medical experts is that crystal therapy also doesn't work, in case you were planning on "just asking questions" about crystals also. But importantly what I didn't do is "just ask those questions" on some pilot forum or a big-name podcast because that doesn't actually help anyone, it muddies the waters on an issue that is clear. And to loop back to the original point, RFKJ is a f-ing moron because he does believe that vaccines cause autism, when in fact they do not, and he advocates that people not receive scheduled vaccines, which in fact hurts people rather than helps them. You more aggressively screen subsequent children who have an older sibling with autism because autism's primary cause is genetics! Also many of the environmental factors that likely play a role happened in-utero, which has also already happened. I guess I'm not understanding your question here if you are asking one. No changes need to be made to recommended vaccine schedules, even for babies who have older siblings with autism, again, because vaccines do not cause autism. I keep mentioning the moon landing because it's another common conspiracy with no basis in truth, just like the idea that vaccines cause autism. The evidence for faking the moon landing is about as strong as the evidence that vaccines cause autism, which is to say not strong!

If Beavis and Butthead did crimes and were charged with crimes and pled guilty I would be happy with that, don’t overthink this.

Because asking questions to people with legitimately expert knowledge is absolutely ok, in fact more people should do this! I basically asked hey, I’m almost certain there’s no truth to this but what do you think? And they said no, there is no truth to this. I explicitly told you to ask your own doctor your medical question about vaccines and autism rather than blindly believe dickheads like me here on the internet. I even provided you with about five doctors you could ask who I personally know and who are experts in the condition. What’s different is the “just asking questions” guy online or in the media, who is either knowingly or unwittingly spreading doubt and misinformation. So if you for some reason are getting ready to launch to the moon on a rocket as pax and you happen to have doubts about the moon landing and you ask someone at NASA…ok great! Due diligence. If it’s all one big government conspiracy and now I have to participate, I’d like to be let inside the circle. But “hey everyone @FakeMoonLanding265 here, look at these 35 new links I just found!” that’s not the same thing. That’s “just asking questions” vs actually asking real questions to people who would know the answers. And yes, I did have an extra dose of piss and vinegar in my Cheerios yesterday, glad you enjoyed it.

But you're just asking questions right? I treat this like someone saying the moon landing was faked. Or "maybe it was faked." I mean, it could have been, it's not totally impossible, I'll give ya that! But it wasn't. Anyone still left saying the moon landing was faked is a f-ing moron who I am under no obligation to take seriously. Ask the doctors I gave you contact info for. They are experts in autism very specifically and can explain in more precise detail than my layman's summary the likely causes of, current best treatments for, and anything else you'd like to know about it. They will all tell you it is not caused by vaccines. They all fully vaccinate themselves and their children...I asked! I have a second child who doesn't have an autism diagnosis (yet) and so I literally asked, hey, is there anything different we could or should do with the recommended childhood vaccine schedule to ward off any additional risk of her developing autism too? They said no. Anyways, believe what you want I guess, but just stay out of medicine and policymaking if you have doubts about this one. While you're in the "just asking questions" phase, any speculative thoughts about the pyramids or earthquakes you'd like to share?

Congrats on building a successful career & don't have regrets, have plans. If you want to fly, make hay while the sun shines in finance & tech, then FIRE and/or go part-time and start flying, you almost certainly have the money to do so. If you love it, build time flying your rich buddies around or however else you'd like and then become a professional pilot down the line, there's still plenty of need for years and years to come. Either way, good luck! I greatly value my (ongoing) Air Force flying career but it certainly ain't the only way to make a living or do something valuable in this life.

I'll start out by saying this... Thank you for picking the topic among RFKJ's vast web of conspiracies that I know the most about. Ok, so I have an autistic child and have gotten what I consider a great layman's education on the disorder. The causes are not fully understood, but BL it's some combination of genetics and environmental factors, e.g. in-utero maternal stress, maternal immune system disorders, pollution exposure, etc. FWIW there have been lots of studies on vaccine ingredients to see if those could be a contributing environmental factor, and the consensus is no, at least not to the degree that outweighs the benefit of receiving the vaccines. Also vaccine manufacturers have changed some of the ingredients used in vaccines over time in response to both founded and unfounded fears about them. Autism is a challenging condition but one that's always been found in humans. Autistic people aren't "diseased" in a way that's curable or even necessarily bad, they're different in a way that's part of the human condition. There's also a spectrum of impacts the disorder can cause, and autistic people range from very high-functioning geniuses (e.g. Einstein, Turing, etc.) to people who are quite disabled, non-verbal, etc. and require lifelong care. The saying goes, "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person," and clinicians really do treat every case individually because much more so than with some other conditions, YMMV. But don't take my word for it, even though I have up-close and personal experience. You didn't know that before. What I recommended was not Google MD your way into backing up your beliefs, frankly that's easy. I do recommend that you talk to your personal or family doctor. Please do that and I'd love to hear what they say. Now granted, not every physician is an expert in autism, although anyone providing you primary care should be familiar enough to tell you it's not caused by vaccines, a few odd quack doctors out of millions aside. If however you do want to consult with some true experts, here are some near me who have been tremendously helpful in helping me understand autism: Dr. Rachael Hundley, PhD - clinical psychologist Dr. Angela Maxwell-Horn, MD - pediatrician and developmental medicine specialist Dr. Linda Ashford, PhD - clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Lounds Taylor, PhD - research psychologist Dr. Sloan Sparks, DNP, PMHNP - psych nurse practitioner These are all fantastic doctors that I know personally and who know this subject inside and out. I'm dead serious, reach out to one or all of them, those links to their bios all include phone numbers or email addresses. Since you said you like to read, this book was recommended to me multiple times and I found it really helpful in understanding autism better, since I used to know little to nothing about it. Uniquely Human by Barry Prizant, PhD. Highly respected autism researcher with 50+ years of experience with studying autism and autistic people. BLOB (bottom line on bottom): vaccines don't cause autism. Also we landed on the moon, the earth is round, and anyone who believes any of these asinine conspiracies or others like it is officially too stupid to deal with, no matter how famous their family is.

I highly doubt this. See Pooter's post above about two-tiered justice, which absolutely exists. It takes a special case of stupid to be found guilty of serious charges when you can afford the best and most connected lawyers. Trump is certainly trying his damndest though! I believe this is ongoing in the House. Last I checked they may have lost the "smoking gun" audio recordings or something, IDK, I'm sure you are tracking this more closely than me. What I'm spiking the ball on is this: many of y'all said "Biden's son could never be charged!" Well guess what, he was, pled guilty to some tax crimes and got a year of probation for a gun-related crime. Seems like decent justice to me, y'all can quibble if you want but I think it's good when criminals face justice, even when they are the son of the President of the United States.

All true, agree with you here.

If Brett Tolman (Republican) wants to air these concerns, be should call up David Weiss (Republican) and harass him for being so soft on crime. I bet he can get his number from a mutual acquaintance. If the case were so easy to prove and win a harsher sentence, why did the Trump-appointed US Attorney for Delaware pork it up so badly? It’s easy to talk a big game on cable, you even get paid handsomely to do so! It’s harder when it’s your name is on the case and you have to bring it in court for real I’m imagining. So if you want more politically-driven slam drunk prosecutions of Dems, y’all gotta get your appointments squared away apparently. Sorry this one didn’t quench your bloodlust, even though I was told in no uncertain terms Hunter would never even be charged. I for one want my US Attorneys to prosecute all criminals and seek sentences that are appropriate for cases they think they can win. No special deals but also no throwing the book at low level dudes, which we’ve unfortunately done a lot of over the years. Maybe Trump had different criteria when filling these important positions in the federal government, IDK. Tolman should ask Trump during his next ring kissing session maybe. Hard to blame the evil Dems here IMHO.

Nom nom nom I do love cheese 😁

You’re correct that I did not rebut RFKJ’s ridiculous claims, and I don’t plan on it. As to where he gets his ideas, IDK, aliens injected them up his ass when he got abducted maybe? Vaccines do not cause autism. SSRIs don’t cause mass shootings. Your wifi isn’t giving you cancer. Bush won Ohio in 2004 despite my wishing he hadn’t. These are not controversial, “data on both sides” takes. But don’t take my word for it. Next time you go to your current family or personal doctor, I encourage you to ask about the medical conspiracies and see what he/she says. I hate conspiracy theorists. Yes there are actual conspiracies in the world, but that doesn’t mean everything is a conspiracy. Occam’s Razor, uncertainty, and poorly executed plans explain like 99.69% of situations. It’s just a personality type I loathe and refuse to deal with. I sometimes take the time to rant or mock them because it is a little bit satisfying to dunk on people who are so consistently wrong. If RFKJ wants to think the moon is made of cheese great, but GTFO out of here thinking you can be President or represent my party - you can’t and you don’t.

So Chris Wray (appointed by Trump) and Davis Weiss (appointed by Trump) are in a deep-state conspiracy to protect Hunter Biden? Ok…that is a take I guess. If there are other appropriate and legal ways to investigate or charge Hunter, be my guest. Whistleblow to your heart’s content, let the truth be known and the corrupt among the powerful be held accountable.* *if there is a case to be made and truth to allegations Also from what I understand Hunter got a year probation for the gun charge, and after serving that it would essentially go away. I’m not a sentencing expert but that doesn’t seem out of the ballpark, it’s not like he used the gun to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue! If you want a more rigorous and strict federally-led enforcement regime for gun-related crimes, I am all in favor of that.

Let him/her speak then! Do it. If they’re correct then bring more charges. I don’t understand how you do not grasp my position on this issue.

Ya know the Dem President’s son was just charged and plead guilty to crimes. I, a Dem, am fairly happy about that because he pretty clearly did some crimes and no one should be above the law. Meanwhile all the Law & Order right wingers who hate Biden and longed for this even though they said very authoritatively that it could never happen are all pissed off and grouchy, as usual.

If you think he should have been given harsher charges or not given a plea deal, please take that up with the Trump-appointed US Attorney who brought the case. For all his talk, Trump sure did a completely shit job of appointing people that share his corrupt “values” like viciously attacking Dems using the levers of government lol. Wray, Weiss, Judge Cannon, etc. When you pick the refs and still lose it really says something about your case. I am in favor of prosecuting all criminals and holding them accountable. If you want to do that more widely and seriously for political and business elites, I say it again, your terms are acceptable. I have some ideas of where we can start!

This is a man who believes wifi radiation causes cancer, that Prozac causes mass shootings, that W stole the 2004 election because of voter fraud in Ohio, and that vaccines cause autism. If that’s you’re kind of “Democrat” it’s no wonder you’re a Republican! If this were the Dem party I would be a Republican too. Luckily that’s not the case. RFKJ is a piece of crap conspiracy peddler. He’s Marianne Williamson with a dick and a better last name. Never will be President, never should be taken seriously, a disgrace to his name and I’d bet his father has been rolling in his grave for years listening to the volume and variety of BS coming out of his son’s mouth in public.