Fresh8686

I feel you. I'm just not that doom and gloom about it being pointless and there being no results/no justice.

Eh, if the Dems sweep he ain't doing much of anything with his remaining tenure. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if his hands are dirty in some way as well. But, who knows we'll see what happens.

Well, let's not focus so much on the end link of the chain, that we forget there are other links that precede it. The credibility of the case and the credibility of congress are reliant, but distinctly different. Let's see how the elections play out in November and then hedge our bets on what may or may not happen.

Well, considering that one of Mueller's four finding in the obstruction case has to do with the firing of Comey, I would say it does matter. His credibility vs Trump's matters. The weight Comey's testimony may have on proving corrupt intent on Trump's part matters. With that in mind, his characterization of Trump operating like a mob boss matters. If his anecdote about John Kelly calling Trump dishonarable gets him fired, it does matter. It's not the whole wall by any means, but it's definitely a brick in the wall.

This has been a really cool thread to read. I'm glad Renegade7 started it. From the perspective of working with tension, stress, pressure, and van der waals forces as they express internally, there are some interesting things to consider when it comes to the human desire for proof, especially absolute proof or absolute certainty. In my experience it is actually a human flaw or an inability to deal with the mental tension of uncertainty, especially as it relates to deeply internalized beliefs that influence our experience of internal consistency on a fundamental level. Absolutes are comforting, but overly simplistic and come from a closed circuit state of conceptualization, rather than a an open and live state with building levels of capacitance. An absolute is a static conceptualization (in near all cases), but since the universe has dynamic characteristics, it will not allow for a state to exist that is so absolute, that it cannot be changed, and therefore have no potentiality (or maybe it is accurate to say, even that state has the potential to exist as a peak state, but the probability is so low, because the energy required to restrain reality into a singular state would dissipate over time, creating a slide back into higher probability states of dynamism). There are always degrees of change, even if not immediately available and that's why absolute proof or absolute certainty exists with only the lowest of probabilities and why that's also a good thing. A degree of fluidity and a degree of solidity is nearly always potentially available, both directions that can express, commingle, and superimpose to create paths for both the simplification and complication of different shapes of life. Also, on a somewhat related note, how would people feel about a thread recounting spiritual experiences? We've heard what people believe, but what have people personally experienced and how has it informed their view of reality?

Some snippets from the article Vis posted above “If order and authority are to be maintained in the face of the erosion of the social safety net—and without even the dream of social mobility to mitigate the hardships—then the state must become more coercive, the exercise of state power more brutal.” In Everything You Love Will Burn, journalist Vegas Tenold reveals that Heimbach was trained at the Leadership Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC, whose alumni include Mitch McConnell, Grover Norquist, and James O’Keefe; that Heimbach is hugely influenced by Pat Buchanan; and that, on Inauguration Day, Heimbach was introduced to a room full of GOP strategists and state legislators at the Capitol Hill Club, directly across from the Capitol building. “A few years ago the GOP wouldn’t be able to even sit in the same room as you, but things have changed, and now we need each other,” Heimbach’s Republican contact told him, as quoted by Tenold. “This is a big day.” Successful fascist movements have historically taken power not in coups d’état, but in coalitions—namely, historian Robert Paxton has shown, in coalition with weakening center-right liberals and conservatives seeking allies against a rising left. This way lies power for the American fascist, though without an organized street movement behind him he is little more than a particularly ambitious racist. “I’ve been around for a long time,” Bob Day, the Solidarity and Defense organizer from Detroit, told me. “The election of Trump and the blatant expression of white supremacy, hatred of women, and anti-immigrant bigotry—I mean hell, I lived through Nixon and George Wallace and Reagan, and this is different. He’s speaking to a base. There’s a real base for fascism in this country. So we got our work cut out for us.” But... The paradox of the neoliberal dynamic, whereby the state abdicates its authority, opening up space for corporations and fascists to move with impunity, is that it also offers working people the chance to realize the power they hold to shape their own worlds. “What people are seeing is that trying to wait on Democrats or union bureaucrats is a losing proposition,” Day told me. “Whatever’s gonna get done we’re gonna have to do it ourselves, we’re gonna have to rely on ourselves, so in these fights like in West Virginia, or against the fascists, or against ICE, or against police violence, it’s coming from the bottom. That’s where the fight’s gonna come from. If we can do something to fight this system, it’s gonna be ordinary people getting together to do it. And it’s gonna be ordinary people that’s gonna have an alternative.”

This past march was the one I was most worried about something popping off. We almost didn't go because of that reason, but there was a visible police and military/national guard? presence this time and big ass trucks blocking the major avenues someone would use to drive a car through people. I think if it does go down, it'll be at one of the satellite marches, rather than DC, because of all that security.

A lot of people never bother to differentiate between their "perceived truth" and the global or "complete truth" (which no one has), and from that false sense of entitlement, they gleefully paint others as delusional and destroy for others what they've rejected for themselves. Lack of self-awareness and an over-abundance of certainty in their beliefs, perpetuates that bad behavior.

Should there be negative consequences for Laura's behavior? Why does she get a pass, because you're used to her acting like this? If I'm understanding you correctly, you have a problem with the severity of his response, but I don't see the rage, that's a huge reach in my opinion. I see savvy and an understanding that the uglier sides of the right-wing machine run on money and the attacking of the "other" or those who don't conform. He didn't threaten her, didn't insult her, or evince any other characteristics of a possible shooting suspect. I mean jeez, if you truly feel what you wrote above, how did you feel about all the people wanting to boycott the NFL and who claimed so in much louder, violent, and sometimes hateful ways?

She didn't criticize him, she mocked him, there was nothing constructive or worthwhile in her tweet about him. Did you read the article she cited in her tweet or the response from TMZ's Producer? What is in there to criticize or even mock, that a reasonable person would agree with? He wasn't whining at all, in fact he used the opportunity to include and talk about others. The kid has a 4.1 GPA, is dealing with deep, deep trauma, all the while trying to make sure that same trauma doesn't happen to another student. Why should he have to silently accept that? How is openly mocking a kid who recently saw his peers killed in front of him acceptable and not the main focus of re-probation from you? Personally, I don't think we should accept behavior like she showed and as a consumer it is within my rights to not support companies that sponsor people who show that kind of behavior. These kids aren't stupid, they know to follow the money if they want things to change. And finally, where is the prejudice in this situation that you are attributing to David Hogg?

Cool thread and answers so far I was baptized Catholic when I was born, baptized as a Christian Baptist when I was a teen, and took my Shahada as a Muslim in my twenties. Now in my thirties, I have such a deep spiritual connection to LIFE in all shapes and forms that I feel no need for the smaller shapes and forms of religions, while still appreciating and including/honoring the underlying patterns within them. Life is full of stuff crashing into other stuff, some breaking and simplifying, some joining together and becoming more complex... all the while, the potential for previous patterns and combinations await to be activated again. Death as an absolute doesn't exist, it's just an event where the bonds that hold a particular complex shape disconnect and shift into something else. In fact hardly any absolutes exist, most of them are conceptions created from a human mind that couldn't handle the energetic load of nuance at a particular time and instead created an extreme... It's like the hierarchy of communication - flight/fight - freeze, with nuanced superposition based thought - dualistic thinking - absolutism/extremism. Your capacity for both behavior and thought, conditioned upon your ability to handle the impact of a given stimulus and process it with a given degree of harmony and complexity. I see the universe as different threads that can mix together and some mixtures can be ****ty and only do so much, while other mixtures are incredible and filled with loads of possibility, via their synergy, cooperation, and connectedness. Humans are a particular mixture of those threads, while still moving in different directions of harmony and potential or conflict and failure, depending upon a particular context. The point being, that both directions are always available, can mix, and superimpose on each other, or break each other down and go to war with each other. What do I believe in? Universal patterns of motion/life and a universal level of balance that protects the potential for everything, despite the nearly insurmountable degrees of separation that must be dealt with to get there (they only feel insurmountable, because our brain/awareness can only contain so many of the necessary steps). Like how a human orgasm is in a way similar to the creation of light, via the excitation of electrons and release of photons. Two different shapes, with different levels of complexity, acting along the same patterns.

Thanks, but you’re misreading my words. It’s not about banning semi automatics. It’s about regulation which is in the 2nd amendment. Regulating magazine size, the velocity at which rounds fire so as to limit destruction to a human body, and removing access to automatic weapons via conversion and other means. As well as all the other stuff I mentioned and a culture change that will take at least a generation and is too much of a pipe dream to deeply discuss right now.

Damn, please don’t de-rail this thread into extremes. The goal-posts you put here are not what reasonable people are focused on. There is a mobilizing group of people who will want to limit capacity, velocity, and rate of fire. This puts a cap on the intensity of a violent action. We want to limit access, especially when it comes to the violent, isolated, low impulse control, toxic masculinity, having individuals who evince the dark triad of previous school shooters. Namely self-delusion, arrogance, and resentment. This puts a limit on access for the highest danger population groups in this country. If a person has a problem being in that category, change your behavior and fix your ****. Prove you can be better. We want background checks enforced at all times a purchase is made, that reaches across a country wide database. That includes at gun shows and all individual transactions. Do you see the constant theme of limits? Maybe you dont want that and will come up with reasons why, but who cares. All that matters is getting enough people to stay committed long enough to vote people into office on these platforms and hold them accountable, till these become law. I say this as a person who already has his gun rights taken away. I’m doing alright, the world hasn’t ended for me. If I can deal with no access, you can deal with limited access. People need to be adults here and see the wisdom of the above self-restraints.

Why Is U.S. Health Care So Expensive? Some of the Reasons You’ve Heard Turn Out to Be Myths In a new, detailed international comparison, the United States looks a lot more like its peers than researchers expected. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/upshot/united-states-health-care-resembles-rest-of-world.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

I think ole Sam had some of that booger sugar, before going on some of those shows. He was sniffing something fierce during that Ari Melber interview.

Omar Mateen, Pulse night club shooting. He was on it at one point and then taken off for whatever reason. I think we've all known, nothing substantive was going to get done right now. We'll have to see what things look like after the dust clears around the midterm elections. Will mobilization and enthusiasm last that long? I think it will this time, especially since there is an unfortunate chance that another shooting occurs between now and then.

I mean yea, but damn this is some next level **** isn't it? Do y'all normally come into contact with folks like this in gun country?

Jesus ****ing Christ on a Christmas tree, what in the holy hell is that **** going on in Newfoundland PA? Why are a bunch of geriatrics dressing in drag and rocking rifles with bullet and burger king crowns? Pennsylvania is some scary ass ****.

I feel you, data takes time to compile. Why is now different? Personally, I think it's a mixture of different things. You have a gradually increasing base of progressives who are no longer apathetic and disconnected from each other. Our country has become too openly volatile and incompetent for greater swaths of people to ignore. This reaction is building and creating nodes or vehicles of mobilization that are multi-faceted and synergistic with the issues they are investing in. And each event, whether it's mass shootings, sexual harrasment, racism, nazis, Russian Hacking/Collusion leads to the creation and inter-connection of more vehicles like the Women's March, the MeToo movement, Indivisible, The Science March, Pro-Immigration/Travel Ban Protests, Charlottesville, etc. Each messed up thing that now happens in this country is being responded to with activism rather than apathy and defeatism to a gradually increasing degree. It's out in the open now, that it's up to us, because our government has failed in it's responsibilities (this is the perception at least). And people are adapting to that greater awareness and inserting it into the narrative. For example, before politicians could get away with thoughts and prayers, but now people are hip to it as a delaying tactic and call BS. The old tropes aren't working as well anymore, and the response to the tax bill will be an interesting barometer to this as well. Will people get lulled by the breadcrumbs and ignore the greater issues waiting down the road, or will they remember and not be fooled again? People were pacified, because their individual lives were still comfortable, but now... things are tense and tension is like an itch, in that it moves you to scratch it. To act to relieve it. So... way more people are looking to scratch this itch to change, than ever before, because they feel more threatened than ever before. Why do you think republicans tend to have better voter turn-out? It's because they feel more threatened by the status quo or at least their perception of it and that motivates them. And I hear you, regarding it being his job. Understanding his failings, doesn't mean I accept or condone his failings, but I didn't communicate that in my previous post. Humans on the whole suck when it comes to tensile fitness, but that's because it's not clearly understood that what makes people able to handle those jobs can be trained and developed. And the process of identifying degrees of capability for each tension threshold has not yet been created (that I'm aware of).

Eh, most people can't handle the tension and stress of a shoot-out. One day, if things work out, I hope to create systems that give people better training that will increase their tensile resiliency, so they can properly shunt it's load across their nervous system and not freeze. Plus, be able to better identify people's base level resiliency and who is or is not qualified for certain duties. I remember when Homeland Security, ICE, and the DEA jumped out on me with all their guns and ****. They thought I was crazy because it made me laugh, but really I was just riding high on adrenaline, rather than shutting down like other people would.

I'd be curious to see if those numbers would be different if they did that poll again this year. I personally think things are sustainably swinging towards a direction that will engender greater gun-control mobilization and hopefully a shift in November towards more democrats and also more republicans who are less tied to gun interests. Too much of the narrative of what can and can't be done is poised amidst this backdrop of gun control apathy, that really seems to be shifting. Regarding this thread I'd like to see boundaries or lines of demarcation created between immediate solutions and long-term substantive solutions, along with a kind of order or operations in place, to prioritize each individual solution along it's respective line of demarcation. Maybe that would make this thread more focused and less contentious and repetitive?

I wonder how feasible it would be to bullet-proof classroom doors in conjunction with restricting guns to the level where there would be no issue penetrating CMU walls (I have no idea what the current class of weapons penetrative power is). 4'x8' Lvl 3 Ballistic Shielding is around $575 a sheet, plus the 4" batten strips at $6.25 a lnft at the seams... it would be too expensive to encase every single room in a school if they were using drywall partitions, but maybe we could have centralized locations on each floor, where students and teachers could congregate in case of these shootings? You wouldn't need to have the shielding from floor to deck, just ceiling height or 8' at minimum would offer sufficient protection.

I won't post the picture cuz dude looks gross, but I always thought Mitch McConnel looked like the villain from the movie Hannibal. I don't mean Hannibal himself, but the dude in a wheelchair or whatever who wanted to feed him to his pigs.

You know, I look at what some of these companies spent to buy off individual politicians and I think, "$60,000 isn't really all that much when you think about it". Sure there are the big boys spending millions across multiple political parasites, but what dent could we put in if we started crowd-funding our own bribes to politicians? I wonder how much we would need to have our politicians actually work for us?