Wow. Now we have to count on Vladimir-mother-lovin-Putin for the truth.  How in the hell did that happen?!?!

Sweep the leg!

I don’t know enough about any of the three but my spirit aspires to ‘grow up to be them’ based solely on those cover photos. And for the record, anyone who would want to see me (male, 53, skinny and white as the inside of a fridge) in those same pictures would clearly have need of serious mental health support.

They could go to any such other country and try to change it from within.  It would be a hoot.

You are the F’n President! In front of a room of reports and photographers.  That YOU invited. In the Oval Office (OUR Oval Office mind you, you reprobate). You’re representing every American who has ever existed up to right now. There is no such thing in that moment as “off the record”.

Well if they want a theocracy there are plenty of countries in the world they would be free to move to. Many of them in the Middle East. So, how about it Alabama? You want it, go get it. Hell, I know people who would stand in line for days just to drive them to the airport.

Absolutely.

Same as the definition for pornography. - I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

This is the direct result of the police adopting a ‘militaristic’ approach to confrontation. The military operates in a world where the most innocent seeming situation turning deadly is normal. So they train for exactly that, so they can survive and function. The police should never have that as their default…

More ‘family’ just means more ‘family values.’  Duh!

That does say something, doesn’t it. A casino is nothing but a noisy, flashy cash machine for its owners. “Players” come in expressly to leave more money than they take. It’s better than owning a bank. How bad do you have to be at business to lose money by running a casino?

Who knows if I’m on the right side of history here, but our choices are either to engage with the world the way it really is, in the ugly, dirty trenches, or to decide hands off everything that doesn’t square with our moral compass, we walk away and let it burn.

But we really are the good guys. Well, most of the time anyway. Yes, we have a long, sometimes ugly, history of screwing with other, mostly smaller, countries, but our goals have normally been to either remove bad actors or to keep things to a ‘manageable’ level of bad. That is not a morally high-minded ideal but we…

High School typing class - back when most boys did not bother learning to type.  Most useful thing I picked up in those 4 years.

You have to remember the Tea Party actively worked to get rid of as many moderates as possible. The republican moderates didn’t just walk away, they were removed. Then the republicans who were left, moved the party’s platform to the right, making themselves that much less appealing to moderates.

That may be so, but Clinton destroyed Trump in the debates. Where’d it get her?  Debates just let us feel good about whoever our favorite is, no matter what any of them actually say.

My parents always told us, don’t argue with the cop. No matter how wrong the cop is, you fight it in court. They made it clear that the cop’s training is to maintain control. They will escalate until they feel they are in control. I tell my children the same thing. We are white as the inside of a fridge.

Capitalism is a good system. It does, usually, produce the most good for the most people. That is not to say it’s perfect. Organized labor - in the form of unions - is largely what’s made a living - and rising - wage possible. What is the terrible danger of allowing people to act collectively? Doesn’t the management…

You’re right. That is the exact danger presented by populism. We used to be able to rely on our leadership to shepherd that conversation, to weed out most of the wolves. But lately the leadership has figured out there is power in promoting the wolves. And down we go, into the banana republic realm.

BreakerBaker is right. The Voting Rights Act made its way through the House and the Senate - with the Yes votes of representatives who belonged to the KKK. Somehow they were convinced that voting for full enfranchisement of African Americans was politically defensible. That ability to engage with the distasteful…