Tolya Ugajin

Sure seems like an odd move for Nazis to support the President who actually moved our Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, the only sitting President to visit the Western Wall, who basically told told the Palestinians to f off, and in general is super pro-Israel. It's like the KKK supporting a guy who has gone out of his way to pardon Blacks (Obama didn't pardon Jack Johnson, but that racist Trump did), lifted Blacks economically to higher employment and wages than ever before, and, you know, signed prison reform, which helps fix a lot of the injustice created by our "first Back President" (Clinton, called that first I think by Toni Morrison) and his legislation and completely ignored by Obama. But, then, Nazis and Klansmen aren't very bright, so you might be correct.

Nah, I'm more a sine and cosine guy. Tangents always confused me 😛

Challenge accepted:

Well, FYI - British bacon sucks. It's almost as bad as peameal bacon.

You had a failed rebellion in 1837-1838, may want to brush up on your history. There was even a failed push at the time to join Canada to the US. Following that rebellion, the Brits set up "responsible local government" or some such term, in other words, limited autonomy, which fobbed off your traitorous minority (errrr independence minded minority) at the time. You were not a self-governing dominion until the 1860's. By that point, you had very little net economic impact for the Crown, the US was (especially coming off the Civil War) one of the strongest military powers in the world, and not exactly close buddies with the Britain yet, so why bother with the expense and trouble of ruling the frozen tundra? The decision to give you full autonomy looks very different if the US is still a (strong economic and military) part of the British Empire at that point. After all, if you started rattling for independence, the Crown could have sent Sherman up there to burn York again 😛 The point is, fantasizing about how things would be different had a major event turned out differently 250 years ago is a fun parlor game, but to seriously think you'd be better off is foolish, because history is a complicated wed of cause and effect. You could very well have never been born (actually that is probable, because your great great great great great grandparents very well may never have met) or, heck, you could be speaking Spanish as an oppressed subject of King Carlos XII or whatever.

Beth, if not for the success of the American Revolution, it's quite likely most of the Americas (plural) would still be colonial possessions of European powers, as many of the subsequent revolutions were patterned after ours and/or took inspiration from ours, and the Monroe Doctrine (which made it US policy to oppose colonialism in the New World) would never have come into play, and without the success of the revolution in the US there may have been no successful revolution in France (which led to their invasion of Spain, which greatly enabled the revolutions in South America). Heck, it's possible that, with the American South still in British possession, Britain would have been less progressive to ban slavery, as they would have had a much bigger economic interest in its continuation. Besides, you're perfectly free to move to England if you really think you'd be better off as a British citizen than an American, which you would be had we lost the war.

I just noticed your tag is "Meme Queen". I think we should have a "Meme Wars" thread!

LOL Actually, other than a few hits while with my future inlaws in Canada, I haven't smoked it in around 25 years. I run our company's drug testing programs, after all, and I abhor hypocrisy But, meh, it's legal in Canada (Canadians in general are saner than Americans), and I still get one free round of rehab if I get busted on a test.

It's illegal under federal law everywhere from sea to shining sea, same as heroin and cocaine, etc. although Congress did pass a law in like 2015 to prohibit the feds from interfering in "medical marijuana" laws. When states were making it "legal" for recreational use I was actually confused why Obama didn't sue them under the supremacy clause, the way he did with other states enacting immigration-oriented laws. Personally, I've been advocating that the GOP push for full federal legalization for years as a way to co-opt the normally more left-inclined youth vote. Surely there are enough libertarians that would vote with the Dems on this, and, since the President who signs bills into law normally gets the credit, Trump could sign and right away take a mighty bong hit on national TV. If anyone could use a good hit it's him. At any rate, last year a bill passed some House committee to do just that, but I think it's stalled. Once it finally does get made legal, I'm heading up to the mountains for a couple weeks with a kilo of the best stuff I can find.

lol that's actually funny I'm sorry, I went off the deep end out of frustration. If my reaction were a stereo, you deserved a 2, and I gave you a 9. One of these days I'll learn to push the "X" in the upper right and move on to something useful while I cool down. Not a fan of chain or barbed wire - too much blood. Nettles are much better.

Surely some police, and I've seen it first hand. But most police are just trying to do good for their communities. The trouble is, if you give 100,000 people guns and badges, a certain small percentage of them are going to become swaggering, arrogant, tin-plated dictators with delusions of godhood, and some become cops just so they can do that. Some. Similarly, if you take 100,000 protestors, a certain small percentage of them will loot and riot and possibly commit arson and murder, and some will "join" the protests specifically to do that. In neither case is it appropriate to label the great majority with the sins of the *uckedUp minority. Remember, pot is still illegal under federal law in every state. I was actually shocked (and relieved) Jeff Sessions didn't order every US attorney and the FBI to shut down every pot dispensary in the country. Sessions could really use some mother nature.

Your assertion was actually (if I remember) that spending was cut, not that it wasn't as much as it should be, which is a far more interesting discussion. Spending has gone up, as I've shown. But, you are correct, that is NOT the same thing as tax dollars reaching people it could really benefit. Spending is often hard to pin down - right wing lunatics like me normally assume that's by design, so that there is less accountability for where the money really ends up. If you're interested in details (it's more work than I'm interested in doing on this) you can pull up individual department budget requests (in those I've looked at, for NASA and DOE, they include actual spending from prior years) to get more in depth. It is VERY tedious. In addition, with social programs you really need to be careful how you characterize it beyond gross dollar amounts and trends. So, Medicare and Social Security have gone through the roof in recent years - but that doesn't mean anything, since it's purely a factor of demographics and the spending (and funding) is locked in. Education spending (at least federally) gyrates up and down, and really most of the education spending is state and local anyway, so it's not all that material anyway. Income based programs can be cut intentionally (as Clinton did and Trump says he wants to) but most of the variation in spending is due to economic issues (ie. federal unemployment funding goes up when unemployment does, SNAP spending goes down as more low-wage workers get employed and incomes rise). For the latter, what you may look at the data and see that as "spending cuts" while I would look at it and see "improving economy". Finally, it needs to be remembered that agencies do NOT have the luxury or ability to put money away for a rainy day; they are legally obligated to spend the money allocated to them, and sometimes this is purely wasted. I friend's wife worked for the VA back after the recession, and they got 3 lobby upgrades in 5 years, because, well, what are you going to spend the extra money on, taking care of veterans? I haven't found anything you've said insulting - you're making your points and engaging in reasoned discussion, that's refreshing.

Wow, what a deep meaningful response, so very typical of you.

No, Beth, it's hitting you over the head with your myopic and intellectually lazy responses. You're not even bothering to consider facts and data, you don't even read it. "Well, it's not what I believe, so I'm sure it's based on lies" may as well have been your response. This is so very typical of how every time I masochistically choose to debate anything with the liberal crowd on here plays out. You won't look at data, you (this is a group statement, not just to you) post things as "proof" when you haven't even read your own sources and that's if you bother to offer anything substantive beyond your emotional response and repetition of what Maddow told you. Then, you claim I'm "hitting below the belt", but you calling me "naive" (actually, reading between the lines of how you wrote it, it was a shot at my integrity), is just fine, and if I post something without a link to back it up, I'm "just repeating Faux News". It's bullscat. If you want to live a fact free life, that's your problem, I'm done debating this topic with someone who clearly isn't interested in anything more than hearing their own thoughts reflected back at them.

Insulting with everyone who disagrees with me is inaccurate. When I put data after data in front of someone and they refuse to even consider it to the point of rejecting it without even reading it, they are willfully choosing ignorance.