Everyone owes it themselves to watch the PBS Frontline documentary on the Uvalde response.

Cowardice, gross negligence, and outrageous incompetence.

The only people I had respect for was the BORTAC team that showed up and got the shit going and actually made entry into the room.

Watching the PBS stream and they show the attack ad against Biden;

“Are you financially better off since he became president.”

Is your family safer?

Is our country more secure?"

Yes to all three in my family’s case.

Thanks to Democratic legislation I dodged nearly $35,000 in emergency medical expenses and instead had to only pay about $750. Thanks to the IRA plan, I was able to invest in both solar and an energy-efficient A/C for my house for which I got 30% off through deductions that I otherwise wouldn’t have obtained.

I definitely feel safer in this border state, my elections more secure, and I appreciate a leader who stands up to global tyrants.

Democrats could get so much fucking better messaging.

For instance, Gallup shows a majority of Americans hold a favorable view of small-business and an unfavorable view of big business. (the latter wasn’t always the case).

They could easily talk about universal healthcare liberating people to innovate and entrepreneur without concern of either Healthcare for themselves or subsidizing employee health insurance. This was a huge burden on my dad’s successful small business for years.

The image of wealthy executives making record profits while productivity sores and yet the slice of the pie gets smaller for everyone is powerful.

We need to remind folks that the majority of Wall Street, bankers, real estate investors, corporate executives are conservative Republicans and that these people DO NOT have the best interest of the common Joe in mind.

The official Democratic candidates must get better, more evocative talking-points. Rachel Bitecofer’s book is a must-read. If we’re facing radical extremism in bully form then we must assertively push the bully back.

It matters though. The weight of a single Rep in the House is far less than a US Senator. It sucks, of course, but very relevant. He can’t be a Manchin.

Because I was well trained

Well you see, many of these cops joined the force because they would’ve flunked or did flunk basic.

They got banned site-wide, according to the modlog :)

Top 150 ranked in world on Company of Heroes 1v1 a long time ago lol. Got to play against some of the #1’s - one of them left to join the South Korean military I heard. Got stomped but was fun.

I was pretty damn good at C&C Generals: Zero Hour back in the day. Damn I wish they remastered that game.

Was ranked on global leaderboards in Dota for a brief moment, too. Top 1%, but never close to the 0.1%.

My favorite moment in gaming was playing a sniper in Red Orchestra in a large 64 player game. Huge map. All game I’m sniping people left and right. Not dying once. Meanwhile throughout the game, like 30 minutes, the enemy sniper is equally decimating my team’s ranks. I was hunting for him the entire game to no avail. Then, while prone I crest this ridgeline to scout a valley below and as I pan my scope to look all the way down toward the other side of my ridgeline, I see the other sniper lock with me at Exactly. The Same. Time.

We both fire.

And since Red Orchestra actually tries to simulate ballistics, we both hit each other and die.

Did you have boots with the fur?

If it’s just us, it’s pretty much based on how soon we can get PTO for those days, so 1-3 months.

But coordinating a vacation with others requires you to go WAY far out and basically harass people as you continuously remind them.

Bail out banks: Good.

Bail out poor/middle-class: Bad!

Edit: Video of the moment in OP’s post during Portsmouth, NH 2016 rally

The GIF is from Trump’s 2016 Green Bay, WI rally @ 43:20

Save these videos, people. They’ll be handy gotchas from here until November.

Look I’m from such a small Pennsylvania town. Rural Appalachian. Coal mines and specialty steel production most notably.

Both of you are right, and the problems feed back into each other to some extent.

After my family migrated west more than a decade ago, every single time we go back to PA to visit family, attend a funeral and so forth — it just keeps looking more and more run down. Honestly the place is a shit-hole nowadays. I’m sad to see my old county went for Trump by 70%. You couldn’t pay me enough to move my family back.

The young, educated, smart, and compassionate folks leave and GTFO asap — both for jobs, and for more diversity and tolerance. The sad part is I remember watching a slew of documentaries in the early 2000s forewarning of what would happen to these small-towns…

• Because of shipping manufacturing off elsewhere.
• Because of big box corporate eating up local shops, eroding community and draining out the money.
• Because administrations were unwilling to break the hard news that things like coal mines wouldn’t last forever and we’d have to help retrain and get them to new modern job sectors.

No doubt these communities feel the pressures they’re complaining about; they’ve just been exploited by right-wing media about who is responsible: the southern migrant more desperate than them, the trans, the homosexuals, the liberals, etc…

@FlyingSquid is also right that there is FAR more bigotry among these communities as well; and that ties back to not being well-traveled, our education system collapsing, and the right-wing fearmongering machine.

Edit: Shit, Inside Out 3 should be about being inside the head of a MAGA supporter.

Oh it is.

… It’s just all in the top 0.1% and corporate coffers.

I really hope Putin’s little picnic parade with Kim leads to South Korea increasing aid for Ukraine.

I’m going to take a wild guess that the infectious disease doctor knows better, but by all means please proceed, Mr. Dunning-Kruger.

It’s called being sensible. Like… We all take risks when we go out, but it’s like wearing a seatbelt. Does it eliminate risk? No. Does it reduce risk and is low risk in of itself by wearing it? Of course.

And ultimately, the insensible thing is banning masks.

Just the Donner Triple. So far I’m really happy with it! I’m not doing anything super fancy, just wanting to lay down rhythms to practice.

The best ways I’ve found:

Going for a run with music Doing VR Boxing Taking a nice long shower.

Playing dota is my escapism habit that is VERY counterproductive for destressing… I’m trying to start making music again as a substitution.

I finally got a looper guitar pedal I’ve been wanting and after a couple 12 hour shifts finally got to mess around with it this evening!

That we’d all be better off if we accepted our own fallibility. That we are not perfect little robots, and as a result more tolerance and forgiveness in the world is necessary.