ewsieg

I'm not feeling comfortable agreeing with Pfife so much in these last few posts from today and yesterday. Pfife, can you go give some half-assed defense to Nessel/Flint in the Politics Schmalitics thread so I can tell you why you're wrong.

That's a good point too, the loudest group doesn't mean its the biggest group.

I have not heard a lot out of Ukraine in terms of the war in the last month or two. I think by this time we can concede the counter-offense was not successful, at least in terms of reclaiming land. I saw an article yesterday saying the average age of the Ukrainian fighter is now 43. Not sure if that just means so many older man volunteered it skewed that number, but that sounds concerning. I know the pro-Zelensky argument is to just give more to them, but we've given them a lot and we still are giving more. Do we just allow this to be a forever war because it's a cost effective way to drain the Russian army as well as other Russian ally countries now helping supply it?

For clarification, after listening to this I looked it up and Greene never said Robert E Lee was a founding father, apparently another congressman spoke earlier about some act that protects statues on federal property of founding fathers, but none of that was related to Lee nor what Greene was responding too. That said, the rest of Pingree's response was spot on.

Well, I didn't want you to contemplate something else, I do think it's related. Similar to what Pfife and I were discussing yesterday in terms of understanding the reasoning behind something. I'm not saying progressives are all hidden anti-semites, but it's the progressives that are upset at Fetterman for saying Israel has the right to remove Hamas. You can decide what reasons they have in doing that, but I guarantee if there are any progressive anti-semite's that exists, they definitively feel emboldened to speak up now.

I can agree with that. In regards to your hypothetical, I think that's on target too. I know I've tried to understand a subject on this site only to feel like others are feel I'm condoning the GOP or Trump, but I'm sure I've done that to others as well. Trying to not bias a topic by bringing in a perceived bias is pretty much a constant thought in my head when I post here.

I'm interested in your take with this. I felt like there were some possible inconsistencies in this forum pre/post Trump, but not so much pre/post Oct 7. Seems like this is a war hawk forum for the most part now.

I was about to push back on your "Maybe next time, don't vote for Hamas" comment '84, but you're subsequent comments give more context and unfortunately, I think you're correct. Yesterday I saw a comment about Israel having a blank check and I disagree with that, but I do agree that a "proportional" attack is going to be a lot different here than it might be elsewhere based on how Hamas wants to use Palestinians as pawns. I haven't heard follow up, but it was reported that Israel killed 4-5 hundred folks just to hit one major Hamas leader yesterday. Didn't that original hospital bombing which turned out to be friendly fire originally to be said hundreds of people and it turned out to be just a handful? Any number of innocent deaths is horrible, but also 1) I don't trust any numbers I hear coming from Hamas and 2) everything you stated is the reason why there will be higher casualties.

This is kind of fun watching others deal with pfife's gaslighting instead of me.

Graham turned and looked right at him to scold him as well. Per usual, just another issue we have to deal with because of Saban.

wow

Twitter is lit up with Senate drama as well. Some GOP senators are finally going after Tubberville publicly about his military hold ups.

None of it says that, nor was that the point I was trying to make. It's a nuanced world and I thought there were some interesting tidbits that went along with some of the things you were raising. An overall view and reaction towards someone that has been considered a champion of progressives, which correct, isn't saying it's anti-semite, but shows a considerable difference from the Biden core of democrats on the issue. I suspect you'll disagree, but it looks similar to Macomb county and how it changed recently. Pre-trump, your side felt it was full of good, honest, hard working union men and women. They surprisingly stopped voting blue for a billionaire because for reasons you can determine and the left, or at least folks like 1984 believes they are racist now. And yes, i'm sure there were some hidden racists that felt empowered to puff their chest a little bit, just like you're seeing with some anti-semite's that feel they have a little more power to express that now too.

I might have to surprise my wife with that show. We saw them at the Magic Bag probably 5-6 years ago, maybe longer. Soon after I saw them on a TV show or something and figured they were about to be big. My wife is still a huge fan. They were great live.

Chuck, I found this article interesting talking about the blowback Fetterman has had after a statement in which he said Israel has the right to remove Hamas. They cite some polls that were interesting as well which was interesting. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-john-fetterman-faces-left-wing-backlash-israel-rcna122204

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/11/01/flint-water-crisis-residents-say-state-failed-delivering-convictions-justice/71397342007/ The Flint saga is finally over. End result, not a single felony conviction. This is what performative politics gives you. Can Nessel be charged for her recklessness so we can get something good out of this?

Trump needs no spin, he'll just claim he was responsible and his cult will agree.

I searched for Lone Justice to make sure I hadn't posted something from them before and saw this. I have to ask, you remember what Lone Justice song that was stuck in your head back in June? This is one of my favorites from them.

It seems like all of you folks claim you hate Twitter, but then someone says something on Twitter, which is horribly slanted, you agree with it and love it. I don't get it. One person said there was 17 people with guns, in reading the story, the first person at the scene didn't have a gun and yelled at the person which spooked the assailant and caused him to flee. No one else was injured, no one was shot by accident. It is a horrible story, but outside of one eye witness that it sounds like showed up after the fact, this story is not about guns.

I do agree with republicans that mental illness (in a holistic view) is the root of the problem and until that is properly cared for you will continue to see deaths due to someone 'snapping'. Guns are just a more efficient way for these folks to rack up a body count. My problem with republicans isn't that they are incorrect on the root of the problem, it's that they refuse to put a band-aid on it (common sense gun laws) and offer no solutions on the mental illness portion outside of 'go find God'. The democratic solution of focusing on the guns, IMO, doesn't address the root of the problem, but it definitely would save lives while we all work to correct the root of the problem.

Please understand this, YOU are part of the problem.

I would like to say in regards to this and what Edman posted earlier. I think the socio-economic issues are driving up the depression medications. I do think in some individual cases, this makes it worse, not better. As I’ve mentioned here, my wife was damaged by the Covid (+flu) shot. I am still a proponent of them, but I feel it’s important to tell people so they can educate people that taking them together if you already have an auto-immune disease. I worry when I say it people are rolling their eyes and I’m losing credibility with them.

Chuck, I hope that very last paragraph isn't directed at me as you are right, that would not be a serious idea. As for your post, I feel like we're really close on our thoughts, we might just have some disagreement on how we interpret/define certain words. When I believe we're facing mental illness issues, I'm not saying we have more sociopaths, psychopaths, or schizo's than other countries, I'm including what you've hypothesized in recent years. That isn't mental health in the traditional sense, but it absolutely affects a person's mental health and that's exactly what i'm thinking about when i'm talking mental health as the reason why people choose to do this, add in an ease in finding the tools to carry it out and that's why we're exponentially outpacing the world.

No country has as many guns per capita as us, not even close. But taking the US out of the equation and I'd venture to guess that the highest guns per capita to the least guns per capita countries don't see mass shooting issues at a scale close to us. All that said, it's still not apples to apples as pretty much every other country have more regulation on firearms, which again can be the splint we need until we can address our mental health issues.

I think we're heading in the same direction, but I do take issue with this statement while I feel you were dead on with the rest of your post. I personally think mental health is a very large issue, not trivially small, for these shootings. In fact I'd argue it's the heart of the issue. There are other countries with access to guns that don't experience what we are currently experiencing. How you deal with it is the question though. If your kid breaks their arm, putting a splint on it does nothing to fix the issue, but it does prevent more damage from being done until it can be addressed by a doctor. The USA needs to figure out how to deal with mental illness, but in the mean time, some common sense restrictions on guns can help prevent more damage.