100% correct.
You ended up with less because of why?
What happened?
Did Trump take your job or did Democrats shut down you employer? Or other?

Trump isn't tanking the economy. What is Biden doing to curb inflation?

Under Trump I was getting min 20% /year growth in 401K/IRA.
Now I get dick. Make America Great Again, Yea, he was.

How much more $ do you have to spend compared to under Trump?

Inflation at 9% How is that helping. Make Americans poor again?

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The outcome was astonishing, even i couldn't believe it and i've been campaigning for it since 2015. All of this might be out of date 3 hours after i post it, because things are happening fast.

Theresa May has decided to go into government with the DUP propping her up. If you have kept up in the last 6 weeks or so with all the smears about Corbyn/IRA/Sinn Fein and terrorism, then you should understand that the DUP is basically the *other* side of the irish conflict. They are socially conservative and many of their beliefs fall in line with sharia laws; abortion illegal (including for sexual assault or incest cases), homophobia wrong and harmful to society, creationist beliefs, climate change deniers. That list might have less impact to some in the US but in British politics, it's out there on the fringe, quite extreme.

In a month from tomorrow there will be the July marches in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere in UK), and we already saw a march yesterday where unionists (~DUP supporters) trashed a nationalist pub (~Sinn Fein supporters).

So now consider. Nationalists have been dragged through the dirt by Conservative MPs and in the press; accused of being terrorists in order to smear Corbyn to stop him getting power. Whereas unionists are being courted by the Conservative government, and the press turning a blind eye to the DUP and their connections to domestic terrorism.

The northern irish peace process was a great achievement and still stands despite bad feeling on both sides. Part of the good friday agreement that ensures this peace says that the UK and Irish governments must act as neutral mediators in times of disagreement between factions in NI.

So now it becomes clear why Jeremy Corbyn refused to criticise either the unionists or the nationalists in particular - as a true leader with a fucking brain in his head, he understood that to take sides or score points would be to risk Britain's safety and the safety of communities in NI. The reason people were able to smear him as a terrorist sympathiser and danger to this country is *because* he refused to say or do anything that endangered this country.

And it becomes rather worrying that the tories have risked all of that hard work and all of our safety in order to keep power for just a little bit longer. There are already talks of a legal challenge from nationalists.

The good side to this is that it seems doomed to failure. May's credibility is broken, in the UK and in Europe. The alliance with the DUP almost certainly can't happen or last very long. The only alternative leaders to May would make the Conservatives less popular. Polls that saw this surge coming are predicting now that Labour would do even better if another election happened right now. The last time this happened was Ted Heath, whose minority government did not last long, and Labour took over after a few days, and won an election a few months later.

Austerity is well and truly broken as an ideology.

Oh, and all the talk of "the death of social democracy" in europe was actually the death of triangulating centrists who have become completely alienated from ordinary people. Socialism lives.

I agree, our culture is barbaric, and getting more so. We're already discarding our culture's core pillar, that citizens have the right to believe in any religion they want....or none. I fully expect atheists to be the next targeted group, we're easy, a small (by comparison) group with little political power, and we're distrusted by the right, but not supported fully by the left, and we're an acceptable target for ridicule and distrust by almost all religious people. I ain't goin to no camp.

We (Americans) hold our prejudice tightly, and are worried about anyone different from ourselves, seemingly ignorant of the fact that we are (almost) al immigrants, and that our nation is built on the idea that different cultures together are stronger than any one.
We let Irish in while the IRA called for death to Brittan and tried to give it to them, without any extra vetting. What's different about these people....hmmmm? A different culture that, in your words, is barbaric? I guess you have an incredibly short memory, because until the mid 90's, terroristic barbarism was mostly reserved for Christians, yet no one suggested halting Christian immigration or extra vetting. Historically, Christian culture is far more barbaric and anti-intellectual.

Thank you @enoch, I was trying to figure a way of replying on how there isn't a denial that a minority of Muslims believe in suicide bombing, but that it isn't as widespread and exclusive to Islam as the far right make it out to be. You summed it up pretty well.

I was also going to add all the abortion clinic bombings and the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing... all Christian and being done in the name of Christ. Then in Ireland/UK with the IRA... though that one isn't just religion and is more political (though again, many of those political differences has to do with worshiping Christ the wrong way).

There are militant Buddhist too, who do very violent and aggressive acts against others.

And there are plenty on the left who decry Islam, look at Sam Harris by example who argues the danger of Islam a great deal.

I agree, that we need to address the underlying political issues... and sometimes just need to let things go. There is a big civil war going on the middle east between denominations of Islam, and we are picking a side, which in turn makes us a target of the other side. We ignore the fact that the goal of terrorist groups is to make it an "us vs them" world, so that it makes it easier to recruit potentially radicalizeable people. I hear Christians bemoan how Christianity must be true because of all the persecution, proves Satan is trying to push Christianity down, but then they have zero empathy for how it must feel for a Muslim, and the persecution they feel, and how that must make them feel they are the right one for the same exact reasoning.

The fact so many Christians are not only willing, but calling for a war, for a new Crusade basically, shows that Christians are just as easily radicalized. They may not be strapping bombs to their chests yet, but I'd guess if they were in a Muslim country and felt they were being repressed, then I'd wager they'd be more than willing to engage in suicide bombs.

The pint being, yes, some Muslims do engage in suicide bombs, but it isn't just them. Christians have done it plenty in the past, and will undoubtedly return to it again, especially as the more radicalized and violent portion of them become normalized here in the US thanks to the election of Trump who encouraged them all through his campaign.

In fairness, Vanguard funds are not almost always the lowest. I'd say they often are, but Fidelity beats them enough of the time that it's close between them.

With that said, I am in agreement with you that I would prefer Vanguard because of their ownership model. But as I accrue assets in my IRA's, I may open IRAs with Fidelity as well, as each of your retirement accounts' balances are ensured per account for up to $250,000. I would trust Fidelity as well, so I might diversify my index funds between fidelity and Vanguard for the insurance and other reasons.

I think you will find that most veterans, and currently serving men and women, simply want a clear objective that allows them to win the conflict and return home. Unfortunately the nature of terrorism means that while we follow long held rules that prevent collateral damage, or seek to limit it, the enemy we are fighting do not.

Just as we learned to our sorrow in Vietnam, as the British learned in fighting the IRA, the Russians in fighting the Mujaheddin, and we are learning again in our current battles, terrorists do not feel the need to adhere to the laws of warfare. They use civilians to support them, protect targets, or provide them escape methods. They attack civilians gleefully, knowing we cannot respond in kind.

While I do not support Trump, I do think we seriously need to have a new Geneva Convention to clarify how to treat terrorists and their civilian supporters. I think that is what the ex-Seal meant at the heart of his argument, that fighting terrorists using the old "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we have rules here" is an absolute losing proposition. Even Obama found that we needed to work outside the rules sometimes to be successful, hence his invasion into a sovereign allied nation to kill or capture Bin Laden, and his current extremely heavy use of drone attacks on suspected targets.

As far as the second veteran, I feel it is absolutely valid to question his integrity. He could have claimed CO status prior to going to conflict or simply not joined the military in the first place. Instead, he decided to claim it after experiencing combat, something my friends who have served noticed happening in the first gulf war. You really don't want a recap of some of the things they called people who left the service after seeing combat.

Could you explain why you thought my previous post proposed a false dichotomy? It seems sound to me, even after looking at it a second time.

I don't disagree with your analyses of the underlying causes for the current version of the Palestinian conflict. History has shat on them and they're still stuck in it. Although I will nitpick that the tactic of suicide bombing is probably employed on account of specific Islamic beliefs, as relatively few such attacks are carried out by non-Muslims.

The IRA comparison is an interesting one with some meat on it, and I may meander a bit here as I explore my thoughts on it. The Northern Irish conflict, at its core, was not about religion, it was about sovereignty and independence. I don't doubt that both sides attempted to use the bible as a weapon. The very fact that the attempt was unable to create a sect that spread like wildfire across Christendom is a form of evidence that is it less applicable as a weapon. Certainly not proof, but I would count it a point in my favour, not yours.

Note that I'm not saying that there's nothing awful in the Bible, only that it is acknowledged that we don't take most of those parts of it seriously. Any attempt to do so would generate a chorus of condemnation throughout Christian majority countries the world over. Just look at how the we view the Westboro Baptists; they're a farce. Until the Muslim world is willing and able to do the same thing to it's fundamentals and fundamentalists it is not only fair to criticize it, it is important to do so. And when I say criticize 'it' I mean those beliefs that lead to bad shit.

If every terrorist act is predicated on worldly concerns, how do you rationalize the perpetrators of the Charlie hebdo massacre? How do you rationalize the absurd reactions to the shitty anti-Muslim movie that was made? How about the Danish cartoonist incident? The list goes on and on. These are acts that didn't significantly affect the 'injured' parties in any but a religious way. Their responses are explicitly and overtly for religious reasons, while being completely in line with a straightforward and insufficiently fringe interpretation of their religion.

I actually got almost all of it (missed 2-3 words to a combination of crowd noise and the accent) without subtitles. But I've got several UK friends and coworkers, English and Irish, plus having English friends of the family that visited often when I was growing up.

A lot of the folks in my small hometown in Kansas are the type that have never been out of the state, and who need the TV subtitles even for accents that seem really easy to me like BBC English, New Zealand, Sydney (not broad Australian), etc. Just hopeless with accents.


But actually, the best thing about the video was her story -- which was actually quite funny assuming I got the "IRA" implication correct.

Clearly you are ignorant of the history. The British had troops in Northern Ireland, but did not have access to the Republic of Ireland (a completely separate sovereign nation). It was quite common for the IRA to cross the border back into the Republic.

Let's be brutally honest here. The reason most people in the US are ok with drone strikes is because they're mostly killing brown people in faraway lands that dress funny and speak some weird language. I mean, even if they're not actually terrorists, they probably know some terrorists, right?

I've said this before, but imagine the UK government had drones 30 years ago during the height of the Northern Ireland "troubles"*. Let's look at the facts: you have a genuine terrorist organisation who are successfully carrying out bombings, shootings, etc. on your home land. They have a reasonably sympathetic populous in a nearby sovereign country, and can easily hide there.

Seriously, picture Al Queada, but living in Canada and way more competent. Say what you want about the IRA, but at least they were smart enough to plant a bomb and then fucking leave it there.

Now ask yourself:
- if you would be ok with the UK government drone striking rural Ireland
- what you think the political fallout from that would be (esp from the US)

The answer is that there's no way in hell they could do it. Bombing the Republic of Ireland? The US would go mental.

But that's exactly what's happening here.

It's really easy to make excuses for drone strikes, but they are one of those things that are ultimately just flat out wrong.


* only in Ireland could we describe a 30 year campaign of civil oppression, bloodshed and terrorism by both sides as "troubles"

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The difference with the IRA is that both sides were interested in a political compromise. As regards Al Qaida and Taliban type fundamentalists they have no desire to compromise. So I think it consistent that open warfare with the IRA being rejected/avoided, mean while it is war with the Taliban who are trying to turn Pakistan from a nuclear armed Islamic state to an arm of their holy war.

Ok, let's change the territory. Forget Muslims and Al Queada and the Middle East and all that.

Let's roll the clock back 30 years, and let's find a comparable scenario where we have stateless actors living in a country who's reluctant to extradite them (either through inability to locate them or because they don't really like the country asking for extradition). These actors are responsible for a number of atrocities committed in the name of a political cause that has some tacit support by the locals of this country.

So we have the IRA hiding in the Republic of Ireland for bombing civilians in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Now let's assume the British have drones. Is it acceptable for them to drone strike targets within the Republic leading to civilian casualties? If not, why not?

Hell, let's go forward 20 or 30 years to when Iraq or Afghanistan have drones and the USA refuses to extradite the people that illegally invaded their country and then committed crimes against humanity there. Is it ok to drone strike Texas to get to GW Bush?

This is not a door we want to open. You're happy with it now because you're the ones holding the big stick, but legitimising international assassination because you don't get your way is a recipe for a nightmare.