So, you want to remove all actual Republicans, especially any with scruples, morals, or love of democracy, and replace them with more know nothing, bat shit crazy, hypocritical, abusive, insanely thin skinned, anti democracy asshole morons like MTG and Bobert that always put party before country, and Great Leader before party….right?

Because you say they are real Republicans, not the people who shaped the party your entire adult life….right?

Only the people who follow Trump, the lifetime Democrat who changed parties because, as he himself said, you can convince the right of any crazy thing and get them to vote based on nonsense (paraphrased, not quoted), who are vehemently against tax and spend, but love borrow and spend, who care deeply about the debt and deficit only when they aren’t in control, who care so much about inflation that they block any nomination to the fed, making it impossible to take real meaningful action to fight inflation.…..only they are actual Republicans. Right?

You are such a silly man.

What did you say? Say that again! Come back! What did you mean by that? Who do you think you are to insult us like that? Apologize instantly or..

Yeah context matters, but if I dont stand up for my wife when she feels insulted or endangered, and it does not have to be a physical or escalatory response, I can expect to be considered part of the problem. Sometimes you cant keep sitting on the fence and be all moral and philosophical about stuff. Either you fight or you retreat, a quick decision must be made on how far you want to take it.

That is why I think it was staged. No party planned to follow up, take this further. If theyd never speak about it (or to each other) again, I would believe it.

LOL at my wife wanting me to take risks. Unless I was taking on a perceived risk to her.

If you fight a war you have to use everything you have. The only limiting factor is own survival and post war public opinion, decided largely by who wins. There is nothing moral or legal about wars, every bet is all-in.

You only want to wage wars with clear objectives that at least your own population understands and that you know you will win, and be able to justify after the war is over.

Putin got something wrong. Or everything.

The protests you mentioned didn’t halt commerce for huge swaths of your, and our country, did they? Severity and ubiquity of impacts matter.

Lemme ask you, did this protest ask for dialog, or outright refuse it?

None of the other protests intentionally caused as much collateral damage as possible. It’s not their cause, it’s their methodology and severity of the results.

It’s not about their cause du jure, it’s about their methods, causing economic damage as deep and widespread as possible. I’ll ask, did the other protests you mentioned try to shut the country down for their cause, or were they targeted against the industries/entities they were protesting?

I’m pretty certain that, had they not blocked freeways, border crossings, cities, and industries their protests wouldn’t be being broken up and protesters wouldn’t be arrested. Again, it’s not the why, it’s the how that’s an issue. Their methods aren’t the same as other tolerated protests in severity nor focus.

BUT…there is a significant difference, morally, ethically, and logically between protesting being murdered by police or protesting your last tiny bit of sovereign land or water sources being taken and permanently destroyed by oil companies, and protesting not getting a shot to have the privilege of traveling to another country. I’m far more prepared to be patient for life and death causes than ignorant inconvenience causes.

Edit: P.S. also, “fuck your feelings” goes both ways. These are the same people that took that stance for 4 years here (some still do). When you tell people “fuck your feelings” in response to any subject, any complaints, it’s pretty ridiculous to expect those same people to respect your feelings, especially while you honk a truck horn in their back yard all night for weeks. In my neighborhood, there would have been burning trucks night one, and peace night 2….but I’m a native Texan, kind of the opposite of a Canadian.

You’re right, it was a GREAT year for Joe, America’s economy, and pocketbooks. The best gdp growth in decades (CDGDP up 10%), amazing jobs numbers (6.4 million!), and the fastest stock market rise that put money in even your wallet.
2020 was the no good very bad year where jobs, gdp, and the stock market plummeted like never before.
Such a dumb tool, Bob. “Democrats are awful, Trump is great….reality be damned.”

Forget 22 and 24….Biden is going to use Trump’s plans, so no vote totals ever, sieze voting machines before tabulation, claim all Republican votes are fraudulent and discard them, and use the military to crush any dissent. If that doesn’t work, Kamala will just certify the alternate electors and they’ll vote for Biden. Perfectly legal, moral, ethical, and democratic right? Enjoy, you already say that’s totally reasonable and legal. Turnabout is always fair play. D’oh

same theme in a video story once saw. guy hires a firm to help him stop smoking. they guaranteed he'd quit.

turns out agents of the firm would cut a joint off a finger of his beloved wife each time he'd try to sneak a puff.

they always saw; they always responded.

odd, that. him giving up something 'precious' for the safety of someone else.

think there's a moral in that story somewhere.

To be fair, I brought up IQ when Bob accused me of being “stupid as shit” before going on to mangle his next sentence.

The only thing I think IQ measures is problem solving ability. It is not a good indicator for future success, happiness, knowledge, experience, morality, or opportunities. Far from an end all measure, but it can be a decent measure of expected limitations in certain arenas. It would not surprise me to find out that the school I went to in Texas had fairly high minimum IQ score requirements. The classes were all accelerated and well above grade level, and I’m sure they wouldn’t accept a below average intelligence student and doom them to failure.
And yes, I understand there are numerous examples of IQ and biased testing being used to separate, subjugate, and denigrate groups of people….my school may have used them to deny many non white applicants….it was a prep school in Texas.

LMFAHS!!
That wall that cost billions, stole private property, broke dozens of environmental laws, fell in many many places, can be thwarted easily with a ladder, rope, angle grinder, truck, or climbing skills and hasn’t slowed illegal entries one whit? That wall? Ha! You’re funny.
Remaining in Mexico (as major targets for organized crime) during the lengthy asylum application (sometimes for years)….maybe you’re too ignorant to know that never stopped.
Regaining an energy independence that never existed? Um….yeah. We had a minor surplus last year, not because of more production but because the Trump recession and the Trump pandemic lowered demand to the point where oil producers were giving oil away for free. Yes, in summer we exported some oil, but never as much as we import in winter. This is another Trump lie you repeat without a thought and certainly without verification…because you still believe what he tells you despite everything he’s ever said being a blatant lie for his entire lifetime, multiple fraud convictions, being banned from charities because he stole from veterans and children,….the list of his crimes of moral turpitude is never ending.

Goo start….nice unintentional pun. (Sad you can’t help but fail at English even as you correct your original hilarious mistake).

Increasing our oil output is a goo start, but a god awful plan. It’s actually a non starter, Biden pushed oil companies to increase production for months, but they preferred high prices and high profits. They have millions of acres with drilling rights they don’t want to use because the profit margin is 5% lower and blame the fed for not giving them access to the last pristine national forests and reserves….so again I’ll ask you, nationalize oil? If you want to blame the government, they should have control, otherwise you’re just a whining baby crying over spilled milk and blaming the wrong people.

Requiring better fuel economy from vehicles and industry, phasing in electric vehicles and more green electricity production are actually GOOD starts, and what Biden is moving towards despite total opposition from Republicans on ANYTHING. That’s how you get actual energy independence….the only way in the long term.

I saw this whole movie and its not bad.

The books are great.

You have to believe in something to have a goal in life but you need to pick well.

Justice and mercy (opposites in a way, no?) are IMHO good things to hope for, hoping to prove election fraud is like praying your neighbors goat should die. Morals and politics are a personal choice. Morals are what you hope to be and politics are what you hope the world around you will be.

Pratchett does a good job explaining to kids that its how you change yourself is more important than how you change the world.

The universe offers entropy.

I guess I’m not human by his measure then.

Do people really believe the universe/nature offers justice or mercy?
These aren’t even universal human properties, and they are purely human concepts…. they absolutely aren’t properties of the universe.
The universe is cold, calculating, and impersonal, not a moral, ethical, or empathetic guardian of justice or mercy that cares about you.

Toxic capitalism is a choice for the likes of the Purdue drug family empire. Thinking oneself standing on moral highground while not giving a shit about (let alone having emotional empathy nor actionable compassion to) addicted people's background and how they got addicted is also a choice. These delusional far-right souls have a choice to be good, decent people, but they chose not to.

Uh oh....seems some of the traitors are claiming they acted on orders from the president, something they said that day, but these have evidence from weeks before saying the same thing, along with evidence of Trump's instigation, and messages in Dec telling others the plan is to storm the building and take out the trash right there.

Odd, since these claims and evidence don't excuse their actions one bit, but do implicate Bunker Baby directly.

Not looking so good for Trump's eventual defense. Felons can't be president. That should be modified to include frauds, thefts, and obstruction of justice, those crimes of moral turpitude should disqualify anyone guilty of them. Trump's an old hand at all three.

Right after Jackass came out, a couple of friends-of-a-friend decided to stage their own version of the movie -- with a hornet's nest. They found the thing hanging from a tree at the edge of a field and it was not remotely on the small size. Also, this was in late August and the queen had already flown away, leaving the drones to slowly starve to death. Thus, the enormous number of stripey-stripey sting-stings were already good 'n' pissed-off.

They were about to get moreso.

So chowderhead A and chowderhead B have a brilliant plan: they're going to shoot this enormous ball full of astoundingly-irate murderous insects with a shotgun while they're filming it. If you're hearing banjos playing and luke-warm cheap beers being cracked open, you're about in the right frame of mind.

Places, everybody!

The stage is set: on one end, at what's decided to be "minimum safe distance", are our erstwhile David Attenborough/Jonny Knoxville knock-offs. At a decidedly NOT minimum safe distance away is the arthropod version of the T'sar Bomba. All we're missing now is a Mossberg, enough idiocy to think this can end any way but badly, and a camera. With far too much alacrity for what's about to happen, all three are provided.

Aaaaaand, ACTION!

* BOOOM! *

At first, surprisingly, nothing happens. This period of stasis lasts roughly a picosecond. Then, unsurprisingly, things start to happen and they happen far more quickly than the Chuckle Brothers planned on. This plays out in three acts:

Act 1: "Hey, uh, why is the nest still there?"
Act 2: "Uh-oh..."
Act 3: "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!"

Hubris takes many forms, and schadenfreude takes twice as many, but both combined were statistically zero compared to the number of hornets involved in this fiasco. Had the two Mensa escapees who irked said hornets thought this thing through -- stop laughing -- perhaps they would have arrived at the conclusion that 1. a shotgun slug is not the preferred load-out when dealing with a ball made out of wasp puke and 2. being the only two things visible within a 20 mile radius of the ball made out of wasp puke pretty much negates the mystery of who the hornets are going to sting the ever-loving fuck out of.

With their plans in ruins and the nest not, our heroes decide to quit the field. This is the first smart thing they've done since looking at that big ball of wasps and deciding it was redolent with untapped hilarity. The hornets are having none of this white flag nonsense, however, and they decide to quit screwing around and really inflict some pain. It's a quarter mile back to the car and the hornets are going to make them pay for every inch of it.

The final score:
Hornet losses: meh, they were all going to die in a few weeks anyway.
The chucklenuts: 23 stings, a dropped shotgun, and three minutes of footage that they took in the pre-YouTube era and thus is lost to time.

Moral:
Hornets are not toys.

Let's stick with the one I know better...California.
Damn right I would like every state to have a >$76BILLION budget surplus, (we could use an extra $4.5 Trillion per year in America) an economy that's the 5th largest in the world, a producer of up to 1/3 of the food America can eat, centers for high tech advancement, free health care for the poor....

In what way is Texas beating California....not in freedom, not economy, not health, not infrastructure....pretty much just in fake unconstitutional religious Puritanism as the law and the percentage of illegal immigrants. In California illegal immigrants make up 5.6% of our population, in Texas where they spend billions to fight it it's 5.7%.

First, all the Texans who fled the state have to move home. I'm one...and you'll have to kidnap me at gunpoint to get me back in that third world state. Fuck that oven roasted shithole.

Lastly, abortion is not murder legally, by the definitions of the words, rationally, historically, morally, religiously, or in any way. To be alive you must first be born, you cannot murder that which was never alive. Until the cord is cut, it's a growth inside the mother entirely supported by her body....a tumor. You can't murder a tumor, if you think you can, go protest the nearest cancer center and leave pregnant women alone.