I'm sure they get a small amount of training for situations like this, probably as much as the city will spend.

The point is, even with that training, there are no good options. If he shoots the black guy, he is simply the latest racist pig murdering 'innocent' people of color.

If he stands there and tries to talk the guy down, a vest doesn't cover your entire body. You can bleed to death from arm or leg shots, plus at that range the head is not a hard to hit target.

Maybe he isn't fit to be a cop. But the point is that because we haven't figured out a way to stop cops from kneeling on someone until they suffocate or shooting people in the back, all cops now have to make a split second decision on whether they can act as they were trained to do or act as protesters, the government, and the media want them to do.

We also judge them on what we think we would do, even though I doubt we will ever be in a similar situation.

In this case, I sympathize because Portland has refused to assist or back any of their police in the riots there. The DA has refused to charge anyone who resists arrest or refuses to disperse after police have been given orders to remove rioters (they are rioters. even the Mayor is now saying to stop calling them protesters and to call them anarchists instead).

Why would anyone want to go out, night after night, and face the same people you arrested the night before doing the same stuff?

The fact also exists that Portland has made massive cuts to the police budget. That has led to time off being cancelled for police, no rotations to move fresh police into the riot situations so the same ones have to deal with the face to face confrontations with no break, and the alternative policing option which was hands off was tabled. "A paramedic and a social worker would drive up offering water, a high-protein snack and, always and especially, conversation, aiming to defuse a situation that could otherwise lead to confrontation and violence. No power to arrest. No coercion."

There are a lot of problems with police, for sure. Portland's government is the driver behind these issues, though. Until they start taking a stand against these anarchist, violent protesters (who are PREDOMINANTLY white), the situation will not get better.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/us/portland-protests.html

Translated: Fuck Zuck.
Optional: Fucker Zucker

Is "reply to post" turned off? I was trying to reply to Bob, but no such option is offered me.

Mosquitoes have heartbeats. You kill them. MURDERER! (Pretty fucking stupid argument, isn't it?)

Did you just say no? Have you only ever had sex when trying to get some poor woman pregnant? Did you just say no to any sex not intended to end with children? Guaranteed not, hypocrite.

Are you an uneducated product of right wing or religious "education" and don't know what sex is or that it leads to pregnancy which leads to giving birth? Many are. How would they even know to say no?

To be clear, this law you're supporting makes no distinctions for rape or incest. None. If you're an 11 year old girl who doesn't even know what pregnancy is, pregnant after being raped by daddy ..too fucking bad, have your mutant rape baby or try suicide, only options. That's pure evil....and what this law calls for with no exceptions.

When you have to carry a child, sustaining it with your body even if you know it may kill you, or cannot live outside your womb, or will require constant medical attention at taxpayer expense because you have no money and this unintended pregnancy ends your career, then you can have a say. Until then, what you think is irrelevant.

You left out birth control failure....not that any of your exceptions exist in this new anti woman law. I hope all the decent thinking women in Texas move. I know some ready to. This can only dumb down an already short bus state.

Rape survivors had no choice. Incest survivors had no choice. Birth control failures were not by choice. None of these are exempt. Medical inability to safely carry a child.....that's up to doctors and courts to determine...doctors and courts with anti choice agendas wielding great power while shirking any responsibility.

You're such a misogynistic asshole. If men carried embryos abortions wouldn't just be available in every doctors office, they would be free, and there would be absolutely zero roadblocks to getting one on demand. You would have had at least three, I know full well you're far too stupid to be smart about sex even if you bore the brunt. You would impose Sharia law to remove autonomy from women only because it's unlikely to effect you. How about this....every time a woman is denied an abortion, the man who got her pregnant must have their entire penis removed and be forced into indentured servitude to pay for the bills....over $200000 on average. When you fight for that and win, you get a voice in this woman's issue.

Every time you get out the tweezers and Jack off, you've aborted millions of potential babies. You've therefore, by your definitions, personally murdered more babies than any group of women ever could. Obviously you don't care a bit when you are the murderers....then those unborn children don't count, even though the bible actually specifically says they do but never mentions abortion.

Hilariously, the party of "personal freedom" to make decisions about your own life doesn't believe women should enjoy that freedom....just like you claim to be the party of law and order....but only for others not yourselves.

If it can't live without help outside the womb, it's not a baby, it's a parasite living off another human being. If you think it's ok to force one person to be a life support system for a not yet human, get your ass down to the hospital and donate your kidney, liver, and stay at least 9 months as a transfusion donor without an option to quit...and pay the bills for those you saved. Until then, shut your idiotic hypocritical mouth you moronic woman hating dumb ass.

The Spartans were right, it's not a human until it's first birthday.

Why aren't you busy telling us how Trump will be reinstated as president in August? You know it will happen, a crack head said so. You do know Trump is pro-abortion and has arranged many, right?

Such nonsense.
Biden did not approve, nor is he helping build this pipeline. He chose to not sanction one Swiss company helping build the last 90 miles, but is still sanctioning Russian companies involved, and is likely to block it's certification and insurance (by banning any insurer from using international or US banking) without guarantees the Ukrainian pipeline won't be abandoned.
He decided not making Germany go dark was a better plan, not alienating a long term ally and strategic partner that we are trying to repair our severely damaged relationship with.
He also decided putting Russia in bed with the Chinese, their other option for selling their gas, was not a smart move.
He is clear, he is against this pipeline and is still sanctioning many Russian companies involved in it's construction.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/politics/us-nord-stream-decision/index.html

Those grapes must be really sour today @bobknight33, they've got your yummy tears flowing like a firehose....keep em coming. So yummy, you guys.

Edit: I'm curious why America SHOULD hold veto power over international projects approved by all involved countries on other continents. Should we stop pipelines because Putin says so? He could stop hacking them and just tell us to quit. It seems ridiculous that we are telling Germany they can't have more natural gas, and telling Russia they can't sell it.
For clarification, I'm against it for ecological reasons, yes gas produces less CO2 than coal and oil, but produces way more methane which is >25 times more destructive per molecule in the short term. 11 billion could have built any number of wave/tidal generation facilities that run 24/7 without a new source of greenhouse gases.

The problem with that is, as they burn, they incubate mutations with the possibility of making all the vaccinations and immunity useless against the new strain. That's why vaccination should be mandatory, with the only opt out option being quarantine in a secure camp. Let them burn, but apart, far away from everyone who was a responsible citizen.

No option to replace thumbnail?

Not in this climate of fear over all things Nuclear post-Chernobyl. Besides, with so much de-regulation and lack on competency & accountability, would you trust the 21st-century private Nuclear energy sector MORE than the 20th century's? We really need to leverage as much renewable energy sources like Wind/Solar/Hydro first and use nuclear as backup. Fossil based must be the dead-last option for those places that got no other viable means...

My Pops had a prophet 2000 the mid 80's. The first home digital sampling synth. It had all these options and more to apply to either the basic hum or to any sample. It had reverb, attack, sustain, decay, multiple preset wave forms, speed (of the sample), pitch and tone, and probably 1/2 dozen more I can't recall, all in a keyboard size unit, not a full pipe organ size. The samples came or could be recorded on 3 1/2" floppies, and you could store a huge number of presets to modify them as you wished at the push of one button, not a complete retuning with multiple dials. I had fun remixing James Brown and Prince, but never learned to play well.
Amazing the advancements they made in just 15 years.

Some sweeping generalisations, not sure we can solve childhood trauma for everybody including ourselves.

But yes in general ghettoes, lack of education and social mobility, social exclusion of groups of people (say by color for example) are bad. These life circumstances can be improved or alleviated by state or public institutions easier than limiting drug supply.

So instead of assigning every addicted person a better trained shrink it might be easier and cheaper to get some prevention going. Reverse school segregation, make better schools financially viable for poor families, support meaningful social support programmes to allow families to leave problematic neighborhoods etc.

You can only save the fucked up ones if they want to be saved and they sure dont. Give them other options early in life. Save them quickly if they drop out of society the first time rather than punish them for life.

Ok video, good job, I hate America now. Was that the point? Where's the call to action? Seems like a bunch of useless grousing stirring up undirected anger. Who's funding this? Who wants everyone angry with no hope or option to resolve?

Right now we are in that position, but it's the minority that benefits unequally. Under Republican rule, how many bills were killed by democrats threatening a filibuster? Certainly less than under Democratic rule, republicans love to kill bills so much McConnell is known as the grim reaper for killing legislation as both the majority and minority leader.
When one party, a party that has millions fewer votes for their representatives btw, has the power to stop all legislation as the majority or minority and abuses that power in a partisan way to the detriment of the nation, it makes sense to rewrite the rule changes that put us in that position.
McConnell has threatened exactly that, scorched earth, destroying the legislative process if he can't call all the shots as the minority leader.
As you mentioned, there are ways around it if the leaders are underhanded and purely partisan....democrats have not shown the spine to do that in recent memory, I hope they do now if they don't regulate filibustering.
Time for the nuclear option, whatever that is so long as it stops obstructionist republicans from controlling as the minority. Republicans use it whenever it's convenient, Democrats don't seem to do that, but it's fine to stop them from starting...but requires a rule change to make it unnecessary. Obstructionism has harmed the nation badly, and is the mantra of Republicans....has been all century.

I also have a thin hope that at least two of Trump's appointees to the supreme court can be removed for perjuring themselves at their confirmation hearings, fbi reports declassified since Trump left prove Kavanaugh and Comey did.

https://www.ibtimes.com/719-266-2837-hall-oates-emergency-helpline-385706

If you call 719-266-2837 - better known as 719-26-OATES -- you reach the Hall & Oates emergency helpline and have an option of four different songs to choose from.

The four options are: One on One, Rich Girl, Maneater, and Private Eyes.

No one knows exactly when this helpful phone line was created, but many are likely capitalizing on it now.

So if you've had a particularly bad day today, why not call and listen to the smooth 80s sounds of this awesome band. The only way it could be better is if You Make My Dreams was an option.