He is destined to serve another term. He is the greatest distraction for the Military Industrial Complex. Also he is a great source of comedy material. THE DONALD 2020!

We havent lost it, we are just not looking for it hard enough sometimes. Too damn distracted by cell phones and religious books.

Please do not use religion to excuse you for being immoral.

I'm still trying to understand why some people think his appearance in front of these committees is meaningful in any way. Not one of these congresscritters is going to even consider doing anything like imposing an actual penalty on the guy who provides them with such healthy contributions. It's nothing but a bit of theater to distract the masses until it blows over.

First login in about 4 years to say: fuck this parent.

Distract your child, don't video them. You're making a bigger thing out of this by videoing them. They know what that fucking phone in your hand is you asshole. They know it means: "I'm getting attention for this behaviour."

You cannot regulate against or even readily identify evil individuals (at least not before they demonstrate the evil, at which time it's too late), so regulating access to the tools that make murder incredibly easy is the next best thing.

The evil game thing is a blatant red herring meant to distract from that needed gun regulation because one group wants no action at all.

The Donald = greatest distraction/president

I see the fundamental difference really comes to the target of the "whatabout".

If you are talking about group A and they say "What about group B", then that is just trying to distract/deflect. For example, Trump's comments about the alt-left and alt-right.

If you are talking about Person A and B, and claiming that person B is better, "What about person B's war crimes" is not unrelated. The example of praising Bush over Trump, and Bush's history.

I am not fully convinced that people are confused by the difference, at least the folks that I deal with.

Mental health is a completely separate issue that's being used as a distraction. It's certainly worthy of discussion but it does not belong as part of the gun debate.

I am not for banning weapons.

I would, however, set the bar for ownership so high that only committed hobbyists would own the most extreme weapons.

The more potentially impactful the weapon, the higher the bar. I have no problem with someone casually walking into a store and buying a bolt-action .22 target rifle or a break action sporting shotgun with a fast background check. The licensing, training and security check requirements would then grow progressively stringent until you get to fast shooting, large ammo capacity, medium-large caliber weapons. At which point there should be annual training and recertification requirements, in-home verification of safe storage compliance, thorough background checks and anything else.

Any committed hobbyist is already training regularly with their firearms and storing them safely. The certification requirements are no more than a verification of the practices they already follow. What's needed is to weed out the casual purchasers, the revenge-fantasy dreamers and the paramilitary idiots.

Obama only got nothing done due to Republican obstructionism, not for lack of effort or empathy. At least he tried and didn't use it as a personal political tool to attack others and distract from his treason, like your boy.
Tools are useful items that do work. Trump doesn't rise to anywhere near that level, even saying Trump's a fool is being insanely generous.

Everything you need to know....
There's not a single crime even alluded to in the memo, much less proven. Only accusations of bias against Trump by the agency that handed him the presidency.
The steel dossier was certainly not the only evidence presented to FISA, a fact Republicans are desperate to hide.

Republicans wrote the lax FISA rules, and renewed them just last month over Democratic objection, to make it easy to spy on Muslims in America and fight terrorism.
Those lax rules were used to legally get a warrant, and renew it.

Republicans eventually (after blocking voting on it for a week+) voted to release the Democratic memo, after it had been already submitted to the FBI and DOJ first and had a 10 day viewing period. The Republican memo was not subject to review. They also knew Trump would veto it's release, and he has so far. The democrats all voted to release the Republican memo...at the same time and with the same restrictions as the rebuttal, Republicans all voted against that.

Bias does not automatically make one not credible, or incapable of properly investigating crimes. Honest people are biased against liars. Most law enforcement is biased against criminal perpetrators. Intelligence agents are biased against traitors.

If bias was a disqualifier for investigation, what has the Republican party been doing looking at Clinton? They clearly should have recused themselves, but in that case bias against her was a prerequisite to be part of the investigation team. A little consistency would be nice, guys.

In short, this is utter bullshit distraction, fake misleading opinion based on factual omission made by those who've made a career of making unsupported, often debunked charges against political enemies, not credible evidence of crimes or improper action by anyone. Sorry @bobknight33

I have a friend who trains service dogs.

She encourages all kinds of distractions. The dog has to learn to do its job even under difficult circumstances.

I would guess this is in part the result of the rash of fake emotional support animals (pets in public).
Since likely 90% of "service animals" are really pets with vests and nothing more, and treated as such, those with actual service animals need to understand that the general public has little idea how to act around actual service dogs and have some extra patience. If his animal is trained well, part of that training is to ignore distractions when working. Sure, there's no need to constantly test that, but also no need to freak out if someone talks to your dog in the store.

That said, you also shouldn't engage someone's pet without permission. It's rude and can be dangerous.

I think the study with the kids being behind in reading because they face the train is misleading. It's a distraction sure, but it isn't about damage to your ears.

Sure, but why does he then spend the rest of the argument talking about how one isn't as bad as the other?

It just feels like making excuses.

Yeah, we get it. Rape > groping > other dumb shit.

Mike Pence is not as bad as ISIS. There, I said it. Congratulations on passing the lowest bar possible. I still don't want him as president.

Even if Minnie Driver makes a stupid comment, she's not a spokesperson for everyone who supports #metoo.

The fundamental point to me is that senator's quote.
"I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping you are having the wrong conversation.... You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable"

So Bill wants to have "an additional conversation". Ok, WHY? What is driving this additional conversation? Why do we need to have it and is it distracting from the more important conversation we should be having?

I'm not worried about the distinction between the varying levels of assault, except as a means for deciding how to deal with the perpetrator.

But that's not the conversation that's happening at the moment. If Aziz Ansari ends up sharing a cell with Harvey Weinstein, I will 100% stand up and say "hang the fuck on, those two are NOT equivalent". But in terms of saying "stop being a dick", yeah, I'm happy to say that to both of them.

I know that you and @newtboy and @Payback understand that groping and harassment (even if they are not as heinous as rape) are things you shouldn't do. That's 'cos you're decent human beings.

But you guys are not the people we need to talk to.

Bill didn't repeatedly grab pussies against their will, or go on to brag about it...and he was impeached over the consensual sex he did have....and it was a problem for me, such infidelity coming from my president proves he's disloyal...and the cigar thing...WTF?!

Doesn't make him moral by far, but there's a huge difference between cheating on your wife by having consensual (oral) sex and cheating on all of your wives by raping your friends' wives, assaulting numerous co workers, paying porn stars, paying prostitutes, pressuring beauty pageant contestants, and likely raping your own daughter.

Get a grip, he's an admitted abuser, philanderer, and clearly has no respect for women or marriage, and his concept of loyalty goes one way, he's loyal to nothing.

Also whataboutism is akin to no defense at all, and is just plain dumb when your comparisons are 1/10 as bad as what you're trying to distract from.