Only nine sifters viewed this post and that doesn't take into account the ones that don't have the ability to downvote or the ones that just don't vote in general, which there are plenty of. IMO that's extremely quick for the circumstances. Personally i wouldn't have viewed and subsequently downvoted this if i hadn't read cloudballoons comment re his inability to downvote.

This is just stupid.. fireworks in general. Oohhh bright lights/loud noises!!! For the amount of accidents that happen, people/wildlife that are disturbed and house pets that are traumatized there is really no reason these should be allowed anywhere for any reason. Goes for all firecrackers too.

You know, the claims wouldn't have to be "hearsay" if the parties involved (Meadows, Trump) were willing to testify before the committee. After all, if they didn't do anything wrong they shouldn't have anything to hide, right? Isn't that generally one of the right-wing mantras around justice? But Meadows at least has refused to show, and based on Hutchinson's testimony I can understand why - he's clearly up to his neck in actual crimes.

Not the parts that matter, like him screaming to let his armed troopers into his rally to be ready to storm the capitol, because they aren’t there armed to hurt him.
Also not the part about him being apoplectic when they wouldn’t let him go to the capitol to lead the attack.
You will never wake up.

“Do you believe in the peaceful transfer of power?”
“I plead the fifth”- disgraced general Flynn (and every Fascist Trumpist)

...so? Presidents and other national leaders attend a huge variety of functions, and aren't going to want to do a run-through for every single one of them. A brief overview of his role on a note card seems a very pragmatic solution. I do want to point out that it doesn't tell him what to say - the President's staff expects he'll be able to improvise something serviceable. Because he's an intelligent, capable adult human being.

Oh, and that clip of him saying something about "dropped dead unexpectedly" - that looks like stuttering to me. He seemed to be trying to say something else, and just couldn't get it out. His backup word choice was inelegant at best. Stuttering is something Biden's known to have struggled with for most of his life, and generally he handles it very well. Sometimes though he seems to still stumble on something, and this might've been a case of that. Maybe not - maybe he had a total brain fart / senior moment and we should be concerned... but it certainly didn't seem like a noteworthy incident to me.

Meanwhile, in actual important news: the J6 hearings have demonstrated the former President clearly made numerous efforts to remain in power despite having definitely lost in a fair election. (Well, fair in terms of having been run competently and without demonstrable fraud. Trump still had what I consider a significant unfair advantage in that Republicans have an inherent edge via the Electoral College. He just lost the popular vote by MORE this time around, leading to a loss of the EC as well.)

Greed knows no specific political affiliation, nor does charitability. We should all insist on policies that do more to help those in actual need of it, and to reduce rampant profiteering at the expense of human suffering. Squeezing your captive customers just because you can is a pretty universal "dick move." Imagine if we had solid policies in place that actually encouraged giving a hand up to those who've encountered misfortune, rather than treating them as suspicious and dangerous.

I think a big part of the problem, which I was sad to see go entirely unaddressed by the show, is that owning rental properties is such an appealing option for wealthy private investors. The long-term (and generally short-term) returns on real estate in the US have been absolutely bonkers for many years, and it's a much more stable investment than the stock market can prove to be. Professionally, I've been in a position to have an understanding of the finances of many wealthy people, and damn near everyone with net worth of more than a couple million ends up having quite substantial real estate holdings.

How about we instead find a way to award stable profits to those investing in schools, or public parks, or the arts, or... I don't know, anything else which doesn't ultimately take people out of their homes?

Very much so! It's worth watching, he's generally been a very authentic presenter, and he really doesn't shy away from being exposed here. Plus the footage of him on the 2nd and 3rd coasters is awesome - on each ride he goes through a major transformation in mood and it's really fun to watch.

That is such a hard thing to do, of course not just this expert/perfect thing, but just that genre of serve in general.

I could never do it well.

For my understanding, the general meaning of the word "Zionism" is vastly changed throughout the eras. And there isn't a homogeneous kind of Zionism anyway. What kind of "Zionist agenda" the people/government living in the land of "Israel/Palestine" in the 30-50s to today had in mind and pushing for is totally different. Let's be concerned with today's general definition of Zionism, as mostly defined by the Likud and the other far-right/Nationalist parties in today's Israel shall we?

Also, I can't imagine there are a whole lot of countries that would deny Israel's right-to-exist (like, physically, wholeheartedly want to wipe them of the face of the earth kind, NOT the expedient, political rhetorics for their own domestic consumption kind). And those that could really be crazy enough, like Iran, I constantly (naively?) felt the Ayatollahs would rather opt for silent, staus-quo relations than go to war with Israel (they must see the Ukraine invaison and see Russia/Putin isolation as a lesson, they can't afford to put themselves in the same position as Putin's in a Israel/Iran war. The Ayatollahs don't have even Iranian people standing behind them).

The good is that for Israel vs. the Arab countries, trust building is possible, but incredibly slow -- it only takes one wrong step to negate a mile of trust building -- but still, the past few years have seen some Arab countries opening up bilateral embassies with Israel along wiht increased trades & direct flights, etc.

The no good, very bad news of the statehood issues, daily IvP conflict, land grabs and from low-level militray incursions to the occasional missiles trading military operations, are happening far too often. Thus making hard-core Zionism, support of Hamas, the isolation of the Palestinian people & economy, etc. all the more severe. None of these are paths towards peace and/or creating the conditions for mutually agreeable settlement. All the flashpoints needs to be addressed in an even-handed way. But we just don't see balance in the media and/or the world political arena.

Let me fix that for ya:
"The level of education and discernment of the average HUMAN in general is really depressing."

Israel and Palestine is particularly messy though, as so much power(money, violence and otherwise) is leveraged from both sides to ensure people choose a side, and choose it with no compromises allowed, purely villainizing the other and vindicating the 'right' team.

Anti-Zionism isn't anti-semitism, as you pointed out. Yet, overwhelmingly anti-zionism is also used as a code word for denying Israel's right to exist, equivalent to confederate flag marchers claiming they haven't any racist intentions...

The level of education and discernment of the average westerner in general is really depressing.

Well put. But what's the % of Western (or the whole World in general except the Middle Eastern region) population who can make the distinction? It's really depressing.

Here in Canada, IMO the political landscape is very much the same as in the US. It is firmly drilled into people's mind that anyone criticizing the government of Israel's constant harrasement, military action, and land grabs in Palestinian territories are automatically branded as Anti-semitism by the likes of the JDOs (Jewish Defense Organizations). There are many legit Anti-Semitism incidents in Canada that need to be condemned, true, but there are also real over-reaction and subpression of objective opinions by the JDOs. These "false branding" hurts people's lives. And we almost NEVER hear the word Zionist (or anti-Zionist) in the media, mostly isolated to academic circles only.

Nobody would be offended hearing someone criticize any country's policy and military incursion (say, you don't like Trump/Biden? No one will say you're anti-American), but any negative comment involving Israel? Damn it boy, you're begging for trouble. As if Isreal, Likud, Netanyahu and the Jewish people are one and the same. Criticize one, you criticize all. But why is that? What makes Isreal, above all other countries, well above any reproach?

Now, I'm not pro- or anti-Semite nor pro- or anti-Zionist. Such generalised sentiment is wrong to me. I'm just pro-peace, the history of that land is way too complex and the blood spilled between its peoples ran for generations and gone on for centuries. It's unrealistic for any leaders to settle anything between their peoples in a political term or two (and not even factoring outside influences that DON'T want them to settle). There are too many hate and zero trust between the peoples right now. Just let peace reigns for a decade then it'll be time to talk settlement of statehood. Give Isrealites & Palestinians some peaoce & prosperity first. Everyone, including the media, politicians inside and outside of that land, the UN, etc. just need to recognize that and not be just so lopsided in their support.

HA!

this img wasn't generated by a computer. altered [slightly], yes, but filters ≠ CGI. blurring an img, using a blue filter, or cropping an image does not make it "CGI". you can argue the semantics of if it being "generated" by a computer, but arguing it is means all digital photos, images, hell even text of any kind are "CGI". "CGI" is already a stupid, near meaningless term and pushing the definition to "any image that appears or had appeared on a computer in any way" makes it even less useful. [generally VFX/visual effects is the umbrella term people are looking for. CG is the term if they're referring to rendered assets. this is neither. this poor use of language is a huge pet peeve for me.]

imma ignore the "art" argument because that is regularly a black hole of silly and i don't feel the need to engage that but those painted potatoes more effort than this.

This is the problem with generalities: there is almost always an exception. This happened to me a while ago: The grocery store I go to can get busy and has a pretty small parking lot, so it is often full. It is also one-way only so the lanes are narrow. I was loading my groceries into my car, and another car was waiting for my spot. When I finished, I went to return the cart, but the driver of the other car rolled down the window and told me not to bother, and that she will take the cart herself.

Now, I could have ignored her and returned the cart, which according to the video would have been the "correct" thing to do, but that would have simply lengthened the time the other driver had to wait (as well as the cars behind her since they couldn't go around her), for no real benefit other than to return the cart. Instead, I pushed the cart out of the way, got into my car and left. Even though it was technically "wrong" for me to have done this, I feel it was the correct thing to do in that situation.

Yep; southbound 3rd Street, just past 22nd Street in San Francisco--taking you from downtown, where these folk like to ride around, make noise, create donuts, and generally get themselves noticed--the BayView Hunters Point, a historically ghettoized neighborhood.

Totally predictable.