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Chris Bray's avatar

In other news, the story about the Blackhawk crash at Reagan National is quite something:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/business/dc-plane-crash-reagan-airport.html

Right seat instructor pilot repeatedly tells pilot, who outranks him, that she's flying at the wrong altitude and on the wrong course. She completely ignores him, over and over, and flies straight into an airplane. He lets her, and doesn't take control of the aircraft even as he sees that she has no idea what she's doing.

Version without the NYT paywall:

https://archive.is/23Uv1

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No name here's avatar

Nevertheless, she persisted

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Ellen's avatar

... and died a martyr ... that'll show those "Mansplainers"!

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ReadingRainbow's avatar

Bravo

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No name here's avatar

I stole it, TBH, but thought it was too spot on not to copy.

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Lydwine's avatar

That article is extraordinary. It's billed as a complex story of system failure, but it really is as you summarize - she flew the helicopter into the plane after being told to adjust her course. "She did not turn left." What? Your wrote, "In a few months, the haze of hyperemotional overreaction will start to clear," but I think that only might be a valid prediction for a vanished world at this point, when you could count on normalcy to autocorrect at some point.

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K Tucker Andersen's avatar

Thanks. Intriguing - obviously more to follow. The air traffic control system like so many other government functions ( think IRS, FDA, HHS, DOD -almost ad infintum) has been allowed to deteriorate when technology should have been allowing it to improve its performance

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the long warred's avatar

Don’t fly into airplanes in front of you isn’t an air traffic control issue.

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Chris Bray's avatar

Wait, so you're saying...

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the long warred's avatar

“She did not turn left.“

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K2's avatar

LOL

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the long warred's avatar

“She didn’t turn Left.”

(No man tells me how to do my job🧟)

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DE's avatar

Da BBQ dun got BBQ’d, along with all her highnesses attendees

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Dan Jones's avatar

The girlboss (R.I.P) had been promoted due to DEI from pilot to a White House tour guide for muckety-mucks, if you call that new job a promotion. She was going back to flying due to a pending change in administrations therefore D/C of that brass assignment and had to requalify, having logged no rotary-wing time in several years while showing dip-lomats the East Room and the non-gender-specific lavatories at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The rest is history.

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JasonT's avatar

Your career or your life. He chose career.

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LoveIsCourage's avatar

Losing both on the other hand we seem to be living in girl boss and childless cat lady gynocracy

In which perhaps his survival instincts were 🧠🦠shorted out. Dunno is military training enough to have overridden his response capacity?

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Michael K.'s avatar

He'd rather die in a fiery crash than tell an Empowered Girl Boss 'no'. Summarizes the American Male under the gynocracy.

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JS's avatar

It's not surprising, really. Both were recruited, indoctrinated and trained by the same institution. They played their roles.

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the long warred's avatar

Life ain’t worth living

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Dan Jones's avatar

And lost both. Maybe Darwinism at work; better instructioning is needed just as much as better piloting.

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DE's avatar

In nuc control rooms (I.e., maneuvering), trainers can call “hands off” and physically intercede. Is that not possible in a cockpit full of hen?

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Dan Jones's avatar

In the navy the instructor pilot is told and trained to intercede, declare "my aircraft" and take the controls from the command pilot if the situation warrants. I don't know whether it's the same in the army but I suspect it is. Why Eaves didn't, is likely to remain a mystery forever.

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Throgmorton's avatar

Maybe it happened too quickly.

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The Alarmist's avatar

All he had to do is say "My Aircraft" and take control. She could, and probably would, bitch about it later, but I suspect the unit commander would appreciate him erring to the side of caution. Then again, I was in the military at a time when there were few girlbosses, only some DEI, and not even "Don't ask - Don't tell," so HMMHV.

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the long warred's avatar

Death is preferable to life with grrlboss . Like a bad marriage without the fornication..,

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Rikard's avatar

That's a very typically modern-woman behaviour, this time it had truly disastrous and tragic consequences rather than just expensive and annoying.

The reason modern women act like this is because they have been raised feminist, which means they (and us men too) think "not doing what a man says equals being a strong independent woman". Which is patently retarded of course, but if you have been indoctrinated to think like that, subconsciously, since birth by parents also indoctrinated and conditioned in the same way, it is very much a rote response.

I could give numerous examples from the various jobs I've had (including teaching), of women fully intellectually capable to objectively understand and reason that what a man - any man! - just told them about X is true, or at least bears taking into account when making decisions, only for the woman or group of women to demonstrably and in a grandstanding fashion ignore it on purpose just because.

Leaving a mess the men then have to go in and clean up, while the women blame the men for the mess.

This is what feminism has created: women who will cause disasters just to be contrarian, and men who will let them to not appear as sexist.

(We used to joke, once upon a time, that there are two groups of people: those who when told to 'Duck!' gets out of the way, and those who stand their ground saying 'You're not the boss of me!' and get Darwined. Too bad that the second group causes so much harm to all around them when doing so.)

Any man or woman feeling I'm being unfair, sexist, whatever - so? The point is if I'm wrong or not. To tie this to mr Bray's post, Trump is an older man and as such not as afflicted as younger generations; therefore, he acts without taking the noise into account, because all it is, is noise. Hence the desperate flailing and GBA and attempts to belittle and guilt-trip: its the old go-to womanly techniques of social domination; they only work if you let them.

And: us men bear an equal share of the blame. It's on us to say "No" and "You broke it, you fix it" to these women, and "You're a strong independent woman - you don't need my help" when they are being the way outlined above.

Also remember whether you're a woman or a man (and there are no alternatives to that):

When somebody mess up because they are being stubborn and stupid about it, always make them 'fess up what they did and why, before helping. In public, in front of others. Not in a bullying way, just matter-of-factly. "Why is the rear-view mirror broken? I want to hear you say why, before I get the tools and the plastic padding out. Otherwise, you can take it to the shop and you can pay out of your own pocket for a replacement. What's it gonna be, own up to what you did, or pay to avoid being honest about yourself?"

We owe it to each other to be that way, no matter our age or sex, because we make each other better by holding each other to proper staandards of conduct.

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Michael K.'s avatar

This. A thousand times this.

Trump is not going to save the gynocracy. It is going down, Trump or no Trump. If the men of the nation are too gelded by fifty years of Total Feminism to take their country away from women and save it, then they do not deserve to have a country. And soon, will not.

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Daniel Kennedy's avatar

I have no idea why the instructor pilot in the right seat didn't immediately say, "I have the controls" and turn the helicopter. It doesn't matter that she out ranked him. He had the authority to immediately take control of the aircraft.

The rot appears to run deep deep deep.

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the long warred's avatar

The rot is feminism, and the feminine. They cannot have power.

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Michael K.'s avatar

Changing course (like America) would be giving in to the White Male Patriarchal Establishment that wants to send all your daughters to Handmaid's Tale death camps!

!!!!!

The Empowered One sure showed that know-it-all male instructor pilot. Better to crash and burn (ahem ahem America) rather than let The Patriarchy win.

Yes, that IS where you are, and where you have been for 50 years.

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Josh Rosenfeld's avatar

Understand that the Army pilot may have had some fault, but it was absolutely insane for the FAA to have a helicopter route so close to a circling visual approach. Absolutely no horizontal separation, and - in the best case - like 100 feet of vertical separation. (100 feet ain't much, especially in turbulent conditions.)

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the long warred's avatar

Except per NYT article standard practice.

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Josh Rosenfeld's avatar

Thanks. That's exactly my point. Whether or not she screwed the pooch, and whether or not she had personality flaws, allowing aircraft to operate within 100 feet of each other vertically with no lateral separation is dangerous, and normalizing dangerous behavior like that is insane.

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the long warred's avatar

But while I’m not ATC, the article goes into detail that it’s standard practice. Indeed that doesn’t seem to have been rescinded, what was mentioned as no longer allowed in certain airspace is VFR or visual flight rules.

In short you’re saying too close is insane… but it’s happening right now. If it doesn’t people’s precious schedules….

Listen- seriously- a nation of spoiled children… well

The world, the warrant officer… and me… DGAF….

No wonder he didn’t stop her 🤣

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Josh Rosenfeld's avatar

Not sure what you're saying. The helicopter route in question has been permanently closed. That was one of the NTSB recommendations, and the FAA adopted it in March.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statement-ntsb-recommendations-dca

The issue is that the FAA should have closed that route after any one of the dozens of near misses that occurred over the preceding decade.

Also not sure what you're saying about VFR flight. The area around DCA is Class B. VFR flight through Class B airspace requires ATC clearance. Many Class B areas have specific routes that VFR traffic is required to follow if it is cleared through the airspace. For example, in Southern California, the VFR routes through the Class B cross directly over the runways at LAX at several thousand feet. This is actually the safest place to be when flying around major airports, since it deconflicts crossing traffic from arrivals and departures.

It would be unconscionable for the FAA to move these VFR routes to altitudes and locations where the crossing VFR traffic would cross through the path of arriving aircraft with only one hundred feet of separation.

My understanding of ATC radar displays (from the Opposing Bases podcast, which is produced by two controllers) is that they round to the nearest hundred, meaning that traffic at 251 feet will read as 300, and traffic at 249 will read as 200. That's not a lot of room for error, particularly when you factor in that: (1) altimeters only need to be accurate to within 25 feet; and (2) this accuracy depends on whether the pilot has entered the correct barometric setting into the altimeter

This matters because pilots obtain altimeter settings at various points of flight - although the settings in areas in close proximity are often close, each hundredth of an inch is worth ten feet of altitude. So if I take off from an airport with an altimeter setting of 29.92, and I am flying into an area where the setting that is being used by other traffic is 29.96 and I am unaware of this setting, I am going to be at a higher altitude than I think I am at.

If I am separated from crossing traffic by 500 feet vertically (the minimum vertical separation along most routes), the above factors are not going to cause a crash. But if I am separated from crossing traffic by 100 feet, there is not a lot of margin for error. And while most midair collisions involve some level of pilot negligence, building a system that demands absolute perfection to work safely is absolutely a systemic failure.

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the long warred's avatar

JR - god bless.

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GadflyBytes's avatar

I’m confused. Why does she outrank her instructor?

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Michael K.'s avatar

Females always outrank males. Otherwise it's sexism, silly.

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Dan Jones's avatar

Only in service rank, not in aircraft role. The control pilot and the instructor pilot were merely their roles in the chopper. A more-qualified pilot may be the "instructor" or may be the one being requalified or checked out in any specific flight.

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the long warred's avatar

💩 he would have been a rapist the moment they landed

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Dan Jones's avatar

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

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the long warred's avatar

Nah, life’s too short to go to court under any circumstances, he chose death instead. Bonus he took her with him.

… as to the obvious 🧐 indignant reply; ready here…

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EK MtnTime's avatar

I think the helicopter was unmanned and remote controlled. There’s no way self preservation didn’t come into play for the instructor.

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the long warred's avatar

Self Respect often overrides self preservation

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Navyo Ericsen's avatar

Or it was an MK-ULTRA operation of the pilot.

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Gunther Heinz's avatar

CWO-2 dressed liked a Staff Sargent. Is this normal for you guys? Is it an Army thing?

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Chris Bray's avatar

Older picture, before he became a WO.

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Gunther Heinz's avatar

Thank you. I thought perhaps it was a brevet thing: brevet warrant officer with E-6 pay. And E-6 housing.

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Navyo Ericsen's avatar

I'm thinking MK-ULTRA

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Gilgamech's avatar

You’re seriously underestimating the risk that they escalate to the next level. Which is a dozen medicated Boomers standing around holding signs they haven’t read.

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Chris Bray's avatar

We were visiting relatives in the Berkshires during that big weekend "Hands Off" rally, and we drove past the protest in West Stockbridge. It was like watching a fire drill at a nursing home.

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Doctor Hammer's avatar

Such bravery, much filled diapers.

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Frontera Lupita's avatar

So in SoCA, the once “sleepy little coastal town” of Encinitas, CA, now a bastion of lefty, new school liberal, progressive types, the “Hands Off Boomers” are out in full force on the weekends on a regular basis, with their signs and all. It’s a total joke.

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Ringmaster's avatar

Yes, it must be nice to be able to spend time showing how “virtuous” you are when you can afford to live in that expensive area of San Diego. 🙄

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CecilRhodes's avatar

Imagine there's old people, it’s easy if you try. About to find out if there’s a hell below us, shouting at the sky…

Imagine all the old people, In assisted living today...

Imagine there’s old people, It isn’t hard to do. Realizing their whole lives wasted, fighting for a lie.

Imagine sad old people, with hands off something something my lawn signs…

You may say Ok Boomer and it will get you a rant.

Ohh ohh the horror. The world has literally move on.

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Toffeepud's avatar

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I'm pretty certain those are the original lyrics...

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suannee's avatar

Fire drill at a nursing home. Mean, but conjures up a great image!

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K2's avatar

LOLOLOL

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Chris Bray's avatar

AND IF YOU DON'T GIVE US WHAT WE WANT OUR NEXT SIGNS WILL BE EVEN MORE STRONGLY PHRASED

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PhDBiologistMom's avatar

Stop! Or I’ll say “stop” again!

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Steenroid's avatar

Sounds like a strongly worded letter from Lady G.

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Dan Jones's avatar

LEO #1: "Maniac has replied with a scornful remark."

Computer: "Approach and repeat ultimatum in an even firmer tone of voice. Add the words, or else."

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NoVaCloudDev's avatar

You are fined one credit for violation of the verbal morality statute.

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Frontera Lupita's avatar

So true…I am of that age demographic but thankfully I am not medicated, nor ‘subsidized” by Soros, The Clintons or all the other NGO du jours that are supporting these losers!

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Gilgamech's avatar

Glad to have you with us on the side of sanity!

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Mick's avatar

"In a few months, the haze of hyperemotional overreaction will start to clear." I admire your optimism. I think you underestimate how much our opposition LOVES this shit. Like hypochondriacs or Munchausen mommies, they make look desperately unhinged, but they relish ever moment. Also, these people have no other meaning in their lives, so the opportunity cost of a pretend nazi empire is very low.

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ThePossum's avatar

Yes the reasons are less important than the outcomes. To date we have seen the bulk of Trump's, and thus his supporters, requirements for success on the job turned to judicial toilet paper. Having the laws and the norms of this country twisted to ensure that the Marxist party retains and even expands its influence is exactly what I and millions like me, voted against. I won't punch myself in the face so that SCOTUS can continue to claim legitimacy.

Where is our Congress?

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JasonT's avatar

In the tank. Follow the money, or the photos...

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Bandit's avatar

In the toilet, IMO.

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Navyo Ericsen's avatar

You mean the Military-Industrial-Sanitation complex?

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SimulationCommander's avatar

The hardcore DO love it, but more and more 'normies' are dropping off the train every day.

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Sharon R. Fiore's avatar

I’ve been waiting for this for so long!!! But there are still so many leftist media members that it seems like a precarious situation to me. I really hope I’m wrong.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

No doubt it's still an uphill battle, but this snowball only rolls in one direction. None of us are waking up tomorrow and thinking "You know what, the media WAS misled about Biden's condition! I'm trusting CNN again!"

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Sharon R. Fiore's avatar

That’s really a good point! Nobody who realized what the media is doing is going to ever trust them again.

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Navyo Ericsen's avatar

That snowball is made of snowflakes.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

Sounds like we're thinking the same thing these days. The people who not only sat by but enthusiastically participated in covid shame and censorship suddenly CARE VERY MUCH about following the law to a T.

I don't remember getting a vote on any of that shit, though.

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Jane in Michigan's avatar

I so admire this description of Trump’s tactics:

"I think he knows what he intends, and what he values, and then he tries a bunch of stuff to see what’ll move the ball in that direction, and some of it doesn’t work. Some of it will. I think he’s a purposeful flailer, with the long-developed tactics of a shit-talking New York City real estate guy, poking at the people on the other side of the table to push them off balance. It’s more playground basketball than 4D chess. Poke and drive, then miss the basket, then shrug and try again and sink it." 👍

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kertch's avatar

Many people don't understand this concept. In fact, in today's "participation trophy - no one is allowed to fail" culture, it's forbidden to even think this way. Try 10 different approaches and see which ones work, then readjust quickly and try again. This is an extremely powerful way to achieve results. Most people put all their eggs in one basket - one ideology, one plan, one approach. If it fails, they are devastated. The result of this type aversion to failure is what you see in the Democrat party right now. They are using the same failing strategy, but with much increased effort. They are "Doubling down on stupid".

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Andrew Diseker's avatar

It's especially visible in NASA, where they've implemented "failure is not an option" to the extremes, to the point that even building a new rocket takes untold billions, and will only launch two or three times per decade. Meanwhile SpaceX is already on their third iteration of engines and third design of their flying skyscraper.

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PhDBiologistMom's avatar

I’m not sure I needed the mental image of Trump in basketball shorts, though.

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Mary Ann Caton's avatar

Would it work better if it were golf? 😁

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Jane in Michigan's avatar

LOL!

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c Anderson's avatar

Way better looking than Biden with his blond hairy legs.

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Grundvilk's avatar

Just that FAFO thing put to good purpose.

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David's avatar

I came here to mention that as well, especially "It's more playground basketball than 4D chess." Gotta agree with that interpretation, explains Trump's behavior rather succinctly.

Dude's on fire blazing with both guns because A) that style works for him and B) he does not have much time to accomplish the giant task of saving America. Expect a few stray bullets.

Apologies for mixing metaphors.

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Mister Delgado's avatar

Man down, Man down. Caught in the crossfire of the shrapnel spewing forth from the metaphorical blender.

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nymusicdaily's avatar

same shit happened with female genital mutilation. it's a crime against womenkind as long as it's africans doing it but bring it over here and suddenly it's kosher?

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Bandit's avatar

Almost mandatory.

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JasonT's avatar

Respect all cultures, say the feminists. smh...

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Doctor Hammer's avatar

It’s never about principle, it is just about power, power to dictate your will over others.

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Eric Brown's avatar

Exactly. The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

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Mister Delgado's avatar

Power To The People. Power To The People Which Is Me.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

If you take the Social Justice lens and flip it upside down, it sure seems that at the root of the Progressive victim fetish lies a real belief in the inherent inferiority of other peoples and their homelands.

They talk and act as if getting shipped back home to places like Venezuala, Nicaragua, Libya or Mexico etc is a fate akin to being sent to a death camp.

"How dare you ship him back to his home country! Do you have any idea what it's like there? Barely any Starbucks or Lululemon and their teachers and doctors don't even speak English!"

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Chris Bray's avatar

You just forced me to Google: Lululemon DOESN'T EVEN SHIP TO EL SALVADOR:

https://www.myus.com/stores/how-to-ship-lululemon-us/

**Literally shaking**

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Mad Dog's avatar

I weep for the Salvadorans who can't even buy overpriced athleisure wear and have it shipped to their doors. Please come to the US and share the Fruits of Democracy with us.

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Clever Pseudonym's avatar

lolol

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Isaiah Antares's avatar

I'd never heard of Lululemon before.

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Navyo Ericsen's avatar

I can't believe you actually did that. Lol.

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kapock's avatar

I love, which is to say I’m appalled by, the moral hazard implicit in the fact that having enemies in a rival gang, which is concomitant with if not strictly limited to being a gang member oneself, is supposed to be grounds for granting asylum.

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Phillip's avatar

This only half the story. Progressives would indeed find real life Venezuela or Libya hellish. The ambient violence, crime and machismo would result in near immediate crushing humiliation and victimisation. Libya offers the possibility of enslavement. However, inflicting such experiences on the American people of a paler hue thrills them. Witnessing such experiences in order to editorialise at the expense of the victims would intoxicate them.

Progressives expect/imagine/hope that they can carve out a degree of personal safety as the country morphs into a United Colors of Benetton Dystopia. Imagine wannabe William Burroughs cruising an American Tangier, detached decadence mixed with Ivy-grade spite and sanctimony, internal expats infatuated with their alienation from the land of white picket fences.

Depending on circumstances, this delusion is enabled by magical thinking or an assurance that the trust fund can afford a spot in a safe whitetopia complete with ethnic food and affordable domestic service.

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Corey's avatar

The fact that the left and their paid prostitutes in the mainstream news media are shrieking so loudly in opposition to the deportation of illegal aliens tells you how central mass illegal immigration is to achieving their social and political goals. One would think in order to sway public opinion, they would be seeking out otherwise good, upstanding illegal immigrants to hold up as examples of the "terrible" consequences of Trump's deportation policies. The fact that they cannot seem to find any such examples is telling, but not surprising. So they're left to champion the cause of miscellaneous gang members, wife beaters, drug dealers, violent criminals, which doesn't seem to be a winning message with the American citizens (nor legal immigrants for that matter). Carry on, lefties.

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Ripple's avatar

There was that couple from Colombia in LA that was going to be sent back after like twenty years that the LA Times made a stink about a few weeks ago, but that story just died out after a few days.

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Leonard's avatar

Not dramatic enough for the Dramacrats.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

The game is much easier when your opponents are physical and mental midgets who dunk on themselves like Robert Reich. Nothing compared to New York real estate sharks.

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K Tucker Andersen's avatar

Robert Reich - always wrong but never in doubt.

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PhDBiologistMom's avatar

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

Charles Bukowski

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Bandit's avatar

That's very true.

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Throgmorton's avatar

Bukowski was paraphrasing W.B. Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, written in the 1930s, but alarmingly applicable today:

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity."

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

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Isaiah Antares's avatar

The patron saint of alcoholics. <3

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DE's avatar

Vaingloriously so.

But the Dunning-Kruger syndrome he describes remains pervasive.

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Throgmorton's avatar

Robert Reich, ye olde Nazi-hunter General, brandishing his tattered copy of Malleus Hitlorum, uncovering covens of Fascists, wherever they may hide!

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The Ungovernable's avatar

Brooklyn Dad is such an asshole

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Chris Bray's avatar

SUCH AN ASSHOLE. And dumber than a bag of rocks.

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Indrek Sarapuu's avatar

We always used the variant "smart as a bag of hammers".

I still use it.

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Timothy Rutt's avatar

“as smart as a drawerful of hair.”

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Indrek Sarapuu's avatar

Hadn't heard that one...

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Timothy Rutt's avatar

It may be original .

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Mad Dog's avatar

I think he'd need to improve in order to work his way up to asshole.

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The Ungovernable's avatar

Solid point

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carily myers's avatar

He admitted, in 2017 (I think), that he was paid thru an NGO for his posts.

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The Ungovernable's avatar

Why am I not surprised

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Tardigrade's avatar

'I think he’s a purposeful flailer, with the long-developed tactics of a shit-talking New York City real estate guy, poking at the people on the other side of the table to push them off balance.'

Your description is great. I heard it described elsewhere as 'Pushing all the buttons to see what lights up'.

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Bandit's avatar

🤔 I could have been president. I like to push all the buttons to see what happens. 😉

I did want to grow up and be president when I was in kindergarten. 🤗

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John Anthony's avatar

I don’t want to say all, but clearly a significant portion of Democrats are crazy. Staking the future of their party on criminals? It only took one to derail Dukakis.

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nymusicdaily's avatar

there's a direct correlation between covid shot uptake and political affiliation. predictable outcome is that conservatives are more likely to survive. scroll down for the graphic https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/donald-trump-wants-you-to-die

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John Anthony's avatar

Hilarious!

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Throgmorton's avatar

pk;dr

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nymusicdaily's avatar

i know, i know, he's an idiot. but sometimes enemy intel is useful

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Brandon is not your bro's avatar

Schizoid narcissistic lunatics.

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Bandit's avatar

At very least they're delusional. I'm not kidding. I know these people.

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K Tucker Andersen's avatar

A criminal and striking that ridiculous pose in the Army tank with his helmet on to show how strong on defense he was. 🙂🙂

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John Anthony's avatar

I remember that well.

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Robert Shannon's avatar

Just watched Dr. Drew's interview with AAG, Harmeet Dhillon. Totally together lady who sounds very, very sensible in her outlook on what needs to be done. She's a civil rights attorney who should bring some good insight to the table.

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thomas buckley's avatar

12 lawyers isn't a bloodbath...it's a start.

Old joke, but still...

By the way, since we didn't hear about their race/ethinicity I bet they were all middle-aged evil white guys...so at least that's a positive....isn't it?

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Mad Dog's avatar

The judges are in "sling shit everywhere and at least some of it will stick" mode. Meanwhile the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court are largely MIA and the Republicans in Congress are worthless as only congressional Republicans manage to be.

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Chris Bray's avatar

Worthless. Do-nothings.

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Grundvilk's avatar

Maybe it's just a case of their bowels moving slowly, and they'll eventually get off the pot.

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NanaW's avatar

I think they’re deliberately not taking any meaningful action to see who comes out on top in this existential battle, and like the cast of the old tale of The Little Red Hen, they wait to see if the bread does indeed get made; and when it does, they will swarm in en mass to gobble up what they consider to be owed to them. Then maybe they’ll get off their duffs and act.

If there was a way we could do without 99% of the awful red algae bloom that is the GOP, I’d gladly never vote for one of them again. All sound and fury at campaign time, but it signifies nothing good for those they represent. The Texas state legislature was a textbook example of this during the past week.

Despite all this, I’m still optimistic that the tide will turn and sanity will be restored to our land in due time. God grant it is so.

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Steve G's avatar

Our Republican congressmen/persons (what ever) are at this minute busy with appeals for more and more donations to fight the left. I’d prefer a little less talk and some damn action but whatever. Different sides of the same coin.

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NanaW's avatar

I’m also heartily sick of their blah-blah-blah.

Being losers grants them the ability to plead for more 💵.

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David Roberts's avatar

"It’s more playground basketball than 4D chess. Poke and drive, then miss the basket, then shrug and try again and sink it."

This is it. This is exactly what it is. And pick issues so that you force your reactionary opponent to take the 20% side of the issue.

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kapock's avatar

And remember we learned from the media during the campaign …

(At a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, on March 16, 2024, Trump said: "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.")

… that bloodbaths are always literal massacres with dead bodies everywhere.

So I have to say, I disapprove of Trump murdering all those lawyers in the Civil Rights Division.

I think I have a lower opinion of Trump than Chris, and probably most people here, but the relentlessness of the screeching gibberish that passes for establishment criticism of him and his administration is a constant re-inoculation against the possibility that I might regret voting for him.

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Chris Bray's avatar

I have no objection to people not loving Trump, but yes to the screeching gibberish. I like Trump quite a lot, see his flaws, and hope he succeeds. Your mileage may vary.

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Francis Turner's avatar

" I think he knows what he intends, and what he values, and then he tries a bunch of stuff to see what’ll move the ball in that direction, and some of it doesn’t work. Some of it will."

It occurs to me that this could be another reason why Trump & Musk get on well together. They both understand the concept of trying things and expecting some to fail, then iterating by learning the lessons from what failed. See e.g. SpaceX starship rocket launches

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