Youtube comments of Halfdan Ingolfsson (@Halli50).

  1. I'm about to turn 75, I am a retired airline pilot daddy-sitter, taking care of my dad that will turn 97 tomorrow. He has now been in a hospital for 7 days, being treated for fluid retention, low blood count and electrolyte imbalance. Expected to be discharged tomorrow, the hospital bill will be 0 - a big fat zero! We live in one of the Nordic countries, the old man has paid taxes all his life and he has already pre-paid any health care he receives!
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  2. Typical Finn! If a Finn has nothing significant to contribute to a conversation, he/she simply remains quiet. When a Finn has something to contribute, he/she will speak up, clearly and concisely - no subterfuge or circumvention, just straight to the point. I am only Icelandic, but I have worked with a number of Finnish aviation professionals over the years and I learned early on that when the quiet Finn finally says something, it is ALWAYS worth listening to.
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  3. There is one glaring issue with AOC: When she is asked a question, she opens her mouth and proceeds to speak in entirely coherent sentences in a manner that MAKES SENSE! She actually answers questions instead of evading them, sharp as a tack. She appears to be honest and up-front about any issue she has to tackle, and she has been Bernie-Sanders-level consistent so far. Bernie has been consistent for decades and I suspect AOC will prove to be the same. Just give her a decade or four. Another issue with AOC: She smiles a lot, she seems to default to seeing the humorous side of any contentious issue. Her frequently devastating responses to her opponent's shit-throwing tends to be tongue-in-cheek and good-natured. If she is really offended she always manages to avoid nasty language. A final issue: Her New Yorker mannerism when being addressed - she keeps nodding and seems to genuinely listen and pay attention to what is said and her response will be along the lines of my first issue with AOC in this comment. Personally, I find this endearing! Bottom line: AOC ROCKS! I hope she will be a prominent fixture in US politics for decades to come.
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  4. The first reaction to a bounty like this is "This should NOT be the way to go!" - but on second thought, this is actually par for the course: How many exiled Russians has Putin had assassinated over the last 2 decades? His chickens are coming home to roost...
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  5. The smartest thing Norway did when striking oil was to not go on a spending binge, but to carefully ensure that a) Foreign oil companies could not exploit them and, b) Save the proceeds in a national fund for the inevitable "rainy day", not allowing the sudden wealth to ruin the local economy like the Dutch did. Best of all, the Norwegian nation is just fine with this! Gas/petrol is EXPENSIVE in Norway and people are concentrating on electric vehicles, which makes perfect sense with their abundant renewable hydro-electrical energy supply. We Icelanders are proud of the foresight of our sensible big brother, Norway.
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  6. Where I live, one 400mg ibuprofen every 8 hours is considered a "safe" maximum. My doctor advised a 7-day course of this - and it permanently cleared up a back pain that had bothered me for over a year. More is NOT always better!
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  7. Trump is absolutely correct about this being "the most rigged US elections ever". The irony: ALL the rigging and corruption is at the hands of Republicans and the Trump administration!
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  8. While it may seem draconian to food manufacturers, the EU policy of erring on the side of caution seems a more prudent approach. There are plenty of stories told by US citizens that spend considerable time in Europe, how they lost weight and felt better during their stay, and then felt sick for a while when returning back to the states. That may only be anecdotal evidence, but still evidence that there IS a difference between EU and US food!
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  9. Disasters like this can ONLY be prevented in future by sentencing the top brass of these companies to long jail sentences. THAT is when unsafe, cost-cutting practices will stop. Simply imposing a fine on these companies has never worked and will never work.
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  10. How has Norway managed it's oil wealth? Wisely! How does Norway compare to other nations regarding quality of life? Always in the top tier! As a role model, Norway shines.
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  11. This is what kids do: They'll push the envelope in all directions to find the limits. This mom had a brilliant response: OK, if you don't want me as your mommy anymore, you can't call me mommy, my name is [insert name]. What the kid really wanted was an indulgent mom that would spoil her rotten, but faced with the 'reality' of 'losing' her mommy she instantly pivots! 'Yeah mommy' indicates that a line has been drawn in the sand, a limit set and recognized. I admire how this mother handled what could have escalated into a temper tantrum.
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  12. The Birgenair crash was extremely avoidable: One single barometric component "failed" (the Captain's pitot tube) and the captain decided to follow it to their death, ignoring the plethora of other indications that were actually correct, the Copilot & STBY airspeed indicators as well as attitude, power setting, climb rate and altitude etc. A backseat trainee apparently tried to call this out but was ignored. Cultural "power-slope" practices effectively reduced this multi-crew operation to a single-arrogant-captain operation. The lessons learned from this crash saved our skin once: At liftoff it became obvious we had a serious airspeed indication discrepancy, and because this crash had been a case study in one of our recurrent CRM training sessions, we automatically reverted to a default, safe condition: Known climb power setting and attitude until the problem was sorted out. Within a few seconds we discovered a single skipped pre-taxi checklist item; "Pitot Heat ON"! The temperature was around 0°C and the runway wet and with traces of slush. A no-brainer, as it turned out.
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  13. It's not as if Taylor Swift has been screaming politics from the rooftops, she has on occasions passionately expressed her political views on some subjects (NOT conservative!), she managed to (gasp!) encourage her fans to vote - not HOW to vote, mind you, just get out there and participate - and it was a roaring success! She may have "endorsed" Biden or some Democrats at one time or another, but that is her prerogative in "the land of the free". Can you imagine the damage Taylor Swift could inflict on the MAGA crowd is she REALLY unleashed her fan influence on them?
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  14. Niinisto is a rare breed - a forthright and honest politician! He does not evade questions, if he cannot or is unwilling/unable to answer a question, he simply says so! Otherwise, he answers frankly and honestly as best he can. A typical Finn; there are really no ambiguities when they say something!
    172
  15. An ironic sentiment when trying to scare voters away from Bernie: "He is going to take you current health care away" - which is true! Not many US Americans are happy with their lottery-like health insurance, and too many don't have any, anyway. Bernie intends to eliminate the profit-skimmers from the health care system by replacing them with a system that Europeans would recognize: Health care for EVERYONE at almost half the current cost. If Europeans can do it, the US could take it to scale and do it even better!
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  16. My brother owns a top-level Tesla AND is enthusiastically using StarLink. Personally, I refuse to touch anything Fascist, i.e. anything that Musk is advocating.
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  17. What Arnold is saying makes a lot of sense.
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  18. Starsky's final words are absolutely correct: Bombing civilians has NEVER worked as intended. The London Blitz and Allied carpet-bombing of German cities in WW2 did not work, nor did US bombing in Vietnam make much of a difference. Such actions have usually proved to have the opposite effect, i.e. strengthen the resolve of the people being bombed into oblivion.
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  19. Basically a fatal Boeing software error. With at least 3 pitot/static inputs, at least 2 AoA inputs and a plethora of diverse AHR (Attitude/heading/GPS reference systems), what appears to have been missing is a relatively simple priority algorithm to point out the one set of data inputs that did not agree with the other data inputs. Normally a crew with conflicting speed/attitude information can put the aircraft in a known and reliable thrust/attitude configuration while trying to figure out which speed/attitude/altitude indications are faulty. This, however, goes out the window if a supposedly autopilot-disengaged airplane is STILL merrily trimming away - especially if the feature is literally hidden from the crew!
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  20. About time this creep was made accountable. It just took far too long...
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  21. An interesting point for the Committee to investigate and trace to the very end: Who deactivated Pence's access security badges and who ordered it. The plot really thickens, there obviously was a detailed action plan that was being followed. Needless to say, the individuals responsible should be held accountable for attempted assassination!
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  22. "...the Constitution is unambiguous about this"? When has THAT ever deterred Trump from attempting something unlawful, unconstitutional or even ridiculous?
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  23. From what we have seen, the Ukrainians are extremely resourceful, absurdly quick learners and great innovators when it comes to novel ways of using any piece of equipment. The "this equipment calls for too much training/support/resources, let's not bother supplying it" argument is absolutely pointless. Just give it to them and then sit back, watch and be prepared to learn!
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  24. Being Icelandic, this is a speech straight from my heart. We Nordics, recently joined by our Baltic siblings (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are united in this. It is a work in progress, still taking shape, and nations from other cultural areas are free to take a gander at what we Nordics have been doing, and if it is worth following. Feel free to copy...
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  25. When a professional like Dr. Birx begins to duck and weave like politician when asked a straightforward question, her credibility goes straight out the window. Credibility, once lost, is very hard to re-gain.
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  26. I'm Icelandic, so I should be biased - but you can see how the converted trawler/gunboat repeatedly swerves in front of the frigate (it lists "out" of the turn each time it turns sharply). The tactic is clear: To use the reinforced stern of the trawler to damage the thin-skinned hull of the frigate. The trawler/gunboat was clearly breaking the rules - but usually the rule-book is the first thing thrown out the window in a conflict. The frigate could easily have blown the trawler out of the water, but was not allowed to, allowing the Icelandic Coast Guard to shamelessly use their best weapon; their sturdy hulls, built for operations in the Arctic ocean. What is unfair is the fact that until very recently, Icelanders have been convinced that the British warships were ramming our gunboats when, in fact, the opposite was true.
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  27. Recessions and even full depressions come and go, they seem to be an integral part of modern living, more's the pity. All that most of us have to do is live a bit more frugally for some years. Unfortunately, that does not apply to all of us. Some people will be hit much harder than others, especially the displaced. For example, I imagine the Ukrainians have worse things to worry about than a pesky little recession...
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  28. There is a strong sentiment in the EU to kick Orban's Hungary out of the EU. Unfortunately, there is currently no legal way to do this, but I have read opinions from people "in the know" that point out that the EU has the means to gag and hogtie Orban: An EU member nation can be barred from receiving funds from the EU under certain circumstances (the hogtie part) as well as being barred from voting within the EU (the gag part). I am no doubt not describing this properly) but, apparently, if an EU member nation goes rogue like Hungary has been doing, they can be rendered lame and voiceless. If so, there is no need to kick Hungary out of the EU, once Orban and his henchmen are out of power, the Hungarian nation can re-establish a proper democracy, punish their fascists and eventually re-join.
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  29. I'm an European and I see AOC as nothing less than a national treasure for 'Murica. Your best hope is to elect more progressive and honest politicians of her caliber.
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  30. Strong move by Facebook: Hire a professional liar, an ex-politician, to explain things away. Him being a Brit just adds extra polish to the lies.
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  31. I have worked on and off with Finns for decades and if I have learned anything, it is that Finns are quiet unless they have something useful to contribute. It is when the normally quiet Finns say anything that we should listen carefully!
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  32. "This should not happen in the US, this only happens in Banana Republics" - right on the money! Unfortunately this IS happening in the US, which is unmistakeable proof that he US has actually TURNED INTO a Banan Republic! All thanks to Trump and his Repugnicans. By the way, do you know how the concept of a "Banan Republic" came about? Do some research! It involves bloody US of A meddling in South America, and most countries in South America have yet to recover from that meddling.
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  33. The amazing bit is that there seems to be a smattering of GOP members that have retained a shred of ability to feel shame. Will wonders never cease?
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  34. In Iceland, the owner of land bordering a body of water is not allowed to build e.g. a summer house within 60m of the waterline, NOR install any fences limiting free roaming along the waterline. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
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  35. The "Elbows Up" response from Canada is the only proper response to Trump's (and Useless 'Murica's) bullying tactics.
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  36. It is heartening to see the response of the Bexar County Sheriff. Various Texas police forces have been exposed as cesspools of corruption, racism and, frankly, being useless in the most critical situations, but Sheriff Javier Salazar is showing the flip side, the quiet part of Texas police forces that are dedicated to truly Protect and Serve the public. DeSantis made a critical mistake: He tried to manipulate a group of LEGAL asylum seekers.
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  37. The first 6 months in Iceland certainly support the Gulf Stream "conveyor belt" scare, this has been a cold spring and early summer - but I am a 70-year old Icelandic citizen that has experienced springs with massive drift ice in the seventies/early eighties to the current situation where we have not seen drift ice since bloody Reagan started ruining the US! The first part of 2021 has been cold, but in my short life I have experienced short-term weather fluctuations that make a mockery of ALL extreme predictions. Contemporary weather patterns are NOT a reliable indicator of climate change (re. the idiotic Repugnican politician that brought a snowball to the pulpit, trying to argue the global temperature is not rising). Like-minded Repugnicans can be relied on to point to the disastrous Texan big freeze this year as proof that global temperatures are NOT rising! There is no arguing with idiots.
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  38. The irony: The US is now "on par" with Africa, a continent of developing nations. The US, formerly a developed nation, is fast progressing from being a flawed democracy to being an outright Banana Republic.
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  39. I see the lack of AOA sensor redundancy as a severe design flaw, especially since the second AOA sensor was installed, anyway. To keep knowledge of the MCAS system from the pilots just to reduce conversion training costs, however, verges on being criminal negligence.
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  40. We have no choice, wherever we live: Fossil fuel prices WILL rise, and the best we can do is to bite the bullet and take comfort in the fact that this will eventually a) Speed up fossil fuel independence and, b) Help to crush Putin's Russia's economy. Further comfort can be taken from the fact that while the Russian population will suffer more than we do in the West, this is only temporary - a decade of hardship is part and parcel of dealing with and terminating autocrats.
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  41. I just skimmed through the comments, and most people seem to agree that while the F-35 may be the most advanced fighter, the Gripen is by leaps and bounds more practical. A more important issue is how untrustworthy the US has become. Spending vast amounts of money on military equipment that can be neutralized by Madhouse 'Murica is, well, mad, stupid, idiotic! Having to rely on a flaky country like the US for support and spare parts is simply not an option. Deciding if the Gripen, Rafale or Eurofighter are the best choices is up to each nation, but the F-35 would be the worst possible choice - for political reasons!
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  42. At least the shooter was apparently not shooting people, just firing into the air, yelling "shoot me, shoot me" - deliberate suicide by police?
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  43. In a nutshell: This kind of thinking - just a little outside the box - is what USED to make the US great 50-70 years ago.
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  44. Prison inmate voting: They are still citizens and the right to vote should be the inalienable right of ALL citizens!
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  45. In Denmark they used to say: We KNOW we are going to hell in a hand-basket, but we're damn well going there on First Class! This was a running joke during an economic squeeze in Denmark, but this now seems to perfectly describe the attitude of people in power in the US.
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  46. You have to admire the Ukrainian spirit: Sorry we were only 90% "on-time" today (even if there is a war on), we had a VIP to cater for - and they pulled it off with flying colors!
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  47. No airport is safe from a Patriot with a front-loading musket.
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  48. Air Marshal Stringer's comments about it being "almost beyond the Russian Military to really learn any lessons" is hopefully correct, because it means the Russian military will keep making the same mistakes until they have been rendered useless and insignificant as a military force.
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  49. Cars are useful but dangerous devices, which is why every nation on earth requires drivers to learn how to drive safely, pass a medical examination and obtain a license after passing a skill test. Also, every vehicle has to be registered and inspected annually to make sure they are safe on the roads. Guns are useful but dangerous devices, which is why MOST nations require gun owners to learn how to use them safely and obtain a license after passing a skill test. Gun owners also have to register their guns. The US is very lax when it comes to regulating gun ownership and use, which might explain why they top the charts when it comes to gun violence. Many other countries that are also awash with guns do NOT have the same gun violence problem. Might it possibly be due to the fact that they have common-sense gun regulations?
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  50. I wonder: If the Trump Organization ends up being convicted for their fraudulent business practices, does not the same apply to the accounting firms that initially refused to hand over proof of these crimes and, being accountants, they will have been fully in the loop, i.e. fully knowledgeable about every detail of the crimes and thus fully complicit?
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  51. We really need a name or a label for this chilling prospect, a Christian version of Sharia law.
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  52. This is absolutely amazing! Trump spouts some nonsense, everybody KNOWS it is obviously nonsense, but STILL the media wastes valuable time trying to analyze the nonsense instead of simply fact-checking, calling it out and then go on to discuss SENSIBLE solutions to the current crisis.
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  53. Never mind what Trump's insanity does to Trump himself: What damage will he do to the US? Not only that, what damage will he do to the economy of the rest of the world?
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  54. Isn't it curious how pervasive deadly violence seems to be in the US? Other western nations certainly have their share of incidents and violent fatalities, but it pales in comparison with almost-daily school shootings etc. in 'Murica.
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  55. Being a "company-minded" PIC obviously has it's pitfalls. When the company bottom line becomes more important than the safety of any given flight, the company should cease operations - it is no longer a safe operator! This can sometimes become quite an insidious problem, as this case study proves.
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  56. I had no idea that even the concept of transgender had been known, let alone thoroughly researched this early. Naturally the Fascists turned on it it early, their insecurities bringing out their inhuman hatred and cruelty right off the bat.
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  57. This girl is truly impressive!
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  58. Being a Diplomat must be weird at times. To a diplomat, trying to avoid a shooting conflict is the ultimate goal at all times, but what happens to a diplomat when he/she has to face that fact that diplomacy has failed and armed conflict is inevitable? A smart diplomat will warn his/her government that diplomacy is failing and contingency plans must be made - i.e. prepare for open warfare! I especially liked the frank assessment that Putin is a liar! The inference is that he cannot be trusted under any circumstances.
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  59. Using the words "Trump" and "leadership" in the same sentence is absurd.
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  60. The first 2 decades of my aviation career was in unpressurized light twins, single pilot and in a nasty environment weather-wise (North-west part of Iceland), and the rest in an airline setting, larger multi-crew and pressurized turboprops - which was a breeze! My advice, for what it's worth: Getting your IFR rating is the easy part, MAINTAINING your IFR proficiency in coming years is where you have to be really careful. It is a skill that evaporates very quickly if not frequently exercised, something I found interesting to monitor regarding my own skill set after retiring. Still flying privately, I initially reverted to IFR on an infrequent basis, and it was alarming how quickly my proficiency deteriorated.
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  61. I am a Nordic citizen, and I am amazed how twisted 'Murica has become. Basically the US, with it's flaws and foibles, used it's post-WW2 influence for GOOD (and some bad), and left some seriously good examples to follow. Europe had the stupid blind luck to follow and build on some of the examples the Americans gave us, and improve on them! It has worked fairly well for Europeans so far. Are European nations worse off than 'Muricans these days, with affordable health care, education and good work-life balance, ALL social features denied 'Murican citizens?
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  62. Eric's most used "defense" is loudly proclaiming "We have done nothing wrong!", which is beyond pathetic.
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  63. What struck me was when Trump belligerently demanded that the interviewer "define DEI" - which she promptly did - but TRUMP DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT and kept demanding a definition that had already been given! To call Trump a moron is an insult to genuine morons...But - what struck me most was the fact that Tim Miller and Jonathan V. Last kept discussing Trump's moronic responses as it they were something that actually had any merit, instead of instantly falling over laughing, pointing out the idiotic aspects of Trump's every response.
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  64. It seems that the main hiring qualification for a police officer in many US police forces are: Arrogance, the ability to escalate a calm situation, a hair-trigger temper and no doubt being a racist is very important.
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  65. The "proud" son of the man that laid the foundation for dismantling the US middle and working classes and who was the founder of today's insane inequality.
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  66. Again, the current SCOTUS is "The best Supreme Court money can buy".
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  67. As a non-'Murican I am astounded by the shenanigans of the 'Murican judicial system. First of all, these legal gymnastics drive home he fact that the Law has nothing to do with Justice! It is all about who can afford the slickest talkers (lawyers) the longest. In a nutshell: The ´Murican judicial system is the "best justice" money can buy! The realization how corrupt the 'Murican system has become is depressing: The legislative branch (the House and the Senate) is thoroughly corrupt and has been bought wholesale by the grandest bidders. The Judicial system has become even worse: Remember how the most important issue these days is WHO APPOINTED THE JUDGES! With the SCOTUS so corrupted from the ground up, the last resort becomes the executive branch - which is like a windsock in turbulence. Corrupt yesterday, attempting to go straight today but almost certain to lapse tomorrow - just like any genuine power-greedy junkie. The final say rests with the 'Murican voters that have been gerrymandered, mislead, cheated, lied to and discouraged from voting to the point of near extinction! The strongest political force in 'Murica seems to be apathy! The politicians electing their voters, not the voters electing their leaders.
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  68. There are many micro-examples of the final cost of reactive measures vs. proactive measures. Here is one: Boeing is now facing the cost of saving some money a few years ago, when management decided to skimp on the design of a feature that was supposed to save themselves and the airlines some re-certification and training costs for the B737 Max. The result: Almost 350 lives so far, a massive hit to Boeing's reputation AND the yet-to-be-determined (but certainly massive) cost of a reactive fix to the problem - pending lawsuits from the families of the victims, the airlines that had to ground their aircraft and the cost of retrofitting already produced aircraft, whatever the retrofit may end up being. Instead of having an runaway-popular product, they now have a gigantic mess on their hands AND a severly tarnished reputation.
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  69. Morbid fascination does not even begin to describe what one is feeling when watching how perverse and sick the situation is becoming in the once-revered US of A.
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  70. Am I being smug, enjoying the fact that I am living in a tiny Nordic country and thus free from all the calamities befalling ordinary US citizens? I do not mean to, but I absolutely HAVE to put in my 2 cent's worth of an opinion that life does NOT have to be like the disaster most US citizens are experiencing. All this "ME, me ,me" life style instead of our "WE, we, we" philosophy is probably at the core of your problem. What I find really tragic is the fact that the lessons we European nations are living by today are lesson the US gave us immediately following WW2! Why on earth did the US itself not heed those lessons? I guess you did initially (1945-1980), but you have obviously been led astray by your Repugnican and Corporate Democrap politicians.
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  71. We Icelanders have a tiny version of this in Minnesota and Winnipeg (Gimli), where a considerable number of Icelanders emigrated to a century or two ago. Their local language was Icelandic (as close to Old Norse as you can get), and we still have pockets of oldies still able to speak Icelandic. It is a bit weird, the Icelandic that remains is what out great-great-grandparents spoke, and the funny bit is that the older people nowadays understand modern Icelandic, even if they are not quite conversant. Fortunately, they have been traveling to the old country and found their relatives in Iceland, while we modern Icelanders do visit them as well. Like the Scots, we are "Kin", and nothing will change that, ever!
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  72. I wonder if, when this is all in the past, if anyone will be held responsible for the death of thousands due to criminal incompetence. For example, this idiot Alex Azar is touting the US having "the most advanced public health and surveillance system in the world" when the plain facts are that they were completely unprepared and were unable to properly test for the virus on a large scale during the crucial initial stages. The very early US COVID-19 related death is an indication that the virus has probably been spreading since the planeload of cruise passengers arrived in the US. I predict that there will be an explosion in COVID-19 cases once they are able to start proper testing for the virus.
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  73. Picture a situation where overworked health care professionals have to decide if a car crash victim or an unvaccinated Covid denier is more deserving of the last available ICU bed. It should be a no-brainer: Dying Covid deniers should reap as they sow, i.e. to die from a disease they refused to protect themselves from.
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  74. What boggles my mind is why the Chinese ship that "mysteriously" switched off it's position reporting equipment when it crossed these cables was not forcibly detained and a forensic investigation of it's anchors made to determine if there were any trace materials from the cables to be found on them. If found, the ship's officers and owners would be in for a world of hurt! Ships from that shipping line should be banned from European waters for at least a decade! Frankly, ships from China passing through European waters should have to pay the expense of an escort vessel that ensures they cannot get away with this kind of sabotage.
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  75. One way of looking at Frederik and Mary: Frederik somehow avoided the potential problems of European Royal interbreeding and is actually a rather wholesome specimen - and had the fortune of bringing some new blood (genes) into the family tree. Mary of Tasmania is a fabulous addition to this ancient mix. Mary even took to speaking Danish so well that rather early on she was speaking her native Aussie English with a subtle Danish accent! By the way, written Danish should not be hard to master for an English speaker, it is the pronunciation that tends to be difficult. What I find most endearing is the obvious regard and mutual affection they have always had for each other.
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  76. "I never intended to hurt anyone by speeding, it was the fault of the people that got in the way and died!". Solid defense, both legally and morally.
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  77. Repugnicans will think Thom is a pinko Commie, everyone else agrees with Thom.
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  78. The Nordic model in a nutshell: You should care about your less fortunate neighbor! What you get in return is a cohesive and safe community. A no-brainer, really.
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  79. He just realized the potential consequences of his life's work, and he appears to be truly scared.
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  80.  Freeda Birda , poor you for being so stuck-in-the-mud. Moderate US Democrats are considered far-right extremists in e.g. the Nordic countries. In those countries, US progressives are considered centrists - and yet the Nordic countries are living what was considered to be the American dream. Any way you spin it, ALL the Nordic countries are considered among the most content, safe and successful countries in the world. The US is NOT!
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  81. Icelander here: I suspect you, a Swede, have a slight misconception about "glacial water" Where I live (Iceland), glacial water comes from actual glaciers emitting water that includes a lot of ground-up mud and rocks. The water is yellow and muddy and, while unpalatable, is not unhealthy to drink - it just contains excessive minerals. Most Norwegian water is simply pure rainwater trickling down a pristine rock-face, a "waterfall" you mistakenly call glacial, but is still of the quality that 'Muricans pay a premium for in bottles - what we Nordics simply call tap water...
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  82. A lot of police, armed to the teeth, just milling about outside the school for almost one hour instead of going in is mind-boggling. Will you have to strike the word "brave" from your national anthem? At any rate, if this is true, there will be hell to pay. It simply cannot be swept under the carpet.
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  83. This is absolutely incredible: Trump gives a speech full of disjointed and wishful nonsense, the press KNOWS it is nonsense and yet they spend considerable airtime discussing the nonsense as if there might be a shred of credibility in there, somewhere. As usual none was found, but does anyone care? Definitely not the press...
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  84. OF COURSE the poor children have various ailments, at least as a result of insufficient hygiene and medical care during their trek to the US border, probably also due to miserable conditions they were fleeing from. What do you expect?
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  85. The fighting spirit and ingenuity of the Ukrainians is admirable. We in the west MUST keep supporting them by any means and welcome them to our part of civilization.
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  86. Compare and contrast Biden's rare (so far only?) departure from courtesy during press conferences, to Trumps incessant mud-slinging and name-calling during Trump's tenure in the spotlight! At least Biden called Doozy to apologize for this one-off breach of decorum - and apparently Doozy accepted the apology.
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  87. Americans are, metaphorically, stuck in a Titanic situation. The Billionaires have already occupied all the deck chairs and are avidly watching the self-destruction as the ship sinks, but they are eventually also going to drown with the "riff-raff".
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  88. Churchill described this 'Murican "quality" succinctly: "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else". Hopefully that will not be too late, because if Putin is not stopped now, we will have to meet him again on the battlefields of Poland and/or the Baltic states - and then Putin will be much better prepared. History has shown that appeasement NEVER works.
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  89. One way to counter the billionaires would be to make advertisers fully accountable: Any advert placed anywhere should be traceable via the advertising agency to the entity or individual that paid for the advert. If the advert can be proven to be incorrect, false or misleading, BOTH those entities could be held accountable and sued out of existence. Also, political bribery should be made illegal again - it actually WAS illegal until fairly recently. Of course neither of these measures can be implemented in 'Murica now, the corruption is too pervasive already.
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  90. What is the most meaningless thing one can imagine? The thoughts and prayers of Republicans!
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  91. The total lack of "feeling of community" in the US is truly depressing. As a lifelong resident of a Nordic country, I find this absolutely disgusting.
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  92. I'm a non-'Murican, uneducated in the intricacies of the short 'Murican history, but it seems obvious that the post-civil-war appeasement the racist south were allowed meant that the 1860 US civil war was not really resolved - and 'Murica is suffering the consequences to this very day! What needs to be done is to ruthlessly stamp out the remnants of the Confederacy, the Confederate flag and the associated racism should be treated like the Nazi Swastika is treated today. The whole shameful era that has been allowed to fester for over 160 years must be faced head-on and shamed out of existence. The entire issue is as shameful for the 'Murican nation as the almost-successful genocide of the Native Americans - a blemish the 'Murican nation will never overcome. The Jewish genocide the Nazis tried to enact will forever stain the German nation, the difference being that the Germans have been facing it head-on while the 'Murican Indian-killers and racists are still in full denial. Trying to re-write history will only shame them further...
    28
  93. This family from hell did not gain a daughter-in-law, they now have lost a son! I bet this guy will never even talk to his own family again.
    28
  94. Much as I admired 'Murica in my formative years (the 1960s) I have become disillusioned in recent years. Thom, I am of your generation but born in one of the Nordic countries. My entire life has been one of security, community and cohesion. That is just the way my own tiny nation developed following WW2. 'Murica played a HUGE role it that, we modeled our democracy on your example. Just imagine the disappointment when we realized how hollow "the American Dream" actually was!. What defies my comprehension is how you ' Muricans managed to leave us Europeans with a good society model that has led to general welfare in Europe that is simply denied to you poor 'Muricans! Why is general health care impossible? You tell me! - Every other nation in the world is doing just bloody fine - except the US! Why is free education impossible? You tell me! - Every other nation in the world is doing just fine - EXCEPT THE US! What is wrong with "the land of the free?"
    28
  95. The initial reaction, seeing the cringe-worthy initial touchdown and bounce (and what appears to be wrong control inputs) is to blame this on the pilots. Once you hear about apparently severe electrical system failures you have to withhold this kind of initial judgement. The extent of the control problems the pilots were experiencing are still unknown, and were most likely the cause of that awful touchdown.
    27
  96. Petraeus makes a lot of sense, pointing out that while the M1 Abrams might be a superior tank, it is impractical to operate unless you are a superpower with all the infrastructure needed, BUT - if handing 5 or more M1's over to Ukraine to prompt Germany to supply their more practical Leopard tank to Ukraine, JUST DO IT! If Ukraine can successfully operate the M1s they will, otherwise they will simply park them and concentrate on operating the to-them more practical Leopards. Just quit this "I-refuse-to-be-first" game.
    27
  97. Do you have to ask? She IS a sociopath!
    27
  98. "He was pushed out because frankly... ehrm, he wasn't pushed out, he would have to get out, on march 11 he would have to get out". He is becoming more ridiculous every day.
    26
  99. Hearing the terms "John Bolton" and "Human Being" in the same sentence is an indication of the weird times we live in.
    26
  100.  @BL-xm7ps  no worries, she's to young to bother with such things. She might be upset in a decade or so when she old enough to mind, but I suspect the opposite will happen: In a decade and half and later in life, she will cherish the fact that this view into her precocious childhood exists at all!
    26
  101. How true: When a Dane talks about a company being permitted to "build a mountain" of something, he really means business, relatively, in a country where the highest "mountain" is less that 150m high! Capitalism has to be taken with a grain of salt and strictly monitored - which was not the case with the Danish man-made "mountains", with predictable results.
    26
  102. So, the US can persecute any individual of any nationality for "treason" wherever they are, for publishing leaked information about US atrocities and potential war crimes, regardless of whether that individual has any allegiance to the US or not. The US may feel free to wage war on any nation at a whim (or perhaps they just want to exploit that nation's resources), but that will surely backfire on them in the long term. No wonder disdain and distrust of the US is on the rise among adversaries and allies alike.
    25
  103. Remarkable that this managed to stay below the Trump Radar - if the Trumpzis had found out about this, they would have shut it down IMMEDIATELY! Just IMAGINE something that might be useful to the general population? In Trump's "reality" that is not to be tolerated under any circumstances.
    25
  104. These polls are revealing: The US is largely populated by Idiots. Have you seen the over 100-year old definition of the word Idiot?
    25
  105. The US was really lucky: The Pumpkin Tinpot Dictator was actually too stupid to succeed. If you think the next wannabe Tinpot Dictator will not be more sly and cunning, you are in for a rude surprise! The Repugnican party is an endless supply of such maggots. McConnell, Cruze, Gaetz, the list is endless!
    24
  106. To a layman like me, it seems the Dutch ran smack into "new" economic pitfall, now called "the Dutch Disease" - something the Norwegians learned from and managed to avoid many years later. To top it off, the Netherlands had been a geologically stable country, and houses were NOT built to withstand geological deformation, hence the disproportional damage to ordinary houses. I live in Iceland, a famously unstable country in geologic terms, and our reinforced-concrete houses generally breeze through modest geological subsidences like in Gröningen. My last observation: What if the Dutch had replaced the volume of the compressed gas that was extracted by pumping down something they have in abundance like, say, seawater?
    24
  107. It will be interesting to follow this: Will this case bring the corruption in the SCOTUS to the surface, for all to see? Clarence Thomas is a prime candidate for that.
    24
  108. The Nordic countries are secular, but seem to be practicing what Jesus preached. In a nutshell, treat others like we want to be treated. Sling mud all you like, scream "communism" all you like, we simply ignore your manic rants and enjoy our lives in a society where we take care of each other,
    23
  109. AOC was even cuter when she younger than she is now as a mature young woman. She is probably brighter (more intelligent) than many of her older colleagues combined. The best thing is how unapologetic she is when it comes to the issues she believes in and is fighting for. Way to go Alexandria!
    23
  110. Call me petty but sympathy for Trump is hard to find, given the damage the man has done.
    23
  111. "Why is Trump president - why this, why that?". The answer is very clear to citizens of every truly democratic nation: The US is NOT, repeat NOT a democracy!
    22
  112. Logical idea Thom mentioned here: Why would anybody, especially rich people, want to make their children lazy by giving them free money? A logical solution is to make the inheritance tax 100% - then there would be no lazy rich kids, at least according to current right-wing ideology.
    22
  113. This is probably the most succinct description of the current state of affairs in Europe: Europe’s ‘holiday from history is now over’ - period! Russia is on the move again and 'Murica is about to join Putin! Most of Europe is still in flat denial (especially Germany), but the Finns and the Baltic nations are clear-headed about the problem.
    22
  114. As a retired airline pilot and a current private and ultralight pilot, I have always had an affinity for the incredibly slow wire-nest multiple-airfoil aircraft of the pioneering era. Just imagine if they had placed the pilot at the center of lift of the Floh (right between the wings) instead of placing the cockpit in an area of absolutely no forward visibility!
    22
  115. The big question: Will the population of the US allow themselves to be led to the slaughterhouse (spelled: the slave market)?
    22
  116. A number of true US patriots (2 of which are immigrants!) have shown how the US actually SHOULD be. Will the sleazebags win?
    21
  117. Bush Jr. does not need to apologize (that would be an outright admission of guilt), he should be made to face a War Crimes Tribunal for Iraq and Afghanistan.
    21
  118. This is very plain and simple: Trump decimated the US's capacity to respond to this kind of occurrence and now you have a serious pandemic that has been spreading, mostly undetected, for around 2 months within the US. It is only when the vulnerable 20% of the population starts to get sick and actually DIE that the Trumpzis suddenly find themselves unable to talk their way out of the mess. The virus has probably spread so widely by now that within the next week you will see an explosion in serious cases - China's 80K cases will pale in comparison, you will end up with hundreds of thousands, even millions of cases. Your crippled "not-for-the-public" health care system will become overwhelmed and unable to cope. What the Trumpzis have been doing amounts to a crime against humanity... Come to think of it, if Trump's base follows his advice they will flock to his rallies, infect each other and be out for the count come November. The only possible benefit of the whole mess is that this will probably be the end of Trump and the Trumpzis, AND the US population might realize that affordable health care is a RIGHT, not a privilege. We will definitely see a lot of changes within the next few months.
    21
  119.  @juri_xiii9977 , The Finns I have known and worked with over the years seem to have one common quality. When they feel they have nothing significant to contribute in a conversation, they simply stay quiet. If/when a Finn actually feels he/she has something to contribute, I have learned to listen carefully!
    21
  120. During my career I've had A LOT of birdstrikes but only one genuine mammal strike: I had a DogStrike! Landing on a relatively remote gravel airfield in Iceland in the early nineteen-eighties in a PA-23-250 Aztec E (tricky business, the field was covered in about 5cm (2in) light, new-fallen snow and not readily visible), and on final roll-out I noticed a dog going for my right main gear (rural dogs tended to do that; they took pride in attacking either the front or rear wheels of a passing car AND CHASING IT AWAY!) Already in idle, I chopped the mixture and feathered the right prop and it was JUST about to stop when the dog reached the airplane (I imagine around 2-4 RPM) and that was the end of the dog. The dog died instantly, the carcass was chopped through the shoulder blades and the hindquarters by the almost-stopped-but-not-yet-feathered prop. The dog's owner (the farmer that was the local AFIS) took this in his stride, he'd expected the over-eager dog to be killed by a car one day, not by an aircraft. I, on the other hand, had nightmares for weeks. This was at the beginning of my now-concluded and no-disasters career, and I could not help imagining what it would be like to have a person run into a spinning prop with me at the controls. A chopped-in-three dog is one thing, but once you have seen that it is far too easy to imagine a person chopped up like that. A colleague of mine experienced that in a Do-228 years later and it still bothers him...
    21
  121. Ah, the wonders of living in the land of the FREE !
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  122. This is beyond ridiculous: If Corcoran was not allowed to search for the stolen documents everywhere he could not, by any stretch if the imagination, certify he had searched everywhere - and yet he did (or had a minion do it). Either way, he should not get off scot-free.
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  123. The men have apparently chosen to "die on the hill" of respectability - when hey were totally fed up with their "careers" anyway! A lot of fuss in some cases, but really meaningless, when all is said and done. Hand it to the chick, really. They had the guts to speak up early. Principle mattered more that immediate career issues. Methinks MEN should be banned from politics - for obvious reasons!
    21
  124. So this is the worst "dirt" they can find on AOC? Clean, tidy hair? Man, are they scraping the bottom!
    20
  125. Dr. Ranney should have responded to most of the questions with something to the effect of: "I am unable to answer such an idiotic question". When Sen. Kennedy was unable to comprehend a perfectly good answer by calling it "a word salad", the only response should be "I cannot help your lack of intellect or understanding of basic concepts". Brutal, but true.
    20
  126. No worries mate, your pronunciation of "Grindavík" was flawless - for an English-speaker. Also, we Icelanders would NEVER be offended by an Aussie (or a Kiwi) stumbling over the peculiarities of our Old Norse language.
    20
  127. I actually read the book once upon a time. In THAT story, Rambo did not just incapacitate and disable the crazy cops, he KILLED them, wholesale, the Sheriff included. No mercy, once the cops had shown their true colors. Of course, in the book Rambo dies - there was not supposed to be a sequel to the book. Hollywood, however, had other and more profitable ideas... The plight of returning Vietnam veterans is properly exposed in the movie. The poor sods were not responsible for being sent there, but they were certainly made to be the scapegoats when they returned. No ticker-tape parade for them.
    20
  128. I barely made it through 3 minutes of this interview with a reality-divorced idiot. The US is doomed, with leaders like Trump & Pence.
    20
  129. "the land of the free and the home of the brave!" should be rewritten to " the land of the misled and the home of fools"
    20
  130. How the aircraft managed to shed both it's wings AND empennage while otherwise staying intact is a curiosity to be examined later. This is the "we're all guessing" stage. The facts will emerge, eventually. Most important: The fuselage is in one piece, having served the main purpose of protecting he passengers from harm. As a retired airline pilot, I can point out the most dangerous point awaiting in this accident: Lots of passengers, hanging safely upside-down in their seat belts. All the built-in safety features have worked pretty well. Can you imagine surviving a serious airliner crash, being safe and secure until the crash itself is over: A panicked passenger operating their seat buckle, dropping on their head and breaking their neck! I am sure whatever injuries are sustained in this accident will be due to post-crash mistakes.
    20
  131. By all accounts, Olaf Scholz is "speaking with a forked tongue".
    19
  132. I like the phrase "he walked on". The fact that no one will survive being born, the end of life should not be something to be feared. A life well lived is the best any of us can hope for, hopefully a long and productive life - but a short but productive life is nothing to be sneezed at! If you are remembered fondly by your contemporaries when you "walk on", you must have been doing something right! I am pretty sure that if Native Americans had been able to maintain the lifestyle they had established before the "palefaces" came along, they would not have the health problems they now do. The sneaky genocide the "palefaces" have committed against the Natives will always be a major blemish on the history on the US, hopefully never to be completely erased
    19
  133. Little Iceland has already tested almost 6% of the entire nation, equivalent to 58,600 tests per million inhabitants (20,930 tests, population 360K). We have followed the South Korean model in that every suspected case from the start (e.g. skier coming home from skiing in North Italy) was tested and quarantined. If negative, a 14-day quarantine was still required, if positive - straight in to isolation, as well all contacts being traced and quarantined also. We are a Republic, just like the US, only our democracy is not nearly as flawed as that of the US. There is full transparency, professionals and scientists do daily press briefings, AND NOT A POLITICIAN IN SIGHT ANYWHERE! That way the entire nation is on board as part of the emergency team. This means we have not yet had to resort to "shelter at home" curfews, only physical distancing and very small crowd sizes (I am loath to call this Social Distancing, technology allows us to retain that to a degree). The statistical models indicate that we will reach the peak in a week (knock on wood...).
    19
  134. The real irony is the fact that Mother Earth has undergone massive climate changes for millions of years, changes that make what we are facing now seem like child's play. We may (or may not) be instrumental in causing the current changes but, when all is said and done, we are just along for the ride. Just about the only certainty we face now is the fact that whatever our influence on the current changes can NOT be changed by us - we are too greedy and superficial to be able to undo our actions.
    19
  135. @DS C, what I meant by "hidden from the crew" was that, according to some sources, this aspect was NOT highlighted in the differential training for 737 Max crews. The previous crew obviously figured out how to solve the problem, but they probably had both more time and altitude. This can no doubt be found somewhere in the QRH and I suspect this will be made a memory item in future training sessions.
    19
  136.  @billhensley8324 , Putin has HAD many exiled Russians assassinated, either by a bullet to the head, a nerve agent (Novichok?) and, in at least one case with having a Russian journalist ingest radioactive material. No one (except Putin's henchmen) knows the exact number. Putin does not assassinate his opponents with his own lily-white hands, but the man is a monster.
    18
  137. A Trump response to anything is "tremendous" and unlike "anything in the history of the world", a ridiculous word salad without any actual content. What a waste of airtime...
    18
  138. Never mind the wall - Trump will find a way to direct any wall funding into his own pocket.
    18
  139. The US is no longer the "Leader of the Free World", and has not been for decades. In what kind of states do you have such great shows of kowtowing to "Our Beloved Leader"?
    18
  140. Does anyone need further proof that the US is turning into a hellhole country?
    18
  141. This talk about Western ammunition stocks being about to be depleted by Ukraine is interesting (mostly brute-force artillery, I suspect). If that is even remotely the case, how can a fourth or fifth-rate economy like Russia hope to compete, especially now when their industrial capabilities have been crippled to the point that they cannot even produce ordinary cars, let alone sophisticated weaponry. The West has yet to expend a single cruise missile or laser-guided precision bomb, while Russia has been burning through their stockpiles like a drunken sailor. If Putin becomes desperate enough to e.g. sabotage a Norway/Europe gas line or a intercontinental optical cable, he thereby declares open war on the entire NATO alliance - and his goose is cooked!
    18
  142. When in Iceland, heed all warning signs. They REALLY mean business...
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  143. "We're the richest country on the face of the Earth!" seems to be a popular belief in the US, but ARE you really all that rich if a large part of your population cannot feed their children or afford basic health care and are about to be kicked out of their home! You do NOT see these conditions in other western nations, only the US. "We have the richest billionaires on the face of the Earth" is more appropriate when describing the economic status of the US. Meanwhile, the population at large is approaching third-world status. You guys really should revise your definition of the concept "rich country".
    17
  144. The "elites" should keep in mind what happens when inequality reaches a breaking point - it is usually pretty bloody and ALWAYS terminal for the ruling elites: France over 230 years ago, Russia only 95 years ago. Chaos ALWAYS ensues, but lessons are apparently not learned.
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  145. Hot damn - someone apparently does NOT want election oversight to function at all. I wonder just who that might be?
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  146. Here I was, thinking that the US system was based on the distribution of power: Three separate branches of government, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Weirdly enough, part of the Judicial branch has been assuming some of the the powers of the Legislative branch for decades! Thom's idea is both timely and GOOD!
    17
  147. The inability to test for COVID-19 really IS a national scandal for the US. I am fairly certain that when it comes to the ability to determine if an individual with flu symptoms has plain old flu or is infecting everyone else with COVID-19, the US is the only nation caught with it's pants down and feces all over the place. Thank the Trumpzis for decimating the institutions that were set up to handle exactly this kind of situation.
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  148. "The best Supreme Court that money can buy" describes this SCOTUS perfectly.
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  149.  @TK199999  Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Finns are typical siblings, and will reserve the right to take the mick out of each other all the time - as siblings do! Outsiders, however, will meet a solid united front if they try to meddle. Icelanders and the Faeroese are like the young siblings that moved far away and are mostly left out of the fray.
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  150. A good beginning would be to start enforcing existing laws, still on the books, to curtail monopolies. I believe Reagan the Horrible decided that they should no longer be enforced, and look where you are!
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  151. 3 pilots in the cockpit, a typical autopilot approach to minimums in VMC conditions and they STILL managed to miss all the clues that something was seriously wrong! As a relatively old-school airline pilot (retired) I call this one GROSS CREW INCOMPETENCE. How 3 pilots managed to ignore the abnormal attitude and low speed clues until the stick shaker kicked in is mind-boggling!
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  152. I live in a country where one of our leading health care scientists keeps saying "The US has at least 5 times the resources we have, and what we are doing about the pandemic we learned from the US and the UK decades ago. It is tragic that they are not heeding their own lessons". Need I say that under the guidance of scientists like that, our pandemic is already under control (new cases have flat-lined), we have tested over 13% of the entire population and are now scheduling post-epidemic antibody testing, the main problem now is determining which tests are reliable enough. We never went beyond physical distancing and max-crowd limitations (no lock-down), shops are open and everything that does not require close personal contact (like our beloved swimming pools and restaurants) is OK, provided the physical distancing is adhered to. Please note that we use "physical distancing", not "social distancing". Still caring about our fellow citizens is ingrained. Important point: Our politicians have left the health-care and social issues to our professionals (doctors, scientists, civil protection agencies). They have their hands full with the economic and political issues, which are gigantic, and simply accept that they have to authorize (and be responsible for) whatever the professionals have decided. Our Covid press briefings are very un'murican: Only professionals on stage, being painfully honest, not a politician in sight! Our politicians have learned, the hard way, not to buck our scientists, ESPECIALLY when it comes to volcanoes. Pandemics are a no-brainer... What our health care system did was along the lines described in this video: 1) Everyone with symptoms was tested and put in home-quarantine until the results were in (we are a somewhat obedient, non-stupid nation). 2) If positive, the sentence is isolation for at least 2 weeks with constant follow-ups. All pre-symptom contacts are traced, tested and quarantined/isolated as required. 3) Home quarantine/isolation means intensive at-home follow-up with symptomatic cases. Daily calls INITIATED by health care professionals, twice-daily if if symptoms were anything but mild. It goes without saying that a blood oxiometer and thermometer are a minimum requirement, supplied free if not already available in the household. 4) At the first sign of acute problems, the patient is hospitalized, supplemental oxygen usually being sufficient, CPAP being used in few cases. 5) In extreme cases, the patient is already hospitalized and the transfer from a normal hospital bed to the ICU / ventilator is short. 6) With this early intervention, the extreme measures of intubation and induced ventilated coma have been very rare. 7) Only the worst cases, with severe underlying conditions have resulted in death (1 death pr.180 confirmed cases, 2.8 death pr. 100K citizens). 8) Needless to say, in our SOCIALIST HELLHOLE single-payer (prepaid by taxes) health care system, testing, follow-up and hospital treatment (especially time in ICU) have already been paid. The unlucky walk out of the hospital free of charge, the lucky (no hospitalization) get all the attention and follow-up they need at home, free of charge. In closing, I want to repeat the question from one of our leading scientist: "You have at least 5 times our resources, we learned all we are successfully doing from you in the first place, why are you not heeding your own lesson?". My personal explanation to your problem, in the order of current importance: Trump. Repugnicans, Corporate Democraps.
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  153. Convicted criminals are still citizens, regardless of their crimes. Stripping them of the right to vote is just another variation of gerrymandering.
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  154. I'm a retired airline pilot and I ALWAYS keep the important stuff on my person (wallet, passport, travel documents) so that I do not even have to THINK about anything but getting out in case of an emergency evacuation. If the weather at the destination calls for it (e.g. cold, windy, rainy) , keeping appropriate clothing with you during approach and landing is also a good idea.
    16
  155. Confused? You won't be after this episode of... This in-depth comparison dive (to the extent possible) you take us on is extremely informative, even if only to show how complicated this can be. As a citizen of one of the Nordic countries (crappy climate but high security) it is a no-brainer to me: Working to live a secure and comfortable life, very similar to most of my fellow citizens, is more important to me than the apparent rat-race of life in 'Murica. Of course I am biased, but who isn't?
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  156. The "Lock him up" chant was deserved, Trump reaping as he has sowed.
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  157. Regarding the Census and undocumented people: The Census data may be strictly confidential by law, but the Trumpzis are not famous for their law-abiding ways. I would not be surprised if Census data is eventually "leaked" and Homeland Gestapo will start knocking on doors... The safest way to prevent that is to make sure that the Trumpzis are voted out in a landslide come November.
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  158. One would think that the reason to investigate high officials for suspected crimes should be all the more urgent than any other individuals, be it a former president or the spouse of a SCOTUS justice. High officials and their relatives or spouses must be held to a far higher standard that anyone else! The institution and agents of the SS (Secret Service) are a prime example of highly suspicious conduct that MUST be investigated properly.
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  159. Dr. Fauci has been hanging in there (the last remaining adult in the room!), but he will no doubt be relieved to escape from the madhouse of the Trump administration.
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  160. My prediction: Rittenhouse will walk due to the farce you 'Muricans call a Judicial System. Land of Law and Order, indeed!
    16
  161. Living in the US these days must be terrifying! The EU is at least TRYING to contain this. Are they succeeding? Heck, NO, but at least they are trying.
    16
  162. Ironic, isn't it. The US lost 3000 people and a lot of face in 9/11, resulting in at least 2 countries being invaded (Iraq and Afghanistan) and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of civilians in those countries have lost their lives as a result of this indiscriminate war-mongering. The US rightly bemoan the loss of precious American Lives but neglect to mention what they usually call "collateral damage", i.e. the civilians they have killed directly and indirectly. The current debacle in the US, made worse by their inept and idiotic leaders, seems like a bit of a quid pro quo on behalf of whatever deities that might be involved...
    16
  163. Question: Where are the vaunted long-range artillery pieces, the loads of artillery rounds and the counter-battery artillery radar equipment promised to Ukraine "on-air"? Really meaningful weapons support from the west that is useful in deed but useless in speech only. Strangely, the normally dragging-their-feet German Chancellor Scholtz was blunt when he stated that, in effect, Russia cannot be allowed to win this war. If that happens, Putin (or his successor) will be on the doorsteps of the Baltic countries or Poland within a decade, with a much more efficient and dangerous military force. Russia must be stopped and neutralized NOW! There is no point in invading Russia, all we need to do is to isolate it and starve it until the endemic corruption is gone forever.
    15
  164.  @northwestgardener5076  The one he was just sentenced for? Will that do?
    15
  165. Repugnican travel bans for females that MIGHT be pregnant are highlighting the Repugnican view on "freedom".
    15
  166. This is too depressing to watch all he way through. The inhumanity of Republicans is beyond comprehension! Fortunately I live in one of the Nordic countries where this is not even an issue, EVERY citizen has access to very affordable health care. Period. No questions asked. We all pay our share of taxes and we all share the resulting benefits.
    15
  167. I wondered about the "suicide mission" part of the title until almost halfway into the clip, when I realized they were unarmed and might have to ram their fighters into an airliner full of passengers! What a horrible position to be in, to possibly have to directly down an already doomed passenger airliner in the hope of saving even more people on the ground. While fighter pilots can eject, there is no guarantee the ejection system would be functional after ramming an airliner. Having to face this possibility must have been a life-altering experience, no matter how she glosses over that part.
    15
  168. Just keep in mind that whenever Trump uses "your country", he actually means "I, ME, MINE, TRUMP".
    15
  169. This is ridiculous: An obviously very intelligent person trying to appease her boss (Trump) by not contradicting him too much, while still trying to impart some semi-coded advice to the population at large without offending Trump too much. An exercise in futility, Trump is and will be Trump - he will reliably muck up any attempt by others to do anything sensible.
    15
  170. I really, really, REALLY feel sorry for the US American nation for living in a society where political power is simply a monetary transaction and the needs of the general population is irrelevant.
    15
  171. In Trump's view, there are no "brave heroes" when it comes to "defending the freedom of Americans" by killing more or less innocent civilians in the middle and far east. The US servicemen and women that are killed, wounded or maimed are "losers", the rest can be ignored when they return home, metally scarred from what they experiencend and were ordered to do. Christopher Miller's hipocritical and glib speech in this clip really takes the cake. Whatever heroics or atrocities the US did in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syrira and elswhere, they built alliances that are now about to be betrayed. Current NATO allies to the US should really take notice: This is what the US has become! Putin has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams when he managed to gain control over Trump to begin the dismantling of Western alliances and US democracy.
    15
  172. Gosar's siblings cannot help if they look alike, but they appear to be sane and THAT should be appreciated. Denigrating them for looking like their deranged brother is as unfair as you can get!
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  173. As a retired pilot I know how essential NOTAMs are for flight safety, actually one of the cornerstones. Still, it is not the "airliners raining from the skies" scenario that new-staff sometimes seem to yearn for, it simply changes the momentary workload for the approach ATC staff that will have to directly relay the few pertinent current NOTAMs to arriving pilots, like "This approach is so-and-so degraded" or "that taxiway is weight limited". In cases like this, the degradation to departures will also serve to lessen the workload. In aviation there is ALWAYS backup capacity, relief plans, escape routes. No need to worry about catastrophes, only irritating delays.
    14
  174. Trump is obviously a certifiable idiot, but what does this say about the nation that elected him as their leader? The rest of the world SHOULD be smirking, but is actually terrified! With the most powerful military in the world, known to invade any and all countries at a whim, under the direct command of a lunatic that is about to be cornered by a force of nature (the Covid-19 virus), even the worst Mad-Max scenarios are becoming more and more likely.
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  175. I wonder: Is 'Murica approaching the "Let Them Eat Cake" moment that presaged the turning point in France when most French Royals and Aristocrats literally started losing their heads on an industrial scale?
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  176. According to some of this, AOC single-handedly "drove" Amazon out of New York, even before Amazon even got there. Wow, AOC obviously is an extremely influential and powerful person, at least according to right-wingers that seem to be cringing in fear of her. Incredibly, all kinds of leading-edge companies are installing themselves in New York anyway, probably because they REALLY want and need to locate there. All AOC did was to take part in preventing companies like that reaping the benefits of unwarranted tax breaks and other benefits at taxpayer's expense. The US needs more politicians like this.
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  177. The US could learn a lesson or two from Norway (they have a 20% recidivism rate vs. 70-80% in the US). It is not due to what US officials call unaffordable luxury prisons, it is due to the treatment of prisoners and the programs they go through prior to release, as well as followup after release. Norway has a true correctional system, where the goal is to convert criminals into ordinary neighbors and tax-paying citizens when they have served their terms
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  178. I was raised in a moderate Christian community in one of the Nordic countries, and sticks with me about what we were taught about Jesus Christ was his humility and compassion for everyone. I found the Bible otherwise mostly being about selfishness and even outright cruelty, with compassion curiously absent. Needless to say, since I grew up I have become a least an Agnostic, even an Atheist.
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  179. This only drives home how cruel and nasty US society has become. Emapthy for your fellow citizens, not to mention your emplyees or 'servers' seems to have been outlawed.
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  180. What a shining example of a Trump follower...
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  181.  @maximan142  I think @jonevansauthor was referring to 'Murican slaughter practices, not Romanian (or any European practices, for that matter).
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  182. Being an European, I take exception to the phrase "European Americans"! Most of the white 'Murican population may have originated in Europe, and our track record might be far from pristine (Hitler, Mussolini, Orban etc.) but while we Europeans have moved on, the whites in 'Murica seem to be about to move a couple of centuries back in time, culturally and morally. I think most Europeans want to disown the descendants of Europeans that moved to America a century or two ago.
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  183. Goosebump territory, every time.
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  184. What is the most notable quality about Trump? Telling only the truth? Is anyone SERIOUSLY thinking that Trump is telling the truth about himself taking this "wonder drug"? We will eventually find out what interests he is taking care of while he is pushing this nonsense, and it will be something so blatant that we will all think: "Only Trump could sink this low"!
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  185. Teenager Greta is infinitely more eloquent and mature than Toddler Trump and US citizens REALLY need to review their concept of "socialism". The concept of "PHYSICAL distancing during a pandemic" probably makes sense to any average US citizen, but "SOCIAL distancing during a pandemic" will incite a red haze of rage in the mind of a typical Repugnican. There is something really, seriously wrong with the US nation. Every nation in northern Europe has mostly content citizens that mainly argue about minor and petty problems, NOT if you will go bankrupt or die because you have limited access to health care - or if you will afford to send your kids to University, let alone having to worry if you can feed your family in the first place! Again, there is something really, seriously wrong with the US, especially considering the fact that most European nations are following a lesson learned from the US following WW2 - a lesson the US appears to NOT having followed itself!
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  186. In the 1970's I worked with Swedish desktop personal computers (Luxor DIAB if I remember correctly, well before the advent of the IBM PC). They were based on an 8-bit Z-80 microprocessor with a TINY memory space (64Kb) and yet they far outstripped, performance-wise, the eventual Microsoft-based IBM PC's that were based on 16-bit Intel microprocessors with a vastly superior memory space - but a plodding and incredibly slow operating system. I am a member of one of the 5 Nordic nations and we proudly consider the Swedes as our "big brother" - a little arrogant at times, but a role model to follow. Whatever the Swedes do they do well, but they will never be boastful about it (Jante's law). Some nations boast about their software skills, others (like the Swedes) do NOT, they just go quietly about their business. Is the Gripen a good bang-for-the-buck fighter? My bet is that it IS!
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  187. Thom, did you ever wonder if your Norwegian grandfather (and his descendants) would have been eventually better off by just staying put? Norway is now generally acknowledged to be one of the least corrupt countries in the world, no Democrap vs. Repugnican bovine excrement in sight, prepaid education and health care is the norm and a humane work-life balance is the order of the day. Even the fricking prison system is a global role model, the police being unarmed because they do not NEED to be armed! True, they went through a rough patch with German Nazi occupation during WW2, but by now they are among the wealthiest and most enviable nations on the planet. Being Icelandic, I could effortlessly move there - and so could you, being of Norwegian origin. Just imagine, being able to leave all the US madhouse problems behind and move to a country that is peaceful, has an immensely beautiful nature and scenery and a genuinely NICE population! You would not even have to re-learn the language in your old age, everyone being comfortably conversant in English. Normally a no-brainer...
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  188. I wonder, does Alito and his TrueNazi wife have any spawn that need to be monitored for mental deviations in the near future?
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  189. One wonders: What if the media simply stopped going to these in-name-only "press briefings"? Those are supposed to be back-and-forth events, but have for quite a while only been one-sided press releases, where someone from the administration sprouts some nonsense and then leaves without any feedback. The journalists are risking their health going to the Covid-infested White House, and would be better served by simply using the printed press releases, thus avoiding the risk of Covid infection.
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  190. MAGA idiots are the kind of people that will vehemently believe the sky is GREEN because Trump TOLD them it is green. The fact they can clearly see it is STILL blue is totally irrelevant.
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  191. As disgusting as DeSantis may be, blaming him for the decades-in-waiting-pollution disasters initiated by Reagan-era conservative decisions that are now coming to haunt Floridians is a bit like blaming Berlusconi for the sins committed by Caligula. Mind you, given the chance, DeSantis will certainly be able to exceed Reagan's wildest dreams regarding the harm that can be done to society and the climate, but he will need decades to achieve that!
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  192. Communism is an impractical ideology, turned into a label used by authoritarian regimes like Cold-War USSR and Cuba and modern day China and Venezuela. What was actually practiced in these countries was nothing like "communism" or "socialism". What is being practiced in Trump's US of A may be labeled conservatism or capitalism, but it is actually plain and simple fascism, currently a wolf masquerading as a sheep. What has been happening in the US in the last 5-6 years bears an uncanny resemblance to Germany in the nineteen-thirties. Mark my words, if Trump is not contained, muzzled and kicked out of power in November, the US will be barreling down the road previously taken by Nazi Germany. It will be bloody, it will be ugly and the US will cease to exist in it's current form. Watch any Mad-Max movie and you''ll get an idea of what it might be like.
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  193. I wonder: Will the grifters get off scot-free when Trump is finally out of office, or will they be nailed to the wall?
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  194. I am probably missing some ironic legal point here, but the first thing that comes to my Nordic mind watching this is "only in 'Murica can you find a far-out discussion like this!" No wonder your society is falling apart...
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  195. I have never figured out why Hunter Biden is such a target for the Trumpzis. The President-elect is Joe Biden, NOT Hunter Biden! Attacking the grown-up son of the President-elect just goes to show how mean and petty the Repugnicans have become. They have been unable to find dirt on Joe so they attack his loved ones - his son Hunter for alleged tax mismanagement and his wife Jill Biden PhD. for having the temerity of using a well-earned title.
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  196. The "Finnish Marines" and "the Marines" (presumably US Marines) can be confusing terms. The Finns (and the other Nordics for that matter) were born and raised in these conditions, while a US Marine coming from Florida or Texas (or anywhere except the central-north states, the cold ones), will always be severely handicapped in the arctic. Cut them some slack until they acclimatize. Conversely, their Nordic counterparts would be just as handicapped if thrown into combat in a hot/humid Caribbean environment, where the Floridians and Texans would feel right at home.
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  197. Actually, Tusk has a pronounced polish accent, but his grasp of the English language is vastly superior to Trump's.
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  198. So - the big issue when running for office in the US is raising money, not winning votes?
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  199. So - the US has been called "a flawed democracy" for some decades now. The way things are going, the US will no longer be able to call itself a democracy AT ALL, come November.
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  200. Trump WILL be out of office one day and there WILL be a day of reckoning!
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  201. It is painful to realize that running for office in the US everything is about the MONEY, not the ideas and agenda a candidate is fighting for.
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  202. ...or at least one perfectly innocent and invaluable "person", not counting the prospective mother. These people are sick - and insistent on forcing the consequences on others. Congratulations on living in the country with the "most FREEDOM" in the world!
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  203. Heartbreaking. An unwanted child will usually come to realize that fact, eventually, and I believe that any unloved child is a horrible thing: A life of misery for the child and a potential disaster for the society it is born to.
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  204. I am a fortunate outsider: I am not a US citizen and I do NOT live in this crazy, mad Trump-land. However, being born in the middle of the last century I used to admire the US and everything American for decades and find it tragic how this "shining light on the hill" example has deteriorated. Nordic and European democracies are based on the examples the US provided following WW2, and apparently the only nation that has NOT followed that example is the US itself.
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  205. If AOC is an actress, she should get the Oscar AND the Golden Globe. She is brilliant!
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  206. Bloody good argument! If you "own" a person or part of a person, you are a slave owner.
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  207. Interesting, an US American that talks and thinks like a Brit!
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  208. "...she's fifteen, she's too OLD for you!" - Sasha Baron Cohen at his best.
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  209. Too many "every man for himself" US Americans have no soul or empathy at all.
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  210. Trump has the maturity of a toddler. That has been evident for decades. The fact that the US nation elected him as their leader says all that needs to be said about the US nation! Many 'Muricans will use the standard excuse of gerrymandering and voter suppression to explain this state of affairs, which begs for an answer to the question "Why did you 'Muricans allow this gerrymandering & voter suppression situation to exist in the first place? You are supposed to be a DEMOCRACY, but democracy can only exist if voters can be bothered to turn out to vote!" The way things are going, 'Murica will have become a Mad-Max-like country within 5-10 years.
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  211. The US must be REALLY proud of their president these days...
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  212. As a non-'Murican I am always horrified by the 'Murican discourse regarding these gender and sexuality issues. The poor souls that actually HAVE these issues have enough on their plate to begin with, without 1/3rd of their society going absolutely bonkers over it. Leave the poor sods alone, you creeps! 'Murica is the only developed country behaving this stupidly. Well, Russia and Hungary etc. can hardly be called developed, can they? Can nations be any more backward than they are becoming? In that light, 'Murica is rapidly on it's way to join that stellar company!
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  213. This entire clip seems redundant in light of one simple fact: The Russian "superpower" has failed miserably in gaining air superiority over puny Ukraine! That alone indicates that the entire current doctrine is more or less obsolete and some serious rethinking is in order. What will come out of it is anyone's guess. Stealth aircraft have been totally absent for political reasons, and their part in future conflicts is undecided.
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  214. Canadians have their heads properly screwed on - I expect they will eventually enact meaningful regulations to greatly reduce the likelihood of this happening again. New Zealand did this in their own way, Canada will handle this in their own way. Bottom line: There will be no bull-shiting around, after due consideration things WILL be changed, and in a meaningful way.
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  215. Today: Almost 920K and counting. At the current rate, 10K die every 4 days. At this rate it will only take you 20 days to reach an even million dead!
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  216. I spent 2 years in a multinational setting in Africa in the early 1990's (doing war zone relief flights for the ICRC). Coming from one of the Nordic countries I am used to North-European custom of just bidding everyone "Good morning", and I found the English/French-speaker custom of a "How are you/Fine, and you" ritual a bit over the top, ESPECIALLY after coming down to breakfast one morning feeling really miserable due to having caught a head cold (yes, just south of the equator!) and being asked "How are you" by one of my American colleagues. Well, I actually told him how I was (miserable! - he ASKED, after all) and he was actually offended! Apparently he was just going through the motions of a ritual, he was not really concerned about my heath at all. Where I come from, we simply wish everyone a Good Morning, no response required. Seeing a friend or colleague appearing under the weather will, however, prompt a concerned and sincere "hey, you look a bit off, is there a problem?".
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  217. A message to Repugnicans: Follow Nunez´s advice, get together to share and distribute the Hoax Virus among yourselves. That will be a boon for the rest of the world.
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  218.  @johnkesich8696 , perhaps this is only coming up now because Trump's cover-up has been mostly successful so far?
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  219. The US "Homeland Security" are more and more looking like Hitler's SA (a.k.a. Brown Shirts). Americans - Enjoy!
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  220. I found the maximum-extraction toothpaste story from your parents interesting. My father was born in1927, my mother in 1932. My mother passed away last June, having lived a very full life, and the old man is still going strong at 93. They were youngsters in pre-WW2 Iceland and literally experienced the development of our country from being a Danish colony to becoming modern-day Iceland, partly with the wisdom and help (Marshall Aid) of post-war US. We are still sticking to the lessons learned from you over 75 years ago and are currently averaging withing the top ten of the "Happiest Countries" (spelled 'least discontent countries') of the world. What I find tragic is how the US managed to discard their own lesson from 1980 onward (the Reagan era) and are now disintegrating. The solution is extremely simple - and yet beyond the reach of the Capitalistic, Socialist-phobic US : Just have close look at the Nordic model, which is as capitalistic as you will find anywhere, and BLOODY WELL TRY TO FOLLOW IT! The argument 'we are too large to succeed' spiel is nonsense. Whatever the Nordics are doing, you can scale up and take to another level! All you have to do is to terminate corporate bribery in US politics. Easy-Peasy!
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  221. The US population has been brainwashed over the last 70 years to believe that social democracy equals Soviet-style communism. They only have to look to Canada and the Nordic countries to see what social democracy amounts to in practice - it is simply a mix of regulated capitalism with good social awareness.
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  222. The pro-transgender, pro-abortion crowd could put this on it's head by starting to report anti-trans individuals as being suspect, and anti-abortion individuals whenever they are suspected of traveling. I wonder how they will like it when these STASI-type actions are turned on them!
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  223. Take your pick, it is a toss-up which Nordic country is the "happiest" on this globe! Bottom line, the Nordics are the least-unhappy people in the word! A Nordic myself (Icelandic) I want to replace the concept of "happiest" with the concept of being "the least-discontent" nation on Earth (the Jante-Law in full force!). I have a sneaky suspicion that my Finnish cousins will whole-hearaterdly agree with this interpretation of "happiest"!
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  224. What are people that are hired or elected to office and swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the US but end up violating every aspect of that oath? Traitors? They are definitely NOT patriots!
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  225. Corruption seems to have been endemic within the old Soviet-Bloc countries. It is critical to root out his kind of corruption to succeed, and Ukraine is doomed if it fails to clean house. Russia, however, seems to be mired in corruption with little or no chance of crawling out of a swamp of it's own making.
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  226. Bernie labels himself as a democratic "socialist" and everybody freaks out, terrified of USSR / Venezuela-style communism. This is utter nonsense. What Bernie is fighting for is a Nordic countries / European-style "social democracy" - which is actually a totally outdated label. The old LABEL might still be "social democracy", but what is actually practiced is WELFARE CAPITALISM - capitalism with reins attached to ensure that the welfare of the population is not sacrificed on the altar of corporate and political greed. This is implemented by: No voter suppression, automatic voter registration which results in high voter turnout, affordable health care and education and a functioning infrastructure (sure - taxes are higher, especially on the rich, but health insurance companies become mostly redundant, resulting no insurance premiums). This results in e.g. universal health care that costs on average 10-11% of GDP versus the 18% of GDP spent on US health care. Who do you think is pocketing the additional 7-8% in the US?
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  227. I have to agree with Thom: In a way, the absurdity of the Trump presidency might wake up regular Americans and revive democracy in the US, the only way to save the American dream. The other guy also has a very valid and chilling point, 2020 will determine if the US starts an inexorable slide into chaos and disintegration - or starts clawing it's way out of the abyss it is heading into..
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  228. The simple fact that the US elected Trump ATALL is an indication of the current decline of the US. Trump is a symptom of a serious problem, not the cause. The biggest worry: The US military might and it's propensity to USE it is terrifying to the rest of the world. This might seem far-fetched, but there is a real risk that the US might, in not too many years, find itself at war with not only it's typical adversaries but most or all it's former allies as well. The US that we used to know is disintegrating before our very eyes, and Trump is only serving as an accelerant. Pinning your hopes on Corporate Democrats would be just as bad as continuing with Trump and the Republicans! The current worry about irreversible climate change in 12 years might be moot; Things might get a lot worse in only 1.5 years!
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  229. Thom, if what you say that a Republican CPAC and some members of the US Congress held a conference in Brazil, egging on the Bosanistas for their Jan. 8th moment, we can reasonably expect arrest warrants from Brazilian authorities for those individuals! The Brazilians are actively going after the facilitators and funders of their insurrection, not only the foot soldiers. Any 'Murcan citizen that can be proven to have traveled to Brazil to incite an insurrection in that country is in deep shite indeed! It will be interesting to see how a mixed US administration will handle calls for extradition of those individuals. Even if US corruption prevails and extradition is denied, an outstanding International Interpol arrest warrant for a current or former member of the US Congress will certainly put a crimp on what remains of their lives. Talk about Just Desserts!
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  230. "Bring the troops home with dignity" simply means to stop waging war against under-developed countries for the purpose of "protecting US interests" at the behest of large corporations that want to grab the resources of said countries. A side benefit is that working-class youths will no longer be coming home dead, mutilated or mentally scarred for life. An extra (never-thought-of) benefit will be that in due course, other countries will have less reason to hate the US. The US has yet to realize that a "moderate democrat" (corporate democrat) in the US is what other developed countries consider far-right. A US "progressive democrat" is considered a centrist! An extra-extra benefit: Reducing your military expenditures. THAT is how you can pay for universal affordable health care, affordable education, functioning infrastructure and what have you, all in one fell swoop...
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  231. "The young man" (the 6-year old child!) was taken into custody (presumably handcuffed as pr. procedure?) and escorted out of the building. Any non-´Murican citizen and law officer will be cringing at that statement. An angry 6-year old cannot be expected to act reasonably, most 6-year are in the process of learning that. The real crime is the fact that a 6-year old had such ready access to a loaded handgun that he was able to bring with him to settle any perceived grievances. The parents are no doubt in for a world of hurt... Any society that allows this is in a bad shape. Any society that has accepted this state of affairs for years and is even helping to facilitate even worse outcomes is totally off the rails!
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  232. Nunes is trying to ward off journalists with his cellphone - reminiscent of a vampire movie scene, where someone is trying to ward off vampires with a crucifix.
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  233. The simple fact that the highest court in the US is becoming so massively influenced by religion or politics is proof that the US Empire is about to implode on itself. A nation as corrupt as the US has become in only 40 years is simply doomed to come apart at the seams, and we are watching it happen on a day-to-day basis. The US is heading for the un-enviable position of becoming a phariah among nations, flaunting previous environmental and humanitarian global commitments.The mishandling of the current pandemic is a shining example. Other nations will have no interest in doing business with an overtly facsist US regime! The way things are going, the US are about to become the lepers of the world.
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  234. ...the facts, ALL the facts and NOTHING BUT the facts. Selective facts are as near to outright lies as one can get.
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  235. In a nutshell, 'Murican "healthcare" is a crime, a grift. In my country outright euthanasia is not an option yet, but "when the end is nigh", i.e when modern medicine cannot help anymore, we have the option of making the end painless but inevitable. Life support is suspended and only a painless passing is ensured. Can we call it passive euthanasia? This happens only after a thorough discussion and information exchange between relatives and doctors. This is only possible in environments where medical costs are not an issue, i.e. everywhere outside 'Murica, in countries with universal health care. Once money raises it's ugly head, all bets are of and the motivations of everyone become highly suspect.
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  236. There is no longer a "Free Press", only the Corporate Press, willing to sacrifice the First Amendment. The US Empire is steadily heading down the path of Germany in the thirties. Worst case: They will drag the entire world with them into the mess, just like Germany and Japan did. Best case: The rest of the world will simply divorce itself from the US - Putin's and China's wet dream. What a choice! The US population has a choice of direction it can make in 2020. The way things are going, the US will select the wrong path...
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  237. As Mark Blyth once said: "To try this in a country awash with guns? I don't see this ending well..." Some people worry about "the time of the pitchforks is coming" which is optimistic, considering the aforementioned fact. Most Americans do not even know what a pitchfork is anymore, while there are more guns than citizens in the US, and the citizens apparently know how to use them.
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  238. When a Swedish teenager manages to have the 'beloved' US leader blow his top, you know the Swedes have checked in! When a Swedish teenager manages to make the 'leader of the free world' (whatever that particular nonsense means in 'Murica) look ridiculous, you just KNOW that Swedish kids have something US kids might want to emulate, like common sense. The Swedish adults are more diplomatic, they know that Trump is about to become irrelevant. Let's hope (against all odds) that 'Murican adults will manage to, well, remain adults and perhaps check in with the rest of the sane world, eventually.
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  239. Depend on Trump to nominate the sleaziest character imaginable to function as the Attorney General for the US of corrupt America!
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  240. The US has neglected to care for it's lunatics. These interviews are just a glimpse into that sad fact.
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  241. What I find really scary is the fact that someone like John Iadarola plainly accepts the possibility that "a billionaire might come along and simply BUY the election". That sentiment REALLY describes the dismal state of the current US "democracy". I truly believe that Bernie is the last chance for the US nation to restore some semblance of democracy and the last chance for the rest of the world to pull back from the edge of the abyss. If the US self-destructs, the rest of the "civilized" world will be dragged down with it...
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  242. AOC does not "punch back" - she fact-states/jokes/puns back, usually (but not always) quite politely. She does not NEED to do any punching back when a few factual points will do the job in a way that usually shames the "dirt"-diggers.
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  243. When a visitor is offered the fermented shark, he or she should do what the vast majority of the locals do in the same situation: Say "Thanks, but NO" - unless you are an adventurous soul, ready to try ANYTHING. Most Icelanders NEVER touch the stuff.
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  244. A 'heroic' mission, an in-the-nick-of-time saving a site from an upcoming plowing (a site that has been plowed for centuries)! Fantastic series, the only downside being the trying-to-spin-drama-out-of-very-little obsession. History and Archeology are fascinating subjects that do no really need any more hyperbole.
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  245. "...the intentions of 74M 'Muricans" is what Pence clings to - while ignoring the intentions of the 81M Americans that voted for Biden. Does 'pathetic' even begin to cover this nonsense? Then, the "I'll always be proud of what we accomplished over the last 4 years!" - ensuring that hundreds of thousands of US citizens went unneccessarily to their early grave because of Trump's/Pence's mishandling of the pandemic is a point of pride?
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  246. A religious layman "believes" that after 3 weeks a fetus can feel pain and, as a result, EVERYONE must heed that religious layman's "belief" and from now on follow the dictates of these religious zealots! Extremely logical, at least by Repugnican standards, ESPECIALLY their view regarding the sanctity of fetuses, even non-viable ones, until a child is actually born and is definitely, unarguably alive - at which time the Repugnicans will gleefully throw both the child and the mother out with the bathwater, to fend for themselves as best they can. This kind of Repugnican logic really boggles the mind!
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  247. Do ordinary Brits even contemplate what it must be like to be "a Royal" and live in a glass bowl like they do? Any man at a similar age as the new king is almost certain to have prostate problems (I do at 74, and so does my father at 96), but the princess's problems are bound to be more personal. Would these "talking heads" like THEIR personal medical issues speculated on like this?
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  248. Tourism saved Iceland after the 2008 financial crisis, but was about to drown us 10 years later. Then came the Coronavirus pandemic - we suddenly have our country back! True, a lot of investors went bananas, there was a gold rush in the hotel and tourism industry and many of them will go under. Well, if you fly high you have far to fall. The entire world is in for a rough and uncertain ride for the next couple of years. We will never go completely "back to normal" again, which will probably count as a good thing in a decade or so. Let's hope for a more moderate, well, everything, when the the storm blows over...
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  249. Weird how US politics are always about appearance and superficiality, not content.
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  250. What I find astounding is how many supposedly non-Trump-cult media figures STILL spend a lot of time discussing and analyzing the BS coming from Trump as if there actually might be some grains of meaningful facts in the absurdity the is Trump and his rhetoric.
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  251. This is an awful testament the 'Murican nation: First, you allowed Trump to be elected as your "dear, beloved leader", then you accepted beer-quaffing and female-groping Kavanaugh being appointed to the SCOTUS. Then, to add insult to injury, your chosen leaders appointed a religious nutcase like Amy Coney Barret to be appointed to a life-long tenure on the SCOTUS! 'Murica: You are sinking, you are sinking FAST!
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  252. The lunatics are truly taking over the asylum! When will sensible Americans start emigrating from the madhouse?
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  253. I had ARDS in 2012 (before Covid) and spent a week on ventilator, in induced coma. I fortunately have no recollection of that, no hallucinations from the coma itself, but the week following my coming out of the coma was weird, to put it mildly. That is when I thought all kinds of irrational stuff was happening to me. Fortunately one of the nurses managed to explain the weird stuff in a simple manner: "Look, your brain has been pickled with all kinds of drugs for over a week, all these strange things are only inside your head! Just be patient while your system gets rid of this". Somehow this really made sense and I managed to do as she told me. She turned to be absolutely right.
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  254. Living in one of the Nordic countries, I feel REALLY sorry for you US Americans and your broken system. Our systems are by no means perfect, but they are infinitely better than the corrupt rot you are stuck with.
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  255. ...and the world will be a vastly better place!
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  256. I count myself fortunate to live in a Nordic "socialistic hellhole" (Iceland) where anyone's problems are EVERYONE'S problems! We face our problems with a united front, and while free enterprise has plenty of room, greed is NEVER allowed to override public welfare.
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  257. Thom, I wonder why I am still here, seeing that I have sworn off you due to your weird 'Murican values, but here goes: I am Icelandic, of a nation that actually preserved oral history for centuries using all kinds of poetic tricks, and finally put it down on vellum in the 1200s - The Icelandic Sagas. Moreover, there are numerous archeological finds that confirm that the Sagas are NOT fiction! Embellished, perhaps, but the core has been confirmed - even by genetic evidence that confirms our history! We Icelanders HAVE done what you are ranting about, abusing our environment: 1000 years ago, the Sagas tell of a country that was "wooded, from mountain to coast" - and yet our forefathers managed to denude said flora within a couple of centuries. They were environmental terrorists - but had no idea what they were doing. We, their ancestors had to burn peat to survive for centuries! We are now in a fairly good shape: 99% of our domestic electricity/heating needs are sustainable, all our electricity and home heating requirements are hydro-electric or geothermal! The "dirty" 1% is when winter weather knocks out the power grid and local communities have to start up their local emergency power generation facilities for a few hours. The important point: We are PREPARED for these eventualities - we spend a lot of resources on idle infrastructure, and we will NEVER have what amounts to a Texas freeze-out disaster! Our weak spot is transportation. While we are introducing electric cars at a fairly rapid rate (recharging is 100% renewable energy here!) long-distance travel, shipping and aviation still need fossil fuel. Still, that is a fairly modest "dirty-boots" sector...
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  258. In my early twenties I suddenly realized I was homophobic, especially abut gay men (a heterosexual man myself). Once I realized this and started thinking about it, I found it to be totally irrational and to this day I am ashamed of ever having had that mindset. I have since found non-heterosexuals of any kind to be the gentlest and most accepting people you ever encounter. Was my homophobia caused by pure ignorance? No question!
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  259. This kind of corruption almost ONLY happens in 'Murica! Corruption is everywhere, but the 'Muricans had taken it to previously unheard-of levels before Trump. One wonders to what levels the Repugnicans are taking US corruption these days...
    9
  260. "Why is it that these oil-rich countries always end up so corrupt?". Money and power of course! There is only one oil-rich country that did NOT end up corrupt: Norway. Unfortunately, that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
    9
  261. Any society that is unable (or unwilling) to keep the lunatics from taking over the asylum is not worth saving.
    9
  262. The Orange Oracle delivering a carefully teleprompted speech that is almost entirely devoid of any truths.
    9
  263. Crockett is not doing normal people with a deep-south accent any favors - to me, a non-American, a southern accent is beginning to equate with ill-informed stupidity.
    9
  264. Only 1/3rd of the US voting population has gone bonkers (the Trumpzis). Another 1/3rd is trying to correct the course of the US, but not doing a good job. The remaining 1/3rd simply cannot be bothered to participate. They will regret their inaction only when it's too late, just like the Germans in the 1920's and 1930's. By the time they wake up, the US will have gone past the point of no return and become full fascist.
    9
  265. Texas Taliban, Crusade Taliban, sounds appropriate for religious zealots that want to impose their own twisted world view on everyone else.
    9
  266. When a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative like David Brooks starts sprouting the philosophies of "WE" as practiced in Northern Europe instead of the 'Murican "me, me, ME", the ground trembles. One wonders if US-style conservatism is a mental disease that Brooks is in the process of being cured of?
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  267. The problem for modern viewers is the disconnect from the "unavoidable war" mentality. In the early nineteen-forties, everyone was immersed in the war and sort of accepted the immense cost in lives and resources. After all, the "Huns" were killing us and they needed a lot of killing back. The problem for the 2020 viewers is the they have not really experienced any real NEED for this systematic killing of each other. After all, what the EU is all about is to convince people that doing business with other nations is more useful than killing them. A "customer" or a "supplier" is vastly preferable to "an enemy, to be killed at any cost". I suggest that we "kill" (un-elect) any politician that is observed sowing hatred between nations. No blood-letting required, just make sure that the lunatics do not take over the asylum...
    9
  268. Unvarnished truth!
    9
  269. I'm always astounded by the hypocrisy inherent in the classic US American attitude that "American lives" are so much more valuable than e.g. the lives of middle-east civilians. Do you REALLY think that e.g. an Iraqi mother is any less devastated by the loss of her child than the mother of a US soldier? At least the US soldier was waging war in a foreign country and the Iraqi was in his homeland, killed by invading foreign military forces. There is a very simple solution to this problem: Stop waging war abroad! Use the money to tend to the needs of your own population instead. That would pay for universal health care, affordable high-quality education and to fix all your crumbling infrastructure.
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  270. The NC GOP candidate not only tells us a lot about how unhinged the GOP has become, the fact that hes seems to have a realistic shot at becoming governor tells us how unhinged a sizeable part of the population in the 'Murican South has become. A very disturbing state of affairs.
    8
  271. In my youth (in Iceland, of all places), a young president (JFK) was elected in the US. I was very young at the time and had absolutely no time for politics or economics, BUT - this young US president had a novel way of presenting economic numbers that engaged the US population AND the rest of the world. He simply broke down the numbers in a way that everyday citizens could relate to! Instead of talking about billions here and trillions there (astronomical numbers beyond comprehension for ordinary people), he presented the economic economic effects as related to a typical US American household, just as Bernie is doing these days. The fact that the US is spending over 18% of GDP on health care ON ONLY PART OF THE NATION compared to about 10% of GDP spent by other western nations to cover EVERYONE might be a bit obscure to the average citizen, but when put in the context of an average US American family it becomes jarring: The current health care cost for a typical $60K/year household is on average $12K - for UNCERTAIN healthcare, the shenanigans the insurance companies resort to when evading coverage are legend. All premiums, co-pays and and surprise billing would disappear, all at the price of paying around $6-7K/year in taxes instead for health care that covers EVERYTHING for EVERYONE. Your employer no longer in the loop etc. Europeans have enjoyed variations of this for 70 years, what on earth makes you think that the US is unable to do the same? Get real!
    8
  272. In my country (a founding NATO member) the name of the United States of America - in our local language - is, by inserting a couple of extra letters, the "Lunatic States of America". The vast majority of North Europeans are aghast at the nonsense going on in 'Murica. This is not a reflection on US American population in general, almost every single US American we Europeans meet is a genuinely nice and sensible person - but they are non-lunatic US majority that are informed, travel abroad and have broad horizons but apparently have not bothered to vote for decades! The Lunatics that have taken over the US Asylum (the Repugnicans) have, even if they are a minority, managed to assume the political power required to be reaching the final stages of demolishing the American Experiment. This will not end well...
    8
  273. That clinches it! Rabid right-wingers are ignorant and/or stupid, if not mentally deranged.
    8
  274. This is wishful thinking on a new level by Corporate Democrats and Republicans. I am convinced she will not be as easily pushed around as these people wish her to be, regardless of the trickery or lies they will try to use. They call her stupid and clueless, but just check out her razor-sharp inquisition of the Trump-scum that she has had the opportunity to grill. It might take a few election cycles, but AOC & Co will win general support and prevail in the end. The main worry is that "The Handlers" will resort to using the same desperate means used on the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King.
    8
  275. Does 'Murica HAVE to support the Netanyahu government in this matter? Riding roughshod over entire nations or ethnic groups, for whatever reason (financial or "moral"), has NEVER served 'Murica well in the long run. It has always ended up as a blight on 'Murica.
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  276. Yep, a really, REALLY smart move! Brazil went from being a non-player to being second-to-none in just a few weeks. Just about the only positive part of this nonsense is the fact that Bolsanero is actually performing slow and painful Hara-Kiri politically. He cannot possibly survive the disaster he refused to allow the nation to properly prepare for.
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  277. A minor correction: Dual AOA sensors have been in use on larger aircraft for decades. Boeing's MCAS system and it's use of only one of them (without cross-checking the other AOA) for activating the MCAS system, is new. THAT oversight by Boeing and the FAA, and to initially keep it hidden from pilots, may even turn out to be considered criminal negligence.
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  278. What boggles my mind is why the Afghan nations should pay reparations for 9/11. As far as I know, the 9/11 perpetrators were Saudi nationals, and the great "sin" Afghanistan was involved in was to allow Bin Laden to hide in the country, a fact that I am absolutely sure the Afghan population were blissfully ignorant of. If any nation should pay reparations for 9/11, it should be Saudi Arabia!
    8
  279. Repugnicans cannot win elections without gross, even blatantly illegal cheating. Corporate Democheats are a close second.
    8
  280. Trump is demolishing the institutions of the US and rebuilding them in his own image. We have seen this before - just look at the history of Germany in the nineteen-thirties. How does this end if Trump is not stopped?
    8
  281. I acquired my ATPL in the early nineteen-eighties, and it became instantly worthless (mostly) in 2015 when I turned 65 and had to retire. I still retain my experience and am enjoying a satisfying life flying Ultralights and SEP private aircraft. The good thing about my EASA ATPL/A licence is the fact that it will not expire until the day I die! All I have to do is pass my Class II medicals and stay current on whatever equipment I am flying. So far, so good...
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  282. Any parent with a rational mind should yank their child out of any school run by irrational "aluminum-foil-head-cap" idiots like this David Centner. Such schools are likely to become Covid-infection cesspools, a danger to everyone - not to mention the likelihood of the curriculum being potentially medieval in nature!
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  283. It is obvious that Law, Order and Justice in the US are generally just cheap, meaningless words. When it comes to things like this, however, the blatant disregard for the law and the constitution exhibited by Trump and his cohorts, is it REALLY possible that they will walk away scot-free with millions in off-shore accounts after blatant corruption, done in plain sight? If you are a police chief somewhere you are in a position to twist and obscure justice - until you are found out, fired, jailed and dragged before a court of justice. That is what should happen to Trump, Pompeo, Moscow Mitch and his wife and a whole host of other crooks and creeps that Trump has elevated to positions of power, positions they have shamelessly exploited.
    8
  284. The Medicare-provided services Francesca is describing is actually the MINIMUM service provided to EVERY pregnant woman in Europe! The horrible part of the 'Murican situation is the fact that this Medicare service she describes is NOT available to all pregnant women in the SSR (Slave States of America)! In Europe, support for pregnant women is virtually free AND post-birth support is extensive AND AFFORDABLE! In the SSR, the birth of a child is reportedly bound to cost $10K or more - with NO post-birth support, not to mention devoid of parental leave and support. The problem: 'Murican right-wingers have no shame! They want to force every conception to term, regardless of circumstances, but once the fetus is born and breathing, they stop caring - everyone is supposed to sink or swim, they do not CARE. 'Muricans are turning out to be disgusting and inhumane monsters...
    8
  285. So, the rats are abandoning the sinking ship. Where do they go? In Barr's case, there is nowhere to run. His in-plain-sight abuses of power will eventually be his demise - he just might just see the inside (and enjoy the 'benefits') of a privately-run US prison... The most important part: He simply CANNOT be forgiven for his complicity in trying to destroy US democracy and the rule of law.
    8
  286. The UK has an incredibly mild maritime climate. Snow and icy conditions are so rare that most UK drivers are clueless when it comes to driving in such conditions. I'm Icelandic and REALLY familiar with winter conditions, and I spent almost a year flying out of Aberdeen in 2006 and NEVER encountered anything that even approached true winter conditions!
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  287. The only way to curb US police overreach and violence is to hold them accountable EVERY TIME! The "emotional and psychological damage" suit is probably uncalled for, the kid seemed well-balanced - at least vastly more so than the police chief.
    8
  288. AOC's agenda is not about "quick fixes" - this will be a prolonged slog. These changes will take a long time, as they should. The good news is that the younger US generations are better informed than their parents and they KNOW that e.g. the Nordic Model is NOT Venezuela-style "communism". It is Social Democracy - true democracy that cares about social issues while allowing reined-in capitalism to flourish. Voting in the Nordic countries is an effortless RIGHT, not a hard-won privilege.
    8
  289. Alexandra is a breath of fresh air into American politics: Did you notice that she avoids mudslinging - she campaigns by emphasizing her own qualities for the seat, by clearly stating her own agenda, NOT by harping on how bad her opponents are!
    8
  290. It is absolutely astounding how even the most progressive, anti-Trump channels STILL waste a lot of hot air and airtime discussing the absolute nonsense that comes from Trump (and in this case his son-in-law as well). THEY know it is BS, WE ALL know it is BS and still they cannot help chasing the bloody rabbit down the bleedin' rabbit hole, just like excited puppies. THIS is why Trump, with the mental capacity of an 8-year old, is the dog's tail currently managing to wag the entirety of the USA.
    8
  291. Kinda funny - I watched a clip from a German Media Outlet (DW = Deutsche Welle) reporting about the total absence of any "protesters" outside the Trump "Rally" - in fact they commented on the considerable preparations made for external or overflow audiences, i.e. "all the people unable to enter the arena due to crowding" that were discontinued early on - nobody was showing up! Of course that does not stop Trump trying to lie about it! PS. DW reported on a whole hell of a lot more than the non-existing "overflow" audience, but the state of US media is such that Antarctica could disappear beneath the waves with a shudder without US media bothering with (or even following non-US external affairs). The world around the US could end without the US media (and this the US population) even noticing! Talk about being self-absorbed!
    8
  292. An ounce of prevention has proved to be better than a ton of punishment in many places in the world - just look at the results of the Norwegian penal system, and now this experiment in Richmond. This, however, seems to be a concept completely alien to most Americans. I wonder why.
    8
  293. The US is barely 250 years old and yet it is falling apart at the seams. The immediate future of 'Murica seems rather grim. Their system of government, based on their venerated Constitution, is already riddled with corrupt special interests and the general population is really suffering.
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  294. Please, please, PLEASE stop talking about European health care being FREE. It is NOT free, it is simply prepaid universal health care where EVERYBODY with an income chips in and NOBODY has to suffer the tragedy of being left to die without at least some care. Our various health care systems are ALL based on the basic principle that health care is NOT for profit, it is a right, not a privilege.
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  295. Apparently, if the dust ever settles, there will be a need for an independent international body to investigate the CBP for systematic crimes against humanity, and to punish individual agents as well as past and present CBP leaders for those crimes - using the current, inhumane, revenge-based US "correctional" system. The alternative: Trump gets another term, the US turns into something like Germany in the 1930s - and everyone gets pardoned.
    8
  296. I imagine the US never had any beef with the Russian Nation, it is the Russian LEADERS that have been a problem from Stalin onward. In fact, the non-Russian world should feel sorry for the Russian nation that has been oppressed by authoritarian leaders for centuries.
    8
  297. I think the Aussie/Kiwi relationship is very much like the relationship between the Nordic countries. Mutual trust and acceptance. Hard work and discipline have allowed this - virtually Covid-free bubbles. Make no mistake: The Kiwis and Aussies will come down HARD at the first sign of infections coming from abroad! In a few months, when a sufficient proportion of the population has been vaccinated, restrictions can be relaxed. There are a few blocks of idiotic regimes that think the time for relaxing restrictions is NOW - notably the US, the EU and the UK. They are currently suffering the consequences.
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  298. The US "democracy" and judiciary just became more flawed. The solution? The lawmakers (House of Representatives and Senate) must pass laws that decisively ends gerrymandering and voter suppression. Without that, the US does not have democracy, not even a pretend democracy. After all, the courts, Supreme Court included, only interpret the gray areas in any laws - they do NOT make laws, they just decide how to handle flaws in the laws. What are the chances of Congress fixing the problem? Nonexistent at the moment, but if US voters get off their lazy arses during the 2020 election, the legislative and executive powers just might go to people that work on behalf of the US general public, not just the rich (billionaires and big corporations.
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  299. US Americans need to get it though their thick heads that what they think is socialism is not socialism at all. Take the Nordic countries as an example. While too many US Americans view them as socialistic shithole countries, the fact is that they thoroughly capitalist, only with "socialist" safety nets for the general public and rules that limit how far capitalists can go when exploiting the public.
    8
  300. Ah, the wonderful benefits of the 2nd. amendment of the US Constitution...
    8
  301. The Kiwis are simply taking a page out of the Aussie's playbook. This worked for the Aussies and certainly will work for the Kiwis.
    8
  302.  @JoeZorzin  Norwegians and Swedes mostly understand each other completely. When they meet, the Norwegian speaks Norwegian and the Swede speaks Swedish - the only potential fly in the ointment being that if either uses a difficult dialect. In that case, they simply switch to English to fill the gaps.
    8
  303. Am I the only one to think that the SCOTUS has by now turned itself into a farce? In fact, so has 'Murican society, in it's current form.
    8
  304. I am sure that Megan does respect the Flag and the Anthem, it is just the current politics (and Trump) she is giving the finger.
    8
  305.  @friendlymisanthropetv , yes - US voters CAN stop Trump and the Repugnicans cold come November. The question remains: Will they?
    8
  306. The old farts are making a huge mistake: Not only will these eloquent children be the ones to suffer the consequences of climate change, they are the VOTERS OF THE FUTURE! The old farts will be in deep shit in only a few years...
    8
  307. Seeing that the US has only brought suffering and pain to the people of Chile, I suggest that Chile sever any and all ties to the US and focus on ties with social-democratic countries in North Europe and the Nordic countries. The US is falling apart anyway, and distancing from the problems associated with the death throes of that autocratic country will only improve the situation. Staying away from Chine would also make sense, they are striving to fill the autocratic void left by the disintegrating US.
    8
  308. The intended "Justice Thomas Museum" will no doubt end up as a memorial for the most corrupt Supreme Court Justice in at least a century - and that is saying something!
    8
  309. Tongue in cheek Testicular Bill - I love this!
    8
  310. This is a simple case: If there are enough "evangelicals" in the US, yearning for the Rapture, willing to re-elect Trump, that is simply democracy at work. You get what you deserve. If, on the other hand, there are enough ordinary people that CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO VOTE then, well, you get what you deserve - not another 4 years of Trump but A LIFETIME of Trump! If he gets another 4 years, he will never let go. The Rapture-seekers will be the first being sent to death camps, and the rest of you will soon follow. Will Trump follow the example of Hitler or Stalin, or perhaps somehow manage to follow BOTH examples? Any way you twist it, the chances of the US coming out of this in one piece are becoming slimmer by the minute. Basically, you are SCREWED- and by Trump, no less!
    8
  311. What is happening Thom? At 9:30 you are talking about the previous president sabotaged the Afghanistan withdrawal, saying that Bush did what Trump actually did! You have to slow down if you are mixing up the names of the perpetrators.
    8
  312. The big question is: Will there be a time of reckoning for all this blatant corruption once Trump and the Trumpzis are out of office? The fact that all this corruption is happening in plain sight does not make it any less of a crime.
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  313. Even more important: Fund the IRS properly so they can actually audit tax cheaters like Manchin, Trump and Sinema! Seeing that bribery of politicians has been legal for decades in the US, that is the best way of finally getting back at those corrupt gits. There is less need to INCREASE taxes on the rich and big corporations than simply starting to actually collecting them! Just make sure to close the loopholes and make the bloody Scrooges pay a fraction of the fair share they owe to their society
    8
  314. What really beats me is this focus on religion in 'Murican politics. As a person fortunate enough to be non-'Murican (I'm Nordic) I was raised to see religion as a tradition regarding birth and funerals and as being otherwise insignificant in our everyday life. So, Thom is a Christian, Ilhan Omar and Dean Obeidallah are Muslims, what is the big deal? Unless, of course Thom, Ilhan and Dean let their religion rule their everyday life! THAT is a slippery slope, to put it mildly. Of all the inventions of mankind, religions in any form are definitely the worst. The harmless traditions they leave behind are fine, a link to our ancestry, but the moment you let superstitious nonsense rule your daily life you are truly done for - and so is everyone around you!
    7
  315. A retired airline pilot, I respectfully disagree with your fervent "do-not-speculate-at-all-until-the-final-report" policy. It is perfectly sensible for aviation professionals to ponder the most likely scenarios after a crash! We're not saying "this was the cause", only reviewing the most likely causes, an exercise that alerts us and our fellow professionals to potential traps in similar circumstances until the final report is eventually released. Blancolirio manages to do this in a very sensible manner, time and time again.
    7
  316. The "good guy with a gun" argument finally went down in flames, ESPECIALLY if the "good guy" is a Texan! Apparently there are exceptions like the "good guy" being a policeman and the "target" is unarmed, black and running away. THEN the "good guys" courageously open fire! NOT a good testament for Texans, especially Texan cops. Their yellow streak is a mile wide.
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  317. When the numbers are crunched and it becomes clear how the US population has been exploited - virtually enslaved - by Corporate America, the question remains: When do US Americans start to emigrate to Europe in hope of a more prosperous future, or more likely: When does the US population start assembling Guillotines (a metaphor, in a country awash with assault weapons there is no need for archaic execution devices like guillotines). Pitchforks, my arse...
    7
  318. You have a compound problem in the US: The basic issues are inequality and not giving an Eff about your fellow citizens! The countries that are doing, let's say not badly (no one is doing well in this situation), are those that welcome capitalism, but ONLY on a very tight rein, and can afford to do so by maintaining a solid social safety net (partly funded by appropriately taxing the capitalists, not allowing them to pervert the system). The Nordic countries are just one example. 'Murica is now finding itself in a deep hole, and you seem to be insistent on one thing only: Keep Digging, make the hole deeper! My country (Iceland) refused to bail out the banksters in 2008, instead dragging them into court and actually jailing some of them. As a result, our recovery was surprisingly quick and we are managing to keep our heads above water for the time being. Make no mistake, we are ALL in for for a meager decade to come, partly thanks to Covid and partly due to Putin, but given all the shite flying about these days we can count our blessing. Fossil fuels have gone up considerably, but seeing that we are more than self-sufficient regarding renewable energy for everything other than transportation, we are incredibly well off.
    7
  319. What worries me is that AOC and other Progressive Democrats might end up going the way of John & Robert Kennedy. That will definitely be the end of the US as a free nation.
    7
  320. Did Kavanaugh perjure himself? Any layman without Trump-blinders on will say an emphatic YES to that. Let's just hope that eventually the sham, gloss-over FBI investigation will be declared null and void, followed by a proper investigation. I suspect that could lead to Kavanaugh being impeached and drummed out of the Supreme Court.
    7
  321. Despite the dire circumstances all around the globe, the rest of the world is watching the US conservative governance in morbid fascination. The way they are going, they are going to make the Nazis, with their concentration and extermination camps look good! I wonder if there will be international, Nüremberg-style crimes-against-humanity court proceedings against the US when this is all in the past. I have a sneaky feeling that this will be a minimum requirement if the US wants to be counted as a civilized nation in the future.
    7
  322. Deforestation of the Amazon has been going on for a long time and, ideally, should be stopped. On the flip side: US Americans love the "why should I pay for other people's problems?" argument that can easily be used by Brazil regarding this issue. The US has been instrumental in CO2 emissions for more than a century and is today still the worst offender pr. capita, with apparently no willingness to change course.
    7
  323. Do you need any further proof that the US is the rotting carcass of a pretend democracy? The Nordic countries and most of Europe adopted the lessons provided by the US following WW2 and have content and prospering populations while the US is falling apart because they did not heed their own lessons! Sadly, the US is about to crash into the dustbin of history, to take it's place beside Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy...
    7
  324. Kirstjen Nielsen comes across as a disgusting person, entirely without empathy. Given her name, she appears to be of Nordic descent, and I suspect that most Nordic people feel ashamed of the connection. I live in a Nordic country and I certainly feel ashamed.
    7
  325. ...and their tools they are using are immoral Repugnicans!
    7
  326. We might laugh at India and their Holy Cows, but apparently the US has a massive Holy Cow: The Military! On that topic: The US should stop talking about the Defensive Industry and start calling it the Offensive industry. The US has not really been on the defensive since Pearl Harbor!
    7
  327. Because they have been brainwashed into believing that caring for your neighbour is NOT good and that Greed Is Good?
    7
  328. It must be depressing for US Americans to watch how both parties are successfully chipping away at their democracy - the US is no merely longer a flawed democracy, it has become a PRETEND democracy where money, lobbying and corruption rule.
    7
  329. Crockett and Kirschner are very sharp and well-trained legal minds that are fighting the stupid nonsense the Repugnigans are trying to force down the throats of the 'Murican public. 'Murica's Oligarchs (the ones financing the current Trump Fascist movement) are just a whisker away from alienating ALL of it's allies of the last century. Is that REALLY what you oligarchs (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg etc.) think will serve you well personally? We all know that you care nothing about the welfare of your fellow countrymen, but do you REALLY think your own welfare will be taken care of in the upcoming Fascist movement? There are SO many bribing billionaires with Jewish-sounding names that will meet their maker once their wealth has been sucked off...
    7
  330. This deluded individual would have been in psychiatric care long ago in any developed country outside 'Murica. Using labels like "Marxism and Communism" (both long-dead ideologies) as boogeyman concepts, without having a clue what they actually mean is telling: The man is a brainwashed, uneducated idiot! Even worse, he condones violence as acceptable means of "spreading the word". He is actually making Osama-Bin-Laden, MBS and the Mullahs of Iran look like choir boys.
    7
  331. What I find strange is how all the major Trump followers, so firmly convinced the SARS Cov-2 is a hoax, still manage to avoid becoming infected. In my mind, the best solution to the problem would be for the deniers to walk into becoming infected, become sick and most of them ending up being killed by "the hoax".
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  332. I suggest the US rename their "Ministry of Defense" to "Ministry of Offense".
    7
  333. The 'Murican talking heads are pathetic, mainly asking about emotional issues of someone living in an active war zone. They have no idea about what this girl is living through, them sitting in their safe seats in 'Murica. I have only a faint understanding of her situation even if I spent around 2 years in a war zone - a "back-burner" civil war in Angola in the early 1990's. We still experienced sporadic (weekly) attacks where I was based, but being a pilot flying for the ICRC, we were pretty secure ourselves. Everyone respected the ICRC, both FAPLA and UNITA. The rare experience of coming across mutilated bodies of children and adult civilians is, however, something that stays with you for the rest of your life! My respect and awe towards this courageous girl knows no bounds, she is now hand-on in the blood and gore of mindless war, just trying to help the victims - and her own life is at stake with the Russian goons potentially closing in. I just hope she gets through this ordeal, both physically and mentally.
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  334. How many irrevocable proofs of "God's omnipotence" - or lack thereof - do you need to realize that any mature and grown-up person than wields the crutch of religion to support his views is just that, a man with a crutch!
    7
  335. The simple fact that an anonymous database registers incidents that seemingly do not appear in FAA Aviation Safety Reports (ASR's) tells you that there is now something seriously wrong in the State of America (the US) aviation system. The basic premise of incident reporting is a so-called no-blame policy, i.e. anyone involved with aviation is supposed to be able to report actual or perceived incidents without risk of repercussion for the reporter. The fact that this kind of database exists AND ACTUALLY RECEIVES REPORTS is an indication that the no-blame policy is, in many cases, in name only.
    7
  336. Being an ignoramus in military matters, I still know that a rapidly advancing army can easily outrun it's supply capabilities and end up with devastating problems. The sudden and rapid advances by the Ukrainians in the north-east initially had me a bit worried but, on second thought, seeing how clever and resourceful the Ukrainians have been throughout, such worries are moot. They are unlikely to make that kind of mistake, actually borne out by their much slower but inexorable advances in the south-east.
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  337. It's about time you 'Muricans woke up! I happen to be a citizen of the first nation to elect a female head of state, our current Prime Mister is female and is not the first one. Our parliament is near 50/50 male/female, female participation in politics is increasing and in EVERY instance our governance has improved. Let that be a lesson - only 'Murica is too large, too diverse, too this or too that for it to work there (the standard response). As a matter of fact too EVERYTHING for anything ever working there! What a depressing situation.
    7
  338. Bolton may currently be at odds with the most powerful "conservative" of the day and thus revealing some of the more disgusting aspects of the breed but, make no mistake about it: Bolton is among the creepiest and scariest of all the horrifying conservatives alive today! Saying this is awful, but the fact of the matter is that the world would be a better place if Bolton were to have a heart attack and make an unexpected and permanent exit from the world stage.
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  339. A cop breaks the law by assaulting a citizen and the only recourse is a civil suit? The pink-shirt Sergeant has serious self-control problems and should not be allowed anywhere near a badge and a gun, seeing that he is incapable of de-escalating a rather harmless situation. His inflated ego will simply not allow it! He (and too many of his colleagues) is a ticking time bomb that will end with someone needlessly losing his/her life. Wanna bet the dead body will be non-white?
    7
  340. A pity how someone that is credited with breakthroughs in space technology and "environmentally friendly" luxury cars is turning out to be a deranged loonie. On the flip side, it is no surprise that someone that has become insanely rich very quickly is turning out to be a dishonest, cheating creep - that is usually the only way to become rich in a jiffy.
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  341. It can be argued that this verdict is harsh, compared to the 'standard' in recent years. It can also be argued that a verdict like this is LONG overdue for a senseless police killing. The obvious result is that a verdict like this will make this type of police officers hesitate before indiscriminately executing blacks 'on the fly', for little or no apparent reason.
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  342. Celebrating Christmas twice is a good idea, a double feel-good celebration cannot go amiss in Ukraine. Future attendance will drift in either direction, the direction the Ukrainian people will eventually want to go, and older people can enjoy their lifelong traditions as long as they want to.
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  343. I wonder what the situation will be in e.g. 15-25 years when these kids become the ones running the country. If there is any justice, the old-fart politicians that are still surviving will be hunted down and made accountable for their inaction.
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  344. A pretty damn good point Tom is making here!
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  345. As far as I know the word 'subpoena' literally means 'at the threat of punishment'. The committee should bloody well use it as intended, like blunt weapon!
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  346.  @InvisibleFeats , I am NOT from Russia but I totally agree with Finn Jones's sentiment. US America is utterly pathetic at the moment (other parts of the American continent are FAR better off, except perhaps Brazil. Canadian America is certainly MUCH better off!). I live in one of the Social-Democratic Nordic countries where voting is effortless (we are TRULY democratic, you see!) and voter participation is far, FAR higher that in the US. No voter suppression (while we have to suffer occasional pathetic and easily suppressed attempts at gerrymandering by our right-wing political elements). The US certainly USED to be a great nation until the advent of Ronald Bloody Reagan. After WW2, the US was a model democracy (primarily established by FDR?) that most of the North-European countries have been following in various flavors ever since, something the US completely abandoned 40 years ago when a misguided Hollywood actor was allowed to take the reins. Now you have an arguably insane Reality Show actor running the country into the ground, a pandemic running unchecked, riots in the streets, SA-like groups inciting violence while your Beloved Orange Leader is fanning the flames! Pathetic? I suspect the civil war of the 1860's was never fully concluded but is about to be resumed. Following the SA-like groups will come GESTAPO-like forces, culminating in SS-type institutions that will wreak havoc in the US before they are finally and brutally stamped out. ANY government trying to wage a shooting war on it's own citizens is doomed to fail. Putin does not dare to nor do the Chinese, they are wise enough to use covert oppression to suppress the population. Once the gloves come off, they ALWAYS come to a sticky end. Just ask the Russian Czars- if you find any...
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  347. Does this mean that Trump can be made responsible for inciting (organizing) the Jan. 6th insurrection?
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  348. I nearly fell off my chair when I heard Trump actually TELL A TRUTH when he correctly stated that "at least half the people cannot define 'woke', they don't know what it is"!
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  349. The stark truth is being spoken here!
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  350. I cannot help wondering if AOC and the other Justice Democrat Vanguards have visited and experienced North Europe, an area that is practicing the kind of democracy that they (AOC & Co) have been preaching. Our various flavors of social democracy is something the 'Muricans encouraged, financed and helped us implement following WW2. We bloody well LOVE it, and are flabbergasted to see that the US is failing to implement in their own country the lessons we learned from them that are working quite well for us in Europe. Then again, today's US of A is radically different from the "immediately-post-WW2" US of A. One indication is the fact that current US allies are becoming fed up with the nonsense and madness going on in the US.
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  351. Wise words. In essence, the Russian nation should itself determine by what means they want to become fit to be counted as a civilized nation that other nations are willing to do business with. It is clear that Russia in it's current incarnation (Putin's Russia) is a rouge, terrorist state that very few other nations want to acknowledge, let alone do trade with. In short, Russia must change if it does not want to become another North Korea, i.e. totally isolated. It is not for other nations to decide exactly how Russia should change, THAT painful problem is for the Russian nation to determine. Napoleon and Hitler tried to do it by force, and we all know how THAT ended, BUT Russia is fast becoming a large version of North Korea and that does not bode well for the Russian people.
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  352. The entire crew performed well as they are trained to. Period. In the mind of every crew member there is usually a sliver of doubt: Will I perform well and not fall apart in an emergency? This is normal, and will remain until actually tested. Almost invariably, a crew member WILL automatically revert to his/her training and perform well if/when the shite hits the fan. Afterwards, there is a great sense of relief: I have been tested and came through OK. That sliver of doubt can be put to rest...
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  353. Is "throwing someone under a bus" really the only metaphor available to describe this kind of scapegoating?
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  354. I simply cannot get over this apparently very common US American way of thinking: "I am against a health care or education system that will benefit myself, because it will also benefit others!"
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  355. AOC seems to have an uncanny ability to light a fire under the collective arses of Fox and Conservetives in general with just a few words on Twitter - or printed on a fundraising T-shirt. AOC rocks, and the same goes for the other progressives and their fast-growing base. Young and well-informed people are joining the political fray as they reach the voting age and the Repugnican goose will be well and truly cooked. Can't wait until AOC is "grown up" enough to join the Old Folks brawl (Senate/Presidency). Boy, are the geriatrics in for interesting times. They will never know what hit them!
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  356. Interesting thought mentioned in this clip: A value system where we do not need to be "winners" at any cost, being "equal" is a perfectly acceptable, even a preferred state of affairs! On reflection, the "being equal" is accepted by most western nations - except 'Murica! The Nordic countries thrive on equality - few people are rich, few are poor, and we are basically afforded equal opportunities in life. The fact that EVERY western nation (and most non-western nations as well) have adopted the philosophy that affordable health care is a RIGHT, not a privilege - EXCEPT the USA, is telling! In our opinion, your current value system sucks by every conceivable metric! The greatest irony of it all: This is the example the US gave us following WW2! We actually DID follow it and it has served us very well! Thom, have you ever been to Iceland? The country where the police is rarely visible and NEVER armed? We have out problems, political and economic, but we ALWAYS stick together when the shit hits the fan (natural disasters like pandemics, volcanic activity or financial disasters have take care of that). Is it wrong to be content with what you have? If you think so, you are probably 'Murican!
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  357. It is amazing how fragile US society is turning out to be. The fact that a huge part of the population has not been in a position to properly cope with a setback of just a few hundred dollars virtually ensures that a genuine global disaster like the pandemic will have catastrophic consequences for the US as a nation.
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  358. Apparently the only good Republican is a dead Republican (that is the only time everyone speaks well of them, at their funerals). The same applies to Corporate Democrats, they are just Republicans in disguise, working hard to shaft the US public.
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  359. While someone experienced from the Netherlands would be a good and trusted candidate, having a woman from a former Soviet-oppressed country is REALLY tempting. Women are mankind's nest-makers, and they are also the most fierce defenders of the nest!
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  360.  @User-zd2pb , hold your horses! AOC has all the qualifications to eventually become the most successful POTUS in US history, but that will take time. AOC is a political infant now - a prodigy to be sure, but still a beginner! She is just learning to walk in the political quagmire and while she has become extremely nimble-footed very quickly, she will need quite bit of practice before starts REALLY running. There is always the risk that corporate Democraps and lobbyists might manage to corrupt her during the learning curve, but I am very confident that she will not be very gullible. At any rate, the corrupt US political machine is a juggernaut with A LOT of inertia. It will take at least a decade to even BEGIN to reverse the damage already done to the US nation. If all goes well, the US might be approaching North Europe regarding citizen contentment by 2040 - if the whole shebang does not descend into a Fascist Frenzy...
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  361. Can The Rich Pay Half The Population To Kill The Rest? This has certainly been tried again and again and again - the latest attempt is ongoing in the US and some other countries. The most spectacular trial and spectacular failure was in France at the end of the seventeen-hundreds. The Guillotine was what the Rich reaped that time around. Another try was in the US in the eighteen sixties, also a failure which left a resistance movement that is rearing it's ugly Confederate head now, 160 years later. While the rich have succeeded in some places (Russia, the Middle East) and are currently on a roll in the US, they are in for a rude awakening. Fortunately for them the public is not at the Guillotine-making level of exasperation yet, but the fuse is growing shorter...
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  362. When the police force of any community is allowed to become corrupt to their innermost core, de-funding and disbanding said police force is insufficient, it will simply continue as just another mobster gang - without uniforms. The members of that "police" force must be investigated and prosecuted for what they are: Corrupt Criminals! Some police forces even take the corruption to another level by allowing it's officers a license to kill any person of color they feel like. Unarmed, underage? No matter, being noticed by "white police officers" while being Black can actually turn out to be a death warrant. In Latin America, this kind of crazed killers were called Death Squads, but not in today's US America!
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  363. The Trump Tantrum Kids can scream and yell all they like. When the "everyone is equal under law" fact hits home, they are in deep, frigging shite.
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  364. As a retired airline pilot (turboprops only) I saw something potentially similar develop again and again in my career, a recurrent Safety Management issue: Scheduling is becoming tighter because of accumulated delays (and possibly added abnormalities like the INOP APU), and "good" (enthusiastic) ground staff start to expedite their routine to compensate, a highly dangerous situation (the root cause usually being a management or scheduling problem). There was an extreme period where we enforced a rude emergency response: If ground crew was seen walking/driving fast, let alone running/speeding around a live aircraft, the mandatory response was to call for an immediate shutdown and a crash safety conference with the ground crew. This of course made any imaginary delays real and exponentially worse and, needless to say, such drastic measures only happened once or twice before everyone got the message. I have no idea if something similar was at play in this tragedy, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a factor.
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  365. Various countries have their own local/traditional names for other countries. So far, no one has minded - until juvenile tantrum-thrower Dictator Erdogan (a.k.a. Gollrur) needed a distraction from the disaster his policies are visiting on the country he rules with an iron fist: The most important issue of all issues is the fact that the modern name for Türkiye in English is Turkey - which happens to be the English name for the large chicken species Meleagris that e.g. Nordic nations call "Kalkun". To my knowledge, the people of Turkey/Türkiye/Tyrkland or whatever people call this particular nation do not really care - the only Turk that seems the have his knickers in a twist is Dictator Erdogan - but,then again, he is in dire need of something, ANYTHING that will distract his countrymen from the fact that his economic and religious policies are ruining Turkey/Türkiye/Tyrkland. Erdogan is becoming openly ridiculous! In my country (Iceland), Turkey/Türkiye has always been called "Tyrkland", and the old Norse name for Istanbul has always been "Mikligarður" (lit. Great Garden). Is juvenile Erdogan about to throw a tantrum over local naming conventions for his ancient country, one of the cradles of civilization? Methinks you Turks (NOT Turkeys!) need to start thinking about electing a more rational leader... The funny thing: Turkey (Türkiye) as a nation has been doing fine - it is mostly on the ridiculous Erdogan political and economic front that the country has been floundering.
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  366. Just pause to think about the subject of this clip! If you are AT ALL rational, you will realize that there is something seriously wrong in the State of Florida - and Texas and a host of other rabid-right states. The rest of the developed world is watching with fascinated horror how a recently-great country is devolving into what the rest of us would call a Medieval, Religious-zealot-controlled, primitive anti-knowledge nation that will eventually make Putin's Russia look rational! Have they no shame?
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  367. Did you notice that current NATO allies are already consolidating against Toddler Trump regarding his madcap Greenland/Canada/Panama takeover push? I'm afraid this is just the beginning of Toddler Trump's 'Murica shedding of allies that have been formed over the last 80 years. Who will the new allies be? Putin's collapsing Russia? Belarus? North Korea? China? China will never be a reliable ally, they are just waiting to gobble you up! In hindsight, it was remarkable how quickly a stable society like Germany was dismantled in the 1930s. Something similar seems to be happening to 'Murica. While we're at it, pause to recall the sticky end ALL of Hitler's henchmen eventually came to, once the German nation had been decimated and divided up, it's cities a rubble of ruins. A similar fate eventually awaits Trump's current and future henchmen.
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  368. While all other developed countries can provide various flavors of universal health care for 10-11% of their GDP, the US is spending over 17% of GDP on a health care system that leaves a sizeable chunk of the population in the cold and bankrupting others. This is nothing less than astounding! Is the US really such an underdeveloped country that it is unable copy what others have been doing for decades! The difference is that other countries do NOT allow middlemen (health insurance companies) to skim off vast profits. They ALSO force pharmaceutical companies to sell medicine with a reasonable profit, no rip-offs allowed.
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  369. In a true democracy, one thing equalizes rich and poor: One citizen equals one vote - a poor citizen's vote has the same weight a a rich citizen's vote! Not so in the US. With all the gerrymandering over decades, the value of poor citizen votes has diminished to the point that the US is now worse than a "flawed democracy" classification it has earned. For ordinary and poor citizens there is only one way to go: Fight all the obstacles put on your path to the voting booth and VOTE. Vote for what you believe in and do not let anybody stop you. Do not let me or anyone else tell you how to vote, this is YOUR vote!
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  370. THIS is the kind of politicians the US population actually needs! "Democratic" or "Repugnicant" is irrelevant, US-Population-Serving is the only metric that actually counts. Forget the old right/left, capitalist/socialist tripe, what is important is the welfare of yourself AND all your fellow citizens, NOT the bloody rich or the bloody corporate monopolies!
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  371. We solved this "dilemma" in the Nordic Countries by simply never adopting the word Christmas (Christ's Mass). We simply stuck with the name applied to the original heathen winter solstice festival - and the Catholic Church was unable to change that. We simply call it Jul / Jól (Yule in English).
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  372. 'Muricans: Apparently, THIS IS WHO YOU ARE!
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  373. So, Kayleigh McEnany is the female equivalent of Ted Cruz, criticizing Trump initially but now unashamedly licking his arse every day. This is actually irrelevant, just as irrelevant as the size of Kayleigh's fake eyelashes vs. Ana's eyelashes. Kayleigh's eyelashes are obviously fake, no one has genuine half-inch long eyelashes! Ana's, on the other hand, are more modest - not entirely genuine but not as excessive as Kayleigh's. Why Ana bothers at all escapes me. She is chute as a button to begin with and needs no embellishments in that respect. Most important, she is sharp as a tack and that is what matters most when all is said and done.
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  374. "Where does this take us?" - down the drain, into oblivion.
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  375.  Human Being , I don't know about GREAT, but perhaps unavoidable. US police seem to be all too willing to shoot to kill at the least provocation, unlike almost all other Western police forces. True, they had a perfect excuse in this case, but still...
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  376. This attitude is what will cause the US as we have known it to disintegrate within a decade: We are FINALLY rid of Trump, no further worries until the end of time! The problem: The corrupt and psychopathic monsters that make up the Repugnican Party leadership is still in place, well versed in gerrymandering, voter suppression and all the tricks-of-the-corrupt-politics trade they have been fine-tuning these past 40 years. Before you know it, the Repugnicans will have found another Fascist wannabe autocrat that will NOT be as blatantly incompetent as Trump turned out to be. You got away from the Trump disaster by the skin of your teeth, you will NOT be as lucky the next time around! Your only hope is to thoroughly investigate and prosecute Trump and his closes cronies for the crimes they have been committing in plain sight these past 4 years. You have to expose and root out all the Trump enablers, Repugnicans and Corporate Democraps alike, and punish them in the most cruel way possible, if only to lash out at and eliminate the power-crazed politicians that were instrumental in causing the deaths of all the Covid victims so far, now approaching 1/3rd of a million, a death toll that will probably exceed half a million before the pandemic is finally brought under control
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  377. In my country, Iceland, doing the tax return is like in Estonia: You log in, using verified electronic credentials available at no cost to every citizen, you scroll through your pre-filled tax return to scan for errors and, unless you find a discrepancy, you just sign the return by electronic means and you are done. 5 minutes, tops (if you are methodical), less if you are careless and trust your government. PS. I did relief flights for the ICRC during the final 2 years of the Angolan Civil War in the early 1990s, and experienced but nibbles of the horrors you described, taking part in these situations. That was enough for me to appreciate the luxury of being a Nordic citizen!
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  378. Thom, you apparently did what Michael Moore did and looked at what e.g. Norway is doing with it's rehabilitation-oriented prison system and compare it to your own punitive/profit-oriented prison system. You will no longer wonder why the US is spiraling out of control. Calling the US dysfunctional is actually a mild description. All you need to do is end the nonsense! You have done so before, you can do it again.
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  379. If we needed any further proof of how messed up 'Murica is, this is it!
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  380. Any 'Murican that saw this prank-clip is quite likely to try recreating the whole thing, a private, in-flight BBQ! Anyone trying to stop them is infringing on their God-given freedom to be complete and total idiots.
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  381. Supplying western fighters and the training/logistics necessary to Ukraine: Better late than never! It may be so late already the the impact will not be immediate in kicking Russia out of Ukraine, but it will definitely be an important factor in the aftermath, because the Russian monster will have to be kept at bay for years to come.
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  382. 'Murica's gun problem, in a nutshell, is the fact that they are awash with military-style, high-capacity weapons, accessible to virtually everyone, be it by legal or illegal means. The UK, Australia and New Zealand each had a notable mass shooting event years ago, AND THEY IMMEDIATELY TOOK STEPS TO MINIMIZE THE RISK OF REPEAT OCCURRENCES! There have been no mass shootings in these countries after that. Check out what these countries did (via Google or other means). Unfortunately 'Muricans seem to be incapable of following suit.
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  383. There is one niche of civil aviation where flying wing designs have been quietly: Modern Hang Gliders! They are incredibly stable and efficient in their narrow operating band, and get away with it by discarding all the commercial requirements (a wide speed range and manageable CG range). I spent decades getting my kicks flying Hang Gliders while also flying "normal" airplanes commercially, and I have always been impressed by the impressive pitch and yaw stability of the modern, non-competitive hang glider. The Achilles heel of a commercial flying wing will probably always be it's knife-edge pitch stability and narrow CG range.
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  384. What is the hint one can deduct from this experience? The Finns have been both victims and neighbors of Russia for centuries. They KNOW their lying, greedy, thieving, cheating and untrustworthy neighbors. They may have been appeasing the Soviets/Russians since WW2, but now that Putin (and Russia as a nation) has shown it's true colors, the gloves are off! No more appeasement, no more nice guy - after all, Finland has been preparing for this inevitable moment for over 75 years. Russia: If you think Ukraine has bloodied your nose, the Finns will rip your effing head right off! Bottom line: If you are stupid enough to resort to WMD's, NATO (the US, UK, France etc.) will reduce Russia to ashes! No one wants a lying, greedy, thieving and cheating bully in the neighborhood!
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  385. The "scary socialism" right-wing fearmongers keep touting has never, ever been actually implemented. Cuba might be the place that came close, ALL other implementations have immediately been perverted into authoritarian states. The "socialism" Bernie wants to introduce should be called "welfare capitalism", regulated capitalism that is NOT allowed to ride roughshod over 90% of the population.
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  386.  @BillyTzENDURO , there certainly is: The most familiar situations are climb and cruise. Soon after takeoff you set climb power and fly a given attitude (always very similar for any given aircraft type). In cruise you set cruise power and maintain altitude. In case of a barometric instrument failure, altitude and airspeed are unreliable, you simply fly 0° attitude. Once the pilot flying has things stabilized, the non-flying pilot start a systematic troubleshooting process.
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  387. So sitting members of Congress are allowed to disrespect and show contempt for the institution they are part of? Whatever misdeeds they are hiding must be HUGE!
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  388. When all is said and done, the greatest robbers and exploiters for centuries (the Christian Church) were brutally robbed by new and unexpected forces. No surprises there, when the Norse (or the Danes?) stumbled upon the loot the Christian Church had been accumulating over centuries, the shite really hit the fan! Who was worse, the Church and Monasteries that had been sucking societies dry for centuries (all on a big, fat lie), or the raiders that were hard on the clergy, not the general population? Trade was what the Nordics were all about, when push came to shove. The bad rep the Viking raiders have is, deservedly, because they raided places like Lindisfarne and stole goods that The Holy Clergy had stolen from the general population for generations. Obviously, the Clergy wrote the history, concentrating on the fact that the Viking Raiders STOLE the goods that had been "donated" to the by peasants for centuries. In the over a thousand years that have passed, the Vikings have long ceased raiding and trading, but the Churches are still at it - and will no doubt be at it for generations to come! Religion is definitely the biggest and most long-standing scam there ever was.
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  389. This the first step in imposing full censorship in 'Murican schools, and the only indoctrination allowed going forward will be extreme right-wing and racist.
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  390. It must be depressing to belong to a nation of ignorant idiots. You want - nay, DEMAND getting back to normal, but at the same time about half the nation is unwilling to make the slightest effort to actually DO so safely! Depressing!
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  391. As this situation proves, the only good Repugnican is a dead Repugnican. They have been systematically dismantling democracy in the US for over 40 years and THEY ARE SUCCEEDING! Gerrymandering and voter suppression are only the basic tools, they have a lot of tricks up their sleeves that people are barely aware of.
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  392. All true democracies (e.g. North Europa and the Nordic countries) simply schedule voting day on an existing holiday, usually Sunday. No extra holiday needed. Scheduling voting on a weekday (when most people are working) is a glaring, blatant voter suppression strategy.
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  393. The Fox ´News' hipocracy is not only breathtaking, it is completely immoral and should actually be classified as criminal! Regarding Denmark: Does anyone remember Fox's treatise about Denmark being a 'socialist hellhole', and the Danish response? Who is laughing now?
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  394. You've had over 3 years of Toddler Trump and you STILL appear surprised over his stupidity and disconnection from reality! Is it possible you are almost as ignorant as Trump is?
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  395. German system: Sensible and affordable. US system: Greedy, inefficient and unaffordable.
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  396.  @juliedorval5544 , she DID put up a god fight for months, but now seems to be more like a Trump stooge than the consummate professional she used to be.
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  397. My country, Iceland, never had a lockdown but still managed to curb the pandemic with vigorous testing, tracing and quarantining but no lockdowns - and then we opened up our borders on June 15! We had been observing 2M (6') physical distancing and no public gatherings beyond 20 people for some weeks, and it worked! To enter Iceland you without either faced a 14-day quarantine or an $8 screening PCR test on entry, but we still ended up having considerable outbreaks and are now approaching square one again. Please note that we were down to NO new cases for weeks, the virus had really been curbed until economic considerations took over. Now we are back to a 50-person assembly limit and a mandatory 2M physical distancing OR wear a mask. Shops have always been open and life is otherwise normal. Needless to say, out capitalistic bur social-democratic health care system ensures that any health care costs are negligible or free if you even IMAGINE you might have Covid symptoms. All things considered, this is a small price to pay as the results seem to be worth it. Reading the horror stories about the situation in the US awful. Die or go bankrupt - you have a choice!
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  398. I have the sneaky feeling that the general attitude in the US regarding climate change is somewhat like the attitude of the guy that fell off the roof of one of the the World Trade Center towers: Falling past the 60th floor he was heard saying "So far, so good". No worries until you land on the street...
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  399. The GOP Senators that blindly supported Trump during his attempt to destroy US democracy simply CANNOT be forgiven. The Repugnicans will continue to elect them to positions of power, but the rest of the US voting population, those with a shred of sanity and common sense will will continue to oppose them. Unfortunately, the simple fact that there are so many active anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian Repugnicans in the US is eventually bound to sink the US, drag it into a Mad-Max-like society.The non-Repugnicans will try to play fair but the genuine Repugnicans will lie, cheat and steal their way to destruction. Who do you think will win?
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  400. Judge Aileen Cannon has proved herself to be incompetent, what remains to be seen is if she is ideologically or financially corrupt as well. By guess is that she is both! How she got through law school and passed the bar raises a lot of questions...
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  401. All true. Proper and thorough training takes time - but that dismisses the most important issue that 'Murica has not seen since WW2 (virtually 80 years!): The motivation of defending your country, your entire existence, something that Ukrainians have in spades! A tank crew showing up for training on an Abrams M1, a British Challenger or a German Leopard 2 will NOT be green conscrips, they will be seasoned tank warriors with ACTUAL EXPERIENCE and will take to new and hopefully superior equipment like fish to water! The same will apply to any branch of military operations. Whatever new equipment the west will grudgingly allow the Ukrainians, they will have seasoned soldiers with actual battle experience that will, again, take to superior equipment like fish to water. As a retired pilot, I'm curious to see how Ukrainian pilots will take to the fighter/helicopter equipment the west has been so reluctant to provide. My bet is that they will take to it, again, like fish to water (or, in that case, like a bird to air? - You do not have to teach a bird how to fly. Give it better wings - and then step out of the way!).
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  402. You are dancing to Trump's tune, just like he wants you to! Trump throws out some absolutely ridiculous statements that any thinking person KNOWS is nonsense, and what does the media do? A lot of energy is spent on dissecting the nonsense instead of following the really important issues Trump is trying to distract you from.
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  403. I admit that I like AOC's looks, but I'm an old fart that enjoys looking at pretty things (only LOOKING, mind you, no groping). Much more important: I like AOC's intelligence, independence, consistency and her genuine concern for her fellow citizens. The contents are much more important than the packaging.
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  404. What about being factual and use the proper label for "Fox" whenever that organization is referenced? Never say "Fox News", always call them "Fox Lies"! It is the plain and simple truth, after all.
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  405. Thom, this episode will result in a deluge of real-life stories about similar cases in different countries. I have more than one of my own. Being well over 70, older relatives have been dropping off at regular intervals (grandparents and great-grandparents dying of old age decades ago do not really count as such), but I have been lucky in that no really close relative has died until 2020. My mother hit the wall 2 years ago, dementia and cardiovascular problems being instrumental, partly the result of lifelong smoking. She had a very productive life and died with dignity at the age of 88. My father is 95, aiming for 100, but is expected to go next. I have not even bothered to look into the legal details, but in my country (Iceland) there is an arrangement where the medical professionals discuss - at length - the prospects with the closest relatives of a terminal patient and, when the time comes, the patient is put on "líknandi meðferð", i.e. a decision is made by everyone involved to simply cease all life support, just keep the dying individual pain-free and as lucid as possible until the end. This is not active euthanasia, just an informed and educated decision to stop fighting the inevitable. Needless to say, we have Universal Health Care in Iceland, the entire cost of departing this life is borne by the entire society, whether it takes a few days or some years. The only thing the relatives have to handle financially are the funeral costs. By the way, we try to treat the other end of life (birth) the same way: Most everything is free - the current anomaly being a woman with severe pregnancy complications living in a remote rural area having to suffer travel costs not called for by someone in a similar situation, living close to a high-tech hospital. It is being worked on!
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  406. ​ @SaintMu , I agree. Arnold may be a fairly conservative republican, but at least he seems to be an old-scool republican, apparently with values and views that can be respected even if one does not agree with most of them. I'm no expert on US history, but to me it seems that the Democratic party at least pretends to be more socially minded these days and the Republican party is so hard-core right-wing minded that they are literally falling off the edge of the cliff. They seem to have switched roles compared to what they were a 150 years ago. It is said that leopards cannot change their spots, but political parties appear to be able to do so, given enough time...
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  407. One way of preventing this from happening ever again, post-Trump, is for the commanders of these federal troops to be held personally responsible, to be dragged into court and punished for whatever transgressions of the law their troops committed - unless they can produce the guilty individual troopers to face charges. If none of the commanders are willing to admit just where their troops were located at the given time, they should ALL be held responsible. That is what was done in Nuremberg after WW", the top Axis commanders were held responsible for their troops as a whole - and individual troopers were unable to hide behind the "I was just following orders!" excuse. The same should apply here. If not, the next wannabe US dictator (the WILL be more of them in the future!) will repeat this performance with impunity. They will at least think twice if they KNOW they will be held ultimately responsible if their coup fails.
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  408. If a prison sentence in the US robs a citizen of the right to vote, does it not prevent the same citizen from running for any office in the US? It is hard to see how Trump is going to avoid going to prison, at least for masterminding most of the crimes his minions are already in jail for committing, not to mention all the other stuff waiting for him once he loses his status as a sitting president.
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  409. This video clip confirms how ignorant US Americans tend to be (not the Damage Reporters, just the people they are talking about). One wonders at the potential change in attitude if every single young US citizen were to travel to some of the "socialist hellhole countries" like e.g. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland or even to isolated Iceland to experience the "hellhole" conditions first-hand. Then, and only THEN would they be qualified to even have an opinion about "socialist hellholes".
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  410. People living today are still able to enjoy glaciers like this, but their children and grandchildren will NOT - all due to the actions of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. I predict a lot of inter-generational name-calling and shit-throwing in coming decades...
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  411. ICE, a truly Repugnican institution. No wonder AOC wants to simply abolish this SA/Gestapo-like institution.
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  412. I get what Thom is saying and I do agree that Biden likes are still living in a past reality that is, fortunately, disappearing. The question is, do we tolerate this while this past reality fizzles out or do we demonize it's final days? The reality seems to be that a lot of women are saying NO, we are not taking this any longer! They are probably right, the end of this past reality is approaching fast, so let's snuff it out and be done with it. All the same, one cannot help feeling a bit sorry for the old farts that continue to offend people with the best of intentions.
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  413. To have the capacity to "resign in shame" the individual in question has to HAVE a sense of shame - which does not apply to shameless people like George Santos, Trump and any number of current Repugnican politicians - not to mention the majority of the SCOTUS. I am not at all sure 'Murica will survive this.
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  414. This might be another chicken and egg issue: One wonders which comes first, cognitive decline or obesity? One potential explanation might be that smart people are more likely to recognize the disadvantages of becoming obese and take timely steps to avoid that state. Another (and more insidious) explanation might be that even smart people become compulsive eaters which leads to obesity and, if this study is correct, rush into cognitive decline. Either way, further knowledge can only help in the future. Further studies will no doubt shed further light on this issue.
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  415. Can a society disintegrate and die from simple ignorance and stupidity? Let's watch the US's ridiculous handling of the pandemic, we are about to watch exactly that kind of an event.
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  416. It is amazing to see how many Americans confuse everything that is NOT free-to-exploit-everybody-capitalism with socialism. North Europe and the Nordic countries are more capitalist than socialist, but US American don't have a clue about things really work there.
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  417. She is obviously intelligent, astute and appears very principled - and she is beautiful as well! She is simpky running on her own agenda and apparent integrity, and seems to avoid denigrating potential opponents with personal attacks. Way to go, Alexandra. This is hopefully a glimpse of the future of American politics...
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  418. I'm a bit confused: Thom talks about "Judge-made law" and "Supreme-court-made law", which makes absolutely no sense! Even in the silly, crazy, off-the-rocker US the courts are only supposed to arbitrate the law as determined by Congress. If the courts e.g. find a new piece of legislation not in compliance with the Constitution, all that happens is that Congress has to address and correct the faults found by the courts. Revised laws will be passed, and woe betide any Supreme Court Justices that continue defy the lawmakers. In the Lunatic States of America, the dysfunctional Congress supposedly makes the laws, e.g. the House of Representatives passes a law bill but the incredibly corrupt McConnell-controlled Senate ensures that no sensible, population-oriented laws have actually been passed and ratified for a decade or two. The only laws passing the Senate under McConnell during the last 1-2 years have been of the billionaire-oriented tax breaks or "rape-the-environment-as-you like" variety. Still, laws are supposedly passed by Congress (the Legislative branch), enforced by the Executive branch (the Presidential figurehead) and arbitrated by the now-obviously-corrupt Judiciary branch. In the last few decades, the US Supreme Court has made decisions that ignore the needs of the general US population, undermines the rights of ordinary citizens and serve the purpose of corporations and the very rich! The very definition of corruption! A real "let them eat cake!" moment"! The last time that happened, the Guillotine was invented and used effectively! This will end in a bloodbath, and Supreme Court Justices will NOT be exempt! Imagine revolution Guillotine moments!
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  419. What is the difference between belittling someone and attacking someone? Pelosi is only belittling "the Squad", not outright attacking. Why? Pelosi is afraid, she sees the potential writing on the wall for herself and other corporate Democrats. Pelosi desperately wants to rein "the Squad" into the fold, to have them submit to the traditional methods of The Party subjugating new and unwanted members and having them toe the party line. I predict she is not only going to be unsuccessful in that, but there will be a lot more Justice Democrats and a lot fewer Corporate Democrats in both the House and the Senate after the 2020 election.
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  420. Sitting halfway between "Madhouse 'Murica" and Mainland Europe (Iceland) I find this kind of discussion really depressing. My country is around #12-13 in the "guns pr. capita" race (32 guns pr. 100 people vs. the 120 guns pr. 100 people in 'Murica), but gun deaths are extremely rare, far more newsworthy than, say, a volcanic eruption. Of all the things that might kill you in Iceland (stupidity if you are a tourist, landslides, avalanches, crazy weather etc.), gunfire is on par with being hit by a meteor!
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  421. She is not giving the Repugnicans a bad name, they are managing very well on their own, thank you very much! She is just the icing on the Repugnican cake.
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  422. @DS C, I totally agree, and you correctly paint a broader picture where the company safety and maintenance culture appears to be at fault. What boggles my mind is the fact that Boeing, Airbus and other systems designers have apparently not provided a "sanity check" algorithm that can highlight to the pilots exactly WHICH of the multitude of available sensor inputs are not consistent with what the majority of the other inputs are providing.
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  423. How disgustingly hypocritical can your 'Murican politicians get? This really takes the cake!
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  424. Thom, dream on! While the greedy run your country, the average 'Murican will suffer. The final line of the US national anthem should really be "the land of the greedy and the home of the poor"
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  425. JFK had this knack of breaking down the astronomical economic numbers into "household values" - a $X billion change in tax relief/increase actually meant $X thousand per household - values the general public could understand and relate to. Remember, any politician that spouts astronomical economy numbers is simply trying to mislead you, the taxpayer.
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  426. Icelander here: I'm glad that you feel at home here and that are now an Icelandic citizen. You will find bigots and racists everywhere but the color of your skin is , at best, a curiosity here. If you can get by in Icelandic (don't be shy about it, just flaunt it!), just say something in not-perfect Icelandic, and the ice is broken - you are one of us!
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  427. As a retired pilot i have encountered moderate wake turbulence during my career, which made me wonder what would be the best way to react if you suddenly find yourself rolling uncontrollably after takeoff or shortly before landing, and devised an escape theory that I fortunately have never had to resort to. Still, I would like to run it past you: If you find yourself suddenly starting to roll, you will instinctively counter with full opposing aileron. If that is not enough, pull carefully back on the yoke to get out of the core of the vortex. Even if you have already rolled 90° you have a good chance of escaping the core sideways, which would be better than rolling inverted and going straight into the ground. Obviously you are at a critical stage, with your airspeed down to Vs x 1.3 so you have to use the elevator gently, but if you manage to escape the center of the vortex core the roll rate should decrease dramatically and your aileron input has a much better chance of coping with the roll rate. Untried, but food for thought...
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  428. We can argue ad infinitum about how long past digressions should be pursued, especially given how the "sexual abuse" yardstick has drastically changed in just one decade. Then again, the presidential candidate in question is actually running in 2020 and should be judged by current expectations in this regard. Once a creep, always a creep? Certainly! Given what the US nation has had to endure during the last 3 years, the bar should be set really, REALLY high. If a scandal disqualifies Biden, so be it - he is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer anyway (except in the eyes of his Corporate Democrap Owners). Any one of the Democrat candidates could easily revive their candidacy, be it Bernie, Warren or whoever that still might have some fire in their belly...
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  429.  @gibbs677bg how, how true! Perhaps they have been better at hiding it, but there have been glaring cases. It is hard for the US to cast stones, seeing that they live in a glass house.
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  430. Young Cassidy, a conservative, has a conscience and a moral backbone sorely lacking in other conservatives. An admirable and intelligent young woman. I cannot help wondering if she has been rendered less conservative by her experience, or if she still thinks the right-wing policies are the only way to go. As a citizen of a Nordic country I subscribe to the idea of Controlled Capitalism AND Social Safety Nets that has served my part of the world admirably for generations. The current 'Murican "Conservative" mindset feels like a mental disease to me.
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  431. This particular mother may not be willing to use pictures of her dead and mutilated child's body to bring home to ordinary 'Muricans the reality of what military-grade weapons do to the human body, but there may be other mothers or relatives willing to do so in the hope of bringing about a change. The casual attitude of 'Muricans towards what kind of weapons should be allowed on the streets of a supposedly civilized nation is taking a heavy toll.
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  432. I have an 'aaa' speech impediment 'aaa' that 'aaa' prevents me from 'aaa' imparting any meaningful 'aaa' information 'aaa'...
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  433. Fatal attrition (rather than "herd immunity") was probably the final solution to pandemics in centuries past, when humanity had no idea what was cause and what was effect. We are SUPPOSED to know better in this day and age.
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  434. I worked for a year in Aberdeen, Scotland (I'm from Iceland where we drive on the left side of the road). I found it surprisingly easy to drive on the "wrong" side of the road, as long as the car had the steering wheel on the "wrong" side as well! You just mirror everything... Surprisingly, the min problem I ran into was entering the car on the right (wrong for me) side: This is the passenger side where I come from and I found out, the hard way, that entering left foot first as usual invariably wedged my leg under the steering wheel! I had never realized how we enter the left/right front seats of a small car differently. On the steering side it is arse first, then the feet, on the passenger side it is one foot first, then the arse, followed by the remaining foot. This becomes so automatic that we do not even notice until we "change sides" and run into the problem I did.
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  435. What a pointless exercise, "interviewing" someone that thinks that repeating the same lies again and again, like a broken record, is going to convince anyone with more than two brain cells.
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  436. In the case of the Nazis, they STARTED out with concentration camps, some of which were turned into extermination camps as the war went on. The US put US citizens of Japanese ethnicity in concentration camps during the same period, but did NOT turn them into extermination camps. You see, the US of our grandparent's era had a different sense of morality, which seems to be missing in a scarily large part of the US population today. Give Trump and his cohorts a few more years and watch what happens...
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  437. Thom is absolutely correct. The Nordic nations are a prime example of high equality and low crime - and so is most of Northern Europe.
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  438. Can you IMAGINE the price-gouging that will ensue when the private profiteering companies finally get in on the COVID-19 testing racket?
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  439. Ever since she burst on to the political scene, AOC has done EVERYTHING right! She is consistent and seems to have a knack for politely humiliating her right-wing detractors whenever they throw shit her way. I see this 'stunt' at an elite event as her politely giving the jet-set the finger. My admiration for this pretty and immensely smart girl is off the scale!
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  440. The US wants to topple governments in other countries, even by violence if nothing else works. At the same time, they are blowing their top over non-violent Russian meddling in their own elections. Hypocrisy does not even BEGIN to describe this nonsense.
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  441. Considering all the issues the US needs to tackle according to Bernie's plans I feel fortunate to live in a country that enjoys 100% renewable energy except for transportation (cars, ships & planes) and emergency power (we do have occasional but temporary rural power outages due to crazy winter weathers in a sparsely populated country). We also have affordable health care, education and an acceptable social security net (despite our right-wing politicians pecking away at it all for decades). We spend NOTHING on war-making abilities (we have no military), which might be why we are able to afford it all... While I currently feel sorry for US American people given the mess their corrupt politicians have created during the last 40 years, I admire them for many of their achievements. Your best hope is one old man (Bernie) and those that will inherit the mess - your youth are voters of the future, and they will hopefully take over in time.
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  442. So, 'Murica is sinking into it's own - I believe the least offensive phrase is 'manure'. What else is new?
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  443. I imagine the attitude in the ICU must be similar to the attitude of the flight crew of an airliner going down in a dire emergency: We'll keep trying to the bitter end!
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  444. Greg hinted at an old aviation saying: "If you think Safety is expensive, just wait until you have an accident" - let a lone a string of them, the root cause usually ending up being lax quality control. Numerous Boeing whistleblowers have even told about quality checks being discontinued or outright eliminated! Greed is doing to Boeing what Dementia does to some old people.
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  445. One thing is clear: The vast majority of "Developed Western Nations" have broadly agreed on a norm to follow regarding governance and society: Equality, Fraternity and Liberty (a French idea!). When WW2 ended, the main role model was the US - and most European nations followed that model and actually kept on improving on an excellent idea! What you have today is the post-WW2 US-inspired social-democratic model that is extremely successful in Europe today, with the north-European and Nordic countries leading the way. It is a real pity that the US converted into 'Murica and is now heading for the toilet, rapidly becoming a dystopian area. Frankly, when a non-'Murican like myself (strict gun laws!) starts dreaming about AR15-treated SCOTUS justices with glee (brains blown out etc.), the rot is REALLY spreading!
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  446. A horribly inept driver, driving far beyond his meager capabilities! His license should be yanked, at a minimum. The dash-cam immediately prior to the accident verified that. Here I was, thinking that police officers were TRAINED to drive in unusual conditions, but obviously I was wrong.
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  447. Hohoho - someone REALLY does not like facing some truths!
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  448. Trump has never come across as a coherent person, but now he comes across as a rambling and seriously incoherent idiot!
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  449. I suspect that Zelensky's reply "I don't need a ride, I need ammunition" will end up as a historical quote, right beside Churchill's "We will fight them on he beaches" quote - only shorter, more succinct. Zelenskyy is a master of communications! He has directly addressed the ruling bodies of most western nations, and done so masterfully. He addressed the parliament of my own tiny and inconsequential nation (Iceland) and melted our collective hearts. The number of current Ukrainian refugees is now 0.7% of the population of Iceland, a tiny number in the big scheme of things, but we are doing our level best to help our visitors in their difficult situation. We fully expect most of them to be eager to return to rebuild Ukraine when the nonsense is over, but anyone that wants to remain will be welcome to do so.
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  450. Is it any wonder I am relieved that I am NOT an US American! I am safely born, raised and ensconced in one of the Nordic countries. My country has one of the highest per-capita diagnosed COVID-19 cases, but that is simply because we have been testing like crazy from day one. Today (March 27, 2020) we have tested around 4% of our entire population! We are NOT being caught flat-footed like the US.
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  451. This particular confrontation turned rude and escalating, which admittedly rubbed me the wrong way. The flip side: This is exactly like so many cop/citizen encounters we see on YouTube, where the the bloody cops are the ones being rude, arrogant and the ones to escalate the situation - sometimes to the point of an unwarranted and often fatal police shooting. What is mind-boggling is the fact that the vast majority of US police officers are fair-minded, proper protect-and-serve individuals that STILL tend to cover up for the tiny minority of "rotten-apple" cops that are the cause of all the bad-cop controversy. Are the good cops masochists at heart? Why do they accept the harm being done by bad cops? The uniformed officer in this clip is obviously one of the 99%, a sensible person that somehow manages to quietly defuse the situation.
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  452. I have a feeling that we Icelanders are more calm about this than the media, especially media abroad. Of course we are used to this and reap the benefits most of the time (geothermal energy). We are now experiencing the downside of this resource and we are in for a couple of centuries of "interesting times" with eruptions at least every 10 to 30 years, given "recent" geologic history (last 800-1000 years). The initial burst of eruptions every years is probably just Mother Nature being a bit frisky at this stage. Our scientists seem to be on top of the problem to the extent that we know more or less what is coming and have time to get out of the way and prepare to the extent possible - at least no one has been hurt so far, and our safety nets will be able to support those that are uprooted.
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  453. The Surfside collapse is probably only the first domino to fall in the horrible cesspool of neglect that is the Florida building codes. This disaster just might prevent similar disasters - increased scrutiny of neglected structures is bound to ensure evacuation of just-about-to-collapse buildings before similarly devastating loss-of-life events are repeated. The flip side: Writing off a sizeable portion of Florida buildings will be devastating for the Florida economy - and deservedly so!
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  454. I Googled MTG and found that she has 3 children. My heart goes out to the poor kids, having a mentally disturbed mother.
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  455. The mere fact that you are discussing this absurd nonsense as if it were plausible and possibly normal is solid proof that Trump is about to win - he has managed to normalize behavior that 4 years ago would have blown the top of every Democrat AND Republican in sight! Now, this absurdity is considered NORMAL! You, the formerly United States of America are about to become history. You will have a brief flash-in-the-pan fascist/neo-nazi period which will be very painful for the rest of the world because of your current military might, especially for your neighbors, but the rest of the world will unite against you, the way things are going. Remember what happened to Hitler's Germany, you are starting down that road, full tilt!
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  456. This will cause a drastic reduction in the number of bases abroad. The upside: Great monetary savings for the US. The downside: In this, Trump is doing Putin's bidding by drastically reducing US influence around the world.
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  457. What about the people that bribed these judges in the first place? Bribing politicians may be legal now in 'Murica, but bribing judges? Were there no consequences for those individuals?
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  458. Am I understanding this correctly: The old US Anti-Trust laws are still on the books, still enforceable laws, only a Rabid Right-Winger (Ronald bloody Reagan) simply told the relevant institutions and authorities to STOP ENFORCING THEM? It that is the case, why has no successive president simply started enforcing them again? There is a massive black hole in this big picture that makes no sense. If the anti-trust laws that served 'Murica fairly well until 1980 were never abolished, all you have to do is to enforce them and punish all the CEO's that have been breaking them for more than 40 years! 'Murica has a weird sense of "Law ans Order", it seems.
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  459.  Willa Belle , we non-Americans sit and watch, with morbid fascination, how you are allowing your beloved country to be dismantled before your very eyes. The US has always had A LOT going for it, something that started falling apart with the advent of Ronald Reagan. The latest debacle is the free-for-all, die-for-all policy that makes the rest of the world wonder about the general sanity of the US government. I am a member of one of the "happy" Nordic countries - a blatant lie, we are merely content, not necessarily outright "happy". Part of being content is felling SAFE - with the exception of Sweden that went on an unexpected Coronavirus Rally Ride, the Nordic countries have securely handled the first wave of the virus. We are cautiously opening our borders - in my own country's case by demanding testing or quarantining of all arriving travelers (free of course for the first couple of weeks, this is a public health problem after all, to be paid by the public!). You poor US Americans are simply worrying about being shot dead by your own police - or by your own neighbors. All this without even beginning to worry about the pandemic and the woefully inadequate response by your authorities. What a terrifying environment to live in! Y'all have my deepest condolences...
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  460. Al the nations bordering the Baltic sea and around Europe in general (except the culprits, Russia and China, of course) should establish laws that impose harsh punishments for vessels and officers that cause "accidental" damage to undersea cables anywhere. The minimum would be the instant confiscation of the vessel in question and harsh punishment for ALL officers of said vessels. Add to that harsh punishments to the owners of the vessels as well by, say, banning ALL vessels owned by them from operating in European waters for a long time (a decade?).
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  461. Trump has gained at least one thing from his tenure as a president: He has learned to READ again (after a fashion), at least from a teleprompter. Without a teleprompter and a pre-written speech, he is still unable to put together a coherent sentence. And this the individual that almost 1/3rd of 'Muricans want to re-elect as their leader! Go figure...
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  462. It is too depressing, watching how deep US politics have sunk. I have to give up watching.
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  463. Is party blacklisting a sign of free democracy?
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  464. This is what you get when you have a political system that is up-front open to bribery. Sure, they have arranged the rules so that most of the bribery is, strictly speaking, legal - but the end result is the same: A thoroughly corrupt system.
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  465. Are the FBI agents that enabled the creep Nasser to continue his abuse REALLY getting away with their gross dereliction of duty? According to the news they have only lost their job, when they should have been prosecuted and punished severely. By not handing these agent to prosecutors, the FBI is earning a gigantic blot on their reputation and showing that the institution has probably not improve much since the infamy of the Herbert Hoover era.
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  466. A serious mistake Thom: Mixing up Allende and Pinochet, and saying Allende was the fascist and counting Piochet's atrocities as Allende's - and then you almost did it a second time, but caught it just in time. Please take care to avoid such tongue-slips!
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  467. In 'Murica, having a child costs about $10K, charged by the "Health Care" industry, and raising a kid is EXPENSIVE (beginning with child care & education), not to mention absolutely terrifying, what with the danger of abduction or the kid being killed in a school shooting. Add to that the fact that the child will grow up in a society where everyone that could not afford to have a good education will have to work 2-3 jobs to survive! No wonder people are "selfish". In Europe the Health Care part is virtually free, not to mention the affordability of e.g. kindergarten and education through university level. Add to that the fact that, at least in North Europe, societies are so safe that babies are securely left sleeping in their strollers e.g. outside cafes while the parents relax over a cup of Cappuccino.
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  468.  @josephwallace8875 , you are correct - I don't love 'Murica (US America, while I like and respect e.g. Canadian America). I actually USED to admire the USA decades ago, but you are going downhill so fast that there has been little to admire for a long time. Just to clarify: I admire most of the US population and your constitution, it is the corrupt bought-and-paid-for and perverted political system that I find despicable. Your best hope for a future lies in young progressives like AOC and other Justice Democrats.
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  469. While no one has been able to connect the Saudi Authorities with 9/11, it is an inescapable fact that the major players were Saudi nationals - and the Kashoggi assassination was purebred Saudi. Naturally the Saudis have always been worried sick that the whole thing will explode in their faces (which it probably will one day). "Nip it in the bud by any means possible" has always been their go-to approach.
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  470. Lovely. Allow ignorant Repugnicans to drown in their own ignorance!
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  471.  @user-pv7vc9kp9k , Iceland is the most 'Muricanized and least "uncorrupt" of the Nordic countries (sorry if that offends anyone), we are a tiny nation (only 360K), we have no military and are the most lightweight of the Nordics. Make no mistake, we have our share of pride for all that - but we still are the diaper-wearing infant in the Nordic family, in my opinion.
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  472. The label put on any given method of governance is meaningless. The results are what matters. The US has been running on unbridled capitalism for decades, at least since at least the Reagan era, and just look at the results. The USSR ran authoritarianism under the communist label, and just where did THAT end? North Europe, especially the Nordic countries, have been running under a rather misleading "social democracy" label. What they have is mixed economies, where capitalists have a lot of freedom while governments have taken care to rein them in to the extent that the general population is doing FAR better than the US population. The irony is that the US actually pioneered many, if not most of the ides Europe is using now. European countries have developed and evolved these ideas with varying success between nations, but the fact remains that European populations, especially in Norther Europe, are vastly better off than the population of the US.
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  473. I bet he was, deep down, utterly TERRIFIED! He is close to running almost more than a century of Boeing excellence into the ground, and he must be aware of how his money-first actions have compromised the safety culture at Boeing. I am confident that Being will survive - a better company, if a bit battered, but he will not.
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  474. Duffy is the embodiment of how disconnected the Republicans are from the actual needs of the US population - Republicans just want to follow their beloved leader into the abyss.
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  475. US Americans keep insisting "this is not what we are", but surprise, surprise, this is EXACTLY what the US is becoming.
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  476. Southwest staff probably did not latch the cowling properly and the flight crew crew must have missed it on their preflight walkaround. Chances are that for once Boeing is not at fault.
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  477. Never mind getting the worst historical polluters (us, the developed nations) paying for damages already and inexorably underway. Just getting the worst polluters to genuinely TRY to stop polluting would be a major first step, a step too few nations seem willing to even try taking. The whole issue is likely to be drowned in pointless arguments over whether huge nations that have spewed out the vast majority of pollution for the past 2 centuries are to blame, or whether to focus on the worst "current" offenders, i.e. rather small nations that pollute more than others now pr. person, but whose total pollution is insignificant in the grander scheme of things. Countries like New Zealand, Iceland and Greenland may have a significant CO2 footprint pr. person but, being small, even tiny nations in large territories, our footprint per area of territory is minuscule! A better frame of reference is called for. How about a "CO2 pollution pr. person pr. distance traveled"? A poor African that has to walk wherever he/she goes is definitely not polluting as much as an overweight 'Murican, traveling alone in his/her 250hp, 2.5ton truck.
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  478. I used to purchase this and that on the Internet via Amazon. After a lot of aggravation (e.g. ordering 5 paperbacks and expecting a single shipment, but ending up with 5 separate shipment, each with the shipping and customs charges I expected to pay for a single shipment) I am voting out Amazon with my Credit Card: I have simply stopped ordering through Amazon! Buying something via other channels may, on the face of it, be slightly more expensive, but overall I save quite a bit of money by not, repeat NOT using Amazon. Besides, with all the evidence coming out about Amazon's crooked and monopolistic business practices, I feel a lot better.
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  479. What is the most common description of a Trump voter/supporter on the dating market? They call themselves INCELS (Involuntary Celibates) - meaning the no sensible female wants to have anything to do with them. A truth generally acknowledged.... A woman that wants every male to "rush to open doors" etc. is a woman that does not have or even WANT any semblance of gender equality. Good for them, but why do they want to impose that world view on other women (especially the independent, self-sufficient and confident kind)? The 'Murican right-wing INCELS would have a horrible time trying to impress any independent, self-sufficient and confident Nordic woman.
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  480. The rest of the world watches with morbid fascination how the US is ripping itself apart in order to appease the greed of relatively few individuals. If the US as a whole is bad, Texas is at the top of the steaming dung-heap.
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  481. There is a significant error in talking about "Pitchfork Economics" - in a country awash with guns, people rising up will simply reach for their guns. Modern Americans probably do not even know what a pitchfork looks like.
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  482. Listening to Kellyanne Conway being interviewed is EXHAUSTING. Only on rare occasions am I able to endure an entire interview and had to force myself to listen through this entire interview. Maybe I should use Tom Haflinger's trick an view this kind of stuff at x2 speed...
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  483. The US is 66 times larger than New Zealand, population-wise. NZ's 22 deaths would translate to just 1452 deaths in the US, given the same death rate pr. capita as NZ. The US deaths are now nearing 172000, which means the US death rate pr. capita is almost 120 than that of NZ, a country run by competent people. True, NZ is an island, which helps a lot, but still...
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  484. I live in a county and culture that is the polar opposite to these (or any) religious shenanigans. Sexuality is part of life, something we always have to live with. Beginning a potential relationship with an "initial compatibility test" is the norm, not an exception: Boy meets girl, there is mutual attraction (and some alcohol) involved. The natural course is a shag (a GOOD shag is not even an expectation, with all the alcohol involved). The important bit: If there is still attraction remaining in the morning, contact details will be exchanged and, well, let's take it from there. Perhaps not an auspicious beginning, but a HELL of a lot better than something arranged by the strictures of the Bible - or the Quran, or any other religious nonsense!
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  485. Is Amy Coney Barrett even human? The vast majority of mankind has at least SOME capacity for compassion for their fellow human beings and at least some animals, this twisted soul obviously has none. She and Trump appear to share that character flaw.
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  486. Chief Justice Roberts is a Republican. That alone casts doubt on anything he says - please bear in mind how disingenuous and void of true morals 99% of Republicans have been in recent decades. They care more about corporate entities than their fellow human beings, and they are now being instrumental in the disintegration and upcoming downfall of the US. One would LIKE to believe the words of the Chief Justice, but one cannot at this point in time. If his future decisions are in favor of his fellow citizens, not corporate entities, he may redeem himself in future. Only time will tell.
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  487. I wonder just at what stage 'Muricans face the fact that they have become an under-developed country, lagging behind other western countries by just about every metric - except perhaps regarding military madness. 'Murica is going downhill FAST!
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  488. Thom, why are many of your clips so obviously sabotaged? It was only halfway in that it started running normally.
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  489. At the end of this clip, a young woman was fervently pro-life, if a fetus has started growing it should be allowed to term, even if the mother had all kinds of reasons to terminate the pregnancy, be it inability to care for the child, it is a result of rape or incest or even severe deformity the that will condemn the child to a lifetime of misery. Then, when asked about the responsibility of the society that is forcing potential mothers into such situations she flip-flops, her attitude is: If a parent "decides" to become a parent (the STATE decided she should become an unwilling parent!), it is the responsibility of that parent to take care of the rest. The hypocrisy this young Repugnican c****t exhibits is mind-blowing! Are ALL right-wing 'Muricans this disconnected from reality?
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  490. It is appalling how dysfunctional the US political system has become. EVERYTHING is locked in a stalemate, the only legislation passed is desperate emergency measures, and the executive branch is like a headless chicken: Flopping around, capable of enormous damage while dying. The whole thing is long overdue for an extensive upgrade.
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  491. Unfortunately the early "back-to-normal" countries (Denmark, Germany, Noway etc.) are having to reinstate stricter measures due to fast-increasing rise in infections among vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. The current suspect or cause: Immunity seems to decrease faster than expected, booster shots may be called for.
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  492. What a waste of time, trying to get this guy to answer simple (but embarrassing) questions.
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  493. Around 1/4 of the passengers on any flight will be male with the physical strength to assist in subduing a maniac like this, PROVIDED the maniac is not in possession of a dangerous weapon. The purpose of security check at airports is to prevent any passenger from bringing a seriously dangerous weapon on board. The cramped conditions in an airliner aisle is the biggest impediment in subduing someone, only 2-3 defenders can access the assailant at any given time. Rest assured, this is a serious offense and the penalties are high.
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  494. I loved the phrase Hannity used: "Democratic Socialists"! Hannity's ultimate Bogeyman, someone that wants true democracy with some social values thrown in.
    5
  495. Scott Grabins's audio is deliberately cut out. Why? What is the reason for this kind of censorship?
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  496. "We're out of the pandemic phase" does NOT mean "We're out of the pandemic" or "The pandemic is over"! I take the word "phase" to mean that the US is only one step further along this chain of events, and OF COURSE no one asked Dr. Fauci what that actually meant and what the next phase would be. There is no need to blow a gasket over semantics, and of course everyone should take appropriate preventive measures for quite a while to come.
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  497. Dershowitz is a master of lies and misdirection: An 'Murican lawyer, educated, trained and experienced to be one! That he is a pervert with an appetite for underage females is no surprise, what is unexpected how he has maintained an appetite for such perversion well into the old age he had obviously reached when caught "with his fingers in the cookie jar". The only way to maintain such libido well into his eighties calls for really serious hormone treatment! The late Berlusconi was a famous case, and Dershowitz is a likely contender for the octogenarian perversion prize - with the aid of sexual hormone tratment. No doubt his "massage" mentioned here had "a happy ending"...
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  498. The only country in the world, besides the US, that has debt limit is Denmark. There it is so high that the only time it had to be raised was after the 2008 crash, a one-off occurrence. Sensible people - which is more than can be said about 'Murica and it's politics.
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  499. The 'Politicians-legally-for-sale' situation was initiated by Ronald bloody Reagan and will be the final demise of the US. You are so far along this path to self-destruction that it will take a miracle to save you.
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  500. I really hope the "collapsing Cult" theory prevails. Anything else is too depressing to even contemplate.
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  501. Recurrent training is the key. You may be terrified, but if you have practiced what to do in a given situation you just DO it, no matter how frightened you are.
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  502. Sweden might be the only western country that the US can point to when trying to find something to hide behind when comparing miserable pandemic responses. Seeing that Sweden is NOT known for disregarding public safety and security, I think any member of the US public should not cast any stones just yet.
    5
  503. Elected US officials swear to uphold the US Constitution, NOT Trump, Republican Party OR Israel.
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  504. Over 10 years ago I spent a week in an ICU, in an induced coma. The following week, coming out of having had my brain pickled with drugs the previous week, I had a lot of ridiculous misconceptions and near-hallucinations that slowly faded away until I became normal again. I had a "Déjà vu" moment listening those reality-detached and deranged individuals.
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  505. Trump "taking" credit is not the same as "claiming" credit. The Orange Idiot Toddler can only try to blame his shortcomings on others (Obama, the Chinese, Never-Trumpers, take your pick) and CLAIM credit for actions he had nothing to do with.
    5
  506. A 10 minute clip about the definition of "woke" without once mentioning any of the actual dictionary definitions? This is quite a feat!
    5
  507. In this clip, Chris Cuomo is mostly interviewing himself...
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  508. For any European watching this only reinforces how dumbed-down 'Muricans have become! You value your billionaires more than your next-door neighbors, you have no empathy, you cherish greed and cruelty and you 'Muricans seem to be checking out of the human race! I predict a Mad-Max-like future for you, where the warlords with the most guns and ammo reign supreme. What en enlightening prospect...
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  509. The US is a country that has deteriorated to the point that it's Supreme Court has legalized political bribery and ordinary people cannot afford basic, decades-old treatment of well-known ailment like Diabetes because Big Pharma and Health Insurance corporations are allowed to price-gouge seriously ill people. This is nothing less than criminal in the eyes of the rest of the developed world, and the US is fast becoming a pariah among it's peer nations. The chances of legally fixing this absurd problem is virtually non-existing in the current, corrupt-but-legal system. Ordinarily, the "time of the pitchforks" would be nigh, but in a country awash with assault weapons pitchforks are outdated. WHEN (not if) the dam breaks, the result will be bloody...
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  510. This clip does not mention what the Norwegian SWF is doing about Tesla. They have the world's largest investment fund and have always been about morality and the climate. Is the Norwegian SWF dumping Tesla and anything to do with Musk? They likely are...
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  511.  @tiro0oO5 , deciding not to drive in unfamiliar and questionable conditions is NOT being a coward, it is being wise.
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  512.  @BorisArtemyev , yep - there is something that does not add up here, more info needed. Flying an ILS approach initially in visual conditions is helpful when you are many kilometers from the runway, to establish the heading and glidepath, but all ILS approaches end with a visual final approach and landing anyway. The question is why the approach was not stabilized (i.e. aircraft configured for landing and speed correct). Flight control problems, e.g. flaps? That will all be investigated in due course.
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  513. Seeing how revenge-based US American justice philosophy is, there are many former and current Trump administration officials that will be quietly taken aside and shot when this disaster is over and done with (or electrocuted or hanged or overdosed, take your pick) - but seeing how white-collar crimes rarely, if ever, result in any punishments, no one will be held accountable for the debacle about to hit the US - even if the death toll might reach Holocaust proportions when all is said and done.
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  514. So, the choice US voters have in November is creepy sexual predator Joe Biden or Really-Creepy sexual predator Donald J. Trump. If this kind of slander and digging-up-dirt campaigns have been the norm in the US, it is no wonder mos US citizens cannot be bothered to turn out to vote! Basically, seeing that Bernie has been sidelined, the US is royally and completely fucked. It will cease to be a superpower that anyone heeds or respects by 2025 and be a Mad-Max-type society by 2030, a NRA wet dream...
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  515. I do REALLY dislike when the concept "algorithm" is spun around and made to look a as an evil political viewpoint or policy. The "algorithm" is supposedly to blame, not the people that decide what the algorithm should actually be. The "algorithms" that YouTube and other social media platforms use are, in essence, the processes or rules the owners of YouTube or the other social media platforms have decided to use to control moderation. Blame the people that make these decisions, not the insensible pieces of computer code that are written to fulfill these decisions.
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  516. I wonder what happened to the "home of the BRAVE"? A flat tire on an aircraft like this is out of the ordinary, but far from being an actual emergency. As usual, to be absolutely on the safe side, an abnormality like a flat tire calls for full preparations at the destination airport...
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  517. The US has been industriously making permanent enemies among adversaries and allies alike for around 40 years! Do you REALLY think a slight and momentary gesture of humanity will change that? Repugnicans may have been the instigators of the actions that have earned this current global disgust with the US, but it will be ALL 'Muricans that will suffer this dislike and distrust for generations to come.
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  518. The best US "Patriots" foreign money can buy?
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  519. Politics are like dry rot, now infecting the judicial system all the way to the Supreme Court. Are we now watching the beginning of the end of the democratic experiment started by the founding of the USA?
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  520. I find it beyond weird, listening to a "nuclear specialist" that cannot even pronounce the word "nuclear" properly, but doggedly sticking to saying NUKULAR every time the term comes up.
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  521. AI is one of the new inventions of mankind that seems like a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler. It is a new tool that is certainly useful in the right hands, but can be a disaster in the wrong hands. When mankind invented devices that could travel very fast over the ground (train, cars) there ere many disasters. The same happened with devices that could do the same, high up in the air. We have learned to manage the worst of it, but we still have occasional (in-the-air) or even frequent (on-the-roads) disasters. We are just at the beginning of the AI learning curve and are currently on the steepest part of the Social Media learning curve. We will eventually learn how to manage the worst of our newest inventions, but there will be inevitable disasters along the way.
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  522. It is pretty clear what value we can place on "the word of honour of a British Officer", i.e. NONE! When the choice is between "honour" and "politics", British honour is as worthless as the promise of a junkie...
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  523. I wonder what the rabid 'Murican "patriots" would say if the useless 'Murican "mainstream media" had told them about Putin's recent declaration that the Alaska purchase is invalid (when the US bought the territory of Alaska from Russia for $7.2M in 1867 (about $125M in 2022, a really slick deal!). Putin is laying the groundwork for reclaiming Alaska! Hang on to your hats, here comes the chimney!
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  524. I am waiting for the moment when the military-industrial complex, in the interest of increased profits, wants to move production of US weapons to China! The final step would be to have China build the latest bombers, fighters, warships and ammunition, that would REALLY boost profits! I suspect that such a move would finally open the eyes of greedy US politicians to the fact that the end is near. As it is, any serious glitch in the global supply chain can and will strip the developed world of life-saving essentials in the blink of an eye, all thanks to thoughtless, greedy corporations. The current pandemic is merely exposing the glaring cracks in the structure of the current global model. Just imagine if e.g. China or India were to act in anger, on top of everything else!
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  525. In the US the POLICE arrest a child for having opinions! In a civilized country, a disruptive child would be handled by a) the school system or b) child care services, but in the US they call the cops!
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  526. This killer kid's life as a normal human being is officially over - as it should be. He will enter the horrible US penal system and any chance of him ever becoming human again will be gone. Another crazed killer created, as if there is not enough of them in the US already. One wonders what his parents think of this irredeemable situation. They must have had multiple opportunities to steer him right if they wanted to, but obviously they either failed or did not even bother. One also has to wonder how many OTHER misguided kids are out there, just waiting to follow Kyle Rittenhouse into oblivion...
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  527. I will never be able to identify with gay men, if only because I am as straight as they come and have only been interested in females in that regard. Lesbians, however, I can identify with, for obvious reasons. What makes no sense to me is why a relatively few religious fanatics should be able to dictate the lives of half of humanity (females) or certain minority groups (gays and non-whites), be it own-body autonomy of females or the sexual preferences of the 10% of humanity that does not have the same sexual preferences as I do! The most amiable, gentle and tolerant people I know are gay. They are few and far between
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  528. How do you describe colors to a blind person? How do you describe equality as we know it in the Nordic countries to 'Muricans? They are simply not equipped to understand or appreciate it. It is like taking someone from the middle of the Sahara, dump him into the Atlantic and expect him to know how to swim to shore! I am beginning to despair for 'Muricans!
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  529. Just move out of the US (north or east) and you will, instantly, experience a different world.
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  530. Iceland is windy and rainy - and erupty. We were quite well off with our fishing grounds when we started utilizing our abundant hydro-electrical potential. We also have exploited the geothermal potential where applicable, and our local electrical energy consumption is 100% renewable - with the exception of some remote areas that have standby diesel generators that step in when our crazy weather occasionally brings down the power lines. Iceland is a VERY sparsely populated country, with vast tracts of windy land where no one, not even birds, bother to live - prime land for windmills! This yet another resource that remains to be tapped, especially as hydroelectric power is perfect to balance the output variations inherent in wind energy.
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  531. What deranged individual decided that too-loud and useless background noise (isn't it called Muzak in 'Murica?) is a good idea in a documentary film? When you are trying to absorb information coming from someone with an accent, this deranged noise is REALLY not helpful!
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  532. THIS was interesting. More interesting is the fact that it took 27 years for this to become public. The next normal step would be for other journalists to shed more light on this story. Is it true, false or something in between? It is essential for the US nation to know the truth before "they" engineer the next war, wherever that may be.
    4
  533. Right-wingers seem to REALLY hate any and all kinds of anti-fascist sentiments. The logical conclusion is straightforward: Those right-wingers DO think of themselves as actual fascists and they cannot tolerate any criticism!
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  534. As a citizen of a Nordic country I am quite ignorant of all the racial issues now re-surfacing in the US. In my mind, any "Blackface sketch" was simply a tribute to the immense influence of blacks on US musical culture that has long gone global. Go back in time a little bit and you find that women had little or no rights, blacks were slaves and the "civilized" world (hah!) was very different from what it is now. There was even a time where the general (male) consensus was that women had small brains and teaching the to read at all would make these small brains overheat and they would be rendered unfit for both breeding and serving their male superiors. Look around in any university today and hang your head in shame: Women are outperforming men in just about every academic field! My point: Punishing people for simply following whatever misguided custom that was common in their youth is stupid. "Blackface" was probably as common in masquerades as, say, Tin Men or Scarecrows and any racial element was probably unintentional. If a mature person does not behave or talk like a racist today, that person is almost certainly not a genuine racist EVEN IF they happened to wear a Blackface costume at a masquerade when they were 17. One sure way of creating new racists is to blame everyone in sight of being racist at the slightest provocation. Believe what people do and say NOW, do not judge them on whatever imagined transgressions they might have committed in their unformed youth.
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  535. Brilliant idea! "Save" the children of rich people from the scourge of laziness by NOT giving them money for free via inheritance. That kinda puts the Repugnican "money for free" argument to bed, once and for all.
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  536. Cassidy Hutchinson is a rare creature: A Republican with a conscience and a moral backbone. You 'Muricans should have more of those!
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  537. Even a fleeting thought of allowing Putin to gain an inch of ground in this illegal war cannot be entertained. If Putin gains even a bit of ground, followed by a peace agreement, he will only start correcting the failings and the corruption within the Russian military and then, within a decade, he will gleefully break the "peace agreement" with a much better equipped and trained military (not to mention all his other corrupting wiles used in the meantime) - and the West will be in a far worse position. Putin MUST be squashed in this round of the "game" - as a bonus, the Russian nation might even be fit to be allowed to join access to the rest of the world in a decade or so.
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  538. Ehrm... Reverse engineering a fictional engine?
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  539. There is an old saying that is about not looking a gift horse in the mouth... As long as the donations are spread around, limited to the individual maximum, he can hardly be classified as a mega-donor. The point is, however, completely valid: The only trustworthy politicians in the future will be those that simply refuse to accept large or corporate donations - and are able to prove it!
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  540. For Ukrainians to temporarily "celebrate" western Christmas as an act of defiance is understandable, but it is very unlikely they will permanently ditch centuries of orthodox traditions just because they are Russian traditions as well. Ukrainians may be learning to hate Russia and anything Russian, but old traditions are resilient and have little to do with contemporary disputes.
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  541. So, the FBI has not always been a bunch of angels with shining halos - and the same can be said about the CIA. The FBI has been trying to reform since they got rid of Hoover and, on the face of it, are succeeding, but what about the CIA?
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  542. If you want examples of what social democracy does, look at the Nordic countries.
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  543. In my country we jokingly call big pickup trucks, flashy sports cars and limousines "penis enhancements" or "dick extensions". Having the need to show off in this manner is considered a bit pathetic, an attempt to compensate for other deficiencies. Anyone with genuine self-esteem and confidence, man or woman, will feel equally comfortable traveling from A to B in a Toyota Aygo or a Bugatti, after all, this is only a 4-wheel conveyance conveniently used to transport you from A to B! Now, being a bloke I have to admit that driving the Bugatti would be a lot more fun than the Aygo - does that mean I might have a small dick?
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  544. I live in a tiny Nordic country, and fortunately we rarely meet the caliber of arrogant 'Muricans that you are describing. My SWAG (Silly, Wild-Arsed Guess) is that the US citizens that visit my country (Iceland) are the better-informed, more adventurous and less-demanding individuals of your nation that bother to travel at all. You understandably focus on the racial elements that are so prevalent in 'Murican life, but we only have to consider the FREEDOM of NOT having to worry about getting sick and needing health care, it is prepaid (not free, but very affordable) in our country. Education is the same in my country - if you want to (and are qualified) to attend university, the only cost you have to worry about is the cost of housing and feeding yourself if you do not live in a town that has a university, and we actually have very affordable student loans for that. The color of the skin of anyone is irrelevant!
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  545. I especially loved his quip about the fact that it's been many years since he has seen a Norwegian coming to the US to get a green card.
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  546.  @CHEESYhairyGASH , as far as I know, all the static ports were fine so, yes, the altimeters and vertical speed indicators would have been working. Aircraft of this size normally have at least 3 pitot tubes, one for the Captain's airspeed indicator (ASI), one for the Copilot and one for the Air Data Computer/Autopilot. Apparently only one ASI did not work, and the Captain fixated on it, ignoring everything else. Mind you, it has been a long time since I reviewed this case in CRM training, my recall is probably a bit fuzzy by now.
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  547. He may have been virtually illiterate when he became president but now he has actually practiced how to stumble haltingly through relatively simple teleprompter texts. What a beacon of intellect!
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  548. Thom stated that Ronald Bloody Reagan managed to get the US judicial system to stop enforcing the anti-monopoly laws, but did not actually abolish them. Question: Is this really true? Does the US still have anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws on the books that are simply not being enforced? Can someone out there verify or debunk this?
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  549. With motivated youths like this, the US has a hope for a brighter future. They are bound to revive true democracy there!
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  550. With such brilliant minds in the Congress majority, is it any wonder the US is a mess? An idiot like this can ask question that even the wisest cannot answer.
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  551. Perhaps because he always ridicules Putin and his minion Trump? Those are rather massive hints. One has to wonder if you really are "of a sound mind".
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  552. I like this one: Trumptanic, the vessel on which rabid Repugnicans are fighting for the best-view deck chairs to watch their own demise.
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  553. We Icelanders are pretty chill about this as it is, after all, what we are used to. Educated interpretations of our volcanic history indicate the we are in for some interesting times for the next 2-3 centuries, the last time something similar happened was 800 years ago, and that one lased more than a couple of centuries. I seem to recall that there were over 30 eruptions recorded then (eruption rate of approximately one eruption every 8-12 years). We have now had 4 eruptions in 3 years, so this round seems to be starting with a bang. There is always the possibility of an eruption & associated lava flows popping up REALLY close to densely populated areas. Places like Hafnafjörður (just south of Reykjavik) is literally built on an extensive old lava field. I live in the West Fjords and over 25 years ago the people in the Reykjavik area were rightly ridiculing us for the idiocy of building our towns in avalanche-risk areas, but we are having the last laugh: Now we can ridicule them for building their towns on top of an active volcano!
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  554. The shame of electing an incompetent toddler like Trump for their highest office has permanently delegated the US to the dustbin of history. The problem: The US has been so influential, powerful and trend-setting for over 70 years that the change will be a devastating shock to the rest of the world. Even more devastating: The future leaders might be China or (god forbid) Putin's Russia.
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  555. No surprises, George Santos is just following the Trump example of lying shamelessly at every turn. Apparently his most likely serious problem might be having used illegally obtained funds for his election campaign. Those supplying said funds will also be on the hook. The integrity of the GOP (or lack thereof) is exemplary! Sleazy seems to be the name of the game.
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  556. The question regarding US credibility around the world: In the era of Trump, it is non-existent. Before the Trump era, shaky at best. The way Trump has been shedding former US allies recently, even the staunchest of them have been retreating in haste. Putin is most likely orchestrating the entire thing, but where he is mistaken is the fact that undermining the US to the point of ridicule will backfire seriously. What nation would EVER want to ally itself with a snake like Putin?
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  557. Brilliant move! An extreme bill emerges; Stick an amendment that is virtually a copy of the extrememety, only in the opposite direction! It exposes how ridiculous the original bill actually is!
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  558. Jayar mentioned "The law in 'Murica, the best in the world"? A judicial environment where WHO APPOINTED THE JUDGE seems to matter more than the actual letter of the law of the land? Pardon me if I am a bit skeptical about "the best in the world" bit". 'Muricans really need to sit back and consider what is happening to their country. Repeatedly SAYING something is the best does not cut it, especially seeing that your country is clearly falling apart around you, and all in plain sight of everyone outside 'Murica.
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  559. Having for most of my life admired America and everything 'Murican, I am seriously disillusioned these days! I have a morbid interest in how the US is disintegrating, with racial issues being decisive factors. Listening to the interview with Prof. John A. Powell left me perplexed - I hardly comprehended a word he said! English may only be my third language, but I pride myself with being fairly competent. Even so, this particular word salad was beyond me. Is he trying to impress one particular group of people or is he simply disconnected from the plight of everyday minority-race Americans? Whatever the reason, I found this particular interview particularly uninteresting. I may be unfamiliar with the history of US racism, but this left me uninterested...
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  560. A typical American Business Model: Establish an extremely profitable business (a nuclear power plant?) that will fill your coffers while skimping on any future safety issues. Then, when the shit hits the fan, make sure you have scurried the profits away to a secure off-shore location before you declare bankruptcy and leave the cleanup to future generations. Is it any wonder the US is going down the drain, and taking the rest of the world along for the ride?
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  561.  @TheLoreSeeker , I am of that generation (I'm 69), but I have lived all my life in a social-democratic country so I KNOW what it's like to live in the kind of society that AOC is fighting for. Affordable Health Care and Education has been a RIGHT in my country for decades, even if our right-wing politicians have been trying to Americanize these things, fortunately with limited success so far. All our energy is renewable (hydro & geothermal) so we only have to clean house regarding transportation. That should be relatively painless for us, compared to many other countries.
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  562. I cannot help feeling that the words "racist" and "racism" are being devalued by being overused. There are degrees of racism, and when these terms are continually being applied to mild or even suspected racism, their true meaning becomes diminished.
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  563. Immediate changes in local Maritime Law (Finland & Estonia) should be imminent. The first act should be to extend their maritime territory to the full international limit and close the courtesy "Innocent Passage lane" that Russia has been abusing so grossly. That would allow them to inspect every suspicious ship passing through, which is just a beginning.
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  564. The elaboration of how dysfunctional the US has become regarding the well-being of it's general population is depressing. As a citizen of one of the Nordic countries I really feel for you.
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  565. Good idea, BUT - does the US recognize the International Criminal Court in Hague?
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  566. @Night xin, the USSR was never about communism, it was simply a single-party dictatorship. Putin's Russia is similarly all about a mindless oligarchy that cannot survive without Western, money-laundering banks and offshore tax-havens. With a puppet like Trump, Putin and his cronies are just trying to consolidate that situation. When (not if) Trump is kicked out of office, Putin and his cronies are in deep shit...
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  567. If Republicans are not voted out of power in 2020 (and corporate democrats to a large extent, as well) the US, as we know it, will come to an end. It will be extremely painful, not only for the US and it's closest neighbors, but to the whole world. The forces that are currently dismantling the US will bring it on a path that will be eerily similar to the path Hitler took Germany in the thirties, the current concentration camps are a proof of that. Different groups will be hated and dehumanized in the process (mainly black and brown people), but Jews will also be persecuted, along with Muslims.
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  568. Who is the worst Karen? All of them! On second thought, the Rebel flag, hate-teaching woman might just take the cake - the Rebels lost the civil was a 155 years ago and there are still some stragglers like this woman who has probably been weaned on hate by their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents etc. What a pitiful existence! I am beginning to pity whoever has to live in the shithole country the US has become.
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  569. The west should already have started training experienced Ukrainians on Leopard 2's and F16's/F18's/Gripens/Rafaeles/Eurofighter - the equipment the west has already to fight Russia (and hopefully they have been doing so for months already). That way, Ukraine would be prepared when the Waffling Western Politicians finally faced the stark truth: The initial phases of WW3 have already started and supplying Ukraine with NATO-grade equipment should have started months ago!
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  570.  @kwd1253 , I was only pointing out that there is actually an oil-rich country that is not corrupt, I was not commenting on the 'Murican energy death spiral. What struck me is the fact that my written English is probably better that yours, and English is my THIRD language! Otherwise I agree with you: The US used to be a self-sufficient and inventive industrial powerhouse and the US population mostly lived a good, secure life. The beginning of your end began with Reagan, 40+ years ago. Why you allowed your greedy corporations to ship most of your industrial production abroad, to Taiwan and then China, really boggles the mind. What will they do next? Have your high-tech military equipment produced in China for increased profits?
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  571. This may be just a tiny sample of 'Muricans, but the ignorance and stupidity is staggering. The concept of "dumbing down the voters" suddenly takes on a very stark meaning. Can it be true that up to 1/4 of the 'Murican voters are THIS ignorant and THIS stupid?
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  572. This judge will go down in history as a sample case for corrupt right-wing, Klan-style "justice". Thom is right, the only way genuine justice might possibly prevail is by this ending up as an mistrial and the entire thing re-done without right wing corruption presiding over the trial. Left-wing corruption would be no better - what about an impartial judge?
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  573. Ana is a very patient woman when she waits while Cenk "goes off". I agree with almost everything Cenk is saying, but he is undeniably a bit silly when he "goes off" on his high-pitched, fast-talking rants, and even becomes unintelligible at times. He should do like Ana does, speak more evenly and clearly.
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  574. "We're all human" may be true for almost everyone, but NOT to US cops on a rabid power-crazed trip. Such individuals are exactly the type of "human" the allies executed wholesale after WW2.
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  575. Uniforms distinguish flight crews, i.e. makes them easy to identify and for that purpose they bloody well work! Most colleagues I have worked with recognize and accept that aspect of the uniform, but there are always the oddballs that literally preen in their uniforms and feel they really NEED such thing to elevate themselves. It is all about the IMAGE, not the content! I have found that they are usually NOT the most professional of my colleagues, they are more show than substance. Of course, once you ARE wearing a uniform, you must take care of it - keep it clean and crisp to the extent possible. A slovenly appearance is a hint that either you are a careless individual or your operator is in dire straits.
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  576. Years ago I was impressed with Nigel Farage's spot-on criticism of all that was wrong with the EU bureaucracy. Shortly thereafter I realized I had been led into a rabbit hole, and fortunately managed to climb out of it. I can only sympathize with all those that are stuck in similar bubbles, alternate realities, whatchamaycallit.
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  577. Yes, I keep wondering why no one has demanded the Bible (containing endless violence, incest an all kinds of sexual depravity) be banned!
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  578. While it is ridiculous to blame daily crime rates on whoever the sitting president is, it is near-certain that crime rates are directly linked to social inequality - just compare the crime rates in 'Murica, a country riddled with inequality, vs. crime rates in, say, the Nordic countries, where social equality is high. Seeing that e.g. unemployment rates and union participation actually HAVE measurably improved under Biden, it would be reasonable to expect crime rates to decrease to a degree that can actually be measured. To expect a dramatic decrease is not realistic, but how do we interpret the VERY noticeable recent reduction in crime rates where only barely measurable reductions would be expected? Is it possible that even modes reduction in social inequality could translate into significant reductions in crime rates? Any sane person would be likely to want to look into that possibility - which rules out Repugnicans, they DO NOT WANT reduced crime rates while Democrats are in power!
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  579. Just accepting "neoliberalism" as a viable idea is a death sentence. Just watch what is happening to the US - it is disintegrating before our very eyes, and strangely enough, at the hands of a severely retarded individual that is unable to even string together a simple coherent sentence in English! What does THAT simple fact say about the intellect of the general US voter?
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  580. Exasperation must be what the vast majority of US women must feel these days, when Repugnicans want to drag the entire nation kicking and screaming back to where they were a century ago. No wonder Francesca is pissed off! So are a lot of people around the world. You 'Murican girls are not alone being disgusted with right-wingers and outright Fascists.
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  581. I watched about 2/3 of the movie before I gave up, intending to collect myself before submitting to the rest. If Michael Moore appeared in this I failed to spot it, and the entire spiel is weird and confusing. True, we should take care to monitor and be critical of the environmental cost of e.g. manufacturing and eventually recycling all these new car batteries and other "green stuff" (windmills, solar panels, electronic etc.), but this movie seems to be trying to convince us that all this New Green Technology is, if anything, worse environmentally than the current status quo. I smell a huge, stinking fossil-fuel-funded RAT!
    4
  582. Brilliant video, Feli! My own language (Icelandic) is grammatically extremely similar to German and when, in my thirties, I absolutely HAD to communicate with an old German woman, I was astounded how the wee little bit of German I had learned 15 years earlier came solidly to the rescue.There is, however, a weird little quirk that ensures that I would have a hard time ever becoming fluent: In German and Icelandic, every object has a gender, is "der", "die" or "das" (this is what makes English easy: Everything is an "it" except males, females - and ships). For an Icelander speaking German (and I assume vice versa) this is a nightmare: In Icelandic, a pencil is masculine but feminine in German. This applies to almost everything - the floor, a table, a car - the genders seem to be randomly assigned in both languages.
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  583. Any judicial system that seriously considers ridiculous "see what you allowed me to do, it's all YOUR fault!" cases like this is seriously broken.
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  584.  @daffidavit , please note that I said only "most LIKELY quite competent". I agree with Sully that a pilot with a wet-ink license has no business being a first officer in an airliner full of passengers but the fact remains, sadly, that this still happens during pilot shortages. As I see it, the problem may not necessarily be competence, the problem may rather be that such a pilot is most likely an unknown entity when it comes to experiencing a crisis in the cockpit, real or perceived. Most pilots will perform well in their first crisis, but a few might simply fall apart. That fact is simply unknown until they experience their first crisis, whether it is real or perceived. Only experience (e.g. 1500hrs or more) will clear that up. I have flown with a number of 200+ hr copilots (on small turboprops), and I remember one that fell apart at the seams due to a minor fluctuation in a single engine instrument (Oil Temp, a parameter that does NOT fluctuate quickly - an almost definite instrument error). Not promising for his reaction to a real crisis.
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  585. She is brilliant, beautiful, eloquent, honest, logical and CONSISTENT! Now, a year and a half on, she really making a splash - and sticking consistently to the same message. AOC and her likes are the future hope of the US.
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  586. A silly question, I know: Why is American Football called FOOT-ball? In that particular sport, feet are only used to run like crazy, not to manipulate the ball (except in field goal attempts). Perfectly illogical!
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  587.  @vg7985 , you are missing a very important point: Trump does not care! He knows no shame! He will lie until he is blue in the face and if he is confronted with his lying he will simply change the subject. A lie exposed only calls for an even more fantastical lie. A normal person might resort to untruths to avoid embarrassing moments but will be eternally embarrassed if caught in said lie. Trump is NOT like that!
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  588. Apparently, a job in 'Murica entails selling your soul to the employer for little gain. The employer will try to weasel out of health care insurance obligations, expect employees to work when sick and provide substandard vacation time - all the while expecting the employee to be at their beck and call 24/7. This is simply modern-day slavery, and the concept of an attractive work-life balance is non-existent. Compare that to the European standard of at least 4-5 weeks of paid holidays, paid sick days when you are sick and extended parental leave - not to mention affordable universal health care and education! By all appearances, skilled 'Murican employees are voting with their feet...
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  589. The question was "offensive"? Aww-c'mon - 99% of US politics is absolutely offensive anyway, it's all about lying, digging up dirt, spinning and twisting statements out of context and we're even down to childish name-calling by the beloved Republican leader! Anyone that wants to even touch US politics e.g. by having opinions, let alone participating, HAS to develop a REALLY thick skin. I admire how AOC has been able to respond to offensive attacks without being offensive herself. She tends to use satire, not mud-slinging.
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  590. It does not matter if each individual within the infamous 1% gets what, to them, is only a little change. That is only a tiny fraction of the aid package and is irrelevant. The important point is to get financial relief to the 90% that REALLY need it.
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  591. The Couching Karen: Someone should have run to the Hair Styling aisle to grab a can of hairspray to shut up this awful and arrogant tub of lard.
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  592. Enjoy living in "the greatest country in the world".
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  593. "He golfs a lot, he's been doing that throughout his tenure, so why bother to criticize him for that?" - what a weird attitude to have. It's like saying "Trump may have had a big role in 100K US Americans dying due to the botched Covid-19 response, but that is just Trump being Trump, not something worth bitching about"! Trump apparently HAS succeeded in normalizing sick behavior. The US is obviously going to Hell in a handbasket - and TYT is enjoying the journey!
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  594. Ana brings up a really good question (around 3:45 into this segment): "Is this the inevitable outcome of getting older?", in short: Are we going to be like this when we get older? The answer is YES! I am approaching my seventies, and I frequently catch myself bemoaning the inevitable generation gap. Do I think the problem lies with me or the young people? A bit of both, I guess. We oldies become staid and resist change, youngsters are often too impulsive and rush into changing things. The important issue is the fact that the future belongs to the younger generations. We oldies can try to advise, but we should also strive for the wisdom to know when to step out of the way and let young people get on with the future!
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  595. Only morally crippled people would dream of punishing the children for whatever sins the parents may have committed by breaking US laws, especially if it is "only" a misdemeanor.
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  596. The fact that Trump might, in theory, be able to run for the US presidency from prison just goes to show how dysfunctional and unequal the US justice system actually is, seeing that people that have been in prison and served their time are not allowed to vote anymore! Apparently they are not allowed vote but they can run for any office they choose! If this came to pass (Trump winning the presidency from prison), the first thing he would obviously do would be to pardon himself from past and future crimes he has an will commit. How crazy is that?
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  597. I see a distinct difference between consummate health professionals like Dr. Fauci and political health professionals like the current Surgeon General, not that Dr. Murthy has been untruthful but his tiptoeing through issues is clear evidence that he is more political than professional. ´Muricans should be grateful that Dr. Fauci didn't at some stage throw in his towel with a "I've had enough of this nonsense" and stayed the course through thick and thin, through multiple presidencies. He is one of the US's saving graces. Dr. Fauci has been one of too few voices of reason over the last the two years in these Unhinged States of America.
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  598.  @louismartignoli6603 , just an observation: The US is not really spending any money on actual defense of the country, the money is spent on OFFENSE! What they call a "Defense Budget" is really an "Offense Budget".
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  599. Talking about WANTING to commit sedition is not actually committing sedition, so no crime has been committed - yet. His First Amendment rights were used, that is all. This goon would, however, probably need very little prompting to grab his guns and actually do the deed. The southern drawl, limited vocabulary and lack of teeth tells you all you need to know about this character.
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  600. The "bear poops in the wood" example is no doubt true, but likely only for isolated cases of fine-tuned ecosystems that have existed in symbiosis for millennia. Woods WILL grow without bears pooping or salmon swimming, they will just be a different kind of woods, a different ecosystem balance. The bear-poop woods example (and the penguin/krill example), however, illustrates how fine-tuned entire ecosystems can be and how little it can take to upend everything mankind has taken for granted. Biological life WILL go on in some form, but will we be able to adapt to the changes? People in the sub-Saharan areas are already dealing with similar problems, is it any wonder they are migrating?
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  601. You 'Muricans have allowed corporate/ultra-rich interests to literally brainwash you into believing that caring for your fellow citizens is COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM, something that will be the end of the world - AND you swallow it hook, line and sinker! Roosevelt proved that nonsense to be a lie in the 1930s and the Nordic countries are proving it today (most European countries, in fact). We are all in this together and the world is a far better place if we look out for each other. Affordable health care & education, not to mention a good work/life balance, a single job providing a living wage etc. If it means fewer billionaires, so what?
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  602. Greed, cruelty, deceit and broken promises were the mainstay in how the US dealt with the Natives. They finally won, simply by providing plenty of booze to a race that cannot tolerate alcohol. The US should hang it's head in shame...
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  603. If the US is going deeper into debt, at least use the money on the general public (affordable health care & education) instead of using it so rich people do not have to pay taxes.
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  604. Talk about hitting the nail squarely on the head: "There is no right way to do the wrong thing". The rest of what this parent had to say was equally hard-hitting AND ABSOLUTELY SPOT-ON. Absolutely brilliant!
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  605. This officer comes across as more or less clueless, trying to deflect and distract to buy time for an inept police force to find excuses. There is gossip about armed police milling about outside the school for almost one hour without engaging the shooter. If this turns out to be true, there will be hell to pay.
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  606.  @juniorgod321  , it will only take a generation or so. Rest assured, the fruits of your labors will DEFINITELY make the lives of your grandchildren miserable, your great-grandchildren will either suffer horribly or die soon after birth. What a legacy you leave behind...
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  607. One wonders: Which is more important to Thom Hartman - his Hard Breaks or the issues being uncovered?
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  608. The Finns may be quiet and easygoing on an everyday basis, but they are NOT to be messed with! They KNOW their incredibly dangerous and unpredictable neighbor to the east, Russia, and have been solidly preparing for an onslaught since WW2. Joining NATO is just another solid preparation - neutrality does NOT work when dealing with irresponsible aggressors like Putin's Russia and Xi's China. I have known and worked with Finns for decades and deeply admire and respect my fellow Nordic kin. They may be the quiet ones, but if a Finn actually contributes to a conversation, it is prudent to listen and heed their words!
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  609. As a citizen of one of the Nordic countries (Iceland) I feel REALLY sorry for the citizens of the madhouse you call 'Murica! In my country (and all the other Nordic countries) we are automatically registered to vote the day we reach the official voting age. All we have to to do on voting day (ALWAYS a general public holiday, usually a Saturday or a Sunday) is to look for the nearest polling station, show up and show ANY personal ID (passport, driver license, student ID, even a credit/debit card that has a photo ID). Waiting time? Anything beyond 10-15 minutes would cause a loud outrage! You see, we have FUNCTIONING democracy, not a flawed, even corrupt one like you do in 'Murica! I have voted for over half a century. Moreover, I have always seen it as a DUTY to vote every time! How else can I expect my society to hopefully function the way I want it to do? The infamous 'Murican voter apathy is beyond my comprehension!
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  610. One of her points really makes sense: The US "Department of Defense" should really be called the "Department of Offense"! As far as I know, the US has not had to defend it´s own territory since WW2 against the Japanese. All US military action after WW2 has been in other countries that have NOT been at war with the US and always to "protect" US interests, not to defend US territory.
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  611.  @sieuwkedevries5211 , as a "conspiracy" theory, this is more plausible than most. There IS an airport/industrial area at 50°28'30N (I suspect the 50°23'30N you refer to is a typo).
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  612. This guy is about 20-30 years behind Europe - and so is the rest of the US.
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  613. If US voters are stupid enough to re-elect Trump, they truly deserve the destruction of the US. America will be mostly fine. Neither Canadian America and Mexican America will go down with the US and, ironically, Central and South American might be even be better off in the long run because US meddling is likely to go down.
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  614. The impeachment inquiry should be broad, i.e. cover all (or at least most of the Trump violations), provided the work can be spread between committees. The time to decide which articles of impeachment should be brought forward comes AFTER the evidence has been uncovered and examined.
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  615.  @pepperjack8 , the only reason to bring up Iraq and Afghanistan is to bring the death toll into perspective. The scary part is that the powers-that-be in the US at any given time might get the idea that the wars they are losing might not be so bad, after all - why not start some more wars! Do not blame the US American people in general for the misdeeds of the US governments in this century, blame it on the leaders that have enabled this bizarre nonsense to exist, beginning with Reagan through to the pinnacle of Trump (Obama included!). The pandemic will, however, be the great leveler that hopefully will give the US nation the incentive to abolish the idea that unchained capitalism benefits anyone at all, even the billionaires that now have to fear the inevitable "the pitchforks" (actually the AR15's and AK47's that the US population have been allowed to hoard in past decades).
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  616. Any organization that has virtually free rein to torture anyone they want to will attract sadists. The Nazi Gestapo and SS are extreme examples, but various "law enforcement agencies" in the US are prime examples of organizations where sadists really flourish to the point of having become Public Enemy No. 1! It does not matter if a majority or a minority of cops are nominally "good cops", the simple fact that the "good cops" allow the sadists to run rampant exposes them as really, Really, REALLY bad cops. Not being sadists themselves, not actually beating up or killing unfortunate citizens themselves does in no way exonerate them! The are just as guilty as the sadists are, by the simple act of tolerating the sadists as colleagues. This cannot end well, a day of reckoning WILL come, eventually.
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  617. Is it any wonder we non-'Muricans are unwilling to accept 'Murica as a role model for the concept of "Law and order"? 'Murica might have been worth something in yonder years (pre-1980's?), but today they are the prime example of a thoroughly corrupt and depraved country that only deserves ridicule and contempt.
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  618. The big question - and the one that really matters: Will they be held accountable? Will they serve time or be fired for false arrest and battery of a senior citizen? As it turn out, they ARE actually "real" Police officers, called in to escalate an incident with a diabetic-shock patient - which is like inviting a couple of chimpanzees into an OR to complete an appendectomy. From what I have learned about 'Murican police recruitment requirements, it compares to, in effect, shining a light into one ear while holding a piece of paper against the other ear. If no light shines through, the applicant is considered qualified! I am a citizen of a Nordic country, and anything even approaching an atrocity like this would cause an uproar that would make 'Murican companies untenable here. Is it any wonder that all the respect the USA earned during and post WW2 among our parents generations has been exhausted, and the USA, having become Redneck, ignorant 'Murica after Ronald Bloody Reagan, is now considered a liability and a global danger. With Toddler Trump added to the mix, 'Murica is second only to Putin's Russia as a global threat!
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  619. I especially loved Francesca's line "...for my scared white people out there: It's just equality! Don't worry, no one's taking anything from you - it's just EQUALITY!"
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  620. Thom, this clip was very patchy and broken up. Is it your staff or YouTube - or some other entity - that is doing a spot of sabotage?
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  621.  @michaelnolan5832 , is the concept of an "Air Force" different from the concept of an "Air Weapon"? The fundamental concept is virtually identical. I sometimes feel sorry for 'Muricans that have never been exposed to "foreign" languages, geographically isolated as they are. They are missing out a lot - and they don't even have a clue what they are missing!
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  622. If you think airliner braking is a complicated issue, you should try operating smaller turboprops with no anti-skid and perhaps badly designed brakes. They can be a nightmare! Some of those aircraft (Cessnas C406 & C441 and the DHC-6 Twin Otter) have nicely designed no-antiskid systems where the brake pedal force directly translates to brake effect, just like an ancient car with no ABS. There was one aircraft I have flown that has astonishingly difficult brakes, the Do228 Dornier. after landing, you applied brake pedal and nothing happened. Then you carefully applied some more pedal pressure and very little happened. THEN, if you had to, you applied just a little more pedal pressure and the wheels would lock up! A flat spot on the main tires SERIOUSLY damages them, an expensive occurrence. Fortunately the Do228 has a touchdown speed well below 100 knots and being a Garret-powered high-wing aircraft has MAGNIFICENT reverse capabilities. Wheel braking was rarely needed for anything more than taxying.
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  623. If the US actually starts testing properly for the virus, you are in for a rude surprise. If the Trump administration manages to drag put proper testing for another week or two, you are STILL in for a rude surprise - the only difference is that in the latter scenario, you eyes will be closed until what passes for a health care system in the US collapses and you are facing stark reality.
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  624. The only apparent "glitch" regarding Lt.Col. Vindman is that his brain seems to operate faster than his mouth. His speech tends to be a bit rushed, which makes it somewhat difficult to follow what he is saying - but once analyzed, it all makes perfect sense.
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  625. It is hardly a matter of serious dispute that the Nordic countries are currently the most successful in providing prosperity and security to their general public while also allowing entrepreneurial people to flourish and reap the benefits of their contribution. They usually call it social democracy themselves, but in reality it is simply a mixed economy where capitalists can thrive without being allowed to screw everyone else over. Some functions are handled by the government, like the police, fire departments, health care, education and social safety nets. While we have to be ever vigilant to keep out corruption, it WORKS, period. It is astounding how the US seems to be unable to study and understand what works and what does not work in the Nordic countries, and constantly try to flip from one extreme to another. After all, almost all the ideas the Nordic countries are using - with fairly good success - were pioneered in the US at one time or another. You should NOT try to eliminate capitalism, just rein it in and make sure you have what a wise man called "compassionate capitalism".
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  626. Expectations were extremely high around the world when Obama was elected POTUS, but he failed to make the impact expected (to be fair, Repugnicans carry the majority of the blame for that, but Obama carries his fair share as well). In my mind, he became "Useless Obama"). Expectations might not be just as high this time around, but I suspect Biden will turn out to be just as much of a disappointment. 2024 will probably be Trump on steroids, with a fascist that is far smarter and slicker than Trump ever was running for office.
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  627. This was stupid, a black-or-white only discussion. There is a whole spectrum of "ism's" out there, not only the extremes of either communism or capitalism. The Nordic Countries have mixed systems where capitalism is flourishing - but under set rules that reins it in - and socialism in areas that need it. Of course it is far from being perfect, but it is a damn sight better than either the runaway capitalism you have in the US or the communism-in-name-only of the USSR.
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  628. Is Trump a Genius Media Manipulator? Who knows - he is just traveling where no other public figure has dared to travel before. Normally, public figures care about what they say in public but Trump has absolutely no shame; He will say something outrageously stupid and untrue on camera and, 5 minutes later, he will unabashedly declare "I never said that!". The masterful part is the simple fact that the bloody stupid reporters will breathlessly chase the outrageously stupid and untrue nonsense, and waste a lot of time making fools of themselves. Meanwhile, Trump will have been in the spotlight the entire time. True, he has been is the spotlight as a lying idiot, but by simply throwing out another ridiculous stink-bomb, Trump manages to shamelessly distract from the first outrageously stupid and untrue nonsense and, through the entire process he has continued to stay in the limelight. The old adage: There is no bad press, there is just PRESS -time in the limelight! The worst part: The US public appears to be stupid enough to swallow this spiel, hook, line and sinker!
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  629. By modern standards, Bomber Harris was no doubt one of the biggest war criminals in Britain. To judge those people by modern standards is, however, quite ridiculous. They had a war to fight, and current standards of morality simply did not apply. Sad, but true. Having people like this come to at least to some degree of grief after the war would no doubt have some effect in reigning in current and future wartime cruelty, but be assured that it would only hamper the current "good guys" while having absolutely no effect on the current "bad guys" - e.g Muslim extremists.
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  630. What will happen now? Will the CIA go into overdrive to interfere in Bolivian affairs to 'protect US interests', even resorting to yet another regime change operation?
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  631. I KNOW I'm wallowing schadenfreude, but watching 'Murica destroy itself is becoming a farce!
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  632. Ahem.. If he quit the Proud Boys in 2015, how could he tell "all OUR members not to go to Jan.6"? It implies that he is still a member. Did he re-join?
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  633. This is why the crew wants you to keep your seat belt on while seated.
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  634. An initial step would be to face the facts: 'Murican main media is NOT in the business of investigative journalism or imparting facts to the public, they have become propaganda channels for their multibillionaire owners!
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  635. According to this, the US is performing a slow Hara-Kiri, all to benefit big corporations.
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  636.  @FM-kl3iu , I live in Iceland.
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  637. The Obama Nobel Peace Prize was definitely premature, probably based on extremely high expectations that were never fulfilled. The apparent Trump recommendations for the Nobel Peace Prize are a farce.
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  638. The main takeaway in my mind is how quickly this most evident part of the human "messiness" i clearing up. THAT is surprising.
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  639. If that were remotely true, it is certainly time to dump that petty and cruel god (or any gods) permanently.
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  640. I have noted these large but empty water channels when traveling through this and similar areas, and their size was a clue that these areas had some serious flash flooding problems. To see these massive pieces of infrastructure overwhelmed like this really drives home the wisdom of never turning your back on Mother Nature. One can only feel for those affected, "thoughts an prayers" seem rather pointless and pathetic at this stage.
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  641. Please note: The horrors the generations our parents and grandparents lived through in WW2 is now the current reality for Ukrainians.
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  642. I admit I do not know a lot about the nuances of the US voting system, but I did NOT know that one had to register as a Republican/Democrat/Independent to be even allowed to vote. Is this REALLY the case? What kind of "democracy" is that? In my part of the world (Northern Europe) you are automatically registered to vote when you reach the voting age, AND the main premise is that how you cast your ballot is your business and no-one is allowed to even ask how you voted.
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  643. Frankly, the Black Motorist comes across as a bit of an idiot in this clip. Given what keeps happening to black US citizens surrounded by cops, he should have stayed calm and reasonable instead of being argumentative, screaming and yelling. Under the circumstances, that was like playing Russian Roulette. If a cop kills you, it does not matter if you were killed "legally" or illegally. You will be just as dead, either way.
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  644. Whoever will offer Trump this kind of illegal information, it will NOT be Norway!
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  645. It remains to be seen if enough of the US justice system integrity remains to fight this off, after all the Trumpzis have only been systematically dismantling it for less than 3 years. Amazing how fast the dismantling has been going - but then again, the Republicans have been chipping away at it for decades. The judicial system apparently has been politicized to the extent that it might be unable to defend the US Constitution, given the current state of affairs.
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  646. If Ben Shapiro was able to talk even faster, it would be a great boon to humanity: He would be impossible to understand instead of being barely understandable.
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  647. Did you ever realize this: The Capitalistic market is all about finding a commodity that is currently in high demand and selling it at whatever price you can squeeze from the captive customers. Find a Snake-Oil Cure during a pandemic, secure exclusive rights for virus-testing-kits for your "friends" etc. Look at all the current exploitations that are ongoing, pick up your God-given-rights assault rifle and go profiteer-hunting.
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  648. Scary-looking woman! Her eyes are beyond weird with these tiny little irises - she is either wearing spooky contact lenses or she is on some weird stuff that makes her eyes very sensitive to light. Can you imagine living in a country that is run by the likes of her?
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  649. Ah, the wonders of the second amendment! Having a one or more guns readily on hand enables you to open fire at the slightest provocation, consequences be damned. Repenting is something you do at leisure, sitting in your prison cell...
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  650. Unbridled Capitalism in a nutshell: Spirit away decades-worth of profits and then simply file for bankruptcy. Old commitments like health care plans and pension funds "gone up in smoke" - or rather stolen away! They supported Trump and now they have to live with the consequences. Their only hope is a "socialist" like Bernie, that can be counted on at least trying to get some justice and compensation for them.
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  651. Please stop talking about US "defense" spending. A more appropriate term is "offense" spending. When has the US military had to directly defend sovereign US territory? As far as I know, that was in WW2. The US military has, on the other hand, been lavishly used to defend US "interests" and invading other countries. That is offense, not defense.
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  652. Looks like the Ukrainians are managing to destroy tanks by dropping small shaped charges on them in the dark (using thermal imaging), dropping from a low altitude to assure proper hits. Ingenious and very cost-effective!
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  653. @michael murillo, he can take 10 tests a day and still become infected. Testing does not save anyone from infection, but it gives others around the subject to run for the hills and avoid being infected in turn.
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  654.  @erict.watson2460 , I found John Iadarola and Jayar Jackson coming across as wallowing in the fact that the Gosar siblings have similar looks. To their credit, they acknowledge the fact that otherwise they are nothing like their deranged brother. I admit I was probably over-reacting in my comment.
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  655. I imagine that in the 1960s, Tuberville would have been jailed, prosecuted, convicted and possibly executed as a Soviet agent. What he is doing is following Putin's playbook - to the hilt - by weakening the US military to the extent possible. One wonders what the intelligence services would find, searching through Tubervilles banking accounts! As a Repugnican, he is certainly doing this only for money! What is worrying for us Western US allies is how reliable the US is turning out to be! The US is proving to be, at best, a flaky ally, Here today, on Putin's side tomorrow. The mere fact that Trump might conceivably become the US president again is beyond belief! The current US allies simply cannot trust the US to keep their intelligence secret or be consistent in any way, shape or form. Is the US an important partner within the NATO alliance?! Heck, YES! Is the US a RELIABLE partner within the NATO alliance? Heck, NO! The way things are going politically, the US might end up as a joke in global power politics, if not for the immensely powerful military - and even that will only last long! Behold all the levels of the Nazi military might (the thousand-year Third Reich)t: it lasted for, what, less than 10 years? Bottom line: By destroying public education, the Repugnican party has shown it's true colors. The 'Murican nation will become ever more ignorant (not stupid, only kept-in-the-dark!). One wonders how long the US empire will last without allies?
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  656. Surprisingly, DeSantis forgot to mention that water is WET!
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  657.  @kevincrady2831 , right - like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Let's hope the quiet majority finally rises up to decisively vote the lunatics out and turn the US into a humane and truly democratic country.
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  658. That makes sense, any law or interpretation thereof, must apply to all US citizens, and in this case to all elected officials. A slight problem: Trump apparently thinks he is above the law, ANY law or interpretation thereof. I strongly suspect that AOC will start to mute instead of blocking - she comes across as a sensible person.
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  659. What is the difference between Corporate Democraps vs. Repugnicans? The Repugnicans are unabashedly inhumane liars, the Corporate Democraps are lying their socks off, sailing under a false flag. They have all been bought and paid for by big, monopolistic cirporations.
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  660. The US stance regarding the Palestinians, not to mention atrocities the US is supporting in Yemen, will be a shameful blot on the US nation for generations to come.
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  661. Please bear in mind that this peek inside Trump's finances is more than a bit one-sided: This is what he submitted to the IRS - and according to Cohen, his fixer, those numbers were definitely deflated! Given all his bankruptcies, he is not only a total loser as a businessman, he is also a tax cheater.
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  662. Well, the RNC and Trump's Repugnican party as a whole have exposed their true, disgusting mentality. What they deserve is to be relegated to the dustbin of history as a dire warning of how NOT to behave under any circumstances - their closest equivalents in recent history being Hitler's Nazi Party with their SA, Gestapo and SS enforcing entities. What remains is to put actual names to the lawless enforcing entities that are being formed these days under the auspices of the Repugnican Party.
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  663. Watching this is really depressing. The US is spinning down the drain, and all people can do is to yell and scream. Trump (or rather his handlers) are rapidly dismantling the American Experiment. You started losing your democracy when you elected Reagan and now, after allowing Trump to be elected, you are reaping what you sowed. It is incredible how quickly Trump and Barr have demolished what has rightly been the pride of US governance, the Checks and Balances. All smoldering in the dust now. I suspect that we are seeing the beginning of the Second US Civil War, "We the People" against the oligarchs.
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  664. That Dutch girl that clarified "2 languages fluently and 4 others where I can get by" absolutely nailed the important bits! To "speak" a language means that your skills are useful, you get by, even if you might not be able to have an academic discussion about a complicated issue - that is reserved for the languages you are fluent in.
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  665. There is also an illusion going on: Road infrastructure in Europe is paid for by hefty car taxes. In recent years the EV car owners have been "living on" fossil fuel car taxes! Fairly soon the tax exemptions for EVs will simply disappear, and EV car owners will have to pick up the cost of maintaining and building roads, just as gas-powered used to.
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  666. The concept "Viking" is a job description, not an ethnicity. In modern times we would call them Raiders, Pirates or Pillagers. The vast majority of Northmen (Norse, Danes, Swedes, Icelanders) were traders and eventually settlers that assimilate into the cultures they settled in - while still leaving their cultural marks on said cultures. In the Sagas, the concept of "að leggjast í víking" literally meant "to commit to go viking", i.e.go raiding. The Vikings were the brutal bits of Nordic society that would be called "criminal gangs" today. They usually brought back a stolen loot and, one way or another, this kind of behaviour became normalized. In hindsight, the Viking age is a blemish on us, the Nordic nations.
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  667. One wonders what punishment awaits an US official that openly defies a court order? Contempt of court and instant temporary jail - or the standard MAGA response: middle finger to the judicial system and the Constitution. I hope this will come to a head sooner than later. This needs to be resolved.
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  668. I am fairly certain wise men have long ago ensured that that Ukrainian pilots, tank crews etc. are already surreptitiously training to use complex western weapons in preparation for when the complex-weapons dam finally breaks. The heavy-tank dam has already broken, it just takes time and stealth to prepare and get the equipment to the battlefield. When that happens, I am sure the Ukrainians will ready, trained and eager to go. The same no doubt applies to the fighter jet dam. It WILL break, and the same will apply then.
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  669. Boy, am I glad I am not a citizen of the US!
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  670. It is depressing to watch 'Muricans discuss the current hopeless situation in the US, to see the resignation as they face the fact that there is no difference between hard-line Repugnicans and Corporate Democraps: Both are out to screw everyday 'Muricans mercilessly, and everyday 'Muricans are so brainwashed that they are actually about to still vote for them in the next elections! I used to use term "US Americans" to distinguish between them and e.g. Canadian Americans (the north part) and Chilean Americans (the south part), not to mention all the Americans in between, like Mexican Americans. From now on I will simply call US Americans 'Muricans. Maybe the term will become Moronicans if things progress like they have been doing - only time will tell.
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  671. Ana, what do you mean Epstein never faced the consequences of what he did? He is bloody well DEAD, most likely murdered by the powerful people that were complicit in his crimes. Dying by strangulation is probably not very pleasant. This woman will certainly end up facing the same fate, only they will be more subtle about it this time around as the Epstein killing was far too obvious - surveillance cameras conveniently failed, all the prison guards conveniently "took a nap" at the critical moment! C'mon, give us a break! Maxwell's killing will not be quite as blatant as Epstein's, but die she will - unless she spills the beans immediately so there will be little point in having her killed.
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  672. An utopian idea - just imagine all the problems that would be solved in one fell swoop if we manages to gather all the warmongers, tyrants and despots of the world - along with their supporters - in a gladiator arena, armed them with what now goes for "US civilian defense weapons" (AR-15's & AK-47's)and plenty of ammunition, and let them have a go at it!
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  673. If my understanding is correct, this is a combination of lack of accountability AND training of 'Murican cops. You are stuck in a vicious, self-sustaining circle. In my own country, police training is at university level and takes years! In the only police killing case in my country's history, the SWAT team that did the killing humbly apologized to the relatives of the mentally deranged individual for not handling the situation better. Still, we did have an accountability problem years ago, with customers (NOT 'suspects'!) dying in police custody, mainly due to negligence, but there have been none since police training was elevated to a university level. Training really matters.
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  674. The US, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK will be solely responsible for half of mankinds "blowing through the World's dwindling carbon budget"? The middle east oil producers (Saudis et.al.) and Russia are now no factor regarding the carbon budget? Thom, I am beginning to seriously doubt your credibility.
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  675. I'm familiar with this bit where you mention that there are times when you are in the middle of a conversation and you realize you had no idea which language you were using. You just had a conversation, an exchange of information, and the actual means turned out to be irrelevant. When I am reading a book, the actual language it is written in becomes irrelevant - English, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic - I sometimes have a jolt in the middle of a book when encountering some anomaly, suddenly realizing that the book is a danish translation of a story written by an Australian. I was just immersed in the story, the language it was written in being absolutely irrelevant.
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  676. What is the classic saying? Don't get mad, GET EVEN at the ballot box in November! It may be hard, but life can be rebuilt - if only you don't give up.
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  677. This reveals the revenge-based attitudes of many US Americans. Epstein might be a child-abusing monster, but those that revel in this kind of happenings are only one notch above Epstein ind the "monster" categorization. This kind of mindset is virtually identical to the right-wing-extremist attitude towards the "justifiable" atrocities being perpetrated against asylum seekers at the southern border. The mindset that "the ends justifies the means" is ALWAYS wrong!
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  678. The sane in the US allowing the lunatics to take over the asylum are to be blamed on the sane? Heck, you actually have a point there!
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  679. One thing is striking in the US: Wherever you go, you see 2.5 ton trucks transporting a single individual between A and B. By weaning 'Muricans off heavy trucks and getting them to use small cars (700kg up) will solve the bridge/road load problem in one fell swoop, not to mention the fuel savings! I know that in 'Murica this is a pipe dream, but still...
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  680. Social Democracy is at the core of why the Nordic countries are doing well. The emphasis is on DEMOCRACY with a considerable social conscience and control. Capitalism still has a relatively free rein, but the Social part of a Social Democracy prevents runaway Capitalism from screwing everything up. Some people say there is too much control while others think there should be even more control, and both sides have a valid argument. Current Nordic politics are about determining where the balance should be at any given time.
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  681.  @markallen3293  yep, I got you the first time and I agree that if anyone deserves some lead poisoning, it would be Trump and his sycophants. My point is the sad fact that fate appears to be on the side of the disgusting crooks - at least it feels that way.
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  682. What a horrible - but true - testament to what is happening in minority-ruled, religious-zealot controlled 'Murica.
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  683. Saying Boeing's quality control system is not working does not really cover this - many whistleblowers have testified that many quality checks were discontinued, not done anymore. Accordingly, Boeing's quality system is full of large holes.
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  684. No worries for AOC...
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  685.  @robinsss , I am not a US citizen, just a Nordic observer, so I am at sea regarding that. I imagine federal courts have the power to strike down state court rulings in many cases, but not state laws - unless said laws are found to be unconstitutional.
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  686. This will be interesting. Macron has been very decisive regarding the Russia/Europe dilemma and, by what little Merz has said, he seems to of a similar mindset. By all appearances, Putin and his minion, Trump, appear to be in for a rude awakening...
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  687.  @dianac2498 , while the US was (is!) unable to do large-scale testing, the South Koreans have been doing tests by the tens of thousands. This argument is about as valid as the US having "the most advanced public health and surveillance system in the world". 3 days ago the US had done 445 tests, Japan 1890 tests and South Korea 66,652 tests, so this argument flies like lead balloon...
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  688. DW, get your facts straight! Today (Oct.12 JH data) Portugal has vaccinated 157 329 pr. 100 000. Iceland has vaccinated 163 658 pr. 100 000. Portugal has certainly done well, but they are NOT the world leader in vaccinations against Covid.
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  689.  @BigBinky_Gaming , this ended up as a single-pilot flight to the scene of the crash. A sad state of affairs and should never happen in the modern airline industry - actually there are specific parts of the training (MMC & CRM) that are designed to prevent this, but an overblown ego like tis Captain's is hard to control.
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  690. The US for-profit system: Sickening! It will soon be the downfall of the US.
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  691. US Americans are scared witless when faced with HAVING to seek medical help - the current US health insurance scam is completely dysfunctional as a tool to ensure public health. As described in this clip, the current system virtually ENSURES that the US will be by far the hardest hit nation when this pandemic is over. In a normal universe head would roll when all this has been investigated, but the Trumpzis will probably be laughing on the way to the bank with the proceeds...
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  692. What strikes me is how FEW prominent Republicans turned out to have principles worth anything! Liz Cheney and Kinzinger are a lone duo. While there must have been other like-minded Republicans, they kept quiet and stayed 'under the radar' - i.e. their 'principles' were not worth much of anything, when push came to shove.
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  693. I have always wondered: If the Russians actually enter controlled airspace with no transponder on, why are they not simply forced to land and take into custody for severely endangering civilian air traffic?
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  694. Bernie has been consistently fighting for decades to implement a Nordic-style mixed economy in the US. 'Muricans may be mostly ignorant about the quality of life in the Nordic countries and North-Europe in general, but young people in the US have twigged on to a good thing. It may take a while, but the US will hopefully get there within one generation.
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  695. The logic of defiling ancient historic artifacts when their beef is with contemporary climate defilers totally escapes me - it just proves that rabid climate activists are no better than rabid climate defilers. As far as I am concerned, this kind of behaviour only serves to damage the climate activist cause.
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  696. One REALLY has to wonder who is actually writing these comments for Trump. He has NEVER been able to string together a coherent sentence, let alone something as 'eloquent' as this.
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  697. Manchin: I've kneecapped and watered down the handouts (others call it a rsecue package, Manchin does NOT), thereby 'helping' my constituents stay independent and self-sufficient! I completely fail to see any logic in his stance. He valiantly fights to PREVENT any help reaching ordinary citizens that have been hurting for over a year, and then spins it by pretending to have done the same citizens a huge favor. A typical politician; If he opens his mouth to say anything you depend on only one thing - only LIES come out of his mouth, he in deed and word a closet ultra-conservative, a Repugnican. He entirely belongs to, lock, stock and barrel to his wealthy donors, the people that have bought his soul.
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  698. I wondered about Putin's possible motivation to destroy Russia's own property, but various experts have come up with a number of quite credible potential reasons. One wonders if this was a veiled threat: Could the Norway/EU pipelines be the next target?
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  699. Since he mentioned Iceland, a tiny country in the middle of the North Atlantic: When the first cases showed up in late February we were all set up and ready; To date we have tested just over 3% of the entire population and 5.7% of those tested have been positive. The best bit: Around half of the tests have been done by a local genetics research company (deCODE Genetics) for the purpose of mapping the virus genome and potential mutations, and those tests are mostly random - anyone that wanted to could book a drive-through test. This means that while the sample is not entirely random (it is probably a bit heavy with hypochondriacs, but still) - it is a reasonable snapshot of the probable spread of the virus and, so far, it seems to have spread to less than 1% of the entire population. All this despite having a terribly dangerous "Health Care for All" (socialized!) system! Strict self-quarantining of people arriving from suspect location (mostly Icelanders that went skiing in the Italian Alps) and isolation of positive cases from day one gives us reason to hope that we might weather this pandemic better than many other nations. We have been practicing Social Distancing for quite a while, and the main problem now is that we have to ration testing for the time being due to lack of Test Kits (swabs and associated hardware). The processing of tests is not a bottleneck, we are simply sitting low on the totem pole when it comes to getting the kits to collect samples because EVERYONE in the world is clamoring for them. BTW - surprise medical bills simply DO NOT HAPPEN! This has all been prepaid by the taxpayers, not necessarily free but EXTREMELY affordable. No one has to think about the cost of seeking medical help. Oh, the price and suffering of living under Social Democracy...
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  700. You need to go from A to B and the only mode of transportation currently available is, say, a Toyota (new single-shot vaccine, 78% efficacious). You KNOW there is a more posh mode of transportation to be had someday, a Rolls-Royce (two-shot, hard-to-store but over 90% efficacious), but will you deny yourself immediate safety of a 'lesser' vaccine in the hope of eventually, maybe, getting the Rolls-Royce? If you are 'Murican you probably do, but the rest of us can only hope you get your just deserts (get infected and die because you refused the 'Toyota')
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  701. I wonder what it takes for the defunct US judicial system to rein in an obviously mentally deranged individual, talking about becoming a Cannibal, talking about literally feeding his neighbors to his children.
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  702. I imagine the trickiest part of metrification in aviation would be vertical separation. The 1000' vertical separation has been quite handy, but using a metric same-scale interval of, say 330m would be a nightmare. A mitigation of using, say 500m intervals would increase separation which is safer but will play havoc with traffic density in congested airspace. Using 200m intervals (5.0km/5.2km/5.4km etc.) would increase traffic density but would decrease vertical separation, but be less safe. I wonder what vertical spacing Russia and China use locally?
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  703. Boy, this is a lesson in how a piece of news can be overdramatized . The gases involved are NOT lethal except in high concentrations in calm weather VERY close to the eruption. Any gases drifting towards populated areas (unlikely given the current weather forecast) will be so diluted that they will only be a mild nuisance (a bad smell) to most people, only adversely affecting very few sensitive individuals.
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  704. True, while the US is the main customer for it's products, China is unlikely to start real hostilities (and vice versa). On the other hand, the current state of affairs is absolutely not sustainable, long-term. When (or possibly before) the US collapses there will be some return to the old ways. How, when and to what extent is inscrutable. We are in for some interesting times...
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  705. I've long been skeptical of our real capacity to fully understand our observable Universe. For example, what is the capacity of a sheep to understand what it's life is all about? Or a fish, a mouse, an insect? What if we are only a little degree better than a sheep when it comes to mental capacity? True, we are top dog on our planet, but we might only be slightly smarter than sheep, much like a squirrel is smarter than beetle. The good news is that when push comes to show, we are probably too stupid to realize how stupid we are!
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  706. One way of describing the SCOTUS is "the best justices money can buy", which is absolutely correct. An alternate description is, for example, Alito intent on following so-called "scripture", never mind the US Constitution or accepted laws.
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  707. It is probably a good thing if polls (reliable or not) show increasing support for Trump's republicans - that will only cause Trump supporters to become complacent AND motivate anti-Trumpsters to show up to vote.
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  708.  @lukemurray3854  Usually "expensive" countries have a workforce that is paid accordingly. One benefit is that virtually everywhere else is relatively INEXPENSIVE, even Sweden.
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  709.  @lukemurray3854  - I assume you are referring to my comment on "expensive" countries paying their workforce relative to the cost of living. Why, then, are Norwegians flocking to Sweden to buy inexpensive stuff (3:1 price ratio according to you), if not because Norwegians earn more than Swedes for the same job? Besides, rumour has it that Swedes flock to Norway to work because they earn more there. The 3:1 price ratio seems more than a bit overblown, 1.5:1 or 2:1more likely (not that I have any idea what the actual ratio is).
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  710. The 'left-spinning' Finnish Swastika (blue on a white background?) is an interesting contrast to the 'right-spinning' German Black Swastika. Underestimate the Finns at your own peril!
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  711.  @crustiknight4938 , you are absolutely correct. Anger will only make things worse and while many people will need the crutch of religion to make it through the day, any sensible person will realize that by the simple fact of being born in the first place, the end is the same for everyone - we cease to exist, we die (Walls Street has found that taxes are optional, but death is not!). Death is inevitable, and the best we can hope for is a quick and relatively painless passage to oblivion. What should matter to us in this life is how we influenced our world during our lifetime. Did we leave the world a better place for our descendants to live in?
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  712. I suggest we stop referring tho the Repugnican Party as the GOP (Grand Old Party). HOP (Horrible Old Party) is more appropriate,
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  713. What they don't mention in this clip is the fact that Trump DISMANTLED all the epidemic preparedness measures Obama (and others before him) had put in place, simply because they had been put in place by Obama. That was petty. The fact that Trump ignored all and any warnings about the seriousness of the current pandemic and did his level best to do NOTHING to address the situation is criminal. The indications that he and his cadres did this mainly because the pandemic appeared to affect minority groups more than others (poor people, people of color, people with pre-existing conditions etc.) elevates this to a crime against humanity. Trump is directly responsible for at least half of the death toll so far. What the punishment for that will be will be remains to be seen, but punished he will be!
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  714. The cheek of you 'Muricans! Who gave you leave to talk about yourself as the only Americans around, you silly sods? AMERICA is a huge continent, so huge that most of the world considers it as TWO continents, North America and South America. Some people even go a bit further and talk about the bit connecting the two continents as Central America. Only one severely ignorant nation swaggers around, pretending to be the only ones that can be called AMERICANS, totally ignoring the fact that other nations occupy the same continent. Starting in the north we have Canadian American (a sensible bunch). Skipping over the horrible bit (the US), we have Mexican America, which is still part of North-bloody-America! Every country south of Texas to the southern tip of Chile has been thoroughly corrupted by US influence, whether it is their craving for illegal drugs or the US desire to take over and exploit any natural resources available on the South-American continent. Apparently, US America seems to be bad news wherever they poke their dirty fingers...
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  715. Can anyone tell me the current 'Murican definitions of the racial terms "white" and "colored"? My current impression is that "black" and "colored" are simply being lumped together as "non-white" in the minds of right-wing zealots, but what qualities does a person have to have to be considered "white"?
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  716. I am sure that the citizens ofwhatever Nordic country this monster hails from (given her name) are cringing in embarrassment.
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  717. What a wonderfully expressive young person! Given that she was born in modern-day 'Murica that is now turning out to be MAGA-'Murica (a.k.a. Trump's MEDIEVAL 'Murica) she is fortunate to have been born to open-minded and understanding parents. This video is now going on 7 years old. I fervently hope her dreams at the time came true and that she survives until the current 'Murican madness passes away into the dustbin of national nightmares.
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  718. Chenk, you are not much better than Baby Trump when you accuse Trump of having said that "wind causes cancer". What Trump actually said is that "windmills cause cancer", idiotic and Trumpian as that is. Please stick to the facts, they are bad enough by themselves.
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  719. When staff shortages in countless industries, from agriculture to service, start causing shortages, the inevitable result will be price increases! Meat, fruit and vegetables will become more expensive, and many small and large service companies (restaurants large and small, shopping chains and fast food chains will struggle and even have to close shop). What a wonderful treat Toddler Trump will be serving up for his stupid followers...
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  720. Tomi Lahren admits outright that AOC scares her more than anyone else, and Tomi's only recourse is Trump-ish name-calling.
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  721. That was 'Murican bragging at it's best. Admittedly deserved, but bragging nonetheless. 'Murica spends a LOT of money on military systems and, in this case, they got a lot of bang for the buck.
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  722. Francesca: "Legal things confuse me" - implying that she is conforming to the Victorian-era belief that women's brains are small and will overheat if allowed to be used for any meaningful purpose... What utter nonsense! From what I have seen, she has a razor-sharp mind and will take the mickey out of anyone trying to corner her intellectually, on ANY topic! Not only that - she could do it 24/7, no overheating brains involved (except perhaps the male egos decimated in the process). For genuine right-wing 'Muricans, the fact that she is not strictly white (given her Italian complexion), Francesca must be a genuine affront! Rabid racists will happily (and stupidly) disregard the fact that her roots are one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, the foundation our current western civilization is built on.
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  723. Interesting clips. The first one, the drone that landed on the "radome" (0:54 into the clip) was very illuminating! I suspect it exposes the extreme deficiencies of maintenance (spelled "corruption") within the Russian military! The huge crack seen on the radome is NOT something tolerated on an airworthy aircraft! The second drone (in the snowy part of the clip) apparently self-destructed, most likely taking out a vital bit of the aircraft systems that renders it useless. The Ukrainians are very clever, to put it mildly! Using a cheap commercial drone to render a very expensive and vital part of Russian military capability useless is nothing short of brilliant! Best of all, there is nothing to stop them from doing this again, and again and again!
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  724. How about young 'Muricans fixing the domestic problem by bothering to VOTE as they desire instead of emigrating to countries with a properly developed society model? 'Murica is an incredibly wealthy country in human and natural resources, all you have to do is get rid of the corruption and follow the models of one of a multitude of countries that are doing well. I know, you are too big, too corrupt and too incompetent (which you were NOT 60-80 years ago!), but you can do it in a generation or two if you really want to. Here is an old saying: What is a dead billionaire, made to swim with concrete shoes? Answer: A good start! The French reacted violently to a similar situation some hundreds of years ago when a few had everything and everybody else had virtually nothing: They chopped the heads off the aristocracy (the billionaires of the era) on an industrial scale (the Guillotine). That will inevitably happen in 'Murica in the near future (during the Second US Civil War?).
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  725. Boy, am I glad to live in a far-away Nordic country (Iceland) and not the lunatic asylum of the USA! Call it morbid fascination, this obsession of mine to follow US "politics".
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  726. Ainsley Earhardt is a shallow brainless blonde, with the typical selfish and greedy mindset of rabid US right-wingers.
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  727. What constitutes a "mass shooting"? Is it when more than one person is hit by an armed individual? Is is when there are 2 or more victims? It is impossible to classify this a anything other than a mass shooting perpetrated by one or more trigger-happy police officers! What a horrible country the US must be to live in these days.
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  728. Elle Reeve, PLEASE stop ending your sentences on a hard-to-understand croak! Many public women, e.g. female reporters, have picked up this annoying habit. Sarah Sanders is a particularly annoying example. I wish you would just use your normal female voice throughout, instead of lowering the pitch to a male-sounding croak...
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  729. Being black, and thus in grave danger of being gunned down at any moment, the prudent action for the student would have been to stop arguing, comply with the officer's commands to de-escalate the situation and then, when the situation was under control, get the officer's badge number and file a formal complaint - as well as going to the media.
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  730. Har, har - Austria, the country that allowed the Ischgl super-infecting event to happen is turning it's nose up at German visitors? Talk about hipocracy! The current problem: The slavery being practiced in establishments like these meat plants (in Germany, the US and elsewhere) has to be brought under control. The simple fact that this is exists in Germany AT ALL only tells us that political corruption is alive and well, even in Germany.
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  731. A voice of reason. The Russians probably were able to nudge the election results a bit - maybe quite a bit - but Trump is basically a home-brewed US problem, to be solved (or prolonged) by US voters. Meddling in the affairs of other nations is not something that only Russia does, the US has been - if anything - even worse! Of course blatant meddling like Putin's cannot be tolerated. The US should come HARD down on him and his cronies. To target the Russian oligarchs is the way to go, that way the Russian people will suffer less a collateral damage. The Russian Oligarchy is probably on it's last legs, anyway. They are now frantically trying to squirrel their ill-gotten gains in western banks so they are very vulnerable.
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  732. If you are religious, you can rest assured that Ronald Bloody Reagan is roasting on a spit down there - for eternity!
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  733. Latvia's President is a diplomat, using very gentle words for Olaf the Waffle. If it were up to me, I would come straight out and ask Olaf the Waffle: What kind of "Compromat" does Putin have on you or is what he is paying you really worth it? Good job the European leaders are diplomats and I am just an opinionated nutjob with no influence, grumbling in my own corner. I would no doubt have started WW3 a long time ago if I had any influence. If anything, I wonder how much Putin is paying this DW interviewer for the loaded questions he is asking! He is certainly doing a good job emphasizing the seeds of uncertainty Putin is trying to sow. This begs yet another question: Are there many more Germans (other than Olaf the Waffle and this DW interviewer) that are plugging for Russia?
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  734.  @CyberDocUSA , also, running prisons is partly private-run lucrative business in the US, paid for with taxpayer money. When you have a lot of captive customers you also want to make sure that as many as possible become returning customers, right? There is something horribly wrong with this model...
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  735. Confused? You will remain so after this episode of 'Murican "unsolved cases" click-baits.
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  736. What a tidbit: The "Spanish flu" actually started in Kansas, and was brought to Europe by US soldiers in the last months of the war! I din't know that. Should we now call it the "American flu"?
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  737. Maintaining "the moral high ground" is bound to be hard for individual Ukrainian soldiers when they reclaim territory and witness directly atrocities that have been committed by the Russian occupiers. Their sympathy for Russian soldiers on the run is bound to be minimal, and one can only hope that they manage to avoid emulating the Russians.
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  738. The Turkish people are now reaping as they sowed when they elected Erdogan. We can feel sorry for the part of the Turkish nation that did not, but as for the rest...
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  739. Suppose you have a car that has deteriorating brakes and needs a brake system overhaul, but you have to wait a week for the parts and you REALLY need to use the car while waiting for the parts. You do NOT disable the not-perfect brakes while waiting, you live with what you have. The same applies to the current, imperfect health care system. You use it while an improved system is implemented and THEN you move over to the new system.
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  740. Bernie calls voter suppression "un-American". Well, voter suppression is VERY American - the US is the only western nation where voter suppression is practiced at all. Otherwise he is absolutely correct. EVERY citizen of a country should have the right to vote. If not, that particular country is not a true democracy.
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  741. The horrifying bit: Almost half of US Americans think like this! Is the second American Civil War inevitable?
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  742. Fox News is biased to the point of being ridiculous. CNN & MSNBC are also very biased, and viewers should keep that in mind.
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  743. There are signs that Biden might end up just as useless as Obama. Mostly noise, no actual content.
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  744.  @desireesalas5820 , the scandal is that the time that WAS available was not used to do anything constructive. Italy and Iran were certainly caught unawares, but at least in e.g. Italy they were early on able to identify (by testing) what patients had regular flu and who had COVID-19. Not so for the US.
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  745. A decade or more ago I was fascinated by Nigel Farage, when he was masterfully ripping into the corrupt underbelly of the EU bureaucracy, something that was desperately needed at the time. Since then I have realized that Farage is dangerous to the world of genuine democracy, uncomfortably aligned with Trump and other fascist forces. I am not British so I have little "skin in the game", but I am European and reserve the right to worry about these things.
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  746. US democracy is no longer "under threat", it is already doomed - unless there is a landslide voter movement that is "too big to rig". Given the apathy of the US population over the last 40 years there is little or no reason to hope. The Covid pandemic just might be the straw that breaks the camel's back but, again, the chances are slim...
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  747. There was a time when being 'born in the USA' was considered a winning ticket in the lottery of life. These days, having been born in the USA is proving to be a ticket to Hell for a considerable part of the US population.
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  748. We can only hope that AOC will, in her typical fashion, manage to turn the whole thing on the Corporates in 60 seconds. If anyone can, it will be AOC! Her brilliant initial Twitter response is only a teaser - she will ACE it! If, by any chance, her speech happens to be dropped between now and then, we simply KNOW that they have previewed it and are not ready to be humiliated.
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  749.  @aviationismylife6814 , one cannot dispute that we really should wait, but what do we do until then? Twiddle our thumbs? It is just human nature to make SWAG's (Silly, Wild-Assed Guesses) until all the details are in. One can argue that these are educated guesses, but we might just as well be proven wrong when all the beans have been counted.
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  750. Indications are that skimping on crew training was an important factor in the Lion Air crash - and possibly the Ethiopian crash as well). If that turns out to be the case, the root cause will end up being corporate greed. There is an old quip in the aviation industry: If you think flight safety is expensive, just wait until you have a crash! Boeing might be about to experience just that scenario.
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  751. History has shown that reluctant leaders are usually the best leaders. In that sense, AOC might become an excellent president sometime in the future future, but NOW is not the time to pester her with silly and premature questions like this.
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  752.  @de6212 , as far as I know, what 'Muricans call soccer is called Football in Europe. I guess this issue will remain one of the mysteries of our times.
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  753.  @theresastirling2337 , sorry. I am nominally a Christian (I go to church for traditional reasons only) and I am convinced that prayers are not going to get you anywhere. Just get off your lazy arse and VOTE! Do it early to thwart Trump's USPS ploy if you have to, show up in person at a polling place if you are bold and invincible, but bloody well show up and VOTE! I am certainly not about to tell you WHO to vote for, just make you voice heard. That is what democracy is all about.
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  754. I just looked it up: Denmark has 5.6M citizens, the US about 330M - a ratio of 1:59. Denmark's 2616 Covid deaths would equal 154K deaths in the US, but instead the US has 664K deaths, 4.3 times the deaths pr. capita compared to Denmark, with no end in sight! The US has 41M cases (and counting), while Denmark has 0.354M cases, only half of the US pr. capita case rate. It seems obvious that the US's response to Covid has been rather dismal.
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  755. Who is the most-referred-to president if the modern era? Nixon - and he is only remembered for antything good. Who will replace him eventually (and for the same reason)? Trump!
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  756. Will wonders never cease? An apparently SANE Fox host?
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  757.  JSavic , I have no idea, this is a decades-old saying.
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  758. Do Repugnicans not pretend to be all about "Small Government"? Everything they are doing seems to be about INCREASING the role of governments, both State and Federal, in ever more absurd ways - the latest proposals actually allowing the authoritiesto peek below the underwear of young people. These creepy perverts are getting more innovative every day!
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  759. Well, "to fight for our freedom" by going yourself or sending your children to (mostly) kill civilians in far-off lands has never made any sense. The only ones to have any benefit from this international meddling are the fossil-fuel corporations that take over the oil resources of the countries being "liberated" and the contractors that serve them. A really serious side effect is that the US does NOT win the "hearts and minds" of invaded nations by propping up despots and those that will exploit whatever resources the invaded nations had. The US is fast becoming a pariah among the international community, a nation to be feared and hated almost as much as the Soviet Union in it's day.
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  760. One has to agree with the late Christopher Hitchens that, of all the bad things human ingenuity has invented, religion is by far the most awful.
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  761. Only the US would think of going down this road. In my country, you receive a login code from the Tax Authorities so you can log into your personal tax account and review all the information the authorities already have. Then you can file any additional info or deductions you are entitled to before submitting your tax return. Of course you can also file an appeal if you think that is warranted. The cost? I have no idea, it is already paid for with my taxes.
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  762. Why does this cop think the police all over the US is now seriously hated and vilified by the general population of the USA? IT IS DESERVED! "This badge is not stained by Minneapolis!" - no it is stained by the actions of bad cops in NYPD. This NY cop TRIES to come across as one of the vast majority of good policemen in the US, trying to do a thankless job that is increasingly vilified. The problem is simple: The "good cops" have ignored, facilitated and enabled bad cops or even outright murderers like Derek Chauvin. If only the good cops had stepped up 30, 50, even 70 years ago to ruthlessly weed out the initial sprinkling of bad apples that ALWAYS gravitate into any workplace, this current situation would not exist. The public would be fully aware of the fact that policing is a difficult, thankless and frequently heartbreaking job instead of now focusing hard on the atrocities perpetrated by the few Gestapo-type cops that all the "good" cops have allowed to infest police forces all over the US. By their inaction, the good cops are reaping as they have sowed, they are now fast becoming the most hated and vilified profession in the US - and make no mistake about it: the general public vastly outnumbers policemen! All the press does is talk and write about police brutality and other crime committed by policemen, it will be the general population that will eventually get physical and rip any policeman in sight into shreds. Think French Revolution Guillotine-time! When the shit really hits the fan, which is bound to happen soon, all US policemen better run for the hills, good cops and bad cops alike! They will NOT get respect from the public, they will be slaughtered.
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  763. Trump has been a Putin "asset" for decades. Sucker Carlson is also a Putin asset, for reasons less clear that with Trump. While Trump will eventually end up in a typical, inhumane 'Murican prison as a consequence of his life-long crime sprees, Sucker Carlson will probably have to flee to Russia when all is said and done. Will he be able to enjoy his financial 'Murican heritage? Highly unlikely!
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  764. Do we need any further proof that 'Murica is corrupt to the core - and that a significant portion of the 'Murican nation have become blithering idiots?
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  765. John Idarola, you are saying that other countries that have government-run health care systems are faring better in this pandemic (except Italy). Isn't that some sort of blasphemy, an US American "betraying" his own country and his Beloved Orange Leader?
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  766. I feel really, Really, REALLY sorry for you ´Muricans. Your country is crumbling, mostly due to widespread ignorance and disinformation. I live in one of the 'Socialist Hellhole' Nordic countries that, when push comes to shove, are far more capitalistic than the US has been for over 40 years. At least we have genuine competition and functioning anti-trust laws that allow us to live what you wrongly are calling the "American Dream". If not for the pandemic, we would be labeling it the "European Dream" or at least the "Nordic Dream".
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  767. A democrat? A compliment! A Trump-hater? A HUGE compliment! It takes A LOT of evidence to manage getting convicted to a prison sentence if you are an influential person in 'Murica. Navarro managed to achieve his - with flying colors! There is a queue waiting to join him...
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  768. No one is blaming Trump for the virus itself, people are blaming him for decimating the US's ability to respond to a crisis like this, and THAT will cost thousands of lives. I'm not going to bother voicing my opinion of Trish Reagan, it is so low.
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  769.  @TalesOfWar  , ah - this is apparent among all the Nordics, but the Finns are at another level in this regard. They tend to think of the rest of us as chatterboxes.
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  770. In Europe this process started years ago. People quickly realized the advantages: Lower energy cost, far less heat no one wants or needs and a LED will last far, far longer than the old bulbs. Incandescent bulbs are still available for special applications, bot otherwise no one really wants them. Anyone that thinks that the authorities will start raiding homes to confiscate old light bulbs is a raving idiot! Those things will burn themselves out in short order anyway.
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  771. You forgot to mention the fact that all airfoil leading edges are not painted as well - for similar reasons.
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  772. Do you know why the English prefer tea over coffee? Just try English coffee and you will understand...
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  773. The way US Americans keep harping on 'how could this happen in the greatest and richest nation in the history of this planet' is becoming more and more farcical. True, the US used to be all of that BUT IT NO LONGER IS! The US has been hollowed out from within for over 40 years, beginning with Reagan. The evidence has been staring you in the face for decades: You are fast becoming a third-rate country (except for your military might that has been used indiscriminately to invade other countries - mostly to make sure your military-industrial complex is kept busy and in fat profits). To top it all off, you go around, wondering why, oh WHY other nations either hate you or at least do not trust you an inch - even your current or soon-to-be former allies that have seen how fickle and unreliable the US has become.
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  774. What Dr. John Torres seems to be saying is that the UK is taking the FAA/Boeing approach to scrutinizing the data, i.e. putting quite a lot of trust in the developers/producers of the vaccine. That approach saves a lot of time but is fraught with dangers if Pfizer is cutting corners like Boeing did. What remains to be seen is if Pfizer turns out to be as corrupt regarding vaccine testing as Boeing turned out to be regarding the B737 Max.
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  775. Yep!
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  776. Personally I think the West should strongly block Putin's blatant aggression and come down on him like a ton of bricks if he invades Ukraine - and any retaliation should be aimed at Putin and his accomplices personally, seeking to minimize the impact on the Russian general population. Fortunately for the world I have no say in this situation. I would be a disastrous diplomat...
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  777. Is our best hope REALLY that the White House staff (and all the Trumpzis) become infected? THAT would really get their attention!
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  778. Biden may be 4 years older than Trump and he may very well be showing his age, but he is very coherent, compassionate AND knowledgeable. Compare that to "Trump the Terrible" that is unable complete two consecutive and coherent sentences during his current rallies. The good news: Trump is certain to fall apart this spring or summer, exposing himself as a raving lunatic, yet the idol of Repugnicans.
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  779. Carlton Wilson, I just KNEW there were any number of people like you around in the US! The gall of using the desperate guerrilla atrocities of natives against settlers as an excuse for outright genocide (and the associated land-grabs) is simply disgusting. It is idiotic to maintain that the settlers were such a law-abiding bunch that they refused to use the most potent weapon at their disposal - whisky. To top it off, you imply that all the citizens of Norway and Denmark collaborated with the Nazis! For your information, the portion of Danes and Norwegians that actually collaborated with Hitler and his cronies was only a tiny fraction of the portion of Americans now supporting Trump and the Trumpzis in their quest to dismantle what is still left of your once proud nation. The vast majority of those nations resisted the Nazis at every turn, and the Danish used every means available to shelter those hunted by the Nazis and smuggle them to safety in Sweden. You are simply exposing yourself as an ignorant, self-centered individual. There is not much that is "great" about America these days, and has not been for decades. A wealthy nation that does not take care of the less fortunate of it's population has nothing to brag about. You truly should hang your head in shame in that regard!
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  780. Seeing you lugging all that baggage around drives home how literal my own language (Icelandic) tends to be: Baggage is "Farangur" (compound for "Far Angur"). "Far" in this context means travel, being on the move, while "Angur" in this context means irritating. Baggage literally "travel irritation" in Icelandic.
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  781. Will the rest of the world have to stop using the acronym "USA" and start using a new acronym: "MSA" (the Medieval States of America)? The English language does really need a new label that applies to Christian Extremists, the way the label "Taliban" applies to Islamic Extremists.
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  782. Maybe fervent right-wingers should be exempt from all restrictions - that would certainly solve a lot of problems in a few week's time. The statistics would be interesting: Old people are more likely to die than young people, males are more likely to die than females, right-wingers are more likely to die than progressives...
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  783. I cannot help wondering: If Jack Smith has been so wildly successful in forcing reluctant witnesses to testify (whatever the outcome of that will be), what does that say about all the other prosecutors that have failed (and sometimes not even tried) to do so in their cases in recent years? Is it due to incompetence, corruption - or both?
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  784. Holy cowpat, I seem to be losing my cool: Commenting like crazy in an environment where sensible thought is a banned commodity. A very significant point Thom made: Post WW-2 Europe was - and is - based on concepts introduced to us war-torn Europeans by US Americans! Furthermore, it is still being practiced in just about every country in Europe, AND IT BLOODY WELL WORKS! Affordable (pre-paid) health care and education is a RIGHT, not a privilege in Europe. Again, it bloody well works! You 'Muricans can argue on the behalf of the blood-sucking elites in ´Murica, and it is your prerogative: If you WANT to be shamelessly exploited, you actually have the FREEDOM to be exploited. Just leave the rest of us out of it!
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  785. These idiots have no idea what the actual definition of "woke" is. They probably have no idea what the word "dictionary" means either, so there you go. To them "woke" is just a bogeyman equivalent, a word they can interpret to mean whatever ugliness they can imagine. What would happen if someone showed them the accepted definition of "woke"? Absolutely nothing, they wouldn't believe it anyway!
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  786. Why should ANYONE believe ANYTHING coming from Russia? Have they been such bastions of truth and honesty for over a century that they should be taken seriously? The only time you encounter "the Truth" in Russia, it is all smoke and mirrors like the misleading name of their main newspaper, Pravda
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  787. So, US elections are largely influenced, almost controlled, by Republican Cheaters? The rest of the world recognized long ago that US democracy was flawed, apparently becoming so flawed as to be a parody. The Nordic countries have a different approach: You are registered as a citizen at birth (or via an immigration process). You, the citizen, are required to report any change in domicile whenever you move (taxes are not optional here, but we know what we get in return!). When you reach the voting age, you are automatically registered to vote at your domicile district. Your domicile might be a prison, but you are STILL a citizen and thus registered as a voter. Bottom line: We actively encourage EVERY citizen to vote, and no citizen is ever required to take time off from work to vote because voting day is ALWAYS a public holiday. Polling stations are accessible and you are usually able to walk to your designated polling station. No trickery involved or allowed.
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  788. Just a thought: If such rampant corruption has infested the SCOTUS for decades, is it realistic to expect that many lower courts have NOT been similarly corrupted even longer, not to mention any number of influential politicians in both parties?
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  789. Methinks he is being overly optimistic, given how the Trump administration was caught completely flat-footed at the beginning and has been in denial until very recently - but then he IS a government guy, even if he seems to be the only one willing to stick to the few known facts. Without widespread screening there is no way to reliably estimate how widely the virus has spread already. Chances are that the US has been caught even more flat-footed than Italy. Only time will tell. Let's hope, for your sake, that Dr. Fauci is NOT overly optimistic...
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  790. The fact that the concept of "imminent" seems to mean at least weeks or months of delays just goes to show how catatonic and glacial the US judicial system has become - probably by design!
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  791.  @mjparham6430 , well - eventually. I believe being born is not survivable. What matters is: 1) What do you do with your life? 2) How long will your life be? In my country the average life expectancy is a bit over 82 years, but as by mother is already 88 and my father 92, I might have the genes to last a bit longer. The big question is: Will I leave the world a slightly better place than I found it? I can only hope...
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  792. The agreement was 2% by 2024 or 2025, NOT immediately. Making agreements with the US in the Trump era is obviously meaningless!
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  793. The similarities between the rise of the Trumpzis and the rise of the Nazis in Germany is terrifying.
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  794. An old adage: The only good Lobbyist is a DEAD Lobbyist. Only Russia beats the US where corruption is concerned, even if the US is so corrupt as to be the only country in the world where bribing politicians is considered legal, thanks to the long-corrupt John G. Edwards-controlled SCOTUS.
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  795. 'Murica has been addicted to cheap oil, excessive elite profits and slave labor (the average working 'Murican has become a slave these past 40 years), and now suddenly find itself with the daunting prospect of having to go into rehab, kicking and screaming. The withdrawal symptoms will be painful, but they are unavoidable.
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  796. "Defense contractors" are more aptly named "Offense contractors". When was the last time the US was attacked by a foreign nation and had to defend US soil? Pearl Harbor? I may be missing some more recent cases, but most US military action since then has been offensive.
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  797. Radical Repugnicans certainly have some weird and twisted ideas about the concepts of "Small Government" and "Freedom".
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  798. Now it appears that the US Executive Branch is supposed to be run like a TV Reality Show, a branding exercise for Trump - and the idiot right-wingers are buying it! Trump is now, with the faithful assistance of the Republicans, trying to take the US from being a seriously flawed democracy and change it into an autocracy! 1/4 million citizens dead already, the virus spreading exponentially and the government being paralyzed since the pandemic started - and the incoming administration (that just MIGHT want to actually tackle the pandemic properly) being sidelined and neutered. Is it any wonder that the US is falling apart these days?
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  799. Ms. Henderson has a refreshing look: A genuine sixties/seventies balloon Afro haircut. I love it! Being Nordic myself (with sparse, straight and uninteresting hair), I always wondered about the pros and cons of the wildly curling hair most Africans have. Possibly irritating to some, but apparently proudly embraced by Ms. Henderson. My country is largely homogeneous, but I try to go out of my way to treat obvious immigrants (African, Asian) with respect and welcome them into our small society. They assiduously conform to the laws of our land and bring new cultural and culinary flavors to our society. What is there to dislike? Regarding the topic of this particular video, I only feel sorry for the US population having a GESTAPO-like police force mucking up their everyday lives. While gun ownership is very high in my country, it is licensed an tightly regulated, and handguns are only allowed for certified marksmanship gun-club members (and the police). Our police is normally unarmed - they have quick access to weapons if called for, but the paperwork required in the aftermath virtually eliminates frivolous application of firearms when upholding the law. We in the Nordic countries have for decades had the type of policing the US population is calling for.
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  800. The first thing that comes to mind to the solve far-right extremist problem: Shoot dead every Republican in sight - but what does THAT kind of thinking make us? Repugnicans? I believe Biden is correct in his 'hands-off' policy regarding the insurrection cleanup/showdown. There are institutions that are supposed to handle crime, insurrection and treason independent of the executive or legislative branch. Simply remove the 'acting' sycophants Trump had appointed and let those institutions handle the insurrection and it's aftermath according to the letter of the law and your Constitution. I have a morbid fascination for watching the disintegration of the US currently on live TV, and am REALLY glad not to be a US citizen (I'm a native of one of the Nordic 'socialist' Hellholes that has a firm grip on the pandemic).
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  801. The UK is hardly the world leader in sequencing if they only sequence 10% of all positive Covid cases. Iceland sequences ALL positive Covid cases, 100%!
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  802. I have seen YouTube videos where shocked US prison wardens/lawmen visit Norwegian prisons. They ALL droned on about how this was NOT the way "correctional facilities" (their favorite phrase!) were supposed to work! Well, look at the results: The Norwegian prison system actually strives to correct the behavior of criminals, and they are far more successful than the US prison system, which does very little in that respect. US prisons should rightly be called "punishment facilities", not "correctional facilities".
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  803. According to some polls, at least 1/3 of 'Muricans of voting age are this stupid, ignorant and/or mislead (brainwashed). Add all the gerrymandering and other cheating that is the Repugnican hallmark, and it just might get Trump into the White House again - a terrifying prospect. If that happens, we can kiss the Western World, as we know it, goodbye.
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  804.  @ethanhiggins4887 , you are obviously correct, considering these details. Item 3 in the checklist is the critical one that they seem to have missed.
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  805.  @rollingwoodmediaservices831 , in Iceland you will see very rare barbed wire fences extending well into the water. Their purpose is to prevent roaming livestock (horses and sheep) from mixing between areas to limit potential infectious livestock diseases from spreading freely. If there are hiking trail nearby, there invariably are means for people to cross the fence easily.
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  806. As a popular Top Gear commentator put it: "SOME SAY - it is a pity that Boris did not emerge from the ICU in a shroud". Boris, your "success" is second only to Trump's, and that is a low bar, indeed!
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  807.  @hansolo762 , you are right, there were a lot of things that were NOT great in the US 50-70 years ago, like segregation. Far too many people in the US are now living paycheck to paycheck and too many are living below the poverty line. Too many people simply cannot afford the time, money or effort to be Good Samaritans these days.
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  808. MTG = Majorly Tained Grinch! Spot ON!
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  809.  D Casey , I probably will be alive, in spite of being 70 years old. You see, I do NOT live in the US - I live in a Nordic country that has tested, monitored, quarantined and treated potential cases from day one. We appear to be ahead of the situation (knock on wood). I always admired the US for what it used to be, and I feel sorry for this once-great nation sliding into an abyss of corruption. Even worse, you demise will severely affect the rest of the world...
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  810. Thom, any "real" 'Murican would have grabbed his rifle and shot the dog, which would have been bloody unfair, because the dog was just being a dog! The problem was the owner, an embodiment of what is wrong with the US these days.
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  811.  @meganyeager2355 , what you need (but will probably not get) is more political parties. Make no mistake: We Nordics (and North Europeans) may be mostly content, but it is a constant struggle! Since the 2008 crash, a lot of voters find themselves struggling to find a political entity to support that will do the LEAST damage to our society. Some parties are too capitalist or fascist and corrupt to touch, others are too idiotic-left and corrupt to touch but there is a plethora of other flavors and nuances to choose from. We are currently suffering an extreme-right fascist wave, in most countries only a "ripple" yet, but in others a real, worrisome wave (Poland, Hungary etc.). Likewise, the US constitution is no guarantee for democracy forever, maintaining it is a constant struggle - as you are experiencing now!
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  812.  @cougarcountyaddept8001 , I am a bit at a loss here. Where I grew up there was no "racism" - if only because we were very homogeneous at the time. These days over 10% of my nation is composed of immigrants. With some notable exceptions, they have ALL proved to be useful and welcome additions to our monotonous culture - be it culinary, cultural or skin tone (we are a Nordic nation that normally has the complexion of a slug, and we spend a lot of time in Spain and Italy developing a tan. Most of us envy people with a permanent tan!). The exceptions: East-European Organized Crime Gangs! They WILL be dealt with, but is takes a while. Another exception: Like any other nation we have our (small, but loud) share of racist arseholes. They are like boils on your bottom...
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  813. Barr will go down in the annals of US history as the man that facilitated the demise of what was left of US democracy, by the hands of an unspeakably corrupt and immoral individual.
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  814. I can't get over the twisted logic 'Muricans use here: A teenager (e.g. eighteen) can buy and use a gun, but is not allowed to buy or drink a beer!
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  815. Omigosh - this smells more than a little cultish, but it has a serious ring of truth to it. The bad news: There is only one nation between 45°W and 150°W potentially willing or capable of heeding this, and that is Canada. The MSA (Medieval States of America) are certainly not capable and, as such, are in for a spectacular ride. Let's just hope it does not end with a lot of smoking ruins...
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  816. Feli, I am impressed with your excellent handling of this difficult topic. I cannot help comparing how Germany has tackled their Nazi past and how 'Murica is currently trying to bury their own even more sordid past regarding the treatment of minorities and outright genocide of North America's natives. What is happening in 'Murica now certainly has strong resemblance to what happened in Germany in the nineteen twenties and thirties. Perhaps the current, upcoming 'Murican generations will do what the German youth did in the late 1960s? Hopefully that will not be only after a cataclysmic upheaval like Germany experienced. I'm not holding my breath, but one can always hope...
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  817. I totally missed the "news" about what actually triggered this right-wing lunatic fringe's (RWLF) hatred of Bud Light. According to TYT, some practical joker pasted a picture of a trans woman on a single can of Bud Light and sent it to a RWLF influencer, which in turn triggered a lot of RWLFs out there. The bad news: There seems to be a lot of hair-trigger RWLFs out there, just waiting to be set off and let loose on just about anything. Smashing beer cans is rather harmless, but most of these RWLFs are bound to have an arsenal of civilian assault rifles and lots of ammunition and will, one day, be incited to go on a rampage.
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  818. Apparently, the US is waking up to a massive racial hangover from a slave-labor binge their forefathers enjoyed long before the United States were even founded!
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  819. As a non-American I always find the US American penchant for hyperbole quite interesting. You have to get this or that group of voters "excited" when the big hurdle is simply getting them "interested" in their own affairs in the first place. The next hurdle is probably to make it possible for newly interested voters to actually VOTE, given all the gerrymandering and voter suppression the Republicans have managed to put in place. US democracy is not simply flawed, it is severely damaged - and now Trump is taking a swing at knocking your revered Constitution down! Is the US public REALLY about to let him get away with it?
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  820. When even the Supreme Court of the land is an accomplice to blatant voter suppression, you simply KNOW that the US is in dire straits. The US has not been a true democracy for almost 40 years by now. In fact, the US has slowly become a farce, not a democracy, and former allies are turning their backs on the US in disgust! Not to worry, though - the dictators of the world are held in high regard by the current administration (and vice versa).
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  821. I'm Icelandic, and while we Nordics have been in accord about just about anything for decades, there have been exceptions in the security, mainly due to our neutral siblings, Sweden and Finland! Well, Putin has finally settled THAT particular issue! Now we are all in the same boat - where we belong.
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  822. The good news appears to be the fact that many of the Trumpzis are really stupid and easily caught. The bad news is that not all of them are this stupid, and will remain a danger to the US for decades to come.
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  823. 'Muricans need to face the fact that their vaunted judicial system is already irrevocably broken. The clearest symptom is the fact that in cases with even a whiff of politics around it, the actual letter of the law has ceased to matter, what counts is who appointed the judge! A country of law and order?
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  824. When a politician emphasizes something (like Boris is now heaping praise on the NHS) he is usually throwing up a smokescreen to hide his REAL intentions, which is usually about the exact opposite of what he is currently saying. In that light, we can expect to NHS to be just as funding-starved once this brouhaha is over, as it was before this shite hit the fan. Bottom line: How can you tell if a politician is lying? Simple answer: When he opens his mouth and says anything.
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  825. The problem with "taboo foods" is not the food source, it is whatever silly RELIGION that forbids certain sources and/or demands that allowed food sources be slaughtered this way, not that, else it is "unclean". All I can say to Muslims, Jews and Christians is "even if you choose your religious leaders wisely, you will be guaranteed to be misled (i.e. screwed)".
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  826. When in power, Republicans spend taxpayer money like a drunk sailor, exploding the deficit - and when the Democrats appear to be taking power, Republicans start screaming bloody murder, calling for Democrats to severely cut public spending (except military spending). They have been doing this since the Reagan era.
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  827. I loved the quip "It was a cold day, he had nothing to be proud of", probably meaning that his normally proud tackle more resembled a wart. Typical understated British humour.
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  828.  Alan Rosenzweig , in part you are correct, in part not (according to my own SWAG). The grim news is that a LOT of US Americans will not survive this, the "good" part of the grim news is that the ratio of ignorant conservatives vs. socially conscious independents will NOT be favorable for the Repugnicans. The cost of this debacle, in lives and economic breakdown, will be devastating but, eventually the US will come out stronger. The main question is - how many decades will it take? If you manage to elect a FDR/Eisenhower/JFK type president it might happen within a single decade, but given your track record and how broken your democracy and election system is, you are in for a lot of misery before things start to get better. You are a country awash with assault-style weapons, and the worst case scenario might even be a genuine civil war - again!
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  829. Please, PLEASE do not forget that there was a time when it was a toss-up which was more dangerous for other countries: the USA with it's unchained Capitalism, or the USSR with it's pretending to be Communist while actually being an Authoritarian regime - labels notwithstanding. Sadly, it would still be a toss-up, if the USSR had not turned out to be worse than the USA, but only barely. The USSR finally went bankrupt and every other nation ambled on in blissful ignorance: Armament spending was pointless, no need to waste too much energy or resources on defense and the military! Well, Putin proved everyone wrong! Now the question remains if Western-world leaders will be stupid enough to continue to try appeasing Putin or if they agree that Putin is out of control (MAD!) and cannot be allowed to gain an inch from his land-grab. NATO is stronger and will be larger and more coherent than it ever was during the almost 80 years since the Cold War started, all due to Putin's colossal miscalculation.
    3
  830. Vermont with it's 600K people is not large enough to implement a Universal Health Care plan? What utter hogwash! Little Iceland, with a population of only 360K has had it for over half a century and is doing just fine, thank you very much!
    3
  831. The attitude of Climate Deniers much like the attitude of the man that fell from a 100 story skyscraper: Passing the 50th floor, he was heard saying "So far, so good, I ain't dead yet". Of course he did not survive the landing...
    3
  832. Is this the way to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis - or any other nation the US already has invaded, not to mention those they have yet to invade?
    3
  833.  @marym1053 , I really hope my pessimism will not be borne out. I really, REALLY hope US voters will be able to fix this in 2020, if not before.
    3
  834. Fahrenheit makes more sense? When is the freezing point of intensely salty brine really relevant for everyday use? For some inscrutable reason, that is the 0°F definition. What is relevant in practice, at least at northern latitudes, is the point at which water becomes solid, driving becomes treacherous and a host of other problems befall everyday life.
    3
  835. Another "brilliant" Trump idea: Get rid of the nuclear arsenal by using the nukes on hurricanes. Never mind the slight side effect of turning the globe radioactive and eliminating life as we know it...
    3
  836. Repugnican politics grow more disgusting by the day...
    2
  837. Kelly L'Offal sounds more appropriate...
    2
  838. Anyone that takes the word of Pfizer as gospel is an idiot and truly DESERVE to be the first to get the vaccine, just like Trump's hydroxychloroquin and injected disinfectant cure. When the FDA approves this vaccine we can NOT count on it being any good - after all, this is Trump's FDA! Only when the WHO and e.g. EU agencies give any vaccine it's blessing can we begin to trust it. Trump and his lackeys have fucked up and screwed over the credibility of virtually ALL formerly trusted institutions in the US, and it will take years, even decades for them to regain their former reputations. The Being/FAA cock-up with the B737 MAX was just an appetizer...
    2
  839. The immense nonsense going on in the US is astounding, something we outside the US watch with morbid fascination. In my own little coutry we did the opposite, and it BLOODY WELL WORKED! We never had to resort to a total curfew, we only did physical (NOT social) distancing. We currently have had less than 1 case pr. day for a week and we are planning to relax our restrictions in ANOTHER WEEK, not before! We are NOT running off half-cocked like Trump wants YOU to do! Seeing that we have already tested over 14% of our population and are planning to keep up that level of testing until this is over and done with we are in a pretty good shape, at least we KNOW what we have on our hands. You in the US, on the other hand, are flying blindfolded and I can assure you that you are going to crash if you listen to Trump and his cronies. Actually, you are destined for a major crash, what remains to be seen is it this will be a 737 MAX-type crash (total destruction) or an Asiana-type crash, whith some survivors...
    2
  840. He may have been a comedian by profession, but he is very intelligent and well-grounded. He studied law and has many, many other talents that are not really relevant at this point in time. What counts is the fact that he is, even by accident, a reluctant leader that has more than risen to the occasion: He is destined to be placed among greats like Churchill and Roosevelt! His PR skills are incredible. He remotely addressed the Parliament of my own little, insignificant country (Iceland) and won us over completely, heart and soul. My guess is that, besides his many other talents, he has the wisdom to choose good and well-informed advisors and, most important, has the humility to know when to follow their advice! Bottom line: A really GOOD leader!
    2
  841. 'Murica, the land of the free - where not only the lunatics are free but are taking over the asylum. Half a century ago, I used to admire the US and everything 'Murican. I have been thoroughly disabused of that notion by now.
    2
  842. So - in the US, allowing EVERYONE to vote without having to jump all kinds of hoops is simply too hard or too complicated? Or perhaps, because US politicians have been bought and paid for in many decades, there is no interest by the powers-that-be to facilitate easy and secure voting. They KNOW how to exploit the current system.
    2
  843. Short answer: YES! In the long history of humanity, the US is probably not the absolutely FIRST country to go backwards intentionally, but the US is currently hurtling backwards down a steep and rocky slope.
    2
  844. What do you think is a more effective deterrent against the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers: Hitting the police department in the pocketbook or jailing the offenders? The pocketbook of an official organization is what the lawyers ALWAYS go for, while the threat of serious repercussions might actually make police officers think twice before using excessive and even deadly force. While policing is a difficult and thankless job, it also tends to attract individuals that should never be allowed to carry a badge, a gun and the power to excessively abuse even minor offenders.
    2
  845.  @julieannmyers8714 , "unfortunately" is spot-on. I wonder if the horrors of the coming 2-6 weeks will be sufficient to wake up the sleeping giant (the US general public), resulting in reasonable and humane justice (not for-profit exploitation), access to affordable health care and education as a RIGHT, not a privilege.
    2
  846. That sort of settles it: Anyone that has seen the world outside the US is fully aware of the fact that the US is populated by Idiots. Those that cannot be classified as Idiots are definitely Morons. R.I.P. US Empire...
    2
  847. The only thing palatable about this was watching the Blond Monster squirm when faced with the unvarnished truth.
    2
  848. I wonder why every 'Murican political candidate has to "approve this message", especially when they have been a visible and obvious part of it? It is striking how "political messages" in 'Murica seem to mainly focus on denigrating an opponent. I have only seen a rare few that are only positive: Instead of dissing an opponent, the message is simply "This is where I come from, this is what I stand for and aim for, this is what I promise to do if you elect me". Surprisingly, many of those ended up being elected! Is it possible that political honesty might be the new winning formula in 'Murica? If so, knock me over with a feather!
    2
  849.  Tomandtob , I totally agree - mourning the unnecessary loss of one's countryman's life is very natural, be it in war, a mass shooting or an accident. What I find hypocritical is how the media constantly revers "American lives lost" while giving the impression that other lives lost do not matter at all! Your leaders will take you into war anywhere on the globe at the drop of a hat, under the guise of defending America. True, some of the recent wars have been waged for good cause, but too many have been waged primarily to protect US corporate interests. Bear in mind that this is just my opinion, based on my own limited world view.
    2
  850.  Tomandtob , you are probably right that the media in every country laments their own dead while making little of other deaths (e.g. the media in Islamic countries do not lament the death of "infidels"), but I find the US media more than a bit over the top, for a western nation, when it comes to this issue while hardly mentioning the hundreds of thousands of e.g. Iraqi and Afghan civilians that have died in these conflicts. The European media do this to some extent as well, but they are not nearly as bad. I HAVE traveled quite a bit. Apart from regular traveling to many countries for my own pleasure, I spent around 2 years in a war zone in the early nineties (Angola) flying for the ICRC, as well as a year in Yemen (flying for oil companies) when they were finally mending after a long civil war between the North and the South. Now they are a disaster zone, AGAIN, even worse than before! You are right that there are absolutely no "good guys" in any conflict, and that includes the superpowers that used to have their fingers in every pie (the US and the USSR). I truly hope that you are right in that the "defend corporate interests" model has died, but the evidence says otherwise. It may be the Trumpzis that are pretending to "spread democracy" these days but, while it IS a sad joke, Trump is a very recent (and hopefully short-lived) phenomenon. The US's direct and indirect military involvement in conflicts all over the world during the last 50-60 years has sometimes been benign but frequently quite sinister, especially when dictators and despots in South America have been endlessly propped up.
    2
  851.  @dallasbangerter8165 , 'Murican Repugnicans WILL, whatever the actual reason for rising gas prices. Repugnicans are both disingenuous and idiotic these days, must be some obscure natural law...
    2
  852. Using Latin only confuses the issue: This was outright extortion and bribery, and at least BRIBERY is spelled out as a big no-no in the Constitution.
    2
  853. "The credibility of the US is on the line"! What credibility? Everything coming from this administration is very inconsistent and very suspect, and in many cases outright lies that are consistently exposed by emerging facts.
    2
  854. The truly terrifying thing is the fact that Trump just might pull it off! Cheating, voter-suppressing & gerrymandering Repugnicans have perverted what is left of US democracy to the point that a clown with the verbal acuity of a toddler could actually stay in office for another 4 years.
    2
  855. Do people truly believe Lois NoJoy will stand by his words? I'm sure he ans Trump have at least one thing in common: Lying through their teeth! SAYING he will suspend the USPS slowdown probably means that he will be going ahead with it under the radar. Now the US public will have to depend on USPS whistle-blowers.
    2
  856. 'Muricans like this caller can argue until they are blue in the face, but Thom referenced a point that shoots ALL such arguments down in flames: In Denmark a McDonald worker earns $18 pr. hour (a living wage) while the burgers cost only 3% more. In fact, this applies to all of Europe: The people that serve you at restaurants all earn a living wage and tipping is not needed to help them survive, yet those restaurants flourish. Riddle me THAT, 'Muricans! 'Murica may be exceptional, but only in how they are managing to slowly re-introduce slavery through their warped labor market practices.
    2
  857. Not to paint Trump in a positive light, but in this clip Trump only said "put Coal Miners back to work" - not necessarily back in the coal mines. That particular Trump promise turned out to be par for the course: Empty and broken, just like anything coming from Trump.
    2
  858. Having followed US politics for some decades, I have long ago realized that the US has NEVER been a true democracy. It has always been a paradise for the rich and influential (male landowners), and while minorities like women and non-whites have had an elevated position for almost a century, that is about to end. For over 40 years, the US has been a cesspool of political bribery and corruption, and that state of affairs is about to culminate in a disaster.
    2
  859. The Russian nation will have a lot to answer for when Putin is finally out of power. Entire cities in Ukraine turned to rubble in their name that should be rebuilt by the Russian nation. An alternative idea: How about the West confiscating all the assets of Russian Kleptocrats and using THAT money to rebuild Ukraine while the Russian people are allowed to finally determine their own fate? Talk about poetic justice.
    2
  860. ​ @Qbertqueso , Point taken.
    2
  861. What is the best that could happen? Trumps base takes him seriously and ignore all common-sense warning regarding COVID-19, become sick and DIE?
    2
  862. What kind of society IS 'Murica? In a nutshell: INHUMANE, SICK, PERVERTED! To force a raped child to carry to term and possibly dying because these "Christian" perverts do not care a fig about the results of their political meddling! I promise you: Within a decade or so, other developed nations will regard 'Murica to be on par with ISIS, the Taliban and Hamas - and whatever insane radical movements that may pop up in the next decade.
    2
  863. In a nutshell: "Red States" will soon become "Dead States". If medical professionals end up refusing to work there under the draconian nonsense the MAGA Repugnicans are imposing, these states will simply end up with a handful of religious zealot doctors that are just as likely to revert to the ancient practice of bloodletting as their main remedy for just about every ailment the Red State inhabitants experience - in effect, no health care at all, a quick delivery to the rapture they seem to be seeking! That will rapidly kill off the remaining citizens of the dying states, making them "Empty States". While that will cause no end of tragic consequences, it will hand the deserved Darwin Award to the idiots (self-imposed removal from the gene pool), and mankind will be much better off - eventually. It will be painful to watch, but still...
    2
  864. Throughout their history, US Americans have managed to do absolutely incredible things, once they get their arses in gear. This time around, however, it looks like time as simply run out, ALL thanks to the Trumpzis. Trump will not be able to talk or lie his way out of this one!
    2
  865. This is telling: Other nations no longer trust the impartiality of US institutions. No wonder, given the "revolving door" between the current US administration and corporate America. Individual US specialists are not suspect, it is the current chain of command in US institutions that are suspect. The professionals appear to be forced out, to be replaced by "acting" puppets to various interest groups.
    2
  866. There were a number of able-bodied police officers on scene that could have tried to disable the man by a number of less lethal means (batons, tasers, sidearms) but of course the default was to use a powerful military-style weapon with wall-penetrating power, bullets that will make mush of the internal organs of any target, intended or not. Sadly, this conduct is considered acceptable in the madhouse the US has become. Given their propensity to overreacting, I wonder how long it will take until US police will start engaging situations like this with RPGs or chain guns.
    2
  867. The US as a concept is, sadly, falling apart. While the French pioneered the concept of liberty, equality and fraternity in relatively modern times, the fledgling new United States of America took the concept to another level. That experiment is now apparently buckling under the weight of autocrats. The rich and privileged have for over 200 years tried to run the show in the US and were on top of it all until WW2, when they temporarily lost control. The white and privileged part of the US enjoyed actual liberty most of the time, at least until Ronald Bloody Reagan ruined it all. Equality was, at least on paper, enjoyed for a while but fraternity has always been outlawed in a nation where a privileged few (the Repugnican minority) are allowed to rape and pillage the disfranchised majority. The last time this state of inequality was allowed free rein ended with a bloodbath: The French masses rose up and invented AND USED the Guillotine! While the radical Trumpists have been diligently amassing a lot of military-type weapons and ammunition, they are less than 20% of the US population. The more peaceful 80% of the nation will, when finally provoked to act, rise up and violently overwhelm and slaughter the fat and useless fascists, the Brownshirt/Gestapo/SS types of modern US society.
    2
  868. Juan certainly has an unique knack of digging into whatever actual facts are known during the initial stages of investigation, following an aircraft crash, and what that means for the possible trajectory of any the investigation. More important, he regularly manages to do that while managing to avoid having having potential personal opinions bleed through. The end result: He is extremely credible! If he makes any missteps, he will be the first to acknowledge that.
    2
  869. I have seen at least one other DW clip where this same "reporter" (Juri Rescheto) is doing what he is doing here: Unashamedly pushing Putin's talking points! By all appearances, DW is becoming Putin's lapdog, at least Juri Rescheto comes across as a Russian agent.
    2
  870. How many voters are eligible to vote in the US and how many votes were actually cast? The Talking Heads keep talking about voter turnout in % but then use number of votes to describe Trump's popular vote loss, an irritating disconnect. I would like to see Trump's popular vote loss as a percentage of the votes cast, which is probably a number that is less impressive, even if Hilary's popular vote victory might have been roughly in the order of 2.5% of the votes cast.
    2
  871. So the Swedes turned out to be wrong, that seems obvious now, June 5, 2020. But Thom, where did you get those fatality numbers for Finland, Norway and Denmark? You state them as 58, 44 and 100 respectively, while the John Hopkins numbers are 322, 238 and 582. Only your fatality numbers for Sweden itself are correct. Also, why do you say Sweden's deaths pr. million (450/M) is worse than that of the UK at 585/M. Methinks you have either a severe case of mis-speaking or mis-calculations this time around.
    2
  872. Europe is facing a dictator that WILL eventually invade other European and NAT countries, and while Europe has unwisely relied on a a very flaky and unreliable partner, that is obviously about to end. It will take some time for Europe to get on a proper war footing, but we will get there! 'Murica will truly find itself very alone! Staying in bed with the likes of Russia, China and North Korea will not be comfortable in the long run.
    2
  873. Repugnicans have some weird ideas about the size and role of government: They want small government and freedom from government interference in their lives, and then they fight for THIS?
    2
  874. @Carys Parks, I'm not anti-gun (being non-'Murican, but a licensed owner of low-capacity hunting guns). Fortunately, in my country we have no need to be armed to the teeth for self-defense, in fact not even our police needs to be armed on a daily basis! We have strict gun laws, and handguns are only allowed for thoroughly vetted individuals, and then only for sport (marksmanship competition etc.). Military-style weapons (high-capacity auto/semi-auto, subsonic or high-velocity) are not allowed at all, seeing that they serve no purpose for ordinary civilians. The result: The only gun deaths for decades are very rare, and have been crime-related, extremely rare accident and suicides. The only police killing in over a century was a madman that had been firing his shotgun from his balcony for hours, and only when he took to the streets did the police fire one shot. It was an attempt to disable that ended up being fatal and the police humbly apologized to the relatives for botching this so badly. Needless to say, living in such a secure environment makes me feel sorry for you 'Muricans, given the state of affairs in you country.
    2
  875. To describe the pace of the 'Murican judicial system as Glacial is generous, at best - and that probably applies to most low-corruption judicial systems everywhere in the word. This is frustrating to laypeople, but there is no doubt a good reason for it. Judicial systems that work like a greased lightning in some cases and not at all in others are extremely suspect. On reflection, I think I just described the 'Murican Judicial System to a Tee, just witness the pace at which poor black vs. rich white/political suspects are judged!
    2
  876. I live in a social-democratic country (Iceland) and I cannot help feeling that Americans must be nuts! Who in his right mind would refuse a health care system that provides affordable care to ALL citizens while simultaneously reining in the insane profits currently made by by Big Pharma and the Health Care Insurance mob? Do you REALLY think affordable education (academic or trade schools) will break the back of your economy? Wages that keep families above the poverty line should be a RIGHT, not a privilege. You keep insisting that you are the richest nation in the world, and you think you cannot afford such basic rights?
    2
  877. The hatred against the entire Russian nation actions like this gives rise to cannot be discounted. The perpetrators involved will be exposed, if they are still alive - the time and date of the executions are known, and the Russian troops responsible (and their commanders) will be hunted down and terminated like the rabid animals they are. What is unknown is the revenge of the Ukrainian relatives that will want to exact equal revenge on the relatives of the Russian perpetrators. Given the Russian atrocities, who could blame them? Israel quietly hunted down and exterminated escaped Nazis for decades following WW2, knowing that they would otherwise escape retribution on technicalities. Ukrainians never let a good lesson go unheeded, so guilty Russians better beware!
    2
  878. The Vice-Clown of the United States has spoken - and was NOT impressive! Then again, he is just echoing the nonsense the Main Clown of the United States has been spouting. A speech like this, given to a collection of the most serious politicians and diplomats on the globe is actually, at best, a mediocre piece of stand-up comedy, where the comedian (the Vice-Clown) makes an absolute fool of himself. 'Murica just earned itself a major setback - how can we respect a nation led by clowns like this?
    2
  879. Whenever Donald Trump talks about people "hating their country", he actually means people "hating Trump" (or Donald Hitler, to use his full name).
    2
  880. Isn't WONDERFUL, being a citizen of the "greatest" nation in the world? You WILL NOT face the facts and statistics that show how other developed nations are doing things so much better and at lower cost than you are. Thom brought up a glaring point: Life expectancy of citizens below 18 and above 65 is improving because they have access to Medicaid and Medicare and do not have to shy away from seeking medical help when needed. No, you will jealously guard a system where rich stockholders can profit off the US "health care" system - you should really be calling this a "profit care" system. Come to think of it, the current US system may simply be pragmatic: People between 18 and 65 require jobs to survive, which is a nuisance - it is much more profitable to ship US jobs to developing countries. I wonder when the "defense industry" (that should really be called the "offensive industry") will start shipping manufacturing to China...
    2
  881.  @intuitionz1198 , if you mean the "let them eat cake" Marie Antoinette, you are absolutely correct.
    2
  882. Are not indiscriminate Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure escalation of the worst kind? Apparently they are in most cases outright war crimes - and some Western leaders are STILL worrying about taking part in escalating the war! Olaf the Waffle is the worst, likely because of covert Russian ties, but what about the others? I suspect history will not treat them or their legacy kindly. We can solidly write off two NATO member states as Putin-Russia wannabes (Orban's Hungary and Erdogan's Turkey), to be dealt with later, but Olaf's Germany is a bit of a puzzle.
    2
  883. Boeing and the FAA are now running smack into an old aviation safety quip: If you think regular aviation safety is expensive, just wait until you have an accident (not to mention two!).
    2
  884. There are actually 2 nations, founding members of NATO, that refuse to host nuclear weapons on their territory during peacetime: Noway and Iceland. Of course, during wartime all bets will be off, the large nations will overrule this.
    2
  885. Pompeo talks about "an enormous coalition" - but that coalition is bound to consist only of the US, Israel and the Saudis in this case. Any government in the NATO alliance that is stupid enough to follow Trump into a war with Iran will be kicked out in their next election. After all, NATO is only supposed to be a DEFENSE alliance even if the US has been trying very hard to change it into an OFFENSIVE alliance. The way things are going, the US will have shed most or all of it's traditional allies - which is actually Putin's ultimate goal!
    2
  886. In his idiocy he will hopefully take care of that himself.
    2
  887. Fortunately I'm not 'Murican, because you 'Muricans are obviously going around the bend! What an ignorant bunch of ignorant and lazy idiots you are turning out to be! 1/3rd of you are supposed to be rational, but those 'Muricans must have gone into hiding - there is not a shred of rationality or common sense coming from 'Murica these days - and that goes in part for you as well, John and Francesca. It will be interesting to watch the whole 'Murican Dream collapse in the coming years. What will NOT be interesting will be watching you drag the entire Western World down into the gutter with you.
    2
  888. National Guard Chief Daniel Hokanson came across as one of the seditious traitors that now have their arses hanging in the breeze, soon to be investigated and punished for their seditious activities - in this case INactivity. He is at best incompetent, at worst an outright antidemocratic traitor that did his best to aid and abet Trump's storm troopers. I strongly suspect that he will be one of the traitors that will end up with a severe punishment when this has been properly investigated.
    2
  889. My guess is that his school English was neglected for long because it was not needed. When it was really needed, he had the sense not to use imperfect English to convey really important things - for that he used his native language and competent translators. He is now getting more proficient with pronouncing English, yet has the sense to read important speeches written by competent speechwriters. To get by with only basic English skills is easy, to convey complicated matters calls for a complex vocabulary that Zelenskyy is obviously working on but has not acquired yet.
    2
  890. You know better Thom: There IS no arguing with an idiot that has made up his mind, and this idiot certainly falls into that category.
    2
  891. The US obviously COULD regain it's former glory - in theory, both domestically and globally, BUT that will take a decades-long hard slog to manage. I find it extremely unlikely that the disjointed and corrupt mess that now comprises the US nation will actually manage that. The descent of Germany into fascism in the 1930's is one template, and the US is likely to follow a similar path. What will be striking is how quickly things will progress, once you have gone over the edge of the cliff. That is what caught the otherwise stable German nation by surprise almost a century ago. The fact that a tiny body of 9 individuals (SCOTUS) is the glaring root cause of the entire inequality issue simply boggles the mind.
    2
  892.  @africanqueenmo , I'm not a Brit but my guess is that you are an angry US American...
    2
  893.  @gettrue , all will be well if you do not allow the right-wing radicals to get away with confusing US progressives with inter-war Soviet "Communists" or the dreaded European Hellhole Socialists.
    2
  894. How many of us have seen the film showing a prominent British politician waving a piece of paper with Hitler's signature on it, crowing "peace in our times". This was Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler just before WW2. Appeasing Putin is just as meaningless. Putin's signature on any treaty is not worth the paper it is written on.
    2
  895. To add insult to injury: In around 2 years, over one million 'Muricans lost their lives purely due to the incompetence or even willful malpractice of the Trump Administration! Some say that if the US had immediately implemented pandemic measures along the lines of most other developed nations, the death toll would have been around 100K! Only one-tenth of the actual, current death toll caused by bloody Trump and his apocalyptic team! The penalty of directly or indirectly killing 900K 'Muricans seems to be about the same as Trump gunning down one individual on Park Avenue in broad daylight: None! What is 'Murica coming to? Overt bribery of politicians, censorship (book burnings), blatant removal of hard-earned civic and woman's rights? What will be next - the burning of Witches? By then, 'Murican tourists will be booed and denied service in every country they try to visit.
    2
  896. Dear me, people being actually ALLOWED to vote is what Repugnicans hate. The opposite (voter suppression and gerrymandering) is what they glowingly call "Strong Election Integrity". No wonder 'Murica is no longer considered only a flawed democracy, it is simply NOT a democracy by any stretch of the imagination. And regardless of what the the nit-pickers keep saying, a Republic IS supposed to be a Democracy. It's in the bloody name of the concept!
    2
  897.  @saladinallah5299 , I actually believe the youth of US America is their best hope. While there is probably a high proportion of damaged youths, there is a hell of a lot of young, intelligent and socially conscious people that are just waiting to become voters. The Parkland Kids are one shining example regarding one particular issue. Can you imagine all the kids out there that are NOT going to take any crap when it comes to climate change issues, affordable health care and education etc. when they are old enough to vote! There are many upcoming AOC's just itching to be let loose...
    2
  898. Say anything bad you want about Russians: They still have an ingrained respect for Babushkas!
    2
  899. What is wrong with 'Murica these days? "Moms for Liberty" is the label for 'Murican idiots that are fighting to ban and/or burn books. Liberty is censorship? A number of "Freedom this, freedom that" organizations ALL concentrate on depriving 'Murican citizens of some of the few freedoms they have had for decades, like bodily autonomy - freedom of thought will probably be next. No one mentions the freedoms that 'Muricans have NOT had for over 40 years: Freedom from the horror of affordable health care, freedom from the scourge of having affordable education, freedom from the terror of a good work-life balance and freedom from the pain of paid leave and suffering of maternity leave like the European "communists" have... There are a LOT of freedoms that 'Muricans do NOT have!
    2
  900.  @50jakecs , spot on!
    2
  901. Conservatives are screwing over the 'Murican nation - and the 'Murican nation keeps electing them! Every nation DESERVES the creeps they elect into power.
    2
  902. Winning a primary election held by a political party is just a primary step, it is NOT holding an office. Being denied a place on the ballot, running for the office of the Presidency of the US is different; there are limitations like the age limit, place of birth, ineligibility according to the 14th amendment etc. Actually HOLDING any Federal or State office is rather concrete - the 14th amendment is very clear on that.
    2
  903. George Orwell's Big Brother horror story is being re-enacted in Florida and other 'Murican Red States. This is SICK! What is next? Will Canada and North-Europe be flooded with 'Murican health-care refugees? We had better start installing barbed wire and machine guns at our borders...
    2
  904. Face it 'Murica, you are rapidly devolving back to the Dark Ages. Next stop: Some version of the Spanish Inquisition? Witch-finding and Witch trials? Goo luck with that...
    2
  905. Thom, you are now supporting blatant cover-ups, simply because you own country was caught committing war crimes? To compound the hipocracy, you want the MESSENGER, the whistleblower to be punished, not the war criminals! Wikileaks were handed a trove of information about the war crimes YOUR COUNTRY committed in Iraq and, like any independent news organization, they simply PUBLISHED IT! The "Crazy Horse" callsign, a bloodthirsty young 'Murican chopper pilot chomping at the bit to be allowed to SHOOT something, to KILL something exposed a fatal and murderous flaw in the 'Murican psyche, something I cannot condone, ever. Anyone that watched the dead father and the seriously wounded children will never, ever be able to forgive the murderous intent of the sick young 'Muricans that killed a father and tore apart his children because the father saw a wounded person in the street and wanted to help! I certainly hope the identities of these murderous 'Murican soldiers - and their commanders - will become public in the future, NO ONE should be above the law! Watching you defending the war crimes and advocating the shooting of the messenger does it for me: One lost long-time subscriber - and another brick in the wall that confirms that being a modern 'Murican is a serious mental disease.
    2
  906. Imagine: If I, a non-'Murican, were to visit the Unnatural State of Florida and started by honoring US values by legally acquiring a handgun and subsequently encountered a rabid right-winger that made me feel unsafe, and I reacted by screaming and yelling "standing my ground" and then simply shot the sucker dead! Being white, would I be exempt from a murder charge? Possibly - which is why I use the term "The Unnatural State of Florida". Now, this situation is moot: 1) I am Icelandic, and the absolutely LAST thing I would to is to buy a handgun, and 2) My first reaction to a confrontational situation would be to simply "leg it" (British slang for "running for your life"). Life in 'Murica does not HAVE to be dangerous, there is something called common sense that is too rarely used.
    2
  907. To an outsider like me it looks like 'Murican "democracy" is the best that billionaire money can buy. The end result is a parody of democracy (not even a flawed one). Most important: It is what 'Murican voters deserve, since they cannot even be bothered to to show up and vote out the current corruption.
    2
  908. I have gone skiing in Italy for years, in the Selva and Madonna regions (where the virus eventually found fertile grounds for spreading), and it was only by blind luck that I was there some weeks before the outbreak started. I hope all the lovely Italians I have met during my many and pleasant visits to this ebullient country are doing reasonably well, and I am looking forward to visiting them again once this is over.
    2
  909. What is worrying is the fact that the US is a country that managed to elect someone like Trump to it's highest office. The US is hardly what we can call a "stable partner" these days, with the madcap political system they have.
    2
  910. What the hell is going on? Keep It Simple Stupid: The US is falling apart, and virtually every institution in the US appear to be too catatonic to for anyone to do anything about it! A simple fact: One of the first things Trump did was to dismantle the already-awesome capability of the US to respond to epidemics, let alone a genuine pandemic! Trump and his sycophants already have more than 800K unnecessary deaths on their hands, and that is in the US alone. There WILL be a reckoning, even if it takes a decade or two. Trump is bound to be stone-cold dead by then, much like Hitler was over 75 years ago, but his sycophants will be fair game and will feel the full wrath of the rest of humanity.
    2
  911. My impression of various examples of US Americans is being affirmed by Rep. Doug Collins: Southern drawl = ignorant, cruel and narcissistic person! I fully realize that this kind of generalization is grossly unfair, but his is the actual impression people like Doug Collins leaves with us non-Americans, your former allies.
    2
  912. Germany's reluctance to engage in military conflict is to be respected and honored, given their history, but the current situation is apparently blowing that stance out of the water. Germany is now facing the current reality, and I am sure they will make sensible decisions that will be based on democratic and humanitarian principles.
    2
  913. "...coming in at number XYZ" is becoming a Beato trademark! For the record, I can only wholeheartedly agree with your choice of top LZ riffs - we might not agree to the exact order, but I will humbly bow to yourexpertise any day. I consider it a privilege to be able to watch your YouTube content. I can fiddle along on a number of instruments, but I will never reach the level of expertise you have (I consider my only worthwhile contribution to music to be knowing when to quit). You sometimes dig deeper into a piece of music that I love than I can follow but - hey, no problem, I'll just wait until reappear again.
    2
  914. What is being described here is the current reality of the underdogs in the US, i.e. the colored class! Lead poisoning of children? Check out Flint, Michigan. Long working hours and low pay? Check out just about everywhere in the US. High birth, infant and mortality rate? Compare US statistics to the rest of the western world. It is shameful! Misinformation? Where to begin... Life for the lower classes in the US are in many ways comparable to the same in Victorian England. The main difference is that Victorian problems were caused by lack of knowledge, the US does NOT have that excuse!
    2
  915. Let's allow religious zealots eliminate themselves - if the really WANT to catch CIVID-19 just to prove they are blessed, bloody well LET THEM! They believe what they believe and will NOT thank you for sticking your nose into their belief system. After all, when you are dead you are bloody well DEAD! If you had anything to will away to your descendants, you can be sure it will be a source of strife and contention, something you probably never intended...
    2
  916. My impression is that Russian citizens are simply afraid of having political opinions at all, it can so easily turn out to be "illegal" and earn them 15 years in prison. What they do not realize is that his enforced political apathy is about to land their entire country into a generations-long isolation and global disdain, NOT TO MENTION the embarrassing future moments when their grandchildren eventually ask them why they did not do anything while Putin did what he did.
    2
  917. This initial/preliminary report curiously leaves out very some important details: Was the explosion internal (bomb on board) or external (missile). Stills from the blurry video of the plane show that it was missing most of it's empennage (tail surfaces) and at least one wing, which will have fluttered down and landed a safe distance from the fiery crash site. Their condition will clearly show the cause of the crash.
    2
  918. The dignity of the US just went down the drain. How many decades will it take to rebuild the respect the US used to have? Perhaps one decade, perhaps two? 'Muricans will be objects of ridicule for a long time, and they have DESERVED it by electing the clown-show now running the farce the US has become.
    2
  919. Let's start calling the wrongly-named "Freedom caucus" by it's proper moniker: "The Fascist Caucus"! I hope I'm wrong, but I have this feeling that now the worst of the clown show is crawling under the carpet, CNN is preparing to show it's true, Repugnican colors - but time will tell. Hopefully this recent trip that almost resulted in 'Murica jumping off the edge into the right-wing abyss is shaking enough ordinary 'Muricans awake, alerting them to the fact that 'Murica has spent over 40 years coddling Big Money (private AND corporate) and that almost led the way to dissolving democracy and establishing outright Fascism (not to mention eliminating the 'Murican Middle Class), and what the "Socialism/Communism" bogeyman mantra the ultra-right-wing has been chanting all these years has actually been serving the rest of the Western World pretty damn well, from Europe to Australia and New Zealand.
    2
  920. Isn't this getting off rather easy, if this is the worst of it? It could have been far worse, I suppose.
    2
  921. The no-nonsense any-terrain vehicle around 2:30 is clearly marked NOTARZT (Not-Arzt, which literally means Emergency-Doctors), clearly a vehicle intended for carrying medical specialists to the scene of any accident, even off-road.
    2
  922. Putin's actions are backfiring on him by causing the West to stop their internal haggling and unite against Russia. He is even managing to cause long-standing neutral nations like Sweden and Finland to actively consider formally joining NATO to avoid the same fate as Ukraine within this decade. No wonder Ukraine has wanted to join, they knew what was coming. I am sure the Baltic nations are relieved they have already joined.
    2
  923. In my opinion, rabid Conservatives are people with damaged souls, and rabid Trumpian Conservative Repugnicans have no soul at all. That is simply my opinion, everyone else obviously having the freedom of having their own opinion. What I find incredulous is the simple fact that there are so FEW rabid right-wingers that still have a shred of conscience left in them. At the moment, there are only 2, count TWO, honest conservatives that actually care about the future of the Republic of the United States of America as a democracy, even if flawed or endangered. The apparent mindset of most of the violent Trump-followers like the "Proud Boys" and similar is reminiscent of the individuals the eagerly wanted to become members of Hitler's Brown Shirts and, later, Hitler's "well-regulated militia" Gestapo .
    2
  924. Civilization will not literally END - but it will change, maybe even drastically.
    2
  925.  @predabot__6778  Perhaps because desperate immigrants are the only ones willing to accept 'Murican-style starving wages? The way the tourism industry is allowed to get away with blatant exploitation of helpless workers is a blemish on Icelandic society.
    2
  926. What a sharp and lovable person AOC is. What I like best is her tendency to smile an laugh a lot - humor is obviously always a preferred go-to for her, an excellent way to stay sane in the mad, mad world she recently entered.
    2
  927. Ukraine (and all the other Soviet countries) had a existential problem with all the corruption left by the Soviet era. The Baltic countries are still battling the Soviet-era corruption they inherited - and are slowly succeeding, Poland is winning, Belarus has hopelessly lost and the question remains: What about Ukraine! Zelensky was a comedian, as non-political and non-corrupt as you can imagine, the ideal reform leader, an intelligent, idealistic and non-corrupted individual that may well be the best Ukraine could possibly have hoped for at this stage! The beginning was not auspicious, Trump (a Putin puppet) tried to bully Zelensky (the "perfect" phone call) - and failed. The question remains: What is the situation with uprooting the pervasive Soviet-era corruption Ukraine inherited? One would think that the current fight for their existence would be motivation enough to flush out any remnants of Russian corruption, but that is yet to be settled. Which way it goes remains to be seen. If Ukraine manages to remain democratic, a master of it's own future, there still remains a lot of deep cleaning to be done. The Russian "problem" is unsolved. Russians that fled Russia in the beginning seem trustworthy, all other Russians will sadly fall into the "the only good Russian is a DEAD Russian" category. The Russian nation (not counting all the eastern provinces that are itching to be rid of Russian oppression) will have a miserable time of it for AT LEAST a decade, even a generation or two. Given their behaviour in the Ukrainian invasion, it can be argued that the average Russian citizen is a monster, not fit to be counted as a member of the human race!
    2
  928. I have a sneaky suspicion that too many US public-safety institutions have been corrupted by big money over at least 4 decades. I fear the US is about to have the results of that corruption about crash around their ears is the immediate future. We have shining example, where an aircraft manufacturer (Boeing) was allowed to self-regulate and get away with cutting corners that resulted in spectacular crashes and loss of life. Another spectacular and ongoing loss-of-life case (approaching half a million US citizens) is the Covid death toll, caused mainly by the systematic dismantling and paralyzing of relevant institutions. Yet another case that is brewing (has not yet been acknowledged and researched) is how big corporations have been allowed to pollute large areas of the US, rendering many places unfit for human inhabitation (e.g. Flint, Michigan). Still another case of corruption: Just compare how the EU regulates food production and additives Europeans consume, compared to what is going on in the US! How many US-based food additives and food production practices have been outright BANNED in the EU for years! One day the average 60-year old US citizen that has been very careful about his/her health will find that they have been feed outright poison that will negate all their careful health considerations. Finally, I reccomment that US citizens consider just WHY their areas are being consumed by heat waves / forest fires / Tornados / Hurricanes / Floods / extreme winter storms etc. Take your pick. Scientists have been predicting increasingly extreme weather patterns for decades, and you are just seeing the beginning!
    2
  929.  @donschwartz8341 , so true!
    2
  930. Why is he trying to give Rudy good advice? Rudy & Trump have dug themselves a nice, deep hole and should be left alone to just keep digging...
    2
  931. Preet Bharara obviously has a lightning-fast, logical and eloquent mind, AND his mouth is able to keep up with it. The problem: We, the public, have a REALLY hard time keeping up with him! He should make an effort to speak a bit more slowly. I imagine he would find it a chore, but what he is saying would coma across a lot better.
    2
  932. I was only describing Social Democracy as practiced in the Nordic countries. I did not mention the US in that context. What you Americans see as Socialism (or Communism in the form used by the former Soviet Union) is a different beast altogether. YOU get real!
    2
  933. Well, I'm Icelandic and I admire how Canada is standing up to Trump's insanity. Go, Canadians! All the other NATO member nations are waking up to the fact that the US has a severe mental problem, and we will have to do without the US lunatics. It will take some effort, but 31 NATO countries (after losing the US from the alliance) is certain to prevail against Putin's aggression.
    2
  934. The aircraft likely lost the horizontal stabilizer, either partly or completely. When that happens at speed, the rest of the aircraft pitches violently forward and one wing is likely to have failed under the violent negative G-forces. The silver lining for the rest of the world: With the Russian leaders killing each other off - especially those that are even remotely competent - things are not looking good for them.
    2
  935. The excessive descent rate in itself was probably not dangerous for a craft like this EXCEPT as a glaring indication that something was seriously wrong with the buoyancy at this stage!
    2
  936. Personal liberties are supposed to be one of the nice things about 'Murica - until you observe the unclean flip side, all the lunatics that are about to take over the asylum.
    2
  937. It is uncanny how Fiona Hill manages to sum up historical examples that actually make solid sense to any layman - and in a way that comes across as really impartial! The interviewer came up with convoluted questions that I struggled with understanding, but Fiona managed to clarify in her answers and explanations. I am in awe of this woman's intelligence and eloquence!
    2
  938. If Brian Kemp illegally purged voters from the rolls AND IT CAN BE PROVED, as Palast is claiming, why has Kemp not been investigated and prosecuted? Kemp may be the scum of the Earth, but Palast is frequently on the Hartman show with outrageous claims of this and that, but he never produces actual proof! that makes him no better than all the ridiculous MAGA conspiracy lovers.
    2
  939. Are wearing a mask in public or are you not? Are you a sensible person wanting to protect both yourself and those around you or are stupid and ignorant (i.e. a Repugnican)?
    2
  940. The citizens of the USA used to be reasonable, well-educated and masters of the world - 60 years ago! Now they are 'Muricans, ignorant and stupid idiots that are not even capable of comprehending the big, fat lie Trump has sold them regarding tariffs. A tariff is a penalty a nation places on imports, a penalty that raises the price of the goods in question to the final consumer, handing the difference to the "small government" Trump is exposing. You 'Muricans are idiots, enjoy the results of electing a lying grafter as your leader! Your democracy is not likely to survive this, you will end up with a Putin-like autocracy but, hey, enjoy your ride into oblivion!
    2
  941. Words of wisdom that nobody heeded - well, Obama did and he acted as well, but Trump gleefully tore down everything the US had put in place to prepare for the next epidemic. Now the sky is falling...
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  942. Did the pilots REALLY not notice any change? The turbulence created by the blunt fin root must have been felt as a high-frequency shudder in the aft part of the aircraft and certainly on the rudder itself (or is the rudder "feel" entirely artificial?)
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  943. Telling an occasional lie CAN trip up the liar. Telling frequent lies WILL trip up the liar. Lying ALL the time brings the liar into an unique category of compulsive liars like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan - and George Santos, to name a few!
    2
  944. Apparently the kind of fervent and rabid 'patriotism' that was on show on Dec. 6th. is turning out to be a razor-sharp double-edged sword that is coming loose from the hilt and about to fly about uncontrolle, cutting down anyone in it's path.
    2
  945. Trump actually is correct, yelling about there being fraud in the 2024 elections - what he fails to mention is that it will ALL be done by the Repugnicans and the MAGA CROWD! The only fraudulent votes found in the 2020 elections were ALL Republican votes.
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  946. Putin is a sneaky bully that will always be negotiating in bad faith. He is currently flirting with disaster - any hard conflict with the West will bankrupt Russia in short order.
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  947. AOC truly IS attractive to most living, breathing males of any age but, more important, she is intelligent, charismatic, consistent and has an incredible ability to get her points across without being offensive. She might use irony at times and humor at other times, but you never see her really throwing dirt at her detractors. She even might be the catalyst for genuine, long-term changes in US politics. Nothing wrong with admiring this girl from afar, is there?
    2
  948. Bastard Barr is just trying to distance himself from his own participation in the debacle that the Trump presidency ended up being. He was in it, up to his nose, and now he is trying to pretend hes was never implicated, in now way, whatsoever! In hindsight, just recall his "interpretation" of the Mueller Report! A moronic attempt by a supposedly competent lawyer to change facts, in the hope that Trump would become an 'Murican Hitler so his lies would become moot, even "heroic". Now that the writing is on the wall, a fraction of Trump's manifold crimes are about to enter the court system, Barr is probably terrified that his blatant misrepresentation of the Mueller Report will again become a point of interest.
    2
  949. I happened to spend 9 months in Yemen in 1993, just after their civil war (North/South) had ended. The relief was palpable, EVERYONE was happy to get rid of their weapons and just get on with LIFE! The Yemenis were truly a happy population and as a foreigner I could not detect any resentment over the civil war. To see how the Saudis have totally wrecked Yemen is unforgivable, and the US's role in financing this holocaust is equably unforgivable. This is a stain that will stick to the US until it goes the way of the Roman empire, i.e. into oblivion.
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  950. Arguing if the Gripen is a viable fighter is the height of stupidity! The Gripen is the result of a long line of economic and practical engineering decisions. What nation has an incredible number of military runways and supply points? Sweden, with it's innumerable hidden highway access points, has an unbeatable combination of "fighter bases" that Putin's Russia will NEVER be able to conquer - and that is only AFTER he struggles through Finland! To say that Putin is backed into a hopeless corner is a vast understatement...
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  951. Replace Trump's "he loves his country" with "he loves Trump" and you are finally witnessing a whiff of truth... The fact that so many 'Muricans were willing to follow Trump like Lemmings is convincing evidence that the US is kaput, done for, finished. It might take some decades, even half a century, and the death throes will be painful for the entire world, but it will take no less than a miracle to save the future of the US of A at this stage. Just remember: Anything Trump touches, DIES!
    2
  952. Trump is shedding US allies like fleas. 'Murica First is rapidly turning into 'Murica Alone! Fact: While Northern Europe and the Nordics are not corruption-free, they are the LEAST corrupt nations! An independent Greenland would instantly fall into corruption, be it 'Murican or Chinese. What will be interesting to watch is how Greenland will manage without the Danish-subsidized Health Care and Education systems. If Greenland becomes 'Murican, they will certainly suffer the total loss of both.
    2
  953. Virtually all US TV shows are short, time-restricted clips, wedged between ads, with no genuine content. The result is no in-depth discussion, only short soundbites that are easily twisted and spun any way you like. This is fodder for the media but of no service to the public.
    2
  954. The Radical-Right Repugnicans (the MAGA crowd) is clearly TERRIFIED of an incredibly popular young woman that happens to be a very intelligent, talented and beautiful superstar. All Taylor Swift has done, to the best of my knowledge, is to be sometimes passionate about her own political views (which are NOT right-wing) AND to have encouraged her fans to VOTE - not who to vote for, just to register and vote. That is what keeps the MAGA crowd up at night, because the know that a high voter turnout will screw them!
    2
  955. Allowing foreign super-trawlers into your waters is inviting corruption and bribery. My own nation, Iceland, has vigorously defended our fishing grounds from e.g. EU mismanagement and exploitation. At the same time we have failed to defend against the rot WITHIN! There are currently too few large Icelandic corporations that have managed to acquire almost all of the fishing rights in Iceland, in blatant violation of our Fishing Resources Laws that clearly state than no entity is allowed to control more than 10% of out fishing resources - all enabled by corrupt, bought-and-paid-for US American-style politicians and officials. What is really heartbreaking and makes most Icelanders bow their heads in shame is the fact that one of the worst offenders, Samherji, has been exploiting a developing nation, Namibia. They were caught bribing Namibian officials and politicians for years, in exchange for ruthlessly exploiting Namibian fishing grounds. The worst part is the fact that while Icelandic and European media managed to expose this atrocity and Namibia is vigorously chasing down and eliminating this corruption, Icelandic authorities are doing NOTHING! Samherji and another one other seriously large and corrupt entity (HB Grandi) appear to have the the whole show in their pocket. We all KNOW this, we all HATE it but while these corrupt corporate entities (our version of the Fossil Fuel Industry) have the politicians, the officials AND the media by the balls, nothing will happen. The Nordic countries are generally known for low corruption and transparency, but Iceland is the odd man out, by far the most corrupt Nordic country, all thanks to people like Bjarni Benediktsson, our right-wing finance minister, our right-wing Fisheries Minister Kristján Þór Júlíus­son who has been deeply, DEEPLY involved with Samherji for decades, and our left-wing Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir that despite this all starting long before she became Prime Minister, has seen fit to allow this to continue unabated. The stink is reaching historic levels...
    2
  956. This kid is simply brilliant!
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  957. To an outsider like me it seems glaringly obvious that 'Murica's main media organizations care more for "creating exciting content to attract more views" than conveying actual, fact-based information to the public. In effect, the are ALL becoming some version of "Fox Misinformation" (a.k.a. Fox "News")! Yes Ari, you are one of them, you are in the thick of it! You may not be the worst of them, but all the same, YOU ARE ONE OF THE MISLEADERS! Shame on you! How do you sleep at night?
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  958. Climate change deniers that are now making money hand over fist do not care about the problem, knowing they will be dead anyway if/when the problem they are denying becomes a crisis. They obviously do not care about the future of their children and grandchildren. My question is: What is all this gathering of wealth for, then? They will not be able to enjoy it when they die, and it will be mostly useless for their children and grandchildren if/when civilization as we know it collapses due to food shortages and mass migrations.
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  959. From the beginning I have worried about Ukraine's handling of the rampant Soviet-era corruption ALL the former Soviet countries were saddled with. When the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) were finally able to interact normally with the other Nordic nations (I am Icelandic and I consider them just as Nordic as Finland), the first "thing" they exported to the other Nordic countries was Soviet-era Organized Crime! It was certainly not their intention and they have made great progress in the last 33 years - but it will take AT LEAST 2 generations (50 years) to stamp it out - after all, they are still saddled with a large contingent of ethnic Russians - i.e. rampant corruption - within their borders. Ukraine naturally has the same problem, in spades! Yanukovich was just a Putin puppet and when the Ukrainian nation sent the rat scurrying to his master in Russia, Poroshenko was next but for some reason he could not or, would not handle the corruption problem. Then Zelenskyy came along, an "accidental leader" like Finland's Sanna Marin, and he has proved to be a gold nugget, in league with notables like Roosevelt and Churchill - and will go down in history as such! Make no mistake, corruption is rampant within Ukraine, just as it is within EVERY former Soviet nation, and while Ukrainian military leaders have been very successful, there is bound to be A LOT of rot to excise. I fervently hope this action by Zelenskyy is just the first step in a carefully organized plan to divest Ukraine of as much of the Soviet corruption as possible. Gaining the upper hand in the war was an obvious priority, an hopefully now there is time and energy available to start dealing with the festering Russian-induced corruption.
    2
  960. Automation WILL increase to aid human controllers and there WILL be call for increased reliance on automation in more profit-driven places like 'Murica, but they are unlikely to DARE cut to the bone to such an extent that a worst-case scenario might cause a catastrophe. Recent history is littered with cases where penny-pinching caused such catastrophes, cases that will be remembered when new risk assessments are made. Even so, some are bound to try, but that will go seriously SPLAT in the faces of the bureaucrats/CEO's responsible.
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  961. ​@Habeas Corpus, the situation in Portland and elsewhere has only been inflamed by the Orange Idiot's actions, sending his unidentified wanna-be SS/Gestapo troops to the scene to make a bad situation even worse, but that was almost certainly his intention all along. A double whammy, doing a test run of his private "police" AND further stirring up an already agitated hornet's nest.
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  962. Is it possible that Mueller does not actually NEED Cohen, that Cohen is such a crook that Mueller is not inclined to let him off the hook in any way?
    2
  963. Why do I have the sneaky feeling that Bill Barr will be metaphorically drawn and quartered a few years down the line, for his blatant corruption? There is mounting evidence coming to light that exposes Bill Barr's corruption to be on a level comparable to Boss Tweed (Google him!), only Bill Barr was more sly, cunning and smarter about his corruption that Trump and his associates are capable of. At any rate, the stench emanating around Bill Barr is bad - and getting progressively worse by the day!
    2
  964. Looks like Toddler Trump picked a fight with Canada that will only get him a bloody nose - and he is very likely to try a similar stunt with the US's current European allies, which will likely backfire in a similarly spectacular fashion. It looks like the US will soon be running out of allies. No one likes a bully - and Toddler Trump IS and always has been a bully.
    2
  965. One wonders if ANY decision made by elected officials renders them immune from later accountability? Suppose DeSantis decided to poison the water source of a colored community with, say, massive amounts of Arsenic, is he (and the officials carrying out the order) immune from prosecution as mass murderers? What DeathSantis is doing is eventually going to cause multiple and massive super-spreader events, potentially killing a lot of people. Is he to be allowed to walk away, scot-free? Personally, I think Death Row is to mild a punishment...
    2
  966. Naturally, information coming from Ukraine, a nation at war with a much larger aggressor, has to be taken with a grain of salt. Just a tiny little grain, compared to the truckloads of salt that go with the glaring misinformation Russia has been spewing. Ukraine apparently had a hard time handling the chronic Soviet/Russian corruption they inherited when the USSR imploded, a genuine attempt with Yushchenko, a relapse with Putin's puppet Yanukovych and the beginning of an return to democracy with Poroshenko. We do not know how Poroshenko would have turned out in the current crisis, but by electing an unlikely president, Zelenskyy, Ukraine appears to have hit the jackpot! A comedian leader that turned out to be a PR genius of the same caliber as Churchill is definitely a bonus. Ukraine is doing all the fighting for the west-European democracies against authoritarian regimes like Russia, the least we can do is to support them to the hilt - bureaucrats and politicians be damned!
    2
  967. Health care personnel all over the world are locked in a relentless battle, fighting the pandemic. The situation has been exceptionally bad in areas where the health care system was not prepared for the onslaught (North Italy early this year) or where the authorities have failed miserably to even try to control the pandemic (The US in recent months). This will probably seem insignificant compared to the upcoming situation in the US for some months to come. Bottom line: Those "Heroes" will be exploited, underappreciated and ignored once the pandemic recedes!
    2
  968. Boeing is very, very sorry - mainly for the extreme damage their corporate mindset and greed has caused the reputation of this old and venerable company.
    2
  969. The glaring reality is this: If Bloody Putin gains even a square meter of Ukrainian territory in this round of WW3, he will be back with further claims within 10 years. Make no mistake about THAT! I fervently hope that all the traitorous and Putin-serving 'Murican and and European politicians will have their finances thoroughly investigate, and my bet is that a large amount of funds have flowed from Russia to the coffers of certain Repugnican politicians!
    2
  970. The creep Gov. Arse Hutchinson will have a lot of lives on his "conscience" when his trigger law goes into effect. How this creep manages to sleep at night is beyond me. He is probably fervently religious, and it would be interesting to see him meet his maker and account for his cruelty. The height of absurdity is how these "pro-lifers" totally abandon their obsessive "care for life" once a fetus leaves the womb! From that point on, both mother and child deserve absolutely NO help or assistance from the hypocritical pro-lifers. How disgusting can these people get?
    2
  971. I believe there is a simple explanation to why the Catholic Church was so much against anything sex-related that was fun or enjoyable: Any man that decides to forego such things and live a "virtuous" life is most likely a pervert at worst, a harmless homosexual at best - as innumerable horror stories about the proclivities of Catholic Priests have shown, going back centuries. Worst of all: They are still at it! Just think about it: The "sex counselors" of the day were the perverts or celibates! No wonder religious people sill have twisted minds...
    2
  972. The old adage that "the only certainties in life are death and taxes" has been found to be not entirely true - the rich and powerful have found ways to make taxes mostly, if not entirely optional. Just ask Trump and Amazon. In most cases this is done by having their bought-and-paid-for politicians provide legal loopholes, in other cases by simply cheating.
    2
  973. The level 'Murican right-wing politics have sunk to is astounding, they are making the Spanish Inquisition look like a picnic! What is horrifying is the fact that 1/4th, even 1/3rd of 'Muricans have been dumbed down to the extent that they are eager to re-elect Trump to a position of power; Hitler reincarnated! Putin, China and a sprinkling of other autocrats (Erdogan, Orban, Netanyahu etc.) are raring to go - and 'Murican right-wingers seem raring to go with them! Just remember the sticky end the latest set of autocrats came to: Hitler the miserable coward checked out by his own hand and Mussolini ended up hanging by his balls! A truly grisly sight. There is a slew of 'Murican right-wing politicians that will eventually join the likes of Göebbels, Himmler and Mengele in the history books. Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, Greg Abbot, Ron DeSantos, to name a few...
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  974. You have to hand it to these cops: They de-escalated the situation by the simple expedience of walking away, even if the challenger was stridently confrontational. Can you imagine how a situation like this could easily have ended with someone either being arrested or being shot? Those cops did not let their egos rule the day - hats off to them!
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  975.  @Retr0Plus , the Republicans are also making THAT as difficult as possible for the average low-income voter. Take what happened in the "great" state of Kansas recently. Unfortunately, the US has been classified by International institutions as a flawed democracy. It currently appears to be VERY flawed. Let's hope recent developments will eventually rectify that.
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  976. These people have no evidence. What they have is a blind, unsupported BELIEF that the election was rigged/stole, whatever. They have it directly from their God's mouth (Trump and Fox)
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  977. Sticking her head in the sand pretending the Oval Office Disgrace did not happen is not what Rachel does on a daily basis. What is going on! Is MSNBC putting a dirty thumb on the scales? Watching the disgraceful extortion meeting in the oval office was bad enough, watching MSNBC suppressing one of the few remaining news reporters REALLY takes the cake!
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  978. Thom is describing the state of greed in the US! The US of A is in serious trouble, it has been systematically been dismantled from the day Ronald Bloody Reagan became president. True, there are developed nations that are further down the drain than the US: Russia, Poland, Hungary and Turkey are just a few "developed western nations" that have gone completely off the rails, not to mention the countless other nations that are also on the path to destruction, countries like Brazil and the Philippines. The myriad of smaller despotic countries do not even register in this context. There are many examples of nations where the average citizen has a good shot at living a decent life - having a good work/life balance, raising and educating their children to their best potential and being assured that good health care is a right, not a privilege! All the Nordic countries and the bulk of European countries are currently managing this. Sure, there are dismal failures like Poland and Hungary, but those are exceptions.
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  979. Dirt on a political opponent IS a thing of value, possibly of great value, even if it has no apparent or immediate monetary value. Soliciting such "dirt" from a foreign entity is a crime, even if no dirt is directly obtained.
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  980. Death rate pr. 1 million people? Iceland 663, US 2160. The US wins by a factor of 3.25! You must be proud, being an 'Murican conservative - the only fly in the ointment being the fact that the 'Murican Republican death rate is considerably higher than among non-Republicans! One wonders why that is? Talk about the survivals of the fittest or, on the flip side, the winners of the Darwin Awards! I, for one, am glad to be Icelandic...
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  981.  @ghjok4392  Yes, according to my own experience they are. I admit my experience in these matters is far from expansive, but still..
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  982. Please note: The only NATO country to invoke article 5 since 1949 was the US, after 9/11. A number of NATO allied countries followed the US into a local war on the say-so of the US - and it turned out to be an INNOCENT COUNTRY! 'Murica knows no shame, never has, never will. The rest of NATO is better off without the moral void that us the US.
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  983. The problem: The US is populated by too may idiots and somehow these idiots have managed to place too many of their corrupt representatives in power (Trump, Moscow Mitch, Miller, Barr, Kavanaugh, the list is endless). The health care workers abused by these idiots should ideally be able to deny helping those idiots when they are eventually brought in, dying from catching the Corona virus, but that would be going against everything they (the health care workers, NOT the idiots) stand for.
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  984. The real question is: What was done to the "Food" part of the FDA, and by whom? A tried and tested method of influential corporations is to have their bought-and-paid-for political stooges ensure that any pesky regulating agencies are starved of funds and manpower to the point that they become useless - and the big corporations are mostly free to do whatever they want, at least until their greed starts hurting customers. That is when the shite hits the fan and the "pass the buck and blame others" game begins in earnest.
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  985. "Democratic Socialism" or "Social Democracy": What is the difference? There is probably a technical difference - but to me, living in a social-democratic North-European country, it seems that Bernie is fighting to to give the US population what we have had since WW2! Affordable (NOT free) health care and education, sensible social safety nets and wages that allow us ALL to live comfortably in a safe environment (no mass shootings, much lower crime rates). That is what low inequality gives you. Too many US Americans have been brainwashed into believing that anything with the word "social" in it equals hard-core communism, a concept that has been stone-cold-dead since Stalin's reign. "Socialism" has as much to do with "social democracy" as it has to do with "social skills" - i.e. NOTHING. I firmly believe that US citizens are not stupid (I have never met a stupid US American, and I have met many of you), but too many of you are woefully ill-informed and either ignorant or brainwashed. Look at how things are done in other developed countries, from Canada through Norther Europe. There are many things you will find weird, BUT LOOK AT THE RESULTS! I find the "US is too large and diverse" argument to be outright stupid. The US could really take things to scale and outdo many of the things we are doing in Europe, if only you could get your arses in gear. After all, much of what we are doing was pioneered by the US before and during the Roosevelt years.
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  986. Lets hope for the best (they will all be taken to the cleaner) and expect the worst. Repugnicans are shameless liars and cheats while most Democraps are too good-mannered and naive to do a proper job in a dirty, no-holds-barred fight like this.
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  987. Such outright inequality usually ends in bloodshed, the French Revolution and the Guillotine being a blunt example of a resolution. The robbers (Russian Kleptocrats and 'Murican Billionaires) are actually living on borrowed time: When the showdown comes, it will be brutal!. Will the showdown happen within 1 or 5 or 10 years? Hard to tell, but it is imminent!
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  988. Liz Cheney has the currently rare distinction of being a PRINCIPLED conservative, as does Kinzinger. A rarity, indeed.
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  989. The "solution" to every medical or psychological problem in the West is "a pill". This is the same attitude that has made pregnancy and childbirth into a disease, the treatment of which can be exploited for profit.
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  990.  @BeingBetter , treating pregnancy and childbirth like a disease has certainly brought down infant mortality drastically, but a lot of unnecessary resources are spent on it. The majority of pregnancies are absolutely normal, are NOT a disease and home birth is perfectly safe, but it is vital to closely monitor all expecting mothers to ensure that problematic pregnancies are spotted and treated appropriately - in a hospital. In my country (Iceland) and all over Europe this is all free of charge to the "user" but I believe the situation is different in the US.
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  991. 'Muricans: Are you really still calling yourself a functioning democracy? The rest of the western world begs to differ.
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  992. The strange part regarding Rand Paul is the fact that the man is supposed to be a licensed Medical Doctor! He seems to have forgot all his medical training (brain erased, replaced by a totally and blindly political overlay).
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  993. I wonder if US politics will ever survive the Trump era. Virtually ALL US politicians are bought and paid for by various financial/political interests, and have been since at least 1980. There MUST come a time when the average US citizen faces the fact that his/her arse has been reamed for decades, and decides to use his/her DEMOCRATIC and constitutional right to vote and elect into office a person of his/her choosing. I have sneaky feeling THAT will turn out to be difficult (gerrymandering and voter suppression, all thanks to the Repugnicans), and finally people will realize that "the time of the pitchforks is nigh" - only in modern-day 'Murica a pitchfork is a forgotten concept, but AK-47's or AR-15's are plentiful and much more effective.
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  994. This actually makes sense in such a violently militant country as the US actually is, the important point being that a draftee should not HAVE to go abroad and murder third-world nationals so US corporations can take over their resources. A draftee should be given a choice between military service (murdering third-world nationals) or community service away from your local haunts. Any type of service that takes you out of you current situation (you local gang or, if you are upper crust, your Country Club sillies) and forces you to experience something new, far away from your regular experiences. In return you would receive a free College-level or trade school education according to your needs or abilities.
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  995.  @daveroberts936 , I agree that the US may not last much longer as a global superpower (and not only due to Trump), but your system of governance seems quite resilient despite it's flaws, and I predict that the spirit of the US nation will save the day - eventually - by putting back the reins on big corporations and Wall Street. I may be wrong, but if Canada was able to do it I believe the US can do it as well, and even take it to scale!
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  996. The best civil servant, elected or not, is a reluctant one.
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  997. the firs statement: America is more diverse than Europe is not too far off if we're talking about the American Continents (North, Central and South) - BUT, knowing this statement comes from inside the 'Murican bubble, it just emphasizes how isolated the 'Murican Bubble actually is!
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  998. Russia should be kicked out of the UN Security Council A.S.A.P. The current Russian regime is dangerous to the world as we know it, and all responsible Western governments should turn their backs on Russia, freeze all Russian Bank accounts, close all Russian borders and cease doing business with Putin's Russia. Any corporations currently doing business in Russia these days are bound to be thoroughly corrupt, anyway. Trump's US will NOT be one of those governments (after all, it is the most irresponsible Western government these days), but the rest of us should be able to do it. I wonder how many weeks Putin would last under such circumstances...
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  999. This is not unique to high-speed aircraft, you will almost always see such extended pitot tubes on new aircraft in the flight testing phase. This is also not uncommon on ultra-low-speed aircraft, for example the Helio Courier.
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  1000. ...and here I was, thinking the road to corruption was paved with GOLD! Deutsche Bank is the worst KNOWN offender, and NONE of their executives will be held accountable. Or will they, eventually...? Icelandic Banksters were held accountable in a small way, maybe some of the Big Boys will end up in jail, but the chances are small. After all, a LOT of politicians all over the world are implicated and they will make damned sure that any potential whistle-blowers will go the way of Jeffery Epstein. Making money by assassinating people is illegal and will not be tolerated by corrupt politicians in ANY country - after all, they themselves could be the next target. Making profits by laundering money is just as illegal but the burden of proof is high and sentences are minor - all thanks to the politicians that are part of the whole spiel.
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  1001. Needless to say, scenes like this have NOT served to endear the Chinese to the Nordic nations.
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  1002. John and Francesca, do you realize how Trumpian you sound when you keep talking about "American lives lost"? It is as if other lives (Canadian, Mexican or any foreign visitors currently stuck in the US) do not really matter!
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  1003. The "minerals deal" is IT in a nutshell! 'Muricans have always been ready to exploit other nations. This time it blew up in greedy 'Murica's face, the US will lose the alliance of 31 NATO member countries and 'Murica will TRULY be alone in the foreseeable future. Who could conceivably trust 'Murica after this?
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  1004. I find Trump's line about "people from Norway" being acceptable as immigrants absolutely hilarious! I am fairly certain that very few Norwegians have any interest in emigrating to the US, a country that is total mess these days. The US used to be a great country, but in my view it has been careening downhill for the last 55 years.
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  1005. In another era these guys would have been the first members of the SA, then eagerly joined the SS. This is just the beginning. Watch out for these types when they start crawling out of the woodwork, there will be more of them that anyone could imagine.
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  1006.  @k1dork , I strongly disagree! Anyone who questions politicians, regardless of color, is a realist.
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  1007. What a depressing issue. Less than 3 minutes into this 10-minute clip I am simply checking out! The US is in a death spiral, with the 'haves' being merciless against the 'have nots'. This cannot end well - the last time a similar situation developed, an icon of the 'haves' said "Let them eat cake", and it ended with a bloodbath, with most of the 'haves' losing their heads, literally. Fortunately I am a citizen of one of the Nordic countries (one where the police is unarmed) an can only watch the demise of 'Murica with morbid fascination, from afar.
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  1008. I believe he is right. EVERYTHING in the US is turning into an unreal "Reality" Show.
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  1009. Wanna bet how many TS/SDI documents the FBI would be able to retrieve if/when they are able to obtain enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant for Trump's Northern Retreat?
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  1010. Emma Vigeland has a very Norwegian-sounding name. Is she of Norwegian descent?
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  1011. A nifty business model for weapons manufacturers: First develop and sell stuff like these MANPADs, and make out like a bandit. THEN, when these things have been provided to "the bad guys", develop and sell countermeasures - and make out like a bandit again! Same thing with guns: Beg, bribe and lobby to ensure that even lunatics find it easy to get their hands on guns and ammo, and make out like bandits. THEN, when the situation is completely out of control, beg, bribe and lobby to arm EVERYONE, even teachers - to continue making out like bandits!
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  1012.  @terryfuldsgaming7995 , Yep - I am Icelandic, and we are NOT the socialist, communist hellhole that Trump and your other Repugnicans pretend we are. The 2 most prominent political parties here since WW2 are 1) the Conservative party (corporate Iceland in a nutshell) and 2) the Progressive party (a misnomer of biblical proportions, this is the party of grafters and schemers, the parasites of every society). These political parties have been the backbone of Icelandic politics for over 70 years, with occasional input from a now-stone-cold-dead social-democratic party. Our saving grace has been the simple fact that our far-right party (the Conservative Corporate party) would have been called Pinkie Commies in the McCarthy era and progressive democrats today. We are, like the other Nordic countries, a capitalist mixed economy with a strong social safety net (affordable health care, education and all the rest!)
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  1013. AOC will make a magnificent president - eventually! She is an effective guiding light for change in the US doing just what she is doing now, and I believe she is too smart to even think about entering the presidential rat race anytime soon.
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  1014.  @joshuahudson2170 , you underestimate the strength of the wings of a modern airliner, not to mention all the fuel stored in them. The tail surfaces are a much "softer" target, and is likely to result in total loss of control. Boy, what a morbid discussion this is turning out to be!
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  1015. What you need is a federal law that can cause local lawmakers to be charged with manslaughter or worse if they pass legislation that can be proved to cause loss of life. A new class of crimes: Passing reckless and deadly legislation! Of course nothing like that will happen in a country that is becoming increasingly medieval.
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  1016. Berman called this blatant voter suppression "un-American"... Not, it's NOT! The US is the only developed country where voter suppression seems to be an accepted tool when campaigning for power. This is shameful and extremely undemocratic.
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  1017. This video stutters and stops and is, in fact unwatchable. I strongly suspect that either a mole within Thom's team or, far more likely, Google (YouTube) is sabotaging his videos.
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  1018. Listing some of the things that have been wrong with US America for the last few decades is one thing - at least the problems HAVE to be highlighted so at least you can start doing something about them! Saying "this is not America..." is wrong Thom, unfortunately this IS today's US America (I am careful to exclude Canadian America)! This what US America has slowly become! The really big question is: What is the US nation going to do about it? Is the US population going to float into becoming a fascist dictatorship in a sea of apathy or are people going to stand up and be counted? Just remember: You DESERVE whatever or whoever you allow to run your country! Everybody (and their grandmothers) agree that most other developed countries are currently doing better for their citizens than the US is - but not the Repugnicans. Their rhetoric is: The US is the greatest nation there ever was - while they are dismantling it!
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  1019. I noticed that in this clip the word "allies" was only used once - the term "other nations" ruled. With Trump at the tiller the US has been shedding allies like there is no tomorrow, and most US Americans are coming to realize that. When (not if) Bolton and Pompeo manage to drag the US into a war with Iran, the only "allies" willing to participate will be the Saudis and Israel.
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  1020. Charles "the Sour" is a really disgusting embodiment of the awful 'Murican mindset that is about to end the Great American Experiment. Unchecked greed and selfishness is the order of the day.
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  1021. 'Murica is in a bind. Democracy, Theocracy, Autocracy, Kleptocracy? Democracy has been the goal, Kleptocracy is what 'Muricans actually have in a large measure, Theocracy has been vying for power for centuries and Autocracy (fascism) is what you will potentially end up with. I cannot help recalling Winston Churchill's comment to the effect of: The 'Muricans will do the right thing - once they have exhausted every other option.
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  1022. You crazy 'Muricans are MAD. Talk about self-destructive behavior! Pretty soon you idiots will classified with the worst of Hitler's Germany, Netanyahu's Israel and a host of other cruel and inhumane regimes, poster boys for hatred and psychopathic behavior.
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  1023.  @QemeH , the "unknown mole fault" is a very old ploy - I witnessed an example myself almost 55 years ago when I first sniffed around politics. Needless to say, the plotters were right wingers in my country. Pretty soon after that I found out that the leftists and centrists were no better and I have found ALL politics disgusting ever since. Still, I consider my duty to vote in every single election, both local and country-wide, if only to try down-voting the current crooks and up-voting those that have not yet managed to become as crooked. It usually takes only one or two terms for the "uncorrupted" to become rotten to the core and the cycle to repeat itself.
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  1024. Finland certainly has the balls to stand up to Putin's Russia's bullying when legally warranted. Unfortunately, other western countries are proving to be yellow chickens in that regard.
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  1025. A "girl", a "young woman" - Greta Thunberg is simply in the difficult age "in between" - a teenager. Just call her a brilliant teenager! So China is dumping more trash than the US? Well, the US has been at it for much longer than China AND the Chinese population more than 4 more numerous than the US population. By that measure, they are ENTITLED to dump more trash than the US. The big difference is the fact that China is drowning it's own shite,THEY KNOW IT and they are bloody well working on it, which is more than can be said for the US so far.
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  1026. A bit of wishful thinking going on here, hoping there is a crack forming between rich donors and crooked politicians, but hey - it COULD be happening, to the benefit of US Americans everywhere!
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  1027. So - the US is going to hell in a hand-basket, but we are hitting a hard break here in 30 seconds, so how do we solve this mess? You have 20 seconds...
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  1028.  @lucasoosterveld607  I am not denigrating Dutch building standards, Dutch houses are likely built to perfectly appropriate standards for the Netherlands. When something like the Gröningen earthquakes and geological deformations happened, it will all have been well outside normal Dutch experience...
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  1029.  @jennyfisherman , maybe I should have used the Empire State building instead for this example, which is NOT about 9/11 but about the too-common US attitude towards climate change. Too many Americans are placidly rushing toward a radical change in life on Earth as we know it, willing to wait until they are personally affected before grudgingly doing something about it, which is bound to be too late - and definitely far more expensive.
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  1030. The question should be "what does PILLAGE mean to MTG?". It is an old and well-defined concept, as are the more recent "woke" and "Critical Race Theory". Most extreme right-wingers (spelled Fascists) are bandying these concepts about while obviously not having a clue what they actually MEAN. Take "woke", for example: The accepted definitions are to the effect of "alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination" or "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" or, very simplified, being open-minded. A rather laudable and noble state of mind to most people, but to Republican Fascists they are "bogeyman terms", concepts that are evil incarnate. What I find surprising is that no talking head or TV interviewer has ever bothered to ask these idiots how they define these words. It would be interesting to hear their understanding of the terms. I bet most of then have no clue, to them they are just ugly words, like the N-word is to any African-American.
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  1031. This really makes sense. Flight training can be roughly divided into 3 main fields: 1) Handling (stick and rudder skills and energy management in climb and descent), 2) Power plants and systems, and 3) ATC, navigation and rules/procedures. Initial flight training is mostly about 1), with a smattering of 2) & 3) included. Initial flight training is usually done in short hands-on lessons lasting 30-45 minutes, ideal for current small electric planes. As an example, initial training in a C152 is NOT about turbine or jet engines or the complex 3) field, it is mostly about learning to FLY the bloody thing, genuine crosswind landings usually being the most difficult part. Learning all about the C152 piston engine does NOT carry much over to turboprop and jet engines. Electric planes have only one control, a power lever, simplifying things a lot. Endurance monitoring and management is the same, whether you are considering kilowatt-hours remaining or AVGAS/JET-A1 in the tanks. It will be strange to dump the old RPM/MP power indications to kilowatts...
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  1032. Feli, I have a suggestion: When you flash these long compound German words on the screen, why not also have a hyphenated version of the word as well? I have done this for compound words in my native Icelandic, which makes them far less daunting for English speakers to tackle. Example: Eyjafjallajökull or Eyja-fjalla-jökull (translated to Island-mountain-glacier).
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  1033. I cannot help wondering if 'Muricans might be unnecessarily seeing racism in every corner, in every imagined slight. Sharon Osbourne's apparent racist comments went over my head. What did she say,exactly? What did she MEAN, exactly? I am patently ill-equipped to have a meaningful opinion on racial problems, having lived most of my life in a homogeneous country that is only in recent decades experiencing a significant influx of non-white immigrants. In my experience, immigrants have two arms, two legs and head with a brain fitted on top, just like we all do (not to mention whatever passion that drove them to end up seeking asylum in our incredibly inhospitable environment). The color of the immigrant's skin is absolutely, totally irrelevant - in fact I believe my somewhat inbred countrymen could use some influx of a free, permanent tan in upcoming generations, not to mention new culinary and cultural insights. In my opinion, colored immigrants have only improved my society. Long live the difference! What should I, a Nordic, think of e.g. Francesca? She has a permanent tan and brown eyes, apparently an unforgivable genetic fault according to rabid white supremacists. Virtually a Latina - heck, she's probably of Italian descent, how Latino (Roman) can you get? Latin was the original language of Roman Italy! Personally, I find her very pretty, extremely intelligent and with a killer sense of humor that will keep boredom at bay under any circumstances. A boon to any society she lives in but apparently a blight to some 'Muricans.
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  1034. This is so blatantly corrupt that I predict that Kash Patel will evidentially come to a sticky end. It will take a decade or two (like it did for Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy) but it is inevitable. The question remains: When the time comes, will Kash Patel take the cowards way out (like Göbbels & Himmler) or will he face his executioners?
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  1035. The most absurd aspect of most of the US's problems is the fact that apparently there are anti-trust laws STILL ON THE BOOKS, almost a century old, that would go a long way to solve the worst of 'Murica's problems! Apparently Ronald Bloody Reagan made the US enforcement agencies simply stop enforcing them! Why can that decision not be reversed?
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  1036. How can you NOT love Katie Porter! All the corruption laid bare - in layman's terms. I live in Iceland and I just started to have Covid-19 symptoms. No surprise, the Icelandic contact tracing team had already told me to quarantine due to a contact with a known case, and his morning I was asked to have a test - free, of course. This is about public health, after all, not corporate profits. I am approaching 71 and I live with my 93-year old father, we are solidly in a high-risk group but we do NOT have to worry overmuch. Our health care system is up for the task and, most important, ANYTHING Covid-related is free, simply because it is A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE! No one is allowed to exploit the situation, not for profit, not for political gain, not for ANY reason.
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  1037. Just pause for a moment and reflect on what is happening to the US Congress: Being honest, up front and true to your convictions (likeable or not) like Cheney and Kinzinger, has been detrimental for anyone wanting to represent their constituents. The new preferential norm seems to be dishonesty, pathological lying and cheating , as exemplified by George Santos, Jim Jordan and Trump, to name a few. Seeing that the same seems to have happened to the highest court in 'Murica as well, their future seems bleak, indeed. In the long term, I believe Kinzinger's final thoughts say it all: "I think I did the right thing and my my kids can be proud of it". I agree, he will leave a good legacy - in spite of his otherwise destructive right-wing views.
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  1038. Anyone expecting any resemblance of truth from the Soviets or Russians in general is a fool, indeed.
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  1039. @Eric Chan, I fully agree with you about Cenk (he did not con-found the JD, he co-founded them - a funny typo). My gripe is only regarding his delivery when he goes off, I sometimes have to rewind and re-listen to fully understand the content.
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  1040. Other genuinely democratic nations have long classified 'Murica as a "FLAWED" democracy. That is no longer the case: The classification is now an outright "BROKEN" democracy, i.e. a nation that only pretends to be a democracy - much like Putin's Russia.
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  1041. Watching the in-plain-view decline of US 'democracy' is really, REALLY depressing! Living in one of the Nordic countries, I have grown up knowing REAL, practical democracy - Automatic registration as a voter once you reach voting age, voting day is ALWAYS a public holiday and voting has never taken more than 10-15 minutes in the 50+ years since I reached voting age. The state ALWAYS know my place of domicile (e.g. for taxing purposes) and if I change my domicile, I am automatically transferred - all I have to do is to show up to vote at the nearest polling station! As a result I consider it my duty to show up to vote, even during periods when there has been no clear favorite - my vote then goes to what I perceive as the least destructive/corrupt party. The US's so-called 'democracy' has been an outright farce for decades.
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  1042. This is probably very naive, but I wonder - if there is so much debt in the system, what entities were stupid enough to lend so much "money" to the various debtors in the first place? If they were this stupid, are THEY not the ones that should also suffer from their own mistakes as well? If everyone (private individuals, corporations or even entire States) defaults on their debts, the stupid lender will inevitably go bankrupt, and - SO WHAT? The next potential lenders might learn something...
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  1043. The Main Corporate media (CNN/MSNBC etc.) seem to be stuck in a bubble, only seeing certain candidates while ignoring and trying to erase others. That is not unexpected, seeing who owns them, and we can only hope that the average, sensible voter sees through that and votes for genuine, sensible change. I would like to point out to US voters that e.g. Bernie is NOT fighting to force SOCIALISM on the US population. Bernie is pointing to what we have in Northern Europe and the Nordic countries, which is WELFARE CAPITALISM, capitalism with reins still attached to ensure that the welfare of the general population is not sacrificed on the altar of corporate and political greed. What er have is: No voter suppression, automatic voter registration which results in high voter turnout, affordable health care and education and a functioning infrastructure (sure - taxes are higher, especially on the rich, but health insurance companies become mostly redundant, resulting no insurance premiums). This results in e.g. universal health care that costs on average 10-11% of GDP versus the 18% of GDP spent on US health care. Who do you think is pocketing the additional 7-8% in the US?
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  1044. I aint' 'Murican, I cannot vote in crazyland (being Icelandic) but I have thoroughly enjoyed watching an intelligent and eloquent young woman run circles around the stupid and tongue-tied Repugnicans like AOC has done from day one.
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  1045. Turkey's and Hungary's resistance certainly delayed Finland's and Sweden's accession. Erdogan and Orban may have gained so "bribes" in the process, but I believe that they have ruined their own credibility within NATO and Western cooperation in general. They are now, at worst, suspected Putin collaborators or, at best, proved themselves to be corrupt and petty dictators that are like square pegs trying to fit into a round hole. Unfortunately, NATO's most important member is ALSO in a similar position, the US is tethering on the edge of an abyss: Democracy, Fascism or Theocracy - or going outright to Authoritarianism, i.e. follow Putin's Russia into total corruption and dictatorship.
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  1046. It's actually funny to watch a Brit, mostly ignorant of what Finland actually IS, trying to put a yardstick on what all this actually means. Take a couple of weeks to research the issue and then come back with some meaningful input.
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  1047. The exponential growth in tourism was not sustainable - now it just might stabilize and become sustainable.
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  1048. A a non-'Murican, I am giving up on you 'Muricans. Everything is falling apart around your ears, in plain sight, AND it is all a carbon copy of any number of historical examples of how mighty nations fail! All you are capable of doing is to discuss, argue and describe the process of your demise, and NO ONE IS ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT, other that flapping your tongues! You are all Lemmings happily running over the edge of a cliff...
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  1049. Hats off to Bernie for not forgetting to mention all the "collateral damage" in Vietnam and Iraq, i.e. all the civilians that were killed, maimed or displaced in these wars, numbers that were many orders of magnitude higher than US military casualties.
    2
  1050. What Trump and MAGA are doing is to create an uproar of protests and, if the protests do not become violent enough, Trump/MAGA are happy to escalate the problem, just waiting for an opportunity to do something crazy like declare Martial Law and suspend the Constitution! Then, off you go, full-blown Fascism, 'Murican-style! What guardrails are remaining? Trump has simply been ignoring the courts, especially the SCOTUS, when they rule against him, and he is raring for some token incident he can use as an excuse to suspend Law and Order.
    2
  1051. Dr. Fauci, a man that still has some professional integrity (Amazing, seeing that he is still surviving in the Trump administration) is in direct disagreement with Trump. That fact is the only clue that Trump is not an absolute, certifiable lunatic - Trump realizes that Dr. Fauci is his only remaining link to the real world, even Dr. Birx has shown that her grip on reality is in Trump-world, i.e. she's not living in OUR reality anymore - OURS being the reality that regular people live in. Watching Dr. Fauci openly contradict Big Bully Trump is priceless, just look at Trump's grumpy face during the interview! The world has finally come to the point that Toddler Trump himself realizes that his usual posturing is useless and only amounts to a political suicide.
    2
  1052. ...and here I was, thinking that only females and ships were "she" (feminine) int the English language. Now I find that Mark Felton blithely feminizes old German Tiger tanks!
    2
  1053. Trevor, you need to educate your coworkers: America is bloody CONTINENT, not a country! It is so huge that there is North America, Central America and South America. Nitpicking aside, they have a point - US America is in dire need of reform being forced upon them, much like they forced "democracy" upon all the nations they have invaded in, say, the last 40 years. The problem: US "democracy" did no take hold, there was no "winning the hearts and minds" of invaded countries with "shock and awe" tactics (Baby Trump calls it "Domination").
    2
  1054. The Surgeon General is a very ill man: Everything he has said and done while wearing his spiffy uniform has been as a Trump sycophant, and any non-white person doing THAT must have a severely damaged brain. A brainless man is a very ill man, no question.
    2
  1055.  @NyetTube , I was just trying to be civil about Reagan. I totally agree with you but the fact remains that Reagan was not quite like the current crop of Repugnicans. It took decades for Reagan's policies to ruin the US. The current crop of Repugnicans will bring US democracy to it's knees in a few years if they are allowed to.
    2
  1056.  @NyetTube , I'm not telling you the Democraps deserve your vote any more than the Repugnicans do - but where does that leave you? Apparently there is a concept called Independent politicians, but they do not seem to be much of anything. I am merely an outsider, a non-'Murican watching this from afar, and I feel truly sorry for your plight.
    2
  1057.  @Daniel_LLLLLL , just the opposite. It is only when a market is tiny that monopoly in some areas might be unavoidable - and in such cases the markup on the goods involved MUST be tightly monitored and regulated to prevent price gouging. A reasonable, even very good profit can be tolerated, but the rob-them-blind practices e.g. big pharma is allowed to get away with in 'Murica is crazy.
    2
  1058.  @granudisimo , Yep - the 'Muricans have some absurd ideas about how proper societies work, and the concept of "free at the point of service" is alien to them, it always turns into: a) how is it paid for, and b) you mean I, myself have to pay for somebody else getting affordable health service? NOOOOOOOO!!!
    2
  1059. This reminds me of the joke about the eating, drinking and smoking habits of various nations versus their mortality rates due to obesity and heart disease. The punch-line of that joke was that it hardly mattered what you ate, drank and smoked, being an English-speaker was apparently fatal. This seems to apply to silly choices when it comes to handling household electricity, English-speakers seem to take the cake.
    2
  1060. You who elected Trump, enjoy the fruits of your vote.
    2
  1061. The US is doomed! A society ruled by greed and dishonesty simply cannot sustain itself. The bad news for US locals is the fact that this is a country awash with firearms. I don't see that ending well. The bad news for the rest of the world is the fact that the US currently has an insanely outsized military presence around the globe. When that collapses, who will be there to exploit the situation? The good news is that the US population still has a chance to tame the beast in upcoming elections. What the US needs is welfare capitalism along the lines practiced in Northern Europe. The "democratic socialist" label used by Bernie and AOC is counter-productive, the "socialist boogeyman" used by Republicans to scare everyone does not really exist.
    2
  1062. Any nation that ignores it's less fortunate citizens is destined to fail - eventually. That is what happened to the USSR and the way things are going, it also appears to be the destiny of the USA.
    2
  1063. On the topic of Matt Gaetz: What ever happened to the apparently rock-solid case of Gaetz sexually exploiting minors? Did they REALLY manage to squash it completely? If so, why did the media fail to expose it?
    2
  1064. Has Fascism Taken Root In America? Short answer: NO, bloody NO! Has Fascism Taken Root In the US? Short answer: YES, bloody YES! America is a two-part, even three-part continent, North, Central and South America. The northern extreme is around N83° (Canadian America) and the southern extreme is around S55° (Chilean America). The crude arrogance of 'Muricans to hog the concept of what is an "American" is astounding! The most damning piece of evidence is the fact that 90% of 'Muricans could not even find 'Murica on a map if their life depended on it! The corona virus pandemic just might be the catalyst that forces the US population to face the fact that they are actually "The Crappiest Country on Earth", not "The Greatest Country on Earth". All the US population has to do is to turn out to vote, every single one of you! It might take a few months (the 2020 election) or it might take longer, even 4-8 years. Stop listening to your lying politicians, start thinking about what qualities you want in your politicians (e.g. no lies!). Politicians are experts at both lying outright and lying by omission. You, the voter, should be able to spot the difference between an empty campaign promise (Mexico will pay for the Wall!), a corporate trickle-down promise ( the Repugnican/Democrap "spiel" for 40-odd years) or a genuine 40-year commitment to working 'Muricans (Bernie). The only certainty is that 'Murica in it's current form is not sustainable. Just how bloody the showdown will be remains to be seen.
    2
  1065. Thinking that things are going the way you want = Wishful thinking. Saying things are going the way you want = Wishful talking. Wishful thinking or talking will NOT change reality.
    2
  1066. I have always believed 'Muricans are not stupid, they are only ignorant and dumbed down. I hereby retract that opinion, at least for the individuals seen in this clip! They are not only stupid, they are paranoid!
    2
  1067. It is becoming increasingly clear which western leader is Putin's most important ally: Olaf "the Waffle" Scholtz and the German "ruling elite". I am sure that a thorough investigation into their collective finances would turn up interesting money coming from the east...
    2
  1068. Trump is putting the finishing touches on turning the US into developing country, a third-rate tinpot dictatorship. What could help is if international bodies were allowed to monitor the elections to reduce blatant voter suppression and gerrymandering as well as providing impartial transparency, but THAT will go down with Trump about as well as it did recently with Lukashenko in Belarus recently. Election cheaters DO NOT want anyone to look over their shoulder...
    2
  1069. Greg Palast, the great conspiracy advocate, finally came up with something that REALLY rings a bell: Putin The Great, the restorer of the great imaginary Russian Empire. He is fortunately doomed to fail, by all accounts! Thom, you REALLY should look inside your own camp for saboteurs, why is your content so regularly distorted or unintelligible at crucial moments? This is NOT something seen on other "inconvenient" channels!
    2
  1070. A huge improvement - the White House BS has just been reduced to a trickle! I cannot help wondering which is worse; Trump spouting his irrational BS in these "Press Briefing" election rallies or the press that has eagerly lapped up the BS, dissected, analyzed and discussed it as if it came from Scripture...
    2
  1071.  @julchensweet2538 , Oops - there you go, the object gender issue gets me both coming and going! Fortunately that is only slightly embarrassing, the important thing is to understand and be understood.
    2
  1072. . . . and Russian authorities have bee known to the bastion of truth in this conflict? Be assured: Any deployment of WMD's in this conflict will be Putin's work, in keeping with his "scorched earth in case of retreat" policy. "Russia" or "anything Russian" will be replacing the reviled concept of "Nazi War Criminal" for decades to come, much to the detriment of all the Russian citizens that wanted no part in this.
    2
  1073. The good news: The "small government" crowd (spelled PERVERT government) is so ridiculously off the rocker that sane people will NOT vote for them in coming years.
    2
  1074.  @doktormcnasty , yep - most of them will be American, but seeing that the US is the dominant world military power, the rest of the world will suffer as well. I predict that 'Muricans will be mightily despised in decades to come if the right-wingers win. Truly a sad state of affairs. The only solution seems to be for ALL Americans to turn out to vote in EVERY election during the next decade or so. If Repugnican gerrymandering, voter suppression (or if the lunatics voting turn out to outnumber sane people voting), it will end badly. If, on the other hand, the sane people turn out on top, things will slowly get better and Americans might eventually end up with a work/life balance similar to North Europe.
    2
  1075. Trump has been throwing stink bombs to distract the media form some issue or another since started running for president. The media KNOWS that these are distraction stink bombs but, like an excited puppy, they are absolutely unable NOT to follow the distraction Trump is shamelessly throwing. The US media (at least the part that is not owned by the rich and influential) has become completely dysfunctional.
    2
  1076.  @annefischer1433 , the "Denmark's 2616 Covid deaths" is literal - perhaps i should have used 2,616 notation, or two-thousand-six-hundred-and-sixteen, the number of Covid deaths in Denmark as recorded this morning by Johns Hopkins University data. I find the very common "US is not like other nations" excuse to be absolutely ridiculous: The citizens of the United States of America have repeatedly shown that there is nothing you cannot do once you are motivated! The welfare systems in Northern Europe are to a great extent based on what we learned from Roosevelt's America during and after WW2. You, on the other hand, seem to have been derailed, beginning with Ronald bloody Reagan. I am convinced that the US could take e.g. the Nordic model to scale and leave Europe in the dust - if only you could rid yourself of the blatant bought-and-paid-for political corruption that has been crippling you for too long.
    2
  1077. Trump, moronic as he appears, is playing the media (TYT included) like a violin. He appears to have one super-talent: Knowing what buttons to push to have the media running around in circles, like a headless chicken. The media KNOWS he is distracting them but , like an excited puppy, STILL cannot help themselves running down any rabbit hole Trump digs for them.
    2
  1078. Brian May (Queen guitarist) has a PhD in Astrophysics, Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean, among other characters) is an electrical engineer. Intelligent and multi-talented people pop up everywhere. It comes as no surprise that Zelenskyy is one of those incredibly intelligent, astute and multi-talented individuals. Literally an accidental President initially, his big challenge was the massive Soviet & Russian-era corruption Ukraine was dealing with, soon replaced with Putin's invasion and Ukraine's determined fight for it's very existence. Zelenskyy is currently earning his place beside historical greats like FDR and Churchill, while Putin is placing himself beside the historical dregs of humanity like Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet. What Zelenskyy's final legacy actually ends up being remains to be seen, but the prospects are not bad.
    2
  1079. If Gov. Abbot chooses to drive business away from Texas for nefarious reasons, so be it! Neighboring states lime New Mexico can only benefit from such abject stupidity. As for Texans that realize they are being shafted, there is a simple solution: Move to New Mexico - or anywhere else, for that matter! Texas is signing up to become a Repugnican hellhole for generations to come.
    2
  1080. As a non-'Murican, I feel sorry for the residents of the US (aka "The Lunatic States of America"). Living in an asylum where the lunatics have take over must be awful.
    2
  1081. What originally drew me to the channel was that it was a glimpse into the ups and downs of the life of a normal, happy family putting down roots in a new social and economic environment. Then came came economic comparison videos, which were also interesting. I fully understand and respect your reluctance to publicize the part your children play in you life and will miss that.
    2
  1082. I think Greta Thunberg described conferences like COP26 perfectly: Bla-bla-bla, and then some more meaningless bla-bla-bla.
    2
  1083. Zelenskyy is now focused on beating off the Russian invasion. If he succeeds (as seems likely now), it will be interesting to watch how he will handle the really big battle facing him: Rooting out the endemic Soviet-era corruption that plagues all the former Soviet countries. His predecessor Poroshenko either failed, did not even try or was outright complicit (who can say?), and Ukrainian voters got rid of him! Zelenskyy is Ukraine's best hope of a) Repealing the invasion, and b) Cleaning house once the artillery shells stop falling. If he succeeds, Ukraine will be a fantastic addition to Europe.
    2
  1084. Vance will not be able to show his face anywhere in the world for the rest of his life - outside the silly US of fricking A. Frankly, very few 'Muricans will be able to show their faces outside the US in 2025! I live in a rather isolated fishing village in NW Iceland, every summer inundated with cruise ship tourists, most of them 'Muricans. I will take great care, in the summer of 2025, to let the 'Murican visitors know what we Europeans think of them as a nation - much as I admired them in my formative years in the 50s and 60s.
    2
  1085. Tony Ornatos nefarious past WILL unavoidably catch up with him. Running away now will do him no good in the long run. The Law may move at a snail's pace, but it will eventually catch up with a running hare like Ornato.
    2
  1086. The proper way to pronounce the name of the Gripen is "Greepen" (a Nordic "i" sounds like an English "ee"). This entire video comes across as a Gripen sales pitch! The F-16 vs. JAS39 comparison is interesting: Regarding Ukraine, the JAS39 is a likely future, economical, practical and affordable. The does not change the fact that the F-16 is, in the current situation, the obvious choice: being laid off by numerous Ukraine-allied countries, it is available in considerable numbers, it is "cheap" to acquire (being donated in most cases) and usually being upgraded and made operational by the donor nations. It may be old, but it is a mature and battle-proven package. What remains to be seen is how it stacks up against the Russian fighter/anti-air forces. Indications are that while the F-16 may not be avant-garde in the West, the Russian counterparts are likely to be all noise and no substance. Just consider how embattled little Ukraine has managed to withstand the assault of "the Mighty Russian Military" for almost 3 years! Putin is trying to attempt world domination with a thoroughly corrupt Paper Tiger military.
    2
  1087. Defense weapons? An Aussie comedian put it succinctly: "There are no Defense Rifles out there mate, only Assault Rifles!"
    2
  1088. It struck me how many of the interviewed had shifty eyes - like they were afraid of saying something wrong and maybe spending 15 years in prison. Yet, almost everyone denounced the idea of changing the rest of the world into Putin's Russia. My guess: They've been there, the ARE doing that and they just want it to end.
    2
  1089. The US will bear the scars of the Trump presidency for decades. It will take many iterations of "proper" presidents to heal those scars, and if the corrupt US political system manages to re-elect Trump or another easily-led idiot at a later time, the scarring will be permanent - just as Putin intended.
    2
  1090. Thom, FIX YOUR BLOODY MIKE! The last few clips have been plagued by hiss, snap & crackle for a faulty mike or wiring in your studio.
    2
  1091. A nation that refuses to treat affordable health care for it's citizens as a RIGHT, not a privilege, has no business calling itself a democracy. The issue of female reproductive rights is an indisputable part of that, and religious or political zealots should have absolutely NO say in the matter. Frankly, a nation that is engaged in this kind of medieval thinking has no business counting themselves among civilized nations, LET ALONE being a dominant one! The rest of the world REALLY should wash their hands of these lunatics! The US, a role model for other nations in the 1940-1980 era, currently has 'checked out' of the democratic process. We can only wait and hope they will re-emerge as a civilized nation following their Nazi/Trumpzi/Fascist stint, but one thing is certain: They will no longer be a dominant nation AND, the US dollar will no longer be the dominant currency! That, in itself, should fill ordinary US citizens with dread - but they are too ignorant to realize what that means.
    2
  1092. The Toddler an Vance TRIED to humiliate Zelenskyy - and they failed spectacularly! Volodimir walked away with his (and Ukraine's) dignity intact and the excrement being thrown about ended up on the faces of Toddler Trump and Vance. The world now has watched how petty and stupid the current leaders of 'Murica are. Can 'Murica be proud?
    2
  1093. AOC and her likes are the best hope the US has to eventually being able to become a genuine democracy again. Whether she will be allowed to fulfill that dream (the US has a disturbing history of assassinating people like AOC) remains to be seen. On the flip side, she might eventually throw up her hands in disgust and quit - the US might be beyond saving!
    2
  1094. Only the SVB depositors are being bailed out. The bank itself is not being bailed out, it is now allowed to fail and any investors will lose their investment. Also, the bank managers are out of a job and just might end up in jail if they are found to have broken any laws, e.g. if they are found to have used insider information to optimize the financial situation for themselves and/or their "buddies" when it became clear that the bank was about to fail. This is what happened to the Icelandic banks and bank managers after the 2008 crash.
    2
  1095. I suspect the Ukrainians will surprise all the naysayers. By now they have a vast experience in warfare, and their tank crews are NOT raw recruits just plucked from the streets of Liverpool or Dresden that will first have to learn the alphabet before they learn about tank warfare. The Ukrainians will be seasoned soldiers that will take to superior equipment like fish to water. Make no mistake, new and complex systems need to be mastered, both regarding operation and maintenance, but we're talking seasoned veterans that already have most of the knowledge and, more important, actual EXPERIENCE! Add to that the fierce motivation of the Ukrainians! Learning to efficiently use a new tool will NOT take them 20 weeks, more like 2 or 4! Again, I am certain that the naysayers will be the ones that have to slink away in shame when all is said an done.
    2
  1096. Israel might not be treating the Palestinians quite as badly as the Nazis treated the Jews in their time, but they are certainly going down that road...
    2
  1097. Repugnican Morality? Nonexistent! What goes for Morality in the Repugnican party is so warped and twisted that it, at best, represents pure evil.
    2
  1098. You have to admire AOC for her restraint towards Ted Yoho. Her response was civilized, yet cutting and subtly denigrating of male chauvinists that hide being husbands and fathers. One has to wonder what Ted Yoho's wife and daughters actually think of this whole debacle. Given his behavior, they are bound to have been oppressed for decades - there is probably ample grounds for feeling sorry for those females.
    2
  1099. Have you noticed how Republicans always interrupt and keep talking loudly over other members of any debate. Their have no credible defense these days, their last stand is an attempt to sabotage the delivery of their opponent's arguments.
    2
  1100. Killing civilians in droves to break down morale was tried and tested in WW2 - by all sides! - and made very little difference. If anything, the resulting mutual hatred it incited seriously delayed post-war reconciliation. For Putin to believe it could work now just shows how deluded he is.
    2
  1101. I was struck by the "Arrested while trying to flee the country" statement at the beginning of this clip. So - if you are on a 1-way ticket out of the US, you are FLEEING and obviously up to no good? Not that I want to defend these crooks, but TYT really should try to avoid this kind of unnecessary spin.
    2
  1102. I'm still waiting for the US Military-industrial complex to move the manufacturing of key US weapons systems to China, simply to increase their profits! The joke: US politicians will merrily go along on the condition that the 'donor money' (the bribes) keep rolling in. Talk about selling your soul, your family and your security, just for a little more short-term profit.
    2
  1103. How one single individual is able to paralyze the entire legislative system is beyond comprehension. Moscow Mitch should be taken aside and put down like a rabid animal and THEN the Legislative Branch should immediately change the law to prevent this from happening ever again. Of course THAT will never happen, the Repugnicans and Democraps LIKE things the way they are!
    2
  1104. Good point. Iceland and Panama are assets the western powers don't want to lose (Iceland's location and Panama's canal).
    2
  1105. No sweat, really. Who says the SCOTUS has any influence, anywhere? Apparently there have been cases where the executive branch has simply ignored SCOTUS rulings - AND SUCCEEDED! The SCOTUS has no real power at all, when push comes to shove. If the EXECUTIVE branch does not like what these "legal brain soups" decide, it can simply give the SCOTUS the middle finger! SCOTUS has NO executive power! If the LEGISLATIVE branch does not like SCOTUS shenanigans (more frequent these days, with the current crop of corrupt "Justices") the Legislative branch can simply change the legislation! SCOTUS actually has to dance to the tune written by Congress! They are only there to interpret potential ambiguities in the law as decided by Congress. If Congress does not agree with the currently twisted, medieval interpretations of the SCOTUS, all they have to do is to CLARIFY the letter of the law, effectively rendering the SCOTUS irrelevant!
    2
  1106. To us outsiders (and other NATO allies) the question seem to be: Will 'Murica go full Hitler-style fascist within 2-6 years? If it does, it will be due to abject and unforgivable voter apathy in the US.
    2
  1107. This clip ruined the David Pakman show for me. A title that proposes a discussion about better heath care system but ends up wallowing in the hopeless quagmire of the US so-called "health care" system without even mentioning other ways of providing satisfactory health care is simply disgusting. Just about EVERY nation on Earth manages to provide more or less affordable health care to it's citizens - except the bloody US of A! Take a look at many countries in South America that the US has systematically destroyed financially - they are STILL able to provide more affordable health care to their citizens than the bloody US of A! The arrogant gits that pretend to be the only ones worthy of being called "Americans" should be put down and disdained by other western countries as being unworthy of being called a) a democracy, and b) being called a role model.
    2
  1108. If Americans were to take their heads out of their arses, they would realize that what the US is doing to "protect their interests" in various parts of the world, they are simply doing what the Somali pirates have been doing. The main difference is that the US is doing it on a vastly larger scale! Well, to be fair,so are the Russians and the Chinese...
    2
  1109. One wonders what issues Italy has that trump (pun intended) the issues the US has? Francesca would certainly be better off in the country of her ancestors than her current homeland that is swirling around the drain, just about to be flushed into the sewer. Santorum's incredibly arrogant and self-humiliating speech is a prime example of the reason why 'Murica is failing. Sadly, the vast majority of unwilling US citizens are about to be taken along for the ride, without being asked or given the opportunity to object.
    2
  1110. Can we declare the SCOTUS being the third most overtly corrupt 'Murican institution, bested only by the two 'Murican political parties?
    2
  1111.  @kevintoth5365 , do you mean it's kneecap-breaking time for Trump?
    2
  1112. Only 'Muricans are able to define a concept like "Incels" (involuntary celibates?) - everywhere else in the world they are simply defined as creeps than no woman wants to be near, let alone have sexual relations with.
    2
  1113. Hot damn! Jens Stoltenberg seems to be aspiring to become the Neville Chamberlain of our times!
    2
  1114. I live in Iceland, one of the Nordic countries, where we have strict rules about the condition of the vehicles allowed to be on our roads. The environmental (emission) part is incidental and disqualifying if found wanting, but the important bits are the safety features of the vehicles: Brakes, steering rods, suspension, seat belts and the general condition of the vehicle is under scrutiny. Bottom line: You will NEVER find unsafe rust buckets driving around on European roads! That may be the norm in 'Murica, but we Europeans have found that properly trained drivers AND properly functioning cars do wonders for road safety! Simple things like not toleration ANY fluid leaks, be it brake fluid, oil or fuel, will do wonders for the safety of your vehicle. You 'Muricans may not yet have figured this one out, but hopefully you will, within a generation or two. Maybe you will also figure out that a "well regulated" gun culture will do wonders for the acute lead poisoning epidemic that is plaguing 'Murican society these days, but that will probably take a number of decades for you slowpokes to figure out...
    2
  1115. The lunatics have taken over the US of A asylum.
    2
  1116. The most useless things in aviation when things go awry: The runway behind you, the altitude above you and the fuel you left behind.
    2
  1117. In Ukraine, patriotism really means something, in the US patriotism is superficial and misguided. Avoiding the inevitably rising gas prices trumps everything.
    2
  1118. We ALL started our zero-G fiddling early: A pack of cigarettes placed on the glare-shield, the trick consisting of regulating the vertical G with the elevator and the fore/aft movement by reducing power. In a barely-100kt Cessna this lasted a very few seconds - with everyone properly strapped in. Progressing to a 290kt 19-seater extended the zero-G experience beyond 10 seconds, but the basic mission remained the same: Good elevator control for vertical G and judicious reduction of power to control fore/aft movement. Opportunities were rare and, as a result, we usually mucked up a bit! This was always limited to non-IFR ferry flights with one or more professional colleagues in the back = idiotic behavior guaranteed! What I found to be the biggest worry: Bigger toys, bigger egos = nobody strapped in and you REALLY had to be careful when re-introducing positive G: Just a little bit for a second or so (allowing everybody to arrange themselves on the floor) before pulling harder in preparation for the next bit of zero-G fun. Messing this up can cause real physical harm.
    2
  1119. The irony of it all: "Hurtigruten" (Hurtig-ruten) literally translates as "the fast route" - which it is REALLY not in these modern times where there is fast air travel available. The charm of Slow TV, however, is undeniable in our rushed modern times. The Norwegians have found a perfect antidote to our rushed lifestyle. PS. If there ever was a nation just as hooked on National-flag-waving as the 'Muricans, it HAS to be Norway!
    2
  1120. I initially thought that Trump was like a dim-witted, spoiled 12-yera old. I am now convinced that he is, at best, like a dim-witted, spoiled and narcissistic 9-year old.
    2
  1121. A going-demented man is certainly better than an unbridled narcissist (Trump), but is the US really going to jump from the fire into the frying pan? The fire is certainly not a place to be, but the frying pan is only a narrow degree less painful. Biden might be "better" than Trump, but what a rock-bottom bar to be aiming for.
    2
  1122. JFK did this - he broke down huge numbers that have no meaning to individual members of the public, into numbers that the general public can really relate to and understand. This methodology really shines a light on the corruption that is ongoing in the military-industrial complex, and partly answers the classical "How do you pay for it?" gambit. AOC is awesome!
    2
  1123. Much as I am disgusted with Fascist Apartheid Musk, one has to admire his engineering teams that made the capture possible. We can all see where this is going, the only painful and ugly wart on the whole issue is Elon Musk, supporter of our equivalent of Adolf Hitler.
    2
  1124. There IS a very well documented case of the consequences of unacceptable inequality going on for too long: The French Revolution! There WILL be a breaking point that results in a lot of bloodshed - especially in a country already awash with military-style weapons. Who needs Guillotines?
    2
  1125. My disgust of conservative and non-voting 'Muricans is increasing exponentially! You are MONSTERS - and you call yourself Christians? Anyone forced to visit your godforsaken country should get triple combat pay, that is how risky visiting the FSA is nowadays. You should be ashamed of yourselves - but then, a common conservative trait is being shameless...
    2
  1126. I have a question: Why do US women (even Emma, sometimes) tend to croak at the end of every sentence? A statement (from experience, watching friends go down that road): Regular, long-term use of weed will fry your brain! Use moderation. Finally, to us Europeans (well, Nordic citizens): Bernie Sanders is NOT a hard-core communist, he is just fighting to provide to the US population what we have had for decades! Funny thing is that the US pioneered what we have, decades ago (under Roosevelt). We just picked it up and ran with it, a little bit further, with your help. I bloody well works!
    2
  1127. Up to 1/3rd of 'Muricans appear to believe in Trump (who cares about Jesus when Trump is available and HERE, NOW!) - that means there are over 100 million idiots like this woman living in 'Murica! The prospects are not good...
    2
  1128. I would not be surprised if the pilots themselves decided to risk the crossing and get the heck out of Russia! The Orange Boxes must be in perfect condition, the CVR will tell all about what went on in the cockpit and the FDR will tell all about the aircraft systems , e.g. the hydraulics.
    2
  1129. Ana and Chenk: You had the misfortune of being born in a country with a dismal future. The US, like ancient Rome, used to be a great empire, but Rome turned to dust just as the US is beginning to. The US is actually one of the the most dangerous places to live in these days, the exceptions being places like Brazil, Russia and India. The US , previously the land of the free and the home of the brave - now the land of the oppressed and the home of remote-killing cowards.
    2
  1130. Do we NEED to reinvent capitalism? It is ingrained in our psyche, our primary driving force (well, monetary greed is second only to sexual horniness). It is what it is. It is what the United States are based on. Unbridled GREED! What we need to do is to REIN IN capitalism. Put a bridle on it, allow free enterprise to flourish without destroying everything in it's path, much like the Nordic countries have managed to do. But - you are the US of bloody A! Too big to fail! Any lesson learned by other nations, large or small, do not apply to you - what you are is an abject failure, you believe you are so big that you are doomed to fail at anything you try!
    2
  1131. If you want an example of blatant corruption in high places, this is it.
    2
  1132. I'm a non-'Murican, and it boggles my mind why Bush Jr. is not in jail, being directly responsible for innumerable crimes against humanity AND his own nation! One wonders how many 'Murican lives Bush Jr. is responsible for snuffing out by his actions regarding the already dismal health care, and that is NOT counting his war crimes!
    2
  1133. I have to say that this is a more acceptable POW video than others I have seen. Just two Russian foot soldiers sat down in front of a camera and allowed to speak without prompting or interrogation. Of course they are in a situation that is bound to make them grovel but, not that my opinion means much, I find their story credible. It is easy to imagine how they got to where they are, being fooled to enlist by lies and the absolute shock they must have experienced once they were at "ground zero", seeing what was really being done to the Ukrainian population. At least they are alive and apparently not being mistreated by the Ukrainians
    2
  1134. The current NASA budget is only a fraction of what the Apollo program had. Also, the learning curve of autonomous landing vehicles is well and spectacularly documented: Just review the spectacular crashes that preceded the first successful Falcon 9 booster landing, now being repeated on an even grander scale with the Starship program! There will be a lot of "flops" in NASA's immediate future. Much of the knowledge accumulated during the Apollo program has been lost, and has actually become irrelevant because the tool sets available now are totally different. The entire thing will have to be re-learned, and on a budget!
    2
  1135. Aircraft manufacturers and US regulators cannot be entirely trusted. Fatal examples: DC10 and B747 cargo door design flaws, issues that became known to the manufacturers but not properly handled and communicated to airlines by the FAA. The reason: Financial pressure.
    2
  1136. 'Murica, pay attention! Your "president" just made sure that NATO now has only 31 nations. The US has bowed out, cannot be relied on and just proved they are cheats and liars. Europe will get it's act together to crush Putin, and everyone faces the fact that 'Murica is becoming irrelevant in every sense. Who will trust a nation that behaves like this>?
    2
  1137. Typical for autocrats: Scientists and engineers develop something groundbreaking that is then hyped out of all proportions by the autocrats. When the hype is exposed, the autocratic solution is to send the scientists to the Gulag for not living up to the autocratic hype.
    2
  1138.  @Circlewisewoman01 , by ignoring the facts the ruling elite (the Trumpzis) is all but ensuring the rampant spread of the virus, and very soon it will have infected the White House and the ruling elite as well. Not testing aggressively for COVID-19 shows how dysfunctional your health care system has become. My own country (Iceland) has 34 confirmed cases already (mostly Icelanders returning from skiing trips in the Italian Alps), and by the same per capita ratio the US should by now have at least 3400 cases. We know about the problem and we aggressively test everyone with symptoms. In fact, our infections only began in mid-February while the virus has probably been quietly spreading in the US since January or even earlier. You are probably seeing even less than the tip of the iceberg yet...
    2
  1139. Behold a man trying to defend the indefensible. This lawyer comes across as someone stupidly trying to piss into a gale-force wind. He will only end up drenched in his own urine.
    2
  1140. The Trump-Reps are going to have a hard time lying themselves out of this one - AND whatever comes crawling from underneath stones yet to be turned over.
    2
  1141. This obsession with trying to control inflation is weird. Sometimes inflation is homemade - resources being intentionally "shifted" from one part of society to another, but usually inflation is caused by rapid fluctuations in the supply/demand balance. Covid rather drastically lowered demand for a while, while also hindering the supply side - a sort of a balance remained, but Putin's war caused a violent hiccup in especially the energy and food supply/demand balance (not to mention the vast amounts of resources being spent on deadly "fireworks"). This will be naturally adjusted by alternate sources on the supply side and rising prices on the demand side, all within a year or so. Instead of exercising a bit of patience, US politicians behave as if their water is breaking (a common condition for men when a birth is imminent, while the women about to give actual birth usually remain calm and collected).
    2
  1142. It is becoming ever clearer how repugnant the US is. Not individual US citizens, rather the cheating minority that has hogged influence and power beyond actual following from the general public, and has been representing the US government for over 40 years. The US is now generally considered unreliable and narcissistic by current and soon-to-be former allies. Who wants to work with a snake that is liable to turn on you at any time? I miss the good old US of 60 years ago. They might have been a bit rabid regarding social-democratic issues, but at least they were consistent, and genuinely wanted to improve the world.
    2
  1143. To describe WW2 Rolls Royce engines while showing videos of double-row radial engines is off-putting for nerds like me, to put it mildly.
    2
  1144. "I am defending my mighty country - by invading another, smaller and weaker country". What a whooper!
    2
  1145. I wonder if 'Muricans REALLY want to become the bully everyone hates? I personally intend to show my disrespect and dislike towards ANY 'Murican that I come across in my home country, and there are quite a lot of them! Yes, I KNOW that a majority of 'Muricans are innocent of imposing Toddler Trump on the world - again! - but the 'Murican nation are guilty of it, and the entire nation must bear the consequences, mostly by watching their country crumble around them as it descends into Oligarchy - but also by experiencing how their allies are losing their respect and are beginning to see 'Murica as a nest of infectious and dangerous rats. What "plague" are they spreading? Oligarchy, which is one form of Fascism!
    2
  1146. Watching 'Murica falling apart is heart-breaking. The sensible people in 'Murica are stuck in a pile of shite, spinning their wheels to no avail. How the country that truly was the greatest and best 50 to 80 years ago managed to devolve into this pathetic mess is beyond comprehension! The irony: Post-WW2 ravaged Western Europe followed the example of the US in the decades after WW2 and are STILL sticking to it, to varying degrees - AND IT'S WORKING! While 'Murica's unchecked capitalism is currently about to lead it down the road Germany traveled a century ago, Europe is enjoying the results of the lessons they learned from the post-WW2 America that Roosevelt managed to establish: A healthy middle class, affordable health care and education and, most important, at least some control over unchained capitalism.
    2
  1147. This is probably why the US is blowing it's top over the likely dominance of China regarding 5G technology; back doors the NSA is currently enjoying will disappear, not to mention the fact that China will probably have access to any future back doors.
    2
  1148. When (not if) WW3 happens, the US will have been the root of it (insatiable military-industrial corporations needing further "business" opportunities). The modern world likes doing mutually beneficial business, not wasting resources on killing each other - the outlier being the US, invading countries willy-nilly, overthrowing democratically elected governments because they were too "socialist" to allow US corporations to exploit their resources etc. When WW3 happens, the rest of the world will mostly refuse to participate. The US will be the instigators, China will be the target and the US will lose spectacularly because no other country wants to be involved, if only because of the environmental impact. Take that, you stupid 'Murican warhawks!
    2
  1149. "Are Russians being discriminated against outside Russia?" is, unfortunately, bound to be a problem for a long time to come. This is no doubt grossly unfair to all the Russians that wanted no part in the invasion of Ukraine and left Russia to avoid it. The problem: No one knows if a Russian expat is a Putin operative (the kind that help dissidents falling out of high-rise windows) or if he/she is a genuine dissident. This situation is unfair but unavoidable.
    2
  1150.  @kikimontreal1  , Open Google Earth and find position 63°53'22.36"N 22°16'17.40"W
    2
  1151. Interesting, and just goes to show how little we still know about so many things. Being an Agnostic, I am not bothered either way - but wouldn't it be nice if there IS something awaiting us beyond death? I am of the opinion that organized religions of any kind are just scams used to capitalize on the unknown, and if there IS something waiting for us beyond death, it will not bear any resemblance with any of the known religious theories.
    2
  1152. How about privatizing the judicial system - the judges? That would be a REALLY fair system...
    2
  1153. I am REALLY glad that I am not a US citizen!
    2
  1154. It seems like the MAGA crowd is increasingly unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
    2
  1155. Just imagine the stink the "Keeper of the Heads" had to endure while the heads in his care rotted away...
    2
  1156. The irony of Waffle Scholtz: Lots of assistance, assuredly just too little, too late (someone had better look into Scholtz's history and finances, there is something very fishy going on with that guy). I predict that Europe and NATO will have to meet a better-prepared Russia again on some other European battlefield within a decade if Putin gains even an inch in this conflict. The only remedy is to ensure that Putin's Russia is defeated soundly this time around. When Putin is dead and gone, Russia must be kept isolated and sanctioned to the hilt while his successors bash themselves to bankruptcy and death. Russia will only be fit to rejoin the community of nations when it has become a genuine democracy - and THAT will take generation or two (25-50 years).
    2
  1157. Kinda funny: The Repugnicans are terrified the Democrats will start doing what Repugnicans have been doing for decades: Make it easier for their followers to vote at all! Conservatives KNOW this is the writing on the wall for them, they have not had the support of the majority of the US public for a LONG time and realize that their only path to cling to power is by lying and cheating even more than they have been doing for years. The main difference is that the Democrats will not have to bother suppressing Repugnican support, US demographics have been changing for a long time and only Repugnican voter suppression has kept them from voting. Non-Repugnican voter apathy has played a large role in this, but Trump's shenanigans have woken up the sleeping giant. Repugnicans are correct: If anything resembling genuine voting rights are allowed in the US, they will be out of power for decades, hopefully forever!
    2
  1158. Trump is a wannabe Putin. Good luck with that!
    2
  1159. Right - you 'Muricans can meticulously analyze your descent into fascism, a recreation of Hitler's Germany, fully knowing how disastrously it will end for you, but you will carefully refrain from DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT! You are truly confirming that 'Murica is "the land of the Ignorant and the home of Idiots"!
    2
  1160. True, short and to the point.
    2
  1161. The older generation can try to advise, but they should also have acquired the wisdom of knowing when to step aside and let the young generation get on with their future. Those that think the young do not have enough wisdom and maturity for the job should look to the actions of the Parkland shooting victims. Those kids proved to wiser and more mature than the older generations that constantly underestimate young people.
    2
  1162. "The best last stand for the Republican party at the Democrat's debate"! Chenk at his best - and a fitting description of the Corporate Democrats. Right on target without being crass and nasty.
    2
  1163. Aha, the Holier-Than-Thou CNN is FINALLY getting around to airing news of this tiny little insignificant incident that will leave no lasting effects of air quality, ground water or long-term effects on the local community, a MERE two weeks after the fact! Jake Tapper, your true colors (and those of your fellow talking heads) are really showing. This will be your legacy in, say, 20 years, when the full scope of the disaster has emerged and your contribution to ignoring it has been thoroughly documented. The CEO's and other top management personnel of the company responsible should be forced to relocate to the affected areas, to live there full-time WITH their extended families (children and grandchildren) for AT LEAST 5 years. That would absolutely ensure that the perpetrating company would actually DO something effective about the pollution they caused. If not, all that will be offered are the traditional "thoughts and prayers", something that comes cheap to those fake-Christian Repugnicans. As an alternative, the CEO's and other top management personnel of the company responsible should show their confidence by actually showing up with their extended families and drink, ON CAMERA, at least a pint of water from the affected streams of water with all the dead fish. Wanna bet any of them are willing to do that? What a WONDERFUL country to live in!
    2
  1164. What is a Political Strategist? A person packaging and promoting lies! Apparently, this one is just now facing the realities and consequences of his life's work - and it ain't a pretty picture.
    2
  1165. Hopefully, when this mad and cruel administration has been dethroned, the monsters responsible for having children abducted and then lost (Kelly, Miller, Sessions and Nielsen) will be made responsible. They should be forced to enjoy the hospitality of the US "correctional" system.
    2
  1166. I have a feeling that total lock-down measures were a lost-resort action of nations that reacted too little, too late and were FORCED to such drastic measures. My country, Iceland, did a bit of both approaches. Early and aggressive testing (today, 7.May 2020 we have tested over 14% of the population), aggressive contact tracing, quarantining, isolation, the entire spiel. What we have NOT done is a total lock-down. Physical (not social!) distancing and limitation on mass assembly of people and, most important, raising awareness of the simple measures that help containing the infection such as frequent hand hygiene and work-at-home where possible. Shops have been open the entire time and now that the the spread is "under control" (new cases very rare), we are now going through the initial stages of backing out of these measures. A major problem remains: The majority of the nation is thought to be unaffected, i.e. a ripe field for renewed infections and another wave. Widespread antibody testing is planned once reliable tests are available, but until then we are flying more or less blind regarding the actual spread of the virus. The Swedes may well be on to something sensible - after all, they are not known to take public safety issues lightly.
    2
  1167. Regular wages rising? Waily, waily - the inflation MIGHT go up, bad news for rich investors! Never mind that the average citizen is far better off and the imminent future certainly looks brighter, the VOTING part of 'Muricans have been conditioned (brainwashed) into worrying more about the welfare of the rich than their own welfare. The BIG failure is with the so-called Main Media, that has been failing on all significant counts for decades.
    2
  1168. Most modern music rarely DOES anything for me, but I chalk that up to the generation gap (I'm 73) and is MY problem, not so much the fault of modern musicians. A simple flashback to the era of the Beatles & Rolling Stones: My parents and grandparents had a similar problem with them and I guess now it's my turn regarding the music my grandchildren like. Oh well, what goes around comes around.
    2
  1169. Bruce Westerman is on the same intellect level as the idiot Republican congressman that brought a snowball to the lectern as proof that global warming was a hoax! Where DOES the Repugnican party find all those idiots they manage to get elected to powerful positions! George Santos, the compulsive liar that can potentially out-fib Trump, is just the latest installment in this farce! One wonders if the last lines in the 'Murican National Anthem should be change to something like "...the land of the feeble-minded and the home of idiots". To an outsider like me, it seem appropriate. Mind you, when I was young (in the Kennedy era) I genuinely admired the US and anything "American", simply because they were worth admiring! That acquired a dirty patine during the Nixon years and went to hell in a handbasket when Ronald Bloody Reagan appeared on the scene.
    2
  1170. The most likely explanation for Pelosi's refusal to start an impeachment inquiry is that her owners (her donors) do not want her to.
    2
  1171. 'Murica is doomed, because of the disgusting apathy of 'Murican voters.
    2
  1172. As I understand this, there are two main goals: 1) map the actual spread of the virus in the entire population, and 2) map the mutation history of the virus. deCode is not testing everyone, just a "random" part of the population. The problem: The testing is only on offer to anyone interested is the South-West part of Iceland. True, more than half the population is able to take part, but as the vast majority of COVID-19 cases are found in just that area, the results will inevitably be biased accordingly. The good news is the simple fact that whatever the result is, we KNOW that the final infection rate results will be the worst-imaginable-case scenario, the actual country-wise numbers are actually better. Pleas note the Iceland had an active epidemic response team (not disbanded as in the US) that was aware of the impending problem, started testing, quarantining, isolating and TRACKING the infection source of every case, leading to further quarantining and isolations. Our very high per capita infection rate is simply because we, like South Korea and Taiwan, started very early and were able to catch and isolate most of the cases. The virus was NOT allowed to spread unnoticed.
    2
  1173. What a reprehensible, disgusting and lying-through-his-teeth individual. I he says something is green, you can rest assured it is NOT green.
    2
  1174. I have always loved Thom's intro of Dr. Wolff - "with two effs". The world they are describing in this clip is weird, and the only certainty is that it will not last long. Deflation is self extinguishing - if prices and wages plummet while debt obligations are supposed to remain stable, there will be bloodshed! Even an idiot like Trump will see that by exterminating a mere 1% of the US population (bankers, speculators, billionaires etc., a mere 3 million), all debt will be automatically forgiven! This is where the proliferation of assault weapons among the general population will come in handy...
    2
  1175. I suspect Judge Bruce Scroeder will be remembered in infamy in future. His blatant in-plain-sight partiality during this case will hopefully be grounds for an appeal. Also, all hell will break lose if Rittenhouse is acquitted or let off relatively easy. Claiming self defense as an excuse for killing two unarmed individuals -the cheek! One effect: That will be seen as a go-ahead for future murderous vigilantes. Another effect: An additional blow to to the general public's confidence in the already tattered US judiciary system - which is exactly what ultra right-wingers have been aiming for.
    2
  1176.  @ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095 , nope - I'm as Icelandic as you can get, and if your last name really is Eyjólfsdóttir you have some Icelandic roots as well.
    2
  1177. I'm just waiting for the US military-industrial complex move most of US weapons production to China to increase profits. THAT will be the final nail in the US coffin.
    2
  1178. Hodges is absolutely right. Since the collapse of the USSR, people increasing started to believe in an Utopian world where every nation's resources could be spend on constructive issues instead of military matters - and that is exactly what has been happening. Western nations, with the notable exception of some nations like the US and Finland, started scaling down their military spending. As Hodges pointed out, while there are despots and autocrats in the world, we HAVE to spend considerable resources to ensure that said despots do not dare to attack any of us. Unfortunately, Utopia only exists in our dreams - a worthy and noble goal, to be sure, but one that will stay only a dream for some generations to come.
    2
  1179. What bothers me is HAVING to read between the lines in Mueller's report. If Mueller were more patriot than republican, that would probably not be the case.
    2
  1180. Being a woman of child-bearing age in the US these days must be terrifying! Before you know it, it will be a toss-up which country will be more oppressive to females, Afghanistan ruled by Talibans or the USA ruled by Repugnicans.
    2
  1181. A definition of the term "racist": Noun: A person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another. Verb: Showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or believing that a particular race is superior to another. Of course black people can be racist! It's all about "showing or feeling", not necessarily acting or doing racist things. Black people, on the other hand, probably have more cause to be racist than white people these days, given the history of the US.
    2
  1182. Don't hold your breath waiting for 'Muricans to see the light. They will probably be among the last nations to reform their judicial and prison systems.
    2
  1183. Well, Boeing has been going down the drain for a few decades due to greed overriding quality, and the chances of Boeing recovering from the "McDonnell Douglas disease" is minuscule. The symptoms have been glaring for a couple of decades, the most recent and dramatic being the utter failure of their space program - not to mention the 737MAX MCAS debacle that should really be classified as a case of mass manslaughter due to negligence. Most of the victims were non-'Muricans, so the fallout has been survivable, but only barely.
    2
  1184. Very important: Jumping momentarily into cold water AFTER you have soaked in a hot spring, and are warm to the bone, is very refreshing indeed - followed by returning to the hot spring to get warm again! Good exercise for your vascular system. The Finns do it in their saunas, we Icelanders do it using our hot tubs... Jumping into cold water without having warm-soaked first is PAINFUL and anyone enjoying it is a bit of a masochist.
    2
  1185. A "major" just-discovered effect that no one even noticed until now? Personally, I withhold judgement and prefer to wait for more confirmation. Perhaps "major" is redundant in the first sentence here...
    2
  1186. Being an Ambassador for China in just about any country in the world must be difficult: Whenever asked about sensitive issues in their home country, they have to lie until they SHOULD be blue in the face. Being an Ambassador for the USA in just about any country in the world must be difficult: Whenever asked about sensitive issues in their home country, they have to lie until they SHOULD be blue in the face.
    2
  1187. Textbook, obviously with quite a few lessons learned from the Sully incident. The only thing that struck me was the "please" added to some of the FP requests - obviously ingrained - because such redundant politeness will usually fall by the wayside in a real emergency.
    2
  1188. What is WRONG with US media? Trump spouts some ridiculous nonsense like his "hunch" about the epidemic, every journalist KNOWS it is ridiculous nonsense, but instead of fact-checking and ripping apart Trump's nonsense, the media repeatedly puts the nonsense on air, playing into Trump's hands. Toddler Trump, for all his childish stupidity, is playing the media like fiddle!
    2
  1189. I respectfully disagree. Let him run off his mouth to his heart's content. This is called finding himself a deep hole of his own doing, and being unable to stop digging!
    2
  1190. A voice of sanity, but nobody is listening...
    2
  1191. The "minerals deal" was a blatant attempt to steal the resources of an embattled country. A typical extortion racket, as can only be expected by a mobster like Trump. What ensued was a so-called superpower trying to bully Ukraine into a "deal" only rotten individuals like Toddler Trump and Vance could dream of. This was a showdown that forces everyone to face the facts: NATO now has only 31 member nations. It will take a moment for the remaining nations to tool up to face Putin's Russia, but they WILL!
    2
  1192. A new amendment to the US Constitution is sorely needed, one that severely limits the president's Pardoning Powers to prevent this kind of "get out of jail" shenanigans. The ability to pardon any or all partners-in-crime is the height of corruption.
    2
  1193.  Stimulus Dragon , you really put your finger on it!
    2
  1194. A SCOTUS judge pandering to his/her sponsors is a totally corrupt judge that only pretend to be following the spirit of the law. As lawyers they are highly trained to argue that up is down, up is down - right is wrong and wrong is right. Things cannot get any worse - this state of affairs will be one of the final nails in the coffin of the US American Experiment. The Fascist might always win temporarily, but they will ALWAYS come to a deservedly sticky and painful end.
    2
  1195. I was there when ABBA became famous. There was a raving controversy at the time, some loved them, some hated them but no one could ignore them. Personally I have always loved them for the many things they contributed to pop music, even if it has take over 40 years for some of it to be appreciated. Make no mistake, ABBA have already become Classic. In due course they will be one of the 20th. century never-to-be-forgotten artists.
    2
  1196. I wonder if Sucker Carlson will ever be able to show his face west of Russia after this...
    2
  1197. The extreme right-wingers, purportedly the "small government" advocates really have sow weird and kinky ideas about what constitutes a "small government" - peeking at people's genitals! Really? That is not "small government", it is PERVERSE government!
    2
  1198. Fact: Europe has been militarily weak and fractured because the US planned it that way since NATO was founded - Europe was kept on the US military teat for a purpose. Now Trump, a glaringly obvious Putin asset, is mucking that plan up but, fortunately, he is so unstable and incompetent that he is also mucking up Putin's plan! Now 'Murica is falling apart and Europe is scrambling to catch up. They will get there in a few years but even now, with Europe just waking up, Russia has spent itself on the invasion of Ukraine. To think that Russia can also take on NATO, even without unreliable 'Murica, is a fool's errand.
    2
  1199. A "president" that blatantly violates the US Constitution, a Senate that blindly follows the blatantly unconstitutional president and, worst of all, a House of Representatives that is actually considering betraying everything 'Murica is built on! Please remember: What was the fate of the "believers" that followed Hitler? Do you nutjobs have any illusions about where you will end up? Will it be as violent as the WW2 showdown?
    2
  1200. The term "Icelandic Lilliputian Navy" has a certain ring to it. We never stood a chance, militarily, but morally WE WON! Within a few years, the geographical limits Iceland was fighting for became the international standard! We ended up being right, the British exploiters were exposed as being wrong and, decades later, everyone has forgot about it!
    2
  1201. Ain't you 'Muricans proud of the performance of your beloved leader? Even a Nobel Laureate Economist seems confused about the mess Trump has created - which is not promising for the future of 'Murica! As things stand, how can a nation of ignorant idiots hope to make any difference in the near future? I believe the entire situation can be summed up in a silly quote: "Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich man, a weak person's idea of a strong man, and a stupid person's idea of a smart man." And you 'Muricans have elected him to be your leader, AGAIN! Your potential to command respect, ANYWHERE, is fading away really fast.
    2
  1202. This is not a story widely touted by western historians. Given the comments I have seen, the Allies have certainly not been open or outspoken about their failures, especially one so apparently abject. One wonders if this example of lousy planning was hushed up or used as an example for planning pitfalls.
    2
  1203. Watching discussions like this is depressing. The US has been the worst offender, pollution-wise, for at least a century, but that is beside the point. The current issue is: What do we do about it? The current, silent consensus has been: NOTHING! An unlikely side effect of Putin's atrocities in Ukraine has been that Europe has been rudely awakened to the fact that relying on dictatorial Russia for it's energy is a dead end. Another side effect just might be that developments in Europe might affect the wasteful 'Murican mindset. We can only hope... I am fortunately a citizen of a country that is awash with renewable energy, to the extent that even many of our sidewalks are kept ice-free using excess energy in winter. Weirdly, we are also among the top-CO2-polluting-per-capita countries in the world, despite having vast resources of renewable energy. Go figure! The reason is simple: Our capitalists ensured, 60 years ago, that most of our hydroelectric energy would be used by international Big Corporations to produce aluminum (political kickbacks ensured) - with the associated carbon emissions. The current mindset is to close the oldest Rio Tinto-owned plant and use the energy for Data Centers and electric vehicles. Of course our capitalists are madly fighting this, but they will NOT prevail.
    2
  1204. Is Digenova concerned about corruption in Ukraine - because "his" corrupt guys were being held back?
    2
  1205. British "justice" used to be swift, brutal and not always fair. How many aristocrats were hanged at the time? Britain certainly has a lot to be ashamed of when judged by modern humanitarian standards.
    2
  1206. To watch what used to be a fairly rational nation listen to and possibly follow an individual that is turning insane in front of our very eyes. The most depressing part is the fact that this is proving to the rest of the world that the 'Murican nation as such is not really rational, sane or intelligent (well-informed).
    2
  1207. I still find it disturbing to see lives snuffed out or severely damaged, EVEN if they are "only" Russians. They are still humans. If only these lives were Putin's - or his cronies! Can you imagine how fast this war would be over?
    2
  1208.  @ameyas7726 , not really. Iceland is cool, not cold year around (estreme weather sometimes, sure, but we Nordics have a saying: There is no bad weather, only insufficient clothing). You can dress up to compensate for for cool weather, but there are limits to how you can "undress" for really hot weather. I once heard a story about a professor at a US midwest university (Oklahoma, I think) that traveled to Iceland and decided to relocate to Iceland when he retired. His reasoning: I come from a place where the summers could be +35°C and humid (he was an educated man and able to think in diverse units) and winters could be -25°C. Iceland is perfect, summer temperatures are 10-20°C and you rarely have short spells of lower than -5°C in winter. Abundant hot springs provide heating (and hot tubs), the people are nice - and then it went on about interesting geology, affordable health care etc. Given the calamities in the US - heatwaves and extreme wildfires BEFORE the wildfire season even begins, hurricanes and tornados, not to mention the botched pandemic response (look up the US vs. Icelandic COVID response and results), I think the professor made a comfortable bet.
    2
  1209.  @joey199412 , true - Iceland copied the US for a while, letting irresponsible financiers a free run, all within the rules and regulations of the EU. Unlike many other countries, however, the Icelandic government had no obligation to "save" the Banksters, and actually jailed a sizeable portion of them when their sheenanigans were exposed. The banksters were rewarded with a bailout in ALL other countries, where they were too big to fail! I our case, the banksters were fortunately too big to save, they were simply allowed to go bust rather than saddle the Icelandic population with their debt for decades to come (we had a conservative/centrist/corrupt covernment at the time that really WANTED to go down that road, but it was overthrown in the "pots-and-pans" revolution). Many people with money to burn (e.g. in the Netherlands and the UK) fell for the "lucrative" Icesave con. Iceland's initial response was to shelter individual small-scale depositors and even if it took some years to devolve the assets of the failed banks, most (if not all) individual depositor got their capital back. The only ones that really (and deservedly) got shafted were the big-time speculators and hedge funds that had been setting up to lure Iceland into a debt trap so they could take over and exploit our resaurces. If they are the "financial institutions" you refer to, you can join them where the sun does not shine.
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  1210. The two pudding-eating girls were adorable. Just quietly (but messily) eating pudding, no histrionics or anything - and when asked what they were doing, they innocently stated the obvious: "Eating pudding". Hilarious!
    2
  1211. Las Vegas's existence is probably at the extreme edge of the absurdly useless. What is it that Las Vegas contributes to the US as a society? A dumping ground for all kinds of useless vices? Any glitch in the general economy, and Las Vegas will find itself one of the first to be abandoned by visitors. A major economic glitch like the Coronavirus, and Las Vegas finds itself in the same position it was before all the glitz and glamor arrived: A bloody DESERT!
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  1212. Old Icelander here: Having admired the US during my formative years, I realized that when Ronald Bloody Reagan became POTUS, the US (now called 'Murica) went over the edge and started descending into what has now become an outright madness. There were intermediate stops along the way - the Bush father/son presidents, both of which fooled their nation (and it's NATO allies) into long, drawn-out wars, all based on an outright LIE! Believe me, any 'Murican traveling outside the MadLand will be met with suspicion and disdain. 'Muricans cannot be trusted to uphold 80-year old agreements = 'Muricans will be hated anywhere they go.
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  1213. The good news for 'Muricans: You are NOT as stupid as some of you appear line in videos like this. The bad news: You are actually as IGNORANT as too many of you appear like in videos like this.
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  1214. Having regrets for past misdeeds is one thing, getting forgiveness is another thing entirely. A murderer may regret his actions, but will still be a murderer for the rest of his life - and most likely spending it in prison or death row. This man, however regretful, still has a lot of blood on his hands that can never be washed away.
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  1215. Just listen to and BELIEVE in every word that Trump, the MAGA deity utters. After all, he is known as the most consistent and truthful (and richest!) politician in 'Murican history. Have we EVER heard Trump tell a lie? Trump, the harbinger of TRUTH! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
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  1216. I find it ironic how US Generals are willing to play "Backseat Generals" in the Ukrainian struggle, while at the same time the US has been dragging it's feet supplying really meaningful weapons like longer-range guided/precision munitions and even allowing other NATO members supplying equipment for proper air support (F-16s and associated infrastructure). Whatever the reason for US reluctance, the end result could still be "too little, too late". Even a layman like me can guess what the Ukrainians are trying to do: Cut off the land bridge between Russia and Crimea before the muddy season sets in.
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  1217. Tucker Effing Carlson needs to be taken aside and put down! Well, that's frustration speaking. The current situation is frustrating beyond compare, with raving lunatics like Tucker Effing Carlson being published and amplified on EVERY public media platform in 'Murica (including TYT), day in and day out. No wonder 'Murica is falling apart. Tucker Effing Carlson should be IN an asylum, not running it! The end of this clip, where "true and religious 'Muricans" were allowed to say their piece is solid proof that 'Murica is destined to fall apart. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
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  1218. Given the frequency of "anchor accidents" recently, EVERY single ship entering the Baltic Sea should be intercepted intercepted and inspected, seaworthiness, insurance and officer qualifications thoroughly verified . Any deficiencies should be grounds for banning entry into the Baltic Sea until ALL issues have been fixed. Also, one condition for being allowed into the Baltic Sea should be having an "anchors secure" warning system installed, functional and ON, not to mention that if the position reporting system of ANY vessel stops working for more that a moment, all military assets in the area should be swarming around said vessel to check it out!
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  1219.  D Casey , my country is not necessarily beautiful - right now we're having a blizzard, the snow is 6 feet deep, avalanche warnings are afoot and nobody is going anywhere, but in the current circumstances that is not a bad thing. Temporary isolation is nothing new to us, so we are weathering this quite well. I am actually looking forward to some fabulous skiing in a couple of days, once we have dug out our ski lifts after the storm! The sense of community we have might be what you would call "beautiful". I am 70, divorced and once I had to retire (airline pilot, put to pasture at 65) I moved in with my parents! My mother is 88, quite senile and currently hospitalized (since December 31, 2019) but coming around splendidly. My father (now 92) is a bit restless because the hospital imposed a visiting ban due to the Corona Virus pandemic, and he has not been able to visit the love of his life in over a week! Watching the wrinkly old turtledoves really gives life a deeper meaning! The best thing (by your yardstick, I imagine) is the fact that there are NO hospital or health care bills! My parents have prepaid the whole thing with a lifetime of taxes that have turned out to be no more exorbitant than what you are paying in the US.
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  1220. An unidentified and unauthorized object flying at 60K feet (Flight Level 600) is not really a risk to commercial air traffic until it starts descending. This object, if flying at 40K feet (FL400) was a clear and present danger to commercial air traffic, and must be intercepted. If uncontrolled, it simply has to be brought down, if only to eliminate the risk to the flying public. It is, however, astounding how otherwise intelligent reporters can descend into asking ridiculous questions in the heat of the moment, coming across as clueless idiots,
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  1221. Propaganda-wise, I think Ukraine is going a bit over the top by trotting Russian POW's in front of cameras. A prisoner of war humbly apologizing for obeying orders that break international law is simply not credible. These Russian POW's most likely are telling the truth, but they are also between a rock and a hard place. They never had any choice. I might be mistaken, but I believe putting POW's in a situation like this is not strictly legal. Make no mistake: The Ukrainians undeniably have the moral and legal high ground, and there are no indications they are mistreating POW's - except possibly by trotting them in front of cameras like this. I certainly hope that Ukraine continues to successfully fend of Russian attacks and I am aghast that the West (mainly the US) is still shying away from heeding the desperate call of a beleaguered democratic and sovereign nation to protect the airspace of that sovereign nation. It is only postponing the inevitable: If Putin is not stopped now, NATO will soon have to meet Putin's forces on the battlefields in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Russians will most likely leave Finland alone for now - once burned, twice shy. But - by that time, Putin just might have whipped his now-inept military into shape, and the task will be that much more painful.
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  1222. The apparent cause of these crashes seems to be MCAS, a system that is NOT disconnected when the autopilot is disconnected. Worse, pilots were NOT informed about this system to cut down on conversion training. Worst, the MCAS system apparently relied on a single AOA sensor, with no cross-checking of the other AOA sensor when there is a signal discrepancy. Boeing's goose seems to be cooked...
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  1223. Hand it to Bethany Mandel, she at least admitted that while she wrote a book about "woke", she has no idea about the actual definition of the term - apart from her own home-made, half-baked, incomplete and contradictory definition. That is truly a rare quality in a Republican! Talk about being caught flat-footed, an Emperor without clothes...
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  1224. ...do we note a tone of frantic desperation in the voices of these Russian talking heads? They are angry and probably terrified, seeing how the whole thing is collapsing around their ears. Given Russia's failures in Ukraine, despite their apparent initial superiority, now that Europe, the Nordics and NATO are consolidating around the whole issue, they are in a hopeless situation, EVEN if their best asset, Putin's puppet Toddler Trump is in power in 'Murica. With the exception of Belarus and Hungary, EVERY other European nation that lived under the hobnailed boots of Russia under the USSR is determined NEVER to allow that again! The Russian elite is living on wishful thinking and grandiose dreams while their entire oligarchy is collapsing.
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  1225. I wonder when 'Murican police forces will graduate from inferior APC's to full-fledged battle equipment like Tanks and attack helicopters when dealing with 'Murican citizens? By all accounts, policing in 'Murica IS an all-out war, after all!
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  1226. Who is the individual that is most instrumental in bringing down the almost 250 year US experiment? His name is Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. Moscow Mitch! He has been tirelessly working to corrupt the US judicial system for decades, and it looks like he is about to succeed in ending democracy in the US. This will also bring down Western civilization as we have known it. As a non-'Murican (living well away from 'Murica) I feel safe in voicing my opinion: Moscow Mitch (and a sizeable chunk of the US elite along with him) should be taken aside, guillotined and left to rot! I do not have the opportunity, the means or the will to facilitate this world-saving action, but one can always dream...
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  1227. Prestwick was actually quite a common stopover point during piston-era airline operations (aircraft range and weather issues) during the middle of the last century. There actually might be a plausible reason for the US military to have used Prestwick as a stopover point on occasions - reasons the military should be happy to reveal if this is investigated. The increasing use of a luxury resort, owned by the current president really stinks, any way you look at it.
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  1228.  @Speedbird61 , I agree. The US military does have pre-Trump era service contracts with the Scottish government and apparently have used Prestwick OCCASIONALLY to their advantage. The sharp rise in stopovers since Trump took office stinks to high heaven and is probably just one example of what a grafter he is. The military is understandably between a rock and a hard place with a Commander-in-Chief like this. I would not be surprised to see all kinds of similar shady dealings surfacing after Trump is out of office.
    2
  1229. Thom's idea has a lot of merit: Play the same nasty game in right-wing areas, mainly to highlight and expose this trick but also to decimate the right-wing voter turnout. What I found curious was Greg's lame reaction to this idea - methinks he is not telling the entire story here.
    2
  1230. But - didn't you know that being a "Trump-hater" disqualifies you from so much as criticizing Trump? At least, that is what the Trump crowd is telling us: If you dislike Trump, if you do not trust Trump, you are NOT allowed to try to nail him! Neat strategy, eh? Only, it is NOT going to work. Trump (and his associates) will rue the day he ran for president, because that is when he started being put under a microscope. His Presidential shenanigans aside, his past will not stand up under any kind of scrutiny.
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  1231. Curious concept, "Legitimate Rape". So is "Consensual Rape". What kind of twisted minds have managed to come up with this twisted-around ideas? I would REALLY like to see the actual definitions of these terms.
    2
  1232. The "pushing" itself was not the really disgusting part. The way he fell appeared accidental, something that could not be foreseen. It is what happens AFTERWARDS that is obscene. The old man's posture on the ground indicates a serious head injury, the instant ans excessive bleeding from his ear SCREAMS serious head injury and yet these monsters that are called Law Enforcement Officers in the US treat it like someone stepped on a bug! One of them starts to bend down to check on him but is instantly stopped by another officer, and they just walk on past what they obviously consider no more than a road kill. Law enforcement in the US is a gigantic rotten mess, and it will take nothing less that a French Revolution level uprising to put a stop to it. The cops that resigned to support the crazed pit-bulls are a good start, they do not belong in law enforcement. A crazed pit-bull is usually summarily put down - it seem like that is the most expedient way to solve this problem.
    2
  1233.  @Anthony-pe5dd , you already have a dumb leader that says dumb shit (along with a lot of dumb and dumb-saying followers like yourself) - what difference does another one make somewhere down the road when all is said and done?
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  1234. Irritating interview trend apparent in almost every TV interview: The interviewer comes in with a set of questions AND the answers they expect (or want). The moment he realizes that the answer is NOT what he expected (or wanted), he jumps in and supplies his own answer! True, many politicians tend to avoid questions by droning on about issues unrelated to the question at hand, and need to be reined in, but frequently that is NOT the case and the interviewer should simply shut up and listen to the full answer.
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  1235. It seems obvious now that while the Shah's regime was awful, by overthrowing him the Iranian nation happened to jump from the frying pan into the furnace. While Iranians probably never anticipated what kind of religious nut-job regime they would get instead, they seem well overdue for a sensible change. Will the religious maniacs be abolished or will religious brutality win? It seems like every individual member of the "morality police" should start worrying about being dismembered when the Tsunami is over, they likely WILL be hunted down and bodily taken apart, such has been their legacy.
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  1236. Leaks like this are bound to revive the type of democracy most people want. The EU in it's current form is NOT the way to go! The Brexit referendum may have been influenced by nefarious means, but as long as people are motivated to vote in all elections, the future seems a bit brighter.
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  1237. Watching you 'Muricans twist yourselves into pretzels trying to justify the absolutes nonsensical situation you find yourself in is tragic. Instead of wasting energy on trying to analyze to death out what the "Founders" were thinking 250 years ago, you should take a long, hard look at "where has this brought us?" - and then bloody well DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! 'Murica is busting all records regarding firearm-related problems, yet you seem incapable of doing anything sensible about it. A true showcase in incompetence, if you ask me. When faced with mass shootings, the Scots, Aussies and Kiwis did it without breaking a sweat, why are you unable to do it? Again, your competence as a nation, as a society, is becoming ever more questionable. Are you even capable of carrying on?
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  1238. As a non-'Murican, I find it increasingly depressing to watch this: Thom (and a lot of the of the non-MAGA crowd) seems already resigned to losing in November, and are now stuck in a "waily-waily" rut. If Trump wins, it will be entirely due to voter apathy. Period.
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  1239. 'Murica is divorcing itself from the rest of the civilized world. The corruption of the SCOTUS is only a minor symptom - the total divorce from reality is what is surprising. 'Murican billionaires licking Putin's uncleaned arse is no surprise, how 'Muricans are taking the total corruption of their judicial system as "operation normal" is what takes the cake! When the US falls apart, what are you going to do? Where can you go? No sane nation will accept your crazed citizens! Perhaps you might become Russians, in one of the Mongolian states?
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  1240. US politics are rotten to the core, made so by SCOTUS - the US is the only country in the world where open bribery of politicians is LEGAL! There certainly is plenty of political corruption to go around in other countries, but at least it is ILLEGAL in most of them.
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  1241. Have you noticed that when a family and one child pack for travel, the amount of baggage pr. individual is inversely proportional to the size of the individual: 50% for the child, 30%+ for the mother and the rest for the father. This is universally true in the modern world. PS. You are using the ski poles wrong: Put your hand UP through the loop so the straps are between the handle and an your palm, so the pole/strap will pivot between your thumb and your index finger. This is especially important when skiing. Second, you use the poles to push along one at the time, exactly like you swing your arms while walking. Additional point: Walking/cross country poles are long, they should reach your armpit. Alpine poles like you are using (bottom/middle of handles reaching your elbow) are less comfortable for walking.
    2
  1242. "The more often you repeat a lie, the more likely it is to be believed" was proved in practice by Göbbels in the 1930's. Current 'Murican fascists have put a new twist on this - they have for decades been "preparing the soil" by dumbing down a sufficiently large sector of the 'Murican public, in addition of having thoroughly corrupted the judicial system. 'Murica is the largest developed nation to have legalized overt bribery of politicians, and that will probably be the downfall of the 'Murican Empire. 'Muricans fully deserve what they vote for and I find it impossible to be optimistic.
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  1243.  @allybean8885 , I imagine you are referring to e.g. Muslim Congresswoman Omar. I believe swore her oath with her hand on the Quran (or whatever they actually call what amounts to the Muslim Bible), and I imagine she took her oath more seriously than many, even most other Congresspersons. I am convinced that most members of Congress are more actually atheist than fervent believers in a higher power, which is far better than possibly letting some out-of-date and ancient scriptures come before the US Constitution.
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  1244. All these social media platforms are in a position to become monopolies - in fact many of them already are more or less unabashed monopolies! They are increasingly behaving like Deities: Their ways are becoming inscrutable! What to do about it? I have absolutely no clue, other than simply to stop using them, voting with your feet (or mouse). When Anti-Trust laws were suspended or abolished in the US, it slowly started to become what is increasingly becoming: 'Murica, a place of increasing inequality and poverty, where the media have become a parody of "Pravda" (in modern times acknowledged as a lie pretending to be the truth).
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  1245. Thom, have you ever watched your videos on YouTube after they are released? Your videos are the only ones I have seen that have frequent audio (gaps in the narrative) and video glitches! There are not many explanations. Some incompetent technical staff of yours that sometimes mucks up connecting your mike? Someone on your staff that deliberately sabotages the audio before it is released on YouTube? YouTube staff doctoring the audio to reduce the impact of what you are saying?
    2
  1246.  @jamesrudd8705 , as a modern retired airline pilot I never flew with more than 2 engines, the obvious over-redundancy inherent in the B52 engine count is something we lesser mortals could only dream about. What you are describing is not an actual physical emergency (shutting down 12.5% of your engines) but rather a procedural emergency. Yes, I love how you thwarted the military bureaucrats by simply getting on with the job and still managed to follow procedure before landing.
    2
  1247.  @jamesrudd8705 , nope - there were many 3 & 4 engine jets at the beginning of my career, but I never got to fly them. Thy have mostly been phased out, the only notable 4-engine aircraft still in civilian use is the venerable B747.
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  1248. Totally off-topic: Moskowitz was the name of a Soviet car brand introduced in my country (Iceland) in my youth (1960s) due to some practical reasons that makes little sense now. Iceland bought cheap oil from the Soviets but we had to buy something from them in return! As it turned out, we had to buy various car brands (Moskowitz, Volga, Gaz etc.) that turned out to be rather crappy BUT had some admirable qualities: They were CHEAP, had excellent snow-fording qualities and RELIABLY started in cold conditions, even with the traditional 6V car batteries used in that era. They broke down a lot but were rather easy to fix. What sticks in my mind (an apprentice electrician at the time) was how the Russkies had ensured that cold-weather starting never failed! In my mind, Jared Moskowitz is a reflection of this: A bloody genius when it comes to hard, cold logic! Eloquent and logical, he talks circles around the idiotic Repugnicans.
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  1249. Today's Republican Party seems to firmly believe that what worked for Hitler and Mussolini almost a century ago will certainly work for them today - and in today's madhouse 'Murica it just might!
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  1250. Some would say: Good riddance to bad rubbish. A pity her father did not join her.
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  1251. How about doing a video about the most survivable places once the climate change effects REALLY start to bite? Places where temperatures rarely or never reach extremes and where precipitation rarely causes serious flooding, yet ensures enough water for human consumption and irrigation, not to mention extras like hydroelectric power generation.
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  1252. The Trump Trucks annoying the Biden Bus is a bit silly, a bit like gnats annoying an elephant. A bus weighs A LOT more than a pickup and a tiny pickup truck is NOT able to run a bus off the road. All the bus has to do is "stand it's ground" and let the puny Repugnican pickup trucks do their worst...
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  1253.  @singleproppilot , absolutely correct. These pioneering days must have been "interesting" for the designers of the day. I currently own a 1987 ultralight (Avid Flyer) that has the main fuel tank right in front of the pilot, competing for space with the instrument panel but, then again, I do not have to worry about flying tracer bullets.. Also, the materials used in my Avid Flyer are quite advanced, compared to what they had at the beginning of the last century.
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  1254. So, 'Murican officials always speak with a forked tongue - what is new about that?
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  1255. The Nordstream pipeline destruction was beneficial to Ukraine, no mistake about that, but Ukraine is extremely unlikely to have had the capabilities and resources to execute it. You also have to be brain-dead o miss the fact that before this conflict started, there was one nation that was strenuously opposed to Nordstream 2: The US! They therefore clearly had a motivation and, more important, the capabilities to do it. In fact, the most unlikely suspect, at least motivation-wise, would be Russia. If, however, this turns out to be true, even partly, it would be an impressive feat to pull it of with only 6 persons and a yacht. Wealthy Ukrainians or the Ukrainian government? Does really matter?
    2
  1256. The magnetic pole has been wandering quite rapidly in recent decades - it will be interesting to see if it starts wandering back. This is a goo reality check for know-it-all mankind. We are not nearly as smart as we think!
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  1257. Beat Trump over the head with facts, and all he gets is a headache. But - even the Orange Idiot has to face reality at this point in the pandemic. It is, however, sickening to listen to someone like Dr. Fauci STILL trying to stroke Trump's overinflated ego.
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  1258. Ukraine has certainly earned it's unqualified membership in NATO by their fierce and well-coordinated response - and now even retaking areas previously gobbled up by Russia. They are fighting a fight that we in the West will have to continue in a decade or so if Putin is not stopped NOW. The "problem" with Ukraine joining NATO is the fact that there is a 70-year old process that defines exactly HOW a nation can join NATO, and there are no shortcuts. We are stuck with that. The best we can do at the moment is to supply Ukraine with more and better weapon systems, training and intelligence - not to mention prepare massive aid for when the rebuilding starts. If, however, Putin becomes unhinged enough to start using "tactical" nuclear weapons, all bets will be off!
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  1259. I've been wondering about this for a while - to be a conservative (or Repugnican) you have to be at least a sociopath (a person with some but limited conscience). To be a TRUE conservative you have to be like Trump, a psychopath with absolutely NO conscience. The funny thing: In that state, you have absolutely no idea what is missing from your mind! All the same, listening to this I cannot help wondering if I am being conned by Tom Steyer, a superb salesman.
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  1260. Funny how English speakers use Harald Hardraade's character description for his last name or family name. Hardraade literally means "Hard Ruler", a description of is style as a ruler, not a name. The same goes for Ragnar Lodhbrok (Loðbrók), which is simply a description of the trousers he was known for wearing: Fur Pants!
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  1261. As a non-Murican, I find Sen. Kennedy of disgusting Louisiana the epitome of the worst of 'Murica! Just the offensive southern accent is nauseating! The way this southern-drawling creep tries to force his misguided and twisted beliefs on everyone he interacts with is nauseating! I live in a country that is currently overrun with 'Murican tourists, I have been impartial, but will in future express my disdain for current 'Muricans and literally spit in the face of anyone turning out to be MAGA or Repugnican!
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  1262. Physics are what they are - if anything "breaks" it will be our current theories, due to our incomplete understanding. New discoveries will hardly "break" our knowledge, only add to it by filling some voids and correcting whatever bits that may be wrong.
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  1263. The most appropriate name for the USA in 2024 is the USSS: The United States of Slavery States!
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  1264. What is staring us in the face is the fact that while ordinary citizens (not to mention if they are non-white) will end up in prison for relatively minor offenses that only harm themselves (like being caught smoking pot), other actors can embezzle millions of dollars and/or indirectly cause the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of US citizens without even a slap on the wrist (Trump's handling of the Covid crisis) - they may even be allowed to run for the highest office of the land AGAIN. If you ever needed proof how thoroughly corrupt the 'Murican Political and Judicial systems are, look no further. Apparently mass murder is OK, provided it is not noisy... Bottom line: 'Murica is Screwed, Royally Messed Up, Kaput, Done For!
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  1265. Someone please correct me if I am wrong: Gym Jordan has ALREADY violated the US Constitution by interfering with DA Bragg's investigation into Trump. A fully committed crime, all in plain sight. Since Jordan has already sworn to uphold the Constitution, he will be barred from ever holding any office (following due process, of course). Right or wrong?
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  1266. A good and credible rant, if you ask me.
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  1267. One important point that is being ignored here, probably because it does not affect the markets, only the status of the US worldwide: The fact that the Ethiopians do NOT trust an US institution, in this case the NTSB, and prefer to have the French BEA decode the black boxes is a clear indication of the eroding status of the US globally. The cause is simply that "revolving door" between corporate America on one hand, and institutions & regulatory bodies on the other, have become so blurred that it borders on outright corruption.
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  1268. Nah, ain't gonna happen. Boeing is too profit-greedy to incur the cost of developing and certifying it, not to mention the painful and costly (in human lives) learning curve the would ensue. Airbus had it's share of problems initially, and Boeing's greed culture would take that to the next level. Are we forgetting the B737 MAX debacle already? Active side-stick force feedback makes sense to emulate the current mechanical yoke link. Even cheap joysticks for computer Flight-Sim games have offered this feature for years, so why are Airbus side-sticks still "limp"?
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  1269. Does the 14th amendment apply to political party primaries? After all, becoming the NOMINEE for office is not actually HOLDING such office , where the 14th amendment clearly applies.
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  1270. Thom, is it now your philosophy to shoot the messenger, not the criminal? The 'Murican military committed the war crimes that Wikileaks leaked! The RUSSIANS stole whatever incriminating Hilary Clinton emails that Wikileaks leaked - and so on. As is to be expected, the 'Murican way is to imprison or execute the whistleblower and comfort the criminals! Ain't you proud to be 'Murican?
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  1271. Get accurate information on TV to save you and your family from the dreaded corona virus? I have been following the actions of authorities in the Western World to try to cope with the coming crisis, and they all seem at least somewhat sensible - EXCEPT the US! Trump & Co. seem to think they can bluff and lie their way out of an impending disaster. Talking up the Stock Market is more important that realistic and proven epidemic countermeasures.
    2
  1272. Are people really STILL listening to Moody's Analytics (and similar companies)? Those were the "experts" that gave EVERYONE AAA+ ratings right until the whole house of cards came down on 2008! In my opinion, these guys are just full of hot air...
    2
  1273.  @gilmoremccoy6930  I totally agree. I imagine Obama was just as surprised as most other people, because he had not achieved much at that point. During his terms he did not achieve very much, anyway, partly because of the Corporate Democrats but mostly because of the Republicans - but expectations were extremely high at the time. Trump, however, is another story entirely.
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  1274. Given the evidence already out in the open, Trump is obviously a criminal, a tax evader, a con man and even a spy. All that remains to formally convict him is to parade this evidence through the courts, but here is the tragic bit: This untrustworthy and dangerous criminal is about to run for the highest office in the land, and the crippled 'Murican political system WILL ALLOW IT! If Trump or the Republicans manage to cheat their way to more political power, the US of A as we have known it will come to an abrupt end.
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  1275. And you 'Muricans are wondering WHY your country is going to Hell in free-fall? Simple: Make the majority ignorant and poor (that took only 40 years) and then they can be herded like cattle.
    2
  1276. "All of a sudden we have to treat every religion equally, and that is NOT constitutional" ! Their interpretation of the US Constitution is both sad and hilarious (tragicomic?). Their interpretation of their scriptures (their Bible) is probably just as skewed and selective.
    1
  1277. A lightly loaded aircraft is easier - less kinetic energy to dissipate. Speed brakes are more effective (less mass to slow down and hold the speed in check) if a steeper descent is called for. Just imagine going down a steep slope in a car with weak brakes. If the car is heavy the brakes simply might not be able to keep the speed reasonable. Reducing descent is never a problem - just add power.
    1
  1278. This judge is brilliant - he uses moderate humiliation to teach first-time offenders a lesson, apparently nipping a potential career in crime in the bud. If he only sees 1 out of 10 offenders again in his court (mentioned in the comments) this method is a raging success.
    1
  1279. This was like watching a 1930s mob extortion racket movie - and THIS WAS THE US EXECUTIVE BRANCH IN ACTION! All the respect the US earned following WW2 is now down the drain. You are despicable, every one of you! NATO had 32 member nations before this, now there are 31 nations remaining. It will take a while for the remaining 31 nations to wean off the 'Murican teat, but the 'Murican military-industrial-complex just lost it's European customers. Who will trust the bloody 'Muricans after this?
    1
  1280. Trump's "destroying our country" is code for "holding ME accountable".
    1
  1281. If Macron wants some territory sacrificed to appease Putin, let him give Russia a piece of France!
    1
  1282. Never mind my envying you guys for being able to speak various Chinese dialects, what I really envy is all the genuine Chinese food you are munching through!
    1
  1283. What I find striking is how the main reaction of "The Industry" is to increase security, with no thought given to the root cause of this hatred of the Health Insurance Industry evident in the comments AND public sentiment in general. There is NO speculation about the number of lives the greedy creep that was killed had on his conscience, that no doubt run in the tens or hundreds of thousands, even millions! The man was, in effect, a mass murderer - only he used legal loopholes to cause people to die while filling his own purse, and that brings us to the politicians and justices that have enabled this kind of indiscriminate killing of insurance fraud victims, individuals that belong on the target list. I am only a distant but disgusted observer of the 'Murican Health Care Scam, sitting here in my Nordic bubble of security, where EVERYONE has access to affordable health care.
    1
  1284. What did you expect? This just proves that when something is commercialized, reliability makes a dive for the exit. To believe the results are exact is like believing in Santa Claus... What might be surprising about this is how the basic results are, after all, quite similar.
    1
  1285. This almost looked like near-suicide attempt. Loudly arguing when accosted by police WHILE BEING BLACK has cost many black lives!
    1
  1286. Surprise, surprise - the Ruzzkiz have copied the initial idea behind Air Force One!
    1
  1287. Sadly, this is the only way to make other reality-disconnected US police officers think twice, even trice before becoming accomplices to yet another senseless police killing of blacks in the madhouse that is today's US of A.
    1
  1288. Are you an 'Murican that wants to be free from rampant gun problem? The answer is clear: Emigrate from the US! Going south, into Mexico or Central or South America is a tricky solution, many of these countries are just as messed us as the US is (and who is to blame?), but going north (Canada) or either east or west. Asia, New Zealand or Asia in general to the west or Europe to the east will rid you of the gun problem in one fell swoop. Gaining access to affordable health care and education, as well as good work-life balance, is only a bonus. However, being allowed to immigrate to these countries can be tricky!
    1
  1289. Boeing, once the standard-bearer for good engineering and aviation safety, have rather obviously become a "profits first, screw everything else" company. They keep getting more egg on their faces at every iteration.
    1
  1290. I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you are saying. But - NBC "should not allow these people on their shows"? Are you really advocating censorship in these matter? I would advocate the other option, i.e. point out any conflicts of interest while the nay-Sayers are being interviewed.
    1
  1291. And we are wondering if US America is a sick, racist society? It is, and it always has been. Things may have improved a bit recently, but they really have a long, long way to go before they earn the right to call themselves a truly civilized nation.
    1
  1292. In my country we are finding 1 case for every 120K citizens pr. day, and that is only because we have recently A) Opened our borders, B) We test EVERYONE entering our country at the cost of $65 a pop (it was free for the first 2 weeks). If you cannot afford the $65 you simply go into quarantine for 2 weeks. This might be interesting to other nations: We are finding that roughly one in every 666 passengers entering our country is infected, the rest is NOT (well, we are selective about who is allowed to enter, 'Muricans have a harder time than everyone else)! Our fortune is the fact that our politicians handed decision-making to the experts at the outset. The results can be seen in our stats up to the day our borders were opened: https://www.covid.is/data-old. The presentation was changed on June 15, when the borders were opened (see https://www.covid.is/data). Please bear in mind that our nation is tiny (only 360K, the US is almost 1000 times larger - but you have 5000 times the resources!). Bottom line: We are infinitely better off, we have things under control and we are bloody well monitoring everything. Any unexpected local outbreak WILL BE HANDLED without having to shut everything down. This is what the US could have done, had Trump not dismantled all the resources and institutions that previous presidents had put into place to prepare for just this kind of disaster. What Trump did can only be compared to dissolving the US Weather Service when the Tornado and Hurricane seasons are approaching! This is nothing less than criminal! I just cannot wait until he is out of office and he and his cronies can be treated as they deserve.
    1
  1293.  @revanamessengeramongmany , we NEVER get the fierce cold spells you get in Minnesota due to our maritime climate. Occasionally we get -18°C in the interior, but the temperature usually hovers around freezing along the coast during the height of winter. A day or two with -5°C is considered a cold spell.
    1
  1294.  @butterfattypants4947 , Sweden is an interesting case. They decided on a different approach and only time will tell if we or they will be better off when all is said and done. Their death toll is higher, at least initially, but their argument is that they will experience no (or minimal) second & third infection waves. Quite a gamble on their part, but at least they prepared their health care system before the shit hit the fan...
    1
  1295. As a non-'Murican I have always found it weird how certain terms and concepts are being thrown around in 'Murican media and politics, without ever delving into what they actually mean. "CRT" and "woke" have weirdly become bogeymen, something to fear and revile (like "communist", "fascist", "capitalist", "sadist" and whatnot), without most people having any idea what those terms actually mean! Spend a minute or two on Google and you find out that, in a nutshell, "CRT" (Critical Race Theory) is a University-level course in the history and legalities of racial injustices (to me, an old fart, CRT is STILL just a Cathode Ray Tube) and "woke" just means being aware of social injustices (an admirable trait, if there ever was one). I know 'Muricans are not stupid (they have proved otherwise in the past) but boy, have they become ignorant in recent decades!
    1
  1296. Apparently, the top brass of the major drug companies should be dragged out of their fancy offices, taken outside and summarily executed. Then, a word to the aspiring top brass: Be humane, agree on reasonable, not exorbitant profits unless you want to suffer the same fate! Of course that scenario is just wishful thinking, anger venting, but the big surprise is finding that "Mutter Merkel" is actually "Murder Merkel"!
    1
  1297. There WAS actually a breakthrough here: Building a gravel path across few-days old lave actually WORKS to an extent! The geothermal water supply to the Reykjanes community and KEF airport WAS quickly restored (in only a few days) using this novel and hitherto untried method.
    1
  1298. Kevin McCarthy is handing the keys to the Chicken Coop to the Minks and Foxes in Repugnican politics. Chaos will ensue, and it will be interesting (and scary) to see what will remain in the smoking ruins they will leave behind.
    1
  1299. Petter, you have outlined why the revered 757 is dying and it makes some sense - but NOT all the sense. Being wagered on an even older design with an inherent design problem (short & stubby landing gear), the 737 - and Boeing is now heading for the graveyard, the dustbin of history, partly because of that decision but mainly because they put profits over good engineering and safety.
    1
  1300. Of course the investigators have to be investigated, once any doubt has been cast on their work. It does not matter if the doubt comes from Trump & associates, thrashing about in desperation, once doubt is cast it must be looked into. That is what transparency is all about. If, by any chance, the investigators do not have a clean slate, that should be made public as well. Only then can US voters make an informed decision about how to vote in 2020. I am convinced that Trump is terrible, the Republicans are terrible and so are the Corporate Democrats and their donors, so maybe the US is fucked anyway, but full transparency is the only credible way to go.
    1
  1301. You 'Muricans can twist yourselves into pretzels trying to explain away the sheer incompetence and outright political corruption behind the fact that 'Murica wastes over 17% of GDP on health care while every other developed nation (and many less developed nations!) spend around 10% of GDP (plus/minus 1% or so) and get FAR better outcomes for ALL their citizens - while the 'Murican outcome is dismal at best and nonexistent at worst. The concept "medical bankruptcy" exists only in one country: 'Murica! Worst of all: 'Murica, as a nation, seems unable to do anything about this terrible problem. Talk about incompetence!
    1
  1302. Did it really cost only $247M to buy the last 'Murican POTUS? Here I was, thinking that the US political and judicial systems were the best money could buy - turning out tho be the CHEAPEST you can buy!
    1
  1303. Are you sure that damaged and/or broken relationships with former allies CAN be mended at all? The world is now experiencing how fickle and unstable the US political system is. Even if sensible political forces prevail in the next election cycle, what can we expect in the one following that?
    1
  1304. I have long held that being a blindly-right-Republican is actually a mental disorder, and have always wondered how those that saw the light and escaped the cult see this period of their lives in hindsight. 'Muricans are facing a grave crossroads these days. I have watched videos from the 1930's Germany, how the Nazi fervor gripped an entire nation and how easy it must have been to fall in line with the pure-Aryan frenzy of the day. The post-WW2 years in Germany cannot have been morally easy for the German nation, when faced with direct proof of the atrocities committed, but modern-day Germans are facing it head-on and are unashamedly teaching new generations about the pitfalls of this kind of madness. It will be interesting to see how the current ultra-right movement in Europe will be handled.
    1
  1305. These "patrolling" parents are there for a reason: Been there, done that and they do NOT want their children or granchildren to emulate the mistakes they made themselves. I can identify with that, my teenage years being in the sixties (the sexual and drug liberation years), and only because I lived in a very small community I never had the opportunity to become acquainted with anything stronger than cannabis. I actually think that what my generation thinks of as "successful preventive measures" are a dud, the actual reason modern Icelandic kids have their heads better screwed on than their parents and grandparents is the simple fact that they are well informed, the escapades of their parents/grandparents are well documented and they are bloody well not going to do silly things like that...
    1
  1306. Surprise, surprise - China downplaying the outbreak in it's initial stages. Where have we seen that kind of denial copied recently? The "Coronavirus made in China" conspiracy theory is almost certainly just another shining object thrown out by Trump and his cronies to distract from his own failings.
    1
  1307. Allow me to translate the Danish-language headline: "Trump's crew bribed some homeless and socially disadvantaged people with a hotel dinner for acting a Trump supporters". Typical Trump-kin exploitation. Have the Trumps ever been honest and/or truthful about anything?
    1
  1308. David, isn't this a bit turned on it's head? A vaccinated person is only unlikely to spread the disease by the simple expedient of being immune to catching it in the first place! When your initial vaccine dose kicks in (at least days after the event) you will be about 50% less likely to become infected (and then spread the bug to others). Following your second vaccine dose, you are supposedly 95% immune. You are almost certain NOT TO CATCH THE VIRUS and, as a result, will not be infecting others! This seems a classical case of 'what came first, the chicken or the egg?'
    1
  1309. Soon the former United States of America will become the Medieval States of 'Murica.
    1
  1310. For a few bad people to succeed, all the "good" people have to stay silent and, in effect, complicit (just look at the state of 'Murican police forces). Will the supposedly "good" people of 'Murica allow all the GOP Jim Jordans get away with what they are trying to do?
    1
  1311. Guess what! The prisoners are human beings as well, despite US "correctional" officers being brainwashed into thinking otherwise. True, there a lunatics in every prison population, but if those do not actually belong in an asylum, they CAN be reformed with humane treatment an actual correctional measures.
    1
  1312. As far as I can see, the Swedes are the most realistic about this. They simply use plastic as fuel, burn it under very controlled conditions that gets rid of the plastic itself and provides energy for other uses (instead of using oil products). True, it does NOT solve the Co2 problem, but it takes care of the "backlog" of undesirable stuff (the plastic Himalayas) we have been producing for too long.
    1
  1313. It finally seems that the apathetic majority of 'Murican voters are waking up to the realization that the HAVE to get off their lazy arses and actually be bothered to VOTE to avoid losing their fragile democracy - or perhaps is just young voters that have figured out that their democracy depends on the "demos" (the voting public) to actually participate. A functioning democracy ideally requires over 80% voter turnout. There is actually hope for 'Murica!
    1
  1314. I'm not 'Murican, but I find the "Stupid 'Muricans" label to be unfair. You have a lot of really smart people, but the general public seems to have been "dumbed down" to this level. "Ignorant 'Muricans" is more appropriate than "Stupid 'Muricans".
    1
  1315. I'm just a silly Icelander, but I am continually in awe of this female non-white-but-always-flaming Crockett! She is so smart that she runs circles around the male racists that try to dominate everything in 'Murica. Part of her charm is how she frequently manages to speak like an uneducated black person while simultaneously driving home the irrefutable logic of her arguments. To think that the same male chauvinists tried to argue a century or two ago that "the female brain was not fit for higher education because too much reading would cause it to overheat!" We now know what these silly buggers were afraid of...
    1
  1316. Trump is a monster - but that is what he is, he cannot help it. Supposedly intelligent people that enabled him during the first years of his presidency are the real criminals in this scenario. John Kelly has negated any respect he might have earned with a lifetime of service by the way he enabled Trump during the initial stages AND KEPT QUIET about it once he realized he was serving a monster. John Kelly betrayed his nation and any oaths he might have taken during his lifetime in service, it is only now that is he being exposed as the accomplice he obviously has been in Trump's endeavor to dismantle what remains of US democracy. One wonders if Kelly's name will "live in infamy" in future history books. I am beginning to wonder if being "a conservative" is actually a rabid mental condition that endangers society at large?
    1
  1317. Hard as it is to see lives being snuffed out, at least they are Russian Orcs. If only they had been able to stay back home with their families and avoided dying instead of being death-deserving Russian Orcs.
    1
  1318. A car can be lethal if not properly operated, which is why you need to go through the bother of obtaining a driving license. Any gun is just as lethal if not properly operated. Is there any valid reason NOT requiring people to be properly educated and licensed if they want to own such a lethal device?
    1
  1319. The stock market has little to do with the majority of US Americans. It rises and falls at a whim, anyway - after all investors are like a flock of frightened sheep. It takes very little to send them running.
    1
  1320. There is no arguing about it: The US is becoming catatonic. The next phase will be the death throes! The US has been a dominating factor in global politics, finance and warfare for almost a century, and their disintegration will be globally cataclysmic. Can anyone imagine the consequences of the military might of the US in the hands of lunatics like the current crop of US right-wingers?
    1
  1321. While it is sad to see lives snuffed out like this, the Russians are certainly deserving it, they way they have behaved.
    1
  1322. Ambient temperatures rule the day - a nation that simply cannot survive without air conditioning is doomed to sweat a lot and require A LOT of drinking water! To add insult to injury, the water requirements for showers to wash off all that sweat is probably even greater! I live in Iceland and never sweat unless I am doing serious physical exercise (moderate temperatures). I drink very little water during summer compared to e.g. a Texan that is simply unable to survive outdoors during the summer months. For me it is simple: If I'm thirsty, I drink something. Icelandic tap water equals any bottled water, so I have no problems. I do, however, wish that our excess (over 90% of out drinkable water simply runs into the sea) could be transported to nations that really need it...
    1
  1323. Sadly, 'Murica is turning out to be a dumbed-down nation of idiots, currently ruled by an imbecile. By all accounts, former allied nations are losing patience with the utter nonsense, with Canada leading the way. The European nations will follow in a rapid succession. 'Murica First will quickly turn into 'Murica Alone!
    1
  1324. ...and nobody asked Trump the classical question when this was decided: How are we going to pay for this? Republican double standard?
    1
  1325. The US intelligence community may not yet be under Trump's thumb, bit does that imply they are any less corrupt? NO! Try to imagine where in the US you could possibly find honest politicians that are not beholden to some interest groups (Financial/Fossil fuel/Industrial/Medical/Insurance/Military) is just as likely as finding genuine aliens on top of Vatnajökull.
    1
  1326. Just pause for a moment to reflect on the AGE of those European houses! They are CENTURIES OLD - meaning the were built to last in their respective environment! True, many of them do not conform to modern standards of insulation or energy efficiency but, boy, have they LASTED! Any expense in improving energy efficiency is solidly offset by the fact that the cost of building the house in the first place was written off centuries ago. All that is needed is maintenance and improvement to keep up with modern requirements.
    1
  1327. Klitschko is correct: The Ukrainians are doing all the fighting against dictatorial Russia - fortunately with a lot of aid from the West - and they will fight the inhuman Russian hordes off. Ukrainians are not only fighting for their homeland and freedom, they are fighting the first battle of WW3 to preserve democracy and freedom. The fact that the West is refusing direct intervention now only means that it will later have to meet Russia in future battles of WW3, democracy and freedom against dictator Putin. Hopefully the debilitating sanctions will continue after the Ukrainian war, at least until Putin is out of power or dead. If the Russian nation goes bankrupt in the process, so be it. They are, after all, guilty of facilitating Putin.
    1
  1328. We will have reached a turning point when Trump's assets finally start being auctioned off to cover his legal liabilities, if only to clear up what the actual perceived value of his properties actually IS. Trump's hyperbolic property value lies will finally be exposed. Trump's story of crimes and fraud is decades long, it is only now that he is, at long last, facing accountability!
    1
  1329. Talk about brainwashed ignoramuses! Did you see the clips about the ER nurse that is finding it hard to deal with suffocating Covid-19 patients that deny they are dying from Covid-19 because it is A HOAX? The nonsense only stops when they are intubated, put on a ventilator! Perhaps this is the solution, callous as it is: Allow the idiots to follow Trump's advice and ignore all anti-infection measures! They will be guaranteed to catch the Coronavirus and, with any luck, a high proportion of them will die from the Covid-19 "Hoax".
    1
  1330.  @julieannmyers8714 , no - this is the first I've heard of nukes and US troops deployed to Poland and, frankly, I do not believe it only on your word (nothing personal, where did YOU hear of this?).
    1
  1331. Is it any wonder the US is falling apart at the seams? The current twisted and corrupt US political system managed to elect such a horrible psychopath to the highest office in the land and, incredibly, there is a sizeable portion of US voters stupid enough and delusional enough that they wanted to elect this lunatic AGAIN! The US is so flawed it appears to be beyond saving. I predict that the US will have devolved into a Mad-Max-like society within 20-30 years. The Preppers appear to be on to something!
    1
  1332. Trump leading in so many polls is horrifying: Either the polls are tampered with OR 'Murica is doomed!
    1
  1333. The underlying problem is the simple fact that people that that fervently 'believe' something without a shred of evidence are dangerous. Evangelical zealots or Islamic zealots are equally dangerous, history contains countless examples of that. What is the difference between the Christian Witch-burnings of the past to the current Taliban actions in Afghanistan? Is there a difference - other than which fiction they were/are based on? Both the Bible and the Quran are works of fiction that are far beyond their 'best before' date and should be delegated to the trash-bin.
    1
  1334.  @markromine5103 , thank you for this explanation - if I understand you correctly, you only have to register party affiliations for the primaries, not the general elections? If so, this makes more sense and at least there is SOME method to the madness. Of course the Republicans would vote systematically in Democrat primaries to screw them up, AND vice versa. The only thing you can depend on in politics is that there will be plenty of underhanded and sneaky people taking part. In my country, you automatically become a registered voter when you reach voting age, BUT each party requires you to be (or at least pretend to be) a party member before allowing you to vote in their primaries. The good news for us is that political parties cannot influence a voter's ability to vote in general elections. There will always be some attempts at gerrymandering wherever you are, but voter suppression does not exist. Even prisoners can vote, regardless of their crimes.
    1
  1335. This is the most insane and misleading argument I have ever heard! True, 'Murica spends more than all the others combined on aggression that all the other large nations combined, but what to they get for their buck? A lot of insanely rich MIC billionaires! Now, many other countries are more economical regarding the "bang for the buck" - with Sweden leading the traditional countries in efficiency, but Ukraine is outpacing them all, if only because they HAVE TO. They are not only on the cutting edge of modern warfare out of bare, desperate need, they are in the position of being able to test and evaluate various budget solutions, again because THEY HAVE TO! Who can afford to use a $10M missile to kill a $5K drone? Ukraine ain't doing it! The "more developed western nations (except the Trumpzis) waste resources like there is no tomorrow while Ukraine is eking out a victory on a budget. The latest debacle, the sinking of 'Murica in international relations, will emphasize this. The latest Trump/Putin shenanigans have proved to Europeans that they are on their own. Believe me, 'Murica will REGRET going it alone, aiding Russia! Europe is rapidly mobilizing, ramping up weapons production and going on a WW3 footing. It will take time BUT Russia will be crushed! The interesting bit: 'Murica will have become irrelevant! 'Muricans bases all over the world will be closed down, simply because 'Murica failed to fulfill it's obligations and have proven themselves to be useless and irrelevant. Kicked out, useless when push came to shove.
    1
  1336. This was a good one! It sheds some light on how ridiculous secession ideas actually are. Such ideas may be comforting to an angry and ignorant person, and might even end in violence, and the last 'Murican civil war was supposed to settle the matter, but the root cause (white supremacy and racism) was never truly put to bed - hence all the Confederate flags still flying in the Drawling states. Shouldn't they (the flags), strictly speaking, be considered treason?
    1
  1337. I'd like to point out that Thom is not strictly correct regarding the countries that he enumerated as having "free" health care - a more correct term could be to call it PREPAID health care, it has already been paid for with our taxes. Also, being universal, the total cost of health care in those countries is almost half of what it is in the US.
    1
  1338. What a disgusting little liar, saying that the US has tested more citizens than any other nation! According to his count, 25M 'Muricans tested amounts to around 7.5% of the nation, while even little Iceland is currently up to having tested what amounts to 19% of the population AND HAVE CONTAINED THE OUTBREAK! Just look at https://www.covid.is/data Everything Trump touches, dies. That will apply (at least professionally) to this lying creep when Trump is finally out of office and eventually in jail.
    1
  1339. I live in a small fishing village in Iceland, inundated by cruise ship visits during the summer - curiously enough the majority of the visitors are aging 'Muricans! I am looking forward to mingling with them to show my displeasure with 'Murica, a failed state that is about drag the rest of the world into a WW2-like abyss. Shame on you 'Muricans!
    1
  1340. I believe 'Murica's reluctance to go full metric is twofold: 1) 'Muricans are CONSERVATIVE (not only in the political sense, they simply don't like changes). Going full metric would have to be mandated, which brings up case #2: 2) 'Muricans HATE being told what they can, cannot or should do. Period.
    1
  1341. A supposedly "serious" news outlet like CNN is spending airtime on conspiracy theories instigated by someone that is unable to string together a single coherent sentence and has not been known to utter a true sentence in years. The real question is turning out to be whether Toddler Trump is more credible than CNN (derogatory nickname withheld). The bar is REALLY getting low...
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  1342. It is a depressing fact that all the "good" Russians will also suffer the consequences of this war for decades to come. The young, the educated, the peaceful, everyone is the same leaking boat now, and it will take a long time for the western nations to accept Russians in general.
    1
  1343. What we non-'Muricans are watching is the disintegration of 'Murica. You used to be our role model, now you are turning out to be everything that turned out to be wrong with the world. Well, we (Europe) and the Nordics have found a model (a way of running things) that works for us. The fact that you greedy 'Muricans are unable to even grasp the difference is telling!
    1
  1344. Chris Cuomo has, until recently, come across as a thoughtful person that considers all angles of the issues being discussed. Recently, however, he is beginning to sound like he should be working at Fox "News"! I wonder why. Does he know something that we don't, or is he becoming openly partisan? Following the news in the upcoming weeks will be interesting...
    1
  1345. I absolutely love these old infomercials! Seeing the state of primitive suspension systems in the 1920s-1930s - with their white-wall tires! - is an eye-opener. They had a long way to go at the time... The French had mostly mastered the "soft-ride" issue in 1948 with the Citroen 2CV - but the actual lesson was that French roads were awful, hence the superb soft French car suspension - the future was more about making better roads (enter the Germans and the Asians).
    1
  1346. It is very simple: 'Murica, the "greatest country that ever was" is too incompetent to provide basic necessities like affordable health care and education to it's citizens. Virtually every other developed country has figured out how to do this, but 'Murica is too greed-ridden to manage it. Why the 'Murican public has not revolted long ago escapes me. Have they really been dumbed down to the degree that they simply lie back and actually ask for the the next lash of the whip?
    1
  1347. Only 4 months? For an attempt to overthrow the 'Murican government? Only 80 years ago he would have been summarily executed! This just goes to show that the 'Murican Judicial System is the best judicial system money can buy. Literally.
    1
  1348. I'm almost 75 and have spent a lifetime feeling for the plight of the Jews over the centuries. Recent events are, however, radically changing that! True, the madmen that make up Hamas started the current bloodbath by murdering over 1200 Israeli citizens, but Netanyahu's response will put him alongside Hitler in the history books yet to be written! I just hope this will not end up turning me into an anti-Semitic! There is a vast difference between the nation of Jews (the Israeli nation) and Netanyahu's regime itself, the root cause of the current senseless slaughter of innocent civilians, but Israel as a nation will eventually have to be made responsible for what is happening now, just as the German nation was made responsible for the Holocaust, Hitler's version of what Netanyahu is doing these days...
    1
  1349. The original premise was disgusting enough: A so-called superpower trying to extort the resources of a country under duress. The US has now been caught, on camera, for what it is. America Alone is what you selfish idiots are stuck with. You 'Muricans have no idea how you have disgraced yourselves in front of your former allies. The rare few of you that leave the unsafe, bullet-ridden shores of the US will run into a massive front of disgust wherever you go.
    1
  1350. The irony: This video is about something taken for granted in most countries: A fellow citizen in need, people jump to render aid! The 'Murican accent of the narrator explains why that is considered unusual/unexpected: Not happening in 'Murica!
    1
  1351. A money-man trying to talk his way around a deadly recurring problem caused by greed - with no real suggestion of solving the root cause of the problem: Expensive quality control measures that were discontinued or eliminated!
    1
  1352. Jeez - in Europe we are using ANYTHING other than copper for household plumbing, and have been for years. In fact, I needed a short piece of copper tubing for non-plumbing purposes, and had a hell of a time obtaining it! Living in an European country it's no wonder I simply missed this particular 'Murican inflationary bubble... The way you are going, pretty soon you 'Muricans will find ways to poison the air you breathe and the water you drink...
    1
  1353. Do we need any further proof that the 'Murican judicial system has become a farce?
    1
  1354. These officers are just the sadistic types that are eager to join because it gives them bullying powers - and they tend to use it to the hilt! Exactly the same types flocked into Hitler's SA, GESTAPO and SS in the 1930s. Read some history to find out how THEY ended up! Behold before you the future war criminals of 'Murica!
    1
  1355. Any "politician" that behaves like a toddler having a temper tantrum is bound to be disappointed when the general voting population wakes up to his shenanigans. The pandemic was NOT Trump's bad luck, it simply exposed what a hopeless leader he is. ANY sensible and early response might have resulted in the death toll being limited to 10-20K deaths, but Trump's neglect has resulted in over 110K fatalities so far, and the idiot has the gall to proclaim that the death toll would have been in the millions if not for his early and intelligent response to the pandemic - GOOD JOB! Who but the most retarded Repugnican is likely to believe this nonsense! The future of the US as a democratic republic hangs in the balance. In 5 months the world will know if Trump has succeeded in dismantling the US republic, at Putin's bidding, or if the US manages to overcome this disaster. Either way, Putin's goose is cooked: If he manages to have his puppet destroy the US, the consequences will be so painful that he will NEVER be forgiven, and if he fails the rest of the world will be wise to what a menace Putin is to world peace.
    1
  1356. One wonders if we will ever be allowed to know what is actually behind Olaf Waffle Scholtz's reluctance to act decisively, but we can be sure there is some "kompromat" or Russian black money lurking behind the scenes. History is not likely to treat Olaf the Waffle kindly. We all KNOW what drives autocrats like Erdogan and Orban, but there is something weird about the Waffle.
    1
  1357. A member of the Saudi military went nuts. Ergo: ALL Saudis are nuts! Many US Americans have done even worse shootings. According to this logic ALL US Americans must be nuts...
    1
  1358. Is Syria jumping from The Ashes into The Ashes? The country has been in ruins for decades due to a dictatorial regime, but what is to come? Who or what will replace Assad? An Islamic State? Will a fanatic Islamic regime be any better? From what we have seen with any Arabic change of power, it always gets worse, especially if you are a female and not rich and powerful. I fear that the immediate future of Syrian citizens will not improve at all for some decades.
    1
  1359. I'm Icelandic and I circumcision is absolutely the exception here. There ARE cases where a tight foreskin can hinder proper hygiene with infants and, as far as I know, these are the only cases where a partial circumcision might be applied. Religious nuts no doubt try to keep this nonsense going, but will have a hell of a time finding a medical professional willing to do any more than a genuine medical evaluation. Doing it layman-style (e.g. by a religious leader) would simply be criminal. Mutilating children is ILLEGAL in Iceland!
    1
  1360. Sacha Baron Cohen is doing his bit to expose the crap hiding under the surface of extreme right-wingers. His method is frequently daring and often obnoxious, but what he is doing is holding up a mirror to those people, enticing them to go further than they would normally - exposing the true depravity hidden under the surface. If they don't like what they see, they should not blame the mirror. They should take a long, hard look at the filth just exposed and decide if THIS is really what they want to be.
    1
  1361. The time has come for 'Muricans to be truly ashamed of being 'Muricans, the masters of lying and cheating! What takes the cake is how casually Trump is ditching the NATO alliance. 'Murica = Unreliable partners that will break given promises and signed agreements like, well, Trump! My dislike and disdain for 'Murica and everything 'Murican grows exponentially by the day.
    1
  1362. US America appears to be heading down the road of France some 230 years ago. One important factor makes this situation vastly more volatile than previous, similar situations: The pandemic has resulted in tens of millions of US citizens losing their jobs and health insurance, with no relief in sight. Now you have tens of millions of angry, even furious citizens with all the time in the world on their hands AND nothing more to lose! These riots are just the beginning - and in the US Guillotines will not be needed to dispose of the Elites, the country is awash with assault, hunting and close-combat firearms that are apparently close to the hearts of angry and furious US citizens. Take cover...
    1
  1363. "We" this, "we" that - so speaks King Trump!
    1
  1364. Generally, people that cannot pronounce important words properly are, frankly, a bit thick. Bush Jr. was one of them, he kept talking about "nucular this" and "nucular that". Even toddler Trump got his one right, and yet he is The Chosen One, the person that will be instrumental in bringing down the US Empire. I have a sneaky feeling that the elite did not think this one through: If the US federal system collapses (as Trump is aiming for), the state protection the big corporations and billionaires have been enjoying will go "poof"! The time of the pitchforks will be nigh (pitchforks being a metaphor for the much-more-abundant assault rifles available to the general public these days). I actually believe there are more assault rifles than pitchforks available to the public these days, pitchforks being tools your great-grandfather might have used...
    1
  1365. Trump's backers are realizing that they have flexed the bow to the point of breaking. It is beginning to snap and crackle and will break if flexed any further. If (or rather WHEN) it breaks, the backers are fucked, REALLY fucked!
    1
  1366. CNN is only pretending to criticize the Trump Madness.
    1
  1367. The flight risk arguments are very valid, not to mention the risk of him trying to intimidate witnesses, but the outrage over the Epstein's lawyers arguing for a ankle bracelet & house arrest in his multi-million dollar mansion is a bit misplaced. Then man is apparently a monster but, in the unlikely case that he might be released on bail, the price of the place where he would stay is hardly relevant.
    1
  1368. Chris lost control of this "interview" when this piece of southern excrement was allowed to drone on like he did.
    1
  1369. Listening to this spokesperson makes me sick to my stomach! I wonder if this Peskov is knowingly lying or if the has bought into the heavily censored "news" and propaganda available to Russians? Either way is awful, and I would like to see his face when he is finally confronted with the actual devastation the Russian military has brought upon e.g. Mariupol.
    1
  1370. The US is not officially at war with Iran. Killing one of it's leaders is, at this stage, not an act of war, it is simply an assassination, whatever the excuse. This will probably have severe repercussions: The US's current western allies are NOT interested in being tricked into another unexpected and badly-if-at-all-planned conflict, and I suspect the US will find itself going it mostly alone.
    1
  1371. The UK prime minister just happened to be diplomatic in his interactions with the Toddler, shortly before the big showdown that clarified the depravity of the current US administration. That has now been solidly corrected. Screw Trump!
    1
  1372. Apparently, the further south you find yourself in the US, the more corrupt everything is. Frankly, listening to House Representatives and Senators during the last 20-30 years, there seems to be a direct correlation between the level of "southern drawl" and the level of corruption! Those two seem to go hand in hand.
    1
  1373. 'Murican news anchors seem to specialize in asking ridiculous questions, with a "what's your response?" tacked to the end. No wonder 'Murican media is increasingly considered a farce everywhere outside of the US.
    1
  1374. When the Soviet Union collapsed, a number of "wanna-be-western" countries had the opportunity to go their own way. There was a problem, however: While the nations of the Baltic states and Poland wanted to become democratic and "normal", there was a severe Soviet-era legacy that had yet to be excised: Organized crime! My country, Iceland, immediately had an influx of people from the Baltic states, Poland and other former Soviet countries, and the first and most notable export from those countries was - you guessed it - organized crime, a Russia-generated infection! It is still a problem, but being handled - ever so slowly. Of course Ukraine is heavily infected with this Russian virus. Yanukovych was all-out Russian-corrupt and ended up exiled to where he belongs, in Corrupt Russia. Then came Poroshenko and while his part in history is yet to be written, he was apparently not going to do much about the corruption. Zelenskyy seems to have become president as a joke, potentially in part due to Poroshenko's rightfully tarnished image. Zelenskyy's presidency was doomed initially, he was potentially an honest player but the corrupt elite in Ukraine wanted none of that - but then Putin invaded Ukraine and everything went upside-down! Zelenskyy turned out to be an excellent wartime leader, and cannot be blamed for the pervasive corruption that still remains. At least he seems to be fighting against it, which means little at the moment. Bottom line: Ukraine is NOT fit as a member of either the EU or NATO until the corruption has been mostly rooted out, and Zelenskyy is the most likely candidate to manage that.
    1
  1375. NATO has 32 member countries, soon to be only 31 country, seeing that the US is bowing out and will be joining Putin in the near future. The combined might of the European nations will be sufficient once they get their arse in gear. While a substantial part of the 31 nations have spent on ridiculously expensive military hardware, we will now spend money on our own hardware and expanding our own military production. No more crazy-expensive F35s, let's make do with affordable Gripens, Rafales and Tornados...
    1
  1376.  @ZupE891 , you probably echo the views of a large part of the US population. Your justice system is revenge-based - even if your prisons are called "correctional facilities", they are anything but correctional. Very little is being done to change those that have broken the law back into useful citizens, prisons apparently exist mainly to punish those that have run afoul of the law, sometimes cruelly. The prison system being partly a privatized business, the prisons are incentivized to create "returning customers". Well, this is your country and population to abuse in whatever way your rich owners want to.
    1
  1377. If this goes any further, the US will become a laughing stock among other developed nations. This would change the US into a medieval-style country, ruled by a religious zealot minority that is rivaled only by the Talibans.
    1
  1378.  @Qbertqueso , you are correct, if I had been in this position I would have been a coward EVEN IF I AM WHITE! The motorist WAS black, and thus in considerable danger. A horrible situation for any citizen to be in, anywhere! Fortunately for me I am not a US citizen, and while I have visited the US a few times over the years, I have sworn not to visit again while this madhouse effect is ruling the US. I am sure this will eventually pass, and US citizens of color will finally be considered simply regular citizens, but I am afraid it will take a few generations, even a potential Nazi-Germany type fascist convulsion, before things get rational again. Believe me, I feel for today's US citizens of color, but all I can offer now is my sympathy - and I am NOT trying to be condescending.
    1
  1379. Preventing voters from casting their ballots, whatever the methods used, surely is the worst kind of election tampering. If the US does NOT hunt down, investigate, indict, sentence and imprison the offenders (and they are many), election tampering will become the new national sport. US democracy will have become a FORMER democracy, the US will not be able to call itself a flawed democracy any longer.
    1
  1380. Isn't this a sales pitch for Raytheon? Weapons manufacturers must be over the moon these days, given the brisk trade they are doing. Hopefully all this overpriced stuff works as advertised.
    1
  1381. This hurricane remained category 1 until well inland - this could have been MUCH WORSE. Why a hurricane-prone modern society, supposedly the richest in the world, still uses overhead power lines AMONG TALL TREES really boggles the mind. It's really cheap, let me tell you.
    1
  1382.  Soapy1898 , all very valid points that explain the situation in the UK, and how it came to be that way. My comment only applies to the current situation in the US, "the greatest country on Earth". In my country, Iceland, you will only see large, solid and weather-tolerant long-distance high-voltage power lines (hundreds of kilovolts) from the hydro-electric and geothermal stations transmitting power to urban and industrial areas. EVERYTHING within urban areas, large and small, is underground. It is certainly more expensive, both the initial installation and the occasional maintenance, but what truly applies is "out of sight, out of mind". No matter what the weather does (and we have plenty of mad weather), local power distribution remains intact.
    1
  1383.  Soapy1898 , again you bring up many perfectly valid points. One addition, however: Our local power distribution was already underground when I was born in 1950, so adequate hardware has been available for over 70 years, probably since WW2, and it has only improved since then. The only remnants I have ever seen were the discontinued overhead power inlets on some older houses. In our case, this was probably a case of necessity, not choice, we simply had to afford it. Flooding rarely affects our underground power distribution, and then only in case of mudslides or fast-flowing water washing away the soil and tearing up the cables. Needless to say, fires are never a risk factor in such cases.
    1
  1384. Wanna bet the Iranians will soon appear to do something incredibly stupid, giving Bolton an excuse to start a war? That would be a classic move, it's what Hitler did to have an excuse to invade Poland and start WW2. Try to Google "Bay of Tonkin" to find a US version of that to start the involvement in Vietnam.
    1
  1385. The new 5-day isolation guideline is really symbolic, a surrender-in-disguise. Just think: What ratio of all truly asymptomatic-but-actually-infected people show up in official Covid tests? Only those that HAVE to be tested for some reason will be detected (and isolated), but I am certain that they are only a fraction of the real number. The infection explosion is probably out of control all over the world, but fortunately a combination of reduced severity and reasonable vaccination rates just might save us.
    1
  1386.  @katiehettinger7857 , isn't the death and suffering of the innocent called "collateral damage" and the death and suffering of opponents called "Victory"?
    1
  1387. The ICE is slowly being turned into the US version of the GESTAPO. They are just following orders, but...
    1
  1388. The short clip shows the vessel literally forming "stern waves" as it reversed quite fast under the bridge and into the pier, obviously under reverse propulsion. It is pointless to speculate with so little information, and I imagine the NTSB preliminary report will clear up the major uncertainties. This being a sailing vessel, the propeller apparently is a variable-pitch version that, I presume, can be feathered under sail to minimize drag?
    1
  1389. Ukraine is not only defending itself, it is the tip of the spear of the upcoming fight between rising authoritarianism and genuine democracy. Putin's Russia is the instigator of this war, but there are "enemies within" that have to be resolved once the problem that is Putin's Russia has been resolved; Orban's Hungary and Erdogan's Turkey are square pegs that will never fit the round holes of Western democracy. Hungary and Turkey as nations probably do, but heir current leaders are Putin-wannabes that are totally incompatible. Then there are the emerging Fascist United States; Fortunately the Russian debacle will probably be resolved before the upcoming 'Murican Fascist debacle becomes critical.
    1
  1390. One has to wonder why the Democrats are even bothering to negotiate with the Repugnicans! The Repugnicans have repeatedly proved that they are cheats, shameless liars and will NEVER negotiate in good faith! The only opinion is to ignore them in congress and expose them in the media. If the US voting population is stupid or ignorant enough vote the Repugnican way, they bloody well deserve what they have coming to them. As for the non-Repugnicans: Try to emigrate to Europe, Australia, New Zealand or somewhere in Asia before the shit really hits the fan. The end of Nazi 'Murica will not be pretty...
    1
  1391. Hatred is a too strong expression for what people in many countries feel towards either ignorant or misinformed Russians OR ignorant and misinformed right-wing 'Muricans. Increasing disdain is probably more appropriate - as well a pity.
    1
  1392. Bill Clinton was caught in sexual impropriety and, god forbid, trying to cover the whole thing up. Compare and contrast that "vile behavior" with what Trump has been doing, both overtly and covertly. The two wind-cocks, Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, will be exposed as immoral party hacks when all is said and done.
    1
  1393. 'Murica - the BEST country in the world?
    1
  1394. Simple: Treat the inmates like humans and they will remain human. Treat them like irredeemable monsters and they will become just that. The Norwegians figured this out a while ago, and they are ACTING on it. Look up Halden Prison and Bastoy Prison and you'll know what I mean.
    1
  1395. One wonders if the 'Muricans of 1918 had this absolute need and desire to visit and dine with their relatives in the middle of a pandemic that was far worse than the current one - we KNOW about viruses and remedies, they did not. The public actually KNOWING about these things seems to be abhorrent to Conservatives today, they would rather have us ignorant and supplicant, whatever the cost in 'Murican lives...
    1
  1396. A stain on your democracy? This raises a question: Did you ever HAVE a true democracy? I certainly hope that society-minded 'Muricans will carry the day in November 2022. If not, the world is in for a lot of pain in the following decade. Make no mistake: When (not if) the US goes fascist, there will be hell to pay. Neighbors and former allies will turn against you, and despite it's current superpower status, a fascist US will find itself alone, an enemy of all other nations. The end result, what Nazi Germany experienced, will be an inevitable result. Like Goebbels and Himmler, the Fascist Repugnican leaders will have the choice between the noose and a cyanide pill - and their family names will be held in infamy for time immemorial - does the name Benedict Arnold ring any bells?
    1
  1397. What boggles my mind is the fact that the US media - and most of the US population - seem to have accepted the fact that the rich (corporation/billionaires) can simply buy their way to power in any US elections. It is glaringly obvious that the US is no longer a functioning democracy and has not been a proper democracy for 30-40 years now.
    1
  1398. One issue I find scary and, to say the least, seriously detrimental to the 'Murican judiciary system: Every time a judge is named in the media, there is ALWAYS a mention of who appointed him or her! To say the judicial system has been dangerously politicized is putting it very, VERY mildly. Apparently the political views and/or political affiliations of judges are slowly beginning to matter more that the law itself, a terrifying state of affairs. While most judges have made rulings based on the applicable laws, we are seeing more and more instances where judges make rulings heavily influenced by their religious or political beliefs more than the law, with right-wing judges being the most blatant in their rulings.
    1
  1399. Why are we watching this? We actually KNOW the SCOTUS is corrupt to the core. The entire 'Murican political system is corrupt to the core - and bribed the rest of the way! The only way for the 'Murican nation to crawl it's way out of this stinking mess is to TURN OUT AND VOTE for a good many election cycles! Never mind WHAT you vote, what matters is the EVERYONE participates! If a genuine majority agrees to a fascist 'Murica, so be it. The world as we know it will come to an end and in a few generations there will be no nation as hated as 'Murica, except, perhaps Russia.
    1
  1400. Canada is fortunate to have elected a clear-headed and eminently knowledgeable leader in these trying times. As a bonus, Carney in known to and respected by financiers and world leaders alike. When Carney says something, it can be taken to the bank, but when Trump says something, we all know it is a lie, a con. I suspect that Canada is about to escape the shadow of it's domineering trading partner of decades, and is on it's way to become a major force on the international stage.
    1
  1401. I wonder what fraction of 'Muricans actually think about and consider the level of depravity 'Murica has sunk to. I am a member of a NATO founding member nation, and while the United States were our role model until the early seventies, is almost incomprehensible how the US has become 'Murica - a nation of ignorance and stupidity and bigotry and... In a nutshell, I would NOT want to be a US citizen these days, and fully expect Trump's 'Murica to ditch it's NATO membership (to appease Putin). The way things are going, what the future has in store will NOT be favorable to 'Murica.
    1
  1402. The US managed to screw up their election process so badly that now a juvenile bully holds the highest office in the land. To the rest of the world you are becoming a joke!
    1
  1403. Isn't the headline not only silly but dead wrong? The flight crew just followed their flight plan, the company bureaucrats screwed up!
    1
  1404. There is beer and there is COLD beer. In 1981 I happened to be in an old Western town in in Wisconsin - in the middle of December. The temperature was around -15°C to -20°, FAR colder than I am used to - and I live in Iceland! The friend we were staying with took us out to an ancient-looking Western-style saloon for a beer, and when we had shivered our way to the bar and ordered some beers, the bartender opened a door in the wall, an actual FREEZER door, pulled out the appropriate number of mugs that PROMPTLY FROSTED OVER before filling them with beer that was on the verge of becoming slush, it was so cold! I can understand 'Muricans loving their beer this cold in the middle of a heatwave summer, but - get real - this mindless need for REALLY cold drinks, regardless of weather and other conditions, is simply obsessive.
    1
  1405. Icelander here, agnostic rather than atheist and reluctant to denounce beliefs my grandparents held in the Hidden People. Most Icelanders are christened, married and buried in church rituals mostly because it is tradition, and bucking the trend is too much of a bother. We celebrate Christmas (we call it Jól = Yule) and Easter, also because it is an 1000 year old tradition. 1100 years ago Jól would simply have been a winter solstice celebration.
    1
  1406. Who is more likely to spread radioactive material in this war zone, Ukrainians defending their country so they can rebuild it, or "scorched-earth" Putin's Russia that aims to rub out Ukraine and everything Ukrainian? THAT one is a no-brainer!
    1
  1407.  r385671 , that says it all, doesn't it? I am a citizen of one of the Nordic countries and safely distanced from the nonsense currently going on in the US. I used to admire the US an everything "American", but that admiration became a bit tarnished in the sixties, when "they" started killing the Kennedys. The final blow to my admiration came when you elected Reagan. Now, all one can do is watch in morbid fascination as the main contemporary global power disintegrates before our very eyes. The terrifying bit is that while the US might go under as a democratic society in the foreseeable future, the military might is still intact and the harm THAT might do to the rest of the world during the death throes of a superpower are unimaginable.
    1
  1408. Oh, the irony... In Fox interviews, Pence more than implies that Biden claimed the "I declassified them" spiel. That was what Trump tried, not Biden. The only sensible reply by any ex-high-official to questions about potential misdeeds they may have committed while in office should be "Not intentionally, I really hope not but I plead the fifth, just in case". Their relationship with Law and Order seems murky, at best.
    1
  1409. I never expected a prominent Finn to be buttering up Trump, but that is diplomacy for you.
    1
  1410. I wonder why the title is in English, seeing that this is entirely in Icelandic. Associated Press Archive makes sense as a repository of raw material for later-date analysis or post-processing, but why on Earth is anyone putting this on YouTube? I am an Icelander and I went through this boring clip with a yawn...
    1
  1411. Thom is getting to the real heart of the problem by using a really appropriate handle for rabid Trump-followers: CONFEDERATES! That is what they are, they are clinging to a 250 year old ideology that should have been stamped out but never was. Stamping it out this time around just might amount to another US civil war, even another World War!
    1
  1412. The US certainly has the best equipment and expertise when it comes to retrieving data from damaged FDR's, so why were US specialists not immediately tasked with getting the data from the recovered FDR? The current "revolving doors" between corporate and institutional America just might be the reason. It is quite likely that other nations no longer trust that the bosses of the specialists to be impartial. The technicians are no doubt impartial, it is the chain of command above them that is suspect. This just might be the first example of how US global leadership is eroding, with more to come.
    1
  1413. You 'Muricans are MAD! In developed countries there is usually a "freedom to roam" in varying forms. Simply passing through is allowed and expected, provided you leave no marks.
    1
  1414. This would solve the crosswind problems in VMC landings and takeoffs, and runway length would never be a problem. It is, however, difficult to see how precision approaches in low-visibility conditions can be solved. Currently this is done using old-fashioned ILS (CAT I, II & III) and massive approach light systems. IFR traffic management would also have to be overhauled. This is a concept well worth investigating, but being an old fart (a retired pilot) I see only problems with the IFR side of this idea.
    1
  1415. Being an old fart, my creative juices have mostly dried up - but I bet some young wizards, still full of spit and vinegar, will think of all kinds of solutions to this concept. It will definitely work just fine in flat and windy areas, but only for smaller aircraft and VFR operations.
    1
  1416. Face it: Nancy Pelosi might have been a superb wheeler/dealer ine her prime, but the Trump debacle has exposed her for what she is: A frantically hand-waving Corporate Democrat great-grandmother that is well beyond her "best before" date. Who is likely to step in? Who knows - there are a number of candidates ready to take on the job that are guaranteed to do it better. Who is the most promising? AOC comes to mind, but she's not the only one, and the whole issue is moot if Trump and his handlers manage to steal the upcoming elections: The US will be finished, kaput, done for if that happens. Watching the incredibly quick demise of the US experiment from outside the US is really, REALLY deperssing! We are seriously facing the possibility of the rest of the world having to conffront a genuinely Fascist US America!
    1
  1417. Someone on the Internet pointed out that the usual West Coast Wildfire Season proper has not even started yet, calendar-wise! Is this true? Are things about to get even worse for you US Americans than they have been? Uncontrollable wildfires in the western states, hurricanes and floods in the Gulf states and Tornadoes in the Midwest. Then add a horribly mismanaged COVID pandemic response that is REALLY proving how exceptional you are - your God must really be disgusted with you to have saddled you with the politicians you have.Your current problem is that you are drowning in your own shite. OUR (all the non-US-Americans) problem is that WE are drowning in your shite as well! Most of us have been trying to compensate, to no avail. Your shite overrides whatever other nations are trying to do.
    1
  1418. I have always found it ironic how 'Muricans wrongly call their prisons "Correctional Facilities".'Murican prisons are Punishment/Retribution/Revenge Centers. Take your pick. There is no "correction" going on there, aimed at releasing improved citizens that have a chance of building a productive life after "serving their term". Compare and contrast that with the correctional philosophy and policies of North-European countries, especially the Nordic countries.
    1
  1419. Apparently Joe Fricking Manchin is pissing into the face of a gale is his own constituency. The end result: He will be drenched in his own urine!
    1
  1420. 'Murica, vaunted shining "city on the hill", the main bastion of democracy, is apparently hanging on to that label by a thin little LIE! It remains to be seen how the wannabe fascists will manage the next coup attempt, the only certainty is that THEY WILL TRY! 'Murican males seem a lost cause, the question is what will Maternal 'Murica do! The apathy of 'Murican voters is monumental, but are the women of this misbegotten country about to allow christian Mullahs to determine their fate, as well as the fate of their daughters and granddaughters?
    1
  1421. This is what happens when corners are cut to save someone some money.
    1
  1422. This format will inevitably evolve into a shouting match, with the more shameless candidate out-shouting the other, which is just what the TV networks want! What they SHOULD do is to have dead-mike periods: When a candidate has the floor, he should be able to produce his spiel uninterrupted for so and so many seconds, the other candidate's mike being cut off for the duration - with equal time being the golden rule. When the arbiter is speaking or asking questions, BOTH candidate's mikes should be stone-cold-dead. The problem: This will never happen - US American governance is a TV reality show where RATINGS have priority and actual democracy is just a fancy word nobody gives a flying fig about.
    1
  1423. The only ones to blame for this situation are 'Murican voters (or rather the non-voters?). You 'Muricans deserve the insane politicians you keep electing, so stop whining - or start electing sensibly! You keep making your bed like this, of course you will have to lie in it. For people outside 'Murica, this spiral of insanity is off the charts...
    1
  1424. I really feel sorry for ordinary Americans - and things like this are one of many reasons few people from e.g. Norway have absolutely no interest in emigrating to the US. The only people willing to risk this are desperate people from "shithole" countries, many of which are in that state due to direct US meddling, especially in South America.
    1
  1425. As a retired airline pilot and former water sports enthusiast, my main question is: Why is this a new discovery! While the "more expensive to manufacture" argument may have some merit, the "too good to be true" argument is far more likely! Hydrodynamics and Aerodynamics are rather mature sciences. In both disciplines, the "too good to be true" is screaming at me, even while the "goodness me, I hope this is true!" is still a flickering hope.
    1
  1426. Methinks the US is doomed. Watching the disintegration so far is mind-boggling! The US has been pioneers on many issues in the past and they seem to be dead-set on following up past achievements by doing the Crumbling-Empire bit absolutely 'pedal-to-the-metal'! The only developed nation in the world that is unable to provide it's citizens with basic RIGHTS like genuine democracy, affordable health care and education is doomed to descend into chaos and disintegration (meaning civil war, followed by genocide). When the shit finally hits the fan, the first thing to end up like a bug smear on a car windshield will be useless politicians, rich elites and all their descendants. When France blew up 230 years ago, the main cleanup tool was the Guillotine. Since then, mankind has come a long way - we are so much more advanced regarding torture and extermination.
    1
  1427. Try walking to the nearest wall and argue with it about Trump's failures regarding the Coronavirus response. Your chances of the wall listening to your arguments are greater that trying to argue with a Trump sycophant.
    1
  1428. Yep, your beloved "greatest country in the world" has this nice system that allows the walthy (or anyone backed up by the wealthy) to walk free while their army of lawyers work at getting them off the hook. The big question: Who put up the $2M bail to let him out? Are they also providing the army of lawyers attempting to get him off the hook? Frankly, I (like a lot of former US allies) am ever more disgusted with you 'Muricans.
    1
  1429. What a world 'Muricans live in! Republicans repeatedly and reliably turning out to be outright liars? Well, knock me over with a feather! Who would have thought that would ever happen? Or - given Republican intellect and language butchery; "Who would have thunk it?").
    1
  1430.  @veggiechowder8877 , well, she and Bernie et al have been fighting for it - as well as affordable health care and education. Never mind better minimum wages, functioning Unions will do the job just as well. Unfortunately, to many Democrat members of congress have been legally bribed to join you Repugnicans to start screaming "Socialism" or "Communism" whenever any legislation proposals that benefit the general US public surfaces. It is ignorant/brainwashed idiots like you that ensure that any such proposed legislation is usually stillborn - even if most developed nations have proved for decades that these things work far better for the general public than the corrupt scams you right-wingers love so much.
    1
  1431. An impeachment inquiry surely equals the investigation stage of what might become an indictment in a criminal case. The House of Representatives are working like the equivalent of the police and prosecutors at this stage. If an indictment/impeachment is the conclusion, then and ONLY THEN does the matter go to the "court" (the Senate in this case). That is when/where the Trumpzis will be allowed to mount their defense, with all that it entails (cross-examinations etc.). Regarding the aftershocks: If the US does not introduce severe limitations on the pardoning powers of the president to prevent the kind of cronyism we have seen in the past, the "ruse of law" will always be severely biased in favor of the powerful. True, that will call for an amendment to the Constitution (no mean feat), but hopefully the stink left behind by the Trump era will do the trick.
    1
  1432. Steve Cortes WILL defend Trump, whatever idiocy is being discussed, April Ryan WILL shout, interrupt and talk over the others on any panel. When these two are on a panel, things WILL devolve into a shouting match that sheds no light on anything. They are a waste of time!
    1
  1433. It would be typical Trump, to bring back public executions of the most grisly sort, e.g. by Guillotine. If that ever happens, I bet the last one on TV will be his own! There is one horrifying aspect to this madness: In today's lunatic 'Murica, Trump is quite likely to manage to win and revive medieval execution practices! Even more horrifying: DeSantis might win, and he will be orders of magnitude worse than Trump!
    1
  1434. Alito's wife denigrated what she sees as "FemiNazis", but failed to realize that she herself is a "TrueNazi", beating her chest as being a German, a true Aryan. How disgusting can you get? Recent history proves how disastrous THAT attitude can be! I was wondering if the Alitos had spawned any offspring. A simple Google search showed 2 spawns that, given their likely Aryan upbringing, bear watching in future.
    1
  1435. Just pause to consider the fact that MAGA Repugnicans and self-proclaimed Evangelists are prepared to re-elect a convicted sex offender as their next president! Trump has been found guilty, by a jury of his peers, of sexual assault, even outright rape, depending on various definitions, the current trial is not about Trump's guilt or innocence, it is only about what punishment he should receive! Repugnicans and Evangelists can loudly proclaim their "family values" for all to hear, but the rest of us are fully aware of the rank hipocracy going on.
    1
  1436. Lobbying is the epitome of corruption and should be illegal. This cannot end well. When the US eventually falls apart in a few decades, they can thank the SCOTUS for their demise. Legalizing political bribery and corruption was the beginning of the end...
    1
  1437. If this ends up becoming a shooting war instead of some silly saber-rattling, Tucker Carlson is running the risk of becoming the next William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw). Will Tucker defect to Russia to be able to keep up his nonsense?
    1
  1438. This is farcical: The US government finally behaving like other western governments by simply caring about the general population - and you don't really know what to do with it! There is hope for you yet, you 'Muricans... Then again, when too many of your population prove to be ill-informed, ignorant and even brainwashed, there a incredible hurdles ahead if you want to serve the general public and not only the billionaires.
    1
  1439.  @screwsinabell , I stand corrected. The rot probably started to take root when Reagan took office and US politics slowly started to serve corporate interests over the interests of the general population. We are possibly just watching the Grand Finale...
    1
  1440. During this crisis, we have been allowed to observe the soul of the Ukrainian people and I am immensely impressed! I wish we could be of more help than we are in the West, but unfortunately we are bound by international law that we intend to respect - unlike bloody Putin! This WILL take time, but rest assured, the crazy pig Putin WILL be put in his proper place soon, ideally by his own people. As far as I can see, the Russian people HATE what is going on, it is only Putin and his fellow Kleptocrats that are the cause of this disaster. They absolutely MUST be made accountable, first by the West confiscating their stolen wealth (that should be returned to the Russian population), and then by the Russian nation. The current Russian judicial system may have been twisted by decades of Putin rule, but eventually a proper rule of law will be re-established in Russia and then Putin and his fellow Kleptocrats can be properly taken to task. It may take
    1
  1441. If anyone required further proof that the US judicial system is broken beyond salvation, this is it. Live video evidence from multiple angles has been available for months, but the corrupt idiots are STILL arguing that his was not a cold-blooded murder! I recommend that US citizens be excluded and banned from visiting e.g. European countries until this has been fixed. We do not need lunatics like this among us.
    1
  1442. So, the judicial system in the US, 'the country of Law and Order' is finally being exposed as a useless fraud, an Emperor without a stitch on (clue: Imagine a naked Trump - fat, ugly and endowed like Greek statue - i.e. minuscule male parts)
    1
  1443. This "story" smells like CNN is cunningly trying to whitewash Trump. Are the CNN right-wingers coming out of the closet?
    1
  1444. In my opinion, Blinken is a prolific bla-bla-bla word salad generator. He is about as useless as Obama, unfortunately, turned out to be (not only Obama's fault). I get progressively more disgusted every time he opens his mouth and issues even more empty bla-bla-bla word salad.
    1
  1445. I have sometimes wondered: Should those egotistical US Americans traveling outside the US be offered the same kind of generosity they offer non-US citizens, for example, a US American having a serious accident in Europe should be left bleeding at the site of the accident until the issue of "who is paying" is sorted out. If the US American bleeds to death while this is being sorted, well - tough luck, American, this is your way of dealing with these things! Fortunately for US Americans, every other developed nation does NOT think like this: We see someone in need, we treat it to the best of our abilities and worry about the cost later.
    1
  1446. Ukraine and ISIS are EXTREMELY unlikely bedfellows. Well, if any nation was likely to be ready to facilitate the escape of a group terrorizing Russians within Russia's borders, it would be Ukraine. Did Ukraine take an active role in facilitating this terrorist attack? Not likely but not unlikely either, seeing that Ukraine is fighting a war for it's survival against Putin's Russian aggression. At this stage, ANYTHING (except outright war crimes) is allowed for Ukraine in their fight for survival. Personally, I think Russia is effed for decades to come, very few civilized nations will just want them OUT OF HERE! The combination of apathy and cruelty of the Russian nation is only matched by 'Murican apathy and cruelty.
    1
  1447. There is no doubt that Russia, Russians and anything Russian will be reviled in the west for decades to come, much like the Nazis following WW2. This WILL be unfair to Russians that wanted nothing to do with this and actually departed Russia while they could, but the brutal fact is that the Russian expat community in the west WILL be infected with Putin's operatives and, as a result, no Russian expat can be trusted, anywhere. We are in for a ride, at least while Putin an his cohorts are alive and in power, and history has shown that there is scant hope of Russia becoming a nation fit to exist among civilized nations for generations to come.
    1
  1448. Totally off-topic, given the subject of this "Saga", the Taylor Swift influence on the farce you 'Muricans call elections. The rest of the world will probably owe Taylor Swift a lot of gratitude for bringing some sanity into 'Murican politics. "Of 3:30 hours of broadcasting, only 0:18 are actual football" - I noticed this about Baseball in Europe, the only 'Murican sport that is popular on our continent: The first 3 quarters go by rather quickly, the last quarter takes longer that the rest of the game - to make room for ads! When I realized this, I simply quit watching Basketball. By this example, I will never become a fan of 'Murican "football" (why don't you call it "Runball" or "Clutchaball" because all you do with the oblong thing you call "a ball" is to RUN around, CLUTCHING the oblong "ball". The only time a foot contacts the aforementioned oblong thing is when a special player (usually a soccer player) is called out to attempt to kick a field goal, an uncertain proposition, given the absurd shape of your "ball".
    1
  1449.  Aidil Adha , are you talking about Kayleigh or Ana working hard for the money? Which of them are you talking about? I suppose they both are, each in their on way, the "slave" bit could easily apply if a) they were both situated outside the US (e.g. in Saudi Arabia) or b) Ana had a gun to her head. Assuming that you are a female, I guess that you have a more realistic experience of such situations. Given your name I further assume you hail from the middle-east and have intimate knowledge of these matters. Please clarify...
    1
  1450. Many everyday Russians are delusional due to no fault of their own, they have been treated like mushrooms: Kept in the dark and fed on bullshite. When Russia has lost this war and Putin is history, those everyday Russians will finally be able to access actual facts about the devastation Putin has visited on the Ukrainian nation AND the well-documented war crimes committed in Russian-held areas. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Russian nation will have some nasty surprises sprung on them, much like the German nation had to face some nasty surprises following WW2. I doubt the Russians will face it as squarely as the Germans did (and still do).
    1
  1451. I fear the 'Murican judicial system is already a lost cause. It is bad enough that a wealthy or influential defendant can clog up the system with endless appeals and other legal trickery, resulting in "justice delayed is justice denied" - what is far worse is the fact that the judicial system has been politicized to the degree that it is becoming dysfunctional: Have you noticed what seems to be the main issue whenever a controversial case goes before any court in 'Murica? WHO APPOINTED THE JUDGE, a clear indication that the political views of the judge handling the case are considered more important then the letter of the law. The rot evident in the SCOTUS is a prime example - the body will rot from the head down!
    1
  1452. There is no doubt about the current legitimacy of the SCOTUS, more's the pity, but that will change soon. Fact: The current SCOTUS is the best one money can buy. Period. Political corruption incarnated. It flies in the face of what the vast majority of the 'Murican nation wants, and that will be it's downfall in it's current incarnation! In a proper democracy (which the US is NOT these days, thanks to a corrupt SCOTUS) the laws reflect the will of the people - and 'Murica WILL get there, eventually. Arrogant gits like inJustice John Roberts will find that out the hard way. One has to feel sorry for the poor excuses of humanity that currently form the majority of the SCOTUS. There WILL be a reckoning!
    1
  1453. If you needed any further proof that 'Muricans are blithering idiots, look no further! If you have a functioning brain, you will know what a tariff is - a price increase on whatever goods being imported that you might wand to purchase. The entire Trump presidency is based on a big, fat lie. A tariff is paid by the 'Murican citizen, a tax cut is enjoyed by the very richest of Trump's friends.
    1
  1454. Life will be difficult for Russians outside Russia for a long while, in most cases unfairly but in some cases correctly so. The problem: No one can trust that any given Russian individual is not a Putin operative, in the worst cases the "push people out of high-rise windows" variety. This is no doubt by Putin's design, to make it difficult for Russians to escape his clutches. Even when Putin is dead and gone, the corrupt infrastructure will still be in place, with any number of similar despots queuing up to take his place. Russia pissed away it's chance of becoming properly democratic in the 1990s and it is crystal clear that it will take decades, for any significant reform to take any meaningful hold. Until then, the Russian nation is doomed to be serfs to whatever elites may be in power at any given time.
    1
  1455. Can a passenger land an aircraft? Certainly - easy peasy, provided he or she works as a pilot for the same airline, or at least is qualified on the type. Failing that, a passenger qualified on a similar aircraft can do the job - with some help from a type-rated pilot via ATC. A non-pilot is unlikely to stumble through the first steps described here, but after managing the first 5 steps there is a theoretical possibility it could be pulled off. I have seen a video where a girl was able to pull it off in a simulator. Still, the first 5 steps will always be the main stumbling block for a non-pilot.
    1
  1456. Please allow Toddler Trump to blunder heedlessly into the quicksand his tariff plans actually are. Tariffs will hurt workers in Canada, but Canada is a civilized nation that takes care of it's citizens - the pain will be mitigated and shared by the entire nation for the short period this madness will last. The same cannot be said for the poor 'Murican consumers that were idiotic enough to vote for Mad Toddler Trump! Everything Trump slaps tariffs on will will bring in tax revenue that Trump will selfishly hoard, but the final bill will be paid by the everyday 'Murican consumer. Energy from Canada will hike gas prices, auto parts from Mexico will hike car prices, and this is just the beginning of a vicious circle. Toddler Trump is performing an economic Hara-Kiri in plain sight. How about we non-'Muricans just sit back and watch the fireworks play out?
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  1457. I con only imagine how this man's father Robert Kennedy, must be rolling over in his grave!
    1
  1458. This question, to the effect of "What does that mean to you, would you mind defining "woke", just so we are on the same page". What she did NOT say is "here is a trap, you are welcome to walk into it". The outcome is priceless!
    1
  1459. David is correct, health care and education in the Nordic countries is NOT FREE - it is paid for by taxes. These taxes ALSO pay for a pretty good safety net!
    1
  1460. Trump seems to be getting somewhere with the job Putin tasked him with: Damage the NATO alliance - and the idiot Republicans are playing along! When Putin's greed for power escalates into WW3, a LOT of Republicans will have to defect to Russia to escape charges of Treason.
    1
  1461. Just goes to show how far over the edge of the cliff extreme right-wingers have gone in 'Murica.
    1
  1462. Understandably, in peaceful times, NATO and defense issues were taking a back seat among western nations that wanted to put resources into bettering their lives instead of producing weapons, which explains the diminishing importance of a defense alliance. Putin has been working to drive a wedge in that alliance for 2 decades, recently with the help of his "asset", Trump. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us), he jumped the gun and jumped prematurely into his plans to increase the "lebensraum" for Russia. The whole thing has now blown up in his face Inevitably - and unfortunately - the western nations are waking up to the reality that there are aspiring Hitlers everywhere, in Turkey, Hungary and Poland, but especially the runaway one in Russia - and China needs it's own dictatorial chapter! Putin is a goner, done for, kaput, but he and his regime will take a while to collapse. Russia will remain a pariah among nations for at least a generation or so, and any hope for a benign leadership that can work on introducing proper democracy and reducing the endemic Russian corruption is slim, indeed. Getting permanently rid of dictatorial and cruel leaders for the Russian people is long overdue.
    1
  1463.  Julia Weber , unfortunately concepts like "apprehending a shooter" and "shoot to disable" seem to be alien concept in the US. Shoot to kill seems to be the only way for US police to handle cases like this.
    1
  1464. If anyone thinks the US has been the main Global Bully in recent decades, they are absolutely correct - BUT, they ain't seen nothing yet! China is fast taking over as the main Global Bully. The US's bullying will be seen as a picnic whin China really gets into it's bullying stride. China is genuinely autocratic, while the US has only been wannabe autocratic so far.
    1
  1465. The New Green Deal may not be the entire final solution but, at least, IT IS A START!
    1
  1466. Frankly, I find Piers Morgan lamenting "people at the extremities of both sides" being allowed media time beyond hilarious. He happens to have been "at the extremities of one side" (ultra-conservative) himself for a very long time! I wonder if it would be worth getting your feet wet to help him if he were drowning in a pond. I have found the man beyond disgusting for a long time.
    1
  1467. Whatever procedural deficiencies may have contributed to this disaster, it predates the Trump grubby hands. While this is a rare case where Trump's grubby fingers were NOT involved, you 'Muricans are in for a horribly painful 4 years of misery. This is what you idiots voted for. Enjoy! Are you the rare 'Murican that has a passport and travel abroad? Well, you should stay at home - 'Muricans are increasingly disliked and even hated wherever they go...
    1
  1468. The problem: Most modern-day US Americans probably do not even know what a pitchfork is! Many of them do, however, have a cache of firearms and ammunition, in many cases military-style assault weapons, that they DO know how to use. The "pitchforks are coming" scare is tame, reality will be much more bloody. The US is already experiencing sporadic examples of the future with all the mass shootings happening literally every week in the US.
    1
  1469. Fervent faux Jesus nuts and right-wingers are a deadly combination, and 'Murica is rushing towards that particular sinkhole.
    1
  1470. The middle-aged blond woman in the beginning of the clip came across (in my opinion) as somewhat worried, not 'surreptitiously smiling'. One imagines that she has a middle-aged husband that might have become lacking in performance post-Covid and that might have triggered this particular line of inquiry. This unexpected potential Covid symptom might be worrisome to younger men, but for old farts like me (I'll be 71 next January) this is largely a moot point. Following my own 10-day (mild fever only) case of Covid I have not noticed any difference - but then again, I am at a rather lackluster stage in my life in this regard, anyway. No worries...
    1
  1471. I am a bit of a pessimist: I predict that in the not to distant future, some entity, be it a nation or a corporate/private entity, will do something incredibly stupid that will initiate a cascading Kessler syndrome catastrophe that will effectively end our space activities for decades, even centuries to come. Goodbye to GPS, communications and weather satellites in our lifetime.
    1
  1472. The cutting edge of modern warfare is being developed in Ukraine at this very moment. What works, what does not work? 'Murica's ancient model of throwing vast amounts of money at a "defense" problem (a misnomer, seeing that 'Murica has always been the aggressor in recent decades) is not working anymore. Wasting a multi-million AA missile on a $1K drone might work short-term, but it will bankrupt any nation (like the US) trying to use that method. "Budget warfare" seems to be the order of the day, the 'Murican Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) definitely has priced itself off the market. The interesting bit: The US has been checking out of western cooperation; no former ally will be willing to share useful intelligence with the US, knowing it will all leak directly to Russia. The US is in for a prolonged time of abject misery, ALL of it the Toddler's making!
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  1473. The ruling elite of Victorian Britain were a cruel lot. It is, in fact, a wonder the entire situation did not explode in their face like it did in France half a century earlier. It is no wonder that most of the Irish still hate the British with a vengeance.
    1
  1474. One wonders how a bully that is not even capable of using a mask properly is deemed competent to attack and criticize the leading voice of reason in the horribly botched US response to the pandemic. This tells you all you need to know about the right-wing 'Murican mindset. Personally I believe 'Murica should be isolated and 'Muricans banned from traveling anywhere until they have learned to behave responsibly.
    1
  1475. This was not Trump in total panic, this was Trump in total resignation and defeat. He is done for AND HE KNOWS IT!
    1
  1476. "Greed is good"? It seems the US population is reaping the "benefits" of that particular philosophy these days. The one and only chance for sensible US Americans to turn this around is NOW, next November. Forego this chance and the US as we know it will be history, it will go down the road Hitler's Germany traveled 90 years ago. That will be just as painful for the entire world as WW2 was, if not worse.
    1
  1477. This is astounding! All the TV and mass media talking heads are actually discussing and contemplating Trump's BS defense of "I believed this and that" as a plausible defense! Committing a crime is fine if the perpetrator "believes" it was no crime? Trump can plausibly get away with declassifying and distributing the nation's most guarded secrets by just thinking about it while everyone else knows there is a long and tedious process involved when actually declassifying anything? The fact that legal experts are actually discussing this nonsense as a plausible defense is concrete proof that the 'Murican judicial system is seriously off the rails. Get real, 'Muricans! 80 years ago, Trump would have found himself indicted, tried, convicted and in front of a firing squad in short order - the difference being that at the time the US was in the middle of a declared war on two fronts. Heck, the result would have been the same 60 years ago when the US was only in an undeclared cold war, but the means of execution would probably have been different - but an execution, nonetheless.
    1
  1478. "I wanna be with my wife" is more important than staying alive? The freedom to "have a good time" (behave like an idiot) is more important than allowing the crappy US Health care system to cope? One wonders how the powers-that-be (corporations and billionaires) have managed to dumb down enough of the US population during the last 40 years to this level of incompetence, ignorance and outright stupidity
    1
  1479. So Trump's "Lock her up" chant is not many times worse? Pelosi has only said this once, she has not repeatedly incited this as a rally chant.
    1
  1480. What have progressives been warning shallow 'Muricans regarding Republicans? Believe what they DO, not what they SAY! The same must apply to Democrats (ALL politicians, everywhere, for that matter): Look at what Biden has DONE during his term instead of losing your waters over one debate where Biden did not do well. Biden's achievements so far speak for themselves Given how Biden has performed in speeches and debates until this one, something very strange is going on - and don't jump to the conclusion that Biden is suddenly falling apart!
    1
  1481. One wonders if your Beloved Orange Leader just might have been right: Just NUKE them bastards! An interesting experiment that can be added to a runaway climate change problem, a runaway pandemic and a collapsing economy, ALL despite concentrated efforts to ignore the impending disasters. At least someone's outsized ego would have been pampered... Trump's approach to the situation reminds me of a story I read somewhere about a man that jumped from the roof of the Empire State building. Someone sitting by an open window heard him saying "So far, so good!" when he passed the 20th floor...
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  1482. Not a day goes by where I do not rejoice in NOT being a US citizen. What worries me is the fact that the US madhouse is bound to blow up and be the end to Western civilization as we know it.
    1
  1483. The last Boeing lack-of-quality incident is making massive headlines ONLY because i happened in 'Murica and COULD have cost 'Murican lives. The 737-MAX total crashes happened in Africa and Asia and do not really count in the minds of 'Muricans. Trust John Oliver to take the mick out of the whole thing. Quality Escapes, my arse? These are disastrous Quality FAILURES! There is no way put a nice and shiny PR coat on hundreds of people dying an no end to these failures in sight! Boeing is actually dead - it just takes a long while for a carcass this big to start smelling so badly that denial is "no longer a viable option". The final puzzle: Causing the death of almost 400 people by gross negligence, not a single Boeing executive has been made accountable! And 'Muricans call Russians corrupt?
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  1484. Bernie wants to start introducing social democracy in the US, something along the lines of the Nordic Model. That would take AT LEAST quite a while. US Americans seem to have been brainwashed into believing that anything with the word "social" in it equals hard-core, USSR-style communism, which is ridiculous. Social democracy is as related to communism as, say, social skills. Both concepts have the word "social" in them, but that's it. The Nordic countries are CAPITALISTIC countries where socially conscious policies are the norm. We care about our fellow citizens - and most of us like it that way.
    1
  1485. This is a shining example of how dysfunctional the US of A has become. The Cops think they are above the law, they have been getting away with disregarding the rules, even the most common-sense ones. In short, the Lunatics have taken over the Asylum, the Crooks (the Trumpzis) have taken over the Government and the US is on it's merry way to hell.
    1
  1486. My Nordic country (Iceland) currently has a full vaccination rate of 88% for those that can be vaccinated (12 years & older) but only 75% overall (we are apparently a 'young' nation if so many are under 12). We are still wary and under restrictions due to a severe Delta wave - and we have not yet reached this level of public fatigue, fortunately.
    1
  1487. The "Trump 2008 housing crash"? Wasn't George Witless Bush president at the time? This is not the time to give the Repugnicans an opportunity to start screaming "AHA! Misinformation by Democrats!"
    1
  1488. The Russian population are between a rock and a hard place, so many have no choice but to stick their head in the sand and try to ignore it. Eventually, Putin's regime will be gone, the truth becomes known to everyone and then there will be hell to pay. Until then, misinformation rules...
    1
  1489. Poor Dr. Fauci, being relentlessly pressed to tell the interviewer (an they have been many) EXACTLY how things will turn out in all possible situations. The poor guy may be an expert, but he is not omniscient - the best he can do is give educated advice, no more.
    1
  1490. Unfortunately, he is probably too young to suffer any serious consequences. Here is a thought: In the Wild West, outlaws and horse thiefs were sometimes summarily lynched when caught. After all, they had flouted whatever laws that were in effect at the time and did not deserve whatever rights those laws might have offered them at the time. Trump, his family and A LOT of his sychophants have been blatantly flouting most current laws for 4 years, and obviously consider themselves to above (or outside?) the law. Perhaps they should be dealt with in the same manner they dealt with lawbreakers in the Wild West...
    1
  1491.  @arkinyte13 , not many people will shed any tears, given the vengeful nature of the US population - but do not forget that 17 years ago this killer was just an infant, without sin or any intent of becoming a killer, but somewhere along the way he was steered wrong. I am only nominally a Christian and while I find the whole religion bit to be nonsense, there are parts of the philosophy that make great sense (even if fervent Christians seem to ignore THAT). One of them is to at least LOOK for redemption, to see if something can be salvage of a damaged soul. The Norwegian prison system is based on that nowadays, and they are not entirely unsuccessful.
    1
  1492.  @arkinyte13 , agreed - but I still hesitate about your blind, vengeful judicial system. As far a I know, to even LOOK at why an individual broke the law and how serious it is (REALLY serious in this case) and then to consider if the individual is worth salvaging seems to be an outlandish option in the US. Still, doing so would probably cut your prison population by 2/3 in no time and return a lot of "criminals" to society as repentant and useful, tax-paying citizens. But - this is your country, it is yours to do with as you will, only do NOT expect the rest of the world to approve of much of the nonsense going on in 'Murica...
    1
  1493. This is an asinine defense: If a thief is convincing enough, saying he truly believed that the money he fraudulently acquired was his to take, he did not commit a crime! If this nonsense is taken seriously by the US judicial system, that self-same system is useless, no-good and thoroughly corrupt. No wonder the US is going down the drain.
    1
  1494. Good point: The SCOTUS wants to take the US back to the time when almost all officials, judges included, had to wear silly wigs, so why not mandate that SCOTUS "justices" ALWAYS have to wear silly wigs when seen in public? They already wear silly, billowing dresses so why not have them dot the i? The SCOTUS has proven itself to have become a dangerous farce, let them fully dress the part!
    1
  1495. The "Chicken" dance? Just goes to show how little it takes to send 'Muricans careening off in search of a conspiracy theory that can be blamed on some other nation...
    1
  1496. I pay nothing to health insurance companies - you see, I do not live in the US, I live in a country where health care is a RIGHT and every citizen is covered.
    1
  1497. AOC: She is a beginner in this business. Making mistakes is part of the learning process, but at least she is an honest person and will no doubt own up to any mistakes she makes. Wouldn't that be refreshing in a politician?
    1
  1498. So, Trump might off himself, like Hitler, No big deal. The important thing is: The USA, the main superpower on the planlet, managed to elect a lunatic as it's leader! There are no checks or guardrails when a leader is elected in a severely flawed democracy like the US - a glib but moronic lunatic managed to snatch the prize. That is not criticizing Trump, it just says all there needs to be said about the rotten state of the US. This is by no means a leader the rest of the world is ready to follow...
    1
  1499. What a slick business model in a land where "greed is GOOD"! No wonder the US is rushing down the drain...
    1
  1500. The simple fact that there is a theoretical chance that Trump might be re-elected by the means of decades-long voter suppression, gerrymandering and judicial system corruption says it all: The US as we have known it is doomed! Biden might be better than Trump, but only marginally - his handlers are the same big-money donors that controlled Trump (well, at least Putin & the Saudis will be out of the game). There will be no changes under Biden, the health care system will remain broken and corrupt, higher education will be out of reach for most US citizens, inequality will only get worse and the infrastructure will keep on crumbling. Progressives like Bernie, AOC and their likes were too little, too late. Like I said: The US is doomed!
    1
  1501. And 'Muricans actually still DARE call the US the greatest country that ever was? The US is obviously the most broken and mismanaged country in the last few centuries, and US elites are about to pay the price when the whole scam finally explodes in their face - in other words, there is a national uprising. We're just seeing the beginning of that. The police and even the military will be powerless if this ends up a French-revolution-scale uprising.
    1
  1502. What strikes me about the video is it's potenial authenticity: The Narrator has a decidedly 'Murican way of speaking, and the fervent emphasis on corporate profits being the be-all and end-all is highly suspect. I believe this is a hit-job, a misinformation campaign mounted by 'Murican corporate interests! Put it in perspective: Europeans are "Lazy" because they enjoy a nice work-life balance, e.g. by having 4-6 weeks of paid annual leave! They are also "Lazy" because they work fewer hours - a direct result of gains in productivity also benefiting the employees (blasphemy in 'Murica, where corporate greed is paramount). European GDP is lower - because European societies "waste money" on affordable health care and education, safe infrastructure and public transportation, all absolute no-no's in 'Murica. Also (gasp, shudder), the wealthy (individuals and corporations) pay a larger share into the common coffers, greatly reducing inequality - which, in turn, greatly reduces crime and a host of social problems like homelessness. Now, would any of you 'Muricans want to live in a hellhole environment where health care is affordable, education is basically free and mandatory, where you get to "slouch off" for a month on full pay and are not a 24/7 slave to your employer AND you are paid a livable wage without relying on tips? Nah, I guess not because that is SOCIALISM!
    1
  1503. ...it's insane, it is wrong, it is it is . . . When all is said and done, IT IS 'Murica! Can you change it? Can you even be bothered to TRY to change it ! ?
    1
  1504. Bring the BBB bill to the vote in the Senate and let the corrupt "democrats" vote it down in plain sight. Let US voters actually see which corrupt politicians are FOR or AGAINST the interests of the average US citizen. Following that, let the same voters decide who to support in the upcoming mid-term elections, not to mention in 2024. Whatever the majority of voters go with is just what they deserve! If US voters allow Trump's fascists to regain power, THEY WILL GET WHAT THEY DESERVE - the end of the US republic, with all the misery that entails! Germany went through this process 80 years ago, and we all know how THAT ended.
    1
  1505. Good analogy: If the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was like an appendix, the US now is suffering from acute appendicitis, a normally fatal condition unless properly treated. The authors of the US Constitution were obviously very wise people, but they were lousy prophets. The shenanigans of the current crop of corrupt politicians will have them spinning in their graves.
    1
  1506. The old adage "if it sounds too good to be true, it certainly IS too good to be true" applies here, as usual...
    1
  1507. This clip ended on a tribute to the most dangerous president the US ever had, the president that started the corrupted decline that Trump is currently presiding over, the decline that is likely to end US democracy as we know it.
    1
  1508. Trump is simply a Putin tool - he is dismantling the institutions established by the Founding Fathers of the US and the alliances that kept the Soviet Union at bay. Now Putin and Russian organized crime are succeeding where the USSR failed.
    1
  1509. My country, Iceland, spent around $4200 pr. person in health care in 2019. Germany spent around $5800 per person and the US spent $10200 per person. This moment in time, middle of April 2020, is a moment of truth - the handling of the SARS Cov-2 virus: The US is fast becoming a disaster area, both economically and health-care-wise, while Germany is doing much better and Iceland is. The statistics as of Apr. 24, 2020: US: 1 dead per 17 infected, 1 dead per 6.6K citizens. DE: 1 dead per 21 infected, 1 dead per 15K citizens. IS: 1 dead per 180 infected, 1 dead per 35.7K citizens. Fact: The results are inversely proportional to health care costs for the 3 countries! We happen to KNOW that the a big factor is the reaction time - Iceland reacted VERY quickly, Germany reacted quickly and the US reacted far, far too late. In this case, size does not matter, reaction time does. In fact, the US has proved to be too big to be able to react to really important issues, i.e. too big to succeed at anything - or not small enough to succeed at anything! Which is worse?
    1
  1510. One thing is crystal clear: The US political system offers the best/worst (take your pick) politicians money can buy. It does not bode well for 'Murica.
    1
  1511. Can we agree that 'Murica is a nation of certifiable idiots? The certifiable idiots (the gun-mad religious zealots) may be a minority, but the rest of 'Muricans are to lazy or complacent to get off their arses and make sure 'Murica does not end up like Germany in the nineteen thirties!
    1
  1512. Hasn't the patent protection on this drug expired long ago? If it came on the market in 1952, it has been on the market for 67 years!
    1
  1513. In he Nixon SCOTUS crisis, the court was still populated by relatively sane justices, people that valued the rule of law, not the rule of the party leader. That does NOT apply today! Chris, I was struck by your "all SCOTUS justices are grown-up, literate human beings" comment, and I beg to differ. This does not NOT apply today - the the SCOTUS majority is populated by blatantly, in-your-face corrupt individuals! Now, what are the emergency measures? As far as I know, the Executive branch have, on rare occasions, simply ignored out-of-touch SCOTUS rulings (Google it!), so the president, by older precedents, the means to thwart any SCOTUS rulings that amounts to a Constitutional Crisis - after all, the SCOTUS is just a plump slab of powerless lard, without any means of enforcing whatever crazy rulings they have been bribed to make. Former presidents have done this successfully! The results of the next 'Murican elections would be the "make-or-break" moment: Will 'Murica manage to revert to being a sane country or will 'Muricans follow Trump down the path that Hitler and Mussolini led their respective nations almost a century ago?
    1
  1514. Please stop referring to US prisons as "correctional facilities" - they are anything but that! To the rest of the Western world, US prisons are revenge-based torture facilities where no attempt is made to make the inmates better citizens when released. The for-profit, privatized part of the US prison system is focused on creating 'returning customers'.
    1
  1515. This is exactly the group of people where a massive infection would actually be useful. Can you imagine what a massive cleanup this would be?
    1
  1516. Remember: Russia is supposedly a superpower while the plucky Ukrainians only have some "Sugar Daddies" to help supply them. The military supplies they are getting are far less than they obviously wish for, but they are utilizing what they get quite ingeniously! Putin and his successors will be a genuine danger to the West while they are in power, and the time to help both the Ukrainians and normal Russian citizens is NOW, while Putin and his cronies are on their back feet. If Ukraine manages to kick Russia out of pre-2014 Ukrainian territories, the current Russian regime will most likely collapse, and the Russian people might get another shot at establishing a proper, democratic nation without being robbed blind like they have for the last 30 years.
    1
  1517. The common 'Murican argument of "Why should I pay for someone else's education/health care, whatever" exposes an all too prevalent aspect of the 'Murican sick psyche: Me, Me, ME mentality instead of the simple WE concept. The US was NOT like this almost 80 years ago - but then again, the US was different from what it is now. At the time EVERYONE had a shot at the American Dream, industry was booming and every family made a good living with only one member of the family having a job, ONE JOB! Throughout Europe, we do not "pay for other people's education or health care", we simply ALL chip in, one way or another, for the common good because we know that one day we are bound to become recipients of the "common good". It works for us, what makes you silly' Murican sods think you are different?
    1
  1518.  @kellyalves756 , of course almost certainly money laundering. I wonder how easily they can find proof of that, once they get their hands on his recent tax returns, not to mention banking documents being subpoena-ed these days. Should not be hard.
    1
  1519. The elderly and immunity-deficient are a huge drain on the health insurance industry - having them die off in droves is a windfall for the health care system profiteering parasites. My advice to the US general population is to watch news about how other countries are responding to the epidemic/pandemic: Ignore US media (CNN, MSNBC etc.), follow "foreign" news on the internet, such as BBC. At least the Brits do not make it their business to lie to the US public...
    1
  1520.   , I specifically recommended that they move NORTH (Canada) or EAST (Europe) to experience a different world. No worries mate, no mention of Australia. Besides, the only US Americans that would WANT to listen to this advice would be the sensible ones, not the Trumpies. If this was happening in the nineteen-thirties in Germany, the Trump crowd would be clamoring to get into the SA and later the Gestapo and the SS - just the types that are now crowding into the southern US border patrol. I do not see this ending well... I am NOT a US American, I live on an island like you (Iceland). Mind you, your island is A LOT bigger than mine... And yes, I know your island is actually a continent!
    1
  1521.  @aviacopeland2615 , silly me, I did not think about the fact that if you go far enough east you will end up in Russia. Not that the Russian nation is bad, they just have an awfully bad history with their leaders. First the Tsars, then Stalin and now they have Putin and the Oligarchs.
    1
  1522. If a 26 year old European truck felt a bit alien, I wonder what a 2023 model heavy-hauler would feel like.
    1
  1523. Just the thought of accepting the fact that Clinton was "a reasonable president" is rather nauseating. That thought was the beginning of the end of the US as we know it. After 2 terms of "useless Obama, the drone-strike president" that filled a certain violence-in-other-countries desire in the US, Trump came along and clinched the deal. While the US is still the backbone of Western cooperation, the writing is on the wall. The US autocrats/Nazis/racists are obviously taking over and the western disintegration that Putin was counting on is well in progress. Fortunately for Western, democratic nations, Putin miscalculated grossly - the western disintegration he counted on is not as imminent as he counted on and it will be his demise - be it by sickness, assassination or by Russia eventually being blown to smithereens in the inevitable WW3 remains to be seen. Either way, Putin's grandiose dreams are dead in the water, and so is he. The demise of the US, however, remains in question. The upcoming midterm elections will be a harbinger of things to come: Will the corrupt influences in the US prevail or will the current right-wing overreach be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back? Will the general US voting public be jolted out of it's long-term apathy to overthrow the voter suppression, gerrymandering and general corruption of the US political system, or will apathetic US voters allow the US to become full fascist? A US version of Nazi Germany will be the end of civilization as we know it, one way or another. Decades of misery for the entire world will ensue, followed by a Global Chinese Autocratic Rule. Is that what we want?
    1
  1524. One wonders if the Buffalo Freak is expecting the same judicial outcome as the Rittenhouse Freak? In that case, he is in for a rude surprise!
    1
  1525. "...we (the US) have the best pandemic response and testing regime in the world, thanks to Trump's leadership"! This guy is living in an alternate reality, not the harsh reality ordinary US citizens are living in. Good for him, at least until ACTUAL reality lands on his head.
    1
  1526. Imagine if you had to choose and negotiate which fire department or police force would turn up when you call 911. Imagine if an Icelandic military force was invading your coastal state and you had to look up your Defense Contract to know a) which mercenary force or militia to call, and b) if the contract covers invasions by Icelanders! In EVERY developed country some basic issues are guaranteed (and paid for with your taxes): Community safety (Firefighting and Police), the well-being of yourself and your family (Health Care) and the future of your offspring and yourself (Education and Pension). Most developed countries spend an inordinate amount of resources on warfare (called Defense), but there is one country that is geologically invasion-proof but still spends astronomic sums on "defense", but have only used their military forces for actual OFFENSE in the last 70 years, only fighting and even instigating conflict well outside their own border. Their "Department of Defense" should really be called the "Department of Offense". This country is NOT Russia, which has been invaded twice in just a few centuries. Putin's Russia certainly is deplorable, exporting organized and political crime overtly and covertly, but the US appears to be winning the "who is most deplorable" contest. If the US were to crank down their "defense" spending to suit their domestic needs, the "how are you going to pay for affordable health care and education" question becomes moot.
    1
  1527. It is only when compared to Trump the Obama can be considered a good president. He pretended to be a liberal, he wasn't. Expectations were sky-high, which made the disappointment all the worse when he was unable to deliver just about anything. True, it was not HIS fault that his presidency turned out the be mediocre, if you are charitable, he had both the senate and the house stacked against him, but he was after all simply a bloody Corporate Democrat. One wonders if the day will ever come when the US will aspire to what the rest of the developed world is enjoying: General human rights and resonable equality, affordable health care as a RIGHT, not a privilege, and affordable higher education. The formula is simple: Make sure that capitalism can flourish WITHOUT being allowed to pervert everything. Make sure that taxpayer money is used for the benefit of THE PEOPLE, not only big corporations and billionaires. The list goes on. The way things are going, the US will become a Fascist state, an useless pariah among nations, and an authoritarian state sailing under a false flag (China) will become the dominant nation in the world. What a dismal thought! The prospects are not bright. Biden is just another Corporate Democrat that will not have any impact on the living conditions in the US. The US will continue to spend too much money on waging ware abroad, earning genuine enemies, while allowing everything inside the borders of the US to crumble, be it infrastructure, health care, education or the general welfare of the US population.
    1
  1528. This does not make you 'Muricans look weak, it exposes you for what you are: Spineless, ignorant and greedy idiots that still believe what you used to be. There WAS a time when the US counted for something, but that time is in the past, history. In the present, in 2025, 'Murica has openly discarded the mantle of "the leader of the free world". 'Murica is now officially an organized crime nation, using methods common in the 1930s.
    1
  1529. My first thought: Wasn't Poroshenko a Putin puppet that was cast off by the Ukrainian people by popular consent, someone that had to flee to Russia? With minor Google research I find that I am totally mistaken, for which I sincerely apologize, the Putin puppet I was thinking of was named Viktor Yanukovych! Ukrainians have had a taste of actual democracy, i.e. being able to vote for a government of their choosing, to be repeated on a regular basis. That way they can correct for mistakes made. If Ukraine is allowed to do this in the future, they can choose to elect Zelinsky or Poroshenko or anyone else, the point being IT WILL BE THEIR CHOICE! Will Poroshenko be a better president than Zelinsky? A moot question, this is for the Ukrainian voters to decide on a regular basis. As an Icelandic national (a founding NATO member nation), we are the only NATO member that has no military, our location in the middle of the Atlantic is our main contribution. Our contribution to NATO has always been strictly humanitarian, and in this crisis we can only contribute a safe shelter for any Ukrainians that manage to make it to our shores. While this might seem useless in the current situation, our hearts and souls are with you!
    1
  1530. I sometimes wonder if Chris Cuomo is just having fun playing "Devil's Advocate" or if he is really a Closet Repugnican. It can be hard to tell. Katie Porter, however, is exceptional! She is obviously blindingly intelligent, experienced and well versed in whatever law she is discussing, and REALLY tenacious and unrelenting when it comes to questioning flaky politicians/officials. She and her fellow freshman House Representatives (Senate equivalents are too few) are the US's best hope for a reasonable and prosperous future.
    1
  1531. Boris being infected: Pardon my language, but GOOD RIDDANCE. What is more, ANY other politician being infected: GOOD RIDDANCE!
    1
  1532.  @luigimarchetti9330 , sorry about this rant, but I am by now totally disgusted with politicians. Boris might not be the worst of them, but he is still a conservative politician, among the worst of the sort...
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  1533. Just imagine if ALL media outlets were to refuse political ads! That would be a giant step towards getting money out of politic (I believe this is actually done in many countries). To have this happen in the money-hungry US media environment would, however, be beyond miraculous...
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  1534. I was born in Iceland in 1950 and for most of my formative years I admired the US and everything the US stood for. Around Nixon and no later than Ronald Bloody Reagan, things started going downhill, the US changed into 'Murica! In the last decade or two, there is absolutely nothing to admire about 'Murica. It is becoming a crappy place where the citizens are virtual working slaves and individual freedoms are being stripped away, one by one. Religion is supposed to rule the land ("christian" religion, that is) - what can we call the Christian version of Sharia law? The way things are going, 'Murica will become a rabid fascist christian theocracy (what a horrible mixture!) within a decade or two, and will then go the way of The Third Reich: A painful demise, followed by some decades of retribution.
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  1535. Ukrainian officials, Prystaiko included, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Damned if they DO, and damned if they DON'T. Poor guys, one can only hope that they emerge from this USA/Russia meddling frenzy with their emerging democracy in a better shape than it was before this all started.
    1
  1536. Please, please change the name of this channel to the more appropriate name "Offensive News". The US has not had to defend it's sovereign soil since Pearl Harbor!
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  1537. Watching this is depressing - and I am not even a US American! The only time I REALLY had to use the health care system in my native country was when I contracted a severe pneumonia that almost killed me. 1 week in ICU in an induced coma and 2 weeks for recovery, ambulance from my local hospital to a bigger hospital and back again for final recovery. I did actually get a surprise bill for what amounts to about $10 (a private specialist that apparently was consulted during my coma). The rest was paid for by our tax-funded Universal Health Care System.
    1
  1538. The "victim" appears to escalate the situation by arguing heatedly instead of simply showing is ID, which would have defused the situation instantly.
    1
  1539. What is the function of attractive young women around Trump? What happens to them once they no longer please "the beloved leader"?
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  1540. It is quite telling that the pundits are relieved that the "experts" are allowed to speak at all, an indication that the Trumpzis are not spinning very much at the moment. The level of distrust in the executive branch is really starting to show.
    1
  1541. To the US: You made your bed, now lie in it!
    1
  1542.  @nancystowell4877 , I agree - and we are all worried. I did not mean to ridicule the US nation and I apologize if my comment came across as such. Our best hope is that Trump's shenanigans motivates US voters to turn out in droves to elect someone sane. We in the Nordic countries may call ourselves social democrats, but what we actually have is welfare capitalism - and it works for us so we KNOW that even Bernie would be a huge improvement for you.
    1
  1543. Being a non-'Murican, I am constantly amazed over the blatant corruption of US Bought-And-Paid-For politics. The bribery is done in plain sight, with the blessing of the US Supreme Court (not to mention the bought-and-paid-for Congress). How corrupt can you get! The way things are going, the US will find itself swimming alone in a disintegrating global situation they were instrumental in creating. Inadvertently drowning in your own excrement is one thing, to do it on purpose really takes the cake!
    1
  1544.  @KibaPwnU  How true!
    1
  1545. One cannot help feeling that 'Muricans are fighting over the best deck chairs from where to observe their ship going down. Their democracy is coming down around their ears and instead of trying to save and repair it, they put all their efforts into analyzing in excruciating detail how it crumbles and, eventually, who to blame.
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  1546. Really telling: Russia says the sinking of the Moskva warship was an accidental fire and then bad weather, yet they are retaliating against a defending nation for destroying it! A typical case of Russian "truth".
    1
  1547. I live in the most 'Muricanized (spelled: the most politically corrupt) Nordic country, Iceland. Our right-wing politicians have been trying - but fortunately failing miserably so far, trying to 'Muricanize our health care system. Health care is very affordable. Essential and critical drugs are very affordable as well, only 'luxury' or non-essential drugs are still expensive, something that is not the case in our fellow Nordic countries. Is it any wonder that most people here vote non-right? Sadly, the main issue facing Icelandic voters is to vote for the least-destructive political parties at any given time. This is an ongoing battle. Fortunately for us, we have magnificent role models: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The chances of becoming an 'Murican medical hellhole are minimal. Listen to Bernie! He has been consistent and truthful on this issue for decades! The rest of the world can only feel sorry for all the Americans that are stuck in the unchained capitalistic hellhole that is the US.
    1
  1548. The main media is STILL wasting airtime by dissecting, analyzing and discussing the absurdities coming from Trump. What is wrong with you guys?
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  1549. A sleek move by the Iranians: The legality of remotely killing a high-ranking foreign national in a third country is quite obviously not kosher, any way you spin it. There is no way the bumbling Trump administration will be able to bluster their way out of this on the international arena. Will Trump be handed over to the Iranians? Definitely not, but propaganda-wise this is a win-win situation for Iran and a lose-lose situation for the Trump administration.
    1
  1550. What is the definition of "being woke" in the minds of Repugnicans? To most people it means something like "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination", to others it means "open-minded" and the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues". To every sane person, this is a GOOD thing to be but to not to the crazy Republicans. In Oxford it can mean past tense of "wake" - in this context hopefully the wake over the rotting corpse of the US Republican party a few years hence.
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  1551. Any "show" Trump might be hosting would be called "The Inmate", heavily featuring orange jumpsuits. If he cannot de jailed for all his misdeeds and corruption while in office, there is plenty of crimes to choose from during his pre-presidential years, not to mention any post-presidential years. Trump will be absolutely unable to walk the straight and narrow.
    1
  1552.  @Nygge1982 , first you will have to FIND green land and ice land, only then can you try to buy them! For a man of your blinding intellect, that might put a crimp on your "plan". Too many 'Muricans cannot find even their OWN country on a map...
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  1553. Who is attacking? Not AOC! She sticks to her guns so the Corporate Dems are attacking HER, not the other way around, but it looks like she is likely to beat them at this game.
    1
  1554. I dislike the "spoiler alert" element of this entire show. The committee (and others "in the know") will have the details, and everyone is apparently whether "to leak or not to leak". Normally moderate committee members use oversized comments like "blow the roof off the House" while others are more circumspect. Personally I hope the "roof blown off the house" scenario will prevail - on steroids - with Trump and most of his henchmen landing lengthy prison sentences. That might, just MIGHT preserve the tatters of what remains of 'Murican democracy.
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  1555. Dr. Fauci keeps telling the truth IN FRONT OF TRUMP, and even immediately correcting Trump after one of his BS-rants. Incredibly, Dr. Fauci has NOT been fired! Trump must have realized that firing the obviously last voice of reason would be political suicide. Same with Amazon suddenly being generous: Jeff Bezos is probably seeing the writing on the wall, realizing the next step in the progression will be Pitchfork-Time (the problem being that in a nation awash with assault-style weapons, the "pitchforks" will be noisy...)
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  1556. The cheek of the woman (if she is one)! She confuses the will of the ultra-right Repugnican "base" with the will of "The American People"! The "American people" includes everyone living on the American Continents, i.e. North America, Central America and South America. From Canada in the north, through to Cape Horn, the southernmost part of Chile! Call yourselves "Unated-Statians" and be done with it!
    1
  1557. So, what is new? Republicans are shameless liars and corporate Democrats are hardly any better...
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  1558. Northern Italy (the most developed and wealthy part of the country) was caught flat-footed when the Covid pandemic hit them. They experienced the worst horrors any society can experience for a while: A saturated health care system, no ICU beds available etc. The US, due to the stupidity and ignorance of Trump and his enablers, is just beginning to experience the horrors the Italians had to endure. Given the typical and Trump-enhanced US ignorance and arrogance, Thanksgiving will be just another Trump-induced super-spreader event. The final death toll will be anyone's guess. European countries have their problems, but they are miniscule compared to the US problems. In most countries a SECOND pandemic wave is a genuine problem that is being properly dealth with while the the US is already losing it's battle with it's THIRD wave. Does anyone really want to live in the US of bloody stupid A? If so, they need to have their heads examined...
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  1559. The default 'Murican response to events like this tends to denial, which will no doubt contribute to the body count when this is over. Turn your back on Mother Nature at your own peril! One thing I have noticed: Hilary will make landfall in the westernmost part of Mexico while still being a full-blown Hurricane - yet 'Murican media seems to be totally unconcerned on behalf of the Mexicans. Are 'Muricans really this narcissistic?
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  1560. Imagine what a crimp this puts on Musk's plans to land a Starship on an unprepared spot on the Moon, not to mention taking off again without incident - even if it would be at only 1/6th the gravity the first SuperHeavy had to overcome recently. THEN imagine the crimp it puts on at least the initial landings/departures on Mars, which has over twice the gravity of the Moon? Then again, the SpaceX wizards have surprised us time and time again...
    1
  1561.  @MrShobar , with the Falcon rockets, for example. Remember all the crashes when they were first trying to land them, and how successful they have been after they finally got it right? They have only landed the Starship successfully once, so they still have kinks to iron out there.
    1
  1562. This entire discussion only confirms how dysfunctional the multi-tiered and corrupt the 'Murican judicial system is.
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  1563. The problem: Under a lunatic like Trump, the US is likely to simply "pull a Putin" on Canada, to invade and confiscate the resources it wants.
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  1564. Do we need any further proof that Trump's moronic politics are a total farce, a clown show?
    1
  1565. What a waste of airtime!
    1
  1566. One can always hope, just imagine all the problems that would be solved in one fell swoop!
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  1567. I have seen better-quality examples of this video and it is pretty clear that the right wing hit a treetop, which separated the fixed right float from the aircraft. By all appearances, BOTH ailerons seem to be deflected up! The float is attached to the bottom of the wing, immediately forward of the aileron, and there is no telling what damage the float separation did to the aileron control linkage structure - the full investigation is likely to reveal that. What is puzzling is what appears to a the full right rudder deflection following the tree impact! Any seasoned pilot will instinctively apply full left aileron and full left rudder in a situation like this, trying to recover from the roll to the right. Loss of control authority appears to be a very likely factor.
    1
  1568. Another example of how clueless Trump was and is: Using Patriot missiles (ground-to-air anti-missile missiles) just takes the cake!
    1
  1569. Re-branding renewable energy as "Sun-coal, Air-coal, Water-coal etc." might work in getting Pennsylvania voters to back a New Green Deal?
    1
  1570. What Trump never seems to consider regarding those he call "Trump-haters" is the fact that a lot of people hate Trump FOR A REASON! Most people tend to hate despicable individuals because of what they did (Timothy McVeigh is a prime example), and that kind of hate is fully justifiable.
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  1571. There is a classic comparison: Some of the Rats are sensing that the vessel is going down and they are sodding off in a timely manner!
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  1572. Little Iceland started testing early and has now performed over 5800 tests per 100K citizens. When this is finally in the past and the carcass can be picked clean, it will be interesting to see the effect of early/widespread testing vs. late/limited testing on the outcome for the various nations around the globe.
    1
  1573. How proud you 'Muricans must be of your "Stable and Beloved Genius Leader". A nation of ignorant people, led by a psychopath that seems unable to put together a coherent sentence.
    1
  1574. The NRA is mostly lobbying for small-arms manufacturers that have, through their marketing and propaganda, made sure that the US is awash with guns. Their solution to the "bad guys with high-volume, rapid-fire assault weapons" is simple: Buy more guns from us to arm the "good guys"! A brilliant marketing strategy, right?
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  1575. Biden will go down in history as a great statesman, putting his nation's interests ahead of his own - then again, seeing how Kamala Harris is taking off, he is likely to feel great relief that things are turning out unexpectedly well. Biden did exceptionally well during his one term, and will probably go down in history as a wise old man that knew when to quit while he was ahead of the game. Can we say the same about Trump? Absolutely not!
    1
  1576. The frequency of severe discrepancies in Thom's videos is suspicious. The soundtrack of this clip is awful, and every now and then these videos have TWO soundtracks out of sync, making the clips unintelligible! Either Thom's team is using crappy equipment or (more likely, this being 'Murica) someone on Thom's team is doing sabotage or (most likely) someone at YouTube is doing the sabotage.
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  1577. I predict that when (not if!) Russia tries to invade Finland again, Putin will come away with something far worse than a bloodied nose (as Stalin did in WW2). Finland has been preparing for a bloody Russian invasion for almost 90 years and they are certainly well READY! Seeing that Finland is now a full-fledged NATO member as well, anyone (even deranged individuals like Putin and Xi) are in for a rude awakening! Now, with Putin having his soiled nickers at his knees, Finland is likely to reclaim the territories Stalin took from them 85 years ago - and about time!
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  1578. Gaetz and Trump probably do not care what Francesca thinks about them. After all, just look at her. She has brown eyes and a permanent tan. She is a colored person! A colored person that definitely does NOT like Trump or anything he stands for! An extermination-camp-level offense! Never mind that she is pretty, very intelligent and more eloquent that Trump or Gaetz will ever be (as well as having a killer sense of humor!) - not to mention the fact that she is apparently of Italian origin and thus has a pedigree that can be traced back to the Roman empire!
    1
  1579. Any Russian Military Commanders directing this atrocity should be internationally hunted down and prosecuted as war criminals when this is over. The Geneva convention still applies, and Putin is the prime perpetrator.
    1
  1580. To throw shit around, you have to be in possession of a lot of it yourself to begin with. Trump has a lot of shit that he can sling at others, no surprises there.
    1
  1581. To an outsider like me, it certainly looks like the 'Murican judicial system is hopelessly broken. Just listening to all the circular arguments presented in this clip! It seems to all about who has the money to hire lawyers to endlessly delay and muddle things. The whole chaotic muddle only confirms the truth of the old saying: "The Law has NOTHING to do do with Justice".
    1
  1582. So, Russia has "highly organized, well supplied and cooperative" state and private forces? From what we have seen, it is a truly formidable Paper Tiger - on paper.
    1
  1583. This is horrifying! What Bill Kristol is focusing on here is how the dysfunctional Republican party can be "rebuilt" post-Trump, NO thought is given to how essential US institutions can be repaired so they become functional again, how to root out all the corruption Trump has introduced or even how to make the US livable again for ordinary citizens. There is no mention of the horrific death toll and economic disaster caused by Trumps absolute mishandling of the pandemic from the beginning. All Bill thinks about here is how to salvage the stranglehold Repugnicans have on power in the US. I wonder if being a conservative or a Repugnican is a symptom for a serious mental defect that makes people morally blind.
    1
  1584. Consistency is NOT what 'Muricans expect from their politicians, even when it hits them over the head like a sledgehammer - Bernie has actually been the ONLY consistent 'Murican politician for decades, but the average 'Murican voter has a severe handicap: Unable to recognize the genuine thing that is in plain sight and, even in the case of vague recognition, electing the loud-voice-liar-that-intends-to-screw-you-over instead of a someone that has been preaching AND practicing genuine for-the-people politics for decades. People as stupid as 'Muricans appear to be really DESERVE the crappy politicians they have elected to ruin their lives. Sympathy? None deserved, none given.
    1
  1585. If the "highest court in the land" is this blatantly corrupt, what can be expected with the lower courts? At this point in time, the lower courts at least appear to be holding out, but cracks are forming - just watch the farce playing out in Florida!
    1
  1586. Vindman put it succinctly: It's really a sad day, seeing 'Murica shedding all it's usual allies and "going it alone" with allies like Russia, North Korea and China.
    1
  1587. This makes you wonder what kind of person DeSantis actually is. He seems to have no shame or ability/willingness to differentiate between fact or fiction. To him, a lie is just as good, if not better than a truth - total moral void. Given the recent history of US "democracy", he seems a shoe-in as the next leader of the previously-free-soon-to-be-fascist nation formerly known as the USA.
    1
  1588. Handcuffed and with 3 massive US police officers restraining him, he was definitely and certainly "secured". The police officer pressing his knee into his neck did certainly murder him, apparently on purpose. To the rest of the world that criminal cop is simply a cold-blooded murderer, and given rumors about numerous complaints against him, this is probably not his first murder, just the one he (and his colleagues) is not getting away with. There is an entirely different and important factor at play now, something that is bound to break the camel's back: The pandemic in the US has resulted in tens of millions of people, already economically distressed, and now without a job, income and health insurance. Tens of millions of angry, even furious people watching this atrocity, with no relief in sight and plenty of time on their hands are now taking to the streets (we are all watching that with morbid fascination), not only in Minneapolis, but all over the US. This is no flash-in-the-pan, it is even more widespread than the last time something similar happened in the Americas in 1775. The oppressors (NOT the British this time around) are in for a hard time.
    1
  1589. When members of the 'Murican MAGA administration starts demanding "respect" from other nations, and only receive increasing disrespect from each and every one of them, any sane politician would recognize the writing on the wall. The problem: The MAGA administration is utterly devoid of sanity! I pity ordinary 'Murican citizens, they will be treated with utter disdain for at least a decade or two, following this.
    1
  1590. Feb. 28 2025, a day that will live in infamy. The day the US government shamed itself in front of the world and earned the disdain of all it's former allies. The only country that is more unreliable than Putin's Russia is now the Unites States of Amoral people! 'Murica is shedding allies like dandruff these days!
    1
  1591. 'Murica had a morally and intellectually deficient Repugnican narcissist for president for 4 years, with one of the side effect s being a mishandled pandemic response that cost hundreds of thousands of 'Murican lives, not mentioning the partial dismantling of some of the most important institutions and constitutional rights of 'Murican citizens. Now 'Murica is lining up for a presidential candidate that is just as narcissistic and even more morally deficient than the previous one. The really bad news: This one is NOT as intellectually deficient as the previous on, he just might prevail where Trump floundered. If 'Muricans end up with DeSantis as president, they bloody well DESERVE him - and the subsequent ride into fascism and a fast journey into dystopia.
    1
  1592. There are so many lies flying about from this administration that they are unable to keep them straight.
    1
  1593. Curious: There is nothing to hide, so - this has to be suppressed, come hell or high water! The world will be a much better place once the Trumpzis are out of office. Not that the world was a calm and peaceful place before Trump took office, it just has been coming apart at the seams since he did. I hope we all survive this ridiculous nonsense.
    1
  1594. Modern-day Repugnicans simply cannot be humiliated to any effect: They are shameless - they are incapable of feeling shame or humiliation, no matter how blatantly false and ridiculous their behaviour is.
    1
  1595. This particular Kennedy is probably the most dishonorable right-wing 'Murican have ever watched, and that is saying A LOT!
    1
  1596. As a non-'Murican, I cannot help feeling the farce that presents itself as the 'Murican "Judicial System" (the epitome being the SCOTUS, a bought-and-paid-for entity!). The bottom line is the universal truth that "the law" has absolutely NOTHING to do with "justice"! Let that sink in for a minute!
    1
  1597. I have always had a hard time accepting that a single individual (Biden in this case) single-handedly "created" so-and-so many jobs. In my opinion, Biden FACILITATED the creation (or re-creation) of jobs by curtailing the ability of greedy corporations to export jobs, and even begin the process of re-importing or returning lost jobs.
    1
  1598. I wonder: Is Corporate Democrat Schiff waiting for his corporate handlers to tell him which way to go?
    1
  1599. Trump's go-to defense strategy seems to lie incessantly about everything, such as repeating "I did nothing wrong" ad nauseam.
    1
  1600. So, the current situation (US democracy and institutions being systematically corrupted and dismantled in plain sight) is NOT unusual and extreme circumstances? If even Katie Porter does not think so, Trump and his handlers are about to win and the US as we know it is doomed. This fallacy that Democrats are actually able to walk and chew gum at the same time is a Trump-style lie. The Democraps are useless, they have been unable to accomplish anything that benefits the general population for decades and they are not about to do so now. AOC, Bernie, Katie Porter and a few others have been the shining hope for a better future, but when someone like Katie Porter appears to be about to give up the fight, the cunning Repugnicans are about to win - and the rest of the world is about to lose big time, at least in the coming decade or so. After that there will be no US, only China and Putin's Russia...
    1
  1601. I have decided on an experiment this year. If I meet an 'Murican in my country that needs aid or directions, I will first ask if he/she is a Republican. If the answer is yes, I am determined to rudely walk away with the words "I do not consort with inhumane idiots"! Of course, if they are in genuine need of aid or comfort, it will be provided - I am not a Right-Wing-type monster devoid of empathy, I just have acquired a thorough disgust with the type.
    1
  1602. I think Ari Melber represents everything that is WRONG with 'Murica society: He is a lawyer and sticks to the "letter of the law" - and as some wise person remarked, "the law has no relation to justice". Make what you will from that!
    1
  1603. My prayers go out to Ruddy Rudy - but seeing that I am an atheist, any prayers of mine are meaningless. Persaonally, I would not shed a single tear is Rudy joins the ranks of the almost 290K US American Covid-19 fatalities.
    1
  1604. I really liked the "Why do people go on Jon Stewart's show" quip! This especially applies to idiotic right-wingers that should know better, idiots like Nathan Dahm that can be assured to be reamed a new anal hole by Jon. Every other developed nation is aghast over the fact that in 'Murica, a citizen has to jump through many and difficult hoops to be ALLOWED to vote (such as REGISTERING!), while Republicans are trying to ensure that purchasing an assault weapon and loads of ammunition is unregulated! EVERY other developed and civilized (and even the most uncivilized) nation has a reversed situation! Voting is a RIGHT, automatically established when reaching the appropriate age, while owning a firearm of any sort is heavily regulated - you need to jump through many hoops, checks and training to own even a single-shot shotgun (high-capacity assault weapons are outright BANNED, what normal society needs them?), while voting is automatic and easy, even if you are in prison. I keep wondering at what point 'Murica started going off the rails like this. Are you a nation of retards? Sorry, stupid question! You have thoroughly proved that you are a nation of undisciplined an uneducated lackwits.
    1
  1605. One wonders how the right-wing sister in this story is feeling these days. . . My old man got Covid exactly a year ago - and breezed through it in less than 3 days. He turned 93 two months later. When vaccinations for Covid survivors became available this year, talking into getting the jab was easy, even if he is and always has been - by our Icelandic standards - a far-right-winger! Mind you, by 'Murican standards he would actually be called a pink-commie socialist. We have a lot less misinformation and a lot of proper information floating around in my country than you do in the US.
    1
  1606. Gwn. Mark Milley may be a paragon of honesty and transparency for all I know but, unfortunately, he will always carry the blemish of having followed Trump on his upside-down-Bible-waving mission. Since he is still in a position of power, I fervently hope he is not still a Trump-stooge, as he obviously was at the time.
    1
  1607.  @michaela26015  No third parties involved.
    1
  1608. 'Murica in a nutshell. I wonder if they find circling the sewer drain on the way down to be a relief?
    1
  1609. Frankly, Bill Taylor is the type of US American that made the US worthy of admiration and respect following WW2 and well into the sixties. An era long one...
    1
  1610. Petrol heads notwithstanding (I'm one of them), denial will get you nowhere! Performance-wise, electric cars will beat the socks off any supercar you might imagine! My brother decided to support Fascist Musk by buying a Tesla top model the one with gull-wing rear doors, and when I sat into it and floored it I was actually scared! The acceleration (drive on all 4 wheels and reportedly around 1000hp available at the tip of your right toe). I will never floor one of these dangerous things again!
    1
  1611. Alexandria is brilliant! She is able to but her finger on critical issues with a single sentence: Every developed nation is able to do affordable health care and education, why can't America?
    1
  1612. The ICE director is probably just the type the German Nazi Party recruited into the Gestapo. Give this a couple more years and the entire US law enforcement will be run by types like this. Then, some decades away, when the time of reckoning comes, they will use a well-known plea: I was just following orders!
    1
  1613. Did you know that Iceland, despite it's language purification binge a century or two ago, is the only language in this sphere where the Church managed to abolish the Old Norse Gods from the weekday names? Sunday/Söndag is still Sunnudagur - no conflict there. Monday/Mandag is still Mánudagur, lit. Moon day - no conflict either. Tuessday/Tirsdag (Ty's day) is now Þriðjudagur, lit. "Third day" - but should be "Týsdagur". Wednesday/Onsdag (Wotans/Odins day) is now Miðvikudagur, lit. "Mid-week day" - but should be "Óðinsdagur". Thursday/Torsdag (Thors's day) is now Fimmtudagur, lit. "Fifth day" - but should "Þórsdagur". Friday/Fredag (Frey's day) is now Föstudagur, lit. "Fasting day" - but should be "Freysdagur". Saturday/Lördag is still Laugardagur, lit. "Bathing day". ("Laug" is Old Norse for a bath or a bathing pool)
    1
  1614.  @hebber1961 , that is what we were led to believe. I, for one, take that with a shitload of salt.
    1
  1615.  @nettoyagedelamaison9557  , childish nickname for a childish nation...
    1
  1616. I am no authority on the rise of Hitlers Nazis in the twenties and thirties, but from what i have read about it, that is EXACTLY what Trump has been doing: Normalizing hatred for non-whites (in Hitler's case it was Jews an non-Aryans), and dismantling the existing institutions of the nation. The main difference is the fact that the Trumpzis is working much faster than the Nazis: Only two and a half year in, the Trumpzis are already concentrating unwanted non-whites in camps in the south (spelled CONCENTRATION camps). That stage took the Nazis a lot longer to reach.
    1
  1617.  @RockinDave1 , you seem to have more information than US intelligence services. If your info is correct, an internal explosion seems to be ruled out. The horizontal stabilizer on these aircraft flies inverted, i.e. provides a stabilizing down force that keeps the nose up (hence the name). If an external explosion rips off half the tail, not to mention all of it, the plane will pitch violently down and, at jet speeds, the ensuing and intense negative-G forces can/will break a wing off - downward. The landing gear will have been up and locked, it's condition is irrelevant.
    1
  1618. As a Nordic citizen, I find that Newsome is somewhat on he right track while DeSantis and Hannity are off in Lala-lala-lala-land. What I find amost objectionable and disheartening is how the entire 'Murican political debate is ALWAYS about denigrating the opponent, by fair means or foul, and NEVER properly discuss the issues that will really benefit the life of ordinary 'Muricans. Mudslinging and generally throwing shite at everything in sight is the name of the game, positive or constructive discussions are nowhere in sight, ever!
    1
  1619. This is the final proof: 'Murica is a nation of ignorant idiots!
    1
  1620. The Russian nation will only truly learn about their losses a good while after Putin is dead and cold in the ground, whether by old age or by other means. The world already knows about the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people and the inefficiency of the "mighty" Russian military. The sticky bit: Will our cowardly Western leaders come up to scratch in time? While their reluctance to escalate is understandable, the fact remains: Either they rub out Putin NOW or we have to go through the whole process again within 10 years! While doing it now will be painful and costly to everyone, postponing it will be even more painful and more costly. The man is mad and out of control! All the Western nations have to do is to bring massive air assets near the conflict and tell Putin in no uncertain terms: We will NOT tolerate this! Enforcing a no-fly zone is NOT a declaration of war against Russia. It is simply to protect Ukrainian citizens within Ukrainian borders, and pales in the face of the blatant and undeclared warfare Russia has unleashed on the Ukrainian people. Will Western leaders have the spine to do this now? They will HAVE to, eventually, and hopefully not too late. Mark my words: Putin will take Moldova in passing this time around, and within 10 years he will go for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
    1
  1621. I'm a non-'Murican (fortunately) but I have been following 'the madcap 'Murican political situation lately. What a relief to drop in on a rational discussion about current UK politics AND a somewhat rational discussion about the current upheavals in 'Murican politics! The next few weeks will be really interesting - is 'Murica salvageable?
    1
  1622. This was a GIRL, so the pastor is not queer - so what is the big deal? After all, anything goes in the GOP - except being Gay, or being Black, or being Female, or being.... the list goes on. Being a pedophile or an adulterer or a sexual abuser is perfectly acceptable in the GOP!
    1
  1623. This woman is a typical European; What is her first language? French, Dutch, German, English? Does it really matter? She is already everything that 'Murican leaders cannot ever aspire to! There is a serious showdown coming up, one where 'Murica might possibly make a case for justifying itself. Frankly, 'Murica has been idiotic and every indication is that 'Murica is in the "idiot" league. Your choice of leadership only confirms it - you are a nation of ignorant idiots!
    1
  1624. Sadly, we European NATO nations have been, in one way or another, "sponging off" the excessive 'Murican "defense" expenditure (should be spelled "offense", seeing how many times they have invaded other countries, aided by their NATO allies). Well, that just ended. Period. 'Murica Alone is the future. I wonder how many decades it will take for 'Murica to regain even a semblance of the respect they used to have globally.
    1
  1625. Two recurring falsehoods have been revered by some 'Muricans for decades. One of them is : "' 'Murica is the Greatest/Best country in the world!". No, it isn't, in fact the American Dream has turned into the American Nightmare over the last 40-50 years. The other falsehood, "This is NOT 'Murica, this is not who we are!", usually chanted when faced with unpleasant truths about what 'Murica has become, is simply an outright denial of obvious facts.
    1
  1626. It does not matter if 'Muricans have been brainwashed with the " 'Murica is the greatest country in the world" and " 'Murica is a country of Law and Order", two of the biggest lies floating around in this centuryhese statements, but the fact remains that 'Murica is a big, fat LIE! 'Murica has been neither Great or law-and-orderly for over 50 years...
    1
  1627. Are photographers REALLY still using old, noisy SLR cameras? You can hardly hear the dialog for all the cameras rattling away! I really thought that EVERYBODY were using silent digital cameras nowadays - are they really unable to turn off the simulated shutter sound, or at least turn down the volume?
    1
  1628. What a farce! Ukrainians will face massive retaliation if they dare to resist the Russian onslaught? What could be worse than the current total destruction Russia has and is already visiting on large parts of Ukraine? More retaliation? By fighting back with increasingly better equipment Ukraine is likely to "suffer the pain" of regaining the territory that Russia has illegally stolen so far. Russia is behaving like the bully that sees his victims unite against him: Lots of blustering and tough talk before the bully turns tail and runs whining home to a place that will no longer be sustainable for them. Wanna bet how well Russian Oligarchs will fare in the West after the war?
    1
  1629. To us non-'Muricans, the level of dumbing-down of the 'Murican nation is astounding! This nation used to be world leaders in education and innovation a mere half-century ago! The attention span of 2024 'Muricans seems about the same as that of a Goldfish, or a Gnat, i.e. nonexistent! What happened to you guys? My personal opinion is that the 'Murica main media has failed miserably - and that means YOU among others, Ari Melber! Your approach may be unique and sometimes thought-provoking, but IT IS MAKING NO DIFFERENCE! This obsession with the rising costs of living (fuel, food, housing) is ridiculous - the problem is STAGNANT WAGES, not rising costs! Take 2 of the "most expensive countries in the world", Iceland and Norway (let's leave Switzerland out of it for the time being): Food and gas are expensive, but WAGES ARE HIGH as well! Social services (Health Care and Education) are very affordable, the concept of "medical bankruptcy" is met with a "WHAT IS THAT?" and, most telling: Iceland and Norway are consistently ranked among the 5 "happiest" (least discontent?) countries in the world! One wonders why...
    1
  1630. Nothing is for free! The current $17 Trillion difference now ends up as profits for the shareholders and CEOs of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies! Single payer is more efficient by mostly eliminating the for-profit motive of your current system.
    1
  1631. @SARAH Connors, you are hinting that the Corporate democrats cannot be trusted to do anything about this.  Sadly, you are probably correct - at least until enough Justice democrats have been elected to both the House and the Senate. That will take at least several election cycles, and may even never happen.
    1
  1632. When any dam breaks, a flood ensues. After the flood, equilibrium eventually ensues! Telling that to a rabid right-winger is like talking to a wall - or the wind - or a vacuum. In that universe, ignorance reigns.
    1
  1633. When all the beans have been counted, 'Murica (The US of effing A) has only one problem: 'Murica itself! Greed and Stupidity seem to have been your guiding lights for centuries.
    1
  1634. Sadly, you (the US) elected this monster. You reap as you sow... There is a simple solution to this: Make sure Trump, Barr, Pompeo etc. receive a massive dose of the Covid virus. Problem solved.
    1
  1635. Should "the West" be worried? Nah, China know on which side it's bread is buttered. While a massive country like China is understandably not content with the dominant role the US has been playing for almost a century, their near future prosperity does NOT lie in supporting Putin at any cost. The "West" has a combined population of around 1 billion citizen and are the most developed countries in the world, with the greatest purchasing power and technical know-how.
    1
  1636. Many small quakes are far better than one huge quake. So - triggering quakes is not really so bad, they are bound to be smaller than if we wait for fault line stresses to build up the point where the whole thing "snaps" by itself.
    1
  1637. How many 'Presidents, Prime Misters, Dictators, Kings and Queens' has he received behind the 'beautiful Reasolute Desk' since the pandemic started? The answer is simple: NONE! No leader of any nation is stupid enough to visit the Mad White House, the place where lunatics reside. The entire Trump presidency will be known as "Too many days of infamy".
    1
  1638. Why do you do this? The first thought: Because you are stupid? Personally I think the problem is complacency, not stupidity on behalf of the US voter base - this has allowed political crooks (Repugnicans and corporate Democraps) to gerrymander, voter suppress and lie their way to power.
    1
  1639. I wonder if the crime of stealing Classified Documents Case has a statute of limitations, or will this be waiting for Trump the moment he leaves office? Well, never mind, Trump will have committed a plethora of other crimes that will eventually land him in jail.
    1
  1640. What a pessimistic outlook. The German car industry certainly stuck their heads in the sand for too long and are now lagging behind, but they WILL get over it and start catching up. Volkswagen certainly has a lot of rotten eggs on their face now because they were tempted into using the 'Murican way of cheating their way to greater profits, but even the greediest and most immoral executives should be able to learn from that lesson.
    1
  1641. On top of it all, seeing these clips, some years apart, this lawyer comes across as quite vain. It looks like he has had his lips inflated by lip filler injections.
    1
  1642. 'Murica is clearly NOT a country anyone with a shred of sense would want to live in. Trump actually asked "why do we have immigrants from shitehole countries, why do we not have immigrants from countries like Norway". The answer is simple: No sane person wants to emigrate from a safe and secure country (name any of the north-European countries) to the hellhole 'Murica has become!
    1
  1643. One has to wonder how many former US allies have be made into disgusted skeptics, if not outright enemies before this is all over.
    1
  1644. I'm not 'Murican and no authority on this, but I believe I have read about at least two cases where US presidents with a semblance of a spine simply chose to IGNORE controversial SCOTUS rulings, in effect giving SCOTUS the middle finger! Fact: The SCOTUS has no way of enforcing ANYTHING! To be taken seriously, an entity like the SCOTUS has to have CREDIBILITY, something that is nonexistent these days. The SCOTUS will simply become a joke if the population and the current administration chooses to ignore their blatantly corrupt rulings!
    1
  1645. This is probably the shallowest treatise of Sweden and the history leading up to this moment (we're talking CENTURIES here, not just the last one). The rest of it, however, was not too far off...
    1
  1646. I have long suspected that radical conservatism (which implies a total disregard for the needs of other people) is a mental disorder. Now we might have to throw perversity into the mix when trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of holier-than-thou Repugnicans.
    1
  1647. Isn't this where you say to Caputo: Liar liar, pants on fire! In a normal world his credibility would simply evaporate - bur this is Trump-world, and normal rules do not apply.
    1
  1648.  @yaxl , the unwilling Russians being drafted have the same dilemma as the Ukrainians, they will forced into trying to kill each other. No good will come from that.
    1
  1649. Trump made sure the US was woefully unprepared for the pandemic. A relatively easy-to-fix situation in the initial stages was the lack of PPE for health care workers. The "establishment" advised that masks were , if not useless, then at least they only gave the wearers a false sense of security - all for the purpose of avoiding a "mask run" - instead of simply making sure that the industrial might of the US was directed to do something USEFUL - like producing all kinds of PPE. The end result: Now the "establishment" has realized that masks REALLY make a difference and wants everybody to wear them (they are plentiful by now, anyway) BUT: Their credibility is irreparably damaged by now. They lied to you once (even if for apparently noble reasons) and this time around too many people simply do not believe them.
    1
  1650. We should all be relieved that the corruption and infighting within the Russian ruling class virtually ensures that Russia as we know it now will collapse fairly soon. The bad news: Whatever might rise from the ashes will be no improvement! Russia is so beyond salvation, it will take generations to even begin to establish a Russian society that just might, eventually, be fit to be considered a civilized nation. The 'Murican Brigadier General interviewed here is scary: All he seems to care about is how an authoritarian could/should shore up his grip on power. This guy would be a shoe-in for whatever fascist leader the 'Murican conservatives hope to install.
    1
  1651.  @unclepatrick2 , one would think that a no-brainer. When you put a lot of people into inhumane conditions, i.e. concentration camps, those at the edge of survival (the old, the already sick and some children) will inevitably not survive. That is a well-known consequence of concentration camps, and the people responsible for establishing those camps would, in a sane world, be held responsible when all is said and done. That will probably happen in the end, IF the US as we know it today, survives the debacle of Trump. The distinction between concentration camps and extermination camps, one would think, is when the people that established the camps begin INTENTIONAL, wholesale killing of the victims. Again, give Trump and his cohorts a few more years and watch what happens...
    1
  1652. I have no sympathy for those right-wing goons that are now facing the consequences of their actions, which is necessary if only to prevent a repeat attempt, yet I find the 'Murican general revenge-based attitude towards punishment quite inhuman. Long prison sentences are one thing, but a prison sentence in an 'Murican jail goes beyond being cruel and unusual punishment for what is supposed to be a civilized nation. 'Murican prisons are, by all accounts, only one step short of purgatory. The chance of actual rehabilitation goes out the window in a system that pays only lip service to it. To call them "Correctional Facilities" is ridiculous.
    1
  1653. Whoever would want to invade the mess that is Russia? True, they have oil and gas resources that many nations want, but their neighbors in the immediate west know there is no real future in fossil fuels and are steadfastly beginning to wean themselves off the stuff. It will take a decade or two, but the choice is simple: Ditch the habit or perish! I have a nasty daydream about a 1917-like revolution taking place in Russia in the immediate future, and all the degenerated oligarchs, along with the plutocrats and mobsters being eliminated much like the the degenerated aristocrats were just over a century ago.
    1
  1654. What is needed right now is for the pandemic to reach inside the White House. Trump, Pence, Pompeo, these are all old men with various underlying medical problems and they have certainly been very lax regarding preventive measures. If anyone deserves a massive infection, it is Trump...
    1
  1655. What Canada should do to 'Murican truckers that are violating Canadian Traffic Laws is to arrest each and every one of them, impound their rigs and auction them off to cover the cost of dealing with these idiots, and then Canada should make these truckers "persona non grata" for life, banning them from ever entering Canadian territory again. That should be sufficient to cure those bullies. Canada is NOT 'Murica! The Anti-Vaxer idiots might be able to get away with their bullying tactics south of the Canadian border, but they have no right to force their idiocy and bullying on other nations!
    1
  1656. Arredondo's actions (or inactions) are grounds for criminal neglect of duties - at a minimum! Given the actions (or rather inactions) of Uvalde's (TX) county officials, SOMEONE is guilty of SOMETHING! Any rational society would not rest until the real, genuine truth has been published. The current and blatant in-plain-sight corruption is on display every day. Given the vengeful mindset of 'Murican citizens, Arredondo is a dead man walking. At least 19 sets of grieving parents and a vast number of relatives that have realized that, but for the cowardice and/or incompetence of Arredondo and his fellow officers, their child might be alive and well! Arredondo might flee to another state, or even to another country, but some vengeful relatives will eventually hunt him down and give him the full AR-15 treatment! Or - given the vengeful 'Murican temperament, perhaps the Arredondo's children on/or grandchildren are the ones that should start looking over their shoulder wherever they go? A horrible situation if innocents might suffer for the actions of lunatics or cowards (take your pick), but there you go! 'Murican gun-drenched and revenge-based society in a nutshell!
    1
  1657. This fundraising issue REALLY exposes who is running the US. Lindsey Graham is just openly being a politician: The only profession that makes a fat, cushy living by lying to, misleading and betraying their constituents!
    1
  1658. Anyone that thinks the Nordic countries are "socialist" is an ignorant idiot, and chances are that this idiot is an US American.
    1
  1659. Initially, one felt sorry for ordinary Russians that had nothing to do with this, BUT - the way things are progressing, Russians - even innocent ones - will be having a miserable time anywhere outside Russia. The collective hatred Putin is accumulating against Russia and anything Russian will make life miserable for all Russian expats, wherever they eventually end up. It will take decades, even generations for the wounds to heal to the extent that Russians will again be considered part of the civilized human race. Hoodwinked and currently Putin-leaning Russian citizens are in for a rude awakening when finally the tide breaks and they will be able to see the atrocities Russia has inflicted on Ukraine.
    1
  1660. This is absolutely astounding! This idiot (Meadows) is trying to do the equivalent of trying to convince people that a clear sky is NOT blue and that UP is actually DOWN. Even worse, CNN is actually wasting airtime allowing him a platform to push this nonsense.
    1
  1661. A B737 Max 8 with properly trained crew is probably very safe - but is "probably" good enough until we know more about the Ethiopia crash?
    1
  1662. Another good-looking female (as a number of Fox female talking heads are) that is slavishly following the Trump line. I wonder if Trump has grabbed them by their genitals and managed to mesmerize them with the Trump Magic Touch?
    1
  1663. Here I was, believing the original purpose of the ridiculous US Electoral College arrangement was to provide a balance of political influence between large-area-but-sparsely-populated states one one hand, and small-area-but-densely-populated states on the other hand. Most democratic countries have implemented variants of this arrangement, for exactly the same purpose, and EVERY country has had do deal with cunning and sleazy politicians trying to subvert the purpose of this kind of arrangements over the years. Now Thom Hartman comes along, saying this entire arrangement was originally implemented by the founders of the US to prevent the 2016 Trump debacle from happening! Confused? You won't be after this episode of "US democracy!"
    1
  1664. There are cetrain individuals that do NOT deserve any respect when they finally die. This one certainly deserves the disdain of every ordinary US American. One down, one to go - and let's hope their heirs do not turn out to be quite as horrible as they are/were.
    1
  1665. When the rot has pervaded not only 1/3d of the politics but more than half of the gerrymander-elected State politicians AND the judiciary system if your country, you are staring into the face of oblivion! Will this end with a landslide, true-majority non-Repugnican defeat by record voter turnout, or will it end with a whimper, with a cheating Repugnican victory based on gerrymandering and voter apathy? Given the glaring fact that the lunatics have taken over the asylum in the US, a descent into fascism and autocracy is what most likely awaits the US population.
    1
  1666. Imagine the market for toddler-sized firearms that would open up! Clearly the gun manufacturers wet dream - of course extreme Republicans would support that.
    1
  1667. We can see glimpses of the old 9/11 NY Mayor in this interview. It is astounding how a previously rational being has been twisted into what he is now, irrevocably infected by the Trump Madness.
    1
  1668. Trump IS right in that injecting disinfectants into Covid-19 patients will surely kill the virus, by the simple expedient of first killing the patient.
    1
  1669. What was in the empty "classified content" folders? Anyone wanna bet Trump hasn't already sold the contents to the highest bidder? There are many potential bidders with money to burn: Putin, the Saudis, his proclaimed love Kim Young Un, take your pick!
    1
  1670. Typical Trump spiel: Accuse the "opposition" (those that try to enforce the law, as well as any political opponent in sight) of covertly doing what they themselves are overtly doing. Unfortunately, his mindless, ignorant and brainwashed followers ARE BUYING IT!
    1
  1671. Too many US cops end up becoming brutal executioner with ridiculously little provocation to exonerate all the other cops. Many cops pretend they are "good cops" but while they tolerate murderous bastards like this as their fellow officers, they are complicit to their eyebrows, the end result being that THERE ARE NO GOOD COPS! Just the knowledge these two murderous monsters dressed in police uniforms are likely to get off scot-free makes ones blood boil!
    1
  1672. Feli, I cannot help thinking that if you were to eat all this supposedly German food in the 'Murican-sized portions seen here, you would become VERY 'Murican indeed! (i.e. not slim anymore...).
    1
  1673. The amount of Main Media airtime AND the time of supposedly intelligent journalists spent on analyzing and discussing the absolute nonsense, lies and misinformation emanating from Trump is absolutely astounding. The average US voter may be simply ill-informed or misguided, but the journalists do NOT have that excuse. Trump is the Pied Piper and the press is dancing merrily along!
    1
  1674. Incredibly, only one of the Capitol Defenders gave in to the "standard" 'Murican impulse to draw their sidearm and pull the trigger, ONCE! According to reports, only one shot was fired by the Capitol police, one round that unfortunately ended in a fatality. Given the regular "shoot first, think later" mentality of 'Murican policemen, this is more than a miracle! How come? This simple "after-the-fact" fact should be cause for intense scrutiny - how can 'Murican cops be trained to show similar restraint in their everyday job? My theory: Make every 'Murican cop wear glasses that make EVERYONE look black, regardless of actual color. Current situation results: A recipe for a LOT of police shootings! The flip side: Glasses that make everyone look WHITE would be a recipe for a virtual elimination of police shootings - as evident after the Jan.6 insurrection: 'Murican policemen are reluctant to blindly blast away at "their own people".
    1
  1675. If the Trump DOJ obstructed justice like this, why have the individuals involved (spelled "Barr") not been investigated and potentially prosecuted? Then again, that is a silly question: The head is rotten and has been of decades, even centuries. No wonder the body is beginning to stink...
    1
  1676. Funny how everyone seems to suddenly realized this little tidbit, it has been staring everyone in the face from day one. I'm not 'Muricans so I have to ask: Are 'Muricans such slow-tops or has the Main Media been to busy enjoying the media frenzy around Trump that they simply ignored it? Scholars have been pointing it out for over 2 years, but no one was listening! As a "Last Resort measure" it seems solid enough, now the rest of the world can relax - the world is not running the risk of being plunged into decades of chaos. 'Murica, on the other hand must gird it's loins and prepare for the inevitable showdown that is to come, because the job of abolishing the Confederacy was obviously never fully completed. When the dust settles, 'Murica can hopefully regain it's position as the leader of the western world, this time around as a country that takes proper care of ALL it's citizens.
    1
  1677. Can we hope that enough sane Republicans remain in the US Congress, and that they will they will STAY sane when the lunatics that have now taken over the gavel in the House start their insane attempts to tear down what remains of democracy in the US Congress. It is not a question of IF, only WHEN and HOW. What is about to happen int he Federal US House of Representatives is likely to be the worst farce in the entire history of the US, and any members of Congress that aid and comfort that effort will go down in infamy, possibly even worse than Benedict Arnold.
    1
  1678. Elon Musk has been admired for many things until now, but recently a darker side of him has been emerging and his trailblazer image is becoming a bit tarnished. If he intends to allow any nutjob to push absurd non-factual nonsense on Twitter in future, I predict that Twitter will be Elon Musk's Waterloo. 'Murica might be corrupt enough to allow it (even their SCOTUS is now being exposed as corrupt extremists), but the rest of the western world is unlikely to take it lying down.
    1
  1679. It will not only be 'Murica Alone, it will be 'Murica Hated! Toddler Trump's bullying ways are already alienating 'Murica's bordering countries, Canada and Mexico, and The Toddler and his co-clown are now busy alienating virtually every traditional allied nation in sight!
    1
  1680. I believe that the best elected officials are the reluctant candidates, those that in spite of their reluctance are still willing to roll up their sleeves, do the mucky job and then return to a normal life. Hunger for power, influence and money are NOT the traits in an elected official that will benefit the public.
    1
  1681. Thom's explanation of Hungary and Orban was interesting. Orban has already managed to corrupt Hungary the way Republicans and Trump have been trying to do to 'Murica.
    1
  1682. As a non-'Murican I am always astounded at the corruption in the 'Murican judicial system, ESPECIALLY at how accepting of the corruption 'Muricans are - especially 'Murican legal experts! The mere fact that "who appointed the judge" seems to count more the the letter of the law is very telling of the corruption, not to mention that everyone seems to accept that state of affairs without blinking
    1
  1683. Sorry, but the US has not been "the word's greatest democracy" for a long time. It is a bought-and-paid for system, re-arranged by gerrymandering and the Electoral College arrangement instead of simply letting the popular vote determine the outcome.
    1
  1684. Putin has cried "Wolf" so many times that no one takes his nuclear sabre-rattling seriously anymore. Putin KNOWS that were he to use any kind of nuclear force, INCLUDING indirectly, like sabotaging the largest nuclear power plant on the European continent, will seal his fate and ensure that the entire current Russian hierarchy will be convicted as war criminals and hunted down like rabid dogs for generations to come, much like the Nazis were following WW2.
    1
  1685. Looks like Trump is now reaping as he has sowed...
    1
  1686. Well, heavily populated areas will obviously be straining their freshwater ecosystem by gross pollution, but that is NOT the end-all explanation for changes in freshwater ecosystems. I live in a country where there is almost no pollution in our inland water ecosystem. We have two main types of rivers, glacial runoff and clear water rivers. Our freshwater ecosystems have STILL undergone upheavals that remain to be explained. The main suspect is global warming and rising temperatures, but that is only a SWAG at this point in time. Consider us a reference in this study, the placebo part...
    1
  1687. How does democracy survive this? Well, given the development in 'Murica in recent decades, democracy WILL NOT SURVIVE! The US has been classified as a "Flawed" democracy for more than a decade, it has turned out to be a "Pretend" democracy for over half a decade, and indications are that the US will become a full fascist autocracy within the next decade. Any worries about the upcoming environmental tsunami will be moot. First, rotten politics will kill you and, if/when that phase is over, we will find that our planet is no longer able to sustain us.
    1
  1688. Bleurgh.....
    1
  1689. Just wait 2-4 weeks. The US population is about to be hit by the consequences of the Trump administration being unprepared for the pandemic and the healthcare profiteers intending to make buck of it all. The carnage resulting from all this will result in heads rolling, literally. The Trumpzis will be toast and the private profiteering health insurance scam will be eradicated.
    1
  1690. Sadly, 'Murica has been coming apart at the seams for over 40 years, and the response of the 'Murican public has been DENIAL!
    1
  1691. As an outsider I am watching this with morbid fascination: The lunatics are slowly taking over the asylum - IN PLAIN SIGHT AND ON CAMERA - and Main Media talking heads are calmly discussing the pros and cons of that happening. Nobody can be bothered to lift a finger to save the American Experiment! I am beginning to believe that you deserve what is coming. You vote, and suffer the consequences.
    1
  1692. Privately I abhor monsters like Epstein and would not shed any tears if he and his cronies were to come to a sticky end, but THAT IS NOT THE POINT! Justice will never be true justice if hatred is involved. Period.
    1
  1693. Defense spending? When was the last time the US had to defend it's own territories? I believe that was in WW2 against the Japanese, almost 75 years ago. Every US military action since then has been on non-US soil - why not call it what it is: Offensive spending! Not to mention the fact that the Military-Industrial complex has been making out like bandits these last decades...
    1
  1694. That was A LOT of pent-up nervous energy!
    1
  1695. This is always rich: A guy that is unable to stay on topic, string together a coherent sentence and only re-learned to read (the Teleprompter) during his presidential term, throwing shite at all the accomplished and University-educated opponents he has by calling them "low-IQ"! The biggest shame, however, is on the 'Murican nation for being ignorant enough to have elected this moron into the White House (well, a lot of long-term cheating involved, all on behalf of the Repugnicans). Will the 'Murican nation confirm their ignorance and apathy in 2024 by allow a repeat - and final - performance? Will 50% of 'Muricans (women) agree to forsake all their hard-earned rights, such as control their own bodies and their voting rights (certainly the next to go)?
    1
  1696. One slight error regarding the cost of the US vs. European health care system: The US spends around 17% of GDP on health care while a rough European average is around 10% of GDP. Strictly speaking, the US spends 70% more on health care than Europe, not TWICE as much.
    1
  1697. ...and here I was, thinking the US Navy were absolutely anal about any traffic near their carriers! Apparently not, at least under some circumstances. One can imagine there must be a marked difference between a carrier group passing through contested waters and a carrier "group" (2 vessels?) sailing in "routine" conditions. Then again, I'm just a retired airline pilot with very limited knowledge of maritime issues.
    1
  1698. What a relief, one wishes Nigeria would close off all internet connections immediately! That would cut down the global internet crime by a really significant amount!
    1
  1699. According to this, 'Murica is damaged/corrupt/racist beyond salvation. Bat news for the world.
    1
  1700. Yet another "Perpetual Engine" nonsense. Whatever you do, take the "Electric" channel with truckloads of salt...
    1
  1701. The best-case scenario: Trump goes off in a funk and spends all his time playing golf at his resorts until January. No harm done. Worst-case scenario: Where to begin? Start a war with Iran? Kick every current ally in the teeth and stab them in the back (even more than already done)? Pardon all the crooks in his service? It goes without saying that the next 2+ months will NOT be spent on any constructive action to handle the pandemic.
    1
  1702. As a (fortunately) non-'Murican I am thoroughly confused by now: Repugnicans and religious nuts in 'Murica scream and yell about government being too big and their "freedom-from-mask-wearing and vaccinations" being infringed upon during a national health crisis, but are now demanding the government stick their noses into the private lives and bedrooms of it's citizens regarding birth control! Unfortunately, yours is a nation poised to fall apart over what normal people would call minor issues.
    1
  1703. It's official: Trujmp supporters are all those idiots that have not been already classified as morons (look it up on Google, these idiot/moron concepts were actualy firmly defined oven a century ago, and they are still valid).
    1
  1704.  @a_lder9000 , so you believe everyone that worked for Obama is crooked? How come it is only Trump associates that have been implicated in nefarious dealings, lying to investigators, lying to the public etc.?
    1
  1705. The lesson for US Americans: Do NOT put your life on the line in the "service" of your country. Whether it is to save lives following a disaster brought on by constant US meddling in the Middle East OR all the wars being fought by the US in the most unlikely places. You will be ignored and neglected when you you come out of it, broken, sick and injured. At best, you will have earned the thoughts and prayers of the scum that sent you there. Nothing more to be had from that quarter. And - please note - only in very rare cases the sons and daughters of the rich will be doing the dirty work!
    1
  1706. I seem to be missing a huge part of logic here: Dean Obeidallah is a Muslim. Fine and dandy - my question is: If he, as a Muslim, expects his women to hide their hair WHY THE FLICK is he not hiding his own hair? If hair is disgraceful, to be hidden from plain sight at all times, why are Muslim men not following that directive? Do I smell a really hákarl stink of hipocracy here?
    1
  1707. Sadly, the only good politician seems to a dead politician. I wouldn't dream of denigrating John Lewis in any way, but it seems that the only time friends an foes alike speak well of a politician is once that politician is dead and no longer a competitor, threat or an obstacle to ones own ambitions. This is really, truly a sad state of affairs.
    1
  1708. So MAGA Senator Ron Johnson has gained an officially proven nickname: Ron "The Liar" Johnson!
    1
  1709. This can only happen in 'Murica! You lunatics think that by killing your medical professionals you will be brought closer to your twisted version of a deity. 'Murica has become a country where the lunatics have taken over the asylum!
    1
  1710. Sadly, 'Murica has become a nation of ignorant people, currently led by a narcissistic moron! I wonder if 'Muricans are proud of their "Stable and Beloved Leader" that is making a mockery of what once used to be a great nation.
    1
  1711. CNN, your right-wing roots were REALLY showing in 2016!
    1
  1712. This does not LOOK like a police operation, a regular arrest - it looks like a military operation, a military vehicle and men in full military gear, armed for war. Next time, will they bring in a tank to arrest a "threatening" single man, dressed only in a T-shirt and shorts? Like one of the commentators mentioned, this kind of operation is likely to be ridiculed for a good while. Looks like a harbinger for the future in US society.
    1
  1713. 'Murica has a SEVERE policing problem: 1) Lack qualification checks of people applying to become police officers, especially mental qualifications. 2) Lack of proper training. A new 'Murican cop is about as qualified as an airline pilot that just passed his first solo in a Piper Cub! 3) A virtually total lack of accountability. Videos like this only show the RARE cases where the Brownshirts are made accountable.
    1
  1714.  @yvonneplant9434 , you simply MUST be 'Murican - only 'Muricans would drag racial issues into a debate about "quality of life" equality and it's effect on crime rates. If you could be bothered to check your facts, you will find that the Nordic countries have their share of multi-cultural and multi-racial immigrants. The difference lies in how these immigrants are treated. Instead of vilifying and mistreating them, efforts are made to help them assimilate and become useful and equal citizens.
    1
  1715.  @matthewingerson , I agree on most counts. I have a slight issue with the use of the phrase "left-wing politics" when describing the social-democratic politics prevalent in the Nordic countries, it is so 'Murican - it is mainstream in the Nordics. Also, the problems arising in Sweden these days have not reached Norway, Finland and Denmark, at least not yet. My country, Iceland, has always been the most 'Muricanized of the Nordic countries and, as a result usually sits at the bottom when corruption in the Nordic countries is compared. It has not yet reached the violent stage we see in Sweden, but disturbing signs are afoot...
    1
  1716.  @everythingnotnaileddown7096 , that is irrelevant. It is usually the inequality in living circumstances that drives people to crime, not the color of their skin. If your reasoning had any real merit, there would be almost no white criminals in 'Murica. I believe that most of the violence in Sweden is caused by East-European gangs fighting each other, not by "people of color" and definitely not by blacks.
    1
  1717. To Trump Republicans, lying your soul to perdition is perfectly acceptable, provided you are not caught, and even if you are caught you just deny, Deny and DENY. Republicans are such pillars of honesty and propriety, after all!
    1
  1718. The reason for this sudden uprising is rather simple: Due to the pandemic, in the blink of an eye tens of millions of US Americans are now without a job and without health insurance. What these TENS OF MILLIONS of neglected citizens have in abundance is A) A lot of time on their hands, and B) A lot of anger and resentment, AND the realization that they have nothing more to lose! What do they do? Take to the streets with no intention of being "nice"! A frosting on this unbridled violence cake are all the non-local violent provocateurs that are NOT spontaneous. It is anybody's guess who is organizing and financing them, but extreme right-wing zealots seem a fairly good bet. What the Right-wingers may have underestimated is the reaction of a cornered and enraged animal (the suppressed "minorities") that is about to explode in their faces. The US elites are finally reaping as they have sowed - France some 230 years ago comes to mind, the main difference being that there is no need for Guillotines these days, in a country awash with assault weapons, not to mention all the hunting and close-combat weapons (handguns), Guillotines seem slow and cumbersome. Chances are this is going to be REALLY bloody.
    1
  1719. The big question: Will the blowback against overturning Roe vs. Wade be enough to awaken people and get them to the polls thins fall? The simple answer: A people that cannot be bothered to turn out on election day to preserve their democracy against fascism DO NOT DESERVE TO LIVE IN A FREE AND DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY! You get the shite you vote for, and if you cannot be bothered to vote, you get EVEN MORE shite! Plain and simple.
    1
  1720. Short-term profit priorities (greed) for over half a century has demolished 'Murican ground transport infrastructure. The railroads are near-useless, the bridges are collapsing and the roads are apparently in no better shape. European ground transport infrastructure may be riddled with problems, but at least they are being worked on and, most important, it is efficiently humming along like a well-oiled machine compared to similar 'Murican infrastructure. The reason? In Europe, even with it's many disparate countries, the public good has priority over profit.
    1
  1721. The Russians hacked the DNC server and Crowdstrike figured out that they did it? Now Russia blames Crowdstrike AND Ukraine for the whole thing AND chances are that the ignorant US public will eat it up! Audacious or what? Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
    1
  1722. This could not have happened in Bristol, UK, only in Bristol, Connecticut, 'Murica. I wonder if this was an attempt to commit a Police-aided suicide? She came very close to succeeding. It was heartening to see that only one of the police officers was stereo-typically trigger-happy.
    1
  1723. Is Esper credible? NO! Are Trump and Pompeo credible? HELL NO! So far the Iranians have shown remarkable restraint, at least with the unavoidable response against the US. The tragic result is that, due to heightened tensions and the resulting "finger-on-the-trigger" situation, 176 civilians are now dead - but hey, none of those killed were US citizens so that is apparently acceptable, at least to the US administration...
    1
  1724. Are you 'Muricans STILL debating whether your country is going down the drain? WAKE UP you loons, you have been disintegrating ever since you allowed Ronald Bloody Reagan access to the reins of power - and you are still collectively running for the edge of the cliff! Lemmings, the lot of you...
    1
  1725. "Look, I don't know man, I'm just following orders" brings the responsibility (and subsequent professional demise) squarely to some top-level cop. Given the cause of these protests, this is especially sinister in that a black reporter was arrested while a nearby white reporter (Campbell) was NOT. The person giving the arrest/no arrest orders will have a lot to answer for in the coming days, and he/she will probably end up with a "racist" sticker for life.
    1
  1726. So, the suspect turns out to be one of Trump's informal or phantom Brown Shirts. No surprises there. This is a preview of another potential term under Trump: Unchecked violence perpetrated by unhinged Trump followers that will, under a Trump administration, be protected by the authorities - unlike now. The last Trump administration cost 'Murica over 1 million lives on a single issue, Trump's Covid response. The cost in lives regarding other issues is yet to be tabulated, and will continue until some of his actions have been undone.
    1
  1727. What further proof is needed to show how dysfunctional the right-wing loonies in 'Murica have become? This is likely to cause the end of the US experiment, and the process will be slow and painful for the entire world. An example; The Soviet Union fell apart and died over 30 years ago, but Russia is still convulsing in the death throes of the USSR, much to the detriment of the entire world. The fall of the USA will take even longer and be more painful that that.
    1
  1728. The scary bit: Whoever the politician, the average voter simply has to face the fact that ALL politicians are liars, cheats, purveyors of untruths! The only thing a voter can do is to follow his/her conviction and hope for the best. The Czech elections may well be it's saving grace - or it might be the beginning of a descent into an Orban or Erdogan-like descent into fascism. Only time will tell. Disregard what the newly-elected president is SAYING, watch carefully what he will be DOING!
    1
  1729. I am deeply offended - not by you, Artur, but by the feckless right-wing 'Muricans that are trying to dismantle the NATO alliance on behalf of Putin. I would not be at all surprised if this blew up in the Repugnican's faces with solid evidence emerging of their direct collusion with Putin's Russia. What would follow would be a genuine manhunt for politicians that have betrayed the 'Murican nation and all they have tries to stand for.
    1
  1730. jkh: Europe, including the Nordic countries, is being flooded by refugees and immigrants. The US, with it's constant meddling, is responsible for the current upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa to a greater extent than most other countries, but you are seeing only a fraction of the immigration flood from that area. Your "millions of immigrants" (an overstatement if I ever saw one) do NOT have the means or opportunity to sail on small boats directly to the US. As far as I know, the immigration problem you worry about comes mostly from Mexico and South America.
    1
  1731.  @FinZippo , I agree. From my limited perspective, we can sort Russian individuals into 3 main categories: 1) The well-informed regular citizens that realize what is happening but are unable to anything about it - except to wait for this to be over OR leave Russia. 2) The misinformed citizens that believe Putin's propaganda. They are in for a rude shock when the whole thing collapses. 3) The problem: Putin and his cronies, the Kleptocrats that have robbed Russia blind AND all the corrupt official that are doing the same on a smaller scale.
    1
  1732. Is THIS the main issue? Trump is about to become broke - only THEN he starts becoming a bad choice? 'Murica: There is something SERIOUSLY broken in your nation/society/politics/finances. Even worse, the Fifth Estate (the media) is obviously broken, kaput, corrupt, useless! The chances of the US surviving the next 50 years are NOT looking good...
    1
  1733.  @LWUncleSam , good point. I wonder if US Americans regard concepts like "Social skills" in the same vein. There ARE many Americans that do NOT have the same twisted political views - ask any Canadian American...
    1
  1734. Kaja Kallas is a diplomat and will be courteous in the face of the blatant behaviour of the current US government's bullying. There will, however, be a point where the disgrace of the US cannot be ignored anymore. Europe is facing a potential invasion by Russia, and the response will NOT be diplomatic! WW3 has been brewing for over a decade, and the 'Muricans are proving to be useless partners, once again.
    1
  1735. We all know that the Law is totally unrelated to Justice - and it has never been clearer than now. A moral compass seems to be irrelevant when it comes to being a lawyer in 'Murica. Dammit, all the crude old jokes about the redundancy of 'Murican lawyers are starting to make sense. How clearly intelligent lawyers and judges can get lost in arguing ridiculous legal technicalities while actual JUSTICE is being violate left, right and center beggars belief! 'Murican lawyers are apparently allowed to bypass any sense of morality or conscience if they can come up with any obscure argument to help their clients avoid justice, even if they are clearly guilty of whatever they are indicted for. Where is the sense of justice in this entire profession? Totally absent? A contrasting case is the defense lawyer for the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. All THAT lawyer did was to ensure that all the legal issues were properly followed, not once did he try to justify or excuse the 70+ killings, the "sanity" issue had already been resolved and the evidence was overwhelming.
    1
  1736. he 787 upset is most likely due to severe CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) that cannot be blamed on the aircraft. Let this be a lesson to the passengers that were injured: ALWAYS keep your seat belt on while seated! Regarding the quality issues that are about to dismantle Boeing: Whatever they do is likely a case of Too Little, Too Late!
    1
  1737. Possibly? C'mon, get real - this is staring you in the face and yelling in your ears! No if, no buts.
    1
  1738. Non-'Murican here: I certainly hope the sentiments and events presented here are true, and not the result of wishful thinking. The rest of the Western World is waiting with bated breath to see what the unpredictable 'Muricans will do, because is Trump and his fascist enablers (e.g. Musk) manages to cheat his way to any kind of power, the world is done for, at least for a generation or two. It will be orders of magnitude worse than the result of Hitler cheating his way to power in Nazi Germany. We are all rooting for such a decisive "Dump Trump & MAGA" outcome that there will be no arguing, no avenue for MAGA denial. There is no question that Kamala Harris will be an excellent president, probably in league with FDR, Eisenhower and JFK. We Europeans have experienced female leaders of the nest-making variety (a female, the better part of humanity) and with one notable exception, we have had excellent results. The exception? Maggie Fricking Thatcher, the European version of Ronald Bloody Reagan! The world is still suffering from the fallout of their reigns.
    1
  1739. I believe Boeing is way behind the power curve regarding quality control. To add insult to injury, Boeing's actions to rectify the quality issues have, time and time again, proven to be more cosmetic than real. This is a problem that will NOT be solved by pouring money on it! It is quite possible, even likely, that Boeing is doomed to fail in coming years and the death throes will be drawn-out and painful for all involved, especially the workers that will lose their jobs.
    1
  1740. What a waste of airtime...
    1
  1741. US politics and media coverage are getting more and more farcical by the minute. The media KNOWS Trump is playing them and not even being subtle about it, and STILL is unable to resist chasing Trump down every rabbit hole imaginable. Toddler Trump is playing them like violin...
    1
  1742. Instead of the term "telling a whopper", how about a new term, "telling a Trumper"?
    1
  1743. Trump may be barely literate and struggle to put together a coherent sentence, but he is certainly a sly and cunning imbecile. Still, the fact that up to a third of voting 'Muricans support a narcissistic imbecile like Trump says more about the 'Murican people than Trump!
    1
  1744. What the Trump "Prisoners" don't like is obvious fact that a massive majority of the US nation is rising up against the inequality, mismanagement and brutality Repugnicans have dished out to ordinary US Americans for decades. The can FEEL the earth tremble beneath their feet, they are beginning to realize that they have gone way too far and the entire house of cards (the con) is about to crash down around their ears. Not only are they about to lose their positions of privilege, power and wealth, they are probably about to be REALLY held accountable for their decades-long corruption and abuse of power, as in jail-time, heavy-fine accountable.
    1
  1745. In a dollar-dominated political society, can you expect anything else? The US is apparently doomed, done for, goose already cooked. For the same 'Muricans I have some advice: If you have traveled abroad, if you know people abroad, if you have North-European Pen-Pals, if you are a non-conservative: Plan on ditching 'Murica - it's a dead end, soon to turn Nazi-Germany irrationally violent. Run for your lives to North Europe! One brutal truth: The Repugnican Nazi Fascists are winning! A minority they might be, but they are ruthless, they cheat and lie and in 'Murica that is all it takes! In the next few years, 'Muricans will have the opportunity to experience the misery of many Latin-American nationals that have been fleeing brutal conditions in their home countries, usually brought about by 'Murican influence. Enjoy!
    1
  1746. I always wonder how Michael Steele sleeps at night after being a prominent Repugnican for years.
    1
  1747. Sorry, apparently only the "good" politicians are assassinated (Lincoln & the Kennedy brothers).
    1
  1748.  @tonycasarrubia1394 , aww - c'mon, nasty wishful thinking is one thing, that is just fantasy, to actually and seriously considering DOING it is another thing entirely. Sorry my friend, I really think you should see a shrink...
    1
  1749. This is interesting and quite "logical" for anyone wanting to do a land grab. Putin has been using Hitler's argument that ethnic Russians, living anywhere (ethnic Germans in Hitler's case) justified military actions to "liberate" said ethnic Russians. Putin's actions in Ukraine have convinced EVERY sovereign nation with even a trace of ethnic Russian population leftovers from the painful Soviet era, that they are in danger of being claimed as Russian territory to be reclaimed by Putin. This is especially scary for the 3 Baltic states. Even if they are now members of NATO, the risk is still there. The logical next step would be to eliminate the "ethnic Russian threat" by demanding that ethnic Russians either become Estonian/Latvian/Lithuanian citizens and renounce any claim of being Russian - or move back to their Rodina, i.e. place severe restrictions on Russian citizens living in their country. Every other country does this in one form or another. The bad news is that the "good" Russians, those that fled Russia because they wanted nothing to do with Putin's shenanigans, would fall into that category...
    1
  1750. One has to wonder how / when Trump will instigate his version of Hitler's "Reichstag Fire", the excuse he thinks will allow him to seize compete power. One can only hope he is in for a rude surprise, he might be a Hitler wannabe but he hardly has the smarts to pull it off.
    1
  1751. ANY social or economic system will eventually be perverted over time by the groups that have control over them. Sweden almost ruined their social-democratic goals in the sixties and seventies with blind over-taxation, and they are screwing up again now, by allowing monied interest groups too much influence. Bottom line: Whatever the system, you can NEVER just sit back and enjoy whatever benefits you have, you always have to fight perversion. The wealthy now have the US system by the balls (have thoroughly perverted it).
    1
  1752. Well, is watching TYT, Thom Hartman, Bernie Sanders and the current incarnations of anti-Trump CNN & MSNBC brainwashing me into being pro-social-democracy and anti-unbridled-capitalism, the opposite of what is being discussed here? Possibly. My main argument against that would be the fact that I have held these views for at least 40 years so the current Social/Main media fads actually have nothing to do with it. Also, I have lived most of my life in a Nordic social-democratic country AND visited or temporarily lived in countries that are the polar opposites. I have experiences to base my opinions on. For me this is a no-brainer, and I truly feel sorry for the disaster US Americans are suffering these days. Please not that while other nations (Canadian Americans, North-Europeans etc.) are NOT going through the current US misery. We are certainly having a hard time, but nothing like the abject misery you are going through in the US.
    1
  1753. These pundits make it rather obvious that Bloomberg and the Billionaires have CNN in their pockets.
    1
  1754. 84% of US Americans trust scientists regarding the pandemic BUT up to 25% of 'Muricans trust Trump to give accurate information. I wonder what the ration would be if you asked this question in any other country. The result would probably be close to 100% for scientists, 0% for Trump?
    1
  1755. Lavrov is an outright liar with his pants on fire. Russia said it was only doing military exercises and had no intention of attacking Ukraine. That was a lie. The words of Russian leaders are worthless, plain and simple. They are liars and cheats, and if they are not stopped now, Moldova and the Baltic states will be next.
    1
  1756. Rick, this was very good and timely rant. Spot on!
    1
  1757. The transition of Boeing from having engineering/safety priorities to having profit priorities is bound to have been slow and insidious. The rot or infection even spread to the FAA and beyond. Boeing is likely to fail in it's current form, but the question remains: Are they too big to fail (in 'Murican economic terms) and will the bailout lead to any real changes?
    1
  1758. If this is the kind of logic that rules in the SCOTUS, is it any wonder the US is coming apart at the seams? The US is apparently doomed, and what the greedy corporations, billionaires and corporate-owned politicians are conveniently ignoring is the fact that once the US falls apart at the seams, gone will be their state-established protections. In the Mad-Max scenario that ensues, the Supreme Court Justices and corrupt politicians will just be a collection of terrified scarecrows waiting for the rabble to come for them. The same applies to billionaires: They can hire mercenary armies, but with hundreds of millions of furious citizens banging at their doors, how long do you think they will last? As for the greedy corporations: Good luck turning a profit in such a dystopian environment!
    1
  1759. Sadly, the only thing the US public can absolutely dependon on is the police lying about whatever happened during this killing. The end result will be that WHEN the public finally stops protesting peacefully and start getting violent, policemen will have a hard time finding a rock to hide under - the Nazis experienced this in their time.
    1
  1760. The citizens of Israel (and Jews in general) that have nothing to do with the Netanyahu regime's atrocities must realize that what the Netanyahu regime is doing is making the Nazis look good! This will be a blight on on Israelis EVERYWHERE for decades to come!
    1
  1761. Sadly, people seem to be "apolitical" because politics in Russia are terrifying! Having a political opinion in Russia appears to be outright dangerous.
    1
  1762. It will be interesting to watch Trump dismantling the 'Murican Constitution and the judicial system, aided by a handful of individuals (Edwards, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuck, Kavanaugh and Barrett, all of which will have earned an acute lead poisoning by the the time this tragedy has played out). Will Trump succeed? Hitler did!
    1
  1763. The flight crew seats in the cockpit are NOT the safest seats! They will be the first to be crushed in a fatal crash. The recent South-Korean crash verified that the "safest" seats are the rearmost, rear-facing bulkhead seats intended for the cabin crew, shoulder harnesses and all...
    1
  1764. Can you imagine the dilemma Dr. Fauci is facing, trying to retain some semblance of sanity and rationality in the official response. Anyone else would have thrown up their hands weeks ago and resigned, LOUDLY! Dr. Fauci is apparently trying to hang in there as the last remaining "adult in the room" in the Toddler Trump administration. Will that do any good? The "So far, so good" sentiment heard from a guy falling past the 50th floor of the Empire State building is apparently not cutting it.
    1
  1765. I have sometimes wondered why it is that every time any country gets something right (e.g. health care & education in the Nordic countries) it somehow does not apply to the US, because the US is TOO BIG and TOO DIVERSE for those lessons to apply! According to that, the US is either not small enough to succeed or it is so big that failure is inevitable! If that is the case, why not drop the "United" and "States" from the name and simply turn the current 50 States into 50 independent countries that are each small enough to succeed - or not big enough to fail. You could form a military alliance, NAMA (North America Military Alliance) along the lines of NATO, and that being accomplished, you could drop out of NATO and pretend to save A LOT of money (except you wouldn't).
    1
  1766. This is just the beginning. When government oversight is abolished, the shite REALLY hits the fan! 'Muricans are in for 4 years of disasters and neglect, and THEY FULLY DESERVE IT!
    1
  1767. God Almighty must REALLY have it in for the people of Wisconsin. Prayers are useless, apparently God ain't listening!
    1
  1768. So Trump harassed Kellyanne Conway in front of others? What is surprising about that? We all know what an arsehole Trump is, no surprises there. There is little cause to defend Kellyanne Conway, she is no better than Trump himself.
    1
  1769. Interesting how the DNC is turning out to be just as bad as the Republicans when it comes to respecting actual democracy. Apparently the only hope to re-establish a genuine US democracy going forward is if new voters turn out in droves and vote for Bernie Sanders in a landslide victory, and installing progressive Senators in every senate seat up for election in another 2020 landslide. Republicans and Corporate Democrats are simply too corrupt to do the general population any good.
    1
  1770.  @liltunechi4 , Chinese authorities at first tried to downplay and cover up the potential epidemic, so they bear some blame. The cruise passengers should NOT have been mixed with other traffic and should NOT have been received by untrained and unprotected officials - it is this kind of criminal incompetence that one would think the sue-for-damages-mad Americans would go for. And - I am NOT an US American, I am watching this horror show from abroad. But this is all irrelevant, we all know that white-collar criminals are rarely brought to justice, even when the crime results in thousands, even tens of thousands lives lost.
    1
  1771.  @liltunechi4 , I live in one of the Nordic countries and I have a right to analyze or criticize the US all I want because the US has had it's dirty fingers in every pie imaginable, including my country, for over 70 years! I have a question: When you use the term "American" do you men ALL Americans (e.g. Canadian Americans, Mexican Americans or even Venezuelan Americans)? I know that US Americans are lousy at geography but, for your information, the "Americas" extend from N83° (Canada) to S56° (the southernmost tip of Chile), and anyone living on that vast continent can be rightfully called "an American". US Americans have no monopoly on that term.
    1
  1772.  @liltunechi4 , you are correct. We are so happy at home that we are bored to the point of having nothing better to do than obsessing about the US and it's foibles. We will no doubt stop doing that the moment the US stops meddling in the affairs of other nations - which is not likely to happen any time soon. The world is by now so globalized that we are living in each other's pocket, so you will just have to suffer the criticism.
    1
  1773. I expect all the ongoing investigations into Pruitt's alleged ethics violations will NOT go away - or will they?
    1
  1774. Good point!
    1
  1775. Mike Lindell obviously has a bunch of screws loose in his head, yet in 'Murica he has any number of followers that are just as divorced from reality as he is. The current Repugnican party is playing the same tune: The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum! All sensible 'Muricans should seriously consider fleeing Madhouse 'Murica, "the greatest country in the world" before it is too late! South-Americans have been fleeing similar situations for decades, the main question becomes: Where to go? North? To Canada? At least Canada has a decent Health Care system!
    1
  1776. ...just think: If the Kenosha Police Force, commanded by this sheriff and mayor, had not been staffed by some crazed officers, the root cause of this entire disaster would never even have started! Curiously, that is one topic both the sheriff and the mayor avoided like the plague in this clip. They are reaping as they have sowed, they are staring at a runaway freight train inexorably coming to flatten them, and they are terrified! It is about time that US authorities and police forces face the fact the trying to wage a shooting war on the majority of their own population is a losing proposition, one that will eventually land themselves in a world of hurt. The fate of Mussolini and Qaddafi should serve as prime examples.
    1
  1777. Is Trump trying to change the US military into a mercenary force that is for hire to anyone that can do Trump favors - or pay enough money??
    1
  1778. To watch supposedly 'serious' main media talking heads discussing this is nothing less that hilarious! The fact that the entire US political system is waiting for a narcissistic, corrupt conman to say if he will run for office or not says it all! Trump is a serial criminal and WILL eventually end up in prison - anyone else would already be in jail for tax evasion, election law violations, rape, you name it! The fact that Trump is still strutting around without being held accountable for his multiple misdeeds is a blatant proof of how the US judicial system is thoroughly corrupt. The 'land of law and order' my arse!
    1
  1779. This clip just about takes the cake! Supposedly serious journalists spending a lot of time, effort and airtime trying to dissect and analyze the alternate-reality utterings of a sub-juvenile mind, the toddler currently occupying the White House! What you should be doing is point out all the ridiculous aspects of Trump's BS and leave it at that. What you are doing only lends a thin sheen of credibility to the rantings of a madman.
    1
  1780. I think we are watching the passing away of the US democratic experiment, all that remains is to watch the death throes and try not to be trampled in the process.
    1
  1781. Jeff Flake seems to be a very rare beast: A politician with more than a shred of conscience! No wonder he is getting out of the Washington swamp.
    1
  1782.  @pedromartins8665 , this is not a pissing contest I want to have. Iceland and Portugal (and many other European nations) have done well regarding Covid vaccinations. Exactly who is at the top of the pile at any given moment is irrelevant! I left a comment here with a link to the official Icelandic Covid website to boast about our 88% vaccination rate for citizens 12 and older (but only 75% when you also count in those not yet eligible for vaccination, i.e. children younger than 12), but apparently YouTube is now deleting all and any comments containing internet links. Screw them. Again, this is not a pissing contest worth having.
    1
  1783.  @pedromartins8665 , right -I'm all pissed out. Cheers!
    1
  1784. Voter suppression, INFORMATION suppression? The US reality-show-like political system is coming apart at the seams, and the smell ain't good!
    1
  1785. The states formerly under the heel of Russia really KNOW what it was like, and they are taking no chances: They are preparing for the war they KNOW will be coming if Russia is given a millimeter in the Ukrainian invasion. They also know that Russia has to be crushed NOW to avoid an all-out WW3! No illusions, no economic excuses. Ukraine is fighting for all Western democracies, and THE LEAST we can do is to provide all the tools they need to crush the Russians. Quibbling about supplying modern air power to them is just as stupid and ignorant as quibbling about supplying modern tanks used to be. The "tank dam" has already broken, lets skip the stupidity of building an "air power dam" that will eventually break, anyway. I certainly hope that forward-thinking people have ensured that experienced Ukrainians have already been trained on whatever modern equipment they might potentially receive, to ensure that Ukrainians will be up and running the moment the stupid political dams break.
    1
  1786.  @kaisermarxistdixie6842 , I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care. I have never driven a Bugatti, I will never be able to afford one and according to my current needs I am satisfied with a very compact and economic car (which indicates that I might have an adequately-sized dick). The chilling realization that I certainly might enjoy driving e.g. a Bugatti Veyron is mitigated by the fact that I will NEVER have that opportunity - nor do I want to. It is about as absurd as actually making out with someone like Heidi Klum. Get real! I actually HAVE owned a pair of serious SUV's (living at 66° north with a lot of snow in winter), but that was out of necessity, not a pissing contest.
    1
  1787.  @kaisermarxistdixie6842 , spoken like a true 'Murican!
    1
  1788. Trump is managing to offend, alienate and shed traditional US allies, and who benefits? Putin, the puppet master!
    1
  1789. Never underestimate the ability of Corporate Cheaters (Repugnicans or Democrazies) to spin and twist reality. The good news is that there are a lot of US voters that are starting to think! Young voters are not buying the traditional bullshit anymore and even if community-friendly politics do not manage to win this round, in 4 years more old, conservative idiots will be DEAD and more young, better-informed voters will be active. The US will eventually be able to enter the ranks of nations that care more about it's ordinary citizens than it's corporations and billionaires.
    1
  1790. I have to agree: Modern ´Murica is based on Lies, Greed, Ignorance and Stupidity! 1/3rd of 'Muricans actually want a sane, people-friendly environment like we have in Northern Europe, 1/3rd of the country thrive on lies, hatred and conspiracy theories (MAGA Repugnicans), and the final 1/3rd simply does not give a damn! They are perfectly happy to "circle the drain" with the evangelists, on their way to their "Rapture" in the sewers (first being treated by the waste disposal shredder, seeing that this is 'Murica). And this is the nation that claims to be "The Greatest Nation That Ever Was"?! Just wait 5 years to see the consequences of allowing Trump and his sycophants access to power again: Concentration camps, Thought Police etc. A mixture of Hitlers Nazi Germany and George Orwell's "1984" story. Enjoy!
    1
  1791.  @palehorse7377  Dream on you ars#*&le...
    1
  1792. You need a medical and a license to drive a car and fly a small plane - every presidential candidate (and every individual individual appointed for a high office, for that matter) should HAVE to undergo AND PASS a medical and mental examination to even run for the Presidency, House of Representatives or the Senate.
    1
  1793. Let's not forget our basic humanity. Much as the Russians need to be stopped by any means, it is still depressing to see young lives snuffed out in seconds, they were someone's sons and brothers. I doubt any of them WANTED to be on an Ukrainian battlefield, forced to kill or be killed. Putin and his cohorts certainly have a lot to answer for.
    1
  1794. This man, not large in stature, is proving to be a giant among men. He is correct, the battle of Ukraine is only the first battle of WW3 and he is, in his own way, like Churchill in his time, fighting for what his nation wants above all else: To be able to choose their own destiny. In case anyone has been wondering, they want genuine democracy, to live like e.g. Western European nations do - in peace and prosperity. Slava Ukraini!
    1
  1795. Ana seems really annoyed and offended over this, but I have to side with Cenk on this one. I do not see the Polish LARP-ers as mocking the entire US, they are just taking the mick out a certain group of 'Muricans that are causing genuine problems in the US. Shining a light on it like this only helps those that want thins to improve. Acknowledging that a problem actually exists is a required first step.
    1
  1796. I agree that criticism of the current Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians is NOT criticism of Jews and their religion, i.e. NOT antisemitism.
    1
  1797. I am quite confused: Are these primaries held and executed by the respective political parties or are they the responsibility of the Federal Government? They SEEM to be an internal party affair, but they seem to be treated like a government affair by the media, even if candidates are NOT running for an actual office at this stage. The primaries seem by all appearances an internal political party popularity contest.
    1
  1798. Meghan McCain is NOT her father, and will probably never reach that level, at least not given her current attitudes.
    1
  1799. I want to amend that comment: Give her another 40 years and perhaps some personal hardship (not necessarily tragic), she is bound to mature in the process, just like her father did.
    1
  1800. Wishful thinking on behalf of the speculators: The 737 MAX might be released to service but it remains to be seen if the traveling public will have anything to do with this.
    1
  1801. The good news: He has not fired his weapon on duty - yet. The bad news: According to these statistics, he is an explosion waiting to happen. If US police put any effort into good police practices and culture, this guy might be counseled and actually be turned into a good, even-tempered cop, but with the current police culture he is likely to eventually unlawfully kill someone - so behind a desk is where he belongs, for the good of the public as well as himself.
    1
  1802. Watch out for the pretzels the Repugnicans (especially Moscow Mitch) will shamelessly twist themselves into to prevent the Democrats from nominating a single SCOTUS Justice. Then again, this is likely a moot issue, this particular court is not likely to survive Trump - it is bound to become the Suppurating Court of the United States.
    1
  1803. Typical: The 'Murican perspective is all about the money-making potential. The weight-loss side effect applies mostly to an 'Murican problem, but greatly increases the money-making potential. The public health improvement potential seems to incidental! Fortunately, Denmark seems to be consciously avoiding the profits-at-any-cost in favor of slow-and-steady-benefit-to-everyone policy, hopefully to the benefit of everyone.
    1
  1804. I was wondering why the Swiss did not erect a stone wall along the road to protect the road users from clumsy shooters, only find the ingenious solution at the shooter end of the range: Shooting is done through steel tubes that prevents bullets from going dangerously astray. If Switzerland was one of the templates the 'Murican Founding Fathers used when establishing 'Murica, I wondered where and how 'Murica went off the rails while Switzerland has always been as stable as a gyroscope. A car is a device that can be lethal in the wrong hands, so EVERY country strictly regulates them (registration, real in-depth training, licensed users, insurance etc). A gun is a device that can be lethal in the wrong hands, so ALMOST every country strictly regulates them - one notable exception being 'Murica!
    1
  1805. It seems evident that we non-'Muricans will soon be free to hate and disrespect 'Muricans like we do Russians and the Chinese these days.
    1
  1806. Trump's 'Murica is becoming increasingly disgusting. As an European, I am becoming increasingly anti-'Murican and anti-Israel - not anti-Jew, you idiots, just anti Netanyahu Israel Fascist regime.
    1
  1807. 10 minutes of absolutely useless deflections and non-answers. When an interview like this is nearing the end, a mandatory question should be "So you refuse to answer the questions, are you willing to tell us why or do we have to draw our own conclusions?""
    1
  1808. The root cause for the disintegration of US democracy is Repugnican-encouraged voter apathy. Bottom line: Any "democratic" nation deserves the lawmakers and and government they couldn't be bothered to vote out of office! Period. You end up in the shite you abstained from voting out - you made your bed, now lie in it.
    1
  1809. The Kennedy clan used to be something to look up to, something to admire, 60 years ago. Now we are wondering: Why has this individual not been committed to an asylum?
    1
  1810. This apparently God-fearing right-wing religious nut obviously has limited faith in his God: If his God created males and females and wanted them to remain that way, why did He not, assuming that He is omnipotent, ensure that males born in a male body REMAIN males - and that females born in a female body remain female? So much for His omnipotence. On the flip side: Perhaps his God is simply being inscrutable and neglected to tell His believers that the gender issue is actually an intentional part of The Grand Plan. Boy, am I glad that I am an agnostic and thus free from this nonsense.
    1
  1811. The Op-Ed is whistle-blowing, no treason.
    1
  1812. I believe the word/concept "Viking" is a bit overrated. Only a minority of the Nordics "fóru í víking" (go Viking), much like a minority of English football fans "go Hooligan" when following their favourite football teams, the vast majority are just normal football fans, perhaps boisterous but not violent. The Vikings of old were actually just the troublemakers, just like English Hooligans are the troublemaker part of all the English that travel abroad. Most of the Nordics that sailed to England, Scotland, Ireland and other places were predominantly just traders, farmers and fishermen that emigrated from Denmark and Norway (the Swedes went east...).
    1
  1813. One thing is becoming clearer every day: Ukraine sees itself as a sovereign nation and any twisted wishful thinking by a lunatic like Putin is pointless. Ukrainians will fight to the last man for their independence from Russia! That alone ensures that while Putin's Russia might win a battle here and a skirmish there, their chances of winning the "War Of Ukraine" are nil, silch, zero, nada. At the moment there are two possible scenarios: 1) Russia manages to temporarily cling to the territory stolen from Ukraine, but will literally starve into bankruptcy under sanctions that will continue until Putin and all his cronies are dead and buried. That scenario is long and painful for everyone involved. Then there is the more likely scenario 2) The Russian military simply collapses under it's own corruption this summer, Putin is deposed and hopefully becomes victim of his own doing (poisoned). Russia will STILL have to foot the bill for the destruction caused in Ukraine!
    1
  1814. If you have positive proof of pilots not being qualified, hand it over to the NTSB. If, on the other hand, you are just another MAGA conspiracy nutjob, simply shut up!
    1
  1815. This red-jacketed NATO spokesperson just confirmed that NATO is a useless paper tiger - it will not stand by any of it's declared promises. As a native of a founding NATO member, I find this a chilling realization! This particular NATO spokesperson came across as a Putin advocate: Appeasing Putin is the main, possibly the only goal of NATO! Apparently, Putin has succeeded in dividing NATO...
    1
  1816. Regardless of the broken Hyoid bones, all the OTHER "coincidences" (both guards asleep, all relevant monitoring cameras inoperative, suicide watch canceled) will keep conspiracy theorists busy for decades. The circumstances certainly stink to high heaven, and seeing that any number of VIP's were named as involved in Epstein's child abuse activities, anything is possible, even plausible.
    1
  1817. "Ocean Memory" sounds too much like just another outlandish conspiracy nightmare. Until a credible explanation, based on genuine physics emerges, one has to take this as just another "I fervently BELIEVE the world will end tomorrow and, failing that, it will end on the next date my religious leader comes up with".
    1
  1818. It's a bit weird, how can you make a massive war crime (the entire Vietnam war) into a success? 'Murica LOST the Vietnam war, period. It is a FACT, not a theory.
    1
  1819. Is it any wonder that current 'Murican allies are preparing for the desertion of 'Murica from the common goals all the NATO member nations have held true for 3/4ths of a century (a full 75 years!). Life will be a LOT harder defying Putin with 'Murica flaking out, but it will certainly be worth it! Europe has been slow to go on a war footing, but with 'Murica abandoning us and Putin encroaching, the choice is clear: Europe will have to go on a full-time war footing production-wise, if only to replenish the stockpiles already sent to Ukraine. Stepping down war-time production levels will be a LOT easier than beating a full-blown Putin-Russia takeover! 'Muricans, prepare for an entirely new experience, one where you will be considered (rightly!) an ignorant idiot, a pariah to your former allies, an unreliable ally to put it mildly, and let's leave out the rest of the disparaging comments that are piling up!
    1
  1820. Seeing that Putin's Russia has bitten off more than it can chew in Ukraine, Russia would absolutely choke to death were they try a similar stunt with Finland. While Ukraine had been in a back-burner war with Russia for 8 years and were quite prepared, they were lacking in resources, at least initially. Finland, on the other hand, has been preparing for this for almost 80 years. If the Ukrainians are fiercely motivated to fight off the Russian monsters, Finland is likely to be at least an order of magnitude worse for Russia to mess with.
    1
  1821. I predict that Hegseth and the other stooges Trump is installing in his government will eventually face a dire and violent end, much like Hitler's stooges met their sticky ends 80 years ago. It may take 5 or 10 years, but the end will be grisly for Trump, Hegseth et al.
    1
  1822. The problem I have with this is simple: It sounds like a hollow conspiracy theory, all talk and exciting declarations but no actual proof or evidence - much like the "Biden Crime Family" conspiracy that is all Repugnican talk but no substance, i.e. no actual proof or evidence. One would think that such an important and historic event as the JFK assassination would have been cleared up decades ago if this had any substance.
    1
  1823. Seems like the entire executive staff of ALL the big pharma companies should be prosecuted internationally for shameless racketeering. In a life-and-death situation like this global pandemic, all the shameless 'Murican business practices should be outlawed, the distribution of patented information allowed to enable the appropriate handling of the pandemic. Fair compensation or royalties for using patented data is a foregone conclusion, but that is what Big Pharma fears most. This would expose just how they have been operating for decades: They have accepted public research funding (socialized the cost) and shamelessly exploited the results (privatized the profits). Simply and openly arranging for transparent "fair compensation" for their research and production costs would expose how they have been exploiting the cash cow that the US bogus "Health Care" system is. Every other developed nation has twigged onto this and collectively bargain for relatively fair drug prices. The US is turning out to be the center for corporate and political corruption but, then again, they are the the "land of the free", the only country where politicians can openly be bought and paid for.
    1
  1824. It boggles the mind how the US bullies dare to hound an Australian citizen for publishing the dirty laundry of the US leaked by other US citizens! Assange has never had to swear allegiance to 'Murican ideals, and should not be held accountable for exposing 'Murican lies and cover-ups. As with any genuine news outlet, publishing leaked information is not the crime - the real crime are the actions perpetrated by US institutions and armed forces as exposed by the whistleblowers. The "Crazy Horse" videos from Iraq are a prime example. Genuine war crimes caught on tape, and no one held accountable. 'Murica has become a lightweight, even a blatant fake in the morality game. Be it Corrupt Bush Jr, Useless Obama or Terrorist Trump, the latest crop of leaders does not reflect well at all on the sensibility of the 'Murican voter. The average 'Murican voter must be a certifiable idiot!
    1
  1825.  @adriangoodrich4306 , thanks - that explains it.
    1
  1826. There is a grain of truth in what the madman is saying: With more and more Main Media organizations coming under the control of fewer and fewer corporations, the danger of those media outlets becoming biased, in favor of their owners, rises exponentially. For the time being, media holding the powers-that-be accountable is NOT an enemy of the public.
    1
  1827. Alyssa Farah has a stink about her. CNN & MSNBC also have a decided stink about them as well, but it is more subtle. You see, they have had genuine Republican anchors for some years, only they have been pretending to be NOT-Repugnican! There is a showdown brewing. An unbelievably large portion of the US (the 'Muricans) are fighting tooth and nail to destroy and eradicate US democracy as we know it. Another part just wants to maintain the status quo, where the ultra-rich can keep on exploiting and reaming the arse of the the US population. They are exactly like a virus, dominating without giving a thought to what killing the host means. Then there is the ever-growing but hitherto suppressed majority: US demographics have changed! The racists are in denial, the Repugnicans are in denial and the Corporate Democraps are in denial! Within an election or three the true deomgraphics of the US will assert itself, and all this nonsense will be moot. Who knows, the US might even end up following the lessons they gave to post-WW2 Europe that have, with modifications, been far more successful than the debacle that is ruining the US. Health care and education systems that benefit- the entire population without makina anyonea a multi-billionaire, like in the US. I think the US billionaires should start running for cover within a decade or so. The resurrection of the Guillotines is nigh, the only probem being that there is nowhere to run!
    1
  1828. I usually agree with Yanis about most things, but not this. Giving in to Putin, now that he is on his hind legs, is NOT good advice! If the west does that, we are only postponing the inevitable showdown, and Putin will be much stronger if he is allowed to regroup - not to mention allowing him to continue suppressing the Russian people. Putin MAY give in to his baser instincts and use bio/chemical/nuclear weapons, but the chances are slim to nonexistent: Putin may be a megalomaniac, but he is not stupid. Using any kind of WMD's will be suicidal for him. On the other hand, trying to directly affect a "regime change" in Russia is out of the question. The solution is simple: Beat Russia out of Ukraine, enforce sanctions until Putin is deposed and THEN make sure that the Russian people are allowed to learn about the atrocities Putin caused in Ukraine. The important bit is to sit back and allow the Russian people to shed any blood there is to shed and NOT interfere. Just give the Russian nation their shot at democracy, something they were denied when Putin weaseled his way to power in Russia over 20 years ago.
    1
  1829. What a waste of breath, interviewing someone like this about gun control in 'Murica.
    1
  1830. Watching this Python hunting video I kept wondering why the hunters did not kill the snakes outright once they got hold of the head, either by chopping it off or crushing it. I admit to be totally ignorant regarding snake anatomy (I live in a cold, snake-free country), wondering if there was a reason to keep them alive, and constantly battling them until they are finally killed and skinned? All was soon revealed: The is Florida, where "Florida Man" lives and DeSantis rules. Apparently it is up to bureaucrats if pythons live or die! For supposed "small government" advocates, it is astounding how Repugnicans strive to micro-manage virtually every aspect of their constituents lives! I predict there is an explosion waiting to happen, where guillotines will be rapidly built and Floridian Repugnicans will be treated like the French aristocracy was treated over 230 years ago - by disgusted Floridians this time around.
    1
  1831. Fortunately only a fraction of 'Muricans are this ignorant (not stupid, just ignorant). Ignorant 'Muricans rarely travel which might, in part, explain their ignorance - but they certainly stand out wherever they go!
    1
  1832. Trump may end up being the savior of US democracy by the simple expedient of being so ridiculously corrupt that "the sleeping giant" (the general US public) might wake up and finally start to vote to reinstate the kind of governance that US Americans THOUGHT they had, but has been quietly stolen away from them.
    1
  1833.  @Retrofire-47 , unfortunately I have to agree...
    1
  1834. She is not telling anyone WHAT they should vote for, she is simply telling people to stand up and be counted, to get out and vote according toe each individuals convictions and needs.
    1
  1835. I am fairly well removed from this insanity, being a citizen of one of the Nordic countries - but I am still terrified! A full-on Nazi 'Murica (what is staring us in the face with DeSantis or Trump) will have devastating consequences for us all, allies and enemies alike!
    1
  1836. For decades, most European nations have been expecting a more peaceful world, hence the desire to spend resources on constructive measures, not destructive equipment and institutions (their militaries). Putin shattered that Utopian dream 13 months ago. Wasting resources on destructive measures is now inevitable in the foreseeable future. It will take some time for the politicians to face that reality and get their arses in gear, but it WILL unavoidably happen.
    1
  1837. Bild actually has a point, if China had been up front and clear about the outbreak the moment they came out of denial, the pandemic MIGHT have been handled better in e.g. Italy and the US. Chances are, however, that early transparency on behalf of China would have changed nothing at all. Criticizing China for this is one thing and probably necessary, but expecting anything more is completely unrealistic.
    1
  1838. 'Murican conservatives want to become medieval again, or at least revert to the Salem witch-trial mania mindset. The question remains, will the rest of the nation allow them to get away with it? On the face of it, APATHY will end the vaunted American Experiment into democracy!
    1
  1839. At around 5:00 into the interview, the idiot Rivera starts a rant about "the Corona virus, probably hatched in a Chinese laboratory"! The look on Thom's face is incomparable, it is one of pity for this raving idiot. It is by now (2.march 2020) glaringly obvious that the only country caught completely unprepared is the US - not even able to test for the COVID-19 virus while every other country IN THE WHOLE FRICKING WORLD is testing everyone even remotely suspected of having the virus! I predict the US will be more severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic than any other nation, if only due to the fact that the Trumpzis had decimated and paralyzed the very institutions that were supposed to handle unlikely disasters like this!
    1
  1840. Yet another one in about 2 days. The gun advocates go "Oops, here are some thoughts and prayers" and the rest of 'Murica just shrugs and continues business as usual. What is WRONG with you lot!?
    1
  1841. Watching this is depressing - I am not 'Murican, I even declined a free visit to 'Murica a few years ago, and I am genuinely worried! I visited the US a few times in saner times (over 30 years ago) and found it generally OK, but 'Murica today is entering a dystopian era.
    1
  1842. So, a safety requirement imposed by Obama but rescinded by Trump that is partly to blame for the recent railway disaster, now to be blamed on Buttigieg? I used to think 'Muricans had the attention span of a goldfish, but I am beginning to think they barely have the attention span - or the intelligence - of a gnat!
    1
  1843. Cussing and denigrating narrow-minded people that are only living the American way (protect what they have, ignoring the needs of the rest of society) will lead you nowhere. Much as I admired the US in the sixties and seventies, I now believe the US is in a death spiral. The political system is a swamp, the voting system is totally screwed up due to decades of tampering and, bottom line, too many Americans seem to be morally bankrupt.
    1
  1844. Simple answer: Trump's amplified swamp!
    1
  1845. Strange. "We defeated the Caliphate" and in the same sentence "The Kurds, who did all of our fighting". Weird logic.
    1
  1846. Beggars in the street have always been an indication of a seriously broke society. Have you 'Muricans not realized that the need for fundraising on the Internet is just a modern version of begging, be it the wholesale begging your politicians do, or desperate individuals that are literally dying because their society is broken?
    1
  1847. A weird "interview". Anderson hardly ever let her complete a sentence without interrupting, and she was not even trying to obfuscate or dodge the questions, like so many do.
    1
  1848. I'm Icelandic, born in 1950, and while growing up I only knew one Nazi sympathizer. As far as I know, there WERE many such people, but they had disappeared like cockroaches by the time I was growing up. In a nutshell, WW2 was quietly called "the blessed war", because it yanked Icelanders out of their turf houses and in to the modern world. Iceland benefited a lot from the Marshall Aid (only a tiny part of that aid, we were a tiny nation). Overall, the long-term effects were very beneficial for us. Of course there were all kinds of social problems that caused all kinds of resentments, but fortunately that eventually disappeared in a couple of decades.
    1
  1849. Methinks that the slim/nonexistent moral compass of 'Murican lawyers prevented Tacopina from any ethical or moral conflicts in defending Trump until the stench became unbearable...
    1
  1850. A good job the creep Epstein was murdered, only it was way premature - he should have been allowed to sing before he was killed. But - this is what the rich and powerful do, cover each other's unwiped arses. Is anyone willing to predict that Madame Ghislaine will make it to court alive? One just wonders how they are going to pull of THAT particular murder.
    1
  1851. My philosophy: Whatever the Russians do, ALWAYS look for the lie, the hidden agenda! When did we last see anything resembling truth coming from Russia? Whatever comes from these "harbingers of truth", always take it with a shiteload of salt...
    1
  1852. I wish US White House reporters worked together when things like this happen - the next reporter should simply pick up on the question being avoided and squeeze out a reply. I recall an incident early in Trump's presidency when a Trump-appointed ambassador to Holland was grilled by Dutch reporters about some ridiculous thing he had said or done. The ambassador rudely blew off a reporter that asked an embarrassing question, but the other reporters picked up the thread (postponing whatever questions they had planned themselves) and ran the ambassador to ground - which was deserved, the man was a Trump-appointed embarrassment to the US.
    1
  1853. What is striking is that, following a go-around, the crew apparently decided ignore the standard procedure of entering a holding pattern, troubleshoot and carefully prepare for a landing with whatever problems they had mitigated to the extent possible. Instead, they attempted a rushed landing in a clean configuration, which is incomprehensible - unless they were watching the hydraulic pressure on all 3 systems bleeding off, which would soon deprive them of all flight controls... The tail section was more or less intact, so the CVR and FDR will be able to tell the real story in a couple of weeks.
    1
  1854. Let's get one thing straight: 'Murica is not a democracy, not even a FLAWED one! 'Murica is, at best, the best "pretend democracy money can buy" - and you stupid 'Muricans are proud of it! 70 years ago you were the role model of the world, and where are you now? Just pause to think about it: Where are you now? WHAT you now?!
    1
  1855. There is no doubt that Putin will NOT survive this humongous blunder, the only question is how long will it take, and how much will the entire world have to suffer before he is out of power and brought to justice. This "special military action" is being perpetrated fully "on camera" in a modern interconnected world, and I am sure there will be a reckoning similar to the Nüremberg trials when all is said and done. Everyone, from Putin, his Kleptocrats, his entire government and military top brass, all the way down to his field commanders (and even many sadistic foot soldiers) will be quaking in their boots later this year when they will eventually be brought to justice for targeting civilians, innocent women and children in Ukraine. Fortunately for them, people have lost their appetite for public hangings, but there will certainly be a LOT of life sentences looming. As for the Russian population: Can we blame and punish the general Russian public for being misinformed and gullible? If we do, we also have to include 'Murican right-wingers and Trumpists who are guilty of exactly the same thing as the Putinist's! I can't wait until the Russian public is finally exposed to the full video coverage of what is now going on in Ukraine, the land of their neighbors and cousins. There will be a lot of shamed faces, not to mention all the heads that will fly in Russia when the general public fully realizes how they were lied to.
    1
  1856. The only chance the US has of surviving as a democracy is by getting every single Repugnican out of power in November. Following that, every corrupt act of Repugnicans and Corporate Democraps during the last 10 years must be investigated and punished with the full force of the current and cruel, revenge-based punishment system. Only then the US might be able to revert to becoming a humanity-based society that values reform and actual correctional in it's judicial system. Privately I have no illusions - the US is crumbling and will collapse and turn into an autocracy within our lifetime. The US will probably make authoritarian China look good before 2040.
    1
  1857. A wake-up call for our gender of the species: Being a parent is a full-time job! Being a single MOTHER just out of a major operation (C-section) is an order of magnitude harder - yet our hardy females (our betters by any measure) somehow endure and manage. I would hate to live in a society like the US where a fetus is revered beyond anything, but once it is born and becomes a child, the society does not give a flying fart, and it is about to get exponentially worse!
    1
  1858. So Dr. Birx (Dr. Brick?) is REALLY trying to justify the mad Trump idea of simply "opening up the economy in a beautiful way". Trump has the excuse of being a blithering, narcissistic idiot. Dr. Birx is supposedly an intelligent, well-educated individual. She has absolutely no excuse. This is outright criminal!
    1
  1859. Is it any wonder that by now, whenever I hear someone speak with a southern accent, I have the feeling I am listening to an ignorant idiot? I absolutely KNOW this is not a really fair generalization, not ALL southerners are really ignorant racist idiots (only most of them). The Confederation may have lost the Civil War a century and a half ago, but they are still alive and well...
    1
  1860. I've no idea what Ari is trying to accomplish. Is he trying to justify the attempted insurrection or is he trying to denigrate it?
    1
  1861. The main lesson from all this: Any agreement Toddler Trump signs is not worth the paper it's written on, Trump ALWAYS breaks or cheats on agreements he makes - much like his boss, Putin. Trump is simply a lying bully that that can never be taken seriously. Bottom line: Why bother to waste time and energy on negotiating with a chronic liar? It might be better to string the Toddler along and give him enough slack to hopelessly tangle himself in his nonsense...
    1
  1862. What a despicable character Kevin McCarthy is turning out to be.
    1
  1863. The German "historical concerns" would only make sense in a direct confrontation between Germany and Russia. German support of Ukraine fighting off the Russians only serves to delay, even prevent such direct confrontation which will become inevitable if Russia is not stopped dead in Ukraine. Olaf "the Waffle" Scholtz's reticience make one wonder if he is just a chicken or if he is in some way beholden to Putin.
    1
  1864. To be fair, Trump was correct in that bleach eliminates the Covid virus (or any virus!) very quickly. The problem: Trump was too stupid to realize that injected bleach has a troublesome side effect: It also kills the patient just as quickly!
    1
  1865. I suddenly realized that by listening to Ari Melber I was listening to a Trump-level liar - only this one is eloquent and appears to be coherent (unlike Toddler Trump). My conclusion: If it is' Murican, it's NOT telling a truth! 'Murica is not only a nation of ignorant idiots, it is a nation of inveterate LIARS!
    1
  1866. Those Trump voters in Ohio should revisit history and look up exactly how Hitler rose to power 80 years ago. Then again, them being Trump voters sort of ensures that they would not know how to look up or understand historical events. You CAN fix ignorance but you can't fix terminally stupid. Arguing with idiots is a monumental waste of time. The only thing they will understand is a healthy dose of their own medicine.
    1
  1867. Determining that a mistake was made is only the first step in any accident investigation, the following steps are far more important: Determining WHY the mistake was made in the first place and, most important, figure out how to prevent similar mistakes from happening ever again.
    1
  1868. President Ford made a huge mistake by pardoning Nixon. If he had not done so, there would have been at least one case of a former president being made accountable by serving time in prison. If there is ANY justice in 'Murica, Trump will be not only bankrupt but in a jail cell for the remainder of his natural life (not for very long, given his lifestyle...).
    1
  1869. Isn't his criminal negligence, abjectly failing to perform their duty? This actually SHOULD be a rude awakening call for rural police forces but, as usual, nothing is likely to happen and all these people will probably retain their jobs without so much as a reprimand. The argument about more or less policing is moot: What is needed is PROPER policing, something that seems to evade 'Muricans.
    1
  1870. It is ironic that the country that proclaims itself to be the pioneer of democratic practices is turning out to be the last developed nation to actually implement automatic voter registration.
    1
  1871. This is not a case about misplaced documents, it is an outright ESPIONAGE case - now with a federal judge being complicit.
    1
  1872. So speaks a true idiot: 10A at 11V is 1.1KW (1 hairdryer). 32A at 240V is 7.68KW (more than 7 hairdryers) and 50A at 240V is 12KW (12 hairdryers). Thom's example of 10hrs @ 1KW = 33 mile range converts to (if you have an EV that CAN accept a 12KW charge would ingest 33 miles worth of charge in 50 minutes! Thom's idiot-level calculations still stands, only the idiots don't get it!
    1
  1873. My country, Iceland, is a Republic as well. Our system of governance is called a Social Democracy, the same as the other Nordic countries. Please note that while social conscience ranks high, we are NOT communists.
    1
  1874. Glenn and Brian: Did you ever pause to think how idiotic this all is? The evidence of "justices" Thomas and Alito (and Kavanaugh etc) is so glaring it only needs the stamp of a formal investigation to be presentable to a court of law. To non-'Muricans like me, the 'Murican judicial system keeps denigrating itself on a daily basis, with the rot beginning at the head with the SCOTUS. The problem: The "Rule of Law" seems to lose any definition when you reach "higher" levels of society. In effect, the concept of "Rule of Law" and "No one is above the law" are just empty slogans. Not a foundation to build a successful future...
    1
  1875. The world has had 3 years of watching the equivalent of a spoiled 8-year old in a tantrum "governing" the US. The mere fact that the US actually managed to elect an individual like this as their leader is ample evidence that the US is coming apart at the seams. Will the sane part of the US population be able to rectify the situation? After all, the only thing they have to do is to make an effort to VOTE, regardless of the gerrymandering and voter suppression that has made a mockery of US "democracy".
    1
  1876.  @jamesturner5476 , if you cannot even spell "communist" correctly, you obviously have no idea what this is all about. Is Canada a socialist/communist hellhole? Are the Nordic countries similar hellholes? Let me be blunt: Anyone that has two or more brain cells can see that you are a brainwashed IDIOT!
    1
  1877.  @Overqualified1 , the tax you would pay to replace the current profit-skimming premiums would be far less than you are paying now (approx. 60% of current premiums?), prescription drug prices would be more like they are in e.g. Canada and there would be absolutely NO surprise bills after the fact, when your "generous" insurance company either denies coverage or you were taken to the "wrong" hospital while you were unconscious. In short, health care for EVERYONE would simply be prepaid (NOT free) and any out-of-pocket expenses would be VERY affordable. I live on a desolate rock in the Arctic Ocean (Iceland), and if I need to go to a doctor, have an X-ray, an ECG or complicated blood tests, I have to pay what amounts to $10-20, max. For crying out loud, in the US the drug companies somehow manage to price-gouge very old (patent-expired) and life-saving drugs like Insulin! How crazy is that! There is something seriously wrong with the US, but fortunately young US Americans are about to intervene - by electing an old man that has been consistently unselfish his whole life...
    1
  1878. It will be interesting to see how 'Murica's closest allies will respond to Toddler Trump's ridiculous demands. If anything, responses will initially be guarded, if only out of respect for the nation this imbecile is now ruling, but that will be quickly corrected! The USIA, the United States of Idiotic America will have earned it's rightful place among it's former allies as an absolute moron nation, not fit for cohabitation or even minor collaboration. Allies? Forget it! Following that, it will be interesting to follow what debacle Toddler Trump has in store for the Greenlanders! All I can do, as an Icelander that had the opportunity to visit and stay in Greenland numerous times,
    1
  1879. Of all the likely scenarios regarding Trump saying he is taking hydroxychloroquine, they continually skirt the most obvious one: Trump is simply LYING! Why would Trump lie about this? Who knows, why was he trying to push this drug on e.g. New York not long ago? This seems a worthy case for reporters to investigate.
    1
  1880. Trump designed and nailed down the Afghanistan withdrawal timeline (he even bragged about it in an interview). Biden was apparently stuck with this decision and is simply trying to salvage what can be salvaged and no matter what the outcome will be, the Repugnicans will be screaming to high heaven how Biden failed - at rectifying a disaster of Trump's (and Repugnican) making! Is there anything more disgusting or deplorable than a lying Repugnican?
    1
  1881. One question has never been asked: What is the argument for NOT releasing the full, unredacted Mueller report to a Congressional body that routinely handles, and is fully qualified to handle classified information?
    1
  1882. Powerful words correctly aimed at the Greg Abbotts, Ted Cruzes, Moscow Mitches and anyone that falls close to them on the political spectrum: "You are the scum of the earth, and the legacy leave behind for every generation to come will be nothing more than a skidmark on the shit-stain of a country that you call free".
    1
  1883. Living in 'Murica these days must be like living in Hell.
    1
  1884. The entire 'Murican judicial system (fragile and corrupt as it is) is on trial here. More than that, the entire concept of 'Murican democracy is at stake.
    1
  1885. Some years ago I really enjoyed watching Nigel Farage justifiably tear into the EU for it's bureaucratic and undemocratic ways. He was fabulously outspoken and eloquent while doing so. This was well before Brexit. It took me a while to realize that underneath it all, Farage is simply a bloody Fascist!
    1
  1886. Thom asks: "How do you safely go back to school?" - short answer: By not living in US America! Canadian Americans are quietly doing what has to be done to get through this, but will US America heed any lessons? Nah...
    1
  1887. Is this kind of behaviour limited to 'Murican cops? Unfortunately not - the unique position policemen - and women - around the world find themselves in is conductive to all kinds of sadistic behaviour. This job of having absolute power over ordinary citizens attracts all the sleazy elements of any society - meaning that one should expect the police of EVERY country to be populated by the most sadistic individuals of that country. Don´t kid yourselves: Even if you live in the best part of the world (North Europe) you should assume the police to be populated by the sickest and most sadistic members of your society. There are countless cases of police brutality in ALL countries, even the Nordics, the main difference being that in the Nordic countries police brutality frequently (but not always) is rewarded by a ton of bricks landing on the heads of brutal policemen (or policewomen! We have our share of sadistic bitches). I personally know members of he police in one of the Nordic countries (wher). you would think this kind of behaviour would be outlawed)
    1
  1888. Apparently this problem is mostly prominent in 'Murica. Most other genuinely democratic nations that the US or or Putin have failed to meddle with are still safe, at least for now. One wonders when the old Pioneer-West phrase "the only good so-and-so is a DEAD so-and so" will stop applying to Native Americans and start applying to rabid US Right-wingers and Putin-arselickers! Currently, I am beginning to dislike even innocent 'Muricans, not to mention "innocent" Russians (if one can be located, anywhere!)
    1
  1889. It may not be strictly too late, but the window is closing FAST! For Boeing it is probably too late, the rot is too deep and Boeing is bound to die. The question remains: Who or what will step in to fill the gap? Will it be any better? Most of the actions Ronald Bloody Reagan took over 40 years ago have been instrumental in wrecking the 'Murica that was.
    1
  1890. A good example of bullying blowing up in the bully's face. The response Trump and his MAGA administration is getting from everyone the try to bully is: You kick us in the teeth and we will kick right back, but HARDER! It will be interesting to analyze the results of this idiotic slugging match Trump initiated with 'Murica's major trading nations a year from now.
    1
  1891. The 'Murican judicial system is a corrupt mess, optimized to allow the affluent and rich to run circles around the concept of "Justice" - an 'Muricans are surprised their allied nations are becoming skeptical about being allied with Madhouse 'Murica?
    1
  1892. I think the last time one NATO country tried to impose it's will on a smaller NATO country was during the Icelandic Cod "Wars" with Britain. The US was stuck between a rock and a hard place in the middle of the Cold War, but managed to avoid taking an official stance. What happened behind the scenes is probably entirely another story... Now, however, with the Putin asset Toddler Trump in power in 'Murica, all bets are off! The current situation, with a blithering idiot at the helm in the White House, simply cannot end well.
    1
  1893. A chilling admission by Weissmann: Trump's shenanigans are working with "judge" Cannon and the SCOTUS, but no other judges. When the SCOTUS has sunk to the level of the most inept and partisan judge 'Murica has ever seen, the judicial end is truly nigh.
    1
  1894. It will be interesting to see how many top level police heads will roll (figuratively, job-wise and even jail-wise) when this has all been accounted for. The main problem will be the rot inside the police forces that almost ensures that any accounting will NOT be entirely honest, there will bee a flood of attempted cover-ups.
    1
  1895. Trump's lawyer Sauer might be learned , but you need a microscope if you want to find a shred of morals in that particular individual. He is just like Trump himself, a morality-free zone.
    1
  1896.  @nomore6167 , actually, neither would I when push comes to shove.
    1
  1897. Thom, fortunately you are probably wallowing in unreasonable pessimism - this is actually the first time that the situation is dire enough that our entire civilization is behind the development of a vaccine, throwing the full resources of recent genetic knowledge into the pot. This is no longer a question of the "what's in it for me" mindset of Big Pharma and flighty politicians, i.e. not enough money or prestige to be had to actually solve the problem. If all goes well, we will have vaccines for the common cold, the common flu AND the current SARS Cov2 within a year or two. If not - well, we can always join you in wallowing in reasonable pessimism...
    1
  1898. This makes one wonder: What has the IRS itself been doing this past year? With all the controversy surrounding Trump's taxes, you would think that the IRS had ample reason to actually audit Trump's tax returns, but they seem to be doing nothing. Has the corruption reached this deep inside the IRS?
    1
  1899. ...and this is the "Greatest Country in the World"?
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  1900. A question for the science-deniers: Are you satisfied that this is only local weather, not the initial and devastating symptoms of severe climate change? Another question for the Bible-wavers: Is it possible that your God is not only angry, but really pissed off?
    1
  1901. The young Russians that have not already fled Russia are either too brainwashed or too terrified to dare have an opinion. I predict that the Russian "sheep" will be in for a rude awakening in 2023 - Russia will be considered a terrorist state and ordinary Russians will be considered to spineless to be fit as members of the civilized world. Soon the Russian nation (the sheep) will have to face the facts of Putin's cruelty in wiping out Ukrainian civilians and their homes, and will have to face the same relentless shame the Germans had to face when the true atrocities of the Nazi regime following WW2. The difference? The Germans faced this head-on and have made amends to an extent that Russia and Russians are not capable of. What is the difference between a killing-crazed mink and a Russian soldier? Answer: The Russian soldier will rob you blind AFTER raping and killing you, the mink will simply kill you outright and be done with it.
    1
  1902. Ukraine had the blind luck to have elected a comedian as their president when Russia invaded. Comedians are invariably very intelligent people that have immersed themselves into the vagaries and frailties of humanity. Zelensky turns out to be a magnificent leader that will go down in the history books in the same class as Churchill and FDR while Putin will be relegated to the reviled Hitler/Mussolini class. Zelensky is a PR wizard, a natural diplomat in trying times, suddenly thrust upon the world stage. Being proficient in English would have helped him immensely on that stage and he has made great progress, but it is impressive how he recognizes his current limitations and simply sticks with his native language when needed and makes it WORK!
    1
  1903. The only way to handle a stall at this altitude is to not enter it at all! Recognize the clues and take immediate and urgent preventive action no later than at stick shaker onset. The stick pusher would have been activated in this case, but totally useless at this low altitude - unless both stick shaker and stick pusher were INOP to begin with. A stick shaker at any altitude is a massive attention-getter, which leads me to suspect that all might not have been well with the aircraft systems.
    1
  1904. This is a new one: "The Climate Change Industrial Complex". If one is swimming in manure, one cannot help slinging it at others...
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  1905. @Mandy, are you certain? Modern 'Muricans are supposedly far better informed and these issues have slowly become mainstream "normal" for decades until recently. It seems to me that a sizeable part of 'Murica is fast becoming a carbon copy of Germany in the late 1930s. Will they manage to drag 'Murica all the way down into the muck like the Nazis did to Germany? Only time will tell.
    1
  1906.  @terrysullivan1992 , I completely agree - Trump is not likely to have personally hatched the more subtle ploys he uses, despite him seeming to have an uncanny talent to bullshit his way through even his most horrible blunders (his only talent, I suppose, intellectually he is an empty void). What I was pointing out is the fact that Trump himself will never shy away from being the poster child for the most ridiculous statements and actions imaginable. He is the type that, given the choice of a transaction honestly or crookedly (with the same outcome for him), will invariably and instinctively take the crooked option - it is all he knows!
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  1907. If a corrupt AG wants to "investigate" this conspiracy theory, why not just let him? Are you afraid he will find something? He probably WILL find something, there are always some discrepancies to be found, usually minor but sometimes huge. In this case, whatever he might find will probably be peanuts compared to corrupt Trump administration is doing in plain sight every day - but there just MIGHT be something substantial as well. Corruption, ALL corruption should be exposed and rooted out!
    1
  1908. @Nick Hamill, you lost us there: When did education and health care become FREE in the US - even for undocumented immigrants, what you call illegals?
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  1909. Clumsy trip of the tongue: Pelosi's husband attacked BY a hammer (said hammer hopefully in custody and under interrogation now). I guess he meant to say "attacked WITH a hammer". In any case, if it turns out that this was one of the informal MAGA "Brownshirts", 'Murica is in for a ride until Trump, a.k.a. "Wannabe Hitler" is dealt with.
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  1910. Hitler's militia started with what was called the brownshirts. What remains to be seen i what Toddler Trump's version of violent madmen will be called. Jan.six-ers?
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  1911. A good life to be honored. Scott Stringer's mother sounds like Valkyrie (a Nordic woman ) or Jewish or Arabic or whatever, indomitably watching over her kin. That is what motherhood is all about. Untimely death? That is something that can arguably be laid at Trump's feet, due to the abject lack of preparations for the pandemic he was repeatedly advised was coming!
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  1912. This was new to me, that Denmark can, for Germans, function like Scottish Gretna Green did for the Regency English.
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  1913. Bush Jr. was NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, the sharpest knife in the drawer - incredibly dull, as a matter of fact. When Bush Jr. is being held up as a shining example of what a good president should be, you guys are REALLY scraping the bottom of the barrel in search of something, ANYTHING better than Trump.
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  1914. Believing that the upcoming US civil "war" will not be a shooting war, given that the US is a country awash with guns and too many psychopaths, seems a bit optimistic.
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  1915. As far as I know, Meghan Markle is mixed race, she is not purely "black" as some would have it. One wonders why the US media keeps calling her "black" simply because she has quite a lot of African genes. Personally I find this silly, there is a simple and straightforward way to end this racial BS: Everyone shagging everyone for a number of generations, and we'll all have skin that tans nicely. Problem solved, we're all one race...
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  1916. A a Nordic citizen, I found Trump and Vance's behaviour absolutely disgraceful, and we can no longer count 'Trump's 'Murica's executive branch as a civilized government. Under Trump, it operates like a 1930s organized crime organization. Can anyone imagine under which circumstances any Western nation would be willing to cooperate? I, for one, cannot.
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  1917. In my country a blood test - ANY blood test - is what amounts to about U$15 at the point of service, similar to what David paid for the initial procedure of piercing a vein and drawing samples. All the lab work (and associated cost) is invisible to the user. Why so cheap? You see, in my country we SHARE the cost of health care and being sort of a single, HUGE customer, "we" are able to negotiate the actual cost of health care. In my country no one is allowed to become filthy rich by exploiting the health care system. We spend about 10% of GDP on health care while the US is spending over 17% of GDP. Who is skimming off 7% in the US? Some people need A LOT of health care services while others need virtually none for most of their lives and those that need little health care are sensible enough to count themselves lucky instead of resenting the fact that they might be "paying for other people". I wonder if the normal/sociopath ratio in my country is more favorable than in the US?
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  1918. Thom, you are wrong in that Trump followers are FINALLY figuring out that Trump is a stupid idiot. The way I see it, Trump followers are now running out of ways to plausibly deny Trump's immense stupidity! The problem in future is that the United States of 'Murica are stuck with the fact that around 1/3 of the nation is certifiably just as stupid, idiotic and ignorant as their Beloved Orange Leader. Where do you go from there?
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  1919. Trump will be beaten by a combination of factors: Some states will deem him ineligible for office, he will be beaten at the ballot in most places he is allowed to run and, when all is said and done, Trump will end up in prison for all the crimes he has committed.
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  1920. One cannot help wondering if being woefully unprepared is related to speaking English - at least in the Northern Hemisphere - the US and the UK seem to be shining examples of being caught flat-footed. As usual, the US seems to be able to easily out-distance the UK in this regard. Other shining examples of this would be the Northern Hemisphere Latin-language nations, Italy and Spain. Italy can be somewhat excused, they were the first to be caught absolutely unawares. Curiously, other Northern countries were on their toes. Iceland, for example, was warning Italy and Austria of the actual outbreak before those countries were officially aware of the problem in February.
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  1921. Europe dreamed of using resources for non-lethal purposes for decades, unlike our 'Murican counterparts that wanted to pour money into legal political-buying industries (their corrupt Military-Industrial-Complex). Putin put that dream to rest in an instant 2 years ago. Europeans are slow tops extraordinaire, to put it mildly. Europe now has to wake up to going on a war-time footing! Absolutely-useless Schultz was in denial about having to supply Ukraine until too late, and now the race is on to ramp up military production to counter Putin's hordes. Fact: Putin is a rabid dog waiting to invade Western Europe, and we WILL have to prevent that.
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  1922. The Vice-Clown of 'Murica has spoken, and the rest of the Western World is NOT impressed! What remains to be seen is how 'Murica's Western Allies will react once they are over the shock and have had time to form a reasonable response. I predict it will be rather brutal.
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  1923. His looks certainly support this rumor. He definitely looks a lot like his mother, but the rest of his facial features do nothing to dispel this myth. Then again, who cares? My bet is on Sinatra, for what it's worth. One wonders if he has any of his alleged father's musical talents? If so, he has certainly kept them private. As for talent, Ronan is in a league of his own as an intrepid journalist. Being fathered by Frank Sinatra or Woody Allen pales in comparison.
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  1924. No matter who Trump is supposed to be supporting at any give rally, it is embarrassing how his speeches immediately focus on the only important things in his world: Trump himself and his crazed agenda - not to mention Hunter Biden's laptop and Hilary Clinton's emails! 'Muricans should be (and most 'Muricans probably are) seriously embarrassed that this clown used to be their president. PS. Trump seems to have learned to read, after a fashion, during his tenure as president of the US, but he is obviously still struggling to read the teleprompter.
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  1925. Whoa! Potential kickbacks for Matt Gaetz, a politician, to pave the way for Medical marijuana? What's the big deal? The US is the only western country where open, in-plain-sight bribery of politicians is legal! Confirmed by the US Supreme Court! One wonders if that was one of the breaking points, where the rest of the world realized that the US democratic experiment was coming off the rails. The US is now like a high-speed rail accident happening in slow-motion...
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  1926. Not tabulating and reporting hate crimes is just another extreme-right attempt to ignore reality. It reminds me of Trump during the Covid pandemic, demanding that testing for Covid be restricted or even stopped because "the numbers are so bad". This kind of reality-denial is incredibly stupid, severe problems are not solved by simply ignoring them.
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  1927. US Americans can be divided into 3 main groups: The outright stupid, the not-stupid but uninformed and the Greedy. As a whole, they seem to be unable to grasp the concept of Social Democracy. It is either full-blown "socialism" (a.k.a. dictatorship) or full-blown, no-holds-barred capitalism, where the rich can screw over the rest of the nation with impunity. Try looking across your northern border, the other part of North America: Canada is one example of democratic socialism at work, and it bloody well works! Next, look at the Nordic countries and Northern Europe in general. Despite a recent swing in the direction of no-holds-barred capitalism (a.k.a. unfettered Globalism), these countries have successfully implemented various forms of social democracy for decades. If they can do it, why not the US? Of course, if you want to stay stupid, uninformed or greedy, this is your country to do with what you will. In that case, please leave the rest of the world alone and stop trying to steal all the resources you can get your greedy hands on. Change the current Department of Offense into a true Department of Defense. The money saved by not waging wars all over the planet is better used on your home front.
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  1928. Repeated mention is made of "the transcript" that we have not seen and is now (surprise - surprise!) hidden on an ultra-secure server. What HAS been released and we HAVE seen is a sanitized extract from the phone call. Does anyone REALLY believe that this extract is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
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  1929. Do Repugnican 'Leaders' think Texans are idiots? Apparently so and, to add insult to injury, it seems they are correct!
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  1930. Dr. Fauci is a professional, he obviously refuses to toe any party or presidential line. A such, he WILL be fired soon, the miracle is the fact that he has not been fired yet! Dr. Fauci has obviously decided that FACTS are a hill he'd rather die on than go down in the history books as sniveling sycophant.
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  1931. I always wonder if Michael Steele ever feels embarrassed having been a high-level Repugnican for so many years? He certainly never mentions it - he is probably likely to flip back and become a Trump-humper if the 'Murican nation ends up being stupid enough to end the 'Murican Experiment by electing Trump and thus ending 'Murican democracy.
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  1932. Because of the Nazi atrocities, Jews still remain at the top of the right-wing hate list, but closely bunched up with Muslims and virtually everyother minority group found in the US. The 'Murican Nazis (Trumpzis) are having a make-or-break moment, intent on installing an 'Murican Führer as president for life in the next presidential election. A chilling prospect. If only the apathy-infected 'Muricans could be bothered to get off their lazy arses and VOTE in every election, sate and federal, for the next few years, a global disaster can be averted! In the 1920s and 1930s Germans had a rather solid and stable governance, and no one even dreamed of the possibility the shite could hit the fan the way it did - until it actually happened, ending with WW2! As a non-'Murican (one of he Nordics) I am actually terrified of the prospect of Trump or one of his wannabees getting anywhere near the power levers of 'Murica. It will have global consequences.
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  1933. Whichever way the midterms go, remember this: 'Muricans DESERVE the politicians they elect (or abstain from electing) into power. If 'Muricans end up allowing the Repugnicans to win, they bleedin' well DESERVE losing what little remains of their democracy.
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  1934. It is a sad fact that this restaurant owner is an excellent example of a caring human being that cares about his community - and in the process he is being glaringly un-American! If most Americans were like him, the US would be a MUCH better place.
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  1935. I wonder how many "fallen heroes" are now rolling in their graves, listening to these blatant lies of a fellow Repugnican. They will now have a full 4 years of absolute power (presidency, house of representatives AND the Senate to inflict on the 'Muricans that wholeheartedly adopted this version of the "road to ruin".
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  1936. What is glaringly obvious is the fact that MTG is a blithering idiot. The fact that Republicans voted such an idiot into a position of power says A LOT about what blithering idiots Republicans are!
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  1937. One can only feel sorry for the Russian public. Some of them (understandably) became shifty-eyed before denying any interest in politics while others stated outright that NATO was not an aggressive alliance, rather a defensive one, and if NATO wanted to be aggressive, they would have attacked Russia years ago. Obviously, many of them are well-informed of the real situation and know that the Western nations are interested in trade and prosperity, not costly and irrational wars.
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  1938. Yep, you have 240V AC "at your disposal", but how do you use it? Choosing to split the voltage means that EVERY cable, wire and extension within a home has to contain twice the amount of copper for a given amount of power. A kettle or toaster using 1500W of power will need a cable that is twice as heavy as their European-equivalent devices, and your cables, plugs and receptacles are clunky. REALLY CLUNKY! Having earned my Journeyman's certificate as an Electrician in 1972 I am always blown away seeing your ancient "modern" hardware! Junction boxes, cabling and, well, everything else has not changed since WW2! This certainly makes for long-term consistency, but it also proves that you are completely, utterly stagnant. Funny thing is, you can blame this whole "high-voltage phobia" on your favorite inventor, Edison. Even funnier, your 120VAC will kill you just as handily as our European 220VAC! What is the difference? The overhead-line-power-distribution system (3:13) commonly used in the US is a disaster! Any weather stronger than a breeze will blow this over (or knock over an old tree, same end result). You will rarely, if ever see this in European suburbs.
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  1939. A standard tactic in MAGA world: When caught red-handed doing something unethical or illegal (like rigging election results), accuse everyone else of doing it! Trump is now a terrified old criminal seeing the walls inexorably close in on him and the chimney about collapse around his ears, and his go-to reaction is to behave like a spoiled child in a tantrum, childish name-calling is all he's got left.
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  1940. Many news clips are somewhat confusing: Some show the actual deep-dive version (one tiny porthole at the front, no thruster fairings), while other clips show what is obviously a shallower-dive version (large front view-port, thruster fairings and a hatch on the top with a large viewing dome).
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  1941. A question to you 'Muricans, not at all related to the content of this clip: Why do so many obviously intelligent US women not talk properly during interviews like this? Instead of using their normal voice, they CROAK!
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  1942. The fact that the Trump crowd is resorting to making the physical relationship between two consenting adults (private, but perfectly legal, by the way) the "hill to die on" is telling - Trump's pathetic lawyers are scraping the bottom of desperate tricks to play. This will NOT end well for them - or Trump.
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  1943. Postal services are one of the most basic services any independent nation has - and 'Murica is allowing a Trump-appointed stooge to dismantle it, over 3 years into a non-Trump period! Dejoy should be in prison now, not still being allowed to do his Trump-appointed sabotage. Frankly, I am not sure 'Murica DESERVES to be an independent nation. It is certainly not democratic at this stage. Bottom line: Every nation DESERVES whoever they elect to be their leaders, and 'Murica appears to DESERVE Trump. Ignorant or idiots? What is the difference? Same shite, different smell?
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  1944. How disgusting can these soulless right-wingers get? A silly question, really - these monsters will always find new lows they can sink to, quoting scripture all the way to their Hell.
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  1945. Confused? You won't be after this episode of poll statistics. The most revered quality in a successful 'Murican politician seems to be lying, corruption and a total disregard of their constituents.
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  1946. Andy Cuomo is doing something that is extremely unusual for a career politician: Telling the truth and putting his finger on the REAL problems! At least SOMEONE is heeding the terrible wake-up-slap-in-the-face reality of this pandemic. Heads will certainly roll, both literally and figuratively, when this is over and done with. Hopefully it will be deserving heads like Trump and his family, Moscow Mitch and his family and a host of other grafters that attached themselves to the Trump Gravy Train.
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  1947. My country, Iceland, appears to be the only European country that does NOT use DST. When I was a kid (I'm born in 1950) we used to mess around with the clock but fortunately gave it up. For us, the rationale is straightforward: In summer we have 24 hours of daylight (our longest day is 3 months of daylight) and in winter we have 5-8 hours of twilight at best - most of the year the usual 'go to work' and 'go to sleep' hours are either in broad daylight or in pitch darkness. Why bother mucking around with the clock when the only time we see any difference is +/- 1 month around the spring and fall equinoxes? In 2006 I spent almost a year working out of Aberdeen, Scotland. During that time I experienced major society hiccups TWICE when the Scots mucked around with the clock. About half the population were on time and the remaining half was one hour late (in the spring) or one hour early (in the fall).
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  1948. I beg to differ: The "Planet" will not be affected by our shenanigans! The Planet will carry on, be it icy or molten, we are at best like a temporary fungus infection that will be wiped out with the next climate upheaval... What WE need to worry about is our precarious existence on this planet! The current prognosis is that we are about to be suffocated in our own shite - with negligent effect on the planet itself. We may take all the current Fauna and Flora down with us, but what difference will that make to the planet?
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  1949. The names of Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch will live in infamy, they will go down in the history books as the most spectacularly in-your-face corrupt judges of all time. Kavanaugh and Barret have shown glimpses of wanting to follow the LAW, not the party radicals, so the jury is still out on them. One thing is clear: If Trump manages to trick, cheat, steal and lie his way into the Oval Office again, it will take decades, even generations to repair the damage. 'Murica will eventually end up like post-WW2 Germany, and the infamous "justices" that facilitated it all will be dead of natural causes and will not be held to account in this world. Their descendants, however, will have to change names (how many Hitlers, Himmlers and Göbbelses can you find in today's Germany?). If Trump loses "bigly", the world has a chance. The corrupt judges will hopefully be impeached and disrobed, and their blatant corruption thoroughly investigated - and punished as found appropriate.
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  1950. What is so complex about treating Trump in the same way he himself tried to treat his opponents? Simply Lock Him Up if he is found guilty of the current indictments, just like any other US citizen that has been found guilty of crimes far less serious than the crimes Trump is suspected of doing. The Orange Monster should be held to a much higher standard than the average Joe.
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  1951. This clip is full of minor errors but, fortunately, they are minor and not really relevant.
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  1952. Do US citizens REALLY need any more proof that they elected a sick creep to be their temporary leader? At least Republicans, they obviously adore their Beloved Petty leader.
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  1953. 'Murican Republicans are a blight on humanity. What can be worse? Putin, the Republican role model comes to mind.
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  1954. Only in 'Murica...
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  1955. I live in a racially homogeneous country and cannot even begin to understand the racial divide in the US, nor the problems and suffering of non-white Americans in the US, even today. Apparently some kind of dam seems to have broken recently, and the tolerance to racial comments, real or perceived, seems nonexistent these days. As usual, when any status quo starts shifting, it tends to shift excessively. As an outsider, I find this intolerance and total lack of forgiveness quite excessive. I do not pretend to be in a position to judge on this issue in any way, this is just an observation from an outsider.
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  1956. It is amazing how an obviously low-IQ individual like Demented Donald manages to be cunning when it comes to manipulating people. He has got away with decades of lies, fraud and thievery, and is only now beginning to face some accountability. He can barely string together a coherent sentence himself, yet he STILL manages to thwart the long but admittedly slow, almost catatonic arm of the law.
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  1957.  @MrEboxez , it probably means that "good cops" are few and far between these days. One wonders if US law enforcement has been Trumpzified to the degree that most officers are right-wing sociopaths.
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  1958. Can you imagine if all politicians, everywhere, were like this guy? Honest, up front and unafraid the be the bearer of bad news? Someone you can really count on to be truthful! The world would be a much, Much, MUCH better place!
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  1959. Having someone like the current Director-General of WHO at the helm is not reassuring, no matter how reformed he appears these days. Then again, discounting an entire international organization only because the current figurehead has a shady past is not productive, even if it is a "UN" institution. Similarly, paying much heed to the words of a creep like Gordon Brown is not likely to be productive either. I had the opportunity to personally observe the real actions and corruption of the UN in crisis zones in Africa 40 years ago, and I have distrusted and despised anything with the "UN" prefix ever since, even institutions with noble intent like the UNCHR.
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  1960. At this level of diplomacy, there is no room for "rookie" anything! Everything is dead serious, there is no room for tomfoolery! Bad as the idiotic Hegseth speech was, Vice-Clown Vance's speech in front of the most serious politicians and diplomats of the world REALLY takes the cake! The leaders of the Western World were taken aback by the nonsense Vance was spouting, too shocked to have a meaningful response right away. The German foreign minister was the first to make a coherent response, and in was SCATHING!
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  1961. Toddler Trump has spoken - and he is having a Temper Tantrum as well, to add insult to injury! Aren't you 'Muricans proud of the "shining example of intellect" you have elected to lead you country?
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  1962. If this is the 'créme de la créme' of white supremacy, you have little to worry about. These guys are whacky, really incompetent and out of touch with reality. Then again, these idiots might be just a smoke screen for the REAL right-wingers, but I seriously doubt it.
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  1963. If you allow your election system to be corrupted to the extent that religious zealots can gain positions of power, you are doomed to live under the rule of religious zealotry. It s that simple! Now that you ('Murica) have allowed this to happen, you can sit back and suffer the consequences of your apathy.
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  1964. You might not be Alfred Hitchcock, but you still managed a few goosebumps. You might consider taking up acting or directing horror movies instead of flying...
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  1965. According to this, young people in Russia are either in denial or do not care about what is happening in Ukraine. Their best excuses will be: 1) They are being misled and 2) They are being suppressed. Sadly that is probably exactly what has been going on and, even more sadly, it will be a cold comfort for young Russians that will be ostracized by other nationalities for decades to come.
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  1966. Why are Aussies opining about 'Murican politics? Simple: 'Murica is airing their dirty laundry for all to see. If normal, sane people in other countries take notice, what can you expect from the 'Murican-wannabe nutjobs like Nick Adams?
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  1967. There is no arguing with idiots...
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  1968. So the asteroid sample was sent to the Stone-Age-State (Texas) for processing? Wanna bet how THAT will be censored when the evangelicals have searched the Bible for what results are acceptable? Frankly, any "scientific" stuff coming from Texas or Florida should be considered potentially contaminated by irrational nonsense...
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  1969. Oh, the joy and FREEDOM of everybody exercising their right to bear arms in public. What can possibly go wrong?
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  1970. Be careful in your expectations regarding the indictments and potential court cases! Given the corrupt state of the 'Murican judicial system, nothing is given.
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  1971. Zelenskiy speaks the simple truth: If Putin's Russia is not stopped now, actually crushed, this misery will be instigated again by Putin (or his successors) in 2, 5 or 10 years. The Russian Oligarchs (Kleptocrats, really) should be delegated to the dustbin of history, their ill-gotten gains used to repair the damage done to Ukraine and the Russian people. The same actually applies to 'Murican Billionaires, but that situation is not quite ripe enough yet.
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  1972. Glenn's "let insurrectionists frolic in Congress" is a vast understatement. "Letting the Foxes into the Chicken coop" does not even begin to cover it (Foxes only kill what they need to eat). "Letting the Minks loose" would be more appropriate, after all the Minks will kill everything that moves, then they kill everything everything they THINK might possibly move, and then they kill everything in sight, just to make sure! Letting an immoral lunatic like Jim Jordan have any kind of power or influence in Congress is suicidal, to put it mildly. Lets hope the next few months will end up being suicidal for Jim Jordan, not the US Congress as an institution.
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  1973. One can only wonder how many decades it will take the US to regain the trust of of it's former and/or currently tentative allies. It will not be easy or quick.
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  1974. Frankly, an overt Russian or Saudi monetary investment in 'Murican politics would at least yank the blinders off. The SCOTUS has made this kind of political bribery legal at the moment, but that WILL eventually end. Sanity will prevail and the current SCOTUS will go down in the history books in infamy!
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  1975. Saagar's monologue on Bloomberg is disgusting. Saagar had great expectations simply because Bloomberg is RICH, and he was ready to be dazzled because Bloomberg would be able to drown his opposition using his money! What a shallow view - at least until he found out that being a billionaire is no guarantee that Bloomberg would be a better leader than Trump. This kind of attitude is probably why the US general population is in deep shit...
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  1976. ...but they are all Repugnicans, MAGA or not!
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  1977. So - Supreme Court Justices have been traitors that are by now destroying US democracy? Should they be taken to a Guillotine - or shot on sight (the 'Murican way!)? As an outsider with no say in the matter (other than having an opinion) I have to say that I agree! The SCotUS seems to be a menace, blight that is destroying the US republic/democratic experiment and, as such, should be terminated. The sensible and non-bloody way to "terminate" them would be to introduce a SCotUS term limit along the lines of the US presidency. No US Supreme Court Justice should be allowed to sit longer than 8 years. Problem solved - until crafty, cunning and corrupt politicians find ways to circumvent this - they always do, the scum always floats to the top of the pond...
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  1978. The height of arrogance would be the largest superpower ignoring the lessons he Ukrainians are learning, day by day! I am woefully ignorant of military tactics, but one thing is clear: Knowing "how to swim" is not enough in all conditions! The last all-out "bloody nose" experience of the US was Afghanistan (limited participation in recent conflicts do not really count). The experience Ukraine has gained fending off Putin's savage hordes is invaluable for EVERY nation expecting to face the same fate in the next decades or two. ALL the west-European nations know that if Putin gains an inch in Ukraine, the rest of Europe will be next in a decade or two - even Alaska is in Putin's crosshairs as a rightful Russian territory! The Ukrainians have been beyond innovative, fighting off the Russian Hordes with limited means. The lessons we in the west can learn are invaluable, and we owe it to Ukraine to pour all our resources into ensuring that Putin is defeated. They are doing he bleeding so we will not have to do the same in 10 or 20 years. We are not committing lives to this fight, at least not yet, and any politician that wants to count pennies regarding support for Ukraine should become an actual fugitive when he whole show is over - they will end up being real traitors in the inevitable Putin vs. Democracy war.
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  1979. Preacher Mike Johnson is just a glorified version of George Santos! A slicker and more clever liar that uses religion as his cover.
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  1980. What strikes me most is how everyone seems to think that even if Trump seems, given the evidence, guilty on every count, everyone ALSO seems to think that his polling numbers, his potential of winning an election, is already taking him beyond the reach of the law! The 'Murican judicial system is falling flat on it's face in spite of all the holier-than-thou declarations to the opposite.
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  1981. In the US, the cops are the crooks and the killers. The land of the "free" and home of the "brave"?
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  1982. What a totally useless conversation. Spin, spin, semantics and whatnot - with absolutely no content.
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  1983. The current political elite is trying hard to ignore a very important point: Today's teenagers are the voters of the future! I believe this movement is likely to change many things: 1. These future voters will be motivated to register as voters, despite all the obstacles that have been put up. 2. Their opinions will have been influenced regarding sensible limitations to the types of guns that the public "needs". 3. They will be highly motivated to participate in future elections.
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  1984. If what remains of the US representative republic (what you call democracy) dies, it will be mostly due to citizen apathy.
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  1985. Oh - horror of horrors: Even Emma has started to croak at the end of most sentences! What is going on with intelligent and eloquent women in the public sphere in the US?
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  1986. I was less than half way in when the realization hit me: What am I wasting my time on watching? CNN? I am now convicted that 'Muricans are shallow idiots! Maybe not ALL 'Muricans are shallow idiots, but it is a really close call!
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  1987. If you needed further proof of how corrupt the SCOTUS has become, look no further! The executive branch has, in US history, simply ignored SCOTUS rulings on more than one occasion and got away with it because the SCOTUS has no enforcement power. It is time for the executive branch to start ignoring the thoroughly, blatantly corrupt Supreme Court.
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  1988. It is just beginning - it will be interesting to see how the 'Murican version of Kristallnacht will manifest itself. The only thing we can be assured of, it will be nasty, mean and bloody (much like the female Bishop that dared to mention Christian Mercy to Toddler Trump).
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  1989.  @charlesljones2454 , not to mention the dumbest of all, those that refuse to face the fact that the US political system managed to elect as their "Dearly Beloved Leader" someone that - even if cunning, sly and vindictive - appears to be imploding. These days he can hardly string together a coherent sentence...
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  1990. I'm an old non-'Murican dude, yet I feel energized by the fact that finally there is an 'Murican presidential candidate that seems likely to motivate the hitherto disillusioned younger 'Murican generations in a way that has not happened in over 60 years, a candidate that is neither a blatant narcissist (Trump) or someone that really should retire, even if he has done exceptionally well in his autumn years (Biden). I was only 11 when Kennedy was elected and 13 when he was assassinated, and the media coverage of US politics in my remote country was nothing like it is today but even I, just a kid a the time, felt the energy and optimism that marked the period. Simply put: I feel the same now as I did as a kid in 1961. 'Murica just might become the US of A again, instead of degenerating into a fascist state under Trump!
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  1991. The confederation lost the civil war long ago, but they never properly surrendered - they have been subversively keeping alive overt and covert resistance movements for 155 years. Isn't it time to snuff out this nonsense or will there have to be ANOTHER US civil war? This time around ALL resistance should be thoroughly snuffed out in a modern US version of the Nuremberg Trials.
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  1992. What a waste of time, giving this nutcase any airtime. He is so intent on preventing 'Murica from falling into the "socialism trap" that he is willing to die for it - like his dad did! The concepts "socialism" and "communism" are buzzwords used to scare the bejesus out of ignorant idiots like Eddie.
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  1993. Please bear in mind that this is coming from the TRUMP administration, an entity that is incapable of being truthful about anything! Trump's fantastic replacement health care plan that has been about to be "announced next week" for some years is one example. Also bear in mind the upcoming election - if Trump and his administration have lied about just about everything up till now, what are the chances that there is more than just a tiny grain of truth in this particular spiel?
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  1994. Can you imagine the problems that would be solved if Trump caught the virus?
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  1995. Why are you denigrating the Glorious Beloved Leader of the US, the proprietor of "True News" (as opposed to "Fake News")? His brilliant idea of cleansing Covid-19 patients of the virus by ingesting or injecting disinfectants WILL actually stop the virus in it's tracks! That stopping the virus will be done by killing the patient is incidental...
    1
  1996. Soon to be the home of the sick and the dying?
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  1997. A normal female voice is to be enjoyed - and while Abelina's voice may be high, I do have never found it annoying. A female voice in the "screeching" range is hard to bear, if only because a screeching woman usually does so because something bad is happening. About the only kind of female speech I find irritating is when some women that have perfectly nice normal voices end every sentence with a croak (like Abelina happens to do at 3:54 into this clip). Why do they do that? Are they trying to follow advice similar to Jane Lynch's by imitating male voices? Personally I find that silly.
    1
  1998. It is becoming more obvious every day: 'Murica alone is what will happen. I suggest we modify the POTUS acronym to the more appropriate COTUS (Clown of the United Stats), and Vance will, appropriately, be the Vice-Clown of the United States.
    1
  1999. These questions are rather pointless. Given recent events, Russians will be vilified and unwelcome wherever they go, for at least one or two generations. Besides, neighboring countries have found out - the hard way - that having Russians living there is very dangerous! The next Russian dictator is bound to use Russians living in other countries as an excuse to "liberate" those countries, much like Putin has been doing with countries south of Russia, is currently doing in Ukraine and will be doing next in Moldova etc. Putin's Russia must be stopped decisively NOW to prevent WW3. Russians do not have to worry about being invaded - nobody wants to have anything to do with this horrible nation.
    1
  2000. Aren't you US Americans proud of your petty child of a president?
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  2001. What a difference half a century makes (will we be as advanced in 50 years or will we have to revert to flint axes?). To our modern eyes, the technology was mind-blowing PRIMITIVE, their PROM had to be manually set by hand, bit by bit. What we should focus on is NOT how primitive this was by today's standards, but how brilliantly our mothers and fathers solved the complex tasks called for at the time, thus blazing the trail we are walking every day without thinking about it. What this drives home is the fact that the SIZE of your member matters a lot less than what you can actually DO with it!
    1
  2002. One wonders what DeSantis's "Team" will be called when this becomes history - probably something related to the color of their outfit. Hitler's first goons were called Brownshirts, but later versions wore slick black uniforms and were called the SS. Nevertheless, the pattern of behavior is the same and the end result, if this is allowed to continue and mature, will be the same.
    1
  2003. The crux of the matter: Pay higher taxes and stop paying for-profit insurance companies. The net result will be considerable savings for the nation. Other developed countries do this, why not the US? The answer is simple: The owners of the same insurance companies will not be able to skim vast profits off health care costs in the US, so they unabashedly use their bought-and-paid-for politicians (and media) to prevent this change.
    1
  2004. There is no question that Hamas is a terrorist organization, apparently supported by Iran. On the flip side, Bibi Netanyahu's extreme-right government can hardly be a called a bunch of choir boys. They are giving Hamas a run for their money in the inhumane, extremist race. My sympathy lies squarely with the ordinary citizens of both Israel and the Palestinians. The old adage about "those that LIVE by the sword will DIE by the sword" really rings true, that is bound to be the fate of both extremist groups.
    1
  2005. It has been long argued that many US police departments as "public servants" are a waste of time, space and money. I have a sneaky suspicion that ALL the diverse Uvalde law enforcement departments have proven themselves to be useless and corrupt entities. The locals have probably been aware of this for a long time, but with so many children now dead due to their criminal incompetence, they are in for a figurative bloodshed within their ranks. Heads will fly and careers will be justifiably ruined. Nothing can excuse this level of incompetence.
    1
  2006. Pete Muntean is wrong about not having a lot of consciousness time at 16,000 feet. That applies to much higher altitudes (>25,000'). Unpressurized you can legally take any passenger to 13,000' for up to 30 minutes. Many people will start to experience hypoxia at 16,000' but that will take at least 10-15 minutes - an emergency descent from 16,000' to the safe 10,000' takes less than a couple of minutes.
    1
  2007. 'Murica elected an obviously stupid and ignorant Reality Show star as their president (no capital-P here). Ukraine, for some reason, elected a comedian as their president, and it seems they got the real deal in the bargain! Zelenskiy is truly rising to the occasion - after all, only a really smart person can poke fun at everybody while any soulless idiot can run "The Apprentice" - or ruin Russia, like Putin is doing now. I believe Zelenskiy will go down in the history books a good, even magnificent leader! Putin, however, will always be remembered as a globally dangerous pariah... My respect for Zelenskiy is rising by leaps and bounds!
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  2008. As an Icelander, I have always found it laughable how an idiot like Toddler Trump confidently talks about "the wonderful 'Murican Health Care System Canadians would have access to, were they to become the 51st state". It is one thing to recognize Trump as an inveterate liar, it is another entirely to actually waste time listening to, watching or even thinking about the absolute nonsense 'Murican Repugnicans are spewing these days! I am looking forward to this summer! Living in Isafjordur, Iceland, we have an obnoxious amount of cruise ships visiting every summer, with an inordinary amount of mature 'Murican tourists aboard! I (at 75) plan to take special care to let the obnoxious 'Murican visitors know how, despite my initial admiration for anything American during my formative years in the 1950s, I now find them really hard to bear, especially due to their clinging to extreme Capitalism.
    1
  2009. The British Empire had a lot to answer for in the early 1800s and well into the Victorian era. Unfortunately for their subjects, the ruling elite was totally devoid of a conscience of any kind of morality, making the lives of every subject nation an abject misery, be it Ireland, Scotland or India, you name it. Unfortunately, the bullying exploiters wrote the bulk of the history books, so these atrocities have never been properly highlighted. I wonder who would win the Body-count showdown (most bodies killed during their rule), the British Empire or Nazi Germany? By bet is on the Brits due to their much longer reign. My tiny country, Iceland, became subject to identical bullying exploitation tactics in the 1950s that lasted well into the 1970s but, unlike the Irish, we had Cold War Geopolitics on our side and we won the bloody Cod Wars!
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  2010. One wonders if the creep Abbot has any daughters... One also wonders if the creep Abbot can even be counted as human!
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  2011. What I find striking is how superficial 'Murican politics have become. It is all about appearances and who is the slickest liar, and very little about long-term policy - what needs to be done and how to implement it.
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  2012. By all appearances, the bit of American Continent residing between Canada and Mexico is solidly turning into the DSA (Disintegrating States of America). Our best hope (in a global sense) is that the guardrails of the original US constitution will hold, that Trump will not be able pull a "Hitler Putsch" on the US constitution. Germany was considered a very stable and law-abiding nation until Hitler managed to ruin it. The US is tethering on exactly the same brink these days!
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  2013. Elon Stink is in an unique position: What he has been doing will eventually be classified a indirect mass-murder, in come cases selective genocide (fitting, seeing that he is basically a South African that hates all Kaffirs).
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  2014. I find this "news" clip horribly superficial. What should have been added: The types of testing kits this relates to (with a picture to help people identifying the dangerous ones), clarification about what actions with the kit is dangerous and, most important, solid advice on how to properly dispose of the stuff.
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  2015. Do you 'Muricans have any idea how ridiculous you are becoming to the rest of the developed world?
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  2016. Kinda funny - in 'Murica it seems that 'bleep' is offensive and the nebulous concept of the 'N-word' is even worse. For a non-American like me this is hilarious! What about allowing the plain facts and words to be heard? That, in itself, will expose the immaturity and cruelty of the individuals spouting this kind of language. It would make it easier for the rest of us to determine who are intellectual arseholes...
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  2017. Well, this is their community, and if every gun-tot'n individual is properly trained an licensed, there is not much to say about it. You can go there is you like it and stay away if you do not. A gun-free US just MIGHT happen in the distant future, but the likelihood is very slim. I'm just glad that I do not live in the US where, in many places, you HAVE to be armed to the teeth to at least FEEL safe. With all these guns around nobody is really safe, there WILL be accidents.
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  2018. It is astounding (and suspicious) how usually extremely trigger-happy police kept their weapons holstered. ANY US police officer ANYWHERE else in the US would have emptied his sidearm into the crowd while screaming for backup. As far as I know, only one round was discharged by the Capitol defenders, eventually killing a female insurrectionist. Evidence is emerging that law enforcement being commended to 'protect' the right-wing rioters. Am I the only one smelling the stench a a stinking rat?
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  2019. It must have been a bit of a shock to realize you have been receiving the "mushroom" treatment for years (kept in the dark and fed on bullshit)! As the pilot, you are supposed to know EVERYTHING about the aircraft you are qualified to fly, there are NOT supposed to be any "need-to-know" issues. In hindsight, there is A LOT of systems knowledge that is absolutely irrelevant because you have no control of it anyway. It simply works until it doesn't, you are only expected to deal with the consequences...
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  2020. French roads must have been awful in the past: The best thing about French cars is not only their soft and fluid suspension, the STROKE length of the suspension is like on a dirt bike! The opposite is true for most low-end Asian cars that have unbelievably short suspension stroke! I owned a KIA Picanto that had a stroke of only 38mm (1.5 inches) on the front end and 42mm (1.65 inches) at the rear - EMPTY! Put 4 skinny people in it, and the suspension bottomed out. They must have REALLY smooth roads in South Korea...
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  2021. One might disagree with the "safe" aspect of the coastal areas of Washington State and Oregon. While they are in better shape than most regarding climate problems, they are prime candidates for geological upheavals. Earthquakes. According to this clip, 'Muricans seem to be almost flocking to the increasingly uninhabitable areas, i.e. behaving a bit like Lemmings. I wonder why that is?
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  2022. Let me guess: Putin-leaning US right-wingers, the Republicans, the fascists, dreamed up this piece of disinformation - no doubt prompted by their Russian handlers. Good job by CNN to dig up the "short clip" and how the 'Murican Putinists have edited and twisted it to their purpose. There is no doubt that if Putin's Russia gain an inch in Ukraine, his next target - in a decade or so - will be a NATO member country and THEN, like Zelensky is pointing out, every NATO member nation, including the US, will have to fight, i.e. send their sons and daughters to bleed like the Ukrainians are doing today.
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  2023. The youth of the US is the only hope. The activity of the Parkland students is an indication of what the voters of the future will want implemented.
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  2024. At he time of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, I was a domestic airline pilot in Iceland, flying turboprops that are just as vulnerable as ordinary jetliners. The irony: We were mostly able to operate normally during all the trans-Atlantic cancellations, as close as 10 miles from the eruption, PROVIDED we could do so VFR (visually, no flying in clouds), and thus able to avoid any visible volcanic ash contamination. We never had any issues.
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  2025. Isn't a Press Conference a venue intended for exchange of information? Perhaps an initial speech and then questions asked & questions answered? What Trump did here was, at best, a Press Release - and an idiotic one, at that. What borders on being criminal is fooling the press into getting together for no purpose at all during a runaway pandemic.
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  2026.  Jebus Hypocristos , there is certainly plenty of horrible stuff DeSantis can me blamed for.
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  2027. According to a recent UN General Assembly Resolution, over 73% of the nations forming the UN are against Russia, less than 4% actually support Russia and the rest is playing scared chicken. Basically, Russia is royally Effed!
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  2028. US Americans have some weird ideas about "socialism", not realizing that many US institutions are government or state-run and, in that sense, have for a long time been "socialist" institutions. The first institutions that come to mind are the police, the military and most of primary education.
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  2029.  @PGraveDigger1 , which is why I put the word "socialist" in quotes. For too many US Americans, socialist = communist = despotic. Like I said, they have some weird ideas about these concepts. I have lived all my life in a country that is in fact capitalistic, but with social-democratic limitations on our capitalism (one of the Nordic countries), and find the way too many US Americans understand these concepts quite hilarious.
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  2030. Perhaps people that are NOT right-wingers should start worrying about what direction CNN is now taking? I don't know how to properly phrase it, but I have always felt that CNN is a right-wing media outlet that has been be thinly disguised as something it is NOT.
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  2031. The US made it's own bed by giving big corporations and Wall Street free rein. Now the citizens of the US must lie in it. I predict that the US nation is not going to take this shit any longer.
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  2032. Lying Lindsey Graham is one reason that I, a non-'Murican, have developed a decided distrust and disgust of anyone that speaks with an 'Murican Southern Drawl. I absolutely KNOW it is unfair, but I there you are.
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  2033.  Jodie daubenmire , or it might be the environment the poor sods are raised in that hampers their intellect?
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  2034. Watching the creep squirm is, well, enjoyable. Does that make me a bad person?
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  2035. More police is not a problem, provided they are there to "protect and serve", NOT behave like the Gestapo/SS/Brown-shirts of times gone by. One thing is clear: If "policing" in 'Murica continues along the George Floyd / Derek Chauvin lines, the US is doomed to fail - it will become a truly fascist state and then dissolve into some kind of a civil war, followed by a war against the rest of the world (following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany)! One fact remains: Biden is a remnant of the past, AOC and her likes are the future (if the US has a future at all)! Hopefully Biden will be able to pave the way for the US to once again become a passable democracy, with following generations completing the job of making the US a genuine democracy. Erin Burnett is ethnically Irish, and she is standing on a burning pile of rubble trying to preach just about anything - the Irish can NOT claim to having been peaceful in recent centuries, by any stretch of the imagination.
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  2036. Well, that was a quiet and calm resolution of the conflict. A Bribe? NO! It is simply a SCOTUS-approved way of running a country! The fact that ALL 'Murican allies are disgusted by the blatant corruption on display in 'Murica,
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  2037. US Americans seem to have the attention span of a gnat, and the Trump crowd is betting the house on that. A 4-page summary by a Trump lackey seems to be withing the scope of what the average US American can cope with, a 400 page detailed report is not. This even seems to apply to the majority of the Congress and the Senate! US Americans have to be spoon-fed the contents - and the Trump crowd is possibly going to get away with that. Note that I use the term "US Americans" to distinguish them from other nations on the American Continent, i.e Canadians, Mexicans and all the rest. US Americans are a breed unto themselves.
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  2038. Did Alisyn Camerota really work for Fox for 16 years and escape mentally intact?
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  2039. Trump actually bragged about how he had "locked in" the Afghan debacle in a way the Democrats could not undo! The nuances of this escape me. While Thom's attempts to occasionally bring in Right-wingers (if only to expose their abject stupidity) should be applauded, I find myself unable to endure more than a minute or two of the rhetoric of this big-jawed, thick-necked excuse of a human being.
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  2040. ´Muricans, Thom included, are like puppies, chasing the latest moving object! Iran is successfully supporting Putin's war in Ukraine by diverting western attention to the disintegrating situation in the middle east. Sadly, the western nations are falling for this feint - no surprise there, the West, especially 'Muricans, have the attention span of a gnat
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  2041. Let's see what country will lie in ruins in, say, 6-12 months. I suspect the US will be a case study in how NOT to respond to a global disaster. The US will definitely no longer be the most influential country on the globe, just like Putin intended.
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  2042. Sadly, impeachment is only possible if the perpetrator (Trump) is in a significant minority in Congress. Seeing that at least 1/3 of 'Muricans were stupid enough to vote for Trump, another 1/3 was absent and the Repugnicans took care of the rest by voter suppression and gerrymandering, you 'Muricans are stuck with Toddler Trump - AND YOU DESERVE HIM!, you really do. You are in for a Hitler-like period, where all the norms you were used to are being torn down, Trump's "brownshirts" (Jan 6 insurrectionists) have been pardoned and re-enabled, and political violence will be the new norm.
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  2043. There is a saying that is proving to be absolutely true: 'Murican democracy is the the best democracy billionaire money can buy!
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  2044. The debate and opinions on Thom's program always seem sensible to me. When Thom says that all the US can do is "hope for the best" you KNOW the US is in deep shite.
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  2045. The US actually WAS a role model for European countries 60-70 years ago and we learned A LOT from you, things that we are actually enjoying today. 40 years ago you elected Reagan as your president, and it has been downhill ever since - and the slope is getting steeper and slipperier for you year by year. You seem to have forgotten to follow all the lessons we learned from you. Pity.
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  2046. An old, hard-earned lesson emerges once again: An aircraft designed to be able to do just about EVERYTHING will end up doing NOTHING particularly well. In one respect the F-35 is certainly top-of-the-line: If is a bottomless money-swallowing pit!
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  2047. Credit Trump for finally relenting and, feet dragging, reluctantly doing what he should have done weeks, even months ago? He is likely, given even the slightest opportunity, to try to sabotage the whole thing, just out of spite. The corona-virus pandemic is no doubt the worst disaster to hit the US in over a century, it can be argued that Trump is a firm second.
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  2048. Every vessel entering he Baltic Sea has to pass through narrow Danish territorial channels, Storebælte and Öresund. It seem like a no-brainer to stop every suspicious vessel passing through and check their insurance and seaworthiness - apparently most of the Shadow Fleet will be unable to pass even a cursory inspection, and should not be allowed to proceed into the Baltic Sea unless all seaworthiness issues are corrected. That would put a crimp on Russian and Chinese hybrid warfare.
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  2049. An Impeachment Inquiry is simply a fact-finding process. If a lot of wrongdoings are found, the Republicans will be FORCED to accept impeachment, if insufficient wrongdoings are found, Congress will simply not go ahead with the Impeachment itself and Trump will be truly exonerated. Likely, eh? The bottom line: If the Impeachment Inquiry is NOT started, Trump will have successfully obstructed justice. Nancy Pelosi is either a wimp or her strings are being pulled by her Big Donors.
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  2050. Is the US media catatonic regarding what laws Trump is suspected of having violated? In this clip only the Espionage Act is discussed at length, while Trump's most obvious violation appears to be criminal handling of classified documents and government records, with obstruction of justice being a close second. The Espionage Act only applies if it can be shown that Trump did or intended to sell the classified documents to foreign governments. My question: Is "Democracy Now!" intentionally trying to create confusion about the Mar-a-Lago search warrant to aid of Trump's attempts to cloud the issue?
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  2051. The US is about to run into a massive Trump-created problem: Current and former allies will NOT be lied into another disastrous conflict in the middle east - the US will have to face the consequences of this blunder alone. Trump is succeeding in breaking up western alliances, and I suspect Putin is the puppet-master.
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  2052. By declaring "war on terror" without being able to specify WHO that applies to is too open-ended. In practice, the US has been at war with anybody they do not like, using methods declared illegal by international treaties and, in a nutshell, throwing the much-revered US Constitution out the window. All it takes is some slick verbal maneuvering (e.g. the concept of "enemy combatant") and the US is no longer a country ruled by law. This is Animal Farm mentality, and Lindsey Graham is one of the Pigs.
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  2053. Never mind assassinating Trump, the prodigal "Seal Team Six" should first be sent to dispatch to the hereafter the 6 most dangerous individuals in 'Murica: The 6 conservative SCOTUS justices!
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  2054. Yep, despite all the high expectations, Useless Obama turned out to be mostly a dismal failure, just another Corporate Democrat (spelled: Left-leaning Republican).
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  2055. My language (Icelandic) is apparently the only one to still use the Þþ and Ðð letters. In Icelandic, they (þey) are a sound formed by the same mouth/tongue movements, but the Þþ is un-voiced (the vocal cords are open), while the Ðð is voiced, the vocal cords are active.
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  2056. So, if the insurrectionists on Jan.6th had actually found Mike Pence and manages to hang him, the world would now be a better place? A bit harsh, but probably true, zealots like him (TalibEvalengicals) are a danger to everyone around them.
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  2057. I have always found the rise of the Nazis fascinating, especially after watching documentaries about post-WW1 Germany. It is easy to see how downtrodden ordinary Germans would be attracted to the Nazi ideology. The way post-WW2 Germany was treated probably prevented a repeat performance. The morale of the story? Ask yourself... One wonders if something similar is going on in modern-day 'Murica? There is a large group of people that have been "left out", that are now misinformed and uneducated, people that would otherwise have been members of the middle class that Ronald Bloody Reagan eviscerated during his "reign". Ah, the rewards of being "a conservative 'Murican" today!
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  2058. Austria and Switzerland are surrounded by once-burned, twice-shy countries that serve as buffer zones for them. Now that Putin's Russia has reared it's ugly true self with it's brutal invasion of Ukraine, a LOT of countries are rethinking their security arrangements. Finland and Sweden appear to have made up their minds, but what can you say about "freebies" like Switzerland, Ireland and Austria? A whole host of surrounding countries will have to be overrun by whatever aggressor you can imagine (Russia, China, you name it) before their own borders are threatened. Why should they waste precious tax money on military matters when they are living in a padded, protected environment? Then again, what could Ireland do if Putin decided that it would do nicely as a Russian outpost in the Atlantic? Ireland is in the same precarious situation as Ukraine, not a member of any defense alliance and thus an easy target! Do not ever take anything for granted!
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  2059. Who can blame this policewoman (if that is what she is, the grey uniform is a bit unusual) for buckling under the strain of finding herself a member of a hated profession? In a country like the US, where everyone and their grandmother can be expected to pack a gun, finding yourself a member of an increasingly hated profession must be increasingly perilous. Ana is understandably a bit harsh in her judgement, but there is another side to this issue: Policing is a very difficult and thankless job at best, the police in every country on Earth has to tackle all the most despicable problems of each given society. For all the normal, compassionate individuals that have taken on this profession (usually the majority) this is what they signed up for and the try their best to do it well. What really, Really, REALLY boggles my mind is how things have come to this: Because of relatively few bad apples and their unforgivable actions, the entire police profession is now being vilified in the US. The police in the US is acquiring a Gestapo-like reputation! The Good Cops (apparently the vast majority of the police) are now members of the most hated profession in the US because they allowed the "Few Rotten Apple Bad Cops" problem to escalate to the out-of-control situation all US police forces face today. The "good cops" are partly to blame for not having united to root out any bad apples years ago! The so-called good cops are now enjoying the fruits of their own inaction.
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  2060. 2024 update: While Iceland/China formal relations have not changed since Russia started its expansion operation in 2022 (with a nod from China), the general public is having second and third thoughts about trusting anything China does. Putin's Russia is out in the cold! The only Russians freely accepted here are proven Putin dissidents like Pussy Riot - ALL other Russians are suspect as potential Putin operatives, until proven otherwise. It may be a bit unfair, but Russians are considered guilty until proven innocent, the only way to handle Russians abroad until Putin and his oligarchy is dead, gone and dissolved.
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  2061. To me, it seems that the US military, AT ALL LEVELS, is criminally negligent in coordinating and licensing the training and skill level of it's medical personnel. Bottom line: The military medics that work on blown-up and bullet-ridden soldiers are not even qualified to serve as school nurses when they get back! How ridiculous can you get? I wonder if the US military is this incompetent or if the entire US medical system is irrevocably broken? My guess is BOTH.
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  2062. Hegseth is a KNOWN 'Murican inebriate, nothing will change that. What remains to be seen is what mischief he will cause in future.
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  2063. Does shooting an aggressor in the shoulder a close range constitute use of deadly force? If the target is Black, they always aim for the center, where all the vital organs are. If the target is white, they either fire warning shots or don't fire at all. Go figure...
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  2064. Watch this Chinese face carefully: This is the face of a Chinese Liar! He talks "with a forked tongue". A "face" never to be regained. China intends to follow Putin by conquering Taiwan (let's see how that goes) and then go on to further territorial conquests. Putin was premature and I believe China will also be premature in it's global conquest.
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  2065. It seems that what was left of the integrity of the Republican party died with John McCain, it is now the Repugnican party.
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  2066. Being ignorant regarding these matters, I wonder how much of Caterpillar's production has been moved offshore (China, India?) and what production capacity was allowed to remain in the US. I am still waiting for the production of e.g. the latest US jet fighters, Cruise missiles and Nuclear submarines to be moved to China, all for the purpose of increased profits for the Military-Industrial Complex shareholders. Well, the US Stock Market is about as ridiculous: The fate of the US economy is actually in the hands of a group of people that act like a frightened flock of sheep. Someone saying 'BOO' at the right time and the right place will easily be able to make the US economy collapse. Talk about building a house on sand...
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  2067. C#*&t Stefano is harping on the inflation that is POTENTIALLY happening on Biden's watch. It is brewing, but has not happened yet AND the seeds to said inflation is, as usual, due to Repugnicans spending like drunk sailors while they are in power, fully knowing that the spending hangover will not be due until the next election cycle. And - IF by any chance the Repugnicans manage to be in power during the "down" cycle, they will easily find a shameless way of lying their way through the whole thing. Democraps still seem to have a figment of a conscience, the Repugnicans lost theirs in 1980 when they elected Ronald Bloody Reagan to initiate the end of US democracy. I always get the creeps when Thom brings on rabid Repugnicans. He may mean well by inviting other opinions, but I still get the crawlies. What a waste of time!
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  2068. This is ominous! The simple fact that in the mind of the US public there apparently was a possibility that SCOTUS actually might hear this frivulous lawsuit and possibly entertain it is more than a strong indication of how the US public no longer has confidence in SCOTUS following the law. The fear that the SCOTUS might have become just another partisan tool to be wielded by rich conservatives is very real. SCOTUS decisions in 2021 will reveal this, one way or another.
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  2069. The 'Murican political system can be discounted as totally corrupt - the only country on the globe where the highest court of the land (SCOTUS) has actually made political bribery openly LEGAL! Most other corrupt nations (like Russia) take care hide the corruption under a veneer of false respectability.
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  2070. Ukraine has earned an unqualified membership in NATO by their sheer perseverance - if they want to, all in due course. Putin has built and is living in a house of cards that WILL collapse around his ears. The only question that remains is how bloody it will be. Given Putin's past deeds (people committing "family suicides", falling out of hospital and hotel windows, being poisoned etc) it WILL be bloody. Not only Putin's arse is hanging out in the breeze, so are the arses of all his accomplices and enablers.
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  2071. Define 'Honest US Politician'. Bernie is probably the closest you can ever get, confirmed by his decades-long position regarding various issues. He is still fighting for issues he was fighting for decades ago. Give him a choice of advancing a long-fought-for issue or advancing his own career: There are numerous examples of Bernie allowing other politicians to take credit for an issue he has been fighting for if that is what it takes to actually advace said issue. He is definitely NOT known for letting his ego get in the way... The usual definition of a politician is 'someone that makes a lucrative living by lying to and betraying the trust of his/her constituents' - but Bernie does NOT conform to that rule, he is one of the few souls that can genuinely be called a 'Honest Politician'.
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  2072. 'Murica seems to be at a critical tipping point: Will lies, greed and cruelty rule your immediate future, or will the future mothers of 'Murica save the day by turning out to vote your sorry male arses out of the Mad-Max kind of future that seems to be waiting for you? Personally, my hopes are pinned on the nest-makers prevailing. Fingers and toes crossed...
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  2073. The 737 has an unusually stubby landing gear and extremely low-slung engines. It must be one of the most crappy aircraft that pilots have to deal with in gusty crosswinds. In my career I have had the opportunity to fly a wide array of aircraft in far more difficult conditions than the average airline pilot will ever be expected to cope with. Fortunately for me, they were all turboprops that allow you thrust/drag control that is simply not available on jets. The most difficult were high-wing narrow-stance landing gear versions (DHC-6, Do228, Do328) and the easiest were low-wing wide-stance landing gear versions like e.g. the BAE Jetstream J32 with jet-like approach speeds (140 knots), very responsive controls and tremendous control once you touched the runway (differential braking and instantaneous differential reverse). The transition from flying to taxying was very short and decisive, the best analogy is to say that this bloody thing, for all it's other shortcomings, turned into a "wet rag" once you touched the runway. I was spoiled rotten, compared to your struggle with high inertia and sloppy controls.
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  2074. 'Murica certainly does not come across as "the home of the brave", and the same applies to entire Western NATO alliance, with the Germans as the prime chickens. A brutal breach of international law is being perpetrated before of our very eyes, and all we can do is to sic our gutless bureaucrats on Putin, imposing before-proven-useless sanctions! True, Western involvement in the Balkan disaster was via a UN-agreed action, which will obviously not happen here. The West should, at least, use it's air forces to intervene and decimate Putin's air superiority. No "boots on the ground" required. If Putin gets away with this, he will move on to trying to overrun the Baltic nations in a decade or so. Better to nip this in the bud...
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  2075. @It's OK To Be White, not that I am condoning racism in any shape or form - it's just that when e.g. Islamophobia is labeled as as racism, these terms start to lose their meaning.
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  2076. @It's OK To Be White, you have a point there. Being racist does not make one a Nazi, but being a Nazi is a strong indication that one is a racist as well.
    1
  2077. Putin's Russia is like the worst bully any of us has ever known - on steroids! It is clear that the vast majority of modern nations have agreed on the "Rule-based world order", and a few rouge nations (Russia, China, India, Hungary, Turkey etc.) will not manage to change that - even if some of then are huge (China and India). The future of Russia is clear: Most other nations will not sell them anything or by anything from them while Putin or similar regimes are in power, and all the assets the Russian state and the Oligarchs have squirreled away, not currently frozen, will simply be confiscated for war reparations. There will inevitably be rogue states trying to help Russia, and they will eventually be lumped with the other bullies and be similarly isolated.
    1
  2078. Hilarious! Watching a US American's careful and convoluted approach to even TRY to explain the concept of non-capitalism to the hopelessly narrow-minded US public is fun! I have lived in one of the Nordic Countries all my life and I know that Capitalism is useful and necessary PROVIDED it is kept on a tight rain! It provides incentive for innovation and entrepreneurs, but will ruin any society if allowed to run free (the US is a prime example!). A sensible balance is all that is needed! We call it a "mixed economy", others call it social-democracy but, regardless of the label used, IT BLOODY WELL WORKS FOR THE ENTIRE POPULATION! The rich get to be rich (but not overwhelmingly so), corporations are allowed to become prosperous (but not without solidly contributing to the society that makes them sustainable) while the general public are able to live comfortably with only one job (that's why prosperous countries are considered "expensive"). Most important, no one is left out when it comes to health care, education and general security an happiness, the concept of "why should I pay for the health care and education of my neighbors" is an alien concept to us. We are all in this together. The pandemic is a test case. Compare the results the "WE-minded" countries have achieved to the results the "I, me, mine-minded" countries do. From Europe to Asia, the Americas are NOT winners (Canadian America and some others being an exception).
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  2079. "No one, even the President" should read "No one, ESPECIALLY the President, should be above the law"
    1
  2080. For someone that has always been known as a liar, it is incredible how many ignorant Rednecks Trump has been able to brainwash. The average MAGA Redneck will invariably be the dullest knife in the cutlery drawer, a fact that is confirmed every time one of them is interviewed.
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  2081. Zelenskyy had the fabled "true grit" needed for this disgrace of an extortion racket meeting. 'Murica just lost the last shred of respect it might have deserved from it's peer nations. This showdown was inevitable, just waiting WHEN, not IF. Toddler Trump IS a bully! 'Murica HAS become a bully that is about to lose most of it's allies! In the coming months, it will be 'Murica Alone, and NATO will "only" have 31 functioning members! The European part of NATO still has 31 member nations. It will take some time for us to get on the inevitable war footing against Putin, but Putin (and Trump) WILL be crushed.
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  2082. Should every nation now start killing any person their leaders think are "bad" people? Saudi's MBS and Putin have been doing it covertly, Trump just does it in plain sight, and so did Obama. Following that lead, there are countless former and current leaders and VIP's all over the world that should start worrying that their past sins, imagined or real, could get them assassinated any time in the future. What a world to live in...
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  2083. It is fun to watch one of Trump's minions squirming like a worm, trying to find a plausible defense, based on far-fetched technicalities, for this relatively minor case. This is a case where a court has already determined a crime had been committed and Trumps lawyer ended up in prison for it! Now, all that remains is to have the same punishment meted out to the person that masterminded and ordered the crime to be committed to his benefit.
    1
  2084. Great news for most US Americans: You are not ALL going to die, only a few percent of you will!. Phew, shat a relief...
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  2085. What Kamala Harris is saying might be wrong but it is sensible at this point in time. The 'Murican border protection system is STILL operating in the mode (and by the same Gestapo-types Trump/Miller installed), the problem being that the Biden/Harris government just might not AT ALL be interested in changing anything! There are strong indications that Biden/Harris are perfectly happy with the Trump/Miller-induced border situation while speaking against it, and will spend say, 4 years pretending to slowly dismantling it (when it can be done in less than a week). Just remember: Biden/Harris are just politicians and history has invariably proved politicians of any stripe to be inveterate liars! Trump may have taken lying to an entirely new level, but in hindsight he was/is the most honest of political liars: He is unabashed about his lying!
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  2086. Trump is in for a nasty surprise: By all indications, Canadians will NOT be bullied by an incompetent idiot, even if he is POTUS. Just one more former US ally that Trump is shedding, all in the interest of Trumps minder, Putin. This will no doubt repeat itself with all the other NATO allies, they will turn their backs on the US in disgust. NATO currently has 32 member nations. While the US is the largest and hitherto most influential, NATO will still have 31 member nations when Trump eventually pulls the US out. Putin's Russia has no chance defeating the remaining 31 NATO countries, especially seeing how dismally the Russian military has fared against little Ukraine.
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  2087. It is actually astounding how the Black community seems to be voting FOR the people that wield the stick beating them every day - the Corporate Democrats! It is about time that voters turn their backs on Republicans AND Democrats and start voting for something that actually works for the general population, not only big corporations and billionaires.
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  2088. One wonders if Western nations should start thoroughly vetting ANY US citizen that wants to cross their borders! Canadians have had a rude awakening with 'Murican Truckers, North Europe was asleep while North-American biker gangs infiltrated the region decades ago - they are now a major organized-crime problem in Western Europe, along with the organized crime Russia gleefully exported after 1990. I predict that 'Muricans will soon find themselves considered pariahs everywhere outside the US, along with their Russian counterparts.
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  2089. Any sentinent person in the world will recognize the humiliation Toddler Trump and Vance visited upon the 'Murican nation. Fortunately, the 'Murican nation is better than this, in the long run. As Churchill once said: The Americans can be trusted to do the right thing, once they have exhausted every other avenue - which Trump has been doing!
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  2090. I have always made a point of keeping the really important stuff (passport, money etc.) in my pockets in case of an emergency evacuation.
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  2091. As an European, I find it notable how 'Muricans seem to be unable to get from A to B unless they have about 3.5 metric tons of vehicle to transport their heavy-big-fat-arses. Elon Stink seems determined to up that individual-arse-moving-weight-minimum even higher!
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  2092. Aw, come on, who cares about a little itty-bitty corruption, especially among Republicans. It is their RIGHT!
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  2093. Potential scandals caused by relatives appear to be a fickle issue in madcap US politics. While Trump placed all his bets on finding something nefarious with Joe Biden's son (whatever any potential sins of a child might be attributed to the father), the same should be expected to apply in reverse anywhere - but not in the weird world of the Repugnicans: Trump determined that Ted Cruz´s father was instrumental in the John Kennedy assassination, but apparently no Repugnican batted an eye - least of all Ted Cruz, who is now bending over backwards slicking Trump's arse. Apparently, the sins of a Repugnican father should not apply to Repugnican children, but the sins of Democrap children should be the downfall of the Democrap parents. Sound logic, right?
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  2094. Tax breaks for the rich is one way of lining the pockets of the elites, inflation is another, Be assured, if inflation becomes and issue in the US, the rich will be well ahead of the game, they will certainly find ways to benefit from inflation. This is a game that has been played in multiple countries for centuries.
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  2095. Most European countries have speed cameras instead of grumpy cops all over the place, which explains why number plates MUST be front and back. If your Danish car is caught speeding in, say, Austria, the registered owner will be responsible for paying the fine. If the owner had lent the car to a friend that did the speeding, the owner will have to settle the fine with the friend and can request copies of the speed camera pictures that will include the face of the driver. Privacy, normally highly protected in Europe, goes out the window when you break the law!
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  2096. A mature and childless woman like this is likely to play a significant role in the nightmares of the extreme right-wingers that want to control women with an iron fist. The perverts have absolutely no means of controlling women like this! If only the rest of 'Murican womankind could enjoy the same freedom from those radical control freaks.
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  2097. The fact that the 'Murican election system was damaged enough to allow someone like Trump to be elected in the first place is a blight that the US will have a hell of a time living down. The credibility of the US as a democracy, even as a flawed one, suffered a heavy blow that will take a lot of effort to overcome. In fact, there seems a real risk that 'Murica as we have known it is about to break down, disown it's own Constitution and become a Neo-fascist Confederation of states. A dire prospect, indeed!
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  2098. What a waste of airtime, interviewing this piece of useless, religious waste of humanity.
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  2099. This entire situation, the fact that a US president can apparently pardon ANYONE for ANY crime, even proactively (not to mention allies, friends and family) only exposes how grotesquely corrupt the entire US political system has become. In the beginning, the Founders obviously never imagined the depravity US politics would reach, otherwise they would have made damned sure to limit the presidential pardoning powers to a fraction of what it is today. The entire situation is beyond ridiculous! Just the idea that a president could, in theory, pardon himself for any and all crimes he might commit for the rest of his life is just so - 'Murican! Illogical and stupid beyond belief!
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  2100. Genocide or attempted genocide - is there a difference? The US attempted genocide with the Native Americans, and did not quite succeed - much like Turks with the Armenians. To add denial on top of the genocide attempts only makes it worse, both for the US and Turkey.
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  2101. I looked it up. The UN defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" The Nazis tried it and failed - there are still a lot of Jews around. The Turks tried it and failed - there are still a lot of Armenians around. The US tried it and failed - there are still a number of Indians around. The only successful genocide that comes to mind is Homo Sapiens vs. Homo Neanderthalensis...
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  2102. James Gale, the 'in part' DOES apply to the attempted genocides, there are a lot of Jews, Armenians and Native Americans still around. The same will probably apply to e.g. the Rohingas in Myanmar, as it no doubt has applied to other groups in the past. These can all be classified as 'national, ethnic, racial or religious groups'. It can be argued how conscious e.g. the settlers of the west were of the fact that they were actually attempting genocide, they just thought of the Indians as a "problem". Is that what got under your skin? My quip about the Neanderthals may not be correct, we simply do not know enough about how and why they disappeared, but they ARE extinct now (except for the genes we apparently carry around). The 'wiped out' comment you quote did not come from me! We will probably not have true peace until we have all been "absorbed by interbreeding" and given up religion (not to mention politics!), which is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
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  2103. You 'Muricans better shape up NOW if you do not want to wake up in a country like Putin's Russia in a few years, a decade on the outside! Speaking of the past: I wonder what Bill Clinton is thinking now, seeing the consequences of many of his actions during his presidency. He is an intelligent man, does he sleep well at night? My Silly-Wild-Arsed-Guess is that he DOES! He is possibly a narcissist, a milder version of Trump. For that matter, what does Bush Jr. think of his legacy in office? My guess is that he will just look stupid and go "huh?"
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  2104. I wonder, when (not if!) Trump's desires openly conflict with and violate the US Constitution. No doubt no one will care when push comes to shove, Trump has already declared that he wants to violate everything the US was built on. The problem? When has Trump ever told the truth?
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  2105. That explains Putin's irrational actions. Greed, pure greed! The West simply MUST help Ukraine fight off the Russians (or rather Bloody Putin and his fellow Oligarchs, apparently the Russian general public has no interest in invading their near-relatives in Ukraine). The Ukrainians should be allowed to democratically decide how the Ukrainian nation arranges their government and their resources. THEY should reap the benefits of whatever resources they have, not bloody Putin and his fellow, blood-sucking Oligarchs!
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  2106.  C J , My last statement is is not a question, it is simply a statement of a fact: The US is no longer a democracy. It USED to be the example that war-ravaged Europe followed with great success, the proverbial "shining light on the hill", but Reagan poisoned the whole thing and Trump is now trying to kill it off completely. My question is: Will the US population resist or is the US about to follow so many empires of the past - onto disintegration and then oblivion?
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  2107.  @monjam112 , that is in name only. My own country (The Republic of Iceland) is also a called constitutional republic, but while the US is disintegrating before our very eyes, the citizens of my country are rising up and demanding a serious re-write of our 77-year old temporary constitution. Iceland is the most modern-Americanized of the Nordic countries (i.e. the most corrupt), but we are NOT willing to follow the US's road to ruin, our "shining lights" now are the other Nordic countries.
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  2108.  C J  No, this is an old Nordic name I was given soon after birth. "Halfdan" supposedly means "Half-Danish", and the "Ingolfsson" literally means "son of Ingólfur", my father's full name being Ingólfur Eggertsson. I was born, raised and have always lived in Iceland so the nonsense currently going on in the US only affects us indirectly. When the US catches a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia!
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  2109.  C J  Yes, I have 2 sisters, Lilja Ingólfstóttir and María Ingólfsdóttir - and for obvious and logical reasons women in Iceland do not change their name when they marry. In recent decades it has become quite common to use the matronym - suppose the father of Herdís's children was creep that they just want to forget: The children are free to use Herdísarson and Herdísardóttir.
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  2110.  C J  // This naming convention supposedly makes it EASIER to trace your ancestry far back in time, in our case because of useful documentation. The Icelandic Sagas contain a lot of this information for the important people of the time, but church records going back centuries are the foundation for ordinary people. There is even an on-line database where individuals can trace their ancestry far into the past (https://www.islendingabok.is/english ).
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  2111. The Parmar "investigation" might possibly be concluded around 2030? Probably Standard Operating Procedure. Is there any doubt that too many US policemen are arrogant and often fatally dangerous bullies. The sad part is the fact that while the majority of US policemen are good cops just trying to do their job well, they end up being completely irrelevant because they do not stand up to the bullies. As a result, they deserve to be tarred with the same brush.
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  2112. Alexandria's point: Other developed countries have affordable health care and education for all. Why on earth can't the US do it as well? I have seen sources saying that the US currently spends about 17% of GDP on health care while the other developed countries use around 10-12% of their GDP on their variant of single-payer health care. Due to their size, the US can even take it to scale and should be able to do it even BETTER once the initial kinks have been ironed out. The US government may have to raise taxes somewhat (especially on the rich), but the general population can use the money currently used to feed the greedy insurance companies to pay their increased taxes. AND - very important - the rich will STILL be able to go wherever they want to get their special health care, they will still be able to easily afford it.
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  2113. Expecting the DOJ under Wimp Garland to do ANYTHING to rattle MAGA Repugnicans is a pipe dream. Garlands fervent words to the effect that "no one is above the law" are not worth the paper it is not written on! 'Murica's "Lady of Justice" seems to be a toothless and demented old crone.
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  2114. Every airline puts their pilot applicants through a psychological test, after all they will eventually be responsible for hundreds of passengers at a time. It is glaringly obvious that anyone that is nominated for public office should go through a similar test BEFORE they are allowed to be nominated. The current US president is not only responsible for his own nation, his decisions can affect the entire globe, and he appears to be mentally unstable!
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  2115. Republicans in general are undermining US democracy with gerrymandering & voter suppression. Trump & Co are trying to knock down the revered US constitution by any means possible (and some really stupid and impossible).
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  2116.  Conservative Hamster , that is YOUR problem isn't it? From where I'm standing, she seems very intelligent and rational and her morals seem orders of magnitudes higher than many (most?) conservatives I have seen and heard on media. Most conservatives seem to think only of "me-me-me", whereas Alexandria advocates the welfare of her society in general. If you you confuse that way of thinking with communism, I think you are in for a rude awakening in coming years. Trump's shenanigans seems to be bringing US voters out of their stupor, young people and women are getting involved and no amount of gerrymandering and voter suppression will withstand that in the long run. The US might even become a proper democracy in a few years! Bad tidings for both Republicans and traditional Democrats.
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  2117.  Conservative Hamster , you are obviously beyond redemption - so stuck on ultra-conservative rhetoric than you are unable to see anything else. Most developed countries (except the US) manage this just fine, providing affordable health care and education without going bankrupt. You, however, seem to unable or unwilling to at least check out how things are done outside the US border. The common reasoning against these issues is usually that "the US is too large, too different, too this and too that" for this to work. The fact remains that the US is wealthy (well, a portion of the population, at least) and you have a lot of very smart people that could really take e.g. the European models to scale and do it more efficiently than smaller nations do.
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  2118. What a boring segment! Emma tries to focus on Bernie's policies, the host will only talk about what kind of glossy lies might win the Democratic primaries - and Emma lets herself be led there...
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  2119. I'm an outsider, and to me it seems like the entire 'Murican judicial system is partly corrupt (SCOTUS) or in denial (the rest of it). All you do these days is wrangle about technical legal issues, while totally ignoring the fact that 'Murican democracy is hurtling towards total and terminal disaster! A fitting comparison would be a skydiver with a failed main parachute, the emergency chute also failed - that 10-15 seconds from impact is still in denial, keeping to the mantra "so far, so good, so far ,so good".
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  2120. Can you escape censure in the prudish US of A if you speak literally, like "son of a female dog" instead of the usual "sumbitch"? Just wondering . . .
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  2121. It will be interesting to observe the havoc this Trump-sycophant is likely to wreak on the US population if he is allowed to replace Dr. Fauci. Trump's policy of recruiting "the best people" has proved so disastrous that in a month or two (before the elections) the Trump administration will mostly resemble a smoking crater. Problem auto-solved. Pity about the collateral damage...
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  2122. Well, I suppose the impeachment inquiry alone will be sufficient to expose the extent of Trump's corruption to ensure the he will NOT be re-elected. The final step, the actual impeachment and removal from office are likely water under the bridge already - after all, having Pence as president for the remainder is probably no improvement.
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  2123. Suppose "only" 10% of US policemen are sadists that too frequently become deranged when doing their "job" (not protecting ans serving, but terrorizing and torturing, even killing ordinary citizens), the biggest problem is the remaining 90% of US cops that have never done anything to stop the lunatic 10%. They are just as guilty for the appalling state of policing in 'Murica.
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  2124. Is it any wonder the US is falling apart? This is a nation of masochists that WILL NOT tolerate any piece of legislation that actually benefits the general public (themselves), the economy (no more trickle-down nonsense) or the environment to pass.
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  2125. Well, there is no way anyone can win this one, seeing how this comes down to taste. Personally, I find this hopelessly 'Murican-oriented, the only non-'Murican bands being the Beales, Queen and ELO. Quintessential vocal harmonic bands like Abba are not even mentioned, which makes this a very Trumpian and cheap and, well, 'Murican. What else can you say?
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  2126. How silly is this? If Trump is sentenced to prison, TO PRISON HE GOES, just like hundreds of thousands of his countrymen that have run afoul of the law or the land - a cruel and revenge-based prison system that he is unlikely to survive, given his age and general lack of heath. 'Murica is a world champion: No country has more prisoners pr. capita that he US!
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  2127. To an outsider, a non-'Murican, the whole thing screams CORRUPTION - but you 'Muricans just start debating the finer points of blatant corruption. In 'Murica corruption is LEGAL! Bribing politicians is LEGAL! Your so-called SCOTUS has said so! Believe me, you guys are Effed!
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  2128. Once upon a time the heroes were the Spitfire pilots of England or the, well, take your pick. Today, the unsung heroes are the people that slog their way to work, do an impossible and sometimes inhumane job of caring for COVID-19 patients without the proper resources. The, after a grueling, inhumane shift, they slog their way home - or to an isolation dorm, only to slog their way back to work the following morning. I wonder if weeks or even months from now we will even begin to appreciate the sacrifice they are making, many of them sacrificing their lives. There really SHOULD be a day of reckoning and appreciation for the unselfish sacrifice of those involved. On the other hand, we should have an open season for hunting down and exterminating the CEO's and main stockholders of US Big Pharma and Health Insurance grafters...
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  2129. This just goes to show how disgusting Repugnicans really are, how low they are able to stoop. I really hope this explodes in their face come November.
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  2130. @L B, correct. The biggest tragedy, though, is the potential dissolution of a relatively peaceful society. This usually means some form of civil war...
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  2131. One wonders if Sucker Carlson will be able to safely return to 'Murica. Once the NATO/Russia war starts (be it tomorrow or in 10 years), Sucker will be counted as a traitor and be sentenced as a Putin asset, to be summarily executed.
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  2132. The kindest framing you can put on this incident is the fact that the police did not, after all, brutalize or kill the black man they arrested for no apparent reason (an even refused to state the reason for the arrest when asked). Is that supposed to be progress in US policing?
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  2133. 'Murica fully deserves the crappy, corrupt, bought-and-paid-for politicians they keep electing. Bernie is simply too good for 'Murica, yet he continues fighting for everyday US citizens, like he has been consistently doing for well over 40 years. Again, you 'Muricans simply do not deserve a honest and consistent politician like Bernie! Dishonest liars and cheats, THAT is the kind of politicians you keep electing, and it reflects the general nature of the entire 'Murican nation, what you have become!
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  2134. Black/Native/Immigrant history can only be subsets of the overall subject: 'Murican history! A history of genocide (Native Americans), Slavery (imported, unwilling African Americans) and a plethora of other nationalities that have been found useful when building the 'Murican Empire that were found to be best flushed down the toilet when no longer useful by the "true, hard-working 'Muricans". No wonder US Conservatives and Repugnicans are afraid of teaching the true and shameful history of the US in schools. Also, no wonder current and former US allies are turning away in disgust when the current, racist US sentiment floats to the surface in 'Murican politics. Fact: The shite always floats to the surface.
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  2135. Ehrm... If the dissolution of the Soviet Union was not legal because they never voted on it, is Nazi Germany still not legally terminated because Germans never voted on it? At least the Germans never tried that argument, they surrendered unconditionally - and really suffered for it under Soviet rule. The USSR simply crumbled under it's own weigh and corruption - it went bust, bankrupt! As such it ceased to be, having no say about being unsustainable. Russia picked up some of the pieces and, lo and behold, only one decade into some hopeful experimentation with democracy, autocracy and corruption took over again in the form of Putin. I wonder if the Russian nation is beyond salvation, like a rabid dog that cannot be cured?
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  2136. This is not about Norway or even the Nordic countries. All the North European countries have a similar system: Health care and education is a RIGHT, not a privilege. If you 'Muricans are unable to grasp the concept that has been working perfectly well for us since WW2 (in many ways inspired by Roosevelt's post-war 'Murica), you are living in a dystopian world....
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  2137. I lasted less than a minute in. Gym Jordan is a shining example of the depravity of what is now the Repugnican party. Gym Jordan is like a Catholic priest; dressed nicely, but with a LONG history of depravity, much of it sexual depravity (right up Trump's alley!).
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  2138. Medical doctors and health care staff deserve our full respect, but never make the mistake of believing them infallible! They are just as human as the rest of us, and not immune to making mistakes. This is especially true in situations where medical staff has been overworked like during the last 3 pandemic years.
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  2139. Ordinary people in the West should take any "news" from Ukrainian and other western source with a shovelful of salt (and respect their need for secrecy) - and totally discount ANYTHING coming from Russian sources, the "harbingers of truth". This is, after all, WAR - and the first casualty is always the truth. We will learn the actual truth in a decade or two, when the historians have sorted through the rubble. Until then we can only cross our fingers and toes, hoping for a quick and decisive Ukrainian victory AND continue to support Ukraine with all our might. If not, the rest of Europe will suffer the fate of Ukraine in a decade or two. Russia, in it's current incarnation, is a blight on humanity!
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  2140. Gowdy appears to be just another Trumpzi airhead. Every human being has some opinion about various issues (including politics), and many even have strong opinions. According to Gowdy, being "biased" against Trump is a sin that should exclude anyone from working for e.g. the FBI. He could not be more wrong. Institutions like the FBI have oversight and protocols to reduce the risk of personal biases affecting investigative work, and agents KNOW that when they take on the job. Of course the risk can never be eliminated entirely, but the FBI seems to be trying to keep it to a minimum.
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  2141. Don't you think it's time to stop calling these idiots the GOP (Grand Old Party?) and start using an appropriate acronym like POP (the Pathetic Old Party)?
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  2142. 'Muricans: Take a look at the disaster your political system is! The either/or winner takes it all system is actually ruining the American Experiment! Who have been the most successful countries on this planet for, say, the last 40 years? What countries have been at the top of every metric imaginable? Basically North Europe, with the Nordic countries floating on top every time ('Stralia and Kiwi-land have been the quiet members of the top-ten club for a long time). Now, what is the most prominent feature of the most peaceful and prosperous countries in the world for decades? They ALL have MANY political parties, politics are a multi-layered COMPROMISE, not an eternal Wild-West kill-or-be-killed shootout between 2 entities. 'Murica, you are constantly effing yourself!
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  2143. A really clever move, not assigning a gender to every object (he, she or neither). This makes it far easier for non-English speakers to learn English. My language, Icelandic, assigns a gender to everything, which makes it hard for English-speakers to learn Icelandic. The same, I suppose, goes for e.g. French and German. An irritating side effect is that it also makes it harder for an Icelander to learn German and vice versa (even if the grammar is quite similar) because these languages tend to assign a different gender the the same objects.
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  2144. Betsy DeVos & Elaine Chao resigning at the last moment? The Rats were abandoning the ship before it went down!
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  2145. This a scraping-the-bottom-othe-barrel "scandal". If Bernie accepting his salary as a senator is the worst scandal the opposition can find, Bernie is in good shape. By this yardstick, ALL senators are involved in a "scandal".
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  2146.  @Evolixe , I envisioned them ramming a "soft" part of the airliner (the empennage, either the fin or a stabilizer) with either a wing or the aft fuselage of the fighter, and THEN trying to eject, fingers crossed. At least they would have a chance of survival, which is more than can be said of the passengers of the doomed airliner. Taking part in expediting the death of over a hundred innocent people, even if they were arguably doomed anyway, would be hard to live with for anyone.
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  2147. I found driving in the UK surprisingly easy if the driver seat is on the appropriate side for the UK - you just mirror everything and keep the driver seat near the middle of the road. On the flip side, I actually have driven a car built for right-hand traffic in the UK, and it is TERRIFYING!
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  2148. Well, the stink is reaching high heaven and will probably remain for, how long? The only thing that seems to have been working perfectly during Officer Carrick's 20 years in "service" seems to have been the infamous "Blue Wall" (Oops, I guess that would be the "Black/Checkered Wall" in the UK). It seems that every officer that has worked with Carrick should be investigated, NOT TO MENTION every superior Carrick worked under for the past 20 years. If that is not done, nothing will change and all the contrite apologies offered by the current crop of "responsibles" will just be the usual gust of hot air.
    1
  2149. A fancy and learned description of the limits of what an imbecile (Trump) can and cannot do. Period. Even the corrupt SCOTUS is unlikely to argue with this rock-solid reasoning of the court of appeals.
    1
  2150. While 80-90% of cops in the US may be sensible and well-meaning people, they have a minority of stupid and even cruel Gestapo-types that have ruined the image of US police, which is fast becoming the most hated, reviled and despised profession in the US. The reason? The "god cops" apparently do not have the wisdom or courage to stand up to the bullies and actually stamp out the bad apples whenever one "comes out of the closet", resulting in the entire police force being stigmatized, and justifiably so.
    1
  2151. All we non-'Muricans can probably agree that a significant majority of 'Muricans are blithering idiots that will swallow a lie whenever they have a choice to make between an obvious truth and a glaring lie. These people are beyond help.
    1
  2152. Revealing information about State-committed crimes (typically, but no always war crimes) seems to be considered more criminal than the State-committed crimes themselves. Journalists everywhere, BEWARE!
    1
  2153. She is NOT calm (you can hear her voice is unsteady), which is to be expected given that her adrenaline must have gone through the roof when this started. The important bit is that she, and no doubt the first officer as well, kept their cool throughout the ordeal and performed as they have been trained to do. Her specific military background and training probably had little to do with it - except for the fact that in the military she must have had to prove she had "the right stuff". I am convinced that most, if not all properly trained airline pilots would have performed similarly, which does nothing to detract for her accomplishments in this crisis.
    1
  2154. Until Putin embarked on his suicidal blunder, Ukraine was country that had immense natural and population-wise resources, a country that had been enjoying a west-Europe-style standard of living and politics that boded well for their future. In the blink of an eye, that was blown away. Can anyone imagine the Ukrainians taking this lying down? Putin is in for a world of hurt! The Western countries will be slow to act, but things are starting to move. Truly crippling sanctions are coming into effect, the rest of the world is turning it's back on Putin and even Germany has abandoned it's previously anti-violence stance. NATO might be a slow-moving turtle, but once it starts crawling, nothing will stand in the way. The most important aspect, however, is that apparently the Russian people want nothing to do with this war! No "leader", even Putin, will be able to force, lie or cheat his nation into a war the nation DOES NOT WANT!
    1
  2155.  @darrenw9495 , true - Chenk obviously hates Trump, but so do a LOT of people (including me, and I'm not even a US citizen). All I am saying is that Trump resisters have to at least try to keep their facts straight. There are enough lies, falsehoods and nonsense coming from the Trump side, no need for rational people to copy that kind of nonsense.
    1
  2156. The wishy-washy US attitude towards the Russian invasion in Ukraine will be a blight on 'Murica for decades to come. 'Murica has been speaking with a "forked tongue" (nothing new there!): Pretending to support Ukraine while imposing a severe handicap on them by not allowing them to use the supplied weapons to effect! Will 'Murica ever outlive the shame? The lesson 'Murican allies will take from this one is that the word of 'Murica is not worth the paper it is not written on...
    1
  2157. The FBI and CIA have, historically, never been a bunch of choirboys, so some skepticism toward their actions is warranted. The Republican "ignore-the-law-in-plain-sight" policy is, however, so blatant that the FBI & CIA are really beginning to look like choirboys these days. At least the FBI & CIA appear to be trying to improve themselves while the Republicans are heading for the bottom of the swamp.
    1
  2158. In 'Murica, you are FREE to be screwed over by your employee, your religious leader (if you have one) and your nearest lying politician. What you are NOT free to to do is to vote without a major hassle, earn a livable wage working only one job, educate your talented children as they deserve or survive an unexpected illness in the family without going bankrupt AND losing your loved one anyway. Bottom line: The mnemonic USA (the United States of America) should be changed to e.g. ESA (the Enslaved States of America) or, at the very least, DUSA (the Dis-United States of America). All this "freedom" hogwash is getting very tired because the citizens of EVERY other developed country has more freedoms, in every sense of the word, than the beleagured citizens of the ESA!
    1
  2159. The health "War" and the economic "War"? The US is probably the only nation that applies the concept of warfare to virtually everything. That is, in a way, understandable. After all, the US has been constantly waging war somewhere in the world for decades, and NOT because they are constantly being invaded!
    1
  2160. Fox "News" is NOT a news outlet or a journalistic enterprise like David mistakenly referred to them.
    1
  2161. Ironic - "Turkovac" is the SECOND Covid vaccine invented by Turks! The so-called "Pfizer" vaccine was developed by Turkish emigrants to Germany, only to be taken over my 'Murican Big Pharma. Let's hope Turkey's own personal leaders (Gollum's) judgement regarding virological issues is not as hopeless as his economic judgement.
    1
  2162. The performance (or lack thereof) of what goes for boastful "protect and serve" police will in this case top (or bottom out?) the scale of incompetence. The concept of "living in infamy" will follow each and every individual member of that police force until the end of their miserable days. Hail Texas, the state of "armed to the teeth, ready to defend" individuals. When the chips are down, Texas turns out to be "the home of cowards" unable and unwilling to protect children of others.
    1
  2163. Social Democracy as established in North Europe has absolutely nothing to do with Socialism or Communism. For you ignorant 'Muricans: European nations have genuine DEMOCRACY (not the farce you currently have in the US), the Social (not social-IST) bit simply means that it is intended to favor the entire society, not only the rich and powerful. Communism is DEAD and it died when Stalin consolidated his authoritarian power in Russia. Yes, that early! Plenty of autocrats and dictators have since then used the meaningless LABEL communism, but is just a label to put a shiny front on their dictatorships. In a genuine democracy everyone is automatically registered to vote once they reach voting age. Your social status (poverty, skin color or your criminal record) is irrelevant. If you are a citizen you are expected to and helped to vote! No gerrymandering, no hours-long waiting lines. The US is currently classified as a Flawed Democracy and, the way things are going you will soon be classified as a Broken or Pretend Democracy. Is that what you really want?
    1
  2164. This is a no-brainer: Any nation buying 'Murican weapon systems are placing themselves under the thumb of whatever nutjob leaders flaky and ignorant 'Murica might have at any given moment. Ukraine has already had it's share of this. An added incentive: 'Murica solves military problems by burying them in money, something most nations cannot afford. The Swedish approach is at the other end of the spectrum, and most of the European MIC is dabbling somewhere in between. The current guiding light is the embattled Ukrainian defense industry that is performing miracle on a strict budget. It is out DUTY to support them in any way we can!
    1
  2165. Dr. Gupta's test looked familiar. When I had mine, the nurse told me what to expect. She was correct, the nose was probed until tears started flowing and then, the throat swab - throat probed until the gag reflex made further probing impossible. Rather unpleasant, but quick.
    1
  2166. It took greedy 'Murican CEOs many decades to move 'Murican manufacturing to "cheaper" countries. It would take any US government at least as many decades to move 'Murican manufacturing back to 'Murica - provided you were to find the manpower to to do it without the dreaded immigrants! Omigosh, you 'Muricans are ignorant beyond comprehension! The 'Murican inability to comprehend the "tariffs" issue is just a glaring example of how US education has been dismantled.
    1
  2167. Watching the US disintegrate is really, REALLY depressing. The US used to be a great nation and a role model to many other nations. That time is long past... Watching so-called US moderate media flail during the death throes is even more depressing.
    1
  2168. Apparently the US still has massive anti-trust laws on the books, laws that served the US population pretty damn well until the 1980s - when Ronald Bloody Reagan simply decided they should not be enforced anymore. I believe these laws are still there, ready to be enforced again (I hope I'm not wrong). I that is the case, countless large corporations and other entities have been violating these laws since the 1980s! Since Reagan went away, there have been at least 3 not-soulless president (i.e. not Republicans), but for some reason none of them have bothered to start enforcing these laws again. Why?
    1
  2169. Question: Were Sleazy Sliwa and his goons (Sliwa's "wolf pack") held accountable for assaulting an innocent NY citizen in the street? Justice is denied until they have. The Fox mess is another rotting cesspool altogether...
    1
  2170. When Obamaa became president, expectations were extrememly high around the world - too high, as it turned out. He turned out to be a too-corporate Democrat that ended up serving powers-hidden-from-us, the Drone-Killing and Assasinations president. A disappointment. Useless Obama. His saving grace is the fact that his successor turned out to be so awfully corrupt that he might potentially be the end of the US as we know it.
    1
  2171. As a non-'Murican, I am curious to see what kind of following Trump gets in 2024. Even more curious to see what following DeSantis will get, because he will be infinitely worse for the world. Much as I admired 'Murica in my formative years (the 1960s) I have now realized that 'Murica is a dead end, a cancer like Putin's Russia, Erdogan's Turkey and Orban's Hungary. The future of these countries is in peril! 'Murica is headed for the abyss (like Germany was in the 1930's) and
    1
  2172. One has to wonder what it will take for the EU to kick Orban's Hungary out of the European Union.
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  2173. I didn't know that the perverted Catholic Church was a member of so many "august" international organizations! This more-than-a -thousand-year-old collection of absolute perverts should have been rubbed out centuries ago - but the pervs are still going strong! Those female-hating pedophiles must be stopped!
    1
  2174. About bleedin' time! The whole confirmation hearing investigation and follow-up was a total farce, grossly evident to anyone with more than two functioning brain cells. The man came across as an arrogant bully, cheat and an abuser. It is high time all the leads that came up during the confirmation hearings are finally traced down to the bare, arse-naked truth. Will Merrick Garland follow up on this glaring omission of proper investigation practices? Bet your arse he will NOT do anything to disturb his right-wing owners. Bottom line: Kavanaugh was a creep in school, he was a creep when nominated for the SCOTUS and he will no doubt remain a creep until he meets his maker - the one with the horns and a tail.
    1
  2175. As further information comes to light, it is becoming clear that if 'the buck stops at the president's desk' remains true, Obama is a serious war criminal. The question remains if he became one willingly or if he was misled into becoming an useful idiot for the trigger-happy US military. The history books will not be any nicer to Obama than to Nixon or Trump.
    1
  2176. So speaks an arsehole...
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  2177. Let's all keep our fingers and toes crossed, a LOT is riding on this for the entire western wold. The unfortunate and apathetic majority of US voters that have not bothered to go through the hassle the Repugnicans have made voting in 'Murica, simply MUST get up off their lazy arses and do what it takes to save your nation from tyranny and dictatorship.
    1
  2178. When a superpower like the Soviet Union disintegrates, it seems illogical for a single state of the former Soviet Union to take over the full powers of the departed superpower without any revision of said powers. Now that Russia has turned into a rogue state that is threatening world peace, the UN is turning out to be a paper tiger, an empty shell, a useless entity that NEEDS to be revised, restructured or - most likely - dissolved once a majority of influential countries have agreed on how to structure a replacement entity.
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  2179. Welcome to America, the land of the "free"!
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  2180. Bombing other countries only earns the US their hatred and enmity, aiding and educating them makes them allies - AND saves a lot of money that could be used for domestic US needs that benefit the entire nation, not only the military-industrial complex owners.
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  2181. Let's hope that the nations eager to provide modern tanks to Ukraine went smart while Germany and the US were dragging their feet and surreptitiously started training Ukrainians in operating and maintaining the Leopard 2. New and fancy equipment like this efficiently requires a lot of training, but the 20 weeks the "naysayers" are spouting is nonsense. Take a kid off the streets of Manchester or Hamburg, and it will take 20 weeks to make him/her useful in a tank - then take a seasoned Ukrainian tank operator and teach him how to efficiently use superior equipment! They will take to it like fish to water! The most important part is already ingrained, the efficient handling of new equipment is like teaching a stick-shift-experienced youngster to drive a car with automatic transmission. It is the "naysayers" that should be taken aside and put to pasture, i.e retired, never to be heard from again.
    1
  2182. This is what 'Murica is coming to, gigantic banks like Chase stealing money from children? 'Muricans seem to have no shame when money is involved...
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  2183. Take a bunch of crumbling infrastructure, a lot of idiots driving heavy cars not prepared for winter and - hang on to your hats, here comes the chimney! 'Murica in a nutshell...
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  2184. The US has become "' 'Murica, by design the land of the Ignorant and the home of Idiots". I miss the old United States of America, a country I admired during my formative years in the 1950s & 1960s.
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  2185. NATO is NOT in ruins, it will be stronger once the Toddler's 'Murica has shown it's true colours and the remaining 29 countries finally face up to the fact that they have to foot the bill themselves of defeating Putin without the liars, cheats and cowards in the "land of the unfree". Giving in to Putin and The Toddler is simply not an option, they will NEVER stop trying to steal the resources of other nations. They have to be stopped here and now. WW3 has actually been on since 2014, we had better bring it to a conclusion while Putin is on the back foot and the robber barons of 'Murica are under the leadership of an idiot.
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  2186. What is terrifying about the results of this election is how many votes Trump is getting AT ALL! Trump has been a disaster for the US population at large, everything he has done has basically undermined what the US population actually needs and everything he has NOT done has facilitated untold misery and death among the US population (235K and counting...) - and he is STILL getting almost half of the popular vote! Sure, part of it is due to blatant voter suppression and gerrymandering by the Repugnicans, but the only rational conclusion is that almost half of the US voting public are either blithering idiots or masochists - licking the hand that is whipping and raping them. Mark my words: Within a decade or two these unrelenting extreme-right forces will manage to find another candidate to complete the downfall of the US. The next candidate will not be a virtually illiterate savant like Trump, it will be a more Putin-like or Erdogan-like character.
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  2187. The fact that US military brass failed to support the 'straight shooters' (the Vindman twins are a prime example) just goes to show how inept and corrupt the US military has become.
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  2188. He avoided answering the question in the typically slick way politicians do, by simply talking about something else. He actually gave a partial answer, saying that he hoped/expected there would be no NEED for Bloomberg support if Bernie comes out on top.This probably means that Bernie WILL accept money from Bloomberg if push comes to shove...
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  2189. Are you an US American? (Please note that I am distinguishing between Canadian Americans, Mexican American and the Lunatic Americans). Well, my condolances, you are a member of a disintegrating nation, supposedly a global superpower, that is falling apart around your ears. Have you ever seen one of the 'Mad Max' movies? I suspect THAT is your imminent future. If, by any chance, you manage to survive this debacle you absolutely HAVE TO mandate a sanity evaluation for EVERY individual running for office. The same applies to every other nation in the world: To be allowed to run for ANY office you must undergo a serious multi-platform evaluation to certify if you are SANE!
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  2190. The US's most proud argument is that they are TOO BIG and TOO DIVERSE to apply solutions that work just fine for ALL other developed nations. In Common-Sense-Speak this translates into: The US is not small enough to succeed at anything - or the US is so big that failure is guaranteed. What utter hogwash. According to that, you should drop "United" and "States" from the name and let the 50 current states become independent countries, each of them small enough to succeed at something, none so big that failure is assured. After all, every state already has the infrastructure required. Because you are so afraid of China and Russia you could form NAMA (North American Military Alliance) to maintain the current Military-Industrial Complex, and even use this as an excuse to bail out of the apparently money-sucking NATO alliance. In reality, the USA in it's current form could take any lesson from any other developed nation, take it to scale and do it brilliantly. After all, the other nations learned the self-same lessons from the USA in the years after WW2, you are the only nation silly enough to have forgotten them
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  2191. NOW there is suddenly good reason to do a thorough investigation? Consistency is clearly not a Republican forte.
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  2192. Whenever you listen to an extreme right wing Republican, be aware that you are listening to a chronically dishonest liar. These days it seems that ALL Republicans, extreme or not, can be painted with the same brush. History will NOT be kind to these people, whether the current fascist wave is successful or not.
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  2193. I suspect that Ukraine will have to be the straw that finally breaks Putin's back, with whatever assistance they get from their real allies. Let's be real: We can discount the US while Trump/MAGA run things there (and in the future), but Europe is facing the same reality that Ukraine has been battling for over 3 years, and they WILL get their arses in gear, eventually! Putin's Russia is no match for an unified and re-armed Europe. Europe will be fighting fit well before Russia has recovered from the losses inflicted on them by plucky Ukraine, and Putin is likely to be dead and gone by that time, anyway.
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  2194. It is actually a relief for us Icelanders to finally have a reduction in tourism. Things were getting totally out of hand, we were drowning in tourists, were not serving them well and a lot of "cowboys" were exploiting the situation by price-gouging tourists and exploiting employees. We can only hope that a downturn will weed out (bankrupt) the bad apples and that we will finally be able to do a good job of receiving and serving our visitors.
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  2195. Does anyone living outside the deluded US need any further proof that US politics has been corrupted beyond salvation? The rest of the Western World (former US allies) are watching the blatant disintegration of the US with morbid fascination. You 'Muricans tend to exclaim 'this is not who we are' - but in that you are wrong! This is EXACTLY what you have turned into. The worst aspects of the human condition is what you actually have become! Comparing today's US to Nazi Germany might seem unfair, but is it appropriate? Hell, YES!
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  2196. I live in a Norway-like country and used to admire the US and everything American (at least until you started killing the Kennedys), I have visited the US a few times but I have never actually wanted to MOVE to there. The US is now so screwed up that I do not even want to VISIT!
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  2197. Do you 'Muricans not realize how badly Toddler Trump makes you ALL look? Make no mistake, Trump threatening Denmark will only make all the other Nordic countries unify against the Toddler's moronic behavior, and the rest of you will be lumped in as Trump-like morons...
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  2198. Moscow Mitch "the Turtle" will go down in history as the most God-awful corrupt politician of all times, easily surpassing Boss Tweed, he epitome of corrupt politicians, someone that actually DIED in jail, serving his sentence! His legacy will be the fact that whenever there is a court case, at whatever level, up to the SCOTUS, the most important issue is always "WHO APPOINTED THE JUDGE". Moscow Mitch "the Turtle" will go down in he history books as the epitome of political and judicial corruption - like Benedict Arnold has been the epitome of treason.
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  2199. The majority of the current SCOTUS seems bent on NOT upholding the Constitution, as well as blatantly disregarding or overturning precedents that the same justices promised they would honor during their confirmation hearings. Does that not make these justices outright liars at a minimum and, eventually, traitors to democracy?
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  2200. Spot-on. If this latest SCOTUS atrocity does not shake non-participating US citizens out of their apathy and make them active voters, the US of A is doomed.
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  2201. According to the comments this is not a car, it is just a 4-wheel scooter, licensing-wise. Come to think of it, this is a nifty and economic solution to economic local transportation. Weighing around 1000 pounds, the overhead for hauling 1 or 2 regular arses around is minimal. Assuming a regular adult arse being 180-240 pounds, you are only hauling around an overhead 4-5 times your own weight. Now, compare this to a typical 'Murican Redneck, weighing up to 250 pounds (the slim version?) riding around alone in his 6000+ pound pickup truck, hauling around 25 times his own weight. That takes a LOT of excessive energy (gas = pollution) but, then again, you 'Muricans have never given a flying f#*k about the environment, have you? I'm European and in the last 3 decades I have been hauling my 180 pound arse around in small cars weighing 700-1100kg (1500-2500 pounds), my overhead being in the order of 4-13 times my arse weight - not nearly as efficient as the AMI or even the MyAMI, but only half of what a typical Redneck is hauling around.
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  2202. The US elected a seriously mentally deficient person as their leader. That alone should be ringing alarm bells all over the place and call for at least some action to prevent nonsense like this happening ever again. The most obvious action could be e.g. to have EVERY candidate seeking to be elected for ANY office to undergo a physical and psychological elevation. Reducing the risk of corrupt evaluation in a corrupt country like the US will not be easy, but there ARE ways to do it and that just might reduce the risk of the currently most power nation in the world electing another lunatic as their leader. Airline pilots go through this once or twice every year (depending on their age) and they are only responsible for the lives of a few hundred people at a time. POTUS is responsible for the lives of hundreds of millions of people ALL THE TIME (and not only US citizens!) and the current WH maniac is indirectly responsible for the deaths of over 1/4 million of his own citizens. How crazy can you get? Unfortunately the chances of the US doing something sensible are almost non-existent. Within the next 2 decades the US is almost GUARANTEED to become an autocracy and to follow Hitler's Germany into the dustbins of history.
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  2203. Are US cops handcuffing and arresting 6-year old CHILDREN? What kind of sicko perverts does the police force look for when recruiting in Orlando, Florida? And what about the School authorities - did someone REALLY call the police on a 6-year old that misbehaved? The utter and total depravity of US society really turns my stomach - and these perverted creeps have the temerity of calling themselves Christian!
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  2204. The Western politicians too timid to step in with meaningful actions NOW will go down in history along with men like Neville Chamberlain, an appeaser that was instrumental in delaying Western response to Hitler.
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  2205. The old Nazi excuse "We were just following orders" and the current Republican excuse "We have to follow the law" are the most pathetic excuses ever used. The people using this kind of excuses, be it before, during or after the deed have absolutely no human or moral compass. If they did, they would be ashamed, but when have you ever seen an ashamed Republican? The fat, cruel Republican on this panel was really, truly disgusting!
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  2206. Florida just might be better off with DeSantis out of the way.
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  2207. First time I've seen a F1 car completely left in the dust! That fan down-suck wonder took off like a supersonic missile!
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  2208. There is no "one size fits all", the correct term for such things is "one size fits nobody"
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  2209. I have long held that being an 'Murican right-winger is likely to be a mental disorder of some sort. Radicals like some of the people we see here have a rather severe case of this disorder. The clearest symptoms seem to be an obvious lack of empathy and an affinity for outlandish conspiracy theories, to name a few.
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  2210. The 3 Republican souls that appeared in this clip are in denial. Their party is in self-destruct mode! If the Repugnican Party continues on this path (and succeeds by cheating, as they have always done), US democracy will be destroyed. If the party fails in destroying the US, the party itself will cease to be.
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  2211. Hi-tech or old-fashioned assassination, done by Israel or the US, this should not be tolerated by the international community. The arrogance inherent in assassinating ANYONE, ANYWHERE is not to be tolerated. Kashoggi's murder should be tattooed on the Saudi crown prince's forehead for life and he should not be received or dealth with by any nation at any time during his life. Saudi Arabia should be shunned once he ascends to power - who wants to deal with a murdering psychopath? Ooops - sorry, countries do it all the time. The number of countries that happily deal with Novichok-killing Putin's Russia are plentiful.
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  2212. On an autobahn-like road, they sometimes have mirror services for each traveling direction, hence a McDonald's on the southbound side and another on the northbound side. It is not universal, many of these rest stops allow you to switch sides, in which case there would only be one McDonald's (or whatever).
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  2213. Certain States in 'Murica turn out to be hotbeds of corruption, be it in the Legislative, Executive or Judicial sectors. States of Law and Order, indeed! 'Murica is turning out to be not worthy of being counted among civilized nations - their last clinging to importance being the backbone of NATO! Well, with Toddler Trump at the helm in Madhouse 'Murica, the rest of NATO is busily preparing to going it alone. Relying on 'Murica is like relying on a drug-crazed addict! True, Europeans have tended to used resources to tend to health care and education, not shoveling money into the pockets of any Military-Industrial Complex - until now. All NATO member nations have realized that today's 'Murica is a liability that cannot be counted upon when push comes to shove,where corruption rules! They will have to go it alone, start shoveling resources into military matters, and that will NOT be 'Murican military hardware! No more wasting resources on ridiculously expensive 'Murican military hardware, no more 'Murican military bases all over the place... There is an ongoing upheaval, where Toddler Trump's 'Murica will regress to some primitive level and Europe will go it alone, on their own merit.
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  2214. To Repugnican Senator Joni Ernst: If what you are seeing with your very eyes is not "facts" enough for you, you need to have your head examined, and you should be declared legally blind, never to drive any vehicle again.
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  2215. I have never understood the argumentative reaction to being stopped by the police. The rhetorical question "Do you know why I pulled you over" has only one answer; "Not really, please tell me" - even if you realize that you were a bit over the limit / missed a sign / whatever. From then on, cooperate fully because - why not? If the cop is a bully that is having a bad day and is looking for someone to take it out on, do NOT provide further fuel to the fire! If the cop had a reason to pull you over, he/she will eventually tell you.
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  2216.  @bravo2966  My "Nor really" is based on the fact that I DO follow the rules of the road, except perhaps being guilty of speeding - but then only on remote roads with no other traffic in sight. If I happen to be stopped by police, it is either a random stop or I have inadvertently missed a sign or something, If so, I would not dream of arguing with the police.
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  2217. Most European election systems are all about moderation and forced cooperation following elections, not the self-destructive winner-takes-all system in the US. If there is not a clear-cut winner in the US everything is frozen, which is self-destructive.
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  2218. I have often wondered about the bird-killing potential of modern windmills. There is a lot of talk about bird-shredding windmills but actual evidence has been very scarce. If some people are fighting to preserve bird life around windmills, their strongest argument by far would be to publish pictures of the ground below any windmill being covered in bird carcasses, or videos of birds being struck by turbine blades. This kind of hard evidence has been curiously absent. The "citizen wind farms" in the District of Steinfurt is another curious example of citizens easily accepting the proximity of wind farms simply because they benefit directly, not some faceless shareholders of a large wind energy company. One wonders if public resistance is based on ACTUAL problems or PERCEIVED problems - if the local citizens are allowed to benefit directly, the resistance seems to vaporize and the noise is hardly noticeable. Curious.
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  2219. Trump's way of solving the virus-related economic problems WILL work for you - after a fashion: Your unemployment problem will be solved - You'll be DEAD! Your money-problems will miraculously go away - you'll be DEAD! And - if you survive, here is a hint for the budding entrepreneur: There will be a BOOM in the undertaking and get-rid-of-dead-bodies business!
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  2220. The "pinger" is not a radio transmitter (radio waves are useless below water), it is a sonar transmitter.
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  2221. The sad part is the fact that the men of Bomber Command killed incredible numbers of civilians. The bomber crews were not to blame, they were "just following orders", but at least that is an excuse they never try to hide behind. The "hindsight" perspective is definitely not fair, people today have no way of truly understanding what it must have been like to have to "kill or be killed". Still, indiscriminate bombing of purely civilian targets like London, Dresden and Hamburg should NEVER be repeated.
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  2222. The simple fact that rump MIGHT be re-elected says it all. 'Murica is doomed to walk the path of fascism, just like Germany did almost a century ago. The misery that goes with it is will be inevitable.
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  2223. You seem to have all the building blocks for a happy and content future: An apparently very compatible couple, a happy child (ever-smiling Jack) and what appears to be a frank and sober appreciation of your current environment (Steady Germany) as well as a similar appreciation for your possible alternate environment (Madhouse USA). There will be bumps and upsets (there always are), but I have a strong feeling that you will find your way to a happy future.
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  2224. The gloves appear to be off - what little remains of US democracy is going down the drain, now to be followed by law and order.
    1
  2225. The US may still be and certainly has been the most powerful country in the world for quite while, but it is NOT a true democracy! With all the gerrymandering, voter suppression and other obstacles placed in the path of a citizen that wants to vote, the US does not really deserve to be called a "true" democracy. Fortunately that can be changed, and maybe it will - in due course.
    1
  2226. This seems to be the type attracted to Republican politics and the type the Republican party prefers as it's representatives: Compulsive liars, people that are unable to tell a truth, EVEN in cases where the truth is harmless to them. To them, the choice is simple: If in doubt, LIE. If NOT in doubt, lying still seems a safer bet because that is all they know!
    1
  2227. Nunes certainly looks like a man that KNOWS the roof is about to cave in on him. I wonder if he really thinks that angrily taking pictures of the journalist & camera crew (for later lawsuit purposes?) will have them quake in fear. They, and everyone else, are simply laughing their heads off.
    1
  2228. I wonder if, for once in his presidency, Trump is actually NOT telling a lie - well, not entirely! Apparently the military started doing refueling and stopovers at Prestwick well before Trump became president. The increase in stopovers AFTER he became president is, however, quite suspicious...
    1
  2229.  @DrivenA111 , riddle me this: How many blacks have been killed by police officers for little or no reason, and how many murderous cops have actually been MADE accountable? The ratio is astounding - and it is almost certain that a large portion of such killing have been swept under the rug, anyway! Chauvin is a rare exception, and so is Potter. Hopefully this will make this kind of disgusting people think twice, thrice and even four times before indiscriminately abusing their power.
    1
  2230.  @DrivenA111 , Cauvin is where he belongs - in prison. So will Potter, eventually. This might make other abusers of police power think twice, trice and even four times before just killing someone because they think they can get away with it.
    1
  2231. Is NASA going the Boeing way regarding quality? Silly question, they have been for a long time . . .
    1
  2232. I always wonder how the British managed their Industrial revolution using the nonsensical fractional imperial measures. Fact: they actually DID! The Brits (and the 'Muricans) must have specially adapted brains to manage everything from the Industrial Revolution through WW2 in fractions of inches! Fortunately, the 'Muricans solved the space race by enslaving a lot of German Nazis and making them figure out how to go to the moon - all in metric!
    1
  2233. The simple fact that the main media is still discussing Trump's inane lies and reactions to just about anything unfavorable to him without expressly pointing out the actual facts are disheartening - an I'm not even an US citizen (we in the western world are all in the same boat, and Trump just drilled a HUGE hole in the bottom of the boat)! The US is doomed. The US nation is currently being led by the nose into disregarding the pandemic as well as being fooled into doing nothing while their constitutional rights are being stripped away by Trump and Barr. I suspect too many of them will simply throw up their hands with "what's the point in voting?" and thus allow Trump to put the final nail in the coffin of a long-lost US democracy.
    1
  2234. Auto vs. manual? Fact: Auto is heavier, more expensive and less efficient. Another fact: Manual is lighter, less expensive and more efficient. Moreover, once you get the hang of it, it is great FUN to drive!
    1
  2235. Arnold is still a rabid right-winger, but he is apparently refusing to be an ignorant hater. 'Murica many not be quite established on the path to fascism yet, but the path has been opened up by the right-wing haters that are now frantically trying to herd the 'Murican nation into actually taking this path to destruction. What the right-wing haters overlook is the fact that such regimes seldom last more than a decade or two, a a generation or two, tops. At the end, most of the haters AND their offspring invariably come to a sticky end, and the longer the hateful regime lasts, the stickier and more widespread the end. The current antisemitism trend is currently the most glaring because that was the extreme symptom of the Nazi era, but what is likely to end up being most important in the 'Murican conflict is the racist aspect. 'Murica's best hope is the youth, the generations that will either inherit the mess or prevent it from happening in the first place. The next few election cycles will determine which way things go - the Nazi way or the wise way.
    1
  2236. Let's face it: CNN is a right-wing stooge.
    1
  2237.  @ghwk-phd2784 , we are a good example of how the spread cannot be stopped WHILE maintaining a global lifestyle. We now have people (tourists and traveling locals) coming in and of course the virus started spreading again - not by tourists but likely by locals that had been traveling in East Europe. A negative test at the border is useless if someone has recently caught the virus, so now we are going to to a test at entry, quarantine for 5 days even if the test is positive and then test again (this time free). It will be interesting to see how many will test positive on the second test. The good news for us is that we still have a handle on this (knock on wood).
    1
  2238. Climate pessimists HAVE been warning us about increasingly extreme weather phenomenons like this. Turn you back on Mother Nature at your own peril. Probably the most useless reactions are religious "thoughts and prayers"...
    1
  2239. 'Murica has a stereotypical movie version of this: A bully hits another bully. A bloody fight ensues where both bullies slog it out. Now, Bully 'Murica is heavier than Bully Iran, so it look like the outcome is given - until you ponder how the Big Bully's latest conflicts ended! They lost each and every one of them!
    1
  2240. At least Newt Gingrich is still alive and available for retribution for all the misery he has inflicted on both the US population and countless citizens in other countries being invaded by the US on false pretenses. Will he ever have to pay his due? This is the only case I take comfort in the Evangelical Christian world view: In that world, Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. are just beginning their eternal turn on the spit over the fires of Hell, Newt Gingrich is due to be impaled on the spin any day now and a host of other "Christian" politicians like Bush Jr. are awaiting their turn.
    1
  2241.  @gilraen789 , you are probably right - why would she be so worried about her roots showing if she WERE actually blonde? Anyway, we all know that the color of ones hair has nothing to with your intellect (or lack thereof), it's just that this ancient "dumb blonde" nonsense seemed to be the only thing that stuck to my Teflon brain at the time of the comment. But, then again, I'm just a dumb old bloke so what can you expect...
    1
  2242. It took greedy US CEOs decades to move 'Murican manufacturing to more profitable offshore countries. It would take just as many decades for any US government to move it back to 'Murica - not to mention the fact that 'Murica no longer has the manpower to resume it's former industrial might! The US is going the way of the Roman empire - into an ignominious decline that will be interesting to watch from the outside (e.g. as a European). Even worse: Trump has been shedding traditional allies like dandruff! They way things are going, the US will be without allies before 2030, all European military bases will be history and, worst of all, the rest of the financial world will have ditched the unreliable US$ as the global currency.
    1
  2243. A marvelous episode! Science meets intuition and art - and struggles to explain it. The interesting bit: In science, everything has to be repeatable by other scientists, but in this case artists show a scientist - repeatedly - how to do something, but the scientist will almost certainly be unable to replicate it without spending years learning the art as well. That is "the struggle" the scientist has to deal with.
    1
  2244. Bottom line: US taxpayers have been funding the research that led to the mRNA vaccines? This seems oversimplified, but the basic fact is that Big Pharma has been screwing us all over and over again for decades! How about turning truly Right-Wing on them and start searching for Big Pharma leaders with our trusty assault weapons in hand?
    1
  2245. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Assuming this idiocy was caused by catatonic Russian inter-branch coordination (much like the current catatonic inter-branch coordination of US forces in battlefields), heads are bound to roll among top Russian brass.
    1
  2246. An honest dispute about true morals of a religious cult or a power struggle within said cult? My bet is on "no morals, all power play". "I'm not here to attack him, please ignore the knife I just stuck in his back" is not very credible. I found Waller's defense of Trump's "evangelical support" hilarious! The hippocracy is astounding!
    1
  2247. I find it refreshing to watch a group of apparently reasonable people discussing the farce that the many Trump civil/criminal cares are turning out to be. The 'Murican judicial system is severely handicapped by a) being more theater than a genuine court of law and b) being entirely money-driven! Textbook corruption, unfortunately reaching a corruption pinnacle with the current SCOTUS!
    1
  2248. Is this "a sultry bedroom voice"? It is a turnoff for me, if anything. All I hear is a croak that makes understanding what is being said rather difficult.
    1
  2249. Hehe, you obviously have a somewhat single-track mind but, then again, don't we all - especially old farts like me.
    1
  2250. Getting rid of Capitalism is like trying to get rid of the human sexual instinct. Greed is second only to the instinct to procreate (lust, horniness). With Social Democracy, many nations have managed to put a firm bridle on Capitalism. Capitalism is allowed to do what it does best - within reason! The countries that have adhered to this policy have been considered the most successful countries FOR DECADES! Their citizens are content (even happy!). They pay taxes but they do not have to worry about getting sick, pregnant, old, temporarily jobless etc.
    1
  2251. Do not ALL US soldiers swear an oath to uphold and defend the US constitution, or is it only the officers? Apparently, oaths come cheap these days in Trump's 'Murica - Trump has twice sworn this particular oath, in front of millions of people, and the proceeded to ignore every aspect of it, and the Repugnicans believe that is NORMAL!
    1
  2252. Someone pointed to a long history of SCOTUS justices that were somewhat extreme-leaning either way when appointed, converting into regular, evenhanded justices that fairly followed the letter of the law AND good common sense. Astonishingly, there are indications that Beer-Brett Kavanaugh might be one of those - i.e. not bought-and-paid-for like Thomas and Alito. Only time will tell...
    1
  2253. This guy is full of excrement. His type is one of the reasons Boeing is in this fix in the first place. This was NOT an autopilot issue, the badly designed MCAS system worked even if the autopilot was disengaged and Boeing kept that fact hidden from B737 Max operators initially, hence the lack of training. It was only after the Lion Air crash that most pilots (but obviously not all) became aware of this.
    1
  2254. What a lot of hot air from this man that does not want banksters or investors to take any responsibility, ever! What the US government should do is to make sure the depositors are insured and otherwise let these private banks fail and also investigate any misdeeds committed by the greedy banksters - and jail them if warranted (the thought of which this guy HATES!). This is what Iceland did after the last banking system crash, and it turned out quite well for the nation (but not for the jailed banksters). The only real losers were the greedy investors that knowingly invested in corrupt banks, all in expectation of huge returns.
    1
  2255. So, King Trump has spoken. Is the US population listening? The extreme Repugnicans may be listening, but what about the rest? Thom, my condolences to you for living in this fast-becoming Mad-Max world of the US. I am cocooned in the welfare of my little "socialist/capitalist" Nordic country. We have probably the highest per-capita Coronavirus cases in the world - but only because we have tested extensively and we bloody well KNOW! We have tested a lot, today (Apr.16,2020) we have done 11% of the entire population, and around 50% of that is random testing, NOT only people with symptoms or contact tracing. We are even beginning to test for antibodies. We only went as far as social (physical) distancing, not total lock-down, and while we have not yet reached zero-new-diagnosed-cases, we plan on relaxing that, SLOWLY and CAREFULLY in about 3 weeks. I am 70 years old, living with my 92-year old father that is climbing the walls because he has been unable to visit my senile 88-year old mother (the love of his life) for over 45 days due to a protective nursing home no-visit ban. We are both scheduled for a free, no-symptoms Coronavirus test tomorrow morning, with hopefully an antibody blood sample test thrown in. Are we worried? Not really, we are taken care of...
    1
  2256.  @Soapandwater6 , all were negative. Things are looking up in the sense that new cases are in single digits every day, the virus spread is being contained, about to be eliminated. The flip side is the fact that only a fraction of the nation is immune, we are a ripe field for new infections coming from abroad - we are only buying time until a vaccine or effective treatments become available.
    1
  2257. Does it matter to us everyday Icelanders if our natural resources (mainly fishing) are exploited by local Oligarchs, special friends and contributors to the "Independence" (Capitalist) and the "Progressive" (Corruption) parties or the EU? Probably not...
    1
  2258. The main "computer" they had during this era was the slide rule. Another issue that makes the engineering feats accomplished by engineers of the era all the more outstanding (at least for British and US engineers) was the fact they had a severe disadvantage: The Imperial Measuring System that severely complicated things.
    1
  2259. @webtoedman , ...and 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64. It is all the fractions that are silly - why not simply use milli-inches (thousands) for machine work? When Australia formally went metric, they went from imperial (feet, inches & fractions) to millimeters when building houses - no fractions or decimal points in sight. One builder did a test: Building 2 identical houses, one was built using the old imperial system and the other using millimeters only. The imperial-built house resulted in a full lorry-load of waste and scrap (indicating mistakes made) while the waste/scrap from the other house amounted to one wheelbarrow load.
    1
  2260. @webtoedman, the house building story is possibly a bit exaggerated, but it is true. I came across it in one of the Imperial vs. Metric videos on YouTube. Working with feet, inches and fractions is more prone to error than working with whole numbers only. The scrap coming from the imperial-built house supposedly consisted of pieces of lumber cut too short or too long (those having to be shortened, creating scrap). A lorry-load of scrap would indicate that more lumber had to be ordered to complete the house.
    1
  2261.  @YellowMiss1 , if only to get it on the record how this cop behaved, in case this is regular behavior for him. Going to the media (e.g. YouTube and such) probably carries more weight in the long run, but the important thing is to draw attention of the public to this kind of problems.
    1
  2262.  @imisstoronto3121 , I wonder how many nations are managing to sink to the low public health care level the US has been stuck at for decades.
    1
  2263. Has the US really come to the stage that the only hope for the survival of the mythical "democracy" is the elimination of Repugnicans? The only good Repugnican (or Conservative) is a DEAD Repugnican (or Conservative)? Most of the civilized world is watching and hoping the US madhouse will survive - and the rest is certain the US will NOT, that it will implode, and those 'Muricans are heading for the bunkers!
    1
  2264. My country (Iceland) has been lax in using this technology. The reason is simple: Iceland may be cold, but we are sitting on a vast reservoir of heat. Most homes are heated by geothermal energy and 'Murican AC is NEVER needed! We have an abundance of renewable electrical power and our only fossil-fuel sector is transportation. The north-west and eastern parts of Iceland happen to be "cold" (limited geothermal energy available) and we use renewable electrical energy for heating etc. It is expensive compared to the cost of geothermal energy in "the navel of the world" (the Reykjavik area), and heat transfer rather than heat generation is certainly a solution. The problem? Electrical energy in Iceland is not really expensive so we lack the incentive to optimize to this degree. We have a luxury problem!
    1
  2265. Boris is the consummate politician: Someone that can talk for a long time without really saying anything. Some will say that he is the UK's Churchill, others will say it is a pity he did not leave the ICU in a shroud. I think the general concensus is that he is about as useful (or useless) as his pal Trump. Worse, he is probably just as dangerous to world peace as his pal Trump!
    1
  2266. Trump must be relieved that his lover appears to be alive...
    1
  2267. The grievances within the US population is decades old. The difference now is the simple fact that now there are tens of millions of citizens without a job, without health insurance and, most important, without any realistic hope for a better future, given the current situation. The conditions are approaching pre-1790 France (let them eat cake!), something that led to most of the French aristocracy literally losing their heads - in a Guillotine. It is only a question of time when the elite/billionaires start losing their heads - figuratively, in a country awash with assault-style weapons, Guillotines are relics of the past, who needs them with all the guns and ammo available at your fingertips? The Billionaire Elites better make a run for it NOW! Their time is nigh, and where can they run to?
    1
  2268. Even Dr. Sanjay Gupta is coming a cross more like a politician than a medical professional these days. Let's call this Trumpification, a state where normally intelligent people become mealy-mouthed and twist like pretzels avoiding having to say anything that might offend the Almighty Orange Idiot.
    1
  2269. @Eric Chan, maybe he should remake/remould himself now. I ALWAYS understand Ana but sometimes miss what Cenk is saying when he goes off.
    1
  2270. The citizens of the United States have hijacked the term "American" when they should really be called "United Statians". A recent term for them is 'Muricans, while the rest of the people living on this huge continent simply use the name of their country (Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians etc.).
    1
  2271. The already exposed bribes "Justices" Thomas and Alito have received are mind-blowing. The concept of "the best judicial system money can buy" REALLY takes on a new and ominous meaning! Is it any wonder that 'Murica is flushing itself down the toilet, seeing how the in-your-face SCOTUS corruption is being treated as a technical law problem, not the outright corruption case it actually is - and that is not even factoring in the religion-trumps-the-law expressed by Alito. Any respect I used to have for 'Murica has already been flushed down the toilet.
    1
  2272. This particular SK president probably has no political future, the South Korean nations is not taking any of his shite.
    1
  2273. This will be an example of eternal shame to the Failed United States of 'Murica for eons to come. Never, ever has the executive branch of a nation behaved in a more shameful way. Europe will manage to mobilize and crush Putin, make no mistake about that. The wheels are already in motion to make Europe independent of the 'Murican umbrella - which in turn makes 'Murica irrelevant!
    1
  2274. ...and the US really DARES calling themselves a country of law and order? Cruel law, perhaps and twisted and racial "order"? To all other civilized countries the US has become a parody of injustice and inequality, actually about to make Nazi Germany look good!
    1
  2275. There are two possible scenarios: 1) Trump manages to "win" in November and the US ceases to be a democratic country. 2) Trump loses in November, and there will be thorough investigations into Trump and all the republicans that facilitated Putin's attempt at dismantling the US. There will be serious reckoning, and given the revenge-based US-American penalty mindset, it ain't gonna be pretty...
    1
  2276. Given the Freedom of Religion enshrined in he US Constitution, this seems a pretty solid argument Being a Jew or a Muslim should make them exempt from the draconian laws Radical Christians are trying to shove down the throats of ordinary 'Muricans, atheists and non-Christians. I predict these extremist laws will be what ends up taking down the Radical Christians and, eventually, all the corrupt judges that are following their narrow religious beliefs that are on a collision course with the US Constitution, trying to ignorie the bulk of well-established laws.
    1
  2277.  @monicaluketich3106 , I have often wondered if the US is too big to succeed - or perhaps so big they are doomed to fail? The US absolutely refuses to learn from lessons learned by other countries, large or small. The current pandemic disaster is a classic example.
    1
  2278. I cannot help comparing campaign methods between European an 'Murican campaigns: In 'Murica, the only issue is to drown your opponent in whatever shite you and your campaign can dig up or manufature, real or imagined, about your opponent. In Europe the main issue for candidates is to showcase what they stand for politically, and be ready to argue those points whenever, wherever they are brought up during the campaign. So good, so far. In 'Murica we have a new reality where OUTRIGHT LIES seem to outweigh truth. Trump Repugnicans vs. mostly honest people, outright lies vs. generally accepted truth, ignorant idiots vs. being informed. Basically , 'Murica is fucked, kaputt, done for, certain to disintegrate.
    1
  2279. MSNBC's spots are showing. They have been hiding them for a long time because MSNBC's owners are against Trump, but they are Republicans at heart and not really against many of the things Trump is doing.
    1
  2280.  @trekgirl65 , please keep in mind that Trump is a symptom, not the actual sickness. Trump will be kicked out in November, but who will take over? A Corporate Democrat that is only slightly better than Trump. The blatant corporate corruption will continue unabated and the general US population will continue to suffer until something breaks, and breaks hard! The foundation laid by Trump and his cronies will be shamelessly exploited by whoever ends up in power, and the demise of the formerly great nation of the USA will continue. The end will be bloody, maybe not by the 300-year old example of France (by the thump of the Guillotine) but by the rattling of the semiautomatic assault weapons the US is awash with.
    1
  2281. This incarnation of the SCOTUS encapsulates everything that is absolutely disgusting about 'Murican conservatives. They will go down in history as the most perverted SCOTUS from the conception of the 'Murican Experiment - with Clarence Thomas being the epitome of the current corruption. One wonders what the history books will say about that in a century or two, when the dust has settled. The rabidly conservative majority of the 2024 SCOTUS is likely to be classified as far beyond Benedict Arnold in the betrayal department...
    1
  2282. What is the penalty for gross abuse of power in the US, whether done by a policeman, an official or even the president?
    1
  2283. The US used to be the model for aviation safety for the last 75 years. Recently, that status has been slipping, thanks to Boeing becoming greedy, and now the Repugnicans (Musk) are feverishly working at dismantling the agencies that made aviation safe in the first place. You 'Muricans are in for some interesting and fiery times...
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  2284. On one hand, wallowing in this is stooping to Trump's level - on the other hand, exposing the disgusting behavior of Trump and his imitators to the public is necessary. Creeps seek the company of other creeps.
    1
  2285. The question remains: If Putin goes completely off the rails and orders Nuclear Weapons to used, will there be top-level Russian military commanders that recognize the world-ending significance and simply refuse to comply? Whatever you can say about Russia and their bad actors, Russians in general are far from being stupid, They love their motherland, probably more than 'Muricans pretend to love their homeland. Russians have been saddled with miserable leaders for too long (much like 'Murica has been during the last half century). It is time for this nonsense to end, the "demos" must be allowed to determine their own fate.
    1
  2286. Face it: Whenever Trump talks about "our country" he is actually talking about Trump (in the third person!). The man has boundless vanity but no shame. He constantly confuses himself with the USA, anyone against Trump is committing TREASON.
    1
  2287. Forbes (the Capitalist camp) woke up and started criticizing the "cozy" regulatory arrangements only when the body count started piling up and airliners were grounded - which DEFINITELY affected the bottom line! There is an old saying in aviation: If you think Safety is expensive, just wait until you have an accident! It is screamingly obvious that the ´Murican political system is a seething cesspit of corruption, with a very significant part of the 'Murican judicial system leading the way (the SCOTUS!). The tensions that gross inequality has been creating in 'Murica for the last 4 decades WILL end with a violent snap-back in the order of what happened in France at the end of the eighteenth century. What groups will be targeted? Politicians, Lobbyists, Billionaires? Take your pick, they ALL deserve to be held accountable.
    1
  2288. Politicians say there are plenty of PPE supplies available, but health care workers say they do NOT have what they need to work safely. Just who do you think is lying through his teeth?
    1
  2289. There is something fundamentally wrong with the 'Murican judicial system if legal morality and honesty have become meaningless, and the only issue becomes what lawyer/judge/politician is the slickest deceiver. The crude joke about "a lawyer with concrete shoes at the bottom of the ocean being a good beginning" begins to make some sense. Still crude, but 'Murica is getting there real fast!
    1
  2290. SpaceX has a lot to learn about welding stainless steel. It is a lousy heat conductor and will warp like crazy if precautions are not taken.
    1
  2291. @András Ács, The "world class engineers working there" definitely know about it, just look at the surface "quality" of the thing. They probably just don't care at this stage, I imagine they are concentrating on function over form at this stage. They will take proper precautions in due course, and the final product will definitely not look like it was tack-welded together by a 12-year old (as this example does).
    1
  2292. @András Ács, I am not "attacking" anyone, just stating the fact that stainless steel is a bitch to weld if you want a good surface finish. I actually have no doubt that the geniuses at SpaceX are aware of this and have a ready fix, the "a lot to learn about welding stainless steel" quip was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. I know I suck at jokes, but you appear to be just as lousy at "getting" a joke, not to mention an admittedly a bad one.
    1
  2293. She voted for Armageddon - now she is reaping Armageddon, why us she complaining? She got exactly what she voted for!
    1
  2294. Can we non-'Muricans agree that the US has been dumbed down to the state of 3 levels below being imbeciles?
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  2295. "Joy" Reid is a highly-paid TV host, and should be taken as such. Health care "for all" is actually alien to her way of thinking - she is riding the the wave, why on Earth should she approve of anything that benefits the masses? That will only detract from her own position.
    1
  2296. Ah, the wonders of the efficiency and responsibility of unchecked Private Enterprise! The Capitalist solution to a man-made environmental disaster: Declare bankruptcy once the owners have made off with the proceeds of decades of polluting! The victims will suffer, like the people in Flint, Michigan. The state (the general population) in each case will end up trying to deal and pay for the consequences while the perpetrators have flown away to greener pastures in their private jets.
    1
  2297. "Kudos to the Republican Governor that actually tells the truth"? Boy, how low they have moved the bar: A non-lying Repugnican is so rare that it is newsworthy!
    1
  2298. 'I stand firmly behind my statement that bla-bla-bla'. Expert meaningless chatter from a Repugnant politician.
    1
  2299. The most obnoxious situation is when Chamberlain-level Putin-appeasers like Macron are given even a minute of airtime on TV. History has a lot of lessons about how useless appeasement is when dealing with an off-the-rails dictator. Basic fact: If Putin gains even an inch of Ukrainian territory, he will simply regroup and continue by overrunning the eastern EU countries in a decade or so. Putin absolutely MUST be stopped this time around and his regime must be crushed into oblivion. Russia is reeling now, it is weak and it will collapse if the current sanctions continue for a number of years. If Russia eliminates Putin and the Oligarchs, they might be able to wash off their current status as a nation of inhumane monsters in a number of decades, and might even earn a status of a civilized nation, worthy of a seat among other civilized nations withing half a century but make no mistake, it will be an uphill struggle!
    1
  2300. I'll be the first to admit my lack of knowledge about the Irish "problem", but - seen from outside - it makes little or no sense. Northern Ireland seems to be a festering sore where neighbours were killing neighbours not long ago, all in the name of different nuances of the Christian religion. How medieval!
    1
  2301. I count myself lucky NOT being an 'Murican now, you poor sods are in for it now - by your own choice! Now I feel free to feel and show disdain and disrespect for a nation of idiots: 'Muricans! The same goes for Israelis (I have no beef with Jews, it's just the inhumane Netanyahu Israelis that are making the inhumane terrorists of Hamas and Hizballah look REALLY good!). You 'Muricans are now embarking on a journey that is eerily similar to what the Germans did in the 1930s. I wonder if you will enjoy the ride, because none of your current allies will.
    1
  2302. Attu, Kiska, Pearl Harbor - the only time the US has been justified when talking about DEFENDING their sovereign territory. Since then, all US military operations have bee pure and simple OFFENSE - all over the world. They have been INVADING other countries, every single time!
    1
  2303. Pause for a moment and think about why the only persons of integrity that came out of the Trump debacle are young women. I believe this is a crucial point in history: When a moral dispute is raised, it will be the women (the nest-makers) that make the sensible decisions, NOT the irrational (usually drunk old farts) males in the vicinity.
    1
  2304. Polish politics may be on the verge of going the way of Hungary and Turkey, but the Polish nation is another matter entirely. There is no doubting Polish courage and ferocity when push comes to shove, the story of Polish nationals that escaped west and fought with allied forces in WW2 is legendary. I live in a tiny little Nordic country (Iceland), where Polish nationals are the largest "immigrant" group and they have been a welcome addition to our society. The Baltic states (as well as all the other states that lived under the USSR) seem equally determined to NEVER have a Russian boot on their neck again. Hungary is the current exception that will hopefully resolve itself, with either a "HungExit" or a deposed Orban. It WILL be either-or, and it is up op the Hungarian nation to decide which it will be, not Putin-wannabe Orban.
    1
  2305. Which is more stupid: Nick Shirley traveling to Greenland to ask stupid 'Murican questions or Toddler Trump making stupid statements that are disconnected from reality? Frankly, it is a toss-up and VERY 'Murican! Show any 'Murican a world map and ask them where Greenland is. Even better, ask them where 'Murica is! You will initially get a blank stare, and then a ridiculously wrong answer!
    1
  2306. The remarkable thing about Switzerland is that most citizens do not really care who their politicians are - they come and they go, and are never allowed to hold any real power! All serious (and some not so serious) issues are determined by the voters anyway! The Swiss take their democracy SERIOUSLY! Switzerland has more guns pr. capita than 'Murica? Where did that fantasy come from? In 1917, 'Murica had 120 guns pr. 100 citizens (#1!) while the same ratio in Switzerland was 26.7/100 (#19). Even my own country, Iceland, labeled the most peaceful country on Earth, has a ration of 31.7/100 (#12). You 'Muricans REALLY have serious problems with facts.
    1
  2307. The Wiki Leaks "crime" was to expose US war crimes to the world. The biggest bully in the western world simply cannot tolerate that.
    1
  2308. It is a pity how 'Muricans seem to hate the concept of equality, the idea of those better off helping those in need - and you have the cheek of calling yourselves Christians, the Biblical idea of the Good Samaritan supposedly a guiding light! Most other developed nations have figured this out but you seem unable to.
    1
  2309. The US has always been a bit of a bully, on many occasions a big, even brutal bully, but Trump has taken the bullying to an entirely new, mob-like level, something we might call outright extortion. That is now blowing up in Trump's face. Current, soon-to-be-former-allies, are not taking it any more! Canada went first, and now all the other NATO nations are gearing up to go without the erratic US of A.
    1
  2310. Dana Bash is pushing the "sky-is-not-blue, up-is-down and don't-believe-your-own-eyes-and-ears" agenda. I wonder why...
    1
  2311. Semantics - this then child is probably not a child anymore, i.e. now a woman. That is irrelevant, however, she WAS underage, a child, when the crime was committed, and Matt Gaetz must go through the same judicial process as other child traffickers.
    1
  2312. I take offense to this simple "faulty software" explanation: This was a brazen no-redundancy, no-training and no-information-given capital CRIME! The no-redundancy design was criminally negligent, and the entire premise of keeping flight crews ignorant about a potentially deadly feature like the MCAS, just to save some bucks on training is deplorable. The majority of Boeing top executives were criminally negligent, responsible for the death of HUNDREDS of unsuspecting Being passengers! Make no mistake about it, but the norm is to let the big players off scot-free, which is exactly what i happening right now.
    1
  2313. This Kudlow character is about as believable as Trump, i.e. one cannot believe a word he says.
    1
  2314. Imagine a nation where most of the citizens have been made so ignorant that they are unable to recognize their own country on an unmarked map, let alone point out other countries on that map. Do you REALLY think that the citizens of such a country will know the proper definition of commonly used concepts like "Populism", "Fascism", "Socialism" or "Racism"?
    1
  2315. Is Thom correct: The anti-trust laws are still on the books, still enforceable, only Reagan decided to stop enforcing them? If that is the case, why has no Democratic president started enforcing them after Reagan left office? That should be simple enough - or have ALL 'Murican presidents been on the payroll of the big corporations ever since?
    1
  2316. For heaven's sake, STOP talking about "Corrections officers" and "Corrections facilities" in the US. The US judicial and prison systems are: 1) Revenge-based, and 2) For-profit. NOTHING about the US judicial and prison systems is about rehabilitating and "correcting" the behavior of those that stray outside the law, they are all about creating a captive customer base so that private prisons can exploit the inmates for life. The driving forces behind all this is simple cruelty and greed.
    1
  2317. Judging by the comments, the 'Murican and Canadian public seems to be of one mind: Stand up to the bully! It will be uncomfortable, even painful for a while, but it has to be done to break the MAGA scourge.
    1
  2318.  @patriciagray2708 , if you put all your trust in Trump, God and Jesus, your goose is cooked. You are correct in that the sick and those about to be sick should be quarantined, but to do that you would have had to start early with widespread testing to be able to catch and quarantine infected individuals that are asymptomatic and unwittingly spreading the virus. Trump prevented early action and the US ended up where it is today.
    1
  2319. Apparently, whenever Trump has a setback (like now, when he has a more aggressive opponent), his brain starts to backfire and he starts mixing up people and events even more than on a normal day. The good news for democracy-minded 'Muricans is that it is almost certain that this will get progressively worse as the pressure mounts - and Trump's incompetence and failing mental state will get progressively worse! When that happens, he is likely to avoid prison (a neat trick, the insanity plea) - BUT he will end up in an asylum instead!
    1
  2320. Stills from the blurry video of the aircraft coming down indicate that at least major parts of the tail section and one wing was missing. These parts will have come down a safe distance from the fiery main wreckage and will contain clear evidence of what caused the crash. When will anyone outside the Russian establishment know the facts about this evidence? Possibly soon after Putin falls, possibly in a few decades. NEVER expect any genuine truth coming out of Russia.
    1
  2321. I'm fortunately not 'Murican but I follow their silly politics. I think AOC's articles of impeachment against glaringly corrupt SCOTUS justices are timely. They may be token right now, but the flag has to be waved, the siren has to be blared, we have a judicial conflagration that HAS to be tended to! I'm just an old fart, living in another country (still deeply affected by all he mistakes 'Murica makes), and I was really captivated when AOC emerged a few years ago, a beautiful, charming and intelligent young woman that blazed her trail into Congress. What she has done, EVERYTHING she has done since then I see as proof that she is what she seemed to be: A leader. Her apparent intelligence might be bolstered by good advisers, but that cannot be maintained for years. AOC is SMART, she is INTELLIGENT and ELOQUENT and no Repugnican male chauvinistic pig can take that away.
    1
  2322. What a waste of airtime. Trying to debate a Trump-attached Senator is an exercise in futility.
    1
  2323. The number of corruptions and scandals Greg Palast has personally discovered, investigated or witnessed are becoming quite beyond belief. Why HE seems to be the only one "in the know" is anyone's guess. I'm not saying Greg's stories are necessarily TOTAL fabrications, but still...
    1
  2324. Th US that I used to admire is crumbling before our very eyes, thanks to selfish and corrupt politicians in both parties. The despotic idiot Americans elected as their President is just one step in this process. Unfortunately for us non-Americans, shit that happens in the US does not stay in the US.
    1
  2325. Bottom line: 'Murica's traditional allies are finding that 'Murica has suddenly turned into a juvenile bully, controlled by a toddler in a tantrum. All and every one of these allies are frantically revising their positions and, seeing how totally unreliable and untrustworthy 'Murica has become, looking for alternate solutions. Rational governments will not take this lying down, and this will clearly blow up in Trump's (and 'Murica's) face - and that is only on the global trade issues! The military balance upheaval Trump is causing will eventually become even more catastrophic...
    1
  2326. There IS actually a common denominator for foreigners wanting to emigrate to 'Murica: Countries where 'Murica meddled heavily, wheedled a number of citizens to aid the 'Murican cause etc. Examples? Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, to name a few. Now, in which cases did the US turn out to be reliable partners? In reality: NONE! 'Murica has proved to be a totally unreliable partner in any endeavor, a nation that will leave it's allies high and dry when push comes to shove. If anything, 'Murica can be relied upon to stab you in the back when convenient, without even thinking about it!
    1
  2327. Whoa! Smirnoff, the Russian asset in the Biden smear campaign is a JEW, an Israeli citizen, a Netanyahu subject!? The entire thing is taking on an entirely new face. A tangled web to untangle - is this a Putin plot or is it a Netanyahu plot? Well, I would not trust Putin any further than I would trust Bibi Netanyahu! Both can only be trusted to one thing: Lead us to extinction!
    1
  2328. One wonders what would happen if TRUMP were to undergo a cognitive and neurological test? What if EVERYONE wanting to run for the job of POTUS were to undergo such tests before being allowed to run? Let me tell you: The world would be a MUCH better place!
    1
  2329. The shallowness of many 'Murican politicians and especially the Main Media (et tu Ali Velshi!) is astounding! In light of what Biden has accomplished in his first term, only shallow idiots enter panic mode over a single bad debate performance! Being a great orator or debater has never been Biden's strong suit, anyway, making good decisions and managing to implement them IS. Biden is more substance than glitz. Fortunately, the heaviest hitters in the Democratic party are seeing this and stand behind Biden.
    1
  2330. ...and can you imagine what the moronic 'Muricans will do in November 2024? Allow Trump to end the American Experiment? Sure, let's give fascism a go!
    1
  2331. What US president simply ignored a SCOTUS ruling in the early 20th century? I'm not 'Murican and I just recall reading about it. That president actually made it stick, too! As it happens, the SCOTUS is really a figurehead without any powers to enforce anything. In fact, the SCOTUS is entirely dependent on it's CREDIBILITY, something it has been diligently and overtly eroding for a number of years now.
    1
  2332. Agreed, a fitting Swan Song of the Beatles!
    1
  2333. "I did not say what I just said". Even worse, when the Orange Idiot (sorry, our Beloved Leader) spouts something that is easily disproved by playing a 15-minutes-ago video statement by Trump, that is simply "Fake News". The rest of the world is watching the Trump administration disintegrate before their eyes, and everyone is terrified - after all, the US have the highest number if Nukes, and the US is currently run by a temperamental and unpredictable toddler.
    1
  2334. So why are Danish roads inundated with cars? Cars owned by Danes!
    1
  2335. Boeing used to be at the leading edge of aviation safety, both in design and operations - until the money-grabbers took over. McDonnell Douglas went down this route some decades ago and we all know how THAT ended. The way things are going, Boeing just might come to the same sticky end...
    1
  2336. The history of English rule is garnished with cruelty for almost one thousand years. It is actually surprising how their aristocracy managed to avoid their very own guillotine moment. It took 2 world wars to whittle them down to size, which is now manageable. England's ruling class has shot itself in both feet with Brexit, and the Scots will have their day within one generation.
    1
  2337. You would get your point across more efficiently by omitting the occasional screeching episodes.
    1
  2338. In 2002-2004 Trump was fairly eloquent, and the sentences he formed made some sense. Compare this to what he is like now: He seems to have the grasp of a 6-year old of global affairs, in his speeches he careens, in mid sentence, even mid word, into another totally irrelevant subject. His cognitive decline is there for all to see, but his enablers just love it, he can now be manipulate much of the time...
    1
  2339. Bitch DeVos is pushing parents and schools into resuming normal operations, but is dumping the responsibility for doing it safely on the individual schools without providing useful, realistic and practical guidelines for doing so. That way Bitch DeVos can turn around when things go horribly wrong, and blame the schools! Like everything this administration has done (and NOT done), this will end in disaster. What the administration has done so far has ended in disaster. What the administration has NOT done (but should have done) has been an even bigger disaster! Betsy DeVos is probably the most horrible human being holding a position of power in the US, and there is a LOT of competition in that area in this administration!
    1
  2340. The simple question should have been: "Are you okay with President Trump soliciting aid from a foreign government for his campaign?". After all, that is what this is about. Jordan can try to deflect all he wants, but if this question is asked again and again, he will end up having to say simply Yes or No. If all else fails and Jordan keeps deflecting, Jake could have ended with a simple "I take that as a YES", which is actually at the core of Jordan's beliefs, given all his arguments.
    1
  2341. As a non-'Murican that used to admire everything the US did over 50 years ago, I now declare a total disgust of everything 'Murica has become! The US has turned into the despicable 'Murica, a nation of ignorant, stupid people that will cling to a political lie regardless of how stupid that lie is.
    1
  2342. I wish you 'd stop referring to the people and organizations that control Joe Manchin as his donors. They are his OWNERS, plain and simple!
    1
  2343. These "swats" appear to be highly organized. It is unlikely that the plethora of Trump-humping nutjobs that are out there would be this synchronized with their mad threats. This is likely to be the vanguard of Trump's "?-color-shirts", the equivalent of what ended up as Hitler's Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts.
    1
  2344. The only group making out like bandits in this debacle will be the bloody LAWYERS!
    1
  2345. Apparently Dr. Birx is now officially an useless Trump enabler, her credibility is totally gone.
    1
  2346. Thirty seconds in I just HAVE to comment: Cuba is NOT punching in above it's weight, it is the US that is punching in WAY BELOW it's weight. Actually, the US is failing miserably at anything that resembles being a society mindful of the welfare of their citizens. They have been doing that for at least 40 years while Cuba, hampered by the ire of their large and oppressive neighbor, have be doing far, FAR better! Just think about it: One saving grace for Cuba has been the fact that the US conservatives HATE them, Cuba is absolutely free from tourists traveling from the infection pit (the US). In fact, the embargo imposed on them by the US is actually making the job of controlling the infection a LOT easier for Cuba. In fact, Cuba is doing far better than e.g. Sweden, a population-wise very similar country. Sweden (pop.10M) currently has (Apr.24, 2020 00:30 UTC) 16K confirmed cases and almost 2K dead, while Cuba (pop 11.3M) has less than 1200 cases and 40 dead - and that is NOT because Cuba is neglecting their testing! When all is said and done, when the accounting of the Coronavirus debacle is over and done with, one thing is certain: The US will be deemed one of the worst prepared, the worst losers, "socialist hellhole" Cuba will be deemed one of the best prepared, the best winners.
    1
  2347. Notice that in recent interviews, Trump has never completed an entire sentence - he keeps jumping back and forth, frequently repeating himself again and again. I does not take a psychiatrist to recognize that there is something seriously wrong with Trump, but a layman might describe Trump as having a number of nuts and bolts loose in his head, not to mention all the lost marbles...
    1
  2348. The entire Trump family has good reason to be extremely worried - not because of political revenge (politicians never know when they themselves will be at the receiving end, so they avoid it like the plague), but because they have a long and deep history of allegedly criminal actions that suddenly became VERY interesting to the authorities during the reign of Emperor Trump. Now exposed, there are many, MANY criminal investigations that have been put on hold because of Papa Trump's temporary immunity from any and all investigations. Presidential pardons only cover federal crimes, there are PLENTY of state crimes committed to go around within the family...
    1
  2349. What is being described here are the initial death throes of US democracy as it has been perceived until now! Call me a pessimist, the fact remains that when a minority has managed to lie, cheat and steal their way to power by thwarting the will of the vast majority of the population, said minority is in for a glorious period of unchecked power, a Hitler/Nazi moment of a decade or two that will end with them all eventually being hung up by their balls, their necks or facing a firing squad. Some centuries ago, French aristocracy went the same route, ending in a Guillotine frenzy. Bottom line: When a minority abuses their power like the Repugnicans/Trumpzis are aiming for, they are inevitably heading for a sticky end.
    1
  2350. Jeffrey Epstein's death was also supposedly a suicide - despite all the suspicious issues around it, malfunctioning security cameras, guards asleep, you name it! I suspect that the Boeing leadership has gone full mobster mode now and may be ordering hits on whistleblowers and anyone else that gets in their way. After all, 'Murica has entered a new and violent era - Trump, an individual that has always used mob-like methods has been president once, and might become president again!
    1
  2351. On no - not another "croaker"! I just HATE it when otherwise obviously intelligent and self-confident 'Murican women have developed this obnoxious habit of croaking when speaking, instead of using their natural, soothing voice. Are they trying to sound like silly males? I simply don't get it! Apart from that, some states in the US appear to be intent on using Soviet-style tactics to prevent their citizens from leaving those states to get health care services that are about to be banned locally. What will we eventually call it? The no-healt-care wall? Even worse, those states are about to become Spanish Inquisition-level medieval! The United states of 'Murica are about to take a step back to the 16-hundreds, a time of religious zealotry. I a few decades, the US will no doubt join Russia as outcasts from peaceful modern civilization.
    1
  2352. I wonder if Trump should run for cover, just in case Biden decides to assassinate Trump and key MAGA/SCOTUS individuals. After all, if current President Biden takes the official action of having some arm of the military or intelligence services eliminating the clear and present danger Trump & Co. poses to 'Murican democracy, he will have a good immunity case. He would only have been defending the country against enemies, domestic in this case! An interesting dilemma the SCOTUS has created.
    1
  2353. Bill Barr aided and abetted Trump's worst actions during Trump's presidency. Of course he will never be made accountable (skunks at his level of influence never are) but he should, AT LEAST, be scorned and ignored as the liar and hypocrite he is and NO reputable news outlet should ever interview him about anything. 'Murican Main Media is, however, addicted to excrement in any form they can find it, hence this interview.
    1
  2354. That young person was impressive in spite of the fact that the Russian population has been treated like mushrooms for 2 decades; kept in the dark and fed on bullshite. A promising individual that is unfortunately likely to end up in prison if Putin prevails. For most of the other Russians that appeared in this clip: It seems their wish is likely to be fulfilled - Russia is becoming truly independent, most nations refuse to buy resources from Russia and refuse to sell e.g high-tech resources to Russia. Closed borders are the epitome of a truly independent country. What will the Oligarchs have to say about that?
    1
  2355. The "vaccination passport" issue was completely ignored in this clip, and the concept of a "vaccination passport" is off-kilter, anyway. What is needed is a simple "proof of vaccination", a piece of paper that states when and how you were vaccinated (date of final injection and type of vaccine). In a full-of-cheaters nation like the US that has no universal way of issuing such documentation, this is a major issue! My country (Iceland) is now admitting vaccinated tourists without restrictions - and the vast majority is coming from the US to have a look at our newest tourist attraction, the Fagridalur Volcanic Eruption. They are STILL PCR-tested, just in case, and so far they have been as declared. I don't know exactly HOW our authorities verify valid vaccine documentation, but given how well they have coped with the pandemic so far, I am not overly worried. We have dealt with the madcap US for decades and I trust our people know what to trust and what NOT to trust. So far, so good! We are currently containing our potential fourth Covid "wave" with aggressive testing, contact tracing and quarantining. As long as the vast majority of new cases are already in quarantine, we are in good shape. We even sequence EVERY positive case and are, in most cases, able to verify and double-check every infection. There have been odd and worrying cases where an infection cannot be traced to it's origin, but those are few and have been contained. Personally I think too many Americans are what I label as 'Muricans; Ignorant, ill-informed or misinformed individuals that are dangerous wherever they go. The typical gun-toting trash of any color (sorry, Rednecks). I also KNOW, from personal experience, that 'Muricans are only found within the US itself, while the majority of the US population, the part that tends to travel abroad do NOT fall into that category. I have yet to meet a genuine 'Murican outside US borders, all the Americans I ever encounter are simply intelligent, knowledgeable and very nice people.
    1
  2356. I feel especially sorry for young ´Murican women, their future looks terribly bleak now.
    1
  2357.  @attilamarics3374  Ask any 'Murican female of childbearing age! In 2024, the US Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR, deaths pr. 100K births) was over 22 for white women and over 49 for black women. Compare that to the MMR in my country, Iceland, which is 3.00 pr. 100K births! Just you wait until the evangelist fascists make their dream come true; replace NORMAL maternal health care with RELIGIOUS maternal health care, and THEN have a look at the US MMR. I predict it will be reaching Third-World levels in a few years.
    1
  2358. This GOP/Repugnican "pattern of threats and violence" has an eerie resemblance to what happened to Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. The Hitler and Brownshirt era repeating itself in 'Murica?
    1
  2359. The Repugnicans seem to be embarking on a censorship spree that will only diminish the quality of US education and increase the current level of ignorance in the US.
    1
  2360. One wonders how Tim Miller sleeps at night, having realized what a monster they supported and enabled? Probably quite well. After all, he has a Conservative mindset, something that has repeatedly been proven to be devoid of morals of any significance!
    1
  2361. People should find comfort in the attitude of the son of the "racist perpetrator" at the meeting. While most children tend to adopt whatever views their parents have, many do NOT. This is an example of a someone that apparently grew up in a racist environment but has rejected his father's racist views. The future of the US lies in the hands of a better-informed youth, the young people that are the voters of the future.
    1
  2362. It is amazing how highly educated engineers fall into traps that their fathers - and even their grandfathers - could have educated them about. In this clip they blame all the damage on particle/chemical erosion, not a mention of the the long-term effect of UV light on synthetic materials. Their fathers could have told them about how how the new and fancy plastic whatchamacallit deteriorated in the shelter of the backyard garden, for no apparent reason...
    1
  2363. For decades I felt that Reagan's policies started the decline the US finds itself in now, and I still think that is mostly correct. On the other hand I find that I have lost sight of the fact that, compared to the current crop of Repugnicans, Ronald Reagan was a straight shooter, a true and honest statesman that meant well - even if it can be argued that many of his policies may have been misguided.
    1
  2364. The Western world simply cannot ever forgive Putin and his cronies for this blatant mass murder of Ukrainian and Russian citizens.
    1
  2365. Are you really trying to convince us that 'Muricans are capable of good and unselfish deeds like this? Get out of here!
    1
  2366. I loved the last phrase that said, in essence: Big Mouth Little Brother. Can you imagine how much better off the US would have been with someone of Andrew Cuomo's caliber in the White House? Not necessarily Andrew Cuomo himself, just somebody with a similar level of compassion, intelligence and guts - there are plenty of US American politicians with those qualities, but only rarely are they allowed to do their thing...
    1
  2367. The Trump arse-lickers that bucked the regular proceedings of the 'Murican "judicial system" (flawed as it is) should be hunted down and made to pay for their subversion of the system - not to pay for abusing Cohen, but for further corrupting the so-called US judicial system.
    1
  2368. Feli, your facial expressions exactly echoed mine when listening to the "According to Briggs" nonsense. Only an 'Murican is able to spout this kind of nonsense. The link you provided to the Briggs video is invalid now, it has curiously been "Removed by the uploader". Good job you are happy in your new home in 'Murica, currently the most dangerous place on Earth (between the Covid pandemic and Trump, the gun craze is becoming insignificant).
    1
  2369.  @Daniel_LLLLLL , 'Murica has another problem which is monopoly in disguise; There are only a handful of companies in e.g. the meat packing, cereal and retail businesses, so few that covert pricing and market area collusion between them is almost a given. Also, there is the illusion of many more brands available on the market than you actually have when many of the brands are owned by the same, big companies. Can we call this arrangement "fewpoly"?
    1
  2370. Something similar happened to me in BAE Jetstream 32. I was PIC/PF in a departure from Reykjavik on a cold and slushy winter night. Around Vr the FO suddenly called out that his ASI was falling, and few seconds later my ASI followed suit. Particularly because of Birgenair flight 301and CRM training, my instant reaction was to establish a safe attitude and power setting while we cleaned up the aircraft and started troubleshooting. The cause was immediately found: The Pitot Heat was not on (missed checklist item, a serious issue in a slushy taxi and takeoff run). When turned on, both ASIs jumped to life within seconds. I have also experienced an ASI-turned-Altimeter event (frozen ice plug in the Pitot "system"), but that was in a single engine, VFR only aircraft. Minor issue, easily handled and fixed.
    1
  2371. "Trillions of dollars, GONE on the Stock Market"? This only perceived money - appearing out of nowhere one day, gone to nowhere the next day. Easy come, easy go...
    1
  2372. What a novel way of trying to rewrite history. Pretending that Nordic Kings and their ambitions had anything to do with the initial discovery of 'Vesturheimur' (the West World). The Northmen found America and failed to get along with the natives. Period. They did not and could not simply slaughter the natives and dominate them like the English Americans eventually did. The author of this video has some strange idas about the Norse mentality at the time. Try to get it into your thick 'Murican skulls that a 'Viking' was simply a job description, similar to being a Mobster or a Gang member in any of your 'Murican cities! The explorers that found 'Vinland' were Northmen, and most of them of more ill repute than any other Northmen, but still were not Vikings! Eirik the Red was outlawed from Norway for unreasonably killing a neighbor. He turned out to be just as unsavoury in his new adopted country, Iceland, where he was promptly outlawed for the same reason, the indiscriminate killing of neighbors. He eventually sailed west, where he found a HUGE glacier which he called 'Greenland' (the first marketing plan, a ploy to lure as many people to the new land as possible?). His son Leifur, born in Haukadalur, Iceland, ended up sailing west to follow up on stories of land to be found in that direction. The rest is history that has been substantiated by later finds. The Icelandic Sagas, once believed to be works of pure fiction, have turned out to be substantiated by archeological evidence, time and time again. The Sagas may be fiction to some extent (written 2-3 centuries after the actual events) but there has been an astonishing trail of archeological and historical evidence that the Sagas are eerily accurate. Make no mistake, the Northmen were just as ruthless as the spanish and English that later colonized the Americas, but in th elong run they simply assimilated with the nations they visited/pillaged/raped. The strongest evidence is the fact that the North of the UK has a LOT of norse place-names but no stories of violence. I am fairly certain that the Northmen would have had a nassive impact if they had been able to fornicate their way through the native American popuation. Whatever impact they may have made is lost in time, but it was certainly less bloody than the impact of the Spanish and any other cruel Europeans (like the bloody English!). Would North America be better off if the Northmen had gained a foothold a thousand years ago? Who knows. The state of the Nordic countries today is certainly a very strong clue! They are all very strong social democracies the serve their citizens well. The US could boody well learn from us, we are simply following lessons we learned from the US and the UK after WW2. A bleeding pity that the US has never followed the lessons they imprinted on us...
    1
  2373. Capitalism is useful, it encourages innovation and economic growth. It also self-eliminates thos two qualities! Trying to "re-invent" capitalism is a suicidal endeavour because capitalism is inherently self-destructive (re. all the boom/bust economic cycles of past centuries). The US is simply going from a recent boom to an impeding total bust these days. Unchained capitalism in a nutshell. SUICIDAL is the best description. The Nordic countries seem to have found a satisfactory middle ground with their mixed economies. Capitalism is allowed to flourish WITH LIMITATIONS! No "winner takes it all" or "greed is good" allowed. High-earners are severely taxed while average earners bear the brunt of the cost of running a safe society with good safety nets (affordable health care, education, parental leave, you name it) that make the Nordic countries the most content nations in the world. Most of Northern Europe is following a similar model. The US, with it's unchained capitalists, is in deep excrement - and sinking fast in said excrement! Whether the greedy US 1% are able to maintain this unsustainable nonsense for 1 year or 10 years is moot: Their orgy of greed WILL come to an end and by that time they will have nowhere to hide; They (and their heirs) are in for a world of hurt, if only because the rest of humanity is in for a world of hurt as well.
    1
  2374. Hey 'Muricans, "enjoy" the next 4 years you visited upon your self - as well as the disrespect you will earn from current and soon-to-be-former allied nations. Do you REALLY think anyone will want to work with the Gestapo-Land Trump's 'Murica is fast becoming?
    1
  2375. The question "...why not use a tranquilizer dart" when a person is being mauled is the height of stupidity and ignorance - asked and answered. The solution in this case would have been to stay the hell away from any polar bear!
    1
  2376. Actually, the current sanctions on "Russia" is brilliant! The sanctions are aimed at Russian oligarchs, NOT the Russian people as a whole.
    1
  2377. The statement "British Foreign Policy is run by the Civil Service" is correct, and has been for a long time. The British comedy series "Yes, Minster" and "Yes, Prime Minister" may be just a comedy series, but is still a very credible insight into how things actually are run.
    1
  2378. I always feel nauseous the moment Thom has this clown on and have never managed to watch the clips to the end. I am firmly convinced that narcissists like this have a mental disease and are in dire need of psychiatric treatment.
    1
  2379. Isn't it ironic: Texas is now officially a charity case! Come to think of it, the entire US seems to have become a charity case...
    1
  2380. One cannot help wondering: There will come a time where preventive detecting will become useless - when the infection has reached beyond anything that can be detected, traced and quarantined/isolated. The final step - actually a step that should have been ongoing from the moment it became possible in theory: Provide an almost-instant test that tells us who has already been infected and are now immune. They will be the ones to start kick-starting economies everywhere, the backbone of the revival.
    1
  2381. Giuliani seems to be the embodiment of "Corruption Inc."
    1
  2382. Mine is certainly a cruel and tasteless opinion, but methinks that many Trump supporters are fervently trying to join the ranks of so-called "Darwin Awards" winners, i.e. people doing their damned best to ensure that their genes will NOT contribute to coming generations. The rest of us should be grateful...
    1
  2383. As an outsider, a non-'Murican, I find the shallowness in this case astounding. Having monitored what Biden has DONE since he was finally inaugurated vs. what he failed to say in this single "debate", I can only say: Biden is NOT the world's best debater and orator, AND he is OLD. His capabilities are slowly diminishing and HE KNOWS IT and acknowledges it! He has good advisors catching whatever slips he might make. Now, for the other side: Trump, a mere 3 years younger than Biden, has pretended to be "a stable genius" - this stated by a man that has rarely been able to string together a coherent sentence in the English language! Moreover, Trump's performance simply consisted of a) not answering questions from the useless "moderators", instead spewing lies, Lies, endless LIES! At a glance, my guess is 99% of what Trump said were blatant lies, but genuine fact-checkers will no doubt establish the lie factor to a bit less. 97%? I wonder how wet rags Dana Bash and Jake Tapper can ever face their colleagues again. Frankly, this treatise by Ari Melber convinces me that Ari is in the same categoty! A "wet rag" giving his all for potential viewer ratings, NOT the good of his country!
    1
  2384. The Trumpzis REALLY think that the coming pandemic can be stopped with lies and misinformation instead of proper preventive detection, isolation and quarantines, followed by vaccinations when that eventually becomes available. This pandemic will be devastating to both countless lives and economies around the world, probably hitting the US harder than others because they were woefully unprepared and slow to respond. Denial has never solved any problems.
    1
  2385. We just watched a Mafia-like exertion racket attempt, and Zelenskyy came through with flying colors, while the Toddler and Vance exposed themselves as the mobsters they are! Now we ALL know what 'Murica has become, and that NATO now only has 31 member nations remaining. 'Murica just lost any respect it might have deserved from it's peer nations.
    1
  2386. This makes sense. For a criminal to simply refuse to be part of legal society will NOT make that criminal immune to the arm of the law. Similarly, for a few nations to refuse to be part of an international judicial body (Russia and the US being the most notorious) will NOT free them from the wrath of the rest of the world when they behave badly, the rest of the world can simply choose to turn their backs on them and freeze them out until they agree to behave like civilized nations. When Putin and his cronies have been indicted for war crimes and worse in Ukraine, it is logical to continue to freeze Russia out of the international community by these harsh sanctions until they agree to depose Putin and extradite the entire bunch to the Haag. To actually "drain the Russian Swamp" and allow the Russian people to determine their own fate will be incredibly beneficial to Russia in the long run.
    1
  2387. @Gosaitse Kennetseng, there have certainly plenty of them to go around in recent decades. While Biden has not had the opportunity yet himself as president, he was Useless Obama's vice-president during Obama's drone killing spree.
    1
  2388. One way to not make people feel stupid would be to stop calling them stupid. They very well MAY be stupid, but how can you tell if you do not know them personally? A better term would be e.g. clueless or misinformed.
    1
  2389. Frankly, this smells like snake oil salesmanship (spelled "corruption"). Selling something that looks sophisticated on paper but ends up being not at all what the customer needed or wanted. Building and selling over 50 units that have proved to be inferior to a 60-year old technology is just another blot in Boeing's recent and already blighted history. Boeing really DESERVES to lose money on this one! Automated refueling may well be the future, but all the kinks must be ironed out with comprehensive prototype development and testing before the first production tanker is even built! Elon Musk's reusable space rocket boosters are a good example of such comprehensive development and testing, ending in a very reliable product.
    1
  2390. Join the EU? A silly idea - but a good beginning would be to start cutting reliance on a madcap nation like 'Murica and reinforcing trade relations with reliable and consistent partner nations, the other NATO nations being a good beginning. Europe will welcome trade with a sensible nation like Canada.
    1
  2391. The way things are going, Trump will be a convicted criminal by 2024, most likely wearing an orange jump-suit in a revenge-based 'Murican prison - and yet a sizeable fraction of the nation wants to elect him president again! My question: In a country where convicted criminals that have served their time are not even allowed to VOTE, how can a convicted criminal run for the highest office of the land? This twisted logic of the 'Murican "Judicial System" is a sign of a disintegrating nation, not an improving one.
    1
  2392. His name should be changed to "RaffensPURGER" because that is what he stands for. He might have been sharp enough to refuse to commit an outright felony in plain sight when Trump wanted him to do so, but does he REALLY think he can do even more atrocious things to ensure that the next elections will be thoroughly corrupt in favor of conservatives? Brad Raffenspurger: There WILL be a reckoning! The conservatives are in a clear minority and the majority WILL eventually prevail. When (not if) that happens, your arse is toast, every minor transgression you have committed in your career will be exposed (you, being a rabid conservative, will have a whole plethora of minor but still illegal acts to your name). The best thing that will happen to you is that you will be voted out of office. The worst thing that might happen to you is that you will actually be held responsible for what you have been doing: Undermining US democracy! A treasonous act if there ever was one. People have died for lesser transgressions. Yours is a face-a-firing-squad-at-dawn level transgression!
    1
  2393. Almost 30 years ago (late 1989 to 1992) I worked as a pilot flying for the ICRC, first flying relief flights from Lokichogio in Kenya in to South Sudan for 6 months and then in Angola for 2 years. The UN operated out of Lokichogio and by the end of my stint in Angola the UN came in and were instrumental in mucking everything up! In my experience, ANYTHING with the UN prefix is corrupt, inefficient and a waste of money and resources. Old institutions or organizations like the UN do absolutely NOT improve with age, they only get worse! I watched, with my own eyes, how corrupt, arrogant and inefficient the UN were in Kenya AND later in Angola. In angola they even managed to stir up a hornet's nest that resulted in an ICRC aircraft being attacked with a Stinger missile (courtesy of UNITA/CIA/USA). Fortunately everyone survived, but it was a close call, only a PT-6 engine blown to smithereens. When 'peace talks' ensued in Angola (the civil war went into overdrive, both FAPLA and UNITA trying trying to improve their bargaining position and any relief efforts had to be abandoned), I ended up flying for 9 months in Yemen, serving oil companies like ELF and Shell. This was in the period following the end of the civil war between North and South Yemen, and you could not find happier people than the Yemenis, finally done with the bloody civil war and in their view the future was rosy and peaceful, even if they were the poorest country in the region. They were intent on rebuilding their country and to prosper in decades to come. Little did they know that they would become a punching bag between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In my personal view, the only good Persians and Saudis are DEAD Persians and Saudis! If their god, Allah, is as peaceful as they claim, they will be taken to task in any potential afterlife are in for an eternity of hurt!
    1
  2394. Arguably, religion, in it's incredibly various forms, is our most vile invention - FAR worse than, say, nuclear weapons or mindless plastic pollution or genocides or whatever misery we inflict on each other. The Spanish inquisition is a case in point, an example of how Jesus's humanitarian teachings have been perverted into something sadistic - but CHRISTIAN! Something to make the Pope proud? And don't get me started on the Muslims! They make even the worst Christians look good! Religion in it's many variations has been, for thousands of years, the polar opposite of what we currently consider "humane" interests. The day the last religious zealot dies (to meet his maker in their own imagined Hell) will be the day mankind goes to a higher level of existence. I will be long dead before THAT happens, but one can always hope...
    1
  2395. I wonder what the average wage growth in Europe compared to the US has been for the last, say, 30 years? I know that worker wage growth has been stagnant in the US for some decades while it has NOT been in Europe, so boasting about a recent (and long overdue) wage growth in the US might not make as much sense as the WSJ wants you to believe. Add to that the fact that the war in Ukraine is currently affecting Europe far more than the US, calling for some temporary belt-tightening in Europe.
    1
  2396. Is it any wonder that every time I hear someone speak with a southern drawl I automatically think I am listening to a bigoted, ill-informed and basically stupid person? This may be unfair, US southerners are not ALL stupid idiots but, frankly, I have never - and I mean NEVER heard anything sensible spoken with a southern drawl.
    1
  2397. Is it any wonder that NO ONE is able put any trust in 'Murican police officers? The main criteria for becoming an officer is being morally blind, indifferent to any plight of fellow citizens and being truly sadistic. The qualities found and cherished in Gestapo officers in the early part of the last century - which is exactly where 'Murica is heading these days! Officers Godby and Ray (and their families) should be put through the wringer of hateful public scrutiny, seeing that they will never face any meaningful official consequences, as was the case with their role models a century ago. the Gestapo.
    1
  2398. Mehdi, THUMBS UP!
    1
  2399. Should the US stop talking about it's Military Forces and use "US Mercenary Forces"?
    1
  2400. Repugnicans appear to be intent on committing political suicide. Let's hope they succeed!
    1
  2401. Good riddance to bad rubbish - humanity will be much better off when ALL religions have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
    1
  2402. ​ @朱佳鑫-i4w  China is an East Asian country that is covertly supporting Putin's European war efforts, thus directly meddling in European affairs! What was the nationality of the vessel that "accidentally" dropped it's anchor on some undersea cables and dragged it until the cables snapped? It was CHINESE! Don't even TRY to play the innocent here!
    1
  2403. You left out a seriously important issue: Because of whatever industry influence over the FAA that caused this wishy-washy response, the really fatal flaws of the DC-10 were never rectified. This caused a carbon-copy incident involving a Turkish DC-10 less than 2 years later, killing all 346 souls on board. The failure occurred at only slightly higher altitude than AA96, but this time control runs to the tail were damaged to the extent that the flight crew had insufficient control to stop a fatal descent into the ground. The fatal flaw (i.e. the lack of venting between the cabin and underfloor cargo space) had no been remedied in the almost 2 years since the AA96 near-crash. This corrupt industry influence over the FAA had NOT been corrected either when the B737 MAX started flying into the ground.
    1
  2404.  @MentourPilot  Ooops, sorry, talk about jumping the gun...
    1
  2405. To the best of my knowledge, the concept of "peers" has been well established in the English-speaking world for centuries. Someone that allegedly breaks the law in Georgia, USA, should naturally be judged by a jury in - GEORGIA! To bitch and moan about an "unfair jury pool" in the place where the alleged crime was committed is beyond ridiculous. The concept of "peers" in the US today is not the same as it was in e.g. aristocratic Britain two centuries ago, the shoe is on the other foot now. An aristocrat hauled in front of a jury of peers (other aristocrats) was virtually guaranteed to walk away scot-free, whereas Trump will be saddled with a jury of peers NOT of his class - as it should be!
    1
  2406. Russel Brand, a Critical Thinker, my arse! He is, and always has been a filthy talker, spewing crap all the time. Substance? Nah, none ever... David, lending airtime to weirdos like Russel Brand only helps those nut-jobs!
    1
  2407. Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe? Does that mean Russia (the western part) is NOT considered to be on the European continent? Russia itself is definitely the most corrupt of the larger countries in the world, Ukrainian corruption is just what Ukraine inherited from the Soviet era! True, they need external help to clean up, and Russia's invasion, with it's associated bloodbath, pain and suffering, can only help urging the cleanup along.
    1
  2408. ...only in 'Murica!
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  2409. There has been very little mention of a major issue regarding the return to some semblance of normalcy: Those who have already caught the virus and recovered from it and can be expected to be immune for at least a year! Those people will be invaluable for any society trying to get back on it's feet. The only way to determine who is already immune is probably by testing for antibodies, a test that will supposedly be fairly quick and affordable when available.
    1
  2410.  @MrCalls1 , thanks for the clarification regarding the length of general corona virus immunity (e.g. the common cold). Still, an immune person that does not spread the virus is a valuable community, even it that only lasts for a few months. We seem to agree on the need to keep the "social machine" from seizing up or completely breaking down, until we find either a vaccine or an usable treatment.
    1
  2411. By starving their potential customers, by decimating what was the Middle Class, the Capitalists (from Amazon through Walmart) are performing a slow suicide. When this former customer base has been starved to death, who are they going to sell their goods to? The billionaires? 'Muricans are not going to sell ANYTHING to the rest of the world in the foreseeable future - when was the last time the brand "Made in USA" carried any weight or was an assurance of quality? Definitely more than 40 years ago!
    1
  2412. Apparently Russian military planners have screwed up big-time: Tanks that have penetrated "enemy" territory but are now out of fuel and out of ammunition are simply sitting ducks. The teenagers manning them can only abandon them before the local Ukrainians blow them up. The question remains: This has vast economic consequences! Will the International Community eventually make Russia pay for the damage they have done! Lives lost, equipment damaged, resources obliterated. The reclamation of everythin that was damaged by Russia will HAVE to compensated for! The best bet is to have the Russian Kleptocrats do the initial payments, at least until their assets are exhausted.
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  2413. Why anyone would want to live in such a miserably failing country as 'Murica is a mystery. There IS an example 'Murica could have learned from: The former Soviet "republics" Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan had a water body named the Aral Sea that is fast disappearing due to vast resource mismanagement. If you 'Muricans think you are above such mismanagement, just face this irrefutable proof of an 'Murican resource mismanagement that is just as bad - and even worse, because YOU KNEW BETTER, you effing idiots!
    1
  2414. This is a fully one: You live in an awful place and are wondering what part of this awful place is least awful? The answer is simple: Anywhere OUTSIDE 'Murica is better, provided it is somewhere NORTH of 'Murica! Canada is probably considering building it's "Keep 'Muricans Out" wall. Then there is Northern Europe, which is at Canadian latitudes, anyway. 'Murica has been burning it's candle from both ends and now the candle is burned out. What to do? Like Churchill once said: The 'Muricans can be counted on to do the right thing - but not until they have tried everything else!
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  2415. It took the coordinated effort of 4 Minneapolis police officers to snuff out the life of a "suspect". They are ALL equally guilty of deliberate murder. I always find it funny how the main perpetrator is always referred to as a "FORMER Minneapolis police officer". It is only a few days since the murdering git was a full-fledged member of the local police force - apparently despite 18 charges laid against him (this is bound to come out in full force in coming days). His 3 accomplices that took part in this particular murder have not been charged yet, but it is hard to see how they will be able to avoid being charged as well. The repercussions of this police murder are just beginning to show: With tens of millions of disillusioned citizens out of a job and health insurance, with nothing but time on their hands and anger, even hated in their hearts, the uprising is spreading far beyond Minneapolis. After all, every part of the US has similar stories of indiscriminate killing of black citizens by white police officers. A police officer walking into her neighbor's apartment, pulling out her gun and killing him simply because she entered the wrong apartment (normally called "breaking and entering") is a typical case. Anywhere else in the world, that female would have instantly fled from the apartment and called the police, but this was the US, she was a police officer (armed, even if off-duty) and as seems typical for the breed, pulled her gun and started shooting instead of THINKING! She deserves whatever punishment the revenge-based judgement the crazy US judicial system chooses to bestow upon her. In the rest of the civilized world, this kind of police behavior was abolished more than 85 years ago (with the end of the German Nazis). The US Nazis are just warming up...
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  2416. For us non-Americans, i.e. other western nations, this is sad and depressing. The US has been a significant influence in the world for a century (sometimes good, sometimes bad) and now it is falling apart for the flimsiest of reasons! The US has been increasingly dysfunctional from before Reagan took meat cleaver to the idea of democracy, and now appears to be entering a full-blown fascist stage. With the current lunatic politics in the US, combined with their current military might, the future prospects of the world is indeed rather bleak! Then again, rest assured that justice will eventually prevail! The future war criminals of the US will face cruel and harsh justice when all is said and done, just like the Nazi war criminals did. It might take a decade or three, but the Trumpzis will all meet a sticky end, eventually.
    1
  2417. Also, she will forever be a sentenced criminal that had to do time (even if a very short time). One wonders what will happen when next she wants to vote! A convicted criminal in the US! In my part of the world, prison inmates are still citizens and have voting rights throughout. Methinks you 'Muricans are off your rocker with your revenge-based judicial system. It only breeds more hate, no "correction" or reformation in sight.
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  2418. By the simple expedient of having been appointed by Trump, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams has forsaken any credibility for the rest of his life. Trump only appoints corrupt sycophants, so any and all individuals appointed by Trump for any position of power during Trump's reign will be suspect for the rest of their life. Jerome Adams is certainly correct regarding the plight of the colored part of the US population, both past and present, but comes across more than a little lame at this late stage in the tragedy that is the Trump era. Bottom line: Trust, once lost, is very hard to rebuild.
    1
  2419. Wind turbines use aluminium blades? If the rest of this video is as factual as THAT statement, it is absolute nonsense from start to finish.
    1
  2420. Understandably, the purpose of NATO had been diminishing since the collapse of the USSR, and recent political machinations reflected this. Putin's most important asset, Trump, had been working diligently to abolish NATO, and Putin really believed that this was the time to make his move to re-establish the USSR. Boy, was he wrong! The whole thing has exploded in Putin's face, and he is unlikely to survive this for more than a year or two. The western world suddenly had proof positive that Putin's Russia was a danger to everyone, and must be put down like the rabid dog that it is. Make no mistake, it is PUTIN'S Russia that is dangerous, not Russia as a nation. Mind you, after centuries of cruel leaders, the Russian nation may be a basket case, damaged beyond repair (the mindless cruelty of Russian soldiers in Ukraine is one clue), but the only way to find out is to assist them in the path to democracy (without direct meddling!) once Putin and his cronies are dead and gone.
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  2421. Lindsey Graham is one of the reasons I always feel nauseous and disgusted whenever I hear an American tourist visiting my country open his/her mouth, emitting a Southern Drawl. Over decades I have learned to associate the Southern Drawl with bigotry, dishonesty and outright perversity. Fortunately for them, my opinions do not matter at all - unfortunately for them, a significant part of the rest of the world generally agrees with my view of 'Muricans.
    1
  2422. Taking a bath with a plugged-in toaster is NOT fatal in Europe, only shocking. You see, leak-current detectors are MANDATORY in all households in Europe, so if you are silly enough to take a plugged-in toaster with you into the bathtub, all you will get is a shock for a few milliseconds before the leak-current detector kicks out the mains, only enough to ensure that you will NEVER try it again! In 'Murica, Republicans are certainly The Party of Death - AND YOU KEEP ELECTING THEM!
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  2423. What can the US learn from Norway? Absolutely nothing! The US is to incompetent to implement ANY of the ecological or social measures that are so successful in Norway and the other Nordic countries. We in Iceland (Norway's infant brother) have a similar situation: An abundance of hydro-electrical and geothermal power in a sparsely populated country. 100% of our domestic heating and lighting requirements are sustainable - only our transport sector needs fossil fuels. In my case (I live in a rural area), a small plug-in hybrid is a perfect fit. 99+% of my needs would be met with local sustainable energy sources, the couple of times a year I would need to travel beyond the battery capacity of my plug-in hybrid would constitute only a fraction of a % of my annual transportation needs. Sure, I would be paying a lot extra for the production and maintenance of a complex plug-in hybrid, but I would not be polluting for more than a minuscule fraction of my transportation needs.
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  2424. I am not a US citizen (and have no interest in becoming one) but I fervently hope that Bernie and like-minded politicians (AOC, Warren etc.) finally succeeds in beginning to convert the US from a hate-and-fear-your-neighbor country into a we-are-all-in-the-same-boat country. It will be a relief to have the US use at least part of it's military budget on infrastructure and discontinue waging war against any nation that has resources that the US can exploit.
    1
  2425. True, the unprovoked war in Ukraine cannot be blamed on ALL Russians, but the fact remains that ALL Russians will be tarred with the same brush as their government. The Russian nation failed to hang on to their democracy somewhere along the line, and are now stuck with having enabled Putin, whether they liked it or not. Russia has Putin and 'Murica had Trump, Hungary has Orban and Turkey has Erdogan. One wonder where this whole mess will end.
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  2426. Everything Trump touches dies. Musk (a controversial smell) is within Trump's touch, and he is dying.
    1
  2427. Corruption in all it's sly and cunning forms... My country, Iceland, is generally considered the most corrupt of all the Nordic countries (still, compared to the US, our halo is still shining, not tarnished AT ALL!) . The current reason? Samherji, a seafood giant (in Icelandic context) that has for decades been immensely influential in our right-wing politics and were recently caught in a bribery scandal in Namibia, a money-laundering scandal in Norway, and a frantic disinformation campaign and (illegal) political lobbying/power grab hitherto unseen in Icelandic politics and is now futilely trying to run a defamation campaign against the pesky journalists that refused to be bought off. Even the Faeroese, the epitome of honesty in business and any other social relations have been tainted by Samherji, through no fault of their own!
    1
  2428.  @rush4you , point taken. I stand corrected.
    1
  2429. I had problems understanding the high-AOA pitch-up characteristics change induced by moving the engines forward and up - after all, the center of thrust moves closer to the center of drag, which should reduce pitch-up tendencies due to higher thrust. According to this video, the huge nacelles, now located even more forward of the center of lift, cause an increased pitch-up moment at high AOA. THAT makes sense. The aircraft is no less stable or unsafe in any way, it just calls for different training which costs money. This penny-pinching, AND the ridiculously cheap initial implementation of the MCAS (only one AOA sensor used, no control authority limit and hiding the feature from flight crews) is the root cause of this debacle.
    1
  2430. The kind of help these deranged individuals would need is simply not available in the US. The standard US reaction is to throw them into a for-profit prison, where they can rot for life (unless Trump pardons them on his way out), at great cost to the US public and great profit for the prison shareholders.
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  2431. The grin on Raskin's face (0:11 into the clip) was priceless - and so was the stunned, moronic look on Comer's face! Will that stop the idiotic Repugnicans from ridiculing themselves? Oh-No, this is where they live!
    1
  2432. So, Dr. Cornelius Rhoads was actually the US's Dr. Josef Mengele. With the US being the victors, the whole thing was swept under the rug. Does anyone REALLY think this was the only atrocity that was treated like this?
    1
  2433. Kerry hit the nail right on the head: AOC has shown more leadership in a few months than most Republicans in their entire life!
    1
  2434. If dedicated and rabid Trump followers take his advice seriously and start swallowing anything with "hydroxy chloroquine" in the ingredients description of a product (fish tank cleaning agents etc.), the biggest problem in the USA will be eliminated, one idiot at a time.
    1
  2435. Whooieee! Made by Boeing! That is not going to end well....
    1
  2436. Only in 'Murica...
    1
  2437. Apparently, von Rundstedt turned out to be the most favourable asset to the allied invasion.
    1
  2438. According to Trump the solution is simple: Arm EVERYBODY (even "gifted" toddlers) and this will stop. As a bonus, gun manufacturers will create a lot of new jobs (and make out like bandits)! The man is not only a moron, he is a thoroughly corrupt one.
    1
  2439. Trump IS deranged and dangerous, not only for 'Murica but for the entire world, BUT there are people that are even more dangerous than Trump: Those that have and still are enabling him, beginning with the politicians and billionaires at the top, going down through the ranks of all the mentally deranged and hateful voters that form his cult and his voter base. They are virtually identical to the the people that formed the backbone of the burgeoning Nazi party in the inter-war period, the people that were the root cause of WW2. Does "Hitler's Brown-shirts" ring any bells?
    1
  2440. Big Pharma corporations are have a wet dream period - new and more transmissible variants are calling for perpetual booster shots, possibly ad infinitum, and profits flow in as never before. Will they be allowed to profiteer from this without any guardrails? Definitely in the corrupt US of A, but other countries will not take this lying down for very long.
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  2441. The US is keen to punish the messenger that published e.g. some horrible war crimes committed by some US forces in Iraq, but has no interest in investigating those crimes, let alone punish the perpetrators. Has everyone forgotten the video of US helicopter pilots killing a man that tried to help a casualty after a helicopter crew (callsign "Crazy Horse") shot up a crowd of people, including a journalist/photographer, and severely wounding the Good Samaritan's two little children. The hippocracy is astounding!
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  2442. You 'Muricans are in for some interesting times. Will you survive it? It's a toss-up. You have weathered some tough times as a nation, but chances are that outright Toddler Trump/Musk-type Nazism is going to test you to beyond limit. The simple fact that you, as a nation, re-elected Toddler Trump (with the aid of decades-long gerrymandering and voter suppression) is a testament of how ignorant and even outright stupid 'Muricans have become since Ronald Bloody Reagan started the current decline of the USA, now having degenerated into something called 'Murica...
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  2443. A very good point! Why should someone like Trump have special protection in the madhouse of 'Murican prisons? If convicted, he will be just another prisoner, subject to whatever atrocities inflicted on prisoners in 'Murica. If white-collar criminals were subjects to the insanity of the regular 'Murican "correctional" system, the entire system would rapidly be changed into what is practiced in Northern Europe, especially the Nordic countries. HUMANITARIAN!
    1
  2444. I could be wrong, but as a non-'Murican I feel the 'Murican "justice" system has been turned into a money-making theater! It seems customized to favor people/corporations with lots of money, and also for expensive lawyers to make big bucks by doing all kinds of legal gymnastics to drag out a case to the benefit of their rich clients, justice be damned. Trump's lifelong and hitherto successful tactic of delaying "justice" and wearing out his opponents has been the way to go for at least 5-6 decades. The saying that "the law has nothing to do with justice" is spot-on. This is increasingly looking more like a scam than justice.
    1
  2445. And the Repugnicans are calling for small, non-intrusive government? Go figure!
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  2446. How can any self-respecting 'Murican look any other western nation citizen in the eye and say "I'm ????"
    1
  2447. This raving Christian is obviously more radical than the Muslim she is losing it over is likely to be, and Emma is absolutely correct. Off-topic: I object to Emma's (and many others) use of the silly phrase "one of the only". Beginning the phrase with "one of" implies there is more than one to choose from. In this case, since this is the first Muslim lawmaker in Pennsylvania, she is the ONLY one, not one of many. I know this is nitpicking, but still...
    1
  2448. Michael Popok is well off the rails describing Belarus as Communist Dictatorship. Belarus may be a dictatorship, but their only link to Communism is the fact that they were a Soviet state for a long time. The fallacy lies in the fact that Soviet "Communism" was never more than a label, come kind of carrot for the donkeys to chase. Communism (the concept) was always a stillborn idea, it has never worked, anywhere. To talk about Communism as relevant has always been idiotic, and anyone that thinks Communism still exists anywhere is truly an idiot - but it has been freely been used for over a century as a convenient label for dictatorships.
    1
  2449. You 'Muricans are in for a an alarming decrease in aviation safety in the coming months. Even your unsafe roads will become safer than flying in 2025. The FAA is being decapitated because Elon Musk does not like being banned from raining space debris onto airliners wherever he wants to. Next stop: Incapacitation of the FBI: Domestic and foreign terrorists are going to have free rein in the coming 4 years! You idiotic 'Muricans are in for some REALLY interesting times! Consumer prices will skyrocket (Trump's Tariffs), 'Murican tourists will be unwelcome just about everywhere, and that is just the beginning!
    1
  2450. Just you wait! The European leaders and diplomats listening to this ridiculous speech were too shocked to respond (other than not clapping). Only one European politician responded quickly - the German Defense Minister came back in no uncertain terms, and by tomorrow, all the other political leaders will have prepared their responses, and they will NOT be positive! The Vice-Clown of 'Murica will be decimated. Period. 'Murica will begin to become a solitary nation, it's military bases in Europe restricted and NATO will begin to split - exactly as Trump's handler Putin always intended! Accepting that the NATO alliance should be operated on the whim of a clown country will NOT sit well with all the non-clown countries.
    1
  2451. I wonder if the the 14th Amendment applies to the Republican primaries or only to national elections. After all, the primaries are a contest within the political parties, national ballot selection comes later.
    1
  2452. To us Europeans, the US did pretty well as a model for democracy until Nixon and Reagan. After Ronald Bloody Reagan, it slowly became what we now know as 'Murica, the final step into the next fascist disaster to befall mankind. Just imagine, the MAGA crowd will take their rightful place beside the Nazis in the history books a coupe of decades from now - and I'm not talking about their rhetoric, but the actual DEEDS that will ensure their place in eternal infamy.
    1
  2453. As a non-'Murican (a NATO member country) I am really worried about where 'Murica is headed: With the top level of the judiciary (SCOTUS) corrupted as it obviously is, what hope do we ordinary human beings have? None at all?
    1
  2454. Well, Trump is about to argue his cases before some proper courts of law. Let's see how he fares in the "cruel" world of reality.
    1
  2455. "Good Ratings", real or imagined, seems to be the only thing that matters to the Orange Idiot.
    1
  2456. It is a pity that relatively respected media outlets like Times Radio are allowing disgusting war-hawks like Bolton any air-time at all.
    1
  2457. I wonder if Trump should run for cover, just in case Biden decides to assassinate Trump and key MAGA/SCOTUS individuals. After all, if current President Biden takes the official action of having some arm of the military or intelligence services eliminating the clear and present danger Trump & Co. poses to 'Murican democracy, he will have a good immunity case. He would only have been defending the country against enemies, domestic in this case! An interesting dilemma the SCOTUS has created.
    1
  2458.  @kosys5338 , like I said, Canadians have their heads properly screwed on. You are NOT going to tolerate this. Period! The only thing that remains to be seen is exactly what measures will be taken - I am confident that this will be carefully (but quickly) deliberated and whatever the outcome, it will address what just happened without excessively punishing the normal, sane everyday Canadian hunting enthusiast.
    1
  2459.  @kosys5338 , PS - I sometimes wonder if living north of the 49° parallel makes you saner than those living south of it. I live at 66° North myself and am fairly sane (well, in my OWN opinion, which is probably a good indication that I should see a shrink...)
    1
  2460. The only thing that exceeds how disgusting Trump is, bight be the fact that the fact that a sizeable part of the 'Murican nation seems ready and willing to elect this creep again! If Trump is NOT elected, 'Murica will have a hard job convincing it's allies of almost a century to believe 'Murica is a believable and worthy ally. If Trump IS elected, 'Murica will loose ALL it's current allies (the entire NATO pack) and gain only 4 new allies;u Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. It would be a toss-up if Hungary will terminate Orban or join the rest of Europe. In any case, Trump's 'Murica would find life difficult indeed, with no wealthy country willing to do business, and hastily withdrawing any business out of 'Murica.
    1
  2461. Main media outlets like MSNBC have "checked out"! Instead of exposing the glaring nonsense of Trump's actions, they are attempting to discuss it as potentially rational. It is official, at least to us non-'Muricans: 'Murica has become a nation of ignorant idiots!
    1
  2462. Poroshenko is correct: Given Putin's Trump-like relationship with the truth, who on Earth should believe anything coming from Putin? CNN's talking head crapped in her own pants when asking the former president to substantiate the Russian casualty numbers. The man is in the middle of a war zone, for crissake! We KNOW any numbers are unreliable and optimistic, depending on which side you are talking to. Poroshenko actually suggested an extremely logical solution: Have the ICRC as an intermediary when counting and returning the corpses of dead Russian soldiers back to Russia. That way the numbers will be real and verifiable!
    1
  2463. Desi's Foxsplaining always manages to ridicule the MAGA idiots in a way that even the idiots cannot explain away.
    1
  2464. The main point: No one is on an ego trip! The officers probably had a long workday behind them but could not help being tickled by this drunk's shenanigans. We Nordics have all had an uncle or cousin that did not behave properly when drunk, and tolerance is the key to a peaceful society. Bottom line; For all the abuse the Drunk heaped on the policemen, all they could do was to laugh it off rather than taking a personal offense. Drag him into the clinker to let him sleep it off and quietly laugh about it afterwards...
    1
  2465. This particular clip properly shows CNN's right-wing roots in 2016. Now, at the end of 2020 with the disastrous Trump response to the pandemic, CNN is playing a different tune.
    1
  2466. ...and another safety/quality gloss-over at Boeing in the works. This will NOT end well for either investors or the traveling public.
    1
  2467. He is handicapped in this media battle by his limited English, but he is damn well trying and he will only improve with time. Hopefully Trump will be history pretty soon so he can get on with his promises to the Ukrainian people: Root out the pervasive corruption that is the legacy of the Soviet era. It is a big job, but has to be started a.s.a.p!
    1
  2468. 'Muricans are crazy with their illogical rules and regulations. One concrete case of the inconsistencies would be how a bare male nipple is acceptable, anywhere and everywhere, while a bare FEMALE nipple is considered dangerous, likely to damage your brain and land the proprietor of said nipple in jail! Go figure...
    1
  2469.  @daffidavit , you are confusing the Ethiopian and the Lion Air crashes. The Lion Air aircraft had the same problem on the previous flight, spotted and solved by the jump seat pilot. The problem WAS written up and the AOA sensor replaced before the fatal flight, so the failure was most likely in either the wiring or the computer input channel. At this stage in the B737 Max saga, few pilots knew about the MCAS system as it was not included in the conversion training. The Ethiopian 200hr pilot: In the past, it has not been uncommon during pilot shortages to hire pilots with the ink on their CPL licences still wet. This may be rare among major carriers, but this is simply a matter of company policy, which is usually changed to suit the new pilot supply situation, and has been true around the world. There is no indication that this low aexperience had any bearing on the accident, in fact this pilot must have just come out of the rather intensive initial type training on a regular B737 flight simulator, so he was most likely quite competent.
    1
  2470.  @RTT80 , my understanding is that the MCAS system itself cannot be disabled or switched off, all you can do is disable or switch off the stabilizer trim actuators and use manual trim (actually crank the trim wheels) to complete the flight. The MCAS will still be merrily trying to trim away, but it's muscles have been disabled. In both crashes, the pilots appear not ho have realized this so, in my mind, the root cause boils down to Boeing's decision to keep knowledge of the MCAS system from the pilots just to reduce conversion training costs. If so, any pilot error would be a Boeing-induced pilot error.
    1
  2471. The opening scenes where some supercars are recklessly overtaking on either the left or right of slower vehicles would result in a flurry of complaints, LOTS of flashing lights and severe fines or suspended licenses. On the Autobahn, you DO NOT overtake on the right!
    1
  2472. While you law-educated 'Muricans furiously page through your local law books, trying to make sense of how Toddler Trump has you under control - or at least on the defensive, we in the rest of the western world are quietly writing you off as THE world power (which was probably Putin's intent, anyway). What I see as the most critical issue for the rest of the world is the fact that as we can write 'Murica off as a reliable ally in military matters. Reagan conceded US military industrial production to the highest bidders, at the time anyone in Asia. The only thing that surprises me is why the F-22 and F-35 are not cheaply produced in China these days...
    1
  2473. This is what Trump and his crow does: Project their own bad "qualities" on to whoever their adversary is at any given time. It is TRUMP that the most obvious enemy of the State. He knows the walls are closing in and is lashing out in desperation with his ridiculous behavior.
    1
  2474. A woman presents at an Emergency facility, critically ill due to, say, a terminal 3-month fetal complication, the emergency staff is prohibited from rendering known medical treatment that will save her life, the end result being not only the certain loss of the already doomed fetus, but also the real risk of losing the mother as well! You Evangelical 'Muricans are MAD. You cherish the "life" of an nonviable fetus, but if a healthy child is born, you gleefully throw it into the wild, not giving a damn about how the child fares after birth! If you are not brought to account in this life, rest assured that your God Almighty will see to your punishment. Sickos, the lot of you!
    1
  2475. To "lose an engine" was quite literal in this case. Most commonly the applicable, literal term should be to "lose engine power", not the entire engine.
    1
  2476. Why is it whenever any economist talking head is spouting his/her wisdom about anything, in economist jargon, I see a pretend-Gypsy lady, covered in colorful scarves and peering into a crystal ball, mumbling about, well, everything she thinks you want to hear...
    1
  2477. Ted Cruz is a thoroughly repugnant person - a fitting member for the Repugnican Party.
    1
  2478. "within 30 seconds of that chase a fatal shot was fired", which is 'Murican-excuse-speak for "the murder of an unarmed citizen was committed by a police officer". The morale within 'Murican police forces seems to be: If it is black and is running, it counts as legitimate target practice! The 'Murican Gestapo is disgusting! Trump complained about people from "hellhole" countries - now it is becoming ever clearer that 'Murica IS actually THE hellhole country - at least for non-whites!
    1
  2479. Well, English is only my third language and I might not properly interpret everything said in English, but I am sure I heard Trump say "slippery slop", not "slippery slope".
    1
  2480. Brian is wasting air trying to convince Trump followers that Trump is lying. By all accounts, the 'Murican nation is a lost cause. They have been dumbed down to the extent that they will support the creeps (the Repugnicans) that have being raping them, literally and figuratively, for over 40 years.
    1
  2481. I there are 'Classified Laws' the only a select few know about and can enact at a whim, your country is not a Democracy or a Republic. Stop fooling yourseves. If this turns out to be true, anyone that took part in that undemocratic act is a traitor to democracy and should be dealth with accordingly. In the US it would mean a firing squad, the electric chair or the needle. Pick you choice of termination.
    1
  2482. Make no mistake: For people in the Southern part of 'Murica to have a cold snap" can be a disaster! You are not used to it, you are not prepared for it and, seeing how many neglected people you have, there WILL be people dying for no reason at all! Shameful. People in the Nordic countries, the Alps and e.g. in Iceland (where I live) this is a problem akin to your average heath wave! You usually manage the heat, we manage the cold and the snow. Operation Normal! This Alpine scene reflects that this snow usually falls as powder, it is NOT hard-packed and compacted (until you get above the treeline or in the north-Nordics). One fact remains: How frequently have you heard of professional snow-removers like this to end up in trouble? Never? On the rare occasions they do, they have procedures in place to recover the mishap immediately, and then it is operation normal again... By the way, these Unimogs are small equipment, designed to effective and nimble on single-lane roads. For the heavy stuff, heftier equipment is called for...
    1
  2483. Bottom line: The epitome of a corrupt 'Murican politician! Regarding what party line she might be following: She has obviously figured out that pandering to the most corrupt donors of BOTH political leanings is rather lucrative.
    1
  2484.  @kalmorning , well - yes. The MCAS was a measure to minimize conversion training. One can speculate that relying on a single AOA sensor to guide the MCAS, without cross-checking the other AOA sensor, was a serious Boeing and FAA (regulatory) blunder. The investigation will determine if that was the case, until then we will all be speculating. The most serious blunder might apparently be NOT including MCAS information in the conversion training. The correct response might have been IN the QRH, but the QRH is basically irrelevant when you are fighting the controls relatively close to the ground. There is simply no time to mess with the QRH.
    1
  2485. Michael Steele calls the 'Murican voting system "one of the most secure in the world", which is hilarious! With all the gerrymandering and voter suppression, including dumping hundreds of thousands of voters from the voter rolls on a whim, the 'Murican voting system is an outright farce, at least compared to proper democracies in in Northern Europe.
    1
  2486. Fortunately Chris and others are aware of how destructive the binary political system is to 'Murica. The current incarnation of the Republican party is like a soon-to-be terminal cancer, and the legalized political bribery that has thoroughly infected BOTH parties is causing the apathy that almost ensures that no treatment will be sought.
    1
  2487. Any political system that chooses to ignore the needs of it's general population is doomed to fail. The US political system has been raping it's general population for 40 years and gotten away with it so far, but the combination of Trump and the pandemic is sort of "calling their bluff". With the miserable pandemic-response failures and a death toll that is apparently going exponential, things might be coming to a head and the whole thing is bound to explode in the faces of the exploiters (the GOP, big corporations and the rich).
    1
  2488. Isn't this a classic case of the "survival of the fittest"? Darwin outlined this: The stupid will follow their cult leaders in ignoring proven safety precautions and thus being almost certain to be infected with the Delta variant of this virulent virus - as well as refusing the proven protection of a vaccination. The bad news: A lot of people will lose in the Covid lottery and die. The good news: Most of the casualties will be stupid and ignorant Repugnicans, leading to a genuine cleansing of the US voting pool!
    1
  2489. Sadly, Greenland is not ready or able to become truly independent at this point in time (I'm Icelandic, we've been there and done that, but just barely, by the skin of our teeth). There WILL be a time when Greenland is ready, but that time is not now. Greenland is ripe to be gobbled up by a malicious superpower like 'Murica or China, but the Greenlanders should pause to study how 'Murica (and even relatively benign Canada) have been treating heir indigenous populations during the last century or two! They would be jumping from a gently simmering frying pan (under Denmark) into a genuine inferno of a fire! Denmark has been indifferent, even somewhat negligent regarding Greenland, and it is now about to bite them in the arse...
    1
  2490. What the entire press should do in a situation like this is to get up and LEAVE. What is the point of asking these lying, pre-juvenile (toddler-stage) idiots about anything is absolutely useless, a total waste of time. To expect Trump to start being presidential after 3 years of absolute ridiculous nonsense is beyond comprehension.
    1
  2491.  @marianlincoln9008  you silly sod, OF COURSE I'm not a US citizen (nor would I ever want to be). As for being disrespectful - I guess you are correct, seeing that I have not had much respect for the US in it's current, disintegrating form for at least a couple of decades. The opposite of respect is - you got it! - disrespect. Respect, once lost, is hard to win back. The only respectable 'Americans' I see on the North-American continent are called Canadians...
    1
  2492. Rule number 1: If it sounds too good to be true, it is usually a lie - snake oil! If, by any chance, it actually is NOT snake oil, it will be proven in clinical trials, in which case this is REALLY good news! Let's wait for the clinical trials and a formal approval. Until then, treat it as it is for the time being: Snake Oil! Repugnicans will, of course, be very excited because this because it was, after all, funded by the "Warp Speed" campaign of their Beloved Leader, Donald J. Trump!
    1
  2493.  @theresastirling2337  - OK, but what makes you think that YOU do? Is democracy about everyone voting the way YOU want? Or is it my disregard of religion? Am I a better person if I am a devout Christian or a devout Muslim? A far as I can see, religion of any kind is a blight on humanity, and has always been. Religion is probably the most harmful innovation of the human mind...
    1
  2494. She DID say that she believes "most" Americans don't want to be "given" anything, and she probably genuinely believes that herself. On the other hand, it is patently clear that SHE is not one of those Americans!
    1
  2495. What a disgusting excuse for a human being this Corey Lewandowski is turning out to be! I wonder how many Republicans that applies to...
    1
  2496. Farron, Fair and Balanced? No you are not! You are opinionated - which is fine by me because I agree with most of your opinions. The "fair and balanced" label sounds familiar. Quite a few years ago, this was a slogan used by one of Fox "News" shows during the short period I actually watched Fox because it was glitzy and attention-grabbing. I did not, however, last long as a Fox viewer because the stuff they were spewing was too glaringly twisted and, frankly, stupid! I am a citizen of one of the Nordic countries and have all my life been living in an environment that is the polar opposite of what the Fox Nuts are advocating - and by the way, while my country is consistently in the top 3-4 "Happiest Country" group, we are not "HAPPY" happy, we are merely very content. Can you 'Muricans say the same?
    1
  2497.  @zjeee  The 40-60% tax rate is not for health care only, it covers EVERYTHING that a developed society has to provide for it's citizens - like education, social welfare, defense etc. I suppose some of it goes to transport infrastructure (road and rail), most of which is probably paid for by the users (fuel tax etc.).
    1
  2498. I was also a serious stutterer when young. It may have been because my brain wanted to express faster than my mouth could cope with. I mostly grew out of it, just by the "simple" expedient of speaking slowly and deliberately, but the condition still pops up at odd times - no longer embarrassing, just a reminder of what I have actually overcome!
    1
  2499. The war on drugs was lost decades ago, and why the 'Muricans are still fighting a lost war defies sanity. Drugs ARE a problem, but the solution is NOT creating a dream market for illegal drug peddlers! A better solution is to face the problem head-on and try to learn how to mitigate the problems. This nonsensical legal loop-de-loop was done with alcohol early in the last century and all the only lasting legacy for the US was organized crime, the Mafia! The long-ago-lost war on drugs has lasted a lot longer and organized drug cartels are firmly entrenched by now. Legalizing all drugs now might allow societies the opportunity to find new and sensible ways to tackle the problem in future, but the destructive presence of organized drug syndicates will be with you for generations to come.
    1
  2500. The US is currently classified world-wide as a flawed democracy. The way things are going, the Repugnicans will manage to downgrade this classification to "fraudulent democracy", their own wet dream!
    1
  2501. Simply being old is a pre-existing condition when it comes to the COVID-19 virus, so don't count on your insurance company for anything. Virtually ANYTHING that can make you sick is arguably a pre-existing condition - your health insurance company is happy to insure you and take your premiums until, god forbid, you get sick! The you won't see them for dust...
    1
  2502. Put a greedy narcissist with the mentality and mental capacity of a spoiled toddler in charge of the most powerful country on the planet, and what can you expect? A bloody disaster! I have been disgusted with Russia for years, and now I am becoming just as disgusted with 'Muricans as well - they are a nation of uninformed idiots that fully deserve what they have just elected: Trump and his Trumpzis! This is something that will NOT end well.
    1
  2503. How can they talk freely about invading an independent country to affect a regime change, i.e. overthrowing a government by military force, and at the same time keep losing their shit over Russia's cyber-intervention in their own 2016 elections? The hypocrisy is astounding!
    1
  2504. A massive measure to reduce 'Murican auto transport fossil fuel consumption would be for 'Muricans to stop using a 2.5 ton dick-extension truck to transport a sole 'Murican arse from A to B and start using smaller, streamlined cars, say 0.7 to 1.2 tons pr arse. Spend a few minutes monitoring traffic in the US, and you will see the vast majority of the big, heavy 'Murican cars only have one occupant. What a waste. Actually, by allowing gas prices to go up (which will inevitably happen anyway), this will happen automatically within a decade for pure penny-pinching reasons.
    1
  2505. Regarding resources, this is the first time I am forced to call Neil deGrasse simplistic! Water: We have plenty of it, we just have to learn how to make it drinkable. Minerals: Plenty of them here AND in space, but are they REALLY easier to mine in space, not to mention transporting them back here? I suspect Neil is pulling our legs, forcing 'Muricans to THINK about the whole thing! The main issue is that we do not have TIME to do anything. We'll all be dead, even extinct, before any interstellar travelers have made an impact.
    1
  2506. An inescapable fact: Safety is EXPENSIVE - but still far less expensive than having serious accidents due to skimping on safety (just ask Boeing after the 737 MAX debacle). The problem 'Murica is facing is serious, because 'Muricans are all about profits and greed (again, just ask Boeing). Sadly 'Murica, that used to be the front runner in aviation safety, has been skimping on the safety payments. The consequences are beginning to show...
    1
  2507. So - the Russian public is just as ignorant about what is going on in the world as 'Muricans are. The difference: Russian ignorance is by Putin's design, 'Murican ignorance is by their own choice. Which kind of ignorance is worse? It's a toss-up, but ignorance of any kind is bad, even fatal.
    1
  2508. One cannot help feeling the echoes of what happened to Germany reverberating in today's right-wing US sentiments.
    1
  2509. The egotistical attitude of US Americans is astounding. An epidemic is not important to the US until it actually starts taking AMERICAN lives. Not Canadian American, not South American but US American lives! This is a global problem that might turn into a pandemic and then we are ALL in deep shit - US Americans probably worse off than many other nations because your idiotic "beloved leader" has been slashing funding to the institutions that used to be the front-line defense against disasters like this. Given the track record of Trump and Big Pharma, I would not be surprised if the cure, when found, would be used to price-gouge the rest of the world...
    1
  2510. Bottom line: 'Murica's judicial system is theater, a money-driven farce - and the 'Murican political system is even worse! Only one thing is true: The entire system is truly "the best money can buy"!
    1
  2511. Ain't this funny: A case that started long before Biden became president is still a "Biden Directed Witch Hunt". Let's hope that the worms eating away in Tump's damaged brain will put him in his grave before he can inflict further damage on the world.
    1
  2512. Nitpicking: You "decelerate" to reduce speed, not "accelerate down".
    1
  2513.  @TonyYarusso , you have a valid point - but so do I. Deceleration is frequently used when reducing speed in one direction, such as in a car or an airplane. Can we agree on both being right, and not quibble too much about it.
    1
  2514. Forcing schools to open with the out-of-control state of the pandemic in the US is pretty much like forcing every household with children to play Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded six-shooter: A crazy proposition! What Trump AND his cohorts are doing will turn out be outright crimes to humanity. They will eventually spend the rest of their short lives in a US prison, a horrifying prospect - but a deserved one! The good news? Sad but true, conservative 'Muricans ignoring the common-sense precautions will start dropping like flies. At that stage, who is going to demand their freedom to be stupid and dead? Not many, those not already sick or dead will have learned a bitter lesson.
    1
  2515. What a weak and wishy-washy response to Ari's questions! The whole Trump house of cards is about to come down. Trump's legal situation is like a landslide that is just beginning to rumble, about to roar. Whatever monkey business Trump and his lawyers are trying to come up with will be overwhelmed.
    1
  2516. What if there was a cluster outbreak within the White House? There are certainly a lot of individuals currently working there that are on the wrong side of the "culling line", their Beloved Orange Toddler at the top. That would REALLY get their attention...
    1
  2517. David, in over 5 minutes of bla-bla you failed to point out WHY Trump is fighting like mad to avoid giving testimony under oath: The man is incapable of telling the truth! He WILL be caught in multiple, easy-to prove lies within minutes. He cannot help perjuring himself!
    1
  2518. A firm statement of where Europe stands. Just the beginning - a clear stand that Europe will deny Russian aggression. Regardless of 'Murican flip-flops, we Europeans do NOT want Russian hobnail booths to trample all over Ukraine. We have been here before. What is happening in 'Murica happened in Germany 80 years ago - ignore it at your own peril!
    1
  2519. This "arm the teachers" strategy MUST be coming from the gun manufacturers - a very slick marketing idea. They have already sold guns to most of the lunatics out there and saturated THAT market, so why not create a new group of "consumers": Teachers! Once THAT market has been saturated, will they want to arm the kids next?
    1
  2520. These smoke-and-mirrors methods of hiding the true ownership of various Russian Kleptocrat assets in the west can easily be penetrated once there is a will to do so. Once the will to do so emerges, do not forget to round up the bribed western enablers (Law firms, corporations and nations) that have facilitated this hide-and-seek game, and nail them to the wall. When the dust has settled and and the reckoning begins, the global assets of Putin, his cronies and enablers (ALL the Russian Kleptocrats) should be confiscated outright and used to rebuild Ukraine. Whether the remaining reparations should be taken out of the hide of the Russian general population is up for debate. Such measures have not worked in the past and will not work as we go forward.
    1
  2521. Why are you providing advice to the Russians? Not that they will heed it, but still... If the enemy insists on making mistakes, don't distract them!
    1
  2522. The eyes of the world are on you, 'Murica. Time and time again (well, in the first Toddler Trump Reign, and now in the upcoming one) you have proved to be an irresponsible and unreliable partner regarding issues that most civilized nations have agreed as important. The only clear fact is that 'Murica is checking out as a reliable world leader, all it's former allies are facing the fact that they will have to face Putin, Xi and Modi on their own. 'Murica will NEVER regain it's position as a reliable ally in coming decades - the way things are going, Musk's 'Murica (the Fourth Reich?) is going down the road of the Third Reich. Ad Oblivium!
    1
  2523. Good point regarding the life experiences of the young US generation that will be new voters in 2020 forward. Republican governing (Bush Jr. & Trump) have been a disaster, Obama (known outside the US as "Useless Obama" due to his failure to accomplish anything significant despite high expectations) turned out to be a Corporate Democrat, just about the same as a moderate Republican. Decades of attempts to try something outside the two-idential-parties scene have failed. These days a movement known as "Justice Democrats", an uprising within the Democratic party, gives a glimmer of hope for the average US citizen. Forget about the "Democratic Socialist" equals "Communist" nonsense. Let's see what the upcoming generation of motivates voters will do. The Republican goose is probably cooked, and hopefully the Corporate Democrat goose is cooked as well.
    1
  2524. Zelenskyy came out of this with flying colours, 'Murica did the opposite! The remaining 31 NATO countries will consolidate around Ukraine and 'Murica will TRULY be alone from now on. Trump's idiotic tariff wars will only consolidate the split.
    1
  2525. A sad testament to the post-WW2 treatment of the Polish WW2 fighters. Post-war historical dissection of events has revealed that the RAF initially rejected using a landing zone just south of the Arnhem bridge as unsuitable, but it was apparently found perfectly fine to drop a Polish brigade during the 3rd lift (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden#Optimistic_planning). The behaviour of Montgomery after the failure of Operation Market Garden exposes him as a petty narcissist, blaming those that suffered some of the heaviest losses for the failure. One wonders if his entire career might have been in part based on similar petty and dishonest behaviour?
    1
  2526. A new way of shaming Trump followers?
    1
  2527. Finally, the US is truly number one in something - on March 27, 2020 at 23:40 UTC the US passed Italy and China at Autobahn speeds in the number of confirmed Corona Virus cases, easily zooming through 100K cases. I wonder if case-count tally will even have BEGUN to slow when you pass the 1M mark. A notable point: Your negligence in testing for the virus means that the case-count is lagging far behind actual reality. Way to go, US America (not to be confused with e.g. Canadian America).
    1
  2528. Saying that the the US is creaking at the seams is being nice. Saying that the US is falling apart is nasty - but probably closer to the truth.
    1
  2529. This guy died of his own stupidity.
    1
  2530. Chris Matthew's apology is a step in the right direction, but does he really mean it? Only time will tell. MSNBC and CNN are populated by closet Republicans that have, to give them some due, bee really disgusted by what Trump has turned the Repugnican Party into. Still, closet Republicans are still willing to continue fucking over the US general population, and that is something that will always be a dark stain on them.
    1
  2531. As a North European, I have recently acquired an intense dislike of anyone with a Southern-US drawl - I see them as half-blind, bigoted hate-your-fellow-citizen idiots. The reason is simple: Shameful US politicians like Sen. John Kennedy! I KNOW this is an irrational dislike, the accent has nothing to do with the person you are, but still... PS. Shouldn't Sen. John Kennedy cannot afford better dentures? He looks like he mislaid his proper ones.
    1
  2532. Pete Buttigieg is just another corporate hack. Granted, he is a slick talker but without any substance - just the usual empty corporate platitudes.
    1
  2533. 'Muricans seem to be eagerly rushing towards their own self-destruction. There are smart 'Muricans, but they seem to be vastly outnumbered by the clueless idiots that are responsible for allowing Trump access to power again, and thereby the almost assured destruction of the USA as we have known it for over a century. I count my blessings NOT being 'Murican, the demise of my own country will be a little later than the demise of 'Murica.
    1
  2534. One dead body, life snuffed out by bullets from a gun that presumably is in the possession of the police. Ballistics should easily confirm that. "Dispersed" witnesses can be easily collected again and further, peripheral evidence really not essential to the case. In any sane judicial system this would be a slam-dunk murder case - but not in the US!
    1
  2535. A pity how Biden, Obama and Clinton turned out to be unable to meet even a fraction of expectations when they were presidents. Now, finally, Biden seems to be about to go out with a bang, enabling Ukraine to properly use the weapons provided to more effectively defend their citizens and their infrastructure. We're NOT talking about these weapons being used against Russian civilians or Russian civilian infrastructure (unlike what the bloody Russians are doing to Ukrainian citizens), it is the Russian military infrastructure that will be targeted. The way Ukraine has bee forced to fight with one hand tied behind it's back is reprehensible, and will be a stain on especially 'Murica and Germany for decades to come.
    1
  2536. Watching a thoroughly corrupt SCOTUS in action will likely be a game-changer. History will NOT be kind to them!
    1
  2537. In the US, the lunatics seem to be running the asylum!
    1
  2538. Brian counted a lot of "near-fiftieth-place" rankings for Louisiana, i.e. Louisiana is placed solidly on the bottom of any desirable metric, EVEN for an 'Murican Red State - but there was one ambiguity: If Louisiana it "50th in crime", does that mean they have the LOWEST crime rate? Only by assuming that the higher the percentage, the worse the situation is for the state in question.
    1
  2539. Have you noticed how Trump has for years talked like a Royal, referring to himself in the plural: "WE" this and "WE" that? By allowing someone like Trump a second chance at the levers of power, 'Murica is not seen as "somewhat of a joke" by other developed countries, you are seen as an outright bleedin' FARCE!
    1
  2540. EVERYONE wants to come to America? Well, I do not even want to VISIT Trump's America, let alone live there.
    1
  2541. KinderEggs are contraband in the US? This really takes the cake! On the flip side, countless harmful chemicals are allowed in US food and candies - but are banned tin Europe because of their potential harm to consumers. Go figure. In the US, lawn darts are illegal but a house full of loaded guns is not? 3 deaths due to lawn darts in the years until they were banned, but how many children have died in the US from guns in the first half of 2022 alone? Go figure. LegalEagle, I just love your biting irony!
    1
  2542. The vast majority of current Repugnican legislators will go down in history in infamy, right along with the worst of the Nazis and the KKK.
    1
  2543. Again, sir, respectfully? The US presidency USED to be worthy of respect, but the last three and a half years have stripped that particular office of any respect earned over the past 250 years. One has to wonder how long it will take for the "Office of the President of the United States of America" to get over being a laughing stock among the sovereign nations of this planet.
    1
  2544. The MAGA crowd is learning the hard way that the only proper description of their "Dear Leader" is "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!". When has Toddler Trump ever said anything that was not a blatant lie? Never mind what Trump SAYS, watch what he DOES!
    1
  2545. Obama's campaign promises even fooled other nations into having great expectations to the point that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price on expectations alone. His campaign promises turned out to be empty lies, which is why among US allies Obama earned the moniker "Useless Obama". He ended up as "Drone-killer Obama" and made it easy for Trump to finish the job of further alienating current allies to the point that whatever nonsense Trump starts with Iran, the US will have to go mostly alone.
    1
  2546. Trump is no longer "the most powerful man in the world" because the country he "leads" is rapidly losing it's status as a world leader. Sure, the US still controls the world's most influential currency and the US certainly has the most military power in the world, but can they afford to keep that up? The world has been better served with US leadership after WW2 than with e.g. China or (god forbid) the USSR or now Russia as leaders. The problem: The US has been coming off the rails during the last few decades and, under Trump, has become a slow-moving train wreck still in progress.
    1
  2547. My problem with Musk (is that a smell?) is that I am unable to find a direct correlation with the Nazi characters of the 1930s. Is Musk more like Göbbels than Borman? Either way, Elon Musk is BAD NEWS! The brand change from Twitter to Excrement quite telling... I am in a family that has a remote summerhouse at 66°N, and Starlink is now available! We have been using a rather primitive 2/3G cell phone reflected signal for communicatons, and Starlink is a grand replacement that we will probably NOT use because we do NOT want to support a fascist like Musk!
    1
  2548. What the entire assembly SHOULD have done was to stand up and walk away... The problem: They were probably too shocked to react in any meaningful manner! Now these serious politicians and diplomats will have had time to digest what the Vice-Clown of 'Murica said AND to formulate appropriate responses, I think tomorrow (15.feb.'25) be a bleak day for Main-Clown Trump and 'Murica as a nation on the international arena. A nation obviously led by clowns, a nation no one can take seriously. Hats off for the German Defense Minister for not hiding his disdain for the nonsense the Vice-Clown of 'Murica was spouting!
    1
  2549. Florida police forces are obviously staffed with "Florida Men", a famous species of idiots that are unique to Florida. What a thoroughly rotten State, with their current governor being the top idiot...
    1
  2550. Emma hit it on the head with her last sentence: Corporate Democrats, are you SCARED of Democracy?
    1
  2551. The 'Murican Main Clown and Vice-Clown were THE joke. Zelenskyy walked away with his (and Ukraine's) dignity and resources intact. The rest of the world is mostly disgusted with the pettiness on display on behalf of Putin's agents, Trump and Vance. NATO now has only 31 member nations, one of them has disqualified itself. Trump's statement "I'll be honest" really takes the cake!
    1
  2552. The 'Murican democracy is proving itself to be the worst money can buy. No wonder 'Murica is going down the drain...
    1
  2553. Thom, the 'Muricans did NOT invent democracy! The Greeks experimented with it thousands of years ago and it was short-lived in the grand scheme of things. The 'Murican experiment is admittedly the longest-living in recent times, but now it seems to be coming apart at the seams. Will you guys be able to save it? I certainly hope so, the rest of us will eventually also go down the drain if you do.
    1
  2554. How superficial can you Americans get? I guess this is a good example.
    1
  2555. This situation is beyond weird: A country that is the largest in the world, area-wise (but also the most inhospitable, climate-wise), yet has a GDP that is smaller that Italy's. A country that, while rich in resources, has managed to mismanage this wealth to the point of near-extinction. A country whose only strength seems to come from inheriting all the military resources (nuclear and conventional) from a now-dead empire (the Soviet Union), yet has also managed to mismanage that inheritance to near uselessness. One wonders how functional their purported nuclear arsenal is, with 50+ years old technology that has no doubt been as thoroughly corrupted as the rest of their military. By all metrics, Russia is a hopeless has-been that is being isolated from most of the industrialized world. Thanks to Putin, the Russian people are in for a decades-long rough ride and years of misery, regardless of how the Ukrainian war ends.
    1
  2556. In any civilized country in the west, EVERY citizen that is of age can vote. In most of those countries, citizens are automatically registered to vote when they reach voting age, and remain so while they are citizens. It does not matter what race or gender they are or if they are in jail, THEY ARE STILL CITIZENS and as such eligible to vote! Countries that try to bar certain citizens from voting, for whatever reason, cannot be called civilized, let alone a democracy. By that yardstick, the US of A can only be categorized as a non-civilized non-democracy.
    1
  2557. This was only a minor stumble of an almost octogenarian, only to be expected. Let's hope his next stumble will be more spectacular and more consequential, the entire world needs a break!
    1
  2558. Why? Is the 'Murican nation a bunch of Masochists? After all, they keep electing the party that has driven the 'Murican middle class into poverty and plain slavery! Bottom line: Every population DESERVES the politicians they elect to "run" (ruin?) their country! Just stop whining about it! Furthermore: If you insist on basing your life's choices around ridiculous "beliefs" in Deities that have no shred of evidence of actually existing (only wildly conflicting "the one and only truth" stories), you have already proven yourself to be a gullible idiot that will gleefully partake in the destruction of his/her neighborhood simply because "God/Allah/Odin (pick your choice) told me to do it".
    1
  2559. The observation that Progressive Democrats might be called a "Tea Party of the Left" is a valid one, and worth discussing - if only to avoid false comparisons. I think AOC put it to bed, but this is a potential conservative chant that should be discussed and nipped in the bud.
    1
  2560. Why would anyone want to emigrate to the Crazy United States of America? The ridicuous "citizenship test" discussed here is just an example of the absurdity! I live in one of the "not-shithole" countries Toddler Trump wanted immigrants from, i.e. one of the Nordic countries that would NEVER want to emigrate to the Lunatic States of America. We have assured and affordable health care, affordable education up to PhD levels and all the social safety nets anyone can wish for. During the current pandemic, EVERYTHING related to Covid is FREE (tests, treatments, follow-up care) - this is about public health after all, never mind the bloody elites! Following WW2 the US were a great influence in Europe and most countries are still following the US model. The only country that has competely abandoned that model is the US itself! Go figure, you silly sods!
    1
  2561. The survival of the fittest is as relevant now as it was in the stone age. The US may have been leaders in innovation in many fields in recent decades, but now the US has degenerated into what is known as 'Murica, by design the Land of the Ignorant and the Home of the Foolish. The deluge of innovations has become a trickle and, worst of all, 'Murican greed caused the Have-It-Alls outsource most of 'Murican industrial capabilities to Asia, most notably to China in recent years (maximize profits, you know). The only surprise is why they have not already outsourced the manufacture of latest fighter aircraft, missiles and submarines to China, given that it will maximize profits...
    1
  2562. Watching this, I see 3 persons that I find disgusting: The MSNBC talking head and the two lawyers that try to bury the whole thing in technicalities! First of all, Bought-and-paid-for media like MSNBC, and 2 lawyers that remind us of why people generally hate lawyers! Justice, actual justice as everyday citizens see it is absolutely, totally irrelevant! This is all about the LAW as arranged by corrupt politicians and judges (SCOTUS in particular) to favor the wealthy and the corrupt. Let's hope there is a trend coming, where gun-crazed loonies stop targeting schoolchildren and start focusing on corrupt Health Care Insurance executives, Politicians & Judges.
    1
  2563. Apparently US law enforcement and intelligence services are riddled with anti-democratic (fascist / white supremacist) elements. Until THAT particular cancer is ripped out, the US has little or no chance of surviving as a 'democracy', even a flawed one.
    1
  2564. The killer part is how she is adamant in wanting to be "pretty rather than smart, she can always fake being smart"! Well, she certainly disproved the "fake being smart" part during this trial - costing her equally infantile client an astronomical amount of money in damages. I am an old fart that can appreciate at a pretty face any day, without any further expectations, and Aline Habba is not an eyesore in that respect, but she miserably fails the "faking to be smart" part! Is the "stupid-and-not-blonde-female" the epitome of what Repugnicans secretly desire in a female? No surprises there!
    1
  2565. One more Trump enabler terrified of what will happen to him post-Trump. It is hard to think of a punishment that is excessive, except perhaps capital punishment - and even that can be justified, depending on how 'conservative' you are!
    1
  2566. Funny how the English language takes quirky (but hopefully temporary) sidesteps. A current example: The word "zero" seems to be replacing the words "no" and "none" with the pundits.
    1
  2567.  alanrtment porter , you are correct - I should have been more specific: You only hear US pundits use "zero" like this.
    1
  2568. If only the Russian population could see the devastation the Russian "liberating" forces visited upon large areas of eastern Ukraine! I am absolutely sure that when the Russian population REALLY gets to learn about and see what their fellow countrymen did to their suppose Ukrainian "brothers", they will get a shock even worse than the one many Germans had once they learned about the concentration camps and the behavior of the German Gestapo in many of the countries they occupied. It cannot be forgotten while people that survived it are still alive (very few by now, it's been almost 80 years). The same will certainly apply to the current Russian atrocities in Ukraine: Russia and everything Russian will be hated and despised until at least year 2100!
    1
  2569. Can you imagine what the US's current are thinking now: The off-the-rails US president almost started a major war in the middle east without even consulting with or advising them! Apparently Iranian restraint is what saved the day - this time around.Trump continues to systematically alienate the current US allies, and if Trump manages to screw up like this again, the US is not likely to get much support from them.
    1
  2570. It looks like investors in dishonest banks in 'Murica, with the promise of quick-and-dirty profits, are in for a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth while depositors are to be taken care of - a sharp departure from the 2008 debacle. Hopefully a number of dishonest Banksters will end up with some serious jail time.
    1
  2571. There is a simple solution for Sarah: STOP LYING!
    1
  2572. What is the difference between the mayor's hypothetical "1400 dollar debit card" and Sucker Carlson's "14-hour debit card"? Ignorance and idiocy are the factors that first come to mind... For legal reasons they hurriedly mention that "they have not been able to verify this" and then they continue to spout misinformation...
    1
  2573. In Germany, the land of the Autobahns, the cars simply HAVE to be in good working order.
    1
  2574. The US is one of only 7 countries on Earth that has not officially adopted the metric system? To the best of my knowledge, there are only 3 sovereign holdouts: The US, Liberia and Myanmar.
    1
  2575. This Alabama AG is just the type of person that would have, in the inter-WW years, gravitated into the Nazi Gestapo, where he could let his cruelty off the leash.
    1
  2576. The most likely problem: Boeing engineers no longer control all design, quality and safety issues, management and sales have the final say, which is probably why the MCAS design, documentation and training ended up in the shape is was.
    1
  2577. It seems like those currently living in the US (modern-day 'Murica) have drawn the short end of the stick in the lottery of life! Proper health care is an illusion and educating your children will ALSO bankrupt you. The slightest bump in the lottery of live will leave you high and dry. In the Nordic countries and North Europe we pay slightly more taxes but in return everyone is sheltered from this kind of nonsense. The question: Are 'Murican selfish and uncaring creeps or has the choice been cunningly taken away from them in the last 50-60 years? My bet is on the latter.
    1
  2578. Not known at the time of this interview, one glance at the tail section shows shrapnel punctures to the vertical fin and the left elevator. Add to that the clues indicating a total loss of control (no hydraulics), resulting in a Sioux-city-like attempt to crash under at least some control, using only engine power. This aircraft seems to have been damaged using military hardware, and my bet is on the bloody Russians being responsible, them being the only creeps being stupid enough and cruel enough to do something like this.
    1
  2579. The 2020 election will be the most democratic election in recent US history, if only because US citizens are finally motivated to participate. Whatever the result, the population of the United States of America deserve whatever they voted for. The rest of the world is watching with morbid fascination, because the results will affect the entire globe. We are hoping for a rational US government in coming years, but the chances are slim...
    1
  2580. I keep thinking that the western nations have been mostly at peace (at least within Europe) since the collapse of the Soviet Union. One consequence has been the emerging dream of increasingly using tax money for more practical things that military hardware, stuff we use to kill each other. For a good while, things were actually looking good! Then along came bloody Putin and the bleedin' Russians, and shattered the dream. We are now destined to put a lot of our efforts into "making swords, not plowshares", to use an old metaphor, for at least a couple of generations to come. Instead of using our resources to create stuff for everyone's good, the next two generations will have to create stuff to kill Russians and intimidate the Chinese and the Persians. The festering wannabe-authoritarian blisters that are Belarus, Hungary and Turkey will fall apart by themselves - unless Putin wins! The former Soviet "colonies" like the Baltic states, Poland and Czechia/Slovakia etc. are the states that have been most conscious of the Russian threat - and are the most realistic states, best mentally prepared for the final showdown that seems to be inevitable. The least realistic nation at the moment seems to be Germany, with Olaf "the waffle" Scholtz at the helm. Ukraine is fighting it's heart out, doing all the bleeding while defending what remains of Western democracy. The Western nations have mostly been doing the bare minimum to to keep Ukraine from losing, and are failing in doing what will help Ukraine to actually WIN in short order! Make no mistake: If Putin is not defeated NOW, he will regroup, purge and modernize his military, and we will have to fight a bloody war with a much stronger Russia in less than a decade.
    1
  2581. Fascists ALWAYS go beyond what any society can tolerate. Initially they resonate with part of the population, but they inevitably go beyond what any society can sustain. It always begins the same way: Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini started their power trips with violent and criminal gangs (Brownshirts, Blackshirts, whatever). Trump's version of those violent gangs are currently lumped together as MAGA, but the history books will eventually describe how they all came to a very, Very, VERY sticky end. Have you seen the WW2 photos of Mussolini's sticky end? He was dead before being photographed hanging by his testicles, but his end was certainly ignominious...
    1
  2582. According to the entirely plausible Jeffrey Toobin description of the 'Murican "audience", the United States of America are REALLY messed up, and are doomed to become a fascist state in the near future, with all the global pain and suffering that will cause.
    1
  2583. A typical politician's response: "Let me answer that question" - and the proceed by talking all around a potential answer but never actually answering anything.
    1
  2584. You 'Muricans keep arguing about the minutiae of the current situation - you no longer see the forest for the trees! The details of how you got here IS an issue, as well as how you might extricate yourself from having the lunatics take over the asylum, but the fact remains that 'Murica is SERIOUSLY BROKEN, and you are in denial! I wouldn't presume to suggest a solution, that is for you to figure out, but I strongly suspect you are in for a decade or two of abject misery and violence, the German Third Reich being one example, Afghanistan under the Talibans being another.
    1
  2585. 'Murica is making itself irrelevant in world affairs by insisting on being absent. On your head be it! WW3 is brewing in Europe, instigated by Putin's Russia and any which way you twist it, already-crippled Russia has no chance against Europe, once it faces up to the fact that it is at war. There is a number of nations that were trampled on by Russia (in the guise of the Soviet Union) that are NOT taking this lying down. The Finns, the Baltics, Poland etc. will NOT give in to Russia!
    1
  2586. What Can the US Learn From Europe About Policing? On the face of it, EVERYTHING! There are only 2 major stumbling blocks: The US is completely unwilling to learn anything from anyone, ever! Even worse, the US is simply to incompetent to be able implement ANYTHING they could learn from other nations! So, the US seems to be happily stuck in a destructive spiral of ignoring it's racist, genocidal past, and bent on doing what they do best: Escalating things to the point of self-destruction! They took an important step towards that dismal fate by we-electing a rapist and convicted felon to be their leader for the upcoming 4 years. They will NOT survive that as a democracy.
    1
  2587. In my opinion, the only person to be more despicable than Trump and Vance in their Zeleskyy ambush was the southern-drawl worm known as Lindsey Graham.
    1
  2588. Europe is NOT about to accept Trump's nonsense. The way things are going, 'Murica will have military bases NOWHERE, and they will not be allowed access to ANYWHERE!
    1
  2589. Is it really legal for lawyers to counsel their clients to bear false witness? In Hutchinson's case, her paid-for-by-Trump lawyer told her to "don't remember" things she recalled perfectly well! Is that REALLY legal conduct by a lawyer?
    1
  2590. Let's begin by establishing the difference between BS and reality: The speech the Vice-Clown of the United States of America has permanently established the level of idiocy of said government. 'Murica is currently run by clowns and will probably never recover from it. Period. What will 'Murica do without allies? It's military might will falter when they are kicked out of their military bases all over the world.
    1
  2591. I cannot help feeling that the stunned Jewish nation of Israel is being misled and dragged to it's destruction by Bibi Netanyahu and his apparently fascist cronies, much like the stunned German nation was misled and dragged to it's destruction a century ago by Adolf Hitler and his cronies. The main difference is that Bloody Bibi has the perfect scapegoat: An active and extremely dangerous terrorist organization, Hamas. Hitler had no active scapegoats so he had to pretend and blame everyone else in sight, the Jews, the Polish, the Communists - the list was endless. Keep up the good work Mehdi.
    1
  2592. Wouldn't surprise me at all if this turns out to be yet another exercise in smoke-and-mirrors from a man that has never been even remotely known for telling the truth.
    1
  2593. Chances are you are spot on.
    1
  2594. Every reputable English dictionary has a definition for "woke" - and while the exact wording can vary a little, the actual meaning is more or less identical. Google it!
    1
  2595. I used to feel sorry for Russians for the horrible leaders they have been stuck with for centuries. Now I feel sorry for US Americans for the horrible leaders you have elected, beginning with Reagan. For you the misery began 40-50 years ago, but it is just beginning - are you going to take this shit for centuries to come like the Russians have?
    1
  2596.  @levinlong4912 , I have no idea why they left the day after the meeting. Did they suspect that the jig was up, or did they think they could continue doing whatever they were doing? How should I know? I was just struck by Jon's assumption that because they were on a 1-way ticket they were FLEEING. I am not defending these guys, I am sure they are crooks and expect they will face the consequences - unless Barr intervenes...
    1
  2597.  @tph2010 , if you suspect you are about to be arrested and are trying to avoid that, THEN you can be said to be fleeing. Simply leaving on a 1-way ticket is in itself not a smoking gun.
    1
  2598. No one is above the law in the US? Correction: Apparently Federal Judges are! According to a huge number of the most respected legal minds in the US, Judge Cannon's legal arguments are more incompetent than a first-year law student could come up with, even corrupt. I predict she will be impeached for incompetence and kicked out of her job when this is over.
    1
  2599. Sadly, the current Ukrainian ally that is most likely to lose interest are the fickle United States of America, famously known to have the attention span of a Gnat. Europe has the madman Putin on their doorstep, those countries KNOW that if Putin is not stopped now, he will be crashing through their borders in, say, 10 years time. If the fickle US - potentially about to become the MSA (Medieval States of America) or even the FSA (Fascist States of America), Europe WILL have to go it alone.
    1
  2600. So, let Trump try to sue congressmen for following the Constitution - he would be laughed out of court.
    1
  2601. Chipollone, former Trump Lawyer (trying to hide under the guise of having "only" been a White House counsel) is now frantically trying to avoid his fate. The adage: "Everything Trump touches, DIES" is proving to be true. As a comfort to Trump's accomplices, they do not literally die from "falling out of windows" like they do in Putin's Russia, they only die professionally, they lose their law licenses or become pariahs that no one is willing to hire for "generations to come" (meaning a couple of years in 'Murican terms).
    1
  2602. What a waste of time, trying to get a Repugnican politician to be rational or compassionate. It is beginning to look like being a Trump-era Repugnican is a form of mental illness, where the individual is completely devoid of human compassion, i.e. at least a narcissist - or even worse.
    1
  2603. Listening to these Trump arse-lickers makes one want to puke, especially when they to use the "what-about-ism" ploy to divert the attention away from the current painful issue.
    1
  2604. 30 years ago I personally saw the UN "in action" in a country in severe need of relief (South Sudan in late 19809 and Angola in the early 1990s). My conclusion: The UN is a useless bureaucracy that rarely, if ever, gets anything right. The individuals may mean well, but thy cannot help it: The older an organization gets, the more corrupt it becomes. The UN is currently a quagmire of corruption and should go the way of The League of Nations, i.e. be put down. Something useful can be organized in it's place, but care should be taken to ensure the reorganization of such an entity at least every 50 years.
    1
  2605. This is certainly dramatic in the initial stages but, being an Icelander, we are not "losing our waters" over this. Facts to face: Geological history indicates that we are in for a 2-3 centuries of "interesting times", we can expect a lot of excessive volcanic activity in this are for a LONG time! The silly part: The political-powers-that-be have for almost a century been arranging things so that most of the Icelandic nation has been concentrating to live in exactly this part of the country. To be blunt, Icelanders have been encouraged by our "leaders" for at least 2-3 generations to build our houses on top of an active volcano! The good news: We have plenty of space in Iceland and a safety-oriented society, so mass casualties are unlikely. It will be a struggle to leave all the infrastructure already built on the volcano, and relocating to safe areas will take a generation or three but, to but things in perspective, it will be no worse than what Europe went through following WW2...
    1
  2606. Hydrogen "fuel" production is a no-brainer for SOME countries. My country, Iceland, has an abundance of clean electrical energy (hydroelectric/geothermal), a large chunk of which is currently used to smelt aluminum, which apparently is quite polluting, CO2-wise. By phasing out these smelteries when their current energy contacts expire, we can use the then-available energy to produce hydrogen for our transport sector, especially for our fishing and shipping fleet - and to power non-polluting data farms (our climate is cool and our energy is clean).
    1
  2607. Remember, the daughter is also George Conway's daughter, so chances as are she's really smart and, most important, her brain has not been damaged like her mother's brain has (infected by the MAGA virus).
    1
  2608. Historically, the CIA certainly has blood on it's hands in a similar manner. Does it disqualify them from commenting on the issue? NO! They have been there, done that, and KNOW the issue better than many other organizations.
    1
  2609. Unfortunately, the 'Murican approach to sex education and teenage sexual activities is plain DENIAL of one of the strongest human driving instincts, the sexual drive. No wonder 'Muricans are frustrated and prudish when they grow up.
    1
  2610. One would assume that high-quality steel alloys like gun barrels would be a valuable recycling commodity at any time, but following a long period of madness like WW2, every industry must have been drowning in such resources. Just another proof how wasteful warfare is, yet mankind seems unable to help itself trying to excel in finding ways to kill each other. Go figure!
    1
  2611. Try as he might, he failed miserably at creating a panic situation.
    1
  2612. I still fail to understand how an edema-bloated bald idiot like Rogan can be popular among 'Muricans - it is probably a strong clue as to why 'Murica is going down the drain! Being mean, I hope he will ignore his health problems until it will be too late... It will be interesting to see how 'Murica fares in the next decade or two: Shedding all it's traditional allies while gaining dangerous ones like Putin's Russia, Netanyahu's Israel and Xi's China is NOT a prescription for success! The US is almost certain to go the way of the Roman Empire and the Third Reich: Descend into Oligarchy, then Dictatorship and then total destruction and possibly another civil war. I actually DO believe it's former allies will able to retain their democracies and treat the remains of the US gently when the ashes have finally cooled...
    1
  2613. What an abject idiot! He is simply pissed off finding himself among a dying breed of confederates that never accepted the fact that they LOST the bleeding Civil War a century and half ago. These dinosaurs have simply gone too far under Trump and now the whole mess is exploding in their faces. I predict that idiots like this sheriff will have been kicked out office within one year, and many, if not most of them will be facing serious investigations and serious jail sentences for their corruption and crimes while in office.
    1
  2614. It has been glaringly obvious that the so-called Supreme Court of the United States has been a thoroughly corrupt entity for at least a number of decades. The amount, type and means by which the "justices" have been bribed is hard to quantify, let alone prove, but that is by design. It is common knowledge that a fish rots from the head and the fact that the SCOTUS is the ultimate head of the US Judicial System is depressing, to put it mildly.
    1
  2615. Blatant in-your-face corruption: Should you react? Today's 'Murican reaction: NO - this is 'Murica today!
    1
  2616. Once again it has been confirmed that the 'Murican Judicial System is the best money can buy - if you are affluent, not to mention rich. For the vast majority of 'Muricans that run afoul of the law, even in a minor way like shoplifting out of desperation, it is just a meat grinder.
    1
  2617. For a long while I thought it a bit megalomaniac to believe that humans actually had the capacity to to all this predicted damage to the climate, but as the science and facts became more voluminous, I had to eat a lot of humble pie. I still believe (hope?) that the current predictions might a bit more dire than what will turn out to be the reality of the future, but do we REALLY want to gamble with these things? Overreacting can easily be pulled back if that proves to be the case, under-reacting will be catastrophic. We are already seeing what is probably the initial consequences of a rapid climate change - more extreme weather, the beginnings of mass migrations etc.
    1
  2618. There is no arguing with idiots.
    1
  2619. Bottom line: If you were thinking of taking a tour of Buckingham Palace, FORGET IT!
    1
  2620. Of course there was something before the Big Bang, we just do not have the mental capacity to comprehend any of it. We are in the same position as a sheep trying to comprehend how an airplane flies or a gnat trying to comprehend what is behind the fly swatter about to smash it flat. We may be the smartest critters WE know of, but that does not mean much...
    1
  2621. Anyone can drive a F1 car safely, provided: He/she is alone on the circuit and never shifts beyond second gear...
    1
  2622. My 88-year old mother passed away last summer, following over 6 months of tethering on the edge between life and death. She was a lifelong heavy smoker and had pulmonary and cardiovascular problems as well as general dementia. She led a long, productive and happy life until demetia slowly took her away from us. She lived her last few months in a care home, physically isolated for a while due to the pandemic, but still able to see us through her ground floor window and interact via the wonders of internet video calls. Fortunately our country was infection-free during the weeks before her passing so we were able to visit normally at the end. The point I am trying to make is that an old person, waiting to see which organ will be the first to fail and lead to their final demise, will generally not care about if it was a bout of common cold or the side effect of a Covid vaccination shot that pushed them over the edge. Any little wobble in their condition were likely to be fatal, anyway. Did these 23 people die from old age, the Covid shot or something else?
    1
  2623. I suspect the only reason the Democratic Party is not going mental over this is that they are too confident they will win this election and THEN they are itching to build on and utilize what Trump has been doing: The ability to use the full power of the US government and institutions to crush any opposition in the future, much like dictators like Putin, Erdogan and Luashenko have been doing. What is the difference between Republican and Corporate Democrat politicians? Negligible, both are totally owned by big corporations and the billionaires. The big unknown is the pandemic: It has brutally exposed the inadequacy of the US system and the inequalities forced upon the citizens. This is likely to be a game-changer, the vast majority of the population is in seriously dire straits and is likely to forcibly rise up and overthrow the parasites. In a country awash with more guns than citizens, that is bound to become really messy.
    1
  2624. Talk about having to scrape the bottom of the defamation barrel when it comes to AOC. Funny thing is: Even if she were to forego tidying her hair (at an exorbitant price, as women have to do), she would be just as pretty and, more important, just as smart.
    1
  2625. ...and still a sizeable chunk of 'Muricans are denying the fact that 'Murica is currently circling the drain - on the way down the self-same drain, on it's way to the sewer!
    1
  2626. 'Murican main media (Arei Melber, for Christ's sake!) is talking about this as if it is entirely RATIONAL! What is WRONG with you 'Muricans? Have you lost your marbles? Watching the most advanced and modern nation for over a century degenerate into a religious, medieval state is beyond interesting. What will the Evangelic nut-jobs think of next? A recreation of the Spanish Inquisition? Witch-finding and Witch-burning? 'Muricans must be REALLY proud of themselves these days!
    1
  2627. Adam Mockler, you look like you do not really need to shave yet but if you are a sample of 'Murican youth, that benighted nation just might have a fighting chance when your generation comes into play. With people like you, he future looks a lot less grim for 'Murica AND the rest of the world.
    1
  2628. @Meh Pluribus Unum, your statement "We don't know if no one has been able to or not, technically" is no doubt more accurate than my "no one has been able to connect the Saudi Authorities with 9/11".
    1
  2629.  earth ocean , sadly you are almost certainly correct. Thinking it MIGHT, however, is comforting.
    1
  2630. Wikileaks cannot help being "partial" to the opponents of those being damaged by leaks being published at any given time. Wikileaks has damaged the US by exposing some of the atrocities committed by the US. The US is understandably angry with Assange, but the fact remains that Assange is an Australian national that owes no allegiance to the US, and the US has no jurisdiction over him. That has not stopped the US from hounding him illegally for years.
    1
  2631. Hot damn! It looks like the 'Murican Judicial Branch is about to follow the path the 'Murican Legislative Branch has been following in recent years: The path to total dysfunction, nothing gets done and the crooks will be having a field day!
    1
  2632. I wonder why I find it hard to give this guy the benefit of the doubt? Is he lying through his teeth or are all the other sources lying? Perhaps they moved the overcrowded detainees to another facility in a hurry when the shit hit the fan. I wonder what the conditions are like there...
    1
  2633. Human ingenuity unfortunately excels when it comes to inventing methods and devices to kill fellow humans. There is something wrong with us!
    1
  2634. Surprise, surprise! The young shall inherit the land and most of them are NOT buying the right-wing lies and misinformation. The Repugnicans will try all kinds of shenanigans like increasing the voter age and the like, but they will be running into a wall.
    1
  2635. 'Murica is failing miserably as a reliable NATO member but, fortunately, Europe is stepping into the breach. Regardless, 'Murica's image is severely tarnished among the other western nations.
    1
  2636. How about simply adopting old letters into written modern English (like "Þ" and others) for all the sounds that currently have to be written with two letters?
    1
  2637. The fact that flip-floppers like Lindsey Graham are elected to office in the first place is proof how broken US "democracy" is.
    1
  2638. Frankly, this entire discussion is proof that the 'Murican justice system is toothless, unable to hold anyone above homeless people accountable, a farce that the rest of the developed world is watching in disbelief! Do we need any further proof that the 'Murican Judicial System is the "best money can buy"?
    1
  2639. Before watching this, I always assumed that these areas/ethnicities/cultures/countries had been separate long before being forced together by e.g. the Soviets or even earlier, and that on the collapse of the of the Soviet Union the separation into Czechia and Slovakia seemed so effortless that it must have been mutual and mostly peaceful. I am less ignorant after watching this (mindful it might not be the whole truth or nothing but the truth), and also happy that I was not totally off regarding a mutual and peaceful / non-violent separation, not to mention a contented coexistence after the separation. Just consider the non-peaceful and violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia!
    1
  2640. An oath like this is "administered" much like an enema is administered...
    1
  2641. Now EVERYONE seems to be scrambling to justify a double homicide by a murderous creep being exonerated. If THIS is how you 'Muricans want your country to change, to evolve into a wild-west vigilante madhouse, have at it. I only managed to watch less than 4 minutes into this clip before pausing, commenting and quitting, I was so disgusted.
    1
  2642. If anyone needed proof that 'Murica is circling the drain on it's way to the sewer, this is it! Any sentinent human being watching the disintegration of the United States of 'Murica can only hope they will live to see the moment reality hits. 'Murica is at the same place Germany was around 90 years ago, when Hitler weaseled his way to power. We all know how THAT ended! Now Trump and his cohorts are trying to do the same. Licking Putin's arse seems perfectly acceptable to the MAGA crowd right now, but when the fallout of WW3 comes home to roost in 5-10 years, the MAGA Repugnicans will be going the way of Göbbels, Göring and the rest of the Hitler crowd: A rather grisly ending!
    1
  2643. This being a method of covering up the results of prison guard rapes is not only possible but very plausible. When Trump is finally out of office and heading for court, there MUST be a day of reckoning where the crimes of all the SA, Gestapo and SS types are investigated and brought to court, Nuremberg-style. A quick and easy way of dispatching the criminals should be re-instated (hanging comes to mind). Yep, I might be a progressive but in this regard I have the mind of a vengeful conservative: Kill them all!
    1
  2644. The 'Murican judicial system is clearly "the best money can buy", literally! Only people with loads of money can afford to exploit (or at least ATTEMPT to exploit) the abundant loopholes designed into the system. Another issue I find disturbing (even being non-'Murican) is the way every time a judge is named, it seems imperative to specify who APPOINTED him/her: It is another clue that the 'Murican judicial system is no longer about the law but about politics!
    1
  2645. I have always wondered who the "they" are, that Trump continually refers to in his incoherent ramblings. Are "they" a figment of his mind?
    1
  2646. It's actually hilarious, how your 'Murican grandfathers managed to land and return numerous missions to the Moon with only minimal mishaps - and NO in-flight fatalities, even if their computational resources were inferior to a turn-of-the-century average wrist watch! Why is everyone mucking it up now, with all the immense technological advances of over half a century? True, there are new and untried aspects being tried, but they are only incremental. In this case, redundancy seems to have been ignored - only 1 (one) lidar ranging system available. Jury-rigging an on-board experimental system seems to have saved the day, after a fashion; quick-patch, untried and un-calibrated, it ended with excessive lateral speed knocking the lander over. While not an outright meteor-like crash, it was not "flawless" as the private organization said it was...
    1
  2647. It seems clear that the waffling and indecision of the Western nations EU and NATO in this conflict is about to ensure that Putin will in part get away with the Ukrainian atrocities. Putin will regroup, whip is military into shape and WW3 will continue in 10 to 20 years. Make no mistake: WW3 has started, the cowards are in denial and WW3 will continue if it is not ended now. This is reminiscent of the end of the 1930's. Picture a British statesman waving a piece of paper in front of the cameras, boldly proclaiming "lasting peace in our times". We all know how THAT went down... The only way out of this is Putin out of power (whether he will be dead or alive is irrelevant) and the Russian people finally being allowed to vote for their destiny. The West absolutely MUST stay out of Russian politics once Putin is gone, Western-influenced regime changes have always ended badly.
    1
  2648. Everything Trump touches dies. Everything the US touches dies as well. Ain't you proud?
    1
  2649. Trump is enjoying a massive quantity discount when it comes to the consequences of lying to all and sundry.
    1
  2650.  @Shadowkeeper1582 , unfortunately it will take a long time for AOC and other progressives to get many US Americans to to even begin to overcome the 40-year brainwashing that anything with the word "social" in it equals Soviet or Mao-China Communist Hell. One wonders if the phrase "physical distancing" had been used instead of "social distancing" (a blasphemous word, "social") this important tool to help control the pandemic might have been more palatable to right-wingers? Our best hope is that young US Americans are now motivated to participate by getting involved, they are generally far better informed about global affairs than their parents. The world cannot afford another destructive period like the the last 4 years, the US is so influential and important on the global stage that it would be a catastrophe.
    1
  2651. The bloody idiot calling in is a TRUE embodiment of Republican thinking. Calling the Republican Party the "Grand Old Party" (GOP) is the misnomer of the century! They should be called the "Terrible Old Party" or the "Satanic Old Party" instead. To my eternal shame, I am beginning to think that the only good Republican is a DEAD Republican! The moment these creeps die is the moment they stop ruining the lives of everyone else around them.
    1
  2652. 'Muricans are pathetic. Almost every other developed nation makes it's wealthy pay a significant share of their income in taxes (still a lot less than they should!) and have, as a result, fairly well-functioning societies that are able AND WILLING to take care of every citizen. Again, you guys are just pathetic! No wonder 'Murica is falling apart. This is what happened to Russia of the Czars and France of Marie Antoinette (not that she was a cause, she was just a severe symptom). 'Murican billionaires should pause and reflect on the sticky end that Russian and French aristocrats came to. It was NOT pretty!
    1
  2653. This is a new Repugnican twist: Eliminate mass Door-ing in 'Murica! Problem solved!
    1
  2654. A bit of a forked tongue there: Democrats shouldn't attack other Democrats - except when WE (or "our") Democrats are attacking the "other" Democrats. This is US political tactics in a nutshell: Rake muck on your competitors instead of elevating yourself on your own merits. Very few US politicians manage to mostly avoid this - AOC comes to mind, but even she is slipping a bit under the constant barrages from both sides.
    1
  2655. 'Muricans may be extrovert and effusive but the simple fact that this story is newsworthy just goes to show how superficial the 'Murican 'friendliness' actually is. Having someone stuck in your front yard during a bad storm is a no-brainer everywhere in the western world - those are people in distress and you take them in, no questions asked!
    1
  2656. 'Jack Ford' vomits a 15-word meaningless jumble. Methinks the is a Repugnican!
    1
  2657. Following current US politics is confusing and frustrating, the whole thing being totally devoid of any common sense, honor or decency.
    1
  2658. What is needed is one or more whistleblowers to enable the authorities to obtain a search warrant for Trump's north retreat. More classified documents being found is almost a certainly.
    1
  2659. Given how absolutely useless Dana Bash was in stopping Trump's deluge of lies during the debate, I consider her an extremely unreliable source of any information, especially news. She (and Jake Tapper) have joined the ranks of "false news" reporters like the entire crew of Fox "news". I wonder if she is "on the take", i.e. being paid off by right-wingers?
    1
  2660. The Russian "Paper Tiger" has proven it's capabilities with it's stellar performance in the Ukrainian invasion. Naval capabilities? Nah... Air supremacy? Equally useless. Putin is seriously rattling his Nuclear sabre - but he knows that if he ever uses a nuclear device anywhere on this conflict, he is toast!
    1
  2661. For all you gun-tot'n 'Murican nutjobs, REMEMBER: He who lives by a sword will DIE by a sword. If you walk around, openly wearing a gun of any kind, he chances of you expiring from "acute lead poisoning" goes up exponentially.
    1
  2662. This explains why so many US Americans have massive, muscular "chewing-gum" jaws. They are not just chewing gum for no reawson, they are EXERCISING! It is a fetish.
    1
  2663. The "America First" mantra is turning into it's inevitable "America Alone" fact. Whoever wants to associate with stupid and greedy 'Muricans in the first place? Fuck 'Murica!
    1
  2664. Not only RAISING a child, but an obviously HAPPY child! Any clip where Jack is not smiling is a rare clip...
    1
  2665. Thom, unfortunately 'Muricans are too incompetent or even outright stupid to follow your otherwise common-sense advice. One glaring example: 'Murica is too INCOMPETENT to implement a health care system that can ensure affordable health care to everyone AS A RIGHT (not a privilege) at half the price the current, fractured system does. Every other developed nation has managed this for generations, but 'Muricans are unable to cope. What is wrong with you! Insurance company investors and CEO's seem more important than the well-being of the general 'Murican population.
    1
  2666. To us non-'Muricans, Wyoming is now confirmed as a pervert State, a pedophilia-oriented State. What a proud example Wyoming is to the rest of the world!. Jesse, are there other similarly backward States in 'Murica? If so, can you name them so we unsuspecting non-'Muricans can be on guard in case we meet all these suspicious 'Murican perverts outside 'Murica?
    1
  2667. "The parents either have a criminal history or are pending criminal charges" - such as seeking asylum according to international law. This is supposed to make it perfectly acceptable to penalize THEIR CHILDREN? I predict that ICE will go into the annals of history beside other organizations that invited the dregs of their society to join, such as the Geheime Staatspolizei -a.k.a. GESTAPO. When the time of reckoning comes, I truly hope that those individuals will also, in due course, have their day in a Nüremberg-style court.
    1
  2668. 25M tests in the US might be a very high stand-alone number, but is is still only 7.5% of the US population (and frankly, I think that number is Trumpian, i.e. totally divorced from reality - a LIE!). There are are countries that are currently up the testing what amounts to 19% of their entire population and actually suppressed the virus over 1 month ago! (check https://www.covid.is/data) The sad part is the fact that there are enough ill-informed and ignorant 'Muricans to give the Orange Idiot a statistical chance of remaining in office.
    1
  2669. Watching just about any media discussions about 'Murican politics and the upcoming elections is DEPRESSING! The 'Murican media and the 'Murican public appear to be divided into 2 main groups: 1) The majority that recognizes that 'Murica is heading down the same path as Germany in the 1930s but are behaving like a blinded deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming speeding truck. Frozen and doomed for destruction. Then there is the other part of 'Muricans: 2) The MAGA crowd and other Repugnicans that are like a rabidly religious cult that cannot wait to be swept up in a "rapture", willing to become Lemmings that blindly follow their beloved Führer into whatever suicidal calamity that deranged individual (Trump) stumbles into.
    1
  2670. David is a man. Does that mean no one should ever refer to him a person with (presumably) testicles , external plumbing and the capacity to impregnate person with a uterus+ovaries? I feel dear Ana is overly sensitive about this - unless she actually has no uterus, does not menstruate and is unable to give birth (for whatever reason), in which case she is fully excused being irritated.
    1
  2671. Watching the Corporate Democrat Mouthpieces squirm and flounder in the face of Bernie's success so far is FUN!
    1
  2672. With "CNN talking heads" like this and Repugnican lawyers like this, why bother worrying about the demise of 'Murican democracy? It's "Game Over" already...
    1
  2673. What would a Devil's advocate have to offer into the argument? Fact 1: Modern societies have gone through several upheavals in just a few years, Trump & Covid being the notable ones. Fact 2: Big Corporations and the Morbidly Rich (BCMR) have profited immensely by these upheavals. Speculation 3: Facilitating yet another major upheaval seems a no-brainer for BCMR to take yet another bloodsucking spin on the global population to further the slice they can grab from the wealth of the world, thereby laying the ground for their own demise. What they fail to factor in is that the BCMR simply cannot exist without the organizations they seem hell-bent on tearing down in their greed: The rich can only flourish if they have a Functioning State of Law and Order to protect their interests! Once they have ruined the one thing that kept them safe, they are unprotected and helpless like slugs, something the Russian Oligarchs are finding out the really hard way these days! They are now scrambling to move whatever assets that have not already been seized (their yachts etc.) to "safe places" that are increasingly hard to find. The 'Murican BCMR are trying to abolish democracy in 'Murica and finish corrupting the judicial system as they have already managed with the political system. What they fail to see is the fact that any elite that tries to use a tiny fraction of a population to ride roughshod over the vast majority of a population is doomed to come to a sticky end. The Russian Czars tried it and the French Aristocrats tried it before that, to no avail! The Guillotine has already been invented, is easy to build with modern equipment, and the BCMR can only look forward to themselves - as well as their relatives and descendants - revisiting the path taken by the French aristocracy a quarter millennia ago: Their heads going one way, their bodies becoming fertilizer and their accumulated wealth going, well, rather useless to them.
    1
  2674. The "...other religious indoctrination camps" comment is priceless! THEY are your problem, not any gender confusion issues or literature that your religious nutjobs don't like. Religious indoctrination is far more dangerous that any other"indoctrination". The point about the reality of the contents of the Bible is spot-on!
    1
  2675. I still believe that Scholz's supplication to Putin's Russia is just as suspicious as Trump's supplication at the time. Does Putin have some "compromat" to control Trump and Scholz or did he have other means of control? The stink is pervasive. It is hard to believe that the M1 Abrams is limited to kerosene only - a turbine will happily run on just about anything that produces a flame, it will be the fuel feed system that has to be adapted, from pre-heaters (cruder fuels) through pumps, fuel control units and injection nozzles. I find it hard to believe that the M1 is unable to run on diesel or, in a pinch, gasoline for some limited amount of time. The venerated PT6 turboprop aircraft engine, normally run on kerosene (Jet-A1) will happily run on AVGAS (gasoline), but the fuel pumps will need maintenance every 50 hours.
    1
  2676. I cannot help wondering if Manu Raju has the same condition (physical or mental) as Wolf Blitzer, causing this extreme shortness of breath that causes them to gasp for air in the middle of sentences, even in the middle of a word.
    1
  2677. The problem with people that are significantly to the left of whatever the "center" might be in any given part of the world, is the fact that they fight so much among themselves that all the radical right has to do is stand back and wait it out.
    1
  2678.  Dave , it is mostly jet aircraft that use bleed air heat for anti-icing. Even relatively fast turboprops (250-320kt cruise) use de-icing boots inflated by a fraction of the bleed air PRESSURE available.
    1
  2679. It is a relief to see Olaf the Waffle Scholz finally face reality and un-waffle himself. In Putin's Russia, Europe and other democratic nations are facing an imminent autocratic threat that will not go away unless like-minded nations unite to neutralize it as permanently as possible. If Putin succeeds even slightly in Ukraine, he will be back for more within a decade - and so will China! Now is the time to form a line in concrete: You can cooperate and prosper working WITH developed nations or you can isolate yourself and suffer trying to subjugate other developed nations. What has remained hush-hush is the very important air superiority aspect: Russia has been unable to claim it and we can be assured that NATO has been making ready to participate in full if/when THAT particular dam breaks. A Russian attack on NATO-member infrastructure, the use of tactical nukes? Given the incompetence of the Russians, they are bound to blunder over one of these lines and THEN the gloves are off! Add to that the incredible motivation of Ukrainians, they are so resourceful and innovative that the Russkis are outmatched.
    1
  2680. The Ukrainian MP is hardly ungrateful to the West, but she is clearly disappointed - and justifiably so. Most western leaders seem too timid and unwilling to face the fact that if Putin gains anything from this instead of paying the consequences for his actions, he (or his successors) will regroup, fix their military and be back attacking their former vassal states within a decade. The leaders of the Baltic countries certainly realize this. The Russian leaders and their military are turning out to be absolute monsters, with no regard for human life.
    1
  2681. Considering today's FBI a bunch of incorruptible choir boys would be a mistake. After all, only a bit more than one generation ago, Edgar Hoover had created an FBI in his own image! The FBI seems seems to have been working very hard to put that debacle behind it, and no doubt the vast majority of FBI officials and agents today are straight shooters, following the letter of the law to the extent possible. The FBI, however, is staffed by humans just like any other institution, and the only way to minimize corruption is to be constantly on guard.
    1
  2682. This former Trump sychopant makes me sick. Now that their denial can no longer avoid the fact that Trump's ship is sinking fast, he starts pretending to care about the population at large. The rats are now scrambling to abandon ship, but to no avail. Their tracherous conduct in recent months & years will not be forgotten.
    1
  2683. "Every single human being on this planet" are going to suffer because of the US Judiciary system corruption now imposed by the Republicans? At last count only about 330 million people are under US laws, the rest of us are non-US citizens - unless the US is planning total world domination...
    1
  2684. Dirt on your political opponent is obviously of great value, and even soliciting such things (which they obviously were doing) is illegal, even if they did not actually get it at this particular meeting. This looks like a slam-dunk case!
    1
  2685. Crikey! She is an eminently intelligent human, a female and both well educated AND experienced. Compare that to the moronic and vain chauvinist she is running against...
    1
  2686. Trump may have dictated the contents of this letter, but someone else will have put it to paper (ghost writer?) - Trump simply does not have the vocabulary used in this letter. Just compare Trump's off-script speaches vs. his Telepropter speeches. On the prompter, Trump is like a first-grader reading text, haltingly talking like a robot but using 'complex' words he almost has to spell and frequently misreads. Off-script, he simply comes across like a first-grader in a tantrum, with a very VERY limited vocabulary. Confusing 'oranges' with 'origins' is typical for Trump.
    1
  2687. Is there anyone as disingenuous, dishonest and devoid of morals as a right-winger? I dare anyone to name a genuine example. On the subject of US combat veterans: As a non-'Murican I am always disgusted by how your veterans are glorified in speech but totally ignored in deed. They come back from many of the "wars" the US is waging all over the world with serious PTSD and physical injuries and other issues and find that the safety net and care they are SUPPOSED to get is a disgrace, their treatment is actually worse than shameful - usually due to Republicans that want to cut all spending except tax benefits for themselves, and Democrats shamefully let that happen.
    1
  2688. Why are you 'Muricans farting about how too 'unpack' SCOTUS? As seen from outside (by other countries) the entire US judicial system has become a farce, pure theater. The general idea was good enough in the beginning, but you have had over 2 centuries to pervert the basic premise of the initially sound idea of the US judicial system, and THAT you have done to perfection! The details are irrelevant, the fact that is staring us in the face is that the US judicial system is thoroughly corrupt: If you have plenty of money you are above the law. Period. If you have no money, your goose is cooked, you are about to become a permanent "customer" of a for-profit prison system that is mainly in the business of creating returning customers! How stupid can the US public get! Really!
    1
  2689. A very wise man but, then again, wisdom vastly increases with age.
    1
  2690.  @vercoda9997 , Biffny - I love it - assuming it means "Big Ignorant Fucker From New York"
    1
  2691. It was interesting and heartening to see the Goodman siblings comment on the generational reversal - they themselves are invariably entering the older, more vulnerable part of the population and the grown-up children are now about to take over the caretaker function. This takes a while to sink in for everyone...
    1
  2692. The charming but false half-smile this religious nut presents at every opportunity is nauseating. The "Jesus loves you but you still have to suffer horribly" rhetoric embodies everything the "god-fearing" crowd represents: Your God is so cruel and vicious that you have to cower in fear while "God's" representatives (the priests) exploit your fears to the hilt. Mike Johnson is the epitome of a "God's representative". One wonders what will happen when he eventually presents himself at the Pearly Gates: Will he be celebrated as the top religious con-man or will he be "sent down below" for an eternity of regrets?
    1
  2693. In my experience, the most fatally dangerous clouds were those NOT mentioned during my aviation training in the seventies. My own names for them are "Stratus Granitus" (very common) and "Cumulus Granitus" (rather rare). They are simply clouds with mountains or other terrain within them, and have probably killed more aviators than any other type!
    1
  2694. I used "England", but meant the entire UK & Ireland (England, Wales, Scotland & all the rest - traditional coffee there was, well, maybe not awful but generally not good. The term Institutional coffee comes to mind. I always imagined that this explained natives preferred tea - until fancy stuff like espresso and the like arrived.
    1
  2695. The US legislative body is proving itself to be a kindergarten, mostly populated by immature fanatics that will bring the US (and the world) considerable grief before all is said and done.
    1
  2696. This is a ridiculous over-dramatization, EVERYONE had planned this as best they could and EVERYONE expected it to succeed. Absolutely NO ONE knew how the invasion would end! Fortunately the Allies succeeded and the Germans failed. We are now in a similar situation: A despot is trying to repeat Hitler's dream and we are looking down the barrel of WW3. Only one thing is clear from history: Appeasement of the bully will NOT work in he long term!
    1
  2697.  @JoeyFiveandDimes , you are absolutely right, you got shafted by your post-war politicians. If you want this to change, you have to roll up your sleeves and elect different politicians. I'm not trying to tell you WHO to elect, that is entirely up to you, but do NOT be spooked by the word "socialist" in this context. In most European countries, we have mixed economies that are basically capitalistic, but reined in to the extent that the public is not left out. "Social democracy" or "democratic socialism" is NOT what Republicans and Corporate Democrats call "communism".
    1
  2698.  ARMENIAN PINOCCHIO , Chenk in Turkey and Ana in Armenia? No matter, they were obviously raised and educated in the US and are now US Americans, stuck with being US Americans - which is rather dismal these days. The good news is that they are fighting tooth and nail to change that.
    1
  2699. This seems to be the hill that Religious Repugnican Nutjobs have chosen to die on. I fully expect them to have overreached and that they will succeed - in dying on the hill, that is. 'Murica is becoming a laughing stock among democratic and genuinely free nations.
    1
  2700. Is asking that the police be held to AT LEAST the same standard as everyone else too much? They should be held to a considerably higher standard - for one, they are SUPPOSED to know what is allowed and NOT allowed within the law while the general public is known to be somewhat ignorant of the exact letter of the law. An ignorant pedestrian may be breaking the letter of the law without realizing it, but when a policeman that is supposed to KNOW what the law is kills him/her for jaywalking, the cop is supposed to know that murdering a citizen in broad daylight, on camera, is definitely SUPPOSED to land him in jail for life, anywhere in the world. In Norway they would spend up to 21 years trying to reform this psychopath, but in the Good-Old-US they are probably not even going to prosecute him. Amid all this, US Americans are wondering why the rest of the world is no longer liking the US , they are even wondering how to distance and isolate themselves from the impending madness and disaster of the US disintegrating. After all, the US has the most powerful, pervasive and intrusive military in the world, not to mention the economic stranglehold they have on the rest of the world. They have a finger in EVERY pie, from Greenland to Antarctica. There will come a period where the normal political leadership will have disintegrated to the point that the real power-brokers, the corporate entities within the US will have to come out of the closet as the real puppet masters. What will happen then is anyone's guess. Just be clear on one thing: However mighty the US military might be, they are mere dust if the rest of the globe turns against them (a certainty, given how Trump has been shedding allies). The US has outsourced to China EVERYTHING other than the production of their latest military aircraft and missiles. There WILL be a time of reckoning: The US is no longer able to produce it's own essential military electronics, simply because of the greed of electronic corporations. When that simple fact dawns on people, heads will start flying - not in the golden-parachute-severance way but rather in the head-brutally-severed-from-the body way. Nearly bringing the world to an end will have consequences for the useless non-productive billionaires of the world, DIRE consequences.
    1
  2701. US America: Your goose is cooked. With Idiots, Imbeciles and Morons elected to positions of power (look up the more than 100-year old definition of those concepts), you are heading for a situation even worse that in 1918 - and that in spite of immensely more current knowledge about viruses and epidemics.
    1
  2702. Trump, ON CAMERA, has been taking a wrecking ball to all traditional US alliances AND the US economy. When the whole thing crumbles, there is no way he can lie his way out of these two basic facts! Canada is calling his bullying bluff, and the NATO alliance is suddenly waking up to the fact that 'Murica is a very unreliable ally. What is currently happening is that Canada and Mexico are kicking back,financially, and that is going to hurt 'Murican citizens. But, far more more important, an 80-year old alliance is falling apart (Putin's wet dream) due to Trump's actions. Eventually, 'Murica First will turn into 'Murica ALONE! Furthermore, any 'Murican foolish enough to travel abroad in 2025 will find himself/herself truly "persona non grata". 'Muricans will be intensely disliked wherever they go, because they have proven themselves to be a nation of ignorant idiots that cannot be relied on. 'Murica signing any contract? Not worth the paper it is written upon, they are like Trump: Liars and Cheats!
    1
  2703. Chucking the Trump Chaos Regime might be a step in the right direction regarding the US's relations to it's former allies, but there is a long-term problem: Trump ascending to power in 2016 AND the fact that the 2020 elections were a close call is driving home the realization that the US is leaning heavily toward Fascism! Trump was a symptom, not the disease, and unless there are massive and structural changes in the US (unlikely under Biden) it is only a question of time until another despot comes along and manages to "Make America Alone Again".
    1
  2704. I have always considered blind religiosity to be a severe mental disorder. Christianity went bananas (the inquisition) 1300-1600 years after it started, Islam is now in the throes of a similar extremism, about 1400 years after IT started. There seems to be a trend going...
    1
  2705. Lo and behold: A female arsehole that is able to fart continuously!
    1
  2706. What stuck-in-a-rut US Americans designate as "the far left" in US politics would be called "to the right of center" in most other developed countries, e.g. Europe.
    1
  2707. The air raid sirens are screaming, the Klaxons are hooting but the Idiots of 'Murica (the voters) seem to be poised to elect the idiot madman again! Fauchi is a gentlemen but he has now removed one glove in the shit-throwing war with shit-thrower Trump. Still courteous and soft-spoken, but hopefully the other glove eventually comes off and Fauchi can start telling the whole, unvarnished truth! He will do it in civilized terms, but he MUST honestly describe Trump's idiotic Covid response and how ridiculous it must have seemed to an expert like Fauchi. A deadly and global pandemic cannot be mitigated by wishful thinking, which seems to have been Trump's go-to response.
    1
  2708. Iceland handled the first Covid-19 wave very well, with extensive testing and contact tracing. Kári Stefánsson, our leader in the field of genetics, has said "What we did we learned from the US and the UK. It is astounding to see how those countries are failing to heed their own lessons!".
    1
  2709. These last Habba antics are just evidence of the magnitude of Trump's legal team's desperation, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for something, ANYTHING that might stick somewhere, somehow. The only place this WILL stick is to Habba's reputation and likely to her ability to practice law at all in future!
    1
  2710. "That strange mixture of joy and depth" is a good encapsulation of the Beatles era - I was only 13 when the Beatles became famous and experienced the whole thing during the next decade. That was the "special era" of my generation (the "special era" of the previous generation was all-out war!). I am sure all generations have their "special eras", but all I know is that mine was joyful, prolonged and is still reverberating! I hope future generations will have similar or even better experiences.
    1
  2711. To think that a puny little hole in a magma chamber could trigger an eruption is like believing a mosquito sticking your belly could cause you intestines to explode. The SCALE Mother Nature operates on is so vast that our puny little probing is like a gnat irritating an elephant. The best we can do is to study this and develop better sensors and knowledge to allow us to get the heck out of the way when Mother Nature decides to let out a fart...
    1
  2712. Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson comes across as a steaming piece of excrement, asking questions but not willing to listen to the answers. He embodies all that is repugnant about present-day US politics - but then again he is a Repugnican! What can you expect!
    1
  2713. "Arrest people and hold them without charges" - where have we heard this before? The aftermath of 9/11 & Guantanamo! 'Murica has been tinkering with this (Hitler's playbook) for 2 decades now.
    1
  2714. What status do Russian-born inhabitants of the Baltic countries have there? Are they Baltic state citizens or Russian citizens? I ask because I don't know. If they are Russian citizens, not Baltic, they will turn out to be a great danger to the Baltic states, willingly or unwillingly, because Putin WILL eventually use them as an excuse to invade the Baltic countries if he is not stopped now. I think the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) should NOW start thinking about how to peacefully eliminate this problem. Have ethnic Russian Baltic citizens swear allegiance to their Baltic country or else move to Russia? That would be a rather brutal approach, but we are now watching the consequences of NOT tackling the problem now in some way right now.
    1
  2715. I'm curious: Sarah Sanders ends almost every sentence by croaking! Is this a genuine speech impediment or just a bad habit?
    1
  2716. Watching 'Murican Talking Heads discuss something like the Turkmenistan "hellhole" is hilarious. The sheer ignorance is mind-blowing. The CO2 this burning methane source is emitting is only a fraction of the greenhouse-gas effect would be if the methane was escaping without being burned. Besides that, one wonders if 'Murican talking heads should be discussing child-rearing AT ALL! The most twisted children are being raised in the US - you are DEFINITELY doing something very wrong! Finally, the NZ sheep/cockroach story really took the cake. The fact that the antipodes mentioned the cockroach as a casualty, not a perpetrator, apparently blew the 'Murican talking head minds. There is something seriously wrong in in 'Murica!
    1
  2717. Extreme and idiotic Gender Reveals have already cost a few lives in the US. Is the risk of everyday gun deaths not enough for you, do you have to add idiotic and uneducated explosions to the mix?
    1
  2718. Obama's Nobel Peace Price turned out to be premature and ultimately not really deserved. The reason? Expectations were extremely high that Obama could really change thing for the good which, as it turned out, he was unable to do and in some cases probably wasn't willing to do.
    1
  2719. Non-'Murican here: What bothers me most about 'Murican politics and media is how fundraising seems to be the main, central and most important issue, NOT the agenda the candidates are pushing! No wonder 'Murica is going down the drain, money is King and the welfare of 'Murican citizens seems to be an afterthought. The stench emanating from the whole, corrupt and rotting mess is becoming unbearable.
    1
  2720. An old-school dive into the decimal system, analog version. Do you 'Muricans realize that THIS is what the metric system is based on, what is left out are the suffixes - the K (kilo) for 1000 and C (centi) for 100, m (milli) for thousands etc? Just moving the decimal point around as required. Using the slide rule very quickly became intuitive. I lived through the transition from the slide rule to ever more sophisticated digital calculators in the late 1970s. One pro of the slide rule is that it never runs out of battery power, even if you leave it in a drawer for years! It is always ready for action.
    1
  2721. I cannot help wondering if Eric Holder's reluctance to prosecute Trump for his in-presidency felonies is related to possible skeletons in his own closet. Trump has blatantly violated every norm and law in sight, ON CAMERA, during his presidency. There are numerous instances of felonies committed during his election campaign, not to mention the substantial evidence of tax fraud, money laundering etc. that has, strangely enough, been overlooked by the appropriate authorities well before he ran for president. These authorities are, at best, incompetent and, at worst, thoroughly corrupt. If Trump, just by being the president of the USA for a while, becomes immune to all this, he is truly above the law and all the lofty principles the US waves about are just meaningless hot gas.
    1
  2722. You 'Muricans are the ONLY developed nation on this planet that accepts this kind of utter nonsense with a "thoughts and prayers to the relatives of the deceased victims" and no sensible preventive action AT ALL! What kind of people ARE you? Are you even human? The rest of the world is having serious doubt about the sanity of the 'Murican people.
    1
  2723. The good news: Trump is doing his level best to make sure many of his supporters as possible will be too sick to vote on election day!
    1
  2724. A common thread in these GOP hearings is clear: An ill-informed Repugnican member asks a rather stupid question and, invariably, about 10-20 words into the answer the Repugnican loudly interrupts and ensures that any answer becomes unintelligible - and this especially applies when the answer is clear, short and to the point. Repugnicans HATE any version of the truth.
    1
  2725. Why does anyone sign a contract or treaty with Lying Toddler Trump? He has a lifelong history of NEVER honoring ANY deal he makes. This is an issue EVERY negotiating nation should bring up in public, BEFORE signing anything: Why should we sign this, you never honor your contracts?
    1
  2726. Playing with explosive devices designed to kill will always be risky, no matter the precautions made. Hopefully there will be a follow-up video in due course, explaining to us what happened, how and WHY, as if this was an aircraft accident. Mistakes are never made intentionally, there is always some underlying and unforeseen cause that has to be discovered and rectified to prevent repeat accidents.
    1
  2727. So, 'Muricans are tripping over their own feet pointing out Canadian Covid failures! What has been 'Murica's trademark in recent years? Oh, yes, lying through their teeth abut literally everything is what they are known for these days! Should we start taking them seriously now? Hell, NO!
    1
  2728. The truck did not disappear with a flash, the blast seemed to come from below. Another video hints at a boat passing under the bridge at the moment of detonation. My uneducated guess would be a boat bomb, not a truck bomb - not to mention the Russians saying it was a truck bomb, they always get things upside-down.
    1
  2729. I cannot help seeing many similarities between pre-WW2 Germany and the last decade in Putin's Russia. The merciless stamping out any dissenters come from the same playbook on how to establish a ruthless Autocracy, a total Dictatorship. I predict that Putin and his cronies will eventually come to the same sticky end as Hitler and HIS cronies, the main question being how many hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives will be forfeit before that finally comes to pass.
    1
  2730. We know that Giuliani is no longer a Mayor but apparently is still addressed as such. Did he inherit the title for life?
    1
  2731. Blinken is turning out to be just another lying cheat, the very manifestation of why current and former US allies are learning - the hard way - how unreliable the US has become towards it's allies. Just ask the Kurds, and now the Afghans.
    1
  2732. The US might still be the oldest contemporary democracy in the world, but not much longer. Already seriously flawed before 2016 (mostly due to Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression), it is now barely hanging on by a thread. Biden is NOT likely to do much more than maintaining a status quo during his term and the Repugnicans will most likely manage to re-gain power in 2024 to finish off the US experiment with democracy.
    1
  2733. I predict that Trump will in short order find himself in contempt of court, with all that it entails. He simply cannot contain himself!
    1
  2734. Zelinskyy is correct: The UN is a toothless, corrupt and useless old hag (I witnessed it myself in Africa 30 years ago), we need a new institution with some bite to it! Sadly, Thom is also correct: Just imagine, 70 years down the road - The UN started out fine, and look at what it has become! Any new institution with "some bite to it" will become hopelessly corrupt in just a few decades, and where will we be then? Zelinskyy can be excused, he is desperately suggesting a future arrangement that could prevent future disasters like his country is going through now. Human nature being what it is, we are in a bind. We cannot possibly let the atrocities in Ukraine continue, yet we are unable to do much about it other than defiant appeasement. We refuse to face the fact that the war in Ukraine is just the first battle of WW3, and until we are ready to face reality, WW3 will continue: Moldova next and from there it is a toss-up if Poland, Finland or the Baltic states will be the following courses on Putin's menu. Putin will be far better prepared when he eventually makes his next move in WW3.
    1
  2735. Now, is this wishful thinking or based on some real facts? If the wishful thinkers are correct, Putin will exit the stage soon (becoming stone-cold dead without much drama) and the war in Ukraine will be resolved rather quickly. If, on the other hand, Putin is actually healthy - or he is irrelevant, other Russian kleptocrats being ready to take over - the downfall of Putin's Russia will take months, even up to a year. After all, the dead carcass of a doomed regime will take a long time to go through the death throes.
    1
  2736. You missed how flabbergasted Trump was about Prince Charles´s caring about the climate we will leave for our children and grandchildren. His take: "He is Prince Charles, he does not NEED to care about the future of other people!". A truly alien concept for a narcissist.
    1
  2737. Any real action NEXT MONTH will be useless to the Ukrainian nation. The time for real action was LAST WEEK! The US seems to be the only Western nation dragging it's feet regarding Putin's Russia. They are still importing Russian oil and have yet to fully sanction ALL the top-tier Russians responsible for the atrocities being committed, not to mention meaningful and effective military action - like a no-fly zone over Ukrainian sovereign territory. The blood of the Ukrainians will in large part be on their hands. Apparently US gas prices are more important for the wimps living in the "home of the brave". Shame on them! Rubio is just another useless bla-bla-bla-bla US politician.
    1
  2738. Old-school Confederates have been alive and well in southern states for a century-and-half, but US demographics have been slowly changing around them and now they have become a minority. Shamelessly trying to stave off the inevitable, they are desperately using gerrymandering and voter suppression (the only way for them to cling to power), but even that is slowly failing in the face of the sheer force of demographic change. Some reprieve might be bought by going full-on fascist, but that will only last a decade or so and make the repercussions for them really, REALLY grave (Nüremberg-style). One, two or even three elections into the future, the sheer weight of the change in demographics will carry the US population out of the Capitalistic Hellhole they have been living in for over 4 decades. One would NOT want to be a Repugnican when that time comes. How repugnant the Repugnicans manage to become until the inevitable showdown will determine how vengeful the suppressed classes will be. Worst case: French revolution-style, Guillotine times. Best case: Mandela-style reconciliation - which is REALLY unlikely to happen, given the Confederate vitriol we have been witnessing. The US is in for some interesting times in the near future.
    1
  2739. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini is the template and the US happens to be a far more fertile soil for sowing fascism than inter-war Germany and Italy. The world is in for a rough ride if Trump's handlers succeed in their endeavor.
    1
  2740. @Steve Maynard, language mate, watch your language. You can easily get your point across without this kind of language.
    1
  2741. The REALLY astounding part of this whole breakdown-of-US-democracy debacle is how few truly honest and principled conservatives remain in positions of power in the current Repugnican party! Most Repugnicans in power are turning out to be unprincipled and immoral grifters.
    1
  2742. Re. the apparently slower German trains: All the clips showed the trains passing through an urban area, so they probably WERE quite bit slower on that stretch to reduce noise levels.
    1
  2743. This is more or less what we did in Iceland in 2008. The bank depositors were saved, the banks were allowed to collapse and, eventually, a bunch of crooked bankers ended up in jail. The state picked up the remains of the banks and came out more or less even in the end. Our recovery was painful but rather swift. Will corrupt 'Murica be able to stay the course? Only time will tell.
    1
  2744. It is funny, watching one of the "Kingmakers" (nowadays called Republicans) squirm and try to justify the unjustifiable!
    1
  2745.  @DragoBoss , please read the second sentence in my comment. The first sentence only reflects my personal disgust with Putin, but my opinions, fortunately, have no impact on this situation.
    1
  2746.  @DragoBoss  - true, Putin outdid Yeltsin during the last decade of the last century by stabilizing Russia, but then he and his cronies started robbing the country blind. Putin should not have stayed in power for more than 8-10 years, and then genuine political debate and Russian VOTERS should have been allowed to determine Russia's future. Putin is nothing but a cruel dictator that stays in power by imprisoning or assassinating his political adversaries.
    1
  2747.  @DragoBoss  - I would never imply that Putin is anything other than a really smart and ambitious man. I believe, however, that he is extremely arrogant and possibly a bit isolated from reality, hence the extrajudicial assassinations. Not many autocratic regimes do this (N-Korea, the Saudis, Russia etc.).
    1
  2748. I had not realized until now how the "no-cameras" policy has made the US judicial system into a cartoon performance. Literally! A JOKE! Just watch the cartoons issued by these courts! Keeping the realities of court proceedings in the 19th century will NOT improve the credibility of the farce that the 'Murican judicial system is turning out to be. Genuine transparency, while elusive, is the impossible goal of 'Murican politics.
    1
  2749. This is probably unfair, I am sure there are a lot of reasonable & sensible people in the southern US, but there certainly appear to be a lot of their opposite number as well...
    1
  2750. Politicians should not be allowed to have any say in how epidemics, let alone pandemics are handled. Allowing politicians to determine how to handle a disaster like this is akin to playing Russian Roulette with all 6 chambers loaded. In fact, any politician attempting to have a say in the mess they so thoroughly failed to prepare for should be quietly taken aside and put out of their misery...
    1
  2751. Like before WW2 started, the western nations have been trying to appease a megalomaniac (then; Hitler, now; Putin). Appeasement obviously failed in both cases but, unlike WW2, The US is in the lead of hindering the tyrant (they REALLY dragged their feet in WW2, but once they got involved it made all the difference!). Make no mistake: This is NOT like Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, where the US (and allies) were the instigators! This war is forced upon the West, and if western nations do not manage to permanently stop Putin now in Ukraine, the next phase will be a full-on WW3 - when Putin will have ironed out the worst failings of the Russian military, which will then be a much worse adversary.
    1
  2752. There is a factor David does not mention: When your job is gone, when your health insurance is gone, your family is starving and you are about to be evicted, you (and most people around you) are a ticking time bomb. You have plenty of time on your hands and a looming deadline. When things snap, they will snap violently. Sadly, the peaceful among you (the non-right-wingers) will be unprepared with no resources to commit violence while the Preppers (the rabid right-wingers) will already be armed to the teeth and have stockpiles of food and ammunition. The outlook ain't pretty...
    1
  2753. If the God that 'Murican Christians fear so much (re. God-FEARING 'Muricans!) is all-powerful and omnipotent, why isn't the entire world living according to the Bible as interpreted by their "flavor-of-the-day" preachers? Is it because their God is neither all-powerful nor omnipotent? Even more likely, is it because the God of Christianity AND Allah of Islam are just figments of the minds of people, carefully cultivated by their religious "leaders"? A human invention, even more horrible than than nuclear weapons? If either the Christian God or Allah are as powerful and omnipotent as they say, both should instantly smite me for the blasphemy I am about to commit by clicking "Comment"! Edited a bit later: I already posted this comment and I am still un-smitten - or is it un-smoten? (I've no idea - English is my 3rd language, I can hide behind that excuse any day!). I rest my case.
    1
  2754. So, Smerconish is clearly speaking in favor of Putin's Russia by amplifying Putin's empty threats of escalation. Michael seems to be crossing a fat line with his fearmongering. Putin may be unhinged, but he is not stupid enough to provoke a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. Given the recent consolidation of NATO and the obvious incompetence and weakness of the Russian military , it would be suicidal for Putin.
    1
  2755. I have lived in a social-democratic country all my life (I am 69), and I am flabbergasted watching the discourse int the US about social democracy. Health care and education is not FREE, but it is VERY affordable, especially compared to the US. US Americans should be careful when judging North-European nations if they have never visited those countries, let alone lived there for a while.
    1
  2756. What a total waste of time, arguing with a blind and brain-dead Republican!
    1
  2757. I wonder what percentage of US households make or supplement their living by playing the Stock Exchange? Is the DOW at all relevant to 9 out of 10 US Americans, the vast majority of the population?
    1
  2758. The way things are going, the US will remain Trumpified or, at best, be Bidenified (slightly better, but only slightly). The rest of the world will have no choice than to turn it's back on the US - the first step, already underway, is to dump the US dollar as the currency of choice for global business, especially regarding oil. The following steps will probably be automatic, but will focus on avoiding the crazy gyrations of US politics and the detrimental effect of the US on climate issues. The US will eventually drown AND suffocate in their own shit climate-wise, while the rest of the world goes on it's merry way, planning for a cleaner future. The billionaires that currently own and run the US will be sanctioned by the rest of the world, and can drown (and suffocate) along with their countrymen...
    1
  2759. One of the reasons that the US is falling apart as a nation is the absolute dysfunctionality of the so-called "legislative" branch. By the simple expedient of limiting any bill that might become law to be about one issue and ONE ISSUE ONLY, all these shenanigans would simply disappear! One bill deciding the aid to struggling citizens due to Covid. Check. A separate bill deciding federal support for small businesses. Check. An entirely separate bill allowing criminally negligent corporations immunity fro liability. Check, but probably dead on arrival - what politician would commit political Hara-Kiri by openly voting for such an atrocity? No hiding behind having actually voted for an entirely different part of a multi-issue bill.
    1
  2760. Happiness is being content with what you have, not what you COULD have. Once you reach a certain threshold (income, security, personal life) there is little point in chasing that elusive "more" that seems so pervasive in the US. How do you describe colors to blind people? Try describing "happiness" to 'Muricans... We Icelanders have become addicted to our version of Sauna - no wood-burning stoves (our few trees are sacred), we are electric or geothermal. What we have in common with the Finns is the lack of perversion regarding nakedness. This is the way we were born, this is the way we will be buried: Without a stitch! I truly think our hot-pot and sauna culture is something we enjoy just as much as the Finns, even if our traditions do not reach as deep (well, our hot-pot culture does, even Snorri Sturluson had one). Danish "hygge" is not something you consume. You do not come home from a stressful day at work and instantly switch to "hygge". That is not how it works. If you regularly have stressful days at work and are unable to have "hygge" at home, it is time to find a new and more fulfilling job, which is just what Danish society supports! Getting extra education for a new role in life is just the ticket, usually supported by the government. One cannot help feeling sorry for the citizens of the US the way things have been going for the last 40 years. Add a global catastrophe on top of a truly horrible head of state, and you have the recipe for a true disaster, along the lines of what happened in Germany and Italy following the Great Depression.
    1
  2761. Rabid right-wingers that are also religious zealots like MAGA Mike Johnson are a blight on 'Murica. I have long held that this condition is actually a severe and chronic mental disorder that ends up becoming dangerous to other citizens.
    1
  2762. All idiot Palin seems capable of is screeching on about other issues when asked a question she does not like.
    1
  2763. Trump might try to invade Canada, but he will run smack into 2 major problems: 1) His military will not want to invade Canada, a long-standing ally. There is probably no officer in the US armed forces that would dream of taking up arms against their long-time ally Canada. 2) Canada will fight back! Just watch what they are doing now: Refusing to give in to verbal bullying, not to mention the fact that a US/Canada conflict would leave 'Murica Alone and Canada + 31 other NATO countries. Whatever stupid path the Toddler might try to take 'Murica, the remaining 31 countries will stand together. Putin's Russia is like a snowball melting in hell at this stage.
    1
  2764. Isn't it strange how the only good controversial person is a dead one? People either hate them or love them while they are alive, but EVERYONE is full of praise once they are stone-cold dead.
    1
  2765.  @Gogetta80 , agreed! I was just commenting on the hipocracy of the miraculous absence of criticism once a controversial person is dead.
    1
  2766. I read somewhere that whenever leaks like this happen (Manning and Snowden being fairly recent), there is a mad scramble to "rectify" security clearances and "fix the problem" and restore the confidence of angry allies. Then, after some months, things revert back to the practical balance between "ultimate" security and reality - and nothing changes. In the grand scheme of things this is probably rather irrelevant. 'Murica has a lot of dirty secrets that occasionally leak out - but so does virtually every other nation! Russia and China are clumsy when they do assassinations abroad and are frequently exposed, with only plausible deniability being just fine. 'Muricans seem to be more covert and slick about it because it is quite a long time since they were caught "with their hands in the cookie jar".
    1
  2767. 74 million Americans that want to demolish democracy and are not going to shut up are STILL fewer than the 81 million Americans that voted for Biden. The only cheaters during the last 40 years in America have been voter-suppressing and gerrymandering Repugnicans! Biden's victory would have been even more significant if not for the immoral, lying and cheating Repugnicans! If the US voting population fails to throw off the Repugnican yoke following this blatant attempt to turn the US into an Autocracy, a Dictatorship, the US is finished, done for as a superpower. It will take a few decades and the death throes of the US will have terrible consequences globally. The sheenanigans of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan 80 years ago SHOULD have been a lesson, but here we go again...
    1
  2768. Just wait until Trump's Global Warming comes back with a vengeance next summer.
    1
  2769. Carlton Wilson, your "pro-American leader" seems to be in Putin's pocket. Great prospects for the US. Also, he uses Dr. Goebbels's propaganda tactics to the hilt by constantly repeating the same hypocritical lies, in the expectation that people will start believing them...
    1
  2770. What 'Muricans are expert at ignoring is the fact that most of 'Murica is on the same latitudes as the Sahara Desert! No wonder you cannot survive without Air Conditioning in summer! By all accounts you are in for some interesting times in the coming decades. Immense heatwaves and tornado seasons in summer and just as bad freezing spells in winter (like Texas experienced not long ago). You reap as you sow.
    1
  2771. I have often wondered about the scenario when Mike Pence finally meets his maker, given the innumerable "non-christian" incidents during his vice-presidency. Satan: Why were you so wishy-washy when it mattered? Pence: My beloved lord, that is all I have ever known!
    1
  2772. It is a shocker to find Trump actually correct about a little snippet of information! The helicopter was supposed to be at or below 200', but ADSB data shows it climbing and eventually intersecting the CRJ glidepath at 400'. The WHY remains to be seen. The man seems incapable of telling a truth except by accident. Is this a rare case?
    1
  2773. I believe that even the "best" vaccines are only 90+% effective. NOT 100%! No surprises there. This is certainly good enough to eventually break the back of the pandemic, but it is NOT a 100% assurance you are fully protected. At this stage, thinking you are completely safe after vaccination is, well, not very smart. My country (Iceland) is allowing tourists with credible vaccine/antibody documentation to enter without quarantine - even tourists from the untrustworthy US! A dedicated Covid "Passport" will probably never see the light of day, if only because the pandemic will be under control long before useless politicians like US Repugnicans manage to agree on any sensible way of issuing such passports. Fortunately we still only trust you as far as we can throw you: A PCR test on entry is still mandatory even if you are holding credible vaccination/antibody documentation. If you turn out to be positive (indicating that your documentation is fraudulent) you will find yourself in rather deep financial shit. A prisoner fully isolated for 14 days in an expensive hotel AND until you have fully paid a hefty fine!
    1
  2774. Thom, you should never refer simply to "The Catholics", you should ALWAYS use the appropriate phrase: "The Pervert Catholics". There has been overwhelming evidence to prove that particular point, evidence that spans not decades but CENTURIES of abject perversity!
    1
  2775. One of America's two GREAT parties? Two questions: 1. What is so "great" about the 2 corrupt main parties of US America, and... 2. What gives you (US Americans) the right to assume you are the only "Americans" around? I know US Americans are lousy at geography but, for your information, the AMERICAN CONTINENT consists of North America (Canada, the US and Mexico), South America (a lot of banana republics and a few fairly stable ones, mostly because they have limited resources and so are not coveted by the US) and the bit in between called Central America that is a terrible mess because of endless US meddling. Shame on you, the US of bloody A. Bottom line: The USA, formerly a shining beacon and the leader in installing true democracy in the western world following WW2 is now a shining example how democracy can be corrupted and taken down, ruined, in less than 50 years.
    1
  2776. There is, admittedly, a kernel of truth in Trump's complaints that "everybody is out to get me!". Understandably, those prosecutors are "out to get" Trump just like they are "out to get" any other criminal because they have evidence that Trump has broken a multitude of laws, sufficient evidence to take eventually him to court.
    1
  2777. The Ukrainians are clever buggers. Ignorant as I am in military matters, I am sure the Ukrainians will not bother to engage in costly urban fighting in Bakhmut, they will simply outflank and encircle it and then leave a small contingent of soldiers to wait for the remaining Russians, out of ammo and out of food, to crawl out of the rubble they created, waving white flags of surrender.
    1
  2778. Watching the US response is horrifying - all black or white, total lockdown or "back to last New-Year drunk normal". No in-between, no thinking, no sentient brain activity. You either cower at home or you have a "Lets-Get-Covid-infected" party. What are you people thinking? Are you thinking at all? I know it's useless to point out other ways to approach this, but I cannot help myself: My country started testing a whole month before the first case was detected in late February. Extensive free testing (we have tested what amounts to almost 23% of the entire population by now), contact tracing and quarantine/isolation where applicable allowed us to avoid lockdown completely. Physical distancing and a limit on public gatherings (max. 20-50 people being the strictest) was all we had to do. Primary schools/daycare remained open (within the 20-50 person limit) and High schools, Colleges & Universities went into web-based mode. Bars, Restaurants & Hairdressers were closed but shops, grocery stores and supermarkets remained open - observing the 2m (6 feet) physical distance limit as well as the absolute number of people allowed simultaneously (depending on the area available at the premises). Our borders were never closed, but anyone entering the country had to register and enter a 14-day quarantine.The end result can be seen in the official Covid information website, valid until June 14: https://www.covid.is/data-old. On June 15 the quarantine requirements were relaxed; You could forego the quarantine if you took a free test at the border, results available within 3-5 hours. After July 1 you have to pay for the test, $65 if prepaid, $78 otherwise (no Big Pharma allowed to price-gouge!). The results of THAT can be seen on the official Covid information website for June 15 onward: https://www.covid.is/data. Of course your 'Murican response will be: But you are a tiny country, his does not apply to US! Kari Stefanson, CEO of deCode Genetics, our foremost genetic research company that has been in the tick of it from the beginning (he's partly educated in the US) has a succinct answer to that: Size has nothing to do with it - you may be 1000 times bigger than we are, but you have 5000 times the resources! Furthermore, everything we did we learned from the US and the UK in the first place - why are unable to heed your own lessons? We are not a Communist or Socialist country, we are as Capitalist as they come. All we do is to keep our Capitalism bridled, we do not allow it to run free, destroying everything in sight. Simple, really.
    1
  2779. It is amazing how soft this interview is - the interviewer becomes tongue-tied and allows Giuliani to drone on and talk over her. Giuliani and Trump seem to be making up a make-believe universe, and will be rudely yanked into the real world when Mueller finally completes his investigation.
    1
  2780. The main concern would that the rapid advance of the Ukrainian forces might stretch their supply lines too much, but on second thought one realizes that this is unlikely. The Ukrainians have been so dedicated, clever and efficient that it is very unlikely that they would make such a basic boo-boo.
    1
  2781. I love this new term, "Maskholes"!
    1
  2782. Why don't you put the smart-alec reporters in charge? They seem to know it all, well ahead of the experts.
    1
  2783. Boy, am I glad NOT to live in the US and that my children (all grown up by now) never, ever had to worry about things like this. I have to visit relatives in the US next spring, and I am NOT looking forward to it - the lunatics have taken over the asylum!
    1
  2784.  @williamolsen8464 , I would if I could. Fortunately for me, my visit will be a short one.
    1
  2785. What a whopper! Pfizer did NOT develop it's vaccine! BioNTech, a tiny Turkish-immigrant-based company in Germany did all the development work and then Pfizer stepped in and took over. The only "development" work Pfizer did was to finance the admittedly very expensive testing, approval and production of the vaccine - only now, loonies like Charles Sauer want to pretend that the Pfizer vaccine is based solely on 'Murican ingenuity and innovation. Is it any wonder the rest of the world has just about had it with 'Murican exceptionalism? Within just a few decades 'Murica just might be "doing it alone" - and not liking it one bit!
    1
  2786. Every nation DESERVES the government they elect. If a series of badly elected governments end up ruining that nation without the voting public waking up and doing something about it, their dismal fate is exponentially deserved. 'Murica and Russia in a nutshell these days...
    1
  2787. One has to agree with this: Putin's Russia is a terrorist country, plain and simple. What is the reason the US and NATO are not reacting like they did after 9/11? Two problems: 1) Russia has appeared to be a more formidable country than e.g. Iraq, but the Ukrainians are proving that to be wrong. 2) Mounting an overwhelming response take more time than is available right now. The fact remains: Air assets can be quickly deployed to provide a no-fly zone over Ukraine. In light of the brutal and undeclared war Putin's Russia has unleashed on Ukraine, a widely recognized sovereign country, preventive military actions within Ukrainian borders are certainly justified! Putin can deceive and lie to Russians, but he cannot prevent the rest of the world from knowing everything that he is doing in Ukraine. Live, streamed video of his atrocities prevent that.
    1
  2788. IS Iceland Entering A New Volcanic Era? Silly question, our scientists have long known that the Reykjanes Peninsula has periods of activity with long periods of inactivity. The last active period was 8 centuries ago and lasted over 2 centuries (Mother Nature operates on a time scale we humans struggle to comprehend). We Icelander can now expect a couple of centuries of vigorous activity! What we do NOT know are the pesky details. We are now experiencing what volcanologists historically considered a single episode as a multi-year episode of sporadic but isolated eruptions. We made a breakthrough today! We found out that we can build a passage over a fresh lava field (4 days old?) to facilitate the construction of an emergency hot-water pipeline to keep the houses in the area warm and toasty again. We will NOT be caught flat-footed again, electrical and hot-water supplies MUST have alternate sources available. It will be costly, but the long-term benefits are obvious.
    1
  2789. It seems fairly obvious that almost every Republican is, well, Repugnican. There are exceptions like the late McCain and the very-much-alive Romney, but when you do not run out of fingers on a single hand when counting principled Republicans, you simply KNOW there is something seriously rotten in the States supposedly United.
    1
  2790. I cannot help wondering how Sucker Carlson will ever be able to show his face in 'Murica after this. Putin is apparently planning to dismantle NATO by eventually invading a NATO member country, meaning that Russia will be declaring war on all the NATO countries. When that happens, Sucker Carlson will have become a traitor to the US of A, a wartime criminal that will be hastily prosecuted and summarily executed.
    1
  2791. No Darius, I have been living outside the US. Have you considered that YOU might be living under a rock?
    1
  2792. Seeing that some version of WW3 now seems inevitable, I cannot help wondering what will happen to all these 'Murican Putin agents once war between Russia and NATO has been declared. It will not be pretty...
    1
  2793. A convicted felon, a sexual predator and - for some reason, everyone tries to ignore the fact that he is a blithering idiot! By now he is barely able to read a teleprompter (something he repeatedly failed at during his first term). He is, after all this time and training, still unable to string together a coherent sentence! 'Murica is no longer "the leaders of the free world", 'Murica is an embarrassment...
    1
  2794. It boggles the mind how duplicitous and disgusting Republicans can be when it come to blatant, in-plain-sight voter suppression. Is THIS the kind of people US citizens want to run their country? Add to that a HUGE problem: All the closet conservatives (Jake Tapper being one of them) allowing Repugnicans to take over running their "interviews" when convenient. Who was in charge of this interview? Jake Tapper or Mark Meadows? Journalists that were, once upon a time, called hard-hitting have suddenly become rather squishy...
    1
  2795. Indications are (and I hope it is true) that fascist Musk is running "X" (formerly Twitter) into the ground. The world would be a better place without fascist individual Musk, "X" and Fox News (spelled Fox Lies).
    1
  2796.  @evgeniya7853  In the 1930s the German Nazis and Italian fascists were mostly in Europe, but the US had it's own Nazi party until WW2 was well underway, and it as quite visible and noisy. The current fascist outbreak in 'Murica still needs a name, how about we call them "Trumpzis"?
    1
  2797. How about sending "thoughts and prayers" to SCOTUS Justices and politicians instead of bothering to pass laws through a dysfunctional US Senate, or make arrangements to increase security around them and their relatives. Tell them to make sure there is only one door open into their house and ensure they are armed to the teeth for self-defense and get at least some token training. If such arrangements are deemed sufficient for schools around 'Murica, surely the same measures are more than sufficient for the much-beloved 'Murican politicians and SCOTUS "justices" - right?
    1
  2798. Not only can SCOTUS justices be bought, apparently, they actually seem to come dirt cheap compared to politicians.
    1
  2799.  @abstractmonstrosity6757 , Norway has the "bad fortune" (government-inflicted) of being directly connected to the gas and electricity markets of Europe, and becomes the victim of the madness that frequently infects those markets. My country (Iceland) has no gas infrastructure, and your 100% renewable domestic electricity system is NOT connected to Europe. We have stable domestic electricity prices. There have been attempts by "interested parties" to connect our system with the European system via undersea cable, but we have not yet been fooled by that Pie-In-The-Sky scam.
    1
  2800.  @kk440635NORWAY , to other nations the average income seems high, but is simply "on par" with the cost of living in Norway. It does not mean a life of luxury because Norwegians live in Norway, one of the most expensive countries in the world - in part because there are functional social safety nets and affordable health care and education for everyone. The good news for Norwegians is that when visiting other countries, almost everywhere else seems cheap. The same applies to us in Iceland, even if we are the most 'Muricanized and corrupt of the Nordic countries and not nearly as well off as Norwegians in that sense. The Nordic countries are always i the top tier of "the happiest countries" - an exaggeration, if only because we would rather describe it ourselves as being "the least discontent".
    1
  2801. The fact that tens of millions of US citizens have been laid off, see no respite to their problems and have a lot of time on their hand along with a lot of anger is bound to result in the "US society undergoing an unexpected and unscheduled disassembly" (A tongue-in-cheek description of a rocket explosion) is ominous. Pretty soon the most hated "professionals" in the US will be policemen in general (as opposed to the adored health care professionals). The national Guard will be called in, but even if the full US military were to be illegally called in, they will be vastly outnumbered by angry US citizens, armed to the teeth in urban warfare. Seeing that all these forces are ultimately manned by ordinary US citizens that will refuse to obey obey orders to kill ordinary citizens (such as their own relatives), the Elites appear to be doomed, the majority of the nation is bound to turn on them soon - and the end will be ugly. After all, the soon-to-be-USA started a similar fight against blatant oppression 275 years ago!
    1
  2802. One wonders how all these "talking heads" and yellow press "journalists" would take it if their own medical details were on display or, at least, being speculated on like this?
    1
  2803. Is the US, under the Trumpzis, really free? Free to do what - die quietly so the money-grabbers can do their thing quietly? Is THIS the US America you have all been so proud of?
    1
  2804. Mind you, this is Austria - a land of mountains, yodeling and wonderful people. They have plenty of pure water falling downhill, used to produce renewable energy BEFORE they drink it. Yet, they need more energy and, instead of burning coal or oil, they prefer to use another renewable energy source, the eternal winds found in their mountains. There is yet another energy source they have yet to exploit: Mountains that are above cloud level most of the time, with nearly eternal sun shining, summer and winter. When mega-projects like this are considered in Europe, there are years of discussion and arguing before an agreement is reached. There is rarely total consensus, but a majority agreement is usually reached (democracy at work). There is obviously a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying and political bribing going on, but nothing on the scale of the overt political bribery that is considered "normal" in 'Murica.Just look at how slick the windmill blade transport is: Impossibly long, they can be raised to up to vertical when transversing difficult and curvy, tree-lined roads. There is an old saying, dating back to the Icelandic sagas: "The King wants to sail, but the wind will prevail". You can bet that the weather forecast will determine when a blade is raised above the trees, NOT greedy "stay-on-schedule-at-any-cost" capitalists. Most important: You can also count on the "end-of-life" of these windmills will have been planned for, their eventual demolition already financed. In 'Murica, the practice is to run such installations until they grind to a halt, the owners squirreling away the profits and then letting the operation to go bankrupt, leaving the cost of the cleanup of the wreck to the communities involved.
    1
  2805. Holy crap: If losing your wife, your dog and the regard of your mother (in that order) makes you FREE, what kind of person are you? A narcissist is definitely too mild a description, so - a psychopath? What you are watching in the chair in this studio is a perversion of humanity, someone that does not give a flying eff about his nearest kin or dependents, someone that just wants to collect "assets" until the day he dies - and what will he do with these assets? Take them along for the ride on his funeral pyre like old Norse chieftains did? Fat lot of good that will do him!
    1
  2806. Allowing this much power and influence into the hands of a single individual will NOT end well. Elon Musk may not yet have become a Hitler or Stalin or Putin, but just you wait . . .
    1
  2807. By all means allow anyone within or close to this administration use unsafe practices, that considerably increases the chances of a mass outbreak withing the administration, which would be the best thing that could happen to the US nation.
    1
  2808. The greatest benefit conservatives have is NOT any strength they might have, it is the weakness that democrats/progressives/whatever have: Republicans are unified by big-donor money. Corporate/Conservative Democrats are unified by big-donor money. Progressive Democrats are NOT unified by anything other than worthy ideals that have yet to be properly defined and formulated as something to unify around. Left-leaning politicians will unerringly sabotage themselves by infighting.
    1
  2809. Point out something obvious to an US American - and he will not get it because he has been stupefied. You are a Canadian American that has enjoyed the benefits of a welfare-oriented capitalistic system all your life and you cannot fathom how stupidly blind the US Americans are. I am an European non-American that has enjoyed the benefits of a welfare-oriented capitalistic system all my life and my mind boggles at how stupidly blind the US Americans are. Well, this opinion of mine is probably unfair - it is not your everyday US American that is stupidly blind, it is those that have control of the media and the political parties that are the problem. They are herding the sheep into maintaining "business as usual". I have a sneaky suspicion that things are about to change...
    1
  2810. You 'Muricans have a lot to be ashamed of these days...
    1
  2811. As it turned out, you were wrong. The Stab jackscrew found in the Ethiopian wreckage was in the full nose-down position, and the vertical flight path turned out to be eerily similar to the Lion Air flight path.
    1
  2812. Was the crew performance flawless? Heck, NO, but this was CRM at it's finest. They had one shot at handling an impossible situation, and EVERYBODY WALKED AWAY IN ONE PIECE! What more can you ask for!
    1
  2813. There is obviously a glaring judicial black hole regarding stochastic terrorism in the US. Will anyone fix it? Of course not! A lot of blood will have to be shed before anything is done, at a minimum another US civil war, at worst another World War.
    1
  2814. What a despicable character the US elected as their leader.
    1
  2815. One wonders what similarities scholars of becoming-Nazi Germany can identify and compare with what is currently happening. Russia has now been embarking on this road to "world domination" for more than a decade. There is no doubt that 'Murica is poised to be the next nation to go rouge. History tells us that no nation or empire will last. The Roman Empire lasted for centuries, the British Empire lasted a century and a half, and Third Reich hardly lasted a decade. Hopefully Putin's Russian Empire will last even shorter. But what about the worst-case scenario, 'Murica turning full Fascist and do the Oppressive Empire bit, only to be eventually beaten by the rest of the world? Will the 'Murican education system be similar to the German one in, say, 20-30 years? Will half 'Murica be ruled by "Communist" (spelled autocratic) China for decades, much like half of Germany was ruled by the "Communist" (spelled autocratic) Soviet Union? That is a rather bleak future...
    1
  2816. Biden certainly had a bad day, but that was nothing compared to disastrous day Dana Bush and Jake Tapper had as moderators! Not only let they Trump lie blatantly to their faces without comment or fact check, they also let him get away with simply not answering questions at all.
    1
  2817. Interesting that the local clergy initially blamed the fate of the Lindisfarne monks on their sins - indicating that those monks may not have been living a very modest or pious life AND that fact being well known. The churchmen were greedy accumulators of other people's stuff and the Vikings obviously hit a fat jackpot there. The word must have spread that monasteries were great sources of accumulated treasures that could be easily looted.
    1
  2818. What a disgusting individual, posing as a high-ranking police officer while being an outright bully. He is probably the reason why his entire police force is manned by disgusting bullies that are allowed to run roughshod over CHILDREN, provided they are not white. No wonder entire communities are seeing this kind of racist policing as outright warfare against the entire community. Only in "free" 'Murica! What I know, being a Nordic citizen, is that OUR police officers get years of university-level training and scrutiny, and any mentally abnormal individuals like this twisted-soul Sheriff would not make it through the first week of recruitment. It is obviously different in Madhouse 'Murica, where psychopaths are considered as cherished additions to any police force.
    1
  2819. The 'Murican judicial system is proving itself to be a toothless and tired old tiger, and Trump apparently figured that out long ago. Beware of the consequences!
    1
  2820.  @highlymedicated2438 , I totally agree - nor would I ever aspire to become a war general. What I CAN do (and am allowed to) is to observe and opine to my heart's content.
    1
  2821. One wonders if this Kandiss Taylor is outright stupid or just horribly misinformed and ignorant.
    1
  2822. This is mind-boggling to me. I happen to live in a country where 99% of our clean, bottle-ready water simply runs into the ocean - it is not needed in our community. If you are traveling and become thirsty, just go to the nearest stream and have a drink, it is guaranteed to be absolutely clean and unpolluted, actually bottle-ready. I just wish the people featured in this clip could make use of our excess water.
    1
  2823. I wonder if her "donors" will stand by their promises once she is NOT re-elected. She certainly gave some influential and rich people good service and screwed her constituents. There is rampant corruption in the 'Murican political system - and now it is becoming obvious that the 'Murican judicial system is proving to be corrupt, with even the SCOTUS proving to be "the best judges money can buy"!
    1
  2824. It is sad to see how subdued and helpless almost every citizen interviewed seems to be - and they are all young people, the generation that will have to suffer the ostracization and isolation awaiting Russians for a long time to come.
    1
  2825. Am I interested in more stories about Europe's economic fortunes as told by an 'Murican? The answer is a resounding NO!
    1
  2826. I have a sneaky feeling that a lot of lawyers will be shafted after serving Trump. He is NOT known for paying his bills, even when dragged through the court system.
    1
  2827. Typical 'Murican: Putin operates by force, the only thing he understands is the use of military force, so we choose to sit by and do nothing. Churchill once described it succinctly, to paraphrase: The Americans will do the right thing when they have exhausted every other option. The problem: It will be too little, too late: The West will have WW3 on it's hands, all due to timid leadership!
    1
  2828. The Brits seem to be reacting prudently, EVEN Boris! The only fault with this clip is the awful sound quality - one would think the BBC would be able to do better...
    1
  2829. It's funny to watch Musk trying to be humble and asking to be re-admitted to the human race, after exposing himself to be a rabid fascist. The last few weeks have made it clear just WHAT Elon Muk IS: A rabid fascist! As Trump's co-president for a few weeks, he has wreaked havoc on countless but necessary US Social Services, making EVERYONE all around the world see what he actually IS! Now no one wants to buy his overpriced EVs and he will probably find that no one wants to use his Starlink service (except for those that do not have a choice). This captive audience will jump on the first alternate satellite internet service to provide an alternate solution, Musk has become that much hated in recent months, after he showed his true colors. Wanna bet which is more hated by sensible people, Trump or Musk?
    1
  2830. If Rand Paul is an "Eye Doctor" I take it he went through Medical School and became a Medical Doctor (an actual Physician) before specializing as an "Eye Doctor". Based on his inane arguments he appears to have forgot everything he learned in Medical School. What a waste!
    1
  2831. One way of describing "lack of expertise" is simply calling it ignorance, even stupidity!
    1
  2832. I cannot help wondering how much Putin and/or Xi are paying Tuberville for sabotaging the US military...
    1
  2833. What is the difference between an ordinary Russian and an 'Murican southern-state Redneck? The language? In truth, both are definitely treated like cultivated mushrooms, they are kept in the dark and fed on bullshite! The know no better. They are not stupid, they have just been misled and lied to for their entire life! Is there hope for proper democracy in Russia and 'Murica? Certainly, we only have to get rid of the liars. How to do just that is really the tricky bit...
    1
  2834. I hope Germany's intelligence services are looking at Scholz's private/hidden finances, if only to ensure that he is not compromised by Putin's Russia, i.e. "on the take".
    1
  2835. They are SOOO innocent!
    1
  2836. The US government is so dysfunctional that they are caught flat-footed by this crisis. Too little being done to prepare for not even a worst-case scenario! The health care system is so profit-oriented that it will fall flat on it's face when (not if!) this virus really starts to spread in the US. The currently crippled establishment's best response is "hope and a prayer". Fat lot of good THAT is going to do.
    1
  2837. 'Muricans, note these facts: Florida is at the same latitude as Central Sahara, central 'Murica is basically at the same latitude as the northern edge of the African continent. The climate excesses beginning to show their ugly face will hit 'Murica HARD!
    1
  2838. Why should anyone, a nation or a private entity EVER enter an agreement with Trump? He is, after all, famous for NEVER honoring ANY agreement or contract!
    1
  2839. Usually, if something sounds too good to be true, it is a lie. Hopefully this is not a lie...
    1
  2840. A debate with Foxlanders would be a total waste of time and energy, time and energy better spent on her own race in her own district.
    1
  2841. 'Murica (and too many other developed nations) are feeling the rumble of the avalanche about to engulf and kill them, but are determined to continue kicking the can down the road. This will not end well.
    1
  2842. I wonder when the US Military-Industrial complex takes the final steps and move the manufacture of the latest fighters, missiles and other major weapons to China - to maximize competitiveness (spelled: Corporate Profits)!
    1
  2843. Trump's reading abilities have vastly improved overt the last 6 years. Note how he is now able to focus on (and actually read from) a teleprompter to his right for many, MANY seconds before flawlessly switching to a teleprompter in front of him or even to one to his left, without hardly slowing down in his reading of fiction. A really TREMENDOUS achievement for someone of Trump's intellect! Compare ant contrast this with his reading abilities only 4-6 years ago: He used to fumble and misread at least one word in every paragraph, and came across as a first-grader. Who knows, with this rate of progress, he even might be able to put together a coherent sentence, all by himself, by 2030!
    1
  2844. It is wonderful to see how clear-eyed the former USSR slave states are about Putin's goals and how they will NOT be taking it lying down. Even the formerly neutral Nordic countries have become clear-eyed about the futility appeasing someone like Putin by staying neutral. Only a united group of nations will be able to stop him. It is a pity that some western leaders like Olaf Scholtz refuse to face the fact that Russia must be stopped NOW, in Ukraine. If not, these same nations will have to face a much stronger Russia in about a decade or so in an all-out WW3. Sadly, WW3 in some form seems inevitable, we had better bite the bullet and deal with Russia NOW, in it's corrupt and weakened state.
    1
  2845. So, the US Military is being Trumpified. The death spiral US institutions currently find themselves in only spins faster and tighter. It will be interesting to see who Esper the Clown will blame when the situation aboard the Aircraft Carrier spins out of control. The standard Trump administration initial reaction to any crisis situation is denial and, when that turns out to be useless nonsense, find someone else to blame, preferably Obama.
    1
  2846. You 'Muricans are SO religious - has it dawned on you that your that your vengeful God just might be seriously pissed at you?
    1
  2847. Need any further proof of 'Murican Corporate Greed? To add insult to injury, it is also proof of the ignorance or outright stupidity of 'Murican voters!
    1
  2848. One issue is striking with ANY media outlet: There are always time limits (the next commercial break?) that virtually guarantees that whenever the interviewers / interviewees are FINALLY reaching an useful and informative conclusion, THE BLOODY TIME IS UP and the viewer is left with little or no useful information.
    1
  2849. Given the White House chronic addiction to lying, what are the chances that ANYTHING coming from them about this situation is true? Slim to none.
    1
  2850. All this bruhaha about future events are drowning out the major CURRENT issues: Turkey has proven itself to be an unreliable and untrustworthy partner of the Western nations - or rather, ERDOGAN is now a "leader" that his allies cannot trust, a mini-dictator that has no future in the European context. That, however, pales in comparison to Hungary's Orban! Is he a Putin puppet or just a blatant extortionist? Either way, his credibility is now in the gutter.
    1
  2851. Boeing appears to have been going the way of pre-bankruptcy McDonnell Douglas: Sacrificing safety for profits! It is now coming back to bite them.
    1
  2852. Makes one wonder why anyone would actually WANT to emigrate to this "Greatest Country in the World".
    1
  2853. Can you imagine if Castro and the USSR had managed to invade and claim Florida at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Would the US have simply folded and given up Florida? Ukraine was doing it's best to become a genuine western-style democratic nation, fighting the endemic Soviet-style corruption left behind 30 years ago, and Putin's Russia could not tolerate that. A non-corrupt democratic state near Russia might give the Russian people ideas, not to mention all the natural Ukrainian resources Putin wants for himself. Putin miscalculated, he has now put Russia in an untenable position and he simply cannot be allowed to succeed! If he gets away with this atrocity, the West will have to face a much better prepared Russian wannabe Empire in a decade or so. Putin's Russia must be dealt a killing blow in Ukraine and then kept isolated and financially/technologically starved until it has established some semblance of democracy.
    1
  2854. US Americans are masochists - they appear to enjoy or at least choose having their arses reamed by by Corporate America instead of having a society where we take care of our less fortunate citizens. Canadian Americans do not have this problem, they already and quietly enjoy most of the rights North-Europeans have taken for granted for over half a century. US America is a seriously sick society, and actually doomed to fail. Putin's puppet (Trump) is only accelerating that process.
    1
  2855. Delaying and/or obstructing the mail is a crime that has caused many people to spend years in jail for. The Mail Service is apparently one of few US institutions that are sacrosanct according to the US constitution, and this clown thinks he can violate that? When Trump and his clowns are out of office and most of their corrupt dealings have finally been properly been investigated there are a LOT of clowns that will see the inside of the for-profit based US penitentiary system.
    1
  2856. Big surprise! NZ has become desirable, and they are having none of it!
    1
  2857. It has long been evident that the US is populated by too many idiots, and too many of them have been put in positions of power, usually by Repugnicans. True, the idiots are a tiny minority, but too many of the are actually in positions of power - which is one of the reasons the US is going down the drain. There have been innumerable examples of corrupt and morally blind individuals being empowered by Trump, and the future survival of the USA as a democracy, as a nation of law and order is in serious doubt. Judge Mary Ellen Brennan really takes the cake, a truly cruel person. She is the embodiment of everything that is wrong and inhumane about the USA, stupidly throwing a 15-year old, a CHILD, into the maw of the criminal-creating machine that in the US is called a "correctional system". The kid needed HELP, not being pulverized by the insanity currently dominating in the madhouse that us called 'Murica.
    1
  2858. I predict that when the Trump lunacy is over, there will be a LOT of ICE agents running for cover. Everyone that took part in these illegal abductions and deportations (from the masked thugs up to their commanders) will be investigated and hunted down for the the crimes they have committed. The "top dogs" will be especially vulnerable, they were the ones to issue orders to their underlings that violated the US constitution and, no doubt, numerous other laws. Then, going up through the chain of command, the Secretary of State will be the one that the buck stops with. There will be hell to pay for these individuals. Thanks to a hitherto thoroughly corrupt SCOTUS, The Toddler (Trump) is the only one that will be immune. Fortunately, the corrupt members of the SCOTUS seem to be waking up to the havoc they have visited on 'Murica.
    1
  2859. There is actually a rather simple solution to this 'potentially psychopath leader' problem: Anyone that wants to run for public office should undergo a plain sanity test. Supporters and antagonists should be able to appoint qualified specialists to evaluate the sanity of any potential office holder, with the results declared to the public. OF COURSE there will be all kinds of dishonest monkeybusiness, but chances are that only those candidates that cannot be smeared effectively will turn out to be fairly sane! Psychopatsh like Trump and Reagan would have received so much flak - for obvious reasons - that they would have washed out very early in their campaign. Just think: To get a license to drive a car or fly an aircraft, you have to pass a medical examination, a minor part of which is a modest psychic evaluation. After all, such licenses can have an impact on the safety of fellow US citizens. In the US, there are NO such requirements if you want to be allowed to amass an arsenal of assault weapons and ammunition - or gain control of the mighty US military and nuclear arsenal by becoming a US president. The US is currently suffering the consequences of allowing a psychopath to become their supreme leader. I wonder if the US will learn from this. Will they set some minimum sanity requirements for candidates running for public office, either on the State of Federal level? My guess is that they WILL NOT! I predict that in 10-20 years the US will travel a similar road Germany was lead by Hitler some 90-100 years ago, and that will be a global disaster.
    1
  2860. Never mind the potential quid pro quo, the important fact is that Trump clearly tried to solicitate aid from a foreign government to help is upcoming elections - a clear violation of the constitution and the law.
    1
  2861. One of the problems the US has is the unchained capitalism and monopolies that evolved after Bloody Reagan, and the political corruption that prevents any bridle being put on the rabid capitalists. The Nordic countries (and most of Europe) heeded the lessons from the US post-WW2: Free enterprise is beneficial, provided you NEVER take the bridle out of the horse's mouth. Capitalism is like firearms - it has to be highly regulated to prevent it from becoming a suicide weapon!
    1
  2862. I wonder how you would come away from a smallish-aircraft, no-auto-throttle, limited (even NO) autopilot-assisted go-around. You would possibly end up stone-cold dead! Try severe crosswind landings in short-field aircraft. We do our part, you do your part and we will definitely proudly walk away with our prides intact. Try to put a 737 or 777 pilot in the cockpit of a Twin Otter in a 30-knot crosswind landing on a 300m runway and you're in for some interesting times. Conversely, put a genuine bush pilot at the controls of a both-pilots-incapacitated 737 or 777: He/she has the required basic knowledge, but will need a LOT of help to get this massive-collection-of-nuts-and-bolts-that-were-never-supposed-to-fly safely on the ground - the operative word being SAFELY, with WHATEVER HELP NEEDED being readily available. The bush pilot is more likely pull it off (with all the help he needs) than his colleague - after all, landing on a too-short runway in a wind that exceeds the "Maximum demonstrated crosswind" capability might simply be an opportunity to revise this "limitation", but to heavy-haul airline pilot, this is usually considered "an approach to suicide".
    1
  2863. It could have been much worse, she could have died. This young couple is facing their future head-on and, most important, together. I have indirectly experienced the horrors of indiscriminate war: Flying for the Red Cross in Angola during their civil war in the early 1990s, I frequently transported mothers with feet severely injured or blown off and the bodies of their infants riddled with shrapnel and debris. Those were "just" anti-personnel mines, tiny devices designed to wound and maim, not to kill. The mine that almost killed this nurse must have been much larger.
    1
  2864. Sadly the 'Murican Media as well as the 'Murican Public has the attention span of a Gnat. The result of a trial in this case will not be clear for at least more than a year. Fortunately there are at least two more investigations into far more serious crimes that are well along, and hopefully both indictments and specially the trials in those cases will be more expedient.
    1
  2865. Parents should be scrambling to take their children out of this school" - but, then again, a parent that enrolls his/her child into a "happiness" school probably has more than a few screws loose to begin with and are bound to believe this nonsense. Can permanent stupidity be cured? Not a chance.
    1
  2866. I keep falling into this rabbit hole of following absurdly corrupt 'Murican politics - and find myself continually disgusted. What is WRONG with you 'Muricans? You were perfectly normal until Ronald Bloody Reagan took you to Bedlam...
    1
  2867. I have often wondered if many of the actions undertaken during WW2 should be classified as war crimes. One, the choice of targets - by both sides - was definitely a war crime by any standard: Bombing the residence of civilians (instead of war-relevant targets like factories, airfields an harbours). Second, the blatant recklessness of leaders - on both sides - in sending their men on what can only be called suicidal missions.
    1
  2868. Republican = Creep.
    1
  2869. I have long wondered about the success rate of Ukraine in hitting military targets with minimum civilian casualties. We have all seen video evidence of Russia directly targeting civilians in Ukraine and, according to available news sources, Ukraine does NOT do the same. A caveat: The first casualty of war is always the truth, and all news sources have to be taken with a shitload of salt. Does anyone have credible information on how successful the Ukrainians are avoiding civilian casualties when attacking military targets?
    1
  2870. It's a pity that Mr. Kyslytsya is speaking to 330M ignorant and deaf 'Muricans. To indirectly quote Churchill: "Never have so many suffered as much at the behest of so few".
    1
  2871. My guess: He ended up working for the 'Muricans and died of old age!
    1
  2872. In any sane and developed country in the world, a greed-induced disaster of this magnitude would have reams of high-level CEO's in custody already - but NOT in 'Murica! Even rotten-to-the-core Turkey is now rounding up building contractors suspected of failing to meet building codes - and then they had an earthquake hit that exposed all the cheating going around. In this case, the rotten-beyond-the-core 'Murican infrastructure will carefully avoid appointing blame here it belongs - at the top! Years from now, all this will be exposed.
    1
  2873. It is an enticing thought, kicking Erdogan-led Turkey out of NATO and Orban-led Hungary out of both NATO and the EU. Having autcratic-leaning "leaders" doing damage from the inside is really dangerous, and cannot be tolerated. Reality is different, though. Erdogan may be a religious nutcase (real or pretend) that is running his country into the ground - just as Orban is perverting every democratic institution in Hungary, thus rendering Hungary totally unfit to remain a member of the EU. Both dictators are ensuring their own long-term demise. While democracy is fragile and slow-working, one cannot imagine the Hungarian and Turkish people tolerating this for long.
    1
  2874. On the face of it, fervently religious people and common sense are totally incompatible, be they Christians, Muslims or Heathens. Jesus apparently tried to mitigate this by pointing out the difference of what is due to God on one hand and the Emperor on the other. Wise man, Jesus Chr. Josephsson, but no one has been listening for over 2000 years... As an agnostic I should not even have an opinion on this, but I have no problem with intelligent, educated and sensible people like Dr. Collins having a religious crutch if they feel they need one, provided they are able to keep their religion separate from secular issues.
    1
  2875. Watching the Orange Wonder respond to straightforward questions is embarrassing. Any elected official is supposed to be a reflection of the voters that elected him/her into office. In the US that does not really apply - any elected official in the US is a reflection of the powers-that-be that decided who is NOMINATED. This is called Tweedism, the "who cares how people vote as long as WE get to decide who is nominated" politics. Trump was nominated by the Repugnican Tweeds, Biden will be nominated by the Democrat Tweeds. True, Biden will be vastly better than Trump, but so would anybody! The bar does not get any lower than Trump.
    1
  2876. The mass shootings in 'Murica are now coming so thick and fast that people cannot help but mixing them up. As usual, all the victim's relatives are likely to get from the gun advocates are "sorry, here are our thoughts and prayers".
    1
  2877. He 'only' killed 2 people, but he grievously wounded and crippled a third. Bail in the US is only a gimmick that wealthy people can use to stay out of jail until their case goes to court. This young man's life is virtually over, once the slowly grinding wheels of the start mocing again. The seriousness of this case will NOT go away. How serious can this case be? Killing 2 people IN ADDITION to being in possession of an illegal firearm (his age, & firearm not registered, idiot not licensed etc.)? Not being licensed to 'Open Carry'? Traveling across State boundaries with illegal weapons? The intricacies of US justice is inscrutable as well as stupid and counter-productive. A multiple murderer would NEVER be let loose in any other country in the world, yet here we go... in the 'proud' US of A. Proud of the country you consider 'the richest and greatest country ever' while your fellow citizens are starving, without jobs and affordable education and health care in a pandemic. There is something seriously warped and twisted in the Repugnican mind.
    1
  2878.  Rob -  YES, because by all accounts they were trying to disarm him, not kill him. If they had managed to disarm him he might have been roughed up a bit, but probably no worse than that. The facts, as they stand: He killed 2 unarmed people and seriously crippled a third. Any which way you spin this he is done for, he will not have a normal life from now on (which is better than the state of his victims, THEY are dead or crippled).
    1
  2879.  Rob -  I bloody well do not have 'zero' evidence about anything, I have NO evidence of anything, only opinions based on video evidence plus bits and pieces of info, all of which is of questionable origins. What remains are facts: He was not harmed, but killed 2 persons and permanently maimed a third. You can argue that they had no 'right' to try to disarm him, but a far more relevant point is the fact that he had no right to be armed to the teeth in the first place! An underage zealot travels from one State to another, carrying a firearm that was probably illegal in his possession in his home State, but was CERTAINLY illegal in his hands in the State where the killings occurred. He then used this illegal firearm to murder two individuals and permanently disable a third, ALL because he was afraid they might take his gun away! It MUST be noted that NONE of his victims were armed, they apparently were simply trying to disarm him - and failed, with deadly consequences. The self-defense argument flies about as well as a lead balloon. A comparison, just a mental exercise: Suppose a 15-year old nigger-hater 'borrowed' his parent's 3-ton truck, drove to another State and sought out a colored neighborhood where he found a community BBQ event and, feeling threatened by all these colored people (lots of niggas) plowed into a large group of them in 'self-defense', killing and maiming a number of children, women and men. Underage, unlicensed, the killer of numerous innocent people. You would probably be the first to defend that young mass-murderer (my opinion, based on your previous comment). People like you make me sick, you are the only ones to have sympathy for a murderous little shit like Rittenhouse, which in turn is destined to spend the rest of his life in prison for double homicide.
    1
  2880. The only sure way this will stop this is for Putin to die. Seeing that Putin is relatively young, as autocrats go, that hope is moot. Putin will continue to try to divide NATO nations and while his tool Trump failed, Putin's plan is only delayed. He will keep trying. Another for this to end would be for Putin to overplay his hand and have the whole thing collapse around his ears. The Western nations have a decision to make: Allow Putin to continue to implement his decades-long plan or stop him in his tracks NOW! The current wishy-washy reaction is playing right into Pun's hands. What the West should do is to bankrupt the Russian Oligarchs a.s.a.p. and finish this once and for all.
    1
  2881. What a stupid question! Will France Fall? To turn it around, will 'Murica fall, having elected moron Trump as president? Almost certainly, 'Murica will never be the same! Please bear in mind that France has gone through many dramatic periods, like chopping off the heads of obviously superfluous individuals like the entire aristocracy only a bit over 2 centuries ago - and doing it on an industrial scale! Something the 'Murican public should consider inflicting on it's billionaire "masters". France is only going through a minor political upheaval now, and while there are fascist movements lurking in the shadows, the French public is unlikely to have any of it! 'Murica is another story entirely! It is on the verge of entering a Hitler-like fascist convulsion, and it is quite likely that another US civil war is about to cook off.
    1
  2882. What a disgusting, two-faced individual this governor is! What happened to the "Less Government" rhetoric policy the Repugnican Party has been advocating? Now the government is looking forward to totally controlling women's wombs. The irony of the "pro-lifers": They do not give a flying fig about children once they are out of the womb. Once a child is born, the Repugnicans will not lift a finger (or spend one cent) on the child's survival, health or education. How shamefully two-tongued can you get?
    1
  2883. The basic purpose of NATO was to be a defense alliance: Attack one NATO member and you will have to deal with all NATO member states! Now the US has repeatedly dragged NATO into OFFENSIVE military actions far away from the North-Atlantic area that the treaty was initially all about, and you are wondering why the current allies of the US (soon to be former allies, I presume) are upset because of Trump's shenanigans with Iran? They are NOT willing to be lied into yet another military conflict, the only purpose of which is to enable US corporations to steal yet more oil resources from a victim nation in the middle east. Enough is enough! The US will have to go this one alone.
    1
  2884. Apparently Chris Cuomo's "Lets get after it" approach is making him try to piss into the face of a strong gale! The only one getting wet with his own pee will be Chris Cuomo. Why should Obama even consider allowing Orange Toddler Trump a chance of some ridiculous grandstanding in the White House? The only way to handle Trump is to simply ignore him. Trump is not worth a minute of your day, and ignoring the Orange Idiot is only a show of respect to the office of the President of the US, a post Trump has been demeaning since the day he was sworn in. I wonder if Chris Cuomo is actually a Closet Repugnican or if he is simply trying too hard to play the Devil's Advocate?
    1
  2885. Nigel Farage is certainly a slick talker, and I used to greatly enjoy his bashing EU bureaucracy a decade a go, and he may well have contributed to some sanity coming to said bureaucracy. Only time will tell. Since then, I have come to realize that he is one of the most dangerous people in Europe - his contribution to e.g. Brexit and to fascism in general are an ominous indication.
    1
  2886. "Secular Talker", have you ever been to Northern Europe or one of the Nordic countries, where Social Democracy has been hobbling along quite successfully since WW2? Sure, it will never be perfect, but it is a damn sight better than what you have in the US - that is, for the general public - while allowing Capitalism to do it's thing, within reason.
    1
  2887. "It wasn't us who started it" will go down in history as the epitaph for Russians that believed in Putin's lies. The concept of an "admirable Russian culture and language" is turning out to be a lie to outdo all other lies... The Russian nation and culture is in for a world of hurt, globally, for at least a generation or two.
    1
  2888. I hate to do this to you Thom, but Velcro was NOT one of the inventions made in the US during the US affordable-education heydays. Velcro was invented by a Swiss electrical engineer during WW2, but not patented until 1955. No worries, there were plenty of other brilliant inventions made as a result of the widely available and affordable education in the US before Ronnie Bloody Reagan came along. The way things are going, the US will be an educational wasteland in another generation or so.
    1
  2889. Why is the title "Inside The Cockpit?" used for this clip - just about the only thing NOT shown here is the actual Cockpit itself!
    1
  2890. The European NATO members ARE increasing their contribution, and the agreement was to reach 2% by 2024. Trump's raving has been successful in one sense: Even anti-Trumpists like TYT forget that fact, even they are demanding Europe to step up NOW. Making an agreement with the US seems pointless. Are ALL Americans blind or ignorant idiots?
    1
  2891. By "my Congressman", do you mean you voted for him? Or do you mean that you are stuck with Louie Gohmert as your representative, whether you want him to be or not? My guess is the latter... His exclamation "...do you think we have no heart?" begs for an answer, which is: Yes, we think you (Repugnicans) have no heart, no conscience and no moral compass!
    1
  2892. What does being "Woke" mean? English is my third language I trying to figure this out - can someone explain this concept for me?
    1
  2893. The concept of "frivolous appeal" really makes sense when Trump enters the picture. He lost a case to the tune of $5M. He promptly appealed - and lost AGAIN, now to the tune of $83M! Trump recently lost a civil fraud case to the tune of $350M. To appeal, he needs to cough up a bond that far exceeds his ability to cheat and/or lie his way into money. Will his owners (Putin and any number of 'Murican billionaires) be willing to foot the bill?
    1
  2894. What is really striking, for a non-'Murican, is how the term "veteran" only applies to 'Murica! 'Murica is the only nation that has been, incessantly, waging war against diverse nations in recent decades - well, until Putin's Russia took it to a new level 11 years ago by invading Crimea. Curiously, former European soldiers that took part in 'Merican-instigated warfare abroad (Iraq, Afghanistan) are never called "veterans" in their home countries. The are simply called experienced soldiers. The only time article 5 of the NATO agreement was invoked was when 'Murica was attacked by terrorists, and the response was to invade and occupy countries that had nothing or very little to do with the terrorist attacks. A number of NATO nations fulfilled their obligations, something that the worthless, cheating and lying US is now opting out of!
    1
  2895. I agree with everything this channel advocates, but - can you tone down a bit on the yelling? David is is obviously passionate about the issues, but I feel the shouting and yelling is counterproductive. He should follow AOC's example - she is eloquent, logical and consistent nut she NEVER raises her voice to any degree.
    1
  2896. To an outsider like me, it seems that large swathes of 'Murican society is hell-bent on going back in time by denying the clear and present advantages that modern medicine has to offer. The anti-mask & anti-vaccine mania during the worst of the Covid pandemic is one example, the anti-abortion & anti-contraceptive mania now sweeping 'Murica is another. Denying sizeable chunks of the 'Murican population affordable health care is a third. To the rest of the world, 'Murica is beginning to look like a bunch of religious zealots that want to suppress half of their population (females) - and deny all progress in medical science. In Afghanistan and some other places they are called Talibans. What we need now is a similar label we can use to describe the 'Murican wanna-be Talibans.
    1
  2897. Under Trump, the US is going the way of Hitler's Germany during the rise of the Nazis. One force that Hitler did not have to contend with was what amounts to Corporate America today. Will that be a mitigating force or will it make things worse? Two awful, bad forces do NOT make one good force. Basically, the US as we know it is doomed unless everyone of voting age gets off his/her lazy arses and VOTE in 2020. At least the future of the US will be decided by a hopefully true majority! Or will it, given the flawed democracy you have?
    1
  2898. The man is a liar, and a bad one at that.
    1
  2899. Interesting angle:The private greed-based and expensive US health care system must be maintained so as not to eliminate all the middleman jobs - at least until those jobs can be moved off-shore...
    1
  2900. The most inane response was the "If everybody has something for free, who's gonna pay for it?" The short answer is EVERYBODY is going to pay for it EVEN THE RICH! It is amazing how brainwashed too many 'Muricans are. The middle-aged blonde bimbo is a typical US stereotype: "I don't believe our government should be responsible, individuals need to be responsible, they need to have a job that provides for those benefits". Fat lot of good THAT is going to do during Trump's Covid debacle. Unemployment (with the associated loss of heath insurance) is already greater than during the 1929 depression, and that is saying a lot. Worse, the disaster is just beginning. You ain't seen nothing yet! Actually, how various nations are doing regarding Covid all over the world is in many ways a reflection of their health care system, and the US is a total, unmitigated DISASTER!
    1
  2901. What an useless interview (sorry, shouting match) - Lewandowski is never going to relent, and neither is Cuomo. It only goes to show how entrenched everyone is. One can only hope that the US Constitution and system of governance will not be irreparably damaged by the Trump era.
    1
  2902. Question: Can a Fox "News" commentator tell a lie? Answer: Yes. Question: Is a Fox "News" commentator LIKELY to tell a lie? Ansewer: Hell, YES!!!!
    1
  2903. In normal times, the Ukrainian Eurovision entry would have been just another number, competing with all the others. In the current situation, Ukraine coming out on top was a no-brainer: This European song contest is supposed to be absolutely politics-free, but that illusion went down in flames this year! Can there be any stronger evidence that the populations of EVERY European country is in support of Ukraine in their time of need? Regardless of the final outcome of the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia as a nation will be an outcast for years to come.
    1
  2904. Reviewing this clip, I am astounded by the apparently general assumption that any individual's health is his own business during a pandemic or even only a wee epidemic! During these situations, MY health is YOUR concern, i.e. I can make YOU sick - and vice versa, YOUR health is MY concern, YOU can make ME sick. We are all in this together, but for some reason that seems to be UN-AMERICAN. I am ME and YOU can go f*#k yourself. Very mature, very US-American... You hardly ever see Canadian Americans think along those lines but, then again, they are all SOCIALISTS, poor souls.
    1
  2905. The moment the billionaire/corporate tax cut had been passed, the time came for Rand Poul to become "fiscally responsible".
    1
  2906. One cannot help 'living the diwn-inder iccint'
    1
  2907. This is a problem in almost every country on the Globe: There is a hike in oil prices (for whatever reason at any given time) and the local oil distribution companies start complaining they are low on local reserves and have to import a lot of oil at the increased price - and when the price falls again they are are - surprise, surprise - in possession of SO much reserves purchased at the higher prices that they are "forced" to keep distributing oil products at these higher prices, at least for a while. How much of all this is an outright lie is anyone's guess, but in countries where the authorities do not keep a close watch on shenanigans of the oil distributors (and tightly regulate them), these companies can play their scam at will.
    1
  2908.  @attilamarics4808 , if it makes sense to you or not is irrelevant - this still applies to countries that have to import ALL their oil products. Most such countries have privately owned companies that import, stockpile and distribute these products, even the "socialist hellholes" in Europe Trump was so obsessed with. Not many countries can produce most or all of their consumer fuel.
    1
  2909. What a load of excrement! My family was infected by a non-symptomatic relative that dropped in for half an hour in 2020, that was all it took. This tiny study seems like manna from heaven for the idiots that choose to ignore the vast majority of our best scientists. I will never understand the warped minds of people who feel that preventive measures like temporarily using masks and social distancing is worse than being incarcerated in a concentration camp.
    1
  2910. Being ignorant in military matters (but not technical stuff) my understanding is that the tricky part about the British cruise missiles, seeing that they are air-launched, would be to adapt them to being launched from Russian-built aircraft. Providing/updating targeting information to the missiles, not to mention the hard point attachment must have been a challenge, but the Ukrainians have proved a long time ago that they are wizards at such challenges - especially in wartime when bureaucratic issues can simply be ignored. If it works, go for it! Just consider the use they have made of everyday, ordinary commercial quad-copter drones! I would be VERY surprised if some Ukrainian pilots have not already been training on various western fighters (F16, Euro-Fighter, Rafael etc.) for the inevitable eventuality that these aircraft will be made available to Ukraine.
    1
  2911.  @specialK319319 , you are not the only one to be biased. I think almost the entire West is rooting for Ukraine!
    1
  2912. What is Joe Rogan, a self-centered git? In this clip he exposes himself as an egomaniac that thinks this is all about getting through the pandemic with his own miserable life intact and screw everyone else, including mom, dad, grandma and granddad, not to mention all the old aunts and uncles. A perfectly healthy, young person might have a low risk of becoming sick and dying from Covid, but any responsible and normal young person will also be concerned with NOT risking infecting older relatives, even if he/she themselves might be asymptomatic. Joe Rogan is possibly a descendant of a short-lived family, with parents and grandparents already stone-cold-dead so he does not have to give a flying fuck about the health of old relatives, but what does this say about his own priorities? Is this a person worth knowing or even listening to?
    1
  2913. Why does Russia deserve a permanent seat at the UN Security Council? Russia's pre-Ukrainian war economy is smaller than that of Texas and less than half of California's GDP. Current Russian GDP is in free-fall and post-war GDP is likely to become dismal. All they have to justify any semblance of "greatness" is a huge nuclear weapon stockpile, the ultimate dick-extension. They are NOT the Soviet Union, whatever Putin aspires to become, and should be kicked off the UN Security Council to take their rightful place among other third-rate countries, about to be designated a Terrorist State.
    1
  2914. Sadly, the United States of 'Murica is founded on lies, genocide and broken promises. The natives never stood a chance against the cheaters, liars and exploiters that are the core of 'Murican society - a feature that will always be a hallmark of 'Murica! Bottom line: The United States of America have NEVER honored their promises! Why should their current allies trust the words of a nation that has not honored it's promises since cheating Reagan came into power? True, Russia is worse, but what kind of ally is Toddler Trump's 'Murica likely to be?
    1
  2915. The key to success in US politics seems to be: Whoever is slickest when lying and misleading their potential follower, wins. Face it: What profession bases their living on lying to, misleading, cheating on and betraying their customers? POLITICIANS!
    1
  2916. It will be interesting to see, in 5 years or so when the history is dissected, how effective the fancy new weaponry will be and how much "too late" their delivery will be. Tank crew training is one thing, training and establishing an entire supply chain seems to be another, entirely. One thing the Ukrainians have going for them: The intense desire to defend their country and the resourcefulness and ingenuity in utilizing what little they have is, well, breathtaking! What we in the west should do is to provide everything they ask for and hope for the best. One thing is clear: If Ukraine does not manage to win this fight for us in he immediate future, Europe and NATO will have to deal with Russia (Putin or one of his lookalikes) on a much broader front in WW3 within a decade.
    1
  2917. Who is to say that the US hasn't been quietly fascist for decades?
    1
  2918.  Kyrat , and neither is the US! The US has been a pretend democracy for decades, at best worthy of being called 'a flawed democracy', but the mask fell off while Trump was at the helm. The US just barely escaped becoming openly fascist and it remains to be seen how long it manages to to avoid that fate.
    1
  2919. This is insane, and proof that most US politicians are bought and paid for! Almost all the election pundits focus on how much money Trump and his challengers are able to raise and how voters can be fooled into believing this or that, but absolutely NO discussions about the various issues or any proposed plans that might start to dig the US out of the deep hole it finds itself in.
    1
  2920. The SCOTUS is fast becoming irrelevant. Any entity that flies directly in the face of public opinion will eventually be abolished. It might take a few years, but just wait. The stench raised by the anti-abortion issue will be the downfall of SCOTUS. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING will enable their survival. Sexual molester Kavanaugh will be exposed as a sexual molester when all is said and done. He will soon rue the day he dared to accept the SCOTUS appointment.
    1
  2921. What I find rather horrifying is the fact that this deranged person made it to the rank of a General in the US military. Also, his brother has a similar rank and HE is still active (it remains to be seen what influence the brother had on the stance of the military during the insurrection). What does this say about the general mental stability of the US military top brass?
    1
  2922. Jonathan Walkrow's statements only confirms why the Secret Service is now a thoroughly discredited institution. In fact, if he is a sample of a pre-Trump-era SS agent, can you imagine how corrupt many Trump-era SS agents are likely to have become? The SS has been caught with it's pants down by corruptly destroying critical evidence in plain sight, potential evidence of their own wrongdoing or, at least, their own culpability in violating the Constitution of the US. President Biden should actually worry about his own safety, seeing that he is now guarded by an obviously unreliable and corrupt institution like the SS.
    1
  2923. The measure of how sick a society the US has become is when ill-informed and irrational people are issuing death threats to their fellow citizens based on absolute nonsense. The virus-free wife of an infected man currently in quarantine deserves to die? Get real! The fact is that this virus will eventually infect every human being on the planet, the current hoopla is mainly to slow the initial surge down to avoid it overwhelming current health care capabilities. The vast, vast majority of people will have minor or no symptoms and become immune to the current strain of the virus. The South Korean fatality rate is "only" 0.6% at the moment and they have the most reliable statistics to date - but they also have a functioning CDC and health care system, which is not true for the US of A.
    1
  2924.  @unholycrusader69 , Yep - I live in Iceland where the use of "son" and "dóttir" is pervasive. It is not uncommon in the Faeroese Islands and one or more centuries ago it was quite common in Sweden as well.
    1
  2925. Venezuela, Hannity's "socialistic Hell" would probably be doing fine if not for US meddling. US corporations wanted the oil resources and the "socialist leader" said NO - so Venezuela was crushed with US sanctions and covert US interference. They (the US) are experts at regime changes...
    1
  2926. I have no idea what to call this suicidal self-destruction 'Murica has embarked upon. Ari, in his lawyer mode, wastes a lot of hot air, arguing this or that, without reaching any conclusion! Bottom line: 'Murica is falling apart, disintegrating, dying! You will be unable to prevent it from happening - much like the Roman Empire fell apart many, many centuries ago.
    1
  2927. I watched this clip to the very end, and CNN's "Hear what pilots said about mysterious object shot down near Alaska" title turned out to be just another click-bait, an outright lie! Clips like this do CNN's tattered reputation no favors. All this ends up being is lame speculation from beginning to end. No one really knows anything, so everyone speculates ad nauseum. Those that might know something are not talking, so we just have to wait...
    1
  2928. Trump is forcing, whipping and shaming governors into prematurely opening up their states while carefully managing not to tell them how to do it - all with the simple purpose of being able to blame the individual governors when the shit REALLY hits the fan and the epidemic explodes in these states. I feel shame for actually enjoying a little bit of Schadenfreude for this state of affairs but as a non-American I have been watching, with morbid fascination, the slow-motion train-wreck that is the Trump response to the pandemic. You ´Muricans are in for a hell of a ride...
    1
  2929. NOT being "of sound mind" and simultaneously being "an evil genius" seems incompatible. The world will, however, be a better place once Moscow Mitch leaves the political arena.
    1
  2930. Watching this now (end of October 2019) is sickening. We now know that Epstein was terminated, possibly by his own hand but much more likely by some of the powerful people threatened by this scandal. The "coincidences" (spelled: massive security failures) in the prison where Epstein died are more than telling - and no one has been held accountable so far!
    1
  2931. It is amazing how the discourse is mostly about how blatant corruption actually operates. The fact that Trump & Co. obviously have something very serious to hide seems to be a minor sideshow. Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the US as we have known it for the past 2 centuries?
    1
  2932. Little Marco Rubio lies ALL the time! Then again, you cannot sling shit around unless you are swimming in it yourself...
    1
  2933. If MAGA 'Murica does not need anything Canada has, why go through the trouble of alienating it's closest ally - not to mention ALL the allies on the other side of the Atlantic! Trump is a moron, a disaster! It will take the US decades, even generations to make up for this madness. Talk about allowing the lowest denominator to rule the day...
    1
  2934. The simple fact that the US elected Trump at all is an indication of the current decline of the US. Trump is a symptom of a serious problem, not the cause. The biggest worry: The US military might and it's propensity to USE it is terrifying to the rest of the world. This might seem far-fetched, but there is a real risk that the US might, in not too many years, find itself at war with not only it's typical adversaries but most or all it's former allies as well. The US that we used to know is disintegrating before our very eyes, and Trump is only serving as an accelerant. The current worry about irreversible climate change in 12 years might be moot; Things might get a lot worse in only 1.5 years!
    1
  2935. Kinda funny, "it's not about dominating, it's about winning the hearts and minds of (fill in the blanks). Let's not confuse kindness with weakness bla, bla, bla". Pretty talk will get you nowhere, given the proven brutality of an everyday White Cop. With tens of millions of citizens out of a job, without any hope and A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HANDS, the shit is about to REALLY hit the fan. This is Guillotine-time, 1790 France-style uprising where heads will fly, literally! Failing that, 2nd amendment US citizens can be relied on to go for their guns and ammo, and we have a brand-new MAD-MAX era brewing, Good luck with that!
    1
  2936. A good guy with a gun that stops a bad guy with a gun will be killed by the cops - if he is black!
    1
  2937. This inane discussion is like a scene in an out-of-control car heading for a stone wall at 100mph. The driver manages to influence the path of the car, avoiding the wall, the driver saying to the passengers, "Whew, close save, ain't I a good driver", completely ignoring the fact that the car is now careening toward the edge of a 500' canyon, still doing 90mph. The talking heads are simply discussing the options; will the US population by killed by THIS or incinerated by THAT. Not a sensible option in sight.
    1
  2938. I agree with the last bit - I was only a non-'Murican pre-teen when JFK was elected president, but I remember the euphoria and optimism throughout the West at the time. I feel just the same optimism today, with Kamala Harris running to become the POTUS.
    1
  2939. What a wonderfully uncomplicated monetary system this was. When the venerated British author Terry Pratchett once described this system in excruciating detail, he finished by explaining that the Brits fiercely resisted adopting the new current decimal money: "It's too complicated!". Conservative blokes, the Brits,
    1
  2940. Sadly, it looks like the 'Murican Experiment into Democracy is about to die by some rather ridiculous "point of law" arguments. It has been said that "the law" has NOTHING to do with justice, and that is proving to be absolutely true. In he end, "the law" will be the downfall of the US of A - all thanks to dishonest and greedy lawyers.
    1
  2941. Trump's lawyer stated: "...a sitting president authorized a raid on a former president". I was under the impression that it was a Magistrate Judge that authorized a search warrant to be executed by the FBI, and that the sitting president had nothing to do with it. Trump's lawyers are probably echoing Trump's belief that Biden was personally behind this because that is exactly what Trump would have done himself.
    1
  2942. The CUSA (Corrupt United States of America) are becoming not only a laughing stock among it's former allies but also a grave concern to EVERYONE on the globe. A runaway and disintegrating superpower is bound to negatively affect all nations.
    1
  2943. The really important question is: Can the 'Murican public be bothered to turn out to not only vote, but to fight and defeat the blatant voting suppression and gerrymandering imposed by the thoroughly corrupt Repugnican party? If the US turns fascist in November 2022 and follows the path of Nazi Germany almost one century ago, it will be entirely due to US voter apathy, fat, lazy and ignorant 'Muricans that worried more about today's gas prices than the demise of their revered Republic. The problem: The 'Murican grandparents that fought WW2 are dead or senile and their descendants ignorant of WHY their grandparents fought in WW2. We, the western world, are entering WW3 in denial, just like most nations thought Hitler could be appeased. The tricky part: while Putin seems to be the tip of the fascist spear today, the real danger lies in the upcoming 'Murican fascist führer, be it Florida's DeSantis, Texas's Abbot or someone even worse, currently flying under the radar.
    1
  2944. Aha - how exciting! Another mass shooting in the US! Plenty of action for the media - RATINGS GALORE!
    1
  2945. The 'Murican executive branch just exposed itself as copying 1930s mobster behaviour. With that, any respect the US had remaining went down the drain. 'Murica will henceforth be considered corrupt, useless as an ally, and every 'Murican individual encountered anywhere will be despised, be it an ordinary tourist or the Ambassador to a nation. Despicable is the key word.
    1
  2946. If anything good comes out of the mess of the last 3 years it is this: If a politician - ANY politician - says "there's nothing there, believe me!" when anything potentially embarrassing comes up, people now know better that to believe a wort of what that politician is saying. Politicians are the only class of people that make a living by lying to and betraying their constituents.
    1
  2947. At the moment of impact, the altitude of the CRJ was on glide-path (about 400 feet) on short final for R33. The helicopter was supposed to be AT OR BELOW 200 feet! In this case, ATC is just a bystander, with no influence on the sequence of events. This altitude separation, a mere 200 feet, is beyond anything I ever encountered in my airline pilot career, but this particular airspace is quite unique - AND pilots need special certification to fly into this special airspace! T's crossed, i's dotted. Make no mistake: No pilot deviates willingly from strict procedures like the ones that applied here! There is always a reason for a deviation, justifiable or not. The helicopter CVR will hopefully reveal just why the helicopter crew deviated from the strict altitude limitation the procedure called for. for the sake of their legacy, I hope it was not just carelessness. An actual, perceived or imminent engine problem would have been a serious distraction, and the instinctive pilot reaction is to go for altitude, any pilot's friend in times of trouble...
    1
  2948. Apparently, the only genuine qualification to be a Conservative (Repugnican) is to be at least a sociopath (slight, but still some traces of empathy and a conscience) or a full-blown psychopath (absolutely no conscience or empathy to be found).
    1
  2949. Peter Doozy IS a stupid SOB. Biden only stated a fact, the simple truth! Of course the POTUS should show more restraint, but every man has a limit. At least Biden has shown far more restraint that Trump did.
    1
  2950. The Brits are brilliant designing cars as can be seen by the Land Rover and the Mini. We had a lot of Land Rovers in Iceland in my youth, and it failed in only one area: The incredibly harsh suspension! It was jokingly called what can literally be translated as "the abortion machine". This NOT a road car! What you failed to do was to take into it's element: Off-road and rough terrain, crawling along in low drive...
    1
  2951. @Anonymous Bosch, go figure. Furthermore, the US could easily do both if there was even a shred of will to do so.
    1
  2952. 'Murican right-wing society is inching ever close to Hitler's Brownshirts and late Gestapo and SS. Perhaps the rest of the world should start reacting on a personal level: When anyone is about to serve or help an 'Murican outside they should ask 1) Are you a Republican? Regardless of the answer, the next question should be 2) Are you a Policeman in the US? If the answer to either question is yes, the non-'Murican should wash their hands of that particular ´Murican individual, because if they replied yes to #1, they are mentally unfit to be anywhere outside 'Murica, and if the replied yes #2 they are complicit in innumerable murders and miscarriage of justice EVEN if they happen to be the best of "good cops". The concept "Good Cop" simply does not apply in 'Murica, because if there were any Good Cops at all in 'Murica they would have stopped this nonsense decades ago! From that we can determine that all cops in 'Murica are, in fact, bad cops.
    1
  2953. Implementing the Green New Deal may well be Genocide - where the rich will be the victims! NOT to implement the Green New Deal will be Genocide where everybody will be the victims, especially our children and grandchildren.
    1
  2954. Are 'Muricans bad drivers? One metric would be: Can they drive normal cars? The answer is simple: NO! As to the high gas prices in Europe: Just check out the quality of European vs. 'Murican roads! The high gas prices pay for the road maintenance.
    1
  2955. True or not, this makes some sense, at least regarding motive. If true and if this was actually done using a small yacht, there was probably a lot of improvisation and ingenuity involved.
    1
  2956. Bon Lemon, you US voters actually voted the Orange Idiot to be your Dear Beloved Leader. Now, enjoy! You might want to deliberate and actually THINK the next time around. Trump appears to be able to take the US from being a world leader to being a laughing stock. The pandemic is harshly driving home the fact that greed is not a sustainable policy. Greed has been the guiding light of the US administration response, and the general US population is now suffering the consequences. While Italy and Spain have been caught flat-footed, their problems pale in comparison to the calamity the US is walking into, entirely due to Trump's actions and inactions. Trump is truly a master when it comes to screwing things up, ROYALLY!
    1
  2957. Have you noticed how Trump frequently refers to himself in the plural like the old monarchs used to? WE this, WE that!
    1
  2958. For the sake of the US nation I really hope for an AOC moment in 2020. Biden is simply the money-rules-all no-essential-change solution. The only hope for the US is that voters come out in droves to reject Biden in favor of a more liberal candidate and then trash the Republicans in the general election.
    1
  2959. What is the point of wasting an entire episode talking about a screeching nutcase like Alex Jones?
    1
  2960. 'Muricans are not inherently stupid, but they are kept woefully ignorant - which makes controlling the SO much easier!
    1
  2961. It is amazing how quickly the comments devolve into bickering about non-related issues - but maybe that is intentional, to lead everyone away from the core issue. Typical Trump copycats - distract, distract, talk about anything else...
    1
  2962. The heartbreaking points are the fact that a) A speech like this is needed at all and b) Nothing will come of it anyway! The Repugnican party is a power-obsessed death cult, plain and simple!
    1
  2963. Is this Hawley's rabid-right-wing mentor? Whatever you do, do NOT believe a word coming from him! Just remember that what all right-wingers have in common is the ability to be honest and tell the truth. Being sociopaths or more likely outright psychopaths is the common demoninator for all Repugnicans. Once again, CNN is surreptitiously advancing and airing untrue right-wing talking points.
    1
  2964. I cannot help wondering, during all these "Madhouse 'Murica" ravings, if Canada's generous offer (instead of becoming the #51 impoverished US State) of allowing, say, Washington State, Oregon and even California to become the newest Canadian provinces might win the day! After all, Canada has been running a functional Universal Health Care System for decades, something 'Muricans are too incompetent to manage! Then there is the gun control situation: Canadians can own the guns they want, but they are WELL REGULATED! Something that completely escapes the idiots running the country just south of Canada's southern border...
    1
  2965. Yep, the Coronavirus will be subdued, be it in 1 or 2 years, hopefully with not too many lives lost. Extreme ideologues (religious, political, stupid or otherwise) will be with mankind as long as mankind exists.
    1
  2966. I find it striking that the voices supporting and defending Trump's misdeeds, by any means possible, ALL have a pronounced southern drawl! The Confederates may have lost the civil war over 150 years ago, but they are still resisting...
    1
  2967. I was about to turn 40 when I watched the USSR collapse and now, about to turn 75, I am watching the USA beginning to collapse. Personally, I think the 'Murican people, in toto, are a bunch of ill-informed, blithering idiots that fully deserve the calamity they elected! 'Murica is about to alienate itself from most of it's former allies and align itself with autocratic nations like Russia, China and Hungary. It will be interesting to watch the lengths Trump is willing to go to, licking Putin's arse...
    1
  2968. A "violent" protest? Throwing snowballs and possibly chunks of ice at riot police? At least is is a beginning...
    1
  2969. The portrayal of Neanderthals in this clip is weird - they are all wrinkled and weary, individuals apparently at the end of their life. 40-45, the expected lifespan at the time was OLD, and wrinkly etc. The reproductive age for any stone-age individual will have been far younger, in the bloom of their youth (early teens by our standards?), and looking vastly different from what is being portrayed here.
    1
  2970. This will be an interesting experiment: Running on principles that are to the benefit of the general US population. It must, however, be disheartening to have a constituency that has to be spoon-fed information, i.e. have the mental acuity of a toddler (spelled: a republican district).
    1
  2971. This is the polar opposite of "Fast TV" as TV in the US usually is. It is an entirely new perspective of life as it really is.
    1
  2972. Taking a child away from it's parent is kidnapping, plain and simple. To subsequently lose track of the child and be unable to ultimately reunite the child with it's parent is grossly criminal negligence and the people responsible MUST be severely punished, if only to deter others from committing such crimes in the future. The "I was just following orders/the law" did not work for Nazi war criminals and should NOT work for these creepy people either.
    1
  2973. Trump netted his "donors" billions of $ in tax cuts recently. What is the problem? Are the not happy? Do they want more? The problem: Trump needs A LOT more money, his donors are greedier than ever BUT - US citizens are dying in droves without a credible war going on and... Trump NEEDS someone to invade the US to "unite" the country, but there are no takers. Putin's adored Russia is obviously off-limits, Trump hasn't completely managed to dismantle NATO yet so he is in dire straits. What to do, seeing that the South American Caravans have been used up? Personally I an REALLY worried, after all, the Orange Idiot is still the US CIC, he has the nuclear codes and is currently desperate for something, ANYTHING to save his fat arse. This will not end well...
    1
  2974. What a blind, stupid, ignorant idiot. He is well-spoken and so is almost certainly well educated, but if he is the product of the current US education system the US is in really, REALLY deep shit going forward. Trying to have a discussion with this blockhead is like having an argument with a wall...
    1
  2975. There seem to be 2 types of Russians: Those that simply believe that Russia has already won and those that know that Russia has NOT already won and are wondering why. Frankly, stupidity and ignorance is NOT limited to ignorant and stupid 'Muricans, it also applies to misled and stupid Russians. Those Putin-believing Russians are eerily similar to every Trump-believing 'Muricans these days: It is a race to see which is more stupid! Personally, I believe both are beyond idiocy.
    1
  2976.  Dirk Knight , Aha - that explains it!
    1
  2977. Not that I intend to excuse Creep Gaetz in any way, but arguing that 'one of the girls turned 18 only six months before this happened' is a dud. Please do better than this.
    1
  2978. I live in a country where every citizen is automatically registered as a voter the day he or she reaches the voting age. You are automatically able to vote in the constituency of your domicile after that. If you change your domicile you are automatically moved as a voter to your new constituency. ALL elections are done on public holidays, no need to take time off from your work. If the nature of your job requires you to work on a voting day (airline pilot, hospital nurse etc.), or you plan to be away on holiday on voting day, there are still provisions to enable you to vote. Voting is an automatic civic RIGHT, no extra hassle, no hoops to jump through. And yes - you have to be able to prove your identity, using e.g. you passport or driver license. No big deal. As a result, voter fraud is all but impossible.
    1
  2979. This approach is far better than going straight to the police with the evidence (that can be done later if they do not relent): This just might shame these Rednecks to start thinking! The next good step would be to chat with them while they are fixing the porch and repairing the netting, even offer them a beer when the job is done - they just might realize that you are not a "raving communist" and, further, that being a rabid right-winger is not something they NEED to be! Bridging the divide is always better than fighting.
    1
  2980. The evidence against Trump & Co keeps piling up, and that is WITHOUT all the first-hand testimony Trump has been able to suppress so far. If the US public lets Trump and his handlers get away with this, the US of A is done for as a nation of law and order.
    1
  2981. What an eloquent and intelligent young girl! Remember her name, Naiara Tamminga - I predict this is not the last we will hear from her. She needs, say, another 7-10 years to be properly educated and by then she will have the potential to do ANYTHING she aspires to - even something as self-destructive (for her) as going into politics, which would otherwise be very good for ordinary 'Muricans. Thumbs up, young girl!
    1
  2982. The main reason English is so widespread is the fact that gender is a non-issue. A really HUGE issue knocked off the table. If you are an Icelander learning German, the fact that a floor is a HE in German while is is neutral (an IT) in Icelandic, another Germanic language, proves he case. What makes English easy it that a man in a "he", a woman or a ship is "she", EVERYTHING else is just an "it".
    1
  2983. If these turn out to be technologically advanced extraterrestrials, will we have any choice? The Native Americans certainly did not and, worst case, we might be about to have a dose of our own medicine...
    1
  2984. It always amazes me how US Americans have been brainwashed into having a twisted idea about what the word "socialism" means. The concept has been abused to the extent that it is really meaningless. The most successful western countries (I'm talking about the general populations, not the ruling classes of those countries) use a mix of capitalism, socialism and genuine democracy to provide societies where the citizens are content, have a good work/life balance and access to affordable education, health care and social safety nets for the less fortunate of their population. Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are prime examples, but the ignorant US Americans always shrug that off with the "we're too big and diverse" argument. That is apparently correct: The US is too big, diverse and ignorant to succeed at anything other than invading other countries to steal their resources, either by brute force (war), sneakily (CIA subversive actions) or by financial bullying. No wonder the US has gone from being a role model to being generally disliked and now fast becoming hated by allies and adversaries alike, all in the short span of 40 years.
    1
  2985. Seeing that Biden is the current president and has now been issued total immunity for actions he takes as president. Example: Biden sees a clear and present danger to the United States government, it's democracy and the rule of law in general, posed by certain domestic individuals, and makes the executive decision to have them assassinated a.s.a.p. The list of individuals slated for termination would certainly contain Trump and the worst of the MAGA crowd, but also the most dangerous group of them all: Up to 6 conservative SCOTUS justices, those that are systematically tearing down decades, even centuries, of precedents and hard-earned civilian rights! The problem: While Trump would instantly exploit this ruling if he were to get back into the Oval Office, Biden is a decent human being and is very unlikely to resort to such desperate measures. But - we can always hope, right?
    1
  2986. The really sad part: The people of the poor States that are suffering as a result of pure greed KEEP VOTING FOR the right-wingers that are the root cause of all this! I am a distant spectator, watching with morbid fascination how the US is falling apart. I live in the most 'Muricanized (spelled "most corrupt") of the Nordic nations, Iceland, and count myself lucky to NOT be a citizen of the failing Unites States of 'Murica, with their "flawed" (spelled "totally corrupt") democracy. There IS a brutal solution that would solve all these problems in one fell swoop: Ban lobbying and ban political bribery! If you want to take things to an extreme, simply make such crimes a capital offense, worthy of a speedy trial and a quick, public "off-with-their-heads" execution. Building efficient Guillotines will be a breeze in these modern days of CAD/CAM!
    1
  2987. The English obviously were quite brutal in bygone eras - but so were all the other nations at the time, the German kingdoms, the French, the Russians and even the Scandinavians that are so peaceful nowadays...
    1
  2988. It's been only a bit more than 80 years since German despots started down this road, using exactly the same methods. They came to a sticky end only a decade later, at a great cost to humanity. Does ANYONE really believe that the Trumpzis will fare any better?
    1
  2989. Walmart failed spectacularly in Europe on two basic issues: They failed to pervert the European Labor Laws AND they failed miserably at their attempts to introduce monopoly practices to a group of countries that still enforce what you 'Muricans call anti-trust laws. European workers refused to be abused, illegal business practices to murder competition were, well, illegal AND, most important, European consumers refused to be hoodwinked. The only European country that Walmart currently operates in is the UK, but under the label ASDA - and they have to follow UK business practices there. Cheating and exploitation is strictly curtailed.
    1
  2990. Now, approaching the end of 2019, it is becoming clearer why the "powers-that-be" do not want any warning flags to be raised, be it via YouTube, Google, Facebook or any other billionaire-controlled resources. Media coverage of the Gestapo-like responses (concentration camps etc.) at the southern US border has already been squashed and the only hope for the Western Democratic World is if Trump is removed from office a.s.a.p. via impeachment. Waiting for him being voted out (along with the Republican Senate majority) might be too late...
    1
  2991. Sara Palin is about as eloquent as Donald J. Trump. Trying to follow their disjointed rants will drive anyone around the bend.
    1
  2992. Not that I want to defend Boeing's current quality failings, but these "dramatic" incidents listed here do NOT appear to be airframe-related. A main wheel lost on takeoff is most likely an United Airlines maintenance issue, and so is the massive hydraulic leak! A compressor stall (flames shooting out of an engine) is an operational problem, not a manufacturer issue. A runway excursion that result in a main gear leg being ripped off is NOT a landing gear malfunction, it is most likely a Flight Crew malfunction. The B787 sudden negative-G incident is too recent to speculate on, but the main contenders are CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) or excessive application of down elevator. The whistleblower "suicide", however, stinks to high heaven! It points to Being operating on a whole new and lower level, reminding us of the Jeffrey Epstein "suicide".
    1
  2993. Why did Silac Insurance if Utah cling to her money on the skimpiest pretenses? I wonder if this is a reflection on the general state of affairs in Utah? There seems to be a LOT of creepy stuff going on in Utah! Sadly, dishonesty and thievery seems to pervade the 'Murican insurance business, and the only solution seems to be to shine a light on it at every opportunity. This case is an excellent example: Once a media outlet exposed Silac's dirty laundry, everything could be settled overnight! Curious... The only way for 'Murican consumers to combat this is to boycott dirty companies like Silac Insurance AND LET THEM KNOW IT - as well as being careful in selecting the successor.
    1
  2994. Some details are emerging (not truly verified, but still): Baldwin was handed a declared "cold" prop gun that turned out to be loaded with a live ammunition. One round was fired that hit the cinematographer and, on exit, hit the director huddling behind her. The disgusting lack of any kind of empathy or humanity we are observing with certain US politicians is glaring! The fact that they are ALL far-right Repugnicans should come as no surprise.
    1
  2995. I have noticed that Dr. Gupta is sounding more and more like a politician: Flapping his lips a lot but rarely imparting anything specific. I am sure this is not because he is becoming deceitful, rather the media environment he is immersed in is taking it's toll on him - he is just trying to avoid putting his foot into a political quagmire. Chris put his finger squarely on the absurdity of the current Trump distraction: "...he's gonna take hydroxychloroquine but he won't wear a freaking mask? I mean - come on!"
    1
  2996. Omigosh - is CNN now taking a kook like Bolton seriously? Perhaps their Repugnican roots are beginning to show...
    1
  2997. If you want to listen to arguments that have the potential of twisting your brain into pretzels, listen to a lawyer arguing a case! They have university degrees in applying misdirection - truth be damned - and many of them use that training to argue their case far outside the bounds of normal decency and morality. They do NOT have to be on Team Crazy to do so. The polar opposite to that is the lawyer representing Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist mass murderer: That lawyer did not even TRY to cast doubts on the irrefutable facts of the case, all he could do was to ensure the court respected whatever rights the defendant had under the law. The moral bar for many 'Murican lawyers seems to be in the gutter.
    1
  2998. What is most disgusting about the US main media is how they are NOT screaming their heads off about their president being an outright liar with all the facts in plain sight. 'Murica = the country of liars and cheaters!
    1
  2999. I have come to the conclusion that the US is doomed. Too many US citizens truly believe that Denmark equals Venezuela, which is the height of stupidity. Current and recent Venezuelan leaders have refused to hand over their oil resources to US corporations and, as a result, the Venezuelan economy is now in ruins, a direct consequence of US sanctions. Comparing THAT to the state of e..g. the Danish economy is something only US Americans are gullible enough to believe. The Nordic countries are almost as Capitalist as the US, the main difference being that Nordic politicians care about the general welfare of their citizens, and have put restraints on capitalism. You are free to be an innovative entrepreneur and make out like a bandit, but you are NOT allowed to screw over the general population in the process! Affordable (NOT FREE!) health care and education is a RIGHT, not a privilege.
    1
  3000. Just about the only significant mistake the flight crew did was to forget to pull the CVR CB.
    1
  3001. Is this the dumbest? Heck, they are just getting started exposing their stupidity. I keep wondering why I am wasting my time watching these idiots and, bloody heck: I'm checking out!
    1
  3002. An intricate metal assembly can miraculously convey you from A to B - or kill (a car). Another intricate metal assembly can provide food - or kill in an instant (a gun). We cannot blame everything on the intricate metal assemblies, blame the people that abuse them. Similarly, an algorithm is simply the process or set of rules by which e.g. a piece of computer code operates, like date/time calculations. An "algorithm" itself is not the bogeyman, that should be blamed on the people that determine the process or rules their computer code operates by. We really need a new word to describe this phenomenon instead of abusing the concept "algorithm".
    1
  3003.  @lesterhall5145 : The third effect is likely to be just that - more protests, some of which may turn into riots with emotions and anger running high. Add to the mix the armed-to-the-teeth right-wing Vigilantes that will take acquittal as confirmation that they will, literally, be allowed to get away with mass murder.
    1
  3004. The quip " the 'Murican judicial system is the best money can buy" has been proven true time and time again. The blatant fact that that the SCOTUS is part and parcel of the corruption only makes the whole thing worse! The rest of the developed world is just beginning to face the fact that 'Murica is a VERY unreliable partner on just about every single issue that matters today. It will take time for the "usual allies" to wean off the 'Murican military teat, but the brutal absence of 'sensible 'Murican foreign policy is bound to force the issue.
    1
  3005. The concept of an "Influencer" takes on a new meaning with Taylor Swift. She has been politically modest, only occasionally (but passionately) showing she is NOT a conservative. She HAS endorsed a political candidate in her home state, but that is it! What she did to scare the living daylights out of Right-Wing Radicals is to advise her fans to VOTE! Not WHAT to vote for, mind you, just get out there and PARTICIPATE in democracy! The death knell for today's GOP will be increased voter participation, they have survived only by massive gerrymandering and countess gimmicks to PREVENT voter participation. Just imagine the devastation Taylor Swift could visit upon the Repugnicans if she went all out to convince her fan base to turn on the GOP. Not a tidal wave but a Tsunami of epic proportions!
    1
  3006. Well, the GOP (the Grotesque Old Party) has gone rogue, it has recently shafted the feminine half of the US nation and is about to shaft any number of smaller minority groups that still have voting rights, even if those groups have to fight HARD to be able to vote in face of the adverse gale of right-wing voter suppression and gerrymandering. If all the potential but apathetic voters that have not bothered to throw their weight in, but have chosen to stay apathetic - fat, ignorant and lazy, not bothering to vote - the US nation truly DESERVES the fate Repugnican fascists like DeSantis have in store for them: A replay of 1930's Germany! One wonders if, when all the fighting and dying is done, in a decade or two, the former USA will be split into West 'Murica (the part under the thumb of China) and East 'Murica (the part exploited by Russia)?
    1
  3007. MCAS was designed and implemented by moneymakers (rich monkeys?), not engineers. In hindsight, the total disregard for redundancy and safety is actually CRIMINAL, even if not a single Being top executive has been indicted. Any mention of the MCAS was removed from the manuals - except for one glaring omission that proved Being's intent: They forgot to remove it from a section called "Glossary of terms". Talk about being caught with your grubby fingers in the cookie jar...
    1
  3008. "A judge" decided to reduce Trump's monetary liability by a factor of 2.5 - surprise, surprise! The 'Murican judiciary system is hopelessly broken, from the SCOTUS down to the lowliest enforcement agent. What will the rest of the developed world think of the US? They have been a farce for decades, OF COURSE hey will remain a farce.
    1
  3009. Are 'Murican individuals able to make death threats willy-nilly and then hide behind the First Amendment? Isn't that turning freedom of speech on it's head?
    1
  3010. Ísfirðingur í húð og hár.
    1
  3011. While the security problems with Europe's dependence on Russian gas are clear, it has not been clear why the 'Muricans (of all interested entities) are losing their marbles over Nordstream 2. One would think that would be a worry for Germany, not 'Murica. Has there perhaps been a business issue, would the US be wanting to sell LNG to Europe? Well, this discussion is moot now, anyway. The hazards of becoming dependent on Putin's Russia for just about ANYTHING has now become crystal clear.
    1
  3012. Let's hope Russia keeps up their "Victorious Retreat", preferably all the way to their original borders.
    1
  3013.  @plum_loco  Iceland - but it could be any of the Nordic or North-European countries.
    1
  3014. Isn't Davos a meeting of the greediest and richest people in the world? Why should we take anything coming from it seriously?
    1
  3015. 'Murica is in for a rough ride for a decade or two, having been exposed as the cheats and liars they actually are! Former allies will be "difficult" if only because they cannot trust a word said or signed by 'Murica - "the land of liars and the home of cowards".
    1
  3016. NATO was set up by the US after WW2 as a consolidation of nations as a deterrent to the USSR by pledging to come to the defense of any member nation being attacked. It was primarily a defense alliance, no more, no less. NATO involvement in the Yugoslavian conflict was debatable - after all, no NATO member nation had been attacked, but it was justified on humanitarian grounds. What NATO was doing in Afghanistan was another matter altogether. No member nation had been attacked by Afghanistan, and the humanitarian excuse did not apply. Was NATO a US puppet? The way things are going with Trump at the helm, NATO will probably be dissolved - which can only be described as Putin's wet dream. In that case, it will probably be replaced by something like ETO (European Treaty Organization?), leaving the US to fend for itself against Putin. Is that what you want?
    1
  3017.  Michael Timely , is this the Evangelicals waiting for their rapturous Armageddon?
    1
  3018. In 1963, Kennedy's America was what the rest of the western world aspired to be. The general US population bloomed and the US was at the forefront in prosperity, industry and innovation. Then came Reagan, the evil destroyer. In a mere 40 years his policies have destroyed the US middle class, abolished US domestic industry and converted the US into a third-world country run by a handful of billionaires! This will not end well, and we are seeing the initial hints as to HOW it will end. The US population has been thoroughly supplied with the means by which Reagan's policies will be terminated: Assault weapons for everyone! A gun is by design a deadly device. It is bloody well designed to KILL, and in the US there are no standards for who can use guns! In comparison, a car is a device designed and intended for transportation and, because of it's potential as a deadly device if used improperly, societies ALL OVER THE BLOODY WORLD require strict training and licensing before an individual is allowed to operate one. Why the 'Muricans are unable to see the sense in applying similar standards to devices actually designed for killing is beyond anyone with a sane mind. The only apparently valid argument is: Everybody else has a gun so I must have a gun to kill everybody else before they kill me! Australians actually faced this dilemma head-on and solved it virtually overnight. Are 'Muricans so incompetent that they cannot even try?
    1
  3019. A chilling speech: An almost-radical right-winger (yet not so radical as to be an outright Trumpist) admitting the truth while simultaneously clinging to narcissistic Republican ideals. Liz Chaney might be a principled right-winger, but she is still a rabid right-winger, only a hair-trigger away from her now-gone-fascist Republican colleagues! Now, make no mistake, rabid left-wingers are no better but why on earth do too many 'Muricans prefer slavery over democracy? Capitalism on a firm rein (with social principles being honored, along the lines practiced in Europe) is beneficial for everyone. Unbridled capitalism as has been implemented in 'Murica is the road to ruin - or fascism, which is even worse.
    1
  3020. I just assume it was a joke - I just didn't get it.
    1
  3021. The modern world has no room for bullies. Whether the bully is China or the US makes no difference, bullies (which China, Russia and the US definitely have proven to be) are simply not welcome anymore!
    1
  3022. I wonder if Trump should run for cover, just in case Biden decides to assassinate Trump and key MAGA and SCOTUS individuals. After all, if current President Biden takes the official action of having some arm of the military or intelligence services eliminating the clear and present danger Trump & Co. poses to 'Murican democracy, he will have a good immunity case. He would only have been defending the country against enemies, domestic in this case! An interesting dilemma the SCOTUS has created: Handing the current president the tools to allow him to quickly terminate up to 6 conservative justices and, just as quickly, replace them with "his own" justices.
    1
  3023. "A fishing expedition about [Ivanka's] emails" while the country is racking up mountains of debts? Debts incurred under a government under the total control of Republicans (prior to the 2018 elections via e.g. tax cuts for corporations and the rich)? One wonders what Hilary's/Ivanka's email abuses have anything to do with the Republican spending spree. The man is almost in tears, he is so agitated. How does he sleep at night? Very well, I presume, after all he is morally blind - just the type Trump wants at his side.
    1
  3024. It seems obvious that the "Great US American Experiment" has failed and is now coming apart at the seams. In a normal democracy the issues would be settled through elections, but since the US has not been a true democracy for at least the last 40 years (if ever, despite all the US rhetoric over the years), that option is just a pie in the sky. What is truly scary for the rest of the western world that has been aligned with the US for a long time is the fact that the disintegration of the largest military power on the planet will be chaotic and painful and will NOT be contained within the borders of the US. I suspect that the Trump version of the Republican Party will go right up there with the Nazis when history books are written in coming years.
    1
  3025.  Mj light , hmm... - so why has the US been pushing democracy on other nations they perceive not to be democratic, usually with disastrous consequences (civil wars etc.)? By the way, my own country is ALSO a republic (one of the Nordic countries), yet we are doing far better than the US regarding quality-of-life for ALL our citizens.
    1
  3026. Ron Johnson - and others - are currently fizzling on the frying pan when asked about their participation in the seditious insurrection. They were involved up to their eyeballs but, now that they have realized they were flagrantly caught breaking the law they are scrambling for excuses and any means of lying their way out of being prosecuted for any number of serious offenses against the Republic of the United Stated of America.
    1
  3027. The elephant in the room that is never mentioned: Are they not testing because test kits are not available or are they not testing because it is expensive?
    1
  3028. A glimpse into the future reality of the "Red States" in the US. Enjoy!
    1
  3029. How do you "bleach" e-mails? Only a Stable Genius like Trump appears to know...
    1
  3030. The hitherto subdued and suppressed population of the US finally waking up! The Profiteers in both parties are in for a rude awakening...
    1
  3031. It is amazing how this Mine Workers Representative is STILL clinging to the illusion of the US being the "Greatest, Richest and Most Free" nation in the world! US politicians and their owners (big corporations) have slowly and cunningly re-introduced slavery, only this time the slaves are not only the abducted Africans, the modern slaves are what used to be called Working Class and Middle Class of all colors and ethnicities, i.e. EVERYONE that is not filthy rich!
    1
  3032.  @elijahculper5522 , you are absolutely right that the current form of "slavery" does not properly compare to the actual slavery imposed on abducted Africans in centuries past, and I agree that comparing the two is not good, at least in this context. We actually need a new term to define and describe the current form of low-wage slavery being practiced today in the US, to avoid hijacking a well-known term that has long been used for a horrible human situation. An example of such hijacking is that a person can no longer be "merry and gay", the word "gay" has been hijacked to mean something entirely different.
    1
  3033. I know this is irrelevant to the important issues at hand, but I just cannot help myself: What do Francesca and Trump have in common? An orange face while being pale around the eyes and neck (Francesca, go easy on the makeup, you do NOT need it!). What do Francesca and Trump NOT have in common? Francesca is pretty and intelligent while Trump is ugly, fat and dumb as a doorknob.
    1
  3034. Being artificially blonde, the idea of playing a stereotypical "stupid blonde" is possibly Ivanka's first line of defense. Then again, check her roots - she's not a genuine blonde. Her father is unable to string together a coherent sentence, i.e. he is stupid but surprisingly cunning. The same probably applies to Ivanka and her brothers.
    1
  3035. Just an aerodynamic Flap Track Fairing, not structural significance whatsoever. It is surprising, however, if they took off with it missing - even if there were loose screws or some missing fasteners. This not really a safety issue, but it is a MAJOR public relations issue!
    1
  3036. I agree! If we fail to help Ukraine with all our might NOW, we we will have to meet Putin's vicious hordes in Finland, Poland or the Baltic states in the near future. Our wishy-washy leaders seem to prefer appeasement to Putin, even cowering before him rather than taking a stand to stop him HERE and NOW, at a time when his armed forces have been temporarily brought to heel by the Ukrainians. The alternative is to waffle on and then have to repeat the ordeal on the battlefields of the aforementioned nations in a few years, fighting an all-out WW3.
    1
  3037. Of all the possible scenarios, the most likely scenario is never mentioned at this stage (understandably so): Structural failure, resulting in a failure of the pressure hull and instantaneous death to the occupants. While unconfirmed, there is talk about the single little porthole only being certified/designed for 130 bar (1300 meter depth). There are always fat design safety margins (150% being typical), and as the Titan has already been down to the Titanic, it apparently has already withstood the rumored design limits by a factor of 3! How many such extreme pressure cycles will it take for something to fail?
    1
  3038. You silly sod - you missed one of the best: I Feel Fine - The Beatles!
    1
  3039. Then again - there is no accounting for taste...
    1
  3040. So MTG was caught in a lie - no surprise there, she is a Repugnican of the worst sort and they THRIVE on lies. Always have, always will. Their beloved leader and Guiding Light D.J.Trump is a prime example. Someone went to the trouble of counting Trump's lies during his term, and either gave up or went mad. I do not recall ever seeing the final tally being published.
    1
  3041. I have always considered Finland's and Sweden's neutrality as appeasement and courtesy to paranoid Russia, by treaty in the case of Finland and by tradition by Sweden. Historically, Russia has a valid argument to be paranoid after both Napoleon and Hitler invaded with horrible consequences, but times have changed. An unhinged Putin is virtually ensuring that both countries will join NATO in the imminent future. Putin is shooting himself in both feet AND his bollocks by his actions! Putin will NOT survive this, the only question is how much pain and suffering will be caused before he is out of power.
    1
  3042. Another US politician with at least ONE connection with reality (the Governor of Washington State is another one). Will wonders never cease? Cuomo can wear Trump's "nasty tweets" like a badge of honor! When this debacle is over, most US politicians will have such egg on their faces that they will be a laughing stock all over the world
    1
  3043. Of course Trump did not MEAN to admit that Russia helped him getting elected, but he is such a baby that he regularly makes childish mistakes like this.
    1
  3044. US politicians and main media talking heads will probably be heard still having these inane and useless arguments while they are disappearing down the flushing toilet. Nothing is currently being done to halt the progression of 'Murica into a Neo-Nazi/Fascist cluster of states! Will there be a civil war or will the US suddenly turn into the Fourth Reich? I predict we will find out in just a few years... Just remember: Germany was supposedly one of the most stable countries in the world during the inter-war years, yet Hitler and his cronies managed to bring it to it's knees in a few short years. History is repeating itself!
    1
  3045. What more confirmation do we need to determine that 'Murica (the bit between Canada and Mexico) has proven itself to be a nation of genuine idiots!?
    1
  3046. Bernie seems to be the most sane US politician these days, while Netanyahu is certain to go down in history as Israel's version of the worst of the Nazis, i.e. an inhuman, murderous monster - a fitting counterpart to the inhuman, murderous terrorists that call themselves Hamas.
    1
  3047. Apparently, the only good politician is a DEAD politician. How can I say something like this? Answer: Simple observation! The ONLY time EVERYONE, allies and adversaries alike, speak well of a politician is when said politician is dead. That is when everyone remembers him/her fondly, mudslinging not required anymore.
    1
  3048. According to history, Monty was actually a major arsehole - his military exploits more a matter of luck than any tactical/strategic prowess. Then again, being an ignorant arsehole might be just what is needed to stumble into a military victory - now and then.
    1
  3049.  @CIMAmotor , If he was this magnificent, all-victorious and unfailing success in his every campaign, why is he not heralded as the greatest military leader in history? I was born 5 years after WW2 ended and everything I know about that futile and nonsensical struggle is based on hearsay alone. What I have read about Monty is NOT flattering when all is said and done, but the same can be said about every single military leader of the era. From what I have read, Monty was a thoroughly disagreeable bastard. Period. Is that what is called for in a great military leader? I think not!
    1
  3050.  @MentourPilot , point taken - and I agree that minor things like this help normalize a stressful situation.
    1
  3051. The future, pollution-wise, certainly looks bleak. We are about to drown in our very own industrial excrement.
    1
  3052. As an outsider (non-'Murican), I keep wondering what it is about this most recent mass shooting that seems to have everyone in an uproar. This seemed an everyday, run-of-the-mill mass shooting with a modest body count, at least by 'Murican standards. Might this one be the straw that finally breaks the Repugnican Camel's back?
    1
  3053. I fully expected to click off this clip early in disgust (taste is acquired, not earned or deserved) - and I was right! No reflection on Rick and his taste for music! He knows infinitely more about music than I ever will, but I gave up listening within 3 minutes... Then I returned an listened to the entire clip and, giving Rick the benefit of the doubt, it ain't bad - only not to my personal taste. Again, Rick knows his music and I´m certainly not going to argue with him - but this music is not what I go for - sorry, no offense intended,
    1
  3054. The judge was really dressing down a grown-up but recalcitrant child. It is a slick move to make his lawyers responsible for the information Trump has access to, they will either manage to bring this recalcitrant child to heel - or resign in disgust. This hopefully makes Trump think twice before siccing his goons on everyone involved.
    1
  3055. Jimbo "cover-up-for-child-molesters" in a nutshell.
    1
  3056. When inequality reaches a certain point, something breaks and a lot of blood is shed - especially by the elites! The most recent example is the revolution in Russia over a century ago, and an older and more brutal example was the French Revolution. They even used a new-fangled invention to lop off the heads of the elite, the Guillotine. One wonders what kind of horrible devices the 'Muricans will invent to exterminate the Kochs, the Bezos and the Waltons in the upcoming 'Murican Revolution...
    1
  3057. Why is the world STILL propping up the wildly speculative stock markets that produce very little of material value? Any bubble WILL pop - it is not a question of IF, the question is WHEN. The next pop might not be as bad as the previous one, or the one before that, but there WILL be a pop. This is a stupid way of running the word's economy, but we seem to be like hamsters on a treadmill, destined to run faster and faster until...
    1
  3058. Be realistic! Repugnican = Liar, cheat, untrustworthy. Can you imagine the relief I feel, living in Iceland where Repugnicans are considered idiots, nutjobs, even insane! We value equality, universal health care, education and all that stuff, but most important: COMMON SENSE! I our opinion, 'Murica is populated by brainwashed and ignorant IDIOTS! So much for the land/home of the brave/free.You have been hoodwinked/fooled/(is there a newer term for this?).
    1
  3059. The sad part? There is a LOT of mentally deficient MAGA-minded 'Muricans out there that are eager to lap up every conspiracy nonsense on offer, be it "votes sent up to Italian satellites and converted to Biden votes before being sent down again" or the horrifying - but imaginary - Anti-Fascist (Antifa) movement that causes the MAGA crowd to have palpitations and skid-marks in their nickers. Reality check: Brown-shirt-like Organizations like "The Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers" are real, they have identified leaders and verified crimes committed, while "Antifa" is so far only a figment of rabid right-winger minds. Antifa is no more real than all the alleged "stolen elections" that Trump and the MAGA crowd have been screaming about but always been unable to bring even a shred of credible evidence.
    1
  3060. Taylor Swift is, by all appearances, a reluctant "political meddler", simply by making public her persona, and l political views. One thing is clear, Taylor is an intelligent young woman with humanistic opinions (something that terrifies Repugnicans), and she happens to be a superstar in 'Murica. The Incel Repugnicans are basically screwed!
    1
  3061. Gen. Milley is not at all credible in his excuses for the foot-dragging exhibited by the US regarding various weapon systems. If some systems call for months of training before Ukraine can start using them, why on Earth did the US delay for months even beginning that training if they intended to provide these systems anyway? I smell a rat and suspect there are hidden forces working under the table to help Trump and Putin. My bet is that Biden is severely misguided in trusting Gen. Milley completely.
    1
  3062. "justice" John Roberts and his descendants will will live in infamy for the rest of his spineless days, and his name will go down in history along with those that are known to have failed their country in the worst way: He is facilitating the destruction of democracy in the United States! Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will have their own chapter, corrupt as they obviously are. The question remains: Will Kavanaugh and Barret self-destruct as well, or will they chose to actually serve the best interests of a genuine Law and Order country, rather than a political party?
    1
  3063. These upcoming Trump henchmen should pause to reflect on the final destiny of the henchmen of prior despots like Hitler and Mussolini. They did NOT fare well! There is absolutely no doubt that what is unfolding now in Trump's 'Murica will become a runaway disaster like Nazism did, and Patel, Hegseth and the like will become the Himmlers and Göbbels's of the 21st century. Their end is bound to be sticky, indeed.
    1
  3064. This is SOOO 'Murican, loud and in-your-face. I am pretty sure that an ordinary Israeli soldier, let alone a specially trained one would condone this.
    1
  3065. So, historically the US of A has never managed to become a democracy? It has in recent decades been called a "Flawed" democracy while it has, in reality, never managed to rise above being a Pretend democracy - and that apparently is about to be abolished fairly soon by a minority of loud and violent bullies! This is what happened to Germany in the 1930s, and we all know how that ended. The only ones ignorant of that global disaster are 'Muricans that have been fed a "sanitized" version of history for decades.
    1
  3066. So, the RNC is finally staffed/run by people that will ensure that the Trump candidacy will fail. I see that as good news.
    1
  3067. As a retired airline pilot, I am astounded that Russia has the cheek to fly unannounced into international airspace, without a flight plan and transponders turned off. They are a grave danger to international air traffic everywhere and should be treated as a terrorist act by a terrorist nation - Russia! Given recent developments, such illegal flights could plausibly be either forced to land and confiscated or, alternatively, be simply shot down! Russia has become a global threat and should be dealt with as such. The NATO nations may be woefully unprepared for WW3, but plucky little Ukraine has already staggered the previously assumed-to-be-mighty Russia! Putin's Russia is already on it's hind feet, mainly due to it's inbred corruption, and there is no doubt which side will be quicker to ramp up military production when politicians finally face the fact that Putin actually sowed the seeds for WW3 in 2014, and arrogantly assumed he had the EU by it's "energy needs" balls in 2022. The whole thing has now exploded in his face, and it is up to Putin and Russia to call off WW3 - or bring it on to it's full conclusion, with Russia's abject defeat and total isolation. Even crazed Putin must realize that he cannot prevail against virtually the entire developed world!
    1
  3068. Ferry flights, Positioning flights, whatever you want to call them, have been a part of aviation operations from the beginning. You have an aircraft in a certain place and nothing or no-one to transport - you simply fly the aircraft empty to a place with some useful business. It is when you start flying empty flights just to hang on to a slot that things are becoming seriously kinky. What do you do - do you stop doing business or do you start shooting bureaucrats on sight?
    1
  3069. This really sounds like an obituary for the US of A...
    1
  3070. Just seeing Stephen Miller's dead glassy eyes tells you there is something seriously wrong with this man.
    1
  3071. Given the Russian incompetence on display so far, this is bound to be just another Russian blunder. The question remains: Should Russia be given the benefit of doubt here? In my opinion, NO! They started this whole mess and are dragging the rest of us with them into the abyss. Right now, Putin, Russia and everything Russian are proving to be a blight on humanity and should be treated as such. The whole thing is exploding in Putin's face. He is already in a deep hole but is determined to keep on digging ever deeper.
    1
  3072. We can credit trump for a few things, like: 1) He re-learned to READ during this period (it may be plodding and pedantic, but he can now stumble his way through a teleprompter read, something he was not capable of doing until recently) and 2) he has always been able to correctly pronounce the word "nuclear" (not "nukkular" like so many of his contemporaries). The fact that the 'Murican nation might possibly elect this poor excuse of a human being as their next leader is actually enough to disqualify the 'Murican nation from the ranks of civilized nations.
    1
  3073. I have always been amazed at the US American fascination with all kinds of doomsday scenarios, and when even a supposedly sensible person like Thom Hartman jumps on that particular bandwagon I suppose some kind of a milestone has been reached. We have long known that the world as we know it WILL eventually come to an end, but instead of trying to get everyone to panic, we should concentrate on how we can prevent it happening in our (or our children's) lifetime. The "Ancient Virus" threat may or may not be real, and the most useless and pathetic response would be to simply panic, but I think Thom made his intended point at the very end of this clip when he pointed out the pathetic state of the US health care system...
    1
  3074. Talking about clouds: Everyone learns about dangerous CBs in flight school and everyone avoids them like the plague. There is one type of clouds that you DO NOT learn much about in flight school, even if they are less survivable to fly in than towering CBs! I imagine the Latin name, if they were to teach you about them, would be Stratus Granitus - a cloud with a mountain in it...
    1
  3075.  @johnopalko5223 , "Cumulus Granitus" oobviously is dangerous as well, but less so because it is a turbulent CUMULUS and pilots tend to avoid them in the first place.
    1
  3076.  @tonywilson4713 , you are, of course, correct. There is mechanical-ware, the complicated stuff you seem to have been dealing with. In electronics you have Hardware which is complex and Software which is even worse, but it is when dealing with Wetware (the human brain) that things go truly off the charts because the Wetware tends to be unpredictable. Most European (and other) countries try for some variation along the lines I am suggesting, some with considerable success while others suck at it. Such arrangements are NOT the dreaded Socialism or Communism 'Muricans seem to fear so much, but are called Social Democracy and/or Mixed Economy. Free enterprise is encouraged, but has to follow various, sometimes strict rules. The emphasis is on the WE, not only the ME. Of course this can be perverted or corrupted as well, just look at Russia, Hungary and Turkey, to name a few.
    1
  3077. So, Smearconish openly admits he is a Corporate Hack. Any other obvious facts?
    1
  3078. Trump's idiocy in a nutshell: Maintaining that Canadian Health Care would IMPROVE by adopting 'Murican exploitive Health Care Practices instead of the Universal Health Care System they have today! To state that Trump is a certified, lying moron is a vast understatement! 'Muricans may be gullible, ignorant and stupid, Canadians are NOT
    1
  3079. A showcase of how useless and corrupt the 'Murican judicial system has become. In 'Murica, money will buy you ANYTHING - especially the outcome of "Constitutional jury trials". The rest of the world is aghast...
    1
  3080. This is rich: A Trump-appointed official (Giroir) referencing another Trump-appointed official (Dr. Redfield) regarding counter-pandemic recommendations! Just about the only thing we have learned during the last 4 years is the sheer incompetence and corruption of the officials appointed by Trump. Giroir and Redfield may not be among the worst examples, but they are still tarred with the same brush and cannot, under any circumstances, be considered reliable sources. Any person appointed by Trump for ANY position has acquired a potential stamp of corruption, something that will follow all Trump-appointed individuals for the rest of their lives.
    1
  3081. What a fitting label, "Swasticar"¨!
    1
  3082. Ana tripped up verbally around 2:12 - "workers that are forced to pay without work" when she obviously meant to say "work without pay". She usually very eloquent and rarely trips up like this...
    1
  3083. She is actually not looking at a teleprompter or a piece of paper when she trips up, she is just talking. No big deal. I watch TYT every now and then and have not seen her trip up like this before - this was just an observation, not an attempt to make fun at her. To me, she comes across as an intelligent and eloquent young woman with a lot of empathy for her fellow citizens - and very pretty as well. I admire Ana, just as I admire AOC.
    1
  3084. Michigan's AG is a woman that is unashamedly taking her place among other females in power around the world, women like Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Erna Solberg of Norway, Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, Sanna Marin of Finland and Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland. I fell fairly certain that she will be proud of being counted among those women of consequence, ESPECIALLY when compared to Toddler Trump.
    1
  3085.  @larryross1819 , you just confirmed my theory that being a rabid MAGA follower is actually a mental disorder.
    1
  3086. There is something fatally wrong with a legislative system that allows one single individual (Moscow Mitch in this case) to virtually paralyze the legislative process, not to mention the fact that it is all done to favor corporations and crush the general public.
    1
  3087. Only radical right-wingers are capable of coming up with ridiculous and contradictory concepts like "post-birth abortion". A baby cannot be aborted after it is born, by that stage it becomes infanticide or what even a moron would call outright murder. It tells us all we need to know about their mental abilities - which seem on a moronic level.
    1
  3088. It is astounding to watch a nation that once was a global leader, now wallowing in ignorance and idiocy. There are any number of nations in Europe that are consistently placed at the top of accepted global "quality of life" comparison metrics - ALL OF IT based on ideas and examples the US presented to us in the aftermath of WW2 - and then promptly proceeded to ignore yourself! Any individual with a shred of common sense that compares the quality of life in modern Europe to the misery 'Muricans are experiencing will realize why e.g. Norwegians are NOT interested in emigrating to the SSA (The Slavery States of America).
    1
  3089. As a non-American (one of the Nordics) I can only feel sorry for the poor souls trapped within the borders of the Madhouse that is the US of A. What is most likely to kill any US citizen? The gun-mad next-door neighbor? The Covid-infected next-door anti-vaxer that refuses to take even minimum pandemic precautions? The big corporations that are polluting and poisoning the population for profit? Pick your choice: If you are an US citizen, you are in deep shite!
    1
  3090. Most other countries have state-supported minimum child support requirements for children being raised by only one parent, to be ultimately paid by the other parent. If the "other parent" is unable or unwilling to pay the child support, the state takes care of the payments and then collects the payment from the other parent. The parent raising the child does not have to go through that hassle. The state is usually a formidable and unavoidable debt collector!
    1
  3091. China (and India) refused to join the 73% of UN member countries that denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They have declared themselves as supporters of authoritarianism i these uncertain times. The rest of the world now has the opportunity to choose sides: Are they Putin/Orban/Erdogan/Xing-Ping-and-rattle proponents or do they want a lasting world peace? Not that current 'Murican politics are providing any shred of hope: If anything, the 'Muricans are becoming WORSE than the other authoritarians! I am a Nordic hobby machinist that used to by a lot of low-quality but CHEAP tooling from China. Fairly soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Chinese authorities made their preferences clear: They will support authoritarianism anytime, anywhere, especially Putin! That is when I stopped dealing with China! Period. I can get the same stuff from e.g. Germany or France at a much higher price (and infinitely higher quality), but I will gladly pay it! I will NOT buy Chinese stuff in the foreseeable future, and I will bring whatever influence have to KEEP CHINA'S DIRTY FINGERS OUT OF THE ECONOMY OF MY COUNTRY! China is, if possible, even more dangerous that Russia, and that is saying a lot!
    1
  3092. It is a pity that the most blatantly corrupt SCOTUS "justice" happens to be black, black 'Muricans have enough on their plate already. It is hard to see how the 'Murican judicial branch will survive this scandal!
    1
  3093. Boeing used to be the Gold Standard in aviation innovation and safety. That has now reversed, Boeing is now proving to be a hotbed of mismanagement and greed. The lives lost in the 737 MAX debacle is just the first really serious crack in the old Boeing image. If Boeing continues to stake it's future on business shenanigans, it will end badly. Crashing a few companies and running off with the proceeds before the dust settles is typical of such practices, but crashing a few airliners full of people makes the world sit up and take notice. No stone is big enough to hide under.
    1
  3094. I was struck by a Smerconish comment: Trump-appointed judges "will be making laws" for a lot longer than Obama-appointed judges. Silly me - I thought "making laws" was the job of Congress, the judges only interpret them when conflicts arise.
    1
  3095. Hilarious! The reference to "a line to become Henry VIII's 6th wife" has Erin Burnett fighting REALLY hard not to laugh out loud. She almost lost that fight.
    1
  3096. Because of the steering oar, that side was called "Styrbord", and the other side was called "Bagbord" (danish). I imagine the English "Starboard Side" is derived from that, while the English "Port Side" is logical; the side of the ship used for on/offloading when in port. The concepts Left/Right (Venstre/Höjre) were probably rarely used around ships in Viking times, just as they are not used today by seamen.
    1
  3097. This is hilarious to me! "Because Women and girls are starting to surpass boys in education..."! What an eye-opener! Being Icelandic, this simple fact was clear to me 60 years ago (I'm 75!). The girls were more focused on education while we "studs" were chasing silly, idiotic things. Fact, just a simple fact: In the Nordic countries, girls have been outperforming boys in the education sector for DECADES! More important, we blokes (and the entire society) are just fine with it. We "Vikings" have no problem accepting that our "womenfolk" are a force to be reckoned with, and the Nordic countries are the most egalitarian countries in the world! As a result, we are consistently earning our places as the happiest (spelled: the least discontent) nations in the world. I am now wondering what it must be feeling like, living in a place where being female makes you less human. What a depressing thought, being an 'Murican female, young or old, stripped of most human rights.
    1
  3098. Apparently similar "UFO's" were overflying North America during Trump's reign, but nothing was done about it - and no publicity. From that we can infer that these "overflights" are nothing new. What seems to be new is 1) the act of shooting them down and 2) the publicity. Seeing that the acts of Militaries and Governments sometimes look like the acts of Deities in that they usually seem inscrutable, we perhaps should not worry our little heads about it. Then again, the smell of this flurry of activities that, curiously, are also made public, is becoming quite rank. Something seems to be afoot.
    1
  3099. My advice to Trump: Despite your ability to avoid accountability for your actions for decades, you time is u! A severe earthquake warning seems prudent: Hang on to your hat, here comes the chimney!
    1
  3100. Well, being the daughter of Big-Dick Cheney is not a recommendation for any kind of any appreciation. Dick Cheney was a bloodsucker, his daughter simply comes across as a right-wing extremist with a rare quality; a CONSCIENCE! She seems to be an intelligent person with sufficient integrity to be likeable, deserved or not.
    1
  3101. I am astounded to find that a train pneumatic braking system is so blatantly NOT fail-safe! To be fail-safe, the brakes should lock when pneumatic pressure is lost, not vice versa.
    1
  3102. A curious and very informative and expert take on the equipment used in this extermination. Very credible. What I find chilling is the mindset of these "experts", the glee evident when they are taking close-up head-shots, especially the girl and the 'Murican-Flag-ornamented helmet wearer taking the close-up in-the-back-of-the-head shots. This is NOT the behavior of normal, sane people! There is something seriously wrong with the gun-nut crowd in 'Murica! Compare this to e.g. Switzerland, where citizens are trained in shooting assault weapons and are actually REQUIRED to keep up their proficiency with regular shooting practice - and then compare the mass shooting statistics of 'Murica and Switzerland! 'Murica went off the rails some time ago, and we non-'Muricans are watching a slow-motion 'Murican train crash that is taking decades to unfold. A really disgusting thing to watch!
    1
  3103. The time for trying to appease Putin ended only weeks after he invaded Ukraine. Putin WILL continue his atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine until he is stopped by force. If, by any chance, he is allowed to get away with this with a token "victory", he will only regroup and try again later. To Ukraine and the West, the only acceptable end will be when Putin is stripped of his power and ill-gotten gains, be he dead or a live, and the Russian PEOPLE can be allowed to decide their own destiny. Make no mistake: That will be an immense struggle, both to flush out the current corruption without allowing new corruption to fester AND the long, slow and uphill battle of regaining a potential seat among civilized nations. Presently Russia is a pariah among nations - isolated, shunned and disrespected, even despised. While a majority of Russians no doubt wanted no part in this, it is always the general public that has to shoulder the burden for decades, like the Germans did for decades following WW2.
    1
  3104. Please bear in mind that these are interrogations provided by Ukrainians and have to be take with a grain of salt. Potential propaganda. Given the reactions of people i Russia, however, people protesting Putin at the risk of being charged with terrorism if found to be protesting, this is very credible: These soldiers apparently were sent for military exercises and had no idea they would suddenly be finding themselves invading a nation they view as friends and relatives. This just might be Putin's big error: Troops that are sent into a situation they do not understand and do not agree with are very ineffective. The Ukrainians are defending their motherland with passion and determination, the Russian troops have no beef with their Ukrainian kin so their heart is not in the fight. There will be plenty of regret to go around when all is said and done, but suddenly the Ukrainian position appears much stronger. The Ukrainians will hopefully treat captured Russian foot-soldiers with mercy and dignity, the top brass is another matter, entirely. They are supposed to know better!
    1
  3105. Can either Coronavirus or Bernie Sanders be stopped? The virus; definitely not, at least in the US of A - Trump & Co. have decimated any institutions that might have been useful against a pandemic. Bernie; probably not! Young and until-now disillusioned voters are likely to come out in droves to support good-ole-Bernie, the US population's only hope for a sensible future.
    1
  3106. It will be interesting to watch how Elon Stink eventually tries to evade the charges that will swamp him in less than 4 years. He actually IS directly involved in indirect mass murder (USAID destruction), unlawful interference with government employees etc. This Fascist flash-in-the-pan WILL cost lives on a large scale, and the instigators (Trump, Stink, Miller etc.) will eventually be held responsible.
    1
  3107. I'm not belittling the sacrifices made by soldiers in times of war, but this constant glorifying of war and related issues is not contributing much to the prospect of lasting peace. Despots all over the world WILL cause wars to be started and wars WILL have to be fought to stop them, but considering war as a necessary evil to be avoided when possible is probably better than considering war as an opportunity for glory, at least in the long term.
    1
  3108. Is 'Murica really "The greatest country in history" or a right-wing, soon-to-be-fascist hellhole?
    1
  3109.  @mariaeriksson1635 , there are no doubt a number of other countries that are willing and able and willing to do this.
    1
  3110. This issue of industry lobbying makes one wonder how practical US military spending is overall. There are no doubt entire weapon systems bought and paid for based on lobbying, not reality. The US just might be in for a rude awakening in the next shooting war against an adversary where the odds are even approaching even. They are likely to find themselves with a lot of very expensive duds in their arsenal.
    1
  3111. When The Republic of Iceland became a founding member of NATO, the world was in a flux and there were a number of Soviet admirers (nominal Communists) among the population at the time. They were very vocal and violence-prone, much like the noisy and violence-prone right-wing extremists / racists / fascists (whatchamacallit) in the US today (although without all the guns). This political view slowly faded out in Iceland over the years - as did outright capitalism, and we now have a rather benign mix of political parties that can all be social-democratic, but with slightly different right/left/special interests leanings. All in all, we got off easy during these turbulent times.
    1
  3112. This chick is resurrecting the long-dead stereotype of the quintessential "dumb blonde". We all realized long ago that blondes are just as smart as anyone else, BUT NOT THIS ONE! She is not only blond, she is also dumb, as in dumber.
    1
  3113.  @ACPilot , the Type Certificate issue has already been settled, but they will be forced to bite the bullet and accept additional training costs - not to mention redesigning the system to be fail-safe (consider all the other sensor inputs as well). This should certainly be a Memory Item and trained "ad nauseum". Boeing, FAA and the airlines have run right smack into the old adage "If you think Aviation Safety is expensive, just wait until you have an Accident". Two, apparently, in this case.
    1
  3114.  @skippy5712 , the MCAS was actually listed in the "Definition of Terms" section, so the Engineers probably DID initially add a section describing it. My SWAG (Silly Wild-Assed Guess) is that the MCAS section was later removed to reduce conversion training cost, a big selling point for the Max. My further SWAG is that it was Being Management that had it removed, not the Engineers. They just missed removing it from the list of definitions.
    1
  3115. Only in 'Murica...
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  3116. Counting the worst influential individuals in recent history: Stalin, Hitler, Reagan, Trump! In that order! Do we even need to mention Nixon? The "I am not a crook" crook? Bush SR was terrible, Bush JR was even WORSE - and Bill Clinton came in as an actual rival! Politics in the US are mucked up beyond repair. Your MIC (weapon-makers, the Military-Industrial-Complex) have been perpetuating conflict to boost their business for generations, AND YOU THINK IT IS NORMAL! The sick 'Murican narcissistic "each to his own" policy is about to turn on you: People are realizing that if you care for your neighbor, your neighbor will care for you! Most European nations have long had an arrangement that if you are sick, we'll take care of you. If you are young and ignorant, we'll educate you. The work-life balance in Europe is what scares 'Murican corporations even more than how the Ukrainian hope for the future (the European democratic, uncorrupted model) terrifies dictators like Putin - and Erdogan - and Orban - and TRUMP!
    1
  3117. "Love of God, the Military and Guns" - it seems pretty clear that the leaker is a right-wing nutcase. The US's ability to keep it's secrets secure is obviously a mess, but that has been obvious for a long time. No wonder the security agencies of US allies are wary these days, their own secrets invariably find their way into the US security sieve.
    1
  3118. What Thom is and has been describing is a completely dysfunctional state, a state that has not been properly taking care of it's general population for 40-50 years! The mass of disfranchised citizens in a country awash with assault weapons will end up biting the bloodsuckers (the billionaires) in the arse. One wonders if a Guillotine moment is approaching in 'Murica! Billionaires and lying politicians: Beware!
    1
  3119. 'Murican "democracy" has not been a joke for decades, it has been an outright farce! In any genuine democracy, voters are registered automatically and voting is painless, takes 10-20 minutes, MAX. Also, election day is ALWAYS a public holiday, no one has to lose wages to vote in a genuine democracy. You 'Muricans are being effed up, down and sideways by you politicians, AND YOU ARE BUYING IT! Seeing that even the highest court in your land is being exposed as thoroughly corrupt only means one thing: The future is certainly bleak for everyday 'Muricans...
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  3120. You cannot help admiring this guy!
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  3121. Th simple fact that despite repeated attempts by Tapper to get any credible answer, nothing even remotely concrete or believable could be had from this stooge. He even SOUNDED like Trump in spite of using slightly different hyperbole (in effect: Everything is GREAT and they are shipping TREMENDOUS amounts of supplies to virtually EVERYONE that needs them).
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  3122. What level of embarrassment will be required before the US Main Media openly admits that their leader has lost all his marbles?
    1
  3123. The question: Is this America? The resounding answer: YES, this is what America has become! Face it, open your eyes and, if you don't like this America, start DOING something about it!
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  3124. The actual appearance of the various emergency vehicles is one thing, they have one thing in common: Being as conspicuous as possible, the point being that the general public will bleedin' well RECOGNIZE them as priority traffic in an instant. The important issue (not being discussed here) is how the general automotive public REACTS in cases like this. By happenstance we see perfect responses (give way immediately), but the epitome of such responses is to see bogged-down German Autobahn traffic melting away to create an emergency lane by general consensus. I believe this is an issue they actually TEACH and TRAIN when a German applies for a driver's license.
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  3125. Maybe the proper description should not be "The happiest people", but rather "The least unhappy people". That seems to be more appropriate.
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  3126. This is on the head of the dysfunctional Russian military. If they can sink to these depths, what are these monsters eventually capable of? They have to be put out like rabid dogs, each and every one.
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  3127. A relatively new vessel, registered/owned by Bulgaria? Initial evidence screams "guilty"! The EU has to nail Bulgarian officials to the wall and issue warrants for the owners of the vessel - not to mention confiscating the vessel as insurance against the damage caused by their sabotage. The main export of Bulgaria has always been organized crime as left behind by the USSR. The EU would be criminally negligent not factoring in the destructive intent of chronically corrupt countries like Hungary and Bulgaria.
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  3128. The only time the "one for all" NATO decree was invoked was when puny 'Murica got a bloody nose - and the other NATO nations did their duty. 'Murica is clearly stating that they will NOT honor their obligations, so the obvious next step is for all the former NATO allied nations to close down any and all 'Murican military bases in Europe.
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  3129. I think a more appropriate pseudonym for ICE would be GESTAPO.
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  3130. What has "News Reporting" come to in the US? Not a mention of why she was hit by a car and by whom! Was this intentional or was she simply not dressed visibly enough on a rainy night?
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  3131. Erdogan is trying to use the Sweden/Finland NATO application for his own petty and dictatorial gain regarding the Kurds. Sweden and Finland can easily reciprocate by promising to block Turkey's EU application, primarily due to Erdogan's suppression of genuine democracy in Turkey. But, bottom line: The UK has already assured defensive support for Sweden during the no-brainer application process. If the other main nations (The US, Germany, France etc.) were to promise the same guarantees, Erdogan's shenanigans would be moot, anyway. While NATO is stuck in a rut regarding this issue, the EU is unlikely to tolerate dictatorial countries like Erdogan's Turkey and Orban's Hungary. The EU probably has no issue with the NATIONS of Turkey and Hungary, it's just the current regimes that have no future within an alliance like the EU and NATO.
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  3132. Any country run by someone unable to string together a single coherent sentence is doomed to fail. To make sure we are on the same page: Donald J. Trump has not been known to put together a whole sentence for more than a decade. The man is an imbecile, an idiot that will leave the US in a state of conflict that might rival the disaster of the civil war a mere 160 years ago. Until you 'Muricans get your act together, you will be the laughing stock of the world! You had it all, were the inventors and manufacturers of the world, and where are you now? Inventing nothing, manufacturing nothing, educating no one - at least NOT your young people! Doom and gloom is what you have ahead...
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  3133. This was pretty much like watching a rabid evangelist Jesus-nut preacher going into a frenzy - with a lot of incitement to violence thrown in.
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  3134. The US apparently no longer can (or is willing to) afford any semblance of what, all over the world, is known as "democratic elections", i.e. elections that are effortless, free and safe for it's citizens. This comes as no surprise, the US has not been able to call itself a genuine democracy for decades, anyway.
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  3135. Well, the US exterminated a number of people by remote control (missile-armed drones), killing a lot of innocent people as well in the process - and that was done by "benign" Obama. Exterminating "enemies of the people" is obviously not only done by the Saudis or Putin. It can be argued that the US method was more grisly than the Saudi method, at least the Saudi method was surgically precise - literally! Less collateral damage, anyway...
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  3136.  @kensol2579 , I didn't know that, but no surprises there...
    1
  3137. I predict that the next spate of accidents will be when aging B737 NG's start coming apart at altitude. A subcontractor producing what was supposed to be CNC manufactured fuselage frames and door reinforcement components was fudging and delivered substandard, handmade components (I found a documentary about this on YouTube). Boeing's corporate reaction was to fire the people that pointed this out to them!
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  3138. When has NATO or a NATO member nation started an invasion of Russia? I would REALLY want to know on what Putin's NATO paranoia is based. As far as I can see, the only real grievance Putin has against NATO is the fact that he now does not dare invade any of the former Soviet countries that have shaken off the Russian yoke and have chosen the safety of being a NATO member.
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  3139. What 'Murican police forces need is actual, proper training! A few weeks of training for a rookie cop that has not even been properly evaluated for character flaws will NOT a good cop make.
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  3140. I believe the inhabitants of the British Islands (Ireland and mainland UK) have a relatively dense population to thank for not having a feral pig problem. Living in a country (Iceland) where feral pigs cannot survive, I count myself lucky. A cousin of mine, however, would just LOVE having a reason to hunt feral pigs... I have friend, living in Germany, that has hunted feral pigs - with all the associated problems: A felled boar has to be officially cleared as disease-free before it can be consumed. What is the point, then, in hunting boars? No wonder Germany is drowning in feral pigs...
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  3141. Are you just now realizing that THIS IS NOT HOW A DEMOCRACY IS SUPPOSED TO FUNCTION? Germany went through this 90 years ago - is anyone naive enough to think the US is not likely to travel the same, disastrous road? What kind of democracy to you think the US has been running the last 40 years? Frankly, it probably does not matter if Biden or Trump wins, the US is flawed beyond repair and will devolve into some kind of shooting war (civil war?) between the violent fascists (Trumpzis) and the moderates. The fascists will initially be on the winning side, after all they are the ones that have been "prepping", buying assault weapons and ammunition ad infinitum. On the other hand, anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together will realize that his is the road to certain ruin. The US military will be the last resort. They are mightiest military in the world, what will they choose to do?
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  3142. Given my post a minute ago, some clarification is in order: Boy, oh boy, am I glad to be a citizen of a country that has sensible gun laws. We are number 10 in the world regarding gun ownership pr. capita (over 31%), but have yet to experience a single school shooting spree. Our schools, from Kindergarten to University level are just another open institution, no metal detectors or "Active Shooter" drill required. Gun owners in my country are background checked and licensed (training and proficiency examinations, just as required for a driving license). Problem solved from the beginning!
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  3143.  Quadir Mayo  - the area where Las Vegas is now was, to the best of my knowledge, a desert. The absurdities of different federal and state laws are beyond me, but as far as I understand it, there was a legal black hole regarding gambling that the Mob used to the hilt. If not for that, Lase Vegas would still be a desert town...
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  3144. This probably applies to just about all Russian exports. Any customer that loss his access to raw materials hitherto sourced from Russia, all due to the whims of one megalomaniac, will find another source and NOT come back to Russian sources due to the unreliability of that source. In a few decades, customers might come back if a) Russia becomes a stable, democratic country and/or b) If the materials become available at significantly lower prices vs. quality than other sources can supply. Bottom line: Russia is screwed for a generation or so, not so much the general population as the Kleptocrats that own the whole shebang,
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  3145. These days, the concept of a Republican with a conscience is an oxymoron, at least in the US Senate. Romney might just be the exception to prove the rule...
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  3146. What is the point of advising the US to do something that really works in Germany - or another thing working like a charm in, say Taiwan or South Korea. You see, the US is TOO BIG for any of those ideas to work. Another way of stating the same doomsday end result: The US is simply too big to succeed at anything these days. There are plenty of US Americans capable and willing to solve just about any problem - if only they were allowed the freedom to get on with the job. The corporate Repugnicans and corporate Democrazies will not allow any undue successes that might benefit the general public, their billionaire owners/puppet-masters will not stand for anything like THAT.
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  3147. Ted's solution to the current gun violence problem is the standard Repugnican fare: MORE gun violence! How insanely stupid can you get?
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  3148. Sadly, the US is becoming an outlier regarding the human rights of it's citizens - the SSA (Slavery States of America).
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  3149. 'Muricans in a nutshell: Repugnicans spent money like drunken sailors while they are in power (usually by allowing obscenely rich people to avoid taxes) and then, once thy are out of power, scream loudly and incessantly about fiscal responsibility and how gross the budget deficit is - a deficit engineered by Republicans! The worst bit is : Too many 'Muricans are buying it! The US of A seems doomed to disintegrate into something that closely resembles the beginning of the Third Reich in Germany 90 years ago. Let's face it: The shite ALWAYS floats to the top, the Kochs, Musks, Bezos etc! The French brutally solved this kind of dilemma over 250 years ago. Will the 'Murican capitalist experiment end with the liberal application of some modern equivalent of the Guillotine?
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  3150. It is striking how modern Europeans are now rediscovering a truth known to end-of-WW2 and post-war Germans, as well as any people oppressed by Russia in recent decades. While sympathy for post-WW2 Germany was understandably rather limited, the mindless cruelty exhibited by Russian soldiers and the Russian nation were mind-boggling, in many cases making the Nazis look good!. With Russian behavior in Ukraine, we once again experience that there is something seriously wrong, something mindlessly inhuman about the cruelty the average Russian soldier is able to exhibit as a matter of course. Stealing everything in sight and raping anything that moves is bad enough, shooting elderly people in the streets and just leaving the bodies really takes the cake! The "normal" nations of the world must seriously consider examining this to decide if the Russian people as a whole is at all fit to be considered a civilized nation that can be accepted to co-exist with other nations!
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  3151. Can anyone trust any "Lifelong Repugnican", seeing how much they have always lied about anything and everything? Some of them seem credible (Liz Cheney and Kinzinger), as seen by what they have DONE as well as what they have said, but what of the rest of them? Has Tim Miller actually DONE anything that matches what he is saying? I ask because I do not know and, in my mind, most Repugnicans will need a lot of actually DOING right to earn any semblance of credibility.
    1
  3152. It must be awkward, being Jake Sullivan and having to go on TV and try to justify the reluctance of the West when it comes to providing Ukraine with the tools it needs to properly kick the Russians out of their country. Everyone knows that Ukraine has neither the ability nor the will to take Russian territory when the Russians have been beaten. Everyone also knows that the NATO countries have no interest in invading Russia in any shape or form. While Russia may have currently desirable natural resources, the whole country is a mess no one wants to touch and most nations are trying to wean themselves off such resources anyway, in favor more "green" solutions. Furthermore, everyone also knows that if Russia is not stopped NOW, the rest of Europe will have to go through WW3 anyway, in one form or another!
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  3153. This CNN 'news' segment is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Not to detract anything from Biden and his inauguration, but I'm now waiting for CNN and other US main media to start describing the leather in his shoes or the shade of his necktie. C'mon guys!
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  3154. Well, at least all the pretenses have been dropped. The SCOTUS is finally exposing what a farce it really is- corrupt to the core!
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  3155. What the Iranian minister is saying makes a lot more sense than what comes from Trump and his administration. He may be truthful or lying through is teeth (who can tell with politicians?) but he at least appears far more credible than Trump and his chaotic administration. Just the simple point "this is our home, we are not going anywhere - and the closest US border is 7000 miles away" is indisputable.
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  3156. Silly concept: Icelandic settlers "going to the toilet" a thousand years before the first modern toilet was invented. In those days they simply squatted and defecated.
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  3157. I live in a remote fishing village in the West Fjords of Iceland that gets inundated with cruise ships during summer. While I admired the US and everything "American" during the first 20 years of my life, my admiration died with JFK. Period! You stink as a country! I have a great disdain for 'Muricans now. I do not care if you voted for Trump or not, you are guilty by association! 'Murican = Nazis! I'll make sure that any miserable 'Muricans visiting my little fishing village becomes aware of the disgust they have earned from us Icelanders. Whatever you do, do NOT try to hide behind the "I did not vote for" excuse!
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  3158. Mehdi is brilliant! He is the most logical, rational and eloquent TV host we have seen in a couple of decades. The only problem I see is the fact that his logic, undeniably rock-solid at every turn, is so much "rapid-fire" that significant parts of it simply flies over the heads of his dumbed-down, slow-thinking 'Murican audience! I'm not 'Murican (Nordic, in fact) and I totally agree with him on every issue, but I frequently have a hard time following him - his brain and speech frequently go to fast for us mere mortals to follow. He would do us a world of good by slowing down on occasions to allow his arguments and logic to sink in!
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  3159. Isn't this a Pot / Kettle situation? Nation A assassinates an official of nation B, which incites nation B to assassinate officials of nation A. Assassinations seem to be a slippery slope to embark on.
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  3160. There are two sides to this story: What is the REAL cause of the problems the Venezuelan population is facing? 1) A corrupt Venezuelan government, or... 2) US sanctions that deprive the population of this otherwise oil-rich nation of much-needed resources. My bet is #2! Please note that there are A LOT of corrupt governments around the world that would not dare to let things progress to this level, fully knowing that the next step for the population could be French-style: Let's build a few Guillotines! The US has a lot to answer for!
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  3161.  @madhopster1  You are probably right, inspecting every ship passing into the Baltic Sea is hardly practical - but what about only concentrating on "suspect" vessels, those going to Russia, and focusing on things like anchor security and insurance.
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  3162. As a non-American I have been following the US's decline with morbid fascination until now, but this is becoming too depressing! This descent into true, middle-age insanity is becoming too much. Rest in peace, 'Murica.
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  3163. Can we agree that 'Murican right-wing politics are ever so slightly tainted when Sinema leaves he scene? That right-wing politics remain thoroughly corrupt remains true, it is just, possibly, slightly less corrupt? DREAM ON!
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  3164. Which of Trump's uncles was "really smart", a PhD or something, the one Trump pretended to be like? Mary Trump is also a really smart PhD relative, one wonders why Trump never took credit for HER intelligence? Probably because Mary is a Trump sycophant, plain and simple.
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  3165. In case no one noticed, the operation that Ukraine claims damaged or destroyed up to 34% of the Russian bomber fleet was accomplished without targeting civilians - or many military personnel. There WILL be the odd civilian or military casualty, there always is, but by all accounts, the actual body count was quite low.
    1
  3166. Blair is the one that talked the UK and other European nations into following Bush Junior into a disastrous, never-ending war in the Middle East - all based on a lie. His credibility is on par with what you flush down the toilet every time you dump a big shite. Brexit may or may not be a mistake, made on false premises, but the EU in it's current form is an unmitigated disaster, a completely democracy-free zone! Other nations will certainly follow the UK if things do not change. The EU certainly DOES prevent the endless wars that have plagued Europe for centuries, but the implementation is severely flawed and is handily replacing the democracy that European nations have come to expect with bureaucracy, where faceless and nameless bureaucrats have all the power and elected representatives are simply string puppets. That will end in disaster, somewhere down the road, much like the plutocrats are leading the US straight into the abyss.
    1
  3167. With all due respect, an interview with the rarest example of all; purported emphatic billionaire (his words, how do we verify it?). I truly hope that Ari's interview is genuine and that Cooperman is what he is portrayed to be. I am sure that there ARE genuinely emphatic billionaires around, the problem being that very few people manage to become billionaires in a single lifetime with their morals intact. Becoming rich usually means that eggs WILL be broken to make the omelet, others will suffer to facilitate the success of the aspiring millionaire/billionaire. Inescapable, dog eats dog to survive. The question remains: Is this guy the genuine, emphatic article, or is Ari's integrity for hire? Time will tell...
    1
  3168. Being deported must be a relief for someone stumbling into today's Gestapo-like immigration authorities. The US is fast becoming the premier shit-hole country in the eyes of most other western countries - soon to be called "former allies".
    1
  3169. So the US Police Brutality trend is infecting Canada! Perhaps the public should stop calling them "Cops" and star calling them "Killers" or "Gestapo" instead.
    1
  3170. Putin is succeeding in ensuring that Ukrainians will hate Russia and anything Russian for generations to come. The Western world will automatically share that disdain. It now seems that a sizeable part of the Russian population fully deserves it while, unfortunately, another sizeable chunk of Russians do NOT deserve it, i.e. those that washed their hands of the whole thing and simply left Russia. Those Russians will also suffer distrust, disdain and even outright hatred - if only because those Russian expatriate communities have been infiltrated with Putin agents, the individuals that help Russian dissidents fall out of windows, ingest a Russian-made nerve agent or "murder their entire families before murdering themselves".
    1
  3171. This describe a genuine house of cards. Cross your fingers and hope for nothing, absolutely nothing going wrong.
    1
  3172. The initial guess was a crosswind problem, the aircraft drifting off the runway etc. Not so! This was apparently a grossly botched landing, so hard that not only did the right main gear break off, but the entire right wing separated as well!
    1
  3173. I suggest we change his title to "Vice-Clown of the united States". That one he has fully earned!
    1
  3174. By now it is obvious that the US has truly become the modern Wild West, where every citizen has been convinced that he/she needs to be armed to survive - and to make gun manufacturers prosper! Even worse: The US is a hair trigger away from becoming a Fascist/Nazi country! It is now up to a nebulous majority of US voters to buck their own apathy AND the massive Repugnican gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics to ensure that the US will remain a democratic and non-fascist country. Believe it or not: The US actually COULD eventually become a country where everyone and their infants & grandmothers need NOT be armed to their teeth to be "safe"! Have any one of you EVER visited Nordic countries like Norway and Iceland etc? On the rare occasion that you might see a police officer in public, you will see a glaring absence of "regular" police equipment: The sidearm! The police is unarmed, it is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL and has been so since at least WW!
    1
  3175. Single-payer healthcare is NOT a new, untried experiment that can be debunked with imagined doomsday scenarios. Most European countries have had one form or another of single-payer healthcare with far better success than the US system.
    1
  3176. Yep, continue to appease and give in to Putin's bluff, THAT will ensure World Peace forever! Then, be surprised when it's your turn to be under Putin's heel.
    1
  3177. The US establishment is preoccupied with the problem of foreigners influencing the "sanctity" of US free elections while completely ignoring decades-old perversion of DOMESTIC interests that have made US "free" elections a farce - i.e. Republican (and sometimes Democrat) unrelenting gerrymandering and voter suppression.
    1
  3178. This woman has a serious speech impediment: She has to pause occasionally to inhale!
    1
  3179. Being Republican seems be a harmful mental condition that results in anti-social behavior. Perhaps the most glaring example is how Repugnicans fight tooth and nail to prevent women from terminating unwanted or even dangerous pregnancies, while simultaneously refusing to lift a finger to help any child, once it is born. To Repugnicans, an unborn fetus is holy and inviolate. but the moment a child leaves the womb it becomes cattle or sheep that they do not care about at all. We need a clinical name for this serious mental condition.
    1
  3180. I have lived all my life in one of the Nordic countries, and while Fareed has many facts right regarding the actual taxation, I do not recognize a lot of what else he is saying. Bottom line: I just listened to a lot BS, with some true facts sprinkled in for apparent credibility. CNN in a nutshell, a corporate/billionaire outlet hiding under some progressive camouflage from time to time.
    1
  3181. Who are the "they" Trump constantly refers to as saying this or that? Figments of his imagination?
    1
  3182. As a non-'Murican I truly feel sorry for you poor sods living in the Capitalistic Hellhole that is called the US of A these days. Having been defined as a flawed democracy for decades is bad enough, the fact that the US is currently defined as a FAILING democracy by it's peers is a disaster. You may still be a military superpower, but that is in itself terrifying to everyone else. Even Canada is now considering what to do when - not if! - 'Murica turns full fascist. Make no mistake, the fascist phase of the US will be painful to everyone, but it will not last long, a decade on the outside. Take comfort in the fact that the perpetrators of US fascism (Trump and his minions, Moscow Mitch (the entire Repugnican Party 'in toto'), Manchin, Sinema - the list is endless - will eventually meet the same fate as German and Italian fascists 80 years ago: A violent, painful and shameful death, with their family names shrouded in infamy for centuries to come.
    1
  3183. One way of describing the Nordic Model is "welfare capitalism". Socialism is a stupid label only used by US Americans. This does NOT apply to other nations on the North American continent - Canadian and Mexican Americans
    1
  3184. What do you call this? Censorship? Are cops not allowed their own opinions if said opinions are not Gestapo or SS fascist style? The US police forces have to be completely recycled - every single US cop should be eventually fired over a period of 1-2 years while a PROPER police force is established, and only cops that undergo REAL re-training and pass a psychological test will be hired in to the new police force. Nothing less will do if the US wants to be counted among civilized western nations in the future.
    1
  3185. The conditions that created places like Dachau in Germany are present in the US right now, thanks to the Repugnican/Confederate party. The main question is the ethnicity of the victims this time around and the degree of the depravity the current crop of Repugnicans are willing to unleash on the increasing non-white population. Rest assured, the rest of the world will NOT take this lying down! The US will become a pariah among nations if Repugnican Racism is allowed to flourish. Trump managed to decimate NATO alliances (as prescribed by Putin) and the US just might find itself kicked out of places like Germany, Norway and Iceland - who wants an armed and raving lunatic within their borders?
    1
  3186. One wonders why the Fox crowd has their knickers in a twist and acid up Tuckers p*xxy - after all, what Taylor Swift encouraged young people to do was to VOTE! Not one word about WHO to vote for, just to VOTE! Young voters voting? The end of the Repugnican party!
    1
  3187. The cheek! The fact that McCarthy equates "honesty and integrity" with individuals like George Santos, MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan REALLY takes the cake! On the other hand, this should be no surprise, really. The main qualification requirement to obtain a place of power and influence in today's Republican Party is clearly being an inveterate liar and cheat. McCarthy himself is proof of that twisted world view. It remains to be seen how this lack of shame will play with the voters, long term.
    1
  3188.  Carl Rice , I am only guessing here, but I suspect Lt.Col. Vindman is NOT someone that has a problem functioning under pressure. I had the same affliction myself when younger - when you have a lot to say, you know how to say it but you tend to push it out too fast... The important point is that the contents of his testimony is crystal clear.
    1
  3189. The way I see it (uneducated guess) is that even if Putin and/or his cronies were to us "tactical" (tiny) nuclear weapons in Ukraine, that would not elicit a nuclear response from the western countries, but it would be proof that Putin's Russia has turned into a genuine terrorist state that the rest of the globe simply cannot tolerate under any circumstances. It would likely prompt an all-out conventional war response from NATO, a response that would instantly wipe out Russia's Black Sea Fleet and every significant air base within Russia that had the potential to be a threat to either Europe or Asia. Intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles are best left where they are: Unused and underground! An invasion of Russia proper is uncalled for: Just demolish Russia's ability to be a threat to it's neighbors and leave the Russian people to deal with it's misguided "leaders". Someone like Navalny could be a repetitively peaceful initial solution.
    1
  3190. No nation can is self-sufficient enough to remain isolated from the rest of the world. Russians experienced it after a fashion during the Soviet era and are used to it, but young Russians have had a taste of a different kind of existence, and will NOT tolerate it for long. Still, I fear the Russian people are in for at least a decade of isolation and being shunned by every other nationality. Even the Russians that wanted nothing to do with Putin's escapades and fled Russia are in for a hard time in the immediate future. Fact: No one can trust a Russian expat, anywhere! There is no way of telling if an expat Russian is a Putin agent (of the kind that will help you fall out of the nearest high-rise window) or a genuine Putin dissident. The default will be pure mistrust of Russians, everywhere - just as Putin intended. Perhaps a year or two after Putin, his Cabal and institutions are stone-cold dead and gone and every Oligarch is in jail, their wealth confiscated and turned over to the Russian people (what remains after rebuilding Ukraine), some semblance of trust can begin to be built, especially if democratic movements manage to gain a foothold in Russia, which is rather unlikely. Russians are a strange breed.
    1
  3191.  @kpopgrrl , which is why I also said "While we have to be ever vigilant to keep out corruption"
    1
  3192. @Robert Johnson, you are correct about the inevitability of wealth inequality, which exists in the Nordic countries (and tends to be on the rise, at lest until something is done about it - spelled: "contain the inevitable corruption"). The big difference between the US and the Nordic countries is that runaway inequality is allowed in the US while it is being contained in the Nordic countries. We tend to CARE about those less well off instead of only caring about our own individual arses.
    1
  3193. To recap: Benghazi cost 4 precious 'Murican lives while Trump's neglect has cost over 103.000 'Murican lives to date. Well, it DOES matter who is doing the sinning! Repugnican: No sin, all the dues have been paid (reminds you of the Catholic Church). Corporate Democrap: No sin, all the dues have been paid (reminds you of the Repugnican party). The reat of politicians: If there is no sin involved, the person must be an atheist or agnostic and thus unfit for corruption (spelled: political cooperation).
    1
  3194. This is not "opposition research", this is plainly "falsifying true events". This smear campaign is going to backfire spectacularly on the Trumpzis. We all know what Dr. Fauci said and what he didn't say. Trying to spin that into some kind of alternate reality will bite the Trumpzis in the arse, and bite HARD! Just about the only consistent voice in this debacle has been that of Dr. Fauci who has managed to keep his integrity in the middle of the Trump-storm-of-lies. This attempt at smearing the most credible person in the whole debacle simply exposes how rotten the entire Trump environment is.
    1
  3195.  Marie Gamalski , like I said - deeply offended on behalf of womankind, yet she never had to resort to mean words. She is far too eloquent for that. I agree, not only CLASS but Masterclass!
    1
  3196. So - the F-35 is NOT an ALL-weather fighter, only a most-weather fighter?
    1
  3197.  @peterson7082  , if you say so... I'm just a retired airline pilot with no experience with military aviation, but given the gung-ho attitude evident in that branch of aviation, I took the unusually cautious approach regarding the F-35 weather capabilities as being a really, Really, REALLY serious issue. I hope I am wrong.
    1
  3198. ANY information coming out of Russia via official channels can be counted on being disinformation = outright lies.
    1
  3199. I haven't followed AOC's tweets, but those that I have seen quoted have not been mean by any stretch of imagination. She has a knack of reflecting whatever or whoever she is responding to directly back to the issue or individuals she is responding to, and almost invariably with a touch of humor thrown in. Her response to the "dancing scandal" was magnificent, and a good example of her supposedly "mean" tweets. I hope she will be able to keep this up.
    1
  3200. "US-led coalition" or "Coalition with US participation" are terms that are about to become extinct. What nation will be able to believe ANYTHING coming from ANY US administration? The invasion of Iraq was based on a lie and what is happening now is obviously even worse. The good news is that the Trump administration is so incompetent that their lies are virtually transparent, and no other nation is likely to support this nonsense. The bad news is that the mess Trump has already made is going to cost countless lives.
    1
  3201. How about BOTH? Bush Jr. crapped up badly but Trump has already managed to waste more 'Murican lives than Bush ever did. The 'Muricans that died under Bush at least had a weapon in their hands - their president had lied them into a formal war. Trump is wasting them just as collateral damage in the desperate push to keep the US economy alive, to salvage an imaginary presidential campaign. When the international community does the final accounting of the COVID and Trump era, Trump will end up worse than Hitler!
    1
  3202. Macron already put forward a plan regarding the MAD situation: Seeing that European nuclear weapons are not long-range standoff (not counting the UK submarines), they should all be moved much closer to Russia, to Germany or Poland, not to mention the Baltics. That way, Putin's constant nuclear sabre-rattling is countered: If Putin does ANYTHING with his nuclear weapons, Russia is toast - without the useless 'Muricans being involved at all! Who needs 2000 megaton nukes when just 5 small ones (kiloton range) will do the job?
    1
  3203. Fortunately, Jewish people have been dealing with this crap for centuries, even millennia and they are probably better prepared to handle it than many other minority groups. Other minority groups are arguably less prepared and less experienced - but they will get there, eventually. The question remains: How low will the US have to sink until things start getting better?
    1
  3204. 'Muricans seem to have a brick-wall response regarding ANYTHING that Europeans have found to work for them: Nah, 'Murica is too big, to diverse, to this or too that for similar things to work in 'Murica.
    1
  3205. Did FDR personally advocate the Japanese-American internment or was it a backlash because of Pearl Harbor? Much like no westerners are willing to trust any Russians these days, the risk of overreacting is nearly guaranteed in these situations!
    1
  3206. As a non-'Murican living in a truly democratic country, I am becoming disgusted with 'Murica and everything 'Murican (as opposed to my formative years, when the US was our role model - but that was pre-1980, before it morphed into Reagan's 'Murica, a monstrous something that is scaring the bejesus out of all other western allied countries). What to do? Do I spit on anyone I meet that has an 'Murican (not to mention Southern!) accent, or do I try to figure out if the 'Murican in question is a disgusting Repugnican or a normal, sane US citizen? The problem, as I see it: If asked "are you a conservative/Republican?", a conservative/Republican will, just like water runs downhill, LIE through their teeth! Dishonesty is in in their very upbringing! All things considered, unfair as it is, the only option is to treat all 'Muricans as Lepers...
    1
  3207. Texans are now in the same situation as former East German citizens under STASI: Anyone can claim real or imagined grievances against their neighbor or family - AND BE REWARDED FOR IT! Methinks the Stupid State of Texas will never recover from this show of insanity.
    1
  3208. Cohen may be a proven liar, but Trump has been proven to be a greater liar by orders of magnitude - an so has Giuliani!
    1
  3209. What a situation to be in: After decades of working for an organization that peddled lies and disinformation, Shep is now frantically trying to wash away the accompanying stench! True, he was one of very few significant Fox screen personalities that occasionally rose up and objected to the lies, but he is fighting an uphill battle. Shep did what he did and he is stuck with it, the good, the bad and the ugly. I gave up watching this attempted whitewash about halfway through.
    1
  3210. "... the DNC is going to see AOC's speech before it is - whatever". Given AOC´s knack for delivering a LOT of content in a very short speech, she will nail it - and they will try to censor it! Their problem will be that the original speech will be leaked and the DNC will suffer a lot for their blatant attempt of manipulation. Better yet, why don't Justice Democrats just publish the full speech AOC could LIKE to give at the convention? THAT would really rock the boat! Then again, AOC is not likely to do anything that will NOT help kicking Trump out of office. Stage one, the most important bit. Her 60 seconds are bound to be focused on that. Stage two will be to hold Biden to his promises once he is in office which he (being a Corporate Democrat) will try to weasel his way out of. THAT is when AOC and her followers will come out, guns blazing (a poor metaphor, frankly). Hopefully they will not only rock but capsize the Corporate Democrat's boat!
    1
  3211. No wonder the CNN staff were truly worried about their reporter, seeing that he was "Being Black and arrested by police in Minneapolis", given recent police behavior. Jimenez might also have ended up dead like Floyd, given the Minneapolis track record!
    1
  3212. There are simply too many influential right-wing people in the US. Republicans are at least unapologetic about it, but corporate Democrats are "speaking with a forked tongue". Ex-mayor Rahm Emanuel is a classic example of that kind of dirt-bag. If Bernie fails in his final bid to take the US on a more Europe-like path regarding the treatment of the general population, the US is royally fucked for generations to come. Then again, the young people in the US realize this and are fighting back. After all, they will inherit whatever mess the current old-school dirt-bags leave behind, and I suspect they will NOT be kind to the old dirt-bags when they finally take over.
    1
  3213. 'Murica is clearly off the rails. What further proof do we need?
    1
  3214. Bottom line: This is all about keeping homeless people out of certain areas. Now, what country is drowning in a wave of homeless people?
    1
  3215. The driver and passenger in the second part of this video ran the risk of dying by stupidity: Never become argumentative with a police officer while being black! Too many people have died as a result of such actions. A black person in 'Murica never knows if he or she is dealing with an armed potential lunatic on a power trip just waiting for an excuse to gun them down. Too many US police officers ARE just that, mentally unstable individuals with a hair-trigger temper - and their more normal colleagues are complicit by being silent about it.
    1
  3216. George Santos is morally void petty thief that is unable to express truths or facts in any shape or form. In short, he fits right in as a congressman!
    1
  3217. The stark fact that a character like Boebert is actually part of the 'Murican Legislative Branch is a chilling prospect for the future of 'Murica. I see only doom and gloom ahead for you...
    1
  3218. When I saw the title of this video I immediately thought "Audie Murphy" - a dimunitive Texan, he wrote a book called "To hell and back" (or something along those lines) that describes his experience of WW2. A genuine description of the destructive Hell that war is, and how it affects you and your fellow (mostly dead) soldiers. His tribute to lost comrades. As far as I could tell, he did what he had to do, but never enjoyed snuffing out the lives of enemy soldiers. THAT is the hallmark of a true human being. As a kid (born in 1950) in a nation so small and insignificant that we do not even bother to have a military, I came across his book and it was the only link I had to warfare - until I found myself doing relief flights for the ICRC in Africa (South Sudan & Angola) in the early 1990's. That experience, proved to me that Murphy's description of "To Hell and Back" was dead-on. We are humans, first and foremost, dedicated to the survival of the species. Killing each other is an aberration, the height of stupidity, and yet we seem to cherish the "heroism" of killing perceived adverarsaries by remote control - well, the US does, at any rate. There will be a time when US war criminals (Bush & Obama being the typical responsible figureheads) will be appropriately denounced as such - WAR CRIMINALS! The real killers like the crew of the homicidal "Crazy Horse" helicopter crew (and their superiors) will be made accountable, eventually. If the Crazy Horse crew escapes their deserved fate in this life, their descendants will bear the brunt of the shame forever...
    1
  3219. It is glaringly obvious that US health care insurance is a gigantic scam, designed to benefit the executives and shareholders, NOT the "insured". The US spends almost twice as much per capita on health care than comparable European nations, yet still manages to leave a sizable part of the population out in the cold.
    1
  3220. What a horrible country 'Murica is turning out to be! White Supremacy rearing it's ugly head, once again, in this modern day and age. Slavery and suppression of the black population is bad enough, but the beginning - the Native American genocide that is still ongoing really takes the cake!
    1
  3221. Donal Trump should NOT be held to the same standard as an ordinary citizen when it comes to his crimes, he should be held to a MUCH higher standard! Throw the book at him, in fact throw the entire library at him. If not, he will shamelessly continue his crime spree, not to mention the copycats that will follow.
    1
  3222. Ari's word salad proves only one thing: MSNBC wants to prolong the nonsense - and Ari Melber is in full compliance. Put a pin in that! It will become important in the near future!. MSNBC is becpming just as corrupt as the SCOTUS - and THAT is saying a lot!
    1
  3223. Is 'Murica's inability to set up a single-payer system due to rank incompetence or political corruption? My money is on the latter.
    1
  3224. One wonders why the Jan. 6th committee has not trusted the DOJ enough to share their information. The DOJ has not been leaking, but neither has it done anything to inspire public confidence they are ever going to do anything to make influential people accountable for their obvious crimes. We all KNOW that the US judicial system is slow, even glacial, while the public is impatient and want justice served no later than yesterday.
    1
  3225. Having clamored for Trump's impeachment for a long time, now you see all kinds of problems with impeachment? Make up your mind! The arguments sound sensible, and maybe it is best to have the impeachment inquiry expose how awfully corrupt Trump is - but leave it up the the now-conservative Senate dirty their hands by denying actual impeachment. Pence would not become president (to obviously pardon Trump to the extent possible) and Republican Senators will have shown their true, grafting colors.
    1
  3226. McMaster is obviously still a Trump-suckler. You do not maintain a democracy simply by shouting out loud that you have the best democracy ever (while simultaneously doing your level best to prevent a select part of the "demos", the US citizens) from voting. In fact, the US seems to have ceased to be a democracy 40 years ago. It started out slowly and people didn't notice until recently that US democracy has, in effect, been lost. It is now all about money and bribed politicians.
    1
  3227. A Covid infection will muck up your blood circulation. I caught Covid in Oct. 2020 and immediately noticed a pronounced circulation problems - hands and feet were chronically COLD, and severe remedies were called for. Fortunately, the problem is slowly correcting itself, over 2 years on. One thing I did NOT experience was notable erection problems (apart from being over 70 years old and definitely slowing down in that department). I count myself as fortunate, any drawbacks were easily handled by Viagra-style medication. To be in his thirties and experiencing severe penile problems must be horrifying, especially for an 'Murican. Then again, he can always go for a penis extension - go and by a BIG gun or a BIG truck or a BIG whatever...
    1
  3228. Franceska's quip "I really want to duck under this entire election season" is a classic explanation why 'Murica is rapidly going down the drain: When declared activists like Francesca cannot even be bothered to vote, the writing is on the wall! I am not 'Murican, I live in one of the "socialist" Nordic countries, and I find Franceska's attitude beyond scary!
    1
  3229. This slow, torturous method of execution will have been fitting and appreciated at this place and this time. I suspect there will be any number of similar episodes of executions when the Russians finally face the the consequences of their actions in Ukraine. There is such an overload of Russian brutality to be accounted for, that a really ugly day of reckoning is inevitable. Every Ukrainian civilian death will call for a corresponding death of an a Russian official - ANY Russian official! The aftermath will be, well, brutal - but fully deserved.
    1
  3230. If there was any doubt about the stupidity and cruelty that is pervasive in 'Murican right-wing circles, this should settle it!
    1
  3231. How low can Repugnicans sink? Evidently they have yet to reach a bottom.
    1
  3232. Anthony Canter comes across as an useless bureaucrat, someone who's sole purpose in life is to preserve the status quo for the rich and powerful, regardless of the laws of the land or the needs of the 'Murican people. Shameful! From what I have gleaned from decades of following the ridiculous 'Murican politics, my understanding is that ALL the old anti-trust laws from the first quarter of the last century are STILL in full force, still on the books (whatchamacallit), only Reagan decided to stop ENFORCING them over 40 years ago! If that is true, what have subsequent presidents bee thinking and doing? Wallowing in anti-trust corruption? I'm asking YOU, Clinton and Obama! I am suspect my understanding is a bit simplistic, can someone knowledgeable clarify this?
    1
  3233. After Trump's >50% Iowa primary "win", some reporter did a quick number-crunching and fact-checking: Thump got over 50% of the votes in the Republican primary, but those voters are only a tiny fraction of registered voters in Iowa! In fact, when all is counted, Trump's "win" was backed by only about 2% of registered voters in Iowa. It's all smoke and mirrors at this stage.
    1
  3234. So, the Main Rat is fleeing the sinking ship? What else is new? A safety culture is ingrained, something that was integral with Boeing from it's inception until a few decades ago (the McDonnell Douglas disease). Once lost, it cannot be regained in time to regain credibility. Boeing is DEAD, it just takes time for everyone involved to come out of denial. It will take a LONG time for the corpse to decompose to the point that is falls apart. The stench of decomposition has been evident for a decade or two, but denial is a strong motivations...
    1
  3235. The US of A is in deep trouble if the media is spending most of it's time on chasing windmills like all the "shining objects" Trump distracts them with.
    1
  3236. I hope this entire issue goes "splat" in the Repugnicans face in the next elections. A nasty thought: Can I hope every rabid "pro-life" female becomes pregnant as a result of a rape? Wouldn't that be poetic justice? I'm allowed such fantasies because they are just that - satisfying fantasies. Ain't going to happen, unfortunately.
    1
  3237. This whole episode would have ended instantly by showing e.g. a drivers license. In this particular case the Black father was the one to needlessly escalate the situation.
    1
  3238. I actually tried to transcribe the disjointed nonsense Trump was sprouting, but gave up about 02:00 in! Actually listening to any of his "press conferences" over the last few days show that the man is absolutely unable to complete a single, coherent sentence. He starts off somewhere, veers off to some other topic and ends up saying a fragment about a totally different issue.
    1
  3239. What is striking is the fact that there is no accountability UNLESS there is a video that proves the cops LIED about what happened. What we can take away from this is that cops will ALWAYS lie about events where they are conceivably in the wrong! When hard evidence is available they are always exposed as liars - and they expect the citizens to trust them. What a farce.
    1
  3240. Isn't this a case of "Good riddance to bad rubbish"?
    1
  3241. I wonder it it is one of Thom's staff or someone at YouTube that frequently sabotages the audio in Thom's videos.
    1
  3242. I find it hilarious how a typical 'Murican believes EVERY girl should carry pepper-spray or a Taser and EVERYONE should know to run in a zigzag when under gunfire. This might apply in 'Murica, the "best" country in the world, but it certainly does not apply in the vast majority of other developed countries!
    1
  3243.  @Speedbird61 , as far as I can see, there is no Turnberry airport. There WAS a Turnberry Airfield during WW1 & WW2, and the landing strips can still be seen at the Trump Turnberry Golf Course. The airport being discussed IS the Glasgow Prestwick Airport (EGPK). The Scottish Government has service contracts with the USAF, USN, USMC, Defense Logistics Agency and National Guard, and the most controversial use by the US were the extraordinary rendition flights.
    1
  3244. Aww, you are really mean to them. They can be pitied for being collateral damage of the Trump debacle, but that's all. They choose to go down this path, and now they reap "the benefits" (spelled: suffer the consequences). Should we feel sorry for them? Nah...
    1
  3245. I have a feeling that US Vietnam Vets were in a situation similar to the vast majority of Russian conscripts currently killing Ukrainian citizens. The difference? The world will soon KNOW how wrong the Russians were, but Vietnam Vets were, unfortunately, in no position to realize that they were the same kind of cannon fodder as the hapless Russian conscripts are now in Ukraine. I was born in 1950 in a non-military NATO country. The Vietnam war and the Flower--Power movement left a lasting impression on me. To see the latest developments is depressing - the most stupid mistakes of previous decades are being studiously repeated! Frankly, I am beginning to think that the only good US politician is a DEAD US politician - that is when they stop wreaking havoc on US society and the rest of the globe.
    1
  3246. Krugman is correct on one issue: The use of the word "Socialist" in US America is a bit suicidal. There are some terms that seem to have absolutely irrational Bogeyman connections for US Americans, especially the older ones. "Socialist" and "Communist" describe political concepts that were never actually implemented - The Soviet Union or the "Peoples" Republic of China were never Socialist or Communist, they were simply autocracies disguised by meaningless labels. I am sure that any attempt to implement true unfettered Socialism or Communism is as doomed to failure as the current US experiment with true unfettered Capitalism is. Western Europe has been experimenting with a mixture of this (Mixed Economies?) with far greater success and better outcomes for the general population that the US has managed since the eighties, when Reagan started the US on the road to ruin.
    1
  3247. The discussion in this clip is beyond pathetic! You 'Muricans are so fixated about petty 'Murican politics that you are unable to see the forest - because the SCOTUS-legalized political US corruption blinds you to everything else! How can anyone even BEGIN to think about giving in and cooperating with the most corrupt of the corrupt, Manchin and Sinema? EVERY country around the US (e.g. Canada & Mexico) manages to provide affordable health care and medicine as a RIGHT to their citizens while the US is stubbornly unable and unwilling to do anything similar. If you 'Muricans WANT to have your arse reamed every day by being ripped off by Health Insurance and Pharma corporations, be my guest! No wonder "white" procreation is dwindling: Having a child in the US will bankrupt a normal family while the same "preexisting condition" is welcomed and supported in Europe - and is FREE! Why 'Muricans tolerate having to pay 10-30 times more than EVERY other similar nation for a 100-year, non-patented drug (Insulin) is beyond comprehension! Well, if you 'Muricans ENJOY being masochists, have at it!
    1
  3248. I agree with everything said here, but I cannot help wondering if there is such a thing as being to rabidly pro-Bernie. Being pro-Bernie myself ( a rather pointless exercise, seeing that I am not a US American and have no say in this), I find the Rational National so rabidly pro-Bernie to actually resemble the pro-Trump crowd - literally a fanatic. I live in a North-European, social-democratic CAPITALISTIC country, and find that Bernie is simply preaching to the US voters what we in norther Europe have had since WW2: Affordable health care and education, wages that you can actually live on, and sensible social safety nets. The US population seems to have been brainwashed into thinking that anything that has the word "social" in it equals the now-extinct USSR-style "communist" philosophy. Europe is, is anything, more capitalistic than the US, at least we still believe in competition, and we still have anti-trust laws that curb the virtual monopolization found in the US today. That is something that Republicans and Corporate Democrats have been quietly abolishing in the US in recent decades.
    1
  3249. Andrew is absolutely right: Little brother Chris is actually and openly harassing his big brother by interrupting and tripping him up - possibly as a payback for past role reversals where big brother walked all over little brother, possibly even without realizing that he was. At this stage in their life this kind of sparring is probably second nature, and all done with good humor.
    1
  3250. The Rubio hipocracy should be career-terminating - but is not. The one thing the US public has learned is the fact that Repugnicans will do onything to cling to power. Lying, cheating and stealing is just the basic stuff for them. Insurrection, threats of physical harm to opponents is plan B and actually carrying out those threats is the ultimate plan.
    1
  3251. The problem: These extreme right-wingers have no shame! It does not matter how morally cringy their actions are, they will blithely carry on as if they were the Christian epitome of truth-telling while, in fact, they will go down in history as the most notorious liars and cheats we have seen in modern history. The example of Benedict Arnold will pale in comparison...
    1
  3252. Do we need any further proof that the 'Murican judicial system is a farce?
    1
  3253. Newt Gingrich is a masterclass hypocrite.
    1
  3254. As an Icelander, I was all in for contributing the two bit's worth of my genes into this genetic database - right until deCode Genetics was taken over by an 'Murican drug company, one of the two most hated entities in the world - the other being 'Murican health insurance companies. The moment 'Murican drug and insurance companies are abolished (the Covid pandemic SHOULD do the trick if not for Biden). Biden will ensure that 'Muricans are doomed to be exploited to the hilt for at least one or more additional generations).
    1
  3255. Goodness me - another corrupt law that Useless Obama signed off? Who would have thought that possible!
    1
  3256. There ARE too few rich Americans like him. He is correct, the current system is not sustainable, the only question is: Will the change be incremental and peaceful via the ballot box, or will it be quick and violent (the metaphorical "pitchfork" calamity).
    1
  3257. By now we all know what a "Russian Training Mission" is all about. Best to blow it out of the water before it can fire a single missile, preferably before it gets anywhere near the Mediterranean.
    1
  3258.  @AnshumanGoswami , most rapes are apparently commited by acquaintances. As far as I know, rape is sexual congress against the will of the "rapee" so rape is never consensual. Also, rape is illegal in all civilized countries and in those countries rape can never be legitimate. Whatever this idiot MEANT he certainly did not elucidate it in any meaningful way.
    1
  3259. Definitely one of the good cops. What a sad story.
    1
  3260.  @thetruthisonlyperspective4872 , that is a nasty and vile attitude.
    1
  3261. Eric Swalwell behaved rudely like a typical Repugnican for once, and I'm sure the Repugnicans did not like it one bit, having to swallow a dose of their own medicine.
    1
  3262. How about ALSO deporting the individuals that have been made it possible for undocumented immigrants to work and hide in 'Murica, individuals like this cow farmer/dairy producer? They are ALL immigrants as well - the only difference is the paperwork. Trump should actually deport himself to either Scotland or Germany, only neither country would accept him! The final words, "'Murica is better than this" is pure BS. This is EXACTLY what 'Murica is - ignorant, stupid, cruel and on a path that will lead to self-destruction.
    1
  3263. Turkey is now reaping the fruits of rampant corruption - unimaginable and unnecessary deaths because building code violations were actually legalized - via bribery! Will things like this be the end of Erdogan? Unlikely, but one can always hope...
    1
  3264. What do you call a female that sells her services to the highest bidder? A sought-after female of ill repute?
    1
  3265. A crazed armed radical seems to be the most dangerous type of person in the US. The second most dangerous type of person in the US seems to be a bad-tempered cop.
    1
  3266. Now Fact-checkers are checking the Fact-checkers. The US seems to be very confused when it comes to the truth (whatever that might be in any given case).
    1
  3267. I will meet a lot of 'Murican tourists in the summer of 2025, and I am looking forward to asking the if they are proud of where they have elected their country is going - as well as disrespecting them to the extent possible. 'Muricans will be 'personas non grata' anywhere outside their own self-deluded zones for years to come. The rest of the world is finding out, the hard way, that 'Muricans are disgusting people at their core.
    1
  3268. Trump seems so get a kick out of using derogatory nicknames for his opponents, which strongly hints at him being sensitive to such pettiness himself. He would probably go crazy if everybody were to call him "Toddler Trump" at every turn. Everybody should try to come up with more derogatory nicknames for Toddler Trump!
    1
  3269. Republicans say "we believe in evidence" and the do their damnedest to prevent any evidence being found or witness testimony be heard. The lady in pink probably also believes the earth was created in just a few days, evidence be damned!
    1
  3270. Too right - but let's not jump the gun! AOC has everything that a future leader of the new kind has to have BUT she is still learning the basics. Old Nancy Pelosi may be past her selling date BUT her expertise in political wheeling/dealing is what non-conservative politics needs right now. She knows how to manage the next year or two and is likely to run circles around Trump and his followers. Let's hope Pelosi will be able to gracefully back out when the imminent fight is won and the right time for sensible progressives has arrived. Unfortunately it is fairly certain that "corporate" Democrats (those just as corrupt and donor-weaned as current Republicans) will try to hang on to power like barnacles to a rock. The fight for the future of the general population of the US is just beginning. If a genuine democratic and socially conscious movement does not take over, the good old US is done for. The most frightening (but not unlikely) scenario in a nation awash with military-style weapons is another civil war.
    1
  3271. The US's so-called "health care" is outright slavery.
    1
  3272. What a pitiful example of the dregs of failed humanity.
    1
  3273. I feel an immense personal relief, finding myself far removed from the calamities Trump is about to unleash on his voters - which they thoroughly deserve! Being safely ensconced within the borders of my Nordic country, with a functioning and affordable health care system that actually works for everyone makes me feel safe and secure. If the worst-case scenario unfolds, with a vaccine-denier at the helm of the NHS, 'Muricans will not be allowed to enter most of the European countries without undergoing a thorough quarantine first!
    1
  3274. This entire segment just goes to show how corrupt the 'Murican political system has become, AND 'MURICAN CITIZENS ARE ACCEPTING IT! Methinks the national anthem lyrics need a revision: The "land of the ignorant and the home of fact deniers" seems more appropriate...
    1
  3275. The Piranha configuration was apparently more like the Swedish Viggen than the later JSAS39 Gripen.
    1
  3276. What a horrible waste of resources and human lives, not to mention the damage done to the Ukrainian nation, their homes and infrastructure. There will be hell to pay or Russia in the near future.
    1
  3277. 'Murica is currently the most powerful nation on Earth, both financially and militarily. 'Murica is potentially poised to elect to the highest office in the land a fascist that may be cunning, but is really a moron that is unable to string together a coherent sentence. This unavoidable fact is chilling for all the developed nations, especially all the minority groups that will be the victims if Trump is ever allowed near any levers of power. That would be the end of the world as we know it, and while 'Murica would eventually go the way of Hitler's Nazi Germany, the potential global suffering until that day is unfathomable.
    1
  3278. Being NOT 'Murican (just Nordic) I have never been able to nail down the definitions of the terms "being Un-American" and "being American". Personally I consider everyone living in the area from the northernmost reaches of Canada/Alaska to the southern tip of Chile as someone living on the continent of the vast North, Central and South American continent, and ALL of them being entitled to call themselves AMERICANS. It takes a lot of cheek for one of the many countries on this continent to monopolize the term "Being American". I tend to call them 'Muricans to distinguish that particular set of arrogant gits from all the other Americans (Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians etc.). 'Murica is increasingly coming across as the land of the ignorant and the home of Rednecks.
    1
  3279. Almost all politicians are playing a role, i.e. acting. I say ALMOST - there are a handful that are (and have been) consistent throughout and and some of them have been consistent about the issues they believe in for decades (Sanders, McCain). When a newcomer like AOC comes across as very credible and consistent, even regarding hitherto unpopular issues like "socialism", it is almost certain there is little roleplaying involved. I put "socialism" in quotes because I have lived in a social-democratic country all my life, and is NOTHING like Americans think it is.
    1
  3280. @Broadstreet Flyers95, exactly WHAT is false, the comment about role-playing politicians or my statement about living in a social-democratic country?
    1
  3281. @Broadstreet Flyers95, you seem to have missed that I said ALMOST all politicians are playing a role. Regarding AOC, you call her a stupid moron, I call he brilliant. Time will tell who turns out to be right.
    1
  3282. 'Murica will never be able to adopt or even consider the various solutions that work pretty well in most European countries. Why? 'Muricans are now too incompetent to get just about ANYTHING right - unlike the state of affairs 80 years ago, when the US was a trailblazer, the role model to what is Europe today.
    1
  3283. I find it striking that there is no mention of Taylor Swift urging her fans to vote one way or another, she is apparently just urging her fans to GO AND VOTE! She may be anti-Repugnican herself but that is not why the Repugnicans are prematurely losing their water - Repugnicans HATE the idea of a large voter turnout because most 'Muricans, especially young ones, are against them.
    1
  3284. I am convinced that Olaf Scholtz is like Trump: He is either a Putin-wannabe OR Putin has some serious "compromat" on both of them. If Scholtz is giving in recently, it is likely because he would otherwise be pissing into tornado-level wind that would only get him wet with his own piss. Only time will tell if I am wrong or if Scholtz (and Trump) were Putin "assets".
    1
  3285. What is needed is an assurance to the crazed and despised Russian nation: We have no interest in invading your twisted and sick country, but here is a sample of what you have been visiting on other nations - followed by a rain of bombs and other misery! I live in a country where we have very few Russians, only one embassy that is isolated and barricaded because EVERYONE here hates Russia and everything Russian! Personally, I would not want to be of Russian nationality for, say, the next 50 years?
    1
  3286. US Health care: Universal Health Care in the US is predicted to cost $32T over a period of time (10 years, I believe). What most pundits omit is that this will be offset by even more money being saved by the public. Taxpayers will be paying more taxes but will avoid having to buy dubious and more expensive health care plans that in many cases do not even cover relevant health problems. The big issues are a) preventing for-profit insurance companies skimming fat profits off health care costs, and b) allowing a bulk buyer (the government) to negotiate drug prices with the for-massive-profits drug companies. This works in Europe, why should the US be unable to do the same?
    1
  3287. Question: What will it take for allied democratic nations to reach the point where they can say: This is a blatant breach of international law, we have to step in and stop it! History gives us a hint: Something similar happened 90 years ago, democratic nations dithered and prevaricated (like we are doing now) until WW2 became a reality. Putin is walking in Hitler's footprints and he even has the gall of calling the democratically elected Ukrainian government "a bunch of drug addicts and Nazis"! It seems obvious that the West will not have the gumption to nip this in the bud, so we are in for a hell of a ride. Will this evolve into WW3? That remains to be seen, but it becomes more likely with every day of dithering and prevarications.
    1
  3288. To an outsider like me, it looks like the entire 'Murican judicial system is a seething, rotting mess, about to collapse in on itself.
    1
  3289. Regardless of what punishment Boeing has earned, this lawsuit is SOOO 'Murican! Startle or scare an 'Murican and you will be sued - if you have any money to make it worthwhile. Boeing is in trouble because of greed, 'Murica is in dire straits because of greed. Mutual annihilation...
    1
  3290. Bernie has been consistent in what he's been fighting for at least four decades. It is only recently that he is getting support from progressive 'Democrats' (AOC etc.). If ´Murican voters are adamant about being ripped off by e.g. big pharma, it is their choice. The only thing we outsiders can do is to watch the debacle and feel sorry for ordinary US citizens that are deprived of all the rights provided by North-European countries, those the US is supposed to be like. This simply cannot end well... One would think that Bernie should be discouraged by the apathy of the US general population, but he still soldiers on!
    1
  3291. I feel African-Americans are overly sensitive about the "N-word". Given their history in 'Murica, that is understandable. What I find a bit over the top is to blow a gasket when it is not directed at an individual but used in, perhaps, a generic historic context. I really KNOW that I am not really qualified to have an opinion about this, but I DO have an opinion, hence this comment. You see, I live in a small country with relatively few dark-skinned people of African origin. Most of them speak our language and are simply "one of us". The color of their skin is irrelevant. A few do not speak the language and are just considered visitors or recent immigrants - no big deal. We have very little history of colored people and thus only the usual handful of stupid bigots are prejudiced enough to cause problems. We do, however, have a significant number of Asian immigrants (mostly from Thailand) and if they are referred to as "Asians" there is no malice in it, it just a description - like calling someone "tall" or "short"
    1
  3292. 'Murica is "browning". Face it! People "of color" will fairly soon be such a vast majority of the US population that the dam will break and white supremacy will simply drown in the resulting flood. The good news is that 'Murica will finally have a shot at becoming a genuine democracy again. The bad news is that a lot of racial resentment, division and hatred has been building for centuries - and it will only get worse until the dam finally breaks, in a country awash with guns. Blood will be shed.
    1
  3293. Interesting. Vastly greater testing capacity IS available in NYC but not allowed to be used by the Federal Government? I wonder if somebody is making a bundle with the current testing arrangement - surely something an enterprising journalist could look into...
    1
  3294. What I find incredible is the fact that anyone can dress in a "POLICE - ICE" jacket, cover their faces, handcuff people and abduct then without showing credentials or an arrest warrant - and the people on the scene DO NOTHING! Trump's Greyshirts (ICE - equivalent to Hitler's Brownshirts, the SA) seem to already have acquired the intimidation power Hitler's SS did much later. 'Murica's fall into ruin is happening much faster than it did for Germany in the 1930s.
    1
  3295. So true!
    1
  3296. This can go both ways: The gerrymandering and cheating Fascists will win in 2022 and the US as we know it will cease to be! The alternative: EVERYONE, and I mean EVERY VOTING-AGE CITIZEN will defy the Repugnican effort to discourage them from voting. The immediate future of the US is in the hands of indifferent and useless US voters. The good news: The US may be about to drown in their own corruption and it certainly will be painful for the rest of the world, but at least the Western world will be OK once the death throes of the once-mighty US military are over.
    1
  3297. Well, he MIGHT have been a danger to himself so the they simply killed him. Problem solved. He is now stone-cold-dead and thus no longer a danger to himself. What a twisted kind of logic, the kind of logic one would expect to find in the effing US of A, not Canada! These particular policemen should be arrested and charged with the murder of a harmless person, because this killing was simply a murder. I wonder if they had a warrant to enter the premises. If not, this was an outright breaking and entering and murdering a person within the sanctity of his own home. When things like this start happening in a country like Canada, the US American madness has become just as contagious and dangerous as the Coronavirus!
    1
  3298. Trump's obvious name-calling and violence-inciting rants are rather blatant and obvious. Jesse may not be directly violence-inciting, but he is not far behind Trump when it comes to name-calling and the like. What happened to NOT following Trump into the gutter?
    1
  3299. The masks are coming off MSNBC, CNN and other mainstream media outlets - they are all Corporate America mouthpieces that have been masquerading as being liberal-leaning, but only because they hate Trump more than they hate Progressive Democrats.
    1
  3300.  @flicks28 , yep - they failed miserably during the initial stages of the pandemic, especially with protecting their nursing homes, and that has stained all and any of their statistics from the start. At least they are not making any excuses and are facing the problem openly and head-on. Do not forget that Sweden is NOT a country that takes public health and safety lightly! To make mistakes is human, it is how we respond to mistakes that makes all the difference. I am absolutely certain that when this is all over, Sweden will NOT go down in history books as the "most miserable pandemic response failure" country. The US currently holds that spot, with Brazil and India as strong contenders...
    1
  3301.  @LarrysMachineShop , post-war US was the model North-European countries are built on. We adopted all the good bits and they have served us well. Sadly, the US lost it's way when Reagan was elected president and has forgotten WHY the US was once a great nation.
    1
  3302. I have always wondered why English-speakers use "Naples" instead of "Napoli" and "Munich" instead of "München", not to mention many similar cases. True, we Icelanders sometimes use the Icelandic-Sage-era name "Kænugarður" instead of "Kiev" and "Mikligarður" instead of "Constantinople/Istanbul", but that is only on historical occasions like when Ukraine's president Zelinski used "Kænugarður" in his address to the Icelandic parliament. That only goes to show his PR savvy and the scope and knowledge of his advisors. I really hit us where it counts.
    1
  3303. Texas Republican official H. Scott Apley behaved irresponsibly and paid the ultimate price. It may be harsh, but this is reaping what you sow, good riddance to bad rubbish. This must be devastating to those he left behind, my condolences to them.
    1
  3304. I read a comment by someone apparently familiar with the airspace procedures, stating the helicopter was flying a predetermined, named route that should be at 200' when crossing the R33 short final - the on-glidslope CRJ was at 400' when they collided. A 200' vertical separation for crossing traffic on short final is ridiculously low, there is a LOT of missing information regarding this scenario.
    1
  3305. Greg Palast has repeatedly come on Thom's show with what can only be described are bombshell revelations - yet nothing more ever comes of those "discoveries"! Why? Is Greg Palast making these thing s up, does he have no evidence to support his claims, did the 'perpetrators' in each given case manage to squash the story? I just wish that once exposed, some of his revelations were to be actually be investigated and verified. Until then I withhold my judgement...
    1
  3306. For a country that still pretends to be all about "Law and Order" it must be devastating to face the fact that the 'Murican Judicial System, the main instrument in maintaining any semblance of Law and Order corrupt to the core and totally dysfunctional. Even worse: The Legislative branch is just as corrupt and dysfunctional! Behold: We are watching a major global power disintegrating. I would NOT want to be an 'Murican during the next decade or two.
    1
  3307. I can just imagine the relief felt by non-Russian Estonians (and the other Baltics) when Finland joined NATO - not to mention the vast relief when Sweden was allowed to join as well! There are, however, 2 countries withing NATO that have lost all credibility: Erdogan's Turkey and Orban's Hungary! These 2 countries may have managed to temporarily extort something from their long-term neighbors, but they will be viewed with extreme suspicion and distrust while their current leaders are in power.
    1
  3308. The US might be the militarily mightiest NATO member but, now that is has checked out of the NATO alliance, will find itself 'MURICA ALONE! Predicting "the end of NATO" is as stupid as you can get! James Stavridis just exposed his limp 'Murican balls to the rest of the western alliance: The US is making itself irrelevant on the world stage! The remaining 31 NATO countries are perfectly able to take care of themselves. What remains to be seen is how the bully ('Murica) will fare in the near future. Trump is currently rattling a financial sabre (tariffs on everything in sight), silly as that might be, and the next sabre to be rattled will be the military one. Believe me, that will not end well.
    1
  3309. The difference in the approach of "handling-of-lethal-devices" between 'Murica and Europe is evident. An improperly used car at 130mph on an Autobahn is obviously a potentially lethal device, hence the requirement for strict and regular competency and medical certification for the operators of such devices. The European requirements for owners/operators of devices actually DESIGNED to extinguish life (GUNS!) are even more strict! Any Tom, Dick or Harry cannot apply unless they have undergone serious personal scrutiny, training and inspection of their weapon storage facilities.
    1
  3310. The title is false, this is not how the cans are MADE, this is how they are FILLED.
    1
  3311. What is most extreme about the B52 is the number of engines. I once heard a joke about a two-engine jet fighter that had an engine failure and was preparing for a single-engine approach and landing. Suddenly a B52 crew declares an emergency on the same frequency, they also had an engine failure! The fighter pilot yielded, telling ATC "let the poor suckers go first, they have to deal with the dreaded 7-engine approach".
    1
  3312. What do Bureaucracies and Trump have in common? Everything they touch will die!
    1
  3313. I suspect Sucker Carlson will have to flee to Russia eventually.
    1
  3314. Watching the atrocities committed by the Russians in Ukraine makes it very easy to start hating ANYTHING Russian, even ordinary Russians that are innocent of all this. Anything Russian will be tainted by this for decades to come.
    1
  3315. This comes across as the Obituary for 'Murica. The poster child for the destruction of the Constitutional United States of America: An individual named Clarence Thomas, a person of color, something the Right-wingers normally HATE but seem to love in this case because they were able to buy him, lock stock and barrel. How they tolerate him having married a white chick (now a fat, old matron) is still a mystery...
    1
  3316. This in not 'Murican. A political ad that focuses on what the candidate stands for instead of focusing on throwing shite on the opponent - what will be next? God forbid - not honest ads! That would really take the cake and possibly break the traditional 'Murican political campaigning mold.
    1
  3317. What Trump is screaming his head off about is simple: He is blaming Biden of interference and involvement that Trump himself is certain to do if the shoe was on the other foot.
    1
  3318. Living well east of Madhouse 'Murica (in Europe), my layman's opinion is that being a typical 'Murican conservative, let alone MAGA, is a symptom of a serious mental disorder. These poor misguided souls even consider European conservatives as being rabid Communists and Socialists! 'Murica seems to be reaching a stage that he entire nation can be reliable labeled as mentally diseased OR so politically apathetic that they can be classified as such.
    1
  3319. Like Scott Manley points out, this is the logical place to redesign and build a modern replacement of the Arecibo Telescope. The general infrastructure (mast foundations, cable anchors and gelogical features) are already there.
    1
  3320. The connection between actual Justice and the letter of the law at any given time is, at best, very tenuous. This is probably a good example of that. One can only wonder what would happen if this creepy father happened to catch the Coronavirus - would they BOTH lose custody? The judge in question is certainly a crappy human being.
    1
  3321. Not only will Ukrainians be unable to forgive Russia for decades for what it is doing in Ukraine, the rest of the civilized world will despise Russia and the Russian nation for the senseless atrocities being committed in their name. Russia will be a pariah nation, classified as a terrorist state for decades to come, and Russian citizens will be unwelcome and despised everywhere, if only because every single Russian citizen abroad will and must be considered a potential Russian agent or assassin.
    1
  3322. Strange how the 'Muricans, the inflated-head citizens of the United States of America are managing to alienated not only it's enemies, but it's allies as well! The overblown and ignorant egos that reside between Canada and Mexico seem to have forgotten that hey are only ONE of 35 nations that populate the American continents (North, Central and South America)! Canadians, Mexicans and ALL the other American nations are AMERICANS! There is only one ignorant and outright stupid nation that forget they are not the only American nation and, in fact, are about to become the most reviled nation on the continent. 'Murica became an outright bully among nations even before Ronald Bloody Reagan came into power, and they have only gotten worse since then!
    1
  3323. Trump and Vance disgraced themselves. Zelenskyy managed to leave the swamp pit (the White House) with his personal dignity intact, as well as the dignity of his embattled country. The remaining 31 NATO countries will support Ukraine. What remains to be done is to kick Putin-arse-licker-Orban's Hungary out of NATO and preferably out of the EU as well, Hungary is a painful boil that needs to be lanced. That will streamline both alliances...
    1
  3324. She did not "win" $400, she only avoided being scammed out of $200 and since this particular cop was not not one of the 20% Gestapo-types in the US police forces and could see the absurdity of the situation, he allowed her to avoid the speeding ticket as well. In many countries speaking on the phone while driving is illegal unless you are using a hands-free phone, and actually TEXTING while driving is a criminal offense.
    1
  3325. The last 30+ years had most civilized people dreaming of NOT wasting any more resources on devices only intended to kill people (i.e. military spending) and, for a decade or two that utopian goal actually seemed distantly attainable! Putin has rudely shattered that illusion, and peaceful people simply have to face the fact that bloody warfare will be with us for at leas a few more generations. In the face of that truth, we are being be forced to militarize and enter what is effectively WW3 - and knowing that we must concentrate all efforts on excising the cancer that is causing this global upheaval: Putin's Russia must be eliminated! The Russian nation is just a pawn in this power struggle and every effort should be made to prevent the Russian people from suffering the fate the Ukrainian nation is going through. It is, however, an undeniable fact that a vast majority of Russians are complicit in Putin's crimes against humanity, and they WILL inevitably suffer for some decades to come, if only by being shunned by the rest of the world.
    1
  3326. "Laughing stock under Trump" is not really how other nations see the US. A "potential global disaster" is more appropriate - after all, the US is the greatest military power on the planet and has NOT been known for much restraint in past decades. Instead it is known for supporting and even introducing severe corruption wherever they meddle. The fact that this mighty military power is about to fall apart is horrifying for other nations. The death throes of the US Republic will have dire consequences for EVERYBODY on the planet.
    1
  3327. There has been talk of "only a few bad apples" in various US police forces. Given what has been happening in the US in recent months/years is seems rather obvious that while there might be a few "good apples" around, they have been effectively neutered. The homicidal bad apples have been running the show for quite a while and seem to enjoy gunning down unarmed people of color at the least, even no provocation. The bottom line: If a lunatic with a badge tells you to do something, YOU OBEY, YOU DO NOT ARGUE with a bunch of homicidal lunatics pointing AR-15s at you! At least, when they have killed you they will have a much harder time lying their way out of it. This is sickening.
    1
  3328. Happy Jack will be like all children: A virtual sponge when it comes to languages! The way things are going, he will be immersed in the German language and German culture. German will be his first (main) language. Speaking English exclusively at home ensures that he will be bilingual. Personally, I know Icelandic children that were raised in Luxembourg, and they were all comfortably conversant in 5 languages: Icelandic (spoken at home), English (parents being aviation professionals), German and French (school - as well as France and Germany being next door) and, obviously the local Luxembourg language. Many did, however, have a handicap - there was no obvious First Language until (or if) they went for higher education. You seem to be conscious of the pitfalls and well ahead of the game, so I predict Happy Jack will ace it!
    1
  3329. One can clearly sense the frustration in Mark Felton's narrative over the cheek of Else Krüger refusing to "tell all". That is understandable, because it is almost certain that she would have a lot to tell, were she willing. The Soviets would have tortured it out of her, but the Brits were not so inhuman .
    1
  3330. I generally do not bother watching documentaries about the German Russian campaign (Operation Barbarossa), mostly because of the futility of it and the the pointless expenditure of human lives. I find it too disheartening and sad. The toll the Russian people had to pay far exceeds the toll the Jews paid when it comes to numbers of lives lost, but at least the Russians were active combatants, fighting for their Motherland, the Jews were non-combatant citizens that were caught unaware. Hitler had no more chance of conquering Russia than Napoleon did. If you fight Russians, you do it OUTSIDE Russia, trying to invade Russia is absolutely pointless. Besides, why would anyone want to invade this cesspool of corruption (2021)?
    1
  3331. Minimum washing temperature of 60°C? Here I thought that if you wash your homemade, inefficient mask it was the detergent (soap) that killed any potential virus contamination, not the heat. If washing your hands for >20 seconds is sufficient to kill most viruses, one would think that a washing machine cycle of >30 minutes would do the same job, regardless of the temperature. After all, you are supposedly practicing perfect virus hygiene by washing your hands thoroughly for more than 20 seconds, using water between 20-40°C (60°C would scald you!).
    1
  3332. Rick, I watched your last video in it's entirety (I'm a 75 year old ADHD case) and saw no reason to comment: Your theory or hypothesis seems sound and I have nothing to add! I am often guilty of just what you are pointing out here: Writing a comment only 1/3rd into various videos and then checking out, only to find out later that I was being a total prat - driven home by later watching the entire videos and then being able to feel shamed and silly at my leisure...
    1
  3333. The obvious conclusion: Governments consist of entrenched lying bastards, the fictional Sir Humphrey perfectly describing the species. What defies common sense is what embarrassing facts they are hiding, years after the last government crook involved is dead and has been buried? Whatever they are hiding must be embarrassing indeed, if they need an entire century to pass before their misdeeds are exposed. Are they afraid that their descendants will be made to suffer for their misdeeds? If Royal embarrassments was to be hidden at the time, the current crop of Royals have made a mockery of the entire issue, with plenty of examples showing us that the Royals are just feeble humans that mess up - just like the rest of us tend to do, now and then.
    1
  3334. The global definition of the US being a "Flawed democracy" obviously no longer applies. What to call it, then? Pretend democracy? Fake democracy? No democracy?
    1
  3335. The SCOTUS majority is, at a minimum, complicit with Trump's efforts to delay the inevitable, in the hope that he will be able to cheat his way to power once again - with the assistance of the Repugnican party and a considerably corrupt part of the judicial system, the SCOTUS majority already being in his pocket. Even if it takes some generations for these creeps to meet their maker, this will all go down in the history books, and the telling will NOT be kind to Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the other bought-and-paid-for right-wing "justices". I imagine an entirely new term will be invented to describe them, something way beyond the terms currently used to describe other historical figures like Benedict Arnold.
    1
  3336. I have a question for the creators of this content: What is the purpose of the loud and extremely annoying background noise (muzack) that makes it hard to hear what the narrator is saying?
    1
  3337. Any way you spin it: The US is in deep, DEEP trouble having elected someone that has the mental acuity and eloquence of a spoiled 8-year old. The simple fact that the US nations did not manage to get rid of him during these past 4 years is one thing, the brutal fact that the Orange Idiot actually has a chance of being elected AGAIN is gigantic thumbs-down for the US. Any nation where this can happen is obviously totally dysfunctional - the last time that comes to mind was pre-WW2 Germany.
    1
  3338. What 'Muricans proudly call 'democracy' comes across as a farce to genuinely democratic nations. The US, with it's bribe-driven politicians and in-name-only 'law and order' arrangement (where whoever has enough money turns out to be well above the law) is doomed to fall apart. Will it go the fascist route of Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy or will it be the autocratic route taken by Putin's Russia, Orban's Hungary or Erdogan's Turkey, to name a few? Only time will tell. One thing is certain: If the gerrymandering and voter-suppressing Repugnicans are not stopped in their tracks within one or two election cycles, the US Republic is finished, Kaput, done for. A genuinely sad state of affairs.
    1
  3339. The 'Murican MIC is getting a solid blow to the head: Upcoming customers are being scared away by Trump's Mob-like tactics, and they will be facing the fact that until-now-reliable allies can no longer trust the US, a MAJOR issue! Who wants to waste huge resources on buying and operating a hugely expensive military resource that can be rendered useless on a whim by someone like Trump? The obvious answer: NO ONE! 'Murica First is rapidly becoming 'Murica Alone. Enjoy your new position in the world...
    1
  3340. Just imagine all the not-too-old individuals that breeze through this without really realizing the seriousness of the situation! "Feeling a bit off, just a flu" situation turns out to be a grave misjudgement these days. This is exactly why this virus is such a problem.
    1
  3341. Funny how this "legalizing pot" issue has become so important. 1) Smoking too much pot fries your brain but is less lethal than e.g. tobacco. Pot is NOT good for you, but using it rarely harms other people. 2) There are A LOT of people in the US sitting in jail for an offense that is not very harmful to society compared to many other activities. 3) "Taking care" of those non-violent "offenders" is big business in the US now, and I mean BIG business. 4) As a result, there will be no significant change int the US injustice system in the foreseeable future, BUT: 5) A new generation is coming into it's own and you old, corrupt farts should start shaking in your slippers... Biden's corporate stint in the presidency will only be a temporary delay in the inexorable change that Mother Nature and plain physics are going to impose on mankind in our immediate future.
    1
  3342. I am STILL wondering what happened to the serious allegations that Matt Gaetz solicited sexual favors from underage girls and even repeatedly transported them across state lines (which, for some twisted 'Murican reasons, seems more serious than effing underage girls). If there ever was proof that 'Murica has a multi-tiered judicial system, this is it! If you are a lawyer in 'Murica, be ashamed of yourself, you are as pervert as a Catholic priest. If you are a politician in 'Murica, be ashamed of yourself, you are as pervert as a Catholic Bishop. If you are a judge in 'Murica, be ashamed of yourself, you are as pervert as the previous Catholic Popes. The current Catholic Pope is, strangely enough, looking pretty straight. One wonders it that has happened for centuries?
    1
  3343.  Sable Burden , what the idiots see as MANLY and STRONG in riding around in 2.5 ton trucks with their assault rifles and big fascist flags flying is rather pathetic when they try to assault something that is bigger than they are.
    1
  3344.  Snuffcore 6 , it DID seem like the much smaller white car (a SUV?) was either trying to keep the bullies away from the bus or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, the snub-dicks are dangerous!
    1
  3345. Same job, same pay. Period. Only Dicks dare to presume otherwise!
    1
  3346. "Same job" more than implies the same amount of hours. By the way, do you know if US doctors get paid by the hour, pr. patient consultation or by whatever they can squeeze from their patients?
    1
  3347. Aha - your argument is that "most" women work fewer hours than men. Those that do are then obviously NOT doing the same job and should be paid accordingly. Reading between the lines, it seems that you think that female doctors that work the SAME amount of hours as male doctors should then be paid less because "most" female doctors do not! Would YOU want to be paid less because many other men work fewer hours than you do? Let's leave dicks and pu**ies out of this; any individual doing the SAME job as another individual should get the same pay, regardless of their personal plumbing arrangements. You obviously do not think highly of women in general.
    1
  3348. To quote a young activist witnessing empty, pretend word salad instead of real action: Bla-bla-bla-bla! Blinken and the US are wimps. All they are prepared to do is to prepare for the autopsy of Ukraine!
    1
  3349. As deplorable as the Colonial Racism of the British Regency era was, not to mention the even worse Class Divide, the Netflix Bridgerton series authenticity totally fails on two counts. The minor ones are scenes with very credible Regency streets, filled with horse-drawn carriages and the like - and not a horse-dropping in sight! Authenticity: Damaged! A more serious and curious authenticity failure: Why is a sizeable part of the cast Caribbean or African? An African Duke would have been unthinkable in the Regency era, not to mention all the Caribbean-looking aristocrats! While color-blind casting of characters is thought-provoking an very modern, does nothing for the authenticity of a series supposedly set in the rigid, British Regency era. As an attempt to rewrite history, is seems rather clumsy - but that is only my personal opinion. Worst of all, the Hollywoodization of ANY piece of literature, be it historical romance, humour or anything else, it ALWAYS comes out inferior, with usually around 50% (+/- a lot) of the original plot is discarded, to be replaced with 'Murican clichés that only appeal to a dumbed-down 'Murican public.
    1
  3350. Frankly, the majority of the blame for 'Murican ignorance regarding tariffs and economic issues can be place squarely on the doorstep of main media like MSNBC! Take this segment as an example: A lot of time and effort is spent on dramatizing the tariff issue, and NO effort is made to educate the public about the actual mechanics of tariffs! It is obvious that MSNBC actually WANTS it's viewers to be ignorant to keep them watching sensational but non-informative "news". MSNBC is actually worse than Fox "News" when push comes to shove! Fox is all about openly lying and misleading, being unapologetic about it, while MSNBC is, and has always been, a Snake Oil Salesman.
    1
  3351. This expert seems to be wrongly using "kilotons" instead of "kilograms", because no missile is capable of carrying 25 thousand tons of conventional explosives. That amount would certainly make a heck of a crater!
    1
  3352. A year on, the Capitol Police has FINALLY found it's muscle - there were only 27 protesters, and they could be easily arrested. No cowering required. Capitol Police Heroes! There is obviously no shame to be found at this stage... Corrupt US Minority Rule at work! Let's talk again in 10-20 years, when the Fascist States of America have finally been ground into smithereens by it's own atrocities.
    1
  3353. I am 3/4 century old and am definitely ADHD-afflicted, the question is at what level. I have managed a mostly successful professional life, 25% bush pilot, 25% airline pilot, 50% computer programmer and 100% curious (I suppose my symptoms are mild). While this condition is probably why I did not manage to venture into academics (mathematics, physics and mechanics were my passion), I cannot complain. ADHD is a pesky inconvenience when you want to concentrate on something but, boy, when you find something that IS interesting, you ACE it!
    1
  3354. The phrase "American Republicans" struck me as odd. Are there any other Republicans in the world other than 'Murican Republicans, a.k.a. Repugnicans? To people in other countries, 'Murican Repugnicans come across as the stupidest part of the US population and, even if they are a minority, they appear to be managing to dismantle whatever democracy there remaines in the US.
    1
  3355. The 'Murican Kinder-egg scare is hilarious; seven child deaths GLOBALLY for billions of eggs sold in decades is too much for the 'Murican mindset, because "safety of our children is our primary concern" - while 4590 US child deaths by guns in 2022 alone does not move the needle towards stricter gun laws, let alone banning guns outright. Oh no, Kinder-eggs are dangerous for children in 'Murica, guns are not! Are we non-'Muricans REALLY the only ones to spot the irony?
    1
  3356. Trump has been trying to bully Canada, but finds that Canada is not taking it! Why should Canada not instantly slap a reciprocal tariff on everything that Trump's ´Murica "does not need" but is still eager to buy from Canada, like electricity and crude oil? It will be painful for Canada to be sure, but it will be far more painful for Trump's 'Murica, and will certainly be one more straw on the Trump camel's back - which will break eventually!
    1
  3357. Why these cops did not pull out their sidearm and start killing is beyond me - EXCEPT perhaps it was because the attackers were not BLACK! The hypocrisy is astounding. How can any global citizen look at an 'Murican cop and think 'there goes a good man'? Modern 'Murican cops are in a situation last seen in 1945: They are ALL lumped in with the likes of the Gestapo or the SS of the last century until they prove otherwise.
    1
  3358. The word "Repugnican" properly describes Sen. Kennedy, he is truly repugnant in everything he says and does. Observing the bullcrap spewing from him with a thick southern drawl is one of the reasons I feel nauseous whenever I hear someone speak with a southern drawl - in my mind a southern drawl is now the accent of lies, dishonesty and narrow-mindedness.
    1
  3359. Better late than never - not that Trump has any money to pay up with. His meager assets will take so long to liquidate that the plaintiff is bound to have died due to old age - and, hopefully, so will Trump, with all his clogged arteries.
    1
  3360. I cannot help thinking that, of all of mankind's creative and destructive inventions, the diverse religions top them all! From the battle-addicted Norse Gods through Christianity and Islam, the main theme has been (and still is) cruelty, repression and rivers of blood. Mankind seems to have a knack for interpreting the scriptures of the various madcap religions in a manner that maximizes the suffering and the body-count. Come to think of it, the current situation on our Earth is actually the Christian version of Purgatory!
    1
  3361. Methinks that the Repugnican Party is in a deep hole and I suggest the you allow them to keep digging. If they want to start impeachment proceedings without a shred of evidence, LET THEM HAVE AT IT! They will only be exposed as the deranged fools and idiots they really are. Moreover, the House will be tied up in a pointless endeavor while the Trump Trials march on.
    1
  3362. As a non-'Murican, watching this implosion from afar, I feel sorry for ordinary 'Muricans. Your world, as you have known it, is about to disintegrate. I don't even know what to compare it to, but you 'Muricans are in for a lot of misery (on top of all the misery you already suffer, like gun violence).
    1
  3363. I always thought the "perfect pitch" was the ability to hold a note (voice or e.g. violin) at exactly the same pitch as other voices/instruments in a band/orchestra, and that "absolute pitch" was the ability described in this video. Mozart was supposedly an famous example.
    1
  3364. Thom is describing the debacle the Nordic nations seem to have a handle on. True, 3 of the 5 main Nordic nations are technically monarchies, but the monarchs are only figureheads, mostly ceremonial. Only 'Muricans are likely to be so ill-informed as to ignore the fact that we Nordics sit at the top of every international metric for prosperity, transparency and low corruption. The terms 'Murican right-wingers use for the Nordic nations are silly: Socialist and Communist, in a very derogatory sense. They totally ignore the quality of life the Nordic Model provides for the Nordic citizens. Those 'Muricans are mall-minded, if you ask me . . .
    1
  3365. Unfortunately, the US seems to be populated by too many ornery idiots. The vast majority of US citizens are smart, common-sense people, it's the surprisingly many idiots that are a stain on the country.
    1
  3366. If any of these "artifacts" is being offered by an US dealer, expect it to be a fake - unless it can be authenticated by MULTIPLE respected sources.
    1
  3367. Apparently US elections are all about who has the most money to bribe main media (via ad purchases) and who is most successful at spinning facts and/or lies. The US might manage to survive the current Trump crisis, but US politics have become so corrupt that the US, as a nation, is not going to survive the NEXT crisis or the on following that. The US democracy experiment is apparently coming apart at the seams.
    1
  3368. This has been a problem in 'Murica for decades. Why are most commenters pretending this is a one-off that will never happen again AND that the grief and sorrow can simply be brushed off with thoughts and prayers? EVERY sane nation that has had a serious mass shooting simply rolled up their collective sleeves and mostly SOLVED the problem. There is something seriously wrong with 'Murica if they cannot even begin to tackle their country-awash-with-guns problem..
    1
  3369. "She could have had a gun"! Get real David, this happened in the UK. Guns are hard to come by in the UK so that sort of thing is generally not what people are afraid of. A burly man attacking a (burly?) woman is, however, not gentlemanly and very un-British.
    1
  3370. ...and God's chosen people (right-wing 'Muricans) chose to behave in a way that does not please Jesus - will they fry in eternal hell?
    1
  3371. If the funny-mustache Mexican Riviera thinks he can wash off the decade-long Trump stench with a last-minute reversal, he has another think coming. Once a liar, always a liar - he has lied on-air too often and too fervently to suddenly come across as anything other than what he has always been; just another Rat trying to abandon a sinking ship.
    1
  3372. Boeing used to be the Gold Standard regarding safe aviation designs. Sadly, 21'st century Boeing cannot be trusted to do ANYTHING safely. The Boeing label means "Beware" these days.
    1
  3373.  @brandoncrusen9160 , Communism isn't authoritarian in theory, but certainly becomes so in reality - and does so incredibly quickly.
    1
  3374. For the last two centuries, the strength of the USA has been the US population. Hard-working, innovative and the no-task-is-too-difficult attitude. When the US finally got their arses in gear during WW2, and ESPECIALLY during the immediate post-war decades, the American Dream was really alive and kicking. Now over 90% of the US population has slowly been tricked into virtual slavery, and the country is being run like a Reality Show. The question remains: Will the US population wake up and take control of the situation, or will the US population let itself be dumbly dragged to the slaughterhouse? The US has it's dirty corporate/military fingers in every resource pie around the world. The best the rest of the world can hope for is that the US starts using it's insane military budget to the benefit of the US population itself (health care, education, industry and infrastructure) instead of waging eternal war on nations that have only committed the sin of denying US corporations taking over their resources.
    1
  3375.  @utilid4lifefigureitout602  Oops - I stand corrected, "Oathkeepers" it is. I make no distinction between "Preoud Boys" and "Oathkeepers", I'm not that sophisticated...
    1
  3376. Smaller airlines are allowed to weigh the passengers if e.g. the majority of the passengers are obviously lighter than average, to be able to load more fuel or freight. Conversely, they are actually required to weigh the passenger if a majority of the passengers are obviously overweight. This only makes sense for smaller aircraft such as 19-50 passenger commuters, the law of averages works really well when for 100+ passenger aircraft.
    1
  3377. How can anyone, with a pair of brain cells to rub together, take seriously what the Orange Idiot is saying? The US public, idiotic Trump Base included, is in fora rude, a VERY rude awakening. An epidemic, even a bad one, is manageable if the response is appropriate and timely, but the US has been robbed of 2 important elements: Appropriate and Timely. The response was definitely NOT appropriate (head-in-the-sand, not testing available, the relevant institutions both fund-gutted and resource-gutted) and even more definitely not timely. The next thing Toddler Trump will do is blame the CDC for the whole debacle, the CDC he made sure was deprived of both funds and resources. The base will love it and revel in it, until they start getting sick themselves...
    1
  3378. There is no way around it: 'Murica has been an increasingly unreliable partner for decades, and what happened after Trump came to power in 2016 took it to another level. The NATO nations simply have to prepare to go without 'Murica within the next 4 years, and the western world will never be the same. Even worse: Germany has also been dragging it's feet, and it looks as even if Putin's Ukraine gambit blew up in his face and NATO is stronger than ever, Putin still appears to be in a position to drive a wedge between the NATO countries after all - by using Trump, his overt operative.
    1
  3379. Compared to Trump, Obama was a saint - but he will ALWAYS carry the label "Useless Obama" because he only did half-measures during his 2 terms.
    1
  3380. As a national of one of the founding members of NAT,O I feel that I have to duck my head in shame over the fact that we have so far failed to intervene in the most meaningful way - by direct military intervention like helping a sovereign nation under attack to close the Ukrainian to Russian air attacks. NATO would only be operating in Ukrainian territory at the fervent request of Ukraine. At the moment, NATO is in the role of cowards that are afraid of the bluster of master bluffer Putin. This just the way I feel, not that I am competent to predict what the consequences might be. Just remember: Putin is a pathological liar! His threats are almost certainly a bubble. Whichever way the invasion in Ukraine goes (I am betting rooting for the Ukrainians), Putin's Russia will stay under sanctions, isolated from the rest of the developed world, until Putin is broken, done, finished, kaput. The world does NOT need another Hitler!
    1
  3381. Dead on: Why would people from "Normay" want to emigrate to Trump's "ess-hole" country? They are doing better than fine where they are
    1
  3382. Grown-up little boys! It is obviously great fun doing little-boy stuff when you are an adult and allowed to play with devices forbidden to genuine little boys.
    1
  3383. Why is anyone asking for opinions from this proven refuse of humanity? Times Radio is in bad company here!
    1
  3384. After listening to you guys for less than 5 minutes, I am beginning to understand why 'Murica is going to hell in a handbasket! You are behaving like a family that had someone enter your home and kill your mother with a shotgun (LOUD!) and all you can do is argue why no one provided ear protectors! 'Murica is now populated with ignorant idiots! This is no doubt by design (given how your education system has bee sabotaged by the Right-wingers), but it is amazing how you went from being the nation that sent men to the moon to being the nation that cannot even recognize itself on a map in slightly more than half a century is beyond astounding. I smell some guillotine-time coming up in the next few decades.
    1
  3385. I'm afraid Dr. Birx lost most of her credibility over her inaction regarding the Lysol/UV nonsense and she had a very steep climb ahead trying to regain some of it. This exercise, trying to look like she is supporting Trump's "Open Up" drive while weakly warning people off is not really working. Frankly, I think she is finished and that she will never regain any semblance of credibility.
    1
  3386. Kim Iversen is full of bullshite: Biden mandated vaccination OR weekly testing for certain professions. Period. Even Fox so-called News have mandated vaccination or DAILY testing! This clip has placed Kim squarely in the Repugnican Idiot domain in my mind.
    1
  3387. Penny-pinching on transport safety (like 'Murica tends to do) inexorably leads to results like this. There have no doubt been cost/benefit analysis done, proving that having occasional accidents is cheaper than splurging on safety.
    1
  3388. CNN's Caitlin lost my respect when she let Trump the idiot run rings around her not long ago. Here she is doing it again: Allowing another inveterate liar to walk all over her again without even a squeak! Where is the CRUSHING fact-check the liar is supposed to be cornered with? Missing in Action! What is Brian doing in this clip? Assisting Fox?
    1
  3389. What is the difference between Trump and a severe case of Down's syndrome? The Down's syndrome individual will invariably be a gentle soul that wants to please everyone - unlike hateful Trump! More important: The Down's syndrome individual will be more intelligent that Trump! The worst bit: According to recent polls, 'Muricans appear ignorant enough to vote Trump into a position of power, which will be the end of the world as we know it. Does the FSA (Fascist States of America) sound promising?
    1
  3390. 'Muricans: What Bill Browder and Vladimir Kara-Murza are describing is what is in your immediate future! Trump is going to do his level best to remain a "President For Life" and when he has corrupted the current system enough to "cancel" the Constitution, he will copy Putin's methods of having pesky opponents fall out of high-rise windows, being poisoned or murdered in prison.
    1
  3391. You reap as you have sowed - isn't that a Biblical reference, one you religious zealots should understand? The way things are going, the US will soon cease to be a superpower.
    1
  3392. I hope Mehdi Hasan will give MSNBC the finger by finding a job with some other media organization, hopefully outside 'Murica. 'Murica IS a sinking ship that is only marginally less corrupt than Russia. It is coming apart at the seams, much like France did at the end of the 1700s.
    1
  3393. Biden certainly seems to be having some initial issues with his physical mobility (my father is now 95 and I know from experience that this progress is slow but inexorable), but Trump is dealing with similar issues. Just watch him timidly navigating a down-sloping ramp). Biden's mental acuity, on the other hand, is apparently orders of magnitude better than Trump's - and has always been so.
    1
  3394. To an outsider like me it is glaringly obvious that what goes for "justice" in 'Murica has nothing to do with justice but everything to do with who has the most money to BUY said justice. As a result, 'Murican democracy has become a corrupt joke, the best "justice and democracy" money can buy. It seems like 'Murica and the world are in for some decades of misery and conflict, much like the period from 1914 to 1945, only this time the cause will not be Germany. It will be the new evil axis of Trump's 'Murica, Putin's Russia and China, with a few minor players thrown in. Churchill described it succinctly: You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else!
    1
  3395. Well, the chopper-talk scenes with turbines-running-but-rotors-stationary is not necessarily wrong. The engines on many large helicopters can be started and run without engaging the rotor.
    1
  3396.  @8645-l4v , a very valid point. I suspect Marine One does not have an APU, it is a very solid but ancient model, but I simply do not know. The chopper-talk setting is, however, very well suited to the Trump script: He can ignore questions he does not like (pretending he did not hear them) and he can simply walk away any time he wants to. His rambling, jumping to another subject in the middle of a sentence, is very telling. This man is not all right in the head, and he is supposed to be the leader of "the free world"! Well, apparently the "free world" is about to move ahead, leaving the US behind...
    1
  3397. Frankly, Trump may have been the perfect candidate for stupid 'Muricans and he might STILL be the perfect candidate for stupid 'Muricans in 2024, but they have a serious problem to deal with: Most 'Muricans are NOT stupid, especially the young ones, those with a life ahead of them. The Taylor Swift generation (i.e. the young and still-thinking part of the population) might beg to differ.
    1
  3398. Western politicians are slowly beginning to admit that their support to Ukraine has been barely sufficient to prevent defeat, something like "as little as possible, as late as we can get away with". They seem to be starting to realize that if the West does not properly and timely support Ukraine to WIN this fight and totally repel Putin's Russia, they will have to do a "Take 2" within a decade, this time against a reorganized, less corrupt and stronger Russian military. Defeating, repealing and humiliating Putin's Russia now is the cost-effective option, having to fight a full-blown WW3 in a decade will be infinitely more costly.
    1
  3399. As an European (Nordic, in fact) I have come to believe that being a radical conservative in 'Murica is a sure-fire sign of a mental disease. I am having second thoughts about that: What comes across a insanity might just be a prolonged case of "designed ignorance" - an older and cruder term was "brainwashed". What 'Murica needs is to neutralize or blow up the 2-party system. The only system that is worse would be any of the single-party systems like China and many other countries are suffering. The Democratic party is awful and the Republican party is outright poison! The most successful western nations today have a plethora of political parties, many of which compete for ridiculous issues but the end result is COMPROMISE, coalition governments that by and large reflect the actual will of the people - what is known in 'Murica as "socialism" and "communism" but what we Europeans call "Mixed economies" that are actually providing affordable health care and education AND a healthy, enjoyable work-life balance. We Europeans work to live, you ''Muricans live to work for your overlords 24/7/52 - you have become slaves!
    1
  3400. It is ironic that racist Republicans that terrified of being "replaced" by people of color, yet they are working hard to ensure that the birth rate among colored INCREASES! Am I the only one to conclude that they are idiots (or perhaps just cruel)?
    1
  3401. The Vice-clown of the United States has spoken, and we are all disgusted. Vance might just as well run for a Russian asylum right now, he has no future in the western world.
    1
  3402. Not that I would dream of defending the Jan.6 insurrectionists, but what I find it ominous is the frequent references to either Democratic or Republican Judges. That simply stinks to high heaven. What you 'Muricans urgently need to do is not only to get money out of politics, but to get politics out of your judicial system as well!
    1
  3403. The fact that a character like Sen. Rubio is in a position of power at all says all there needs to be said about the state of the 'Murican political system. When did Rubio - or any Republican, - vote for any piece of legislation that benefited the average 'Murican? The answer is simple: Never! Any legislation passing the US senate HAS to be to the benefit of Repugnican donors, screw any average 'Murican that is, at best, living paycheck to paycheck, not to mention those that do not even have that luxury. That ANY nation would allow it's least-able citizens to live in abject poverty with no real access to affordable health car, education or any meaningful social services exposes the cruelty and inhumanity the Repugnican Party has been able to impose on the 'Murican public. Watch what these inveterate liars DO, not what they SAY! The fact that only a handful of Repugnicans (<50 at the last count) have been able to immeasurable harm to a nation of over 330 million by preventing any meaning legal measures to be implemented says it all.
    1
  3404. There is obviously a complete breakdown of trust between the horse-traders in both parties, not to mention the crumbling trust between voters and politicians. Basically, Democracy in the western world is being fucked over. Period.
    1
  3405.  @BonsuBigWhale , you are either an idiot or a Russian Internet Troll. If you are the former, you will be rudely awakened by reality in the coming decades.
    1
  3406. Putin's affinity for scorched-earth strategies will hopefully be the poisonous pill he himself will have to swallow this time around. Ukraine seems to be the hill Putin is destined to die on, literally. The same goes for his henchmen, his accomplices in the multitudes of war crimes already committed, they will be hunted down for decades to come, much like the genuine Nazis did following WW2.
    1
  3407. ...the height of wishful thinking. Kaliningrad is supposedly thoroughly Russian, and will be sanctioned and isolated like Russia for decades to come.
    1
  3408. I especially like the stunned look on the Fox Talking Heads faces around the 6:00 minute mark! Trump is asked a pretty straight question and comes back with a weird ramble of denial and confusion. One wonders if the Fox sycophants are now realizing just WHAT they have been aiding and abetting since 2016.
    1
  3409. Oops! The shoe seems to be on the other foot at times if rabid right-wingers are now receiving threats. About time - as long as these are only threats, not actual violence. What goes around, comes around.
    1
  3410. Greenlanders should begin by checking out the US's treatment of Inuit citizens of Alaska before they even begin thinking about "the sweet life" they will have under racist Toddler Trump.
    1
  3411. I'm not 'Murican (thank God!), but on pondering the difference between "proof" and "evidence" one would think that even idiots like Comer and Gym Jordan would be able to comprehend the difference. I suspect they will practice total denial throughout. In total ignorance they will continue abusing and milking the 'Murican population until the whole thing blows up in their faces.
    1
  3412.  @tommcdermott8398 , ehrm... wanting to flood New York with unapproved drugs that one of his cronies had a stash of in India? That's just a rather recent one. Trump has been blatantly corrupt in plain sight for years, and moronic idiots like you really think that is just fine and dandy! You and your like are the embodiment of what is wrong with the US.
    1
  3413. "Accessible health care" might not LITERALLY be the problem in the US. "Affordable health care" certainly is. Simply by making health care un-affordable to the vast majority of the population makes it ACTUALLY a problem, a HUGE problem. The impending pandemic might be the cause of not only a System Reset but both a Hardware AND System upgrade. Hopefully the US will be unrecognizable - in a positive way!
    1
  3414. Ah, George Santos, the shining beacon of truth and honesty so typical for the Republican party these days. It is telling that a significant part of the 'Murican nation STILL KEEPS election this kind of people into positions of power! Do we need any more proof that the concept of "Republican" equals "dishonesty/lies/cheating"? The plain fact the some 'Muricans keep election people like Trump and Santos is a huge blot on the 'Murican voting population!
    1
  3415. What I find astounding is this "operation normal" acceptance of the fact that 'Murica, in this modern day and age, still operates prisons that can truthfully be likened to something out of Dante's Inferno! While most other countries have realized that the best approach to reducing crime is actual and effective REHABILITATION, 'Murica is still hooked on a revenge-based approach and, in effect, are working hard do get "returning customers" out of the prison system. Medieval thinking? You bet!
    1
  3416. I simply loved this take-down of the right-wing deaf/dumb/blind attitude toward the big bogey-word "socialism". his caller was obviously deaf and blind, but unfortunately he was not yet "dumb" in the meaning "unable to speak".
    1
  3417. With an orange-hued con man in the white House AGAIN, all bets are off.
    1
  3418. What a pathetic position to be in: Having to answer for and constantly justify the inconsistent and irrational nonsense coming from Trump. Here we can see what it is like having sold your soul to the devil.
    1
  3419. Listening to Bob Goodlatte fills me with disgust. Are the rest of republican politicians equally devoid of humanity and just as useless as this specimen?
    1
  3420. Hindsight is 20/20. All the mistakes and things ignored laid bare. Even if the foam strike had caused an EVA to do a pre-re-entry-inspection to discover the heat-shield damage, there were no procedures in place to remedy the situation. The only difference is that the crew would have had reason to believe they might not survive the re-entry. No one knew how much heat-shield damage would be catastrophic, and going in blind was probably better. From the realization that something was wrong to the point of death (loss of consciousness) would have taken less time than a heart attack, a minute or even seconds. The crew would have died fiercely working through whatever emergency checklists that were available. In short, too busy to be afraid...
    1
  3421. Why does no one EXPLAIN to the MAGA idiots what the accepted definition of "woke" actually is? What this "interviewer" should also have done was to carry a printout of the definition of "woke" from all the most distinguished English dictionaries and show it to the ignorant idiots, with the words "look it up yourselves if you don't believe me". That would have been hilarious. Republicans seem to be so stupid that their leaders can apparently pick any word or mnemonic (like woke and CRT) and demonize it, without ever having to explain (or know themselves) what those terms actually mean!
    1
  3422. When the most powerful and influential country in the world is unable or unwilling to definitively define the main concepts that rule the day (Communism, Socialism, Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and whatnot) the world is in deep shite. We are watching the Repugnicans turn everything upside-down: "Freedom" means censorship, book burning and the imposition of a "christian version" of Sharia law (a version of the Inquisition in medieval times), not to mention prison terms for those that dare criticize the "freedom-imposing" authorities (a.k.a. Big Brother). "Small Government" means authorities monitoring ultra-private issues like the menstruation cycles of childbearing females and imposing travel bans for said individuals, just in case. All in the name of their twisted version of "freedom". It figures, i is almost exactly a century since Hitler began his "struggle" for power in Germany, so here we go again - only replace "Germany" with "'Murica" his time around.
    1
  3423. How about: If you are not allowed to vote for any reason, you are not qualified to run for any office in the land! Convicted felons are, as far as I know, not allowed to vote in most states and it seems rational to apply the same limitations for anyone running for any office, let alone the presidency. I promise you, the "convicted felons cannot vote" nonsense would disappear like dew on a sunny morning!
    1
  3424. While I have sympathy for Jews in general, I have absolutely no sympathy for Netanyahu's incarnation of Israel that is now beginning to make the Nazis look good! Netanyahu's regime will go down in history on the same shelf as Hitler's and Stalin's regimes - reviled forever.
    1
  3425. I am an old Nordic bloke that has daughters and granddaughters of a similar age to 'Agent Nesty' and I am thoroughly disgusted with the situation! While I can understand the conditions and situations that might drive young women in some countries into virtual slavery, sexual or not, finding it acceptable is NOT an option. Russia is supposed to be a developed nation, but I suspect it is going down the drain it that regard. The Russian people really have a rich cultural background, but they have been saddled with absolutely horrible "leaders", from the Czars through Stalin, ending up with a horror like Putin. It's about time they were given a break - but do they want to?
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  3426. To be a far-right Conservative (or a Republican, not to mention a White Supremacist) you HAVE to be at least an ignorant sociopath or worse (a narcissistic psychopath?). Anyone with any degree of empathy will, at worst, be a very moderate conservative.
    1
  3427. Stop the hipocracy. The only reaction to the death of idiots like this is 'Good riddance to bad rubbish'.
    1
  3428.  @kevintroutt2633 , there is an old Icelandic saying: Sígandi lukka er best. This can be translated as "Gradual increases in fortune will serve us best"
    1
  3429. It will be interesting to see how "ordinary hard-working 'Muricans" will accept all the lies Toddler Trump is dishing out.
    1
  3430. What to do if Trump wins a second term? Run for the hills and become a prepper!
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  3431. These arguments simply confirm that the US political system is rotten to the core, the entire system is crumbling into the arms of the fascists that have been engineering the whole thing at least since Ronald Bloody Reagan was elected president.
    1
  3432. The only way to handle questions from people like Repugnican sex-predator-cover-up-artists and bully like Jim Jordan is to behave like a Repugnican: Evade, duck, disseminate and ultimately lie to your heart's content. Occasionally put them off guard with a short, honest, straight-up answer to questions like "...can you assure us that you will not try to silence conservatives..." with a simple "No, we cannot, and the same applies to progressives". They will NOT be expecting that - and while they sputter in indignation, their time will run out.
    1
  3433. Rick Santorum dedicated to Truth and Decency? In what world did THAT happen? Certainly not this one!
    1
  3434. What a hare-brained idea. One wonders if the daughter was in on this plot to get rid of an unwanted son in law.
    1
  3435. The Ukrainians have already shown that they take to new and complex western weapon systems like fish to water. Those that trot out the "too complicated for the Ukrainians" card are pissing into the wind and can, in fact, be suspected of pulling Putin's wagon. A quiet look into their finances is quite likely to turn up some Russian money... On the flip side, Ukraine suffers from being a former Soviet state - rampant corruption that was still going strong even after Yanukovych, the last Putin Puppet was deposed. Corruption is a generation-spanning problem and whoever becomes the leader of Ukraine after the war will have his/her job cut out: To join the EU, at least the most overt corruption must be rooted out. As for the more covert corruption, the EU itself is the leader of THAT particular game.
    1
  3436. The Ukrainian nation is turning out to be heroes, we Western NATO members are turning out to be the cowards - the best we appear to be doing is to sic our bureaucrats on Russia by imposing useless sanctions. An atrocity is being perpetrated before our very eyes, and we just sit tight and do nothing! History will judge us as we deserve, with Germany as the primary cowardly chickens (or rather the primary self-serving useless pieces of #$%&).
    1
  3437. I suspect that in a rather immediate future the "MAGA Republicans" will become a very derogatory term, in league with "Gestapo" and "STASI". Basically a laughing stock, but only because they have yet to cost as many innocent lives - not counting the hundreds of thousands of lives lost due to their Covid denial antics.
    1
  3438. What I admire about Taylor Swift is how she has managed to mostly stay out of politics! To Repugnicans, Taylor Swift is just a Dumb Blonde they should be able to exploit. They could not be more wrong! She is a very intelligent woman and she will certainly have very firm opinions on politics - but she is NOT blaring it out to all and sundry - except that she is NOT a Trumplet! The point: Neither is she a mindless democrap! She just has a mind of her own. That Prince William and his kids would adore Taylor is a given - and also hat she would adore them right back (their mom being indisposed).
    1
  3439. I believe every word from her about Trump's perfidy. I did pause, however, when she declared that she was "a lifelong Republican". That is brutal evidence that she is not of a sound mind because anyone that has observed, in plain sight, the perversion of Trump and the Republicans but STILL remains firmly "conservative and Republican" must be delusional. Fanatic and Orthodox Republicans like Olivia Troye have a clear choice: Remain steadfast no-matter-what-scandal Republican and follow Trump into the abyss, or try to retain whatever might be left of their humanity. The interview makes me think she is about to atop thinking and that she will ultimately follow Trump into whatever Hell he is headed for.
    1
  3440. Progress is progress, it is inexorable. Trying to STOP it is pointless and stupid, but trying to anticipate the likely associated problems and adapt to them and negate any negative impact is wise. When mankind started burning fossil fuels on a massive scale during the industrial revolution, we failed to anticipate the consequences and we have been blithely ignoring them until recently. A.I. is just the latest blip on the horizon. Nuclear fission was another one we have managed to handle, after a fashion, for the time being. Progress is self-regulating: We either adapt to it it or we become extinct (like so many species before us). Darwin was on to something...
    1
  3441. Trump appears to have the maturity and intelligence of a spoiled 8-year old, but he is some kind of Savant when it comes to playing the media. The main media will INVARIABLY fall for any distraction Trump throws out! The smart people in the main media KNOW they are being distracted but, like an excited puppy, cannot help themselves following every stink-bomb Trump throws instead of focusing on what Trump is trying to distract them away from.
    1
  3442. Republicans: "Drain the Swamp!" Everyone else: "But you ARE the Swamp!" Republicans: "Who cares? We don't." A no-brainer for people who have no shame whatsoever.
    1
  3443. While a necessary and unavoidable tool, the CIA in it's past and current incarnations have been a blight on the US. While Panetta is certain to know what he is talking about, I find it impossible to respect him, his predecessors or his successors - they simply have accumulated too much blood on their hands, over decades, to be forgiven. Intelligence gathering is one thing, the nation- and democracy-dismantling the CIA has been responsible for around the world for over half a century is unforgivable.
    1
  3444. To think that I enjoyed a fabulous week, skiing in Madonna di Campiglio, just a few weeks before all this shit hit the fan. I truly feel sorry for the locals of these areas, extremely likeable people that now are suffering real misery not of their making.
    1
  3445. With her plate heaped beyond full, it is just as likely that Fani Willis just put these lesser characters on hold, their cases to be revisited after the major crooks have been dealt with. There is nothing to prevent Lindsey Graham and the other crooks from being dragged in front of a judge next year, once the initial dust has settled.
    1
  3446. Let's hope the Repugnican anti-choice dog that unexpectedly caught the car becomes just another road-kill.
    1
  3447. One wonders what the West can legally do to help Ukraine in this fight, other than supplying anti-air and anti-tank missiles. This MP mentioned the declaration of a no-fly zone. I know that NATO and/or the West have implemented such measures in other war zones, but is that applicable here? If the Ukrainian government officially asked for such measures by e.g. NATO or other nations, could this be implemented according to international law? I certainly hope so! The spirit of the Ukrainian nation is obviously not even dented, Putin has a real fight on his hands.
    1
  3448. I have noticed that Ukrainian troops are wearing yellow armbands - are these white armband a sign of these being Russian troops? I spent 2 years off and on in a Civil War Zone 30 years ago (Angola), and the main lesson was: Whatever is going on at any given moment, in any given location, is "inscrutible" (to use a Biblical term). The "Fog Of War" is all-encompassing. I suspect no one really knows what is going on at any given time, not even the commanders of the forces in action. It is only after the fact that anyone can sort out what was actually going on. The height of stupidity, if you ask me. Of course, the Russian troops, while being kept ignorant, are welcome to stay in the deadly Chernobyl exclusion zone. They are welcome to it, silly sods!
    1
  3449. Well, it could not happen to a more deserving guy.
    1
  3450. I came across these old definitions: Idiots: Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that or a normal child of about two years. Imbeciles: Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years. Morons: Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years. Source: Edmund Burke Huey, Backward and Feeble-Minded Children, 1912
    1
  3451. The moment when Russia and everything Russian will be kicked out of humane society draws ever closer. In the worst-case scenario, most Russian borders will be closed (including data and goods transport) and Russian vessels, ground, air or maritime, will be intercepted and either confiscated or destroyed. Enough is enough. Putin's Russia WILL eventually try to sabotage the undersea data and power infrastructure between NATO countries - a direct act of war that will eventually prompt at least the hunting down and sinking of the vessels involved. The NATO countries have been timid and reluctant to escalate the conflict, only doing so step-by-step in response to Russian acts of war, but Putin's minions will eventually make a gross miscalculation that will change everything.
    1
  3452. A credible assessment: There will be no peace in Europe while bloodstained Putin or a lookalike is in power in Russia. The Russian Oligarchy (or whatchamacallit) are the parasites that have denied the Russian nation to rightfully enjoy their natural resources and the fruits of their labor, and Russia will not be viable as a civilized nation until they are rubbed out of existence, they are the epitome of the corruption that is bringing Russia to it's knees.
    1
  3453. She is not born and raised in 'Murica, going by her accent. Where did she immigrate from? Her name hints at East-European origins.
    1
  3454. The Repugnicans pretend to be the party that advocates "Small Government" - and you idiot 'Muricans BELIEVE them?! They are now reaching into the body of every 'Murican female, wanting to monitor their ovaries and fully control their uterus! How sick and pervert can they get?
    1
  3455. The Electorate system may have made sense over 200 years ago when 'Murica was pulling itself together as a nation, but it has been ridiculously out of date ever since the telegraph, not to mention more modern modes of communication were established. Nowadays it is just abused by politicians as a way to do Tweedism. Simply put: Politicians do not care WHO votes, as long as they are allowed to determine who is eligible to run for office. To put it plainly: Politicians select their voters, the voters do no elect their representatives.
    1
  3456. This makes you wonder how many times Roger Stone has wanted to assassinate people less prominent than members of congress, and actually went ahead and DID IT! It would not surprise me at all...
    1
  3457. The situation is rather pathetic: The DOJ has been outright missing - a few verbal platitudes from Garland are just that, PLATITUDES! DOJ actions (or lack thereof) regarding e.g. the Contempt of Congress referrals the DOJ has not acted upon are more telling than empty words. The Jan. 6th Committee has been churning out evidence by the truckloads, and the DOJ's only reaction has been to demand that they drop everything to prepare transcripts of all the Committee interviews RIGHT NOW! This stinks of an attempted obstruction effort by Garland. The Committee should play tit for tat: We will cooperate in due course, at the same glacial rate the DOJ has cooperated with the Committee! History shows that the DOJ takes YEARS to get anything done anyway, and there is no need for anyone to rush to provide evidence the DOJ has not even bothered to look for itself. When the Committee has done it's job and transcripts provided, the DOJ will still spend it's sweet time working on them, possibly to allow the clock to run out on the worst offenses.
    1
  3458. The Trump authorities are proceeding with their heads firmly stuck in the sand. By not properly measuring the number of infections, they are trying to spin away a very brutal reality. The current US statistic (march 6, 2020) is 330 infected, 14 dead, a fatality rate of well over 4%. At that rate, when the epidemic has run it's course, you will have over 20 million dead! But - reality check - South Korea did NOT stick it's head in the sand, they have tested extensively and probably have the most reliable numbers so far: A fatality rate of only 0.6% so far! That is probably a more realistic figure the rest of the world can expect, indicating that the final US fatality tally will only be a bit over 200 thousand dead. That does not take into account that the South Korean heath care system is no doubt far more comprehensive and effective than the broken US health care system.
    1
  3459. Being called "The Russia Bitch" by Trump and his minions should be considered a badge of honor by Fiona Hill - a definite indication she was someone to be reckoned with. Why else would Trump bother to invent a nickname for her? He only does that to people that worry him. Truly a badge of honor.
    1
  3460. Reading between the lines: The M1 Abrams is impractical to deploy and operate unless you are a superpower - perhaps the 'Murican Military-industrial complex has oversold the M1, and something was not quite kosher with US military appropriations? The Leopard seems far more practical for Ukraine - really high-tech with far better range and not quite as obese as the M1. Perhaps 'Murica should deliver a batch of M1's to Ukraine to break the German stalemate, they could be planted for defense along the Belarus border (closer to support in West-Europe). With the Scholtz stalemate broken, the freed-up Leopards could join the real fighting in east-Ukraine.
    1
  3461. Being an European, I am astounded by the state of affairs in the US. The lunatics and idiots have taken over the asylum, and the majority (sensible US Americans) have become terrified passengers on a runaway train that is about to crash...
    1
  3462. The flurry of United Airlines incidents are probably due to United maintenance quality issues rather than the aircraft type. I am not trying to excuse Boeing, their reputation as the "gold standard of aviation safety" began to tarnish 30 years ago and is now so corroded that it is falling apart before our very eyes.
    1
  3463. Apparently US voters are like a herd of sheep: Mindless, ignorant, apprehensive and always on the verge of stampeding at the least provocation.
    1
  3464. Donny Deutsch is a known face, and he should NEVER show his face in any of the Nordic countries. Not be cause he will be shot on sight of met with any violence, but because he will be booed and laughed out of any of those countries.
    1
  3465. There are a number of 'Muricans that have caused irreparable harm to 'Murica during the last century and half, and Edgar J. Hoover is definitely at the very top of the list. Ronald Bloody Reagan is a clear second. Nixon was certainly a crook, but he turned out to have a tiny shred of integrity when push came to shove. The Bushes are a shoe-in for the top 5, but Trump is yet to be ranked, if only because of his incredible stupidity.
    1
  3466. I cannot help thinking hoc archaic the 'Murican judicial system is! What the public learns about the goings-on in federal courts is via talented cartoonists and word-of-mouth (journalists reporting what they heard). How ridiculous can you get in this modern day and age?
    1