BootmanLA

If your account disappeared, presumably it's for violating the rules posted here, I'd imagine it's also a violation of the rules to create a new account in an attempt to get around being banned, but I couldn't speak directly to that.

If you're bored I suspect that's a symptom of being intellectually challenged. In any event, no, I don't intend to "take this somewhere else".

I suppose one might say that, if one ignores the 34 felony convictions for fraud, the massive civil fraud judgments against him, the massive defamation judgments against him, his attempt to forcibly stay in office by having a mob intimidate Congress into not certifying the election results, the thousands of businesses he harmed with his "business" tactics of refusing to pay his bills until they settled for pennies on the dollar, the massive fraud that was Trump University, his milking the Secret Service budget to float his resorts and golf clubs, his well-documented giant tax fraud dating back to before his father's death.... need I go on? This isn't to defend the warmonger neocons, who were itching for a chance to make their mark in the Middle East and screwed the pooch (and destroyed a surplus that was building at the time). But I don't see anything particularly good that came out of the last Trump term and this one promises to be much worse. As for not rolling back civil rights for LGBT people, especially the trans community, that's already in the works. You can bet your bottom dollar that the moment his team takes power, they're going to change the US government position on all the trans laws that have been passed in red states in recent years, supporting the states that have done so. Given that it was his appointees on the Supreme Court who overturned Roe and Casey, the idea that they would "not roll back any civil rights" is laughable. They already have, they're publicly stated they plan to do more, and they've got a court system already stacked with Trumpanzee judges and a bunch of appellate vacancies to fill as soon as he gets in.

Perhaps you have a different understanding of what "civilization" means. Civilization, as understood by historians, sociologists, and pretty much all social science fields, refers to the development of permanent dwelling places - the establishment of a city, or (in Latin) a civitas - a group of people living together who agree to be bound by basic rules of behavior (as opposed to nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers). Essentially the defining moment of civilization is generally held to be the introduction of agriculture - the raising of food as opposed to hunting and gathering it - which makes it possible to remain in a single place. Even then, civilizations could be (and often were) exceptionally tribal, but that doesn't mean individual tribes did not accept outsiders as members, either. It varied. I think this is a false dichotomy. There are aspects of human existence which lend themselves to hierarchy; there are aspects that lend themselves to democracy; and there are aspects that ought to be off-limits to both. The allowance of free speech and freedom of (and from) religion, for example, should be neither hierarchical nor democratic; they're recognition that certain things are beyond the democratic process and not governed by who's at the top of the pyramid. I think that in a healthy, first-world kind of place - one with the resources to address nearly any problem that exists, if we only had the willpower - that we should do so. Sadly, there are too many people in this society who think that if solving those problems means that someone who has managed to amass $200 billion might have to give up a good chunk of that, then the problem is not in fact capable of being solved.

I agree. It's when people angrily declare the equivalent of "I'm not a MAMMAL, I'm a human!" (but in "deviance from the sexual behavior/identity standard" terms) that I roll my eyes.

How about the group "humans"? Is that too broad for people because it doesn't drill down specifically to "male"? Categories work hierarchically. In biology, we recognize kingdoms (Animalia), phyla (Chordata), classes (Mammalia), orders (primates), families (Hominidae), genera (Homo) and species (sapiens), but we, as humans, are members of each group above that (along with a lot of non-human things). Just because you don't see any connection with the T or Q parts of that grouping doesn't mean that, at some level, we're all grouped into that category by people outside of it. When I hear people get snitty and say that they're not "LGBTQ" because they're just gay (or worse, they're men who have sex with men but they're not any of those "letters", I have to wonder what kind of drugs they're taking that lets them experience that kind of cognitive dissonance.

This statement is false. There is no record of a pardon for Neil Bush, nor was Neil ever charged with a federal crime (perhaps he should have been, but that's another story). Esquire has retracted the story in which it made this allegation - something other news outlets picked up and covered, also without doing their own research.

Please do not attempt to tell me what words or phrases to use. I can assure you that's not an action that will end well.

Could you please try to explain your point by using actual words?

FWIW, there are a significant number of people who believe Mr. Vance is a closeted gay man in denial. While that shouldn't be, under normal circumstances, any reason to smear him with innuendo, he's the number two guy in an incoming administration that's actively anti-LGBTQ (and I'm not interested in anyone pointing out the occasional Uncle Tom queer guy in his administration - save it). And that makes him, for many, a legitimate target.

Partly correct. He was removed from the Navy RESERVE, not active duty military, for a positive drug test. That, however, would not have resulted being locked up and the key thrown away, even if his name was D'Quintal Jones, because failing a drug test is not, by itself, a crime at all. It can be a parole or probation violation, or a violation of a court order if one is ordered, but not because your employer tested you and discharged you because of the test. Nor was he was not charged "for the gun". He was charged with lying on a gun purchase application. The wording on the form is itself problematic - it asks "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?" How far back does "are you an unlawful user of" go? If someone tried pot at 15 and is trying to buy a gun at age 30, is he "an unlawful user" at the present time? If he last used five years ago? A year ago? Last month? Last week? What if that recent time was the only time he's ever done it? That wording alone should disqualify the question as invalid because it's open to interpretation and there's no objective standard for measurement of whether the person is truthfully answering, unless he's literally under the influence at the moment he filled out the form. And under the Bruen decision, from a few years back, any government restriction on the purchase, ownership, or possession of a firearm must have a historical analogue dating to the time of the drafting of the Second Amendment. Were there, in fact, any laws restricting people who used drugs - to the extent there were any drugs in these categories - from owning firearms? I doubt it seriously. If you can point to any large number of people being convicted of lying on this form, much less serving any significant amount of jail time, I might concede you have a point. But the vast majority of federal firearms charges aren't for lying on this kind of form. They're for stealing guns. Or for possession of one while a felon. And Biden wasn't even charged with illegally possessing the gun - just with lying on the form. Apples and oranges. So no, if he was Hunter Jones from any of those cities, he wouldn't be locked up. He wouldn't have been charged, period, under these facts.

Your understanding is incorrect. The *actions* Hunter Biden took (with respect to paying his taxes late, and purchasing a gun when he legally wasn't allowed to) may have occurred before Joe Biden became president. That said, the investigation into his taxes did not begin until 2018, well into the Trump administration, and there is some evidence (and much suspicion) that Trump's DOJ opened that investigation under pressure from the president's team, to harm Joe Biden politically. Note that this began around the same time that Trump began pressuring Ukraine to announce a sham investigation into the Bidens for the purpose of hurting Biden's chances in the 2020 election, pressure for which he was later impeached. It's important to note that by the time the investigation began, Biden had already paid the late taxes AND the associated penalties, circumstances which normally result it (at most) misdemeanor charges with a non-custodial sentence. The gun charge is one for which federal prosecution is almost never used absent some other circumstance, such as the gun being used in commission of another crime. Substance abusers buy guns every day, signing the form declaring that they are not, in fact, users of illegal drugs, and no charges are ever brought simply for that false statement. Your implication that he was "gun toting" and "cocaine smoking" (while NEITHER was charged in the indictment) is a smear tactic worthy of the racists you supposedly abhor. All that said, the point is that if his name had been Hunter Jones, these cases would have been resolved without a special counsel, without the millions and millions of dollars spent investigating them, and we'd have never read the first word about them unless we're law nerds reading every plea bargain in every federal court. But his name is Hunter Biden, and as such, the GOP pushed all sorts of norms out the window in their zeal to "get" something on the Bidens, all because they can't defend the lifetime of criminality their own candidate (and now president-elect) has engaged in. And given that Trump's people have rather LOUDLY declared their intent to continue pursuing charges against Biden, no matter how trumped-up those charges are, Joe Biden took a step to put an end to that kind of bullshit. Is it ideal? No. But not a single fucking Trumpanzee has ANY moral high ground to stand on demanding that Biden be "ideal". JFC, Ivanka Trump's father-in-law (while under investigation for tax fraud) set his whistle-blowing brother up with a prostitute to then out the brother to his wife as a philanderer, in the hopes of shutting him up. Kushner, the father-in-law, did a significant stint in federal prison for that. Trump pardoned him, and has just named him as US Ambassador to France. So spare me your crocodile tears for Biden's actions. Maybe if Republicans weren't such shitty people, backing such a shitty presidential candidate, Democrats could do a better job of living up to the ideals that they at least try to honor.

To be clear: you don't owe me or anyone else an explanation. But when someone posts about an experience publicly, it's available for others to comment upon. And no one else is obligated to react to something the same way I do, or the way anyone else does. Just because I find something sad doesn't mean it's categorically sad for everyone.

It shouldn't, not for anyone who's using it 2-3 times a year. Though I'll note: the recommended dosage calls for 4 tablets (2 before sex, 1 a day later, 1 a day after that) per sexual encounter. If you're only doing that 2-3 times a year, that should be between 8 and 12, not 30 tablets. There's no harm in taking it for an additional day or two after sex beyond the 2 recommended, of course. Either way, a few isolated occurrences like this should cause no decline in kidney or liver functions - unless the person was already experiencing a failing kidney or liver.

I'm also going to just point out the old bromide that "correlation is not causation". A person can have an upset stomach issue after taking PrEP while PrEP is actually not the cause in the least. That's not to say it CAN'T cause gastric distress, but just because one happens after the other doesn't mean they're connected.