BootmanLA

Broken record here, but... GO ON PREP. If you want to have raw sex and you don't want to be poz, that's exactly what PrEP is for. Anyone who has access (and I understand it's covered under the NHS), and who isn't one of the few who have serious side effects, should be on PrEP if he's having bare sex. Period.

More than half the US population who were old enough to vote (the "Voting Age Population") did in fact vote in 2016. The only way you get "less than half" is if you're dumb enough to include all the people under age 18 who cannot vote. In addition, in this country, a 3 million vote spread is pretty wide. Back in 1980, when Reagan is widely acknowledged to have thoroughly trounced Carter, the spread was just over 8 million. 3 million isn't even close. Dumbest take of the week. For starters, very few people who are inclined to vote for someone like a Trump would skip because he wasn't considered capable of winning. The people who would normally vote Republican but skipped voting because they didn't like Trump have a thousand more reasons NOT to vote for him and Biden is far less polarizing to Republicans than Clinton was. Which is why Biden is not the one fighting the uphill battle - I have no idea what insane news source you're following, but Biden has led in every head-to-head poll with Trump since he became the presumptive nominee and his margin is growing, not shrinking. Again, stupid take. Did you not pay attention to the mid-term elections, where more than 40 US House seats held by Republicans tied to Trump flipped to the Democrats? If you don't think that's a repudiation of Trump by Republicans, you don't understand US politics (which, clearly, you don't anyway - and I wouldn't expect some snot-nosed teenager who doesn't even live in this country to understand it, so you're kind of excused). More stupid takes. The polls were right in 2016. They showed Clinton with a small but measurable lead. She got 3 million more votes than Trump. Because of our fucked-up system with the electoral college, however, the location of where fewer than 80,000 of those votes - an infinitesimally small percentage of the more than 130 million total votes - were cast shifted the race. Let's add math to the list of skills you lack. As for "played these last few months perfectly" - That sentence shows me you're nothing but an ill-informed troll. Run along, little teen twit, and go play with your stuffed animals or toy trucks. Sorry, "lorries".

It's called "Presidenting while Black". When Republicans swept to power in Congress in the 1994 mid-term elections, they thought it foretold a return to generations of Republican rule, as every "flip" that year (whether House seat, Senate seat, governor, or state legislative chamber control) was from Democrat to Republican. After they got George W. Bush chosen president by the Supreme Court in 2000, Republicans figured they had a lock on governing for the future. Demographics bit them in the ass, because they didn't realize that their base was aging rapidly and that younger people weren't joining the Republican party in numbers nearly large enough to offset the losses on the "dead and dying" end of the spectrum. The Republicans figured that as millennials and Gen-Xers aged, they'd grow more conservative just like their Boomer forebears; what they didn't anticipate is that the natural moderating tendency of age was being more than offset by the scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs, social conservatism that drove the Republican party in the 21st century. When a black man not only beat their white, conservative, veteran standard-bearer, they couldn't cope. And they set out to obstruct every single thing he proposed, determined to make him look weak and thus limit him to one term. When that failed, they lost their shit completely - how dare some uppity black guy defeat them AGAIN - and it became all-out war. Trump correctly detected this strand of racism rearing its ugly head in the Republican party and decided to fan those flames to carve out a base for himself among Republicans - one that never came close to a majority even of Republicans, but was enough to defeat all his rivals, who split up all the remaining sensible conservative votes. And once he became the nominee, they rallied behind him in order to defeat the person they hated most (next to Obama), Hillary Clinton. It was just enough, in a handful of close states, to flip the electoral college even though Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton and has never cracked about 44% in overall approval his entire presidency.

For what it's worth, it's probably the case that it won't be abolished. That said, there are workarounds available, specifically the National Popular Vote Compact. It's an agreement that only goes into effect if states representing a majority of electoral votes sign on (compacts are binding agreements between states here, in case you don't know what that word means either). Under the NPVC, the states that have signed on agree that all of their electors will cast their electoral college votes for the winner of the popular vote - and yes, as noted prior, that means whoever gets the plurality, not necessarily a majority. That ensures that even with the electoral college, at least a majority of electors will actually vote for who the people want to win.

We had a system like that originally. It worked so crappily that it was happily chucked via the 12th Amendment. Again, since you're halfway around the world I don't expect you to understand anything about American politics, but just so you know, the VP has virtually no responsibilities or duties under the US system of government. His sole prescribed duty is to preside over the Senate, but he cannot vote except to break a tie there. Otherwise, ANYTHING he does is at the request of the president. As John Nance Garner, FDR's VP for his first 8 years in office, famously put it, the Vice-Presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm piss. (For decades this was rendered as "spit", but "piss" was what he actually said.) Why you think we should have a powerless VP who's from the opposing party I can't imagine. Since his or her primary role is to be ready to take over as president, presumably you'd want someone who was prepared to carry out the agenda of the president who was elected most recently, should health concerns or death require the VP to take over for the president.

The Mueller report was not based on the Steele Report, so that pretty much invalidates this entire comment.

In this country, at least, "popular vote" is not synonymous with "majority of the votes cast". It *is* synonymous with "plurality of the votes cast." It's very clear that's what it means in this country, because states award their electoral votes to the "winner of the popular vote" in the state, even if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. I have no idea how you use the term in England, or in the UK as a whole (and frankly I don't care). When we're talking about events in America, we use the words as they are understood here. For instance, if we refer to a "cottage" in the United States, nowhere does it ever mean a public bathroom where men have sex. It means a small house, typically single-family and completely detached.

Perhaps. I'm more worried that Texas (which will still have a GOP governor and (probably) legislature, will simply pass more voter suppression measures to try to push the state back into the red zone. They may have to lose a few other states in addition for that to really take place.

See, here's one thing you don't understand. There is ALWAYS a winner of the popular vote; it's not always someone with a majority, but someone always wins it. Clinton won it. Even if she HAD gotten a majority of the vote, however, she wouldn't have won the presidency. And as for the two-year investigation: it turned up plenty. When you're read the entire Mueller report and can understand it well enough to answer questions about it - many of which will be complex questions of US law, so be prepared - then you can opine on it. Until then, you're just rambling bullshit. Likewise for impeachment. Everyone here knows that the evidence of wrongdoing was overwhelming. The problem we have is that one party is so dedicated to sucking up to its leader, afraid that he'll unleash his nutcase right-wing gun-toting mouth-breathing moron base on them, that they voted to acquit without hearing from a single witness. As for your shit take that "the Democrats are handing him an easy second term"..... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH No, seriously.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH He might pull out a win, through voter suppression and other antics. It won't be an easy win. But then I don't expect you to understand anything about us. You clearly don't.

Funny, many other countries did the same, enforced the restrictions more quickly, and most now have the virus under control. Trump refused to act for more than a month, nearly two, after he was told bluntly how bad this could be, and we're all paying the price. THAT'S why we had such huge job loss and THAT'S why he's to blame. No, he was not "democratically elected". And it's true that neither candidate received a MAJORITY of the popular vote, but one - Clinton - did receive a plurality; it just didn't mean anything because of a system our founders created to preserve the power of slave states. You don't understand the simple English language term "won the popular vote". Clinton did. "Winning a popular vote" does not mean winning a majority; it means winning the plurality, or the most votes cast. Tell you what, TeenTwit: I'll refrain from criticizing the archaic English parliamentary system, which I barely understand in rudimentary form, and in return please stop opining about US political systems you clearly don't know jack shit about.

You live across the ocean. You see a limited part of what's going on. Trump's people (whether it was the AG, the NPS head, or whomever) DID use tear gas to clear peaceful protesters near the White House so that Hair Furor could get a photo op holding up a Bible while trespassing on the private property of a church across from the White House - a move that the rectors of the church denounced. Are there violent protests? Sure. Most that are violent have turned that way because right-wing groups - this country's most serious terrorism problem - started riots. We have teenaged assholes illegally taking semi-automatic rifles across state lines to murder protesters and "Christian" groups crowd-fund half a million dollars to pay his legal fees. Don't forget the worthless POS right-wing white supremacist bum who drove his fancy hot rod to Charlottesville and drove at high speed into a crowd, killing one of the PEACEFUL demonstrators. And on and on - when things turn violent, it's usually because right-wingers have decided to make them violent. As for the bullshit that "Trump never denied climate change" - again, you only see limited amounts of what our officials say. Trump's expressed disagreement with climate change repeatedly and publicly and loudly. The fact that you don't hear it doesn't mean it didn't happen. As for your poor math skills regarding the electoral college: California, for all its size, has just over 12% of the vote. Texas - a much more conservative state - has almost 8.5% of the vote. Florida - which has gone for the Republican in 3 of the last 5 races, including Trump's, has nearly 7% of the vote. More importantly, the fact that a huge state like California always goes to the Democrats means that the voice of 1/3 or so of Californians never gets heard - because they vote Republican. In a popular vote system, that 1/3 of the state's voters - which amounts to about 10 million voting-age people - WOULD get heard. A popular vote doesn't guarantee a liberal outcome; it guarantees that the voice of the majority is what decides. The ONLY reason to oppose that is if you believe Republican policies are so unpopular that they'd never win a majority.

This is just stupidly, stupidly wrong. Absolutely and totally stupidly wrong. So wrong it's almost impossible to describe how wrong it is. The US economy had been steadily improving on all fronts - employment, stock market, GDP growth, reduction in deficit, etc. - throughout the Obama years, once he turned around the Bush Great Recession. That's a fact. EMPLOYMENT: Under Trump, fewer jobs were created in his first three years than in Obama's last three years. (So I guess you could say he turned that around, except that it's going the wrong direction). Since just after his third year in office ended, Trump's record has been disastrous, due in large measure to his completely incompetent response to the Covid crisis. STOCK MARKET: As for the stock market, the DJIA was at 8077.56 on January 20, 2009, and falling, thanks to Bush's recession. It further fell to 6626.94. By the end of his eight year term, the DJIA was at 19827.25. That means during his term, it increased 145% over what it was when he took office, and a whopping 199% over its lowest point early in his presidency. Under Trump, the Dow peaked at 29551.42, which is certainly a high, but then again most of the "getting there" took place under Obama. At its peak, the Dow was up just 49% over what it was when Trump took office - about 1/3 of what Obama did, or 1/4 of what he did after the market hit its low point in the Great Recession. And those are pre-Covid numbers AND after Trump threw $2 trillion at rich people and big companies in tax cuts and tax breaks. GDP GROWTH: None of Trump's first three years in office showed more than 3% GDP growth, even after that $2 trillion tax cut/break, which his people assured us would give us 4-5% growth. In fact, we only hit 3% itself, barely, one year, just after his tax giveaway. Otherwise, his GDP growth (until this year) was about 2.2%. Which is right about where it was under Obama, who (again) had to climb out of a recession he inherited. DEFICIT: After an initial spike in the deficit caused by the extraordinary measures needed to fight the Great Recession, the US budget deficit declined steadily under Obama, dipping below $500 billion for a few years. Under Trump, it reached $984 billion BEFORE Covid, and there's no end in sight for what we'll have to spend to recover from his ineptitude there. SUMMARY: Virtually every positive trend under Trump is one that started under Obama, and has slowed or remained the same under Trump. A few things have changed direction, but they're all changing in a BAD direction. Thank god at least you can't vote here - unless Trump's expanded his foreign interference program to include Australia.

Ahem. I said that was what "Inshallah" means in Arabic and Farsi. I did not say people here routinely say "if god wills it". That said, I hear "God willing" (which is exactly the same thing) all the time. Maybe where you live, there aren't a lot of people who believe in a god, I dunno. But it's not an uncommon phrase. In any event: you've been told what the word means in both Arabic and Farsi. What do YOU think he meant by it? Do you think it's like "420" as code for pot, or "Tina" as code for crystal meth? I'm curious what your deranged mind "thinks" (used in quotes since there's no thought apparently involved). Feeling triggered yet? Says the supporter of the candidate who has actual allegations of pedophilia against him. Says the supporter of the candidate who cavorted regularly with a known pedophile. Says the supporter of the candidate who bragged about how "stacked" his daughter was and how "if she wasn't my daughter I'd probably be dating her". Projection is a terrible affliction, buddy, but there is help. See a therapist. Seriously, dude, you're becoming (okay, not becoming, just "are") unhinged. You're Baker Act material.

Always such a joy to see people wasting their votes, especially in a state that is (for the first time in decades) in play. :::turning off sarcasm:::

From Hornet's own story: "As Hornet’s survey results have now been widely reported on, it’s important to note what can and should be extrapolated from this data — or, better yet, what cannot be and what should not be. Hornet’s survey was a voluntary, opt-in survey of 10,000 Hornet users; those users received a one-minute survey in their Hornet inbox. It’s important to acknowledge the obvious inherent biases that come with any opt-in survey, and for that reason, one must be careful in unfairly extrapolating from the data itself. It would simply not be proper to extrapolate from an opt-in survey such as this a prediction of voter turnout in the 2020 U.S. election — by the greater LGBTQ community, or by the gay community more specifically. In effect, the only thing truly measured by Hornet’s results are the opinions of those Hornet users who chose to take the survey, not the broader Hornet user base, not gay American men, and most definitely not the broader American LGBTQ community. To infer that from the below data would be flawed." Also from the story: "Of the 10,000 men Hornet surveyed, 12% identified themselves as U.S. citizens. Of those 1,200 American men, 51% answered they would be voting for Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, while 45% — just shy of one-half — said they would be casting their ballot for Donald Trump." So it wasn't really 10,000 men with opinions that matter; it was 1,200 (I'm assuming those are rough numbers, otherwise they're suspiciously round). And nowhere in this does it say how many people actually responded to this opt-in non-poll. In other words, it's one more steaming pile of bullshit from Trumpanzees.

People say "God bless you" incessantly in this country. One use of an Arabic (or alternatively, Farsi) word used in Islam and you shit your pants in anger. People who aren't rabid Islamophobes know that "Inshallah" literally means "if God wills it". Colloquially, in both languages, it also means "Ain't never gonna happen". I'd suggest you ask anyone who speaks Arabic or Farsi, but I'm pretty sure you don't know anyone. In this context, it's like a kid who hasn't read the class material all year, done none of the homework, and missed half the classes saying he'll pass, barely, "if God wills it" - in other words, it ain't gonna happen. Which is exactly what Biden meant. It was in response to Trump once again claiming he paid millions of dollars in taxes but he'll have to show the returns "later". Inshallah.

I'm curious how that could be. Obama inherited the worst recessionary economy since the Great Depression and managed to stem it, reverse it, and led during seven years of increasing prosperity. Are you sure your parents didn't "almost lose everything" thanks to the Bush recession? And if they almost lost everything, how have they made it up in just the last 3 years? What, specifically, can you point to that Trump did that changed your family's fortunes?

While I don't disagree that Carter is probably the MOST decent human being we've had since WW2, I think it's a question of degree, and what you consider 'decent'. Truman was pretty decent. In fact, he was so decent that when he stepped down as president, he had no source of support (because he believed it would demean the presidency to either give paid speeches or sit on corporate boards). Eisenhower, though he was from the opposite party, thought that was appalling and pushed Congress to create the first presidential pension. Eisenhower himself was pretty decent. We now know he'd had a long-time affair, but he kept it very discreet. I can forgive Ford for pardoning Nixon - it was an earlier, simpler time, and I think a public fight over indicting Nixon for his crimes and the spectacle of a former president already forced to resign sitting trial in federal court would have really damaged the nation. And I think GHW Bush was fairly decent as well. Certainly the last GOP president who even could be considered for that adjective.

You have no idea what I've had concerns about, so kindly STFU. My point was that his idiotic supporters cheer him and applaud his "selflessness" in donating his $400,000 presidential salary, while ignoring that he is the first president in decades, if not a century or more, to have active, outside income from ongoing businesses that he personally directs. My point is that he's made back up that salary "donation" many times over by billing the government, for instance, $37,000 PER MONTH for renting a cottage at his Bedminster golf club, for the Secret Service, whether he even sets foot on the course or not (which he doesn't, throughout the winter). He bills the Secret Service four figures per night per room at Mar-a-Lago when he's there. He charges the Secret Service platinum rates to rent golf carts to keep up with him on his courses - the golf cart rental alone is approaching a full year of Trump's salary. My point is not that the money is being wasted (although it is); it's that people are actually stupid enough to believe Trump's given up anything. His companies are getting tens of millions of dollars a year in profits that he would never see if he wasn't president, so "giving up" his salary is peanuts - and he's coming out way ahead.

You're not wrong, but part of the problem is that the ACA was what the Democrats in Congress and President Obama were able to pass when facing absolute resistance to *anything* from the Republican Party. The original plans called for a public option, where effectively anyone could opt into a Medicare-like program. Because all 60 Democratic senatorial votes were needed to pass the bill, the objection of one weasel - Joe Lieberman, may his name forever be damned - whose state is home to Aetna and Cigna, among other health insurers was enough to torpedo the public option from the bill. In addition, the original bill called for a mandatory expansion of Medicaid to cover the working poor, who generally make too much for Medicaid but not nearly enough to afford insurance even if an employer subsidizes it. Combined with subsidies for private insurance for those above the working poor line, up to a reasonable income, and a penalty for not getting coverage you were entitled to, everyone would have been covered except any wealthy people who chose to go without. The courts struck down the mandatory nature of Medicaid expansion thanks to our fucked-up federalism system (where states are sovereign in certain areas) not allowing the federal government to impose those costs on the states. So it wasn't for lack of trying that the ACA doesn't cover everyone - and I'm fine with replacing it with a more extensive alternative. But until that happens, it's still light years beyond what we had before.

You misspelled "to" as "for". As for "economic fact", no president in the modern era (since we began keeping unemployment statistics, in other words) will go out of office with fewer jobs than existed when he took office. Not even George W. Bush, whose second term ended in the Great Recession, managed that feat. Trump's the first. He's also the first president to have had more than 1 million new unemployment benefit applications in a single week - and we had 22 of those weeks, including 20 in a row. In ten of those weeks, there were more than 2 million new unemployment claims. In seven of those weeks, there were more than 3 million claims - and two in which there more than 6.5 million new unemployment claims in a single WEEK. By contrast, prior to the Trump recession, the highest number of new claims EVER in a week was around 500,000. Trump's peak week was THIRTEEN TIMES that. And at its peak, the unemployment rate under Trump was higher than at any point since the Great Depression in the 1930's. GDP growth has been no faster under Trump than under Obama. In fact, even before the Trump Recession began, growth was slower over the first three years of his term than over the final three years of Obama's term. And that's AFTER Trump's massive tax cut for the rich, which was supposed to juice the economy - instead, of course, the rich simply pocketed their gains, companies bought back their stock to drive up the price, and the top 10% of households by wealth, who own 85% of the stocks out there, pocketed the proceeds. That tax giveaway to the rich added $2 trillion in US debt. Digging our way out of the Trump recession has already cost us several trillion more, and will undoubtedly cost us trillions more yet. Even conservative estimates are that Trump will have, in his four years as president, added $8 trillion to the debt - much like he's run his businesses (and bear in mind, most of his biggest prior businesses have gone bankrupt, and he's facing huge balloon debt payments on the rest in just the next few years). But hey, at least the stock market is doing well so his rich friends who have six houses can escape New York or wherever and go live in seclusion to avoid Covid. They're about the only people who will end up having "done well" under the "economic facts" of his administration.

I prefer Wheaton's Law: Don't be a dick.

He also won the nonexistent Michigan Man of the Year award. And was on the cover of more fake issues of Time Magazine than anyone else. Bigly so. And he has Covid. Thots and prayers.

In the upper left part of the screen, click on your member name, and then choose "Account Settings ". From there, in the right-most panel, choose "Notification Settings". Click on the drop-down to the right of the item "Messenger" Then make sure the box marked "Popup Window" is checkmarked. Incoming messages will then appear as popups. You can also choose to have them come to you by email. The two choices are not exclusive; you can choose neither, either, or both.

I'd posit that never in the history of the United States has there ever been a neighborhood given that moniker, because women have never had the clout to separate a space for themselves