BergenGuy

17 minutes ago, nanana said:

There’s a lot of evidence that the Biden administration pressured social media to deplatform and repress people whose views contrasted with their own, as extensively reported by Matt Taibi among others.

Were those views merely contrasting opinions or were they presenting objectively false information?  Although, either way, I don't agree with pressuring a media outlet over anything.  I'm a First Amendment fanatic.  However, there is nothing wrong with  the government talking with media outlets about how they can help present factual information during, say, a health crisis like COVID.  At least, that didn't use to be controversial,  These days, there are probably people who object to anti-smoking public service announcements.

But, all that has been reported and the Biden administration has ended those conversations.  So, again, I'm wondering what "censorship" is Trump ending?  Or, is that "censorship" yet another canard like his "war on Christmas"?

28 minutes ago, nanana said:

can you give some examples, and can you comment on whether the government practices censorship whether or not it’s illegal?

No, I can't.  That's why I was asking what "censorship" that Trump is supposed to ban.

On 11/9/2024 at 2:44 AM, nanana said:

That is much more a woke leftist thing to do, but agreed I will not be happy if Trump does not follow through on his promise to ban censorship and government “misinformation” manipulation. This mostly happens to people on the right, but it’s also bad when it happens to people on the left. 

"Censorship" by whom?  Censorship by the government is already illegal except in certain, very limited, circumstances.

On 11/7/2024 at 7:18 PM, TaKinGDeePanal said:

Once you say it, you mean it. Stand by for ALL government payments to be severely reduced - or abolished altogether.

I'm sure that there will be some attempts.  But, just because a senator, even a majority leader, wants something to happen doesn't mean that it will.  I'm not being naïve.  But, there are some things that congress people and senators who are facing re-election in two years will not want to face ... and one of them is a lot of very angry older people.  What they'll do is more insidious.  They just won't do anything.  That's politically much easier.  All they have to do is hope that Democrats are in power when it finally comes time to reduce Social Security/Medicare benefits due to insufficient funding.

59 minutes ago, pozlvr27 said:

Senator Rick Scott of Florida has a good chance of being the next Leader of the Senate. Senator Scott has publicly said  he would like to cut   all Social Security benfits a minimum of 20% and to be able to vote on continuing Social Security benefits each year during Budget negotiations.

He did say that, and then was rapidly, very rapidly, forced to retract it (the typical "I was misunderstood").  Social Security is the third-rail of politics because older people vote at a very high rate.  I suspect that there's a number of things that they'll do first before having the stomach to take on Social Security.

8 hours ago, PozBearWI said:

More than half the time no matter the chat platform I get a message "Can we take this to (some other chat ap)?"

Some guys do that because some apps are message-limited.  Unfortunately, that's also the MO of catfishers.  When a guy suggests that very early in the conversation, I just drop him.  Otherwise, I know that he's going to be telling me all about cryptocurrency trading.

3 hours ago, brnbk said:

I clarified this, but somehow it is not being accepted. May I ask, why so?

Why?  Because your "clarification" still reads as gay being a choice:

Quote

 

I am wondering if this confusion is because in US English, you would say,  In this sense rather than in that sense, and thus the sentence would read:  In this sense choosing to be gay, is indeed a choice and a brave choice for people who come from countries where it is illegal/dangerous etc.

 

Perhaps you mean to say that acting upon one's same-sex orientation is a choice.  But, the orientation itself ("gay") is NOT a choice.

17 hours ago, brnbk said:

In that sense choosing to be gay, is indeed a choice and a brave choice for people who come from countries where it is illegal/dangerous etc.

Being gay is a choice??

19 hours ago, ellentonboy said:

From what I read, and of course that could me FALSE NEWS, but Grindr is not banned in the Olympic Village.  What is banned in the geo locator to give athletes privacy.  Many of these athletes come from nations where homosexuality is frowned on, or even outlawed.  So no one wants to have their identify revealed by a geo locator.

The way I look at it, hats off to Grindr (for once) making a decision that will actually benefit it's subscribers.  I have been the recipient of individuals knocking on my door at 2 am when I forgot to turn the damn thing off, I can't imagine competing for an Olympic medal and having some random guy knock on my door looking for head.  

I think that it could be argued that if an athlete wants privacy, that individual can just turn off geolocation on their account.  There is no reason to ban that feature for every athlete.  That comes across as very paternalistic.  Why should everyone lose that feature because some athletes come from LGBT-hostile cultures?

Now, on the other hand, if Grindr has legitimate liability concerns (I'm not sure what those would be) then it should turn off the service.  It is a business, after all.  

Personally, I won't interact with guys on Grindr who don't have their distance turned on (unless I can see them in my grid).  There are just too many cat fishers out there.  Even guys with distance turned on can be cat fishers, but in my experience it is a much smaller percentage than those who are hiding their distance.

2 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Some states have never enacted marriage equality at all; they've simply had to grant the licenses because SCOTUS said states can't refuse. But on the books, there's still a law saying you can't do that. This is Group C.

The "Respect for Marriage Act" would at least require that the Group C states recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.  Of course, if the Republicans hold the Senate, the House and the White House, they could simply repeal the law.  I don't really expect the filibuster, which would be the only way to stop them, to survive if Republicans win across the board.  They'll want to do as much damage in two years as possible knowing that, historically, they'll lose the House or Senate in two years.

1 hour ago, barefucker44 said:

Trump left the White House in 2020.  Therefore the notion that he wouldn't leave in 2028 should he be elected in 2024 is false.

He left only after his attempt to interfere with the counting of the electoral votes failed.    After that, it is irrelevant whether he "stayed" in the White House or not.  His presidency ended at noon on January 20.  At that point, he would just be a trespasser if he had physically remained in the White House.

6 hours ago, ellentonboy said:

I saw a report on that particular event, hey it's Florida, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

The clinic was in New Mexico.

3 hours ago, Knightfalconer said:

I appreciate the text being split up into paragraphs and the separation of speech from description. Makes a story much easier to read than a single block of text.

Paragraph breaks are always appreciated.  Stories that are a single, dense block of text are very difficult to read.

2 hours ago, partying.hard said:

For those of us who have an amazingly kinky and wild Imagination, for me there is a disconnect between the story and the images. 

This is a well-written series, as are other stories by the same author.  But, I agree with you.  I'd rather not see images in stories (any stories, not just this series).  A well-written story provides enough detail that I build an picture in my mind based on what I think is hot, and the images never match my imagination.

6 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

I think if they actually controlled everything completely, including the Supreme Court, the answer might be "No". But as strong as the right (in a general sense)'s control is over the political system, the Christian nationalist types don't control the Supreme Court.

At one time, Roe seemed safe.  But, then the composition of the entire court system rapidly and radically changed within just a few years.  That's why I worry about the future.  It doesn't take a majority, or even a substantial minority, to push through change.  It just takes a enough single-issue voters who are razor-focused on that goal, while the rest of us split and dither over what we should seek next and refuse to unite as a bloc against the single-issue voters.

1 hour ago, BootmanLA said:

But there's never been any hue and cry from the right that the key First Amendment cases on obscenity should be overturned.

You're probably correct.  But, do you really think that Christian nationalists are going to let porn exist in their theocracy?

On 3/2/2024 at 2:05 PM, BootmanLA said:

I can't imagine the Supreme Court wanting to tackle that definition to rewrite it. 

There used to be a lot of things that we couldn't imagine the Supreme Court doing.

15 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

But as things stand now, discrimination on the basis of the content of the expression (including porn, but not stuff that is legally "obscene") is subject to the highest scrutiny,

You're right.  The risk is right-wingers shifting the definition of "obscene" to the point that it would include pornography or gay porn (they'll probably figure out a way to keep straight porn legal, for a while).  The definition of "obscene" is subjective.  "Obscene" materials may not be sent through the US Mail, per the Comstock Acts.  Since the Comstock Acts are being used by the right-wing to try to outlaw the mailing of "abortifacients", the same people are trying to argue that it applies to private companies such as UPS and FedEx, too, which would basically cut down any physical distribution channels.

2 hours ago, ellentonboy said:

They could probably pass legislation that would make it illegal for a company like T.I.M. to send us gigs of porn through the USPS, but what about Fed Ex, UPS, etc?  Are they going to have EVERY piece of mail examined.  I just don't think it's feasible.

A law could be passed that makes the interstate distribution of porn illegal.  That would apply to USPS and the private carriers.  And, they wouldn't have to examine every piece of mail.  Just do a sting operation and order from distributors.  Then, come down hard on the distributors.  But, that would only work with US-based distributors.  If they were foreign-based, they'd be beyond the reach of American laws and your point that there's no way that every piece of (international) mail could be examined would be true.  

But, the heteros will be pissed when they discover that they can't get their porn, either.

1 hour ago, onlyraw said:

and does anyone use Manhunt anymore?  —- I feel a certain loyalty as they started n Boston… and one of the owners used to host these great spanking parties at his house (“mansion”)

I used to like MH.  But, it really went downhill when they eliminated the region-specific chat rooms and forced everyone into one room.  People were supposed to be able to create other chat rooms, but I found that they were unstable and usually lasted just a few seconds before I got dumped back into the single chat room.

In my area, I don't know of a good alternative to BBRT.  There are a lot of Sniffies users, but most of the profiles are completely empty or the guys are very young.  Fortunately, there are hundreds of BBRT users in the NYC/NJ area active at any one time.

1 hour ago, MantisShrimp said:

That’s a “we’re pissed off, so stop emailing us” post.

I don't really blame them.   All those emails are a distraction and won't lead to a faster resolution of the problem.   The real question is how many people, having read the message, will email them anyway?

This is the message being displayed as of 10:20 EST on Friday morning:

BBRTS Servers are DOWN

Yes, we know about it.

No, we are NOT going out of business.

Yes, we are WORKING on correcting the problem.

It is a HARDWARE issue that must be addressed.

No, it was NOT a Data Breach

No we do NOT have an ETA

Lastly, there is NO NEED to email in with questions.

On 12/29/2023 at 11:01 AM, chunkychains said:

OK, I no longer seem to be able to add images, and my attempts to insert from or add links to hosting sites have failed. Will just have to be narration from here on…

Personally, I think stories are hotter without pics because that allows the reader to visualize the guys in the way that they think is hot.

On 11/30/2023 at 8:57 AM, hntnhole said:

Note the recent elections in the East/Midwest states:  really pissed off women (and their supporters) came out in droves to vote the R's out. 

If those women had been as motivated in 2016 as they are now, we wouldn't in this mess.  When a party says that they're going to screw you if elected, believe them.

I think that the 2024 election will have a great impact on where LGBT people decide to live and retire.  Living in a blue state offers more protection than living in a blue oasis in a red state desert.

On 9/19/2023 at 3:38 PM, norubbers said:

Brock's Gaze snapped to the door in time to see Uncle Dale entering the office. And he looked pissed.

I'm confused.  I thought that Dale was already in the office.  After all, he was the one who introduced Brock to Dr. Shah.