Leaderboard

It was Trump that signed a "peace treaty" with the Taliban that committed the US to leaving. Reversing that would necessarily have involved outright war with the Taliban, with a huge increase in US troops in Afghanistan and associated casualties. It was Trump who cut the Afghanistan government out of the peace negotiations. Trump did everything possible to undermine the Afghanistan government. The collapse of the government is on Trump. Yet somehow now it is all on Biden? Conservatives/republicans have done just about everything in their power to encourage their followers to reject vaccination against Covid. They do not care that people, mostly in their "base", will die or suffer long term disability. No cost is too much, as long as they can prolong the pandemic and blame Biden. What do Republicans have to offer for policy? Cult worship of a leader who has displayed over and over that he cares for nothing but himself. Censorship of education so students cannot even be taught that slavery was bad and has had lasting consequences. If you teach about the Holocaust you have to teach "both sides". What does that even mean? The worst attack on the peaceful transition of power in the country's history is rewritten as a tourist visit. They fabricate lies about the election to create doubt in their followers, and use that doubt to justify voter suppression laws. The worst part of it is that so many gullible voters are falling for it. All you have to do to win in Trumpistan, it seems, is to lie and obstruct.

I have now gone 2 years without a respiratory infection of any kind, the longest by far in my adult life (and probably my childhood too). I attribute this to fairly diligent use of masks and "social distancing" (a nasty phrase) that has kept even the common cold at bay. A mild inconvenience with a very positive outcome. I just don't understand the fools who oppose these measures, and the even bigger fools who oppose vaccination.

The D's do not really control the Senate and Biden's Presidency started to end on his first day in office. One of the silly games you play here is claiming that you didn't like/want/vote for etc.. the bad orange man. Whatever he's doing well or not we are vastly better off with him than Trump. That was the choice. There was no door number 3 and I'm terribly sorry that you didn't get your favorite toy in your stocking.

I was an SSPC safety officer in 1969. Still have the USPA card. We made a few jumps at Ap Don from a DC3 rented from Continental Airlines. During one jump I could hear an M-60 being fired. During another an F-4 strafed something about a quarter mile across the little river that ran by the DZ. Nothing more exciting than that. Twice the VN Army team jumped with us. The village kids field packed for us, and several Vietnamese women from the village catered food. VN Army troops hauled us back to TSN airbase in brand new stake bed trucks. There were 9 jumpers at the time & I had trained 4 of them (I think) & put them out on static line in the Club's surplus rigs. I had to train a few so we could afford the DC3. U.S. Armed forces TV featured us & filmed from the plane. They just showed up one morning. Scared me because I was a Seabee E-4 & hadn't asked permission from any American military sources, just the Vietnamese Army. No one challenged us.