Even as late as the 2016 RNC debates he was still speaking clearly, responding to his opponents, and occasionally making a coherent point.

Time zones are aligned to population centers as much as they are political boundaries.

For example, this methodology would probably cut major US cities in half. It’s hard to tell exactly, but some cities would be Phoenix, the whole metropolitan corridor of Oklahoma City to San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and Detroit. In Canada, Edmonton and Calgary stand out.

I meant in terms of establishing good diplomatic relations between the US and Russia. From the fall of the Berlin wall up until the Obama administration it looked like relations were steadily improving as Russia was becoming more capitalist. Also at least from the US perspective it’s probably the most famous case of exposing a hostile foreign diplomat to American values.

I remember reading articles about how Russia was giving away land and paying people to come populate their rural eastern provinces. I’m not sure exactly when the sentiment changed- Putin clearly didn’t like Obama, but at this moment I can’t remember any specific incidents pior to the Crimea invasion. Before that, I remember them being seen as an economically inferior, but developing, potential ally. Similar to Japan before it’s “miracle”, lumped into BRIC with Brazil, India, and China as a potential new place to do business.

As for Yeltsin being bad for Russians? Eh, probably. I’m content leaving discussion to those whose special interest is recent Russian history.

As a black person she’ll alienate the racists in the DNC. There aren’t as many as the DNC, but it would be naive to think there aren’t any. As much as I don’t want to cater to racists, beating Trump is more important right now.

As a woman she will alienate misogynists. Same thing.

As a cop she’s going to alienate a ton of voters. She’s recently changed her positions on a lot of crime-related issues like marijuana, but idk how much that’s going to help her win the BLM crowd.

I’ll vote for her if she’s the pick, no question. Heck, there are very few people the DNC could nominate at this point that I wouldn’t vote for. I suppose as Biden’s VP she was kind of nominated in the primary if you squint. But yeah… DNC elites appointing a cop at the last minute doesn’t strike me as the best way to fight fascism.

Identity politics aside, I like a lot of what she claims to support, but that’s assuming that she’s truly no longer the prosecutor she used to be. She has good records on reproductive rights, economics, LGBTQ+ support. My biggest gripe with her would be she’s still just as pro-Israel as Biden and most of the DNC seems to be.

In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.

Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.

Both of these guys are going to remain single or, at best, in toxic relationships until they change their approach to both women and relationships.

It’s the same reason why factory workers don’t join unions or go on strike.

The system is designed to enforce compliance and keep individuals focused on submitting in order to meet their short-term, basic needs. Desperation is the design. When everyone is forced to choose between standing up for themselves or feeding themselves and their families, most people throughout history choose food.

In the last balance patch they buffed it to 18%

The Murdoch empire transcends borders

As a guy with long hair I did this once.

First breakup. We were both young and toxic to each other, and let the other be toxic.

After some reflection I cut my hair for a variety of reasons.

I’ve seen the studies and speculation that it’s a control thing, related to exercising bodily autonomy. Personally I don’t feel like this was part of my decision. This might be more of a gendered thing- I felt like growing my hair as a cis male in the first place was already exercising my bodily autonomy and defying society’s expectations around me. I was somewhat hesitant to cut it because it felt like giving up, conforming to what others wanted me to be.

One was just that I was in college for business degrees- I always kind of knew my career would be better off with short hair anyways. Once I graduated, got a job, and got established at my company I grew my hair long again. It’s still long now, probably longer than it was originally.

Another was that I wanted to be a different person. I looked back on who I was in that relationship and thought hard about who I wanted to become. While on a vacuum I preferred the long hair, and I objectively knew my hair could stay the same while my personality changed, on a subjective level I think yhe change helped. It was a visual boundary in time- when I go back and look at pictures of myself it’s very easy and obvious to see that change. It helped me to think about my long-haired self as the “old me”- younger, less experienced, more raw and flawed.

Another was the emotional connection between her and my hair. While I liked the long hair and grew it before we had started dating, she really liked my long hair too. It hurt to have the same hair she used to run her fingers through swinging in front of my face. So in a sense, cutting my hair felt like cutting my connection to her.

Finally, I also started growing my beard. I had always wanted facial hair, but she didn’t like it so I shaved. This seemed like a good opportunity to see what I could grow, but having long hair AND a beard seemed like a lot at the time. Now I have both of course.

The story of Mulan seems to take place during the Wei dynasty, and was probably written during it as well. So that would place it between the late 300’s and early 500’s CE.

I immediately thought of Samson from the old Testament. It’s estimated that story takes place around 1,000 BCE. Not sure if anyone knows of anything older.

For comparison, this is how Trump used to talk, back in the 2016 RNC debate.

He’s always been an obnoxious and crass New Yorker, never what you’d call an intellectual or academic. But he used to stay on topic, finish sentences, make coherent points, and generally function. Now he’s reduced to somehow shouting and mumbling at the same time, confusing names and years, connecting vague concepts together until he gets applause from the audience.

He’s gotten worse over time. I remember during the 2020 cycle seeing video comparisons even between his 2016 and 2020 debates.

I don’t exactly enjoy going back and watching him talk, but it’s shocking going back and comparing seeing how drastic the change has been.

Here’s a bit of the 2016 RNC debate. Trump is still rude and crass. He’s not coming off as an intellectual, but he’s completing his sentences and making coherent points. He wasn’t getting obviously confused like he has been since- talking about airports being involved in the Revolutionary War, claiming Nikki Haley was responsible for January 6th, the famous rant about his uncle being a genius, etc.

Thecomment I replied to listed Biden’s accomplishments. I agree that I wish he was even more progressive, but we aren’t going to get anyone like that without either disenfranchising 40-50 million voters or convincing them to stop voting against their best interests.

Biden already beat Trump once, when Trump has the incumbent advantage. Biden now has that advantage and has a much, much stronger resume of accomplishments than Trump did.

Who is the anti-genocide candidate who has a chance of beating Trump? Biden’s stance on Israel is my biggest criticism of him, but I have yet to see a better option. There’s hundreds of issues to consider when voting, so I’m not going to let one issue(where the other candidate is even worse) dissuade me from voting for the candidate who is in my best interests.

Just dismissing my points without addressing any of them lol.

The person I replied to listed Biden’s accomplishments. I was the same as you back in the 2020 election - I thought Biden would be just a regular corporate Democrat, but he proved me wrong within his first year. I can admit that. He’s definitely not as progressive as I would prefer, but he’s far exceeded my expectations. I look at what he’s actually done, not what Fox News wants me to believe he is.

You mentioned that his climate change bill was a fossil-fuel industry handout… I’m searching the Internet and can’t find any publication with that take. I can see plenty of other criticisms (supporting hydrogen is controversial, Republicans have plenty of complaints as expected, we probably need to do more, it doesn’t solve international issues, etc), but I can’t find any indication from anywhere that it was too kind of fossil fuel corporations. Do you have any more information on that?

No successfully elected US president in history has ever started a campaign so late. If there was some front runner, a really strong candidate who had a legitimate shot, perhaps I’d entertain the idea. But that is simply not the case. Biden dropping out now is exactly what the GOP wants.

This isn’t just a matter of younger candidates volunteering.The primary already happened. There was a time and a place to have this conversation and Biden won. You and I don’t have to like it.

Comparing Biden to Hillary is laughable. Incumbents generally win the presidency, and Biden was popular enough to unseat Trump in 2020. Now he has a pretty good record of accomplishments to run on. He was never as hated as Hillary. That could be personal charisma, misogyny, the scandals the Clinton’s had as a couple, her own racist comments resurfacing, the supercuts of her taking both sides on literally every issue, or other things. Biden isn’t perfect, but as far as presidential candidates go the best the GOP has been able to do is Hunter’s laptop.

Supporting the incumbent president and primary winner, who has the perhaps the most progressive accomplishments since FDR, who already beat Trump in the last election… Is supporting Trump?

That’s some gold medals mental gymnastics.

I’m disappointed in Stewart for this. I understand he’s just a comedian, but he seemed to actually have some good takes and be getting more involved in serious politics over the past few years.

Changing the nominee at this stage would be effectively ceding the election. I’m convinced that most of this anti-Biden rhetoric is coming from right-wing astroturfers.

It’s also bizarre seeing so many so-called progressives claiming that anyone could beat Trump… Did we learn nothing in 2016? Even the 2020 election was way too close for comfort. I wasn’t a huge fan of Biden back then, but he has exceeded my expectations significantly. I’m disappointed that there aren’t any viable younger candidates (that’s still a problem that needs to be solved in the next primary), but that’s certainly not going to stop me from voting for Biden again.

Viable candidate? Dude, I could personally beat Donald Trump with the dem nomination, and im nobody

That strategy worked so well for the DNC in 2016, didn’t it?

People who think Biden has dementia have clearly never seen actual dementia patients

OP really thinks vampires aren’t gay?