Hodad

Not quite. First degree murder (in most states AFAIK) requires deliberate intent to kill--a planned killing. Chauvin was convicted of second and third degree murder in Minnesota, neither of which require planning or premeditation. Basically, he set out not necessarily to kill, but to deliberately "hurt" Floyd in a way that might reasonably result in death.

Exactly. Nine minutes of active restraint is an eternity. It's hundreds (at least) of opportunities to assess and reassess and decide over and over again to keep doing what he was doing. Chauvin may not have consciously made the decision to murder Floyd, but the shocking degree of indifference to the well being of the victim amounts to murder.

You can't hide your support for Hamas. You keep decrying Hamas, so you must REALLY love them. Have you officially signed up? You can deny it, but it will only mean you support them even more. (This is what it feels like to read your childish posts.)

If you think an old grandpa who is overaffectionate is creepy, you'll enjoy this. Trump tells 14 year-olds help be dating then in a couple years. Says he'll be dating this tiny little girl in ten years. Now that's creepy. Remind us again how much you really care ...

Well, thank goodness you're here. The two silly medical examiners who pronounced Floyd's death a homicide and identified the cause as cardiopulmonary compression wasted all that time and money on med school. They should have just called a mall cop!

FWIW, Hillary said half of the Trump supporters, not half of the nations voters, then the next day she expressed regret for saying half. But the point that Trump had expanded the tent to include the ugliest of the alt-right was correct. Those creeps didn't used to have a cozy home in the mainstream Republican base. That was new.

Some of us are highly educated and have those words, phrases and concepts as part of our operational vocabulary. If you need a definition of recency bias because it's a "shiny new word" to you, just go look it up. And you start a post with "leftwards" (because you people apparently can't have a conversation without childish nicknames) and end by pre-complaining about "sandbox insults." You're a real piece of work. Shoddy work, but still... Oh, and I guess we have an answer to this question: "B. Are you lying or wildly misinformed about the revised death toll for the hospital explosion? It wasn't revised TO thirty, it was revised BY thirty. Which is reasonable and normal, and a pretty good indicator that the numbers are in good faith. Go look up that factoid. Whether you are man enough to admit you've spamming misinformation will reveal the answer to the first question." Apparently just lying. I assume you'll post it again in a few days the way you continually spam the same debunked misinformation all the time.

It's not a sandbox insult. You're so deep in the conspiracy fever swamp, it's hard to do anything but laugh. There's nothing that will give you a conspiracy boner like the world's must trusted and important news organizations and platforms fighting misinformation and disinformation. Those are your favorite kinds of information! Q says there's a Tim Hortons in Chilliwack with an alien pedophile ring in the basement, and it would totally harsh your buzz if the media explained that it's a slab foundation before you even got to storm the place!

You are perfectly welcome to criticize the execution of the final stage of withdrawal. Some of those criticisms will be valid (obviously it wasn't flawless) and some of them will be nonsense. If you also want to call it a "surrender" that happened when the Trump administration made their deal exclusively with the Taliban and the only condition not to attack US forces (though 15 still were killed by hostiles, about the same rate as every recent year). There was no condition not to attack Afghan forces, and indeed, the Taliban ramped up their attacks and began re-conquering the country as soon as the ink was dry. The Trump administration didn't have any reaction to that because it's exactly what was implicit in the agreement, exactly what everyone expected. The deal was, in essence, "We'll leave and you can have the country back, as long as you don't attack us on our way out." Surrender was Nationalist's claim, not mine, but that's as close to an explicit surrender as you're going to see. Trump left Biden with a surging Taliban--one now legitimized by the US government --2500 troops in country, and no plan for an end game that was just months away. I suppose Trump was too busy bungling the Covid response to close his plan. Like a pinch hitter in a game that's out of reach, Biden didn't pull off any miraculous save, but the game was lost before he ever took a swing. Could they have done better? Probably. But not much. The only real option to "not surrender" at that point would be to surge 15 or 20 thousand troops back in and start re-taking, city-by-city the territory that Trump abandoned. Just not realistic. No one has appetite for that. The Trump administration negotiated and signed the deal. They empowered the Taliban. They excluded and undercut the Afghan government. And they pulled out nearly all the troops. If you guys want to call it a surrender, that was the surrender, not Biden trying to clean up the final piece with a token military force that was left behind as, essentially, a rear guard

What destroyed "respect and reverence" for police was camera phones. Well, that was the revelation for white America. Black America already had a front row seat. For far too long the bad apples could hide and were hidden.

I don't know how else one "gets" the enemy. I recognize the difficulty. I just know this current operation is a disaster, both humanitarian and strategic. Israel may very well destroy Hamas, but an achievement built on a foundation of dead children will bear perverse fruit. Israel is fighting Hamas, but they are surrending the high road. They are surrendering moral authority in exchange for moral ambiguity. They are creating martyrs and victims and enemies. A new generation of Palestinians (or two) have now been radicalized. We're watching it happen. Whether they join Hamas or Hamas is destroyed and they join the next incarnation with a different name, the effect will be the same. And what will the rest of the world think? Where will their sympathies lie the next time Hamas 2.0 perpetrates some act of terror? When Hamas 2.0 posts their videos on YouTube rationalizing renewed brutality? When they say "Israel killed my children, my brothers, my sisters, my cousins. They were only children. Israel is a bully, brutal and and oppressive. We have no choice but to fight for our freedom." It becomes very difficult to say that they don't have a point. We will have watched all of it happen. An eye for an eye...

What was that? I can't quite understand you. Perhaps if you stopped gargling Trump's balls it would help. The people responsible for what you call a "surrender" are obviously the people who negotiated and signed the"surrender" agreement and then tried to remove 100% of the Troops but only managed to get 80% out. While we're here, maybe you'd like to give Biden credit for other stuff Trump did. Hm. Did Biden pardon Paul Manafort and other Trump cronies? Is Biden actually responsible for the Trump tax cuts. In your fevered lovesick mind, I suppose anything could make sense.

Eh, you're way beyond reason. Not much else to do with you.

Sure, that's why you can't cite a single damn fact to refute any of it, Hostess Cupcakes. Just blather "but, but, but..." You're helpless and hopeless. ?

A. Supporting a cease fire is NOT supporting Hamas. It simply isn't. That is one of the dumbest, shallowest arguments the conservative infobubble has produced in a long time. B. Are you lying or wildly misinformed about the revised death toll for the hospital explosion? It wasn't revised TO thirty, it was revised BY thirty. Which is reasonable and normal, and a pretty good indicator that the numbers are in good faith. Go look up that factoid. Whether you are man enough to admit you've spamming misinformation will reveal the answer to the first question. C. Tlaib is Palestinian American. She has very vocally called for peace and peaceful coexistence many times, but I don't suppose you can point to her ever supporting terrorism, can you? Just be real for a moment. Her entire life is defined by her parent's escape from what is, at a minimum, an oppressive existence, if not outright apartheid. She has family there still. Her perspective on the situation is never going to be the same as yours. She will never be an Israel cheerleader. But we don't need Israelis and Palestinians to be each other's biggest fans. We just need two peoples willing to peacefully coexist. Oh, and your timeline is bogus. "It was known 12 hours before..." The hospital explosion was on October 17. Tlaib spoke on the 18th. The "high confidence" US intelligence assessment wasn't issued until the 24th. Somebody may have proposed the misfired rocket theory on the 18th but it certainly wasn't "known." Hell, the AP revisited their assessment two days ago and ruled out the video that was the original basis for that theory--though ultimately decided that other evidence was still compelling. You want to make Tlaib out to be a liar, but you have to be lie to do it? That's called irony. Or around here, par.

Trump literally made a formal deal, in writing, "surrendering" to the Taliban. It's there for you and all the world to see and read, and you're going to sit there and pretend he didn't "surrender"? Again, that level of abject, fawning toadyism is just soooo gross. It's pitiable, honestly, to debase yourself so eagerly and willingly. He's never going to love you back. Seek counseling.

You're a depraved liar. You want to pretend a grandfather giving his grandchild a quick peck on the lips during a rally is something sexual? It's either pure projection or you're so morally and intellectually bankrupt that you will sink absolutely as low as possible for pretty politics. Either way--and it's possible the answer is both--you're the gross one here. And this "showering with a teenager daughter" lie you keep repeating is even worse. The diary DID NOT say she was a teenager. You simply made that up. Keep your farked up fantasies to yourself.

Who made the unilateral deal with the Taliban for the US to leave Afghanistan (what you call a "surrender"? Who removed 80% of the troops? Who had already tried to to remove the rest, but didn't get it done? If Trump had won the election and finished the last 2500 troops as he intended would you be snidely calling it a surrender? Of course not. You'd be celebrating it as a great move, because you don't do any thinking. You just shake your pom poms and anything Trump does and wag your finger at anything Democrats do. What you're arguing is incredibly stupid. This was Trump's deal. The "surrender" was done before Biden ever took office. The only thing Biden could have done to undo the Trump "surrender" is pour troops back into the country. Nobody wanted that and you'd be howling twice as loud if he had, you hack.

All of that IS true. You can look it up anywhere. You are such a simpering sub. You'll deny black and white factual history- no matter how stupid it makes you look- just to eat Trump's ass. And he's not even your president, lol. Have some dignity.

That's a lie, as had been pointed out to you many times. The man is a pathological liar. Don't believe a word he says. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-trump-afghanistan-idUSL2N2X92S8/#:~:text=Trump's claim that no U.S.,The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

No idea about FDR. I waffled on Reagan though. He was definitely charming and charismatic, but because of his age and rapid decline we really didn't get to see much of him after he left office. Usually we meet these people when they are ascendant politicians and it's anybody's guess how much of it is calculated for effect and how much of it is real. But in the presidential afterlife I feel like we kind of get to see who they really are as people. Despite some bitter political fighting in the past, there's not much sweeter or more hopeful than the close friendship between the Bush family and the Obama family--particularly GWB and Michelle. Things have, shall we say, gone a bit downhill from there. That's from the time when political rivals were allowed to be friends outside of the office and occasionally allies inside it (McCain, Feingold, Graham, Biden etc.). Now any Republican who crosses that line will fail the purity test, be labeled a RINO and primaried at the earliest opportunity. Sigh.

Indeed, that is what I meant. They excluded the Afghan government, a betrayal that told the Taliban exactly who would be the power in the country after the US exit. The government literally wasn't given a seat at the table. They simply handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban

You show up in a thread chock full of context and reply to a post with very specific context and expect people to understand that you want to talk about something completely different? Good luck with that. You claim prominent voices saying terrible things and use as examples people we've never heard of, and you expect us to understand that you just chose obscure people for some reason? Were there no prominent examples as your claimed? Wouldn't those have been better examples? What we have is a big communication problem. If you want to talk about a perceived global increase in anti-semitism, great, make that case, but people accusing Israel of genocide is not anti-semitic. It's a (so far) exaggeration, but it's a criticism of the policy of the nation of Israel, not an attack on semitic people. Hamas is not powerful. Regardless of their feelings, they did not attempt--nor could they attempt-- to destroy Israel. They can only antagonize and provoke. The power asymmetry is vast. Of course no one sane thinks Hamas is committing genocide. They just aren't capable. Israel, on the other hand could entirely eliminate the Palestinians without breaking a sweat. They must exercise restraint, and must do so visibly. The world is now telling them it's too much, too casual and too careless. Thousands of dead children, and more bodies piling up every day, no longer looks like justice. It looks like a long, slow path toward extinction. If they continue so wantonly, they will lose our support. They will look to the rest of the world like the villains Hamas accuses them of being.

WTF is wrong with you? That's factual history, not an opinion. Trump (via Pompeo) met with the Taliban and unilaterally made a deal to leave the country to them and do a full withdrawal. There were about 13,000 troops in the country when Trump made the deal--enough to keep the Taliban in check. After his deal with the Taliban, Trump started drawing down troops. He actually publicly announced that they would all be home by Christmas 2020, four months before the May date he agreed to leave, but they couldn't pull it off. Remember, this is a man who thought he would get a second term and would finish the withdrawal himself. By the last months of the Trump administration there were just 2500 troops in country and Taliban violence was ramping up. Biden came into office to find that there really was no plan for that final exit and extended thr final withdrawal date. That pissed off the Talies and there weren't enough troops left to keep them in check. So the Taliban started taking what Trump had given them and the exit turned into a shit show. ^^^Those are all facts. If you want to say that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was a surrender to the Taliban, it's 100% true that it was Trump who did the surrendering. Biden also planned to exit Afghanistan if Trump hadn't, but Trump negotiated with the Taliban and removed the bulk of the troops. Frankly, it was going to end in some version of shit show regardless of who was in office for the final stage of withdrawal. The Taliban never had any intention of doing anything other than retaking the country. They escalated violence while Trump was still in the white house. The only way to reassert control would have been surging troops back in, and neither Biden nor Trump was going to do that. I'm not sure how you missed all that recent history, but next time you talk about us "surrending" you'll know the guy you're talking about is Trump.

Wildly different scenarios and a false equivalency so absurd it's hard to imagine you're serious.