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Trump is sending troops to Saudi Arabia at the exact same time some are praising him for "ending forever wars and getting our troops out of the ME". I think that might be ascribing too much coherence to his approach to policy generally.

Fox news poll out today shows support for impeach&remove at 51%, the first time a majority of voters support removal of 45. At the time of Nixon's resignation, public support for removal was at 57%. I think, if those numbers move up a bit further--around 53-55%--you will see at least one Republican senator, probably Romney, come out publicly in support of removal/resignation. If it goes above 55%, there will be more than one. People who support removal at this point are highly unlikely to EVER vote to re-elect 45, and are also likely to look askance at Republican senators who vote to acquit him. So opinion numbers in the mid-50s or higher would/will be alarming/catastrophic for them, regardless of the base's loyalty. They still need the support of independents and conservative Democrats to get reelected.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019/08/04/tulsi-gabbards-reports-on-chemical-attacks-in-syria-a-self-contradictory-error-filled-mess/ Denying Syrian chemical weapons attacks is not a good look for a presidential candidate, of either party.

He's a brilliant filmmaker. I think he's a bit off about this, but there is a kind of resentment of the MCU in parts of the film community. I'd point out that most Westerns aren't especially psychologically deep, but that 4 westerns have won Best Picture, with another 19 nominated for Best Picture. But Scorsese certainly wouldn't say that the Western isn't a cinematic genre. Fantasy and Science Fiction films have also not been particularly well-rewarded during awards season. There's a definite bias towards Dramatic films. But when the entire medium of film started, it was looked down upon by the live theater industry and by literary critics as having little to no artistic merit. I expect that at least one superhero film will sweep the Oscars in the next 20-30 years, and would bet there's a good chance it will be a Marvel Studios release.

John Harwood‏Verified account @JohnJHarwood Follow Follow @JohnJHarwood More Economist/YouGov Poll: should House try to impeach Trump? 50% yes 39% no if House impeaches, should Senate remove Trump from office? 51% yes 39% no 1:00 PM - 4 Oct 2019 51% for removal already.

To be scrupulously fair, there were dozens of major actors in that film. I'm not sure which of them would be put forward or could be without rubbing some of them the wrong way. I could see RDJ and/or Chris Evans in the acting category, but I think a lot of the rest either weren't in the film long enough or the acting wasn't particularly outstanding by "serious film" standards.

Widely Discredited Partisan Hack John Solomon? Why yes, I believe Widely Discredited Partisan Hack John Solomon's name was brought up once or twice.

It's also gone as low as 37% post-call transcript. Most impeachment polling recently shows galvanization of the democratic base and significant movement towards support for removal among independents, which is more of a nightmare scenario for the GOP and 45. Roughly half of Trump's supporters will back him no matter what(24% of the electorate in a recent poll I read), but that means the other half are willing to withdraw support if the facts are bad enough.

Mostly I just want 45 to face real world consequences for his obvious corruption beyond simply losing an election and being widely unpopular.

What matters is the breaking point of 20 Republican senators. I suspect that it's somewhere between 55 and 65 percent public support for removal, along with a Trump approval rating between 25 and 35 percent. A recent poll showed that 24 percent of the population will not abandon 45 under ANY circumstances. So 25 percent would be a kind of absolute floor.

Nixon resigned when public support for removal was at 57%. Currently it's somewhere between 42 and 47%.

If there's a congressional subpoena as part of an impeachment inquiry, and from the Intel committee, that position will not be operative.

I stopped reading after "by John Solomon". He's a widely discredited hack.

The Washington Post‏Verified account @washingtonpost 30m30 minutes ago More Trump told Russians at infamous 2017 meeting that he wasn’t concerned about Moscow’s interference in U.S. election

Or we can just let them go in to the ER only when it's life-threatening, and have the hospital pick up the tab alone. Which will lead to hospitals refusing to treat them unless the condition is truly life-threatening. Not to mention the prospect of their kids going unvaccinated and spreading various diseases around to other children. They support covering them because of economic and community health considerations. Because it makes more sense to do so, bottom line, than not to do so.

Trump seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election forced the Democrats' hand. No way they can let that stand.

I don't think he's all that persuasive. He's not convincing anyone outside his hardcore base of supporters, and those Republican pols openly supporting him are doing so out of fear or for self-serving reasons.

Actually there's a great deal of interest, and at the same time the resistance to it is highly organized and extremely well funded.

In the real world, in the past century or so, people have used knives like the K-Bar, kukris, machetes, bayonets, improvised spears and clubs, and the occasional samurai sword. They're quiet, don't need reloading, and useful in close quarters combat or when you're out of ammo. Also, soldiers since the dawn of guns have used rifles as clubs when in close quarters combat. Now, a powered melee weapon (chainsword, lightsaber, vibroblade or what have you) might be a useful adjunct in a world of enhanced body armor, powered armor, xenomorphs and force fields. But largely the functionality would be similar to nonpowered melee weapons, except of course you could run out of power.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/trumps-ukraine-call-clear-impeachable-offense/598570/ This is a rubber hits the road, s*** or get off the pot moment for conservatives and libertarians of good faith, imo. I was told by more than a few that if Mueller had found real evidence of collusion by Trump with a foreign power, that they would be on board, in full agreement that such conduct merited the removal of the president from office. Well, taking these new developments at face value, here you are. The president apparently solicited or pressured the president of Ukraine(with military assistance to them hanging in the balance), with the assistance of his personal attorney and also during phone conversations(of which a record certainly exists), to commence a criminal investigation of the son of his greatest current rival for the 2020 election. Such an investigation, based upon prior reporting and accounts of regional experts, would be wholly without merit and a pure political witch hunt. But even if that weren't so, the abuse of power involved in Trump's solicitation is clearly impeachable conduct. As the linked opinion piece states, if this isn't impeachable conduct, what is?

Gone with the Wind, only from the perspective of the household servants. slaves.

I suppose you could push the rules to the outer limits of complexity and modularity and have a 1000-1200 pages spread across 2-3 giant rulebooks. But if you do that, I expect the "next edition" to be a complete, clean break, back towards sheer simplicity, less than 100 pages. Cut it way the hell down. A ruleset you could learn in a weekend, as opposed to after a 2 year certificate program.

"We're being persecuted by ineffectual weaklings" is a cognitive dissonance mindset that explains why I couldn't be a far right conservative.

An informal money system might work as follows: If you don't have the wealth perk, and you don't have a poverty complication, then your character's income is going to be within the "average" range, possibly a bit higher if they have a decent PS roll and a steady employer. So they can afford "average" stuff available to the average consumer in, say, the United States--a minor purchase might be dinner and a movie for a family of 4; a major purchase would be a new car; a huge purchase would be making the down payment on a new home. A handgun for personal defense in secret ID might be a few hundred dollars and isn't something the average citizen can casually purchase(i.e., it might be a once a month kind of thing, given average discretionary income). With the 3 levels of the wealth perk, you can multiply what's affordably by 10, 100 or 1000+ respectively. But if you don't pay points for it, it's going to be more disposable and less available/reliable than gear you spend CP on, just for the sake of fairness and game balance. As a general rule, in the US, for example, unremarkable used firearms can run between 50 and 500 dollars, and higher quality or more exotic ones about 10x that, with the most exotic running into the thousands of dollars.