archer

What are you saying he committed purjury on? What were his words and what was the actual truth of the matter? 
 
La Rose. 

I think in the future that quotes from the White House daily press briefing should go into the Political Discussion thread.

You could build it as a bonus to the Concealment roll.
 
Regular Blaster
2D6+1 RKA, OAF, 12 charges
 
Concealed Blaster
2D6 RKA, OAF, 8 charges
+2 to Concealment rolls, OAF
 

The Trump presidency in a nutshell.
 

And what of all the positions the Libertarians take in contrast to the the traditional right of the US? If people think of Libertarians as 'right wing' I worry that they are not really aware of what it means to be Libertarian or Right-wing in the US context or perhaps so far left that even centrists are right wing. And if one is defining 'right wing' as merely 'pro-capitalist' then we need to have a long talk about Le Pen in France cause she is solidly left wing, President Macron is to her Right and the fact that will mean redefining most right wing parties in Europe as solidly left wing. That seems like a bit of a stretch. 
 
La Rose. 
 

Huh? 
 
I have only one right wing source I listen to regularly and that person is largely anti Pres. Trump. Most of my news feeds are left wing, Libertarian or broadly centrist. 
 
You are of course free to think as you will, but perhaps before claiming someone is in a bubble, you'd be best to learn more about that person. Just a thought. 
 
La Rose. 
 
 
 

Probably, certain levels of proof are not necessary for a belief position.  There is no proof Cosby assaulted 60+ women, yet I believe them.  There is no proof that Trump is addicted to tanning, yet that is what I believe.  There is no proof that Bill Clinton is a serial adulterer that rises to the level of predator,  yet that is what I believe, etc, etc, etc.

A quick question to people who are closely following the Kavanaugh controversy:
 
If the FBI investigation turns up nothing, the supposed victims don't follow up with any legal actions, and Kavanaugh gets confirmed to the Court, are you planning to let the matter drop or will you be planning to refer to him as a rapist in every Supreme Court discussion for the next 20 years?
 
(Note: I am not someone who is following the controversy closely.)

A quick question to people who are closely following the Benghazi/Her E-mails controversy:
 
If the FBI investigation turns up nothing, the supposed victims don't follow up with any legal actions, and Trump gets elected to the Presidency, are you planning to let the matter drop or will you be planning to refer to her as a criminal in every Trump rally for the next 8 years?
 
(Note: I am not someone who is following the controversy closely. Asking for a friend.)

We were playing through some D&D module forever ago and hit a random encounter with dire wolves then a set encounter with...dire wolves. Then we followed that up with a random encounter with...dire wolves.
 
That was pretty much the end of the DM letting a roll on the random encounter chart be the final say in what monster we faced.

Could you give the source of that information, Old Man? Another of Kavanaugh's accusers in  a separate incident, Deborah Ramirez, has already been contacted by the FBI, according to her attorney. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/29/politics/kavanaugh-fbi-background-investigation/index.html

The formula for nitrous-based powders would survive, but the chemical processes to do it are significantly more complex than making even good quality black powder. That could easily make it expensive and hard to get.
If you have the metallurgy to make even single-action revolvers, you can also make lever and bolt-action single shot guns, and it's only a little further (spring steel) to making magazine-fed versions of those. Fulminate of Mercury for primers is tricky but not complex. So thinking Old West levels of weapons tech should work.

Dealing with old people who have a growing dementia is ..difficult. I feel for them.
Dealing with a manipulative hag with narcissism disorder so you can't tell when it's the dementia and when it's just her being a grade A b**ch can be a nightmare. But my Housemate can't trhow her mom on the street and I spend more time here soooo....
 
And sorry, folks. Just needed to vent. No, we can't afford to get her in a home, yes we've checked vet benefits, no she can't afford to get a nurse care herself, and when left along she would fall down a LOT partially because she doesn't take her meds on time. This isn't a request to fix the situation, we've explored that. This is just a vent and a need to blow off steam because telling a 76 year old woman to **** the next time she makes a passive aggressive play or underhanded insult is against my upbringing.
 
 
 
 
 

Pretty much this. Looks like a train wreck and behind a paywall to boot.

Am I the only one who thinks this series has been designed to fail?

You get two half phases during each of your phases. But when you use some combat action (punch, dodge, whatever), your phase becomes completely over. If you do a combat action during your first half phase, that combat action uses up your entire phase immediately and your phase ends. You can't do two different combat actions during your same phase. You cannot do a half phase combat action first then still have a half phase left over for future use. If you choose to do a half phase combat action first, your half phase combat action uses up two half phases...phase is completely over.
 
If you don't use a combat action, you can hold actions over from your phase right up until your next phase begins and use those actions at any time. But as soon as you next phase begins, your held action disappears as if it never existed if you haven't used it.
 
Now as for your example, the GSC can do the Marital Punch on phase 12. Doing that alone uses up his entire phase if he didn't do something else first.
 
When the SPD 6 PC attacks the GSC later, the GSC can't use a held action to dodge because he has no held action. He can abort to a dodge by using up his entire next phase which would otherwise have happened later in the combat. But he can't reach back in time to before his Martial Punch and use either of the half phases which were used up by that punch.
 
I hope that explanation was clear enough.

I gave my PC's a McGuilicuddy's Cap of Conjuring. You basically concentrated on the cap as you held it in your hand while thinking of exactly what you wanted, mystically passed your hand over it a few times, and pulled out whatever it is you were thinking of...if you made your roll. You couldn't pull out magic items, money, or vast treasure but most anything else which was portable was fair game.
 
The better you rolled, the closer you got to whatever it was that you wanted. For example, if you wanted a rope and rolled really well, you would pull out a rope which would work perfectly fine for a few hours before it disintegrated. If you rolled marginally well, you would pull out something which was vaguely rope-like. It might be something long and stringy like a worm, a snake, or a string. Or it might be something braided like a lock of hair, twine, or a steel cable. The worse you rolled, the less similar the item was to what you wanted.
 
The players ended up using it mostly for miscellaneous items since trying to pull a shield out of the cap during combat and getting a dinner plate instead just didn't work out very well. But they almost always used it at mealtime. If they rolled badly, I'd pick some modern food like a McDonald's Happy Meal and give that to them with just a basic description and let them try to figure out what it was that they were eating.
 
The item was useful enough that they needed to keep it around and having it cut down on the amount of clutter miscellaneous items they needed to carry. It added a bit of whimsy and unreliability by not necessarily getting exactly what they wanted and having to improvise and make whatever they did get work for them.
 
By the way, the cap would only recharge if a person wore the cap while also wearing a kilt (with no pants). That made for some awkward discussions with NPC's since men wearing skirts wasn't part of the culture of the campaign area.

Well, if you look at how this story came to the attention of the public, people behind the scenes were shopping around the story of Ford's allegation to Democrat senators and various media outlets like the Washington Post.
 
The Post and others couldn't publish the story because when they looked into it, there was no corroborating evidence for the accusation. Even the accuser herself doesn't remember the date it supposedly happened and none of the people who were supposedly in the room have stepped up to confirm the story. The media couldn't move forward to publish a story like it was at that point in time without evidence because they'd be sued for defamation of character.
 
Senator Feinstein, according to what she said, was frustrated that the media hadn't published the story and made a public statement about the allegation. A Senator, while on the floor of the Senate, can say whatever she wants without fear of any legal repercussions like being sued for slander. And while she didn't make her statement on the floor of the Senate, it has become difficult to successfully sue a Senator regardless of where she makes a public statement even though she is only technically given a free pass while on the floor of the Senate.
 
Since a Senator was making a statement about something, all the various media outlets were freed up to publish stories about the alleged incident based on the fact that they are covering what various public figures are talking about (rather than pushing forward the allegation themselves).
 
Feinstein wanted the FBI to investigate and other Democrat Senators stepped forward immediately to echo that demand.
 
Trump is the one person who could order the FBI to investigate. But he immediately responded to Feinstein (before any more details became public) and essentially stated she was full of crap and that there would be no investigation.
 
Trump can't go back on those initial statements without flip-flopping, something which he has made clear he sees as a sign of weakness. Or else he would have to absorb lots of new information (about the allegations), when he is notorious for trying to avoid absorbing new detailed information (such as insisting that his daily foreign policy briefing be only bullet points and no longer than one page regardless of what's going on in the world).
 
So Trump isn't backing down partially because he idoesn't want to "show weakness".
 
But I personally thinks it goes deeper.
 
Investigating sexual crimes, even for federal employees, isn't part of the FBI's normal job (rather that is a job for local law enforcement). But if Trump sets a precedent of his administration ordering the FBI to investigate alleged sexual crimes, it becomes much more difficult to justify keeping the FBI out of such future controversies.
 
Trump has admitted on tape that he has sexually assaulted women (dictionary definition, even if not necessarily according to the parameters of that state's law). The guy is in his 70's and has probably been doing that kind of thing for at least 50 years.
 
If Trump ordered an FBI investigation into Kavaugh, Trump is probably sure in his own mind that there'd be 20-40 accusers lined up against him within the month and the Democrats would be calling for an FBI investigation into all of that as well (either alone or as part of the impeachment proceedings).
 
Whether Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent is immaterial to Trump's behavior: Trump would refuse to order an FBI investigation either way. Trump doesn't know whether Kavanaugh is guilty because Kavanaugh, if he is guilty, isn't stupid enough to tell that to a president who has extreme trouble keeping his mouth shut. Trump probably doesn't want to know whether Kavanaugh is guilty and Trump, given how little empathy he displays on a vast range of subjects, probably doesn't care if Kavaugh is guilty.
 
In the most extreme case, Trump rather than being cornered into ordering an FBI investigation, would be much more likely to force Kavanaugh into withdrawing and remove the reason for there being a call for an FBI investigation.
 
As for the "Republicans", Trump has made it clear that he expects their backing on major issues or he'll cut off their party funding, marginalize and belittle them, and recruit people to primary them and force them out of office. I expect enough of them would vote against Kavanaugh if there's some tangible evidence he's guilty of something (evidence not accusation) that he wouldn't be confirmed. But "Republican" officeholders publicly pushing the president to order an FBI investigation when it isn't clear that an investigation would come up with anything which would disqualify Kavanaugh? That's a big enough political risk that I doubt many of them would do it. In their political calculation, they'd be ticking off a president who wouldn't forget it in order to appease a public which would forget it very quickly.

There's no requirement anywhere to release your income tax filings for the public to look over.
 
You have to fill out financial disclosure statements if you are an elected federal official or high enough in the executive branch. Some of those people get in trouble from time to time for not being thorough enough on those.
 
You have to fill out financial disclosure statements if you are a candidate for federal office.
 
All those disclosures become available to the public.
 
But there's no obligation to release your income tax statements to the public, whether you are a candidate or an elected official. If you want that to become a requirement, you need to talk to your congressman and senators about passing a law to require it.
 
I don't respect this president or the motives he might have had for refusing to release his income taxes for public scrutiny. But he is well within his rights to refuse to do so just as I was within my rights to campaign against him from July 31, 2015 until around June 2017.

Well, if you look at how this story came to the attention of the public, people behind the scenes were shopping around the story of Ford's allegation to Democrat senators and various media outlets like the Washington Post.
 
The Post and others couldn't publish the story because when they looked into it, there was no corroborating evidence for the accusation. Even the accuser herself doesn't remember the date it supposedly happened and none of the people who were supposedly in the room have stepped up to confirm the story. The media couldn't move forward to publish a story like it was at that point in time without evidence because they'd be sued for defamation of character.
 
Senator Feinstein, according to what she said, was frustrated that the media hadn't published the story and made a public statement about the allegation. A Senator, while on the floor of the Senate, can say whatever she wants without fear of any legal repercussions like being sued for slander. And while she didn't make her statement on the floor of the Senate, it has become difficult to successfully sue a Senator regardless of where she makes a public statement even though she is only technically given a free pass while on the floor of the Senate.
 
Since a Senator was making a statement about something, all the various media outlets were freed up to publish stories about the alleged incident based on the fact that they are covering what various public figures are talking about (rather than pushing forward the allegation themselves).
 
Feinstein wanted the FBI to investigate and other Democrat Senators stepped forward immediately to echo that demand.
 
Trump is the one person who could order the FBI to investigate. But he immediately responded to Feinstein (before any more details became public) and essentially stated she was full of crap and that there would be no investigation.
 
Trump can't go back on those initial statements without flip-flopping, something which he has made clear he sees as a sign of weakness. Or else he would have to absorb lots of new information (about the allegations), when he is notorious for trying to avoid absorbing new detailed information (such as insisting that his daily foreign policy briefing be only bullet points and no longer than one page regardless of what's going on in the world).
 
So Trump isn't backing down partially because he idoesn't want to "show weakness".
 
But I personally thinks it goes deeper.
 
Investigating sexual crimes, even for federal employees, isn't part of the FBI's normal job (rather that is a job for local law enforcement). But if Trump sets a precedent of his administration ordering the FBI to investigate alleged sexual crimes, it becomes much more difficult to justify keeping the FBI out of such future controversies.
 
Trump has admitted on tape that he has sexually assaulted women (dictionary definition, even if not necessarily according to the parameters of that state's law). The guy is in his 70's and has probably been doing that kind of thing for at least 50 years.
 
If Trump ordered an FBI investigation into Kavaugh, Trump is probably sure in his own mind that there'd be 20-40 accusers lined up against him within the month and the Democrats would be calling for an FBI investigation into all of that as well (either alone or as part of the impeachment proceedings).
 
Whether Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent is immaterial to Trump's behavior: Trump would refuse to order an FBI investigation either way. Trump doesn't know whether Kavanaugh is guilty because Kavanaugh, if he is guilty, isn't stupid enough to tell that to a president who has extreme trouble keeping his mouth shut. Trump probably doesn't want to know whether Kavanaugh is guilty and Trump, given how little empathy he displays on a vast range of subjects, probably doesn't care if Kavaugh is guilty.
 
In the most extreme case, Trump rather than being cornered into ordering an FBI investigation, would be much more likely to force Kavanaugh into withdrawing and remove the reason for there being a call for an FBI investigation.
 
As for the "Republicans", Trump has made it clear that he expects their backing on major issues or he'll cut off their party funding, marginalize and belittle them, and recruit people to primary them and force them out of office. I expect enough of them would vote against Kavanaugh if there's some tangible evidence he's guilty of something (evidence not accusation) that he wouldn't be confirmed. But "Republican" officeholders publicly pushing the president to order an FBI investigation when it isn't clear that an investigation would come up with anything which would disqualify Kavanaugh? That's a big enough political risk that I doubt many of them would do it. In their political calculation, they'd be ticking off a president who wouldn't forget it in order to appease a public which would forget it very quickly.

Everything in American government today, whether appointments, budgets, legislative agenda, seems to be driven by an obsession for "winning" for "our side," whatever the cost. Individual issues aren't judged on their merits, but on what the "other side" wants or opposes, mainly because it's the other side. Victory has become its own goal, more than victory serving a purpose.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
-- Edward Snowden

Pretty much this. When folks say "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear" or the like, I snort. I've seen that excuse used too often to violate privacy rights. BUT I'm drifting into a whole nother kettle there.
 
But as Dean points out, this isn't a criminal trial, and as you point out we have plenty of other indicators challenging his increasingly shaky looking qualifications, such as ethical standards, which ARE supposed to matter for judges.
 
I believe innocent until proven guilty is essential to a good democracy when it comes to court trials, but this is a job hire, not that. In a world where someone can find themselves denied a job for say "Dude" in an interview or wearing the wrong tie? Kavanugh should have been told 'thank you for your time' and shown the proverbial door.
 
Then again, I thought that when Trump was running and footage of him boasting about grabbing women by the P****y surely he had disqualified himself for PotUS, so what do I know?
 
 

As for that, my taxes are between me, my preparer and the IRS. Nobody else's business.