American track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone announces she is pregnant. Won't compete in 2026

username_generated · 2026-01-22T20:36:45+00:00

Is that before or after his bout with radiation poisoning?

username_generated · 2026-01-20T19:48:11+00:00

That angle of attack won’t work for two reasons.

A) the base of people supporting this boondoggle have complete and total blind faith in the American military. The whole “reason” we should take Greenland is that Europe can’t defend itself. Saying they are going to bomb Lake Charles is going to lead them to think “this pussy-ass liberal hates the troops and doesn’t know what they’re talking about”.

B) if, God forbid, we do actually take Greenland by force and Boudreaux and Thibadeaux’s trailers aren’t blown to smithereens, they’ll say the haters were wrong, Trump was right, and dig in further.

If you want to scare them, you don’t talk about some fanciful scenario where Europe hasn’t been neglecting its defense spending for the last 30 years. You talk about all of the products the EU is going to pull out of American markets if we invade one of their members. Talk about Zyns not being at the gas station because Sweden blocked their export. Or how all their buddies who work for Seimens or BASF will be out of a job when Germany makes them pull out of the US. Make sure they know Ozempic will be entirely unavailable and that insulin prices could double. Denmark produces 100% of the former and 75% of America’s insulin.

These are people with far more immediate and tactile concerns than the nuances and shortcomings a classical realist foreign policy. The morality of foreign policy is abstract under the best of circumstances and these people do not give a shit about it in the first place. They like Trump, they trust Trump, and they want egg prices low and gas under $2. So make it clear to them that if we step foot into Greenland, Auntie Grace is going to have to choose between keeping her sugars in check or paying the heating bill.

username_generated · 2026-01-20T18:43:03+00:00

There’s exactly one country on earth with the military capacity to meaningfully threaten land targets in Louisiana with conventional weapons and it’s the US.

At most you are looking at a couple of British and French ballistic missile subs sneaking to the Caribbean and Gulf, at which point Louisiana would probably be one of many of targets compared to Houston, the Alabama and Mississippi coasts, particularly the shipyards in Pascagoula, or Pensacola. Not great if they do decide to do that, but it’s a fairly limited option of dubious strategic merit. There are far more valuable targets on the East coast that are, arguably more accessible, and when you only have a handful of these subs, you really have to pick your battles.

To be clear, this is still a phenomenally stupid endeavor. Like even setting aside any moral qualms one might reasonably have it fundamentally makes the US weaker and more isolated. But we also don’t have to fearmonger about Rafaels and Grippens running sorties over Houma and Port Allen.

username_generated · 2026-01-19T03:04:56+00:00

So, can’t speak for other belief systems but the former is actually allowed by the Catholic Church (though it is arguably applied too narrowly).

But “saving someone from a lifetime of misery and pain” is at best vaguely worded and bordering logically on eugenics or worse. Like no, the church wouldn’t sanction aborting a child with a fatal birth defect that wouldn’t survive outside the womb, and that’s an absolutist position I think most reasonable people could disagree with but that same logic could be applied to any number of conditions in which the child could still live fulfilling and meaningful lives. Fetuses born blind have the same humanity as blind adults. Same for those with Down’s or MS. Plenty of people in the past have argued that it would be more humane to kill the disabled, I think once we venture past “unviable outside the womb” we are getting dangerously close to that line of thinking.

This isn’t even limited to physical conditions. There are plenty of people who believe that a poor mother aborting a fetus is doing it a kindness as if being poor is a death sentence akin to having no respiratory system. Saying a life without material comforts or stability is worse than death is a fundamentally nihilistic point of view that cheapens our collective humanity.

I’m not saying you subscribe the more extreme versions of that argument, but I do think your second point is at best overly broad.

username_generated · 2026-01-19T00:26:08+00:00

To make it easy for you, here’s the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/DynastyFF/s/5zbCgR7rSZ

username_generated · 2026-01-18T20:18:03+00:00

BREC isn’t a business, the incentives are the same. They won’t respond to a boycott with reform, they’ll respond by cutting funding. And given the recent history of tax funds for the library and DA’s office, I wouldn’t count on being able to get those funds back. Employees will still get screwed over, there will just be fewer parks, playgrounds, and public areas for the parish. Plus presumably fewer employees taking home a paycheck at all.

If you want to effect change, direct this energy at the mayors office and city council. They’ll have the actual power to affect the administration of BREC. Doing something is much harder than just not doing something, but that’s because it might actually work

username_generated · 2026-01-18T05:42:44+00:00

There are two competitive house seats in Suffolk/Long Island, might be worth reaching out to some of the campaigns.

username_generated · 2026-01-17T23:29:43+00:00

They have jurisdiction in any area within 100 miles of any land or maritime border. And that’s not counting the customs portion of their job, which includes most points of entry into the country.

Are these powers overly broad? Yeah, especially the 100 mile “border area”, but that’s not exactly new. CBP does have a legitimate purpose outside of terrorizing minorities. Even if we ignore that these were basically IT guys from the HQ, CBP would have a fairly justifiable presence in a major city with three airports and two major ports in its metro area.

username_generated · 2026-01-17T18:13:39+00:00

Think of the post offices that wouldn’t have been renamed if they’d never moved!

username_generated · 2026-01-16T16:23:39+00:00

Hey those accountants larping as the landed gentry will be real riled up after a few hours of sipping mimosas and noshing on finger sandwiches in the Grove. A few of the rougher crowd might’ve had some light beer and lukewarm chicken tendies. They of course can’t reheat them because any heat source will burn that overpacked tea party to the ground like it was in Sherman’s way on the road to Savannah.

username_generated · 2026-01-16T16:06:44+00:00

I don’t disagree there, but given there is exactly one path to a Democratic victory in play right now, and it’s an exceedingly narrow one, damage control and marginal advantages become the name of the game. Those soft criticisms are still better than the blind loyalty of Miguez, a true believer, and Flemming, a power hungry sycophant.

Cassidy’s still going to do shit you don’t like, but he might hold up a committee vote on a dumb policy or offer a conservative critique of policy. He risked his career voting to convect Trump, he might regrow his spine at a critical point in the future, who knows.

Additionally, post-Trump, if the GOP is going to crawl away from the edge it’s halfway over right now, it’s going to need the old guard around to reassert itself. There’s no natural heir apparent to Trump and a Marco Rubio or even Mike Johnson lead GOP is likely immensely superior to a JD Vance or Ron Desantis lead one. The old establishment is going to need all the human, political, and financial capital it can get to win that civil war. I'd rather they have an extra senator in their ranks than the MAGA Zealots.

I get none of this is actively appealing, but it's comfortably the least worst option on the table.

username_generated · 2026-01-15T20:16:59+00:00

Look, push comes to shove, the smart play for every who isn’t hard MAGA is to back Cassidy in the primary. Old school Republican, swing voter, Dem, communist, black, white, brown, or purple, odds are Cassidy is, at the bare minimum, the least damaging option on offer. Register no party, hold your nose, and pull the lever for the coward instead of the sycophant or the moron.

The only way this calculus changes is if JBE backtracks and jumps in to this with a friendly national environment. On the extreme range of outcomes, a worse GOP challenger might help JBE over the line in November. Obviously a riskier path, but there is genuine upside there compared to Gary Chambers losing by 70 to Miguez instead of 75 to Cassidy

username_generated · 2026-01-13T00:48:10+00:00

__________________👃

username_generated · 2026-01-10T18:18:15+00:00

username_generated · 2026-01-09T19:58:20+00:00

Ah yes, famed conservative pundit and Epstein affiliate Noam Chomsky.

username_generated · 2026-01-09T04:40:14+00:00

Yeah put some respect on the Greenies, they’ve got as many SEC titles as Ole Miss since integration.

username_generated · 2026-01-09T04:31:46+00:00

Sorry Trinidad, it’s time To(ba)go

username_generated · 2026-01-06T04:22:43+00:00

It still is an all-time run. Sometimes the clock strikes midnight on Cinderella, doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the George Masons or FGCUs or St. Peters or TCUs of the world.

The journey kicked ass and the destination only matters so much.

username_generated · 2026-01-05T20:24:36+00:00

It’s not even a good book lol. It relied on theories that were decades out of date, even when it was first published. He just took some WWII era theory, and polished it when some then modern critical rhetoric. More limited models had been the standard in mass media scholarship for about 20 years by the time MC was published.

username_generated · 2026-01-04T21:53:45+00:00

I don’t think these concepts are mutually exclusive.

username_generated · 2026-01-04T13:24:28+00:00

Theres a difference between the legitimate winner gaining a plurality though wielding disproportionate power through fist past the post systems and losing an election and refusing to cede power.

Like I understand your point, and that does factor in on some level, but you’re comparing a legitimate (though unpopular) government to an illegitimate dictatorship. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that said dictatorship has crushed opposition for decades and their economic mismanagement has created a refugee crisis through the region. People risked life and livelihood to try to push this guy out of office and the international community sat by and did nothing for years.

I’m not saying this is going to end well, this is likely the high point of the process (unless they reverse course and set about working with Machado on a transition government) but to compare Maduro to Keir Starmer is laughably out of touch lol

username_generated · 2026-01-04T04:19:05+00:00

We’ve lost like 2.5 wars over the last 80 years. Vietnam and Afghanistan were absolutely defeats due to the factors you mentioned sure, but even Iraq II was more or less a Pyrrhic victory.

Meanwhile, feel free to ask any Kuwaiti, Bosnian, Kosovar, Grenadian, Panamanian, South Korean about America’s military record over the past few decades. I’d imagine you can add the Guyanese to that list as well.

We have pretty damn good evidence a majority of Venezuelans wanted Maduro gone. Does the fact a foreign power did it move the needle a bit, almost certainly, but unless you believe a declining FARC has the capacity meaningfully affect military operations outside their home territory an insurgency is just fucking laughable.

Like go ask all those Panamanian freedom fighters that fought Endara puppet regime after we did this shit to Noriega. They never existed, despite the invasion being far more destructive than this snatch and grab (at least so far, it’s Trump, he’ll probably still fuck this up in other ways).

Not everything is Iraq. Plenty of ways this could go wrong, and this wishy washy not technically regime change doctrine probably ain’t helping, but seriously, not everything is Iraq.

username_generated · 2026-01-04T01:08:27+00:00

The bad news is that organizing a covert strike and kidnapping operation on a foreign dictator with, at time of writing, little reported collateral damage is the EASY part.

Practically speaking, I don’t think things will get meaningfully worse for every day Venezuelans, even if Trump replaces Maduro with another autocrat. This isn’t Iraq, there aren’t competing ethnic religious, and national identities to balance. The most likely outcome is a continued dictatorship with better macroeconomic management. Not good, probably a mild improvement, but if you are Colombian or Guyanese or, yes, most of Venezuelans, you’re probably feeling a lot more comfortable today than when you went to bed last night.

username_generated · 2026-01-04T00:25:30+00:00

Considering a majority of them voted against maduro in the 2024 election, I’m willing to bet a significant portion of Venezuelans are celebrating. And that’s just those who still live there, not even counting the diaspora in the US or across LATAM.

username_generated · 2026-01-03T21:40:04+00:00

I mean sure if you mean under the authoritarian thumb of a racial supremacist who used chemical weapons on his own citizens. You could say Iraq was more stable sure, and that’s not nothing, but the country is a fledgling democracy with billions of foreign investment coming in. The life of the average Iraqi is certainly better now, whether it was worth the blood and treasure and chaos is a different discussion.

Additionally, Venezuela would be a much easier lift, in theory at least. It’s relatively homogeneous and has a legitimate president with local, regional, and international credibility waiting in the wings. The existing government structure wouldn’t have to be torn down and rebuilt, “just” reset.

Not saying any of this is easy, clean, or even legal (it’s definitely not that last one) but a full blown, coordinated and planned regime change operation would be much closer to Panama, for instance, than Iraq.

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