Did you try shrinking the photos a bit? I narrowed the browser to shrink them and my phone camera picked up 11 of 12 of the ones in a grid.

Just to help you out. When an apologist is in action, what are they doing? I will give you a hint. It isn’t “apologistizing”.

deleted by creator

Is your reading comprehension so low that you do not realize that I am “apologizing” for gay people who are supporting gay rights?

It makes it sound like you think gay people are evil.

Grand Qanon Party - aka Trumplicans

The examples listed are examples of violent victories not political ones. Even then, they imply backtracking instead of maintaining the status quo until victory.

This was not a change in policy, it maintained the existing one, so that they could finalize their “divorce” amicably. There is a ton of properties as well as pensions involved. Properties that the UMC technically owns but was paid for by local congregations.

It might be worth noting that those gay bishops that I mentioned aren’t actually allowed under current church rules. If they forced the issue and the conservative churches brought them to court instead, there is no telling what the courts would decide. Making deals was likely the smart choice, even if it meant waiting a bit until they start offering gay marriages to their parishioners.

Compromises are useful when you want something. When your side is about to win you don’t blow up the organization unless you have a mental problem.

Also, from what I can tell the gay bishops voted for the compromise. If they thought it was the right way to handle it, I am not going to shame them for it.

We will see if they make good on it next year.

That seems to be more of a kick-the-can vote to allow the more conservative churches time to leave.

More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination

With these departures, progressives are expected to propose changing church law at the next General Conference in 2024 to allow for same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-07-06/one-in-five-united-methodist-congregations-in-the-us-have-left-the-denomination-over-lgbtq-conflicts

Options are definitely nice for those technical enough to understand and use them.

Though personally I am keeping an eye on Linux devices for my next upgrade.

Do I not want USB-C (for some weird reason)?

This is probably temporary until it is time to move past USB-C. Which will be a slower and more difficult process now that there are laws in place requiring it.

Same reason that people stick with Google.

After years in the eco-system it is obnoxious to swap, and the other main competitor isn’t any better of a company to deal with.

More strawmen, more name-calling.

Just find a mirror, then the conversation will be the same as the one in your head.

Yeah, party affiliation is way more important than who a person is or how they live their life!

You are putting words in my mouth and then knocking your own words down like it means something.

Why not try actually arguing against what I said, instead setting up strawmen and then engaging in name-calling?

I could not care less what skin color she has.

I care that for political gain Newsom singled out her sex and skin color like they were the most defining factors about her.

I care because some people buy into it so thoroughly that they think someone pointing it out makes them a fascist.

The issue I take with this meritocracy take is it assumes that the best candidate wouldn’t be a black woman.

That is odd. I see this exactly the opposite. To me it looks like Newsom assumed that the best candidate wouldn’t be a black woman so he had to eliminate 97% of the field before choosing.

The best candidate very well could have been Butler, but unfortunately we do not know that because Newsom discounted all of her skills and experience and chose race and sex as the most important qualifiers for the position.

Even if he planned to choose based off of race and sex, all he had to do to not undermine his future pick was keep his mouth closed about it.

It should be very obvious what I am saying.

In choosing Butler on Sunday, Newsom fulfilled his pledge to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein’s seat became open.

I am saying that it is morally wrong to choose a someone primarily based on their skin color and genitals.

I am further saying that if you are going to do it anyways, then you denigrate the person you are choosing by announcing it publicly.

Additionally, I will point out that, Asian, Hispanic, White, and mixed race peoples all significantly out number black people in California. It is bad enough to choose a Senator based on race and sex, but it is even worse to eliminate 97% of his state’s population before even considering their qualifications for the job.

They are definitely something, but they were not the main qualities that Newsom repeatedly stated that he was searching for.

While I agree in the lesser of two evils kind of way, meaning its better than they are in the House rather than Senate or President, I still think it is pretty shameful. If they just can’t let go of politics it is time to go back home to city and state legislative bodies.

Still, it is wonderful to read an actually well-stated view point in this post. Seems that most of the thread has devolved to name calling and verbal diarrhea.

Have an upvote for some quality content!

She seems like a good appointee

Hard to tell, but she does meet the only two qualifications that Newsom thought were important enough to mention.

Thank you for clarifying. Could not remember for the life of me.

McCarthy finally put on his big boy pants and is proposing a 45 day clean spending bill

While I was definitely a proponent of this, I will easily admit that I was a bit surprised that he actually did it. There are far too many “non-starters” for both parties right now, and it seems to be getting worse not better. Even identifying as a moderate or centrist is pretty well derided at every turn. It is a bit crazy, but the most heated arguments I get into are with people that I agree 80% or more with.

and then their constituents buy into the “fiscal conservatism” ploy

I am sure that the fiscally conservative Republicans are just as frustrated by this issue as you and I are. Over and over we hear the talk and then they come back with even more spending and less taxes, which is definitely the opposite of what is needed. The problem I see, is that I can’t even remember the last time I heard a Democrat in office pushing for a balanced budget. I am not sure what is worse, not mentioning it or talking about it then doing the opposite; probably the latter but clearly not everyone agrees.

The worst thing in all this, is that we have some how taken on all this excess debt during during a virtual golden age. It is a bit scary to think about what the future would look like if we had a long-term recession.

No one is willing to take on our defense spending issues

I fully agree that this is an issue, and with most of your related points, but I really don’t have any kind of a solution for it. The idea of creating or propping up an additional military company indefinitely frustrates me even when just thinking about it.

I keep teetering on an isolationist bent, where we would pull back from a lot of our military bases and make it clear that some old commitments are about to be updated, but I think it is pretty clear that some of our world adversaries would take that as a sign of weakness and start pushing their boundaries immediately.

I think it is time that some of our allies that rely on our military take on some of their own responsibility, but most of them are nowhere near ready. Also, I am pretty sure it will just create more world level chaos and likely lead to a new great war.

I think we likely have gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle. Doubly so, since we are having such a cultural and political division issue at home. When its nearly impossible to handle simple issues, deeply complex issues like these are almost laughable, in the Joaquin Phoenix as Joker kind of way.