Epic quote.

Amazing how that sentiment was used during the time/era we were entering into about this time 6 years ago.

Just guilt/shame people into doing certain things and behaving certain ways.........

Clinton did attempt to take out OBL in the late-90’s. He was pretty open about the fact that he tried and failed. He was too concerned with collateral damage. During the transition period to the GWB presidency, the incoming administration was briefed and warned that Al-Qaeda was the most urgent threat to US national security. Bush did nothing until it was too late.

Please elaborate on “attempts”? There were multiple times where there was credible intelligence of UBL’s location, but to state attempted to is a stretch.

It’s all in the 9/11 commission report. And likely, a ton more that NEVER made the report.

As far as “collateral damage” is concerned, that was something a later POTUS cared almost nothing about when it came time to kill HVT’s.

Which is funny, Clinton had ZERO reservations about “accidentally” bombing a Chinese embassy.

I always wondered how several news agencies—NBC, ABC, Time were able to interview OBL during the Clinton era yet somehow we weren’t able to kill him.

• 1998 Operation: Following the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton authorized strikes against bin Laden. Missiles aimed at a camp in Afghanistan hit only an hour or so after bin Laden had departed.
• December 1998 Strike Rejection: Intelligence indicated bin Laden was staying at a governor's residence in Kandahar. Clinton did not authorize the strike because it would have required destroying a town and potentially killing 300 innocent women and children, which he deemed unacceptable.
• 1999–2000 Attempts: Efforts were made in Afghanistan to target bin Laden following the bombings of the USS Cole and other targets, but these failed.

There is also zero proof the embassy bombing was deliberately done. Clinton was a lot of things, but committing reckless acts of war is not on the list.

So, 1 out of them the missiles were launched.

An "effort to target" isn't an attempt. Unless the team is launched and comes up a dry hole, or the missiles are launched and they escape, that's not an attempt.

He didn't sexual relations with that woman either......

Google "Bill Clinton war crimes", you could say it's not really decided either way.

Most racist bigots at least try and hide it ya know, especially in this profession. Just sayin'.

Wanting open borders may not be the same as willful failure to enforce immigration laws, but it’s pretty adjacent.

Lost count? Every permitted prick since serum approval. No Covid, no flu. But this last pop, sat me & wife down hard for 2 days starting day 2. Both of us Medicare.

dude you’re a trip. Why do you feel the need to defend “your side” so aggressively? Like I want profit sharing and to not dump an increasing amount of my paycheck into a federal government black hole that I get nothing out of. That’s my relationship with whoever is leading the federal government. At best these people can keep some kind of a status quo (possibly doomed) ship moving in kind of a reasonable direction. At worst you have…well…this.

It’s like you have some weird parasocial relationship with the president. Dude he loathes you and me. We’re unionized worker bees who have the audacity to fight for our piece of the pie. Why are you carrying his water all the time? Can you critique him on a single point? Is he some kind of god to you?

I mean all this in the nicest possible way, it’s just so strange to me seeing people just so all in on one particular “side”.

According to ChatGPT Persians are considered as White according to the US Government forms. Modern Iran does touch the Caucasus…I’ll walk myself out.

I'll be right behind you, shutting the door.

They are not Arabs if that's what you're getting at. Not technically speaking, and not practically speaking. But Persians are not the only ethnicity in Iran.

"Caucasian" is an arbitrary historical classification, make of it what you will.

Insert country here has a metric crap ton of ethnicities within it. Especially middle eastern, central asian, Stan, Stan of Stan, Stan within Stan, etc.

See my post above, pretty much covered that.......

You missed the satire.

THANK YOU for saying this. Post of the year. Politics aside, as unionized pilots you would think we would decry anything that negatively impacts profit sharing at best, but more likely job security and career expectations.

Politically I consider not only my short-term economic benefit but also long term structural, societal, and economic ramifications, mostly for the sake of my kids.

As I've said this current adventure is a bit over the top... guaranteed short-term economic pain (loss of profit sharing for sure), with lots of risk of a variety of potential bad outcomes. The ultimate end-state is still likely to be better than the old status quo, but of course that's not 100% either.

Yeah. Some of the comments remind me of the schism between my peers invested in QOL when it comes to contract negotiations and those desiring max $$$ opportunities for them, almost regardless of the toll it may take on home life. IF (and it is a big IF) this current conflict can keep my kids from having to live in a world where insane apocalyptic mullahs have control of nukes and the missiles to deliver them, I’d gladly forgo a couple of years of profit sharing. But clearly others have a different priority.

Today’s prices:

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You must have lost everything on BITCOIN to have such simplistic short term thinking. We just survived 4 years of record inflation and an administration that waged war on anything oil, I think we'll be fine. btw, almost every union pulled their support for Kamala Harris. Just sayin

Nations with nuclear weapons
North Korea
Pakistan
India
Israel
Russia
China
United Kingdom
France
United States

Yep, and there will doubtless be more. It’s 80 year old technology at this point. But that certainly doesn’t mean rational people want EVERYONE to have nuclear weapons and intercontinental deliver capability. And I don’t recall anyone in that group spending the last 46 years chanting “Death to America.”

While mowing down relatives with antiaircraft guns for inattention at a meeting doesn’t strike me as particularly rational, even North Korea isn’t sponsoring international terrorism in multiple countries trying to spread their particular brand of irrationality. And yeah, if I thought that was going to change I’d be all about preempting them too.

But I’m still for doing what I can to keep the world a safe place for my kids, and teach them to do the same for my future grandchildren/great grandchildren/ad infinitum. It’s my culture.

Most of your personal wealth is built on that black hole.

30T+ printing and issuing into the economy is what has ran the economy the past 20+ years.

Go check your balances from 2000, and multiply it by 1.03 26 times to see how much you have benefitted from deficit spending.

A doctor with exclusively Medicare patients will complain they have to pay more Medicare taxes because .gov sucks.

The wealth gap has gotten so much larger because wealthy people are better at retaining money from goods and services and poor/old people are better at getting the government to issue money to them to consume goods and services.

The deficit money comes off the printing press and goes to whatever need based program is your favorite and lands in “rich people” wallets.

The last dentist you flew billed Medicaid at a deficit loss for filling cavities and bought an airline ticket.

In other countries the Pilot and dentist make less and the kid still has tooth pain or a missing tooth, the money never showed up from the deficit printer.

I take Iran's 'Death to America' chants about as seriously as you take Trump's tweets. They've been doing it for 47 years. They're the nation equivalent of a Yorkshire Terrier that won't stop barking. No, I don't want them having a nuclear weapon either, but I also don't think they're stupid enough to use one as a first strike option.

You may be right. But we are all informed by and sometimes victims of our experiences.Perhaps I just have more experience with fundamentalist Islam than you do. It’s not about race or ethnicity, we have had our crazies too. Hale-Bopp cult, Jim Jones of Jamestown (in)fame, Waco cult, just to name a few. But none of them had nukes or ICBMs to deliver them

It’s cute that anyone thinks we can prevent a country from having nukes by force.

Unfortunately IL takes everything they say literally, for good reasons.

Also unlike even DPRK, there are probably people in the fundamentalist wing of IR politics who would be OK with kicking off end of days... using a nuclear weapon unfortunately matches up nicely with a key part of their religious mythology. Going to paradise this week might seem rational to some of them. Then you have to wonder how far up the hierarchy are they and how much influence do they have.

Not unfortunate at all. The same people who say don't take what they say seriously are the same people who point fingers at others on why something wasn't done earlier before tragedies like 9/11.

Iran has killed enough Americans and others since 1979 that we don't even need to question the validity of "Death to America"

They spent millions investing in Syria and Hezbollah and nukes to achieve their stated goals.

Not being good enough to accomplish something is no where close to the same as exercising good discipline. When have they ever shown restraint?

They are a Yorkshire terrier that has a bite history a mile long and only isn’t biting when recovering from its beatings from biting.

I think this regime has enjoyed power and all of its spoils for 47 years and wants to keep it that way. Using religion as a tool of manipulation has been an incredibly effective means across many civilizations for centuries. This is no different.

Do you feel the same way about Trump's genocidal threats towards Iran. I'm guessing no.

Except he hasn't made a genocide threat so there is that

You may believe it’s no different. You may even be right. But I don’t. And none of those previously using religion as a tool of manipulation in the past also had nukes and ICBMs to back up their threats.
I’d prefer to avoid the risk.

Crazy as Trump sounds, it is a negotiating posture the Iranians may well identify with. It’s what they would do if the situation were reversed.

Can we please stop pretending like walking into a room and holding a literal and figurative gun to everyone's head is an expert negotiating tactic?

Well, when all else fails (and it has with this regime) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lol ok buddy...and they say TDS only affects the Trump haters.

Where did he threaten genocide? Prove it

Are you serious? I'm guessing you're probably trying bait me with some sort of twisted gaslighting, but I'll humor you...

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!"

I am not baiting you. I am asking a group of people who overreact and are continuously "shocked" at everything the man says over the last 12 years, the rest of us get massive fatigue at your feigned outrage.

First of all, who threatens "genocide" and ends it with "God Bless the Great People of Iran!" So you think he wants to kill them all? Really?

He also says that "maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?" again showing support to the people, who he supposedly wants to genocide? Give me a break.

The President has made threats to destroy Iranian infrastructure which is what he is alluding to when he says a whole civilization will die. They will be brought back to the stone age, i.e. no power no transportation. Civilizations die all the time in human history without the population itself being eliminated. Think of the Roman and Persian empires.

The targeting of civilian infrastructure to stop military advancement or to pressure a government has been done in nearly every U.S. conflict in its history, most recently Iraq and Afghanistan. Damns, bridges, roads, airports, power plants have all been eliminated in those conflicts. Is today your first day?

But hey, since you guys think he is TACO or whatever then you have nothing to worry about. But that lame talking point fed to you by Democratic operatives goes all out the window when you try to make the argument that Turmp is supposedly some unhinged dictator. Can't have it both ways.

I’m amazed this stuff has to be pointed out, but apparently it does to our smooth brained compatriots.

What does it mean when the president says words? I guess some stuff is literal, some is figurative, some is trolling, some is 4D chess. The best part is we can all individually decide what it means in our own minds for each specific statement!