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Michael McLeod

she's a conservative voice, tim. I'd say ultra conservative but politics isn't my bag so don't hold me to that.

there are a lot of folks out there that would agree with her, I would imagine.

But i couldn't tell you how many.

though on the other hand, long term, who knows? we may become a lesser power in the world some day and have to worry about our own ass rather than looking out for everybody else's and we'll all be saying why didn't we listen to mary margaret? why? why? why? waaaaaaa!!!!

But if you had told me before this happened that a small country would be threatened by a bully and our president lined up with the bully instead of defending that country I would have told you no way. That's not the usa we grew up with. The earth just started spinning backwards or something. I need a break.  I'm going down to the Gulf of America for some relaxation. Thank goodness that we have a president who took it back from those dang mexicanos.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Regardless of whether my views are widely held by those who read this Class of '66 Message Forum, there are tens of millions of Americans who support the views I hold. And trust me, I do not post to stick a finger in anyone's eyes. 

https://x.com/thatsKAIZEN/status/1895933451150508308

Michael McLeod

tim: you were asking about popular opinion about ukraine? is this what you're looking for? see links below

and zowie: we've dolled out 65 BILLION to ukraine since hostilities with russia have been going on.

I don't see anything really swell about this scene however you look at it, whichever side you fall on just a bad scene all around. no good guys to havefun cheering for and the common folk over there are suffering while we debate..

but as for popular opinion about it:

Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say the United States is providing too much support to Ukraine (42% vs. 13%). Republicans are also far less likely than Democrats to say the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion (36% vs. 65%).

I know this is a very vague, subjective perception, but I think of republicans being conservative and pragmatic and democrats being more liberal and touchy-feely and heartfelt, perhaps, some mightsay, to a fault .  That survey seems to me to reflect that as it applies to us taking up for an underdog.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/654575/americans-favor-quick-end-russia-ukraine-war.aspx

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/most-trump-supporters-also-back-ukraine-polling-russia-war-87ab141a

Michael Boulware

I am responding to Mary Margaret's questions to me. 

The Ukraine was unjustly attacked in order for Putin to expand Russia's territory. We committed aid to Ukraine without our"boots on the ground". Russia is our enemy. Zelensky and the Ukranians are fighting our enemy without our soldiers losing their lives. The Ukraine is fighting our fight. This is not a Republican versus Democrat thing. This is the good guys versus the bad guys. Our European allies agree that we need to ban together to stop the bad guys.

Russia made several agreements to respect Ukranian borders and the United States made several agreements with Russia and Ukraine to respect Ukranian borders. Russia violated those promises by taking Crimea in 2014 and violated every other agreemsent they made with The United States and The Ukraine.

Our allies will not trust or respect the United States if we do not stand by our agreements. We can not continue to void treaties everytime we elect a new president. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Thanks for your thoughts Mike & Mike...."all I am saying, is give peace a chance". FYI....I am not seeking any classmate's approval with what I post - it is not a popularity contest - I do read all of the links that are posted, but I do not believe progressivism has made us a better people or a better nation. Therefore, if I am in the minority as most of you may think, so be it. 

Michael McLeod

Well to sum it all up Mary Margaret I always thought you were hot. So with a dude as shallow as I am that's all that matters in the end..

In all seriousness my first instinct is that this is a case of bullies on the block and my instincts kick in to root for the little guy. But international affairs are just a bit more complex. I have to remind myself of that. Trump's clumsiness is troublesome, though. There's a thing or two about international diplomacy he needs to bone up on. When I mispeak I embarrass myself. When a prez does it caca can happen.

Timothy Lavelle

mike, mike, mike,

I have to laugh so hard at myself this morning. First at you using the small "t" in reference to me twice and second at you deciding that the class needed your translation of what I was thinking. As you are a man of letters, I always feel you know what and how you are writing. Maybe not. Geez, I am so far into geezerhood but I was about 6 years old when I announced to my parents that I was Tim, not Timmy, or any other name. I was always "A Dude with a Tude". 

So, despite the light you shed on the right, I wish you would restrain your brain and refrain from deciding what I might really mean. Your desire to label me a bully aside, the old saying that people who always straddle the fence are likely to get torn britches might apply to your "maybe someday we'll go waaaaa". Bullshit.

Certainly Mary Margaret enjoys the first amendment right as do orators, the common man and the drunk on the corner spouting profanities at passersby. We listen to the orators sometimes, argue with the common man commonly and ignore the drunk on the corner because they say things that are not worth our time. 

I have often wished that one or more of you would let Mary Margaret's nastier posts just sit so that class could silently ignore them. You can spar and let them resonate or just let them sit and rot. 

The invitation stands: if anyone who reads this forum and has read her posts over the past years thinks that she is right, then stand up and support her views with words here. 

I always wondered how we would stack up to the greatest generation. 

David Mitchell

I am just landing back on earth from a recent surgery ("Inspire" chip inserted  in the neck and chest for for sleep apnea) and have found a tidal wave of new Forum posts to catch up with. My first thought is

Wow, I can't turn m y back on you kids for a few days without all hell breaking loose!

Just two quick thougths:

1) I used to admire Senator Marco Rubio, but now find it hearbreaking to see him become another lap dog for the Donald. Of all people, a Cuban American no less!

2) Mary Martgaret, I find it quite surprising that you of all people have become such a willing apologist for Putin - one of the true monsters of modern times. 

Oh, and there was a third point:

- - the phrase "dude with a tude" has to be one of the best phrases I have heard in quite a long time.  

p.s. Vance is a moron!

Michael McLeod

not sure what I said that made you think i was accusing you of bullying tim but i assure you that was the furthest thing from my mind; i'll apologize for being fuzzy in my writing. and trust me that's not the first time I've had to do that. Worst feeling ever to screw up in print - mispell a name or screw up a quote - and have to write up a correction to run in the next day's paper. Just writing this brings back baaaaad memories of my rookie reporter days.

and now it occurs to me that you must have thought I was accusing you of being a bully to mmargaret but I was actually referring to trump and his russian counterpart picking on the relatively smaller country of ukraine. 

If anybody's bullying it's me because she and I are diamatrically opposed on many matters. But she hold her own and I all but confessed to having a crush on her back in the day.

truth is I just fully retired from teaching and freelance writing and i'm pretty tangled up in.....melancholia. ironic that i looked forward to retirement after all those years of deadline after deadline but not that it has arrived i'm rattled. 

anybody else had trouble with readjusting to retirement?  I just feel so embarrassed to be looking a giftthorse in the mouth. i'm sure i'll get over it. problem is i loved what i did, hard as it was, from my early days as a beat reporter to my magazine writing days.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Maybe just maybe the progressives writing on this forum have all but intimidated other conservative voices from speaking out, given that it has been inferred that I am racist, xenophobic & a Putin sympathizer. 

Michael McLeod

oh and mm hell no I never said anything about boots on the ground.

and yikes no you're not a racist. 

I'll look back over my posts again to see if I was sloppy with my wording. 

Again I think russia is the aggressor here and trump is being unduly rude..

and my instincts are to side with the little guy in the fight. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mike M....the reference to it being inferred here on the forum that I am racist and zenophobic has to do with comments on my previous posts over the years.

Mary Clare Hummer (Bauer)

Tim,

Remember that old adage about a person being known by the company he keeps?  I've tried to convince MM on more than one occasion that it can similarly be said that your arguments are judged by the sources you use. Let's take the last few for example. The American Thinker--sounds very highbrow. It's rating by Media Bias/Fact Check:  Overall, we rate the American Thinker as Questionable based on extreme right-wing bias, promotion of conspiracy theories/pseudoscience, use of poor sources, and many failed fact checks. Moving on to this Kanekoathegreat character:  can't find much bio on him. Looks like any guy on the street with opinions and he has many--QAnon influencer ($$), vaccine denier, conspiracy theorist.  And then this last defiyantlyfree source appears to belong to some gal called Insurrection Barbie. I'm sure that's not the name she chose for herself (probably a leftist tag!) but it has something to do with her participation as a January Sixer election denier.  
 

We all have biases and for anyone using X or Meta or Truth Social or Facebook (if that's still a thing), we all have algorithms set up to feed those biases. Sr. Raymunda would red ink my entire research paper if I used opinions instead of facts. My personal algorithm would never lead me to the above sites. Influencers all over the internet want us to believe that they know the truth. Most dismaying is that the biggest influencer in our county can say anything he wants to his national audience oblivious to facts, setting off chaos at every turn. Without proof or pause, the real goal is to create doubt in us all that ANYTHING is true. 
Clare

Michael McLeod

ok mm. I was just puzzled and wanted to clear it up so thank you I am relieved. we disagree often and I can be a smartass and if I've gone too far - recently or in the past - I do apologize.

John Jackson

Yikes!  Like Dave, I took a weekend off to spend doing something else - visiting my son and his family in New York to celebrate my youngest grandchild's third birthday. 

But I’m glad to see others are participating – I think this country has overnight gone from being a healthy democracy to being on the edge of chucking out pretty much all we’ve stood for over the past 250 years – we’re sliding into totalitarianism. 

We have a really, really sick man as President and I guess that can happen once in a while.  But the truly shocking thing is that his own party in Congress (the majority of whom are secretly appalled at what he is doing) are too gutless to speak up because they fear a primary challenge (financed by Musk) and also death threats.  Never in my darkest moments did I think we’d see this day.  Time for some “Profiles in Courage” - seems like a really quaint notion now, doesn’t it?

I won’t repeat again the reasons I think Putin is so depraved and how depraved Trump is for thinking he’s such a great guy – Mike B and Dave have already done that.

And I applaud Clare’s focus on how polluted the information environment has become – we’ve always had small numbers who believe really crazy stuff, but right wing “news” sources are increasingly willing to pass on lies and Russian misinformation that are easily refuted.  So we now have a substantial number of people (but fortunately still not a majority) who believe really crazy stuff.

And, MM, “Give peace a chance” – are you serious?  That’s the argument  that Neville Chamberlain made in 1938 when he handed part of Czechoslovakia over to Hitler. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Disparaging the sources of information is a tactic used by those who have not moved on from MSM reporting and are stuck in the same sort of echo chamber I am accused of residing in. I confess that I do not watch any major network news including Fox nor do I subscribe to the Atantic, the NYT or the Washington Post, etc. I utilize podcasts, websites and X where there are far more divergent opinions provided. As mentioned previously, I believe progressivism is counter-intuitive to a freedom loving people and I am not at all ashamed of my conservative values and so yes, I happen to trust those whom the progressive Left despises. If that disappoints  any of you,....c'est la vie.  

Joseph Gentilini

Mary Margaret - to your comment regarding us on the 'left', it does NOT disappoint me. It just reflects on how you come to think the way you do!  joe

David Mitchell

Can someone please help me? I'm having trouble keeping count.

Now, how many different women has Musk impregnated - in, or out of wedlock?

Oh, no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant to ask how many billions of of Governemnt contracts does Musk owe to his deals with the federal government?

When you get to be my age it's easy to get confused. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and fasten your seatbelts kiddies - tomorrow the tariffs go into effect.)

(but are those seatbelts made in the U.S. or Canada?)

Theresa Zeyen (Kucsma)

Tim- just because you asked others to speak up, here goes. 
I actually avoid political discussions as much as I can. In regard to Trump, I can't even get past the person he is to consider his politics. I truly don't see why more people don't see that he lies and bullies and manipulates and in my opinion, is amoral - not immoral, amoral - has none. I base my opinions on what I have seen and heard him say in speeches and debates wo "explanation" from the press. I am devastated that this man was elected to run our country for the next 4 years. I don't know how anything of value will survive his kind of leadership. 
One other thing bothers me greatly - does anyone else think that our country is still not ready to elect a woman, of color, to that office?

Timothy Lavelle

MC Hammer and Theresa, 

Thank you for your deep thoughts and posts. This country survived a Civil War and we will survive Big Ornge and his boss Eloy. A South African here to tell us how to run our country. How droll. 

I think of this place as a clubhouse where we all drop in to say hello to old friends. Because of where we all began, it is proper to think of it as a Catholic clubhouse. 

Religion, to me, is akin to politics because it is a matter of opinion or you would say faith, maybe. It is up to what a person believes. But how you offer up that belief can truly affect your friends in the club. 

I am not a man of faith. Imagine I came to the clubhouse everyday and ranted about the thousand and one things one could rant about concerning the problems facing the church...told you you are just out of touch for believing...talked each day ad nauseum about how being agnostic or atheist is the smart way to go and you are just old fashioned for believing. 

That would be insulting to you and anyone else who still holds the faith. It would lack friendship, fellowship, or any warmth. But what if I went on and on and on. Then I would become a sad person that you would plead with to just "Go the hell away and leave me in peace".  Then I would reply that the church is the biggest ponzi scheme...blah blah effing blah. You would want to puke after awhile. Then I mention that I've never read the bible or listened to teachings of the popes or even dared enjoy "Conclave". You would sit back and say ala Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon LaVelle is". And you would be correct.

It is popular to say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Me here, writing this message right now or at any other time to try to influence Mary Margaret or any supporter of this regime is just that sort of insanity and I am just so flippin' tired of it. 

So, I do write weird unintelligble stuff but in the end Thank you both, Live Long and Prosper.

LaVelle, effing O U T.

John Jackson

Putin Scolds Trump: "I Got You Elected and You Haven't Said Thank You Once"

MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—In a testy meeting at his Kremlin office on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin scolded Donald J. Trump for failing to show proper gratitude for getting him elected president of the United States.

For almost an hour, Trump was on the receiving end of blistering attacks from Putin and his vice president, JD Vasilevsky.

“I got you elected and you haven’t said thank you once,” Putin shouted. “When you were running for president, you didn’t have any cards. With me, you had cards.”

Attempting to mend fences, Trump offered to let Putin run his next Cabinet meeting instead of Elon Musk.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Tim - my voice is but one against 15 or so who politically respond in this "clubhouse". I try to post my views respectfully, and will admit that I fall short at times, but the forum was made available so that everyone could share their thoughts without fear of verbal reprisals from others. It seems that you would wish that those who adhere to a different political agenda than you, should just sit down and shut up, if that is how you truly feel then you are espousing the very antithesis of free speech...that the only voices deserving of being heard are those which align with your world view. That is an extremely dangerous position to take. We have seen during COVID how dissent from the public narrative was demonized and then censored. Those ostracized for questioning any of the mandates have now been vindicated, but what a cost the world paid for denying some the right to speak openly and freely. Your passion for your opinions is no less than mine for my views, regardless of how many in this clubhouse choose to agree with either one of us.  

Michael McLeod

My immediate reaction to your post, mm1, is that you're in a poor position to critique anyone else's position when you blow off"progressive thought in one rather sweeping and unsubstantiated whisk.

Forgive my surliness.

Blame it on earliness.

I woke up cranky.

But in all honesty if you called me progressive I might take it as a compliment.

I'm assuming to you it signifies abandonment of fundamental values and beliefs you hold dear.

And having said that I absolutely respect and defend your right to be here and be treated as a voice that deserves to be acknowledged minus any needless chippiness from any direction including mine.

.

Michael McLeod

and on another topic: damn would I celebrate seeing a woman of color as president.

It would mean so much to the true spirit of this country.

absolutely I would want her to live up to it.

but damn. love to see it.

David Mitchell

Just a thought on Theresa's last point. 

Back a few years ago when Joe Picked Kamala to to be his running mate, I thought it was a poor choice. I thought the one he should have chosen was Florida Rep. Val Demmings, a Black woman from Florida. She waas a no-nonsense woman who had been the first woman (or Black) on the all-white Orlanado police force. Then she became the first female (or Black) head of their special forces squad, and finally, the first female (and Black) to become chief of Orlando police. She had a record for no-nonsense effiiciency that became almost legendary. 

Later, as a Congressional Representative from Florida, she managed the first impeachment team against trump with her typical brand of by-the-book "directness" (if that's a word).  

I thought she was just what D.C. needed. A missed opportunity in my book.

------------------------

Speaking of "directness" - I woke up with an idea. 

Why don't we send VP Vance over to Europe to lecture and talk down to all our (80 year) aliies? That ought to go over really well with them.

Oh,,,  What?   You say we already did that? And it went over real big? Oh well, I'm just trying to keep up. I may have some more "brilliant" ideas coming soon.