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As of an hour or two ago, my kid's back on good old American soil after 10 months of fighting ISIS and other assholes in Iraq and Syria. SPC Alexander Missildine, a 20 year old from Tyler Texas didn't make it home alive, but the rest of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division did. Hopefully y'all that practice and believe in prayer will keep Alexander in yours. Me? I'll be thinking of him (I never met him), particularly on Memorial Day, but on most regular days, like I imaging most of us parents will. Some of you cats from shaggy will remember that 5 of my son's comrades lost their lives in Afghanistan last tour, a little over 5 years ago. NASCAR does a thing for Memorial Day, and SSGT Frankie Phillip's name was on Jimmie Johnson's windshield last sunday. He finished 4th in the Charlotte race. Frankie was one of my kid's comrades in the 1-36 from Ft. Bliss. Anyway, in the next week or so, I'll be heading to Louisiana to see my boy. Hugs will be exchanged, whiskey will be consumed, and clay pigeons will be broken! My lovely DIL, a San Diego girl to her core, has lived in Louisiana long enough to be able to make a pretty damn legit pot of gumbo, so I will make a glutton of myself no doubt. And all will be well, until the next deployment, anyway. As the 10th Mountain boys say, "Climb to Glory, In Spite of Hell!"

John Brennan WaPo opinion article. SIAP:

I agree with all of this. Until we understand the American Dream has been usurped and people like dotard are using the ghost of it to grab votes, then we are doomed. Things have changed and we as a country haven't adjusted. More like we have been lulled into a state of fat entitled hypnosis by a lot of snake oil salesmen. Our expectations, priorities and values have been changed through media and marketing assaults. I am a late boomer. I grew up in small town Texas where we had about 6,000 people in our community. About 3,500 within the city limits, another 1,500 who lived just outside in unincorporated "mekskin town", and the rest in the outlying farms. We had a segregated elementary school, one for each side of the tracks. We had 3 independent drug stores, 3 hardware stores, a plumbing shop, two auto parts, eight mom and pop diners or cafes, an HEB and a Piggly Wiggly, one Perry Bros. five and dime, three barbers and 2 hair salons, two banks, jeweler, maybe 5 insurance agents, six full service stations, one mercantile store, probably 8 gins and 4 elevators in a 5 mile radius. And we were one of the smaller communities in the county. That was a lot of jobs for a lot of people. A lot of people were living the American dream. Owning and working their own business or farm. There was some oil income, and maybe 25% of the town worked in nearby plants or refineries. There were a lot of people who worked as employees of those small businesses, or contractors who serviced those businesses. It wasn't perfect, especially for the Mexican Americans(the racial stuff is a whole 'nother subject). But in most cases it was better than what had preceded for all, considering they had just come out of The Great Depression and WW2. Several factors were at play though. The GI Bill was hugely instrumental in housing and education for many, including my father. Social Security and fair labor laws were being instituted. There was a huge market for our goods, since the rest of the world was rebuilding their factories, infrastructures. And one thing often overlooked is that income inequality was at its lowest in a century from 1943 to 1983. That means the dollar was stronger in the middle class than at other times. People could do the things Brisket is talking about with one income earner in the family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States Now most of those opportunities are gone. The systems have changed in almost all aspects. Corporations and chains have killed off those jobs. Farms that survived on 1,000 acres now need 6,000 to survive due to economies of size. For good or bad, Walmart played a big part in the demise of these smaller towns. Honestly, if it wasn't going to be Walmart, it would be some other corporation. (I do hate Walmart though.) And now the big box stores are being threatened by Amazon and the ilk. Add to that that mechanization, robotics and AI is beginning to replace jobs and you have even less opportunities for employment. Still, a lot of these boomers were raised with that mindset that if their parents could do it, then they should be able to do it as well. A lot of pressure from parents to have these boomers be even more "successful" than their previous generation. And they pass that pressure down to their own kids. Maybe it's not pressure, but disappointment, frustration and anger. Maybe the isolationist movement has been embedded in us because of these feelings that are being handed down generation to generation now. Everybody looking out for themselves now. And it is everywhere, not just rural Texas, but the rust belt is hit just as hard. Watch the Flint special on Netflix. Personally, I think one of the first steps in righting the ship will be to readjust the income distribution, make the middle class strong again. But that same middle class we should be making stronger is voting for people like trump who keep tipping the scales the other way. So brainwashed.

Generations are stereotyped by their notable outliers compared to other generations. Most millennials aren't hipsters and most boomers weren't hippies. Sure, there were hippies. 400k of them showed up to Woodstock. But 9 million boomers served during the war, roughly 10% of their generation. 2.6M of them served in Vietnam, with roughly 1 to 1.6M in combat. There are more variances within any given generation than there are between generations. The biggest problem with boomers is that they are big. When they were kids, the candy industry did well. When they started retiring, the motorcycle industry did well. Politics, like the markets, adjusted to their needs as they aged through different perspectives and needs. So policy adjusted to their numbers. Now they are old and more socially conservative than today's norm. And the politicians are still serving that viewpoint.

Toddlers everywhere should be outraged The meeting was not open to reporters, but Rhonda Hart, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed in the shooting, told the Associated Press about the content of the meeting. Hart told the AP that the president “kept mentioning” the idea of arming teachers, and that he repeatedly referred to the suspected shooter and the trench coat he wore as “wacky.” “Maybe if everyone had access to mental health care, we wouldn’t be in the situation,” she said she told the president. Hart, who is an Army veteran, told the AP that she suggested employing veterans in schools to serve as guards, and that he responded, “and arm them?” “It was like talking to a toddler,” she said.

Dylan Osetkowski pitches for TSU?

Foreign policy is something that, up until Trump, had been fairly consistent from one administration to the next. You look at Iran, Israel, North Korea - the differences were mainly those of lean and direction, not starting position. I don't claim to understand the intricacies of foreign policy, but my guess is most presidents have the humility to listen to the professionals at State, and the intelligence to understand why those positions are the way they are. When Obama was running for President, he said he'd be willing to talk to NK directly. (And the conservative media lost their collective shit.) But Obama didn't do it. I imagine that Obama listened to the advice of people who have studied the issue exclusively for decades, weighed their advice against what his gut said, and in the end deferred to their judgment. The goal, for a long time, has been to engage North Korea in six party talks. (US, NK, SK, Japan, China, Russia). The idea is that every stakeholder has their own issues and by holding the discussions concurrently, you avoid having NK play one against the other. Deterrents are based on the consensus of multiple parties. Concessions will require agreement with multiple parties. This has been the goal from Clinton, to Bush, to Obama. I certainly appreciate the "it's always good to talk" mentality. I don't necessarily fully appreciate the dangers of bilateral discussions. Maybe the professionals at State are wrong and Trump is right. But I would feel better about it if that wasn't his belief on every issue. He knows more than the generals about war. He knows more about the economy than economists. He knows more about the environment than scientists. Education, experience, and expertise are irrelevant compared to his version of papal infallibility. That's what concerns me.

Well, the Mrs. has been the ex-Mrs. for almost 15 years, and last time I saw her (at my son's wedding) she looked better than ever. Fucking smokeshow, but crazy (like spent a couple stays in the psych ward crazy). Me? Frankly, the last deployment was harder than this one. The big difference was communication. He often had internet service, so it was a rare week that I didn't hear from him. Last time, when the soldiers were killed, they couldn't locate one of the families to deliver the news, so we knew from news reports that guys had been lost, but they wouldn't let the guys call home until all the families received personal notification. So after that happened, the army told us to let them know anytime we were wouldn't be home at night. Going to Vegas? Let the "Family Readiness Group" what hotel you'll be staying in, and what your room number is after you check in. You couldn't get away from the worry...even for a night. So it takes a toll, but man, the pride from seeing what a man you've raised...it's priceless. Friends that are my age, a lot of them have complete fucknuts for kids. Getting DUI's, knocking up some dumbshit girlfriend, just doing all kinds of stupid shit and amounting to nothing, "I"m so proud of Billy...he's employee of the month at starbucks", or "Trina's going to go to cosmetology school!". I'm like "wow, that's awesome, bla bla bla". Meanwhile my son's leading a platoon in a combat zone and is literally responsible for other men's lives.

Well, we did find an exclusive picture of his mother:

Donald Trump has turned the GOP into the Party of Cultural Aggrievement. They are obsessed with anything someone else does but are blind to anything on their side. The GOP used to care about small government and free trade but now it's "Look what they said on The View!"

Inevitable once Junior passed away.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HendrixMNTRY--fender-jimi-hendrix-monterey-stratocaster https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/099-6105-300--fender-pro-series-hardshell-case-for-stratocaster-and-telecaster-tweed $919.99 all in 19 left my rep said then they are out of stock! I’m going on without the wife’s approval on this one wish me luck

No.  Depends on how far back you go.

Thanks Obama

They bought their tickets Shana, they knew what they were getting into, I say, let 'em splooge!

Well I might not know this particular fellow good sir, but if I did I would have to say that he suffers from not only Stage 5 baby penis syndrome, but also from a severe case of mental retardation. My advice: tell this autismo supremo to stop being such a baby dick and grow a pair and enjoy the things that make Vegas Vegas instead of the things that the AARP crowd enjoy because they can't get it up anymore.

Jake Smith is in for his OV. Higgins is planning on making another unofficial visit next weekend.

Last anyone saw of Barron he was getting out of his Secret Service limo at some DC pizza parlor.

Looks like the Kennedy ship has sailed. Bama can't block his transfer anymore so he can go wherever he wants in the SEC. I wish Bama could still block his transfer somehow.

My dad fought the VietCong. He ran PBR boats inserting and extracting SEAL teams and other special forces throughout the rivers & jungles of Vietnam & Cambodia. He bathed in Agent Orange and used napalm for BBQ's. As a teenager he once spent a night in a Mexican jail. No matter how big or strong I got, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he could whip my ass without breaking a sweat. There is no hypothetical that would have placed me in this situation. Plus, I do have some pride.

DJ Mangino?

The Big 12 isn't dead, but I'm still waiting for them to boot out Baylor.

Saban is blocking a grad transfer right now. The article being linked doesn't change this. You guys are idiots and should feel bad.

Dotus traded her to Kim Jong Un for a meeting.

Gotta love how he goes out of his way to mention Johnson was offered while the old staff was there but fails to mention that Jimbo visited him twice within weeks of starting the job, and even prioritized him over Gunnell. Classic aggy.

Trump's base is made up of some of the dumbest humans on planet earth.

Trumpian economics dictate that you need to restrain deficit spending during a recession so you can increase after the economy has improved.

Robertson Field in the Columbia Athletic Complex at the northern tip of Manhattan Island.

Why are there 24 people in the Elite 11 picture?

I've decided "[xxx], Ph.D." is the equivalent of telling people you are in Mensa. Sort of a sad "I am a somebody!" plea. No offense to phdhorn.

For those looking for Fruit or Citrus trees, Lowes has theirs 50% off right now. Normally $39.99. I picked up two peach trees last night.

I am surprised that someone at a State agency mustered up the gumption to call anybody listed on the application.

She just tweeted it:

"Don't you fucking look at me!!!" was the first thing I said to my wife when I tried on my brand new CPAP apparatus the other night.

This keeps getting better. Now we're using precedent from an entirely different league. Holy shit. You guys are a bunch of butthurt babies. It's hilarious.

Breathing oxygen is out of his comfort zone? What kind of fish is this guy?

Post her tits and we’ll go from there

Because he's not a Texan. He's a Canadian.

That’s right, you guessed it: Frank Stallone.

Mmmm, tilabia.

Mueller should have rented office space in a Trump property. That's a guaranteed way to get Trump and his merry band of idiots to not say a thing about government spending.

Mike Williams made it in last night, per Suchomel

My Dad was an Infantry captain stationed at Fort Richardson, Alaska when Pearl Harbor went down. He served in the Aleutian Campaign of 1943 to kick the Japanese off that chain of islands, and spent a miserable 7 months living in a tent without taking a bath. He "brought back" a Nambu Type 94 pistol & holster as a souvenir from the Battle of Attu. He literally took it off the body of a dead Japanese officer, while another soldier got the deceased's Samurai sword. He was transferred to Fort Benning in '44 to train with a new infantry regiment and was shipped out to Strasbourg, France a week after I was born in early December - just in time for The Bulge. My birth delayed his departure with the regiment by a week, and by the time he caught up with it in France, 7 of his fellow 13 battalion officers had been killed. Parts of the regiment had been decimated by the Germans, so after narrowly avoiding capture by his kraut cousins, Dad was sent to the rear for reorganization into a new outfit. However, his malaria flared up again and he landed in a hospital for awhile - then subsequently was put in charge of a "90 Day Wonder" officers training program in Paris. Not long before VE Day in Paris he was put in charge of a railroad yard where vast amounts of damaged allied war materiel was brought in for sorting (they left the destroyed German vehicles on the battlefields as a propaganda thing). One morning Dad's sergeant walked in his office and said, "Colonel, a boxcar full of crates of new Lugers & P38s just rolled in. What should we do with them?". Dad said, "Let the troops have them for souvenirs". An hour or so later Dad thought he'd go over a get several of the pistols for himself, but was chagrined to see they were already cleaned out. He came home to Missouri in July of '45 - earlier than most because of 39 months of overseas duty (Alaska was counted in) He still "brought back" two Mauser 98K rifles, a couple of Nazi helmets, and a Belgian made BAR that had been captured by the Germans when they overran the Low Countries early in the War. In the 1950s I & my brothers used the BAR, Mausers, helmets, & other equipment to play Army out in the woods behind our house in St. Louis. Nobody gave us a second look when we toted that lethal-looking hardware around the neighborhood. The FN manufactured BAR (a rare piece worth about $12,000 today) we donated to the Camp Mabry Military Museum a few years ago. It is in storage in their vault. I had one of the Mauser 98k rifles rebuilt into a nice .30-06 hunting piece - it now belongs to one of my sons.