darksabre

Well, I think we're kinda confusing two issues. Gender fluidity is a separate thing from your sex. There's a huge movement right now around recognizing the wide spectrum of gender types. Most of us are probably a little gender fluid but are comfortable with our biological sex bits. But a lot of transgender people are the opposite: not gender fluid, but completely out of sorts with their physical body. You can be a girl who likes boys who feels like she absolutely needs to be a boy physically. Aye?

@josie's understanding of this is way better than mine, so I'll tag her and see if she wants to join in. But I will tell you one thing: transgender people are some of the most confident people I have ever met. I know several now who have gone through reassignment surgery and there is not a more certain person on this planet. It really has nothing to do with who you are attracted to. It's just about how you feel about who you are. I think it's something that is very hard for people like you and me to understand. I cannot fathom being so confident that I would be willing to have massive surgery. But trans people are. They get to a point where simply being a boyish girl is not enough. They feel straight up trapped in their own bodies. I can't even begin to imagine what that feels like. I am not them.

It's open bahd. Let's talk about how Transgender people aren't punchlines.

wrt to RvW, yeah, probably. That probably deserves its own thread... The Democrats really missed the boat in 2016 with messaging about the Supreme Court. It was legit the only topic I was voting on. Half my friends had no idea it was even a concern. It should have been the one singular issue of the entire election season for Democrats. Naturally, they failed at basic politics.

I want to keep the same stuff for this season, but I think the moment the Sabres clinch a playoff spot they should switch back to Song #2 for the goal song...

Would it have been better if the rule were unable to be changed? The Obama admin wouldn't have gotten its lower court appointments, but the GOP wouldn't be getting several SCOTUS justices. How few justices could the SCOTUS have? We would be down to 7 right now if the 60 vote rule were still in place.

Good stuff LTS. I don't think we'll need to over-moderate anything here. Having separate Topics/Threads is going to be really helpful. Anyone trying to troll/derail thread topics should be easy to call out. The old Politics Megathread seemed to engender itself to trolling and sh*tposting.

So let's talk about that 60 vote threshold. Why was it so easy to eliminate it? Should the Democrats have done so? Would the GOP have just done it anyway once the cat was out of the bag that it was an option? It looks to me like the Democrats sacrificed a number of SCOTUS noms just to fill some lower courts. That seems...short sighted.

I think this is right. I know the Dems were catching a lot of blame for basically coming up with the tactic that the GOP turned around and used on us. I think that happens a lot...

We're currently living in a pretty weird timeline. Barring anything unusual happening, the SCOTUS is about to become the most conservative it has ever been. Trump will get his nominee with a simple majority. Before we get into where the Supreme Court is headed, I'd like to try to parse together how exactly it is that we got here in the first place. I think Democrat voters are mostly to blame for not showing up in 2016 when a Supreme Court seat was on the line, but there is also a lot of procedural stuff that I don't quite know the full story on. Hoping people can fill in the blanks for me, but my understanding is that there was essentially a gentlemen's agreement in place in Congress regarding the number of votes needed to confirm, but no hard and fast rule about it? The GOP delayed and delayed on the Garland nomination and when Democrats tried to stop it the GOP changed the "rules". Was this avoidable? Could there have been actual laws in place to prevent the delay of the Garland confirmation? Were there precedents that the Democrats set in the past that set this whole mess up?

Ottawa wanting Thompson doesn't make me feel better

? Pour one out for the Mike Grier emoji

Ah crap, you mean I have to relearn emoji tags?

Good post @dudacek Darcy really killed us didn't he?

I like it. I think it'll be a good way to acknowledge posts even if you don't have anything to respond with. Will probably go a long way towards encouraging new posters to keep posting. Can the owner of the post see who is liking/reacting, or is it anonymous?

For the record, I think the way the clubs are set up is perfect.

Yup. That's about right.

Blue and Gold.

I have a buddy with a Biron 00 jersey and it's maybe the one jersey I truly covet.

Why? Is having a jersey that existed in time a problem? Some of my favorite jerseys to see out in public are Tim Connolly #18. Take pride in owning those kinda artifacts.

And, for the record, I've never heard anything to support *that* claim. And I've asked.

Let's just say this team had more problems than one sports psychologist could handle...

*shrug* I don't care if you don't believe it. But there are three of us here, two with media connections, who all have essentially the same info. I'm posting my info for those who trust me. You don't have to and I'm fine with that.

pi expects us to name names. Which is obviously not going to happen :lol:

I don't think any of us particularly care if you believe it or not. ;) I was mostly trolling with that comment.