brightpilot6 said:Fair enough, you seem convinced, though I find myself feeling a bit more hesitant. I tend to harbor a certain level of skepticism when it comes to allegations where women are allegedly entering the hotel rooms of superstars of their own volition. While it is entirely possible that an assault occurred, I suppose I leave room for the possibility that it didn't.
If it did happen, then shame on him, plain and simple. I certainly won't be making any excuses for him by suggesting his on-court greatness grants him some kind of pass.
Perhaps he was a terrible human being, yet he was also a legendary basketball player who left us far too soon, and right now, we're all just dealing with the shock of it. That's really all there is to say. Let's move on.
So, if I'm following this correctly, this woman was working the front desk at the hotel, and he asked her to escort him and some guests to their rooms, promising she could come back later for a tour of the place, but then he basically trapped her inside after she turned him down. We can't know for sure, but if you ask me, I'd bet 90 percent he's guilty.
Peter Thompson4 said:ironpanther5, you've completely lost the plot—you're way out of line here.
Look, I get it, we have to protect everyone regardless of their gender, strength, or skin color, and obviously any kind of violence against others needs to be punished, but this direction you're heading in is just way too much.
I honestly have no idea what you're getting at. wiredrider9 opens up about dealing with workplace abuse, and then you just swoop in with this random tangent. 👎
wiredrider9 said:Sure, that's one thing for middle school, but what happens when you're in your 20s at work and some coworker slaps you on the ass while walking by and just laughs about it? 😁 🤣
Now, I’m going to be a little cheeky here 😁, but honestly, that sounds pretty friendly of her. 🤣
All jokes aside, though, you really have to look at the whole context; if you guys are actually cool with each other and that kind of vibe is just part of your friendship, then I don't see the big deal—if there's mutual interest, why not? But look at it this way: imagine you're married, and some supervisor starts constantly touching you or dropping heavy sexual hints, and even after you explicitly ask them to stop, they just keep pushing it.
In that scenario, you're definitely being sexually harassed.
Anyway, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this office drama unfolds ...... 😁
Honestly, even though I’ve been pretty skeptical about the whole Me Too movement, this was a bit much. I guess we’re never going to see eye to eye on that, but really, this specific topic didn't even warrant half this much drama. 🙂
wiredrider9 said:And double standards? Don't even get me started. There are plenty of guys out there paying child support for kids that aren't even theirs—kids from some lover's affair, for example. 🙄
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. We see those kinds of cases all over the US. Besides, more often than not, the whole post-divorce process and custody battles seem heavily weighted in favor of the mothers.
Unless, of course, you happen to be Milan Popović and the judge just happens to bump into you at the same luxury ski resort in Aspen after the trial is over—the world is a surprisingly small place. 🙂
Back when I was just some kid in fifth or sixth grade, there was always that group of boys who would relentlessly mess with every single girl during class changes—though a lucky few managed to dodge the chaos. Eventually, things settled down as we got older, but if you look at it objectively, it's still technically harassment. So, honestly, he might actually have a point here. 🙂
I mean, let’s be real, even the boys weren't exactly escaping the brunt of the drama back then either. 🙂
wiredfalcon2 said:Of course you jumped straight to saying women are gross too and society is hypocritical. Even though 99% of sexual crimes are committed by men, and women account for 30% of reported sexual assaults (not necessarily rape), and 99% of sexual harassment cases involve women. But sure, society is hypocritical and women are terrible, let's not forget that.
Just because you’ve constructed this specific narrative in your own head doesn't make it reality. I'm always for the truth, regardless of who's at fault; honestly, if it were my own flesh and blood, I’d testify against them in a heartbeat if I had any knowledge regarding a hit-and-run or sexual abuse.
I was simply trying to point out how most people are incredibly narrow-minded and ask these moronic questions—like they did in the Kobe case, questioning why someone was sleeping with someone else to imply they're "easy," or claiming someone is unstable just because they attempted suicide, or asking why she was in a certain room or why she wore a short skirt, as if any of that matters when someone is ultimately coerced into sex.
So, I threw in those other examples where this behavior is even more apparent, specifically when the victims are men, because society tends to be much less sensitive toward them. I wasn't trying to claim that men and women are equal in this context; I know women are far more frequent victims, which is also why people rarely dare to report these things—because they want to avoid the judgment and having their dirty laundry aired out in public.
I never once said that women aren't significantly more frequent victims of domestic or sexual violence, regardless of how statistics sometimes get manipulated.
But hey, everyone scratches where it itches, and politics is a nasty business; just as right-wing dogmatists have their unshakeable talking points, the left is stuck on the exact same intellectual level.
That's why I find myself giving them a metaphorical slap in the face every now and then. 🙂
There was this wild story blowing up in the news over in the States about two women who basically trapped some guy in his car, handcuffed him, wouldn't let him out, and then went all in on him.
The comment section was a total circus; you had the guys acting like lucky bastards, wondering why they haven't had that kind of luck yet, while the women were busy chirping about how it’s physically impossible to rape a man—clearly making some snide little jab about an erection, I guess—and just giggling about it. On the flip side, if you dared to point out that there are plenty of women who have experienced orgasms during sexual assaults, they’d probably lose their minds.
But honestly, nothing beats those infuriating cases where some teacher assaults a sixteen-year-old student, and everyone acts completely shocked that it's considered a criminal offense. That’s when you really see how twisted people can be. The men are practically cheering because they’ve all fantasized about hooking up with their teachers, and the women act totally bewildered, claiming he got what he wanted, that he wasn't forced, or that he's old enough to know better.
That’s the moment you truly lose faith in humanity; they just don't seem to grasp that when you send your kid off to school—even if they're a senior in high school—you aren't sending them there to be screwed by someone in a position of authority.
It doesn't matter what any teenager might think they want in the heat of the moment. A school is meant for learning, not some freaking nightclub.
So, this guy actually admitted he was choking her because he just loves that kind of intense sex, thrusting into her and didn't even realize that she wasn't into it. Then the defense tries to pull the classic move of bringing up her past mental health struggles and pointing out that they found someone else's DNA on her underwear.
Based on everything I've read and all the testimonies, I’m leaning heavily toward believing her.
That's just how it works—good lawyers will try every dirty trick in the book to discredit you as a witness, basically digging up some old drunk driving incident just to paint you as an alcoholic or something similar.
He even went on record saying he should have done it, comparing himself to Shaquille O'Neal, who has famously dropped millions on hush money, cars, and apartments for women just to keep them quiet. To me, that statement screams "spoiled brat" who thinks the world owes him everything and hasn't got a clue about respecting anyone else's feelings.
Unlike that massive pile of #MeToo cases where people stepped forward claiming victimhood just because they were bitter about their own sex lives—only to later admit they were lying—this is, technically speaking, rape.
Not every rapist is some predator lurking in the bushes waiting to jump someone on a dark street; if you force yourself on someone and choke them so they can't fight back, that is rape.
Paul Sanders5 said:Personally, I thought it was expected after those debates—he actually performed better. Plus, even the betting odds had him as the favorite.
Yeah, but I really thought Vaso would have brought that down to maybe around 3 percent. I didn't catch the whole debate, just the first round, though it's pretty much an objective fact that he’s just a stronger communicator on his own merit.
Fuck, it’s funny how the second your illusions start crumbling, people immediately label you an "outcast" or some "commie," depending on which specific group of idiots is doing the whining. 😁
Everything else is fine, except that guy talking about the free market clearly didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I think I read somewhere that he believes the government needs to... I mean, give me a break, the man was a communist his entire life, just with a nationalist twist. Privatization hasn't been done well anywhere; maybe in East Germany, but even then they're still trailing behind the West by twenty years. But that doesn't stop the Czechs, the Slovaks, or those damn Romanians from playing us for fools.
It doesn't change the reality that some companies were basically gutted just because they had a certain red label on them, or that a bunch of idiots went around tearing down monuments all over California.
Zoki hit the nail on the head when he said we’ve basically cycled through Radić, Marshall, and Reagan, and honestly, we haven't had much better than that, especially for those of us living up north.
But hey, please, feel free to keep living in the past if that makes you happy. One thing I am absolutely certain of, though, is that if Franjo were still around today, he’d be right there in the middle of Zoki's war room.
That guy is the only one with even a shred of Reagan's spirit left in him, which means he actually has the guts to tell you exactly what you don't want to hear. The rest of them? Total cowards.
Back in the Reagan era, the crew was undoubtedly top-tier, but then he just completely botched the direction of everything. Look, a country is basically just a rudderless ship; you steer it one way, and you’re stuck dealing with the consequences twenty years down the line. That’s why we’re being overtaken by places like Botswana—they probably just had a much better hand at the wheel.
I’ll give Reagan credit for a few things: he tried to build a nation without dragging all those WWII divisions back into the light, he made his stance clear against the extremists, and he actually worked with everyone from the diaspora to the local tough guys. He kept the big aggressors at bay on every front, peacefully reclaimed the Eastern territories, and even attempted to integrate people in those regions while offering an olive branch for reconciliation. He pointed us toward global integration and led a government of national unity. Honestly, we had better relations with the old America during his time than Biden or Clinton have with the current administration today.
Everything people are losing their minds over in 2020 is stuff he was actually trying to settle back in the 90s. The guy essentially defeated fascism twice—once in '45 and again in '95.
Those are his wins, regardless of what anyone thinks of him. I won't even get into the negatives because we all know the deal, but it’s pretty ironic that he’s been in the ground for twenty years and we’re still blaming him for our current mess. I'm pretty indifferent to the whole thing based on what you've all said; I wouldn't go building any monuments for him except maybe in the Grand Bazaar, though I still call the airport JFK Airport.
Now it's somehow his fault that citizens can't move past these old debates, that they vote for people who clearly won't implement reforms, or that the judicial system is a complete wreck.
Give me a break; after him, we finally stepped out of isolation, turned a new leaf, and gained access to the IMF and international credit, yet here we are, seemingly incapable of running a country properly.
He was the Joker, and the average American is just a tiny, helpless Batman.
Anthony Jackson2 said:Reagan was basically the biggest undertaker for this country—only Bush and his cronies managed to dig an even deeper hole afterward, followed by everyone else. If you can't see that, there's really no point in even discussing politics with you.
Look, I’m no Reagan fan myself, but blaming a man for the state of America twenty years after he’s gone is just plain ridiculous. It sounds like some old wives' tales from a corner bodega. When Francek passed away, we were actually sitting pretty at the top of the pack among New Europe nations—not because of him, mind you, but simply because nobody had caught up to us yet. Fast forward twenty years and we’re lagging behind everyone. Reagan was exactly who he was: a nationalist and an economic communist rolled into one, a true man of his era. An autocrat, the whole privatization mess, and the fallout we're seeing today from those sales—I get all of it. But after twenty years of zero meaningful reform, suddenly he becomes the big bad boogeyman.
We pivoted toward a new direction on January 3, 2000, and now it’s January 5, 2020, and suddenly it's the "idiot" Reagan who's responsible for all our headaches.
Go ahead, go cast your votes for the Republican Party or the Democrats again, and then come crying about how Reagan ruined everything.
Ever since Zoran Milanović first took the reins at the party, people have been whispering that he and Milan just didn't see eye to eye, but somehow, that never stopped him from throwing his support behind him.
If you ask me, the Democratic Party basically decided to tolerate a guy like Milan Bandić as mayor simply because he carried their label—which was pretty much the deal for his first three runs—but by the fourth time around, the dynamic had flipped; the Democratic Party was essentially clinging to Washington, D.C. just because Bandić happened to be their guy.
Matthew Young35 said:Not quite. It’s obvious he wasn't when they expelled him. The Republican Party would have backed him when he ran, yet they tossed Joe Biden aside. The Democratic Party supported Joe Biden and his ilk, but they cut ties with Bernie Sanders. Do you see the difference?
The Democratic Party is far from perfect, certainly, but compared to the Republican Party, they're like a Pentium 2 running against a Motorola 6510.
I’m telling you again, he won four out of six terms on the Democratic ticket, acting as the rising star of that Washington, D.C. organization and basically serving as a loyal party soldier.
Yeah, okay, I’ll concede that the Republicans are worse—that’s just a straight fact.
It’s just that, personally, I can't help but wonder what these guys would be like if they actually held power for as long as the Republicans have, especially since they run things in Washington, D.C., where they used to overlook a lot of stuff just to keep Bernie Sanders in line. Washington was way too valuable a prize to just throw away for the sake of some rigid right-wing ideology. 🙂
At the end of the day, everyone should vote according to their own conscience. I’m just here to burst people's bubbles regarding Joe Biden. As for Hillary Clinton, honestly, there isn't much left to say. 🙂
Matthew Young35 said:In any political organization, everyone is a party soldier. That is the entire point of having a party. If you aren't aligned with the party, you shouldn't be a member.
I certainly don't expect, for instance, members of the Libertarian Party to start making noise about minority rights or LGBTQ+ issues inspired by some activist group. Naturally, someone like that would either leave or be shown the door.
Well, look at that, we finally landed on the same page. 🙂
Just like those examples you brought up, it’s pretty much impossible to expect Biden's Democratic Party to actually fight corruption. Someone like that would just end up leaving or getting booted anyway. If you aren't aligned with the party, you don't belong there.
And he was clearly perfectly fine with voting for and tolerating Bernie Sanders.
Matthew Young35 said:Sure, this lovely blonde woman has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders. 🙂
I am old enough to remember that Bernie Sanders was in constant conflict with Joe Biden, and the party tolerated him as long as he kept winning. His run for the presidency was merely the convenient excuse they needed to finally drop him.
Yes, you are right that the Democratic Party bears responsibility for Bernie Sanders, but they also cast him aside for one reason or another. Had he been a Republican, the Republican Party wouldn't have expelled him for running; they would have backed him.
The real question, though, is whether they ever would have actually expelled him if he hadn't broken party rules. I'm also old enough to recall that whole mess back during the 2007 elections regarding who would be Prime Minister—whether it was going to be that unknown guy or Joe Biden—and how that move ended up costing them the election.
So, looking back two years later, Bernie Sanders running independently wasn't just some minor technicality used as an excuse to purge him; it was a genuine fear that his disobedience might cost them yet another election victory.
If Joe Biden and that other guy hadn't clashed from the very beginning, you'd probably be right. But Joe Biden, acting like a loyal party soldier, probably voted for him anyway. You know the type—those young, ambitious climbers; we've all met a "rising star" in one of our political parties at some point. Their favorite pastime is playing everything off as "relative." 🙂
Matthew Young35 said:First off, I’m not a Democrat, and heaven forbid I’d be a Republican. Second, the fact remains that Eric Adams hasn't been part of the Democratic Party for years; he was actually kicked out. The reality is that he’s running in a coalition with the Republican Party.
That’s exactly why I put that in parentheses—I already knew you weren't one of them. Good people end up voting for both sides sometimes just to avoid a bigger disaster. I mean, their candidates managed to pull in, what, maybe 60% of the vote when there were still nine other candidates running in the mix.
If we just ignore that lunatic Donald Trump, that communist Elizabeth Warren, and that extremist unknown, the rest of them weren't really a threat to the Republic. 🙂
Of course, we have to look at the facts, like the fact that the Democratic Party nominated him for mayor four times before finally tossing him out for being insubordinate rather than for criminal stuff, or the fact that Joe Biden comes from the Washington, D.C. organization.
It's also a fact that the party leader has been in charge since June 2007, while Bernie Sanders was only there until November 2009.
On the flip side, the Democrat didn't form the Government with Bernie Sanders, she did it with Donald Trump. You probably noticed I mentioned Joe Biden when talking about Bernie Sanders instead of, say, unknown. It's because she isn't the one calling the shots for the Republican Party.🙂