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No, I would say its more like 19th century imperialism than a genocide. Does not make the invasion any less bad though as we don't want to return the world to how things were in the 19th century

     I think this is the key here. If this is a genocide then every war of conquest can be considered a genocide, which cheapens the term to a dangerous extent when it should be reserved for a certain class of exceedingly gruesome actions. I voted no because I don't think Russia's view of this conflict is consistent with the essentially 20th century worldview that one must adopt to see it as a genocide in the proper sense.

Not yet. But I'd say Lumine said it best if given the option for something besides yes or no for genocide.  The trajectory of what's going on and Putin's stated reason to Mr. Carlson still tip it to genocide in my eyes on a binary.

There should be an investigation into whether management coerced their actions.

I'd be looking at the state of Alabama itself, though I'm not sure what federal remedies are available against the state if that were the case.

The repeal of Section 14(b) of Taft-Hartley needs to be a top priority for the next Democratic trifecta.

What would happen if they started denying accounts to gun store owners?

Not sure what it's going to take for this to penetrate the outer membranes of your skull, but again: he was not fired for his political beliefs, he was fired for making offensive public statements inconsistent with the mission of his employer.
...

This.
He oddly labeled a huge segment of people as possible "racists, homophobes and bigots."
And then added additional nauseous wording to his tweet, to just make it very weird ("they want to control us").
Why would a large company want someone like this in their upper management team?

“What if, and hear me out on this one, it’s actually the progressives who are the racists, the homophobes and the bigots, and they just use those lables [sic] on the rest of us because all they really want to do is control us?”

The statements were not made while he was an employee.  That, to me, is highly relevant.  His position was not a political position, it was not public employment, and it was not a position like, say, law enforcement, where the very appearance of bias is something that can jeopardize one's credibility.

If we want to "go there", how long should it be before this year's Ivy League grads get their first professional job once people find out they were part of the "From the River to the Sea . . ." crowd?  Would it be right to assume the worst of these students and simply not hire them for their issues positions, even in positions that were not political or ideological? 

In a job like being the manager of First Avenue, the manager's politics should have nothing to do with it; only his conduct as an employee should matter. 

It dawns on me here that lots of people who are all in on this would be bent out of shape if a person of color were fired from a job after an old criminal arrest were discovered, even if it were a misdemeanor or a drug felony that was old and the person passed pre-employment drug screening.  Most people here would be upset; they would be going on and on about systemic racism and not wanting to give someone who's changed a chance because of their past.  And I generally agree with that, but you have a Forum full of people that would likely be upset if a person were fired from First Avenue for prior felony, but who are fine with firing this person who has committed no crime at all.

GOP no votes - Davidson, MTG, Massie
Dem yea votes - Cartwright, Craig, Cuellar, Davis, Frankel, MGP, Golden, Gottheimer, Landsman, Moskowitz, Pallone, Peltola, Scott, Soto, Suozzi, Torres

I understand most of the Democratic defectors on this vote (particularly in the NY area and FL), but I really don't understand the Blue Dogs. Is this really that salient of an issue in some of those districts? Or is it just an easy way for some of them to burnish their bipartisan credentials in tougher districts by voting against the President on a bill that will never become law?

It's pretty remarkable that for about three weeks, the governments in Westminster, Greater London, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland were all led by ethnic minority men.

[Yup. M.Divs are a requirement for (I think) most mainline denominations and the Catholic Church. It's definitely cheaper to become a pastor for a nondenominational one since there are obviously -- for better or worse -- no requirements.]

As mainline Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism fail to attract as many would-be priests and ministers, MDivs will decline.

A better question would be "Why is there a priest/minister shortage?" for these denominations, and there are plenty of good answers to that question.

Yup. M.Divs are a requirement for (I think) most mainline denominations and the Catholic Church. It's definitely cheaper to become a pastor for a nondenominational one since there are obviously -- for better or worse -- no requirements. And it's the nondenominational churches which are, of course, "growing" (or declining slower, to be more precise) in influence for American Christianity.

One has to wonder if eventually the mainline churches will discard M.Divs as a requirement, or replace it with a church-administered training program, in the future in order to make that vocation more attractive to candidates. Same with the Catholic Church, but I'm not as familiar with how strict the RCC is when it comes to degree requirements. But there is already a shortage of priests, at least for most of the West, and I don't see that problem going away soon.

Also, Catholic Seminary is technically free for seminarians, unless one is entering seminary from high school, so they would have to pay half of the costs in the undergrad seminary college portion, and then go into grad seminary part for free.

He and Kyle Rittenhouse will make a killer(wink, wink!) Republican ticket in 20 years. 

There's some ambiguity in the Rittenhouse case to where a jury found him not guilty. There's none in this case. Abbott is the worst of the worst as a human being in all of US politics.

Yeah, it’s a shame because the case blew up and became just another culture war thing.

     Realizing that Rittenhouse was in fact not guilty as charged really surprised me when it happened because it went hard against type for Atlas. Not a surprise that they reverted to their previous views on the topic once some time had passed.

Senile judge and anti-BLM jury that was always going to find him sympathetic.
Small comfort that the murderer looks to be doing nothing in his pathetic life with the second chance he didn't deserve.

     Judge if anything was too pro-prosecution, simply giving the prosecutor a scolding for trying to use Rittenhouse exercising his fundamental right to remain silent against him. Binger deserved to have the book thrown at him for that egregious display of prosecutorial misconduct.

Imagine actually feeling sorry for the UN

Yup. I used the like the UN and still think it's a good concept, but the last 20-25 years showed that it's not functioning the way it should. The Security Council at least should be reformed and veto powers be stripped.

What incentive would the US have to remain in the UN if the nonsense that other nations propose could not be stopped in the Security Council?

Americans view the UN as tax dollars down the drain, and a World Government Entity telling us what to do.  This is not a particularly sound viewpoint, but it would (rightfully) gain more traction if the US did not have its veto in the Security Council.

The US does not need the UN.  Nations that are truly civilized need the US in the UN.  If people find themselves cheering for what the results would be if the US lost its veto power in the UN Security Council, they need to really examine what there definitions of "Human Rights" are.  Our veto in the Security Council has helped keep the UN from being a form of the Tyrrany of the Majiority that the World would have to endure, although it would be sweet music to some of the worst actors in the World.

The UN is not the personal fiefdom of the US.

We contribute more to the UN than any other nation.

Netanyahu's hands get redder every time more of the hostages turn up dead. Not as red as Hamas's, at least not in this particular way, but redder.

He can't leave soon enough, but I'm not convinced that Hamas didn't just kill the remaining hostages after the first cease-fire broke down.

Agreed, I think that’s pretty likely