dusa
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 555
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Post by dusa on Nov 10, 2020 11:39:31 GMT -5
I think after long consideration, and thinking about our kiddos more than ourselves, we are starting the process of moving to Germany by summer of 22.
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Post by hatoflords on Nov 10, 2020 11:52:19 GMT -5
I think after long consideration, and thinking about our kiddos more than ourselves, we are starting the process of moving to Germany by summer of 22. I can't blame you.
What is Germany's political situation right now? I don't honestly know, but I did read an article earlier this year about how they had to disband an entire special forces unit for being secret Nazis with NCOs who were fantasizing about overthrowing the government. It's one of the things for me about the whole 'move to another country' thing, cause it's hard for me to tell if other nations are really in any better a place than the US right now when it comes to dangerous flirtations with fascism. Especially English speaking countries. The UK is kind of cluster the last decade right along with us and Canada seems primed to have it's own problems with the radical right soon. The only English speaking country that doesn't seem to be going tits up is New Zealand XD
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Post by tannhauser42 on Nov 10, 2020 12:34:04 GMT -5
Yeah, I wish I had enough money to go live in my own hobbit hole in New Zealand.
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Post by hatoflords on Nov 10, 2020 12:37:49 GMT -5
On the bright side, during arguments today both Roberts and Kavanaugh were vocally skeptical of the arguments against the ACA. Kavanaugh actually said that he didn't buy the argument for striking down the entire law and thought it was a clear precedent case that only the individual mandate should be struck down (which wouldn't even matter since there's no penalty for not meeting it). This would be very good news, as the radical end of what the Republican AG's bringing the case would propose is that any law where even a single part were struck down means the entire law should be struck down. It's scary how that argument was upheld all the way to SCOTUS through a series of Republican appointees. Upholding such an interpretation would be an unmitigated disaster, single handedly setting the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the National Firearms Act, and almost everything relating to immigration law in the cross hairs for judicial tear down. A standard where not a single line gets declared unconstitutional would effectively paralyze congress permanently, handing all real power to the executive branch.
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dusa
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 555
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Post by dusa on Nov 10, 2020 16:08:32 GMT -5
Germany does have its own issues, with the AfD coming and (now) slowly fading a bit again.
The special forces unit is/was a bad sign, but the reality is that with Oathkeepers and other groups here the number of much more excessive in the US. And unlike the US, where they wouldn’t have done shit about it, the cops are now gone. And even the racist/supremacist German cops that do exist, they don’t gun people down in the streets and execute people for shoplifting.
We are looking through our options. I have enough active duty time now to make full use of my GI Bill. So while nursing itself isn’t a great career field in Germany, I have enough specialized experience where I have a shot to get into bio tech or pharma over there. And if we’re gonna be poor for a while, there are worse places to be poor than Germany. And I’m applying to use my benefit to get a free MBA before we move to make myself more marketable over there. Initially the plan was to split the GI bill between each kiddo and give them each 2 years, but the more I think about it the fact that I have to do 12 years active duty to give the kiddos a couple years of free college before they get into lifelong debt is part of the bullshit we would be leaving behind. They have full German citizenship, so they can make use of the German education system. So I have a good shot at making a decent career over there, but even if I end up giving up a military retirement and a solid career over here I think I would be okay with it. Worst case scenario I end up as a cashier at Aldi, have decent work benefits, good health insurance, guaranteed paid vacations, and I will have given my kids a shot at growing up in a better system.
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Post by Least censored on the planet! on Nov 10, 2020 17:12:12 GMT -5
No lie dusa, I'm impressed at your courage and esprit d'initiative. This isn't an easy decision to make, and this isn't an easy thing to do.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2020 17:50:49 GMT -5
Why would they not refuse? EDIT again: "McQuisling" might be the best thing to come out of my autocorrect all year. Agreed!
As to why they would not refuse, if they're not looking at running again, Ambassador pays more than rank and File senators make (a lot more, depending on where you're stationed), and they'll be able to keep more of it. An Ambassador can, in theory, make as much as the Vice President, before other compensation, and has much lower costs.
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Post by semipotentwalrus on Nov 10, 2020 18:32:33 GMT -5
You know, I'm starting to think that the whole "poor person's idea of a rich person" that got applied to Trump is in a sense true of the US as a whole; it is a poor person's idea of a prosperous country. Always has been, right from the start.
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Post by Emblematic Wolfblade on Nov 10, 2020 18:59:26 GMT -5
Whoopsie, that's uh... not correct.
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Post by theauldgrump on Nov 10, 2020 19:11:18 GMT -5
This came up on Quora - and I feel the need to share. A thanks to Steve Drost over on Quora. The Auld Grump
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Post by hatoflords on Nov 10, 2020 22:06:03 GMT -5
Whoopsie, that's uh... not correct. In what way? It seems like she's saying that a margin of a few hundred is where an election can flip on a recount, which isn't inaccurate. Even then, the biggest difference a recount has ever made in a US election is 2,578 in 2018 in Florida's governor race and that number is a bizarre outlier where recounts more often only move 2-300 votes. Even in the tightest races of this election, it is incredibly unlikely any recounts will cause a flip and several states are out of recount range (MI and PA, example).
EDIT: Oh wait. 538. Duh.
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Post by Emblematic Wolfblade on Nov 10, 2020 22:20:43 GMT -5
Yeah. It's not about the margin per-say but why 538 is named 538.
Also her tweet following this right afterward states that Bush's lead over Gore was 537.
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Post by Emblematic Wolfblade on Nov 10, 2020 23:09:34 GMT -5
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Post by steelmage99 on Nov 11, 2020 0:38:39 GMT -5
538 is the total number of seats in Congress, right?
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Post by theauldgrump on Nov 11, 2020 1:15:09 GMT -5
I think after long consideration, and thinking about our kiddos more than ourselves, we are starting the process of moving to Germany by summer of 22. I am sorry that our nation will lose you.
We need all the help we can get, backing away from the brink, but your kiddos are your first priority.
If Trump had won, my wife and I had been pricing housing in Nova Scotia.
The Auld Grump
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