Now go spend 32 hours cutting the corners off every piece of paper on the ship.

Frack!

Only it was never the theory either, the police has always been the violent enforcer of the state towards its own population.

The Coast Guard protects and serves people. Granted, it's usually people who don't know how sailboats work, but it's something at least.

I like your optimism, however misplaced..

I tried Mission BBQ one time and their jingoism was just absurd. Their notion of supporting the troops is delivering barbecue in a Hummer and selling $2 plastic cups with (some of) the proceeds going to veterans in some vague way. Of course their worst crime is that their barbecue sucks.

Military leadership in the U.S. has always traditionally leaned pro-U.S. If it came down to it there would be fewer Trump allies the higher up you go. Exceptions though, always exceptions.

Trying really hard to not draw parallels with that scene in Winter Soldier where it's announced that some agents are Hydra while some are SHIELD and they turn on one another.

No idea how it compares to the other branches. Would be an interesting question to run by one of those crazies who served in like all of them (one of the nurses I worked with in the AF then had previously been a Marine and soldier. I've had patients who claimed to have served in Marines, Army, Navy, and AF, but no way to tell of they're full of shit or insane enough to actually do that (the amount of paperwork that would translate to...).

Anyway, in AF med they'd hit us with the occasional "the lord willing" or something in official functions like change of command ceremonies or squadron "all-call"s, which was definitely crossed the line of what I'd consider acceptable (it should be 100% secular), but that's the extent of it. No down-throat-ism or pressure to convert or anything.

I have heard anecdotal evidence to this but cannot verify.

Yeah his scandal-per-day tactic seemed to work pretty well - keeping up with his bullshit is a full time job, and we literally don't have the mental realestate to keep track.

And it drives me nuts... almost all of those would be a career-ender for a normal politician, but Trump gets away with it again and again because by the time we've processed just how bad one thing is, he's commited 3 or 4 more.

Because the country would go bankrupt if everyone got what they deserve (with the way the budget is now)

Because the US is a "fuck you, I got mine" style country.

The whole no tax on tips is a bit of a head fake. You hear that and you think: "aw, that's nice. Wait staff will get more money". You're not thinking about the millions wall street gamblers get in bonuses will now be classified as tips. A better policy is for wait staff to be paid a living wage and paying staff is a cost of doing business.