I completed a bucket list item last week with my first flight during AirVenture, and did it in our CAF Wisconsin Wing's Fairchild PT-26 Cornell.  I picked the right days to get in and out, so the approach was a piece of cake. I even got a straight in for runway 9.  After flying the Fisk with the extreme visibility of a Warbird,  I'm pretty confident I won't be flying it in a Cessna any time soon. What a blast.

During lunch today President Trump requested Russian Dressing on his salad.

Tomorrow the head White House Chef will be called to testify in front of congress.  Obviously more collusion!

Fascinating thread. It is hard to imagine in this high tech world that a developed country could be kept so insular.

Why is it so hard to imagine.  Even in this country, the press has half the country believing in the superiority of socialism.

I prefer boobs.
Preferably real, natural boobs.  But boobs are where it's at.

If I can see them or touch, they are real to me.

Personally I'm more upset by his obsession with voter fraud and some of the other allegations of dubious veracity that he has made both before and since taking office. Sometimes our president seems to have only a tenuous grasp on reality, and that's a scary thought. But I agree with the OP that this latest tempest in a teapot is something of a national embarrassment. Seems several Republican senators agree that Trump needs to stay away from Twitter. He's not helping the country's image, nor his party, nor frankly himself.

We lived through 8 years of a national embarrassment called Barack Obama.  We watched him, a total amateur sit in the WH making law via executive action, ignoring laws and ramming the worse piece of legislation down our collective throats.  We watched him let Americans die for political expediency, drone attack other Americans who were due process of law under the constitution, run guns to Mexico in order to promote gun control here, cut back room deals with the Iranians, cut another deal that funneled money to Castro's military, etc, etc, etc. 

I'll take Trump over Obama every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Let the bed wetting crybaby liberals keep crying over his tweets. 

Whenever I see a Gerhardt post now, this comes to mind:

I would be in favor of SOME govt funded health care. But we all know it's the camel's nose scenario all over again. Just like with SS. First - SS just paid a part of one's retirement income. In fact, it was designed as 'Supplemental Security' to supplement the workers retirement because many large companies still offered retirement packages which were funded by the company. Law of unintended consequence. Since the major employers now saw that the fedguv was offering retirement income - what do you suppose they did? Sure, they got rid of, or scaled back their own retirement payments. Apply this logic to health care and lets say we want to offer ONLY well-baby care to expectant mothers. Everything is going along fine, well-baby care is doing it's job and the feds are picking up the tab. For the long term we are reducing the strain on health care because a healthy baby grows into a more healthy adult. Makes perfect sense.

You know what happens. The moment a liberal senator or HR member hears that a well-baby exam has turned up a problem in utero, and there's some serious problem with the baby, and the mother won't consider abortion, the hand wringing and finger pointing will start. 'Congress refuses to care for pregnant mother who just wants a healthy baby!' the headline will scream. Who could vote against extending well-baby care to unwell-baby care? What could anyone say against having unhealthy babies made healthy on the govt dime? And so it begins.

This is the mantra of universal healthcare. That it's better to treat the patient early, and keep them from getting to a serious stage later. More cost effective. Well guess what. People get old, people get sicker, people have complex medical problems, and people die. To our 85YO patient with a serious cancer problem. Maybe they want to pay to be treated. Maybe they don't want to pay, maybe they have been paying private insurance for 50 years, and will stick the insurer with the bill. No where in that sentence is the fedguv even mentioned, or needed. Universal health care - all those decisions are taken out of the hands of the patient and the MDs who will treat him, and given to a hack with a quota to meet; 'well, sorry but we only have $30 BILLION in the account for that kind of cancer treatment, so you'll just have to wait until next Sept when the budget comes out. Maybe then we'll be able to treat your stage 4 cancer. Yeah, uh-huh, well buh-bye, and we'll call you, really we will.' Alternatively, there really will be no death panels. Maybe that's all a myth and everything will be fully funded all the time. So the old guy gets his cancer treatment, and the well baby clinics do a great business, and I can go in and have the wax removed from my ears for free($25 copay), and all is right with the world. Price tag? Oh no, oh you don't want to hear that. It's all part of the RIGHTS of the people.

It's happening as I write this; https://www.yahoo.com/news/cbo-likely-say-millions-lose-coverage-senate-health-care-bill-215135603.html

'millions will lose health coverage under GOP bill'. Uh - the majority of them can have all the health coverage they can and will pay for. What they will LOSE is me and you, and other taxpayers picking up their insurance premiums. Hey - I know, I'll just start sending all my insurance premiums to the fedguv. Let them write the check. After all, it's free money right? No one has to work and pay taxes. The govt just fires up the press and prints more. What could go wrong?

Now that's "Gun Control" I can get behind!