There have been many organized protests against Trump since he took office. I’m not sure how much press they’ve received outside the US. Though many still support him because they are indoctrinated into the MAGA cult, I would say that most (over half) of Americans are against the war for a variety of reasons.

The problem is that there is not much we can do in the short term to create change. Our system of government does not have an effective means to recall a leader.

The threat of legal action does little to deter this administration. For one thing, it’s slow. For another, they’ve shown that they can and will ignore court orders and this far don’t suffer any consequences. Finally, the administration has done as much as possible to install loyalists and remove honest people in every part of government, including the legal system.

Impeachment is a joke. Even if the process was started again, Republicans in the Senate would never convict one of their own.

So the average citizen doesn’t approve of what is happening but don’t see any effective means to change. It’s a very helpless feeling. Many disgruntled communities have been able to create some change in their local government but even changing political parties is not real change. We still have 2 right wing parties bought by special interests. I think many of us just try to do good where we can in our own sphere of influence.

Is this epic fury?

Fellow Eagle Scout here. I’m so glad my son dropped out last year so he doesn’t have to deal with this bullshit. It’s so embarrassing to see them cave on their principles when tested

Actually they kept girls in. What they caved on was they removed a merit badge that was specifically created in the wake of BLM to teach Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They are now going to have a military service merit badge.

It’s still bad, just not the specific kind of bad you were thinking.

Depression is a label used to describe a combination of symptoms, but the cause of this combination can differ from person to person. That’s why in some cases meds and exercise might not help. Unfortunately there’s just still a lot we don’t know about the different causes.

I can’t see the timestamps, in my client it just shows both comments as having appeared 7h ago. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that somewhere in the minutes before I wrote my response you did post a comment with evidence in response to another comment. Whoops, my bad. I could have looked harder before assuming that the evidence wasn’t there. Not that hard.

Will you also acknowledge that generally speaking, to post a claim and then post the evidence to said claim in reply to a comment instead of in the original post is poor form and that the reader should not be expected to dig through comments to find evidence of a claim? Because I haven’t seen you do that anywhere.

You included the new proof after I wrote this. You know you didn’t include any proof at the beginning of the conversation. Why not just own it?

He may well be but you didn’t provide any proof of that. Do you see the problem?

So the purity test is now that if an advisor’s dad did something wrong then we should not accept them. Got it.

I don’t think it was him. Definitely not confirmed

Is this a recent change? I got out about a year ago and up til then the training was clear that different sites were required

They are supposed to be in separate sites, though many troops have always skirted rules in scouting

Just going to comment here to avoid some misconceptions. Apologies for the long comment. Tl;Dr, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are not part of the same parent organization.

Scouting America is basically a rebrand for Boy Scouts of America. The rebrand happened when they began to admit girls into the program, like 8 years ago or do. Many people get confused thinking that Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts USA are partner organizations when they are not. They are two independent programs with different missions and values. For example, Boy Scouts has maintained Declaration of Religious Principle which requires to members to sign an agreement that states that they believe in some sort of higher power. They also include a Duty to God in their Scout Oath. Girl Scouts on the other hand is a secular organization that does not require a belief in any higher power but does encourage members to explore their own faith if they have one.

The decision for BSA to admit girls was a controversial one even within the organization, but their numbers have been flagging for a while and they felt that allowing girls in would help. There was also a more progressive wing within the organization that recognized how discriminatory this was and wanted to reform the organization. Joining Boy Scouts, with an organizational emphasis on nature, citizenship, and skill mastery, would be a different experience for girls than Girl Scouts, which allows troops to pick for themselves what they want to focus on to develop leadership and confidence and often doesn’t include camping at all. Many girls joined Girl Scouts expecting it to have the same focus as Boy Scouts, would be disappointed, and then drop out. This could give the Boy Scout experience to girls.

In order to make this happen, it was agreed that girls would have separate troops from boys. They could share resources but each troop would have their own youth and adult leaders and would need to camp in separate sites. It is not like they are sharing tents or anything like that.

So that’s why it is obvious to me that the Pentagon taking this stance is clearly regressive and just trying to be anti-woke and going after an easy target. The military is already coed, so why not give girls the same support and experiences that boys can have in Scouting? Its just another red flag that they want to prevent women from advancing in the military. They know that Scouting America is in a tough spot and thinks they can either get them to regress and tacitly endorse anti-wokeness or be made an example of.

There’s another recent change in Scouting America that was also controversial and seen as woke that the article doesn’t address. Following the George Floyd protests Scouting America came up with a new merit badge that would be required for any scout that wanted to reach the rank of Eagle: Citizenship in Society. This badge explicitly discusses racial injustice and teaches Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with conservative members and many left in protest (though many had already left when girls and gays were allowed). There have been a few different new organizations attempting to recapture the old school Boy Scout mentality with a doubled down emphasis on gender exclusivity, religion, and pure meritocracy without any regard to positions of privilege. They are growing and I suspect one will try to replace Scouting America as the youth organization of choice for the military.

As an American, 2020s and it’s not even close. The rise of Christian nationalism empowered by the Republican party has led to the loss of bodily autonomy and LGBTQ+ rights in red states. We have alienated our international allies. ICE has become Trump’s gestapo, literally ripping families apart and terrorizing cities. Blatant gerrymandering. Inflation is out of control. And we have a literal pedophile in office. I was born in the 80s and I can confidently say it has never been this bad in my lifetime. I am not even sure that we will have a fair election to begin to undo this damage.

Vibrate.

And if you have high density housing around it. There are rails that go barely used thanks to sprawl

Reports now coming in that it was their son, Nick. Tragic

The “sides” that the countries take is of secondary importance. Capital will benefit from any conflict, no matter what the stated sides are, and suffer minimally. That’s the true enemy

I recently went to one for the first time with my adolescent son. It was a blast!

We basically went in with the mentality of being curious and flexible. For example, we had the con schedule ahead of time and had highlighted some things we definitely wanted to do, but we left the door open for opportunities that might be more interesting.

The con had some things that were always accessible like an arcade with Japanese games, a board game library, etc. It also had things you had to sign up in advance for like if you wanted to do a DnD one shot. Some things you just had to show up on time for like hearing voice actor panels and some things you have to be on time AND pay extra for like autographs and photos with featured guests. I would say my biggest advice is to make a budget with some wiggle room and then stick to it. It’s very easy to overspend because there is a lot of cool merch.

Think ahead about food options. There was a vendor on site with limited options and some food trucks outside. But many attendees didn’t realize that showing your wrist and to restaurants in walking distance would get you discounts or free items. It pays to look at the convention program to see what deals are available. Bring a water bottle because they may not allow outside food or drinks, but most places will let you fill up at the water fountains.

Also think ahead about parking if your con isn’t near public transit. We had to pay something like $25 to park in a lot that was a block away because the on site parking was completely taken by the time we got there (an hour before the doors opened).

This year we just did a one day pass though the con itself is 3 days long. We did this because we had no idea what to expect and didn’t want to overcommit. We might do more next year but we will definitely do it again. If you do decide to do multiple days consider the extra costs for food, parking, merch, etc and plan accordingly.

Aside from that, I really wish we had cosplayed. We didn’t because my son was embarrassed to, but he regretted that when we got there and saw people of every age and gender in costumes of every level of quality. A cheap homemade costume will fit in as much as a pro cosplayer, especially if you put a spin on it like gender bending or a character in a different time period. Sometimes the intentionally terrible costumes were more popular than the super detailed ones!

Imagine a government holding corrupt officials accountable