kbroly
kbroly
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kbroly · 6 years ago
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Why Not to Buy from These Game Companies
Electronic Arts (EA):  They’re the worst company in the industry. They focus on loot boxes (aka “surprise mechanics” aka “GAMBLING”) to make their money these days.  All of their games are live service timesinks, are unfun, and more often than not yearly or bi-yearly iterations on the previous title (FIFA, Madden, NHL, NBA, Battlefield, etc.)  If you’re buying a game from EA, you should stop and reconsider what you’re doing.
Activision:  What do they offer besides Call of Duty anymore?  Spyro and Crash are making a comeback, but it’s clear they intend to monetize the hell out of them months after launch for no reason.  They’re out of licensed games, and frankly, out of developers, working Treyarch to the bone on 3 COD games in 4 years.  Yeesh.  Oh, right.  They have Blizzard.  I’m not sure if Blizzard started the microtransaction chicken and egg situation with this company, but Overwatch isn’t fun, Hearthstone is stale, and they had to create retro servers to get people to come back.  Oh, and that mobile Diablo game being announced in front of their most diehard fans and insulting them like the out of touch idiots they are.  What a joke.
2K and Warner Bros.:  I put these together because I’m not sure how to tackle them.  They don’t seem to publish many games, but the ones that do always seem to piss people off somehow, except WB’s Lego games.  Probably because they’re marketed specifically towards children and adding loot boxes, I’m sorry, SURPRISE MECHANICS, would be bad for them. As for 2K, it’s really Rockstar people care about and I think they could sell a game that doesn’t boot for 3 months and still sell 30 million copies at this point.  Their games are not fun, overhyped and they treat their workers worse than China does.
Bethesda:  Speaking of broken games, ta-da!  Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Prey, Rage, now even retro Doom.  Bethesda’s not into the whole ‘quality assurance’ thing because they just pawn it off onto their fans.  Don’t do their dirty work, and don’t buy their games.
Ubisoft:  The Diet Coke of the Gaming Industry’s shit.  They don’t do anything particularly shitty that anyone else on this list doesn’t do, but they clean it up to make it seem like they’re the good guys in all of this.  I guess when you make games in 40 different countries (or whatever it is, it’s a lot) you can better realize what works as universal PR.  It doesn’t make them any less terrible, though.
Capcom:  They have a pretty mean vindictive streak if you know what the telltale signs are.  It’s obvious they have a vendetta against Nintendo and its’ fans.  Instead of putting retro collections on a single cart/disc of slightly bigger size, they require you to download the rest to save them two cents on the dollar by not having to program something in half of a day.  You can see it in their fighting games by making their main fighting game an online only experience.  You can see it towards PC players by implementing insane DRM requirements, as well as hitting the platform months after release in certain cases.
Square Enix:  If you’re not on Playstation, they mean nothing to you.  They won’t even publish some of their games overeseas, requiring certain manufacturers to completely pickup the tab.  Even if they succeed, they’ll drop the ball and let the momentum for it wither up and die, only to half-ass it again in a decade and then give up entirely, blaming “tastes” instead of themselves (Dragon Quest).  They also don’t handle their IP’s well, taking a decade plus to deliver a mediocre product on what fans waited on for a long time (Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3).  But they bought Eidos and let them run amock with overpriced garbage that looks second rate and a generation behind.
Bandai Namco:  They’re just cookie cutter the majority of the time.  They deliver what you expect, and not really much more.  As a company, they’re completely unremarkable to an amazing degree despite everyone knowing they can do a hell of a lot better.
Microsoft:  Their strategy is multiplatform and services.  Their reach is as small as ever, and until they show something remarkable, it’ll only continue to get smaller.  They have Minecraft, but they haven’t really put their finger on the scale with it yet; or they’ve been really good at hiding it.  So it’s almost like they don’t control it.  Beyond that, they’re making it really easy to not want people to buy an Xbox.
Sony:  They’re Arrogant.  Some may say that Arrogant Sony is back, but the reality is they never left.  It’s in their DNA, people.  Their games drop to $20 fairly quickly and have for a long time.  Additionally, their games aren’t worth playing a couple years after the come out, as they become either dated graphically or the controls and mechanics aren’t as good as you remember them being (Uncharted, the Last of Us).
Nintendo:  They’re either completely inept or intentionally obtuse, refusing to give fans what they expect.  Good online multiplayer (Smash Bros. and Super Mario Maker 2) are a unicorn for them.  They miss basic features on their systems.  But the biggest of all is that it feels like fans have to fight them to get what they need sometimes.  King K. Rool and Ridley in Smash Bros. felt like a fight had to happen.  Earthbound on Virtual Console was just this jaw-dropping moment of rumors not being true while the reality is much more stupid.  One has to wonder how far this mindset permeates with other franchises, particularly Paper Mario, F-Zero and Metroid.
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kbroly · 6 years ago
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Some E3 2019 Thoughts
EA:  Was Terrible
Ubisoft:  Was terrible, except for Watch Dogs Legion, only because you could play as an old lady and that’s really funny
Bethesda:  Just give everyone Doom Eternal and sit down, please.
Microsoft:  PSO2 coming to the west was probably the biggest surprise highlight aside from Keanu Reeves being in Cyberpunk 2077, a third party game.  But I’m honestly not interested.  CD Projekt Red makes good games, I’m just not interested in them.  From Microsoft new first party studios, it doesn’t seem like their games are going to deviate from being live service games, which is a terrible move IMO.  Gears 5 just looks bad.  Halo Infinite needs to show more, honestly.
Square Enix:  Final Fantasy 7 Remake looked like what it needed to be.  A few surprises like FF8 Remastered which looks to be a modest improvement over the original.  Avengers, however, looked disappointing, not only from a gameplay perspective, but visuals as well.  It looked ‘there’ and not much else.  It felt very much like they could care less about if it was good or not, because of the brand name.
Nintendo:  The highlight was Banjo-Kazooie coming to Smash Bros. Ultimate.  Yes, the Hero from Dragon Quest is coming and that’s really cool as well, but Banjo-Kazooie is a dream get for me.  They were my #2 most wanted character going into the base game, sandwiched between Ridley and Simon Belmont.  Now they’re all in.  Panzer Dragoon HD is an interesting get.  Animal Crossing’s delay is expected when looking at the calendar lineup, but at least we got a release date for it.  Breath of the Wild 2 looks like an interesting sequel that’ll expand on the first game’s lore/setup from a story perspective.  It also might have co-op play, but Link will be the main character with the new glow-y arm and all that it does.  Aside from Mario Maker 2, Mario was absent, as was Metroid.  Besides BotW2, Nintendo showed no new games that we didn’t already know about.
Pokemon:  Game Freak tried to gloss over they were screwing over long time fans of the series with Sword/Shield and Pokemon Home.  By paying for Home, you can transfer your Pokemon from Bank to it and play with them on your mobile phone, but only a few of them will be able to be transferred to Sword/Shield, meaning it might take years of players paying to be able to get all of their Pokemon out of it, otherwise they’ll lose their Pokemon.  This is known as a scam in the legal context.  No amount of ToS legalise can hide this.
Overall, besides Nintendo, a weak-ish E3.  Would Sony being there make much of a difference?  I doubt it.
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kbroly · 6 years ago
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Early May 2019 Thoughts
Avengers End Game:  Infinity War was better.
Chinese Tariffs going up from 10% to 25% in a few hours:  Given the actions by the Chinese Government over the past couple of weeks, as well as their ‘bad cop’ proxy in North Korea, which includes backing off of prior commitments to curb US IP infringement, this is what happens.  Despite what some short-sighted analysts want you believe, people won’t pay for stuff that immediately goes up 25% without a fight.  In turn, expect to see more ‘Made in India’ and ‘Made in Mexico’ stuff sooner than later, and given Congress’ inability to ratify trade new trade deals that other countries (Canada and Mexico) have already signed, expect a long, drawn out battle between the US, China, North Korea and the multinational lobbyists elected to Congress on both sides (Follow the money here, seriously) for the next two years.  But in regards to what consumers will feel:  Not much, especially what’s happened over the past year in regards to tariffs “hurting” our economy, especially compared to the rest of the world.
Gaming:  I bought DragonBall FighterZ.  A very easy to get into fighter.  The story mode I just don’t care for anymore, even as a Dragon Ball fan.  It’s just so slow and drawn out that I’m just skipping to the fights now.  The combat is fine, but I feel like while it does a good job of getting you into the flow of the game, it doesn’t do much to take you beyond that, which is unfortunate.  
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kbroly · 6 years ago
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Some Early 2019 Gaming Thoughts
Kingdom Hearts 3 was more or less what it should have been.  I think it had a bit too much Disney and not enough Final Fantasy, but it was alright.  The ending left me scratching my head a bit, as did quite a few story beats.
Resident Evil 2, the remake, was extremely solid.  If it were a new entry, and not re-imagining an old game, I’d probably put it as my Top Game of the Year.  As someone who loved the idea of RE5′s Lost Nightmares DLC, this is what I hoped to see from the series instead of RE6/7.
Devil May Cry 5 is extremely fun.  V starts off fun, but becomes a lot more technical later on.  Nero feels like the safe character, though.  I mean, easy to pick up and play, whereas Dante is for show-offs and experts of the series.  I gravitate more towards Dante than Nero, but both are extremely fun to play.  I don’t quite get the story, but I don’t think that’s the point.
I completely turned on the Epic Games Store.  I went from ‘okay, whatever’ at launch to ‘if they didn’t buy exclusives, no one would care’ after the Metro Last Light deal to ‘Nope, get that off my machine’ after it was discovered they dive into my Steam personal information without my permission every time I boot it up.  Now I can’t stand it, and I hope it fails hard.  While I hate that Outer Worlds is exclusive to it, as Obsidian is now a Microsoft studio, I feel either the W10 store is the better place to buy because the IP will be Microsoft exclusive in the future or I’ll just wait a year for the Steam release.  I hope Borderlands 3 releases on Steam day and date, because I’d hate to wait a year plus to play it, but I can.
Super Mario Maker 2 got announced, and I couldn’t be happier.  Astral Chains looks interesting.  Link’s Awakening HD is something I also can’t wait for.  Pokemon Sword and Shield looks like Pokemon, but the starters don’t particularly excite me right now.  Cadence of Hyrule is probably something I will buy, not really enjoy that much and never play again.  Kind of like Baba is You, which piqued my interest due to the eShop’s video of it, before melting my brain and making me feel completely idiotic in about 40 minutes.
2019′s started off pretty well for gaming, but I do think there were some snags early on that people will look back on and shake their head about. Not necessarily at the end of the year, but in a few years.
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kbroly · 7 years ago
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Fake News, Fake People and Depression
What is Fake News?  Fake News, to me, is misconstrued news, used to drive a narrative, emotion or create a wedge to push a political agenda.  I might be missing a few things on how to interpret it, but that’s how I see it.  Every Mainstream Media outlet, as well as some bigger Online Media outlets do this.  These are ABC, CNN, MS/NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Fox, CBS, Slate, Vox, Breitbart, etc.  It’s very rare these days to find news without some kind of slant or opinion to them.  This isn’t what News is supposed to be, yet it’s what it became because news organizations don’t think reality is “exciting” or “important” without “Gotcha!” or Clickbait headlines.  Then there’s the money angle.  News organizations don’t really make money, so they spice up stories to keep people “entertained” or “engaged,” not “informed.”
Fake people, who or what are they?  These are people who pretend to be who they’re not.  A good example would be a News Broadcaster, people who portray themselves as authorities on news and information.  In today’s reality, they are drivers of narrative, propaganda specialists.  These kind of people exist elsewhere, however.  They portray themselves as experts on world or legal affairs, movies, sports or other forms of entertainment.  Perhaps they proclaim to be an insider, but in reality they know nothing, and when challenged, can’t fight back other than engage in a complete hissy fit or engage others who listen to them to fight their battles for them.  These people are not admirable, nor are they leaders.  They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
But how does this lead to depression?  Well, when you can’t trust the news, or the people delivering it, or even interpreting, you have less and less avenues to turn to for help.  Soon you start asking yourself “Is anyone actually real anymore?”  and “what is real?  What is the truth?”  To be frank, these are the questions that I’ve begun to ask, and increasingly I’m finding more fake news and fake people than I knew existed.  The places I used to turn to in order to express these concerns are quickly closing up shop as they turn into mirages in the desert.  Soon, I fear, I will have no more places to look.
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kbroly · 7 years ago
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Champions
June 7, 2018 will forever be known as Washington Capitals Independence Day
That is all
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kbroly · 7 years ago
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The Capitals’ Final Challenge
One. Win. Away.
ONE.
One win away from ending the jokes, the heartbreak and the suffering of Washington Capitals Playoff Hockey.  Throughout the years, the Capitals have been the hard luck franchise of the NHL.  Their inaugural season spotted the worst record for an expansion team in League history, and while they’ve gone to the Playoffs many times before, they’ve only reached the third round three times, and the Stanley Cup Final once before now (In 1998, they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings).
In years’ recent, it was the Flyers, the Penguins, the Canadians, the Rangers and the Lightning that ended their path.  While the Rangers were a thorn in their side, they were not as big as the Penguins-sized one that the League highlights prominently with their League Superstar.  They started down 0-2 against Columbus this year, changed goalies, were a post hit away in Overtime from going down 0-3, but then they rattled off 4 in a row to advance.  Then they faced the Penguins, oh those Penguins yet again.  They started it by blowing a 2-0 lead in Game 1, only to lead it to a 2-2 tie after 4 games.  Then in Game 5 they were down going into the third, and they took over.  The heartache led to the anxiousness of Game 6 and then into Overtime, where years of torment finally ended.
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A surprising victory, to say the least.  Over the two-time defending Champions no less.  Both times they went through Washington to eventually win.  The Capitals were now visiting their first Eastern Conference Finals in twenty years.  While a quick 2-0 series lead on Tampa looked good, they quickly found themselves down 3-2, facing elimination at home.
But then the Capitals did the most un-Capitals thing ever.  They not only won in Games 6 and 7, but Shutout Tampa Bay in both games to advance to their second Stanley Cup Final ever.  But now one more demon emerged.  The goalie of those previous Penguins teams, Marc-Andre Fleury, who had led the Capitals opponents, the Vegas Golden Knights, through the Western Conference Playoffs like a hot knife through butter.  The best expansion team ever, making the Stanley Cup Finals, facing off against the team who owns the worst record in NHL history.  You couldn’t script it any better.
The Knights won Game 1, but were outplayed.  The Capitals bounced back and won Game 2, despite Evgeny Kuznetsov being injured in the game, forcing the Capitals to play more defensive in the third period, leading to this series-defining save.
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After that, the series moved to Washington for Games 3 and 4.  The Capitals won both games, and now lead the series 3 games to 1.  4 are required to win.  Was Marc-Andre Fleury the last demon the Capitals had to slay before winning the Stanley Cup?  Perhaps.  But this final demon, this final challenge, in typical video game fashion, has a second form, something the Capitals have not seen up to this point.
A 3 to 1 Series Lead in a Best of 7 Series.
What’s so bad about a 3 to 1 series lead in a Best of 7 you ask?  Surely the odds are in the Capitals favor, right?
If it were any other team, yes.  But the Capitals are the NHL’s Heartbreak Kings for a reason.  The Capitals have blown FIVE 3 to 1 series advantages in best of 7 series in their existence.  This number is greater than ALL North American Sports teams combined.  Not just the NHL, but the NBA and MLB.
For reference, in the Stanley Cup Finals, this feat has only been accomplished once when the Toronto Maple Leafs overcame an 0-3 deficit to beat the Detroit Red Wings in 1942.  Since then, when a 3-1 series lead has happened in the Finals, teams are 31-0.
Destiny Demands the Capitals overcome leading 3-1 to Win the Stanley Cup.
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kbroly · 7 years ago
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Punish Government, Don’t Reward It
Why should the Government, both on a state and federal level, be rewarded for its’ failures to those they serve?  Why should citizens be punished and restricted more for things they inherently are blameless about?
That’s the Second Amendment right now.  The FBI and Broward County Police failed to do their job multiple times, at multiple levels, and now demand more control over you.  Isn’t that wrong?  It’s like a coach taking his football team to an 0-16 season and then demanding he be made the General Manager.  It’s laughable and dangerous.
No one should be rewarded for their failures, and everyone in a similar position who are trying to take advantage of it are simply those who hate being in this country.  They’d rather be in a country where they were a dictator, couldn’t be overthrown, and could have you killed any time they wanted.  This is what the founders feared when the second amendment was added to the Bill of Rights.  They feared the Government enslaving the populous.  They put it in there to give the people a chance against totalitarianism, dictators, etc.
When the Government sits and smiles at you saying ‘gun control is good for you,’ they’re really saying “You’ll be happy under my thumb of power, I promise.”  The reality is you won’t.  Every single time it is tried, the people are miserable, poor and want to flee.  Government should be punished at every single turn.  It should never be rewarded.  Otherwise, the people will be the ones that are punished; and it won’t be pleasant.
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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Modifying my Old PC: The PSU
Since my last subject was on building new computers, I thought I’d revisit my first PC.  It’s not that old, but building this new PC put some things in perspective. Like how to identify problematic parts by sound, namely the Power Supply (PSU).  The PSU I got with my first PC has been one loud SOB, and I was told when I took this PC in for repair that it wasn’t suitable for my needs, i.e. gaming.  But that was over a year and a half ago.  Since then, I installed a new cooling fan for my PC, and now a new PSU.  It’s pretty cramped in this Mid-Tower now with its’ GTX 970.
So, anyway.  I got an EVGA-650 Supernova G3, which is fully modular.  Everything’s installed and running fine now.  So the results are very surprising.  The computer is now about 90% quieter overall, and it doesn’t go at full blast constantly, which is great.  I’m happy that I can now think once again while doing work on my PC.
But the biggest thing for me was the modular aspect, the customization (or lack thereof).  It’s not that clean, or simplified so to speak.  With my old PSU, the cables all came out of one spot.  Now they’re kinda strung out everywhere.  It wasn’t much of a problem getting them connected, as much as it was ‘where to put them.’  It’s something I’ll get used to, but I think this is due to a combination of it being a built PC, as well as a mid-tower instead of a full one.  I WILL NOT BE PUTTING THIS COMPUTER INTO A FULL TOWER.  If I build a new PC, it will be a Full Tower.  So overall, I’m happy with another hardware triumph.
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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Building PC Lessons: The 2nd One
I’ve now completed work on 2 PC’s in my life. Both having different cases, motherboards (mobo, as they call it), CPU’s, RAM and Power Supply’s (PSU’s).  So I thought I would share some wisdom and lessons I’ve learned, after just finishing my second one, about 3 years after finishing my first.
First off, the second time is a lot easier than the first.  The first one took me about 8 hours on day one and I went really slow trying to make sure I didn’t screw anything up.  The second time, it took me roughly 2 hours once I had all of the correct components, emphasis on “once I had.”  I’ll get to that later.
Second, it’s good that there are more cases out there today that build stand-offs onto the case itself. These are what you set your mobos on to separate them from the case itself.  It makes building the PC a lot easier.
Third, make sure you know what parts you’re getting.  With my first PC I went with an MSI motherboard, and i5 intel processor and DDR3 ram.  This time I went with an ASUS motherboard, an i5 intel processor and DDR3 ram initially.  So here’s where problems came in.  This motherboard only took DDR4 ram, so I had to send that ram back and get DDR4 ram.  When you don’t have a broad knowledge of building PC’s, you think ram is ram, and every set of connectors are the same. WRONG.  It cost me about $20 extra, but that’s not the worst part.  The worst part was having a CPU incompatible with the motherboard.  The CPU itself fit inside the mobo just fine, and everything got connected as well.  But it wouldn’t turn on.  After doing some research, I could fine no mention of problems with combinations between this CPU and the mobo I chose, leading me to re-check the mobo in question, making me realize that the mobo I had would not accept the CPU I had.  So this infuriated and depressed me, making me feel like a big loser.  So after getting a new mobo and swapping the CPU into it and the mobo into the case, everything worked after proper setup.  It was a giant relief to have it working after having so much trouble.
But then one last hiccup reared its’ ugly head, while it was small, it was still annoying.  Initially the PC would not produce video out until I put in a temporary GPU (which we’ve had for a few years to get an older PC running on Windows 10).  After getting it running, the PC ran video without the GPU just fine.  I’m not sure what happened, but I won’t complain, either.
Finally, Windows 10 doesn’t deal with Product Keys.  It now is tied to your Microsoft account, which I guess is a plus.
Overall, I learned a lot by building this new PC.  I have a lot more to learn, like why the Power Switch will work, but there’s no LED for it.  I guess I didn’t connect it right, but it’s the most minor of problems that I have for a job completed.
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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Divergence
The 2016 United States general election was viewed as a turning point, not only for the United States, but the world as well.  Donald Trump won and became the 45th President of the United States.  But some of those that lost felt that they had been dropped into some kind of parallel dimension, a multiverse so to speak, simply because their candidate had lost.  While I do not believe in theory of multiple universes, it definitely feels like we are now approaching another diverging point.
 The result of the 2016 election, looking back on it was a question of what to believe.  Did you believe what you saw, like on TV at Trump rallies?  Or did you believe what you heard, like polls and political commentary?  At the end of the day, what people saw conquered over what people heard.  The polls and pundits were wrong.  The reality of Trump getting tens of thousands of people at rallies across the country is what won the day.  But here we are, a little over halfway in 2017, and this idea that what we saw was wrong is still force fed to us daily, despite what most of the country, and perhaps the world believes.  The world sees an insane group of people trying to bring down a country by hook or by crook.  This group of people, while mostly stemming from one political party, clearly has tentacles in others.  They see the media twisting every single word in hopes that a proper narrative for their side comes to fruition.
 The people hear about how much trouble and chaos the White House of Donald Trump is in, yet can see progress, both in terms of lifting a country’s spirit, but regaining its’ wealth and reducing crime as well.  They hear about how upset President Trump is at Attorney General Sessions for his actions, but we see no action take place against him after months of crying foul.  Simply put, what we are seeing and hearing are not lining up.  We hear about the Elite Task Force assembled by Robert Mueller to take down a sitting President over rumor and innuendo, but the actions we’ve seen from him don’t indicate any wrongdoing on the part of the President, his family or campaign, at least yet.  We’ve heard of actions yes, but all of them so far have been turned away.  It makes one wonder what the Hell is going on. People are simply at wits’ end.
 What is the reality of the world today?  Is Trump really in that much of a panic?  Or is it so much noise that we can’t really see what’s going on behind the scenes? While we may not know not, it feels like we are about to hit another diverging point.  In one scenario, the US falls into chaos over actions the President takes, such as firing the Attorney General.  In the other, the enemies of the country are brought to justice after decades of criminality.  Time will tell if our eyes or our ears are what deceive us.
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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A Showdown for the Ages
When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016, it was a total rebuke of the Bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.  Trump ran on a platform that D.C. was corrupt, needed fixing, and should no longer be bought and paid for by the richest at the behest of millions struggling to make ends’ meat.  When inaugurated, the President continued this harsh tone, directly to the political elite in front of hundreds of thousands of people in our nations’ capitol. One could say that those in power didn’t take kindly to Trump’s words, not then, most certainly not on the campaign trail, and probably not now.  The Congressional bottleneck has stalled his legislative agenda to the point where he has no major victories yet.  Sure, he has a lot of minor ones as well as a few mid-tier ones, but nothing yet to hang his hat on has come across his desk.  What’s the specific hold up, you ask?  Healthcare; the repeal and replacing of Obamacare.
It was promised by Republicans for seven years since its’ implementation.  Considering the amount of repeals that they had shoved across Obama’s desk in that time led many to believe that it was going to happen quickly, but as we soon found out, the Republicans had betrayed their base, the people that elected them, into thinking those were real solutions.  In reality, they were hollow gestures to get people to vote for them.  They didn’t believe Donald Trump would become President, so when he won the Republicans were a day late and a dollar short on everything.  So, while they struggle to get the necessary votes, the increasing numbers for the stock market are becoming more volatile.  Without healthcare, they can’t get tax reform, and without that they can’t do a budget.  The country also has a major debt ceiling issue that will rear its’ ugly head near October that must be addressed.  Unfortunately, until this albatross is gone, the economy can’t recover properly either.  
The same was said in 2007 when the housing bubble burst, where Banks asked for a gigantic bailout to keep money flowing throughout the country.  Unfortunately, the House failed to pass the bill the first time voting for it, causing the DOW to drop 700 points in the rough span of 10 minutes. It was a shock to the system that shocked the country again when Congress passed it a week later unanimously, only to have it drop another 700-800 points each time a vote was put up in each chamber.  The fallout was that the market lost about 45% of its’ overall value in months before stabilizing and finally started to climb roughly a few years later.  While Healthcare is a major part of the economy, roughly 17%, it’s not controlling the flow of money, so any kind of failure to bail the insurance providers out would not cause that kind of a drop in value. At most, the market would drop 30% but it would take a year to do as Obamacare still has major pitfalls in Medicaid that haven’t reared its’ ugly head yet.  However, if the insurance providers were bailed out and the proverbial can kicked down the road, the same issue would arise then and there.
That is what faces President Donald Trump at this moment.  Will he turn his back on his campaign rhetoric that D.C. is broken and corrupt, passing a short-term legislative “win” for the sake of his legacy?  Or will he rebuke D.C. and force them to fix the issue here and now instead of letting the Swamp continue to grow moss and erode at him and our country?
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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A Showdown for the Ages
When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016, it was a total rebuke of the Bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.  Trump ran on a platform that D.C. was corrupt, needed fixing, and should no longer be bought and paid for by the richest at the behest of millions struggling to make ends’ meat.  When inaugurated, the President continued this harsh tone, directly to the political elite in front of hundreds of thousands of people in our nations’ capitol. One could say that those in power didn’t take kindly to Trump’s words, not then, most certainly not on the campaign trail, and probably not now.  The Congressional bottleneck has stalled his legislative agenda to the point where he has no major victories yet.  Sure, he has a lot of minor ones as well as a few mid-tier ones, but nothing yet to hang his hat on has come across his desk.  What’s the specific hold up, you ask?  Healthcare; the repeal and replacing of Obamacare.
 It was promised by Republicans for seven years since its’ implementation.  Considering the amount of repeals that they had shoved across Obama’s desk in that time led many to believe that it was going to happen quickly, but as we soon found out, the Republicans had betrayed their base, the people that elected them, into thinking those were real solutions.  In reality, they were hollow gestures to get people to vote for them.  They didn’t believe Donald Trump would become President, so when he won the Republicans were a day late and a dollar short on everything.  So, while they struggle to get the necessary votes, the increasing numbers for the stock market are becoming more volatile.  Without healthcare, they can’t get tax reform, and without that they can’t do a budget.  The country also has a major debt ceiling issue that will rear its’ ugly head near October that must be addressed.  Unfortunately, until this albatross is gone, the economy can’t recover properly either.  
 The same was said in 2007 when the housing bubble burst, where Banks asked for a gigantic bailout to keep money flowing throughout the country.  Unfortunately, the House failed to pass the bill the first time voting for it, causing the DOW to drop 700 points in the rough span of 10 minutes. It was a shock to the system that shocked the country again when Congress passed it a week later unanimously, only to have it drop another 700-800 points each time a vote was put up in each chamber.  The fallout was that the market lost about 45% of its’ overall value in months before stabilizing and finally started to climb roughly a few years later.  While Healthcare is a major part of the economy, roughly 17%, it’s not controlling the flow of money, so any kind of failure to bail the insurance providers out would not cause that kind of a drop in value. At most, the market would drop 30% but it would take a year to do as Obamacare still has major pitfalls in Medicaid that haven’t reared its’ ugly head yet.  However, if the insurance providers were bailed out and the proverbial can kicked down the road, the same issue would arise then and there.
 That is what faces President Donald Trump at this moment.  Will he turn his back on his campaign rhetoric that D.C. is broken and corrupt, passing a short-term legislative “win” for the sake of his legacy?  Or will he rebuke D.C. and force them to fix the issue here and now instead of letting the Swamp continue to grow moss and erode at him and our country?
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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Entitlement Reform
During the Campaign, Donald Trump said a very unpopular thing for a Republican to say.  He didn’t want to cut social benefits, but instead take care of the economy (jobs, taxes, etc.) because then the problem would solve itself.  He’s absolutely correct about this.  But why not go after entitlement reform first, you ask?  Well, as you’re seeing with healthcare now, it’s a numbers game, pure and simple.
 You can’t tell 24 million people ‘you can no longer get this thing you’ve gotten for years for free’ without consequences.  Whether it be healthcare, welfare or Medicaid, it’s just a bad move to make, and it’s something Republicans are petrified to do, yet they want to do it. So enter Donald Trump with an unpopular idea amongst Republicans last year:  Don’t touch it.  At least, not yet.  So what’s the President’s plan on this, exactly?
 Bring jobs back to the country.  What does this do?  It gets people OFF these welfare programs, which not only reduces federal spending, but takes pressure off lawmakers, preventing them from making necessary welfare benefit reforms.  For example, if you have 10 million people on welfare, and they take in $15,000 on average a year, that’s $150 billion annually spent on them from the Government. If you were able to cut that number down to 2 million people, you’re reducing welfare costs by $120 billion annually.  At this point, politicians have a lot less pressure on them to not make welfare program changes because the numbers have been reduced by so much.
 Donald Trump doesn’t start at the opening gate.  He starts at the finishing line.  Most people don’t see that, including those in Washington.  And while It’d be great if he got someone to do that for him, he wouldn’t be as effective in reaching the people he won the hearts and minds of. For entitlement reform, it can wait. Because bringing jobs back would solve most of the problem right there.
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kbroly · 8 years ago
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Trump and the Deep State
The tale of President Donald Trump and the CIA is a strange one.  If you asked me before the election and throughout the transition, I’d have said that they were his top enemy.  With years of nefarious activity such as spying on Congress and the rest of the country, along with leaking sensitive material to the Washington Post, it seemed that they would be a major obstacle for Trump coming into office. On the opposite side of the fence, you have the FBI, with Director James Comey seemingly coming to Trump’s aid with a last-minute letter to Congress, stating that the investigation had re-opened, sending everyone into a panic, only to close the case back up a mere 48 hours before the election.  With articles of headlines reading ‘the FBI is TRUMPLAND’ and the like, it seemed like they would be a crucial ally of the incoming President and his fight against the deep state.
 My how the tables have turned.
 When Trump was first inaugurated, his first visit was to the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, VA. He has yet to make a visit to FBI HQ. Additionally, it seems that the President has given extreme latitude to the CIA over drone strikes in Middle Eastern countries.  On the home front, it seems like the FBI is stuck on the Russian investigation that has so far turned fruitless.  Outside of that, you don’t hear much from them.  The questions have begun to mount over Director Comey’s partisanship after details emerged that the branch hired Christopher Steele, the infamous Trump dossier writer, at the same time the Clinton campaign had hired him to continue doing Opposition Research of Trump.  Thus far, Comey has refused to comment on the situation, even going so far as to cancel press conferences on the situation and now, according to Representative David Nunes of the House Intelligence Community, refusing to cooperate with their investigation into the matter.
 But here’s the kicker in all of this.
 Last week, Nunes received some, in his own words, disturbing intelligence reports which revealed the Trump transition team was spied on from November to January, that had little to no foreign intelligence value, had nothing to do with a criminal investigation and had nothing to do with the ongoing Russian investigation, which has been in effect since last July.  This is major, since any and all surveillance on Trump and his team during this time should be related to the Russian investigation, but is not.  This means that there appears to be ulterior motivations behind spying on Trump and his team.  It also calls the Russian investigation into serious question.  Additionally, this surveillance information, until Nunes was made aware of it, was not disclosed to Congress, which means it could potentially be illegal surveillance.
 While the CIA and NSA have agreed to cooperate with the Intelligence Committee on this matter, the FBI has refused to do so, prompting Nunes to call back in both Comey and Rogers to brief them on the details of this surveillance.  The fact that this information has been withheld until now is frightening, but now that it has come to light, for the FBI to not cooperate on the matter while other agencies do is damning for the FBI and their leadership. What does it mean?  No one knows yet, but a quick take is that the FBI is not, nor have they been Trump’s ally.  All of the talk we heard about them being in favor with Trump’s campaign was simply not true, and the Comey letter was not done to aid him in the final days of the campaign.  
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kbroly · 9 years ago
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Trump’s Inaugural Address
In 48 hours, the most important political speech of our time will be delivered.  In the morning hours of a political rebellion/revolution, its’ second victor, Donald J. Trump, will give the populist movement’s first victory speech.  It’s an extremely important speech for the worldwide movement to keep going.  If it falls flat, it means that elections in the Netherlands, France and potentially Germany may not result in change that people are increasingly desperate for.  If it goes well, then those elections seek to up-end the entire political spectrum as we know it.  And it hinges upon a man who many sought for years to run, tried for over a year to stop him, and now live in constant fear of him.
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kbroly · 9 years ago
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War
For 15 years, the United States has been fighting an enemy we simply haven’t been able to beat, no matter how hard we’ve tried.  The cockroach known as terrorism.  Islamic Terrorism to be precise, don’t let people fool you into thinking otherwise.  While I wanted revenge for those killed on 9/11, and I was supportive of the war in Iraq, I can see now that it’s an endless endeavor that will never end until we get out.  It’s an endless cycle.  Go into a country, overthrow the leaders, try to rebuild, but a new band of thieves pops up to fight us and they’re angrier than the last bunch we killed.
If it weren’t for Israel, my feeling would be ‘get the fuck out now while you can’ and let the region destroy itself for 3 to 4 more decades.  It’s a completely unstable region that can’t be combed over easily, and maybe not even toughly.  We’ve been there since the last 1970′s and not in the mid 2010′s, I have to ask ‘when is enough enough?’  First it was helping Al Qaeda fight the Russians, then taking out the Shaw in Iran and partnering with Sadaam Hussein in Iraq.  Then going against him, Al Qaeda popped up to attack us a couple of times, then we took out Sadaam, and then rebels popped up, then Libya and Syria happened and now ISIS is here.  See the problem?  It never ends.  Can it end?  If so, how?
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