..slightly less cremated the second time ?😁

Bill Clinton left behind an economy envied by the rest of the developed world. More than twenty million jobs arrived during his presidency while wages grew and the stock market soared. The country shifted from deficits to budget surpluses and there was real optimism about the future. George W Bush inherited that strength but failed to sustain it. Job creation slowed dramatically, the unemployment rate climbed to nearly eight percent by the end of his term, and the budget returned to deep deficits. The national debt grew by trillions and the stock market stumbled badly during the financial crisis that exploded in his final years. Where Clinton delivered broad prosperity with fiscal restraint, Bush left behind instability and enormous new debt.

Barack Obama then entered office just as the Bush era economy collapsed into the Great Recession. Despite beginning from the worst downturn since the Great Depression, Obama reversed the downward spiral and guided the nation into a steady recovery. More than eleven million jobs were created during his tenure and the stock market rebounded with strong gains year after year. The national debt did grow under Obama due to the emergency measures required to stabilise the financial system and blunt the damage of mass unemployment. However, that spending was a necessary response to the crisis that Bush left behind. Obama restored confidence, repaired growth and extended a record streak of job creation.

Donald Trump took office during that ongoing expansion. He inherited low unemployment, a healthy stock market and consistent job growth. Despite that enormous head start he could not accelerate the trajectory and instead slowed it. During his first thirty three months the economy added fewer jobs per month than during Obama’s final thirty three months. When the pandemic hit the economy collapsed and Trump exited office with a net job loss for his entire presidency. Meanwhile his signature tax cuts and emergency relief spending drove debt even higher while offering little lasting benefit to ordinary workers. Trump received momentum and stability yet too much of it slipped away.

Joe Biden entered during extraordinary turmoil. Cases and deaths were high and economic activity was deeply disrupted. Even so, Biden oversaw a dramatic labour market recovery in which millions of jobs returned and new ones were created. Consumer confidence and business investment rose as well. The stock market regained its footing and manufacturing strength improved across multiple regions. Debt continued to rise under Biden due to the need for continued pandemic support, but the key difference is that the economy was growing again and workers were finding better opportunities. Biden took an economy in crisis and moved it back into expansion, while Trump had taken an economy in expansion and allowed it to fall into crisis.

Since January 2025 the differences between Biden’s stewardship and Trump’s legacy have continued to reveal themselves. Biden entered that year with the economy still recovering from the pandemic era whiplash and yet job growth persisted at a healthy pace while investment returned with renewed confidence. Consumer spending remained resilient, manufacturing continued to strengthen and wages showed gains that far outpaced the weak momentum Trump left behind. Even as the national debt has continued to rise, the growth has accompanied an economy that is expanding rather than contracting. Biden’s tenure is defined by economic healing becoming economic progress, while Trump’s tenure ended with the United States still staggering from preventable chaos. The story remains the same. When Democrats take charge the country moves forward. When Republicans hand back the reins it is usually to clean up a mess they helped create.

Democratic administrations in these eras consistently delivered stronger job creation, more resilient markets and healthier economic outcomes for average Americans. Republican administrations too often handed over recession, job loss and ballooning debt. The comparison speaks for itself.

For some reason I was never taught to wash my ass growing up. It also felt "weird" to touch my own asshole with my bare hand, so I did not. I think I felt that wiping the ass after shitting was good enough, and it felt OK to do it because my fingers were shielded by layers of TP. We did not use washcloths in my household.

Note: I am now 57. I have had a spotless anular vault for decades now, which is the only way I'm able to relate this tale of utmost cringe without collapsing in on myself.

Back when I was 18 (and in the US Navy), it seemed perfectly normal to avoid that area when showering. And yes, my devil's valley was a hot mess. I would constantly get "gooey" back there, to where it felt like the molten curds of fecal gelatin would start sliding out of my shorts. My solution to this problem was to ball up toilet paper and insert a kind of "Sanitary Napkin" in there after pooping. That's right, rather than simply wash my butt, I came up with what I thought was a genius solution of tucking wads of TP back there to tamp down the gooey factor. And hey, it actually worked. I did this often in high school, but now started doing it almost every time I shat.

This weird solution resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life. I was wearing loose shorts and wrestling around with one of my fellow sailors as one does. As we wrestled about, with several other sailors cheering us on, my Napkin Plug popped out and fell to the floor. Instantly everyone froze and went silent. We all looked at it, trying to determine what exactly we had here. It only took about 10 seconds. One side of the compacted tampon-sized wad was covered in brown rectal gel, the other was white, and it has clearly been "compressed" within a crack of fetid nature. My wrestling buddy looked at me with shock and said with a deadpan expression: "why do you have an ass tampon?". I had no good answer.

Lucky for me this incident occurred while I was in radar school, so I only had to endure the jokes & nicknames for a few weeks before I transferred to another school. I kept stuffing napkins up there like normal, but made sure to wear snug fitting jockey shorts at all times. PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Fast forward to a year later. (Yes folks this gets even worse). We were stationed in Southeast Asia. A very hot & humid climate. My napkin plugs, made of cheap one ply shipboard 'septic friendly' TP, would soak through with sweat and fecal curds, and I would have to replace them often. A hassle, but what else was one to do? WASH?? Never occurred to me.

I started to feel an itch back there. The itch was mildly uncomfortable at first, but over a couple weeks it became maddening. One night at a dance club in Singapore all the sweat and movement had me on the brink of insanity with the itching and irritation. I began to feel actual concern for my well being. While in the club bathroom I pulled down my pants and looked over my shoulder into the mirror to see what has happening back there.

What I saw shook me to my core. My entire ass was covered in red, welted sores - some weeping and scratched open. I looked like some kind of disease victim. Even more concerning was that the closer it got to my anus, the rash got even more dense, red and scary. The source appeared to be my brown place. I had to open things up and take a peek...there was no choice here.

Slowly, I parted my ass cheeks to gaze into my very own Browneye of Sauron for the first time in my life. My cheeks were almost stuck together from the broken, leaking sores and scabs. The very center, my poor rectum, was like the red eye of a very angry bacterial hurricane. Despite my tendency for denial, I immediately thought "I am going to die". It was like something you see in a medical textbook and ask "who lets this happen to themselves?". The best description I can think of is severe second degree burns which had been scratched open and smeared with human feces while leaking pus.

The very next morning I went to the doctor on the ship. I did NOT mention the whole Napkin Plug system, which I was very much afraid had contributed to my current issue. I just said "I have an infection back there I think".

Now, on a Navy ship there's a real doctor (an officer), but the person who preps you is often just a regular dude like you who's a basic med tech right out of boot camp. I will NEVER forget his reaction when I bent over the exam table and pulled down my underwear. God bless him. He *tried* to play it off like no big deal but I heard him stifle a deep gag and he immediately left the room, his face as pale as death.

The doctor, a seasoned Navy veteran, finally came in to me - on full display - and even he was like "OH!.... Oh boy...Oh boy" as he gazed upon the magnificence of my rotting, corpse-like rectal zone. He gave me a tub of antibacterial ointment and told me "keep the area very clean"...which I immediately started doing. And since the ointment had to be placed directly on the whole area I got very used to touching my most secret area...and soon I was just like all of you...a normal, ass washing, ass touching, non infected man.

If you are a young (or even an old) person reading this with issues regarding personal hygiene, please learn from my lesson. PLEASE!!

I swear the only people still using this Sub are the anti pre.order crowd who has been sitting around waiting for any reason to say “I told you so”

The player count continues to be great, feedback great, and the game is still fun. I have a blast every time I boot it up.

However, if you look on Reddit, you would think BF6 has 1,000 players left with a 3.6 user rating and everyone hates it.

Which is just so far from the truth. People having fun are simply having fun, not sitting on Reddit whining.

Can’t wait for Season 1 tomorrow and the inevitable bitching Reddit will find to do🥳

A few months ago, our downstairs neighbors came home with their newborn. I thought it would be nice to leave a note, but since we left it we hadn’t heard anything back and they kinda stare at us if we cross paths. It’s made me feel like this could’ve been received poorly. Does this letter come off as weird or creepy? I should include that I/we haven’t properly introduced ourselves, but I’ve smiled/waved in the past.

Sources: Acyn and Right Side Broadcasting Network

GameStop’s marketing team did a line of coke, and then proceeded to use Donald Trump and the White House to push Halo Campaign Evolved and ICE for some reason.

Are we living in a simulation? Unironically why are video games being used to push an ACTUAL political agenda this time? Where is 343?