CASINOS in & near DALLAS, TEXAS - 2021 up-to-date list

Throughout its first 25 years, Major League Soccer has seen players from all different corners of the globe, each with their own career story. Whether it be a guy like Tim Melia or Chris Wondolowski who were scrappy guys that came out of nowhere to be stars in this league, or world famous names such as Zlatan, Beckham, and Henry, the league's history of big names is as diverse as they come.
Let's take a look at the best player from each country around the globe. This will be based on national team allegiance. Today, we'll be leading with Europe!
Please note that this is my opinion, and in some cases the decisions were tough; I'll be sure to add in honorable mentions where I can, or add notes.
Albania: Shkëlzen Gashi ( COL 2016-18)
Short list to pick from here, as Gashi's only competition is Jahmir Hyka and Hamdi Salihi. Gashi gets the nod, if nothing else, for his huge 2016 season, where he scored 10 regular season goals (one of which was that year's Goal of the Year) as the Rapids damn near won the Shield. The madlad then went and one-upped that with his absurd equalizer in the playoffs against the Galaxy.
His last two years weren't as fruitful, but man, when he was on he could pull something out of nowhere.
Armenia: Yura Movsisyan ( KC 2006-07, RSL 2007-09 & 2016-18, CHI 2018)
Four choices here, although in the end it's Movsisyan winning out over Harut Karapetyan, who played a couple seasons in the 90s for the Galaxy, San Jose, and Tampa Bay. The fourth pick in a strong 2006 MLS SuperDraft out of Pasadena City College, Movsisyan is mostly associated with RSL, who acquired him in a 2007 trade. With the Claret and Cobalt, he would tally 15 goals in 53 regular season appearances, and in 2009 he'd hoist the club's first MLS Cup. That'd be his last game with RSL until 2016 after some time in Europe with Randers, Krasnodar, and Spartak Moscow (even sharing the Russian PL Golden Boot in 2012/13 with Wanderson). He'd put up a similar clip of 16 in 57 before being waived and finishing his MLS career with four scoreless games with Chicago.
Austria: Daniel Royer ( NYRB 2016-pres.)
The choice here was largely Royer vs. Andreas Ivanschitz, who was a regular starter for Seattle's first MLS Cup, but I can't say no to a man with over 100 MLS matches played and three straight 10-goal seasons. In all comps, the former Austria Vienna man is just two goals behind Thierry Henry for third on the Red Bulls' all time goal scoring list.
Belarus: Sasha Gotsmanov ( COL 2005)
Gotsmanov qualifies by default as the only Belarusian player in MLS history. The Minsk native (and son of former Soviet and Belarusian international Sergei Gotsmanov) played one (1) single game for Colorado in October 2005, against RSL.
Belgium: Laurent Ciman ( MTL 2015-17, LAFC 2018, TFC 2019-pres.)
Shouts to Roland Lamah, who had his moments in Dallas, and Jelle van Damme, who played a season and a half for the Galaxy, but Ciman is the obvious choice. While he's fallen off a cliff as he's gotten older, he's a three-time All-Star and won Defender of the Year in his first MLS season; in his second, he played for Belgium at Euro 2016. At 35, he's lost a step and probably should only be used in emergencies, but at his best he was an elite MLS center back that could also be deployed at right back.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Haris Medunjanin ( PHI 2017-19, CIN 2020-pres.)
The first one where I'm not totally confident in my pick, as Baggio Hušidić made this tricky (and as a Union fan I'm afraid of bias). But at his best, Haris is an assist machine (30 in four MLS seasons so far), and a threat on set pieces; the madlad even scored an Olimpico this year. His left foot is probably the best the Union have ever had. While his commitment to defense was nonexistent, give him the ball and he could spray a pass anywhere.
Bulgaria: Hristo Stoichkov ( CHI 2000-02, DC 2003)
One of three former Ballon d'Or winners to play in MLS (the others being Lothar Matthaus and Kaka, although "playing" is generous for the former), Stoichkov spent the last four seasons of his career in MLS, scoring 22 goals in 72 regular season matches for Chicago and DC. In his first season, a 9 goal in 18 match outing for the Fire, he also won the US Open Cup, scoring the opening goal of the final, a 2-1 win over Miami. (The winning goal, by the way, was scored by our old friend Owen Goal.)
Croatia: Damir Kreilach ( RSL 2018-pres.)
Mr. Miyagi's favorite MLS player for his crane kick equalizer in the playoffs, the former Rijeka and Union Berlin man has proven to be an excellent utility piece and core part of RSL throughout his time there, scoring 26 goals and chipping in 14 assists in 86 regular season matches and playing all over the damn place (naturally a central midfielder, he's probably still RSL's best forward). At 31, he still has a lot to give.
MLS has seen a huge influx of Croats lately, though; before Kreilach's 2018 signing there had only been four Croatian players in MLS history, two of whom barely played. Currently, there are five on active rosters.
Czechia: Luboš Kubík ( CHI 1998-2001, DAL 2001)
Czech players have had a good hit rate in MLS. In his lone MLS season, Bořek Dočkal led the league in assists, and Zdeněk Ondrášek was a very solid piece for Dallas, albeit one whose MLS time was brief.
But no. We have to go with Kubik. The sweeper was Best XI twice, in 1998 and 1999, and won Defender of the Year in 1998 helping Chicago to a MLS Cup-Open Cup double. He'd win another Open Cup two years later, before being traded to Dallas in 2001 and retiring due to injury.
So many lethal counterattacks started on the foot of this man, and he is rightfully seen as one of the greatest defenders the league has ever seen.
Denmark: Jimmy Nielsen ( KC 2010-13)
I debated going WAYYYYYYY off the board here and throwing out Miklos Molnar. His time in MLS was brief, just the 2000 season before he retired, but the man was the best attacking piece on a Cup winner. He could have balled out if he didn't retire early.
But nah. We're going with Casino Jimmy, one of the keys towards Kansas City's early 2010s turnaround. A two time All-Star, Nielsen was Goalkeeper of the Year in 2012, a year that also saw him win the Open Cup with the Wiz (on penalties, because KC and penalties, name a more iconic duo at this point). In 2013, he capped off his career by winning MLS Cup, again on penalties, while playing with broken ribs.
England: Bradley Wright-Phillips ( 2013-2019, LAFC 2020)
This league, man.
The list of English players to have represented in MLS is a long one, full of iconic names. Ashley Cole. David Beckham. Frank Lampard. Steven Gerrard. Jermain Defoe. Wayne Rooney. Hell, even Bradley's brother Shaun.
But nope. Many of those guys are the butt of many MLS jokes. BWP, on the other hand, is one of the greatest goal scorers the league has ever seen, with two Golden Boots to his name and well over a century of league goals. He was a part of 3 Shield winning teams, and made CONCACAF's Best XI in 2018.
And it all started with a quiet trial in 2013 after Charlton dumped him. This. League.
And This. Man. Even as a fan of Philly who doesn't care much for the Red Bulls, I respect this dude and everything he's done. I hope he gets another year after winning Comeback Player of the Year this year.
Estonia: Joel Lindpere ( NYRB 2010-12, CHI 2013)
The only other option here was Erik Sorga, who could dethrone Lindpere as he came to MLS at a very young age. But it's unlikely, as Lindpere was quietly very solid for the Red Bulls during his time. The Tallinn native was a two-time All-Star, and in 2010 he was named the Red Bulls' team MVP.
Finland: Alex Ring ( NYC 2017-2020, AUS pres.)
T O P I C A L
There's a few fairly talented Finns in MLS right now that could make this interesting (I really like Robin Lod's game, and Lassi Lappelainen would be excellent for Montreal if he'd stop getting hurt). Ring however has proven his worth across 4 seasons, including time as NYC's captain. Over 10,000 MLS minutes, mostly for good teams, as a defensive anchor, he will be a fantastic tone-setter for the new Austin team.
France: Thierry Henry ( NYRB 2010-14)
Oh man, as an Ireland fan I wanted to give this to literally anyone else. I am still bitter, dammit.
His best competition is probably Aurelien Collin, who has a closetful of trophies (including a Best XI and MLS Cup MVP). But no...it's Henry.
When a big name comes to MLS, what people want to see is someone who treats the league with respect. Henry did that. Not only was he dominant on the pitch, a three-time Best XI nomination, he also respected the history of the club he played for and gave 100%, even though he was getting up there in the years. He's a Red Bulls and MLS legend...as much as I curse that godforsaken hand
Georgia: Valeri "Vako" Qazaishvili ( SJ 2017-20)
It looks like the San Jose chapter of Vako's career is done and dusted. While the former Vitesse man struggled for consistency, he did put up 26 goals and 13 assists across four MLS seasons for the Quakes, including 10 while being coached by Mikael Stahre, which should probably get him and Wondo some sort of award.
We'll see what's next for him, if he leaves MLS or goes back to Europe. His only competition was Quakes teammate Guram Kashia.
Germany: Bastian Schweinsteiger ( CHI 2017-19)
I'm...actually not sure about this one. I actually changed this while writing, as I very nearly chose Julian Gressel; the former Rookie of the Year has two 10-assist seasons under his belt, and Kai Wagner has also been one of the league's better fullbacks for Philadelphia; Schweinsteiger was solid enough for Chicago in his advanced age for some very frustrating teams (and even moved positions to center back!)...but man, I don't know.
Germany is weird. For a country with such a great footballing tradition, the pickings are fairly slim. Arne Friedrich had one good year for Chicago before injuries claimed his career. Lottar Matthaus was as committed to this league as Schalke are to winning football matches. Stefan Aigner was stifled by Anthony Hudson going galaxy brain. Torsten Frings...existed.
I dunno.
Greece: Alexandros Tabakis ( ATL 2017)
The only Greek in MLS history...and our second one game wonder. Atlanta's FOURTH string keeper in 2017, he managed to sneak into a game against Minnesota with Brad Guzan on international duty, Alec Kann injured, and Kyle Reynish sent off during the match.
Atlanta lost 3-2. He's now in USL.
Hungary: Nemanja Nikolić ( CHI 2017-19)
Dániel Sallói and Krisztián Németh had their moments, but the winner is Nikolić, who came to MLS from the Ekstraklasa and immediately won the Golden Boot. His totals diminished in the three seasons he spent with Chicago, but 51 goals in 96 appearances isn't too shabby at all - it's second in Fire history behind Ante Razov.
Iceland - Guðmundur Þórarinsson ( NYC 2020-pres.)
Not much choice, 3 guys, all of whom were mostly bench guys. I almost went with Kristinn Steindorsson here on the merits of "he didn't have a penalty saved by Rodrigo Schlegel."
Israel: Gadi Kinda ( SKC 2020-pres.)
It was either him or Dedi Ben Dayan, really. And I nearly went with the former Colorado left back, but nah, Kinda is very much the superior player. The midfielder born in Ethiopia, Kinda shone brightly in his first season in KC, with 6 goals and 4 assists in his debut season. He'll be a DP next season.
Italy: Sebastian Giovinco ( TOR 2015-18)
A signing that changed an entire club.
Before Giovinco, the Reds were a laughingstock. He came in, won a Golden Boot and MVP right away, led the league in assists, made Best XI three years in a row, led them to their first playoff game, their first MLS Cup final, their first MLS Cup win, and a historic treble. And they damn near won CCL too.
The Atomic Ant was must-see from Day 1. It's not just because of him that Toronto is now one of MLS's elite...but he was a huge part of changing that culture. 83 goals in 142 games in all comps. And he dished out his fair share of assists too, with a telepathic partnership with Jozy.
Latvia: Raivis Hščanovičs ( TOR 2010)
Not much to write about here. 14 games for a bad Reds team. Gets in by default with no other Latvian MLS players.
Liechtenstein: Nicholas Hasler ( TOR 2017-18, CHI 2018-19, SKC 2019)
Another one by default. 66 games as a utilityman. Won MLS Cup and the Shield, though.
Lithuania: Vytautas Andriuškevičius ( POR 2016-18, DC 2018)
Only other choice was Edgaras Jankauskas, a forward who played 14 games for the Revs. Vytas played 37 for Portland and zero for DC.
Luxembourg: Maxime Chanot ( NYC 2016-pres.)
Another one by default but this one's an actually really solid player that finished fourth in Defender of the Year voting in 2019. We take those.
Malta: Etienne Barbera ( VAN 2012)
2 games in 2012. Only Maltese player in MLS.
Montenegro: Branko Bošković ( DC 2010-12)
Pretty much every other Montenegrin player played less than 20 games in MLS. Bošković played 43 before returning to Europe for family reasons. 7 assists in his final season though, which is technically something.
Netherlands: Johan Kappelhof ( CHI 2016-pres.)
Much like Germany, bright footballing tradition, very shaky MLS history. Which is weird because the Eredivisie exports a lot of guys to MLS.
Also, I'm excluding Kelvin Leerdam, as he is probably changing his international allegiance to Suriname.
So I'm going with 2017 All-Star Kappelhof, who I think is still fairly solid.
But really the choices aren't great. Dave van den Burgh? Roland Alberg scored a hat trick once I guess? Danny Koevermans was decent but injured all the time?
Maybe it's a hot take. It probably is.
North Macedonia: Oka Nikolov ( PHI 2013)
Never actually played, only in a friendly. Watch this space though as North Macedonia is apparently courting LAFC's Danny Musovski.
Northern Ireland: Johnny Steele ( RSL 2012, NYRB 2013-14)
Another case of shaky opposition, it was either Steele or Steve Morrow, who played 41 games for Dallas in the aughts.
Steele played regularly for a Shield winner, the 2013 Red Bulls. Easy peasy.
Norway: Vadim Demidov Ola Kamara ( CLB 2016-17, LAG 2018, DC 2019-pres.)
Adama Diomande is the main competition here. Kamara's first stint in MLS was a smashing success, scoring 48 goals in 90 regular season matches for Columbus and the Galaxy (he was traded for Gyasi Zardes before 2018). A brief foray to China followed, and while he's back in MLS with DC he hasn't quite been the same.
Still a good player on his day, maybe just the Bennyball effect.
Poland: Piotr Nowak ( CHI 1998-2002)
When I think of early Chicago, Nowak and the earlier-mentioned Kubik are the first two names that come to mind. Kubik held down the back while Nowak was the chief creator in the midfield. Three-time best XI, three-time All-Star, and MLS Cup MVP.
...can I drink my water now?
Portugal: José Gonçalves ( NE 2013-16)
Gonçalves fell off a cliff in his latter years, but in his first MLS season he won Defender of the Year and in his second he was a key part of a team that made the MLS Cup final and damn near won the thing.
Runner up here is Nani who is probably closing in.
EDIT: I also forgot to mention Pedro Santos, thanks to the Crew fans who pointed that one out. I still think Gonçalves pips him for his 2013 if nothing else, but Santos is probably closer than Nani.
Republic of Ireland: Robbie Keane ( LAG 2011-16)
A LOT closer than you think; Time Person of the Century Juventus legend Ronnie O'Brien was two-time best XI himself.
But nonono. This is Robbie freaking Keane. When we see these big name Euro guys interested in MLS, this is the man we want them to be.
Hypercompetitive and holding guys accountable on and off the pitch, and scoring for fun. 83 goals in 125 MLS regular season appearances. Best XI four times. 2014 MVP. MLS Cup MVP in 2014. A closetful of team awards including 3 MLS Cups.
This man was a baller, and frankly his departure was the beginning of the Galaxy decline into irrelevance, but that's a story for another time.
Romania: Alexandru Mitriță ( NYC 2019-pres.?)
Question mark because he's on loan and I have no idea if it'll be permanent, but he was punted out by the Pigeons just as he was really starting to break out. He scored 12 goals in his debut season last year but filled in nicely this year while Maxi Moralez was injured. EDIT: NYC fans have informed me he wasn't punted out, but was loaned out to be closer to his pregnant wife. My apologies.
Honorable mention: Alex Zotincă, who played for the Wizards and Chivas USA in the aughts. Brave man.
Russia: Igor Simutenkov ( KC 2002-04)
Not a lot to pick from here either. 49 games, 12 goals for this forward from Moscow, who now serves as an assistant coach at Zenit.
Scotland: John Spencer ( COL, 2001-04)
Give Johnny Russell another few years and he'll pass Spencer, but for now I'm leaning the latter. Spencer as a coach was frustrating as hell, but as a player he was Best XI twice and an MVP finalist once. Dude could score goals despite battling injuries in his time in MLS.
Just don't let him sign Kris Boyd. Then you lose to Cal FC. No one wants that.
Serbia: Aleksandar Katai ( 2018-19, 2020)
FROM A SPORTING PERSPECTIVE.
And mostly due to a weak pool. Runner up was probably someone like Miloš Kocić.
18 goals in 62 games for Chicago before getting yeeted back to Serbia for Bad People Reasons
Slovakia: Albert Rusnák ( RSL 2017-pres.)
He has tenure on Ján Greguš, who's the closest competitor, but Rusnák is also good. He followed up a 14-assist debut season (4th in the league) with back to back 10 goal seasons before struggling this year with injury.
Slovenia: Robert Berić ( CHI 2020-pres.)
Once he got acclimated to MLS, the goals came, and Chicago has its successor to Nikolić up top. He finished with 12 goals in his debut season, tied for second in the league with Ruidiaz and Zardes.
Also, from what I saw early on, seems like he's a dark-arts type of guy that gets in your head. That's fun.
Spain: David Villa ( NYC 2015-18)
I really didn't want to put him here due to recent allegations, and the fact that Pozuelo has already matched his MVP and two Best XI performances....
77 goals in 117 games though, that's tough to pass on.
Sweden: Zlatan Ibrahimović ( LAG 2018-19)
It's Zlatan.
He pretty much dragged a sorry LA organization to something resembling competitiveness.
What the hell did you expect?
(Anton Tinnerholm made this hard, though)
EDIT: Forgot Gustav Svensson as well in my honorable mentions.
Switzerland: Stefan Frei ( TOR 2009-13, SEA 2014-pres.)
Pretty self-explanatory, one of the most accomplished keepers in MLS history and with a closetful of hardware. And all it took Seattle to get him was a late first round pick that pinged around so much that it was eventually traded for a coach.
Turkey: Sercan Güvenışık ( SJ 2012)
5 games that year. No one else has flown the Turkish flag in MLS.
Ukraine: Dema Kovalenko ( CHI 1999-2002, DC 2002-05, NYRB 2006-08, RSL 2008, LAG 2008-10)
I'm afraid he'd break my legs if I didn't. One of the most physical and downright dirty players the league has ever seen. Made nearly 300 appearances though, and has one each of the 3 major US trophies (MLS Cup, USOC, Shield), all with a different team.
Wales: Andy Dorman ( NE 2004-07, 2013-15)
Dorman was a key part of that real good Revs team from the mid-aughts, and just beats out Carl Robinson. He made 112 appearances in his first stint, and played in 3 MLS Cup finals, though they famously lost all three. The Revs brought him back in 2013 after some time in Scotland and England, and was playing semipro in the area as recently as 2018.

Official Countdown Website
Hello everyone... I noticed that no one has actually compiled a list of stuff from the teasers we've gotten so far. I wanted to make one for easy access to anyone who wants it. So far this is what we know.

• Halloween: Surprise single "All Out Life" is released.
• New countdown website got put up, featuring a countdown that ends on Monday (At least in my time zone)
• The website features the barcode of their original album, "Mate Kill Feed Repeat, which happens to coincide with the 20th anniversary. This may not have any relevancy, but I just wanted to put that out there.
• If you visit the website on your mobile device, it gives you coordinates to the nearest large venue near you. A large portion of these venues are venues included in the "Ticket To Rock" package on LiveNation.com, which also has Slipknot on the package lineup. This confirms the tour locations, but we have yet to have confirmed dates.
• If you go to any of these venues, the website presents you with a presale code for the concert for that venue.
• If you don't have a major venue near you, you are presented with a date, August 9th. This is the day before they perform at the Iowa State Fair.
• Clown has stated that this is going to be one of their biggest shows, though I recommend you take everything Clown says with a grain of salt. It is highly likely that there is going to be some massive reveal on this date.
• "We Are Not Your Kind" has been a recurring phrase since "All Out Life" was released. Many speculate that this is a title of the new album.
• No one is sure what will happen once this countdown finishes, but some speculate a new song release or a mask reveal.

I included links to Live Nation and the countdown website. Please comment if there's anything I missed!
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Edit: I felt that I missed some information, so I decided to come back and add some more stuff.
They will be touring with Gojira and Volbeat on a NA tour, following their European tour. The NA tour will start with their show at the Iowa State Fair, which is on August 10th. The NA locations are as follows:

• Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, Illinois
• Dos Equis Pavilion, Dallas, Texas
• Iowa State Fair, Des Moines, Iowa
• BB&T Pavilion, Camden, New Jersey
• Isleta Amphitheatre, Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Ak-Chin Pavilion, Phoenix, Arizona
• Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, Alpharetta, Georgia
• KeyBank Pavilion, Burgettstown, Pennsylvania
• Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center, Noblesville, Indiana
• Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, New York
• Jiffy Lube Live, Bristow, Virginia
• Darien Lake Amphitheatre, Darien Center, New York
• Austin360 Amphitheatre, Austin, Texas
• DTE Energy Music Theatre, Clarkston, Michigan
• Veteran's United Home Loans Amphitheatre, Virginia Beach, Virginia
• Xfinity Center, Mansfield, Massachusetts
• PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, New Jersey
• Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, New York
• USANA Amphitheatre, West Valley, Utah
• White River Amphitheatre, Auburn, Washington
• The Forum, Los Angeles, California
• Mid Florida Credit Union Amphitheater, Tampa, Florida
• Glen Helen Amphitheatre, San Bernardino, California

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Not a lot of dates have been announced, but I'll add them as they are announced.
I believe that there is also a Toronto show, I'm not sure though.
It is also confirmed that Alex "V-Man" Venturella and Jay Weinberg will be with the band for this tour.
I will put more information pertaining to the countdown once something noteworthy happens. For now though, this is all I have.
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Edit #2: Thanks for the upvotes! I'm pretty new to Reddit, but this is the most upvotes I've ever gotten on a post, and I thank you guys. I just want to help the fellow users. I'll keep updating as more noteworthy events happen.
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Edit #3: Toronto is confirmed! Budweiser Stage, Toronto, Canada
I'm also including links to all teaser videos so far.
Teaser #1
Teaser #2
Teaser #3
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Edit #4: Wow! I just looked, and we're almost at the top of the page! this is way greater than I thought it would be, thank you guys so much! Hopefully this post helps all you guys out!
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Edit #5: Behemoth will also be touring with Slipknot.
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Edit#6: Special thanks to the mods for sticking the post! The amount of upvotes is insane! I'll keep making updates as new info is released.
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Edit #7: I will be at school at the time when the countdown ends, I will update it as soon as I can once something new happens.
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Edit #8: Thanks for all the help with making this post as accurate as possible! Like I said before, I'll be at school when the countdown ends, but I'll update as soon as possible. See ya later maggots!
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Final Edit: The countdown lead to an announcement of the NA tour, dubbed "Knotfest Roadshow". Not really much else to say there. They have confirmed an album release on August 9th.

About The Girl I Want

I am looking for a decent girl that wants to be in a long term monogamus relationship with me.
I want the girl to be attractive.
I like girls that are thin, or with a toned or athletic build. A average build is fine too, just as long as you are not over weight. I will not date a overweight or fat girl.
I like girls that are 130 pounds or less. Of course weight needs to be in proportion to their height, as long as they aren’t considred overweight, they should be fine.
Being overweight is a total dealbreaker with me.
I also like girls with long hair. I like a girl to look like a girl, not a man, I like a feminine, pretty girl. I like hair down to the shoulders at least. Sometimes I can make exceptions if it is shorter depending on how it looks on the girl. But for the most part, I love long hair.
Redheads are my favorite, next is Brunettes, and next is Blondes, in that order. I like all 3, but I’m just saying if I had to choose, that’s my order of preference.
I will not date a Black girl. I don’t care if she looks like Halle Berry, I will not ever date a Black girl.
However, I will date any other race, Hispanic, Mexican, Spanish, Russian, Italian, French, European, White, whatever, anything except Black.
I do not like glasses on a girl. Although, it’s not a dealbreaker, as long as she can wear contacts at least most of the time.
I do not ever want to have kids, so if a girl is wanting to have babies, I am not her man.
I will not date a girl that does not have a job or career.
I am not looking for any type of woman that is materialistic or a gold digger or expects a man to pay for everything.
I do not like tattoos on a woman. If a woman already has tattoos, it may not be a deal breaker unless she plans to get more in the future. If a woman has something small and feminine like a butterfly or rose already on her ankle or something then it may not necessacerily be a dealbreaker. And it would also help if she would consider having them laser removed, something I might would even pay to have done for her.
To me, tattoos just represent white trash or somone that’s been in prison. I do not care for following trends like mindless sheep and getting tats just because what ever Star on TV got them, they will always be a symbol of White Trash. The Female human body is the most beautiful work of Art God ever created, to tattoo it with ink is the same as vandalising a famous Monet painting with a can of spray paint!
I also do not like piercings on a woman. I do not like a woman to have anything pireced other than her Ears. If she has other piercings it’s not a dealbreaker as long as she removes them and never wears them again.
I do not like gamblers. I will not be in any relationship with a woman that gambles or wastes money on such things.
I do not like strippers! I will not date any girl that has ever been a stripper. I believe that the only person that should ever see a womans naked body is only her boyfriend or husband.
I will not date any girl that has ever had a threesome, or a large number of past sexual partners. I do not want a promiscuous slut, I want a normal, decent, good hearted girlfriend.
I will not date any girl that can not always be honest & faithful to me. This is very important.
I prefer a girl that does not smoke, but as long as she does not smoke in my house or around me, if she can go outside and smoke, then I can live with that. I lived with my ex girlfriend for Eleven years, and she was a smoker.
I will not date any girl if she is still friends with any men that she has been intimate with in the past, I believe once a relationship with someone is over, it’s OVER.
I will not date a selfish woman. I do not like selfish women at all.
I do not like sarcastic or cynical people, I do not like people that always think negatively either, so that type of girl would also not be a good match for me.
I know sometimes on this thread, I may seem like a negative person because I point out sooooo many things that I dislike, but I assure you I am a very positive person, I am just tring to put out here my likes/dislikes so you can know more about me and what type of girl may get along with me.
I do not expect a girl to agree with all of my beliefs or opinions etc, but I do not like to argue, and it’s very important that we can live in peace together if at some point the girl & I live together. I like to live in a quiet & peaceful environment. That is extremely important to me.
I like a girl that dresses on the conservative side. Not like a slut, and not anything weird. Just normal is fine. T-Shirt & Jeans are OK. But a girl in a dress really gets my heart racing! I also love it when a girl wears a mini skirt with boots, not cowboy boots, but sexy boots. Or high heels, I love spiked high heels!
I like a girl that takes care of herself and keeps herself clean of course.
I love it when a girl wears sexy lingerie in the bedroom! Especially thigh highs!
I need a girl that can be very warm & affectionate and loving.
It’s also nice if the girl has a big heart and appreciates simples things, and understands the value of sentimental things etc.
I like a girl that appreciates romance and the art of courtship.
Kissing is one of my most favorite things to do with a girl, it’s very important. I also love to hold a girls hand when I am walking with her. And I love sleeping beside a girl and holding her close to me, and spooning with her. In fact THAT is the reason I named this thread “Sleepless In Austin” because I haven’t had a single good nights sleep in years, ever since my relationship ended with my ex-girlfriend.
And yes, I also liked the movie Sleepless in Seattle, haha :)
It dosen’t matter at all to me how big or small a girls breasts are. I prefer them to be real & natural though. I am against breast implants, I see that as unnecessery self mutilation, and I would not want a girlfriend that has breast implants.
I prefer a woman that has never had children, because having kids does ruin a womans body often times. They end up with stretch marks. And also sometimes it makes their vagina looser, and I don’t care how many kegel exercises a woman does, after she has 2 or 3 eight to ten pound babies, you can’t tell me it’s going to be 100% as tight as it ever was! Plus, what’s even worse than all of that, is sometimes during childbirth the lips/vulva of a woman get torn and they never look the same as the did originally even after they heal, that’s why some women even get cosmetic reconstructive surgery to their vulvas after childbirth to try and regain their original appearance.
Now I’m not saying having had a kid or two is a for sure dealbreaker for me, but it’s a case by case basis, and I prefer a woman that’s never had kids if possible. My ex-girlfriend that I was with for Eleven years never had kids, she couldn’t because of a hysterectomy at a young age.
I like to get a lot of attention in a relationship, and I like to give it as well.
I also have a very high sex drive.

About Me

What follows is just a place where I will list some random information about me…
Romance is the air I breathe, for without it I surely would die!
So many people often wonder, what is the purpose of life, why are we here, what is the secret of the Universe etc. etc.
I know the answer to this. The answer is simple. The answer is Love.
The meaning and purpose of life is nothing more than love, for a life without love would be completely meaningless and would cease to have any purpose whatsoever!
Love is the only thing that truly drives me, I follow my Heart, always.
I am an Artist, Musician, Poet, Composer, Performer, Businessman, I am many things. I am very creative & artistic. I can be accurately described as being both a CEO & a Rockstar all at the same time, both of those perfectly existing in one person, Me. I am a very unique man. There is NOTHING typical, average, normal, or ordinary about me whatsoever!
I have a way of leaving lasting impressions on people the first time they meet me, they never forget me, and the more a person gets to know about me the more they realize that they have never, ever met another human being in this world like me!
I like to do abstract paintings on canvas with acrylic paints. Although it’s been a few years since I’ve had time to paint anything, I will eventually find the time to paint again in the future.
I love music. I have been playing guitar since I was 5 years old. I’ve written and recorded a lot of original songs. My favorite type of songs to write are love songs.
I’ve also written a book of love poetry.
I do wedding photography on the weekends as well as all other types of photography. And I also work another job Monday through Friday, and i also am currently working a lot of overtime.
I was born in Orlando, Florida on September 18, 1974.
I was then moved to Columbus, Georgia when I was about 2 years old by my great grandmother who took me to raise.
I lived in Columbus, Georgia until around the year 2000 when I was around 24 years old.
Then I sold my house there and I moved to Huntington, West Virginia and although I did not like Huntington, WV I lived there until I was about 35 years old.
And then I moved here to Austin, Texas on December 22nd, 2009.
I live in South Austin, right off William Cannon on Bluff Springs Rd.
South Austin, SoCo, Downtown, The Drag, and West Austin are my favorite parts of Austin.
I do not like North Austin or East Austin.
I know I live in SouthEast Austin, but I do not consider the spot I live to be the real East Austin, I just see where I live as South Austin.
To me, North Austin looks to much like any other city, boring, lacking the “Austin” vibe, the people up there remind me a little of Dallas people, and I do not like Dallas at all. And I do not like anything at all about anything near the Rundberg area up North.
And when I think of East Austin, I think of areas like around 12th & Chicon, that just looks like poverty striken, ghetto people crime infested neighborhoods, full of the trashy people that have long criminal records and lack any proper education. There’s nothing good I can say about East Austin, in fact I think East Austin is a disgrace the the great city of Austin and I wish we could eliminate that whole segment of the population from our beautiful city. Hopefully, that area will be filled with condos or something so that that “type” of people will be priced out of Austin and no longer be able to afford to live within our city limits here.
There’s very little crime in Austin, but when you do hear about crime, it’s usually up North near Rundberg or Airport Blvd, or it’s East Austin.
I know I read back in the 80′s there used to be a problem with gangs/crime in the Dove Springs area (Also Dove Springs isn’t bad like it used to be, but I’d still never want to live there either. I also dislike most of Riverside. You can usually just look at people in those areas and tell they are trashy.) here in South Austin, but I don’t live in Dove Springs, I am near it somewhat, but I am just a hop, skip and a jump to South Congress, and to me South Congress Avenue is one of the safest, most prestigious streets.roads in Austin. It leads all the way to Downtown where it turns into just Congress Ave, and then goes on behind the Capitol where it basically turns into The Drag or Guadalupe, which is very similar to the SoCo 78704 area, especially where they have all the shops and used to have the food trailers like Hey Cupcake.
THAT’S the part of Austin, that I love and consider to be the REAL Austin, those are the areas of Austin that I LOVE.
Mayfield Park is my absolute favorite place in Austin to go spend time! It’s in West/Central Austin on 3505 W. 35th Street. I think it’s the most beautiful place in America, like Heaven on Earth! I even wrote and recorded a love song about and dedicated to Mayfield Park! That’s how much I love it there! I love the Peacocks there the most! And the gardens, koi ponds, nature trails and palm trees, it’s amazing to be there!
And right by Mayfield Park is Mount Bonnel Drive which leads about 6 blocks or so up to the highest point of Austin, Mt Bonnel. I love going up the hundred or so steps there and enjoying that view! I love going to these two places in Austin as often as possible, and if you can’t tell I love to walk, and I do a lot of walking!
I also think Austin has the most beautiful Skyline in the country!
And I love the Congress Avenue Bridge!
I love to walk across it all the way downtown! I love to stand on it and watch the Sunset, or watch the Bats take flight at night!
I love to stand in that White Gazebo they have Downtown and look at the Colorado River.
I love to walk around the lake there as well.
I love to walk all up and down Congress Avenue and also up and down 6th Street. I love the energy of 6th Street. And I also love the Warehouse District downtown right before you get to 6th Street. The Red River area right past 6th Street is also nice to explore.
I also love the Capital, it is very beautiful to see Downtown.
I love to see a good live band from time to time, or go to a comedy club for some good standup comedy.
I love to see Art and to visit Museums.
I love to try new Restaurants and foods.
I love going to the Barton Creek Mall sometimes.
My favorite clubs are Friends on 6th Street, and the Continental Club on South Congress. Maggie Maes on 6th is also good. And the Elysium on Red River is good for something different sometimes.
I love watching movies at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz on 6th and the dinner & Milkshakes are good too there.
I love the Italian restaurant on Congress called La Traviata, and also the Mexican restaurant Manuels beside it there. And I love Conan’s deep dish Pizza on Guadalupe/Drag.
As far as Politics goes, I believe that democrats & republicans are really just two sides of the same coin to give us the illusion of choice,
I do not believe we live in a truly free country anymore, and it hasn’t been free in a very, very long time.
I do not like Obama. And, I did not like Bush or his Father either. I did not like the Clintons or the Reagan administration either. There hasn’t been a president during my lifetime so far that I have liked.
I believe that 99% of Fox News and mainstream Media is nothing but Lies, Lies and more Lies.
I think that the majority of Americans, along with the rest of the world are brainwashed sheep that are asleep.
I believe that 911 was a Inside Job, designed to instill more fear in Americans in which the government can use as a escuse to take away more of our rights and freedoms and push more of their terrible agenda upon us.
There’s a man here in Austin, Texas by the name of Alex Jones who has a show on KLBJ radio, he’s been talking about things like this for about 20 years or longer. He has a website www.prisonplanet.com and he’s also released about 17 video documentaries on this subject and everything he says or writes is backed up by documented fact.
I believe in and support almost everything he says on his show & documentaries and puts on his website. Check out his website and you will have a good idea on what my politics are.
I basically believe in our Constitution, the way our fore fathers wrote it, before Bush & Obama began destroying all the freedoms it contained with the Patriot Acts etc.
The best documentaries to watch of Alex Jones are Terrorstorm, and also End Game. There’s another great documentary by someone else called Loose Change. You can watch those for free if you search for them on Google Video.
Other than those types of polital beliefs, there’s a few other things I believe in…
I do not support abortion unless it’s for the result of rape or incest.
Abortion is murder.
I do not believe a woman should have the choice or freedom to kill her baby just because she was a slutty whore and dosen’t want to accept responsibility and raise the baby herself or give it to someone else who will.
I also do not support homosexuality. I think it’s disgusting, and morally wrong. I think it’s the trait of a defective human being.
I am old fashioned. I am conservative. I believe men should be men, and women should be women. God made Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve.
Furthermore, I do not believe homosexuals should be allowed to teach in schools or hold any type of job in which they have any type of interactions with children in which they could leave a false impression that homosexuality is ok on their young minds.
Now with that said, go ahead and ask me how I feel about Gay marriage…
And I will tell you that I am ok with that, because you know what, I’m just one person, I can’t stop it from happening, so if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, and I am a Wedding Photographer, so just think if they allow Gays to legally marry, the income I make from Wedding Photography basically would double overnight wouldn’t it! hahaha!!!!
Now with that said, I am not a mean or hateful person. I am a very easy going, nice, peaceful guy. And I work with people sometimes that are Gay and never have any problems with them. We get a long fine.
I basically only concern myself with my own inner world near me, only stuff that has a direct impact on me and the little world around me.
I don’t go out of my way to recycle, I mean I don’t seperate my trash into different trash cans etc, plastic in one and this or that in the other like some people do. I don’t have time for that nonsense. The world will be here for as long as I live, and after I’m gone, whatever happens to this Earth is of no concern to me. I don’t have time for recycling. Let that be someone else’s job to sort out all of that stuff.
People now a days are always wanting everything to be green, like hybrid cars etc. Me, I am planning on getting a 1977 Corvette Stingray soon with a 350 V8 engine that will only get about 10 miles a gallon. How’s that for green??? hahaha!!!!
I don’t worry about killing trees when I waste paper either. And when I go out to eat dinner, I don’t care if I eat all of my food or not, it does not bother me to throw away whatever I am not hungry to eat.
Can you tell yet I’m not one of those Hippies that you see so much of here in Austin????
Hahahaha!
I love Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, and I seen the Woodstock DVD and that all is cool. I’m creative & artistic and believe in Freedom.
But, I am not a lazy slacker like most hippies are. I believe everyone needs to work to support theirself, earn their own money and not live off the government or off handouts or charity.
I do NOT believe marijuana should ever be legalized!
I do believe it’s ok for doctors to give to Cancer patients etc, but I do not believe it should be easy to get a prescription for, basically unless you can prove you have Cancer or something then you should not be allowed to smoke it.
I am not a Racist person. In fact I tend to get along much better with Black guys than I do White guys.
However, I do not like Rap or Hip Hop music. I do not even consider that to be real music. And I do not like Black people that listen to that kind of music. I do not like Black people that have a criminal record or smoke pot or do any other type of drugs. I do not like Black people that live in the “projects” or live off welfare or food stamps. I do not like Black people that do not have a full time job. I do not like Black people that wear their pants halfway down to their knees. And I do not like Black people that don’t speak proper English and pronounce their words correctly. I do not like Black people that dress like thugs or gangstas. I do not like uneducated Black People. And if you are a Black person that lives in East Austin or up North Austin around the Rundberg area then chances are I probably don’t like you either! So there! haha!!!!!
I am NOT racist. I just do NOT like ignorant, useless, TRASH.
I also don’t like White people that do those same types of things!
And, I do not believe that Whites & Blacks should mix races sexually and have kids together.
I think it’s ok for Whites & Hispanics. But not Blacks.
I would NEVER, EVER, EVER date a woman if I found out she had EVER been sexually active with a Black man.
That would just be pure filth.
I do not like Homeless people, bums, drunks, or drug users either, or anyone that participates in any type of criminal activity.
I also do not like White country types or Redneck types or Trailer trash types.
I do not believe in fishing or hunting, I do not support the killing of animals.
I am not a Vegetarian, but I don’t eat much meat compared to most people, and one day I’d like to be totally vegetarian, It takes a lot of will power though.
I love Animals.
I love Nature.
I love living in the City.
I love the Sunny days and warm weather of Austin.
I do not like cold weather or snow. I do not like to be cold.
I do not like the rain.
I am not materialistic, but I do like for the things I have to be nice and to be of excellent quality. I strive to live as comfortable of a life as I possibly can.
I am currently working with a realtor to buy a house here in South Austin so that I can move out of this apartment.
I am also working towards starting a romantic Bed & Breakfast in South Austin in the future.
I am a entrepenuer and I am in the process of establishing multiple streams of income that all target the same clients in the Wedding industry.
I also believe in living on a balanced budget, and setting aside money for savings as well as investing a portion into stocks.
Sometimes I think people see me as a very arrogant & egotistical man, I can’t help it if I am more intelligent than most men, that’s their problem and their own insecurities they must deal with. I think I am a very nice guy, very well balanced, highly intelligent, a hard worker, very assertive in life, with a huge heart and a very romantic side.
Some of my favorite movies, in no particular order, are:
Of What Dreams May Come, City Of Angels, Leaving Las Vegas, Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino, Finding Nemo, Naploeon Dynomite, Rock Star, The Basketball Diaries, The Doors, Rocky, Rocky Balboa, Wall-E, The Goonies, Star Wars, Kill Bill, Romeo & Juliet (DiCaprio version), The Devils Rejects, E.T., Friday, and Sling Blade.
Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor & Robin Williams are some of my favorite comedians.
Some of my favorite Bands are:
Guns & Roses, Poison, Black Crowes, Ozzy Osbourne, Def Leppard, The Cure, AC/DC, Metallica, Megadeth, Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Etta James, Otis Redding, Diana Krall, Skid Row, Whitesnake, and David Gilmour.
Other Random Things About Me:
I like to eat:
Blueberries, Bannanas, Whole Wheat Whole Grain Breads, Spinach, Tomatos, Avacado, Tobasco Hot Sauce, Jalepinos, Banana Peppers, Green Peppers, Onions, Raw Garlic Cloves, Olivesm Cucumbers, Raw Honey, Cereals like Wheaties & Cheerios, Baked Potatos, Mashed Potatos, Fried green tomatos. Chicken is my least favorite meat. Beef is my next least favorite, and after Beef Pork. My favorite meat is Salmon & Tuna, and sometimes Turkey. Those seem to be the most healthy meats, if you are going to eat meat, which I try to eat as little of it as I can. Sometimes I go a few days without any meat at all. When I order Pizza, I usually just get it with Veggies. Dark Chocolate is my favorite, especially the truffles made by Lindt. My favorite cake is German Chocolate, my favorite ice cream is Rocky Road. I also love the home made brownies they sell on the counters at the 711 stores here. I am trying to eat more healthy. The only fast food I eat is at Subway.
I like all kinds of movies, thrillesuspense/horrodrama/comedy/romance/documentary.
I do not like to watch sports or reality shows.
I don’t watch much TV.
If I do watch TV, it’s usually a DVD.
But my favorite TV Shows are:
South Park, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Sopranos, Beavis & Butthead, and the X-Files.
I love to celebrate Christmas.
I am a very giving person.
I like to make a woman happy, it makes me happy if I can make the woman in my life happy.
I do not know how to swim, no one ever taught me.
I was on the Judge Judy TV show one time.
I had the lyrics to my song “Soul Brother” printed in a book about Stevie Ray Vaughan called You Can’t Stop A Comet by Cutter Brandenberg who was Stevie’s road manager and lives in Temple.
I was also written about in Kelly Garni’s autobiography, he was the original bass guitar player in the old 70′s band Quiet Riot along with Randy Rhoads who went on to play for Ozzy Osbourne.
A musician based in Dallas that has been on tours with ZZ Top, wrote & recorded a song about me and put it on one of his CDs, the song is called “Romeo”.
I was the person that got unreleased film footage of Randy Rhoads from film director Peter Margolis and uploaded it all over the internet for the world to see for the first time ever even though I did not have Peter’s permission, it made me a instant hero in the Randy Rhoads community/fan base, and now Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne even know who I am, they even had a meeting regarding me at one time awile back.
When I was in WV I once wrote a song about a man that painted a bridge Pink and I made the headlines of the newspaper there for it.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s brother Jimmie Vaughan once banned me from ever coming into Antones, he refused to play if I was in the audience, I don’t know if the ban is still in place because I always liked Nuno’s club better before it closed, but as you can see I can be quite a colorful & contraversial character at times obvisouly! Hahaha!!!

Period: 363.77 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	1000	56801
Rate (per day)	2.75	155.54
Unique Redditors	321	5751
Combined Score	150174	331939

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 20994 points, 131 submissions: xrm67
   
   1. Coca-Cola increased its production of single-use plastic bottles by a billion last year: “We calculated it produced over 110bn throwaway plastic bottles every year –an astounding 3,400 a second– while refusing to take responsibility for its role in the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans." (505 points, 30 comments)
   2. 100,000 newly released pages of Chemical Industry secrets “lay out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment.” (409 points, 70 comments)
   3. Americans Are Retiring Later, Dying Sooner and Sicker In-Between: U.S. life expectancy is declining, new calculations show. (393 points, 123 comments)
   4. Kurt Vonnegut got it right... (389 points, 31 comments)
   5. In his five months on the job, Trump-appointed EPA chief Scott Pruitt has tried to block, delay or entirely uproot more than 30 environmental regulations. (340 points, 14 comments)
   6. Scientists categorize Earth as a 'toxic planet': "Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals in an event unlike anything in the planet's entire history." (339 points, 102 comments)
   7. Thirty countries use 'armies of opinion shapers' to manipulate democracy – report: “Governments are now using social media to suppress dissent and advance an anti-democratic agenda.” (305 points, 33 comments)
   8. Naval Exercises Add Trillions of Pieces of Plastic Debris to Oceans: "When taken together, the amount of environmental damage the US military is causing around the planet on an annual basis is nearly impossible to comprehend." (303 points, 33 comments)
   9. Biologists say half of all species could be extinct by end of century: “The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring.” (291 points, 48 comments)
   10. ‘Shell knew’: oil giant's 1991 film warned of climate change danger. Public information film unseen for years shows Shell had clear grasp of global warming 26 years ago but has not acted accordingly since. (288 points, 64 comments)
2. 10390 points, 86 submissions: endtimesranter
   
   1. "Sadly, the truth is that much of the news that fills the 24-hour cycle simply isn’t newsworthy … and a lot of it really isn’t even news at all. It is mostly a serialized soap opera. It is personality-driven drivel. And it is rarely original reporting based on actual news..." (304 points, 58 comments)
   2. Dallas had never hit 90 degrees in November. It just did so three of the past four days. (276 points, 36 comments)
   3. Biologist: “We’re losing them right now, we’re losing them really quickly, much more quickly than I think any of us ever could have imagined.”- Coral Reefs Rapidly Dying Worldwide (243 points, 50 comments)
   4. The Trump administration's solution to climate change: ban the term - "a list of phrases to be avoided includes “climate change” and “climate change adaptation” “reduce greenhouse gases”, to be replaced by “weather extremes” and “resilience to weather extremes” Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (224 points, 39 comments)
   5. An analysis of 167 years of federal storm data by The Associated Press found that no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, this many days of those whoppers spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms. (218 points, 20 comments)
   6. Industrial farming is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, says leading academic (204 points, 52 comments)
   7. Scientist: “Its pretty depressing that it’s only a couple of years since the 400 ppm milestone was toppled” – Global CO2 Emissions Just Breached 410ppm, Level Unseen In Millions Of Years (186 points, 32 comments)
   8. Climatologist: “It’s a scale we haven’t seen in recent history and it’s very concerning.” Forest Fires Worldwide Burning Longer At Greater Frequency & Intensity Across Wider Areas (185 points, 11 comments)
   9. FEMA Is Almost Out of Money and Hurricane Irma Is Approaching - Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund down to its last $1 billion - Fund has burned through half its money since Thursday morning (180 points, 73 comments)
   10. Abandon Florida? Not quite. But it’s time for a retreat from flood zones. --- "When you hear about a house in Houston, assessed at $72,400, that has received more than $1 million in payouts through the federal flood insurance program, it’s only natural to ask, “Why did we ever build there?" " (178 points, 61 comments)
3. 6150 points, 36 submissions: eleitl
   
   1. Jesus. The House Science Committee just cited a false Breitbart report that the climate is cooling. Our Orwellian future is here. • /climate (759 points, 125 comments)
   2. [fun] 27 year-old who hasn't woken up before 9:30am in 8 years thinks he could run farm if society crumbles (380 points, 257 comments)
   3. Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds (284 points, 155 comments)
   4. Coal mining health study is halted by Trump’s Interior Department – “Stopping this study is a ploy to stop science in its tracks and keep the public in the dark about health risks as a favor to the mining industry” (276 points, 62 comments)
   5. Fetal deaths rose 58% and fertility rates fell 12% after Flint switched to lead-poisoned water (265 points, 29 comments)
   6. Welcome to the new dark ages, where only the wealthy can retire (265 points, 120 comments)
   7. Al Gore: 'The rich have subverted all reason' (236 points, 117 comments)
   8. China Announces That It Will Cover Nearly A Quarter Of The Country In Forest By 2020… (235 points, 70 comments)
   9. Across 22 Countries, 57% of people think their country is in decline, 48% think young people will have worse lives than their generation, and 69% think the system is rigged against them. (199 points, 33 comments)
   10. The Invention of Capitalism: How a Self-Sufficient Peasantry was Whipped Into Industrial Wage Slaves (186 points, 153 comments)
4. 6034 points, 38 submissions: cliffhanger1983
   
   1. Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment (571 points, 217 comments)
   2. Get Rid of Capitalism? Millennials Are Ready to Talk About It - Bloomberg (334 points, 457 comments)
   3. Stanford Study: Poor children remain poor, rich children get even richer - MarketWatch (259 points, 72 comments)
   4. Feds Say It's Too Dangerous To Share Dakota Access Oil Spill Report-DAPL SPILL!! (249 points, 17 comments)
   5. Noam Chomsky: Imagine a World Without Neoliberals Privatizing Everything in Sight - Alternet (246 points, 46 comments)
   6. Grim report shows teen suicide rate at 40-year high (245 points, 95 comments)
   7. U.S. is a 'danger to the world', warns top economist - Reuters (239 points, 68 comments)
   8. Two-thirds say this is the lowest point in U.S. history—and it’s keeping a lot of them up at night (216 points, 113 comments)
   9. Global inequality much worse than previously thought, say economists (204 points, 62 comments)
   10. A whopping 72% of all US businesses are NOT profitable. (174 points, 71 comments)
5. 5286 points, 25 submissions: veraknow
   
   1. Fentanyl is the number one cause of US overdoses. The maker of a fentanyl drug was the largest donor to the campaign opposing marijuana legalisation in Arizona. (927 points, 74 comments)
   2. Oklahoma hits 100°F in the dead of winter (349 points, 127 comments)
   3. Republicans move to sell off 3.3m acres of national land - land that provides corridors for gray wolves and grizzly bears and is the winter pasture for big game species. (335 points, 46 comments)
   4. I went to the NY and Paris climate conferences in an official capacity. I have seen what "climate action" looks like. We need more alarmism. (311 points, 140 comments)
   5. Avoiding Two Degrees of Warming 'Is Now Totally Unrealistic' - UN IPCC author (304 points, 191 comments)
   6. Record 37% of children in the UK forecast to be in poverty by 2022, undoing all progress in the last 20 years (289 points, 85 comments)
   7. Geophysicist writes paper titled: “Is Earth F**ked?” Answers: "more or less." (258 points, 88 comments)
   8. Brazil to open Amazon rainforest national reserve for mining, cancelling its nature reserve status (249 points, 49 comments)
   9. Japan declares Ogasawara Islands coral extinct (the Chinese poached it all for jewellery) (245 points, 34 comments)
   10. New Zealand plans for 3 coal mines would require clear cutting of forests in an area of outstanding biodiversity - with the coal itself shipped to developing countries (188 points, 36 comments)
6. 3515 points, 28 submissions: ReverseEngineer77
   
   1. Detroit's unaffordable water hints at a U.S. crisis to come (264 points, 41 comments)
   2. Over 2000 Veterans To Form Human Shield At Dakota Pipeline Protest (220 points, 67 comments)
   3. Someone deleted some code in a popular cryptocurrency wallet — and as much as $280 million in ethereum is locked up (and...it's GONE!) (201 points, 123 comments)
   4. Army denies Dakota pipeline permit, in victory for Native tribes (174 points, 10 comments)
   5. We Do Not Live in “Post Truth” World, We Live in a World of Lies and We Always Have (170 points, 102 comments)
   6. ‘If anyone can hear us … help.’ Puerto Rico’s mayors describe widespread devastation from Hurricane Maria (164 points, 21 comments)
   7. Three billionaires are wealthier than half the US population (161 points, 40 comments)
   8. So many journalists have been killed in Mexico this year that a newspaper is shutting down (157 points, 28 comments)
   9. Paradise Papers: Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed (145 points, 9 comments)
   10. ...AND SO IT BEGINS: World facing greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945 (136 points, 189 comments)
7. 3460 points, 26 submissions: finiteworld
   
   1. Planet Will Burn Before Corporate Media Covers Climate Change as Existential Threat (220 points, 20 comments)
   2. 'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault (213 points, 177 comments)
   3. Earth's oceans are warming 13% faster than thought, and accelerating (210 points, 44 comments)
   4. UN experts denounce 'myth' pesticides are necessary to feed the world (199 points, 35 comments)
   5. Somalia: 'People are dying..there's no water' (187 points, 95 comments)
   6. Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend (181 points, 48 comments)
   7. The Paris climate deal won't save us, our future depends on de-growth (166 points, 88 comments)
   8. 'People aren't spending': stores close doors in 'oversaturated' US retail market (157 points, 72 comments)
   9. How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds - It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled. (148 points, 11 comments)
   10. The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it (144 points, 83 comments)
8. 2779 points, 21 submissions: MrVisible
   
   1. Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals (367 points, 78 comments)
   2. Global Ocean Circulation Appears To Be Collapsing Due To A Warming Planet (198 points, 55 comments)
   3. People who don't have children benefit our environment more than any campaign – it's time to celebrate them (191 points, 164 comments)
   4. Rigged. Forced into debt. Worked past exhaustion. Left with nothing. (182 points, 81 comments)
   5. How A Warm Winter Destroyed 85 Percent Of Georgia's Peaches (146 points, 21 comments)
   6. Harvey destroyed hundreds of thousands of cars in a city that relies heavily on them (132 points, 98 comments)
   7. Spring is more than two weeks early in the American southeast (128 points, 53 comments)
   8. Climate change might be worse than thought after scientists find major mistake in water temperature readings (124 points, 20 comments)
   9. Rising CO2 Levels Are Sapping Staple Crops Of Their Protein & Iron Content (122 points, 11 comments)
   10. 102 million dead California trees unprecedented in our modern history, officials say (121 points, 32 comments)
9. 2594 points, 15 submissions: hillsfar
   
   1. Children of Men predicted a future of mass poverty, extreme class divide, a worsening refugee crisis, environmental ruin, and worldwide infertility. It becomes more real every day. (Seen in /lost generation) (454 points, 150 comments)
   2. Dollar General Hits a Gold Mine in Rural America. In the poorest towns, where even Wal-Mart doesn't want to go, Dollar General is moving in and turning a profit. "Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we are going to have a permanent underclass in America". (408 points, 159 comments)
   3. Bluefin Tuna at the Brink: "Bluefins caught today are mostly juveniles, up to 98% of total catch. They have not reproduced and never will because they’ll never have the opportunity." (303 points, 87 comments)
   4. How We REALLY Deal with Climate Crisis: "Those of us working to avoid the worst of the climate crisis must be honest with ourselves. Humanity does not have the cultural capacities to make the transition and avoid systemic collapse" (221 points, 94 comments)
   5. Slow Crash: Two years before the 2008 crash, Harper's published a dark prophecy of what was to come. Now: "It’s more like a slow crash". "The whole economy at the end of the road is going to look like Greece or Spain or Portugal or Italy." (163 points, 20 comments)
   6. The harsh truth about economic inequality, based on thousands of years of evidence: "only the so-called 'four horsemen' of war, disease, state collapse and revolution have succeeded in leveling income" (155 points, 72 comments)
   7. Battered Puerto Rico hospitals on life support after Hurricane Maria: "If this is not taken care of, people are going to start dying". (143 points, 31 comments)
   8. Arkema Warns It Can't Prevent Potential Chemical Explosion in Texas: "As soon as the chemicals begin to degrade they start to 'self-accelerate' in a type of no-turning-back mode"... (120 points, 33 comments)
   9. Extremely Nasty Climate Wake-Up: "...sudden changes in the ecosystem are causing climate scientists to stop and ponder what’s happening to our planet, like never before." "...A team of UK scientists discovered 8,000 blue lakes formed in East Antarctica" (111 points, 11 comments)
   10. Our Planet Is So Fucked That Some Women Are Choosing to Not Have Kids: "There's this number, 9,441. That's the amount of additional metric tons of carbon you add to the atmosphere for every child you have." (100 points, 102 comments)
10. 1962 points, 11 submissions: MichaelTen
    
    1. Millennial households are poorer than any other generation: Study (350 points, 156 comments)
    2. Bernie Sanders warns of 'international oligarchy' after Paradise Papers leak (317 points, 122 comments)
    3. TIL that 69% of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 USD in Savings, as of September 2016 (253 points, 140 comments)
    4. It Is Becoming Illegal To Be Homeless In America As Houston, Dallas And Dozens Of Other Cities Pass Draconian Laws (172 points, 44 comments)
    5. Tyson Foods Linked to Largest Toxic Dead Zone in U.S. History (170 points, 16 comments)
    6. Rigorous Study Finds Antidepressants Worsen Long-Term Outcomes (164 points, 62 comments)
    7. Casino Magnate Wants to Kill Bill That Would Make Nevada a Renewable Energy Powerhouse (154 points, 16 comments)
    8. Medical Debt Is the Top Cause of South Florida Homelessness, Survey Says (117 points, 8 comments)
    9. How 90% of American Households Lost an Average of $17,000 in Wealth to the Plutocrats in 2016 (104 points, 16 comments)
    10. Most Americans’ best days are behind them. Median household income peaked at least 15 years ago in 81 percent of U.S. counties. Use this interactive map to see when each county peaked. (83 points, 4 comments)
11. 1893 points, 12 submissions: FF00A7
    
    1. The ozone layer is as thin as it was 30 years ago and not recovering as predicted due to new unregulated chemicals. (367 points, 41 comments)
    2. Oxygen levels ‘falling 2 to 3 times faster than predicted’ in warming oceans (216 points, 32 comments)
    3. Trump wants to pay coal companies $15/ton to burn more coal. (183 points, 48 comments)
    4. Depletion of dissolved oxygen in oceans is occurring much faster than expected, new study. "This scares me more than arctic methane." (174 points, 23 comments)
    5. Even If We Cut All Energy And Transportation Emissions, The Meat And Dairy Will Kill Us (164 points, 139 comments)
    6. Hurricane Irma covered Florida with a film of poop. (142 points, 23 comments)
    7. World must hit zero carbon emissions 'well before 2040', scientists warn - New research suggests it will be an ‘enormous challenge’ to prevent global warming getting out of hand (133 points, 56 comments)
    8. Disaster Capitalism: 2-person 2-year old company in hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lands $300 million contract to rebuild Puerto Rico electric grid. (130 points, 20 comments)
    9. "It would seem that man is destined to exterminate himself after having rendered the globe uninhabitable" (Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, 1820) (114 points, 9 comments)
    10. Putin says expects 'fake' gas attacks by USA, "they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities". (103 points, 32 comments)

Top Commenters

1. MrVisible (6341 points, 556 comments)
2. NICK16_06 (4235 points, 445 comments)
3. xrm67 (3028 points, 255 comments)

Top Submissions

1. Fentanyl is the number one cause of US overdoses. The maker of a fentanyl drug was the largest donor to the campaign opposing marijuana legalisation in Arizona. by veraknow (927 points, 74 comments)
2. Jesus. The House Science Committee just cited a false Breitbart report that the climate is cooling. Our Orwellian future is here. • /climate by eleitl (759 points, 125 comments)
3. Carl Sagan in 1996. by boldra (677 points, 116 comments)
4. Environmentalists Are Ignoring the Elephant In the Room: U.S. Military Is the World’s Largest Polluter - The US Department of Defence is one of the world’s worst polluters, its footprint dwarfs that of any corporation. by xleb1 (594 points, 147 comments)
5. Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment by cliffhanger1983 (571 points, 217 comments)
6. FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States by factczech (522 points, 43 comments)
7. Coca-Cola increased its production of single-use plastic bottles by a billion last year: “We calculated it produced over 110bn throwaway plastic bottles every year –an astounding 3,400 a second– while refusing to take responsibility for its role in the plastic pollution crisis facing our oceans." by xrm67 (505 points, 30 comments)
8. Professor Joseph Stiglitz : Inequality is killing America. Employee income is lower than before, suicides, drugs and alcoholism is rising. Life expectancy is now going down for middle-aged white Americans. I was Chief Economist of the World Bank in the 90s, this looks like the Soviet collapse by alllie (500 points, 103 comments)
9. Children of Men predicted a future of mass poverty, extreme class divide, a worsening refugee crisis, environmental ruin, and worldwide infertility. It becomes more real every day. (Seen in /lost generation) by hillsfar (454 points, 150 comments)
10. The people of South Dakota democratically pass a sweeping anti-corruption bill. Republican legislature calls for "emergency" measures, cancels law, and blocks it from appearing on future ballots. by magnora7 (446 points, 34 comments)

Top Comments

1. 392 points: CrankyDude16bit's comment in Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life
2. 259 points: MrVisible's comment in Where Did All the Men Go? The rise of the unworking. America has suffered a quiet catastrophe in the collapse of work for men
3. 246 points: entropys_child's comment in 'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault
4. 187 points: deleted's comment in millennials, regardless of politics, can agree that society is fundamentally and irreparably ‘broken’
5. 183 points: MrVisible's comment in Is anyone sick of the argument that, somehow, gay people and transsexuals are proof that Western civilization is in decline?
6. 178 points: lazlounderhill's comment in In Orange County, California, you need $28 USD per hour to buy a one-room apartment. 70% of area jobs don't pay that much.
7. 170 points: MakeTotalDestr0i's comment in Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment
8. 163 points: MrVisible's comment in How does one endure this shit show?
9. 159 points: thewisesloth's comment in Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.
10. 157 points: radical_vegan's comment in Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?

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Trump Can't Reverse the Decline of White Christian America
by Robert P. Jones via Master Feed : The Atlantic
URL: http://ift.tt/2tEy7Ev
Down the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, one of Donald Trump’s most consistent talking points was a claim that America’s changing demographics and culture had brought the country to a precipice. He repeatedly cast himself as the last chance for Republicans and conservative white Christians to step back from the cliff, to preserve their power and way of life. In an interview on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in early September, Trump put the choice starkly for the channel’s conservative Christian viewers: “If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican and you’ll have a whole different church structure.” Asked to elaborate, Trump continued, “I think this will be the last election that the Republicans have a chance of winning because you’re going to have people flowing across the border, you’re going to have illegal immigrants coming in and they’re going to be legalized and they’re going to be able to vote, and once that all happens you can forget it.”
Michelle Bachman, a member of Trump’s evangelical executive advisory board, echoed these same sentiments in a speech at the Values Voters Summit, an annual meeting attended largely by conservative white Christians. That same week, she declared in an interview with CBN: “If you look at the numbers of people who vote and who lives [sic] in the country and who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to bring in to the country, this is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.” Post-election polling from the Public Religion Research Institute, which I lead, and _The Atlantic_showed that this appeal found its mark among conservative voters. Nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of Trump voters, compared to only 22 percent of Clinton voters, agreed that “the 2016 election represented the last chance to stop America’s decline.”
Does Trump’s victory, then, represent the resurrection of White Christian America? The consequences of the 2016 elections are indeed sweeping. Republicans entered 2017 with control of both houses of Congress and the White House. And because the Republican-controlled Senate refused to consider an Obama appointee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in early 2016, Trump was able to nominate a conservative Supreme Court justice right out of the gate. Trump’s cabinet and advisors consist largely of defenders of either Wall Street or White Christian America.
The evidence, however, suggests that Trump’s unlikely victory is better understood as the death rattle of White Christian America—the cultural and political edifice built primarily by white Protestant Christians—rather than as its resuscitation. Despite the election’s immediate and dramatic consequences, it’s important not to over-interpret Trump’s win, which was extraordinarily close. Out of more than 136 million votes cast, Trump’s victory in the Electoral College came down to a razor-thin edge of only 77,744 votes across three states: Pennsylvania (44,292 votes), Wisconsin (22,748 votes), and Michigan (10,704 votes). These votes represent a Trump margin of 0.7 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 0.7 percentage points in Wisconsin, and 0.2 percentage points in Michigan. If Clinton had won these states, she would now be president. And of course Clinton actually won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, receiving 48.2 percent of all votes compared to Trump’s 46.1 percent. The real story of 2016 is that there was just enough movement in just the right places, just enough increased turnout from just the right groups, to get Trump the electoral votes he needed to win.
Trump’s intense appeal to 2016 as the “last chance” election seems to have spurred conservative white Christian voters to turn out to vote at particularly high rates. Two election cycles ago in 2008, white evangelicals represented 21 percent of the general population but, thanks to their higher turnout relative to other voters, comprised 26 percent of actual voters. In 2016, even as their proportion of the population fell to 17 percent, white evangelicals continued to represent 26 percent of voters. In other words, white evangelicals went from being overrepresented by five percentage points at the ballot box in 2008 to being overrepresented by nine percentage points in 2016. This is an impressive feat to be sure, but one less and less likely to be replicated as their decline in the general population continues.
Updating two trends with 2015-2016 data also confirms that the overall patterns of demographic and cultural change are continuing. The chart below plots two trend lines that capture key measures of change: the percentage of white, non-Hispanic Christians in the country and the percentage of Americans who support same-sex marriage. The percentage of white Christians in the country fell from 54 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in 2014. That percentage has fallen again in each subsequent year, to 45 percent in 2015 and to 43 percent in 2016. Similarly, the percentage of Americans who supported same-sex marriage rose from 40 percent in 2008 to 54 percent in 2014. That number stayed relatively stable (53 percent) in 2015—the year the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states—but jumped to 58 percent in 2016.
Despite the outcome of the 2016 elections, the key long-term trends indicate White Christian America’s decline is continuing unabated. Over the last eight years, the percentage of Americans who identify as white and Christian fell 11 percentage points, and support for same-sex marriage jumped 18 percentage points. In a _New York Times_op-ed shortly after the election, I summarized the results of the election this way: “The waning numbers of white Christians in the country today may not have time on their side, but as the sun is slowly setting on the cultural world of White Christian America, they’ve managed, at least in this election, to rage against the dying of the light.”
One of the most perplexing features of the 2016 election was the high level of support Donald Trump received from white evangelical Protestants. How did a group that once proudly identified itself as “values voters” come to support a candidate who had been married three times, cursed from the campaign stump, owned casinos, appeared on the cover of Playboy Magazine, and most remarkably, was caught on tape bragging in the most graphic terms about habitually grabbing women’s genitals without their permission? White evangelical voters’ attraction to Trump was even more mysterious because the early GOP presidential field offered candidates with strong evangelical credentials, such as Ted Cruz, a longtime Southern Baptist whose father was a Baptist minister, and Marco Rubio, a conservative Catholic who could talk with ease and familiarity about his own personal relationship with Jesus.
The shotgun wedding between Trump and white evangelicals was not without conflict and objections. It set off some high drama between Trump suitors, such as Jerry Falwell, Jr. of Liberty University and Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, and #neverTrump evangelical leaders such as Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention. Just days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Falwell invited him to speak at Liberty University, where he serves as president. In his introduction, Falwell told the gathered students, “In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.” And a week later, he officially endorsed Trump for president. Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor of the influential First Baptist Church in Dallas and a frequent commentator on Fox News, also threw his support behind Trump early in the campaign but took a decidedly different approach. Jeffress explicitly argued that a president’s faith is “not the only consideration, and sometimes it’s not the most important consideration.” Citing grave threats to America, particularly from “radical Islamic terrorism,” Jeffress’ support of Trump for president was straightforward realpolitik: “I want the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-you-know-what I can find in that role, and I think that’s where many evangelicals are.” Moore, by contrast, remained a steadfast Trump opponent throughout the campaign. He was aghast at the high-level embrace of Trump by white evangelical leaders and strongly expressed his incredulity that they “have tossed aside everything that they previously said they believed in order to embrace and to support the Trump candidacy.”
In the end, however, Falwell and Jeffress had a better feel for the people in the pews. Trump received unwavering support from white evangelicals from the beginning of the primaries through Election Day. As I noted at the beginning of the primary season, the first evidence that Trump was rewriting the Republican playbook was his victory in the South Carolina GOP primary, the first southern primary and one in which more than two-thirds of the voters were white evangelicals. The Cruz campaign had considered Super Tuesday’s South-heavy lineup to be its firewall against early Trump momentum. But when the returns came in, Cruz had won only his home state of Texas and neighboring Oklahoma, while Trump had swept the southern states, taking Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, and Arkansas. Trump ultimately secured the GOP nomination, not over white evangelical voters’ objections, but because of their support. And on Election Day, white evangelicals set a new high water mark in their support for a Republican presidential candidate, backing Trump at a slightly higher level than even President George W. Bush in 2004 (81 percent vs. 78 percent).
Trump’s campaign—with its sweeping promise to “make American great again”—triumphed by converting self-described “values voters” into what I’ve called “nostalgia voters.” Trump’s promise to restore a mythical past golden age—where factory jobs paid the bills and white Protestant churches were the dominant cultural hubs—powerfully tapped evangelical anxieties about an uncertain future.
The 2016 election, in fact, was peculiar because of just how little concrete policy issues mattered. The election, more than in any in recent memory, came down to two vividly contrasting views of America. Donald Trump’s campaign painted a bleak portrait of America’s present, set against a bright, if monochromatic, vision of 1950s America restored. Hillary Clinton’ campaign, by contrast, sought to replace the first African American president with the first female president and embraced the multicultural future of 2050, the year the Census Bureau originally projected the United States would become a majority nonwhite nation. “Make American Great Again” and “Stronger Together,” the two campaigns’ competing slogans, became proxies for an epic battle over the changing face of America.
The gravitational pull of nostalgia among white evangelicals was evident across a wide range of public opinion polling questions. Just a few weeks before the 2016 election, 66 percent of white evangelical Protestants said the growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values. Nearly as many favored building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico (64 percent) and temporarily banning Muslims from other countries from entering the U.S. (62 percent). And 63 percent believed that today discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. White evangelicals also stood out on broad questions about cultural change. While Americans overall were nearly evenly divided on whether American culture and way of life have changed for worse (51 percent) or better (48 percent) since the 1950s, white evangelical Protestants were likelier than any other demographic group to say things have changed for the worse since the 1950s (74 percent).
It is perhaps an open question whether Trump’s candidacy represents a true change in evangelicals’ DNA or whether it simply revealed previously hidden traits, but the shift from values to nostalgia voter has undoubtedly transformed their political ethics. The clearest example of evangelical ethics bending to fit the Trump presidency is white evangelicals’ abandonment of their conviction that personal character matters for elected officials. In 2011 and again just ahead of the 2016 election, PRRI asked Americans whether a political leader who committed an immoral act in his or her private life could nonetheless behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public life. In 2011, consistent with the “values voter” brand and the traditional evangelical emphasis on the importance of personal character, only 30 percent of white evangelical Protestants agreed with this statement. But with Trump at the top of the Republican ticket in 2016, 72 percent of white evangelicals said they believed a candidate could build a kind of moral dyke between his private and public life. In a head-spinning reversal, white evangelicals went from being the least likely to the most likely group to agree that a candidate’s personal immorality has no bearing on his performance in public office.
Fears about the present and a desire for a lost past, bound together with partisan attachments, ultimately overwhelmed values voters’ convictions. Rather than standing on principle and letting the chips fall where they may, white evangelicals fully embraced a consequentialist ethics that works backward from predetermined political ends, bending or even discarding core principles as needed to achieve a predetermined outcome. When it came to the 2016 election, the ends were deemed so necessary they justified the means. As he saw the polls trending for Trump in the last days before the election, in no small part because of the support of white evangelicals, Russell Moore was blunt, lamenting that Trump-supporting evangelicals had simply adopted “a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it."
White evangelicals have entered a grand bargain with the self-described master dealmaker, with high hopes that this alliance will turn back the clock. And Donald Trump’s installation as the 45th president of the United States may in fact temporarily prop up, by pure exertions of political and legal power, what white Christian Americans perceive they have lost. But these short-term victories will come at an exorbitant price. Like Esau, who exchanged his inheritance for a pot of stew, white evangelicals have traded their distinctive values for fleeting political power. Twenty years from now, there is little chance that 2016 will be celebrated as the revival of White Christian America, no matter how many Christian right leaders are installed in positions of power over the next four years. Rather, this election will mostly likely be remembered as the one in which white evangelicals traded away their integrity and influence in a gambit to resurrect their past.
Meanwhile, the major trends transforming the country continue. If anything, evangelicals’ deal with Trump may accelerate the very changes it was designed to arrest, as a growing number of non-white and non-Christian Americans are repulsed by the increasingly nativist, tribal tenor of both conservative white Christianity and conservative white politics. At the end of the day, white evangelicals’ grand bargain with Trump will be unable to hold back the sheer weight of cultural change, and their descendants will be left with the only real move possible: acceptance.

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funny	The Irony of my Facebook feed	Facebook
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AskReddit	Which one is ur favorite KFC or Mcdonald's?	KFC
movies	The League United !!!	United
personalfinance	Hey guys, I came here not to long ago for a beginners credit card at the age 23 to start building credit. Through many recommendations I applied for Chase Freedom Ultimate. Sadly I got denied but was pre-approved for Chase Slate. What's your opinion on this card?	Chase
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: why aren't Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism the dominant economic and political philosophies, respectively, in the United States?	United
videos	Maggie Rogers thanks "faces behind computer screens" before playing Alaska in San Francisco	Rogers
Futurology	Great Scott!: Flying Taxis Could Soon Be Coming To A Sky Near You	Sky
Showerthoughts	Justice League could be better with Vincent Chase as Aquaman	Chase
videos	Ghost in the Shell - Bloopers & Behind the Scenes	Shell
WritingPrompts	WP There is a shortage of police in the United States, they've decided to implement a draft. You've been selected.	United
mildlyinteresting	The new Starbucks cup is the same color as my wall	Starbucks
AskReddit	Who is your most famous Facebook friend?	Facebook
Music	Lost the password/acct info to my old Apple Music library	Apple
funny	Found this on an iPad at the Apple Store.	Apple
Jokes	There's a pun about Apple glasses...	Apple
worldnews	Australia does not have to choose between the United States and China, the Australian prime minister said	United
AskReddit	What's the point in asking reddit a question on AskReddit when you can quickly Google it?	Google
funny	Did one of those Facebook things today...	Facebook
mildlyinteresting	Complimentary Mouthwash at the Ford Dealership	Ford
worldnews	Douglas Carswell quitting UKIP to become independent MP for Clacton - BBC News	BBC
worldnews	EU hails new alliance for supercomputers: Seven EU countries announced a joint initiative to acquire and deploy world-class high-performance computers, a project that is comparable to the size of Airbus or the Galileo satellite navigation project	Airbus
Futurology	EU hails new alliance for supercomputers: Seven EU countries announced a joint initiative to acquire and deploy world-class high-performance computers, a project that is comparable to the size of Airbus or the Galileo satellite navigation project	Airbus
videos	The first episode of a Mr. Rogers five-episode arc titled "Conflict", focusing on nuclear conflict and war. The episodes have been lost since the mid-90's until now...	Rogers
mildlyinteresting	This box of apples had an Apple Usage Chart	Apple
personalfinance	Pay your cell phone bill with a Wells Fargo credit card	Wells Fargo
videos	Nerdy Uber Driver Surprises Passengers with his Talent	Uber
AskReddit	Is it dangerous using Adobe Zii for patching Adobe products? Will I get sued or something like that? What is the worst case scenario?	Adobe
Showerthoughts	One day there will be Google maps for hyperspace and worm holes, like the hi-way systems of today.	Google
videos	I think the United States postal service is downsizing	United
AskReddit	What are some benefits of Android phones that Apple users wouldn't know about?	Apple
nottheonion	Man in leopard-print robe, orange Crocs robs McDonald's with hairbrush	McDonald's
AskReddit	What do you feel are the top 3 most valued traits in the United States?	United
funny	When Tim Hortons puts you in your place	Tim Hortons
AskReddit	What was your bad Uber experience?	Uber
worldnews	Chinese court rules in favor of Apple in local design patent disputes	Apple
AskReddit	serious why is Google play being shut down?	Google
mildlyinteresting	This Volkswagen devil	Volkswagen
AskReddit	Why do hockey and soccer fans in the United States have such an inferiority complex about basketball being way more culturally relevant?	United
news	Man in Business Suit and pig mask robs Rolex store in Las Vegas. Shots fired. GTAV real life.	Rolex
todayilearned	TIL "Devo" bassist/singer Gerald Casale witnessed the Kent State shootings. That day, he "stopped being a hippie" and focused on their concept of devolution, that mankind has begun to regress.	Kent
movies	Thoughts on the live action Ghost in the Shell movie.	Shell
pics	1956 Renault Etoile Filante, broke land speed records in the day.	Renault
worldnews	Belarus protests: Hundreds arrested after defying ban - BBC News	BBC
AskReddit	Gamers, If you could pick one game to buy for Xbox One what would it be and why?	Xbox
AskReddit	What is the most underrated state in the United States one that one one really talks about but is awesome?	United
worldnews	Thousands take to streets in anti-Brexit London march - BBC News	BBC
AskReddit	What is the most unbelievable video on Youtube you have ever seen that almost no one has seen?	Youtube
pics	Another Charter Spectrum Genius.	Charter
AskReddit	Where's the best place to get buffalo wings in the United States?	United
Showerthoughts	Really, since I accept the idea of aliens as a reality and the Beast could be just like an alien, Bell really isn't nasty for giving him some play before he transforms.	Bell
Showerthoughts	It's taken me too long to realise that the saying "that rings a bell" when remembering something, is in reference to the Pavlov's Bell experiments.	Bell
pics	Took this photo today in N Quito, Ecuador with a Canon 80D	Canon
photoshopbattles	PsBattle: BBC toddler addressing the crowd	BBC
AskReddit	Hey Reddit, what's the code for using the intercom at Walmart in 2017?	Walmart
funny	Children interrupt BBC News interview THE BACKWARDS EDITION	BBC
funny	Children interrupt BBC News interview THE BACKWARDS EDITION	BBC
mildlyinteresting	Someone coded a smiley face on CBS sports radio when you click to listen live.	CBS
mildlyinteresting	The Shazam logo looks like two Lego hands holding each other	Lego
food	I Ate Orange Pistachio Cassata with Blackberries and Citrus Olive Oil	Orange
worldnews	China Wants Total Access To Canada, May Seek To Import Its Own Workers	Total
Documentaries	The Secret World of Richard Nixon - BBC 2000	BBC
videos	Nerdy Uber Driver Surprises Passengers with his Talent	Uber
AskReddit	Put Donald Trump's mind & Twitter account into any former US President & how would they respond to an event that occurred during their presidency?	Twitter
funny	Thanks, Google AdSense! I'll take one hydraulic press for science, please.	Google
videos	Teenager stays hidden in Costco for 24 hours	Costco
AskReddit	serious why will Google play games be blocked?	Google
Documentaries	HOW TO STACK TOWERS IN BLOONS TD BATTLES! THE STRONGEST STRATEGY POSSIB...2014	TD
mildlyinteresting	This sign in Germany is telling you to leave the building in case of fire before you Twitter about it	Twitter
television	The first episode of a Mr. Rogers five-episode arc titled "Conflict" from 1983, focusing on nuclear conflict and war. The episodes have all been lost until now.	Rogers
sports	Booker's 70 gives Suns reason to celebrate - ESPN Video	ESPN