Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

This fight is for everything.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Everyone Simmer the Fuck Down

Reader Interactions

410Comments

  11. 11.

    Dangerman

    Never thought I’d be sending TCFG a get well soon wish (I assume he got nicked in the ear).

  12. 12.

    stinger

    I just wanted to say thank you to whoever donated to Four Directions-Wisconsin and brought the current total to 1313131.

  17. 17.

    SpaceUnit

    Our MSM struggling to frame a shooting at a hate rally is like a Far Side cartoon.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    Nancy Smash released a nice statement.
    We haven’t heard lately how her husband is doing. I hope he’s well.

  19. 19.

    Scout211

    @zhena gogolia: Yeah, that thread has gotten seriously weird.

    I’m guessing that I shouldn’t go back and catch up on the comments in that thread.  Thanks for the heads up.

  22. 22.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    I remember that. Right before the 22 midterms, right? God, that simultaneously feels like yesterday and a million years ago. Come to think of it, the last 10 years have felt that way to me too. Hope he’s doing well, too

  24. 24.

    Soapdish

    May we live in interesting times.

    I remember saying that during the 2000 recount and thinking that would be the moment it applied to my life. Clearly I was lacking in imagination.

  25. 25.

    BeautifulPlumage

    Thank you JC. I just opened my phone and I have not desire to wade through bullshit right now . Good to see others agree.

  26. 26.

    RaflW

    This is a good night to log off.

    I’m pulling brats and zucchini off the grill in 90 seconds.

    Check in with y’all tomorrow. Peace.

  28. 28.

    geg6

    So Cheetolini has his minions furiously re-writing his scripts for the next rally, as reported by CBS.  It’s going to blame Democrats and their nasty rhetoric.  I just can’t with this shit.

    Also, apparently in the aftermath, the Trumpers turned on the press and threatened them.  But we’re probably not going to hear much more about that.

  30. 30.

    RinaX

    A republican congressman blamed Biden. J.D. Vance is saying Democrats incited the violence. Let them keep stepping on their own dicks, no need to assist with conspiracy theories.

  32. 32.

    hells littlest angel

    It appears your colleagues are way ahead of you, with two posts on other topics, including one about an upcoming movie. Nice.

  34. 34.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @RinaX: right back to bizarro land with these guys, so Biden is some out of touch dottering old fool and at the very same time a vitriol spewing demagogy able to whip his voters into a blood lust.

  35. 35.

    geg6

    Oh, and I agree with you, Cole.  The conspiracy shit is over the line for me.  I’ve never been sucked in by any of them.  I’m a natural born skeptic of all conspiracies.

  36. 36.

    CaseyL

    I’m re-reading my way through my Terry Pratchett collection. It’s wonderful to see how his narrative chops developed, and see the first appearance of what would become major characters.

    I’m thinking of doing an essay on Early, Middle, and Mature Pratchett :). Just for myself, just to see where my thoughts take me.

  37. 37.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    Thoughts and prayers to all.

    Except to the reporter who asked Biden, as he walked out of CHURCH for heaven sake, if he had been briefed on the situation. Has the guy never been in church?

  40. 40.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Political violence is bad, period.

    Let the right yammer and make all-too predictable accusations about how it’s Biden’s fault, “the left’s” fault, etc.  Just repeat after JC: Political violence is bad, period.

    I wish it were that easy in terms of messaging, many of the historic parallels echo way too eeerily.

    I always say I never thought I’d live to see the day that certain things happened, like a black man becoming President or the general acceptance of LGTBQ+ rights.  On the down side, I never thought I’d live to see the day when the American Swastika was present in the Capitol, we have a convicted rapist, 34 Felony Convictions, pedophile-pimp-associate as a standard bearer for a major political party *and* who will pull in at least 45% of the vote.

  41. 41.

    Cacti

    Just a reminder to any lurking Republicans:

    If Biden did this as an official act, he is absolutely immune from prosecution.

  42. 42.

    zhena gogolia

    @Leto: “Was this a security failiing, Mr. President?”

    Let’s make sure we make some points against you while we have you, Mr. President!

  43. 43.

    Belafon

    I do hate living in a timeline where the first thing even my brain did was wonder if it was a setup. It took a bit for me to wind that back to we don’t know anything, and we don’t want anyone killed (we will only break MAGA if we vote Biden back into office). I want to return to a time where any attempt on a life is a shock.

  44. 44.

    OGLiberal

    I agree that the conspiracy theories and false flag BS and he brought it on himself shit needs to be toned way down.  But when your just turned 18-years old son calls you up and tells you he is terrified of how the Trumpers may react against people like us, it’s difficult to fully simmer down.

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    It’s going to blame Democrats and their nasty rhetoric.

    That’s pretty rich coming from a guy who called his political opponents “vermin” a few months back.

    All Dems have done is tell the truth about them. Nobody said to “kill him”.

  47. 47.

    Jeffro

    I for one appreciate the many, many progressives who are both a) wishing former (emphasis on FORMER) president trump well and b) noting that actual (emphasis on ACTUAL) President Biden…along with many other Dems…is reminding the country that violence has no place in our politics.

    Also, c) trump was more than gleeful about Paul Pelosi taking a hammer to the skull and thought it was funny, in addition to many other times he thought violence was the bomb (pun kinda intended)

    Oh and also d) fuck any and all double standards from the GOP and its media bootlickers.

    Sow, reap, all that.

  49. 49.

    different-church-lady

    @Jeffro:

    President Biden…along with many other Dems…is reminding the country that violence has no place in our politics.

    And we’ll get blamed for it anyway.

  50. 50.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    The last thing we need now is a bunch of heated rhetoric and people acting the fool.

    So I brought belled shoes and a heated bullhorn for nothing?

  51. 51.

    Jeffro

    I see Musk also used the opportunity to weigh in with a full endorsement of former violence cheerleader/current ear-wound patient trumpov.  The masks are fully off now, voters.  Choose well.

  52. 52.

    rk

    A lot of people die in this country due to easy gun access. I’d like to think that he will give one thought to all the people who have died in mass shootings, all the children, and it gives him pause. Yeah! Who am I kidding.

  53. 53.

    SpaceUnit

    I remember that rally where trump gave a shout out to the 2nd Amendment people while complaining about the Democrats.  So funny!   He winked and grinned and made a motion like he was holding a rifle while the crowd whooped and hollered.

  54. 54.

    Yutsano

    @Suzanne: ​

    I will admit that I am having some nostalgia for when things felt normal.

    I thought going through the Clinton era was trauma enough. Then Dubya and 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. I thought for the briefest of moments the Obama administration would get us more progress. But then Herr Drumpf happened and things just feel more insane than ever. If he wins again I don’t know what is going to happen, except it won’t be good.

  55. 55.

    raven

    Since people can’t resist showing how fucking smart they are and can’t do as you and WG ask you should just shut this fucking blog down for a while.

  60. 60.

    Yutsano

    @CaseyL: ​

    I’m thinking of doing an essay on Early, Middle, and Mature Pratchett :). Just for myself, just to see where my thoughts take me.

    People make careers out of this. Just sayin’.

  65. 65.

    SpaceUnit

    Lester Holt is on NBC right now wondering out loud if we’ll hear a different tone from both sides now.

     

    Fuck.

  68. 68.

    TheMightyTrowel

    posts like this are why i still read BJ (even if i don’t comment much anymore)… no nonsense good sense and a so-help-me-i’ll-turn-this-car-right-around attitude

    i rewatched Topkapi this beautiful Sun morning (getting over a horrible sinus infection so moving slowly). Might need to finally track down the novel it’s based on

  69. 69.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @SpaceUnit: No, Lester, the Democrats are not going to take this as an opportunity to suddenly endorse political violence.

  72. 72.

    MagdaInBlack

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but what I’m feeling right now is a certain kind of weary sadness that this constant chaos and anger is where we are today, in this country.

  73. 73.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The “no one knows shit” part is absolutely right.  The morons of the MSM are calling it “an assassination attempt” without having the relevant facts to support the assertion.  Cole is right.  Calm the fuck down.

  74. 74.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @stinger: It caught my attention, too. It at least temporarily disincentivizes moving it away from the palindrome, but fortunately most people won’t notice or care.

  75. 75.

    PatrickG

    @geg6: NPR special coverage I was listening to in the car had two reporters talking about that (edit: the “this is your fault!” yells directed at the media), from the perspective of those covering the rallies.

    We will see if it’s a continuing topic. It does affect them personally, after all.

  78. 78.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @SpaceUnit: Lester Holt is on NBC right now wondering out loud if we’ll hear a different tone from both sides now.

    Maybe I am missing something, it sounds like the Democratic leadership is denouncing political violence, not endorsing it. How is that a different tone from before like Lester here is claiming?

  79. 79.

    Chris Johnson

    We’re the ones who (in some, not all cases) want to ban assault weapons such as AR-15s. Will check back later to see if what I heard about that holds up. I did see a picture of an exceedingly white short-haired dude, dead on a roof. I have no idea why he would be there or why the cops and Secret Service would let him be there, even for a moment.

    I’ll also repeat what I said downthread, that nothing Trump has done, including felonies and rape, warrant the death penalty. Period. They warrant other things involving our justice system, more civilized punishments or confinements, and getting shot at by unknown assailants does not automatically exempt you from justice. But that justice must not be a random executioner. We live in a civilized society. There will not be civil war here. If there’s heightened crime, we’ll deal with that as it comes up.

    Criminals are not warriors. Trump’s assailant does not speak for me in any sense, whatever his motive.

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    @MagdaInBlack:

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but what I’m feeling right now is a certain kind of weary sadness that this constant chaos and anger is where we are today, in this country. 

    Absolutely.

  81. 81.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @SpaceUnit:

    In the other thread, somebody said “There’s no “both sides” to this.”

    Lester Holt is simply the first Failed Corporate Media Clown to put that notion to rest.

  82. 82.

    AnonPhenom

    I think I heard on Fox News at some point in the past that situations like this is “The Price We Pay For Freedom”.

    Oh well?

  86. 86.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: In terms of who gets blame, I’m only concerned with one side.

    They have demonized Democrats and, more importantly, the constituent parts of the D coalition (voters) my entire life. They have put forward the 2nd amendment as a solution to threats from the government my entire life.

    I’ll be damned if I see Democrats get blamed for this, no matter the politics of the shooter.

  87. 87.

    different-church-lady

    There will be no change: Democrats will continue to condemn violence against all people, Republicans will continue to advocate violence against some people, and the press will continue to treat both as being the same.

  89. 89.

    Leto

    @Another Scott: I was searching for it, but couldn’t find it. Ty!

    Canada is up 2-1 on Uruguay in the 3rd place match of the COPA America 2024 tournament. Good game!

  91. 91.

    Warblewarble

    MSM needs to be showing nothing but cat and other funny video’s for the next several days.

  92. 92.

    Hilbertsubspace

    @Villago Delenda Est: A joke regarding assumptions:

    A mathematician, a physicist, and an astronomer were riding on a train from England into Scotland.  They are looking out at fields with white sheep in them, but when the pass into Scotland they see a field with only a single black sheep.

    “Scottish sheep are black,” says the astronomer.

    “Well, some Scottish sheep are black,” cautions the physicist.

    The mathematician rolls his eyes and intones, “In Scotland exists one field and in that field exists one sheep, one side of which is black.”

  94. 94.

    Leto

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I did, and this is absolutely what I was talking about. Dems have repeatedly called for non-violent political solutions, even when the motherfuckers are killing us. Having a worthless hack like Holt asking if “both sides” will change tone, or whatever, is just… VDE is all.

  96. 96.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @raven: If was an assassination attempt – the thought of Trump being venerated like Lincoln or Kennedy just makes my skin crawl.

  97. 97.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Leto: Lester Holt is vile. He should have his view forthrightly challenged in public.

    I know this sounds extreme…

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @eversor: Which Jesus, though?  He seems to have multiple personality disorder, given the different interpretations of him by some of his followers.

  104. 104.

    Jackie

    @SpaceUnit:

    Lester Holt is on NBC right now wondering out loud if we’ll hear a different tone fromboth sides now.

    This is going to change the subject on Lester’s exclusive Mon. night interview with Joe. Maybe it’ll be postponed.

  107. 107.

    different-church-lady

    @Jackie:

    This is going to change the subject on Lester’s exclusive Mon. night interview with Joe.

    “Someone tried to kill Trump. Doesn’t this mean you’re too old to be president?”

  108. 108.

    Another Scott

    Thanks Blogmeister, and everyone else trying to urge care in thoughts and comments.

    Nitter, (Twitter version):

    Aaron Fritschner
    @Fritschner
    39m

    An important measure of leadership is whether in moments like this you try to help — for instance by urging those who look to you for guidance to reject violence, or by trying to bring down the temperature — or whether you try to capitalize. We’re seeing some fail that test now.

    Jul 14, 2024 · 1:06 AM UTC

    +1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suzanne: Well, he might think he got hit by a bullet, but he may have been hit, also, too, or only by, glass shards from a shattered teleprompter.  Nothing he says can be taken at face value, ever.

  111. 111.

    AnonPhenom

    @Chris Johnson:

    We may be talking about banning assault weapons, but there is a GOP Rep on TV saying how this proves we’re a “third world country now”.

    Funny how thoughts and prayers aren’t applicable in this situation.

  113. 113.

    Leto

    @Villago Delenda Est: I gotta say, I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the news broke. Just a sadness to it though.

    Uruguay tied it up in extra time to make it 2-2. Luiz Suarez, Mr Chompers, finished off a brilliant pass to him. And now it’s going to PKs. GO MAPLE LEAFS!

  115. 115.

    Eural Joiner

    Got to plug the award winning “The Rest is History” podcast hosted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sanborn which is right in the midst of a series on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Absolutely amazing run (as always with these guys)…highly recommend!

  116. 116.

    Other MJS

    What is the Secret Service’s obligation to a former President? Must they supply unlimited resources no matter the situation? Can they veto an event they can’t handle?

  117. 117.

    Leto

    @AnonPhenom: if only there was something he could do about it… like, if there were… legislation that could be passed to help address gun violence. Naaaahhhh… fucking pipe dream that is.

    Again, another reason to push hard till the election. Biden legislative prio in first 100 days was banning assault guns. Only 1 way to get that.

  118. 118.

    eversor

    We got owned.  We’ve been owned since we allowed Christianity to be OK.  I say bring it on.  Maybe if it gets so fucking bad.

    Is there Christianity?  Then yes we get fascism.  Always.  Are you not anti Christian in every action each day?  If not then you are a fascist.

    I still see Churches.  So yes.  Bring on fascism.

  122. 122.

    dimmsdale

    all I can say is, god help us if it turns out the shooter had any leftist bent AT ALL. I’m expecting a good deal of the media whore apparatus, as a result, will turn its fury on … Democrats. (citing Murc’s law here). Also, the overwhelmingly hate-filled rhetoric from the fascisti is the right wing laying groundwork for excusing the right-wing violence that they were almost certainly planning anyway. (“See? We’re under violent attack! Any violence we visit on you is justified!”) I don’t know if our media whores will even pick up on the overwhelming degree of decency with which our guys are reacting to this.

  125. 125.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @different-church-lady: I mean I like to blame capital as the root of all our ills, but I don’t try to shoehorn it into every discussion unless there’s a clear through line.

  126. 126.

    AnonPhenom

     
    @different-church-lady: ​ I don’t want to see any more shit about Joe stepping aside for Kamala because it’s plain as day that that would be a death sentence for her at this point.​

  127. 127.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @dimmsdale: all I can say is, god help us if it turns out the shooter had any leftist bent AT ALL. I’m expecting a good deal of the media whore apparatus, as a result, will turn its fury on … Democrats.

    So, what else is new?

  130. 130.

    cain

    @geg6: I predicted that last thread. They will go after the press and the Dems.

    Biden will have a harder time attacking him now and cant joke. So they will need to reevaluate things.

    My thought is to use Trump as a poster child for new gun laws. Nobody is safe not even a presidential candidate.

    It will put them on defense. Of course they will say we are politicizing the tragedy but shooting a candidate is as political as it gets.

  136. 136.

    Another Scott

    WhiteHouse.gov:

    JULY 13, 2024
    Remarks by President Biden | Rehoboth Beach, DE

    Rehoboth Beach Police Department
    Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

    8:13 P.M. EDT

    THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming, folks. I’ve been thoroughly briefed by all the agencies in the federal government as to the situation, based on what we know now.

    I have tried to get a hold of Donald. He’s with his doctors. They — apparently, he’s doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly, I hope, when I get back to the telephone.

    Look, there is no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.

    And so — and I want to thank the Secret Service and all the agencies, including the state agencies, that have been engaged in making sure that the people who — and we have more detail to come relative to the other injured — other people who may be injured in the audience. I don’t have all that detail, but we’ll make that available to you.

    I may be able to come back a little later tonight. But we’ll put out a statement if we don’t — if I am not able to give — if we — if it’s not convenient for you all.

    But the bottom line is that the ra- — the Trump rally was a rally that he should have been able to con- — be conducted peacefully without any problem. But the idea — the idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of. It was just not appropriate. And we — everybody — everybody must condemn it. Everybody.

    I’ll keep you informed. And if I am able to speak to the — to Donald, I’ll — I’ll let you know that as well.

    But so far, it appears he’s doing well. Number one.

    Number two, that they’re as thoroughly investigating what happened to anyone else in the audience. I have s- — we have some reports, but not final reports.

    And every agency in the federal government, and I’ll be — and I’m going back to — to my phone to speak with the federal agencies that are being put together again to give me an updated briefing — has anything happened, have they learned anymore in the last couple hours.

    So, thank you very much. And I hope I get to speak to him tonight. And I’ll get to — back to you if I do. Okay?

    Q Mr. President, do you think this was an assassination attempt?

    THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know enough to — I — I have — I have a — I have an opinion, but I don’t have any facts. So, I want to make sure we have all the facts before I make some comment — any more comments.

    Thank you.

    8:15 P.M. EDT

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  137. 137.

    Chris Johnson

    @Villago Delenda Est: Worth proving it, and that only counts if we’re at open war, I thought. We’re not. We’re getting warred ON (in ways much like this nonsense tonight!) but we are not warring back, therefore literal treason is likely off the table.

  140. 140.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    I want to make sure we have all the facts before I make some comment

    Well, if that doesn’t prove he’s senile nothing will.

  141. 141.

    dimmsdale

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:  I suppose my response is, it can always get worse. I think it’s about to get worse, in ways we can’t control (except by keeping our heads down, figuratively, and doing our work, whatever we see it as).

  142. 142.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @sdhays: Thank you kindly.

    And I’ve been reading them for years. I will say crusading against three members of their masthead, in particular, alongside the bulk of the comment section was pretty self-actualizing. Oh, the likes.

    But here I don’t have to worry about the masthead. Or race to keep up with posts.

  144. 144.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @LAC: The usual suspects in the MSM and so on, liberals would shushed for our lack of decorum, moments would be raised and so on.

  146. 146.

    different-church-lady

    “In order to unite the country after the Trump shooting, Biden should step aside.”

    NYTs Op-Ed, very soon, very probably, not even pitch-bot.

  148. 148.

    different-church-lady

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: ​After reading them for a while, I finally had to register about three years ago because the opportunity for mockery was too much to resist. At the time I thought it was a bad idea because I knew I’d be wasting a hell of a lot of time there once I broke the seal, but I just couldn’t resist the shiny candy.

    The only silver lining to their meltdown was I think they finally cured me of my little LGM addition for good.

  149. 149.

    Renie

    @Suzanne: How does one get hit by their ear with a bullet and act the way he was doing afterwards?   That sound like a fatal gunshot.

  150. 150.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I’m on vacatio from work (a staycation, maybe go visit and an aquarium/zoo) and my birthday is this week. I was hoping to be able to relax…

  152. 152.

    Chris Johnson

    @cain: Biden’s not once joked about his new immunity, or Trump’s safety, or ANY of the stuff some of the sillier people thought he should be doing to be funnier.

    Now, I’m quite pleased he hadn’t. ( I was already satisfied that he hadn’t, but note that Joe did not once make light of the ridiculous situation the Supreme Court set him up with )

  155. 155.

    Kirk

    Yeah. g’nite, all. I’ll see what’s happened after I get off work. That’ll be close to a day, and by then maybe we’ll have some actual information.

  156. 156.

    Rusty

    Politics is the process of settling differences without violence.  Events like today strike at the very foundation of our system of government.

  157. 157.

    different-church-lady

    @Kirk: We’ll certainly have more information.

    Whether it will be “actual” at any point soon I believe to be doubtful.

  159. 159.

    Suzanne

    @Renie: It seems that he is the luckiest motherfucker on Earth and it just slid by his ear. Could have been fatal if he had been just centimeters over.

  162. 162.

    Chris Johnson

    @different-church-lady: Regarding that putative op-ed: HELL no.

    If it so happens that it was a crazy fundie right-winger, believing Trump betrayed them (as they were openly saying quite recently, and I’ve said repeatedly that’s a dangerous situation)…

    If Biden steps down, and they get Harris, the next guy is Mike Johnson… a crazy fundie who would not betray the crazy right-wingers. And at that point, they could just get Trump for reals and they’d be off to the races… facing the majority of the country, and probably the army on top of that. Mike Johnson is third in succession. That’s… un-great, if fundies are going terrorist against Presidential candidates now.

  167. 167.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @different-church-lady: I mean there was a lot I liked about being there. Loomis, Lemieux, and Campos are committed doomers, though, and no matter how mutual support people were getting berating them; they weren’t amenable to correction. Imagine how the untouchable mainstream media folks dig in.

    Those three are on the Sulzberger model of (not) accepting criticism.

  169. 169.

    trnc

    @cain: ​

    Biden will have a harder time attacking him now and cant joke. So they will need to reevaluate things.

    I’m not aware of any “attack” by Biden on DT, or anything beyond how bad his policies would be. Also, joking about a shooting is not something I would expect Biden to do, no matter who the target was.​
    ​
    ​

  171. 171.

    Chris Johnson

    Somebody’s setting off firecrackers or doing target practice in the neighborhood. I am deeply unimpressed and am DONE for the day. Fuck all this.

    Tomorrow, I’m carrying on with my life just as I have been doing, with a profound case of the FUCK ALL THIS. Nobody’s gonna break my stride. No fucks left to give. I already do what I deem necessary and it’s all perfectly civilized and normal stuff because I’m an AMERICAN, dammit. Not some freak.

  173. 173.

    Soprano2

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, I’m at the bar and one of the TV’s is on CBS where the banner says it was an assassination attempt even though I’m sure they don’t know that yet. I can’t imagine how many crazy theories there will be about this. Should say “Shooting at TCFG rally” because that’s all they really know right now.

  177. 177.

    sdhays

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I’ve lost a great deal of respect for Campos in particular over his rabbit-hole obsession that Biden either has Parkinson’s or they’re at least lying(?) that he hasn’t been tested. Or something?

    It all reminds me of people diagnosing W of some neurological illness from afar during his Presidency. 2004? Or was it later? Regardless, it was embarrassing.

  178. 178.

    different-church-lady

    @MagdaInBlack: I thank you for the compliment. But my skill and $3.50 will get us… [looks at price board] …well, actually it won’t get us jack shit anymore.

  180. 180.

    different-church-lady

    @sdhays: ​Trump has clearly broken Campos’ brain.

    It took a lot — I mean a LOT — of restraint for me not to say, “I think I understand now why your university wanted to shit-can you.”

  181. 181.

    SomeRandomGuy

    You know what I hope? I hope that Trump ends up chickening out of public appearances for a while, whether due to vanity, or anxiety. I hope Biden starts accusing him of running his campaign from his basement. I hope that people start bringing loads of party poppers and tiny fireworks to public events, and see if they can make him scream. I hope he becomes the big orange baby he’s always been, and finally gets mocked appropriately, and drags the Republican Party down with his stupid, greedy, venal, evil, and fascist ass so far that they can build a penthouse in Hell, which Trump would insist was 666x the actual size, before finding out that Hell has a *lot* of lawyers….

  182. 182.

    sdhays

    @Soprano2: Don’t they still describe the crimes for which he has been convicted as “alleged”, but they think they can declare this an assassination attempt with almost no facts yet?

  184. 184.

    Darkrose

    @CaseyL: I was on a roll with my FFXIV fic for a while, posting a bunch of short fics. Feels good. What fandom(s) do you write in?

    Then Dawntrail launched and I’ve been busy trying to finish the MSQ before I leave tomorrow for Toronto, but on the plus side I’ll have a ton of stuff to work on while I’m sitting in LAX for 5 hours waiting for my connecting flight.

  185. 185.

    Darkrose

    @sdhays: He has completely lost the plot. I expect Loomis to be a general asshole, because gods forbid he ever admit to being wrong about anything, but Campos always seemed to be mostly level-headed. Now he’s sounding like Andrew Sullivan on his tear about how Trig wasn’t really Sarah Palin’s child. It’s embarassing.

  186. 186.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: I saw that one R rep called for the prosecutor in the county where the rally was held to arrest Biden for trying to have TCFG killed. I hope they’re not all like that.

  188. 188.

    hitchhiker

    @SomeRandomGuy:

    All of that, plus I want Joe to roll onto his convention stage in golf cart, grinning. In fact, I think he should start using a golf cart routinely in public, just to poke at the thug who is unable to walk around on a stupid golf course.

  192. 192.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sdhays: It all reminds me of people diagnosing W of some neurological illness from afar during his Presidency. 2004? Or was it later? Regardless, it was embarrassing.

    There is a conspiracy theory about W having suffered some kind of brain injury in 2000, because he certainly wasn’t the same man he was as governor of Texas.

  193. 193.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne: According to one witness in the front row straight across from Trump, he turned his head to point to a chart just as his ear was hit. IF true, that may have saved his life.

  194. 194.

    Bill Arnold

    @SpaceUnit:

    He winked and grinned and made a motion like he was holding a rifle while the crowd whooped and hollered.

    That video may be useful during the next few days/weeks.

  197. 197.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Maybe I am missing something, it sounds like the Democratic leadership is denouncing political violence, not endorsing it. How is that a different tone from before like Lester here is claiming?

    The MSM never miss an opportunity to bash Democrats, regardless of what Democrats have actually done. Because “both sides.”

  198. 198.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @sdhays: Yo, I stopped even reading at a point if I saw telltale signs of that nonsense or shaming people for not viewing it as obvious. I just dove into the comments raised a pitchfork and rallied.

    Like I said, felt self-actualizing. But it was at about the “video game” level of helping.

    I do prefer having the like and dislike. The former let’s you know what is engaging folk. The latter works as a pressure valve so I don’t start breathing actual fire.

    ETA: And that Parkinson’s, man…

    Reminds me of Dan Rather not having his receipts in order.tongo after Bush’s military record. But with a way weaker foundation and the real criminals, as always, are New York’s premiere three news organizations:

    The New York Post

    Word of mouth

    The New York Times.

    Yes, the ordination is deliberate.

  199. 199.

    Chris Johnson

    @Harrison Wesley: When your enemy is making a mistake, let them.

    Also, when your enemy is running around like an uncivilized maniac completely out of control and scaring everybody, don’t JOIN them on the grounds that they’ve normalized the behavior and now we all can join in! Back the hell off and call the cops and ride out the situation without acting crazy.

    That is absolutely my word to anybody, Tim Pool or otherwise, who is selling the civil war narrative. I say no: YOUR guy pissed off his own hard right and got shot at, assuming it’s even that and not some kind of stunt (in which case, SHAME). Just because your guy stirred up terrorists out of your own side does not mean you all shouldn’t be put in the cooler, and by that I mean the drunk tank!

    Just stop it. Fly level and be boring for a while and if the wingnuts go criming, call the cops. And I really, really gotta go sleep. Sheesh.

  200. 200.

    SomeRandomGuy

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: “Assassin(ation)” is one of “those” words, though.

    Look, did someone see a disgusting human being, the removal of whose life force, would surely result in an improvement in life, and especially atmospheric quality, and open fire? If so, it was just a random murder attempt. But, usually, when someone shoots at or near the POTUS, it’s a safe bet to say they wanted to kill the POTUS. And unless the shooter was someone with a motive to kill DJT for entirely nonpolitical reasons, it’s pretty safe to assume it’s because they don’t want him to be POTUS.

    So I squirm, mentally speaking, like a 6th grader at the wrong end of the dictionary fallacy, and say “I can’t call that *not*-assassination.” That’s one reason I shouldn’t be a PR face-man.

    (Side note: No, I didn’t justify violence against Trump based on his being a disgusting human being – I just said that  would be mere “murder” versus “assassination.” Please pay attention!)

  201. 201.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Cacti: If the Republican Party was a juvenile delinquent teenager and I was its parent wondering where I went wrong, I’d say it was letting Ronald Reagan and Poppy Bush get away with Iran-Contra.

  202. 202.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Cacti: To what end, jackass?

    You’ve been here quite some time, you know these aren’t stupid people.

  204. 204.

    Harrison Wesley

    Just checked out AP News; according to its latest posts, the President has spoken with Trump and is returning to Washington for meetings tomorrow with Homeland Security and other agencies. I don’t know what other people’s expectations were/are, but I think his response has been as close to pitch-perfect as possible.

  205. 205.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @cain: he won’t be because he won’t be talking about unity he is going to be talking about violence.

    The dead don’t talk so the living can make up any old shit up and claim the dead said it, see Jay Gould becoming a young earth creationist after he died.

    If this boozo had succeeded we would be living in endless bombarded of the Wit and Wisdom of Donald Trump.

  206. 206.

    AnonPhenom

    @PatD: ​
     
    1. Because some racist fuckin’ goober would shoot her.
    2. Do you not own a calendar? The election is less than 4 months away. Google “logistics”.

  207. 207.

    LanceThrustercourse

    Cui bono? Lone wolf? Manchurian candidate? Still, I was a little surprised to hear the local news coverage mention, “Well, you know Trump crowds can be a little raucous” as if to imply a supporter got overly stimulated or something. Anybody paying attention understands the perception of what it means vs the reality behind what took place can be light-years apart, certainly a likely assumption here. How riled up will it get the Trump base? Where will they direct their anger? How will it be expressed? Is this a Reichstag fire-type gambit? By whom? What would the endgame be? If this is the Right’s George Floyd moment, will chaos ensue? Is a civil war looming on the horizon? Protests, unrest, riots, civil war? Would any of that result in crackdowns and MAGA protesters linked to the J6 protesters? Could it get to a point of having martial law declared and/or the election postponed? Is the shift of focus from Biden incidental or something else. Local news reporting with a tone of, “Don’t worry, the president is OK,” reminded me that I didn’t much care either way, but should I and why exactly? The live coverage went from something remarkable took place but Trump is OK after being whisked sway by Secret Service to, people surrounding the incident may have been hurt to, several people have taken to the hospital with one in critical condition to, a reporter who works for another organization and at the scene stated he saw a person on the ground who had been shot in the head and bits of brain matter visible on the ground around the victim. This was all within a relatively short time frame and what I noticed was rather it being coverage where they might report, “We have just learned that.. ” the situation unfolding was rather fluid so with each retelling, the update just included the new details incorporated into the voiceover so if run from that point it would sound as if this reflected details they had from the beginning. There seemed to be a tone consciously taken to avoid alarming the public and still sounding a bit surreal with the more brutal details reported with an attitude of this really could have been significant but fortunately hasn’t reached that level.

  208. 208.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2: There’s a series of photos showing the bullet approaching and then hitting him. Captured by a NYT photographer, I believe.

  211. 211.

    Jackie

    @Harrison Wesley: That’s what our President should do!

    I shudder to think of how TCFG would respond if this had happened the other way around.*

    *Thinking of Nancy Pelosi’s husband as an example.

  212. 212.

    jimmiraybob

    Well, here it comes.

    “Republican Congressman Mike Collins (GA-10) took to Xitter and claimed President Biden put the hit out on Trump.”

    Not gonna link but this is currently at Crooks and Liars.

  213. 213.

    geg6

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    You’re not far…come see the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium.  Make another day of it and go to the National Aviary and Phipps Conservatory.  All of it will amaze you and make you feel one with nature.  Best advice if you’re looking for a respite from the crazy.

  214. 214.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @SomeRandomGuy: TFG may not want to do public events if the bandage affects his hairdo. Remember he didn’t want to go the French DDay event at the soldiers’ graves because he didn’t want to get his hairdo wet.

  215. 215.

    Cacti

    @jimmiraybob:  As was said earlier, according to the Republicans, Joe Biden is both in the throes of dementia AND a criminal mastermind plotting the assassination of his rivals.

    Cults don’t have to make sense.

  218. 218.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Suzanne: Saw the photos on Twitter. That would make a false flag much less likely. I can’t imagine Trump or his team risking a bullet actually blowing Trump’s head off.

  219. 219.

    LanceThruster

    Sorry about the misnamed “Thrustercourse” in other post. No idea when and why that took place. Often when a page freezes as their pop-up ads loads, I’ll jump back and forth between tabs to let a page cycle. My cursor likely defaulted there as I dove back in to continue where I had left off. Often an unnoticed typo (newly cracked glass on device is no help) results in the autocorrect further garbling what appears including predictive text dropping unselected words in following the first error, particularly as the cracked screen regularly adds or omits spaces compounding the confusion with each successive character. Once I look away from my keyboard to the comment box, my first thought is, “Who the hell wrote this?

  220. 220.

    CaseyL

    @Darkrose: I haven’t written any in years, but for a while back in the 2000s I was doing Smallville fic.  It’s fun to play in someone else’s universe.

    I’ve written my own stuff – was churning out scifi stories all through the 1990s, submitting them to magazines.  Never got published, but did get “good enough” to rate actual rejection letters, not just form letters.  Yay, me :)

  224. 224.

    gene108

    @Soprano2:

    CBS where the banner says it was an assassination attempt even though I’m sure they don’t know that yet.

    I believe from what I’ve read, law enforcement is treating this as an assassination attempt, so media’s just repeating LE’s official position.

  225. 225.

    Bill Arnold

    @SomeRandomGuy:

    I hope Biden starts accusing him of running his campaign from his basement.

    Related, convicted felon Donald J. Trump has been avoiding hostile reporters in a press conference setting for 157 days. (Since Feb 8 2024)

  226. 226.

    Fake Irishman

    Thanks for the level-headed post-title Cole. I’m sure your former platoon sergeant would be proud.

    Might I make a request of the front pagers for an extra post or two tomorrow featuring pet pictures? It’s an old blog standby to simmer things down and find a bit of common ground when things are hard.

    It’s been a really raw two weeks for all of us here. I think we’re all terrified, and though we all desperately want the same thing and have the same goal, we’re all frustrated and a bit confused and panicky about either what we should do or what other people think we should do.

    Please know I respect all of you even though there are some hard disagreements and some shouting matches going on here. Let’s take a deep breath and try to have some charitable interpretations of comments, fears and actions who are generally on our side, whether inside or outside the blog.

    I won’t say don’t snipe, complain or argue with each other, because that would violate the founding principles of this blog (IRL Dave Anderson once signed an email to me “go fuck yourself” when he found out I was a juicer, my institution’s email system was not amused, though I sure was).

    Ok, I’m back out for the night. Feel free to flay me below.

  231. 231.

    RaflW

    I will say about this that my BF and I talked a little about the possibility of a shooter at the July 4 parade(s) we marched in with Democrats & local candidates last week.

    If what happy today had been a few days ago, I’m not sure the parades would have happened? If they had, I doubt I’d have marched in the one I selected.

    The knife edge / powder keg feeling is a thing. (The Waukesha Christmas parade horror wasn’t that long ago or far from Whitewater, too.)

    [BF marched in a July 3 parade, too, with BF-mom in her home town]

  232. 232.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Rudi666: I couldn’t read for.lack of subscription, but the idea of an investigation is sound. Serious failures took place for this to happen.

  234. 234.

    sdhays

    @me: The Secret Service hasn’t been covering itself in glory for quite some time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people assigned to Trump’s detail aren’t there for their competence but more for their… compatibility with the protectee.

  235. 235.

    gene108

    @jimmiraybob:

    Republicans have been eager to try out their “2nd amendment” solutions for years. They want violence against their perceived enemies.

    A party that does not condone political would have done more to condemn J6.

  236. 236.

    sdhays

    @RaflW: There was a shooting at July 4 gatherings last year. It definitely made us disinclined to join then or this year.

  238. 238.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Another day and another shooting in America. This time a former President aspiring to return to office while at one of his rallies. Other shootings where people die are at abortion clinics, stores, malls, schools, colleges and numerous other locations, day in and day out across the country. Welcome to the reality of an America bristling with firearms, Mr. Former President. Other than the political connections, he was the target of a gunman. Just like every other shooting victim.

    To treat this as different than Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Colorado Springs or numerous other shootings is wrong. It isn’t.

  239. 239.

    Mike in NC

    Media: Donald Trump was shot in the head today but no major organs were affected.

  241. 241.

    Another Scott

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: I count 35 incidents of gun violence listed for July 13 at the GunViolenceArchive.org (not all deaths and injuries).

    As you say, it’s horribly common.

    And the only way it’s going to change is if we vote the monsters out and demand enforcement of sensible gun laws.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  243. 243.

    Bill Arnold

    @sdhays:

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the people assigned to Trump’s detail aren’t there for their competence but more for their… compatibility with the protectee.

    I would not bet otherwise.
    Another side of it is that a candidate protection detail / former president protection detail is not as hardcore as the presidential protection detail (my understanding at least). If so, they would necessarily skimp, but this apparent lowish level of security, including from local law enforcement, is not forgivable, if true. From reports so far (which could be false) it was like 150 yards.

  244. 244.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jay: Maybe they’ll rise to the occasion and they and the Democrats in the investigation will cooperate to seriously diagnose and remedy this situation.

    Maybe…

    ETA: Wait, don’t Democrats hold the Senate? Why a Republican Senate Chair?

  245. 245.

    randy khan

    @Bill Arnold:

    From reports so far (which could be false) it was like 150 yards.

    The NY Times has a photo showing the location of the shooter and the stage, and if it’s accurate, 150 yards would be about as far as it could have been.  (It looks closer to me, but It is inexcusable for the Secret Service not to have a secured a rooftop that close.

  246. 246.

    Cacti

    Considering how much violence and instability the US sows in other countries, I can’t help but wonder what they think of our forlorn pronouncements that political violence isn’t an American value.

  249. 249.

    randy khan

    @Suzanne:

    TFG made a statement….. sounds like he did get hit by the bullet.

    I won’t say he didn’t, but he’s not a reliable narrator.  And since the doctors can’t say without his consent, we may never know for sure.  He also could have hurt it on the way down to the floor when the Secret Service reacted.

  250. 250.

    Rudi666

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: ​

     

    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said Saturday that lawmakers will conduct a full investigation of the Trump rally shooting. In a social-media post, Johnson said House lawmakers will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle along with Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials testify at committee hearings as soon as possible. “The American people deserve to know the truth,” he said.

    In a separate social-media post Saturday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) posted a copy of a letter to Cheatle, asking her to appear at a hearing July 22. Secret Service personnel “neutralized” the suspected shooter, who is now dead, a spokesman said.

    This just happened. Let the FBI and SS do their ivestagation before the Rethugs go full JD Vance.

  251. 251.

    randy khan

    @me:

    Thanks.  400 feet is roughly 135 yards.  Way too close for the roof of the building not to have been cleared.

  254. 254.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Rudi666: I don’t see any problem with the excerpt. And as long as they don’t interfere in the law enforcement investigation, it doesn’t bother me they act quickly on their own.

  255. 255.

    Damien

    I’ll be honest, this whole thing is deeply terrifying no matter what ends up being true.  Because what are the options?

    1.  Secret Service didn’t secure a freaking open air rooftop less that 500 feet from a POTUS candidate?  Leaving aside who the person is, that is incompetence on the scale of someone holding the door open for John Boothe.
    2.  A liberal took a shot at Trump, which is just horrific, and it’s going to be even more open season than it already is.
    3.  A lunatic took a shot at Trump, and the right-wing is going to use it to justify further horrors and violence. (See 2)
    4.  Trump or his campaign staged it, and they’re going to use it to justify horrors, etc.

    It’s all bad times, and I just don’t see how we go forward without more violence, but I really, really fucking hope not.

  256. 256.

    West of the Rockies

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    If you’re ever in California, check it out.  They used to have sleepover nights, believe it or not.  Bring your sleeping bag and curl up in in front of the jellyfish…

  260. 260.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jay: I was just hoping you’d have sourcing on your claim other than “wouldn’t that be terrible?” It didn’t seem right that the House leader would announce an investigation led by a Senator or that I bicameral investigation would have its Senate side chaired by a member of the minority party.

    Of course I recognized the names.

  262. 262.

    RandomMonster

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: To treat this as different than Sandy Hook, Uvalde, Colorado Springs or numerous other shootings is wrong. It isn’t.

    So really, thoughts and prayers are in order.

  263. 263.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Their Garland takes really proved to me that they are 100% willing to suspend all critical thinking in order to maintain their initial narrative/assumptions.  I’m sad but hardly surprised that they are in the full-panic squad now.  I remember hearing an expert on cults interviewed on a podcast and the first point he wanted everyone to understand is that there is no one who is too smart to fall into conspiracy thinking with the right motivators and set of events.  Lemieux, Campos and Loomis are turning into just the sort of cranks they always ridiculed.

  264. 264.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Yutsano: I’ve always thought that a good Ph.D dissertation topic would be comparing and contrasting the Calvinist approach to evil in Harry Potter versus the Universalist approach to evil in Diane Duane’s Young Wizards and Feline Wizards series. The problem is that I can’t decide whether that would fall into English literature or theology.

  265. 265.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @RandomMonster:

    Exactly. If that’s all the other victims get then that’s all he deserves. Someone pointed out that the pictures of Trump after he was shot were actually of a crisis actor.

    Someone recognized the crisis actor from Home Alone 2.

  267. 267.

    hotshoe

    @Bill Arnold: ​

    From reports so far (which could be false) it was like 150 yards.

    Saw that someone has taken satellite view of the building where the (alleged) shooter’s body was located, used map tool to measure the distance to center of area where the Dumpster would be speaking. It’s 150 meters, about 165 yards.

    I’m surprised the shooter didn’t succeed in making the shot at that short distance.
    I’m really surprised that the SS and local police were capable of ignoring someone crawling onto the roof of a building that is within backyard distance of their assignment.

    Well, I just saw someone say that the SS spotted the dude a second before he made his first shot; and dude might have realized he had already been spotted, rushed trying to get off his few shots before he was killed and that might be why he missed his target.

    I guess we should all be happy he didn’t have a bump stock / fully automatic military rifle or he might have gotten off a hundred times more wild shots.​

  269. 269.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    Well from here political violence in the US is taken as a given. I have lived through the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, 4 Student protestors at Kent State,  the killing of Black Panthers by the FBI, an attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the beating nearly to death of a black man in LA, leading to days of riots and the sending of the National Guard to keep peace in a major city, an attempted assassination of Congressman Steve Scalise., the murder of black congregants in their church, the shootings at synagogues and the attempted assassination of Pelosi by a person who nearly killed her husband.

    This is just from the top of my head and required absolutely no particular memory recall of any difficulty, and doesn’t of course, include the thousands killed every year by routine gun violence in schools, shopping centres, discotheques and concerts and in their homes.

    The USA is understood outside of it as a very violent place, and its political violence is simply off the charts for a supposed democratic polity of nearly 250 years standing.

    Anyone advocating violence is immoral and should be detained.

    Anyone advocating political violence even more so, because it makes a peaceful and ordered society impossible.

    Anyone who thinks they are ‘leftist’ that calls for such violence, or who doesn’t condemn it absolutely and without reservation is both a fool and a knave. The left always and everywhere will be the victims of a politically violent polity.

  270. 270.

    Cacti

    @Aussie Sheila: The US was born out of political violence, starting with the Boston Tea Party of 1773, and the Sons of Liberty, which would be considered a terrorist group by any modern definition.

  273. 273.

    piratedan

    if I feel anything, it’s for the folks who were killed/injured by the shooter for just attending a political rally.  Trump being Trump shouldn’t excuse that.  That the Secret Service and other LEO didn’t do their jobs in protecting the event makes me wonder about other events, regardless of the speakers.

  277. 277.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    There are many countries whose modern inception was violent. Think France, think most European countries whose unification/creation was almost always the result of uprisings, invasions and armed revolts of various kinds.

    Australia’s inception as an European country was the result of the transportation of large numbers of working class poor to get rid of what was thought of as a dangerous pool of potential trouble. The massacres and invasions of indigenous people and their lands, quickly followed.

    Only the US has managed to continue a penchant for truly terrible continuous interpersonal and political violence at a scale and pace that is off the charts globally.

  280. 280.

    Mapaghimagsik

    He’s still a totalitarian convict who wants to imprison his political opponents. I won’t be surprised to see a Jeebus pivot, but not sure he can hold that.

    I absolutely see nothing wrong with talking about Trump’s failure as a candidate and a person.

  281. 281.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: It’s ironic because they were some of the best bloggers at highlighting what a complete and total media-manufactured bullshit “issue” Hillary’s Emailz were.  They know damn well how the MSM can make a complete nothing-burger into something that the electorate obsesses over.  They wrote quite extensively about it.

  282. 282.

    Jinchi

    280 comments in a “Simmer the F*** Down” thread….

    How safe is it to start reading through them?

  283. 283.

    Subsole

    @The Pale Scot:

    Yeah.

    A Marine would have done it from that book suppository building.

     

    More seriously, heard the dude is a registered Republican, age 20. Wild-ass lookin’ guy. Anyone else heard anything?

     

     

    @Jeffro: Shit, I remember people hanging Obama in effigy way back when.

    The MSM wants a real, substantial convo about violent rhetoric? Hallelujah Jesus. Lets’s have that long-overdue talk.

  284. 284.

    Chet Murthy

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’ve read and commented at LG&M for longer than I’ve been here.  Like, 45k comments.  And …. well, this madness of piling onto “Biden must resign” reminds me of that moment when Erik Loomis wrote the post telling the readership they’d better get ready for Bernie to be the nominee, back in 2020.  Sure, this time it’s much worse.  I don’t feel that they’re useless, but I do think they’ve gone around the bend a good bit -on- -this- -particular- -issue-.

    But y’know, if things had turned out, or do turn out in future, differently, and Biden does resign (besides me concluding that we’re completely fucked, completely fucked), they’ll take a victory lap.  More in sorrow than in glee, etc, etc.  And they could still be correct (and yeah, I dread that eventuality).

  285. 285.

    Chet Murthy

    @Subsole: The MSM will want a Wilhoit’s Law talk about violent rhetoric.  As always.  Violent rhetoric against Dems, people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, that’s completely within bounds.  Always has been, always will be.

  288. 288.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chet Murthy:

    Anyone calling for Biden to resign is simply making it easier for trump to be elected. Full stop. I don’t want to relitigate that issue here and now, but put a sock in it. He’s going nowhere, and rightly so. He’s the preselected nominee by the vast majority of the Democratic Party base, who believe, quite rightly, that he’s the best person to beat trump.

    That’s it. 

  290. 290.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jay: Which is fine. Just, please, say that next time instead of insinuating I’m stupid.

  292. 292.

    VFX Lurker

    @CaseyL: I’m thinking of doing an essay on Early, Middle, and Mature Pratchett :). Just for myself, just to see where my thoughts take me.

    I’d love to read something like that.

    I did notice a writing shift in the four Science of Discworld books. The fourth book has Mustrum Ridcully and other characters indulging in longer (in-character) monologues.

    It’s something Pratchett used in his later Discworld books, when he relied more on dictation than typing.

  294. 294.

    Subsole

    @Renie: Word is it was glass from a teleprompter.

    If the round nicked his ear at the right angle, he could live. A grazing shot might only take part of the ear, or if it was an extremely grazing shot, just leave some burns/scarring. You can absolutely survive those.

  295. 295.

    dimmsdale

    well, just stating the bloody obvious, but this is EXACTLY the country the Republican Party has made, over our collective objections. I hope that when things die down a bit, the entire media apparatus, as WELL as the electorate, understands that.

  296. 296.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @UncleEbeneezer: Too bad. And the specter of that particular nothingburger, indeed a long litany of nothingburgers, came up.

    I wonder if the salience of certain biases in their own views affected their clarity in one vs. the other. As in could they as a group be more ageist than sexist? Or more alert to the threat of sexism vs ageism?

  299. 299.

    Subsole

    @cain:

    Minor quibble:

    The punditocracy and high-salary talent lives in a bubble.

    Ordinary beat reporters have been getting dangled like a chunk of horse flesh on a hook at Trompo’s rallies since 2015. Their bosses don’t care.

  303. 303.

    Jinchi

    @Damien: Because what are the options?

    I’d say it’s pretty clearly (1) and (3). Looking at images from the scene it’s pretty astounding that a shooter was able to set up on the closest roof of a single-story,flat-topped building with no obvious cover. And politicos on the right are already pushing rumors that Democrats are the ones responsible.

  304. 304.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Chet Murthy:

    I completely forgot about that scene…lol! Just thinking about the words though…

    what a novel way to read!

    Loading…

  305. 305.

    Chet Murthy

    @dimmsdale: “the entire media apparatus, as WELL as the electorate, understands that.”

    They.  Will. Not.  Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash have already started the drumbeat: Dems will be silenced and MAGAts will be allowed to run their mouths freely.  It.  Is.  What.  It.  Is.

  308. 308.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Chet Murthy: Well Bernie was very much in position to win before SC in 2020.  So that wasn’t a totally unreasonable prediction.  I’m a bit surprised to hear Lemieux is onboard though.  Loomis and Campos I can totally see but I always thought Lemieux was a bit more steady.  Oh well, just another example of white, Progressive academics who talk a big game about listening to Black People but don’t actually do it, when they don’t like the answer they get.  And who write numerous posts about the importance of our coalition only to be the first to abandon it when times get tough.  I think they just can’t handle the truth that it’s not THEIR party.

  309. 309.

    prostratedragon

    “Let me tell you something, there are a lot of very fine people in the [Communist] Party!” — The Woman on Pier 13

  310. 310.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    This news was quite a shock to read when I landed in Copenhagen after a 13 flight from Singapore

  311. 311.

    Chet Murthy

    @UncleEbeneezer: Ehhh …. I disagree with them, but I’m a little kinder perhaps.  In the face of possibly disastrous news, one can see two ways to react:

    1. grim determination and doubling-down.  That’s what I’m doing, b/c I don’t see that changing can improve things, I really, really, REALLY don’t.
    2. “we must DO SOMETHING; this is something, LETS DO IT!”

    I think they succumbed to #2.  Panic is all.

  312. 312.

    Cacti

    Not confirmed by law enforcement yet, but some reports that the shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, PA. White guy with a mullet, so definitely no one who would stand out at a Trump rally.

  313. 313.

    Chet Murthy

    @Cacti: He was a lone wolf.  Nobody could have predicted that he’d do this.  He was radicalized by antifa.  [did I miss anything?  Oh right, I forgot] He had come out as nonbinary only a few days ago.

  316. 316.

    Chet Murthy

    @Subsole: S’ok.  I’m feeling pretty bitter tonight too.  Pretty scared, but that’s been a constant since election night Nov 2021 when VA installed the Fleece-Vest Nazi as Gov.

  318. 318.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I think Gaza has broken a lot of Progressive brains.  It’s hard not to notice that so many of the people on this ridiculous Replace Biden bullshit are also the ones who got heavily into bashing Biden over Gaza.

  321. 321.

    Chet Murthy

    @Subsole: If the bastards take power, there is  literally only ONE thing I can see that we can do, short of violence (and just as we used to say about gunhumpers, well-trained Army fire teams will make short work of any armed resistance).  That one thing is mass tax disobedience.  If every Democrat files a W-4 with 1000 exemptions, every Dem who files quarterly taxes pays zero, every Dem-owned business likewise, it will throw Federal tax collections into chaos, and the IRS will be unable to do a good goddamn thing about it.

    Short of that, there’ll be nothing we can do, just as there was nothing the Socialists in Weimar could do.

  323. 323.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Chet Murthy: I agree it’s panic.  But I also think they are very out of touch with the Dem Base, and their current position really highlights that.

  325. 325.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I don’t trust people who spend all day calling him Genocide Joe to make good-faith/fair efforts to assess his mental health.  I think once we get so much passionate rage against a person, we lose a lot of our ability to keep our biases in check.  I know we say we can keep things separate when judging different aspects/actions of people, but I think it’s actually pretty hard to do once we get to a certain point of anger.  I know it is for me.

  326. 326.

    Noskilz

    Keeping one’s head and seeing what actually develops is sound advice.

    Nothing is gained by panicked speculation, and if this shooting is like so many others, much of the initial information floating around will prove to be incorrect. Many of the things being kicked around twitter at the moment will prove to be nonsense.

    Keep your cool, be very cautious about getting too attached to doubtfully sourced information online, and especially don’t do anything you might regret later.

  327. 327.

    eversor

    I was just assauted in my own home after a break in.  I’m fine.  The cops are on the way.  I got the upper hand.  I was sleeping.  Cat is fine the woman wasn’t home she’s been at sisters.  I’m fine.  Fuck.

  329. 329.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    But it is a USA value. American values vary on that continent the same way that  European values vary on that continent. Canada, the USA, Mexico and Chile for example, are very different in their values, although, all with the exception of Canada, have experienced intolerable amounts of political violence.

  330. 330.

    Chet Murthy

    @Poe Larity: What, you expect him to -remember- all the intricate details of sharks, electric boats, batteries, etc?  He’s only human, my friend!

  332. 332.

    Roberto el oso

    Looks like there’s a preliminary ID of the shooter. A 20-something old white guy, Thomas Mathew Crooks. He last voted in 2022 as a Republican.

    If I wasn’t so inept I’d add a link … hopefully one of y’all will do it?

  334. 334.

    JWR

    Oh good! High speed chase, (100mph+), on the Los Angeles freeways knocks Donnie Dollhands off the air!

  335. 335.

    Chet Murthy

    @Aussie Sheila: It’s about slavery, I think.  That’s what links the US and Latin American countries.  And distinguishes the US from Australia (for instance).  I think that’s why Australia was able to ban assault weapons after that horrific mass shooting, where the US just …. kept on making things worse.  I’ve read several times people pointing out that we’re more like the Latin American countries than we want to admit, and the way our conservatives are going (towards Fascism) is more evidence of this.

    But I’m just pullin’ that outta my butt.  Who knows if it’s true.

  336. 336.

    Jay

    @eversor:

    Please check in with us tomorrow. Trauma is trauma.

    I am glad that you are okay, the cat is okay and your partner is okay.

  338. 338.

    Subsole

    @Roberto el oso:

    Jesus.

    Dude almost got whacked by a guy who voted for Dr. Oz???

    That’s gotta be the most embarrassing way to go. I mean like, your body slumped forward and you died face-down ass-up level embarrassing.

  339. 339.

    eversor

    @Subsole:

    Rather rough and tumble fast 20 seconds.  I’m a vet.  Boxed at the state level as a kid.  Two black belts.  Played ice hockey. I’m not an easy target.  Cat is still freaked.  I was sleeping when it happened.

    I’ll tell the little lady later.  Cops on the way.  The 45 didn’t help as it was in the safe.  It’s out of the safe now.

    Fuck me…. that was fucking wild.

  340. 340.

    Splitting Image

    @Roberto el oso:

    Looks like there’s a preliminary ID of the shooter. A 20-something old white guy, Thomas Mathew Crooks. He last voted in 2022 as a Republican.

    It’s going to be hilarious watching the “news” media try to memory hole an assassination attempt.

  342. 342.

    eversor

    I’m not getting anymore sleep tonight so you all are stuck with me.  I got one of the fuckers with a kitchen knife on the way out so there is DNA here.

    Fuck me.  That was fucking wild.

  343. 343.

    eversor

    I’m not getting anymore sleep tonight so you all are stuck with me.  I got one of the fuckers with a kitchen knife on the way out so there is DNA here.

    Fuck me.  That was fucking wild.

  344. 344.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chet Murthy:

    I agree that it’s slavery and its associated institutions of political, social, economic and interpersonal violence that leaves indelible marks on every polity that has experienced it.

    When  I used to visit the US in the course of my work it always reminded me of Latin American countries much more than my own or the UK. I said that once to a friend who was a usian, and she was very offended. I tried to explain why, but although quite progressive, she just couldn’t see it, while to me it seemed obvious. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

  345. 345.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I am relieved that the shooter was apparently a white male registered Republican. He’s possibly a Jr. If that is the case I feel sorry for the dad. He’s going to have to go into hiding because of all the MAGats.

  346. 346.

    Jay

    @eversor:

    Breathe deep, pet the cat, give it treats, make notes for the Cops, baggie the knife, put the .45 back in the safe, cops are responding to a violent situation, and they don’t have a good rep when there is a gun out,

  354. 354.

    eversor

    @Jay:

    Cops are here I can’t take notes as I was fucking sleeping when it happened.  We own a condo so once it started it went straight from the bedroom into me going to the kitchen to knife up and getting a solid on one of them and then scooted out the door.

    Cops are still here.  “what’s missing” I don’t know I didn’t take the time to inventory things I chased them out and called you.  It’s not my blood on the floor it’s theirs.

    I don’t think having the cops here talking is helping my sanity right now.

    Fuck me.

    I’m just fucking happy she wasn’t here for this.  I barely can recall most of it.  I just got attacked and berserker eversor mode turned on.

  356. 356.

    LanceThruster

    I got an NRA mailer just today. Will this be an opportunity to call for moar guns? The comments on the NY Post piece are about what you’d expect, but the details of people in the crowd seeing suspicious individual (rifle and dressed in camo) minutes before but not acted on (as per them) got tongues wagging. The structure (cargo container office?) was outside security zone but with line of sight to stage. Some in comments asked where were security drones checking rooftops were (I hadn’t even considered that). Walking around in camo with whatever was needed to hide the rifle sounds like you’d think that would draw some attention like Travis Bickle with his Mohawk. I wonder if T.M. Crooks approached any agents saying he was considering joining the force. Pro-tip: be sure to remember how many digits in a Zip Code and telephone numbers.

  357. 357.

    Aussie Sheila

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Just the toleration of a level of social and economic violence which seemed to me at the time (the ‘90s), simply awful. Don’t get me wrong. I was and remain deeply impressed at the courage and fortitude of my friends who were trying to organise in the US.
    Union organising is always hard. But in forty years of it here I never felt unsafe. In contrast to my U.S. comrades.

    It was a shocking revelation, and what was most shocking was that it didn’t shock them.

  358. 358.

    Cacti

    @Aussie Sheila: Both the US and LatAm countries were born of forcibly freeing themselves of overseas European rule. Canadians and Aussies chose the bootlicking route. And your political violence has generally been reserved for your aboriginal populations and in wars of imperialism for your British rulers. So, don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back too hard.

  359. 359.

    Jay

    @eversor:

    When the cops leave, make notes. Make notes over the next couple of days. In “the moment” we have tunnel vision, but our eyes see more than that, our brain remembers all that,

    Drink lots of water to counter the adrenaline rush.

    Try to center yourself.

    Pet the cat.

    You tagged one, they won’t be back.

    Seal up the entry point, take stock tomorrow. If they kicked in a door, 3″ screws will resecure it.

  360. 360.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Splitting Image:

    When running a search a link to NBC has a partial quote from the article in the link that says that the shooter “… gave $15 to ActBlue, a political action committee that backs Democrats.” Clicking on the link brings up the short article where they note “… as a registered Republican, though it was not clear from the records when that was put in place.” and not a word about $15 or ActBlue in the article.

    It seems that NBC rushed to insinuate that he was a Democrat and when it was discovered that they were wrong they ‘corrected’ the story to Republican with some fudge room.

    Fuck NBC. Seriously, fuck them all.

  361. 361.

    Chet Murthy

    @Cacti: Ehh, we did both those things (Spanish-American War, Mexican war, gunboat diplomacy) and genocide of Native Americans.  The thing that CA and AU didn’t do, is slavery.

  362. 362.

    eversor

    @something fabulous:

    I live like a few blocks from the police station here.  Several of the cops are my neighbors.  Didn’t take long to get help.

    Fuckers show up in seconds.

  363. 363.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    You have no idea of the level of criticism I have for my own polity, even less any knowledge of the work I have  done and do to make it better.

    However one of the charming things about my US comrades was and is, their complete inability to see themselves as others see them.

    Australians are just as idiotic as any other people in general. But they aren’t oblivious to how others see them. They can’t afford to. They don’t have an empire.

    As to bootlicking, I don’t  think there’s a working class in the advanced industrial world that is overall as deferential to their ’betters’ and the myths of their own polity as the US working class.

    None.

    And those that aren’t can expect to find themselves in a  world of hurt that is still inexplicable to me after all these years.

  365. 365.

    LanceThruster

    @eversor: – reading your additional posts, I’m thinking all my gear is secured in the safe as well. No idea where you live and I am in a uniquely tranquil pocket of the high desert of North LA County, but maybe I’ll consider a strategic placement. I’ve got none of your self-defense training and could trust the cat to shelter in place once she had retreated to her preferred hide-outs, but I don’t even have a pointed stick or box of raspberries within arm’s reach.

    Relieved your defensive actions got them to turn tail. I truly hope the DNA leads to getting them off the street to protect any potential victims next in line.

    It’s a much easier call to make on using deadly force on an intruder as even if their intent is just a property crime, because they escalate the violence as needed to escape. Both you and the missus will be dealing with security concerns particularly when she’s the only one home. The feeling of violation has got to be pretty intense. The neighborhood response will be part of what comes next as well.

  366. 366.

    Chet Murthy

    @Aussie Sheila: When I worked in France for 3yr, I never ran across the sort of “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” that is so common in the US.  Never.  Sure there were royalist assholes, but they were usually either well-off or descended from well-off.  Not like these blue-collar assholes who vote Republican b/c it’ll keep their taxes low or some shit.

  367. 367.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jay: https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/population/slavery/#:~:text=The%20historian%20Marcel%20Trudel%20catalogued,and%20one%2Dthird%20were%20Blacks.

    I certainly won’t gainsay you, but from this link, it seems that there were overally 4200 slaves over 200yr, and most were Native American.  I want to say that that should certainly have had a far smaller impact on Canadian culture, than the millions of slaves in the US.  But I don’t know.

  369. 369.

    eversor

    @Jay:

    I know all this.  But as I have told the police I don’t really remember most of it.  All happened really fucking fast.

    The cops are mostly done.  I don’t know what’s missing.  I’m not hurt.  And the blood on the floor is theirs I got one of them good.  But I do not know where I got him or which I got.  I do not remember shit.

    The only thing I do know is I’m not getting any sleep tonight.  I’m wired as fuck.

  371. 371.

    Aussie Sheila

    @NotMax:

    Yes, there was. The Kanaka people were brought to Australia to work the cane fields in the late 19th century. The practice was abandoned once the issue of Nation hood became a live issue. Because that issue was bound up with the execrable issue of keeping Australia ‘white’, the policy known as the white Australia policy. That policy was abandoned first by a conservative government in the late 1960s, around the time the US reformed its own immigration system.

    Since that time, around 40% of Australian households have one person in them that is non English speaking.

    The countries with the highest current levels of immigration to Australia include South Asia, China, the Middle East. and the countries of South East Asia and the Pacific.

    Oh, and the convicts transported here from the UK were close to slaves while they served their sentences. Once they had of course, they were freed.

  373. 373.

    Jay

    @eversor:

    Stay away from booze, and caffeine, secure the entry point, have some chocolate, watch something stupid on TV.

    Write notes when you remember stuff.

    PET THE CAT!!!!!!

    It’s good for both you and them in stress situations.

  374. 374.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jay: In the US, it seems like there is both the existence of an underclass of Black people who were a population that White people could define themselves as apart from, and also the blood taint of Blackness.  There was this whole mythology of Black danger to white women to justify white violence, and the use of Black people as a goad to prevent unionization in the South.  And that spread all over the country over time.  Native Americans were treated terribly too, but there isn’t the same blood taint of having mixed Native American blood, that there is with being Black (b/c every Black American descended of slaves is of mixed African and White descent after all).  I have no idea if that sort of cultural legacy exists in CA/AU.

  375. 375.

    Cacti

    @Chet Murthy: the thing that CA and AU didn’t do, is slavery

    Uhhh…yeah, they did do slavery. Australia didn’t even end their laws permitting wage theft from aboriginal workers until the early 1970s.

  376. 376.

    Chet Murthy

    @Chet Murthy: And from what I’ve read of Latin American countries, there is a somewhat similar hierarchy of racial types, with the “purebred Spanish” types working hard to distinguish themselves from the Mestizo and Native American types, as well as (in countries where there was slavery) Black people.

  377. 377.

    Jay

    @Aussie Sheila:

    Kanaka, as in Hawaiian/Polynesian?

    The Hudson Bay Company brought in a bunch of Kanaka peoples to the West Coast, their village was on the other (north) side of Fort Langley, ( the HBC post), but they were “contract/piece workers”, not slaves or indentured servants.

  378. 378.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chet Murthy:

    The impact it had was to creat a working class that knew the difference between being an indentured servant, a near slave, and a being with the political and social rights that consigned them and their descendants to neither category.

    Was the mainstream  Australian working class movement racist in its inception? Yes, it was.

    Is it still? Absolutely not, and it hasn’t been for over fifty years, despite the usual idiots that exist everywhere. The Left of the union movement here worked very hard to abolish the white Australian policy and was also at the forefront, (behind the indigenous peoples themselves of course), in the struggle for equal pay for the rural indigenous workforce. No other institution in Australia, apart from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders themselves, fought harder or longer for the rights of that workforce.
    Not governments, not do gooders, not Churches, not anyone. Everyone played their part , but without the solidarity, meaning money, sympathy strikes and organising heft, the right to equal pay for equal work would have taken far longer than it did here.

    Indeed it was achieved earlier than than the rights of former slaves in the US to  live secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be legally underpaid and prevented from voting.

  379. 379.

    Chet Murthy

    @Aussie Sheila: “white Australian policy”

    Oh interesting.  It was only a few years ago that I learned that the Immigration Act of 1965 (which ended the equivalent policy in the US that, for instance, prevented my great-grandfather from settling into the US after he finished his education at the University of Chicago just before WW1) was passed largely due to the efforts of Civil Rights campaigners (hence, mostly Black people) and that the white legislators who passed it did so while claiming that it would not change the racial makeup of the US, etc, etc.  Very unlike what happened in AU, in short.

  380. 380.

    LanceThruster

    @eversor: – jeez… hadn’t noticed it wasn’t an intruder working solo. Now I got contact anxiety. That could have easily gone south quick. I suppose the most effective element of my defensive perimeter is my clutter. I trip navigating my own deer trails often enough, though in my defense the cat jumps atop stacks all time resulting in a collapse. An intruder would keep bumping into stuff every five feet. My spot on the bed is next to the sliding glass door, and the breeze through the screen is essential in summer. I suppose a thin superstrong metal cable could clothesline them as they tried to come through providing I set it at the right height, but more likely I’d be the one who missed seeing it if I forgot to take it down.

    I think it was Dana Gould that made that joke about the lock on an aluminum screen door where he mutters like a maniac, “Hmmm, I *want* to go in and commit mayhem on this household, but the screen door is locked” and pretends to give a few frustrated tugs on the handle. He’s right. Once you slide that little pin, that thumb button is not going to depress come hell or high water, forget that the entire door would pretty much fold up pulling against that strike plate.

  381. 381.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    Wrong. Equal pay for Aboriginal workers was achieved in the mid 60s. The ‘wage theft’ continued because the Queensland State government refused to recompense Aboriginal people for unpaid wages that occurred after the Equal Pay arbitration.

    A settlement was finally reached, but of course it didn’t really fully compensate for the delayed economic injustice and all that entails.

  382. 382.

    eversor

    @LanceThruster:

    The lady doesn’t know yet.  I won’t tell her till she comes back.  I’m in Arlington VA so it’s 0300 here.  I can’t even tell you how I woke up I don’t remember but I got up with a hand on me and shot off like a rocket on auto pilot.  I didn’t process any of it.  Just fucking happened.

    It was all over really fucking fast.  I’m not reliable witness in this fiasco.  All I can recall is the wakeup in a panic, going out of one room into the hall, grabbing a knife, snagging one of them good, and then rushing out the door as they fled.

    It’s very insane.  And I’m still in shock about all it but I know it did happen as there is blood on floor and I am not the one who got stabbed.

    Again it was all so fast I have no clue who did what.  It’s just fucking weird.  I still cant make sense of what went down.  Like I don’t know.  I know waking up and going down the hall and getting the knife and rushing them.  It’s all a fucking blur.

    “did they have a gun” fuck I dunno

    “what did they look like” fuck I dunno

    Like I dunno!

    LIKE I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!

    It was really fucking quick and I wasn’t thinking.

  384. 384.

    LanceThruster

    @Chet Murthy: – the California mission system could be very brutal with the indigenous who were pressed into forced labor. It was part of the protest against Fr. Junipero Serra being made a saint (forget the word for that even though I used to be Catholic).

  385. 385.

    NotMax

    @Aussie Sheila

    Fuzzy on precisely when but didn’t an Australian PM* have to issue an apology for stating “There was never slavery in Australia.”

    *Morrison?

  386. 386.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chet Murthy:

    Yes. The effect in Australia was immediate, because we are so close to SE Asia and the Pacific. In the 1980s, an execrable Australian conservative politician, John Howard, made immigration from Asia the centre piece of his awful campaign to become PM. He was widely condemned for his racism at that time, (the ‘80s) but he went on to become PM in1996, because 13 years of government for any Party is too long, and the ALP was voted out of office that year.

  387. 387.

    eversor

    @Jay:

    Well I’m drinking the scotch, listening to vinyl, and the cat is out and about.  I’m going to uber eats something nice.  Which is probably going to be pizza, with anchovies, and a thin crust.

    I’m not going back to sleep.  Way to wired now.

  388. 388.

    Cacti

    @Aussie Sheila:

    @Aussie Sheila: Might want to double check your work there. The WA government had to settle up on stolen wage claims through the 1970s, and that didn’t even happen until 2023.

    Your rosy portrait of Australian egalitarianism and protection of aboriginal rights seems a bit…revisionist.

  390. 390.

    Aussie Sheila

    @NotMax:

    Not sure about that one. But of course some fuckwit conservative pollie probably did say that. As I wrote above, the Kanaka people were brought here to work the cane fields. They were de facto slaves, because they often couldn’t return to their own country. But their ‘official’ status was indentured servitude.
    There was widespread opposition to this practice, particularly from unions organising in rural areas, for obvious reasons.

    However this opposition, and the fear that a British government would transport many more people of near slave status from their colonies created the abominable ‘white Australia policy’, which was widely supported at the time, including and particularly by agricultural unions.

  392. 392.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Aussie Sheila:

    Oh and those agricultural unions remained the mainstay of ‘conservative’ unionism in Australia for a long time. Again, for reasons I needn’t explain to a US audience.

    However, socially conservative as they were, (they have changed in the last twenty years), they were also instrumental in politically organising the rural workforce, and in ensuring that a political party was created by and for the trade union movement.

    That is why the centre left party in Australia is called the Australian Labor Party, and why unions still have a guaranteed, although less than the past, hold over funding, candidates and policy in that Party.

    That relationship has been invaluable to the political, social and economic rights of Australian workers, as well as the social liberalism of the working class movement generally here.

    The Wobblies (IWW) were very influential in Australia like in the US, and were influential in the formation of the Australian Communist Party. Their  militancy and radicalism played an inestimable role in the building of a strong and proud leftist tradition in this country.
    I admire them to this day.

    However their leeriness concerning electoral Politics meant that the more conservative unions that sought political heft won the battle concerning purely industrial versus electoral politics.

    While I am an admirer of the IWW tradition here and in the US, I believe the more conservative unions were right to ensure and secure a political Party beholden to and reflecting the interests of an organised working class. There is a world of difference between the US Democratic Party and the Australian Labor Party.

    Its chalk and cheese.

  393. 393.

    LanceThruster

    @eversor: I totally grok. Good that instinct kicked in the way it did and proved to be effective. What the hell was the intruder thinking that their nudge posed no risk. Maybe if you weren’t alone your brain mind have initially dismissed that contact as cause for alarm, but they walked right into it. Not even sense to have the protection of distance like if they were at the other end of a broom handle or something,  or worked like cops in tandem with the 2nd one providing cover. If they do time, prison will will teach them the preferred approach forwhen they get out.

    I had a couple coworkers whose martial arts skills were insanely proficient. Only found out by it coming up in conversation and not some ego swagger. Both if them showing me moves that while they were perfectly in control, a few more ergs of pressure and something could have easily snapped. I was left a bit sore regardless. And they were smart about when to use it. Sanjar, a programmer from Iran (he had a horror story of something he witnessed under the ayatollah) once had his wallet stolen using an ATM at night. Exercised what he thought was an adequate survey of the surroundings as he did his transaction, but said the guy was  concealed between cars in a perfect spot and had a knife at his throat coming from behind. I asked if there was any opportunity to foil it. He said no, and even then his first instinct with a knife would be escape, but the position at his carotid artery prevent that. He said even in optimal conditions, he understands the danger of being sliced in the wrong spot could easily be fatal. He surrendered his wallet and the guy beat feet. The other friend, Du, was actually a former ARVN helicopter pilot now a computer machine room operator working graveyard at the University. He shared with me the members of his family killed by the North Vietnamese in front of him as tears welled up. I don’t recalled what stage the war was in when that happened. Maybe around the time of the fall I’m guessing, but he managed to make it here. We were playfully rough housing brought about by some speed contest like maybe that trick where you drop a bill between their thumb and forefinger as they position their fingers over the picture (back when it was at the center). I think maybe he won because the trick is that tgecreaction time needed is that it’s virtually impossible. Again, because it came up in conversion, I mentioned being impressed with his reflexes, and he starts clowning around doing some exaggerated martial arts moves and challenges me to try to make contact with his chest. Any contact at all. He’s the size and build of Bruce Lee, and from the first half-hearted attempts to trying with a little more determination, I might as well have been moving in slow motion. He was lightning fast and probably could have carried on some other activity as it required so little effort on his part. I was thinking tge unpredictability of me being an idiot might work to my advantage and tried to add some kicks to the ankle as enough of a distraction the make chest contact like diving over the goal line. Like I said… lightning fast and in the blink on an eye hand my hand in a grip twisted so the wrist was greatly stressed in resulting in much pain that he executed effortlessly.  I tapped out laughing telling him I need to stop before zi reaaly get hurt. Wrist was sore for tge rest of the day.

    Your “after action” report, as it were, totally makes sense. Processing power is routed to flow of the defensive moves your training put into muscle memory and associated nerve paths, relevant information would have involved threat assessments from their moves, where details useful for the police report wasn’t flagged as an overriding command line. I imagine your own replay of the tape filled in parts you didn’t actually perceive but know must have been there, like the rest of the room. Maybe like memories of car collisions from mild to wild still have a slow motion element of those parts of the sequence that registered.

    A harrowing experiencing just hearing about it. Again… thumbs up and a sigh of relief knowing there were a near infinite number of ways other that might have turned out.

    Reminds me a bit if this. The son of a friend was with Marines 1/5 for the fall of Baghdad. I asked him about his combat experiences (after making sure with his dad earlier that it would be all right). The first words out of his mouth were “We killed people for no reason” and shared some of what he witnessed and/or was part of. My visceral reaction was from merely hearing about it. He lived it. Good luck bring your spouse up to date in whatever way causes the least anxiety on her part. Hope you don’t have a delayed stress reaction yourself.

  394. 394.

    LanceThruster

    @LanceThruster: I always forget that the edit clock is ticking and the window closes and I lose the corrections already made. I want to go full Karen and say freeze the dang clock once the edit window has been opened for chrissakes. I’m not as dumb as I look, but as with most people, the brain’s full proofreading capacity kicks in a split second after hitting send. On stuff that bothers me enough, I copy and paste an edited duplicate. If something didn’t make sense, ask away.

  396. 396.

    LanceThruster

    @eversor: berserker mode is truly a thing to behold in all its insane terrifying glory. “Fight or flight? Don’t mind if I do!” You just don’t want to be on the receiving end.

  398. 398.

    LanceThruster

    @Cacti: there’s a great Counterpunch article on same and puts the date a century or two earlier, as violence (war) is politics carried out by other means. Will grab link should you want to read.

  399. 399.

    LanceThruster

    Something I haven’t seen though it fits…

    “It would be irresponsible not to speculate.” 😄

  400. 400.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    Oh get knotted. Aboriginal/indigenous wage claims from the time equal pay was granted have dragged on for a long time in the two major agricultural states. Ring a bell?

    I’m quite aware thank you, of the limits of egalitarianism in my own country. Since I have spent over 50 years trying to expand it.

    However, I’ve visited more countries than you’re ever likely to, all in the course of work trying to expand it for everyone.

    Your country is an advanced country lesson in how not to run an , economically, politically and socially inclusive democracy.

    Every country has fuckwits.

    Only the US arms them with guns, and then validates that choice with reference to a Constitution which was ‘state of the Art’ in the late 18th century, but has since proved a mutual suicide pact. I’ll take late 19th century parliamentarianism any day thank you.

    Sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    t

  401. 401.

    Cacti

    @Aussie Sheila:  You have a tough time admitting when you’re wrong, don’t you? 😉

    Go have some vegemite and check back in when you have your facts in order, o great white savior of the southern hemisphere.

  402. 402.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Cacti:

    Whatevs, idiot.
    Check back when your gun homicide rate reaches global average, and your working class is guaranteed sick leave, maternity leave ( six months paid) and paternity leave, four weeks annual leave, long service leave,  ten paid public holidays a year and casual employment loadings of 15-20% of hourly earnings.

    Oh, and can’t be threatened with and indeed sacked, for joining a union. You need to get out more.
    Out of your country and into places that joined the 20th century a bit after that century started.

    Oh and another thing. Get back to the world when every US citizen is guaranteed the right to vote, and to have their vote honestly counted.

    Even if you hate unions I’m sure even you believe that everyone has the right to vote and to have their vote honestly counted, n’est ce pas?
    That is the original sin of the US Constitution, that and the hubris of believing that a bunch of 18th century gentleman could freeze dry political and social rights in perpetuity, because they were so smart and righteous.

    That hubris has been a world class disaster.

  408. 408.

    Barry

    @SomeRandomGuy: “And unless the shooter was someone with a motive to kill DJT for entirely nonpolitical reasons, it’s pretty safe to assume it’s because they don’t want him to be POTUS.”

    Hinkley.

  409. 409.

    Cacti

    @Aussie Sheila: tl;dr. Go genuflect to your inbred English head of state. 🤣 And congrats to Australia for finally paying their aboriginal slave labor way back last year. 🤣🤣🤣

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